160 - I cannot have such wisdom

Excerpt from the Proceedings of the Chevengani Mental State Assessment Committee, atakina 42, Y. 1556

Omona-e Shae-Lemana, Servant of Thara-e-Tinanga-e: Now as we have you both sworn for simultaneous questioning, I direct my next question to Surya. Do you count this… lack of vigilance for his own safety on Chevenga’s part a manifestation of his sense of death-obligation?

Su: No. But I don’t consider it purely a mental lapse, either. A person of his intelligence and ability doesn’t have pure mental lapses of this nature.

O: Will you explain for us what you consider it to be?

Su: Let me start by saying that there was nothing here that was conscious choice on his part—

O: Pardon me for interrupting, but, Chevenga, would you concur with that?

4Che: Yes. I had no thoughts such as, ‘I hope someone comes up behind me, brains me, pinks my calves and challenges me to a death-duel.’ I was thinking only about how the game had gone, wishing I could have avoided what happened and so forth, and just wanted to get home to soak, drink and be among people celebrating.

O: Thank you; please continue, Surya.

Su: But as we’ve discussed before, the deeper mind can have its own ideas. Now I want to make clear here that the deeper mind can have any thought, just as the knowing mind can. Perhaps the best demonstration of this is in dreams, which we’ve all had, and which are the way in which the deeper mind most often seeps into consciousness. As everyone knows, they can be on any subject and have any feeling.

I say this to dispel any notion that any of you might have that Chevenga’s deeper mind is an entirely murderous creature, singularly devoted to killing him, since we’ve mostly talked about it in that context. That aspect is there, of course, which was what he came to me to solve, but it is only one aspect, and of course it’s weakened over the past few months due to the work we’re doing.

4Che: I was halfway there when you truth-drugged me and that was close to two moons ago.

Su: And as I explained with regard to the wound he took while training in Arko, it can be divided in itself also. The part inclined to death tried to incur a mortal wound; the part inclined to life caused him to move in such a way as it would not be.

So what I think happened that night—and this is why I didn’t have him renew his strength-oath to me, though he was sure I would and was willing to do it—was that his deeper mind was tempting something, but it was not death, and it was in fact to further his healing, his deeper mind having sufficiently embraced that it is necessary. What he was tempting was a fight with true steel in which he would both find he’d gone asa kraiya enough to be unwilling to hurt the opponent, and be defeated, which would be a significant step in accepting himself as asa kraiya.

Cha: But, Surya, if I may intercede—if that first blow had been intended to kill rather than stun, he’d have been dead. And if Kyirya and the others hadn’t come along when they had, he’d have been dead.

Su: Yes, but you have to remember here, he is a person who has a proven gift of prescience. Riji’s intention was a duel, not a back-stab, and he had given some warning to Chevenga eight years before, that he’d be coming. Chevenga also must have known at heart that he’d likely be followed along that shortcut, in a short time, by people who would defend him.

O: Chevenga, this is striking you somehow, you’ve got your face in your hands, what are you thinking?

4Che: … You… you go through life thinking it is ruled by the choices you know you are making…

Su: This is the first he’s heard my interpretation.

O: You are feeling out of control… or more exactly, that your life is controlled by something that is not your conscious will?

4Che: You’d think I’d be used to it by now.

Su: But, though most people hate hearing this, it’s the case with all of us. You just manifest it more… spectacularly, shall we say, than most. And the whole aim of the healing work has been to turn that thing which is not your conscious will away from death and towards life, and we are succeeding; that’s what you have to understand.

…

O: Surya, do you count Chevenga asa kraiya?

Su: Yes, I do, at least sufficiently to be called so. His ceremony would have been set for much sooner, a half-moon from then, I was recommending, except that he wanted long notice for the innumerable people from all over the known world he’s invited.

O: You say sufficiently to be called so; do you mean he can go further with it?

Su: Yes, but that’s common to asakraiyaseyel. The ceremony is a start as much as it is a finish.

†

“I didn’t think the deeper mind could be so… devious,” I said to Surya as we made the climb back up to the Independent.

“It is as devious as the knowing mind,” he said. “Else your dreams would always be less complex than your waking thoughts, true?” If anything, mine have always been more complex. “All aspects of the mind draw on the same abilities.”

I kept repeating it over and over in my head, trying to fully grasp it. No doubt the feebleness of my grip was from emotion, not weakness of mind. Or so I hoped. It was in fact to further his healing, his deeper mind having sufficiently embraced that it is necessary. What he was tempting was a fight with true steel in which he would both find he’d gone asa kraiya enough to be unwilling to hurt the opponent, and be defeated, which would be a significant step in accepting himself as asa kraiya.

“So more of me… has come over to my side,” I said.

“All though, more of you has been coming over to your side,” he said. “That’s been the whole idea.”

We walked in silence, as I wrestled with it. The climb was slippery, with a three-finger-width blanket of snow on the ground; more whirled down in minute eddies from the breezy grey sky, a few landing in the frizzy cloud of his hair to perch for a moment until they melted. My calves hurt. It was a day to soak in hot water, read by a fire, and make love to my loves from hot countries so as to solace them for living here.

I wrestled, even as a deep peace about the thought itself tempted me to quit wrestling, whispered to me that the wrestling itself was folly. Life cannot be so good that we so protect ourselves, I wanted to protest. I cannot have such wisdom.

Life is so good if we choose that it is so, a deeper voice in me spoke. You have such wisdom if you wish it. I suddenly found myself looking down to the Shrine, drawn there, as if what was there attracted these thoughts, and me with them.

“I think…” I said tentatively, since it was so huge a thing to declare I worried it was presumptuous, “I am beginning to understand… the deeper sense of ‘Everything is going as it should.’”

“Good,” he said, the sort of ‘good’ that makes a war-student’s heart swell, since he’s been working so hard for it so long. I indulged myself in feeling the glow for a bit, before I put my nose back to the grindstone of understanding myself.

“Still,” I said, as we drew closer to the Independent, “I want to see you try to explain that to Krero.”

“It’s now part of the Yeoli public record. He… and the writers”—a small but growing herd of them were following us, albeit far back, having been slow in spotting us—“can read it in the transcript.” You’d almost think that Surya had been having truck with someone of a political bent.

I am asa kraiya, I thought. That can never be taken away from me. Saying it to myself had a reassuring simplicity.

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