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// CHAPTER XV: Within You Without You, or Getting (Meta) Physical 
// Story: Special Illumination 
// by ponichaeism 
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	He stared at the candle. That fragile flame was all that mattered; everything else had fallen away, wholly irrelevant. He could not say where he was, or even remember what his name was. For him, the only thing that existed was the flickering fire swaying atop its wick, slowly melting away the wax that kept it from igniting the entire rope and burning itself out instantly. As he gazed at the flame, he let the energy of the Harmony permeating every inch, every particle, every facet of existence flow through him. He ascended back up the path towards union with its totality by reciting as many of its infinite names his limited mind could conjure, and let all the ones that remained unspoken represent the infinity that it was.
The Harmony; The Absolute; The Infinite; The Ultimate; The Source; The Word; The One; The Light; The Way; The Fullness; The Good; The All; The Mother/Father; The Limitless; The Endless; The Wisdom....
Every so often, thoughts created themselves in his mind. Since these thoughts were not generated by any aspect of the physical world, he did not deny them. Instead, he welcomed them, for if they were untainted by the world's imperfections, they must have come from the spark in him and the Harmony it connected him to. To deny them out of some stubborn desire to maintain a rigid mode of thought would be to damage the flow of cosmic energy streaming through his mind.
The flame of the candle, he thought, is life. Fragile and completely at the whims of the fickle wind. Yet it is sustained by the wax even as it destroys the wax. Everypony burns out the material which sustains them.
So what is the wax, then?
The world? We consume its fruits, fruits which would be spared if we were not alive.
Or is the wax a pony's body, which is fruit to that which feeds on it? 
By our living, do we deny the grass and the forests their own sustenance? Soil, after all, is partly what remains of ponies who have passed on. We take from the forests, but do we give enough back to maintain balance?
If all is within that which is The All, what greater claim to existence does the flame have, when compared to the wax? They are both of the same cosmic substance, after all, and will both return to it in time.
And since the flame is composed of energy derived from the same source as I am, the same All that gives me thought, does it, in its own way, fear its own extinguishing? But what could it do? It is forever trapped atop its wick, always in danger of being extinguished by something as slight as a stray breeze, and all the while the wax is melting and gradually dragging the flame towards its end.
Ah, but right now the wax is giving me nothing, while the flame gives me heat and light. Yet without the wax, it could not do that. The wax must be destroyed so that the fire can sustain its radiance.
Like this flame, if we give of ourselves to others, do our selfless acts give us greater importance than the substance we must use up to stay radiant? By that same consideration, if everything and everypony that dwells in this world gave of itself selflessly, would the world itself elevate from this imperfect reality to an entirely new realm of meaning?
Surely it must be so, for the five attributes which lead us back to the primal source of all existence are the five qualities which create successful civilizations.
So the flame, by the example of its selfless act, lights my way back to the Harmony, just as the five attributes of Honesty, Fidelity, Generosity, Merriment, and Loving-Kindness do. 
To those with an open eye, everything reflects everything else.
Everything is connected. QED.
He smiled to himself and began regressing back to the lowest layer of reality, the material world, and all its attendant pains of the flesh, but also its passions and delights. The candle burning in his mind and illuminating his thoughts snuffed itself out in a puff of imagined wind. As he returned to his body, a distant, high-pitched scream and an equally distant voice fraught with concern both grew louder. 
"Starswirl?"
Upon hearing his name, he stirred his mortal frame, opened his eyes and saw Carmine standing near the blazing hearth, where steam shot out of the kettle's spout and made it rock back and forth on its hook.
Although Starswirl's distress at his body's infirmity had been washed away by the meditative trance like hoofprints on a beach, on some instinctual level he was pleased to notice his body felt better. The stiffness had been nothing more than an affliction of the mind, a toxic feeling generated by his inner fears poisoning him, as he had thought. Rather than be angry with himself for not being in control of his emotions, he embraced his innate pony weakness, for it kept him humble by reminding him he still had a long road to travel before he completely mastered his desires and, by extension, himself.
"My apologies," he said, lifting his knees off the floor and standing up. "I must have dozed off."
"You didn't hear this?" Carmine asked, raising an eyebrow as he pointed at the kettle. "Not at all?"
Starswirl replied, "No, I'm afraid not." 
