Lord Krishna focused inwards, and made a hand movement. “Done. She is now firmly in a womb, and we can proceed to the next point, which is analysis of what’s actually going on here, and figuring out steps we should take in order to stay ahead of it”, he smiled at his family.

“I think we should count our blessings first”, his wife smiled back. “There are great things that came from this ordeal. The first was Zina, the loving and lovable, cute, gracious and dignified, whom we all love and adore”, she smiled at the woman, whose complexion was starting to turn towards crimson. “The second is her wise, good and immensely brilliant husband, Lord Buddha, whose wisdom, experience and virtue are great comfort and inspiration to all of us in these challenging times”, she nodded at the man, who looked deeply into her eyes, and bowed with deep respect and worship.

“Let us not forget Lord Azazel, my worshipped husband, who was so disgusted by Sanat Kumar and his plans even before they were put in motion, that he sought out Lord Shiva, attained enlightenment, and whose great discernment, wisdom and devotion pulled both of us towards godhood”, smiled her daughter, the Goddess of Wisdom.

“Hear, hear”, clapped Lord Vishnu. “We have two new blessedly Divine couples in our family, and all four of you are heartbreakingly wonderful, in four different and amazing ways for God to be a person”, he bowed, as everybody’s mood was already uplifted greatly.

“Obviously, we had losses. Angel Uriel was irretrievably lost and had to be destroyed, and if not for Lord Shiva’s sacrifice, that would have been a much greater disaster for all of us than it ended up being, for which I bow before him with great gratitude and even greater respect”, she nodded to Shankar, who smiled and nodded back. “Also, we lost Athena the angel, who now belongs to her new chosen Master, and has been removed from under the Throne of God”, she continued in a grim tone. “However, I feel there is more, and I would ask our honoured Judges of Karma for a report about the returning souls and their condition, so that we can have more of an informed opinion on the overall state of things”, she concluded, nodding towards Azrael, Buddha and Zina.

Buddha and his wife nodded to Azrael to take the first word. “We had multiple criminals that had to be put in the astral prison in order to await your further judgment, worshipped Ladies and Lords, and so that they would not interfere with the lives of normal souls. Interestingly, it turned out that very few demons did what one would expect – joined Sanat Kumar in his rebellion, conspired against the Gods or tortured other souls. In fact, it looks as if they relish in the opportunity to finally do something useful and get new ideas about the future course of their lives, and they usually throw themselves into family life, useful crafts, sciences and so on. For instance, there are a few very intelligent Greeks who developed philosophy and science, while being good husbands to their wives and fathers to their children. Their actions were virtuous and praiseworthy. Some, unfortunately, turned to mischief and committed terrible acts, but overall, it was a minority, while the majority conducted themselves with honour and virtue, and I have nothing but praise for them. The most notable example of this is of course Goddess Zina, who was so virtuous that she literally loved so much that she almost died, and had to be saved by her mother and Lady Fortune, but she is not as much of an outlier as one would have thought. Baal and Mephisto, for instances, were honourable family men who showered their wives and children with love and care, and beside minding their own affairs, one was an excellent blacksmith and very much respected in his community, while the other one excelled in construction work, building houses, roads and bridges”, he nodded approvingly.

“The sheep, if I may use this term for the stagnant, dormant souls that did nothing for eons, were a different story”, he continued. “For the most part, they were the easiest to corrupt into evil. Put one of them in a body that has any propensity for evil, as most human bodies do, and it all rolls downhill to a bad ending. If they are women, they tend to just indulge in promiscuous sex, following their shallow urges, becoming harlots and sluts. If they are mothers, they abuse their children because they are bored and lack the entertainment they think they deserve. If they are men in power, they usually abuse their positions and become terrible leaders. If they are subordinates, they slack off, steal, or perform their duties poorly. If they are husbands, they tend to be drunkards and no good, and their wives and children suffer the consequences. All in all, they are a terrible mess, but this actually tends to snap them out of being sheep and into being demons, which in their case is an upgrade, and since we’ve seen that demons tend to surprise us positively, I think there is hope for the future”, he nodded. “There is, of course, a rare example of Lord Buddha, who was born a prince, and seemed to be destined for a life of automatism and inertia, when he suddenly woke up, and surprised everybody by being the most energetic, decisive, strong willed and virtuous person one could possibly imagine, and I bow before his holiness again and again”, he bowed to Buddha, who smiled and bowed back.

“Some sheep, unfortunately, continue to do absolutely nothing of consequence. They live their lives as in a dream, make no important decisions, go with the flow, die and continue sleeping in the astral plane. That is unfortunate, but not unexpected”, Azrael shrugged, and nodded to Lady Zina to take over.

