Читать книгу Reality Transurfing: steps 1-5 - Вадим Зеланд - Страница 3

I was woken by the neighbour’s dog barking. The nasty animal was always waking me up. How I hated it! Why should I have to be woken up by the noise of someone else’s pet? I decided to go out for a walk, calm down and distract myself from the intense desire to set fire to my neighbour’s house. They say dogs are like their owners. This one was. There always seemed to be some idiot in my life trying to get me down. Feeling stressed I started to get dressed. My slippers had disappeared again. Where are you, you sneaky little buggers? When I find you I will chuck you out!

It was foggy and damp outside. I walked along the slippery path through the gloomy forest. Almost all the leaves had fallen, exposing the grey trunks of half-dead trees. Why do I live in the middle of this depressing bog? I reached for a cigarette. I didn’t really want one, but old habits told me I needed one. Need? At what point had I become addicted to cigarettes? It’s not very pleasant smoking in the morning on an empty stomach. I used to be a social smoker. It had been fashionable, a symbol of freedom and style. But the party ends and the grey, drizzle of everyday life sets in, bringing with it problems in patches like slimy puddles. You smoke each problem away several times as if saying to yourself: “I’ll just have this quick smoke, catch my breath and then launch myself back into the dreaded routine.”

The smoke got in my eyes making them sting, so I placed my hands over them for a minute like an upset child. I was so fed up of everything. As if reading my thoughts, a birch branch bent spitefully and hit me hard on the forehead. Bastard! In my outrage I broke the branch in half and threw it to one side. The branch got caught in a tree and bounced from side to side and sprang up and down like a jack in a box as if mocking my inability to change any aspect of my world. Feeling very low I pushed on.

Every time I tried to battle with the world it would at first yield, giving me false hope, only then to come back at me with a hard slap. It’s only in films that the hero sets off towards his goal casting aside anything and everything that stands in the way. In reality, things are a bit different. Life is like a game of roulette. You win once, twice, even three times. You imagine yourself the prize-winner with the world at your feet but always end up with less than you started. You are just the turkey fattened up to be roasted and devoured to the sounds of happy music and laughter. You were fooling yourself. It’s not your lucky day. You made a mistake…

Wallowing in dark thoughts I arrived at the beach. Sharp waves were biting viciously at the sandy shore. The cold, damp sea breeze blew at me bitterly. Fat sea gulls wandered the shoreline, lazily pecking at rotten waste. Their eyes carried a cold, black empty look as if reflecting the cold and antagonism of the world around me.

A tramp was collecting empty bottles on the beach. I wished he would disappear. I wanted to be alone but he was walking towards me, probably wanting to scrounge something. I decided to go home. Was there no peace anywhere? I was so tired. I realised that the feeling of tiredness never left me, even when I was relaxing. At some point I had started killing time as if sitting out a prison sentence. I was always waiting for things to change, for a new stage in my life to begin where I would be different and able to enjoy life, but that stage was always somewhere in the future. In the meantime it was the same old drudgery. I kept waiting but the better future remained as elusive as ever. I would return home and do the same thing I always did; eat a boring breakfast and then leave for my dull job, forcing myself to produce results which mattered to someone else but not to me. It would be just another day of the same tiresome, meaningless life.

I was woken by the rustle of the morning stars. What a sad dream. It was as if I had returned to a period in my past. Thank goodness it was only a dream. I stretched with relief just like my cat does. There he was lying lazily sprawled out–only his ears giving any sign that he was aware of my presence. Get up you whiskered thing. Are you coming with me for a walk? I had placed an order for a sunny day and so set off towards the sea.

The path led through the forest and the rustle of the morning stars gradually faded, giving way to the multi-voiced choir of the bird nation. Someone in the bushes was trying especially hard “Food! Food!” There he was the little wretch. However can such a little ball of fluff squawk so loudly? Only now did it occur to me that although every bird had a different voice, none were ever out of tune with the rest of the choir. They always managed to produce such a graceful symphony; no orchestra, however sophisticated could be favourably compared.

The sun stretched its rays between the trees, creating a magical backlighting that highlighted the voluminous depth and richness of the colours of the forest and transforming it into one miraculous hologram. The path led me diligently towards the sea. The emerald waves exchanged whisperings with the warm sea breeze. The shore seemed endless and empty but I felt comfortable and at peace as if the overpopulated world had created a secluded corner just for me. Some people believe the world is an illusion created by the mind but I could not imagine having such a high opinion of myself that I could think all this beauty was the product of my own consciousness.

Still feeling the effect of my oppressive dream I began to reminisce about my former life, which had actually been as dull and gloomy as my dream. Like a lot of people, I had often demanded that the world give me all I felt it owed me but in response it had turned its back on me in indifference. I was advised by others wiser and more experienced than myself not to give up because the world doesn’t give up that easily either. “You have to fight for what you want”. So I tried battling with the world but I didn’t get anywhere and ended up exhausted. My advisers had a ready answer for this too. “You are the problem. Change yourself before you start demanding things of life”. So, I battled with myself but this turned out to be even harder than battling with the world.

