Leela

The Yoga of Snakes and Arrows is based on Leela, a game in which each of us is a player acting out his role. Leela is the universal play of cosmic energy. It is divine play that is present in the nature of the Supreme Self. It is this playful nature that creates the world of names and forms—the phenomenal world. Leela is life itself, energy expressed as the myriad forms and feelings presented continuously to the self.

The essence of the player is his ability to become, to adopt a role. That which is the essence of the player can enter into any role. But once the player enters into the game, once he assumes the identity of the person he adopts, he loses sight of his true nature. He forgets the essence of what it is to play the game. His moves are decided by the karma dice.

As there are moments when sunlight momentarily illumines the patterns of waves, and flows in a river, so too there are moments when the clear light of consciousness reveals the patterns in the player’s life role. At those moments the nature and flow of life energy stands forth as though in relief. At those moments the player loses his attachment to his role and begins to see his life as a part of a larger whole.

The purpose of Leela is to help the player gain this ability to withdraw from his identifications and see how he might become a better player. For the game of Leela is a microcosm of the larger game of self-knowledge. Contained within the seventy-two spaces of the game board is the essence of thousands of years of self-exploration, the heart of Indian tradition.

As the player moves from space to space, square to square, he begins to see patterns in his own existence, emerging with ever-deepening clarity as his understanding of the game broadens. His sense of detachment grows as he sees each state as temporary, something to move beyond. And once the temporarily of any space becomes a reality for the player, he can detach from that space and let it go as he seeks to discover ever more about the wonder that is Being.

As with all games, here too there is a goal, an object to be attained. Because the essence of the player is his ability to identify, his only chance of “winning” the game is to identify with that which is his Source. This is Cosmic Consciousness, the essence of pure Being, which transcends time and space, knows no limits, and is infinite, absolute, eternal, changeless, the All, without attributes, beyond both name and form. The game ends when the player becomes himself, the essence of play.

The saints who invented the game of Leela used the game board to recognize the present state of their own being. By observing their course of movement from one plane to another they could practically observe which snakes brought them down and which arrows took them up. The moves were decided by a karmic dice, yet the dice when thrown indicated their own evolution because it represented the present state of the player. They consciously observed the pattern through which they were moving, by playing the game time and again and watching carefully their own reaction while landing on a snake or an arrow. Observing their own inner self, they could tell whether they had understood what it is to be not involved. At the same time, the network of the game gave them a deeper insight into the principle of the divine knowledge on which the game board was based. It was a study of scriptures and discovery of the self at the same time. This is the uniqueness of Leela, the yoga of snakes and arrows, the game of self-knowledge.

Originally called Gyan Chaupad (literally Gyan = knowledge; Chaupad = a game played with dice: so “Game of Knowledge”), the game Leela was designed by the seers and saints as a key to inner states and to learn the principles of DHARMA —usually called Hinduism.

With its snakes and arrows and seventy-two squares representing seventy-two planes,

the game provides a key to the knowledge of the Vedas, the Shrutis, the Smiritis, and the Puranas.

Playing the game is playing with the mani­fested divine knowledge found in the aphorisms and doctrines of yoga,’ of Vedanta,’ and samkhya, which flows in the body of the Hindu tradition as philosophy and lifestyle. While playing, one automatically moves through different squares of the game board. Each square has a name, representative of an inner state as well as a plane. Each name triggers the mind and brings the consciousness of the player to contemplate and ponder the concept behind the word as long as he stays in that square. After a few minutes of playing, the game board starts to play with the mind and intellect of the player—as well as the ego, the strong sense of self-identity, the “isness” of the player.

Neither the author nor the date of origin of the game now we called Snakes and Arrows is known.

As a general rule in the Indian literature tradition the name of the author is considered unimportant. He is but a pen in the hands of God, a tool of expression; and so the name has not been recorded. The influences apparent in the formulation of the game point to an age of at least 2,000 years.

The copy used as the basis of this particular translation was preserved by the family of an author of commentaries, living in Uttar Pradesh about 150 years ago. The present author now has another older, but incomplete, copy of the game board in his possession, which he purchased in Rajasthan from an antique dealer. This copy is much older, but because it is not complete it was not used for writing this version of the commentaries.

A book of chants containing schlokas accompanied the game board. With each toss of the dice the player intoned the appropriate chant for the space in which he landed. The schloka described the nature and meaning of the space, represented by a square in the game board. Unfortunately, the book of chants has been lost, and it has become obligatory to write a commentary, showing the network of philosophical ideas indicated by the names of the squares and also introducing the method by which the game board can be used by those who are interested in knowing and playing the game. However, each Sanskrit term has a well-defined connotation within the context of the tradition from which the game sprang. In addition to these definitions, along with information obtained from saints (who played the game when they were young and when they joined their order) and the terminology used in the game board itself, some knowledge came to the author from his own family tradition. All this forms is the basis of this commentaries.

The creators of the game saw it foremost as a tool for understanding the relationship of the individual self to the Absolute Self. Played at this level, the game enables the player to detach himself from the illusion that his personality is firmly fixed. He sees his life as an expression of the macrocosm. Not his identifications but the play of cosmic forces determines the fall of the dice, which in turn determines the course of his life’s game. And the purpose of this game he sees as nothing less than the liberation of consciousness from the snares of the material world and its mergence with Cosmic Consciousness.

Just as one drop of water, taken from an ocean, contains all the elements present in the ocean that was its source, so too is human consciousness a microcosmic manifestation of Universal Consciousness. All that man can ever know already exists as a potential within himself. For all that man perceives is a product of his sensory organs.

Events in the phenomenal world trigger the five sensory organs (ears, skin, eyes, tongue, and nose). The affected sensory organ initiates in turn a biochemical process, which passes through the central nervous system to be manifested as variations in electrical activity in certain areas of the brain. This play of electrical energy is a gross manifestation of that aspect of consciousness called mind.

The mind presents sensory data to the intellect and ego for evaluation and action. It is from the sensory perceptions that all the desires arise. And desire is the essence of the game—the player would not play had he not the desire to play. Desires are the motivations of life: man lives to fulfill his desires.

Desires can be grouped in three classes, depending on their nature: physiological, sociological, and psychological. The physiological desires are those necessary for survival of the organism. Eating, drinking, sex, and sleep are major physiological desires. The sociological are physiological desires colored by the social context. Rather than one house, a man wants five. His need is for one the desire for five—a social overlay. His desire for objects of luxury and a better status in society, which he can easily get by display of his achievements, is something that is social, and these desires are different in all parts of the world. Psychological desires all stem from the desire for identification of the self, the ego. The desire for inner growth and spiritual achievements is also a product of the ego. How strange it is that through this path one can lose the ego altogether: the great egotism of becoming egoless.

Physiological needs are recognized by all societies. No are placed on their fulfillment. Sociological desires vary from society to society. Psychological needs are common throughout the planet, and include man’s complexes and achievements, disturbances and honors, enjoyments and traumas.

All these desires result from sensory perception and the faculty. All are biochemical states of the organism: all desires express themselves inside the organism as chemical states. As they produce chemical states, so can they also be provoked by the use of chemicals.

The physiological desires are often called animal needs, for they are the desires man has in common with all other animals. Psychological desires are often called higher needs, for they are concerned with the attachment of ego and the sense of fulfillment that comes from complete identification with the object of desire.

Whatever the source of the desire, the ego acts to fulfill it through five work organs (hands, feet, mouth, genitals, and anus). The action comes only after the sense perception, which was its source, has passed through the mechanisms of mind and intellect.

Each action triggers a reaction. The quality of the action determines the quality of the reaction. The reaction is manifested as a change in working consciousness. Negative actions entrap the player; positive actions liberate. “As ye sow, so shall ye reap”: this paraphrase of a Bibli­cal saying points out the law of karma.

Any action the player takes is proper as long as he realizes that all actions plant karmic seeds, which may not bear fruit for years. The fruits of karma may not even manifest in the present life but may submerge only to reappear in some future incarnation. It is these karmas from past lives that determine the course of personality development in the individual.

The real job of the player is to recognize these karmas and their effect on his being. From this awareness comes the knowledge required to raise his level of consciousness. This is the job of karma yoga.’ And the phenomenal world is the stage on which the Leela (divine game) of karma is staged.

To understand the phenomenal world we must, then, become scientists of the self, exploring the organization of our own consciousness, the planes on which we dwindle all our lives, the snakes that we encounter, and the arrows we find in our upliftment. It is here the game of Leela serves its highest purpose. For it is a map of the self, the playground of the One-becoming-many.

1. Dharma: that which is inherent as law in the very nature of all existing phenomena, that which supports and holds the universe together. It is not merely a set of beliefs having no connection with living, but is rather a set of principles for a harmonious and beneficent life. It is a practical doctrine. The etymological meaning of dharma is also “that which binds together.”

2. Vedas: divine knowledge, perfect knowledge, which is omnipresent and sustains all that is manifested. This knowledge is directly realized by rishis (saints, seers, yogis) through samadhi. This knowledge is available as four scriptures:

a. Rig Veda.

b. Yajur Veda.

c. Sama Veda.

d. Atharva Veda.

