Daily Theosophy

Dying and being dead is just an extension of what you are on earth, and than most of it in the higher and happier part of your being, and without the troubles of physical pain and irrational fears.

Chapter 10

Mustafa

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(mustafa)

Shano also realized that you can only understand death really by dying. But once you where dead you couldn’t come back to tell the story to others. Actually he wondered why nature had no in-built provision to let people come back and tell the story if only to console others. It was a good thing, he thought, that in the second half of the twenty-first century many people did no longer have the fears as in the second half of the nineteenth century, and even throughout the twentieth. Why had the wise teachers not taught to the people at large that every stage of existence, during life as well as after death, was self-made, by one’s actions and one’s mind? Apparently in those days that would have been too much to understand for common people, and such teachings about personal and universal justice as well as reincarnations were limited to (semi) occult secret societies, and were only given under pledge of secrecy. Perhaps the illiterate masses of these days had to be threatened with punishment to at least try to make them lead a good course of life. But Shano found that a horrifying approach. It was at least better than believing nothing at all, as in the twentieth century, because if there is nothing after death, then why not perform every fun and evil – punishment doesn’t exist from that point of view, neither reward or the possibility for future progress. All one gains and accomplishes will be lost forever. Not a pleasant belief, I think. We can hardly doubt that the great spiritual teachers of humankind, such as Jesus and Mohammad, Mani, Socrates or Lao-Tzu left the people in ignorance if there would have been another option in those days. Even less we can suppose that Jesus or Mohammad themselves didn’t know it. Actually Plato had taught about after-death experiences and reincarnation – in a somewhat illusionary illustrative form in his ‘Vision of Er’ hundreds of years before Christ. Many early Christians and Jews – and some Jews even in the twenty-first century believed in reincarnation – and the whole fact of reincarnation is never denied anywhere in the Bible or the Koran or by the great Greek philosophers. Anyway, Shano thought it might be one of his tasks to broadcast the ideas even wider than had already been done since the latter part of the nineteenth century. Then, only the basic ideas and generalities could be taught, and all details would still have to wait for centuries, but Shano felt that nowadays a greater appeal to the sane mind of the people could be made than two hundred years ago.

Shano was aware that his lesson of today had only been the beginning, and next time he would hear more. He also was aware that actual dying is different from anything that can be told or written – just as being in love can not be understood by a hundred books or songs until you yourself have fallen in love for the first time.

After doing his household work, Shano laid down on his bed, facing the ceiling and closed his eyes. He wanted to imagine as much as possible how it felt to be dying. He tried to fall asleep while at the same time staying awake, and visualizing all the processes in two consciousnesses at the same time. But that isn’t easy. He noticed how his mind changed, from grasping daily logic and memories, to confused thought which seemed to have no logical relation, and that for this mind things were just as true as for his waking mind. He figured that this might be something like the dissolution of the coarse mentalities – but as soon as he ‘figured’ something he was wide awake again. He tried again and forgot his plan and sank into a sound sleep, and while he thought he was still continuing his experiment he suddenly found that the first light was already appearing at the eastern horizon. He had just been sleeping.

I haven’t told you much about other people living in the monastery, just because in that case this story would become almost endless. But here I will make an exception. Shano talked about his latest lesson with the next youngest person in the monastery, who was about ten years older than he. That man must have learned the same thing ten years ago. So he asked to him – his name was Mustafa – what he thought would happen during death. Before giving you Mustafa’s answer, I must tell you the relevant part of Mustafa’s life history.

