This was definitely the weirdest book I ever wrote, because as it started, I didn’t even think I was writing one. The “guys up there” set up something on my astral body that didn’t allow me to sleep deeply, and I was instead in some kind of a yoga nidra state where I had visions, and those visions would persist and repeat themselves until I wrote them down the best I could in the morning, “flattening” them to the closest approximation while retaining the spiritual message, mantric power, links to the originating reality and some semblance of literary coherence. The difference between the stuff I saw and the stuff that I made up as connective tissue of the story is more vague than one would expect. I thought I was making some stuff up, until it connected seamlessly with the next vision, at which point I stopped trying to make sense of it and just started writing it down in earnest.

The weirdest part is that some things one will expect to have been made up, were in fact the cornerstone of the visions – it started with Gods praising each other, and a flurry of new souls bursting in the space between them. I actually learned how the new souls were born, from that vision. Also, the things like the fountain of kalapas formed in the heart of the soul during worship of God; that’s from the vision and I actually learned that part then. The reason why I didn’t write about it before is because I didn’t know about it before. Also, some stuff you’ll be sure I made up, like Shakti morphing into a cat and playing in Shiva’s lap, that’s the exact content of a vision. I just made her a particular kind of cat, because I find baby snow leopards to be cute, and the cat in the vision was very cute.

I invented side characters to tell the story and watched them turn into major characters without my conscious intention. There are, of course, limits to my resolution. I had a feeling of a certain person, their character, mantric signature, the way they interact with other characters, and I either made up a name or found a historic person that was the closest match I could get. Augustine’s wife and Hildegarde’s husband aren’t each other, but they are an incredibly close match, as personalities go, so instead of writing two repetitive stories, I merged them into one. I knew Shankaracharya’s wife was someone who felt like a very sophisticated Muslim princess from India, and I found the closest historical match. It’s not that exact person, and yet she feels so close that I don’t care. I can’t resolve the details that much while in the physical body, but I think I got the feel of the persons well enough.

The teaching is real, the techniques actually work, the methods for reaching multiple stages of enlightenment are described exactly. The character of the relationships between the Gods is real. The thing about male and female Gods, all real. They don’t actually have coffee, though, but I felt this to be an unjust omission, and it adds some flesh to the plot. Things are repetitive for a reason – some things are just that important.

Hopefully, I now get to start sleeping normally.

“The shutdown procedure won’t work”, Shiva looked down at his wife; her head was in his lap as they sat in the orchard, enjoying themselves.

“What do you mean?”, she looked up at him.

“The allotted time will soon expire, and the Jewel won’t be able to terminate the simulation because of all the souls that have been plugged into the system; and I don’t mean the incarnated ones. I mean those that will be used as power cells to power attractors and scripts”.

“And he won’t do it because it would kill them instantly, and he is not allowed to do something like that”, she nodded.

“And as the time expires, it will be up to him, so he will keep running the simulation indefinitely, unless we do something about it”.

“We knew that was going to happen”, she nodded. “And if we force-terminate, we incur the karmic penalty, which would be large, considering the number of angels he deceived”.

“Too large. Also, the mess is too large to just dump all at once. It would be almost impossible to clean up here. Some of it actually requires incarnation in the physical in order to process, because that’s how it’s designed. And he protected himself from access from within the system in all sorts of ways. Every single person who tried, ended up either failing miserably, or was destroyed”.

“It’s actually dangerous for us. There is a significant probability not just of failure, but of his victory and our destruction”, Goddess warned.

“I know. That’s what he is betting on. He went into the entire thing knowing there’s a chance that his handiwork won’t ever be terminated, and the only solution to the dilemma would be to make him some kind of a ruler of both Heaven and Earth”, Shiva was grim.

“By ‘a chance’, you mean limit in zero, but non-zero?”, she smiled.

“One in 10²⁷”, he nodded. “But the probability of the sum total of all possible disasters is much larger. It’s one in three”.

“That bad, huh?”, she looked concerned.

“That bad”, he confirmed.

“But if we don’t intervene, it guarantees a bad outcome of some kind?”, she squeezed his hand and looked in his eyes.

