Fiction
A few days ago, I woke up with the very clear thought---as if it had
been planted in my head---that everything I experience is a product of
my own imagination.
This, I have since learned, is a teaching of the ancient Hermetic School of Philosophy.
At any rate, I decided to carry out an experiment. I imagined a second
moon floating above Earth, to see if I could make it so real to me I
would actually see it clearly, on consecutive nights.
Of course, as you know, last night a second moon did, in fact, appear in
the sky. People all over the world saw it. I assure you, this was not
my intent. I was merely trying to clarify an issue for myself.
I considered making a confession to the authorities---but why bother
when I would be viewed as a crackpot? It occurred to me I could
announce I had made the new moon and would, at an appointed time, unmake
it. But suppose I failed? Regardless, securing the
attention of a large number of people, when you are unknown, is quite
difficult, no matter what your subject is. (I do not favor running
naked into the street and launching a speech.)
This morning, as I approached my mother's room in the nursing home for
my weekly visit, I decided I would experience her as having recovered
from her illness. When I entered the room, she was standing by the
window singing one of the old songs from my childhood.
When she turned to me, her eyes were clear and she was smiling. She
said, "I'm ready to go home."
Was I deluding myself? Was she in the grip of my own projection? I
called for a nurse. She walked into the room and looked at my mother,
who was supposed to be in a wheelchair. The nurse started to scream,
and stopped herself. My mother hadn't stood on
her own in ten years.
A doctor told me she would have to undergo a series of tests. I took
the opportunity to come back to my apartment and think things over.
If I do have formidable powers, I should consider options. Wouldn't
you? Would you take, for instance, a daring course and put an end to
war and disease? If I can accomplish such a feat, I believe I would.
Damn the consequences. I would leave others to
sort them out.
I am strangely calm. It is as if I have been pointing toward this moment all my life.
I no longer feel I have needs. Somehow, those chains have been removed.
Once upon a time, I was walking on uncertain ground. But not now.
Others would surely say I have reached too high, and I am about to take a
fall. I search for a cautionary note in my mind, but I don't find it.
My mind is quiet. It has no advice for me.
This new state of affairs seems quite natural.
An hour ago, I tried a third experiment. My beloved terrier, Jack, who
died after a long illness when I was in school, is now back lying on my
couch. He's looking at me. I go over and pet him and he licks my
hand. He yawns, stretches out his front legs,
jumps off the couch and trots across the living room to a small table,
where I've kept a framed photo of us sitting in a field near my school.
He looks up at the photo and barks. He turns to me and sits.
Why wouldn't things be this way? Why would they be any other way?
I'm not looking for a response from you, dear reader. Suppose you, too,
have these powers? I have the clear sense you would use them for good.
Suppose what I'm reporting here is the superior reality, and the end of things we don't want to end is the illusion?
Perhaps I should have started with a smaller example of manifestation,
to make it easier for you---but that is not the way it happened to me.
That is not the way I chose to change
What Is.
What Is, is a brief flicker across a wide ocean. The ocean is all possibility. That's what I see now.
Am I offending your sense of propriety? If so, I apologize. This is not my intent.
I see us as errant knights. Errant in the sense that we are departing
from a prescribed course. We cross a threshold, and then the fabric of
events alters. The "news" is different. Solid becomes liquid, liquid
becomes vapor, and vapor becomes open space.
The space is waiting for us to do something. The space has no plan.
It is calm. The challenges we assumed were there are missing. Those
challenges were the last meal we consumed on the last day of old time.
Now we walk and look up at the night sky. We
are satiated and satisfied. Now we can do something different.
We feel an anticipation of dimensions.
You manifest what you will, and so will I, and in the process, you and I will use our powers for good.
That is a very pleasant, even ecstatic prospect to contemplate.
A few weeks ago, I had my first inkling of the change, when I was
invited to speak at the funeral service of a cousin. As I stood there
in the church looking out at the mourners, I wondered what they would do
if, out of the blue, James strolled in the door
and danced up the aisle.
I couldn't help wondering how the family and friends would feel if they
saw him in that church, in the flesh. A few of them, I was sure,
injected with shocks of lightning, interrupted from their proper
grieving, would express outrage. How dare James return!
There is a way events are programmed to proceed, and people prepare their responses. They are tuned like instruments.
Given the choice, would you prefer to surrender to the occasion of a fallen friend, or suddenly find him back in your midst?
Suppose the friend, in some form, is always with you? Is that too hard to believe?
---I can tell you this. I was less alive when I began writing these words than I am now.
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