The Spiritual Olympics

Tags

olympics, spirituality, spirtchat

As a kid growing up in India, the quadrennial celebration called the Olympic Games was one of the most eagerly awaited sporting events for me and our family. We would watch every possible minute of coverage that we could, and devour every single column inch of newspaper coverage about the event. We paid very close attention to the Indian men’s field-hockey team for that is one event, and perhaps the only event, where India had any chance of winning a medal. The sprinters and middle-distance runners from the USA and Britain, the long distance runners from Kenya, the weightlifters and gymnasts from the then USSR and the eastern bloc were always eagerly awaited. We would go to school the next day and discuss the previous days stories with much gusto with our friends. What are some of your favorite memories of the Olympics?

Fast forward a few decades. The heroics of the likes of Carl Lewis (100m, long jump), Michael Johnson (200m, 400m), Jackie Joyner-Kersee (heptathlon, long jump), Edwin Moses (400m hurdles) still bring a smile to my heart as I look back on the inspiration they provided to generations of atheletes and those who watched them perform. If you have ever run track like the gallant Milkha Singh, tried to launch a shot-put like Randy Barnes, hit your head on the bar while trying to go over in high-jump, stumbled while attempting the triple jump, gotten all turned around while attempting to throw the discus like Al Oerter or simply watched in awe as Sergei Bubka made the pole vault look effortless – you get the idea of my athletic ‘prowess’ (or lack ot it) and why the Olympics hold a fascination for me to this day. What is it about the Olympics that fascinates you? What are your favorite sports and athletes from the past?

The beginning of the Olympics tends to make me reflect on what it is that makes them unique and special. Here are a few things that come to mind:

• The motto: Faster, Higher, Stronger. These three words, in various combination, define the aspirations of many an spiritual athlete. I particularly relate to ‘higher’ and ‘stronger’ – working on building strength while soaring higher. How do we build strength? Adherence to truth, faith in a higher power, and a commitment to joy are three good ways. How do we soar higher? Being grounded in our practice is a good start. Can you think of any way(s) in which ‘faster’ could apply to spirituality?
• The Olympic Rings – five interlocking colors on a white background, represent the colors of the flags of every nation. To me, they represent an unprecedented spiritual unity of different paths, with the circles indicating the infinite nature of our potential for love. What do the circles and the colors represent to you?
• The Flame, its eventual lighting at the opening ceremony, and the torch-relay that precedes it, is perhaps one of the most enduring symbols of the games. As long as the flame stays lit at Olympic stadium, the games are in progress. Like fire burns all impurities and refines gold, we have an opportunity presented to us in this lifetime. Our chosen ‘sports’ of meditation, exercise, yoga and healthy eating combined with our practices of kindness, friendliness, and joyfulness can bring home pure gold. Will we step up to train for the spiritual olympics?
• The athletes who participate are the reason that the Olympics exist. There may be a hyper-focus on the medal winners, but there is more than enough evidence that every single athlete is ‘living their dream’ of participation. With the encouragement of their coaches, their trainers and their friends and families, the athletes serve to inspire in ways that go beyond the podium and the playing of anthems. For me, it is the stories about the ones who came in fourth, the ones who fell but got up and kept on running to make it to the finish, the ones who stopped to help a ‘competitor’ across the finish line that speak to the principles of the (spiritual) Olympics. What is it about the athletes and their spirit that inspires you so?

Every time the Olympics roll around, there are many criticisms and critics that allude to the fact that the world cannot ‘afford’ this particular event at this time in our history. My take is that there are very few events, if any, that seem to bring the world ‘together’ in the way that the Olympics manage to do. The time is rarely perfect, and this time around, the world may be in more turmoil than usual. But, if we do not create time and space in our world to celebrate a little bit of togetherness with a little bit of music, color and paegentry, then how are we going to create a better world after all? What if, for the next two weeks, every time we see any of the Olympic symbols or colors – the flag, the rings, the flame, the athletes – we utter a small prayer for peace and love? Can you think of any better way to celebrate humanity’s collective spiritual journey? If so, do share with us.

I invite you to share some answers to the questions I have posed in this post. Join us on twitter, Sunday August 7th at 9amET/1pmUTC on twitter in #SpiritChat. And wear an olympic-sized smile and your olympic colors.