“In a word, yes. But if we intervene and fail, it opens up the possibility of the worst possible outcome”.

“Do I even want to know?”, she grinned.

“I don’t think so”, he smiled his lopsided smile, her favourite.

“You lead, I follow; like always”, she smiled.

“This will require some planning”, Shiva nodded.

…

“Zee, come here”, Kay gestured with urgency. “Take a look at this”.

“Wow, they are good. Not only did they lure Sanat Kumar into exposing himself to lethal karmic consequences so he’s dead now, but they managed to get that astral sub-plane for godless souls back under the Throne, and they wiped it clean of assholes”, he nodded appreciatively. “The cost to them personally must be terrible, but they sure are kicking ass”.

“The odds of success are now hundred percent for a sum total of all good outcomes. Over ninety percent for the best outcome”, the Mind of God smiled. “And the odds are improving with time, as there is increasingly less stuff that can harm them, and they are getting increasingly stronger”.

“So, basically, it can no longer end badly, and it’s now a grind until the end, deciding how much of the mess they convert into their own soul mass, and how much will stay there and slowly rot away?”, he scratched his temple.

“It’s more complicated than that, and better”, she kissed him. “Let me explain”.

…

He had to keep running those accursed scripts until the end, but at least he no longer had to put up with Satan’s obnoxious person. The Lord and Lady weren’t happy with him for executing all of Sanat Kumar’s orders well after the villain was dead, but unfortunately, being dead doesn’t preclude being in power. There was nothing in the contract that said anything about valid orders ceasing to be valid if one who issued them happened to die.

Also, both of them were in grim mood because of all they had to endure down there. Especially his Lady. She wasn’t so used to terrible suffering as the Lord, and cursed him occasionally for existing. He didn’t blame her, but hoped he’ll be able to apologise. He missed her playing with him.

…

“It’s almost time”, Lord Vishnu pulled his Lady up from the grass. “Let’s come and greet them”.

“It’s a wonder to behold”, Azrael told his wife. “We are looking straight into the eyes of evil and madness, and the way it is presenting itself is as narcissistic as it is ridiculous”, he gestured in dismay. “I mean, ‘liberty, fraternity, and equality’; sounds lovely until you see what they actually mean by it, and what they mean by it is ‘kill everybody who used to be in power, and this will automatically produce heaven on earth and everything will be wonderful’”.

“They should put the guillotine on their flag, that would be more honest”, Hypatia grinned. “But what do they even mean by all that nonsense? Everybody should be equal and free to do whatever?”

“It’s Satan’s moto, essentially. He wants to destroy the most powerful beings because he’s being oppressed by the fact that he constantly has to be aware of his inferiority, and he thinks everything would be great once he kills everyone who thinks they are better than him. As for liberty, he’s the only one who ever cared for being able to do anything he wanted with impunity; him and possibly a handful of other demons. And those demons usually found something fulfilling to do soon enough. He just wants to torture and humiliate people and that gives him a power trip”, he explained.

“Those people are certainly following in his footsteps”, she nodded. “They are incredibly murderous, hysterical and hypocritical”.

“And they took over two countries at once – France and the British colonies in America, which seems to indicate something about Satan’s plans. He is creating a new world and wants to burn the old one down. They are overthrowing moderate, reasonable rulers, but if you read their newspapers, you’d think they were overthrowing the tyranny of Caligula. It reminds me of Satan’s early days – if you listened to him talk, it was all about the right to self-determination and freedom. It was only after his victims started arriving that it became obvious what the actual agenda was”, he looked grim.

“I find both the propaganda and the reality quite educational. The propaganda shows you what one wants to believe of himself, and what he wants others to believe. The reality of their actions show what it’s all about. Here in Heaven, we don’t have any propaganda or mission statements. There are no big inspirational speeches. Just people hanging out in the gardens, talking over coffee, doing things they want to do, and loving each other deeply. Since there is no difference between what we want others to think we’re doing, and the things we are actually doing, there is no need for propaganda. You only need propaganda if you are a liar, and you want to mask your evil under a palatable guise”, she nodded.

