The author pauses for a potion and panorama on Mt. Tam in his borrowed body.
I wrote this back in 2007, at a time when I had borrowed someone else’s super-fit body, and having chosen wisely I could deadlift 3 x 3 x 270. Now that I’ve reclaimed the fat and happy true inner me, the lessons persist. Perhaps they’re timeless.
Lately I’ve had trouble keeping my attention focused when I run. I’ve missed the element of the heart. After 30 minutes today, I felt my attention pretty well focused, but there was no depth, no sense of inner attunement, freedom, or joy.
I was looking for relaxation, inward calmness, and “smiling soul.” I tried relaxing and letting my body cruise as it wished, feeling that I might be trying too hard. Pushing too hard generally drives awareness out of the moment. But simply cruising didn’t work well either. After 40 minutes, I started a tempo run, accompanied by a vague feeling that if I just kept trying to focus I might find my center. But after 50 minutes there was no change.
I noticed that my mind was tense. There was an actual feeling of tensed muscles in my scalp and brain. I realized I was fretting: Am I running too fast? What’s this pain under the ball of my foot? Should I run on hard streets or trails? Are these shoes giving me an injury? Watch that heart rate! Will I recover in time for my steady-state run in two days? Why am I so tense? Why am I worrying?
I thought: “Here I’m practicing to be an intuitive, joyful old runner, and I’m finding no joy at all. The thought came: maybe I should just watch my worried mind, let it rock.
I remembered how it felt when I had succeeded in standing apart from my brain and watching my thoughts drift by like a sailboat on a river. It’s impossible to force our thoughts to be still, but if we can stand back and watch them without emotional involvement, they tend to lose force and relevance and melt away. And in that melting-away there is joy. Even better is when you can “find the heart.” When you can harbor good feelings strongly, the mind concentrates without effort.
The teachings of all spiritual paths speak of a superconscious level of awareness. They say the conscious mind is good at analyzing and dividing. It’s “problem-oriented,” but the superconscious is “solution-oriented.” Successful people in all fields have that quality: they waste little time on fretting and analyzing: “Well, now, but what if this – what if that?”
They have tremendous energy, intense mental focus, a can-do attitude, and laser-like will – they know the solution is there, and that finding it is a matter of focused attention, high energy, and calm persistence.
When my writing business took a dive following the tech crash of 2001 and the terrorist attack on 9/11, I got a part-time job as an administrative assistant at Stanford, among a group of amazingly intelligent, positive-minded scientists. All of them, without exception, bore testimony to the superconscious theory of success. They had huge energy, an exclusive focus on solutions, and boundless positive attitude.
All this fretting – clearly, I was in ordinary consciousness, where each half-hearted stab at a solution spawns ten new problems, dividing and dividing: the rational, analytical mind at its inefficient worst.
What could I do? I decided I would disengage from the problems, detach my feelings and will from fretful thinking, and stand on the calm banks and watch the “problems” float by. As I began to do so, I determined to stay firmly focused in the moment, and not worry about “before” or “later.”
It didn’t take long. I was running at an old fellow’s plodding tempo pace, when an athletic young college student passed me. Scanning my mind for competitive reactions, I found none; I was fully engrossed, doing the work of improving this body. It felt wonderful to be relaxed and happily engaged in useful, positive work.
I recalled an email I had received from Timothy Noakes, M.D., the author of Lore of Running, an authoritative, 900-page work on the training and physiology of runners. I had asked him a simple question about aerobic metabolism, and in his reply he hinted at discoveries that his research group were making regarding the powers of the mind.
In the new edition of Lore of Running you will see that our new research suggests that the major effect of training is to induce a superior pacing strategy which is determined centrally in the brain. We now believe that the brain controls performance, not the muscles, although with training the increase in aerobic enzyme activities tells the brain that the body is capable of more.
I can’t help but wonder if optimizing my brain – the “controller” – would have a helpful effect on my training – if my running would improve if I could make my brain as positive, harmonious, focused, calm, and detached as possible. Often enough while running, I’ve witnessed how “positivity” generates high energy and soaring enjoyment. I remember runs on the beautiful trails of Mt. Tam where I loped along at 7:30 mile pace while scarcely breathing, feeling utterly contented and harmonized with my beautiful surroundings inside. It would be lovely to run like that all the time.
I wondered what it would be like to live free of worries and fretting? To be wholly wrapped in the positive work of the moment, without restlessness, but with the deep joy of engagement? I imagined it would be the fastest possible path to develop one’s athletic – and spiritual – gifts.
I had an interesting experience recently. It was 5 a.m. I lay awaken in bed, fretfully longing to feel close with God. I a half-dream state I rolled on the floor, gasping and desperate to know that my life was in God’s loving hands.
I got up, showered, did Paramhansa Yogananda’s energization exercises. I sat to meditate, still feeling unsettled and distanced from the God who is me.
I felt prompted to end the meditation, switch on the computer, and start editing a chapter of a book for Paramhansa Yogananda’s work in India.
I hadn’t edited for more than a minute when I was filled with the powerful presence of my Guru, Swami Kriyananda.
Of course, there is a long backstory. Briefly, in this life