Chapter IX. Not your friend

Between Jerusalem and Istanbul, Robert used to walk through the alleys, as it seems that the truth lies in them, in these small alleys lie the full details, and hide the jewel of certainty.

This is the first lesson he learned from Moses when he met him in “Tmol Shilshom” café in Jerusalem, two days after their first meeting. The café is located in a building built in the nineteenth century, frequented by intellectuals and book-goers, as a quiet place away from crowds, among the old neighborhoods of Jerusalem.

It is his last day in Israel before returning to Cambridge. He should thank Mousa for what he did for them. He called him in the morning,

– Robert: Are you still in Jerusalem, my friend?

-Mousa: Yes, I have two more days here in Jerusalem

– Robert: I only have today, unfortunately. Shall we meet?

– Mousa: Of course, decide the place and time that suits you

– Robert: Well, I’m in Tel Aviv now I need an hour and a half to arrive, let’s make it two hours

– Mousa: We will not argue over names again, waiting for you as soon as you arrive from Jaffa.

They met at the door of the café, under a huge old tree, surrounded by a green iron fence, in the old alleys, umbrellas of various colors were hung, giving a special elegance to them, they climbed the stairs.

They met at the door of the café, under a huge old tree, surrounded by a green iron fence, in the old alleys, umbrellas of various colors were hung, giving a special elegance to them, they climbed the stairs. Inside, the old-style café, with curved walls without doors, bookshelves, walls decorated with art paintings, and old newspaper clippings, all in Hebrew, which he understands but does not read, they chose a table next to the two curved Windows, overlooking the tree. The little porch is full.

To the sound of quiet music, Robert sat to the right of the table and in front of Musa, the visitors’ gazes stared at them in amazement, they were not used to the presence of Arab features here. Although many Jews are of Arab origin, similar to Arabs in color and shape, both peoples are able to distinguish each other in some way! Their English speaking kept them away from prying eyes. Tourists for sure!

Robert reluctantly came and thanked the man, he had saved his life and his mother’s life, and all he wanted him to do is, not to tell him again about the theory of relativity and his prophet Muhammad. Please don’t do it, he said to himself, afraid that he would explode with a fit of laughter in front of him, it would be one of the most embarrassing situations.

Out of respect for him, he did not order any alcoholic drinks, Muslims do not drink them, they are forbidden in their religion, categorically, so he ordered a cup of orange juice, and Mousa asked for a cup of coffee.

-He said: I wanted to thank you for what you did for us yesterday, I don’t know if I could do anything for you to express my gratitude.

-Mousa: You are most welcome, my friend, I did my humanitarian duty, I happened to be close to you, I did not think of your color or your race, I just have to save you.

He turned his head toward the window, gazed at the tree, closed his eyes and sighed deeply, then opened them, turning his face toward Robert,

– If only those idiots knew, they would unite against our real enemy.

-Robert: Who do you mean?

-Mousa: Your mind, this one in your head, don’t you know that it is your enemy?

This time he didn’t smile, not a fit of laughter, but a long moment of silence,

– say back what you just said please!

-Your mind in your head is your staunch opponent in this world.

It was not the first time he had heard such a thing; the deception of the mind for us was known; Researched and written about, filmmaking competed in, in addition to documentaries. The mind deceives us a lot, but to be our enemy? That word means a lot. it means something completely different!

An idea consumed in many movies, they make the victim see the color or number they want in many places indirectly, they put it on the door, on the bus, in the clothes of a man passing by, and in other places, stored in his subconscious, repeatedly becoming more ingrained. After hours or days when they ask him to say the first number that comes to mind, he selects the number that he sees without feeling all the time. One of the most common ideas in this kind of mind’s deception.

-Robert: You mean to deceive the mind? “Focus” by Will Smith

-Mousa: Nice movie, I think they got the idea from the National Geographic Mind Games show

– Robert: Yes, yes, the documentary is as well, that’s what you mean?

– Mousa: The important question, my friend, is why does the mind allow itself to be deceived like this? What’s the reason?

The impact of what Mousa said flashed in Robert’s mind like a bolt of lightning that distorted his focus!

-the reason? Don’t you think the reason is clear?

– If it is clear, then tell me

– It is clear; It is possible to implant ideas inside it in indirect ways, simply

-Mousa got closer with a little anger: Simply so? This mind has the ability to store the smallest details around us and remember them after a hundred years if it wants to, simply fooled, just because you have repeated the number ten times in front of it? Didn’t it realize you wanted it to pick that number? Didn’t it realize it was picking the same number it had seen for hours and days?

-Robert: No, it can be aware, some very focused people can spot this trick.

-Mousa smiled: yes, now you started to think, very focused people! Tell me what is the price of focus? What does your brain pay to offer you more free focus?

