(Newswire.net — September 22, 2013) Kollam Dt., Kerala —
Sorting the food waste at an Indian Ashram gives more joy to former Finnish World Champion and Olympic Swimmer Matti Rajakyla than winning any race.
At the height of his success, Matti represented Finland at the Olympic Games in 2004 and 2008. But reaching the heights of success in his chosen sport did not give him the happiness and contentment that he had been dreaming of his entire life.
“I was not a talented swimmer when I first started out as a child, in fact my mother use to tell me that I was quite bad,” Matti said. “But I started to practice and after a few years I won my first race.”
Matti was born in 1984 in the town of Kirkkonummi, which is located near Helsinki in Finland. He started swimming lessons at age six. After his first competition win at age nine, he started to set small goals and as he achieved them, he would raise his sights higher. It was this pattern that saw him win his first Finnish Junior Championship by the age of 17. The following year he won the European Junior Championship.
It was after his win at the European Junior Championships that he started to attract media attention. Many people, sometimes even strangers, wanted to be his friend. However, the attention skyrocketed after Matti was picked to represent Finland at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens at the age of twenty.
“My first Olympics were about having fun – I was just happy to be there and had no expectations,” he said. “I got to see a lot of my favourite athletes competing and just walking around the Olympic Village, people like Michael Johnson. It was a great experience.”
Matti placed 31st in the 100 metre freestyle and was a member of the 4×100 metre Finnish relay team that placed 14th. It was only after the Athens Olympics that Matti developed a serious attitude towards his training regime as he aimed to improve his performance. This came after he won a bronze medal for the 50 metre butterfly at the 2005 European Championships. As he aimed to make the Finnish Team for the Beijing Olympics in 2008, he started to train hard. Too hard.
“It became obvious that I was taking things too seriously when a friend of mine came to visit me at the pool and told me that I had lost my smile” Matti said. “I had begun to put a lot of pressure on myself. I became very results focused and feared failure.”
It was under this kind of strenuous training that Matti prepared for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He knew that he did not have the right mental attitude towards his sport but he did not know what the answer was either. What he did know was that he was unhappy.
He placed 31st once again in the 100 metre freestyle and 29th in the 50 metre freestyle at the Beijing Olympics. After Beijing, Matti began to see that no matter what he achieved, it did not ultimately lead to the lasting happiness that he was seeking. It was here that he decided to quit his swimming career. Many of the friends he had made during the height of his fame stopped calling once the media attention faded away. He found himself feeling depressed and started to question the purpose of life. It was this questioning that led him to the spiritual path.
“I was working as a lifeguard at a pool in Finland in 2009 when a friend came to visit me”, Matti said. ”I looked at him and for some reason, I found myself crying. My friend looked at me and said that I needed to start meditating.”
He attended a meditation course and started to practice every morning and evening. He found that it helped him achieve a sense of peace. It was about one month of after his friend’s visit that he heard Amma was coming to Helsinki. He attended the program and was immediately taken with Amma’s tireless compassion and warmth as she received thousands with her embrace.
Sitting in Amma’s presence and turning his mind inward, Matti began to feel the peace and happiness that he had been searching for through his sports career.
“Amma smiled at me and I felt like laughing. I remember thinking to myself that this is the feeling that I have been looking for all of my life,” he said. “I realised that everything I have done in the past has been in the effort to achieve the sense of peace that can be found in the presence of motherly love.”
Inspired by Amma’s example of selfless service, Matti travelled to India the following year and stayed at her ashram located in Kerala. He spends most of the year at the ashram working in the waste management area as the Supervisor of compost. It’s a big job with 1.2 tons of food waste to dispose of every day. It’s also a long way from the starting blocks of an Olympics swimming pool. But is he happy?
“I am now content,” Matti says. “I feel like I am evolving – I am inspired every day by what is happening here.”
“One day, Amma gave me the spiritual name Akhilesh, which means ‘Lord of the Universe’. Someone told Amma that I was an Olympic swimmer but that I now work in the compost. Amma joked and said, “He is now swimming in compost.” It gives me more happiness than any race that I won,” he said.
Matti Rajakyla is now currently at Amma’s Amritapuri ashram and will be attending and serving at Amritavarsham 60, commemorating Sri Mata Amritanandamayi’s 60th Birthday on September 25th, 26th, and 27th, 2013.