There was an intangible cognitive connection between them, and Sacha could sense it. Armed with this perception, he could, to a degree, influence their common behaviour. Not in any magical or miraculous fashion, but he could both sense and impose certain ambiance towards which a particular group of people reacted in a predictable fashion. He imagined what a marvelous card it would be for a politician. Some leaders and actors behaved as though they shared this ability. They called it charisma, or charm, or just a superb ability to “read the crowd”. No doubt it was a field to be exploited, if not abused, by anyone seeking power.
Nothing was further from Sacha’s mind.
He discovered his new ability quite by accident. A bunch of bullies, somewhere between middle teens and early twenties, were just beginning to vent their ire on another youth that Sacha had helped some days ago, and who’d lost interest in belonging to this very group of hooligans. There was no time for Sacha to set about adjusting the various states of consciousness of the individual members of the depraved bunch of thugs. It was then that he detected a common thread between them. Not just anger at the emotional level, or irresponsibility at the mental, but a common thread at much higher levels of cognition. One could say that their individual auras, uninspiring as they were, displayed a similar, virtually the same, colour and intensity. Sacha instantly attuned himself to their particular vibrations and then proceeded to purify their resonance, then their colour, and even their degree of brightness.
In no time the hooligans picked up their victim from the ground with hardly a punch having been thrown, and walked away, as though losing all interest in their vicious designs. Sacha had no idea if the positive effect would last, but he was glad that the lad he’d worked on before had escaped unharmed. As for the others, what a minute ago was a gang, transformed itself into a loosely knit camaraderie in search of means to satisfy their vacuity.
Whatever else had happened, they were all, at least partially, reawakened to their potential.
Then, with the suddenness and unpredictability of a bolt of lightening from a cloudless sky, the inevitable happened. Overnight, Sacha developed a following.
He began being recognized on the streets by the needy, the sick, even those who normally wouldn’t venture from the furtive shadows. They began to seek him out. To tell each other where he might be, at any time, any day. They seemed to have joined some unspoken alliance, a brotherhood, and kept their eyes and ears opened for Sacha’s arrival. It wasn’t that difficult. Their mentor’s golden mane seemed to light the paths he walked.
Once again Sacha realized that it was time to go.
During that last week he’d worked only at night, but almost openly.
There was so little time.
He worked mostly with the destitute. He attempted to explain to them that wealth is a state of consciousness, and then tried helping them to metabolize this axiom. He tried to tell them that wealth has nothing to do with worldly domains. That even material independence is the result of a state of consciousness, and not the rationale for it. Whether they understood him or not, he felt that he became adored by some, mostly those on the fringes of society, hated by others, usually those who were well to do. Why?
“There are proper organizations, authorities, churches, duly registered charities committed to this sort of thing!” claimed one reporter. She’d failed to explain “what sort of thing?”
“People will stop their contributions, their donations to the proper organizations if this character (sic) is helping the derelicts for free...” asserted another.
Now this was closer to the heart of the matter. Canadian charities and churches, combined, run an annual budget into billions of dollars. No one should be allowed to interfere with such a golden goose. No one!
Heretofore, no one had.
Not one of his detractors would have guessed that Sacha extracted payments of a different sort. He expected people he helped to give up the states of mind that brought them to their present condition. Just their state of mind, but on that he’d insisted.
“Whatever you perceive as reality that will manifest in your lives,” he’d declared firmly. It appeared that many believed him. From among those who did, seldom had he encountered anyone slipping back into his or her “old ways”.
Sacha had other compensations. When working one-on-one, he derived inexplicable joy from just observing light returning into the heretofore-dull eyes. The stooped backs would straighten; the chins were thrust forward, daring the world to deal them any cards not of their own making.
They found, or recovered, faith in their own selves.
Some men and some women bent to kiss his hand. Not in worship since Sacha inspired in them the very essence of equality, but as an act of gratitude.
“How can I ever thank you, Sir?” Many of them didn’t even know his name.
Others asked if they could help still others. Anyone. They felt the need to pass on the good news. The good news that we, and we alone, are the creators of our reality. That it all is––all that we perceive with our senses––merely a state of mind...
Many understood it. The vast majority did not. This was a hard premise to metabolize. It did not deal just with our own subjective self, but with the reality all around us. The majority still preferred to look up to the governments, or churches, or do-good organizations, for guidance. Those organizations talked a great deal about human dignity, but they destroyed its remnants by allowing people to continue relying on handouts; but no longer those few whose eyes lit up in understanding. The chosen few? Those who understood that it had always been their choice whether or not to become the chosen people.
Towards the end, Sacha tried hard not to attract attention. He never gave his name, and when leaving an area he made sure that he hadn’t been followed. Yet the news spread like wild fire. The press, other media, they all seemed ready to pounce and grab their pound of flesh. More articles appeared, more questions had been asked.
“A saint or a charlatan?”
“Medicine without a license?”
