"Inside every man," said the Master, "there is a forest, a lake, a desert and a mountain. The forest is where wild things grow. The lake is where deep things live. The desert is where old memories haunt. And at the crest of the mountain is where Enlightenment can be found."
He took a sip from his frosted latte.
"To get to the lake, you must walk through the forest. To get to the desert, you must swim across the lake. To get to the mountain you must trek through the desert. And when you reach the base of the mountain, that is where your true journey begins."
The Master began smearing marmalade on a freshly toasted piece of bread and then stopped. "And it’s a big fucking mountain."
He continued scooping large, mountain-like dollops of marmalade out of the jar.
There was a rustling among the Disciples.
"And this is just applicable to men, is it?" One Disciple asked, with a definite edge on the word ‘men’. The other Disciples shifted subtly, eyes rolling in the direction of the one who had spoken, as though they had been collectively wading in shallow waters only to discover that they were, in fact, frolicking at the very edge of a bottomless trench.
The Master stopped mid-bite, sticky toast crumbs decorating his beard in mystical patterns.
"Well," he said cautiously, clearing his throat and scattering crumbs on the tabletop, "I don’t think it only applies to men, per se, but it was generally men that I had in mind, er, yes. I suspect women have other… things… that they… have… uhm."
"Only," continued the Disciple, whose name was Allegedly Dennis, "it seems like men think they have some sort of deathgrip or something on being deep and interesting, like it takes having a penis to wonder about the inner nature of the Universe. And, if you really think about it, having a penis is probably counter-productive to doing any thinking at all. At least," Allegedly Dennis added in a dark mutter, "that’s always been my experience with men."
The Master frowned. "Look, Dennis," he said, "when you applied to join the Brotherhood, did anyone explain-"
"What if you don’t like forests?" Interjected another Disciple.
"What?" said the Master.
"What if you don’t like forests?" repeated the Disciple. "Could you have an inner carpark, instead of an inner forest?"
"An inner carpark?" said the Master incredulously. "Who in the name of Grod wants an inner carpark? That’s a horrible, soulless, desolate metaphor for an inner landscape!"
"Oh, but what, an inner forest is, like, amazingly better?" said the Disciple. "Huh, I’d rather spend my time crossing a desolate inner carpark than staggering through a self-actualising forest with creepy-crawly-things-with-claws-and-poison-darts-and-great-big-bloody-bitey-whatsit-fangs!"
"Unless you got mugged," observed a third Disciple, whose name for some reason was Inappropriate Ralph. "Most of the carparks in my neighbourhood, you’d be lucky to make it across alive even if they gave you a headstart first."
"I can’t swim," said a morose voice from the back of the group. It was a voice that knew no-one was listening to it, because no-one ever did, and in this it was perhaps the wisest voice in the room, because, in fact, no-one was listening to it at all. "I just know I’m going to drown in my inner lake."
"What I want to know," said one very intense Disciple, stabbing a finger at the air as though he meant to do it physical harm, "is whose brilliant idea was it to put Enlightenment at the top of a fucking mountain? I mean, forest, yes. Lake, whatever. Desert, okay if you absolutely must. But I get nosebleeds getting things down from the top shelf in the kitchen! Even if I go through all that other crap, I’m going to be spending all my Enlightenment leaning my head back and wishing I’d brought more tissues!"
"Look," said the Master, "the thing about Enlightenment is, you don’t just get it by going through the motions, right? If you climb to the top of the mountain and you find that your nose is bleeding, yeah, then chances are you climbed to the top of the wrong mountain. Do you see?"
There was a long, contemplative moment among the Disciples.
"Wait," said one Disciple. "There’s more than one fucking mountain?"
All conversation came to a sudden halt.
The one Disciple shuffled from slipper to slipper uncomfortably as the other Disciples took one full step away from him.
The Master, head bowed and an index finger stabbing either side of his head, slowly massaging his temples in a rotating motion.
The one Disciple crouched low and shuffled forward in an attempt to reconnect with the Master “so um…. these mountains… any feel on which one would be like the right one”
The Master slowly raised his head, a pained expression painted across his face; he muttered “there’s always the ‘one’, always”
The room was filled with dramatic tension. The Disciples, again as one coordinated organism took another step, this one a little big than the first, away from the one Disciple and the Master. Inappropriate Ralph released a loud cheek clapping fart. The Disciples like a school of fish took another collective step – this time to the right, away from a very nervous Ralph.
With his long yellow stained fingernails, the Master beckoned claw-like to the ‘one’ to come much closer. His fingers curled out and back with each shuffle the one Disciple took until they were almost touching nose to nose.
The Master slipped a small heavy object into the one Disciples deep pocket and whispered “this will save you some time”.
In an attempt to hear the exchange, the disciples took a series of smaller shuffles towards the Master while remaining clear of Inappropriate Ralph who had taken to inspecting the stitching in his tunic with the faith’s huge textured logo.
A circle cut into quadrants – one filled with deep blue shimmering material, another with yellow swirls, the third featuring the outline of a giant green tree, and the last, a snow capped triangular mountain.
Later that evening while hunting down Inappropriate Ralph over a misunderstanding during pray – Dennis discovered the Master’s secret collection of enlightenment. In a small narrow room immediately off the monastery’s giftshop. It contained hundreds and hundreds of snow globes. Each containing a single snow capped mountain. Rows upon rows of them…. one was missing. One snow globe and one disciple.
Inappropriate Ralph glanced quickly between Dennis and the empty space where a snow globe should have been and then passed wind. All the little mountains disappeared under an unexpected and violent snowstorm.