Two Kind and Generous Hearts

In 1981, during my first trip to visit Sri Chinmoy, Arpan, a New York student of Sri Chinmoy, invited me to run three 2-mile races with him on the following Saturday - organized by the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team and to be held in separate locations around greater New York City.

Early that Saturday we drove to the first 2-mile race, which was to start at 8:00 am. It was a cold November morning with an icy wind blowing - the sort of day when you have to brace yourself just to get out of the car.

The race was 2 laps around a roadway within a suburban park. The sky was dark grey and because it was late autumn the trees had already lost their leaves.

But in spite of the bleak weather I felt ecstatically happy, as I had just spent the best week of my life in the loving company of Sri Chinmoy and his amazing students.

We quickly took off our warm tracksuits; sprinted from the car to the start line and eagerly started the race ... just to stay warm. Arpan ran about 11:06 and my time was 11:37. As we finished there was a brief award ceremony, and because there were less than 20 runners we both received place-getter medals.

Afterwards Arpan took me for a scrumptious breakfast at the vegetarian 'Love and Serve' bakery owned by students of Sri Chinmoy in nearby Greenwich, Connecticut. During breakfast Arpan said that we could either go and run the second 2-miler or, we could visit Sandhani, another New York disciple, and help him shift some boxes of running shoes. I had run quite hard and was starting to feel a little sore and tired so this immediately became a much more attractive option.

We visited Sandhani and after helping to move boxes of shoes for an hour or two he very kindly gave me 2 brand new pairs of running shoes ... including a pair of Nike Elite racing shoes. Sandani said to me …

"You will run a faster 2-mile time this afternoon in these!"

I was touched by his spontaneous, understated generosity.

Sandani was right, and even though I was a bit tight and lactic from the morning race, I did run a faster time that afternoon.

Towards the end of the afternoon race I sensed that Arpan, who had been almost 100 metres ahead of me, seemed to be getting a little closer. But, although I pushed as hard as I could, I was unable to close the gap and I finished in 11:33. Arpan's time was about 11:17

At the finish line Arpan said to me …

"You did not catch me ... I slowed a little so that you might catch me!"

I soon realized that Arpan was actually a far superior runner. A week latter he drove me 150 kilometres across Long Island and we ran the Long Island Road Runners Marathon. Arpan did a personal best 2:49:50 to my 3:37:00 ... his time of 2:49:50 qualifying him for entry in the 1982 Boston Marathon by just 10 seconds.

So, I was continuously moved by his kindness, brotherly concern and humility.