Post by Shah-Khohr of Ventrue on Jun 14, 2014 15:59:40 GMT -8
Two students sit at a table playing 'go'. These two students are also masters. These two masters are metaphors. These two metaphors are people. These two people are nothing.
One of the nothings is a young boy of indeterminable Asian descent. He is dressed plainly in a robe and shoeless as all messiah's should be. The only thing remarkable is that within his head, where a potent chakra lies, there is a multifaceted gem. It glows with a muted light.
The other nothing is an adult of some Middle Eastern descent. He is dressed plainly in a robe and shoeless as all messiah's should be. The only thing remarkable is that within his head, where a potent chakra lies, there is an eye. It stares at the world trying to understand.
One nothing makes a move. The other makes another. They speak. Over time, the messiah pours its nothing into the other. The other listens and holds as much as it can.
"The true path of enlightenment is walking away," the boy says to the man. "The value of a sacrifice is its value to the giver. Until you are willing to give all you have, you will never have anything of worth. Walk away from what you have and find in absence all that you are able. This is the heart of enlightenment. Nothing you hold to will help with this; release and be free to walk the path you must."
The nothing that is student and teach and adult and child nods, its eye quizzical. It thinks it understands, but it does not. It thinks it comprehends, but it cannot. There are ulterior motives to its enlightenment, and nothing can be selfless when it is gotten for self. Charity given to ease the conscience is no charity. The indulgence of the Catholic faith is a fraud; when you ask for forgiveness for any reason other than to be forgiven, you are a fraud. Fear of retribution should not motivate higher praise. Morality is, in fact, a lie.
The boy-nothing knows this, and it watches the adult nothing who knows nothing walk away with false modesty and hubris. The adult-nothing was always a creature of duality.
Into the world it walks, this adult-nothing. It goes to the world that it has broken and mended and visits the children that it must leave behind. The first is a healer, a good man. He has spawned good creatures and they had attempted to do good works. Ever a creature of balance and duality, the adult-nothing was sad that the world was not better for their passing. Light cannot stand without shadow, and darkness is nothing without light.
Its second child was darkness. It found the ancient evils and woke them, working to become great and raise their masters along with themselves. But, if you are serving the will of another, you can be neither good nor evil. The illusion of free-will is the only thing that determines morality, which is a lie within the the truth. They were nothing, but they sought to be something along roads that could lead nowhere.
The nothing had spawned a third child in hope of righting the world, this one was good as well. Together, the two good children had found allies to end the second. He was a creature of violence, but done in the name of virtue. But if morality is a lie, there can be no virtue. If bad acts are done under good reason, they are still bad. Those who enforce the law by breaking it are frauds and charlatans.
They had all failed. None were what they should have been and all were ill-suited to a world that was forgetting their glory. It was time to find something subtle and dark and evil again to bring balance to the world that it sought to rise above. It would find enlightenment under any methods.
It spoke to humans. Humans who saw the seams of the world but lacked the understanding to see beyond it. It whispered of mortality and tormented them with visions of the world changing to something they could not predict. They grew afraid and scrambled for ways to stem the nature of mankind. They found ancient secrets and innovated them with dark desires. They broke the world by stealing the curse of another for themselves. Humans are fickle things and will never understand that their short, insignificant lives are a boon to them and a drive to better the whole of their species. In their haste they stole what wouldn't ever be given.
And in that time, they found the sleeping nothing who whispered to them of how they could be made whole in this new state. The nothing wished to be nothing and everything at once. It wished to leave behind what it could not have as a method of reaching enlightenment. It would leave behind what it loved, but claim it again. This was not altruism or abandonment. This was a child's parody of adult sacrifice. To leave behind his children but claim them again was a fool's errand that the boy nothing could have explained had the nothing ears to listen.
So it slumbered and was eaten and lived again in a new skin. It dictated and pulled and soon that which it wished to be left behind strengthened its new children. This was the force to bring both balance to the world and enlightenment to itself.
But there can be no higher act when it is driven by a base one. There can be no enlightenment where there are ulterior motives to it. There can be no shedding of karma when you incur more debt and boon. The only way to rise above these things are to leave them behind completely, not manipulate them with a new face.
So the boy nothing watched its most promising pupil fail. And it turned away in shame.