The Journey to Eternity — Chapter Five — The Love That Preceded Creation
The Journey to Eternity · A serialized book by Nurit Rozenblat
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Chapter Five — The Love That Preceded Creation
The closer I came to the tree, the more I began to hear a melody.
At first it was so faint that I thought it came from the wind passing between the branches. But as I kept walking, I noticed the sounds resembled no musical instrument I knew.
There were high, delicate sounds among them, and beside them deep sounds that lasted a long time. Now and then a new sound joined, and it seemed the melody changed to make room for it.
I stopped and listened.
I did not know why, but I found it hard to keep walking.
Something in the melody stirred a familiar feeling in me that I could not identify. It did not remind me of a song from my childhood or music I had heard in the past. And still, there was in me a feeling that I knew it.
As if I had never heard it, but had always known it existed.
I raised my head.
The crown of the Tree of Eternity towered high above me. Its immense branches spread in every direction, and on them hung the golden fruits I had seen from afar.
Between the branches I noticed points of light.
At first I thought they were rays of sun that had penetrated through the leaves, but the lights moved. Some drew closer to one another, others moved apart, and all of them moved to the rhythm of the melody.
I approached the trunk.
Only then did I understand I was looking at entities.
They sat among the high branches, though the word sat did not exactly describe what I saw. Some hovered slightly above the branches, others leaned on them without appearing to have weight.
I could not count them.
They had forms that recalled a human body, but their boundaries were not clear. A delicate light moved within them, sometimes white, sometimes golden, and at times in shades I did not know how to name.
They had no faces as I know faces.
And still, I felt they were aware of me.
The melody continued.
I placed my hand on the trunk of the tree.
It was warm.
A gentle pulse passed beneath my palm, and after it another pulse.
For a moment I thought I was feeling my own heartbeat, but the rhythm was different.
The tree seemingly breathed.
And then, without hearing a voice, a thought that was not mine appeared in my consciousness.
You have drawn near to the place where the questions that have no words begin.
I removed my hand from the trunk.
I looked around, searching for the silver bird, but she was nowhere to be seen.
The thought returned, this time clearer.
Do not fear the quiet. We do not need a voice for you to hear us.
I raised my gaze to the entities.
One of them rose slightly above the branch on which it rested. The light around it strengthened, and the melody changed.
I did not know if she was the one addressing me, or if they all spoke together.
I felt a slight pressure in my chest.
I was not afraid of harm. It was a different fear, born of the understanding that I stood before something far greater than my capacity to grasp.
I sat down at the foot of the tree.
The melody surrounded me on every side.
And then images began to appear in my consciousness.
I saw a vast space, dark and quiet.
There were no stars in it, no light and no movement.
I tried to understand where I was, but there was no earth there, and no sky, and nothing I could use to estimate distance.
Even the word "before" suddenly seemed meaningless.
And within that quiet I felt something.
I did not see it, did not hear it, but I knew it was present.
At first I thought it was a feeling of warmth. Then I understood it had no connection to heat.
It was closer to a feeling of safety, but that too was not a precise definition.
There was nothing there that could threaten me, and still I felt protected.
There was no one there I could know, and still I did not feel alone.
The feeling deepened and deepened, until my eyes filled with tears.
And then the understanding came.
What you feel now is the thing we call love.
I opened my eyes.
I was still at the foot of the tree.
The wind moved between the leaves, and the melody continued above me.
But something in me had changed.
Until that moment I had thought of love mainly as a feeling created between creatures. A mother's love for her child, love between partners, compassion toward another person, a deep bond with a place or an animal.
I knew love through those I loved and through those who loved me.
Now I felt something that was not directed at me in particular.
It asked nothing of me, did not prefer me over another creature, and was not dependent on my deeds.
It simply was.
You know love through its forms, came the thought. But the form is not the source.
I looked at the flowers that grew around the roots of the tree.
One small flower was wide open, and on its petals rested a drop of water. An ant climbed the stem, and a butterfly passed above it without stopping.
Each of them existed in its own way, knowing nothing of the others.
And suddenly I felt they were not as separate as I had thought.
