Outremer III

by D. N. Carter

  Paul looked out across the water thinking hard upon Kratos’s words. He had so many questions he wished to ask but knew his time was limited. Percival coughed lightly behind him as he moved about, Ishmael looking out behind them constantly.

  “Will Percival be gone with you for long?” Paul finally asked with sadness in his voice.

  Kratos looked around slowly at Percival then back to Paul.

  “Long enough to ease the pain within him…then you will see him again.”

  “I shall miss him for he has become more of a brother than a friend to me.”

  “Yes he has. You have experienced much together but now there are other things he must do…for himself for he is one of the very few who are totally selfless in character and heart. It has been explained to him that the tragedy of life is not death, but what we let die inside us while we live. You too should remember that,” Kratos said calmly but the words cut through Paul like a warning almost. “And you…you question what path you must follow,” Kratos said and looked down at Paul intently. “You will find a way to continue the codes within a new order….a brotherhood of builders… masons and architects with men from all walks of life of good character. You will take good men and you will make them even better. But never turn away anyone because of their past, especially if they are genuinely repentant for prior actions that were wrong. The only prerequisite you need adhere too is that anyone wishing to become part of any such group at least has the belief in a higher purpose…call him God if you must.”

  “I had discussed this already with my father,” Paul replied.

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  “I know you have…you will find men to form this new Order, and in time women for they will all display selfless characteristics…much like Percival. Your father already busies himself seeking out such people already. That is how much faith he has in you starting this task. But I caution you… under no circumstances let any such Order be turned into a religion of its own standing or be taken over by fanatics and narrow minded limited fools. Most other men are honest purely out of fear of punishment by the laws of their land…they are religious in expectation of being rewarded, or in dread of the Devil in the next world, which totally negates the right of free will. The new Order will be made from people who would be just and honourable even if there were no laws, human or divine, except those written in his heart by the finger of his Creator. In every country, under every system of law and religion, they are the same. They kneel before the Universal Throne of God in gratitude for the blessings they have received and in humble solicitation for their future protection. They venerate the good men of all religions. They disturb not the religion of others. They restrain their passions, because they cannot be indulged without injuring their neighbour or themselves. They give no offence, because they do not choose to be offended. They contract no debts which they are certain they cannot discharge, because they are honest upon principle. By those principles you will know them,” Kratos explained.

  “I shall remember that and write it down…and you will all be missed when you leave on the morrow’s tide,” Paul sighed.

  “I shall miss you all too. But you and I have walked many a shore together, and we shall walk more yet. But for now I must take Percival to Dwarka in India. There is much there he can learn that will be of benefit when he returns…for, fear not, he shall,” Kratos explained and smiled.

  “I hear so much about India…but where and what is Dwarka?”

  “Dwarka ’tis a city on the northwestern coast of India…and Bhet Dwarka several miles further away was once a great ancient port and city. All of what was once a mighty and magnificent city now lies beneath the waves. ’Twas truly a beautiful place…but there are still temples and people we can all learn much from…just as the physical Jesus once did when he visited the area,” Kratos explained and looked briefly at Paul. “Dvaraka as it was also named boasted 900,000 royal palaces, all constructed with crystal and silver and decorated with huge emeralds. Inside these palaces, the furnishings were bedecked with gold and jewels. Supporting the main palace were coral pillars decoratively inlaid with vaidurya gems. Sapphires bedecked the walls, and the floors glowed with a perpetual brilliance. In that palace Tvashta, a Hindu god of blacksmiths, had arranged canopies with hanging strands of pearls. There were also seats and beds fashioned of ivory and precious jewels. In attendance were many well-dressed maid-servants bearing lockets on their necks, and also armour clad guards with turbans, fine uniforms and jewelled earrings. The glow of numerous jewel-studded lamps dispelled all darkness in the palace and on the ornate ridges of the roof danced loudly crying peacocks, who saw the fragrant aguru incense escaping through the holes of the latticed windows and mistook it for a cloud.”

