Death like experience

 In my dream I knew I was dead and found myself in a hall. As I looked around I found myself surrounded by people in white sheets. When I looked closely I recognised them as my friends from my boarding school. When at the age of 9 I had spent my first night in unknown surroundings away from my parents these very friends had clustered around me offering me companionship and affection. Now there is one thing I can't do in real life, and that is sit squat legged in Padmasana. I had lost this art in school since it was run on British pattern and we rarely if ever sat on the ground.  A thought struck me that if I was dead perhaps I would be able to do it now. I found that I was able to sit in Padmasana quite comfortably. I started chanting the 'Maha Mrityunjaya Jap' which seeks liberation from the cycle of birth and death.  Seeing that there was no perceptible change in my circumstances I started looking around the hall. I noted that the wall paper was rather tacky. I said to myself, "This can't be heaven!". 

 

   With that I found myself in another room. Here there was an attendant who asked me to lie down on a table so that he could cover me with a white sheet. But before that he asked me if I wanted to carry anything with me. I shook my head saying I didn't want anything. He told me to think again but I  again said I  didn't want anything. I put my hands in my pockets and took out all that was in them and 'handed in my chips'. This seemed to be some kind of test for once I lay down and had been covered by the attendant I found myself outside in the open.

 

   There were lots of people streaming past me in both directions as I took in the scene. Across the path I noticed a woman on whom I have had a huge crush in real life talking on the phone with her mother. Strangely whatever craving I had had for her had gone. I told myself ,'She has karmic issues she needs to resolve with her mother. I was never part of her karmic debt circle'. With that I moved on down the path. 

 

  As I kept walking I found the crowd thinning out until I was quite alone. Suddenly in front of me was a wall of light. Every fibre in my being wanted to enter the wall of light.  I was just a few feet away when suddenly my wife materialised in front of me. She was looking just the way she did when we had got married, beautiful and resplendent in ponytails. I looked at her and was instantly aware of all the times I had let her down. I hugged her to myself and the next I knew I was awake.  

  Now I am busy working off my karmic debt to my wife until 'the grim reaper's call comes'.

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