CHAPTER 16: Karma

   I had dressed, eaten breakfast, and done a lot of floor pacing and it was still only 6:45, but I decided to call Karl anyway. He usually woke up at about 7 a.m., but today he answered on the first ring. He had been awake for almost an hour struggling with a feeling that he ought to call me.
   Five minutes later I was sitting with Karl and Neda at their kitchen table sharing Karl's carrot juice.
   I told them about Eli's revelation.
   "I've always told you to pay more attention to what I say!" Karl laughed. Then, looking thoughtful, he added, "Do you suppose there could be something to that, Jon?"
   "My dearest and truest friend, there was never any doubt!" I said as I threw my arm across his shoulders. A lump arose in my throat and my eyes burned briefly with the poignancy of restrained love that aches to be expressed.
   I told them about my difficulties in 2150. When I finished with Lea's telepathic dream communication, Karl got up from the table and said, "That Macro society of yours will be guiltier than Elgon if they let Carol die when they could easily save her."
   "But Karl, they don't look at death the way you do," Neda said. "Besides, from the Macro view there is no problem, since it's a perfectly just universe and no one can experience anything that he hasn't chosen."
   "What about the population explosion that Elgon is planning? My God, with 30 to 50 kids in every family it won't be long before they take over the world by sheer numbers!"
   "Yes," I replied, "I've thought of that, too, but I know that the Macro society won't interfere with the free will of anyone."
   "But they force people to stay on Micro Island," Karl objected.
   "That's not true, Karl," Neda responded.
   "How the hell do you know'!' Karl exploded.
   "Because Jon told me," Neda answered as she got up and gave Karl a smile and a hug which melted his irritation.
   "She's right," I said. "C.I. told me that although the Macro society originally gathered up all the micro survivors after the disastrous earth changes and plagues and put them on Micro Island, it was not done to punish them, but to help them."
   "How's that?" Karl asked.
   "Well, they planned to use Micro Island as sort of a grade school where they could show everyone the concepts of Macro philosophy," I explained. "Elgon and Sela were among the early resource people there on the island. It was the misuse of their powers, which they used to control their students, that caused their regression to lower levels of awareness.
   "Elgon insisted that there was one way and only one way to attain Macro awareness, and that way was his way. He stopped being a modest resource person and became an arrogant teacher declaring himself as the one and only authority on Macro awareness.
   "He then gathered about him such souls as he could influence through coercion, intimidation, hypnosis, or just plain fast talk, and started his own little 'family.' His aim was to clean up the Macro society by giving them firm rules to live by, a police force to help them stay within these rules, and a great charismatic leader-himself -to look to for wisdom and guidance.
   "As long as his students did as he said, he 'loved' them dearly and praised them as his 'family.' If they did not do as he said, he told them they were inferior, excluded them from his 'family,' and directed his remaining followers to do likewise. One could get back into Elgon's family only by acknowledging his omniscience."
   "Then why do all those people stay on Micro Island if the Macro society doesn't keep them there?" Karl questioned.
   "Elgon's propaganda has most of them believing they have the best of all possible worlds. Those who are discontent are not permitted to leave. Elgon knows that if they are exposed to a more Macro way of life they will lose their fear of him and he will lose his power."
   "But, Jon, if you and the Macro society know this, why don't you capture Elgon and his thousand controllers and put them on another island where they can't control the lives of other people?"
   Neda answered, "Because that would be controlling the lives of Elgon and his followers, which would, in the long run, just keep the problem alive."
   "How do you figure that?" he asked.
   "It would be just like healing someone who had not yet learned all they wanted to learn from being sick. He'd have to start the lesson all over again. If those souls didn't want to grow from a micro experience they would not have chosen to be born into Elgon's rule," I explained. "If we end the experience for them they'll just have to design another experience to learn that lesson from. No, if it's to end, they must end it themselves."
   "Then there's no hope!" Karl exclaimed. "You've just got to let everyone crap on you and take it with a smile. I'll be damned if I'll buy that humble pie nonsense."
   "You're right, Karl," Neda said. "You'll be damned, by your own negativity. That's what hell and damnation are all about. They are the micro refusal to accept the consequences of our own actions."
   "Now, wait a minute, Jon," Karl injected. "Didn't you once tell me that the Macro society doesn't believe in eternal hell or damnation?"
   "That's right," I answered. "But remember, our subconscious mind contains the memory of all our past thoughts and actions. To the extent that we try to avoid applying what we learned from the lessons offered by our past experiences, we are unconsciously driven to repeat them. In other words, we attract to us exactly those experiences which we, within our own minds, condemn."
   "I was fascinated," Neda added, "to learn that we can only hate or dislike that which is in our selves, and we can only love or like that which is in our selves."
   "That's a lot of crap," Karl said shaking his head. "Why, I can hate a rapist and murderer and not have that inside me."
   I shook my head, "According to the Macro philosophers, to the pure in heart all is pure. So, if you find yourself hating or condemning anything, you not only have performed the same act in the past, but by actively condemning this action you'll soon find yourself performing it again possibly in this very life, though some times in another."
   "I just don't believe that," Karl replied stubbornly.
   "I can understand why you wouldn't believe it," I responded. "It's only been since I've been able to recall more and more of my past lives that I've been able to see the truth in it."
   Neda reminded us that it was time for Karl to go off to teach his morning class, so I said I would see them later and went back to my apartment. There I wrote in this journal, bringing it up to date.
