Footprints in the sand

Footprints in the sand

The sun was at the peak
when I reached the shore
The sand was burnished gold and the ocean was on fire.
I was no moonlight lover.
The scalding hot fiery sun rebuked the earth and the sea and my feet were burning too.
But I needed to burn
in the pure white heat of the sun.
To be a sooth-sayer is no easy profession
and on that day I wanted to steer clear of all the obligations
to say the truth and say it say it all
and yet not hurt,
warning each of the one crucial step that needed to be taken
to escape the karma and begin anew.
My legacy of foresight was a hated curse
when all that they wanted
was to evade the life and procrastinate.,
evade the route and claim the end.
I could see into the way they abused
my gift of prophecy and make it into a trickery
whereby they could twist the arm of God.
I always told them to mind the time;
watch for the moment when the crucial turn
was going to change
the face of the things to come.
One crucial step, the step of rebirth--
but they dreaded to look it in the face.

The sand in the sun was a sea of gold and suddenly as I stood in the shadow of a rock I saw
right from the spot where I stood a track of footsteps in the sand could be seen, leading straight to the end of the shore.

I watched the marks ; and what did they say? My eyes never deceived about the signs.
And those were clearly the marks which said
that a divine being had walked here;
and to be sure, those were the markings that signified
the presence of an emperor!
An emperor walked barefoot
in the blinding sun and the scorching sand,
and walked all alone,
alone to the end of the land!

Far into the distance was a human figure,
a solitary being facing the sun and the sea.
And to be sure it had to be the emperor!
I almost ran till I reached the endless stretch of the sands.

And there he was, but what did I see? he was a humble monk, sorrowful and serene,
lost perhaps in the contemplation
of the things sublime!
How could I fail to read the language of the signs?

I fell at his feet in supplication; I wanted an answer.
"Holy man, I asked, Did you see an emperor come this way and go back?But i don't see the footprints of the one walking back.
How could my reading fail?

He smiled the most benign smile and said, "Your reading did not fail.
This sea and the sand and the footprints there
cut a path right up to here.
It was the allegory of a life written across the sands of time;
the allegory of choice--
the one crucial step that changes the face of time.
I am the emperor and I am the monk.
I was destined to be that--born to be the emperor , but one crucial step
taken at night,
changed it all. The one who you see was the emperor once.
Your insight was true but the blinding sun deceived you today. You failed to see that one single step
a decisive act that changed the emperor and this the truth--the monk now sitting here alone and away from all; an emperor once and now a mendicant begging for alms. And that was not fate; that was a choice."