“I think we are seeing a template for the future. Revolutionary movements, wanting to tear everything down in the name of progress, liberation, emancipation, freedom, or whatever nonsense the propagandists cook up. They will find some legitimate issue that can drive up the masses, and they will start murderous, destructive campaigns. This will be done iteratively until it establishes Satan’s ideal society, where everybody is miserable, of crushed spirit, hateful, resentful and pathetic. And it will always be someone else’s fault”.

“It’s funny how Sanat Kumar used to harp about the tyranny of heaven, and he himself continues to establish tyrannies and oppressive systems”, he continued. “You won’t see mobs rising up with pitchforks to guillotine Lord Vishnu and Lady Lakshmi”, he smiled at his wife’s horrified expression. “We are obviously so thoroughly oppressed that we’ve internalised our oppression and we don’t even perceive it”, he laughed.

“I don’t know how he even managed to sell that nonsense to anyone”, she wondered.

“He was selling it in the astral nursery back then, where hardly anyone ever saw a God in person”, he reminded her. “In fact, all the good stuff we have now came as a result of his evil works, which is an irony. He worked to eliminate the Gods, and as a result, we have how many Gods now?”

“Thirty one, if I’m right. Shankaracharya and Zeb-un-Nissa, and Theresa and Juan being the most recent additions”, she nodded.

“And we started with four or six, depending on the way of counting. If he expected to start some revolution that will tear down heaven, his efforts have been vastly counterproductive”, Lord Azrael smiled. “The only mob the Elders have to fear are the worshippers surprising them with a shower of flower petals”.

“Apparently, we have no use for liberty, freedom or rights”, she laughed. “The only thing we need is our discipline, our duties, and the relationships we have forged. If everybody seeks only to serve and love, heaven is the emergent property of such attitude. And likewise, if everybody wants rights, liberties and freedoms, hell is the natural emergent property of such attitude”, she melted into his side.

“I’m afraid they are going to have a deluge of rights, liberties and freedom on Earth in the following years”, he waved in dismay.

“I translate it as mass murder and treating people like garbage”, she smiled.

“Yes, that’s what I meant”, he laughed.

“Theresa, what do you think about all this?”, Juan made an indeterminate hand movement.

She looked at him, trying to understand which of the many possible weird things he meant.

“Strangeness of it all is in fact something I got over rather quickly. After all, I became an expert in strange even down there, with all those spiritual experiences I couldn’t properly explain to anyone. Here, everything is of that nature, and that makes me happy. Also, everybody instantly understands what I mean, so there are no communication barriers, which used to cause many problems”.

“I expected things to be simpler – in a sense that Heaven would exactly reflect our Catholic teaching. That was also a big thing in Spain – orthodoxy was taken quite seriously, and any minor disagreement with the official teaching of the Church could land you in trouble with the Inquisition, especially if you already have enemies, as we did. Here, there is incredible tolerance not only for various Christian interpretations, but other religions as well, and they don’t even see them as religions; they see them as ways to explain reality, or solve problems. I talked to the Buddhist lady in the orchard, and not only is she very kind, she’s also friendly with Christ – in fact, he sent me to her, which shocked me initially, but I obeyed him since he knows best. The lady spoke to me in completely Christian terms, only switching to Buddhist concepts when we talked about ecstasy and breathing, and they have a whole vocabulary and philosophy about things that we are quite incoherent about. Various systems seem to have specialities, things they studied in great detail, and those are often things like mystical experiences, where I didn’t think one can even have any clear idea about it, let alone make a whole theory. So, that was surprising – the fact that there are non-Christian people who know more about important things than Christianity. But I guess it is not proper to call the lady non-Christian, since Christ himself referred me to her. They are obviously good friends, and how can a friend of Christ be non-Christian? Were Christ and his holy Mother even Christian? Those terms don’t seem to apply here. They are all friends and family, and I’ve seen them interact with each other; they do it with such love and depth of understanding, that their simplest greeting feels like the deepest mystical vision”.