Namaste,

Kumud

A green, gold and blue coloured design, featuring three people joining hands in a circular formation, sits above the words “Rio 2016”, written in a stylistic font. The Olympic rings are placed underneath.

Dignity and the ‘Can Do’ Spirit

Tags

dignity, healing, olympics, perseverance, spirituality

At first, I thought I had stumbled on to the documentary by ‘accident’. I was drawn to the title because it had the words ‘legacy’ and ‘can do’ in the title. How could I resist?! 🙂

A half hour later, my perspective on a lot of things – victory, defeat, dignity, pain, healing, conventional ‘wisdom’, overcoming, love, friendship – I can go on and on, had changed for good. But let me not get ahead of myself. Let me take you back to 1964, and the Winter Olympics of Innsbruck, Austria.

Until that Olympics, the US Ski team had never won any kind of medal in Alpine skiing. Some were hard pressed to say that the ‘team’ was even a team at all. In the years and competitions leading up to those Olympics, a few young athletes, including Jimmy Heuga and Billy Kid, decided to ignore history and train the hardest they possibly could. Jimmy, at 15, was the youngest member ever to be included on the US ski team, and perhaps the shortest of them all. But he had a spark, a will, a desire to work hard, that caught the eye of his coaches – and they persisted with him on the team.

What happened in 1964, almost fifty years ago to the day, on February 9th, is history. Jimmy Heuga won Olympic bronze, and his soon to become lifelong friend, Billy Kidd, won Olympic silver in the slalom. But I don’t tell you this story to talk about their victories… It was what happened a few years later, to Jimmy Heuga, that this story, his story, is really about. At the age of 27, Jimmy was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis – a condition of the nervous system which disrupts the signals that travel from the brain to different parts of our body.

And so it began. All the life principles that Jimmy had applied to the Outer Olympics, came to the fore in his Inner Olympics. An Olympics that lasted over forty years for Jimmy Heuga. An Inner Olympics in which mind, heart and spirit overcame conventional medical wisdom. His courage inspired his former teammates and ‘competitors’ to join him in his journey, to convince the medical community that they were wrong about how they were treating his ‘disease’.

For most people, being an Olympian, being an Olympic medalist, being the best skier in the world, even for a day, would be enough. But not for Jimmie. Jimmie went beyond the sport. – Billy Kidd

In the final analysis, his greatest contribution to the world, beyond what he achieved in the 1964 Olympics, was that he restored dignity and a “can do” attitude to those facing their own challenges. And that is something we can all learn from, as we engage in our own Inner Olympics. His legacy carries on, in the form of the “Can Do MS” foundation and the Jimmy Heuga Center Endowment.

Drawing inspiration from this story, I invite you to join me and the #SpiritChat community in a twitter conversation on February 16th 2014 at 9amET. I also invite you to share your favorite “Can Do” stories in the comments below, or in our Facebook group. Namaste!

Resources:

• Jimmy Heuga on Wikipedia
  
• Jimmy Heuga – an Eulogy by Billy Kidd

Here are the questions asked during the live chat. The answers are compiled in the storify summary. A full, complete transcript is also available at the hashtracking site (1517 tweets, 231 contributors, 21.5M timeline deliveries, 1.2M reach). Enjoy!

Ready? Q1. Let us reflect on the "Can Do" spirit. What sound(s)/image(s) does that evoke for you? #spiritchat

On to Q2. Think of a life event that eroded your "Can Do" spirit. How did you recover? Did you? #SpiritChat

Q3. For our Inner Olympics, what practice(s) can help us strengthen our "Can Do" spirit? #SpiritChat

Q4. Focusing on Dignity. What is the role of personal #dignity in our Inner growth? #SpiritChat

Q5. How can our "Can Do" spirit "heal" others, restore their dignity? Or can it?  #SpiritChat

Q6. “Dignity doesn't consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.” - Agree or disagree? Why? #SpiritChat

Q7. What is the connection between inner humility and dignity? Or is there one? #SpiritChat

Q8. To those who have a "Can Do" attitude, yet seem to be 'struggling,  you would say.... #SpiritChat

Spirituality and The Inner Olympics

Tags

inner, olympics, spiritual, spirituality

Every four years, the world assembles in a ‘summer’ or ‘winter’ city, in what is ostensibly a celebration of ‘Olympic’ ideals and values. Athletes and their supporting caste of administrators, friends and parents spend roughly two weeks in ‘competition’, to test their mettle with the ‘best of the best’.

