Many Lives in One Cave

"Wait a minute," said Rishi. "What are you implying here?"

The old man climbed down to another level of rock, slipped and splashed into shallow water. He looked up at Rishi and replied, "You always come back here to face this fear, and you always die here."

"That doesn't make sense," said Rishi.

"It makes perfect sense," contradicted the old man.

Rishi retorted, "You're saying this fear comes from past lives?"

"Yes," replied the old man, "you better climb down and be prepared to get wet. We need to get moving. Do you hear that water behind us?"

"That's not important," said Rishi. "I want to understand this reincarnation implication."

The old man gently slid off the rock on which he stood, into the water, and said "The water is deep here, we must swim."

"This is ridiculous!" cried Rishi as he climbed down to the water level.

"Honestly," said the old man after he turned to face Rishi, "what you did before doesn't matter. Past lives, how ever pertinent, really don't mean anything."

Rishi slid into the water and began to dog paddle. He paddled out to the old man and said, "I don't believe in reincarnation."

"I don't either," said the old man. Then he turned and swam as fast as he could for the north wall of the cave, the wall where he knew he could find the way out.

Rishi saw the old man swimming fast and strong and mimicked the old man's movements, he swam confidently after the old man and found a healthy rhythm quite quickly.

The old man lifted himself onto another island of rock: this one glowed so brightly as to almost appear on fire. Rishi swam to the old man and said, "Then why would you say that was my past life?"

"Partly because its true," replied the old man, "and partly because I had foreseen these events and knew that this was the easiest way to assist you with your first swim."

Rishi pulled himself out of the water with a great perplexed expression on his face. He and the old man needed to cover about 35 meters to get to the north wall of the chamber.

As the confusion on Rishi's face began to wane, the old man said, "We must face all our fears to graduate from this place and you only have one fear left. It was given to you when you became master of this cave thousands of years ago and in a freak accident became trapped down here. You put that crystal in the wall over there, shouted up to your students that you were going to try to find a way out and were never heard from again."

The old man kept carefully ahead of Rishi. As Rishi followed making sure he could hear and ask questions, the old man lead him to another wet sink hole.

The old man climbed into the water as Rishi said, "so that was the skull of the Master of the cave?"

"Oh no," said the old man as he tread water, "that was the skull of a student of my teacher's teacher." In that life, your fear overcame you and you fell to your death.

The old man twirled around in the water and swam quickly away from Rishi covering ten meters before Rishi had even formed his next question. Rishi put his finger to his mouth as if to speak. Seeing the distance between himself and the old man, Rishi slid into the water and swam after him.

The distance across this pond was vast. The old man swam about 30 meters and pulled himself out of the water onto a smooth, solid, almost glass like ledge in north wall of the cave. He could just make out the gap at the base of the wall.

In fact the distance was so vast that the old man realized he had made a mistake in swimming that far.

In the distance, to the south, the sound of rushing water became overwhelmed by the sound of falling rock. Some of the roof was giving way under the weight of the water pressing down on it.

Rishi had stopped swimming and unconsciously doggy paddled while staring at the north wall of the cave.

"What is your question!" shouted the old man.

Rishi had suddenly understood why the old man had started this conversation and from that realization his fear surfaced. The old man's shout awakened Rishi and Rishi moved slightly forward in the water.

"I ... " stammered Rishi " ... I can't remember."

"Just swim toward my voice Rishi, just swim."

Rishi did as he was instructed for a minute, making a few meters distance but it became harder and harder for him to concentrate.

"There is nothing to fear here Rishi," said the old man.

"I wish I knew that," thought Rishi.

The old man lowered himself gently into the water and very slowly and carefully tread out to Rishi.

"Give me your hand Rishi," said the old man.

Rishi held up his hand, the old man grabbed it and towed him carefully to the smooth stone.

With the old man's help, Rishi started to pull himself out of the water.

At that moment a large piece of the roof, perhaps the size of a circus tent, broke away from the center of the Chamber's ceiling and fell with a large crash onto the green island and into the pond they were in.

Rishi pulled himself up the rest of the way as a wave of water from the the falling rock struck him and drove him against the north wall, he struggled to not fall in the water filled crack and then struggled to keep from being drawn back into the pond as the wave bounced off the north wall.

"Rishi." said the old man.

Rishi whipped around and saw a giant whirlpool of water where the pond had been. The old man circled around and around, faster and faster.

Rishi started to move for the water when he noticed that the green island in the middle of the pond was gone and apparently a collapse of the floor had created an opening, a way for the water to escape the chamber.

"Stop!" shouted the old man.

Rishi stopped at the edge of the smooth stone and noticed that the water had drained down several feet from its edge.

"You must face your fear!" shouted the old man as he drew closer and then circled farther away.

"That is all that matters now!" shouted the old man on his next pass.

"Swim!" shouted Rishi. "Swim toward the middle and sling shot out!"

The old man shrugged. "Okay" he shouted above the noise of the water, "I'll try."

The old man began swimming toward the middle. It had the affect of accelerating him tangentially toward the middle. As he approached the center he flipped out of the whirlpool and got very close to Rishi. They reached for each other and the old man smiled as if to say "thank you."

But their arms missed and the old man was carried around to the new southern shore of this gyro-pond. The old man crashed into a rock. The pain was excruciating but the old man managed to heave himself out of the water onto the stone. Rishi stared at the old man for a moment and the old man waved to him.

At that moment another large portion of the ceiling collapsed and fell into the swirling pond. The water had drained several feet but it was still everything Rishi could do to hang on and not be drawn into the water by the wave created by the collapse. It was a miracle that nothing fell on him.

"The old man was not so lucky," thought Rishi.