By Guru Saranya
Light at the end of the tunnel. The only analogy we get, when we talk about the afterlife.
But nobody tells you about the journey your soul embarks on once it leaves your body and goes through the light.
And nobody ever mentions how soul wrenchingly beautiful and terrifying the anticipation of what lies beneath that light will be. But I will.
The experience of my soul traveling through the tunnel and reaching beyond is exclusive and fascinating.
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Breaking the shackles of lifetime slavery to this creation, my spirit emerges free from the prison of my physical body and begins its long expedition towards the sky and towards the unknown. Whether it is towards God or towards Devil, towards heaven or towards hell or whether it is towards another universe and another life, only time will tell.
Even though my soul left my body and mind behind, I still feel everything. In fact, I feel everything a lot more clearly. The shock, of how sudden the transition was from being alive to being dead; the pain, of my body getting ripped away from me; the longing, for the only life I knew; the fear, of the unknown and the inevitable, the hope that I will get to experience everything again, to get to meet my dear ones again; the astonishment at the new world that lay ahead of me and much more.
As my spirit travels towards the sky, the elements of nature; the wind, the water and the fire perform an intricate dance to weave a path of tornado, in the shape of a tunnel for my soul to embark on. They lead my soul through a terrifyingly captivating combination of their power; a combination of blue, red and transparent colour streaks, whirling their life source in a beautiful beacon of light that's ever been seen.
The forces of nature join hands in an enchanting practice to create a world of new rules for the journey of my soul. My soul ascends beyond the space effortlessly, enthralled by the adventure it embarks on.
Defying all the rules of the physical world, combining the past, present and future, the universe around me with its billions of stars and galaxies; evolves, expands, contracts, and goes extinct all at the same time. Life in hundreds of other planets and multiples of other earths, for which we have been searching forever, battles for millions of years for survival and just like they form in the blink of an eye, they get destroyed in another blink of an eye. Yet, the creation and destruction of life and all its incredible variety around the universe seems to be playing a key role in the grand scheme of the universe.
The difference of worlds is jarringly obvious, as I leave my world, i.e., the universe as we know it, behind and enter a dark, unending and empty plane of space. I thought it was empty until I noticed an ocean of souls so dark that they almost go unnoticed, just hanging in the middle, staring right at me.
‘Army of undead’; souls who do not have the ability to transition from living to dead; information just sprouted in my memory. They slowly creep towards me, breeding the hope to unite me in them.
A curtain of black smoke gradually creeps from them, from all the directions onto my spine and just as I begin to panic, an indescribable streak of energy beyond my control and imagination leads me through the sea of souls and guides me beyond the plane and to ‘The Mansion’.
The ability to comprehend and grasp the reality of what lies in front of me, betrays me when I reach it.
The mansion; a combination of light and dark, good and evil, kindness and cruelty, past and future; floating in a veil of mist.
The astronomical and enormous size of the mansion makes me feel like a tiny drop of water in an ocean. Whichever direction my gaze flicks; left, right, up and down; it extends, existing everywhere and nowhere at the same time, making it impossible to distinguish its start from its end.
The Light sprinkles its illumination as bright as the stars everywhere, and the Dark devours it like a starving monster, even before it reaches the ground. It is strange how a space could look bright and dark, calm and terrifying at the same time.
A symphony of great melodies reverberates throughout the mansion, ostensibly without any source. The sound attracts and repels you simultaneously, rooting you to your spot.
The ginormous entrance to the mansion opens up, revealing a number of blue streaks, which are smeared upon layers of gigantic oval shapes. The shapes dance back and forth, appearing and disappearing and solidifying at last. That is when I realized that the ‘oval shaped object’ is a huge enormous eye.
The centre of the Big Eye is a giant black hole formed by a circle of flickering flames and turbulent water. The eye radiates immense power, charging every particle it comes in contact with.
“Come forward.” The big eye booms. “You have reached a place of higher consciousness, awakening and wisdom. I am the god of enlightenment, decider of destiny, the harbourer and destroyer of the fates and one of the voices of The God.”
The voice echoes through the mansion, vibrating every shell of my existence.
“This is the gateway for the worlds that exist beyond this place. This place is chosen with the task of deciding your fate and the journey of your soul to the pure conscious worlds. Here, your soul will be judged based on its emotions like desires and hopes. What your soul deserves, your soul gets.”
The black hole pulsates aggressively, transforming itself into a giant reflective surface.
And then I see them.
All my countless lives. My life as an insect, a fly, a plant, a cow and numerous other animals and then my multiple lives as a human.
The black hole plays the stories of my lives as a movie on TV.
The web of consciousness hits me like a lightning bolt and my memory expands. It grasps all the memories of my past lives and all the countless times I experienced this in front of the big eye.
The identity of my current life drowns in all the other identities I donned in my countless other lives. All are different from each other and yet identical. Contradicting one with another and yet similar. There is no ‘me’. No ‘I’. The thing that’s left in me is floating in the middle of nothing, not knowing where to land.
“What's the purpose of all this?” I bellow, casting my voice into the void. “I have lived almost similar lives again and again and again. The same hopes, same mistakes, same pain, same grief, same heartbreak and then life repeats itself mercilessly. When does this all end? When does this cycle of births and deaths end?”
The big eye smiles knowingly. “When your love for God overpowers the love for everything and anything in your life.” He replies. “When your belief in Him never wavers, even if the gravity itself starts to waver. When His name is etched on your soul and reaching Him will become the goal of your every life.
That form of sacrifice and dedication drives Him to reveal the secret to reaching His abode. Those are the souls who are in real sense blessed.”
A strong wave of regret washes over my soul and threatens to churn it in its storm. I have wasted so many years and so many lives in meaningless things while all I had to do was take His name.
