Table of Contents

- Dedication

- 1. Me, myself and I

- 2. The Star and Garter

- 3. The Anglers

- 4. Malik Joujai

- 5. Arianne Plumb

- 6. Saksham Almas

- 7. Ning Cai and Chan Hua

- 8. Miriam and Jai Holt

- 9. Edwin Jolly

- 10. Wilbur Jones

- 11. Rosalie Muller

- 12. Orion

- 13. Foxholes

- 14. New beginnings

The Insiders:

Exploring the higher realms of possibility

By Etienne de L'Amour

A standalone, 38,000 word novella.

Book 10 in the Shadowlands series.

Copyright © 2012 by Etienne de L'Amour

The right of Etienne de L'Amour as the owner of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. Copyright throughout the world.

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or photographic, by recording or any information storage or retrieval system or method now known or to be invented or adapted, without prior permission obtained in writing from the publishers, except by a reviewer quoting brief passages in a review written for inclusion in a journal, magazine, newspaper or broadcast.

First edition: March 2011

First edition for Kindle: 8 March 2012

Sher Point Publications, UK

Front cover image: Detail from Allegoria Sacra (Sacred Allegory) by Giovanni Bellini (1430–1516). Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Dedication

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift.”

~ Albert Einstein.

~~~O~~~

“You are scrabbling about in the sand, attracted by pieces of mica to knit together and make a window, not realising that the sand itself is capable of being transformed into the purest glass.”

~ From The Teachers of Gurdjieff by Rafael Lefort.

~~~O~~~

People often say: “I must find a teacher who knows all.”

Some, at least, of such teachers have started by learning wisdom from the ignorant, as some learn conduct from the ill-mannered.

Many aspirants could do worse that start at that very point.

When you have been your own teacher for a time, you may be ready to find someone else who can teach you.

~ From Reflections by Idries Shah, quoted in The King's Son edited by Robert Cecil.

1. Me, myself and I

My name is John Little, known to many and for obvious reasons as “Little John”, though at five feet six I stand taller than most. Until recently I had lived all my life in the grim mill town of Muddlehough in deepest, darkest Hodweir. Only one who had been born and bred in Hodweir would call it that, of course. To the outsiders, the country was universally known as the Outlands, and it was we who were the outlanders and the outlandish, not they. I say that I lived there, though I can see now that it was not a life but rather more a subsistence, year upon year of being ground down and of living hand to mouth and all too often hardly able to do that. I can see this now, looking back, yet at the time, though of course I often thought that perhaps there should be more to life than this, this was all I knew; and what little I knew, not having much of an education, I did not know well. A small, round bowl is an ocean to a goldfish who has known nought else. Now, of course, this is all so plainly and painfully clear, but not at the time.

Though I was raised to be a God-fearing man, I am not a particularly religious person, more a conscript too cowardly to stick my neck out as a conscientious objector. I go to chapel every Wednesday, though neither out of habit, nor out of faithfulness; simply that this is what everyone does, either on Wednesday morning or in the evening after high tea, if not both; and also because folk who fail to attend are looked upon with disdain or shunned by the community, like as not will suffer the wrath of the local priest, and can only look forward to more of the same, but on a far more fearsome scale, in the afterlife.

All this changed one fateful day in spring, a few years back. From humble beginnings, since that time it would be correct to say that my whole world has been turned upside down … or right side up, to be more accurate. More than that, really: the upheaval was an order of magnitude greater. What was at first little more than a distant rumble grew to become earth shattering. The nearest that I could come to describing these experiences in graphical detail would be to say that what I took to be me, myself and I was like a once-fine dwelling that had long fallen into dereliction (though I barely noticed at the time); that this dwelling had to be utterly demolished and cleared to the very foundations; then slowly and painstakingly re-built over a period of many years.

2. The Star and Garter

Muddlehough in Hodweir

I saw the slight figure of Morris Nichol shuffling hesitantly down the aisle at chapel that evening. He was late and there were only a few spaces in the pews still remaining. Nichol was looking around furtively, this way and that; then, spotting that the space beside me was unoccupied, he headed over to take a seat.

Nichol pulled a laboured smile, greeted me with a courteous “How do. Mind if I … er, um?” and timidly squeezed in next to me; then pulled out a handkerchief and mopped up the sweat that was trickling down his face from his receding hair line. The man opened his mouth to speak again, but at that moment the organ piped up and the priest, Father Milligan, emerged from the vestibule to make his reverend entrance. As he entered, the congregation respectfully rose to their feet and the few who didn't know the words off by heart began to hurriedly flick through their books to find the opening hymn. As fate would have it, there was no hymn book near Nichol, and that threw him into a state of agitation, so I quietly offered to share mine. He held one corner, but seeing that his hand was shaking, making it difficult to stay focused on the words as the book, too, trembled, he dropped his arm to his side, clutching onto the hem of his jacket. Being of a nervous disposition myself, especially in company and all the more so at solemn social occasions (if that isn't a contradiction in terms), I actually found this mildly reassuring. It reminded me of the old saying about the man who used to worry about the state of his shoes until he met another who had no feet.

At length the hymn ended, Father Milligan bade us sit down and he began to speak. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that Nichol's scalp was once more beginning to glisten and again he furtively pulled out his handkerchief to wipe the beads of sweat. As he did so, a small, shiny object came out of his pocket along with the handkerchief, and rolled under the pew between my feet. It looked like a silver signet ring and I instinctively bent down to pick it up, briefly examining it before handing it back to Nichol. The man hastily returned the ring to his pocket and mouthed his thanks before turning his attention back to the priest who was delivering a sermon full of brimstone and treacle, a noxious concoction that was supposed, by quacks who knew no better, to be good for body, mind and soul. At best it offered a reminder and a foretaste of hell and eternal damnation and had, it must be admitted, a profound purgative effect.

My mind was still on the ring, however. The mere fact that it was made of what looked like silver said a great deal too much. No God-fearing Hodweirian, no matter how adverse their personal circumstances, would be seen dead with a ring not made of a noble and untarnishable metal like gold. Such use of silver belonged to the pagan gods who had been routed at Valhourie, and was strictly taboo. To possess such an object was proof enough of paganism; and that, in turn, under the rigidly enforced religious law, was still a capital offence. Could a very real fear of God and his earthly representatives and enforcers be the reason, then, for Nichol's obvious nervous disposition?

Finally, after yet more hymns and the closing prayer, the service was over. It was customary at this point to adjourn for a cup of tea and biscuits, and I went with the flow of parishioners back down the aisle and into the adjacent hall to patiently queue as the tea was served by a gaggle of oh-so-joyful and dependable ladies. Nichol was ahead of me and I could see that he was as agitated as ever, and appeared to be in two minds about whether to stay or beat a hasty exit.

Nichol had just been served and he stood there, alone and looking lost amidst a sea of happy, smiley faces. It was my turn to take my tea now, so feeling for the man, I casually wandered over in his direction. He stood there clutching his cup and saucer and I could almost feel the strain as he raised his cup to his mouth and took a few shaky sips. As he returned the cup, I could hear it rattling against the saucer, such was the state of his nerves.

“Hello again,” I smiled, and the distraction of my presence beside him seemed to calm Nichol. The rattle of cup against saucer stopped and his eyes lit up at my greeting.

“Hello,” he smiled, more naturally this time.

But again, as he took another furtive sip of tea, you could see that Nichol was still far from at ease.

“Let's go outside,” I offered on the spur of the moment, and I abandoned my half-drunk tea on a nearby trestle table.

“Great idea,” Nichol nodded vigorously and he was already heading toward the door. The man spun on his heel and returned to the table, realizing that he still had his drink, before heading off once again for the door. Even before he was outside he already had his tobacco out and was hastily rolling a cigarette as he went, stopping briefly in the foyer to fumble for his box of lucifers[1] before lighting up and going outside.

“Ah, it's good to be outside in the fresh air,” the man beamed at me, his face momentarily lost in the midst of a billowing, blue-grey cloud of smoke; and that discrepancy clearly failing to register in his mind.

“Morris Nichol,” the man greeted me formally, swapping his cigarette into his left hand and offering me the nicotine-stained fingers of his right.

“John Little,” I smiled back, shaking his hand. I didn't exactly have a grip of iron myself, but Nichol's was positively limp.

“I work at the post office as a teller,” the man added. That much I knew, though precious little else.

“Yes, I've seen you there quite often. I gather that chapel isn't quite your cup of tea, Morris.”

Morris Nichol looked furtively about him. “Well, just between you and me, John, I can't abide the place; nor the priest with all his talk of hell fire and damnation.”

I nodded. “Yes, I know exactly what you mean.”

The man looked at his watch. “Ah, just after eleven. That means the pub will be open. Do you fancy a quick pint before lunch? I need to unwind.”

“Why not?” It was a rhetorical question, of course. I shrugged my shoulders and we began to saunter down the hill toward the town's high street. “Yes, that would make a change, Morris. I could do with unwinding, myself. It should be a joy at chapel, and yet – I don't know about you – it leaves me feeling so damned uncomfortable.”

I knew fine well, of course, how it appeared to leave Morris, but I wanted to make him feel more comfortable with me.

I was about to cross the cobbled high street in the direction of the Sun Inn, but Morris gently steered me along a lane to the right, then down a short alley and in through the back door of another hostelry, the Star and Garter. “The Sun gets a little too boisterous for me,” he confided. “I think you'll find it quieter in here. And, what's more, we'll be amongst friends.”

Quite what he meant by that, I didn't know. Certainly with its low oak beamed ceilings and cubbyholes it was altogether quieter, but you could surely find friends enough at somewhere like the Sun. Still, Morris's needs were clearly greater than my own, so I wasn't going to argue.

“Can I buy you a drink?” the man asked as we wandered up to the bar.

I quickly surveyed the pumps, not quite sure what to have. “Why, thank you, yes. I'll have a pint of … um ... the Worther's, Morris.”

He perhaps sensed my hesitation. “I can recommend the Sheep Dip, John. I think you'll find that to your satisfaction.”

“Right you are.”

“I worked here a few years back, when I was in my early twenties …”

Yes, that would be a few years back, I mused.

“... and Alfred the bar cellar man, a wise old cove, advised me to always drink whatever the landlord is having. That way, you could be sure they weren't pouring the slops back into the barrel or watering it down.”

I smiled. I'd heard that before and there was some sense in it.

“Anyhow, John. You go park yourself at a table in the snug over there and I'll bring the drinks over once I've caught Bernie's eye.”

“Morning, Bernie. Yes, two pints of Sheep Dip, please.”

It was quite secluded in the snug and pleasant, too, looking out over a neatly manicured garden at the side of the hostelry. Had the weather been a little warmer, it would have wonderful to have sat outside, but there was a cool breeze blowing in from the north east that day. Although we were miles from the sea here, still you could smell the salt and feel it in the air.

Morris returned from the bar shortly afterwards and sat down, looking visibly more relaxed now that he was in the sanctuary of his local pub.

“Want a roll up?” the man enquired, offering his tobacco. I politely declined and Morris went on to roll himself a cigarette and light up, and he puffed at it occasionally with no sign of anxiety remaining.

“You saw the ring,” he prompted me at length, taking a sip of ale and gently putting his glass down again.

I looked around, but seeing that we were not overlooked I nodded, adding “but you needn't worry. I won't let on.”

“Thank you, my friend,” Morris smiled and he took a long drag on his cigarette, though perhaps more out of relief and satisfaction than anxiety.

“Are you ...” I began, hoping that Morris would grasp my meaning and fill in the blank without my having to utter the word.

“A pagan?” he asked in a hushed tone, completing my sentence.

I nodded.

“I work in the old ways,” he confided, “though I respect all true religion.”

Interesting that he said “work in” and not “follow”. And this respect for “true religion” wasn't quite the same as saying that he respected the New Faith.

“It is called new,” replied Morris, as if plucking the unspoken words off my lips, “and so it was fifteen hundred years ago and three thousand miles away where it originally arose.”

I stroked my chin thoughtfully, wondering how far I dare take this conversation which was already bordering on heresy.

Morris checked that we were not in danger of being overheard.

“What we are left with now is a distortion of the original teaching. A travesty. What was once a living school – working in a particular and limited time, in a particular place, with particular people and in particular circumstances – was never meant to become a universal and monolithic religious institution,” the man explained, shrugging his shoulders. “But that is the way things go awry and degenerate in this world.”

“And the old ways?” I ventured.

“I play a small part, as best I am able and in company with a few others, in keeping the more ancient, indeed perennial traditions intact and alive,” Morris replied.

“In secret?” I asked, though it was more of a statement than a question.

Morris nodded and had another sip of his ale. “That goes without saying.”

“Do the old ways interest you?” he asked after a few moments of silence.

I shrugged. “Morris, I know next to nothing about these old ways. All I know is that, yes, I do believe that there is an intelligent design behind life; that there must be more to life than I see and experience, and that almost anything could be better than the New Faith.”

“So?” Morris prompted.

“So, I'd be happy if there were some way I could find out more about the old ways; then I'd be in a better position, perhaps, to decide if that was the way for me.”

Morris finished off the last of his ale and peered into my eyes. “A group meets here each Thursday evening at seven o'clock,” he replied at length.

“Surely that can't be open knowledge,” I protested mildly. To advertize or display your wares openly in the shop window would surely be suicidal?

Morris merely smiled, then asked: “Do you fish?”

“When I was a boy, my father took me to the River Ashe angling a few times,” I nodded. “And we fished in the sea once when we were on holiday. But why do you ask?”

“John, we meet upstairs each week as the Anglers' Social Club for a drink, a chat and to play darts and dominoes; and from time to time we take part in fishing and organize pleasure trips out of town. For all intents and purposes, as far as Joe Public is concerned, we are anglers and ale guzzlers. This is our camouflage. You'd be surprised to discovery just how much invisible, underground activity there is in society. So if you're interested, you can join us at the Anglers and I'll lend you a rod and fishing tackle so that you have a cover story should anyone wonder what you might be getting up to, and I'll also take responsibility for you.”

“And the old ways?” I asked.

“Don't mention that in public, not even when you're in the club. But we can talk about it in private as and when the need arises.”

“Okay, Morris.”

“After a time, if you show promise, then you may be approached and asked if you wish to take matters further. Until then, we can help you learn how to fish: you'll be surprised how much you can 'catch' from such an activity; simply by spending time with those on the way. And by that I don't simply mean catching fish.”

That sounded tempting. “After a time?”

Morris shrugged and rose from his seat and I followed suit. “It varies. It may be a matter of months; perhaps years; perhaps not at all. So, John, are you still interested?”

I nodded.

“Good, then I'll meet you here at seven tomorrow evening.” Morris held out his arm, we shook hands; then, taking the empty glasses back to the bar, we left and went our separate ways.

3. The Anglers

For over six months I faithfully attended the Anglers' Social Club each Thursday evening and in all that time, Morris didn't once mention the old ways. All we did was chat and drink whilst playing darts and dominoes and the occasional game of billiards. I felt that this was not at all what I had signed up for, and I was expecting far more.

In the end, gradually building up a head of steam on this issue, I could contain myself no longer, and as we were leaving the Star and Garter one evening, I caught up with and button-holed Morris and I told him in no uncertain terms what was on my mind.

Morris smiled and suggested that we go to his flat and talk about the issue, so off we went. I tried to engage him about the old ways as we headed off through town toward his flat, but he kept changing the subject. It wasn't until we were inside his tiny flat above a fish shop on a lane off the high street, and he had made us a pot of tea and settled down by the hearth, that he broached the subject.

“So, John, what's on your mind?” the man enquired, handing me my freshly brewed tea and taking a sip of his own.

I put my cup down on the low table that stood between us and looked the man in the eye. “Morris, before I joined the Anglers' Social Club, you told me that it would provide me with an opportunity to find out more about the old ways. I've been chatting away and supping ale, playing blessèd darts and dominoes and going off on fishing expeditions for over six months now, and not once have you mentioned the old ways. All this seems to be leading me nowhere.”

Morris smiled but said nothing.

I waved my arms around in exasperation. “And what makes it worse is that I can hardly hit the board with my darts; I can't for the life of me think which domino I should play next; and in all the time we've spent fishing, I haven't caught anything larger than a minnow. In short, Morris, I simply do not see the point in continuing.”

Morris took another patient sip of his tea, then he spoke. “Are you really so sure that all you have caught are minnows, John?”

“What's that supposed to mean?” I replied, a little sharply.

“I mean, John, have you considered what you might have begun to learn – or for that matter begun to unlearn – in the time you have spent in our company?”

Again, I waved my hands in the air, signalling that I had no idea what he might mean.

“Let us consider the fishing, John. There are many things you could learn from this activity, if you allowed yourself to relax and enjoy the experience, that is, rather than spending the day impatiently looking at your watch and willing the time to pass. But let's settle on one important thing that the fishing can teach you, and which is a primary requirement of anyone embarking on the path, following the old ways. That, John, is patience, and it's a matter of know how, rather than what you might have been erroneously expecting and wanting but do not actually need, which is yet more know what. In this case, it is the patience required during the time you spend actually fishing in the course of a day; and also, over the weeks, months and years, the patience required to gradually perfect the art of fishing.”

“I'm sorry, Morris, I should have thought of that,” I nodded a little sheepishly, realizing that I hadn't thought the matter through at all well, and had rather spoken with my foot in my mouth.

Morris smiled. “There is a certain element of luck in catching fish, of course, but a lot is down to preparation on the part of the angler. So if you find yourself fishing for month after month without catching anything worth putting in your keep bag, an alternative to giving it up as a bad job or angling not being your forte or putting it down to bad circumstances, would be to take a good long look at yourself and see what shortcomings you might have and what impediments you might have that stand in your way.”

I nodded my head slowly to signify that I was following his line of thought.

“This is something we in the old ways call 'turning the light around,' John. That is, shining the light on ourselves and looking inside ourselves, rather than focusing on the world and upon external circumstance and external adversity. Don't blame the fish for not biting, instead ask yourself 'what is it about me that stands in my own way?'”

Morris got up at his point, cleared away our cups and took them through to his kitchenette, leaving me to ponder his words, perhaps, before returning.

“And then, John, there are the darts and dominoes.”

“Go on …” I urged, mildly abashed, yet eager to hear more.

“You find it hard to hit the trebles and even if by chance you do get a lead over your opponent, they win the game before you've found that finishing double.”

I concurred.

“That's down to your thinking, John; and it's an effort, but unfortunately the wrong kind of effort. The fact is, if you could clear your mind of the nagging demons, and learn to relax and also to trust that a deeper part of you can effortlessly find the right trajectory without your intellect unnecessarily trying to work it out, then you could hit the treble twenty and the finishing double not every time but at least more often than not. That is a matter of having a special touch or gift, which is something that good cooks also have – something which is subtle and delicate and graceful, and often something that is achieved by actually letting go, rather than being controlled like a machine. This, too, is a matter of know how.”

“So again, you're saying it's down to me, Morris?”

“Yes, John, that's what I'm saying. In your case, I would say that your poor performance at darts is down to your being all tensed up. Why should that be? I would say it is down to wayward thoughts and a lack of trust in the extraordinary capabilities which we truly possess, but which are largely buried deep within us; and due to an element of control that you are introducing in order to compensate for more subtle modes of operation which you currently lack. Even, if you'll forgive me saying this, to your lacking a clear conscience. These are the things about you that are holding you back and ruining your throw. If you look at it this way, you will see that you are being self-defeating.”

It suddenly dawned on me. “I hadn't realized until now that you could deduce or diagnose such ills from a simple pastime.”

Morris smiled broadly and slapped his thigh. “Indeed, John. If you only knew: this is but the tiny tip of a huge and largely submerged iceberg.”

The man thought for a moment and appeared to be weighing up something in his mind, then he spoke again.

“The activities and teachings have been likened to an iceberg, and also to an elephant. Little is known about these things by the masses and what is known is more often than not confused. There is even a teaching story about this which has to an extent entered popular usage, though its many layers of deep meaning have been rather lost in both the tale and its reception, and it is this:

A circus had arrived in a nearby town one day and as they began to set up their tents, rumours went around a village about the travellers bringing a strange and exotic beast called a heffalump. Nobody in the village had ever seen a heffalump before, so a number of the village folk volunteered to go and find out what this queer creature might be.

It was night time by the time the group arrived at the circus encampment and locating the tent in which the animal was chained, it was so dark that they were unable to see, and none had thought to take a light with him to illuminate them in the task.

All they could do was feel the animal; which they did, in silence for fear of disturbing the creature, then they galloped back to the town like the wind to recount their tale to the others.

One who had reached out and felt the trunk declared: “It's a monstrous, writhing snake!”

“No, no!” declared another who had felt its tail: “It's a rope.”

“Nonsense!” retorted a third, who had felt an ear. “It's a large and cooling fan.”

A fourth shook his head adamantly, having felt the creature's large chest. “I tell you, it is a huge barrel.”

“Poppycock!” declared a fifth, who had felt a leg: “It was a stout pillar.”

