Written: May 8, 2009
This game of life is rigged. It’s just that we don’t give a great deal of thought to how it’s rigged, but it is nonetheless.
The truth is hidden in plain sight.
Here is one way it is designed. Life is set up so that “the truth will set you free.” (1) We can see that even from the smallest of events.
Some days ago I left my bag on the bus and I was searching for the name of the feeling I was experiencing at that moment. A near miss would not set me free. It has to be exact. (Try it and see.)
Shame? No, I experienced no release. Guilt? No, no release yet. Try again. Regret? Yes! I experienced a release of tension. It just clicked into place. The truth had indeed set me free.
We can make all kinds of statements and they will have no effect, but the truth will have the effect of setting us free. Why?
Because the game of life is set up that way. It is designed as a game of hide and seek. The truth (God) is hidden and finding the truth sets us free.
The trail to God is from greater to greater truth. Knowing the Son of God (also known as the Self, the Atman, the Pearl of great price, the Treasure buried in a field, the grain of mustard seed) is less than knowing God the Father (I and my Father are one but my Father is greater than I). (2)
Both are the truth, but the truth of the Father is greater than the truth of the Son (or, as Hindus would say, the knowledge of Brahman is greater than the knowledge of Atman). We are led from truth to truth by the actions of the natural law and finding the greatest truth sets us free from the round of birth and death.
Here is another way it is rigged. You might say, “Give up desire if you want to know God.” No, no, not all desires must be given up. The game is set up so that one desire alone is allowed. Said Sri Krishna:
I am all that a man may desire
Without transgressing
The law of his nature. (3)
God has set things up so that one thing only can be desired and that is Him (Her, It). The game is rigged.
The natural law lays out the manner in which the game is designed. Follow the natural law and the path leads back to God. Don’t follow it and you are mired in complication and upset.
Some other natural laws include “what you sow, you reap” and “like attracts like.”
Sure, we have free will. About as much as a tethered cow. For the rest, all is ruled by natural law. All is rigged.
And not only rigged. But we are rewarded with bliss for each step forward we take on the path. Tell the truth and you are set free from the pain and upset of the untruthful condition.
Tell a big enough truth and you are left in bliss.
Desire God with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul (that is the First Commandment, it is not?) (4) and you are drenched in bliss.
Not like bliss may be the final destination, but it makes the ride pretty enjoyable.
Throw in your cards. No use bargaining. It’s all a huge set-up. We set up the game, agreed to play, and then we forgot.
But, under these wonderful energies, we are all beginning to remember. And now, instead of the train lurching, we begin to know how to work the toggles and switches. We begin to sense mastery and a bigger and bigger stage to play upon.
The formless God wanted to meet Himself (Herself, Itself). And so He split himself into numberless forms and set them the task of realizing Him. He created a game.
With a wonderful prize that every one of us is fated to win, one way or the other.
Win and we experience the infinite joy of re-uniting with Him. Lose and we experience the infinite joy of re-uniting with Him.
Footnotes
(1) John 10:30 and 14:28.
(2) And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. (Jesus, John 8:32.)
(3) Sri Krishna in Bhagavad-Gita, trans. Prabhavananda and Isherwood, 71.
(4) Deuteronomy 6:5.
