Green group children enjoy a game of Circle ball
…our base is our physical being, our body. Therefore we have to build up a body solid, healthy, enduring, skilful, agile and strong, ready for everything. There is no better way to prepare the body than physical exercise: sports, athletics, gymnastics, and all games are the best means to develop and strengthen the body.
– The Mother (CWM, 12:278)
Physical culture occupies a very important place in our life in the Ashram and the Centre of Education. As students we spent every evening in “Group”; in Green group as children, in Red or B group as adolescents and in C or D group as young adults.
Children engage in gymnastics in the Gymnasium Hall.
[The] basic programme will be to build a body that is beautiful in form, harmonious in posture, supple and agile in its movements, powerful in its activities and robust in its health and organic functioning.
– The Mother (CWM, 12:50)
We had wonderful facilities at our disposal.
Rock-climbing in the Gingee hills at Green group’s annual picnic.
My little ones, you are the hope, you are the future. Keep always this youth which is the faculty to progress; for you the phrase “it is impossible” will have no meaning.
– The Mother (CWM, 12:271)
And the captains and coaches gave us generously of their time.
Red group’s Swimming Competitions.
On this occasion of our physical education and sportive activities:
I must tell you once more that for us spiritual life does not mean contempt for Matter but its divinisation. We do not want to reject the body but to transform it. For this physical education is one of the means most directly effective.
So I invite you to participate in the programme beginning today with enthusiasm and discipline — discipline, because it is the indispensable condition of order; enthusiasm, because it is the essential condition of success.
Blessings.
– The Mother (CWM, 12,278)
We followed a rational and well-conducted programme that included athletics, gymnastics, exercises, combatives, aquatics and field games.
The 100m dash during the Men’s Athletics Competitions.
Replace the ambition to be first by the will to do the best possible.
Replace the desire for success by the yearning for progress.
Replace the eagerness for fame by the aspiration for perfection.
Physical Education is meant to bring into the body, consciousness and control, discipline and mastery, all things necessary for a higher and better life.
– The Mother (CWM, 12:275,276)
We had tournaments and competition seasons spread over the year.
A basketball match during the Women’s Games Tournament.
One can come out of all these competitions with a greater self-control and a detachment from results which are a great help to the formation of an exceptional character.
– The Mother (CWM, 9:96)
The tournaments helped to keep up the competitive spirit and give a push to the urge for progress.
Participants forming the symbol of the PED during the 2nd Dec demonstration.
…by means of a rational and discerning physical education, we must make our body strong and supple enough to become a fit instrument in the material world for the truth-force which wants to manifest through us.
– The Mother (CWM, 12:7)
The effort was not only to have a healthy body but also to become conscious and disciplined, to acquire grace and beauty, strength and endurance and to move towards the goal of physical perfection.
March Past in the Playground in front of the Mother’s symbol.
My children,
We are united towards the same goal and for the same accomplishment – for a work unique and new, that the divine Grace has given us to accomplish. I hope that more and more you will understand the exceptional importance of this work and that you will sense in yourselves the sublime joy that the accomplishment will give you.
The divine force is with you – feel its presence more and more and be careful never to betray it.
Feel, wish, act, that you may be new beings for the realisation of a new world and for this my blessings shall always be with you.
– The Mother (CWM, 12:274)