************
The night is clear and filled with a million million stars as I leave the ashram and make my way up the mountainside to my favorite place. I like to meditate here whenever the night is not too cold, even if the mists blot out the stars, for as long as it's not raining or snowing I can talk to my Father and see His Face clearly through the illusion of the world, with eyes wide open.
Tonight is especially mild, mid-summer bright, and I wrap my saffron robes around me as I sit down upon the rock that juts out over the cliff, the darkness on all sides giving me a sense of being suspended in space. I still my breathing as I've been taught, perfected over the years in this place of isolation and reflection, where my only tasks have been to help grow and prepare the food to nourish my body so that my soul can be nourished by connection with the divine.
I've been here so long that my life back in the dusty village of Nazareth seems almost a dream, yet lately that dream has been calling out to me from the land of my earthly mother, and a restlessness has begun to plague me that wasn't there before.
"Father," I say aloud, my quiet voice sounding far too loud to my own ears as it echoes down the mountainside; "show me what you will."
It is the same prayer, every night. And then I shut up and wait.
The light comes, not a flash but a sudden bloom, a flower of light opening and filling the mountain valley below me and the sky above, filling every space and the spaces between with an unimaginable brilliance; but one which does not hurt my eyes despite its brightness, for I instantly become part of that light, a light within the light, and then the light itself. For a moment I know everything, everything that ever was and ever would be; I see a thousand thousand universes, dimensions within dimensions, space within space, time within time and beyond time, time in a perpetual place of no time. And then I move on.
I see myself become a reflection of the first light, separating from it but still filled with a light of my own. Am I as bright as I was just before? I can't say, for I am still made of light even though the first light has seemingly isolated itself from me. I find the vastness of complete knowledge I'd experienced a moment before slowly dissipating into memory, just as a dream gradually vanishes upon waking. I know it was, but I don't know exactly what it was. I know that I could know everything, but also that I don't anymore, that I now only know that which I am allowed to know when I need to know it.
Who am I? I call out to the receding light, but there is no answer, only a restless stirring inside me as I suddenly find myself separating into two parts yet again. This separation is different from the first, for it is unequal and disturbing: One part of me is still filled with the brilliant light of my Creator, still retaining the memory of his knowledge, but the other half is darkness by comparison. A deep sadness and longing instantly fills me, a sense of incompleteness, and a strong urge to reunite with that darker self, that negative force. I feel lost and alone. I reach out, and the darker self reaches back towards me across the void, and the tension between us begins to take material form, becoming water and earth, stars and sea, then filling the air and land and oceans with life forms of all kinds and variety.
I realize at once that this is what the great Yin and Yang the Eastern Mystics have taught me about symbolizes, the pull of the male and female against each other, the polar opposites in eternally shifting balance, their attraction and repulsion creating life between them. I see this as Hebrew meaning of the Alef as well, the two yuds, one right side up and one inverted as a mirror image, separated by the vav - the divine light of creation, the tension between them that force through which all material things are created.
It comes to me that the dark side is now called Man; and I, the light, am the Holy Spirit, and we are in communion with each other, reaching out to reunite.
But then, when the initial creation of the material world is complete, man turns away from me (as the Father willed he must) and believes himself to be alone. I watch, but do not call out, do not try to hold onto him.
Focused on the illusion of his surroundings, he now thinks he is the Only One, both creator of and created by the material world around him. In his loneliness, his need for companionship and communication, Man makes an image of himself and becomes two, male and female, darkness and light, once more a tension of opposites, a yin-yang through which humankind can be created between them. They become part of the illusory world we have made; forgetting they are spirit as they identify more and more with flesh and bone, blood and need, fear and craving, and the will to survive in that form. That need overshadows all else, so that Man and I, the two halves created out of God, are distanced further and further from each other.
Time passes, and I see man take many roles, many identities, believing himself to be each of them, when I can still see he is only the One. He separates himself through the illusion of time and space to make war with himself, or make love to himself, all the while never knowing he is everyone. As he loses himself, we lose each other more and more, he and I, and the sense of that loss is overwhelming: Tears pour from my eyes, weeping both in the vision and here where I sit in meditation on the mountain. I cry and cry and cry, a deep despair. And so does Man in all his identities, although they don't know the reason for their sadness. So they cling to each other seeking that love, that union that they had with me, and through me with God.
