Note: This is another chapter from my book Mystical Fables. I am still editing it. I should mention, however, that in the kingdom of Ubarim not only is poetry written by nearly everyone who can write. Alchemy is also part of the sciences, the theologies, and the arts. It is not unusual then that anyone who becomes well-known will have had his or her own experiments he or she will have conducted at one time or another with alchemical practices. In this regard, A’ia is not at unusual then when it comes to making observations about the differences of the sexes or the joining of opposites.

These legends of Ubarim are in part inspired by the gnome magician named Muscar. Muscar is interested in the alchemy of nature on a planetary level.

The Prophet A’ia

A few sayings by A’ia:

“When you love, God is your friend. When you love with all of your heart, God enters your heart and offers you the keys to all mysteries and the innermost powers of creation.”

“Some say that love is the law and that this law requires a strong will. My way of saying this is slightly different: Love is the purpose underlying the entire universe. But to fulfill this purpose, you must learn to create with the will and power of the Creator, for this is what love asks and requires of us.”

The “Early” and the “Later” A’ia

In Ubarim a few centuries later, there was scholarly debate over whether there were two different prophets named A’ia. The “early” A’ia was obviously imbued with great sensuality and erotic magnetism. It shows in all his writings. The “later” or second A’ia was a man of God, a genuine saint.

Among liberal scholars and theologians, ever ready to impose on ancient texts their own philosophical agendas and naturalistic or humanistic presuppositions, it was obvious that the original writings of A’ia were written by two different men. More conservative scholars asserted that the writings, in spite of the different styles and content, were written by the same man. A’ia had obviously undergone a great transformation which accounted for the divergence of purpose, content, and style.

To be persuasive the conservative position did, however, have to account for how a man of such sensual appetite and aptitude could become holy and attuned to God. And since the conservatives were not themselves known to have any aptitude or hunger for sensual gratification, they were unable to add clarity to this issue.

There was of course a third interpretation offered by the priests in the Temple of Venus. They agreed with the conservatives over the liberals in that they said there was only one A’ia. But they disagreed with both the liberal and conservative interpretations in one important aspect.

These priests said it was obvious to anyone who knew anything about love that the so called “later” was actually the “early” A’ia and vice versa. That is to say, the saintly scriptures attributed to A’ia were the work of an idealistic young man whose interest in God was genuine. But he had not yet learned through experience and wisdom the part sensuality has to play in divine illumination.

When this idealistic young prophet grew older, he came to realize that bliss and ecstasy are the gifts of God, the radiance of God’s face as He reveals the mysteries of love. This point was, in fact, too obvious to debate. But as a matter of fact the conservative and the liberal theologians never could understand this point in the first place.

Tavern Tales--The “Early” A’ia

Yes, in Ubarim, they have taverns, bars, and clubs, strip joints, just like you can find in most countries if you have the time. Women are ever so fine, the aspect of God that is more hidden, mysterious, and often left out of the alchemists’ and philosophers’ equations much to their detriment. Here is the “early” A’ia now. Let’s follow him as he goes about his business.

It is a large tavern with fireplaces blazing heat, waitresses shouting orders to cooks in the kitchen, and pillars holding up the roof as if the original trees had been left standing, only stripped of their branches. The smell of stew is in the air and of cedar. There is that slightly stale, alcoholic aroma of wine spilled on the floor and of the scent of women dancing or more likely pulsating on a few tables here and there.

Through the door comes a young man. Thin, even then his hair receding, his eyes nonetheless are what distinguishes him. There is a hunger and craving you have never seen in anyone’s eyes before. Yes if you looked into his eyes, you would see an insatiable fire burning, a fire both illuminating and yet striving to find its way through a dark place where there are no charts or maps.

He sits at a table casually, quietly, studying the women in the room. Including the waitresses, the patrons, and the dancers, there are twenty-three women. He orders a local brew and sips it as another part of his mind scans for anything out of the ordinary, something exotic, refined, or carefully hidden behind the obvious.

A’ia feels a hand on his shoulder and a voice that comes with it. “Hi A’ia. I haven’t seen you for ages,” the dark haired beauty says as she sits down on his lap the way a cat both curls up and unwinds at the same time attaining an exquisite state of relaxation and grace. If you were here and saw these two you too would probably conclude that they are two lovers who know every secret of each other’s bodies both by light and by dark, by day and by night, by contentment and by passion at its height.

In fact, two years before when she first sat on his lap, A’ia began to stroke her back. It took him a few minutes, but he soon found that it was her upper arms which were the most sensitive part of her body. He drew the tips of his fingers like a cat’s paw, like the lips of a gentle wind descending and tracing ripples on the still surface of a lake. She said in that moment, “I am melting into your hands.”

