The core insight of non-dualistic Eastern philosophies, particularly Vedanta and as popularized by Alan Watts, is that the individual self (the ātman) and the ultimate reality (the Brahman or Godhead) are one and the same. We are not merely creations of God, but the divine essence itself, playing a role. In this sense, we can understand our existence as God pretending to be human.
Alan Watts consistently articulated this profound concept by drawing on the Hindu idea of Lila (pronounced LEE-luh), which means play, sport, or dance. The creation of the universe is not seen as a serious, goal-oriented “work” but as the spontaneous, blissful self-expression of the Godhead.
Watts used the famous analogy of hide-and-seek to explain this cosmic drama:
“God likes to play hide-and-seek, but because there is nothing outside of God, he has no one but himself to play with! But he gets over this difficulty by pretending that he is not himself. This is his way of hiding from himself. He pretends that he is you and I and all the people in the world, all the animals, plants, all the rocks, and all the stars. In this way he has strange and wonderful adventures, some of which are terrible and frightening. But these are just like bad dreams, for when he wakes up they will disappear.”
Watts liked to point out that Hinduism speaks of the creation as the lila, or play of God: “And they look upon the whole manifestation of all the universes as a play, as a sport, as a kind of dance.” The universe is the choreography of the divine dancer.
This concept is further illuminated by modern Vedantic teachers who explain the necessary paradox of this game: the need for the actor to forget their true identity for the performance to be convincing.
Swami Sarvapriyanda of the Vedanta Society of New York articulates the profound irony of the human condition (saṃsāra):
“In pretending to be not-God, He (God) completely forgot His divine nature. And now we have God-pretending-to-be-not-God, having forgotten the pretense, desperately seeking God. This is saṃsāra—the cosmic game of hide-and-seek we’re all playing.” [from Reflections on Dakshinamurti Strotram. 2025]
This suggests that the suffering and confusion experienced in life (saṃsāra) are the result of our temporary, intentional amnesia. The entire purpose of spiritual seeking, meditation, and self-inquiry is simply the process of the Self waking up from the dream and remembering who it truly is—the divine Player behind the mask.
