Ori smiled. “I hope we haven’t overwhelmed you yet.”
“It’s a lot, for sure,” replied Jessica, “but I think I’m following. I’m starting to think of you guys as system administrators. You’ve got people on the ground, watching, observing behind the scenes. This is headquarters, where you can see the whole picture, and house the history and knowledge.”
“Yep. And those of us on the ground can make a bunch of small impacts that have a ripple effect and add up over time. Maybe we plant an idea in a struggling farmer’s head about a different way to farm. Or we encourage someone to go ahead and make that movie they’ve been dreaming up, which inspires countless other people to think about the world differently.”
“How many of you exist?” Jessica asked.
“Oh, we’re everywhere,” Ori said. “You’ve had several interactions with us. You just haven’t noticed.”
“How is that possible?” Jessica asked.
“We are now meant to always stay in the background,” Ori said. “Remember, this is your human experience. You are the main character of this narrative, and while you choose, more or less, who your supporting cast members are, you should only see what we allow you to see.”
“Here’s where I’m confused,” Jessica confessed. “How is it that you were the CEO of a very successful company and Evelyn was an agent with the FBI? Those sound like main characters to me. On top of that, you both are believed to have been killed in some very dodgy operation gone wrong. That’s not being in the background at all.”
Ori sighed and shook his head. “You know when I decided to leave this work? Well, I went a bit rogue. I bounced around a bit through time, trying to make a bigger impact. In the scenario you’re referring to, I chose to create a large business. In your world, commerce and money impact so many people’s lives that it only made sense to focus my efforts there, trying to get more people to the fourth phase. But someone interfered with my version of reality, or they tried to at least.”
Ori put the last dish away and looked around at the clean kitchen. “I think we are good here. We should get going. We don’t want to be late for Evelyn’s briefing.”
“What do you mean someone interfered with your version of reality?” Jessica asked.
“The universal rules are pretty simple: you get in life what you put out. I was only putting out positive, constructive energy to help people grow and achieve their best. It shouldn’t have led to destructive forces showing up at my door. By that time, our leaders and colleagues had seen the truth in my earlier visions about the nature of man. My team came to find me and bring me back. Once I showed them what I was pursuing, they stayed to help me. We didn’t even realize at that point how much I would need them. And as you’ve noticed, Tony has cleaned up most of the traces left behind on that one.”
Jessica and Ori now left the house and were walking down a path in the garden toward the forest. Jessica prompted Ori further, “You said something about a fourth phase?”
“There are five phases of awareness governing how human beings experience their world. Phase one involves just being aware that you exist and questioning things that pertain to your reality. Thoughts like, ‘Why are we sleeping in an open field when we can hide in a cave?’ Phase two began as people learned about different ways in which other people experienced life. Think of this as reading a book or watching a movie where you can imagine and see how other people live, though you haven’t directly experienced it yourself. Phase three was the dawn of the three-dimensional form of living. People learned to travel and take part in the lives and realities of other cultures. This is a phase of exchanging ideas, philosophies, food, art.” Ori showed a fleeting smile. “This is pretty much where most of you stopped.”
Ori stopped walking for a moment. Jessica hadn’t been paying attention to where they were walking. She looked up and saw they were on a cliff, staring at an enormous mountainside. Jessica tried to see the top, but it vanished in the clouds. “The next phase, the fourth, is when you all are meant to learn how to own your own time. That’s why I started the Singularity Group. I needed to find a way to enable more entrepreneurship for those who sought it.”
“But, entrepreneurs work more than most people who have a corporate job,” Jessica said.
“That’s true,” Ori said. “But if their business aligns with something that they love, something that they are meant to do, then it’s energizing. And they own their time. They don’t answer to anyone but the market. When things are going well, they have time to learn and grow in different ways. They start to move into the fifth phase.”
“What’s the fifth phase?” Jessica asked.
“One’s ability to master multiple things. And only in the fifth phase do you learn how to consciously manifest what you want in the universe.”
“What’s bad about people staying in the third phase?” Jessica asked. “It sounds like people are coming together and sharing ideas.”
“This is true. It was good for a while. But as you can see with the virus, people are at risk of reverting to the second phase of existence, only experiencing other ways of living from the pages of a book or from behind a screen. This is very dangerous because if you can’t experience something for yourself, you run the risk of accepting someone else’s opinion as truth.” Ori continued, “The third phase is also still heavily ego-driven. You aren’t tightly tuned in to your intuition and your energy. It’s about you and your experience. It’s about what you can get from the world. Which is very important. But the fifth phase is more about what you can give to the world when you understand how powerful you are. You have the time and vision to solve some of the problems that threaten the world. And that’s what we need.”
“How do you get more people to move to that higher phase?” Jessica asked.
“People pursue a higher way of life because they receive various seemingly random cues from the universe telling them they are capable of doing and being more. A conversation with a random stranger on a plane. A book recommendation from your barber. A former friend who you respect pursuing a life that seems extraordinary. Those seemingly random interactions and instances can all take someone on an evolution of the mind, body, and spirit. And when a person is open to these cues, the brain rewires itself.”
“And now there’s more urgency for people to evolve to this phase?” Jessica asked.
“This period is almost coming to an end. Only those who are at the next level will survive,” Ori said.
“What do you mean?” Jessica asked.
“Earth itself is part of a system that sheds, or stretches, or grows. To make matters more complicated, the version of Earth you know makes up one reality of many.”
“The multiverse?” Jessica asked, half-jokingly.
“You know it?” Ori asked.
“Umm, there was this Spider-Man comic.”
“Well then, you know what happens in your version of Earth has a direct impact on existences in alternate realities. Typically they are minor, but in this instance, it could shut down the entire existence. That’s why we are so focused on getting as many people as possible to a level where they are capable of surviving and thriving in the next phase. The more people at the fifth phase of existence, the more likely you all can come together and create solutions that will save the planet.”
“Like how to fully cure the virus that the world is struggling with?” Jessica asked.
“Exactly,” Ori said. “Think of the virus as a stress test for humanity. What if it was triggered as a mechanism to test how able you are to set aside your perceived differences and come together to solve a problem? Humanity is so fractured that there’s doubt among us. However, our team believes that you can still do this, and we’ve been tasked with proving it.”
“Who is judging us?” Jessica asked.
“Well, Death is the one you need to worry about. Death is the final decision-maker.”
Jessica couldn’t help but ask, “Are we doomed?”
“No,” Ori said. “This virus, it wants to survive as well. If humanity dies, so does it. You need to learn how to coexist before the big event that’s the real threat. The reset.”
“What was the last, um, big event that occurred?” Jessica asked.
“It was the great deluge,” Ori said. “Let’s go; Evelyn’s about to start the briefing for another important recruit.”
“Another recruit?” Jessica called after Ori as he walked down a path toward the side of the massive mountain.
They approached a cave-like entrance at the base of the mountain. Ori glanced back. “Are you ready to go even further down the rabbit hole?”