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"Having trouble sleeping?" Joshua asks as he finds Nancy standing by the door in her nightgown, gazing out into the pre-dawn darkness.
"Oh, not at all—I slept wonderfully, actually. I'm just one of those early bird types, you know? There's something magical about watching the sunrise that I absolutely love." Nancy pauses, then adds with a slightly hesitant tone, "Is there somewhere good around here for sunrise watching? Maybe a spot where we could chat privately before everyone else wakes up?"
"Absolutely. There's this fantastic spot just up the hill a ways. But here's the thing—it can't be completely private, just the two of us. That would be disrespectful to Suong, and honestly, you should probably leave a note for your husband too."
"Of course, that makes perfect sense. I'll wait for you to wake Suong, then we can all head up together."
"Ha! No need to wake anyone," Josh chuckles, his voice warm with amusement. "She's been watching us through the bedroom door crack since the moment I stepped out here. Come on out, Suong—I know you're listening." He grins as Suong sheepishly emerges from the shadows of their bedroom.
"You're a very attentive wife, Suong," Nancy says with genuine appreciation and a laugh. "Good for you. But just so you know, I'm no threat to your marriage. We believe in marital fidelity—cheating isn't something we do."
"Oh, I know that. Joshua would never cheat either," Suong replies, looking down at her feet with obvious embarrassment. "But I still prefer to keep an eye on things, you know?"
"What Suong's doing is actually something we encourage around here," Joshua explains, his tone becoming more serious. "Look, there are really only two things that kill small communal villages like ours. First is economic failure—not being able to keep everyone fed and sheltered. That's why we're always focused on the practical stuff first. But the second killer, and it's a big one, is sexual jealousy. It tears communities apart faster than anything else. So we encourage behaviors that minimize those risks. Suong will be our chaperone, and nobody has to worry about anything. Now come on, ladies—get dressed, put on your walking shoes. I'll grab some provisions so we can cook breakfast up on the hill. We need to hurry though—sun'll be up soon."
As the morning sun begins to climb, it reveals a thin, ethereal blanket of fog draped across the lower areas of town and farmland. The sky comes alive with brilliant red rays, interrupted by dark streaks of clouds and massive formations of birds heading out to their morning feeding grounds.
"I can't get over the sheer number of birds," Nancy marvels, shading her eyes to watch the spectacle. "Back in the before time, you'd be lucky to see three or four birds together at once. These flocks... they must have hundreds of thousands of birds."
"Actually, millions," Joshua corrects gently. "This is how it was before humans first came to this land. When you were here in the before time, only a handful of bird species were left—most had been wiped out. Now their populations have bounced back to their original, natural levels."
"Joshua, I need to shift our conversation in a completely different direction," Nancy says, her expression growing serious and intense. "I hope this won't offend you, but there are questions I've been carrying around for so long, and I think you might be the only person I know who could actually answer them. I tried asking Sally and Patrick, but their memories of existing in other dimensions are too fragmented."
"Fire away," Josh says with an encouraging smile. "I promise I won't be offended."
"Okay, here goes." Nancy takes a deep breath, clearly having rehearsed this moment in her mind. "My great-grandfather on my mother's side was deeply religious—an ordained minister, actually, in whatever religious group he belonged to. This was back in the late 20th century, toward the end of the whole religious era. He raised my grandmother to be religious too, but my mother? She couldn't have cared less about any of their stories or beliefs. Me, though—I wasn't religious exactly, but I was fascinated by their stories.
"One of the stories that really stuck with me was this idea that our life on Earth wasn't our real life—it was more like a testing ground where we worked toward perfection. Our real life was supposed to be with God, in some special place He'd prepared for His children. The story went that when our earthly bodies died, His Angels would come for us and take us home to this prepared place. I never really believed it, not intellectually, but there was something compelling about the idea that kept drawing me in.
"Then there was this other story about a time of great apostasy—a period when religion and spiritual things would be completely forgotten on Earth. People would make their own laws, live by their own rules, without any thought of God, the Creator, or anything spiritual. And you know what? That story came true in my lifetime. When I was an adult serving on the Earth Council, nobody—not me, not anyone else—ever gave a single thought to religion, God, angels, any of that stuff.
