In a drama you may become a thief; that does not mean that you have become a thief – you just play the role. In a drama you may become an incarnation of God, Rama, Krishna; that does not mean that you have become an incarnation of God, but on the stage before the audience it is accepted without any question. Questioning it would be absolutely foolish: everybody knows that everybody is playing a role.

Hinduism says that this whole existence is just a drama and God is just playing a game. The word leela, playfulness, takes away seriousness and its implications. But it brings in new implications: Why can’t God sit silently? – because the people who teach that God is playing a game also teach, “Sit silently in meditation.” Why can’t he sit silently in meditation and stop all this nonsense?

But Alan Watts could not ask that question; it may not have occurred to him, but it can occur to me: What is the point of all this nonsense? All Hindu sages are teaching: Sit silently, unmoving, without any thought, utterly silent, then only will you taste what religion is. It seems God has never tasted religion – he is continuously playing.

At least in creation there was one thing; that is, in six days he was finished. On the seventh day, Sunday, he rested, and we don’t know what happened after that. But the Hindu God has to be constantly playing. Now, there is a time to play and there is a time to study – or so each child is being told – and there is a time to sleep.

But this mad Hindu God…no time to sleep, no time to study, no time for anything else: just playing and playing and playing. He seems to be obsessed. And what a big play! – infinite, eternal. And why should he go on playing? Is he not tired? And the same game….

In my village I had a friend whose father used to go to the “movie-talkie” every day. The same film used to continue at least for six or seven days; it didn’t matter, he had to go every day. I asked him, “It seems a little strange that you go to see the same film for seven days.”

He said, “Who bothers to watch the film? I really sleep! Once in a while in the seven days I see the complete film. Sometimes I see the beginning part, sometimes the middle, sometimes the end. And if someday I am feeling good, then I connect all the parts and see the whole film.”

“But,” I said, “You can do it in one day.”

He said, “I don’t want to do it one day. What will I do the remaining six days?” – because in that small place the movie house was the only entertainment. Where else to go? I could understand the difficulty of the old man.

But what is God’s difficulty? Why does the same game go on and on? And is he still entertained? – he must be an idiot. If this is entertainment, even an idiot will start feeling bored: the same type of people continue being born, the same love affairs, the same children, again and again – and the wheel goes on moving. The same spokes come up and go down; again they come up and again they go down. It is the same wheel, the same spokes.