“Now I welcome you to the Meditation Center, and I remind you all as I have so often that you are not being spied upon here in these halls or theaters, that what you say is not being recorded, that it is not for the benefit of anyone but yourselves, and that these places exist for you and you alone and what you would make of them.”

The face was gone as suddenly as it had appeared, and we were left breathless and silent with this first glimpse of the creature we had come to admonish and destroy, and wondering if it was true that we could share our thoughts with one another in this theater.

I wish I had hours to describe what then happened, how pictograph writing appeared on the screen as a succession of human beings took the floor to discourse on the definition of evil and to recount their own personal triumphs or defeats.

“Evil is that which goes against life,” said the first speaker, apparently reading a statement in the pictographs on the screen. “Evil is anything that goes against life, harms life, stifles life, destroys life. Evil is bringing harm to another person, inflicting unnecessary pain, suffering, or confusion. All evil comes from this. This is the root of all evil.”

This struck us as profoundly beautiful. We found ourselves nodding just as others were nodding around the auditorium. We also pondered the pictographs. We had seen them in other places and thought them mere decoration. We each independently sought to memorize what was on the screen.

After that, people spoke up about their personal sufferings, the loss of a mother, the loss of a child, a disappointment in the workplace, an innate and debilitating melancholy which they could not cure. They spoke of losing a lover or a spouse. Others listened in almost total silence. But people nodded; tears were shed. Finally people began to sing. For the first time the screen was changed, and flooded with new pictographs and the people chanted in their untutored voices, echoing the beautiful music we had heard before we were actually born.

We joined in this singing, easily following the repetitive lyrics, though we could not yet read the writing. “Behold, we sing the song of life most beautiful; behold, we sing the song of the flowers of the field and the trees of the forest, and the splendor of Atalantaya and the splendor of a child’s smile. Behold, we sing the song of harmony and unity. Behold, we sing the song of life itself.”

When we went back out into the streets, Derek walked up to a man and asked him, “Who rules Atalantaya? And how is it done?”

The man said, “Well, no one really, at least not in the way that you ask. Amel is the Great One, but Amel does not necessarily rule.” The man then talked on easily of councils and rulers, and representatives from this or that area of the city and from the Wilderness lands. “Amel’s will is absolute, but he seldom asserts it, and usually only when there has been a ghastly crime committed, and even then he invites the councils high and low to review his decision.”