The flower needs light and earth. The ant depends on plants and other creatures. The butterfly feeds on the flowers and helps their continued existence. The earth itself is formed and changes out of countless processes.
Nothing exists alone.
But is this mutual dependence love?
Before I managed to formulate the question, another thought appeared in my consciousness.
Do not confuse love with dependence. Dependence can exist even without love. Love is not only the need for the other, but the possibility of recognizing his existence as having a value that does not stem from the benefit he brings you.
I looked at the flower again.
It was not beautiful because I saw it.
It existed before I arrived, and will go on existing after I leave.
That thought touched me.
How many times do we give things meaning only by their place in our lives? We call a thing good when it benefits us, beautiful when it pleases our eyes, important when it affects us.
But what is the value of a creature no one sees?
What is the value of a flower that blooms in a place no one will ever reach?
The melody changed.
One of the sounds extended above the others, and out of it an image of a distant star appeared in my consciousness.
Around it moved bodies I did not know. On one of them were vast seas, and within them transparent creatures moved slowly in the water.
There were no human beings there.
There was no one to give the creatures names, marvel at their beauty or ask what their role was.
And still, they existed.
Would you say they have no meaning because you do not know them?
I felt the answer was clear to me.
No.
But then another thought rose in me.
If no observer is needed for creation to have meaning, where does that meaning come from?
The light between the branches strengthened.
You seek to find the worth of existence within the eyes of the one who observes it. But perhaps worth precedes the gaze.
I placed both my hands on the earth.
For a moment I felt very small.
Not out of insignificance, but out of the understanding that I am only one of countless forms of existence.
And still, I did not feel meaningless.
On the contrary.
If everything has a place in creation, my existence too has a place that does not depend on my size, the length of my life, or the number of people who will know me.
That thought stirred a deep peace in me.
And then the image in my consciousness changed.
I saw the dark space again, except this time light appeared in it.
There was no explosion and no sudden movement. The light spread gradually, and out of it forms began to appear.
First small points, then vast distances between them, movement, matter, stars.
I did not know whether I was seeing the beginning of creation or only a way in which the entities were trying to explain to me something I have no ability to truly see.
I was aware that the sights could not contain everything they sought to describe.
And within that spreading I felt that same presence again.
Love.
But this time it was not only a feeling.
It was connected to the very possibility that something might exist.
Think of a creation that does not stem from lack, appeared the thought. Of a source that needs nothing outside itself to be whole.
I tried to understand.
We create things for many reasons. Sometimes from need, sometimes from a desire to express ourselves, sometimes to win recognition or to leave something behind us.
But if God is whole and lacks nothing, why would He create a world?
The question had accompanied me since I was young.
Why create so vast a universe, full of life, beauty, suffering, development and decay?
Why create creatures able to feel, to think, to love, but also to fear and to hurt?
And if the Creator does not need us, why do we exist?
The melody grew deeper.
Perhaps creation is not an attempt to fill a lack. Perhaps it is an expression of abundance.
I looked at the lights.
Think of the difference between the desire to receive and the possibility of giving. When a person gives only to obtain something, the giving remains tied to his need. But can you imagine a giving that seeks no return?
I thought about that.
Yes. I knew such moments.
But even in the purest moments of giving I experienced, I felt joy, satisfaction or closeness.
Does that mean there was need in them too?
There is no need to cancel the joy in giving for it to be real, came the thought. But you are trying to understand creation through the nature of one who lacks something. What if its source is not in lack but in a wholeness that does not diminish when it gives?
I closed my eyes.
I felt as if that thought touched the edge of something immense.
A love that is not born of loneliness.
A love that does not need anyone to return it.
A love that does not seek to hold the thing it allows to exist.
If so, perhaps creation is not an act meant to obtain love.
Perhaps it is itself an expression of love.
Not love as we are used to feeling it, but love in its broadest sense: the will, if one may use that word at all in relation to the Creator, to allow existence to another.
The entities of light moved between the branches.
The melody widened, and I felt it did not come only from the crown of the tree.
It sounded from within the earth, from the air, from the flowers around me.
For a moment it seemed every thing emitted a sound of its own.
The tree, the water, the butterflies, even the stones.
