Public Domain Science Fiction Writer Mokeroha contents Wai Z contents

Funnily enough the time in cotlakuk was some of the most valuable he had ever spent. At one of his teaching placements he had been told that the cotla wished to talk to him – there was nothing unusual in this, it was a process of cultural assessment. Would Mo inadvertently promote the love of his own culture at the expense of customs and traditions here in Tswosa? Culture and tradition were considered of value everywhere, there was a balance the cotlas had to try and navigate – supporting the tradition whilst avoiding xenophobia. A society that promotes love and compassion does not have the problem but no matter how many changes (for good or bad) a society and its Yoxa go through there will be cracks. Was Mo going to be such a crack? So he had been relatively at ease when he was in Tswotlakuk, his new version of the cotlakuk humour. A mistaken ease. In walked Thametse looking very stern “We have received a complaint from Tinitia Megamotwe,” he announced. Mo’s face dropped, of course she had complained. “Yes, Thametse,” answered Mo carefully “I tried but it didn’t work out.” “She is a bit younger than you and you are a teacher,” Thametse made no attempt to disguise his disdain. “Tinni was happy with that, she always said she wanted to live with me,” answered Mo weakly. “Mma Megamotwe was in tears,” continued Thametse “she said she gave you the best years of her life.” “Yes, she would always say that to me,” agreed Mo mutely. “But she agreed. I always insisted on agreement about how we lived together.” “We have just received your dossier with previous cotlas,” continued Rra Thametse, Mo’s face dropped further. How far was this going? This rra was never going to have empathy for his Release and its path. In walked Mma Mandiwe who spoke with Thametse, and the only words he heard were “best years of my life”. “Mma Mandiwe has been interviewing Mma Megamotwe,” continued Thametse severely “she advised me that the complaint cannot be substantiated.” “You are older and a teacher,” started Thametse. “No arguments, Rra, I started with good intentions but got sucked in,” Mo apologised. “There will be no further problems, my contract is over and I will be on my flight later this week.” “We had noted this,” he said, and it was left there. It was now not that flight but 5 years later. So much had happened since then, since that time at Tswotlakuk, yet it felt just like yesterday. Now he was returning home with his new bride, Kotahi, and Sanim, you and your enlers need to beware. After Tswotlakuk a new contract had started and he felt invigorated by his teaching time in Tswosa and by his developing love for all. Arriving in a country where he felt the religion asked for going deeper, not deeper in love but personally deeper, he felt more at home; laughed at himself, he mused that at some point going deeper and deeper in love are the same. Whilst there were rites and rituals for the local Yoxa to participate in, these did not require the depth that many of the religious teachers spoke of. Throughout his contract he made contact with some of these teachers until it became clear to him that to begin to go deep he needed a greater commitment – not simply dabbling when he had free time from his job. The attitude of the teachers towards him changed as soon as he crossed the threshold to take up residency; as opposed to being interested he had now committed himself to being one of them. That meant a great deal to them – and to him. Whilst they had to maintain the building – and certain obligations to local adherents, primarily they were concerned in their daily routine about going deeper. It was here he met Kotahi, she had been a resident a year longer than Mo. It was as if they had lived the same life, had the same conflicts with the cotla’s enlers. But she also had to deal with chauvinism, putting her spiritual path together with the verbal violence of rejected chauvinism reinforced her spiritual love as these men had killed romantic love in her. “How did you end up here?” asked Mo after listening to the necessary failures of her romantic love. “I needed a refuge,” she answered far too quickly. “I decided that travel was a way of escaping these men, I just wanted to be left alone. On the road it was much better, many more Yoxa, including the men, were just looking for something – they didn’t know what, they just knew that it wasn’t where they had come from. “But they used to still hit on me, however mostly they accepted rejection well enough. But it was all so tedious. They would claim I gave out signals but in truth I was only interested in talking – learning about the path. What signals could there have been, except in their own minds? “Eventually I just got so sick of it that a nun told me that I could come here; it was a safe place for women, and that even though it was mixed personal relationships were forbidden. “And thankfully that is the way it has been,” she concluded with relief, the relief that said she had found a