She laughed. "Total Macro awareness is the experience of all problems, all sorrows, all frustrations, all pain, all ignorance, all ugliness, all disease, and all other negativities in all times and in all places. Now, that's hell to anyone who isn't completely Macro. But from a state of absolute Macro awareness it's completely balanced by all the positive qualities that ever were or ever will be, and that's perfection, which is the opposite of a frustrating, dull, and fruitless micro existence."

"All right," I said, "I'll take your word for it. How can I, at my very limited micro level, learn to grow as fast as possible?"

"We learn by doing, by taking risks, by failing, and, only then, by succeeding," she said. "We grow from our mistakes and from our failures. If we cannot see that failure is the essential other half of success, then we try to avoid failure and, in so doing, we avoid success."

"Then I guess I should get as deeply involved with everyone as I possibly can, which means taking lots of risks and having lots of failures." I shuddered. "Sounds pretty frightening."

"There is really only one fear," she said, "and that is the fear of failure, which is the same as feeling inadequate to do whatever you want to do."

"But you must look to your unlimited self for help," Carol said. "Then you can see the larger perspective in which failure and success are one."

Considering this, I responded thoughtfully, "To turn to my unlimited self, by 1976 definitions, would be to turn to God. That would mean prayer, which I never could really get into."

"It's no wonder, Jon. Prayer, as consciously used in your time, was actually an intense pleading for something that the person actually felt he didn't deserve to have, or was afraid he would not get. Since our predominant thoughts materialize to become our reality, people usually don't get what they consciously pray for because their predominant thought is that they don't and won't have it!

"From another point of view, however, every thought we think is a prayer, since, once thought, it is a permanent part of the universe and addresses the macrocosmic whole. All prayer," Rana continued, "indeed, all thought, expresses desire for something.

"Call it prayer or call it thought. It's all the same, and it's the tool with which we create all that we experience.

"Since your mind is an indivisible part of all mind, your desires are all-powerful. You will receive whatever you desire and 'believe' you will receive. However, if you desire to run away from the light, from Macro awareness, into the darkness of amnesia, which is micro awareness, then you will receive that request also. So you see, Jon, prayer-as seen from a broader perspective works. Prayers are constantly and unfailingly answered. We' just don't always like the answers!"

"In other words," I said, "since our minds are all powerful, our problem is to learn how to use them positively rather than negatively."

"Not quite, Jon," Rana answered. "You can't have positive without negative any more than you can have up without down, or success without failure. Thus, the problem is to learn to use our minds with perfect balance – that is, with total acceptance of everything – both success and failure, knowing that every failure leads to success."

"And how do you do that?" I asked.

"Every lesson to be learned," Rana explained, "requires mistakes or failures. This varies with each person in terms of his past learning in all his incarnations and excarnations and multidimensional experiences."

Seeing my puzzled expression, she added, "This is because no experience is ever forgotten by the soul mind or subconscious mind. It is all cumulative. Thus, if for one child-it takes 10,000 failures to learn to walk, the sooner he makes those failures the sooner he learns to walk. Since micro man does not understand this cumulative effect, he becomes easily discouraged and often thinks he is as far, or even further, from solving the problem after 9,999 failures as he was at the end of ten."

"But, of course, this is not true," Carol injected, "because at the end of 9,999 failures he has only one more to go to have complete insight and success."

"But I thought you said that every failure is a success?" I queried. "Yet you mention the 9,999 failures and not the 9,999 successes. How come?"

"Because," replied Rana, "micro man is not worried by successes, only by failures. Since he is not aware of the cumulative effect, he doesn't realize that every failure is a necessary and successful step toward complete insight. In other words, each failure is a small insight success bringing one that much closer to total insight success."

"Hmm, I'll think about that," I said. "But how do I specifically go about learning or developing my Macro powers?"

Rana answered, "You don't start out to develop Macro powers-you start out to develop Macro awareness. The powers develop as the awareness increases."

"However," Carol added; "you need to remember that there are two necessary factors in all learning: sufficient desire and sufficient belief."

"One example," Rana said, "is when a person desires to learn to swim but does not believe he can learn without drowning. He, obviously, will not learn to swim as he lacks the necessary belief."

"Or the opposite," Carol continued, "when he believes he could successfully learn to swim but would rather play tennis. Now he lacks the necessary desire, and, again, he will not learn to swim."

"Thus," Rana added, "with both sufficient desire and sufficient belief, anything is possible."

"That seems simple enough," I said.

They both laughed, and Rana said, "It is simple, Jon, because you grew-you expanded your perspective-took a broader point of view. The universe and its functions are all very basic and incredibly simple. It's man's limited perspective that makes them look complicated. BUT! It's in the doing that one learns, not just in the talking about it.

"So why don't you go back to your Alpha and desire growth, and accept all that you experience as an opportunity chosen to offer that growth." She smiled gently as she added, "When one has already successfully transcended 174 years and acquired a new body, it should be difficult indeed to doubt anything-least of all future successes!"

During the next few minutes before we left, Carol and Rana talked of incomprehensible things while my mind was feverishly occupied with trying to understand all that Rana had said.

Carol touched my shoulder, and we all walked to the door in silence. As we reached the threshold I took Rana's hand and touched her face gently in appreciation. Then we left with the memory of Rana's electric eyes stirring something very deep within my mind.

As we returned to our Alpha I asked Carol why Rana chose to appear middle-aged since, I assumed, she had the mind power to mold her body into any form. Carol replied that when she had asked Rana the same question, the answer she had received was but one word variety.

Back in our Alpha room Carol explained that while the evening hours were devoted to Macro tutoring, the last hour before sleep was devoted to Macro contact. She explained this as a letting go of all micro identity and experiencing the awareness of total macrocosmic oneness.

After a relaxing bath we lay naked on our bed, and Carol asked C.I. to provide Macro contact stimuli. The video screen was immediately filled with ever-expanding and evolving geometric patterns. The room was filled with soothing resonant sounds that seemed to cause my whole mind and body to resonate in similarly evolving and enlarging patterns.

At first I was leery and tried to resist the strange sensations caused by the incredible visual and audible stimuli. But Carol kept murmuring, "Desire and believe... experience and accept... let go, and let's grow!" Finally I gave up all resistance and found myself flowing on a gentle river of multiple sensations until I seemed to enter an infinite ocean of unspeakable unity, oneness, and balance accompanied by the most soul-satisfying feeling of harmony imaginable.