A Little Story on Perspective and Vantage Points

Once upon a time, in a land that was very flat with no hills at all, there dwelled a somewhat primitive village of people who couldn't see very far off in the distance because they had no hills to stand on. They saw their houses, their streets, their fields and since they were too busy surviving to take long trips, they thought that what they saw was all that there was. Since they thought that was all that there was, they never felt the need too take long trips. Since they could see all that there was, it made them feel secure. In fact it made them feel even more secure to punish those who questioned their security and so they created taboos and passed laws against taking long trips and building structures higher than their house. They taught that going beyond certain points would subject them to the forces of evil and insecurity. Everyone believed this so strongly they knew it had to be true.

A very very long distance away, in a land where there were many small hills and no trees, there was another village. These people could stand on top of their hills and see much further distances. They could see rivers, lakes, deserts and forests off in the distance. They of course, thought this was all that there was and journeyed to these locations on occasions. At these times, they thought themselves quite adventuresome. They could be adventuresome at times because they felt the security of knowing that where they were traveling was all that there was. It also made them feel secure to chop down the trees where they traveled so that the land would look more like home, besides they could use the wood to build more structures at home. It made them feel even more secure to teach themselves and their children that that was all that there was and they could rely on that as fact. They knew it was fact because their experts had spent many hours of careful observation looking from their highest hill. They all knew that it wasn't rational to venture further on their trips, or to try to build higher than their hills.

An even further distance away on the other side of the world there dwelled a village of people in a high, high mountain range. (Of course, "the other side of the world" would not make sense to the other two villages in the same way it would to us.) At the top of their mountain's, on a clear day, they could see the other mountain's, the flat land, and the land of hills as well as many other geological areas. They could even see the curvature of the earth so that they thought the earth was a round ball. The nights were so clear that they could see other round balls in the sky.
They would travel long long distances and mingle with and learn from the people of other villages. They learned to appreciate the variety of differences they saw and wanted everyone else to appreciate these differences. It made them feel good about themselves to appreciate differences and to not judge one difference as being better than another. They wanted everything to be equal and they wanted the whole world to feel the way they did. If only they could stop people from being egocentric or unaccepting of others.

Within the village on the high mountains there was a small group who became more and more discontented. They realized that by wanting everything equal and nonjudgmental they had just created another flatland from which there was no vantage points. One dark night, these discontented people climbed to the top of the highest mountain to see if they could see something more. Suddenly, a light in the sky moved towards them. In a moment they saw a large glowing turquoise-indigo metallic ship hovering above the ground in front of them. Out of the ship, walked a slender bald man, who smiled and spoke the strange words "welcome to second tier".

They entered the ship and through the viewing port they were able to look down on their previous viewpoints. They could see the whole mountain range and as the ship moved higher, the whole continent. They begin to realize they were transcending and including all their previous lower perspectives as they move to higher vantage points. They realized that everyone had to start at lower vantage points before moving to higher ones, just as they were doing. They felt deep compassion for everyone on their various levels and in their various degrees of stuckness. Finally they could see the entire earth, and solar system. As they begin to see the galaxy they begin to realize in their very core, on a permanent basis, they weren't seeing the galaxy, they were the galaxy. To be continued.