The Dharma Revelation

Chapter 13

The man walked the streets quietly, looking at the setting sun with a slight smile. He loved the sunset. The way the colors mixed and mingled, and the way the warm air of the day seemed to cool into a more forgiving climate.

He also liked the sounds of wingtip shoes on the sidewalk as he walked. They crunched and clicked against the sidewalk in a way that made him feel clean, professional and authoritative.

When he got up this morning, he put on his best suit and made an extra effort to shave cleanly, groom his hair and take time to look as presentable as possible. He believed the way you felt about yourself projected on to others, and the way you felt about yourself was determined by your mind, nothing else. Since his sense of self came from his mind, he was of the opinion that to deny or ignore the mind was both foolish and shortsighted.

He turned a corner and came upon a mailbox. Stopping there, he took a quick glance around then reached underneath the bottom and felt something taped there, just as it was supposed to be. He jiggled it loose.

It was a gun, which he quickly shoved into his inner jacket pocket.

He paused and looked at the mailbox curiously, recollecting days from his youth when his mother would ask him to deliver letters, important letters. Even when it was cold and snowy, he enjoyed jumping up and volunteering to run to the mailbox on the corner.

Now things were different, he thought angrily.

He continued on, walking past the mailbox.

E-mail, cell phones, all of this technology. All powerful and convenient tools, but there was a cost. Simple things were no longer appreciated because everything came at you so fast.

The hustle of life had caused humanity to lose its focus, to become susceptible to chaos. Thankfully, there were people that made it their purpose to maintain stability.

He took a deep breath as he continued walking, sucking in the air, smelling the aromas of the street. There was an elegant perfection to the world. Good and bad, right and wrong, power and weakness. He smiled as he felt true joy at the beauty of the world, at God's creation.

He believed God created all of this for us because he loves us. The world is a testament to his divine power, the balance and perfection of this existence. Oh, sure there was evil in the world, just as there was good. The evil was because of the devil, because of temptation. The righteous were strong enough to resist that temptation. But evil was necessary, for without it there would be no way to measure goodness.

There was a natural order of things. The weak submitted to the strong, the powerful in the world were imbibed with the true message of God. Discipline was needed in order to ensure laws were obeyed, and basic human behavior was regulated in a fair and concise manner. Justice was disseminated among peoples of all races and religions. But at the center of it all was God, and one was either a believer or a non-believer. Among the believers was salvation, if God's laws were followed, ending in an eternity of happiness. For those who didn't follow his laws, for the nonbelievers, eternal damnation.

The man believed this with all of his heart. He was taught this since he was a little boy. He read the Bible, and like most people, he took it quite literally, as a handbook on life.

But the man recently was forced to acknowledge the place of other theological organizations in his universe. Theological law was even more important than religious choice. He believed whichever religion you followed, you must adhere to the law. Nothing angered him more than seeing pockets of chaos forming within religious structure. Chaos was a tool of the devil. It led to lack of discipline, disrespect for God's law, even rebellion. This type of rebellion could cause years, decades, even centuries of theological study to crumble.