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The Box |
| Written by Paul Goosia | |
| Wednesday, 16 January 2008 | |
"The Box" - by Paul Goosia
He woke up. There was a leaking pipe right above him which continued to drip onto his cheek as he lay on the pavement. He didn't know who he was or where he was. From the dark alley where he lay, he could see a street with a few cars passing by. He got up and headed directly there, where he could see a handful of people, each heading towards a specific direction as if they were late for an important meeting. The sun was strong that morning, it annoyed his eyes. He continued to walk past the many people coming his way, none sparing the time to even glance at him. He continued to walk until he got to an even larger street, where there were more people than he could count. Where was he? And where was he going? He tried to stop a young man coming his way to ask him where he was but to no avail, the man just walked right past him. Then he tried to stop another person, then another, however it was if people didn't care to spare any time for a homeless-looking bum as himself. He gave up after a short while, stopping beside an old building. He sat down on the sidewalk, leaning against the wall. He stared into a puddle of water right next to him, noticing the many bruises that plagued his face. He had a heavily stained shirt on with a few rips on it, light blue the shirt was, or maybe white, too hard to tell. He wore black pants which had some patches of white paint around it. Was he an office worker he asked himself? It didn't matter. There was something bothering him, a flashback; a flashback of a woman. He tried and tried to remember who she was. He knew if he just thought harder, he would eventually make sense of it all. With his hands clenching his head, brushing his hair back, he suddenly looked up across the street. There he saw a flower shop, and basking in the hot sun right outside this shop was a bunch of flowers laid out to attract the passing crowd. But these were not just any flowers. They meant something to him, something important, something special, he just knew it. As his eyes remained fixed on the white flowers, the image of the woman in his ahead appeared stronger. He could see a thousand different images of her, all passing in front of him within a split second. At the end of that split second, he heard someone pointing to the flowers and mentioning the word "Jasmine". Within a flash, his whole life's memories zoomed right in front of him; it was all clear to him; he was dead. He blacked out.
His eyes opened. He knew he was far from anywhere he had ever been. All around him was pure darkness. Straight ahead however, stood seven human figures, each with bright white light radiating from their bodies. He was filled with awe and an unusual warmth and at such a beautiful sight. One of those who stood before him was a woman, similar to the woman he had wandering in his head, but different. She wore a large white dress which added to the brightness of the light being emitted from her body. On her head was what looked like a small gold crown, her long blonde hair hanging down past her shoulders. The other six were men, each with a piercing look in their eyes, however he felt comfortable and safe in their presence. These men also wore spectacular robes, colorful and vibrant. He noticed how each of the beings in front of him had a small smile on his or her face. How peaceful they looked. It was if they were expecting him.
"Ahh ... Paul! Back so soon", one of the men before him exclaimed.
"That's right, my name's Paul", Paul thought quietly to himself.
"Again, our expectations of you have fallen short", another of the men who stood before him called out. Paul noticed how long and defined this thin man's goatee stood out.
"Yes indeed. It puzzles us again and again why you do not feel or hear your calling on Earth! Are we sending the wrong soul I wonder?" Paul stood there confused at what these men were talking about. He straight away asked them where he was and whether he was really dead.
"Do not worry my son, all will be understood in a ‘matter of time' as you might say", the women before him said.
"Follow me young man!" one of the men told him. As Paul walked towards him, the other six beside the man gradually vanished into thin air.
The man wore a particular cape, purple in color with signs and symbols covering it. This middle-aged looking man reminded Paul of pictures of Jesus he had seen, in fact he was just about to ask this man whether he was Jesus until the darkness that surrounded them turned into a place on Earth which Paul had remembered as a child. It was where he had grown up. It was on a small farm, where his father had made a living selling poultry and animal meat. It was quiet around, no people, just a calm wind. Paul, filled with astonishment, began looking around hastily, as he began pointing at many places and objects he had played with as a child with his younger sister and older brother. After a short while, walking around the farmland, he asked the man why he had brought him there.
"I have brought you here to teach you many things. Have you ever observed the relationships or events on Earth from outside the box or from another world? Well you may not know it, but you have countless times. It's just that when you are placed in this box, that you call Earth, you almost never take the time to see the big picture, perhaps it's because you are ‘in' the picture and can not see it from the outside, or maybe you don't try. Who knows and who cares" the man giggled.
"What do you mean I ‘have' observed Earth countless times?" Paul asked
"Well Paul, I'll give it straight to you. We've probably had this conversation over a hundred times. Each time you return from Earth, you still have a little of what we call ‘Earth consciousness' with you. Believe me, it's a pain in the neck having to explain ‘the workings' for you in human terms".
"The workings?", Paul interrupted.
