An old man lay on his death bed. The well-wishers who stood around the bed grew dim. The fluorescent bulbs above stopped humming, and the walls began to glow. The plastic tubes in his arms dissolved, and for the first time in weeks he was without pain, and his mind could focus again.

His eyes swept over the room, noting the steel furniture, the sharp tools on the tray, the concerned faces peering at him. Leaning against a counter in the corner was a familiar young girl. Her face was full of curiosity and passion, and she twisted around a little but forced herself to behave.

‘I remember when I too was brimming with life,’ the man thought. ‘Originally I had an intrinsic connection at all times. Nothing was isolated, and everything shone from within.’ Just remembering was enough to bring back some of that old energy. It flowed again through his veins, expanding and overflowing – a connection to reality, a challenge to existence.
‘Maybe there is life in me, still,’ he reflected. ‘Maybe it’s not all over, even now.’ But the exhilaration quickly drained away. There was too little life, too much forgetfulness. ‘No, it really is over. I occupied space and time, but I suppressed my natural energy, and ultimately I lost touch with reality.’

The doctor, in his green scrub clothes, leaned over the patient, holding his fingers against the old man’s neck. “The heart rate is climbing rapidly,” he said. “Give me a sedative – no, hold on – the pulse is falling now. It’s back to normal, a little below normal.” The doctor stepped back, pulling off his plastic gloves. “His heart is weak, and these feverish episodes weaken it still more.”

The group of visitors relaxed a bit. The young girl tugged at her mother’s arm. “May I go to him?” she whispered. She stepped carefully up to the dying man, avoiding the stainless steel equipment, and stared intently into his eyes. With her small index finger she reached out, and grazed his dry cheek; then she turned abruptly and ran back to her mother’s side.

The old man looked toward the girl with curiosity, his lips barely moving. ‘Oh yes,’ he realized, finally. ‘This is my granddaughter. Time is now hers: it is time for those who are gifted with the possibility for life. I have no more life energy. My will turns off, and my own heart now beats for the last time. Goodbye, loved ones. Goodbye, self. Goodbye, Earth.’

The kernel of his self cracked. It had carried him over land and time. Sometimes it was soft, and sometimes impenetrably hard, but it was always there at the core of his being. Now it split open, and his self flowed out. Meeting reality, it shot up, spiraling higher in ever greater circles. It was revolving, turning, but going ever upwards; and then, suddenly, it fell to the ground.

***

He was lying face down, his arms outstretched, his face pressed against the hard surface. His heart was thumping with regular, powerful beats. His skin tingled with a renewed sensitivity. Opening his eyes, he saw a woman who was standing nearby and watching him intently. She was dressed in a flowing robe, with a hood that obscured much of her face. He rose to his knees, but could not make out anything except for the woman. Other than her, there was a murkiness at all the edges.

“Where I am?” he asked.

“You tell me,” she responded.

“How did I get here? Did I die? Where is this place? And who are you?”

“Those are good questions, but the time for asking is past. Now is the time for answering. So please go ahead and tell me this: Who are you?” She stood still, her eyes unwavering, waiting for an answer.

“Who am I? I can’t remember my name. This is really disorienting. Give me a minute, and I’m sure I’ll remember.”

“I’m not asking your name. That’s just a title, a piece of trivia. Your name is history. I was asking about something more permanent: Who are you?”

He looked at his hands. They didn’t seem particularly familiar. Were they really his own, or were they representative of something more: humanity, nature, or God? He tested the movement of his fingers. They were agile and capable, able to move or manipulate in any way. But which way?

He searched for an explanation. “I know myself very well. But what can I say about who I am? It’s impossible to summarize or categorize.”

The woman shook her head and crossed her arms. Her voice was gentle, but tough. “Either you say, or you don’t say. This is not the time for speculation. This is the time for answers. But you may skip the question I asked. Any other question will do. Feel free to choose yourself. Tell me anything, anything at all.”

He started to speak, but when he opened his mouth, nothing came out. He felt as he had when he was a schoolchild standing in front of the blackboard, with the entire class looking at him expectantly, scaring the ideas out of his mind. He rose to his feet, concentrating. Finally he spoke. “One and one are two,” he said. “That is true. It’s a mathematical certainty.”

“I’m sorry, you are just repeating a lesson that you were taught, an abstraction ground into your mind. Tell me this: What is one? What are two?”

He couldn’t explain, and he could barely think. He forced himself to speak. “Here’s something else that’s obvious: The color of the sky is blue.” He felt a little silly as he turned his head at the greyness that was all around.

“What is ‘color’? What is ‘blue’?”

The blankness in his mind was blinding. ‘Maybe I really don’t know,’ he thought. ‘Have I forgotten everything I learned? Or was I always completely ignorant? I have a degree from a good university. I must have learned something there.’ “Listen,” he began again. “I do know many things. The Roman Empire was founded by Augustus. Columbus discovered America – of course, there were already people there, but they were unknown to Europeans. A dandelion is a flower with yellow petals. A centipede metamorphosizes in a cocoon, and becomes a butterfly. The earth is round, and goes around the sun. I know the phases of the moon. I know some of the astronomical constellations. I know part of the periodic table. I know that objects fall. Maybe I don’t know exactly what gravity is, but I know that objects fall.”

