s name was Johann Earlington Seagull, and his story captured the hearts of the world, but many years have since gone by.If you're unfamiliar with the original story: click here for the Introduction
SOME TIME AGO there was a seagull that lived on a beach. He wasn’t like the other gulls. He wanted to know, to understand more. He remembered what had sparked his curiosity. A great silver bird came whizzing across the air at a speed far faster than any gull could fly. Then more came in flocks, at speeds unimaginable and with a great roar. He traced the powerful strange birds to the humans – an Air Force base nearby. Johann often flew over it, around it, and sometimes landed inside the base, so that he could watch the fighter jets take off and land. How graceful they were, how fast they flew. He wondered why he couldn’t fly as fast. He set in his mind to fly like these great birds. His name was Johann Earlington Seagull, and his story captured the hearts of the world, but many years have since gone by.
Johann’s curiosity led him to knowledge. In subsequent years, he learned and conquered the physical world, and developed an ability to move from one great heaven to another. For some years, he resided in the highest of them, returning to earth on occasion to try to help the other gulls that remained trapped in earth’s enduring cruel order. He was a majestic bird, and Johann’s followers numbered in the thousands. A golden glow appeared about his head when he taught, and he was known to turn into a brilliant spectacle of light and then disappear, to appear again in another part of heaven. No gull could fly as fast and as gracefully as Johann did. But with the passing of time, Johann became bored. Increasingly, his frustrations boiled up to the surface and he angrily threatened to fall back to the physical world of pain and hunger and forget all that he had learned, just to again experience the lusts and jealousies that he had so once hated.
One day, at late afternoon, Johann was standing on a pristine beach in the highest heaven. The sun shone like a brilliant diamond on the horizon out over the water, and the waves lapped up against the sparkling bright gold sand in brilliant silver crests. In this heaven, all glistened many times more brilliantly than anywhere on earth or any of the other heavens. Johann looked about and pondered the wonderful things he had learned throughout his long and mighty life, yet he saw this indescribably magnificent scene in front of him with sadness. This heaven, with its dazzling beach of pure fine gold, was a mere thought-creation of many gulls. Johann sighed. Instinctively he knew he was finished with this era and it was time for him to fall back into his long departed world of despair. He considered the pitiful thought and he opened his mouth wide to let out a caw. But he couldn’t. His tongue was dry, and his throat parched.
Then came a small still voice from a hill nearby. “Johann, come,” the voice whispered. Johann turned and walked up toward the voice, a hilly sand dune with a bush atop it, a deep lush-green bush just four feet around. It ignited in flame. Johann jumped back.
“Don’t be afraid,” the voice said, “for I am the Lord.” Johann, his fear vanishing, walked up closer to the bush. There he stood, eyes focused on it. The bush continued to burn but was not consumed. It was indeed the source of the Lord’s voice.
“Johann,” the Lord said, “You have lived a long life and have learned many things. But you have never known Me.”
“I protest,” said Johann reactively, anger welling up from within him. “Look at how I struggled and extracted myself from the miserable life of the common gull. See how, to this day, most of them continue and fight over the small scraps of food needed for sustaining their wretched existence. And, Lord, see how I returned to help them and show them the better way, and look at how many of them I did help.”
“All those things you did, true,” said the Lord. “But you have never known Me. Oh yes, Johann, I watched you and chuckled as you copied those fighter jets, tucking your wings in to emulate them and become the fastest of all birds. I saw the power dives that you made at such great speeds, and I saw as you perfected your flight, your landings, your takeoffs, all of that. Yes, Johann, I watched. And in time you learned that a gull’s speed of flight was ultimately not the answer to life. That is true, isn’t it?”
“Yes, true,” Johann responded, “but my desire to be fastest in flight led me to the way. It was my path to understanding, toward unlocking the key to the purpose of existence. Yes, being the fastest was not the answer, but my quest to be fast led me to that answer.”
“Did it?” the Lord asked.
Johann sat quietly, wondering, for here he was today, residing triumphantly in the greatest most lofty of all heavens, and he was miserable. He was bored. He was without purpose. The Lord must be right, he thought.
Knowing Johann’s thoughts, the Lord again spoke: “Johann, in the passing years you set your goals high above those of other, normal seagulls. First, you had to fly fastest. Conquering that, you set your sights on flying high – and that you did. You flew higher than all, far higher, and now you fly freely between all the many heavens, yet in all this you have accomplished little, except to be the greatest of all gulls.”
