Yamlok: The Realm Of The Dead

Chapter 3

The Holy Mother Of All Rivers, Ganga had powerful waters. She washed away all the sins. With her roaring waters, She could wash away the entire being. She started her journey through the three realms from the Devlok. She travelled to the Prithvilok and then into the Yamlok. 

None of the Rakshaks knew where She went after that but Her waters were beautiful.

She was as tender as any mother, taking away all the souls back to the Devlok where they belonged. No one in the Yamlok had ever seen Her materialize into a womanly body but they were told that She was gorgeous. 

Anamika liked to imagine Her as a tall woman clothed in a blue fabric that merged with the waters. She imagined the goddess to be adorned with earrings of beautiful white flowers. She thought that jasmine would suit the goddess very well. Her black tresses flowing down Her back like a waterfall. Her doe eyes smiling with love.

Anamika had never seen anyone lay in the holy waters. If someone went there, they never came back. When their time had run out, they would go to the river and surrender themselves to the Mother who guided them to where they belonged.

Their only weakness was the water from this River. Their weapons did no harm to them.

If there was anything Anamika feared, it was losing Laksh. She feared one day she would come to know that he had surrendered himself to the Mother. She would be alone. Laksh had assured her that his time had not yet come.

It was something she found odd. They knew when they had to give themselves back. They knew what they had done to be there, and knew exactly when they would leave but they were forbidden to speak about it. It was a crime to talk about one's past life, the life on the Prithvilok. 

So even her brother-in-arms, the closest to her, was a mystery to her. 

Laksh had told her not to worry about it because it would do no good. 'There wasn't much anyway,' he would say staring at the walls of the fort- but she knew it was the other way around. Too much had happened to Laksh, so much that he wanted to forget it. Anamika never asked him about it ever again but she couldn't help thinking about the same.

They didn't eat, they didn't drink. They were just pure energy, urja but that did not mean that they didn't need rest. 

Their urja was channelled from the Great Divine, the Paramaatma. 

Each and every soul, no matter which lok they resided in, sustained on this energy. It was the energy that kept the sun in its place and the planets around it. It was the reason the cosmos was so perfectly timed and settled.

In all the realms except the Prithvilok, the souls were able to draw energy from the soil they stood on. Only souls in Prithvilok could float. That's why the beings there needed a shell to keep them functioning and anchored.

That gave the dead some advantage. They were fast and virtually unstoppable, but they were not the only ones with that advantage.

'You know the way one can really exist is not exist at all?' Laksh pulled her out of her thoughts. When they weren't hunting or at each other's necks, they talked about all kind of things. It was mostly him, Anamika just liked to listen.

'You dedicate yourself to the Paramaatma and you exist. Infinitely. Indefinitely.'

Anamika was confused. The state of being 'infinite' was explained by him a long time ago when she had just arrived. Honestly, she found it rather puzzling. He had told her that it was a state where one saw everything, but nothing; where one heard everything, but nothing; one who understood everything, but nothing. She had asked him about it. He had simply told her that a time would come when she would learn about it herself.