“Yes, those are so-called facts, but they are insubstantial. You are flittering about, using words that have form but no content. Your mind is full of images. I am asking for something with substance, something that has content, not just form.”

“Maybe you are asking for something that I can’t give,” he said. “Should I be afraid of you? Do you have power over me? Who are you, and what are we doing here? What right do you have to judge me? What right do you have to ask these questions? You see, I have questions for you, too. You won’t accept anything I say. What if I can’t answer? Or what if I won’t answer?”

“There’s no need to be frustrated. I am not your judge or your teacher. I am your friend. You are standing in an unusual place: here everything circumstantial and irrelevant is stripped away, and only the core remains. Choose your destiny. Whatever you choose, that’s what will happen, and where you will go. I want to walk forward with you as an equal, hand in hand, through the opening that is just ahead of us. So please tell me something. Search your mind, and tell me something you have learned – just one thing. One thing would be enough.”

“Come on, now,” she continued. “You lived many years on the Earth, more than eighty. You had a good education, loving parents, a capable mind. There were no external limitations placed on you. You were gifted with freedom. At each moment – and there were thousands and millions of moments – you were in direct contact with the truth. Did you perceive it?”

“I think you’re not talking about factual knowledge. Are you talking about spiritual knowledge?”

“There is only one kind of knowledge. Actual knowing includes the inner effect: what is healing, what is elevating, and what is transcendent.”

“Well, what about this: It’s wrong to hurt those you love. That may be a truism, but it’s true. Treat others as you would wish to be treated.”

“That’s a comforting thought, but it’s a little bit self-referential. Do you find it so difficult to judge by any standard other than that of your own happiness and your own wishes? Are you only concerned about those you love? What about those you don’t love?

“There are a thousand spiritual rules that could be listed. That one is pretty good, I think.”

“What is it that validates the rules? What is it that makes the rules true?”

“I don’t know,” he said, hopelessly accepting that he could not justify himself. “You’re speaking about a level of understanding that I cannot grasp. I have to admit it. But at least I understand that I don’t understand. Does that count? I’ve read a lot, and talked a lot, and done a lot, and I don’t understand anything in its entirety. I don’t even know the questions I should be asking. Does that count as knowing something?”

He looked up, scanning the grey surroundings. “I do sometimes have a sense of the underlying meaning of things. I remember I once saw a very run down house, made of sticks and a corrugated tin roof. A child was playing among the rubble. I was moved by the impossible, indescribable beauty of the place. It struck me intensely, but it was beyond my comprehension, and the feeling slipped away. Most of the time I am blinded by appearances. But on that day I saw something great.”

“Yes, you placed your finger on something real, and you do have a hazy sense of the true. On Earth that is normal: it is a place of complexity and paradox, of time and mortality. But here you cannot live in a haze. Here is reality and truth. I’m sorry, but your self is still very small. It’s hemmed in on all sides. Your perception of the moral and the spiritual and the beautiful are stunted. All around you reality is shimmering with a significance that you are nearly completely unaware of. You see only the semblance.”

As she spoke, the air around her, which had been completely still, began to move, and her robe fluttered slightly in the wind. The cloudiness in the air began to clarify and dispel. There was something strangely familiar about her. “Who are you?” he demanded.

She threw back her head covering, and he immediately recognized her. “It’s you!” he exclaimed. “I was looking for you my entire life. I didn’t know it, but I was always seeking you. Whenever I came around a bend, whenever I turned to look into a stranger’s face, I was seeking you!”

“Yes, I know that, and I was looking for you, too.”

“I thought that there would be desire, that we would fly together, that you would be the answer to all my questions, and all my longing. But I don’t feel desire for you.”

“That’s because what you recognize is not my individuality; it’s the eternal me, which you finally perceive. Now you can finally begin!”

“Are you saying that I am going back to Earth? Is that like reincarnation?”

“Here you go again: speculating about metaphysical concepts in order to justify your own continued existence. I don’t want to play intellectual games. You squandered your days and nights, and cannot expect to have an infinite number of chances. It’s quite possible that you are headed for total annihilation. What happens to you now is simply a matter of your own choice. You have chosen your fate. You’re going to the only place you know: tell me.

“I am not speaking to ‘you,’” she added, “but to the life that is still left in you. You may think you know, and you may actually know, but that’s not sufficient. You must become what you know. Last time, you simply began in the wrong place. When you took your first step, your stride was a little too self-assured. And then, you just kept going.

“Go back! Look and listen! When you can feel the earth under your feet, let me know. When you can sense the wind on your cheeks, let me know. You will have learned everything that you need to know, and everything that it is possible for you to know.”

He felt himself being pulled up off of the ground. “How will I contact you?” he shouted.

“Walk on the earth, feel the earth under your feet. Observe your reaction at the moment you meet a stranger. Look into a person’s eyes. Feel the sun on your skin. Let your voice resonate at the right pitch. At the right pitch it will harmonize with being, and it will establish an intrinsic connection with me.”

As she finished speaking he shot up, spiraling higher in ever greater circles, heading back in a slightly different direction from which he had come.