On the game of Chess

Shunyamurti recently received a question from an online student about the game of chess. We share with you the question and Shunyamurti’s answer in this blog.

Student Question:

Many people wonder how such a beautiful game was created by humanity, as the game of chess, a game so simple but at the same time so pragmatic that challenge your intellect and your feelings, but all that happen because the game of chess has its bases in the purest, strong and mystery emotion of humans that is Love.

But why Love? If you look what the game is about, it is the battle of two empires; it is a game of Life and death. By the time it was invented, there was still empires and large army that would give their lives in the battlefield. A real King, one that would go to the battle among its soldiers, showing real greatness by putting himself in danger to help the kingdom, would leave behind his Queen, his Love, just promising that he would come back to her, and that could last months, years or forever… So the king and every other soldier would leave the loved ones behind to fight for them against the evil world to conquer and defend what they believed. And the king leaved all his power in the hands of the Queen, she had the responsibility of a whole kingdom to take care of, a political place full of enemies and danger. So the queen ends up being stronger than the king, taking care of the family and the kingdom in the absence of the king, and if she is not successful, the king would have nowhere to return after the battle nor his soldiers. So all this responsibility and promises must be accomplished so they can be together again.

Who invented chess? Nobody really knows who it was. And in that matter becoming anonymously as God, was sophisticated enough to realize that the Queen is much stronger than the King; and in order to do justice to this fact, in the game, the queen is the strongest piece and has the function of protecting the king, and paradoxically the king is the most fragile piece.

Shunyamurti I would like to give you these thoughts so if you could see some value in this you would discuss in a much more profound way, but the essences of my message is love.

With love to all of you.

Lucas

Shunyamurti’s Response:

Dear Lucas,

You make good points about the man-woman relationship in your interpretation of chess. I would say that level of the game derives from the very ancient myth of Shiva playing a kind of dice game with his woman. She always wins. But she cannot live without Him. In the Vedic ontology, Shiva does nothing, while Shakti does everything. But He holds the Zero Point, as the Unmanifest, without which the cosmos cannot manifest. He is both the Emptiness and the Fullness that is transcendent of the world of action, yet pervades all of space. The king on the chessboard only represents the absent ruler of the game, who is the Player who makes the moves. Of course, in our world there are two players, and this is the real relation between the man and woman. There is no fixed superiority of one over the other. But there are different strategies and tactics employed by each. And this is what makes the game interesting. 

However, I would propose that a more important level of interpretation of the game is the vertical one, in which the queen signifies the soul, while the king represents God. The soul can do whatever she likes: she can create hell realms of envy and rejection or heavenly realms of beauty and love. But ultimately she must protect her king, her godliness, her virginal goodness and likeness unto God. Without that, she cannot survive. Her loss of God in her heart brings about the end of the world. And only when the two are again united, can the world be re-dreamed in a new perfection.

Namaste, Shunyamurti