By Amita P.
“A month back, Mrs Nair, a neighbour I distantly knew, decided that she couldn't manage living alone with her ill health and decided to shift to her daughter's in Pune. She had struggled a lot the last year to remain independent and stay on in her flat but the last bout of asthma took away her confidence.
“I went to wish her goodbye. I hugged her as I came in and was sitting next to her. Another neighbour also came in, as others from the next building to wish her goodbye... we sat chatting for a while till the daughter decided it was time to move into the waiting taxi. Just before that, suddenly I felt great grief and tears came to my eyes...I said I don't know why I'm becoming emotional (it's true, I didn't know why I was crying because I had no intention of crying, I knew her, but not really so well…)
“Anyway, she got into the car, and while she was sitting in the car, I hugged her and kissed her on both cheeks... Was it because I wanted her to feel loved? Or was it… because there was something deeper I knew intuitively, but couldn’t really admit consciously?
“Mrs Nair died of a massive heart attack within 2 weeks of reaching Pune..."
Commentary: We know more than we know. We are more deeply connected than we realise. We are less bound by time than we understand. Death sometimes casts his shadow before he arrives. God sometimes nudges us, as if to help us with the play, our entrances and exits. As if to remind us… of the preciousness of life… of the life beneath life.
And yes, there is a life beneath life. A wondrous symmetry.
Mrs Nair died in her daughter’s arms. Knowing she was loved. She died after saying goodbye to her beloved Chennai life. She died having found support from the many who were with her in life. She died connecting up with others, like psychic-healer, half- stranger Amita, like many of you seers, healers, seekers whose awareness of the world beyond plays such a vital function.
Amita did not really know Mrs Nair. But at the farewell, her heart knew, her arms knew, her love knew. This intuition that pours directly into our being, our emotions, our bodies is the most natural intuition, for it seamlessly binds the inner and the outer.
Did Amita’s hug make a difference? On the last voyage, surely the sight of someone on waving goodbye would be an assurance.
There are times when we know. When we see. And the seeing may offer real use. As in the case above, where Death’s hard edges were made familiar. Or… with Rakhee who was celebrating her second son’s birthday proudly announced to the gathering I wouldn’t be here without Tarun & Celia. She had many years ago, idly asked us for an aura scan and we told her to run to the hospital, a darkness in the waist indicated a catastrophic health issue. The pre-warning gave her a few precious months fore-notice… but more vitally the reminder that we are more than we think we are…
There are times when we know. When we see. The seeing may seemingly offer little use.
Recently at a party we met a marvellously strong and confident lady with 2 lovely kids, without asking, with no obvious cues we got she was divorced. She later confirmed this. So we may think to yourself what is the use? What was the use of preknowing about her being a divorcee? Perhaps this, the realisation that well before we say hello a conversation may be happening, well before we set foot on life there may be a web of connections, what we often do with our hellos is acknowledge that web, strengthen it… The most innocent of meetings, the most chance encounters may be suffused with divine riddles.There are times when we know. When we see. But when our seeing seems utterly useless. Too little, too late.
For example, 3 months before he passed away, Celia looking at my {Tarun’s} dad, said ‘Tarun check out Appicha’s lungs its dark, almost cancerous’. We checked and realised that it was possibly cancerous, but nothing could be done, and it was a mercy compared to Parkinson’s slow coils. We kept this knowledge to ourselves, except pointing out the obvious his lungs and liver was bad. A month later, a doc also discovered the cancer. It was too far gone. And two months later, he passed away. Surely this was useless intuition, Celia saw the issue, but we kept it to ourselves. But was it useless? Was our silence passive? If we had alerted the family, poured herbal remedy, added surgeon’s scalpel to my father’s arsenal would we have aided him? He would have passed away maybe not in two, but surely three months later.
The simple truth is knowing does not mean blurting it out. Knowing does not always mean doing. Knowing sometimes means accepting. Knowing sometimes means letting go.
Stretching life is not enriching it.
Knowing showed us the life beneath life. It showed us that we can see earlier, deeper, further than X-rays, we can see beyond matter. And so even though matter may seem to win, and death claims its prize, we are not just physical blobs or death’s bunny.
The funny thing is that Celia was the first to see the onset of Tarun’s Dad’s Parkinson’s. Sometime in 2004, a week later Ramani {who was a pioneer of Pranic Healing in India} noticed the same. A year later, the Doctors diagnosed it. While Tarun’s Dad was warned about it by two mystics, {he was himself graced by psychic warnings when in the railways}, he for 6 years refused to really use meditation or healing. And even if he had, would it have been anything more than a salve?
A decade or so ago a big political figure from Andhra Pradesh went down in a helicopter among thick forests, our intuition pointed a place for the crash; of the four in the copter, one was alive for about an hour longer, he was bothered about a watch that had fallen off his wrist, he died longing for water… Should we have used our media contacts, called up the TV station? Not really, for our intuition told us that all would die in minutes, well before any search could reach. The only good that announcing our knowledge would do was to ourselves. To thump our chests. So instead, we kept our silence and sent a tiny bit of healing to the man crumpled outside the mangled copter, leg broken, hip fractured, ribs crushed. Did it help? Will we ever really know? We believe that just before he passed away he felt something like rain fall on his face. And a bright light.
A few related articles that expand on what you have read here...
Useless Intuition Priceless Revelations by Tarun & Celia Cherian, 2016
Classic.Well Done Mr Cherian. A son maps absences.
We are not Islands. by Nadia S, counsellor, psychologist, scientist, Oct 2016.
New Love knows no separation. by Nadi*, Dec 2016.
Snippet: Incidentally Mrs Nair taught Tarun Chemistry in the 11th & 12th class. She taught so lucidly he got 10% more marks than what he otherwise would have. It's a small world. 40 years later, a student of Tarun's touches Mrs Nair. Gives her a teeny-weeny bit of comfort. What goes around comes around.
A Beautiful Sharing By Chaitra P that parallels Amita's Story: April 12th, 2017.
"Oh my god ! This is so true. I experienced extreme anxiety,edginess and discomfort at one of my husband's Mama's place {Uncle}. He was ill, liver sclerosis, we all knew he would pass on but not just that day. I felt like someone was suffocating me. I told my husband's cousin I'm sorry but I feel very sad and edgy in their house. They all of course understood my discomfort since I had seen my dad go through hell too ,not too long ago.
"The next morning when I woke up I suddenly felt light and like that weight was lifted off of me. An hour into the morning my cousin was trying desperately to wake his dad up who I think slipped into a comma in the middle of the night. He passed away 24 hours later. I think this was the first time I could sense death near me.
"Thank you for sharing this story, the bottom line is intuition and feelings are the best teachers to reaching the higher self,to knowing your higher self. "
With gratitude. Chaitra P