Alibaba, the bridge maker

Satyanand was a studious and mild-mannered young man. He was courteous, kind, and well behaved. He need not be the center of the attention. He neither cared for the worldly matters nor did he deny them. He kept things to himself. He minded his own business. He would find himself lost in books for hours at time way past midnight into morning hours.

            Satyanand lived in a small house with his brother, Kubergrahi and his wife, Kaveri. The brother and his wife liked having him around as Satyanand helped them out with house chores and never gave them any reason to be mad at him. Kaveri treated him as her own son as they didn’t have any children of their own. They somehow made ends meet but it was tough.

            One day Satyanand went to visit his friend in the next town. On his way home, he met a sadhu who was passing through the area. He told sadhu about the hardships his family was going through and how he felt like he was a burden on his brother and his wife. The sadhu gave him a mantra and said if you chant this mantra 100,000 times, you will be rich. However the sadhu warned him that unless he used his wealth to help others, it would be taken away from him. Satyanand didn’t quite understand what the crazy mystic said, but he thought he might as well try the mantra to help out his family. One year passed. Satyanand lost the count but he figured he must have repeated the mantra 500,000 times.

            One day, Satyanand heard a commotion outside of his room. As he peeped outside, he noticed his brother was angrily fighting and yelling at his wife. The wife was also arguing with him and shouting back. Then as he was about to go to sleep he saw that his brother’s father-in-law was sleeping in the back yard on a make-shift bed.

            Satyanand came out of his room next day and found out that the old man had lung disease (TB) and that he was going to die soon. He had 5 children to take care of with 6^th and the eldest being the daughter. His second wife or Kaveri’s step-mother had recently died and there was no one else to take care of the old man. He had no option but to sell off two of his children and the other three…Satyanand could not find out what really happened to them. He tried to ask his sister-in-law but every time he asked, the woman shed tears. Satyanand understood how bad the whole situation had become.

            Albeit of the terrible situation that the old man was in, Kubergrahi was ruthless towards his father-in-law. The father-in-law stayed with them an entire year during which Kubergrahi would repeatedly insult him and would leave no excuse to belittle him. He picked up fights with his wife for no fault of hers; he even fought with Satyanand. Satyanand felt terrible that he couldn’t earn more living to help his brother and sister-in-law. Satyanand became very timid and more introverted. He decided to help out the brother by repeating the old mantra with greater vehemence as if it was a matter of life and death. Pretty soon all his thoughts distilled on a single mantra and he became focused on obtaining money through mantra.

            His inner vision became sharper and his tapasya earned him visions of great wealth stored in a dark room. Little did he know that the wealth and riches he was seeing in his inner visions were in etheric space. They were mainly spiritual in nature as the mantra was meant to help a soul progress by attracting things, people and situations in which money flowed flawlessly and by being unattached to it.  

            One day, the old man spat blood as he coughed incessantly during the night. The sight of blood made Satyanand sick.

            As the sun was about to come up, the old man asked for water. No one else was around except Satyanand who ran up to him with a cup of water and held it close to the old man’s throat. Because of the old man’s poor health, he had not been able to see much. He felt the human touch after a very long time and took Satyanand’s hand in his hand while he grasped for fresh air. Satyanand became petrified and was grounded on his feet. He realized that the old man did not have much time to live. He thought he should run and get his brother and sister-in-law.

            Then something extraordinary happened. The old man slipped into a sickness driven frenzy.  In between the fits, the old man channelized the spiritual energy that Satynanand had gathered through his mantra, albeit of the reasons behind it, and saw the same dark room filled with riches and gold. The room looked very much like the room in the house they were in as Satyanand had projected that image inward. The old man was familiar with the house as he built it himself and gave it to his daughter and son-in-law after their marriage as the wedding gift. The old man, also not realizing that the vision he was seeing was not in a physical plane but held firm to his belief that Satyanand and Kubergrahi had kept the gold and jewels stashed away from him. The old man got up in the morbidly sick state and started off into the wilderness. He felt angry, humiliated and betrayed. He could not fathom how can the two brothers let him and his children die without proper care when they had so much money. He spat on the ground and cursed them. He yelled at Satyanand that he will loose his money and that his brother will suffer for eternity.

