by Michal Hall
Bilbo the cat had been sitting on my lap all this time staring at the light as it talked to me. He had never stayed anywhere, much less on my lap, this long before. I had really forgotten about him, but when I looked down at him, he was looking at me. Suddenly he jumped off and ran down the pier to head for his sleeping hole in the basement of our apartment building. Nobody knew how he got in or out of there, and only I knew where he slept. He is a very smart cat, and my first instinct when he was leaving was to get up and follow him, but the light again began talking.
“First of all, since we are not locked selfishly within ourselves, like your species, we are always able to feel the interconnected reality of the cosmos. When you are able to come out of your isolating evolution into pride, to come into the interconnected evolution of humility, you will discover, see and feel that you are directly connected to everyone and everything. That is what is real, but pride’s selfishness erases that from those who are infected with it, to leave them lost and alone. Our motivation for being here is simply because we are interconnected to you. We have felt your pain even though you are very far away. We are responding something like you might respond to a wounded, hurt family member. We are responding with concern and love and a willingness to help you in any way we can.”
They waited for me to respond, but I was totally speechless. They continued, “In regard to your speech, you will be able to tell the people of the world who we are and what we can do to help them…but that is not all it will do. From this, we will be able to evaluate each person on your planet to see directly how many of your species might be open to allowing us to help you face the problems that lie before you.”
I wanted to ask a question, but I couldn’t form the words. They went on, "We will clear out the United Nations by putting a message in everyone’s mind that they need to leave, so there will be no one there. You will not be bothered by anything as you speak. We will take care of you. You have nothing to fear. Also, we won’t be messing with your mind, we will only be speaking directly to your mind as we do with each other all the time. In this way, we can tell you what to say.
“We do understand how you must feel about all of this. We know that it sounds crazy to you, but remember that we are billions of years ahead of you in what we can do. None of what we have discovered about another planet, and then acted upon it, has ever harmed anyone. We are beings who only know and feel love and compassion. There is nothing about this that can possibly harm you. The Federation has done this thousands of times before, so nothing can possibly happen to you.”
I could feel their sincerity. I could feel that they cared for all of us, but I was still afraid because it was all so…crazy, when they saw that I still couldn’t speak, they continued, “We will make it so that when you go home, no one will connect you with this. No one will see your real face, or your size, or hear your real voice. In your violent world, you will be far safer doing this with us than you could ever be just living on your planet every day. We do believe that you are the best person to do this…but if you feel you can’t, we’ll understand.”
They paused, and then I blurted out, “I need to ask when you intend to do this, and how should I be dressed for the occasion, I…I just don’t know what to say…”
I was feeling strange. I was in a strange kind of panic. I was certainly feeling confused. I couldn’t believe that I had just asked them about these dumb, silly details. I felt like I was somebody else as I listened to them say that it would be best if we did it right now! I could hear them patiently telling me that how I was dressed would not matter because they would alter everything about my appearance so nobody would recognize me. They didn’t even want anybody to know what country I came from, and the way that I was dressed, or the way I spoke, could give that away. Then I said an even more stupid thing. I said, “But you can’t do it right now because it’s ten o’clock at night. It’s dark out here.”
Their response was still very nice. They calmly said, “Well, of course, right now half of the world is dark and half the world is light, but it will always be that way. One time is as good as another when you’re addressing everyone in the world. Those who are asleep will be awakened by the screen in front of them.” They then paused and said, “There is really no reason for a delay. We need to get this done as soon as possible, and putting it off will only make this harder for you and for us.”
Wow, I thought…right now? I stood and walked around the pier for a while. The light said nothing to me. As I walked, I decided that doing it now didn’t really matter, but to do it at all was a very different matter! Still, I knew that our species was in a very bad way, and I also knew from my many scientific studies that we really are going extinct. Suppose these strange aliens could help? Suppose they could make a real difference? In shock, and not believing what I was doing, I agreed to go with them…and to go with them right now!
Chapter 5
The Presentation
“Most people are on the world, not in it—have no conscious sympathy or relationship to anything about them—undiffused, separate, and rigidly alone like marbles of polished stone, touching, but separate.”
John Muir
“These people have learned not from books, but in the fields, in the woods, on the riverbanks. Their teachers have been the birds themselves, when they sang to them, the sun when it left a glow of crimson behind it at setting, the very trees, and wild herbs.”
Anton Chekhov
I had been to the United Nations General Assembly before in a guided tour years ago, but when I suddenly found myself behind the Podium in this massive, glorious hall, I was overwhelmed. Suddenly, without any sound, I heard the Federation members speaking to me in my mind. They began, “A large screen will now appear before you which will reflect your image so you can see what you look like as you make this speech. Of course, what you see will only be something like what the people in your country are seeing, because each country will see someone who talks and looks just like them. Try to say what we tell you to say as literally as possible, but if you occasionally change it a little, it will make no difference, since it will be changed anyway so everyone can hear it in their own language. Please just try to relax and be natural. We are sure you can do this.”