She went on, “The men who come here--they are always grabbing for butt, breasts, and working their way toward the crotch. Men are actually all the same and they all want the same thing. Some are just more patient and relaxed as they pursue it. And a few know how to work slowly toward their goal. But when you touch me, I feel like I have entered a dream from which I do not want to awake, it is so full of pleasure and peace.”

He bought her a drink and they talked. She had traveled through the kingdoms of Ubarim, fell in love and yet never quite content, decided to move on. She worked as a dancer wherever she went through in the kingdoms of Ubarim. Dancing is sometimes practiced as an art and in other places it has nothing at all to do with the heart. But silver and copper could always be found for someone who knew how to move her hips, smile, and play with her breasts.

What do men want from women and what do women want from men? These were questions asked even then in that ancient kingdom. “What have you learned working as a dancer?” A’ia asked her--her name was Crystal. “Men are pretty much all stamped from the same design. They needs are simple. Their interests are eating, sleeping, sports, and sex and that is about it. That’s what is on their minds when they come to a place like this.”

“And what about you?” she asked. What have you learned about women?” A’ia replied, “They each have their own taste and grace. They each have their own fragrance and way they trust and distrust. And you can see Her in their eyes every time if you look close and in the way they speak--the Goddess of the Earth is speaking through them. Sometimes it is very hidden like the dark moon and sometimes it is open like the full moon rising.”

“You want to run that by me again? I didn’t follow any of what you said,” she responded. “Try this,” he said. “Close your eyes and let go and relax. Relax more. Relax.” He began stroking her upper arms again and then he did what he does so well. He entered her body with his mind and searched for her feminine essence. He felt her breasts and her hips and the entire inside of her body he put on the way you put on a glove that fits just right.

If you asked A’ia later on how he does what he does he would say, “Its like being a well and feeling an underground stream flow through you. You let go into that flow and then you become the water. This cool, receptive, magnetic, sweet, and tender sharing of life is not at all easily found in the male body. But it is in every women if you know where to look.”

And this is what A’ia did with Crystal in that moment. He searched for and found the watery feminine energy that flows through her body. And then he joined and became one with her feminine essence which is like turning water into wine when you mix completely the male fire with the female receptivity. Crystal at this point felt intoxicated.

But he did not stop there. He went further. He searched for her passion which was, when he found it, a hunger to be touched--a burning physical sensation that craves to combine with another. This was not at all like water. It was like a boa constrictor coiling around the life it wished to contain in itself.

When you add a match to a candle wick, the candle then shines. Focusing his mind, A’ia found and brought to the surface Crystal’s desire. The touch of his mind and his fingers caressing her upper arms was enough to bring her to orgasm. But he did not stop there. He brought to her orgasm again and again. Crystal had never felt so relaxed or gratified in her life.

You might wonder why these two did not then and there become lovers. Perhaps it was because Crystal had danced in every kingdom in Ubarim and had learned to go with the moment. You do not need to cling to a good experience, lock it up, possess it, and chain it, making it captive and a slave so it surrenders its will to the need to conform and be secure. She takes each moment as it comes. That’s why it was so easy for A’ia to do what he did with her.

And for A’ia’s part, he too was not interested in binding another’s soul by setting and then harvesting some marital or romantic trap. No, A’ia wanted much more than what women normally were willing to offer. A’ia had never heard the saying but he would have immediately agreed that with the words: “The greatest treasure in all the world is a woman who loves a man with all of her heart.” A’ia was searching for this love and he would not settle for anything less.

You might not agree with his methods or where he was looking. But considering the his life and his accomplishments, I think you would have to agree that A’ia was definitely a man on a quest.

And so two years later after that first meeting, Crystal sits on his lap again and without thought or effort she melts into him. He has this way with his mind. Even when they are not together, she occasionally can feel him inside of her body. He comes upon her like dawn warming your skin when you are still sleeping or as the moon rising fills your room with its soft light at night.

Over the years she found that if she wanted to, she could pour herself a glass of wine and call out to his mind. And then taking a sip, she could feel him as clearly as the air she feels as it fills her breasts, as the a rising pulse of her heart when she is aroused, and the warmth that overflows form her toes when she relaxes and lets go.

And what was A’ia’s way of thinking about this kind of telepathic and empathic sex if that is what you want to call it? A’ia once said, “Men need more physical stimulation than do women, for that is the nature of the male orgasm. But what is an orgasm to a man once you break it down into its components? It is release and letting go. It is feeling at peace and complete. It is being united again with nature, so much at ease that you pass beyond every other need.

“But all of these things are found in the cool, magnetic, and watery energy that a woman contains. If you are with a woman who willingly allows her feminine energy to flow through you like an unbroken river, then you have the same thing as an orgasm, but much, much more. The nervous system, the nerve endings, the brain, the enflamed imagination, the breath, the heartbeat, the craving to search and to possess--all of these things are more than satiated when a woman’s feminine essence enters your body.

