I have been at this place I don’t know since when. My memory defeats me. Memory… memory.
This place doesn’t have a clock. I thought I would find a huge clock tower like those you find in the central squares of European cities. Europe…clock tower?

What’s this place?
It’s been morning since I arrived here. It’s a lovely morning, neither cold, nor hot, but I can’t seem to spot the sun in the sky. Where is this light being emanating from, I wonder.
My feet sink in the soft earth. I look at my feet. I look at the earth. This is not the earth I am walking on, and I don’t have feet that look anything like my feet. Feet…? They look different. Let me touch my feet and feel them. What’s with my hands? Are these my hands? They feel so different. Hands…?

The trees here are so ethereal. I’ve never seen them before. Their colours, leaves, fruits, flowers, fragrances, their shapes and heights, it’s all so new to me.  I’m absorbing the colours and shapes through my eyes, but my eyes are not seeing things like they normally do. It’s not seeing but. It’s not feeling. I’ve never seen anything so clearly before. The fragrances of flowers are not like the fragrances of rose and jasmine and champak. I hear soft music. It’s unobtrusive, then there’s a gentle crescendo. What’s this music? Its genre? Which raga? This music is so unlike anything I’ve ever heard, and my hearing is not that hearing. I feel like dancing. This music is elevating my spirit.

Trees…sights…colours…odours…music…sound…all this is so familiar and still so foreign….

It must have been hours since I arrived here, but time doesn’t seem to move forward. I have been waiting to feel exhausted, fatigued like I feel every day. What’s exhaustion? I must have walked miles and miles. Where did I begin my journey and where have I arrived? There are no milestones here, no distances to be covered. But there are sudden scene shifts.

What’s this beautiful structure? I wonder who built it. This place doesn’t seem to have structures like those in Europe, or India, or the US. Europe…structures…? These structures look fragile but eternal. I go touch this boundary wall. I don’t believe this. This wall seems to be a living thing; conscious; animate. It seems to be reciprocating my touch, responding to me. It feels like a loving exchange. It seems to know who I am and what I’m feeling. It doesn’t hurt to press my fingers onto this wall. It’s softer than rose petals.  I wonder if anyone can live inside a delicate structure like this without ruining it. I must go in. Where are the usual security guards? Oh, someone is speaking to me. I hear a voice in my heart. It’s safe to go in for anyone, it says.

How delicate are the steps! “We’re just like you”, they speak to me. This is ridiculous. I’m curious and excited about what’s happening around here and to me, but these feelings…. Here I climb up the last step.

Who are these beings? So beautiful. I have never seen anyone like them before. Oh my God! What am I doing among these people! Someone is coming towards me. Do I know this person?

“I have been waiting for you here. I can’t tell you how happy I am to be receiving you at the gate of the Temple of Love.”
“Who are you? How did I manage to reach this place?”

“I am the answer to your questions.”

“What do you mean? I can’t understand what’s happening since the morning. Why do I feel the way I feel? Why do touch, smell, sight, sound feel so exotic here?”

“Look into my eyes. You’ll know all that you want to know and all that which can be known.”

“Your voice is kind. Replete with love. Love that I have never known before. But how do I know it’s love?”

“Look into my eyes. I’m the answer to your questions.”

Eons ago to the present moment

Am I living eons ago? Or am I living in the 21st century? Which country am I in?

I’m experiencing different realities at different times, one at a time. I notice that when I am in one reality, I forget others. I see that I remember residual feelings that somehow seem to carry me to the next phase, the next reality. In some realities, I act mechanically. In some other realities, I’m more conscious. I’m conscious of these realities and of the aspects, I can change within me and in the surroundings. Oh my God, how long I have been doing this. This is unbelievable. It can’t be real.

“What brought me here? To this dimension? To be able to meet you.

“Keep looking into my eyes. I’m the mirror you need to see yourself in.”

Oh, this one looks familiar. I think I know of this reality.

But just on the edge of being audible, a voice says, “No, there are more experiences like this one.”

It’s happening slowly now. This film. This film is screening at such a slow pace, I say to myself.

