Murder in the Pearl District (Cedar Bay Cozy Mystery Series Book 5) (15 page)

"How many of you
have seen 'the walking dead'?" asked the chairman.

"What do you mean
by 'the walking dead'?" asked a middle aged man.

"Those who have
suffered a set-back in the past and are emotionally scarred by it, to the
extent that the incident controls them for the rest of their lives and they
can't go past it," said the chairman.

"My aunt suffered
a terrible tragedy, she's alive but only physically," remarked a young
girl.

"So how many of
you belong to this group called 'the walking dead'?" asked the chairman.

A few hands went up.
The Chairman waited some more. A few more hands went up. He waited some more
and after a while almost all the hands were up.

"Yes, you there
young man, haven't you experienced an emotional setback that tore through your
heart like a hurricane?" asked the chairman.

The young man thought
for a moment. He had suffered more than a few setbacks that had numbed his
senses to the point of no return - frozen like a glacier. At that moment he
began to realize the gravity of his situation. He raised his hand slowly.

"Well, that's the
story of humanity. All of us are shackled to our past, our memories hold us
hostage until awareness sets in and begins to untangle the emotional
knots," said the chairman.  

“Just the sheer weight
of your memories keeps you rooted to one spot forever," said the chairman.
"It leads to resistance and resistance leads to failure.
99.9% of your
thoughts are just outpourings of your memory (energy) that bubbles up and
expresses itself
.”

"How do we get out
of this self-marinating pickle?" asked an elderly gentleman.

"Good
question," said the chairman. "Periodic use is the best form of
maintenance. The more active you are, the healthier your body is. If you were
to rest all day in order to preserve your body, you would shrivel up and die.

"It's the same
with memory - keep it active and it gets stronger and stronger. Stop using it
and its gets weaker and weaker until it is forgotten due to inactivity.

"So you're saying
that the key is - to forget bad memories?" said a woman.

"Yes,"
replied the chairman. "And how do we do that?" she asked.

"There is an
indirect way which works pretty well," said the chairman. "Your body
is a chemical factory and when these chemicals are at optimum levels life is
bliss. One example of such a chemical is glucose.

The body is the
staircase, the roof is paradise. Once you reach paradise, the staircase is of
little use, but to reach paradise, you need all the help the staircase (body)
can offer.

"When life is
blissful you automatically focus on 'the present and the pleasant' rather than
'the past and the unpleasant'. To be in a state of bliss your body must be in a
position to maintain these chemicals at optimum levels day in and day out. The
moment there is an imbalance 'the past and the unpleasant' take control of your
mind.

”For that you need
three things - good food, sound sleep and vigorous exercise. If you screw up in
any one area then life will turn ugly.
It sounds beguilingly simple but it's
not
. Many have perished when this simple yet delicate balance has been
disturbed. 

"Sleep and
exercise are for free. If you want to get out of the muck you're wallowing in,
then a large part of your budget will be spent on quality food - skip this and
all bets are off. You'll be amazed at how much money you'll spend on quality
food when you get started. 

"For those who say
that they have no time for sleep and exercise, the simple answer is - focus on
20% of your tasks (the most important ones) and the rest will eventually take
care of themselves.

"It's hard to work
on the 20% because you have to use your brain. So people choose to do the
remaining 80% which is repetitive and requires almost no cerebral activity.

"Good food, sound
sleep and vigorous exercise will set off a chain reaction that will result in
bliss, and this bliss will ensure that you remain in the here and now and live
a great life, free from the burden of the past, free from your memories that
have haunted and imprisoned you for so long." 

"I've always
bought cheap, unhealthy, processed food to lower my grocery bills. I never
realized my foolishness until now," said a young man.

"A lot of us know
about sleep and exercise but never really cared about food, and never really
understood how intimately it's tied to success and well-being," said
another.

"I really want to
get out of this 'walking dead' club as soon as possible. I didn’t even know I
was a member until you brought this whole memory stuff up," said a young
woman.

"Well, as we go
deeper you'll begin to realize that moving up the ladder is not tough or
difficult, it's tricky. A sound foundation and common sense will take you far;
there's nothing complicated about it," said the chairman.

“Ok, so let's move on.
Back in the day and to some extent even today, in some parts of the world,
couples are matched sexually based on the group they belong to - a dog, horse
or elephant,” said the chairman.

The young were smiling
and the old were blushing. What had sex got to do with money, everyone
wondered? And the chairman went on to explain 'resistance' in more detail, once
he had obtained assurances from his audience that they would do their best to
empty themselves of their memories and their conditioning.

CHAPTER
5

Resistance
Explained

In some parts of the
world men and women are divided into 3 distinct groups, namely – dog, horse and
elephant. Now, in the wild elephants don’t ride horses, and dogs are not
enamored with horses either. However, when it comes to human beings plenty of
examples exist where such mismatches can be observed, if one cares to pay a
little attention.

When the resistance of
the source (man) is equal to the resistance of the load (woman) then the
maximum amount of energy/power flows, and everyone is happy. When resistances
match, then everything is in “harmony” or “in resonance”.

The source and the load
must always be matched, as closely as possible, for maximum energy/power
transfer to take place. This law of the universe is a fundamental law
(Impedance/ Resistance Matching) that covers all engineering disciplines.
Failure to follow this law always ends in a fiasco.

