“Why did you stop?” – Pavithra asks Gopal.
“Use your SuperSensor3 or be more alert – it’s very interesting.”
Pavithra works on the SuperSensor.
“My God, a planet with conscious life.” Pavithra is thrilled. Her radiant face meets Gopal’s – who’s very excited as well.
“How did you know that this planet had conscious Life?”
“I wasn’t sleeping Pavithra.” – Gopal smiles
Gopal and Pavithra begin to work on the SuperSensors to study about planet Earth. Gopal talks first.
“The dominant species are called HomoSapiens. Collectively called as humans.”
“It’s a very primitive society” – a touch of disappointment is visible on her face.
“Why do you say that?”
“For starters – they think they are very advanced.”
Gopal laughs. “That should nail it. I see several other things here that show it as well.” Gopal
is fiddling with his SuperSensor like a maniac getting to know all about planet Earth and it’s life forms.
“What else do you see?” – asks Pavithra
“These people end other people’s relative existence4 as a form of punishment for mistakes.”
“I guess you can expect that from a primitive society, but they’ve been at this for centuries and haven’t learned much. I would think it’s about time.”
“What’s a century?”
“Oh, that’s the way they quantify their relative experience. Earth revolves around this star, called Sun. One rotation of Earth around Phiself5 constitutes one day. One revolution of Earth around the Sun constitutes a year. One hundred revolutions constitute a century. Ten revolutions constitute a decade. One thousand revolutions constitute a millennium. Of course, they haven’t predicted Earth’s behavior completely, so the anomalies are shoved away to a separate day once every four years, called the leap year.”
“Very interesting. They’ve managed to give absolute units to a relative phenomenon. By the way, isn’t it interesting, days and nights are produced by Earth’s rotation around Phi’s own axis. That’s very innovative. Gerald fans in and out to produce days and nights, but this is as elegant. ”
“This planet is absolutely amazing. First of all, I am surprised that it’s still sustaining these life forms without collapsing or restructuring.” – a touch of sadness is visible on Pavithra’s face.
“I see what you’re saying. It will restructure Phiself soon. It’s inevitable. But I am more surprised at how humans pretend not to see this.”
“The wake up call is too painful to listen to. It’s easier to stay asleep.” – Pavithra recalls the same mistakes Geraldians made on their journey towards being an enlightened civilization.
“They’ll have to wake up very soon. Do you see how humans sustain themselves? It’s incredible. First they use oxygen like Geraldians do. The amazing thing is that instead of oxygen spores, oxygen is produced by plants. Plants do this from sunlight. Humans use up oxygen and send out carbon dioxide. Only, instead of them being absorbed by the oxygen spores again, they are absorbed by the plants.”
“Incredible ecosystem. Only, I don’t know how long this will be an ‘eco system’. What will humans do for oxygen after fifteen years?”
“Huh? What do you see?”
“Do you see the forest cover on Earth? Forget about the oxygen. Just see how pretty they are? I don’t believe how nature created this…” – her voice breaks down.
Gopal catches up with is SuperSensor. “Trees are cut down for paper. A tree grows for hundred, two-hundred or three-hundred years – it’s cut down with a power saw in less than three minutes and is used for producing paper. And what do they do with paper? They print news items and other information for reading. My god – they even use this for cleaning their hands
and making paper cups for drinking water. My god, what a bunch of ….”. Gopal looks at Pavithra and in unison they say “Psalmo Sin Nui6”.
Gopal’s breathing returns to normal. “Sorry, got carried away.”
“I don’t blame you. They have a plant called Hemp, which they discovered long ago. This can provide them with all the paper and energy they want. But it’s being withheld for bureaucratic reasons.”
“Uh huh. I would assume that the reason for this state of affairs is a non-existence of technology. But they have the technology and knowledge, but they just place their barter medium
superior over sustenance and nature.”
“To top it, they think they’re advanced. You know – as a race, humans think that they are superior to nature.”
"Superior or not, they definitely think they are separate from nature. The way Phi is being treated, it can only be called an ecological rape. And when Phi just plays with Phiself
as in twisters, earthquakes or volcanoes, Phi is called the ‘evil force’.” – SuperSensor sounds “it’s OK for humans to kill themselves in the name of nations, religions or skin color though.”
“Imaginary borders, imaginary sub groups and pigmentation differences used to end another person’s relative existence. How interesting. How do they even talk about nature as an evil force? They understand nothing yet.”
