Milo stood in front of the gates. They were immense structures of intertwined bands of iron. He took a step back to look at them in their entirety. He could not see any way around them, which was not a problem because they were open. He hesitated for a moment.
“Are these gates of heaven?” he wondered out loud. His voice sounded hollow and weak. He suddenly felt very alone. “Or, are they the gates of hell?”
He turned and looked back. A thick gray mist shrouded the path and he knew he would never find his way back.
“What was there to go back to anyway?” This time he uttered the question in his mind, primarily because he did not want to see the answer.
But the answer came, and he saw the accident from high above. The semi-truck that swerved into his lane and hit his vehicle head-on, was crumpled. The right front of the sunny yellow cab looked comically like an accordion prone and getting ready to release a woeful tune. Upon closer inspection, one could see blue swatches of paint scraped across the silver bumper.
The scene was chaotic. Rescue personnel skittered around, and bystanders stood, some with mouths agape, others with ashen faces of shock. All were at some level thinking the same thought, “Thank God it was not me.”
Milo saw his car two hundred yards away in a ditch where the impact had thrown it. It lay upside down; the bottom chassis faced skyward. It looked to Milo to be too squat to be his blue sedan.
Curiously, and against his better judgement, Milo approached the vehicle. He moved effortlessly amongst the firefighters who had arrived with the Jaws of Life intent on cutting him out of the wreckage. From a closer perspective, Milo could see that the roof of his sedan had collapsed unceremoniously upon him as the vehicle rolled several times before landing in the ditch. Intertwined in the twisted metal was his broken body.
“Too late,” he thought wryly of the rescue efforts.
Milo remembered most of the accident. He remembered the rising feeling of terror as he witnessed the truck flow over into his lane; the resignation when he knew impact was inevitable; the detachment as he felt the car roll; and the relief when it reached its final spot of repose. Still conscious, he felt blood gushing from a large gash in the top of his head caused at the moment the soft tissue surrounding his skull lost the battle with the hard steel of the sedan’s roof. He remembers trying to move and the agony that accompanied the act. While his car’s forward momentum came to a halt upon impact, Milo’s body did not. It continued at a trajectory of sixty-five miles per hour smashing his pelvis and ribs into the steering column and his face into the dashboard. His legs were folded in an unnatural manner and one arm was bent backwards. In addition to his head wound, he was bleeding internally. It was not long before his consciousness began to drift and the exit of his essence from his body became inevitable.
Revisiting the scene after death, Milo confirmed “Yes, there is nothing to go back to.” He looked again at the open gate. Whether heaven or hell, he had no choice.
When he was alive, Milo was a confident man. The quality of his confidence was not one of arrogance or ego, but an assuredness that came from knowing he was a decent person and wanted the best for everyone. He did not push his needs ahead of others, and he never took advantage of anyone. His intentions were always pure of heart and never to harm.
So, with his characteristic confident humility and a great deal of curiosity, he entered the gates. The thick grey fog folded in behind him and within fifty yards he once again looked back to find the path obstructed. He smiled at the irreversible nature of death.
Not sure of what else to do, Milo continued walking. Before long, the path forked, and he chose a thin spur that took him to a large warehouse structure. The tall corrugated walls stretched six stories high and expanded to a width of several U.S. football fields. Dead center and a mere seven feet tall, Milo spotted a door. He approached it and wrapped his hand around the doorknob. It turned without hesitation. Pulling the door open, he entered the foyer. The room was unadorned, and the whitewashed walls gave the impression of a sanatorium from the late 1900s. Milo noted that after a few steps inside, the door slammed shut and disappeared. He shook his head and recalled a book he had read many years ago which told about Bardos of death: the stages of transition from life to the afterlife. He wondered if this was this what he was experiencing.
He stood in the foyer for a long period of time. Without the next step being obvious in life, Milo learned to wait and let the path unfold itself. When his legs grew weary of standing, Milo settled himself onto the hard floor. After a time, this too became uncomfortable. Though he lacked a material body, he still experienced the tightness and pain in his hips that accompanied long periods of sitting on a flat surface. He shifted his weight and waited, unsure of what else to do. Closing his eyes, he went inward. Meditation was his refuge from the world while alive.
