Theos-Talk Archives (September 1994 Message tl00034)

Aki,

>>

2. Expanding your ego/personality in others expense.

In sports you try to be better than the others, this is purely
selfish.  There is no other reason to it.  Why we should be
better in some game than the others? The team-games are only
expansion of "I" to "we".<<

But consider this: Master Cheng Man Ching, when asked for the
secret of his fantastic success as a tai chi player, replied that
it was simply the eradication of all ego feeling while he was
sparring with opponents.

>> 5.  Sport events are regarded as "News".  This is incredible.
Sensible people regard these sport-"news" as really as a news
that are worth spreading! This is so outrageous that I almost
lose my temper.<<

If you should visit the United States in the near future, do
yourself a favor and avoid television news programs.  Our present
ratio is about 35% hard news, 35% fluff and 30% SPORTS.  I fear
you would suffer a loss of temper that would set you back five
incarnations!

I agree with you that competitive sports are not of any value
from a spiritual perspective.  BTW, P.D.  Ouspensky says the same
thing.  However, I do not think that they are totally without
value.  Einstein once wrote to Freud asking him what could be
done about the problem of human aggression.  Freud replied that
this was a rather hopeless issue, because aggression was a
primary human drive.  Freud did state, though, that viewing
competitive sports did provide a vicarious discharge of
aggression for the masses, thus siphoning off some of the
aggression that would otherwise be expressed directly in behavior
toward others.  Freud felt that this was pretty much the best
that we could hope for in terms of containing the masses.  (HMMM,
wonder if more heads are being cracked now that the U.S.  is in
the midst of a baseball strike???!!!)

>>We may say: "The Finns are the best at the ice hockey", "We
Finns are so good, the Swedish are soft and lousy".<<

I never knew that about the Swedes.  ;-{)>

Peace,
Frank