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For Sommwa Kolok had always been a favourite – maybe it was her misplaced passion or donated atama but Kolok was a gaia she enjoyed returning to and taking Moments. Especially now those Moments were mostly pleasant. And her atama mistakenly given had greatly benefitted Kolok as she had once traced the Hivihfin back to Lance’s pen.
But she had found a new Talak to connect to, and she would make no attachment mistakes this time. She had long felt Coemi’s atama and fashioned herself into Coemi’s life. She had placed herself in the lancers’ strategy meeting and felt their concern, and it was no great surprise that Coemi would deduce such a destructive solution – being caring hard and uncompromising. This was not a solution that was acceptable – not acceptable for any Talak to have to face that. She had inserted herself into a subsequent conversation with Miram.
“Miram, our meetings are avoiding the underlying issue,” coemi confronted him after one such meeting.
He knew but asked “Why?”
“The Lophaams are going down the same decline that led to the Taj,” she said bluntly “and there is nothing we can do about it. It cannot be stopped.” He nodded.
“For each inroad we make, the Lophaams develop new defilement,” she continued forcefully.
“And new intellectuals arrive to worsen the problem,” added Miram, there was nothing she could tell him that he hadn’t already analysed.
“So why do we continue to work on stop-gap measures, failing strategies?” she pushed on with determination.
“Because the inevitable conclusion cannot be considered by any caring Talak,” he told her with greater determination. “Some of these Talak turn the corner of their suffering and find their paths,” he reminded her “and whilst most are heading down the decline to tajocracy we cannot ignore the true seekers.”
“But Taj defilement is inevitable,” she reiterated strongly “and as Fandhenda isn’t our sole role to prevent that – the defilement of Taj?”
“I cannot disagree,” he spoke out with some exasperation “it cannot be part of the Fandra teachings to create the level of suffering and even death that is this fatal conclusion. I would sanction the elimination of one such defiler but it is not an individual problem – it is all these Talak who have proliferated their unnaturally expanded intellects. It is a problem of grounding not elimination.”
“But it is not possible to create such grounding in Lopham and similar accumulations,” she shouted at him – almost crying.
He sidestepped her ill-discipline. “Failure to create such a grounding is a problem to be addressed within sophist training,” he agreed in a pointedly quiet tone – that she noted “but for these accumulations the Talaks have already lost their connection. And their egos are expanding out of control.”
“We come back to the same conclusion,” answered Coemi in a moderate tone. “In these accumulations there is potential for Taj, and it is our duty to prevent that – our sole duty.”
“Perhaps the decision will be easier when there is more accumulated suffering,” she finished ironically. But this was not the end for her. It was a decision she was willing to face even if Miram wasn’t.
But it was not a decision Sommwa was going to allow Coemi to face, this was not a Talak decision. However logically correct Coemi’s analysis was, it was not within Talak mentation to cope with these conclusions – to maintain balance with the creation of such devastation by one Talak, however logical and noble. She knew there had to be a different form of interference.
Sommwa knew Lopham, and had felt the ill-discipline of the expanded ungrounded intellects. And she had felt the distortion that was Lopham. She felt the intertwining of Lopham and her intellectuals – the fundamental attraction. So she travelled to the other accumulations and felt the same intertwining attraction. Once the Talak’s egos expanded their intellects a little then they lost their grounding – connections to their childhood communities, connections to Kolok, and were almost forced to find these accumulations - these attractions were inevitable and unbalanced. For Sommwa these intellectual Talaks were not the only ones at fault, there were gaia forces at play here.
For Sommwa realised that this imbalance was in Kolok. She took an envoy sense of history, and observed the same patterns as Coemi. Kolok’s purge following the Taj distress had not been complete, there remained centres that had not been completely rebalanced – Sommwa felt their atamic weakness, their lack of gaiaic strength. She felt Kolok’s mistake and as envoy it was her duty to inform the gaia – it was this skill of communication that had made Sommwa and her species the Council’s gaia communicators.
It was a Moment, a Moment to convey to Kolok the envoy’s understanding of the weakness, and the same Moment for the gaia to redress the weaknesses – rebalancing the gaia’s atama. And a second Moment for Sommwa to convey to Coemi that this had happened, and that her perspective needed to change. And this Moment deeply shattered Coemi but that was far better than taking the sort of devastation decision she was prepared to make.
For Coemi this was a light day – Coemi always tried to make time for light days. Meditation was a requirement for lancers, she knew that without questioning – without the need for questioning. But not all understanding came formally, not all work fit the stages lancers were trained in – fit the foundations of saintsainin. Meditation was so confusing to communicate but once understood it was straight-forward – except when you tried to tell someone about it. It was totally individual and yet the same for all Talaks – atama – reconnecting with Kolok. What matters with meditation is to learn for yourself what saintsainin means – how you do it. Of course there is the structure that lancers were taught – mind, energy, body and atama – perfecting the vihara as much as possible and having faith in atama to enable you to overcome daily conditioned weaknesses leading to reconnection with Kolok. This is the way of atama that leaves Talaks with as little conditioning as possible – the saintsainin way of the lancers.
