I was lost

I was lost. Not in the usual way, because I knew exactly where I was, but in a spiritual sense. My life wasn’t in ruins, I had a loving family and a good job. Still, I was lost.

Work had long ago lost all value to me. Nothing more than a mundane routine, and I an automaton. I traded hours of life for money that would bring me more hours of life that I could then use to repeat the cycle.

After work, I would go home to spend some leisure time with my family. Relaxation had become impossible for me, as I was beyond stress and anxiety. I was numb.

My life had become a barren waste before I met the One. I stumbled from moment to moment like a blind man in a room full of marbles. The One changed all of that.

They showed me the Way. Their teachings enlightened me and I knew where I had gone wrong. Life lived in service of others is a waste, they would say. The only path to a valuable existence was to pledge myself to them and to the Way.

Sacrifices would be necessary. My misplaced devotion to the false god of work would have to be redirected. I would also have to relinquish my hold over my family and let them go freely into the future without me. The One would relieve me of my earthly wealth and help me to be reborn as a child of the Way.

I met the One at a work-conference. They appeared to me as a woman with intense violet eyes and a knowing gaze. When they spoke, I was transported to a world without the burdens of responsibility, and I knew deep in my heart that they were truthful. There could be no lies from a being, so pure and good.

The One told me about how they came to the Earth. They weren’t originally from here, you see, rather they had chosen to come down to save as many of the misguided humans as was possible. I would be one of the first, they told me, and I would help bring their message to the rest of my species.

The problem was that one must want to be saved because coercion was an evil of the material world, after all. Without giving yourself freely to the Way, one could never truly find it. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. The One was full of such wisdom.

I left my life one night, slipping out as my family slept and going to a nearby ATM to withdraw my donation. The One was waiting for me at their chosen location out in the countryside, the center of the universe. My journey took me several days, as I wasn’t allowed to spend any of the One’s money to get there. This was to be a trial of my devotion, they had said.

Eventually, I arrived in the center of the universe, where I met many other disciples of the Way. They relieved me of the burden of money that I carried and showed me the tasks that I was free to perform in service to the One. I flourished under their tutelage.

The tasks I was free to do were laborious, but I didn’t mind doing them. Freedoms would be earned as I slowly shed the yolk of my past existence, the One would say. My first freedom was to work the fields that would freely produce our food. Other freedoms would follow later, greater freedoms. Finally, I would earn my full freedom and be released from the Earth to roam the cosmos as a being of pure light.

You, too, can become free, that is the Way of the One. The only freedom you have now is the freedom to choose the Way, or to choose enslavement. Feeling lost is really just feeling the Way calling to you.

All you have to do is give up everything else.