The Divine Sandbox

Desperate and seemingly abandoned, a Lost Soul was roaming the worlds searching for Joy. Deep down, he knew that he was supposed to be joyful, but he couldn’t bring himself to be happy. Gloomily, he ended up at the council of wise souls. Sobbing, he demanded to know where he could find Joy. The wise souls tried to reason with the soul and say that he already had everything he needed to be happy, but the poor soul was convinced there was something that was missing in his existence.

Defeated, the wise soul council finally decreed to the Lost Soul, “Down below you will find place where you will realize what it means to be happy. It is called the Divine Sandbox. Go there and learn what Joy is.

Excited, the Lost Soul made haste to reach the Divine Sandbox. When he came upon it, he was beside himself with wonder. The beautiful sands were given color by the One Light that contained every color of light, visible and not visible. This One Light made the sandbox shine and glisten, so beautiful and alluring. There were many other lost souls there, playing in the sandbox. This sandbox was special because you could make anything out of the sand, and the creations became almost life-like. Anything you could imagine was yours!

The Lost Soul rushed to join the fun and play in the sandbox. When the souls came to this sandbox, they took on the appearance of what you and I would call a human. Pursuantly, the Lost Soul was feeling lonely on the first day, so from the sand he made a beautiful woman. She was the most beautiful woman you could ever imagine, with perfect ruby-red lips, beautiful almond eyes, and a charming personality. The Lost Soul was enthralled by his creation. After enjoying the woman’s company for a while, the Lost Soul was fatigued so he decided to retire for the night, excited to spend time with the woman again the next day.

At night, however, something very unexpected happened. The One Light that animated all the creations of the sandbox withdrew itself for the night and instantaneously, all the creations in the sandbox collapsed back into plain, gritty sand and nothingness. In the morning when the One Light came back to the sandbox, the Lost Soul was very upset to find that all his hard work had gone to waste and the woman was gone. He looked at all the other souls in the sandbox. They acted as if nothing was out of the ordinary and had gone back to making their sand creations anew. Assuming it was an anomaly, the Lost Soul set to work as well to make another creation. This morning he decided to make a beautiful mansion with beautiful rooms, decorations, chandeliers, and every possible opulence you could imagine.

The Lost Soul was even more thrilled with today’s creation than with the woman of yesterday. He spent the day freely roaming the vast halls of the mansions, enjoying the luxury and lavishness of his work.

However, at night, the One Light that gave shape to the mansion and all the other creations withdrew again and everything in the sandbox collapsed to nothing. When the Lost Soul woke up the next morning, he was starting to get afraid. “What is this place where everything I work to create is destroyed each night??” Frightened, the Lost Soul shakily went to work to create another creation. However the same thing happened at night. The One Light withdrew its sustenance and everything collapsed. By now, the Lost Soul was increasingly alarmed. On the 4th day, he decided not to make anything but instead try to apprehend from the other souls why the creations collapsed each night. He rushed to the nearest soul and asked, “Dear friend, why do all the creations we make disappear at night into nothing? And why do you continue to work day after day if everything you make is going to collapse??”

Without looking away from its work, the other lost soul responded in an eerie droll, “Weee’reee goingggg nowhereeeeeee, weeeee’reeeee goinggggg nowhereeeeee, Weeeeee’reeeeee goinggggg nowhereeeee.”

Startled, the Lost Soul stumbled away from the other soul and looked for someone else to give him an explanation. When he found another soul and posed the same question, he was terrified when he received the same response, “Weeee’rreeeee goingggggg nowheeeerrreeeee, weeeee’reeeeeee goinggggg nowhereeeeee.” Soul after soul after soul gave the same dreary response. If you looked closely at their eyes, you could see pure lifelessness-red and puffy, dull and glazed, mad with monotony.

The Lost Soul was desperate now. He prayed with all his will for help to escape the dreary meaningless of the sandbox. “Dear God, help me find a way out of this prison” he beseeched the Lord. Over and over again he prayed, hoping for a response.

Finally, clear as day, a voice struck out from the skies above; “Follow the One Light.” It was the voice of one of the Wise Souls.

Though he did not know exactly what the Wise Soul meant, the Lost Soul saw no other option but to try to follow these instructions. That evening, when all the other souls were retiring, the Lost Soul stayed up to see what happened at night that caused all the creations to collapse.

At first, he saw nothing out of the usual. But then, just as dusk turned to night, he saw it! He saw the One Light begin to recede from the beautiful, colorful creations. One by one they crumbled from the outermost from the center of the sandbox, working its way inwards. The One Light was withdrawing into a vortex in the center of the sandbox. Running for his life, the Lost soul rushed to the vortex of light in the center and dove head first inwards, not caring to even check what was in the vortex.

It was the Infinite Source of the One Light. Never ending expanses of dazzlingly bright light of all colors and hues. As far as the Found Soul could see the reservoir of light went on and on and on. He had found Joy. Gleefully, the Found Soul swam effortlessly through the One Light, sometimes pausing to bask in the Divine Glory of the Light. After swimming a little while longer, he realized that this was all very familiar to him. He had been here before. In fact, just as he realized this, he came upon the Wise Soul Council, right where he had left them when he had departed for the Divine Sandbox! The Found Soul was very confused! “Dear Wise Souls, what is this trickery?! I am right back where I started! “ He exclaimed.

“But dear Found Soul, have you not understood now the meaning of Joy?” asked a kind Wise Soul.

“Yes, but, this is where I always was, I was already in Joy, why could I not see this earlier?! Why did I have to suffer so much in the Sandbox before coming back??”

“Dear Found Soul, how can one appreciate the Light until he has stumbled in the Dark? And besides, turn around and look at the good you have done”

Amazed and ecstatic, the Found Soul turned around and, to his utter delight, saw that the myriads of souls he had encountered in the Divine Sandbox had followed his lead and jumped into the vortex in the middle of the Sandbox. They all were flying in raptures, free. They had all found Joy.