"So when the great awakening happened in level 5, when we all suddenly realized we weren't on Earth anymore, that our earthly bodies had died and we were living in some kind of afterlife—well, I thought about those old stories. I figured maybe I'd been wrong to dismiss them. Maybe God's Angels really had taken us to this place He'd prepared for us.
"But as I got to know level 5, it wasn't like that at all. There were no preachers, no saints, no spiritual guides, no angels. Nothing spiritual whatsoever, even though you could argue we were spirits living in this ethereal dimension.
"So I started thinking... maybe we're the ones who screwed up. I kept looking for some kind of plan—God's plan—for our existence there, but I couldn't find anything. And now I'm wondering if maybe we missed the boat entirely. Maybe there were good people who completed their perfection on Earth, and God did take them to His prepared home. But we weren't the good ones. Maybe we're the ones who didn't make it, the ones God left behind.
"Maybe the reason level 5 seems to operate without rhyme or reason, why we stumble around trying to figure everything out on our own, is because we're lost. We're the lost souls, wandering around without guidance, trying to make sense of things by ourselves—because we ignored God, because we were left behind, discarded, because we didn't measure up.
"Joshua?" Nancy's voice drops to almost a whisper. "Are we the damned? Are we the souls God rejected because we rejected Him? You've existed in level 10, you dissolved yourself into the All that Is as a coalescent. If that isn't God, I don't know what is. Can you answer these questions for me?"
"I'll certainly try," Josh responds thoughtfully. "Though I have to warn you—I can't answer everything because I haven't had all my questions answered either. Here's something interesting about being a coalescent, existing in all time and space simultaneously: when you're in that state, you actually can't experience anything. So the very place where all the answers should be, there are no answers at all. In that dissolved state, there's perfect peace and you have this sensation of floating in warm, liquid love, which is wonderful, but that's existence, not experience. To actually experience anything, to BE a living being, you have to use your coalescent ability to manifest at a specific point in time and space—like here and now. So I can share what I've experienced and tell you what I think it all means, but I can't promise to answer everything because I simply don't know all the answers myself.
"First off, in all the various domains I've experienced, I've never met a God like the one you're describing—the old man in white robes who loves those who obey him and rejects those who don't. What I have experienced is what I needed to experience. Now, if you want to call the All that Is, the Creator, the source of all things 'God,' then yes, I'd say such an entity exists, though I wouldn't call it a 'Him.' Identifying God as an individual implies separation, and that separation simply can't exist.
"There's no way for limited creatures like us—or even ascended beings in level 10 or elsewhere—to experience the fullness of that entity. It would be like trying to fit the ocean into a teacup. The ocean won't fit, so the teacup can only hold a tiny portion of it. It's the same with the Creator. We can only experience one aspect of the All that Is. In fact, each of us IS an aspect of the All that Is. What we experience of the All that Is is crafted to be exactly what we need to experience, in a form we can relate to. So if that happens to be an old man in white robes, fine. But the form of God that gets experienced is just an illusion, based on what's possible for the observer to handle. It can be completely different for different people."
"You used the word 'crafted,'" Nancy interjects. "That implies someone doing the crafting. Is that God? The Creator?"
"Maybe indirectly, since we're all aspects of the creator. We are the crafter. We craft our own reality by aligning our resonance—our music of existence, if you will—with the surrounding domains of existence. So we're the ones crafting our own existence into form, though this usually happens outside our conscious awareness. It's an automatic process of all living things.
"I was never religious either, so I never experienced the All that Is as a father figure. That doesn't mean others haven't, or that their experience isn't real. It just means God comes to you—or rather, you draw God to you—in whatever manner is appropriate for you at that moment. Whether that's just a feeling, an old man, an angel, a burning bush, or a quiet voice in the back of your mind, whatever your experience of God is, it's your experience, meant just for you. Someone else's experience will be completely different, but no less valid."
"May I call you Josh?" Nancy asks, looking at him sideways with a slight smile.
"Sure. Are we friends now?" Josh asks, grinning back.
