Before any god or demon was born,
before heaven or hell were made,
before time itself existed…
there was only the Eternal Truth — Sanatan.
No sky.
No stars.
No planets.
No "yesterday" or "tomorrow."
Imagine a quiet so deep that even the idea of sound has not yet arrived.
Imagine a darkness so complete that even the idea of light does not exist.
In that "place" — which is not really a place — there was only That Which Always Is.
The ancient seers would later give it many names:
Sat – the ever-true.
Brahman – the infinite, without shape or edge.
Paramatma – the supreme soul in which all souls rest.
Sanatan – the Eternal, that never begins and never ends.
But in the very beginning, there were no seers to name it.
There were no tongues to speak.
There were no ears to hear.
There was only a silent, endless Is-ness.
🌟 The First Intention
Then, in that perfect stillness, something happened.
Not a blast.
Not a lightning strike.
Something far softer.
A Thought arose.
Not like our thoughts, which jump and break and repeat.
This was a single, pure, clear intention:
"Let Me become many."
It was as if the Infinite Ocean wanted to see itself as waves.
As if a great light wanted to enjoy itself as millions of tiny lamps.
That intention became a tiny ripple in the Eternal.
If you have ever thrown a stone into a perfectly still lake and watched circles expand…
you already understand.
From that subtle intention, a vibration began.
From that vibration, Sound was born.
The rishis, thousands of years later, would hear that original sound in deep meditation and say:
"This is Om."
Not just a word, but the first breath of creation.
That sound flowed and expanded.
Where it moved, time began to tick.
Where it flowed, space opened up like a great, invisible cloth.
🌊 The Cosmic Ocean & the Golden Egg
Out of that sound-filled emptiness, a vast cosmic ocean appeared.
Not water like in a bucket.
An ocean of dark, endless space, full of possibility.
Floating in that cosmic ocean, something small and bright appeared:
A tiny golden spark.
It grew.
And grew.
And grew, until it became a shining Golden Egg — the Hiranyagarbha.
You can imagine it like this:
a star,
an egg,
and a universe-seed,
all at once.
Inside that egg were the blueprints of everything:
stars, planets, trees, bodies, minds, and all the stories that would ever happen.
When the Golden Egg finally cracked,
light burst out like a billion suns being lit at the same time.
Creation had started.
🌌 The Birth of Worlds
From the Golden Egg came:
swirling galaxies spinning like giant wheels of stars,
bright suns and soft moons,
blue and red and golden worlds,
realms made of heavy matter, and realms made only of light, thought, and sound.
Some realms were high and luminous — later called Swarga and other heavenly worlds.
Some were rough and earthly — like the world you know.
Some were deep and hidden — mysterious realms of shadow and dense energy.
In one story told in the Puranas, they described the Eternal resting upon a cosmic serpent in the ocean of milk, while from its navel a lotus grew, and in that lotus sat Brahma, the creator, who shaped the worlds.
In another way of telling, they said the Eternal simply dreamed, and the dream became real.
Different stories, same idea:
The One became Many,
so that the One could know itself
through millions and millions of lives.
✨ The Souls – Sparks of the Eternal
But the most precious part of creation was not stars, or mountains, or even gods.
The most precious part was the soul.
Tiny, invisible sparks, each one a piece of the same Eternal Truth.
If Sanatan is like a huge, bright sun,
then each soul is like a small ray of its light.
The Vedas called this inner spark Atman.
The Atman:
watches your thoughts,
sees your feelings,
remains when your body changes,
survives when your body dies.
It is the quiet "I" behind all the changing stories of your life.
To learn, to grow, to remember its true nature,
each soul takes many births:
as a rock, patient and still,
as a tree, drinking light and giving shade,
as an animal, guided by instinct,
as a human, torn between fear and wisdom,
as bright beings in higher realms,
even as dark beings in lower realms.
Every life is a classroom.
Every body is a uniform the soul wears for a while.
When the lesson is done, the uniform is dropped,
and the soul moves on.
🎭 The Veil of Maya
If every soul is a spark of the same Eternal Sanatan,
a natural question appears:
why don't we remember?
Why do we feel small, lonely, afraid, separate?
The answer lies in a mysterious power
given by the Eternal itself:
Maya.
Think of Maya like a magic veil or cosmic theater curtain.
It makes the One look like many.
It makes the actor forget they are acting.
It makes the dreamer forget they are dreaming.