place of rest. “These enlers made matters far worse,” she continued after a while. “For them the Goddess woman was the rock of a relationship, the glue that held the relationship together.” “Traditionally that is true,” remarked Mo “my mother was like that.” “I also think it is true in so many cases,” agreed Kotahi “and I have nothing but admiration for these women. But are we all this rock? Aren’t we all meant to be who we are, and not some stereotype?” she paused, he could feel her frustration. “Where is your paternal instinct?” asked Kotahi. “I love kids,” replied Mo “but I can’t imagine being so restricted bringing them up. That is why teaching suits me.” “Can you see enlers accepting that for a man?” she asked and saw his nod. “Well it is ten times worse for a woman. Because most women are these bedrocks, all women have to be in the minds of the cotla.” There was a pause .... “And the women enlers are worse. It is their vocation. They are the bedrocks in their own relationships, and expect all women to be the same way. So judgemental,” she sighed. “Dogmatons,” he quipped expecting a smile. “Agreed,” she answered, without recognising any sense of humour in his comment. That night, reflecting, it struck him these cotla counsellors were Dogmatons – with a fixed dogma on love. In all his conflict with these enlers he had often thought the slur “dogmaton” – perhaps he even used it, but he had never actually thought it was any more than an insult. But the truth is it was a mindset that was still in place just with a new but better dogma. He thought about how imprisoning this mindset was, no matter how well intentioned - when your vocation or otherwise imprisons you into clinging to one world view you create your own prison. And if you have any power, that power will imprison others. These enlers were creating a prison for spiritual love, in the same way the dogmatons built a prison for the creatives. This is what he could bring his spiritual love to – opening the minds of the enlers to this new dogmaton threat. A week later began his month in solitude. The Residence had a small hut high in the mountains, and the serious residents were eager to go there. There was even a seeing-off ceremony as the new solitary began the trek up the mountain along with the helpers bringing the provisions. The trek was not easy, and he smiled to himself it would be a month before he recovered. As they trekked up fear of solitude grew in him yet at the same time he looked around, how could he see this as being alone? Because the trek was hard conversation was a minimum, yet at the same time he was inquisitive – he wanted to know how to live up there. As they climbed Bartoc would show him different flora he could eat. “There is no need to “live off the land” as we have provided enough for the month but many feel it is more spiritual to get back to the land,” she advised Mo, and he tried to remember – especially the ones she said not to eat! At the hut Bartoc showed him the minimal facilities – and there was a file with instructions. He sat on the chair by the door, and watched the train disappear slowly down the mountain. He was alone for the first time in his life – or was it? Initially there was a surge of joy in his solitude but once that initial emotion wore off, in came fear - fear of being alone. His mind wandered to relationships, friendships, to the kids, he missed them all - they gave his life meaning. In one way, a voice said; he thought about that. Watching he saw his mind clinging to the relationships. What was clinging? That was not who he was. One-by-one he let go of the clinging, the relationships were still there but that was not who he was; he liked his friends especially the more meaningful but again he was not the friendships, he liked working with kids but again that was only what he did not who he was. As he unwrapped the clinging, he began to feel who he was beyond all these meetings in daily life - beyond all these relationships that filled his mind. Deciding to empty his mind of these contents, he watched the clarity develop. He had relationships and friendships, he was not the relationships and friendships. Working with kids brought love but it was the love that mattered. Slowly he watched as his mind decluttered - emptied. Stepping back, he looked over the mountainside. There was peace out there, he longed for that peace. Why out there? Why was the peace out there? Why did it stop out there? Because he created a boundary, a separation between Mo and out there. What was that boundary? He examined that boundary. Sure there was his body that was separate, his feelings were separate as were his thoughts. But they were not him, he was in his body experiencing feelings and thoughts. Stop that experiencing, just be. There was stillness, and the feelings and thoughts subsided. Watching there was the peace outside but then it was not separate, there was no boundary; the peace that had been outside was inside - just a feeling of peace throughout, a peace with no boundary. Dwelling in