“If one knows everything, what more can one know? If one has done everything, what more can one do? We cannot know the end of knowledge, and that is the mystery of existence. How much power is in the universe? How much gold is in the mountain? How much love is in your soul? It is all there. The great adventure of life is to find out how much there is, and the only way you can find out is to start to use it, start to spend it. Truth is. It is all here, waiting for your adventure and your discovery.”
Habasha suddenly fell silent and Kathy Dart rocked in the soft chair, then sat back, as if exhausted by the long discourse. She placed her arms on the chair’s arms, raised her head and again in that strong voice asked, “If any of you have questions, I will try to answer them. Speak up!” Her eyes were now closed.
“What is the purpose of life, then?” came a voice from one of the front rows of chairs.
“Woizerit,” Habasha answered, “the process of living is living.”
“What about past lives?” Jennifer spoke up. “My past lives.”
“You may have past lives, or not, Woizerit. You may still be living your past lives. People live different lives simultaneously.”
“What about our spirit, then? I mean, how can our spirit, or our soul, whatever we call it, be everywhere at once?”
“Each of your lives is lived with but a part of your total soul,” Habasha replied.
“But then how can we have good lives and bad lives?” Jennifer asked immediately.
“If those lives are beautiful and benign and contribute something to the lives they are living now, on this plane, then I think the answer is that you consider them gifted. If the lives they are living on other planes create conflict with what they are trying to do here, then we consider them to be mentally and emotionally disturbed. And they all are the result of lives you have lived before, in other lifetimes.”
“What do you mean,” one of the men asked. “Other planes?”
Kathy Dart slowly turned her face in the direction of the speaker and Habasha said, “Other planes are dimensions beyond our existence here. These planes, or dimensions, are not necessarily stacked upon each other. Different planes may exist in the same place. Heaven and hell exist in exactly the same place. People used to think that heaven was up, and hell was down. But two people can be sitting together on a sofa, and one can be in hell, the other in heaven.”
“Who or what are extraterrestrials?” Jennifer asked, thinking of Phoebe Fisher’s Dance.
“Extraterrestrials are bound by the specifics of a time and the physical laws that govern their particular planes, wherever they are, but once they transcend those planes, they may be bounded by other considerations, such as weightlessness.”
“We are all bound by laws. In terms of time travel, you have to know that time stands still and matter moves through it. Time does not move. Time simply is. Because all things exist now, there is no other time but now in any direction or plane. Therefore, the phenomenon of time is better understood as the distance between nows.”
“But if you have a past life,” Jennifer asked, pushing the point, “how would that be? Would you have a past life now?”
“Where did you put your past life?” Habasha challenged.
“Did you hide it under your bed? Where did it go? Does the past just dissolve? Does it disappear? Where is yesterday?”
“It’s used up,” Jennifer responded, anxious to hear where the argument might lead.
“You cannot destroy anything, only change it. Can you say that the whole of yesterday is just banished from the face of existence? And for that matter, what about tomorrow? Is it all being re-created for you to experience anew?”
Kathy Dart sat back again in the chair. She was nodding her head, as if Habasha had summed up the question.
“Is it tomorrow already?” the young reporter asked from the floor.
“Yes.”
“I’m still confused,” Jennifer interrupted. “If in a previous experience you lived completely in the past—as we usually understand the past—-then are you simultaneously living that past life as you are living this present life?”
“Perhaps. Let’s talk about the nature of existence. Is it physical or mental?”
“Both,” Jennifer answered.
“How much of life does your physical body encounter?”
“Very little, I guess. I mean, just where I am. Who I am.”
“And your mind embrace?”
“More.”
“More! Indeed it does. Your body experiences only the physical now. So everything about the nature of your existence is a reality of the mind. It is a reality of the spirit.”
Kathy Dart suddenly sat forward again and gestured with both arms, then Habasha said loudly to Jennifer, “Do you love anyone?” he asked abruptly. Kathy’s head was tilted up, and her eyes were now closed, but still Jennifer tensed.
“Yes,” she whispered, thinking immediately of Tom.
“But you don’t at this moment have a physical relationship with that person, do you?”
Jennifer shook her head.
“No, you only have that physical relationship when your bodies touch. The real nature of this love is spiritual. If you did not exist as a spirit, then that love would cease to exist the moment your bodies ceased to touch. If you have knowledge of the world, if you have a sense of the past or the future, if you have a sense of the meaning of things, the purpose of life, it is only because of spiritual awareness. That is the nature of existence.”
“And what about that?” Habasha asked next. “If you remember your life, do you remember it chronologically?”
Jennifer shook her head.
“No! You remember the most important things first. The most important thing that ever happened to you might have occurred many years ago. It might be easier for you to remember something that happened when you were twenty than something that happened two weeks ago. Or yesterday.”
“Indeed, something that happened to you as a child might be much more important than what you do now. And something that happened to you in ancient Egypt or Atlantis or Greece might be stronger in your consciousness now than what you do today, here on the farm.”
“That’s what I mean,” Jennifer said quickly. “If I had another life in ancient Egypt, or whatever, and that feeling is very strong in me, does that mean it is taking place right now, while I am also living this life?”
“It couldn’t be very ancient if you’re still thinking about it,” Habasha said, and around them everyone laughed.
“No, it couldn’t,” Jennifer admitted, smiling.
“It’s obviously contemporary, then.”
“How do you explain history books,” Jennifer went on, sensing that she had trapped Habasha in her argument.
“History deals with linear time.”
“Chronological?”
“Yes. You must understand that what is called ‘ancient Egypt’ is only ancient because it is measured relative to this date in history. It seems ancient, but it did not end; it continues to exist in another time dimension, another part of the now, a part other than the physical plane you occupy at this moment.”
“Habasha, why are you here?” one of the women students asked. “Why did you come to earth again?”
Jennifer glanced from the student back to Kathy Dart, who was slowly nodding before Habasha replied.
“Many have asked me that, Woizerit. Some say, ‘Habasha, do you not have a better place to go than here on this planet, at this time? Is there no paradise that awaits you? Is there no heaven in which you would rather be? Why would you come here? Why?’”