SPIRITUAL LESSONS FROM GOLF Dr. Raghavendra Prasad, MD December 24, 2014 I am not a golfer, but my two grandsons, Rohan and Sachin are avid golfers. They started playing golf when they were 3 years of age. Both my daughter Jyotsna and my son-in-law Kalyan spend lot of time for their game, doing caddying, taking them to practices, games, tournaments. Both Rohan and Sachin are US Kids Golf Tour Dallas Champions several times in the last few years. Their house is filled with golf medals, trophies and memorabilia. Most recently Sachin (the younger one aged 8 years) was featured on a docu-series on Esquire Network TV called “The Short Game” that featured 8 of the most promising child golfers in the country. It premieres on January 20th but the entire season is currently available on demand. After watching them yesterday, I realized how many of the principles of spirituality are embedded in the game of golf. Let me share my observations and conclusions. 1. GOLF COURSE TERRAIN & THE PLAYER/ WORLD & YOU: Golf is played between the terrain and the player. Not between two rivals. Similarly in life the battle is between what life presents to you as PRARABDA (Karmic baggage of past lives) and one’s effort in this life. In both the cases we cannot waste time complaining about our fate and circumstances and lose the present. 2. FOCUS ON RIVAL PLAYERS IS DISCOURAGED: In Golf one’s focus is the course and yourself, never the other players. Any focus on the other players is counterproductive. As one watches the show, you see on one occasion a caddy advises his player to turn away from watching her rival hitting a tee shot in order to make her focus on the job at hand. Life is very similar. We cannot afford to waste all our time focusing on the other players in our life, blaming them for our misfortunes. We should take life as given and play the game to our full capacity with focus. 3. SELF CONFIDENCE & FAITH: Self Confidence is very important for a player to perform optimally. The job of the parents and coaches is to congratulate the player when doing well and to infuse confidence when things go wrong. You see this for example when the player in the video hit the shot into a bunker, the caddy said “that is ok” to reassure the player. The player complained that she hit it into the bunker. The caddy said that it is over and she is capable of coming out of the bunker and correct the mistake. This is an example of proper encouragement that promoted introspection by the player. On the contrary if the player were to be criticized and reprimanded immediately, her introspection converts into self-doubt with resulting damage to self-esteem, self-respect and self-confidence. Most golfers when they reach competitive level know when they made a mistake. If the coach or caddy, instead of criticizing, encourages them by reminding them of the task at hand by saying they are capable of correction, it helps their introspection and self-correction. This lesson is most valuable for the player since it empowers them rather than undermining their confidence. This is like faith in spirituality. Frequent falls and mistakes are natural. With each fall and mistake one should learn a life lesson and become stronger and not repeat the mistake. Mistakes should cause appropriate introspection and correction, not dwelling on it. Inappropriate focus will make one lose the present task at hand. The best time for constructive criticism is after the game, when we sit down for analysis. It is better to let them give their own analysis with their plan for self-correction first. Only after listening, should mistakes that you see be mentioned lovingly. Tell the truth, but it should only be said lovingly and at the appropriate time. This is the spiritual principle: “Satyam Bruath, Priyam Bruath, Na Bruath Sathyam Apriyam” said the Upanishads. This means one should tell the Truth. One should tell it lovingly. No Truth should be mentioned un-lovingly (harsh, unpalatable). Truth and Love should go hand in hand to be effective. Truth that is harsh brings out denial, rebellion and loss of self confidence. Truth that is lovingly said fosters introspection, analysis, correction that increases self-confidence. This is an important lesson, particularly to the parents (that are emotionally involved) who are caddies. They should keep in mind development of self-confidence, not its destruction. 4. EGO: OVER-CONFIDENCE: RUSHING INSTEAD OF FOCUS, CONCENTRATION, AND VISUALIZATION: The children that are good players are methodical in their approach. They follow a protocol of looking, observing, planning, visualizing and executing in a sequence. All this is done with the utmost focus with confidence. On the contrary, the ones that make frequent mistakes are often the ones who forget this sequence and rush the shots. The game of golf, like life, needs intense focus and concentration. Here the principle of Upanishads “yad bhavam tat bhavathi” comes into the picture. This means whatever one thinks, so do they become. In other words we reflect our mind. Focus, concentration, visualization is very important for a good game. Players should be encouraged to focus on the present. Silence and meditation before the game helps to bring mind to focus. 