The first time Moses struck the rock, the vibration resonated down into the ground which had grown the rock itself out of star stuff. It vibrated way down to the deep dark one who slept there before the bible, before Adam and Eve, before the world was called out of the empty darkness, the ebony void, before any idea of this universe had arisen in the mind of the Godhead, before the existence of any Godhead, even though the Godhead has no beginning, nor word at all for what it is, much less for that which looms immense, immobile, and unshakably serene, behind it.
Nowadays, Moses and his business no longer matter much, nor does the stricken rock, nor the holy water which flowed therefrom, nor the anger of some vengeful desert deity whose will must not be thwarted, nor any lingering fantasy of a promised land, now a poisoned ruin, perpetually aflame with the cumulative hatreds of chosen men and their fickle gods. It persists in that desert furnace as the rocking cradle of the dark one, stirred suddenly awake at the second rock strike, who moves in terrible majesty below the surface of burning sands, who easily devours fissionable materials and digital footprints in a gulp, who regards the boastful claims of the kings of this world as one would the passing camel caravans, laden with bags of desert sand.
That ancient, unspeakable one dispassionately observes the conceits of the foolish as their transient shrines dedicated to selfishness and relentless vanity arise from the dust and just as soon crumble, great cities with long-forgotten names, rich with gleaming pyramids and garish temples. Teeming just below the surface are those fantastic but ambivalent creatures who slyly hide within vast star systems or miniscule grains of sand, patient as a desert, only to re-animate once the proud works of men are dissolved without remainder into an all-consuming self-extinction. It is then that they will emerge, basking in the regal favor of the dark one, the one who receives all without distinction but asks for nothing, who lives as the heart and the timeless light behind the mind, who holds them all within a thought, a sandy daydream, a bubble of nothingness, a random breeze softly whispering on a desert summer night, while the squirming infant Moses was set afloat in his little boat, and smiling baby Krishna played his endearing finger flute.
Bereft of any genuine illumination, there are crafty beings of mixed resonance who sponsored the desperate religions of the deaf, dumb, and blind, intending to distract us from the secret knowledge of our cosmic birthright. Instead, they set us against each other with their delusion weapons and cognitive dissonance. All the while, the long-promised Awakened one is still coursing in deep Prajnaparamita, the same spacious state of grace in which we all exist, except for our soldered blinders of hope, lies, and fear we wear as prison badges in this pantomime of life. Such is the sordid legacy bequeathed to us by the old temple gods who still tremble themselves at the deeper sound of that nameless one who, with a gracious smile and a mighty sigh, whirls the daunted Dharma Wheel to grind, as it must, our false dreams to fine dust, while it liberates the grain from its armor husk.