Suddenly, something white like a mirror appeared before me presenting someone who might slightly resemble me. I moved, and it moved, so then I realized that the person on the screen was really me. For the first time I smiled a little at how strange all of this was making me feel. Then they told me that every person in the world would see before them an appropriate, familiar figure. Then they asked if I was ready to start. I paused and thought, "Since I’ve gone this far, why not…yes…let’s go." I waited a minute, and then my mind started picking up what they were telling me to say.
“Please do not be alarmed at the image before you,” I heard myself saying. "I will not harm you in any way. The image you see before you originates in the United Nations’ auditorium and is being projected to every person in the world. Those that I represent love you and are here to help you. I am someone just like you who has been asked to talk to you about some very important things. Please do not leave. Please listen now and my image will leave you very soon.
“Those who have asked me to speak to you have come from far, far away in the cosmos to help us. They represent a group of planets that also have on them reflective beings somewhat like us. They are here to help us, if we allow them. Their species are much older than ours, having survived billions of years. They know countless things that we don’t know. They have evolved in ways that have allowed them to live peaceful lives that are sustainable and good. I am speaking to you since I believe that they can help us to move away from our divisions, violence, sickness, and wars that bring us so much sadness, and also to help us end our abuse of this planet that is quickly moving us into extinction.”
I’m surprised to find that doing this is very easy for me. I begin to move my arms and body a bit. I even start walkin
g around to emphasize certain points, and when I do, the image in front of me follows.
I continue, "They are a part of a planetary federation that has found things that are very strange. They first found that of the millions of planets around them, some had reflective beings who had survived for a very long time. However, other reflective beings on these planets lived for only a short period of time. With further study, they were able to find out why. At critical points in their evolution, some of these reflective beings had evolved into a mutually-affirming, uniting way of life through force-fields of humility, love, kindness, compassion, peace, forgiveness, sharing, and giving. However, others had evolved in a totally different, and very divisive way of life described in our words like pride, greed, hate, judgment, fear and many others. The species that evolved together into the uniting way of life were able to live on indefinitely as they worked in peace together with each other and their planet. However, the species that evolved apart in divisive, prideful ways went extinct in a very short period of time.
“At first the federation just let this go because they did not want to interfere in the evolution of the cosmos. However in the last hundred thousand years they started visiting with the dying planets to see if there was a way that they could help their pride to be reversed. Because reflection is so rare, important and powerful in the cosmos, they finally decided to try to do something to keep these extinctions from happening. Since then, the Federation has started visiting the reflective beings on the planets which they think might possibly be saved. The Federation has now learned many ways to help some of them. Of course, they also found that it was very difficult for any species that had evolved into divisive pride to change and survive for any length of time.”
At this point I was instructed to pause for a minute. Then they put into my mind, “The Federation has come to visit us because, in a very short period of time, we too will be extinct! We have been evolving into divisive pride for over ten thousand years, and that has caused us to lose the reality of our interconnection with each other and with everything. Unless we can replace this divisive pride with the unifying force of humility, love and peace, we will continue to selfishly overpopulate our planet to wipe out the animals, plants and even the ecosystems that sustain us. We have departed our natural evolution into compassion and connection to abuse each other and the Earth. This natural evolution has been so lost that our lives right now are full of violence, wars, injustices and countless other divisive things. We now have a painful existence full of suspicion, fear and hate, full of broken and miserable relationships with everyone and everything.”
I sensed a change coming that would require me to speak slowly and softly, so I said, "I know many of you have not been told, or do not believe, that our species can go extinct…but you are wrong. For instance, we have gone from a population of millions to a population of billions to approach ten billion in less than two centuries. We are swarming the Earth like locust to use up its resources at an increasingly shocking rate. We have polluted the air we breathe, and we’ve polluted our rivers and lakes so much that we will soon have no fresh water to drink. We’ve polluted our oceans and dumped in it so much trash, including three hundred million tons of plastic, that there will be no marine life in just fifty years. We’ve polluted the land with fertilizers and other things to poison the earth, and, through drain-off, poisoned the waters, in our thoughtless attempts to feed our insane numbers. We’ve also paved and built over the land to destroy it. We have cruelly killed off the animals and plants, who reflective beings are meant to love and assist, to demean ourselves and destroy the balance of the Earth’s ecosystems.
"I repeat that in our pride and disregard for the Earth, we have blindly grown from millions to billions with no thought of the consequences. Obviously our present eight billion has not only stepped up our pollution, but also the time-line of our extinction so much that some think we will be extinct in just one hundred years.