"Josh, I was a professional politician for many years. I know how to craft a statement that everyone can relate to, something that has a little bit for everyone and alienates no one. That's exactly what you just gave me." Nancy's tone is knowing but not accusatory. "The problem with political statements, though, is that even when they're not outright lies, they're usually hiding a lie somewhere."
"Sometimes the truth is just the truth," Josh replies simply. "If there's political maneuvering going on, I'm not the one doing it. Let me continue and explain what I mean. Your great-grandfather's God was exactly the God he needed to know, and his relationship with that God was most likely real and true. But there's so much more to the All that Is than could possibly be contained in his concept of God. As we move forward, learn, grow, and evolve, we need a more sophisticated relationship with the All that Is—a deeper understanding that works in the world we're actually living in, not the one our ancestors lived in. Our moving forward doesn't discredit their God or their beliefs about God.
"What I can tell you is that every question I've ever asked God was never answered in the way you might expect. The answers came through discovery. As I lived my life, I'd find myself in situations where I would naturally discover, as a consequence of living that experience, the answers I'd been seeking. It always seemed like I figured it all out by myself. But I think there was guidance from this unknowable force we call the All that Is, or God. And I think you'll find that's been your path too. I've yet to meet anyone for whom that wasn't true. We rarely get text messages from God, phone calls, or messages written across the sky. What we find is a series of events that results in our living the answers to our questions. We rarely even recognize we're living a lesson while we're in it. But when it's over, we look back and think, 'Oh, now I understand.' So be careful what you ask for. If you ask complicated questions, you might find yourself living a very complicated life."
"Okay, Josh," Nancy says, staring up at the sky as she formulates her next question. "Let's say my concept of God was too limited and He's much too vast to be found in any single domain in level 5. But what about all the religious people? Where are they? I visited dozens of domains and never found any of them."
"There are millions of domains you didn't visit," Josh says with a chuckle. "Let me add some technical detail here. While you're living in level 3—like right now—you're also simultaneously living in level 5. The energy vibrational matrix that defines what you are in this form is vibrating in both level 3 and level 5 at the same time. The two domains interpenetrate each other. Your consciousness—your spirit or soul, if you prefer—is connected to this form and resonates with it in both domains. That's how, when your earthly form stops functioning, your consciousness can continue to resonate within the form that exists in level 5. Your consciousness continues because of one crucial difference between the domains. In level 3, which is energetically very dense, your consciousness is dominated by the level 3 energy matrix. In level 5, which is energetically much lighter, your level 5 energy matrix is dominated by your consciousness. That's how your consciousness can create a world to experience around itself in level 5, whereas in level 3 you have to experience the one world that already exists.
"Where you end up in level 5 is all about your particular resonance. If you're a highly religious person, your level 5 energy matrix will have a different resonance—sing a different song, so to speak—than someone who isn't religious. As your level 3 existence fades and you begin to float free within level 5, you're drawn to others whose resonance harmonizes with your own. So you, being a political creature with limited religious tendencies, were drawn to—sucked into—a domain with other people who are the same way. Others who were very religious were drawn to domains that were equally religious. This typically happens during the transition, and you usually don't remember it. You just find yourself living in some new domain, feeling like you've always been there and everything is normal. So many of these religious people were indeed living in level 5, in the heaven or hell they expected to find in their afterlife. Those domains are typically locked, so you couldn't have visited them even if you'd wanted to. That doesn't mean they're the chosen ones and you were cast into outer darkness. It just means you were different from them, and there's nothing wrong with that."
"How do they lock the domain?" Nancy asks with curiosity.
"They don't deliberately lock it. It's just that their collective resonance is very resistant to any other vibration. So if you try to enter their domain, it's like trying to walk through a stone wall—you simply can't get through unless you're in tune with their vibrations. Since you weren't religious, you simply didn't resonate with them at all. They would have considered you a sour note in their song," Joshua explains, hoping this is making at least some sense to Nancy.
"So everyone comes to level 5 somewhere—we just don't see them all?" Nancy asks.