   I spent the rest of the day trying to figure out some way to reach Carol and get her away from Micro Island. By evening I still hadn't thought of any successful way to save Carol without giving in to Elgon's wishes that I become a permanent resident of Micro Island.
   That evening I had dinner with Karl and Neda and I explained to them that I felt that Elgon's thousand followers with their telepathic mind net were just too much for me to overcome.
   "In other words," Karl said, "no matter what you might try to do they could stop you by overpowering your mind."
   "And the reason you're having this experience is because when you were a priest in ancient Atlantis and had Macro powers you frustrated others by controlling their minds. Right?" Neda asked.
   "That's right," I agreed. "But being able to remember the classes I failed doesn't mean I like taking them over."
   "Well," Karl said, "then the solution to saving Carol is rather simple. All you have to do is cooperate with Elgon."
   "You mean," Neda added, "all he has to do is sell his soul to Elgon."
   "No, that's not true," Karl protested, "because once he has let Elgon and his gang complete the time translation he will have freed Carol and become a permanent resident in 2150. Then he has the rest of his life to escape from Micro Island with or without the help of the Macro society."
   "You forgot one thing, Karl," Neda reminded him. "The wisest people of the Macro society said that if the time translation came before he had attained level-three awareness he would soon regress and lose his Macro awareness."
   "But not necessarily my Macro powers," I added, "which would really cause me trouble because Macro powers without Macro awareness are always used for micro purposes."
   "Oh, hell!" Karl complained. "The more the two of you talk, the more hopeless it becomes."
   "Is it really as hopeless as it looks, Jon?" Neda asked
   I shook my head, "I can't see any way out. It looks like the perfect double bind-I'm damned if I do, and I'm damned if I don't."
   "But, Jon," Neda said, "certainly the Macro society wouldn't have allowed you to walk into an impossible situation. After all, Rana said she believed in you. That must mean that she knew your future wasn't hopeless."
   "She also. believed that the greater the failure, the greater the success-another thing that doesn't make sense from the micro viewpoint," I reminded Neda.
   "Wait a minute," Karl inserted, "if you could just attain level-three awareness in the next two weeks the Macro society would know it and then they would complete translation, right?"
   "I thought of that," I said, "but going from level two to level three is like going from first grade to ninth grade, according to C.I., and no one has ever done it in just a month."
   "Well," Karl replied, "then you can be the first! After all, they've never had a time translation before, either."
   "No, Karl," I replied, "that's just too simple a solution. In all my experiences in 2150 there has never-not even in a single case-been an easy solution. Every time I tried to find one I ended up embarrassed by my own ignorance. I've always had to use my head-I've always had to stretch to my limits. This is no exception.
   "I can't just up and make level three with a snap of my fingers without giving up some of my micro ways of thinking. And there's the key, Karl, giving up my micro ways of thinking. If I could just see the situation from a Macro perspective the solution would probably jump out at me.
   "I don't know, Karl. I'll go back upstairs and sleep on it. Maybe when I wake up in 2150 I'll think of something."
   When I got to the door I came out of my daze and turned to say, "Hey.. thanks. Thanks to you both. See you tomorrow." I closed the evening and did just what I said I was going to do.
   When I woke up in 2150, however, I didn't think of anything new.
   For the rest of the week I kept making futile attempts to contact Carol and to break out of my suite of rooms in 2150, while back in 1976 I spent my time pacing the floor or discussing this maddening puzzle with Karl and Neda. But in spite of all the hours of thinking and talking, no solution came to me. Then one evening Neda asked me if Elgon's telepathic mind network blocked out all my Macro powers. I responded affirmatively, and that was that.
   Later the same evening while I was trying not to go to sleep, so I could postpone waking up in my 2150 prison, I remembered Neda's question and began to review the seven Macro powers. I considered clairvoyance, telepathy, and precognition. Of these the first one worked, but was no help. The second one was blocked, and the third one I had never developed much but doubted whether knowing the future would be of much help to me with this problem. Considering the next three, retrocognition, PK (psychokinesis), and telekinesis, I again drew a blank, for the first one worked but was no help, while the second and third were blocked. This left only the seventh, which was astral projection. Was that, too, blocked? I didn't know because, since it didn't seem very practical, I had never consciously tried it.
   For a prisoner, though, surely astral projection, in which one leaves the physical body and its limitations and moves about in an astral body with no physical limitations, could have definite advantages. I could visit Carol, the Macro society, and Lea. I had wanted to talk with these people, and astral projection was the only way left to do it. Or was it? Could I learn to use it, and even if I could, would the telepathic mind net interfere and stop me? I decided that the only way I could answer these questions was to put them to the test, so I immediately began trying to free myself from my physical body. I failed.
   After thirty minutes of failure in my attempts to separate my astral body from my physical one I gave up and began trying to remember everything C.I. had told me about this seventh Macro power.
   I remembered that my trips into the future had been via my astral body, which was connected to the 1976 physical body by a sort of electrical-energy umbilical cord that had unlimited elasticity. This was the silver cord that mystics throughout the ages had talked about as maintaining the life-giving contact between the astral and the physical bodies. Once this silver cord, made up of very rapid electrical vibrations, is severed, the physical body dies.
   When I had first come to 2150 I had been provided with a new physical body and a second silver cord to provide the necessary connection between my astral body and this new physical body. This worked because the Macro society had my twin soul, who shared an identical astral-soul pattern with me. They used this as a model from which to fashion the physical body, the silver cord connection, and to supply the, psychic translation for attracting my astral body through time and space.
