Yeshua and the God of Five Senses

“So tell me, what did you feel when you saw that young girl in the market today?” Yeshua asked his oldest disciple, Mima. Mima had mixed ancestry. His face looked as Tibetan as his mother’s face and his body was stocky like his Greek father. Mima’s face was perpetually in grief. He had a shiny bald spot in the middle of his head. Yeshua made fun of his bald spot; Mima knew that Yeshua had no malice. He said, it was perfect to hold the nectar of the moon because you could see the moon even when moon is not out. This made Mima laugh out loud again and again when Yeshua went away on his pilgrimage to India. Yeshua made the arduous journey to India and back every few years and every time he passed through the town on the border of Tibet and Gandhar (modern day Pakistan), he would stay with Mima for few days to break the journey. Once Mima asked Yeshua why he made such arduous journeys. Yeshua always kept quiet. Mima eventually stopped asking these questions. But it became his lifelong question and pursuit to know about his friend’s aimless purpose.

 

 

  Mima replied back in response to Yeshua’s question, “I felt lust. I felt strange sensation of being in love, being taken by mad sexual urge, and at the same time being full of pure hatred towards myself and towards her.”

 Mima knew that the Master already knew but he wanted to hear it from his mouth.

  Yeshua asked, “Why be ashamed of it? Acknowledge it. It’s real. It’s now. It’s here. Know that the source of your anger toward the beggar boy afterwards is entirely due to your embarrassment about me knowing that you were blindly attracted to that girl.  Always be on look out for uncontrolled, rampant and unacknowledged emotions and then you will be able to witness it. Know that there is always harmony and that which we call love that guides the greater and smaller events, however malign or benign. ” Both fell silent.

  And with that silence, the two friends retired into their respective rooms in Mima’s house for an afternoon nap, which was on top of a hill overlooking the entire town. You can see miles from up there on a clear day. Himalayas were out in the distance in South, snow sprinkled fingers of smaller mountains stretched across the horizon in West and wide-open Tibetan plateau appeared in the North and in the East. From the house, one can view high desert vistas during the day and gorgeous skies filled with stars during the night. Mima had inherited the house on the hill from his father.

 

Yeshua told him that he was very lucky to have a friend like Mima because he had such a pure heart. He told Mima that the roof of his house was his favorite spot to meditate before entering sylvan Himalayan forests to the South. Mima felt very proud when he heard the latter.

  After the nap, Mima came out and sat next to his friend, who was stroking Mima’s beautiful Persian rug with his toes. Mima knew that his friend was not the one who enjoyed the riches but he was enjoying the sensation of the beautiful work mixed with the roughness of the material. Mima also realized that his friend felt ecstasy when he realized that Mima had bought that rug from a Persian family who all worked on it very hard for 8 long months and Mima paid them twice the price. Using that money, the Persian family was able to survive the long and harsh winter. Secretly, Mima had desired that this story would impress his friend. Yeshua gave the familiar ‘I know what you are thinking’ look to Mima. Mima again fell silent. He thought he would bury himself in the Earth if he could. He let out a deep sigh. He was beginning to realize the importance of a great deed had nothing to do with one’s own self but as a service to one’s greater Self which is comprised of other human beings. He felt ashamed and embarrassed. His rosy cheeks became red with shame and guilt. He was beginning to understand the act of selfless service.  He felt grateful that his friend was there to put things into perspective.

 Yeshua smiled at Mima’s infant daughter who smiled back at him and stared above Yeshua’s head. 

  

Because you see, when Yeshua talked, angels visited and listened. Such is the power of Love.

   Yeshua felt this was the right moment to talk. Yeshua rarely talked. But when he talked everyone listened. He talked spontaneously. He talked with great resonance as he felt his heart would churn and he would collapse if he didn’t talk.  He knew that these moments were rare and were special. His eyes would transfix. His spine would become straight. His face would appear calmer than usual. And there was something magical in that voice because it came directly from the Universal Heart.  And so, everyone listened.

