Tennis as a Kind of Initiation

Tennis is a sport that requires the full body.  It mimics life in that you are alone on the court and you are constantly battling with yourself and your opponent.  The opponent can change spontaneously without warning.  Time is relative as in a game can theoretically go on for eternity.  If the players are well matched it will go on for days until someone finally wins.  Tennis requires extreme technical skill and extreme mental discipline.  Even if you are athletic does not mean you will have the mental fortitude to win.  Essentially it is a art.  It requires so much of a human being that if you take it seriously you will  evolve.  Yet I would like to point out that many players who are very good at the game do not let the game of tennis filter into their deep consciousness.  They are narrow minded and only consider winning to be the ultimate goal.  They do not practice tennis as an art, but a means to an end, a way to remain in their small narrow usually rich world.  Those of us that are moved deeply from this game have a different experience.  It is very similar to a quest of a hero.  It is an initiation of the mind, body and soul.  A transformation is possible, as with all art forms.  This is how I was effected by the game. 

If tennis was my lover....I met him when I was 10.  Well my mother introduced us, and she liked him right away.   Me on the other hand, hated him...maybe until I was 13 or 14.  I hated his stare, the one that would look into my weakness, my laziness, my self-importance.  His expectations were too much and I failed him so many times.  But as I tore myself to pieces he would support me and piece me back together.   After long battles between us, he came in my most desperate moments and saved me a million times.  He took me into the deep caverns where secret ceremonies of initiations were conducted.   There stages of developement, tournaments to challenge my ability.  I was schooled on the ethics and mindset of a champion.  It was in these moments that my life was transformed. 

             Mostly my body was the betrayer, she had a deep passion for him.   He taught her how to move, how to perform beyond her wildest dreams.  She soaked up his attention like a desert  soakes up water in a monsoon season. 

               It may sound too young, yet one nameless day he I became one. I was only 14 and I was playing a serious high school match against a ranked player.  I understood him that day, I let him in to the deepest part of me.   I won that day, but I also wasn't the same - there was no end to him and no beginning of me, nothing was distinguishable between us.  This was my sacred hour where bliss was born. 

            I would refuse him, yet want him because he taught me how to be my best self.  I needed him yet I wanted to kill him.  My passion for him waned and I left him for a long time.  He would always call.  He would show up and make me fall to my knees, and I would grasp at him.  No one on Earth ever treated me so compassionately, and required so much from me.  I gave myself to him as much as I could.  But I always held something back, maybe fearful of my own ability.  He knew me, knew my talent, yet never judged me for not having the courage to be a champion. 

             I did not know when I was young what it was to be so close to something, to let another take me over, to teach me, to push me beyond, to know my talents and make me realize who I was.    How did I walk away from this?   Now older he returns again and I welcome him like a lost lover.  He moves through me and my body knows him oh so well.  Sometimes I think my body is endlessly waiting for him.  She loves to fly and glide and show her  grace.  He allows her this luxury as he always has.  He still is true, so relentless in his expectation of me.  How can I resist the grace and the love in his eyes when we are together.  When he loves me like this I see the best in myself.  

The Grail Quest is Your Quest

William Morris, Vision of the Holy Grail, 1890
www.mcgoodwin.net/pages/otherbooks/we_parzival.html

"The Grail Hero- particularly in the person of Parzival, the "Great Fool" is the forthright, simple, uncorrupted, noble son of nature, without guile, strong in the purity of the yearning of his heart..... in the end, as in the case of Parzival, the guide within will be his own noble heart alone, and the guide without, the image of beauty, the radiance of divinity, that wakes in his heart amor: the deepest, inmost seed of his nature, consubstantial with the process of the All, "thus come." And in this life-creative adventure the criterion of achievement will be... the courage to let go the past, with its truths, its goals, its dogmas of "meaning" and its gifts: to die to the world and come to birth from within." Joseph Campbell

