Am I Dead?

Chapter 1
- Dead But Still Alive -
Nothingness…! Absolute nothingness surrounds me everywhere. I look for my body, but I don’t see anything or feel anything!! There is no body, no floor, no up, no down, a perfect void engulfing me! Nothing is there to see, to hear, to sense; an absolute perfect void! No, not even darkness for all is absolute nothingness around me. I don't exist, but I'm, even if dead. Then, the memory of my own death hangs in my mind and all returns. I feel overwhelmed by fear and anxiety as if something imminent is about to happen. I just died.!
“What the hell..........!
“There is nothing to fear Marcus", a perfectly soft, disembodied voice echoes deep inside me. The words run like a stream of endless energy rushing through my skin and blood; the sounds bouncing off from the walls of my bones. Then, a warm stream rushes through me; it feels like a jolt of electricity. High voltage of lightning filling me up. I feel alive again and somewhere, but nowhere at the same time. Incomprehensible, but I feel alive again!! I know then is that my consciousness has prevailed over death. If I can think of consciousness, then I'm alive for I think.
Suddenly, as I'm trying to make sense of my confusion, my life flashes into my consciousness. A Bing-Bang explodes inside me with light; a million times exponentially brighter than the sun. My life is projected for me to see. Suddenly, my life from inception to conception, flashes into my consciousness before I can think of anything else. Yes, my own puny fetus floating in a maternal womb filled with thick, aqueous and semi transparent fluid; it all shows like a 3D flick. It's me inside the womb of my mother and somehow I know it! Yes, it's you, the understanding reaches me. My tiny body hangs from the umbilical cord, an 'Argonaut' lost in a liquid filled space; its tiny veins filled with reddish and bluish fluid running like diminutive creeks of blood in all directions visible on my pale-pinkish body. Then, a warm stream rushes through me.
Before I can ask anything the answers fill my mind and my entire life pops in front of me in an instantaneous flash! Absurdity fills my mind. Incomprehension invades me with a sense of insanity. Being alive after my death, I think, more than absurd, it’s impossible. An instant more, I find myself in another state. Absolute peace fills me despite the apprehension from the memory of my death. I’m trying to turn and look around, but I don’t see, or I can’t see. I don’t feel my head turning to look around, I don’t feel my body either. I don’t see or feel anything ! I’m trying to move, but there’s nothing to move! There is no sense of before or after. I'm simply me again.
I feel enveloped in my past. I think of limbo, the limbo described by my pious grandmother. I visualize Neonates floating naked and endlessly; all hovering forever in a never ending state of nakedness in ‘limbo state’; they all looked rosy, chubby and happy in my mind. I as child asked my grandmother why and her answer seemed simple. "They had not been Christianlly baptized." I had wondered many times if the ones baptized would be fully dressed in some special place, but my grandmother never answered that for me. I wasn’t baptized either as an infant. I had imagined myself as one of those naked in ‘limbo” babies and had always worried me as a child.
Where am I? I ask conscious that I still exist.
“You’re not anywhere, Marcus, it’s simply another state,“ the Voice replies reverberating through me.
Incomprehension enters me and I react asking. The disembodied words enter my consciousness with perfect sound. The words convey the understanding that my life now is the consequence of dying. I feel overwhelmed and with great bewilderment. I want to understand, but I can't fathom being dead and alive at the same time. What is happening to me can't be indeed happening, I think.
“What?
“Yes, indeed Marcus, you’re in a non-physical state," the voice fills my mind with perfect sound onemore time. The pitch of a soothing voice I’ve never heard before speaks to me. Each sound perfectly as streams of understanding enters my brain.
“Am I dead? I ask a bit calmer.
“Do you feel dead Marcus Andreu? The Voice reaches me with undefined accent, but soothing. The voice removing the fear. A reassuring voice enters my mind immediately and male figure comes to mind, but what I seem to hear is genderless voice, I tell myself.
“No, I don’t feel dead; don't know, no..I don't feel dead! Nothing makes any sense....you don’t understand," I reply feeling confused.
“Yes, of course, I understand Marcus. We’re all one Marcus. We’re all part of one whole. None of us is an isolated entity. We all exist because life within us emanates from all others. We know everything you know and feel, as well as everything you have ever felt or will and you Marcus as well have that understanding," the voice words deliver that meaning into me, firmly, but with its own softness.
My thoughts are put on hold and somehow I know the answers to all my questions must wait. The what, where and why of my present life or death state, will remain without answers for now. Then, I sense the heaviness of darkness and fears takes over me. It's enwrapping me; it's falling on me like a giant cold blanket. Images of how I ended my life invade me. I get a glimpse of when I left my body and see when I moved upward through the ceiling. The sounds, the fear, the incomprehension returns momentarily. I feel traveling fast, going up and up until I see myself dragged into darkness. I'm feeling that sensation of death again. I am dead that I know, but then I think that feel alive again.