“Friends, why would such a majestic creature submit itself to being chained?” asked a sixth, but they all decided that she was a fool and paid no heed to her words.

Each had felt a part of the heffalump and thought it to be the whole, but none really knew the true nature of the creature, and those who had felt the heffalump in the dark and the other villagers who had not all fell into arguing about the beast.

I had a good laugh at that and thanked Morris, then gently – or, alas, perhaps clumsily – nudged the conversation back to the pastimes at the Anglers. “And the dominoes?” I asked. “I never know which domino to play.”

“Well, one of the reasons for that is that you are not paying attention to what's going on in the here and now. You attend the meetings and yet rather than being truly present, you are largely absent.”

That sounded a little unfair.

“John, if you were truly present, then you would be able to see right through your partner, through your opponents and through the dominoes, and you would be winning more games. The mere fact that this is not the case is quite sufficient evidence to support my allegation. Playing well isn't a guarantee that someone is ready. It could be that they train obsessively and that they are cock sure of themselves. But playing badly, given sufficient training, is a sure sign that something is amiss. Let's face facts: a simple village yoke could take you on and wipe the floor with you. Sophistication is neither a prerequisite nor a later requirement; indeed, it can be an impediment to progress.

“Now, some really do have the knack, John. You know there are some real magicians in our midst, and yet they have to allow people to believe that it must be nothing more than mere trickery and sleight of hand, because these people would never believe them if they admitted that it was real. And in other areas, of course, it would be dangerous not to allow people to think one a fool or a charlatan or in some way disturbed. The only thing that many see in me, for example, is my nervous condition, and I find this useful in distracting them from the truth.”

Again I felt rather sheepish and I apologized profusely.

“In your mind, you are always foraging somewhere else; perhaps in search of something – but what? – which you know deep down, though fortunately not quite dead, has been too long missing in action behind enemy lines.

“Back to the game, John. You're not remembering the dominoes that others are playing, nor paying attention to which dominoes the others might have played but do not, since they either do not have them in their hand or else are saving them for later for some reason. So if they do not have these dominoes, then who else does? And you're oblivious to the clandestine signals and subtle hints passing between your opponents and those coming from your own partner. There is no harmonious flow between you. Of course it goes a lot deeper than that – again it goes into the area of being aware of and having trust in intuition, for example – but for now this is sufficient for you to get the picture. Again and again, this is a matter of know how, and the only way to gain know how is not from being told, except to bring the matter to your attention and sensitize you to it, is through humble, patient, trusting experience.”

Morris thought for a moment. “You know, John, I think that you are naturally sensitive, yet unable to correctly handle this through lack of training and developed capacity. This might be likened to how radio works and there are certain technical requirements such as direction, induction, receptivity, detection, attunement, discrimination, amplification, capacity; and so forth.

“So you feel things and at times these feelings niggle and wound and undermine and devastate and crush you, rather than being something that you can comprehend, handle and constructively and creatively work with.”

“That sounds ominous,” I gulped.

Morris shook his head vigorously. “No, no. You are altogether too quick to place a negative spin on things, John. This sensitivity is a good sign, vestigial, unbridled and wayward as it is. This is, in part, what has brought us together: a natural inkling for what is real and trustworthy, if you like. So let's take it to be a positive thing, eh?”

“Okay. So these are yet more skills?”

“Not just specific skills to acquire, John, rather a set of transferable skills. That is, skills that may be used in other situations and for other more important purposes. And they're not just skills to acquire, as you might acquire facts, but the exercise of skills. All these things, as well as being pastimes at a superficial level, are also exercises in more important things; in developing skills and qualities that will be required on the path.”

“You amaze me, Morris. So as well as a diagnosis, there's also a prescription. I wouldn't have thought it.”

“Exercise through the pastimes themselves is a small part of the prescription, John. Again, it goes a lot deeper than that, but as I said, this will suffice for now. I can see that you place quite a lot of emphasis on intellectually understanding such matters, and as well as being only a part of the story, this need to understand can also become a hindrance. You'll learn more from simple companionship with those on the way – from their presence, if you like – than through the alleged sovereign intellect.”

“Do the others know about all this ...” I began.

“This esoteric stream?” Morris interposed. “A few at the Anglers know and some have an inkling, but most of the members have no idea that the activities there are anything more than mere ale and skittles. That's one of the reasons that I advised you not to mention the old ways.”

“And what about other clubs?”

“Only a few have valid connections to the old ways,” Morris replied. “There are a great many other, diverse institutions which no longer have valid connections to the path; though for a few the Work goes on, not only here but throughout the world. In this day and age, though, the Work is largely carried out in secret. Well, I say secret, and yet it's an open secret, really: it is hidden more by people's lack of development and lack of perception than anything deliberate on our part. Show most people an enlightened master with a tankard of ale in his hand, and they will see a drunkard, rather than the reality. I could take you on a tour of this town and you would be astounded by the diverse enterprises once or still connected to the Work. There is a plethora of signs, clear for all to see, if only they could decipher and understand them and weren't so often tied in knots.”

“Would you? Would you show me, I mean?”

Morris slowly shook his head and abruptly turned his attention to his pocket watch. It must be getting quite late. “Well, I think we should adjourn now.”

I rose to my feet, followed Morris down the stairs to the front door and stood there for a moment to shake his hand and bid one-another a fond adieu until next Thursday; then the door closed behind me and he was gone.

~~~O~~~

Another six months passed by and still Morris had little to say to me about the old ways, though I did attempt to broach the subject on several occasions when we were in private. All this time, I continued to attend the social club each Thursday evening and tried my best both to fit in and to master the darts, dominoes and fishing.

I did mention in passing to Morris that I thought I was at length becoming more patient, but he countered by gently suggesting that there was a difference between being truly patient with patience and waiting impatiently for a long time.

Yes, I have to admit that I was becoming bored with the affair and hankered after something different, rather than more of the same.

Another thing that I'd noticed over these last few months was that Morris seemed to be paying less and less attention to me at the meetings, and I noted that I actually experienced twinges of jealousy when he spent so much time with some of the other, apparently more privileged members. I mentioned these feelings to Morris one evening when I'd finally managed to speak privately with him, realizing myself that these were less than noble feelings. He pointed out, much to my chagrin, that this craving for attention and feelings of jealousy were to do with emotions, dependence, territoriality and pecking order (that is, dominance and submission). It was primitive and sub-human, really, Morris explained: the sort of stuff that you'd see clearly displayed amongst animals, such as in a pack of dogs or a group of chimpanzees. And as well as desire, he went on, it was to do with the erroneous expectations of the false self, ego.

Of course, this came as something of a shock to me, since Morris made no attempt to sugar his words, and I did indeed go off with my tail between my legs, or a flea in my ear, just like a scolded dog; which in turn gave me yet more pause for thought once I'd eventually calmed myself down. It was then – and only then – that I realized that Morris had not scolded me for the sake of scolding itself, but so that I could experience and really feel and recognize these things operating in me and throwing me out of kilter. Again, this in turn brought me to the first inklings of the realization that I knew and understood so very little about my own internal workings.

Then one Wednesday after morning chapel, as I was sauntering home, I heard the clatter of feet on the cobbled street behind me and turned to see Morris trotting after me. Under normal circumstances, I would have been glad to see the man again, but at that moment, having been abruptly made redundant at the cotton mill the very day before and thrown into a state of anxiety and prayer, I had a thousand and one other things to preoccupy my mind; not least how I was going to be able to afford the rent at the end of the week, or food after that.

There were three things in life that filled me with trepidation and these were fear of the unknown (brought about for example by abrupt and unexpected change), fear of failure and fear of ridicule; even fear of fear itself. The word “awful” had become rather hackneyed over the years, of course, as was the oft-used phrase “I'm gutted”; but the lay off really had come as an awful bolt out of the blue to me and, yes, it filled me with dread.

“Ah, John, I'm glad I managed to catch you,” Morris announced when he'd finally caught his breath. “Do you fancy a pint and pie and peas at the Star and Garter? There's a matter I'd like to discuss.”

A lump welled up in my throat. “Nothing serious, I hope.”

“No, no, not at all, John. Positive spin, remember?”

I nodded, breaking into a relieved smile. “Yes, Morris, I do remember.”

Morris stopped dead in his tracks and craned his head to one side, as if listening. Finally he spoke: “You've got to emphasize the positive and turn your back on the negative, John.”

“Sounds like you have the makings of a good song there, Morris,” I laughed as we just as abruptly moved on.

“Oh, yes. I'm sure of it, John. If there's a song in the air, then someone, somewhere, some time will write it down. You can be sure of that. I have a friend who works in publishing and he told me that it's not uncommon to receive two or more or even a whole heap of book proposals and synopses at around the same time essentially concerning the same idea; as if, as I say, that this idea was somehow floating around in the air or drawn from the wells of the collective subconscious and the springs and fountains of inspiration. This friend is quite a prolific writer, John, and you should look out for his books on your travels.”

Morris mentioned a name, which meant little to me at the time and which, alas, due to my heedlessness, I almost immediately misplaced and forgot. But it was a name that was to crop up many months later, and with new and profound significance, in one of those proverbial jaw-dropping moments. Fortunately for me, when opportunity knocks on the door and either doesn't receive an answer or else has the door slammed rudely in its face, it doesn't write us off as devoid of all hope. Ever optimistic and glad to be of service, it will call again and again, perhaps in some new and equally unexpected guise. I didn't know it at the time, but this was one of the reasons that Morris encouraged me to be alert and watchful when we were out and about on our fishing expeditions. As well as an adept angler, he was also quite an accomplished bird watcher, and – stone the crows! – what I had disparagingly dismissed as mere twitching, later turned out to have been yet another developmental exercise.

Now who would credit that? I remember thinking at the time that what I really needed from Morris was some magical formula with suitably mystical words to intone whilst I sat cross-legged in meditation, and all he could do was talk about darts and dominoes, fish and twitching. How ignorant I was. So ignorant, indeed, that I thought myself wise.

“So, what's on your mind, Morris?” I asked as the waiter left, having delivered our steaming pie, peas and gravy.

Morris sat there with his fork in mid air. “Are you still interested in pursuing the old ways, John?”

“Sure,” I replied, though given my sudden and detrimental change in circumstances, the words sounded rather dull and empty.

“Good. Well, let's eat first, then talk.”

So we finished off our meal in virtual silence, until unable to contain myself any longer I had to share my bad news with the man. I expected him to come over all sympathetic, but instead he merely smiled.

“Positive spin, remember, John,” he responded as I finished recounting my woes and laid my knife and fork to one side.

“Morris, all the positive spin in the world won't pay my rent at the end of the week. And then what will I do for food?”

“Oh ye of little faith. Now, are you still interested in the old ways?” he repeated.

“Sure. I mean I think so, but this has really put the fox in the hen coup, Morris.”

Without batting an eyelid, Morris stood up and fished in his trouser pocket. He retrieved his wallet and pulled out a wad of bank notes, without bothering to count them. He sat down and passed the bundle of notes across the table to me.

“Oh, Morris, thank you for your generosity, but I can't take this,” I protested, gently pushing the heap of notes a little closer to him.

“Nonsense, John, I insist.”

“Well.”

“I insist. I wouldn't offer the money if I couldn't afford it. And besides, if you are really interested in pursuing the path, then you'll be needing it.”

I reluctantly took the money. “Thank you. But I must insist on paying for this meal. And I promise that I'll repay every penny once I get back on my feet.”

“And the path, John?”

“Sure, Morris. Let me buy us another pint, and you can tell me all about it.”

“This is where the positive spin comes in, John”, Morris told me as he took a sip of the ale I'd just brought over. “When you lost your job, your initial reaction was that it was yet another calamity to have to worry about. In reality, given what I am about to propose, it could not have been more timely. It will save you having to work your notice, which would have delayed your departure. If you're willing, that is.”

“My departure? Am I going somewhere?”

Morris took out a scrap of paper and his fountain pen and meticulously wrote down what looked like a name, then handed the note to me.

“Malik Joujai? Inderhan?” I queried, reading the words.

“Malik Joujai is a teacher of the old ways, John. And Inderhan is a small town in the centre of Gothgorian.”

For a time I stood there looking nonplussed. “Meaning?”

“Meaning that I am not qualified to take on your further studies beyond pointing you to the way to the way, John. There is a person who will undoubtedly be able to diagnose and prescribe a remedy for you and that is the Teacher of the Age, and it is he you must seek out.”

“So this Malik Joujai is the Teacher of the Age?” I wondered.

Morris shook his head. “No, but he studied under the Teacher of the Age's predecessor and he will be able to point you in the right direction.”

“Can't you simply write down the chief's name and address and cut out the middle man?” I wanted to know.

Again Morris shook his head. “No, John, this is not indicated; nor, for that matter, is it currently possible.”

“Why's that, Morris?”

The man shrugged his shoulders. “As yet I don't know. However, I trust that all will become clear in due course.”

I carefully pocketed the scrap of paper and begged a roll-up from Morris.

“I didn't know that you smoked,” he replied, handing over his tobacco and cigarette papers before rolling a cigarette for himself.

“I don't usually,” I replied, licking the paper and waiting patiently for a light. “I used to smoke like a crematorium chimney, but gave up a few years back.”

“Then I shouldn't be encouraging you to restart,” Morris sighed.

“Oh, don't worry, I won't.”

I accepted a light from Morris and took a cautious drag. Almost instantly I was hit by an awful leaden feeling, but it slowly subsided and after a time the smoke became bearable. “Jeez, what do they put in this stuff?”

I was just about to speak when Morris plucked the words out of my mind, even before they'd reached my tongue. “I suppose that you'd like me to give you a piece of advice?” he began rhetorically, brushing back what little hair remained on the top of his head. “Some nugget from the teachings that will leave you feeling that at last you have something that you are able to understand. Well, John, so that you don't go away feeling that you have been in some way short changed, here it is.” And he began to recite from memory:

I who think I know or feel I know, let me Know,

I who think I love or feel I love, let me Love,

I who think I am or feel I am, let me Be.

He who thinks he knows or feels he knows, let him Know,

He who thinks he loves or feels he loves, let him Love,

He who thinks he is or feels he is, let him Be.

We who think we know or feel we know, let us Know,

We who think we love or feel we love, let us Love,

We who think we are or feel we are, let us Be.

He who Knows and Loves and Is, let him be followed.

So let it be.

I immediately enquired about an explanation, of course, but none was forthcoming and, with apologies, I belatedly took back my rash words.

All Morris would say was: “It's a lot to remember with precision, having heard the recitation only once, so I've written the words down for you.” He reached in his pocket and passed a sheet of paper toward me.

“Should I read the words each day when I awaken, or when I go to bed?” I wanted to know.

“This is not chapel, so there's no set routine, John. Give your head a rest and, at the very least, give your heart a look in every now and again. Simply memorize the words and repeat them whenever they naturally spring to mind,” he advised, then added: “The words read 'he', since you are a male; but of course they might equally read 'she' or, when in company, be repeated to cover both.”

“So, tell me, when do I embark?” I wanted to know when I'd finished the cigarette, stubbed it out and washed the foul taste down with a swig of ale.

“Oh, there's no rush. Any time in the next week.”

“No rush? But what about my things?”

“Take with you whatever you can comfortably carry and I'll help you transport the rest. You can put it in storage in my cellar. Don't worry, it's cool down there but quite dry.”

So that was that. Having said my goodbyes, on the following Thursday morning, bright and early, I was waiting on the high street outside the Sun Inn for the first of three horse-drawn carriages to take me to the south of Hodweir, then across the border and down to Inderhan in Gothgorian. And yes, I did have a case of the jitters, wondering what on earth had possessed me to embark on such a madcap journey when I should be pulling out all the stops to find myself a new job.

Morris had thought of everything: planning my route, obtaining the tickets and also providing me with a suitable letter of introduction to give to Malik Joujai. The letter was sealed and I had no idea what it said about me, knowing only that Morris would have wanted me to place a positive spin on it.

4. Malik Joujai

Inderhan in Gothgorian

It was a long journey to Inderhan, but it was not arduous: excitement and mild trepidation, novelty and wonder denying the onset of boredom or fatigue. We stopping near the southern border in Hodweir and I stayed overnight at a wayside inn. They had all manner of fine and exotic fare on the menu, but unable to decide, not sure how far I'd have to make my money stretch and not wanting anything rich that would have me farting like a trooper in the cramped confines of the coach the next day, in the end I settled for that good old family standby and staple diet of the home alone bachelor: bangers, mash, peas and gravy.

Then I was up early the next day to catch a second carriage which took us into Gothgorian. This coach only went a few miles over the border; and looking at one of the maps that Morris had thoughtful drawn, it would have saved a good few miles and a lot of time had I gone south through the Freelands, where the roads were said to be a lot straighter and better maintained, then west the short distance on the narrow, winding Gothgorian lanes to Inderhan, but there you go. There must have been method in Morris's apparent madness.

The coaches were well sprung, which meant that we weren't jolted about, jarring our spines, but when I did alight, after swaying this way and that like a ship at sea, it took me some time before I again found my land legs and stood on what felt like solid and stable ground.

I would have to wait until almost lunch time to catch a motorized bus, so after successfully locating the currency exchange bureau, armed with Morris's detailed instructions and intricate directions, I wondered idly around town for a time, marvelling at the newfangled and opulent delights on offer in the busy shops, then found a quiet café for a bite to eat and a refreshing cup of tea before heading off to find the bus station.

This was the first time I'd ever ridden in a motor vehicle, though I'd seen a few in Hodweir, so it was quite an experience; third only – or so I am told – to travelling by steam train or the joys of sex. By the time I got to Inderhan, however, after another overnight stop, I would have gladly swapped the noxious, belching grey fumes of the motorized bus for the occasionally smelly fart of a real, live shire horse. Still – positive spin, Little John, positive spin – it was, shall we say, a novel experience; and, truth be told, at times quite exhilarating, not least for the scenery which was so welcoming, carefree and verdant after the daily grind in the grim granite mills of Hodweir.

~~~O~~~

It was gone lunch time by the time I finally arrived in Inderhan and my stomach was rumbling, so rather than go and hunt down Malik Joujai, my first priority was to find a café and eat my fill. There were several not far from a busy market, but peering in through the windows as I passed, they looked altogether too crowded and filled with tobacco smoke for my comfort, so I wandered further afield until I came to a row of shops near the river. Away from the thronging crowds, here I found a quaint little café which looked out over the river and when I'd found a small table by the window and studied the menu, a pleasantly rounded lady came over with a notepad to serve me. I ordered a bacon and egg sandwich, a buttered scone and, throwing caution to the wind, rather than a pot of tea, I thought I might try a coffee, which was something I had heard of, yet never tasted back in Hodweir.

Unexpectedly faced with a question about what kind of coffee I would like, my face flushed and I babbled something that sounded sensible like “oh, just a normal coffee, thanks”, hoping that the lady would be able to decipher that. “Black or white?” she continued, unphased by my ignorance. I shrugged and finally admitted that, coming from the Outlands, I had no idea and gladly took her advice to have the white, which she told me was coffee with milk, and that if I took sugar in my tea, I would probably prefer to also take my coffee with sugar. She seemed a rather pleasant and accommodating lady and I thanked her profusely when she brought over my lunch.

The lady paused for a few moments and asked whether I was just visiting Gothgorian and I told her yes, and that I was hoping to meet a gentleman by the name of Malik Joujai.

At that she smiled and clapped her hands together. “Mister Joujai is a true gentleman and he has a wicked sense of humour. You may not believe this, but he comes here two or three times a week to sit at this very table looking out over the river,” she told me. “Indeed, he was here just a few minutes ago, and I wouldn't be in the least surprised if you found that very seat still warm.”

“What a small world!” I exclaimed.

“I would take this to be an auspicious sign that you are right on track,” the lady added, tapping her nose before she turned to go back to the counter. “Enjoy your meal.”

