“The spiritual journey takes you from where you are to where you are supposed to be. Unfortunately you only notice you are not where you are supposed to be when you’re lost.”
From the Tambolian Book of Deeds
Chapter 1
The Other-there
Roger Sorenson sat by the little creek that ran past Applegarth almost every day for several months. None of the other Bodhicariya (Sanskrit-wisdom/action) seemed concerned by his behavior since the creek was quite pleasant and Roger was the kind of person who looked very much at home sitting by a creek. This creek, like all other things in Tambolia, was unusual. This creek did not have a name in any ordinary sense although afterwards the locals referred to it as Rogers Creek. Roger sat by the creek, as others have done, as a meditation to learn what the water was saying to him. Eventually, he learned quite a bit about what water actually is and what it means to sensitive people on mystical journeys. The water in this creek was the water of Acumen and was known as one of the Veins of the Universe to the Ancient ones, and the Gone-Ones, and to others who were able to sit there long enough. Roger looked into the water and listened to the sound the water makes until he learned the names of the Veins of the Universe and what they meant. For those of you who don’t sit by creeks, especially mystical creeks in a mystical land like Tambolia, one of the conditions of the Veins of the Universe is the other-there and when you learn about the other-there you can go there; there are lots of them.
One quiet afternoon, after visiting the creek, Roger wandered back to his apartment in Applegarth, the library complex in Tambolia, which he had shared with Galadreal and her daughter Capella for the last ten earth years or so. He sat down in his favorite chair that looked over the balcony onto the garden full of wonderful colors and lavish smells that mingled around the place like friendly shadows. Capella, who was almost twelve now and getting too big for this sort of thing, crawled into his lap and snuggled under his arm. If she were a cat, she would have been purring. “Where’s your mom?” he asked her softly.
“Moms are Moms wherever they are, sometimes near sometimes far,” she answered with a little singsong lispie voice you would have thought she would have outgrown by now.
“Where about do you suppose she is?” he asked patiently.
“Out and about, but within a shout,” she answered in her usual dreamy, far away voice, she had used since she began to talk. When new people and visitors came to Applegarth it always took them some time to get use to the rampant dreamy riming coming from such a little person. After a while, you learned to ask questions that got the shortest limerick, although the short ones were not necessarily easier to figure out.
Roger did not shout for Galadriel but just sat there nestled up with this little wonderfully strange person. Capella, who seemed to have captured the essence of Tambolia better than any of the other Bodhicariya, and not only in her way of speaking but by just being there; when she walked, she laughed and danced, contrasted to when she ate, she ate with an intensity of a Wagoner Opera, everything seemed so very important, fraught with meaning, as if she wasn’t sure that eating carrots was quite the proper thing to do in the cosmic order of things.
When Galadreal returned she came into the room carrying a large bundle of flowers, which she arranged in a vase and sat on the table near the balcony’s double doors. Her every move being watched by her little wonder still nestled in Rogers arm as if, at any moment a marvelous surprise might come zooming out of the vase or from under her sleeve. This was, of course, not unusual in Tambolia as it normally is on the earth but a surprise is still a surprise.
Capella whispered softly in Rogers’s ear. “She’s a Naughty girl with a colorful swirl, tricking Roger with a pearl, taken from that wisdom room, where secrets come with a certain gloom.”
“If there is a naughty girl in this room it is you.” Roger spoke to her in a friendly, happy way then said to Galadreal more concerned, “How did the meeting go?”
She came over and sat on the floor and leaned on his legs and cuddled Capella gently, and said, “Just as you thought, the others think you should search for the Map and most think it is on the Earth, somewhere.
“You know I don’t want to go, even if you and the other Bodhicariya seem to think it best, I don’t” He was pensive for a bit then added, “I don’t think I’m up to it.”
“What do you mean – not up to it?”
“Well, I suppose I should have gone to the meeting and argued my own case but once you think about it for a while I’m really just an ordinary fellow from some tiny island town of Friday Harbor. And by some bizarre circumstances just happened to stumble into Tambolia and into a relationship and family that only Lewis Carol could think up. I love you and not so little Capella more than I can say or adequately understand and I don’t want to leave you. Also, I can’t imagine being qualified for such a quest.”
“Tangled like a tight rope teetering in the middle, and the middle is a muddled like a puzzle in a puddle,” added the sleepy Capella.
“And I suppose you wouldn’t miss me?” asked Roger teasingly nudging Capella.
“Leaving make the return more pleasing.”
“Yes, we will miss you,” added Galadreal with a wisp of nostalgia and a bit of longing that long term caring always brings with separation. “But you have to go; for all of us.”
I can’t see why the others think I’m able to do this. I’m really quite a boring fellow,” continued Roger. “There are others who are more qualified and, well,” he stammered, “confident,”
“I think I can settle this with one question,” said Galadreal, “What does the water in the creek say?”“That is not fair,” protested Roger. “Beside how did you know?”
“It’s a woman’s thing,” added Galadreal with a slight inward smile only woman can do at these times.
“That is also not fair and not true either. Shiloh told you; didn’t he?”
“Only because I forced him to,” she admitted but still smiling slightly. “He was really rather reluctant to do so, beside he owed me a favor and I caught him off guard, he was playing with Capella. Now answer the question.”