   If this seems not only complex, but incomprehensible, it is-to the micro self. C.I. had given me a far more lengthy and complex explanation but I had decided that I didn't need to know all about this Macro area so I hadn't paid very close attention. Now I desperately wished that I had. Still, however, the two essential ingredients in all learning were desire and belief, and if I had these, then I could learn astral projection. I certainly believed it was possible because I had already experienced it. The problem, therefore, must lie in the area of desire.
   I practiced the Macro pause, in which one instantly expands his perspective from micro to more Macro. It became immediately obvious that, as usual, I had been desiring not to fail in accomplishing astral projection, which meant that my mind had been focused on failure rather than success.
   Once I was able to see my efforts from a Macro perspective I could remember that all failure is success (leads to success) and, thus, forgive myself so that I could start again without the interfering load of anxiety and guilt. I began by recalling the sensations I had experienced on my first visit to 2150 when I had awakened in my astral body. Then I began gradually imagining and desiring my astral body to stand at the foot of my bed. The desire built until I began imagining the perspective of my bed and physical body from the foot of this bed.
   Suddenly with a sort of snap I was standing looking across the bed at my sleeping physical body.
   Again I experienced the marvelous sense of freedom from physical limitations and discomforts. And now, even in 1976, I had two healthy and whole legs. C.I. had said that articles of clothing on the astral level were created as thought forms, so I mentally visualized myself clothed in my 2150 aura tunic. Sure enough, it became a reality so that I could experience the sensation of pulling and tugging on it and having it respond just as my tunic would in 2150.
   I now began walking about my room as I would with my 2150 physical body only about a foot off the floor. Levitating this astral body didn't take near the amount of PK energy that I had to expend to levitate my 180 pound physical body. As I approached the door I forgot and tried to open it and had the uncanny sensation of watching my hand disappear through the door. I quickly followed it and found myself out in the hallway. Then instead of walking to Karl and Neda's apartment I visualized myself standing in their living room and instantly I was there.
   Walking through the bedroom door and over to where Karl was sleeping, I tried to wake him. Of course, he couldn't hear me and my shaking his shoulder didn't work, as my hand went right through him. I looked at Neda sleeping next to him and tried telepathic contact asking her to wake up. In just a few seconds she opened her eyes and looked about. I immediately used PK to turn on the lamp on her night stand. This startled her, but she didn't look frightened. I used PK to pick up the pencil and wrote the word "Jon" on the pad of paper which Neda used to record her dreams.
   She started to become alarmed so I began telepathically reassuring her that all was well, impressing on her mind the concept of astral projection. I could tell that I wasn't completely successful because she woke up Karl and said, "I heard Jon calling me and telling me to wake up."
   "When?" Karl mumbled sleepily.
   "Just now," she replied, "and when I opened my eyes I couldn't see anything at first, but then the.lamp turned on."
   "You must have turned it on," Karl said. "You were probably dreaming."
   "That's what I thought at first, but when I picked up my dream notebook to write down the dream I saw this," Neda responded holding out the tablet for Karl to see.
   He looked at the spot where Neda was pointing, saw my name written there in my own handwriting, and was suddenly wide awake and climbing out of bed.
   "I'm going up and see if he's all right," he said as he slipped into his robe and slippers, then started out of the room.
   I decided that the quickest way to reassure Karl was to go back and get my physical body-which I did-and met Karl halfway up the stairs. I explained about my experiment with astral projection and apologized for waking him up. He insisted that I come back with him and explain it all to Neda. I did, as quickly as possible, so they could get back to sleep and I could get back to 2150 and try using this new Macro power to solve my problem.
   Once back in my apartment I had no trouble getting to sleep and was soon lying under the canopy of my bed in Elgon's palace. My one great concern was that the telepathic mind net might stop me before I could escape from my physical body, or once out of it force me back into it. Therefore, I immediately focused my mind on the end of the bed and again slipped out of my physical body. Once I was completely out of the physical body I visualized the journey back to my Alpha and was instantly there standing in the middle of our Alpha room just as I had visualized it.
   The emptiness of the room without Carol punctuated the urgency of her plight and I sought out the rest of our Alpha to ask for their suggestions. It was breakfast time and I found them all in the dining room talking about Carol and me. As I entered the room Steve was the first to become aware of me and he directed the attention of the others toward me. Then everyone was aware of my presence except Adam and Nancy, who were having some temporary difficulty tuning me in. I was pleased to find that I had no difficulty hearing them.
   I soon learned that the whole Macro society was aware of all that had happened to Carol and me. Unfortunately, they had no suggestions as to how Carol and I could escape from Elgon without help from the superior Macro powers of the Macro society.
   I decided to talk to Rana to see if she could offer a solution to my dilemma. But before I left my Alpha members, something very strange happened. Adam and Joyce asked if they could accompany me back to Elgon's palace.
   I refused. "If Carol and I can't escape, you'd just be two more prisoners for Elgon."
   "We realize that," Joyce said, "but Adam and I would like to be with you during the next few days, Jon. If we can't help you, we'll at least provide companionship."
   I was reminded that if I couldn't raise my awareness level and still refused to cooperate with Elgon I would have just a few more days in 2150. I was touched by Adam and Joyce's offer to share my prison even if it meant becoming prisoners themselves. I thanked them; but explained that knowing Elgon had four of us instead of just two would more than double my anxiety, and if I needed companionship I could now just project my astral body to visit with them.
   It was Adam who then said, "Perhaps we can help you another time then, Jon. You 'see, we owe you a great debt, for you were of great help to us in another life. In that life you know us as Griff and Judd."
