Once I had a dream that I was reclining with a very wise man. He told me a story of an all-powerful God. Given the nature of absolute power, the God despaired with boredom and so he devised a game to entertain himself. First, he created a new world in his mind and then he inserted himself into it in the form of a human. Like a dream, the incarnated God became the primary actor of his own play.
He experienced only a caricature of the universe. He was like a man with a lit torch during the night time. He could see only as far in any direction as the light would leave the flame, echo off the objects of the world, and return to his eye, where he would create his own image of his surroundings.
At first the God lived as a mortal man. And every moment he was alive, he remembered a past and dreamed of a future. He experienced pleasures and pains, fears and hopes. But he knew that he was a God and that he would not be trapped in his creation forever. He lived 80 years before he died and once again became the powerful God – infinite, all-knowing, and all-controlling.
He frequently returned to his new universe, living 27 days as a honey bee, 30 million millennia as a particle of stardust, and a few microseconds as a flash of lightening. Again and again the God placed himself back into his creation – back into himself – building a more and more complex universe in which to play. He began to enjoy the thrill of limiting his own powers, often making himself forget that he was a God in his own universe. Sometimes the God manifested himself as a being or object that had no self awareness at all.
The God became – and truly is – every man, woman, lion, insect, profession, rock, airplane, spoon, snow flake, dust speck, every atom, every energy, every force, light, and sound that ever was or will be. Each piece of this universe was fundamentally tied to every other part of the universe since the God was everything.
Rarely, the God would rediscover that he was a God. Of those few who became enlightened, many forgot – or chose to forget – the truth. Some, however, did not forget and they lived the rest of their lives as a radiating flame – helping to enkindle and enlighten others on their respective journeys.
Those who were progressing on the path to understanding often encountered one another, feeling strong connections. You felt that you were really the other, just in a different form. Occasionally, you would sense that the universe was conspiring to tell you something or alter your path. These moments felt like pieces to a puzzle, but their place and meaning were almost always unclear.
Then you woke up. And here you are.