I know what the meaning of life is.

No, really. I’ve been studying this question since my fiancée and unborn child perished in a plane accident more than 40 years ago.

I know. It’s usually those things, right? We don’t care about religion or spirituality until we are confronted with our mortality. Or that of others we care about. 

And even though I’m from Southeast Asia, I can tell you that is very much how it is there, too. If you are a Westerner you may have had the wrong idea about us—or some of us at least, like: ‘Everyone in Tibet is so Buddhist all the time.’ 

Not exactly, although some places are less ‘modern’ than others.

Okay, but I’m sure you are curious, so here’s the deal, as I see it.

You don’t need to know anything more. For starters.

So here it is. A universe in a nutshell, just for you: 

1) There is a spiritual dimension to the universe—something beyond the physical that we can sense, which seems all there is.

2) We are immortal beings, with a core—some call it the soul—that lives forever and has all kinds of powers and abilities most of us haven’t even come close to realizing yet.

3) The reason we go through life—many lives—in the physical is that if we didn’t, we would not be able to experience the joy of being immortal and forever and having all these wonderful abilities. 

So for a short while we limit ourselves, we forget, and we get hurt. Sometimes very badly. But gradually we heal, we remember who we are and what we can do, and for millions of years, in our experience of time, we’ll be very much ‘in the light’. 

The number of lives where we run around and kill each other and die for seemingly meaningless reasons is relatively short. 

Although it doesn’t feel like it. Especially not if you are in a warzone. Or have cancer. Or have lost a loved one. Etcetera.

But it’s going to be all right. And there are divine powers, you would probably call them, constantly helping us to remember, and to become more and more divine ourselves and to overcome all obstacles. 

Some call them Jesus, Buddha, or whatever. Angels, spiritguides, you name it. They are there. 

And they are helping. Even if it doesn’t feel like it. But you will feel it. It just takes some time. 

Like a birth, it’s very painful to begin with but in the end, there will be a long life of joy. The real life. Which is not here. Not this one little life you have right now.

Yes, I know all the arguments against such thinking, but I don’t have time for them now. Next time, okay?

Suffice it to say this is why life is as it is. I am very sure of that. 

Don’t believe me? Read up on Buddhism, Gnosticism, Esotericism, and even old Christianity. 

Read up on the millions of socalled paranormal experiences people have had all over the world, like near-death experiences.

Read up on scientific experiments with psi, like clairvoyance. 

Begin to meditate, seek out the divine in yourself and outside yourself, and get personal confirmation. 

Even interpersonal, because others who do the same, will have had very much the same experiences. 

I dare you to try.

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What a great introduction to my next course, “Ultimate Quantum Consciousness”, don’t you think? 

At least that’s how I feel about it. I have got to phrase it all differently, though, but the marketing department will help with that.

It is the biggest and most comprehensive of all my courses. 

The one that will bring the Church Universal I have founded back on course (and the finances out of the red). 

My absolute best work to date.

I have even incorporated some more scientific considerations from an article my stepdaughter sent me, about “ghost universes”.

I feel especially gratified by that. Because Carrie has for a long time not seen eye to eye with me.

She has, let’s be honest, considered me a fraud. Or something to that effect.

Many different reasons. But she has a right to her opinions. 

All I have been interested in is proving to her that I am not. And that I can be part of her family.

Perhaps this is finally the moment where she accepts me and everything I stand for.

But then, of course, there are the other topics in her email. Ostensibly small-talk:

‘Good you could come to my daughter’s 10th birthday, get away from the office for once,’ etcetera, etcetera.

And also that she is berating me—very subtly as his Carrie’s way—that I gave her daughter, Emma, a birthday present for the whole family to go to Disneyland when I “know” they can’t take their whole family because Carrie’s youngest son is autistic. 

And when I “know” that Emma is very conscientious about their little brother and that she will feel guilty as hell if they go and leave him with one of their nannies, who aren’t capable of doing the job for so long.

The alternative is to leave either Carrie or her husband behind, so Emma only goes with one of them. That is a little less bad.

So mailing me the article was just an excuse to get that off her chest.

Why didn’t I think of something for the whole family?

I did. But I didn’t think it through.

I didn’t think how it would be for them—in practice.

Perhaps it’s because, despite all the years I’ve known my wife’s family, I haven’t been a part of it.

I haven’t had the damn practice, Caroline.

I never told your mother, but I grew up in an orphanage. When I finally came of age and tried to start my own family they were taken from me.

So I keep making mistakes like that. It is not a crime.

And yet … it bothers me.

I am Marcus Chen Nianzhen, CEO of one of the largest IT companies in Los Angeles and California.

Founder of one of the largest alternative churches in the United States.

I have been ill but I am getting better. I am receiving treatment but I also know the ancient ways of healing.

I am quite well-off. Still.

So I have what I need.

But …

Now I shall have to leave my office now before the guard closes everything down.

I could stay but I don’t care for alarms.

Deborah is with my stepdaughter in Yuma, helping out. I had to leave the birthday party early because the board once again tried to unseat me.

Of course they did. But I have that under control.

I will go home now and enjoy a good Dom Perignon and watch the politicians argue on TV, as they do because they don’t know any better.

I will be content.

All I care about is that I know the answer to why the universe is as it is. 

That has to be enough. 

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MARCUS CHEN NIANZHEN, May 2016

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End of “Ghost Hearts” – part VI

Next up – the final part: DAVE

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44-110324.1034

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Cover photo by Daniel Olah on Unsplash

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