“They don’t care about things like heresy, but they care very much about truth and accuracy of what they are saying. They also avoid all evil at all times, and that is the greatest wonder: everything they do is completely free of evil. Everybody helps each other in every way, and when someone is tired from too much work, their friends and family come to cheer them up, bring them coffee, talk to them and make them feel better, and nobody counts favours or does anything with a desire to be reciprocated. It is as if they practice the purest teaching of Christ, but without even noticing or caring about it. They are also innocent like small children, playing in the grass and reading books together, or talking about all sorts of important matters. I’ve joined a few conversations and they were always kind and welcoming, and the things they talked about were never frivolous or shallow; they comment someone’s good deeds, praise their friends, think of how they could improve their devotion to God, or look how to help someone who works too much. Everything that is said about someone behind their back is always highest praise, and would make them blush if they heard it. As I said, there is not the slightest hint of evil or sin in anything they do, and it is completely natural to them; they don’t look like they are trying at all. Sinless deeds come from their pure souls the way sweet smell comes from a good flower”.

“You would expect the elders to be on some high throne and inaccessible, but I have seen the oldest, wisest Gods mix with others without any care for distinction or status, the things humans would care so much for. Everybody treats them with a combination of highest respect, and the kind of innocent trust and familiarity that children have for their parents. I once talked to Christ, and a young Goddess ran to his holy Mother, embraced her and talked to her excitedly about something, and it was with such intimacy, trust and love that I just stood there and looked at them in amazement, completely forgetting about Christ, who laughed and told me I’ll probably never get used to it properly, because he never did. The Church would have you think in terms of dignity and so on, and it’s not that they don’t act in a dignified manner. There is incredible dignity about them, but what I wasn’t prepared for is the casual intimacy of their interactions. I’ve seen a Goddess come to Mary in tears because she saw a horrible woman who tortured and killed hundreds of innocent children. Mary held her, comforted her, made her feel better and then they proceeded to talk about what’s happening in the world, and how their husbands are doing. Each of them radiated such incredible spiritual power and presence of God, that it is the deepest mystical experience to merely feel them in passing, and you would expect them to be dignified and distant – but no, they are dignified and yet intimate. Everything about them is deep, there is no small talk; but the intimacy of the spiritual contact is the most incredible and shocking thing about it all, there is directness and deep trust that small children have with their good parents”.

“Maybe the most shocking thing is that they are all married couples, and when they are together, I wanted to look the other way, because they felt so intimate together, and yet I couldn’t look away, because of how wonderful they are to each other. A husband brings his wife coffee, and she accepts it in such way that you just feel the depth of their familiarity and love, their energies coming together in a special presence of God that I have never felt before. The most casual things they do together feels like their form of Holy Communion, where the presence of God is felt more strongly and deeply, which is a wonder in itself, knowing how strongly it normally feels. To be honest, when I saw them, I felt a strong desire to feel like that with someone, because of how right and proper it feels”.

“I felt something like that with you”, Juan nodded. “When we talk about God together, it is as if the presence of God is alive between us and creates an ecstatic joy, which made me want to talk about God more and be in your presence more”.

“That is true. And about that, I wondered about something. What are we even to each other?”

“I honestly don’t know. I only know that we gravitate towards each other, we are always in each other’s company, and we enjoy it. On Earth, I was always afraid to put a label on our relationship, as not to spoil it, but now that you mention it, I think we should ask Christ or Mary for advice, the way we used to ask a confessor on Earth, to avoid anything inappropriate”.

“Did someone call for me?”, Lakshmi smiled behind them as they jerked back, as if caught with hands in a candy jar.

“We wanted to ask You or Christ to tell us what is the nature of our relationship, and what is appropriate”, Theresa blushed and fumbled.

“Is that even something you need to ask?”, Lakshmi wondered. “I would expect that you knew. After all, you are inseparable”.

She looked at the couple, and they didn’t look any more clued in.

“You feel like husband and wife who were taught by the Church that they should avoid even thinking about anything of the sort, because you were supposed to be celibate monks, both of you. Relax a bit, will you? You are no longer in your respective monasteries, and you’re talking to the woman who gave birth to Christ, so be honest. How do you feel about it? Honestly, when you relax?”

“I feel you are right about us, but I am terribly afraid of admitting it”, Theresa said, blushing crimson.

“I think this as well”, John was trying to look somewhere else. “My Lady, do you think it is appropriate for us to feel that way?”

