The building is a stone gallery strengthened by a buttress on each side. A wooden door, tightly hinged to the wall, is smoothly heavy. Inside the gallery, there are vault columns made of granite on each side to bear the load, small rooms diced up behind the vault columns, doors closed, a sentinel with a spear in hand at the door front, guarding the obvious secrets inside. There is a candle lamp hanging on each column, lighting up the Gargoyle underneath. The gallery, just like any earthly shrine, is constructed by the simple geometric and physical rules, symmetrically grandiose. There are surprisingly no displays of religious symbols of any kind. I walk on the smooth stone floor, which bears the invisible footprints of prior saints, feeling emotionally glorified and a little bit atheistically defiant, simultaneously. The hall is filled with enchanting sound, like spa music, meditatively soothing. An incarnated figure sits on a raised marble platform, lanky, frivolous in disposition, dressed in an ancient Roman Toga. His face hidden in the shadow formed by the background luminescent light, high in frequency on EM Spectrum by naked eyes, creating an ultra violet light glare, my eyes squinted. Realizing that I am encountering the highest sacred, I am ritualistically horrified and kinesthetically paralyzed. I know the brightness behind him is the eternity, the infinity of the universe and the place for afterlife if there is one. My grandma’s smile flashes in my mind. I shiver and close my eyes.
“Your Mighty…” My throat dry, voice cracked, searching with the little sanity left for appropriate replacement of “My Lord” to maintain the minimum dignity as an atheist and to show my ultimate respect for him. God reads my mind, says friendly: “You may sit.”
I sit in the middle of the room, on the floor, one leg overlapping the other, my usual meditating position.
“You aren’t a Theist,” God continues, “you can call me Mite, just like the nicknames Mike or Joe. ”
He raises his right arm up in the air and folds the hand into a fist, slowly unfolding his fingers, one at a time. When the last little finger unfolds, a dove appears in his palm! He says with a teasing smile, “I’ve earned my name, haven’t I?”
I am visibly mused, though not sure if this is a sleight of hand magician trick or a real miracle. The ice is quietly broke by him and I regain my composure: “Yes, Mite, you deserve the name. “
I quickly search my brain data storage to compose a few questions that I believe are not only mostly intriguing to Atheists like me but also to the human beings as a whole. This is a millennial chance to have a direct dialogue with God, but I have to lay out the questions intelligently to demonstrate that we the human do have the threshold of intelligence required to communicate with God.
I collect the scattered strings of my thoughts and take a deep breath, start my question, the easiest one in my mind:
“You are incarnated now and are as palpable to me as the marble, why not stay this way so that the doubt about your existence which has confounded human beings for thousands of years can be annihilated once and for all? ”
“A boring question,” he says, but his voice resonates briskly and euphorically, not bored to my ears.
“I have been asked this question for billions of times over thousands of solar cycles and I have repeated myself each time. But the message never gets across. It is like analogy of the lighthouse. The lighthouse is built to mark coastal lines and to guide navigation at night. The light, not the generator underneath, needs to be seen. The supernatural being shall stay beyond entity and sense, void and empty, concrete material and metaphysical abstraction, perception and knowledge, science and literature, time and space, all possible human recognitions and attainments, to maintain his supremacy and ultimate control not only over human beings that, by the way, is just a small pocket of activities, but the infinite universe created by him.”
Mite pauses and notices that I am starting to lose it. He resumes his talk in a conversational mode: “There are also practical reasons for me to stay out of incarnation. It may cause confusions and strife and probably wars. Stay beyond perception and recognitions is the best precautions to be not taken advantaged of ethnically and racially by human vices. Humans shall keep imagining me to their preferences. Will you marry a girl of different race?”
