The Race

This morning at 4:30, when I made a turn off 150th Street onto the Grand Central service road at the half-mile mark, I passed a very thin, old man who was half drunk and very dirty.
 
He said to me, "I can beat you walking." I smiled at him. Then he started walking very fast for forty metres, but I was still a little ahead of him.
 
Then I told him, "You run. I can beat you walking."
 
So he started running and I started walking. I stayed behind him deliberately; otherwise, I could have easily defeated him.
 
He said, "Oh, now we are even." He could not defeat me when he was walking and I could not beat him when I was walking.
 
-26 September 1979 
 

[Source: "The Race" in Sri Chinmoy,  Run and Become, Become and Run, Part 2, Agni Press/Aum Publications, Jamaica, New York, 1979.]