VBT – Meditation 58.1
God Is Just A Player
In India, we have called this world not a creation of God, but a play, a game, a LEELA. This concept of LEELA is beautiful, because creation seems serious. The Christian, the Jewish God is very serious. Even for a single disobedience, Adam was thrown out of the Garden of Eden – and not only was he thrown out, because of him, the whole of humanity. He was our father, and we are suffering because of him. God seems to be so serious. He should not be disobeyed. And if he is disobeyed, he is going to take revenge, and the revenge has been so long.
The sin doesn’t seem to be so serious. Really, Adam committed it because of God’s own foolishness.
God the Father said to Adam, “Don’t go near the tree, the Tree of Knowledge, and don’t eat its fruit.”
This prohibition becomes an invitation, and this is psychological. In that big garden, only that Tree of Knowledge became attractive. It was prohibited. Any psychologist can say, God committed an error. If the fruit of that tree was not to be eaten, it was good not to talk about it at all. There was no possibility of Adam reaching that tree, and the whole humanity would have been in the garden.
But this saying, this order, “Don’t eat,” created the trouble; this “don’t” created the whole trouble.
Because Adam disobeyed he was thrown out of heaven, and the revenge seems so long. And Christians say Jesus was crucified just to redeem us – to redeem us from that sin that Adam committed. So the whole Christian concept of history hangs on two persons – Adam and Jesus.
Adam committed the sin, and Jesus suffered to redeem us from it and allowed himself to be crucified.
He suffered so that Adam’s sin may be forgiven. But it doesn’t seem that God has forgiven yet. Jesus was crucified, but humanity goes on suffering in the same way.
The very concept of God as a father is ugly, serious. The Indian concept is not of a creator. God is just a player; he is not serious. This is just a game. Rules are there, but rules of a game. You need not be serious about them. Nothing is sin – only error, and you suffer because of error, not because God punishes you. You suffer because of the rules you don’t follow. God is not punishing you. The whole concept of LEELA gives life a dramatic color; it becomes a long drama. And this technique is based on this concept: “THIS SO-CALLED UNIVERSE APPEARS AS A JUGGLING, A PICTURE SHOW. TO BE HAPPY, LOOK UP ON IT SO.”
The change has to be made in the attitude, not in the work.
Up to now you were thinking that it was life. From now on think of it as acting; that’s the only change. Go on saying the same things you were saying to people before; whatsoever they expect, go on saying. Do it even more nicely and beautifully because it is just acting. When you are working in the world, you have to consider a thousand and one things. Nothing is wrong with that. Just be an actor and think of the world as a big drama. It is a very big stage where everybody is playing roles.
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