Prose

DO IT QUICKLY

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

That feeling that you‘ve gone down a path before and seen the outcome… And now you‘re watching others go down that same path.

And you know that no amount of warning or explanation will make them stop going that way. The only thing that can help is the recognition that comes at the end, when everything is over and it‘s too late to change anything. But then, just the bequeathing of this recognition is also what is needed too.

So, instead of preaching to them to not go that path, you start to wish them the opposite: that they go it QUICKLY, and get to the end quickly, so that they can come to the recognition sooner than later.

Just like Jesus Christ said to Judas: „That which you are about to do – do it quickly!“

Sometimes, a Fall is the fastest way to Rise Up!

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

THE CHANGING JOURNEY

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

I know how it feels to die, having done so twice in this earthlife. The third time, I guess, will be the last.

In everything, I’ve learned that life comes and goes, like the leaves of a tree, like the steps of a journey, like the chapters of a book, in phases, steps and stages. And the most important recognition of all was this: Don‘t live in the past.

You can never be again the person you once were, nor do you need to. When you wonder – „What happened to me?“ – you miss the point. You are on a journey, a journey of inner development; a journey of character and personality growth; a journey of spiritual maturing. This is the real journey of life.

On this journey, you will pass through many phases of personality, different characteristics of character, you will be different people at different times.

Have the courage to become the new – and when it has grown old, have the courage again to shed it, leave it behind and move seekingly towards the new New. Do not be enticed by outward gains to stay in the old; nor pressured by difficulties to abandon the present or the New. Go your way with integrity, dignity and trust, because Vanity and Indolence are the true enemies on the journey of life.

You will be born many times, and die many times. And the past will be as a Dream. Just like a new born baby cannot remember it’s former earth-lives, so will you even within one earth-life sometimes die and wonder „What happened to me?“

Life happened to you, my friend. Like a train going from station to station, you are journeying from one state of being to another. It might be an upward journey or a downward journey – the choice is yours.

Just remember, what ever you do: Do not live in the past – no matter how good or bad it was. Like a boxer in a fight, sitting in the corner between rounds, you cannot go back and correct a bad round, but you can get up and fight the next one better.

Like a boxer in a fight, sitting in the corner between rounds, you cannot go back and hold on to the last good round you fought. Then you were fresh, now you‘re tired. Then you were strong, now you‘re injured. But you‘ve grown too, in knowledge and experience. So, get up and go into the next round – and give your best.

One good thing about life: it is not boxing. It is greater. Your best rounds are the rounds in which you give not darkness, but Love.

Che Chi-di Chukwu-meri-je.

HOLDING YOURSELF BACK

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

Holding yourself back because you think that by acting freely in the fullness of your power and ability, you might sin against the laws of God and bind yourself to the earth or even to the lower planes. Fear of sinning and falling makes you afraid to spread your wings and fly to the heights, afraid to do anything apart from what seems safely and totally within the sphere of activity of Light-seeking and Light-serving. Thereby you bottle up and suppress everything within you which could make you happy, and which is urging for expression through you and out of you. Thus you step out of yourself and begin to look at yourself as the enemy of your own Light-salvation. You consider yourself the enemy and fight against yourself. You thereby fight against everything that can help you develop to the fullest the fullness of what you could or should be and make you happy. You become a prisoner of self, someone who has enchained and imprisoned himself or herself by himself or herself.

This is a terrible condition of consciousness, because the only thing that can free the prisoner is a change of consciousness, a new thought, a new consideration about how to live one’s life, be one’s self and go one’s path. But JUST THIS VERY new thought cannot break through within the consciousness of the prisoner of self, because the very basis of this consciousness is the suppression of such a thought. This bound consciousness IS the living expression of the fear of this thought; it is the living expression of the urge to prevent just this very thought from breaking through from the depths of the sub-conscious and becoming the new consciousness, greater SELF-consciousness.

