Letter to a friend

Mandeville Jamaica a Letter to a friend in 1975

My Dearest Friend,

You have asked me about my plans and what I intend to do, were you a “normal person” I would have tried to explain to you in a “normal” way but Allah be praised you have escaped the fetters of “normality”

My aspirations are like a long misty chain with many links, some are course and hard while others are intricately exquisite.
At the end of this chain there is a stairway of fire, between mist and fire I am suspended at the mercy of a raging tempest which urges me to cry out unto the world in a voice strong enough to awaken the children of men whom the tyrants religion and politics have inebriated with the wine of deception and falsehood.

Would my friend you could know how it depresses my spirit when I hear the voice of love truth and beauty euphoniously singing the glory of life, entreating the children of men who walk fully awake in their deeper sleep, to ascend to the threshold of life and sip from the cup of eternal benevolence.
Alas my friend a thousand and ten thousand times alas, so few are they who can hear this divine melody.
O my beloved friend until when will the people of the world “cast away the meat which perisheth” and seek “the bread of life”
How long will it take for the nations to fling away their weapons of war and hold on to the handle of “the most great peace”

Oftentimes methinks I can hear the trees and the grass weeping and lamenting the negligence of the world to emulate the flowers and the bees.

How can I my friend at this time say unto you what I shall do or not do, at this early age of my life, I feel as if I have lived a thousand lives and died a thousand deaths.
Whenever my friend I try to explain to the people of the world the way I feel about and relate to life, they become estranged from me and plaster labels of “Madness” upon the face of their remembrance of me.

A thousand salaams to you and may the blessings of Allah forever be upon you. To you I can speak my deeper secrets, with you in separation I find togetherness.

This I will say to you, I feel that I have a very important role to play in the destruction of the old world order, there is a force somewhere inside me, longing to release itself but there is an impediment which I have not yet discovered.
Sometimes I feel like a caged eagle, who in its imprisonment discovered the essence of freedom and longs to break the bars asunder and soar to the heights of that freedom.

There are times when the fury of the elements are no more turbulent than the turbulence of my soul, I do not know my friend what is the force and the power which keeps me suspended between mist and fire, it is good that I can share this anomalous existence with you.

I do not try to make myself different, my feelings are motivated by a force of a higher order than the senses.
I feel and experience things which make the senses tremble in bewilderment and confess their ignorance to the deeper secrets of life.

In truth I live a life of dual personalities, the one with which I greet and socialize with people is gentle and kind, it often feels like a little child who longs to take all of humanity in its hands and console it with loving words.
It yearns to pour soothing and loving balms upon this troubled world and eradicate the seeds of conflict from its peoples.

This side of me relates to the world through the reason of the senses, there is also the other side of me which suffers from an ailment I cannot describe, it experiences certain things which are beyond the scope of the senses .
This side of me I try to hide from people, this side of me is forever intoxicated with a great aloneness, which has nothing to do with the absence or presence of other people.
It is very abstract and abstruse, it finds joy and contentment in solitude and seclusion, within the sorrowfulness of its nature if finds afflatus which creates and inner longing to cry out form the depths of my being.

Yes my dear friend there is a violent agitation within me and it make me suffer greatly because there is something blocking its emanation.
When this agitation lays hold upon the strings of my soul it shrieks and quivers like a blade of grass in a mighty wind.
Within this agitation there is a desperate voice crying out but no one can hear its echo because its hour is not yet come.
When that hour comes my friend, what I cannot now tell you shall be made manifest.

I feel that I came into this life to do something great and noble, Inshallah before this mortal frame crumbles into nothingness, I shall accomplish what will be a loving memory in the heart of humanity after I have ascended to the realm beyond the grave.

My friend remember me in your prayers and meditations, in your nocturnal perambulations, when you gaze upon the beauty and majesty of the heavens, whisper my name to the wind, perchance it may be borne to the celestial realm where the Seraphim hover around “The Ancient Of Days” chanting canticles of love and harmony.

Whenever you walk through the homegrown meadows of your mind, reach out and take my hand, let us write our names upon the clouds and play tag with the rain as you tell me about “cow dung in the grass and the leaves blowing on the road”.
When you walk in the land of dreams, meet me in the garden of contemplation, let us meditate upon the saying of Zarathustra, Buddha, Jesus, Mohamed and Baha’u’llah., which will en-kindle the flame of our knowledge to disperse the dark veils obscuring wisdom from our minds.

Let us visit the city of the dead and light the beacons of truth that those who are suspended between sleep and wakefulness may see that it is dark but the morning is but a reality away.

Journey with me to the high mountain of fiery beauty, where the visions of prophets burn like suns and worlds on fire.
Sit with me upon the summit, let us listen to the wailing and lamentations of poets from past ages who envisaged the slow destruction of this world of tyranny erected upon the bones and skulls of a chosen few who “appeared like gods but died like men”

Let us put our fingers into the heart of life and feel the throbbing of humanity bewailing the reluctance of the nations to “beat their swords into plowshares” and make “pruning hooks” of their spears.

Let us not linger on the road my friend, let us hasten to the place of true understanding.
Let us go to where we can quaff from the cup of immortal love which will unify the hearts of all mankind.
We cannot tarry here or turn back, we have conquered death, “lo death has lost its sting” and “the grave has no victory over us.

The Celestial Banquet is set, the “Day Stars” of heaven are entreating us to step across the realm of perishables and ascend to Empyrean of Deity’s Glory to partake of the supernal savours of the true eternity.

My friend after having written these words, I feel like a little boy whose kite has been swept from his grasp by a mighty gust of wind, he sits upon a stone and watch his kite blowing further and further away, he says in his heart “how cruel is the wind” forgetting that he could not have flown his kind without the wind.

Like that little boy I too feel like crying, I feel like crying because I am standing beside a well overflowing with water and no one will come to drink.
I am walking in an orchard laden with the choicest fruits and no one will come to eat thereof.

Ere my tears should fall upon these pages accept my salaams and a word of love from

Ken

Posted on 23rd March 2018, wow did I really write that?