    “When I was 22 years old, I healed the foot of my aunt Sophia. I didn’t know that it was broken. I didn’t know that she was in pain. I sat down to press her feet as I usually did every night. I felt warm tingling sensation in my hands and in my spine. I don’t remember what had happened. Only minutes later, my aunt Sophia poked me with her healed foot and said, ‘never talk to anyone about your gift, because the day you talk about it, is the day you will bring your current lifetime to close. Always give healing equally to those to deserve it the most and those who deserve the least. Do your work in secret and silence. Never trade the joy, tranquility and peace that healing brings you for the mental satisfaction of telling everyone that you did something good to them.’ I heal because I know that there is a greater power acting through me. I am only an instrument. I do not know how it happens. I simply open my eyes and ask Himzadi for his blessings. My eyes weep and my heart aches at their pain. I know in that moment that I am not this body. I know in that moment, that Himzadi is always present behind the scenes. I am only a pot very much like that one in the corner in which Himzadi pours himself. And just for that brief moment when he comes through me, I know that I and my Father are One.  I am the Father at that moment. My heart expands and becomes as big as that mountain.”

       Mima’s infant daughter chuckled. She looked back on top of Yeshua’s head. Her gaze became fixed as Yeshua wiped tears off of his eyes.

 

 

   “Himzadi is always present. He is present here now. My aunt Sophia knew this. She also knew other secrets but wanted me to discover them for myself. It was much later that I found out in my meditations that she was the Mother. Mima! the Mother was with me! She was my aunt. She let me touch her feet every night. I knew this always but just as the rust keeps coming back to that iron skillet of yours, our hearts become rusted with the rigid veils that we put on ourselves. Our hearts are tainted and our minds are dirty because we do not realize that the great Ananda and Love of the Father that sustains us. We think it is us that are doing this or that but Mima it is the Father that does everything. It is the Mother that does everything. This whole wide world is just him and her… There is no one else but them and their imperishable Love”.

 

     Mima’s infant daughter now started sucking her thumb and began tossing her feet in the air. Mima caught the feet and tickled the foot with his fingers. The baby laughed out loud in ecstasy. Mima felt her joy for the first time. He felt different. He felt anew. He felt good.

      “Mima, I must tell you a story.  It was long ago, even before this town was settled. I once went to India to see the Father with my aunt Sophia. I didn’t know then who he was (the Father). I just did what my aunt Sophia asked me to do. I trusted her deeply. On our way back from India, we were traveling with a caravan and stopped by in the dusty town in Anatolia (modern day Turkey). It was a very hot day; we had run out of water and food for our animals. We ourselves were parched. Instead of staying in town to drink, eat and sleep, I decided to take off on my own. Somehow I knew where to go. I walked and walked and walked till I came up on a hill so far away from the oasis that I forgot that it existed or where I had come. Night fell.  I felt weak with exhaustion and thought I was going to collapse. I sat down with the Frankincense that I had gotten from the Arabian bandits for healing their camels. I burnt only two pieces because they usually burn for two hours each. All the while when I was up there, I was in a different world. I felt so familiar with the rock I sat on. The rock was so smooth as if somebody had polished it. I sat down, half collapsed and half unconscious with hunger and thirst. I closed my eyes and then it began. I had a series of visions.” Mima looked at Yeshua in disbelief. Yeshua’s eyes were half closed and he had his gaze fixed out in the distance.

 

 That’s when Mima saw a rose-like flower that he had never seen before. It had come out of Yeshua. He could smell the Frankincense from that rose, and saw that rose entered his heart. Mima sat there in disbelief and awe. He felt incredible love towards his daughter for the first time. He kissed her tiny hands as the daughter looked at him and shrieked with ecstasy.

