Instant Recap: Gavin presented his stratagem to use the tactics of fourth-generation warfare to bring down the electrical grid, cripple the flow of oil and gas, and pull the plug on the global technostructure.
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10. Divine Intervention
“Gavin,” said Eric, “your stratagem exceeds expectations. There’s still lots more we need to hammer out tactically and technologically, but for now let’s move on to the next plateau. Suppose we actually can monkeywrench the global technostructure ~ is it something that we really want and need to do? How can we justify taking all that karma on ourselves? All that blood on our hands? Is there a better way?”
Saxon fairly beamed at Eric, and was perhaps surprised. She said, “Son, your father would’ve been proud of you. The same questions came into my mind.”
Hector said, “Does that mean we shrink from taking responsibility for such a masterstroke? Do we tremble at a supreme act of will that could bring us unprecedented power?”
“No!” said Eric clenching his fists ~ “not for an instant. But first we have to determine whether it’s the will of heaven ~ of the Gods of Thule, the Übers. Never forget what happened to the Führer.”
Hector looked abashed. Gavin said, “There are ways we can be certain that our actions don’t violate the Dharma. The will of heaven will reveal itself if we proceed faithfully on our best inclinations. This is exactly the opposite of the path followed by those who truly deserve the epithet of ‘terrorist’, who act cruelly and sadistically, and shoot for the biggest body-count of civilians and bystanders. By contrast, the front line of our stratagem is that it will not directly inflict harm on a single human being. We need kill no one as we pull the plug, though millions will surely die in the aftermath.”
A heavy silence descended on the room. It was broken by the quavering voice of Kamran: “Who could ever say that such a thing is dharma or deemed by heaven? What God could ever will it? I mean, in the Middle East our enemies shout ‘Alahu Akbar!’ as they inflict those sadistic cruelties on whoever falls into their hand.”
For a moment Gavin hesitated. Then he glanced upward, and his face seemed to reflect a light. Three people gasped in unison: Saxon and Vance, who were the most psychically sensitive, and Diana, who had the deepest empathic link with Gavin. They three also looked up, and their faces shone with the same light from above. When they looked down they gasped again, for Gavin had grown to towering stature. They focused their gaze and grasped that the giant was actually a fluid numenal form superimposed over his physical body, which was still its normal size. Then they beheld another glimmering divinity, a Goddess in Mindy’s seat at the round table, helmed for battle and holding a spear. In a resonant voice she declaimed: “OM Namah Kalki Jaya!”
The bicameral entity that was Gavin acknowledged this greeting with a smile and a nod to his comrade, and then spoke in a baritone that rattled the vault-like walls of the chamber and riveted the hearts of his hearers into a religious reverence tinged with primal fear. The voice said:
I am all-powerful Time who destroys all things, and I have come here to slay these people. Even if you do not act, the masses will be purged in the hour that ripens to their ruin, for the millions are already slain by their own fate and by my hand alone. Be ye therefore my instruments: strike swift and hard, conquer your enemies, win the hero’s glory. Remember that you smite only the dead, and the empire will fall into your living hands.
The words seemed to echo through the space, and the silence that followed was pervaded by an air of sanctity. Flash was the first to recover his wits, and then Diana. In one movement they turned and looked at each other. He whispered: “Arjuna’s reply.”
“Ah!” she said as her eyes lit up. They looked at the God before them and in a perfectly synched tandem voice they chanted:
O Hrisikisa, rightly does the world rejoice in singing thy praises. The hoary hosts of Zion scatter in terror before thee, while the legions of Übers bow down in adoration. And why should they not do thee homage,
O Spirit Supreme, First Cause, begetter even of Brahma the Creator! O Lord of the Gods, the cosmos rests within thee as an egg in its shell, for you are all that is, all that is not, and THAT which transcends even this. O infinite imperishable Presence, goal of our striving, source of our love, honor and glory to thee!
The being was visibly pleased by this orison. He raised his right hand in the sign of benediction and a fountain of light poured from the top of his head, cascading down to engulf the enclave. All the people seated around the table disappeared, or so it seemed to their subjective perception. They found that the empty space where they used to be was filled with unutterable bliss. Gradually it faded as they recoagulated, and there they were staring in wonderment at an equally corporeal Gavin. Mindy, too, was her earthly self, and the two exchanged a look of mutual approbation. Then Gavin looked around at the other faces and said with a chuckle, “Any questions?”
Vance and a few others laughed out loud, but most emitted only sounds of puzzled awe. Then Eric said, “For me that’s always been the climactic passage of the Bhagavad Gita, but I never thought I’d live to hear it delivered by Krishna himself.”
“Is that who it was?” said Kamran. “‘Hrisikisa’…??”
“One of the many honorifics of Krishna,” said Flash.
“But what does it all mean? I know very little of Hinduism because of my, um, prejudiced upbringing. They were the infidels and usually the enemy.”
“The beauty of the Gita,” said Flash, “is that even though its message is spoken by a particular deity, Krishna himself is just a vessel of the omnipotent Absolute, the all-pervading Nothing/ Everything that is the core of reality, the Alpha-Omega. And this is what spoke to the warrior Arjuna when he had qualms of conscience about going into battle, the same words we just heard from the same Source in a very similar situation.”
“That kind of stuff always seemed abstract to me,” said Kamran, “until now! Now I’ve had a taste of it ~ it’s a miracle. But I recall that at the picnic table Gavin said he was Kalki, Avatar of Vishnu.”
“Right!” said Mindy, “and so was Krishna ~ he was an earlier incarnation of Vishnu. That’s why it was easy for Gavin to call him down the pipe when his intervention was specially needed.”
“Okay,” said Kamran, “so Kalki and Krishna are both Vishnu. But it’s still confusing.”
For the first time in the conclave Albrecht spoke up: “My kin, let us not be confused by theology, for even though the Gods are manifold, they all serve a larger Dharma of which we are the earthly instruments. This we discussed at the picnic table: it is now the end of times, the Apocalypse, Ragnarok. On this all the Gods agree, and wish to reach down from heaven to bring it on, but we must be their hands and arms to make it be. Our minds and hearts must also be their tools, and devise the means to turn the aeon here in the world of hard matter, heavy hardware, and political pitfalls. I have long been sorely puzzled about how this could be done, but now Gavin’s stratagem has shown the way.”
There were some cheers and a smattering of applause. He went on: “The olden seers of east and west and middle all foretold an Avatar by any other name, who would come at the appointed time and pull the plug on the corrupt old order and its evil rulers. The names were Kalki, Christ in his Second Coming, and Imam Mahdi. Some say Buddha Maitreya, but of him I am not sure. As always, though, the time of the aeon-turning was revealed in the heavens, by the Sun and Moon and planets and stars, and the Avatar arrived at the precise divine moment. This I know with convicted certainty for I was privileged to see him with my own eyes when he was only an egg, a Starchild in the sky in the eclipse that cracked open the aeon in ’99. Later I came here and met Gavin when he was four years old, and Gott im Himmel, it was him! He was the Wunderkind, the same I had seen up above in the noontime darkness.
“So it did not matter to me what names the prophets gave to the Avatar. Instead I watched the Avatar himself grow into a man and discover his name, and am pleased to repeat it from his own lips: hail Ramar, Avatar of the New Aeon, incarnation of the White Spirit!”
Silence fell again as everyone looked at Gavin, some with tears in their eyes, including his mother Diana. His own eyes sparkled as he bowed from the waist and said, “Your humble savant.” The collective tension and sentimentality were broken as laughter and good cheer bubbled forth from the kindred.