“The normal souls are actually a minority, because unlike the demons, who hurled themselves into the abyss without much consideration, and sheep, who got herded alongside them and just followed the crowd, the normal souls were actually thinking with awakened minds and for the most part decided to stay in the astral plane and continue with a normal evolutionary path, which in their case is actually both safest and the most rewarding option”, she smiled. “However, those of them who did choose the human path, usually got incredibly confused by the human experience, and lack of transcendental feeling they were used to. They would get lost and suffer terribly there, but when Lord Shiva broke the ceiling of spiritual darkness in that place, and cracks of transcendence started to appear, they started noticing the inner light and grew strongly towards it, becoming mystics, yogis, artists, mages or philosophers. Some of them in fact achieved great progress in their spiritual evolution, and their human experience gave them an additional depth and flavour, and I can hardly wait what will happen as they crystallise, since we haven’t seen this spiritual type before”, she smiled in appreciation. “As family people, they vary. Some are excellent – they tell their children inspiring tales with a spiritual message, they are loving, caring and wonderful. Some, unfortunately, are so concentrated on the otherworldly matters that they neglect their families and cause suffering”, she frowned. “It is what it is, unfortunately, and we’ll see how this develops. It would be helpful if they could be taught balance”, she nodded to her husband to take over.

“As for the angelic beings of crystallised vajra, they turned out to be a mixed bag. You’ve all seen Uriel and Athena, so I won’t waste words on them. However, there are some who turned out quite well, if in unexpected ways. One would expect them to regularly outperform others, since they are so spiritually powerful, but that is sometimes the reason for their very poor adjustment to the world of extreme limitations. They struggle with the basics, and keep trying to meditate when that doesn’t work or actually harms them, sometimes becoming autistic, which ends poorly as society discards them. Sometimes they follow paths of personal power, treating other people with complete contempt and disregard, and become reclusive hermits who practice religion, dark magic, austerity and similar activities. Some study sciences, some create art, and some get into religion, but very often in nasty ways, as they are often self-serving, arrogant and lack compassion. All in all, the surprising news is that they become almost exactly what one would expect demons to be – self-serving arrogant assholes who pursue power and treat others as if they were grass under their feet. Uriel is the most notable example of this, in his incarnation of Ashurnasirpal, who seems to be the worst person to have existed in the history of that world so far. Others in their arrogance challenged Sanat Kumar openly, of which Athena is the worst example, but there are others, who fortunately woke up and smelled the coffee in time, and changed enough of their attitude as to evade the worst outcomes”, he grinned.

“All in all, it’s a mixed bag, and the results were for the most part wildly unexpected. For the most part, we get souls with various degrees of traumatic injury, but once that has been handled, some of them tend to gravitate towards Earth and seek the next incarnation, spending time on astral Earth planning what they would want to be next. Some meditate and think about the lessons of their experience, advancing quickly. Some are dumb as rocks. Some, unfortunately, are evil and incredibly nasty, and we’ll probably have to shovel them back to Earth like we did with Athena/Anthea, because the only other alternatives would be either letting them ferment in prison with their own ilk, where they’ll likely grow even worse, or to outright kill them, but I think it’s too early for that since there are other options to be explored first. So, that would conclude our report”, he bowed to the Gods and Goddesses.

“What are the differences between male and female souls, and male and female incarnations?”, Lady Kay asked.

“There are of course significant differences between the sexes on Earth, but honestly, it all amounts to being the same”, shrugged Azrael. “Their lives are usually hard, and they suffer and die. Men usually die in wars and fields, and women die in childbirth or violent crimes. Women are raped more often, and men are castrated and otherwise maimed or brutally executed more often. Both frequently starve to death. Women work at home, men work outside, and they both have equal chances of being either good people or villains. If they are free, their lives are usually hard, and if they are slaves, their lives are usually terrible. All in all, you can argue that their lives are either as good or as bad as each other. When they love and help each other, their lives approximate heaven. Spiritually speaking, I think Lady Zina and Lord Budha are a good illustration of the best outcomes. She was loving, compassionate and nurturing, and he was wise, compassionate, intellectual and sharp, and they are now both exceedingly wonderful, and my life is so much better since they have been around, as they are so inspiring, fun and insightful. We had many long discussions, where I always felt greatly uplifted and enlightened. So, any talk about men or women having it better or being better is nonsense. Uriel and Athena show that both men and women can become terrible abominations, and Buddha and Zina show that they can both become beautiful, inspiring and worshipful persons of God”, he bowed to both of his friends, who smiled back widely, as other Gods giggled.

“I think we must consider the issue of intellectual content that is spiritually uplifting”, Lord Vishnu noticed. “That matters a lot there, since there is little ability to establish spiritual truths personally, and people have to rely on what they were taught, and if they are taught good moral and spiritual principles, this will help them a lot. Conversely, if they are taught wrong and bad things, this will be spiritually detrimental”, he mused. “Lord Buddha’s teachings were a brilliant positive example, and I salute him. However, they seem to be geographically limited, and there is room for introduction of similarly valuable teachings elsewhere. I do notice, however, that Sanat Kumar actively works on muddying the waters, so whenever someone like Lord Buddha introduces a truth, twenty stupid dumbasses who serve Satan start talking similar but harmful and deceptive things, thus greatly confusing people and making the teaching inaccessible”, his face darkened.

