Fariduddin's Last Stand

     Matangi nodded her head again.  “I’m not surprised, Fariduddin.  He had quite a frown on his face when he left,” she said.  She again was laughing.  She found herself, as many did, constantly amused to the point of laughter in the presence of Fariduddin.  It was not that one was laughing at him, or that he himself was laughing.  It was as if the humor of his existence just bubbled up out of him uncontrollably, infecting all of those around him.  Abhiseleka wanted to learn, and so was usually very close to him when he came to visit Matangi.  This was his fifth visit in the month she had been in the palace.

     “So, you didn’t speak at all at this meeting?”  She asked.  

     “Well, I mostly just listened to them rant and rave.  Whore this, insane that, infidel here, law-breaker there, it was all the same stuff, very monotonous and boring.  I sat at the table with them, silently, and they noticed that I didn’t join in to all their talk.  They finally, after expelling much hot air, asked me my opinion.  I didn’t agree with them, but I had to stand up for you, for their own sake.  So I told them the Jewish Meschiach story,” he said.

     “The Jewish Meschiach story?”  She asked.

     “Yes.  I heard it from a Kabbalist in Yemen, a painter.  He had a bigger beard than me, almost.  It was the same trip that I made my Haj to Mecca.  They all respect the power and insight of the Kabbalists, even if they don’t like them.” He said.  

     “There were five dervishes, who lived deep in the Dragon’ Blood forest, on the island of Socotra just off the coast of Yemen.  Each was more crochety than the next, for all five were widowers, and had loved their wives very much.  They had met at a coffee shop in Sanaa, while playing a chess tournament.  During the next few months after that tournament, they all had discussed together how meaningless their lives had become since their beloveds had expired.  

     These were old men who had lived full lives, had made and lost fortunes in their respective careers.  They had seen enough to understand that all worldly things were ultimately meaningless.  As they talked and talked, their common and secret wish was revealed.  Each one had secretly desired to one day retreat to the woods and live as though there was absolutely no reality but God.  Each one had thought to himself, in his darkest hours, ‘I wish I could just retreat into nature and contemplate this big Universe for the rest of my days.’  

     After having discussed this periodically and secretly over the course of the next few months after their meeting, they decided to pool their resources and do just that.  The five of them scouted out the location in the forest of Socotra, then together built a stone hermitage by a river there.  Each one had his own cell, in the tradition of the Christian monastics of the Egyptian desert, the ‘Desert Fathers’.  They lived completely communally from what they could cultivate from the land or gather from the surrounding forest.  They had an extensive library as well, books from all around the world were housed there, the Jewish Tanakh, the Qu’ran, the Christian Bible, the Vedas from India, the Book of the Way from China, and others, all translated into their common language.  They spent all their time reading these books and meditating on them, and playing chess while they discussed their new understandings.  

     It was quite stimulating to their minds and rather idyllic, though after about five years, the same feeling they started with, boredom and restlessness, set in.  They started bickering, slowly, about who would cook dinner, who was lazy, who was more dedicated to God, and even which book had the best version of God in it.  It got to the point where they became more disillusioned than when they started, all in the midst of this tropical paradise.  ‘Now,’ each one thought, ‘I am really bad off.’

     Over a particularly heated chess tournament, they all decided to see a prominent holy man they had heard of, who lived at the foot of the mountains just inland from the port town of Aden, the site of the original Garden of Eden, also said to be where Cain and Abel are buried.  His name was Avraham ben Loenthal, well-known as a keeper of the secrets of Quaballism.  He would have an answer for them, the kind that could not be found in any book, they all agreed.

     The trip was planned, and before one week was up, they had chartered a boat that would transport them to Aden.  They bickered all the way there, blaming each other for wasting their communal resources on such a pointless trip, and for being so inflexible that they had to resort to such extreme measures.  Underneath it all, each one being honest with himself, was the guilt of feeling that there would never be enough of anything in this world to satisfy the void of humanity, even God.

     When they arrived in town, they stopped at the first inn they found and asked to be directed to Avraham Loenthal, the great Kabbalist.  The inn keeper ran them out of his inn and told them to never come back.  Perplexed, they started on the road, by foot, towards the mountains.  The bickering had stopped, as they had a common goal again, to realize their communal solution, one that would work for everyone.  They followed their intuitive vision and their gut instinct, and after three days, arrived at the hermitage of Avraham Loenthal.  He opened the door.

     ‘I’ve been expecting your group!  Please come in and have some tea.  What took you so long?’  Avraham asked.  They discussed their hermitage in the dragon’s blood forest, and their plight.  They told their story to Avraham, and he was enthralled with every last detail.  When the story finally arrived at the reason for their journey, Avraham was dismayed.  His face wrinkled up.

