"It isn't your time. I didn't expect you to ever just visit me! Tell me, dear one, why are you here?"
It had been years since the last time I had been with Aadi, the spirit who had guided me so much along my way toward wholeness. I knew that she didn't live in any particular time. In point of fact, Aadi didn't live in time at all, but in all time, or better put, she lived in no time. But in at least one way, she seemed to be, like me, bound to an existence where bodies and their senses matter, in spite of the way she moved through time and space freely.
I said out loud, "Aadi, I don't know what you mean by 'It isn't your time'. I've been thinking about you and how you helped me in the past. Is there something we haven't talked about that I need to know right now?"
"You are surrounded and concerned about events that are like a drama that gets more and more tragic. My dear humans, all of you, all of us, are temporarily bound to this world of senses and events, with all of its drama,"
Aadi communicated this (she didn't talk, but I could hear her) and there was such great sadness in that thought. I had to know what else there could be besides worlds of senses and events, and knowing this thought she continued ...
"but you already know that beyond all senses, beyond emotion, desire, loneliness, there is another experience that transcends them all. Because you are human, you have given it a name, love, but you experience it as so much more than any word can convey. You are surrounded by it, always, beyond what you call time. I was expecting that our next encounter would mean you were filled up with that love, prepared to pass beyond the illusion that is this world."
I had always wondered about the nature of the timeless quality that Aadi had which I couldn't experience. Could it be that being bound up by my ego, and my desperate need to use my senses and label things, is what is holding me back from some further transformation that I need? Suddenly the story of Thomas, the Apostle of Jesus, came to mind. Aadi didn't need me to say it.
"Yes that story of Thomas has been used to bind us more tightly to this world, hasn't it?"
I must have seemed puzzled, so she continued.
"It is part of our long journey. Along that path we think various things about what is beyond life. We imagine salvation, a reward that we get, like money, for worshipping gods or doing deeds. Then we believe that salvation is what we get when we give up things like sex. Belief in things like sin or violence binds us tighter and tighter to the world, doesn't it? There have been so many stops along the way. Eventually we even doubt that there is anything more than this cycle of living and dying. The story of Doubting Thomas is about the need to find salvation first-hand, in the physical world. That need makes us turn away from an ineffable love that is beyond the physical. Our deepest beliefs either tie us to the world or release us from it."
'Hearing' Aadi say that puzzled me at first but in the context of what she had told me already, that what is true and eternal doesn't live in the physical but in love, I knew that in order to accept what is true and good in the spirit requires much more than actions or faith. It requires that we accept something far simpler than this complex, but temporary, reality that we live in. Thomas might have been wanting more than just evidence of death and resurrection. Perhaps he was hoping to find a way to understand what more there was beyond a broken and painful body. Perhaps the truth about Thomas' doubtful nature was more about experiencing some sort of eternal love. Sadly, religions and histories tend to be mostly about those who create them and write them down.
"You don't experience existence without time because we are here to learn and grow beyond time and everything else in this ego-centred world. Blessed are all who know love now because they have touched, seen, and, finally, accepted that there is so much more than sensation attached to what seem like actions. When it is your time, you will be prepared to abandon what you call ego. When all that is left is the thing you call love, it will be your time."
I felt overwhelmed and joyful at the same time.
"Oh, my dear, you are so close. Stay longer. There is more to learn."
In my mind, I thought how frustrating it must be trying to tell beings, who rely on senses and language, about a reality that cannot be felt or seen. Immediately I heard her voice in my head:
"Think of waking up after a bad dream. Remember the relief of knowing that none of that dream was really true or important - just a dream. It will be your time when you come to me, feeling that way about all of your adventures in the body, but rather than being relieved because it was bad, you accept that all of it was purposeful. It will be your time when you feel nothing but love for all of those versions of yourself, just as I do."