“Yes, indeed, thank you,” I beamed. Wonders will never cease.

~~~O~~~

Walking along the busy street, I scanned the sign posts as I came to each junction, looking for names that matched locations on the map that Morris had drawn, and after zigzagging through the town for twenty minutes to half an hour, I came across Threadmoor Road, turned down there and crossed the road looking for number thirty three.

And there it was, with “Joujai Bicycles and Repairs” written across an old wooden board over the windows. Taking a deep breath, I opened the door and went in, a tiny brass bell jingling away over the door as I opened it and again as I gently closed it behind me.

A plump and ruddy face topped by curly black hair popped up from behind a counter as I walked in and I smiled, bade the portly man a polite “hello” and, explaining that Morris Nichol had sent me. Forwarding his respects, I fished in my pocket and handed over the letter of introduction.

The man wiped his greasy hands and broke the waxen seal on the letter and read it thoughtfully for some time, then pocketed the letter and offered a spade-like hand. “Greetings to you, John,” he smiled, grasping and shaking my hand in an iron grip. “Excuse me for a moment.”

“Sure,” I agreed and the man went off into the back of the shop. He returned shortly afterwards with a small, slim lady with long, shiny auburn hair, and we exchanged greetings. This was Maria, his wife, and she would gladly mind the shop while we went for a short walk to get to know one-another a little better. Satisfied that I'd eaten and drunk recently, quite tickled when I told them about the café and agreeing that this was indeed a good omen, Maria took my bags and put them in safe keeping while we were away.

“So, what brings you here, John?” Malik Joujai asked as we sauntered through the back streets of the town and entered a spacious park. Of course, given Morris's letter, he must have known this already, but no doubt he wanted to broach the subject and to have me tell him in my own words.

“Well,” I began, and almost immediately suitable words failed me, so I settled on “I've grown disillusioned with religion, at least that practised and pretty much mandatory in Hodweir ….”

“Hodweir?” Malik queried.

“That's what most folk call the Outlands,” I explained.

“Ah, I see. Do go on.”

“I do believe in spirituality and I've felt for some time that there must be genuine teaching behind the formal religions. And when Morris told me about the 'old ways' as he calls them, that aroused my interest.”

“And now?”

“And now, having spent some time with Morris, on his suggestion I am in search of the Teacher of the Age who would know how to diagnose and prescribe for my condition. I'm told that you studied under his predecessor and that you would be able to point me in the right direction.”

“I see.” Malik nodded thoughtfully as we walked through the park. Seeing a long wooden bench overlooking some rose beds, he guided me toward the bench and we sat there for a time.

“Yes, I spent several years studying with the Teacher of the Age before he passed on,” he spoke at length. “And immediately two things spring to mind. The first is that there are many teachers and their deputies in the world from whom you could learn a great deal. Indeed, it could be seen as a form of ignorance and even arrogance to consider that one must be taught by the Teacher of the Age or that only he – or she – is sufficiently advanced to teach one.”

A lump welled up in my throat and I took a gulp.

“And the second is that what some term the Hidden Teacher is inside us, so in one sense there is nowhere that we need go in search, other than to see our qualities and frailties mirrored in the world and to search within.”

Again I felt the lump and I was about to make my apologies when Malik rose to his feet and, breaking into a smile, abruptly changed the subject and began to recount a joke.

One evening, Nadir Nus was sitting in a chair in his garden, watching the stars and relaxing, when he noticed a dark figure flit around the side of the house, leading a donkey. Leaving the donkey, he climbed a drainpipe and entered through an open window. Shortly afterwards, the figure emerged from the back door and began to load the donkey with all manner of possessions that he'd found in the house. The burglar did not see Nadir Nus in the dark.

As the man went off, Nadir Nus followed him until they came to a house and when the burglar disappeared inside, Nadir Nus went over to the donkey and began to unload it. When that was done, he went back into the house, crept upstairs and hid under the blankets in a bed, pretending to be asleep.

Soon the man came into the bedroom, threw back the bedclothes and spotted Nadir Nus there, and he jumped back in fright. “What are you doing here?!”he gasped.

Nadir Nus sat up in bed and replied: “Oh, I thought you were moving house for me!”

I remembered then something that Morris had said: that true masters do not have to routinely harangue and berate their students for their fatuity; they could say the most devastating things in a quite matter of fact and polite way, and deflect any hurt by passing something off as a joke or abruptly changing the subject. It seemed that this was one of those occasions.

“So what now?” I ventured to ask as we began to walk back through the garden toward the shop.

“You mean, where does this leave you now, John?”

“That's right, Malik.”

“If you're still willing, I would suggest that you spend some time with me. Our accommodation above the shop is cramped, but you'd be more than welcome to sleep on a folding bed in the shop and sit and eat with us upstairs … unless, of course you have other plans?”

“No, thank you, that would be more than generous, and I'll gladly pay you ….”

“Pay me?” Malik queried.

“What did you have in mind, sir?”

“Oh, I'm sure we can find things to occupy you in the shop, and I would consider that payment enough for your board and lodging.”

As soon as we arrived back and Maria had brought us a cup of tea, Malik was eager to get on with his work. He rummaged around in a drawer and found me a dark blue linen boiler suit and an apron and led me through into the workshop behind the shop to a huge and sprawling heap of bicycle parts in various states of disrepair.

“Right my lad, let's get you started. There's no time like the present,” Malik announced, selecting an old bicycle frame minus its wheels, seat and handlebars. “In answer to your many as yet unasked questions, know-what is ten a penny and often not worth the paper it's printed on. I'm here to teach you know-how and that is an altogether different kettle of fish.”

Hearing those words, which echoed Morris Nichol's own prior sentiments, I had to smile, and I found this all rather reassuring, really.

The man handed me the frame, then rummaged around in another drawer for a wire brush, metal files and various grades of abrasive cloth.

“What would you like me to do?” I asked.

“Watch me closely and inwardly digest,” the master said and he spent several minutes working on a patch of old paint until he was down to the bare metal.

“That's the first stage in the preparation,” the man told me. “Then go back over the whole thing with the course cloth and finally all over it again with the fine, burnishing it until you can see your face in it, distorted as the image might be. As within, so without. We can't afford mediocrity, so take your time and be thorough, without being obsessive. Let common sense and moderation be your watchwords. Now, if there's anything you don't understand, please let me know. And if you're in any doubt about any task, do not be afraid to ask. You'll find it a lot less trouble and less vexing to get something right from the beginning than if you have to fix it or redo it later on.”

“Right,” I nodded.

“And another day, when you've worked your way through all the frames there, I'll show you the next step. I'll be back in a few minutes to see how you're getting on and offer corrections and advice if any is needed.”

And with that the man went off to man the shop, leaving me to it.

This went on for the best part of a week. Malik and Maria were a pleasant enough couple, though Malik was quite a strict and exacting taskmaster, in sharp contrast to Morris, who had been so mild-mannered.

After the frames and the mud guards came the wheels. After that came the handlebars. After that came the paint. And after that came the tyres and the leather saddles. Oh, and by the way, don't forget the gears and chain; the chain guard; the brakes; cables; lights; batteries; pump and bell … with brass knobs on. It was clear to me by now that the tantalizing fairytale quest on which I had embarked had turned out to be a one-way ticket to an army boot camp.

On it went, day after day; week after week; the blisters on my fingers by now being replaced by calluses. On the bright side, of course, by this time the awful aches and pains in my arms, shoulders, back and legs had finally receded into the distance; and what had after a time become an onerous chore, had finally – indeed, almost unbelievably – become a task worthy of a certain degree of pride, even joy as I dug deep. I had finally found what Malik termed my second wind. And again on the bright side, I did get some time to myself whenever Malik and Maria popped out on an evening.

At long last the many bright and shiny rebuilt bikes were taken through to the shop to be put up for sale. For a brief moment, I had the bizarre and unnerving thought that at this point Malik might send me back to the workshop with the bikes to start on them all over again – indeed it was almost as if someone had deliberately planted that disturbing thought in my head – but in the event he was exceedingly pleased when he saw the results and took me to his favourite riverside café, and after that we went to back to the shop and upstairs to celebrate.

In all this time, just as it had been with Morris, little to nothing was mentioned about the old ways, but at this pivotal moment, I felt I might again broach the subject. Perhaps it was that at this point, and having worked so hard, I felt that I deserved to be allowed this consideration?

Again Malik and Maria were unforthcoming and I felt a little miffed.[2] “Are there any books about the old ways?” I asked finally. If they wouldn't tell me more, then I'd damn well read up on the subject myself.

“A great many,” Malik told me, “though I would say that ninety nine percent are not worth the paper they are printed on, being largely written either by self-proclaimed experts in the field or by misguided and deluded supposed practitioners.”

“And the other one percent?” I asked hopefully.

Malik poured me a fresh glass of wine. “At the moment this is not indicated, John.”

“So what is indicated?” I wanted to know, smiling to take the sharp edge off my words and to hide my growing exasperation.

“John, I can see that you're hankering after some free sample of wisdom to take away with you.” The man paused for a moment, with his hand gently resting on his temple, as if lost in deep thought. “Very well, it is this:”

Nadir Nus once worked as a ferryman and one day a school teacher hired him to take him across the wide river.

“Could be a bit rough, mister, so I'd hang on to your seat if I were you,” Nadir Nus advised.

As Nadir Nus took to the oars to get them under way, he happened to say something ungrammatical to the school teacher and the man shook his head disdainfully. “Tut, tut. Have you never learnt grammar, my good man?”

“No,” Nadir Nus replied. “Can't say as I have.”

“Then half your life has been wasted,” the man retorted.

Nadir Nus said nothing, and as they approached the middle of the river, a powerful wind blew up and the tiny boat was tossed around all over the place, swamping it.

At this point, Nadir Nus turned to the fussy pedant and bellowed to be heard above the wind and crashing waves: “Have you ever learnt to swim?”

“No,” the man replied. “Why do you ask?”

“Then all your life has been wasted, school teacher, for we are sinking.”

Brushing aside my words of appreciation, Malik continued:

“Anyhow, John, I am greatly pleased to say that your work with us here is complete, and we are both grateful for your efforts over the weeks,” Malik replied at length. “I have shown you something of what I know, and you have picked up much in passing whilst in our company.”

“Thank you, I'm grateful for the opportunity, Malik. And?”

“And now it is time for you to move on.”

This came as something of a surprise to me, though not a great shock.

“But where?” I asked.

“Either back to your homeland or further on in your quest. That's entirely up to you, John.”

“Onward,” I decided without giving the matter any further thought.

“Very well, then you go to find the Teacher of the Age who, as Morris said, will be able to diagnose and prescribe for your condition.”

“And where might I find him?” I asked, draining my glass and politely declining a top up.

“Moderation, indeed,” Malik smiled. “Though on this occasion, I think the Lady Alicia will not begrudge us making an exception ….”

I laughed. “Oh, go on then! You've twisted my arm.”

“Where can you find the Teacher of the Age?” Malik echoed, refilling our glasses. “Arianne Plumb at Lorien studied under one of the deputies of the Teacher of the Age and she will be able to point you in the right direction.”

“Where's Lorien?” I asked.

“In Ingmar.”

I shrugged. “That's beyond my knowledge of geography, Malik.”

Maria went over to the rosewood writing bureau against the wall and returned with some documents. She sat down beside me and riffled through until she found a map. “There's Ingmar,” she pointed out. “As you can see, it's to the south east of Gothgorian and south of the Freelands. And there is Lorien, which you'll be happy to know is near the northern border of Ingmar, so it won't be too arduous a journey. You can get a bus as far as the southern border of Gothgorian, stay overnight, then catch a train to Lorien. You'll find that Ingmar, like the Freelands, is a lot more developed and modern than Gothgorian, let alone your homeland in the Outlands.

“Anyhow, here are all the details, John,” she said finally, passing the bundle of papers to me. “There's also a letter of introduction for Arianne, together with your earlier letter from Morris. Show them both to Arianne.”

“Many thanks, Maria. So when do I set out?”

“What do you think, Malik?” she enquired.

“Let's strike whilst the iron is hot, John,” Malik decided. “There's a southbound bus leaving at seven thirty tomorrow morning. Or one at ten if that's too early for you.”

“Or too early for you,” I pondered.

“Oh, don't worry about that, I'm always up no later than six, John,” Maria informed me. “It won't take long to get your breakfast ready, and I'll give you a packed lunch to keep you going.”

“Thank you. The first bus it is, then. And in case I don't get another chance to thank you: thank you immensely for all your help. I'll be eternally grateful.”

“You're welcome. That's what friends are for, John,” Maria smiled. “And thank you for your help. It's been a delight having you around and getting to know you better.”

Malik leant across the table and placed his hand on my shoulder. “And when you're next through this way, on our way home, you must take one of the bikes you renovated. I know you won't have use for one now, but on your way home. Can you ride?”

“I must confess I can't, Malik.”

“And you didn't think to ask? Where did you think Maria and I often disappeared to on an evening?”

“No,” I replied sheepishly. “I must say that this hadn't occurred to me until now.”

“You spend week after week learning about and renovating bikes and yet you cannot ride? Where's the sense in that?” Malik laughed. “Then I will gladly teach you. Once you learn to ride, you'll never forget.

“And now, since it's getting late and you have to be off early tomorrow morning, perhaps we should retire for the night? Have a safe, fruitful and enjoyable journey, my friend.”

5. Arianne Plumb

Lorien in Ingmar

Gothgorian was quite modern and opulent by the standards of my homeland, Hodweir, which still struggled with crippling reparations and restrictions following the second Great War; but I was not at all prepared for what I found in Ingmar. Whereas Gothgorian might be thought of as a notch or two further up the league table, then Ingmar was in a higher league altogether. Indeed, it might have been a country in another time or even on another planet, if such a thing were possible. Everything was not only opulent, but also – more than simply newfangled – so strange and at times perplexing to my eyes. In one shop window, I was astounded to see two whole rows of shiny boxes which contained moving pictures. This was the first time I'd seen the like of this, and I didn't even have a name for these strange contraptions. On more than one occasion, I had to pinch myself to check that I was not dreaming. Yes, the pinch hurt; and, yes, this was indeed real.

The streets of Lorien were so busy with smoky traffic and the crowds of shoppers made the pavements flow like swollen rivers. I must admit, I found this too much for comfort. All this activity left me feeling flustered and disorientated. So, rather than hunt around for a place to eat, having managed to change my money at a post office and head still swimming, I was thankful to get away from the crowds and find my way to Arianne Plumb's door.

Drawing a deep breath, I opened the low, varnished wooden gate, careful to close it behind me, and I slowly wandered up the crazy paving that meandered through the floral garden toward what looked like a tea house at the far end. Yes, as fortune would have it, it was a rather quaint café.

I was glad to see that there were not too many people in there. Not only would I get to meet Arianne Plumb, I could also have something to fill my gurgling, empty stomach and take a few minutes out to wind down from the hustle and bustle of town.

Deciding that it might be better to eat first, that being my most pressing need, I took a seat at one of the tables in the window, overlooking the garden, and scanned through the menu. Having decided what I wanted, I waited a few moments, expecting a waiter or waitress to come to take my order. It finally dawned on me, as I watched a customer who'd just entered the café, that at this establishment the idea was to go to the counter to be served, even helping oneself to cold items, which is something that was unheard of back home.

Having eaten my fill, I went back to the counter to speak to the sprightly lady who had served me. “Hello again,” I smiled, with my letters of introduction already at hand. “I'm looking for Arianne Plumb.”

“That's me,” the lady smiled. “What can I do for you?”

So I made a fumbling attempt at explaining that Morris Nichol had sent me to Malik Joujai and that he, in turn, had sent me to her. Having made a bit of a botch of this, I apologized and held out the letters of introduction. Maria Joujai had put them both in the same sealed envelope, so I still had no idea what had been written about me. Only good things, I hoped.

The lady wiped her fingers, took the letter, broke the seal, opened it and spent some time thoughtfully reading the contents. That done, she pocketed the letters and asked if I'd excuse her for just a moment while she called her daughter to man the fort.

Returning a little later, Arianne took off her apron, hung it on a peg on the wall and ushered me outside, to a table in the garden.

“Arianne Plumb,” she smiled, formally greeting me. “It's good to meet you, John. Do sit down and you can tell me a little bit more about what brings you here.”

Shortly afterwards, Arianne's daughter appeared and asked if we would like a drink. After the long and thirsty journey, I said that I would gladly go a second cup of tea, and Arianne joined me.

So I explained my discontent with the New Faith as practised back home and about how Morris had introduced me to the old ways, or at least the way to the way as he called it, and how he'd sent me off to find the Teacher of the Age who would be able to diagnose and prescribe for my condition. I told her how, after spending some time meeting at the Anglers, Morris had sent me to Malik and how, after working for a time in Malik's workshop, he had in turn now sent me to her. Throughout all this, Arianne remained silent, merely nodding to signify that she was following what I was telling her.

At length she spoke. “Would you like to spend some time here with me, John?” she asked.

“Yes, if it's not putting you out, I would be grateful of that,” I replied.

“Oh, it's no trouble, John. My daughter Helen usually helps me in the café and in the garden, and as destiny would have it, she and her husband will be moving to another town later this month. So, yes, I could do with some help around the place, if that suits you? We have a spare room and you're welcome to stay, in return for work in the café and the garden. I gather that by now you will have begun to appreciate the benefit of spending time in the presence of the friends and of working with them on worldly tasks? In the tradition, except for limited times and purposes, we do not spend our time living like hermits on some distant mountain-top in Narayana, but rather go about our work in the market place and the everyday world.”

“Yes, I see,” I nodded excitedly.

She smiled. “You think you see, John, and perhaps you feel you see, but as yet you do not really see. But don't worry, there will come a time when you do.”

As she said those words, I was reminded of the recitation that Morris had given and I offered her the first line: “I who think I know or feel I know, let me Know ....”

“Yes, indeed,” the lady smiled appreciatively, gently patting my arm and rising to her feet.

“Right, then, let's get you settled into your room, John.”

“When do I start?” I asked her, rubbing my hands together to show my eagerness.

“When you've freshened up after your journey, I'll give you a tour of the café. Would tomorrow morning be too soon for you?”

“No, that's fine, Arianne.”

“Good, then let me take your haversack.”

“Oh, don't worry about that. It's heavy, so I'm happy to carry it.”

“Right you are, John. Anyhow, come and meet Helen and I'll let her know what's going on and get her to take you upstairs to your room whilst I mind the café. Then I'll see you at seven o'clock for dinner. I'm sorry we don't eat earlier: we have to fit our lives around the opening hours, you see, especially whilst my husband Ernst is working away from home. As you will also appreciate by now, working for the work in the tradition is no mere walk in the park. Miracles have details, as they rightly say.”

Arianne was a lot more easy-going than Malik had been, but the work proved no less taxing. Whilst my time with Morris had required social skills and my time with Malik hard manual graft, working in the café required a combination of the two and, not at first knowing the customers or their preferences; nor much about food, and still less about the currency and the culture this was indeed no walk in the park. At peak times, the work in the café was non-stop, and the lulls were largely taken up clearing the decks and making the place shipshape once more for the next influx, with little chance to take the weight off my aching feet. Still, this made it all the more enjoyable when the café shut for half a day on Sunday and for the whole day on Wednesday, and I could have a little privacy (which was a precious commodity, being on public display and at everybody's beck and call for most of my waking hours). At last I could also relax and potter about in the garden under Arianne's green fingered and expert tutelage. Were it not for this, even the simplest task such as weeding would have been fraught with the fear of pulling up a valuable seedling and not a weed. If you could regularly nip the weeds in the bud, as it were, before they had a chance to spread their roots or to seed, that saved a good deal of unnecessary effort later on.

Another gem of an idea that Arianne taught me quite early on, both in the café and the garden was economy of movement and effort, which was both useful in increasing the efficiency of the work and also in saving my aching legs. Arianne told me that there was even a scientific word for what she had naturally picked up through watching her mother, and that was ergonomics. And just as there was a physiological ergonomics, so there were other levels such as the the cognitive, the emotional and even the spiritual. The masters of the way had this down to a fine art, I was told.

For the first time, too, I was beginning to see that each new day offered yet more learning opportunities – indeed, that learning could be fun – and this made my tasks and conversations that much more worthwhile; though Arianne did stress that the ability to turn this on and off at will, as need dictated, was a skill that I'd have to cultivate. One thing that quite startled me was that you could pick up on something quite subtle or of import hidden in the most everyday conversation.

In one of our quieter moments, Arianne informed me that the tradition was more “caught” than it was taught, and much the better for it, since their job was not to create opinion nor condition into conviction or blind obedience but rather to induce real, far-reaching and lasting change, and at a core level, not at the superficial. She went on to say that this was one of the many areas often found lacking or distorted in misguided schools and formulations; indeed, lacking in education, society and culture as a whole. So part of the work in these societies was to attempt to provide for such deficits and correct such defects.

“How is this correction carried out?” I wanted to know.

“By something we call the tincture technique,” Arianne told me. “Just as a drop of essence dripped into water will gradually diffuse through the whole of the water – in the same way that water becomes suffused with tea in a pot – so, if we teach something to a group of suitably placed individuals, that teaching gradually percolates through the communities in which they live and work. And then there is the effect of what we term baraka, which is a divine gift or grace. This works upon those who come into contact with it, through the physical presence of people who carry a charge of baraka or of a similarly charged place, object or artefact. Like honey, this baraka can be collected and accumulated and dispensed in times of need.”

At this point, Arianne set off about her business, then turned back and gave me a phrase to remember. She didn't explain why, but she did tell me that the phrase meant “The rose gives honey to the bee.”

Coincidentally, it was only then that I noticed just how many bees there were tending the flowers in the café’s garden, and I happened to mention this thought to Arianne.

She gave me a knowing look and replied a little cryptically, that the same could be applied to the people who visited the café; indeed, to life at large. And equally cryptically, she added “He who tastes, knows,” (the corollary being, he who tastes not, knows not, I mused) to which her own master, one of the The Teacher of the Age's deputies, had once added “and he who merely thinks he knows won't leave anybody alone.” That wasn't of course a sweeping generality to batter people over the head with, as a minority of misguided followers might and not infrequently did, but simply something that applied when and where it applied, Arianne told me.

And then, just as it was dawning on me how unreceptive I must be, she added that “the Few” who were a part of the ancient tradition had a presence in all societies and that some actually used her café; and also that in the crowds who thronged the streets, there were a great many walking about who were no more than shadows of their former selves, like empty shells or the walking dead. Arianne shrugged her shoulders and apologized if what was, alas, a sad and simple fact sounded haughty, even elitist, or uncharitable. Truth could be hard to take sometimes; but that was what we were, after all: seekers after truth. Having said that, Arianne went her way, leaving me to dig the remaining weeds from the cracks in the crazy paving.

Another day, when we went into the town centre on a shopping expedition, Arianne waved her arms around her and told me: “The original Garden is still here, you know. I mean everywhere. It's just that it's become so crowded out and overgrown.”

“Or covered over with concrete,” I replied absent-mindedly. If there were a garden here, then the remnants must be few and far between.

“Yes, that's another way of looking at it,” she nodded, and then she stopped for a moment, turned her head and looked into my eyes. “And though you might not think so, it's just as much of a jungle in there, too, John. Indeed, if anything, in there it's far, far worse.

“Please understand that I'm not singling you out here, John,” she added.

At that moment I felt another lump rising in my throat, but Arianne took my arm and gently guided me into the green grocery store that we were just passing, and diverted my attention with impeccable timing.

As we emerged from the shop, laden with produce, Arianne resumed the conversation. “John, most of us – well all of us at one time or another – are subject to the wily ways of what we in the tradition term the Commanding Self. The emissary who was left in charge by the departed Master has taken over and even forgotten about the True Master altogether.”

I was about to ask “How does this manifest?” when she spoke those self same words.

“How does this manifest, you ask? Through all manner of things which religious people tend to think of as sins or a little more charitably as 'missing the mark', which we see as technical impediments to progress.”

“These being?”

“These being negative qualities such as ignorance and heedlessness; egotism and narcissism; spurious imagination and delusion; hypocrisy; greed; vanity; pride; over-emotion; over-intellect; faulty cognition … you name it … and all manner of conditioning; even what our scientists are now, belatedly, calling brainwashing.”

That was one hell of a list. “And is there a cure for this, Arianne?”

“Well, one could say the teachings; and also a great deal of Work – I mean work with a capital 'W'; work on the self – which in turn requires what we call real effort.”

“And how long does this take?”

Arianne laughed. “Well, the smart ass reply to that would be to say something along the lines of 'Until you stop asking “How long will it take”!'”

It was my turn to laugh, though I could see her point.

Arianne relaxed and I felt myself relaxing in sympathy. “Traditionally the period is twelve years, John, though it may be longer or shorter than that. It could happen in an instant and even without a guide, though that is exceedingly rare. You see, in a sense this 'journey of a thousand miles' only takes one single step in the right direction. However, most people wander off all over the place and spend years going round and round in circles to get to that point – right back where they started all those years ago, with what we call 'beginner's mind'.”

“And then there are the specialists, such as the healers. To become a doctor takes longer. And to become an elder doctor even longer still and, of course, even more rarely. But anyway, John: as my Master would say, all this talk is putting the cart before the horse.”

“Still, it's useful to know, Arianne. It gives me something to plan for and work toward.”

Arianne raised her eyebrows. “You're assuming a couple of things there, John. The first being that the work is something to be planned; and the second being that you are capable of carrying out that planning. You'll have to trust me on this, but it has a lot to do with abandoning one's own plans and going along with the Divine Plan or Design with a capital 'D', according to what we call 'right time, right place, right people' and, of course, right circumstance.

“Why, you might ask? Because you only have to look around you to see how people's little plans go so very much awry; even very carefully thought out and very big plans by very thoughtful, intelligent or powerful people. Trust me: that's not the way; and it's only thanks to the timely influence and intervention of the Friends that we as a species have made it thus far, John, I'll let you into a little secret; well, a little known fact: this is not the first attempt, you know. There were a few trials and abortive runs before this latest incarnation of Homo sapiens made it through … and that's no guarantee of how we'll fare with what's yet to come. We could easily come to the point of annihilating ourselves or one-another and end up once more as dumb savages living in the trees and dark caves … and apart from the great and obvious human tragedy, that would mean a colossal amount of work if we were to recover the earthly tradition.”

I noticed the careful choice of words there: “earthly tradition”, as if to say that there was more than that.

Arianne smiled and lightly patted my arm. “It's not for nothing that we call ourselves the People of the Stars, John (or The People of the Secret, for that matter). And yes, that does mean despite everything – even, dare I say, following the extinction of all matter, and thence time, in the known universe – that eternal life would go on.”

That was mind-boggling. “So what is the secret?” I asked in a hopefully casual manner.

“That's a bit like asking me 'What is the taste of strawberry jam', John,” Arianne replied without skipping a beat. “This is not something I can spell out to you. It's something that will be revealed to you as the veils are lifted and as the necessity arises. Or rather, as the necessity arises in you.”

Arianne paused for a moment as we reached the gate leading through the garden to the café. “I'll be frank with you, too, John. These things are the subject of personal revelation for a purpose. One of the reasons is to prevent the knowledge from falling into the wrong hands, as it were. And this is also one of the reasons that the course of study is so long and why you are being sent all around the island rather than directly to the Teacher of the Age. You'll also find as you progress that we've thrown in a few red herrings, too – some poison along with the antidote, as it were. This is done for similar reasons; so that those who prove unsuitable are not left in a position to become a danger to themselves or others. You might say that the secret protects itself.”

I looked at Arianne quizzically.

“Remember what I said about the emissary and the Commanding Self?”

“Sure.”

“Well, John, before you can truly enter the way – I mean beyond the preparatory work – you need to undergo certain transformations which can only come about as a result of real work on the commanding self and also on further developments of subtle organs of higher perception. Thankfully, this is not something that can be entirely counterfeited; though it can certainly look that way to all but the most discriminating and watchful eye. So you can perhaps appreciate that we sometimes have to go to great lengths to ensure that the wrong people do not gain access to the tradition and to certain work involving the current. But again that's putting the cart before the horse.”

“You mean you don't trust me?” I wanted to know.

“I didn't say that, John.”

“But that's what you meant, surely, Arianne?”

“Do you trust yourself, John?” she asked in turn.

I shrugged, and then I broke into a smile. “Well, at one time I would have said, yes, of course. But now, no, I have to admit that I do not fully trust myself, given my current condition.”

Again Arianne gently patted me on the arm and we continued up the path toward the café. “It's nothing personal, John. I like you and respect you as a person. Anyhow, please don't beat yourself up over this. This is something we all go through when we first embark on this path. And don't worry: some of what you might take to be wholly negative signs might actually signal that there's a real, live, sentient human being in there who's maybe got himself in a bit of a jam. And that's what we're here for: to help that human being to safely emerge and blossom anew.

“Here's how it works: at first there is contact with your own master; through him – or her – there is contact with the chief; through him through a chain of succession there is contact with the Source. Eventually, all being well, there is direct contact with and interaction with that Source. And ultimately, there is Unity.”

Of course that did not deny the possibility that I lacked a sentient human being – a soul? – inside. And that worried me.

“Don't fret about such suppositions, John. Just apply real effort. I'll admit that I don't know the state of your soul, as you call it, and, yes, the Commanding Self can be a wily critter, quite capable of clever counterfeit. Rest assured, however, that you are in safe hands. Sure, there's a lot of counterfeit about, but always remember that counterfeit or fool's gold exists only because there is such a thing as Real Gold.”

Did such a proposition ring true, I wondered?

“Yes, indeed,” came a quiet and assuring voice from deep inside me.

“And on that happy note,” Arianne smiled, “let's put these vegetables away in the larder. Then I propose we adjourn upstairs and have a drink before you make a start on dinner.”

Ah yes, of course, it was my turn to cook; under Arianne's expert tutelage, of course. With her help, I'd come a long way from bangers, mash, peas and gravy; though clearly I still had far to go.

Helen had gone by that time and Arianne's husband Ernst was still away in the city on a three month contract, so we ate alone. We had a glass of sherry before we ate, but after we'd eaten and the pots had been washed, and we were settled in the armchairs beside the open hearth, Arianne brought two fresh glasses and a decanter and poured us a glass each.

