In plain words
While playing, the aim must be on the game, not on victory
Many students have been holding back from taking part in these sports. But it is only because they do not truly understand the nature of the mind that they have been holding back from sports. We must come to these games from our hearts, with yearning and with zeal. It is like a drill. Through it, the mind’s resolves can be curbed to some extent. While playing these games, the aim must be on the games. We must not fix our aim on victory, crying ‘Victory, victory’. If we fix our aim on victory, the aim of the games is lessened. We break its rules. In games, each game has its own rule. If that rule is broken, even if victory comes in the game, it is not real victory. If we keep that rule strictly, even defeat is victory. That is why in Vedānta they said, ‘There is no good without rule.’ Every person must have a rule in every task. Today we do not keep that rule. This is what they called rules. Following them is what they called regulation. We must look at rules and regulations with the right outlook. Step by step we must set the method fit for this on the right path. Only when there is practice does this method run as it should.
The children are very good. They play well. They sing well. They carry themselves well. The cause of everything is the mind. It is a mad monkey. This monkey too must be given some training. What does the man who makes a monkey dance do? If he gives it no work, it tugs at his pocket. It picks at his fingernails. It gets up to all sorts of things. It is only because it has nothing to do that it does such mad things. That is why he sets up a pole. ‘Climb up, Timmanna! Come down, Timmanna!’ he says, and climbing up and down it forgets itself. You young people have on your hands a mind that is a mad monkey. So you too must give it some work. When there is no work: ‘Soham’, ‘Soham…’ Climb up, climb down. This sound too has a meaning. ‘So’ is ‘That’, ‘ham’ is ‘I’: if we hold to the feeling ‘That am I’, we shall have lived the path of ‘Tat tvam asi’. We shall have known Ānanda. But for these games too, these physical instructors must give due zeal and encouragement.