Yet why do I cry, I wonder abruptly, when ultimately it is all an illusion, the whole thing nothing but smoke and mirrors in the mind of God, where we all still exist? This stops my weeping, dries my tears instantly. I remember.
And with this vision my purpose is defined with great and sudden clarity, for I understand I am put here as the way back for Man, the bridge to the divine nature of his essential being, a bridge which can only be effected by reuniting with him as Man, not as spirit. I have tried to come to him as spirit again and again over the aeons, in form and word, as angels and visions, yet still he falls further and further away. So now I have to go to that side I was separated from in the beginning of time: I have to become Man so that he can become Holy Spirit, for he is unable to go it the other way alone.
Gaspar
I know as I see him coming down from the mountain, shining with an inner light more potent and more distant than the light from the dawn just now beginning to wipe the stars from the slate of night: It is time. This brilliant boy turned man, secreted away, nurtured, cherished, protected from the world as he grew, would be leaving us now for the destiny he had been born into.
I walk out to greet him; we bow to each other, and proceed in silence to the inner chamber where so much of his days have been spent in teaching and in prayer.
"I must leave now," he says simply, and I just as simply nod, no words, no questions - as none are needed.
"But I wish to speak to all the lamas before I go, if you will call them together. I have some words to share."
Again I nod. "I will accompany you on this journey," I tell him; "to see you safely there. But at your gate I will turn and leave, for my part in this is surely done."
"As you will, Gaspar," he says, and in his luminous brown eyes a tear shines brightly. "Thank you."
Yesu
I look at my small audience of great men, seated cross legged on the stone floor as am I; simple men with whom I have spent the last 18 years of my life. They have aged in that time, but only in bodies grown grey and frail. In spirit and wisdom they have only grown younger and closer to their source every day. The sparkle in their eyes betrays that youthful joy. And yet I know what I have to say to them may cut and disturb that tranquility.
"Fathers," I nod, and they return the little bow; "you have brought me through the perilous journey from child to adult, teaching me how to override the impulses and demands of my carnal nature so that I might fulfill my spiritual destiny. For that I am forever in your debt, as will be the world. But now I must return to the land of my birth to carry out the mission for which God the Father has ordained me."
<
br /> They again nod as one, expectant children awaiting me to be done saying what they already know I will say.
"Before I go, I must tell you what I know of your path and where it leads, and of my own and where it leads," I say solemnly.
Now there is a slight change in their passive attitude, the mildest straightening of spines.
"The religious insights you have shared with me, the disciplines, the truths, the markers on the path to spiritual enlightenment that were given to you by your great prophets Krishna and Buddha, are beautiful, profound and righteous. These men were very special beings into which the Holy Spirit of God entered in full so that they could share with mankind those divine truths that would help him recognize his true spiritual identity, distinct from the illusion of the material world. These prophets, as well as the ancients who wrote the Upanishads, created a path for man to follow out of the darkness. Nothing is wrong with this path... except that it doesn't take you all the way to oneness with the Supreme Creator."
Despite their studied composure, long an integral part of their nature, I sense a small intake of breath at this, the slightest tensioning of muscles. But I must go on, I must tell them what I know to be the truth. I owe them this.
"Your way is like setting out on a long and arduous trek up a mountain, a mountain that grows increasingly steep, difficult, and beset with trials the closer you get to the top. For most it is a lifetime journey, for some many lifetimes," I say. "It requires diligence, fasting, hours of daily meditation, thinking right, speaking right, doing right, all the time disciplining oneself until absolute control over mind, soul, heart and body are as second nature, so that your spirit is no longer influenced by any external perceptions, thoughts or emotions in order that you may pierce the veil of illusion and reach a state of perpetual bliss."
I see them once again nodding, almost imperceptibly.
"When at last you reach the top of the mountain, the very peak where all there is left is nothingness, neither perception nor non-perception, you see ahead of you a brilliant light, and you feel the peace and love emanating from that light, and you hear the songs and voices of a thousand angels. And it is bliss. But there's one problem. You stand on the edge of a precipice, and this light, this emanance, is just beyond. Perhaps it's only one step, perhaps a hundred or a hundred thousand, it doesn't matter. For it is just beyond where you stand, and there is nothing in between you and your final destination but a void. At the end of your journey, you realize that meditation at its deepest level may allow you to connect with the Lord God that is within you - the divine Self, that One being of which all men are both the part and the whole - but there remains an insurmountable breach between that ultimate Self, and connection with your Creator, the Father in Heaven. And thus, in the end, you are still all alone."
