Sacha—The Way Back

by Stan I. S. Law

  We agreed that we would rely on regular meetings on the Home Planet. With dad’s help, mother became quite proficient at it. What people do not realize is that she and I can meet there, without it affecting, in any way, my presence and awareness in the physical consciousness. It is as though only a part of me wandered in the inner world. I had to remind myself that my true self is equally present in all realities simultaneously. My ability to expand my attention appears to have grown accordingly.

  Nowadays, when I call, it is mostly for the sake of Grandma and Grandpa, who are, as yet, unable to take advantage of the inner realities. Dad and I also make use of email, though only to discuss specific subjects for which there are no good equivalents on the Home Planet. Subjects that are implicitly ‘down-to-earth’.

  As for my sense of loneliness, it was the body I inhabit, my sensual awareness, which appears to be demanding its rights. It seemed to be calling for a human touch. How very strange. It seemed to have a will of its own.

  As for the French language, it did not really come to Sacha naturally, but he metabolized an excellent vocabulary. The rest, he felt sure, would come with practice.

  The French academic community considered themselves the best in, well… the best at absolutely everything. He found that even the professors succumbed to national pride, and thus were subject to the guileful machinations of flattery. They seemed to need it as moths need light. Sacha offered it freely. His increasing ability to read thoughts helped. Sacha amused himself by fulfilling some of the haughty men’s dreams.

  “You present by far the deepest insight into this matter, Professor. If I may say so, people at Oxford are years behind you in understanding the intricacies of the dilemma,” he offered with a slight bow towards a fastidious professor on some relatively inconsequential matter.

  The professor held that only La France had ever produced any philosophical concepts of value.

  “Oui, cher Monsieur. You may say so indeed,” the professor dismissed the matter nonchalantly, with a wave of his hand. Yet the lecturer was quite unsuccessful in concealing his delight.

  From that moment on, the snide remarks that the professor directed at the British, Americans and even Canadians seemed to dissipate into thin air. His animosity towards everything remotely English may have been dating back all the way to Henry II, who in 1167 banned English students from attending the University in Paris. Be that as it may, Sacha became the fastidious professor’s favourite student.

  Sacha’s stay in Rome was as rewarding as it was uneventful. He visited every museum, craned his neck at countless domes in countless churches, cathedrals and temples. What else can one do in Rome? A week after arrival in the City of the Seven Hills, Sacha had to face the inevitable. He’d noticed that he suffered an indefinable disquiet when entering the gates of the Vatican. Not that there were any actual gates, but he felt a strange unease as he approached the inner City. For some reason, as he walked along Via della Conciliazione towards the Basilica of Saint Peter, he sensed an inexplicable foreboding. It was as though a cold wind chilled his bones; only the wind seemed to come from within. “Don’t go there,” it seemed to say. Don’t go there. “Why?” he asked himself. “What are those buildings to me?”

  The ancient stone walls lining the street with elegant Renaissance rhythm yielded no answer. Perhaps Sacha felt the power radiating from the throne of Peter. An enormous, unbending, indomitable power. It worried him. He felt a great danger emanating from the magnificent Basilica, from the very nerve center of the most powerful Church in the history of man.

  SACHA 19+102 days

  I always thought that power is the opposite of love. Love and hate are reverse sides of the same coin, indifference is its absence. But power is at odds with the very concept of love. It imposes, commands, enslaves. Never in my life have I hoped so much that I was wrong. If I could pray, I would have prayed. But prayer is attempting to influence the order of the universe. It is a dangerous game to play. Unless it is an aspect of your particular destiny.

  He put his notebook away and kept walking.

  His feet moved slower with each step. For two thousand years this Power he was now facing was virtually ruling the civilized world. Then Mohammed came on the scene, and the Church Empire began to recede. But the Church fought back. With people who offered their love and life, but also with sword and mayhem. Crusades, inquisition, followed. The opposition was destroyed ruthlessly, without mercy.