“Do you have any suggestions as to how we should improve this situation, my Lord and brother?”, asked Lady Shakti.

“Some. Our tears are there, as well as the cracks, thanks to your glorious husband, my Lady. Let me think about this some more, ok?”, he smiled at his sister, who grinned and nodded back.

“So, if we’re done here, how about coffee?”, Shiva rubbed his hands and smiled mischievously.

“That was really bad”, Zina was the last to sit at the war table. “I kept praying to my husband and my mother to save and guide me, and I am thankful to them for being my anchors through this”, she sighed heavily.

“Please, tell us everything there is, for I feel this is of great importance”, nodded Lord Azazel.

“Indeed”, confirmed Lady Shakti.

“I kept trying to feel compassion for her, since she’s obviously a victim of terrible crimes. I kept thinking what my poor Tamara would look like had those bandits chained her into a cave so that they could keep raping her for years, rather than just killing her outright. I tried to justify her, see her condition as a mere consequence, tragic and inevitable, of someone else’s crimes”, Zina sighed.

“But I couldn’t. She is so incredibly disgusting, offensive, blasphemous and outright repulsive, so opposite to what is acceptable in the eyes of God, and I would know, since I grounded myself in the First Person state of the Absolute. Rather than helping, it made it worse”, she shrugged.

“There is a reason why we Gods exist in couples, and it’s always married couples, bound by intimate love. When I was in that deep state and I looked at her, I knew why God is a man, a woman, and man and woman together. It’s as if entering from the Absolute into the Relative just can’t produce one self-sufficient result; it’s always a man loving a woman, and a woman loving a man, and only together they form a unit that is harmonious and happy. We need to be ourselves and belong to our partner in order for God to find us acceptable. And that woman”, she couldn’t even force herself to say her name, “She is not acceptable to God. She is so far from being acceptable to God, that I would go so far as to say that she is a gender-flipped mirror image of the priests and guards in that prison where she was kept. I tried to see her as a victim, but I couldn’t, because whatever she was before, now she is just vile, disgusting, hateful and ungodly”, Zina shivered.

“I really tried being compassionate; I really did. But she keeps spewing vile hatred against male God-persons, and her hatred takes form of mantrically charged curses and dark magic. I have no useful recommendations. I calmed her down somewhat and put her to sleep, and I created a special section for her in the astral Earth, so that she can’t come in touch with other souls there and spread her vile convictions and ideas and thus harm them. I didn’t want to put her in the prison with the criminals, but I probably should have, because she’s as vile as any of them, if not worse”, she shivered. “I have nothing more to say, and I surrender this thing to you now”, Lady Zina finished.

“Let’s not forget how she is obviously a creature of Sanat Kumar, broken and shaped by fear”, Azrael added. “She calls him Baal, which means Lord or Master in her language, and is in terrible fear of crossing him in any way. I think it would suffice for him to raise an eyebrow at her, and she would lose bladder and bowel control. Also, she seems to have had mystical visions of him in that prison, so it’s not just quasi-religious nonsense; I’ve seen him in her mind, and she truly knows him, fears him and belongs to him”, he frowned in disgust.

“I looked into her history. Her name was Athena; a calm being of dignity and power. She stood near the very top of the range of heavenly angels, deep purple and indigo blue, large mass. So, how exactly is it possible that such a being be deformed into such a vile abomination?”, Lady Lakshmi asked. “It is as she was at the precipice of becoming a Goddess, and then this happened”.

“I think I can offer a possible explanation, and others may complement it”, voiced Lord Buddha. “I think she is what happens when you have power, dignity and glory, but no devotion to God, and no deep, spiritually profound love in your heart. She was powerful, she was proud, she didn’t know her limits, she challenged Mara in his world, at his turf, she expected to triumph and return to the Gods with his head on a pike, so that they would all see her glory and be humbled before her. In essence, she has the character of Mara the Satan, Satan the Mara or Sanat Kumara, whatever you may call him, only he’s an astral imp, and she was a deep violet super-angel. If I look at the Will of God within my heart, I would say that her outcome was only logical, because she wouldn’t go beyond herself and love; she saw Gods not as goals and ideals to worship and be glad for the opportunity, as we all worship each other, but as a challenge and competition to be rivalled and humbled. She was not what God wanted to be. In essence, we all became Gods and Goddesses because we worshipped and loved and become something Absolute wanted to be, as a person. She wanted to defeat a super-demon so that she could humble the Gods and rise above them. She got her comeuppance, I’d say. She had no love, no humility, no bhakti, went into something that was over her head, and she got destroyed. Honestly, she’s a good cautionary tale. During my human life, I kept warning against being proud, arrogant and everything else that she was in abundance, because that would end badly, and I wish I could have had her there, pickled in a jar, so that I could show her to my disciples in Rajagriha as evidence of why the noble eightfold path is good, and how the opposite would end”, finished the Buddha, as all other Gods nodded in approval and relief, because they feared he would advise endless compassion, which they felt was sorely misplaced in this case.