“A natural psychiatrist or a fraud?”
“Would you trust anyone who lives in hiding?”
And then there were the inevitable warnings from the clergy who seemed concerned for the good of their people. For the good of good sheep.
“Beware of false prophets!”
“The devil comes in many forms!”
And many others. Many. All within the past week.
It was definitely time to go.
And then came moments of doubt. All too soon. For the thousandth time Sacha staggered under the magnitude of his endeavour. He had moved away from his home in LA to protect those he loved most. He lived surrounded by beggars asking for redemption. He taught them how to redeem themselves. The only true redemption. It all seemed futile. The more men he helped, the more came. Seemingly there was no end to human misery. Yet, there were so many churches that claimed to offer succor. Why did so many churches remain empty? Why didn’t these people seek help there? Why didn’t they ask the priests, the clergymen, the imams, the rabbis to help them? Were all religions such abysmal failures?
Even as he was?
SACHA 23+323 days
How can I help people free themselves from slavery when they are determined to remain slaves? They pray to gods, to divinities, who show no interest in their welfare at all. Why won’t they believe that the only god they will ever encounter is the almighty king, the ruler, the councilor within their own hearts?
Why can’t they understand my words?
Sacha remembered the Ecumenical Congress he’d attended in Boston when he was just fourteen. And for the umpteenth time he felt a flash of understanding as violent as all the previous bolts combined.
Once again he felt that his understanding of his mission in life was finally becoming clearer. It had been a long and arduous process. He was pealing off layers that the exigencies of survival on Earth had imposed on him. Finally he’d returned to his origins. Once
again he regarded the whole physical reality as an arbitrary construct of human mind and imagination. Even as he looked at various events in his own life, he noticed their fluidity, as though they had neither beginning nor end. They seemed to hover in the matrix of spacetime, tenuously, seemingly toying with a temporal experiment, only to be re-absorbed into the Whole when no longer required.
It had been a long journey.
Gradually his mind was clearing. The cobwebs accumulated through years of progressive tiredness, recently by sheer exhaustion, were beginning to clear. There were three things he had to do before leaving Montreal. First, he went to a barber. A hairstylist, they called it here. Some style! He emerged a half-hour later clean-shaven, his golden glory clipped to a fashionable quarter of an inch crew-cut. He looked like a skinny marine in civvies.
When he’d returned to his rooming house, he changed into his one and only good suit, packed the rest of his meager belongings into a single carryall, and caught a bus to the University of McGill. He presented himself at the Faculty of Religious Studies as a postgraduate, interested in furthering his studies in theology. There was a tremendous shortage of applications for this particular department. After the administration staff checked his credentials on the Internet, he was admitted on the spot. He would be billed later, the clerk assured him with a wink. No doubt. Next he thumbed through a telephone book in search of an organization that would suit his purpose.
There were the Pax Christi, Pax Mundi, the Caritas, and indeed a good many other trusty organizations. Too good, too well established. He went to the university cafe and sat at the only available computer outlet. A half-hour later he’d found his quarry.
A bus deposited him at its door. The sign etched in two-inch high, elegant Roman letters, stated their business. It looked clean and proper. The inscription, in Latin, said:
BONAE VOLUNTATIS
He remembered some but not all of it. ...Et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis... por tua immensa gloria... Laudamus te... There was more but he’d read it some two decades ago. Anyway, it did not really matter.
The brass plate on the door assured all-comers that this was a place for people of Good Will. Probably not as impressive an address as sported by some better-known organizations, but an established society nevertheless. A young lady smiled at him. Perhaps more lady-like than young. The smile she offered seemed a little tired. Perhaps bored? Or maybe she just worked too hard.
Sacha gave the place an once-over. There were some pamphlets on a shelf near the door, a few chairs––a little worse for wear, and a good-size desk with an inquiring face behind it.
“Can I help you, Sir?”
He explained that he was a visiting research fellow at McGill University and the pressure of work didn’t allow him to check on various charitable organizations. He had come into some good fortune, and was hoping that she might suggest some alternatives, or, better still, take his donation and pass it on to the appropriate quarters.
The woman’s face was rapidly loosing its lassitude.
“May I ask how much you wish to donate, Sir?”
“I would like to start with $5,000, and then I would increase my donations as funds become available. I would need a receipt for tax purposes, of course.”
“Of course!” The remnants of tiredness evaporated into thin air.
The place and the woman looked as if they both needed the money. For a moment Sacha wondered how come the recipients of human generosity never asked what motivated the donor. Perhaps it didn’t really matter. Perhaps they just didn’t care. And then he wondered why there were so many needy people in the world? Or maybe Bonae Voluntatis really was a charitable organization and they were discreet, and they didn’t ride Mercedes-Benz limousines while other people were starving. By Sacha’s definition of reality they may have been just ignorant, but not necessarily dishonest. He wrote the check while the young lady filled out the receipt. He was almost ready to leave when she asked causally.
