He felt he had to go. Anywhere. Soon.
Already for a number of years he hadn’t attended any school that normal, meaning average, children attended. There was no point, really. Even if he had no interest in any particular subject, a few days before any exam of the State Board of Education, he would put the relevant books under his pillow, and the following morning he could recite pages from the text verbatim.
On the other hand, there were other subjects, which absorbed him completely.
But that wasn’t the problem. His trip to Boston had shown him that what he was missing were not the studies, per se, but the company of other, diverse people. He couldn’t mix with boys his own age for obvious reasons. Playing for an hour or two, kicking or throwing a ball or racing his bicycle were all fine. But sooner or later he and they would have to sit down and talk.
About what? The jargon changed from one year to another.
“Did ya see that dame?”
“She’s got’er skirt glued on.”
“Her boobs are ‘bout to fall out.”
“Dig those hips, they work like a pair of cylinders. Oompha, oompha...”
“Oompha, oompha, oompha, oompha...” the other boys joined.
Sacha didn’t. He liked girls well enough, but he was able to think also with his head, not just his cojones. He also enjoyed the boys’ company, but, well, it wasn’t enough. He desperately needed some kind of exchange, some airing of ideas which his age group, or even those two or three years his senior, did not provide.
He had to go.
In his spare time, Sacha played the stock market. Soon, he made a substantial sum of money. He employed the method suggested by the Chaos Theory, which his father taught him when he was eleven. Patterns within patterns. He first played on paper, actually on the computer virtual desktop, just for fun. Then he borrowed $200 dollars from his father and opened an account with a broker who allowed on line day-trading. With up to forty transactions a day, he doubled the money weekly. Almost weekly. In just over ten weeks he returned Alec the two hundred he borrowed, and cashed his stocks to his account. The balance sheet, clear of all the commissions, read almost $100,000. There would be taxes to pay, but for now he felt very rich. He couldn’t imagine why he would need any more. Not for now.
Next, he again needed his father’s help. But he went about getting it in his own particular, if not peculiar, way. Since Alec was late coming home from Caltech, he left a cryptic note on his father’s bedside table.
“I’ll see you tonight on the Home Planet. Please come.”
Alec sat at the same window on which he and Suzy liked to sit so many times. It seemed the last time they met here was ages ago, yet Suzy’s sweet scent still lingered.
“I thought I would find you here, Ali. Are you avoiding me?”
Alec turned from the breathtaking view of green hills reflected in the lustrous lake. Facing him was his wife, exactly as she was way back, when they sat here for the very first time. This was ‘their’ villa.
“Sacha is coming,” he said.
He took Suzy in his arms. This was also part of the Home Planet ritual. Here they were eternally young. They lingered in each other’s arms like lovers who’ve only just met.
“If you two lovebirds ever come up for air, I have things to ask you.”
Sacha stood behind the young couple that seemed completely unaware of his presence. Here and now, they were all about the same age. All three looked as though they were in their middle twenties. Sacha waited, a grin broadening on his handsome face. Somehow he contrived to look very masculine and youthful at the same time. Sacha was a very good dreamer. Or, perhaps, he just dreamt what he thought would give the most pleasure to his parents. For here, they were still his parents. Here Alec and Suzy brought with them a much greater experience of the physical realm. And it was this experience Sacha needed. On Earth he was still a greenhorn filled with innumerable data only loosely connected. Here, those theoretical facts could be connected almost instantaneously, with his parents’ help. Through telepathy.
He waited for his mother to disengage herself from Alec’s embrace. It wasn’t the first time he’d had to wait. After what seemed like ages, his father spoke: “Did you hear someone say something, Darling?”
Suzy didn’t move, cuddling even closer.
“Noooo?” She said it with an upward tilt as the Swedes do.
Home Planet was also a reality of fun and games.
Sacha was in a quandary. He had to advance his knowledge. He had to gain greater knowledge of how people behaved in ‘real life’. He had to find a way of taking life in the physical reality as ‘real’, not just as a dream. He needed this to accomplish his destiny. He still didn’t feel in the thick of things. Certain events have already given him hints, but that’s all they were. Hints.
At long last, Suzy, Alec and Sacha disposed themselves on various sitting pieces––white blocks that looked like marble until you sat on them. The instant you did, the cubes adapted themselves to the contours of your body. Home Planet was like that. Whoever visited the villa would find it ‘purpose made’ to his or her needs.
Sacha liked coming to the Home Planet to talk about his problems. Here, virtually nothing was impossible; and also, the passage of time on Home Planet was many times slower. You didn’t have to try for a quick answer. He realized recently that there was no point having all his knowledge if he didn’t know what to do with it; if he couldn’t apply it to something useful. Here, sharing knowledge, ideas, was also much easier. You could use your imagination to understand other peoples’ concepts. All in all, it was easier to communicate. If you couldn’t think of the right words to describe something, you just did your best to imagine it and... it worked. A sort of emotional telepathy.
“What is it, son?” Alec gave Sacha his total attention.
