The Heaven Game


In The Alchemist we read this tale. A boy enters a great house. He is told he may venture throughout the whole house. The trick is he is to hold a spoon with two drops of oil in it. He may venture throughout the whole house but he is not to spill the oil. This is the state of the mind of the master, or the adept.

Chaim, the root of alchemy, is life. But it is more than life, it is, as the Vedas say, the very life of life. There is a way to do it right. It is about living wisely but never dully, living wholesomely but without deprivation. In all things, a balance between their opposites exists. Between the farthest room in the house and the entire bulb of oil, there is a secret. The masters live in this zone and life, as a result of their doing so, unfolds for them magically. I don't exagerrate. It's magic. There is magic. It is wizardry, light side, dark side, so very crouching tiger, hidden dragon-type magic. Plato said, "Life is a game." And this is what he meant. For those who enter the realm of the masters, life becomes simply that, a game. By holding the right posture of mind, a master can make things occur, can draw words forth from other's mouths, can invite rain. It is a reality, the most supreme reality. The Dalai Lama inhabits it. I don't know who else, but I shudder to think of the Masons knowing this and using it to design our cities and win our elections. I never would have thought it possible if I were not standing in this place and catching my own novice glimpses of what can be done. Early Christianity rocked.

The game of wisdom must have been so thoroughly embraced during the Bronze Age for it to have breathed into form of our Sacred Texts. Reading the Bible in this context, one sees the double edge sword of mastery--the wonder it allowed, the solitude it bestowed. When Christ walks out over the water to helps his buddies in the boat, what better metaphor for being able to manage the sundry details and hobgoblins of the unenlightened life. What is a life threatening situation to the neophyte is just a walk across the water for the adept.

Those who enter heaven join in the game. Those who don't, get by the best they can until they "get it."

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