Each Veda has three generally recognized divisions:

a. Samhitas: collections of hymns or mantras.

b. Brahmanas: containing precepts for establishing the mantras and ceremonies. They are treatises on rituals but are interwoven with many illustrative stories, philosophical observations, and profound ideas.

c Upanishads: philosophical treatises, based on interpretations given by rishis to whom this knowledge was revealed.

3. Shrutis: cosmic sound frequencies, floating in the cosmos as richis (incantations) revealed to rishis (visionaries). They contain the knowledge of the system by which the energies were vitalized in the universe at its beginning and are still directed by Cosmic Consciousness. Vedas are Shrutis.

Smiritis: practical application of divine knowledge and laws inherent in the objects of the manifested universe. These treatises contain laws that make life divine. They are numerous, but four of them are very much quoted by scholars as the chief Smiritis:

a. Manu Smiriti.

b. Vagya Valka Smiriti.

c. Shamkhya Smiriti.

d. Parashara Smiriti.

Vedas are Shrutis, and all books dealing with the law of dharma are the Smiritis from which the basic structure of Hindu tradition was built by seers.

5. Puranas: next in order after Shrutis and Smiritis. They illustrate the philosophy of the Vedas through stories (from history) of those whose lives reflected the practical application of the law of dharma.- They are allegorical in nature and explain the highest philosophy in a very human way. This is the reason the Puranas are called the fifth Veda.

6. Yoga: literally, to join, to unite, to add, union. It is a science of inner growth, which gives peace and the capability to stop mental fluctuations and modifications, which are the root cause of sufferings, miseries, and pain. It provides the ability to rise above the realm of the senses into habitual one-pointedness, undivided attention, perpetual peace, and enlightenment. It has numerous schools, which suggest and provide, each in its own way, methods for an overall development and growth of physical body and psyche (union of solar and lunar principles, control over the autonomic nervous system, etc.). Broadly it can be divided into three branches:

a. Karma yoga: yoga of selfless action.

b. Gyana yoga: yoga of cessation of mental modifications by negation, reaching the ultimate truth.

c. Bhakti yoga: yoga of devotion, love, and surrender.

Famous schools of yoga include:

a. Raja yoga: yoga of the eightfold path—yama, niyama, asana, pranayam, pratiyahar, dharana, dhyana, and samadhi.

b. Hatha yoga: yoga that deals with the training of the senses by working with the body. It helps in achieving the goal designed by raja yoga.

c. Naad yoga: yoga that deals with the sounds of the inner world.

d. Laya yoga, and cosmic sound; also known as kriya yoga or kundalini yoga.

7. Vedanta: the philosophical doctrine, also called Uttar Mimansa that dominates Indian thought to the present day, dealing with the nature of the self and discriminating between the real and unreal. It explains unity in diversity, the knowledge of noumena. It teaches one to climb from the idea of the individual self, which seems to be a reality apart from Cosmic Consciousness, to the thought that one is a part of the Supreme Self, the Brahman, and can unite with him; and finally that he is and ever has been the Cosmic Consciousness, veiled from himself by ignorance. Vedanta is the science of Self without attributes, and teaches “Thou art That.”

8. Samkhya: the system of numbers; primarily an account of how creation started. It deals with the evolution of the manifested world.

9. Schloka: a Sanskrit verse.

10. Karma yoga: the yoga of selfless action (karma means action). Actions cover all acts done by the individual from birth to death. A player who performs karma with attachment uses any means that serve his purpose and in his selfishness causes harm to others. One who is not attached to his actions, and performs actions because they are unavoidable, performs karmas with a disinterested interest and does not adopt wrong means. Kar­mas performed by right means do not harm anybody and are in accordance with the law of dharma. Dharma is inherent in the player’s own nature, if he performs karmas that coincide with the natural bent of his mind.

Four things are necessary for playing Leela: the game board, a dice (half a pair of dice), the commentary section of this book, and an object, such as a ring, that belongs to the player and is small enough to fit in the squares; this serves as the player’s symbol during play. The rules are simple. Each player places his symbol in square 68, the square of Cos­mic Consciousness. One by one, the players throw the dice and pass it on to the player on the right (this conforms with the natural movement of upward-flowing energy).

The first player to throw a six moves to the first square, genesis, and from there to the sixth square, delusion. Until a six is thrown, the player must wait unborn in Cosmic Consciousness. Each time a six is thrown, at any stage in the game, the player rolls the dice again. The exception to this is that a player who has rolled three sixes in a row (and has moved eighteen squares), and then rolls another number, must return to the place where he started before he began to throw the sixes, and move whatever number of squares is shown on the fourth roll. If, for example, a player throws three sixes and then another number on his fourth roll at the beginning of the game when his first six took him into play, he then returns to genesis (square 1) and counts forward the number shown on the fourth roll. But if, instead, he rolls four or more sixes, he continues to take additional turns until a number other than six is shown, at which point he moves the total number of squares he has thrown and passes the dice.

When the player’s symbol lands on the base of an arrow, he moves the symbol upward along the shaft of the arrow to its tip. If he lands on the head of a snake, it swallows him and deposits him at the tip of its tail. In this way, egotism leads to anger and spiritual devotion leads to Cosmic Consciousness. Thus the player throws the dice and moves back and forth and up and down the board, taking care to move through the squares in ascending numerical order.

Returning to the sixty-eighth square is the object of play. If the player should reach the eighth level but pass by Cosmic Consciousness into the sixty-ninth, seventieth, or seventy-first square, he must wait to throw either the exact number required to land on tamoguna, the seventy-second square, or a lower number that would allow him to move one or two squares. From rajoguna, the seventy-first square, the throw of a one will return the player to earth, and back into the game.

Play ends only when the player lands exactly on the sixty-eighth square, either by the arrow of spiritual devotion or by numerical ascension (such as being on square 66 and throwing a two).

In the course of play, the player will usually find that he has a characteristic pattern of landing on the same arrows and the same snakes. The game will take on its fullest meaning when the player reads and understands the commentaries, wherein are explained the meanings of each space, arrow, and snake.

If the player lands on square 69, the absolute plane, he cannot reach Cosmic Consciousness, which is square 68. In that case he has to reach Square 72, where tamoguna can bring him back to earth, after which he can reach Consciousness by gradual progression or by throwing a three and reaching spiritual devotion—the direct arrow to Cosmic dice are useless, since he cannot make use of them any more than he can make use of a six when he is on 67. Throwing a one can bring him to 68, the place where the game stops, but the game continues if he throws a two, three, four, or five.

To have full advantage of the game, the player should note down the course adopted by the symbol that moves with the throw of the dice on the game board. In a series of such recordings he would discover some common features: some friendly snakes and helpful arrows. This would compel him to find out the relationship between external and internal patterns. Saints have used this method to discover their inner pattern: it makes Leela, the yoga of snakes and arrows, a game of self-knowledge­” Gyan Chaupad.”

Our perceptual world comes to us through the mechanisms of mind and intellect, which alter, color, and reject. Perceptions are received through organs that cannot perceive more than a millionth part of the total electromagnetic energy spectrum.

Thus the world that is known to us at any given moment is but one of an infinity of simultaneous events, any one of which could be perceived in an infinite number of ways because of the infinite number of possible organizations of mind and intellect. The possibilities are quite simply beyond comprehension.

Western science has specialized in the study of the sensory realm:

the perceptual, phenomenal, material world. Its explorations have been carrying material science to a unifying point, a set of principles operating throughout the known cosmos. These principles transcend time and space.

The light we receive from some galaxies is over 100,000,000 years old, yet it follows the same rules governing the light from our own sun, which is only nine light minutes distant.

These principles are expressed in formulas such as E = mc^2 and 3A^3 (the organizing principle of every diamond in the universe). From diversity we are approaching a unity, expressed in the formulas of the physical ac sciences.

The Western mind has created a periodic table of the elements, which

lists 103 fundamental organizations of matter. This is the essence of the West’s understanding of the phenomenal world.

Eastern man, however, pursued a different course. In India, particularly, a temperate climate and the easy cultivation of crops did not force him to devote his energies to the struggle for survival that motivated the development of natural sciences in the West. Eastern man worshiped nature as a kind Mother principle and did not develop a conquest of nature that would prevent his own survival. The scientific spirit of Indian sages and seers turned inward to investigate the complexity that is human consciousness. Hence the science of tantra, yoga, and the ideas expressed in the Upanishads.

As general principles were discovered operating in the phenomenal world, so too were principles discovered in the operation of human consciousness. Yogis explored the labyrinth of the self and discovered seventy-two primary states of being. These states are the squares of the game of Leela, a periodic table of consciousness.

Within the seventy-two states, man acts out his karmic drama, play ending only when he attains total understanding of the game—Cosmic Consciousness. Play can be interrupted by the cessation of the principle of desire, but without a complete understanding of the game the true end of the game does not occur: desires are seeds of karma, and they can sprout any time they find suitable conditions to germinate. The player tosses his die, letting the forces of karma determine where he lands. He moves through the spaces and the various planes, up arrows and down snakes, until he is able to vibrate harmoniously everywhere, in all spaces. Ups and downs must lose their meaning.

