Why?

[spark]

W  H  Y
(the answer)

I sat alone on the peak of the mountain under the nights sky and I opened my eyes. Next to me, motionless, was the Great Horned Mushroom Goddess born before history, and she looked at me, and I was unafraid. Below me the hills and valleys were thick with humans, and the moon swung low that I might see what they did.

 

"Who are they?" I asked the Goddess. For I was unafraid.

 

And the Goddess answered: "They are the Sons of God and the Daughters of God."

 

I looked again, and saw that they beat and trampled each other. Sometimes they seemed not to notice that the fellow creature they pushed from their path had fallen under their feet. But sometimes they looked as he fell and kicked him brutally.

 

And I said to the Goddess: "Are they ALL the Sons and Daughters of God?"

 

And the Goddess said: "ALL."

 

As I leaned and watched them, it grew clear to me that each was frantically seeking something, and it was because they sought what they sought with such singleness of purpose that they were so inhuman to all who hindered them.

 

And I said to the Goddess: "What is it that they seek?"

 

And the Goddess answred: "Happiness."

 

"Are they all seeking Happiness?"

 

"ALL."

 

"Have any of them found it?"

 

"None of those have found it."

 

"Do they ever think they have found it?"

 

"Sometimes they think they have found it."

 

My eyes filled with tears, for at that moment I caught a glimpse of a woman with a baby at her breast, and I saw the baby torn from her and the woman cast into a deep pit by a man with his eyes fixed on a shining piece of metal that he believed to be Happiness.

 

And I turned to the Goddess, my eyes still blinded.

 

"Will they ever find it?"



And she said: "They will find it."

 

"All of them?"

 

"All of them."

 

"Those who being are trampled?"

 

"Those who being are trampled."

 

"And those who trample?"

 

 

"And those who trample."

 

I looked again, a long time, at what they were doing on the hills and the valleys, and again my eyes went blind with tears, and I sobbed out to the Goddess:

 

"Is it God's will, or the work of the Devil, that men seek Happiness?"

 

"It's God's will......and it looks so like the work of the Devil!" The Mushroom Goddess smiled inscrutably.

 

"It does look like the work of the Devil."

 

When I had looked a little longer, I cried out, protesting: "Why has he put them down there to seek Happiness and to cause each other such immeasurable misery?"

 

Again the Goddess smiled inscrutably: "They are learning."

 

"What are they learning?"

 

"They are learning life. And they are learning love."

 

I said nothing. One man in the herd below held me breathless, and fascinated. He walked proudly, and others ran and laid the dying, struggling bodies of living men before him so that he might walk upon them and never touch foot to earth. But suddenly a whirlwind seized him and tore his purple cloak from him and set him down, naked among strangers. And they fell upon him and maltreated him sorely.

 

I clapped my hands.

 

"Good! Good!" I cried, exultantly. "He got what he deserved."

 

Then I looked up suddenly, and saw again the inscrutable smile of the Mushroom Goddess.

 

And the Goddess spoke quietly. "They all get what they deserve, no worse, and no better.There couldn't be any better. They each deserve whatever shall teach them the true way to Happiness."

 

I was silenced.

 

And still the people went on seeking, and trampling each other in their eagerness to find. And I perceived what I had not fully grasped before, that the whirlwind caught them up from time to time and set them down elsewhere to continue their search. And I said to the Goddess:

 

"Does the whirlwind always set them down again on these hills and in these valleys?"

 

And the Goddess One answered: "Not always on these hills and in these valleys."

 

"Where then?"

 

"Look above you."

 

And I looked up. Above me stretched the Milky Way and the countless stars.

 

 I breathed deeply

 

"Oh"

 

and fell silent, awed by what was given to me to comprehend. Below me they still trampled each other. And I asked the Goddess.

 

 "But no matter where the whirlwind sets them down, they go on seeking Happiness?"

 

"They go on seeking Happiness."

 

"And the whirlwind....it makes no mistakes?"

 

"The whirlwind makes no mistakes. It puts them sooner or later, where they will get what they deserve"

 

Then the load crushing my heart was lightened, and I found I could look at the brutal cruelties that went on below me with pity for the cruel. And the longer I looked the stronger the compassion grew. And I said to the Goddess:

 

"They act like confused men."

 

"They are confused."

 

"What confuses them?"

 

"The name of their confusion is desire."

 

Then, when I had looked a little longer, I cried out passionately:

 

"Desire is an evil thing."

 

But the face of the Great Hormed Mushroom Goddess grew stern and her voice rang out, dismaying me.

"Desire is not an evil thing."



I trembled, and thought withdrew herself into the innermost chamber of my heart. Till at last I said:

"Is it desire that nerves men on to learn the lessons that God has set?"

 

  "It is desire that nerves them."

 

 

"The lessons of life and love?"

 

 

"The lessons of life and love!"

 

 

Then I could no longer see that they were cruel. I could only see that they were learning. I watched them with deep love and compassion, as one by one the whirlwind carried them out of sight.

http://www.bluehoney.org/Why.htm

[senorsalvia]

Shooooeeee!!!!   Great great read...  Coulda read that story for hours on end....  Traversing the path, perchance to learn...........  gracias--sal

[dergheist]

What wonderful prose.  I loved the great read.  Thanks dude.

[cenacle]

desire is *not* an evil thing, i'm glad your piece says so...i distrust any writing or person who says that it is...it's hard, sometimes unbelievably so, but it runs through all creatures and bonds all who live in the material world...that's my take on it anyway, after thinking on it a long time....

i enjoyed your piece and its pictures...thank you

[spark]

peace all. :wink: or i hope anyway...

[fuzz]

thats a very cute tale indeed.

the act of not wanting desire can often turn into a desire itself. its quite a funny paradoxe. personally i research a balance with my desires. its sometimes nice to curve ones desires, and sometimes nice to dwellve right into them. depends on the time and space, i suppose :shock: