After many days I came to a house on a cliff. It was said a woman lived there who knew the ways of the dead. I was hungry and I was sore with walking, so I asked her for a meal, and she let me in.
I could not tell how old she was. Her hair was braided, dark and gray. Her face was wrinkled though she often smiled.
She was quiet, thoughtful, with intelligent eyes.
I asked her to teach me what she knew.
She said: “The land of death is like a vacuum. There, what you learn on earth is drawn out of you, unless it has eternal value.”
“When you think of someone you have lost to death, it means the departed one is thinking of you.”
“There is much beauty in the land of death, but it is different from what is beautiful on earth.The beautiful there is formed of moral force. A building may be composed of love, taking its form from the kind of love it is intended to house.”
“Imagine a home, its walls suffused with humility and joy. Only those who are humble and joyful may enter.”
“The greatest pain for the dead is in seeing how far they are from perfection.This is especially true when they meet one they wronged on earth. At such a moment they feel the pain of the one they affected.They can do nothing to change this until they return.”
“If you wish to communicate with one who is gone, know that only spiritual thoughts can reach them.”
“The dead remember the living and the earth with love. They are concerned with what the earth will become. They are profoundly aware of what they did to help or harm it.”
“What you want tells you how far you are from being at home in the nothing.”
I asked her how she knew these things and I still remember her reply:
“The dead are present everywhere. I was born with the gift of seeing them. At times I leave my body and live among them, but my life is here on earth, so I always return.”
I asked her why so few are capable of such sight. She said:
“We are still in the echoes of a time of skepticism. Because of it, human beings have learned to stand by themselves.
This, as you might imagine, is an important skill. “
“Abstract thought drew a veil across the entrance to the other world. In their denial of the land of death, people are able to feel a justification for themselves. If this goes too far, humanity may forget its origins, and, even worse, its destination.”
I stayed with her a year, and in that time she gave me many insights. When it was time to leave I asked her why we die.
She answered this way:
“The earth, for all its beauty, is not our home. We die to return to where we come from. Each time we die, we take new knowledge with us, knowledge that enables us to understand more than before. One day we will be so changed, the earth will not be able to hold us. Love will be our body, and we will fly to the stars and become their angels.”
She walked with me down the path that led from her home. The sun was shining and the blue sea foamed. I thanked her and turned to meet the road.