The tossing of the dice provides the variable link between the players symbol and its movement across the game board. It is in the fall of the a dice that the principle known as synchronicity operates. Synchronicity is term coined by the psychologist Carl Jung to explain the links times form between two seemingly unrelated events in the phenomenal world.

Synchronicity is the fulfillment of a need by some agency outside the conscious control of the individual self. It is most easily understood in the context of interpersonal relationships. In a sense, synchronicity is being in the right place at the right time; and in reality, it is a continuous process.

In the game of Leela the need is understanding, the knowledge of how and where the player is experiencing at a given moment. The outside agency is karma, which determines the fall of the dice. Leela is a game of synchronicity. Synchronicity simply means that all events in the phenomenal world are related and can be understood in their relationship if only a proper link can be forged. This game is such a link.

To strengthen the link, the player supplies an object of personal meaning to represent himself on the board. This is his symbol, and it moves across the board in accord with the tossing of the karma dice. What is important is the pattern of movement of this symbol across the board. To understand this pattern—and the nature of the stages through which the player travels—it is necessary to understand more of the thinking on which the game board is based.

There is no death in this game. There are ups and downs, and changes in vibration levels, but there is no death. The spirit that is the individual self playing Leela does not die. It is the symbol, the body, moving across the game board with the toss of the karma dice, which changes form. The individual self is a portion of the Lord, a limited manifestation of Cosmic Consciousness, the Supreme Self. The Divine dwells in the inmost being of man and cannot be extinguished. There is a vital unity of soul and body in man, as in the symbol and the player. The end only comes when the player reaches Cosmic Consciousness, the eternal state, the path from which there is no return. Here the player becomes the divine existence, beyond all modes and qualities. This is liberation. Death is change in form, not in spirit. It does not even exist on the material plane, because matter also is neither created nor destroyed but only changes form. Change of form is not real; it is a transitional phase in the world of phenomena, which is also an aspect of the Supreme, a reflection of the Supreme Self. The cosmic process is an interaction between the two principles of Being and not-Being.

If we look at this game as a microcosm, we will find the complete octave of the macrocosm. As in a living organism the energy moves from plane to plane, from conception to birth, childhood to adolescence, youth to old age during a span of years, so the player operates from seven psychic energy centers moving up and down from chakra to chakra, and there are corresponding observable changes in his gross behavior.

Human life is a series of cycles: seven days for establishing conception, that is, for establishing the chemical nature; seven months to complete the formation of the body in the womb; and the seven major cycles of seven years each—the length of a complete lunar cycle—during which one moves through each of the psychic centers. In the game of Leela each of these seven cycles constitutes one horizontal row. The first center is the first row, and so on.

In the first cycle, to the age of seven, the player is too much himself—self-centered.

In the second cycle, seven to fourteen, he starts relating to a group of friends and living in the realm of fantasy. Attraction to the opposite sex, development of the aesthetic sense, and an interest in the fine arts also start at this age.

In the third cycle, fourteen to twenty-one, he wants to establish his identity. He wants power and affiliates himself to a group or ideology.

In the fourth cycle, twenty-one to twenty-eight, he begins to develop a sense of responsibility. He can now understand about others and appreciate their attributes.

In the fifth cycle, twenty-eight to thirty-five, he starts instructing others from his own experience and assumes the role of a teacher, often with the responsibilities of parenthood.

In the sixth cycle, thirty-five to forty-two, he becomes an observer of his own energy patterns and reviews his past karmas in the light experience. In the seventh cycle, forty-two to forty-nine, he is generally well settled and lives his life with the aim of finding and merging with truth.

This is the normal course of human development, but the environment into which the player is born dominates his pattern of thinking to a very high degree—and the karma dice leads a player into the mouths of so many snakes of attachment that many people spend the whole of their lives on lower levels. There are others for whom all snakes seemingly vanish, and arrows magically appear to boost them to their goal in four or five moves.

The seven planes through which the player must pass before he reaches the eighth plane—the plane beyond all planes—are the seven chakras. Normally, energy would flow through these centers in a pattern synchronous with the vibrational rhythm of the player. During every twenty-four-hour period, life energy passes through all the seven chakras. At sunrise it is in the third chakra, and after sunset it comes to the seventh. Thus the energy is influenced by solar, lunar, and gravitational forces. But since few of us can live a pure and natural existence, complex blocks are formed in the energy pathways. It is not able to flow regularly and properly through the organism, creating a disparity between the mental and the chronological ages.

Each chakra has particular characteristics that enable the player to determine where he is vibrating at any given moment, particularly with the help of this game.

The first chakra is located at the base of the spine, midway between the anus and the genitals. Individuals vibrating here are insecure and are primarily concerned with physical survival. The sense of smell is dominant. The element of the first chakra is earth—the grossest manifestation of reality—and its color is yellow. The main problem of this chakra is violent behavior, which can arise from deep-rooted insecurity. However, the same insecurity can be a positive factor, as the motivating force behind the development of material technology. First-chakra people sleep ten to twelve hours nightly, on their stomachs.

The first chakra appears as the physical plane, the fifth square on the first row of the game. It is the plane of genesis, maya (the illusory per­ceptual world), anger, greed, delusion, conceit, avarice, and sensuality.

When a player enters into the game he has to pass through these nine squares. There are no arrows to lift him out of the first chakra, because these aspects of the first chakra are fundamental to human existence. If he does not feel concerned with society’s value judgments, then he will know that all these things are important for human life. But if he is con­cerned with the world and its judgments, then he will say, “Well, anger is very bad. Greed is very bad. Vanity is very bad. All these things are very bad.” They do create disharmony and bad body chemistry, increase selfishness, destroy inner peace, and so on, but as Shakespeare reminds us, “there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” If we look deeper, from the point of view of survival (toward which first­ chakra consciousness is oriented), we will see that without attachment, without greed, without a craving to find something more, life stagnates. If there were no anger and no vanity, the fun of the theater (Leela) would be lost. These various moods and temperaments provide color, the basic impetus for individual development. They are thought to be bad things, because they are connected with the lower, animal self. But we must see that they are also responsible for the growth and development of our rational, human, and divine self.

By mastering the first chakra the yogi obtains freedom from disease. By overcoming basic hang-ups he becomes open to knowledge, and no longer asserts himself so much. He learns to abstain from lower desires and attachments. Tantric scripture says he can become invisible if he wishes to.

In the second chakra, the player is caught up in the perception of his sensory organs. It is located in the region of the sex organs, with taste being its dominant sensory mode. Water is its element, and so it is char­acterized by luminous white or light blue. The principal problems associated with this chakra are corruption and disorder, ensuing from the loss of energy that comes from overindulgence in the sensory domain, and fantasy. But this same sensuality is the impelling force responsible for all the creative arts. One who vibrates in the second chakra sleeps eight to ten hours nightly in the fetal position.

The second chakra contains two arrows—purification and mercy—and two snakes—jealousy and envy. It contains the astral plane, the plane of fantasy, and the plane of joy. Here are found nullity and also entertainment, the essence of the spirit.

By mastering the second chakra the yogi becomes generally beloved. He can command the love of any animal or beast and can control the elements. He is freed from all his enemies and illuminates like the sun. He becomes well versed in prose, poetry, and reasoned discourse and can conquer lustful desires.

In the third chakra, the dominant characteristic is the recognition of the ego and a search for the immortality of the embodied being. As a fetus in the womb one receives nourishment to sustain development from this center. It contains the great junction of the right and left sympathetic chains with the cerebrospinal axis and is located at the root of the navel in the lumbar plexus, with connected sympathetic nerves concerned with the production of sleep and thirst. Sight is its dominant sensory mode. Fire is its element, and red the associated color.

The main problem of this chakra is exertion of power, imposing the will of the ego on others. The positive attribute is the organizational skill generated out of the altruistic use of power. One who vibrates here generally sleeps six to eight hours nightly on his back.

This third chakra is the celestial plane, and it contains three arrows—selfless service, dharma, and charity. There is one snake—bad company. It is the plane of sorrow, good company, atonement, and karma.

By mastering the third chakra one is able to destroy sorrow and dis­ease and gain knowledge of different lokas (worlds). One develops the healing power. It is a chakra of stability, accumulation of power, accomplishment, command, control, and the worldly achievements necessary to ground one’s ego.

In the fourth chakra the player becomes aware of karmas, the behavioral patterns of his life. He is vibrating from the heart region, the seat of the celestial wishing tree. The heart is the abode of the conscious principle—the life—and seat of prana. This chakra is the center of the seven: three are above and three below. Thus the heart chakra is influenced by higher and lower forces simultaneously. Air is the associated element, the color is smoky gray-green, and the sensory mode is tactile.

The main problem of the player here is a tendency toward imbalance, spending too much time trying to rectify that which was. Faith (bhakti) is the motivating force in his life. He sleeps on his left side, five to six hours nightly.

This is the plane of balance, and apt religion is the arrow that takes the player higher. The snake is irreligiosity, which takes the player back to delusion. Here are the planes of sanctity, fragrance, and taste. Here also are purgatory, good tendencies, and clarity of consciousness.