            Satyanand stood aghast at the horrid scene that just unfolded. As he came to his senses he realized what had happened and ran after the old man. He finally caught up to him. The old man had fallen down and was gasping for his last breaths. Satyanand cried and asked for his forgiveness. He tried to explain and apologized that he should have said the mantra for the well being of the others like the old man. He sobbed and told the old man that he finally had understood what the sadhu had meant. The old man put his hand on Satyanand’s head and said, he shouldn’t worry too much because one day he will gain it all back.  The sun finally came up and the old man soon died while dreaming of the riches that he had just seen and desired badly to have them for himself and his children. His last desire was to know the mantra that can make him rich…

            And thus, the old man died with the burning desire which led the Goddess to give him another befitting role on earth. This time, she put him in an oasis in the Arabian Desert. To complete the unfinished lessons, Satyanand and his brother were also reborn in the same region. Eventually their destinies intermingled as follows.

            Satyanand was reborn as Alibaba. His brother was reborn as Alibaba’s elder brother. The brother had earned a lot of wealth by wrong means and had become the chief of the local tribe. Alibaba had absolutely no money, no camels, no land, no orchards, and no permanent home. He took up odd jobs such as camel guide, date collector, chief of security for the tribal council, and even private eye. As the Goddess decided, one day Alibaba came upon the sufi fakir while grazing his goats in the outskirts. The sufi fakir was the same sadhu who recognized him instantaneously, and smiled and gave him another mantra after hearing his story of poverty. The fakir gave him the same advice as before and told him to use the wealth for the benefit of others. Only this time, he changed the nature of the wealth, i.e. from spiritual to physical. The fakir told him that Alibaba was the bridge-maker and that he came from the same family in the stars as the old fakir. He told Alibaba that they were all bridge-makers and that he should fulfill his destiny by using this mantra every day before going to bed.

Given the past life impressions, experiences, and unresolved desires we each devise our life stories in ways that help us get rid of those unresolved desires. The Divine simply makes them available to us by creating the best befitting scenarios and persons to whom we owe our karmic debt while simultaneously fulfilling their unresolved desires.

And so it happened that one day, a well known bandit of that region, changed his looks and came to oasis to find shelter. The neighboring tribes warned the elders of the local tribe that they should be careful and not anyone unfamiliar stay in until the bandit is caught and hanged. The bandit had shaved his beard, changed his appearance and behavior. Soon his old nature surfaced as he saw how he could take advantage of the people of this oasis. 

The oasis was growing every day as it had become very fruitful land and attracted many trading partners from everywhere.  The bandit found it easier to blend in. Slowly he started to rob the rich and poor alike and became a legend. He created a veil of appearances such as the trading merchant of dry fruits, barley, and sheep skins. By night, he became a hounding scoundrel that preyed on the rich, middle and poor class people alike. He also expanded his regime to other tribes. He bought very fast camels and horses and carried the sharpesy swords.  He felt that he should find a place other than his house to store all of his stolen goods. The bandit was none other than the old man of the previous story.

One day he came past a house on the outskirts. The house was teetering away. There was no sign of any crops. This must be the poorest place in town, the bandit thought.  Alibaba appeared on the steps of the house. He tied his last goat on the porch, petted her on the head, and stepped inside for the evening. The bandit decided to break the journey by staying with Alibaba because he knew he had nothing to loose.

Alibaba welcomed the bandit and gave him water as that is all he had to give. As they slept in the one room cottage, the bandit overheard Alibaba recite the mantra that the sufi fakir had given him in his sleep. The bandit wrote the mantra down and put it in a necklace and wore it on his neck. Soon he left the shack and went out to the desert looking for a perfect spot to hide his spoils. He found another oasis, which was deserted, and found hundred or so palms towering over several underground caves. He soon found an appropriate tunnel to get to the innermost cave where fresh underground water stream flowed. Behind the rocks, he dug another tunnel and soon he found a way out from the back.

  The bandit then loaded all of his loot on his camels and took the caravan back to the special cave. He then unloaded all of his stuff, killed all the camels and waited for few days for the footprints of the camels to drift away by desert sand storms. He came out of the back door and headed towards the town. He made it a habit to travel only at night. As he was resting by camp fire that night, he accidentally rubbed the necklace he was wearing. Recalling the mantra that was written in it, he repeated it several times. He then scoffed at the necklace, tore it away from his neck and threw it in the sand. Lying on his back, he fell asleep while watching the stars. Next day he made it back to the town on foot, and told his friends and family that he was attacked by a band of bandits on the outskirts and that he was robbed of all his animals and cargo. He then collected money from the insurance agents for the supposed robbery. He bought a few camels and horses, and pocketed the rest of the money.

