The Worship of the Self: A Warning from the Bas Magdamar
Deaconess Yamila Dürkheim
The Ichtmar, the first section of the Bas Magdamar, opens with an accounting of the history of the world. We are taught that Noi created the world, and all that is in it. She created even realms beyond this Urth, and placed bodies in the sky. In creating what she believed was good, she created the Esma as well. Among these beings of light and power, occupying positions of authority in the created order, was Borg.
The Bas Magdmar says, “And so beholding his own beauty, gazing on the reflection of his face cast by the shining throne of the Most Beneficent, was the Esma Ibrakh thereby filled with pride. So he searched the world for objects that showed his face. Desiring to fashion something for himself that reminded him of his own beauty, he descended upon the Urth before the first born in a place now lost to us but then known as Samahal.”
“Be not afraid”, He commanded them. Filled with awe, and trembling with fear, the first born prostrated themselves before him and worshipped him. He commanded them to forge images of his likeness from any material. Breathed upon them visions of his face. Among them, a skilled artisan and the father of crafts, Ithkanduin, made the finest image. Sparkling with diamonds and gold, the image pleased Ibrakh. He commanded them to worship the images they had created of him in his stead while he took the best of these back to the Hiva to worship himself".
And so the sin of idolatry was born. The Esma Ibrakh, now known as the Borg, our enemy and the ruler of darkness and the sire of wickedness began the descent into evil with love of this the self and love of things.
While we speak of self love and the like in this generation, we are not the first to declare the importance of loving oneself. In the Bas Magdmar King Yultamin of Imkhadriel, the Kingdom of the darkness, often had his servants bath him in the tears of widows as he believed that their suffering would give him immortality and youth.
While the notion of self care is not evil and self confidence is important, as believers we must fix our gaze not on ourselves but on Noi. Realise now, for instance that, many of the challenges we face in the modern world around self image, arise in part from a fixation with the outward appearance and a false sense of value or self confidence in what we look like and what we possess rather than our character and the way we treat those around us. While I agree that attending to oneself in the midst of the confusion and toil in the world is not a sin, excessive indulgence in oneself, vanity and boasting, are the true sins and they easily masquerade as and hide themselves in the form of self care and self love.
Our value and worth as mortal beings lies in the substance that cannot be perceived, a soul that cannot be assailed, fashioned after and by the Most Merciful, in whom we find our purpose, our strength and our being. As such, in fixing ourselves to Her instruction and the example set by Her Pax in the word sent through Her Prophets, we will find true self love, true self confidence and true joy. And further, escape the trap and inclination toward the sins of idolatry, boasting, vanity and the consequent depletion that arises.
The path of assimilation is long and paved with thorns. Temptation. Betrayal. Suffering. But all things are enjoined from One above rather than beneath.
OOC: For the same of my immortal soul, this is a work of fiction