By mastering the fourth chakra the yogi becomes like Jupiter, the lord of speech. His senses are completely under control. He is dearer than the dearest to women. His life is inspired, and poetry flows in his speech like a stream of clear water—uninterrupted. Scriptures say he is able to transfer himself to another body. His very presence is inspiring, and he has no enemies. He gains the power to become invisible, and unnoticeable, and he can levitate at will. He is able to see objects of both the visible and invisible universes and has the ability to travel any part of the world by the exercise of his willpower. He gains mastery over time.

In the fifth chakra the player has realized compassion and wants to share with others how he has been able to resolve those karmas he has confronted. This chakra is located in the throat, at the junction of the spinal cord with the medulla oblongata. It is the chakra of gyana (also spelled jnana)—knowledge. The player becomes a knower, a gyani (jnani). Without formal instruction and study he becomes knowledge­able of all scriptures (shastras). He is constant, gentle, steady, modest, courageous, and free from diseases and sorrows. He is merciful toward everybody; he has no expectations. The main problem is authoritarianism: “This is the only way.”

Beyond the realm of the senses, this chakra is the center of akash (ether). The elemental color is smoky purple. The player who vibrates here meditates on soham (so = that; aham = I am): “That I am”—the sound his breath makes as he inhales (so = sound of inhaling) and exhales (ham = sound of exhaling). His obsession is logic, and his boon understanding. His intellect becomes free from the impurity of worldly pursuits, and he can see past, present, and future within himself. Meditation upon the pit of his throat enables him to overcome hunger and thirst and to achieve steadiness. He sleeps four to five hours nightly, changing sides.

The fifth chakra is the human plane, and right knowledge and gyana (jnana) are the arrows that can take the player up. Ignorance is the snake. It is the plane of the positive, negative, and neutral life-breaths (prana, apana, uyana). Here he is born as Man (a representative of higher con­sciousness as opposed to animal nature), and gains the understanding of energy, Agni (fire).

One who masters the fifth chakra can rejuvenate himself at will. His presence opens one to the knowledge of the Self, and in it one is able to understand the mysteries of nature and recognize the presence of divine knowledge in every existing phenomenon.

In the sixth chakra the dominant concern is tapasya, the austere task of raising consciousness ever higher. This is the center of com­mand (agya, also spelled ajna) over movements. The player vibrating here has no problems. He is beyond seeing any possibility as a prob­lem. He is centered in the third eye, the region of the pineal gland. He meditates on the sound Om, and on the sound of his breath, which he now hears as hamsa (ham = I am; sa = That) “I am That.” There is a difference between soham and hamsa. In soham the yogi is in duality—he relates himself to the Supreme Consciousness, saying and feeling that That (Supreme Consciousness) I (individual conscious­ness) am. In the sixth chakra the duality dissolves, and undivided unity establishes itself in his consciousness. He is no more himself the individual, but he realizes that he is the Supreme Consciousness. He dwells in that union and meditates on his true nature. He is beyond the realm of the elements.

Conscience is the arrow here, and violence the snake. In this, the plane of austerity, we understand the operation of the solar, lunar, and neutral currents. Pingala and ida, which are the carriers of solar and lunar currents, come up to here from the mooladhar chakra and go to the nostrils, right and left, functioning with the breath. A carrier of ne­tral currents and kundalini, sushumna moves into the Sahasrara. From this plane, spiritual devotion—bhakti—can take the player directly to Cosmic Consciousness, the only direct path to liberation in the game, beyond both earth (the place of refuge) and the liquid plane (the plane of fluidity).

The player who masters this chakra obtains great psychic powers, and all karmas earned by him during different lives in the past are destroyed.

In the seventh chakra the player is beyond all pleasure and pain. He dwells in the thousand-petaled lotus at the crown of the head. Scriptures mention that one who establishes himself here in the sev­enth chakra becomes a master of eight siddhis: (1) anima, the power of becoming, (2) mahima, the power to enlarge, (3) garima, the power to become heavy, (4) laghima, the power to become light, (5) prapti, the power of reaching anywhere and everywhere, (6) prakamya, the power to realize all wishes, (7) ishatva, the power to create, and (8) vashitva, the power to command all. These powers, or siddhis, make him siddha-purusha, a real master, who by will can create anything. He does not become inert or inactive but is filled by the light of Supreme Consciousness and bliss.

But it is here that egotism can overtake him, and the siddhis, which are a great asset, can prove fetters; or inertia, tamas, can draw him down to illusion. On realizing the plane of reality he can experience positive and negative intellect—the latter a snake, which draws energy down to the second chakra. This is the plane of happiness, the gaseous plane, the plane of radiation, and the plane of primal vibrations.

The eighth horizontal row is beyond chakras. The seat of Cosmic Consciousness, it is the plane of the Absolute. Each of these nine squares is a God-force: the phenomenal world, inner space, bliss, and cosmic good. There are three phases of energy, which manifest with creation: (1) the dynamic/positive, (2) the inert/negative, and (3) equilibrium—rajoguna, tamoguna, and sattoguna. Tamoguna is responsible for evolution; sattoguna for dissolution or liberation. If Cosmic Consciousness is not realized, the player has to descend to earth to rejoin Leela until he achieves liberation by reaching and landing in Cosmic Consciousness. Tamoguna takes him back to earth, the playground of karma, where he must work his way back up from the sixth chakra.

Leela is the nature of Supreme Consciousness, the playful nature. The phenomenal world is manifested Leela. The play is beginningless as well as endless. Leela is the great adventure and the great discovery. Again, and again, and again, and again—without any loss, and without any gain—this endless game is played. Those who realize the play in the game are not caught by the game board and know it as the Leela (divine game) of Leela-Dhar (Cosmic Consciousness). Those who identify with the squares and planes of the game board are played by the game board; and the game board becomes maya, the great veiling power that binds the mind. It is maya that creates the phenomenal world. It is Leela that makes it a great adventure. Tamas brings the player to maya—and boundless love and spiritual devotion to Cosmic Consciousness. Spiritual devotion is the great discovery in the game board of Leela, created by maya of Supreme Consciousness in order to enjoy himself—to play hide and seek with himself. There is no purpose and no responsibility in Leela. In the words of Maharishi Ramana:

The ideas of purpose and responsibility are purely social in nature and are created by mind to exhort Ego. God is above all such ideas.If God is immanent in all and there is no one except him, who is responsible for whom?

Creation is expression of inherent laws in the source of creation.

This inherent law is the playful nature of the Divine, which is Leela.

The Indian tradition describes great significance to nine basic numbers, 1 to 9. Each number corresponds to a set of basic attributes, which contain keys to understanding the workings of the subtle life-force in gross manifestation. This is the teaching brought to the West by the Greek Pythagoras, a student of the Arabic version of Indian numerology.

In fact, not only do numbers count, but they give an account of the countless idea-forces working through human consciousness and the phenomenal world. They help the mind to have a definite idea of the perceptual world. In this beginningless creation there is neither first nor last, because all is one number. Actual digits are only the manifested forms, which appear as evolution starts and disappear or merge in their source with the dissolution of the phenomenal world. Everything that exists is disposed according to number, each a part of the whole (Brahman, Supreme Consciousness) manifesting himself. The whole is boundless, countless, no number, zero, the start of Leela, the cosmic play.

At the beginning is the separation of Being from non-Being. Sound, naad, is the first to evolve. Sound contains the twin aspects of sound and beat. Sound represents energy in its original vortex form. Beat is a pattern of vibration experienced in linear form. Sound creates space, and beat creates time. Each sound has a wavelength, and each wavelength exists in time. The measurement of a wavelength is the time that the wavelength takes from its origin to the end.

Platon regarded numbers as the essence of harmony and harmony as the basis of both cosmos and man. Balzac, the French novelist, called the numbers “incomprehensible agents.” According to him, distinctions between different forms of existence are differences in their qualities, quantities, dimensions, forces, attributes, and nature. These differences are not in the essence, but in the material content, which is arranged in different patterns. These patterns, when observed closely, vary only in numbers. The difference between an atom of copper and one of gold is but a difference in the number of particles they contain.

The arrangement of the playing board of Leela is based on a foundation stone of numerology. The board is a numerologically balanced perfect rectangle. It contains eight horizontal rows from bottom to top. Eight is the number of the manifested universe, prakriti, which is compose the five elements, or mahabhutas (ether, air, fire, water, and earth) and the three forces—mind, intellect, and ego (manas, buddhi, ahamkar). The vertical columns from left to right total 9, the number of the Absolute, Supreme Consciousness (the eight of prakriti plus one—Consciousness). Nine is the completion of the series of simple (basic) numbers and is therefore the number of completion. Thus there are seventy-two squares making up the field of cosmic play. Seventy-two when reduced to a simple whole number again becomes 9 (7 + 2 = 9).

In the serpentine motion of play, the start of each horizontal column begins with a number reducible to 1 and ends on a number that reduces to 9. For example, the second horizontal row begins with 10 (1 + 0 = 1) and ends on 18 (1 + 8 = 9). In addition, each horizontal row contains nine numbers, which when added together yield the number 9. The first row totals 45 (4 + 5 = 9), the second 126 (1 + 2 + 6 = 9), the third 207 (2 + 0 + 7 = 9).

