It was a sight both perfectly normal and casual, and also quite strange, and Vishnu smiled as he saw Shiva sitting there with a large kitten in his lap, a snow leopard or something similar with striking blue eyes, lying on her back and playing with a pendant around his neck, swishing her tail, while Shiva scratched her tummy.
“I hope I did not come at an inopportune moment?”, smiled Lord Narayan
The Goddess instantly flashed back into a humanoid form, not knowing whether to smile or blush. “We were relaxing a bit”, she said, deciding to do both.
“I can imagine; it must have been a hard day, considering what I see happening in Time”, Vishnu grinned at Shiva. “I see you have a new addition to the family”, his eyes pointed at the Jewel the “cat” was playing with.
“Oh, that.” Shiva looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry we didn’t consult you or Lady Lakshmi first, and we probably should have, as this turned out to be something of importance, but we kind of got there gradually and didn’t know it will amount to anything until it did.”
“That’s OK”, Vishnu, waved off, “But I’d like you to guide me through your thinking now that it’s done, because I see what you did, and I see the consequences it’s having across Time, but I don’t see why you thought something as dangerous to yourselves and others was necessary”, his face became serious, and Shakti suddenly found something to fidget with.
Shiva sighed. “Have you seen what the population of the astral worlds is starting to look like? The older good souls grow bigger, crystallise, and for the most part leave that place, because their interests lie in the Divine, Eternal realms. As the best are filtered out, what’s increasingly left there are the young immature souls, the souls that grow very slowly because of some reason or another, and the demonic souls, that keep growing in size, but can never crystallise into vajra because of their structural impurities. This means that those huge dark masses of astral substance start to dominate the landscape, as they are not going anywhere, and other than the occasional huge white mass of astral substance that is still there because it can’t ascend either, for some reason specific to their spiritual makeup, we get the situation where the astral world consists of children, retards and demons, basically. The children don’t know anything, and they are easily influenced by their seniors, most of whom just happen to be those big dark things, hanging around angry and full of paranoid explanations that make their situation everybody’s fault but their own. However, it’s not like we can just go there and wipe them out for no good reason other than not liking them. Like it or not, they have the right to be there as much as everybody else, and we only intervene when they become aggressive or commit some grave sin that warrants taking out the Trident, or, in your case, Chakra.”
“So, you two modelled our problem and understood that it is systemic and emerges naturally in the configuration of the world as we have it now, where mathematical statistics mandates that, with enough iterations and time, the astral nursery will become completely dominated by the demons, who will influence the young souls to the point of poisoning their minds with paranoid ideas and demonic emotions, diverting the entire evolutionary stream into darkness, where all affected will eventually be lost, and we are talking about huge numbers that are only about to go up”, Vishnu frowned, deep in thought. “So, if I’m getting it right, the alternative to your honey pot of mass destruction is to watch this happen, only intervene as a police force here and there, watch the astral world turn into a zombie apocalypse, and eventually reset it all in a pralaya”.
“Yes. I understood this once my genius wife pointed out that the best souls keep filtering out of there, and the demons keep getting bigger while remaining confined to this realm, and it became obvious where that’s going”, nodded Shiva. “The obvious solution was to create an alternative world that would disproportionally attract demons and idiots, while being mostly repulsive to the beings of God, but we understood that collateral damage might occur, since access will be open for everyone, and some generally good souls might want to prove themselves against the challenge and get trapped and harmed. We also understood that we can’t just make another world and invite demons to go there while smiling innocently, because they will instantly know it’s a trap. The only way to do it is to make a general purpose Universe-making device, restrict the access somewhat but not be too diligent about it, and have the demons make the trap themselves, because from their mindset it’s obvious what they would do. Then we watch as they all gradually filter themselves out of the astral nursery and stop messing with everybody’s evolution”, he finished.
“I don’t think you understand the full extent of the consequences this is having. It’s not affecting only Time, but Eternity as well. Take a look”, Ram invited.
Shakti grew pale and winced. “We lost some of the Eternals. Some got seriously damaged and degraded, while some were so corrupted, they had to be outright destroyed. Some broke down and crumbled to kalapa-sludge. This is a tragedy”, she said, her hand on her mouth in shock. “What have we done?”
“What you have done is apparently what you do best: you made a hard decision that was necessary, but nobody else had neither the courage nor the authority to do it”, Krishna comforted her. “The carnage this causes is obvious; not only demons and idiots, but also the arrogant ones, who became enlightened without facing any actual challenge and don’t understand how bad the problems can get. There’s a reason why the two of you are so insanely powerful and virtuous: you constantly struggle under a hard burden and suffer terrible hardship, so you know how bad the problems can get, and you therefore remain simple, humble and straightforward. There’s no way anyone could follow your example while remaining forever safe and “clean”. But when you take a soul that was always pure, never had to suffer terribly, never had to endure humiliation or actually struggle to survive, they can neither grow, nor understand what it takes. The astral nursery isn’t the only realm with problems; the Eternal Realms are also quite full of crystalline souls that aren’t going anywhere, because they don’t understand the lesson you are providing, Lord Shiva. They look up to me and they see me as the shining light they aspire to become, but they never get anywhere because they ignore you and the wonderful Mrs. Kitty here, as you toil under a heavy burden, filtering out evil and dirt so that Creation would be liveable for the rest. They see me, and they don’t understand that things can be so hard that the best of us barely make it”, he lightly punched Rudra’s shoulder, as Parvati’s cheeks turned a slight shade of crimson at his joke.
“I make it because I have you to look up to when it gets really hard, my friend”, Shankar smiled. “You are my North Star when I feel I could crumble in darkness, overwhelmed by ignorance and evil. If not for the comfort you are creating by just being there, none of what I’m doing would be possible, Lord Krishna”.
“But what do we do about this thing now? It is terrible. But this terrible thing also seems to be God’s will, and seems to remedy otherwise unfixable issues. On the other hand, it is going to remove parts of Creation, as well as my wife’s power, away from the Throne of God. But that solves the problem of rebels who don’t wish to live under the Throne, and reject God’s supremacy”, Shiva continued. “Tell me, my friend, how do you see this, and show us the way forward?”
“It is a pickle”, Vishnu agreed. “I’m not here to persuade you to alter your plans, but to tell you that you have my support. I have your backs, especially with how hard it’s going to be to finish this thing you started. I would envy your accomplishments, if not for knowing their cost”, he smiled bitterly, as if eating a lemon. “And look at your wife’s tiara; it’s glowing brightly. This means you have my wife’s support as well. That’s good, because you’ll need all the luck you can get”, he smiled wryly and vanished.
“Sometimes I envy those two so much”, Shakti sighed. “When this is over, do you think we could have a vacation?”