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"The body, by
force of the soul, can in fact be converted into a luminous fluid.... When, in
its divine power, it completely possesses the body, it converts that into a
luminous moving cloud and thus can manifest itself in the whole of its
divinity." You might suspect that I am quoting Don Juan, from one of the Carlos
Casteneda books. There was that famous scene at the waterfalls, for example,
where Don Juan leaped up the rocks as if possessed of magical powers. But no, it
is not Don Juan talking. It is Isadora Duncan, the dancer, in her book, The Art
of the Dance.
Here's another: "The process is akin to a deflating ball. The
point of it is to shape my mood, really to expel my mood, all mood. Beginning
the night before, I start to pace myself into an emotional neutrality....More
than anything, I know I need to stay loose, so I force myself to deflate,
consciously, concentrating on it....I'm drained of feeling, utterly calm even
though I'm aware of the many things going on around me." That's from the book,
Faster, by Jackie Stewart, the race car driver.
One more: "I wish I could show you a film of a dunk I had in
Milwaukee....It's in slow motion, and it looks like I'm taking off, like
somebody put wings on me. I get chills when I see it....I think, when does
'jump' become 'flying'? I don't have the answer yet." That's Michael (Air)
Jordan, in Sports Illustrated.
I want to give you more quotes. They are irresistible. They are
from the new book, In the Zone: Transcendent experience in sports. (Penquin
Arkana). It is an enormous collection of experiences that adds up to an
incontrovertible body of evidence for the miraculous, mystical, psychic, and
spiritual side of sports. If you have ever dreamed of flying where it was so
real that the next morning you went outside to look up at the sky and you just
knew that somehow the soul knows how to fly the body, then this book will
convince you that your intuition is correct. Countless times have sports
masters, and amateurs, too, experienced the impossible with their bodies. Their
descriptions of mystical sensations of surrender, mystery, awe, immorality, or
unity; of meditative states of peace, calm, stillness, or detachment; of magical
moments of freedom, floating, flying, or weightlessness; of extraordinary
ecstasy, power, or control read like testimonials from a spiritual sorcerer's
convention. It is not simply a matter of thrill seeking, for many of these
athletes find their lives transformed, their vision of reality altered, and
their desire enflamed to help others achieve similar glimpses of infinity,
because they realize we are more than we think we are. Their experiences suggest
we may be on an evolutionary path of further physical development as well as
spiritual.
The authors of this encyclopedic text would agree. Michael
Murphy, founder of Esalen and the growth center concept, has, in his earlier
book, The Future of the Body, demonstrated, with a voluminous amount of case
studies, that the body as we know it is but a hint of things to come. Rhea
White, past president of the American Society for Psychical Research, is slowly
but surely revolutionizing parapsychology by leading the scientists out of the
laboratory tombs and into the real life world of ordinary people and their
extraordinary human experiences. Both of these authors are masters of
compilation and artists of the archives, giving the "believe it or not" genre a
new level of scientific respectability. With 1545 references, the bibliography
is slightly more than one third the book.
After we have feasted on this sumptuous meal of amazing tales, do
our authors add anything to help us digest all this information? Indeed, they
offer some important perspectives and insights. First, we might consider the
nature of sports. Is there a hidden dimension to these activities? The
commercialization of sports has helped us to forget that the Greeks deified
sports, and other ancient traditions also placed spiritual significance on the
antics in the arena. We may think of sweaty dollar bills when someone mentions
sports, but sports originate in religion. The authors provide some insights
about why sports might be a perfect context for enlightenment and revelation.
One of the hallmarks of the mystical orientation to meditation, for example, is
to enjoy the practice for itself. Don't meditate for stress reduction, or to see
God, but simply to meditate, to be aware. There is, in its finest manifestation,
a similar orientation to sports. The athlete participates because of the
enjoyment of the process. The mystical moments are a byproduct, not the goal of
the activity.
What about the evolutionary possibilities? The authors point to
some of the exceptional experiences among the religiously devoted, such as
stigmata, levitation, luminosity, and incorruptibility of the body after death.
These phenomena also suggest the incredible potential of the soul to carry the
body to new possibilities. If evolution occurs through a process of spiritual
coaching, where the divine calls out our greatest potential, then we need to
spend more time on the playing field.
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