Each vertical column, except the central one, contains just two basic numbers. The first column consists of 18 (1 + 8 = 9), 19 (1 + 9 = 10 = 1), 36 (= 9), 37 (= 1), 54 (= 9), 55 (= 1), and 72 (= 9). The second vertical column yields 2s and 8s, the third 3s and 7s, the fourth 4s and 6s, and the fifth the only exception—all 5s. From here the order reverses (6s and 4s, 7s and 3s, 8s and 2s). So each vertical column, except for the middle, contains two fundamental integers, which when added together produce 1. The central column, the column of balance, contains Ss; and two 5s yield 10 or 1. In addition, the sum of each vertical column is 292, which becomes 4 (2 + 9 + 2 = 13 = 1 + 3 = 4), the number of rational organization, tangible achievement, the formless square.

Sudharma, apt religion, means adoption of the course of action best suited to the player’s own self. Sudharma is living in harmony with the laws of the game. It is the course of action that allows the player to throw his dice without care of where he lands.

Sudharma literally means one’s own dharma. What is one’s dharma? What is one supposed to do? If dharma is a code of conduct, then it should be common to everyone. Then nobody would have to do any thinking. Everyone would adopt the same mode of living. But people are people, not machines. They have individual differences, and those differences are the products of numerous factors. Not everyone is born at the same time or of the same parents. Parentage, environment, atmosphere, latitude and longitude, and geographical, anthropological and sociological conditions differ from individual to individual. Everyone is born with a set of qualifications and disqualifications.

Attaining balance

Ideal is not real. No one can completely submerge himself in the law of dharma prescribed by a particular religion or individual. Everybody has to understand his role in the game. He has to follow his own path to liberation. The rise and fall in each individual life determines the course of play.

Sudharma means to keep up the spirit that one is ever evolving while never adopting unfair means in the course of action. Sudharma is to believe in liberation, in merging with Cosmic Consciousness. Sudharma is nonattachment to the rise and fall of maya.

If the player is a musician he will find his sudharma in music. A painter will find his through his own art. There are seven psychic cen­ters in which the player vibrates. Wherever he feels comfortable, there he should try to evolve his energies into new patterns. This is the only sudharma.

All religious codes of conduct are but external aids in the task

of understanding one’s true nature, one’s sudharma.

Once the player begins to understand his sudharma, religion becomes internal, a way of life. Rituals lose their import. Life itself becomes an act of worship. The player is ready to move on to the plane of austerity.

Until the player lands in the fourth chakra, dharma is a meaningless term. He has to identify with a group or ideology in the third chakra. In the second he identifies with his senses; in the first with his ability to ensure bodily survival.

In the third chakra he understands karma, charity, the dharma aspect called ethics, good and bad company, atonement, the sorrows of life, and selfless service. But an understanding of his own role in the game starts only when he lands in the fourth chakra, in sudharma. Sudharma leads him to the plane of austerity and to hard penance and work on himself. Following the path of sudharma leads him directly to the sixth row of the game, the sixth chakra.

The player who lands in sudharma discovers his true role in the game and acts out his part without regard to the outcome of his actions. He knows that as long as he listens to the voice of his own inner nature he need fear nothing.

Faith in accordance with the laws of nature is sudharma. Blind faith, which disregards the cosmic principles, leads to adharma. Adharmas are those actions which are contrary to the individual’s dharma. Adharmas lead him away from his true course and back into first chakra delusion, which is the essence of blind faith.

Adharma is working contrary to the laws of existence. At sunrise everything on the planet changes. Winds, atmospheric pressures, an

temperatures change. The tempo of life increases. Sleeping at this time is acting contrary to the laws of the planet. Thus it is adharma. Looting the earth for natural resources, which are then employed without concern for their negative effects on the environment and the future needs of the planet, is adharma against the earth. Similarly, there are adharmas related to one’s own physiology. To hold tension and not release it is adharma. But to release it by adopting unfair means is greater adharma.

Adharma does not exist by itself. It is a negation of the law of dharma, an action contrary to the true inner nature. Denying one’s own self is adharma. Self-rejection and self-praise are both adhar­mas. To understand one’s position in the game is sudharma. All else is adharma.

Adharma is best understood as an imbalance in the gunas, the three primary cosmic forces responsible for all manifestation. When either sattva (conscious energy), tamas (inertia), or rajas (motion) predomi­nates, adharma takes birth. Self-destruction is the greatest adharma. It is a snake that takes one back to delusion, back to the start of the game.

The danger of getting caught by adharma is greatest in the fourth chakra, the fourth row of the game. In the first three chakras energy was devoted to the physical, celestial, and astral planes. Now, in the fourth chakra, the player attains a degree of balance and begins to understand the importance of apt religion. While he seeks his own role in the game it is possible that he might ignore the existing dharmas and attempt to start his own way, ignoring planetary laws and the laws of existence. Here faith is the key.

Faith is the essence of fourth chakra: faith, devotion, bhakti. This faith can lead the player—if he acts in harmony with his true nature, sudharma—to the plane of austerity. But if it is not in tune with his innermost vibrations, it can draw him back to delusion. This is adharma. Acting on faith alone is liable to create irreligiosity. Faith alone, without a grounding in the laws of existence, is blind faith. And blind faith is the most frequent cause of energy loss in this plane. Faith in accordance with the laws of existence is sudharma, but faith alone is adharma.

Uttam is good; gati is movement. Good tendencies flow spontaneously when the player moves in harmony with the laws of the macrocosm. When the player vibrates in the lower chakras, good tendencies do not develop. They are found here in the heart chakra, the fourth row of the game. Only when the player reaches a degree of balance within himself can good tendencies arise spontaneously. This balance enables the player to tune his own vibratory rate with that of the cosmos. Good tendencies are movements in the direction of increasingly finer tuning.

In the fourth chakra, heart and breath play a significant role. By landing in good tendencies the player attains control over his own breath pattern and simultaneously his heart rate. Good tendencies therefore help in stabilizing the development of the fourth chakra, and breath is directly related to good tendencies.

Any change in direction (or tendency) is registered by the prana, the life-force, psychic energy, or élan vital. On a gross level this change is experienced as a change in respiration. Each wrong breath pattern is an injury to the organism. Thus, when the player spoils his breathing cycle he simultaneously creates bad vibratory frequencies within himself. Good tendencies are a device to help the player keep vibrating correctly. They can be identified by observing one’s own breath pattern.

The best tendencies are those that link the player ever more closely to the rhythm cycles of the planet and the cosmos. Begin by observing changes in the self at sunrise and sunset. Arise before dawn, in time to shower and change into clean clothes for sunrise meditation. Other good tendencies include the elimination of meat and eggs from the diet, the

practice of hatha yoga asanas (postures and exercises), the regulation of breathing (see the lokas of prana, apana, and uyana), fasting, conscientious study of spiritual writings, and all the virtues contained in the game of Leela, the yoga of snakes and arrows.

The practice of good tendencies helps the player stabilize his existence so that it flows rhythmically in positive directions and away from the energy-depleting distractions of the lower chakras.

The player who lands on the plane of sanctity experiences divine grace through the understanding and knowledge of cosmic principles. Sanc­tity is a direct result of good tendencies. It is the fourth-chakra feeling of oneness with the presence of Divinity, and the ability to perceive the divine grace in all existence. This oneness passes beyond mere intellectual understanding and becomes an actual part of daily life.

Yakshas were celestial beings who dwelt in heaven. According to Hindu cosmology, creation is divided into seven classes of being: devas, yakshas (or kinnaras), gandharvas, manushyas, asuras (or rakshas), bhootas, and pishachas. Pishachas represent the lowest type of con­sciousness, the essence of which is meanness and violence. Next are the bhootas, or ghosts. These are dis incarnate beings unable to detach from the plane of earthly existence, living in the past. Then come the asuras,

beings who do not believe in a code of ethical conduct and who live in Search sensual gratification—wine, women, and song. Then come the manushyas, who believe in the law of karma and responsibility for the

consequences of their actions. Manushyas are aware of the future and of the nature of liberation. This is the plane of human existence. Then

come the gandharvas, who are consciousness devoted to the service

gods and living in harmony with the divine music. Gandharvas dedicate their existence to elevating people through sound and music. Then comes the class of yakshas, a kind of consciousness grounded in the knowledge and understanding of cosmic principles and direct experience of the divine grace. Lastly are the devas, the pure energy forms of the gods themselves.

When the player lands in yaksha-loka, questions about the nature of divine existence draw his attention. He seeks to find the links between the divine and his daily life. Only on reaching the fourth chakra is the Divinity reached on an experiential level. Before then, it has been but an abstract concept. This curiosity about the Divine and its presence in all existence, this desire to confront reality, becomes the essence of the player.

