You had no idea where you were, or what you were. You looked around. It was white—everywhere,
as far as you could see. Near you, seemingly waiting for you, was a figure—a vague,
translucent figure that appeared to almost float as it moved closer and closer toward you.
You were not scared. Only unaware. An empty reservoir of pure consciousness.
“The term of your punishment has now concluded,” the figure suddenly said to you.
You had no memory of a punishment. You had no memory of anything at all.
“What punishment?” you asked the figure. “Not important right now,” the figure
responded. “You wouldn’t understand yet, anyway. What’s important is what you choose to do now.”
The figure moved even closer to you, now hovering next to your side. You could feel a light breeze
emanating off of them. They pointed forward and suddenly the space in front of you began
to fragment and open up, like it was an invisible fabric being torn open. On the inside, there was
color and light. Collections of particles in the forms of shapes and objects that appeared familiar
to you but that you couldn’t quite place. “What is that?” you asked the figure.
“Where you were,” the figure responded. Inside the opening, bodies of figures began
to walk by. Some stopped and talked with each other. Two hugged. Their faces began to cry.
You approached the opening and looked closer. You turned back to the figure.
“What did I have to do there?” “Nothing,” the figure responded.
“You were free to do anything you wanted.” You looked back at the opening again. The two
people were gone now. The setting had changed. The figure gestured their hand at the opening
again. Sequences of scenes began to go by, each scene seemingly containing the same figure.
“Is that … is that me?” you asked after watching for a while.
“Yes.” “I don’t understand. What did I do? Who was I?”
“Your name was Janus. You were a human being. You existed in a place with many others like you, all
being punished for more or less the same thing.” There was a silence.
Then, the figure continued, “You were raised by your mother. You were extremely close with
her. You loved her, and she loved you. More than anything. She taught you how to love, how to be,
how to become. You made lots of friends throughout your time. You did all sorts of things with them
and had all sorts of fun. You experienced laughter and inside jokes. Secrets and mutual care.
You had relationships with beings you were attracted you.
You fell in love multiple times—an unbelievable ecstasy and excitement and comfort. You got
married to a person named Renata. Your lives intertwined, becoming life partners who were there
for each other for the rest of each other’s time. You had two kids. You loved them like your mother
loved you, and they loved you like you loved your mother. They provided you with a sense
of fulfillment and purpose unlike anything else you experienced. You felt what it meant
to truly care about something. You developed interests, skills,
and work. You worked toward difficult achievements, and their difficulty made
them worthy when you finally achieved them. You became what you considered successful.
You felt the corporeal sensations and rich pleasures of having a body. The
sense of individual autonomy and being. You tasted delicious foods. You explored
beautiful places. You experienced novel experiences as something somewhere.
You discovered things and ideas. You pondered and marveled at the mystery
of where you were, what you were. You formed theories and beliefs. You lived.”
You stared forward for a moment. Then, you said, “I don’t understand. How
is that a punishment? That sounds amazing!” The figure gestured their hand at the
opening again. Different but similar scenes began to go by.
“Well. You began completely unaware. Hungry and afraid. Your entire life, you sought safety,
stability, understanding, and certainty. At first, your mother made these conditions
seem possible and real. But time ceaselessly moved forward, and you aged. And as you aged,
the world around you grew bigger and more imposing, and your mother could no longer
protect you or provide you these things. The illusions of comfort and certainty shattered
and suddenly became your own responsibility, which you could never put back together.
Throughout your time, you lost your friends, one by one, either from growing a part in physical
space or in personal interests. People you once trusted completely, who knew things about you
that no one else did, who you spent all your time with, slowly became distant strangers.
Some become enemies. Every time you made new friends, you quietly feared the likely
prospect of this happening again, making it harder and harder to connect with others.
The same occurred with those you fell in love with. Only the loss and separation from them
hurt far, far worse. Beings you saw your life with, devoted your life to, who promised to
always love you, stopped loving you. Some hated you. All moved on and replaced you.
You told your friends and partners all sorts of things that no one else
ever knew about you. But no one ever really understood you no matter how hard you tried
and how much you said. And you knew this. After you fell in love with Renata and you
decided you were ready to settle down and commit to her, you constantly doubted your decision,
which only became worse when the initial smoke of lust and romance cleared,
and that spark of love that had once ignited a fire within you became a mere an ember
that you always had to attend to to keep lit. The struggle to sustain your relationship with
your children was not much different. Because you could do anything,
the possibility that you did the wrong thing always loomed over and haunted you.
It was difficult to get comfortable. You were always almost there. Almost in the right position.
Almost satisfied. Almost happy. But never quite. You never knew exactly what you were working
toward, but you just kept working and doing. You spent most of your days in repetitive tedium,
doing the same things over and over. It all exhausted you. And it all went to nothing,
which you had a strong hunch about the whole time. You wanted to understand where you were,
why things were the way they were. But delusions and truths appeared in equal
proportion. You formed beliefs but you knew every belief was more like a hope. A hope that you could
understand and that the world around you could make sense. But it never did, and it never could.
Eventually, you watched your mother age into an unrecognizable version of herself that even
she no longer recognized. She forgot who you were, who she was. Then, you watched her die.
You knew this was going to happen the whole time. You knew it was going to happen to everyone,
including you. And it did. Your friends. Your wife. Your children.
You suffered. You contracted diseases. You experienced the
intense pain of having a body and a mind. You clung to everything and lost it all.
Then, you died.”
The figure gestured their hand at the open portal again. This time, it closed.
Suddenly, you felt a deep, excruciating sorrow. It all came back to you. Everything. The pain
and pleasure of an entire lifetime, all at once. The meaning and the absurdity of it all.
“I still don’t understand,” you said. “What was I being punished for?”
The figure stared back at you for a moment. Then, they said, “Desire. Passion. Judgement.
Attachment. For seeing existence as a plurality of objects separate from you,
and not a single unification. Where you come from, where we
come from, we don’t do that.” You were quite for a moment.
“Calm down,” the figure said as they reached out and grabbed you by the shoulder.
They gestured their hand out again. This time, two openings appeared in front of you. In one,
there was a bright, warm light with colors and fractals of blurred, vague objects reminiscent
of your memory. In the other, was darkness, with a light mist and low hum emanating out of it.
“For the display of desire, and passion, and attachment you have now seen and experienced
their pain and suffering. But Your term is now complete. You can step out of the cycle of birth
and rebirth. You can return to where you came from, where everything comes from. Where all
questions have answers in the form of no questions at all. Where no hearts break because there are no
hearts to be broken. Where no hopes can be crushed because there is nothing to hope for. And where
there is no loss because there is nothing to attach to. Heaven. Nirvana. Moksha. Liberation.
Or, you can continue on in the cycle and return to where you were. You won’t know any of this
happened. There will be no lesson learned here for you to apply to your next life. You won’t be who
you were. You will be reborn as someone else, someone destined to all the same features and
experiences of corporeal existence. So, what will it be?”
You stared at both openings as they stared back at you. The eyes of being and non-being.
The absurd cycle of futile passions and desires and experiences stood next to the
eternal bliss of nothingness. You looked at the figure. Then, back at the openings.
In that moment, in the face of nothingness, the pain of everythingness felt comforting.
“If that’s heaven, give me hell,” you said. You approached it.