# Leela Square 63: Darkness (tamas) Meaning

Square 63 in Leela is Darkness, tamas in Sanskrit, the last square of the seventh row at the level of the crown chakra. It is the head of the longest snake in the game. Johari describes it as inaction mistaken for completion: a player who believes the work is done slides all the way back to square 2, Illusion.

## Meaning

Johari calls this the longest snake in the game, one that draws the player back into illusion without fail. Its cause is subtle. The player has reached the top of the crown chakra, has tasted happiness at 62, and now settles. Nothing dramatic happens; there is no anger or greed. There is only a stopping, a heaviness that presents itself as having arrived.

Tamas is one of the three gunas, the qualities of nature, alongside sattva and rajas. It is the quality of weight, dullness, sleep and darkness. In everyday life it is necessary, since rest and stability depend on it, but when it governs the mind it covers clarity like a cloud. The same guna returns at the very end of the board as square 72, Tamoguna.

The placement at the end of row 7 makes the teaching memorable. Row 7, the Plane of Reality, holds satya-loka at 59, yet Johari notes it contains three snakes and no arrows. Square 63 shows that the greatest risk near the summit is not a vice but inertia. The fall to square 2, Illusion, means starting again almost from the beginning, which is why the square asks for one more step instead of rest.

## On the board

No arrow or snake ends on square 63, so a player reaches it only by count, often from square 62, Happiness, or from earlier squares of row 7. Landing here triggers the longest snake on the board: the symbol falls from the seventh row to square 2, Illusion, in the first row, close to where the journey began at 6, Delusion. The climb then starts again through the first chakra.

Square 63 is linked to Gita 14.8: tamas is born of ignorance and deludes all embodied beings. Ashvatthama's night raid shows darkness acting in the dark, and the verse's lesson is that even a small act beats inaction.

## Questions

- Where have I frozen?
- What am I calling finished that is in fact only abandoned?
- What is one small step I could take today towards the light?

**What happens when you land on square 63 in Leela?**
Square 63, Darkness, is the head of the longest snake in Leela. Your symbol drops from the seventh row, just below the top of the board, to square 2, Illusion, in the first row. You then climb again from the base, through the passions of the first chakra, towards Cosmic Consciousness at 68.

**Why is the longest snake in Leela so close to the goal?**
Johari places it at 63 to show that the greatest risk near the summit is inertia disguised as completion. After happiness at 62, a player may simply stop. The long fall to Illusion makes the point vivid: sitting still near the top can cost as much as a serious mistake lower down.

**What does tamas mean in Leela?**
Tamas is one of the three gunas of Indian philosophy, the quality of heaviness, dullness and darkness. In Leela it appears twice: as square 63, Darkness, a snake down to Illusion, and as square 72, Tamoguna, the last square, whose snake brings the player back to square 51, Earth.