I
died a little while ago; maybe minutes, maybe hours, maybe days, maybe weeks,
though probably not months; there is no time as such in this bodyless state. So
I don’t know how long I’ve been like this. What I do know is that I had hoped
that my life might “pass before my eyes” before I died, but it really didn’t.
In retrospect, dying was more like falling to sleep, which is not so difficult
for me, though waking up to pain and bad dreams a few hours later, as was my
habit, was difficult. I seem to have awakened from my death, but am not in pain
and haven’t had any bad dreams; I am strangely feeling rather “neutral,” for
want of some way to describe myself, which is quite different than I am used
to. With no physicality, I seem to be left with my thoughts and feelings, which
remain quite body-centered; it is as though I have a body but there’s nothing
here. I still feel my body, even sensations of a sort, and my bodily senses
feel somehow intact, which seems to indicate that much if not most of my
physicality was in my mind all along. I don’t literally feel my flesh in that
state but I feel as if I am still in my flesh. Perhaps this bodily identity
will fade as I “proceed” in this different reality. What I “see” is the life I
just “left.” Like I said, I wish I could have seen this before I passed rather
than now, though I doubt whether it would have made any difference. I was
already experiencing almost first hand many of my life memories as very vivid
moments of “being there” again; feeling it and being it. I may convey some of
these somehow always poignant moments as my narration goes on.
My priority now is to somehow make
sense of the whole process we call “life and death.” Though I am aware that at
this point I am “suspended” in “nothing,” outside of time and space, that is
more of a conception than anything else. I feel as if I am meant to “make
sense” of my life in this phase of the “life and death process.” I don’t know
if this means that I should discover a context for it all, a “greater life” in
which I exist. Obviously, something like this has to be the case, otherwise I
would not even be thinking and feeling as I am now. I do toy with the notion that
“I” do not even exist, and am the thought of something in which I think that I
do exist. But this is more conception. I think that I am here at this point
(rather than this moment) to “review” and even reexperience my life so that I
might come to comprehend what it is, was, how “I” fit into it, and how I came
to believe that it was “my” life as seemingly opposed to the notion that Life
was living and manifesting through “me.” My “life story” is not the issue; what
“my” life was and what “I” learned and am learning from it is the crux.
For some years prior to my death I was
preparing for this “moment.” My state of mind and emotion is not one of fear
nor particular discomfort. Rather it is one of intent with a sense of
responsibility and focus. I am of the belief that if I don’t come to some
adequate understanding of my degree of fulfillment of my “life’s purpose,” I
may remain in this limbo state indefinitely. It may be that I am being given
some kind of opportunity and test rather than being rushed through my own
unpreparedness and desire into a new body even as I speak. I have heard that
this is the tendency of most human beings and, given my own identities, can see
how true it is. At least I have settled myself to the extent that I plan to go
into the details of my existence and to hopefully come to some kind of honest
self-revelation and consequent self-understanding, which, as previously noted,
would be an understanding of myself in relation to my life and to the life and
death process overall. Once I breathe a sigh of relief perhaps something will
open, though it may require many sighs of relief, many openings, and, by logic,
just as many closings, hopefully behind me. I may have to transcend my tendency
towards “hopefulness,” which I believe I have to a certain extent. Hopefulness
is the step-child of hopelessness. I believe I will have to abandon them both
and simply be able to be here with all as it is now.
* * *
On the other
hand, if you will, I started feeling uncomfortable in a physical body at
various junctures in my life, finally realizing that I actually “didn’t belong”
within the confinement of a physical body. I am realizing right now that I feel
better without it; it is extremely limiting and unnatural for me. I’ll talk
more about this at another time. These are pieces worth telling. Some of us are
given certain experiences by and through which to become aware of certain
aspects of “our” being and of life itself. It is up to us to notice what is
happening and to respond to its particular “lessons.” If we don’t learn in the
“school of life,” it seems to me that we are destined to repeat the lessons
until we do learn them quite well, until they are “second nature” to us. The
“learning” is not simply an intellectual process or physical discipline, though
they do have their place; it is more than that. And only we can learn for
ourselves; no one else can take these tests for us.
* * *
Marley’s
ghost exclaims to Ebenezer Scrooge that the chains he wears around his neck
were “forged in life.” I wanted to be able to free myself from fear and
ignorance before I died rather than after. “Before the fact” one has time to do
such things; after the fact there is no time. Now I have all the time I need
but now it feels more like a requirement than a choice; in fact it is a
requirement if I am to get free of myself, of the thoughts and emotions that
imprison me, that I believe I actually am, that “are” me. it is true that we
approach death as we approach life, though it is not so simply as to say that
we either live in fear and ignorance or not, for the material world itself is
proof of fear and ignorance in and of itself. As I got older and my body began
to fail, I began to be able to “see through” the physical world and all the
distraction we generated so as to avoid the “spiritual” world in which we also
exist. We make much more of “survival” than survival itself. Our survival is
more about worry generated by our fear and ignorance that it is simply about
survival. Nature, its animals and plants present a much different version of
survival.