The only thing that can help one out of this condition is the severe Love of the Light, the Grace which reaches one upon the bridge of one’s longing for true living. This Grace however manifests usually not in indulgent divine caresses, ironically, but as a gridlock of painful experiences which drive one to the end of the self-chosen path, at which end-point one finds – instead of fulfillment, salvation, completion, paradise and joy – inner emptiness, despair, confusion, doubt and self-doubt, a sense of betrayal and the feeling of being even further away from one’s goal than at the start of the journey of the earnestly-meant striving. Desperation and futility seize one’s soul.

At this point, one stands before the opportunity to awaken into a new conviction, fructified by a new, higher, freer, truer thought. To let go of the fear born of indolence and vanity, of egotism: The self-seeking fear that wears the false countenance of humble selflessness.

You have to become honest – to yourself, about yourself. Honest to the world about yourself. Who you are. What you are. You have to free yourself of the fear of failing and, even more accurately, of being seen to fail – which is vanity. The ugliest fruit of this vanity, the deepest sin, is the inglorious ambition to impress God. And, in consequence, to impress those who one supposes to be God’s representatives on earth. This is not necessary, as it only distracts one from God’s true nature – the height of naturalness and authenticity itself. It separates one from the inner state, the condition of self-consciousness, needed to be in contact, via homogeneity, with Paradise.

It is better to be yourself. Your truest deepest realest self. Because Paradise is inside you.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

NEW THINGS

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

Environmental and spatial beauty start with Art and Imagination. When you imagine it, draw it, design it and then outwardly build it after that image – then you suddenly have outwardly what you crave and imagine inwardly.

As simple as this may sound, this is the key to quantum leaps and to infinite development. This is the assurance that the boundaries of Genius will always be crossed and thus extended intermittently as long as we continue to march through Time. Space is flexible, and bendable to Imagination and Inspiration.

New Nations will always arise from time to time; and groups of people will receive new insights into outworkings of the fundamental thought, and find a new characteristic of Matter and of engineering space – that is, they will find an old fact but it will seem new to them because it will supercede the knowledge available to them in their era.

The abstract is the Petri dish of the concrete, imagination is the fertile breeding ground of reality. To kill a people, kill their imagination and make them into a nation of copycats. Praise them when they copy others, and give them prizes, awards and honors when they copy others very well. But when they attempt to be innovative, to produce new thoughts, to toy with new ideas, to experiment with new possibilities, then ridicule them.

When they choose not only to copy or be inspired by that which is trending, but to create that which is different and not (yet) popular, when they decide not to follow follow, but to open new paths, then ostracize them, mock them, sideline them, punish them and hurt their ego and do not finance them. At the very least, ignore them. Soon they will abandon the path of difficult authentic growth and blend into the game of joining the train and going anywhere the train is going, but never going their own way or birthing new things.

But if you want to uplift a people, then liberate their spirit. Because human was not made for the sabbath, but the sabbath was made for human. If time waits for no-one, then no-one should wait for time either. It is not imagination that should adjust itself to reality, but reality should bend to imagination in order to keep on elevating itself. Matter, at its highest, can still only be the cloak of spirit. As the spirit wills it, so the universe will execute it reciprocally upon the spirit. Unfortunately, even when the spirit is willing, still the flesh – the brain, the earthling in flesh and blood – is weak.

That’s why we fight wars, and seek to oppress, dominate and ostracize each other. That is the origin of racism, bigotry and extremism. This is the cause of the stagnation of human civilization despite all illusions of technological flight. Weakness. It has its origin not in strength, but in weakness; inner weakness. The inability to really imagine and intuitively perceive Paradise and then to build it on Earth.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

THOUGHTS 26.09.09

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

1. CONCEPTS

BALANCE:
Not too much to one side, not too much to the other side; and always give back. Thus you stay free.

MOVEMENT:
Movement, inwardly and outwardly, keeps you healthy, happy, fresh and permits new thoughts to enter into you.

DEVELOPMENT:
Creation is constantly pushing and changing via development in the activity of the Law. In all your works, also constantly push towards perfection through change, improvement, ever better maintenance and development.

