Echoes of Godhead


A perception-pattern for your perusal: the splintering of primary Godhead and its echoes throughout existence. Not one Godhead, but many.

Tier zero: Fundamental Godhead in sensory deprivation


http://www.imperial-library.info/content/loveletter-fifth-era-true-purpose-tamriel - All creation is subgradient. First was Void, which became split by AE. Anu and Padomay came next and with their first brush came the Aurbis.
C0DA translation: if all previous gradients continue along this path, especially given that there is now a centerpoint, impossible Mundus, the process of continuation can be pre-figured.

The zero^th gradient of existence is Fundamental Godhead. Creation is subgradient. By this, we can see that Godhead must be repeated within existence. The first subgradient of Godhead is Aurbis, born from the conjunction of the Anu and Padhomay splinters.

Tier one: Aurbis


http://www.imperial-library.info/content/vehks-teaching - Anu and Padhome, stasis and change, both vast realms sitting in the void, they created it. Not vast, infinite, as the void was infinite. Imagine an infinity enclosed by another; you come away with a bubble. Now watch as the two bubbles touch. Their intersection is a perfect circle of pattern and possibility that we shall call the Aurbis.

Anu’s firstborn, for he mostly desired order, was time, anon Akatosh. Padhome’s firstborn went wandering from the start, changing as he went, and wanted no name but was branded with Lorkhan. As time allowed more and more patterns to individualize, Lorkhan watched the Aurbis shape itself and grew equally delighted and tired with each new shaping. As the gods and demons of the Aurbis erupted, the get of Padhome tried to leave it all behind for he wanted all of it and none of it all at once. It was then that he came to the border of the Aurbis.

He saw the Tower, for a circle turned sideways is an “I”. This was the first word of Lorkhan and he would never, ever forget it.

The ‘I’ Lorkhan saw was the individuality of Aurbis. Aurbis was an individual. This is the implication of Eat the Dreamer, below; specifically of the bolded portions. That the author of this document calls him Aka and not Aurbis is a consequence of the cited amnesia of Convention.

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/etada-eight-aedra-eat-dreamer - The Aedroth Aka, who goes by so many names as to perhaps already suggest what I'm about to commit to memospore, is completely insane. His mind broke when his "perch from Eternity allowed the day" and we of all the Aurbis live on through its fragments, ensnared in the temporal writings and erasures of the acausal whim that he begat by saying "I AM". In the aetheric thunder of self-applause that followed (nay, rippled until convention, that is, amnesia), is it any wonder that the Time God would hate the same-twin on the other end of the aurbrilical cord, the Space God? That any Creation would become so utterly dangerous because of that singular fear of a singular word's addition: "I AM NOT"?

The moment described in Eat the Dreamer is the same moment as described in Vehk’s teachings [2]; the moment in which Lorkhan, one thought-aspect of Aurbis, went outside of himself and witnessed his own individuality. And in so doing, shattered that individuality. The declaration of Aedroth Aka, “I AM,” was simultaneous with Lorkhan’s declaration “I AM NOT;” for the declaration was made by one being – and it shattered that being. Note – ‘I’ was Lorkhan’s first word, in the sense that it was the first he spoke as an independent being. Aurbis could not view himself without stepping outside of himself and splintering off a piece of his being. This propagated further fracturing of his identity, and is the first echo of Godhead.

Tier two: Mundus


http://www.imperial-library.info/content/loveletter-fifth-era-true-purpose-tamriel - We begin to see the first inkling of emergence, which by its nature requires the merging of two-fold powers. Inevitably, this leads to another gradient, but this time by forceful process: the Trap of the Lunar God. The Aedra are Named at this time, having lent their hands to what was to be the arena of the eternally impossible: Mundus, or Exactness.

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/vehks-teaching - We are the hub, the Mundus that goes by many names. We are the heart of all creation. What does this mean? Why should we care? Lorkhan created it so that we could find what he did. In fact, and here is the secret: the hub is the reflection of its creators, the circle within the circle, only the border to ours is so much easier to see.

In echo of the first tier, of the conjunction of Anu and Padhomay, the Mundus was created from the conjunction of many fragment-spirits of Aurbis. This predates Convention; see below.

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/nu-mantia-intercept-letter-4- Auriel-that-is-Akatosh returned to Mundex Arena from his dominion planet, signaling all Aedra to convene at a static meeting that would last outside of aurbic time. […] The outcome of the Convention was to leave the terrestrial sphere in their excess, for its own good, but that it should last after their departure as in the semblance of the Ada-mantia.

Mundus, pre-Convention, was an individual – the second gradient of Godhead [4]. Convention was the act of its sundering unto multiplicity; this is the meaning of the departure of the Aedra. The Aedra of the after-Dawn are not the Aedra of Aurbis; they are fragments of Mundus’ special divinity, and only echoes of the original spirits.

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/nu-mantia-intercept-letter-5 - Ada-mantia was the first spike of unassailable reality in the Dawn, otherwise called the Zero Stone. The powers at Ada-mantia were able to determine through this Stone the spread of creation and their parts in it.

The powers also created Red Tower and the First Stone. This allowed the Mundus to exist without the full presence of the divine. In this way, the powers of Ada-mantia granted the Mundus a special kind of divinity, which is called NIRN, the consequence of variable fate.

After these two acts, which is commonly called the Convention, the gods left the earth.

