Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

The City and the People ... By Dr. Hadi El-Tonsi


Mon 24 Feb 2020 | 10:20 AM
Ahmad El-Assasy

Two big cities, the first is crowded and noisy, where life is tiresome and full of contradictions despite its rich history and culture, Dr. Hadi El-Tonsi.

The other one is calm, organized, and beautiful where life is easy and full of culture and entertainment, but it overwhelms everyone. So, the inhabitants are mostly rushing to fulfill their needs and duties, one after another in an accurate calculation of time and cost; faces look austere or with artificial looks sometimes.

Lots are those living in the first city that would dream of living in the second, especially if they get accustomed to its lifestyle, others after immigration cannot withstand tranquility or persons involved just in their private life away from relatives, neighbors or even friends.

They would be irritated by calculated relationships and reactions lacking what they consider human warmth, bravery or generosity.

Hence, after the bedazzling dream is achieved, they may feel lonely or nostalgic to their original homeland with all its pros and cons, and if their immigration continues they enter into a vicious circle, regretting what they did or justifying it time and time again without final adoption of definite choice.

Another group of people is not satisfied by city life, and not convinced by the breathless rush after duties and needs. They want to live the moment intensely with full consciousness, a deep awareness that brings themselves out of loneliness in a way that involves senses and intuition, letting them work fully; that moment when an inpidual connects to himself, others, nature, and creatures, giving himself fully, fearlessly and openly.

It is a life of spontaneity and liberation, letting both brain hemispheres totally free to work with considerations of logic, reality, genuine values, true deep feelings, and the entrusted potential of sixth sense.

It is life when the inpidual is aware that he is a part of one, loving, responsible, serene, and giving unconditionally and without limits.

What is wrong then if a person leaves city life even temporarily, abandoning dependence on others and the need for much entertainment, goods, and services?

Would insistence on city life sometimes be a failure or an escape from one’s self?

Can we live in a small village, beside a sea or a lake or in forests?

Does this choice give us a fair share of time and space, where our feelings and intuition breeze, and when a human being realizes that he can be happy whenever he is the best friend to himself, others, and life?

Did we ask ourselves why the Sufis aspire to union with the pine?

Why some of us prefer the life of isolation to close social relations that they enjoy anyhow?

You may be enchanted by a sea, its roaring waves, routine movement, and fresh breeze, so you get lost in a trance of relaxation and reflection, and you believe that the seashore is your favorite getaway.

The time comes when you live next to a lake, so you are taken for hours in stillness, silence, and space, watching boats rocking calmly on a pure water surface, and a sky of changing colors and clouds at day times.

Or maybe you have spent a night in a simple lodge with fresh weather and garden and started listening to and interpreting the birds whisper, and smelling the odors of plants and roses gazing at their colors, remarking the dew with a vital sense of beauty, and an open eye that feels and realizes the details and the whole scene.

Did you furnish, decorate, and organize your house with all that you have of love, harmony, and a sense of beauty? Hence making it an embodiment of your person and a museum of your memories, and you felt that you belong to every corner of it and that your house became the heaven that sees you off every morning and awaits you every evening?

Did you collect your sorts of music, pictures, and books that you read repeatedly, all taking you to its world, enriching your soul, challenging your thoughts, and making you fly with imagination, even when you are between four walls?

Did all of that make your heart full of love to creatures, peoples, and cultures, learning the lessons of history and life, and your spirit realizes the reasons for existence?

You can anyhow discover how easy it is to feel happy whenever you can guide well your attention and energy outside of yourself.

Even more, and when you are at that stage, it may come to your mind solutions for longstanding problems that you thought were not worthy to be reconsidered time and time again.

How complicated is the self? And how easy and near happiness can be?

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