Mahar-loka is the fourth loka of the seven levels of existence. This loka is regarded as perishing at the Night of Brahma, the Creator. The first three lokas are those in which the jiva (individual consciousness) lives during the course of its evolution and is subject to the wheel of births and deaths. In this fourth loka the fire element is again predominant, but now it is not as elegant as in swarga-loka, where the bodies of its dwellers are luminous and flashing. Here the player is above the physi­cal, desire, and thought levels. Individual consciousness is colored by desires (kama) and thoughts, but now that the player has reached the state of being desireless and thoughtless, he has transcended the third level and reached the fourth, the permanent invisible world. Those Who dwell here are not absolutely free from transmigration, but they Will not be reborn in this cycle of creation because they exist in balance.

Three centers above and three below make this, the plane of the forth chakra, the balancing point of the spine of the game. From here,flows downward to the first three centers and upward to the higher three planes of being. Here is the center where the male and female energies are balanced. The player who vibrates in the fourth chakra speaks from

the heart.

He reaches maha-loka through the arrow of charity, or by passing

through good tendencies and the plane of sanctity. Here the desires of the lower chakras are stilled, and energy is no longer exhausted in the pursuit of lower aims. From the heart begins the upward flow of energy.

Here also the player transcends the intellectual understanding of Divinity that characterizes the third chakra and moves into a direct experience of the Divine within himself. Because of this sense of unity with the Absolute, it has also been called the plane of Cosmic Mind.

The heart center has long been recognized as the most important seat of feeling in the body. The heart is the dwelling-place of the emotional self. Yoga physiology attributes this fact to the location of the ductless thymus gland in the heart region. This gland is responsible for the flow of electrical energy in the body-and the nature of sense perception is fundamentally electrical. Each change in emotional tone is registered by the heart, and the pattern in which the heart beats determines body chemistry. Each change in body chemistry is understood by the mind as a certain type of feeling or emotion.

Thus the heart is more than a machine to pump pure blood into the

body and convey waste-charged blood back to the lungs. It is also a center of feeling, a psychic center. The Sufi tradition also stresses the importance of opening the heart chakra through love, or mohabbat. From here poetry begins, the transformation of the personal into the impersonal. Poetry is full of hearties vibrations, its different feelings. This center is also the source of all trans-personal psychic phenomena.

By whatever path he lands here, the player now feels relaxed. His hands automatically start making the gestures (mudras) that help balance the flow of energy through his organism. His heart becomes filled with the devotional spirit, bhakti. He is able to begin to identify himself with the rest of creation, bringing on a sense of cosmic unity.

Tender feelings and a sense of aesthetics become manifested in his behavior. The player’s voice becomes softer and gentler as he starts to speak from the heart. His voice penetrates the hearts of others, and thus without any exertion of power he attracts to himself a group of admirers striving to reach the same vibrational patterns.

The symbol of the plane of balance is a six-pointed star composed of two equilateral triangles, one pointing upward and the other pointing down. The upward-pointing triangle of this Star of David (as it has become known in the West} signifies male energy; the downward, female. This implies the balance between the two energies attained by the player who vibrates here.

Hindu cosmology enumerates fourteen major planes, lokas, seven of which are regions rising a above the earth. They are the planes of the seven chakras that constitute the spine of this game-as well as the player’s own physical spine. First is bhu-loka, the physical plane. Second is bhuvar-loka, the astral plane. Third is swarga-loka, the celestial plane. Fourth is maha-loka, the plane of balance. Jana-loka, the human plane, is fifth, followed by tapa-loka, the plane of austerity, and satya-loka, the plane of reality. The lower regions descending from the earth are atalloka, vital-loka, sutal-loka, rasatal-loka, talatal-loka, mahatal-loka, and patal-loka.

In everyday Hindu worship (sandkya) the supplicant recites a mantra (Chant), which enumerates each of the seven major lokas. As he voices the name of each plane he touches the part of the body with

which it is associated. He chants Om Bhu as with the moistened tip of

the right ring-finger he touches the midpoint between anus and genitals,

the seat of the kundalini. Then he chants Om Bhuvah as he touchees the root of the genitals, the seat of the second psychic center. The chant Om Swah accompanies the touch of the navel. He intones Om Maha as he

touches his heart, Om Janah for the base of the through, and Om Tapah for

for the third eye, the midpoint between the eyes

and slightly above the

eyebrows. Last is Om Satyam, the top of the head.

Gandha means smell, and the sense of smell is linked with the earth and the physical plane. Once the player reaches the fourth level, however, the nature of the sense is transmuted and becomes the symbol of the Divine, carrying a strong emotional impact. In the course of sudharma the devotee offers scents to the deity, in the form of either flowers or incense. Thus the fourth chakra contains the plane of fragrance, gandha-loka.

In the first chakra, odors like petroleum, paraffin, and alcohol attract the player. In the second chakra he is stimulated by strong-smelling synthetic preparations. In the third chakra these same artificial scents predominate, but they are now far more costly. When he reaches the plane of balance he realizes the futility of the inorganic, and avoids pungent,

artificial odors.

Here in gandha-loka he experiences divine fragrances in his meditation. The evolution of energy effects a change in body chemistry, and his organism ceases to produce bad odors, exuding instead a fragrance like that of lotus flowers or sandalwood.

As a measure of understanding, the sadhak (devotee) is asked to stop the use of artificial scents on his body so that he comes to know his own odors. When his body stops smelling bad, and when his stool, sweat, and breath produce no bad odors, he knows his energy has transcended the third

chakra and entered into the plane of fragrance.

Now there are only divine odors. Once and for all, the player has eliminated bad odor from his system.

While in the lower chakras the sense of taste was predominantly a mode of sensory perception, in the fourth chakra it becomes purified-taste in the aesthetic sense. One who lands in this plane is able to penetrate into the world of ideas and meanings. This penetration gives the player direct experiential knowledge of the essence of emotions and sentiments.

Rasa is love, pleasure, grace, enjoyment, sentiment, taste, emotions, beauty, passion, spirit. It is the poetic sentiment, the essence of poetry. Rasa is water in its purest form, the force that binds all creation together.

Up to the third chakra, taste-in all its shades of meaning-is devoted to lower-level activities. In the first chakra the sense of taste is totally dominated by the desire to make money. Power foods (meat especially) and prepared foods (convenience products) are the basis of the player’s diet. He uses a great deal of salt and spice. By the second chakra the energies are diverted toward sensuality, especially sex. Here foods that increase sexual stamina, such as eggs, ginseng, and fish, are his concern. In the third chakra he indulges taste for its own sake, consuming foods for different flavors and textures.

But in the fourth chakra, the heart Plane, the sense of taste becomes purified. He leaves salt and sweet

to understand the real essence of the food he consumes.

Once the player lands on the plane of taste, his taste improves in all

dimensions. His tastes in food, music, and conversation are pleasing

all, regardless of their vibrational level. He becomes a master of good

taste, appreciated by all. Thus he draws to himself a group of admires

who seek to vibrate in the same frequencies.

Until the player reaches the level of the heart chakra he lacks understanding of sudharma, apt religion. Without sudharma, freedom of action is impossible. As the player attains freedom of action he becomes responsible for the fruits of his actions. Narka-loka is the place where he bears

those consequences.

In Hindu cosmology narka is a plane situated midway between earth

and heaven. There are seven layers of narka-loka that the player must pass through before attaining heaven. His karmas are the vehicle, leading him up to the level where they vibrate. After passing through these narkas, if the player has performed good karmas he is ready to pass into heaven.

The lord of narka is Yarna, known as Dharmaraj-the lord of death.

Violence leads the player to purgatory and to the most painful vibrational levels. Each action bears fruit. This is the law of karma, and it cannot be avoided as long as the player maintains a physical existence. When the player lands in narka-loka through bad karmas he is bound to this plane by karmic ties. This is not punishment but rather purification. Dharmaraj, the lord of narka, is not personally interested in the suffering of any player. He is not a sadistic devil. Rather, his job is to set wrong frequencies right so that future evolution of the spirit can take place.

Narka is also the heart chakra itself. Attachment to feelings is narka.

The feeling of attachment is narka. Narka is negative vibration. Those

who vibrates negatively create a Narka in their home, family, neighborhood, country and world, according to their capacity. OThe player who lands in narka-loka without forth chakra understanding sees it as failure, not as record of negative karma. Only in the fourth chakra does the understanding of negative karmas in the experiential level come. The Narka-loka is seen not as the result of personal ego failure but as the sign of imperfection of action and the need to improve. In the fourth chakra comes recognition without valuation.

Clarity of consciousness is the light that illuminates the player on his passage out of the fourth row of the game and on to the fifth, the plane where man becomes Man. Swatch in Sanskrit means clear, pure, transparent. This transparency results from the purification of the opacities of bad karmas the player undergoes in purgatory.

Transparency offers no resistance to the passage of light. When doubts are clarified, the fog of blind intellect is dissolved to be replaced by the clear, strong light of inner feelings. The intellectual understanding, which dominates the consciousness up to the third chakra, does so no more. Reason here is considered an ailment, a disease of consciousness. For when consciousness identifies itself with understanding, at that time it suffers from the disease of reason, the chains of the intellect. By devotion and right faith the disease is overcome, and the player enters into the realm of Being.