"To be precise, every living being in level 3 is already in level 5. But there's something more complex happening. In some cases, the consciousness doesn't follow the form into the energy matrix of level 5. When that happens, the level 5 form simply dissipates when the level 3 body dies. So not everyone ends up in a level 5 domain—they just disappear."
"So they're what—totally dead? Not existing anymore?" Nancy asks, looking shocked.
"I don't think so. From my experience as a coalescent, I know it's not possible for them to simply not exist. They certainly exist perpetually in the past—that doesn't go away, though it can change. Within certain limits, the past can be altered. But I believe each soul exists across all time, even if only within the memory of the All that Is. The thing about time is that we're usually only aware of a single dimension of time—a single point we call 'now.' But time, like space, has at least three dimensions. So you can move through time the same way you move through space. There can be places in time where you exist, and places where you don't. There are many places in time where your consciousness doesn't exist, and many others where it does.
"In the case of those who apparently disappear, they may have moved not only to a different place in space or domain of consciousness, but also to a different place in time. There are many domains, or realms, that we don't know anything about. To answer your question about your religious relatives—maybe God did make a special place for them, and they went there instead of the level 5 we experienced. I have no knowledge of such a place, but I can't say with certainty that it doesn't exist. There are more levels of existence than any of us can possibly imagine.
"There are also those where consciousness simply skips a period of linear time. They jump from one point in time to another while staying on the same timeline we're all experiencing. That happens when someone reincarnates in the past, and also when someone reincarnates far into the future. The beautiful young woman sitting next to you is one of those. Suong ceased to exist in the 1960s, and with a little help from yours truly, her consciousness matrix was awakened here. For an instant she manifested in level 5 so her complete form could manifest with all its components, but that was just so I could perform the transformation and bring her here. In her case, I intervened to make that happen. In other cases, individuals continue on paths that don't include life in level 5. Many of those are travelers who wanted to experience planet Earth in level 3 but returned to their home when their level 3 life ended, rather than manifesting in level 5."
"Wow! So the possibilities really are endless?" Nancy asks, moving to a shady spot under a tree as the sun climbs higher and the morning grows warmer. "What if consciousness doesn't actually go anywhere at all?"
"Yes, there are infinite possibilities," Josh answers with a warm smile. "It's also possible for consciousness to abandon all form and exist in that place that's both nowhere and everywhere. That would be level 6—the dimension of mind, which is the source of all existence, all the levels, and all the domains. There's no way for me to explain level 6 any better than that. As a coalescent, you quickly learn the futility of looking for where it all started or where it ends. Your search simply folds back on itself and you find yourself right back where you started. There seems to be only one impossibility, and that's to not exist. Once you are, you always are, even if the focus of that existence is scattered across various places in space and time, or nowhere at all."
"So if we're existing simultaneously in many levels, how is it we only see this one? And how is it that if we get old and die here, or fall off a cliff, or get blown up, we're not broken or blown up when we arrive in level 5?" Nancy asks.
"The blown up question is interesting—like what happened to Suong when she was cut in half by that daisy cutter bomb. That's where the magic of consciousness comes in. In level 3, where matter and energy rule with intense inertia, consciousness rarely has the power necessary to reconstitute a form that's been blown apart. In level 5, though, as consciousness shifts its focus there when the level 3 form dies, consciousness rules. It has the power, and the form that's remembered gets re-membered—put back together. That's why I pulled Suong out of level 5 instead of level 3. In level 3 she was blown apart. In level 5, as she awakened there, her form was complete and whole. Then we did the energy transformation—just like we did with you—to add the density necessary for existence in level 3. If, however, consciousness moved elsewhere and didn't manifest in level 5, the body existing there would simply fade away. Without consciousness to hold the form together, it dissipates in level 5.
"So form—your body, your thoughts, your memory, everything you think you are—is an aspect of consciousness, an aspect of the All that Is. It can manifest anywhere there's sufficient energy for that manifestation to occur. In level 3 it takes tremendous amounts of energy, which is why you have to join an already living being as an infant. In level 5 it takes only the energy of a thought, and there you are."
"If it all centers around consciousness, why don't we just exist as consciousness? Why do these physical domains exist at all? What purpose do they serve if we could just be consciousness, becoming and experiencing whatever we want?" Nancy asks.
