Children of the Ancient Deity
This story is a ‘Never-ending Story’ about a series of incarnations of one soul, striving for complete liberation from the conventions of being and full integration of itself in this being. The hero has many faces and lives life after life like a burning arrow shot into the sky, which pursues an invisible goal. This is a story about love, about an unknowable divine essence, about duty and immutable Laws of reality, about redemption by Faith and liberation from the chains of death through the acceptance of the karmic Law and the pain that it carries.
The story begins in ancient times, so distant that even historians know almost nothing about them. I am a man who comes to Earth after the collapse of his civilization, which has reached perfection in controlling the spirit in the period between death and new life. On a distant planet that was once my homeland, I was an ordinary city dweller who accidentally fell into the circle of priests who bring human sacrifices, nourishing the spirit of the Ancient Deity. The priests, anxious to prepare for the Great Transition – the resettlement of their civilization to another planet, which will take place after the explosion of the Star, teach me the skill of managing energy at the moment of the Transition. I receive communion with the spirit of an ancient deity, and I am reborn on planet Earth. I understand that the Transition has happened, and my civilization has perished forever.
I am born into the family of a wealthy priest who rules an ancient city in the kingdom, which later became known as Babylonian. My father recognizes in me a talent for interacting with the invisible world when I begin to connect my fingers into the shapes of ancient mudras in the cradle. He understands that I have passed on the talent that he believes is necessary for governing the New City and people from our old civilization, many of which live in the New City outside the palace walls. He also hopes that I will become the redemption for his blood sacrifices and other sins.
The civilization in which I lived dozens of lives that were similar to each other was very cruel, and it was ruled by priests. Today one of these priests is my father; since he is also the ruler of his kingdom, he needs an heir. However, in the priests’ civilization, there is a terrible contempt for women, whom the priests consider unworthy of the spirit of the Ancient Deity. Priests make love to women only to have children, and if a girl is born, the woman is killed, and the child is given to the city. My mother was lucky, and she gave birth to a son, which saved her life. However, immediately after giving birth, she was expelled from the palace, and I never managed to find her.
My life in the palace is calm and free; while my father is busy with state affairs and relations with his lover, another priest, the butler teaches me. But I am not interested in books and magical rituals. I am completely absorbed with the thoughts of my mother, but I am not allowed to go out into the city. I am horrified of recognizing my father as my birth parent, and I am more and more immersed in myself to find out how I got here. Once I remember the Transition, and with relief, I understand that it is not ties of kinship that connects me with my father but a mere coincidence. However, my father does not abandon me; on the contrary, he regrets that he performed bloody rituals on a distant old planet, which no longer exists after the explosion of the Star. Father is afraid of impending death and hopes that his love for me and care for me will be the atonement for his sins.
The New Ruler
One day my father dies, and I am left alone in a vast empty, and beautiful palace. I do not lose hope of finding my mother, but one day the butler tells me that a couple of weeks before my father’s death, he saw how she was executed in the square. My father’s lover hated me and hoped to seize power over the palace and the city and revive the bloody rituals, but was banished a few months ago. In the year of my father’s death, I accidentally witnessed his conversation with his lover about an unknown to me spiritual – or magical? – practice aiming to create a “perfect” female being, whose “flesh” was the spirit, not matter.
Overwhelmed by the rapid development of events in the center of which I found myself, I do not seek contacts with the outside world, with which I now have little in common. I am beginning to understand that my father has endowed me with a power that is given only to the elect and which I can easily lose if I turn away from my new duty – the position of ruler of the New City. I feel like a shadow, a ghost that wanders day after day through the beautiful, sun-drenched stone chambers of a palace built by people unknown to me from a light, durable stone, color of sand. The New City is located in the desert, and all that I see, all that interests me, is thoughts, spirit, and unseen, unthinkable powers that this spirit has endowed me with. These forces are not in my control, they elude my reason, but at the same time, they are ready to serve the true desires of my heart.
Several years pass, and I become more and more calm, more and more light and joyful. I am beginning to be interested in the world outside the palace walls and the life that the New City lives. The butler continues to serve me, and from him, I learn various news and city gossip. I try to be a responsible ruler, but I quickly realize that my neutrality does more good than harm and that the people of the New City were happy to learn – from rumors – that the new ruler intends never to revive the bloody rituals.
