The other Gods were already there when they arrived, accompanied by some of the strongest angels, who looked like they came to kick ass and take names. However, that mood soon changed.

The section of the astral world they were in was full of people dressed in various forms of filthy rags, often stained with blood, speaking incoherently in a weirdly linear way, formulating sequences of words and sentences in their minds instead of using normal language, and they were unconsciously screaming such incredible levels of emotional trauma, that all the Gods and angels went still and pale with shock. Some of them just stood there, some sat on the floor crying, some walked around gesturing wildly; all seemingly unaware of their surroundings. The place looked like a lunatic asylum.

“What the fuck is going on here?”, asked Lord Shiva.

“Casualties, Father”, Lady Kay answered him. “Of Sanat Kumar’s experiment with reality”.

Shiva went pale, even more than his usual white complexion. “Oh”, he managed to stutter. Lady Shakti, at his side, looked like she started having a nightmare, as she took in the surrounding minds. “We need to talk to them, find out what happened to them in there, because this is unlike anything I’ve ever seen”, she managed to use her voice finally. “I knew this could be bad, but this is beyond just normal ‘bad’. This is hell”, she shivered. “Lord Vishnu and Lady Lakshmi are already talking to some of them, and I suggest we all do the same”.

…

“I am Enkabzu of Uruk”, answered a man. “I worked the fields with my father and two brothers. Then men came, sent by the King, and took us to fight in the army, leaving the mother alone and unaided. We fought, we all died. What is going to happen to my mother?”, tears started to stream down his face. “She is all alone now, with none to work the fields. She will surely starve, or men will come to take her into slavery. I have to go back”, he panicked, “I have to help her. She’s all alone and it’s still a month until harvest. Who will pick the grain from the fields?”, he started sobbing.

…

“I am Ahmose, daughter of Senebhotep. I’m fourteen years old, and I helped my mother and father by looking after our goats. This morning two bad men came, bound my mouth so I couldn’t scream, they tore my clothes and took turn raping me”, the girl sobbed. “What will my mother say now, that I’m not a virgin anymore? Nobody will marry me now. It hurt so much, and they laughed at me as I cried and it felt terrible. Mother, please help me! Father, chase them away! Why can’t anyone hear me? When they were done with me, they cut my throat with a knife, like one slaughters a goat, and I drowned in my own blood there in the mud. My poor parents will find me like that. I am so ashamed”, she crumbled to the floor, holding her knees to her chest and crying.

…

“I am Kelki, and I was born to a family of farmers. One day, men with swords came, killed all the adult men, and took all the women and children as slaves. I was twelve when that happened. They cut off my balls with a knife, and it hurt so much. When I healed, they took me to the palace to be one of the eunuch slaves there, guarding the Lord’s harem. The male palace guards would occasionally rape me, and it hurt. I got a sickness and died. I’m glad I’m not there anymore. What is this place? Why am I here if I died? Is this the underworld?”

…

“I am M’weki, son of N’wana. We gathered fruits and roots, and hunted animals in the savanna. One day, I fell from a tree and broke my hip. I couldn’t walk, I was thirsty and the sun was high. Then the wild dogs came”. His face darkened. “No, not the wild dogs”, he jerked wildly in panic. “Why couldn’t it be leopards or lions? They bite the throat and kill quickly. The dogs started eating me while I was alive and crying. They pulled my bowels in the dust and fought over them. Why did it have to hurt so much? I didn’t do any evil to be punished by the spirits so harshly. I always obeyed my parents and all the customs of the tribe. Why couldn’t the spirits send a leopard?”, he shook as he cried.

…

“What the actual fuck”, Zee spoke, to no one in particular.

“You took the words out of my mouth, son”, sighed Lord Vishnu, tears streaming down his face. “It looks like symptoms of spiritual damage caused by a prolonged immersion in a persistent illusion, a complete reality-substitute combined with complete memory inhibition. Basically, they couldn’t remember who they are, and the only reality they could perceive was that of the illusory world they were dropped into. They identified with their body completely, they had no access to any information or reality beyond that, and the world itself seems to be designed to be as bad and full of terrible suffering as theoretically possible, without making it completely unworkable”, he summarised.

