The Game Theory of Life in The Village

" So we then move on you see to another possible response, not repentance, but that of resignation :

"I quit The Game, I won't play it." 

There are all sorts of ways of doing this but basically this is an aristocratic posture, 

"You ordinary mortals with all your Desires, and all your Involvements are deluded - You Get attached to Things.

But there are a certain minority of Us, Who are above it all. 

And since We've resigned, We're not going to follow This now. " 

This as I say is an artistocratic, [be aware]  that it may be aristocratic in two ways : 

There's the aristocracy of the Hindu Sannyasi the people outside and above caste 

and there's also the aristocracy of the actual aristocrat - I get so mixed up with my British and American pronunciation on this - but 

The Aristocrat who comes on with the position of always being bored, who has complete sangfroid, who is imperturbable 

Kaiser Ling's study of this mentality is marvellous in his book of Europe the essay on Hungary portrays the rightly he calls the grand signeur. 

He always identified himself as a type disrobe the grand familia cannot be saved,  who could always be always rise to the occasion under any social circumstances whatsoever, without trying to do so or without apparently trying to do so.

In other words if he goes to the Opera wearing blue jeans he will somehow make it apparent that everybody else is improperly dressed.

This is a very interesting type of person you know there was an essay written by someone whose name I can't remember in the Centennial Review which contrasted the Attitude to Time of the

aristocracy, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat; 

It said The Aristocrat lives in The Past because his ancient forbears have achieved everything and his very by the fact of his birth in his existence he has nothing to strive for and he somehow I never need overdo it - he's always cool.

The Bourgeois on the other hand feels that it's necessary to arrive 

and he's always striving for The Future

Whereas the aristocrat lives in  The Past, on the other hand, 
The Proletarian lives in The Present because he doesn't care about his reputation, and he just lives.

And so of the three bourgeois The Sucker 

because the formula is always cheated because, well, it's going to come someday, see, you're going to get it - even your money when you pull it out of your pocket,  there says on it 

"Promise to Pay" 

- watch out for that!

It's poverty and the bourgeoisie use the news on from the whole the whole economy is the United States being the great bourgeois country is in a state of expectancy of feeling happy, not on what you have but on what is going to come 

The Aristocrat is happy on what has happened, these great achievements of the past mean there's nothing left to do except sort of glory in it.

The Proletarian wants it right now, see and they often get it; 

About the poor bourgeois, my uncle once said 

The Poor have it given them 

The Rich have it anyway so 

The Middle Classes do without

So both the aristocrats and the sannyasi have resigned.

Now, the more interesting of the two types is Acosta Sonia who Resigns From The World Game, let me review for you the role of the sannyasin in Indian culture you know there are four castes because 

The Priests or Brahmins  

The Caste of Warriors and Rulers called Kshatriya  

The Caste of Merchants called Vasia  

and The Caste of Workers called Shudra 

And to belong to a caste means that you are in  the state called grihastha, which is 'Householder' that is to say you are One Who is Involved in The World, you are engaged in what is called loca Sandra and loca means The Well, Sandra, upholding, upholding the going on of The Great Illusion and so you are playing for money for position for status, for success and hoping above all that you could win - You can beat The Game.

But it's supposed in the same Culture that every Man who attains the age of 45 or so, who has now a grown son to take over his work, will quit the game, will resign and so, when you come to be at age you're supposed to move from the state of grihastha, 'Householder' to vanaprastha which means 'Forest Dweller'.

You Give Away All Your Possessions 

to Your Son, 

You Change Your Name, 

You Take off All Your Clothes and Go More or Less Naked, 

because you have  

Abandoned Status.

So in spite of the fact that he has no status, he is however respected in the culture for being an Upper Outcast, whereas The Aborigines of the Indian Peninsula are Untouchables, The Lower Outcast and The Upper Outcast always mimics The Lower.

For example Buddha had his disciple wear ochre robes, because ochre robes were worn by convicts. 

So in the same way if today, in San Quentin, they all wear blue jeans with special kind pants and a kind of a blue denim jacket and this could well become the uniform of a new kind of sannyasi in The Western World 

and to some extent this is happening.

So this guy says 

"The Game is Not Worth The Cap, 
The Richer I Get, The More Miserable I Get"

Mo' Money, Mo' Problems.

You know how this is, you think that your problems may be monitored and you get more money.

