2150 A.D.

The eleventh and twelfth floors of the student Gamma building were devoted to comfortable tutoring rooms large enough to accommodate both individual and group work. There were also exercise rooms and an auditorium big enough to hold the entire Gamma.

We arrived at our Personal Evolution tutoring room after walking through multicolored halls with gleaming white doors.

Carol reached out to open a door, but before she touched the button the door slid quietly open. We entered a room with a carpet-like floor of deep blue which contrasted with the soft yellow walls and the three large forest green chairs. The room was at least twenty-five feet square and seemed huge with just the three chairs and no other furniture.

One of the chairs was occupied by the smallest woman I had seen in 2150.

As we walked toward her she rose from her chair and stretched. out her arms to us. Carol immediately slipped into her arms and they gave each other a silent embrace. Then, as Carol stepped back, I realized that our tutor was even shorter than I had first thought, being no taller than five feet ten at best.

As she stepped forward and took my hand, I became aware of her age. Her face and body were those of a very healthy and extremely attractive woman in her mid forties, but somehow her pale blue eyes gave me a feeling that she was much older.

She touched my face and said, "Welcome, Jon, to the Macro society. I'm Rana and I'll answer your question by saying that I have inhabited this body for 125 years."

As I was trying to adjust to this fact Carol said, "And to answer your question about how the door opened by itself, you were experiencing Rana's' demonstration of psycho kinesis (PK), preceded by telepathy."

Rana's tunic was the same gleaming white as Eli's. Level tens were so highly evolved that their tunics reflected a perfectly equal balance of all colors, resulting in the illusion of no color at all.

I felt awed when I remembered there were only 127 level tens in the whole Macro society at present, and I wondered if I was getting some special treatment.

Rana smiled at me and said, "No... no special treatment. I was Carol's tutor long before you arrived, and since you are Alpha mates you can choose me as your tutor or ask for someone else."

"I... I guess I'd probably choose you," I stammered.

"Then let's sit down, and get growing!" she responded cheerfully.

We sat down in the soft body-contoured chairs and I began wondering what would be expected of me.

Carol came to my rescue when she asked Rana if she could see into the future and tell us how long it would be before I could become a permanent member of the Macro society.

Rana looked intently at Carol for a moment and then shifted her intense gaze to me. Finally she said, "I'm having difficulty with the future for Jon because it seems there is a very important decision that he must make which will completely determine the rest of his life. This decision will be his choice between the micro life of 1976 and the Macro life of 2150."

"I've already made that choice," I insisted. "I've chosen the Macro life of 2150."

Rana looked at me and I felt her tremendous strength of patience, understanding, and courage. I suddenly realized that from the moment I had entered the room I had been mentally and physically bombarded by the power of her being. As I write this I feel frustrated that I ca

"You don't think he's totally really made the choice yet," she said to Rana.

Rana looked at Carol and then back to me before she said, "I think that Jon has not had time to really take inventory of himself. He feels confused and in great awe and tends to see us as being too impossibly perfect for him to become one of us."

As I thought about what she had just said I realized that she was right. I did feel that everyone I had met so far in 2150 was impossibly perfect compared to me. In fact, I could see no weaknesses and no imperfections. I nodded my head in sad agreement with Rana.

"You're right," I said, "I feel like a first-grade kid who finds himself accidentally in seventh grade. The lessons look impossible. My fellow students must look down on me, because, while they're years younger than I am, they're miles ahead of me in their evolution."

"Oh, Jon, it isn't true," Carol said in an imploring tone. "We all love you and accept you as you are. We don't judge you any more than we judge each other. We're all of equal value and we all have to be first level before we can evolve to second, third, or beyond."

When I didn't say anything to this, Rana said, "You see, Carol, Jon feels you're patronizing him. He doesn't want to be accepted as a midget among giants. He wants to become a giant, but doesn't think it's possible."

"How could it be possible? Your educational system provides a totally stimulating, loving, accepting, perfect environment for developing Macro man. I, on the other hand, have spent twenty-seven years learning how to be a micro man."

I paused, realizing the enormity of what I was saying. I was admitting to myself the impossibility of ever being equal in awareness to my Alpha mate or to any of the other Alpha members, much less Lea.

Coming from my little fantasy of a permanent translation to 2150, to the harsh reality that it was totally impossible drained, every ounce of energy from me. My body ached with its own weight. My throat hurt. Suddenly my face was wet with tears. I could see Carol and Rana only dimly.

Rana was saying, "Whenever you really ask for help, and not just pity, you will always receive it."

But I was tired, very tired.

CHAPTER 7: The Unlimited Self

The smell of bacon cooking; the click of our pop-up toaster; snow piled against the windowsill. A very ordinary morning. So why did I feel so depressed and miserable?

Then I remembered, and wished I hadn't.

For a few moments I struggled desperately to blot from my memory the conversations with Rana. Failing this, I replayed it a couple of times trying to find some flaw in my argument of futility, in my feeling of impossible inadequacy.

I kept remembering the Macro society's educational system and comparing it with my own early years. I remembered the incredible vitality, joy, beauty, intelligence, superhuman awareness, love, understanding, kindness and patience that had been demonstrated by my Alpha... and I was seven years older than their oldest!

Lea made a mistake, I thought. She should have created for me the body of a newborn baby. Then I could have started out in the first triad and eighteen years later be on an equal footing with others in the 7th triad. How could she have made such a mistake and still have demonstrated 9th-level awareness? And what was it Rana said just before I lost consciousness? Something about asking for help-that whenever I really wanted help, and not just pity, I would always receive it.

Obviously Rana, at the highest level of awareness in the Macro society, was trying to tell me that it wasn't impossible.

Could she and Lea be so wrong? Was I only asking for pity? If there is no hope, pity is all you can ask for! But how could I have hope? They were so perfect-I was imperfect, and never the twain shall meet.

I began laughing softly to myself at the ridiculous nature of my predicament. I was a perfect example of micro man who sees himself as limited, inadequate, and doomed to ultimate failure.

I searched my mind for hope, a way out.

One of the greatest Personal Evolution tutors of all time said, "Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be opened."