Thumbnail: portrait of a happy young woman by Chaz McGregor.
M'Hoq Toq's words look like this.
Trudi's words are written this way.
What else will you ask?
Can you tell me where my path is heading?
Well, you have a path that you decided on before this lifetime. So what exactly do you want to know?
We can’t predict the future for you, if this is what you’re looking for, because you always have a choice. It’s not like, ‘This is the path. You have to go straight down this path, otherwise, you’re lost.’ There are always little side trips of pleasant and rather unpleasant experiences that make you learn more along your path.
You are kind of following your path. It’s only turning into a problem if you veer off too far from that path, like, if you get lost somewhere else.
You are not lost.
You need to have a clearer idea of what you need to focus on: what is truly important in your life. Is it your happiness? Well, it should be.
You had some quick learning experiences. You had some pleasant learning experiences. But the main focus should be learning in this lifetime, while you’re happy.
Being generally happy doesn’t exclude having pleasant and quick learning experiences. The overall pathway should be happiness.
If you are happy and healthy, you can handle 'quick learning experiences' because you are strong enough. Photo by Janaya Dasiuk.
People who are happy are healthier. If you are happy and healthy, you can easily handle a so-called ‘quick learning experience’, because you will be strong enough.
A good thing is to eliminate lots of distraction and noise around.
You have to think about—in a very clear way—‘What is important for me, in this lifetime? What makes me happy? Or healthy enough? Or keeps me that way, so I can handle a quick learning experience here and there, as well as the more pleasant ones?’
The pleasant learning experiences are a bit slower and they might appear to be a bit boring. Sometimes ‘boring’ can be really good, at least for awhile.
Do you understand?
Yes.
Focus on the thing that you want and desire the most.
Don’t try to solve and do everything at once because then you’ll get lost. You’re on the path, but you are still feeling lost. You understand?
Yep.
If you stop searching for things in desperation, you will be able to find the solutions easily. The busier you are with all the things around you, the more you get lost, the less you can focus on what is important. There is only so much energy you have.
If you gain knowledge, you grow your energy. But if you go off here and here and here, ‘just a little bit because I need to solve it all at the same time,’—you don’t gain enough knowledge to grow enough energy.
Ya. I understand.
Focus.
Let others around you have their own learning experiences: no matter how quick they are; or how pleasant, or boring.
This will protect you.
Okay.
Focus... this will protect you. Photo by Awar Jahfar.
You can see that if you’re more protected, you learn more, you have more energy.
You don’t get so much distraction.
If you don’t try to solve everything at the same time, you’ll get a clear picture. It’s very easy to focus if you start to see the clear picture. You understand?
Yep. Yeah. I have too much focus on other people. It takes my energy. I should go on my path, focussing only on me, yeah?
You are on your path, my friend!
There’s just too much distraction, that makes you sometimes feel like you are not on your path. Veering off a little bit, here and there, does not mean you’ve lost your path.
And if I go this way more clearly, I think I’d be happier. I can be happy in the next years, earning my money, living in a good way, maybe find a new partner.
It is good to aim for new things. It is good to aim high. But you are—I can hear that—still focussing on everything at once. ‘I want this and this and this and this.’
Start focusing on your happiness—what makes you truly happy. And then you can see much more clearly, what’s going on. It will be much easier to focus on the next thing.
And then you can get one thing after the next.
Do you understand? It is not easy, I know.
I wanted to do all things at one time, but it doesn’t work. That’s right.
It’s the distraction. You get blinded and deafened by the distraction.
If you can’t see properly, if you can’t hear properly, you can’t focus. This is what the distraction does to you.
Yes, I understand.
Truly?
[Laughs] Yes.
Good. And, if I might add something?
Switch to some other herbs to smoke. You should smoke healthy things. You can handle these healthier things. It’s gonna help you. Will you please keep that in mind, my friend?
Yes, I do.
Suri woman enjoying her calabash pipe. Photo by Trevor Cole.
You can use these little papers and put your herbs in, if you feel that other things to smoke from are looking too embarrassing. But it would help.
It would buy you time. Do you understand?
Mmm. Yep.
If you start to focus, look after the things you put into your body, you can have a great time ahead. On your path, with all the learning and the good energy coming out of it.
If you raise your own energy, you can raise the energy of the ones around you as well. Did you know that?
Mmm, I know that yeah. If I myself have good energy, I could raise others up by that energy, too.
Yeah, others would feel better, too.
Pause.
And if I’m not having good energy, they will suffer around me, I know that yeah.
I would not say suffer. You would be the one that suffers.
They are tangled up in their own things, they have the filters on. They’re caught on their own path or far away from their paths.
If you have this good energy, that means you raise their energy. They will be happier. They would not torture themselves and others so.
So it’s not as if they would feel bad. You are the one that would feel not so good.
I know this is a strange concept.
Pause.
Is there anything else we can do?