A Dream … By Mohamed Yousif

One morning I was relaxing on a comfy chair spreading my legs on another chair trying to read but the letters swam before my eyes. Then I switched on to music and the melody of Beethoven crept all over and through my whole body feeding peace and tranquillity to my system. Darwin said about music ‘that of producing and appreciating it existed among the human race long before the power of speech was arrived at.’ Perhaps that is why we are so subtly influenced by it. I relaxed and let my dream carry me on. I was often entertained the idea of completing a writing which had tempted me for a long time. The writing of reminiscences through a span of almost thirty years of employment at an organisation reflecting both bitter and sweet experiences were always in my mind. Such reminiscences would have led me through a world of contradictory personalities reflecting the nature of humans endeavour to reach their goals by whatever means they could. Reminiscences popped into my mind like a film rolling back. I set myself to pursue such recollections by all means and to collect the pits and pieces I wrote so far and resume forming the final shape. I fancied I could circumnavigate the world and visit such places like China where I would stroll along Tiananmen Square with Yingqiu reminiscing our days in Europe and visiting the exotic places in Peking, as once we promised to visit. I would stroll along the great Wall and recall the history of such tremendous labour. It is said that ‘The Wall is the only man-made object on earth which would be visible from the moon.’ I would Continue the journey through the east to the mystic land of Nepal where Siddhartha, the founder of Buddhism and spiritual teacher; was in search of enlightenment and Nirvana which is the perfect peace of the state of mind that is free from desire, anger, distress and other afflicting states. Perhaps I would join Hermann Hesse’s imaginary Journey to the East with his League of prominent personalities from different walks of life and who contributed a wealth of knowledge in the fields of music and sciences to humanity through history. Hesse narrated the tale of the events of the journey in his book ‘journey to the east’ though a great deal of this Journey will remain inconceivable and incomprehensible. But one should continually attempt the seemingly impossible in order to achieve his goal. As Siddhartha, from the east, said:
‘Words do not express thoughts very well; everything immediately becomes a little different, a little distorted, a little foolish. And yet it also pleases me and seems right that what is of value and wisdom to one man seems nonsense to another.’

Or as one member of the League, put it as follows:

‘He who travels far will often see things
Far removed from what he believed was the Truth.
When he talks about it in the field at home,
He is often accused of lying,
For the obdurate people will not believe
What they do not see and distinctly feel.
Inexperience, I believe,
Will give little credence to my song’

Pursuing my dream; I would continue to navigate to the other side of the hemisphere and visit Brazil at the time of Rio de Janeiro Carnival, the public celebration and the fantastic parade. I would venture through Latin America and explore all places such as the Aztec Pyramids; and whatever remained of the Inca and the Maya civilization. Then I would imagine myself on an island in the Pacific to observe the vast calmness of the Ocean deep blue colour and at sunset turned to an infinite set of colours, the water below crystal clear that you observed the coral with fantastic colours and the fish swimming peacefully like butterflies. The vista would look like a magic garden. How wonderful to be away from the hustle and the constant striving in the town with its dark high gloomy buildings and endless traffic of vehicles emitting poisonous gas. An endless list of places came to my mind.
Nothing on our planet is more disgusting, more despicable than borders. Borders between countries are hindrance to freedom of movement. In my dream I thought of devising a system of navigation designated by three letters SNS which stands for Spiritual Navigation System which could take you about diffusing through ‘map borders’, I call them ‘map borders’ as they exist only on maps. However the use of SNS, would rather be limited in our present time, but no doubt will develop further to be the overwhelming sprit of humans and thus peace will spread its wings all over. No distinction between races, regions and countries would be recognizable; as equality would be dominant and humans would live in peace and harmony. People are divided into different tribes and belong to different countries, cities and villages. But I belong to no country or tribe. The universe is my town, my clan and the people are my tribe.
I went back to Beethoven and relaxed through his melody and continued my dream. God knows how often I had regretted that I had not part of the time I needed to do some of the things I wanted. I had often entertained my desire with the prospect of just a couple of day’s complete idleness, doing nothing but through this idleness I very often travelled through my life backwards and battled a useless fight which was invincible. I retreated to myself, though rarely, for a couple of days as if being not part of this planet ... totally absorbed within. Time, because it is beyond recall, is the most valuable precious span in one’s life and to misuse or waste it; is the most unwise in which man can yield to.
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Mohamed Yousif
mailto:[email protected]@yahoo.com