  “I always had visions ever since I was a child”, Yeshua continued, “But these were different. I have never had such visions. True visions are affirmations of something that is true about you and you will know it. Beware Mima! For there are false visions and true visions…I was covered with blue and white light. I stepped in a different world, much different than ours. I felt joy of that realm that is unparallel to ours but it is our destiny. There I saw myself on a throne sitting next to you. You wore an incredible crown adorned with jewels. You had golden white light emanating from your heart. You looked at me and asked me what love is. I replied back, ‘Love is the harmony between us, between things, between all, O Deva of Five Senses, however benign or malign.’ You smiled and said, ‘I know all about love. See how much I love my wife and these Apsaras! I give them the freedom to use me and my power to experience whatever they want.’ I said, ‘O Great King of Five Senses! Do not be a fool! For you are not the doer. You may be powerful and bedecked in jewels as these beautiful energies of yours traverse around you only by the grace of the Mother! Know thyself to be a greater spirit who does all the magic of movement and give you that experience of being. That spirit is the source. Not you, not I, not these Apsaras, !’ Then a fireball appeared out of your heart and entered your heart again. In an instant, you had created a soul. He appeared bright and radiant. But you were taken back. When I adjusted my vision to yours, I saw what you saw. You became occupied with lust as you saw the feminine form, much like the lust you showed towards that young girl in the market today, and at the same time, you also gravitated towards hatred as you saw the masculine form. There it was! The King of Five Senses, who had the elemental Deva and Devi in his charge, was now pitifully lustful and hateful towards the emanation of his own self as half Shiv and half Shakti ! The Spirit had chosen to teach you a lesson and to make you an instrument to create something out of you that reflected your inner nature; the nature that is in the process of being perfected and refined. You see, all that we see is his dance with his energy! His Love which is Her is what binds us out of that dance and makes us dance together with them! You gave in to your lower nature and gave up your throne! In an instant you were thrown down on the Earth by the Mother to experience and master these very emotions again.”

   Mima listened to the Master with teary eyes as he saw what the Master showed him these visions through his inner sight.

  Mima saw from the perspective of the young soul that he created whom he called Dhatu. He experienced purity of universal heart from Dhatu’s perspective and realized what Dhatu had first experienced was pure love as he was created. Love, which then became tainted with Dhatu’s own veil of illusion, i.e. distrust towards Divine and conflict towards its own self.

“You see my friend, Love is what keeps us together. Love is what creates us and to choose pure unconditional Love is our ultimate destiny. You chose hatred instead. And so, in order to bring your ego down and to teach you a lesson, the Mother threw you on Earth as the royal dancer to be and Dhatu as Petronas, the Roman general to be.”

  

Then Yeshua told Mima, the story of Petronas and the Royal Dancer...

Petronas and the Royal Dancer

Dhatu was given a lifetime as Petronas and Indra was given the lifetime as Petronas’ lover by the Mother so both can realize deeper truths of surrender and trust. Petronas as Dhatu was born in conflict, the very conflict in Indra, as distrust in the Spirit. If Dhatu wanted something, he would have it as if it was his inborn right. He was born in Rome about 500 years after the time of Yeshua. He grew up in the territories outside of Rome. He was put through a hard military training but with no purpose in mind other than protecting the outside territories of Rome. Petronas had loving parents, good teachers and kindred friends. He was brought up with a sense of loyalty towards Rome and the emperor. Petronas was invited in Rome when he was 30 years old to witness the celebration of emperor’s son’s birth. The emperor was old and was delighted that he finally had an heir. This was the only time Petronas met and saw the emperor. Petronas also traveled around Rome and its outlying suburbs, made acquaintances, and saw that Rome was corrupt and crumbling from within. The senators were corrupt and disheveled. The citizens of Rome had finer riches which were collected and assembled from territories but did not value each other. Rome was no longer the shining example of democracy and had become plutocracy and retched aristocracy. The government in Rome poisoned itself as if a scorpion had bitten itself and was in teeters as the emperor held on to his tiny amount of power over the inner circle in Rome.

