Good Health Comes First

The recently concluded FIFA World Cup football in South Africa caused
worldwide excitement. Indians were overtaken by the passion of the game even
though India was not participating in the event.
It is easy to get infected with the spirit of the game in a globalised world with its
vast media networks that enable people to watch the game even at odd hours.
Often such infectious spirit drives us to indulge ourselves on the material plane
and remain immersed in superficial aspects of life. But every sphere of life,
including the sphere of sports and games, must explore the infinite dimensions
which impact human existence and about which we are not adequately aware.
When Swami Vivekananda returned to India in 1897 after his historic trip to
America where he addressed the Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago
in 1893, he delivered a series of lectures. In one of them he linked the attainment
of spirituality to football. He said to the youth: "You will be nearer to Heaven
through football than through the study of the Bhagavad Gita."
· Good health is the first step to strive for perfection. It involves overcoming
weakness and acquiring confidence and spiritual dignity. It means cultivating self-
esteem. Scripture-reading is not sufficient if we are driven by frailties and
temptations.
· Exercise is the key to achieve higher and finer objectives. Vivekananda
was giving precedence to the individual's right to quality health which can provide
access to many other wonderful realms. He said that Indians remained lazy
because they were deprived of strength and energy. He explained our inability to
work in terms of our physical weakness. He even painfully noted that the root
cause of selfishness and disunity among Indians was our weakness manifested
in fragile body and spirit. He earnestly pleaded for measures to strengthen our
physical and mental health.
A scholar saint of worldwide fame, he advocated that health considerations must
precede the quest for religion. "Our young men must be strong, religion will come
afterwards. You will understand the Upanishads better and the glory of the
Atman when your body stands firm upon your feet, and you feel yourselves as
men," he said.
Passion for football must promote good health and purity of mind. The pursuit of
sports and games will truly help us realise the essence of life which often gets
overwhelmed by existential compulsions and loses its meaning and significance.
Utkalmani Gopabandhu Das, a close associate of M K Gandhi, had said that
mere excellence in the field of football and cricket will not make a nation. He
meant that nation-building involves building of character and cultivation of values.
When Swami Vivekananda linked spirituality with football he was stressing as
much on the ability to play that game as the capacity to realise divinity, a far
more exalted goal than that of mere nation building.
What is required is the balanced blending of physical and spiritual dimensions.