Gopal is suddenly filled with compassion. “It gives them a little comfort when they’re able to blame someone for their troubles. It doesn’t help their state of existence though.”
“OK, leave out natural occurrences. They surely have enough intelligence to stop all co-created problems – take wars, dwindling forest covers or population growth.”
“Now that you talk about population growth – isn’t that one of the reasons that even a simple natural occurrence causes so much people to leave their bodies? For example, a tsunami hit them recently, and over 100,000 people’s relative existence ended. A tsunami in Gerald would hardly affect ten people. Of course, we know when that would happen, but even otherwise?”
“Yes, the human count exceeds six billion on planet Earth. By my estimates, one billion is a very high number. They don’t like to stop though.” – Pavithra laughs dryly.
“They’re as confused about sex as well. Do you see how homosexuals are being treated here?”
“Yes.”
“OK, what do you think humans should do to save themselves and life as they know on Earth?”
“I would say, first thing – stop cutting down trees for paper – for any thing. This is down right ridiculous. Switch to hemp folks. ”
“I might say, as a parallel first thing – start working on your population. I would say work on getting this back to one billion. They have individual countries now that have one billion – can you believe it?”
“As an immediate next step, stop using fossil fuels. They have enough expertise to produce clean, renewable energy – bureaucracy again.”
“You think they see this?”
“They see this only too well. It’s like looking at the sun and pretending it’s dark. You know, we’re beings who see fear as an illusion. But I am able to generate the experience of fear, when I imagine myself as a human, on planet Earth, without any trees, polluted rivers and lack of potable water anywhere, and two thousand people inhabiting one square mile of earth all
over the planet without a break. What an existence that would be?”
“Staying asleep is more valuable than waking up to truth.”
“Only waking up is inevitable. And the sooner the better.”
“Say, what is the easiest way to retract population growth?”
“It requires collective effort and discipline. All nations should join together – and consciously bring the birth rate below the death rate7. I don’t see any alarm bells ringing yet though.”
“We are only looking at bleak prospects. Are there no people on Earth who realize that they belong to planet Earth, the trees, rivers, oceans and the Universe?”
“Ah ha. Got me there. Yes there are several masters, and have always been there. Only few people listen to them. Worse, they are ridiculed – many have even been murdered. But several people are realizing the futility of the way they’ve lived so far – and have started an experiential journey into this realization. Their total is yet to reach critical mass for any tangible change to happen. I only hope it’s not too late.”
SuperSensor beeps. “Look, a man named Buddha, a long time back, when Science was not even there as a field, went within, and stated that he started life as a single celled organism.”
“That’s a very highly evolved state. That’s amazing. But these people seem to be an exception rather than a normal occurrence.”
“People on planet earth communicate using verbal symbols. Since this evolved locally, there are more than one hundred variations. Each variation is called as a language. Just like we do in Gerald, only with words spoken out loud.”
“Ah – the old times in Gerald. That could be a slow but fascinating form to talk to each other. But deception would be high as you can think and say different things.”
“True. Earth people deceive themselves all the time. But it would take a long time for them to be fluent and accepting of TPE8.”
“Yes, but this has led to some interesting developments. One of their mediums of mass communications is called ‘Movie’. It’s a way of representing any thing they see or imagine on celluloid film. It’s a very popular entertainment source here.”
“So much so, that it is an addiction – I see. But this helps them over come a major limitation – that of effective communication. But they use it mainly for entertainment purposes.”
“Yes, it’s more of an escape than a tool for self-evolution.” Pavithra starts laughing as she
stares into the SuperSensor.
“What?”
“They have an English movie where they imagine aliens attacking them to destroy the human species and take over planet Earth.”
Gopal laughs as well. “I think they’ll do it themselves. But you see only one side. I see another English movie which talks about an advanced civilization – which is enlightened. It details everything – to inter galactic travel, how the Universe expands and contracts, how humans are herbivores – strangely missed by majority of planet Earth and many other things. I am dumbfounded. It’s as close they’ve come to describing how we live on Gerald. Only they’ve called it K-Pax. If only it becomes common knowledge on Earth.”
"Earth people really surprise me. So we have people on all scales of evolution – the majority being primitive and being in power. I don’t see this lasting very long – I only hope the damage
they do is less.”
She is waiting for Gopal to talk, but he seems dumbstruck looking at something on the SuperSensor. "
“What’s up? What is so fascinating?”
