THE IDEAL OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION

Physical education a practical discipline means a systematic development of the body, its health, strength and capabilities. However there are many such disciplines and each one of them has a philosophy of life behind it. There are, for example, systems, which regard the body as a complete fact in itself and then try to cultivate it as such and make it a more efficient physical instrument. There are also systems, which regard man as not only a physical body, but as an active mind also. They seek to develop the body but make use of the mind, to enhance and develop the health, strength and capabilities of the body. This standpoint is now becoming increasingly popular.

But man is, in fact, a spiritual reality, a soul, a 'Psychic' Being, with mind and body as its instruments. Obviously then body could be cultivated as such and thereby given the benefit of the force and power of the deeper spiritual reality. And if that is done, it will more and more acquire the deeper equality of the soul, its forbearance, fortitude, endurance and invulnerability to external forces.

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We can thus, it will appear, have a system of physical end, which will seek to develop a spiritual quality in the body. This quality will naturally be different from the one where body is taken as the. sole fact and also from that where body and mind are taken together. Here our aim is to create a conscious contact between the body, mind and the soul, to open out the body and the mind to the influence of the soul, to let the soul act on the body and the mind or through one on the other. The result is that the force of a higher order, the spiritual, is able to work more and more on the other members and thereby lend some of its own immortal qualities to them. The way to achieve it is to act in the best possible consciousness of these facts, i.e., to seek physical education in the awareness of oneself as being a spiritual reality with mind and body as its instruments. Or at least to pursue the activities of physical education in the best of one's consciousness, with the fullest available awareness, in the midst of best cooperation of one's will and the spirit of joy and harmony and all this as self-giving and consecration to the soul within and the Divine in the universe. This psychological situation progressively works out a change in the physical of the body and makes it more and more open to the influence of the spirit, which begins to trans- form the essential being and quality of the body. The ordinary body is egoistically organised and it works and develops on the basis of the quantum of energy egoistically obtained and possessed by it The changed psychological situation involving self-giving and consecration makes it open to the universal source of energy and that means a new and a vast basis of life and energy. Evidently the possibilities of physical perfection will then become much greater. In fact this psychological approach initiates a process, which working through many grades of physical transformation is capable of realising a new quality of body as a whole, which Sri Aurobindo calls the Divine Body. The Divine Body is a body human in form, but fully possessed of the qualities of divine consciousness. It has an awareness, a sense of delight and a will which are divine in their nature and character. In the highest sense the realisation of such a body must be recognised as the ideal of physical education. But the way to it and the stages leading to it themselves afford a high foretaste of the great taste ultimately aimed at There is a clear and growing sense of the increase in energy, well being, health and capacity for physical performance.

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Ordinarily sportsmen achieve excellence by limiting their energy and application to one or two games. When physical education is  pursued in the best possible consciousness as above described, then such a breadth and intensity develops in consciousness that a limitation of the object of attention to achieve excellence in does not remain necessary. It becomes possible to command a many-sided excellence.

Such a pursuit of physical education, which involves the growth of consciousness in breadth as well as intensity, also becomes a means of the intellectual, moral and aesthetic growth of man. The reason is pretty obvious. Physical exercise and games are to be done with the fullest possible consciousness, i.e., with due intellectual, moral, aesthetic and spiritual appreciation. They would then naturally become means of these higher cultural aspects of life and by doing so would themselves occupy an important place in the integral education of man. And that is as it should be. The body is an integral part of total human personality and as such has its relation to other members of personality and therefore must be capable of making its contribution to their well-being, as they must be able to do to the well-being of the body. The body is not merely a mass of matter like any other. It is a matter that has been evolved and adapted to be able to bear the impact of human mind and soul and be their instrument and vehicle. As such it has a hand in their being and working and therefore it can be so cultivated as to help and facilitate their growth and working, as it can also be handicap and hindrance to them.

The ideal of physical education can thus be very high and large. It is not merely relative health, efficiency, strength and excellence in certain physical performances. Its proper aim is the growth and development of the body so as to make it a conscious participant in the full life of the integral personality. Our body is only imperfectly conscious of some of its functions. However, if the consciousness grows in it, we can be- come more and more conscious of them and then their power and efficiency improves. And if the integral personality also grows on it, we can become conscious of the different parts of our personality and being and achieve a proper unification amongst them, we begin to live a life, which is not limited to our conscious surface only but which comprehends the

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subconscious too and unites the subconscious to the conscious to the super conscious. In this integral consciousness and life the body-conciousness begins to take a place of privilege, so far as embodied existence on earth is concerned. Such a place of plenitude and perfection of (he body is the legitimate right and ideal of physical education. And while directly aiming at this status of perfection, it does also make a contribution to the growth of the integral personality too.

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