  The bandit finally became influential figure in the town. He didn’t give up his bad habits as he was addicted to stealing. He provided political protection to those he favored. Soon he started getting involved in the local tribal politics. He became close friends with tribal members and took over the council. When the tribal chief, Alibaba’s brother Abdul, tried to oppose him, he accused him of theft, captured him and took him away to the same spot.  He killed Abdul and cut up his body into forty pieces. When he was about to throw the pieces in fire, the sufi fakir appeared out of thin air. He grabbed his hand and said that Salem had not only misused his powers but that he will soon find himself being outwitted by someone he never would have thought was clever enough. To this revelation, Salem simply laughed. He woke up next day and brushed away the vision of the fakir as desert fever. He flew towards his cave on his horse.

Salem counted all of his coins and the stolen wealth. He knew exactly what he had before and found four additional barrels. He knew that one else had been here or else he would have seen the tracks. He knew that he was the only one who knew the entrance to the cave. Perplexed, he was glad that he had more than before. Doubtful, he didn’t know how it got there. Salem finally went back to his favorite spot underneath the stars. As he lit up the fire and drank the palm liquor, he came to realize that Alibaba’s mantra must have been true because he said it four times that one night and he found exactly four additional barrels.

He recited loud the mantra 100 times. On his 101^st mantra, his throat became parched and he had to stop. All of a sudden, a log in the fire cracked, and he once again saw the old fakir appear from behind the fire. This time the fakir went straight for his jugular with a sharp nail. He whispered into Salem’s ears, ‘For all the sins you have committed and will commit, I give you forty companions equal in strength and shrewdness from whom you shall forever be bound. You will struggle to keep your wealth hidden and it will be stolen just as you stole it from others. Unless you clean up your acts in this life and subsequent lives, you will forever be buried underneath the weight of the wealth.’

 Once again Salem brushed the vision off as the effect of the liquor and fatigue due to the travel.

 What Salem didn’t know was that after he had cut off the 40 pieces and thrown them in the fire, there was a minor thunderstorm. The rain had washed away the ashes and the run off water seeped into the baby palms. The grazing sheep next day ate some of these baby palms. Exactly 40 of these sheep were killed as food in next 12 months and thereby 40 pregnant women ate these 40 sheep on separate occasions. As destiny would have it, these 40 mothers gave birth to 40 boys who eventually ended up in the same oasis as Salem’s.  Salem had long forgotten about that fateful day. He became the chief of the local tribe. Whenever he needed money for one selfish reason or another, he would materialize it by repeating the mantra. Sure enough, he would find another barrel waiting for him in the cave the next day.

 Salem eventually trained and garnered the same 40 boys to be his bodyguards and elite army. Salem finally took them to his secret cave. The guards found the wealth unbearable and proclaimed their own rights over the stolen goods. Salem made sure that they had all plenty of barrels fully of gems, golden trinkets, and rare metals. Meanwhile, the guards secretly plotted against him and against each other to take over the network of caves, which were filled with hundreds of barrels. Salem soon employed a black magi who taught him how to control the minds of his guards. Salem gave them mantra to open and close the secret caves.  In reality, the guards simply stood in front of the caves and said the verse, ‘open, O sesame’. Little did they know that he caves never had any doors; they were always open.  Salem controlled their minds to keep them from fighting with each other and turn against him. All they did after entering the cave was daydream and count the barrels and the coins etc.  They never took any more than a single barrel each.

Meanwhile Alibaba came upon the caves one day while grazing his goats. The astute reader is referred to the story of Alibaba and forty thieves…

Finally, Alibaba became the local tribal leader. By performing good deeds and helping others, he fulfilled his destiny. Although Ali baba was the richest man in the town, he lived a simple and peaceful life bereft of any material desires. On his deathbed, he was blessed with the vision of the fakir/sadhu who smiled at him and waived his hand over his palm and told him to look carefully. As Alibaba/Satyanand looked on, he saw his secret cave filled with riches. The sadhu/fakir waved his hand again and Alibaba observed that all of it had turned into light and then into nothingness. Alibaba opened his hands far wide and smiled and continued his journey after taking one last breath in that body.