"Seeker…”
A voice bellowed. The seeker looked around, but could not identify the voice’s origin.
“Seeker.” The voice came from all directions. It was so loud that the ground beneath
trembled along with it, and so resonant that the air sung along with it, producing
deep, muffled echoes – or to be more accurate, a steady yet diminishing beat.
“Who are you?” The seeker asked, looking around.
“Who are you?” It sounded like it was a mere echo, but just to be safe (and
polite), the seeker responded:
“I…forgot my name.”
“I didn’t ask for your name, Seeker. I can name you as I please, and you can name
yourself as you please. I asked who you are.”
The seeker contemplated for a long while, before concluding: “I am a conscious
being.”
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA” The voice roared with laughter. The earth started to
shake violently, and cracks and crevasses were starting to form on its surface.
“HAHAHAHAHAHA.” The voice continued, with no sign of stopping.
“Please stop!” The seeker whimpered, trembling with both fear and a slight tinge of
embarrassment. “Please stop!”
“My conscious being, you have yet to cease this habit of naming, in your attempt to
define ‘self’! In fact, you have fallen into my trap! My question was not to be
answered, only to be pondered upon. Its answer was not to be expressed, but felt!”
“I know not what you mean by that, but you have not answered my question. Who,
or what are you? Are you the earth? Are you the sky? Are you the creator of life? Are
you my inner voice?”
The voice did not reply.
“Where are you?” The seeker continued, hoping, whoever or whatever that was,
that it was still there.
“Where are you?” Yet again, it sounded like a mere echo, but the seeker planned to
respond, regardless. Looking around (and realizing that that was the first time he had
done so), the seeker saw an endless stretch of barren earth and sky, extending
into…infinity, where everything converged into blackness. There was nothing else
present, other than himself. Where am I? The seeker thought. Despite his confusion,
the seeker felt oddly calm.
“You learn fast, seeker. You have started to ponder, to feel, instead of hastily creating
an answer. But seeker, surely you must know the answer to this: Where do you
come from? And where are you going? Now, these are questions that can be
answered definitely.”
“I know not. I must have forgotten everything. I only know that I am searching for
something. Thus, I am walking forward.”
…
“Seeker, what is your perception of the universe? What do you think is its defining
law?”
The seeker was hesitant. Was this another trick question? Based on his previous
experience, the voice has a tendency to mock and play with him.
“I find the interconnectedness of all phenomena to be beautiful. For example, cause
is related to effect, self is related to environment, and each life is connected to
another.” He answered anyway.
“Do you understand the nature of such interconnectedness?”
“What do you mean?” The seeker asked, confused.
“For instance, what is the origin of causation, of which is related to effect? What is
the nature of self and the nature of the environment that relates one to the other?
What allows individual lives to influence one another?”
“I am unable to follow…”
“It is consciousness! Consciousness is the most beautiful of all!” The seeker was
stunned. He has never contemplated the value of consciousness. It had always
been something that was always there, as a matter of fact.
“Is the universe conscious?”
“Yes. Consciousness of individual entities are like droplets of water, which, when
combined, form a sea of collective consciousness, a soul of the universe. ”
“And this is what makes everything connected! This reality is indeed very beautiful!
But what is the direction of such collective consciousness? What is it seeking?”
“What are you seeking?”
…
The seeker trudged ahead in silence. He knew not how much time had passed since
his journey had started, as time was warped in this mysterious space – a day felt
longer than a week, an hour, longer than a day.
Mist started to form, blocking the seeker’s panoramic view of the distance ahead,
which was peculiar as this was supposed to be a place of nothingness. Annoyed, the
seeker waved his hands in his attempt to clear the mist. Alas! that act generated
even more mist and soon, the seeker was engulfed in white.
“What’s happening?” The seeker questioned aloud calmly; ears perked up for an
explanation by ‘the voice’.
“What’s happening?” His echo replied anxiously. The mist replied too, by clearing up
and revealing: a tree.
What a magnificent tree! It had a diameter of four football fields, and the height of a
skyscraper! Its golden leaves sparkled under the rays of the sun, and when a
momentary breeze rustled these leaves, it produced a sound similar to that of the
crashing of the strongest waves in the ocean! But behold the most spectacular
observation of all: it was shedding leaves at an extremely fast rate!
Doesn’t it ever run out of leaves? The seeker pondered, moving closer to find out.