“What's this?” I asked her, holding the glass up to the light, seeing that it was a rich amber, and taking a sip. It was clearly alcoholic but like nothing I had ever tasted before.

“This is a gift from my Master,” Arianne informed me. “It's a very special brew that we call chungari, which means Herb of Enlightenment.”

“Wow!” I replied. “That sounds almost as good as this wine tastes.”

Arianne laughed. “My dear John, I can assure you that its beneficial effects are even better than it tastes.”

“Such as?”

“It helps facilitate what we call an opening, John. So relax and enjoy. You deserve it.”

“Is this a special occasion?” I queried.

“Yes, John,” Arianne nodded, “I do believe it is. It's what some call a Sabbath and we term a powerful occasion.”

“I'll drink to that,” that quiet voice enjoined deep within me, and I echoed the words out loud.

“I do believe that we've finally made contact, John,” Arianne noted. “And that is the cause of our celebration and thanksgiving tonight. Blessed be! Drink up and I'll refill your glass.”

As the evening progressed, I found myself in a bit of a daze; a most pleasant daze, rather than a drunken stupor, mind you. And then it happened. It was as if I'd suddenly emerged from under water or woken up. Everything was loud and vivid and crystal clear.

I looked at the clock on the wooden mantel shelf, quite surprised to find that it was almost ten, and we'd have to be up quite early the next morning to get the café ready.

“Tomorrow, it's time for you to move on once more on your quest, John,” Arianne spoke at length, and I was immediately hit by a wave of sadness. I hadn't realized how much I enjoyed Arianne's company and as a mentor, and how attached I'd become to her.

“Where next?” I asked.

“Don't worry, I'll sort out the details in the morning and we can talk it over. I believe that there's a train at noon, so there's no rush.”

The best I could muster was a simple “Right” and then a thousand and one questions rose up in me, such as how she was going to manage on her own.

“Don't fret, John,” she consoled me. “Ernst will be back the day after tomorrow, so you won't be leaving me in the lurch.”

Arianne rose to her feet and helped me up out of the chair. I was still feeling a little dazed and she gently guided me toward the door. “Time for bed, Little John,” she said soothingly.

“Bed?” I queried.

“Yes,” the lady said affirmatively. “It's time we went to bed.”

6. Saksham Almas

Duzen in Erigwid

Leaving the café late that morning, and offering profuse thanks to a dear friend and consummate “field worker” as she called herself and those like her, I hastened across town toward the station. I was concerned that I might get lost and miss the train, which left on the dot of noon, but in the event I needn't have worried. The train was in the station and people were already boarding, but there were still several minutes before the departure. Still, this meant that I could take my time to find a seat in a quiet compartment, relax and run over recent events. I was still feeling quite buoyant, rosy cheeked and bushy tailed after the delights and revelations of the previous night.

Of course, I'd have liked to have stayed longer with Arianne, having formed a deep and lasting bond with her, but the quest lay before me and it felt right to move on once more at this point. I was definitely going out on a high, and that was surely the way to go. Arianne had rightly called it a powerful occasion, and it had been capped by what felt to me like a perfect initiatory moment.

It only took two hours for the express train to get from Lorien to the eastern border with Erigwid, but from that point on, it was back to a horse-drawn carriage; worse still, it was back to a badly sprung horse-drawn carriage that meandered this way and that, calling at every town and village on the map between there and Duzen, which lay plumb centre to the north of the country. It was a three day journey, broken at lunch time, at night and whenever one of the passengers needed to answer the call of nature. If they were out in the country – and they went for mile after mile without coming across substantial habitations – then all they could do was wait until the driver found a suitable clump of trees or bushes and simply squat. Well, that certainly was a great leveller; a reminder that, as Morris had once suggested, at the end of the day, all the chess pieces go back in the same box. That's all we were really: actors on the world's stage taking part in that great play they called Life. And mine, like so many, a mere bit part.

What made matters worse was that for the first time on the journey, I was thrown in with a set of fellow travellers who spoke some strange dialect and who didn't understand a word of my native tongue. Fortunately, Arianne had thought of this and had provided a double sided sheet of paper containing a selection of words and phrases that I might need to use or look out for on the way. She'd provided the exact names for things like the name of towns on the way, and doubly thoughtfully she had provided a phonetic break down so that I could actually make an attempt at pronouncing the words should the need arise. Alas, the one phrase that I really needed that day – and which was missing from the list – was “I need to go to the toilet” and still later “I think I'm going to piss myself!” I mean, being in mixed company, this wasn't something that I could mime to the other passengers in the hope that they'd get my drift and speak to the driver on my behalf. So I had to wait patiently for one of the other men to knock on the sliding panel at the front of the coach and ask, then beat a hasty exit myself when the driver pulled over into the side of the road and stopped. Why he bothered to pull over, I do not know, for there was so little traffic on the road, you could go for half an hour without seeing another soul.

Of course, the further I went and the closer I got to Duzen, the more my trepidation grew, at the thought of spending days or weeks with a man with whom I might have to communicate by means of signs alone. I really did begin to feel that I was crawling out on a long, slender limb, high above the ground … and I had a pathological fear of such heights.

Erigwid came as yet another culture shock to me. It wasn't modernity and technical advance in this case, however: quite the reverse. My homeland, Hodweir was in an early industrial state, with a lot of poverty amongst the working class; but Erigwid was still a largely agricultural, pre-industrial society, and whilst most were workers, they formed what you might call, and not in any derogatory sense, a feudal and tribal peasant class. Peasant being used advisedly, rather than in any pejorative sense, you understand. Having said that, they were clearly a very pleasant, polite, hospitable and noble people. You didn't need to speak their language to see this; you could see it in their brightly coloured, intricately embroidered and richly adorned clothes; the broad smiles on their faces and wide, bright eyes; and the way they chatted to one-another. And yet you could tell by their rough hands and worn features that for all of this they had endured – and triumphed over – hard times. They didn't know it as yet, but much worse was in store for these poor folk.[3]

One thing I hadn't counted on was just how hot it was in Erigwid. I'd begun my journey with a thick coat; then changed into a lightweight jacket in Gothgorian, and now having shed another layer of clothing, I was in my shirt and vest and still the sweat was dampening my clothes and rolling off me.

Drawing the by now proverbial deep breath and taking a moment to wipe away the perspiration from my face, I walked into the premises, studying Arianne's crib sheet as I went, and walked up to the first person I saw in the building.

“Heidi!” I read directly from the sheet, having concluded that I couldn't trust my memory. “Kunjurat-i kalad Saksham Almas.”

The woman raised her eyebrows and stifled a giggle; then, having regained her composure, and without saying a word, she pointed me in the direction of a tall man in a long flowing blue gown and baggy white trousers standing behind a desk, studying a wall chart.

“Danki do,” I replied, giving a slight bow in the hope that the lady would see this as a sign of respect, and approached the man.

“Heidi!” I again greeted him. “Kunjurat-i kalad Saksham Almas.”

The man smiled and shook his head from side to side.

“I am Saksham Almas,” the man replied. “And no, you cannot fart on me.”

I was greatly relieved to find that Saksham Almas spoke my language, but somewhat bewildered by his remark.

“Kalad with a K means, amongst other things, to break wind, my friend. Qalad with a Q means to meet with.”

I clapped a hand to my mouth and cast my eyes down. “Oh, I'm most dreadfully sorry.”

“No offence taken, my friend. It's an easy enough mistake to make. And if I myself am not mistaken, you appear to be a long way from home. From somewhere in Hodweir, I would imagine.”

“Yes indeed, though most people would have said the Outlands,” I noted.

“Saksham Almas,” the man greeted me formally, waiting whilst I returned the crib sheet to my pocket before offering his hand.

“John Little,” I replied, accepting his handshake.

“So what brings you here, John?”

As I fumbled in my jacket pocket to retrieve the letters of introduction, I began to explain to Saksham about the quest I was on and that Arianne Plumb had sent me to him.

He carefully read through the three letters and finally looked up. “Yes, I understand perfectly, my friend,” he nodded. “Come, let's go to my private study and you can rest a while after your long journey and talk a little.”

Saksham called across to the lady who'd pointed me in his direction and asked her to take over from him whilst he was away, then he led me through the building and round a central open quadrangle with a leafy garden at its heart, to the back of the building where he had his study. When we got there, he offered me a seat on a sofa. With the doors wide open, and out of the glare of the sun, it was refreshingly cool in the study.

“Would you like tea or coffee? Or perhaps you'd prefer something cold?” he asked me. In need of the stimulation, I settled on a coffee and, offering his excuses, Saksham went to fill a nearby kettle and prepare two mugs. Whilst the kettle was coming to the boil, he brought over a small plate of biscuits. “If you're hungry, please don't stand on ceremony, John, just dive in. And later perhaps we can go out and get something more substantial to eat?”

Finally Saksham returned to the sofa with the drinks and, having decided that we should save the serious talk for later, we chatted a little about life back in Hodweir. He was pretty laid back, but it was instantly obvious to me that this man was as bright as a button and sharp witted, too, and I knew that he was carefully weighing up my every response. I still faltered under such intense scrutiny and, indeed, such energy. Had Saksham been inclined that way, I was sure that he could have devastatingly deconstructed almost anything I had to say, perhaps even word by word; but he chose not to, instead showing me more respect and hospitality than I feel I really merited.

Having recovered somewhat after the coffee and a couple of large wheat biscuits, we made our way back through to the front of the building past the lush garden and, after having another word with his assistant to get her to close up for the day, Saksham and I headed across town to eat. Coming to a small eating house down a narrow side street, which Saksham said he could heartily recommend, he opened the door for me and politely ushered me inside. Seeing him enter, the manager himself came across and led us to a table on a verandah overlooking the back garden. The sun was a little lower in the sky by now and it was wonderfully cool out there.

After some negotiation with me about how spicy I liked my food, Saksham recommended a fairly mild dish and when the waiter arrived, he ordered the same for himself. That out of the way, while we waited for the food we engaged in light conversation, Saksham advising me that it was customary to postpone weightier topics until one had eaten. “First eat, then talk” was the watchword, I was reliably informed. I'd come across this several times already in my travels and, not being confined to one culture, I could only assume that this watchword belonged to the Tradition.

That said, it soon became apparent that here was a man who could take even the most mundane topic and derive some moral lesson or deeper meaning from it. Saksham nodded, as if reading my thoughts, which was something that I was seeing more and more whilst spending time with these masters of the Way. “It is said that what some see only in their meditations on mountain tops, the true mystic sees in the streets, the alleyways and the gutters.

“Do we read minds, you are asking? Well, that is a by-product of our training – the word training being a crude approximation of the organic process – and it is also a useful diagnostic and executive tool. But please don't let this make you become paranoid and clam up: it's a harmonious, sympathetic phenomena that only occurs where there is a genuine need. I'm not reading your thoughts word for word so much as resonating with a pattern or a tune, John. You're involuntarily wide open at the moment and easy to read, which is a mixed blessing. For now, please just trust that you are in safe hands, and later I'll teach you some techniques that will, amongst other things, give you a degree of mastery over your thought processes and your opening. And your ability to switch off and relax. In this task, as an in any, too much work does indeed make Jack a dull boy, and it's not good nor healthy to go without a break.”

“Thank you,” I replied, and at that moment the meal arrived. The lamb and its spicy sauce came in one silver bowl and the rice in another, which were placed in the centre of the table. The idea, which Saksham was thoughtful enough to advise, was to take some of the rice onto your plate and form a protective or retaining circle, then ladle some of the meat and sauce into the centre. And when that was eaten and your companions had also finished eating, you took some more from the communal bowls. And when you were full, you signalled this by leaving a small portion of the meal uneaten to one side of your plate. Naturally Saksham was a dab hand at the practicalities and the etiquette, though this was all very novel for me and I did my best to faithfully follow his example.

As we finished the meal, I looked to Saksham and even before I'd asked, he replied: “You worry too much, John. We make allowances and, in any case, that was good for a first attempt.”

Then: “One thing worth mentioning, however, is that the little bowl with water and lemon in it is not to drink: it's a finger bowl, for those who prefer to use their hands to eat rather than a fork and spoon. The idea is that you dip your fingers in there to cleanse them when you've finished eating.”

I could feel my face flush with embarrassment at this news. “Oops,” I replied sheepishly.

“No real harm done,” Saksham smiled. “And in any case, John, it's not as if you've broken some cosmic law or cardinal rule. It's a useful custom and as such it deserves a measure of respect, but when all is said and done, to put this into perspective, it is only a man-made custom.

“Anyhow, let's order a drink and we can get down to business. Coffee again?”

“Sure, that would be fine, Saksham, and thank you: that was a wonderful meal.”

“You're welcome.” Saksham called the waiter over and we paused for the drink to arrive before speaking again.

“You know, Saksham, I haven't as yet asked what you do for a living.”

“Haha!” Saksham laughed. “So here you are having committed yourself to studying me at work and this is that jaw-dropping moment when you find out that I run the local slaughterhouse!”

A lump rose in my throat at this shock. “Oh dear lord, please tell me you're kidding.”

“Do I look like I'm kidding, John?” Saksham asked, suddenly looking serious and concerned.

“Well ….” What the hell could I say to that?

Saksham slapped his thigh and roared. “Don't look so worried, John. Of course I'm kidding you!” Then: “Seriously, you don't think that I'd make you suffer like that, do you?”

I sighed with relief. “You had me going for a minute there, yes, Saksham.”

“Then I'm sorry, John. Please forgive me.”

“No harm done,” I laughed nervously, taking out my handkerchief again to wipe the perspiration from my face, and knowing that my every move and my every word would potentially speak volumes to a master like Saksham Almas.

“What do I do?” Saksham prompted. “I am a merchant.”

As soon as he said these words, my jaw dropped at the prospect and I could feel the colour drain from my face. Catching myself in the act, I clamped my teeth together and hoped that Saksham hadn't noticed this involuntary reaction, but of course he had.

“If you'll forgive the cliché, John, you look like you've seen a ghost. What on earth are you worrying about now?”

I waved my arms in the air, searching for suitable words.

“Tell me what you really think, not what you think that I'd like to hear,” the man advised. “Let your tongue do the speaking without unduly filtering and censoring the output. We're looking for a seeker after truth, not a purveyor of falsehood; and it's in your best interests to be as open, transparent, straightforward and honest with me as you are able.”

I straightened myself up and tried again. “I was struck by the fearful prospect of having to haggle to obtain a good price, whether I was buying or selling and, and ….” I struggled for some time to voice my apprehension.

Saksham raised his hand and interrupted me. “The first thing that springs to mind, John, is that you are not really talking about buying and selling goods. That is simply something that brings you face to face with issues you have relating to your self-confidence and in selling yourself. In the case of selling goods, unless you have confidence in the quality and utility of those goods, then you're going to have to lie about them in one way or another in order to impress the client, and the same goes for you, and that is something that you neither care for nor feel sufficiently skilled at.

“Lacking confidence in your own qualities and worth, you would find the same thing when it comes to selling yourself to others.

“If you can't sell yourself, even to yourself, then how can you psychologically handle or make a success of selling goods to others? And as for the buying: feeling so unworthy about yourself, how can you rightly ask for anything more than a pittance from others for goods and services, since that is what you feel you are worth? Am I right? Or am I right?”

“You're spot on, Saksham,” I agreed with a deep sigh. “I've felt something along those lines many times before, though I've never been able to so succinctly put it in words.”

“So how do you feel about this, John?”

I took out my handkerchief and mopped my sweating brow and this did not escape Saksham. “I feel so tense and anxious.”

“Yes,” he nodded. “You're having to divert a lot of energy to keep a lid on this, so that it doesn't show through any chinks in your armour. Energy that could be put to more productive use elsewhere.”

“Right,” I agreed. “I have to admit that my heart is thumping and my legs feel like they might buckle under me. And yet, I'm also mildly excited to hear your words.”

“Perhaps you sense and appreciate that you have found someone who understands you?” Saksham suggested. “Someone who accepts you as you are, warts and all – and I do feel for you and accept you, John.”

“Thank you.”

“Also rest assured that you are neither alone in having difficulties, nor are you the hopeless case that you might at times think you are, John. I've seen much worse; much, much worse. And never forget that you are in safe hands.”

“Forgive me, Saksham. I hope that this hasn't put a spanner in the works; though I fear it has.”

Saksham raised his eyebrows. “You're making assumptions, John. The first, to go back to the issue of buying and selling, is that you assume that since I am a merchant, and that we are to work together, that this will involve you in buying and selling goods. Right?”

“Right.”

“And then to move forward to you thinking that you have put a spanner in the works, the assumption you are making is that you have scuppered my plans. But these are not my plans, John. I am working with you in accordance with necessity, design and grace; and it would be even more presumptuous to think that one might scupper that.”

Now the blood came flooding back to my face. “I'm sorry,” I mumbled, casting my eyes down.

“Don't be,” Saksham advised me. “This is all grist for the mill, as the saying goes. In other words, it's something that we can use and learn from and benefit from.”

“So what do you suggest?” I asked.

“A number of our suppliers and customers are involved in the way, John. One in particular, Ning Cai studied with the Teacher of the Age and I feel that he would be able to help you a little further on in your quest.”

“Does he live far from here?” I asked.

“He lives at the city of Qui Long in Nur Galan,” Saksham informed me.

“Nur Galan?” I uttered, my lips again getting the better of me. “But that's a thousand miles from home. I know even less about these people, and I don't speak their language.”

“Would you like me to enumerate the assumptions you're making, John?” Saksham wanted to know.

I bit my lip.

“The first is that you ask for my advice and assistance and yet you don't fully trust my judgement. The second is that the Nur Galanese will not speak your language. The third is that you are possibly thinking that having only just arrived here, you have not had your money's worth. And the fourth is that I would leave you to venture on alone.”

“Oops.”

“Do you see how in all these things, again and again it comes down not to external circumstances so much as one's own wayward and misguided mind, ego and emotions?”

“Yes,” I croaked.

“Yes what?”

“Yes, I am beginning to see that, thank you.”

“Good, good, good,” Saksham smiled broadly.

“Tomorrow, I have to journey to Nur Galan to spend time in Qui Long and you are welcome to come with me. If not, then I can make arrangements for you to return to Hodweir. If that is your choice, then we won't think any the less of you, John.”

“No, I do feel that I should go on, thank you. Thank you so much.”

Saksham rose to his feet and I followed suit. “Right then, come back to the house with me and you can stay the night.”

“If it's not too much trouble ...”

“No trouble whatsoever, we always keep a guest room aired and you are more than welcome, John.”

“Is it a long journey?” I asked as we walked back through the time.

“Nur Galan is situated to the east of Erigwid, then it sweeps north for a thousand miles, east of Gilgamar, then east of Angbath, which itself lies to the east of the mountainous land of Narayana. It's so vast that in the south, where it is hot, they walk about in the flimsiest silk and in the far north, where the wind chills you to the bone, in many layers of clothing, topped by thick bear skins.

“You'll be pleased to know that Qui Long is not far from the western border in Nur Galan, but it will involve a train journey of several days.”

“Trains in Erigwid?” I queried.

“First we must take a short carriage ride to the city. The Nur Galanese have an extensive rail network spanning the length and breadth of their land, which is the most vast and populous society on the planet. They leased a narrow strip of land in Erigwid and have recently laid a track from Nur Galan to the city. It carries some passengers, but mostly it's used for trade. And I gather that in the near future that they intend to extend the railway into Gothgorian, to link up to their network. There's quite a lot of trade in Erigwid, but the Nur Galanese are more interested in links with Gothgorian, and the fact that the line passes through Erigwid is, in relative terms, pretty much convenient and incidental. Well, incidental to the Nur Galanese, that is, though of course the railway is of great importance and utility to us.”

“Do we stop overnight on the way?”

“No, of course the train has to stop at stations on the way and to restock the coal and water, but the train travels through the night. There are beds that pull down from the walls, and though they're rather narrow, you should be able to get a reasonable night's sleep. Now, the major advantage of travelling together is that it will give us time to get to know one-another better, so you see, I won't be sending you away empty handed.”

“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to doubt you, Saksham.”

“John, it's not so much that you don't trust me, so much as that you still don't trust yourself,” Saksham pointed out, opening the door of his house and ushering me inside. “But please do one thing for me: don't obsess or beat yourself up over these things.”

“Okay, I'll try.”

“Apply real effort, John. Stretch yourself by all means, but do not strain. Show dedication, but do not obsess.”

“Moderation,” I echoed.

“Yes, there are exceptions, but moderation – in moderation – is generally not a bad thing. There's more to it than that, of course: how one acts needs to vary in accordance with right time, place and people.”

“And circumstances?”

“To an extent, yes: and circumstances. But as we've already seen, circumstances might not be quite what you think they are or they seem to be. This world we live in, John, is a world of appearances, illusion and possibilities. In many ways, it is a mere shadow and inferior or counterfeit similitude of the Real, which is immanent and co-existent. For this reason, in the tradition we sometimes call this realm the Shadowlands. We also refer to it, perhaps less charitably though nevertheless with accuracy, as the Land of Fools. And the time we live in, we call the Age of Stupidity. Everyone and everything which descends into this land, being mostly cut off from the benefits of the Source, tends to succumb sooner or later to distortion, degeneration and decay.

“But don't go around thinking about and looking for and collecting evidence of stupidity and degeneration and injustice, John, because if you do, you will find it more and more and more until you see nothing else – except perhaps thinking that you yourself must be one of the elite who are infallible and immune to such human frailties. And, having thus proven this to yourself, these newly-acquired filters or this blinkered, tunnel vision will blind you to the many wonderful people and wonderful things that this world still has to offer. What the Thinker thinks, the Prover proves, as one of our fellow philosophers once so cogently put it; so, without being obsessive or mechanoid, be careful what you choose to spend your time thinking about, John, for this is the stuff that builds and populates your little world. Negativity, for instance, attracts and breeds negativity – period. And we already have a huge surfeit of that unfortunate commodity or drive.”

“I see,” I replied, and as I said these words I realized just how disproportionately lame this terse response really was. Saksham deserved better than this.

“You will see, when the time is right. More importantly for you, John, what I have just said about the world might equally and more usefully apply to you.”

Now that certainly gave me pause for thought.

7. Ning Cai and Chan Hua

Qui Long in Nur Galan

As we crossed the border, I was full of hope, seeing that Nur Galan was a lot greener and delightfully rustic than I had imagined it would, and I voiced my appreciation.

“Maybe,” Saksham replied.

I spoke again, about the beauty of what I saw through the window of the compartment, and again all he would say was “Maybe.”

At length we left the vast plains and farmland behind and entered a wide valley. As we did so, Saksham rose to his feet and shut the window, which I found a little odd, given that it was so hot to the south of Nur Galan and the open window offered a welcome breeze.

And finally it dawned on me why Saksham should have repeatedly said “Maybe”. For mile after mile we went on, and in all that time we didn't see another farm; all we saw out through the window was factory after factory with gigantic chimneys belching noxious black, brown and orange smoke, and row upon row upon row of tall towers where I presume the workers lived. If there were a hell on earth, then this must be pretty close.

“This is awful,” I remarked to Saksham.

“Maybe,” he again replied.

At last we were out of that God-forsaken valley and travelling across a plateau ringed by tall, snow-capped mountains, and after two or three more hours, Saksham reliably informed me that at long last we were nearing the city of Qui Long.

Yes, I could see it now, and again I was surprised, but pleasantly so this time. I had feared that Qui Long would have been yet another vast and sickening industrial complex, but not at all. Certainly on the outskirts there were those familiar rows of high rise towers, but the city itself looked invitingly green, with large parks dotted here and there.

“This is more like it,” I observed.

“Yes,” Saksham nodded this time. “And wait until you see the old city, which thankfully survived the monolithic industrialization and has been preserved. Now that really is a delight to the senses.”

“Does Ning Cai work in the old city?” I asked hopefully.

“Yes, John, a number of our friends work there, you'll be pleased to know. I'm sure you'll find it a home away from home. In spite of, and also as much because of, our cultural differences, you'll find these people good friends who share the same difficulties and the same hearty aspirations.”

I had expected that once Saksham had introduced me to Ning Cai and talked business, that he'd leave me with the man and be on his way to visit other clients whilst in the country, but this was not to be the case.

The idea was that Saksham would introduce me and, following several minutes of carefully choreographed ritual welcome and hospitality, I would sit in as Saksham discussed business with the man. Saksham would then leave me in the man's company to talk, be shown around his workplace and spend some time watching the craftsfolk in action. And finally we would all meet up again to share a meal together at Ning Cai's house at the end of the afternoon. The next day, we would visit another supplier, and each day of the stay we would do the same. And finally, on the day that Saksham was to depart for Erigwid, he would arrange for me to travel on to my next mentor and another step closer to the Teacher of the Age.

Ning Cai was a master potter and though he taught his students the art, supervised their work and every now and again lent a hand to help improve their work, his was by now a more managerial role. He sat down at a vacant wheel and spent several minutes showing me how to throw a pot, then offered me a seat and let me have a go. Of course I soon lost the balance and wobbling more and more as I went on, the pot fell apart in a disordered mess. I was a little put off but Ning Cai persisted with me, guiding my hands as I turned the wheel with my foot, until finally I had completed the semblance of a jug, replete with handle and spout. It was good to have achieved this end product, of course, but what had really struck me, as Ning Cai had guided my hands to help me form the jug from the clay, was that for a few moments I was in his hands and I could feel him working through me; even that we were what you night call “at one”. That actually was a beautiful and strangely mystical experience. Ning Cai told me that this experience was “working in harmony”, which in the Tradition they called jam. I was deeply touched by this, and almost moved to joyous tears.

“Very well done,” the man commended me, bowing slightly. He wiped his hands and clapped me on the back.

Actually throwing the pots was the fun part, of course, but a lot of work went into first preparing the raw clay, especially getting rid of any air bubbles that would flaw or even break the final product. And a great deal of meticulous care went into painting and glazing the product. I could imagine that this preparation and even the painting could become onerous once the novelty had worn off. Imagine having to prepare clay hour after hour, even – given the age of some of the workers – for one's whole working life. This is not something that I would enjoy or could even bear. To me, variety was, if not the spice of life, it certainly ranked highly amongst them.

Ning Cai quickly picked up on this, though I hadn't spoken a word of my concerns to him. This was something that I would have thought extraordinary a while earlier, were it not for the fact that it was happening more and more frequently.

“You look and yet you don't yet see, John,” Ning gently informed me. “What you have in mind is just a hasty, biased and consequently crude snapshot. You are prejudging the issue based upon emotionally-endowed prior experience of something else. In other words, you are not seeing the reality of a thing directly, but you are instead filtering it through, or superimposing, some prefabricated mental model or map which you wrongly assume to be reality. Though it has its uses, the map is not the actual territory, it's a simplified and often distorted man-made abstraction.

“I'm sure you've heard the tale of the elephant in the dark. Well, imagine that those men who have only ever felt some part of the elephant in the dark drew a picture of the creature, and then compare that picture to one drawn by an elephant keeper or by someone who had spent years studying and working with the animal in the wild. Even the best will still fall short, unable to capture or fully depict the living reality of elephant-hood, though of course they can help us to recognize and better appreciate elephant-hood when we come across it in our travels. Need I say more, John, or do you get the picture?”

Oh yes, I got the message – I got it in trumps. At that moment, I was simply lost for words.

“Good, good,” Ning nodded, observing my silence. “Beginner's mind is always a good place to be.

“To put it simply and in words that you can more easily comprehend: let's not go jumping to conclusions, John. Patient observation, first hand experience and quiet reflection would paint a very different and dynamic picture.

“All the workers you see in the factory are crafts people, or training to be crafts people,” Ning assured me. “The apprentices start out cleaning up the workshop and preparing the clay, of course, but they learn all the skills used in the whole process. And they see the product through all the way from the preparation to the throwing to the painting, glazing and firings and finally to packing and dispatch. We can't give them infinite variety, of course, but we can give them a degree of variety and also an increased commitment and delight in the finished product, both as producers and as users themselves.”

I smiled appreciatively. “That's something that they could usefully learn in the dark Develine mills back home in the Outlands,” I told him. “I spent day after day performing the same, mind numbing, soul destroying activity like an automaton, preparing some anonymous widget and not knowing to what use, if any, that pathetic little widget would eventually be put.”

“A widget?” the man enquired.

“It's a generic term given to some component that either doesn't have a name of its own or a forgotten name or that has an unknown purpose,” I tried to explain. “Like a whatchamacallit, a thingamabob or a doodah. Back home, the workers only get to see their small part in the process – like making handles all day long, but not knowing what the heck they're for: that they will be forming part of a jug at some later stage. It all seems quite insane, really.”

“Ah, yes,” Ning nodded. “I can see that now, and it doesn't speak highly of the owners and managers to treat their workers in such a short-sighted manner. But you know, in recent times, it's becoming the same the whole world over. By recent times, I mean in the last two centuries, since the advent of the machine age … and, for that matter, regulation by clock, rather than something more natural and self-regulating such as the rumbling of one's own stomach.”

“The industrial revolution has given us much, making what were once luxuries for the few accessible and affordable to the poor, and there have been some wonderful advances in fields such as medicine; but it has also come at an increasing and at times alarming cost. It's not just the machines and the clocks that are mechanical, if you know what I mean. And whilst we used to use machines; if anything now it is they that use us. As you suggest, John, the world is quite topsy-turvy and it would be amusing were it not also so very tragic. But not to worry: eventually 'this, too, shall pass', as we say.”

“When?” I asked.

“In the tradition, our longer term perspective is measured in centuries,” Ning told me. “It will take centuries before we emerge from this madness into a truly more enlightened age. And in order to get to that point, it's possible that it will take violent revolution and tragic disaster to shake people awake, such is the quality of their reverie and the depth of their sleep.”

“You say 'this, too, shall pass', Ning, and that sounds optimistic. And yet I only feel a degree of pessimism.”

“As one of our friends once said: 'A pessimist is an optimist with more information', John.”

“Ah.” You could read that in two ways.

“And another of the Masters said: 'To think in terms of either pessimism or optimism oversimplifies the truth.'”

On that arcane note, Ning and I exchanged slight bows and then he clapped his hand on his thigh. “Anyhow, John, let's go and see if Saksham has returned, and then you must both come to our house to eat. Bao, my wife will be most pleased to meet you.”