5. BEING IN NOW: IN ZONE: Players often dwell on the last shot or future scores and outcomes. This is also common in life. Memories of the past and worries about the future make us forget to take care of the present. Yesterday is History, Tomorrow is a Mystery, Today is the PRESENT, a gift. Caddies inadvertently do a disservice to the player by repeatedly reminding them of past faults and predicting that those mistakes will be repeated. These remarks are very detrimental to the player by taking away the focus on the present. 6. INNER POISE: QUIETNESS: CALM: A player or a caddy that is hyper will only make matters worse. Only in inner calm can the spirit, mind, eye and bodywork in unison. A player should be like the eye of a hurricane with absolute calm inside. In spiritual language the Vedantins call it “stithaprajnatva”, Buddhists call it the “middle path” and New Age followers call it “being in the zone or living in Now”. 7. STRATEGY: GOAL: PURPOSE & PLAN: To achieve anything in life one should have the above. It should be both long-term and short-term with a time line. While playing, prior plans should be executed and new challenges should be faced. All possible scenarios should be thought about and practiced before hand. The parents should sit down with the players and openly discuss this. The ones who are committed to a goal and strategy and plan are more likely to achieve success. “As you sow, so shall you reap”. Parents should facilitate this discussion and help them develop this plan. 8. EFFORT & INTENSITY: There is no substitute for hard work. Children have varying degrees of effort and intensity depending on their background, karmic and current environmental factors. No one is beyond encouragement. This realization to work hard, comes at different ages for different people. That being so we should encourage them optimally without breaking their self-confidence. There is a thin line between appropriate and inappropriate and of this we should be mindful. Rewards can be helpful for children to increase their effort and intensity. Helping them read biographies of high-achieving successful people will help encourage them. Help them become self-motivated with parents acting more as facilitators. The most successful athletes have an intense desire to win and succeed. Here is the lesson of Krishna to Arjuna when he said meditation is difficult with wavering mind. Krishna said Abhyasena Kounteya. This means through practice one overcomes difficult situations. This means practice, practice and practice. There is no obstacle that cannot be overcome through practice. All possible scenarios should be practiced and rehearsed. More important is the practice of dealing with things going wrong. Like practice of bunker shots, coming out of bushes, water edge shots and the like. 9. ACCEPTANCE: In spite of giving one’s best effort sometimes the outcome is not what they would wish. When this happens it is important for the child to learn to accept it and move forward. It is as important to learn how to lose with grace as it is to learn how to win. This acceptance of reality is also very important for parents who devote so much time, effort and monetary resources for these young golfers. Ultimately not all of them will become PGA players. However, if properly nurtured, they can all grow up to be well-rounded successful members of society. They will carry the values they learned playing golf to real life situations. It is a win-win situation for all. 10.INTEGRITY: HUMAN VALUES AND CHARACTER: Most important elements in the game of golf are integrity, values and character. These three elements have connection to each other and are the very foundation of human endeavor. Character is wealth. Values are the foundation of character. End of true education is character. Character is what one does right when nobody is watching. Character is what one does right when one is stressed. Character is what one does right under extreme inducements. Character is the treasure of people. Character is the shining beauty of people. Character brings in integration to personality. Character makes people with integrated personalities. No other game stresses character more than the game of golf where in a player is expected to call penalties on oneself, manages their own scoring, self-polices and self reports. Etiquette and manners are greatly valued in golf. This is what ultimately benefits the golfer, a life of discipline leading to an integrated personality with fine character. Fragrance of education is goodness and goodness is better than greatness. Only one person can be great while all can be good and the great person has to walk over all the others that are not so great. Rama is only well versed in 60 fields of education while Ravana is well versed in 64 fields of education. Rama was good that put all 60 fields he learned into practice while Ravana though well versed in 4 more fields than Rama fail to put it into practice and tried to be great and failed. Finally Goodness wins over the greatness. It is not enough to listen, learn and know. It is the practice of what is learned, the most important element of an integrated personality. Those that put into practice the things they learn become good at what they are doing and ultimate success awaits them.
Posted on: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 16:36:18 +0000
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