“I think it is the most appropriate thing in the world. The only weird thing about it is how tightly you both seem to restrain yourselves in order to avoid doing anything inappropriate. So, I’m going to make it very simple for both of you. Theresa, do you want Juan to be your husband forever?”

“Yes”, the woman whispered.

“Juan, do you want Theresa to be your wife forever?”

“Yes”, the word escaped his mouth.

“Then I solemnly pronounce you husband and wife”, the Goddess smiled. “Problem solved”.

The couple looked at each other as if someone suddenly removed shackles from their minds. “Theresa, we were just married by the Mother of God”, Juan smiled.

“May God help me, I feel as if I just got permission to feel literally everything I had to suppress before I even felt it”, Theresa smiled back. “The things I could only allow myself to feel for Christ”.

“Is this appropriate for us to feel, my Lady?”, Juan turned to Lakshmi.

“You are husband and wife. Every intimate, deeply spiritual feeling that you feel for God, is perfectly appropriate to feel for each other. That’s how a marriage works here. We are God to each other, and we are an instrument God uses to love our partner”, she smiled blissfully. “Now, if I may make a recommendation?”, she looked as if asking for permission. They nodded in unison.

“Go to the orchard, find one of the Buddhists, whoever feels most comfortable to talk to. All three are wonderful if you ask me. Ask them to teach you how to meditate as a couple. They are incredibly knowledgeable about this, and they will know how to put you at ease and teach you how to overcome all those inhibitions you feel due to your monastic celibate past, because I see things that need to be released, for your great benefit. And when they are done with you, go somewhere and do as they taught you – meditate together on God and love each other without any holding back or restraint. How about that?”, she smiled.

“Yes, Holy Mother”, they both bowed, glowing with happiness.

“Have a most blessed and happy marriage”, she concluded.

“I was wondering about what you said”, Shankaracharya addressed Augustine. “The part about limitations being a good thing. It feels completely counterintuitive if one knows that God is freedom.

“God is indeed freedom”, Augustine smiled. “But God is also freedom from all things that are not God, do you agree?”

“I do”, the man nodded.

“Also, we can split freedom into two distinct aspects: freedom to, and freedom from. The first part can be further analysed into desires and ways to achieve them. But let’s say I’m already doing what I want to do. I’m married and I love my wife, I love my friends and I love God. The only freedom I desire is the freedom to continue doing what I’m doing now. I don’t want a freedom to kill my friends, hurt my wife and offend God. In fact, my freedom consists of being free from those things, which is the other aspect of it – freedom from things that interfere with my will and choices. So yes, I have all sorts of limitations, but they are here because I want them. Those limitations are an intentional expression of my freedom”, Augustine concluded.

“I cannot disagree with your reasoning, and yet, something in me wishes to point out that freedom from limitations should be a superior form of freedom”, Shankaracharya shrugged in confusion.

“I think I understand why that is. You see soul as a limitation upon brahman, that needs to be removed in order to achieve true enlightenment. I, however, see soul as a set of defining characteristics that allow for the manifestation of brahman in the relative. Those defining characteristics are, by definition, limiting. They are choices for something and against something else. By removing those limitations, you remove things that define you as a person. If you remove the walls from a house, you don’t get to be free from limitations; you get to be homeless”, Augustine argued.

“So, what you are saying is that our limitations are our structural elements, the way walls and roof are to a house?”

“Indeed”, Augustine nodded.

“But wouldn’t you agree that extending a house would be preferable to keeping it small? And if a big house is preferable to a small one, wouldn’t removing the limitations of a house be preferable still?”, Shankaracharya pressed on.

“The analogy to extending a house would be extending your heart so that it becomes capable of feeling more and deeper. The correct way to do it is to embrace deep relationships with other Gods, which means including more structures, rather than tearing them down. This way, God expands from what you as a person are capable of, to what you, your wife, family and friends are capable of”, Augustin nodded. “I am God. However, my wife and I together are more God than either of us alone”.

“So, if I understand you correctly, the way to remove limitations the right way is to gradually extend the lattice of enlightened God-persons bound by deep connections, where it encompasses the entirety of the Relative, rather than removing the structural elements of personality, seeing them as obstacles, since they are limiting?”

