The All

I first learned about the All in my 2nd millennia of manifestation.

I was visiting my ailing grandmother with my parents in Maryland, a journey we would make every summer. Mr. Samuels was a man of 68. He lived alone at the end of the town, secluded on a mysterious wooded hill in his small, unpainted wooden house that was yards away from a shimmering pond. His house was as disheveled and unorganized as his appearance, where books and aging documents laid strewn out on all the furniture and rugs, each object amassed with decades of accumulated dust that had never been cleaned.

He was the town’s quack, spouting out absurdities and trembling with paranoia. Some afternoons, Mr. Samuels could be seen walking aimlessly, cowering at the sight of some unseen object in the sky.

“The hand! Did you see the hand?” exclaimed Mr. Samuels.
 “Go home, you crazy old idiot!” shouted my disgruntled grandmother.

It seemed her words had the magical capability of bringing him back to reality, because at that moment he would abruptly tug at his white beard and scratch his head, while racing back to the recesses of his section of town. My senile grandmother rarely showed much conviction in her later years, but the sight of Mr. Samuels reignited a dormant fervor to specifically demand that I never walk down the small dirt road to see Mr. Samuels. Her intensity always frightened me, making the usual sight of Mr. Samuels uncomfortable.

However, this particular summer felt different. The usual things that amused me in this town were no more and I was dissatisfied. It was a balmy summer’s late afternoon and I was sitting against the big oak tree in my grandmother’s yard, throwing pebbles at the picket fence. I looked up to the golden sky and noted the eerie calm around me; not even a breeze was blowing. At that moment, I could have sworn I saw a reflection of myself in the sky, as if the sky itself were a body of water. I looked up fixedly long enough for the Sun to lower to its dusk state. That is when the first firefly tested his bulbous tail right in front of my nose and distracted me. It was good that firefly did, or rather it was good that I made that firefly distract me, or else I would have never noticed poor Mr. Samuels scurrying back to his home. I crept from my sitting place and watched him scuttle into the twilight of the dirt road ahead; I quickly looked back to the house to make sure I could escape unnoticed.

The path ahead was illuminated by an ethereal glow that beckoned me into Mr. Samuels’ world. The trees were initially dense and they towered over me, but the more I walked they became thinner. The dirt road also turned into grass; it was the softest grass I had ever encountered that it felt like a grassy trampoline as I bounced from step to step. I saw an opening in the distance. Mr. Samuels’ figure was blocking it for a moment, but when he went through, the most radiant light poured in after him. I jumped higher and faster in that direction, and then slowed down to walk gently through the opening. When I entered,

the ethereal light disappeared, and his house looked like a normal house in a normal section of wood. I walked closer to the well-lit house. Mr. Samuels’ was analyzing something in the sky right in front of his door as I approached him.

“Thank you for gracing me with your most eminent presence, I thought you would never come,” he said sarcastically.

“What? You’ve been waiting for me to come?” I asked incredulously. He sighed. “Your types never remember, do ya? Come inside with me.”

He pulled me by the arm into his filthy home and motioned me to sit on his powdered brown couch. As I sat down, a billow of dust shot from beneath me. He was rummaging through overwhelming amounts of documents as I surveyed the area. It was a madman’s home. Nothing made sense; everything contradicted the other; and Mr. Samuels’ was the vomit of all my fantasies and my figments of imagination.

“I’m sorry Mr. Samuels. I didn’t mean to disturb you. I don’t know why I came. I think I will go home now,” I said.

He whipped his stern head in my direction. “Of course you know why you came. You came to learn about the All. I will tell you about it in just a moment, I am just looking for the manual, as you should know, I sometimes forget how to operate myself in such denseness.”

“But sir, you are insane. I must go home.” I pleaded.

Mr. Samuels chuckled. “I’m only as insane as the world you created around me. I’m sorry if my appearance is not to your liking, but, after all, that is your doing.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Of course you would not remember.” Mr. Samuels became frustrated. “This is your class’ idea of a funny joke. Since, ultimately, I am entering your All you can make me into anything in which you please. Clearly, I’m a crazy, incapable man in your creation; however, it is better than your classmate’s All. In his I am a very beautiful women. It makes for a very distracting experience.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Alright, enough of this. You’re taking longer than I expected. I’m sure you don’t remember Humane,” he asked.