“It’s what humans call music. They’ve taken us by surprise. The closest we have is SPE9. It’s a system in which they have explored every conceivable way in which sound flows and interacts. They even have a notation system that is recognizable on a planet level. Of course, local flavors of music abound, and fusing them gives them rich possibilities of experiences.”
Pavithra catches up now.
“I am listening to a composer called Mozart. Do you see how he composed? He just wrote down notes in the notation you spoke about. They even made an English movie about him. The sounds are fascinating.”
“He was very evolved. So much so that he lived in poverty because he was disrespected. It looks like a norm for most geniuses on planet Earth. Very sad. Do you see, it’s not just the tonal possibilities. They’ve used music as a device to momentarily transcend the relative field of experience to merge with the Universe. Humans have intuitively known about enlightenment all along.”
“I guess that is inevitable too. I also see that they’ve used poems, music, paintings, dance, prayer and several other methods as means for meditation. A master called Patanjali has spoken about Yoga in very intricate detail. Yoga means ‘union with the divine’”.
“Earth abounds with possibilities then, in light of all these information. It looks like they can take a turn in either direction now – either towards being an enlightened society, or towards self destruction – which would be a very sad thing, considering how much at least a part of their
finest souls have achieved.”
Gopal tweaks his SuperSensor. Pavithra also sees him raise is level of awareness by going within himself.
“Wait… what are you doing?”. Pavithra goes within to catch up. Her face relaxes and then she asks – “How do you know she’s ready?”
“Look at her energy patterns. I am only enhancing the speed at which she’s traveling. ”
In
has just broken a glass vase. The dad is poised to assault her physically in an attempt to ‘discipline’ Aparna. This scene is not new – only the events leading to the disciplinary treatment changed, giving a new context for the father. These sessions were very fearful experiences for Aparna. For a girl of seven years, she often wished if she could run away from this house. Of course, fear of the unknown world was what was stopping her. Her mom hated this treatment, but her mom was as afraid as the dad – who was of course doing it for their own good.
Right now, Aparna is trembling with fear and begging his dad not to hit her.
“It was an accident daddy. I am sorry, it won’t happen again.”
“How many times have I told you to be careful? And how many times have you told me that it would not happen again?”
At a corner of the room, the mom is standing, clutching her sari fold near her neck – her heart beating for Aparna, and crying at her helplessness.
The first slap descended on Aparna, leaving a red rash on her left cheek. A red rash on her right cheek followed. Then something changed. As Aparna, half afraid, half evasive was waiting for the slaps to follow – she suddenly decides to stay aware. Like a second person within her, she can watch her heart tremble with fear. And the trembling stops. Her cold hands unfreeze and a calm feeling of comfort envelops her. She turns her gaze which is facing sideways and faces her
dad, looking at him.
The next slap followed.
“Will you do it again?” – slap.
Like a warrior on the battlefield watching a seething arrow race straight towards him, Aparna watches her dad. There is no suppressed fear, no suppressed anger. Only a calm focus of intent
enveloping her tear gazed face.
“It may happen again” – says Aparna in a childlike voice.
The dad stops dead. At a loss for a response, he is overcome with more anger.
“How dare you…” – as he slaps her repeatedly till his hands are red and aching. Panting and sweating, he turns away and opens the refrigerator to drink some water.
“You could use the belt if your hands are paining.” – says Aparna looking at her dad.
The dad stops drinking his water and places the bottle on the table with a thud. He looks at Aparna silently. He then looks at Aparna’s mom. Her mom has stopped crying and her hand is no longer clutching her sari to the neck. She is confused, but happy within at the courage that had just unfolded within her little Aparna. Silently, tears roll down her cheeks and fall on the ground. The dad looks at Aparna one more time, walks to the door, and closes it. The direct line of contact between Aparna’s eyes and her dads eyes is interrupted by the door. A heavy silence lies thick in the house and mom and daughter stand looking at each other.
“Amma,10 when he comes back, he’ll hit you. He’s only venting. Don’t be angry with him. Just feel sorry for him. Someday he’ll understand. Whatever you do, don’t beg him to stop assaulting you. His source of satisfaction is not hitting you, but seeing you suffer. He’ll stop hitting you once he knows he can only hurt your body.”
Aparna’s mother says – “Don’t worry dear, he cannot hurt me anymore.” – she starts crying and hugs Aparna.