"I’m sure I don’t need to tell you again about the tragedies we have experienced from our multitude of inventions made to kill people. Look at them: tanks, battle ships, aircraft carriers, submarines, pistols, rifles, automatic weapons, cannons, different kinds of fighter planes, jets, and bombers…and, of course bombs culminating in the hydrogen bomb which hangs over our heads like the guillotine. The armies around the world, and the military industrial complex that supports them, eat up a major part of the world’s wealth. Thus as humans starve, wars keep on starving them more.
“Pistols kill young boys and other people on the streets, rifles kill animals, and automatic weapons kill in wars and kill school children. The truth is that all that any gun does is kill, and in a moral, humble, loving environment, the killing of any life-form would be seen as totally unacceptable and evil. That’s because when we kill, we go against the evolution of the Earth which strives to create and sustain life.”
I pause again and then continue, "There are three kinds of pride that are marching us into extinction. They are individual pride, group pride, and species pride. Individual pride rips apart our personal relationships with our sense of superiority that results in comparisons, judgments, suspicions, anger, fear, hate, revenge, and violence. It tears up families and friendships, as well as our neighbor, work related, and other relationships to leave us isolated and alone.
"However, group pride is often said to be the worst. It takes on many forms like national pride, religious pride, sex pride, racial pride, class pride, and on and on. National pride and religious pride are probably the worst since they are responsible for almost all of our wars.
"The last is species pride. It robs us of our association with our mother Earth to lose our identity and meaning. Also, as I’ve just said, it drives us to kill off the animals and plants, to destroy the ecosystems that support us, that then ushers us into extinction.
"Pride, in its many forms, has blinded us to many things, but our species pride has caused us to no more see that we come from, and are a part of, the Earth. It keeps us from seeing that we are the Earth; we are each other; and we are all of the Earth’s other life-forms. We are also the stars and the planets and everything that makes up the cosmos. Thus the truth is that we are intimately interconnected to everything. We always have been and always will be. This obvious reality is totally wiped out by prides lies that tell us we are the best, and all that matters is me, me, me. As a lonely, self-centered mariner, we sail along in our lonely boats on the cruel and troubled sea of pride, to kill, hate, and fear, as we try to avoid the monster we have become.
“I have been talking about the ways that pride leaves us morally bankrupt, but, of course, there is another viable option that pride wipes out. It is the logical one into which most other planets in the cosmos have evolved, and it is the one that would allow us to survive. This is choosing an Earth culture that is based on identifying with the Earth and all of its life-forms to bring us together in true interconnected peace. Most other planets have never faced the negative, horrible things that we face every day, because they never evolved into a culture of pride, arrogance, and greed.”
After another brief pause I say, “This Federation of Planets has come from far away to help us to move out of prides divisive slavery, and enter into the wonder and peace of humility, love and compassion. The federation has found t what it calls ‘The Cosmic Way’. It is found at the core of many of our world religions’ and teachings. However, our religions have been over-run by our prideful superstitions with their divisive exclusiveness. They have run over the religions’ wise teachings of love, peace and inclusiveness, so that now they are seldom followed. This way of thinking and living can also be found in some of our poetry, prose and ethical writings. Thus even though it is minimally present with us, pride dominates and controls who we are every day in our thoughts and actions. It is clear that since we have for so long embraced a culture of pride, that robs us of our relationships to each other and the Earth, we now cannot change into a culture of humility on o
ur own…and if we don’t change, our species’ pride will wipe away our future.”
I’m getting tired because this stuff is really deep, but I’m also growing in my dedication to keep going. Thus, I continue: “Let me tell you some positive things that will happen if we allow the federation to help us. They will first educate us on what a life lived in unselfish humility would mean. For instance, we would no more think and do things just for ourselves, but we would be equally concerned about the other people and life-forms around us. We would be able to see how similar they are to us. We would become especially concerned about the more complex life-forms around us such as plants and animals, because they have evolved as very similar siblings right beside us. Most of all we will once again become conscious of, and a part of, our amazing mother Earth.”
"Let me say that gravity in matter is not the only thing that pulls us together to be more complex. No, some force in the cosmos also pulls all consciousness together. We see it in the evolution of life on the Earth. We see it when one-celled organisms come together to have more consciousness (or awareness) and we especially see it in other life-forms as their consciousness grows up the ladder of life. We see it in the rise of consciousness in things like jelly-fish to fish, plants to animals, and finally apes to humans with their complex brains. We can also feel it in our own consciousness in what we call ‘love’, as it pulls us together with each other, plants and animals.
“Also, as I have said, the Federation will teach us how everything is interconnected. This is a reality we have lost. We see only ourselves, and in doing this, we destroy our ability to properly evolve. In our pride, we now can’t see, experience and move together in unity to accomplish much of anything. That’s because it is only as we are able to move as one that anything really moves forward in evolution. The Federation will help us to humbly reconnect with everything to continue our evolution into cosmos.”
