Chapter 17: Team Love

Ceres by Masaki Hikari

When Love’s children decided to focus on their differences, instead of the connections that make us One, Love said to all of the divine messengers: “If we can just get people to live together in communities, they will support each other, and working together they will create a peaceful world.  Now they wander around, hunting and gathering their food wherever they can find it. If some of you teach them how to plant crops and domesticate animals, they can stay in one place. Their tribes will grow in numbers, and they will have more opportunities to learn about loving other people!”

So Love appointed gods and goddesses to teach the art of sowing and plowing in different parts of the world.  Isis was the one who went to Northern Africa.  Demeter-Ceres worked with the people who would build the Greek and Roman Empires.  There was Uga-no-Mitama, who taught agriculture to the Japanese; Ardwinna, who went to the British Isles; Lakshmi who helped the people of India; Hou-chi, who went to China;  Itzpzpalotl, who taught the Aztecs of Mexico; and quite a few others whose names didn’t made it into the mythology books. 

         As tribe members learned the art of agriculture and gave up their nomadic lifestyle; settlements cropped up near rivers and seas. Inhabitants of the various settlements stressed the differences between themselves, and easily came up with excuses to raid each other to obtain goods, people to enslave, or more land to occupy.

         "At least the members of each settlement are learning to love each other,” one of the angels said to another.

“Usually,” responded a sympathetic goddess.

“I’d say sometimes,” another angel commented.

“Right,” the first angel sighed.

“Camaraderie among people on the same side of a conflict is a good first step toward the achievement of Oneness,” Love proclaimed. “Let’s not feel discouraged just because our children are slow in remembering their true nature. We will persevere, and all will be One again.”

“Since people want to engage in conflict, and they’re always trying to best the enemy, let’s teach them how to compete peacefully. If they engage in competitive games, they will experience solidarity with their comrades, without having to kill their foes,” Love said, with an extra shimmer of Light. “And they may find out that it’s even more fun!”

A flurry of gods, goddesses, and angels went out to all parts of the world, to teach humanity the art of team sports. The first ball game was introduced in Mesoamerica, where the people were in great need of an outlet for their violent tendencies. Love’s messengers taught the Mayans how to make balls by extracting latex from rubber trees and mixing it with the juice from Morning Glory vines, which grew abundantly throughout Mesoamerica, which is now known as Central America. The gods had as much fun as the Mayans did, as they invented and taught different ball games in each settlement or city.  One of these games required team members to pass the ball through a ring by using their hips. In Teotihuacan, players hit the ball with a wooden stick. In Mexico, the Aztecs learned a game in which points were gained when the ball hit the wall behind the opposite team.  The team that managed to hit the ball through a ring was the victor.

It was Love’s intention that these games be played purely for enjoyment, but human beings find it difficult to focus on fun when they are continually haunted by fear: the fear that someone else will get more than their fair share of the earth’s abundance, the fear of the unknown, or the fear that they may accidentally commit a sin that will anger the gods and cause disease, famine, earthquakes, or drought.

The Mesoamericans thought they had to make sacrifices to their gods in order to maintain the balance and cycle of life.  Just as they killed animals for food, and used their rotting entrails to fertilize the ground so that it could bring forth new life, the Mayans and Aztecs believed their gods needed sacrifices of animals for food and fertilizer, to keep them fat and happy. So some of their ball games became religious events which ended in the ritual sacrifice of the losing team, or at least certain of its members; for instance, the captain! 

“So much for that plan, Love,” said Xochipilli, the Aztec god of games. “I taught them how to play a peaceful game and look what they’re doing!”

“I agree, it’s a shame,” Love commiserated. “But this is no reason to despair. I never said the road to enlightenment would be easy or short. There is still less bloodshed in the game than there is in a battle. In battle, the warriors’ hearts are filled with hatred. In games, most of the players are striving for excellence, knowing that their best efforts will support their teammates and please the gods they believe in. This is one little step toward our goal of a united people. And we have all the time we need to guide them the rest of the way!”

Xochipilli laughed at Love’s joke about time. And in that existence outside of time and space, Love’s messengers have continued to invent all sorts of games and athletic events to share with humankind.  The team sports have taught people about camaraderie, and how to cooperate with other people to achieve a goal. And every athlete, whether a member of a team, or a participant in an individual sport, has learned how to strive for excellence: an ability that has served humanity well in every aspect of their evolution.