“The answer to your question is an answer to a question I asked the water about whether or not there was a Tambolian Map?”
“What did it say?”
“Well - don’t think little mind!” he said absentmindedly as well as accusingly.
“Fine,” answered Galadreal. ‘But what did the water say?”
“Don’t think little mind!” repeated Roger oddly impatient. “That is the answer to the question I asked about whether or not there was a Tambolian Map.”
“What is that suppose to mean?” asked Galadreal more concerned.
“I haven’t the remotest idea and I have been working on it for weeks,” answered Roger getting up and wandering about the room, Capella repositioning herself in the chair like a disturbed cat awakened from a nap. “At first I thought it might mean that I was just a bit stupid but that didn’t seem completely right. Then I thought I wasn’t being imaginative enough, which might also be true. Then I thought that I was thinking too much. Then I just relaxed and decided I could figure it out by letting go of it but that didn’t work either. Why don’t you put your woman’s wilds to work on it and go to that reservoir of answered woman seem to have stashed away in some mystical place?”
“Hum,” meandered about her mind for a bit and slipped out somehow as she got up and also wandered about the room. After a while she concluded, “My minds as blank as the other side of time, if you want to know - but might that be a clue.”
“The other side of time is a clue to don’t think little mind?” asked Roger as confused as ever when he turned to Capella, “Alright little one, come clean. You can answer this one,” he accused her and stood akimbo looking at her.
Capella looked up with far away eyes that looked nothing even remotely normal and said, “Being older and studying bolder doesn’t help the wisdoms holder. Find your mind and don’t be blind?”
There was a pause of agonizing silence.
“Where is your mind? I suspect is the question,” translated Galadreal.
“In my head, my brain, I suspect,” answered Roger optimistically suspecting he wasn’t even close.
“Where is it when you’re hungry?” asked Galadreal.
“In my stomach; I suppose.”
What about when your thinking about the past or the future or worried about something or the most obvious one is when we’re are making love?”
“Hum, well I suspect that my mind might be somewhere else under those conditions,” then his thoughts jumped to a conclusion, “if my mind can be anywhere that is quite big.”
“That might be big but I think we know more about it than that.” concluded Galadreal, “What is anywhere? Or what is everywhere? Might be a better question.”
They both wondered around a bit while Capella actually did take a nap. “Space or space/time as Einstein described it is everywhere,” concluded Roger.
“I think time is the answer,” concluded Galadreal. “But the present might be better. Your mind is located in the present.”
“You mean the present moment, the now, in this room. I suspect it would be difficult imagining everything in this room. Somehow that doesn’t seem very big to me.”
“Maybe having a small mind is the same as having a small present, a small now, what if your mind wasn’t just in this room but your mind included all of Tambolia.”
“That would be big,” concluded Roger, “But I can’t do that.”
“Maybe you haven’t tried, I suspect,” added Galadriel, “And that must include the Earth eventually.”
“Oh please, let’s not go there. Trying to figure out that my mind is located in the present is strange enough without having to go that ball of absurd contradictions, drama, politics, and every other kind of silliness.”
“Then you have decided.” Galadreal finished contentedly.
“Decided?” came from the bewildered Roger as it has from countless men in the face of feminine logic. “What have I decided?”
‘That your mind is located in the present and to make it bigger you have to make your present bigger.”
‘If you say so, but how do I do that?” asked Roger slipping off the edge of bewilderment into something less secure.
“I don’t know how you are going to do it but I suspect Shiloh does and if not him Yamentaka and their in the Valley of Death doing Bardo practices.”
“You mean I have to go to the Valley of Death to figure out how to be present, not think little mind and find out if there is a Map of Tambolia?” asked Roger incredulously.
“Probably,” concluded Galadreal with a more subtle grin that Roger ignored, but the dreaming Capella did not.
Ψ
“Compared to Death all life is short”
From the Tambolian Book of Deeds
Chapter 2
The Deepest Darkness
The Deepest Darkness
The Valley of Death was surly foreboding enough; grim might explain it as well. The doorway to the Valley of Death is also an odd sort of door, different for everyone; a kind of doorway that reflects the expectations of the observer. It has been said that no one has actually seen the real doorway because it doesn’t actually exists, or more accurately, only resides in non-existence, which is only a word that represents some place we don’t understand but never the less is there – somehow?
“Hello,” mumbled Roger expecting he must be in the right place. Roger wasn’t actually interested in the doorway to the Valley of Death per say, deciding he would have to figure that out some other time. What he needed was to find Shiloh and sure enough he could just be seen at a distance, from just beyond the doorway sitting on a vast outcropping of rock overlooking the immense Valley of Death, having a cup of tea with Yamentaka. Roger had expected that they were waiting for him, which was true enough, when he managed to walk to the tip of the rock outcropping he noticed a third cup ready for tea and a small plate of sweets that were his favorites.
“Good day, everyone,” he said hoping to put a good face on things but feeling his courage or confidence was straining a bit but somehow excited by a new adventure. “I suspect Galadreal told you I would be coming?”
“Actually, it was the other way around,” said Shiloh with his straight forward way of speaking and steady gaze of a man whose wisdom far exceeds his young man’s appearance. “What do you think, Yamentaka? Should we throw him off the cliff and let him figure it out on the way down or give him tea and let him take the long way around?”