Each sound was different, and still they blended with one another.
If all the sounds were identical, the melody you hear would not be created.
I looked around me.
Difference is not necessarily separation. Sometimes it is the condition for creating a whole that cannot exist out of uniformity alone.
I thought of the countless creatures in the world.
Why are there so many forms of life? Why is one perfect creation not enough?
And perhaps because there is no single form that can by itself express all the possibilities of existence.
The flower does not need to be a bird.
The bird does not need to be a tree.
And I do not need to be any of them for my existence to have meaning.
Each of them reveals another possibility of creation.
But then a question rose in me that disturbed the peace I felt.
If love is the source of creation, how can there be so much suffering in it?
The melody weakened.
It did not disappear, but grew quieter, as if the entities too wished to make room for the question.
I thought of animals preyed upon so others can live. Of diseases, of hunger, of loss. Of children born into pain they did not choose.
I could not accept an explanation by which all this suffering is necessary only so that we learn to appreciate the good.
There is pain that teaches nothing.
There is loss in which there is no consolation.
And if creation stems from love, it is not enough to say that everything that takes place in it is good.
I felt the tears gather in my eyes.
For the first time since I began hearing the entities, I wanted the melody to stop.
I wanted an answer that would not try to make suffering beautiful.
The light above me dimmed slightly.
And then a gentle thought appeared in my consciousness, almost hesitant.
We do not ask you to love suffering.
I breathed deeply.
And we do not ask you to call good and evil by the same name. If love is the source of creation, it does not mean everything that takes place within it expresses it to the same degree.
The entities of light remained still.
A world in which separate creatures, laws, processes and changes exist is also a world in which things can collide, break and end. But there is no full answer in that to the question of why any suffering exists, or why a certain suffering strikes a certain creature.
I felt a strange relief.
Not because an answer was given to me, but because no one tried to convince me that the pain was only an error in my understanding.
There are questions that even a long journey will not make simple. Understanding does not oblige you to justify everything you discover.
I looked at the branches.
Perhaps precisely the ability to notice suffering and want to ease it is one of the ways in which love is revealed within creation.
Not as an explanation for pain.
As a response to it.
I thought of all the creatures that try to preserve their lives. Of a mother protecting her young, of an animal tending a wounded member of its kind, of human beings who endanger themselves to save a stranger.
That love does not cancel suffering.
But it refuses to be indifferent to it.
When you recognize the value of an existence that is not yours, the possibility of acting for its sake opens before you.
The words touched me.
Perhaps love is not only a feeling of closeness.
Perhaps it is also the ability to see in the other something that is not a means for achieving our desires.
To recognize that he exists in his own right.
And that his existence is worthy of consideration, even when we have no benefit from it.
But if this is love, can it exist without consciousness?
I looked at the tree.
It gave shade to the creatures that lived beneath it. Its roots held the earth, its branches served as shelter, its fruits nourished other creatures.
Did the tree love them?
I did not know.
Perhaps it would be wrong to grant it human intentions.
And still, there was in me a feeling that the tree participated in something greater than itself.
There is no need for every creature to feel love as you feel it in order to be part of a creation you seek to understand through love.
I raised my gaze to the crown.
There is a difference between love as a possible source of existence, and the ways in which different creatures experience it or express it.
That thought widened my understanding.
If love is the reason for creation, it does not mean everything created loves.
But rather that perhaps the very possibility of its existing stems from a source that is not indifferent to its existence.
I felt my heart beat.
I thought of my life.
Of the years in which I tried to understand what is the most important thing a person can do in the time given to him.
Learn? Create? Raise children? Help others? Leave something that will remain after him?
Suddenly it seemed to me all those things can have meaning, but none of them is the only answer.
Perhaps the question is not only what we do.
But what moves us to do it.
One can create out of love, and one can create out of a desire to control.
One can give out of love, and one can give in order to feel superior.
One can even protect a beloved thing to such a degree that we do not allow it to develop.
The last thought stopped me.
Can love become something that limits the one we love?
One of the entities of light rose above the branches.
Its light was especially bright, and within it moved shades of deep blue.
A love that seeks to hold everything may deny it the possibility of being what it is.
