She turned her head my way and gave me a gentle expression. One that aroused me. I shunned the thought and focused on her. Thought I’m sure she noticed my embarrassment. For my eyes wondered to the openings of her chest.

Woe to the one who cannot control their lust!

She laughed. “Excusing your yet uncontrolled vision, I was reminded of my home.”

“Your home?” I said. “Where is it?”

“Nowhere you could go,” she said. “It lays far beyond this world. To a domain no more passable, at least to me.”

I couldn’t understand what she meant. Did she mean to say she came from the Heavens, the Hells, or somewhere else entirely?

“Do you know why I brought you here?” she said.

Well, it should’ve been obvious to her I didn’t. Her ways of asking questions irritated me, but I made sure to hide it.

But given that I remained silent to her questions, it felt only fair that I try to answer now.

“Is it because you wanted to show me something?”

She brought her face closer. I could smell the faint scent of musk and dew. Though I didn’t suspect her to have killed a musk, to have acquired that scent. My face reddened, and I almost fell over. I held my breath, so I would no more get aroused.

“Indeed, but also for you to show me something as well?” she said, suddenly bringing her face back. “Though it is apparent, your mind needs to calm. It is not normally the case that opposite genders enter into the kind of relationship we now have. Yet I do not think it shall take long to correct your perverse mind.”

She pointed downward. I looked to see the upper section of my fhorlia raised! I covered myself as quickly as I could, and prostrated to her, begging forgiveness.

She laughed, and let things be. “I was the one who kept you in such a position, so forgive me! You will grow used to me in time.”

She had me sit in the lotus position.

“Salam must have taught you the ways of focusing your mind,” she said. “Now I shall have you do the same, but with directing your attention by my words.”

She had me close my eyes, and as like many times before, I meditated. But on what you ask?

The sage said with gentle voice, “Bring your attention to me.”

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Though I couldn’t see, I let my mind focus on her image. It was strange. The ability to imagine seemed so much stronger here than in my home. No resistance could I feel in what I sought to appear in my mind.

Though I imagined her form in the empty space. It soon became filled with the background of my home. I could see the buildings that arose from the dried tar. The flocks of people that went to and fro with their bags, boxes, vehicles, and all sorts of things.

I cannot name to you specifics of what they had, for they are things that are yet to appear in this world. No such concise word can accurately describe what they are in the language of Ahastrutahr or the Prekrds for that matter.

In this mindscape that I had built, I moved around the streets with Yurvaonri. I saw the temples and shrines that dotted every corner. The smell of incense mixed with the scents of spice and sewage. I saw the rich and poor live only minutes from one another. I saw the place where I lived, how the wealth and prestige I accrued was through lies and deceit. I saw the place where I worked, how I gave patronage to those who were wealthy and insincere blessings to the poor and destitute.

It seemed as if my life was playing before my eyes. The image was so vivid that I felt I could touch it. Up to this point, I was looking at Yurvaonri’s back. But she turned. And I saw her face of melancholy.

She opened her mouth, and said, “Your mind has strayed. Did I not say you to be attentive to my words?”

The image at once vanished. Her image disappeared. The background vanished. It was empty.

“Now do as I say this time. Bring your attention to me.”

“But what do you mean by that?” I asked.

“Do not speak! Only listen.”

She was being rather vague. Yet I persisted in this seemingly futile endeavor.

I brought my attention to her words. I didn’t imagine. Only focused on her words.

“Now let me repeat myself. Your focus should be directed to my voice. Let that voice reverberate across your body. Relax yourself.”

I did as she said. My body relaxed and my breathing slowed.

“Good! Continue to do as such.”

She continued to talk of seemingly random things. About the world, its things, its inhabitants. About what was around us. About what was above us. About what was inside us.

As her words passed into the rhythm of monotony, I felt my mind once more straying. Yet I was able to bring the focus back. As I listened to every sentence, every word, every syllable uttered from the sage Yurvaonri’s mouth, I could feel the constraints that seemed to lock my consciousness lift from me.

My mind felt free, now being directed by the sage’s words. How much time had passed? I wondered. It wasn’t so much suppressing or ignoring the thoughts that I needed to do, but to focus myself to things of more importance. For those who revel too much in the entropy of the mind, fall prey to either ennui or madness.

It was at that moment, where my mind was lifted, that I felt myself being sucked out. I could see the sage before me in the emptiness of my mind. I could see myself as well.

“Where are we?” I asked my teacher.

“You will soon see.”

The blackness was replaced with the image of our surroundings. I looked to my side and saw myself meditating. Likewise, Yurvaonri meditated as well.

We were disembodied. Something that I knew wasn’t out of the realm of possibility, but never thought to behold as a reality.

“What’s happened to us,” I asked, trying to remain calm.

“We have projected our minds from our body,” she said, pointing to our still bodies. “In the era we live, such things can be mastered with relative ease. The world has temporarily changed to allow us to uplift ourselves and concern our minds with greater matters.”

“Like fighting the Demons?” I asked.

“Nay,” she said, shaking her head, “the wars of the world are of no consequence to what I desire you to realize.”

“And what would that be?”

“Your position in life and in the cosmos as a whole.”