The Holy Grail represents the human pursuing their highest spiritual attainment. This is a very western story. The Holy Grail is only the end boon, but it is the journey to this place and or state that finally the grail will reveal itself. It will not be clear to the hero until the hero attains the right state of mind and soul. The Grail is not a factual or physical thing, but a representation of the ultimate spiritual attainment. It would be similar to Nirvana in the East.
The spiritual quest is one where the individual's talent is important. This is opposite of the Eastern view of spiritual enlightenment. In the East the Buddha or guru all follow the same type of path to attain Nirvana, and to extinguishing the ego completely is the goal. There is a problem with this in the west since from the minute we are born our ego is promoted- shaped by our wants, talents and desires. In the East the ego is only there for a small measure because your path is so set out for you. You must marry, get a career, raise children. They do not push you to develop your talents like we do in the west. So when the western person goes to an Eastern guru we really have a hard time going into that space were we must get rid of the giant ego that has been at the center of our life since we can remember. Many would say this is bad but it is not it is only a different approach. What is the bad thing is misunderstanding our western mythology, which is mostly the story of Christ. He is our Buddha, but he is so above us and so chosen as in factual incarnation of god's only son we have become lost. The Christ story is so literal that we can not understand it on a metaphorical level that speaks to our inner yearning. Since the church as stated he is "The Son of God" and there is no other then his journey is not one we can pursue. This story must be approached differently and can be a guide if you get a different interpretation.
The Grail or Twelfth century stories are another approach to the spiritual quest of the western man. The nature is similar to the Buddha's issues of overcoming attachment to this and that, which distracts you from your spiritual nature. Compassion is the key also to your approach to your inner wisdom. The Grail quest begins with each night entering the forest on his own and where there is no path ever trodden upon. This is how western man must approach his spiritual quest. We are unique and it is up to us to find that talent and the thing that speaks to us, that erases the ego eventually and leads us to our center and where bliss takes over. Now your never going to get rid of that Giant Ego but you will know how to go to your center, or the creative place so that bliss and joy flows through you and you can deal with the sorrowful life that will greet you at every turn. We can not get rid of the sorrow because time means things decay and eventually die. So what shall we do in the in between? The struggle or initiation is seeking your path, the path that is uniquely yours. What tool do we use on this quest? Compassion with ourselves and others will be the first centering component, then courage and persistence. It will not be easy. The reason it will not be easy is because we have so many people saying " you should and you shan't" so you must throw off what society says you must do. If you are traveling down the path that your father or mother laid out for you, you are on the wrong path. This is hard because their is a whole lot of society, especially media, spinning a picture of what you should do. To ignore the TV alone is a heroic accomplishment in itself. To not focus on money every single minute of the day is another heroic accomplishment. And you are on your way.
"In the grail legends, the land of people doing what they think they ought to do or have to do is the wasteland. What is the wasteland to you? I know damned well what the wasteland would be to me: the academic approach to my material; or a marriage to someone who had no thoughts or feelings for me or my work. Living with such a person would be the wasteland." Joseph Campbell.
The initiation- the task is to become individuated. Jung says this about an individuated person. " ... to live as a released individual, one has to know how and when to put on and to put off the masks of one's various life roles.... The aim of individuation requires that one should find and then learn to live out of one's own center, in control of one's for and against. And this cannot be achieved by enacting and responding to any general masquerade of fixed roles."
It is a constant quest toward your evolvement here on Earth. It is not a two week course or a 12 step program. If you think of the discipline a knight had to go through and all of his attributes; honor, courage, courtesy, compassion, loyalty and more, these give you tools to travel along the path. The journey becomes one of inner seeking and believing deeply that you are worthy of such a journey. The compassion must be applied to yourself and for many this will be the most difficult task. To believe one hundred percent that you deserve to have joy, pursue your dream and live in bliss daily. So get your Parzival shoes on and enter the darkest spot of the forest where the vines are so think there is no way to get through, yet you pull your sword out and cut through because you know deep in your heart you will find the Holy Grail. You were made for this quest.