A flash of light caused his eyes to shoot open. He found himself standing in front of a large picture window overlooking a vast expanse. The open space stretched in all directions and was so immense, Milo could not make out the edges. Dotted on this landscape, he saw flora and fauna that he recognized and structures he knew were dwellings. The inhabitants did not look much different than himself, being mere energy packets of lives lived, but he sensed a contentment and peacefulness among them. Each lived alone or with a small group of others as seeming to fit their preference. The environment that surrounded them radiated out from within them. Milo could sense their high vibration within his own core. When these individualized realities intersected, they merged temporarily, glowed brightly, and then moved on. The act was smooth and gentle and sometimes the individual consciousnesses interacted and sometimes they did not.
At regular intervals, they received deliveries of brightly colored and festively wrapped, locked boxes of vastly varying shapes and sizes. They received the boxes with reverence and gratitude, and joyfully unlocked them to reveal their contents. Without a body to sustain, Milo observed the boxes contained avenues of pleasure and delight, be it in the forms of food, art, or experiences. And, they were uniquely suited to each individualized conscious energy packet.
Although there appeared to be no end to the space and no true point of center, after a period of time spent observing, Milo began to discern portions of the landscape a bit far removed that did not appear to be covered with flora and fauna. He strained his eyes to look closer, but it was too far in the distance for him to get a clear view.
He backed away from the window and looked around. He noticed a corridor on the right, which broke sharply away from the main room. He proceeded down it. The corridor curved gently to the left in a trajectory that appeared endless.
“I feel I am going in a circle,” Milo thought before finding himself alongside another large window. This one provided a clearer view of the voided parcels he had spotted before. The scene revealed individuals receiving brightly colored, locked boxes but instead of unlocking them to reveal wonderful contents, their boxes remained closed. As a result, rather than expanses of appealing landscapes, these individuals were crowded into small, compartmentalized rooms. Because they lacked furniture, they lounged on the boxes and existed in a state of perpetual boredom receiving no pleasure or inspiration.
“Why didn’t they just unlock the boxes?” he said. But it quickly became apparent that these individuals did not have the means to do so. He was confused and irritated by their plight and followed his impulse to leave immediately.
He turned around and headed back down the corridor. It curved slightly to the right and Milo anticipated he would be back in front of the original window in a few hundred yards. But it delivered Milo to a different place.
Instead of taking him back to the window, the corridor gave way to a large room that prominently featured a conveyor belt. The conveyor belt streamed from an immense machine that belched a plume of white smoke as it spit out one brightly colored, festively wrapped box after another. Each one had a small gold lock dangling from it.
Was the afterlife full of inequity, just as in life? The thought unsettled and confused Milo, so he stood for a period absorbing an afterlife full of have and have nots.
While alive, he was fascinated by what happened after the death of the body. His belief system was such that the essence of each person existed as an entity separate from the body. A spark that ignited the body’s mechanisms and each spark had its own unique vibrational print. He felt this to be as true as the fact that the Earth was round. He did not adhere to any religious doctrine and viewed the concepts of heaven and hell to be energetic states of existence that reflected how one lived in the world. For example, if a person’s energy print was primarily fear based or anxiety based, their after life experience would be more akin to a hellish one. While a person who sought to develop equanimity and a calm peaceful state of mind while alive would have an afterlife experience more akin to heaven.
But nothing that he had witnessed so far reflected this belief. He was sure his body was dead, and he was sure he still existed at least as a conscious energy form in the shape of his former body, so this must be the afterlife. This thought was cut short by a sound behind him. He turned quickly and caught sight of a loosely formed line of individuals following a man in a flowing white robe. His long unkempt hair was matched by a formidable beard and Milo, his state broken by the interruption, smiled and shook his head. The cliché was comical.
The bearded one (as Milo called him) had the authoritative air of a tour guide and was talking loudly to the group as it approached the belching machine. He hesitated while they gathered around to have a closer look. All were sure this was an important component to whatever this experience was.