   To say that I was breathless, speechless, elated, is an understatement, for beautiful vivacious Joyce and tall handsome Adam bore absolutely no physical resemblance to Griff and Judd of 1976. Yet, as I reached out to make contact with their Macro selves, I knew these were indeed the same two souls who 174 years ago had inhabited bodies called Griff and Judd, and I thrilled with the joy of their growth.
   I embraced them and thanked them, touched by their concern. I assured them that any debt to me was amply repaid by their willingness to give up their lives to join me in Elgon's palace. Before I left, I made them promise that they would not try to join me on Micro Island. Then I bade farewell to all my Alpha members. As Nancy's eyes caught mine, my blood felt warm inside me and I wondered if she knew-if Bruno had known.
   No time to pursue that now, though. I surrounded her with loving thought and went immediately to the tutoring room to meet with Rana.
   It was still early morning and I had always met her in the evening. Still I had an overpowering feeling that she would be there waiting for me. I wasn't disappointed, for, as usual, the door opened before I got to it. Upon entering I found Rana calmly sitting back in one of the chairs smiling at me as if we were meeting for one of our regular Personal Evolution sessions.
   "I won't ask how you knew I would be coming here at this time in my astral body," I said, "because I'm sure that your power of precognition is working perfectly along with your telepathy which told me that you'd be here."
   Rana nodded her agreement. "I also know," she said, "that you are hoping I will have a solution to your problem with Elgon. You'll, be pleased to know that I have learned the solution from your own mind."
   "My God! Thank you, Rana, thank you," I said with joyous relief. Then urgently, "What is it?"
   She shook her head. "I'm going to disappoint you, Jon, by refusing to tell you what I see you doing in the future."
   "What?" I asked, shocked by this turn of events. "Are you telling me that you know the solution but you won't tell me what it is? Are you afraid that if you tell me it won't happen?"
   "No," she replied. "Whether I tell you or not, there is only one course of action that you will take at this time."
   "Then I can't understand why you won't tell me what it is if it can't affect my future actions," I said puzzled and bewildered.
   "Because," she answered, "if I tell you, it will affect your future thoughts, and while this won't change your actions with Elgon it would change your actions later on."
   "I don't understand, Rana," I said. "What do you mean?"
   "I'm talking about the problem of good and evil," she replied, "which will be your final test for third-level awareness. You'll remember that these concepts, like everything else, depend on the size of your perspective.
   "The measure of a mind's evolution is its acceptance of the unacceptable. What may be unacceptable at the micro level is always acceptable at the Macro level."
   "Yes," I concurred, "and I remember that everything is perfect from a totally Macro view. But what's that got to do with the solution to my problem?"
   She continued her explanation, "I'm saying that ou haven't become aware of your only satisfying solution to Elgon's threat is because you've been using a micro view in which it appears unacceptable and even bad or evil."
   "Then you're saying that if you told me what it was I would use it, but for the wrong reasons-because you told me and not because I discovered and accepted it myself, right?"
   "That's exactly right, Jon," she replied, "and while this would not affect the distant future it would affect your next ten thousand years and lengthen the time before you and Lea will become one again at the physical and astral levels:"
   "I hate to say this, Rana, but thank you for not telling me," I said reluctantly. "I'll have to go back to Elgon's palace and see how long it takes me to discover this solution which you say is already in my mind-the one course of action that I can take."
   As I prepared to leave, Rana cautioned me to be careful not to see Lea before returning to Micro Island. I asked why.
   "Because," Rana explained, "as your twin soul she will not, at this time, be able to hide from you the solution you're seeking, and the effect will be the same as if you had gotten the information from me."
   I thanked her once again and agreed to follow her advice. Then I returned to Elgon's palace without attempting contact with Lea.
   I realized that in spite of the constant video picture of Carol in her empty room I didn't know where that room was. I would have to explore the palace to find it. Then I made my big mistake.
   I forgot that Elgon had stationed a number of his telepaths outside my room and when I came walking through the walls out into the hallway they saw me immediately and tried to stop me. I visualized myself in the huge dining room and disappeared from their view, but they had already notified the rest of their mind net of my escape into my astral body.
   Finding myself suddenly in the dining hall I began running with literally the speed of thought, from room to room hunting for stairs leading down into the lower levels of the palace, because I felt that's where I would find Carol. By the time I located the right stairs and had descended to the level where I felt Carol was being held, Elgon's telepaths had located me.
   Once again I felt the increasing power of the crushing vise on my mind, but this time I sought to deal with it by not resisting. I tried to respond to it with Macro loving acceptance. At the same time I continued my search for Carol. The underground cellars of Elgon's palace seemed a veritable labyrinth of rooms, but at last I passed through the right door and found myself in the right place with Carol lying as if dead at the center of the room. As I started toward her, I heard deep booming laughter as Elgon emerged from the shadows at my side.
   Almost instantly the pressure of the vise upon my mind multiplied and I realized that Elgon was now personally directing the Macro powers of his thousand-member mind net with crushing force upon me. I have no doubt that Rana or even Lea could have handled their telepathic onslaught, but my level-two powers were no match for this mind net.
   The pressure quickly overwhelmed me. I could no longer accept it. Then as I began to struggle against it the end came very suddenly. I lost consciousness and awoke back in 1976.
   My room was dark. It was only 4 a.m.
