One day, I went into the cellar while my father was at work and my mother away shopping. As I walked into the room, I saw Bootsie lying in an old overstuffed chair in the corner of the cellar. I called her and rushed over to pet her. And she was dead.
I do not think I had ever touched a dead one before, and certainly not one that I had loved and known alive. She was stiff, lying as if in sleep, and her warmth was nearly gone.
I was immediately overcome by terrible grief. I ran upstairs and sat and rolled in my room, and wept for what seemed like hours. But there was not only grief. There was also fear and guilt. I was stuck with some kind of knowledge that I was afraid to tell.
My door was closed, and I heard my mother in the other rooms. She must have heard me crying, but I do not think she came in to me. She must have gone and found the dead animal and decided to leave me to my father. Then he, too, came home, and they opened the door to me.
My father asked me what was wrong, and I was trying not to show my grief. But then I told him, "Bootsie died." And I fell in his arms and wept.
After several hours of consolation and quiet, I had controlled my grief. Then I made a very strange decision. I could not bear estrangement from love. I prayed to God to receive Bootsie and care for her.
And then I told Him that I wanted Him to take me also. I needed time to make the transition from my life and love in the world, and so I told Him it should be at 9:00 P.M. two days from then — I believe, on a Sunday.
I did not tell my parents I was about to die. I decided to be with them and enjoy with them for two days and make an easy transition. On the last day, we drove in the country. I watched in the clouds, seeing only heaven and Bootsie and God.
Then it was the evening of my death. We had dinner and sat in the living room watching television. I went and prayed to God, and I was certain He would take me at nine o'clock.
But as the hour approached, I began to realize the importance of this move. I was about to leave life! I was about to suffer the loss of the world, my parents, my future possibility.
I felt a tremendous connection to the living world, and saw that the absence of one I loved did not amount to the destruction of love, of life-positive energy, of "Bright" Fullness, or of Heart-Joy. I saw that I was alive!
Nevertheless, I presumed that much of this "conversion" might be due to fear and regret. I knew that I had bargained with God, and, therefore, I would not abandon His Will.
And so I only sat and waited. I watched the television and continually relaxed the awesome fear that kept rising in me. Nine o'clock came, and I did not die.
I do not remember if I was alone in my room or with my parents at that hour — but, when it passed, I went and prayed to God. I thanked Him for my life and asked forgiveness for my wavering. But something in me had died or become hidden at that hour.
I remember that, for several years afterward, I would end my prayers with the request, "And please, dear Lord, allow me to live until I am eighty-nine years old or older."
For some time after this incident, I suffered a constriction in my chest, and I felt as if I could not breathe deeply enough. I even had my father take me to a doctor. The doctor and my father watched me breathing behind a fluoroscope. And it was determined that I was in good health.
After that, I gradually took some relief, for I had not been certain that my promise to die had not crippled my heart in some way. I remember that even in the days before our visit to the doctor, and then for weeks afterwards, I experienced a sublime enjoyment of the air and light, the fact of my life, in spite of the feeling of weakness in my heart.
So I experienced in myself the meaning of death, conflict, and separation, which I knew to be the primary fact in all suffering.
I saw how the sentiment of separation from love can, as a problem or concern in the humanly-born conscious awareness, draw one out of the "Bright" of Illuminated, Free Consciousness Itself — until one no longer perceives the perfect Form that is always already here.
The Knee of Listening The Divine Ordeal Of The Avataric Incarnation Of Conscious Light by Adi Da Samraj
Avatar Adi Da's Spiritual Autobiography tells the miraculous story of His unique Incarnation and Revelation in the West for the sake of Liberating all beings.
learn more ISBN: 1-57097-167-6 6" X 9" paperback, illustrated, 840 pages
$24.95
To purchase offline, call toll-free: 1-877-770-0772