“Observe all the lives in front of you and tell me what do you notice from all of them?” The big eye asks, arousing me from my reverie.
I observe the lives I lead in multiple timelines, different circumstances and different motivations and remark.
“I have evolved from one life to another. Although I made the same kind of mistakes in all my lives, I have learnt my lessons fast with each life. With each life passing on, my soul was imprinted with all the lessons I have learnt in that life and it made sure I remember it.
My love for the God increased with each life. With each passing life, I spent more and more time in His prayer.” I pause and whisper. “And yet it is so little.”
The big eye smiles.
“That is called progress. Every soul needs to go through a purification process.
If you wish to be a part of a cluster of diamonds, you need to be prepared, to go through the pressure it requires for you to become a diamond from a stone. Just like that you need to go through all these lives and steps to make your soul worthy of the world ahead of you.
The entirety of existence you have witnessed below is nothing in comparison to what lies ahead. There are far more worlds up there and God is helping you in ways indescribable for you to be able to reach there.”
“Where is He then? If He really wanted to help me, why didn't He make it easy on me and show Himself to me, when I was alive?” I ask with an intense yearning to see Him, which I have never felt before.
The big eye smiles kindly.
“God has made it easy on you. Every seed of love you have ever developed in your lives towards Him was implanted by Him only. He also kept the key to your freedom in your body only.
Human eye is not capable of seeing His true form. That's why He made sure that every human can see Him, if he/she concentrates within.
All you needed to have, was a true will.”
“My soul has been engulfed in a violent storm of desire to see Him, which I can only sum up to a true will. Then, why can't I see Him now? Where is He now?”
“He is here. God is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. He was the one who guided you throughout your lives and He was the one who guided you to the mansion too. And He will be the one, who will make you reach the ultimate abode.
Don’t forget. God is merciful. Even if you think you didn’t do enough, He will bless you. All you need is a spark and He will burn the fire strong enough to reach Him.
But for that to happen, we need to follow the procedure first.
Tell me, what does your heart wish for now?” The single eye penetrates his gaze into my soul. “Does it wish for another life and if yes why? For love, for money, for fame or for what?”
And then it plays in front of me. My current life.
My birth, my loving parents, my friends, my education, my career, my marriage, my kids, their marriages, my grandchildren and my death.
Every cross road I came across, every decision I took and every impact it made. My every friendship, every enemy ship, every little mistake, every act of kindness, every betrayal, every responsibility, every duty, every success, every failure, every laughter, every tear drop, every oath, every prayer and every breath.
It also showed the numerous answers I gave to this question, in front of the big eye.
Always another life. A better one. Sometimes for the love I craved, sometimes for the fame and money I never got and sometimes for countless other reasons.
Even though I have evolved every time, there is always one single desire that I couldn't erase out of my existence.
But not this time.
This time I see the difference. This time I am not crippled by the forces like desire, longing and fear. This time I am somehow successful in eliminating my demons. This time I recognize the veil that's been keeping me from distinguishing good from evil.
I now finally understand every lesson God has taught me through these lives. Every little setback had taught me something which I hadn't noticed then.
“No.” My voice resounds within me and I reply with a budding confidence. “I don't want another life. My journey with this universe is over.”
As soon as I say this out loud, I sense that the infinite number of invisible tethers snap, which binds me to this universe and this life. A blazing light emerges from within me, replicating the explosion of the big bang, but in a considerably smaller sense. The mansion disappears in an instant and the space around me coats itself white as if it is preparing a blank canvas to paint.
And then in the blink of an eye, I see Him. All of Him. In His kingdom.
To describe Him is to describe every creation of Him. From complex galaxies to very minute details of the smallest DNA.
To describe Him is to describe His mighty power, His infinite consciousness and His everlasting presence.
To describe Him is to realise that there is no beginning and no end to Him.
To describe Him is to run out of the words to do that.
In that moment, in the blink of an eye, everything made sense. He is mine and I am His.
I remember the time when I was with Him. When I was a part of Him.
In that moment, I felt like I had never been away from Him. He was always with me.
I am a drop in an ocean but an equally important one. Without me there is no ocean. And without Him, there is no me.
As much as I have suffered and waited to reach Him, He yearned more than that for me to return, like a father patiently waiting for his daughter to arrive home.
He is an abundance of love, peace and tranquillity and He is my home.
Just like He appeared in the blink of an eye, He is gone in another blink of an eye, leaving me peaceful and satiated. I know all the answers now. I know why He didn’t break all the rules and make Himself known to mankind.
The beauty in conforming to the rules and values, when you are above all of that and when you were the one created all of that, is the beauty of God.
This time, when the mansion reappears in front of me, there is no trace of evil or darkness in it. When the light sprinkles its illumination, there is no darkness to devour it and the sprinkles glow like a million stars.
Its halls are filled with celebration. Every little corner lit up with hope, peace and justice.
The black hole transforms itself into a gate for me to traverse.
The melodies orchestrate a symphony in celebration of my soul moving on to the next phase and crossing this gateway.
“Congratulations!” The big eye thunders.
“After a million years of swimming and struggling to stay afloat through the cycle of births and deaths, you are now finally free from it.
The journey you are about to embark on now, is like a treat to your tired soul. Each world you will come across above is a wonder. A festival. A celebration for a soul to rejoice. You are finally reaching your father’s abode. Congratulations.”
With an immense surge of gratitude and delight, my soul completes the journey from the world I once called home, to the world which is my real home.
Just as the big eye informed me, my supreme father and the countless other souls in the above worlds celebrated my return home and just like that I am no longer a drop in the ocean. I am the ocean.
By Guru Saranya
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