The Soul "Maker"

It happened a few hours back and very instantly. The entire body seemed to stop functioning gradually, yet the thinking faculty seemed to remain, only it could not think in terms of the body. The thinking "being" no longer owned the body or the people he knew. John could remember he had all these and knew that he will forgot these over time considering they do not belong to him anymore

There were traces of emotion. Yes he could remember his parents and that he was a young man when he died. There were some friends, but he could not remember all of them, only some close ones.

How did this happen? He was not very old. He could hear a little after death but that sense gradually faded. He tried to remember how the doctor was saying that he could be saved and how the heart was becoming normal than before

Time was flying. Is there a Time now? It seemed like eternity.... all that was there was this thinking and some fading memory. He was afraid he might start losing all memory to the point of forgetting all about his life. He didn't wanted that memory to go wondering whether there is a rebirth or whether he will go into another body

It was silent all around and it is getting more and more silent as if there was many lower levels of silence. When there is no memory there is nothing to think about. The little memory about something that exists today seemed to not exist tomorrow. All that he could remember was some of what he learnt as a child. He could not think much in terms of himself anymore nor associate any of the knowledge related to him with himself, he remembered them merely as facts. Maybe this awareness is the soul people referred to that is becoming more and more detached but which could still think and reason

It went on like this for some time and he continued to exist as a non-entity. Overtime there was a noise gradually coming up from somewhere. It kept coming and going. It could not be called noise, because John could no longer hear. Yet the noise had the qualities of a noise and it could be felt as some message from outside which could be perceived without the human senses. Sometimes for a long time it wouldn't be there. But it was not clear how long the gap was and when it occurred the next time. Day or weeks no longer made sense cause there seemed to be no sun or night. It all seemed the same; silent void existence. But this noise occurrence started to rekindle something in John. About the existence of an entity other than himself and about how he also has an existence, still. He identified the other entity only with the noise.

While it was not apparent at first, the noise seemed to be communicating something. What appeared meaningless in the beginning now happened to have messages. Interestingly John could talk back to the noise also using the same noise language and communicate with it almost auto-magically. It didn't take him much effort to learn this language.

The noise seemed more and more friendly now. He asked the noise who the noise was and it responded: "I am your lord my son. You have died 2 days back. After 1 year you shall be born again. Your have been an ethical and selfless person all your life. You will be born into a god-fearing family and will have good opportunities to know me. The moment you realize how I am part of you in your next life, you will have salvation and will have no more rebirths"

He asked: "God, then all these talk about religion and about your existence is true. I could only feel you now after death but how could the early people have known you when the religions were first formed"

God responded: "Religions are partially true when they talk about me. It is amusing though to see how they have evolved into rituals and beliefs which I never spoke about. I want all beings on this earth to realize me in their life and they get numerous births to understand it. But the bad deeds they do in life is making them more and more incapable of that in subsequent births. All beings are selfless. The memory associated with a life creates the image of the self.  But my son...... I am also happy for you"

Further: "Your past life was much better than the one before that and I can see you will realize me in your next life. I grant you a wish if you want. But remember, whatever happens for next 1 year till your birth, you can never remember in your next life, not even as much as you can remember about your past life"

He asked: "That also means people remembering about past life is true, that they can carry over some of their memory to next life, isn't it?"

God said: "Yes. How much you can remember depends upon how long this gap is: that is, the time when you don't exist. The longer it is, the lesser you will remember"

He said: "I will be blessed to realize you in my next life, my lord. But since you are willing to grant me a wish, I would like to ask for one thing: I want to be able to travel to and fro over time. I would like to be able to see what early humans were doing and how the world evolved"

God laughed for some time. "Your wish is interesting. But you are thinking of something else, aren’t you? I grant you the wish. Remember though, this formless existence of yours and any associated memory that you will accumulate from now on will be wiped off when are reborn. As you had wanted you can now go back to earth but you cannot communicate with anyone. You can be at time and at any place on earth whenever you wish it. And, remember 1 year will fly fast since you will not be able to feel the time passing"

He thanked god. Gradually this lifelessness and silence seemed to be vanishing. He was experiencing some familiar senses that he had before: Seeing, hearing and not no familiar ones like drifting across the landscape and over the seas. Additionally, he could travel back a few years while remaining at the same spot just by thinking about it.

It was interesting to see the transformation among the vegetation. One moment they were there and within a few months they were removed and the landscape was barren. A thought came to him: how the world would be after two thousand years, we know humans have existed for several thousands of years they should exist at least a couple of thousand years more.