  In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost.

  Suddenly Sacha felt very tired. He came here searching for light, he found gathering darkness. He’d been walking for hours. He found some steps, sat down and listened to his own thoughts.

  SACHA 19+102 days, cont.

  I cannot really study the Italians. I can live with the Italians. I have to. When in Rome, do as the Romans... They know how to live. They try to live their dreams. I also noted that the closer they get to il Papa the less seriously they take him. It is a truly strange relationship. They love him, practically adore him, some even respect him, but they don’t take him seriously. ‘He does what he does, and we do what we do’, they claim. ‘Live and let live’, they insist.

  La dolce Vita.

  Aren’t they right? I feel a peculiar kinship with them. I wonder why?

  Yesterday I attended a lecture on dreams by a man claiming to be a follower of Carl Jung. There was a question period. I asked the lecturer why he regards perceptions of some realities as more true than others. It took him a long time to understand my question. I told him that we all ‘travel within’, a function he referred to as dreams, only we don’t regard these ‘imaginary’ travels seriously. I asked why does he regard the inner experiences, such as dreams, as unreal, whereas he takes the physical life so seriously. Isn’t physical life constantly hovering on the very edge of unreality?

  He smiled for a long time, studying me as one would an alien. But did not answer.

  I put it to him that physical consciousness is a preset dream, running to its fulfillment, interrupted only by our ineptitude and inability to discover exactly what that dream is really about. I found I was unable to convey my concept to him, nor to the listeners. I was unable to share the perception of my reality with others. They and I are still too far apart.

  Again, I felt lonely. I visited mother in her dream-state. I asked her why people couldn’t understand my words. She didn’t answer either.

  I miss you, mother. I miss you badly. But I know that I must do this on my own. Whatever ‘this’ turns out to be…

  Sacha walked another hundred yards towards the Basilica. There, he stopped. He couldn’t go any further. The next day he left Rome for Madrid. He’d visited Mecca many times in his inner travels. Now he wanted to meet the people who had built the Alhambra. Or at least partake in the evidence they’d left behind. He wasn’t disappointed.

  For the rest of the year he wandered the streets of many European cities, large and small. With each passing day, he felt more detached. He felt like a stranger in a strange land. He didn’t belong in this world. He admired it. He loved the people. Some of them were living their dreams, even if they did so at the subconscious level. But still, he didn’t belong.

  Five years had passed since he’d left home and it all seemed for naught.

  He’d read somewhere that what history teaches us is that over thousands of years, people have learned nothing. That people walk in circles, forever chasing their own tails. Perhaps this is as it must be, but he refused to accept it. Perhaps we are not allowed to stay in the upper realms. But who is it that allows us? Sacha never encountered anyone in any realm who told him what to do. He was always relying on his own self. Perhaps such self-reliance comes only with time. Time, down here, was a very important commodity. It was part of the eternal circle. Or, perhaps, we all rely only on our inner self, only we don’t realize it. We want to pass the buck—to have someone to blame for our mistakes.

  So many questions…

  Someti
mes, as he stood, forlorn, on the bridges spanning the Vistula, the blue Danube or the meandering Moskva, for some ephemeral moments he hovered in the bliss of the Undiscovered Realm. Bridges over dark, pensive waters had that effect on him. But as always, all too soon the magic was gone. He missed his true Home.

  Perhaps once we graduate from this vicious circle we don’t have to come here anymore to partake in the eternal procession of past mistakes. We shall bathe eternally in the ineffable light of the Undiscovered Realm, descending now and then into the opulent creative streams of the Far Country, or the sensual beauty of the Home Planet. Perhaps others will come up from the animal kingdom and take our place, sustaining the physical reality, while we move on.

  Only now and then, just sometimes, one or two of us might come down to give a hand to those who are still struggling. After all, at the root of our perceptions, aren’t we all one?