“Not true,” Johann protested, “I have made a lifetime of service, of bringing other gulls to see and penetrate these various grand worlds.” Johann turned his eyes toward the sea, its crystal like sprays pounding against the sparkling gold sands of the beach. “This is the greatest abode of all abodes. I discovered it through my efforts, and I have brought many other gulls here too. I have selflessly shared my experiences and knowledge with any who would listen.”
“That you did,” said the Lord, “but you have never known Me.”
Johann thought for a moment. There was nothing more he could muster up to say, and he did feel an emptiness inside himself. Of all the grand things he had discovered, deep inside, he felt shallow.
The Lord spoke: “Johann.” His voice was a faint whisper, as in their first dialogues. “You are dedicated and determined. Your efforts shall not go unrewarded. But I cannot show you the way to life.”
“I guess it is something which I must find myself,” Johann replied, focusing his eyes down at the sand.
“You tried that already, didn’t you?” the Lord said.
“I did yes.”
“But you have failed.”
“Yes, I guess so,” Johann responded, his eyes still fixed on the sand down below the Lord.
“Johann. I will bring to you my only begotten son. He will sit down at my right hand, and he will reveal the path for finding life.” The bush flamed up and then the flame went out, leaving just a puff of white smoke above the small lush-green shrub. Johann looked to his left and saw Buddha sitting in majesty beside the bush. Without warning, the Buddha’s image became the image of Jesus, and again without warning, the image of Jesus became that of a child. The child opened his mouth to speak, and the gull’s jaw dropped in awe.
“There is just one world,” the child said, his hand raised. “It is the present.”
“I know that,” Johann protested.
“You do not,” the child said, his voice stern. “You once imagined yourself the fastest of all seagulls, because you were dissatisfied with the present. Then you were led to other gulls who were equally dissatisfied with the present as were you. And you flew with them and trained with them, to be fastest of all gulls.”
“Yes, all true,” Johann replied. “But that effort led me to the way, to my true purpose and to my unlimited potential, which I tapped and then shared with any gulls who would listen.”
“That you did, Johann, but in all of these things you were escaping the present, yet you cannot escape the present because there is nothing in existence outside of the present.”
“But, but I moved on from there, and I saw the highest of all heavens, and I come and go from it freely now, and I teach others who are still trapped down at the earth, still struggling for the morsel that will sustain them for another day, I selflessly give my service to the poor, the hungry, the downtrodden.”
“These poor, hungry and downtrodden, they are you,” the child replied.
“That is wrong,” Johann protested, “I have overcome that miserable wretched life. I am a brilliant beam of light. My cry of the gull is grander than any other. I have the liberty and freedom to transport myself to anywhere and to any time. I have truly overcome.”
“But you are not happy,” said the child.
Johann was stunned. He knew instinctively, just as the burning bush had said, that the child was right, his own words were empty and void of substance. But Johann didn’t know why.
The child again spoke: “You were wrong to have tried to become the fastest bird. You were wrong to have left the flock, and having left, you should not have returned back to the flock unless to join them again. You came back wanting to take away their garments, but you, not they, were naked. That is why the older gulls took you before their council and banished you.”
Johann shook his head in disbelief. “No!” he shouted, holding his wings up over his head.
“Yes,” said the child. “There is just one world, the present. There is no heaven greater than the present world, nor is there any world lesser. All worlds are the present world. There is no other world. It is the world that you reside in, this world, now, forever. Your effort to fly faster than all the other gulls, to fly higher than all the other gulls, to become a radiant beam of light or to move instantly from one place to another place, these all were your dissatisfaction with the present world, and were your attempt to leave the present world. But you cannot leave it, for there is nothing in existence but it. You cannot destroy it, nor can you escape from the present.”
“Okay, okay,” Johann cried. “What should I do?”
“What should you do?” asked the child.
“Yes! I was ever so miserable. I wanted answers, and that was why I had to fly fastest and highest. I was miserable.”
“Yes, you were,” replied the child. “You were miserable because you didn’t see the moment standing ever so great and ever so majestic in front of your face. You were miserable because you took so little notice of the Lord’s great works. You are miserable because you do not know Me!”
“How am I to know you?” Johann said, pleading, “I am just a gull.”
“Who told you that you are to know me?” The child asked.
“You did!” Johann replied in wonderment.
“No I didn’t,” the child replied.
“But you did, just moments ago.”
