As I watched the Games, I realised that this was the tip of the iceberg in the world of sporting hopefuls. For every athlete competing, there must be thousands who dropped out along the way. Thousands who have developed a subconscious programme of ‘I’m not good enough.’ As a result of this, and other major sporting events like the annual World Championships, along with the Olympic Games, hundreds of thousands of young people become deeply imprinted with the belief in winning and losing, success and failure.

The Commonwealth Games are really and truly uncommon wealth Games. They are certainly not common, happening once in four years, but for the few elite athletes who win the sporting competitions most favoured by the sponsors, there is indeed great wealth. It would be easy to get cynical about the commercialisation of the Games, it is so blatant, but they will continue and a few young people will gain both fame and fortune . . . for a while.

I confess to a certain admiration and respect for the focus, dedication, and sheer perseverance of the so-called winners. Without any question they deserve their medals, they certainly earn them. The elite few know that they will be moving from athletics into advertising and business, so they have plenty of incentive. And incentive is the key word. When you have financial security dangled before you like a carrot on a stick, you have incentive. Failing this, the next big incentive is ego, probably the most powerful of all. A huge percentage of the population believes that fame and wealth makes them a better person, a success, so they are driven by the demands of their ego. This is neither good or bad, right or wrong; it is just part of the illusions of life.

The Commonwealth Games are about sport, and sport is about competition. And what is competition? Here we go . . . back to the illusion of winners and losers, success and failure. In our consensus reality, competition is about finding who is the best, which implies that there must be a worst. You cannot have a best without the worst. So if you are a competitive runner with a powerful physical body that is genetically favoured with a fast metabolism, and you can run faster than anyone else in the world, this makes you the fastest runner. So what? This does not make you a better or superior person, just a fast runner, which will quickly fade when you retire from competitive sport. However, you do have to practice, focus, be dedicated, and persevere, or one of your opponents will beat you, so there is merit to be gained in the process of becoming the fastest runner.

All in all, it is a mixed bag. You have the hard earned merits that have made you a champion, but you are left with an indelible belief in competition. You have been shaped and moulded into a competitor. So, let us look at this from a metaphysical viewpoint.

All life is One holistic expression. Despite the physical illusion, nothing in Nature competes against other life forms. Life does not compete against life. Nature is the continuous process of consciousness drawing to itself physical form through which to express, with the physical form constantly reintegrating back into consciousness. We call this birth and death in the process of evolution. From our illusion of separation, we also see it as competitive.

If you are a competitor, you see life as competitive; if you are spiritually aware, you see life as seamlessly holistic.

You can only compete against. Against other competitors, against the clock, against the record, against yourself, and . . . against life. The so-called winner is the person who is so flushed with so-called success that they are convinced ‘winners are grinners’ as they say in Oz. In Truth, you cannot win or lose in life because life is not an outside-of-Self event. In the world of physical sport, the so-called losers may well have trained just as hard as the so-called winners, but genetically they had less in the bag!

Competition is a fascinating paradox. It has no true reality, yet it is our competitiveness that will physically take us from the surface of this planet out to the stars. Competition is uniquely human, and used with caution and respect holds enormous potential. Using competition as a boost to our energy holds great value, yet believing that life is an ongoing competition will render that value useless. We are designed to grow holistically; competition is a creation of illusion, of separation, of believing that one can gain while another loses. For as long as we believe in success and failure, we will remain spiritually unenlightened.

The common wealth of competition is that it reveals our potential; the down side is that it creates the illusion of winners and losers. If we lived one so-called lifetime, then winners and losers would be a reality, but this is not how life works. Life is the endless continuity of consciousness; you and I are the endless continuity of Self. Over a period of many so-called lifetimes, success and failure, winning and losing is revealed as the illusion it truly is if you are a fully committed student of Truth, rather than chasing the illusions of wealth.

Imagine now a Commonwealth Games of Spiritually! You have just become Spiritually enlightened after a few hundred lifetimes of chasing Self-realisation. In front of a capacity crowd, you suddenly realise that there is nothing to chase. As you line up with the other spiritual seekers awaiting the starter’s signal, you see the illusion for what it is. Some of these seekers are only a few years into their spiritual enquiry, while others have devoted lifetimes. Instead of racing, you sit down and surrender to Truth. You pierce the illusion. All these spiritual athletes are aspects of Self, each representing a competitive expression you have carried endlessly. You see this, and let go. You cannot win or lose - you are life. You are metaphysical. You are multidimensional. You are a Being of Light. You are magnificent. You realise that all competition is illusion. Why? Because there is nothing outside of Self. You are One with All, physically separate, spiritually One.

Imagine now the cheering as the Light of Self illuminates the whole arena. All the other spiritual seekers feel the profound Truth that you have encountered, and come running over to you. They lift you to their shoulders and you are carried around the track, the cheers of the crowds washing over you.

Ahead awaits a ticker-tape parade through the capitol city nearest where you live, with accolades of love and adoration from the masses, and tributes from the heads of State. Sponsors will flock to you offering you vast wealth if you will only speak of Truth to their corporations so that they can deal more truthfully with the public. You will now be sought by the media for your great wisdom, as the public gives credit to, and is inspired by, the spiritual insights that now move within your enlightened consciousness.

Can you imagine this? Don’t even bother. When you leave the illusion you do it alone. What a paradox. As you connect with the All, you are more alone as a person than you have ever experienced. No ticker-tape parades. No tributes, no accolades, even though you have just achieved a state of consciousness that is rare in humanity. In fact, no recognition at all. You have just stepped onto a pinnacle that is beyond the sight of the illusion. Truth can easily see the illusion, but illusion is blind to Truth. This is what human life is about. Stepping from the shadows of illusion into the Light of Truth. This is the uncommon wealth which lies buried and forgotten in the soul of every human Being.

As, individually, the Games of illusion finally end for us, the Truth of Self becomes our common wealth.

In Love and Light,
Michael