plane crash

You must have thought about it at some point - you're on the Titanic - everything's normal - around you is the familiar world of people eating, drinking, talking, making plans, dressed to kill, music playing, society and somewhere down there - out of sight - the fathomless cold black water - until the unthinkable happens - until you find yourself at the mercy of a God who doesn't seem to care - a God who's apparently willing to let you down - horribly - handing you the short straw that everyone else gets to avoid - barring a few hundred people alongside you - and the water grows colder the lower the liner slips down to its newly designated point of equilibrium on the ocean floor - and you're already dead even though you're still hoping, praying everything will pass you by, that you're going to wake from this dream that's going so badly wrong - as you've done many times before. "I know I'm going to wake up" you tell yourself, and yet you know you're already dead, somewhere at the back of your head - and you hardly even care - it's all so mindnumbingly ordinary - and the water smells stronger down here as it draws nearer, then the final plunge - the mindbefuddlement of splashing around in blackness - still clothed in human form - and you recall images of fish on deck, flapping around - gasping for breath wide-eyed as you find yourself dragged down once, twice and finally never to resurface - the third time - and the ocean is my home - for here I remain - here I lie - here I find myself strangely at peace with what at first seemed horrendous beyond words until, that is, I awaken in another dream - aboard a plane - and suddenly I recall the life I've only just connected into - the years that I hadn't even known existed a moment before - the many times I've flown this route - the pre-flight safety instructions I conscientiously ignored - exits - life jackets, oxygen masks - seat belts - chair in the upright position, the unlikely event of landing on water - life vests - pull the toggle when outside the plane - piffle - planes don't crash - security scans - bombs on board - fat chance of that - unless they're being planted by the very security forces - black boxes - emergency signals - adopt the brace position - and here we are - once again - facing the unthinkable - our plane has been hijacked - apparently the pilot cannot control it - someone else is doing so remotely - without even having to step on board - and we're all going to die - it's obvious isn't it - by this stage I'm so into this dream I've forgotten Titanic - I'm enjoying the drama - if "enjoy" is the right word - and the emotions - the questions - the wondering why this should happen to me - and what my friends, my family are doing - how the rest of the world is getting on - living a normal day - as I stare into the abyss - knowing this is the end - and the plane lands somewhere - and...

I suppose that means you died?

Ah there you are.

It wasn't painful was it?

It never is.

You seem to be quite an expert at this. Bizarre the way you're always in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Someone's gotta do it. Why not me?

But what do you get from all this high drama?

A glimpse - a snapshot right into the very heart of humanity.

What do you mean?

The perpetrators - the so called "evil ones" who organise these convenient accidents, these black swans, they're unable to do so without opening up a part of themselves they don't seem to know exists.

Their soul?

If you like.

Surely they've long since shut down their soul's involvement in their lives?

You'd think so, wouldn't you. Maybe soul's the wrong word. You see, at a deeper level we're all one.

So it's said.

And so when one part of the human organism tries to wipe out another - it creates a paradox.

You're telling me.

A mathematical improbability that's all but absurd... and yet it's there to be seen - to be felt - to be experienced - clear as day.

Seen by whom?

By me.

So you've seen into the soul of humanity? And what? How has that helped?

As I said - soul might not be the best word.

OK - whatever word you like - but I fail to see how this benefits you in any way.

We are One. Try holding your breath. See what happens.

I'll pass out if I hold it long enough.

But you never do. Your organism is stronger than you. You start breathing again before too long.

But I can always kill myself.

Can you?

Yes, of course I can.

And what?

Then I'll be dead.

From one slant - but not from the oneness that you be.

Er.

Look. I've been sunk, shot up, murdered, sacrificed, dismembered, poisoned, lynched, blown to smithereens more times than I care to remember - but I'm completely unscathed. All that happens in the waking dream. In reality - I and you cannot in anyway be effected by anyone or anything in this physicality - because no one has traction against you - we are all tendrils emanating from the same organism. Not one of us is able to cut ourself from that oneness - and if we were able to - the last thing we'd do would be to waste our time with mere tendrils - we'd move on to something else - something more meaningful - something more substantial.

You're saying we're not substantial?

Not when we try to be what we're not.

Er.

We're only substantial, beautiful, vast, full of meaning and consequence when we're attuned to that which truly is - to that which we truly are - it is - I am.

Which is...?

Correct. Which is

Er.

The isness, whatever that might be.

So you're content to be blown up and dismembered life after life...

Think of it as a computer simulation - then it doesn't seem to strange or meaningless.

A computer simulation?

Yes. Our simulation is truly powerful - to the point of what really feels like pain.

You're telling me - but why call it a simulation?

Because as soon as you come back into your oneness you see beyond any doubt that's what it is.

I don't see how you can be so sure of that.

No, you don't, but I do because I've spent a long time studying this by being blown up.

But how does that tell you anything?

Because the people who were killing me were doing so with one hand, but their deepest stillness - their immortal souls were saying something quite different.

Yes?

Yes.

What?