But this structure only touches on what Coemi did – and it only touches on what any Talak does in meditation. In this light day she let her mind wander over what it is that she does. Basically it is development – in a sense development within the saintsainin infrastructure; yet there is no structure there is only reconnection. Unity with Kolok, that is all that matters. But there is always Unity but not complete Unity.
And that is where the infrastructure comes in. The infrastructure of saintsainin teachings is a generalised description of how we can attain complete Unity with Kolok. But if we follow these teachings, we get stuck in a ritual of following teachings; because we have not individualised – internalised these teachings. And that is the rub, that is the confusion. The way Coemi internalises the teachings is not the way that others internalise. She was closest to Miram, and had tried to discuss it with him. On the one hand there was a deep connection during the conversation because it was atama. They recognised different saintsainin teachings that they used or had used, but when it came to their daily practice it was completely different – apart from the sitting. At the time it had surprised her – so different, but now there was no surprise. She trusted Miram implicitly because she understood that Miram’s atama was deep and solid, if anyone had reconnected with Kolok it was Miram. Yet how Miram reconnected on a daily basis was so different to Coemi. At first this had created doubts in herself; but when she questioned herself about this, it was clear that the doubt came from ego. Miram’s saintsainin was different in method but the purpose was the same. Once she understood this, she had greater faith in atama and greater trust in Miram. Comparing methods in the end had been useful because it strengthened her understanding of her own method – once she had overcome her ego’s need for competition.
This difference was more apparent when it came to her light days. Both Miram and Coemi valued solitude. There had been a number of times when Miram had told her – told the other lancers within their corps that he needed a break. And Miram just took off. He got on a flight and just went further and further into the “unknown” of that country. Of course it wasn’t unknown as there were always Talaks there, but the lifestyle in those kaomis was so different it was completely unknown for Miram. It was a solitude because he had no relationship with these Talaks, and then learnt more about his relationship with atama. There was no routine – nothing known when Miram travelled. It was intended to be new to him. And the Talaks didn’t mind, that was their way because Miram was always helpful. Coemi went with him one time, and it was good. But it gave neither the sense of solitude, the complete reliance on their own individual resources; it was different, they enjoyed it but it was once-off.
Coemi had her own solitude but it was mostly her light days. These had developed during her own solitude trips but for her solitude was now needed more often. If she didn’t have a light day to herself each week she could not properly function as a lancer. When she was still learning at Aberunwi she had travelled alone – like Miram’s solitude. She loved mountains and had found herself in a cabin in a mountain kaomi. Her mind was in a strange state. There was her kaomi dedication – she was training at Aberunwi so that she could return to her kaomi in the administration branch. Once she had seen the importance of dedication her life seemed planned for her – this made her father so happy as he also worked in administration. Up this mountain her mind seemed to be questioning this. But it was not analysis, it was deeper – in a sense more disturbing. The questioning was more disturbing. But how could questioning be disturbing for her? Everything was clear, this was what she was meant to do for her kaomi. It all seemed right. Yet underneath there was this disturbance.
One day she was walking, the questioning came and she just had to sit down. She looked for a place where it was just her – her place – a safe place for her. She spent a while doing this and found a place beneath a tree where she just sat. She looked out, there was just Kolok and a solitude that was just her and Kolok’s bounty. She closed her eyes and there was the questioning. And a strange feeling grabbed her taking her deep. There was just the silence that was inside. And the feeling took her further until she found her father, and her father put his arms around her. She felt comfortable in his arms but at the same time it felt wrong. And his arms began to squeeze the breath out of her until she screamed at him “Stop squeezing let me breathe for myself”. Then her thoughts drifted Let me think for myself, let me be myself, let me be free with Kolok and finally most devastatingly let me be free from the kaomi.
She opened her eyes, and felt a deep sense of relief. She felt a deep freedom, a freedom that she had never experienced before. And then she realised how much she had been channelled by her upbringing and her kaomi dedication, but she was now free from this channel. Free to do what? She did not know but it didn’t matter because this freedom was part of her, part of her connection with Kolok, so she knew that for the moment “for what?” did not matter. What she did realise was that she had reconnected with Kolok. Unity with Kolok had always been a teaching of kaomi dedication but she had never experienced the reconnection. Experiencing what this was, she knew that it was something to be for the rest of her life.
This feeling in the mountains of Dunshebet would never leave her, she even called what she later came to know as part of the completion process as dunshebetting. What she associated as a completion process never matched up to the strength of revelation of Dunshebet, but each time there was a Dunshebet flavour that took her back to the sense of relief and freedom. Often on light days she would do this dunshebetting. Look inside – usually in the digestive area. Just look. Try to SEE if there was anything disturbing her. Mostly there was no such disturbance because her lancer training taught her not to attach to conditioning, but there were occasions, times when she had not made space for herself – made time for herself, when the conditioning egos had crept up in her and snuck in. Hence the need occasionally for dunshebetting.