-Averting his eyes, he began to think. Repeat the question out loud: What price does the mind pay for more focus?

-Mousa: What does the mind consume while concentrating?

-The answer flashed in his head, brain cells? nervous cells? Is this what you mean?

– Mousa: Yes, every time you think, you look, you do a math, you check something, you move your hand to make a cup of coffee, every time you do anything or think of anything, your brain consumes its cells for this, it offers you the most valuable thing it has. Effort and pressure are what threaten these cells and drain them. More attention, more focus, more analysis, deductions, remembering, they all consume more.

-Robert remained silent hearing this madman, “an hour and it will pass, a duty of thanks must be done, no need to embarrass him.”

Mousa continued: You certainly know that neurons are the building blocks of the nervous system, without which there is no meaning, this system regulates and monitors the vital functions of the body’s organs, the functioning of the heart, the liver, the kidneys, it is all its responsibility, and it allows the brain to recognize and learn, to detect risks, to adapt, to continue, and is designed to stimulate other cells in the body to communicate. It’s simply the general manager of the body, in other words, the brain spirit, without it dying.

-Robert: Yes, of course, and there are an enormous number of them, to the extent that there are those who say that the average person consumes between 10% and 20% of the energy of his brain only.

Mousa: Not only enormous but very shocking, 14-16 billion neurons in the cerebral cortex, 55-70 billion in the cerebellum, and you are saying that humans die by the average age of 70 years and not even a quarter of them have been consumed.

He added: But the number does not matter, there is something more important than this ratio. In the buds of childhood, the production process is at its peak, and as age passes, its production stops for a reason we do not know. Studies show that at puberty, some say it slows down gradually, and there are those who say that production remains, but at a slower pace. The important thing is that at some point it will end. If somehow there is no longer any cause for death, and people live forever, they cannot, they will die in 500 years, maybe 2,000 or 3,000 years, they will die for some inescapable reason: neurons will completely die, their logistics have ended, consumption is greater than production, the brain will not find enough to carry out the basic biological functions of the body, as well as the daily processes that provide it with food and security, and they will not have enough cells to keep the body alive. Now answer me, Robert? What does your mind want? What does he want more than anything else? What are the greatest wishes that you and all the people before you have always thought of?

After a moment of silence and concentration,

– Robert replied: Immortality, not dying.

-Mousa: Let me answer in other words, your mind does not want the body to die, and it does not want this battery to end, it does not want to be extinguished.

Got a headache? Do you feel numbness in your head? Wanting to stop listening to me maybe?

– Robert: I do not

-Mousa continued: Yes, my friend, your mind does not want to die. It knows that these consumed cells are irreplaceable. They are his non-refundable bank balance, some of them are destroyed every time you do anything, and the priority for it is the vital functions, you must work to the fullest, then your life functions that provide it with food and safety, the effort spent in eating, drinking, walking to the toilet, perhaps some exercise to maintain his health, and your work in which you provide his livelihood, things like these, but what is unnecessary, there is no need for.

And focusing on the numbers? That is on the sidelines, my friend. Your body will not die and your mind will not be lost if you do not realize that someone has put the number 55 hidden for you all around.

And when it comes to choosing, he will prefer to pick the number that is more in its immediate, familiar memory, even without alerting you that it has seen it a hundred times today. it would rather participate in a game that tricks you, rather than alert you to it, forcing you to ask it for more analysis, interpretation, remembering, and effort.

He added, continuing to talk without interruption: This explains the phenomenon of sudden improvement before death, doesn’t it?

He answered himself: Yes, in two-thirds of the hopeless cases this happens; Hours or days before death, the patient suddenly gets better, starts talking, and moves. We call it the awakening of death, the awakening in which people appear to have recovered their health and to be completely relieved of illness. But humans know this phenomenon from experience, doctors confirm it, and they warn the patient’s family not to be deceptive about it, so that they are not shocked by his sudden death afterward, and are completely unable to understand or explain its cause. It refuses to die, in a moment, it blows up all its energy; when it realizes death is close, it hides pain, and all disease, and clings to life. But why it did not set it off before? Why all this torment? It is not your best friend, and maybe if it did not need you, you would not be in its body.

Robert furrowed his eyebrows and motioned to be silent for a moment, gathering his thoughts, missing what he wanted to say, remembering it,

-Wait, did you just say “its body”?

-Yes, its body, not yours

-What are we?

– And what are we if we are not this body?

-we are called a (soul), the eternal secret of life, no one knows its truth or what is it yet

-Yes, but the body belongs to this soul, without it, dies, right? So, it owns it!

– This is what the mind does not accept, that it knows that it needs the soul for life, and therefore it did not expel us from its body from the beginning.

