The Garden of the Believers: Saracen Playground

Once upon a time, there was a Garden, the conditions of which were such that any who entered it, found comfort enough and time enough to relax, ponder, and discuss.

Th​​​is Garden was at the center of some buildings, a place for prayer, an inn for food and lodgings, a library, and a hospital.

One could easily access any of these whenever they wished or felt the need.

The Garden was where people sat and walked and enjoyed the company of one another, and allowed themselves to think, or questioned those deemed wise who were visiting the Garden.

This Garden was in a Metropolis in the Ancient World, at the Center of the known World in some senses, both in time and space, meaning that the library contained a culmination of information from around the world, and the visitors were also from around the world and all directions.

Having arrived after a long journey, people would find lodgings at the inn, and perhaps spy out the window of their room this beautiful garden where discussion and jovial greeting and laughter could be heard in only the most pleasing fashions.

Come, ​​​Come, the invitation was to all, to hear and speak and hear and wonder.

Some said the truth was in the Garden, and so you may see for yourself, spying there a conversation.

(use this thread to create dialogue occurring in the garden expounding the heights of wisdom, create the characters accordinglybas well if possible)
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Overhearing a discussion in the garden:

You are but slaves.

Slaves? We are free men, from noble families, we have wealth, resources, we can do as we please.

Can you do all this without Wealth?

If I had no Wealth, I would be free from it.

Are you then currently dependent on it?

I need it not, I can hunt for my food.

With your bare hands?

Why not? Yea, even my bare hands.

Are you dependent on these? Would you be able to do it without them?

They depend on me! I control them!

Can you make them do things if they are not present? Or it possible to lose their functioning?

If I lose them, then I can still hunt with my teeth!

By what means?

By means of my teeth! What do you mean?

Well, could you achieve this handless hunting by teeth without a body or a life?

No, I would need a body and a life.

So you are dependent on a body and a life in order to do things?

Yes, of course.

Would you say then that youvare a slave to your body? A slave to your life?

No, certainly not, I control my body, and I control my life.

By what means?

My mind! I use my thoughts to make my body move, to support and continue my life.

How do you do this?

I do what I think!

How is it you arrive at what you think, and this do?

Well, I look around, and I listen, and then thoughts occur to me, and I consider them carefully, then I decide upon a plan and pursue as I am able.

Not as you are not able?

Of course not! How could I do what I can not do?

Couldn’t the free?

That is absurd, none can do what they can not do!

So they are all slaves?

No, a slave is different from a master.

What is a master?

A master is one that provides and controls and restricts, a slave is one that is restricted and follows what the master tells it if it seeks to live!

How many masters do you have?

None! I follow no one!

What of your Mind?

What of it?

Are you not dependent upon it?

I am, but it is mine, it is me.

How so?

I am the one using it, it is my property.

The thoughts as well?

Yes.

Why?

What do you mean why?

You said that you look around and see things, so are depending on your eyes and sights to see, you hear things, so depending on your ears and things to hear, you also can not see what is not there for you to see, or hear what is not there for you to hear, then thoughts occur to you, thoughts which come from your mind but which you did not select for yourself or choose, correct? Nor could you do any of this without a mind, a mind without sense of sight and sense of hearing or a body, or a life. All slaves.

Yes, my slaves.

Do you control what you see? Do you control what you hear? Do you control what occurs to you in your thoughts initially?

No.

T​hen can you do and hear, and see, whatever you wish?

No.

Are you instead of a master, a slave to all these things?

No. I’ll tell you why, because if I sit still, let all of that come in, I can then decide.

What can you decide?

What I decide. Anything! Based on the information available to me.

So not anything really, just some things.

Well yes.

Can you decide two things?

Yes?

At the same time?

Sure, I suppose.

Can you at the very same time perform or act on two things at the same time?

Yes.

Yes and No?

What?

Can you decide to pick up an object, and decide not to pick up an object, pick up an object, and not pick up the very same object?

No.

So you can’t even do some things, you can only do one thing.

I can do many things!

Like what?

Well, I can pick up an object, and I can put down the same object.

Can you put down the object before you have picked it up ever?

No.

So you are dependent upon picking up a thing before you can put it down, dependent on order and chronology, on time, change, and progress, on ability, on body.

Yes, but I am the master of all these things!

How so?

I decide when I pick up a thing.

Do you? Could you pick it up at any other time?

Certainly!

Even if you have picked it up at a certain time? You could, without letting go, pick it up at another time?

No.

So what can you do? Hunt by your teeth?

