CHAPTER 10: LEVEL UP
Somerai awoke early the next morning before sunrise.
It was Day 9 and she had one more day to get to the top of the mountain. It didn’t look far away now, much larger than it was a few days ago, she knew she could get there after a full day of walking.
She packed up her gear and set off through the dewy bush veld.
At midday Somerai took a break under a towering bush willow tree. A light breeze touched her skin making her want to turn her lunch break into her usual afternoon snooze.
She fought the temptation as she was running out of time and needed to get to the mountain top if she wanted to get into the Gurkal.
She was walking now through dry light brown savannah grass with a surrounding thicket. Suddenly she saw a flock of birds fly off as if sounding an alarm.
A stoney silence enveloped the bush veld. She sensed something was wrong.
Like a King Cobra rising to strike, a tan-brown, flickering tail appeared above the grass about fifty metres ahead. It was the big male lion who had killed Shanti. And to either rear flank Somerai spotted two lionesses slowly creeping in. She was being hunted and worse still she was surrounded. If she tried to run they would definitely catch her.
In a surreal moment, a highlights package of all the experiences she’d had over the previous ninedays flooded her mind. She’d learnt that by being curious she could teach herself almost anything. In the savannah, Samurai had learnt through close observation and artful reflection.
She recalled stored information about things through accessing the right folders in her brain. She learnt how to do this by metacognitively reflecting on her thoughts as they executed their specific algorithm for recalling information from her tree of gathered knowledge.
She could operate on her experiences using questions as her thinking tools to figure things out and extract knowledge through reason, logic and critical thinking. She used her imagination to visualise and mentally rehearse how to respond to certain situations.
By being alone with her thoughts she learnt how truly powerful the mind really was. It could make or break you as a person. The mind could either be a source of bondage or liberation.
When Shanti had died, she learnt that everything was impermanent. From then on her mind had taken over. Ahamkara spread negative thoughts that caused her to feel certain emotions resulting in certain behaviours.
Somerai learnt that the mind needed to be controlled and used to one’s own benefit, otherwise it would make you it’s slave. She realised that she was not her thoughts and had to detach from them by first observing them. Then discriminating between the ones she rejected due to them not being of any help to her and purposefully selecting the ones she chose to accept.
Through contemplation she discovered her thoughts were a response to her desires either being fulfilled or not. If her desires were fulfilled she was happy and if they weren’t she was sad.
But she was not in control of what happened to her so instead it made sense to remain stoic by keeping a balanced mind in both good and bad times. After all everything was impermanent.
Through constantly monitoring her mind and removing her desires, by not identifying with her ego, she had eventually mastered her mind.
For now, she had vanquished Ahamkara and realised her true self.
She was plugged in to her connection to everyone and everything through the common substrate oflove.
She heard Shanti’s voice: “ Everything you need lies within you.”
Somerai took a deep breath in and closed her eyes meditatively.
She was centred, she was at peace.
The big male charged, all 250 kilograms of his being hurling towards Somerai in fury.
With all the wisdom from the previous nine days cystalizing into the moment,
she gathered her energies and like a magnifying glass concentrated them all on a single point.
She laid her palms open facing upwards towards the heavens and picked them up slightly.
Immediately in mid-attack the lion noticed something was wrong. He felt a force pushing against him like an invisible wall of energy lifting him upwards. Soon he was running in mid-air, running nowhere.
Somerai picked her hands up further above her head until he was 30 feet above, not knowing what was happening, scared and starting to whimper like a little cub, his ego first in shock and then dispelled like a thunderbolt.
The other lionesses froze, then cowered in disbelief and made for the bushes.
Slowly Somerai brought him down and laid him carefully on the grass.
The once fearsome and angry lion now lay peacefully and calmly on the ground in front of Somerai. Adequately traumatised and slightly tranquillised, but now realising his connection to all beings, he walked sheepishly towards Somerai,
Somerai looked him dead in the eye and nodded, accepting his apology for the death of her beloved Shanti.
Kneeling with his front two paws as if bowing to a princess, he offers Somerai to ride on his back.
With supreme confidence she mounts the lion, straddling her legs on either side and together they set off towards the peak that looked like it had a chained monkey atop.
It would be touch and go, but they could still make it there by sunset.