Part 6 of Parables and Angels. Once again today, we have 2 wonderful parables, beautifully merging into each other. The 1^st parable is of this young man called Jason. Jason is about 44. Years ago, he lost both his parents and as we face losses, we face ups and downs in our lives, Jason did too. But through it all, he came out rather unfazed, untouched. The spirit in him was still alive and active. He was not a disillusioned, cynical, critical man. He really loved the whole idea of living. As he grew older, Jason would have dreams, which were more like visions. So many of us have had ‘It seems like a dream’ but you know from some essence of it that it’s a vision, it’s not really a dream. So he had a lot of these vision dreams.

One day in this vision dream, a beautiful angel came to him and said, "Jason, would you like to play a game?" and Jason said, "Yes." He was always very into sports and games and adventure and he said, "I’d love it!" The angel said, "Why don’t you come with me" and Jason, without hesitation, went with the angel. He found himself, almost instantaneously, at the opening of a cave and Jason knew what this cave was because he’d visited it many times, in many visions. It was the Cave of Creation. He stood there and the Archangel said, "Look inside the cave." And he looked and saw a narrow, dark path. The cave was very dark, not lit at all, and there was a very short path, maybe a quarter of a mile, and Jason realized that at the end he could see light, which meant that the cave had an exit. Jason said, "Fine. I’ve looked at the cave. What do I have to do?" The angel said, "You have to walk the path in one earthly hour." "That’s it? A quarter of a mile in one earthly hour? I can do it in 15 minutes!" That’s it," the angel said. "That’s it". Jason said, "That’s an easy one. What do I get as my reward?" The angel said, "There’s no reward. The whole purpose is the game; to walk the path in an hour and exit. That’s the whole purpose of this game" Jason said, "Fine. It doesn’t seem very interesting but I’ve come here, so let’s go".

So he entered. He knew he couldn’t enter with the angel. He also knew that the Cave of Creation is one where the Akashic Records are kept and he had come there to see his Akashic Records several times in his visions, so he was quite familiar with this cave. He said, "This is going to be a steal." And he had walked just a little when he suddenly realized that as he was looking around, the cave was being filled with the most beautiful colours. He looks at his watch and says, "Just 2 minutes up. I have another 58 minutes. I can take my time." So he pauses, looks at the colours, admires them and moves ahead.

A few minutes later, he hears wonderful, melodic tones: beautiful harmonious sounds. He looks and there are 54 minutes left. "I’ll just sit here and hear this wonderful harmony". Five minutes later, he gets up and begins to walk…. and then he hears voices but they are all very indistinct. He doesn’t really know what they are but the voices don’t attract him so much, so he continues the walk, taking his time, not really hurrying, because he knows he’s going to finish his quarter of a mile in less than an hour.

As he is walking he realizes that he’s seeing a sight he’s never seen before. On the right hand side of the cave were the most glorious crystal wands. They were sparkling and shimmering, with all kinds of colours; vibrating, emanating light that was just so beautiful. And he looks at his watch and says, "Just 15 minutes. I can go there and see what these crystals are all about" and he looks at all the crystals and one crystal seems to call out to him. He touches it but doesn’t pick it up. Something tells him, "I don’t think I should pick the crystals up. It’s in its right place." But the moment he touches it, he is taken to a place, to a time period (he doesn’t know whether it’s a past or a future) but it’s a different time period where he experiences and sees the wars, he sees the peace pacts, he sees people, he sees them doing strange things and as soon as he removes his hand, the vision disappears. He says, "Wow! How interesting that I was able to see a time period that was different from my own". He looks at his watch and says, "My God! I seem to have been in that age for a while", but realizes that only 2 minutes had passed.

As he’s moving away, he hears a voice and he recognizes the voice of his dead mother. He looks around wondering where she is and he sees a crystal. He goes to it and somehow he knows that this crystal is his mother’s crystal. The voice is his mother’s but he can’t hear the words. He wants to pick up that crystal. As his hand moves towards it something in his heart tells him, "This is a very private crystal. I don’t think I should touch it…. But it’s mom’s. Mom would want me to know all her secrets. She’d never kept anything from me. We’re family. There’s nothing hidden from family." So he touches his mother’s crystal and at once he is able to see all the past lives of his mother, all that she had done, the mistakes she had made. He saw himself being born to her and he saw that she was now living in a certain place as a young child. He came out of this trance-like state and thought, "Wow! How wonderful to have shared my mother’s lives in this manner!" As he is about to leave, a voice comes again and he realizes that it’s his father’s voice and he says, "This is wonderful. Let me see where my father’s crystal is."