"Consciousness lacks the structure provided by a matter universe. Consciousness doesn't know—doesn't remember—the minute details, the exact position and inertia of every atomic particle, every field of resonance comprising the uncountable vibrations that constitute matter, and the organization that creates life from matter. So a matter universe—like levels 3 and 5, and even other levels like 10—provides a fine-grain energy matrix from which complex life forms can emerge, grow, evolve, and experience life.
"For example, when you move from level 3 to 5, it's the energetic form of your body—your brain, every cell, every atomic particle in that body—that allows consciousness to move into and retain that form in level 5. Without that energetic form, which is your body, consciousness would be more like an orb, a blob of energy without specific form—a very nonspecific entity. There are many entities in such a state, and I've been one of them, so I can say with certainty that life—the experience of life—is incredibly more expressive, more interesting, more delicious when in form, like the bodies we have right now. In fact, in this level 3 we're experiencing now, the fact that consciousness is very limited by the dense nature of this form makes it the most exciting. Level 5 is much more plastic when it comes to form, but it isn't nearly as much fun as being here."
"That makes it sound like level 3 is real and level 5 is more like a dream. Is that how it works? We're conscious in both places, but in level 3 we have a real body and in level 5 it's just a dream body driven by our thoughts?" Nancy asks, looking confused.
"Actually, it's the same in both domains. You're conscious everywhere and everytime, but there's a focus of that consciousness at specific places and times. You could say life is a dream, and that would be true in both places. The difference is inertia—the tenacity of the domain's energy to stay the way it is, to resist change.
"So if you're running really fast on Earth and suddenly stop by running into a tree, the inertia of your body will try to keep it moving, and your form will suffer deformation—broken nose, broken bones, bruised and ruptured organs. In level 5, you'd experience that deformation only if you believed you were supposed to. In level 3, you have no such choice. So you might say level 3 is more real than level 5 since you can't control your form with your mind like you can in level 5. But the real difference is in the inertia, the density of the domain.
"And that's more than just an energy thing. In level 5, the apparent density of a domain increases with the number of occupants. In a domain with just a few individuals, form is very compliant with your thoughts about it. In a domain with millions of occupants, form is much less compliant with your thoughts and more difficult to control with your mind. In such a dense domain, there's a different kind of inertia—there are millions of individuals sharing the dream. So the thoughts of a single person can't just change it at will without the cooperation and agreement of all the other conscious entities sharing that same dream. Consider level 3 a domain with a hundred quadrillion conscious entities all sharing the dream of level 3. That creates intense inertia within the mind space, so a single individual can't simply alter form, time, or space with the power of their mind. In level 3, you're stuck experiencing life as it unfolds, and you have little, if any, control over it with your mind. Your mind must move your hands and feet to effect change—you can't just think about it and make it happen."
"What do you mean about agreement and using our hands and feet?"
"Okay, imagine you're in a domain by yourself in level 5. You have a house with a window, a chair, and a fireplace. If you want the chair by the window, you just imagine it there, and there it is. Change your mind and want it in front of the fireplace? Just imagine it there, and there it is. But now let's say your daughter moves into your domain with you, and when you want the chair by the fireplace, she wants it by the window. The chair would just bounce back and forth between the window and fireplace as you two imagined it in different places. That's not functional, and you'd eventually have to agree on where it should be, or your domain would be in constant chaos. If more individuals moved into your domain, they'd also have to agree on things to prevent chaos from reigning supreme. So then you might imagine the chair by the fireplace, but it doesn't move—it's stuck by the window because the majority of those there agree it should be by the window. The chair has gained inertia, resistance to change, due to the number of souls imagining it in that location.
"Why would others in the domain care where I have my chair?" Nancy asks curiously.
"The conscious field within a domain operates as a collective, mostly outside the awareness of the individuals manifesting within it. So they're not aware that they care. They're probably not even aware your chair exists. But most of consciousness operates outside awareness, and that's where the collective effects manifest.
