by Dan Millman
MAMA CHIA RETURNED just in time to see us complete the stone-work. And the moment it was done, I knew it was time to leave. Several men came up to shake my hand. We’d formed a bond based on working on a common goal, sweating together—a bond men must have experienced for thousands of years. It felt good.
I was going to miss them all. I felt even closer to these outcasts from society than to my professional colleagues back in Ohio. Maybe because I had always felt like an outcast, too. Or maybe it was because of our shared task, or their openness, directness, and honesty. These men had nothing left to hide. They weren’t trying to look good or save face. They had dropped their social masks, allowing me to drop mine, too.
I was turning to leave with my well-rounded kahuna when Tia came over and hugged both of us. I hugged her tenderly, feeling her sorrow and courage, knowing that she would soon have to give up her baby.
AS MAMA CHIA led me down toward the beach, other feelings surfaced, too: All the gratitude, sorrow, and love for Mama Chia I had set aside these past ten days flooded in. Facing her, I placed my hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes.
“You’ve been so good to me,” I told her. “I wish there were something more I could do for you … .” I had to take a slow, deep breath to hold off my sorrow. “You’re such a … kind person … it just doesn’t seem fair, and … I don’t deserve all the time, the energy, the life you’ve given me. How can I ever repay you?”
In answer, she hugged me for a long time. I held this old woman in a way I’d never been able to embrace Socrates.
Stepping back, she flashed me a bright smile: “I love what I do—someday you will understand this. And what I do is not for you, nor for Socrates, so thanks aren’t necessary or appropriate. I act for a larger cause, a higher mission. By assisting you, I’ll be assisting many others through you. Come,” she said. “Let’s go for a walk on the beach.”
I surveyed the village, now back to its normal routine, and I felt inspired by the aloha spirit of these people. I saw them with different eyes than those I had come with. Even though other memories might fade, this would remain one of the most vivid—more real, and lasting, than any vision.
CHAPTER 18
Illuminations in the Dead of Night
The seed of God is in us:
Pear seeds grow into pear trees;
Hazel seeds into hazel trees;
And God seeds into God.
—Meister Eckehart
NEITHER OF US SAID MUCH as we walked along the stretch of white sand; we just listened to the rush of waves, and the shrill cries of the albatross, patrolling the coast. Mama Chia scanned the horizon, watching the long shadows cast by the late afternoon sun like a cat, seeing things not visible to most of us. I examined the driftwood, pushed far up onto the beach by an unusually high tide, generated by a storm the night before. I combed the beach, looking for shells. Sachi wouldn’t be impressed by shells, but Holly would like them. My little daughter, I thought, picturing Holly’s sweet face, and missing her. I thought of Linda, too, and wondered if perhaps our lives were meant to go separate ways.
Glancing back, I saw the shadows cut across our meandering trail of footprints in the wet sand. I gazed down, searching for souvenirs from the sea, and Mama Chia continued to scan the horizon, and the stretch of beach ahead.
We sloshed out into knee-deep surf to go around a rocky point. She took a deep breath and I thought she was going to tell me something. But Mama Chia was reacting to one of the saddest and strangest sights I’d ever beheld: Thousands of starfish, washed up by the recent storm, littered the beach. Beautiful five-pointed stars, pink and tan, lay in the hot sand, drying out and dying.
I stopped in my tracks, awestruck by this massive marine graveyard. I’d read about grounded whales and dolphins, but I had never actually seen one. Now, confronted by thousands of dying creatures, I felt numb and helpless.
But without missing a single limping step, Mama Chia walked over to a nearby starfish, bent over to pick it up, walked to the water’s edge, and placed it in the water. She then walked back and picked up another little star, and returned the creature to the sea.
Completely overwhelmed by the sheer number of starfish, I said, “Mama Chia, there are so many—how can what you’re doing make any difference?”
She looked up at me for a moment as she lowered another starfish into the sea. “It makes a difference to this one,” she replied.
Of course she was right. I picked up a starfish in each hand, and followed her example. Then I delivered another two into the sea. We continued through the afternoon and into the evening, under the light of the moon. Many starfish died anyway. But we did our best.
Mama Chia kept bending down, again and again and again. But there was nothing I could say to dissuade her. She would live until she died. And as long as I was here, on the island, I would help her. We worked long into the night. Finally, bone weary but feeling good, we lay in the soft sand, and slept.
I AWOKE AND SAT UP ABRUPTLY, thinking it was dawn. But the light that flickered in my eyes was a crackling fire, with Mama Chia sitting nearby, her back to me.
“Couldn’t sleep?” I said as I approached, so as not to startle her.
“Had enough sleep,” she said, never taking her eyes from the fire.
I stood behind her and massaged her shoulders and back. “What do you see in the fire?” I asked, without expecting a reply.
“What if I told you I wasn’t from this planet?” she asked.
“What?”
