competitive sports

In the so-called developed nations, many people put a lot of energy into sports, sporting activities. Whilst in a way this is a good sign, in that it shows that we have found a way of living that allows us spare time and energy to pursue non-essential activities, whilst it has this good indication, the way it manifests in societies is not so healthy.

To begin with, we can see that for every person who is actually participating in a sport, there are typically thousands of others who are merely spectators, watching the sport on television, getting emotionally involved, but not gaining any of the benefits of physical exercise. This is alarming enough, but what I want to focus on here is the competitive nature of most sports. People test their sporting ability against one another, or in teams. And their feeling of self-esteem depends upon on whether they win or lose, whether they are better than the others or worse. And this goes not just for the participants, but all their fans, their followers. Even those spectators feel good about themselves, or not so good, depending on whether their team has won or lost. This comparison – which itself requires us to divide ourselves up into groups, into teams: we pit ourselves against one another – this is diametrically opposed to the world view that we must adopt if we are to progress on the spiritual path. Our spiritual growth depends upon us having an integrated view of humanity, and ultimately of all of life and the whole of existence. But whilst we are teaming up and fighting each other, even if only on the sports field, we cannot hold this integrated view. We are back in the world of separation. And we are ploughing emotional resources into those arbitrary lines of separation. And of course it is a comfort blanket: that feeling of belonging to one group or the other, especially if we belong to the winning group. It makes us feel invincible, even as a mere spectator. And that invincibility is the feeling of security, the feeling of comfort that we are unconsciously seeking by becoming obsessed with a competitive sport. So all this must go. And we must turn to a non-competitive view of the world, of humanity especially. We are but one family, living together in a rather small and crowded space. We must learn to live in harmony with one another and cooperate, not live with eternal competition.