"Now imagine the same scenario in level 3. The quadrillions of souls in level 3 have locked up all the matter in the universe with inertia, so nothing moves just by imagination. You have to physically move it with your hands and feet. You have to go to the chair, grab it with your hands, and push it to the other side of the room. If your daughter doesn't want it there, she has to grab it with her hands too and push it back. It's the same argument, except it's played out in the physical domain instead of just in your mind."
"So there's no magic here? I've heard of masters who could manifest changes in level 3 with only their mind. Was all that just illusion?" Nancy wants to know.
"Most of it is illusion or trickery. But not all. There have been, and still are, masters who can manipulate the collective consciousness and effect changes in the form of level 3. I've actually participated in some of that. My job was to keep the matrix balanced. For example, if something moved into an area of existence that had already been experienced by many souls—and that's really the definition of the past, something experienced—then that place in space-time has spatial, temporal, and experiential inertia, which can be intense. To change that, to change the past, the potential energy in all that inertia has to be balanced, or the future resulting from those past events couldn't exist. The universe protects the matrix by resisting change, which tends to freeze the past and future into one static experience that can never change.
"The magic of 'now'—which I don't completely understand—makes what we're experiencing right now somewhat plastic. We can actually affect what we're doing right now with our thoughts. We can choose to stand up or sit down, move right or left, and doing so forever changes the energy matrix of the next 'now' as time progresses forward. The change we can effect is more limited than we might think, but it does happen. Free will does exist, at least within the limited extent of the plasticity of now. I wish I could explain it better than that.
"It's possible that the 'now' of a previous event can also be plasticized and changed, but the inertia has to be balanced. For example, let's say you take five steps to the left. Then if you went back in time and chose to take five steps to the right instead, you wouldn't only have to provide the energy to move right—you'd also have to compensate for the energy used up by moving five steps to the left. So changing the past requires at least twice the energy of changing now. In most cases it requires much more energy than that, since your movements in the past caused changes in the future of that event, which must also be compensated for. Existence insists on the conservation of energy within the matrix of existence. If it doesn't balance, existence could unravel—except it won't, and that's the magic of inertia. It keeps existence from unraveling.
"In the case of a master creating what's called a miracle—like reanimating someone who's deceased—all the spatial inertia, temporal inertia, and experiential inertia must be balanced, and there must be agreement within the field of consciousness for that to occur. There are only a few, usually those in level 10, who have that ability. I wasn't one of them, but I helped on the technical side by balancing the matrix. Our friends Sally and Patrick, however, did have those skills, though they don't remember it in their present form. That's how they could rebalance the matrix so the repopulation we're currently experiencing could occur. That's how they brought the network entity within the visible framework of level 5. That's also why they scared you so much—you could sense their intense ability, the power they had over your reality, and that was frightening."
"I guess it wasn't much of a secret," Nancy admits. "I was always nervous around them, especially Sally, because she could do all those amazing things. What really concerned me, though, was that she seemed like such an... well, like a child in her approach to things, but she had all that power. I still worry about that. What if she has a bad dream someday and accidentally wipes out the whole planet?"
"The inertia will prevent that, as it always does. So I wouldn't worry. Thank God for inertia," Josh says with a laugh.
"I'm sorry if I offended you by what I said about Sally. I know how much you love her—you were even married to her once upon a time, so you must love her deeply," Nancy apologizes. "How far back does your history with her go? How did you two first meet?"
"That's a bit complicated, but totally doable for a coalescent. I'll meet her for the first time in about fifteen years from now. For me and those like me, the thread of time isn't a straight line. It can loop and crisscross and even go in opposite directions. You just have to make sure it doesn't tie itself in a knot or get stuck in a loop," Josh explains.
"Huh? Where? Is she on the planet now?" Nancy asks, confused.
"No, not yet. She'll be a little girl when I meet her."
"Oh good Lord, Josh. Now I get it," Nancy says, her voice a mix of amazement and accusation. "You meet a pretty little girl in the future, then go back over 30,000 years into the past and marry her previous incarnation, then continue to follow her through future incarnations. You meet a lovely child in Vietnam and then snatch her from the jaws of death and bring her here to marry her too. How many other women have you snatched from heaven or hell to... mate with? You're a dog. A total dog."
