Part 1

VISITS INTO THE REAL REALITY Writing 4

17. ARTISTRY

I felt in an aggressive mood as I entered the real world. Although I had no specific subject in mind, I wanted to learn and not just wait for what would be shown to me.

I found myself in the 'living room' of Achmed's house. It seemed he was happy to see me. He gestured to sit down on a 'couch' that looked like it was made from wood.

I decided to not let anything pass.

"Is this wood coming from trees?"

"No, it looks like wood on earth but it is a composite material. ('And where does that come from'?, I thought.) Do you like it?"

It had a contemporary look, but, as so often here, things are hard to describe.

Sitting on it, or rather reclining, felt comfortable.

"So this is man-made? Does it react like the rock I sat on the other day, adjusting to my body when I sat on it?"

"Yes! Any fabric is aware of its nature to accommodate. Do you like it?" he repeated.

I said, "Yes, but the problem is I have nothing to compare it with. It feels so different than our furniture.

"I designed and put it together," Achmed said casually.

I looked at him, puzzled.

"I'm an artisan. I design and decorate clothes and I also make quite a few other products."

He was ahead of my thinking when he added, "I belong to a segment of our human society you have not heard of yet. "We are the trend-setters," he laughed. "We are the creative ones, introducing new things. We are artists, craftsmen and -women, designers and producers all in one."

He was very willing to answer my questions.

Their type of people lives in houses they design themselves.

His wife? Yes, she too belongs to this group. "Don't you think creating new fragrances is an artistic endeavor? We are not just lovers but also colleagues and partners." The two of them often invite others to join them to discuss and coordinate research, try out new ideas, fabrics, uses and to take care of distribution.

He said that much is processed in big, even huge, plants but that one and the same principle was applied everywhere. It is the total respect between all participants, creator and material, producer and product, tiniest particle and unit. They all produce, create and are of use. He sees being part of that activity as a celebration of life's ever changing face.

He laughed, "Work feels like partying; it never is a burden. There is no pressure or hardship of any sort for any part involved in our labor."

"Do you ever disagree with colleagues or do not like what they design?"

"Actually, no. Nothing is ever identical. We all have our own ideas and ways to come up with things. My colleagues see possibilities I would never dream of. Fascinating. There is no criticism. How could there be? We operate from and with the same spirit. I have personal preferences. So do all. But we never compare. Everything offered has its own beauty and value. We all are in the business of perfecting the perfection, the mirroring of the splendor of I AM. This also means we never run out of inspiration."

I challenged him. "If things are always being perfected, what about products of the past. Are they obsolete now, old, out of fashion, less interesting or exciting?"

He thought for a moment. "No!" he said. "What you forget is that the past is not over. It is as much now as 'today'. I can go there. I know it sounds weird to you, but as you heard explained before, in a way everything happens simultaneously on different frequencies. In what you call the past, different styles were in vogue than the ones now. But so was their whole context. So when I go there for whatever reason, I enter that context. I then function on that 'time' level. I see and relate to their perfection of that period. Or, even more precisely, I relate to the presence of I AM in them. Their different 'outside' is transparent so it allows their essence and fullness to come through. It portrays the same harmonious whole as what we produce now.

If artists from 'then' would visit our 'present', they also would notice the differences but they would similarly appreciate and understand our artistry. Their and our motivation for creating and producing, the happy cooperation with materials and the joy in adding to usefulness, we have in common. Can you understand that?"

To my surprise, I could!

"You learn!" he said. "You cannot do that yet, go back or forward in time but by now you are rather clear about the fact that taking time as only linear invalidates it as a tool for measuring reality."

I asked if I could see the place where he worked.

We left the house. I saw his wife at a distance, busy at the other end of the 'garden'. We waved at each other.

"Here we are."

I realized that the place was not adjacent to the house and garden. There was no ditch, fence or road that separated them. Yet we just left the house.

He explained that his working area was not 'over here', in contrast to the house and garden being 'over there', but that it is all 'in the same space', as I would call it, but on a different level of density.

We were in a spacious room with low walls and no roof. The many, mainly young, people in it were chatting while their hands were busy doing something.

"I teach the youngsters here the intricacies of weaving," he said.

I took a close look. The young people worked each on a frame which was approximately three square feet. It had vertical strings, each an inch apart. All kind of 'tools' lay around them. The setting reminded me vaguely of how weaving is done on earth. On the wall hung bundles of what looked like wool just clipped from the sheep.

I asked where it came from, animals?

He said, no, it all came from what I would call plants.

"So you and your wife are in the same business?"

"You got it! We have a nice deal. No monopoly, though," he grinned.

We walked around. A girl came running up to me. I caught her and lifted her up. She hugged me warmly.

"Do you remember me? We took you to our school."

"She is one of my daughters," Achmed said. "She wants to learn my trade."