Sacha described his dilemma as best he could. Here he could even tell his mother of his interest in ecumenism without making her nervous. At least, not too nervous. She’d developed a great mistrust for religions. She grew afraid of them. She knew that her fear was not rational, but this didn’t assuage her feelings. She still worried that Sacha might fall under some adverse, exploitative influence. But by the time she’d return to physical reality, back to Earth, Sacha’s interests would no longer be subject to first shock. The ideas would have mellowed. And anyway, up here, even for Suzy, who invariably tried to protect Sacha from the foibles of physical reality, the word ‘impossible’ was not part of her vocabulary.
They both listened without interrupting.
Sacha described his unsuccessful attempt to gain entry at the Convention Center to the rooms where more serious aspects of ecumenism were being discussed.
“And no matter whether I could do anything or not, they just wouldn’t take me seriously. Is it just my age, or is there more to it? After all, all I wanted was to learn. At least to listen...”
“You need more experience in handling people, son…”
“And you must develop a reputation; in any field––it takes time,” Suzy thought aloud.
“Studies. Mixing with your pears, which means the senior years in any number of universities...” Alec sounded pensive.
“Travel. First travel,” Suzy sounded insistent until she realized that if Sacha were to travel then he would cut his apron strings. “No, noooo, studies are better,” she corrected herself.
Sacha laughed. “Don’t worry, Mother. I would write. Promise.”
Suzy smiled but even here, which is as close to heaven as most people get between their reincarnations, a touch of sadness crept into her eyes. Sacha was growing up. Her little baby was sprouting his own, personal wings.
Sacha was cheating—just a little.
He invited his parents to meet him here but he didn’t tell them everything. Oh, he certainly wanted to hear what they had to say. But what he actually did was to scan their emotional bodies. On home planet they are as easy to read as physical bodies on Earth. Reading thoughts
was not the same. At this stage of his development, he could only read thoughts of which the thinker was reasonably conscious. Here, the subconscious manifested itself in the perception of the reality that formed this planet. Sacha could scan his parents’ minds and learn of ideas that were merely just germinating at their unconscious level. Yet even those thoughts were coloured by the experiences they both acquired on Earth. It was as Thomas Aquinas had said: Whatever is received is received according to the nature of the recipient. He was not talking about their spiritual nature. Nature of the recipient is formulated by his relationship to the reality he or she lives in. It is formulated by our individual perceptions. This accounts for our magnificent diversity.
“I’m getting the idea, Mom.”
It sounded a bit strange, because right now, as Sacha used his advanced abilities, he looked certainly more mature, if not older, than his mother. Things like this happen on the Home Planet. Your real nature tends to come to the fore. He quickly corrected the impression he was creating. He went slightly overboard and reduced his apparent years by an extra five. Suzy noticed and managed a smile.
“You are getting very good at this, Sacha. But don’t think I didn’t notice your shenanigans.”
Alec nodded. “And––you were picking our thoughts again, weren’t you son?”
“Actually more like images. I wouldn’t pick your thoughts without your permission.”
“Like hell you wouldn’t! Particularly if you thought you could get away with it.” Alec wagged a fatherly finger.
“Sorry, Dad. But you knew that I came here to ask your advice.”
This time it was Alec’s head that wagged from side to side but he let that go. Sacha was right. This time. He had told them that he wanted advice. He just had an unorthodox method of obtaining it.
They sat for a while regarding the idyllic landscape. The air was so clear that the mountains on both sides of the lake didn’t conceal even their minutest details. As they continued to look, the crags on the right grew another four or five hundred meters. Suzy smiled. She loved paining with her mind. Their eyes could perform feats unheard of on Earth. Even at great distance, a diversity of details was readily available to their vision. No wonder the Home Planet was heaven for most religions of Earth. It was truly heavenly. Though only if you ignored its nether regions.
“I don’t suppose you’d want to follow in your father’s footsteps...?” Suzy murmured breaking the silence.
“Or be a professional tennis player?” Alec offered. “There is lots more money in it.”
All three laughed––Suzy, a little nervously.
But they knew that Sacha was developing his very own plans for his future. For some reason, they both found this thought disquieting. They didn’t understand their own qualms. Not even up here.
Not even in this wondrous Eden.
There was a lot to be done. Sacha had to submit papers, fill in application forms, sit exams, attend interviews. His schooling was unorthodox and thus his methods of application to universities also required certain originality. His father and Desmond proved very helpful. Particularly Dr. Desmond McBride who, as the Chancellor of Caltech, carried considerable clout. But even more so, Desmond’s peers, throughout the world, liked him. The students were scared stiff of him, but only those who didn’t put their noses to the grindstone. Those who did learned to respect him, and out of respect grew admiration and eventually a genuine liking.
Desmond had sent out letters to all his academic friends who could be of any help to young Sacha. The answers came promptly, but it still took over six months before the contacts became firmly established. Desmond was not asking for any special treatment; only for equal treatment. He argued that Sacha should not be penalized for his studies having been carried out at home, nor should his age be taken negatively into consideration.
Sacha’s applications were principally to the departments of political science, history and psychology. As a fringe benefit, he was hoping to gain access to the voluminous libraries, which the principal universities of the world enjoyed. As for studies, his main motivation was the intercourse with the students as well as the teaching staff. He needed to learn about other people’s ambitions, plans for their future, general interests. He had to find out their real passions, not just those necessary to pass the exams.