“Suppose I told you that neither was Socrates? Or you?”
I didn’t know what to say—whether to take her seriously. “Is that what you saw in the fire?” was all I could think to ask.
“Sit down,” she said. “See for yourself.”
I sat, and gazed into the dancing flames.
Mama Chia rose slowly, and began to knead the muscles of my back with her strong hands. “You asked me why I’ve been here for you. It’s because we’re family,” she revealed. “Part of the same spiritual family.”
“What do you mean—” I never got to finish my sentence. Mama Chia gave me a solid whack at the back of my neck. I saw stars, then only the fire … deeper … deeper …
I SAW THE BEGINNINGS of time and space, when Spirit became the “ten thousand things”: the star forms, the planets, the mountains, the seas, and the creatures great and small that spawned there.
But there were no humans. Before history, in a time of magic, when Mind allowed it, the legends were born. The animals evolved on earth, growing from all that preceded them. But no human souls existed on the planet.
I saw a vision of the ancient universe, where, within the curves of space, angelic souls played in realms of freedom and bliss. This memory, stored within the most ancient records of the psyche, became the archetype for that place we call heaven.
A wave of these souls came down to earth because they were curious about the material realm—about the animal forms, and about sexual-creative energy—about what it would be like in a body.
And so, they overshadowed the primitive forms of animals that roamed the earth; they entered them, saw through their eyes, felt through their skin, and experienced the material realm and life on earth.
I saw them, I felt them, as they grew ready to leave their animal hosts, and return to their Source. But these souls misjudged the magnetic attraction of the material realm; they became trapped, identified with the animal consciousness. Thus began a great adventure on this planet.
These soul energies, and their humanlike higher consciousness within the animals, impacted the DNA structure, causing immediate and radical evolutionary leaps. This was revealed to me in visions within the genetic spirals themselves.
The next generation of creatures provided the basis for the Greek myths—centaurs, mermaids, satyrs, and nymphs; half animal, half human, they were the source of legends, the Olympian gods cohabitating with animals and humans.
The first wave ha
d forgotten that they were of Spirit, not of flesh; they had become identified with their hosts. So a wave of missionary souls came down to rescue the first wave, to pull them out. But they, too, were trapped.
Time flashed by, centuries in an instant. A second rescue mission was sent; this time, only the most powerful souls made the attempt—and very few escaped. They, too, remained, trapped by their own desire for power. They became the kings, the queens, the pharaohs, and the chiefs—the rulers of the lands of earth. Some were like King Arthur; others, like Attila the Hun.
A third and final rescue mission was sent. These very special souls were the most courageous of all—the peaceful warrior souls—because they knew they weren’t coming back; they knew they would be destined to live within a mortal body for aeons—suffering, losing loved ones, in mortal pain and fear, until all souls were free.
They were a volunteer mission. And they came to remind all others who they are. They include carpenters, students, doctors, artists, athletes, musicians, and ne’er-do-wells—geniuses and madmen, criminals and saints. Most have forgotten their mission, but an ember still glows within the hearts and memories of those who are destined to awaken to their heritage as the servants of humanity, and to awaken others.
These rescuers are not “better” souls, unless love makes them so. They may be lost, or found. But they are awakening, now. Hundreds of thousands of souls on the planet—becoming a spiritual family.
I PULLED MY EYES from the flames and turned to Mama Chia, sitting next to me. Still gazing into the fire, she said, “My soul is one of those who came in the final rescue mission. As was the soul of the man you call ‘Socrates.’ And your soul as well … .”
That explained that sense of recognition I had felt in meeting her—and a few others in my life as well.
“There are many others,” she continued, “hundreds of thousands, scattered across the planet—who feel a call to serve; who know deep inside that they are here to do something, but cannot quite articulate what that something may be. More coming in all the time, many of our children, searching to find out who they are and what they are here to do. All have in common a certain restlessness—a deep sense of being somehow different, of being odd-balls, visitors here, never quite fitting in. We feel at times a longing to ‘go home,’ but we’re not exactly sure where that is. We often have giving, but rather insecure natures.
“Well, we are not here to ‘fit in,’ as much as we might like to. We are here to teach, to lead, to heal, to remind others, if only by our example.
“The earth has been the school for most human souls, but our souls are not yet completely of this earth. We have been schooled elsewhere; there are things we just know without knowing how we know—things we recognize, as if this is a refresher course, and we are most definitely here on a service mission.
“Your search, Dan, will be for ways to make a difference—first to awaken yourself, then to find the right leverage, the best means to find the calling most natural and effective in reaching out to others. It is like this for all the peaceful warriors who share this mission. One of us might become a haircutter; another, a teacher; a third, a stockbroker or pet groomer or counselor. Some of us become famous; others remain anonymous. Each of us plays a part.”