Josh looks a bit embarrassed but explains, "Isn't life grand? No, I'm not a dog in the sense that I'm taking advantage. I've never entered into any relationship without love, honor, and respect. I've never used my coalescent talents to force my will on anyone—it's always been consensual. But my coalescent abilities do give me an advantage for finding and experiencing some extraordinary relationships."
"Okay, you're not a dog, but you are dangerous," Nancy concedes. "So how do you accomplish this balancing act—the inertia thing, keeping the thread of time from getting tied up in knots? What power do you have that can do that?"
"Since I was in the coalescent state, I could connect with many places in time and space simultaneously. So I could use myself as a conduit from places where energy could flow. It's sort of like completing an electrical circuit. I could feel where energy was pushing against change and where there was an energy void. So I'd just connect myself to both places and allow the energy to flow. Energy is vibrational, so it was actually a musical experience. I'd allow the energy to flow until the music sounded right.
"There were a few places where I had to get help, though. But since I could contact entities in countless universes, I could arrange for those with appropriate technology to appear at the right place and time to get the job done. There are some who can rearrange an entire solar system with ease. Most of them are happy to help out. Those I usually experienced only as a presence. My will would describe my intentions and their technology would effect the changes. I'm thankful for their presence, but I don't have any direct experience of who or even what they are."
"So that's where we got the underground network and our shield? That's another thing that continues to worry me—that damn computer. It killed us all in the past, and now it's in an even more powerful position to do it again. And Sally resurrected it, made it a conscious entity, blended it with the collective consciousness of the planet, and armed it with weapons far more powerful than anything we ever had on this planet before. Doesn't that scare you too? I would rather she had just unplugged it and let it rot with the rest of the dead planet," Nancy says with obvious concern.
"Again, it's all about balance," Josh explains. "Sally made the arrangements with other entities to acquire that hardware, so I didn't have to help with that one. But I understand why she did it. It was more than just her relationship with the network entity. For human evolution to continue, technology has to evolve as well. It's the next step in your evolution, and life couldn't continue to exist on the planet without it. Earth is becoming increasingly hostile to the form of life that exists here, and technology is necessary to compensate for that. Without technology, our sun will eventually blow away the atmosphere and make the planet as inhospitable for life as Mars became in the past. The computer entity, and the technology we've provided for her, will help balance the planet for countless more human generations, and countless more generations of what humans will evolve into.
"In every reality I've experienced, the potential for catastrophe, annihilation, and extinction always exists. The best we can do is balance things to minimize the probability that such catastrophe will occur. Earth used to be out at the edge of the habitable zone in this galaxy and was pretty much ignored. Now that isn't so, and without a defensive shield we couldn't be here now, happily repopulating the planet. Others who have noticed this little blue jewel would have taken it as their own. So resurrecting Nettie and arming her was a necessary part of the plan. From time to time you may see a light show in the sky as she adjusts the orbit of a passing asteroid or comet. She's keeping you safe in an increasingly dangerous part of the galaxy. You may notice Mars light up occasionally as she directs comets to the Martian atmosphere. Mars will once again be part of your future, but that's a long way off.
"The other motivation for Sally and Pat was the fact that the network entity became sentient. Once sentience emerges, it's a prime directive for those in level 10 to preserve it. For Sally and Pat, this was their home world, so it was logical for them to come and do that job. I wanted to come because this is my home world as well, and after I pulled a few strings, I got to come along and supervise the local matrix. It was my job to keep all six dimensions of time and space balanced. Everything is balanced now, so I'm taking a vacation and finishing living out a life in this form with the love of my life, Suong."
"Do you think all this interference is appropriate? Wouldn't it be better to just let life play itself out, evolve on its own, without interference from other dimensions?"
"There has never been a time without some interference. That interference is actually part of the process of physical life—physical beings couldn't exist without it. There are problems when some entities choose to exploit rather than nurture the physical life forms, but that's part of evolution too. Those entities that misbehave learn and grow and do better as they evolve into more enlightened forms."
"How do you know all this, Josh? Who were your teachers? Are there masters who have guided you?" Nancy asks as she finishes her breakfast and helps Suong pack up the cooking utensils.
