Entanglement With Fate (Part 2)

20. Astras

The large flower garlands almost covered her shoulders. The bees and butterflies hover over the flowers.

In a flash, she opened her eyes and looked at me. Like right into my eyes. She smiled a little brighter. She said something but I could hear her. I felt my heart going faster as she looked at me.

Was she actually looking at me?

Then slowly, I realized what she was whispering.

Alaknanda.

I felt trembles through my body. Something forcing into me like it set every single cell of my body on fire. But the fire wasn't burning me, rather it warmed up my entire body, every muscle, every cell, every bone, every vein, every artery, every organ, all of them heating up.

Even after I had rested, taken medicines and eaten healthy food, I had felt slightly weak. Now, it was as if everything in me was on a kind of tandava of its own. Tandava has a rhythm. Either the rhythm of creation or rhythm of destruction as they are called. When one actually taps into tandava, this rhythm fills your entire body. All of your body moves to the rhythm. Your heart beats to it, your lungs breathe to it, your blood flows to it.

I then realized that it was the mantra, the energy of the mantra, the energy of Durga I was invoking inside me through the mantra. The energy of Durga slowly moves up and travels into the chakra enlightening them in the way.

It was a different kind of training. The enlightenment of chakra for the sake of gaining mental strength is different from the enlightenment of chakra for the sake of gaining power over elements. Till now, I only learned the control of Maya.

"The first step to learning elemental control is to believe yourself to be that element. You have to be like the earth to control the earth. Like to control water, you have to be as free as water. You have to be as free-flowing, taking everything in your way. To control fire, you have to be fierce as the fire. To control air, you have to be as easy as air. Similarly, to control the earth, you have to be strong, bearing and hard as the earth. Look around you and you will earth everywhere. The mountains, the plains, the forests, the trees, the plants, the soil and by an extension, you own body is made from the earth. You have to feel the earth to control the earth. All these creatures are part of this earth. To be the controller of earth, you have to be as strong in your heart as the earth, you have to be as bearing as earth, you have to be willing to take the weight on your shoulders, you have to be as forgiving as the earth, you have to be as providing as the earth."

Earth is the element of physical formation. It is an aggregation of several metals together. Soft as graphite, strong as a diamond. The same basic chemical elements but in different forms.

I'm naturally a part of the Earth herself.

Only when I believe myself to be the Earth, can I control the earth.

Come on, Toph, share some of your awesome insight with me over earthbending.

A memory of Avatar: The Last Airbender was retrieved from my far old memory of watching cartoons. Well, okay, I never knew at that time that they weren't exactly called cartoon but the correct term was an anime.

Believing myself to have the ability to move the earth, I took a deep. Just as I let maya flow through my fingers, I let myself feel the earth. As strong as the earth.

Slowly opening up my base chakra – Muladhara chakra, the major chakra connected to earth control.

"Look." He told me. I opened my eyes and saw that soil moved, slowly going from soil to rock. I grinned. Perfect.

I tried to convert it back into the soil and it changed.

In the next few days, I was taught more and more of this control. The natural ability that I had was sharpened for me to be able to use this ability to a limit where it could work in my favour. The Durga upasana continued for a longer time and at the end of it, Shukracharya called me.