Divine Lila - The Creative Play of Life

One night I awoke from a puzzling dream.   In my dream I saw a row of large colorful beads strung together, each bead with its own unique, intricate pattern and design.  And then the words came, “The tests and challenges will become more subtle and complex,  look closely and carefully.  All is as it should be.  Be brave and you will win the bead game.” 

It could have been  a scene taken from the 1943 Herman Hess novel, “Magester Ludi and the Glass Bead Game” which won a Nobel prize for Literature in 1946. It is a book I attempted to read in my twenties, however at the time the book felt deep and mysterious and way over my head.  

The glass bead game is said to represent “Divine Lila”, the game or play of Life.  Of course this is only one interpretation of a complex book with multi-layered meanings.  However, I’d like to play with the idea a bit if I may.

Lila or Leela is a Sanskrit word defined as, “a way of describing all reality, including the cosmos, as the outcome of creative  play  by the divine absolute,” Brahman or God.  The word “play” may also be substituted for “love”.   Therefore,  creation, rather than an intentional  forethought by the Divine, is  a spontaneous act or expression of sheer joy and love, the play of  God .

One might go a step further by saying that creation, being  a wellspring of love and life, eternity at play, implies that the Divine imperative for all creation is to play as God plays.  That is, if we are indeed made in the Divine image.

“The cosmic spirit seeks not to restrain us

But lifts us stage by stage to wider spaces . . . “

These words taken from Hess’s “Magester Ludi and the Glass Bead Game” seem to transport the reader to a timeless place, perhaps infinity Itself or an inner realm wise and all knowing,  pregnant with possibility.   After all, is not life continually nudging us to step into larger versions of our self,  into the sparkling effervescence of  a greater potential .  Perhaps the Divine longs  for us to awaken to It’s eternal presence so that we may become aware of this larger potential  we are meant to embody. 

In his  best- selling book, “Autobiography of a Yogi”, Paramahansa Yogananda writes the following:

“The divine purpose of creation, so far as man’s reason can grasp it, is expounded in the Vedas (sacred texts).  The rishis (poet or sage) taught that each human being has been created by God as a soul that will uniquely manifest some special attribute of the Infinite before resuming its Absolute Identity.”

What an intriguing prospect - that somewhere deep in the cavern of each soul lies a divine attribute that is the soul’s alone to express, a facet of creation never before seen, a Divine imprint longing for expression in the world of time.  In my dream perhaps the intricate design of each bead is pointing to just that- the unique beauty  within each soul.  And what if the purpose of life or "play of lila" is to discover this hidden treasure. Just as the Divine delights in It’s creations, so too might we delight in ours.  Could it be that awakening to this greater creative potential is how the glass bead game is won?  If so, what a marvelous play indeed.