me woven

The first thing, The Nothing decided to do, was copy and imitate the wizard - the wizard being the first thing he became aware of besides himself. When the wizard became the Divine Paradox, uniting shadow and light, it was like adding 1 + - 1 to get 0. Nothing. When one enters the void, you ARE the void. There is no seperation. When a drop of water enters the ocean, it becomes the ocean. So, when The Wizard "entered the void state", for a moment the Wizard and the Nothing were the same. This portrayed this by having The Nothing imitate the wizard's Paradox self. He wasn't just imitating, for a moment, they were literally the same.

Both Arc 3 and 4 explores the concept of ego. One of the major themes of Arc 3 was learning to let go our sense of self importance. Grandmother Raven, Grandfather Spider being the prime examples of this, by forgetting they loved each other once, they were willing to destroy an entire universe just beat the other.

This lesson of dissolving ego also explored using our friends Bat and Mellori too. For example, Bat almost killing Mellori, which would've invoked Raven's wrath bringing a quicker end to the Spiral. And Mellori, developing a sense of self importance after finding out she was the child of Raven, attempted to kill Spider which also would have ended the Spiral.

Both had the noble goal of wanting to Save the Spiral, but believed their way to be the best way. Vanity, as Dasein would say. Then later realizing the only way to save the Spiral was for them to forgo their sense of self importance, work together, and literally combine their powers.

Arc 4 - Dasein's arc, explores what we should do with our egos. Meaning, he began developing a sense of self, then had to figure out what to do with it. Once one touches the infinite void of nothingness, and returns back to the material world a question then arises: "What do I do with my sense of self, and what is my purpose?" This is the question Dasein has to answer, with various themes of ego staying consistent throughout.

One of the first things Dasein did was give himself a name: Dasein, because he believed (and the Old One also believed) that in design is purpose. With the Old One specifically saying that "Life without purpose was empty and existence without meaning was wasteful."

This mindset goes against what mysticism stands for, but here Dasien is still learning, and trying to integrate himself into the Everything, and give himself purpose. (We'll get more into why the Old One and Dasein were incorrect later.)

At the end of Lemuria we find out the world synthesiser can not only rend worlds, but turn nothing into something, and later in Novus, Dasien has the ability to manifest things out of the nothing-ness. In Mysticism, it's called exactly that: manifestation.

Everything we believe tells us that it's impossible to create something from nothing but in Mysticism tells us that's exactly what we can do. And not only can you create something from nothing, but that creation is easy. In fact, mysticism teaches that manifestation, is actually effortless. As such, the people living on Dasein are able to create things unconsciously, and the world effortlessly bends to the desires of the people living on him. Like when Monsignor Del Mont led his people in prayer and the banana trees grew back instantly. Prayer is, after all, just another form of manifestation.

Back to that question: What do we do with ourselves and our egos? Well the Novus plotline gives us a great example of what NOT to let our egos become - cleverly using the diplomats, cabal members, and the Manticore to showcase vanity. Similarly to arc 3, everyone believes that their way is the best way. No one wants to listen, no one wants to include others into their plans, everyone wants everyone else to submit to their whims. Literally colonizing Dasein's mind, body, and spirit. Overinflated egos, and bearing such a high sense of self importance is antithetical to the void. And this is symbolically shown with how much their egos repulsed Dasein, making him want to retreat back to nothingness. Ego is fundamentally incompatible with the void.

After experiencing the void, many mystics struggle with daily life. How can one go back to the human experience after experiencing the infinite awareness of the void? This was the struggle Dasein faced trying to re-integrate himself into the void.

Later in Wallaru, is where we get the ultimate lesson in mysticism. The answer to the question: "What do we even do here?"

Mysticism, teaches us to become the bridge between the void and real life. You come to the highest realization: your job is not to escape the world, but to walk through it knowing you are free. This is the lesson Dasein had to learn at then end of Wallaru.

If you haven't, I implore you to watch the final quest in Wallaru, because it's the ultimate lesson in Mysticism. Mysticism is all about "Being" (that is also why it's called the 'I Am' state). If you read the dialogue, you can see how many times the phrase "I am" appears in Dasein's arc. This is why The Old One and Dasein where incorrect about life needing purpose. Being is all there is, and Being is all there ever will be.

Life, mercifully offers us nothing (and yes, it is a mercy). NO intrinsic meaning, NO intrinsic purpose, and that's life's greatest yet, most misunderstood gift. And what do we get?: True freedom. Remember the point of building something out of nothing? Because life offers us nothing, we create our own designs. That is Mysticism's final teaching: Not to detach from life, but to live it with absolute freedom.