  “It sounds wondrous to behold.”

  “Oh it was indeed.” Kratos seemed to reminisce before sensing that Paul was staring at him. “Let me explain briefly before we return for the evening that ancient Vedic astronomical texts of the Vedic tradition assert the current epoch of Kali-yuga began in 3102 BC and that Hindu Lord Krishna’s disappearance and the subsequent submergence of Dvaraka occurred shortly before this date.”

  “Sorry, but what does Kali Yuga mean? For I have not heard this before,” Paul asked.

  “’Tis part of the ancient Indian Yuga Cycle doctrine which tells us that we are now living in the Kali Yuga, meaning the age of darkness, when moral virtue and mental capabilities reach their lowest point in the cycle. The Indian epic the Mahabharata describes the Kali Yuga as the period when the ‘World Soul’ is black in hue when only one quarter of virtue remains, which slowly dwindles to zero at the end of the Kali Yuga. Then men will turn to wickedness. Disease, lethargy, anger, natural calamities, anguish and fear of scarcity will take over. Penance, sacrifices and religious observances will all fall into disuse just as all creatures degenerate. Change passes over all things, without exception.”

  “Age of Darkness I can already see and believe…but how long will it last?” Paul remarked.

  “Until the new Age of Aquarius as your calendars follow time. But understand that each age according to properly translated Sanskrit texts last twelve thousand years. The Kali Yuga period was preceded by three other Yugas…the Satya or Krita Yuga, which you would refer to as the Golden Age…the Treta Yuga, or Silver Age, and the Dwapara Yuga, or Bronze Age. In the Mahabharata, the Krita Yuga was named because there was but one religion, and all men were saintly therefore they were not required to perform religious ceremonies…Men neither bought nor sold and there were no poor and no rich. There was no need to labour, because all that men required was obtained by the power of will…The Krita Yuga was without disease and there was no lessening with the years. There was no hatred, or vanity, or evil thought whatsoever…no sorrow, no fear. All mankind could attain to supreme blessedness. The universal soul was white and the identification of self with the universal soul was the whole religion of the Perfect Age. In the Treta Yuga period, sacrifices began, and the World Soul became red. Virtue lessened and mankind sought truth and started to perform religious ceremonies. They obtained what they desired by giving and by doing. In the Dwapara Yuga the aspect of the World Soul was yellow. Religion lessened even more. The Veda was divided into four parts, and although some had knowledge of the four Vedas, others knew but three or one. Mind lessened, truth declined, and there came desire and diseases and calamities; because of these men had to undergo penances. It was a decadent age by reason of the prevalence of sin. And now we are living in the dark times of the Kali Yuga, when goodness and virtue have all but disappeared from the world. Is it therefore just a coincidence that certain texts, such as the Mahabharata and the Laws of Manu, still retain the original value of the Yuga Cycle as twelve thousand years? Many other ancient cultures such as the Chaldeans, Zoroastrians and Greeks also believed in a twelve thousand year Cycle of the Ages.”

  “And it was at the start of this age that Dwarka vanished beneath the waves?” Paul asked as he looked out across the gent
le waves of the Nile, the stars reflecting upon it.

