Giving Up The Glass Bead Game

From the "Creed Of The Aryan Fighter" chapter of Essays On The Gita:

Finite bodies have an end, but that which possesses and uses the body, is infinite, illimitable, eternal, indestructible. It casts away old and takes up new bodies as a man changes worn out raiment for new; and what is there in this to grieve at and recoil and shrink? This is not born, nor does it die, nor is it a thing that comes into being once and passing away will never come into being again. It is unborn, ancient, sempiternal; it is not slain with the slaying of the body.
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Not manifested like the body, but greater than all manifestation, not to be analysed by the thought, but greater than all mind, not capable of change and modification like the life and its organs and their objects, but beyond the changes of mind and life and body, it is yet the Reality which all these strive to figure.
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This world, this manifestation of [your] Self in the material universe is not only a cycle of inner development, but a field in which the external circumstances of [your] life have to be accepted as an environment and an occasion for that development. It is a world of mutual help and struggle; not a serene and peaceful gliding through easy joys is the progress it allows us, but every step has to be gained by heroic effort and through a clash of opposing forces.

From the "Ryūmonji Sermons" chapter of The Unborn: The Life And Teachings of Zen Master Bankei (that 17^th century Japanese monk):

The Unborn is the origin of all and the beginning of all. There is no source apart from the Unborn and no beginning that is before the Unborn. So being unborn means dwelling at the very source of all Buddhas.

If you live in the Unborn, then, there's no longer any need to speak about "nonextinction," or "undying." It would be a waste of time. So I always talk about the "Unborn," never about the "Undying." There can be no death for what was never born, so if it is unborn, it is obviously undying. There's no need to say it, is there?

The Unborn manifests in the material universe; as the material universe. For most, it's never seen, felt, or, intuited. A few suspect its existence and approach it as they would the Glass Bead Game, with the very, very best rising to the level of Magister Ludi. Even fewer, through heroic efforts, break through the mind, give up the game, go further, and rediscover the Unborn; rediscover their "unbornness;" rediscover the infinite and eternal; rediscover who and what they are.

That's what life's for.