Jason had stopped looking at his watch because the crystals and the stories they had to tell him fascinated him. He looked around knowing that his father’s crystal would call out to him and sure enough, soon he found his father’s crystal. He then realized that his mother’s crystal and his father’s crystal didn’t have their names on it. They had some other names which he didn’t know. Jason had already come to a stage where he had a lot of knowledge and so he said, "I think that these must be my mother and father’s soul names." He touches his father’s crystal and again, he has the same experience. He sees his father as he was: sometimes very good, sometimes not so good; living through his mistakes, going through conflict, through joy, and again sees where his father is in his current incarnation.

He had just removed his hand from the crystal when he was suddenly out of the cave, not at the exit, but at the entrance. He looks at the guardian angel and says, "What am I doing here?" He says, "Jason, one earthly hour. I’m sorry the time is up." Jason was very happy at the experiences he had had, but when he woke up from this vision-dream, he was a little sad, "I wish I had been able to play this game better. I wish I could go back and play the game. I think this time knowing the pitfalls, I won’t get fascinated by all around me; I’ll just walk straight and reach the exit.

Jason didn’t know that the game never ends. We can play this game whenever we want to, however many times we want to. When you read this parable, you may feel that this path is life and death. It’s not. The path is life. The exit is enlightenment. You don’t have to die to be enlightened. You just have to remove from your periphery all the glamours that ego clutches on to, that make ego feel good. I won’t tell you where we are going to from here. I’ll just skip o to David.

David is an Indian. He belongs to an Indian tribe and he has a very royal position in the tribe because his grandfather is the king of the tribe and David knows that (his father is dead) when his grandfather passes on, David would become the next king. David had grown up in the lap of luxury. His island was a beautiful island of abundance and joy. The tribe was happy; they lived in harmony with each other.

There was only one thing that the tribe feared. About 3 miles away from their island, in the middle of the sea, was a very thick fog bank. They could never see beyond the fog bank but they knew that whoever had attempted to enter the fog bank never returned. They also knew that a few moments after the person entered the fog bank, there was a tremendously loud sound, which would strike fear in their hearts. Was it a monster? A whirlpool? A waterfall? What was it? They didn’t know. Finally, the tribal chiefs declared that no one should enter the fog bank and those who were foolish enough to do so would do it alone; no one would even see them. So if a person was going in his canoe towards the fog bank, everyone had to go into their huts and draw their blinds so they don’t see. The only ones who were allowed out were the tribal chiefs and the royal family male members.

David had seen this happening only once because there were not so many foolish people in his tribe. But he distinctly remembered that when he was 13 years old, an old, old man who was dying, (even the tribal chiefs, the priests, the witch doctors hadn’t been able to help him) had said, "Anyway I’m going to die. I want to know what is in that fog bank. If it’s a monster and I’m killed, now or later I’m going to die." David, because he was 13 and now considered a young man by the tribe, had been allowed for the first time to see this, and he never forgot that sight. He saw this lone canoe, the man paddling and then when he was about a mile away from the fog bank, he saw the boat moving very, very fast and he didn’t understand why. It disappeared into the fog bank and a few minutes later, that loud thunderous sound, which David would still hear, in his head, in his nightmares.

At present, David was 34. He was happy but something was missing in his life. He knew that there was an empty space that needed to be filled and something told David that it could only be filled by some knowledge. David wondered, "Does this knowledge have anything to do with the fog bank?" and somewhere deep within him, David knew the answer was, "Yes. I have to enter that." But he questioned himself, "I have a responsibility to my old grandfather. I have to take over as king and I know that if I go into that fog bank, I will not return." For days David conflicted within himself but he knew he just had to do this…. but he knew that he wouldn’t be allowed. So he didn’t tell a soul; what he did was, go to the most isolated part of the island and there, over days, he patiently carved out a little canoe for himself, not telling a soul what he was doing.

