One afternoon I was driving home from training, and I turned-on radio national to give me something to think about, what I herd was an interview with a journalist/writer who had traveled the world and was distinguished for his work in going to some really strange places and getting story’s and information about those places.
He was talking about an event which happen just recently which I feel is most significant to this forum, in fact, I find it a little comical, yet the message is universal.
The journalist/writer who I can not remember his name because at the time I really did not intend on retelling this story and I got the message there and then, but I have gathered the main points as clearly as I can remember them.
He arrives on this island in the pacific to talk to the natives that live on this island, as you know there are many such islands in the pacific and in other such oceans, , about what? I don’t know, they did not speak English at all, but this guy was like multi lingual and he understood a little of what they could say and was skilled in dealing with all kinds of people.
So he arrives on this island, and it is large but not huge, there is a small group of natives that lived very close together and never really left the island, in fact their greatest land mark was the “great volcano” which was like 2 km from were they live and they had never been past it, which I think they had projected a spirit or demy god onto and some forests and water falls...ect,and this was there world.
And he finds on this island, this Portuguese guy who is living on the island ,he is about 45 to 50 and has built his own hut.., with the natives except not in there village, he lived on his own out in the forest, it turns out he has lived there for some years and moved there to escape the world and its pressure, kind of like, this guy just opted out of the system, so he finds this little island in the pacific and be-friends the natives, builds a hut and just does what he wants to do.
Once a week the natives would congregate and drink “caba”, this substance which I drank once not knowing what it was, has a numbing effect on your mouth and alters your mind scape, it turns out due to his conversational habits they had expelled him from there weekly caba wingding… get this…because they considered him “crazy” and wanted little to do with him…
The Portuguese man was some what lonely and put out by this and seized upon the arrival of the journalist/writer as a chance to remedy this situation, as the journalist/writer could communicate with the natives and Portuguese man, and seemed to get along with the natives.
After they had talked some time and go the “who are you`s”, “why are you`s” out of the way, the Portuguese man asked if the journalist/writer could do him a favor.
The journalist/writer says,what is that?, the Portuguese man replay’s , I need you to tell them about the trains, the plans, cars and city’s, the sky scrapper’s and helicopters,..ect
The journalist/writer says.. Sure, but why?
The Portuguese guy says, they think I am crazy, and what nothing to do with me…
So the journalist/writer when he finds the time opportune musters up the courage at the next “caba jamboree” and address the natives to inform them that it was true in fact true.
There really were cylinders made of steal with wings that flue through the air, higher then the great volcano, faster then any bird, that carry people around the world to great city’s made of stone and steal.
There really were buildings tall as the volcano that were made of rock and steal that people live an worked in,
There really were machines like great snakes that travel under the ground that carry people, into these big city’s made of stone and steal. 10 times Bigger and vaster then the great volcano...
There really was a whole nother world out there…
Perspective
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Perspective
By their deeds shall you know them.
J.C
J.C
You know Lena I can’t remember whether they did or not, but if it reminds you of the whole thiaoouba affair, I think it is because there is a similarity between the two, and this is why I posted it on the forum.
I think it is amusing that you talk to people about thiaoouba, I bet you must get some strange looks..
I think it is amusing that you talk to people about thiaoouba, I bet you must get some strange looks..
By their deeds shall you know them.
J.C
J.C
There is a sufi story that relates well:
When the Waters Were Changed
Once upon a time Khidr, the Teacher of Moses, called upon mankind with a warning.
At a certain date, he said, all the water in the world that had not been specially hoarded would disappear. It would then be renewed, with different water, which would drive men mad.
Only one man listened to the meaning of this advice. He collected water and went to a secure place where he stored it, and waited for the water to change its character.
On the appointed date the streams stopped running, the wells went dry, and the man who had listened, seeing this happening, went to his retreat and drank his preserved water. When he saw, from his security waterfalls again beginning to flow, this man descended among the other sons of men. He found that they were thinking and talking in an entirely different way from before; yet they had no memory of what had happened, or of having been warned. When he tried to talk to them, he realized that they thought that he was mad, and they showed hostility or compassion, not understanding.
At first he drank none of the new water, but went back to his concealment, to draw on his supplies, every day. Finally, however, he took the decision to drink the new water because he could not bear the loneliness of living, behaving and thinking in a different way from everyone else. He drank the new water, and became like the rest.
Then he forgot all about his own store of special water, and his fellows began to look upon him as a madman who had miraculously been restored to sanity.
taken from: http://www.princeton57.org/dynamic.asp?id=religion_sufi
When the Waters Were Changed
Once upon a time Khidr, the Teacher of Moses, called upon mankind with a warning.
At a certain date, he said, all the water in the world that had not been specially hoarded would disappear. It would then be renewed, with different water, which would drive men mad.
Only one man listened to the meaning of this advice. He collected water and went to a secure place where he stored it, and waited for the water to change its character.
On the appointed date the streams stopped running, the wells went dry, and the man who had listened, seeing this happening, went to his retreat and drank his preserved water. When he saw, from his security waterfalls again beginning to flow, this man descended among the other sons of men. He found that they were thinking and talking in an entirely different way from before; yet they had no memory of what had happened, or of having been warned. When he tried to talk to them, he realized that they thought that he was mad, and they showed hostility or compassion, not understanding.
At first he drank none of the new water, but went back to his concealment, to draw on his supplies, every day. Finally, however, he took the decision to drink the new water because he could not bear the loneliness of living, behaving and thinking in a different way from everyone else. He drank the new water, and became like the rest.
Then he forgot all about his own store of special water, and his fellows began to look upon him as a madman who had miraculously been restored to sanity.
taken from: http://www.princeton57.org/dynamic.asp?id=religion_sufi
If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you always got.