“Exactly. The difference is, to stay within our analogy, between tearing down your home which leaves you homeless, and connecting your home with the homes of your family, until everything is home”, Augustine nodded.

“Interesting. So, we are comparing subtractive and additive approach to removing limitations. I was using the subtractive one, thinking that there is some positive limitation that stands in the way between soul and enlightenment, and by removing that limitation you approach the understanding that your soul is in fact all there is. You, on the other hand, argue that the problem isn’t something positive, that exists, but lack of something – lack of love, depth, connection, which needs to be established in order for spiritual emancipation to be possible”.

“Indeed. For instance, my main spiritual block, that kept me stagnant for a thousand years, was lack of connection with my wife. I overcame it not by removing things, but by reconnecting with her. Then I became more”, Augustin explained. “I could have removed this or that, and it would have achieved nothing”.

“It sounds frightening to bind your enlightenment and spirituality with another person in this manner”, Shankaracharya mused. “I thought whether I have a true wife somewhere, but after seeing what happened to Lady Grace, I was honestly too scared to even think about it, let alone ask God to lead me to her. What if she is dead? What if she is deeply enslaved somewhere? What if she needs untold years to be ready?”

“It only becomes frightening if you are ready”, Augustine replied. “When I was not ready, I was even able to part from her. I didn’t die, I just… stopped making true progress. The lesser the soul, the more superficial the connection. If you took some astral being and told them their destined spiritual partner just died, they wouldn’t even care. It is a testament to Grace’s immense spiritual magnitude that she cared so much about a husband she never even met, that she just died on the spot. It’s not weakness. It’s a sign of true readiness, and she is the best of us”.

“If fear is an indicator of readiness, then I must be truly ready”, Shankaracharya laughed. “But this understanding that apotheosis is not something you do by removing worldly attachments or something, but something God does because you become someone who enables him to express the inner connection of brahman in the Relative, by connecting to others, it’s a hard thing for me to swallow, because it makes spirituality look like a team sport, and I’ve always been a solitary player”.

“Also, you got accustomed to understanding enlightenment as something that is centred around you”, Augustine nodded. “It’s something you do. It’s a self-realisation. It’s a renunciation of limits to Self”.

“And how do you understand it?”

“In part, it is indeed the death of your own stubborn foolishness. At least it was thus for me. When I accepted Christianity, when I met Hypatia here, when I was reunited with my wife. Every time, shackles of my stubborn foolishness fell off me, and I was more. When I met Hypatia, it wasn’t just me, it was looking into her and feeling what it must be like to be her. It was something enormous, bigger, better. It was the same with my wife – also, looking into another person that is enormous and great, with the difference of knowing that this awesome person is mine, of free choice. It’s like getting a gift of doubling yourself at once. I’m telling you, for a man, knowing that you came to a point in your spirituality where a Goddess desires you, and none but you, and the point where God responds by claiming you as self because he wants to be that person so that he can love that Goddess properly, that is something else”, he smiled.

“And so, if I acknowledge that I want this, will I be doomed?”, the man smiled.

“That’s the wrong question. The right question is, will you understand that you are doomed without it?”, the God replied.

“You mean, am I at the point where I would rather die with her, than continue living forever without her; the way Grace did?”

“Indeed”, Augustine nodded.

“Yes, I think I am at that point. And it is scaring the living daylights out of me”, Shankaracharya admitted. “I just lost control of my destiny, irrevocably. I’m feeling her somehow, and I’m feeling the change, and it’s frightening”.

“Do you want her, even if it meant your death?”, God asked him solemnly.

“Yes”, the man answered.

“Then allow me to introduce you. Lady Hypatia just finished with her judgment and orientation tour; and it is obviously no accident that you came to talk to me just now. May I introduce you to Zeb-un-Nissa, Shahzadi of the Mughal Empire; the most powerful and beautiful female mind of the Islamic world”, he waved his hand and Hypatia shimmered in, with another woman in tow.

…

“Please, tell me you are joking”, the angelic woman shivered like a leaf. “This must be a bad dream. Please, let me wake up”.

