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- Meet Tao
Meet Tao
by Dizghuye Ovadhere
"Primera," Tao says, assuming from my recent shape up and sharp lines carving my jaw that I must be Latino. My left brow questions the mistake, though later it becomes apparent that a mistake would be impossible, and that remains forever a question unanswered. Tao switches to English, and continues without restarting, "What you think is light, is not really light at all."
"Huh?" accidentally slips passed my lips as the bewilderment lofted above my brow line just moments ago lingers a little longer than it should have lasted as I wonder why weirdos always wander towards my way; why on Earth does every asshole always assume I would acquiesce to being their soundboard, and sure enough, I agreeably engage irrelevance regularly, somehow unwittingly welcoming warped dialogue as if an invitation to abandon my freedom found in Zen mind was rush delivered by zebra express. But I digress, and the nonsense ensues, "I call it firelight, but that is only to humor you." Tao's humoring me? How in hell does that make any sense even in the drunken stupor that has most likely caused this conversation to coalesce? And, oh, okay, wait, because there's more. Apparently, condescending a stranger comes naturally to any intoxicated loner who happens upon me. "But really, it's just fire. You have never seen true light."
I'm sure I haven't sounds off in my mind, but I hesitate to be so sarcastic.
"I haven't seen a lot of things," I offer, unsure of the context of the last few words I managed to retain.
"Perhaps wishing evil on the less fortunate has your mind preoccupied?" responds my new friend of sorts.
Alright, that was weird. Did I say that out loud? No; I'm certain it was just a thought. How did he do that? Did he read my mind? I need to stop for a second to figure this out. But you see, there's a significant opportunity cost associated with having to pay attention to any more of this preachy cult recruitment bull-pitch, which at this point, the number of options that could be considered an opportunity cost includes just about everything other than listening to this, so I'm going to mentally check out and take a stroll down ADHD lane rather than try to figure out how on Earth my thoughts broadcasted out of my mind, because I'd have to be out of my mind to believe what I just witnessed.
Let's see anybody read my mind while my childhood disability takes me on a journey through a maze of fleeting thoughts, which would be harder than trying to categorize rain drops as they fell around you during a hurricane. And now, you can either join me and tour the mind of a sugar-fueled adolescent's ADHD moment and forget you ever considered that you might learn how to kill gods, or just give me the paraphrased version later, either way. But, if you decide to pay attention to this dreary dribble, don't blame me if it permeates your perception.
And as Tao’s voice fades to join the background noise I'm almost always ignoring, my mind automatically records Tao’s rhetoric to watch later, and meanwhile, Tao’s sci-fi lecture continues without audience, "Nobody on this planet has, and it doesn't require fire to create it. It is inherently divine by design, and there is no other light beside it."
At this point, I can't even dismiss or ignore the craziness being spoken at this level of intensity. Okay, fine, I bring my mind's focus back, and now Tao does have my attention, and Tao continues, "All forms of what we call light here on Earth are forms, in one way or another, of fire." Okay, that's actually an interesting point, and possibly true, but still just one man's opinion, and while I disagree to myself, I nod to him in agreement. But Tao still has my full attention while I register yet another claim I plan to include in my growing list of items I've saved to mock Tao with in my response.
"The sun is a giant ball of fire," Tao states as if I should gasp at the new discovery, but I now lose focus once again of this boring banter whose topic has just become the blatantly obvious, switching from a sweetened slice of insane.
So I refocus my attention away from Tao’s voice, and now it is just echoes like the wind from a distant valley. While ignoring him, I take note of Tao’s portly belly disproportionately extending beyond Tao’s frame. My momentary glance to snap the mental picture of Tao’s shapely torso, perhaps so that I may later sketch for posterity, but otherwise I am actually unsure of my motives, is in fact noticed by Him. In fact, my arrogance here is unjustifiably misplaced and quite offensive, even if I am unaware of who has graced me with Tao’s presence. Any stranger, even one dressed in rags, deserves every other person's attention; perhaps not for an extended period of time, but we are all connected, and the suffering of one is an embarrassment to all.