   I quickly decided to go back to sleep and see what had happened to me back to 2150. While it took me some time to calm my mind from the vivid memory of the crushing vise, I at last managed to fall asleep and awakened back in the canopied bed with Sela bending over me.
   The moment I opened my eyes she said, "You are a fool, Jon Two."
   I smiled at her in Karl's wry cynical way and said, "I see you no longer keep up the pretense that I'm a level ten."
   "That's right," she replied. "We've discovered that your Macro powers are very limited. You'll hardly be attaining level three in these next few days.
   "But that's not why I was calling you a fool. Don't you realize that if you leave your body unprotected while you're gone from it on the astral plane someone who knows how-as I do-can sever the silver cord and separate you permanently from your physical body?"
   "Yes," I said. "I knew this, but you want me to become a permanent 'live' resident of Micro Island, not a dead one. My propaganda value would be worthless if I was dead."
   Sela gave me her sensuous look in which her tongue touched her lips in a kissing motion before she said, "I don't want you dead, Jon. I want you as my lover, and I know that unless you help us complete your time translation that magnificent body of yours will soon die, and your mind will be lost 174 years in the past."
   "Sela," I said, "I no longer desire a micro existence."
   'But you have no choice," she replied. "You can either live on Micro Island in 2150 in a well-run micro society or you can live in 1976 in a chaotic micro society."
   When I didn't reply to this she finally gave a long sigh of resignation and said, "You leave us no other choice but to release Carol to find her own way back to the Macro society. You realize, of course, that since she will not obey our laws she will be put to death."
   "That's murder!" I said.
   "It's not murder," she replied. "When a person chooses to break laws that she knows will cause her death, that's suicide. Of course, you can always prevent her death by agreeing to become a permanent resident of Micro Island."
   "Give me more time," I said. "Let me think about this."
   "You've had plenty of time, Jon," she said, "but to show our generosity we'll give you one more day. If by tomorrow morning you have not decided to cooperate with us we will release Carol and you can watch her cause her own death."
   After a long silence Sela left and I began pacing about my prison suite trying vainly to discover the solution that Rana said was already in my mind. What was it, I wondered? What would appear the worst possible decision I could make? Well, from one view point, it would be defying Elgon and refusing his terms. That would humble my pride because I would not only lose Carol, but also my chance to live in 2150.
   Yes, without a doubt the hardest thing for me to do would be to watch Carol being executed by the Micro Islanders-especially knowing that I could have prevented it.
   I remembered Rana saying, "But nothing is terrible from the Macro view. Things can only be terrible from the micro perspective, which is too limited to see that we live in a perfectly just and balanced– macrocosm in which we experience only what we have chosen."
   Then if Carol dies, I thought, she will have chosen it and it will bother me only to the extent that I view her as a possession of mine that I can lose. We can have anything we desire and believe in sufficiently, say the Macro philosophers, and since each soul has free will and absolute Macro power there is no problem.
   All right, I agreed, there is no problem from the Macro perspective-but I don't live at that level! Where I live, there are lots of problems, and at the moment the most important one is saving Carol from death and me from losing 2150. This would lie resolved successfully if I would just cooperate with Elgon. Then I could dedicate the rest of my life to finding a way to return to the Macro society. But would I?
   I was left completely alone for the rest of that long day and evening while I agonized over what I should tell Elgon in the morning. By the time evening came, I was completely, exhausted, having come to the conclusion that I would choose life for Carol, and, thus, life for me on Elgon's Micro Island. Sleep finally came, bringing with it a ghastly nightmare.
   I dreamed that I was dressed in long black robes sitting as a judge in a vast desert. In front of me as far as I could see there stretched a long line of people whom I must judge. According to the bailiff standing beside me they had all committed some crime requiring the death penalty. As I listened to each person's explanation of his crime, however, it seemed to me that they all pleaded in such a moving and piteous fashion that I waived the death penalty for each and every one of them. They cheered, thanked, praised me because I chose life for all who came before me.
   Then the scene changed to another part of the desert and I found myself walking with the bailiff at my side through a gigantic prison yard where all those whom I had saved from death were shackled by a great ball and chain so that they could barely move. Now instead of praising and thanking me they were all cursing me. I was appalled to see that they were all afflicted with some hideous disease that was destroying their bodies by slowly eating the flesh from their bones. Somehow I felt compelled to look at every one of these prisoners whose lives I had saved and who were now such grotesque and horrifying victims of a plague that slowly and painfully ate away their bodies.
   I heard one call out to me. Turning to him, I shuddered and awoke in tears of terror, for the prisoner who last cursed me for saving his life was Karl!
   I felt sick at my stomach with self-hatred to think that I could do that to Karl even in a dream.
   Why would I have such a dream? What could it possibly mean? As I asked this question I remembered the words of Rana, "All pain, misery, and disease are the results of resisting that which is inevitable-that which we ourselves have chosen to grow on."
   Then what was the solution? Again I could almost hear Rana saying, "The only way to balance negative actions is with positive actions. Thus, loving acceptance balances all. The only sin anyone ever commits is denial of the perfection of what is."
   Then my dream, I decided, must have been created by my higher self to show me the consequences of trying to deny the perfection-the necessity-of what is. Did this mean that I should take the other path and let Carol die?
   Had I let Karl die in the past? Is that why he was in my dream?
   From some cranny of my mind came two replays; one in which Karl was finishing off a pint bottle of carrot juice, and one in which Carol was getting her usual from the mechanism in the cafeteria-carrot juice.
   Then a double exposure-Carol's 1976 "past" life review of herself as a black student fighting pollution, and Karl ranting about industrial pollution.
