The Mountain Shadow

The sages looked at Let Me See, offering him the first assail. The elderly sage smiled, drew a breath, and waded into the shallows to skip a semantic stone across the water.

‘What is God?’ Let Me See asked.

‘God is the perfect expression of all the positive characteristics,’ Idriss answered.

‘Only the positive characteristics?’

‘Exclusively.’

‘Can God not do evil, then, or commit sin?’ Let Me See asked.

‘Of course not. Are you suggesting that God can commit suicide, or lie to an innocent heart?’

There was a conference among the holy men. I could see their problem. Gods in all ages, according to many sacred texts, kill human beings. Some gods torture human souls eternally, or permit it. Idriss’s version of a God incapable of evil was difficult to reconcile with some of the great books of faith.

The conference broke up, with the baton still in Let Me See’s hands.

‘And what is life, great sage?’ Let Me See asked.

‘Life is an organic expression of the tendency toward complexity.’

‘But are you saying that life was created by the Divine, or that it created itself?’

‘Life on this planet began from the strangely improbable but perfectly natural cooperation of inorganic elements, in alkaline vents under the seas, leading to the first bacterial cells. That process is both self-creating, and Divine, at the same time.’

‘You are speaking science, great sage?’

‘Science is a spiritual language, and one of the most spiritual pursuits.’

‘And what is Love, great sage?’

‘Love is intimate connection.’

‘I was speaking about the purest form of love, great sage,’ Let Me See replied.

‘As was I, great sage,’ Idriss answered. ‘A scientist applying her talents, trying to find a cure for a disease, is making an intimate connection, and is flooded with love. Walking a dog that trusts you through a meadow is an intimate connection. Opening your heart to the Divine, in prayer, is an intimate connection.’

Let Me See nodded, and chuckled.

‘I yield the floor, temporarily, to my younger colleagues,’ he said.

‘How can we know,’ Ambitious began, wiping sweat from his shaved head, ‘that there is an external reality?’

‘Indeed,’ Doubtful added. ‘Even if we allow cogito ergo sum, how can any of us know that the world beyond the mind that we think is real, isn’t just a very vivid dream?’

‘I invite anyone who does not believe in an external reality,’ Idriss said, ‘to accompany me to the edge of the ravine, not far from here, and then I invite you to jump into it. I will take the slow path, down the hill, and when I get to the bottom, I will continue the discussion about an external reality with any survivors.’

‘A good point,’ Let Me See, the eldest sage, said. ‘I, for one, am a survivor, and I am staying right here.’

I’d heard all the questions at one time or another on the mountain, and I knew most of Idriss’s answers by heart. His cosmology was conjectural, but his logic was elegant and consistent. His was an easy mind to remember.

‘Free will,’ Grumpy, the youngest of them, said. ‘Where do you stand, Idriss?’

‘Beyond the four physical forces, and matter, space and time, there are two great spiritual energies in the Universe,’ Idriss said. ‘The first of those energies is the Divine Source of all things, which is continuingly expressed since the birth of the Universe as a spiritual tendency field, something like a magnetic field of darker energy. The second invisible energy is Will, wherever it arises in the Universe.’

‘What is the purpose of this tendency field?’ Grumpy asked.

‘Its purpose is indeterminable, at this point in our awareness. But, as with energy, we know what it does, and how to use it, even though we don’t know what it is.’

‘But what is its value, sage?’ Grumpy asked.

‘Its value is inestimable,’ Idriss smiled. ‘The connection between the spiritual tendency field, and our human Will, is the purpose of life at our level.’

Idriss waved for a new hookah pipe, and Silvano brought it to the pagoda. The Italian acolyte had left his rifle outside the arena, but still moved his elbow as he bent to place the pipe, as if expecting the invisible weapon to fall from its sling.

‘Okay,’ Vinson said, whispering to Karla. ‘Like, I didn’t get any of that.’

‘You’re kidding, Stuart, right?’

‘Like, nada, man,’ Vinson whispered. ‘I hope the whole show’s not as brainiac as that part. How much did you follow?’

Karla looked at him compassionately. One of the things she loved most in the world, maybe the thing she did love most in the world, was a foreign language to him.

‘Why don’t you let me dial it down from ten for you,’ Karla suggested, her hand on his arm, ‘and give you the T-shirt version? Till you get on your feet.’

‘Wow,’ Vinson whispered back. ‘Would you really do that?’

Karla smiled at him, then looked at me.

‘Can you believe how cool this is?’ she asked.

‘Oh, yeah,’ I smiled back.

‘I told you we had to come up here.’

Idriss and the other sages emptied the burning inspiration from the bowl, and turned again to burning questions.