  Perhaps. Perhaps...

  Chapter 11

  Self Realization

  “Why am I here?” It wasn’t the first time that Sacha asked himself this seemingly innocuous question. His ability to withdraw into the inner sanctum of his being, of his awareness, did not seem to supply the answer. Recently, it was as though his inner travels felt more like escapes from his responsibilities. They were wonderful, sublime, indeed at the deepest or highest level ineffable––beyond time.

  “There, I just am,” he told himself.

  Yet, he always came back. He had to. He thought he was beginning to understand why.

  “Perhaps if all people had the ability to escape into the higher regions of awareness, they would have no stimulus to try. To strive. To cross new horizons. They would become static. As though in limbo. Almost dead. Perhaps...”

  There was no one with whom he could share his ideas. He was alone.

  He’d spent the last three months in LA, with his parents. He hadn’t seen them for just over five years. They could easily have met a dozen times during his self-imposed exile, but Sacha had insisted on walking his own, often painfully lonesome path. “I must, Mother,” he’d told Suzy who missed his physical presence the most. “I must find myself, and I must do so on my own.”

  They met frequently within the Home Planet. Only there, no one changed, no one grew older. Not really. You wallowed in your acquired knowledge, but you did not cross new horizons. You were whatever you wanted to be. You could even grow horns or a tail and pretend you were a devil. All things were possible. All it took was imagination and belief. Belief that you can. Belief in yourself. Was the Earth that much different? It took longer, but the principle underlying your creativity, the creation of the reality you wanted to perceive, was essentially the same.

  “Watch me fly!” Sacha sprinted to the edge of the precipice pushed off and took wing. His head thrust forward like a rising star, his arms alongside his body, his palms acting as airfoils.

  “Watch me fly higher!” Suzy smiled, as she soared over the highest peaks.

  “Watch me be the first to get back!” Alec shot down past them like a bullet.

  “Watch us all being happy together...” Suzy concluded. She needed togetherness the most. Each night she was hoping to see her son––at least in her dreams.

  On the Home Planet they were all children. Carefree.

  But when Sacha flew back to LA, by a very noisy, very solid jet, Suzy and Alec couldn’t believe their eyes. Sacha left a boy––came back a man. Not just older, but a man confident in his views, behaviour, even posture. In height he now matched his father. Suzy had to stand on tiptoe to stroke his golden mane. She didn’t mind. She was proud of her son’s looks. He was beautiful.

  “Really, mother…” Sacha muttered. But the happy mother had no idea what he was mumbling about.

  Sacha smiled. His mother has forgotten that he could read her thoughts. What’s more, he’d never attached much importance to his physical appearance. Clean and proper was enough for him. But beautiful?

  Apart from visiting his parents, Sacha had two other items on his agenda. He wanted to see the McBrides, particularly Grandpa. His father had told him that old Des was getting on. He was still sharp but he could not sustain anything for very long. He simply got tired. He and Grandma ‘Licia still sauntered along the beach on weekends—only a lot slower. Desmond was no longer the Chancellor. He gave occasional lectures as a visiting professor. They were always fully attended. But his drive was missing. He was passing the torch to the next generation.

  Sacha caught up with them on the beach.

  “Look at that youngster go!” Des would remark, pointing to a lad on a surfboard.

  Only then he noticed Sacha standing next to him. Two tears rolled slowly down his cheeks. He stood, helpless, unable to control himself. “I m-missed you, l-lad,” he stammered. “I guess, I missed you,” he confirmed, wiping his tears away.

  Alicia took Sacha in her arms and, for a while, refused to let go. “You’ll stay a spell, won’t you, Sacha. Say you will stay?”

  Alicia hasn’t changed. She had that rare quality of remaining invisible, yet always there when needed. Sacha vaguely remembered Matt, a large, towering man, who had once looked after his father. He had the same elusive quality––a trait more common among women than men. She looked after her husband with total commitment. But she never allowed him to think that he was slowing her down. She pretended that it was she who couldn’t quite keep up the pace. She thought that Des hadn’t noticed her subterfuge. He had, and he was grateful. He referred to her as his angel.