VESSELS:
(OUTER FORMS):
The right form ensures success and acceptance. Cloaking thoughts in the right words too. And every non-grossmaterially-visible thing or concept needs to be encased into the right vessel for maximum effect and protection. Always search for the right outer form or cloak for anything you want to do or give. It ensures harmony.

BEAUTY:
Beauty is an inherent part of perfection. That which does not contain beauty – inner beauty – within it also cannot swing in perfection. Inner beauty is more important than outer beauty – the beauty of an idea, the beauty of a person’s character, of a woman’s inner personality. But true inner beauty also finds a way to express itself outwardly, i.e. must become outward beauty too (but not necessarily according to fashion, culture or society).

MEASUREDNESS:
The right quantity. Don’t over-do or over-give things. You thereby remain light and free, paradoxically, and will be more easily acceptable to and accepted by others without losing their respect.

SIMPLICITY:
(UNASSUMINGNESS) (CHILDLIKENESS) (BEING STRAIGHTFORWARD):
Simplicity is the Key that opens the door to Genius. When you are simple, you are open, you see clearly, thus you remain receptive.

2. INJUNCTIONS

FORGIVENESS:
Make the inner effort to forgive others. This effort to accept and dissolve pain within you makes you free and gentler with others. And more tolerant.

TOLERANCE:
Be accommodating to others’ slow and imperfect striving for what they consider to be perfection.

HELPFULNESS:
Be willing to help those in need as well as those who are struggling bravely to achieve something close to their heart. If their cause or their suffering touches your heart, make the effort to see how you can help, and then try honestly to do it.

BEING HAPPY FOR OTHERS:
(OPPOSITE OF ENVY):
Learn to wish others well and be happy for them when they experience that which brings them joy. It is a form of empathy, but not one-sidedly restricted only towards feeling the pain of others and/or helping those in need, which is also a deep injunction upon us. Wish others well, and rejoice in their successes too. It makes your heart larger, deeper. And you thus have more Happiness too.

3. RECOGNITION

THERE IS ALWAYS SOMETHING MORE:
No matter how high you go, no matter what knowledge or recognition you attain to, no matter how perfect your work is, KNOW THIS: There is always something MORE; more perfect, better, higher, realer. No matter the height you attain to, there is always something higher… and that higher thing s still not the Highest yet. So learn to be humble. You are not the Best. Even around you, someone always has something you do not have.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije

WAKE UP BEFORE THE FIGHT, NOT AFTER

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

That, for which you need the knowledge you got out of the lesson, is already gone and done, has already happened.

There are some things that need to happen in order for certain lessons to be learned and pieces of knowledge acquired. It would have been better if the recognition had been won, or already rested in one’s possession, before the onset of the event; because actually the knowledge was needed to be able to handle the event properly. Instead, the event has become the bringer and the teacher of the knowledge which can no longer be used to prevent, manage or correct that same event.

What sad, poignant, irony! Now you have the knowledge, but it is useless for the purpose for which it was meant to be used in your life. You grow old just to learn the value of youth. You become a foreigner just to learn the value of being a native. You die just learn the value of life. You ignore advice only to understand its value when it is too late to use it anymore. You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.

So when are you going to make use of this new knowledge now? You will get your chance when you come again in another life. But will you remember, somewhere deep down in your soul, what you are painfully learning today? Do you remember, deep down in your soul, what you once painfully learned in another life? Go deep inside. Read it again. Read it again. Your soul is a book. And you the spirit are its author.

Always wake up before the fight – not after!

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

OPEN FOR RECEPTION

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

The central characteristic of wisdom is that you don’t have it when you need it the most – and that’s how and why you acquire it.

Wisdom is a tree. In the drought of ignorance it slowly and painfully begins to grow. By the time it matures, whatever it was that triggered its growth is usually already over. Thus, wisdom is usually in the possession of those who don’t need it any longer; but they can’t transfer it to those who need it but who do not know that they need it. They too will acquire it when their time is up.