Yamentaka, laughing and added before Roger could even gasp, “Give him tea of course and the long way around should be much more fun!”
Roger suppressing a double gasp because he knew that Yamentaka’s idea of fun was very odd indeed. “The long way around, please, but you can leave out the fun; if you don’t mind.”
“Roger, you are such a bore,” smiled Yamentaka liking Roger as much as ever. “And how are Galadreal and that marvelous strange one, Capella?” He asked with his normal I-already-know-the-answer expression on his face.
Answering Yamentaka’s questions is always a challenge, as you might imagine, by having any enlightened immortal person wander into one’s life. “I suspect they are vaguely the same as they have always been,” he answered hoping he hadn’t gotten himself into too much trouble.
“Vaguely the same?” smiled Yamentaka. “I suspect we will have to do something about that. What do you think Shiloh?”
“I suspect they will start their journey to the Pillars of the Dawn sometime after Roger leaves for the Earth,” replied Shiloh premonitionally.
“Pillars of the Dawn?” asked Roger surprised. What is that all about?”
“It’s a woman’s thing,” answered Shiloh with a wry grin that closed further discussion on the topic - to the satisfaction of everyone present.
“Well then,” started Roger again, “Is there a Tambolian Map?” looking around hopefully.
Yamentaka spoke up a bit accusingly, “Tambolia doesn’t have a map of itself, doesn’t need a map of itself, couldn’t use a map of itself and couldn’t read or understand a map even if there was one,” he was also smiling hardly containing his mirth.
“I suspect that is true once you are here,” suggested Shiloh, “but from the outside, from an earth person’s point of view, a pictographic visualization, or a map, of their experience might be helpful.”
“Shiloh,” Roger implored, “then there is a Map?”
“You have been discussing the possibility of a Map for several years without coming to a conclusion. Why are you convinced there is a specific Tambolian Map?” asked Shiloh looking serene and attentive at the same time.
Roget had to take a deep breath before he began because this was an argument where he had to be convincing. “There have been twelve events for a Tambolian Map like argument throughout recorded history that we have been able to document. We know, of course, that there have been many more people than that who have discovered Tambolia but only a few have tried to document their experiences or tried to explain it to the others. This is with the implication that there have been many more efforts that have not reached the literature or have been lost or destroyed. All of the recorded events take on more or less the same pattern. Someone stumbles upon Tambolia or the idea of the existence Tambolia, writes a story about it or actually draws a map, then is killed or disappears along with the map and all or most of their followers.”
“Is that the limit of your research?” asked Yamentaka anxious to unravel the argument as soon as possible.
“Actually, no,” continued Roger. “There is a fairly popular but compelling myth that there is chamber Under the Sphinx, in Egypt, called by some the Room of Records where documents from ten thousand years, or more, ago still survives which includes a complete Map of the Duat. Also, the chamber has a terrible guardian residing there. We, of course, know that this room actually does exists and that room is here in Tambolia not far from Applegarth and the guardian is a Tambolian Hole, known as the Hole of Descending Dementia, and it is a astoundingly terrible and frightening hole; I don’t need to add. No one that we know of has actually entered that room or seen the Map either. We also don’t want that hole to be found and have corrupted the Egyptologists in charge to hinder exploration to their chagrin. I do need to add that there is the additional ridicule of the academic community, which is hard for them to bear.
The search for evidence of a Tambolian Map is a problem as well as a virtue for us because not everyone is stupid, or more precisely not content with the conditions that reside currently within the human condition. People suffer from their own illusion, which Einstein was quoted as saying - That it all might be illusion but it is quite convincing. Other thinkers have said similar things though they changed the word convincing to enduring or illusions to dukha or something.
Plato talked about the illusion in most of his parables but the early Egyptians and other people were also aware of this condition. Contemporarily, people think that ancient cultures and hunter gathers societies were dirty, stupid and violent. This was true in many cases and is still true today with absurd nation states and psychotic political despots. But not everyone is stupid now or even then and there have always been places of great learning and wisdom. The early Egyptians were the best at making monolithic structures that preserved their own enlighten insights.”
The Duat is clearly explained in the earliest Egyptian Hieroglyphs and Hieratic writings and is an extension of a pre existing oral tradition as well as literary tradition that goes back uncountable years. It is an argument that as above so below is essential for conceptual awareness and escape from the illusion (or Death in this case) and its inherent conditions. The netherworld is above in the celestial sphere centered on the three stars in the Orion’s belt with the Duat horizon extending to Sirius (Alpha Canis Major the brightest star in the sky). This is represented by their mythical deities of Isis and Osiris. The below counterpart are the three pyramids at Giza (representing the exact orientation of the three stars in the belt of Orion) that anchors the Duat to the earth and human awareness. The unspoken and secret application of this philosophy is that there is an additional third counterpart in the body of every person. We haven’t figured this out in western academics but the yoga’s from the east and many native cultures including the Hopis from Arizona and the Yaquis from the northern Mexico desert and many others have organized this journey in recognizable and similar ways. How long we have had these traditions is currently being argued and investigated but tens of thousands of years is not impossible and quite likely. This argument is predicated upon the similarities in their myths, sand paintings and general values. The opinion of these cultures is that contemporary western civilization, since Christianity, is way behind in their philosophical and spiritual awareness. This doesn’t mean that there weren’t enlighten western people who tried to change conditions but it did mean that the stupid people were in charge and still are! One of our subsequent questions was – is it possible that humanity has spiraled hopelessly into a vast pit of absurd delusions and deceptions about itself since the advent of the patriarchal dominance and their psychotic, sex obsessed, God? Not a difficult question to answer.