The universe offers no
resistance to the flow of energy. It can transmit infinite amounts of energy,
instantaneously. However, most of us have very high amounts of resistance (when
it comes to embracing change and accepting new ideas and possibilities).

If
you have built up a lot of resistance (primarily stored as memories, most of
which are of no use) you will obstruct the flow of energy. So in this case the
universe is the elephant and you are a housefly. The universe wants to and has
the resources to give you so much, but you've made yourself so small that the
resistance is too much. So you get a little.

Ultimately,
you will be surrounded by people who have more or less the same
energy/resistance levels (as yours), hence dogs are with dogs, horses with
horses and elephants with elephants. 

Ultimately, the lower
the resistance the better your growth prospects!

"So how do we
lower our resistance?" asked a middle-aged man.

"Great
question," replied the chairman.

“A human baby is born
with very poor eyesight, it is almost blind. It relies more on touch and sound
during the first few weeks of its life.

“When it opens its
eyes, light streams in. The brain senses this, resulting in a rush of neural
activity. New pathways are formed rapidly that result in good eyesight. Here’s
the important point,” emphasized the chairman.

“The only thing a baby
does to develop its eyesight is - open its eyes.

“
This act of
‘opening up’ plays a critical role in helping you lower your resistance.
The
universe does the rest. The universe is just a mirror - whatever vibe you emit
is reflected back to you. The
openness of your heart and mind
will break
down your walls of resistance.

"Every ugly
duckling has the ability to turn into a beautiful swan, if you just let go of
the resistance; it'll happen sooner rather than later. So how many of you now
understand the concept of resistance?” the chairman asked.

Everyone nodded a yes.

“Ok, so let’s try
something out,” said the chairman.

“You can be at two
places at the same time,” said the chairman, much to everyone’s astonishment.
They all looked at each other not knowing what to say.

"That's bull freaking
shit," said one man.

"Well, that's
resistance for you right there. I'm not here to change your beliefs, but
wouldn't it better if you investigated the matter further rather than
dismissing it so abruptly?" asked the chairman.

“So this is for real?”
asked another.

“Yes,” said the
chairman.

“Nice. We could all
work two jobs at once and no one would know,” said a senior gentleman.
“Woooohoooooooo,” all of them screamed out loud.

“But if that’s the
case, then why doesn’t everyone do it?” asked one guy, with a puzzled look on
his face.

“There was a man
sitting on the bank of a river who was hypnotized (plugged into the matrix) by
the upside-down reflection of a tree, shimmering in the crystal clear water. He
took it for reality. Someone tapped him on the shoulder and told him that the
tree was right behind him and upright," said the chairman. "He turned
around, saw it and then immediately turned his head back towards the
reflection, happy that everything was the same once more.”

“Always remember that
the
world is upside down
. Your external senses will mesmerize you until you
wake up. Till then one mirage after the next will be taken for reality.”

"Is sex bad?"
asked a young man.

“My grandmother used to
say - don’t talk about sex at the dinner table or you’ll get a pregnant pause,”
the chairman replied. “The world has moved on. No, sex is not bad, but
excessive sex will result in a wretched life," replied the chairman.

"Very
interesting," remarked one woman.

"Yeah, and the old
ones are as horny as the young," added a young gal, who was known for her
outspokenness, much to the embarrassment of the older folk, most of whom went
beet red.

"That's a good
topic for a Ph.D thesis," chuckled the chairman, as he deftly maneuvered
the topic in another direction. "So let's move on to the next big topic
that sucks the life out of you."

CHAPTER
6

Sin,
a Wretched Invention

“There is no such thing
as ‘sin’," said the chairman. "The whole concept of retribution and
heaven and hell is a figment of your imagination.
Sin gives birth to guilt,
and guilt kills you
. It literally snuffs the life out of your being. You do
something and someone says you have sinned and you will be punished.

“This guilt gets buried
deep within your bosom and never lets you live freely. You expect to be
punished for as long as you live because this guilty memory haunts you forever.
Any surprises as to why most humans are like dodos that became extinct because
they couldn’t fly?” exclaimed the chairman.

He waited for an
answer. The chairman possessed the limitless patience that teachers and bosses
often lack: people need plenty of time to hear a question and answer it.

“Any clue as to why
most humans are like dodos that became extinct because they couldn’t fly?” the
chairman repeated.

“Escuse me, shir,” said
a toothless old man. “What does a dodo and flying have to do with the money you
promised to talk about?”

The chairman’s poise
was momentarily ruffled by the old man’s question.

After a pause, he
reached down and withdrew a large-denomination bill from his pocket, which he
slowly folded into a paper airplane. He tossed it gently into the air, and
after a respectable flight, the green bill landed on the floor near a young
gal’s feet.

“Money can fly,” said
the chairman. “The dodo couldn’t.”

The crowd chuckled. The
toothless man cackled that his money flew, all right, into the hands of the
income tax and bill collectors.

Before all the laughter
had subsided the chairman resumed, “If you don’t start living, then you’re
headed for dododum.
In the Dodo world, one dumb Dodo told the rest that
flying was a sin, and anyone who flew would be cursed to a life of hell once
they died
.

“Well, when the hunters
came the birds were rooted to the ground, not because they couldn’t fly, but
because of the guilt that imprisoned them, because some idiot dodo proclaimed
that flying was sinful,” said the chairman.