The History of Waking up
by Daniel Rekshan
The History of Waking up
Copyright © 2012 by Daniel Rekshan
all rights reserved
Once upon a time, there was a boy named Jack. He was very poor, but very much in love with a princess. He spent most of his time daydreaming about her. Sometimes Jack would venture out of his daydreams and watch her. He knew that on certain days, the princess would take a walk through the forest and visit a flowering meadow. He knew that if he had the courage, he could talk with her and no one could bother them.
Day after day, he would daydream about her instead of working. Day after day, his family’s meager wealth diminish. All the while, she never noticed him. Just as his family’s resources were consumed, so were his hopes she’d ever see him. One day, his mother said to him, “Son, you must take the cow to market and use the money to buy food, otherwise we will starve.”
So he started toward the market, but on his way he ran into an old man. The old man showed him beans and said, “These are magic beans, I’ll trade you”. Being well practiced in daydreams, he imagined all the wonders their magic could produce. So he traded the cow for the beans.
When he got home and told his mother what happened, she was so mad that she threw the beans out the window. In despair, he cried and cried until he fell asleep. When he awoke, he saw that the beans had grown up to the sky. Surely, he must be dreaming!
Curious, he climbed up and up. When he got above the clouds he saw a giant’s house. He went in and saw a huge pile of money on a huge table. He thought about taking the money to solve his family’s trouble. Perhaps it is enough that the princess would notice him. But the giant came in and he has no place to hide.
The giant comes in and sees him near the money. Instead of hurting Jack, as expected, the giant’s eyes show an unexpected emotion. The giant see his guilt and asks him if he wants the coins, he’ll trade a story for them. Jack says yes and tried to pick them up, but they disappear. The giant demands a story. Jack says he doesn’t have one. Giant insists. Jack yells in desperation, “I don’t have a story. I just love a girl who won’t pay attention to me because she is royal and I am poor. I traded our cow for some magic beans that lead me here, and I don’t have a story because these coins aren’t real!”
The giant does something he doesn’t expect. He laughs. He says, it is okay, I’ll tell a story and you just have to listen. A story isn’t told and then heard, its made in the telling because there is listening. So lets make this story together.
Once upon a time before there was time, there was no space between everything. Everything was beautiful. So beautiful, in fact, that you couldn’t help but love it. I was there and I loved everything. Everything loved me in return. It went this way forever. Everything that ever could be was there, in love, with everything else. There was no time and no space, so forever and everywhere everything was embracing the all.
It must be hard for you to imagine, so remember a time you suddenly saw a beloved. Remember how your heart expanded. You see her and she is so fresh, better than you remember, because of the suddenness of the moment, you see her as she really is, not as you think she is.
Imagine that at the very same moment you saw her, you could embrace her and she you. Imagine that this moment could last forever. Not just the embrace, but the suddenly seeing her as her. Imagine that it wasn’t just you or her, but everything and everyone. Actually, you becoming her and she you and you all weave throughout everything. All in love with all, all at once, everywhere.
Jack didn’t really get what the Giant was talking about, but nodded his head anyways. The Giant laughed again and said, “you don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?” Jack confessed he did not.
You’ve been to this world before, you just don’t remember. I’m telling you the story of dreaming.
“Dreaming?! But I just dream of funny things or about the last day!” objected Jack.
“Yes, dreaming. Haven’t you ever been in a dream and thought about being in another place and, lo and behold, you’re there. Or maybe you’ve been something else all together? How about flying? Maybe you’ve wanted something so bad you dreamed you got it?”
Jack affirmed but still didn’t see where this was going.
“Don’t you see? The space in dreaming is like the space before time from my story, you just don’t see it. It’s like seeing your beloved when you expect to see her or after a long time of being with her. You have trouble seeing her as she really is because your thoughts and memories about her get in the way. You said you have a beloved, right?”
Jack turned red and started to stammer. The Giant understood and said, “Alright, you have a beloved, but she doesn’t know it, does she?”
“No, I … I’m so poor and she is rich. That’s why I wanted the coins, so she’d pay attention to me.”
“How do you know she’d even care? How do you know you’d even like her?” the Giant asks, but doesn’t wait for an answer. “You see, you’re thoughts about things are preventing you from knowing her reality. Nothing has stopped you from talking to her except you’re own mind. Your thoughts keep you at a distance.”
“Dreaming is like this. You go to the dreaming space full of ideas about yourself and your world, so you keep yourself at a distance from the reality around you. Sometimes you can fly in your dreams, but it happens only when you realize that this is possible, otherwise your thoughts about motion prevent you from experiencing a deeper reality. If you could set aside all those thoughts, you’d see the space before time. You’d fall in love with everything and you would be the all.”
Jack started to get it. The reality of eternal and omnipresent love is like the princess. He could encounter it anytime, but his thoughts limit himself and keep him at a distance, like the thought that he is too poor to matter to her. “But where do my thoughts come from? Why do I have them? How did I forget everything if I am really all of it?”
“Good questions, Jack. We wouldn’t have a story with out them, in fact, the answer is in the source of all stories. Let me tell you the source of my story.”
In that space before all time, as you know, I was everything and in love with the all. One day, I saw the most beautiful thing. It may seem strange, given all I’ve told you about everything being the all in love, but this being was more beautiful than all the others.
No, that’s not quite right, this being was as beautiful as all the others, but I fell in love with the being more than the others. I wanted to know it, to hold on to it. But this story doesn’t begin with this being, in fact this being was not a being at all because it was the all and everything, as I told you.
The story begins with me, lo and behold, I was me and I loved a being more than all others. In other words, I wanted to make a story with this being. This is a mystery. I had never before known me. I was the all and everything, then I was me in love with another. How was this possible? I don’t know, Jack, I share your questions. But I remember being all, then being in love. I desired to hold on to my beloved, over and above the all in everything.
I don’t understand this mystery: I thought that this being was more beautiful than the rest. After that moment, time started to line up the way it is now. The all crystallized into everything. Beings formed, birthed and died. I think that I will see my beloved in one of these mortal forms. I hope and hope, waiting in this space for the moment I will see her, but I have not.
My story is a story of love and seeking. My primordial desire to know the all in everything held in a single being generated the progression of time, space, and beings you experience now. I seek my beloved in every mortal form. My story won’t finish until eternity.
I know its not a good answer for you. You have your thoughts and you have forgotten your source because the all in everything loved each being that ever is, which in my story was me loving my beloved.
Now you must find your own story because ours is nearly over.
Jack climbs down. He goes back to bed. When he awakes, the beans are back and the vine is gone. He eats them and then truly awakes. He has all sorts of notions about what to do, maybe find the old man, maybe start begging, maybe this and maybe that. He leave his house and who does he see?
The princess. He says hi and she turns back and they see one another in each other’s eyes.
The end.