Petronas became convinced that there was no such thing as higher power and that the world was a grim place. Petronas felt that the regime had absolutely no goal in mind, there were no ideals to follow, and there were plethora of fictitious enemies created by the government to keep the citizens occupied with ever looming threat. Petronas looked on and realized that even if such enemies did exist, there would be none to defeat them, as none would be able to lead an army. No one cared to retain the autonomy of the city-state. Instead, he noticed, they bickered and plotted against themselves. They had no greater reason to live other than pry on each other and live like vermin and insects at the bottom of a briny cesspool.

 

 

 Celebrations of emperor’s son’s birthday started. After watching the emperor make fool of himself in front of hundreds of people in a gladiator ring, Petronas approached the emperor in the middle of the night with a knife in his palace. Petronas was filled with conflicting emotions: he felt sad about the senile emperor and at the same time disgusted with his inability to hold on to his power. He seemed to care about Rome and a fictitious ideal and at the same time he became violent at the very thought of his attachment to Rome. With the sharp blade pointed two inches away from the emperor’s throat, he smiled wickedly as he awakened the king with by kicking his knee. ‘Give me five Anatolian territories to the East and I shall leave you unharmed.” He said to the emperor. “You can continue your charade only here in Rome but no further. I will send you your share five times a year but I want an absolute control and a complete autonomy over the Anatolian territories.” Emperor yielded, he had no choice.

 And so Petronas became his own idol. He worshipped himself. He became occupied with getting things right for their own sake if it suited his fantasy. He had no inner goals to follow, no higher vistas of truth to reach, no riches of the soul to enjoy; so he devised his own versions of Truth. When the wise opposed his rule with positive criticism, he threw them in jail or executed them. He showed compassion at times and showed merciless and senseless idealism at other times. He raped young village women and donated houses to the widows. He rode his horse out in the country for days by himself, killed deer and wildlife with his crossbow, dragged the carcasses of the animals behind his horse and left them out for vultures.

 

 

He rescued little baby wolves from the predators by letting them cut through his flesh to save the puppies and he ordered orphans to be killed at the monasteries. His outer nature became torn in many ways. His inner nature stifled. He became dead as a dry well in the middle of Anatolian dessert…until he met the royal dancer.”

  Yeshua paused and swept the sweat off of his eyebrow, as he seemed to process much of Petronas’ anger and un-channeled energy. He lifted the infant in his arms and kissed the cheeks and sat her on his lap. It was a night filled with bright stars and the baby had been playing after her nap and dinner. Mima, his wife and the baby sat next to the fire as Yeshua kept the baby on his lap keeping her feet warm by waiving his palm over the fire. Mima’s wife noticed that the fire seemed to burn from nowhere and that there was no wood. Too tired to say anything and too elated to witness the magical fire, she finally put her head down in her lap and fell asleep after a busy day’s work.

 Mima listened to his friend talk for hours into the night. He recalled bits and pieces of his future lifetime.

 Mima saw himself as a young boy full of radiance and purity of heart. His body emanated a pure fragrance. He trained as a dancer and gave his life to the art of dancing. He loved and learned by spinning with the twirling saints of the desert, the Dervishes.

 

 

 He meditated while dancing and saw himself as an elaborate dance between the Mother, the experience of being, and the Father, the consciousness. He was filled with life and every moment was spent in ever lasting joy and ecstasy. He saw himself being lured into lower nature by the Asuric energies of lust, impatience, anger and hatred by others around him. But he maintained his pure essence and loved every one. He learned to surrender and trust the Divine. He faced many challenges but came out with deep sense of fulfillment as he realized himself to be an instrument and gave himself completely. He became content and was filled with Divine Ananda. He was quite young and had reached the higher state of being.