Besides me, there is another force in the city – the city guard. I instruct the butler to find out more about these people and learn that the guards are led by the neighboring kingdom’s rulers, father, and son, who were expelled from their home. From now on, I begin to observe the palace where the guards live and how beautiful warriors train on the palace square and the palace walls. I fear a coup, but the butler assures me that the exiled king, the head of the guard, does not intend to do anything, and he likes the way things are going in the New City. Moreover, he is grateful to me for the hospitality and non-interference.
One sunny morning, I suddenly realize that I will die soon and that I must do something before this happens. I recall my father’s conversation about an unusual practice that can be performed after the death of a magician, provided he consciously participates in the Transition. I understand that if I decide to carry out this practice, I will really die because, according to the “recipe,” the magician gives his soul to the Soul of the Desert, which must create a beautiful girl, a perfect female being from the trembling, hot haze. I have no children, and it seems to me that if I manage to carry out the ritual – that is, to transfer my spirit to the Soul of the Desert, the newborn creature will become as if my child.
I think about this idea, and every day I like it more and more. Over time, the girl’s fate begins to worry me because she will be all alone in the desert, and no one will take care of her. Despite my concerns, I still decide to perform the ritual, as it will allow me to free myself from the weight of my newfound crown and leave a legacy. My own posthumous existence does not bother me since I gain the Faith that my decision is correct and the events that follow it will benefit me and humanity. My hour comes, and I die, and give my spirit to the Soul of the Desert, and dissolve in the triumphant sky and sand of the New World.
Woman’s Life
I do not become this girl from the haze of hot days and distant winds and hurricanes over the seas that rage on the border of the desert. But later, I learn about her fate, remaining a spirit dwelling in timelessness, waiting in the wings. Rather, there is a particle of my soul in the girl, and at the right time, this particle shows her the way, gives hints, and leads her to the knowledge of the Eternal. After the Transition, the girl becomes the story’s protagonist, and I fade into the background until my hour comes.
Daughter of the Desert, a perfect female being born from quivering air, a delusion devoid of material nature, she meets the son of the head of the royal guard. He is seized with love for her, and touches her, kisses her to convey the depth of his feelings. She reciprocates, stunned by a previously unknown passion, and understands that from now on, this person is a part of herself and a part of her Eternity. But he disappears because one cannot spend the rest of his life with delusion.
The girl’s heart is broken, and she melts, disappears, and her death is like a sea breeze. The girl is born into a nomadic tribe, and at the age of thirteen, she remembers her lover, giving herself a word that she will find him one day. She is hired by the kingdom’s royal guard that rules over the lands where her tribe wanders. The girl shows remarkable skill during training, and the head of the royal guard gives her a horse, weapons, and armor and sends her to fight the criminals and scattered troops that have flooded the desert territory belonging to the kingdom.
The girl spends days of her life on the road, skillfully wielding a saber and killing all enemies that stand in her way. Anger eases her pain from the loss of her lover, and she dreams of meeting him one day. She becomes an increasingly experienced warrior, and the fame of her spreads around the neighborhood. But one day, the new ruler orders to kill her, and one of the brothers in arms gives her horse with a potion of madness, and the girl dies, falling from the horse.
Again and again, she is born in the tribes and villages of the desert and goes into battle with other warriors to let the road lead her to her beloved. Either she is born a man or a woman, she does not lose sight of her dream, her goal, her mission. One day her army reaches the Black Sea’s shores, passes along the coast of this sea, and ends up in Greece. Being a man this time, this soul finds a ship and sails to the island, and lives in a house near the sea coast, and finds peace. Then, the soul is born again as a woman, and then again as a man, who spends his days waiting for the New Day, lives his life quietly and peacefully, realizing that this chapter has come to an end.
But one day, the girl is born a priestess of the goddess Athena. She lives in the temple, and she sees the world as if for the first time. She is overwhelmed by the beauty of the white marble temple, the wonderfully warm sea, on whose waves the sun’s rays play with thousands of sparks; she is dazed by a touch of the light wind that rustles over the olive grove behind the temple every morning of her life. She drinks wine from clay amphoras, talks with Nature, and feels that she has finally found her place in the world.