Sent to me by a friend
I live in a rural part of South Africa. I asked a young boy if he could get anything he wants, what it would be. He could not think of anything. I then suggested perhaps he might want a bicycle, or a football. It took him at least 20 minutes to even begin forming a hope in his mind, a dream of getting something in his world.
Eventually he told me he would like to get shoes and school clothes.
I then discussed with him an idea about how he can get the school clothes. I told him that each morning when he wakes up, he must imagine himself putting on his new clothes and shoes. Then imagine his friends commenting about his new clothes at school. To imagine washing them and hanging them out to dry and so on.
I realised while I was telling him this, that he at the time thought I was totally mad, and that in his world, he didn’t even hope for anything because ‘his’ world was a world of never having anything at all: a world where hopes and dreams only bring pain. I asked him to do me a favour and think about his new clothes and shoes for 2 months.
Seven days later he came to visit and told me an amazing story about how his mother ended up getting a job and without him asking her, she went and bought him the school uniform and shoes he was ‘imagining’.
I then explained to him that a Tagati (in his culture, a Tagati is kind of like a shaman/sorcerer) is a person that works with ‘dreams’ or what he ‘imagines’ and because he does it often and all the time, that his ‘dreams’ become real far quicker than other people. For the first time in this boy’s life, he is now starting to have hopes and dreams. His next aim is to become a musician.
If I had just bought him his clothes and shoes, he would not have got anything really important from me. I would have not changed his view of his world, and he would still be in the world of not having anything. I might even have made his view of his world worse by planting a seed that his only way of having things in his world is by donation.
I try in a very real way on a daily basis to teach minds, skills, knowledge to people I meet. I am aware of my responsibilities and the repercussions they have on other peoples worlds. I am also aware that I am 100% responsible for absolutely everything in my world.
Most people are not aware of this. For each thing I change in me, I directly change my world. I want things for myself that are good: I want everyone in my world to be healthy, happy and wise.
So that I have can have them as companions in my garden of Eden.