Under Maya:
you believe, "I am only this body, this name, this age, this job."
you forget, "I am more than what I own, more than what others think of me."
you feel separate: "I am here. You are there. We are not the same."
The world under Maya is not fake like a cheap trick.
It is real enough to make you laugh, cry, love, and hurt.
But you do not see the whole truth.
You see only a small part, like a person looking through a tiny keyhole.
🌱 Karma – The Garden of Actions
Because of Maya, souls desire many things.
They:
love,
hate,
help,
harm,
tell truth,
lie,
protect,
betray.
Each thought, each word, each action
is like planting a seed.
The ancient seers called this karma.
Karma doesn't mean punishment.
It means result.
You plant a mango seed, you don't get a cactus.
You plant a thorn bush, you don't get roses.
In the same way:
Kindness plants peace.
Cruelty plants pain.
Greed plants emptiness.
Courage plants strength.
The soul moves from life to life,
tasting the fruits of its own garden,
learning slowly what to plant and what to stop planting.
⚖️ Dharma – The Way of Balance
Now imagine millions of souls,
all planting different seeds,
all acting in different ways.
There must be something that stops everything from exploding into chaos.
That something is Dharma.
Dharma is the inner rule of harmony
built into the universe.
It is:
the way things are meant to work,
the "right placement" of everything,
the duty that matches each being's nature,
the balance that protects life.
You can picture it like:
gravity for goodness and order,
a rhythm that keeps the cosmic music from becoming noise.
For example:
The dharma of the sun is to shine and give light.
The dharma of water is to flow, cool, and nourish.
The dharma of a tree is to grow, breathe, shelter, and give fruit.
For human beings, Dharma becomes richer and more subtle.
Human Dharma includes:
being truthful,
keeping promises,
protecting the weak,
respecting nature,
caring for family and community,
listening to the conscience inside.
Whenever a person follows Dharma,
they walk a little closer to their true Self.
This path of living in tune with the Eternal Truth
came to be called Sanatan Dharma —
the Eternal Law of right living and inner balance.
🌑 Adharma – When the Balance Breaks
But where there is balance,
there can also be imbalance.
Where there is Dharma,
there can also be Adharma.
Adharma is not simply "doing nothing."
It is not just "I am lazy."
Adharma is when a being, blinded by Maya,
moves against what they know, deep down, is right.
Under Adharma:
truth is twisted,
justice is sold to the highest bidder,
power is used to crush, not protect,
nature is treated as a toy, not a mother,
people are treated as tools, not souls.
A lion killing a deer to eat is not Adharma.
That is its nature, its dharma, part of the balance.
Adharma is:
killing for pleasure,
harming for profit,
lying to control,
using wisdom to cheat,
using love as a trap.
If Dharma is like a perfectly tuned song,
Adharma is playing it out of rhythm and too loud,
until the music becomes painful.
The Puranas speak of ages where Adharma rises like a dark flood:
rulers forget fairness,
teachers forget honesty,
wise people become selfish,
and ordinary people forget simple kindness.
The house of the world still stands,
but it is full of broken windows and spreading cracks.
🕰️ The Four Yugas – Ages of the World
Time in this universe moves in great cycles called Yugas — world ages.
The seers described them like a cow with four legs.
Each leg is a part of Dharma.
Satya Yuga – 4 legs strong
Dharma is full, truth is clear, most beings live rightly.
Treta Yuga – 3 legs
Dharma weakens a little, more struggle appears.
Dvapara Yuga – 2 legs
Dharma and Adharma are roughly equal; confusion grows.
Kali Yuga – 1 leg
Dharma stands on only one leg, shaking; Adharma grows quickly.
We are in Kali Yuga now —
the most confusing, noisy, difficult age.
The old texts say about Kali Yuga:
lies will travel faster than truth,
anger will spread faster than peace,
people will worship money more than goodness,
the outer shine will matter more than inner light,
people will feel lonely even while surrounded by many others.
And yet…
They also say:
In Kali Yuga, even a small act of Dharma shines very brightly,
because the darkness around it is so strong.
🌩️ When Adharma Grows Too Strong
For a long time, even in Kali Yuga,
the universe allowed Dharma and Adharma to rise and fall like waves.
Sometimes Dharma rose:
a great teacher appeared,
a just king ruled,
people remembered their soul for a while.
Sometimes Adharma rose:
wars burned nations,
greed ate forests and rivers,
the innocent suffered.