But light days were not only this. She had read of this colour technique in an ancient way of Eastern Kolok. It was breathing in colour, or sometimes just breathing in peace and love and exhaling defilement. She had started this colour breathing as part of her saintsainin, she would breathe the colours in through her nose and exhale the defilement through her mouth. This worked fine for her, then one day she was practising this when a thought came to her that in the East Talaks did this colour-breathing through special centres in the body. She looked this up and found many colour systems and many centres - many systems. The breathing worked for her, her inner guide had told her to investigate, so this is what she was going to do. She tried one system then another and then another, and she started to notice benefits within each method. Over a period of time she developed a system of 7 centres with 7 different colours, and used this. Most light days she reverted to this method – but not always.
Sometimes a light day was just relieving tension in the body. As a lancer her body was an attuned weapon, and as part of her daily sitting searching for and removing tension was part of her saintsainin. But as with all systems concentration might sometimes be weak, and there was a need for a body review every so often – on light days for Coemi. So she began checking and letting go of tension in her toes, feet, ankles, calves and so on. She had almost completed when she was checking for tension in her brain and around her head. This was when Sommwa appeared and she used the guise of the God Azur – from one of the eastern traditions Coemi had studied.
She was releasing the tension when from within one such tension Azur appeared. As she focussed on the internal knot Coemi touched Azur, and as she touched her the God pulled Coemi in for an embrace – a joining. As their lips touched Coemi felt a great sense of freedom – not dissimilar to dunshebetting. But this freedom grew, and together their images wandered off into this freedom. And they were in a space of freedom above Kolok. From above they saw together a sense of harmony throughout Kolok. They wandered over her own kaomi there was harmony, there was harmony in much of Kolok, but there were spots, places of Kolok weakness.
And Coemi saw one such weakness as Lopham. Azur spoke in her mind, Lopham is weak in Kolok’s atama. But watch, and in a Moment that weakness was gone. Then their images went higher, and throughout Kolok Coemi saw many places of weakness that she recognised as accumulations. And in that same Moment all those weaknesses had gone. Now there is no weakness in Lopham, and there is no need for destruction of the intellects – only dilution – non-accumulation, spoke Azur, and Sommwa watched to see if there was understanding …. some. She left and Coemi awoke from the dream that wasn’t.
And in her waking state she felt the need for dilution and non-accumulation; gone, thankfully, was the horrible logic of destruction. Somehow she knew that if the lancers could prevent new accumulation the intellects would not choose Lopham, somehow these Talaks would want to return to their kaomi. Somehow she knew this. Somehow, yet that somehow was real.
This altered her strategies in meetings. Rather than sitting there resigned to some logical inevitability of destruction, she now had clear goals – find strategies to discourage intellects from accumulating and strategies for encouraging those in accumulations to return to the kaomis. She knew that deep-down that was now their desire, but of course they were conditioned to be in the accumulations. As Lopham was the largest accumulation the work of the lancers there would be a test case.
After one such meeting Miram spoke to her of her change in strategy, Coemi had been avoiding this because she could not properly explain it.
“I liked your strategy for decumulation today,” Miram told her with a huge smile beaming across his face.
“Yes, these intellects will not be able to cope without their comforts,” she answered him cagily.
"You know I mean more than that," smiled Miram. For some reason Coemi felt she couldn't share her vision and its impact - she just let it go. And it was gone as was the destruction rationale. The peace Coemi now felt was a peace that could somehow last.
<----->
For Sommwa there was a sense of completion in her role as Guild rep. From the time of Daasur’s intervention including the release of atama, the monitoring had enabled Kolok and her Talaks to develop a harmony – a balance. The intellectuals were offset by the lancers, and the wisdom and training were readily available for those who even just began to look. Within communities anyone attracted to the path would find ready access to a culture of awareness. On a personal level Sommwa might tinker with the Hivantin but that was just unnecessary perfectionism.
As for Kolok herself Sommwa was less certain. She was a young gaia and had much to learn, undoubtedly there would be a need for future intervention before Kolok could be formally accepted within their guardianship. She had almost allowed an extinction event for the Talaks, yet as a species Talaks had much to offer evolution. It was necessary for Sommwa to make the council aware of this gaiaic weakness, and the potential value of the burgeoning Talaks. Daasur had seen this and got involved, Sommwa felt it herself – these Talaks had much to offer in time but as yet they did not have the balance that would bring the autonomy and consciousness that could contribute to the Council. For this to happen their host, Kolok, needed to evolve. Sommwa felt for certain such evolution would take place yet at the same time she could not be certain that there would not be future possible extinction events. As Kolok evolved so would grow a recognition of the value of Talaks, and Kolok’s need to avoid such a catastrophe.
It would be a long time before the Council would need to intervene again.
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Public Domain Science Fiction Writer 