I was a “good” person, perhaps even
exemplary. I cared for my disabled daughter for many years and then to my
disabled wife for many more. It was no hard choice for me whatsoever; I did
what was there for me to do. It was not particularly a hardship, though for
someone else it might have been. And I was to remain sufficiently self-centered
the whole time, though think much of my life and my focus revolved around my
daughter and then my wife. I did “take on” much of my wife’s pain, making it my
own, though I have no idea whether this helped either of us. I felt much sorrow
for her pain, prayed to many gods (as I had done for my daughter as well). In
the end, things were as they were; I had to accept them as such.
* * *
As
in life, so in death, so they say. So much of my life was defined by
pain—physical, emotional, mental, spiritual. You could see it in my face as a
little boy in third grade and as an old man looking at himself in the bathroom
mirror. Life in the flesh seems inherently disappointing, just as life not in
the flesh may be such as well. So far, my life not in the flesh has been a kind
of review of my life in the flesh, which I remember as sad and disappointing.
This is not to say that there were not very enjoyable moments, even parts, of
my life, but such pleasures and fulfillments are bittersweet, for they pass and
then one compares any other moment with them, with the pleasure, contentment,
and beauty they may have held. I needed to have learned to accept
disappointment and pain too as part of living, but instead I let it break me
down in my ability to endure and withstand. I did learn to love enough to put
the happiness and smile of another, however momentary, before my own. I loved
to see my wife smile and my daughter smile. That my wife had to suffer such
pain in her body and her mind was a knife that cut into my soul, a knife
wielded by the same God who brought seizures to my daughter and snatched her
words away. Of course I am aware of this simplistic perspective, however it is
the one in which I was immersed and which I absorbed into myself as a child,
and which I believed in my skin even though in my mind I could clearly see its
unreality. I wanted to believe in a loving, merciful, forgiving, healing,
powerful God, and did until my child was born with profound autism. In truth, a
great part of me has always believed, has always kept faith, if not in a God,
then in the basic and intelligent goodness of human beings. However, even much
of that was lost as I saw people with whom I had thought I understood and with
whom I believed were my friends became as rabid dogs and turned on me and
attacked. I knew that my father loved me but could not understand when, as a
young child of six, he would go into a rage and come at me with a belt. I
suppose an understanding of sorts was attained when I had glimpses into his
mind which was on the battlefields of WWII such as Omaha Beach and the Ardennes
Forest. But I was still disappointed that my father could not love me like
other fathers loved their sons; in a manner that did not make bruises and draw
blood.
My third grade school photo shows a
little boy wearing large black-rimmed glasses with a forced half-smile and deep
sadness in his eyes. Those same glasses would soon be snapped in half at the
middle when my father slapped me across the face for having my elbow on the
table while eating my dinner. Those glasses would hit the wall so hard that
they would break into two pieces. I would later pick them up and wrap some
black electrical tape around the center to hold them together in one piece so I
might wear them and be able to see; I had a stigmatism. A few days after that
my father would yell at me for breaking my glasses; he had no memory whatsoever
of being the one responsible. I made the mistake of wondering why my father
could not be like the fathers of my friends, who I believed were kind and
loving towards them. But in time I learned to duck when it was simply a hand to
hit my face at the dinner table, though such movement on my part further
infuriated my father to the point of taking off his belt to use on my back. I
could say that these beatings were my ultimate undoing, for as I aged, the
small fractures in my ribs became the source of extreme arthritic pain that I
could see in my face in the bathroom mirror. From the third grader to the old
man in the mirror.
You would think that after death a
person wouldn’t be pondering on these kinds of memories, for they are painful.
You would think that a person might be able to somehow get through them during
his or her life, to comprehend what they were, what happened, forgive, and just
get over it. But instead such memories are carried over beyond death, to be
relived then, out of time, even though the memory is vividly in time. I do not
recount such memories so that I can blame; I am not trying to find fault with
my father, but am trying to understand my own thoughts, conclusions about
myself and about life that I made; inaccurate conclusions that I may be able to
comprehend now that I am not so distracted by the outside world. However, do
not think that just because one is dead that the “outside world” no longer
exists; in fact they bring it with them in their own minds. That I have done
this is probably testament that others do as well. In this “moment” I can
literally “see” everything that I saw through my eyes during my life; in fact I
even notice things that I did not notice in those moments. Everything is
recorded; it is as though our eyes were cameras and all is stored within us. I
remember Monarch butterflies lighting on tomatoes in my garden for a sip of
water after I watered it. And that wonderful moment with my father at Catskill
Creek when he overturned a rock a crayfish swam out; we were both so surprised
and, looking into each others’ eyes, laughed together, his hand tenderly on my
shoulder. My father loved me very much. I loved him as well.