One day, when all the tribe was busy at the opposite end of the island, David went silently to his canoe and moved towards the fog bank. About a mile away from the fog bank, David realized, "I’m in a current. I don’t need to paddle anymore" and he remembered that he had seen that boat moving swiftly and had not understood why. David was now scared. "Have I really been stupid? This seems to be taking me towards a whirlpool." The current was becoming swift. He couldn’t fight it. David put his paddles into his canoe and sat, terror-struck. As he neared the fog bank, the current became swifter and stronger.

David entered; all around him only thick white fog. He couldn’t even see his hand in front of him. And this went on and on and now David was panicking, "Oh, my God! Am I going to be stuck in the fog bank for all eternity, alone?" He didn’t know what to do; there was no way to fight it. He just had to let his canoe go through. All of a sudden, when David didn’t expect it at all, the sun burst through and David realized he was out of the fog bank and there was the most beautiful blue sea. David’s canoe went swift and fast towards the shore. David heard the same thunderous sound but this time he saw that there were thousands of villagers on the shore, yelling in celebration and joy to see one more brave person enter out of the fog bank.

Both Jason and David went on their journey; both did it a little differently.

Today, I have completed understood the four lines of my mission. I have to be that canoe. I have to be that vision that takes you to Ariel, who shows you the Path. I have to help Ariel to take you across; to move from the entry to the exit; to move through the fog bank; to help you not to stop, not to be overtaken by the glamours you will see; to help you overcome the fears that the fog bank, sometimes strike in your heart. That is my mission: to take you to the place where you will understand your ego’s, have the courage to see the truth, ask Ariel’s guidance to give you the peace, inner peace that brings a strength, knowing that the fog bank will eventually open up to the most brilliant sunlight. Archangel Ariel is the archangel of peace. He brings to you, along with his female aspect, Aurora, clarity, vision, no resistance, no fears, only peace.

How beautiful that I should be shown the completion of my mission today, when I went through my own fog bank for one month trying very hard to paddle, not able to turn back. And today, with Ariel and my own help, I saw the sunlight, so that I am here urging you to take that step. It’s not that scary as we think. Our ego’s resist all change. Our ego’s clutch on to glamour and desire; all the various glamours around us, our attachments to our children, our attachments to our spouses, our attachments to house, cars, wealth, money. We don’t want to let them go. When we are in that cave, each one is a beautiful crystal, calling out to us and each one looks far more beautiful than the next, and that quarter mile, which could have been traversed in 15 minutes of easy walk, suddenly takes a lifetime.

Like Jason, David did not die. The fog bank is not from life to after life. Its life itself; from un-enlightenment to the expanse of enlightenment… in one incarnation. If you are here today listening to this parable, it is not by chance. It is because you undertook when you were in the Cave of Creation, with all the Archangels, to go through this path, to move and attain the sunlight….. and I promised you that I will row; you don’t even have to row; that job I will do. If you can just place your trust in me and Ariel to sit in that canoe, without fear… because every moment that you fear will make that canoe heavier and I will not be able to row as swiftly. Your fear will strike fear in my own heart making the canoe heavier still. We have made a pact; I will do all that I can to bring you to Gabriel, Michael, Raphael and Ariel. And at the feet of Ariel, I do not have to let you go alone. For the other three Archangels I have to move away and allow the Archangels to do their work. With Ariel, I have to work in unison because I know what Ariel doesn’t; I know the fears that lie in our hearts. I have experienced the resistances. I have experienced the rebelliousness. I have experienced the glamour. I have been caught in temptation and every time I have fallen, somehow, through some angel, in human, master or angelic form, I have been given the strength to take one more step ahead. So naturally, Ariel needs my help; someone who's been there, done it all; someone who has fallen, maybe several more times than you have; someone who has battled and is still battling with ego; someone who knows the glamour of arrogance and pride and conceit; someone who has abused power; someone who has exploited the weak. Oh, yes! I have walked into that Cave of Creation many times. This time, I am going out through the exit. But I don’t want to do it alone. I promised each of you, we will do it together. Please, let me lead.

Love you all.