Perhaps, the difference between us and it lies in the time it wants to live, it refuses to believe in the existence of the reality of the age span, it refuses seventy or a hundred years, it has the right maybe, as after these years we will get out of its body and go somewhere else, but for it, it is finished.

-Robert leaned his body towards him a little for the first time: consciousness my friend, consciousness in the mind, wherever we go it will go with us, even out of the body.

Mousa laughed: Who said that consciousness is the mind? Scientists, researchers, and doctors admit that they still cannot comprehend consciousness, how it occurs, or what it is, whereas neurons, the brain as a whole, are understood, dissected, and studied in their smallest detail, they are machines, receiving data through the body’s senses, analyzing it, and dealing with it. But consciousness is a very different thing, consciousness is you, consciousness is yours, and the body is its own.

Robert shook his head with suspicion, a lot of doubt revolving around this talk, while Mousa continued nonstop,

The mind is designed only for survival. Why do we go to great lengths to learn something new? Once we have learned it, it is easy! Why don’t we just learn it easily from the start? We fight our minds all the time, in our work, in our college, in our own desires, always needing to do more? Why? The cells are there of course! Learning pathways exist.

He answered himself: Because the mind resists all kinds of science and work that are not necessary for its survival.

In learning to solve mathematical equations, physics, or memorize a book or poem, it tries to stop you, it fights the process of wasting cells, you fight it, you force it, and in this battle, you feel tired, while you know that the things that will keep it alive, you do nothing that needs effort. Learning, my friend, is forcing the mind to donate more cells.

And that categorizes things from easy to hard, survival instinct, the easiest of which is always what it takes to stay and continue, and learning becomes harder the further away from necessity. And those difficult things, which you never imagined you would be able to learn, if you be put in a situation where learning is a necessary need for survival, are easy to learn, and so on, without any introduction and without tirelessness.

He controls us, my friend, selfishly, decides when to give us cells for free, and when to fight to get them. What if you find yourself in the woods suddenly with no food and no drink? What if we put life at stake? What if your mind realized at the moment that his life depended on remembering the numbers? What is going to happen?

-Robert: It will remember it. It works better under pressure, for granted.

-Mousa: This is what we call supernatural abilities, how many times have we heard and seen some people perform supernatural abilities when their lives are put at stake, a familiar scene to find an old man running suddenly as if he was a young man escaping from a car advancing towards him quickly!

If you put your mind under the threat of death, it will remember the smallest details around it like a modern, very clear camera. This happened to me once, I was almost hit by a speeding car, and the escape route is blocked. I still remember everything that was around me at that moment, who stands in the street, how many of them, what they were wearing, everything, because my mind knew that at that moment my life was in danger and there was no way to escape, therefore its life is at stake, it blew all its energy trying to find a way to survive. At that point, cells are just a number, and it has no problem consuming an account for a whole year or ten or a hundred of them in exchange for saving its life now.

Robert remained hesitant, it seemed logical despite the lack of any evidence,

– But how could this make the mind our enemy?

Mousa: Because you will not live within this body three thousand years, my friend, and it refuses to accept this fact, it asks for immortality, it prefers to deceive you than to burn more cells in focusing on the details.

Think carefully, your mind does not always choose the shortest path, nor the longest one, but rather chooses the least effort and therefore the least consuming cells, and it just so happens that this is often the shortest. If I show you a picture, and then I show you the same picture with a little difference, do you immediately notice the difference?

He answered himself: No, because it does not see it at all. The process of searching in the nearby memory will save it from the process of storing it again. it will search for the closest match to it, and show you the image from its close memory unless you force it to scrutinize the small details, which consume a lot of precious cells.

So, it resists you, the more you try to focus and learn something new outside of necessity for its survival, it will resist. As you age, it will resist you; A young child learns ten times faster than a young man, picks up details twice as fast as puberty, his brain is growing, and the mind needs to learn and acquire skills. it is curious, demanding the knowledge necessary for survival. Most importantly, production is abundant. Old people! They barely manage.

How much effort do you put into focus?! And you feel him resisting you, rejecting, fighting for you to stop. Confuses you, and seduces you with the most beautiful memories.

– Robert: What? memories? Do you want to say that memories are its way to distract us?

-Mousa: Not always, but they are one of its strongest weapons, when it wants to distract us from something it does not want, memories are one of its methods.

– Robert: But there are those who see the details? There are those who notice it quickly without making any effort, despite their old age.

-Mousa: Yes, just as I knew since I saw you today that you slept on the sofa last night.

He was so surprised! Mousa was right about what he just said! He returned to his grandmother’s house late and fell asleep on the sofa without him realizing.

-Musa: Yes, the details. Your right rib hurts. Your right eye blinks faster whenever you feel it. Why does my mind pay attention to these small details?

