by Ed Hirsch presence@gnaccess.com
Once Upon a Time, there was a kind-hearted king who ruled over a kingdom that had known peace for a thousand years. The king held the great honor of being the millennial king who would lead the people in celebration of their great cultural achievement.
However, there were rumors and prophecies abounding about the end of days. Expectations of great revelations were matched with forebodings of unknown calamities and catastrophes. Others dismissed the whole notion of a millennium as a clever fable, or even a dangerous delusion. Various influential groups, and the king’s own advisors, were pulling him in opposing directions.
The king felt the great weight of responsibility resting upon his shoulders, and was acutely conscious of the clock ticking down to the zero hour. The mounting pressure was driving him to desperation. He felt an icy fear grip his heart such as he had never known in all his days. The king was fearful that the dissension might break the reign of peace forever. He had to take action, but the guidance eluded him.
After a restless night, the king could endure it no longer. At daybreak, he was visited by a prophetic dream, in which he was ascending the distant mountain held sacred by the ancients. Once and for all, he had to find out the truth for himself, and for his people. Setting his affairs in order, and leaving behind his accustomed treasures and palace, and his beloved family, he donned the garment of a pilgrim. At the summit, he felt sure, he would find the truth he was seeking. Unsure of what he would find, but certain that he must make his way, he set out.
His mind was wracked with doubts about the wisdom of his journey and his own motivations. His heart was filled with the turmoil of his people, and now this turmoil centered around his own journey: would he succeed in his mission, would he fail, was it all for nothing? Only his determination to follow the path all the way up the mountain maintained his sanity.
As he left the familiar territory behind, and as he ascended to a purer atmosphere, he felt his spirits lightening and his mind clearing. The deep yearning for truth underneath all the conflict welled up within him. As the outer drama fell away, he could feel its energy become distilled into his own aliveness. It was becoming clear that, driving all the hopes and fears of the future—of the millennium, of his journey, of his life--was his own fear of, and fascination with, time itself.
Something was calling him deeper. His former unbearable awareness of time passing shifted into an acute sense of the present moment and a reverence and awe before its majesty. Both the agonies and the ecstasies of his kingly duties had been a veil that now was lifting.
Each step of the journey was taking him deeper and deeper into something defying description, yet deeply familiar. He found himself participating in what seemed an ancient ritual of the people, even of all mankind. Layer after layer of himself fell away, and he became the archetypal hero, the universal human, the soul on a journey into time, into the future, into the heart of the unknown. And he was not afraid.
At the very summit, the whole world seemed unveiled before him. Time stood still in breathtaking splendor. Knowing his true royal nature for the first time, he recognized that he had lived as a beggar at the table of life, as a victim of time. He had given to the future the awesome power that lay within himself. With this realization, there was an explosion of light and a great rumbling as if the earth were being shaken.
Suddenly, the familiar underpinnings of his life gave way as well. An overpowering fear of death seized hold of him that he recognized as the very core of what had been gnawing at his heart. In a flash, he realized that his fear of the future was his own fear of death.
How clear it all was! All these years, he had taken himself to be this body, this mind, this personality that was born and would die. Now he was shaken awake into the present. At the heart of the dying he feared was simply the dying to an illusion. He breathed a great sigh of relief, as tears of joy streamed down his face. The fear of an unknown future gave way to the beautiful Mystery of the Abiding Presence, forever unfolding.
Fear left his heart, and he felt at peace. From an abiding eternity and infinity, he discovered a faith and joy that he could share with his people. With a deep sense of gratitude, breath by breath, he could feel his own life as a unique adventure unfolding out of the Now, out of his Essence. He knew that the journey was just beginning, and ever beginning.
He was That, and his life was a participation in Its unfolding. With gratitude and fulfillment, he turned homeward to his people, ready to continue the adventure, ever anew.
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