     ‘That won’t do, my friends!  You have a destiny to achieve.  There is no time for such arguments when there is so much work to be done.  I have been studying each one of you, and have arrived at a conclusion.  I do, in fact, have the solution you have sought and travelled so long for.  I will, however, need to conference with each of you privately.’

     The five hermits were extremely exited at this.  The first one, chosen randomly, Avraham was sure to stress, was taken out into the path that ran up and around the edge of the forest.  The others were left in his home, sipping tea and waiting for their turn.  When Avraham returned with one, he brought the next and took a short, fifteen-minute walk with him as well, telling him exactly what he needed to know to solve the problem at their hermitage.  By the time he took the fifth hermit to the mountain path, the other four were left, beaming, exited at the prospects of returning home.

     This is how the walk with the fifth hermit, and all the others went:

     Avraham began to speak.

     ‘I heard your story, and your destiny as a group is an extremely uncommon one.  One of your party, and it is not you, let me say straightaway, is the bona-fide Messiah.  The force of this one’s devotion has attracted the favor of God and brought the five of you together.  Return to your Hermitage, and act thusly, for I will not inform you of which one is in fact the Messiah.  And the one who knows, who is marked with holiness, will surely not tell, no matter what.  It must remain a mystery until God ordains it.’

     After this short statement, the rest of the fifth hermit’s walk was in silence.  Each one was given the same story, told exactly the same thing.  Not one of them were allowed to discuss it, however, so each began to think to himself, 

     ‘I wonder which of these men is the Messiah?’  They began to think about each others’ ideals, devotion, wit, and charm.  On the journey back, they were relatively silent, contemplating this new and great truth they had heard, and the austere and unassuming presence of the Rabbi, Avraham Loenthal.  When they arrived back at their hermitage, the problem of their discontentedness was indeed solved.  They each treated the other as if he were the most holy person who existed, seeing the best qualities, those of their own ideal in the other.  Before long, a traveller came through their hermitage, and asked to be housed there.  They housed him, fed him, entertained him, and sent him on his way.

     The traveller had such an enlightening experience that he spread the word, and before six months were up, the hermitage and it’s inhabitants had developed a reputation of being a place where enlightenment could be sought and found.  Their contentedness spread throughout the island of Socotra and abroad, each one finally realizing the truth Avraham has passed on to them, the one they read about in some of the better texts.  God lives in every man as his own Spirit, and takes many forms and names,” he said.

     “I like the story,” Matangi said,”but I’ll bet they didn’t buy it.”

     “They did not.  I believe I am now on their list.  As soon as I was done, three of them stood up and drew their swords.  Mohasim stood up with them and said, ‘Alright Sufi, it’s time for you to exit the meeting,’ ” he said.

     Fariduddin came directly from that failed attempt to Matangi’s apartment.  There was now no one else to help him.  A revolt was brewing, and even the Sulatan was not safe, all over this woman, Matangi.  She did have a magnetically radiant presence, as if she knew something, something that no one else could touch.  And the stories about her were astounding.  Just being in her presence, he thought, was beyond all the praying he had done in a lifetime.  She was absolutely dangerous.  The boy, Abhiseleka, was the same way.  He seemed to wordlessly pick out your worst trait and pluck it’s string until it played right again.  Mohasin had dropped the last of his bigotry against the native Indians in his short visits with these two; that was now the problem.  

     “Well, if it comforts you at all, these men will not gain the opportunity to stifle the Sultan, you, or Abhiseleka and I in any way,” she said.

     When Fariduddin saw the look in her eye, her words didn’t matter.  There was no way the Ulama would triumph in contradiction to Matangi’s goals.  She subtly said, ‘Every one of them will drop dead before they can harm us.’  Matangi heard this thought, and responded to it,

     “I didn’t say that!  I’m just telling you, they are no threat.  Allah wants the Islamists and the Hindus to get along, that’s all,” she said.

     Until Matangi’s arrival, he would have never dreamed of the possibility.  How could the conquered coexist peacefully with their conquerers?  The idea that Sufis could successfully convert Orthodox Hindus into Muslims was one that had been going out of style, thankfully.  A movement was now in process that was unprecedented in any Islamic society he knew of, one of peaceful coexistence and blending of cultures.  There could, however, be no Sharia Law under such a situation.

     “From what I know of God, I believe it; from what they know of God, it is impossible,” he said.