Regardless, Tao caught my eyes and noted it, for then a brief silence suddenly invaded the room. I assumed at first the silence was because I confused Tao temporarily until he was able to logically deduce the harmless intent of my disrespectful peruse of his physical form. But in truth, the silence was really because Tao realized nobody was listening. What Tao didn't know, was that I could remember what he said, even though I wasn't paying attention at that moment, and I'll explain that later, and also later it will become evident that Tao did know.
More curiosity than anything else steered my attention away from a topic I don't remember agreeing to discuss anyway, while I tried to calculate how Tao could possibly pack himself into such a small frame, though in relative terms of course, since my body seems frail by comparison despite my height advantage.
"Okay, so what? big deal, Fire? Yeah, I know," I retort rather mercifully, in my opinion, since I reserved a great deal of sarcastic ammunition, which I'm actually just saving for when the hole his words are digging is too deep for him to climb out of. So my sarcasm lies dormant but grows angry for being denied the right to be infused with skepticism into what should have been a moment of witty delight. Yet somehow, I am the one that is offending Tao, and carelessly I might add, though it won't become apparent to me until much later, at which time I will recall with great regret the arrogance I now proudly springboard off of to rise with self-righteous superiority that I solely am responsible for introducing into an otherwise peaceful albeit condescending dialogue, well, maybe monologue, while Tao exercises patience yet again to excuse my brewing mental assault and even those thoughts along with other slight mannerisms indirectly but otherwise still associated with my callous elocution.
Those thoughts, which I am not even aware of, Tao can effortlessly access as if they were illuminated in bright neon and displayed directly above my head; though, that analogy implies Tao would have to read the neon writing in order to access my thoughts. But the reality is that all thoughts present themselves to Tao from all lifeforms within the hierarchical structure Tao has created. To wonder how someone can manage such a large volume of information for every fraction of a second that passes is to erroneously personify a being who is neither human nor limited by any of the boundaries we have come to believe must apply universally; they do not. What we believe are the concrete laws of physics that all of existence adheres to is really just a manifestation of our assumptions that have been self-validated but by no means is reality indebted to us to follow the scientific laws we proclaim with such arrogance.
That is the problem with truth, it continues to be true regardless of how many votes against it. Truth cannot change to be untrue because every living being agrees that it should. Truth is universal and whether we choose to accept it or invent our own version of it will in no way impact or affect what has and will always continue to be true. So what is true? The truth is right in front of your eyes; you have only to open them for the first time and see beyond the ego-fueled glory you have imagined you self-righteously are entitled to; you're not.
Duality is in some ways very accurate, though not exactly, but for our purposes, we can postulate that existence is dualistic in nature. With that theory in mind, existence is then divided into two opposing forces. Now you may argue that life is what you make of it and heaven is a state of mind, and that's very noble, but false. There is indeed a heaven and, stepping out of our theory for a moment, all of existence is within the bounds of heaven, but back to our theory, this is not heaven. Whatever truth is, you certainly will not find, discover, realize, attain, or invent it here. Here is the opposite of heaven, and when you pray every night, the only one who hears or answers, if they are even heard or answered, is the great Lord Tao. Sure, Tao is an employee of God, but just like you can do good or evil as you please, in Tao’s reality, good and evil do not even exist let alone apply. So you can call him Satan, devil, Lucifer, God, Krishna, whatever you want, but Tao prefers simply King Tao, or just Tao, and I would recommend getting on Tao’s good side if you ever want to find the path that leads you out of hell.
So anyway, Tao can shift his awareness without having to focus his attention outside his own mind to know what anything within our known universe might be thinking at any given time, not just the present moment we live in and are convinced is a limitation of all existence.