One moment’s transformation was to change Aparana’s life direction dramatically. At the age of only sixteen Aparna would become a teacher, helping thousands of people over come fear, despair and release past hurts. She would help people forgive others, and would wipe away suffering from the life of many people. At the age of only twenty five, Aparna would be called Mata Aparna, she would help people experience that they are one with the Universe – in line with her own experience which happened to her when she was twenty two. Her way of expressing herself would be lucid and simple – but one of her phrases would always remain
a mystery. When asked if there was Life outside of Earth, she would reply – “Gerald has always remained a special place for me” with a twinkle in her eye.
“My turn then…” says Pavithra.
“You picked the right person” – says Gopal with a smile.
EL corporation is a massive giant with no close parallel when it came to paper production among comparable industries. Andrew Jones, the CEO of EL for four years was responsible for turning this corporation into a mammoth. In the short time frame of three years, EL had grown from grossing five billion a year to twenty two billion.
Andrew Jones wakes up from his sleep with a startle. He calls his secretary and asks her to convene a board meeting by noon.
One of the big meeting rooms in EL’s 25 acre office.
“Friends, thanks for assembling on short notice. I would like to talk about something very important.” – Andrew couldn’t believe he was getting nervous. Over the past several years, he had become an accomplished orator, and was one of the people who would be likely to be picked as an example or a role-model for public speaking.
“What is the market cap of EL?”
The question takes most of the people in the room by surprise. One of them replies “177 billion.”
“What is the trading value of an EL share?”
An air of surprise fills the room, wondering where the line of questioning was leading to. “It closed at $39.50 yesterday” – replies Betty Thompson, COO of EL.
“How many acres of forest do we clear everyday to keep up with our production volumes? What percentage of our production is covered by recycled paper?”
Betty apart, none of them knew the answer. Betty chooses not to answer.
“I wanted to illustrate how we remember monetary information very well, but are surprisingly illiterate about things that matter.”
Silence.
“I’ll cut to the chase. I would like for EL to switch to hemp paper completely in a time frame
of six months.”
“What about the cost of the switch?” – one of the members is quick to respond.
“Let us keep cost considerations out for the moment. I am sure you all know how important trees are to the environment, and to us. Today, EL makes office paper, supplies newsprint, makes paper towels, paper cups – anything that can be done using paper, EL is part of it. We use paper to hold a cookie we eat. Think about it, a tree grows for how long - we can’t even say. I’ve read redwood trees last for three thousand years. We cut it down in a matter of minutes and off it goes for paper production. If you think about it, doesn’t it sound atrocious that something as magnificent as a redwood would be a cookie holder? The fact that an alternative exists only makes it worse.”
“Andy, you draw six hundred dollars an hour. You want EL to switch to hemp because you had an overnight realization?” – Betty and Andrew were very good friends over a long period of time. This enabled Betty to be completely honest with Andrew, which Andrew appreciated a lot.
Andrew is silent for a long time – almost suggesting that he was going to give up on the topic.
"Betty, ever since I became the CEO of EL, my only thought has been to grow this company. I will admit that I’ve not thought about the environmental implications of an industry like ours. I mean, I knew the theory, but it didn’t hurt me as much as it does now. “ – Andrew speaks through a pained voice. "
“OK Andy, why do you think EL should switch to hemp?”
“Estimates suggest that the forest cover in the world would last only for fifty years at the current rate of consumption. We’re talking trees. Trees that grow for hundreds of years. Once they’re gone – they’re gone. Paper production is among the top reasons trees are being cut. And a corporation like EL is among the chief consumers of wood pulp. I have reason to believe that if EL switches to hemp, other competitors would be forced to switch as well, for marketing and competitive reasons. We have an investment in protecting our environment as well. If Earth is to be inhabitable in the future, something has to be done now. When you look at earth from the top every year, what was once green is now brown. That hurts me.”
Betty is impressed. She had these thoughts for some time, but the change EL had to go through was too much and she had been postponing these thoughts for sometime. It’s time now, and she is glad Andrew brings this up.
“Any questions at this point?” – Betty asks the board.
“I appreciate the idea, but we need to think about how this will affect the bottomline of the company.” – says Brad.