this peace he just sat there – it seemed endless sitting although perhaps it wasn’t. And then there was just satisfaction, this is why they came up here. He slept peacefully, woke up, washed and meditated. Today he would explore. He trusted himself but he took a mental snapshot – these views would show him his place. As he left the hut, he found small paths, paths that nuns and monks had trodden for centuries; as he walked he felt their history. As he began walking his mind wandered and he tired quickly, just walk, that voice said and he listened. Focussing his mind on walking he just walked; every so often he stopped and looked. Then walking began again. This way he was refreshed, and he walked until he knew it was time to go back to the hut to eat and rest. In the evening he sat and watched waiting for the peace to envelop him. It didn’t happen. Instead, he began thinking. His mind looked at his personal development remembering the ideas that had mattered to him. There was all that stuff from school and uni, but Release had got rid of most of that. But post-release he had accumulated ideas, he had listened to different teachers, books had opened his eyes – continued to open his eyes, this was all here in him. Except in meditation. In meditation there was no clutter, no ideas – just meditation. OK, not true, sometimes meditation grappled with ideas even formulated new ideas, but there was no clutter; the grappling was only a process of clarification. Yes, in meditation there was no clutter. No concepts, no contents. Let go of these ideas, they have helped you on the way; but now you have moved on. These ideas are also boundary, the voice said. What had happened with the boundary yesterday, he thought, the peace remained out there. Let go of the boundary, let go of the ideas; let go of the contents. And the boundary had gone, in came the peace and he just watched until he finished and slept peacefully. The next day he set his mind on exploring but this time to be lost so he left the paths. Initially his mind was full of the idea of getting lost and he became tired. Then he focussed on the walking, and his tiredness left him as he just walked then stopped then walked. He looked at the sun and decided to return. He had not followed paths, he had intentionally changed directions, and he was lost. Which direction he asked himself and began walking. And walked and walked blissfully. And he crossed a path. It was not the direction but he stuck with safety, arrived back at the hut only to realise later that by following the path he had added an hour to his journey. That night overlooking the peaceful mountainside he began thinking of the pain in his relationships. In his various cotlakuks he had come to realise much to do with his relationships, but there was still pain with the women – with his family. Sitting outside the hut he faced that pain – mostly it seemed Piani. Look for Piani inside you the voice said, and he found her internalised in his stomach. With his mind he grappled and felt the pain, and as he did so he felt the pain lift out of his stomach. Reliving the pain he began to feel shattered with the emotion yet at the same time it was a release. Staggering to bed he slept – not peacefully, but on awakening there was complete relief – weak but complete relief. Today he would not walk much, just recharge and recuperate. The day passed pleasantly, and again he was sat outside the hut overlooking the mountainside. He felt there was more pain, and he looked for Chami – some but none really, his other relationships – none really. But there was more pain inside, and he looked for and found it. Where else would he find pain, he asked himself. Inner child, answered his reliable voice. So he went in as his inner child, and began to ask questions as the child. He went back to conception, and felt the growing love for his mother and occasionally the other person he later knew as father. There was love for both, but the love for his mother was boundless. Then there was separation and the bond with his mother was more distant – his father was the same distance. Yet his mother although distant was always there. He began to feel a pull; he would need his mother yet when his father was there, she would not always respond. This is natural, the reliable interceded. A few years passed in a second, and he still felt this pull beginning to feel there was something wrong. He felt resentment – from outside, not from his mother but from his father. Look at this resentment, came the internal advice. He followed the resentment, and saw it in his father. Part of his love had been replaced by resentment, and as the years passed by in seconds he felt this resentment continually. And slowly he understood the resentment, and outside the hut he recalled confrontations with his father, and resentment he had found as an Inner Child became an understanding in Mokeroha, the adult. With understanding and clarity there became emptiness where the experience of pain had been replaced by understanding that had