~~~O~~~

The next day, after taking some time out in the morning drinking in the sights and sounds of the old city, Saksham and I walked the short distance from our guest house to the premises of the next supplier, Chan Hua, a weaver.

After the welcoming ceremony and Chan Hua and Saksham had discussed business and she'd shown him some of the samples he'd asked to see, again Saksham departed. Chan Hua invited me to sit near her at a loom to watch as she wove. As she carried out each operation, she carefully described what she was doing, and she also allowed me to take her place and to weave a few rows. I told her that I was worried that I might ruin the growing masterpiece, but she assured me that this wasn't a worry: she used that loom to help train her students.

As she again began to weave, and without fluffing a word, nor disturbing the flow of her weaving, she related a tale which she said was a central theme in the tradition, and it was The Legend of the Design. She had learnt it from her own dear master, Father Aslam, many years ago and by now knew the words by heart. Curiously, she added that Father Aslam was not his real name but actually an anagram of an initiatory phrase. Apparently the masters often took names which contained letters and words which when correctly decoded revealed their true function or purpose in the Work.

Once upon a time, not so very long ago nor in a land much different from our own, a man was convicted of a crime that he did not commit and he was sentenced to life imprisonment.

For months, the man languished on his own in a cold, dark dungeon, and he had to make a great effort to keep his spirits up and to retain his sanity, when faced with such stark and unyielding deprivation.

After a time, however, through his exemplary behaviour, he came to be regarded by his gaolers as a model prisoner, and they allowed him to make his cell a little more comfortable. His wife sent him an exquisitely woven rug and each day he would pray for his wife and family and also for those who had gaoled him, that they might see the error of their ways.

The man was itching to find work to alleviate his boredom, and he made an appeal to them. “I realize how poorly paid you are and I have a suggestion which might be to our mutual advantage. I am a master tinsmith and if you can allow me a few tools and some pieces of tin to work with, then I will be able to fashion some small decorative items which you will be able to sell, and we will share the proceeds.”

Thinking that no harm could come of this and that they stood to gain, the gaolers readily agreed and they took the items to the local market where they sold for a high price.

And then one day, when one of the gaolers went to the cell to take the man his breakfast, he was greatly shocked to find the cell empty. The gaolers thought about this, but they could find no rational explanation, and so they decided that the man must have been a magician.

Years later, when the original error had been discovered and the man had been pardoned, he came out of hiding. The king sent for him and he dutifully presented himself at the royal court.

“I'm intrigued by your story, and you have nothing to fear from revealing it now,” the king said. “Tell me: how on earth did you manage to escape from prison?”

The man smiled. “It was a concurrence of factors, Your Majesty. My wife cultivated the friendship of the smith who had designed the locks in the prison and he was flattered that she should take an interest in his work. She wove a fine rug for me and, since I had been a model prisoner, she was allowed to give the rug to me. My wife relied on me registering that the design at the point where my head touches the rug in prayer was a diagram of the internal wards of the locks. I am a master tinsmith by trade and, seeing how poorly the gaolers were paid, I played on their greed and their need and adopted a subterfuge, so that my real intention would not be suspected, in order to acquire tools with which I might fashion keys to fit those locks. And that is the story of my escape.”[4]

Watching Chan Hua weave as she told this story had a peculiar effect on me, and I also found the theme of the tale quite haunting, sending a delicious shiver through me and making the hairs on my arms stand on end. It seemed to find a distant echo or resonance inside me, deep, deep inside, and almost as if I'd actually heard those words long, long ago in some forgotten dream. To use an everyday phrase, having no more technical explanation, I would say that the way Chan Hua told this story touched my heart. Or, to use an appropriate metaphor, and without meaning to be melodramatic, that she really did weave the story into the fabric of my being, and I could actually feel her doing this.

