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THE EGG
By: Andy Weir
You were on your way home when you died. It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me.
And that’s when you met me.
“What… what happened?” You asked. “Where am I?”
“You died,” I said, matter-of-factly. No point in mincing words.
“There was a… a truck and it was skidding…”
“Yup,” I said.
“I… I died?”
“Yup. But don’t feel bad about it. Everyone dies,” I said.
You looked around. There was nothingness. Just you and me. “What is this place?” You asked. “Is this the afterlife?”
“More or less,” I said.
“Are you god?” You asked.
“Yup,” I replied. “I’m God.”
“My kids… my wife,” you said.
“What about them?”
“Will they be all right?”
“That’s what I like to see,” I said. “You just died and your main concern is for your family. That’s good stuff right there.”
You looked at me with fascination. To you, I didn’t look like God. I just looked like some man. Or possibly a woman. Some vague authority figure, maybe. More of a grammar school teacher than the almighty.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “They’ll be fine. Your kids will remember you as perfect in every way. They didn’t have time to grow contempt for you. Your wife will cry on the outside, but will be secretly relieved. To be fair, your marriage was falling apart. If it’s any consolation, she’ll feel very guilty for feeling relieved.”
“Oh,” you said. “So what happens now? Do I go to heaven or hell or something?”
“Neither,” I said. “You’ll be reincarnated.”
“Ah,” you said. “So the Hindus were right,”
“All religions are right in their own way,” I said. “Walk with me.”
You followed along as we strode through the void. “Where are we going?”
“Nowhere in particular,” I said. “It’s just nice to walk while we talk.”
“So what’s the point, then?” You asked. “When I get reborn, I’ll just be a blank slate, right? A baby. So all my experiences and everything I did in this life won’t matter.”
“Not so!” I said. “You have within you all the knowledge and experiences of all your past lives. You just don’t remember them right now.”
I stopped walking and took you by the shoulders. “Your soul is more magnificent, beautiful, and gigantic than you can possibly imagine. A human mind can only contain a tiny fraction of what you are. It’s like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it’s hot or cold. You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you’ve gained all the experiences it had.
“You’ve been in a human for the last 48 years, so you haven’t stretched out yet and felt the rest of your immense consciousness. If we hung out here for long enough, you’d start remembering everything. But there’s no point to doing that between each life.”
“How many times have I been reincarnated, then?”
“Oh lots. Lots and lots. An in to lots of different lives.” I said. “This time around, you’ll be a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD.”
“Wait, what?” You stammered. “You’re sending me back in time?”
“Well, I guess technically. Time, as you know it, only exists in your universe. Things are different where I come from.”
“Where you come from?” You said.
“Oh sure,” I explained “I come from somewhere. Somewhere else. And there are others like me. I know you’ll want to know what it’s like there, but honestly you wouldn’t understand.”
“Oh,” you said, a little let down. “But wait. If I get reincarnated to other places in time, I could have interacted with myself at some point.”
“Sure. Happens all the time. And with both lives only aware of their own lifespan you don’t even know it’s happening.”
“So what’s the point of it all?”
“Seriously?” I asked. “Seriously? You’re asking me for the meaning of life? Isn’t that a little stereotypical?”
“Well it’s a reasonable question,” you persisted.
I looked you in the eye. “The meaning of life, the reason I made this whole universe, is for you to mature.”
“You mean mankind? You want us to mature?”
“No, just you. I made this whole universe for you. With each new life you grow and mature and become a larger and greater intellect.”
“Just me? What about everyone else?”
“There is no one else,” I said. “In this universe, there’s just you and me.”
You stared blankly at me. “But all the people on earth…”
“All you. Different incarnations of you.”
“Wait. I’m everyone!?”
“Now you’re getting it,” I said, with a congratulatory slap on the back.
“I’m every human being who ever lived?”
“Or who will ever live, yes.”
“I’m Abraham Lincoln?”
“And you’re John Wilkes Booth, too,” I added.
“I’m Hitler?” You said, appalled.
“And you’re the millions he killed.”
“I’m Jesus?”
“And you’re everyone who followed him.”
You fell silent.
“Every time you victimized someone,” I said, “you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.”
You thought for a long time.
“Why?” You asked me. “Why do all this?”
“Because someday, you will become like me. Because that’s what you are. You’re one of my kind. You’re my child.”
“Whoa,” you said, incredulous. “You mean I’m a god?”
“No. Not yet. You’re a fetus. You’re still growing. Once you’ve lived every human life throughout all time, you will have grown enough to be born.”
“So the whole universe,” you said, “it’s just…”
“An egg.” I answered. “Now it’s time for you to move on to your next life.”
And I sent you on your way. TWO WOLVES
An elderly Cherokee Native American was teaching his grandchildren about life. He said to them, "A fight is going on inside me, it is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves.One wolf is evil --- he is fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, competition, superiority, and ego.
The other wolf is good --- he is joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.
This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too." They thought about it for a minute, and then one child asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?" The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."
WHO ARE YOU?
