Square 40: Plane of circulation (vyana-loka)

Square 40 in Leela is the Plane of circulation, vyana-loka. It represents vyana, the vital air that distributes prana through the whole body, as in circulation and sweating. It is a plain square in the fifth row, without arrow or snake, and it asks the player where their energy is actually flowing.

What square 40 means

Johari describes vyana as the air that distributes prana, the work we see in circulation and sweating. After prana brings life in at square 38 and apana carries the waste away at square 39, vyana spreads what has been received to every limb and organ. Without it, energy would gather in one place and leave the rest starved.

Vyana-loka means the plane of vyana. The Sanskrit vyana suggests something that moves outward and pervades. It completes the trio of vital airs that Johari places together in the fifth row, where the airs are brought into balance as the player matures.

Row 5 is Man Becomes Himself, linked to Vishuddha, the throat chakra, whose element is ether, the space in which everything moves. Square 40 sits just before 41, the Human plane at the centre of the row. A person on the way to becoming fully human needs not only energy but its even distribution: attention given to work, relationships, body and inner life, rather than poured into one channel.

The teaching is about flow. Energy is not only something you have; it is something that goes somewhere. Square 40 invites you to trace where your strength actually travels each day, and where it no longer reaches.

On the board

Square 40 is in row 5, between 39 Elimination and 41 the Human plane. Players arrive with a throw from the squares below, from 34 to 39, except the arrow base at 37. No arrow or snake leads here and none leaves, so it is a plain square. The player stays for the turn, reflects on where their energy flows, and moves on with the next throw.

The Bhagavad Gita and this square

The verse is Gita 15.13, where Krishna enters the earth and sustains all beings with his strength, so that life flows through each person like blood through the body. Its episode is again the quarrel of the five vital breaths, which shows that every part of the body lives only when the breaths work together.

Krishna enters the earth and sustains all beings with his strength. Life flows through you like blood through the body: let it spread freely.

Gita 15.13 · The quarrel of the five vital breaths

Questions to reflect on

• Where is my energy flowing?
• Which part of my life has stopped receiving my attention?
• Where am I pouring in more strength than the situation needs?