Wisdom’s face, indeed, is cast in irony. Wise is the one who takes this recognition along into the next life and into the next set of experiences.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

LEARNING BY GIVING AND TAKING

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

Whenever a person says, this is what I want, i.e. whenever a person wills something with his volition, i.e. whenever an act of will emerges from a person, i.e. whenever a person WANTS something either for himself or for others – and they usually go together, because wishing something for others is sometimes the other method of selfishly wishing the opposite for oneself – then Creation gives one an opportunity to know how the effects of that thing feels upon those who are at the receiving end of its effects; so that one will learn if one’s volition was good or bad.

For example, if you wish to be a King, the threads of fate might lead you to be a subject under the kind of King you wanted to be, or eventually became, so that you can experience the true value, or lack of it, of your volition in Creation. If you steal from others, you will get stolen from, or lose what is dear to you in a situation akin to theft – that is, one that for you corresponds to or resembles theft. The time it takes for this lesson to manifest – whether in this earth life or in a future earth life – will not change it. Your soul still needs it.

This activity of reciprocity is an Act of Love on the part of Creation in which is anchored Laws full of the Will of God. For the Will of God is Justice. And Justice is Love.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije

SUBTLE AND HIDDEN

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

The real evil is always on a finer level that can often not be directly captured with words. It is what it triggers that confronts us and we can confront, not it itself. The same with the real good. Many times we are trapped in a fruitless struggle against surface-level semantics, unable to enter into a context that can avail us with the possibility of combating the true evil content itself in its origin. Be it a person, a volition, a system or a trend, the character of the material world forces us to fight out the battle on a proxy inaccurate topic-plane, unable to reach the real evil, unable to manifest the real good.
It is the way of the world of matter: to bring good and evil together and yet, ironically, keep them far apart.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

JEMILA’S JOLLOF RICE AND CHICKEN

~ Che ~ Leave a comment
Jemila Ibrahim 25.04.83 – 26.02.05

“Jemila, this your jollof rice and chicken is too sweet oh! Chai! How did you make it?”

“You that can’t even fry egg, how do you want me to start explaining to you how to make jollof rice and chicken?”

Chizo, who was listening, started laughing.

“You people don’t know we are in Africa where you can’t be laughing at your senior anyhow, abi.”

Of course this only made them laugh louder. So I had to take up the challenge.

“OK, next time you want to make rice and chicken, just call me. I will watch, take notes and learn it by force.”

Their laughter became uncontrollable.

Chizo said, “Please, let it be on a day when I am here oh. I have to witness this spectacle.”

It was early 2004. I was abroad most of the time, doing my Aviation Management course. I had given up my flat in Apapa, and anytime I was in Lagos I stayed at Aunty Uzo’s place in Maryland. Jemila, her daughter, had a bad case of sickle cell anaemia. It had taken a slight turn for the worse and she stayed at home a lot. She had bad days on which she lay around and did not say much, but you saw the pain on her face. But she also had her good days. On the good days her voice was loud and her laughter was bright, she would go into the kitchen and cook and there was no end to her cheeky rejoiners and replies to everything she heard. But, good days or bad days, every Sunday she tried her best to get up and go to worship. She prayed a lot and had a pure simple childlike faith. She was 20 years old.

Well, the day finally came. One of her good days. Chizo was there, visiting Aunty Uzo and her younger cousin Jemila like she often did. And I was in the country. I took my notebook and joined Jemila and Chizo in the kitchen.

“So what do you want to learn now exactly?” Jemila laughed.

“That your jollof rice and chicken you made the last time.”

“Everyone makes their own differently oh,” she warned.

“Just that particular one you made, that’s the one I want. It was too delicious.”

“Okay oh. So how do you want to learn it.”

I brought out my notebook and pen.

“Just be doing, I will be watching and taking notes. Anything I don’t understand, I will ask you.”

