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.