Somehow this is confirmed in my head, or rather in my or by consciousness at this point for my consciousness seems outside of my body which doesn't exist, at least at this state. Dying is registered as my last thought and now it’s my first memory; like an axiom of living and dying. I get to understand that all is part of a universal principle, a rule, a physical rule. Nothing is real, except consciousness the genesis of all creations, of life in its essence, exist.
"Indeed Marcus, your life ended and it…begins anew,” the Voice says affirming that I'm not indeed dead.
I feel the words, feel soothing, placating my fears, my doubts and I regain my calm. The voice sounds like if hovering inside my head, as if coming from inside me. I hear the sounds as if resonating within me and around me in the most fantastic and pleasant sound experience. Each sound as if coming from nowhere to be exact and flowing like blood filling me up with the extraordinary sensation. The understanding as if traveling through my bones and flesh of my old body, but yet without having one anymore. I know by then that my physical body does not exist, but I want to know, want to understand.
"Who are you?
"Whomever you want us to be Marcus. We're no different than you. We're all of the same nature," the disembodied voice says.
The answer divine entities, masters of the universe, gods, creators, cosmos physicists or scientists. All or nothing of it might apply to us at one time or another, the words get inside me and sound even more complex, almost like an academic discourse. I seem to partially only understand as if all along I always knew. I'm perplexed. I try digesting the words one by one, but, of course, a million more thoughts invade my mind. I'm in another "State", as the voice says, and not in any physical location. It's very, very confusing. I just died and need answers, not a conundrum for me to guess.
"Are you God then?
"Who or what is god for you? The voice asked in return without answering me.
I" don't really know. The God I know of is a spirit," I says repeating from catechism with some exasperation. How would I know? You tell me," I wanted to shout but I don't to disrespect "GOD".
Never met one, I mumble, protesting to myself. I was taught God, at least the god of Judaism, is a deity; an all powerful deity who knows it all and is everywhere. He's a spirit who somehow and incomprehensibly to humans until now and even after the Big-bang, he rules the universe and has no beginning, nor he has an end. So, I imagine him just like I've seen him in religious icons. A large man of light complexion with his feet on top of the world; his body that of giant corpulent, muscular bearded man. His blue eyes impassively looking down at his creation. He sits in a large marble-like throne. Angels and Cherubs half hover around Him and perfectly blue and white clouds making the sky behind is heaven. If I had been a Buddhist then my religious paradigm would be of that nature, of the nature of all Buddhists, so my god is the God of my own culture, I reflect.
Until then, I had never really sat to ponder about who god could be. I guess the iconic childhood picture in mind left no room for any other speculations. Instead, I was aware more about the repercussion and consequences for not doing what God commanded. Like many others, I did good things to get rewarded in their next life, or didn't do bad things for fear of being punished in the next life. I don't know if that is truly believing in god or simply Pavlovian conditioning to one or the other. Believing isn't a choice or act of will; I think it's a consequence of what one knows and how one reasons, the thought crosses my mind, if I still have a mind.
So, where is my spirit or my soul? If my consciousness still hangs around with me without a flesh; where did my spirit go? Is the spirit and my consciousness the same? I killed the flesh; that I understand and take responsibility for that crime. Did I harm the spirit in any way? Maybe not, I tell myself, since apparently the spirit is me, I'm still here, thinking. Is our flesh disposable? Is it just a cocoon to house the spirit or the consciousness of humans? Is it just a cocoon to house the spirit or the consciousness of humans? But then, why am I the same me even now and here? Is it my consciousness and my spirit the same? I'm alive again even and though not in the flesh. I feel alive, very alive as I think. The whole thing incomprehensible indeed. Suddenly, the idea of being punish for my bad deeds resurfaces in me.
"Am I going somewhere that I should know at this point? I ask euphemistically, but thinking about hell.
"Maybe, maybe not. It depends." The voice replies with reassuring quality.
Its tone unemotional; apparently unresponsive to my own turmoil inside. I want to understand my own death state. This new 'state' is unnerving me already. Now that I'm dead our genesis is supposed to be revealed, right? I asked a bit frustrated. What's the voice saying? I babbled the words, the thoughts to myself. I get irritable. The Voice replies again reading my thoughts.
Well, "the voice goes again,' think of this a step to seek your next level, your own potential, whatever that may be."