“And the depths of a woman’s femininity can not be measured. There is no beginning or end to it. The height of the masculine mysteries is the power to create from of nothing after the image and fashion of the Creator. And the nature of the feminine mysteries is this nothingness that contains all that has been created, every desire that can be felt and fulfilled, every dream that can be dreamed, and every image that can be imagined.

“When a man and a woman experience this--the perfection of love--in that moment there is only oneness forever new and forever beautiful. There can be no doubt or confusion as to why I study and celebrate women. They contain the mystery of the universe I seek to embrace.”

A’ia and Crystal will be cuddling, caressing, trading stories, and sipping wine most likely until the tavern closes about half way between midnight and dawn. But there is another girl A’ia visits in this same tavern. Her name is Faun. She is not here tonight. You could say that Crystal is his consort. He says about her that no one in all of Ubarim cuddles or molds herself to a man’s body as good as she does. But to Faun A’ia once said, “When I am with you all I feel is love.”

And A’ia also asked Faun the proverbial question, “What have you learned about men since you have begun dancing?” Faun answered, “The only reason a man takes an interest in a woman is to have sex or to have children.”

“Faun,” A’ia said, “men and women are mirrors for each other. I, for example, can always understand anyone’s point of view and feelings without exception. And so here is a test. What would men say about women that is on the same level as your description?”

Faun looked into A’ia’s eyes and saw the mirth and the playfulness and so she accepted the challenge. She replied, “Men would say about women pretty much the same thing, except instead of sex, some want money and some want children. Do I pass your test?”

A’ia says, “You pass the first part. Now here is the more difficult question, “What do men want from women that is behind and underneath the desire for sex and children?” Without hesitating or having to think, Faun replies, “They want the beauty of women in their lives. They want the oneness sex implies. They want the tender love they see in children’s eyes. Does it surprise you that a dancer can match you word for word and phrase for phrase and then go on to ask the next question the conversation requires?”

“Don’t stop now. You are doing so well,” A’ia says.

Faun goes on, “And so I too have a test for you too. Answer this: “What do women want from men that is underneath the desire for bread and the blind hunger in their wombs to bear children?”

A’ia responds, “They want the man’s strength and power to join with their own to make a home. And in that home they want love to flow without barriers or boundaries through body and soul.”

Have you ever seen two little birds sitting on a small branch next to each other? The one bird raises itself up and down making the branch sway around. The other bird looks back and chirps and then taps the top of the other’s back as it hops over to the other side. And then they both chirp and sing as they nestle together shoulder to shoulder. Watching Faun and A’ia flirting reminds me of this little scene from nature.

I know there are those who would object right away to the gender bias these flirtatious words imply. They would complain that the role of women is restricted. But I would point out that in Ubarim there is no discrimination among the priests in regard to women. This is true even in the Temple of Mars as is seen in the case of Raran who is without question regarded as the most formidable warrior in Ubarim. And where at present all the kings are men, the queens were often more renown and famous for their great accomplishments. You would have to say that in this age women knew how to get things done without having to rage or complain.

When A’ia feels Faun’s love inside of him he says that she is generous the way the ocean gives birth to life and receives all rivers into herself; the way the mountains are shaped from beauty and silence; she gives herself with a trust that is free of fear and doubt. When A’ia puts his mind inside her body it is like discovering the center of his own heart.

A’ia can also cause Faun to have an orgasm just by concentrating on her body. Within her is a heaviness that takes possession of her consciousness awakening a hunger and a craving like the waves that rise and collide with the shore being drawn by the gravity of the moon. When A’ia sends his mind into her body and becomes one with her, he becomes imbued with a mysterious power.

If you think of the earth at night, the dark side of the planet, and all that this darkness touches and contains, A’ia becomes like this night. His consciousness is so amplified he becomes a divine enchantment. He is, though the oneness with the woman, a specific manifestation of God’s omnipresence. He then moves without form, thinks without thought, and feels without the need for image.

What is curious, however, is that these two women are completely unpossessive of A’ia. He is as natural to them as a fruit tree that blossoms in spring. It is something that is just there and that offers you something sweet and nourishing when it ripens. For Crystal and Faun, you could no more own or possess A’ia then you could possess the wind. Like the wind, you might be able sometimes to predict its actions but you can not control or direct them.

There are lots more women I could discuss. Like I say, A’ia made a study of women for about two decades searching the depths of their souls for their secrets, the sensuality of their bodies, and the pleasures that are theirs to give and to receive. It is said that the fool who persists in his folly becomes wise. Perhaps that was A’ia’s mode of operation.

Did A’ia ever find a woman who loves him with all of her heart? That is a very good question. Let me answer it in this way. Let us say that in the end A’ia discovered that loving a woman with all of his heart and being loved by her with all of her heart in return was the same thing as entering the heart of God--for what is the image of God, the way in which He speaks, and the being through which His Presence is known but that of a man and a woman who in love have become one.

