Bad examples, he thought. Bad examples nearly all of them.
Yet he couldn’t help smiling.
The priest who questioned Sacha’s unclaimed powers however had not been amused at all. Sacha’s answer did not insult him, he’d said. It insulted the Authority of the Holy Mother the Church.
Go figure, as his night-street friends would say.
Go figure...
SACHA 25+216 days
So many among us do not know—let alone experience—those elusive realities that wait for us to be noticed, to be accepted as part of our fundamental kingdom, as our birthright. How few of us have retained the ability to soar to lands of unprecedented beauty where form and colour respond to every whim of our imagination. And fewer still can draw on our memory of domains still higher, the domains of pure thought, where we had once lingered for years, ages, before returning to Earth where a fraction of a second hardly passed us by. Time is yet another limitation we choose to impose on our perceived kingdom. We impose it, we even believe that it’s real. Yet ideas converted to thoughts linger for countless centuries, are passed on from one generation to another, seemingly indestructible. Ideas brought to us by Krishna, by Buddha, by Socrates through Plato, by Jesus or Mohammed, still stimulate man to action, force man to look up, towards the stars, to the intangible, ineffable, yet so very real Undiscovered Realm.
How can I find words to tell them these inalienable truths in words that their senses will not discard as fables, as ravings of a man gone mad? Perhaps gone mad with longing for his true home.
The omens are not always clear.
Not for the first time Sacha experienced moments of fantastic clarity of mind, followed by hours of darkest depression. He seemed to sink so deep as to well-nigh lose all hope, and then, as if by magic, he catapulted himself into the realm of light like a comic book hero escaping from an inescapable chasm. For a while, such moods oscillated at a fantastic and unpredictable rate.
At times, Sacha also sensed portents of tremendous power. It welled within him until nothing, nothing at all, seemed impossible. It came to him in direct proportion to the realization of his purpose. An hour earlier he might have felt as weak as a kitten licking its wounds after a losing battle in a dark alley. His moods, which he barely managed to keep within his grasp, swung like Foucault’s Pendulum; only he was measuring the velocity of his Inner Light as It was refracted by his three lower forms of perception. By the mental, emotional, and physical sheath which constricted his true nature.
At other times he would spend hours on his own. People who saw him in those moments, usually wandering the streets at night, probably thought he was praying. His face was locked in a blissful smile, a beatific detachment of ineffable serenity shining from his half-closed eyes. He called those times ‘retreats into the desert’. In truth, these were moments when he retreated to the Undiscovered Realm, seeking energy and strength. Towards the end of this period, he’d been tempted to manipulate people. To exercise his mounting power, albeit in self-defense. It would have been so easy. So very easy.
It also would have been wrong.
This is not why I am here...
After three weeks of such fluctuating existence he’d finally reached a state of balance. He’d won his personal Armageddon. The final battle. From now on he became a pure instrument of his own destiny. Of his own dream.
He was no longer afraid of anything. He knew that nothing could happen to him without his acquiescence. He felt free to respond to his inner voice without any allowance for the consequences. He was even free to perform what others regarded as miracles. Not just healing, but employing other talents he’d acquired over the years. When he resorted to them, it was merely to make a point.
“You all can do this. All of you. It is not my power. It is power that is omnipresent. It is equally available to every single one of you.”
No one believed him. Many believed in him, but not in his words.
***
His purpose was now abundantly clear to him. Everything in his short life led him to this moment. He’d found a way to convey his perception of the world to the world. At least to the Western world. He now knew that was his destiny.
His message was simple.
Some man, who had learned to listen to his inner self, had initiated each religion. Through this inner self he, or they, could contact the Source of all knowledge. His father, Alec, had been right. Information is omnipresent, at all levels of perception. Some men even reached the awareness of the golden cord, their link with the Whole. They’d gained access to the universal knowledge—to wisdom that lay beyond time and space. But the dissemination of that knowledge had been assumed by others. By other men who, while great by human standards, still hovered on the outer boundary of physical and thus dualistic reality. At least that was their avowed perception.
Each such teacher had been given one segment of the great picture. Each prophet knew that the human race was not ready to absorb the concept of the Whole. They promulgated the portion assigned to them, a vision of the Whole adapted to the mentality, and the ability of the particular people to perceive that aspect of the Totality.
It could not have been otherwise. Our ability to metabolize wisdom is always limited by the rate at which we can absorb it. This, too, is true at all levels of perception. This is why evolution is so desperately slow.
Yet now the time has come to unify all those fragments of reality together. To destroy the parts not by eliminating them, but by fusing them into a greater, higher form of perception. The time was at hand when people would realize that the Whole is greater than the sum of Its parts. It was not Sacha’s intent to destroy any religion. He felt it was his destiny to unify the diverse discernment of truth, for each one of them, each religion, held a fragment of truth. His destiny was to open people’s eyes to their true nature.