“Who are they, even? Demons, normal souls, stagnant souls, angels…?”, Azazel looked at Lord Narayan.

“I don’t know. It’s hard to tell in their condition, and it hardly seems to matter. They all get affected equally, and their true identity as souls seems to be completely suppressed, overridden by the assumed identities of their human incarnations that feel more real than anything else, and they had no memories to contradict it. Also, there’s no transcendental sense present that could supplant the physical experience with anything that would connect them to the actual reality”, Vishnu shrugged.

“I did this”, whispered Lord Shiva, stone-faced, with a tear streaming down his cheek. “It was my idea. I talked my wife into it. I talked you into it. I let the Jewel out of my hands after she warned me of it being the point of no return. I put it in the hands of an idiot. It’s all my fault”.

“No, my friend. There’s plenty of that to go around, so don’t claim it all for yourself. I encouraged you. I could have stopped it, but chose not to. Of the Four, only Lady Lakshmi is blameless in this matter”, Krishna sighed.

Shiva looked around and saw his wife sitting on the floor near a broken woman, sobbing, and he walked towards her, barely aware of his surroundings. She looked at him, her eyes red and swollen.

“She was a wife and a mother of seven children. Four died in infancy of various ailments. Two sons and a daughter, the youngest one, twelve or thirteen years old, lived with their parents. The brothers helped the father work the fields and cattle. The girl helped her mother around the house. Then men came, armed gang of robbers. They killed her husband and sons in the field. Then they tied her and had their fun forcing her to watch how they took turns raping her daughter. She managed to tear herself loose, and tried to hit one of the men with a rock. They stabbed her with swords and she died. Now she’s silently singing a lullaby to her baby daughter, seeing her as a baby in her arms, and she won’t come out of there because her soul is broken”, Lady Shakti sobbed violently. “She is, or used to be, a demoness, her name was Vipera – a venomous bitch, they called her. Somehow, I don’t think that applies anymore. And I did this to her. I made that Jewel, and let the worst person in the world have my power. At least in the second try I did better”, she looked at the Mind of God, who held on to her husband and shivered, looking into nothing.

…

“What is going on here? What is this commotion?”

Shiva recognised this voice immediately, and his anger flared hot. “Greetings, Sentinel. I am glad you finally arrived to inspect your work”, Shiva all but whispered, but his words were steel.

“What do you mean, Lord Shiva?”, the Sentinel looked incredulously.

“You only had one job. You had to keep it out of wrong hands. You only had to allow children to render lots of rooms for playing hide-and-seek, for lovers to create privacy for themselves, or wannabe explorers to create magical forests full of light and wonder. But no, you gave it to a deranged lunatic, who was so warped in his evil that it managed to outrage his demon friend into seeking enlightenment”, he growled on, as the look on the Sentinel’s face froze, as if he started getting it. “And when you were about to approve his request to create a hell above all imaginable horrors, I came to warn you and ask you to consider the consequences, and you condescendingly told me to have more faith in the Light of God, that will always prevail, and no darkness could overcome it”.

Sentinel’s face turned into a mask of horror. “That was you?”

“Yes, that was me”.

“And about the Light of God, take a good look at her”, he pointed at his wife, who sat there sobbing uncontrolledly. “Here she sits, the Light and Power of God Herself, while Happiness kneels at her side in tears, trying to console her. Go on, tell her some of your sanctimonious bullshit, you little turd”, Shiva finally raised his voice, and opened the full insight of reality in the mind of the Sentinel, making him face the full extent of the consequences of his failure, as the being in front of him screamed in silent horror as his soul broke apart out of sheer terror of what he did.

“Oh no, I have another job for you, you bastard”, Shiva raised his hand and froze the dissolving particles in place. He looked around and saw the carnage, the Gods crying in various states of shock, and raised a finger. Black lightning instantly went through reality, and the tears on the faces of Gods and Goddesses started glowing in bright light, disappearing into the black stream of shivaratri, as he opened his palm fully, and white light of his wife wove into the stream, joining the black to form the golden light of tandava natyam, the dance of Creation and Destruction; the Throne of God. The whole reality glowed gold as he restructured it, and he closed his fist.