A slightly better experience have been the Yogi’s that have existed throughout Asia and have a symbiotic relationship with both Hinduism and Buddhism as well as aspects of which have been reluctantly accepted by every culture from Egypt to Japan throughout recorded history and we know, because of our library, here at Applegarth, says that the yogi’s sadues, and mystics are much older than any existing tradition or current culture.
The Yogi’s personal Duat is described by the psychic channel of the seven charkhas. Which are investigated separately and have their own virtues and problems that are not unlike the Egyptian chronicled of the Book of the Dead, the Book of Gates, the Book of Two Ways, and the Book of What is in the Duat as well as other books that we also have here at the Library.
Also, men seem to be the principal cartographers. There doesn’t seem to be a single woman who felt compelled to create a map or an argument of a map, although there were numerous woman explorers, especially at the beginning, who have been here. It seems a bit odd that those women who knew about these sorts of places don’t seem obliged to write about it. Although, we have convincing evidence that woman invented writing, grammar, syntax and literary dialog.”
Yamentaka added, “I concur with you on the invention of writing. You don’t have to think about it much to realize that men, principally as hunter gatherers, ever had a reason to organize their information into grammar but maps are and have been important to men.”
“A map is a man thing. Not because women can understand maps but they get from where they are to where they want to be in a different way the men do,” postulated Shiloh. “I suspect this because women are almost never interested in what men are actually doing or where they are doing it. Also, even if men and woman are standing right next to one another, they are almost never in the same place, going in the same direction or have the same reason for being there. Women are very odd as far as men are concerned. Men need maps; women just need to get there.”
“Maybe Roger should give us an example of a Tambolian Map Story he has discovered?” asked Yamentaka kindly with the gravest expression on his face that fooled no one and alarmed Roger down to his toes.
“Sure, why not! There is a typical story, of which I have brought a translation into English from the ancient Greek, that is quite well known and only slightly out of context and that is Plato’s The Parable of the Cave,” answered Roger hopefully, bring out and reading a translation. “In this dialog Socrates is explaining the human condition which goes something like this;
The Parable of the Cave
Socrates: “I want you to go on to picture the confusion of our human conditions somewhat as follows. Imagine an underground chamber, like a cave with an entrance open to the daylight and running a long way underground. In this chamber are people who have been prisoners there since they were children, their legs and necks being so fastened that they can only look straight ahead of them and cannot turn their heads. Behind them and above them a fire is burning, and between the fire and the prisoners runs a road, in front of which a wall has been built.
Glucon: “I see.”
“Imagine further that there are people carrying all sorts of gear along behind the wall, including figures of people and animals made of wood and stone and other materials, and that some of these people, as is natural, are talking and some not.”
Glucon:“An odd picture and an odd sort of prisoner.”
“They are drawn from experience,” Socrates replied. “For, tell me, do you think our prisoners could see anything of themselves or their fellows except the shadows thrown by the fire on the wall of the cave opposite them?”
“How could they see anything else if they were prevented from moving their heads all their lives?”
“And would they see anything more of the objects carried along the road?”
“Of course not.”
“Then if they were able to talk to each other, would they not assume that the shadows they saw were real things?”
“Inevitably.”
“And if the wall of their prison opposite them reflected sound, don’t you think that they would suppose, whenever one of the passers-by on the road spoke, that the voice belonged to the shadow passing before them?”
"They would be bound to think so.”
“And so they would believe that the shadows of the objects we mentioned were in all respects real.”
“Yes, inevitably.”
“Then think what would naturally happen to them if they were released from their bonds and cured of their delusions. Suppose one of them broke their fetters, and suddenly compelled to stand up and turn his head and look and walk towards the fire; all these actions would be painful and he would be too dazzled to see properly the objects of which he used to see the shadows. So if he was told that what he used to see was mere illusion and that he was now nearer reality and seeing more correctly, because he was turned towards objects that were more real, and if on top of that he were compelled to say what each of the passing objects was when it was pointed out to him, don’t you think he would be at a loss, and think that what he used to see was more real than the objects now being pointed out to him?”
“Much more real.”
“And if he were made to look directly at the light of the fire, it would hurt his eyes and he would turn back and take refuge in the things which he could see, which he would think really far clearer than the things being shown him.”
“Yes.”
“And if he were forcibly dragged up the steep and rocky ascent and not let go till he had been dragged out into the sunlight, the process would be a painful one, to which he would much object, and when he emerged into the light his eyes would be so overwhelmed by the brightness of it that he wouldn’t be able to see a single one of the things he was now told were real.”
“Certainly not at first,” he agreed.
“Because he would need to grow accustomed to the light before he could see things in the world outside the cave. First he would find it easiest to look at shadows, next at the reflections of men and other objects in water, and later on at the objects themselves. After that he would find it easier to observe the heavenly bodies and the sky at night than by day, and to look at the light of the moon and stars, rather than at the sun and its light.”
“Because he would need to grow accustomed to the light before he could see things in the world outside the cave.