   My mind raced.
   But she's a girl-the girl I love, my soul mate, my Alpha mate!
   And Karl? He's a man-the man I most love, my best friend, my stepbrother, my roommate!
   "Oh, my God!" I thought out loud. "Oh, my everloving God!"
   I grasped my arms across my chest and rocked back and forth in my pain, conflict, agony, fear, and joy.
   When I finally got it all together and accepted the perfection of this new insight, I went downstairs and laid the news on Karl and Neda.
   It hit them just about the way it hit me, and we all ended up in tears of joy and amazement at the incredible perfection of the eternal plaid of our lives.
   The big question remained. Should I let Carol-Karl?-die?
   I spent the rest of the day trying to answer this question and by evening I admitted to Karl and Neda that the thought of watching Carol die when I could have prevented it was just more than I could take. We talked far into the night with Karl arguing that my decision to save Carol and myself was the only sane and decent one, and with Neda arguing that I should ask my higher self for the answer and follow it, no matter how difficult.
   I just shook my head, then went back to my apartment. Once in bed I didn't want to go to sleep until I was sure of my decision for Elgon, so I tossed and turned until finally in desperation I remembered Carol's advice whenever I was particularly frustrated: Macro contact recall.
   As I focused my mind on my last contact with the Macro self I felt the anxiety and tension begin flowing out of my body. The rhythm and depth of my breathing changed and again the unspeakable union of all opposites led to the ultimate experience of that which is beyond time, space, and words.
   I must have fallen asleep because when I opened my eyes I saw both Sela and Elgon bending over me. Then I heard Elgon say, "I'm glad you're finally awake. We're ready for your decision."
   Without thinking I replied, "I've decided to learn the lessons I came here to learn and permit Carol to do the same."
   "You mean you are willing to watch her die before your very eyes?" Sela said.
   When I didn't reply Sela pointed-to the video screen. "Are you sure you can live with that decision?"
   I looked across the room at the giant video screen. The picture of Carol had changed. Instead of lying on the floor of a barren room she was now spread-eagled against a wall in the courtyard with manacles at her wrists and ankles. Her body was naked and obviously conscious because it seemed to be writhing in pain. A close-up picture of her face revealed that her catatonic trance had been ended, for her eyes were open and staring at something before her. Then the picture changed and I saw what she was looking at-a howling, screaming mob of Micro Islanders who were being restrained by a high steel-like mesh fence.
   "If we raise that fence," Elgon said, "that mob will stone her to death for advocating birth control and refusing to bear children. Since she's a foreigner, the penalty for those crimes is death. Are you sure you won't cooperate with us, Jon?"
   I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak.
   Elgon and Sela observed me intently without speaking and the silence between us grew until suddenly Elgon nodded his head and the audible sound from the video panel increased.
   I tried not to look at the screen but my eyes seem to have a life of their own. I stared at the mob which was now pouring through the opened fence, racing to large piles of small, sharp, quartz-like stones that were piled several feet in front of Carol.
   For the next half-hour I watched the mob-men, women, and children-throw the small sharp stones at Carol's suffering body. I watched the whole gory process from the first superficial cuts on her beautiful legs, arms, breasts, and face until her whole body was covered with gaping bloody wounds, and finally to the sight of one eye gone and the other hanging by a shred of tissue down her torn and bloody cheek. Since the stones were small, they left her conscious till the very last, her lovely body literally hanging in shreds from her bones.
   Even with the memory of my most recent Macro contact fresh in my mind that half-hour was the most excruciatingly painful of my entire life.
   Elgon broke the silence. "It's one thing, Jon, to watch another person die like this. It's quite another to experience it yourself."
   With these words Elgon summoned a number of his followers who led me out of the palace to the same courtyard wall from which the remains of my beloved Carol were now being removed so that I could take their place. As they hurled me forward my feet were gouged by the sharp white stones now stained red with her blood.
   The mob regathered, shouting obscenities and accusations at me as I was thrust against the slaughtering wall, still wet with blood. As they snapped the bloody manacles around my wrists and ankles, my mind became a blur of memories-Lea, and our brief moments together-Rana and the many lessons I should learn... did learn?... would learn?-Neda and her incredible transformation-Karl, my faithful friend, and the trauma I had brought into his life these past few months-and his parallel self, my beloved Carol whose warm blood separated me from the coarse brick of the wall behind me.
   In the distance I saw Elgon and Sela moving toward me through the crowd. Somehow, though they stood only inches from me now, they seemed also to be miles away. Elgon dipped the tips of his fingers into the red pool below me. Then, wiping his fingers across my chest, he asked me contemptuously if I would like to reconsider my decision. I did not speak, for the answer lay bitterly in my eyes.
   Turning his back to me, Elgon bent to pick up two of the red-stained stones. He held these up for the crowd to see, then handed one to Sela as he turned and, facing me now, cast the first stone.
   I heard, deep in the recesses of my mind, the voice of Rana echoing, "In ancient Judea, Jon, the souls of Carol and yourself incarnated into a fierce and proud family. You grew up to be beautiful to look at but vain and proud. You were quick to condemn and more than once self-righteously joined in the stoning to death of those you condemned."
   I knew why it was happening, but my eyes and my mind were still overflowing with hatred for Elgon.
   In my mind Rana's voice was saying, "The measure of a mind's evolution is its acceptance of the unacceptable."
   I tried the Macro pause. I tried to think myself into a Macro perspective of loving acceptance. I tried to love and accept Elgon and "what is" as perfect. I tried but to no avail.