“Having any fun yet, motherfucker?”, he grinned violently.

“Father, what was that?”, Lord Azazel addressed him, dragging his traumatised wife along. “It’s as if you rewrote the entire fabric of reality, but I don’t see the consequences?”

The jewel at Kay’s brow started glowing, and it seemed to bring her back to her senses. “Oh, I see”, she smiled exceptionally brightly. “I see”. Other Gods’ attention seemed to be fixed at her, and they all snapped out of their previous states. “When you created that Jewel, you assumed that it couldn’t be accessed or tampered with at a later date, but you based it on the Will of God, and built it around something it depends upon and cannot alter regardless of the nature of the simulation, something deep in the nature of the Relative itself, which you now changed, so that nothing real or seemingly real can exist and not include it”, The Mind of God explained. “Our tears and pain cracked every illusion in existence and created paths of transcendence and reality recursively on every level, as we are now present everywhere and connected to everything. You broke his darkness with our tears, and made a way out”, she curtsied to him with great respect.

“All of you provided me with a weapon, my dear daughter”, he bowed back, and looked at all the other Gods. “Your tears are what broke his spell permanently across Time. I just put that blade where it belongs”, he grinned savagely.

…

In his secret hidden place, Satan saw incarnations of the Gods forming across Time, introducing transcendental knowledge and offering salvation, and he could do absolutely nothing to stop it, as he screamed in helpless rage.

The Jewel silently smirked, and dreamt of being back around his Lord’s neck, so that his Lady could play with him again.

Raphael saw many things in his long life, but the ascension of those two was one of the strangest, and most impressive by far. And now, they were back here, giving them a full report on what happened; not only that, but why it happened.

It’s not just that they became Gods. He looked at their titles; the man was impressive enough, being The Blade of Discernment, a title that suggested what he intuitively guessed about him even when he was a blue crystal of vajra; even then, his discriminatory intellect was amazingly impressive. But the woman… that’s something he didn’t expect, or think possible. The Mind of God, The Goddess of Wisdom, Self-Revelation of the Absolute. His mind stood blank in shock, trying to even process those, and that’s without that thing on her forehead, a tiny dot of gold that hinted at a Jewel that communicated something he almost refused to believe was possible: that giggly, funny, beautiful girl that held on to her husband’s arm as if he were her anchor, could destroy, modify or create worlds, wielding the power that seemed to equal that of Lady Shakti and Lord Shiva, and that’s in addition to wielding what seemed to be the impersonal Absolute’s self-manifestation as Wisdom. And she got all of this power literally today. His head hurt, and he started to massage his left eyebrow instinctively.

“… and so, basically, the lesson of this seems to be that you people are too comfortable here, and you are all developing in ways that are perfect, uniform, harmonic, and you honestly defy the purpose of evolution.”, Zee finished.

“And that would be…?”, Michael looked at him inquisitively.

“That would be giving God something he wants to be, that he isn’t having yet, something new and interesting”, Kay answered instead. “You all look like industrially grown trees – all basically the same, and if I wanted that, I could have spared Myself the whole Creation thing, and just made a zillion clones of an energy template”, she shifted into First Person, with the full authority of the Absolute behind her, as the angels felt the hair on their heads rise. “Start being something God would want to be, lest I get bored of you and wipe this plane clean of generic non-beings”, both her eyes and the Jewel on her forehead flashed, and the angels felt the brief pulse of mortal terror, before the girl was a girl again. “So, that’s the message”, she shrugged and leaned into her husband shyly.

It was now Azazel’s turn to giggle. “Remind me never to get you angry, my love”, he smiled and kissed her head. “Anyway, one more thing. That new world that was recently opened; I would advise against going there carelessly, because I know its designer from when I was a demon like himself. He is really, really bad news, and if he designed something, it absolutely can’t be good for anyone”, he continued.

“That might be a problem”, Raphael made himself known. “Because a few thousands of us already went there to explore, just yesterday”

Zee and Kay looked at each other, and then Kay’s eyes defocused, as if she were listening to some voice nobody else could hear. “Oh. There’s something going on in the astral nursery”, her face was blank in shock. “The demons are calling the Gods for help, with a tone of complete panic and chaos.”

