A Spiritual Journey of Self-Discovery beyond Eastern Fundamentalism and Western Materialism “Alas! The god in man remains a child waiting to mature. Shall man grow into a god, or is he doomed in his humanity?” This question, posed in the prologue of Abir Taha’s inspirational new philosophical novel, The Epic of Arya: In Search of the Sacred Light (www.the-epic-of-arya.com.), is central to the sacred mission of its main character, Arya, who seeks to find the god within. The Epic of Aryais a spiritual bible, an allegorical novel that follows its narrator on a mesmerizing journey of self-discovery that will heal, awaken and transform readers with its messages on love, truth and spirituality. Arya has a secret longing and a silent pain: half-woman, half-goddess, she is torn between Love and Truth, between passion and duty. When she wakes up from her eternal sleep into a new world that is surrounded by darkness and confusion, she wonders, “Why has the gloomy veil of Maya, goddess of illusion, covered the radiant face of Gaia our Earth? Where and why has the sun disappeared? Why is God dead?” But what she will discover is that the world has descended into ignorance, wearing the mask of “faith” in the East, when it is truly obscurantist fundamentalism, and the mask of “reason” in the West, which disguises atheist materialism. In exasperated despair, Arya resolves to roam the Earth in search of the lost sacred light that would end humanity’s eternal night. She travels from East to West in search of Hyperborea, otherwise known as Shambhala, the “land beyond the North wind,” where legend has it that the sun never sets and where gods first existed on the earth and lived among men by speaking through them. On her journey, Arya meets various characters that serve as mediators to the discovery of her own identity and divinity, including a wise old man from the East, an old woman from the North, a knight with whom Arya falls in love, the King of the World, and a prophet who is Arya’s soul-mate and the invisible, constant presence which guides her. As Taha explains, these characters are aspects of Arya’s own soul and the souls of all people. “Life is first and foremost an inner journey of self-discovery,” writes Taha. “All the people we meet on our path are archetypes, symbols, states of mind, milestones that lead us back to our own inner journey on the path of awakening.” Full of practical wisdom, poetic prose and spirituality steeped in philosophy, The Epic of Arya conveys a universal message of unity, hope and salvation in a world torn apart by the clash of civilizations and religions, offering a spiritual alternative.