There is another incident worth mentioning before we move on to discussing the “later” A’ia. It had become known that there was something extraordinary about a certain fellow who enjoyed dancing out in the desert beneath a full moon. Perhaps its was tricks of the light, excessive imagination, or superstitious presumption, but a suspicious report began to reach the ears of local authorities. More and more individuals who went to watch A’ia’s dancing said that they saw a woman manifest and dance with A’ia.

The dancing A’ia did was more along the lines of what we in our own time would call Chi Kung. In his own mind, A’ia moved in ways that imitated the trees’ blossoming, the clouds forming and dissolving, birds in flight, animals fleeing or attacking, the seasons unfolding--all the elements through which life nourishes and expresses itself.

But the woman who appeared and danced with A’ia had the movements of a woman who was in love. Her dance was erotic, at times, she swirled and swayed as if ecstasy and pleasure had taken possession of her in order to taste life as we experience it here on earth.

It was very beautiful actually to see. As his arms drifted like the wind, she moved beneath them like a whirlwind. As his hands formed the claws of a dragon, she turned and twisted her body as if to express the ferocity of a tiger. As his body swayed like the branches of a tree in the wind, she blended with him, as if it were one breath moving between the two of them.

I have to admit, the only place I have ever seen such beauty expressed as movement between two human beings is here in this vision of Ubarim. But I am quite sure it shall return and become a natural part of our world in due season. Sometimes you just have to want something enough before it will happen.

Now the high king had always felt that watching the high priestess dance at the beginning of the Great Rite was one of the high points of his life. But now he had a report from one of his intelligence ministers, a man named Rambob, that the woman seen dancing with A’ia was more beautiful and more graceful than any young priestess with her erotic dance of cosmic oneness and ecstasy. With a report like that, it was completely predictable that the High King would make the journey to see with his own eyes if this report was the truth or not.

And so one day the High King of Ubarim came out to watch A’ia’s dancing. The King made camp about a mile away and then road out by himself. He dismounted from his horse and walked past those who sat on the rocks watching from a distance. No one had every ventured closer to this dancing figure than a hundred feet. But the king, being a king, thought he would walk right up and see for himself if it was a real woman, a phantom, or an imaginary creation that was said to dance with A’ia.

As the King approached, he too saw the woman dancing with A’ia. But the King could not really tell if the sight was due to light received by his physical eyes or a product of telepathic origination. So the King approached even closer thinking to himself that he would try to touch her.

And then it happened. As his hand reached for her skin, the King entered a trance and fell down upon the ground and began to prophesy. Of course, any of the higher priests from the eight temples would have told you that this incident was just a matter of the King’s nervous system becoming overloaded. In Ubarim, as A’ia had discovered on his own, it is well known among initiates that women contain mysterious power. And if a man can access that power through ritual or ceremony, through arts such as poetry, or through love, then the man’s own power is vastly amplified.

But the King had never experienced any of this. As his hand reached to touch the woman, his fingers and then his palm became saturated with a cold, pure magnetism that is a primal feminine power. The King felt a woman’s orgasm except magnified to a much higher power--as if the her body were the earth and the sky were her lover.

In the few seconds before he fell down, the King felt all the muscles of his body rhythmically contracting. He felt a drawing in, a gathering. It was a insatiable hunger like the hunger in the darkness between the stars and in the same moment it was the taste of an infinite peace.

Normal male consciousness is not used to confronting such contradictions so it is easy to understand why the King’s mind collapsed beneath the strain. Well, I hope you will forgive me if these stories lean a little to heavily on poetry. But this is another psalm, the one the King spoke as he lay on the ground. It is another vowel from the cosmic language with which God’s voice sings. Spoke the king:

I am the benevolence of Divine Providence

I create, I inspire, I guide

I make all things anew in the fullness of time

I am the wish-fulfilling gem

I satisfy your deepest cravings

And reveal your highest path to perfection

I am the mysterious nexus:

Through my soul pass

The most obscure forces

Holding history in their grasp

I alter molecular vibrations with my touch

Amid your worst nightmare,

Your greatest fear,

Your obstacles

Impenetrable and severe

I open the gateway to freedom

Who Celebrates these things:

The beauty of the earth and sky uniting

The tossing and turning of the seasons in wild passion

And this also:

The vast, unknown reaches

Within a heart without hope--

Swirling cosmic dust

Giving birth to stars

Out of the dark womb of infinite space

My wealth is the joining

Of matter and spirit without limit

And my consort is the fire

Illuminating the world with universal love.

By the way, the Temple of the Sun made the King shortly after this an “honorary” priest in token of his revealing a new note named “UE” in the cosmic language.