Immersing himself under the golden rain of leaves, the seeker looked up, only to find
new leaves emerging on the tree’s branches and enlarging rapidly. At a blink of an
eye, these new leaves were gone too, likely having joined the golden rain, and were
only to be replaced by even newer ones.
“Birth and death.” The seeker muttered.
“Does the tree have thoughts? Do the leaves have thoughts? If they do have
thoughts, are their thoughts separate and independent from one another? If
they do have thoughts, in that fleeting moment of their existence, what do they
make of life? Are the thoughts of the tree simply a collection of the thoughts of
the leaves?
When the leaves fall, do they die? Yet the leaves are a microcosm of a macrocosm
(the tree), which is still alive! The image of the leaf has disappeared, but has it
ceased to exist? What constitutes its existence?
If the growth of new leaves and the falling of old ones represents a cycle of birth
and death, what would the tree represent?”
The seeker looked at the tree, puzzled. The tree looked back.
Wait…can trees smile?
…
The seeker made himself comfortable under the golden tree, leaning against its huge
roots, staring at the canopy overhead, thinking, dreaming. It was the first time the
seeker found himself resting ever since he had begun his arduous journey, which,
looking back, felt so eternal and timeless that it never seemed to have a point of
beginning.
Enveloped within the warmth emitted by the tree’s roots, yet caressed by the cool
breezes that came and went… what a moment of tranquil and solace it was for the
seeker! He picked up a golden leaf lying beside him and analyzed its translucence
under the sun, its glowing rims, its intricate patterns, the dance it makes as it falls
back to the ground…
KABOOM! The sky shouted, startling the seeker back to his feet. It sounded like an
explosion! The seeker looked around in bewilderment. To his horror, he saw the
trunk of the tree turning from gold to black, matching the color of the darkening sky.
Its blackened leaves started to fall urgently – from the seeker’s perspective, it was a
thunderstorm of blackened leaves!
The seeker dug his feet to the ground in desperation, to prevent himself from being
carried away by howling winds that nature had begun to generate. Yet this proved
to be of little use when a huge whirlwind finally arrived to sweep him off his feet.
Before the seeker could mentally process the events that had unfolded, he found
himself in a vertical tunnel of blackened leaves, spinning… spinning…
“Stop!” The seeker shrieked. “This is enough! I have had enough! Stop!!”
The wind shrieked even louder. As if the forces of nature were open for negotiation.
Fortunately, not much more time passed before the seeker was back on the
ground, groaning in pain. The whirlwind was gone; in fact, even the last traces of
wind or the blackened leaves could no longer be detected.
And a deathly silence prevailed.
The seeker looked up at the now barren tree. It looked…pathetic. It’s trunks and
branches were so blackened and dried that they looked charred as a result of a
great fire.
“What happened? What made the tree undergo such tremendous suffering?”
The changes did not end here. Taking a closer look on the blackened tree, the seeker
observed portions of white foams, or bubbling liquids, appearing and disappearing.
These liquids not only emitted rotten-meat-like stenches, they also appeared to act
as acids, creating such deep holes that the seeker was able to look from one end to
the next (through these holes)!
The tree is eating itself up! The seeker realized, aghast. As if all that were not
enough, the tree's branches started to twine around each other, its roots started
curling up and its trunk started twisting -almost as if the tree was writhing in pain!
With every of the tree's tiny movement, huge pieces of bark (or a portion of the
tree; it was hard to say) fell to the ground, and a creaking sound, which sounded
like a cacophony of shrieks, wails, howls and screams, was produced.
The seeker felt his heart twisting and writhing and squirming, just like the tree. All
he wanted. Was. For. EVERYTHING. TO! BE!! OVER!!!
And his wish was granted.
The screaming, confusion and tension escalated to a certain climax, before
everything became quiet once more and the realm regained its tranquility.
The tree appeared no less golden and majestic than it originally was.
It was as if nothing had occurred. Everything felt real, yet surreal.
Once again, a gentle breeze visited the tree, and the swaying of its golden leaves
produced a sea of sounds.
Yet this time, the seeker' intuition told him that there was more to these sounds then
it seemed. The golden tree seemed to have something to convey. A hidden message.
"How did you like my magic trick," The seeker thought he heard the tree say. Magic
trick?
"I did not like it! It was horrifying! What powers have you been granted with, to be
able to take on such drastic forms?" The seeker remarked.