When the player lands here he becomes swatch-clear, pure, transparent. The doubts that assailed him took him to purgatory and irreligiosity. But from those experiences he gained an understanding of the nature of sudharma. He has developed good tendencies an sanctified his life. He has dwelt on the planes of fragrance and taste an is now ready to join the upward flow of energy in the fifth chakra.

Aham means “I” or “I am.” Kara (from akar) means form. When the I assumes a form it becomes ahamkara. When the center of activities in the player’s individual self becomes his “I,” then his ahamkara gets trapped in the maya of me and mine. When ahamkara — which is actually the highest aspect of reality—fails to identify with the whole and becomes a lonely part, then ahamkara becomes egotism. When all the attentions of the player are directed solely toward attaining the object of his desire, the player becomes self-centered. Means are no longer important. The only good means are those, fair or foul, that hasten him to his goal. As long as he has humility and consideration, and love for others, the means he adopts will have to make sense to him. He knows his own desires are not so important that they justify causing pain to another. But when desire overcomes the player’s psyche, and he can no longer identify with humility, love, patience, respect, and consideration, he becomes an agnostic. He loses all sight values in the here-and-now, by involvement in the karmas of establishing his identity in the game. Melding with Cosmic Consciousness looks like a death to the ego, Old patterns, notions, and ideas must fall away if the player is to attain liberation. But ahamkara does not want to die. The ego wants to hold on to old identifications. This resistance increases the closer the player comes to attaining Cosmic Consciousness. Hindu seers believe that sound is the source of all creation. Sound is the subtlest gross form in which energy existed before the creation, There are fifty-two forms in which sound energy exists in manifested form (akar), and when the human organism evolved, these sounds localized themselves at the nerve endings of the psychic energy centers. The beginning sound is the simplest sound, aa. The last sound is ha. So all existence is from aa to ha. And the sense of identification that joins the aa to ha is ahamkara, the sense of being an individual self. Yogis recognize consciousness in the human organism as having four primary aspects or categories: manas, mind; buddhi, intellect; chitta, being; and ego, ahamkara. All that is received as sensory perception is mind. The understanding of sense perceptions—their categorization and evaluation—is buddhi. The enjoyment and feeling of the sense-perceptions is registered upon chitta. He who thinks he is enjoying or receiving those sense perceptions as one person is the ego, ahamkara. When this ego becomes “the only one,” every other thing becomes a means for the player to fulfill himself. Thus when ahamkara is not joined to Cosmic Consciousness it becomes egotism. Ego is a direct effect of the feeling-self, chitta. In order to play the game, this feeling-self identifies with an object that moves from square to square, sometimes raised higher by arrows and at other times dropped precipitously by snakes. When the player totally identifies with the object, becoming elated with the arrow’s rise and depressed With the serpent’s bite, he is a victim of egotism. He is too attached of play and has forgotten his own divine nature. This ahamkara does not exist before the fifth chakra, while the player is still in the process of taking birth. The fifth chakra is the plane of the birth of man, where ahamkara appears on the stage. The ego passes through ignorance and right knowledge and learns to hear the voice of his conscience as he enters the sixth chakra. But it is in the sev­enth chakra that the player really establishes his identity and begins to stabilize himself around an internal center. The player has found that he does not exist as a separate reality, that he is a manifestation of energy and must at some stage in his development merge with his source. It is here that the ego faces the danger of death and can turn into egotism. The seventh chakra is the highest plane in the microcosm of the player. Here he reaches the peak and attains all that he has striven for. There are only two possibilities when one has attained a summit: merging upward in Pure vibration and becoming formless, or falling. And the higher the player rises the farther there is to fall. If ahamkara fights the flow of sudharma, anger is the inevitable result. This draws his energy down to the first chakra, where he must begin again his climb to the top. Ego becomes egotism when the player is too self-centered. In Hindu mythology the Puranas are filled with descriptions of this egotism, which was always reached after great penance and austerity. After the aspirant attained the boon of power, and became an egotist, he proclaimed himself to be God. This false identification drew him down to first-chakra anger, greed, delusion, vanity, and avarice. The whole planet became disturbed. Earth appeared as a cow before Vishnu and asked him to relieve her of the burden of egotism. At this point as described in the epics, Vishnu, the great protector of life, assumed a form by taking birth. In Leela, the God then sets out to slay the dragon of egotism in the player, an egotism contrary to the principle of preservation. Aharnkara is the food of Vishnu. Cosmic Consciousness is his dwelling place.

Om is the one sound present throughout the universe, manifest and unmanifest. It is the subtlest form in which energy exists. Omkar is the plane of the vibrations that produce this cosmic sound by remaining true to their dharma. The player who lands here discovers Om as the true sound of all being. In the beginning there was sound, the Word. And the Word was with God and was God. This same sound can be realized by the player who abandons the trap of desire, which is mind, and meditates while creating sound with his body. Om is the basis of all knowledge, all poetry, all the fine arts. Centering on Om opens to the player all the vast resources within himself which were blocked out before by lower-chakra maya. This same sound is also a great device for relieving tension. It is a sound used by every player consciously or unconsciously. For Om is the sound of humming. Everybody hums. Poets and composers, especially, make use of this sound to inspire creativity. Om is at once Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer—the three aspects of Divinity. If the player finds himself associated with a disturbing ele­ment in his environment and wants to align himself with the harmonic rhythms of the planet, all he need do is start humming. The process makes him introverted, turning inward to unearth the vast treasures buried in the depths of consciousness, chitta. If poets and composers vibrate in the lower chakras, their humming brings forth works that relate to that level of vibration. If they vibrate higher, their works relate to that higher plane. The Hindus believe that all the Vedas came out of Om. And it is clear that the Vedas were written by saints and seers who were also poets and composers already vibrat­ing on high planes, for their work is the highest form of poetry, touched with the spark of the Divine. The player who lands in Omkar has realized the need for creating calm in his life, for simplifying his existence. Worldly distractions have kept him away from Om and the cosmic wisdom it unearths. With the simplification of his existence, each action performed is performed consciously. The player ceases to be a slave of habit. As his being becomes more finely attuned to reality, he literally hums. The humming process is Om-ing. This same sound appears in discussion when one affirms one is paying attention to the speaker. One makes pain and a humming sound —Hmm or Ah. In the form of a sigh, Om relieves both pain and tension, and changes the body chemistry by driving out bad chemicals. Humming vibrates the whole system, but most especially the top of the head – seventh chakra. In the sixth chakra Om was the sound for meditation, for bringing the player into contact with reality. Here in the seventh chakra, Om is realized – a fact ofexistense. The Vedic claim that Om enables the player to discover knowledge never present in his embodied life experience was confirmed in a study at the University of Saskatchewan. A group of 200 students chanted Om while trying to discover the answer to a question that none in the group knew. At the end of less than an hour of chanting, one in ten had uncovered the answer from the storehouse of cosmic knowledge that Om unlocks.

Vayu-loka (literally, “the plane of air”) is located in the region of satya­loka, the plane of reality, in the seventh row of the game board. This vayu is not the same wind or air as found on the physical or earth plane. It is the essence of the physical element air. Marut is the ruler of this plane. He is also synonymous with Indra, the lord of Heaven (Indra is one who has obtained supremacy over his sensual nature). Vayu-loka is a plane where the player becomes a current of energy along which the whole atmosphere moves, obtaining suprem­acy over mass and weight. Those who dwell in this region are enlight­ened souls with a light body who have not yet reached the satya-loka, the plane of reality. The player who lands in vayu-loka has made his passage through Omkar and achieved, through his karmas, higher vibrational patterns. Maruts are friends and brothers of Indra, controlling the atmosphere of the physical plane. They bring rain and fill the earth with the vital life-force. They become pranic energy on the physical plane and the life-breath of breathing souls. Air is synonymous with movement, inside and outside the body. All movements of fluids inside living organisms are due to air. Air is essential to life, and each and every cell has a vacuole (an air space). Air is thus present everywhere. The dweller in vayu-loka, being the life-force, life-breath, has the same quality as was found in the sixth chakra: his presence can be felt anywhere, or in several places simultaneously can now dissolve the essence of his being, the ego, assume a gaseous form, and float in the gaseous plane. In the sixth chakra came the liquid plane, but liquid still has a form. Gas, however, has no definite form at all. Liquid contains both mass and weight; gas does not. The player is no longer burdened but he has gained true freedom of action. He becomes weightless and formless.

