Welcome back to the Book of Gleanings, being a part of The Kolbrin. In the last passage, we heard how Ancheti, Hurmanetar’s nephew, managed to win over the rather picky maid, Asarua. This section puts the focus back on Hurmanetar and tells of his death. As the passage progresses, Hurmanetar appears to take on more and more traits of the biblical Moses, and the story even includes a scene that will be immediately familiar to anyone who has been exposed to the story-line of the book of Exodus.
Well, several years have passed since the last instalment, and Hurmanetar and Ancheti (who, we may assume, has not messed up his probation period and is now wedded to Asarua) have upped sticks and migrated, along with their households and flocks, to ‘the land between the Great River of Sweet Waters and the Bitter Waters of the West’, which probably – given what comes later – describes the area between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea. In that place, Hurmanetar, feeling the onset of age and his own mortality (as well as – by the sounds of it – a healthy dose of existential dread) felt the urge to slide off by himself to get some one-on-one time with his god. And at this point the text starts to adopt a very mystical tone.
Hurmanetar found a place of solitude but the time honoured approaches of fasting and ‘casting his spirit’ (perhaps deep meditation or even astral travel?) didn’t get him any nearer an audience with the divine. He even tried dwelling in a cave (well, it had worked when he visited Yadol in the Underworld, hadn’t it?) but still found no joy; so Hurmanetar stomped off back to his encampment wondering what he’d done so wrong that he was being ignored like this. Grumping and moaning that he’d followed the instructions to contact god that were written down in the ‘Great Book’ (see previous chapters) he fell asleep. And had a dream. And what a dream it was:
In it, Hurmanetar saw the ‘Sacred Symbols’ (I am assuming these are the ones from the Great Book) laid out on a white linen cloth, and he assigned to each one its correct number. That prompted an ass to come up and eat the sacred symbols whereupon the ass turned into a falcon. The falcon then turned into a cow with a golden and a silver crown between its horns. The cow spoke to Hurmanetar, telling him to first drink its milk and then use the milk to ‘anoint’ his eyes so that they would ‘be opened’ and he would then ‘see’. In the dream, Hurmanetar did as he was bidden and then awoke. Now, The Kolbrin asserts that Hurmanetar was wise enough to know what all that dream symbolism actually meant. But the book then, without giving anything away, says that if we (yes, that’s us lot) understand what the dream was all about, then we, too, will understand what instruction is buried in the symbolism (and we’ll have a crack at that at the end of this passage).
Anyway, Hurmanetar set out for a lonely spot about a day’s journey distant, but half way there he stopped for a rest in the shade of a tree. And right there, in a scene straight out of Exodus, a massive lightning bolt struck the ground near Hurmanetar, temporarily blinding him, and the voice of god was heard, asking Hurmanetar why he was attempting to ‘open a door’ between the planes.
The next few sections involve Hurmanetar trying to get his god’s assurance that he is on the right spiritual path, and the god banging on about how he has been let down by mankind and giving humanity a bit of a dressing down. There is a lot left unsaid in this passage, but The Kolbrin does dangle some very tantalising tidbits. God gives Hurmanetar the reassurance he craves, but warns him about making the ‘concoctions which, when properly compounded, will enable men to span the spheres’ available to those who will misuse them, because, according to the god, they also have the effect to ‘give men near unlimited potency and extreme pleasure with woman-kind’. Wow! What on earth is being referred to here? Is it mind-bending drugs that bring on hallucinations, or something altogether more ‘holy’ that allows man free access between the dimensions and/or planes of existence? Or a combination of the two?
The god then goes on to mark the difference between Divine Love and love that is simply another word for the gratification of pleasure. All men, he says, having fallen from the path, can make their way back to Divine Love if they make the effort to conquer their passions (a common theme in many religions and philosophies). He also emphasises that mankind was once on a divine par with his creator-god, but opted to move away and make his own destiny, thereby throwing up a barrier between the planes. He talks, in mystical terms, about the perspective of time; how an entire age to man is but a single breath to the god, and compares mankind, as he has become, to children, who must be taught in the most simple terms in order for them to understand. And once again the Earth is described not as a playground but as a training ground, on which, if an individual tries hard enough, he can earn the right to penetrate the veil between dimensions.