“Would you consider joining our organization, Sir?”
Sacha took a deep breath. It worked! And it wasn’t just that. Never had he been called ‘Sir’ so many times in such quick succession. He hesitated for form’s sake. This was the only reason that had brought him here.
“A membership?” he did his best to sound surprised.
“We offer a membership to those who are interested in our work. I’m sure yours would be approved in no time, Sir. No time at all.”
“I am leaving for Los Angeles in a few hours. I shall be back later, of course. Could you send me some staff? Some reading material?” He’d already read all he wanted to read about the organization on the Internet.
“Of course, Sir. But you might care to fill in the application form and it would be processed while you are becoming acquainted with Bonae Voluntatis.” Her tone of voice was almost begging.
“That would be acceptable. Just in case my business takes a little longer, you might care to send me my membership card to my LA address.” He patted his pocket as though looking for his business cards.
“Just write it on the application form, Sir.”
She was a smart girl. A credit to her organization. Sacha filled in the essentials and, looking at his watch, turned toward the door.
“Thank you, Sir. You’ll get all the documents in two or three days,” she assured him.
Sacha thanked her and left. He hadn’t asked what documents. All he needed was an affiliation, a membership in an organization that was already established internationally, but not broad enough to have its own, well established hierarchy at the top. From what he’d read on the Internet, Bonae Voluntatis fitted the bill precisely.
For now, his job in Montreal was done.
He indulged himself in a taxi to the P-E. Trudeau International Airport. It was a quiet ride. He actually managed to sleep for twenty minutes. He decided to fly out on the first available flight. If there was waiting involved, he was prepared to sleep in any position for as long as it took. He had a lot of catching up to do.
He made the next plane to LA by ten minutes. They waved the formalities of a three-hour waiting period. His gentle prodding of the attendants and the security staff’s subconscious helped somewhat. It was cheating but he felt he’d earned a little rest. And to sleep in LA, in his own bed, even a few hours sooner was a temptation he could hardly resist.
He fell asleep the moment his back relaxed against the softness of the reclining seat. It did not matter that there was hardly any legroom; or that the loudspeakers were blaring completely redundant security information. Nothing mattered when he could finally close his eyes, and no longer be forced to remain alert for danger from unexpected quarters. Here, contrary to the reality of fear and distrust the security guards tried so hard to instill on the passengers, he felt completely safe.
For the first time in so many days and nights, there was no danger at all.
Suzy, her eyes narrowed in a blissful smile, picked him up at the LA International. Soon her face would be aglow with joy. But not immediately. She looked at him, then looked away, and only on the second take fell into his awaiting arms. His crew-cut had changed him virtually beyond recognition. The mop was his trademark. Holding her close, even as Suzy fought hard to hold back her tears of joy, he assured her: “It will grow again, mother. I promise...”
By then she wouldn’t care if he’d shaved his whole body. He was home. Finally, at long last, Sacha was home. Her home. Next to her, better, she was in his arms.
After another long hug and a dozen kisses interrupted only by more hugs, Suzy confessed that she and Alec had been hoping for this day for years. Christmas was coming and they had hoped against hope that at least once, in so many years, they would spend the Festive Season together.
They were well on their way home before Sacha broached the subject of Deborah.
“Of course! How silly of me,” she exclaimed. “You called us ten times from Montreal but you never explained how you two had met?”
“How is she?”
“Oh, I have no idea. Alicia and Debbie are in total cahoots about everything. They are acting like mother and daughter, a grandmother more likely, but Alicia looks at least twenty years younger. I strongly suspect that soon they will be the same age!”
All this was delivered on a single breath. Sacha concluded that Deborah was OK. Good old ‘Licia. Good young Alicia. Surely she must be well over seventy by now. What an incredible woman.
“Are they in town?” he asked thinking the duo might be in Solana Beach.
“They are everywhere. Everywhere!” Suzy insisted. “They drive to the villa for a day or two, then into the mountains, then down to Mexico and back to us for a late supper, only to return to Solana Beach that same evening. I tell you Sacha, I have no idea where mother finds her strength. I really don’t.”
First with the first Granddad, then with the second, and now with Deborah. It seemed that Deborah was just what Grandma had needed.
“The other day Alicia asked me all about your schooling. I gather that the young lady you brought from back home has some catching up to do. Mother makes her study everyday for at least two hours. Apparently she learns quickly. And you know she speaks that wonderfully atrocious French. I just love it!”
So they’d really met. I wonder what Deborah would say if she heard herself described as a young lady.
“Did she ask about me?”
“When she was here she wouldn’t talk about anyone or anything else. Frankly, son, I think she has a crush on you. A sizable crush.”
“Do you mind?”
“Whatever you do, Sacha, I don’t mind. I don’t think it would make much difference if I did, would it?” This time Suzy’s tone lost some of its bubbly luster.
Sacha—The Way Back (Alexander Trilogy Book III) Page 24
