Evolution - Part 5

As Tumaini walked down the mountains towards the big busy capital of the country, he felt the energy of the trees in his path.  The feeling was hard to describe.  He felt a combination of happiness, encouragement, and concern from the plants all at the same time.  

Once a day, he would get a word of encouragement from Hekima passed down through the root systems of the trees to wherever he was.  The intensity of these connections and communications began to wane as he reached the valleys below and the land became flatter with less trees and more open spaces for agriculture.

Tumaini finally reached a dirt road that headed towards another mountain range far in the horizon towards where the sun sets.  He knew the big city was beyond those mountains so he began to walk down the dusty road.  After a few hours, he heard something moving behind him and making a lot of noise.  It was a large box, with windows all around it, people inside, smaller boxes on top, and rolling on four wheels.  He had never seen anything like it.  The box was very colorfully painted all around it and it was moving down the road all by itself.  Nothing was pulling it.

When the box stopped next to him, a door opened and the man inside asked Tumaini if he was going to the big city. The man said it would only cost him one cuña to come with them. Tumaini explained that he did not have any cuñas but that he was willing to work.  The driver agreed and explained to Tumaini that his job was to stand by the door and to announce to people on the road that they were coming, announce where they were going, collect payment from people, and to help them get on and off the colorful box with their belongings from up top.

After a while, the sun began to set and people started to settle and fall asleep.  Tumaini began to observe the people in the box.  They were young and old, men and women, tall and short, some with black hair, some with blond hair.  He had never seen so many different types of people in one place in his life.  

The one thing Tumaini noticed is that all the people he had seen and met today were all preoccupied with the immediacy of the things they needed to do - boarding the box, eating, loading things, walking, thinking about getting somewhere, working the fields - lost in their own thoughts.  They seemed to not have time to observe things around them, or to learn about things they do not yet know, or to think about their part in evolution.  It all seemed hectic and immediate.

 

Tumaini did notice that, like children in his own village, the children here were the only ones that were more in tune with their surroundings and nature.  They were the curious ones, the ones eager to learn, and the ones truly enjoying the bigger world.   Tumaini wondered if this is what Hekima mentioned many years ago about how very few people in all of humankind are able to keep this awareness as they grow older.  Hekima called these few child-like enlightened people the "head of mankind's evolutionary arrow." 

Once the night set, Tumaini found a seat in the back of the box next to an older man.  They talked for a while.  Tumaini, as he had always been, was curious and full of questions.  The old man was happy for the conversation and happy to help.  Tumaini realized that there was still so much to learn.  He remembered what Hekima had said about learning and how the joy is in the journey and not in reaching a destination because there is no end to learning.  

The old man's name was Busara. Busara quickly felt there was something special about Tumaini. He notice how he was always very focused, paying attention, observing, analyzing, before asking a new question. Tumaini's questions seemed to always have a purpose and they all seemed interrelated somehow.

Busara asked Tumaini why he was going to the big city.  Tumainig simply said to find his purpose.  To find out why he was put on this earth.  Busara told Tumaini that he understood, that when he was young he had set out on a similar quest.

After a while, and as they approached the big city, Busara realized that he would have to explain to Tumaini a few basic things about how the world in the big city worked.  Busara explained the concept of money and how money was used to help the exchange of goods and services between people.  That in order to be able to eat, find shelter, and cloth himself, he would have to earn money by offering some useful to somebody else in return.

Tumaini realized that his skills in agriculture and with animals were going to be of little help in the city.  He made a mental inventory of the things he knew.  He told Busara that he knew a lot about math, physics, chemistry, and biology that perhaps some people in the city would be interested in learning about.  

He also knew about his ability to perceived things as a whole to determine causality to predict future events and how this was something that he had always been praised for in his village.  He wondered if anybody would be interested in knowing when it was going to rain or the movements of the wind in the city.  Tumaini decided to not mention this to Busara yet.

Busara mentioned that he had a daughter that was a philosophy teacher at the city's university there and she could probably help Tumaini figure out how to put his knowledge skills to work.  Tumaini was very grateful.

So, the box rode through the night through the mountain range that surrounded the city.  When they arrived, Tumaini was amazed at the amount of people, the noise, the moving boxes, big and small, the smells, the smoke, the dogs and the energy in the air.  Tumaini was surprised at his reaction to all this.  He was excited and not frightened.  He knew that that energy was key to everything that would come next.

Busara led Tumaini through the streets towards the university where his daughter worked.  The university was inside a beautiful park in the middle of the city. It was like an oasis or an island surrounded by noise, tall buildings, and people.  The university was composed of 5 building around a central courtyard in the shape of a pentagon.  

There were young people everywhere in long black robes, carrying books, walking back and forth between the buildings, and sitting in the shade of some of the big trees.  These groups of people seemed to be looking intently and interacting with things that look like books with their own light emanating from them.  And, instead of writing on them, they seemed to be pointing and tapping.  Tumaini knew there was so much to learn here.  He knew he had arrived to the right place.

Busara took Tumaini into one of the buildings and went up to the fifth floor to knock on one of the doors in a long corridor.  

When the door opened, Tumaini knew something was odd.

TO BE CONTINUED ...