Why burn more cells worthlessly? I compelled it, I imposed my own laws on it, and it knows now that if it does not look into the details, its punishment will be severe, very severe.

Robert began to take it seriously: Punishment?

Mousa: Think, what is its goal? saves cells to survive as long as possible. Understand it, my friend, if noticing the blink of your eye consumes a hundred cells from my mind, when will it give them to you of its own accord? It will gladly do it when it knows I will punish it for consuming twice as much if it does not.

People who are hyper-focused, bully their mind, it knows it has to focus on details on its own, because if it doesn’t, they are going to train themselves more by focusing on more things, and it takes more cells. You have to enforce your own laws; you have to punish it by forcing it to consume its cells until it gives them to your will. Unless you plan on living a thousand years.

-Robert: So, you are saying that if I can come to terms with my mind, I make an agreement with it, that it will check all the details for me, in exchange for me not consuming the cells in vain, so it will obey me?

Mousa: Not that easy, it will not obey you by its own will, it will resist you until you prove to it that you are very serious.

Robert: How?

-Have you had a headache, stinging, or numbness in your head?

– Robert: No, go ahead.

-Musa: Have you heard of the Islamic Sufism doctrine? Let me tell you about them, these people can do many paranormal things, some say that among them there are those who have supernatural powers like, insensitivity, and among them are those who are able to leave their body and then return to it. However, it is proven that many of them manage to overcome pain, and that physical pain is the key to all the miraculous things they can do.

-Robert: I haven’t heard about them but there are a lot of different doctrines that can, some Buddhists can, at least that is what we hear.

Moses: It is true because it is not about religion at all, it is about the mind. Sufism, Buddhism, and many of the doctrines that we see as extremist than we used to, have a bizarre ritual intersected with a lot of concentration, meditation, physical torment, and in a way, not knowing that they threaten the mind with death through this torment, which at some point gives in to them, giving them what they want in order to stop this madness. It is like having a car accident, but in their case it is fake. They do not realize this, they do not know why it happened, but they noticed that so much concentration, meditation, and physical suffering, they were able to do miracles later.

-Robert is upset by his last words: Do you want to say that you have tortured yourself physically? Do you want all humans to attempt suicide in order to reach the supernatural? Well, if I drop myself right now from a high building, I will die, why does not it explode its energy to save me?

This time Mousa, laughed: What do you say! Who says the mind can fly? What I assure you, is that if you throw yourself out of there, it will try to save you, but unfortunately, you have no wings, my friend, and a mind cannot achieve miracles. All the wonders you hear of, no wonder, no miracles, for which you are ready. Perhaps at some point in our past, we were able to do them with little effort, before it imposed its own laws upon us, deceives us, and buries the truth away to seek its own immortality.

He Wrapped his head a little, gathering his thoughts: And who said that physical suffering threatens the mind in the first place? It can prevent you if it wants to stop the transmission of its nerve signals. This torment is important only to it when it reaches a stage that only threatens its life and body health. it does not care about your pain. Sometimes the pain is its way of alerting you to a danger to its life. Often its weapon is to force you to do what is best for it, to enslave you through it, and once you stop, it will take back the control. That is not the best way to terrorize it. No, my friend, it is cells; The waste of cells terrorizes it thousand times more.

-Robert: How do I waste them? How do I make my mind scrutinize the details against its will? What can I do to waste so many cells worthlessly?

– Mousa: You have to talk to your mind, find a way to dread it and the ways are many, something by which you consume many cells in vain, it will resist you, but when it realizes that you will continue this waste as punishment for its miserliness with you, it will make sense of it, burning a few cells in order to focus in the blink of an eye, is better than a punishment that burns millions of cells for nothing. It will obey you when it realizes that you are aware of what you are doing, that you are deliberately wasting, and the way to stop you is obedience, and at some point, you can make that agreement with it, give me more cells, or…

Pay close attention to what I am saying now, for the difference is great between wasting cells without you even realizing what you are doing, and doing it deliberately; In the first, you stop later as you started, a stage and ends, a whim, a game, an emergency circumstance, your mind is betting on it to stop this waste after a short time as soon as the circumstance or whim ends. But in the second, you address it, telling it that I know, that I will not stop, and that I deliberately waste your cells. Do you want to stop this unnecessary waste that will last forever? Obey me then.

Focus on details, meditation, finding the differences between pictures, forcing it to scrutinize the little things, memorizing the way landmarks, and paying attention to everything around you, the ways are very many, and they are somewhat successful, if it is not used to resisting and circumventing them, as it is constantly developing its defense mechanisms. But I prefer another way, to provoke it more, to make it crazy, to make it bow before me like a lantern’s genie, in hearing and obedience.

– Robert said enthusiastically: what is it?

-Mousa pointed his head at the window: What do you think of counting the leaves of that tree?