"These are only a few of the thousands of other forms I can take," The
tree chuckled. "Then which is your true form?"
"I have no true form. My entity is one that encompasses all these different forms"
"Then are you inherently good or evil? Are you beautiful or ugly? Are you majestic
or piteous?" The seeker questioned further, with increasing confusion.
“I am “neutral”. In essence, I am neither good nor evil, neither beautiful nor ugly,
neither majestic or piteous. This is the objective reality, my neutral state of being. It
is you and your subjective level of wisdom that perceives me to be one over the
other. It is I and my varying emotions that causes me to experience suffering or joy in
my various forms.”
“I know not what you mean by that”, the seeker concluded, “but I do enjoy seeing
you at your current state, this golden state. It brings me such tranquility and
warmth! Even if you may possess thousands of increasingly ghastly forms, the very
existence this single noble form makes you so dignified and worthy of love and
respect, in my opinion.”
“I do enjoy being at this state too,” The tree admitted, “And it brings me immense
happiness to have the power to choose to be a golden tree, from all the other
possibilities!”
“I really do envy you!”
“There is nothing enviable about me, Seeker! This noble state exists within every
single life, including yours! Perhaps…it is what you are seeking!”
…
The seeker swore to himself (in his deep slumber) that he must have been dreaming
when he heard the thumping of footsteps, the rumble of human chatter; when he
sensed the busy shifting between darkness and brightness through his eyelids, the
varying energies of lifeforms all around him... it was almost as if he had returned to a
distant memory, a world governed by predictable laws and explainable phenomena.
He swore to himself, at the moment he opened his eyes, that he must have been
hallucinating when he saw a single file of human beings (actual, living, breathing
human beings!) marching right before him.
How is this possible? Have I returned to civilization? The seeker experienced a fleeting
moment of glee before sinking into despair.
But I have yet to complete my journey!
The seeker straightened up and made a more careful observation of his surroundings.
Yet the golden tree remained! Heaving a sigh of complicated relief, the seeker turned
his gaze on the group of people. And what an unusual group they were! Completely
dressed in pure white, futuristic looking spacesuits, they were dancing an odd dance
(and making a unique polyrhythm with their stamping of feet) while shifting sideways,
progressing slowly towards the golden tree. Their behaviour was so alluring that the
seeker had to restrain himself from dancing along!
How intriguing! The seeker thought. This appears to be some form of tribal ritual!
Taking a closer look, the seeker noticed something even more curious. A cup of water,
filled to the brim, was balanced on each of their shoulders - and balanced so perfectly
that not a single drop leaked to the ground despite their vigorous body movements!
“Ahh, look who we have here? A seeker!” A vibrant voice - so vibrant that the seeker
felt his heart vibrating along with it in harmony - resounded from all directions.
Looking all around him (twice, before finally turning his head downwards) to locate
the voice, the seeker found an individual half his height looking up at him. The dwarf
had a very peculiar spring shaped hat, one so long that it drooped all the way to the
ground, bobbing up and down.
Hypnotised by the dizzying motion of the hat, the seeker failed to formulate a
response or ask the mountain of questions that had been accumulating.
“A very curious seeker!” The dwarf exclaimed, snapping the seeker back into focus.
“What are they doing?”
“Just continue watching!” The seeker returned his attention to the crowd, who now
encircled the golden tree, chanting something that he did not quite understand. This
was followed by a loud “splash!” as all the cups of water were emptied over the roots
of the tree almost simultaneously.
They are watering the tree! How wonderful!
“That’s correct! We are making an offering to the tree to honour its majestic
existence!” The dwarf boasted proudly, reading the seeker’s mind.
“Seeker, I have chosen to speak to you because there is something I terribly need
your help with.” The dwarf’s tone turned grave. The seeker turned to look at the
dwarf’s eyes. To his surprise, they were bloodshot! The seeker held his breath for a
moment. He had not noticed it earlier, but despite his energetic demeanour, the
dwarf looked so physically weak that he appeared to be hanging on his last breath!
“I am a tribal chief and these - “ The dwarf gestured at the crowd, “-are my people.”
“As you can see, however, I am dying. There is a secret that I have been withholding
from my people for my entire life. If there ever comes a day, after my death, when
they turn evil, I will need your help to reveal it to them. They might refuse to believe
you in their arrogance, but I plead with you, please, please do everything within your
might to convince them of the truth, to save them from suffering!”
