Thursdays With Death

TWD - Chapter 6 - "Ohhhhh"

“Ohhhhhhhh”

I looked at Death all stretched out in that chair, looking really comfortable with “legs” and “arms” crossed and “head” leaning back against the wall. It didn’t seem right, me asking a very important question and Death just kicking back and telling me I had to come up with the answer. I don’t know the answer, that’s why I asked. Moreover, even if I do know the answer as Death told me I do, how am I supposed to find it?

“The first thing you need to do is shut up,” came a statement from the relaxing Death. “That’s the problem with most of you in this reality. You think too much. You always have to analyze everything and come up with the rational answer. Well, let me tell you that rationality is highly overrated. The intellect can only take you so far. You also need experience and feeling to get what you want. So if you want the answer to the question you asked, sit down, shut up and turn your focus inward. Got it?”

Feeling somewhat berated, I backed up and sat down in my chair. “Yes, I’ve got it,” I said. “Shut up and focus inward if I want an answer.”

Having never done any kind of meditating or anything, I wasn’t sure exactly what I should do. I remember reading somewhere or seeing something on TV about sitting cross-legged on the floor, arms resting on your knees, palms up with each thumb touching the middle finger, I think. I got up out of my chair, pushed it back and sat down on the floor behind my desk. I noticed Death glance my way as I was doing this. I got my legs crossed and placed my arms on my knees, palms up. I touched my thumbs to my middle fingers, closed my eyes, and waited.

As I waited, I remembered that a person doing meditation was supposed to have a mantra, something to repeat aloud during meditation. I think the word was “Oh”, so I began to "Oh".

“Ohhhhhhhhhh,” I said, as I breathed out. I took in a slow breath and said it again, “Ohhhhhhhhhh.” During my third “Oh”, Death broke in.

“What are you doing?” Death asked.

“I’m meditating,” was my reply.

“Meditating? And what is that sound you are making?”

“I’m 'Ohing.'”

“You’re 'Ohing?'”

“Yes, it is what you are supposed to do when you meditate,” I stated knowingly. Death was now leaning toward me, “elbows” on “knees”.

“It’s not ‘Oh’ that you’re supposed to say, it is ‘Om’. Your ‘Ohing’ sounds like you are trying to pass a stone or something.”

“It’s ‘Om’?” I questioned.

“Yes,” Death said. “And you don’t have to meditate that way. There are a number of ways to do it. Since you are trying to get a question answered, why not focus on the question?”

I thought about that for a minute. It sounded reasonable, so I stopped "Ohing" and started focusing on love and light and truth.

Almost immediately, a thought began to form in my head. “Say, Death,” I stated. “If Light is Love, and Love is Truth and Truth is Light, then they are all the same thing.”

“This is true,” Death said.

“And it seems, now that I think about it, that when you would speak a Truth to me, the light I saw in you would glow brighter.”

“Very good,” Death said. “What else?”

I thought for a minute. “Actually, I have another question,” I said.

“Okay,” Death responded.

“Since you are darkness, how can there be light in you?”

Death leaned in even closer to me. It always makes me nervous when Death does this. “I’m darkness?” he questioned.

“Well yes,” I said. “When I look at you, under your hood all I see is darkness.”

Death leaned back, and appeared to be thinking about what I had just said.
“So, when you look at me, you see darkness,” Death said. “But sometimes you see a bit of light, is that what you are saying?”

“Yes,” I said.

“And sometimes when you see this light in me, it glows brighter and brighter, the more I speak the truth?”

“Right.”

“So what if I’m not darkness at all, but am light? But in your reality, all your state of consciousness has ever known about death is darkness. What if when you see light in me, you are actually seeing into another reality – another state of consciousness? What if your consciousness is expanding to allow the perception into other realities?”

As I thought about Death’s questions, I suddenly flashed back to when we first met.