Gate 183: לק — COSMIC PLAY (LILA)

לק

Pillar 7: THE RETURN

[183:1] "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood

as a child,

[183:2] I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away

childish things."

[183:3] --- 1 Corinthians 13:11

[183:4] "This whole creation is the play (lila) of the

Divine,

[183:5] who delights in the game of hide and seek with itself."

[183:6] --- Hindu teaching

[183:7] "The universe is God playing hide and seek with

Himself."

[183:8] --- Alan Watts

[183:9] [183:1] The Hebrew לג (Lag) evokes "festival"---and

creation is the festival of the One, the cosmic celebration, the divine

play.

[183:10] [183:2] The Sanskrit word is lila---play, sport, the

spontaneous activity of one who has nothing to achieve, nothing to gain,

nothing to prove. The universe, in this view, is not a grim necessity

but a joyful game. God plays---not because God lacks something but

precisely because God lacks nothing. Play is what fullness does.

[183:11] [183:3] What is the game? Hide and seek. The One hides

itself by becoming many; the many seek to find what they truly are; the

moment of finding is ecstatic reunion---and then the game begins again.

You are both hider and seeker, and the joy is in both roles: the thrill

of forgetting, the thrill of remembering.

[183:12] [183:4] This view solves the problem of evil---not

intellectually but existentially. If existence is play, then suffering

is not meaningless torment but part of the game. The child who plays at

being frightened (watching a scary movie, riding a roller coaster)

chooses a kind of suffering for the sake of the experience. The soul may

choose difficulty for the same reason.

[183:13] [FIGURE 183.1: Children playing hide and seek---one

covering eyes and counting while others hide. Caption: "The cosmic

game: the One counts while the many hide, then seeks and finds itself

everywhere."] [183:5] Lila does not trivialize pain. The pain is

real while it lasts; the player fully inhabits the role. But knowing

that it is play changes the relationship to pain. You can suffer without

being defeated by suffering, struggle without being crushed by

struggle---because you remember, somewhere, that you chose the game.

[183:14] [183:6] The adult puts away childish things---but the

sage recovers them at a higher level. The child plays unconsciously; the

sage plays consciously. Between them is the serious adult who has

forgotten play, who believes the game is deadly earnest, who has

mistaken the costume for the self. The return to play is the return to

joy.

[183:15] [183:7] Art is lila. The artist creates not from lack

but from fullness---overflowing into form. Music is lila. The musician

plays (note the word) for the joy of playing, making patterns that need

not exist but are more beautiful for their gratuitousness. Love is lila.

Lovers play with and for each other, needing nothing, giving everything.

[183:16] [183:8] If the universe is play, then you are free. Not

free in the sense of arbitrary---the game has rules, structure,

consequences---but free in the sense that the whole enterprise is

voluntary, creative, meaningful in itself rather than instrumental to

some grimly serious purpose. You are here to experience, to grow, to

play.

[183:17] [183:9] The opposite of play is not work but

compulsion---the grim necessity that sees no choice, no joy, no creative

possibility. You can work playfully (and should). You can love playfully

(and must). You can even suffer playfully---not denying the pain but

holding it in a larger context where pain is part of a chosen adventure.

[183:18] [183:10] Come, let us play. The festival is on; the

game is afoot; the One is hiding in plain sight, waiting to be found.

And when you find it, you will laugh---because it was you all along,

playing both parts, seeker and sought, lost and found, the cosmic joke

whose punchline is love.

[183:19] See Also: • Gate 2: אג (Ag) --- The Gate of the First

Question (the game begins) • Gate 3: אד (Ad, "Mist, Vapor") --- The

Gate of Perfect Imperfection (why the game is played) • Gate 26: בז

(Baz, "Plunder") --- The Gate of the Mirror (hide and seek with

reflection) • Gate 178: כר (Kar, "Pasture") --- The Gate of Union (the

finding)