Shambhalla

Bastante felt pressed for time.  There was still plenty of it around, of course, but it was getting used up noticeably faster than before, it seemed.  He held a council of peace chiefs on the Eastern Slope of the Middle Mountain Kingdom, in the forested refuge of Nalanda.

You see, a long time ago -

Nalanda had once been the great University of Minas Tirith.  Far to the east, as the Kali Yuga raged, from Atlantis had come the dark servants of Mammon.  In the great War with the Gods Atlantis had been sunk with cataclysmic destruction, but Mammon's dark creatures had rent the land and enslaved a great number of elves and humans, twisting their souls, stealing their spirits and their divinity.  Mind began to record its dreams, and learned to remember, and thus dreaming became thinking. The power of Nomos, Time and Number, became Nemesis, and life itself became something bought and sold, a commodity to purchased and thrown away.

And Minas Tirith, gateway to the Mountain Kingdom, had fallen, corrupted from within.  Yet the great Aghori King, the left-handed Peace Chief and ward of the eastern slopes of the Mountain Kingdom had foreseen all this, and in wisdom had laid down his weapons and surrendered without a fight, meekly retreating into the forest fastness.

And in so doing, Nalanda University was not razed to the ground.  Minas Tirith was infected and corrupted with the toxic materialism of the Machine Age, but the University was allowed to educate the people, and because nonviolence had been the seed nonviolence became the fruit, and though a thousand generations had since passed, and the city of Minas Tirith had become mere legend, upon its foundation was built a city wherein the humans were rather elven, and the elves were wise, and compassion and wisdom and the beauty of nature were in abundance.  It was a blessed land, and a tremendous vortex of astral energy, charged with purpose.

Bastante would go no further east.  Beyond the Mountain Kingdom of Shambhalla lay the vast plains of Mammon.  East of the plains lay the mighty River, and beyond lay Mordor.  Nestled in the very heart of Mordor lay an enormous city which stretched 800 miles in length and harbored a hundred million slaves.  New Babylon.  It seethed with greed and lamentation.

This was the world Bastante had been born into.  It was a nonsensical reality, bereft of meaning and purpose.   Now was the time.  The mill of heaven ground fine the Ages, and at long last the avatars had returned to correct the course and align with the path of dharma.

He sang his heartsong.  The earth pulsed.  She was waking up.