I was searching for pearls of great worth as I wondered through endless barren fields. I was searching for pearls of great worth as I wondered through the Impoverished Realms. ‘Pearls of great worth, pearls of great worth,’ I muttered under my breath. I was trying to attract abundance. I was trying to manifest abundance. It was a very harsh environment – featureless grey plains stretching off into the horizon in all directions, jagged, razor-sharp volcanic rocks underfoot. One of these rocks could easily cut you to the bone if you fell! It was an unfriendly terrain; it was a bleak and unforgiving environment. ‘Pearls of great worth, pearls of great worth,’ I continued to mutter. It was my mantra. I was trying to attract abundance.
Overhead a cruel, relentless sun beat down on me. It was hot enough to crack rocks and it wasn’t even mid-morning. Not a living thing stirred. All had learned to avoid the terrible Plains of Desolation. These were the badlands and life could find no purchase here. Even the scorpions fail to thrive here. No wind stirred, no breeze blew to bring relief from the suffocating, oven-like heat. The sun was a cruel, relentless presence overhead, but my thoughts remained focused all the same on the great, lustrous pearls – milky-white, mysterious and softly shining. I was manifesting abundance. I was proclaiming my abundance…
All around the stones were splitting under the relentless rays of the sun. The sun was the Great Rock Burner. Heat devils danced over these rocks, gaining energy as the day wore on. They danced and they danced. My boots were slowly but surely being cut to ribbons. I was lost in a terribly harsh environment, an environment that was hostile to all life. ‘You have no place here,’ the hostile environment was telling me,’ only death awaits you here’. Under the pressure of the heat I was starting to stumble more and more often, I was starting to lose focus. The heat devils where coming closer and closer now – I could see their gleeful faces.
‘So what happened?’ I hear you ask, in an irritated tone. You have started to lose patience at this stage. ‘Did you manifest abundance or not?’ I can tell that you don’t really care. It’s all one to you whether I had manifested abundance or whether I had the brains fried out of my head! Probably you would be happy enough to hear that the brains had been fried out of my head – you’re probably more than just a little bit sick of my tedious prattle at this point. You’d probably be delighted to hear that I had been turned into a stick of charcoal. More than delighted maybe. ‘Good riddance!’ you’d probably say.
The truth is I suppose that I’m more than just a little bit fed up with his tale myself now. I’ve kind of lost momentum with it. I’ve kind of lost my inspiration (not that I ever had very much inspiration in the first place, come to think of it). The whole point of the story is that – NO, I DIDN’T MANIFEST ANY ABUNDANCE. That just didn’t happen. No way did it happen. Absolutely not. The Impoverished Realms through which I wandered weren’t OUTSIDE of me anyway. That’s the whole point of the story. The wasteland was me. So if the wasteland through which I wondered (looking for pearls of great worth, as you might recollect) was only a projection or externalization of my own impoverished inner state then how was I ever going to be able to manifest abundance? How was that ever going to work? I mean, that’s got to be the stupidest idea going, right? It’s complete bullshit. Wouldn’t you agree?
