Welcome to the O-limp-ic Games in Rio
Oops. Welcome to the Olympic Games. We need a new kind of athlete.
Part Two of Two
Part Two
Headings
ATHLETES HAVE BECOME SAINTS AND SINNERS OF THE SELFIE CULTURE
A NEW KIND OF OLYMPIC GAMES
A NEW KIND OF ATHLETE
SPONSORS, PATRONS AND GRANTS FOR THE NEW KIND OF ATHLETE
Athletes have become Saints and Sinners of the Selfie culture
Athletes have become Saints and Sinners of the Selfie culture. The saints keep away from performance enhancing drugs and the sinners take such drugs.
There are frequent allegations of corruption. There are allegations of State sponsored doping in Russia while certain US athletes have convictions in private sponsored drug taking. One US athlete, who already has two convictions for drug taking, races in the 100 metres in Rio.
The pressure on the athletes to win medals drives a percentage towards performance enhancing drugs. Athletes and their coaches speculate whether their competitors are drug cheats or whether their tablets or medication would fail a drug test. Suspicions, fears and rumours haunt the Games. The drug cheats can get away with the abuse of drugs and the innocent can find themselves living under suspicion.
The founder of the modern Olympic Games, Pierre de Coubertin of France, said “The important thing at the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part.” That ethos seems far removed from the intensity of craving for success of the athletes and the risks they are willing to take.
IOC (International Olympic Committee), itself, has an unenviable track record. With the backing of powerful global corporations, the IOC selects a city to impose its will upon with the co-operation of national governments. There is a desperate craving to put on a better show than the previous Olympics to satisfy the various powerful egos running the Games.
The modern Olympics produces the saints and sinners of the Selfie culture on and off the field.
People in the cities, who host the Games, have no choice but to endure the numerous impositions on their daily lives. The authorities walk over the needs of the poor while the athletes run around the track, jump and down on trampoline or knock a golf ball down a hole. They do not realise the hole of hardship and poverty of 1.2 million men, women and children living in Rio.
The police and army have to patrol the streets to ensure the poor do not rebel. The poor have become an inconvenience in the cities hosting the Olympic Games.
A New Kind of Olympic Games
Rabid commercialisation rules the Olympic Games with the athletes employed to entertain the global masses while the world deteriorates at alarming speed.
The Olympic Games could be held in countless numbers of sports venues, indoors and outdoors, without all the expensive extravaganza. Different sports could be held in different countries in the same region to reduce the huge financial burden on a country.
It surely does not take a huge imagination to cultivate a different concept of the Olympic Games, which is free spirited, adventurous and awakens the human capacity to participate and co-operate together.
Packed with mega rich, elderly members, the IOC remains trapped in its money spinning operation, subservient to corporate and national interests. The IOC show endless forms of self-indulgence. It is truly the International O-limp-ic Committee.
The athletes could spend time with local communities playing games with children and teenagers, giving them inspiration and offering their expertise. Athletes, coaches and psychologists could stay with local families and take part in local life instead of spending a week or two in the residences for the athletes cut off from the real world.
Instead, the athletes live in a depth of self-interest, which matters above all else.
Athletes claim they represent their country. It might be true but the ambitions of the nation state form part of the problem in the selfie culture of the Games.
Athletes could engage in their beloved sport AND have a real experience of the cities and towns where they stay. A rich and diverse experience of life in Rio could be a life changing experience instead of being holed up in a comfortable and remote block of Olympic flats with nothing to do but sit in a hotel room or cycle around the grounds waiting for their name to be called.
Aged from teens to 20, 30’s, 40s, 50s and onwards, athletes could participate in the Olympic Games instead of a tiny elite, mostly in their early 20s and often considered old at 30 in many sports.
The current Olympic Games serves corporate interests not the deep interests of the athletes, the people or the global population. Hundreds of millions stayed glued to the television absorbing corporate logos and thinking that one hundredth of a second improvement really matters.
Television reporters interview their athletes after a performance. We want them to show emotion to compensate for their machine like display in their respective sport.
“The important thing of the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part.” There needs to be a radical return to the original vision.
There are probably international athletes who have long since realised they are simply pawns in the corporate and international chess game of power, control and triumph. Yet, they love their sport and experience a solidarity with many, but not all, of their fellow athletes.
