I remember a strange synchronicity incident, some years back...I was invited to a conference in Cairo and had some spare time to kill and what is better than browsing through Cairo's wonderful bookshops...So I ventured into many, checking out books...and found nothing that appealed to me that particular day...I usually buy books on instinct, meaning if am drawn to a shelf, a title, whatever ---I buy it...because I know there is a message for me in it. This is how I operate. God's signs are everywhere...
Feeling rather disappointed for not having been drawn to anything that particular afternoon, I walked the polluted city, of smog, crowds and traffic...when I spotted an elderly man, with some books spread on the pavement, used books...all in Arabic...so I stopped and checked out more titles...and stacked between these books was one book that caught my attention....it was old, used and bore the name of some previous owner...I picked it up...
The book was by Alan Watts and the title was -- THIS IS IT.
I could not believe my eyes...I was quite familiar with Alan Watts writings but seeing this particular book, which was out of print and nearly impossible to find, just blew my mind away....so of course I bought it...
I went to Khan Al-Khalili, a popular neighborhood which has since become so touristic, it is nauseating....and seating myself in one of the oldest cafes there, I started reading....I then understood that this was IT. There was nothing more, nothing less....and IT was exactly as IT was supposed to be. ALL was IT.
A sense of calm and serenity fell over me and that feeling stayed with me for many days....I felt then I had cracked open one mystery....
But human beings are complacent and easily swayed with one level of Truth...this is the danger zone actually...being stuck in one level of insight...
Anyways...years passed and I don't know what happened to that book...maybe it got exiled like I did...because other realities imposed themselves on me...cruder realities away from the mundane...subterranean realities and those I had to deal with...like it or not...
And the vicious cycle began...
It is not like I was wearing blinkers before...far from it...I suppose I was being prepared for the worst...I believe today I was being prepared to witness the unthinkable...the darkest side of human nature...which until then, I had a foretaste of but not fully...not like today...not like what has happened to Iraq...
It is a bit like Dante's inferno...a spiral descent into the utmost layers of Hell...and surely this could not be IT.
Surely there is more to Life, than occupations, surely there is more to Life than killings, surely there is more to Life than dungeons, rapes, torture and the most abject forms of cruelty, surely there is more to Life than weapons, guns, bombs, explosions, surely there is more to Life than impoverishment, disease, birth defects, depleted uranium, tumors, disfigurement...surely there is more to Life than ruins, rubble, broken homes, broken lives....surely there is more to Life than corruption, deceit, lies, theft...surely there is more to Life than toxic people, poisonous relationships, anguish, angst, fear, insecurity...surely there is more to Life than thousands of stories of grief, bereavement, loss, perdition...surely there must be more to Life than all of that....
Surely there must be more to Life than warped, fucked up, sick egos, all this fake piety, fake discourses...surely there must be something beyond all these lies, all this collective insanity, all this lack of consciousness, all this lack of awareness, all this neglect, all this abandonment, all this greed, all this hypocrisy, all these shadows, all this obscurity...all this darkness, all this hell...surely there must be more to Life than Death...
There must be a spark somewhere...IT cannot be otherwise...
And by God, am hell bent on finding IT.
