Lila or leela can be loosely translated as “divine play”. The concept of lila asserts that creation, instead of being an objective for achieving any purpose, is rather an outcome of the playful nature of the divine. As the divine is perfect, it could have no want fulfilled, thereby signifying freedom, instead of necessity, behind the creation.
– Wikipedia entry on Lila
Any idea we have about the world – anyone or anything – is a projection. It points to something here now.
So also with lila.
WHAT I AM TO MYSELF
To myself, in my own immediate noticing, I am what the world happens within and as.
I am what a thought may call consciousness and the consciousness I am form itself into this whole field of experience – including of this human self, a doer, an observer, and so on.
The world, as it appears to me, is the play of the consciousness I am.
It’s the consciousness I am expressing, exploring, and experiencing itself in always new ways.
LILA AS PROJECTION
The idea of lila, the idea that all of existence is the play of existence – of the universe, the divine, Spirit, God, Brahman, Allah, and so on – mirrors what’s already here in immediate noticing.
We may not consciously notice it, but when we do – whether it’s as an intuition or directly – it’s easy to project it onto existence as a whole.
Here, in immediate noticing, the consciousness I am takes the form of this field of experience. The world, as it appears to me, is the play of the consciousness I am.
So then it’s natural to imagine that this is the case for existence as a whole as well.
Lila is a projection of what’s already here.
THE PURPOSE IS THE EXPERIENCE
When I notice here, I find that the “purpose” of it all seems to be the experience itself.
The purpose seems to be the play itself, the play of the awake space I am forming itself into this whole field of experience.
Here too, it’s easy to project it onto existence itself. I imagine that the purpose of it all is for existence to express, explore, and experience itself in always new ways.
Even evolution is part of that purpose. Evolution is what allows it all to always be new in terms of the crude content of how it all unfolds.
IT’S GOOD TO DIFFERENTIATE
I find it’s helpful to differentiate here.
There is my immediate noticing. I am consciousness taking the form of this whole field of experience, and it’s always new and fresh.
Then there is the projection of this – of the mental representations of this – onto existence as a whole. I imagine that the whole of existence is like this.
It may make sense. It may happen to fit how some others talk about it.
And it’s still an imagination and a projection.
It’s good to hold it all lightly.
MY EXPERIENCE WITH THIS
When the oneness shift happened in my teens, this is one of the things that immediately seemed clear.
All of existence is the divine expressing, exploring, and experiencing itself in always new ways.
At the time, there wasn’t the differentiation mentioned above, but it came with a little more noticing.
The awake space I am seems to express, explore, and experience itself in always new ways. It seems built into what I am. It seems inevitable.
I then create a mental representation of that, and then imagine it onto existence as a whole.
Many years after the initial shift, in my thirties, was when I first encountered the Indian idea of Lila and I recognized it as pointing to the same as what I had been noticing and written about in my journals.
The image above was created by me and Midjourney