Viandros

 

In Kuf, there is a religion known as Viandros.  I'll admit right off the bat that I don't understand the complexities of this religion, but from what I gather, the central tenet of Viandros is the cultivation of Shush.  I get the impression that Shush means something like "spirituality," though the connotations seem to be a little different than in English, and some Viandrists maintain that Shush cannot be cultivated - that you already have it, but you may not fully understand this, or be able to express this in language.  Perhaps Shush might mean something more like "consciousness"?

There are several sects of Viandros.  There are a few that are classified as Nachoric.  From what I hear, these people believe that the material world doesn't exist - it is nothing but an illusion - though I never spoke to any Nachoric Viandrists, so reports of them are purely secondhand.  Apparently, centuries ago, Nachoric Viandrists were very popular, but then they were extremely persecuted.  These sects became illegal, and people caught performing their ceremonies were put to death.  Even people who were not Nachoric Viandrists were falsely accused of being Nachoric, and people were sometimes tortured and forced to turn each other in as suspected secret Nachoric heretics.  Entire wars were fought between Nachoric and non-Nachoric Viandrists.  

But this time eventually passed.  Now Nachoric Viandrists are officially tolerated, yet they form a small minority of Viandrists, and there still seems to be a strong social stigma against them.  All of the Viandrists I spoke to were anxious to deny that they were Nachoric.  They seemed to regard it as a common and profoundly misguided stereotype among foreigners to assume that all Viandrists were Nachoric.  Perhaps I erred in the other direction: sometimes, I'll admit, I started to doubt whether Nachoric Viandrists ever even really existed.

As for the non-Nachoric Viandrist sects, though, there are many of them, and they all seem to oppose Nachoric Viandros in different ways.  There are massive tomes of Viandrist philosophy dedicated to refuting the Nachoric error.  These tended to be densely written and full of specialized technical vocabulary.  I tried leafing through a couple, but I couldn't make heads or tails of them.  The general gist of it, I think, was that most modern-day Viandrists regard the Nachoric Viandrists as being correct to consider Shush as centrally important, but wrong to reject the material world as unreal.  I think it's fair to say that thus far, most modern (non-Nachoric) Viandrists agree.

Viandrists talk about kati, which could be translated as "distinguishing" or "distinction."  The essence of their spiritual practice consists of distinguishing Shush from everything else.  For Viandrists, Shush is not the same as perception, not the same as memory, not the same as emotion, not the same as imagination, and not the same as thought.  (These are known as the five gapa, literally "apertures," and there are further subdivisions in the literature.)  A Nachoric Viandrist would say that thought, perception, emotion, and memory are all mere illusion - they simply don't exist.  (Indeed, I hear that some Nachoric Viandrists believed that thought, imagination, perception, emotion, and memory are all creations of demons known as Arbadi, whose goal is to deceive and confuse us.)  Non-Nachoric Viandrists don't go that far, but they still maintain that it is important to distinguish Shush from thought, perception, imagination, emotion, and memory.  They don't say that these are mere illusions, nor that they are evil, but still they consider it a matter of paramount importance to distinguish these from Shush - or else one would not know what Shush is.  Perhaps the point is that, although they are not necessarily illusions, they could be illusions - whereas Shush cannot be an illusion.  Everything other than Shush could be an illusion for Shush, but Shush itself is the witness to all of these phenomena (illusory or real).  In this sense, Shush has a quality known as anait, which sounds like it means something like "reliable," "real," or "permanent," though the Viandrists I met told me I was missing the point by translating it that way.  Complimentarily, imagination, thought, emotion, perception and memory are referred to as conait, that is, "transitory," "unreliable," or, more precisely, lacking the quality known as anait, though, again, non-Nachoric Viandrists insist that they do not deny the reality of the non-Shush world.  The world outside of Shush is real, in the everyday, mundane sense, but it is not anait.  Shush is no better or worse than the world outside of Shush.  They are just different.

Is this confusing?  It was for me.  Or was it?  One Viandrist I spoke to, by the name of Guoero, who happened to be a Fizhe, which is something like a monk, told me that Viandrists do not cultivate Shush - that Shush is always already fully what it is, and requires no development.  And furthermore, he told me that deep down, I was not confused about the distinction between Shush and the conait gapa - that everyone, in fact, deep down, understood all of this, but that sometimes those who have not practiced sufficient kati will become confused - not about the reality that these terms describe, but only tangled up in the unclearly defined words used to describe them.  This is merely a confusion of language, and nothing more. 