“Hear, hear”, clapped Lord Shiva. “I wholeheartedly support your opinion, my friend. Also, I would say that your incredibly deep experience with Earth and life as a human makes you an authority on this, so I would hardly feel qualified to override your opinion”, he grinned and bowed to Lord Shakyamuni. “I also bow to your blessed wife, Lady Zina, who did us a great service and suffered this nastiness so that she could provide us with her invaluable insight, as someone who herself was human, and is familiar with the kinds of terrible violence this woman endured, and I further bow to her great competence and patience”, he finished, bowing to Zina with a wide smile.

“I recommend that we throw her back down there to Sanat Kumar, because she is obviously his creature out of her own will, or out of her own fears, and due to her own arrogance, and she can either break further, or heal, or find some other option for herself, but there is no place for a creature such as herself: disgusting, blasphemous, cowardly and sinful; in this or any other world under the Throne of God”, concluded Lord Vishnu, as all the Gods bowed to his verdict.

“Who are you people? Are you in service of Lord Baal?”, an unhinged-looking woman addressed Azrael and Siddharta.

The men looked at each other, and then at her. “We are the Judges of Karma. Our purpose here is to help you with your transition from your experience on Earth. We don’t know who Lord Baal is; I knew of a demon called Baal once, but he is no Lord”, Azrael smiled.

“Stay away from me, you blasphemers!”, the woman screamed and crawled away from them as far as she could before hitting a wall. “Baal is the Lord! He rules above the Earth and is my Master! I was once like you; a blasphemer, proud, ignorant, and I offended the Lord, but Master grew angry and punished me. His priests took me into slavery, and chained me into the dungeon where they they would bring in men to relieve their needs with me, and when I would become pregnant they beat me on the belly until I miscarried, and threw my babies to the dogs to eat them”, she half screamed, half sobbed. “Get away from me! I don’t want to see men ever again. You are all vile pigs who hate and abuse women. I hate you!”, she screamed with such power that the astral furniture of the room started cracking and melting.

Azrael looked significantly at Buddha, who nodded and went out to bring his wife, who was in the adjacent room, dealing with another soul.

“Please, lady, calm down. Nobody here is going to abuse you or harm you in any way. Our role is to help you in any way we can, after your human experience”, Azrael spoke calmly, but the woman looked at him with vile mistrust.

“You don’t serve the Master”, she squealed, as if possessed by evil spirits. “I don’t want to cooperate with you. If Master finds out I had been consorting with his enemies, he will punish me”, she winced and yelled at the same time.

Azrael thought he’d seen the worst of it when he encountered Uriel, or what was left of him, but this was not in any way less terrifying. The woman was, obviously, a deep violet crystal, at some point. However, the crystal was cracked at multiple shatter points, and held itself together with substance that looked like yellowish-brown clay, or dog excrement, and its colour was impure at most places. She was quite literally broken, and also looked like she had endured some sort of a systematic desecration and devastation of her spirit.

“Again, lady, please calm down. You are not in any danger here. Please, tell me your name, and tell me about Lord Baal, so that I may understand of whom you are talking?”, he calmly asked, hoping that Zina and Buddha would come to his aid soon.

“My name is Anthea, Anthea the slave of Baal”, she whined in some disgusting mockery of worship, that felt like whining of a submissive, beaten dog, or a hyena. “It’s good that you want to know about the Lord, because you should all drop on your knees before his feet and worship him in utter submission, and not be arrogant and proud as you now stand”, she squealed insanely. “Baal is the Lord, he is the Master above the Earth. He shines as the Sun at those who serve him, and casts his vengeance on those who oppose him. But I don’t want to talk to you any more. You are a man, and men are pigs and dogs. Men rape and beat women, you are all disgusting and I hate you”, she cowered in fear, as poor Azrael prayed that his friends would hurry up, because he was at his wits’ end here.

To his great relief, they came, and he quickly told them everything he knew, in full memory blocks.

Zina looked at him gravely, and then turned to the crazy woman. “Greetings, Anthea. My name is Zina”, she smiled kindly.

The woman seemed to relax somewhat. “Tell the men to leave. I don’t want them to rape me again, or to have to look at them. The sight of those animals makes me afraid. I hate them”, she squealed.

Zina was shocked by this. “Those two men are great Lords of highest honour and kindness, who have never hurt anyone, and who always treat women with greatest respect. Lord Buddha here is my beloved husband, and Lord Azrael is an angel in charge of the dead, known for his compassion and kindness. I would greatly appreciate it if you stopped insulting them, for this is a grave crime against God”, she shivered slightly.