“This must be how poor Augustine must have felt when he came here and saw me. Although I must now admit he took it pretty well, all things considered”, Hypatia smiled. “I’m opening you a knowledge bank on Muhammad’s life”.

The woman’s eyes lost focus for a moment, and then regained it. “But that is not at all what I believed in, or prayed to”, she managed to stutter.

“No, it is not. Like all great souls born in the Muslim world, you created an elaborate deception for yourself, so that both your body and your spirit would be protected. You managed to memorise all that nonsense and blend it in your spirit with your most subtle feelings and visions. You didn’t read what it was, you read what you needed it to be. Had you allowed yourself to see it for what it is, you would have been summarily beheaded for rejecting Islam. So, instead, you assumed it must be the most subtle religion, and you made it into one. You survived, you loved God, but a part of your mind had to be sacrificed. I am retrieving it for you now”, Hypatia made a subtle hand movement, and the woman’s eyes lost focus again.

“Are you mad at me?”, she said sheepishly. “I mean, for being such a coward, and rejecting truth for the sake of my own survival and comfort?”

“Of course I’m not mad at you, sweetheart”, Hypatia hugged the woman. “You did the best you possibly could. You survived. You were a great person. You maintained spiritual purity. You just needed to put a part of yourself to sleep in order to do it”.

“But I feel like a traitor”, the woman whispered. “Martyrs sacrificed their lives rather than compromise with the truth, and look at me, being such a good Muslim that I memorised the entire Qur’an. I want to hide in some dark corner out of shame before God”.

“You are before God, and I’m telling you it’s fine”, Lady Hypatia smiled.

“But it felt so real. All the religious ideas, the Divine Beloved, everything”, Zeb-un-Nissa sobbed. “Did I make it all up in my madness, like Muhammad?”

“No. Your feelings and ideas mapped upon actual realities; you just gave them islamically-correct labels”.

“So, that was my survival mechanism, you say? I did it so that I could both meditate on the actual God, and survive Islam?”

“Yes”, the Judge nodded.

“What is the actual God like?”, the woman asked.

“You know that already”.

“I mean…”

“I know what you mean. All the intimate stuff, the spiritual connection, the promise that made you refuse to marry because you promised yourself to Him forever, which is how you ran afoul of your father. You think it was all in your head, right?”

“Yes”, the woman wept.

“You have seen that we Gods exist in couples, yes?”

“I have”.

“Well, what if I told you that the person whose presence you felt is in fact your true husband, the one you are meant to live together with in eternity, worship him as your God, and be worshipped by him as his Goddess?”

“I would suspect that you are cruelly jesting with me, but then I would remember that you are too good a person to be so cruel with a poor distraught woman, and I would then dare to hope, because that would be the fulfilment of all my dreams”, the woman whispered.

“It is your lucky day, my Lady, because this is truly so”, the Goddess smiled at the woman. “He just made his decision to rather die with you than live alone forever, and the Lord who teaches him is calling for us”. She took the woman by the hand, and they shimmered out.

…

“Adi Shankaracharya? The most highly revered sage of India?”, the woman stared at him, incredulous. Augustine and Hypatia gave each other the look and shimmered out to give them privacy.

“At your service, my Lady”, the man smiled. “Although, knowing what I know now, I would have chosen some significantly less flattering titles for myself”.

“And after what Lady Hypatia told me about Mohammad and Islam, believe me, there is no chance in the world that you could be more embarrassed by your misapprehensions, than I am by mine. I am positively mortified, and so ashamed of myself, I could crawl into some dark corner and hope never to be seen by anyone good or smart, although at the same time I am glad that nobody seems to hold it against me, and they are so very kind”, she smiled.

“Truth has that quality of making us all humble”, he smiled back.

And then it clicked for her. He was the Presence. The one she thought to be Allah, the Divine Beloved, the one she projected upon and interweaved with everything she ever heard about God, and she fell to her knees and embraced him, without words, her tears wetting his feet.

He lifted her up and looked into her eyes. “Will you be my wife forever, my Lady?”

“I already promised myself to you decades ago, and kept myself for you alone, my beloved husband”, she smiled. “It is time for me to come true on my promise”.