The importance of Convention cannot be overstated. It is what separates the Mundus from the previous tiers of shattered Godhead. It is, in essence, an eternal, immutable memory of the Mundus’ original, integrated individuality. This is what is meant by NIRN’s special divinity; the sentence does not refer solely to the creation of the Ur-Tower, but to all of Convention. Lacking this, the Godheads of higher gradients could not and cannot re-aggregate into singular personalities. Mundus, however, can and does.

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/thirty-six-lessons-vivec-sermon-thirty-five- Subsequent are the revisions, differentiated between hope and the distraught, situations that are only required by the periodic death of the immutable. Cosmic time is repeated: I wrote of this in an earlier life.

All of Mundane existence is a falling back toward this higher individuality, toward this special divinity, drawn by the gravity of the memory of intraqersonal intimacy – only to be shattered by the immutability of the memory’s recorded sundering [7]. This is cosmic time repeated; this is kalpa. This is the re-realization of Mundus’ divine, conjugated individuality. This is recurring Dawn.

Tier three: N/A (ALMSIVI, Sharmat, Talos, Nerevarine, Numidium, etc.)

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/vehks-teaching- At its simplest, the state of chim provides an escape from all known laws of the divine worlds and the corruptions of the black sea of Oblivion. It is a return to the first brush of Anu-Padomay, where stasis and change created possibility. […] The world you stand on is said to be the first attempt at chim. […]Why would Lorkhan and his (unwitting?) agents sabotage their experiments with the Tower? Why would he crumble that which he esteems?

Perhaps he failed so you might know how not to.

This has been well established: Mundus was an attempt to re-aggregate to the individual Aurbis – an echo of the attempt to re-aggregate toward principal Godhead which created Aurbis in the first place. Like Aurbis, the attempt was a failure. It failed because not all Aurbical thought-fragments joined in the effort, just as Aurbis failed because not all of Anu and Padhomay conjugated. Still, the Mundus is more of a success than Aurbis by virtue of Convention’s recursion; at least the individual personality of Mundus is flickeringly there instead of there once and shattered forever after.

Thus far, there is no true echo of a third-tier Godhead. There have been multiple achievements of apotheosis – most are obviously conjugative (Talos/enantiomorph, Numidium/Dwemer, Ayem/Kyne and Dibella and Mara and Daedra, Nerevarine/Pantheon of Incarnate spirits, Dagoth Ur/creation subsumed in the dream of Flesh). None of these, however, has completed the echo by shattering into subgradient thought-fragments.

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/vehks-teaching- Here were the etada with their magic and their voids and everything in between and he yearned for the return to flux but at the same time he could not bear to lose his identity.

Lorkhan desired both reintegration and individual identity. This is why the echo of Godhead has not been completed by any ascended mortal; the impossipoint of Convention, the recurring memory of individuality, stabilizes their individual identities. By oscillating between sundering and conjugation in the kalpic system, ascended mortals are able to avoid the realization of subgradient multiplicity. This is the partial success of Lorkhan’s endeavor.

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/forum-archives-michael-kirkbride - To the close dreamers, don't forget the Amaranth. There *is* one step beyond CHIM, but you're right in that it is not godhood. It's the flowering of a statehood where the images you give birth to in your dream-- stolen (?) from first dreamer-- wakes up. Wails knowing free will. And begins to dream in the same way. Children of liberty without end, and then the music lives forever as a pirate radio tuned against the rules of Heaven and the vulgarities of Hell.

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/loveletter-fifth-era-true-purpose-tamriel - The New Man becomes God becomes Amaranth, everlasting hypnogogic.

Amaranth is the true fulfillment of Lorkhan’s goal, and is, too, an echo of Godhead – but a twisted echo; creation without the sundering of the dreamer. Amaranth: unfading and eternal. Birth without detraction from Godhead.

Summary

Thus goes the pattern: Individual Godhead exists. It is sundered into separate subgradient personalities. These personalities conjugate with each other, forming a composite being that is a partial return to higher integration. This composite being is a subgradient Godhead. At some point it shatters, and the cycle is repeated.

Godhead and its sundering has and does echo through existence. To date, there are two full echoes: Aurbis and Mundus. Each of these was, at one time or many, a distinct entity. Each shattered into many thought fragments. Aurbis does not reform, but the Mundus does, by virtue of Convention. Convention is the spire of love and all the rest of the gifts of the Aedra , the immutable memory of Mundus’ individuality to which the plane returns at the end of each kalpa (the Dawn). Convention is what grants Mundus its special divinity and differentiates it from Aurbis. None of the subgradients of Mundus have re-enacted the Godhead fully. Amaranth will be that fulfillment, but without the necessity of the dreaming subgradient Godhead’s destruction.

States of Love Beyond the Flower

This space reserved. The promise is made;

Signed and Milked and Sworn.

As usual Dinmenel, this is just awesome. I never thought of the aurbis as an "identity before. This clears up even more that what I've understood before.

This is a genuinely interesting and well-structured interpretation, and I think it gives greater meaning to the cycle than the dogmatic "It Is that It Is." I think i'm fondest of it, however, for the implication it offers on the world-views of the different cultures, but specifically the Altmer/Thalmor; their goal is ultimately unattainable, not only because their forebears were never Et'Ada to begin with, but shadow-splinters of NIRN, but also because in the process of attempting to break the circle-within-the-circle, they assure only their own erasure and the subsequent Convention. They seek the Eternal through Dissolution, but attain only [NULL].

Well done. I assume this will find its way into the Library.


Amaranth is the true fulfillment of Lorkhan’s goal, and is, too, an echo of Godhead – but a twisted echo; creation without the sundering of the dreamer. Amaranth: unfading and eternal. Birth without detraction from Godhead.

Sweet.