started with resentment; he could leave that pain behind especially as it was not now in his daily life. Again, this internal journey had left him weary, and he staggered to his bed where he felt shattered sleep. The next day was also a peaceful day around the hut, and of the evening there was nothing to say but peace and contentment bringing forth the next day where he would look to explore. The weather was not so good so he stuck to known tracks, only to find after a while clouds came rolling in, and he lost visibility. Slowly he retraced his steps. He had walked a mile or two, and in that walk had climbed a few hundred metres. In his retracing he judged that walking and felt he should find the renunciates’ path – did not happen. Going down further he began to panic – where was the path? He could not see, only nearby mountain covered in clouds as the rain fell. It made no sense but logic told him he should meet the path eventually so he pursued the downward descent knowing he had probably gone too far. He met a path, logic telling him turning left should take him to the hut. He was descending further. In the end he turned round retraced then followed right – all logic gone. Soon he found bushes, stones that he knew, and there in the short distance his hut. This time he had got lost and the weather had intervened, getting lost this time could have been his life. He felt justified fear, and he was careful not to get carried away again. That night he did not rest well. Much of his need to explore had now gone, not that he was afraid unnecessarily just that what would the exploration be for? Because it’s there, for someone like Mo that didn’t cut it. He was at peace at the hut knowing his place and limitations. Days passed peacefully and there was personal stability as he overlooked the mountain splendours of an evening – growing each evening as his eyes grew more and more accustomed to starlight. But there was a final cultural inner journey he must take, a journey he would later call the MANP journey at the enler seminar. Identity had grown to be a divisive issue in society as the wealthy realised they could play one group off against the other, and blame the different identities for the money they continued to accumulate. When enlers dealt with love they sometimes ignored systemic inequalities reminiscent of the Pasur appropriation; it was not a huge problem but history should teach us - Yoxa have Pasur tendencies, Yoxa have Dogmaton tendencies; know your own nature, your own interbeing. This night Mo examined his own culture – and the relationship between his identity and the identity of others within his culture. There had been an erosion of awareness. What had been gained by Gurudasa and the changes that had grown up in Yoxa society as a result were being eroded by stagnation, It was not that anyone was choosing erosion, but they were not consciously evolving; there is no standing still – either there is evolution or erosion and stagnation. Those who have power suffer this the most as Mo had experienced with the enlers and their stagnation. These stagnation issues were not a huge problem but there was potential; he knew that it was his path to address. But to address in others he must address in himself. Throughout his life he had been brought to awareness by travel and meeting different yoxa but that was not enough. Where had he learnt his identity? As a child. Who has the answers then? His Inner Child. So again he took his inner journey, and as the inner child he asked questions. In daily life he of course knew his parents but he wanted to know how as a child he had experienced it. From this experience he could then look at how to undo the damage. Looking at his own identity he saw relative privilege – identity privilege. There was no Pasur privilege but Pasurs had manipulated identity for their own benefit and that was beginning to happen again. Remembering Kotahi’s distress at male attention, at the enler assumptions of the family bedrock, did he also exhibit those? And he was from the North and the Pasur had used the North as their base. He had been born in this MANP environment, and his mother and father had fallen in line with its privileges – especially as they had struggled within their dysfunction. He remembered the haunting be careful what you say to the cotla they have helped your father and I, but the enlers don’t get it Investigating this as an inner child he discovered that his mother had been covering up. Looking at what she covered up he discovered his own conditioning. Through Release and contact with different Yoxa, he had let go of much of the conditioning, but in life can we let go of all that arises? He knew he had to work on it, and he also knew that so many also need to work on this because of stagnation. Evolve was key to him, key to the enlers. At this he felt there was some kind of impasse – plateau. It was not that he had reached an end – whatever that might be, but simply for the time being this inner work would change. After a day on this “plateau”, he