I saw in my consciousness a small bird inside a golden cage.
The cage was beautiful, full of food and protected from all danger.
But the bird could not fly.
The image changed.
The cage opened.
The bird hesitated, then spread its wings and flew to the sky.
I felt the joy in its flight, but also the danger that opened before it.
Freedom allows possibilities that have no place within total control. But it also opens a doorway to error, to distancing and to harm.
I looked at the entities.
Can it be that love, in its deep sense, does not seek to control everything it allows to exist?
Does creation include a real possibility of being different from the source from which it stemmed?
And if so, does precisely that distance allow creatures to discover themselves?
I did not know whether these thoughts described the intention of God.
But for the first time I managed to imagine a love that does not ask everything to return to it as it came out of it.
A love that allows development.
And perhaps even change that is not foreseen by the one who experiences it.
The melody began to strengthen again.
This time I noticed in it something I had not heard before.
There were moments in which one sound fell silent, and precisely its absence allowed another sound to be heard.
I listened again.
The quiet was not an interruption in the melody.
It was part of it.
I felt a deep excitement.
How many times in my life did I fear the quiet? The moments in which I did not know what would happen, the periods in which nothing advanced as I wanted.
Perhaps not every space needs to be filled at once.
Perhaps there is meaning also in what has not yet been created.
The entities of light moved slowly, and the melody began to change again.
This time no images appeared in my consciousness.
In their place I felt something I did not know how to describe.
At first it was a feeling of expansion, as if the familiar boundaries of my body grew less clear.
I still felt the earth beneath me, the air on my face and the beating of my heart.
But together with them I felt the tree.
I did not see it only from outside.
For a moment I had a feeling that I sensed the water rising in its roots, the light touching its leaves, the movement of the branches in the wind.
And then I felt the small flower beside me.
I did not know what it means to be a flower, but for a moment I stopped thinking of it as a thing entirely separate from me.
The feeling widened.
The forest, the river, the butterflies, the birds, the earth.
I could not distinguish each of them separately, and still I did not feel they disappeared into a formless whole.
On the contrary.
Each of them remained different.
And suddenly I understood that unity does not require identity.
One can be connected without being the same thing.
One can belong without losing uniqueness.
And perhaps love is the possibility of holding both things together.
To recognize the separateness of the other, and still not see him as wholly a stranger.
Tears streamed down my cheeks.
I did not know why I was crying.
I did not feel sadness.
There was in me a deep feeling of excitement, as if I had touched for a moment something I had been searching for all my life without knowing I was searching for it.
And then one thought appeared in my consciousness, clearer than all those before it.
You are not required to disappear in order to belong.
I opened my eyes.
The melody continued.
I looked at my hands, at the fingers, at the skin and at the fine lines formed in it over the years.
I thought of the choice that stood before me.
Eternal life.
An existence perhaps no longer dependent on a body.
Until that moment I had feared this transition would demand that I give up everything that made me who I am.
But now another possibility rose in me.
Perhaps it is not about erasing myself.
Perhaps it is about expanding my ability to recognize existence.
To feel a connection not limited to touch.
To understand creatures unlike me.
To see value also in what I cannot use, hold, or even understand to the end.
And still a fear remained in me.
If love is so deep a foundation in creation, what will happen to it when I no longer have a body?
Will I be able to love without a heart that beats fast, without hands that seek to touch, without eyes that fill with tears?
Will what I then call love be the same thing?
The entities did not hurry to reply.
The melody weakened, and the light between them grew softer.
You know love through your body, but you do not yet know whether the body is its source or one of the tools by means of which you experience it.
I placed a hand on my heart.
It beat at a calm pace.
I thought of a love that exists also at a distance. Of a bond that does not disappear when we close our eyes. Of longing, which is perhaps one of the ways in which we feel the presence of a bond precisely in the absence of the one we love.
But all those were still human experiences.
Perhaps I truly did not know what love is beyond the boundaries of the body.
Do not hurry to call what you do not know by the name of something you have already known, appeared the thought. You may discover resemblance. You may discover difference. Deep understanding does not require erasing the distinction between them.
I sat in quiet.