He doesn't exert energy trying to read another being's thoughts; they simply manifest within the bounds of his awareness so that Tao has a direct link to them within his consciousness, sort of like those old 6-cd changers people probably still buy and end up listening to the same six CD's for months without replacing them. Only in his case, there's a cd for every life form in our whole universe already loaded into the cartridge Tao would have, and the cd doesn't have to be the one currently playing for Tao to hear it.
His ability to transcend the dimensions we are bound within as well as other dimensions beyond our own that I am ill equipped to imagine with any degree of precision, places Tao at the apex of the hierarchy that defines the limitations of the various life forms Tao’s existence encompasses. Tao doesn't simply have an extra dimension like a side order at breakfast or an extra axis on a chart or diagram, the dimensions exponentiate Tao’s extensibility to dimensions we can't possibly even imagine let alone understand. But, let's give it a shot. So to paraphrase, he extends into our whole universe as if pervading it with a translucence invisible to the untrained eye, and exists in all moments of time, not just the present moment. I'm going to circle back to that soon enough.
"Try to register the significance of this statement I just offered," Tao condescends me in Tao’s soon-to-be-realized justified attempt to restore my mental focus with a repeat of the previous sentence I blatantly ignored. Tao snaps his finger gently with his arm resting at his side, a clear confirmation He's aware I was busy sizing Tao up instead of participating in the discussion by listening quietly. Tao was trying to initiate what could have developed into a new perspective for me to better understand, interpret, and perceive my own experiences, but the snap of his fingers hanging off his hips causes my head to whip around as if jumping to prepare against an ambush.
Before my attention slips away again, Tao quickly picks up his monologue right where he left off, "it is only in this realm that these objects of burning fire, I mean stars, exist," Tao continues. Now, I need to rewind a little, because I don't remember whatever he must have said to lead Tao into stars only existing in what? What realm? Is our universe, our whole existence, and the complete totality of all of creation as far as we know, just one of many realms to Him?
"Again," Tao repeats, "the sun, your star, is just a giant ball of burning fire. No wood, no gas, no fuel, in fact, no oxygen, just the fire."
"Right?" I dismiss without even waiting the few moments that would indicate I mentally processed Tao’s statement before responding. Again, Tao exploits my careless disrespect as an opportunity to gain virtue by practicing patience. Let me explain why I keep mentioning that. Our reason, that lifelong quest that feeds our curiosity and makes us unique, is to grow and nurture our spiritual essence. As a baby, you were born with awareness but no spirituality. Unfortunately, instead of learning to grow our spiritual force with genuinely good actions, we gradually force children to lose their awareness, and essentially reverse the process. Growing spiritually is our sole purpose here.
"Fine, we can circle back to that later," Tao acquiesces disappointingly. I agree in silence, hoping to shift to a topic that doesn't insult my intelligence.
2) For those who exist beyond the limits of time, death and life are concepts only to be imagined as hypothetical theory, implausible fiction.
"The sun emits fire in the form of radiation which includes both a particle and wave that combine to form what you interpret as light," Tao offers in as simple a form as Tao’s advanced mind will allow.
"It isn't light?" I ask in clear sarcastic disbelief of the next words Tao plans on responding with along with a healthy dose of pre-implied wrongliness (if that's not a word, it should be) that Tao will have to own up to later.
"It is not," Tao replies, introducing an idea that, if I were to believe it, would conflict with one of the most basic of concepts that is a foundation upon which many others are based, which all unite to form the foundation of my understanding of reality, accelerating our conversation to what Tao believes should be an easily grasped concept even for a mind as primitively evolved as mine, but it is a concept I simply refuse to accept as fact. Though I do understand what Tao means, I just don't believe it.
"So what is it then, if not light?" I inquire with an increasing level of skepticism as each of my queries compound my rejection of the fantasy realm Tao must believe Tao might convince me to join.
"Let me explain. Each particle and wave of light travel together in the empty vacuum of space, but because light contains a particle, which any of your scientists would agree, then it should in theory, illuminate the darkness of empty space, right?" Tao offers, acknowledging my obvious disbelief of Tao’s words.