turned to the teachings of the Residence. He had a strange relationship with teachings – or at least it seemed strange compared to many at the Residence. For them the teachings appeared to be all. They would wrap themselves up in the teachings, study and discuss the teachings - it was as if they were back at uni. At uni he never got teachings. Yoxa were variously committed to studies, some bought into it completely others did enough to get by. At one time he had thought he wanted to get deeply into philosophical studies, but once started it just seemed like endless circular discussion – even with the study of Gurudasa. Once he had left it became clear to him, study must be internalised – it was not the words but the internalisation that mattered. And how do you write a paper on what has been internalised? he smirked to himself. And then he smirked at his arrogant assessment of the Yoxa at the Residence. What they spoke had to be endless discussion, they were talking of what mattered to them. But was it internalised? How could he ever know? That was the crime of judgement on the path, assessing what cannot be assessed – whether there was internalisation. Maybe it was all real, maybe the Residence was populated by Yoxa who had internalised; but there was no certainty for him and he left the question alone – where it belonged. All of this led to an ambivalent attitude to the teachings. No doubts that teachings had contributed to his own development. But it was not academic. In academia you studied, built up a bank of knowledge, and were then tested on that bank. A direct correlation between study and test results. But was there internalised understanding? By those who were tested? By those who wrote the tests? When it came to the teachings at Residence there was none of the correlation that comes with testing, it was about their way of life. And in that way of life internalisation could not be measured. This had led Mo to a solitary approach to internalisation, and why he felt so at home here in the hut. Ready for this particular solitude, he already had felt the benefits. He began the teachings without any expectation, in a sense he had already experienced “the hut” for him with his own inner journey. As it was about meditation – the tool for inner journeys, he started with the paper “the 4 stages for building the vihara” . After his MANP investigation he had felt a sense of completion, it was as if he had emptied himself of baggage and integrated who he was, integration body, feeling and mind. As he began to study the 4 stages of vihara he realised that this was the same completion but written in teaching terms. Once he realised this, he fit his own inner journey into the vihara, and the teachings took on an important meaning for him. But there was something missing. He now saw the vihara as a form of inner construction, but it was more destruction – you destroy all that pollutes the abode leaving it free. Free for what? He was still missing it. What had built all the pollution? That was easily answered – conditioning, all the pollution that comes in from daily life. NO, you are missing it, his voice said. It is not the pollution from the outside that is the problem, the problem is that for one reason or another you let that pollution inside. You collected the pollution. And here in the hut I have let all that pollution go. But how did you collect the pollution, how did you keep it inside you? There was a force you used to keep the pollution inside, there had to be. How else did the pollution stay there? You consciously held onto it, it is as if there was a magnetic force attracting the pollution. So what has happened to what was holding on? What has happened to that magnetic force? It is still here, the voice said. It is a magnetic force that needs to hold on to something? To what? He just smiled, it was so obvious. That magnetic force is what attracts us to the path. It all fit into place – the teachings and his experience. Despite the teachings of Gurudasa and the attentions of the enlers our minds still became polluted. It started naturally, the voice said. Of course it did, it had to start naturally; enler society was based in love – in parts misplaced and misguided but still love. So the pollution had to begin naturally, survival was of course the most natural thing at birth – surviving. But if you focus on survival alone, as you get older you turn in on yourself. Compassion turns into a preoccupation with your own needs. Because of Gurudasa, society has become more loving but with the focus on romantic love that preoccupation has become need-gratification. Not all romantic love is need gratification, but if the mind is polluted then there is the possibility for that self-interest. Even more than that, the magnetic force gets used for romantic love by the polluted mind increasing that preoccupation. And then he knew what was missing – understanding of this magnetic force. Was it there in Gurudasa’s teachings? Now what had been a begrudging investigation into the teachings