“But why?”, Lord Azazel was astounded. “We were just there hours ago and things seemed to be going rather normally”.

“Something is going on there now that’s everything but”, she looked into his eyes with a grave expression. “The casualties started arriving”.

“We have to inform the guys who got into that new world of Sanat Kumar – what’s it called, Urad?” – Baal scratched his head. “The situation is completely different than we thought. Also, have you seen Zee and his girl? They don’t look even close to how we imagined Gods. Sure, he’s harder, more terrifying and infinitely more powerful than before – you saw he just made that furniture, and removed Valefar’s piss with a snap; he could have as easily wiped all of us out, but didn’t. In fact, he went out of his way to explain things to us, and honestly, we now learned more in a day than previously since, well, forever”.

“Earth, I think. It’s called Earth.”, answered Mephisto. “And there’s a lots of guys there already – Asmodeus, Perkele, Ifrit, Abaddon, and lots of girls – Mandragora, Lucifora, Belladonna, Solana, Vipera, Amanita and who knows how many others; thousands. And I’m not even counting other kinds; sheep, idiots, navel gazers and I guess normal folks, judging from what Azazel said. And yeah, he’s really something, and his girl too. Have you looked at her properly? She’s more beautiful than anything, and has a good sense of humour too, judging from how she reacted to him punking our ass. And she, too, is hard as all hell; she looked like she could snap her fingers and we’d evaporate. Well, the part of our God-lore that says Gods are super powerful and deadly is true. The rest of it is shit”.

“I think I’ll go to that world, warn our guys, tell them to get back and start working on this four element purification and grounding thing Zee talked about. Besides, Sanat Kumar is bat shit crazy and it’s kind of ominous how Zee described him, being so deranged and retarded that he risked getting killed by a God rather than continue listening to that dipshit. If he designed that world, it can’t be good for anyone but him, and even that is questionable, because how crazy he is”, Baal started to get seriously concerned. “I hope I don’t waste too much time there, because I have things to do now”.

…

He couldn’t remember what the rush was. He was going somewhere, but he couldn’t remember anything, and it didn’t matter. Did he have a name? He was floating peacefully and he was content. But then there was disturbance, and he left that peaceful place, and there was noise, bright light, and all kinds of rough discomfort, and he cried. But then he felt a nipple in his mouth, and warm milk comforted him. It’s not all bad. Mom loves him and he’s safe.

…

“What the fuck is keeping Baal for so long? I’ll go after him and check”, Mephisto whispered to himself.

“Wow”, Lord Azazel gently touched his wife’s forehead. “You’re amazing”.

She blushed and shivered slightly as she took in his praise. The tiara melted into her own body and was a part of her now; only the golden jewel remained visible on her brow, as a dot of light. It was no mystery what it did; essentially, it was a mixture of a Title, a Jewel and a blessing by both Shiva and Shakti, and it both was and wasn’t a part of her soul itself, rather than being an ornament or a gadget. It was hard to describe – the way her former Title as the worshipper of Lakshmi both was and wasn’t a part of her soul. It was something between an order of merit, a job and a diploma, but deeper. She was The Mind of God, The Goddess of Wisdom, Self-Revelation of the Absolute, Daughter of Lakshmi; Lady Karuna. That’s what everybody instantly knew, the first they saw her, because her Titles and her name communicated themselves. Her soul-type was “Person of God”. That, too, was instantly communicated, together with her gender: “Female”. All of that was so overwhelming, she wanted to crawl into Zee’s shirt pocket and hide there; if the Six had some internal ranking, she would fight tooth and nail for the last spot.

“And all five of us would arm-wrestle you for it, you know”, Lord Azazel read her mind.

“I would lose”, she stuck out her tongue.

“That’s why”, he smiled and kissed the tip of her tongue, and she giggled.

