Secrets From the Ages

Chapter 2

The Why

 The why: The secret reason for existence (in this universe) is to have a game.

There have been a few philosophies that have contended that life is a game. However, most have not explained this point very well. So, we will try to cover it a little bit better. The secret purpose of the game is to create emotions. We say that it is secret because it is not well known. I have not been able to find this data any other place. The fact is, almost all endeavors in life are for the purpose of the emotions. One is driven to create emotions and then when they are created, one is driven by the emotions. People in a theater are all watching the screen, but what they are experiencing is the emotion that they create from the situations presented on the screen. When people ride a roller coaster, or in a speed boat, or go skiing they are experiencing the emotion of the thrill. When a person reads a book, he is experiencing the emotions that he creates from the story of the situations in the book. The greatest emotions, however, come from the situations that a person himself creates through playing the game of life. His own situations create the greatest emotions, or that is, so long as a person decides to play the game of life. Some people run from it.

Creating emotions is one of the reasons people are so stuck on creating the emotion of love. If feels good. Joy is higher, but love is great. It is one of the things this universe is about. Nothing wrong with it. Have a ball. Just don’t expect it to save you. It can’t save you any better than any of the other emotions. Joy is infinitely better than love. It does not invoke calamities.

The most desirable emotions are the pleasure emotions, joy being the highest and the most desirable over all. Some of the positive emotions are joy, love, fun, happiness, and enthusiasm. The negative emotions such as anger, hate, fear, regret, and jealousy are painful emotions. People often do not recognize the negative emotions as painful, but these emotions drive people to do terrible things in order to get over the pain of it all. For example, an angry man may slash out and destroy a window, or hit someone to overcome the pain. The fact is, the lashing out when one hits the proper target often does lessen the pain of anger or hate. But the feeling evidently is, any emotion is better than no emotion. When one has had so much negativity in his life that he cannot seem to create the positive emotions, he will still seek to create emotions even if they are painful.

All Players seek to maintain a game. Even in prison camps during the war when prisoners were starving to death, they were still playing games. Stand a child in the corner of his room and he will soon figure out a game. The game of life, of course, is the most fascinating game of all, but all games have to do with bringing about situations in which the Player must create one emotion or another. The game of chess, if you have ever played it, will create many emotions in the players. Boredom is the least desirable of all emotions. Thus, prison is the one of the least desirable places to be.

Integrity in the Game: At the highest level in this universe, or at least on Earth there is pure joy in playing the game, whatever it might be. At the highest level of pleasure is the joy of the game. If it is a game of basketball, then the player himself, at the highest level, is experiencing the joy of the game.

The real joy of any game is not necessarily winning, but rather maintaining oneself within the integrity of the game. Integrity requires that one always does his dead level best, but maintaining honesty and fairness in the game at the same time. People have fun and joy even when they don’t win. In the long run they have more fun when they maintain themselves within the rules and etiquette of the game. When one begins to bend the rules or just be less than the required politeness for that game one begins to have less joy. Somewhat less than joy is fun, and less than that might be enthusiasm for the game. When one is less than enthusiastic he may become conservative about the game. As one drops down scales from conservatism he will probably become bored, down from bored he may become annoyed, below that angry, below that fearful, below that he may feel mostly grief, below that he will feel despair, finally he might get totally apathetic about playing games at all. (Boredom is the first level of emotion that is painful. Downward from boredom one becomes less and less aware, and thus less able to feel the pain.)

The integrity that one has for himself is that which maintains the joy and fun and love of life. As one loses his integrity trying too win, he loses his joy, and his enjoyment of life. People almost always forget their personal integrity as they come to believe in the importance of winning. Down through the ages many wise men have pointed out the fallacy of this kind of thinking. Remember the ancient saying, “When the great scorer comes to score against your name, it won’t be whether you won or lost, but how you played the game.” Wise men have known it through the ages.

The whole subject of games is a little more complex than this. Look at mankind for a minute. At first, for any new participant in the universe there is joy, but as one’s integrity falls away while trying too win at the games the joy falls away, also. At first there are games where everyone wins. That is the most joy as there are no losers. Then one falls away to games in life where it is, “I win, you lose,” situations. As one’s integrity continues to fall away, he believes that he can only win over the other guy by cheating or lying a little bit. But he believes he needed the lie or the cheating and thus deep inside he realizes that he really didn’t win after all. The guilt, however small, continues to rob him of the joy and fun. As his integrity worsens and it takes ever more cheating to win, the guilt finally gets too great. All this time, of course, he will be proclaiming to himself and others how great he is. Gradually he will start playing games with himself rather than cheating others. At this point, the games with himself come in the form of problems. He may lose his job, and his car quits working, and his wife leaves him. He may himself be cheated, but it will be all his own doing, if you observe him carefully that will be quite evident. The game of it all is to solve the problems that he has created, and this does happen.

When a person has had continuous problems for years or centuries (from life to life) he will eventually decide that he must teach himself lessons so that in the future he can avoid the problems. This is the point that all those spiritualists have reached who are so adamant about learning lessons here on Earth. One may continue to teach himself lessons for years or even for whole lifetimes. As one finds that teaching himself lessons are not improving his life, and they are not making him have fewer problems, he teaches himself ever more severe lessons. This continues until the pain becomes too much. He then believes that he has been wrong about everything and decides to listen only to others. In effect he decides to become a slave. As a slave he will only do what others tell him. He becomes a model citizen, or a good soldier, and always does what he is supposed to do. He quits thinking for himself and has others think for him. In almost all situations one does not become religious until one finally hits this low level. He tries to do only what he thinks God wants him to do. He knows, because of all the pain he has caused himself that he cannot be doing things right, so he follows the one being that is supposed to be perfect and right all the time, which is God.

After being a slave for a long time, either to various Earthly organizations and people, or to God, he may finally figure that he has nothing left to do. He’s lost at it all. He will wind up hiding. He may wind up in prison or living out in the mountains. But you can see a few of these people even in the city. They live behind closed blinds and in a darkened house. Their car will have all dark windows. (Not all dark window cars are owned by people in hiding, but some are). In hiding one has lost all aspects of the game. He may have a few minor games that he plays with himself, but nothing major. When one hides for years or centuries, one must somehow finally pull oneself up by one’s boot straps as no one can go out the bottom. Anyone who wants out of this universe must go out the top. There is no exit out the bottom.

The trip downward described here is only when one never cleans up his act. It only happens when one allows his integrity to continue to slip and become worse and worse. Those who find philosophies or even religions that help them improve their integrity for even a short while, often reverse their direction and go upward, the opposite of what is described here. But this only works for a short while, maybe a few years, but as long as one ascribes his integrity to God or a philosophy it will not last long. True integrity comes from within oneself, and never from the commandments of another, be it God or the devil. Throughout the trip downward or upward the Player (the person) is always experiencing the emotions created. That, after all, is the purpose of the game.

The second most important secret to playing games in this universe has been held secret longer than any other. This secret is the subject of the next chapter. Be sure to read it.

Go to Chapter Three.

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