            Finally, one day Petronas arrived in the town to collect the tax. As the town folk gathered to see their infamous ruler, the young dancer felt that Petronas was his way out of that body and that lifetime. He (Mima) then realized that he was the Deva of Five Senses, Indra, who was given the body of this young boy by the Mother. Mima/Indra’s heart was filled with awe and respect for he had given up his throne and pride and felt fulfilled. To further aid his spiritual progress, he realized that he had to give into Petronas’ desires. He made his way towards Petronas’ royal court.

 Meanwhile Petronas pursued his desires relentlessly. He adopted the young dancer as son. He confided in him; he never did confide in anyone. He felt himself anew with novel energy. He tortured the young boy. He raped the young boy. He showed genuine concern and care as was his conflicted nature; all the while Indra/Mima realized that what he had experienced in the etheric realm while giving birth to Dhatu (Petronas), was unfolding here in this lifetime. Year after year, month after month, day after day, hour after hour, minute after minute, moment after moment, Royal Dancer/Indra/Mima gave up every bit of himself and surrendered completely to the Divine Will. As the eve of his departure from that lifetime arrived on a crisp fall morning with red/yellow leaves on the ground, he smiled at Petronas who stood there with his crossbow aimed at the dancer. As the dancer glazed a smile, Petronas let out an arrow which hit the dancer right between his eyes, ‘...shhhnappp…’ All of a sudden Mima woke up to the warm morning sun coming through his open window on the top floor overlooking the mountains to the SouthEast.

How did I get up here? He thought. Yeshua was gone, he noticed.

 

And while Mima reflected on the story from the previous night and sat with heavy heart, Yeshua appeared again. He smiled and said, “Dear friend, I travel because I want to see the father in me and because I want to see the father in others.”

 

Mima realized that his old friend and guru Yeshua had answered his lifelong question and finally understood what he meant.

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.

Part One: Cowboy and the Waterwheel

Once there was a cowboy named, Leland. He was a farmhand and ranchman in rural Montana.

                                      

During winter he would leave his family of four and travel down south to Carson City, Nevada. There he would work in paper mill and sawmill. Thanks to the newly established logging laws, which pretty much guaranteed unlimited access to the lower Sierra Nevada forestlands deep into Indian Country, the seasonal work was always plenty. Leland worked hard but resented the life he led.

                                    

One day, Leland went looking for a prospective mining area that his employer recently bought from the Indian Chief. After long negotiations, several boxes of faulty rifles and whiskies were exchanged for this lucrative land southeast of Carson City. The employer almost fell off his chair when the Indian Chief showed him how much land he had and how much he was willing to give away. The Chief told him that the land that he is giving away has absolutely no value to him and his tribe and that it is ‘poisoned’. The employer did not understand the Indian expression and negotiated further to acquire even more of the ‘poisoned’ land. Leland patiently watched the negotiations taking place way into the night. His employer respected Leland’s opinion, as he was calmer and more mature than the young kids who just wasted their hard earned money on prostitutes and alcohol.  Finally, the two parties agreed and they smoked sacred pipe as they shook hands with each other. The Indian Chief looked at Leland and winked as he helped him carry the boxes of whiskey and rifles out.

“Well, I will be damned. Leland, today is our lucky day”, the employer, a rotund bug eyed middle-aged man, said. “We got our selves so much land that me and my great grand children will live happily ever after”.

“How do you know if that darn Indian didn’t sell you a damn piece of coal instead of gold? ”Leland asked.

 “That’s where you come in! And hold that thought about gold because I got a big assignment for you! How would you like to move all your family and kin down here and be a caretaker of this land? I mean, you work for me, but you get to keep few hundred acres yourself. I only have one condition. You oughta find me some gold! Nuggets, dust, gold look-alike, I don’t care! Just get me some gold. And you get to keep any piece of land you want. Besides the one with gold in it, of course… Har, har, har, har…”

 “I suppose I can do it. How much you gonna pay? Do I get to keep the horses? And what about help? I am gonna need me one more body to help out. Hell, I don’t even know where to start…”

 “Don’t you worry. I got just the man for the job. Take my nephew, Clifton. He is good with horses and gold. He can get carried away with his tongue but he is a good kid. I oughta run these mills myself or I would go along with you two. And listen, don’t take any of these rifles, them ones over there are the Winchesters that I bought for you from a Britishman in Calgary. Take as many as you want, take two horses each. Don’t worry about your family. I will send them a cheque that will take care of ‘em boys and pretty wife of yours for a year.”