We sat there, staring out to sea for a while—I don’t know how long—before she spoke again. “So here you are, one of many like-minded souls in a very different ‘wrapping,’ treading water in the ocean of karma, but there’s a rowboat nearby—much closer to you than to many others. Before you can help others into the boat, you have to get in yourself.
“And that is what your preparation is about. That is why you met Socrates, and why I am here working with you. Not because you are somehow special or more deserving, but because you have within you that unstoppable impulse to share yourself with others.” She paused. “Someday, you will write, teach, and do other things, too, to reach out to your spiritual family, to remind them of their mission, to give the clarion call.”
The weight of responsibility hit me like a falling safe. “Teach these things? I can’t even remember half of what you say. And I’ve no talent for writing,” I protested. “My grades in English weren’t so good.”
She smiled. “I see what I see.”
In another few hours, it would be dawn; the fire had died down to embers when I spoke again. “You say there are many souls like me—”
“Yes, but you combine a particular set of talents and qualities that make you a good transmitter. So you and Socrates found each other, and he sent you to me.”
Mama Chia then lay down, curled up, and slept. I stared out to sea until the first hint of the sun lit the sky at the eastern tip of the island, and sleep finally came.
MORNING. Strange, waking up on a beach, the warm tropical air my only blanket. Here the air felt comfortable even at dawn, like a summer morning in the Midwest.
Sleeping in the open air whetted my appetite, and breakfast, courtesy of Mama Chia’s bottomless backpack, was both simple and memorable: a handful of figs, a few macadamia nuts, an orange, and a banana. An illuminating night had passed; I wondered what the new day would bring.
As it turned out, the day was uneventful. We spent most of it hiking home, and the evening having tea and listening to music on her old phonograph. Mama Chia retired early; I slept on her living room floor.
The following day, I would meet a ghost, and set into motion a series of events that would again change the course of my life.
CHAPTER 19
Revelation and the Warrior’s Way
Take time to deliberate,
but when the time for action arrives,
stop thinking and go in.
—Andrew Jackson
IT CAME OUT OF NOWHERE, on an ordinary day, as surprises do. It came from seeds planted in the past. “I thought you might like to meet Sachi’s family,” Mama Chia said as we walked along an unfamiliar path into the forest. Why was she smiling like a Cheshire cat?
Half a mile later, we entered a clearing where a lovely house stood, larger than Mama Chia’s but similar in design, with a garden to the side.
A little boy, about five years old, emerged, jumped down the two steps, and ran straight at me, down the path. With a “Hi, Dan!” he jumped up into my arms, laughing, as if he’d known me all my life.
“Well, hi …”
“My name’s Socrates,” he said proudly.
“Really?” I said, surprised. “Well, that’s a fine name.” I looked up to see a small, slim woman, very lovely, wrapped in a deep blue, flowered sarong, following her son. But she had no intention, it turned out, of jumping into my arms.
Smiling graciously, she held out her hand. “Hello, Dan, I’m Sarah.”
“Hello, I’m … glad to meet you.” Puzzled, I glanced at Mama Chia. “Does everyone around here know me?” I asked.
Mama Chia, Sarah, Sachi, and little Socrates all laughed with delight; I didn’t understand what was so funny, but they were certainly enjoying something.
“Sachi and Soc’s father has told them a lot about you,” Mama Chia said, pointing behind me.
I turned, “Well, who—?”
“Hello, Dan,” a voice interrupted me.
I turned and stared, then gaped, my jaw open wide. I had never seen a ghost before. But there he was—tall and slim, with a curly blond beard, deep-set eyes, and a crinkled smile. “Joseph? Is that really you?”
He gave me a bear hug and slapped me on the back. Then I stepped away. “But … but he told me you died—of leukemia …”
“Died?” said Joseph, still grinning. “Well, I am a little tired …”
“What happened?” I asked. “How—”
“Why don’t you two go for a walk?” Sarah suggested. “You have some catching up to do.”
“Good idea,” Joseph answered.
As we walked slowly into the forest, Joseph cleared up the mystery of his apparent death.
“I did have leukemia,” he confirmed. �
��I still do, but with Mama Chia’s help, my body is handling it okay. But in a way, Socrates was right. I did die to the world for several months. I became a renunciate, a hermit. I told him I was going to disappear into the forest, fast, and pray until I died or healed. Come to think of it,” he said, “I’d better go back a few years to fill you in.
“I was raised in the Midwest by a family of strangers. I’ll always be grateful to them for getting me through my childhood diseases—all those nights I kept them up—and for giving me food and shelter. But I never quite fit in, you know? It was as if they had adopted me, found me somewhere.”
“Yes,” I said. “I know.”
“So the first chance I got, I hit the road—worked my way across the country, headed out toward the West Coast, doing odd jobs, mostly. And when I got to L.A., I just kept going. I ended up here, on Molokai. I had a friend who lived here. He encouraged me to settle. So I became a young ‘agricultural entrepreneur,’ and cultivated cannabis—”
