Gnostic culture teaches the doctrine of the Heart, which is based on the faculty of intuition, so that we can learn to see beyond mere forms. This enables us to extract the conscious values of each event for our personal learning. In the same way, it teaches us the esoteric wisdom of chess, the most popular science game in the world.
There are so many board games, but no other one has a history of more than 1,500 years and is so topical today that it is considered a science-sport.
“Life is a chessboard, where each of our actions is a move. If our moves are good, intelligent and timely, the result will be success, health and longevity. If, on the other hand, our moves are in bad faith, selfish and mistimed, the result will be failure, sickness and death.” Samael Aun Weor.
The multiple cognitive-emotional benefits of learning and playing chess have been widely studied. Among many other things, it improves analytical skills, trains the memory, stimulates creativity, helps develop patience and respect for the opponent. It also improves the ability to understand rules and to accept the consequences of actions.
I see in the battle of chess an astonishingly accurate model of human life, with its daily grind, its crises and its ceaseless ups and downs. G. Kasparov
Playing chess entails a training that improves planning, organisation, solving problems, attention, visual-spatial ability, discipline and emotional intelligence.
One of the fundamental values of Chess is Time, that is, speed in carrying out the strategy of the game, in time and space, and avoiding errors. So also in life, we are confronted with innumerable problems, and each person needs to know how to solve them intelligently.
Every chess player knows that the solution lies in the problem itself, as long as there is calm and equilibrium between mind, emotion and movement.
We can be certain that all human beings are pieces on the chessboard of life; and above us there are higher beings, who sometimes give support to the black pieces and sometimes to the white ones.
Each of us is now replaying the same game of our previous life, plus the consequences, good or bad, under the effects of the Law of Karma. We are unconscious players who have not learned to play intelligently; who do not allow our destiny be guided by a single purpose, but are led by our unbridled whims and disorganised cravings, in other words, the ego.
All human beings, without the benefit of some superior teaching, are like a game of Chess without Pawns, short on intelligence and with many limitations. We are ignorant that within us there are great possibilities which, if properly developed, would lead us to the final victory.
Through the beautiful symbolism of this scientific game, we see the necessity of becoming truly intelligent players. We must become aware of our own game of life in order to awaken within ourselves all the higher values that will make us real.
Gnostic wisdom invites you to deepen your knowledge on this and other subjects through our free courses of self-knowledge.