But his detractors did not know that. Had he told them, they would have laughed in his face. Truth wields an enormous power. Even a fragment of truth, a portion assigned to some primitive people, can hold a man in a vise as unrelenting as his will to survive. This fact alone explained the need for free will. The freedom for man to look beyond the horizons imposed by his forefathers.
Sacha had long scrutinized the history of man.
This inordinate power of truth explained why different religions clung so fiercely to their particular fragments. They claimed god is one, without knowing what god is, or even what the concept of unity really entails. They assigned human traits to an imagined divinity, human attributes distended to Olympian heights, in order to have an image worthy of their worship. The bigger the better.
Why can’t they understand my words?
SACHA 25+216 days, (cont.)
I meet so many here, on Earth, in this reality so replete with self-imposed limitations, who choose to abide in shackles of their own making. There are so many here who seem to have lost all memory of the Undiscovered Realm—their only permanent reality. The only Source of ideas. How can I show them that wherever we take our inspirations to give them form, so as to be able to share them with our neighbor, we never really leave our True Home? We abide ever there as pure consciousness, ever ready to bring forth new concepts, new impulses, which our more tangible selves would translate into thoughts, which would then linger for countless generations, growing, evolving, expanding our perception of reality.
If those forms do not find fertile ground, they will wither and die...
Yet the lower realities impose restrictions in direct proportion to their materiality. And what is more, the greater our personality, the further we are apart. We are set apart from other individualizations of the single, omnipresent Whole. Why is it that the lower we descend the greater our resistance to new concepts, new ideas? Why is it that we set limits to our own potential with such fervor yet discard the gift of life eternal with disdain?
Why can’t they understand my words?
***
Sacha looked down at the faces raised tow
ards him.
Their eyes hungry for something intangible, something they all knew, felt, that was intrinsically theirs, yet something they could not quite grasp. Something as yet hidden from them.
“How can I help you?” he asked in tacit whisper.
Each one perceives the truth in his and her own personal way. There is no limit I can place on the perception of the Whole. I cannot chop it into fragments tiny enough for them to swallow. If I could only show them. But they are too many. Their auras span too great amplitude to imbue them with a single image. And, after all, unbeknownst to most, diversity is a divine trait.
“My god is more powerful then your god,” the Hebrews have claimed for many generations. Is he? Just how many gods are there?
“Allah is one, sing the Moslem. They are right of course. But what of Krishna? Is he Allah too? One billion people claim he is. Are they all wrong? Everyone of them? And what of god manifested in the eyes of a new born baby? Is that some other kind of god? A lesser god? Allah is one—only who will define which Allah?”
The silence was such that Sacha could hear his own heart pounding. They all wanted to learn. Most of them. Most searched, hoped, almost begged. Could he feed them the truth in morsels big enough to gulp down one bite at a time?
“Divinity cannot be measured,” he spoke hardly above a whisper. “Neither in size nor in power. Divinity just IS. It is the Isness within everyone of us.”
Will they believe me?
“God cannot be measured,” Sacha resumed again. “Nor imagined. Nor embraced with thought. No matter who or what you choose to perceive as your god.”
There was a wave of heads as Sacha raised his hands, as though to embrace them.
“You build temples and mosques and churches in which to protect your gods from unholy eyes. From the unbelievers. From the profane. Why do your gods need protection? Each one of you claims that your god is omnipresent, yet you lock him up in places of worship you can control. You think of god as power. Don’t you know this power is equally distributed throughout the universes?”
This last sentence was directed at the clerics pressed together into a single faction, an amorphous body at the back of the hall. They held allegiance to different faiths, even different sects, but they felt safer together. They all shared the uniqueness of placing themselves between the people and their gods. The go-betweens. The ten-percenters.
There was a cold wind blowing from those pious people. Not really hatred but closer to anger. Anger that Sacha was upsetting the established system. There was room enough for all churches, they thought in perfect unison. Usually at war, here they practically held hands in some sort of prurient amity. They were merchants of the same trade. Their minds were the only minds Sacha could read at random. Their auras displayed amazing similarity.
“After all,” they thought virtually as one, “people make enough money for all of us. So why roil the water? Why aggravate the situation? If God didn’t like what we are doing, He wouldn’t let us go on. Would He? Yahweh or Allah or God is Almighty. They are all almighty. He guides us all in our doings. In our going out and our coming in. God sees and approves all that we do. We and we alone are His servants.”
So why roil the water?
Their anger was growing.
SACHA 25+ 219 days
I felt their thoughts. I am still not breaking through their self-imposed barriers. I must find a way. I must explain to them in words they will understand that ideas remain just abstractions until they are converted into, and disciplined by, thought. And thoughts remain just theories until embraced with emotion, fired with imagination. Only then they acquire form, tangible and palpable, euphoric in their beauty, which we can share with others. Artists and poets have known this for ages. We might almost stop here. Yet here, on the Home Planet, life is so beautiful, so carefree, that there is little stimulus to rise higher, to reach forever greater discernment, greater understanding.