* * *
Much of this
“remembering” I did during my twilight years in dreams. Memories revealed
themselves to me almost every morning; sometimes I would wake up in tears, of
joy as well as sadness, and sometimes I would awaken in shame at my uncaring,
indifferent, cruel treatment of others. I have noted that, upon death, I have
remembered my past life, however, when the boundary of one life is removed, previous
lives have also been remembered just as distinctly as my most recent one. I
will reveal this in due time.
* * *
I actually
had a rather exciting life, which had such distinct phases or “acts” that I
always tended to see it as different existences in the same life. I tended to
both be very engaged in my work in the world and very involved in my seeming
spiritual reality as well. The latter was always detrimental to my close
relationships, that is, my marriages, until my third marriage in which that
quest for meaning and context had the effect of holding the relationship
together. When I made the decision to become a Conscientious Objector before I
was drafted to go to Vietnam, I did much to define myself and my life in a
certain spiritual context. The fact that I was unwilling to kill others and
unwilling to participate in a war in any way, and that I was willing to stand
up for my principles with a high risk of going to prison if my claim was
refused and I still would not participate, required that I actually make
decisions that would affect me and the living of my life deeply. I married my
first wife before I was assigned to do two years of Civilian Service and she
came with me and worked as a houseparent in an institution for emotionally
disturbed children as did I. Rather quickly I discovered that the place, now
modernized but once a Victorian establishment, was downright haunted. The
little boys to whom I was houseparent were terrorized by the ghosts of those
adults who had died in an epidemic, perhaps smallpox or cholera, that swept the
area at the turn of the century. The boys would see them at night and the
malicious spirits pinched their toes, severely frightening them. They would
come running to my room, scared out of their little wits, individually or in
small groups. We practiced a technique which I imagined might have some effect
in which the boys were to exclaim to the ghost there bothering them, “In the
name of Jesus Christ, leave me along and leave this house, never to return.” I
wasn’t a church-goer myself but my kids were primarily black children from
Harlem in New York City; I assumed most of them had had some exposure to
Christianity in their local churches, even though they had come from very
abusive, neglectful, and dangerous homes. We practiced this technique a bit and
then a few of the boys, even a four-year-old, tried it and it seemed to work to
repel the ghosts temporarily for the children. But it didn’t work for me; I
could still feel the spirits all around me, literally tearing at me with unseen
fingers. I could almost visually make them out but my wife was able to clearly
see them, which was terrifying to us both. Their presence in our room at night
filled the space with a cold, impenetrable inky black cloud; we were paralyzed
in fear, and, for me, morbid fascination, until it would dissipate. I wanted to
understand what this whole thing was, what was going on. I found a small ad in
a magazine, perhaps The Atlantic,
that offered meditation to “transcend astral energies.” I had read that
“earthbound spirits” fed on the astral, or emotional, energy of those whom they
haunted, and assumed that if I were able to raise my energy to the higher,
mental level, the ghosts would no longer bother me, my wife, or my boys. The
meditating group turned out to be a theosophical organization, which taught
much about the “World Avatar” and presented very detailed and specific
“esoteric” meditations. I started to religiously, if you will, practice the
meditation and did so to the point that I was somehow able to elevate my
consciousness above the astral, or so I believed. The effect was that the
spirits no longer bothered me, my wife, or the boys. I assumed that it had to
be because I somehow was able to “protect” them all, which leads to my point
that I came to think that I was perhaps the World Avatar. I kept on meditating
and maintaining celibacy, which was also highly recommended if not required in
the theosophical writings of Alice Bailey. And so, my wife and I had no sexual
relationship, and I was unable and unwilling to discuss this issue with her
whatsoever, which is not what composes a marriage. Though together, we never
talked. It was fine with me but horrendous for her. I had no idea what
relationship was and was unable to relate emotionally. We still lasted together
almost five years. After the two years of Alternative Service, we spent another
two attaining Montessori Teaching Certificates at the UN in New York City and
then in Ithaca, New York. It may be that I had undiagnosed Asperger’s Syndrome
and had had it since birth, in which I was born six weeks premature and spent
the first month or so in a lamp-heated incubator like those used to hatch eggs,
and was so frail that I wasn’t even touched. “My own little world” became more
prevalent and real than the outside world with people from the very
beginning—of the most recent life.
* * *
One
important thing I neglected to mention earlier is that one of the first
“sensations” of no longer being in a physical body is the great pleasure at no
longer being in physical pain. I got so used to experiencing chronic pain in my
back that it became a constant limitation and relentless pain in my back. I
noticed this too when I was stricken with Reyes Syndrome in the mid 1980s and
was essentially paralyzed by nerve pain throughout my body for six months. The
slightest movement in my body as I lay in bed caused my whole body to spasm in
extreme pain. When I came out of that condition as a result of fasting for
maybe three weeks, just being in a pain-free condition was the most pleasurable
experience I had ever known. Of course one adapts to anything and as I tell you
this I am feeling nothing at all like I did when I had a body, though, as I
previously noted, I do have physical-like sensations directly and closely
associated with memories of my life. As I got older and moved into a painful
physical condition, I did tend to forget how it was to be in my body when I was
in my teens up into my 60s.
