Death and Rebirth - A Sequel to The Ghost of Joshua Willow

Xavier arrived at the ashram in a small village in Southern India in the province of Bangalore the afternoon before. Though tired from a journey that had taken two days he was excited at the prospect of meeting his guru.

It was now 8am and Xavier had been waiting patiently sitting crossed legged on the hard ground since 4 that morning along with thousands of people from all walks of life. As Xavier looked around him he couldn't help but get lost in the surreal scene he found himself a part of. There was no sound but yet the air seemed full of the din of excitement he could see on the faces of all the people around him. The colours, the smells and the hot humid atmosphere made the experience seem dream like in a way.

And then he emerged from his humble abode. This little man in an orange robe gliding effortlessly through the gate that led into the huge space where everyone waited to catch a glimpse of their avatar. Xavier found himself, like everyone else there, in a trance like state mesmerised by this vision of the holy man he had read so much about. He was really here in the presence of a person like no other he had ever seen.

Xavier watched as his guru moved between the aisles that separated groups of people and he watched the scene of people reaching out to this man with envelopes containing their prayers and wishes. From time to time he would stop and speak with someone and with a few circular movements of his hand he would materialise ash that he would then pour into these peoples' hands. No sooner had they received the ash than they started rubbing it into their foreheads and licking it as if it contained some secret potion that would clean and purify them in some miraculous way.

Xavier watched as his guru approached a group in which a mother carrying her badly deformed child was reaching out to him begging him for something. Xavier assumed that the mother was pleading with the holy man to cure her badly afflicted child and was surprised to see the holy man ignore the woman and walk past as if she did not even exist. What kind of holy man is this who would show no compassion for suffering such as this Xavier thought.

And then as he is walking toward him Xavier could hear his guru's words as if they emanated form within his own mind. He was talking to him from inside Xavier's own mind because he could see that his lips were not moving.

“Why do you judge me? You cannot see what I see. You see the world and everything in it from a very small window. Come with me and I will show you a bigger picture.”

With that Xavier is taken back in time and to a dark and dirty room. The woman he recognises as the woman who was pleading with his guru is here with her son. She is mutilating his hands and feet. Xavier can hear her thoughts. “Now people will feel sorry for you and you will become a better earner for me. Be quiet, the pain will pass.”

He hears his guru say , “There is more, come.” And with that Xavier is taken back to another time and though the two people he is watching have completely different physical appearances he recognises them as the mother and son from the last scene. The son is a judge and his mother in male form is his assistant. He is condemning one person after another to severe sentences of mutilation and even death in horrific ways. All he can think about is what he will be having for lunch and with a flick of his hand he sentences another one. His assistant is writing down each sentence without once considering the enormity of their actions.

With that Xavier once again hears his guru beckon to him and he is now in a room in Florida watching someone typing the the final words of a poem into a computer before publishing it to a site called HubPages. The poem is called The Ghost of Joshua Willow...and the writer signs the poem, MysteriousOne. The poem tells a story of how a mother kills her son who then returns to haunt and kill his mother and the poet is oblivious to the connections linking all of the characters in this story of the cycle of death and rebirth that is and continues to be the plight of Man to this very day.

Xavier then suddenly finds himself sitting cross legged on the hard ground in the ashram in India and his guru is standing over him smiling “I am glad to see you again Spirit Whisperer” he says and winking at Xavier with a twinkle in his eye he tosses him a sweet. On the wrapper are the words “Judge not lest you be judged!” and the names MysteriousOne and d.william under those words. Don't forget to check out those hubbers when you get back and you should accept the challenge the MysteriousOne puts to you and with that he moved off into the throng as if floating above the ground.

Many years later Xavier did join a site called Hubpages and he chose to write under the name Spirit Whisperer. Xavier did befriend two writers called MysteriousOne who wrote a hub called The Ghost of Joshua Willow and d.william who wrote a hub called Judge Thee Not. Both these people published their hubs within minutes of each other. And when MysteriousOne challenged Xavier to write a sequel to her poem after he had left a comment Xavier realised that he had not been dreaming all those years ago. It really had happened and Spirit Whisperer smiles as he dedicates the challenge to his recently deceased guru before publishing his story to HubPages.

Dedicated to my teacher Sri Sathya Sai Baba