The Game of Life

In AwarenessNow.com teachings, life is viewed as a dream. From this perspective, we can look at events objectively and dispassionately because we aren’t identified with ourselves as the dream characters. We can also view life as a dramatic play or movie. In some movies, we identify with the hero so much that we’re shocked when the hero dies and overjoyed when the hero resurrects. We have to remind ourselves that it’s just a movie. A third way of looking at life is as a game.

As a youth, I enjoyed playing the board game, Life, with friends. We would get married, get good jobs, make a lot of money to buy houses and cars, and hopefully retire in Millionaire Acres. We’ve since grown up and played the real game of life. Some of us lost and some of us won if you go by the rules of the board game, which are similar to society’s rules (i.e., the one with the most money and stuff wins). I never played by those rules.

I realized at a young age that success in life isn’t measured by how much money and things you accumulate but by how much you can let go of attachments to money, things, people, places, outcomes, etc. Winning at life isn’t even accumulating good karma and paying off bad karma. Those karmic accounts are important but aren’t the be all and end all of existence. Even very evil people do philanthropic deeds to earn good karma so they can escape their fate.

When you realize that life is just a game and that accumulating material or spiritual credit isn’t necessary, you come to understand that winning or losing isn’t the point. The point of material existence is to learn lessons and to have fun in the process. Each person has their own lessons to learn. A fourth perspective on life is that it’s a school, and when we finally wake up after learning our lessons, completing our capstone course, and realizing our God identity, we graduate. Where do we graduate to? To a job, of course. We begin working for the Kingdom of Heaven as enlightened spiritual beings. Schoolhouse earth with its playtime and lessons is over. Now it’s time to get down to business.