As a Jewel, that thing allowed her to access power that was so terrible and awesome, it made her really consider morphing into a small mouse and hiding in Zee’s pocket. She felt that Lady Shakti gave her a power over all of reality, the power that should only rest in the hands of Wisdom, and it was such an honour that she felt completely mortified from the responsibility and all other implications. Basically, she could wield and assert the Throne of God. She could create, destroy and change worlds. She whined into Azazel’s neck and held him more tightly.

“Ready to kick some ass?”, he grinned.

“Ready to watch you kick some ass, and applaud your awesome victory”, she giggled.

“Sure”, he kissed her nose. “Let’s warn some people”.

…

Blade of Discernment, Self-Revelation of the Absolute, Son of Shiva; Lord Azazel; Person of God, Male, opened a portal to the astral nursery and observed his surroundings, his wife by his side. He spent eons there, up until mere days ago, and yet it looked like a foreign, desolate wasteland to him now, merely because there wasn’t anyone there he truly had anything in common with. There were multiple bigger clouds of astral matter nearby, though, and closing to their position.

“There’s those motherfucking Gods again”, a demon exclaimed, taking out a flaming sword. “Let’s have some fun”, he grinned at the others.

“Watch it, Baal”, Mephisto warned him. “We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves here.”

“I don’t give a shit, Muffin”, Baal growled. “Those bastards killed Azazel without any reason or provocation. I invoke my right of vengeance”.

“Put that toothpick away before you hurt yourself, Baal”, the male God addressed him with a grin. “I would recommend, for your safety, wellbeing and continued existence among the living, that you shut the fuck up, sit here and use words to address your griefs, lest thy arse take the room temperature challenge”, the God pointed at the suddenly apparent sofa across a coffee table and another sofa where he and the girl now sat.

The demon grudgingly accepted, now morphed to humanoid himself. “I accept only because you’re not Shiva, because that one killed my friend without provocation”, he gruffed. “Who are you, and how do you know my name?”

“I know I look different now, and not just that, but I actually am different, yet strangely I’m still the same person, as far as continuity of Self and memories goes. I am, however, different in my qualities and nature. Take a look into me and identify me with your astral sight, before I grow bored with your shit”, Azazel prodded.

“Hell, damnation and holy fucking shit. Azazel?”, the demon exclaimed in consternation. “How the fuck? Is that some sort of a trick?”

“Yeah, of course it’s a trick, a God brought his wife to this shithole to pull a prank on your sorry arse because we apparently have nothing better to do, bitch”, Azazel reverted to demonic vernacular to put the demon at ease. “Of course it’s me”.

The demon got his senses together somewhat, and realised that he actually saw the general flavour of mind that he used to recognise as his, apparently not deceased, friend. “How the fuck? Perkele and Asmodeus saw you sit with Shiva, talk for a while, and then you transformed into bright light and vanished. We thought he killed your ass dead”, Baal exclaimed, joined by Mephisto and a few others. “Person of God, Lord Azazel? What the actual fuck, man? And who’s the girl?”, he exclaimed in shock.

“Well, if you sorry motherfuckers actually bothered to check your facts before getting all riled up over nothing, you’d have asked someone first, and they’d have told you that I indeed went to talk to Lord Shiva, because I got so sick talking to that retard dumbass, Santa Cucumber or whatever he calls his bitch ass, that I decided to ask a God for actual knowledge and guidance, because I was so incredibly done listening to insane assholes. The God didn’t kill me, contrary to public opinion; we sat down, and he explained all sorts of things to me, including secrets of Creation, nature of souls and their evolution, and so on. In fact, I was so incredibly impressed with him, that my soul-structure changed, and as that happened I was transported from this world, to a heaven where the ascended souls live. There, I met my wife Kay, who is here with me now, and we then talked to the Gods some more, and proceeded to meditate until we achieved apotheosis ourselves. That’s the short of it. So no, he didn’t kill me; in fact he saved me, guided me, helped me in all sorts of ways, and I consider him my Father in every meaningful sense”, he concluded, as Kay tried to contain her giggles and keep her dignity intact, succeeding almost completely.

“Holy fucking shit, man. Your ass got adopted by a God, and you God now? And married another God chick? Person of God, Lady Karuna? You made it, man. Fuck!”, the demon scratched his head.