Chan Hua had been just as welcoming and amenable as Ning had been, as bright as a button and yet another consummate professional.

Saksham explained to me later that this outward success was a sign of and a natural consequence of inner mastery. Well, he qualified that, going on to say that inner mastery was a requirement, but what was made manifest first internally and then increasingly in the environment was a divine gift or grace. It was the divine current in action, in accordance with the design. He also re-emphasized that one can only progress so far under one's own steam; further with the help of the friends; but ultimately through divine help which descended in answer to the call, he told me, to meet one half way.

So what provoked the call, I wondered?

“Experience of necessity is one way of looking at it, John,” Saksham told me. “The heart being unable to choose between ego and spirit, and being full of yearning and anguish, spirit hears the call and sends a divine doctor – that is, a friend – to help. It is for this reason that we urge the needy to further increase their necessity.”

“And what does the doctor do?” I asked.

“Well, you could say that one of his approaches is to bring the issue to a head, John, and to bring about the resolution which heart could not perform on her own. But don't worry about this for now. Intellect can only take you so far, and quite often in the wrong direction. Simply trust. Oh, and keep taking the medicine.”

“So, what did you learn from Chan Hua today, John?” enquired Saksham as we wended our way back to the guest house that evening.

“Well, I learnt the difference between warp and weft, how to hide knots and correct mistakes, and she also related the legend of the design,” I began, “but to be honest, I'm not sure what else.”

Saksham shrugged and began to recite:

Just as holistic thinking is weft

to the warp of linear thought

So is the warp of the mind's weaving

to the weft of the beating heart

And so is the passionate heart to the

longing of the courageous soul.

“Warp and weft appear to be opposed,” the man continued, “but we have a saying that what is nominally opposed may in actuality be working together. Just as the fingers and opposing thumb are both required if one is to grasp something, so warp and weft are needed together if you are to produce what you might call a 'whole cloth'.

“By the way, did you know that the word context was originally derived from a word which meant to weave together?”

Saksham added this almost as an after thought and I'd spent sufficient time with him to know that when he did this, he was often slipping in what might actually prove to be an important snippet of information.

“You say that you are not sure what else you learnt from Chan Hua, John,” the man said some time later. “You would do well to contemplate the legend of the design that she related, which deals with the essence of our endeavours in the tradition. This tale is no mere bauble, my friend. It is a true gem.”

“But I'll never be able to remember the details, Saksham, and I'm beginning to see how the teachers so carefully choose their words.”

“Don't worry about that, John: I'm sure that you'll come across the story again soon enough. You may find the details changed, but the essential fabric and pattern will remain, and that is what is more important.

“One mode of operation of the mind is to differentiate, and that if you remember is the emissary we spoke of some time back. Useful as that may be, its use has left us rather lopsided. But there's another mode of operation of the mind which is to maintain a broad, watchful and receptive outlook and to integrate. In most people this is lacking and in some hopeless dreamers it has, to the contrary, become the dominant mode. And then there is the ideal, toward which we are aiming, which reconciles and integrates both of these modes of operation but at a higher level or higher order.”

“The whole cloth you mentioned,” I offered.

“Indeed, John. The whole cloth. There you have it. To return to the time you spent playing darts and dominoes with Morris Nichol, team A and team B are nominally opposed and in competition; but at a higher level, which we might call C, together the teams play a common part in the same game and there is a degree of cooperation and reconciliation. Some call the principle behind this and other things the Law of Three.”

“And then there is the matter of the shadow self, John.”

“What's that?”

“It's everything about you that you've disowned and buried over the years. It, too, has a place in the scheme of things; providing that it is embraced, transformed and put to good use, rather than disowned and buried.”

“And the ego?” I asked.

“Some hold that the ego is something to be poisoned, extinguished or annihilated, John, and if you'll forgive the vernacular, this is something that would scare the shit out of most people and they'll run a mile at the prospect.

“Now to my way of thinking, this automatically and effectively cuts off a great many people who could otherwise benefit from the path, and to me that is no more right than a regime of selective education that allows a minority of the elite – or at least the clever dicks – to succeed, whilst consigning the vast majority to an inferior education and leaving them to feel as if they are failures when in reality it is the system which has failed them.”

“That would scare the shit out of me, too, Saksham, and it has crossed my mind a time or two. I presume then that there must be an alternative to this – what did you call it? – annihilation of the ego.”

“Yes, and again that is transformation, just as a caterpillar – no doubt fearing the worst – metamorphoses into a butterfly. By that I don't, of course, mean the spiritualization or deification of the ego, but rather it finding its rightful place and the harnessing of its vast potential for good rather than ill. There's an allusion to that in The Legend of the Design. The donkey that brays and bucks and digs its heels in can long bear a heavy load, and it can pack a kick when you really need it to kick,” the man went on. “And it may come as some relief if I told you that this, too, is the approach advocated by the Teacher of the Age. So again, that's one less thing for you to unduly worry yourself about.”

“So, where are we going tomorrow?” I asked, rubbing my hands together and chomping at the bit, eager to be off.

“This evening, we'll eat out; then we need to get an early night, John. Tomorrow it's time for me to move on to the next city. And tomorrow you, too, must be on your way.”

Again this came as quite a shock to me. I thanked Saksham and told him that I'd miss him, and he reciprocated, then we both fell silent for a time as we walked back toward the guest house.

“Where to?” I asked, at length breaking the silence, as we arrived at the door.

“There are friends in Gilgamar, at the capital and holy city of Om Dor some way north of here. Their names are Miriam and Jai Holt and they run an inn called the Kaparella near the Cloth Market. Miriam, too, studied with the Teacher of the Age and she'll be able to help you on the way.

“You can catch a train as far as the border, then alas it's back to the good old-fashioned horse and carriage. The train will take you the best part of the day, then you'll need to sleep over. By carriage, you should arrive at Om Dor within two or three days.

“Anyhow,” Saksham decided. “Let's go upstairs and change into fresh clothes and then we'll hit the town to celebrate.”

8. Miriam and Jai Holt

Om Dor in Gilgamar

Whereas Nur Galan was a fairly modern collectivist industrial power, Gilgamar was a largely rural and feudal theocracy. In both cases, there was poverty amongst the rural peasant class; and whilst the urban centres at Nur Galan had been mostly modern, the architecture of Om Dor had probably not changed, other than to gradually spread, for several centuries. One striking difference about the capital city of Om Dor was that it was dominated by a vast holy and forbidden city which stood at a fork in the wide river and formed the nucleus or heart of the external, secular city. It looked resplendent with its high crenelated granite walls and many golden domes glinting in the sun.

Like Erigwid, the women here wore adorable long flowing robes, and as I passed through the Cloth Market looking for the Kaparella, I marvelled at the vast number of stalls selling all manner of brightly coloured and wonderfully patterned fabrics. It truly was a riot of colour. These women really did make the men look dull and staid in comparison; though there was the occasional lama wondering through town in distinctive saffron robes, adding a dash more colour and tradition to the scene, albeit quite sober in comparison.

Seeing these lamas, I did wonder if my quest was nearing its end. Could it be that the Teacher of the Age lived in the forbidden city? And if he did; then, as an outsider, how on earth would I gain access to him? No, stop it, I thought: I could see that these were foolish questions based on spurious imagination extrapolated from insufficient information. For a start, many people had clearly managed to gain access to the grandmaster and study under him, so clearly this was not a valid issue. If anything stood in my way, then like as not it would be, as Morris Nichol and others had suggested, I who stood in my own way and not circumstance. And another part of me was saying “Hey, why is always my fault, eh? I mean, why me? Get off my back, will you?”

At the far end of the Cloth Market, wandering down a row of old terraced buildings, I finally came to the Kaparella. It was a quaint looking inn built with a framework of stout, black oak beams and some kind of large fired clay bricks. I went inside, careful not to bang my head on the beams across the top of the doors. The doorways were quite low, indicating perhaps that the residents were shorter in stature at the time the inn was originally built, for as I wandered through the market I had found that if anything, most of the men were a shade taller than me.[5]

Spotting a pleasantly plump and cheery-faced lady behind the bar at the inn, and not having had a decent drink for a good few days, I wandered across and ordered a tankard of ale and one of the freshly made sandwiches. I made my way through the bar and out through a back door which led into a pleasant walled garden. It had been a long journey and I needed a few minutes to wind down and collect my wits before introducing myself.

I'd just finished my sandwiches and was making good headway with the ale when the lady came outside into the garden and went around the tables collecting the empties, so I stood up and waited until I could catch her attention.

“Yes, my love,” the lady smiled, coming over and taking my empty plate. “How can I help you?”

Letters at the ready, I introduced myself and having got the gist of what I was saying, the lady asked to be excused for a moment while she got her husband to man the bar, so that she could spend more time with me.

“I'm sorry, we haven't been properly introduced,” the lady spoke on her return shortly afterwards. “Yes, I'm Miriam Holt. I run the inn with my long-suffering husband Jai.”

“John Little,” I smiled, shaking her offered hand.

“Right then, let's sit down and you can tell me all about it. So, my old friend Saksham Almas sent you to me, eh? My word, it's been a while since I last saw him, though we exchange letters from time to time.”

Miriam wanted to know how Saksham was doing and I told her as much as I knew.

“And what brings you here, John? Judging by your accent, I'd say you were rather a long way from home.”

“Yes, all the way from the Outlands.”

“Hodweir indeed? My, that is a long way,” she nodded.

Anyhow, I finished off my prepared speech and handed over the envelope to Miriam and she studied the growing pile of letters for a time before returning them to me. I wasn't quite sure how she'd take it, since yet again I was coming unannounced and I apologized to her.

“That really isn't a problem, John. Looking after seekers who are sent to us is one of the commitments we agreed to when we were accepted into the Tradition, and I and my husband Jai would be only too happy to help out; just as we have been helped by the friends time and time again over the years. It's true to say that this is what friends are for.

“Do you have anywhere to stay?” Miriam asked, getting to her feet.

I shook my head.

“No problem, we have several guest rooms free and you're more than welcome to stay with us for the next few days.”

“Will I be able to earn my keep?” I ventured.

“Oh don't worry, we can talk about that later, John.” The lady looked at her watch. “Look, give me half an hour, my love. I have three staff coming in shortly and they'll be looking after the bar this evening to give Jai and me a break. Then I'll get you settled into a room and you can freshen up while Jai cooks dinner. Does that suit you? If not, just let me know.”

“No, that's wonderful thank you, Miriam.”

“You're welcome, my love.”

It turned out that Jai was a bit of a dab hand in the kitchen. Since beef stew and dumplings was on the menu in the inn, and since their free time was so limited, he'd prepared sufficient food downstairs and almost cooked a large batch earlier that afternoon. So it was a matter of dipping into the huge cauldron and bringing sufficient for our needs upstairs. Then all that was required was to thoroughly re-heat the stew and serve it out.

Jai apologized unnecessarily, saying that, alas, there was no way that you could slow cook a stew to order in a busy inn.

“Jai,” I reassured the man, “this is the best beef stew that I've tasted. And it's got a wonderfully rich stock.”

“It may seem a little odd to you, John,” Miriam spoke, “but there's one very special ingredient that needs to go into the food – or into any of the work, for that matter – and that is acting with conscious good intention based on love.”

“That sounds a bit like magic,” I offered.

“Well John, yes you could say that this is a benign and altruistic form of sympathetic magic. Or equally that such work is a form of blessing and prayer. There's a lot of charlatanry around and seeking power out of self-interest, and that has muddied most people's perception of such things; but there is such as thing as real and permissible magic. Again, this is largely down to knowledge and intent.”

“And the second secret ingredient is chungari,” smiled Miriam, pouring them all a glass of a by now familiar amber wine when they'd finished eating. “The fact that it's alcoholic is largely incidental. What is really important is that it is charged with baraka and that it helps facilitate opening.”

As I lay in bed that night, the dreaming began even before I'd shut my eyes; all manner of vivid and iridescent images flowing before my eyes. At one time, it seemed as if wave after wave of gently flowing smoke rings were floating toward me and filling me, and at other times, it was as if these ethereal rings were coming from my forehead or from between my eyes and floating off into the distance, and it was then that I must have slipped into sleep and the scene fully lit up.

I remember finding myself sitting there in a room, cross-legged and there was a middle aged gentleman standing in front of me, wearing a sober black suit. He had shiny black hair and he was running his fingers over a little goatee beard. Though he looked quite relaxed, he clearly had a commanding presence. As far as I was aware, I hadn't seen the man before, but knew for sure that if I ever met him, that I would recognize him instantly.

“What kept you?” the man asked me. “I'd have thought you'd have been here years ago.”

“I'm sorry,” I involuntarily blurted out. “I was waylaid.”

“No matter,” the man continued. “All that matters is that you have made it to my door.”

“Thank you.”

“Do you know why you're here?” the man asked.

I shrugged. “I'm in search of the Teacher of the Age,” I replied. I'd used that phrase so often in recent months that perhaps it wasn't a truly spontaneous reply, but just something dredged up from memory. You see, I knew at that time that this was just a dream and that I was going with it; that I was perhaps still under the influence of the chungari.

The man laughed and shook his head. “And now you're thinking that this is just a dream. Just a dream. Ah, if you only knew; and you will remember yourself sooner or later and you will know. Let me be frank, young man. Right now you're living in what we might call a tunnel: your very own little reality tunnel that you call your world. Having said that, in your darkest moments, don't despair: there really is light up ahead.”

Only now did I realize that while the man had been speaking, I had been rising in the air. I looked down and discovered that this wasn't simply a matter of me standing up. I was still cross-legged and floating two or three feet in the air, gently cushioned by I know not what.

We have a saying in our tradition, whispered an unseen voice to me. Enlightenment is like everyday experience, but one foot off the ground.

“Remember my face when you awaken,” the man requested, breaking my reverie, and I came down with a definite bump. “And remember what I told you: that all that matters is that you have made it to my door.

“And when you see my face again and when you see that phrase written down in black and white, then you will know that this was more than a mere dream, and you will truly know for the first time that you are on the right track.”

“What's your name?” I wanted to know. If only I knew this man's name, then my search would surely be over. If not now, then soon enough.

The man merely smiled, the scene gradually receded into the distance, and at length I fell into a deep and rejuvenating sleep.

When I got up the next morning, I found Miriam and Jai already up and about restocking the bar before opening time. They offered me breakfast but, only wanting some cold cereal, I postponed that for a few minutes while I helped them.

Back upstairs, as Jai brewed a pot of tea and Miriam was fetching the cereal, I related the dream I'd had the previous night. When I told them the phrase that the man had asked me to remember, Jai spun on his heel and Miriam's eyes lit up.

“Do you recognize the phrase?” I wanted to know.

Yes, came their reply.

“And you recognize the man?”

Yes again.

“Was that the Teacher of the Age?”

“I think you know the answer to that, John,” Miriam told me.

“And do you know his name? I asked him, but I fell into a deep sleep before he told me.”

Miriam passed me the cereal and brought over a bowl and spoon, and I began to help myself.

“Yes, we do, John. But at the moment, it doesn't feel right to come straight out and say it. As the master said himself, you'll know soon enough, and I think that it is important that you discover this in your own way and at the right time.

“What I will say, however, is that it is clear to me that you are already on the right track and precisely where you need to be.”

As Jai poured out the tea and topped the cups up with a little milk, he and Miriam came over to sit at the table with me.

Miriam took a sip of tea and thanked Jai for a delicious brew, then she turned back to me. “I'm forming an impression, John. I know that the idea was that you should spend a few days with us, pottering about in the bar, but I'm told that something else is now indicated – a mid-course correction, as it were.”

This came out of the blue, of course, but I wasn't at all shocked, nor altogether surprised.

“Go back to your room and pack your bag while I make you up a packed lunch. Then, while Jai is opening up the bar, I'll take you to the coach station. You're to go straight away up north to Oust Lea, just over the border in Angbath and meet a friend by the name of Edwin Jolly. I'll scribble down some details, but there isn't much time, so I'll leave you to introduce yourself to Edwin. Tell him that we send him our love and blessings.”

My heart pumping and on what I would call “amber alert”, I was already on my feet.

Sensing my agitation, Miriam calmed me down. “I'm sorry, when I said that there isn't much time, I didn't mean to infer that there was any kind of imminent crisis looming; merely that you must leave today and that we need to get our skates on if you're not to miss the morning coach. Miss that and you'll have to wait until Thursday for the next, and given that we have a limited window of opportunity, that might have a knock-on effect and unnecessarily complicate matters further down the line.”

“Okay.” I relaxed a little, though my heart was still thumping heavily in my chest. “And when I get to Oust Lea?” I asked.

Miriam was lost in thought for a few moments. “Don't worry, John: I'm reliably informed that Edwin will know what to do. Now off you go to pack your bag.”

9. Edwin Jolly

Oust Lea in Angbath

When I finally arrived at Oust Lea, I was exceedingly weary. Still feeling anxious, in spite of Miriam's earlier reassurances, I hadn't slept well the night before and, the coach having been a real bone shaker, nor had I been able to catch up on my sleep during the day.

Under normal circumstances, I would have taken my time and found somewhere to eat and rest before searching out Edwin Jolly, but given my continuing sense of urgency, I felt it best to locate him first. I'd begun to notice, with the passing of many months, that whenever there was a real sense of urgency, perhaps in order to remain synchronized with the Design, or what little I could sense of it, lesser preoccupations seemed to fall by the way side or else the decks had to be deliberately cleared to make way for such action. Time and again, when I found myself embroiled in some unnecessary preoccupation or in a mood, one of the Masters, or some other environmental agent, would yank or shock me out of that state, whether I liked it or not. And increasingly, I was able to catch myself in this process and tell myself to “snap out of it” without needing others to divert my attention or prompt me. It was possible, for example, to simply and dispassionately shrug off a mood just as you would remove one item of clothing and don another.

This all seemed to be an integral part of my ongoing process of sensitization. You could say that what was once unconscious and automatic was being made conscious; and also perhaps that was conscious was also being made unconscious, just as riding a bike or playing a violin or writing went from being stilted and mechanical to being fluent and second nature. To put another way, it was like discovering that you had a ragtag hive of myopic idiots running around in your head and slowly but surely investing in a better, more appropriate team; or bringing some of the guards in this insane asylum over to your side, or at least convincing them that they could turn a blind eye whilst you got on with your escape plans. And then every now and again, there'd be some kind of quite dramatic internal coup; another shift in the command structure, and another mid-course correction.

Miriam had been too rushed to draw me a map, so all I had to go on was the name of the street on which Edwin Jolly lived and his name, so I asked passers by for directions. I gathered that the street was quite a way across town, and there was no way that I could remember the complex directions that some of the locals offered, so instead I just pointed myself in the general direction indicated and when I got closer, I asked for fresh directions. In the end, after a couple of cock ups which required me to back track a short way, at length I found myself outside Edwin Jolly's tiny thatched cottage.

I was about to ring the bell when the door opened and a tall and muscular man stood there framed in the doorway.

“John Little?” the man asked, already holding out his hand. “Edwin Jolly at your service.”

“Yes,” I replied a little hesitantly, shaking his offered hand. “Hello there. I didn't realize that I would be expected.”

“Oh, it's not the result of some dark and arcane art,” the man laughed, sensing that I was slightly taken aback. “It's one of the miracles of modern science.”

“I'm sorry?” I queried.

“Miriam phoned me after she'd seen you on your way,” the man explained. “Anyhow, do come inside and sit yourself down. You'll be ready for a drink I would imagine, and I'm just about to make lunch, if a bacon sandwich would not go amiss?”

I thanked the man and followed him through to a small living room and sat there while he busied himself in the adjacent kitchenette.

We ate our lunch and then, when Edwin had poured the tea, it was time to talk.

“I presume that Miriam will have told you why I'm here?” I began.

The man nodded and took a sip of his tea. It must have still been hot and he put it to one side to cool down. “She did, John, but I'd like to hear your story in your own words. That's for three reasons: one, to get some basic facts; two, to gain an overall impression through what you might call a representative sampling; and three to see what issues arise.”

“Where would you like me to begin?” I queried.

Edwin looked at the clock on the mantel shelf.

“Are we short of time, Edwin?” I asked.

“No, begin at the beginning when you first started out to find the way, and take as long as you need.”

So I took Edwin back to the time back home when I had first met Morris Nichol and he sat back and listened with rapt attention as I recounted my tale.

