Author: Michael Edwards

One night, when you are asleep, you have a dream. And in this dream, you are sitting —on a plain wooden chair — in the belltower of an ancient temple. Which you somehow know is standing at the summit of Tai Mountain, in China.

Above you hangs an enormous iron bell. No one knows who made it. The temple was well-established here, even when the original Chinese population came to this region, thousands of years ago. And the bell has hung above the temple ever since.

For a long time, it has not even had a tongue with which to speak. Somehow the clapper, itself weighing hundreds of pounds, no doubt, has been removed from it. Yet the bell is so well made — of some extraordinary alloy — that, when the wind blows softly around it, the bell gives off a vibration, almost a sound. One doesn’t know for sure if he hears it — or if he feels it — or perhaps only imagines that he can feel it. Nevertheless, the vibration is quite real.

And now this ancient mysterious iron bell hangs silently over your head. You sit under its shadow, listening to your heartbeat. In breath. Out breath. The metal of the bell feels cool above you.

And now the wind begins to blow across the mountaintop. And now the wind comes near, caressing your brow, and bringing with it the fragrance of the fields, far below.

Suddenly, you think that you can feel the vibration, almost hear it, beginning to hum all around you. Sonorous. Magnificent. Spiritual. Uplifting. And yet the bell stands silent above you. Just as it has stood silent, suspended over the countryside, for years without number. Yet at the touch of the breeze, instantly speaking the one word that only you, at this moment, in all the world, can hear.

Like an alarm, the vibration awakens your soul from its slumber. At once, you know the truth of the language that it is speaking to you. And only to you.

With a start, you understand — in its entirety — the history of this bell, and your own connection to it. It is you who put the bell here, long ago, in a previous original earthly lifetime — as a great teacher, come from the stars — to awaken yourself to the truth again, the moment you were ready to receive it. Even now.

And thus to attain mastery over, and to attain liberation from, this one last planet. The most challenging planet in the entire Milky Way galaxy. The Earth. And then — to ascend forever. At one with the one.

And at this moment, you realize that your journey through the cosmos has come full circle. The bell never had a tongue with which to speak. But you are its voice, for whom it has waited patiently across the eons. And now you alone must know its truth — yet remain silent forever.

In the midst of the silence, however, you will experience bliss.

Today, then. Taste that bliss: in the eternal now.