Copyright © 2004, Glenn Story
As I was coming home from work the other day, a man walked by pushing a baby stroller. The man asked me if he could use some water to wash his hands. He explained that he had been eating an orange and his hands were sticky. I showed him a faucet around the side of our house. As he cleaned his hands he introduced himself. He said he is a retired school teacher from Madras, in India. He is here visiting his son and his new granddaughter.
He told me that his friends in India asked him, “How can you afford to travel to America? You are just a poor school teacher.” He told me that, in fact he is rich beyond measure and looked at his granddaughter, peacefully asleep in her stroller. He told me that people confuse money with wealth.
Then he told me that, although it may appear that we are two men talking to each other, that in fact we are two gods communicating with each other. He said that people think that God is up in the sky, but when went to the moon we never found Him there. That is because God is here. He said that we are gods and the manifestation of God and when we converse or do our work, or live our lives, that it is really God fulfilling His purpose.
He was not proselytizing as Christians often do; he was merely stating a fact.
He told me that whatever you are sincere about you will succeed at. If you sincerely steal, you will be a successful thief. If you are sincere and honest with your customers, then you will be a successful merchant.
I found myself speechless. I wanted to tell him that even though he’s retired, he’s still a teacher. But that’s not quite right: a teacher tells us things we don’t know. He was telling me things that I–that we all–already know.
Then he smiled and apologized for taking up so much of my time and continued his walk with his granddaughter.
And I continued going about my life, forgetting for the most part, that I am a god.
“Thou art God.” — Robert Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land