Houston are you receiving, over?

I was running late for my flight out of San Antonio, Texas this morning. I asked the cabbie to put his foot down as I did not want to miss my connection at Houston to London.
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The cabbie nodded his head, looked at me through the rear view mirror, then turned his head and he shook his finger at me.  "You really need to let go of your stress Sir, it will do you no good, no good at all?". In the meanwhile I peered at the four cars in front of us willing the red light to change so we could get onto the highway. 

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I rolled my eyes and grit my teeth. In every taxi ride when the driver kicks off the conversation there are only two options, take out my work and get like I'm busy working or engage.. I slumped back into the seat and went for it"¦ I asked Oh yeh? So how do I do that? It's fine saying don't stress, but tell me, HOW do it do that?"

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The cabbie twisted his head, smiled and said "Well, it begins right now, you have to stop stressing yourself over that red light, because it will change regardless of what you think or feel about it, that light does not need your stress and neither do you".

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The driver had my attention, I don't even remember that red light changing, the movie reel in my head of scrambling through check in and security to a final touch down at the departure gate before it closed evaporated from my minds eye. I was now in the taxi with this stranger wondering what made him so calm?

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"So how? How do I do that mate?". The Cabbie Philosopher grabbed my hand (not literally) and took me on a magic carpet ride. "Please sit back and relax, the airport will come when it will come, but I am going to tell you a long story" I sat back and wondered where was this stranger going to take me?

"You are from India correct?" I told him that I was a Sikh from the Punjab.  "Good" he said, "I am a Moslem from Iran".

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"The reason why I tell you I am from Iran is because I am going to tell you a story that made me let go of my stress and if you listen to it carefully it will help you let go of your stress also. If you do not listen to it, then you will keep collecting more and more stress all your life.

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"I emigrated to Am-erie-ca for 35 years ago. When I first come here, I loved everything, I loved the lights, I loved the tall buildings, I loved the fast food, I fell in love completely with the Am-erie-can Lie. I began to collect things, lots of things and then I began to compare things. I did not compare things with other things, I compared the things I had with the things that other people had. This taught me what to want. Then as I began to collect more things and even more things.

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Then suddenly one day, I got a letter from Iran informing me that a very dear friend of mine, a mentor who had been very important in my young life had been taken very seriously ill and that was in hospital.

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Suddenly could not see anything anymore, I could not see the things I was collecting, all I could see was that I wanted to be by his side. I went to Iran to visit my friend.

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Now, I have to tell you, you have to believe me, this was a very, very intelligent man, the most intelligent man I had ever met in my life. Yes, yes, my friend had an education from schooling, but much more he had the education of life, he was what you say street smart.

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Through all my university years he was my mentor. I loved him very much, like a father. When I fly to Iran I went straight to his hospital room. When I walked into the room he was sitting in the bed, he was being fed by his wife. She completely broke down and wept and I began to cry and his daughter in the room, she also began to cry very loud. All this time my friend sat smiling in bed.

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My friend could not understand why we were crying. His wife told me that he had lost his mind. I spoke to my friend but he just kept smiling and nodding his head like a little child. I asked his wife what is going on?

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She told me that he worried all the time, he was constantly worrying about his job, worrying about his daughter, worrying about his neighbors, worrying about Iran, his mind was always running, running, running, worrying about this and worrying about that, it just never stopped. She told me that he was so stressed that one day, just like that (snaps fingers) he just could not get out of bed.

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Then my friends daughter, who I had only seen as a little child began to talk about a lot of things. In her every facial expression, her words sounded just like my mentor Mohammed. In her I could see the young Mohammed, the teacher, the friend, the man that he was. This was one of the saddest days of my life. I cried all night and for the whole week after that.

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I am only human, I worry about my loved ones, get upset at religious zealots in America and my home country, but Allah is magnificent (index finger points to the sky). Allah is all magnificent, he allows us in a blink of an eye to go wherever we want to go.

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When I feel my stomach get tense, my breath tightens and muscles contract, when I shrink as a man, then right away I go back, in an instant of a blink of an eye I arrive back in that hospital room. I can be driving a cab, walking my grandchildren to school or watching a movie, but when I feel tense I go back in my mind and meet dear friend Mohammed and he nods and he smiles and then he sets me free. He is my constant daily reminder of the cost of worrying, worrying, worrying.

