Square 6: Delusion (moha)
Leela Atlas team · Updated
Square 6 in Leela is Delusion, moha in Sanskrit: clinging to what is visible as the only reality. Every journey begins here, because the first six carries the newborn symbol from Genesis to square 6. Players also return to it through the snake of Irreligiosity on square 29. The square asks what you believe without ever checking.
What square 6 means
Harish Johari defines moha as attachment to the phenomenal world as the only reality. What can be seen, touched and counted is taken to be all there is, and the mind closes around that picture. Johari calls delusion the product of irreligiosity: when one loses connection with any larger order, the visible world becomes the whole world.
Every player passes through this state on entry. That is a striking design choice: the game does not begin in innocence but in delusion, as if to say that every life starts inside a limited view. Johari adds that a closed worldview keeps bringing the player back, so Delusion is both a starting point and a frequent return.
Moha means bewilderment or infatuation, the fog that comes from attachment. The square sits in row 1, The Fundamentals of Being, with Muladhara, the root chakra, and the earth element. Its teaching is gentle. Delusion is the common ground of all players, not a personal failing. What matters is noticing it: questioning a belief you have never examined is how the climb begins.
Practically, the square invites a modest experiment. Take one belief that feels obviously true, about yourself, another person or the way the world works, and look for what it leaves out. Delusion loosens not through argument but through attention, and the board places this work right at the start because everything later depends on it.
On the board
Square 6 is where play truly starts. Every player waits on square 68 until a six is thrown; the six counts from square 1, Genesis, and lands the symbol on 6, Delusion. Later, the snake of Irreligiosity on square 29, in the fourth row, brings players back here. Square 6 has no arrow or snake of its own, so from here the player moves forward through row 1, The Fundamentals of Being.
Snakes arriving here: 29 Irreligiosity.
The Bhagavad Gita and this square
Gita 7.27 says all beings are born into delusion, bred by the pairs of like and dislike. Arjuna's despair on the battlefield is the great example: overwhelmed at the start of the Gita, he can say by its end that his delusion is gone.
All beings are born into delusion, bred by the pairs of like and dislike. Even Arjuna was broken by it, yet in the end said: my delusion is gone. So can you.
Gita 7.27 · Arjuna's despair on the battlefield
Questions to reflect on
- What do I believe without ever checking?
- Which like or dislike is shaping how I see this situation?
- What would I notice if I assumed my current view was incomplete?
Questions
Why does Leela start on square 6?
In Johari's rules a player waits on square 68 until throwing a six. That six counts from square 1, Genesis, and places the symbol on square 6, Delusion. The design suggests that every life begins inside a limited view of reality, and that the game is a way of seeing through it, square by square.
What happens when you land on square 6 in Leela?
Square 6 is plain: no arrow and no snake. Players arrive either at the start of the game or by falling from square 29, Irreligiosity. The symbol stays until the next throw. In reflection, the stop is a good moment to question a belief you hold so firmly that you have never looked at it.
What does moha mean?
Moha is Sanskrit for delusion, bewilderment or infatuation. In Leela it names square 6, defined by Johari as attachment to the phenomenal world as the only reality. It is the product of irreligiosity, which is why the snake from square 29 ends here, and it is the shared starting point of every player.
Related squares
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