I'm sitting in a provisional hut with a group of men around my age. It may be we are hiding, but no time to think, a shot rings and one of the men is hit in the shoulder, bleeding. I see he already suffered multiple wounds, they are still fresh. He has a dark complexion and curly black and grey hair, deranged, sweating.
There is an outcry in the group, but he silences everybody, by getting up and going out. Everybody is bewildered. Angry, determined, daring.
I follow him, with one or two others. He is going up an incline. Everything is pebbles, grey - blue. No plants, no life, a desert of pebbles as far as the eyes can see.
The hurt man climbs the knoll, he can't possibly know what is waiting on the other side, they may shoot him, again. I follow a few steps behind. Reaching the top, he raises his arms and shouts "Why do you shoot me, I'm your brother!"
I'm still angry, and pick up pebbles, throwing them in the direction of the adversaries. Some stones thrown back. But mine fall short, and that is alright. Nobody is hurt. Everybody stops throwing, as a single small roundish man approaches us from where the other group is. He walks up to the hurt man, and they embrace, weeping. I join their embrace, tears are flowing.
We return to our hut and everybody is muttering below their breath about this extraordinary man.
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I wake up moved with this intense love and peace, but get on with my exercise
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Same scenery, the pebble desert. An old Mercedes plows through the ground, but there is something stirring at the side of the path, the driver evades and slows down. I look closer, real close. Two pairs of ants making their way on what to them must be a rough mountain hike. Each pair carrying something white, maybe a match, or a tiny rolled sheet. I follow them, in awe of their determination. Fascinated - again - how there is such complex life and power in these small creatures. Teamwork, communication. They are entering our hut, climbing one leg of the wooden table. Crossing the table. Daring. Or just not conscious of our presence? I let them go their way, I know nothing of their plans.
I started exercising Tibetan dream yoga, as my Sufi master recommended, with no specific goal in mind, but getting acquainted with the first steps - sleeping position, breathing technique. The exercise is meant to experience and deeply understand the illusory nature of the dream state, and of life, generally.
The questions of war and peace are somehow always on my mind. This wounded man reminds me of Jesus (the Jesus in my heart), in the way he surrenders and sets love above all conflicts, even above his own life on earth, calling us to solidarity across the gaps, in spite of how we hurt each other. How can we find peace, but by surrendering and forgiving, by returning to love?
I don't know what the ants want to express. But for me this part of dream is about respecting all of creation, about being humble and peaceful.
The ants are determined like the wounded man. And like we at first didn't understand his reaction and ways, I don't understand the ants' ways, now. It appears to me, again, that we are but characters in the dream of the Highest, we are acting out a plot we are largely unaware of. It may be we planned all this by ourselves, but we forgot. So the dreaming may come round to the goal of the exercise.
Today the "simulation hypothesis" is en vogue. It has already been set to work for thousands of years in the spiritual teachings.
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