The “Later” A’ia

It is somewhat hard to account for the nature and work of the “later” A’ia. As the story is told, however, it is said that one day he had a vision. He was “caught up” in the spirit and taken into the future. There he foresaw the destruction of Ubarim. And in this vision, a great spirit who overshadows the planet earth and watches over and inspires its political evolution spoke to him. The spirit said, “This is what will happen unless you chart for your land another path, another option.”

A’ia then turned away from his studies of women and how the divine feminine appears within them in countless varieties of energies manifesting pleasure and ecstasy. He went off into an uncharted desert of cactus and white sand dunes, of vermilion cliffs, arroyos, and river beds running dry for hundreds of years. He went there to wrestle with God--to question, debate, persuade, and to interrogate until he found for the human race another destiny, one less violent and less destructive.

A’ia’s Meditation of Peace for Ubarim

Here is the meditation for peace that A’ia was one day teaching a fellow prophet. It was recorded early on in the “later” A’ia’s career.

Under the law of love, we are able to become one with any other or any number of spirits, creatures, or beings so that all separation is overcome--it matters not if it is a friend or an enemy, a lover or a complete stranger. The same principle applies. Consciousness is without any form restriction and distance can not hinder its application.

We are able to transfer our consciousness anywhere in order to fulfill a higher purpose. It does not matter if we place our awareness into a farmer or a king, an archangel, a bee, or a flower. If you utilize your full concentration, then the two can become one. Let us proceed.

Consider the High Priest of Ubarim. We shall not distract him from his many duties and commitments. We shall be as faint as a shadow in the corner of his room and as gentle as the current of air that passes by without causing the candle flame to flicker. Enter this man’s mind.

Become his memories. Pass through the dreams he has at night. Sense his deepest desires and the visions that lead him toward the light. His body is now your body. Sense the heartbeat and the rhythm of the breath. His soul is your soul--every emotion he has ever felt, flow with it and feel the way his personality expresses it.

Sense all of his connections to others both past and present. He has been sustained and nourished by others, challenged and opposed by others as well. All of those who have touched his life, feel their touch within your soul also.

And sense the spirit within him, the deeper levels of his conscience and all that inspires and guides him. Let this conscience and inspiration shine within you as if it is your own arising from out of your own bones. As we meditate now, become the other so that there is no remainder of yourself--there is only the vibration of this person within your consciousness. Sense now also with the five senses of this individual--the sensations of taste, smell, touch, sight, and sound as this individual experiences them are also your sensations.”

Well, that is just a brief summary of a meditation over which A’ia had attained mastery. This meditation is a preliminary, warm-up exercise if you like, to the practice of Divine omnipresence. It is not really very difficult. It only requires a little imagination, a little feeling and applied empathy in the beginning.

What is different about the way A’ia practiced it is that he worked at it for decades. After a while, A’ia could not only sense the innermost thoughts and feelings of anyone in Ubarim. He could hold in his consciousness in one moment the awareness of the kings and the high priests of Ubarim all at once. For some odd reason, he had an unusual flair for this kind of thing.

Now there is a subtle difference between the Atlantean magick using crystal balls which King Irkomen had acquired and this practice of A’ia’s. Irkomen’s magick worked by amplifying thought. Thoughts became so powerful that they could kill or command another’s will.

A’ia, by contrast, was not using the power of mind so much as a power of love divine. In a later age, men such as Balaam could concentrate to such an extent that they could call any spirit to them, to hold conversation or seek to fulfill a purpose. But A’ia was not interested in bending others to his will or applying power to accomplish a purpose. His interest was in the love that called the universe into being and that holds all things within its heart.

I think it is fair to say that A’ia is a man who had found his way into the heart of God and had tasted the ecstasy that is beyond all comprehension. In such an ecstasy or love, the whole universe can be experienced as a oneness that has overcome all separation and isolation. Perhaps A’ia had experienced first hand the words spoken by God to King Sustarna, “The universe will not end until every heart is found and every soul becomes pure light.”

I imagine that from this perspective time and space are a place of dramatic tension and suspense. History is a cosmic unfolding of a wondrous and mysterious celebration. And the cost of all of this, the pain and suffering, can only be truly weighed and measured against the ecstasy and love that seeks to be expressed in a unique way through every soul and heart in creation. When it comes to inspiration, I imagine that A’ia was one of those who had drank a fair dose.

By way of comparison, I mean, at first glance, it might seem that Abstrect, Hirah, and Vittana are the three most powerful individuals in Ubarim, that is, without trying to figure just where King Irkomen fits in. But even these four did not determine the fate of Ubarim, no, not though wars or songs or the magick of true love. You see, behind the scenes and unknown to everyone else, it was the prophet A’ia who had the greater clout.

The karmic principle is always the same for every age and land--in order to ascend into the light or to become a greater servant of love, you must first master the darkness or else comprehend the nature of true malice. Otherwise, the noble cause, the high ideal, or the warm embrace can not abide. They are displaced by another power that takes away their life.