For the first time since I arrived on the island, I did not want to ask another question.
I wanted only to stay and listen.
The melody filled the air, and I felt each sound left something within me that I could not express in words.
I did not know how long I sat thus.
When the light began to change, one of the entities descended slowly from the crown of the tree.
She did not touch the ground.
She hovered before me at the height of my face, and within her moved a white, delicate light.
For a moment I felt she was looking at me, though she had no eyes.
And then a thought appeared in my consciousness unlike those before it.
You are approaching the fruit that will allow you to pass from the form of existence you know to another form of existence. But before you choose, you must understand one thing.
The light around her strengthened.
Eternity grants no meaning to one who does not know why he seeks to exist.
I felt the words deep within me.
I thought of the question I had asked myself on the way to the tree: if I had all the time in the world, what would make me want to live another day?
Until now I had searched for an answer connected to what I could do.
To places I could see.
To things I could learn.
But now I understood that perhaps all those are not enough.
One can know many things without understanding their value.
One can reach distant places without feeling belonging to any of them.
One can live many years, and perhaps even forever, and still be disconnected from everything that grants existence depth.
I looked at the entity of light.
I asked nothing.
But within me a new thought took shape.
Perhaps the reason to go on existing is not only the desire to experience more.
Perhaps it is the possibility of widening love — not in the sense of a feeling toward a specific person, but in the ability to recognize more and more forms of existence, to understand their place, and to act without seeing myself as the center of everything.
And if love indeed stands at the foundation of creation, perhaps drawing closer to understanding it is also a way to draw closer to understanding the Creator.
The entity rose slightly.
Do not confuse understanding love with owning the truth, came a final thought. The more of creation you know, the more you will discover how much of it is still hidden from you.
The light around her dispersed slowly, and she returned to the crown of the tree.
The melody gradually weakened.
I remained seated at the foot of the trunk.
Above me the golden fruits gleamed.
One of them was lower than the others, hanging on a wide branch that stretched above the place where I sat.
I looked at it for a long time.
I knew I was approaching the moment in which I would have to choose.
But I no longer thought only about what I could receive from the fruit.
I thought about what I could become.
And then I noticed movement.
The fruit above me began to glow with a stronger light. The branch on which it hung descended slowly, until the fruit was almost at the height of my hand.
I did not touch it.
I felt my heartbeat quicken.
From the crown came one sound, long and clear, and after it silence fell.
Within the silence a thought appeared in my consciousness.
The fruit asks nothing of you. The choice will be yours.
I stretched out my hand, but stopped before touching it.
I looked at the light glowing through the peel.
If creation stems from a love that seeks nothing for itself, can I choose eternal life only so that I will not have to part from my life?
Is the desire to go on existing love of life, or fear of the end?
And perhaps both can exist in me together?
I lowered my hand.
I was not ready yet.
Not because I feared eternity alone.
But because I had begun to understand how great the choice is.
I rose slowly and placed my palm on the trunk of the tree.
It was still warm.
I thought of everything I had seen since I arrived on the island, of the conversations with the Entity of Time and the Entity of Memory, and of the melody I still felt within me even though it was no longer heard.
There was one question that gave me no rest.
If love is the reason for creation, and if every entity carries meaning in its very existence, why was I given the possibility of choosing an existence that does not end, while other creatures go on being born and dying?
I could not ignore that question.
Because if I choose eternity, I wanted to know I had not chosen only to flee the fate shared by all those I loved.
I wanted to understand what I could do in this life that I could not do before.
And what my responsibility toward creation would be, if I received the possibility of continuing to exist within it without end.
I raised my head to the entities in the crown.
They did not reply.
But one of them began to gleam again, and in my consciousness appeared a short thought:
Now you are ready to meet the one who guards the choice.
I looked at the path that encircled the trunk of the tree.
Between the immense roots I noticed a narrow opening I had not seen before.
From it came a faint light.
For a moment I listened, hoping to hear the melody again.
But this time only the sound of my breathing was heard.
I began walking toward the opening, with one question accompanying me:
If love is the reason for existence, are eternal lives a gift meant for me — or a responsibility I will have to learn to bear?
End of Chapter Five
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