EP 126 - The Friend at the End (Reprise) - Part IV

This is the fourth episode in a series based on my upcoming book, The Friend at the End, which tells the story of the major stroke that I suffered in 2011, which very nearly killed me. In the last episode, I had continued my inner conversation with an unseen presence who had begun to introduce me to the idea that I might be dying.

          He suggested that I make the effort to get ready, but as I started to consider the idea, I had some trouble with it and felt like I was failing. Then the presence said to me, “Here, let me help you with this. Did ‘ja learn anything?

          Now, the story continues…

 

“Did I learn anything?” My God, what a simple little question! And asked in the most casual, way. Like from his tone, he could’ve just as well asked me if I had eaten a lot of pizza in my life, that’s about how important it seemed. My initial reaction was no reaction at all, and I drew a complete blank.

But then, something unexpected happened. Suddenly, a series of pictures began appearing in my mind’s eye. The pictures were all of me, in different stages of my life. They went through linear time, beginning on the day I was born. There were so many of them, it almost seemed like there was one for every day of my life.  It was weird because they seemed to be moving very fast and very slow at the same time.  

Although I clearly recognized each one of them and remembered the experiences they showed, rather than stirring up memories, I was just extracting the essence of the feelings that I’d had during them - happy, sad, amazed, confused, and on and on. Finally, after every age of my life and every role that I had played had been presented, the last picture I saw was of me at this very second, sitting in my bathing suit at the swimming pool, looking at all these pictures. Then my mind went back to normal and the episode, or whatever it was, ended.

I guess you could call it a life review of some kind. But before I could give it any thought, another image came into my mind’s eye. This time, it wasn’t a still picture, it was more like a movie, and I was in it and watching it at the same time.

I was in a small boat on a river and the boat kept changing forms.  For a little while, it was a standard row boat and I was rowing it. Then it changed to a canoe and I was paddling it. Then it became a small motor boat and I was in the back, steering it by moving the motor. Then it went back to being a row boat again, and it just kept switching forms.

All of a sudden, I was teleported up to the inside of an airplane that was flying high above the river. I kept switching viewpoints, from being on the boat to being on the plane. Then, in the next instant, I was rowing the boat down the river and flying in the plane above it, both at the same time. I was in two places at once, and fully conscious of each.

The river had a lot of twists and turns to it, and from the viewpoint of being in the boat, you could only see what was in front of you. You couldn’t see beyond the next bend. But the vantage point from the plane was totally different. I could see the whole river, all at once. I could look back to where it had begun, I could see all the way forward to the point where it finally merged into the ocean.

Then, at one point, all of the pictures of my life that I had reviewed earlier, flashed in front of me once again. But this time, the scenes went by in what seemed like just a few seconds. Then it all vanished from my mind and I was back in normal life, sitting on my chair near the pool. The whole thing had taken me by surprise and it left me with a lot to absorb. Slowly, a series of realizations and understandings began to dawn on me.

The first one was that even though I knew that I might be dying and I had just seen pictures from every stage of my life, I felt no real attachment to any of it. It may seem odd, but it’s pretty simple. My father had died from a massive heart attack when I was sixteen, and his sudden death forced me to accept the harsh reality of the impermanence of all life on earth. I had no other choice. We all have to go one day, and I had been living with that understanding for almost fifty years, knowing that you just have to surrender to it, come what may.

After reviewing all the pictures I had seen, although I felt a lot of happiness and appreciation for the days gone by, they clearly belonged to the past. Looking at them had been like revisiting fond memories of a place that didn’t exist anymore, and from experience I knew that there is no real power in memories. The power is in the intelligence that is doing the remembering.

So, from the perspective of looking back on my life, if my time had actually come, I had no regrets about it. There was nothing left undone and what will be, will be.

I moved from thinking about the pictures to reflecting on the whole sequence with the boat on the river and the plane flying above it, and some profound realizations came to me.

While riding in the boat, the turns in the river were like going through all the day-to-day experiences of my life. Like everything else that is subject to time, they all came and went, seeming so real while they lasted, only to eventually fade away, like a passing dream. 

And the fact that the boat kept changing forms represented the way that my body and mind had kept changing forms as I went through the natural growth cycle from baby to adult and beyond. The fact that I could never see beyond the next bend in the river was a reminder of the uncertainty we all face in our lives. No matter what we hope or expect, we can never really know what’s coming around the next corner.

