Our Extraterrestrial Neighbors, Page 2

time we perform such rituals. Some practices involve animal sacrifice to obtain help from heaven to achieve favor. This builds up our faith in the object over our lifetime and we pass it on from generation to generation. People might perform paranormal acts or misinterpret natural events as miracles but somehow they attribute all these things to the blue big object in the sky as we believe in the idea which we have been brain washed to believe”.

  “Say all of a sudden a satellite which was sent by man 500 years ago managed to go past this object and sent pictures and other data to the earth. The pictures show that it is a barren object just like the planet Mercury and the surface temperature is thousands of degrees and the blue color is due to ionized gas. This is proof of the ordinary nature of the object. Then what happens to faith. What happens to the psyche of the man in faith? What is the impact on society, the conglomeration of people who shared a common belief?

  Belief and realization of truth are two facets. For example, say someone tells you that he has a gem enclosed in his fist. If we think what he says is true then the mental accord we constitute is "belief". The very moment he opens his palm and shows the gem the belief does not exist anymore and it turns into a state of "knowing". In fact that moment gives you a state of realization of the truth. As such, there is a difference between belief and actual realization or experiencing. Mental streams that are associated with belief systems always have a certain degree of doubt attached, as per above logic. Belief dangles from the thread of doubt.

  I believe this is exactly what happened to Dooda. He could not accept the actuality that he realized as he was a slave to his belief system. So when you talk to him the next time, have this in mind. It will be a gigantic task for you to talk around it. I believe this is what caused him to get upset”.

  Joe is dead right! How did he explain it so accurately?

  Dooda and Loola reached the signal spot the next day at the usual time, perhaps to talk to Seth’s team for the last time. Only these two were there; presumably Loola instructed the others not to accompany them without giving reasons. From the first word Hello! from Dooda; Seth, Max and the entire team who were at the earth station realized something had gone terribly wrong. With a lot of courage but with a heavy heart, Dooda started to talk.

  “Dear Seth, Max and other friends… A few years ago when we received your LASER beam, we did not know what it was. We were fascinated by its glow; we touched it initially with fear thinking it might burn us. It did not, and then we played with it and enjoyed ourselves too. I blindly turned Loola’s light beam to respond to your signal. I did not know that action would lead to an inter-terrestrial friendship. It is an unforgettable experience and the warmest friendship I have had in my lifetime. I will not be able to forget it however much I might try. I know you feel the same way. We were more than thrilled to learn that there were people beyond our world. We always thought people have to live inside the caves rather than on the surface until we saw your world. We were fascinated at how technically advanced your world was. Your group learnt our language in a very short time and was able to speak to us very fluently, making us comfortable to communicate with you freely. It gave us a feeling that we had been friends for hundreds of years. You taught us a lot. We are very appreciative all what we learnt from you and we are indebted to you for forever. You gave us an exposure to your world that is still unimaginable to us. Every second that we were in touch with you, was an extremely happy and exciting moment. The pleasure we derived from those moments were even recollected in our dreams. And sometimes we felt we were in your world. When you said you will be visiting us, I was thrilled beyond words and I was looking forward to it.”

  Dooda was silent for a moment and was feeling uneasy. Loola passed on to him the container of water he had. Dooda sipped from it and continued his talk. Seth and the team knew he was preparing to say something unexpected and sad, but did not interrupt.

  “You might wonder what I am trying to say. I will try to explain it briefly. Though we had been conversing with each other for some time, we really did not know exactly where you were from. I might have misunderstood it, and did not consider it seriously when I saw some of the pictures of your world taken from outer space, earlier. However, when I saw the video clips of your people landing on the moon, we realized that you were from the exact same world as the beautiful gem like world we can see from some of our cities. The people in the moon call this world the “Pleasure Place” heaven. In your language it is “Heaven”. All of us in the moon believe that after our death we end up in heaven to enjoy an eternal life with nothing but joy and pleasure. Probably you may not be able to understand and I will not be able to explain how deep rooted this belief is among our people. With no disrespect to your world, when I realized my future dream world was not what I really imagined, I felt greatly tormented and took a long time to console myself. It was my duty to break this news to our elders. So, I summoned the group of elders in the city for a meeting. When I informed them about your visit, first they were very happy. After I showed your moon mission video to the group to show the possibility of your visit they were more than thrilled to understand it would soon become a reality. However, when I explained to them that you all live in the world that we believe to be heaven, all the elders had disappointments and mental agonies similar to the depression I had. You might not be able to understand the depth of that hopelessness and I will not be able to explain it in words either. We simply cannot divulge this to our fellow people. It will have an enormous impact on our social life that has been flourishing for thousands of years. All our people will be mental wrecks in no time. Look at me”.

  Dooda sobbed again, looked at Loola who was looking down. Courageously he continued.

  “I have got instructions to talk to you for the very last time and to end our relationship at the end of this speech. As you know I am the person whose efforts resulted in contact with your world. I have a duty to perform to our fellow citizens for their protection, welfare and harmony. I need to respect our elders and carry out their instructions. As you know our society works this way. I need to fall in line and respect the traditions we have been practicing for thousands of years. As you know we do not have written rules or a leader to report to; but this is how our system operates. The integrity of the system is more important to me than anything. It is my duty to honor the system. With utmost reluctance I am compelled to make some requests from you, Seth.

  Seth, I trust that you will honor my request. Please, please, do not visit us. Make sure that nobody from your world will ever try to find us again, or send probes or any other investigative devices. Please, never send the LASER beam to us again. If any of these things happen then all that will be attributed to my irresponsible first action. Please understand me. After my last words please remove the screen, all other implements, retract the rod from the cave and take all the equipment up there to your world. This is my last conversation with you and after this I will never be coming back to this spot at all, ever. Finally I must say that I will never forget you and the others. Our friendship is so spacious like the enormous space between the two worlds. While I am feeling it so hard to say the final word goodbye to you, it tells me how lucky I am as I understand why I feel it so hard in me. For me this is worse than death. Though we are forced to depart, we are true friends forever. Our wounds will never heal but trust will become tools to be in touch with each other silently and closely. Rather than crying, if possible I will try to smile because it happened. The foot prints that you have left in our hearts will be there forever. I am truly sorry about this abrupt end to our journey. For the kindness you extended to us I am indebted to you. I wish you happy adventures, new friendships and peace for your world. I trust you will honor my request. Thank you.”

  After that he looked at Loola. Loola simply said “Thank you” and joined Dooda who was walking away from the scene. Seth and Max were stunned by all this but did not waste even a fraction of a second to respond.

  Seth sa
id “Dooda, Dooda, please listen to me. I perfectly understand what your situation is, and what exactly you are requesting from us. But this should not be the way we should end our friendship. Can we talk? Can I talk to you tomorrow?”

  Seth continued pleading with Dooda and Loola to stay back. He adjusted the probe’s sound volume to the maximum presuming that he could catch their attention but it did not help. He was thoroughly disappointed. Dooda’s talk was so emotional and intense, Seth could not think properly. Parts of what Dooda said kept reverberating in his mind making him more upset. It was the same emotional situation for all who were there with Seth. They could not imagine what impact this news would have on the entire population on earth as the entire population had fused in as an integral part of the whole episode.

  Seth and Max contacted all the counseling bodies they could access and called for an immediate meeting to discuss possible courses of action to be followed. After briefing on the line of events of the past