River ... a movement

Musician and writer Omar Quraishi, 31, was born and raised in Bahrain and is currently teaching North Indian and African percussion at Sar Music Centre.

Educated in the field of finance in the US and Eastern Classical percussions from Lahore, Pakistan, he used to work as a corporate trainer and management consultant until deciding to dedicate his life to music, writing a book and focusing on well being, dealing with mindset development and developing certain methodologies to heal people with issues mainly related to stress and depression. His aim and ambition is to work with individuals in helping them understand 'the self and the potential within'.

ON a dry, barren land with infinite cracks and drought she keeps walking, who knows since when. She is lost beyond any state of awareness, beyond bewilderment, with no sense of existence, direction, life ... no path but a movement, a constant movement to somewhere.

Alone on a long journey, she now sits down, instinctively, if not consciously, her body maybe asks her to. In a state of nothingness, negated, erased, cleansed, maybe?

Something starts to bother her, for the first time in a very long time she has felt something, an awakening within her, but not enough for her to recognise what it is, or to even question it. But there is some life in her now, there is a subtle awakening taking place.

Something is bothering her, annoying her, a bright light. She now senses someone approaching her, while she's seated, that someone is getting closer, has caught her attention.

In a very curious frame of mind she looks at the person, wondering what, and who, this person is ... a tramp, an old man, with a dark grey torn cloak over him, humming a song 'flow my love, flow' carrying some sort of sack on his shoulders.

She's distracted again, by that light, asking for her attention, maybe, but nothing's clear yet.

The man grabs her attention again, she's very curiously looking at him, a tramp, with a trash bag on his shoulder. She hasn't judged him for once - guess it's her current state of existence, taken over by curiosity and wonder after years and years of failures and deception.

While she's staring at him very curiously, he dumps the entire sack into the river in front of him. She looks at the trash, she looks at the river, not knowing it's a river - the trash, the moment it falls into the stream guides her attention to what she has never noticed up till now - the movement, the movement of the river, also in the river she catches the light which has been bothering her, a reflection of the sun.

Instantly, in a matter of seconds, the water is purified. She's amazed at it, puts her hand into the stream and drinks it. It's pure ... but how can it be?

It is the first question she has asked herself in many years. Her mind now is free and is instantly enlightened by the light. It provides the answer, without any distraction, the answer to her quest in life. Life has to be in a constant movement like the river for it to stay light and pure, for it to reflect everything the way it is. Constant movement purifies.