“Fuck them, they should all go to hell and die!”, the woman screamed and would have crawled deeper into the corner, were it at all possible, and her words were vile curses charged with dark magic that desecrated the space.

“Guys, let me deal with this one alone, so that I might access any reason that’s left in here, and if I fail, please get my Mother and Lord Shiva”, she curtsied to the angel and the God, who stood there in complete consternation, bowed to her in assent and shimmered out.

“So, Anthea, now that we are alone, would you please tell me more about yourself, and about your Master?”, Zina smiled, wrapping the woman inside an energy cocoon of kindness and safety, while praying silently to her husband for patience and support.

…

“So, that’s how Sanat Kumar dealt with angels who rushed in foolishly, proud of their size, purity and status, thinking God’s light will overcome all evil and limitations, and they will just go in, show their power and light and all illusion and its maker will crumble like dust in the glory of Reality they represent”, Lord Shiva scratched his chin. “Apparently, that failed spectacularly”.

“You can’t fight that illusion with power. It literally can’t be overcome in that manner. Also, if you try any kind of an attack, it will be treated as sin and he’ll be allowed to punish you for it. The only ways to fight that thing are, first, the one Lord Buddha tried, which is to divest yourself completely and withdraw your energy from the world-system until you die, doing only good and kind things and refraining from anything that would form attachments; or, second, you could try to get Sanat Kumar to sin against you, which would create an opening for you to exploit. However, since he took care to protect himself from direct involvement in anything there, you would probably need to threaten him enough to get personally involved and deal with you in an unjust way, that’s not covered by the contract everybody “signs” by entering, and which nobody seems to read”, Lady Shakti joined her husband’s analysis.

“I understood quickly that you can’t fight Mara with power while you’re in his territory”, Buddha added. “It was obvious that it wouldn’t work from the fact that he enticed me to try. Then I saw that it would only serve to boost my ego, and all the power I used would bind me in return. So, I did the only reasonable thing: I denied him the thing he wanted. I didn’t fight, I just let go, and that seemed to work quite well. Unfortunately, it did nothing to actually remove him from power or dismantle that world, but it was useful from the position of an individual and his own destiny”, he shrugged.

“And this started as such a wonderful day. I was talking to you and Lady Zina, and I was just thinking how awesome you two are and how much better my life was since you came”, Azrael waved his head in disbelief, still shocked by what he saw earlier.

“We need to assemble the war council”, nodded Krishna. “We need to discuss strategy regarding this”.

“So, Lord Buddha, what are your impressions of your new job?”, Azrael grinned at his new buddy.

“It’s actually not that different from my previous one”, shrugged Lord Siddhartha. “I was a very famous spiritual teacher and founder of a major religion. People came to me for magical solutions to their problems, and the problems usually revolved around poverty, sickness and death. There would be a famine, and they asked for my blessings so that the rain would come. There would be a slaughter, and the panicked women would ask when their husbands would come home. There would be a plague, and they would ask me for magical healing. At least here I am not expected to perform unreasonable miracles, and the part I am expected to do – offer advice, consolation, or psychotherapy – I can actually do better and more easily. So, as far as I’m concerned, this is Tuesday”, he shrugged.

Azrael considered this. “Truly, you must be the most qualified person for this job. Not only have you been a human, so you know how it feels; you have also been doing work that is incredibly similar to this one. We are fortunate to have you, my Lord”, he bowed, and Buddha smiled and bowed back.

“So, what is your perspective on all this?”, his wife asked. “You’ve seen it from both vantage points, so you know more than anyone; certainly more than me, since I never went more than twenty miles away from my village, and I hardly knew more than fifty people”.

“It is obvious that people suffer. It is less obvious why. Previously, I concentrated on sources of suffering, and on attachment and projection, but as you eloquently pointed out before, Lord Shiva takes on terrible suffering upon himself, and he’s one of the happiest, most wonderful people imaginable, and not only is he not harmed by his suffering, but in fact seems to grow stronger from it. Also, the Gods suffer greatly when they see suffering of others, because they are incredibly compassionate and beautiful. They could easily choose to detach themselves from others, but then they wouldn’t be such beautiful people, and they wouldn’t be persons of God. You can even argue that indifference would make them into omnipotent psychopaths. So, what is it about suffering that makes it soul-crushing? Let’s take your example. You experienced pain of childbirth, typical pains of human life, occasional episode of poverty and deprivation, occasional sickness, but none of that really harmed you. What harmed you was the loss of loved ones, feeling of helplessness when they were attacked, and the impression that human life is all there is. How am I doing so far?”, he asked and kissed her temple.

