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When is the game really over ?
Wisdom gleaned from many Eastern scriptures seems to indicate this would most
likely happen when a person suddenly - through conscious effort or otherwise -
discovered that he (or she) was the one who was role-playing for everyone,
including himself. Because it would then mean there was no difference between
the self and any other and that all of us are actually myriad manifestations of
a single plurality. Apparently only such a complete and clear realisation, we
hear, will snap us out of our self-induced hallucination of being many. And, of
course, with the illusion gone, the game's up.
The natural question that arises
then is why the game is on in the first place ? What purpose does it serve
besides ultimately coming to know that we were all playing it ? If the One
simply needed to hide itself in so many places that finding each of them became
increasingly difficult over time, then surely it needn't have bothered to begin.
Some believe the reason is the richness of being that gets a chance to manifest
itself, which it otherwise would not have been able to if left alone and by
itself. What sense, they ask, does it make to have nothing exist ? Instead,
having time, space, matter, life and consciousness around everywhere gives the
universe so much more potential for possibilities.
In fact, there are striking
similarities between such a scenario and what some advanced computer simulation
models predict could be a pretty likely way our immediate world will end. These
hold that while we could, of course, be snuffed out by various means such as the
Sun going supernova or an impact with a huge asteroid or blowing ourselves up or
creating a virus that wiped us out, etc, etc, there is one other way too. This
is where a plug is pulled and the game comes to an end.
In other words, what if we were,
indeed, a colossal and massively complex multidimensional game being manipulated
by some external player ? Such a player could quite likely be seeing in us
various avatars of itself and, by dint of this, imbuing everyone with a sense of
individuality, history and permanence we feel we truly possess. It could also
easily include players who slowly discover that they are only playing a role in
the mind of the external player and thus realise they are the player themselves
too. That's when you could have a big laugh and continue with the game because
you finally know what's going on--- or melt back into your original form of the
external player. |
