"That's like saying that everyone should stay in first grade forever so they can help teach the lessons there," Jon replied.

'But someone's got to teach them," I protested.

"There has never, in the history of our universe, been a shortage of teachers-only of students willing to learn. As the Macro philosophers have said-when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Ask and you will receive is another way of stating this Macro truth. It reflects back to prepotent desire and predisposing belief. If you desire something more than learning or if you don't believe that you can learn, or that you deserve to learn, you'll have to wait until your desire and belief are greater before you succeed," Jon explained.

"I still don't see how you could tell the difference between a cop-out suicide and evolutionary suicide," I said, shaking my head.

"It's a question of motive, Karl," Jon explained.

"Was the motivation for death to escape the past or to embrace the future? A cop-out suicide is escaping his past and/or present-an evolutionary suicide is embracing his future,"

"That's a hard one to handle," I complained. "Wouldn't a person tend to lie to himself about his desire to escape life?"

"Sure, that happens a lot," Jon answered. "In each life there are lessons that must be learned, but if you lie to yourself about having learned all there was to learn in first grade, then commit suicide, you wake up right back in first grade. You see, in this planetary schoolroom it's impossible to be a drop-out for very long. You can't run away from your own greater self."

"Micro man views physical life on this planet as the final stage, rather than just a preparation for experiencing the next dimension. With that sort of philosophy he naturally tends to think that suicide would end it all. He becomes the victim of his own micro philosophy."

"Then is suicide a sin or not?" Neda asked.

"It's hard to generalize about suicide, Neda, since all death is either conscious or unconscious suicide," Jon replied thoughtfully. "As for sin, there is only one sin, and that is to deny the perfection of our macrocosmic oneness with all that is, was, or ever will be. But even that is only a sin from the micro view. From the Macro view there can be no sin, for all is purposively and evolutionarily perfect. The key then, is to accept the perfection of what is by responding to everything with loving acceptance, thereby freeing yourself from the bonds of anxiety, fear, and condemnation which bind you to physical existence. Then, and only then, is evolation possible."

"Ok. If I was Macro I'd know who was living by the rule of loving acceptance and who wasn't, and I'd know everyone's motive for ending their life. Then I'd be able to tell if it was suicide, as we popularly think of it, or evolation. The problem is, I'm not Macro!" I protested, "So I still don't know how to tell the differences!"

"Remember that monograph we read back in Cultural Anthropology? The one on that Indian tribe whose old people, when they were ready to die, just said goodbye to everyone, went up on a hill, and died?" Jon asked.

"Yeah. Kind of like your Hugo's plan to...' I began.

"That's it exactly, Karl," Jon interrupted. "If you use anything to do the job with, you committed escapist suicide. If you wrapped up the details of your life then just laid down and died, that's evolation."

That's as close as Neda and I could come to a total recall of that evening's conversation.

It was Jon's comments on evolation, combined with our dreams of him, that ultimately modified my view of Jon's death by broadening my perspective.

I still miss Jon terribly. But Neda reminds me that nothing is terrible from a Macro viewpoint, so I know what level I'm at.

However, I can remember Jon saying that our level of awareness is constantly fluctuating, and that in one twenty-four-hour period an average micro person like myself can run the gamut from micro awareness to low level, or even high level, Macro awareness-the latter occurring mostly when we're asleep and dreaming.

I'll end this epilogue with such a dream.

It was the last of a series of dreams I've had about Jon. In most of them we just talked in our usual manner, but this one was different. We know it was symbolic because Jon had told us that 2150 has neither graves nor tombstones since discarded physical bodies are vaporized.

In this dream Neda and I were standing with Jon before a great tombstone upon which were engraved the following words:

DIED

JON & CAROL

8-927 3-927

DELTA 927

1976 2150

REBORN

JON & CAROL

9-927 4-927

DELTA 927

2150

In closing I would like to say that the ultimate purpose of this book-indeed, of all my publications is to encourage the development of a unified, harmonious society for the earth's Aquarian Age.

I will leave you with the most hopeful words ever spoken:

With Macro love-

Joyously!

Thea Alexander