“You can say that again. However, I hear that you made quite a commotion over the hearsay, so I wanted to set the record straight. Like, this is your captain speaking, please calm the fuck down, remain seated and listen to the fucking flight attendant. Nothing’s going on, at least nothing bad. Lots of good stuff sure going on”, Azazel grinned, squeezing Kay’s hand.

“Wow wow wow, time out please”, Mephisto made a T sign with his hands. “You say you ascended to some other world after your soul-structure got upgraded? Is that what happens when other souls brighten up and disappear? They not dead?”

“Completely and utterly not dead”, Azazel nodded. “In fact, this place looks much more like death than life, compared to the other one. However, no assholes or bullshitters allowed”, he pointed at the demons and the big white astral souls preoccupied with looking spiritual. “There’s actual qualification involved, and the name of the game is size and purity. You all have plenty of size, but no purity, so no go, unless you get your shit together and change your fucking ways”, he explained seriously.

“How did you come back here, then, and why?”, enquired Baal.

“Easy, I opened a portal between worlds. Both my wife and I can do that now. And why, well, that’s also easy. I heard you folks went up in arms and made a riot over me supposedly getting killed, when I didn’t, so I wanted to get your facts straight. Nobody got killed; in fact I got adopted by a God and married to a Goddess, so I’m living a good life now, as you can see, so you all folks can calm the fuck down”, he laughed.

“No way you Azazel. He black!”, one demon exclaimed incredulously.

Azazel grinned, morphed into a terrible black cloud of frightening density and disposition. “Is I black enough for you now, bitch motherfucker?”, a menacing, terrible voice sounded from it, making all the demons wince, and the previously incredulous demon made himself very inconspicuous and small, whining in terror as yellow liquid pooled under him.

“Thought so”, Azazel morphed back to his humanoid form and grinned, waving a hand to clean up the mess.

“So, who wants to know how the world actually works, where the souls actually come from, how they ascend, and what’s the actual purpose of life?”, he enquired with his characteristic smile.

…

“I love how you used your history with them and knowledge of their ways to put them at ease, my love”, Kay smiled at her husband and kissed his hand. “You reached out towards them, spoke their language, made yourself comfortably familiar, and then completely dismantled that whole uprising and circus”.

“I hope I didn’t startle you with that demon talk, sweetheart?”, he smiled.

“Not at all; I could see exactly what you were doing and why, because I’m in your heart and I know what’s in there”, she smiled blissfully.

“I am relieved”, he laughed. “So, another round?”

“Blue sheep?”, she asked.

“That sounds like a Silicon Valley startup, but yes”, he smiled, took his wife’s hand and opened another portal.

“I think we actually managed to get to an aspect of the problem that we previously missed. We understood that the heavenly plane has a problem with stagnation, and we understood that the reason for this seemed to be something intrinsic to the beings there and the way they evolve; for instance, the fact that they grew in a pressureless environment, which makes them look like tall, straight, perfect trees that tumble at the first wind. I even mentioned Lord Shiva and his holy wife as the opposite example, of someone who struggles under a heavy burden and knows how hard things can be, doesn’t take things for granted and is thus always respectful of the problems, as well as other beings. However, it now seems there’s an additional layer to the problem”, mused Lord Vishnu. “It seems that this perfect, pressureless environment, as well as the abundance of possible forms of safe and fulfilling activities there, creates an environment where nothing really motivates the souls to invest huge amounts of effort so that they would possibly ascend to godhood”, he finished, and Lady Lakshmi used the opportunity to pour him another cup.

“I wondered if that’s all there is”, Lady Kay started. “My divine husband was angered by the complacency and indolence of the angelic beings, who have all the means of apotheosis at their disposal, and yet do not use them. You, Lord Vishnu, noticed how their environment is too comfortable and fulfilling to motivate great feats of spiritual exertion, as they see no flaws in their condition that would require such strong remedies. All those observations seem perfectly true to me, and yet, I have a feeling we are missing something important, and I’m starting to understand it in very general terms”.

“Please, continue, my Lady”, bowed Lord Vishnu. “For we are at our wit’s end, the issue is very important, and your clarity and power of mind, as well as a new perspective, would be invaluable”.