At length, after a second welcome cup of tea, I got to the short time that I had spent with Miriam and Jai, and as I briefly related the dream I'd had, Edwin nodded his head several times and sat forward in his chair. He, too, must think this an important development. I went on to tell Edwin how, after I'd related my dream to Miriam and Jai, she had had a sudden change of heart and put me on the next northbound coach to meet Edwin in Om Dor. There was, she had told me, an urgency but not an impending crisis.

Again Edwin nodded. “I understand now, John. Thank you: that was most interesting and informative.”

“So could you shed some light on this urgency, please Edwin?” I enquired.

“Yes, I can see that you like to understand these things you're going through, John. The urgency is this, and it's nothing at all to worry yourself about. Tomorrow morning, I am going west to Narayana. So Miriam was right, though she may not have known quite why. Had you missed your coach, then you would have missed my departure and been left here for over a month in a real pickle until my return.”

“So Miriam took a big risk?” I wondered.

Edwin shook his head. “No, no: Miriam trusted her intuition – her inner tuition – and she did what was indicated; and now events bear out that her action was indeed correct. I'll phone her in a few minutes to let her know that you've arrived safely.”

“So what do I do now?” I wanted to know.

Edwin stroked his chin thoughtfully.

“You may be able to answer that question yourself, John.”

“I'm to go with you on your journey?

“Right first time.”

“Where was it you said we're going?” I asked.

“West through the foot hills and mountain passes to Narayana.”

“Narayana?”

“Narayana is the home land of the current Teacher of the Age, John, so this is a big step forward on your quest; not least because the air is fair buzzing there.”

“Buzzing?”

“Alive with energy.”

“I see. So am I getting close, then?”

Edwin nodded. “By the time you get to Narayana, you could almost sniff your way to the Master's door. That's not your goal, however; it's the chance for new beginnings. This is more the way to the way than the way itself.”

I was reminded of the phrase that the master in the dream had given me and I asked Edwin if it meant anything to him.

“Yes, I have heard it said and I have seen it written, John; but this is something for you to discover – or in a way, rediscover – in your own good time.”

“Have I been here before?” I asked off the top of my head.

Edwin raised his eyebrows. “If you'll forgive me being direct, John, what springs to mind is that, though you are currently still in a bit of a state, you are a past master.”

I gulped, thinking perhaps he meant in a bit of a mess.

“Who was it who said ….”

“About putting a positive spin on things?” I offered. “That would be Morris Nichol.”

“By Jingo,” Edwin laughed and slapped his thigh in appreciation. “Spot on, John. Spot on.”

“How do we get to Narayana?” I asked Edwin.

“On horseback until we're through the mountains, John. Then a bog-standard bus up north to meet Wilbur, a radio operator who lives in Shakra. And I do mean a bog-standard bus. I'll be staying in Shakra for a couple of days and then I have business elsewhere, so I'll be leaving you in Wilbur's capable hands.

“However, before we go John, I sense that you're still rather hyped-up and excitable, and that's not a good thing. The journey itself will help slow you down, but I think that it's high time we taught you an exercise to help still your mind.”

And with those words, Edwin spent a good half hour with me, guiding me through a new breathing exercise.

“Practice that every day when you first wake up and just before you lay your head down on a night, John, until otherwise instructed,” the man advised. “At first, I'd suggest that you just 'fake it until you make it', and given time, you'll be amazed what a difference this will make to many diverse aspects of your life.”

I asked Edwin why it was that the Masters didn't simply give this exercise to everybody from the outset.

“There are a few reasons for that,” he explained. “The first is that though people tend to clamour for exercises, other things often have to happen first before exercises can be usefully and effectively employed.

“The second is that like medicine in the hands of skilled doctors, such things are individually prescribed.

“And more generally, Masters each have their own distinctive way of going about things not only because they have their own set of skills and requirements, but also so that students don't get themselves stuck in one paradigm and suffer what is technically known as paradigm paralysis. That is the inability to feel, think, operate or even see beyond a particular formulation of knowledge or belief, which has perhaps unfortunately crystallized into dogma. You might liken this to the prisoner who's actually psychologically locked himself in his own cold, dark cell. Or you might liken it to an islander who cannot venture beyond his own shoreline, who can't comprehend that there might be other lands out there on the sea other than his own, or who shuts himself off from knowledge that might help him learn, for example, how to swim or build and navigate a boat to take him away from that wretched isolated island … from the I-land.

“It's for this and other reasons that we deliberately provide rich, diverse and at times challenging stimuli to our students. Not least, it makes it more difficult for others to come along and turn the dynamic Work into yet another monolithic religion, replete with rituals that have either become fossilized or whose original purpose has been forgotten. The world is littered with such institutions and with wayward cults as it is, and this makes it ever more difficult for seekers to see the wood for the proverbial trees and safely find their way back to us. Or, conversely, for us to find our way to them.

“But anyway, John, that's more than enough theory for today. As with many other things, we need to maintain a healthy dynamic balance. And right now we need to prepare for our journey.”

~~~O~~~

This was my first time on horseback and it took me some time to get used to it, but Edwin was a patient trainer, and by the time we reached the foot hills, I'd made sufficient progress to be able to relax and enjoy the breathtaking scenery. I really did feel at home in the hills, drinking in the fresh air, the rushing streams and the still and majestic dark blue tarns.

It was a long journey through the foot hills. The snow-capped mountains loomed larger and larger before my eyes, and yet though we rode on for hours, we had yet to reach them. One thing that was obvious, however, was that the terrain was indeed becoming more and more hilly.

We stayed that night at a tiny inn in a village at the foot of a deep, green valley; then set off the next day as soon as the sun had begun to rise, and by lunch time we had left that green valley behind and finally entered the mountains proper.

“Welcome to Narayana!” Edwin called back to me as we led our horses in single file. He turned his horse around and drew up close to share a swig from a small silver flask he had tucked in his pocket. What else would it be on such an auspicious occasion but chungari?

We spent days riding this way and that through the many passes and traversing slopes, camping overnight in a tiny tent that Edwin had brought with us, cocooned in thick fleeces to keep out the chill mountain air. It was pleasantly warm during the day, especially in the sun, but it did come in quite cold at night, though it thankfully didn't get down to freezing. The outlook was so wonderful to my eyes, that in all that way, I didn't feel a single moment of boredom and I felt no frustration at our slow progress; and I felt more awake and alive than I could ever remember having been. Well, that's not quite true, because this enlivened feeling did seem to remind me of some former, forgotten time when I had once felt this same way. Perhaps this was a memory of early childhood, or perhaps still further back. I really couldn't place this experience, but I did seem to somehow recognize its subtle signature. I would say that it had a characteristic smell, linked in some way with some former and very real experience of freedom; a former life, even, be that in the figurative or literal sense.

Right now, it wasn't the goal that concerned me: that of getting through the mountains to the other side; nor even of finally meeting the Teacher of the Age; this was a time to fully immerse oneself and partake in and enjoy the journey. Though the mountain peaks themselves looked quite barren and rocky below the snow line; being summer, the fertile passes themselves were at times knee deep in coarse grass and blanketed with all manner of bright mountain flowers from the tiniest, most fragile blue bells to the tallest, brash sunflower.

The horses took the strain most of the way, except when we had to take to narrow paths and traverse slopes, and this is when you could really tell that we were by now at quite a high altitude and that the air was thinner. I could feel myself breathing more deeply and my heart pumping that bit faster and walking became strangely tiring, even though I knew that it must be because of lack of oxygen.

Finally we were out of the mountains and back into the foot hills on the far side, by now well within Narayana. I naively thought that from here on in it would be down hill all the way, as they say, but of course it was not. Certainly we were descending, but if anything there were more frequent ups and downs in the foothills than there had been in the mountains.

Out of the foot hills, we stopped the night at another village and I ate my first genuine Narayani food: a huge plate full of lamp in a spicy sauce and served with yellow, flecked pilau rice – rice cooked in a seasoned broth and then drained. And, in celebration of making it thus far safe and in good health, Edwin and I shared a couple of tankards of fine, home brew. Edwin did tell me the name of the drink, but alas I've forgotten: however, I would never forget that distinctive and mild taste, with its hint of honey and rose hip. It was a little like mead, except served by the tankard rather than by the glass, and clearly and thankfully less alcoholic.

Shortly afterwards, an argument blew up between a couple who were sitting at a table nearby and as the man's tone became more and more angry and forceful, I whispered to Edwin, enquiring about whether we should intervene.

“No,” he whispered back. “That is not indicated at this moment. It is sufficient to be present and to bear silent witness. If you wish, you may pray,” and he taught me some words to silently repeat to myself and reminded me of the need for good intent.

Edwin sat there with his fists clenched under the table and all tensed up, as if mirroring the couple; then slowly but surely he began to unclench his fists and relax, and he began talking to me again in light and soothing tones.

The arguing went on for a few more minutes, then gradually subsided, and not long afterwards the couple finished their drinks and left the bar, walking arm in arm and whispering sweet nothings to one-another; and with all their arguments left behind them.

Edwin rose to his feet. “If you'll excuse me for a moment, I must urgently answer the call of nature, then we'll have a nightcap of chungari and retire to bed. There's a bus that terminates and turns round at the village, so we need to be up bright and early tomorrow.”

When he returned and shared the last mouthful of chungari with me, from his flask, he explained. “As for my need to dash to the loo, sometimes when you witness something like the argument those two had earlier, you find yourself sort of syphoning off the energy; taking it on yourself; transforming it and returning it … and later, in one way or another, having collected the poison, you may have to dump it yourself, so that you do not become ill because of it. So, John, if you get the sudden urge to visit the bathroom tonight to dump your load, it will most likely not be because of the rich meal or the drink, but because of what we just witnessed and shared.”

“And the words that you gave me to recite?”

“These are early days for you, my friend, and you can only take on so much; so the prayer was as much for your own protection as anything else.”

Rats, and there was I thinking that I'd made a significant contribution to calming the couple down.

“What I did was only partly for these people's benefit, John. What concerned me most of all was the possibility that, once home, they might take out their anger on the children. I'll give you odds of a gold noble to an iron shekel, that pair will be divorced within a year.”

10. Wilbur Jones

Shakra in Narayana

Wilbur Jones was a funny little man with a shiny bald head, though his hair was uncommonly long at the back; and he wore thick-lensed spectacles which made it appear that he had two huge and very attentive eyeballs almost popping out of their sockets when he looked at you. He put his bad eyesight down to the many years he'd spent working on the minute and intricate mechanisms of watches and clocks and later pouring over a hot soldering iron, repairing wireless sets. He was an amateur radio enthusiast and on his wall he had postcards from a great many friends that he'd contacted throughout the world over the years.

In pride of place, in the centre of this wall of postcards was the photograph of a man wearing a sober black suit and tie, and my attention was riveted on this photo as soon as I saw it. I went closer, noticing that the man had black hair and did indeed, as I had suspected he might, sport a little goatee beard.

“That's him,” I pointed out to Edwin, tapping the cork noticeboard with my finger. At first Edwin didn't comprehend, so I explained: “That's the man I saw in my dream. The one who said 'All that matters is that you have made it to my door' and requested that I remember that phrase.”

“Oh, you mean Tenzing,” Wilbur noted, coming over and squinting at the photo.

“Wilbur, you've let the cat out of the bag,” grinned Edwin, patting him lightly on the shoulder. “But no matter. It must be that the time is right.”

“Who's Tenzan?” I wanted to know.

“Tenzing. Tenzing Jangbu Rinchen to give you his full and official Thursday name.”

“And?”

It was my turn to be patted on the back. “And he, my friend, is the Teacher of the Age.” Edwin paused for a moment and thought. “Well, he is as far as his students and his organizations and you need be concerned.”

As Edwin said these words, I came over all a quiver, as they say. I felt a warm shiver and could feel the hairs on my arms and on the top of my head stand on end. It wasn't a fright, however; quite the reverse, it was a moment of ecstasy.

“Again we have contact,” Edwin remarked, noting my response.

“How can I get to see Tenzing?” I wanted to know, my heart pounding with excitement.

Deep breaths, John, deep breaths, an inner voice prompted me and I turned to the breathing exercise that Edwin had taught me, for support.

Edwin turned to Wilbur. “Wilbur, would you relay a message to babs chu, please?”

“Sure.” Wilbur took up a notepad and pencil and wrote the words down as Edwin dictated them to him, and went over to the desk to power up his transceiver. “Hello New Alpha? Hello New Alpha? Are you receiving me? Over.”

“It may take some time,” Edwin advised. “They don't always hear the radio straight away.”

Leaving Wilbur clicking switches and twiddling dials, we stepped out of his wooden radio shack and stood in the street. Edwin fumbled in his pocket and brought out a crumpled packet of cigarettes and offered one to me.

“I didn't know you smoked, Edwin,” I remarked.

“I don't usually,” he replied, passing his lighter to me.

“Same here.”

“I took one drag of the cigarette and my legs became like leaden jelly. I held onto the open doorway of the shack for fear they might buckle beneath me. Bending down to the ground, I gently stubbed out the cigarette and waited for the awful sensation to subside. A minute or two later, I repeated the process, but finally on the third attempt I was able to enjoy the remainder of the cigarette.

“Never again,” I grimaced. “Never again.”

“I know, don't tell me, it's a filthy and dangerous habit,” Edwin agreed, stubbing out his own cigarette butt.

“Then why on earth do we do it?” I wanted to know.

He shrugged. “Foolish desire overcoming good sense, and forgetfulness, I would imagine.”

“Good news,” Wilbur announced, leaving his radio and coming outside. He stood there, doubly squinting, partly because of the bright sun and partly because of his bad eyesight and illegible scrawl. “We've got the okay for John to visit babs chu – though of course the obvious restrictions apply. Edwin, you need to put John on the early morning bus going up north. John, it's a six hour ride and you need to get off at the terminus at Renchok.”

The man laughed. “Well, you won't have much choice, really, it being the terminus, unless you want to end up all the way back down here again. Anyhow, get off there and find the inn. It's an old stone and timber-framed building; you can't miss it. Two of Tenzing's students will meet you there and guide you to babs chu.”

“Babs what?”

“Babs chu:” Edwin informed me. “Just between us, it's a community in the mountains to the north.”

“And Wilbur, you said something earlier about certain conditions that apply ….” I prompted.

Again Edwin answered me. “It's very important that people do not find out about the location of the community or else the world and his dog would descend on the place. In fact don't even mention the name unless you're in private company with the friends. That being the case, and without meaning to cause any offence, for part of your journey to and from babs chu, until you've been accepted in the way, you'll be blindfolded.”

“Fair enough,” I nodded in agreement. “I can see the point of that, and I'm sure I can live with it.”

11. Rosalie Muller

Babs chu in Narayana

After a long, strenuous, testing and at times perilous ascent into the northern mountains, with the help of two experienced guides, I finally arrived at the retreat at babs chu. I was excited to say the least and though I would take great delight in describing the ascent and this mountain community in great detail, alas this is not permissible, and I will have to leave this to the reader's own imagination. Suffice it to say that my beady little mind boggling at the wonders I saw. I knew now that I was but a step away from completing this phase of my quest and finally meeting the Teacher of the Age.

At least that's what I thought I knew. Once I'd settled myself into the chalet I'd been temporarily allocated, I was met again by one of the students and she guided me through the dwellings toward a monumental central building that backed onto a cliff. It was like some vast eastern palace or temple. Every stone had been hand quarried and laboriously, carefully and lovingly hewn. We went inside, across a wide foyer and down a long, cork-floored corridor until we came to a study. The student knocked and when a voice lilted “En-ter”, she went ahead to announce me, then returned to lead me inside.

As I entered, a slim lady got up from her desk by the window and came across to greet me warmly.

“My dear Mister Smith,” the lady greeted me. “I'm Rosalie Muller, one of Tenzing's deputies.”

“Please, do call me John.”

“It's good to meet you, John. Monica, would you mind popping along to the kitchens? If you could have a word with cook and bring a pot of tea and some sandwiches for our guest, that would be a great help.”

The student replied to the affirmative and, with a slight bow, she was off on her errand.

“So, John, what brings you here?” the lady wanted to know, offering me a seat beside her on a sofa. So began a long story which wasn't finished before the refreshments arrived and, after a pause while ate my sandwiches, I continued. Finally I fished in my pockets and presented the many letters of introduction that I'd received on my journey and, putting on her spectacles, Rosalie Muller spent some time carefully reading through them.

“My word, you have been all round the island to finally arrive here, John.”

“That's what someone told me in a dream,” I laughed. In my haste, I'd neglected to mention the dream I'd had and I took the opportunity to recount in in detail.

“He asked me to remember a phrase that he'd used,” I told Rosalie: “All that matters ...”

Rosalie held her hand up to interrupt me and completed the sentence: “... is that you have made it to my door.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Yes, that was it, word for word.”

Rosalie got up from the settee and went over to select a book from the shelves that lined one wall of the study. “Please bear with me for a moment,” she asked, returning to sit beside me and flicking through the pages of the book.

“Yes, here it is.”

She held the book between us so that I could read the words for myself.

There it was, that phrase, in stunning black and white.

Then Rosalie closed the book and handed it to me. I examined the cover and again my heart began to race as I saw the photograph on the back cover. “Yes, that's the master I saw in the dream,” I told her.

“That's good, John. Very good. Please, take the book and study it well. And when you've finished that, bring it back and I'll select another.”

“I don't mean to sound impatient, Rosalie, but will I finally get a chance to meet this Teacher of the Age?”

“Finally,” Rosalie nodded. “But not yet.”

My heart lurched and I looked searchingly into her eyes.

“You've come a long way, John, I can see that. But alas, Tenzing is not at babs chu right now, and he won't be back here until next year. That's why I'm here.”

“Oh, right,” I said, feeling quite choked up all of a sudden.

“You see, Tenzing, I and the other deputies spend a part of our time with the students and workers here, and a part of our time at our our centre at Foxholes.”

“Foxholes?” I queried. “Is that far from here?”

Rosalie nodded and, taking my arm, she guided me across the study toward a large wall map of the known world. “This is where you began on your way to the way, John,” she told me, pointing to Hodweir. “Whereabouts exactly was that?”

I searched the map and found Muddlehough, just north of the border with the Freelands.

Pointing to each location on my journey as she went, Rosalie prescribed a wide anticlockwise circle, ending finally at the approximate location of babs chu.

“And where is Foxholes?” I enquired.

“You're going to want to kick yourself when you find out, John. But please don't.”

Rosalie took my hand and pointed a finger to my home town of Muddlehough. Then she drew it down a short way to Sher Point, which was the capital city of the Freelands.

Again my heart lurched. “But considering the many hundreds of miles I've covered over the last few months, that's hardly a stone's throw from my home town where all this began,” I spluttered.

Feeling a little light-headed, Rosalie guided me back to the settee and poured us a second cup of tea which was still quite warm with the knitted woollen tea cosy over the pot.

“So, why on earth did Morris Nichol send me on a quest that took me all round the island to use your and Tenzing's phrase?”

“For two of perhaps many reasons, John. The first being that when you began your quest, you were in no condition to meet with Tenzing directly; you needed certain experience. And the second being that you would certainly have been denied an entry permit into what are wrongly called the Freelands.”

I thought for a moment. “So what should I do now? Are you going to send me back home, Rosalie?” That prospect was almost too much to bear.

Rosalie shook her head. “No, no. Please trust us, John: you're in safe hands. What I would suggest is that you spend a few weeks here at babs chu. You'll pick up a great deal by spending some time with us here. Far more than you might imagine. And then we'll arrange for you to travel back down south to Lilith and from there, providing you with false papers, by hook or by crook we'll get you over the border into the Freelands and up to Foxholes, which is on the outskirts of Sher Point. And then finally you will get a chance to meet Tenzing and spend time with him and the other staff and students there.

“On that note, dear John, there's one thing that you should be made aware of, and it is this: there are many folk on the path, not only the teachers, who would be able to help and teach you a great deal. Indeed, you can even learn a lot from quite ignorant and misguided people and, for that matter, from the commonplace.

“There are some who are of the opinion that only the Teacher of the Age is sufficiently advanced or worthy to teach them, but really this just shows these people's opinionation, vanity and arrogance. Which is just the kind of reason to deflect such people and deny them access when they approach us.”

Ouch! On that note, dear Rosalie, a lump arose in my throat and once again I flushed with embarrassment; but Rosalie immediately suggested that I might like a tour of the community, thoughtfully diverting my attention from this matter.

~~~O~~~

You'll forgive the brevity of my account, I trust, and also the sparsity of description, for I was advised that the provision of such detail is contraindicated at this stage.

Four things really stood out for me in the time I spent in the mountains. Babs chu had the most breathtaking scenery; there was a genuinely warm community spirit, suffused with a wonderful atmosphere; it was a hive of industry, where all manner of arts and crafts were practised; and the breathing exercises and meditations that I was offered finally began to open up my heart and also activate other largely dormant or vestigial, subtle organs of higher perception, the existence of which until then I had not the slightest inkling. All in all, it was a joy to take part in all these activities and to be of some minor service, though I couldn't help but compare myself to the others there and see how very raw and rough around the edges I still was. With this in mind, it might indeed be better to spend time first preparing myself at the study centre at Foxholes, where I'd be in the company of my peers.

