Why running is a top-quality meditation

Why running is a top-quality meditation

3 September 2015 Off By Naginder Sehmi

Running in Mandement (Geneva) Saturday 29 August 2015

The commonly known practice of meditation is a proven mental therapy and a way to cool down and relax nerves after a strenuous day of taking decisions. Yet I often ponder if meditation as typically practiced and not doing anything else really leads to total wholesome health, physical and mental.

Yogis and gurus offer their services to their disciples in innumerable centres to achieve mental states as:

  • Emptying the brain in order to calm down.
  • Breathing deeply using the diaphragm to increase the lung capacity.
  • Practicing a certain way of nasal respiration in order to improve oxygen intake to a specific sector of the brain.
  • Lifting the consciousness to a higher spiritual level.

The yogic thinking rightly considers the human being to be a unit. For it to function ideally the whole and its every part up to the microcellular level must be made to play its role optimally.

When I see a person in the process of meditation I notice that the body and brain are dormant, if not totally asleep. The need for oxygen intake is minimal. During this state, forced increase of inhaled oxygen is not used. In fact a part of the normally inhaled oxygen is exhaled-the system does not require it. The only active compartment I can imagine is the poor brain struggling, in spite of repeating yogic mantra, to empty itself of all thoughts! All other body cells are at rest requiring no extra food nor oxygen to burn it.

My brain raises all these absorbing questions when I run briskly on a 7-km rough track in the woods near where I live. Am I stupid sweating out twice a week when I could have achieved wholesomeness sitting down comfortably meditating?

The responses came fairly quickly also during these runs; but it took much courage and time to pen them down.

Firstly, I would not have learnt that running is a superior meditation if I had not run. This, however, would not be an issue for a meditator: one troubling thought less in the brain!  A short warm up and stretching followed by running I gradually reach the speed expected for a 78-year old. What do I notice?

  • Almost all muscular and structural parts of my body are exerting, rhythmically lifting and landing my 67kg from on foot to another.
  • In response, my heart pounds and pushes oxygenated blood and food to every cell, including those of the brain, because they need them.
  • In order to supply more oxygen to the cells my brain commands the lungs to expand and inhale at the maximum capacity possible and make sure to discard out carbon dioxide.
  • For an efficient exchange of gases in the lungs I need to extend my diaphragm fully. I wish I had a few more nostrils and bigger mouth and a larger chest! Soon I reach my cruising speed and I start breathing almost normally; no huffing and puffing.
  • While I am running my brain concentrates on some innovative idea or a solution to a problem. Using some built-in automatic navigation mode it guides my feet over stones and tree roots and allows itself to concentrate on a single issue such as thinking about the potency of meditation. Inhaling fresh air I become one with the wondrous envelop of nature. Isn’t that also the objective of a true yogi? Being one with nature? The true meaning of spiritual consciousness?  (SPIRITUALITY defined)
  • After running a short distanced my brain empties itself of all restlessness, tension, worry and worldliness in the form of sweat. The rest of the run is like being in the paradise, if it exits. Does a person in meditation sweat? His union with nature is only imaginary in his brain. The genuine one is outside his window!

After showering and satisfying my sharpened appetite I can sit in front of my computer and my brain can concentrate effortlessly on the task. Physical restlessness has been effaced. The following day when I walk I feel as if I am floating effortlessly. What a wholesome feeling!

All highly placed extremely busy persons including ministers, chief executive officers, and professionals usually jog early in the morning. They draw up and resolve their day’s agenda during the run. For them it is meditation. I feel so relieved that they confirm my findings.

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