Teja means light, and teja-loka is the plane of light. In the Upanishads, self or consciousness is said to have four states: I. The waking state, called jagrat, in which the self is known as vaishvanara. 2. The dream state, called swapna, in which consciousness is known as taijas or tejas—full of light, or made of light. 3. The state of deep sleep, called sushupti, in which it is known as pragya. 4. The altered state of consciousness called turiya: the unconscious/ conscious state in which it is known as Brahman, Cosmic Consciousness. Teja is the light that was created in the beginning. The world that we experience in the waking state is the phenomenal world that comes in the stage of creation before this. The phenomenal world is in the teja—in the light from which it materializes. It appears to be similar to the world of the dream state, but it is not. That state is completely made of light. The images we see in photographs look exactly like the real person, but they are different patterns of light, which vary to create an illusion of reality. Taijas is related to the astral body sukshma, which is composed of light and in which the player dwells when he dreams. To radiate is to emit light. Omkar is sound. After sound comes air, vayu-loka. And after air comes fire, teja, the subtle element responsible for all the forms of manifestation. Fire cannot exist without air, just as the player cannot land in teja-loka without first passing through the plane of air. Every substance has a combustion point, a temperature at which it bursts into flame in the presence of oxygen. Heat is the excitation of molecules. The faster the molecules move, the greater the heat. Fire comes when this movement is too fast to be contained by the material. As the player rises higher and higher his own level of vibration increases. In the seventh chakra he reaches the essence of vibration. Then, his vibrations fully raised, he passes through air and bursts into radiant flame, giving light to all those around him. When the player lands in teja-loka his light can be felt throughout the world. Though there are billions of stars in the sky, only a few are brilliant enough to be visible, and there is but one sun in each solar sys­tem. It is here that the player becomes light, illuminated. He becomes a sun, gathering around himself the astral bodies necessary to form a complete solar system. The plane of radiation is not directly attainable by any arrow. The player must reach it slowly and gradually, unless he attains illumination through the practice of spiritual devotion.

Satya-loka is the last plane of the seven main lokas seated in the spine of the game board. In satya-loka, akash tattva predominates: the player here attains the Shabd-Brahman world and is on the verge of liberation from the cycle of births and rebirths. He has reached the highest plane, beyond which lies the vaikuntha, the abode of Cosmic Consciousness. This loka does not perish at the night of Brahma, the Creator. Shabda is the word, the aum, which is itself Brahman (Absolute Reality, Cos­mic Consciousness). Shabd Brahman is the plane of primal vibrations­ – Omkar. After passing through the plane of primal vibrations the player is able to establish himself in reality. Satya is truth, reality, God. Here the player reaches his highest chakra and becomes reality, realized. Before this level the game is all a process of evolving toward this nature, his own true reality. The player who reaches here attains harmony, a balance with the forces of the cosmos. There are no obstructions to the flow of his energy. It is here that the player becomes satchitananda (sat = truth; chit being; ananda = bliss). He realizes that bliss is the truth of being. He stays in the state of samadhi as a drop rests in the ocean. He dwells in an ocean of bliss. His presence becomes divine, and he confers grace on other players. Even here the player is not liberated. There are three snakes in the seventh row of the game. The first is egotism. The second is negative intellect. The third is tamas. By reaching the plane of reality the player has escaped one of these snakes, but two are left to contest his quest for liberation. If doubt or laziness remains, the snakes will pull him down. But if the player stays in positive intellect, and his karma die leads him successfully past the snake of tamas, there remain happiness and the planes of the eighth row—and Cosmic Consciousness. He is aware of the dangers he faces, and he knows he must still perform right karmas to attain his goal. This is his realization on the plane of Reality. He realizes that not simply by vibrating in the seventh chakra will he attain Cosmic Consciousness. There are more karmas, more tests. There are no more arrows ahead of him, no more sudden upward movements of energy. He has to make his way according to his karmas.

Subuddhi is right understanding, which comes only after reaching the plane of reality. After the player reaches satya-loka he attains perfect nondual consciousness and perceives the Divine in all phenomena. Non‑ dual consciousness is real subuddhi. As long as the player is in the body, intellect plays its part. It discriminates, distinguishes, and evaluates. In the seventh chakra these value judgments no longer relate to the outside world but turn inward to discern the player’s own inner reality. Each judgment produces a change in body chemistry. These states are known as feelings. When the player reaches Cosmic Consciousness his symbol, the ring (which is his body), loses importance. But until the sixty-eighth square is reached, the four faculties of consciousness—buddhi, manas, chitta, and ahamkara—keep working. Ahamkara in its negative phase becomes ego­tism. Buddhi also assumes positive and negative forms. Chitta remains in constant action and interaction with the three gunas. Before reaching the plane of reality, buddhi does not become a self-existing phenomenon, and this is true for ahamkara as well. After the experience of samadhi in the seventh chakra, and the realization that comes from direct experience of the noumenon, buddhi starts analyzing and categorizing the experience. Here the direction can be either positive or negative. The positive way of vibrating, subuddhi, is achieved by following the path of dharma, the source of the arrow that ends here. Positive intellect joined to the flow of the player’s dharma are two of the most potent tools in the game to aid the player in his quest for liberation.

If the player does not follow the law of dharma, doubting the cosmic nature of existence and the divine presence in his every experience, he is caught by the snake of negative intellect and brought down to nullity. He can neither relate to the lower planes nor call on dharma for help. He has to pass through all the second-chakra planes of vibration unless the arrows of mercy or charity intervene. Unless he gets the aid of the arrows he must atone for his negativity and find dharma again, or else chart an entirely new course of action. Buddhi is at once a great trap and a great tool for liberation. As subuddhi it is a tool in the service of liberation. So durbuddhi is a down­ward spiraling vortex, which sucks the psychic energy back into the plane of the imagination. Durbuddhi represents the negative valuations in the player that cause him to shut out possibilities. In order to reach his goal, the player must be able to accept whatever the world presents to him. If he denies any aspect, if he doubts the presence of God in any single object, he denies God. For the Divine is reality. All is the manifestation of the One. Durbuddhi is negation, negation of the Divine. This is why the player who comes here dwells in nullity. All his energies drained in his denial of God, he finds himself in futility. Until he can accept what he has denied, until he finds dharma again, he has no hope of liberation. But nullity is a transient state. Cosmic Consciousness is the only absolute. And if the player reaches the seventh chakra again, his forced banishment to nullity can provide the insight necessary to maintain posi­tive intellect and avoid the jaws of this serpent.

A balance in body chemistry and psychic phenomena: that is happiness. Sukh, happiness, is a state the player attains through vivek, conscience, or by chanting Om, achieving samadhi and maintaining a positive intellect. Sukh comes to the player when his conscience tells him that he is very near his goal, giving him the certainty that he is nearing liberation. The feeling he experiences is ineffable, beyond the power of words to describe. He feels the happiness of the river merging for the last time with the ocean after a thousand-mile journey, a feeling of merging with his source. If in his state of happiness the player does not neglect his karmas and become lazy and inactive, there is a real chance of attaining Cosmic Consciousness within his lifetime. But if he is overwhelmed with the experience of happiness and fails to act, sensing his mission complete, the snake of tamas lurks just beside him, to swallow him and drain his energies back to the first chakra. The game tells us he still needs a six to reach his goal, just as he needed six to take birth. But if he becomes lazy, if he feels there is nothing left for him to do, there lurk tamas and illusion. True happiness is for the player who maintains his balance as he nears his goal. The game is important in its totality. His stable intel­lect enables him to discern patterns of flow, the current of dharma. He accepts whatever life presents to him. There is nothing he rejects. Even if he reaches the eighth plane and must come back again to the earth he feels the happiness that comes with knowing there is a goal that reached.

In Sanskrit tamas means dark, relating to darkness. Darkness is an absence of light. Light is knowledge; dark is ignorance; ignorance is mind. And tamas has a second literal meaning in Sanskrit: it means snake. Tamas is a dark snake, the longest snake in the game, one that inexorably draws the player back into illusion and out of the illumination of the plane of reality. In the seventh chakra, tamas is the ignorance that comes from attaching importance to sense perceptions. This ignorance comes after one realizes happiness and thinks that it is the end of the performance of karmas. But the player cannot stop all karmas. From happiness, the highest karma is a six, the lowest a one. Action cannot stop entirely. Tamas is complete surrender to illusion. The player has lost sight of the never-ending nature of play. He has forgotten that until liberation is attained the game is not over. Inaction is an attempt to avoid the law of karma. Karma is dharma in action. The player who lands in tamas has forgotten that play does not stop in the seventh row and that by attain­ing samadhi he has not attained liberation. When movement slows in the upward direction, it must still be expressed—and the only direction from the highest chakra is down. The longest snake in the game awaits the player who neglects his karmas. Three factors are at work in any event. The first is dharma, the essence of action. The second is karma, the action itself. The third is inaction, inertia, resistance. Because of the nature of the game, inaction triggers a downward flow of energy. Karmas are unavoidable. Attempt­ing to avoid them is a karma itself, an action. Attempting to avoid karma is a karma that draws the player back to the second space of the game, illusion. Tamas is synonymous with the state of deep sleep. When the sensory organs are completely withdrawn and awareness dissolves in sleep, the player is no better than a corpse, even though he is still breathing. In meditation, when all activities of the mind completely stop and the sense perceptions are drawn inward, it becomes easy for the player to slide ever so gently from the sattvic action less state into the hypnogogic state, ending in deep sleep. For this reason tamas falls in the seventh row of the game. It is here that tamas becomes a snake. At other spaces where he has vibrated, tamas has been necessary for the player. But here, in the plane of meditation (a form of inaction), tamas is a snake that changes the entire course of energy flow, drawing the player back to illusion. An attribute of tamoguna, tamas is the manifestation of the guna in the microcosm. When the same force is discussed as an attribute of prakriti, the phenomenal plane, it is known as tamoguna.