"Yes the workings of Earth, of life on earth, particularly human life. It's my job to explain things for you from the perspective of one who has learned to live many lives outside ‘the box' that you call Earth, someone who has been observing it for thousands of years. Well thousands of Earth years that is. Time where I live does not exist you see. Can you comprehend a phenomenon where time is still? Where because it is still, there are no two points to compare and so we don't become older or bored, and so forth." Paul stood there staring at this being, trying to comprehend what he had just explained, whilst also silently wondering why this man had nothing better to do for thousands of years than to observe Earth.
"Ok, ok, so I've lived and died many times, and each time I come back here to you and your friends? And what was all that about me failing you guys earlier?"
"Oh yes, you are a particular soul Paul. And who would have thought your name in your last life would be Paul Keenan? Your past three lives before that you were ‘Olusegun', ‘Shiambwe', and a click sound I can't even pronounce. We thought you'd never leave the African continent. Well those three lives and your last were not so successful anyways"
"What do you mean successful?" Paul asked.
"Well Ill how can I put it? Mmmm . . . you were meant to be a savior to many people, to rid them of their ‘strong earth consciousness', and raise them into a higher plane. The earth exists in cycles of great peace and prosperity, and then a downwards plunge into war and hatred. If you thought World War II was bad, just wait and see what's round the corner! Now you are one of the few souls we have out there who have been destined for great things. You'd think that living on Earth for over two thousand years you'd gain enough experience to be a God, but I must say, Paul, you have been the worst soul we have ever sent out into the box, I mean Earth. I'm sure if we didn't have you under contract from the planet Hirios, where you were a success by the way, you'd be long gone by now. You always seem to fall into earthly feelings. The last to a woman, Jasmine I think she was"
"Jasmine!", Paul whispered to himself.
"Yes Jasmine, I almost forgot, where is she?" Paul demandingly asked. "I remember, she was my life, my soul mate!"
"Calm down young man, after I'm done with you, she won't mean a thing. Jasmine still walks the Earth. And anyways, she can not be your soul mate. You left your soul mate back on the planet Hirios. In fact, as ironic as it is, the chances of anyone on Earth meeting their soul mate is 1 in 6 billion. You'd have a better chance finding a flying pig. Another thing you should know, when any soul is placed in ‘the box', they are randomly scattered. This is a law that not even I can change."
Paul stood under his childhood tree-house, gazing into the man's eyes, wondering if what he said was true. Could the man really make him forget about Jasmine? With his eyes becoming teary, Paul explained to the man how he fell in love with Jasmine, how coincidently her favorite flowers were Jasmines, how they planned to have kids after they traveled the world together. He explained how the last eight years of his life on Earth were the most memorable, especially because it was spent with her. "I guess before Jasmine, I had nothing going for me. My parents had passed away, my siblings were living abroad happily with their families. I didn't have many friends, just a repetitious life of selling washing detergent over the phone in an office cubicle, and then TV at home. But you know, I always thought I was meant for something big, or something big was meant for me. And when Jasmine came along one Tuesday morning, ‘she' was that big thing waiting for me. My life eventually turned around until the only moments that I can even recall now throughout my life, are those spent with her, the simplest of things, be it eating, sleeping. Well that was until you brought me here, you know, I must have had a wonderful childhood and forgotten all about it."
"Well that is why I brought you here Paul, to show you that there so many great moments in life that come and go. But as life progresses, we do not take the material matter of people and places with us ‘but' our relations with them, or feelings about them. They remain a memory that when triggered produce feelings that come from within. Thus one must understand that happiness or love for instance, can come from any source, an object, a person, etc, depending on how one perceives it. No material matter or person is constant, that is results in the same emotions, or feelings by all, only the feeling ‘you' have towards them. Everything is relative on which conscious soul and where or when he or she perceives something. In a nutshell, your childhood home triggers your memories which triggers your feelings of happiness that you remember. Your time with Jasmine, spent in so many ways, have resulted in this complex feeling called love. But do not forget that you ‘could' have been in love with so many others so she is not so special. It is only through her and your will that allowed this so-called ‘love' to take place. Do you understand?"
Paul, sitting in a swing, head faced down, slightly nodded, his eyes fixed on a blue marble that lay half buried in the soil below his feet. He looked up at the man, "So how was I supposed to be a savior on Earth? Was I supposed to be like Mohammed, Jesus, or Buddha or something?
"Well to be honest we didn't really know. We just knew your soul was highly advanced and achieved great things on the planet Hirios", the man replied.
"Ok . . . so why teach me many things on life when I just end up forgetting them when I'm reborn on Earth?" Paul asked with a serious look on his face.
