Square 45: Right knowledge (suvidya)

Square 45 in Leela is Right knowledge, suvidya, the last square of the fifth row. Johari describes it as awareness joined with practice. It is an arrow: landing here lifts the player from row 5 to square 67, the Plane of cosmic good, in the top row. As Johari puts it, the player is then one square away from the goal.

What square 45 means

Johari writes that awareness plus practice "lifts the player to the eighth plane and the plane of cosmic good. He is now one square away from his goal." He adds that right knowledge protects from many snakes. It is knowledge that has been tested in life and found to hold.

Suvidya joins su, good or right, with vidya, knowledge. It is the direct answer to avidya, Ignorance, on the square just before it. Where avidya is forgetting, suvidya is remembering and practising. The contrast between 37 and 45 is also instructive: gyana at 37 is knowing what is right, while suvidya at 45 is that knowing carried into action.

Square 45 closes row 5, Man Becomes Himself, linked to Vishuddha, the throat chakra. Its arrow lands on 67, Rudra-loka, the abode of Shiva, next to the goal at 68. Johari notes that right knowledge stops one square short: only Spiritual devotion at 54 lands on 68 itself, a sign that knowledge alone does not complete the journey.

The teaching is that knowledge becomes right knowledge only when it is lived. Square 45 asks you to look for the places where your understanding and your behaviour still go separate ways. That is where the next step lies.

On the board

Square 45 is the last square of row 5. Players reach it by a throw from squares 39 to 43; anyone landing on 44 is carried down its snake. No arrow or snake ends here. On landing, the arrow of right knowledge lifts the player from row 5 to row 8 and square 67, the Plane of cosmic good.

The Bhagavad Gita and this square

The verse is Gita 10.32, where Krishna says that among all sciences he is the knowledge of the Self, a knowledge that can be tested in experience. Its episode is the Yaksha's questions, in which Yudhishthira answers a spirit's riddles at a lake and saves his brothers through lived wisdom.

Among all sciences Krishna is the knowledge of the Self. This royal knowledge can be tested in experience and never contradicts dharma.

Gita 10.32 · The Yaksha's questions

Questions to reflect on

• Where do my knowledge and my actions part ways?
• Which principle do I defend in words but rarely practise?
• What have I tested in my own experience, rather than only read or heard?