But the view from the plane was the opposite. From there, I could see the whole river from beginning to end, and my intuition told me that the entirety of the river itself represented my conscious awareness, my essential self, as it passed through all the twists and turns of my life.

This was critically important for me because I had always felt that there must be some higher purpose to life other than just running around trying to fulfill your dreams and desires. Otherwise, it just didn’t make any sense, because no matter what you end up getting, you lose it all in the end anyway.  

Of course, we all have our own personal views, but for me, the idea really got driven home by my father’s death. Not only was it a major shock, but there were also some very unusual and rather metaphysical things that happened to me during it that made me feel that there was more to life than meets the eye.

By the age of twenty-two, I had begun a serious study of all the higher understandings about life that I could find, including practicing a powerful form of mediation that helped accelerate my inner growth. Nurturing and expanding my higher awareness had remained the primary focus of my entire adult life.

Now, as I was pondering the idea of the flow of the whole river representing the evolution of my consciousness, I realized how much I had grown as a human being in my life. I had gone from having the dull consciousness of a shallow creature, almost robotically programmed into ignorance by an unenlightened society, into one who had explored the depths of his being, connected with the higher awareness within, and had led a profound life, filled with meaning, freedom, fulfillment and ever-expanding inner growth and happiness.

Of course, there had been an endless amount of twist and turns along the way, but because I had been growing, the challenging ups and downs had only made me stronger. And now, like a farmer who had been nurturing his crops for a very long season, I was deeply gratified with the yield.

“My God, this certainly wasn’t a wasted trip,” I thought. “What a life of learning!”

And with that thought, the unseen power of my unseen friend’s casual question really hit me. His simple, off-hand inquiry, “Did ‘ja learn anything” had triggered all this, bringing the value of inner growth to the forefront and making it clear that while you may have to leave it all at the end, you do get to keep what you learn, because that evolution of your consciousness becomes an actual part of you.

Now, the most important point became clear to me. I was deeply grateful for the life I had been given and had made the most of it. I had grown into a better human being and was satisfied with the person I had become. I felt complete. 

Then I thought of the image of the river again and pictured it merging into the ocean, and I recalled something I once learned in school. The ocean has a powerful, magnetic attraction that draws the river towards it, pulling it back into its source.  As it gets closer to the ocean, the current of the river gets stronger and it starts flowing faster and faster, almost like it can’t wait for the merging to happen. There was something not only comforting, but also enticing about the idea, and I felt that if my personal river was about to merge into the vastness of its original source, I was ready for it. Bring it on. Then, with a sublimely steady sense of clarity in my heart and mind, I finally turned my attention to my unseen friend and said with calm assurance, “OK. If this really is the end of my life, then the answer is - yes, I am ready,”

           “Good,” it said. “Good.”

          Once again, everything went quiet and still. I figured my life was over and we’d be leaving soon for whatever came next.

“OK, now listen,” it said, somewhat softly “This may not make sense to you now, but the truth is, no one knows whether you’re going to live or die from what’s happening to you.  It’s just not known at this time. It can go either way. You could get better quickly or you could get taken out just as quickly. It’s just not determined yet. But either way, you know how to handle this,” it said calmly. “You know what to do now.”

My awareness shifted and once again I became fully conscious of my body as I was lying on the lounge chair. Although my vision was still seriously impaired, it had gotten slightly better and I could see a little bit.  

I could feel the breath coming in and going out of me, like it always does, but now, I started focusing on it much more deeply. Being in tune with the breath was always a major part of my practice and I had done it for decades, but it was different now. Now, it wasn’t just about relaxation, clarity of mind, or elevation of consciousness. Now it was about survival. 

As I felt the rise and fall of each breath, the presence of my unseen friend remained clear. It felt more familiar to me now than ever, but I still couldn’t put my finger on how or why. It just seemed to be a part of me, but not a part of me at the same time.

I knew that my fate was undetermined, so, I just let go and surrendered to the power that was sustaining me through the lifeline of my breath.

“Good,” the presence said, encouragingly.  “By the bridge of your breath, just stay in the safety of the Divine Presence that’s within you. No matter what happens now, whether you live or die, that’s always where your real shelter is.”

In the next instant, the presence was gone and I knew it. I was on my own now, just taking each breath as it came to me, one at a time.  

Well, that’s the end of this episode. As always, keep your eyes, mind and heart opened, and let’s get together in the next one.