Sports and Spirituality: A Kosmos at Play

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Since the dawn of civilization, sports have been an intrinsic part of human society. From the militaristic competitions of ancient China, Greece, and Egypt, to the enormous rise of spectator sports in the wake of the industrial revolution, athletics have long served society as a foundation of human triumph, camaraderie, and excellence, as well as a source of personal discipline, achievement, and improvement—not to mention a common language of stories and statistics that men have traditionally used when women aren't around to fill the often-awkward spaces between them.

In many ways, sports represent the very best of the human spirit. And yet, some may find it odd to suggest a connection between sports and spirituality, as though these are two completely distinct facets of human life with very little in common, if anything at all. Maybe if we are talking about kung fu, tai chi, or some other martial art we can see an overlap, but what does spirituality have to do with modern western sports like football (of either variety), baseball, or basketball? After all, these games are fueled by the decidedly earthly elements of blood, sweat, and testosterone, while spirituality is often charged with the role of dealing with the more abstract and heavenly concerns of our finite human existence. But really, this establishes a sort of false dichotomy, unable to capture the full complexity and richness of either athletics or spirituality. After all, an athlete can find as much virtue, luminosity, and self-transcendence through sports as a monk can find through his or her spiritual practice. And a monk can find as much personal power, potency, and embodiment through spiritual practice as an athlete can potentially find in any type of sport.

In the Zone: Sports and Spirituality In this dialogue we explore the role of sports as a "hidden religion," an age-old tradition with the extraordinary ability to evoke powerful states of transcendence— spiritual experiences, by any other name. Listen as David Meggyesy and Ken explore some of the contours of this "hidden religion," and discuss what it takes to be a genuinely Integral athlete.

"Athleticism" draws upon a combination of these developmental lines, in varying degrees of importance. But what is especially interesting is that, as any of these individual intelligences approach the highest stages of development currently available to us (teal, turquoise, indigo, and beyond, as indicated below) they begin to take on qualities that can only be described as "trans-rational" or, more simply, "spiritual"—which is why, for many, watching Michael Jordan play at the peak of his game can feel like listening to Mozart, looking at the Sistine Chapel, and reading Rumi at the same time.

Developmental altitude not only describes the progress of each of these multiple intelligences, but also influences the overall cultural sense of meaning that surrounds sports, for both the athlete and the spectator. For example, sports allow fans a certain amount of magenta ritual, a healthy outlet for red aggression, a source of amber allegiance to a particular team, city, state, nation, etc.

For athletes (particularly males), sports have historically had an exceptional ability to bring people from red to amber, tempering the rawness of the ego by plugging the often testosterone-driven identity into a higher-order structure of self-sacrifice, discipline, and teamwork, before opening them up to orange principles of accomplishment and excellence. These structures also determine the general values of sportsmanship with which the athlete approaches the game—whereas red is focused upon the glory of victory, amber reminds us that "there is no I in team," orange tells us that it's "not if you win or lose, but how you play the game," while the modern Olympic code reflects the green sentiment that "the most important thing is not winning, but taking part."

These different modes of sportsmanship are especially important in today's world, which situates sports in an aggressive business market that can seriously reinforce the power-hungry ego. Without properly internalizing the ethical sensibilities of amber-and-above structures, it is all too easy for the ego to be seduced by delusions of self-importance, enabling athletes to remain red megalomaniacs running loose in an orange world of fame, status, and celebrity—which may help us understand the moral transgressions of people like Michael Vick, Kobe Bryant, Tiger Woods, Tonya Harding, and many others.

There is another definition of "spirituality," which has more to do with the fleeting—but very real—subjective experience of spirituality that athletes frequently tap into, regardless of which developmental altitude they may be coming from. Often described with phrases like "in the zone" or "out of his head", athletes can often slip into the same exact nondual states of consciousness that have more typically been associated with artists and mystics—states of utter self-transcendence and unobstructed creative or performative flow. These nondual "flow" states (along with gross, subtle, causal, and witness states) form the very core of esoteric and contemplative forms of spiritual practice at the heart of virtually all the world's religious traditions—and although they have very different names, metaphysical assumptions, and cultural contexts from tradition to tradition, there is an astonishing symmetry in all of these various descriptions, enough to suggest an essential unity underlying every single spiritual experience and expression in the history of mankind.

According to many athletes, these states occur with astounding frequency—especially for those who have evolved to the highest reaches of development in any of their developmental lines, which seems to allow more stable access to these higher states. These nondual "peak-experiences" are rarely acknowledged by the sporting community, largely due to the unavailability of adequate language in sports culture to properly communicate these experiences, or to help take them off of the field/court/ice and into daily life. But whether acknowledged or not, nearly every athlete has had his or her own sense of being "in the zone" at one time or the other—the effortless collapse of player, opponent, audience, and game, until all that remains is the erotic scent of freshly-cut grass, the weight of the warm sun pressing against your skin, and the slow-motion frenzy of a Kosmos-at-play.

All in all, this exceptional dialogue goes a long way to remind us that all those aspects of our lives that seem separate or distinct from our spirituality are, in actuality, anything but. There is nothing Spirit doesn't touch—from our highest ideals of love, respect, and sportsmanship, to the drunken bloodlust of hearing millions of people cheering you to victory—everything finds its home in the transcendent mind of God, nestled in the immanent heart of the Sacred, where the line between winning and losing becomes the very same line that separates self and other, part and whole, here and eternity.

