The Cosmic Play
by Martin Boroson ©2000
We humans seem hard-wired to wonder about the really big
questions, such as who we are, and what--if anything--God is. C. G. Jung once
said that although he could not prove the existence of God, as a psychiatrist
he knew that the human mind was built to have an experience of God. In other
words, just as our minds have “programs” that enable us to feel sadness, anger,
and ecstasy, and to think creatively and learn a language, so too have we a
program that can help us “read” life in a spiritual way. Even if we have not
experienced this program personally, it is reasonable to assume that it exists,
simply because so many sane and wise people, throughout time, have reported its
benefits. Providing that we can locate, download, and learn how to operate this
program, it can give us a pretty amazing experience, an experience that many
people call, among other names, God.
The greatest spiritual masters are those people who have
accessed and mastered the most powerful applications of this program. When
asked about the really big questions of life and death, creation and evolution,
they give us a remarkably consistent set of answers, sometimes called the
“cosmic game” or the “divine play”. This view provides some fascinating,
moving, and colorful answers to our most profound questions about why we are
here, and what is the nature of reality. My creation story, Becoming Me, tells
one version of this timeless spiritual viewpoint." ........
....... "At the summit of a spiritual search awaits a direct
experience of the ultimate, a kind of final destination. This experience gives
you a feeling of immense satisfaction, as if you had discovered a clearing in
the center of your soul, in which all things are embraced, and everything is profoundly
at peace. From this perspective, beyond time and space, there are no limits or
boundaries in the universe. Sometimes this is experienced as pure light, or
pure mind, or pure possibility. You are resting at the Source, the Creative
Potential behind all things. From the perspective of this Source, everything
else seems relative. The universe is a reduction of infinity, a sub-division of
the whole. Creation (and ourselves as parts of creation) are temporary
rearrangements of this seamless whole, and so we are not really independent,
separate things. In fact, we are not really real.
This isn’t how we normally think of ourselves. In our normal
state of consciousness, the world looks like it is composed of individual,
finite, and separate things. We know ourselves as a collection of things that
define us. We are a body, some feelings, some ideas, our past, and our imagined
future. These things define our boundaries, the difference between what is “me”
and what is “not-me”. Almost everything we do is geared to preserving (and
enhancing) those things that define us. But if you want to experience the
divine Source, you can’t do this as “you”, because you are just one bundle of
boundaries, and the Source itself is limitless, eternal, and boundless. And
this is why, if you are seeking the Source, you must ultimately empty yourself.
You must relax your boundaries. Your sense of self must die, which is just
another way of saying that you must discover that you are really an illusion.
What you thought was you is really just a set of limitations. You are, in fact,
the Source, pretending to be you.
But why then are we trapped in this apparent world of time
and space? Why do we believe our boundaries? Why does the divine Source bother
to create such an elaborate fantasy? The answers to these questions are best
summarized by the beautiful statement from the Kabbala: “people need God and
God needs people”. It seems that being Eternal and Infinite can be a bit
boring. Or that even God can get lonely, and crave a playmate. Or that God is
like a great artist or inventor, with so much creative talent that it simply
must make things. Creation begins when, once upon a time, on the still surface
of perfection, an urge or desire for something else bubbles up, like a wrinkle
in timelessness. And from this wrinkle, the created world, a sub-division of
infinity, begins.
From within itself, the Source gives birth to an imaginary
world, like an enormous film or play. We are characters in this film, unaware
of the drama we’re in, unaware of the Source who creates and projects us. God
is playing with us, and is playing through us, like a big hand with so many
finger puppets. This is done with delight and curiosity, the way a loving
parent sees the world afresh through her child’s innocent eyes.
The goal of the cosmic game is for you to discover, in a way
that satisfies your own particular tests, that you are an aspect of the divine.
This is the moment when you discover the God-program buried in your hard-drive.
You learn its language, and start to surf the web-of-life from its custom
browser.
In the search for this program, you have been challenged to
let go of what you thought you were. But even then, there will still be enough
of you left to enjoy the illusion of your life. What happens really is that you
are no longer just-you anymore. You are also God, having a once-in-eternity
experience of being you. It’s like having the best of both worlds.
And so, although the game is over, the playing is about to
begin. Because with this new awareness (that life is not quite so real) and
with your new, relaxed identity as both God and you, you can watch and play and
live your life with less fear and judgment. You can live more lightly. You can
watch the birth of new life and new love. You can witness new technologies and
new cultures and new disasters and new heroic responses to disasters.
You can feel deeper compassion for all things in creation,
who are also you, and also God. You can love and cherish this planet, a world
that you co-create every time you open your eyes. And with the power of your
awareness, you can help nudge the game, or tilt the odds, just that little bit
closer to their final goal ... which is simply that all beings realize who they
are. You can lose yourself and find yourself and lose yourself again. And you
can fall madly in love with this beautiful illusion, just as it is, over and
over and over again.
© Martin Boroson, 2000
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