“So, as I mentioned previously,” the bearded one began. “At the moment of death, your energy body started moving though the layers of physical reality and entered into the spiritual realm. Once there, you went through a series of cleanses bringing you to your current energetic form. Some of you were able to go through this process quicker than others, but no matter, once you are here, you are of a vibrational quality that will allow you to pass through to the next plane of existence.”
There was bit of murmuring among the crowd. By this point it was clear to all, God did not favor one religious belief over another, but the question that remained poised on everyone’s lips was “Is this heaven or hell?”
“Now, in this next plane of existence, all of the rules of limitations that you experienced on Earth do not exist. While manifestation on Earth was possible, it was a tricky activity, and the result was usually murky. This has partly to do with the heaviness of physical matter, but also to do with competing desires and energetic priorities. That is not a problem here. Here you can easily manifest anything you desire, and this workhorse will deliver it.” The bearded one smacked the side of the machine.
Again, a murmur arose and at last one brave individual spoke.
“So, this is heaven,” he said with a satisfied smile.
The bearded one laughed out loud. It was not a mocking laugh but one of true delight. The question inevitably came up and it reminded him of why he enjoyed working this gate.
He often thought that humans were a unique bunch among the creatures of the Universe. And that the stories they made up to explain something, which their limited brains could never grasp, were endearing. However, the individual strife that they created was not.
“There is no such place,” the bearded one began, “nor is there a hell. Each soul having passed through the stages of death comes to this room cleansed of their Earthly transgressions. All equally possess the power to manifest and this is granted without limit and regardless of how one lived their life on Earth.”
This was met with extreme dissatisfaction by some who swiveled on a pivot, taking in everyone around them, especially those who seemed quite relieved that this ended up being the truth.
Milo, having hidden himself out of sight when the group first arrived, was taken aback by the news. “Really?” he thought. “If everyone comes to this place cleansed and equal, what was the discrepancy I witnessed of privileged individuals being able to unlock their locked boxes and other individuals not?”
He shook his head and in doing so bumped a neatly stacked pile of empty boxes sending them crashing to the floor.
The bearded one stopped talking, shooting his eyes in the direction of the mayhem. The crowd followed suit.
“Who’s there” he demanded.
“Hi,” he stammered as he stumbled into view. “I got lost.”
“Lost! Where did you come from?”
“I died,” he responded before he realized the foolishness of his answer.
“Obviously,” said the bearded one impatiently. “How did you get here, to this room…unescorted.”
Milo stared dumbly at the tall intimidating figure. He thought back.
“I floated above my body, walked on a path and then I ended up in front of a gate that was open. I did not see anyone, so I went through it. I followed another path to a large building with a door. I opened the door and went in.” Milo looked at the bearded one who now seemed curious rather than annoyed.
“I was in a lobby or something. I wasn’t sure what to do so I sat down to meditate,” Milo continued.
“Go on,” said the bearded one, a genuine smile had crept across his face.
“I am not sure how long I sat there but I saw a flash in my mind and when I opened my eyes, I was in front of a large window overlooking an immense space. I wandered down a hall to another window that overlooked another part of the space and when I turned around to come back to the first window, I ended up here.”
The bearded one was quiet for a moment as if scanning an internal database. Finally, he said “You are Milo.”
Shocked, Milo nodded.
“I apologize that no one was at the gate to greet you and guide you,” the bearded one continued. “You went through the stages of death and transition so quickly and easily. We were not expecting you for a while.”
Milo nodded, as if to say all was forgiven. The irony struck him as funny. When alive, he had a wry sense of humor and found most of life somewhat funny and ironic.
“However, in your wanderings, I am afraid you came in the back door. The observation decks are not meant for human souls to witness. Even though you are without physical limitations here, your consciousness still holds onto conceptions of linear time and finite space.”
Milo began to feel uncomfortable under the curious gaze of the group.
“It’s fine,” the bearded one finally said. “Please join the group.” He motioned for Milo to take up a position at the end of the loosely formed line.
“As I was saying,” the bearded one continued, “all equally possess the power to manifest whatever they desire, and this is granted without limit and regardless of how one lived their life on Earth.”
He paused to let the murmurs once again settle down, then continued.
