The Witch, the Thinker, and the Mystic

Who is the most famous or infamous person you have ever met?

In the twilight between thought and dream, there lived a woman who sought only to fix herself  to mend her mind, her breath, her body, her soul. Through kriyas and sadhanas, she bent light into motion and silence into sound, healing her own inner fractures with the patience of prayer.

But in that same realm wandered Rathe  a witch with eyes like burning oil and hair tangled with whispers. Her anger was sharp, and when her jealousy rose like smoke, she sent her invisible needles into the woman’s brow, piercing the gate of sight, blocking the third eye that saw beyond illusion.

“Who do you do this yoga namaskar for?” Rathe hissed through the ether.
“For myself,” the woman replied, calm as moonlight.

That answer enraged Rathe. She wanted to fix the world, to bend others to her design  to make perfection outside before finding it within.

But fate, in its strange wisdom, called upon two spirits to watch this battle unfold. One was Socrates, the philosopher of Athens, ghostly in his robe of thought. He stood beside the woman and whispered:

“Know thyself  for the unexamined soul is a spell half-cast.”

From the other side emerged Rasputin, wild-eyed and shadow-draped, carrying the scent of candle smoke and prophecy. He was Rathe’s reflection  the mystic who sought power rather than peace, trying to bend fate with the crooked finger of control.

Between the two, the air shimmered  one voice calling for truth, the other for dominion.
And in that trembling space, the woman breathed deeply, pressing her palms together. She fixed her gaze inward, beyond the sting of the needle, beyond the fear of darkness.

When she whispered her prayer, the needle melted into light  vanishing like a thought forgiven.
Rathe screamed as her magic dissolved, her shadow-self caught in the mirror of her own madness. The woman sealed her within a vessel of sunlight and sent it soaring toward the blazing star  where all false powers turn to ash and all truths return to fire.

Socrates smiled, Rasputin fell silent, and the crickets of night bowed their tiny heads as peace descended.

In that stillness, the woman at last understood:

You cannot fix the world by breaking yourself
Only by healing yourself can the world begin to change.