  “Yes. The sacred Mahabharata talks about the sea suddenly engulfing the city after Lord Krishna’s disappearance and Arjuna taking Krishna’s grandsons and the Yadava wives to Hastinapura. Arjuna gives a detailed account in the Mahabharat of seeing the beautiful buildings becoming submerged one by one. In a matter of a few moments it was all over. The sea had now become as placid as a lake. There was no trace of the city. Dvaraka was just a name, just a memory…On the same day that Krishna departed from the earth the powerful dark-bodied Kali Age descended. The oceans rose and submerged the whole of Dvaraka. Three texts, the Harivamsa, the Matsya Purana and the Bhagavat Gita, all state that it took seven days to vacate Dvaraka before it was submerged by the sea. According to the Shrimad Bhagavatam, 11th Canto, Lord Krishna sent a message to the people of Dvaraka. He told them that once he leaves this world, there would be no one on this earth to save Dvaraka. The sea would finish Dvaraka and hence he asks the fifty-six crore Yaduvamsis to leave Dvaraka. Dwarka is considered as one of the four Dhamas, sacred place for pilgrimage of the Hindu religion. According to ancient Sanskrit literature, Krishna founded the holy city of Dwarka himself. It was one of the most busy port centres during the past on the west coast of India. Yet an even older site was in what is now called the Gulf of Cambay…which goes back even further to at least nine thousand years. The story of Krishna as told in the sacred scripture Srimad Bhagavatam describes the scenario that led to the construction of Dwarka. Once, when Krishna was ruling the city of Mathura, the kingdom was repeatedly attacked by Jarasandha, the tyrant King of Magadha (the present day Bihar, India), around seventeen times. The Monarch lost to Krishna in all seventeen battles, and he attacked Mathura the eighteenth time. At this stage, Krishna decided to build a separate city on an island on the western coast of India, to save his citizens, his Yadava clan, from the trouble of repeated wars. The city was built by the divine architect Vishwakarma himself. The city soon grew in fame and became the invincible pivot of Lord Krishna’s mission, housing thousands, in around nine hundred palaces. The city was well fortified and could be reached only by ship. Dwarka soon became a talking point everywhere, and commanded awe and wonder all over the world. Ancient Hindu texts state that Dwarka was attacked with a flying machine, known as a Vimana. This shows they fought with sophisticated technology and advanced weapons, potentially even with a craft attacking from the heavens…where the craft commenced an attack on the city with the use of energy weapons, which to the on-lookers resembled a discharge of lightning, and it was so devastating that after the attack most of the city lay in ruins. Lord Krishna counterattacked and fired his weapons on the ship. They looked like arrows yet they roared like a thunder and shone like rays of the sun when released. Dwarka would be very significant for the understanding of what the Mahabharata is. It would no longer be merely a book of myths and legends, but in fact, at least to some extent, a genuine account of past events. Older than Chinese and Egyptian history…”

  “Oh my Lord…I am glad such weapons no longer exist,” Paul sighed as a cool wind blew his hair and he breathed in the fresh air.

  “Oh…but they do. And there will come a time when man will rediscover how to make these weapons again…that is why it is so important men of reason and compassion must join together,” Kratos said and looked down at Paul.

  “My father once mentioned that much can be learned from India. He mentioned the points of energy in the body, like those of the world, and how it related to ancient wisdom and that it too could be used for either good or evil intent to heal or kill a person. I wished I had paid more attention.”

  “Your father and Theodoric both know much about it. You still have time to learn of it. Just ask Theodoric to fully explain about Kundalini, which is also a Sanskrit term meaning ‘coiled up’ or ‘coiling like a snake’. It comes from the term kundala, which means a ‘ring’ or ‘coil’. Kundalini energy is often illustrated in ancient drawings as a serpent coiled around the back part of the root chakra in three and a half turns around the sacrum. The phenomenon of kundalini awakening gives rise to the energetic phenomena experienced by meditators. The intensified energy originates from a very real reservoir of subtle energy at the base of the spine. And, Paul… trust me when I say that there is a place, roughly located within the position as we study it, of Orion…from where souls are born,” Kratos explained and looked upward to the stars and smiled, his features highlighted by the glow from his staff. He sighed before continuing to speak softly. “Man will also again relearn that which has been lost on the origination of their languages. For in India, where the Sanskrit language was the main language of their literature, they will discover European languages are similar in word concepts and structure…too much so to be mere coincidence. The Sanskrit culture or Vedic culture, as it is sometimes called after the ancient Indian Vedic literature, derived from the word Vedas, which means knowledge. But it is far more ancient than later European cultures whose languages are related to the Indian language Sanskrit of the Vedas…which means the European peoples had to have come out of India somehow and then gone to Europe with their languages, which differentiated into Russian, English, Spanish, Germanic and the rest of them. This notion will not be accepted for fear of giving the Vedic culture a position superior to their own for a great many years…but it matters not for eventually the truth will become too obvious. Just like they will react in the same fashion about the concept of the Vedas of the Krishna character who came and said the universe is teeming with life and who appeared to have knowledge about other habitations in the cosmos and is talking from an age that would go back at least nine and a half thousand years,” Kratos smiled, nearly laughing.

