Saturday 22 July 2006

Pic of the day: Yuuri can just reach out with his mind and touch the power, no matter where he is. No rituals, no objects needed. It's the same with me, except I don't do magic. Or if I do, the only thing it changes is myself...

Mazoku and me

In the anime "Kyou Kara Maou", there is this fantasy world where two different races use magic, but not in the same way. The ones who call themselvse humans have a magic that is external to them. They can get it by praying in churches and such, but mostly from magic crystals that they mine and collect. Not so the ones called mazoku. Their magic is tied to their soul, they are born to it. They have a ritual where they pledge to the elements, but it doesn't change anything, just confirms what is already there.

It strikes me that in the real world, people also have these two different approaches, but to spirituality. For some it is an external thing, something that can be bought or gained or learned. You follow the book and do your part, and the gods or whatever entity you believe in will do the rest. Fire and forget. It affects your life, but it doesn't really affect YOU. Your soul. But it was not so with me.

This is strange because I tend to be distant, indirect and observing. But by the time I learned about meditation, I had already been doing it alone for a good while. I had thought it was some kind of prayer. I did not know that most people who pray don't experience this, don't get pulled into this silence. This... presence?

It is not something I have learned. It is not something I have earned. I still don't. It was given me, and I don't know when. Perhaps it really has always been there, but I did not know until I woke up. I know that I can't imagine life without this presence, as I think of it. Can't imagine living with a gaping hole inside. Humans are so brave to endure all those losses ... homesickness, lovesickness, grief, all those things that come from discontinuity. Would have they been able to endure if they had tasted life without? Probably, but I hope we shall never find out.

I can go into a church and feel a kind of aura there, but it is different from mine. I can see people regard buildings or crucifixes or books as holy. But it makes no sense to me. These objects are not sources, they are charged by their worshipers. Why do that? These things are all like a well in a flooded valley. That which you look for is all around you. You can find it without trying, but if it does not want to be found, there is no place in the world you can look for it. Or so it seems to me, but I am not them.

In the fantasy world, humans call these other people "mazoku", demons, and they hate and fear them. I suppose it is not many centuries ago that they would have done the same to me. Perhaps some still would, but it's not like they can do anything about it these days. Certainly I am considered a heretic by the religious and a deluded fool by atheists. Both may be true, but I can no more change who I am than you can close your ears. Nor would I want to. To me this is the real world.