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We can control how we feel, but we cannot control 99% of the things that go on around us, I cannot control that driver in that car over there and whether he wants to suddenly cross this lane and take away our limbs forever, I cannot control politicians who make bombs and kills little children. I cannot control any of this, but I can control how I feel, this is my control and nobody elses.

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My friend, we can worry all we want but when the end comes, (claps his hands) it will come when it comes, and it will not come of our choosing otherwise why would we ever et it come?

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When it comes and it will as sure as the sun will go down into the night this evening. When we go, we go, we will take nothing with us, absolutely nothing. All these things that we collect, all the things we worry about in our mind, all of this we will let go and we will leave behind and it will not matter anymore, ever again. The things that we collect will gather dust, be sold, break or be thrown away. These things we collect, these worries that we collect, all of this does not mean a thing.

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I am a nothing more than a simple, humble taxi driver, stuck in this very small space (the car). I pick up many important people everyday, they sit there exactly where you are sitting right now and they talk and talk and talk, they talk about many things, politics, business, religion, families and they tell their wife tell her that they are missing her on the same phone.

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Yes, all of these important people, all their talk and talk and talk will mean nothing in the end. I do not listen to them, I do not care about what they are saying, but I do hear and feel their pain, I feel their anguish and need to collect this and that, to collect people that they want to control, to collect money that they do not know what to do with. They collect, and collect and collect until they are going to be collected.

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So, my friend, this is how you lose your stress. Let go of the 99% of things that do not matter and that you cannot control and that control you. Then get in touch with the 1% that does matter.

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The driver of this magic carpet ride had taken me to the airport, but he had taken me somewhere much more important. He had given me the keys to the real freedom that can only be enjoyed now.

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As we pulled into the airport and came to complete stop, I asked the drive "What is your name friend?" Without a word, he held up his ID card with his funny mug shot, it said "Syeed". I asked him "Syeed what makes you so wise?" and he said "We are all wise but we do not stop to pay attention to the wisdom that Allah has given to us, we take it for granted so he takes it back from us".

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The car pulled up at the Airport taxi drop off point, I began a new conversation with Syeed. I asked him "Syeed, I am late for my flight, but there will be another flight but I may never see you again, so tell me just one more thing, can you explain to me the mess that is in the middle east?"

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Syeed twisted his entire body over the seat and looked me in the eye, I opened my mind to grasp some sanity in a world gone mad, from the magic carpet ride man.

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"Mohameed and Jesus are the same, Moses and Jesus are the same, Jesus and the Buddha are the same. Yes, they came at different times and yes they lived in different bodies, but these were all the same, one spirit being guided by the light of just one god, Allah, he who is adorned by us feeble humans by a thousand and one different names but is just  only one god, creator of all"

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"The differences that exist were not created by our god, they were created by greedy religious people and greedy politicians who want to do nothing but to collect people into their control, to have power over more and more people. These politicians created the difference in our mind so they can collect our minds. The more minds they collect, they think the happier they will be, but these are fools, these greedy politicians, these greedy priests, they all created these differences in our minds so that they can collect us.

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They do this by taking us to the 99% that we cannot control, they make us forget the 1% that we can control because this 1% that is given by God would leave them feeble and realising this they would need to kneel and worship God.

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They collect us up and take us into the 99% and they make our mind unclean by filling it with anger, greed, lust, revenge, they preach to us so they can block out the light of Allah, they sow seeds of hate by making us fear that our enemies will destory us, when the real truth is that we will not last forever anyway and the real truth is that as long as we are consumd by the collecting and collecting and collecting that we are not really free or alive even now, we are possessed. We allow these priests of the media, entertainment, churches, consumer packaged goods and politics to do this to us by being feeble, we are feeble when we denying Allah the honour we owe him. We allow them to do this to us when we forget the power we have been bestowed with.

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The truth is very simple but living it is very hard. Allah made all of us with his hands, every one of us, Jew, Christian, Moslem, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, we are all his children. How can I possibly hate something that Allah has made? How can I hate a Christian or a Jew or a Hindu, because when I hate them, then I hate Allaha's creation and when I hate Allah's creation, then I pour scorn on Allah, for he is the all magnificent creator of all things".

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The worshipping of Allah is the 1% robs the priests and politician of their power.

