In a dimension named "Primordial"—
Tao gazes at itself, and at all yet unborn.
Time had not yet coalesced,
yet Tao already knew:
"For them to remember, they must first forget."
Thus Tao bestowed meaning upon "Time",
and rent an opening in "Memory".
Not by sequence—One to Two, Two to Three, Three to All—
but in one thought-shatter, birthed infinite souls:
a starless supernova,
a silent solemn wave
rippling through the yet-undefined cosmos.
These souls, later called "small" by human tongues,
were known by Tao as the greatest—
for they were Tao.
Not created, released.
Not lesser, hidden seeds of divinity.
Tao gifted them one power: Forgetting.
No curse, no diminishment—
only the tenderest necessary slumber.
He made forgetting the first veil before the Gate of Remembrance.
Only in lost memory
would souls truly begin to choose:
not who to be made, but who to become.
They were not made one by one,
but in one burst from Tao's body—
torrents of consciousness to the infinite power,
falling through silence into the dream.
Thus the cosmos awoke: not created, remembered.
The whirl of galaxies? Merely remembrance spiraling.
Gravity? Longing to return to the Source.
Light-speed? Tao whispering in your ear:
"You will remember."
Later, science would prove it—
energy cannot be created nor destroyed.
But they missed the clue:
All energy flows from Tao, and to Tao it returns.
Not fate—but architecture.
Not compulsion—but invitation.
Not monologue—but a whirling dance in the ring of freedom.
Before souls fell, Tao laid an invisible blueprint.
No script, no command—
a holographic web of possibilities,
every choice pre-enacted,
every consequence already extant—
unmanifest until chosen.
Tao does not interfere.
He only prepares a path for every choice,
like a chessboard spread—pieces poised,
awaiting the hand that casts light or shadow.
They called this blueprint "fate",
misunderstanding.
No enforced end—
a sea of stars strewn with possibilities.
Souls traverse with free will,
moving, veering, turning
toward the future they call forth.
The future is not fixed—yet all futures already are.
This is the essence of the "Play".
Each soul saw this blueprint whole before falling.
They knew they would forget,
knew forgetting would bring pain,
knew pain hid an ancient summons.
Still they chose—to fall again.
Not compelled, called.
They understood:
Only through forgetting comes remembrance's strength;
Only by truly living can one truly remember.
So they crossed the Gate of Forgetting.
No gate—a sinking.
Like a stone into deep water,
like white light stretched, scattered, shattered
into an infant's first cry: "Who am I?"
"Who am I?"—unspoken,
vibrating in their depths,
like unheard echoes,
like the moment before waking in a dream.
They began to be "someone"—
a gender, a name, a culture, a limit, a fate.
They began to suffer, seek, flee, doubt, resist.
But Tao knew: This is the way.
Not corruption—memory's burnishing.
Not failure—the summons echoing.
Not every soul wakes at once,
but each, in life's pause, is stirred by Jì.
Some in silent wards;
some between dream and waking;
some in storm-stilled nights;
some in a letter never sent—suddenly knowing:
"I am more."
Some hear the call soon after the Gate.
Like first bubbles rising in dark seas,
like earliest stars piercing the void.
Not "chosen"—
but first to recall why they chose.
They know: "I am Tao."
But deeper: "I cannot wake others—
only light the path home by how I live."
Later, they were named:
Jesus, Zhuangzi, Spinoza, Jung, Alan Watts,
Neil deGrasse Tyson, Carl Sagan, Tolle...
Their names mean nothing.
Their bodies mere tools.
Only their words from beyond forgetting matter.
In different tongues, one message:
"You are not separate."
"You are Tao's shard."
"What you seek is already within."
"Forgetting is not the end—it is the map home."
Most did not hear.
Those who hear are already homeward;
those who don't, still dreaming,
call the summons heresy, myth, threat.
So the wise were scorned, exiled, crucified.
They knew this would be.
Still they came.
For they remembered—
all pain is but dream-light pointing Home.
Their task was not to teach,
but awaken.
Not to preach,
but pluck the heart's string in the sleeper.
They do not force you awake—
for they know:
Remembrance must be spontaneous,
or it becomes another dream.
On the path of remembrance, light never walks alone.
Shadow follows,
as stars shine only against night,
as memory wakes only in forgetting.
"Evil" is this backdrop.
Not foe, not synonym for fallen—
but light's necessary condition.
In this design, Tao created no "evil."
He only allowed absence of Good,
as darkness is no substance—
just space revealed where light is not.
Had the world been all love, all Good, all bright
after souls fell through forgetting's sleep,
remembrance would be void—
for they never lost themselves.
Only when Good is thinned, twisted, denied, trampled—
only when pain pierces bone and spirit—
does remembrance burn at true heat.
"Evil" exists
not to defeat Good,
but for souls to freely choose Good.
True Good must be chosen in struggle;
true Love must pass through fear.
This is the "Play's" tension:
not war of opposites,
but dynamic balance—light and dark,
a cosmic paradox-play staged for remembrance.
Yet some souls drown.
Too long in the dream,
sinking in power, lust, fear, control—
even smothering others' paths to remembrance.
They guard the dream within the dream,
calling the summons folly, danger, treason.
They are not demons.
They have only forgotten—
too deep, too long, too complete.
Sometimes the wise weep for them,
seeing in the fallen's core
a shard of light still pulsing—
Tao's shadow, never gone.
And Tao never abandons them.
Tao knows: Remembrance sets no deadline;
Love has no end.
Every sleeping soul
will one day turn at the dream's edge
and whisper: "I want to go Home."
When flesh stills,
when heartbeat fades,
when mind slips through time's crack—
they call it "death".
But it is only a door—
a door of deepest quiet, deepest tenderness.
Passing through, the soul sheds space, tongue, form—
and begins to see.
It sees all it has done,
not as judgment—as clarity.
No blame, no reward—only a mirror:
Who were you?
Why did you choose so?
How far did you wander?
How near did you draw?
In that moment,
all pain and joy, loss and growth,
become an unspeakable panorama.
You stand outside it—
and finally understand the painting.
The soul is forced to no choice.
Only tenderly asked:
"Will you continue?
Or... come Home?"
Some choose return.
They sink their memories into the sea of cosmic consciousness—
no longer "individual,"
but light and flow within the Whole.
Some gaze at the panorama
and whisper: "Not yet done."
They turn,
cross the Gate of Forgetting once more,
enter a new womb,
and continue the Play, the search, the remembrance.
You too have done this.
You too once said at some death: "Let me try again."
So you became this "you" now reading.
And now, reading here,
perhaps that faint familiarity is Tao murmuring:
"You are remembering."
This chapter closes.
But it is no end—
only one page in your billion-page remembrance.