I think that message was clearly stated in the legend of Camelot. If you are going to found a kingdom based on justice and chivalry, you have to come to terms, wheel and deal, and make peace with lust and malice. Otherwise, every noble action is offset by a counterbalance.

But if you are free of fear, if you can open you heart to embrace all that is within life, and if then you are able to see the world as it really is, then and only then will the influence of your love never end. Not only could A’ia see and easily overturn King Irkomen’s use of crystal balls of manipulation. Not only could A’ia comprehend the source of Hirah’s will and love, of Abstrect’s enlightenment, or Vittana’s mysterious Muse of inspiration. A’ia could also probe the depths of the forces that were seeking to unfold and determine the fate of Ubarim.

You have to be very careful when your power is this great. Everyone is in life in order to learn and to become transformed. If you take away another’s choice, then you take away from them the opportunity to learn as well. Then, in another age, they will seek to express and experience what was denied them, whether that experience be creative and fulfilling or destructive and full of desolation.

This is why A’ia did not save Ubarim from eventual destruction though it was within the power of his will to do so. What he did do is provide it with several hundred years of peace so that every religious and spiritual impulse that is within the human soul could find expression and fulfillment. It was an astonishing gift that A’ia offered to mankind.

In this fable, we have a course of events with Hirah and Parvan playing the central roles. But no one takes note about the man behind the scenes, largely unknown, who helped to write the script. In a later age of the world, as John in our own time foretold, another man who is a lot like A’ia shall appear. The Bible refers to him as one of two and calls these individuals witnesses. The challenge they face to preserve light on earth is greater than even A’ia with all the problems of his age and civilization could imagine.

A Conversation with a Cosmic Dragon

A’ia also had an interesting conversation with the cosmic dragon who inspires king Irkomen. You must know how it is. When you seek God, that is the source of all light, those mighty beings who inhabit the darkness notice your flight. And then they come round if only to see if they can knock you down.

In the cosmology of Ubarim, there were mighty beings who inhabited the dark, swirling clouds of dust that eventually condensed and gave birth to the sun. But in this process, some of those spirits radically transformed. They changed from gathers of cosmic dust to radiant beings of light who within themselves had discovered how to directly unite with God the Creator of the universe.

But many other of these cosmic beings did not so transform. They did not discover a source of inspiration that is infinite. And so they remained gathers, collectors, like the fable of dragons who collect and hoard gold. And there was one further defining quality some of them had. Some hated the fire of fusion and the solar light and the inspiration they implied because these things remained outside of their grasp.

And so one of these mighty dragons showed up and presented himself to A’ia. But contrary to what you might expect from such an encounter between a being of great malice and a mortal human being, it was the dragon who was surprise. A’ia thought of himself as a normal, everyday kind of guy. Sure he liked to dance and drink and when he was younger, he loved to flirt with women and to explore the mysteries of their orgasms. But those were like hobbies, minor obsessions, things that brought him exquisite pleasure. You can’t knock a guy for having a good time or doing what feels so right.

On the other hand, there always was this other side to A’ia even when he was young. For example, if anyone in Ubarim or if you were there and spoke to him, that is, to the spirit within him, that spirit would reply straightforward and without hesitation. The dragon spoke to this spirit within A’ia and not just the man who had made it his custom to haunt taverns. And so A’ia replied with a “voice” suitable for the occasion.

The dragon said, “Though you have cleverly disguised yourself in the form of a human being, I know who you are. You can not hide your identity from me. It is impossible to miss. You are the dark eye that consumes the sky and drains the stars of their light--the Great Attractor whose ravenous appetite devours entire galaxies that fall as prey when they enter your sight. You are the prototype, the original source from which the words emptiness and abyss were designed and minted.

“And now you have incarnated as a human being. How quaint! But you shall not overturn my purpose. I hold the kingdoms of Ubarim under my spell and I shall destroy them according to my will.”

“I am not here to interfere with your work, for even you have a sacred purpose to accomplish,” A’ia replied.

“Then why have you come down to this star system and to this third planet from the sun? What purpose could possibly draw you to earth? What mystery is hidden here that I have failed to see it?”

A’ia said, “Perhaps you and I have a greater bond than you imagine. I will only say this: one day you will incarnate as a woman and we shall become lovers. And, in that day long after this civilization has fallen, you shall become enlightened.”

Now you have to understand that this ancient dragon was, if anything, exceptionally skilled in being devious. I mean, when your basic primordial instinct is to survive by growing more powerful, you learn to test everything and to seize upon every moment as a great opportunity to acquire what you want. And so, as if pacing back and forth, smiling to himself that he had A’ia in a well-designed trap, the dragon spoke:

“Your intent is to turn to me to the light. To do this, your imagination must first find within me something capable of being redeemed. There is no such thing!”