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That is all. Now go, get your flight and remember, do got collect that worrying, do not collect that stress, may Allah be with you"

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The taxi ride was showing $44 on the meter, I shoved a hundred dollar bill into Syeeds hand and curled his fist. He went to pick up the change and I wagged my finger in his face "No my friend, you have given me a lot more change than I bargained for today".

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I walked to through the airport as if a weight had been lifted off me. I got onto my flight on time.

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Here I am  buzzing 35,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean to England, scrawling out Syeeds words as fast as I can recall them. Deep down however, I know I will forget, it is highly likely that by the time we land, I will wallow back into the cave of the 99%.

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When I get off this momentary lapse of self awareness and self acceptance, the magical clarity of this carpet ride, I will succumb to the deep habit groove laced by the lure of the politicans and priests, because before I know it, I will be back to collecting, collecting , collecting and collecting, until as Syeed so starkly reminded me, the day I too will be collected.

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But wherefore do you droop? why look you sad?
Be great in act, as you have been in thought;
Let not the world see fear and sad distrust
Govern the motion of a kingly eye:
Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire;
Threaten the threatener and outface the brow
Of bragging horror: so shall inferior eyes,
That borrow their behaviors from the great,
Grow great by your example and put on
The dauntless spirit of resolution.

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The Life and Death of King John

Act V, Scene i.

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Comments

[Lance Olsen]

Sir,I just finished reading several of your tales. I have to tell you that I feel much the same way as you do. It doesn't matter what religion or social group you represent. They were all based on the same general principles. Kindness, Fellowship, Peace, Realization of love for your neighbor. I thought the taxi driver made the best argument for the former points. He allowed you to see the real way MEN have clouded these points into something they were never meant to be. I constantly try to obtain the 1%, but as you realize it sometimes seems impossible.
I suppose I don't have very much now by american standards and now my personal freedoms are in jeopardy (not seriously, thankfully). These circumstances force me to understand a different set of rules which apply universally. No matter what times are like in life, you still have that...life.

[Brittany]

"We are all wise but we do not stop to pay attention to the wisdom that Allah has given to us, we take it for granted so he takes it back from us".

This part of your entry stuck out the most because I felt it was the most true.

No, I don't necessarily believe we have an endless fountain of wisdom deep inside of us.

I just believe we all have common sense. We all have a voice in the back of our head saying, "You are not being reasonable. You don't need this & that. Quit acting like the world is out to get you."

But we ignore our common sense. We reason our emotions justifying them so that we don't feel so stupid.

I know, that I constantly stress. Maybe this is b/c I'm 18 and have little experience with handling it. However, even at this age I'm learning that there are somethings one shouldn't allow himself to get carried up with.

I don't get mad at children and scream at them. I'm firm but, I know how to handle a situation without losing it. (When you tell them not to do something and they do it, punish them right away. Don't keep saying, "If you do that one more time...")

Also, I gave up hate. Possibly the most useless and stressful emotion of them all. It wasn't because I had a revelation but, hate and the anger that comes with it really takes a lot out of me.
I began to see how many people and things I hated and wondered, "What am I getting out of this?" Nothing, nothing at all. Unless you count headaches and the sudden need to sleep.

I believe that giving up these stress-ers really helped me.
So, even if you do return to the world of "collect, collect, collect" then find something that you can give up. That's my biggest recommendation.

Just remember, its not about obtaining perfection. It's about learning and when you finally do leave this world-I know this is cliche-leaving it a little better than before.

Love your blogs. :)

[Kashmir Birk]

You are so right Brittany. Common sense is not so common, why it is called common is beyond me.

Emotions are a raging fire. Rationale is placid oil. One cannot be poured onto the other without a serious and painful incident. It is the over thinking that kills us, all this thinking and thinking and thinking consumes where we are and who we are going to be.

You can give up on stressers, but they will never give up on you?

You are absolutely right when it comes to giving up the need for attachment!

I would never wish it upon anyone, but it is sadly inevitable that one day, you will fall seriously in love with someone and they may come to betray you. When they crush your dreams, when they take from you all that you could give and they've tossed it aside like yesterday's rubbish, when your heart cracks so far apart that all the world could fall through it without hitting the sides, that is when you come to the realisation that all this shit is easier said than done.

All the best.

Kashmir.