ISHA GRAMOTSAVAM GAME FOR LIFE - SADHGURU ISHA FOUNDATION

Sadhguru: Swami Vivekananda once said, "You will be nearer to Heaven through football than through the study of the Gita." When you pray, you can do and think so many other things.

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But when you kick a ball, you only kick a ball.

Otherwise, it will not go where you want it to go. Playing a game gives you the understanding that without absolute involvement, you cannot be successful. You have to play as if your life depends on it. They say 5 billion people watched the last football World Cup. This is more than half the world, and the entire adult world. These 5 billion people were watching eleven people who were trying to kick the ball in one direction and another eleven people who were trying to kick it in another direction.

Of course, you could ask the philosophical question, "What's the point?" Essentially, we do not watch because of the ball, not even because of the skills, but because someone is kicking the ball as if his life depends on it. It is the intensity of involvement that makes the whole world sit up and watch.

It is intensity which allows a human being to stretch beyond the limits. The entire spiritual process is about somehow transcending your limitations to experience a dimension that you did not know till now. In sports, there are moments when people transcend. This is not limited to the World Cup, Olympics, or other international competitions. We see this happening in the Isha Gramotsavam as well.

Isha Gramotsavam is a major movement that has been happening for the last 21 years in southern India, where we have brought in sports like volleyball for men and throwball for women, rural culture, rural food and simple village games for everyone. The purpose of Isha Gramotsavam is to bring playfulness into village life. For a variety of reasons, we as a nation are not able to provide them the necessary fundamentals to live a dignified life.