Get in on the Game
“Get off me!” he mouthed under his breath as he yanked his arm away from the young woman. Watching at home, my jaw was on the floor. I had just witnessed an absolutely transfixing performance on the TV show So You Think You Can Dance. (Watch here)
This particular performance portrayed a struggling couple. The performer was so in the moment that he couldn’t even stand to be touched by his partner. The words and movement weren’t choreography, they were the result of him being so fully in his role that he lost himself.
When he said as much to the judges, they congratulated him. “You’re finally an artist!” they said. The applause was deafening.
Who are You?
Someone recently asked me about Tantra. Specifically about how we identify in Tantra. Essentially that question is… who does Tantra say we are, really? How would a tantrika define themself?
{{ I’m no scholar, so take this with the knowing that I write from what I’ve learned by sitting with teachers. I could be way off. And also know that Tantra is a vast tradition that, like many traditions, has branches and sub-branches. There are many many ways to answer her questions. }}
The explanation that I like best comes from Bill Mahony. Imagine a river. The river flows along, and it is purely river. It is made of drops upon drops but all drops contain river. While it’s flowing, if you asked the river what it was it would say “I’m a river.”
Then imagine the river comes to a waterfall. The river pours over the top and is still a river. But now the drops separate into individual drops as they fall to the pool below. If you asked the drop what it was, it would say “I’m a drop”. Even though it’s actually still the river, it would consider itself a drop.
That’s how Consciousness works in the Tantric mind. Consciousness is in everything as everything. It’s not separate from anything. Creation and Creator are not separate. But we don’t experience that, we experience separateness. And so we identify as a unique individual. (We think we’re a drop).
It’s a Game to be Played
In the Tantric mind, life’s a big game that Consciousness is playing. It’s cosmic peek-a-boo. Consciousness hides herself inside the world, just for the fun of it. We experience individuality, but Consciousness is gaming us. She’s hiding in everything.
So how would a tantrika identify? She could reasonably say “I’m a drop” or “I’m the river.” “I’m myself and I’m Consciousness”. Perhaps closest to the Tantric understanding would be: “I’m Consciousness being myself.”
It’s like the dancer from the opening. When he lost himself in the role it was like Consciousness hiding herself in the world. When he came back to himself after dancing, that’s Consciousness remembering her fullness.
Play as YOU
Here’s where it gets fun. In Tantra, unlike many other systems, the goal (if there is one) isn’t to get back to Consciousness and only be Consciousness. It’s to REMEMBER who you are (Consciousness) and then to PLAY THE GAME of being yourself.
Consciousness became you for the delight of it. So the greatest thing you can do is BE YOURSELF.
That means embracing your uniqueness, not erasing it.
That means leaning towards your preferences, not away from them.
That means, life is short, stop trying to be who you’re not and get busy being who you are.
Embody being YOU in the most true way that you can.
It gets even more tangled when you consider that there are many sides of you. As Walt Whitman says you “contain multitudes” . So the task is to be yourself in your many shapes and forms. To fully live your many iterations and irritations. As Dr. Douglas Brooks says: “Yoga is virtuosity in being yourself…. Which self? All of them.”
To come back to the student’s question about identification. I imagine a tantrika saying your task is to “Identify as YOU” with a wink. That wink is the remembrance that YOU are Consciousness. The wink is your invitation to be in on the game and to play it really well.
But How?
What does that mean for us trying to make lives in 2026?
It means that whatever we do, say, create is unique and special. There’s only ever been one of each of us in all of time and we’ll never exist again. We can take this lifetime very seriously… and play hard.
It means that we’re encouraged to break free from cookie cutter lives, and thinking. To find our own ways of expressing ourselves.
It means embracing our own creativity as one of our most important resources.
It means embracing our personalities; our goodness and our weaknesses. And our life stories the hard parts and the joys.
And it means that everyone else is Consciousness too. So see diversity as a good thing.
Try it
If you wanna explore this idea of consciousness playing as you… pick up one of the ideas I just listed. Don’t just think about it, play with it. Get in the game and play hard.
At the same time, watch for Consciousness to wink at you every once in a while. A synchronicity. A gut feeling that leads you somewhere interesting. A moment where the veil lifts and you know who you really are. That’s when you’ll know you’re deep in the game.
Go be yourself. (wink)