When you call yourself an Indian, a Muslim, a Christian, a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you separating yourself from the rest .When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, religion, political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind. Jiddu KrishnamurtiTHE LOINCLOTH
One of the tales Sri Ramakrishna used to tell is about a holy man who had given up all his possessions.In a forest near a village lived a sage and his disciple. Most of their time was spent in prayer, meditation and the recitation of the Vedas. One morning, after their prayers, the sage said to his disciple," My son, I am going on a pilgrimage and will be gone awhile. Remember what you have been taught and above all lead a simple life." The disciple invoked the blessings of his Guru and acknowledged his advice. The sage departed.
His teacher had advised him to make a little hut thatched with palm leaves, in a solitary place away from the public. This he did. He began to live there, meditating long hours and going out only to beg his one meal of the day.
But there was one problem. After his morning bath, the sadhu (holy man) would hang his loincloth on the limb of a tree close to the hut. When he returned from the village it would be dry. It would also have some holes in it! It turned out that rats were running up the tree and chewing holes in the cloth. Rats will munch on almost anything.
One day he decided to dry it on the roof of his hut. That was worse. The rats tore it into shreds, and he had to go and beg for a new one in the village. When the villagers heard of his predicament, they said, “Who is going to supply you with cloth all the time? Why not keep a cat; that will chase the rats away.” So someone in the village gave him a kitten, he brought it home to the hut, and sure enough, the rats disappeared and the trouble stopped.
The sadhu became delighted and took great care of the cat. Not finding any rats, it needed milk, so he went again to the village and begged for milk for the cat. After some days, a villager said, “We can't go on this way. Who is going to supply you with milk all year long? Why not keep a cow; that way you too will have milk – you and your cat.”
It took a long time for the man to acquire a cow. Finally someone took pity on him and gave him one. Of course the cow had to be milked. Moreover eventually she ate up all the greenery for yards around. “What will the cow eat now?” he thought. Going to the village to beg for some straw, he got more advice. What do you think it was?
“Till the land around your place and grow your own grain!”
With great difficulty the sadhu was able to clear land, cultivate it with borrowed tools, and sow a crop. His days were busy. His hut grew into more of a house.
Quite awhile later the sage returned from his pilgrimage. What he saw was a collection of possessions. Instead of a hut, there was a large brick house with opulent gardens, stables, barns and irrigated rice paddy fields. He inquired of a passerby, “An ascetic used to live in this hut, a meditator with no possessions. Do you know where he has gone?” But the traveler knew nothing. The teacher ventured into the place and found his disciple.
“What! You went out to be alone, and to meditate. You were going to renounce everything and be free. What in the world happened?” Shame-faced, the man told his story.
And this is why Sri Ramakrishna used to say, “Be careful: ‘All for a loincloth.’”
from Tales and Parables of Sri Ramakrishna
THE PATH
“Anything is one of a million paths. Therefore, a warrior must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if he feels that he should not follow it, he must not stay with it under any conditions. His decision to keep on that path or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition. He must look at every path closely and deliberately. There is a question that a warrior has to ask, mandatorily: 'Does this path have a heart?'”~ Carlos Castaneda
WORDS
There once was a wise sage who wandered the countryside. One day, as he passed near a village, he was approached by a woman who told him of a sick child nearby. She beseeched him to help this child.So the sage came to the village, and a crowd gathered around him, for such a man was a rare sight. One woman brought the sick child to him, and he said a prayer over her.
"Do you really think your prayer will help her, when medicine has failed?" yelled a man from the crowd.
"You know nothing of such things! You are a stupid fool!" said the sage to the man.
The man became very angry with these words and his face grew hot and red. He was about to say something, or perhaps strike out, when the sage walked over to him and said: "If a few words have such power as to make you so angry and hot, may not another few have the power to heal?"
And thus, the sage healed two people that day.
Author Unknown
SPOONS
There is a story about a man who was taken on a tour of the other side. He was shown a room. In the middle of the room was a large round table. In the middle of the table was a large pot of soup which smelled delicious and made the man's mouth water. The people sitting around the table were thin and sickly. They appeared to be famished. They were holding spoons with very long handles and each found it possible to reach into the pot of soup and take a spoonful, but because the handle was longer than their arms, they could not get the spoons back into their mouths.“This,” his guide told him, “is hell,” the man shuddered at the sight of their misery and suffering. “Please show me Heaven!” “Very well,” said the guide, and on they went.
When they opened Heavens door, the man was confused to see what looked like the same scene: there was the large round table with the large pot of soup and a group of people with the same long handle spoons in there arms.
As he looked closely, however, he saw happy faces, people were well nourished and plump, laughing and talking, for there was one important difference: the people in Heaven had learned to feed each other.
THE CUP
A spiritual master received a learned man who came to gain deeper insight into the mysteries of life. The master prepared tea. While serving the tea he began to explain, but the learned professor kept on interrupting with his own opinions. So the master poured his visitors cup full , and then kept on pouring.The learned man watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself, “It is overfull. No more will go in!””Like this cup,” the master said, “you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you anything unless you first empty your cup?”