译文：
本人生长在一个没有宗教自由的国度, 靠着文化和科学的哺育,成长为一个具有正 常人格的人,和任何宗教信徒一样,有良知 和罪恶感,但没有神灵观。当宗教信徒向他 们的神明祈祷时,本人用独特的打坐冥想方 式清理自己的思绪,反省过失,蓄精养锐。 此习惯已保持多年,偶尔也能做到瑜伽三摩 地的寂定心境,但从未有过更高境界的神奇, 直到不久前,本人在打坐时经历了一次神奇, 一次 OBE (out-of-body experience),灵魂 脱离了躯体,和神明邂逅。 以下就是这段邂 逅的真实记录:
这是一栋有扶撑墙加固的石头建筑,木 制门和墙壁紧紧相连,沉重而平滑。室内拱 形石柱支撑着屋顶,石柱后面为多个隔间, 隔间的门紧闭,门口站着手持矛的侍卫,把 守着室内显而易见的秘密。石柱上点着蜡烛 灯,照耀着下面的兽性滴水孔。 这个建筑和 人间的圣殿并无差异,按照几何和物理的原 理建成,对称而庄重。让人称奇的是屋里没 有任何宗教装饰。 我小心翼翼的走在留有古 代圣贤脚印的平滑的石板地上,诚惶诚恐, 矜持凝重。大厅里回荡着舒缓的音乐,让人 冥想。 前方有一座升起的大理石平台,上面 有个穿着古代罗马服装, 形态消瘦慵懒人坐 在上面,他的脸盘隐藏在身后耀眼的光芒形 成的阴影里。他身后的光芒如此明亮,属于 光谱仪上的高频区,耀眼的紫外线光亮让人 眩晕,我的眼睛不得不眯成一线。 意识我遇 见了宇宙里最高的主宰,我茫然不知所措, 身体僵硬,动弹不得。我知道他身后的光亮 即是永恒,是无限的宇宙和死后的灵魂的去处,我逝去的外祖母的笑容闪现在我的脑海, 我不禁一颤,闭上了眼睛。
“万能的。。。” 我的喉咙干涸,声音沙 哑,竭力保持冷静,搜寻着可以替代只有信 奉上帝的教徒才用的 “我的主” 这样的称呼, 既能保持我作为一个无神论者仅有的尊严, 又能表达对神明最大的尊重。 神明看出了我 的窘境,友善的说: “你可以坐下。”
我在厅中央坐下,两腿交叉,这是我平 时打坐的姿势。
“你不信奉神明,” 他接着说: “不必拘于 礼节,可以叫我迈特,就像昵称迈克一样。”
他将手臂抬起,把手握成拳头,然后慢 慢地,一个个地把手指伸开,等待最后一个 手指伸直后,一只鸽子在他手心里显现,他 看着我,揶揄道:“怎么样,我是不是名副 其实?”
我的脸上明显地流露出惊奇,无法断定 这是个真实的神奇还是个魔术师的幻术。 刚 进来时的那层冰被他轻松地打破了,我恢复 了镇静。我快速的在我大脑的储存器里寻找着我 要提的问题,我知道我要提的不仅是困扰着 我个人的问题,而且也是困扰着整个人类的 问题。 这个直接和神明对话的机会千年难遇我有责任把问题提到人类智力的最高点,以 证明我们人类具有了和神明交流的智慧和知 识。
我收回思绪,深深地吸了口气,开始提问,从最容易的问题开始:
“您现在就如您身下的大理石一样可以触 摸到,为什么不保持人形,以终结困扰人类 千年的有关您到底存在与否的争论?”
“乏味的问题,” 神明回答,他的声音愉 悦而欢快,没有一点不耐烦的味道。
“同样的问题在上千个太阳旋转轮回的过 程里被提出了上亿次, 每一次我都回答了, 然而你们还是不明白。 以灯塔来比喻,灯塔 是用来照亮海岸线,在夜里引导航线的。 人 们所要看到的是灯塔发出的光芒而不是灯塔 下面的发动机。 神明必须超越实体和感知, 废虚和空洞,有形和抽象,理解和认知,时 间和空间,神明要超越人类所有的认知界限, 这样才能报持它对于它所创造的宇宙的主宰, 人类的活动在其间只是微不足道的一小部 分。”
迈特看到我一脸茫然,知道他的回答超 出了我的智慧, 他停顿了一下,恢复了聊天 的口气,“我不显型体也有世俗的原因,因 为我如果显现,可能会造成混淆和疑虑,导 致争论甚至战争。超越人类熟知的形态可以 保证我不给人间的魔鬼利用我制造种族和族 群之间的争斗的机会。人类应该把我想象成 他们喜闻乐见的模样。你会和不同种族的人 结婚吗?“
“恐怕不会,” 我老老实实的回答,虽 然我太太的喋喋不休让我不厌其烦,但我爱 她。 “所以你鼓励人类把你想象成各种形 象,耶稣,安拉或菩萨?”
“我默许。” 神明回答道。
（待续）