Into Splendor

The Day Of Their Return, 20.

"He burst above, into splendor." (p. 231)

We have quoted this passage twice before. See here. (Scroll down.) However, I have not previously commented on how it reflects an experience that I had years ago. I sat for meditation while depressed about something. The depression persisted while I sat on a cushion for half an hour. However, when I stood up, I was elated. It was like flying in an airplane beneath dark storm clouds, then shooting vertically upwards into blue sky and sunlight above the clouds. I knew then that the place above the clouds exists, that I would soon be back down under the clouds and that that did not matter. That has happened once since starting just-sitting meditation in 1985. Do not practice expecting anything. But we can experience elation and splendour without having to wait for "Their Return."

Erannath tells Ivar:

"'Truth you must find in yourself, Ivar Frederiksen.'" (p. 230)

That is not exactly true. Ivar has just asked a factual question: whether Erannath serves the Empire. The answers to such questions are in the external world, not in ourselves. However, we do have to find a kind of truth - or authenticity - within ourselves. We must live by our own understanding, not by anyone else's. Ivar does. He accepts Aeneas' place in the Empire but expects the planet to outlive the Empire.

The intensification of Aenean millennialism is sufficiently explained by the defeat of the McCormac Rebellion and by the widespread Aenean belief systems, including those focused in different ways on the Ancients.