   Acceptance of the unacceptable-my final test, and I had failed. I could not lovingly accept Elgon.
   There are limits to everything-even pain-but with hundreds of jagged stones tearing at my body, the tide of pain soared through me until it-seemed I could not bear to live another second.
   My eyes could no longer see, but to my mind Lea appeared.
   "Remember, Jon, the measure of a mind's evolution is its acceptance of the unacceptable."
   With these words ringing in my mind I awakened in 1976.

CHAPTER 17: Evolation

   A month has passed since my death in 2150, and this long separation from the Macro society has been hard to bear. Yet, as I sit here in the warm spring sunshine on the small balcony outside my apartment, I know that I have come to accept this separation, and even the terror and pain of my last hour in that future world.
   I no longer condemn or feel any anger toward Elgon, Sela, or anyone else, for I myself chose my experiences.
   Anger, like all other violence, is a last desperate attempt by micro beings to deny responsibility for their life situation by blaming it on others. Violence and anger will, therefore, continue until man learns to accept full responsibility for everything that happens within his life. I hope that I have arrived at that point in my soul's evolution.
   And now, Karl, as my mother entrusted me to you, I entrust this journal to you, to do with as you see fit.
   Soon I shall come down and join you and Neda for one last meal together. At the end of this evening, I'll kiss: you both and say that I look forward to seeing you again soon.
   Forgive me for writing my farewell instead of speaking it. You are dearer to me than I could ever say.
   It's taken me such a long time to learn that all failure is success-all death is birth.
   I'm going to evolate tonight.
   You see, last night I had another vivid dream, Karl. It was a vision. I've made a rough sketch of it for you and Neda on the next page.
   "Thank you" doesn't begin to say enough, Karl.
   Remember your dreams. I'll be there. I am with you always.
   I love you.
   We are one.
   'Bye for now,
   Jon

Epilogue

   Three months have passed since we cremated Jon Lake's body and scattered the ashes in a woods near our boyhood home. I must admit that at first I had great difficulty accepting Jon's suicide. I said that it was a cop-out and not worthy of his Macro philosophy. However, as the weeks have passed, Neda has chipped away at my micro philosophy until today I see Jon's action in a very different light.
   Perhaps the most important factor altering my viewpoint was a conversation we had with Jon a few nights before he left us. Jon didn't include it in his journal and I wish he had because it would have reminded me of the Macro society's view of life and death.
   Between Neda and myself we have recalled most of the details of that conversation. As we remember, it began one evening when I remarked about a student in our department who had just committed suicide. I said that suicide was a cop-out and Jon had replied with the following.
   "You're complaining, Karl, about a conscious act of suicide which may or may not be an attempt to deny one's own responsibility for his present state of being. Aren't you forgetting that all micro existence is unconscious suicide? It may end swiftly as in a lethal accident, or it may be a slow process of micro aging which results in the long-term decay and deterioration of the body until some vital part fails completely. All of this deterioration is the natural result of resisting the responsibility and the consequences of one's own chosen life pattern. This resistance causes all the life stress that Dr. Hans Selye referred to in his book, The Stress of Life."
   "All right," I said, "I won't argue unconscious suicide or Dr. Selye's stress theory, but the student we're talking about committed conscious suicide since he left a note apologizing to his parents. Now I say that's a coward's way out."
   Jon gave me his big grin and said, "According to that French sociologist we studied, Emile Durkheim, there are two types of suicide: anomic and altruistic. The first, anomic, is due to self-other alienation and is an attempt to escape from a life so overwhelming that the person perceives himself as being completely inadequate to cope with it. This is what I call conscious micro suicide. It is always unsatisfactory to the micro self because when the person wakes up in his astral body he finds that he's still stuck with a mind that believes it's not responsible, a mind filled with the kind of unforgiving self-loathing that the micro self experiences when faced with failure."
   At this point Neda interrupted asking, "But, Jon, didn't you say that all actions are perfect from the Macro view? How can suicide be perfect?"
   "At the Macro level," he answered, "every negative action is balanced by a positive action and, thus, they cancel each other, leaving perfect balance. From the Macro view one can see that every failure is a success in the long run because it leads to the insight necessary for learning. If a soul has to commit micro suicide, once or a thousand times, in order to learn that there is no escape from its own responsibility for its state of being, then that is necessary and perfect for that soul."
   "I see," Neda said nodding her head. "Then what is altruistic suicide?"
   "A good example of that kind," Jon explained, "was demonstrated when the Titanic sank. Some of the people aboard went down with the ship rather than deprive someone else of a seat in the very limited number of lifeboats. History is filled with examples of altruistic suicide in which people consciously give up their lives so others can live or profit from their example."
   "Suicide as an example...," Neda hesitated. "Is that what the members of the Macro society are doing when they permit the Micro Islanders to kill them? Maybe they're trying to show by their example that physical life is not the ultimate goal."
   "That's part of it," Jon responded. "The most famous example of this was the suicide of one of the greatest Macro philosophers ever to be incarnated on this planet, Jesus of Nazareth. He permitted himself to be killed to demonstrate that the Macro self is the master of the microphysical self and that it can even recreate or resurrect a body that has been killed. I think he was also demonstrating his belief that physical existence, while necessary for micro man, is only one very limited perspective along the m-M continuum."
   "So the evolutionary goal," Neda added, "is to not get stuck forever at the micro-physical level, but to journey onward toward ever greater awareness until each soul returns to full awareness of its macrocosmic origin."
