The Need to Continue Playing Spiritual Games

My thanks to those who have sent me emails telling me how much they have enjoyed the recent posts. However, I've also received a few emails from those adverse to the ideas presented. My thanks to those folks, too.

For the serious player my opinions are almost sacrilege. How dare I impugn the sacred. Even for the devout spiritualist there are rules that must not be questioned. Unfortunately, the "sacred" is as much a game as any other.

Nevertheless, The definition of" game," as presented by Webster has all the ingredients of the modern spiritual game. It is often engaged for "amusement" or "diversion" (since how many of us live in a monastery or ashram like many serious players) and is often a very shady "racket" with numerous racketeers (gurus, priests, saints, teachers, masters, etc).

It has numerous strict rules and often involves a great deal of suffering (for many suffering, sacrifice and burden are paramount and the most important rule of play). Of course, there is also a great deal of "derisive or making jests" by the competing teams (Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Atheist, Advaitist, Integralist, New Age, etc, etc) and there is always the institutional field of "expertise," codified either through text or "lineage" and expressed by those chosen as expert by a consensus of serious players (and, of course, all serious players want the title of expert, teacher, master, ambassador, spokesperson, etc, so it behooves them to identify other masters who can pass on the title to them. This is called the guru-master racket).

However, I love playing the spiritual game as well (it's "fun") and, therefore, I have no intention of stopping play as I revel in it. For me the problem are the rules we tend to set depending on what team you play on. Many religions and spiritual ideologies adhere to such rules and thus, the play is no longer surprising, but serious players get points for adhering to the rules. Problem is this tends to limit the players who wish to bend the rules and so, they tend to move on.

I'm all for rules, since, in the game of life, we play by rules. The problem is when the rules become rigid and finite, allowing no transformation or transcendence from the rules. This tends to result in stagnation (and little opportunity for surprise) because folks tend to forget that it is a game that they have willingly chosen to play. Once you forget that you are playing a game, you become a serious player following serious rules that must not be changed. Centuries of war have erupted in just such a way.

Actually, I enjoy playing the game with serious players, but they often don't like playing with me.

Nevertheless, Never stop playing!

Peace Angels,
mike S