     “There’s nothing impossible but impossibility, Fariduddin,” she said.  They sat there in silence after that.  Matangi began to play her tanpura again.  This is what he waited for.  He had never heard such music.  Every time he came to visit Matangi, she would end the visit with this strange Indian music, and he would go home and compose the most beautiful poetry he had ever heard.  The last time he wrote inspired by Matangi’s music, he read and re-read his poem, with difficulty because of the tears streaming down his face.  He sat in silence, his body moving unbidden, swaying back and forth slowly to the droning music.  She began to sing an extremely familiar song along with the sound, one she sang every time.  It was composed entirely of single syllables, like an alphabet.

     “Ah, Aah, Ee, Eee, Oo, Ooo...,” and so on it went.  Then she stopped playing.  He rose from his seat; there was a deafening silence in his ears as he bent to kiss her hands.  He then bent down to Abhiseleka and kissed him on either cheek.  Abhiseleka smiled and said,

     “Bye, bye, Baba Fareed.  We’ll see you next time.”

     With that, the visit was over.  He went to his shack, just on the outskirts of the Sultan’s garrison, lit a candle, prayed, then began to write:

     

     “The sun can only be seen by the light of the sun. 

The more a man or woman knows,
the greater the bewilderment, the closer
to the sun the more dazzled, 

until a point
is reached where one no longer is.

     A mystic knows without knowledge, 

without intuition or information, 

without contemplation or description or revelation. 

Mystics are not themselves. 

They do not exist in selves. 

     They move as they are moved,
talk as words come, see with sight
that enters their eyes. 

     I met a woman once and asked her where love had led her.
‘Fool, there's no destination to arrive at.
Loved one and lover and love are infinite.’ “

     Fariduddin fell asleep at his table with his pen in hand, and the sound of Matangi’s tanpura and voice singing in his ears.  His poem, with the ink still wet, was an homage to he.  He had become rather obsessed with her in the few months since they had met, regarding her as the premier saint he had met in his long lifetime and extensive travels.  

Being well advanced in years, he had finally realized the freedom he had craved from within himself his entire lifetime.  The candle was lit on his desk, though the ink had spilled, and his long white beard and eyebrows hung down over his face.  A strong gust of wind blew his rickety front door open, and the bell attached to it tinkled.  

     The candle blew out, and all of a sudden, there was a thin but tremendously strong wire around his neck.  He was old and feeble of body, and he did not last long.  The man who snuffed out his flame, after Fariduddin was dead, stood over his body.  He had no malice toward the old man.  The assassin had been chosen by Shayk Mohasim because of his love for Fariduddin.  He looked down at his lifeless body.  The moonlight reflected off of his face revealed a beatific smile that caused the assassin to weep and fall at Fariduddin’s body, begging for his forgiveness.

Matangi's First Parable

 “It is never the world which threatens us and the well-being of our people, it can only be our perspective that guides us into danger.  Let me illustrate with a story,” she said.

     

     “There once was a man who was gifted in the art of war, plundering the countryside and bringing back the spoils to his master.  He conquered village after village, always justifying his conquests on the basis that one has to work with what one is given.  One day, he entered a village, the next one marked for conquest, dressed as a wandering mendicant, begging for alms.  This village was poor, but operated on the principle that their Goddess would always provide for them, as long as they recognized Her in everyone they chanced to meet.  It was their only law: if you wish to receive something, if you wish to own something, you must be willing at all times to surrender it.  

     So the man who had come to covertly scout out his next conquest was wandering the streets of this holy village, the inhabitants of which lived on faith alone, the faith of this understanding.  The man was dressed in rags and his beard was unshaven.  He smelled as if he had not bathed in ten years.  The sun was setting, and as he passed by a fruit merchant’s booth in the market, the purveyor of that booth upon seeing him and smelling him, recognized an opportunity when he saw it.

     ‘Sir, he said, I see that you are in an extremely dishevelled state, most likely bereft of the benefits that befit a child of the Goddess.  If you will excuse my forwardness, it would be my and my families honor to host you for the night, seeing to it that you’re fed well, and perhaps replenished in spirits if it pleases you.’

     The man was taken aback with the merchant’s offer, and filled with suspicion, began to decline.

     ‘I will hear none of it sir!  Please, in this country there is no greater sin than refusing the kindness of another, other than refusing to see the Goddess in those you chance to meet.  Please, don’t make me beg; the Goddess doles out opportunities, and it is ours to seize them when they are presented,’ he said.

     Well, this man did not believe either in the Goddess or his fellow humans, but he felt as though he could not continue to refuse the merchant’s offer.  So, he felt for his dagger at his side, and comforted by it’s presence, he agreed to go to the merchant’s house and sup with him and his family.  

     When he arrived at the merchant’s house, being a pious Muslim, he was disgusted at the large wooden idol of a naked Indian Goddess that was the centerpiece of their home.  The merchant’s wife noticed how he was looking at the statue, and commented,

     ‘You must not be familiar with Kamakhya;  she is the Goddess of all blessings.  Ask her for anything you want, since you our guest here, and before the night is over, as our guest, it will be yours.’