“Your analysis is spot on”, she smiled and blushed. “When I endured physical pain, I could contextualise it – it would pass, it was for the greater good, or in case of pregnancy and childbirth, I chose this, I want this and I would do it again”, she nodded. “But when my children would get sick and die, I didn’t suffer because I was in pain. I suffered because they were in pain, I was losing them, I couldn’t do anything about it, and endings and separations in the physical life feel terrible and final. Most of all, the fact that something terrible was happening, and I was helpless to either stop it or avoid it was what broke me”, she shivered briefly.

“Let’s go further”, he continued. “When you were a demoness, in the astral plane, you didn’t feel physical pain, hunger or sickness, right?”

“No”.

“You didn’t care about people, so if something bad happened to them, it didn’t break you?”

“No. In fact, it would entertain me or make me laugh”, she admitted.

“You also didn’t age, and poverty had no meaning. So, would you say that such a life, devoid of classical elements of material suffering, was a blissful one?”, he grinned.

“No. In fact, it was a nightmarish existence, and in hindsight, I would say that I suffered terribly, and the emptiness from not having loved anyone was much, much worse than the suffering from losing loved ones, or seeing them suffer and not being able to help them, although pain of the latter was absolutely soul-crushing”, she remembered. “But when I lay there in the astral plane with my soul broken from loss, I felt dignity and fullness I had never felt in my demonic life”.

“So, this would conclude my demonstration. Suffering, in itself, is not necessarily a problem, since it is merely one of the elements in a more complicated equation. From what I have seen, people who inflict suffering on others are usually in a far worse spiritual condition than those who suffer. You were an extreme case, because you would have literally died without expert help, but most victims of terrible things recover successfully and quickly here. The perpetrators of evil, however, feature prominently among souls too far gone to be salvageable”, he concluded.

“I am amazed at your presentation, my Lord”, bowed Angel of Death. “Your analytical prowess is indeed staggering”.

“Thank you, my noble friend”, bowed Buddha.

“But let me summarise. Committing sinful acts is far more harmful, in general, than being a victim of sinful acts?”

“In general, but not always. Sometimes, if one is intentionally and systematically broken over a long period of time, and they have no transcendental perspective to guide them out, that can have devastating effects. We’ve seen slaves who have been castrated, raped daily, mutilated and humiliated as a matter of course, and treated as things rather than persons. On its own, that would be bad enough, but in Sanat Kumar’s world, where they are separated from a wider context of everything, such pressures can indeed kill a soul. I have been through all kinds of things down there, but I had strong will and perspective. Someone else would have been in serious trouble.”

“Also, there’s context and choice. Let’s say a woman gives birth. She knows what’s going on, she knows it’s her choice, that it’s a good thing, and that she would do everything the same again. She is in pain, but her suffering is minimal. But now imagine that she has a sickness that has similarly painful symptoms, and she knows she would suffer greatly and die from it. Her suffering from the same amount of pain and discomfort would be terrible”.

“I completely agree”, Zina nodded, “And seven pregnancies and childbirths make me the resident expert”, she smiled.

“Indeed”, both men nodded.

“So, knowledge that something is your choice, that it has a good purpose, and that it’s normal, makes terrible agony completely endurable; in essence, Zina before childbirth was in the same position as Lord Shiva when he absorbed evil karma intending to spend it, and fully knowing it would be a terrible agony for him”, Buddha looked at both of them and they nodded.

“Evidence for this is that Lord Shiva looked amazing today, and from the reaction of his wife when he returned, it’s obvious that it wasn’t child’s play. It was a God-level problem, let’s say of the same kind pregnancy and childbirth are for a human woman, but likely worse”, he continued. And yet, Shiva was empowered by the experience, the way Zina felt empowered when she gave birth”.

She nodded in assent.

“I also looked through her memories as she told me about her traumatic experiences. She shrugged off childbirths as if they were a mere inconvenience, although they were in fact physically more painful than her death”, he looked at her inquisitively, and she nodded in aggreement.

“So, suffering in that place is obviously a much more complicated affair than I previously thought. Let’s say there’s an element of choice. Let’s say if I allow you to take Tamara’s place, so that they rape and murder you, and she goes free, what do you do?”

“I would choose it instantly, and whatever they did to me, it wouldn’t matter, because I would know that I saved my girl and this thought would have comforted me through whatever ordeal”, she smiled.

“Exactly. And now we come to the point I want to make. The reason why that place causes such terrible damage due to suffering is because it deprives its victims of perspective. It cuts them off from knowledge that the entire thing is, for all intents and purposes, an artificially induced dream, where most characters are fake; beasts without riders, that work automatically unless a soul is bonded to them”, he concluded.

“Wait”, Zina started in shock, “Does it mean that my entire family, that I loved so much, consisted of mere uninhabited shells, with no souls or eternity of any kind beyond physical matter?”

“Have you met them here?”, Buddha asked.

“No”

“Have you tried to find them? Goddess, remember?”, he touched her hand gently to calm her.