I put her down. She took my hand and led me to the corner where she worked.

"I'll show you what I can do already."

Her equipment was the same as at the other stations; perhaps a bit smaller.

She picked some strings from several bundles and sort of braided them together before spreading them over the framed strings. Her movements were slow, even for a learner, I thought. But I noticed her concentration and her lips moving as if she was whispering. I realized she was indeed, in some way or another, in contact with the fabric in her hands. At times she nodded as if she and the strings reached an agreement.

Her father whispered in my ear that she is learning to 'feel' and interpret the vibrations in the material. These guide her to find the right way to put things together; not just the materials but also so she knows what colors and decorative patterns to use.

He said that she was so eager to improve her skills that he guessed she would soon surpass him in creativity.

She heard him say that, stopped working and snuggled up to him. "He is the best of us all. I am so happy he is my father," she said. (I thought, flattery will get you anywhere; even here.)

I probed her with, "So, you would not consider switching parents?"

She simply said, "No, why should I?"

She looked at me with curiosity. "You are from earth, right? We are told that everything is different there. Do you have to go back there?" I nodded. She got a concerned look on her face, as if she pitied me. Again, she came over to me and I picked her up. It was as if she stepped right into me and our personal boundaries blurred. For me, it came with a deep sense of love and oneness. (I guess caring parents feel this when they cuddle their child.)

Achmed commented on it. He said that there are a number of things on earth that come close to the real reality. They have the ring of authenticity and timelessness, like innocence and spontaneity. They produce a discernible sense of harmony, purity and simplicity.

"You were an artist on earth?"

"No. I told you I was a wild number, not in touch with reality. I just lived it up. After I died and saw other options, I went through a period of deep shame. I realized that true life surpasses in every sense the thrills I went for. What I took as pleasant on earth evaporated when I saw what is feasible here. So I asked if I could learn to be part of making beauty."

"What, if people who die do not want to change?"

His answer was, "They can remain who they are if that is what they really desire. But being confronted with the real reality makes it hard to not have something in them start longing for becoming part of that kind of life."

"And if that does not happen?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"It is not my specialty to know about those things, but I think you have to take into account that we humans live in this special cycle of life in which negative things are played out. To me, it would make sense that if people from earth want to hold on to their false ideas and standards, they can do so but they then push out the tiny bit of true energy in them. Eventually, that will detach itself from them for the simple reason that the new cycle of being will have nothing even remotely negative in it. Those who want to hold on to non-love will be no more; will never have been, you could say."

"So, there is no place like a hell, as some people on earth believe?"

"Right! Although the whole Negative State sort of qualifies for that name. Where I AM's nature is violated it is 'dark'. I lived in a hell even if I didn't think so at the time. You know, I think that no one will ultimately keep resisting and denying that they, too, are life-forms that originate in and are meant for the beauty and love of I AM."

I asked him about his ideas of beauty on earth, compared with here. (At times, I state in a flippant way, 'What truly is love and beauty is eternal'. But what do I on earth know about eternity? Yet, I sense there is a connection.)

He said, "The context is so different."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, take for instance elegant clothes, what you call high fashion. Even if is is available only for a few privileged ladies, it may be transparent for eternity's splendor by way of the designer's sensitivity. Realize, there should be no separation between outside, inside and use. Every aspect of what exists creates its own sphere of joy. Everything is of I AM's nature and shares the beauty of it. What is considered great on earth may correspond with true life's perfection but it also can obscure reality when it draws attention to itself or is exclusive. Anything that potentially could reflect this world, like beauty, luxury, power or creativity can become a trap, a travesty of the full reality."

We discussed for a while how much I have been learning since I started these visits. So much here looks to me a dream world, utopia, a grand fantasy of paradise. Yet, it all is real. Life on earth is in many ways such a caricature of this.

Achmed pointed out that this reality has been hiding in me from my day one on earth. It was, however, like anything in the Negative State thoroughly distorted, covered with lies and suffocated by conditioning and distractions.

I wondered, "What about my other ego here, in case I do not want to reunite?"

Achmed laughed. "Say that you choose that option, you wonder if your eternal self will be disappointed or worse, never be whole again? No, my friend. It enjoys a full life now. In that sense, it does not 'miss' you. It, or if you want, they, are proud that they, as you, participate directly in the pursuit of the human species to probe whether the impossible is possible. In case you would get lost in the lies of the Negative State it would be the delusional part of your person. But don't you think you are nicely puncturing that unrealistic bubble these days?"

(We had to part because my walk was over. For some reason or another it had become a tradition to not continue with the visit once I was home. We, or rather I, never reserved another time slot for it. Actually, once I wrote down what I experienced immediately after returning from my walk, I never took time to reflect on what transpired. I did not read the notes until I started the editing in order to have it printed.)