The Key (A Fairytale) - Chapter 4: Nothing Left To Lose (Part 1)

For five long years, I did fine by myself in the forest, but when I came upon Maradin and her cottage, everything came apart. It was my first real challenge and I wasn't up to it; I could still be easily duped and victimized by the grand illusions of the world.

I was so disheartened that I sat in the field for days, eating nothing, utterly humiliated and disgraced. Conqueror nuzzled me from time to time, but I ignored him. I couldn't move. I was nothing, worthless in fact. People that I had previously looked upon with disgust; the poorest of the poor of my kingdom, were far better than I. These good folks went to work, day after day to backbreaking jobs, possibly being forced to associate with difficult people just to provide for their families. This took far more resolve than did all the battles I had fought during my idiotic war, a conflict that only resulted in tragedy for so many, including myself.

To make things worse, my callous dictates threw an innocent man into the dungeons to die just as his first child was about to be born; a child he would never know. This would have been bad enough if he was just an ordinary man, but the blacksmith was a key "keeper." Not only had he sought the key; but he found it . . . an incredible feat that I, a powerful king, might never be able to achieve.

I was completely fed up with myself, so much so that I just sat there with my heart near the breaking point. I had no one to comfort me and I could find no consolation, and yet this thirst for the key beleaguered me. I had to discover its secret. The world I was familiar with was slowly falling apart, and yet the spiritual life was nowhere to be found. It was the jumping off place for all true key seekers.

"Trust your heart," Ariya once said, and I desperately needed her now. Obviously, my heart was not the one involved with Maradin; it was my lust. How could real love be directed toward only one, individual person? Unlike clinging love that confines and limits where I might think that I love one but then hate another, authentic love must flow out to everything, unconditionally, and encompass every creature,. The love that I felt for Maradin was only one side of a deceitful coin, with love of Maradin on one side, and hatred of her fiance on the other.

This genuine heart of love is the one that warned me about the cottage, and now, seeing how easy it is to confuse my intuitive heart with my cunning mind, I vowed that I would never confuse them again. The sorcerer's lessons were very effective. Actually, they were life changing.

Completely lost in these deep contemplations and feeling alone and abandoned, and very sorry for myself, I was surprised to see a little man wearing an orange robe strolling down the path with a big grin on his face! As soon as he noticed me, he unabashedly walked right up to where I was sitting and, with a big smile and child-like innocence, said "Oh, hello there! My name is a John! How are you on this beautiful day? Oops, I can see you are not feeling good. Oh well, perchance I can cheer you up!"

"That is a strange name, ‘a John,'" I replied, "Why not just . . . ‘John'?" I had to admit that his trusting, bright demeanor was having a strange, positive effect on me.

The small robed man's face twisted into a pained expression, and scratching his head, confessed, "I know exactly what you mean, my name seems so . . . clumsy, but that is the way it is and I must live with it."

I actually found myself smiling at this completely engaging, unpretentious man. "You do not have to live with it at all. Just call yourself ‘John!'" I replied.

He shook his head, "Oh-oh, it looks as if somebody likes to take short cuts! Well, you see, this is the name I was given, and it would be dishonest to pretend it was otherwise, so I'm afraid that I'm stuck with it." He then hesitated for a moment, as if suddenly struck by a great insight, and said, "But if you insist on calling me ‘John,' I give you permission to do so!"

His expressions were so comical that I laughed harder than I had for years. "I am extremely honored to meet you ‘a' John," I replied.

The little man seemed pleased with this and then, shaking his finger in the air, admonished me with a smile, saying, "You will never find your key if you are not honest!"

My laughing abruptly stopped. How did he know that I was searching for the key? I studied this strange, diminutive man a little closer, noticing that his eyes were curiously empty, yet very alive, as if they were looking through my solitary eye and focusing on the meadow behind me.

I tested him with a question. Perhaps I was testing myself, "Do you think that I am foolish for giving up everything to find this mysterious key?"

"No, no, my friend," he replied, "I have the highest respect for you, for what else in this world of woe is there to do? May you eventually find your happiness. Isn't that what everybody searches for?"

He then asked a leading question, "How do you plan to go about finding this key?"

I mulled this over for a moment, because I had no idea what I was doing out here. "Nothing on earth matters to me except this elusive key," I said, "and I am determined to find it regardless of hardships ahead, but I'm not sure how to proceed. What I do know, however, is that the key is inside of me and I am compelled, for some unknown reason, to live in the forest until I find it."

"Good. Good!" Exclaimed a John. "Living in the forest is extremely helpful. The forest, the animals, the natural world; these are a direct emanation from Reality, from the Source, and you and I are made up of the things of the natural world. We eat from the natural world, and when we die, we melt back into the natural world. Our hearts feel more comfortable here unlike the kingdoms, which are man-made,. A true key seeker will always feel more contented in nature because here he is closer to what he truly seeks."

I was curious. "You are apparently very poor; wearing a simple robe; so why are you so happy?"

A John chuckled and said, "Nothing left to lose!"

I laughed along with this disarming man with the infectious laugh, and then confided in him, "I really don't know what I'm doing or where I'm going. Can you help me? Can you teach me what else I must do in this quest, other than to be honest?"

"Oh, I cannot teach you," he said. "You must teach yourself."

"Teach myself? I've just spent five years in the forest by myself and all I learned was how to survive! I don't know how to go deep inside where my key is."

"Yes, you must learn how to go deep inside, but once you learn, it will be up to you, and you alone, to make the journey inward."

"But where will I ever find someone to help me do this?"

"Maybe you will run across somebody willing to help you someday," a John said, and then after hesitating for a moment, offered, "In the mean time, I can warn you of the Five Dangers, if that will help."

After I nodded, a John dramatically pointed his finger in the air, proclaiming, "These Five Dangers will keep you from the key! Be very careful of the First Danger: wanting things. Simple food, warmth, and shelter are fine, but when you crave things that delight the eye, please the ear, smell good to the nose, taste wonderful to the tongue, feel exquisite to the touch or bring pleasure to the mind in imaginations and memories, then you will be misdirected in your search for the key. If you come across these delights by chance, enjoy them to the fullest! However, if you then crave them, want more of them and turn them into pleasures and desires that fill your mind, they will deceive you in your mission.

"The Second Danger is anger." He looked at me for a moment with his strange, laughing eyes and added, "Do I detect a problem here?" He then went on, "The Third is laziness; this has to do with the inner work that the sorcerer mentioned. The Fourth is restlessness and remorse, thinking that the next place will be better than where you are at, and the Fifth is doubt; doubting the existence of the key and your quest. These Five Dangers have stopped many key seekers in their tracks and are not to be taken lightly."

How did he know about the sorcerer! Who was this man?

"Can you give me just a few more pointers?" I begged.

"Of course I can my friend. Live your life like this: Watch everything clearly, through the fog of your thoughts, through stale memories and judgments. Let go of all the old images and the excess baggage, throw the entire lot out for a brief insightful moment, and truly look. See life for what it is, see the truth of it, see the beauty of it, see the disgust of it, but never push it away nor hold it dear. Experience everything, but grasp nothing."

What he said was way over my head. I just stood there looking quite bewildered.

"My next lesson is that when the student is ready, the teacher appears," a John grinned. "Would you like to walk with me in the woods for a while?" (To be continued)