     Well, the man had heard of the magic of the Indians, though this was his first real encounter with it.  He was dead-set on owning this village, it’s inhabitants, and all it’s secrets as well, and he wished for these three things only.  He was pleased with the meal the merchant’s wife served, and interested in seeing his wishes granted, so he accepted the mat on the floor and bedded down for the night when the merchant and his wife did.  His belly was full and he slept well.  In the morning, the kindly merchant walked him back to his booth and bid him farewell.  

     On the way back to his master’s palace he was quite pleased with himself, considering the generosity of the merchant and his wife, not to mention the wishes he had made according to the woman’s suggestion.

     When he arrived at his master’s palace, he was not able to find him, but was met by his servants who shackled him and threw him into the dungeon.  He cursed the merchant, his wife, and the wooden idol of Kamakhya, blaming them for this injustice.

The first night there, he was visited by an apparition of Kamakhya.  She spoke to him thusly:

     ‘Oh, you who desired the village, it’s inhabitants, and it’s secrets.  Did you not listen to the secret of the Goddess?  If you are to own anything, you must first give it away.  Now look, your ownership is expressed, and you are displeased.  Please remember this in your next incarnation:  when the opportunity presents itself, you would do well to request knowledge and knowledge alone.  It is the only possession in this universe that cannot be diminished and expands when given.  Remember it well.  There is much time for contemplation here.  With that, the Goddess Kamakhya left his presence, and the man died in that dungeon years later, chained to the wall, never fully understanding his folly.  He missed the point, Shaams; if you desire to won something, you must be willing to give it away, and what you give away you will surely earn.”

One flew over the Village

 As she began her journey in silence back to the cottage with Doleen she began to think about her mother.  She had died delivering Doleen, when Myrya was only twelve years old.  It was a dark time in her life, and she was thankful that she had learned everything she could regarding herbs and the old religion from her.  

     “Sweet Flag and silence, keeps a woman alive in times like these,” she would say.  There was no tolerance for any woman to express herself, then or now, lest she be marked a witch.  And so she was, unnoticed because of her silence.  It was Miryabeit’s uncontrollable tongue and combative nature which brought her to the attention of Myrridian as well, she thought.  Doleen was practically dumb; she didn’t have to learn silence.  She was just fragile, and yet her own three children loved her more than anything.  The youngest children spent most of their days at the nearby cathedral, being indoctrinated per the relatively new custom.  Only one of her own daughters showed any interest or affinity in the old ways, and she was still too young to learn.  Now all her attention would be on Miryabeit’s child.  She would hide her resentment as well as she could.  

     They finally arrived at their cottage.  The wagon was parked and she could smell the stew cooking.  It was the same thing, day after day.  She never passed on it.  Though the smell of the pig stew had once made her salivate, she now loathed it and even wretched when she thought of it.  She had Myrridian and Goldoc to thank for that.  In the time she had learned to bleed the animals, she had grown fond of them and had nightmares of their revenge.  She had been well-trained on how to calm the animal and delicately slice the neck with a razor, filling flask after flask for the bloodthirsty infant she carried around.

     She learned of their sorrows, their empathic nature, and their society.  When they went to the dormitory to eat, she sat down at the stone table with Doleen, the children, and the others and just stared in the bowl.  She felt horrible.  So many people would kill to be fed as well as they were, and all she could think of was the pig, staring at her with an eye that seemed so human, with concerns and emotions like a any other person.  She was full of shame, eating around the flesh that was interspersed with the potatoes, carrots, and kale.  Yet no one suspected, no one except Goldach.  He always cried in the dormitory when they ate.  The children sat, extremely and disturbingly well-behaved, not saying a word.  Doleen sat, looking as if she would weep any moment.  The two men and women, whom she refused to learn their names, sat beady-eyed and cruel, discussing church gossip.  There was a witch here, and the pagans there, and God help them all.  Goldach stayed strapped to her back the entire time, and whimpered as he responded to Marta’s emotional state.  

     Knowing how sensitive he was, it was not enough to just mask her feelings.  She had tried to convince herself, but to no avail.  Her life was worse and more controlled externally than ever before.  The Sweet Flag allowed her to think on levels.  On one level, she was extremely pleased to be away from the British masters, who were cruel and demanding.  She loved the cottage she shared with Doleen and their children, however cramped it was.  She actually enjoyed working out in the fields;  that was the time she used to think, finding elusive answers to things she was pondering.  That was also when Goldoc was at his best; his communication with her opened up when she opened up to the plants.  The plants seemed to focus her mind.  She made sure to apologize and thank every one of them before she harvested them.