A Brief Overview of Stages of Consciousness

• Infrared (archaic): Infrared Altitude signifies a degree of development that is in many ways imbedded in nature, body, and the gross realm in general. Infrared Altitude exhibits an archaic worldview, physiological needs (food, water, shelter, etc.), a self-sense that is minimally differentiated from its environment, and is in nearly all ways oriented towards physical survival. Although present in infants, infrared is rarely seen in adults except in cases of famine, natural disasters, or other catastrophic events. Infrared is also used as a kind of catch-all term for all earlier evolutionary stages and drives.

• Magenta (egocentric, magic): Magenta Altitude began about 50,000 years ago, and tends to be the home of egocentric drives, a magical worldview, and impulsiveness. It is expressed through magic/animism, kin-spirits, and such. Young children primarily operate with a magenta worldview. Magenta in any line of development is fundamental, or “square one” for any and all new tasks. Magenta emotions and cognition can be seen driving such cultural phenomena as superhero-themed comic books or movies.

• Red (ego- to ethnocentric, power): The Red Altitude began about 10,000 years ago, and is the marker of egocentric drives based on power, where “might makes right,” where aggression rules, and where there is a limited capacity to take the role of an “other.” Red impulses are classically seen in grade school and early high school, where bullying, teasing, and the like are the norm. Red motivations can be seen culturally in Ultimate Fighting contests, which have no fixed rules (fixed rules come into being at the next Altitude, Amber), teenage rebellion and the movies that cater to it (The Fast and the Furious), gang dynamics (where the stronger rule the weaker), and the like.

• Amber (ethnocentric, mythic): The Amber Altitude began about 5,000 years ago, and indicates a worldview that is traditionalist and mythic in nature—and mythic worldviews are almost always held as absolute (this stage of development is often called absolutistic). Instead of “might makes right,” amber ethics are more oriented to the group, but one that extends only to “my” group. Grade school and high school kids usually exhibit amber motivations to “fit in.” Amber ethics help to control the impulsiveness and narcissism of red. Culturally, amber worldviews can be seen in fundamentalism (my God is right no matter what); extreme patriotism (my country is right no matter what); and ethnocentrism (my people are right no matter what).

• Orange (worldcentric, rational): The Orange Altitude began about 500 years ago, during the period known as the European Enlightenment. In an orange worldview, the individual begins to move away from the amber conformity that reifies the views of one’s religion, nation, or tribe. The orange worldview often begins to emerge in late high school, college, or adulthood. Culturally, the orange worldview realizes that “truth is not delivered; it is discovered,” spurring the great advances of science and formal rationality. Orange ethics begin to embrace all people, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal….” Ayn Rand’s Objectivism, the US Bill of Rights, and many of the laws written to protect individual freedom all flow from an orange worldview.

• Green (worldcentric, pluralistic): The Green Altitude began roughly 150 years ago, though it came into its fullest expression during the 1960’s. Green worldviews are marked by pluralism, or the ability to see that there are multiple ways of seeing reality. If orange sees universal truths (“All men are created equal”), green sees multiple universal truths—different universals for different cultures. Green ethics continue, and radically broaden, the movement to embrace all people. A green statement might read, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equal, regardless of race, gender, class….” Green ethics have given birth to the civil rights, feminist, and gay rights movements, as well as environmentalism.

The green worldview’s multiple perspectives give it room for greater compassion, idealism, and involvement, in its healthy form. Such qualities are seen by organizations such as the Sierra Club, Amnesty International, Union of Concerned Scientists, and Doctors Without Borders. In its unhealthy form green worldviews can lead to extreme relativism, where all beliefs are seen as relative and equally true, which can in turn lead to the nihilism, narcissism, irony, and meaninglessness exhibited by many of today’s intellectuals, academics, and trend-setters… not to mention another “lost” generation of students.

• Teal (worldcentric to “kosmocentric,” integral): The Teal Altitude marks the beginning of an integral worldview, where pluralism and relativism are transcended and included into a more systematic whole. The transition from green to teal is also known as the transition from “1st-tier” values to “2nd-tier” values, the most immediate difference being the fact that each “1st-tier” value thinks it is the only truly correct value, while “2nd-tier” values recognize the importance of all preceding stages of development. Thus, the teal worldview honors the insights of the green worldview, but places it into a larger context that allows for healthy hierarchies, and healthy value distinctions.

Perhaps most important, a teal worldview begins to see the process of development itself, acknowledging that each one of the previous stages (magenta through green) has an important role to play in the human experience. Teal consciousness sees that each of the previous stages reveals an important truth, and pulls them all together and integrates them without trying to change them to “be more like me,” and without resorting to extreme cultural relativism (“all are equal”). Teal worldviews do more than just see all points of view (that’s a green worldview)—it can see and honor them, but also critically evaluate them.

• Turquoise (“kosmocentric,” integral): Turquoise is a mature integral view, one that sees not only healthy hierarchy but also the various quadrants of human knowledge, expression, and inquiry (at the minimum: I, we, and it). While teal worldviews tend to be secular, turquoise is the first to begin to integrate Spirit as a living force in the world (manifested through any or all of the 3 Faces of God: “I”—e.g. the “No self” or “witness” of Buddhism; “we/thou”—e.g. the “great other” of Christianity, Judaism, Hindusm, Islam, etc.; or “it”—e.g. the “Web of Life” seen in Taoism, Pantheism, etc.).