Well, we’ve heard all that before in previous chapters, but The Kolbrin, like so many religious and philosophical works, does like to bang on repeatedly about its main messages in the hope that one or more of them may eventually stick. A bit like school teachers, really.
The god winds up the audience with Hurmanetar by telling him that he hasn’t too much longer to live, so he’d better get back and report to Ancheti everything they’d just discussed, because Ancheti, as ‘the sower of seeds’, was the new Chosen One. The god also says that he will ‘open a door in the barrier’ for the young man so that he could commune with the god, and then winds the whole conversation up with a phrase that comes straight out of the Moses burning bush episode in the book of Exodus: ‘I Am Who I Am’.
So, Hurmanetar returns to his encampment only to find the people in despair because the cattle have been eating a poisonous herb and are falling over dead left, right, and centre. The tribe feel that Hurmanetar’s god has not helped them and are considering making altars to other gods. Hurmanetar is, of course, incensed and reminds the people that all other gods are but single aspects of the one god (a very Hindu concept). Moreover, he reminds them that the one god passed the care of all things on Earth into the hands of men so they need look no further than their own negligence if they want to apportion blame for the problem. Having given the tribe a right old rollicking, Hurmanetar issues orders to divide up the pastures and uproot all the poisonous herbs, which, of course, results in a practical solution to the problem. Interestingly, part of Hurmanetar’s lecture to the people involved telling them that it was only animals made dumb by man’s careless handling of them – cattle and the like – that were eating the poisonous plant whereas wild animals knew instinctively to avoid the noxious weed. I guess that what The Kolbrin is alluding to here is the ancient philosophical concept of living according to the Law of Nature. Nature – in this case exemplified by wild animals – is pre-programmed to healthy and harmonious action. It is when the natural state is somehow altered and messed with that we run into problems. Our very messed up planet (I am writing in the time of Covid-19 and plastic-filled oceans) is ample testament to that concept.
This chapter of The Book of Gleanings suddenly starts jumping around thematically at this point. The storyline shifts abruptly to Hurmanetar preventing a tribesman from burying a newly born daughter alive because he could not afford to rear a family member who would be of little or no value later in life. The girl was saved and, although blinded from the sand that had filled her eyes, was adopted into the house of Ancheti and given the name Mahat.
In the next section, Hurmanetar advises Ancheti of his destiny and says the two of them and their households had better move on before the local tribesmen make the situation untenable. They decided to move on south, down what sounds like the Mediterranean coast, to a place called Basor where Hurmanetar died. Just before his final breath, Hurmanetar gave Ancheti instructions to travel onwards to a land that sounds like some kind of moral Utopia, where honesty would be rewarded and dishonesty punished, and only the good and the just would hold positions of power. But the twist was that Ancheti would have to do all the hard work and make that situation come to pass. And so Hurmanetar died and was buried deep in the earth and nobody knows where his tomb lies.
And here, all of a sudden, the passage ends with some fragments from other writings about Hurmanetar, for the authenticity of which, the author of this passage in The Kolbrin cannot vouch. The fragments are disjointed: one says Hurmanetar was buried in the land of Philistia (Philistine?); another says the stone of ‘Makilim’ is at Bethgal now; yet another says that the deeds of Yadol and Hurmanetar can be found more fully documented in the ‘Tales of the Hithites (Hittites)’; the shield of Ancheti was called ‘The Big Shaker’ and on it was painted a mud-hopping bird whose footprints men turned into writing (some kind of Cuneiform perhaps?).
The passage concludes with the story that the blind girl, Mahat, guided Ancheti to a land called Okichia, and she later went on to become a great judge. The final statement is that the author of this chapter of The Kolbrin will now abandon the tale of Ancheti who, it seems, in the land of Okichia, had found a land full of barbarity – eating of new-born children, hanging of women in childbirth, male and female castration – of exactly the type that Hurmanetar had bidden him seek out and convert to goodness.