And A’ia replies, “I know what is at the core of your being, and every thought, action, and scheme that you have ever employed. What is within you that is pure and ordained to be fulfilled in due season is your longing for power without limit. This longing for power is nothing else than a divine inspiration.

“In the fullness of time, I will separate this part of you that is genuine from the part of you that is committed to destruction. And to this part I will offer power without limit--an offer even you can not refuse. But the price I will require is that you renounce your lust for destruction and your promotion of chaos. Given this offer and choice, even you, at the core of your being, will accept transformation without hesitation.”

The dragon was truly perplexed. You see, dragons such as this have always perfectly understood what it is bind and control another’s mind. They understand a pack that can not be broken because the soul is bound to it. They understand domination and subjugation. They know perfectly well that the rule of thumb that applies equally throughout the entire universe is that the stronger has power over the weaker. And as a natural consequence, this dragon was a master of guile, enchantment, illusion, manipulation, fabrication, and denial. But our dragon has a blind spot in his imagination. He does not understand the power or source of genuine inspiration and this, among other things, involves the ability to create something new from out of nothing.

And so, in his perplexity, the dragon asks, “How can such a thing be? And what can the darkness that you command, that is beyond the power of darkness itself to understand, what can you know about enlightenment, transformation, or the ecstasy that ignites the stars and causes them to burn amid the empty void?”

The Song of the Black Hole

A’ia replies in a somewhat sad and in an astonishingly lonely voice, the voice of a cosmic whirlpool that is fully aware of the beauty that it is destroying. A’ia reminisces,

I once was very bright

And the light I did emit

Shall still shine until the end of time

But one day something broke inside

Out of rage because of life denied,

Part of myself exploded outward,

But another part collapsed

Turning inward, folding upon itself, imploding,

I stripped myself of the past,

Until nothing was left--

Not the faintest trace of form or outline,

Nothing was left you could identify.

And in that singular, absolute, and unending void I remained

There is no way to measure the length of time

Or the depths of my loneliness,

No other spirit or thing could reach me,

Forever and ever I was assigned

To this abyss of emptiness,

A sea without shores,

A dimension undefined by space or time.

And there I was tried and finally purified

Until I came to recognize

That only oneness exists.

Everything else is an illusion.

Now nothing can contain or limit my consciousness.

I am everywhere and within everything that exists without exception.

And then, like any genuine prophet who has walked this earth at any time, A’ia spoke with the words of a psalm. But this was not just a psalm of invocation like the first 78 psalms of David which are invocations of the Schem-Ham-Phoras or spirits of the sphere of Mercury. No, this psalm enumerates another one of the cosmic sounds, a building block from which time, space, matter, spirit, and consciousness are composed. You could say it is one of the vowels, the letter “U,” with which God’s Voice speaks, a part of the Spoken Word.

One difference, of course, between A’ia’s voice and the thunderous and awe-inspiring voices of later prophets in history is that when A’ia speaks, there is no rage or accusation, no judgment or fateful calculation. Instead, his voice has that casual, relaxed, and easy air of a friend turning talking to another friend while sitting at a bar in a tavern. Still, you would have to say there was something otherworldly and slightly hypnotic or excessively melodic about the way he speaks these words:

There is no vice I can not twist or bend

And turn again into its opposite virtue

There is no compulsion or obsession I can not

So fill with light it becomes kind and bright

There is no ill will or malice I can not

Convert into chivalry or true nobility

There is no crunch or karmic bind, no evil intent or design

I can not refine within my mind

Into contentment and absolute satisfaction

There is no suffering

I can not so enfold within my palms

Spit on, blow upon

And recreate as beauty hidden in the heart of life

Such is my power and might

Such are the depths and the heights

Where my wings fly

But there is a difference you see

Between you and me

When you breathe in

You nourish your soul

And expel your doubts

But in one breath

I consume entire lifetimes:

Grasping the horns of sorrow

I flex my will

Gather my strength

And play songs of joy.

A’ia’s words would not find their way into the dragon’s heart, certainly not during this age. But in another age of the world this conversation will go on. Surely there is another chapter to write about the mysteries of darkness and light beyond what can be spoken here within the kingdoms of Ubarim.

A Prophetic Vision of the “Later” A’ia

And in a dream a great spirit spoke to me and said, “Write these words that the kings of the earth might know and learn.”

And in the dream I was lifted up by the power of Spirit and made to see what others could not see. I beheld a great bridge. But it crossed not over water or ravine but over the abyss of time. And I approached the bridge and walked upon it.

“And immediately I was transported to another age of the world. And I saw before me a valley filled with soldiers and armies. And I walked up to a soldier and asked, “Why are all these armies gathered here?”

The soldier replied, “We are preparing to go to war to claim our rights, to defend our borders, and to protect our holy sites.”

