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“The best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times . . The best moments usually occur if a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile” –(Csikszentmihalyi, 1990).
Have you ever experienced a state where time and space seem to vanish? It’s something most people have encountered. Let me help you recall such an experience. When you engage in an activity that you’re passionate about and deeply interested in, you become so absorbed that you forget about hunger, pain, your surroundings, and even the passage of time. Suddenly, you realize you’ve returned from a different realm, one you unknowingly entered—a realm where time either halted or slowed down. It’s a realm where you were completely immersed within yourself, where all your troubles and problems faded away, and most importantly, where you found true happiness. Spiritual masters refer to this state of mind as “meditation,” while positive psychologists call it “flow.”
There is an abundance of spiritual literature, YouTube videos featuring spiritual masters, and various spiritual schools dedicated to teaching and learning the art and science of meditation. Each of them presents a unique technique, often derived from personal experiences, teachings from their gurus, or ancient scripts. However, the ultimate objective shared by all these techniques is to help individuals be fully present in the ” moment.”
The simplest way to experience the state of flow and be fully present in the moment is by engaging in sports. Whether it’s an indoor or outdoor game, an individual sport like marathon running, canoeing, or golf where you compete against yourself, or a team game like rugby, hockey, or basketball where the focus is on teamwork and scoring goals, sports can help you achieve one-pointedness of mind.
In individual sports where there is no immediate opponent to challenge you, you find yourself facing one of the toughest adversaries of all: your own negative thoughts. These thoughts persistently resurface like a boomerang, testing your mental resilience and determination.
In team games, the presence of opponents, their physicality, their achievements, and the support they receive from fans can have a profound impact on your psyche. Furthermore, the attitudes and behaviors of your own teammates, not to mention their performance, can also lead to emotional outbursts.
However, once you start playing, you undergo a transformation. You forget about yourself, your surroundings, and even your own identity. Time, pain, hurt, and injuries fade away. You become completely absorbed in the present moment, enjoying the zone you’re in. You enter a state of flow where everything else is forgotten, only to be brought back to reality by the sound of a whistle in a tournament or when your body reaches its limits during practice sessions.
Unlike meditation, which is often presented as a separate subject to learn, practice, and follow, the beauty of sports is that no one forces you to participate. Neither your parents nor your teachers can compel you. You choose to engage in sports willingly. Although the decision to pursue a sport is voluntary, the meditative experience it offers is involuntary.
The experience of being fully present in the “moment” can be achieved by anyone in any field of interest they have. It could be through activities such as painting, playing musical instruments, singing, dancing, writing, praying, or even reading. As someone who loves sports, I would personally say: Sports can indeed be a meditative experience. Engaging in sports requires focus, concentration, and being fully present in the moment. When you’re playing a sport, you enter a state of flow where your mind becomes calm, and you experience a deep sense of immersion in the activity. The repetitive motions, the rhythm of the game, and the intense focus on your actions can help quiet the mind and bring a sense of peace and mindfulness. Sports provide an opportunity to temporarily disconnect from daily concerns and enter a state of mental and physical harmony, similar to the state achieved through meditation.
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