Mustafa

Mustafa had been born some 32 years ago in a big city, but at a young age his parents had moved to the South, and they lived the life of an agricultural family. They had a simple house near the edge of a large desert. It was never raining there – and the skies were always blue – apart from an occasional few white clouds in some season. So the farmers there were completely dependent on the water from a large river, which they called in an ancient language long forgotten, ‘the blue river.’ Most people had long forgotten the relating between the name of the river and its blueness. But what was important is that you could trust the river and that it brought water and fertile mud for the land. And one could trust the sun. The people in these agricultural communities were generally happy, not really poor, and most of the farmers had a higher education. They had studied in the cities at universities or technological or religious institutions, but then had chosen for the quiet village life. Growing living plants and the variety of the agricultural work was much more attractive than spending your whole life as some IT’er in front of a computer in some air-conditioned office on the so-maniest floor of a concrete building. They had everything in the village: TV, internet, computer games as well as life donkeys and camels, and a perfect road and high-speed railways along both sides of the river, an efficient transport system, and from airstrips connected to the larger railway stations you could fly to everywhere within almost no time. This was the environment in which Mustafa and his two sisters were brought up in their young years. Their father was originally an engineer, but now his hobby was milking goats and making cheese. It gave him more time to think about the essential things of life, he said. As a child Mustafa was a dreamy boy, and people sometimes wondered what was going on his head. He didn’t tell. At school he was the best pupil, and he seemed to know his lessons almost before he had learned them. At nineteen he had finished university: philosophy and ethics.

He had studied in the biggest city, the capital of the country, which counted about 26 million people. Only a hundred years before most of the country had been desert. Now a long line of cities to the south of the capital had been build along the river and also into what used to be the desert, each with some one million inhabitants, and of course smaller towns as satellites. The world as a whole had some 25 billion inhabitants now, and worldwide strong measures had been taken to house and feed all these people. It was widely understood now by sociologists and governments that poverty and great material and educational inequality were the seed of problems: crime, local wars, emotional despair and loneliness. Of course people can not change from good to bad or bad to good by merely giving them housing and money and entertainment. On the other hand, rich people or groups of people were also necessary to guarantee private idealistic initiatives – otherwise everything would have to be decided by short-sited general democratically chosen committees. Therefore the society worldwide made a clear-cut distinction between profit-for-oneself and profit-for-universal-benefit, as it was called. Privately one could not accumulate infinite amounts of money or property – though the margin was quite comfortable in most countries. But it was widely understood that giving was at least as important as receiving, and they had voluntarily build their whole economy on a mixture of sharing and free enterprise. They had put a limit to poverty as well as to wealth, by a progressive tax system and a system in which a particular percentage of the tax money’s destination could be determined by the taxpayer himself: for this or that ministry or department, for charity, for care of nature, provisions for general rather than personal welfare, etc. This was true for most parts of the world in Mustafa’s days, and things were still growing better. This was especially so because world-wide people had decided to a world sharing system – something like the European Union in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. Of course there were countries who wished to be excepted for whatever psychological or financial reason – but even then, they would in practice be linked in very many ways to the general system. The most difficult part of this aspect of globalization had been to overcome established cultural values and religions, and many times one had to agree to disagree, but accept the stalemate for now. Then time would mend the differences in psychology and supposed self-interests. But in general people felt themselves world citizens – practically – as well as national citizens – emotionally – and thus the system remained quite stable while always moving. Implementing a system based on sharing and measures like a progressive tax system and putting a limit to ownership had not gone without difficulties, and was still difficult in many places in the world. It was not done in the same way and to the same extend everywhere. Those who are attached to their wealth do not easily give that up for the sake of others – who they define as ‘lazy’ and ‘products of their own karma’ or that kind of things. On the other hand, due to a general influence of good thoughts and increasing intelligence of the people, the general understanding was now that happiness inside has little to do with wealth, and that simplicity and practice of generosity were giving more psychological happiness than physical circumstances. There was more intelligent initiative among the people, and the initiatives were generally beneficial for all. So there was now less misery and crime (but still too much) in the world than at the time when the world counted only six billion people. People and peoples also generally understood that the real paradise was not to be found on earth, or on a particular place, but was a state of consciousness which one could make for oneself and was the result of positive and altruistic thinking and right philosophical thinking, and not the accumulation of personal objects.

The desert of the Northern part of the axis of the country around the cities had completely disappeared and had been turned into fertile agricultural land, necessary to feed all the millions of people.