What applies to novels will, of course, apply to poetry, novellas, and short stories as well. Indeed, this quote from the early nineteenth-century German philosopher clarifies the value of all literature, as opposed to the mass of pulp fiction one finds in the general marketplace. The real subject of all the arts is Man, and no art is more valuable to mankind than that which opens to our view the hidden source of our motives, thoughts, and emotions and reveals to us an outcome resulting from those inner forces. Certainly, actions speak louder than words, but “loud” does not mean “clear” or “accurate.” Words too fall short in the quest for an ultimate revelation, for no collection of words can match the insights that arise from the deepest realms of consciousness, or those regions beyond mental thought and bodily emotions that I refer to as Spirit.

The subtitle of this book is “Seven Tales from Seven Realms of the Spirit,” rather than from “The Realm of the Spirit,” because the collective consciousness of Man finds for itself a release in the consciousness of each individual psyche, and there a chance to explore an infinite range of possibilities, conditions, actions, and results that are unique to that individual. Though external circumstances will play a role in all our lives, it is how we react to those circumstances that make our story, and that reaction arises in each of us from the movements of consciousness within us, and are often invisible to us. A war happens. One man runs, another fights. The war is not the cause of their story; it is only the landscape upon, or the backdrop against, which their stories take place. The how and why of what happens, and the intensity or degree to which they act and are acted upon, arise from deep within the spirit of the individual. There is no need for an external war. A war rages in each of us at every minute, the battle being over whether we are going to be the person we deeply and truly are or someone else determined by the conditions we encounter.

If we are to be the person we deeply and truly are, first we must know who that person is. This search within ourselves is also a battle against a host of forces, not the least of which is just plain inertia, that voice constantly whispering to us, “Why bother?” Consciousness, or Spirit, is the one and only protagonist of every story, and there is very little need for an external villain. We have within ourselves our own antagonists, created to oppose our best aspirations, and even the evolutionary aim of consciousness itself, which is to constantly grow wider, deeper, and higher in its awareness.

- Astika