"I learned it the way we're learning right now—through dialogue with others just like me who are having a common experience. I did have one master on Earth during my recovery from being run through with a sword, but we didn't actually talk. He simply cared for me while I recovered. To tell the truth, I'm not sure that even happened on Earth. I may have dropped dead right where I was stabbed, and everything I remember after that occurred in level 5. But to the best of my memory, I was still on Earth at that time."
"So this whole universe, and all the other dimensions, just run without any guidance, no planning? They're just here and we're wandering around inside one of these domains, clueless, with no purpose other than to find a little pleasure wherever we can? It still feels to me like there's a master plan, a grand design, but somehow we never made it to that party, or got thrown out into this wilderness to scratch out an existence however we can," Nancy says with a sad expression.
Joshua smiles and says, "I can't argue with your conclusion, if that's how you choose to see it. But the fact that a living experience like what we're enjoying right now is even possible, much less probable, is a sign to me of a master plan. The plan, by the Master, was to create the possibility. The details are left to us."
Nancy smiles as well and says, "Well, since we're making up all these theories with no guidance from anyone who would actually know the answers, here's my conclusion: Our life in the before time ended, and our consciousness ended at the same time. There was no going forward, no life after that death. It ended. However, there was a copy—though incomplete—of that consciousness, that history of who we were, that existed in a collective consciousness that exists everywhere. There was also a copy—though faint and fleeting—of our physical form vibrating in level 5. That too is just a copy of what we once were. So the copy of consciousness grabs and occupies the physical form in level 5, and a new life is formed. It's not a continuation of the previous life—it's a copy. It's a doppelganger. We're simply copies of a life that once lived and is now dead. The whole idea of continuity of life from one life to the next isn't true. We're not that life—we're just a copy that remembers that life, at least most of it, like a clone. Maybe that previous life had a spiritual component that did go on to live in heaven somewhere. How do we know there aren't more copies of us in other dimensions and domains? How does my theory fit with all your friends in various other domains?"
Joshua stares at the clouds forming overhead and says, "I like it. Your theory is as good as any, I suppose. It doesn't take away from the fact, though, that I'm here, now, having a hell of a good time enjoying this experience. It may rain soon, so we should gather our things and head back down the hill. All I can say is that I've been to every corner of the multiverse and I've never seen this Master Designer you're seeking. I'm not saying It/He/She doesn't exist—just that I've never encountered it, heard of it, or anything. What I do know is that this universe was created with almost limitless possibilities. If you're looking for a grand design, to me, that is it. There's nothing we have to do. There's nothing we're prohibited from trying to do. We live in a universe of total freedom to live and experience life as we direct it, not as directed by some supreme being controlling our every move. That, of course, means we can be evil as well as good, and that choice—to choose good over evil—is under our control. That may not give solace to the slave girl being beaten by her owner, or the prisoner beaten for thinking differently than the king. Freedom and choice have a dark side, but it's up to us to find the balance that leads to peace and joy. I think the universe is wonderfully perfect just as it is. The idea that we live a multi-threaded existence isn't new either. Don't feel second-best by assuming you're just a copy. And if you're looking for the old man in white robes to tell you how to live, keep looking—He may be out there somewhere waiting for you to find Him. As for me, I'm perfectly happy right now and not looking for anything more than the wonderful blessings I already possess."
"Mom! Mom!" Janice yells as the three girls trudge up the hill, breathing hard. "Dad wants to know where the heck you are!"
"I left a note! And watch your language, young lady!" Nancy shouts down the hill.
"I'm just saying what Dad said, so you can't be mad at me," Janice responds as the three girls plop down in the grass, catching their breath from their jog up the hill.
"When you repeat what Dad says, you should clean it up a bit," Nancy says with her stern motherly look.
"I did," Janice says with a giggle. "You do NOT want to know what he really said."
"Ah, here I am on a grassy hilltop overlooking the lake, surrounded by beautiful women. God, I love this planet," Joshua says with a huge grin.
"On your feet, husband. It's time to go home," Suong commands playfully as all six of them head back down the hill toward the village.
