twenty-one
Death
“Death is the continuation of that which was interrupted by birth.
Life in this world is but a short stop in the passage of Eternity.”
It was a bright sunny day as I boarded the train en route to a destination that lay far, far away. I had come to this train station from a distant place and was headed to a place even further away. Yet, I was very clear about the destination that lay ahead of me. I was also very much aware of the multitude of aspects of Knowledge that resided within Me, which I had collected through my journey of many lifetimes. As the train departed the station, I sat back to enjoy the magnificent scenery that surrounded me. It was the Perfect Picture, drawn and painted by the Ultimate Artist. And I was very much a part of this Picture. I could look at it from outside, and at the same time, I could be within it. What a wonderful Picture! I had no schedule to keep, no urgency to deal with; I just travelled within this magnificent Picture. But, all along, I knew that I was on a long journey that had neither truly begun, nor would truly ever end. I was “Eternal.” Within this Picture of Eternity, I was whole, complete, happy and free. There was nothing that I desired because I was Everything. How can you ever desire something when you are Everything?
And then the train stopped. Ahead of me, I could see the most beautiful Garden that ever was. I got off the train to head into this lovely land of Paradise. But just then I turned away to look at the green rock that lay on my right side. At that point, for one very short moment, I was out of the Picture of Eternity…
I found myself born into another Picture, in which I did not truly belong. All I could do was to look at this new Picture. I was in a shell called the human body. I was not free. I was encaged! Around me were others who I called my parents and my brother. Then there were friends and my broader family. As I travelled forward in this new Picture, which to me was “unreal,” I experienced joy, sadness, love, pain, anger, peace and everything that the Picture had for me to experience. I was no longer “Limitless.” In fact, I was totally limited within my shell. Then I had a wife and four children. At some point, I recognized that I did not belong in this land of the “unreal.” I often had glimpses of who I really was.
Yet in this “unreal” world, I set forth to do many things to bring a touch of the “Real” to all Creation. In doing so, my life unfolded into new directions as each day went by. My shell was aging. Everything in this “unreal” world was governed by an invisible element called “Time.” No one could see it, but everyone lived by it. Time had set its laws for the encaged to follow. And yet, for the encaged, as each portion of Time passed by, they moved closer to freedom; freedom from the cage, freedom from Time itself.
What did I do? How did I impact this “unreal” world? What did I learn from it? What did I give to it? My life was like a scroll that unfolded each day with Knowledge, wisdom and hope. Of course, there was pain and suffering. But the writing on the scroll was that of purity, and nothing but purity. Yet, the dirt from this “unreal” world left stains on my scroll as it unfolded. I desperately tried to clean off each stain before more of the scroll unfolded, by constantly seeking Divine forgiveness. I did my best to guard the scroll from future stains by learning from my mistakes.
As I grew older, the hair that grew on my shell began to turn grey. And, as I looked around me, everyone that had grown up with me was also turning grey. They all knew that this strange and invisible Time would run out for them. And yet, they feared that very moment when Death would come to greet them. How could they fear the end of what is so temporary? After all, do we truly belong to this invisible Law of Time? We were never part of it. Yet, for this one short moment in Eternity, which we call a Lifetime, we were under its umbrella.
Then, one day, I lay on my bed and looked around me. My time had come to leave this world. There was my family, my wife and my children, sitting next to me. They all looked very sad. And, yet, I felt nothing but happiness. As I looked into their eyes, I prayed for their freedom from this “unreal” world. I could hear them say to me that they loved me. But then, each word grew softer and softer until I could hear no more.
Their lips moved, and all I could do was watch. Suddenly, I began to feel very, very light. I began to rise from the shell, and I could see very clearly and also hear what was being said with total clarity. I had never heard, seen,6 or sensed everything so clearly for all the time that I had lived in this “unreal” world. I had left my shell. I could see my loved ones shed tears over my departure. To them, I had died. If only they could see how happy I was! I could now see through their eyes, hear through their ears and feel through their hearts. I was a part of them. I was closer to them than I had ever been, or could ever be, while I was in the shell. I knew that each one of them would enjoy the experience of breaking loose from the “unreal” world when their time came.
Now that I had left my shell, I could no longer command it to do anything for me. I was a free, white dove, with strong wings and no desires, for I had become Everything. Why would there be any need for me to command the shell to take me places or do things for me, when I was in fact Everything!
I was now back in the beautiful Picture of Eternity. I turned and looked ahead of me. Oh, yes, there was the train, and in front of me was the beautiful Garden that I was heading towards, until that brief interruption that occurred when I turned to my right to look at that green rock! I was glad to be back in the Ultimate Picture, painted by the Ultimate Artist. There was no longer this invisible Time, nor any elements of the “unreal” world that I had just left. Of course, when I think about it, I had only left the Picture of Eternity for a very, very short moment, as I walked towards the Garden. Under the laws of Time, it only felt like a fraction of a second. And then, I was back doing what I had always done; I was back on my journey. Of course, I took with me the “experience” of that brief moment in the “unreal” world. That experience had become Knowledge, which added itself to all the Knowledge that I had accumulated so far.
After a peaceful walk through the Garden of Paradise, I boarded the train again and was on my way. I reflected on my brief moment in the world of the “unreal,” as I had turned to my right to look at the green rock. All it was, was an interruption that was caused by my birth into that world. And of course, death from that world put me back on the continuation of my journey through Eternity.
In the “unreal” world, I was told that when I died, I would lose all my senses: hearing, smell, sight, touch and everything else. I smiled to myself as I thought of this statement while I travelled on the train. If anything, I had lost ninety-nine percent of my senses when I came into that shell, that cage they call the human body. And, with Death, I had got back all my senses. What a myth about the five senses! And, how naive were we to think that these senses were the most important. If only we could have remembered the senses that we had lost through encagement! We had gone from freedom and Light into confinement and darkness! We had gone from being Everything to becoming only “something.” Of course, I also realized that had I tried to discover Myself even while I was in the shell, I may have been able to enter the Ultimate Painting whenever I wanted to, because I would have been able to differentiate between the Illusion (the material) and the Real (the eternal). But how could I have done that? I was too engrossed in the ways of that world. I was governed by this invisible Time.
Of course, in the shell, all I could use to “remember” was the mind that resided in the shell. That mind could never “remember” what it had never experienced! But if my mind had been able to become one with my Inner Self, then I could remember Everything, for my mind would have then experienced Everything. “Connect the intellect to the Inner Self and you will Discover Yourself, Your Creator and the entire Knowledge of the Unlimited.” I had heard these words as I resided in my shell. I shared them with others, in the prayer that they would all achieve this realization.
Written on December 29, 1994.
©ï¸ Dr. Amyn Dahya