One thing that I hadn't really appreciated until I was led into these more formal and intensive studies was just unsound my foundations were and quite how derelict was the structure that I'd built on top of them. So it came as something of a shock to find that one of the first things that I had to do, or allow others to do, was to carefully take down that derelict hovel. I say carefully, but to be honest, I felt so wretched at times that it was a painful process and I am not ashamed to say that I cried myself to sleep on several occasions whilst I was at babs chu; and at other times, in spite of my breathing exercises, my mind was in a complete whirl.

Rosalie told me not to worry; that these were perfectly normal and natural reactions, and that I should allow these issues to bubble to the surface, and simply acknowledge these processes rather than trying to make sense of them. Above all, she said, I should not allow my conscience to torture me unnecessarily, thinking that I must be some hapless sinner. We all make mistakes along the way and are in the same boat, she assured me.

After dismantling the ruins, the idea was to strengthen the foundations and eventually build a palace in the ruins' stead; but of course that was as yet a far distant objective, and a bridge to cross if and when I eventually came to it. I say that, though of course I couldn't help but be worried by this prospect. It sounded like major root canal work by the dentist from hell – whatever horror you can imagine, times it by ten. At least that's how threatening it felt to my lower self.

“Donkey” sure kicked up a fuss and left me little peace in those early days. And if anything, for a time my condition became worse, rather than better; so it required quite a leap of trust and faith to place myself body, mind, heart and soul in the hands of these Masters, however much confidence I had in them at a rational level.

12. Orion

Orion in Lilith

It was with more than a twinge of sadness that I left babs chu and its wonderful friends behind, though I must admit that I was ready for a breather from all the heavy duty developmental work. I would gladly have settled down there and learnt some artisan skills to pay my way and, not least, simply imbibe the subtle atmosphere there until I was quite drunk. Clearly it was not to be, but I faithfully promised that one day I would return to babs chu. And in any case, having once been there, I would always carry around a little bit of heaven with me in my heart. Nothing could take that away from me.

By the time I got back to Shakra, Rosalie had arranged for one of the friends to meet me. He worked for the Network, with a capital “N”, which is what Tenzing called the international organization that carried out much of the work for the Work.

Papers had already been forged and all that remained was to take a photograph of me, to attach it to the identity card and to stamp it with an embossing tool. That done, another member of the Network drove me by car from Shakra all the way down south to a village in Lilith which was a protectorate just to the south east of the Freelands. With the sea to the west of Narayana and a high mountain range to the south west separating it from the Freelands, I was told that this was the most convenient route: first south to Lilith, then west to the border with the Freelands, and finally up north to Sher Point. I was greatly relieved to find out that I could travel in comfort by car all the way, for now my attention was wholly focussed on getting to Sher Point to meet Tenzing and see what his study centre at Foxholes had to offer; and what I, in some small way, had to offer it.

Anyhow, after a long drive south through Narayana, over the vast and fertile central plateau and then across the barren moorland which had once been part of a huge ancient forest, we arrived at Lilith. Begging leave, my driver deposited me at a local inn to await another friend who would drive me to Sher Point, where one of the staff at Foxholes would take me on the final leg to the study centre.

Lilith was a delightful country with small fields separated by traditional hedgerows, quaint and homely hamlets and wonderful little wooden houses with steeply sloping roofs. At any other time in my life but this, I would have gone out of my way to spend more time there. However, on this occasion, I was so intent on getting to the Freelands, that I was able to take in little of the rich bounty that the country had to offer, and the rest of the journey must have been a blur, for looking back, and kicking myself for not having written daily notes, I can recall precious little of that journey.

All I remember is that another of Tenzing's deputies, Harold Grainger, himself came all the way to Lilith from Sher Point to pick me up and that he was intent on building up as complete a picture of me as he could. He was eager for me to tell him the whole story of my life, as far back as I could remember, and he asked a great many quite insightful and probing questions. Some of the questions I was happy enough to answer. But other questions, and the answers that these elicited, left me feeling uncomfortable and at times even deeply anxious. We'd successfully crossed the border, much to my relief, and the weather in the Freelands was quite cool, and yet the armpits of my shirt were damp with perspiration and I could feel just how tensed up and anxious I had become.

Then Harold Grainger abruptly changed the subject and deliberately switched into a lighter and more upbeat mood. This quite startled me. It was as if the man had clicked a switch inside my mind or opened a stop cock and as I sat there in the passenger seat, I was simply engulfed in emotion and the tears began to stream down my face.

When that intense climax was finally over, and having died a little death and got over it, I actually felt the most relaxed and at peace with myself and with the world – and perhaps more vibrantly awake – than I had done in many months, if not years … perhaps in living memory. I felt like a snake who'd shed its skin – or perhaps it was me who'd shed a snake, or a snake that had shed me?

And I felt an immense, happy and good-humoured gratitude, too: not only to Harold Grainger, but to everyone whom I'd encountered and who had played a part or sung and danced and made poetry in my life, and I in theirs. There was not one iota of wasted experience: it all clicked into place. Even what I took to be my imperfection, beneath the veils and sketched on the blueprint, and hitherto unbeknownst to me, sub-consciously had its infinitesimal but rightful place in the plan.

At that moment, everything I'd been through seemed to make a whole new, coherent and certain sense at a profound and satisfying, or even serene, level. When I said this to myself, it was as if the whole world, or the whole universe, nodded in agreement; and I knew then that, though I must still have far to go, I was definitely on the right track, without a shadow of a doubt.

For our humankind, life was like a marvellous game of Hide and Go Seek gone tragically and yet comically wrong. A flower behaves like a flower; a bee like a bee and a scorpion like a scorpion. But not us, and why not us? We could be like a bee making honey on the one hand, or a spider making poison on the other; and flit between the two in mere moments and with only the slightest twinge of conscience, if any. We alone out of all creation, by and large no longer lived according to our true, essential nature, except in peak experience.

And yet, having said that, for all the world's apparent imperfection, it was practically perfect. The Source actually could make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, obtain blood from a stone, turn water into wine or raise the dead if there was real need rather than mere desire. As for magic, well that was in itself neutral and only took on a hue other than octarine, or a bias, in the hands and lesser intent and will of the mortals who wielded it.

I was excited, to say the least, and inundated at a cognitive and also a feeling level. It was as if I'd struck oil and had a real gusher going. Of course, Harold Grainger noticed that I was psychically wide open and tuned into the ethereal Radio Wonderland where every word and symbol and image conjured up was pregnant with deep and meaning and hidden purpose; and he gently suggested that, lest I tempt lightning to strike the tower, now might be as good a time as any to practice a grounding exercise that Rosalie Muller had taught me at babs chu.

“You have a vivid imagination, John; but don't be mesmerized by the glitz and glamour of the carnival side shows, mistake a state for a station and get off the train at the wrong stop,” the man advised me. “We're not there yet. Not by a long chalk.”

13. Foxholes

Foxholes at Sher Point in the Freelands

Harold Grainger, Tenzing's number two, let me out of the car by a side entrance into the building when we finally arrived at Foxholes. He was an amiable soul, though perhaps not as easy going and stimulating as Rosalie Muller: his earlier, most adept cathartic intervention notwithstanding. That really had been an eye opener. I waited whilst he parked, then together we wandered down a covered walkway between the old main building and what looked like a modern annex. We headed for his office and spent some time there sipping coffee, munching on biscuits and generally chatting. Then after a little searching around and matron's help, he sorted me out with a room where I could stay for a while. One of the younger students, a girl called Millie, found some bedclothes for me and guided me to the room. Further down the corridor was a communal bathroom and I washed away the grime and freshened up, got changed and headed downstairs for dinner.

I had expected that we'd be dining in the cafeteria that I'd spotted on the way into the building, but instead Harold Grainger had arranged for us to eat in private, so that we could “have a good chin wag”. As I walked into the study, my heart leapt and I was overcome with panic. I had assumed that Harold and I would have been eating alone, but – glory be! – this was not Harold's study but that of the Director of Studies, and standing before me and instantly coming forward to greet me was the man himself: Tenzing Jangbu Rinchen.

“What kept you?” the man asked me, standing there with his hands on his hips. “I'd have thought you'd have been here years ago.”

This was so déjà vu and rather unnerving. Either that or the dream had actually been a premonition.

“I'm sorry,” I involuntarily blurted out. “I was waylaid.”

“No matter,” the man continued, with a mischievous grin on his face. “All that matters is that you have made it to my door.”

“Thank you,” I gulped, and already I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes, though quite why I did not know. I fumbled in my pocket and found my handkerchief and, having wiped my eyes, I accepted his firm yet friendly handshake.

“Welcome, John,” the man smiled. “Please do come in and make yourself at home.”

At that moment, a dinner lady knocked on the door and entered the room, with a trolley.

“Ah, thank you so much, Mary.”

“If you'll just give me a moment, Tenzing, I'll set out the food and then you can take your places.”

When she'd departed, Tenzing took my arm and gently guided me toward the octagonal table that stood to one side of the room and we sat down.

“Would you, Harold?” Tenzing asked as he helped dish out the food.

Harold must have known what Tenzing meant and he went over to a nearby rosewood cabinet and retrieved a decanter and three crystal cut glasses. As soon as I saw the amber colour, I knew that it had to be chungari.

“Yes, we always keep some by for special occasions,” Harold replied.

“Right, John,” Tenzing said, clapping his hands together. “Don't stand on ceremony; just tuck in.”

“Do you know why you're here?” Tenzing asked after a time, but for some reason, possibly a feeling of being in awe of the master's presence after so much anticipation, words failed me, and I could only apologize.

Tenzing reached across the table and refilled our glasses. “Don't worry, John. The first time I met my own master, Sonam, I was so overawed that I all I could do was gibber. But as soon as Sonam took out his flute and began to play – so, so melodiously and soothingly – I was mesmerised and all my worries evaporated.”

Begging to be excused for a moment, Tenzing left the table for a moment and went to select a record from his collection. Putting on the music, he carefully adjusted the volume to a suitable and unintrusive level. “This was one of my master's favourite tunes,” he remarked, returning to his seat.

“Anyhow, back to you, John. I'm sure you'll soon feel more at ease, and in any case – as I said earlier – the main thing is not what brought you here but the fact that you have made it here, which speaks volumes. So you can allow yourself a time of celebration and a certain degree of quiet and genuine satisfaction.

“Tell me, are you still intent in taking your interest in the way further, John?” Tenzing asked as we adjourned to more comfortable seats.

“Yes,” I nodded.

“You're not just saying that because you feel you have invested so much in coming so far, or because you think that this is what I would like to hear? It's not too late to change your mind, you know, and we shan't think any the less of you.”

I shook my head vigorously. “No, not at all, Tenzing. The more I see, the more I feel that this is the right course for me. I feel at home, perhaps for the first time in my life. And babs chu – I was quite blown away by that.”

“Well, I suggest that you spend a couple of days here with us. I'll arrange for you to be given the guided tour and we can have lunch tomorrow at the Wayfarers' Rest up the hill from here; but otherwise, just spend your time wandering around and drinking in the atmosphere.”

And then? Surely I wasn't going to be sent away, I wondered, anxiously biting my lip.

Tenzing fixed me with his eyes and replied solemnly: “And then I think you should go back home ….”

Yet again my heart leapt and my stomach churned.

“I haven't finished yet,” Tenzing added, breaking into a smile. “Then I think you should go back home to sort out your affairs and say your goodbyes. And when you're ready, perhaps in a week or two, phone us and let Harold know when you intend to depart. Take a coach to the border and wait there, just this side of the border, and we'll arrange for one of the staff to pick you up there and bring you here.”

“And then?” I wondered.

Tenzing smiled. “Yes, I can see that you like to know what you're going through. When you come back, we'll spend two or perhaps three years studying and working together here, before allowing you out into the wild, as it were. At that point, if you are still committed to following the path, then you will be given the opportunity to continue your studies whilst working in the community. And after that? Who knows? The world is your oyster.

“But a lot of that is further down the road, John, and there's some sense in the old saying about crossing bridges when you come to them.”

The master paused for a moment and looked intently in my eyes. I involuntarily broke away and cast my eyes down. “Have you ever studied martial arts?” he suddenly asked.

I looked up sharply. “No, I can't say that I have, Tenzing. Why do you ask?”

I had never been the sporty type, let alone aggressive. Given the choice between fight and flight, I would walk away.

“I feel that it would help firm you up, John. Forgive me, but at times you're like a quivering jellyfish.”

Tenzing said these words, and I though perhaps he'd mistakenly used the word jellyfish instead of jelly. And as he said the words, what I heard – quite distinctly – was “lacking a backbone,” though I couldn't be sure whether it was Tenzing who had said this or Harold, or even if the words had come from deep down inside myself.

If Tenzing overheard my ruminations, he showed no sign. “I think that you'll find such practice character building, John. You're a worrier and you would undoubtedly benefit from a bit more of a warrior spirit. The lion bursts his cage asunder, as we say in the Tradition, and that requires insight, intent, application, strength and courage. And yes, the pun was a diagnostic clue and it is fully intended. On that note, there is also some sense in the old saying 'Physician, heal thyself.' Deep down, we intuitively know full well where our ailments truly lie. So, what we need to do is also work together to root out the source of your worries, in order to clear the dead wood and the entanglements out of the way so that we can move on to further Work.”

Well, trepidation at that prospect or not, I certainly wasn't going to be sent away feeling short changed that day.

“Thank you, Tenzing. I place myself in your adept hands,” I replied.

Harold spoke up when Tenzing had concluded. “Oh, by the way, John: you'll find that only a minority of students here and people at large are actually involved in the Tradition, so what I said about not mentioning babs chu except in the private company of the friends also applies to Foxholes and the Tradition as a whole.”

I nodded. “Right you are. Mum's the word.”[6]

Mum's the word? Was that another of those diagnostic clues, I began to wonder, but the words were out before my on-board censor had a chance to snatch them back. My family was something I seldom spoke about and I had not been wholly frank with Harold Grainger when he'd asked me to tell my life's story.

For some reason, at that moment a whole new bundle of deeply buried and forgotten issues welled up inside me and I suddenly felt quite sick and nauseous.

“Let's go for a walk through the gardens,” Tenzing suggested at this point, rising to his feet. “You'll feel much better after a good dose of fresh air.”

14. New beginnings

Muddlehough in Hodweir

I spent two weeks back in Hodweir, wrapping up my affairs and severing my remaining ties with the place. Perhaps I should have looked up some old friends and distant relations before I left, but I couldn't tell them about the journey I'd been on, nor where I was heading, and I wouldn't have been able to bring myself to lie, even though I know that the friends would sometimes have to tell a little white lie if there was ever a need.

Had I told them what I had in mind, they'd probably have thought me mad, thinking that I was off to join some bizarre cult who sang strange songs and wore funny clothes and horned hats and went about with begging bowls; or to join some religious monastery to flagellate myself, replete with a coarse woollen habit and funny bird's nest for a hair cut. But of course it was nothing like that at all: as Tenzing told us, the work is in the marketplace of the everyday world; being in the world, and yet not of it.

One person whom I did go and visit, however, was my very first mentor, Morris Nichol and we spent the day together, walking around the town, then having a meal and a drink in the evening in a nearby village. He was as pleased to hear my news as I was to once again see him.

Then the next morning, my bags packed, I headed off for the local coach stop, outside the Sun Inn in town, and took the coach down to the border. I was a little apprehensive, still travelling on forged papers, but my fears proved to be unfounded and as I hurried across the border and into the Freelands, I heard the hoot of a car horn and saw an arm waving at me. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was Rosalie Muller, come to pick me up and drive me down to Foxholes. Whilst I'd been away, Harold Grainger had gone off to take over at babs chu and she had returned to Sher Point.

I was to be enrolled on a foundation course there which would help me acclimatize and learn the apparently complex ways of the Freelanders and the modern world and which would also provide preparatory studies, exercises and experience in the Tradition.

Not least, the developmental exercises would show me how deep the rabbit-hole went. If recent experiences were anything to go by, that hole ran very, very deep. Only time would tell whether the thing was bottomless or if I'd eventually hit solid bedrock, the water table, crude oil or a hitherto dormant volcano. What would be left of me at that point, only the Source knew, and no doubt she knew full well.

Anyhow, I had finally found the way to the Way; I was in safe hands, I trust; and now I needed to get down to some serious Work. I could see now that my activities at babs chu had been mild in comparison to what was being offered at Foxholes. As well as continuing to work on the antiquated, dilapidated and errant circuitry of the lower self, to purge my house and make it ready for the arrival of a new host; increasingly they kept raising the bar at the higher end, to stir a little life into my heart and other vestigial organs of higher perception, to eventually fill the growing void with something altogether more wholesome and nutritious. Given time and patient cultivation, Tenzing assured me, what appeared an agonizing and unrelenting futile void would become miraculously transformed into a marvellous, superrational and magical fertile void; and – at the risk of mixing metaphors – the world would indeed be my oyster.

Morris Nicoll had once suggested much the same thing when I'd first set out on my quest, but in truth it was only now that these seeds were sprouting and I was beginning to understand, in the light of experience, the elementary meaning and relevance of the words, deeds and signs of such master gardeners, and of the cooks and other servants who took over from their efforts. Again, I could actually smell this food gently simmering on the back burner, reminding me of a former, wakeful life. Having gradually lost my almost pathological fear of losing my mind, and of course my false sense of identity, I was learning once again to return to my primary senses – not least, that seventh sense: a sense of humour – and to follow my nostrils, jaded taste buds and the gurgles and rumbling of my stomach.

~~O~~~

And that, dear reader, is the story of the first tentative steps that I took toward the Way: most of which I later found were actually in entirely the wrong direction. Well, you live and learn; but you don't have to suffer in the process. As a sage in a sister tradition once wisely observed: whilst pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. Certainly, it should not be made compulsory, either by one's own errant imprinting, one's own conditioning or by the dogma and ritual of others, however eminent they or their worldly institutions might be. You know, it's not just individuals, groups and institutions that can go astray from time to time; so do generations of people, cultures and whole civilizations. This is just the kind of long term timespan in which the perennial Traditions are thankfully able to operate and oversee.

Sometimes work for the Work is like planned parenthood and sometimes it simply and naturally and organically emerges from place to place and from time to time, with no telling whom the unseen hand might touch and move next, be it a homeless beggar or a noble prince. This latter form was like a virgin birth, answering to no earthly authority, no chain of command, no upstarts nor vested interest, and arriving out of nothing other than sheer Necessity in accordance with the Design from the Source, the Lady Alicia herself.

If I have neglected or obfuscated certain matters in this text through personal misunderstanding, then I apologize profusely and beg your forgiveness. As for the rest, I have gone as far as I dare and can say no more, and I can only point you to what has been published by more reputable sources concerning the way to the Way.

Good luck to you and have a safe journey, my friend.

~ John Little, Foxholes, Sher Point in the Freelands.

~~~O~~~

The End

Other books by the same author

in the Shadowlands series,

awaiting publication on the Kindle

1. The Lost Treasure of Roth Nagor.

2. Life on the Flipside (or In Two Minds).

3. Escape from the Shadowlands.

4. In Search of Destiny.

5. The Lucian Uprising.

6. Time and Time again.

7. The Gift.

8. The Host and the Guests.

9. Whisperings of Love.

10. The Insiders: Exploring the higher realms of possibility.

The Insiders:

Exploring the higher realms of possibility

By Etienne de L'Amour

John Little is intrigued by a friend's illicit involvement in the old ways, which date back to a time long before the rise of the New Faith. Sent on a journey to find the Teacher of the Age, he learns from a number of diverse Masters along the way.

The Insiders is a response to The Teachers of Gurdjieff by Rafael Lefort.

“In answer to your many as yet unasked questions, know-what is ten a penny and often not worth the paper it's printed on. I'm here to teach you know-how and that is an altogether different kettle of fish.”

~ The Master Malik Joujai.

The Insiders is a standalone, 38,000 word novella. It is book 10 in the Shadowlands series.

1Matches.

2Impatient and angry.

3This was several years before the rise of the Hujardi and the subsequent imposition of zealous and restrictive religious and pseudo-religious law.

4Adapted from a version by Idries Shah in The Magic Monastery, Octagon Press.

5Since this was written, and following the flooding of the country by the Hujardi, the sale and consumption of alcohol was banned. The Kaparella and many other inns in Gilgamar were burnt down. Miriam and Jai Holt were lucky to escape alive and unharmed and have since safely fled the country.

6I shall keep quiet and say nothing. I won't reveal what I know.

Table of Contents

Dedication

1. Me, myself and I

2. The Star and Garter

3. The Anglers

4. Malik Joujai

5. Arianne Plumb

6. Saksham Almas

7. Ning Cai and Chan Hua

8. Miriam and Jai Holt

9. Edwin Jolly

10. Wilbur Jones

11. Rosalie Muller

12. Orion

13. Foxholes

14. New beginnings