"Ahh . . . But each time I tell you the deepest secrets of life, when they are realized and fully comprehended by you, your soul reaches a greater enlightenment or consciousness. So when you are reborn, you are reborn with a higher shall we say "soul energy" which gives you the great potential to grasp the deepest meanings of life. But for some odd reason throughout all these years you have chosen not to use this potential, you have deviated from the path of greatness, the path where your name would be remembered by the millions and millions over the years."
Paul sat there quietly thinking deeply of what the man had just said.
"You see Paul, you had begun your life on the right journey." As the man spoke these words the scenery surrounding them began changing, changing to specific events in Paul's life.
"Do not worry Paul, no one can hear or see us. We are only spectators in this dimension. We can not change the past, only view it."
They were taken back to when Paul was around fourteen years of age, and his first time he ever witnessed the inside of his father's slaughterhouse. There a young Paul stood aghast as he watched cows and pigs having their throats slit alive. It was from that day on that Paul decided that if he could not kill it, he would not eat it. Furthermore, he would ponder on what the difference between eating a dog or cat and eating a cow or pig since he would play with all of them as a child growing up in a farm. Becoming a vegetarian at such a young age proved difficult, especially as his father now saw him as a wimp.
"You know, I always felt this strong bond towards myself and nature, you know, the animals and plants. I always thought I'd end up living in the open area far away from the city perhaps growing my own vegetables", Paul said with a smile gleaming across his face.
"Well you know Paul, one of the highest truths you should know is that there is no right or wrong, only rules that men make for themselves. True there are laws that govern our universe but they are far beyond anyone's comprehension except God's. Like you had done, using your intuition, it must be made clear to others that if everyone thinks for themselves, questions authority, then they shall deduce how free they are, and how the limitations that exist only in their minds, have made themselves a slave to their own rules in life."
They were then taken to Paul's last six months in High School, where they could see a young Paul, who had decided to stay home and look after his sick father and the farm, rather than sit for entry into College. Paul, wearing a black t-shirt with the ‘The Cure' written on it was crouched over his father, spoon-feeding him.
"You know Paul, had you tried for a higher education, things would have been very different now".
"Well even though my father and I were never close, I knew that that was what I wanted to do. My mother couldn't do it alone, my older brother had already left for the army. I thought I'd leave it to my younger sister June to go to College and make something of herself. Even though I was great at school, it never interested me that much. Well at least I shut down the slaughterhouse", Paul proudly said.
"Paul Paul Paul", the man said sympathetically. "In all your lives, you have always been filled with great love towards others, even those you did not know and those who didn't hold you in high regard. That is the beginning of someone who is to be great in life. Quite often as you may have seen, people think in terms of themselves, their families, their countries, but why don't people ever view themselves as proud natives of Earth. That will only happen once people are aware of other planets. Your field of consciousness of Earth as ‘one people' have led to you to show such great passion. What makes it more rewarding is the fact that you have done this out of altruistic love, compassion. If only there were more like you out there". As the man spoke those words, Paul was greatly touched. He felt a great rush of blood down his spine from his abdomen region. He had only acted with his instincts of what he thought should be done.
Next they moved on to Paul's early twenties. The scene was of Paul standing in front of their old house. His father had died a few years back of pneumonia, and his mother the previous year from what Paul believed to be a broken heart. Paul had stayed with his parents right until the end. His older brother had never returned from the army. The last Paul heard, he married somewhere in the Middle East, settled down, and became a Muslim. His never saw his younger sister either. She ran off with some boyfriend during High School and wrote him a letter a few years later saying she was living somewhere in South America with her new Spanish husband and their two children. So much for all Paul's hopes and dreams for her. With everyone gone, Paul sold their old land and with that money headed for the city to begin a new life.
"You know something I've noticed Mr. . . . how should I call you?" Paul finally came to ask.
"Mr. is fine", the man replied
"Ok, well why is it that everyone from the small-town rural area always want to head for the big noisy city life, and those from the big noise city life eventually want to head for the small time rural life? It got me to thinking that telling someone what's good or bad for them is useless unless they experience it themselves. You know, it's about the journey". Paul continued to talk about issues he would often wonder about when he was alive. The man stood there, continuously nodding his head, hoping Paul would shut up and let him do the talking.
"As the great Buddha said Paul, ‘desire is the root of all evil'. No one can ever be satisfied. From my years of observation of Earth, everything is about the relativity of change and the best way is to gradually develop throughout life. For a child born into a rich family, where everything is given to him, most things in life will mean nothing to him because he is comparing it to what he already has or experienced. But I have seen greater joy, and shall I say more rewarding lives in those who have started poor and made their way up, simply because their journey was longer and their was more to experience. Oh its getting late, we must move on", the man said looking at his wrist which apparently did not have a watch.