We, the ‘non-Olympians’, look on, cheer on, and hope on that the athletes get an opportunity to perform at their best. Some of us, including me, hope that the competitors perform with the Olympic spirit in mind, and in heart. For, all things being equal – which they rarely are – those who demonstrate the greatest heart, are the ones who leave a lasting impression on us.

Yes, there are the feats that defy our idea of what mere-mortal human physical capacity can achieve. The first perfect score(s) in gymnastics (Nadia Comaneci, 1972), the ‘rag-tag’ USA ice-hockey team prevailing over the favorite USSR in 1980, the plethora of swimming medals by Michael Phelps, and the list goes on.

And then, there are the ones who did not taste ‘victory’ by winning any medals, but instead, won our hearts, and were forever established in the consciousness of their nations. One of the least known examples (at least among non-Indian readers) is perhaps, Milkha Singh, The Flying Sikh. The race for which Singh is best remembered is his fourth-place finish in the 400 metres final at the 1960 Olympic Games. He overcame considerable childhood trauma, including being orphaned during the partition of India, to establish himself in a billion hearts and minds… a huge ‘winner’ in the “inner” Olympics.

In the context of spirituality, we often talk about “inner” growth and “outer” actions separately, although we often conclude that the inner and the outer are simply reflections of each other. There is a lot that the “outer” Olympics can teach, or lend, to those who are engaged in “inner” Olympics, via sports like Journaling, Healing, Yoga, Meditation and more. For one, the Olympic motto of “Citius, Altius, Fortius” – Swifter, Higher, Stronger – has a lot of connotations in our “inner” Olympics. In addition, the “inner” Olympics can draw inspiration from the ubiquitous Olympic symbol – the five interconnected colored rings on a white background – in the sense of infinity, unity, oneness, harmony, diversity and more.

So, as we observe and watch the Olympics over the next two weeks, let us pay some attention to the life lessons, the stories, the struggles, the preparation, the sacrifices, of these athletes. For beyond all the confetti and the celebration, the commentaries and the criticisms, the defeats and the disappointments, the judging and the judgements, the politics and the punditry, there lies a field – where the “inner” Olympics, the greater,’invisible’ spiritual battle is fought. Let us congregate there, in the Olympic spirit, and reflect – how do we get to the ‘victory’ podium in our “inner” Olympics?

For without that ‘victory’, which brings everlasting Joy and Peace, all other victories are perhaps moot…

Kumud

P.S. Please join our chat on twitter on Sunday February 9th at 9am ET in hashtag #spiritchat as we discuss – Spirituality and the Inner Olympics. In addition, I would love to hear any stories about “fourth-place” finishers that are embedded in your heart and mind… Thank you. Namaste!

Here are the questions asked during the live chat. The answers are compiled in the storify summary. A full, complete transcript is also available at the hashtracking site (1394 tweets, 115 contributors, 5.4M timeline deliveries, 0.56M reach). Enjoy!

Let's light it up. Q1. Consider the phrase, "Inner Olympics" - what feelings does it evoke within you? #spiritchat

Q2. In your 'inner' Olympics, what's your favorite 'event(s)'? How do you train/practice? Yoga, prayer, or... #spiritchat

Q3. "Swifter, higher, stronger" - which of these three inspires your inner practice the most? Why?  #spiritchat

Focusing on Citius. Q4. The desire to be "faster" - how can this help or hurt our 'inner' practice? #spiritchat

Q5. In the context of 'inner' Olympics, who or what is our true competition? #spiritchat

Q6. If "The most important thing is not to win but to take part." then, Is 'winning' relevant? #spiritchat

Q7. Consider the symbology of the five rings - how does this impact our 'inner' journey? #spiritchat

Final Q8. Three things you would say to your fellow 'inner' Olympians... #spiritchat