THEE SEEKER PT. 4
My eyes were weak...lusting after the world...
Thee Seeker part 4.
The world was like a great mountain. I lived at the bottom where lies marinated and multiplied in the fears of Man. An empty feeling overwhelmed me. I desperately wanted the truth, so I turned my attention towards the summit of the mountain. Perhaps I can find salvation at the peak.
I was anxious during my early ascension. I miscalculated my footing and fell many times. I squeezed through any hole that got me there faster and ate anything I could get my hands on. I rarely stopped for rest and it cost me my sanity. Step by step, I inched away at the summit. At higher altitudes my heart pounded like a slow hard bang on a door. Fear chilled my nerves with her frosty breath and gave my faith frostbites. Often I would lose consciousness, but the sun’s warmth revitalized my purpose. I dreaded looking behind me. I was too afraid of ghosts, too afraid to fall, and too afraid of the bottom.
Months passed and my lungs adapted to extreme elevations. My legs were mighty, I bartered well with the earth for food, and my vision was keen like the eyes of a hawk. I stood at a high-rise surrounded by lush gardens. Spring water flowed into a beautiful enclosure. Giant trees became my shield against persistent winds. I finally felt power inside me. If only people at the bottom embraced their hardship, perhaps they would experience a similar bliss. Instead, they refuse the truth, thus they stumble through darkness with madness and blindness.
Much time passed...
After a strenuous climb... I reached my destination.
What I saw took my breath away.
In the distance there sat a giant temple made from white crystals with a river of gold surrounding it. Above the river was an extremely narrow bridge made from thick glass. I walked the path until I reached the entrance. A sapphire door fifty feet high separated me from the inside. Suddenly, the door opened without my intervention, and I was blinded by a fervent shine. A man appeared, he was dressed in white silk, with hair like wool and white like snow. His face shone like the sun and his eyes were like fire. On his neck he wore twelve shards of one diamond. His hands and feet were stained with blood, and on his hip was a sword of light.
I grew very afraid and fell to my knees with tears, but he touched my head and told me to have no fear. When he spoke, his voice was soothing, like the sound of flowing waters. He asked why I came, so I described my loathsome sentiments towards the base of the mountain. I told him that my intellect surpassed many mortal men; my eyes pierces through the unreal; and my legs moved diligently towards righteousness. What need was there for me to be at the bottom with the unrighteous?
He told me that he would allow me to enter if I completed a simple task. I was to deliver a letter to a woman who sits at the base of the mountain. He took off his silk clothing and wrapped it around my body. In that instance I received awareness for all things.
When I reached the bottom, she was sitting by a river of her own tears. Her hair had dead leaves and roots in them. Her eyes were a testament of sleepless nights. Her lips were blackened like granite. Her skin suffocated her bones like she hasn't eaten in months. I called out to her with a judgmental look. She saw me standing lavishly in silk and cried shamefully. She thought I was an angel of heaven coming to save her. She must have been delusional. I was only a mortal man sent to deliver a message. An angel is an angel by creation. I was born into the dark with humanity, but since been reborn into the light. Had she known my upbringing perhaps she would have more pride.
I knelt towards her and handed her the letter. Just before she opened it, our eyes locked.
That's when I seen it... A reflection of what I was avoiding...
Her eyes were like still waters casting a mirage of my own self hatred. My biggest fear was resurrecting the old me who was covered with filth stumbling through darkness with madness and blindness. But in her, I seen my own struggles. I no longer felt pity towards her, instead I felt pity towards myself. For months I climbed, thinking I was gaining traction, all to reach the top and still be at the bottom. I took off my silk and wrapped it around her frail body. As I stood at the base of the mountain, I witnessed an unexpected transformation. I was everywhere and nowhere, and I was everything and nothing. And in everything around me I saw myself in it. In the dead trees that struggled to grow at the bottom I saw myself in them. In the flightless butterflies and envious caterpillars, there I was. Within the ugliness of the bottom, there was beauty. It was an unbelievable revelation. If felt like my heart fell into a sea of warm cotton. Even at the bottom, the warmth I felt at the summit was there with me. No matter how high or far I go, my reflection will always be in everything I gaze at.
One who thinks of himself as so perfect that he can put distance between himself and others is a fool. One who sees himself in everything so that his heart may not be hardened, is a wise man.
I marveled at that great mountain. When I turned to the women, she had disappeared without a trace. Her letter still remained. I picked it up and opened it....
and in the letter....was no words...
Only my reflection looking back at me.