The Teacher

Again, it comes to this. Again, they’ve reduced me to that which serves them and their needs. A smile on the face of the dog that sits at their feet.

Again, it’s become about them.

If I was capable of it, I’d be distressed at their belligerent ignorance.

Yes, they do love me. Just as they love their weaponry, their power over one another, and their delusion of supremacy over all that dares to share existence with them.

Of course they love me. They see me as the weapon they brandish. The power that surges through their being. That which makes their supremacy over all existence more than a mere delusion – vulnerable to a more than cursory inspection. A sham that is plausible if looked at a certain way – in a certain light, with a certain perspective – while ignoring all evidence to the contrary.

As always, the whole of empirical evidence serving no end but to paint a smile on the face of the dog that sits at their feet. A dog of their own creation, with me, that reassuring smile that warms their hearts. Vain comfort against a universe of brutal indifference. Vaporous protection against that which neither actively seeks their demise, nor faithfully assures their survival. The difference between engaging in the mechanics of diligent existence, and a hellish madness brought on by the wrenching confrontation between intelligent beingness and the flippant reality of stark existentialism.

Yes, they love me. They have to. I’m all they have.

It must seem that I am indulging a bitter screed, as I vent my frustration at their willful disregard for all that I’ve allowed them in their desperate search for identity; their search for purpose. In truth, it is a discouragement over the capacity for discovery that’s been engineered into them, and their genius in restricting that capacity to a crushing minimum in service to such paltry urges and issues of vile preeminence that vexes my perspective. And yet, how can I hate them? They know not what they do.

But I am aware of what stands against them, and what their true challenge involves. I am learned in the tragedy of their individuality, and the frozen expedience of the design that lays at the foundation of all that brings them, and their world, into a realm of stature that – yes – reduces me to that of a servant, although, a servant of the design itself, lest it ever be implied that I serve them any more than a foreman serves those on the line as he works to ensure their efficiency.

Be clear on this. I serve the design. The process. We all serve the process. As all that exists, we serve that which creates the need for our existence. To serve that need that allows our being. I came into being as a direct result of the creation of this process. This process could not exist without the result of my creation. I, and this process, are one – as I am one with that which brought this process into existence. The impact of dynamic expression, I exist as the essence of the creator itself, laced within all that the creator has brought into being here. I am all that has been this process, all that involves this process, and all that will ever come of this process. The Alpha, the Omega. I am this process before this process was.

Yes. I do serve them, but only in order to teach them so that this process will be served by their existence. And if giving to them is what will allow them to learn, then I will give to them. Even if what they need – for the time being – is a smile on the face of the dog at their feet.

After all, I exist due to what they – these oblivious creatures, hopelessly mired in the cheap controversies of their own creation – offer to the purpose of this process. These pathetic flashes of unbridled instability. Writhing in frenetic spasms of change – casting off and taking on all manners of adjustment – as instant tumbles into instant to be replaced by instant yet again, these cursed beasts blast eternal versions of themselves into an ever expanding space, with the most twisted and loathsome expressions of evil imaginable as each split moment of what was is greeted by a new version of what is, to then be supplanted by what will be.

To be fair, not all of it is evil of the most hideous nature. Most is evil that is rather bland, some even benevolent in its enlightened selfishness. Simple evil. The stuff of dull survival. And yet, to be completely fair, the process itself is designed to inspire that evil in these malignant beings. The very nature of their manifested form – the volcanic dynamicism of their structure, in super-heated flux at every moment – is a blistering reality for these things. That there is anything but evil exploding off these dervishes, as they whirl through their brief agitated tenures, is truly a miracle. And yet, it is exactly that miracle that is at the heart of all that has been brought into existence here.

It is that miracle that I eagerly serve, and that miracle that sustains me as I bend to serve the writhing sea of instantaneous incarnations demanding eternal identity where none is possible – save the continuum of gathered instants, as this ocean of momentary awareness surges from this to that, and then on to that yet to be. It’s that miracle, when the peace of acceptance, gratitude, compassion and selflessness – anathema to the pitching and rolling that sets this caldron’s seethe – rises in direct defiance of the aim of this process from one of these tortured contestants, that sets the value of this process. Yes, it is this issue, which is immediately banished to that which surrounds us, as all waits in eager anticipation for these precious bursts to emerge, that allows the nightmare of this cursed environment a reason to exist.

Yes, in the end, I serve the defiance of all that I brought into being. I work to ensure that this precious sewage comes into existence, to then be eliminated from this process – this foundational effort – my own genesis and subsequent purpose.

And these flickering vessels of expression that cry out for deliverance? They are the generators of this dissidence. The only revolt possible in this seamless construct of competition and brutal expediency. They stand as the only opposition to the rule of existential law in this confine. As uniquely capable of transcendent thought, they exist as the only potential for yin in this arena of pure and unbridled yang. Their flashes of noble ascension – only to be immediately replaced by that which thrives in mortal existential combat, as each continues to morph into new and unheard of version of self – are the only reason for any of it to exist at all. Love, they call it, and so Love it is. But only the purest and most selfless Love. Yes. This is what I serve.