   "That's right," Jon said, "and that leads us to a third type of suicide that micro man is not yet aware of evolutionary suicide. What the Macro society calls evolation."
   "I think you've mentioned that before, Jon," I said.
   "Yes, you'll remember that when I was in the hospital trying to save lives I was thwarted by some of the patients whose subconscious minds had decided on death," Jon said. "Remember Bruno who told me that he had incarnated to balance his vibrations. Now that he had accomplished this purpose he was graduating from this life and evolving on to a new dimension. You may recall that our Deltar, Hugo, also planned to consciously terminate his physical existence-to evolate.
   "No one dies until he is convinced at the Macro or sub-conscious level that he has learned all he can or all he wants to in that particular life. This applies just as much to the baffling problem of crib deaths as to deaths due to cataclysmic earthquakes or tidal waves."
   "Are you saying that the sub-conscious mind knows what will happen in the future and could avoid an accident if it so desired?" Neda asked.
   "That's exactly what I'm saying," Jon nodded enthusiastically. "From the Macro point of view there are no accidents."
   "But getting back to evolutionary suicide," I said, "isn't that as big a cop-out as anomic suicide? If you've learned your lessons you'd ought to stick around and help those who haven't."
   "That's like saying that everyone should stay in first grade forever so they can help teach the lessons there," Jon replied.
   'But someone's got to teach them," I protested.
   "There has never, in the history of our universe, been a shortage of teachers-only of students willing to learn. As the Macro philosophers have said-when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Ask and you will receive is another way of stating this Macro truth. It reflects back to prepotent desire and predisposing belief. If you desire something more than learning or if you don't believe that you can learn, or that you deserve to learn, you'll have to wait until your desire and belief are greater before you succeed," Jon explained.
   "I still don't see how you could tell the difference between a cop-out suicide and evolutionary suicide," I said, shaking my head.
   "It's a question of motive, Karl," Jon explained.
   "Was the motivation for death to escape the past or to embrace the future? A cop-out suicide is escaping his past and/or present-an evolutionary suicide is embracing his future,"
   "That's a hard one to handle," I complained. "Wouldn't a person tend to lie to himself about his desire to escape life?"
   "Sure, that happens a lot," Jon answered. "In each life there are lessons that must be learned, but if you lie to yourself about having learned all there was to learn in first grade, then commit suicide, you wake up right back in first grade. You see, in this planetary schoolroom it's impossible to be a drop-out for very long. You can't run away from your own greater self."
   "Micro man views physical life on this planet as the final stage, rather than just a preparation for experiencing the next dimension. With that sort of philosophy he naturally tends to think that suicide would end it all. He becomes the victim of his own micro philosophy."
   "Then is suicide a sin or not?" Neda asked.
   "It's hard to generalize about suicide, Neda, since all death is either conscious or unconscious suicide," Jon replied thoughtfully. "As for sin, there is only one sin, and that is to deny the perfection of our macrocosmic oneness with all that is, was, or ever will be. But even that is only a sin from the micro view. From the Macro view there can be no sin, for all is purposively and evolutionarily perfect. The key then, is to accept the perfection of what is by responding to everything with loving acceptance, thereby freeing yourself from the bonds of anxiety, fear, and condemnation which bind you to physical existence. Then, and only then, is evolation possible."
   "Ok. If I was Macro I'd know who was living by the rule of loving acceptance and who wasn't, and I'd know everyone's motive for ending their life. Then I'd be able to tell if it was suicide, as we popularly think of it, or evolation. The problem is, I'm not Macro!" I protested, "So I still don't know how to tell the differences!"
   "Remember that monograph we read back in Cultural Anthropology? The one on that Indian tribe whose old people, when they were ready to die, just said goodbye to everyone, went up on a hill, and died?" Jon asked.
   "Yeah. Kind of like your Hugo's plan to...' I began.
   "That's it exactly, Karl," Jon interrupted. "If you use anything to do the job with, you committed escapist suicide. If you wrapped up the details of your life then just laid down and died, that's evolation."
   That's as close as Neda and I could come to a total recall of that evening's conversation.
   It was Jon's comments on evolation, combined with our dreams of him, that ultimately modified my view of Jon's death by broadening my perspective.
   I still miss Jon terribly. But Neda reminds me that nothing is terrible from a Macro viewpoint, so I know what level I'm at.
   However, I can remember Jon saying that our level of awareness is constantly fluctuating, and that in one twenty-four-hour period an average micro person like myself can run the gamut from micro awareness to low level, or even high level, Macro awareness-the latter occurring mostly when we're asleep and dreaming.
   I'll end this epilogue with such a dream.
   It was the last of a series of dreams I've had about Jon. In most of them we just talked in our usual manner, but this one was different. We know it was symbolic because Jon had told us that 2150 has neither graves nor tombstones since discarded physical bodies are vaporized.
   In this dream Neda and I were standing with Jon before a great tombstone upon which were engraved the following words:

   DIED
   JON & CAROL
   8-927 3-927
   DELTA 927
   1976 2150

   REBORN
   JON & CAROL
   9-927 4-927
   DELTA 927
   2150


Author's Statement
   In closing I would like to say that the ultimate purpose of this book-indeed, of all my publications is to encourage the development of a unified, harmonious society for the earth's Aquarian Age.
   I will leave you with the most hopeful words ever spoken:


"Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened." (Matt. 7:7)


   With Macro love-
   Joyously!
   Thea Alexander