Brows knit on old faces, lips turn slightly down. A tear sparkles in one of the too bright eyes.
"But you don't want to be alone; you don't want to be the Only One. You want to be a part of that light, connected to it, one with it. This is where faith becomes a necessity, a leap of faith to step out into that void, to close that gap and become one with the supreme God, to reunite with the source of that light, that peace love and bliss, for all eternity. My brothers, my teachers, I am sent from the Father as the final link between the mortal and the divine; I am the invisible bridge beneath your feet, the hand to guide you there, the leap of faith you must take, but not alone, to become one with God."
I see tears wetting the withered, sun-browned cheeks of these mystics, and I am so filled with love for them it breaks my heart. Tears pour from my own eyes as well.
"Believe in me, please," I whisper.
But no one nods.
"Now I must take what you have taught me back to the west, for they need your wisdom and discipline as well as my hand, otherwise they can never hold onto the peace and understanding I bring them. Their pain and fears, the needs and demands of their bodies and the constant lie of their own mortality will undo every step forward, darken every joy, obliterate every truth with the falsehoods of their physical identity, so that they simply won't understand Who I am, what I say, and what I have come to do."
Narada, Yajna, and Gargya
We watch them ride off together in the first light, our brother Gaspar still straight and proud upon his steed despite his advancing years, and the one we call Yesu - now a man of thirty, lean, clean shaven, with his head shaved as well in our tradition - astride the mule that also carries the provisions for their long trip back to the land of Israel.
No one speaks until they are out of sight; then, after clearing his throat, Narada breaks the silence.
"So, who shall we say he is, when it comes up?"
"What do you mean, comes up?" Yajna asks in his querulous old man's voice.
"It is bound to come up someday," Narada replies knowingly. "He is destined for greatness, do we not see that?"
"Yes," We all nod. There is no question of that in our minds: We've sensed the power and magnitude of his spiritual nature since the day he arrived as a boy of twelve to stay in our humble mountain ashram.
"He will create a profound change in mankind that will spread across the world and last for many ages, if not for all time," Narada continues. "And people in India will want to know who he is."
"I think he's Lord Krishna, reincarnate," I propose.
"Ah, Gargya, would that he were; but he never claimed that, not once. Wouldn't he have told us if he were?" Yajna argues.
"I agree with Yajna," Narada nods. Clearly he separates himself from Krishna, which he has called a great prophet, but never himself."
"None the less, that is what I believe him to be, and that is what I will say to whoever inquires, for in my mind they are surely one and the same. Besides, the continuity of our faith depends on it."
With that they cannot argue: both sigh audibly, then nod in reluctant concession.
Gaspar
It is on the boat, as we are crossing the gulf that I finally broach the question that has been on my mind since our journey began. We are standing side by side at the rail, looking out over the vast expanse of rolling blue waters, the land a distant black line on the horizon.
"What will you tell them, when you return?" I ask.
"What do you mean? Like where I've been?"
"No, you know what I mean: What will you tell them of God? What will you teach them about themselves?"
"The truth: Everything I know of it."
"But what if they don't understand?"
"They will; they must."
I shake my head, staring at the waves, the snow white birds that glide above their crests, forever just out of reach.
"Yesu, these are simple people you return to, people of the land, people who plow, who sow and reap, who build up and take apart. They may know the words of their scriptures by heart, perhaps; but how many truly grasp - or even try to grasp - their deeper meanings? Are not most content to go through the rituals and hope for the best?"
The younger man looks up at me, his brow knit. He stopped shaving as soon as we left the ashram, and already the hair has grown in on his head and face in a scruffy two inch base, giving him a slightly disreputable appearance.
"But I must find a way," he insists.
"Then speak to them of things they know, things they understand. Couch your wisdom in simple phrases and everyday examples," I tell him.
"Like children?"
"Like children." I affirm. "And some will grow and mature in wisdom, and in time may understand fully, and others will simply accept on faith and nothing more, yet it may be enough."
I leave him when we reach the land of his birth, not knowing it will be the last time I ever see him again.
"Come with me back to Nazareth, Gaspar," he tells me. "Let my parents see you once more, to thank you for all you have done for me."
I tell him no, I must go now. But after we embrace in our parting, and I begin to walk away, I suddenly turn and come
running back to him. Putting a hand on his shoulder, I lower my head and my eyes as I speak.
"Yesu, I do believe that you are who you say you are, the holy spirit of God made flesh, and that you have been sent to reunite Man with God for all time. I am returning to my own land to prepare my people for that truth."
"Thank you," he says simply. And with that, we are done.
Homecoming
Mary
I see him, a tall gaunt figure walking slowly up the dusty road, a stranger to my eyes - and yet I know him instantly as my heart leaps in my chest.
"Yeshua!" I cry, running towards him. Halfway there I fall to my knees in the dirt and, putting my forehead to the ground, burst into tears. He lifts me up, looks into my eyes a long time, then smiles and kisses both my cheeks in turn, then kisses the dust from my brow.
"Mother," is all he says. "Mother."
My heart, my heart...oh such love!
As we walk towards the cottage, he asks me what the villagers know about his long absence.
"We told them you'd been apprenticed to a traveling merchant, and had gone with him to distant lands where you would continue your education."
He nods thoughtfully, and asks nothing more about that.
When we reach the carpentry shop, James and Joseph the younger are both busy at work on a new pair of yokes for the oxen belonging to our neighbor. They look up as we come in the door, and for a moment they have no idea who this is they are looking at. James is the first to recognize his brother, and his face looks like it will split in two so wide and joyful is his smile.
"James," Yeshua smiles, and steps forward to embrace his younger brother, now a full grown man of twenty-three. "You're huge!" he laughs with tears in his eyes.
"You're a bit on the scrawny side yourself," James teases. "Looks like we'll need to fatten you up some, if you're to be of any use around here."
I just smile and smile and smile; I smile so much my cheeks begin to hurt.
Joseph, ever the shy one, waits in the shadows, watching his eldest brother. He was only three and a half when Yeshua left us, so he barely remembers him at all I'm sure.
Yeshua lets go of James and walks over to Joseph now. "Do you remember me, Joseph?" He asks gently.
Joseph shrugs. "A little," he says. "I remember the trip on the wagon."
"To Passover, that's right!" Yeshua grins. "I left right after that trip, but now I'm home."
Joseph smiles, a half grin that twists his face into a comical smirk. "I'm glad you are," he says.
"Where's father?" Yeshua asks now, looking around.
"Resting," I tell him. "His bones have gotten cranky over the years, and he can't work as much as he once did. But the boys here have learned how to do everything he did..."
"And better," laughs James. "Our tables don't wobble."
"And Salome?" Yeshua asks.
"She married a man from Cana last year, and already has a baby of her own."
"But she's so young!" he exclaims, and I laugh.
"Yeshua, she was a baby when you left, but now she's nearly twenty! I had you at sixteen."
"Yeah, but I'm special," he grins, making me laugh aloud.
Yesu
At dinner I get acquainted with my two youngest siblings, born after I'd gone to India: Judas, now seventeen and Simon fifteen. Judas looks just like father Joseph, tall, thick, and rough in speech: but Simon is slight and almost pretty in features, quiet and soft-spoken, poetic in temperament and arguably mother's favorite.
Now that I am back, I am not sure what my next step is to be, so for the time being I just hang around helping in the carpentry shop. Father Joseph comes in to supervise, but with three grown sons there is little for him to do, and his advice is largely ignored. As we work, I remind him of those days when I used to help straighten the legs of the tables and chairs, when they didn't come out quite right. Everyone roars with laughter, even father - although he looks a little uncomfortable at the memory.
In the evening, once the meal is complete, I ask my brothers to go for a walk with me. I see a look pass from father to mother, a little scowl of consternation from him, a shrug from her. But aloud they do not object.
