To this day, these are the sports of kings, the sports of the aristocracy!

Archery as an example of art relates to the mind so it’s about bringing balance to the human mind, actually in and of itself. It’s what sharpens the human intellect—archery! In and of itself.

Likewise wrestling relates to anger that is inside the human being. It’s how you temper anger.

Third of them, the riding of horses, that’s related to temper desire. It’s how you begin to bring balance to one’s desire.

And swimming relates to something which is higher, it relates to the human spirit!

How does the spirit now move into what you consider to be the void, into a state of non-existence? Swimming! How do you reduce yourself to zero? We learn that through swimming.

The Prophet ﷺ perfected both diving or horizontal swimming and vertical swimming. We have traditions of him doing both but his greater perfection and love was in diving. What is the reality of the vertical relationship? The human being’s entire mass is lifted! He becomes weightless, massless, nothing! And thereby one acquires a higher philosophy, a higher meaning of all of these art, and if you understand them at a more profound philosophical, martial level, every single one of them is about reducing the human being to zero! It’s about fanaa!

Archery is how the archer becomes one with the target. And how does it go into a state of fanaa (annihilation of the ego)? How does it become one with the target? You’re not shooting at something beyond you but you’re shooting that yourself such that you’re entering what into what’s called the void what’s called fanaa, inside of the reality of spirituality, inside of Islam.

Same with swimming—swimming is about how do you become zero or massless! that’s what the Prophet ﷺ perfected from a child when he was five or six years of age.

Wrestling likewise...how does the wrestler become one with his opponent? He’s able to manipulate the actual strength of his opponent. So that’s called the void in martial arts; and one of the works which people should read if they’re into martial arts is a book called the sphere of the five rings. The author discusses what the higher philosophy of martial arts and the highest in that regard is how do you lose yourself in whatever discipline that you are actually practicing, which is the way of Islam.

Horse riding is similar. You become one with the horse...

Highly recommended: The Book of Five Rings (Go Rin No Sho), a text on kenjutsu and the martial arts in general, written by the Japanese swordsman Miyamoto Musashi around 1645.

http://www.yama-dojo.ca/resources/Miy...

#weights #running #walking #swimming #wrestling #archery #horseriding #excellence #fanaa #BroadenYourMind