Chizo had been trying her best to hold back her laughter. At this point she exploded and settled against the doorpost.

“Ngwa nu, let’s go,” she said.

———- ———- ———- ———- ———-

It is 14 years later, I am going through some of my old books and papers, like I am sometimes wont to do. I pick up a little notebook that I have not bothered with for longer than I can remember. Idly I flip open the first pages and suddenly … I freeze. The shock of reawakening memory hits me like a blow. Sadness and joy seize me simultaneously. Slowly, as if in a trance, I start to read:

JEMILA’S JOLLOF RICE AND CHICKEN

1. Put Chicken in small pot with assorted seasoning: e.g. curry, thyme, onions, dried pepper, maggi (1 cube), small salt, any other chicken seasoning. Put everything on fire without water for 2 minutes, turning and stirring. Then add a little water and cover pot on fire. Leave to cook until it gets soft. Along the way keep adding water. Be tasting the broth along the way, adding any seasoning whose taste is missing (e.g. salt, maggi).
– Soft Chicken takes about 10 minues to soften
– Hard Chicken takes about 30 minutes to soften

2. While waiting for Stage 1 to complete itself, grind (or blend) tomato and pepper. Wash the tomatoes and cut them first (if blending). Wash and cut onions also and put into blender. Wash and open fresh pepper (tatase). Wash and remove seeds from Tatase (don’t touch with hand, if possible: tatase seeds peppery). Then cut up and put in blender too. The Tatase is just to make it red, that’s why the seeds have been removed.
We’re cooking 3 cups of rice.
Use e.g. 8 or 9 fresh tomatoes, 1 onion bulb, 2 Tatases, 5 to 8 fresh peppers.
We could have used more Tatase, but because we’re also using tinned tomato, which is very red, 2 Tatases are enough.
NOW BLEND UP! BELND UP!

3. Wash rice. Put in a pot with water. Put on fire. We are parboiling it, maybe 5 to 10 minutes; so it doesn’t get soft, just white. (It may last 20 mins…).
After parboiling, wash again and drain water away (with sieve, if available).

4. Break Maggi into parboiled rice. Put thyme and curry and also any other seasoning you have into the drained parboiled rice.

5. Make sauce in another pot:
Slice a quarter onion. Put enough oil into new pot on fire.
Add sliced onions and little salt.
(Salt helps onion not to burn quickly – CHIZO’S THEOREM!)
Add tinned tomato. Add blended mix of STAGE 2. (Keep stirring all the while). Now cover pot and leave to cook on fire until it boils – might even dry up a bit – because of pepper and tomato. Also add Chicken Broth!
After some 10 or 15 mins, add a little more thyme and curry.
Add a little more water and then transfer the parboiled rice into the ready sauce. Add also a little more oil (groundnut oil oh!). Cook until it cooks fully. (Never turn)

6. While cooking is on, say about 15 mins before end, slice carrots and green pepper.
Add 2 more maggi cubes, soften with tiny water. Slice the carrots lengthwise and breathwise.
When rice is soft, introduce carrots and green pepper. Now turn, stir and mix. Taste for weak seasoning, e.g. salt, maggi, etc. If needed, add, mix.
Turn off fire.

7. WACK UR GRUB.

———- ———- ———- ———- ———- ———-

Quietly I close the notebook and sit still for a long time.

If Jemila were still alive, she would turn 35 today. I remember the picture Yvonne and I took of her. It was at the end of 2004, at Azuka’s wedding. She looked happy. If she was in pain, she did not show it. She was shy, smiled and looked down when she saw the camera. She looked older than she was. A beautiful moment. Our favourite picture of her.

The year after that, in 2005, the bad days came more often. Her face would be contorted in pain. An unending crisis. One round of dialysis after the other. Her eyes wiser, much wiser, than her age. On the 26th of February 2005 , she left. She was 21 years old.

The deepest memories are sometimes stored in the simplest of things.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

In loving memory of Jemila Ibrahim: 25.04.83 – 26.02.05