The Key by Whitley Strieber Page B

bodies hunger to be radiant. They taste of ecstasy and want desperately to find their way to the completion of joy. But energetic bodies need return to time to reconstruct what of themselves impedes their ecstasy. If they cannot, they must suffer the anguish of regret and the pain of being able to see, but not enter, joy. When you taste of ecstasy, your hunger for more is appalling. It is appalling . It has driven me to wander the world, to construct this shell of flesh, to seek you out and come to you with my message, to serve you, little child, as my master.
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    What if earth never “spins” these new bodies?
    We will join others in the same state. There are many.
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    We would be a species in hell, in effect?
    We would be constantly aware that we had missed ecstasy. This pain I suffer now would last forever.
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    So the eternal joy of humankind depends upon the health of the earth?
    Completely.
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    We think of ourselves as individuals. My sins are my own. My neighbor’s sins are his problem.
    Every joy, every sorrow, every good, every evil belongs to all. All are responsible for all. All are dependent upon all. Humanity is one.
    But not all intelligent life. We are one species, but are there not others?
    God is one. Ultimately, all being seeks to join all ecstasy. It is the destiny of every stone, every star, every intelligent creature and simple creature, to become the word. And the word, then, will be made flesh.
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    I don’t understand. Hasn’t that already happened?
    It is always happening. But there will come a time when the stars themselves fall. The universe is breathing, expanding and contracting. It has happened many times before. Eventually, it will all contract to something no bigger than a baseball. Then it will explode again, journeying once more through the vastness. Each time it dies, though, it is reborn at a new and higher intensity. Eventually, there will come a moment when its rebirth is so energetic that the velocity of the “big bang” will exceed the speed of light. At that instant, the material world will, itself, go beyond time. Then the prophecy will be fulfilled,
    â€œI am.”
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    And we are all part of God?
    We are not part of God, we are God.
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    And all other species, what of them?
    The tree, the worm, the wolf. All are God.
    Worms are eternal beings?
    Even the smallest spark unto itself is great.
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    Then the fly and the rat are ascended beings?
    They cannot change. You can change. Look to your own soul.
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    God, then, is in the fragments?
    God is like a hologram. The whole is fully present in every fragment, no matter how small.
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    So the whole of God is in the tip of my finger?
    The whole of God is in a grain of sand. In a single electron. A quark.
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    I had not thought of God as a hologram before.
    Infinite consciousness is in everything. In your pajama. In my sweater. All knowledge is present in every cell, every spark of fire, bit of trash.
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    That’s—it’s appalling.
    The universe is the flesh of God.
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    But I have no access to the whole. I feel like a little fragment. I don’t even know if I have a soul. And I certainly don’t feel like part of God.
    This is a fallen world and you are an imperfect being.
    The essence of your imperfection is that you cannot see yourself as you are. Many lives must live before this will change. Mankind is a community of about ten billion fragments, and each must become transparent to the light of God before we, as a species, can journey on.
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    Earlier you seemed to imply that you were an alien. Then God. Now you’re human. What are you?
    Whatever you say.
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    A useful thing to be. How many human beings from earth have become radiant bodies?
    About half.
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    Half! I thought it would be fifty or a hundred at most. Humanity is a tremendous engine of the sacred. But among the living, there are only as many such beings present as absolutely essential for