Christopher Golde

Then I saw a great white throne                 

And the one who sat on it;                         

The earth and the heaven fled from his presence,            And no place was found for them.
                                                                                           John                                       Revelation 20.11

Date:          8th February 2000                     Location:  Temple of Emah, Tibetan Himalayas 

 

               Jason looked into the blind yet all-seeing eyes of the monk Phan Tu Ma. It was early morning and they stood in the outdoor courtyard of the remote ‘Temple of Emah.’ Jason pulled the coat made of Yak fur about his ears in an attempt to minimize the effect of the bitter cold. The elderly monk stood still only dressed in the same seemingly light flowing, red robes he wore all the time. His head was bare and shaven, yet the cold seemed not to affect him at all. Jason knew that in normal human terms the monk was blind but he also knew that the holy man could see as well, if not better, than any other man alive with his ‘Blind Sight.’

Over the stone walls of the courtyard, Jason could see snow-capped mountain peaks that were even higher than the one the Temple was perched upon. A brilliant orange sun was just emerging from behind one such precipice and its brilliance streaked across the heavens, highlighting a build-up of snow clouds surrounding the side of the peak the temple rested on.

“Beautiful isn’t it Mr King,“ said the monk, looking directly towards the emerging sun? “Of course I don’t see it as you do but I know it is there and I know how wonderful it is as my mind tells me this to be so.”

Jason had heard that there were people with blindsight but this was the first time he had actually had proof it existed in reality.

“Did you sleep well Mr King,” asked the monk?

“Incredibly well thank you, even though my mattress was made of stone.”

Jason was genuinely impressed by how he had slept in the stark sleeping quarters of the monastery.

“It’s the sleep position, Mr King,” continued the monk, still staring at the sunset, “our beds, though made of stone, force you to sleep in the absolutely correct position for you to get the most out of your sleeping hours. Softness, just like normal eyesight, is overrated as a human requirement.”

Jason agreed with the monk with a smile and a slight nod of his head.

“I will be direct Mr King, as I know you will still be recovering from your long journey and at the same time must prepare physically and mentally for the return trip. I imagine you have many questions about why you are here and why we knew you would be coming here. I will tell our story first, then you may ask me any questions and I will do my best to answer. Let us walk while we talk to Mr King, it is also the time of my daily exercise, which includes walking about the temple grounds for one hour.”

The monk turned and began walking along the outskirts of the yard and Jason kept pace beside him.

“It is written in our ancient text that a Buddhist monk by the name of Phan Nook, a disciple of the ‘order of light’ had a vision in the year nine fifty that he must build a temple on this particular peak. It was written, that the temple must be completed by the year one thousand and three and then would stand for exactly nine hundred and ninety-nine years. It is also written that the future of the human race depended upon its construction and maintenance. Nook summoned monks of the order to gather as many devotees as possible to come and help build the temple and in return, they would become one with the order. A thousand able men came to this place and with their bare hands, they constructed this temple. It took them fifty years exactly to complete and more than half of them perished during the construction. In fact, all one thousand of the original builders and now members of the order, are buried in the chambers beneath the temple. It could be said they are to this day the foundations of this monument and the will of mankind to survive. In the year one thousand and four, one year after its completion Nook passed away and in his dying days, he had a vision. He had one of his scribes record the vision which is still kept in our archives. The vision described the coming of a spiritual being to his bedside who presented itself as the essence of all existence. The spirit wanted to simply be known as Mun, which in English translates to darkness.”

Jason felt a sudden familiarity with the story and wanted to respond enthusiastically but restrained himself and remained silent.

“Mun told him many things about life and death but he was sworn to keep the secrets for the next thousand years.  Mun said they must wait patiently and in time, a messenger would come with an important message that they must protect until the one whose salutation the world depended on, would eventually come. He warned they would wait almost the entire nine hundred and ninety-nine years and they must be patient and true to this cause. Just before our forefather died, he described a vision Mun had shown to him and told the monks to carve this vision in stone and mount it in the main temple. This vision, he said, would represent the future. With his last ounce of life, he drew a face to be included on the mural and this face Jason King was yours.”