     She longed to be back at the infirmary, where she could practice her medicine.  The only problem was Myrridian.  He would be there, standing over her shoulder, making sure that everything was collected and done according to his will.  That surely took all the fun out of it.  She had to hide the Calamus she had collected; it would’ve given away her secret.  And now she was nearly out.  When she had put in her order for a peck of dried and powdered Calamus root, the man’s eyebrows went up and then down, as he squinted and scrutinized her.  Why she may be a bit of a witch, after all; she heard him thinking it.  When the ignorant oaf thought this, she hit him where it hurts, 

     “I know it is rather strange, sir, to ask for such an exotic item.  But I only want it to ease my menstrual cramps and to sooth my swollen breasts.  Goldoc is voracious,” she said.  “I once overheard one of the peasant women from the village discussing it once; I asked her for some, and it did help.”  Little Goldac looked at the man, who’s face had turned beet red, and smiled at his embarrassment.  Marta took the cue.  “It’s quite embarrassing to discuss such issues with a man; please forgive me,” she said.  His face got redder still, and his voice clogged.

     “Well, it’s there for sale at the spice and granary you say?  Dear Mum, I will resort to nothing to procure it for you.  He does indeed appear voracious,” he said.  She hoped she would not have to speak about it again.  It was unnerving for the man to know about it.  Marta had learned from Myrridian’s feeble attempts at controlling her memory how simple-minded people could be made to forget, and this man, Yohanan, fit the bill.  Her first order of business, upon reception of the powder, would be to strongly suggest it never happened and she knew nothing of herbal medicine whatsoever.  Such were the times that legitimate medicine was kept out of the hands of those who needed it most.

     Tomorrow was Saturday, with a shortened schedule; the field work would be done not long after the noon hour.  Some would go into town to trade, drink, and galavant.  She would do none of these, but would perhaps sing songs with the children; she and her sister might bake honey biscuits for them in the evening.  Doleen needed attention as well as a break.  More and more, Marta worried that she was cracking up.  Miryabeit’s death and all the other fast changes that Goldoc had brought into their lives recently had been drastic indeed.  She was not adjusting well.  

     The church, which they all would be attending on Sunday, had brought Doleen and other shell-shocked people like her, pretty much everyone these days, much comfort.  Marta was cognizant that she had to get over her bigoted predisposition against all things Christian, lest she be branded a witch.  Goldoc also needed her to be level-headed.  He did not soak up his environment; he soaked up her perception of his environment.  On the church and it’s associated activities, Myrridian, she, and Miryabeit had agreed:  it was all malignant.  Only now was she starting to find some redeeming qualities in the whole business.  It was like an addictive drug, however.  Take away the ability to connect with nature, outlaw it even, and then offer a substitute that medicates the pain of her absence.  That was how she viewed the Cathedrals and the Priests and the bleeding Savior tormented behind the altar.  She thought to herself, is that a warning?  Is that what they do to people who disagree with them?  She would never make her thoughts known on the subject.  Didn’t it seem to obvious to ignore, though?  

     All that was true, but it was more true due to it’s pertinence: there was no turning back.  The old ways and the old religion was quickly becoming a thing of the past and it would not return.  She wished her mother was here.  She wished Myrridian were not so domineering.  There was no subject that enthralled her more than medicine.  She missed it greatly.  She longed to learn more from Myrridian, to gain more confidence from him.  She had to convince him even further of her loyalty.  Where was he?

The Roots of Abhi

By this time, Abhiseleka about three and a half months old, having been born in the early summer time.  It was the Indian Region of Assam, a largely agricultural region.  Abhi and his parents lived in a thatched roof and mud construct home.  The floors were dirt with bamboo mats to cover them.  Deepaneeti and Brihkendra, his parents, did a lot with what they had, which was much more than most around them.  They were agriculturalists, Patils, who owned the small farm in the Himalayan foothills, having inherited the land as a wedding dowry from her parents.  There were six lower-casted families who lived and worked the land on their nearly six-acre farm.  The primary crop was tea, but there were also other subsistence crops such as rice grown on the small estate.  

     The workers were housed in much more modest thatch roof huts, with bamboo walls that minimally kept them from the elements.  Still, the Patils, Abhi’s parents, were better to their workers than most.  They had lived and worked on this land for many generations, and were gifted as property with the land.

     The most elaborate building on the premises was the Kamakhya temple, whom the couple were charged with the maintenance, not only of the actual building, but of the daily religious duties they had inherited.  He saw these duties mostly as a necessary chore, but in his wife, he found his spirituality.  She lived absolutely enthralled with her duties as cook and maintainer of their ancient ways.  They  were both just sixteen years old, yet they had been matched and bethrothed eight years earlier, by the temple priests in the big temple, a little further up the mountain.