“Thank you, Sri Bhagavan”, she blushed and smiled. “I think we are missing an aspect of the problem I haven’t seen addressed so far. You see, nobody asks whether the unmanifested Absolute actually wants to become those people”, she looked at the assembled Gods. “It is obvious why the impersonal God would want to be the person of Lord Shiva, Lady Shakti, Lord Narayan or Lady Sri. They are each fiercely individual, different and special. It is obvious to me why brahman would want my husband to be his new person, as he is sharp, brave, wise, and of endless power of discrimination, that always renders excellent insights and wonderful new ideas and perspectives. And while I was in the process of my own apotheosis, I felt something I hadn’t expected”, she sighed, blushed and took a breath to calm herself. “You see, I always thought of myself as unbalanced, as someone who is probably too slanted to the feminine side of things and could probably use some masculine energy to put things straight. However, I liked myself as I was; I liked being girly and feminine, the same way I liked being smart and able to quickly understand complex ideas. It was a part of my identity, and it was obviously not a flaw in the lower four elements, as it persisted through my crystallisation into vajra. As I met my husband, we clicked immediately, and I think one of the reasons for it is exactly because I am so strongly feminine, and it served as a perfect counterpart to his strong, powerful masculinity”, she blushed and a shiver went through her body, as she smiled and continued. “But some doubts and uncertainties remained in me, when we approached apotheosis. First of all, I understood that I am becoming stronger, and at first I didn’t want to be stronger – I loved the fact that Zee is stronger than me, and I loved feeling smaller and weaker but loved and protected. I did understand that it had nothing to do with actual strength and spiritual magnitude, and that was not a problem anymore; I understood that I could be endlessly powerful, and still be his little girl, and I loved it. And then, as the veil between the Relative and the Absolute within my heart broke in earnest, I understood something that completely swept away all my worries. I understood that the unmanifested brahman loves being me. It was a feeling that exploded in my heart first, and swept through the entirety of my soul, as I completely accepted myself, knowing that God loves being my feminine girly self, and it, now she, loves how it allows her to manifest in the Relative, and since Zee and I were so interconnected at that point, I felt how God loves being Zee – he loves being sharp and penetrating, and he loves being in love with me, the way being me gave the impersonal God, that was now the person of Kay, the wonderful feeling of belonging to Zee and following him everywhere. So it’s not just that we chose to be Gods; the unmanifested God in fact chose to be us.”

“Which brings us to the point I was trying to make. Does God actually want to be any of those people in the heavenly world? What are they doing and choosing that is so delectable to God, that he would explode outwards in their hearts and desire to be that?”, she finished, and noticed how all the Gods and Goddesses looked at her with mouths agape.

“You are indeed the Goddess of Wisdom”, Shiva finally managed to say, while others nodded in assent. “I used to think you’re very smart, but now I have to revise my opinion. You are wisdom itself, taken form, and I bow to Your Holiness again and again”, he bowed deeply, as Kay blushed stronger than ever, seeing how her Mother and Zee were so proud of her, they could burst in a fountain of happiness, as new Titles and Jewels manifested upon her person.

“You are indeed the self-realisation and self-revelation of the Absolute”, Krishna nodded. “The addition of you two to our family is an incredible blessing, as you truly give new faces, names and persons to God”.

Lady Shakti bowed to her, closed her eyes and manifested a tiara with a single jewel of golden light, something that was so powerful, it made Kay feel as if lightning passed through her entire body; Shakti approached her, put the tiara on her head and knelt before her. “Most revered and worshipped Lady, please accept this gift from your mom no.2”, she smiled mischievously. “It also contains a blessing of Lord Shiva. You will see what it is later”, she winked, and Kay fell into her embrace, crying tears of happiness, as Lady Lakshmi smiled her blessings upon them both.

“Lady Shakti”, Kay sobbed, “What is that thing you gave me? When I feel it, it feels like The Mind of God”, she shivered powerfully.

“No”, Lady Parvati corrected her. “You are the Mind of God”, and all the Gods and Goddesses present felt shivers of higher truth and all bowed deeply, as a flurry of newborn souls exploded from the space between them.