Eventually the man asked them to move on to the last chapter of Paul's life. The surroundings shifted to Paul's working place.
"And then came Jasmine, new co-worker, barely even makes it to her desk on her first day, and your eyes are stuck to her like glue. From that day, she became your all, your obsession. All other things did not matter to you. I can assure you, had you not met this lady, you would have gone further than your small monotonous job in the office box. You enjoyed the Earthly pleasure of love, and love with one women", the man began laughing. "When I lived on the planet Sadathu a very long time ago, which is a few hundred light years from Earth, it was the natural thing for every male to have two wives, and in many cases one woman with two husbands. There was no feeling of insecurity or jealousy. There was a higher consciousness of sharing and trust with one another. How your planet ended up with the one spouse rule I will never know", he began laughing again.
"Well anyways Paul, we've not much time. I want you to understand, your soul your heart, is big and bright. However there are issues greater that yourself. You can live the normal life but it is not as real as you might think. Its just life, and so you are just as special as the other six billion people", the man began to giggle again.
"We will send you back again, this time we know you will do better and make something of your self", the man said holding Paul's shoulders.
Paul wondered how many times he must have said the same line to him in the past. Paul now a little nervous, began to think about where he would end up. It didn't matter anyways, everything was to be forgotten but he was sure that wherever he would be, he would achieve greater things this time. Perhaps he was to enter politics, perhaps be a priest. Every idea came into his head, he knew what he was born to do. But still somewhere deep in his mind, his heart, his soul, he felt great sorrow. He could not imagine having to forget Jasmine. He thought he would never find love as he did with her.
The darkness around them had crept up once again. They were at where they first met. "Now Paul, stand still, close your eyes, and imagine a huge ball, green and blue, mostly blue I think. This ball floats in pure darkness. To make it easier for you, imagine Earth floating in space, you know those pictures you see on the discovery channel. Now I want you to say to yourself, ‘There's no place like home, there's no place like home'. Its very important you have nothing but the image of Earth and nowhere else." The man's voice faintly faded away.
Paul felt as if his world was turning inside-out. He was feeling dizzy, as if he was about to faint, and just within the nick of time, something else turned up during his concentration on Earth.
He woke up. There was a leaking pipe right above him which continued to drip onto his cheek as he lay on the pavement. Paul had returned. Not as a baby exiting a womb, but to where his previous life had ended. It was if he had had the most vivid dream ever. He could recall the previous experiences and conversations as if they happened the day before. But this time it was different. He had learned what many would perhaps learn in a million lifetimes or so. In fact, before his mystical experience, he still wasn't sure whether there ‘was' more than one lifetime. Reincarnation was the last of his confusions. Why had he returned to that place? Anyways he thought to himself, he knew what he was destined to become and do. But then suddenly, Paul remembered how he had ended up there in the first place. He had accidentally slipped and fallen from the balcony railings of his 15-story apartment during a drunken rage, where he was cursing God for letting Jasmine get into a car accident the day before. He remembered her being in stable condition in the hospital. He got up and ran there as fast as he could.
The great beings, or ‘Masters', as Paul ended up calling them, had forgotten about, or perhaps misunderstood three important factors which run this world and maybe because they did not have any or much of it themselves - time, free will, and the power of love. In our ‘box', because we can not change the past, we are stuck with this ‘earth consciousness' which is beset by time. As Paul had already lived a long life of great happiness and love for Jasmine, even the highest truth was not strong enough to alter his course. He knew that he could probably become a person of higher consciousness, a hero, a savior to the many. He knew this because he was a great soul in his former planet Hirios. He had saved many, whilst raising the consciousness and welfare of all those on the advanced planet of Hirios. But then he knew nothing. He did not have the experiences, the memories of doing all this. All that was real to him was his desire to be with Jasmine. As time they had spent together on Earth grew, so did the memories and bonds he formed with her. True he could have loved others, achieved other great things, but he finally realized the meaning of God's greatest gift being life, the gift of ‘free-will'. Many have fallen into the idea that it is their 'destiny' or 'fate' to do or endure something, but in the end, there only our decisions to change or not.One may not always be able to do what one wants but one can ‘choose' to do what one wants. He chose Jasmine.
And so once again the Great Beings were gathered together for their annual, (that is 50 Earth years), review on Earth, somewhere far beyond any known land. Paul's mentor (the man), gazes into a crystal ball, a smirk building up on his face.
"My goodness, whaddya know. We thought sending him back during the same lifeline with some wisdom would help. Well I guess it doesn't matter which Continent, which religion, which social-class, which race, which gender this soul ends up with - this ******* is a fool for love". Copyright 2008 Kama Cosmic |
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