In ancient times, Love’s messengers  inspired the Greeks to hold a contest for athletes at Olympia. The first Olympic sporting events included discus and javelin throwing, equestrian events, jumping, running, and wrestling.  The Olympic Games encouraged people to admire the diversity of excellence among athletes.

“Eventually people will come to admire the diversity of the human race in every aspect.” The angels and gods agreed, congratulating each other on the farsightedness of their scheme. And because the Olympic Games were inspired by divine beings and considered to be a religious event, it was sacrilegious for anyone to commit a crime or to launch an invasion during the games. A respite of peace for a few days, once every four years!

 But once the Olympics were initiated, men stopped listening to divine wisdom and employed some of their own ideas. They decided to dedicate the event to Zeus, honored by the ancient Greeks as the king of the gods: god of peace and justice. The great sculptor, Pheidias, carved a 42-foot high gold and ivory statue of Zeus for the temple at Olympia. This marvel did not upset the gods very much, especially not Zeus; even though it stole some of the glory from the athletes who were supposed to be the main honorees of the games. What really upset Love’s messengers was the introduction of boxing and pankration to the list of Olympic events.

“Pankration!” Zeus rumbled when he heard about it. “What will those humans think of next!”

The Greek term, pankration, means “all powers.”  The sport allows all powers of strength, including those used in boxing and wrestling, as well as chokeholds and kicking an opponent in the belly.  The poet, Xenophanes, labeled pankration “that new and terrible contest.”  As if that wasn’t terrible enough, the male athletes decided to limit the games to men and they forbid married women to attend. They required the priestess who represented Demeter to grace the games with her presence, and they enjoyed showing off for the unmarried maids. But a matron who dared to enter the stadium during the games risked losing her life. Oh well . . . so the Olympics were a mix of good and not-so-good elements, as were all things once they were touched by human hands and human minds.

Love continued to dispatch athletic coaches to earth to teach the rules of the sports that would appeal to different groups of people in various times and places. When the Persian Empire’s cavalry developed the game of polo to train for battle, some of Love’s emissaries showed the horsemen how to divert their skills into a sport that would become a national pastime, although the sport was enjoyed mainly by the nobility. Other ball games, such as baseball, football, soccer, and cricket, were not introduced until the 1800’s when advancements in industry brought more leisure time to the middle classes.  

Love’s angels had been deeply involved in the industrial revolution because the wisdom of All-That-Is called for a shift from humanity’s survival-oriented existence to a lifestyle that allowed time for the pursuit of passionate interests. When team sports were added to the array of solitary activities that people chose to devote themselves to, players learned the importance of helping others to succeed in order to win a game. And realizing that two opposing teams have to agree to follow the same rules was a major step toward learning the advantages of cooperation.

Over the centuries, as athletes were learning how to cooperate as sports team members, societal structures were also growing and changing with the guidance of divine mentors. Settlements and tribes melded to form city-states; empires grew and crumbled, and nations emerged from the rubble. Countries were ruled by kings who amassed power and wealth by crushing the populace with heavy taxes and stringent laws. Despite their oppressive governments, the people of each nationality developed love of country because of their shared history, culture, traditions, arts, and religious beliefs. The angels were rarely able to find a crack in the well-armored ego of each country’s aristocracy through which they might whisper messages of love; but they found many ways to encourage the peasantry who were always looking for distractions from the grinding poverty they lived in.

The establishment of national governments planted the seeds of patriotism in the hearts of citizens everywhere. A deep love of country served the goals of both worldly and heavenly rulers. Kings and queens, and later presidents and prime ministers, used the patriotism of their people as motivation for war. How easy it was to send young men into battle to defend their homeland when the real purpose of the war was to acquire power and wealth for the beneficiaries of dualism. But patriotism has also served the goals of Love, fostering feelings of oneness among millions of individuals who share a similar ethnicity.

“Oh, Love, the number of countries in the world keeps growing!” Mother Earth exclaims with astonishment. “How will we ever bring them together into one harmonious creation when there is so much diversity?  And nearly everyone thinks their country is the greatest!”

“True. True.” Chuckles Love. “But the greater the diversity, the greater will be the Love when all realize they are equally great, wonderful, and divine.”