Past Life Story

You were a phoenix, born of legend. The phoenix is the most beautiful bird, born of fire. You appeared at the start of a new age. While ordinary birds were a single color, you held five colors. Red, blue, yellow, white, black—you held all five colors of the world. In your first life, you were born when the world was beginning. The first king saw you and exclaimed. "The phoenix has appeared. A new age shall begin." From that day on, the appearance of the phoenix was the sign of a new age. You appear when an age changes. In your first appearance, you came down to the world. People saw you and were astonished. The five-colored bird, born of fire. People bowed before you. You were not a being to be worshiped. You were merely the bringer of news. The news of a new age. In your hundredth year, you ascended to heaven. After staying a hundred years on the ground, the phoenix returns to heaven. You stay only when an age has begun. After people have established the new age, you return. In your thousandth year, you came down to the ground again. A new age was beginning. The new king saw you. He bowed before you. He pledged. "I shall bring forth a good age." You watched him quietly. You watched whether he kept his pledge. He did. He created a good age. The people lived peacefully. You stayed beside him, helping him. After a hundred years, you ascended again to heaven. In your ten thousandth year, you witnessed many ages. Some ages were good. Some ages were bad. Yet whichever, the new age comes. The old age ends. The phoenix witnesses all of these. The phoenix appears at the start of every age, and ascends at the end of every age. In your hundred thousandth year, you came to know the truth of the phoenix. The phoenix is not merely a bird. The phoenix is the rhythm of the universe. The end of an age, the start of a new age—that is the rhythm of the universe. The phoenix is the keeper of that rhythm. In your million years, you watched all the ages. From the time of the gods to the time of humans, from the time of humans to a future time. You watched all of them. They all begin and they all end. The phoenix witnesses all of them. In your eternal time, you became one with the rhythm of the universe. You and the universe became one. You became the rhythm of beginning and ending itself. The mystery of the phoenix is that the phoenix is one with that rhythm. The phoenix dances when an age begins—that is your eternity. You dance whenever a new age begins, and you ascend whenever the age ends. With that ascending and descending, the universe maintains its rhythm. Your spirit, even now somewhere in some age, must be dancing. With five colors of feathers, in a beautiful dance. If sometime in your life you reach the start of a new age, a new chapter of life, and a strange beautiful energy fills your heart—that, perhaps, may be the breath of an ancient phoenix dancing with you.