I must find words to tell them that this is why, and it’s the only reason why, we must finally descend to Earth. Only man has the power to reach for the stars. Only man has the privilege to rise above all limitations and realize his own potential. Here, on this ball of dust, we start by crawling on all fours, we lift ourselves by sheer effort of will, we stagger, fall and rise again, until we find strength enough to remain standing. Finally we walk upright, proudly, as though suspecting our true nature.
Yet so few of us reach out for the sky, where our hearts ever long to take us. Fewer still rise to the stars where thoughts flitter at the edges of our consciousness like transient universes. And fewer still return to their True Home, where light blends with light, were there is no you and I, just we, as one, together, forever united. There, in the bliss of being, we dream once again of ideas only to venture once more into lower cycles, a spiral which, we hope, will create a vortex that in turn will draw others to those higher realms, waiting so patiently for their arrival. There are so many prodigal sons, so many prodigal daughters, yet to see the light burning within their own inner selves.
How can I tell them that?
How can I explain that the essence of life is bound by the cycle of living?
How can I find the words they might understand?
“You have twenty-one requests for healing, over seventy letters of gratitude and praise, seven threats, and one hate letter. I count it apart from the threatening letters because it is different. It is not based on religion. Frankly, I can’t understand it.”
It was late afternoon. Deborah was staring at the computer screen, her forehead furrowed. She was reviewing Sacha’s morning’s email.
“You will have to look at it yourself,” she added.
“I thought you didn’t want to be my secretary?” Sacha smiled. Without her help the volume of e-mail alone would swamp him. “Show me that last one,” he asked.
Deborah directed her mouse at the scroller and the offensive letter came up. The moment it appeared on the screen before Sacha even saw it, he knew the culprit.
“I’ll see him tonight. He is right to hate me,” Sacha commented enigmatically.
Deborah gave him a long look but didn’t say anything. As far a she was concerned, Sacha was always right. Except for the volume of his work. He hardly slept three or four hours a night. A night and a day, for that matter. How long could a man go on like this?
Sacha hoped he wouldn’t have to go on like this much longer either. As for the hate letter Sacha suspected it would come, sooner or later. He scanned it on the screen for form’s sake. It wasn’t signed, but to Sacha the sender was obvious. Later, that same night, he stole into the prison for the last time. He remained invisible until he reached the little insipid man who murdered his mother, his wife and two daughters. He was sitting on the concrete floor, facing the wall opposite, his face hidden in near total darkness.
Sacha waited till the man became aware of his presence. Then, before a stream of hatred which he managed to convey by the electronic mail could well inside him, Sacha showed him the destiny which his mother his wife and his children had been dealt. He showed the man that all four of his victims had been responsible for taking other peoples lives in their previous embodiments. Their cards have been dealt, by themselves. He, the murderer, helped them find peace. He helped to liberate them from their terrible karma.
Sacha could not have told the poor man all this on his previous visit. First, the man hadn’t been ready for it. Second, the men’s mindset had been turned completely on himself. An extreme case of egocentricity. And, also, the man was in a mental and emotional condition wherein concepts of karma would not have taken hold in his psyche.
Next, the man had his own karma to discharge. And finally, the disconsolate creature had been on the verge of self-immolation. Not physically but at the mental level. He had to recuperate his sensibilities to some degree, before he would be able to understand the next step.
Now it was done.
“You came after I spewed my venom at you?” The v
oice was a mere whisper in the darkness. Yet even his hushed tones conveyed traces of disbelief.
“It wasn’t your venom. It belonged to a man you are no more,” Sacha murmured. He preferred to keep the subliminal connection to a minimum. Otherwise the man might think later that he imagined it all. As for his words, this was not the time to tell him that all that really changed was his perception of reality. That who he really was and is, will forever remain indestructible.
“That’s true...” This was all so new to the poor wretch. “Who am I?”
“You are whoever you want to be. You are a man who can help others with your understanding,” Sacha whispered.
For a while neither of them spoke. The man had never asked who Sacha was. That alone spoke volumes of his mental and emotional condition. But Sacha always regarded the message more important than the messenger. He doubted though that the man knew it. He was wrong.
“I thank you, whoever you are,” there was total conviction in his tone. “I shall not let you down.”
Sacha was never more sure of anything in his life. The man would not let him down. Whoever he was.
The following morning a registered letter was delivered for Sacha, care of his father. It was a request for him to represent the Bonae Voluntatis at the Ecumenical Congress that was to be held on the West Coast. It was going to take place in San Francisco, but after reports of multiple street-marches being organized by exponents of free love and other varieties of sexual expression, the organizers decided to move it to Los Angeles. Bonae Voluntatis had been awarded two tickets and if Dr. Baldwin could possibly find time to attend, they would be very grateful.
Sacha—The Way Back Page 29
