A Spiritual Fairytale

Once Upon a Time there was an incredibly infinite Universe in which there was a beautiful planet called Earth. It was inhabited by humans- funny beings who loved to enjoy the pleasure of their wonderful world but also strangely felt compelled to destroy their planet and fight their fellow species. Amongst them walked a few sagely beings who had awoken. They had realised that everything was an illusion- a sweet beautiful dream and horrific nightmare combined as one, all being dreamed by nobody, from a place which didn’t exist. Realising that this view they had was very strange they kept quiet about it and played along with the dream game with all the other beings because they knew that all the other beings were really not different to them. Sometimes other beings would realise there was something unusual about the awakened ones and ask them about it. The awakened ones would explain what they had realised about the dream and described how their perspective had shifted from the duality of a perceiver and perceived to the non-dual awareness of perceiving. But as they told their stories they gave a warning to the other beings seeking to awaken. They said that the Reality of what they had realised could never be spoken about and anything they said was merely a signpost along the way, it was like a finger pointing to the moon. The more beings that woke up from the dream, the less energy there was to keep the dream alive, so the nobody also dreamt up another dream character whose job it was to keep everyone sleeping in the dream.

Her name was Maya. She was a wicked witch who lived in a glorious castle full of deceit and delusion as she watched over all the beings to ensure that they remained fast asleep. It was a very easy job and she often got bored so she didn’t mind the odd few awakening because it kept her amused to interfere with any attempts they had to awaken the sleeping beings. Very occasionally the awakened ones would start to get the idea that it would be really good to wake up more beings because they were suffering so much in the dream. Maya knew that if too many woke themselves up out of existence, then the whole dream would disappear, including her. So one day Maya hatched a cunning plan that would not only keep all the beings asleep but would give her much needed entertainment in the process. She decided to help the awakened ones spread their awakening message out to the world, so she brewed up a magic spell in her cauldron and Ping! – she manifested the internet. The awakened ones loved the new toy that Maya had given them because they could spread the teachings quicker and wider than ever before, to the whole planet. More and more people began to wake up and the more they woke up, the more they passed the teachings on to others.

Maya loved it too. She would weave her way through websites, blogs, videos and books, sprinkling sleeping dust as she went. The more she did it, the more people forgot about the finger pointing to the moon. Her magic sleeping dust made their eyes blurry and as they looked at the finger it morphed into a moon. They reached their non-dual awareness and called it Reality and told other beings that they could experience it too. Maya chuckled away to herself. Her plan had worked out splendidly. The more beings that thought they were awake, the less that people would listen to the really awake ones. Occasionally the real awake ones would start making a noise about fingers pointing to moons again but Maya would enjoy the sport of it, by sending out the sleeping awake ones to drown out their noise with tales of non-dual awareness as the Ultimate Reality. And for those who were immune to her sprinkling of sleeping dust, Maya would jab them with shots of sedatives, a real powerful potion to induce a blissful state of non-dual awareness. This tale of Maya and the awakening ones went on and on forever, just like it had been going on since nothing ever began.

A finger pointing to the moon is not the moon. The Tao that can be named is not the Tao. When someone says it’s all lies, they mean that; its ALL lies.

The End