He magicked the steaming kettle off the hearth and floated it towards the three cups sprinkled with tea leaves he'd set out on the table. As he poured the boiling water, he tested his renewed connection to the Harmony by reaching out towards Carmine, who was busy making pancakes. Normally, ponies radiated their surface emotions like expressions on their face, and it was quite easy for Starswirl to pick outward emotions like those up. 
He disliked forcing himself into the vault of a pony's heart and prying out the emotions and memories he found there; while all ponies were naturally united by the universal connection they shared, forcing himself unbidden and uninvited into another pony's deeper mind was too much on the far side of balance for him to feel comfortable with it if it was not incredibly vital, as it had been when he'd dove into the stallion's mind last night. But even then, the stallion had known full well Starswirl was doing it. The deceit and trickery of stealing thoughts from ponies' minds without their knowledge weakened his connection to the Harmony. Some trickery on his part was a useful tool in helping ponies to overcome themselves, but forcibly changing them by ripping thoughts out to use against them made him feel like a thief, and also like he was abusing the powers his closer connection with the Harmony granted him. So he did not, as a rule, do it unless absolutely necessary.
Unfortunately, he had a feeling it would soon be absolutely necessary. 
The outward sorrow Carmine displayed when talking about his exile hinted at a morass of darker emotions locked up within him. Festering and long-buried emotions like those were the ones that created the strongest anti-Harmony and sometimes even drove a pony to violently reject any attempt at bringing them to light. If Starswirl were kicked out of Carmine's home, then his reason for staying in town would quickly vanish, and he did not need the townsponies' suspicions aroused any more than they already were.
So, a delicate step was needed, and Starswirl preferred to test his connection to the Harmony now rather than later, when time might be of the essence.
"Where's Clover?" he asked offhandedly, while focusing on peeling back Carmine's outer layer and diving into the raw, unprocessed thoughts and emotions rushing through his head underneath his conscious mind.
Starswirl felt love for the filly flowing from the unicorn, but love morphed into anger that she made him worry, not just about her both about both of them, and what if they got run out of town or worse, because he had done so much for her, more than she'll ever know, and it was good she couldn't use magic, she wasn't level-headed enough to use it wisely, but she also wasn't level headed enough to stay out of the forest at night either, and Starswirl was a fine enough stallion, but there was something off about him, or maybe that was just Varnetians for you, better answer....
"Oh, she's just washing up outside," Carmine said, nodding at the window. "Thanks again for bringing the water up. I don't know what it is I'd do without you. Heh, you ain't fixing on leaving anytime soon, are you?"
Although Carmine tried his hardest to make his laugh sound carefree, Starswirl felt apprehension, because he wanted to know, he had to know, but what if those evil unicorns were still in power and who else had been exiled or worse, and he didn't know, he just didn't know, and how could he have, no no no don't think THAT THOUGHT, hide it away, and wait, why isn't he answering, what doesn't he want to tell me....
"Although the townsponies gave me quite a chilly reception," Starswirl said, "I'd be lying if I said being in the company of a fellow unicorn after so long on the road hasn't done me a world of good."
Kinship surged within Carmine, a sense of agreement, that he felt the same way, it was good to be around a fellow unicorn again, especially one who didn't no no no, not THAT THOUGHT, bury it, make the pancakes, Carmine, just focus on making the pancakes....
"But I'm afraid one day," Starswirl said, "I will have to leave. After all, there's so much more of the world to see."
Carmine struggled with whether to ask, should he ask or should he not, because he burned to ask but he didn't know if he could take it--
"But as for now," Starswirl added, "I see no reason why I should leave just yet. As I've said, it's a beautiful place, even if you can't see the trees for the ponies."
He laughed, and Carmine, whose heart was filling with the surprised thrill that only humor can generate, chuckled along with him. With that, the wizard severed the connection binding them together, as he felt like if he pried anymore he would start hating himself. 
But needs must, he told himself. Needs must.
Then he thought that every tyrant who ever set hoof on this world gave the same reason for invading their citizens' privacy, and that probably included the unicorn he sought, the one who most likely was the same one Carmine had helped exile. 
Oh, the irony!
As Starswirl sipped his soothing, steaming tea, he considered whether another bout of meditation might be necessary to quell the discontent brewing in his heart.