I listen breaking down each word to its basic meaning trying to interpret it all the best I can. I ask simple questions and I get complex answers sinking me into a un universe of incomprehension. The conversation, if I my call it that, it's beginning to sound like a postulation between mechanical quantum and theoritical quantum issues, I tell myself. I think that deep inside me, I've been more an atheist than a pious man of faith in the God of Judaism. That scared me always, but now here I think, that if there is a god who is moral and loving and worthy of respect, he or she won't mind my rational doubts and reasons for not believing in god. Most likely he or she won't punish me for exercising my critical thinking and being skeptical of other claims; other as fallible me.
"You'll encounter an opportunity for perfection, Marcus; we all get it," the voice words enter my mind again.
"Thank you very much for that glorious opportunity, if I may say that, but don't have the slightest hint what that chance might be," I mentally reply unabashed and a bit cynical.
"I understand, Marcus, of course not, you don't have a hint of what's the next step might be. You don't have an idea; that's remotely removed in the future and the future is indeed infinitely unpredictable even to many us at the highest echelons of the universe and our genesis" the voice says. You're rationale about all this again is correct Marcus. That's why you lived in that human state to work out for your perfection. The Voice drips the meaning in me. "That's part of the evolution of man into a higher entity," the Voice replies.
Each word enters my mind like fluid from a dropper flooding my mind with meaning. I feel the impatience rising within me. I think about Darwin's evolution and the million light years to make me a better creation out of man, of me, us humans. Then, it occurs to me that if I'm not going anywhere I must be in limbo. Maybe not the physical limbo-depot I have in my mind, but limbo nonetheless.
"No, it's nothing like that at all Marcus. This is the evolution of man in all its quiddity; both physical and non-physical; there is no time limit for the perfection of all creations," the Voice corrects me this time.
Then, I think again, am I trapped in limbo here, it it?
I think of limbo, the limbo described by mine pious grandmother. I visualize Neonates floating naked and endlessly; all hovering forever in a never ending state of nakedness in ‘limbo state’; they all looked rosy, chubby and happy in my mind. I as child asked my grandmother why and her answer seemed simple. "They had not been Christianly baptized." I had wondered many times if the ones baptized would be fully dressed in some special place, but my grandmother never answered that for him. I wasn’t baptized either as an infant. I had imagined myself as one of those naked in ‘limbo” babies and had always worried me as a child.
"Think of all this as repercussions and consequences on every action, on every decision taken while alive," the voice says.
Can we talk about that? I ask.
"Of course Marcus, what would you like to know, "the Voice ask politely.
"Let's look into the repercussion for now," I say at least mentally.
"By definition are the result of an action, right?
"Yes," I agree. The thought about cause and effect fills my head.
It falls within that class, Marcus, that is cause and effect. Simply think about all your possible actions while in your life cycle; from day one until your arrival here. Think how you terminated your life too, "the voice says inside my head almost in reproach
So far, I can't exactly understand who am I after dying, nor where I'm now. But for sure I died and live again. Then, my soujurn into my terrestail life distills into my mind. A carousel of images spin inside me on and on and on. All in a nano-second of the infinity of time. My life begins here and now as a dead person, bodyless but still holding to my own consciousness. I think, therefore I exist, I tell myself complacently for consciousness pervades the entire universe in time and space; it seems to be endlessly knowing, endlessly powerful, endlessly creative and endlessly infinite. The understand simply drips in me.
"You, I, we all make consciousness and are part of it for we're all One Consciousness Marcus, " the voice says.
"I understand, but who are you then?
"Don't worry about who we're; instead ponder about who you are and who you could potentially be. The nature of our consciousness is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent; it's also a component of the human nature. Through it humans access all knowledge, known and unknown. That's who we are.
"Am I not really dead then? I ask in an effort to understand my state.
"Your consciousness is not and never will; it's omnificent in all creations and infinite. Upon understanding its nature and purpose human acquire their limitless potential," the Voice replies to my mind like an old philosopher.
I ponder about the nature of my consciousness. What is it? I tell myself while thinking that even dead, and I'm still alive, at least my consciousness seems to be; it exist even without a body. Dying wasn't that dreadful after all I console myself. then, I think that being immortal must bring more challenges to our fragile humanity than being alive for a short existence in time. I am about to enter my immortal life, for good or for worse, and like the voice said, I'm going to be revived and die of natural causes this time, I tell myself.
Then, the voice of my grandmother comes to my mind, “ And saw the death, great and small standing, the death to be judged according to what they had done as recorded on the books…….If anyone’s name if not found written in the book of Life, he shall be thrown in to the lake of fire”. The loving Creator, the God of my of my childhood, I think in open rebellion, is contradicting for he loves his creations, but those who falter his commands are sent out to the fire, I think. If I were to do that to my own children, what would that make? A just father or harsh one? I ponder as nothingness begins to engulf me again.