The Mirror of Truth

After the Temples of Heaven and Earth had been constructed in the Fields of Purity, Tengir said: "Though I have built two Temples to honor and commune with the Spirits of Heaven and Earth, yet my work is still not complete." Whereupon he went back to the Fields of Purity and, in a section north of the two Temples, marked off another square some fifty by fifty fathoms. There he felled the grass and put up a fence and a holy gate, then he consecrated the barrier by an animal sacrifice and an invocation of Heaven. But he did not build there; not even did he lay any stones or set up posts, but he left the field empty. When people asked him why he did so, Tengir said: "You will know when the rains come. Then the light shall go to dwell there."

Twenty-two days later, a great storm came and drenched every corner of the country until the rivers and lakes were swollen and the ground was all but mud. Day after day, night after night, the wind howled and thunder crashed, tree branches bent till they snapped and shudders and roof tiles were sucked into the sky. In the midst of the deluge, the people's hearts were brooding and thinking of what a terrible end they were about to come to, but Tengir sat in his sitting-room looking unperturbed. When his daughter Dawn-Brook came into the room through the opposite door, she said: "Father, the rains and howling gales are the sign that Heaven summons me to take up my office." He replied: "Very well." And he gave her a heavy cotton cloak and boots. She put them on and went outside. Though the sky continued to roar and pour out all of its anger onto the country, she hiked to the north. She hiked until she came to the Fields of Purity, passing the Temples of Heaven and Earth, and stopping at the empty field Tengir had marked off some weeks earlier.

The sky was still roaring even as she stood there with her hands raised in supplication to Heaven. Even as terrifying lightning gathered above her head, she did not relent nor did she coil back in fear, but stayed steadfast in her faith. The wind was so strong, and her body so small and fragile that anyone would have thought she was about to get blown away, but she did not believe so. Even as columns of lightning struck the ground not five feet from where she stood, threatening to vaporize her, she did not waver and her heart did not race. Only she planted her feet in the muddy dirt and redoubled her prayers. While she prayed, thunder drowned out her voice so that none could hear it save the spirits. But before long the sky above her head parted in a large circle and sunlight began to flood in, and she was surrounded by a circle of sunlight. A celestial being--clothed in white robes and shining like a miniature sun--descended through the middle of the pillar of light and delivered an object into her raised hands. After the celestial being had once again disappeared into the clouds, the storm relented, weakened manifoldly with every passing second, until not even a minute later the rain ceased and the clouds retreated.

After that happened, Dawn-Brook's father, mother, brothers and other relatives gathered at that spot and saw that she was lying face down as though dead, but she was not dead. In her right hand she gripped a shining metal mirror of craftsmanship so pristine and perfect that it couldn't have been fashioned by any mortal hand. The mirror glowed with holy light, and so it was called the Mirror of Truth. When peered into the Mirror focused such profound and excellent secret figures as cannot ever be put into words in any language.

When she came to, she told her father that a shrine had to be built on that very spot where the revelation had taken place, and where the Mirror of Truth was to be stored. Tengir immediately saw to the shrine's construction. It was to contain no images of divinities but only was coated in so many kinds of metal to effect the conveyance and refraction of the sun's light. The shrine was laid out like a semicircle that was open on the south end, but the circle itself was only five fathoms thick, the middle section of the shrine--about ten fathoms in diameter--was open to the sky. An altar was set up in the center where the Mirror of Truth was installed on a purple silken cloth. There the Divine Truth, the Truth of Light, went to dwell, and Dawn-Brook became its priestess and stewardess. Daily she saw to the cleaning of the Mirror, and this ensured that she, and through her all of the World, remained in perpetual communion with the Truth conveyed by the Light of Heaven, and protected by that Truth from all forms and all kinds of the Demonic. Every evening she bathed in a sacred sealed grove so as to keep her body and spirit, and through her the Mirror, free of impurities.

But as soon as the people saw that this new and unknown temple had gone up in the Fields of Purity, they marveled, saying such things as: "Heaven I see above my head, Earth I see below my feet, but what invisible deity is this, that now dwells in that fine temple yonder?" They went beneath the marble staircase of the temple and inquired with its Priestess, saying: "What deity now dwells here? And what are that deity's commands for us? What rites and festivals must we perform?" Dawn-Brook the Priestess replied to them, saying: "Here dwells the Goddess of Truth, the Soul of Being, the Body of Presence. When Tengir my Father came to this land and reminded the people of the worship of the Ancestors and great Heaven above, a rift was at once violently and irreversibly torn between this Country and the rest of the matrix of the Earth. The gaping rift exuded darkness, and the Country that now rises above it stands out from the World. Due to this standing-out, the World now looks upon this Country with a different pair of eyes: the eyes that view with suspicion, the eyes that spy a stranger, the eyes that would harbor a curse. And now the Demonic towers over us in the north and the south, the east and the west, threatening to swallow us into its old shadows, to close the rift by dragging us down. But in the empty, the untamed and pristine darkness of that rift, the Light of Heaven has been invited by my Father, the Priest of Heaven, to shine upon the Earth at the new center, which is the body of my Mother, the Priestess of Earth. Now that the Truth shines in the heart of our country, the Truth is ours."

Dawn-Brook went on: "The Goddess has no commandments for you, nor has she any laws, sacraments or festivals. For while other deities may guide men through these things, the Goddess that dwells here guides with sight alone. With the Light she radiates that is captured in this Mirror, she lights the path, and the path so lighted by her is open for all of us to walk. So long as this Mirror is kept clean and is not broken--and as its eternal stewardess I shall see to it that no harm or blemish ever comes to it--then none of our race shall ever go astray, nor shall any one forget himself. If you let the Light guide you, you will dwell in an eternal palace which you will yourselves construct. Where the Light shines, is called the World. Where the Light begins to dim, is called the Peripheries of the World. Where the Light dies out and all is dark, is called Outside of the World. Our Mirror, whence our Light emanates, is thus the center of our World. The Light inundates this country and its forests, mountains and waterways, making them conspicuous, making them familiar, and the Spirits of this land are thus also familiar and well-disposed to us, provided we approach them with piety and awe. In the land that the Light reaches, which are called 'here', every road is safe; here no tiger will prey on you in the mountains, no wayward monster will attack you in the forests, no snake will bite you in the waterways. But if you venture where the Light begins to dim--which are called 'there'--bring with you a torch and a sword, for there the color of everything changes, the taste of the air begins to turn, the shadows on the ground stretch and warp. There and beyond, apparitions you will surely meet. The demons emit their own light, but their light is theirs, not yours. Your Light welcomes you, but you alone; and theirs welcomes them alone, and it is strange to you, rejects you. If you were to look at your reflection under that alien light, you would not recognize yourself. Numberless mirrors are there in existence, but only one is yours: this one, of which I am the guardianess. This temple is the home of that Light the Mirror captures; it is therefore your home. It is your base and your seed, it is the first link in your chain. You may bear that chain to the ends of a million Earths (it is your chain, after all), but no matter how far you bear it, it will for ever remain anchored here at this temple, so long as the Light does not cease to glow in this Mirror." Hearing her lecture, the people were greatly enlightened and dispersed with no further questions.