“Of course.”
“The thing he would be able to do last would be to look directly at the sun, and observe its nature without using reflections in water or any other medium, but just as it is.”
“That must come last.”
“Later on he would come to the conclusion that it is the sun that produces the changing seasons and years and controls everything in the visible world, and is in a sense responsible for everything that he and his fellow-prisoners used to see.”
“That is the conclusion which he would obviously reach.”
“Now imagine returning to the cave and sitting down in his former seat. Would he not be confused and blinded by the dark? Would he not be disorientated and babbling about his experiences?”
“I believe that to be so.”
“Would not the other prisoners not be confused by his disorientation and explanation and think that he had lost his mind and was now crazed?”
“I believe that would be possible.”
“Wouldn’t the prisoners of that condition dispute his experiences with their own arguments and criticize him because he had no proof?”
“He would have no proof,”
“Would it be possible that the prisoners of the cave might kill him for disturbing the youth and troubling the gullible of the society?”
“I have known that to be so.”
Socrates: “Might it be dangerous to see the truth?”
Glucon: “In this instance very dangerous.”
“A very nice story and in general terms describes a journey of sorts but there are numerous gaps in the details,” offered Yamentaka. “Beside we all know that Socrates spent many years here and knew exactly what he was talking about. Rather an odd sort of fellow; had a challenging problem with flatulence as I remember.”
“I’m not sure I needed to know that,” said Roger drolly. “We needed to put this dialog into the context of the time as we had to do with all of the material. The Greeks at the time had a sophisticated mystical realm not unlike the actual Tambolia. What Socrates tried to establish was that Tambolia, which might be represented as the fire in the cave and the inner garden as the trip to the sun, was specifically real yet different in cultural terms and accessible to the ordinary person. He was ultimately killed by his society and it seems inevitable that if any person able to break their bonds face the possibility of death if they try to enlighten the general public.”
“A difficult problem,” added Shiloh. “I don’t think the human condition has changed all that much since the early Greek period.”
“Actually,” added Roger, “That condition was true only in the west or the former Roman empire. The Asian cultures were much more tolerant about such things to the point that any story was believed, eulogized, adopted into doctrine and told and modified endlessly until there was an ocean of beliefs all of which have helpful clues along with endless nonsense. This of course made any reliable argument suspect and placed in the categories of belief, myth and superstition by the academia and hopelessly bewildering to the lay person. Wading through all this documentation of social and cultural fantasies has takes quite some time but has established some conditions – if you talk about Tambolia, or the human condition, or enlightenment you will be, one or all of the following; completely ignored, misunderstood or killed.”
“Another point you seem to have overlooked,” added Yamentaka rather kindly. “You seem to be under the delusion that Tambolia is exclusively human in nature. As a species myopic opinion Tambolia reflects the range and limitations of the human condition as well as its enlightenment and absurdity. What you are able to see, utilize and understand is limited by your senses which are three dimensional and time dependent, severe limitations, I might add. Though, Tambolia offers an extraordinary reflection of that human condition few can appreciate.”
“Thank you, Yamentaka,” said Roger with enthusiasm. “That is exactly my next point and the exact reason why people probably have created a pictograph in the form of a map to help them appreciate the extent and magnitude of the human condition. Tambolia, without the veils as Galadreal has pointed out, is a mirror of sorts or possibly a room with all the lights turned on, or something.”
“My dear boy you are keeping up,” laughed Yamentaka, “I suppose you have proof of this argument?”
“Possibly, though more of an informed conjecture; the Tibetans managed to figure it out without killing themselves; though we expect others.”
“The Tibetans?” asked Yamentaka incredulously. “Those Yak herding nomads with their appalling tea?”
“The same.”
“What makes you think that?” asked Shiloh oddly surprised.
“It’s their mandalas and sand paintings as well as their linage visualizations. They are old, probably Bompo or even Arian or Anatolian, it is rather difficult to decide. These ideas are older than the Buddhism they are supposed to reflect and possibly older than the Hindu Vedas and other written oral traditions. I suspect they may reflect an established oral tradition that goes back at least twelve thousand years and possibly as much as twenty thousand years. These pictographs styles have spread all over the world. It is convenient to describe these pictographs or visualization traditions that manifest them in different parts of the world as coincidence but it is just as possible that humans have been smart for quite some time although, in different ways and not everyone. Also, not all the information is currently in written records here in our library. I suspect that you, Yamentaka, are keeping older oral records to yourself - come clean you devious dog!” said Roger completely surprised by his candor.
“Devious dog am I,” howled Yamentaka almost folding in two with laughter. “You are a funny boy and defiantly keeping up.” He managed to stammer after a while. “True, of course, humans have been coming here for twenty thousand years or so and were clever in different ways at different times. Other living things from the Earth have also found their way into Tambolia for many millions of years before that. Some dinosaurs were quite intuitive and cephalopods are even smarter than you in some ways. There are The Creation Myths of the Cephalopods that occur about every three hundred earth years which last exactly 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4.1 seconds - a sidereal day.
These Creation Myths have been continuous for over ninety million years. The entire Galactic telepathic community waits anxiously for this event. Humans know nothing of this. The Creation Myths of the Cephalopods might be translated as a Bach cantatas and fugue using texture in color. Also, crows, otters and dolphins come in and out of Tambolia as if there were no doorways at all. But you take the prize. Not many folks can poke me in the eye, so to speak, and get a laugh!”
