Still Playing

Before I delve into today’s super-serious topic, let me share some contemporary sayings:

“Heaven probably has a multi-faith cafeteria.”

“Coexistence is agreeing that everyone’s god has a different dress code.”

“If God wanted only one religion, humans wouldn’t have been given opinions.”

“God listens in all languages. Humans argue over subtitles.”

“All paths lead to God. Humans added toll booths.”

“Religious conflict is basically people fighting over whose metaphor is literal.”

(Source: Internet)

Haha? Not really.

What if all religions are already coexisting?

What if that one God gave us different endings because maybe there is no ending, only checkpoints?

I haven’t played any video games in the last 15 years. I’m still stuck in the 90s millennial campaign mode, stage by stage, boss after boss, with an ultimate boss waiting at the end.

And it makes me wonder:

What if God is like the shop owner of a gaming store?

You choose the game, aka religion, and He lets you. You jump in, jump out, switch games. No judgment. No restriction.

What if there is no calibre required to play, only choice?

The choice to remain in one game, call it reality, religion, universe, or birth, is between you and God. You remember this truth, except when you enter the game, you forget the arrangement.

Just like you both intended.

Does that amnesia make life, or religion, or the game, more engrossing?

Does it help you play better? Learn deeper lessons?

That’s something only veteran players and game gods might know. They might even share a few cheat codes.

God can pull you out of the game whenever you want. You can also switch it off yourself.

But God doesn’t, just because He can.

Because the power of choice prevails.

And come to think of it, why should God pull you out, no matter how much He sees you suffering, especially when you are also enjoying being in this mess!

You paid for this game.

This suffering.

This life.

Maybe through karma. Maybe through choice. It is what it is.

It was always up to you, to leave the shop altogether or keep trying different games. Free shop you see!

God holds no grudges.

But can you handle the choices you’ve made?

And what if I told you one big secret?

The ultimate boss is God – the final choice giver -but the super boss in every game you play is actually an amalgamation of you.

All your unhealed traits. All the harm you caused. All the versions of yourself you didn’t want to look at.

A version that remembers how you hurt others, and how that hurt feels.

A  dreadful version of you raised to the power of a hundred thousand.

And you face this boss, not to punish yourself, but to make you learn what keeps returning. You need to be told what is stopping you from progressing.

And still, the choice remains yours.

No matter how much we blame the game, no matter how much we behave like addicts, insisting the game won’t leave us, when in reality, we are the ones who can’t stop playing.

Because it gives us a dopamine hit, an existential high!

Could this be because we don’t know anything else?

Because we haven’t experienced anything better, even while craving it for so long?

We are unwilling to believe what some who had left told us about how freeing leaving the shop feels?

And yet this is our ‘free will’!

The only thing that might help is remembering the shop owner’s reminder:

The shop is always open.

The exit is too!