The day the football World Cup finals started in Munich, someone quoted Swami Vivekananda’s well-known observation: “You will be nearer to heaven playing football than studying the Bhagavad Gita.” The context in which these words were uttered is interesting. The Swami was addressing a young, sickly-looking lad who wanted to acquire spirituality by studying the immortal classic aforementioned, and had come to the famous hero of the Chicago World Parliament of Religions to guide him. And guide he did!What Swami Vivekananda in effect was trying to drive home to the boy was that first he ought to improve his health, become strong in body and mind in order to imbibe and translate into his life, the “bold message of the Song Celestial”. As the Bhagavad Gita counsels, one must get over tamoguna, ie, lethargy and lack of proper understanding, by cultivating rajoguna (activity, dynamism). Sarira madyam khalu dharma sadhanam, say the shastras, meaning thereby that the body is the means to the attainment of all dharma, or right living and thinking.From rajoguna, one must graduate into sattvaguna, namely, purity and the other virtues, which enable a person to have the final spiritual realisation. But it only enables one to do so; it is not the lofty end itself. For, the ultimate achievement, as Lord Krishna in the selfsame holy book avers, takes us beyond the thralldom of the three gunas — nistraigunya bhavarjuna, he advises Arjuna.What are the signs of a person who has thus spiritually arrived? He becomes a stithapragna, atmavaan. That is, one established in the Self, a self-realised soul, who is in this world but not of it like the ignorant out-and-out wordly creature with strong likes and dislikes, a slave to his senses and passions, who is characterised by a predominance of mine-and-thine attitude. He cannot take a no for an answer, cannot watch with equanimity the “play (leela) of samsara”, especially if it involves the defeat of his country’s team, say in football, cricket or any other game.That is why we find so many people committing suicide when their country or favourite team goes down in a match.