of the Residence became a full-blown enquiry into Gurudasa and his teachings. What was this magnetic force? If he could label it, he could be able to show the enlers. Enlers, your romantic love is appropriating this magnetic force? As he looked into Gurudasa, he found greater and greater evidence that this teacher understood spiritual love. He needed that support, because no matter what the enlers practised enlers always subscribed to the teachings of Gurudasa – if they had been understood and internalised. Studying and reading, he could find no magnetic force. He found attachment and clinging, they were types of magnetism; that explained and fit in with the pollution. But where did the attachment and clinging go after the pollution had been released? Nothing, no reference to the magnetic force. Consciousness attached, consciousness clung – but no force. There didn’t need to be a force, it could just be what consciousness did if it was misused. Tomorrow Bartoc will return, and I must go down, he thought. And I have not found this force. It had seemed to matter so much. Maybe it was just the ecstatic joy of solitude that had driven him to seek the answer to the question. Have faith, there will be an answer, the voice placated. And then all the bells and banjoes, the flashes of insights, the guys that appeared when writing, all the presence came to him at once – faith. The magnetic force was faith. Such a relief as all his studies fitted into place. Where was the faith of the yoxa, where was the faith of the enlers? And he understood why. Faith had been misused by the Pasur to control yoxa. The Dogmatons had rejected the religions of the Pasur but had developed their own faith – complete faith in their way of doing things. This faith, they did not call faith, because they had rejected the exploiting faith of the Pasurs; but it was still faith in a set of beliefs – the Dogmaton codex. His mind was racing, what were the implications of this faith? Round and round his mind went as he saw how faith was missing in the enlers. They believed in the teachings of Gurudasa, some even internalised the teachings, he assumed. But what if they didn’t know or understand the teachings? What did they do? They left them alone because they were not known. Contrast this with romantic love, that they knew for themselves. Enlers had learnt the importance of love, they experienced romantic love, and this made so many of them want to become enlers. But spiritual love was unknown to them because what they perceived as successful romantic love was sufficient. Because they lacked faith they could not see his spiritual love. Because spiritual love was an unknown to them and because they lacked faith, all they saw was Mokeroha’s inability to love romantically. These enlers need faith, that was missing, that was so important, enlers need faith to accept the unknown – accept what was unknown to them in Gurudasa’s teaching. At the end of that night of faith, Mo’s path was well and truly cemented. When Bartoc arrived that morning, he was waiting to go and see Kotahi. It was a week after he returned from the hut that he finally asked Taee. He knew he was too full of his learning, if you like the spirit was too powerful in him; in such situations he knew he could be overbearing. For Taee it was almost a dream come true. From the moment she met Mo, her heart both soared and sank at the same time. She felt love for him, what Mo would clearly categorise as romantic love; yet she knew it must be unrequited. How karmically cruel to make her love romantically a man who was only interested in promoting spiritual love. What could she do? She just accepted that was the way. As he began his calculated plan, her heart soared. She let him talk about his completion in the hut. He spoke on and on about each different experience and she just relished it. There was seeing, the 4 stages of vihara, and faith, but what she also heard was that he had so much to offer the enlers; how could Yoxa counselling love not see the deep love in this man, she felt angrily. “I need to find a way of influencing enlers, they have so much wrong,” he concluded after recounting his development. “You do,” she said “you have much to offer them.” “Thank you, it feels that way,” he answered with some humility “but they will never accept me on enler training. I have this history where they are more likely to give me “prison time” than allow me on a training course.” By “prison time” she knew that he meant the retraining courses for those Yoxa enlers considered “did not have a proper understanding of love”. She nodded, there was an anticipation in her heart and she didn’t know what it was. “They will only accept me if I am married – in their romantic love,” he said calculatingly. So he stood up, got down on one knee in a mocking gesture, and asked her to marry him. He even had a ring made from a small piece of material that was used to make up the Residence’ garments. Taking her hand he mockingly placed this “ring” on her finger. Next/Contents/Previous