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#3809 -
The Nonduality Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
The strong link
between sports and religion
Peak experiences
can happen on mountain peaks, while shooting down slopes and
jumping off hillsides
By Douglas Todd,
'The world is watching" the
More than three billion
people are expected to stare at TVs and look at newspapers and
websites to track a host of skiers, lugers, jumpers, bobsledders,
biathletes and hockey players.
As spectators, we'll
study the international athletes' strength and speed, analyse
their strategies and tally up their gold, silver and bronze
medals. As watchers, however, we'll be on the outside.
What will be going on
inside these Olympic athletes?
Their internal feelings
will be much harder to name, even to the athletes themselves.
End-of-competition media
interviews are often remarkable for the lack of insight offered
into people involved in sports, filled as they are with cliches
about pride and teamwork.
Sacred series of
events
The most spectators are
likely to hear from an athlete is that winning sure is an
"amazing" feeling.
Which is not exactly
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
What else could be going
on in the hearts and minds of these high-flying athletes, which
most of them can't articulate?
It's become common in
secular society in the past decade for observers, like me, to
highlight the strong link between sports and religion.
That connection is even
more pronounced with the Olympics, which originated in ancient
Greece as a decidedly sacred series of events.
Still, the argument
connecting sports to a civil religion has been largely based on
external similarities.
Thinkers note that
sports, like religion, has ritual, builds community, provides
purpose, has codes of ethics and requires faith (in one's
favourite team or the potential for victory).
"Sports resemble
narrative art, myth and religious ritual," writes Andrew
Cooper in Playing in the Zone.
"That is, they
require that one give oneself over to a story in which the
elements of human experience are distilled, displayed and
integrated into a pattern of meaning that stirs the heart and
quickens the soul."
But what happens in
sports at an even more intimate and individual level? What is the
inner link between sports and spirituality?
Such things are rarely
talked about in the wild world of sports, largely because most
athletes aren't nimble enough with the language to convey the
nuances of what they're feeling.
I would suggest,
nevertheless, that many athletes do have "spiritual"
moments while in the throes of competition.
They are called
"peak experiences." Made famous by groundbreaking
psychologist Abraham Maslow, peak experiences of oneness and
unity have in the past been associated mostly with quietly
praying, chanting or meditating.
For Olympic and other
athletes, however, peak experiences can happen literally on
mountain peaks, while shooting down slopes, jumping off hillsides
or catapulting on icy bobsleigh runs.
Former professional
athlete David Meggyesy says peak experiences are common among
high-performance competitors, even though they typically lack the
words to explain them.
"Often described as
being 'in the zone' or 'out of his head,'" athletes can
often slip in to the same exact non-dual states of consciousness
that have more typically been associated with artists and mystics
-states of utter self-transcendence and unobstructed creative or
performative flow," writes Meggyesy, author of the
award-winning book, Out of Their League.
A couple of decades
before Meggyesy began writing, Maslow (1908-1970) was
characterizing peak experiences as feelings of ecstasy and
interconnectedness.
Wonder and awe
"Peak experiences
are sudden feelings of intense happiness and well-being, possibly
the awareness of an 'ultimate truth' and the unity of all
things," Maslow wrote in books such as Religion, Values and
Peak Experiences.
A peak experience, Maslow
said, fills the individual with wonder and awe. Maslow said peak
experiences are "rare, mystical, exciting, deeply moving,
and exhilarating."
Maslow recognized most
peak experiences are fleeting, and do not automatically lead to a
person becoming more mature.
Still, in certain cases,
the American psychologist believed peak experiences could help
some individuals become "more loving and more accepting, and
so more spontaneous and honest and innocent."
Although Maslow did not
study athletes, some psychologists since his time have more
seriously looked at peak experiences among those who play
everything from baseball to snooker.
The Handbook of
Humanistic Psychology, edited by Kirk J. Schneider et al, briefly
describes studies of both elite and everyday athletes. It
concludes all athletes are capable of peak moments.
But not all athletic
performances lead to ecstasy, for what are obvious reasons.
For both amateurs and
professionals, peak moments are associated mostly with best
efforts, when everything they do amazingly seems to come
together.
When athletes,
professional and amateur, do really well, The Handbook of
Humanistic Psychology reports that they, paradoxically, feel they
both transcend themselves and experience their individuality more
profoundly.
When athletes'
performances are average, however, they tell researchers the most
they feel is just straightforward "enjoyment."
And when athletes do
poorly, they report experiencing frustration and worry.
However, studies of peak
experiences suggest why, when some athletes say they feel
"amazing" after a win, that they might be talking about
something more than simple ego glorification and financial
reward.
The athletes' sense of
"amazement," of awe and wonder, may have just as much
to do with how they may have had a sudden peak episode.
Even though sports, like
most spheres of life, can be crass, cruel and craven, the
prevalence of peak experiences among athletes makes it clear it
is not possible to draw a sharp line between the so-called
profane and sacred.
"An athlete can find
as much virtue, luminosity and self-transcendence through sports
as a monk can find through any spiritual tradition," says
Meggyesy, an unusually thoughtful former linebacker in the
National Football League, who has been inspired by the American
philosopher, Ken Wilber.
"Whether
acknowledged or not, nearly every athlete has had his or her own
sense of being 'in the zone' at one time or another -the
effortless collapse of player, opponent, audience and game, until
all that remains is the erotic scent of freshly cut grass, the
weight of the warm sun pressing against your skin and the
slow-motion frenzy of a cosmos at play."
This year, for those who
"watch" the Winter Olympics or any other sport, from
NHL hockey to June's World Cup of soccer, it will be worth being
aware that spectators, alas, can usually obtain only a tiny taste
of a peak experience from observing others.
We have a better chance
of scaling peak spiritual heights when we ourselves take part in
an athletic game, exercise or physical discipline.
The old-fashioned
way
And for those who don't
think of themselves as athletes, there are other activities that
offer the chance to "get into the flow," including art,
music, sex, work, writing, childbirth, hiking, community service,
nature appreciation, doing a project, teaching or reading.
Going further, lest we
get carried away with uncovering spiritual moments mainly in
"secular" pursuits, it's also worth remembering, along
with Maslow, that peak experiences remain readily available the
old-fashioned way.
They are accessible
through meditation, prayer, liturgy, dream work, study of
scriptures, pilgrimage, yoga, poetry, silence, contemplation and
communal singing.
The prevalence of peak
experiences remind us that nothing, potentially, is untouched by
the sacred.
Read Douglas Todd at
www.vancouversun.com/thesearch
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