     Their religious duties, which they were expected to uphold for the rest of their lives, were daily pujas, fire ceremonies to the goddess Kamakhya.  Along with this he was expected to continue to grow in his knowledge of the holy books of their particular sect, memorizing and chanting daily what added up to thousands of pages of Sanskrit texts, which had relatively recently started to become written documents.  These were written on palm leaves and stored in a library located behind a curtain, which was housed behind the effigy of the goddess.  He also had a lifelong project devoted to writing down these texts, systematically and with absolute exactitude.  It was a task that he saw as his burden to bear in life, often wishing he could surrender it all and become a menial laborer like the people who worked for him.  It was however, not in the cards.  There was, coupled with his admiration for his wife, a resentment that her duties did not include such mentally taxing chores.  

     He saw her major task, caring for their child, Abhi, as not a chore, but as an absolute joy he was largely deprived of.  His moments with the boy were few and far between.  They were, as he saw it, what made his life worth living.  As all parents, he saw his child as special.  But, he thought, there was something that stood out about Abhi, a special glow to him that he had not noticed in other children, but in the religious fanatics in the villages.  He actually abhored the fakirs in the village, begging for alms, and contorting their bodies.  They seemed to be a mirror for all his inadequacies.  Who was he, to have inherited land and workers?  Did everyone live in a prison?  Though the shudras were beyond poor, they seemed somehow free to him.  The look in their eyes, of utter contentment.  The same look he saw in his wife and son.  He knew he didn’t have it.  

     All he had been given, just handed over, and he didn’t believe any of it.  He went through the motions, felt the energy, and honestly questioned all of it.  Who was this Goddess he and his wife had been raised to worship?  With all the exposure to the ancient texts, chanting, initiations, and mantras, he had only one authentic spiritual experience in his entire life.  He had not yet recovered from it, either.  He had more questions than answers.  Once, when he was eleven years old, he was in the worship room, reciting texts to the priest.  After he had passed his test, reciting the nearly twelve thousand word text in the correct meter, he and the priest had a conversation.  

     The priest told him, “Now my son, you know the Goddess.  This hymn is the summation of her presence and you have mastered it.  You should be very proud.”

     He wanted to ask the priest about his experience.  It seemed devoid of anything special, just countless hours spent parroting back what he had heard.  It was tedious to him, when he really wanted to be outside in nature as some of the sages he had read about had done.  He had heard they found the Goddess there, but he was told the place to find her was within the hymn:  

     “When one has mastered this hymn, there is nothing more to learn, my son.  Everything is granted by her mastery.”

     He was exceedingly disappointed, and felt very guilty.  Was there something wrong with him?  He had had no special experience, just endless hours of recitation.  Is this what the Goddess is all about?

     “How do we know the Goddess actually exists, Swamiji?  I see her murti every day.  I have learned her hymn, and she has yet to talk to me or show me anything more...”

     The priest reached pulled his right hand back as far as he could and brought it hard, his knuckles and the back of his hand contacting Brihkendra’s little head with force.  It knocked him to the ground, leaving him dumbfounded and seeing stars.

     “You are a disgrace, Brihkendra!,”  the priests eyes widened; his face was red and a vein protruded on his forehead.  “How dare you speak of such things in her very dwelling place!  You are a disgrace to her name and your own!”

     At that time, his mother had told him countless times the meaning of his name:  Brih Kendra, means “to grow the center.”  It had special significance to her and the priests.  He was expected to be a prodigy of worship, and to bring honor to his people through his mastery.  He always doubted that, and this episode was  imprinted on his mind strongly.  He now doubted whether he even wanted  to live up to his name.  he wanted to leave everything, but his sense of guilt and duty was just too much for him.  The priest spoke softer now, but with the rage permeating everything,

     “Sit down.  Let’s get back to the Sahasranama.  Let us start from the beginning,” he said.  He recited the first words, and Brihkendra parroted them:

     “Meditate on that Ambika, who has a body of the colour of saffron, who has the three graceful eyes, who has a jeweled crown, adorned by the moon, who always has a captivating smile...”

     So, with all this book knowledge, and the belief that it had gotten him absolutely nowhere, he lived torn between his desire to forgo his duties and his love for his wife and child.  He knew he could not do both.  He continued to go through the motions, working even harder to become the prodigy of his namesake.  All the time he was prodded by his mother, who spoke with tears in her eyes about his dead father and his special destiny.