I was puzzled, but Mr. Samuels instantly elaborated on the world from whence I came. “Humane is the expression of perfection. It is a realm of great illumination where people live day-by-day pulsing and glowing. We are blissful people and we pleasure ourselves in

attaining the utmost reaches of pure radiance.”

I felt myself eking out a smile. His words brought back a feeling I had long since forgotten.

“Sounds like a glorious place,” I said.
 “It is absolutely perfect.” He replied defiantly.
 “I am curious, you mentioned my All. What is this?” I asked.

“Yes, your All. You’re in it right now.” He examined my confusion and walked over to the windowsill where a beach ball rested, covered in dust. He threw it in my direction as the dust blew in my face, forcing me to sneeze.

I groaned. “Why did you do that? There is so much dust here. Don’t you ever clean?” “Maybe I should ask you the same question,” he retorted. “Change it if you don’t like it.”

I closed my eyes for a moment and saw myself in Mr. Samuels’ home from above. I mouthed, ‘no dust.’ When I opened my eyes, Mr. Samuels was in a clean home.

“Thank you kindly my dear,” he snickered.

“How did I do that?”

“Here walk outside with me.” He led me to the back door towards his glowing pond.

I remember noting to myself the perpetual twilight of this area. I thought the Sun should have set hours ago.

“Here stand with me and look to the sky. What do you see?” He looked at me, while I examined the heavens.

“I don’t know. A sky, I suppose. Everything is so still.” “Look closer, “ he prodded.

“I see hands! It’s as if they’re holding the world. Is that what you’re always blabbering about?” I asked excitedly.

“Again, that is your doing… You see, we are standing in your All, the world in which you have built. An All is a sphere that every person in Humane receives at birth. The closest thing you can relate it to, in your dense state, is that of an external, physical soul, in which an individual can store knowledge, experiences and thoughts. It is the only thing in Humane that is bound by physical principles, since all people up there live their lives

according to unlimited rules of the Universe and can change a moment at the drop of a thought. The use of the All is meant to strip down the Principles and rediscover your mental workings in a baser environment. Before you descended into your All, you invoked your intention as you designed this world to the “T,” including the design of your friends, your families, and your future lovers, but that will have to wait another life- time because now you are too young and after our time here you must return to Humane to begin a new lesson.” He paused to study my response.

“I will never see my parents again?” I remember “feeling” sadness; it caused me pain.

Mr. Samuels patted me on the shoulder. “When you entered your All, you entered what humans here call a ‘life-time,’ a journey into a progression of linear time on Earth — being born, maturing, aging, and then dying. However, this ‘life-time’ is not more than a few minutes in Humane. You’ve lost all your memory, but it was so you could dedicate yourself to re-discovering your true essence until you ‘die.’ You will come back though and will become stronger. Call this ‘life-time’ your ‘trial run,’ but I must warn you that the next time I will not be here with you. It might be a terrifying existence for your inexperienced mind, riddled with violence, hate, and greed; it might even lead you to depression and suicide. Yet, do not fret, because as you become more advanced, your All will most resemble Humane, in all its heavenly glory. And on top of that, each time you always have Humane to return to.”

“Wait a minute. Why did it take me this long to speak to you? My grandmother warns me against you every summer,” I asked.

He responded, “Well, it’s not really a long time. However, for some reason, you were using your grandmother to resist me. There is no doubt the All can be hypnotizing, you feel things here that you can never feel in Humane. I suppose it distracted you.”

As he explained this I finally saw the reflection of myself vividly, looking down on the little world I had created for myself. It was the strangest feeling, as I was still bound by physical emotions in my All. It was the feeling of betrayal and I could not bear it any longer. I rushed to the pond so that I could drown myself, but Mr. Samuels only laughed and pulled me out.

“Don’t be silly, you don’t have to ‘die’ just yet, as I said, this is merely a test run.”

I was crying at this point. “Why not? I just want to get the feeling over with, if I’m indeed going back to Humane.”

He crouched down to my level. “No, no, no, that is not part of this lesson.”

When I looked up to him with my tear-filled eyes, I finally saw Mr. Samuels in his true form. He was the most beautiful person I had ever seen in my All.
 “Come on. Let’s go home. We have a new lesson tomorrow.” He took me by the hand and we entered the pond together. I woke up instantly in the large veranda of study in

Humane, surrounded once again by my familiar classmates, who were all as exhausted as me. Mr. Samuels stood elevated in the center, applauding and smiling at us all.

That was my first journey into my All. It was the most unexplainable experience. I can’t wait for tomorrow…