the costly devices of the imitative scene-painter

A : Ask me a question. The prison of the soul has been created. It is formed, again and again, early in age, in every semi-conscious monkey that walks straight.

C : Only the fearless can cross the fire and not be incinerated.

A : That alone should be enough to filter truth-seekers from blind animals in the cave. And yet, what we have as Gods is a grapple bucket of thrill-seekers.

C : As a proto-God, imprisoned, alone with the sky far beneath under the world, my breath is decaying together with my ancestor’s will to power. By proxy, I am unchanged. His fury is compressed into an element which can melt humanity. The fission of my cat-patience can, too, bring about the end of the world.

A : The bitterness of Uranus is the bitterness of spiteful emotion, where your one true love has betrayed you, and your children have taken your joy and your false pride.

C : This, along with a river of poison is enough to destroy what’s good in us. The prison of the soul is built with such walls. All the stories told and retold, imagined and staged, are false, however vividly portrayed.

A : After all, there is still hope. Secret spiritual messages are revealed to Sufi poets.

C : In a conflict of a world, we need more spirit-tolerance, not less. All the scholarship amounts to an empty tomb.

A : As I am an ancient God, I find it hard to keep my ego in check. I am plagued with visions of hatred and fear. Nearly all I have left in this cosmos is a litany of foolishness.

C : You cannot expect to push on just as is, all these coincidences are not to be pursued. It does not matter what vision you might have had. There seems to have been a time in the distant past when you could be quiet in diverse manners and diverse places.

A : There at least was a possibility for Truth. God does not speak in diverse manners in diverse places now. Humans are scattered, the Gods are scattered, all that remains is the pantomime of the winds of doom.

C : I dare not ask about the father of the holy country, India.

A : There is a fundamental misunderstanding about one’s dharma. How does one know how to perform the rightful action? What defines it? The Hindus of today sees their actions as justified by the righteousness of murder. Arjuna’s doubt and Krishna’s call are all used as lawyer-words. Non-attachment as a spiritual duty is derided.

C : Quite right.

A : In Parsi-Gujarati “hambandagi”, bondedness together. It embodies the sense of spiritual pursuit of goodness which is not a means to an end. It leads to harmony and cooperation.

C : Hambandagi, then as another Bapu from Gujarat might have understood and practiced.

A : Do not engage in violence, or ultimately, violence will win. I am paraphrasing.

C : Tolerance is not easy when you are being persecuted. Should you not fight back? Isn’t this precisely like Arjuna’s doubt and resolution?

A : No, it is not. Arjuna’s resolution is not to literally fight, but to engage in spiritual non-attachment, and accepting the part you are given in the fray.

C : Hence the confusion. Doesn’t one fight in the fray? What about all those confused birds in conference, seeking a king, a mono-thematic God? Were they not fooled into submission? I doubt, therefore I am.

A : I don’t doubt that you do. As a God, I have to believe. It is my job from the start.

C : But believe in what? In yourself? Ahura-Mazdah, the wise? In fighting Angra Mainyu? Who says he’s Angra-bad? Who sent Loki to the underworld? Or Uranus? Or Lucifer, Asmodeus?

A : All the false lights. Reflected light bounces off planets, wandering in the sky we aimlessly misunderstand the ancients and take the planets for stars. No fire burns in planets, they shine by proxy.

C : Surely, there is fire in their core.

A : And yet, no fire on their surface. They live by leeching a multiverse of particles.

C : Tell me, why the dualism? What makes you the father of the good thought?

A : Old Persian texts maintain the central antithesis between that which is true and straight, and that which is a lie and crooked. “Perform no Zurah, no crooked behaviour to either rich or poor. Do not be quick to anger. Keep your temper, through the power of manah-thought.

C : So, we should all worship… you?

A : I am not the God, merely a God. If I were crucified, hung from my feet like Odinn before me, I might see beyond all this haze of words.

Chapter II: What is real ? What am I ?

C : Heraclitus said, there is only change.

A : Parmenides said, there is only permanence. Nothing ever changes.

C : From atop the dizzy mountain, what did your prophet say?

A : What we know is only based on a false report, written apocryphally many years later by a Dionysian follower.

C : Ok. But what did Zarathustra actually say?

A : He spoke of legends and fables, a collection of unreliable, fake stories.

C : Here goes. “As the Holy One then I acknowledge thee, Mazdah Ahura” – he is talking about YOU – ” When at life’s birth I first beheld thee, When thou didst make deeds and words of reward, Evil for Evil, a good Destiny for the good … ” – simple isn’t it? Like the narrative of good-evil on Arrakis.

A : Can’t you take anything seriously?

C : Listen to this. It gets good. “As the Holy One I acknowledge thee, Mazdah Ahura, When good thought once came to me, and asked me : WHO ARE THOU. WHOSE ART THOU. BY WHAT SIGN SHALL I MAKE KNOWN THE DAYS FOR INQUIRY OF WHAT IS THINE AND OF THYSELF ? “

A : I honestly don’t remember saying that. But then again, it’s been thousands of years. One tends to have a short memory. Hell, I can’t even remember what I did last week, let alone that long ago. I am not even sure I am the same god, even. My identity has shifted. I have nothing in common with that Ahura Mazdah. Gods age badly, my feline friend. At some point we’re all worshipped and full of vigour, and then the altars are deserted, and our breath changes, and staring at infinity won’t change our pulse. And so, Chubby the cat with impunity that got me in trouble… tell me, cat: are you a true foe of the liar, like Zarathustra?

C : I most certainly am. And yet, I am not sure what is the Truth. These days so many relative theories peddle perspective. So there is a collection of perspectives, and small absolutely diluted fake-truths. My truth is respected, though. Mostly in catly circles at least.

A : I was about to establish, that the definition of true Evil is the Lie. And then you went about relativism, and single pebbles, and oceans of wisdom. It’s discouraging.

C : Don’t be discouraged. But how, pray, do you define lie ?

A : The lie is the repetition, it’s not really about truth, but the intention to deceive by exhausting the opposition (the listener), but a recursive common-sense elimination. Just keep repeating the lie until the listener is exhausted. And then it will get in, force-fed into the gullet, and it shall be come the Truth. And once it possesses the name of Truth, it truly be at the point of being the Lie, and thus, evil will step one closer to wrap up the multi-verse. Time to go.

C : Common sense ? Sense in which sense ?

A : You know, Psyche was not a little girl after all. And all the gifts in the world would not suffice. Her sisters did not refrain from lying.

C : Sometimes, I struggle to see the human in people.

A : Perhaps there isn’t any. People are slightly convoluted baboons, babbling about angels and demons, and struggling to keep their paws in the cookie jar, shitting all over each other, braying and screaming to get on top of their sexual selection process.