 “Okay then.” Leland replied.

 And so Leland was out in the country looking for gold with Clifton. Clifton was young and ran his mouth when he wasn’t running his horse. Clifton was a good tracker and often spotted deer and raccoon tracks more than he spotted gold. Leland traversed from North to South and from East to West. There were few creeks, hills, and sparse forest patches in the land. Most of the land though, was very dry and parched for miles and miles.

                      

He spent two years charting the area and making note of major spots that can potentially have gold. He knew he was wasting his time but his family was being taken care of and he was not sniffing sawdust. And so, he got used to that life.

Three more years passed. Every time Leland asked his employer to reconsider the possibility of gold, he would balk at the idea and tell him to look harder. The employer always quoted latest news about gold being found in California and Nevada not too far from there. Leland stopped asking questions and kept looking for gold with Clifton.

One day, they ran into a local Indian tribe. The tribe was on the move. The guards who were assigned the duty to defend the weak, women and children spotted Leland with red shirt and Clifton with this ten gallon hat more than two miles away. They decided to attack the white men to send message to the rest of the white men who never seemed to stop multiplying. The Indians managed to damage the horses and lead an all out attack on them. In order to defend them, Leland put his hand in between only to have it pierced. The Indians took away most of their food and supplies. They dragged Clifton upside down and tied him to a tree.

                    

 When Leland finally came to his senses, he found his friend’s body charred and torn to pieces. The Indians had burned the body. Leland approached the black body and brought it down on the ground. He was about to bury the body and the eye slightly moved. Clifton waived at him and asked for water and fell unconscious. Leland sat there waiting. Just when he was finally about to give him water, he noticed that Clifton wore a gold tooth inside his lower left jaw. Surprised, angry, and dispassionate towards Clifton’s dying condition, Leland sat there looking at the tooth. Clifton opened his eyes and asked for more water. Leland felt cheated and hurt. He felt he had wasted last five years of his life away from family and home and gotten a very sour deal. He was left with nothing and Clifton having found the gold had packed most of the profits.

 ‘I don’t believe this’... Leland thought.

  He got angry and walked away from the half conscious/charred body and climbed a small hill away from the one where Clifton laid half dead. He finally sat up and looked at Clifton with an immense sense of being duped and swindled. 

 Clifton asked for water again and this time he grasped his last breath; he died with his eyes transfixed on Leland’s eyes. Leland came back to the body. He thought for a moment and then put his hand in the Clifton’s mouth. The body was still warm. He used an old knife and a stone and started digging deeper into the mouth. He finally got the tooth out which he kept in his pocket.

 Leland finally moved back to Montana sold the gold tooth and acquired large piece land. He started a farm and watermill. He built the watermill himself.

                                                   

He spent rest of his years raising children and finally his grandchildren. Often he would sit next to the watermill in summer afternoons and would watch it in action while contemplating upon the last few moments/days he spent in Nevada. Pretty soon he forgot about the fateful day… and finally passed away on a warm summer afternoon next to the watermill while watching his grandchildren play.

Part Two: Midori and the Waterwheel

Now the cowboy was reborn as Midori and was very selfish by nature. She became an orphan at an early age. Soon she was passed on to an artisan who passed her on to a wealth merchant’s mistress in Kyoto. Mistress (Indian Chief) finally sent her to Maiko school in Gion district to be trained as Geiko (Geisha). Midori wore finest green silk imported from China, wore ivory powder imported from Africa and doused herself in perfume imported from France. Her voice was hoarse and harsh but she made up for it in remarkable movements during the dance. She devised a way to compensate for the voice by adding elegant moves. She soon became the center of attention. Her clients included warlords, merchants, and rich men from all walks of the life. Some of her clients came to see her dance all the way from Tokyo. 