He wanted to study the students while they studied.
Finally a confirmation came from one of his foremost choices. Next month Sacha would be leaving for England. The land where his grandparents had been born and raised, where people carried umbrellas tightly rolled and tipped their bowler-hats when greeting a lady.
He was leaving, in the words of a song, for Dear Old London Town.
SACHA 15+312
It strikes me, that after almost sixteen years of sharing many perceptions of the physical reality, my parents still regard the ‘inner realms’, as they call them, as the produce of their imagination or overactive mind. The strange thing is that, in a very specific way, they are right. Both the Home Planet and the Far Country are very much the products of imagination and mind, respectively, but not in the way they think.
After many a discussion on the subject, I am still under the impression that they feel, no matter how unwittingly, that their emotional and mental perceptions are the products of their physical consciousness. That they are generated by their willingness to let their imagination, and/or their creative thought-streams, to have their own way.
There is no way I can find to approach the subject from my point of view, and show them that their perceptions of all realities have taken a reverse spin. When I suggested as much they instantly agreed, and minutes later reverted to the thought patterns of their previous orientation. They still associate their being with that perception which forms their physical entity. Perhaps that is as it should be. Perhaps one should identify with the object of ones contemplation. And after all, what is physical life but a contemplation of a dream we all dreamt in Bardo?
So, in a way they are right.
By contrast, I find myself completely incapable of aligning my viewpoint with their perception of reality. Not altogether, although I’ve made considerable progress in that direction. I’ve learned to enjoy certain aspects of becoming that the physical senses offer. I’ve also examined and mastered most aspects of my own physical body. But I can also come and go from its constrains, without jeopardizing its safety. And, contrary to my parents, I do so in full consciousness.
This is perhaps the greatest difference between them and myself. From within my true reality, the Undiscovered Realm, I am aware of my mental, emotional and physical bodies remaining in their respective actualities. What I am really trying to say is that I enjoy my state of becoming in all the perceptions simultaneously. I don’t go in or out, or up or down, I am in all states at the same time. The only thing that changes is my attention. Wheresoever I place it, I am there. But since my point of origin is not the physical reality only the Undiscovered Realm, I do not lose awareness of all my other attributes.
At best, my parents regard the various perceptions (or various realities as they think of them), as attributes of their individualized soul. I, on the other hand, consider those very same perceptions as my attributes, and the individual ‘realities’ as products of those very attributes. It is as though they were on the outside looking in. I am inside, and whenever I must, I look out.
It seems that I shall have to suspend my attitude, to a greater degree, if I am to fulfill my mission. For I am now convinced that every one of us has a mission. I find it acutely frustrating that I still have not discovered the nature of my own. It could be the consequence of my refusal to suspend my perception of the Undiscovered Realm––even for an instant.
Yet that is where I have my being. All else is an illusion. An arbitrary construct.
I simply cannot find the right words to show mom and dad, those dear souls with whom I’ve shared various perceptions so many times before, that there is only one Reali
ty. All else is just perception. A point of view.
And yet? And yet I am here, in my physical body, writing these notes on my computer. I know that I must live out my own dream. In a way, I must wake up. It seems to be the very opposite of what all people I’ve met should do. They must wake up to my perception of reality, even as I must awaken to theirs. Only it is so very, very difficult. Apparently, for all of us.
It is like cutting the apron strings.
On the eve of departure for England, Sacha dreamt about already being in London. The London he visited was not a pleasant place. It was rife with poverty, with the smell of open sewers that was quite overpowering. The dark, musty, and dirty streets were populated with people clad in Dickensian attire––most were torn and filthy. The whole atmosphere was an actuality Sacha had no desire to visit. Not again. He found himself being driven in a one-horse buggy. Apparently he was a reasonably well-positioned gentleman, although, on second glance, the suit he wore had seen better days. He was on his way to help... to help someone. A sick girl?
Unbeknownst to him, Sacha was taking a step into his own past.
Chapter 10
Scholarship
Sacha flew to London on British Airways. People running the Heathrow Airport were not as obsessed with security measures as the armies of guards at the international airports in the United States. There was a discreet ‘uniformed’ presence, but the military did not flaunt their wares. His passport was checked, and that was that. He was welcomed to Great Britain without further ado.
London impressed him.
Like New York, the City was intrinsically cosmopolitan, so much so that at times he lost awareness of what part of the world he was in. Blacks, Asians, Latinos, at times seemed to dominate the Whites. In the USA they called Blacks African-Americans. Even those who had been born and bread in the States for ten generations. Darn silly, Sacha thought. And what of African Americans who were born in the USA and then decided to emigrate to Africa? Would they be American-African-Americans or African-American-Africans? Or would anybody care? Other than the AAAs or the AAAs. He supposed that back home, in the States, immigrants from Europe should have been called European-Americans. Unless they were European-Canadians, of course. As for himself, he would be European-Canadian-American. That would leave the Indian tribes who could safely assume the title of Americans without any qualification. Only they didn’t. They called themselves Native Americans.
Sacha—The Way Back Page 12