Jason felt a chill run through his body but still showed no outward surprise, even though he suspected he could without it being noticed by the blind monk. The monk continued, without missing a beat.

“As the monks in the temple passed on, they were replaced by others specially chosen and trained from villages throughout Tibet and China, which is why you may have realized so many recognized you on your journey here. In the year 1667, a messenger brought to us a transcript with instructions. The transcript and instructions were from Sir Isaac Newton in Great Britain. In his letter, which we still have the original of, he explains how he had been instructed by an immortal called ‘the darkness’ to prepare information to be used by a servant of God who would come to collect it in the distant future. He described how if these documents fell into the wrong hands, he could be executed for numerous offences against King, country, and religion, including blasphemy and therefore, he had been instructed by his non-mortal advisor, to get them to the temple for safekeeping. The transcript was disguised as the second part of a document that would famously become known as ‘The Principia Mathematica’, which in itself, changed the world forever. Mr Newton was a great man of physics, yet his religious enthusiasm was also well known, a strange combination you would think in those days. That is if you do not know what guided him spiritually. It is written in our archives that guidance for many great men and women in our history came in this same spiritual way, as I am sure you are already aware. Sometimes, the pressures of such knowledge can even prove too much for the human mind to contend with. Many turn to despair. Those that use the knowledge wisely prepare humanity for the future. We believe Mr King, destiny lies at your blessed feet and we hope you can live up to the challenge, for all our sakes.”

Jason simply stared into the blind eyes of the monk. He felt the change within him as if it were an incoming tide. It washed his soul and firmed his resolve.

"May I see this transcript then Phan Tu Ma?"

"Before you leave we will give it to you but the transcript alone will be useless."

Jason looked at him puzzled. 'This can never be easy,' he thought.

"The transcript requires a code breaker which Mr Newton created."

The monk turned with a cheeky smile on his face, his blind eyes looked straight into Jason's.

"Nothing is ever easy in this quest, and I am sure it has a long way to go yet. You were born with the right attitude Mr King, but of course."

The monk again returned to his walking and Jason followed.

"Your father, Johannes Frederick King, was born in 1935 in New Zealand. Your Grandmother was a lady by the married name of Junice King. She had originally been born in Jordan and married a rich banker, your grandfather, and moved to New Zealand via a small town in the USA called Springfield. Just prior to World War 1 she met a gentleman in New York by the name of Harlan Pierce who was an antiques trader and collector. Mr Pierce gave an important document to Junice just before she and her husband travelled to New Zealand. She was what we call a time messenger. She was to keep this document safe until she would be given a sign of who to pass it to. At that time, she never guessed the intended recipient was her grandson Jason King. On her deathbed in 1955, Mun came to her and asked her to bequeath it to her yet unborn grandson in the lining of a stamp collection she had long kept as a hobby. She did and you now have that stamp collection somewhere and it contains the code to unlock the Principia Mathematica - Creation, and I have no doubt a plan for humanity."

 Jason just stood in stunned silence. He remembered both a stamp collection and a coin collection his grandparents had left him through his parents. He had often sorted and resorted those collections with his father. He had loved them so much and they had both added to them over the years. When his father had died in the previous year, he had taken both collections and put them into safe and secure storage with the intention that if one day he had children, it would be theirs.

"Oh My God," he said, “how I wish I had met my grandmother.”

"Come," said the monk, "I have had enough exercise, for now, let's go and prepare you for your journey."

The two men walked back the way they had come along the walls of the temple. When they came to the door and were about to enter, the monk turned once again to Jason who had been walking in deep contemplation of the events just unfolded.

"By the way, just in case it means something and I am sure it does, or will, as all things mean something in this life, especially your life; the man who gave your grandmother the code, Mr Harlan Pierce, ended up going to Singapore where he met and married an American lady. They, in turn, had a boy about the same time as your grandmother had your father. That boy married a Japanese woman and gave birth to an only child. I believe her name was Julie."

Jason thought about it for a minute but since it did not seem to mean anything, he put the thought aside for another day.

 

 

      Chapter seventy
          The Message