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Existential events aside, the plot got heavy from the first page. He got the shit position his father guaranteed he wouldn't. The King threatens to strip him and the entire family of their positions and their homes. Then his wife's bestie conjures a spell of lust and love on him. Later his best friend leaves and heads out on a suicide mission to find a mysterious sutra. The Dali Lama drops off a conscious supercomputer that is being hunted by the most horrifying type of people in the universe (Berubbishcans). He confirms with the Dali Lama that all existence arrives from an act of Mara’s suicide and that is why death is the single limiting factor for everything in this universe. The decision to make a baby leads to her being impregnated by a pair of outcasts from the heaven realms and the Oracle tells him the baby will murder him.
Remember that time Vishaka was talking about some neophyte human, back in the caveman days who went around telling people, "I'm the king, I'm the king." She was illustrating it isn't the power of words that cause us problems, it is untrained minds that give words power. Then there was the time when Vallena was using a lot of hot and nasty words that not only cast a spell on Mahá's organic brain, but they caused her organic mind to jump into super horny—give me some sex!
Or the time Vishaka didn't say anything at all and those words told us everything, remember? It was right at the beginning of chapter one when Mahá gave her the koan: What is this that we hold between us? If you say it is love, you are wrong; if you say it is anything else, you are wrong." The key to that koan is the word "say." She crawled on hands and knees into his lap, curled up into his arms on his lap, and nuzzled and nibbled on his neck. She told us how hot, romantic, and spicy their love is without saying a thing.
The King in his chamber showed us the power of words when you have a title, the Oracle showed us words of prophecy can shape destiny, and we learned how title can separate a society through privilege.
Words are the shit!
With words, we must be careful not just with what we say but with what we hear, listen to, and think. Like this book of words you just read, once the words get inside the mind they are there forever. You cannot ever—not have these words. Don't believe me?
Let's say you could delete this book from your device but the words are still in your mind. Next, you could erase the receipt for the purchase, delete the account where you made the purchase, cancel the credit card you used to make the purchase, and you would find no trace of having ever read this book and the words are still going to stay in your mind. There is nothing you can do to make the spell go away. Words cause minds to act.
Though you might delight in having this—power of words awakening, and there's no denying how moments of clarity inspire us. The intention is to illustrate how important it is for you, me, and everyone to train our minds so that the words only cast a spell when we choose to allow them to. For example, as you read this book I used words to tell you what to hear, smell, feel, see, and I used words to cause you to sense fear, heartbreak, anxiety, and more. Of course, you allowed those words to move your mind. Trippy, right? I might even say that is wicked dope, man. But wait a minute please, I want to tell you something I never told anyone before now.
Just one last example to drive home this point Vishaka was making about that neophyte, halfwit who went around telling everyone that he was the king. There is just one thing I want to change about the neophyte and all of our ancient ancestors.
Let's say, you and I agree to allow those cavemen, ancient dudes to keep their ignorance and to learn the hard lessons of life through experience just like history reveals it. Well, you know like discovering the benefits of using soap and water. What to do when you feel cold or when you get hot. Why do these women keep pushing out babies? Should I eat this or shouldn't I? Is there someone else here who will eat it first? Etcetera, etcetera. I don't want to change any of that. But there is one thing I think you and I could agree would be interesting if it could be changed.
The vastness of the universe. Let's say when humans are born the conceptual awareness of the vastness of the universe is as instinctual as breathing and heartbeat. We are all living on a tiny little planet that spins and rotates around a tiny little star that is one of about a hundred billion stars rotating around the center of a medium-sized galaxy that is one in about an uncountable gazillion other galaxies that altogether are the conceptual universe. I just want to, for the sake of this otherwise quick example, change that. Imagine now, if that were knowledge from the beginning how different the gods we humans would worship today. That's where Visákhá was coming from with her analogy of words having power and our untrained mind being our enemy. Our personal antagonist.
At last, just to put a ribbon on her package, our minds can conceive something so vast, so mega-huge as the universe. If it was in front of us it's too big to see or hold, but our mind with the power of words can conceive it, and here's the kicker. Our minds can conceive more than that. We can conceptually understand that our massive universe is one of many and that in fact there may even be an infinite number of universes. Scary how powerful the mind is. There is nothing it cannot do.
Now you can realize the difficulty of managing that ego.
Alright then. Enough on this rant on words, there was a lot in this story that fell through the cracks between the pages. Here's what I mean.
Kelv heads off to the wasteland to find some missing sutra. Poof, we didn't read another word about it. Then we read in the next few scenes that the stars are poisoning people and they will soon collide causing a supernova event that kills everyone, and that the marijuana crops are using too much fertile soil so that soon they will all starve to death. But they can't stop growing pot because the ganja is making medication that helps with the poisoning from the neutron star overhead.
Well then, should we assume in the final book that Kelv is going to find a cave that leads to an underground paradise? Nirvana was under their feet the whole time? I'm going to say no because that would be way too easy, and cheesy.
What about this child born out of the spawn from two fallen gods, cast out of the heaven realms and cursed for all eternity? The cliffhanger of a cliffhanger, the Oracle prophesized the child will murder the main characters. And let's not forget about this mysterious lost sutra that is mentioned twice in the previous book and three more times in this novella.
The previous King gets ousted from his throne, but we heard nothing of his revenge or where did he go? Why would we though? On a planet where no one rises up in anger, there is nobody fighting back against all the obstacles. Without anger about everything happening around them, trying to kill them, and the Humanoids abandoning them to the ill-fated demise then all there is left for us is to shrug and accept the cliche of, "Cool heads will prevail?"
Are you kidding me right now!
Please, I'm a little embarrassed to bring this one up and even more embarrassed that it waited until the conclusion. There's a conscious and aware supercomputer in the back room of Vallena's garden home and it barely got a mention. Once when they turned it on and it was asking who is there and where am I. And once more when the Oracle was having a vision of Mahá reading the sutra teaching how kings and leaders should rule to ensure the prosperity of civilization.
A conscious supercomputer gets dropped off on this remote planet and nothing more in the rest of the book about it. I'm beginning to wonder if we have the right man for the job. What I mean is, there's a lot left to finish up and conclude in just one more novella. I don't know if this author can pull it off.
But, I will do my best.
om tare tuttare ture soha