  “So what you are saying is that Vedic literature implies that there were great highly advanced cities in India inhabited many thousands of years ago?” Paul asked.

  “Of course…as you well know…or should by now. For example, the Rigveda, which is one of the earliest Vedic literatures, talks about a mighty river called the Saraswati that flowed from the Himalayan mountains down to the Arabian Sea, down to an area of northwestern India. No such river exists there today, but again, in the future man will find a way of seeing where mighty rivers once ran, and when they do, they will see that the ancient texts spoke the truth all along. And it will show how it emptied into what is now known as the Bay of Khambaht or Cambay as some prefer. Likewise they will also learn of a great lake that had cities beside it…but that was even further back in time. Some fifty thousand years ago in fact. An ancient Sanskrit manuscript speaks of the lake that existed in what is northern India where just a valley now sits. It was covered by a huge lake and it was blocked on the southern end by a little range of mountains. But during the last upheavals, it broke open and the lake drained out. That happened about forty to fifty thousand years ago.”[106]

  “So, it is interesting that you’ve got this ancient historical record that talks about this lake. And if it is to be taken literally, then it means that somebody must have seen this lake as it existed fifty thousand years ago and wrote about it,” Paul remarked. “But why must Percival travel there… to learn what exactly?”

  “Oh, words, sounds and images that will help you later…”

  “Such as?”

  “Aum, Gum, Shreem, Maha, Lakshmi yei, Namaha,” Kratos replied and laughed lightly as if teasing him. “They are words from an ancient Sanskrit mantra used for thousands of years for prosperity and wellbeing. But you don’t need any spiritual or religious beliefs to use them. Because they are just six of the countless words in various languages, containing a vibration ‘plan’ that can physically help to rearrange the very nature and structure of your physical body and mind. That entwined double helix I mentioned before…”

  “Why can I not learn this?”

  “Perhaps you will in time…but this is for Percival.”

  “I do not understand or see how words can transform or help you?”

  “Because
your habits if trained to be positive can transform you for the better…your thoughts and emotions become more positive…”

  “That does not explain how sounds alone carry so much power?”

  “Because just like symbols, the truth about sounds will expand your consciousness. You see according to the Rigveda, another ancient Sanskrit work, in fact the world’s oldest spiritual text, sounds are built from elementary particles, which are in turn made from the smallest strands of energy. All sounds have energetic layouts and plans tied to them. They act as triggers that can induce a certain emotion, visualisation or action in the person who hears them. That is why those who subscribe to ancient wisdom often believe in reciting specific words every day as a ‘lubricant’ for ongoing positive growth. ’Tis where the popular concept of mantras comes from! Speaking of mantras, I’m sure you’ve heard of the world’s most widely spoken mantra, the one many people use when they meditate.”

  “Theo and Attar have taught me that one. ’Tis Om,” Paul replied and folded his arms as he started to feel cold.

  “’Tis actually AUM,” Kratos remarked, emphasising the word, and turned to face him fully. “Think about that word for a moment. When you start saying the first letter, the ‘A’, your mouth is fully open…when you get to the ‘U’, your mouth is half open…and when you get to the ‘M’, your mouth is fully closed. There’s a reason for that…it’s because AUM represents the very concept of openness and closure…of the beginning and end of the universe itself. The alpha and omega! The power of sound and words is even clearly illustrated in your Bible. Remember the very first sentence from the Gospel of John?”