But there came a time —
the time of this story —
when the scale tipped too far.
In one small world, on one small planet,
Adharma began to spread like poison in water.
Wars were fought not for protection, but for pride.
Knowledge was used not to enlighten, but to manipulate.
Faith was used not to uplift, but to control.
The earth was drilled, cut, burned, and sold.
The earth groaned.
The animals grew restless.
Rivers shrank as if frightened.
The sky turned dull under smoke and dust.
Dharma did not disappear — it cannot disappear —
but it became thin, hard to find, easy to ignore.
Adharma grew bold.
It stopped hiding in thoughts and plans.
It reached out into the very fabric of reality:
creating cracks between realms,
letting dark shapes slip into the human world,
whispering into dreams,
bending minds.
In quiet caves and hidden forests,
the last true seers, the rishis, saw what was coming.
They knew:
if this continued,
the very stage where souls learn —
this world —
could fall apart.
So they did what rishis do best.
They turned inward.
🙏 The Prayer of the Rishis
Far from cities,
in mountains older than memory,
a circle of sages sat in silence.
Their hair was white like ash,
their eyes sharp like lightning.
They closed their eyes,
slowed their breath,
and let their minds sink deep beyond worry, beyond thought,
into the still ocean of Sanatan.
From that stillness,
they sent a gentle call:
"O Eternal…
O Sanatan…
We have taught Dharma,
we have lived it,
we have reminded those who would listen.
But the world has become deaf.
Adharma rises like a black tide.
Hearts are confused.
Minds are restless.
Reality itself begins to tear.
Let Dharma rise again.
Not as rule…
but as living force.
Show a new way."
Their prayer was not loud.
No thunder answered.
The mountains did not shake.
But in a place beyond sound,
beyond form,
the Eternal listened.
🔥 A New Answer
The Eternal does not easily interfere in the karma of souls.
Usually, it lets:
action teach,
pain correct,
time heal,
insight grow slowly.
But when Adharma grows so strong
that it threatens to destroy the entire school
where souls are learning…
the Eternal chooses a different path.
Sometimes, Dharma returned as:
a great avatar walking among humans,
a sacred text full of wisdom,
a revolution of conscience in many hearts at once.
This time, in this dark corner of Kali Yuga,
Sanatan chose something even more risky,
even more powerful.
Instead of sending Dharma against Adharma from outside,
it decided to let both awaken inside one soul.
Not a god.
Not a king.
Not a world-famous hero.
An ordinary child.
🌄 The Boy and the Hidden Flame
In the small village of Dharmapura,
there was nothing special at first glance.
Fields of grain.
A narrow river.
Simple homes.
Dusty roads.
Children running barefoot.
Old people telling stories under fading trees.
The people there had their worries:
harvests,
illnesses,
debts,
marriages,
quarrels.
Far away, kings argued.
Near them, the river shrank a little more every year.
The sky seemed less blue,
but most were too busy to notice.
In one of the houses,
on a narrow cot,
a boy slept.
His name was Aarav Devanshi.
He knew nothing of cosmic eggs or Yugas.
He did not know the words Maya, Atman, or Sanatan Dharma.
He knew:
how to laugh when his friend Kiran made a stupid joke,
how to carry water from the river without spilling,
how to stare at the stars and feel a little strange inside,
as if someone was watching back.
On this night,
as Aarav turned in his sleep,
something deep inside him stirred.
Not in his bones.
Not in his blood.
In his soul.
A small flame blinked awake.
At first, it was no bigger than a firefly.
But this was no ordinary light.
It carried two colors:
a soft, calm gold,
and a deep, restless black.
The mark he had carried in his soul since before birth —
placed there when the rishis prayed and the Eternal listened —
flickered,
then shone weakly through the skin of his chest,
like a hidden symbol made of light.
Far away, in a mountain cave,
an old sage opened his eyes from meditation.
He felt the awakening like a bell ringing in his heart.
"It has begun,"
whispered Rishi Vardaan.
And somewhere else,
in a realm where light rarely entered,
deep in layers of shadow that normal eyes could never see…
another presence awoke.
It had no true shape,
only a moving darkness.
It stretched,
tasted the air of a world it had long been pushing toward collapse…
and smiled.
Adharma had found
the boy who would decide its fate.
And the fate of Sanatan Dharma itself
would soon rest inside the chest
of a child who still didn't know
what awaited him when morning came.
✦ END OF EXPANDED CHAPTER 1 ✦