As we walk I tell my brothers where I have been the past 18 years, what I was doing there, and a little about what I learned. When they ask questions, I tell them more. James is the curious, intuitive person he was as a child, fascinated by everything I have to say and asking a million questions. Joseph is quiet, taking it all in but asking little. The other two are still boys: Judas wears a teenager's skeptical frown, although he does ask several good if pointed questions; and Simon just looks confused and thoughtful.
By the time we return to the cottage, the night is nearly gone. I am excited about the night's discourse, thinking that perhaps my own brothers will become my first disciples, for I know I can't do what I need to do alone. I determine to spend time with them every day, teaching them what I know until I get my calling.
Just as we have settled onto our mattresses and are about to fall asleep, I remember to ask James if he has heard anything about my cousin John, how he is doing.
"Oh, John; he's a crazy one," James says sleepily. "I've heard rumours that he is preaching somewhere in Judea, baptizing people. They say that he looks like a wild man, with long hair and a beard, no shoes, dressed in filthy rags." He shakes his head disparagingly. "I even hear he eats only things like honey and insects plucked from the tall grass, and that he's telling people a messiah is coming soon."
I lay back on the bed in shock; all my plans instantly vanished: I know at once this is the sign I have been waiting for; I know that I have to go find John, and that he will baptize me, and that from there my ministry will begin. And I have to go now.
Finding John
I follow the crowds to the banks of the river Jordan, where they tell me John is baptizing people today. When I see the thin, tall, shaggy-haired man standing thigh deep in the river, exhorting those still on the banks in a hoarse, passionate voice to give up their sins and be cleansed before the Messiah comes, I stop, staring.
Is this man truly my cousin John, is this truly what that twelve year old boy has become?
Of course it is, what else would he become?
I step up to the bank of the river, the cool water lapping at my feet.
"John," I call softly.
He turns, and instantly tears of recognition begin to pour from his eyes as he struggles through the water to reach me. We embrace, both of us crying, laughing and crying, pounding each other on the back and laughing and crying some more.
Then we step away and look into each other's eyes. Without a word, we know our fated time has arrived.
"I've come to be baptized, John," I say.
"I am not worthy," John replies. "It is you who should be baptizing me."
"Do you remember your dream, John? The one you told me about when you were twelve?
"The cottage in the deep woods, where I brought a woman's son back to life, and she made me bread from a jar that never ran out," John says, nodding.
"I am that woman's son," I say.
We wade into the deep water of the river, John and I. He looks into my eyes long and hard, and then thrusts me under the water.
For a moment all time and space disappear, and I have no sense of being above or below, up or down. At first I think I might be drowning, then I feel a touch, a lightness descend upon me from above and with it great peace. But suddenly this tender caress turns into a shaft of radiant fire, filling every core of my body and being, and the fire then into something else; something insubstantial, gentler yet no less intense: It is the undiluted essence of that feeling mortals call love, and it completely transforms me. This is an ecstasy I can neither describe nor fathom, for in that moment everything is revealed to me, my entire mission from start to end, the reason for my existence, why I had to come to earth in the form of a man and what my end will be. Yet not just that, not just my story but everything,
everything.
I thought I knew it all before, thought I understood the secrets of life and God and the universe. And I just found out that what I knew was but a drop of water in an ocean of knowledge, a single molecule of air in a hurricane.
I am God, but God is so much more than I. Yet if God is infinite, is not half of infinity still infinite?
John pulls me back up from the water, and I am so stunned and dizzied that I wobble and nearly fall back into the river as he helps me to the shore: Tears pour like the Jordan itself is emptying from my eyes. I am so awestruck I cannot speak; I just shake my head at John.
"What is it," John asks again and again, and when I find my voice at last I answer.
"We will both die young, cousin John, I tell him. "You just because you are you, and it is the role you have chosen. But hear this, John, hear this well: You are man, all of man. You live every life, play every role, and you always have. You are Elijah, you are Ezekiel, you are Abraham and Adam; you are your mother and your father, and mine as well. You live again and again and again, and I have come to take you home. And I would say the same to every man, every woman, for it is as true for everyone as it is for you, you are all just one being. Except now there is something new: For this one time only I, who am God the Spirit, am Man as well. I am you, John; and you are me. This is why I must die. I die for you, John, for all men: I die so that Man can be resurrected with me and through me and as me. Thus it begins."
And with that I turn and walk off into the desert, for whatever is to be is already done.
The End
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