Now he was in this new world. There were cities everywhere. It seemed that almost the entire earth was full of cities. At a distance earth didn't seem to have many green areas. There were too many machines around. Almost nobody seemed to be working; it appeared as if they were sitting idle. Among these people, the ones working were mostly robots that looked like people that were doing some elementary tasks like cleaning the road, some even driving Taxis. All these robots looked somewhat alike but programmed to do different tasks. Some regions and cities that were earlier full of human beings were no longer inhabitable due to water shortage and ozone layer openings in the areas. Due to excessive pollution these regions were abandoned. It was a saner decision than making these places inhabitable. It was too costly a process. Then there was the danger of more and more such regions popping up, hence the population was spread across but the density was low in any region. That should explain so many cities

So it occurred to him. Why not go some 500000 years into the future? And so he did. Now there was so much of water around. The land masses seem to have shrunken. The continents appeared to look a little different from what they looked like before. There were more islands. The sea seemed to have lost some of its color and appeared to be polluted judging from a distinct smell emanating from it near the shores. He could not believe that such huge seas could actually be polluted. Interestingly there were not many people around. Many regions looked like they were wiped off by volcanoes. The landscape looked barren and bleak.

There were some large constructions which housed many people. Small houses were no longer there. Probably people wanted to stay together at times like this to be helpful to each other. These constructions were linked together by underground pipelines. The ozone layer has eroded mostly and people could not expose themselves to sun even for a short period. Yet there were some people involved in farming. Upon close look, it was clear they were not humans but a sophisticated version of robots seen thousands of years back. These were mostly solar powered. So at night (which you could also see by going to the other side of the globe) the robots were found lying on the agriculture fields and some of them seemed to wander around aimlessly as if they had a life

Now that the future looked bleak why not go to the past. We have always read about history and are very keen to see those events happening again right in front of our eyes as well as see some great people whom we have only read about, he thought. He wanted to see how the great Indian King Ashoka looked like and now, he could see him.

The king was talking to a group of youngsters and they were listening to him calmly and with great respect. The king made some comment and the group starting smiling. These smiles somehow reminded John of the genuine and infectious smiles of the children. He realized how humanity had transformed over the years as if some human emotions have lost their quality overtime.

Suddenly a thought came to him. John had forgotten about it all this while. Why not go several thousands of years back and see how people started to realize or see the existence of God. Some phenomenon may have suggested that to the people. Why not witness it if such a thing happened?

So he went back several thousands of years back when people were nomads. Some people were wearing a dress like covering made from animal skin and some even large leaves. Some didn't. This was a very early age. Except for the looks, humans looked not very different from the animals in behavior or thinking

There was no sign of god and worship. No idols or praying. He floated around the globe which happened to be now sparsely populated and he could see what they were doing. There were some groups. There were some new animal species and some animals looked larger than usual. Maybe after a few years later there was a phenomenon of god worship so why not go further into the future?

Now here he was after a couple of thousand years as he wanted. When looking at the people he could see some people bowing and worshiping... but what they were worshiping didn't look like a god. It was a strangely shaped metal construction! John could not comprehend what was happening on earth.  How could such idols be worshiped. While going through some of the regions, he could see a group of people running somewhere. They were not hunting as there were women and children among them and they didn't have anything that looked like weapons.

These people finally arrived near a tree where a few others were standing. From near the Tree emerged a being smaller than human and one that appeared very intelligent for its time judging from the gestures and actions. It was very quick in movement. When it came before the people, the people bowed and it was handing over something to each of them and was also showing how to create fire from the barks. It then walked away from the crowd.

John came close to the being to have a look at it and it looked at him to his surprise. He was taken aback by this gesture. Till now nothing on earth recognized him he was just a passive observer of history, but how could this being see him? It was smiling at him speaking to him in the noise language he was familiar with, saying:  "I knew that you would come to see me when I granted you the wish.... now you know me"

He said: "I am surprised. But you don’t look like a god the religions have made us believe. You appear to be very smart but earthly"

The being said: "I am the god your ancestors saw, and I also created them. This planet is my playground. The life, rebirth of all beings on earth, the oceans are controlled by me. Your invisible soul is actually me. I am in all beings. I take different forms. Time and again I have come in human forms. And now I am in just another form. I don’t want people to associate me with any form, hence this form"

It continued: “Your ethics come from me, but you need to know more about me to know about your own capabilities and how all form is nothing but an illusion. When you realize me I have created my perfect equivalent”

He asked: "But something is escaping me.. you look like.. am unable to recollect.. an alien!"

The being replied immediately: "Look beyond my form. Even if I tell you the truth you are going to forget it in a moment. I am an..". The rest of the words did not make much sense and then there was darkness and silence again as before.

All of this appeared to be a hallucination. John was back to square one with the alternating silence and noise in the background, only that the noise made no sense now. Probably it was all his imagination that "god" was communicating something to him. He had forgotten everything about his past life by now and had no idea where and how he existed

Then as if by miracle, the feeling of the senses immediately came to him and he was starting to feel lively and warm. He was going to be born again.. innocent



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