Church of Echad/The Bashaf
The Bashaf
The Bashaf
~Tsuherer Chayyim~
The Book of Chayyim I
It was seven full moons ago this evening when Echad sent the first of his messages to me in a vision. Since then I have had three more that have made it clear that my task is to chronicle what Echad has shown me. Tonight, I begin this task and will continue it for as long as Echad wills. ~ Chyyim
Vision One:
It is not dark, for there is no darkness; and yet there is no light. There are no sounds, there are no smells, it is quiet. I am cool, though, and I feel warmth ever so slightly and it grows more and more, as if I am moving toward something of producing this warmth. However, I have no sense of moving, no sense of sitting or standing or lying down. I know not where I am. The warmth grows greater and soon I am quite hot; just as I begin to fear that my skin will burst aflame, the heat dissipates into a pleasant embrace.
It is now that I realize I am observing the Almighty before all time began. I exist in this embrace for what seems an age. Slowly though, my eyes are made aware of a purple aura in front of me. I do not see it as you and I would think of seeing something, I am merely aware of its existence and I am both comforted and overwhelmed by its power. I am a man who has felt the power of the One and I am a man forever changed.
Vision Two:
I have returned to the embrace of Echad, and it satiates me. Indeed, a soul could exist for a thousand lifetimes here and never find want. I am lost in my content when suddenly I am struck with an uncontrollable weeping. However, this weeping is not out of pain or sadness or loss, but of awe. The awesome beauty of Himself has been revealed to me. I have been swirled among his waves of and pulled by the undertow of his strength. His full being has been stamped upon my heart and I am spit back out upon a precipice.
Over this precipice is a very long drop, the bottom of which I cannot see or feel. I soon realize that I am at the edge of the dwelling of Echad and that he wishes me to leave his presence, for what I am not sure. Have I angered the Almighty? Without much consideration, I roll off of the precipice and fall. As I fall I become acutely aware of my increasing separation from the One. It becomes more and more severe. I begin to feel pain and anguish and anxiety. I fall for a lifetime and begin to cry out for death and for end and for the earth to quickly come up beneath so that the crush of my bones will liberate me from the pain inside my soul. Finally, I cry out, “Almighty! Oh powerful and grand One! Embrace me and end my eternal agony!” At once, I was once again surrounded in the warmth of His beauty and I realize that my lifetime of suffering was no cruel force inflicting evil upon me, but the mere separation and distance between myself and Echad. I could have ended my torment in an instant once it began by only calling out His name.
Vision Three:
My soul feels young again, though I am an old man, I know. My time in His presence has renewed me and I wish to never leave it. I am brought to a world, though whether it is wholly real or not I cannot say. I am placed into a field, thought it is like no fields you or I have seen on our earth. There are reds, and greens, and golds flourishing around within it and ground under my bare feet is wet. I can feel the command of Echad, and the world changes, it shifts, a great force of what seems water and earth erupts into the skies farther than I can see. Another force encircles me and I am acutely aware of hunger in my stomach. I feel thinner, even. The force of green brings to me a purple fruit; I partake of it and I feel fuller than I ever have.
Echad then presents to me the enormity of this place. It stretches farther than seas of home. It is beautiful, and I can see the beauty of the One within it. Just as I begin to grasp this beauty, it is gone. Echad has washed it away in an instant. Echad is truly all-powerful, he is truly divine, and he is truly magnificent. He has existed for all time and is the artisan of any and all existence. I am exhausted from what he has shown me, and I fall back into his warmth once again.
Vision Four:
Oddly, I sense that my time with Echad will soon end. He imparts to me the sense of finality. I am comforted though, for I know upon my return that I will have many great tasks to perform in the name of Echad. He will not leave me and I will receive his calm and his instruction.
His booming voice humbles me. “I am and have always been. You shall bring this story to all peoples. You know me greater than any of your people ever will again, until the end of time. Tell them of me, for they have lost me.”
I am given a brief view of Echad in all of His power and His majesty. I have not words to describe it or to describe the feeling that shook me. I both shrunk away and spilled my insides wishing only to possess Echad inside my own being. My hair was turned white, where it was brown, and my eyes turned gray, where they were brown. I remain such, to this day, and suspect I shall always be so. His full glory was then removed from my view and I worshipped for yet another lifetime. At the end of this worship I am drawn back into the embrace and a grasp onto it for I know it will be the last of its kind.
The Book of Chayyim II
After my fourth vision, the visions ceased for almost one year and I did not hear from Echad, though I knew he was with me and prayed to him daily. My family has been blessed with bountiful harvests this year. Yesterday, Echad’s voice came to me once more, he told me the great story and that I was to write it down for all to know. ~ Chayyim
Echad is almighty. Echad is beautiful. Echad is alone. For eons Echad has existed in all of his glory, he has shifted and created and destroyed the heavens at will and formed splendid and marvelous things for his own pleasure.