“The first thing you must manifest is your new environment, and that is what we are in this room to do. This environment will always be a part of your afterlife experience. Once created, you can manifest who and what is in your environment as well as all your experiences, however the wireframe or blueprint of your initially manifested environment is unchangeable and must be created now. So, take your time, look through some samples if you like and ponder what you want. After you have decided, your new reality will be delivered in a brightly colored, festively wrapped box, that when opened will reveal an origami three-dimensional structure. Once freed from the constraints of the box, this structure will unfold to create your perceivable reality and the multi-dimensional canvas on which you will construct the details of your afterlife.”
Milo knitted his brows as if it would help him to think. While the others were pondering questions related to the blueprint of their reality, he could not get the earlier images out of his mind. Why were some able to open the boxes and others not?
He was pulled from this thought by a handful of individuals who stepped forward, quite ready to get a jump start on their afterlife. They approached the bearded one as a group, and he motioned for them to halt about fifteen feet in front of him. One by one he called them to him. Milo could not make out the words; they conversed with bowed heads.
After a short conversation, each individual moved to the side. Within minutes a box was shuttled to their feet by an unseen courier.
In life, Milo was sensitive to the energies of others. Empath was one label he did not mind being given. He often could feel if someone was sad, scared, or in pain regardless of the front they put up. He could also feel anger, aggressiveness, and other threatening energies. And, of course, there were the lighter energies of love, joy, delight, and bliss that he readily and willingly took in whenever they were present.
In the afterlife, he retained this intuitive ability. “I guess now that individuals are only energy, it shouldn’t be considered such an unusual thing,” he thought.
As each individual bent to pick up their brightly colored, festively wrapped locked box that contained the seed of their new reality, Milo noticed that all did so with reverence and gratitude. They stood peacefully and joyfully holding the box firmly but delicately awaiting further instructions.
“Go ahead and open your boxes,” the bearded one said after the last box had been delivered.
At this instruction, Milo moved closer. He saw each individual touch the lock and in doing so, with no apparent effort on their part, the internal cylinders were tripped and it released. The boxes flew open and new realities began unfolding at a quantum pace. The dizzying array of parallel realities were gone in an instant after creation. Milo knew that they went to exist in the space he saw, but no one else did.
At the sight of this, four more individuals pushed forward, demanding their turn. Each hastily communicated wishes to the bearded one and moved to the side. Their impatient energy was heavy and musty. The boxes arrived like clockwork and as each individual reached down to pick up their new reality they did so with an energy of entitlement. With a smug look on their faces they did not wait for instruction from the bearded one. Each fondled the lock and when it did not give way, they turned the box in their hands looking for another way to open them. After an examination of the top, bottom and all four sides yielded nothing, they began groping obscenely at the ribbon and wrappings attempting to undress it. In the instant in which each individual began to lash out at the bearded one, they disappeared
Milo thought about the individuals he saw sitting in stark compartments among piles of locked boxes, and he thought about the individuals he saw thriving in tailored afterlives.
“If all come through the transition to the afterlife cleared of past wrong doings and therefore equal in the eyes of judgement,” he repeated, “why was there such a disparity in the end experience?”
This question resonated in his mind as he watched groups of people stepping forward to claim their individual afterlives. Most were able to open the locks, but a disturbingly large number were not.
“If all come here equal…” he became lost in this thought and was no longer consciously observing the room. As he did when he was alive, he allowed his mind to review what it had witnessed and ruminate on the subtle energies associated with each action. And, like the sun cresting over the horizon, a dawning awareness crept steadily into him and at last he understood.
“The key is gratitude” he said out loud. The sound of his own voice startled him from his thought process. He looked around and discovered he was alone except for the bearded one. Embarrassed by his outburst, but excited by his discovery, Milo continued. “The individuals who received their boxes with gratitude and reverence were able to trip the lock. Those who received their boxes with entitlement and disdain were not.”
The bearded one smiled and raised his eyebrows, amused. He had never met any human like Milo. “Yes, the key to eternal peace and joy is gratitude,” he confirmed.
Looking at Milo steadily, he then asked, “Are you ready for your afterlife?”
Milo nodded as a festively wrapped, brightly colored locked box ran into his shoe.
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Lynn Crocker Creative 