“How would we go about with the process? We’re talking about an overhaul in which EL works.” – asks
“I know that the change is deep and affects our operations and processes irreversibly. We’ll work on the new set of plans and process when we meet next week. For now, I just need to know you’re all with me on the new path EL plans to take. I do not know that we’ll pull this off. I have a feeling we will. Let’s brace ourselves for very exciting change, that would hopefully propel EL towards being planet friendly. Do I have your vote?”
“Yes” – is the unanimous answer. Andrew has a feeling that Betty’s voice was louder than usual.
The next day, the newspapers would have something very important to print. Some news which would infuse hope into millions of people whose hearts were beating for the planet in the hope that something would happen for the better. Some news which would cause a lot of worry for competing paper producers, who would be forced to switch to treeless paper due to the sheer import of the decision. The headlines of the next day’s news would read – “EL plans to switch to treeless paper.”
“I think it’s time for us to leave” – says Pavithra.
“I don’t want to leave this amazing planet. Something in this planet attracts me like a magnet. I feel so helpless.” – says Gopal.
“I know. But I think our job is done. Let’s be back later to see how what we’ve sown has taken shape. Do you know, there’s an Indian word called ‘Namaste’ – which means ‘the divine in me honors the divine in you’”.
Gopal and Pavithra fold their hands towards the planet and say ‘Namaste’ in unison. This is the first time they use words loudly. They start back to Gerald.
Twenty five years later. Gopal and Pavithra are back to the blue planet. They see that the forest cover in the earth has increased tremendously.
“Don’t you see that this is surprising. The moment we decide to stop destroying the environment, nature heals Phiself.” – says Pavithra with a smile.
“Yes, give the planet a chance to replenish Phiself was what so many people were begging for so long.”
“Hey, guess what – the earth’s population is now 5.2 billion – that’s eight hundred million lower
than our last visit. And
“Once the direction the planet takes is centered around healing, I don’t think we’re needed any longer. People on earth now have an experience of a different kind of living. We’ll be back when Earth becomes an enlightened society. May be they’ll visit Gerald.” – says Gopal with a smile.
“Before we leave, we need to watch something.”
A very young woman, in her early thirties is walking in a national park in
As she walks through the forest, a small bird perches on her left shoulder. With a smile, she holds out her left hand for the bird to perch on the back of her palm. The bird obliges with a small chirp.
“I am sorry little one. I don’t have any seeds for you.”
The bird seemed to understand, and looked up eagerly at the woman’s face.
“Oh, you’re here to see me are you? That’s so sweet. Let’s go for a walk – I’ll leave you by that big lake….” – she stops talking as she sees an old American appear before her. He looks to be about eighty years old.
With folded hands, he asks – “Master, would you initiate me?”
She looks at him intently, and says with a smile – “I don’t think it’s necessary. Please close your eyes.”
He closes his eyes. A very soft hand touches his forehead. He feels his boundaries melt with the explosion of energy this hand generates. He lets go completely. Andrew Jones explodes into bliss.
With a chirp, the bird jumps from Mata Aparna’s hand and lands on Andrew’s shoulders. It would be a very long time before Andrew would open his eyes as a Buddha. Mata Aparna leaves the place quietly. With another chirp, the bird flies away, leaving a feather on Andrew’s shoulder.
It starts drizzling lightly.
1 - Gopal and Pavithra: Geraldians do not use names. These names were given for convenience. Geraldians also do not communicate with words without need. Most communication is at thought level.
2 - Light Years: Geraldians use a different scale. This is earth scale.
3 - SuperSensor: A device invented by Geraldians as a tool for Intuition. Geraldians found that it would be difficult to stay fully aware all the time. Flow of information and intuition depends on the awareness level. So the SuperSensor was invented to tap into existential energy when the Geraldians themselves were not fully aware.
4 - Relative existence: Geraldian Term for “death” as used in Earth.
5 - Phiself: Geraldian term signifying respect. The closest tem in English is “Itself”. Itself is not associated with gender, but an implicit disrespect is hidden (“it is a cow”). Phi is a term used by Geraldians to signify respect without gender (“talk to your soul. Phi will respond.”)
6 - Psalmo Sin Nui: “Phi who judges is farthest from truth.”
7 - Birth and death rates: These values are monitored constantly in Gerald at a planet level and the levels are always kept in balance to maintain a sustainable population.
8 - TPE: Thought Pattern Exploration. A highly evolved and transparent way used as a communication tool in Gerald.
9 - SPE: Sound Pattern Exploration. A way of researching into tonal possibilities.
10 - Amma: Tamil for ‘mother’.
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