This post is a sequel to the post The Before-Life. Please read that one before reading this one.
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I woke up with a start. I had had a bad dream. I could remember it vividly. I had fallen down from a huge height, into an abyss. And then I woke up.
It was extremely dark. I sleep on my stomach and the bed felt very hard. Had I slept on the floor? There was a soft lapping of water. Did someone leave the tap on in my room? I reached out to grab my cellphone only to feel a splash of ice cold water. Something's not right! I got up, panic stricken and looked around me. Endless water, endless skies and countless stars adorned my surroundings. Shit. Even though this may sound very beautiful, it was very scary. I was in the middle of an ocean, on a raft roughly the size of my body, and worst part, I didn't remember how!
The sky was lit up with stars, but there was no moon. The waves were small, bobbing gently through the fabric of space, as if they were trying to help me combat my panic.
"And we meet again!"
There's nothing more scary than being alone in an endless ocean and then hear a voice out of nowhere!
I followed the voice to my left and was startled to see another raft and a woman on it.
"You again!" I exclaimed recognizing the familiar face of the woman. The white robe, kind brown eyes, the unmistakable aura around her and the radiant smile.
"You remember me" she smiled. I didn't know whether it was because she didn't think I would remember or because she was relieved I would. Why do I always want to impress her so much?
"Yeah I do! The last time, I disappeared before I could process what you said! So what's happening now?" I asked
"Do you know those times, when you die in your sleep? You wake up with a start right? Your eyes suddenly pop out, your heart is racing and you look around everywhere to familiarize yourself with your surroundings. To distinguish the real from the dream. To see your pillow and feel your blanket. To heave a sigh of relief and go back to your semi conscious state. That's lucid dreaming. Well, almost. Lucid dreaming is when you know you're dreaming even when you're asleep. You kinda had a lucid dream. Except for the dream part. You're dead. Welcome to after-life" she said solemnly.
I had figured that out, but I was hoping that it was another before-life. Not the after life.
"Bummer," I managed to reply. "So what now? Where are we? Is this heaven? Or hell? Or some place in between?"
"This is the Universe. The Cosmic Shore" she replied, staring into the distance. Like that was supposed to satiate my curiosity. She conveniently leaves out answering the other questions. It's like she only answers the ones she thinks are worth it.
"Care to explain further?" I ventured.
She sighed. "Look at this ocean. This Cosmic Ocean represents the entire Universe. Endless, shoreless and ever expanding. The place where you are is your place in this Universe. Time for some physics!"
"You really like physics right? Quantum physics in the before-life and now some more" I said.
"Of course! Physics is the learning of the Universe. How can someone not be interested in it?" she replied, as if it was obvious.
She continued. "So! One of the basics properties of wave motion is how a particular particle of a wave never really moves in the wave. Sure the particle moves up and down, achieving it's local crest and trough but the particle never moves linearly. But the apparition we get is that every particle movies linearly, pushing the other one and thereby achieving a swift, beautiful motion. After all, the waves of the oceans all seem to come forward and meet us on the shore. Only when you go in the sky and see from top do you realize the waves are stationary. They just move in their places and collectively it seems to move forward. Of course this breaks when the particles meet the shore but you get the gist. It's also seen when you see a bird sitting in water. The bird never really moves.
"Now observe us both. We both have been adjacent for quite a long time. Here, we don't have a reference point of view and thus we don't know it, but we're just bobbing up and down in the same place.
"Every person is just another particle in this Cosmic Shore we call the Universe. And all the surrounding particles are the people in our life. Our parents, friends, lovers, enemies. We have our ups and downs in life, our own crests and troughs and we overcome them. After a trough, a crest must come and vice versa. We feel we've done a lot when we come up on a crest. But we lack context. We are the particle at that time. If you see from the context of the Universe, the particle is not moving forward nor backward. The motion of the particle is inconsequential to the Higher Purpose."
"Wait this is absurd. You mean all of humans and our human lives are waste? I get it that the Universe is one big place and that the actions of humans don't really matter. And that works when we really need to get the pressure of our backs. But to say that to a person, who's lived his entire life on Earth, doing something is really disrespectful and makes us feel like idiots!" I answered, visibly irritated.
She smiled sadly. I knew my folly the moment I said it. "The particle is inconsequential in itself. But it's the bobbing of each and every particle that makes the Universe what it is. After all, the collective motion of all particles is what makes up the huge wave. And that's how each particle makes the whole Universe and keeps it moving. It's only to curb the ego of a person that they're made to realize how inconsequential they are. Because there's a fine line in knowing you're important and only you're important."
I acknowledged her thoughts. But there was something eating at me.
"Where's the Universe headed? You said the collective motion of all of us, carries the Universe forward. Where?" I badgered her.
"That's for another time child. You're not mature enough to know the answer. Maybe next time you will be", she replied.
"What do you mean next time?" I asked.
The world enveloped away.
It is weird not to hear sounds..... I was on the beach again