“I tried now. There’s no response, no echo. Nothing”, she shrugged, but looked distraught.

“There is an order of magnitude of a hundred million human beings alive on Earth. The number of souls incarnated from both heaven and the astral nursery is a mere sub-percentage of that number, so multiple orders of magnitude less. And I am ignoring intelligent animals, which would raise one number significantly, and working with the upper range of estimates of the other. But let’s say it’s ten percent. It means that out of ten humans you know on Earth, you are likely to be the only soul among them. On the other hand, it is quite possible that all of them are souls. This would make treating others poorly a very bad thing. Treating others well, however, would give you an excellent opportunity for growth in love and kindness, which you personally experienced”, he smiled.

“So, basically, the best practice would be to treat everybody kindly just in case?”, Azrael asked.

“Yes, that’s exactly right. Treating others well is equally important for your benefit, and theirs. For instance, had Zina treated her family poorly, as some wretched people do, she would have remained a demonic being. This way, she became someone so beautiful, that Lady Shakti cried over her and did everything to save her, and in fact she became a Goddess within days since. Sure, the drawback is that her family was an illusion and she, basically, broke herself over nothing. But if we look at the actual energy equations and investments, she loved all the way to becoming a Goddess”, he concluded, and kissed his wife’s hand, as she blushed.

“So you say it’s like suffering in a dream, over dreamed, nonexistent people?”, she enquired.

“Have you ever had a dream in which you were scared, or in other ways suffered?”, he asked back.

“I have, many times”, she confirmed.

“Did you suffer less because it wasn’t real?”

“No, but I was relieved when I woke and realised it wasn’t real”, she said.

“Well, there you go”, he smiled.

“Wow”, she sighed and managed a true smile. “So it’s like entering a dark room and seeing a rope on the floor, and thinking it’s a snake, and you panic and try to see where the children are and if everybody is alive and safe. Then someone brings in a torch, and you see it’s a rope and your fear vanishes, because it was all in your mind”, she smiled in relief.

“Your family might have been in your mind; or, actually, in the mind of the Jewel that renders the simulation, but your love was absolutely real and you carried that with you. All your choices were real. All your suffering was real. And the quality of personality it all produced was real. You are one of the eight most real persons in the entire reality, and you have imaginary snakes to thank for it”, he joked.

“Also, let’s take the opposite example of Uriel, and let’s say that most of his victims were uninhabited shells. That doesn’t make his choices any less fatal, or make his soul any less terrible. Characters may be simulated, for the most part, but if you are there, and you think they are real, all of your choices are personality-forming. In fact, if you brainfuck yourself into thinking it’s all a dream and you can do whatever you want, it’s going to cause even worse damage and make you into a total basket case”, Azrael added.

“You are exactly right, which is why the only good choice is what Zina did without thinking or planning – treat everyone with greatest love and kindness, and if it turns out you were the only real person in that village, well, there will be a very good one person in the village”, Buddha concluded.

“Also, treat possibly empty shells with kindness, because you don’t actually know who’s in there. Imagine you have some people tortured and one of them turns out to be your best friend from before. That friendship is likely to end, I would say, so you will have eternal consequences of a temporary foolishness. Also, if you and I incarnated together, and we knew with absolute certainty that both of us will be in the same village; how would you treat people in the village?”

“The same way I treated my family down there – I believed that they matter greatly and I loved them”, she answered. “Which makes the ethics of the whole thing obvious, I guess”.

“Yes”, he nodded.

“How did you get so good at this, I mean analysis and explanations?”, Azrael scratched his head.

“I did this religious teacher thing for decades, remember?” Buddha smiled. “People would wake me up in the middle of the night with some emergency and I would do an excellent job half asleep and often with high fever”, he smiled.

Zina hugged him. “Never let me forget that I married the smartest person who lived on Earth so far”, she smiled.

“If anyone contradicts that statement, they will have me to deal with”, Azrael nodded in assent.

As Lord Shiva walked into their coffee lounge, his wife instantly ran towards him and threw herself into his arms wordlessly. He just smiled and held her for a time, and then they looked at each other, and he took her by the hand as they joined the others.

Shiva approached Vishnu, hugged him and whispered: “Thank you, my Lord. It helped”, as Vishnu clapped his back and smiled.

“I see you are stronger”.

“Somewhat”, Shiva grinned back. “It was a big motherfucker”.

“Language, please; there are children at the table”, Lady Lakshmi smiled, as Zee and Kay rolled their eyes.

Krishna smiled, then his smile froze, as his eyes defocused; then he smiled twice as brightly. “Guys, you won’t believe what just happened. Mahadev, you’re back just in time”, he grinned at Shiva.

“Judging by your tone, I assume it’s not another broken angel?”, Lakshmi prodded her husband.

“By your grace, oh Luck, it is not”, he grinned and kissed her. “We have two new additions to the family”, he smiled widely, and snapped his fingers.