“And the early pictographs?” asked Roger hopefully.
“The first human travelers came with what you are calling pictographs, rather sophisticated I might add, and they did not make them here but followed them to get here.”
‘Really?”
“True,” I remember them well, they were all woman and some of them had babies here. Some of those babies became Gone-ones and are still here – somewhere?”
“Really?” managed Roger completely bewildered that his conclusion were correct and yet much different than he expected.
“They stay by the Pillars of the Dawn,” added Shiloh insightfully.
“I suspect you are right in this,” concluded Yamentaka. “Never been there myself; doggy sort of place from what I can tell.”
“I thought you were the manager of Tambolia or something?” asked Roger surprised.
“Good grief, no,” answered Yamentaka with a gasped and waving his hands defensibly. “What an absolutely impossible idea. We defiantly have to through him off the cliff for that idea or possibly just dangle him over the edge for a month or two.”
“Then what are you?” asked Roger defensibly.
“Not an easy question to answer but a Gate Guard will do for now.”
“And you haven’t been to the Pillars?” asked Shiloh this time.
“They aren’t actually in Tambolia.”
“Oh!” mumbled from both Shiloh and Roger.
“But you can see them from here.”
“Is the Map here then?” wondered Roger still not giving up.
“I think we have decided that a Map is not here in Tambolia. Tambolia is a Map itself. The Pillars of the Dawn are a woman’s thing and probably no Map, it’s the Earth and men that actually needs a Map and if there is one it will probably be there; possibly with the Tibetans,” summarized Shiloh. “I suspect you had better go there.”
“I had better go back and tell Galadreal…What the…?” Roger manager to garble when Yamentaka grabbed him and chucked him over the cliff into the Valley of Death.
“I thought he was going to go the long way around?” asked Shiloh oddly serene.
“That is the long way around,” answered Yamentaka. “And he might solve the - don’t think little mind, problem which he hadn’t mentioned - naughty boy.”
Ψ
“Nothing isn’t anything like best isn’t better.”
From the Tambolian Book of Deeds
Chapter 3
Somewhere is Different
Don and Doris Porter might have expected to have reacted differently to something that sounded like a meteor crashing through their house but they had been to Tambolia many times and odd sorts of things happening was as normal as sunrises. They’re not so little girl Cap came running out of her room quite excited at the possibility of visitors from Tambolia that she hadn’t turn off the record player blaring out a new 1962 Beatles record Love me do.
“Who is it?” she shouted over the eco of the still crashing Roger who had bounced into the air off the couch and landed on the coffee table, groaning.
“Oh, it Roger,” she squealed with delight running over to him and helping him to his feet just as Don and Doris arrived from the kitchen.
“Just in time for dinner, you naughty boy, I might have expected it. It looks like Galadreal has been starving you again. Come along and stop looking so glum,” chatted Doris wiping her hands on her ever-present towel and turning toward the kitchen.
Roger just stood there disorientated, confused, disheveled and crumpled. “Hello Cap,” he managed to stammer and finally giving her a hug. “You’re growing so fast and quite a good looking young lady, I see.”
“She is certainly a looker,” added Don laughing as proud and concerned father do. “I’m not so sure about the lady part (Note; being conceived in Tambolia can have some odd consequences). She’s Captain of the Karate Club, the Vice President of the National Honor Society, a Supper-Mensa and a terror to every boy that looks in her direction. She has already past her college entrance exams and SAT’s and been accepted to Stanford or any other school she might want to attend.”
“But they won’t let me attend classes until I’m twelve; I’ll figure out something, but I’m interested in boys now although they are quite stupid,” added Cap with a knowing grin, “But men are so much different; like you, you’re so cute,” giving him a much different hug and a very personal kiss on the lips.
Don turned for the kitchen muttering, “Puberty is a cavern of grief on fatherhood. Come along, both of you, carbohydrates are wonderful for managing stress, especially for fathers.” Roger noticed that Don had put on some weight recently and probably justifiably.
Walking toward the kitchen still hugging Cap, “You’re going to have to turn down the heat or you’re going to melt something.” Conscience probably, thought Roger wonderfully warmed by the boundless passions of young femininity.
“If I don’t practice on you or somebody how am I supposed to figure out this relationship business,” she smiled with an impish grin.
“Your parents are possibly the best example of loving kindness there is,” added Roger thoughtfully.
“Probably,” mumbled Cap, “but I want to figure out the other part first. And they’re not talking.”
“Hum!” sighed Roger chagrined walking into a brightly colored kitchen full of wonderful cooking smells and warmth. “Your new house is very nice.” He admired appreciably.
“It’s all Doris, she has become a celebrity, of sorts, in the archiving of ancient oddities department and of course Cap has been fascinating researchers for a half a dozen years and has been included in articles in the Scientific American as well as Science and Psychology Today. Quite a problem for them trying to figure out how she can do the things she does. The government is paying her a rather large stipend to encourage her to stay out of trouble. She likes trouble like bees like flowers,” stammered Don mechanically for the hundredth or possibly thousandth time.
“Trouble?” leaked out of Roger looking at Cap and remembering the recent passionate kiss.
