Youth

The Buddha had not intended to return to Earth so soon. But things were not well with his planet, and the worsening (by the day it seemed) situation could not brook another 2,500 years of idly standing by. That much was clear.

So after a brief reconnaissance life as Giordano Bruno, the Buddha returned in current times to try again to set things right. This time as a young girl called Ruth Marten, Melissa’s daughter.

But would the observations and the wisdom tailored for long-ago India serve today? How would she approach man in his current state, fused to the compulsion to own, to amass; blinded by greed and other defilements. Was there indeed a path, a channel to reach modern man? And was there a way to make the world listen to a young woman?

In Book Two of this Trilogy Ruth Marten, the Tathāgata, copes with growing up, with school, with keeping her true identity (and mission) under wraps.
She is, however, soon enough spotted as a prodigy and attends Cal Tech as the youngest student they have ever had.

Ruth Marten wants to harmonize Philosophy, Science, and Religion into a cohesive whole to reach and stir the sleeping population.

Much easier said than done.

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Imagine this: An ocean in a small flask. A vast day encased unable to unfold. A universe with cheekbones.

An impatient genie.

Yet, I have learned patience. As Bruno awaiting sentence for nearly a decade in that cold, infested cell, watching each day claw its way across the sometimes slippery, sometimes frosty floor and back into darkness.

As Natha in the Tusita Heaven, returned from Earth, willing my just planted seeds to grow, hoping they would spread, reseed, grow, spread, reseed, grow, to eventually cover the Earth, knowing they had to do this on their own, by the impetus of my teaching, for I cannot guide each and every spirit individually.

Far, far too many. I have not hands enough, nor fingers enough to point.
And here and now, learning patience all over, now as Ruth, the little flask for me the ocean. It never gets easier.

Learning, too, how to maneuver this flask. On wobbly legs at first, too feeble to support much of anything, then growing less so, then growing stable, then working balance from joke to fact, into the first step, and then the second, and so walking soon, muscles agreeing now and all pulling in the same direction.

Finding voice and shaping it into words sung out across air, mainly to Melissa and Ananda. But sometimes to others. To Doctor Fairfield, my pediatrician, amazed, she says each time we meet, how well I have developed, how so very healthy I amâ€"for it is true, this bottle does not get sick. Amazed, she says each time we meet, how quickly I am learning how to talk, how precisely (is the word she uses, each time) I pronounce each word, and so clearly. She said once it was as if I had been born in Inverness, Scotland, where, so she saidâ€"and she had been there to hear it for herself, she informed us, each timeâ€"they speak the clearest English in the world. Well, I don’t know about that, but I know that I enjoy a clear voice, clear enunciation, the unambiguous, the translucent, the distinct, the fine. Nectar for the tongue and palate. Luminous song. Amazing, says my pediatrician, again, and wonders if we’ve ever been to Inverness.

Ears to hear words slung back across air from other lungs, other tongues. Language. This jumble of many strains that calls itself English.

To be honest, I prefer Pali, where by long and deep agreement words rise out of and mean things more essential to life. A language where nuances were spiritual and aesthetic rather than material and economic.

Still, English is a bountiful garden, replete, wild and untamed, and often profound enough to serve quite well.