Lady Zina and Lord Buddha appeared from the shimmer in space, and everybody was instantly around them.

“I’m so proud of you”, Shakti whispered in her daughter’s ear as she hugged her, and tears went down Zina’s cheeks.

“So, you’re the guy who managed to figure out the particle theory of karma, called Sanat Kumar by the name while there, or close enough, got initiated into vajra while incarnated into that stupid gel, formulated entire theory of detachment and divestment, and became a God half an hour after getting back here, simply from talking to my wife and daughter? It’s a great honour”, Shiva grinned at Buddha, shaking his hand and pulling him into a mil-spec hug.

“And you are the guy who just ate a super-demon for brunch, after reconfiguring the Creation the day before?”, Buddha hugged him back. “I am honoured to meet you, Sir”, he smiled.

They all sat at the coffee table. “You know that stuff you’re drinking isn’t really coffee, right? I had coffee on Earth, and it’s bitter and yukk”, Zina frowned from the memory. “We had to put all kinds of stuff, like milk and honey in it, to make it even marginally palatable. This stuff is incredible, however. Tastes like the love of God”, her smile widened.

“We know”, Vishnu smiled. “We just call it that”.

“So, Zina, Lord Buddha, what are your plans?”, asked Lady Parvati. “Are you together or…?”, she winked.

They looked at each other wordlessly, and held hands. “If you approve”, bowed Buddha. “I don’t know what we are, but I see her as my gurudevi, who taught me and guided me to greater wisdom. I never want to be separated from her.”

“I liked you since I first saw you, Prince Siddhartha”, Zina joked. “Now I adore you. And cut out the gurudevi business, please. If we’re doing this, I want to be a proper wife to you”, she curtsied to him and smiled as he hugged her.

“I officially call you husband and wife, then”, Lady Shakti smiled and hugged them both. “So, in danger of repeating myself, what are the plans for the future?”

“I want to continue serving as a Judge of Karma, that is if my husband and Lord approves”, Zina bowed to Siddhartha Gautama.

“Not only do I approve, but I would request Lady Shakti’s permission to join you. It is a most praiseworthy and compassionate job, and if you see me as worthy and qualified enough for it, it would be my honour to join your daughter there”, Buddha bowed to his mother-in-law.

“You are slightly over-qualified, but we need all the help we can get”, Parvati smiled and nodded, and his Title changed accordingly.

“This is quite fortunate, as we seem to have new arrivals”, Lord Shiva raised an eyebrow.

…

“So, you two were away for what, an hour, and not only did both of you become Gods, but you also got married, and Lord Buddha is now working here with us?”, Azrael scratched his head.

“She became a Goddess first; I was so amazed with her that I just followed suit”, Buddha kissed his bride’s hand and smiled.

“It’s too bad I didn’t bet any actual money on it, because I just knew it”, Azrael laughed. “Oh well. At least we have the most praiseworthy addition to the workforce”, he bowed.

“And I hear there’s been some new arrivals?”, Buddha bowed back. “And what exactly is the procedure?”

“Yes; you’ll see quickly enough. As for the procedure, it’s simple. The normal souls need compassion, healing and knowledge until they are well enough to be placed in the astral Earth, the place where you sat with Zina in that apple orchard. There they can think things through and see what they want to be and do next. Then there are the corrupted ones, the criminals who caused the normal ones to be traumatised; rapists, murderers, bandits, warlords, clergy. They are the actual problem, as one would want to rehabilitate them too, but they need to be really seriously sorry, not just fake it to evade the consequences. That’s where your legendary bullshit detector comes into play. Basically, if they are thoroughly corrupted and evil, throw them into the astral jail, designed exclusively for that purpose, and we’ll see what to do with them at some later point. Maybe they change, maybe we return them to Earth, see what happens and revisit. If all other options are exhausted, someone will wipe them out and purify the karmic mass, but that part is out of our hands. In case of the most terrible demonic beings, and we only had one so far, we call the Gods to deal with them”.

“Sounds good to me”, Buddha nodded. “So, basically, we treat them compassionately, but not beyond the limits of reason and good taste?”

“Exactly”, confirmed the Angel of Death. “In any case, it would be cruel to let loose any unrepentant criminals among their victims and thus traumatise the poor souls further. That’s why the brig is there; hold them separately, revisit, think of solutions and treatments at a later date, and in the worst cases, flush”, he shrugged.

“And by the worst cases, you mean …?”, Buddha raised an eyebrow.

“People who would make the normal devils want to escape hell just to get away from them”, grinned Azrael, as Buddha laughed, and Zina held him close. “You didn’t see Uriel, or at least what he became, and be thankful to all the Gods that this is the case. I still have nightmares”, he shivered.

“In any case, I have the two of you to rely upon until I get the hang of it”, nodded Siddhartha.

“Speaking of which, here we come”, Azrael pointed.