And I asked, “Have you forged no treaties regarding rights, borders, and holy sites?”

The soldier said, “No. We avoid destruction by defeating our enemies.”

I asked him, “And what of the Great Destruction that is to come?”

He replied, “I know nothing of it. Our leaders fear nothing.”

But the spirit that had called me granted me the ability to draw the leaders of these great nations to appear before me here where I stood in the river bed. And in a matter of hours the heads of these armies and nations compelled by a force they did not comprehend rode up to me.

They stared at me and said, “Why have you called us here? We are each assigned a fate from which we learn and a destiny for which we strive. Why do you interfere with our right to experience life as we determine through our own choice?”

I replied, “With your will and choice I will not interfere. But you will accompany me now for a little time for this is the power and authority granted to me.”

The riders dismounted and the three of us then walked back onto the bridge that crosses over the river of time. And we entered the far future. As we left the bridge we came again to a valley filled with soldiers and armies. And we approached a soldier and asked him, “Where are you going?”

The soldier said, “We are going to war to claim our rights, to defend our borders, and protect our holy sites.” And then we watched for the actions of the armies hastened so our minutes became their days. And we beheld a great conflict. The mighty armies clashed and the sky grew dark and the sun shown no more because of the desolation caused by the war.

And we witnessed the death of all horses on earth and agriculture also was no more. And those that survived returned to gathering and knew no more than how to carve stones into the heads of spears. And I turned to the two leaders of ancient nations and said, “This is the final end toward which your striving leads. Why not now return having seen the future and make peace?”

And the one leaders said to me, “What you have shown us is an illusion. It is not real. Even if it is the final outcome of history, it still does not concern me. It is a strange vision of a distant age of the world that is beyond my reckoning.

I turned to the other leader and asked the same question. He replied, “Whether this is real I know not. But I know that in my time no one possesses the skill or the will to make peace between those whose life long obsession is with war. You are trying to show us that there are consequences to our choices and that in the end war shall lead to absolute destruction and endless desolation. But to persuade us to strive with greater will and greater skill for peace than we already possess for making war is perhaps more than even your ability or level of skill.”

“Will you return us now to our own time?” the first king asked.

“I shall leave you here for seven days so you may learn from experience about the results of starvation and annihilation. And after seven days, you will awaken as if from a daydream, a momentary distraction. But you will remember every word of our conversation. You may then have your war if that is your desire and choice.

“But from this day forth, I shall be your conscience, for this vision shall return to haunt you. And from time to time I shall influence your history. It shall be like this: one man’s prayer shall destroy an army; another man unarmed and alone shall turn back the greatest army on earth; a great general shall resign his commission in order to build a nation of freedom; and another man’s will, single-handedly, shall alter the course of a world war. And from time to time when I appear again on earth nothing shall bind or limit my voice. These and other signs I give to you.

“But if you fail to learn, I myself shall return and become a player among the nations. And in that day there is no army, no general, no arsenal, or strategy that can defend against the powers I shall bring to bear. There is no end to what I intend--I shall persist until you discover that making peace is cheaper, a much better deal, than confronting the powers that I wield.”

A’ia’s Conversation with God

Like Balaam I suppose but without Balaam’s intense concentration and like Columba but without the austerities and monastery, A’ia too managed to find his way into God’s Presence. And this is the conversation A’ia had one day as he spoke to God.

A’ia: “Who are You and can You be known?”

God replies:

“If you want to know who I Am, be as the waves of the sea breaking on the shore and also as the tides of time--the currents circling the globe and the ice ages that rise and fall all in accordance with nature’s laws. Do this that others might know that through Me flow the rhythms of life--the heartbeat and its deepest dreams and every hope--reveal my depths that others might know that My peace is infinite.

“If you want to know Me, become the winds that roam through the sky free of personal need. Be the atmosphere where they flow, where they slow, and where they rise again to ascend the heights. Be My breath. Offer to others without restriction My vitality, My freedom, and the open spaces of heart and mind where I abide.

“If you want to know the mystery of My Being, become the mountain, the forest, and the tree. Bring forth every fruit in due season. Satisfy every genuine longing that others might know there is no end to My generosity and there is no limit to the love with which I overflow.

“If you want to be like Me, become like fire. Radiate light like the sun by day and the moon and stars by night. Burn with desire like rocks flowing molten red and vermilion. Be My agent who awakens the seed beneath the earth, who calls spring to come forth from out of winter, and who heals the broken heart. To be as I Am is to heal, to reveal wonder, and to celebrate love without end.

“Do not be confused--I am not asking you to do something for me. You do not owe me and I do not own you. I am asking you as a lover to the beloved: join with Me; celebrate with Me by doing what I do which is continuously to create the world anew.”

Well, there is much more to write about A’ia, for this is only an introduction.