Yes, I believe so.

Without a skull or muscles?

No.

Can you even hunt with your teeth?

I could try.

You haven’t even tested this?

Of course not! I have wealth and resources.

So can afford to guess?

I’m certain I could manage, no matter what the case.

How are you certain?

My life has shown me that I always figure a way out.

Your slave, life, has given you confidence? Your slave, mind has given you possibilities and assumptions? Do you also select what you can remember?

Yes.

How would you know?

What do you mean?

How would you know if you have thoroughly forgotten something or what memories you have available to you, from which you derive your confidence?

​​I would sense it, something missing.

What do you rely on in order to sense this, and how is it that you trust it has not forgotten and can thus itself be trusted, did you also select for this to be forgotten or was that imposed upon you?

I did not choose to forget, and I can’t remember what I can’t remember, and sense I have forgotten based on what my mind senses.

Who then chose that you forget? What caused the selection, if it was not you, what imposed upon you?

I don’t know, things just happen.

Things just happen, like the things you see, and that you can see at all, the things you hear, and that you can hear at all, that things occur to your mind, that you have wealth, that you can decide and do one thing and not another, and all this. What you forget is also not within your control or knowledge, nor can you summon it or bring it back, just like anything taken away from you. What then are you the master of?

My self.

What is that?

It is what I own, what I can control.

What is your slave?

Yes.

So your Self is a slave.

No, no.

What is it a master of?

I can do things!

Like what?

I have spent my money and resources, I have used my body, I have thought and acted, seen and heard.

Did you provide all these things? Did you use them only in one way at a time?

I used them only one way at a time, but as I chose to!

So you could’ve not chosen as well.

Yes.

How?

Simply by not doing.

How can you not do what you did do?

I can’t, but I can not do it before I have done it.

Can you not do it? What can you do? Really?

There are many things I can do, at a given time, which I can choose to do or not do. Right now for example, I can sit or stand.

You are sitting, so you can neither sit, nor can you stand while you are sitting.

So?

So what kind of master can not sit nor stand whenever they wish?

I sit when I want to, and I stand when I want to.

Not at once though.

I don’t want to sit and stand at once!

Why not? Is it because you can’t?

No. It is because it is foolish.

Why is it foolish?

It is an absurdity, it can’t be done, and it need not be done.

What does need to be done? What decides what needs to be done and what is foolish and does not need to be done?

Many things need to be done, and what decides them is me!

Were you the one who decided all the things that need to be done or could be done?

No.

Who then?

I don’t know, it was already present.

What is done is what needs to be done?

No, there are many things which are done which did not need to be done.

Like what?

Like wars and petty conflicts, murders, crimes, none of that was necessary.

Was it necessary to constrain and punish such who do those things?

Yes.

Why?

If left unpunished and free to do as they please, the whole world would be in ruins.

So you can’t let injustice prevail, but are forced to fight and contain it?

Yes.

Who forces this neccessity? The criminals?

In a sense.

So the criminals are your masters? Forcing you to take actions which they make necessary?

No.

Are you controlling the criminals, so are responsible for this too and are the greatest of the criminal masterminds?

No. I do not control them.

Who controls them?

They control themselves.

​​​​The same way that you do?

Yes.

So they see what they don’t choose, hear what they don’t choose, depend upon their bodies and have only what occurs to their minds, and can only do one thing at a time and can not also not do what they do or did?

Yes.

What is the difference between you and them?

I choose to do good, they choose to do evil.

Are you capable of doing evil?

Yes.

How do you know?

The option to do evil is present to my senses, but I choose not to do it.

How do you choose not to do it and why?

I think about the consequences, the consequences seem bad, so I don’t do it.

What if the consequences seemed good?

Then it wouldn’t be a bad thing, but a good thing, and I would choose it.

Did you choose how it seemed to you?

What do you mean?

Did you have a choice between a thing seeming good to you or bad to you or did this feeling or sense just occur to you and was not really selected by you?

​​I choose how I feel about things.

Do you choose to feel pain?

No.

If one were to inflict upon you pain or remove something from you, would your feeling pain or anxiety regarding it be deliberate and also necessary?

No.

​​​​​​Also, can what is necessary, ever be deliberate? Doesn’t the necessary mean required and thus not chosen deliberately?

What is necessary, is what is required, and what is deliberate, is chosen.

What are the things you can choose, if you can’t choose what you see, hear, feel, think, and thus do or did or not do and can or can’t undo?

I know I am free. I know I am free because I feel it.

How does it feel to be free?