Submitted to:
Prof. Julian M. D'Arcy
British and American Sports Literature
Department of English, Faculty of Humanities
University of Iceland, May 2003
The following paper deals with the genre of sports literature. It offers a study of the most significant works that the philosopher, poet, sportsman and spiritual teacher Sri Chinmoy has written in this field.
The present analysis of Sri Chinmoy’s writings on sports, particularly on running, will firstly be based on a cultural, historical and philosophical contextualisation of the works. This contextualisation will show how Sri Chinmoy’s writings are rooted in a strong Hindu spiritual background, and how they embody a multi-faceted discipline which encompasses spiritual (yogic), philosophical, aesthetic, artistic and practical values, and which acknowledges the magnificence of human life and aspires towards its gradual and integral perfection.
The analysis will further show how Sri Chinmoy’s writings have great validity within our contemporary Western culture and way of life, as they propose answers to acute modern cultural problems. It will be seen how the author's proposals share an astounding affinity with the answers to the same problems proposed by Western post-structuralist schools of thought that use play-theory as an important element of their discourse.
Being a study on sports literature, this paper also aspires to show how not only the literature but also the sports that inspire the literature can be equally experienced at spiritual, philosophical, aesthetic and artistic (poetic) levels. View the complete PDF