  The last item on Sacha’s agenda was money. He did pick up a few Euros, here and there, but he needed more money. He felt the need to rely on his own abilities. To be financially independent. In Oxford he’d spent practically nothing, but the European whirlwind cost him plenty. Travel wasn’t cheap any more. Nor were convenient hotels. Or even B&Bs.

  Sacha didn’t need much, but money makes the world go round, and he wanted to go round the world. He could have earned the extra cash in Europe, but day-trading on the stock market was much faster, though it was virtually a full time job. He repeated the method he’d employed the first time he’d made a hundred Gs. It didn’t come as easy this time, but he managed to make enough to satisfy his immediate needs. He didn’t plan for the future.

  He still hasn’t decided if he had a future.

  Finally he was ready. They all saw him to the airport. All five of them. Even Maria wanted to come. He promised that this time he would come back sooner.

  “Much, much sooner, darling. Much sooner,” Suzy pleaded.

  “Godspeed, lad,” Des whispered. He took his departure the hardest. He loved his grandson dearly.

  Sacha’s carryall was duly x-rayed and then he passed the point of no return. Once again, he left tears behind.

  He flew economy. What seemed like a week later he landed in New Delhi.

  “Why am I here?” he asked himself for the hundredth time. His eyes followed the ever-changing kaleidoscope of colours through the window of the rickety train. He chose this method of travel to develop a greater feel for this part of the world.

  “Up there...” he mused. He adopted his father’s thinking of the Undiscovered Realm as ‘up’. He often mused of his home when alone. “Up there, there’s only one colour, even if it is the sum total of them all. It is the full range of colours reassembled into their original form by the prism of my soul. Funny that…” he thought, smiling. “I never realized that till I got down here. We take so much for granted, even there…”

  It was beauty he felt with his whole being. Up there, he was part of it. He was beauty himself. Could this have been what mother had meant?

  “So why am I here...?”

  The window darkened as the train entered a tunnel. A tunnel with no light at its end.

  “Self discovery.” He peered into the smoky darkness. “I am here on a mission of self discovery.”

  Yesterday was different.

  Crowds, smells, noise, but particularly crowds, endless crowds, never-
ending crowds of people. Crowds, smells and noise were synonymous with India. At least in New Delhi. The capital of a billion people. Sacha dreaded what Calcutta might be like. He had no desire to go there. It was said to be much worse. Calcutta was for people in search of money and––for saints. Like Mother Theresa. Only she was dead. He wondered how many people die every day in India. How many die on the streets. He wondered how many are born. He wondered how many thought that it was worth it. To be born that is. To live. Here.

  At 5 a.m., just after sunrise, you breathe deeply. The rest of the day you try to hold your breath. Literally and figuratively. Yet in the midst of all this there is beauty. Richness of nature, richness of art, richness of human spirit, though that last must be earned. He’d asked a swami, a local guru hardly distinguishable from the dust on which he was sitting, what would two weeks at his feet gain him. The old, skinny man with deep-set eyes replied: “Peace of mind. A new way of life. Happiness.” But only if he, Sacha, obeyed the rules. If he neither touched, nor looked, nor even thought about the female members of the Ashram.

  Detachment.

  Detachment from all things physical. Wasn’t it easier to raise your consciousness to the inner realms? You didn’t have to leave your physical body. Just believe.

  Just believe. Didn’t someone once teach that?

  The teaching of the majority of teachers dates back some 3500 years. It was given to mankind by Krishna, the physical incarnation of Vishnu. A God. An all-pervading Preserver. The most important God of the Hindus. Maybe Vishnu resides in the parts of the Undiscovered Realm that still remained undiscovered. After all, it is Infinite.