Maybe so, but I was still confused.  Or, perhaps Guoero is right - it isn't me that is confused, but rather my words are confused.  Perhaps if I learned to use the vocabulary of Viandros more fluently, all of my confusion would disappear.  Guoero told me that I shouldn't think of the conait world as more transitory, whereas Shush is forever - that may or may not be true, he admitted, but in any case it's not the point.  Shush could end at any moment, and everything else could end at any moment, and the fundamental difference would remain.  The essential difference is merely that they lack anait - that they theoretically could be illusory (though Guoero did not believe that they were illusory), whereas Shush cannot be an illusion - that is what defines it.  He also told me that I should not think of the rest of the world as being "outside" of Shush, because the correct kati (distinction) between the two was not a difference of location.  I should not think of them as occupying a different space, nor as occurring at a different time.  The only difference is anait.  

Brian quipped, "The only thing separating the spiritual world from the material world is that it is spiritual."  Guoero merely closed his eyes and shook his head.

Somewhere around this point in the conversation, I remarked that this all sounded like Buddhism - especially the "Zen" variety.

"No, no," said Brian, "You've completely missed the point.  Viandros is like the opposite of Zen Buddhism.  Those Buddhists preach non-dualism.  Buddhists seek to be one with everything.  Whereas the Viandrists are strict dualists.  Kati - the radical separation of Shush from the rest of the conait world - is the central tenet of their faith."

"That's right," said Guoero, "We are very different - though maybe I wouldn't go so far as to say that we are opposites.  I've met and talked to some Buddhists, and I'd say our communities get along very well.  I've had some fascinating conversation with Buddhists."

"Maybe it's both," offered Kerala.  "The same and the opposite."

Guoero is a member of the Tatsva sect of Viandros.  There are many, many sects - perhaps hundreds, some still active, some more or less extinct. (There are also people - probably a majority of the population - who are called "Tovain Viandrists" - literally, "dust cloud Viandrists" - who do not belong to any particular sect, but who pick up bits and pieces of the ideas of various sects, without committing themselves fully to any one of them.)  

The Tatsva are regarded as practicing a very pure, elite, intellectual, yet traditional form of Viandros, associated with the metropolitan upper class.  A Tatsva Fizhe is not a monk in the ordinary sense.  They take no vow of chastity or poverty, and for the most part do not live in separate living spaces from the rest of the community.  There is a monastery, a sacred building known as a komporat, but Fizhe typically do not live there.  Guoero wore very western-style clothing - a crisply pressed button-down shirt, slacks, and designer sneakers.  The only signifier that he is a Fizhe is his garas, a special ceremonial earring dangling from the upper part of his left ear.  I was surprised to learn that to earn his garas, Guoero only needed to perform a keralaji, which is essentially a somewhat ritualized 10 week course, in which aspiring Fizhe minutely study a forty-six page text known as the Ikamvirat, written by a deeply revered, semi-legendary 15th century monk known as Thumvatios, carefully practicing the mental exercises that Thumvatios describes and being tested by their Totim, or teachers.  After this, they may return to their lives, go to work, have hobbies, get married, have children, or whatever they wish.  

It is recommended, though not required, that Fizhe return to their komporat once a year for a three-day event known as Tetizhong.  On the first two days of Tetizhong, Fizhe spend a few hours performing shesilaji - essentially, brushing up and being retested on what they learned back during their keralaji.  Literally, keralaji means "first reminder," and shesilaji means "subsequent reminder," because Viandrists believe that babies are born understanding the tenets of Viandros.  (Apparently, the chief Totim of Guoero's komporat likes to give long-winded speeches on the first day of Tetizhong, wandering away from issues of spirituality and into areas of politics.)  On the third day, all of the Fizhe of the komporat stand and, in unison, and in front of the entire assembled townsfolk, recite the perisha - a brief encapsulation of the tenets of Viandros, memorized by all Fizhe and many non-Fizhe.  ("Memory is not anait, but it is still important!" says Guoero.)  They all recite: "I am not my body.  I am not my thoughts.  I am not my memories.  I am not my emotions," and so on.  This is usually done in a beautifully decorated central hall of the komporat, lit by thousands of candles.  It only takes about 20 minutes, and is followed by the entire community spending the rest of the day feasting, drinking, dancing, and lighting fireworks until the wee hours.

In Guoero's own case, he completed the keralaji in his twenties, and chose to continue this semi-monastic life for a few more years, studying other sacred scriptures in the Tatsva canon, and also performing the bekilaji, a similar, somewhat longer process wherein Fizhe who have already completed the keralaji learn how to teach it to other people.  (It is widely believed that if the keralaji is improperly taught, it can be deeply spiritually destructive and even dangerous.)  He also acts as a caretaker to the property of his komporat, in his spare time - he is a software engineer and a father of four.