OLYMPIC CONSCIOUSNESS

By Scott Ford

Every four years, sports competition stops being ordinary and starts being the Olympics. Think about it: for three years in a row, we have sports played at different levels of competition, in different countries worldwide, by large populations of people just like you and me, and then, every fourth year since 1896 the best athletes in the world come together for the Modern Olympics, while the rest of us watch in awe.

The Olympic flame is lit, and for the next two weeks something extraordinary happens right in front of our eyes. Then, all too soon, the flame is extinguished, we all go home, and sport returns to normal. Humanity, however, does not. 

Somehow, humanity is better off after the Olympic Games, and all because the best of the best got together for a short span of time and played the games we all play, just way better than the rest of us.

What is it about the Olympics Games that transcends the ordinary consciousness of competitive sports? We’ve all experienced the dualistic, zero-sum consciousness of I win/you lose. Or is it you win/I lose? I forget. Either way, one side wins, the other side loses, and as athletes, we are tutored by coaches to excel in athletic environments driven by dualistic sports consciousness.

Then, every four years, we hold the Olympic Games, and taste once again the flavor of nondual sports consciousness. Don’t let the term “nondual” turn you off. Nondual means not-two, undivided, unified, and nondual sports consciousness is found in the unified oneness of the Olympic Games.

Nondual sports consciousness includes the best of dualistic rivalry, but then transcends winning and losing with the nondual essence of play. Here’s a picture of the nondual essence of play.

Will this runner stand on the podium? Will she be a winner or a loser? Or is this a picture of the essence of competition itself?

This summer, when we watch the Olympic Games, we are not only watching the best athletes in the world competing against each other for Gold, Silver, or Bronze, but we are also watching the best athletes in the world competing with each other for the sake of something greater than Olympic glory. That something greater is the Olympic Spirit itself, burning as the Olympic flame and lighting the fires of nondual global unity.

For two weeks, the consciousness of sports will be centered in Tokyo, Japan, where the energetic effects of nondual unity will be felt around the world. As spectators, we’ll be watching the spirit of the Olympics running free for a fortnight, and if we look closely enough, we’ll see the human potential movement showing its nondual potential.  

The Olympic Games are not only a showcase for nondual sports consciousness; they’re also a live demonstration of nondual human potential. Nondual human potential is experienced whenever athletes are “in the zone,” and as we watch the Tokyo Olympics, not only will we see many examples of athletes competing in the zone, but we’ll also see many examples of nondual human potential in action transcending what we think possible.   

For all of us, there is the sports consciousness we experience in dualistic rivalry fields, but there is also the Olympic Consciousness we experience in nondual unified fields, like the nondual performance fields we experience when we’re playing in the zone. 

These nondual performance experiences are not the sole property of Olympic athletes, nor is Olympic Consciousness reserved for Tokyo alone. This higher-order evolutionary competition has been going on for a long time, and we are fortunate to understand that the evolution of the Olympics is about more than Gold, or Silver, or Bronze.

Join Scott Ford and the EVO Founders for EVO's first Olympics Panel on July 22nd at 3:00 pm PT / 6:00 pm ET. Register HERE >>>