     The authentic experience he had finally had was on the occasion of his son’s birth.  His wife had started having labor pains at bed time, so her walked her to the predesignated area.  It was a large hut that had been built for the occasion.  A few of the   field women already had the puja fires burning in the center of the room, as they had for one week previously leading up to this moment.  The matriarch of this group came to meet them.  She put her palms together at the level of her heart and fire blazed in her eyes, but there was a radiant calm about her.  “I’ve got this handled;  please go to worship, sir.”  She did not speak these words aloud.  Brihkendra heard them in his mind, but her lips didn’t move.  She must be possessed, he thought.  The woman looked at him, then at Deepaneeti.  She got down on her hands and knees and touched her feet, then placed her face upon her feet.

     At this point, he ceased to exist for her.  The woman grabbed his wife’s hands and looked deeply into her eyes.  She instantly lightened, as if all the pain had been removed from her body in that moment.  They walked hand in hand through the doorway to the hut.  He was left standing alone when an unseen force seized his mind.  There was a voice.  The woman’s voice.  Did she have a name?  He did not know it.  

     “Dhumvati is my name.  I am the birther of all children.  I make straight the way for the divine souls.”  The sound of this voice echoed in his mind, and he knew the woman truly was possessed.  With the spirit of the Grandmother Kali.  Whoever she usually was, was absolutely absent.  He dropped all hesitation and headed straight for the temple, as she had instructed him.

     When he got to the Kamakhya temple on their property, he found all the fires lit and a deafening silence in the meditation chamber he shared with his wife.  It was louder than he had ever heard it before.  He felt his wife’s lighthearted laughing presence here as well, and heard her voice now in his head.  But it wasn’t.  “Sit down, my lover, stay with me for a while.”  Who was this now?  It surely was not the Grandmother’s voice he had heard earlier.  There was a high giggling laugh that he almost recognized again as his wife.  “Sri Lalitambika!  You know me Brih-Brih!” 

     He sat down with his face blushing.  It was a pet name his wife called him when they made love in the wee hours of the night.  At that moment, he saw his wife, in his mind’s eye, in the hut surrounded by all the women of the fields.  He saw the puja fire in that hut, burning with many different colors.  She was not in pain.  One of the women had told her a dirty joke, poking fun at him, and she was laughing.  He could not help but laugh as well.  It was a high pitched, girlish laugh that echoed throughout the silence of the temple.  He looked at the effigy of Kamakhya.  She had changed, and now had the same firey eyes he had seen in the old woman at the hut.  She was radiating the same calm he had felt then.

     “Meditate, my baby,”  he heard in his mind.  It was not a request.  He rose into the deepest meditation of his life, feeling as though he was lifted up off the ground.  His eyes were closed.  He heard more laughter, and could see his wife’s pain starting back again.  She was having contractions.  He was distanced from his emotions and his thoughts.  He was receiving pictures that played out in the field of his closed eyes.  

     He saw a man in robes, the orange robes of a Sannayasi, or renunciate.  He was conducting a ceremony with other men in robes, reciting in a strange low voice prayers in a foreign tongue.  It was the Buddhis, he thought.  

     He then saw a man with a long beard, emaciated from many years of pennance.  He was sitting with matted Jata, dreadlocks, and covered with ash.  It was in the middle of a birch forest.  There was no one else around but the wildlife, and all the songs of the birds, monkeys, and other animals seemed to be sung directly to this man.  He looked like Shiva, breathing only very seldom, in a suspended animation.

     “Who are these men?,”  he asked.  “Why am I seeing these men?”

     “Loosen up Brih-Brih, these men are your son, Abhi!”  He heard more laughter then and saw another man, leaving in the middle of the night, leaving his wife and children to live at the feet of some guru.  He saw this same man, but not the same man, over and over, doing the same thing:  starting a family and leaving them for life as a renunciate.  He started to cry, feeling so sad for that man and his family.

     “Don’t cry.  That’s not for his this time.” 

     He now understood that he was hearing Kamakhya’s voice herself.  He loosened up his mind and got what she was saying.  This was his son’s previous incarnations.  He was some kind of holy man, it seemed.  He then saw him, dressed all in white, talking to a large group of dishevelled Mohammedeans.  They were gathered around him in a large hall of a palace, barely breathing, afraid they might miss a word from his mouth.  He was surrounded by light, bright light of many colors, that the people around him seemed to be soaking up.  They were men, women, and children.  He could not tell what he was saying.  It was in the Mohammedean language.  He did not understand it.

     “He is saying, my son, all religions are one.  None is better than another,” Kamakhya’s ethereal voice spoke.  

     “This is my son?!  He is a Mohammedean?”  

     “He belongs to no religion, Brih, he is above all that.”

     “I do not understand,” he said.

     “When the time is right, you will...”

     He awoke out of this meditation, floating back to the ground, as it were.  One of the field women was there, at the doorway to the temple.  He could see the outline of her body through the early morning light.  He could not see her face.  Had he been sitting here all night?!