Not what.

No?

No.

No what?

Not what. Their deepest stillness, their immortal souls were absolutely peaceful - even while they appeared to be involved in heinous criminality - and at the same time that they were acting as murderers and assassins, they were telling me of a love beyond words - a love so deep, so powerful, so all embracing they could only express it and share it with me through what appeared to be cruelty, insanity, barbarity.

Only appeared?

Only appeared - once you are ready to hear what they were really saying while this was happening. You have never heard a tale of such beauty, a song of such ineffable love, or seen a vision of such oneness, wholeness and peace as what they were good enough to share with me. Judge not - we've heard said - and I never got it - never really accepted it until I stopped being their victim and started to experience what was being shared by these friends and magicians.

Friends?! Magicians?! Come on - that's outrageous.

Yes. Until you've seen what I saw - what I still see now; heard what I heard - and continue to hear; felt what I felt and even now feel. The ones we blame, fear and even hate - the ones who we call the enemy are no less of the One than you or I, and in some respects are more so, for they have chosen to enter the game on the dark side, and to bring the light that is, the love that is, the oneness to our attention through their very actions.

So they're serving humanity by killing us and trying to make our lives hell?

They are no more "they" than you and I are "we" or "us". Pointing the finger at them and saying "they" is tantamount to admitting you can't, don't or won't accept the oneness that is, the oneness that we be - in which case you are the one in hell - a hell of your own making - for you have chosen to see yourself as separate, as special, as more than everyone else. That is the only thing that gives them power over you. Your own conscious decision to play out the drama of self-exclusivity, and there's nothing fundamentally wrong with that - it just means that in your own way you're doing exactly the same as them. Deep in your stillness, deep in your heart, in your immortal soul you continue to be of the One - the isness of Be - and yet here, superficially, you've become a version, a what not, an ID - which technically makes you an IDiot.

What?!

Yes. It all boils down to what - an idiot assumes he can say what is what - because presumably he's the one who's above it all. Paradoxically, if it's true - if he is - then he'll not be bothered in the slightest by words such as "idiot" - because why would a god care if a mere mortal presumed to try to label him. Anyone who is truly able to say what is what - who is able to observe and understand the world - is by definition a god - and not of this element.

A god - why not God.

I would not presume to know the difference.

But you'd presume to call me an idiot!

In the same way I'd presume to call you a man. As long as you're working through the seemingly endless drama of identity and self-identification - then the term IDiot is technically correct and empowering because it enables us to establish the whole nomenclature.

Er.

Once we start calling a spade a spade - everything falls neatly into place and we can finally go beyond arguing over terms describing things. We can move on to isness - the isness of Be. So start with being an IDiot - no matter how well intentioned, intelligent or compassionate - and then you can stop fearing, hating or despising the perceived enemy - the evil ones who appear to rule your world. You can fall in love with them instead - for what they be as opposed to what they seem to be.

So I'm an IDiot and they get off scot free?

They are working with you - if only you'll stop insisting you're better than them.

But they're committing atrocities... acts of genocide.

And what?

And they have no morals - no humanity.

And so you judge them believing they should be as you are?

You yourself said we're all one.

True.

So they have to be human too.

As indeed they are, in their own way.

Then they should be working for humanity.

Which they are.

By trying to destroy it? By killing you countless times and countless others?

Yes. That's their role. Their love is big enough to carry them through the darkness they have taken on. How on Earth do you think we'd have activated the human drama if no one had been willing to play the villain? You think it just happened like that? That the darkness just exists of itself?

Er.

It had to be created to be experienced - and it could only be created if one group was willing to take the other side, to play the villain, while the other group agreed somewhat passively to play the victim - and both started to believe that this is all there is.

Well this is all we get to experience - and you seem to be saying it happens lifetime after lifetime.

Seems to - yes - because the story we're weaving has many strands. It's vast beyond belief - which is why it's so convincing - so seemingly real.

And yet you insist it isn't real - it's just a play.

Of course - because mathematically it amounts to nought - it collapses in on itself in an instant without oneness, without the isness of be, like a rainbow spanning all.

And we have to just take your word for it because you claim it's a "mathematical fact"?

What would that achieve? My word is but a word.

Then why are you bothering to tell me all this? Why do you insist you have the definitive answers?

Because I be Merry - and zero equals one.

Er.

So no thing is quite what it seems, and just when you think the end is nigh - the plane is about to crash - the boat to sink - I pop up and equal the seemingly hopeless incongruity - I play my flute and shepherd the dreamers back to their actuality.

Ah - so there you are - now you're claiming to be the one.

On the contrary. Cuckoo la la - I simply play the clown and in the brief interlude of comic relief - you suddenly, powerfully remember who you be and the broken bicycle folds into the wings of a butterfly that carries us back to the flower top where we agreed to convene at the appropriate moment outside the dichotomy of time and space. The only thing I can truly state is what is not, and the remainder is in the capable hands of Story - which has the uncanny knack of resolving itself when you least expect it.

Cuckoo la la