Life is full of games. Animals, babies, children, everyone plays games. When we become teenagers, different games begin, which become increasingly sophisticated over time. We put on and take off personas of icons we admire or that influence us, but in the process, we lose touch with who we are.
Games are a natural means of development. They help us prepare for our next level of development—physical, intellectual, emotional, or spiritual. As we grow up, we come to feel that we must hide our real selves and put on some persona that will be popular. This is how we begin to forget who we are.
“Playing God means aiming to become similar to the quality of giving, the quality that engenders all of life. It is the most complicated and most intricate game in existence. It is also, by far, the most rewarding.”
As we grow up, we develop new personas for every new phase in life. We develop a persona for being with friends, a persona for being at home with the family, a persona for being a parent, a persona for being at work, with strangers, or anywhere else we go. In the end, even when we are alone and do not need to put on any front, we do not know what “persona” to wear because we are so unaccustomed to just being us.
Sometimes, at night, before we fall asleep, a question creeps into our minds: “Who am I? Do I really know who I am without all the masks and fronts I have put on throughout my life? And most importantly, will I ever find the real me again?”
The answer to that question is that it is possible, but on one condition. You need to play a special game for this, and put on a special persona: You need to play at being God. God is not some kind Santa sitting on a cloud, or an entity that governs the universe. God, otherwise known as the Creator, is a quality, an attribute: God is a quality of absolute giving and caring about others. Only the quality of absolute goodness can engender something since anything else looks inward, to please itself, rather than outward, to build a new and independent being.
Just like a mother engenders life through her love, the Creator engenders life through His love. If we want to find our true selves, we need to play at being like the Creator, in a state of pure giving and caring for others.
“Once you have obtained that other nature, your perception expands to encompass all of reality. You suddenly understand why everything happens because you see things from the same perspective that created everything and sustains everything. You understand not only the present, but the past and future, too, become known, and “time” acquires a whole new meaning. As our perception becomes unbounded, so does our sense of existence, and life and death become phases of development, while we ourselves transcend both as we become omnipresent and omniscient like the quality that has engendered and sustains the world.”
It may feel awkward, at first, but so does every persona we put on. Just as every persona becomes natural after a while, so will the persona of the giver.
Playing God means aiming to become similar to the quality of giving, the quality that engenders all of life. It is the most complicated and most intricate game in existence. It is also, by far, the most rewarding.
There are no losers in this game because you can play as long as you want until you win. When you win, you become the persona you were playing. In other words, the quality of giving becomes second nature, a new nature that you place above your original one, and both of them exist within you.
Once you have obtained that other nature, your perception expands to encompass all of reality. You suddenly understand why everything happens because you see things from the same perspective that created everything and sustains everything. You understand not only the present, but the past and future, too, become known, and “time” acquires a whole new meaning. As our perception becomes unbounded, so does our sense of existence, and life and death become phases of development, while we ourselves transcend both as we become omnipresent and omniscient like the quality that has engendered and sustains the world.