"I'm a little confused. We have this thing called science that explains all that," I sarcastically reply, "have you heard of science? Did you get a chance to experience an education as a child, or what exactly causes a person to end up this way?" I snicker with the satisfaction rewarded from belittling others successfully.
"Let me explain it another way, but first, you must realize by now, I'm not a person," Tao continues, ignoring my offensive remark, and slips a rather unbelievable claim into his response, "A particle of light is actually a unit of measurable matter. In contrast, the wave of a unit of light is not matter; it lacks tangible qualities, but the particle is tangible. It is substance. So all the stars emitting light are emitting particles and waves into the dark universe. The universe is therefore filled with endless amounts of particles and waves traveling in every direction, hence our ability to see. We see by translating the firelight from the nearest star that is reflected off of objects," Tao explains.
"Okay, right, light travels through space," I agree with a clear amount of ignorance on the subject, ignoring the outlandish claim Tao snuck into that statement about not being human. The multitude of different forms of sarcastic mockery dancing behind my eyes beg me to unleash an unmerciful verbal assault upon him, but I quell those urges, because he's actually piqued my interest.
"So the universe should in theory be glowing, right? After all, it contains an endless amount of particles, and particles of light no less." Tao proposes.
"In theory, yes, I mean, wait, no, the universe is dark," I reply, unclear of how science explains particles of light not appearing in space.
He continues, aware of my confusion, "In every square inch of the dark universe are billions of particles of light. The fact that the universe remains dark despite an endless amount of particles traveling within it that should illuminate it, is in fact because God has ordered there be no light in this realm."
"Really? You're going to sell a bible next or is this some religious recruitment..." I pause my words and my thoughts, allowing Tao an opportunity to justify the abrupt shift to religious debate, and sparing myself the effort to try to craft a witty finale to that corny bible babble I started.
"You can twist your science any way you want to explain phenomena so that it validates your theories," Tao argues, "but that's the thing about truth, it will continue being true, regardless of how many people refuse to believe it."
"So the universe being dark is a conflict of natural law?" I ask.
"Sort of," Tao confirms, "I'm actually surprised you understood enough to even think to ask that question. Very good. Do you remember when you were young someone would ask you if you would jump off a bridge if you saw your friends do it? You answered no, right?"
"Right," I acknowledge, confused by irrelevance.
"So why then has everybody jumped?" Tao offers, forcing a bewildered gaze upon me, as all context of the conversation is lost to an image of a herd of zebra committing group suicide by running off the side of the lower level of the George Washington bridge.
"Jumped?" I ask with evident confusion as I try to maintain my footing in the conversation.
"It's a metaphor," Tao explains.
"Yeah, I got that," I reply, "just kinda hoping you'd get to the point. In all honesty, I'm not sure why I'm even still listening."
"Fine. Right to the point then. God has ordered the kings of every realm to ensure that Hell would be dark, and endlessly dark, in every direction with only giant balls of burning fire to shine any form of light within that darkness," Tao replies as if a valid response to my question.
"Kings? Hell? Whut!" I ask as I stamp the official bag of nuts logo on Tao’s chest.
"We'll circle back to that," Tao replies.
"You say that, but will we really," I respond in jest, though followed by regret at the possibility it might convince Tao to continue on topic. Tao’s gaze remains fixed on my line of sight as I pose with champion pride.
"We will, but for now, back to you, forget firelight for now," Tao states calmly, easing the tension.
"Okay, so back to me, because firelight is really just not that fucken interesting, sorry!" I candidly confess, attempting to bury my inability to absorb Tao’s wisdom.
"Then let's start off with something fun and light," Tao suggests.
"You mean lighter than particle physics?" I tease.
"Tell me something unique about you," Tao asks me much as a seventh grade science teacher would the class on their first day back from summer break, knowing exactly what responses they would receive, and fully prepared for each of them.