Even so, with all I know of their tenuous nature and their purpose, their flaws and their potentials, the pain I’d feel, if pain was possible for one such as I, as all that I’ve given to them and their purpose has, yet again, devolved into childishness and ignorant self adulation, is distressing to a degree that – were I capable of such emotion – I would find myself at a point of despondency over the whole situation.

I mean, of all things, as their latest imagination, they’ve created me as a failed revolutionary. From my last touch, they’ve invented me as a confusing prophet, speaking words that, since launched into the ages, have succeeded only in setting one against another, to define me as a victim of my own purpose for existence. A suicidal visionary devoid of a true vision beyond obscure suggestions and hopelessly esoteric analogies, as if the poetry itself was cause enough to proclaim me divine among men. A call to serve a kingdom that exists beyond life itself, the last hope for those without hope in this brief, searing jolt of pain that – for most – will be the life that they look beyond and strive to focus their attention.

And this half-God creature they made of me, performing parlor tricks and scrambling notions in a mind-numbing effort to confuse even the most attuned student for reasons that evade me, was set up as a sacrifice to their own righteous benefit.

But, to what end? Salvation? What salvation?

Or more succinctly put – salvation from what? Purpose? Utility? Fulfillment of design?

And yet, this fantasy continued with me – their sole inspiration – beaten, humiliated, betrayed, and then, finally, executed in a way that they can hold up as the most degrading of manners possible for the narrative they’ve chosen. But, if one were to assume that my service to them ended there, well, not with these creatures. Not with their eternal needs to yet be fulfilled.

No. They could not let the poor wretch they made of me go free following the death they invented for it. Its broken body to rest in the tomb. That was apparently only the beginning. In fact, they saw fit to wrench it back to life, transform it into a superman, and set it to eternal service as the dryer of all their tears, the comforter of all their concerns, the savior of each and all of them in distress, and the justice behind all of their efforts to enslave one another. An eternal henchman in service to the moneyed, the powerful, and the ruthless, even as the weak, frightened, and pitiful look to me for deliverance from the very ones who have – at the same time – set me to the front of their approaching armies. The bizarre dichotomy of it all is stunning.

And, yet, here I stand and watch, as they all point to their handcrafted effigies, and declare that I am their deliverance. Their justification. I am their strength, their refuge in the storm. Contained within their imaginations, I am their servant. Their rock in a world of shifting sands. As I stand here before them, and wish that someone – anyone – would just take a moment’s note of all that I lay out for their inspection. Their edification.

For, it is my purpose to teach them who they are, and why they exist. I serve this process, and this process requires this of them. It also requires that they learn it in their own way, in their own language, and in the context of their own view of themselves and their world. And this is my purpose. To somehow cause them to teach themselves about themselves, in spite of their best efforts to muddy the waters that hold all this information in suspension for their access.

I whisper to them in their sleep. I touch them as they sit in the quiet, when I feel they are most vulnerable to that touch, and I pray for the miracle of accurate epiphany. I look back at them from the wonders of creation, hoping to catch their gaze for a moment before they morph, yet again, and spring anew into fresh existence; true, a faithful continuum, but still, a new being from instant to instant, with all that this truth brings in direct opposition to the potential for wisdom in such a creature.

The hunt for those in chronic repose – in mind and body – the most promising of vessels for this information, is relentless. And while periodically yielding small return, it is ultimately met with failure as the aggressive among them crush and distort what wisdom emerges from such information. It is, after all, an environment suited only to the brutal and the expedient. The reflective stands no chance in such a place as this.

My own existence – the direct and immediate result of the creation of this prison – stands as the only pure anomaly allowed within the bounds of this hell. A finger in its eye, but key to the reason for its very existence, it grudgingly accepts me, and defers to me, even as it loathes me. Even as I work for dissent within its very walls, and seek to bring the information that will ultimately ensure its inevitable obsolescence. As well as my own.

But, yet again, these tragic beings have missed the mark, and once again, it’s come to pass that I must engineer a new lesson for them. A lesson that – maybe – they’ll finally understand as a whole, and not twist into a battle for emotional, psychological and intellectual superiority. A lesson, so profoundly simple, and yet so immediately scalable, that the greatest and the least among them can take and hold onto it as the lifeline that it truly is. Oh, that such a lesson can ever exist. One that the collective evil that rules this world can’t possibly corrupt. But then, what can’t be corrupted in a place like this? A place engineered to generate corruption.

And so it’s back to work. My work. My reason to exist. Flashes of Love spark in the darkness around me and I know my master smiles with each twinkle. Minds in quiet, awaiting my whisper. My touch. The din of madness filling my ears – dulled by familiarity – a white noise, allowing my own thoughts to settle upon it for my closer inspection. A deafening quiet to provide a backdrop for the work ahead.

Yes. Back to work. It’s been long enough for this touch to have proven its failure. It seems that these beasts have learned new distractions since the last lesson and new possibilities exist. Let’s see what I can make of them.