A new kind of athlete
Athletes cannot train on their own. They need financial sponsors, coaches, family support and various facilities. Our sportsmen and sportswomen remind us of the capability of human beings who remain totally dedicated to a form of human activity.
We need a new kind of athlete. The new athlete would require the same dedication day after day, year after year, as our conventional athlete. The new athlete would also require every support available to ensure the very best of their potential emerges.
The new athletes would engage in a thorough and deep exploration of what it means to be human to make them fit to become Agents of Change. These athletes would devote years to working on themselves and learning how to work for the welfare of others.
Their training would take them to retreats, courses, mind-body programmes, mindfulness/ meditation sessions, explorations of consciousness to enable these new athletes to be emotionally well adjusted human beings, deep in experience, dedicated to right action. These new athletes would be willing to make every possible sacrifice for the welfare of others.
Our current institutions are unable to offer either the trainers or the sponsors for the new kind of athlete. Yet, the Earth and its inhabitants live in a perilous condition with diminishing resources, rampant greed, violence and egotism. There is a rapidly growing global population that politicians, liberals and conservatives refuse to address.
We need athletes committed to a divine and noble way of life, compassionate and fearless.
Our educational, training facilities and work environments cannot offer the facilities for such athletes. Our institutions are not fit for purpose.
I remember in the 1990s speaking at Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. During my talk, I told the professors and students that Harvard did not matter. I said the School also did not matter in the scheme of things. Both belonged to the extremes of importance. The finding and realisation of the Divine matters and staying true to such a vision. The students need to experience the depths of what is divine for them.
Service to people, animals and the environment is divine. Selflessness is divine. Right action is divine. A creative vision is divine. An awakened life is divine. The liberation of the human spirit is divine. Profound life changing realisations are divine. Love and compassion are divine. Transcendent discoveries are divine.
Books and academic knowledge can get in the way of divine experiences and realisations. I told the Harvard student they don’t need letters before or after their name, such as Dr. or Phd. The students have enough letters already in their name. The faculty kindly invited me back again to speak the following year.
I remember a year or two later speaking at Oxford University in England. In my talk, I asked a serious question: “Is Oxford University an ego-making factory?” One professor wrote a sharp rebuke to me for “not showing respect to one of the world’s top universities.” The university did not invite me back.
Sponsors, Patrons and Grants for the new athletes
The new athletes would need sponsors, patrons and government grants for the athletes to become Agents of Change.
The new athletes need to travel. They need to spend time in various regions of the world. These regions include the mountains, the deserts, the rainforests and other remote areas. They need to learn to live on the basic necessities for months on end. The athletes would spend time in remote Buddhist monasteries in the East engaged in mind training. They would train in the disciplines of yoga, learn about a nutritious plant based diet and an austerity of life. They would learn about the healing power of complementary medicine, the power of breathing and a healthy lifestyle.
The new athletes would live with indigenous and intentional communities, share their lifestyle and learn about the wealth of culture outside the narrow conformity of Western values. They would spend time with other new kind of athletes, artists, environmentalists and people in sport dedicated to their form.
These athletes would spend time in the troubled corners of the world. They would experience the kind hospitality of the Muslims in war zones and live with those volunteers dedicated to the welfare of others. The athletes would learn how to organise meetings, develop skills in public speaking, make use of social media and learn how to campaign for political and social change.
The new athletes would require as much dedication and commitment as our current athletes. They would need sponsors, family support. spiritual teachers, guides, psychologists and mentors to develop the very best of their humanity.
After years of dedication to the training, the new athletes would find themselves fully fit to make a real contribution to the world.
Contemporary athletes participate in the Olympic Games and then most come to the end of their career. The new athletes would complete their years of training and be fully fit to start their career, their dedication to right livelihood, to right action and an enlightened way of life.
The world needs such athletes. The world would truly applaud such athletes for a long, long time.
May all beings engage in right action
May all beings live with wisdom and compassion
May all beings become Agents of Change
PS Global warming places the Olympic Games in jeopardy within the next 50 years. It will be too hot to hold them in most places in the world. Future generations will probably look back on the gross extravagance of the Olympic Games and shake their heads in disbelief. History repeats itself. Emperor Nero played the fiddle while Rome burnt. IOC take note.