The wandering soul

 Foreword:

I grew up believing that people who die become stars and my innocent mind thought that all the stars in the universe are some good souls of someone’s near and dear loved ones. It gave me great comfort and solace each time I looked up to see the Starry Night as I knew that someone up there surely cared for me.

This story has been inspired by some real-life incidents, some films I watched, and in particular, the book “Laws of the spirit world”, by Khorshed Bhavnagri. The story has been written from the perspective of a kind soul, who left the earthly body and is seeking salvation, or “Moksha”, thus is a “Wanderer”.

---------------------------------------

I was happy living in my earthly body as Mihir. I loved being a part of the joys and sorrows, the ups and downs that Mihir would face in his life, and loved Maithili, my wife from the very core of my heart. ( I wonder if souls do have a heart). We were a happy couple, blessed with two daughters, Manali and Sonali. We all lived together in a happy joint family along with my parents until COVID hit this earth and took away many lives, including mine, or should I say Mihir’s. 

Mihir suffered from cough, cold high fever and tested positive for Covid. Even before I knew it, we were whisked away by the health authorities, and the family was quarantined. Mihir was very sad, lonely, and worried and due to all this, his health started deteriorating. Video calls with Maithili were the only means of contact, but soon, they had to be stopped too, as Mihir was whisked away to the ICU and started becoming comatose. I had transcended out of his comatose body and was observing him from a distance, wondering what to do. No family or  visitors were allowed. I had two clear choices, to go back to his ailing body and stay there till he recovers, or leave him once and for all. I had overheard the doctors talking amongst themselves and understood that even if he did recover, Mihir’s recovery would be incomplete.  I used to observe the doctors and the ICU staff, listen to the beeping of machines, and feel all the pricks and pain. It was confusing, I was tired of the suffering the body had to go through and wondered if it would be easier to shed the body and move on.

As I was in this dilemma, I saw Mihir’s father, who had crossed over a year ago, I saw his grandfather and grandmother, the ancestral masters had probably come to fetch me and relieve Mihir’s body of the suffering. I decided to move on ahead with them, feeling secure in their presence.  It seemed like the easier option.  I had entered the Bardo plane, the space between life and death. Little did I know at that time, that I would become a wanderer as my ties with Maithili, Manali , Sonali and my mother were so strong, that I wouldn’t get a release. I had closed the Bardo tunnel, leading to divine light. 

“There are seven realms or planes of existence in the spirit world, with One being the lowest and seven being the highest” ( Laws of the Spirit world, Khorshed Bhavnagari) . There is a vast difference between the Earth plane and the Spirit plane.  There was nothing but beauty all around me, the spirit world was illuminated and bathed in a natural divine blue light, something I had never seen before. 

There was peace and tranquility all around me. As I entered the spirit plane, I saw so many more spirits like me, who were still wandering, unable to attain the Salvation. They were all wanderers in this universe, just like me. I asked around and learnt that I was in the fifth realm, being a man with a good karmic account. I searched for my father but was told that his job as a soul was done after bringing me here and he had moved on to the seventh realm, in short, he had attained salvation. I enjoyed my freedom but was missing my family, in particular, Maithili.

The moment I saw my family broken, I regretted my decision to leave behind my earthly body and move on. My mother went into depression, Sonali became a rebel as she couldn’t handle the loss, Manali was too engrossed in her sorrow to see beyond herself while  Maithili, took all the brunt crying silently, angry with me for having deserted her. She put on a brave face and took life head-on. I was disturbed, I didn’t know how to undo this. I wished I hadn’t taken this hasty decision and had decided to fight along with Mihir’s ailing body. I often used to get pulled down to the earth because of my love for my wife, children, and mother.  I started visiting them often. Someone had told Maithili to light a lamp every night in her room, which she would do very diligently. I used to visit her room and suddenly, make the otherwise, calm flame, flicker. Maithili would often get up at night to see my photograph glowing, she would hear furniture being moved very subtly in the calm of the night. I asked my other soul wanderers if I could visit my family physically, I was told that I could do so using a small living being as a vehicle. I decided to give it a try and sat on a little bumble bee and visited our house, I flew from room to room to see my loved ones. I stayed on the false ceiling in my room for a few days, until one day, I was spotted by Maithili and she thought that I was stuck inside the house and shooed me away from the window.  Once  Sonali had to complete an important assignment about which she was anxious, I wanted to reassure her, so I took the help of an exotic little bird and entered the house from the balcony door and tweeted away sitting on the swing in our living room, drawing her attention to me. I had become a wanderer, not knowing how to set myself free, break the bond, and move on. I desperately wanted my family to stop grieving, they had all got on with life in their own way but were still hurting from within. I could see them celebrating my birthday, Maithili would cook my favourite Wada Pav and Misal and the entire family would exchange happy memories about me. I missed them and yearned for them. Other than making random ‘visits’, I could do nothing.

I felt trapped in my own spirit world, I tried hard to climb to the higher realms by helping other souls in the spirit world, but each time my family prayed to me and reached out to me, I came right back. I used to visit Maithili in her dreams very often, but gradually, I stopped that too, in the hope that she would move on. 

One evening, Maithili’s sister came over. She was a Master in Holistic Science and Ancestral healing. Maithili told her about the ‘visits’ she had experienced. She had read about it somewhere. Whenever a soul is hovering around and wants to reach out to the earthly plane, it shows its presence in the form of a flickering flame, a bright light, sounds, etc. Maithili used to draw comfort from these. Her sister told Maithili that she should not hold on, she should try to let Mihir’s soul free. She told her to pray for me, a prayer of gratitude. Each night Maithili would pray earnestly to me “Thank you for being a part of my life, thank you for being there for me. Please forgive me, I forgive you . May you travel peacefully towards the divine light.”

Gradually, as the days went by, Maithili realized that the flame of the candle no longer flickered, the subtle sounds in the calm of the night stopped, and she felt more at peace with herself and happy from within. She got a closure and so had I .