“Well,” smiled Cap looking up with a coy grin, “I keep pointing out the hypocrisies, lies and fear mongering the establishment, AND PARENTS, love to popularize, to their opposition, critics and rivals who seem delighted to use my material with alacrity,” she then smiled conspiratorially.
“Hum, a problem. She has been keeping you on your toes I see.”
“More like being thrown onto a hurricane more accurately,” said the resigned Don.
“Wonderful beyond wondering,” commented Doris smiling at Cap with complete confidence and encouragement that only real experience with Tambolia and Tambolian pranks can give a person. (The girls actually went to Tambolia to do Tambolian pranks for vacations; without Don, of course).
“I occasionally wonder what happened to the original Doris that I married before we went to Tambolia,”
“Stop you’re grousing. You would be bored to tears without us, wouldn’t you dear?” Doris chided with amusement stirring a savory Portobello mushroom sauce.
“Hum, boredom?” mumbled Don with more than a hint of nostalgia.
Roger, having lived in Tambolia for so long, was use to talking to small brilliant people who were both copiously well informed and totally inexperienced at the same time. This condition was quite a problem for most educators who were not that way themselves. Traditional education and special schools couldn’t cope and even the Universities had some problems with these gifted children. So, Cap was Applegarth schooled and privately tutored by mystics, yogis and other odd folks. All this to the chagrin of her contemporaries and close relatives who thought that Don and Doris Porter were to strange to talk to, which was true enough, and stayed away refusing to invite them to any family gatherings, which didn’t bother them very much and was not much of a surprise either.
“Well,” said Roger still nestled around Cap who didn’t want to let go, “What are you working on now?”
“A Fulbright Grant,” responded Cap nonchalantly.
“And what might that be,” expecting he had opened a gate to an avalanche of enthusiasm, which was true.
Cap perked up like she was just invited to go to the moon (which actually happened fifteen years later). “Since I have access to the library at Applegarth and countless historical documents no one else has it would be unfair to use the material to take advantage of my less informed academics. So that’s exactly what I’m going to do. But I have to be sharp or someone might catch on. Those folks at Stanford are quite clever.”
“I thought you could not attend classes, yet?”
“She goes to public symposiums and seminars and for traditional education she auditing some courses there by tape recording but has to go there for tests, but they don’t count yet,” added Don.
“How are you doing on the test?”
“B’s, mostly, but I have to read the material or I don’t do so well. Also, I look older than I am,” smiled Cap conspiratorially, “mostly subtle makeup and strategic toilet paper; were just actors, as Shakespeare pointed out.”
“Yea - ten years old and acting eighteen, as they say,” contributed Don getting no support from anyone. “I think her childhood fell on a weekend I was working.”
“And how have you decided to be clever on the Fulbright grant?” an easily encouraging response from Roger.
“I’m going to investigate how young people make decisions or how they management outcome, I’m not sure which. No one has a clue about how that might be done. It was figured out by the huge and sophisticated matriarchal culture of western India, discovered in the excavation of the two cities, known as Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, near Pakistan. They are currently reported to be at least four thousand years old but we know they are more than fourteen thousand years old, forgotten and ignored, of course.”
“Of course,” added Roger unnecessarily. “And you are going to plagiarize the material as your own?”
“Well – I might, but that wouldn’t be much fun. I thought I would hide some of these symbol-strings of paleography in some obscure place and have a native find them and buy them off the black market. Then translate them using the matrix coding they are written in, and that I have already figured out – fun eh! Actually, since I already have them, I’m might just put them on the black market myself.”
“So, you’re steeling ancient codices from the Applegarth Library?”
“Something like that,” she ended musingly.
“Why didn’t you just make copies?” asked Roger somewhat concerned himself.
“Then they wouldn’t carbon date as ancient documents and would be disputed,” she smiled back at him and moving him a bit closer to the stupid boy category.
“But you are leaving copies in the Library?” asked Don wondering if he might be libel for thefts or extinction or something. She just looked at him in what had become a life long suffering expression of six years or so.
“We already have a network of ancient document restoration that consists of over thirty scholars from all over the world,” added Doris.
“The government and private funders are paying for it with grants and scholarships; a fair amount of money, surprisingly,” added Don trying unsuccessfully to stay in the conversation.
“Really,” answered Roger, “anything from Tibet?”
During this time both Don and Doris, with the casual help from Cap, who had gotten up to help, managed to set the table for another marvelous meal and sat down; the conversation hardly missing a beat.
“Well, actually, since the Chinese took over Tibet twelve years ago there has been an avalanche of documents, religious objects and Tankas - Tibetan art, and other things of that sort, available in Katmandu, Nepal as well as in Gangtok, Sikkim and Darjeeling, India. We expect the Russians are getting a fair share of materials but we can’t get there at this time. We have a man buying everything he can get, a good fellow, but has a somewhat suspicious reliability.
“Doris is good at rooting around mysterious places and finding dusty doodads and musty manuscripts mostly with the help of Cap and the Applegarth people,” said Don giving her a nod and being quite proud of her and his spectacular daughter. “We also have retail stores in Berkeley, California, and Cambridge, Massachusetts, near MIT, selling the duplicates and contemporary Asian artifacts.”