What secret? What truth? What suffering? Is this a side quest? But I have to continue
with my journey! The seeker complained in his heart.
“The secret...secret…” The dwarf choked and gagged and coughed, as life’s energy
appeared to seep out of his being. The seeker could not believe that this was the very
same person that had started the conversation with him minutes ago. The dwarf
reached out for the seeker’s hand.
“The secret is that their lives are interconnected with the golden tree! If they harm it,
they will cease to exist themselves! You must stop them from doing so at all costs!
You must...you must…” The dwarf’s voice gradually became muffled as his image
dissolved into the air. The seeker stood with his hand still reached out, stunned.
“Chief is dead! The chief is dead!” A howling voice broke through after the dwarf had
completely vanished. The air froze. A dramatic moment of tension, a momentary lull,
before one would expect a storm of wails to be heard, a tsunami of grief experienced.
“FINALLY! LET’S GET THE GOLD!” A yell broke through the silence.
“Finally! Finally!’ The rest of the tribe echoed. The seeker could not believe what he
was hearing, but what he was about to see would be even more shocking.
The tribe smashed their cups on the tree and left, returning not long after, each
with…
... a huge, menacing axe!
The seeker tasted bile in his mouth. His heart turned sour.
Surely they do not deserve to know the secret! Evil people are not worthy of
compassion! I shall have nothing to do with this and they shall disappear as a result of
their own misdeeds!
After spending weeks with the golden tree, the seeker had developed an extremely
deep, emotional bond with it. It had been his only friend. While it did come across his
mind to protect it at all costs, the seeker had come to the logical conclusion that
doing so was pointless, given that it was apparently neither possible to change the
tribes peoples' greedy minds via persuasion nor was it feasible to stop them by force.
Furthermore, the seeker had made the assumption that not much damage would
have been done to the tree before they would cease to exist anyway.
Yet, the seeker could not help but clench his fist as the tribe started raising their -
My hands!
I can’t feel them!
They’re gone!
The seeker looked down on his body but failed to find anything.
And the next he saw...was blackness
…
Blackness.
The seeker could not feel the ground below him. Perhaps he was falling through a
bottomless pit. Or perhaps he was floating about in a vacuum. Perhaps this is what
“non-existence” feels like. Or perhaps this is what people call “hell”.
Engulfed in pitch darkness and a deathly silence, the seeker lurked as a formless
presence. All that remained of him was his consciousness.
Why am I the one vanishing instead? The seeker wondered. He found this situation to
be absurd - even strangely amusing (despite his predicament).
Was the dwarf lying? Had he meant the opposite of what he said? Why aren’t they
the ones vanishing? Had I actually been wrong?
How could I have been wrong?
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth!
But it is indeed true that I should have tried to persuade them at the very least…
I was but a bystander! I had nothing to do with this!
Was I?
What if...the tribespeople were the real golden trees?
Suddenly, the seeker experienced a wave of warmth, as if a gentle sun had started to
shine upon him. His surroundings started to shine with a luxurious golden hue as he
slowly regained consciousness…
The seeker opened his eyes to the very moment the tribespeople raised their axes in
the air.
“Stop!” He exclaimed. The tribespeople turned to look at him, their faces
emotionless.
“You shouldn’t chop that tree! You will only do harm to yourself by doing so!”
“Lies. You just want to protect your beloved tree!” A tribesperson remarked
monotonously.
“You must think that we are fools! How insulting!” Another chimed in.
“No, this was what your leader wished to -”
“Oh don’t start, just don’t! We are starting to really hate you now!” Many moaned.
I don’t exactly fancy you all either. The seeker thought to himself. Your actions are
condemnable and you should definitely face its consequences. It’s a pity that you are
wasting your lives this way.
Yet, your very lives are invaluable and deserve utmost respect for the infinite potential
they embody! They must be protected at all costs!
“It’s for your own good, please-” The seeker cried.
It was too late. The first axe had struck the tree. Many strikes followed.
But it didn’t matter, because what the seeker now saw was neither a group of devilish
tribespeople, nor was it a golden tree getting devastatingly chopped.
Instead, the seeker found himself immersed in a forest of golden trees! Each tree
appeared to be as majestic and dignified as the very first golden tree he had
encountered!
The seeker took a deep bow at the golden trees and they rustled their leaves,
seemingly in response.
And for this, the seeker experienced a burst of joy.
