It all became a game of lies. But, it didn’t begin that way. In the beginning, they were all one. When a child was born, the birth mother nursed the child until it could put food in its own mouth. Then, that child would be free to go out into the village and live amongst its brothers and sisters, and the village would all work as one to teach the child how to live, and how to love, because they would all look at that child as their own. They were all one, in the body, and, one in the soul.
That village lived in the way of the Gods, because they were free from one another. They lived with no attachments, clung to no physical matters, and desired nothing of the flesh; only to live. One day an outside observer stopped to speak to the people of this simple, yet, grand, village. “Why is it” he asked, “that you have all this beauty and splendor, yet, you really have nothing? What could you really claim as yours, except, nothing? You are so capable of being rich, yet, you are so poor because you have nothing to claim for your self.”
“All of this is ours”. One villager responded. “We claim these things together; All that we have, we share, and thus, we live as one... we love as one... we are one.”
“Impossible”, the observer replied. He continued to report, “How foolish to think that you are all one when you are not. Clearly, there is more than one of you. Clearly, you are not one. Yet, you give your riches to one another as if they mean nothing! Even your women and your children you allow to roam as if they should not be held as prized treasures.”
He laughed at the simple villagers, and their naive manner. As he turned away to go on with his journey, he uttered to them, “Thus, you will always be poor fools.”
That night, the villagers went home to the place they all rested under the stars together, and, for the first time, they could not rest. The words of the observer pounded in their heads. For the first time, they realized that they had nothing to themselves. Their minds spun restlessly as to how best to gain personal assets.
Some thought, “I want to sleep in a home of my own at night. I want to rest in a place all my own.” The next day, the men from that village were not like they usually were. This day, they did not gather together to go out in the woods and hunt for the necessities of the village. Rather, they went out alone and went to their own way, hunting for something of great value. He thought, “If I have something of riches for myself, then I can exchange it for everything that I need to build a place just for me.”
The men worked hard and long days now. It was much more tedious now that he had no brothers to help him. But, he wanted what he now believed he needed, and there was nothing that could stop him from attaining a place of his own. And soon, he had it. Soon he was rich, and had acquired enough treasure for everything that he would need in order to build his own village, of his own women and children. Now, he was a king all his own.
The women now, still flocking together, observed all this. Wondering what was happening, a spur of nervousness rang through the village. The only time that the women and men were together now, was during supper and evening celebrations. The men would now spend these hours comparing which of those among them were able to acquire more because of his skill and strength. They were no longer a brotherhood of fellowship. They were competitors. The women listened on now, and responded as though they were disgusted by the petty male egotism. But, somehow, the idea of greatness turned them on.
After supper, the men would each go home to his own place, and the women would rest in the common place, under the stars. “I want to be that way. I want to go to my own home. I want to share the riches of the men.” And at night, the women would dream about a life spent with the greatest of the men. “Oh, to share his life would be better than anything else... then, I would be the lady of his house, and we would rule within those walls together. Perhaps if he could see the greatness of my beauty, he would choose me to share with.”
The next day, the women would go off alone to find the best and most beautiful ornaments, fragrances, and fibers, and with those, she adorned herself in the hopes that he would notice. She learned to use the language of no tongues, and would present herself to him as an alluring offering. If only he would choose to accept. And she would want the greatest man. The one who had most of wealth, power, strength, and courage, would be the choice pick. The one she could trust to take the best care of her, as it had always been the men that would hunt for gifts and blessings of nature to offer the women of the village.
And he would choose his wife, and she would be given the title of Queen, to reign over his own with her. And she became responsible for taking care of their home together. He became responsible for taking care of her, because she was his own, as was his house, as was all of his riches, and all of their offspring. And all that he had, he shared with her, and all that she was, he gave to her. And he loved her, and they were one.
“But, now what was the difference?” He thought. “I loved her before when we all lived in the common village under the stars. And I shared everything I had with her just as I did when I was allied with my brothers to supply the needs of the village. If we were not one then, as the observer proclaimed to us, then, how is it that we can be one now, she and I? How are things different? How is it that I am now rich? I am slave to this land, toiling to be the greatest, to have acquired the most. How is it that things are different now?”
And to herself, she thought, “I am such a fool to have given myself to this man as such. For, what is the purpose? There is no difference... no change for the better, in anything. Now, I act only as his personal domestic servant, a slave to this household, to cook, and clean, and mate, as his possession. And all of the weight now is on my shoulders because he has chosen this life of stress and burden, and it is for me to console him that he may have the strength to go on tomorrow. Happy because he chose me? He chose me because I lured him, I enticed him to choose, as did many others.
“He chose according to his wishes and by the abundance of his riches, many of us did he choose. Then, by his wealth, he bought my hand with a promise to provide and protect me and ours. I am now bound to him, bound to this fortress, that I may serve it, that I may be protected by its walls.” And in the village, divided for the first time, they wept, for the change is not what they had expected. But, now it seemed too late to reverse its effects. Choices were made, destruction had occurred; the peace of one was broken. Now only time awaited the future.
And the villagers grew to hate the observer who lied to them. They grew, also, to hate themselves for believing in that lie. So, this was the way it begun... and, that is what it all became. A game of lies. So, in the end, they forgot that they were all one.
When a child was born, now, both mother and father cling to the child, as they possessed it. And, they teach the child to cling to them as they cling to each other’s own. That child never learns to be free, because a player in the game of lies is nothing but a slave to the ways of destruction. That child would never know its sisters and brothers of the one, as once was such. That child would never know freedom.
