"My God!" I exclaimed. "Then they can offer 2150 without my having to attain level three!"
Rana nodded, "And they are planning to offer you not only permanent translation to 2150 but also adoption into their ruling elite, making you the third most powerful person on Micro Island."
"Yes," Carol added, "you would rank just below their President, Elgon, and their Vice President, Sela. Elgon was the only level seven in the Macro society who ever regressed levels. It made him so angry that he chose to leave the Macro society some eighty years ago and make himself president of Micro Island. Ten years later he managed to persuade his former Alpha mate, Sela, who had been a level six, to join him as his Vice President."
"But how is it," I asked, "that they can permanently complete my time translation when the combined efforts of every level nine and ten here and in the nearby planets are unable to do the same?"
"Oh, they could do it all right," Carol answered calmly, "but they chose not to until you demonstrate level-three awareness."
"Now wait a minute," I said. "Do I understand correctly that the Macro society has the power to keep me here permanently right now but won't do it because they don't like my level of awareness?"
"Precisely," Rana answered. "But not because we're snobbish over levels of awareness, as you are presently suspecting."
"Well, then, what is the reason you won't let me become a permanent member unless I attain level-three awareness?" I asked, a bit miffed.
"We believe," Rana said, "that if we completed the time translation before you had attained the psychic balance of at least level three you would not be able to withstand the micro pressures and would quickly regress to level one and eventually choose to live permanently on Micro Island."
"Are you sure?" I asked.
"No," Rana answered candidly, "and we are not sure that, even at level three, you won't regress and eventually choose to leave the Macro society, but we all agreed that we'll take that gamble."
"I learned from C.I." Carol added, "that almost a third of the level tens advised not completing the time translation until you had reached level seven. That was before they learned that Lea could only hold you here for three months without completing the translation."
I felt cold and clammy with a combination of understanding and frustration. "What was the minimum level of awareness that you all had agreed on before you learned of the time limitation?"
"Level five," Carol replied.
For a moment I just stared at the two of them while I let this chilling information register completely in my mind. "So you're telling me that even with level-three awareness the odds are against my continuing to expand my awareness in 2150."
"That's true, Jon," Rana replied. "Many feel your future success in the Macro society is very doubtful, due to the fact that you weren't born and raised in this age. Many feel that three months of your time is not enough to overcome the pull of your micro past. But we have voted and agreed to give you the chance if your personal evolution reaches level three."
Now it was my turn to give Rana a long appraising stare. Finally I said, "With your level-ten wisdom and your precognitive powers, what do you see in my future?"
She smiled and answered, "Things about the future can only be known as probabilities, or as possibilities, as they are always subject to change by the altering state of one's desire and belief. It would be unwise to predict your future at this point. I will be happy to help you explore alternative possibilities, though."
I shook my head saying, "I still don't understand why anyone would think that I would give up my twin soul Lea, Carol, my Alpha, you, and the whole Macro society to permanently join a micro society. After all, I've lived in a micro society for twenty-seven years back in 1976 and I know first-hand how miserably neurotic and selfish it is."
"The advantage of a micro society," Rana answered, "is that you can indulge your selfish desires and be acclaimed as a patriot, a statesman, or a hero in some field of endeavor."
Carol took my hand. Then looking at me with great intensity she said, "But I believe in you, Jon. I know that you'll overcome the micro self."
"And I, too, believe in you," Rana added. "It was my statement of belief in you before the Council of Tens that persuaded them to accept a level-three demonstration."
Then I was startled to telepathically hear Lea saying, "And I believe in you-always and forever."
Carol and Rana smiled at me and I knew that they too had picked up Lea's message. Rana said, "Certainly the three of us who know you best ought to be able to provide you with enough belief to overcome your micro doubts."
I replied, "As long as I provide the necessary desire, the thought of losing contact with the three of you certainly provides me with the motivation I need."
"Very well," Carol said. "Now the only question that remains is when should we leave for Micro Island?"
"Tomorrow," I answered.
Rana stretched out her hand to me and said, "I strongly suggest that you wait one more week in which you can continue developing your Macro powers. I feel you will need all you can develop."
"You get that precognitively?" I asked.
"No," she laughed. "I get it logically!"
"All right," I agreed. "We'll wait one more week and I'll do all I can to develop my Macro powers, but that only gives me a little over two weeks to either attain level three or say farewell to 2150."
For the next week I played endless rounds of PK tennis with Carol, Neal, and Jean.
We played some more 2150 chess, too, and an extremely helpful new learning-game called Merge.
The object of this new game was to become one with the object, animal, person, or action; to feel what it feels the way it feels it; to sense what it senses; move as it moves; to know what it knows; to merge with it and be it for a while.
What an awakening experience, and what fun! The hardest part was always giving up my selfhood.
Through hard practice and taking the necessary risks I eventually learned that I never really had a selfhood in the first place, except from a micro view.
I learned that you can't lose what you never really had in the first place, namely, yourself. Since your separateness is only an illusion created by choice, it is there whenever you think you want or need it. It can't possibly be lost or taken away from you.
People are fascinating to merge with, but also the most difficult, the most educational, and the most painful.
Objects are the most dangerous for adults. While children find life so exciting that they jump from adventure to adventure, adults sometimes weary of the challenges and risks of life. If, in this weary state, they merge with, say a huge oak or a lovely big stable rock, it is sometimes extremely difficult to want to come back out. And, since desire precedes action, one must want to be a person more than he wants to be an oak before he can come out of an oak back to being fully a person.
Back in 1976 I visited hospitals to practice healing. I used not only PK, but also clairvoyance, telepathy, the beginnings of precognition, and my newly developed ability to merge. As I walked up and down hospital corridors if I "future saw" the possibility of death coming quickly for a patient, I would try to remove this possibility. Interestingly, in attempting this I discovered the truth of free choice.