52

Plane of violence

(himsa-loka)

The player who attains the sixth chakra realizes the unity of all existence. Human bodies are but transient forms. The real essence of all players exists beyond the realm of name and form. The player knows that death is just a change in the life scenario. Hence arises the danger that the player will resort to violent means, knowing full well his actions ultimately harm no other players.

But the world is the stage of Leela and karma. Each player has the opportunity of reaching Cosmic Consciousness within his present life. The law of karma dictates that all players must be allowed to enact their dramas to the end, to finish the play. Sixth-chakra acts of violence are not excepted from the omnipresent karmic principle. This makes the plane of violence a snake that draws the player down to fourth-chakra purgatory, where he must atone for his acts.

It has been individuals vibrating here who throughout history have launched the crusades, jihads, and other “holy" wars. The perpetrators of these vast pageants of human suffering and death always see themselves as great reformers of consciousness. Better the other player be killed than suffer his soul to live in ignorance, runs the rationale of the sixth-chakra zealot. After all, nobody really dies. . . .

Real violence is not possible before the sixth chakra. Acts of violence can be performed by players in lower chakras, but these are seen by the players as self-defense, as reactions to an external threat. In the sixth chakra players realize that no threat comes from outside. First-chakra violence arises over money and belongings. Second-chakra violence concerns sex and pleasure. The thirst for power creates violence in the third chakra. Fourth-chakra man kills to dispose of karma, to even old scores. Agnosticism is the fuel of fifth-chakra violence. In the sixth chakra establishment of a creed, cult, or religion inevitably provides the motivation for excessive force. Those responsible for man's unholy wars have been high ascetics, who have performed hard penances in order to gain powers. But if the karmas are bad, asceticism can lend itself to a sort of dangerous solipsism. The player believes he has all the truth that he is, in fact, God or his agent. Those who fail to agree are wrong; therefore any means is justifiable to convert them. Better they die with understanding than live in ignorance.

In the lower chakras freedom of action is not present. In the sixth chakra the player becomes his own master and gains great powers through austerity and penance. Power in himsa-loka becomes violence. The player is violent with his own self before he can perform an act of violence on another. It requires perfect self-confidence to be violent. This self-confidence does not come before the sixth chakra. What had been reaction in the lower chakras is now nothing less than a sort of spiritual anarchy.

The player’s lack of fluidity and spiritual devotion draw him down to even harder penances in purgatory, where he must truly repent from the heart to be able to go on with the game and seek the path of spiritual devotion.