“I did not,” said the child.
Johann sighed and lifted his wings, and fluffed his feathers. He looked up at the sky high above the child. And Johann said nothing.
“You do not know Me!” the child again said, breaking a momentary silence. “Please, say to me the words I have just uttered.”
“You do not know me,” Johann said dutifully, shrugging his wings. He shook his head and let out a caw.
“I do know you,” the child said, leaning forward. “You do not know, you!”
Johann was flustered. He flapped his wings and sat down on the sand.
“You are always doing,” the child said. You must go here or you must go there. You saw the other gulls fighting over food. Why must the gulls spend all their years scavenging for food? Why?”
Johann lifted his body from the sand and stood erect on his toes, an eye fixed on the child, his ear carefully hearing every word.
“The gulls whose behaviors you so despised are so very much like you, Johann. They must have the biggest morsel, the fattest belly, and the biggest of whatever there is at hand. They must scavenge for food not because they need food, but because they must do something. It is their identity, doing something, movement. But one day they will fall ill and die. It happens when they tire of this identity and need rest. But rest cannot last long, for at rest they have no identity, being motionless. So they are reborn back into the world where they carry on with their hapless identity, for it is all that they know and is all they can do.”
Feeling a slight warm glow around the crown of his head, Johann began to think that the child’s words were true. He chirped a short caw, and the child smiled.
“Yes, you are beginning to see Me,” the child said. The Lord gives to each just what each needs. Those other gulls needed scarce food because they fathomed no other reality. But you did! You saw the futility of their actions and thought there to be something better, and so the Lord provided for you, though you sought not the food as other birds did.” The child raised his hand toward Johann. “But, your nature was really of little difference than theirs. You wanted to fly fast, rejecting the fight over the biggest morsel. But flying fast is the biggest morsel. You merely substituted one identity for a different identity. And you were something of a rebel, a righteous seeker of something more. This too is an identity, an identity that is little different from the identity of the gull who has wrestled from all the others the large chunk of food. Thus, my friend, you too are fabricating an identity. When you fly to the highest heaven way above the other gulls, you have taken the fattest, choicest food. And proud of it you are.
“So all is futile?” Johann asked sadly.
“Yes, all is futile, if that is the identity you wish to weave for yourself. Your God does not have such limitations. But you do not know your God. Your God is all things and your God is no things. Your God is not the fastest flyer, nor does he crave the fattest morsel, nor does your God fly to the highest of all heavens. Yet your God does all of these things just as surely as he does none of them.”
“Explain to me your idea of doing things yet not doing things,” Johann said, his curiosity sparked.
“I cannot show you the way to life,” the child replied. “But I can say that you will not find it searching elsewhere for it. Do not seek to leave the present, but rather seek to see the present. With this understanding, you will enter life.” The child then proceeded to turn back into the image of Jesus, and again he turned back into the image of Buddha, but the Buddha did not disappear. His figure stood tall, towering well above Johann’s small frame, but he sat silently, saying nothing.
Johann waited a while. Feeling uncomfortable with the silence, he turned and looked out at the ocean. The sun was beginning to set, the sky glowed red and violet, but the sun was no longer a great brilliant diamond, it was an ordinary sun, and the surrounding beach was no longer as radiant as it had been. Johann walked across the sand toward the water, but the sand was coarse, just ordinary sand, and was hot on his feet. He reached nearer to the water where the waves had crested up over the beach. The sand was wet and packed hard. It was cool and felt good. As he walked near to the water, he saw little holes bubbling up in the sand where mussels and other sea life had burrowed down or been buried by the waves. Johann walked on, right to the water, and he looked back at the sand hill where he had just communed with God and the child. The bush sat still atop, a gentle breeze giving life to its many small leaves, and Buddha was still there sitting beside it, as motionless as a rock, but his frame was thin and he was wearing a yellow robe that looked faded with the distance.
Johann turned back toward the sun and he scanned his eye across the vast seascape. The breaking waves sprayed droplets of water on him and gave him a cool and calm feeling. He opened his beak wide and let out a caw. Then he spread wide his wings and the ocean breeze lifted him into the air. The brilliant sunset would soon turn to darkness. Johann turned toward the beach and drifted down just over the waves breaking along the sand. He was eager to land and find sleep, and to awaken the next day.
Copyright (C) 2010, 2011 Arthur Telling
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Chapter one of Johann's awakening was originally created as a short story.
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