Run

It happens many times that runners.... You will not think of running as a meditation, but
runners sometimes have felt a tremendous experience of meditation. They were surprised,
because they were not looking for it -- who thinks that a runner is going to experience
God? -- but it has happened, and now running is becoming more and more a new kind of
meditation. It can happen in running. If you have ever been a runner, if you have enjoyed
running in the early morning when the air is fresh and young and the whole world is
coming back out of sleep, awakening, and you were running and your body was
functioning beautifully, and the fresh air, and the new world again born out of the
darkness of the night, and everything singing all around, and you were feeling so alive....
A moment comes when the runner disappears, there is only running. The body, mind and
soul start functioning together; suddenly an inner orgasm is released.
Runners have sometimes come accidentally on the experience of the fourth, turiya,
although they will miss it because they will think it was just because of running that they
enjoyed the moment; that it was a beautiful day, that the body was healthy and the world
was beautiful, and it was just a certain mood. They will not take note of it. But if they
take note of it, my own observation is that a runner can more easily come close to
meditation than anybody else. Jogging can be of immense help, swimming can be of
immense help. All these things have to be transformed into meditations.
Drop old ideas of meditations, that just sitting underneath a tree with a yoga posture is
meditation. That is only one of the ways, and may be suitable for a few people but is not
suitable for all. For a small child it is not meditation, it is torture. For a young man who is
alive, vibrant, it is repression, it is not meditation. Maybe for an old man who has lived,
whose energies are declining, it may be meditation.