The Journey

It all began on the train. The train was on the tour. The tour was by sea and land. Robert and his wife joined the tour a week before they boarded the train. The train was crossing a bridge over a vast lake when Robert first noticed. The tracks appeared to be narrowing and widening, as if the train, tracks, and bridge were breathing in and out, like massive steel lungs. The bridge was like a roller coaster, rising out of the lake, then plunging back down, with special attachments to force the water aside. Several times, Robert thought the lake would swallow the train like the leviathan of old.

The bridge did not go straight across. It rolled from side-to-side, now and then banking hard left or hard right. Robert could easily see the engine from the middle of the train. No train had ever run like this before. At least not with him on it. Although the tracks ran around corners, rose and fell, and heaved apart and together, the ride was smooth. What he saw was not what he heard or felt. Robert should have felt nausea, but he only felt disoriented, as if reality itself might be in question. Worse, no other passenger remarked about the train, the lake, or the bridge. Not even his wife. Robert was afraid to say anything. He didn’t want to sound insane.

In time, the train slowed and came to rest at a station. The passengers headed off to an antique restaurant, the kind with dark oak, brass lights, and vintage carpets. They were treated to refreshments, but no meal. Robert stood at the bar while his wife stood at a window, looking out. The sky was a barren shade of grey. He was lost in a reverie, trying to make sense of the train ride, and for the life of him, not recalling why he was standing at the bar in this quaint spot on a lake, waiting for…what exactly?

Robert didn’t notice the other passengers leaving the restaurant. All he could remember was everyone was supposed to meet on one of the buses. He followed what he thought was the last of his group and would have sworn he wasn’t far behind his wife. When he got to the spot, no one was there. No bus, no guide, no wife. He ran back and asked the few people still in front of the restaurant where he could find his bus and his tour group. Had anyone seen his wife? Nobody knew anything about a tour, or buses, or the train that brought him here.

Panic began to set in. He couldn’t remember his wife’s name or what tour they were on, or even what the tour company was. He stood outside the restaurant with no phone, no money, no ID, and worse, no idea what was going on. After what seemed like most of the day, he began walking up the hill towards the town. He reasoned that this must have been their destination. Robert planned to catch up to the tour there. Then he would find the buses. And his wife. For the love of God, what was her name?

The town appeared both familiar and foreign. Was it in Switzerland? Canada? Michigan? The speech patterns of the people were best described as pan lingual. It was as if this town was every town as well as no town he had ever visited. Robert realized he was on his own. If only his wife were by his side. She could help him. She could calm his nerves. She could make his world right again. “Where are you from?” someone asked. He couldn’t remember. He felt like he was merely inhabiting his body. He wandered from shop to shop, person to person, hoping to find a clue to his existence. He felt more like a stray dog than a man. Instinctively, he stayed away from some people and timidly asked others for help.

Robert received kindness. And suggestions. And offers to buy him a coffee or take him to the police. He must have sounded crazy, yet no one tried to restrain him. He realized he couldn’t remember his own name. Was it Robby, Roberto, Rob? He felt light-headed. He saw his reflection in a store window. Who was the person looking back at him? He hardly recognized his own face. And why was he here? What was this place? Maybe he needed a priest more than a police officer.

He looked at his hands and feet. They felt numb. Were they solid or not? Someone said he should climb the mountain. Up there he might find what he was looking for. He felt he might as well go. The water from the town spring didn’t taste like water to him. It was no use wandering aimlessly around town, as cozy as it was. He began to climb. He placed one immaterial foot in front of the other. Maybe the regularity of his stride would jog his memory.

He couldn’t tell exactly when his condition became apparent. The train was his first inkling. Then the restaurant. Then the town. Now his body. He was told that most people leave this world in a moment or two. He didn’t know when the soul and the body parted company. He didn’t know where the soul went. But he had seen death often enough to know that when his number was called, he had to go. At least this is what his mother had always told him.

It seemed with each passing hour his material existence and his memories were fading away. Yet, he was still walking the Earth. He picked up a stout branch to use as a walking stick. He thought he would soon be out of breath as he climbed hundreds of meters towards the top of the mountain. The moment he thought this, the stick slipped from his hand. Or rather, his hand slipped away from the stick. He was not winded. He had no hands or feet, yet he was still climbing. And feeling like he still had all his parts.

As he reached the ridge, he noticed that he was mostly translucent. Skin, bones, muscles, and clothing were meaningless concepts. His consciousness persisted. The sun was brilliant now, the sky a vivid blue he hadn’t seen since his youth. If his corporeal body was composed of information, it seemed to him that information was still there – yet transposed into another form. Was this his personal experience of death? How could he be certain? Comparisons seemed pointless.

He trudged on. Up the ridge towards the nearest mountaintop. By his reckoning, he was scarcely there. Yet enough of him was present to understand that names no longer mattered. He could picture his wife and his children back home. Wherever home was. He now knew who they truly were. And who he was in relation to them. He now knew what the Earth was and what the universe was. He understood what life was. All people, places, animals, plants, wind, sea, and sky were part of his consciousness. He wasn’t losing information. He was gaining it. And his body could not contain it all. His brain could not comprehend it! But his consciousness could. Even so, there was no longer room for anything that was not essential.

He transitioned from fading away to nothingness to expanding beyond every boundary he had ever known. He had expected to experience death in a few moments, whether in a bed, or from an accident, or an event more unfortunate. A moment of pain, then an eternity of rest. That’s how it was supposed to work. Yet, time was out of joint for him. Or was it his perception of time? What difference did it make? He realized that time was also a meaningless concept now that he had become pure consciousness. Matter and life as he once knew them no longer existed. Maybe he had already died a “normal” death. Maybe this was a normal death. The train ride of life had to end sooner or later.

He became more aware than he had ever been back when he took life for granted. The passage from what he thought he knew to what he had become was as if he had been asleep for a lifetime and was for the first time fully awake. In the end, there was God. Not the God of any dogmatic religion or tradition, but the God of reality, the God of consciousness and awareness, God as God truly is! He realized all religions are but shadows. Life, as he once knew it, was but a small part of existence. How limited was his understanding! How arrogant he had been! He had seen the world through a glass darkly and still thought he knew. But he was wrong!

Religious beliefs, life, matter, energy, time, and all the words in all the holy books on Earth are nothing compared to the God of the cosmos. When consciousness at last meets consciousness, the truth shall be revealed. And the journey shall have been worth every step.