The Land of Sheynkeyt
In the great dark,
between seven stars.
Water poured over mountains high, flying
near and far and over and under,
gliding through glade and plain.
The fields abounded with color and ray.
Screeching high and scraping
the passing stars and
full of ice.
The mountains tumbled and
would be reborn,
thrust deep into the heavens.
It was beautiful and dark,
The Land of Sheynkeyt.
While these things are far more spectacular than the mind of man could ever hope to create or even perceive, after some time they soon were not enough to please and satisfy Echad. Echad needed to create something more and something with life, something containing a shimmer of his own beauty, something to recognize the almighty and the glory and the beauty of Echad and to worship him for it. To glorify Echad for all that he is.
To this end, Echad took four of his finest creations, four stars of great size and brightness. The four were given different qualities, they were qualities that Echad himself possessed and he shared them, in small fractions, with his creations. Into the first he poured his love for creating, his passion for beauty, and his desire to see magnificence come from nothing. The second was smaller than the rest, though it shared Echad’s wisdom and intelligence. The third was stronger than the rest and it adored the power and almighty of Echad perhaps more than the other three. The last was the most beautiful and garnered Echad’s affections more than the first three. He named them the Ersht, and he loved him.
It was for thousands of years that the Ersht lived in the presence of Echad. Echad cared for and created for the Echad many places of wonder and magnificence, and the Ersht worshipped Echad in all his might and glory.
The Ersht were called to worship,
The Ersht were called to pray,
For Echad was master of all
And made the Ersht beautiful.
They fell to their knees under His power,
His splendor overtook them,
But Echad loved the Ersht,
They were his prized creation.
They sang to Him,
“Oh, Great One!
Your glory is never ending!
Oh, Echad, master o’ me,
Never send me away,
Never release me from your embrace!”
They lived, master and creation, in perfect harmony and in perfect love for eons and it seemed nothing would break the eternal bond. Indeed, most of the visible heavens themselves were created in the time of the courting between Echad and the Ersht as places for the Ersht to live and to walk and to wonder at Echad’s awesome power.
The Book of Chayyim III
The Ersht worshipped Echad for ages, as they were created to do, and Echad loved them, as they were his and he gave them their life. Eventually, Echad decided that more life should be created in the universe. He decided that the Ersht were so great that he should give more life to even newer beings. This time, however, Echad would create far lesser beings in power and beauty and intelligence, though they still possessed a small part of these things inherent from Echad, and He would create many of them. Echad spent three thousand years crafting the earth into the perfect and most beautiful home for his new creations. He them placed humans upon this earth. Echad commanded the Ersht to pass on to these lesser creatures the worship of Echad and all of his almighty. He allowed the Ersht to rule the humans, providing them guidance and knowledge and instruction on how to connect with Echad.
An eon passed, and Echad loved the humans. They were special to Him and they grew to know Echad to wonder at his being. They worshipped Echad for his power and the reach of his existence that was hardly fathomable to the humans. The Ersht watched and continued to praise Echad, but they knew something was different now, the Ersht were no longer the center of Echad’s favor and attention and energy, and although Echad’s love is complete and infinite, the seeds of jealousy were sown into their souls.
The Ersht of power was the first to betray Echad. However, this betrayal was a deeply contrived one. Over the lives of a couple generations of humans he began to breed lies into their minds. He told them falsehoods that increased in scale with each successive generation and were built upon more and more lies. The Ersht of power eventually proclaimed himself a god and demanded the people worship him. He had destroyed all knowledge within them of the power and love of Echad. His corrupted humans formed their own nations and began warring against the other humans. Soon, the other Ersht caught on and found their own human nations and proclaimed themselves gods to them. The human world had lost its connection and knowledge of Echad, and they were lost in war and deprivation and deception.
Echad was engulfed in heartbreak and anger. His beloved Ersht had betrayed and turned against him. Worse even, they had turned his precious human peoples against him and against each other. The human earth was now dark and it lacked the spirit and heart of Echad. Echad banished the Ersht from their heavenly dwellings and they were forced to live upon the earth, where they were slowly transformed, because of their disconnection from Echad, into hateful and spiteful creatures. They fought each other and their human devotees fought in their name. They gave themselves names and claimed false powers and embedded lies and false rituals to the people. The Ersht had fallen and Echad forsake the human world and left them to destroy themselves at the hands of the Esrht.
Though, the love of Echad is never ending, and when His period of one thousand year mourning ended for the loss of the Ersht and of the humans, he decided he would bring his message back to mankind, and let them redeem themselves. And so, I, Chayyim, have been entrusted and chosen by Echad to bring His knowledge and message back to His people.