What do you do then we've got enough money, you start worrying about your health and you can never never stop worrying about that 

Or if you're not worried about your health you worry about politics, if somebody's going to take your money away from you, worried about taxes, about Who's Cheating You.

And so a person who goes through all that he's finally 

"I don't think The Game's worth it, 

I'm going to resign."

And so Resignation or Renunciation --

 

The difference from Repentance is that it hasn't got the same kind of passion in The Resolve, that 

 

The Repentant Person Feels He's Wrong,  

Who Made a Mistake, Has Committed Sin 

and  

Wants to Get Better 

 

about the renounce first didn't concerns of that country he knows that better progress whether moral or material is an illusion and you have to understand this when you approach for example the study of Buddhism I think one of the most withering remarks I ever heard, from an oriental, he was Japanese he said once he was 

"Never forget that whereas Jesus was the Son of a Carpenter, Buddha was the son of a King" 

You know Wow! Take that! 

And it's choose it is something always about about that this is not the this is easy to see which Christianity historically was the protest of the slave class again if the Roman, establishment Buddhism was different it was the abandonment of position by an aristocracy  - 

 

That 

'We've done it. We've seen it all we've had it so now we check out and We will be therefore we will resign from all games' 

 

and if you follow this attitude to an extreme you're going to make because it all goes to the centre the same discovery that is made by the person who follows repentance to an extreme.

Just as The Repentant Person discovers that his contrition is phony, The Person Who Tries to Resign 

Will Discover That He Can't, that  -

There is no way of not playing games 

Let's go a little bit then into this Game Theory there are a lot of games that we play and not only the game of 
Can I get One Up on The Universe,  of Pretending That I'm me This Ego, With Its

Name and Its Role, The Man, 

but also we have what I call meta-games, for example the game 

My Games Better Than Your Game,

or The Game 

"I Won't Play With You Because Your Game is Vulgar, Stupid, Banal, Inferior or Whatever." 

One of the most, therefore, effective games in saying My Game is Better Than Your Game is that 

I'm Not Playing Games At All.

You are now at the lowest level we find that in the form of :

You're Not Sincere, I am Sincere 

You are Fooling, I'm not Fooling You and Being Honest with You 

Now, that's a great game and of Resignation is a form of it as to say you are children claim with toys and you haven't ever really woken up to the important concerns of life you haven't reached the dimension of ultimate sincerity all, that is to say Ultimate Reality, and in order to reach it you have to 
Resign from Distractions 

You hear a great deal in the literature about meditation of getting rid of distractions wandering for well I you might ask when you think about all that what are wandering for what are wrong for what shouldn't I be doing with my mind, well they all say actually every day you think about this and then you think about that in your thoughts run on in an undisciplined way from one association to another and you can't keep your mind fully on the job or whatever so you see, you're supposed to announce that because -

 

That's True Reality, all those wandering thoughts they're not about the importance now, What's Important, What should you keep your mind on well, something just as long as you keep your mind on it.

In an instruction one of the Buddhist scriptures says about concentration, 

When they concentrate on a yellow square on the ground, on the burning tip of an incense stick, on your navel, on the tip of your nose on the, centre between the eyes, or anything.

And then the footnote The Commentator adds  

"But not on any wicked thing." 

As you know that commentators the world over, they never have any [sense of humour].

So anything will do just so long as you keep your mind on it, and don't wander, stick to it, so 

 Wandering is Involvement in Games,

by this kind of definition, so then you try to get out can you now get out can you stop competing with other human beings 

In ancient Greek society there was a place in the center of the community called the argon A-R-G-O-N and this was a place for contests where they had wrestling matches and other athletic events because all the men were constantly trying to show who was the better and from this were the agonyax which means these the contest itself held in the argon we get our word agony, the struggle and striving to be superior and a lot of people that you meet among you,  you will recognize this among your friends all the time are not happy unless they are involved in the contest it doesn't matter what it is, so long as they're trying to beat something they're  happy 

And you may say over everything 

“You know can't we just sit around and talk instead of having to play a game, or bet or do something to prove who's the stronger...?" 

I was married to a girl who never was happy unless she was engaged in some kind of combat, when of course I had a game, it didn't look like one,  and so it was a very superior game just because it didn't look like one,  but it was a form of the game, my games that renews so you can't really not-play, you may go through the motions of not playing, but you still are.