The Center of the Universe

"Only an egocentric view of the universe makes sense."

General Kwar was standing on the border of the Welgon Age, contemplating the void beneath it. A very obscure emptiness, since no stars sparkled in the Welgon Age's nightly sky. "I am the center of the universe," he declared.

"Forget your damn ego. Every life, every being is only a tool to perceive. You have no other way to realize you exist than the world around you, and that's what makes you exist, not the other way round. The world's reactions to your presence tell you who you are. Egolessness. That's the only view of the universe that makes sense."

As usual, General Kwar and Sarkon the Prophet were about to start a philosophical argument.

"Don't be ridiculous. The world is all around me, and I am the center of my world," lectured Kwar. "That's how I perceive it, and denying that would be denying my senses. As it happens, I'm used to trusting my senses. Besides, why should I believe a theory like yours, which makes me a mere tool, thus giving me less power than I feel I have?"

"Have you ever heard of truth?"

"Have you ever heard of error, false prophet?" thundered Kwar. "Anyway, even if what you said was true, I'd take power over truth any day!"

"What power can an illusion give?"

"What you call illusion is my reality, as it happens. Don't insult it. You may live in an illusion if you want to; my world is hard truth, I am the center of it, and thus the most powerful being in my universe is me!"

"Delusions of grandeur," sighed Sarkon the Prophet with a look to the sky. "Your perceptions make you what you are, and perceptions are given by everything that's not you. You are made of 'non-I'. You're egoless - you just don't realize it."

"Wrong. My universe has been created with my birth, and will be destroyed when I cease to exist. My universe is entirely defined by me!"

"Your universe made you what you are. And as it seems, it made a big mistake!"

"You are the one who better be careful of not making a big mistake!" Kwar said menacingly. "Egocentrism is how the universe is built!"

"Egolessness is the essence of our existence!"

"Egocentrism!"

"Egolessness!"

Sarkon the Prophet and General Kwar were nose to nose, ready to pluck each other's eyeballs out. Confrontation, persecution and annihilation seemed inevitable, since it was a religious war...

"As a matter of fact, you have both," piped cookie the harlequin, who had been following the argument from the other side of the Welgon Age, where it was daytime (the Welgon Age was a really small place). "One leads to the other."

Both Kwar and Sarkon turned toward cookie. "What would you know about it, harlequin?" Kwar asked haughtily before Sarkon reminded him with a swift (and soft, since violence had been banished from the Welgon Age) elbow kick in the ribs that of course cookie, the kind harlequin with supernatural mental powers, knew about it.

"The only view on the universe that we have is an egocentric one, for in its own reference frame, every being is the center of the universe," cookie began explaining. "That's not a theory, that's a truth: nobody has ever experienced the universe from another point than 'I'. And as far as we know, there is no other point from which the universe can be experienced. Because nobody ever actually is "you", or "he", or "she". We can be perceived as you or he or she, but we are not that. Everyone is always I. Every life is lived by I."

"The center of the universe. I knew it," interrupted Kwar with a laugh and a clasp on Sarkon's shoulder.

"Every life is lived by I," cookie repeated. "As simple and true as saying the earth is round."

"So what?" criticized Sarkon, who was a little upset about the prospect of having Kwar winning their argument. "You are telling us that the sun is bright! I could have thought of that by myself if it hadn't been so obvious!"

cookie just shrugged. "Let's look at something completely different then: a grammar lesson. Take the passive sentence, 'The cheese is eaten by the mouse'. If this sentence is true, then the active form of it, 'The mouse eats the cheese', is true also.

The cheese is eaten by the mouse.

The mouse eats the cheese.

"Both sentences say, basically, the same." He paused as if looking for some kind of inspiration, then went on, "Back to more interesting stuff. 'Every life is lived by I' is also a sentence in the passive form. We could 'activate' it, too…

Every life is lived by I.

I live every life.

"Isn't this a cute, stupid little grammatical trick?" cookie finished with a wink.

General Kwar and Sarkon the Prophet were speechless.

The Dictator, however, soon found the words to point out his victory. "Ego just rules," he smiled, while Sarkon still looked perplexed. "Wait a second... I live every life? Hey, that means I'm even more powerful than I thought I was!" He took a deep breath and exclaimed, "I!" He looked at Sarkon, "I!" He looked at cookie, "I! I! I! Always I! Everyone's I! I have to shout it out..." And he faced the darkness and raised his enormous fists high over his head...

"I LIVE ALL LIVES!"

"You inflict yourself a lot of suffering, then," said Sarkon the Prophet with a sad tone in his voice.

"I..." General Kwar started, but then realized what Sarkon meant, and covered his face with his hands. "No!..."

"Well, yes, that's the consequence of it," admitted cookie the harlequin. "The moral of the story, in other words... If I am kind to other people, I get rewarded for it in other reference frames, when/where I live these lives..."

"And if I do shit..." started Sarkon the Prophet with a worried face.

"If, for instance, I kill 6 million people, say, in gas chambers, and a few million more in a senseless war... Will I have to die 6 million times a horrible death as a consequence of it?..." asked General Kwar, a weird feeling creeping up his spine.

"Sure," answered the harlequin with a shrug and a sad smile. "And a few million more."

"So... I can't strive for power by walking over anyone I want and crushing whoever's on my way?"

"Oh you can... You just have to pay the price. Like walking on yourself and crushing your own spirits. Egocentrism includes all egos, as it happens."

"That leads to universal empathy - feel what the other feels. That's egolessness!" realized Sarkon the Prophet, jubilating.

General Kwar was defeated. "A lifetime of error... One lifetime? Billions! Well, I know what I have to do," he sighed. He walked towards the edge of the Welgon Age, and looked in the dark void below. Sarkon, suddenly afraid of what might happen, started to go after him, but the harlequin held him back by the sleeve. "He knows what he must do," he whispered. "He told it himself."

In a slow movement, General Kwar put his hand to his right breastside, tore away the twisted cross he had sewn there, and threw it down into the night.

Then he walked away.

"Hm. Maybe I should think of founding a new religion," wondered Sarkon the Prophet while seeing Kwar disappear in the distance.

* * *

"I live all lives... Is it a blessing or a curse?" asked the Prophet a long, long time after Kwar was gone.

"It is certainly a heavy load to carry the sins of everyone who ever was and of everyone who will ever be…" the harlequin sighed. "But then we can also be personally proud of everyone's achievements!" he beamed.

Sarkon took his head in trembling hands. "But being in charge of the whole universe is such an overwhelming responsibility…" he complained.

"Foosh!" exclaimed cookie, and the smile he flashed at Sarkon was so reassuring and genuine that the latter's fears vanished instantly. "It is nothing less than the most genial and exciting challenge that has ever been conceived!" He then bowed, waved goodbye and whirled away.

A speechless Sarkon watched him disappear in the distance. He slowly let his hands slide from his head to to put them on his hips. He thought about the vaporous mists of the spiritual paths, about the ideas that were waiting for him there, about how he would use them to generate new ones that would make the universe more diverse, more interesting, and bigger…

Suddenly, he noticed he had a lot of work to do. A lot.