     “Your son has been born, Sir,” she said.  She quickly turned around and ran away.  All the spirits and goddesses seemed to be gone.  He had a feeling of fire in the center of his chest, and felt, not tired, but invigorated and exited.  He started towards the hut to see his son for the first time.  His name would be Abhi, which meant fearless.

The Beginning

Merlin was sitting on his porch, rocking on his stone glider.  His long beard hairs had been yellowed with the smoke from the Meerschaum pipe he was constantly smoking.  The forest had come alive with the voices...from the trees, from the birds hallowing another day.  The sun was setting and there was exitement in the air.  Gweldor was on his way, he had been informed.  Gweldor was Merlin’s only true confidante...the only one he could trust, but he never came until nightfall.  He came with incredible stories of power and intrigue, and remisincence, told as only one as wise as an owl could tell.  The Datura blossoms wafted a fragrance toward his old nose that reminded him something he knew not to be true...all is well, dear Merlin, all is well.

     From within the cobble stoned house, the salty aroma of his magical stew emerged.  Vegetables from his extensive garden populated the immediate surroundings, as well as the stew.  There were many one-of-a-kind species.  One of his most prized was the pure blue potato, who’s species most were still convinced was poison.  That never stopped Merlin, however.  He was so in-touch with each of the plant’s majestic spirits that none could harm him.  Believe it or not, Merlin was known to toss back the fruits of the Nightshade plant, chewing and swallowing them as if they were blueberries.  In his stew were also some of the magic flying herbs that allowed Merlin his extreme clairvoyance.  He knew every inhabitant of these woods, plant, animal, and otherwise, for a radius of at least fifty miles.  

     In those days, that was an essential knowing.  The People were being executed by the hundreds, day in and day out.  The Mohammedeans had been hired by the filthy English crown to aid in the cause.  This was most unnerving, as they brought with them the desert magic of the Hebrews, the Ark, and Al Moshe.  This was difficult to rectify...as this power was devised to expand empires.  All this and more he knew, from the plants, from the ethers, and from his most trusted confidante, for whom he now waited.

     The light from the stained glass oil lamps stylishly placed on and around his magnificently understated abode now became more apparent.  His toad, still wet from his lotus pond out back jumped up and sat on his lap.  Is he here yet?, he asked Merlin.

No, my dear friend, still waiting...The nameless toad contentedly looked back to the forest through his dime-sized eyes, waiting with his beautiful bright blue-eyed friend, the law of the land, Merlin.

     To the south, near the border, there were fires burning.  The village of Forsymouth had been sacked and burned to the ground.  The Mohammedeans took no prisoners, save the women, who either became slaves for sale in distant lands, or occassionally “wives.”  Merlin found this practice to be most distasteful.  Even in war, he had never heard of such ruthless debauchery.  If he had his way, they would all be dystroyed, and the balance of nature restored.  But, in the grand Scheme, there was a place and purpose for everything.  Merlin had to think in terms of limitless eternal time, just to keep from growing truly mad.  Without Gweldor, his Twin Flame, he would have given up the ghost long ago.

     He could feel him now, flying in from the east.  The toad wordlessly looked up at him with his yellow eyes, much the same way a three year old might.  He nodded his head, Yes our good friend Gweldor was on his way.  He took a long draw off his stone pipe and placed it into it’s marble stand next to him.  His electric blue eyes closed, and there he was.  The deep vibrant forest was all around him.  he was gliding up, down, and through the leaves and branches.  There was no feeling like the freedom of Gweldor’s flight.  There was no vision so keen, nor acuteness of hearing.  Their history was long, painful, and triumphant.  Merlin’s mind travelled with him, soaring above all the troubles of his fading magistrate.  Finally, through Gweldor’s eyes, he felt the bird’s melting relief.  He was home again.  He slowly descended for a landing, through the magestic oak forest and down to the stone porch.  Gweldor the owl landed on Merlin’s left shoulder at the precise moment his blue eyes opened.  He brought him close to his cheek, kissing him and petting him like some do their pet cats.  Merlin was always so glad to see him that tears welled up in his eyes, and this was no exception.  

     “Hellllloooo Goldach,” Gweldor cooed at him.  He was a large Great Horned Owl, older than the oldest of the forest.  And in him lived the spirit of a master from the east, Merlin’s twin flame.  He flew to the large quartz cluster that had long been designated as his perch.  

     “You trying to kill yourself, Old Man?!!,” Gweldor sent a picture of the datura in his pipe and the scotch in his flask.

     “You old scoundrel, where have you been?!!!!,” replied Merlin, known to the owl as Goldach...his given name.