NOTHING
7
Let
me tell what I have been shown. Let me tell it well. Many have told
of an experience in times of great difficulty or at moments of
triumph and glory when they were suddenly released from the limits of
body and rose away from it to a point above or beyond it from which
they could observe their body and all the other bodies around it and
see easily the way it is and the way for them to go. This made what
is ordinarily thought of as miraculous into an ordinary task. They
like to remember these times and to tell about them and rejoice at
the experience. That happens. Yet, it does not see far. For that
reason the same difficulty is going to happen all over again. Most
people I meet think this is the way life is, it hands us troubles,
sometimes huge ones. Look deeper and see we make those difficulties
ourselves because we are blind. All hero stories end at a point where
a new hero story begins.
A
mosquito was bothering an old man. He lifted his right arm and waved
away the insect and blew wind from his mouth to say “Go, Mosquito
Brother, do not bother me. I am here as a friend to all.” That is
what is meant by seeing far.
I
tell of the mosquito because it is the small things get to
people most and cause the most trouble to us. Engineers are put to work because
somebody decided a river was in the wrong place so was not going the
right way and needed to be corrected. It amounts to, “I need the
water to complete my little plan.” Always, it is a little selfish
plan behind these big projects and the others, the crowd, or the mob,
we just go along for the ride being told this plan is for the overall
good. Wars that kill millions begin this way. By the time the
historians tell of it, the people of an entire generation have
completely endorsed the little plan as their own and hold it to be
sacred.
To
know how to address the mosquito is to know how to prevent wars. One
who has the know how to prevent war is bound to live at peace. And,
the general who prevents war goes unnoticed by historians, naturally, because the historian is ignorant of what a large thing is inside a human being that acts in the presence
of humility. And a historian would close his shop if he knew of it.
To
conquer whole nations and enslave a million people and corral 10,000
thoroughbred stallions and capture 1,000 wives is puny compared with
the know how of the old man who addressed the tiny mosquito in the
correct way. I want you to understand this because I love you. You
are deceived. King Arthur was a fool. So, were all the other studs
you read about as heroes of your culture's historical record. Did you
finish it, by the way? Arthur landed in the soup. Merlin tried to
warn him I am told. But, would he listen? No. Too busy with his
little plan, his castle, his queen, and his round table of a few
brave knights. Had he only known what the old man knows who has
overcome the irritation of a single mosquito with neither sword nor
bomb.
The
stories worth telling are not very popular these days. Did you read
the one about the Green Knight? There's a tale worth the pondering.
Another one is about a fella who decided to spend his whole life
making a perfect walking stick. It took about 150 years to find the
right tree to obtain the proper wood for a perfect stick. Lost in his
work, he lived happily for eons and eons and more eons.
