This was sent to me by my sister:
Picture this in your imagination:1 – There’s the board, the chips, and the players. On the sidelines, the game master sits back and watches.2 – Each player at the table starts out by being given chips that represent talents, gifts, and/or skills with which he can play the game. 3 – Each player is also given chips representing his environment where he will have to start out. (example: great or bad family)4 – No one is allowed to leave and go home until the game master says he can.
The really fascinating part of the game is that no player is told how the game works. He just takes his chips and tries to figure it out as he goes. They all look at each other, scratch their heads, take their turn rolling the dice, and begin to move their pieces on the game board.
Just like in Monopoly, at times their roll lands them on a spot where they have to draw a card from a stack, and the card tells them what they must do next or gives them unexpected choices or rewards. Drawing the card is just luck, good or bad. The game master controls what you get in your card.
On each roll of the dice, they move along the board or stand still. The little road on the board only shows up as they take their turn so consequently they only see a short distance ahead. There is an invisible straight road to the goal, but many dead end side roads, but just like a rat in a maze they can’t tell which is which until they try them out. So they gradually learn as they go. Some figure out that they want to quit and not roll their dice any more in the stupid game and just sit the rest of the game out. But that’s against the rules and once started, no one is allowed to quit the game. So the game master then steps in and rolls them for him anyway.
As time goes by, with past experiences to build upon, each one figures out what he thinks the purpose of the game is and what works best for him to reach that goal. Some pride themselves in getting really good at it. However when those folks finally reach the goal that they thought the game was about, they find that the feeling of winning quickly fades. So confused, they realize they really haven’t won yet, so what they believed to be the purpose of the game, is mistaken. So with all the chips they’ve won so far along the way, they re-think their strategy and start again from where they are on the board.
Some just don’t ever seem to figure it out, and after a while the game master just steps in and lets them go home. Some figure it out early on, find the prize, win, and the game is over, and the game master lets them go home, a winner!
Some figure it out, win, and the game master allows them to stay and watch the rest of the game with the master by their side. But this doesn’t last long because right away the player is so happy with his prize that he wants to jump back in and share with the others and so he asks the game master to allow him go back to the game and coach the players in how it all works so they can win too. But by this time the other players have been in the game so long that each thinks he has figured out the game, knows how to win and each thinks he knows what the prize is, and so most won’t listen.
The visitor tries everything to convince them that he knows the way and has found the prize … “come on with me and I’ll show you!” Only a few even turn their heads to listen at all. The young ones who have not yet even begun to figure out the game are the best listeners, and many of those learn quickly from the winner. But they must test out what they have learned by using that information in continuing the game. Only through experiencing the game does one progress. Learning is great, but only in doing does one move along the board.
So this winner who was wildly happy with his prize at first, learns as he tries to help the others to also find it, that something is missing. He goes back to the game master in frustration and says, “Help. On my own I can do nothing to get them to listen to me about how to win the game. They just won’t listen. Won’t you please come with me and help me to make them listen?” The game master laughs and says, “So you thought you had already won. Winning only for yourself is a false prize. Now, in your request to share the prize, you have actually won the game and found the real prize, and that particular game is ended. You’ve won!”
THE NEXT GAME:
You now also have a choice. If you choose, you can get into another game requiring more skills and it has a much bigger prize. In this one all the players have me (the game master) by their sides coaching them and helping them along. If you choose to play, in this game you will still learn more of the same original lessons, (forgiveness, unconditional love, and how things work)… but here compassion must also be learned for those at the table with you, who you expect too much from when they are not playing the game to your own satisfaction. Here you’ll have to deal with your own judgment of others and with pride in your own skills in the game as compared to their’s. You’re all running the race for the same prize and shoving or in any way harming each other is not allowed or you lose ground. Stopping to help another in the race, actually gives you more speed so that you move along faster in the long run.
The game:To figure out the meaning of life. The purpose:
Learning & changing – The game master wrote it to cause each individual to grow in compassion, mercy, and love.
The prize:
To join with the game master, and take part in running the game in hopes that as many as possible might win in the end.
Why?
Because God is Love, and He is our creator, and He is teaching His children to grow into his likeness but to do this by “choices.”
When our time comes to die, and we face the Light, Raymond Moody, who wrote 2 books on near death experiences of hundreds of people, said, that we will be asked 3 questions:
1 – What have you done with your life that you want to show me?
2 – What have you learned about how things work?
3 – What have you learned about love?
What will be your answer?
