TALES FROM THE CARIBBEAN
As the three friends, Dave, Brother Lamb and rooster Barrack slowly wove their way in their little dinghy through the anchored sail boats, they at last cleared the anchorage area, and made their way across the rest of the bay. When they finally reached the open ocean, Dave opened the dinghy’s throttle all the way.
Brother Lamb shouted over the roaring outboard, “Where are we going?”
“To Lovango Cay,” answered Dave.
“I thought we were going fishing,” exclaimed the hungry monk.
“We’ll fish later,” shouted Dave, ‘the sun’s too high right now. Fish don’t have eyelids; they avoid bright light. By the time we get to Santana’s shack it will be late afternoon and we can reef fish on our way home. Besides, the fish will stay fresher if we catch them on our return trip.”
After a high-speed, bone-jarring dinghy ride, the three friends finally reached a natural harbor at Lovango Cay. Dave hit the kill switch on the outboard motor and docked the dinghy while rooster Barrack and the monk tripped over each other trying to be the first to reach sold ground. Dave jeered at them and called them landlubbers as he finished securing the dinghy.
Dave then leapt out on shore and led the monk up a steep path towards Santana’s white-washed shack; Barrack the rooster meanwhile was heading in the opposite direction to another group of buildings where several topless and bottomless Amsterdam girls were sunning themselves. One of the buildings was a hen house: the minute Barrack heard the sound of the clucking hens he ramped up his best voice, and called out, “Cock-a-doodle-doo!”
As Dave and the monk hiked up the path to Santana’s old shack the monk noticed tears forming in Dave’s eyes. The sight of the little run-down structure, the smell of the tropical flowers and blooming cactus, brought back sad memories of Santana’s death. When the old man died, Dave was broken-hearted and totally overwhelmed by grief for days afterwards. And now, almost a year later, he was once again flooded by a rush of sadness that caused him to question God and almost everything else. He had avoided Lovango after Santana died, but he had no choice now, because he knew it would be a safe haven for both the monk and Barrack.
Dave remembered talking to Santana as he milked his goats and made cheese; he was always busy doing something. The thought of never again seeing the sparkle in the old man’s eyes, or hearing his voice when he sang to his goats, or listening to Santana’s stories, caused a horrible emptiness in Dave that brought tears to his eye.
The monk was a perceptive man, who asked Dave simply, “Why the tears?”
Dave tried to deny it and muttered crossly, “I just got some dust in my eyes.”
“Yes,” said the monk. “And the morbid reflection on your face, is that caused by the dust too?”
Confronted with the truth, Dave began quietly sobbing and admitted to Brother Lamb how much he missed the old man.
Dave said, “How could any god allow a good man like Santana to suffer such a lonely and desperate death?”
“Life does not begin at our birth or end at our death,” the monk quietly replied. “Life is eternal, it’s just like energy and matter, it can neither be created nor destroyed. Every major religion, Hindu,
Buddhist, Christian, and Moslem, believe in the transformation or transmigration of human souls; they believe life and death are but two sides of one door. On side says entrance and other says exit but life exists on both sides of the door.”
Dave snapped at him, “Big Jessie said there is no God and when we die that’s it, it’s all over, it’s finished. He says his religion is the ‘Church of the Here and Now,’ and that’s the only thing that makes sense to me too.”
The monk retorted, “God gave human beings free will and they can believe whatever they want, but countless holy men from all different religions throughout history all believed in life after death via resurrection or continual reincarnation. I don’t care if a few self-centered atheists who are suffering from a control neurosis believe differently, my common sense and years of practicing prayer and meditation force me to agree with the holy men.”
“You can’t prove there is a God,” said Dave.
“No, I cannot proved anything to a human being in possession of free-will and a closed mind,” said Brother Lamb, “but you can prove God exists to yourself by doing a few simple daily actions that include daily prayer and meditation. By doing these simple daily actions we can gradually remove more and more of our deep-seated resentments, fears, guilt, denial and shame. Those are what blocks us from the sunlight of the spirit; they are the barriers that prevents the almighty, numinous, omnipotent, omniscience and omnipresent spirit from entering our hearts. Atheists are like a scientist with an enlarged ego who refuses to conduct a simple experiment because he fears it will expose a fatal flaw in his pet theory.”
“It is the great principle stated in the ancient Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus: ‘That which is Below corresponds to that which is Above, and that which is Above corresponds to that which is Below, to accomplish the miracles of the One Thing.’ As we move through the various levels of reality—physical, mental and spiritual—we see that what happens at one level is also simultaneously happening in some analogous way on every other level. The microcosm is an image of the macrocosm, and vice versa. Our spirit mirrors God-and-the-universe and is likewise reflected back into the divine realm.”
“In the Tarot card called the Magician, the central figure gestures upwards with his right hand and points downwards with his left hand, with the symbol of Infinity over his head, to remind us of this great Hermetic principle: ‘As Above, So Below.’ The ancient mysteries are all about developing the spark of the divine inside you, proclaiming man as a creature who is evolving toward Apotheosis—the full revelation of the god within him.”
“The instant mankind separates itself from God, the true meaning of the sacred Word is lost. The voices of the ancient masters have been drowned out, lost in the chaotic din of self-proclaimed pseudo-preachers shouting, ‘We alone understand the Word of God.’ Ancient holy men, scholars and philosophers alike would be shocked to see some of the legalistic religious systems trying to argue that if the letter of their laws and rules are not followed, the souls of the simple peasants listening to them will be condemned to eternal hell, fire, and damnation. Look at some of the modern TV preachers who have set themselves up as toll booths to heaven, saying, ‘Send your money to God, but make the check out to me!'”
“The ancient Mysteries, the Bible, the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Torah, all contain instructions for creating a better relationship with a Higher Power by blowing on the spark of God contained within every soul.”
“It’s all right to grieve the loss of a loved one, but it’s not right to blame God. When we are confronted with the death of a loved one, our task is to trust in God and soldier on. We are truly powerless over everything outside of our own skin. But God can and will do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.”
“So you say Brother Lamb,” Dave replied.
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