Under a Watchful Eye(33)
‘A man called Heindel tried to define it. Tried to describe the enlargement, the growing, that can take place in our awareness. He argued that because we exist physically in time and space, we can only recognize ourselves in that same time and space. But imagine shedding the physical body, the vehicle, and the time and space that imprison us physically, to become a double in another place, one nearby, that has no time or space. Imagine projecting into a place that intersects this one.’
Ewan sighed when he saw the look of incredulity grow on Seb’s face. He closed his eyes. ‘It’s hopeless. I’m tired.’
‘I’m still intrigued.’
Ewan moved higher up the bed, using an elbow. ‘It’s all in my book.’
‘Pretend that you’re pitching your book. Every book needs a pitch.’
Ewan scowled, then seemed to lack the energy to sustain the expression. ‘The body . . .’ He looked at his own as if such an appraisal was a subject unworthy of consideration. ‘The body is a prison cell. Once you know . . . once you understand that, you can have nothing but contempt for the body. Inside them we don’t even know what it is to be alive. You’re only really alive when you leave your body. That’s the irony, but you cannot believe the potential we have.’
Ewan frowned as if confronted by an infant. ‘Let me make it simpler for you. Imagine if all of your sadness and pain, everything that troubles you, all of it, anxiety, grief, disappointment, anger, were to go. Imagine how you would feel if all of the misery of being alive just fell from you. You can’t. Because you’ve never projected. You can’t imagine the ecstasy. To become so strong, like you cannot believe. Powerful. You’re suffused with . . .’
‘There’s nothing here –’ he looked askance at the room again – ‘that matters. This existence is a shadow of what our souls can experience at a higher level. A place where I can go. Where time and space are no longer my captors. You cannot imagine the freedom, the elation. And you never will until you die. But imagine if you could experience that before you died. I have. You asked me what I’ve been doing for all of those years since I saw you last, well, there’s your bloody answer.’
What Ewan had said, the very diction he’d used, made Seb feel uncomfortable and also mortified for Ewan. This talk of souls, ecstasy and of being ‘suffused’ was appalling, the discourse of the charlatan. Seb hated the very sight of him more than ever, this reeking, unwashed drunk, with the tangled ropes of hair spread across his bed linen, the weather-and drink-blasted face. He was reminded of emaciated holy men in India, mad hermits, swivel-eyed cult leaders, greedy preachers, the low animal cunning of the vulpine clairvoyant, and he placed Ewan amongst their absurd ranks.
Ewan rolled onto his side to clasp the glass of water on the bedside table.
Seb tried to conceal his sarcasm but knew he’d failed as soon as he began to speak. ‘It doesn’t appear that this enlightenment of which you speak so highly, and this ability to transcend space and time, have done you much good. To be honest, Ewan, I’d be inclined to feel a little short-changed by your epiphanies if this is how you end up, at your age. I mean, wouldn’t it have been better to have stayed in this other place, wherever it is that you go?’
‘Doesn’t work like that. We’re not supposed to be there.’
‘Evidently. But when I . . . when I have seen you out and about, you hardly look your best either. If I am going to be honest, you look like you’re stuck in hell. You also always return to your body, the prison, and that’s not much better, is it?’
The jibe caused Ewan pain. If it was possible he went even paler. He now looked harried too, if not haunted, as if being forced to remember something not only unpleasant but frightening. ‘Hell’ may have been the trigger.
When Ewan resettled himself, his eyes had developed an expression that seemed to reach beyond the room, like an intense focus on something in the past. ‘It wasn’t always like this. It’s not all darkness. There’s light, a light that you cannot imagine. Like nothing you’ve ever seen. That’s why we travel. Once you’ve seen it . . . Nothing is the same again. Nothing.’
Seb was convinced those had been the first truthful words he’d heard Ewan say since arrival. ‘Light?’
Ewan’s face appeared younger, the eyes alive with something other than scorn, spite or deviousness. It looked like genuine wonder. ‘It’s not the same as the light here. It’s so bright and yet so soft. It defines everything more vividly. You can see the beauty of everything. What you see becomes new, changed. There are no shadows. The light casts no shadows. No glare.
‘Paradise. Summerland. The Third Sphere. It’s been called all kinds of things by people who have been ignored. But these people have been there. And it is the only place where we can be free and happy. Completely free and intensely happy, always. Even if it is dark where you find yourself, you take that light with you. Your presence is the light in the unlit places. Your soul is the light . . . trying to return.’ Ewan continued to stare at nothing in the room as tears filmed his eyes.
Seb sat on the floor, resting his back against the chest of drawers. Trying to appear as if he were not humouring Ewan, though he still found it difficult to suppress his scorn, he said, ‘How do you do it? How do you get there?’
Ewan didn’t seem to hear him. His lips moved, though he wasn’t speaking to anyone but himself. Eventually, he smiled. ‘You don’t, unless by accident, or during an accident. A near-death experience will do it. Or while upon an operating table. Or unless you are born with a loose . . . it’s known as the vehicle of vitality. And if you are in possession of one that is improperly moored, it allows you to drift. It was only the determination of some people, who’d travelled accidentally, to relive the experience that made it possible for this to ever be controlled. As much as it can be, but never fully.’