Then one day, I dreamed that I was in a nature reserve. In the dream I was surrounded by indescribable beauty. I was walking through the reserve and admiring the full wonder of it all when I came across an angry old man with a grey beard who, as far as I could make out, was the Guardian of the Reserve. He watched me in silence. I walked up to him but as soon as I opened my mouth to speak he cut across me. In a cold tone he said that he didn’t want to hear a word; he was tired of noisy and capricious visitors who were constantly displeased, always making demands and left mountains of rubbish after themselves. I nodded in sympathy and walked on.

I was amazed by the unique beauty of the reserve and wondered why I hadn’t visited it before. Enchanted, I continued to wander around taking in the magnificence on all sides. No words could fully describe the perfection of the landscape. My mind went blank in stunned admiration.

Soon the Guardian appeared before me again. The austere look on his face had softened and he beckoned for me to follow. We climbed to the top of a green hill and from there the spectacular view of a picturesque valley opened before us. I could make out some kind of village with toy houses decorated with plants and flowers like an illustration in a book of fairy-tales. Had the scene before me appeared more real I could have stood regarding it with delight for some time. As it was, I started to suspect that such fabulous beauty was the stuff of dreams and not real life. I turned to the Guardian with a questioning look but he just sneered into his beard as if to say: “We’re only just getting started!”

As we descended into the valley below it began to dawn on me that I could not remember how I had arrived at the reserve. I was hoping the old man could give me an explanation. Then I must have made some clumsy remark about how it must feel pretty damn good to be one of the lucky ones who could afford to live in such a beautiful place, to which, openly displaying his irritation, the Guardian replied: “Who is stopping you from joining them?”

I started to go on about how not everyone was born rich and we don’t choose our fate. The Guardian ignored my words and said: “That’s the point. Everyone is free to choose any destiny they wish. The only freedom we truly have is the freedom of choice. You can choose anything you want.”

His statement did not at all fit with my philosophy of life and I made to argue with him, but the Guardian would not listen: “Fool!” he said. “You have the right to choose, but you don’t exercise it. You do not even understand what ‘to choose’ really means.” This is ridiculous, I thought. What does he mean by, “I can choose whatever I want”? Anyone would think that you could just conjure up anything you wanted. At that moment I suddenly realised that I was dreaming. The situation threw me and I did not know how to behave.

As far as I can recollect I hinted to the old man that he could choose to speak rubbish whether in a dream or in waking but there ended the extent of his freedom. My comment did not seem to bother the Guardian at all; in fact he laughed in response. Aware of how ridiculous the situation was (what was the point of getting into a debate with a figure from my own dream?) I was considering whether it would be better to wake myself up. As if reading my mind the old man said: “That’s enough. We don’t have much time. I hadn’t expected them to send me a moron like you, but I must carry on with my mission nonetheless.”

I was going to ask him what his ‘mission’ was, and who ‘they’ were but he ignored me, instead giving me a riddle, which at the time seemed quite absurd: “Everyone can have the freedom to choose whatever they want; but here’s a riddle for you: how do you acquire that freedom? When you guess the answer correctly your apples will fall to the sky.”

What apples? I was beginning to loose patience and said that I had no intention of solving any riddles. Miracles only happened in dreams and fairy-tales. In reality, apples generally fall to the ground, to which he replied: “That’s enough! Let’s go. There is something I must show you.”

Regrettably, when I woke up I could not remember the end of the dream. However, I did have the distinct feeling that although I was unable to express it consciously, the Guardian had imparted some kind of information to me. Just one word seeped through into my mind but I had no idea what it meant: Transurfing. The thought I found going round my mind was that I did not have to totally furnish my world myself; that everything that was to be mine had been created long ago without my participation but for my own well-being. There was absolutely no point in battling with the world for a place under the sun, and no-one was stopping me from simply choosing the life I wanted to have.

At first the idea seemed absurd. I would probably have forgotten all about it if I had not to my amazement soon afterwards started having very clear recollections of what the Guardian meant by the word ‘choose’, and how to actually make a choice. The answer to the Guardian’s riddle came to me of its own accord; as knowledge does sometimes seem to come from nowhere. Every day I learned something new and each time I felt huge surprise, sometimes bordering on fear. I can give no rational explanation of how this knowledge came to me but of one thing I am certain. I could never have made it up myself.

Ever since I discovered Transurfing (or rather, since I was given it to discover) my life has been filled with joyful meaning. Anyone who has ever been involved in some kind of creative work will know the happiness and fulfilment that comes with creating something with your own hands. Imagine then the feeling of creating your own destiny. Even the expression ‘to create your own destiny’ as it is interpreted in its usual sense, fails to describe what I mean here. Transurfing is a method that frees you to choose your own destiny, literally like you would choose something in a supermarket. I want to share this with you so that you can understand why ‘apples fall to the sky’, why the ‘morning stars rustle’, and many other curious things.