“Busy, busy, busy, by the way, where is Peter?” asked Roger looking around as if he might be hiding in the closet or something. “I still can’t believe you had the nerve to name your second child Peter P. Porter.”
“You, as his god father, know the P is for Paul; he has a choice,” said Doris defensibly, completely missing the point. “He’s visiting some relatives in St. Louis, also his choice. He is a very good boy, quite normal in every way but a bit overwhelmed by his strange family; seems to feel more at home with his aunt and uncle on the farm. Plays in the Little League and likes to work with his hands, sweat a lot and see that something was done during the day, experiential learner, they say and quite good at it.
“By the way why the dramatic entrance?” asked Cap. “You normally use the Dream Maker Tambolian hole and knock on the door rather than blowing the living room to bits though it still looks the same.”
“Yes, well,” mumbled Roger, “It was Yamentaka and his idea of fun. He tossed me off the cliff into the Valley of Death suspecting that the long way around was also in that direction,” stumbling to a pregnant stop.
“Well,” demanded both Doris and Cap in harmony, “what happened?”
“Can’t say that I would recommend that path to any place, but since I had no choice I resorted to the age old adage; first have fun, if that doesn’t work at least learn something.”
“There is a variation to that adage,” interrupted Cap gleefully, “be a good example and, if that doesn’t work, be a good - bad example,” smiling.
“Thank you for that,” endured Roger, “I went into a Samadhi meditation traditionally described as unconditioned!”
“Unconditioned,” was both said and unsaid by everyone with expressions of unconditioned credulity.
“The Buddhist Prajna Parrametta Sutra (The Heart Sutra) says it rather clearly; no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tong, no body, no mind, no old age and death and no extinction of them…etc, it goes on for quite a while.”
“I thought Samadhi meditations were difficult to do and the pinnacle of Buddhist practices, right beside Enlightenment and Peri-Nirvana?” asked Don thoughtfully.
“I suspect that being thrown off a cliff into the Valley of Death by an immortal Gate Guard to Death with the idea that it was fun might have been an incentive - Hum, let me think,” he mumbled and was quiet for a while. “What I have done for practices in the last ten years or so was to do traditional meditations of counting my breath, slow walking and visualizing conditions all designed to calm my busy mind. What happened when Yamentaka tossed me off the cliff was that my mind went into a frenzy but my emotions actually exploded blowing my mind completely away. What was left was boundlessly unconditioned. It seems true now that excluding your emotions is an astounding limitation in traditional practices; or possibly a test to appreciate what emotions can do or how they can help with enlightenment. Beside why would you think that Samadhi practices would be more difficult than being stupid or culturally normal or something? I have never understood why people enjoy making something simple into something difficult or impossible to do? The Buddha Gautama discouraged that practice. Oddly, discovering Samadhi is much easier than coming out of Samadhi; that is the hard part. As been pointed out numerous times - getting in is easy; getting back is the difficult part.”
“And what was the difficult part?” Cap asked excitedly.
“Being Enlightened or being around Enlighten people is easy; it is the stupid people or possibly people who are suffering for no reason at all, is the difficult part.”
“So, the loud crashing sound was you smacking into stupidity?
“I suspect it was not here in this house, specifically, but the Earth in general,” Roger concluded lamely appeasing Caps accusatory glance.
“Well, aren’t we, Shiloh, you and the other Bodhicariya all trying to do something about that?” asked Don being almost ignored again.
“Yes, dear,” chortled Doris serving up mushroom with zinfandel wine sauce with fettuccini noodles. “…and you decided to stop here on your way to find the Tambolian Map. We were at the meeting, using remote viewing, by the way,”
“I suspect it was Yamentaka’s idea since I didn’t actually have a plan when I was ruddily dismissed from the tea we were having, although, I do have an odd feeling that the Samadhi practices are going to be important,” recalling the creek’s admonition to, not think little mind.
“I think the Tibetans have some Tankas that depict the Samadhi practices but their Tantric,” said Doris with Cap perking up noticeably.
“Hum, I’m not sure I want to go that way, besides I would need a teacher and what might Galadreal say about that?”
“Well, according to our Tibetan buyer, who argues that there are three kinds of tantric practice Tanka’s; Hindu, Buddhist and Yoga Tantra, but they all look the same to him although the Lama assure him that they are all quite different and have nothing to do with one another historically, meditationally or any other way.”
“What do you think?” Roger asked Doris.
“They all look the same to me but I haven’t done the practices either. They all portray a man and a woman sitting in a sexual yoga posture doing something,” continued Doris.
“Probably having sex,” added Cap unable to control herself glued to the conversation.
“And what would you know about it?” asked the very concerned Don.
“Nothing. Obviously,” pouted Cap.
“Good, and make sure it stays that way,” added Don with finality with Doris looking amused.
“I suspect it is more complicated than that,” concluded Roger, “as we have found in almost all of our investigations of pictographic or mandala-like visualizations that have been passed down through the ages. Once you figure out the symbolism they are normally quite obvious, full of important detail and not actually meant to be secret, or hidden, at all.”
“I suspect that you had better be off the meet our buyer in Katmandu. No! You can’t go,” said Don before Cap could open her mouth.
We’ll thing of something; the girls smiled mind to mind, which Don thankfully missed completely.
Ψ
There is more but it would be easier if you emailed me and I will send it to you in an attachment.
