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Me and about 10-15 friends are on a bus ride to a destination known to us. We know what the destination is but I'm the only one that has been there before. I describe this place to my friends and they look on in interest as I list all of it qualities. We are going there for a seminar. We want to learn about Yoga and mystic beliefs, and this seminar will enlighten us all.
As we arrive and get out of the bus, I realize we are in the Czech Republic, in Prague. I don't know what language my friends are speaking but I know I can understand them. It is night time and the building we have arrived at overlooks the old city and it looks beautiful from up there. All the centuries-old buildings are illuminated with various colours and it is something out of a dream. All my friends are ecstatic and note that we will all have a great time.
The actual building is square and painted white. Even though it is late evening, I can see it being lit by coloured lights and there are magnificent gardens surrounding it that we are currently walking through. All kinds of different flowers and plants are arranged together in intricate patterns. We descend some stairs and turn the corner and enter the building. There are lots of other students everywhere as well, chatting it up and busy running around finding their classrooms. It seems like this weekend there are students from all over the place wanting to learn about various subjects.
As we enter the classroom, the room is small and there are chairs arranged in a circle. The teacher introduces herself and we begin to learn. This is where I forget some details, but I just remember lots of 'red flags' going up as I learn this teaching. The next part I remember is I am sitting in another chair in the room. It's almost as if I dozed off and someone transported me to another chair. But as I'm waking up, I feel someone nudging my shoulder. It is Mariusz, a guy I used to live with a few years ago. He is a really spiritual guy, and always really gets into it in church services. Anyway, he hands me a 345mL bottle that says 'Jäger' on it. It take it from him and leave the classroom.
I turn left out of the classroom door and make my way out of the building. There are still throngs of students outside the classrooms being noisy and sociable. 'Shouldn't they be in their classrooms?', I wonder. One of the rooms I walk by, I peer inside and see mathematical formulas on the blackboard. 'Now there is a learning that is based on science and fundamental logic', I muse to myself. Who needs this hocus-pocus mystical learning, right?
The whole time I am walking I sip on my drink, dunking it back to get a good swig of it. The bottle never seems to go empty. It tastes like carbonated apple juice. I finally make it out of the building on the opposite side we entered. There are many smaller buildings on the property that I walk by. It is a busy place, many people walking about, and there are merchants trying to sell their goods to people. They are yelling out to everyone about their good deals, since it's almost closing time. As I'm walking I realize I am heading towards a large church.
As I enter the church I realize it is on top of a hill sloping down. So the main sanctuary goes along with the natural formation of the hill that I am on, descending down very steeply. It looks like one of my old lecture halls in Guelph university. Only the front podium is lit up. I walk slower and slower, so slow that people behind me have to pass me by. To my far left I see some students I used to go to Guelph with that I never assumed were Christians. 'Why are they here?', I wonder. But the closer I get to the altar, the more scared I get. I realize this isn't a place for me and I turn around and head back up. As I'm leaving, I think about two 'demons' that I have. The first one is Unbelief, and the second one is Lust. These are 2 things that I struggle with the most in my life, and even though I need them exorcised from me, I still leave the church with a guilty conscience.
As I'm heading back to my classroom, all the buildings I passed before are different. One is now an expensive restaurant, and I see all the tables set up with their fancy tableware and waiters rushing about. Rich patrons chat their idle chatter and drink their expensive wines. I realize that my drink is almost empty now. I quicken my step, hopefully I'm not missing too much of the class that I was supposed to be in. But as I get closer and closer to my classroom again, I become more and more afraid. What awaits me in the classroom? I can't just sneak in the back, because my chair is right in the front. I am so scared of the teacher making a comment that I wake up from my dream.
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That is the dream. I don't know what I means right now, I'm still trying to sort it out. And I think I forgot some details of it, which sucks. Hopefully one day humankind will invent devices that record our dreams, but until then, we will have to rely on memory alone.
I think a lot of things in the dream are manifestations of my real life. I was in Prague, and I have been questioning my Faith the last few years. I am leaning more towards Atheism as I listen to lecturers such as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris. I have read websites that try to prove that Jesus never existed, particularly by Earl Doherty, who makes a good case. I am starting to lose my Faith very slowly, but I don't want to turn to mysticism either. That sort of thing is even more bogus than Christianity. Either way, I hate thinking that we all evolved, since our minds are so complex and full of imagination, everything in our universe has such perfect constants that allow us to live here, nature has such a divine aesthetic to it that I can't help but think there was a Creator that imagined it for His pleasure and to ours.
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