So, what do we make of all that, then? Well, if we’re going to be uncharitable, Hurmanetar is a modern-times construct loosely modeled on the biblical Moses. Or, we could be looking at a genuine Hittite tradition whose echoes were carried over into the Old Testament and the records of which have somehow been preserved and passed down to the current owners of the scrolls that comprise The Kolbrin. But I suppose it doesn’t really matter at the end of the day. There are so many ‘truths’ out there, depicted in so many traditions, philosophies, and religions, that I suppose it is up to each and every one of us, individually, to find the one that best resonates for us personally. The value to us that each ‘Truth’ we find brings, is of far greater worth and use to our own personal lives than the message-coating in which we find it wrapped. If it floats your boat, own it! I hope that makes sense to you.
But let’s get back to the symbolism in Hurmanetar’s dream: ‘Sacred Symbols’ laid out on a white linen cloth are assigned their correct number. An ass eats the sacred symbols and turns into a falcon which turns into a cow with a golden and a silver crown between its horns. The cow instructs Hurmanetar to drink its milk and then use the milk to ‘anoint’ his eyes.
OK, this is my take on the symbolism and please bear in mind that I could be totally wrong. Before I start, I will say that I think there is a little clue a bit later on in this passage when the god starts talking about ‘concoctions, correctly compounded’. So here we go: The symbols correspond to chemical and/or botanical elements. When the correct elements (symbols) and dosages of each (their number) have been identified, an earthbound, slow-witted, mundane entity (an ass=the physical body), upon ingesting the mixture, releases the mind/spirit from its earthly chains (falcon=mind/spirit). The cow, I feel, as a symbol of a sacrificial offering, represents the gateway between the planes itself, with the golden (God) and silver (mankind, as God’s heirs designate) crowns between the horns (symbols of wisdom) representing which parties will be communicating. The milk is, again, the concoction which, once drunk, opens the eyes of enlightenment. There. Make sense? Yes? Good. No? Well, at least I had a crack at it.
And so, finally, onto the self-help elements in this passage. One lesson is: Do your homework! Hurmanetar wandered off into the wilderness the first time with a half-baked idea about what would work to communicate with his god. It was only when he sat down and really thought/dreamed about it, that he realised what he should have been doing in the first place. And, by crikey! that is a lesson we all need to learn over and over again in our lives. There’s no excuse for walking into anything unprepared: exams, job interviews, business meetings, family get-togethers, even dates. Think ahead about everything you have to do and prepare for it. Physically and mentally prepare yourself to deal with the problems (and idiots) you could, or even know, you will face. Forewarned, as they say, is forearmed.
And the other main lesson, here, of course, is not to play the blame game. The tribesmen who didn’t know how to deal with the noxious plant issue were not taking responsibility for their own duties and their instinct was to blame some ‘higher’ authority for it. As with so many problems that life throws at us, there is nearly always a simple, practical solution, if only we can channel the negative blame-game energy into positive problem-solving energy. All it takes is that concept of stepping away from the passions and letting your Rational mind take over that we’ve become so familiar with by now. It’s hardly surprising that so many philosophies from so many cultures kept banging on about the benefit of practising the notion of focusing on events through Reason alone, because it really is the solution to so many of our personal woes. When things are getting more and more ragged and you feel everything’s going pear-shaped, STOP AND THINK! Breathe. Detach from your physical senses. Apply Reason. You will be amazed – once you’ve shut out the hot clamour from your emotions –just how often you’ll see your way forward. Most of the time the answer’s just sitting there, waiting for the cool gaze of Reason to fall upon it.
Right, that’s it for now. The next section shifts focus to the teachings of some chap called Yosira whom The Kolbrin claims to be some kind of great spiritual guru. Please join me there and we’ll take a look at what this Yosira has to say.
