The concept of lila asserts that creation, instead of being an objective for achieving any purpose, is rather an outcome of the playful nature of the divine.
The concept of lila is common to both non-dualist and dualist philosophical schools of Indian philosophy, but has a markedly different significance in each.
Within non-dualism, lila is a way of describing all reality, including the cosmos, as the outcome of creative play by the divine absolute (Brahman).
In Vaishnavism, lila refers to the activities of God and his devotee, as well as the macrocosmic actions of the manifest universe,[3] as seen in Srimad Bhagavatam, verse 3.26.4:[4]sa eṣa prakṛtiḿ sūkṣmāḿ daivīḿ guṇamayīḿ vibhuḥ yadṛcchayaivopagatām abhyapadyata līlayā"As his pastimes, that Supreme Divine Personality, the greatest of the great, accepted the subtle material energy which is invested with three material modes of nature.
[citation needed] In Pushtimarga worship, devotees experience the sentiments of lila through practices such as adorning the image of Krishna, singing devotional songs, and offering food.
This theme resonates with other Hindu doctrines, such as Tantra and Sakta.The Vedantic yogi never tires of stating that kaivalya, "isolation-integration", can be attained only by turning away from the distracting allure of the world and worshiping with single-pointed attention the formless Brahman-Atman; to the Tantric, however—as to the normal child of the world—this notion seems pathological, the wrong-headed effect of a certain malady of intellect.
Let those who suffer from the toils of samsara seek release: the perfect devotee does not suffer; for he can both visualize and experience life and the universe as the revelation of that Supreme Divine Force (shakti) with which he is in love, the all-comprehensive Divine Being in its cosmic aspect of playful, aimless display (lila)—which precipitates pain as well as joy, but in its bliss transcends them both.The basic recurring theme in Hindu mythology is the creation of the world by the self-sacrifice of God—"sacrifice" in the original sense of "making sacred"—whereby God becomes the world which, in the end, becomes again God.
Brahman is the great magician who transforms himself into the world and then performs this feat with his "magic creative power", which is the original meaning of maya in the Rig Veda.
From the might, or power, of the divine actor and magician, it came to signify the psychological state of anybody under the spell of the magic play.
(...) In the Hindu view of nature, then, all forms are relative, fluid and ever-changing maya, conjured up by the great magician of the divine play.