Game of Life

El Juego de la VIda - Game of Life

ROOPA: My mother asked that this question be asked. So, for her I’m asking the question‑‑for Nirmala. It’s a typical… never mind. If life was supposed to be the play of the Gods, why are so many people so miserable? When I am compassionate I can feel sorry for everyone, king or commoner, old or young, rich or poor. This world does not seem to be much of a playground for most people. What went wrong with God’s plan, or where is that joy you speak of? Most people never experience it. Thank you.

GURURAJ: Thank you. Life is not the play of the gods, but you are playing with the gods. So on the soccer field or football field, or whatever you call it here, you mess around. Twenty‑two people or whatever you have in the, you know, on both sides or whatever, and you toss the ball around and you blame it on the gods. The gods have nothing to do with the ball of your life and neither your, uh… They only use one ball don’t they? So, you are playing around with the gods, gods, the gods. Which means energies are not playing around with you. It depends, so much, on the energies that you use and how you use them. How you kick your balls… uh… the ball, that is important. You can always take vitamin B and vitamin E and C and, you know. It’ll help you to kick the ball better. So, to repeat again, the gods are not playing around with you, you are playing around with the gods, the various energies that be.

Now, to play around can be made into great fun. It could be very, very pleasurable. But if you get into conflicts with these energies, you can be kicked where you should not be and you get taken off the field of life. Do you see? So, life is a game and it will always remain a play. It’s a game that can be controlled by you. I’ve seen soccer players, for example, that would take a ball, a soccer ball‑‑soccer, you call it soccer?‑‑and hit it ten, twenty, times without it allowing to fall. But the amateur might hit it once and the ball falls. Do you see?

So, one needs this expertise in having full control of the ball. I was taken once to a soccer match where the ball was in front, but there was the opposition coming. So what he did, he fell on his back and kicked the ball backward right into the goal. There are ways of doing things in life. Life is a play. We do know that as Shakespeare said, and which I said before Shakespeare. But play the game well, play the game joyfully. Even if you have to lie on your back, okay. But score the goal. And the goal of life is to bring the joy into your life.

Now, gods, as I said before, are nothing but energies. And it depends upon you, because of your free will, how to use those energies. And if rightly used they could become joyful, wrongly used they could become painful. Yet, the pleasure and the pain is in your mind. I would play a soccer game‑‑I can’t anymore with these walking sticks‑‑I would play a soccer game for the sake of the play and not to score twenty goals. If my intention is in scoring more and more goals, I will lose the pleasure of the play itself.

So what is important? The importance lies in the play of life and when one plays life well. Throw the dice. Whatever numbers come up, so what? Have you got any control over it? You have control over throwing the dice, yes, but have you got any control on the numbers that turn up? You don’t, unless your dice, dices, dice? dice, are loaded.

So don’t load yourself with things which are totally unnecessary. The greatest problem man has in life is that they load themselves with things which are unnecessary. They load themselves with it. And when you throw your dice you expect number seven or number eleven or something, I don’t know, you know. You expect it to come up. Why expect it to come up? Because you want to win. And what are you really winning? Nothing at all. Those few bucks you make means nothing in the game of life. Play for the sake of playing and be guided by what happens. Don’t worry in which direction the ball turns, but go after it.

Now, what does that mean? It means your duty in life. Go after the ball and do not worry about the goal. But try and kick it hard enough so that the goal can be scored. So, this, of course in turn, would mean that life is a striving, and the harder you strive the better life could become. But people strive so much in wrong directions. If they should strive and put greater effort in the proper direction, towards those energies of the gods, then you will capture those energies. And by capturing those energies, you have the free will to use them in the proper direction which is required for your own personal happiness.

So, there are two factors here, as the questioner has asked. There are these gods and… there are no gods really, you are all gods as far as I’m concerned, but there are these energies. So, there are energies and there’s the play of life. Now, the secret would be how to combine the energies with the play of life. And to form a perfect balance requires spiritual practices where you capture those energies in the play of life. And the play of life captures in turn those energies, depending how you play. Do you see?

Life is a game, but for many it’s such a shame. It’s a shame because they do not play the game as it should be. They foul it up. I’m sure you know football where if you… well, I don’t know it well any more, [those were years by?]. But if you go… what do you call it? You go forward behind the something, it’s called a foul line, I don’t know, and then you go…