The Mountain Shadow

‘With all due respect, Idriss,’ I laughed, ‘that’s an appeal to cultural bias, and not an answer. Are Good and Evil arbitrary, or not?’

He leaned in closer to me.

‘Because we have a destiny, which is undeniable, our journey is a moral journey. Understanding what is Good, and what is Evil, and the differences between them, is a required step for us to assume our role as guardians of our own destiny. We are a young species, and assuming our destiny is a big step. We only became self-aware yesterday.’

‘I’m not completely getting it,’ I said, looking up from my notes. ‘Thinking of things in terms of Good and Evil is required, at this stage in our spiritual evolution, is that it?’

‘If there were no Good or Evil in the world,’ he said, leaning back again, ‘why would we have laws? And what are laws, but our fumbling, and constantly evolving attempt to establish what is Evil, if not what is Good?’

‘I’m still not understanding it,’ I said. ‘I hope you’ll be patient with me, but from what you’ve said, we could just as easily substitute some other words, like right and wrong, or positive and negative, for Good and Evil. And we might be better off, if we did.’

‘Oh, I see,’ he said, leaning in closer. ‘You mean the semantics of it. I thought you were talking about the cultural architecture of Good and Evil.’

‘Ah . . . no.’

‘Very well, on that level, the terms Good and Evil are required, because they are connected to the Divine.’

‘And what if people don’t believe in the Divine?’

‘I tell them to fuck off. I can’t waste my time with atheists. They don’t have an intellectual elbow to lean on.’

‘They don’t?’

‘Of course, not. The fact that light has both physical and metaphysical characteristics means that it is nonsense to refuse the metaphysical. And an absence of doubt is an intellectual flaw. Ask any scientist, or holy man. Doubt is the agnostics’ parachute. That’s why agnostics have a softer landing than atheists, when the Divine speaks to them.’

‘The Divine speaks?’

‘Every day, to everyone, through the soul.’

‘O . . . kay,’ I said, more confused than when I’d asked the question. ‘Maybe I’ll put that one in the later file. I’m sorry for the intrusion.’

‘Stop apologising. I asked you to define complexity.’

‘Well, Khaderbhai never let me pin him down on that. I asked him, a few times, but he always slipped away.’

‘What are your thoughts?’

My thoughts? I wanted to be with Karla. I wanted to know that she was safe. And if I had to be on the mountain, I wanted to listen to the teacher, rather than talk. But I’d learned, after three days of discussion, that there was no escape from the fortress of his mind.

I took a sip of water, put the glass back on the table beside us carefully, and threw my hat in the psychic ring.

‘At first, I started thinking of complexity as being about complicated things. The more complicated things are, the more complexity. A brain is more complex than a tree, and a tree is more complex than a stone, and a stone is more complex than space. Like that. But . . . ’

‘But?’

‘But the more I think about complexity, the longer I stay with two things. Life, and will.’

‘How did you get there?’

‘I thought about a much more evolved and advanced alien species, travelling through space. I asked myself what they might be looking for. Wherever there’s life, I think they’d be very interested. Wherever there’s fully evolved will, I think they’d be fascinated.’

‘That’s pretty good,’ Idriss said. ‘I’m going to enjoy telling you more about this. Make me another chillum. Hey, Silvano!’

The holy man’s constant companion, Silvano, crossed the white-stone space to join us.

‘Ji?’

‘Keep everyone away, for a while, please. And eat some food. You skipped lunch, again. What’s that, man? Next, you’ll be shaving your head. Don’t be holier than the fucking holy man, okay?’

‘Ji,’ Silvano laughed, backing away, and catching my eye.

Since I’d returned to the mountain, Silvano had been an almost constant companion. He was always ready to help, and always good-humoured.

The fierce scowl was only and ever the fruit of his protective love for Idriss. In every other hour of morning or evening he was a kind, happy soul, in a place that was home.

‘Complexity,’ Idriss began again, when Silvano left, ‘is the measure of sophistication in the expression of the set of positive characteristics.’

‘Can you run that by me again, please?’

‘A thing is complex, to the degree that it expresses the set of positive characteristics,’ he replied.

‘The positive characteristics?’

‘The set of positive characteristics includes Life, Consciousness, Freedom, Affinity, Creativity, Fairness and many others.’

‘Where does this set of positive characteristics come from? Who made the list?’