Again, that voice: “It’s not a film. It’s you and your experiences that you’re seeing.”

Oh, you mean I’m traveling back in time?

Now the voice is clear: “No.  You’re seeing as it happened. There is no time where you are now.”

All the experiences you showed me in slow motion have one thing in common. I fall in love with people. They leave me—either death takes them away or a change of mind, either circumstances deprive me of them, or a change of heart. Wait! All these are different people, different bodies, different mindsets, different beings in different places, different languages, and different cultures. And I look so different in each film, speaking different languages, wearing different clothes. Oh, my own face is different! And I am NOT me as I remember myself…none of these people look like me. WHAT? I have been men, women, fairies, angels, reptiles…now this is quite Hollywoodish. Isn’t it?

How do you look? What’s your real look? Do you know? And what’s love, I ask you?

“What do you mean?”

“You remember being in Europe. You remember you were so dearly in love with a person that you died for ... And…”
And, what…please tell me.

“You’ve changed personalities so many times, your last memories shaping your next experience. The impressions you left one personality with formed your next personality. All that you died wishing for as one personality, you fulfilled it as another personality. But…”

But, what? Go on.

“Every new personality created new desires in you. And you were caught in cycles of desires, yearning, fulfilments, disillusionment.”

I see what you mean. Now I’m kneeling on the earth. So, how did I manage to reach here?. And what’s this place?

“At last you grew so tired of changing personalities and all the baggage that came with them that you began a new quest, a quest about the lasting bliss, a quest about love that doesn’t change, a love that’s above the conditions of personalities, places, and time.”

“And then…what happened when I began this search?”

“You met a rescuer who reclaimed you from the repetitive circle of desires, yearnings, fulfillments, disillusionment. “

So this rescuer brought me here to this exotic place?“Yes. She did.”

It’s a she!

“No, not in the sense of those personalities you have worn or you have fallen in love with. It’s the yearning, the feminine principle who loves, loves so purely that all rules bend for this love.”

And who are you?”

“I’m the one who she loves. I’m the Beloved who every being looks for but doesn’t know it. Your search began with me and ends at me.”

Now  So, dear readers, this is my love story. But don’t go yet.
Does it make sense to you, my love story?

What I’m going to tell you now won’t make sense to you. If it does, it would probably be an intellectual understanding of what happened. If you are intuitive, even if you are psychic, you may be able to intuit it in your heart. But that would still be far from reality.

How can I not describe it to you, you, who have read my story thus far? Be with me for some more time. You’ve been so patient, a couple of more minutes, that’s it.

When the flashback of my personalities ended, this being who called Himself the Beloved, did something unprecedented, something unimaginable, something unbelievable, something transrational. He smiled. So, what’s so special about his smile? My mind began to dissolve, as this being smiled. The sense of I left me before I could understand what was happening. It left me forever. My intellect turned upside down. I was no longer who I thought I was. But, I still existed as an individual. This new Self, rather the oldest Self, feels so new to me.

The most blissful thing is, now I can see the string of energy, of pure light, a light untouched by matter, which connects me to the Beloved. It’s unbreakable. Nothing can cut it or detach it. Let me call this string Love, not the love you have experienced, given, or received. It’s different. Everything is different here.

Oh, I didn’t tell you what the Beloved told me about himself and his Temple of Love—he has been existing since eternity. In his Temple of Love, time is unheard of, so is matter. This Temple of Love is illuminated with his effulgence and still, your eyes don’t hurt when you look at him. And you know there is a huge variety of things, things made of energy, of light. They are all we – We, the beings who are transported here, we, the beings of light, who shed the material bodies for good and our happiness is not just an absence of pain. It’s not the happiness bound by the law of opposites. It’s happiness in its original form, uncontaminated, pure bliss.

I can go on and on but I’ll never be able to describe it in your words even if I had a million mouths. It’s home, you know. It’s a real home. I’ve arrived. I’ve found Love. I’ve found myself. I hope one day, you find what you have been looking for--the everlasting Love, the place you call home where you wish to return forever.