                                                     

One day an attractive young bodyguard of a nobleman from Tokyo arrived in Gion. Young Maikos and old Geikos all flocked to see the young man. Midori decided that she wanted him at no cost and created an elaborate song and dance play out of a Japanese classic in front of the nobleman’s group. Eventually she got close to the bodyguard (the employer) and lured him into her chamber.

            She eventually had an infant child whom she did love much. She was a selfish mother who did not care of any other kids but her own child. As fate would have it, Midori was soon kicked out of the Gieko school. After drifting between friends, she found work at a farm in the southwestern Kyoto for planting and collecting rice. This was an arduous work and Midori lived on a miserly sum. The owner of the farm (one of her grandchildren from cowboy lifetime), a widow, hired her on seasonal basis; she took pity on her and let her live for free during the rest of the year next to the family shrine towards the mountain. Midori cleaned the shrine during the day, fed the ducks in the nearby pond, and played with her baby. Soon she fell into the routine and started liking her new life. She attracted attention of few young farm hands nearby but she did not lead them on and kept it to herself.

                                  

            One day Midori left the baby next to the shrine and walked towards the back to collect the fall leaves. A snake wiggled passed the baby and baby stepped on its tail. The infant died immediately after the snake-bite and turned blue soon. When Midori found the baby, she fell into a shock. She became recluse and stopped going out of the house. A whole month passed and no one saw her except the farm owner who fed her every day and combed her hair. She made sure that Midori was taken good care of.  She would bring her baby boy to her and would encourage her to play with him and tell her to her all about his activities. One day, in the early Spring, while it was still snowing, Midori’s friend took off to a nearby town to look for farm equipment and strike a good deal before the planting season began. Soon after coming back home, she fell sick and took to the bed for several days. Her condition deteriorated further. She knew she was drawing close to her death and called on Midori one last time. She grabbed Midori’s hand, and with pool of tears, she asked her to take care of the baby. Midori hesitated but finally gave her word.  Soon her friend passed away and told her that she is leaving the farm and the farm hands to Midori and that she had signed the papers and kept them next to the baby’s crib. Midori, in her characteristic nonchalant manner, arranged for the cremation and had the farm hands carry out the ashes and bury them next to the farm. She gave them instructions to clean up the farm for the planting and to arrange for a sculptor to create a headstone for the urn as per the custom.

            She came back inside the house and put the baby’s crib next to her bed. The baby (Clifton) cried vehemently. Midori perfectly knowing that the baby needed food and closeness of his mother blatantly ignored him. She simply kept the baby next to her bed and starred at her. The day passed; the baby went hungry and cried all night and finally fell asleep. Next morning, most of the snow melted and it turned into a small spring next to the waterwheel. The sun came out and shone against the last bit of snow on top of the inactive waterwheel.  Baby woke up and opened his big eyes and fixed them on Midori. Midori looked out at the glitter of the snow on the waterwheel in the sunshine. She fell into a trance, and faintly recalled how she remembered it from very far land in very far time. She could not bring the baby up to her breast knowing the baby needed her milk. All the while during her emotional turmoil, the baby kept looking into her eyes. She recognized him and remembered more of their last time together.

                                     

 She finally opened herself and gave up the fight. She fed the baby and love flowed from her for the first time in this and other lifetime personalities which were always at odds with the baby’s personalities. She felt so happy and satisfied at the selfless service she provided. She became elated and took very good care of the baby just like her own.

                                                        

She began to understand the meaning of service to others. Her voice got lighter and sweeter. Her farms grew new grains of rice which became popular. She took the profits and started an orphanage in the countryside where she lived. Her beauty, charm, and kindness was known all over the countryside. However none of that popularity was important to her. Her priority is her child as was the orphanage and the farm. She felt happy from inside.