The Spirituality of the
Inner Game: Self 3
Sean Brawley
At a recent Inner Game of Tennis workshop for 16 people, all 16 players were able to have consistent rallies of 30-40 balls with moderate pace in less than two hours. This was unusual because usually at least a few people struggle with the Inner Game approach, which involves letting go of constantly trying to control one's actions and instead practicing the art of relaxed focus and trusting in their powerful intuitive ability to perform.
Transpersonal
What wasn't unusual though was that four players described having transcendent experiences that were "transpersonal" or beyond the ego and far from their normal experience.
Two players shared with the group about entering a flow state where they felt one with the ball and the person across the net. They felt the rhythm of the exchange in their bodies and a sense of "effortless effort."
Another player described feeling great joy and the pleasure simply of hitting the ball, without concern of whether the ball went in or not. She was absolutely beaming.
And the fourth player expressed with water in her eyes, an experience of entering a trance-like, hypnotic state, where she was so absorbed in what she was doing that she quite literally lost herself—or her idea of herself—and simply rested in her Being. While a highly unusual experience for her, she paradoxically said it also felt "normal" and far more "her" than anything she had ever experienced before.
While the Inner Game approach has helped literally millions of people learn and perform better in a wide variety of sports, business and in life, what rarely gets talked about is the spiritual aspect of the Inner Game and the possibility of achieving peak experiences while playing tennis or golf.
Self 3
One reason for this might be due to Tim Gallwey himself. In the original version published in 1974, he wrote one of the most beautiful descriptions of our True Self—what Gallwey referred to as Self 3—that I had ever read. At the time it was very much aligned with other spiritual books such as Zen and the Art of Archery by Eugen Heigel and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig.
But against my strong advice and with my deep disappointment, Gallwey removed this section on Self 3 when he revised the book in 1997 and even went as far as to explicitly say in the introduction that the book was not spiritual.
Gallwey wrote, "I have wanted to make it very clear to readers that my work with the Inner Game has nothing to do with mysticism or spirituality. I do believe that there is a profound dimension in all human beings that one can aspire to know. But I don't know what that has to do with learning tennis."
And yet hundreds of players who have let go of their judgment and fear and focused their attention in a relaxed way on the ball or the tension in their bodies or their balance in my Inner Game workshops and lessons over the years have indeed entered that profound dimension of their being.
Zen
Although Gallwey never studied Zen Buddhism many people over the years have noted similarities and perhaps for good reason. The word "zen" comes from a Chinese word "cha'an," which in turn is derived from a Sanskrit word "dhyana" which means meditation.
The person who is perhaps best known for bringing Zen Buddhism to the West is D.T. Suzuki who came from the Rinzai Sect. Rinzai practice emphasizes "acting through not acting" and "effortless effort," which of course is what many people feel when they are in flow states. This sect also believes that there is no difference between the secular and the spiritual, that is between practical daily life and spiritual practice.
Secular acts cited in Rinzai texts include the well-known Japanese tea ceremony, swordsmanship, and archery. These secular acts are transformed into contemplative disciplines and used as a means of spiritual training. There are four types of meditation or dhyanas. See if you can see similarities in what the tennis players described above:
"The first dhyana is an exercise in which the mind is made to concentrate on one single subject until all the coarse affective elements are vanished from consciousness except the serene feelings of joy and peace. But the intellect is still active, judgement and reflection operate upon the object of contemplation. When these intellectual operations too are quieted and the mind is simply concentrated on one point, it is said that we have attained the second dhyana, but the feelings of joy and peace are still here. In the third stage of dhyana, perfect serenity obtains as the concentration grows deeper, but the subtlest mental activities are not vanished and at the same time a joyous feeling remains. When the fourth and last stage is reached, even this feeling of self-enjoyment disappears, and what prevails in consciousness now is perfect serenity of contemplation."
Sport psychologist Terry Orlick says for an athlete the ultimate state is where flow is achieved which yields a sense of "one-ness and no-mind." For Orlick, this means primarily moving beyond thinking about technique and letting go to the unconscious, intuitive mind. This is true for the intermediate player or seasoned pro.
"If one really wishes to be master of an art, technical knowledge is not enough. One has to transcend the technique so that the art grows out of the unconscious..."
The Ultimate Goal
I'll end this article with Gallwey's description of the goal of the inner game in the original version:
"So the search is on, the search for the goal of the inner game. Players of the game have given many names to this goal. Some call it self-knowledge, some call it soul, others reality. It has been called Truth, Love, Joy, Beauty, Consciousness and God…The sincere desire alone will lead one to the discovery of a practical method for uncovering what could be called Self 3. Then the only instrument required is the human body itself in which consciousness is able to be aware of itself. Realizing this goal is within the capabilities of all of us and not the special privilege of any elite."
