The Journey to Eternity · A serialized book by Nurit Rozenblat
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Chapter Nine — The Memory Before Birth
"Do you think this is your first time here?"
The words went on echoing within me even after the distant presence fell silent.
I looked toward the place from which they had come. Between the vast branches of the Tree of Eternity spread spaces I could not measure. Lights moved slowly within them, and at times sights of distant worlds appeared inside them.
The silver bird hovered at my side.
"Who said that?" I asked.
She did not answer.
I turned my gaze to her. Now, when I was no longer dependent on a body, I could sense her presence in a way I had not known before. I knew when she was turning her attention to me, even without seeing her eyes.
But now I felt she was hiding something from me.
"You know who is there."
Yes.
"And you know why he thinks I have been here before."
She folded her wings.
There are things I will not be able to tell you.
"Why?"
Because a story about something you experienced is not the same as your own memory of it.
I felt impatience.
"I am not asking you to tell me a story. I want to know if I knew you before we met in the orchard."
The bird looked at me for a long time.
Do you not remember our first meeting?
"I remember the orchard. The tree with the silver leaves. The moment you began speaking to me."
And you remember nothing before it?
"Before it, I lived my life."
I know.
Her silence angered me more than the answers.
"If there is something you know about me, I want you to tell me."
Even if the knowledge changes the way you understand your life?
"Yes."
She spread her wings and moved a little away.
Then come.
For a moment I stayed in my place.
I still had not grown used to my new movement. I had no wings, I did not feel the weight of a body, and I did not need to make an effort in order to move. All I had to do was direct my will to the place I wished to reach.
I advanced after her.
At first I moved cautiously, but I soon discovered that distance behaves differently here. A branch that looked very far away drew close within a moment, while a light that seemed near me stayed in its place even as I kept moving toward it.
I looked back.
The Tree of Eternity still looked enormous, but I could no longer see the ground beneath it.
For the first time since I bit into the fruit, I felt real fear.
Not fear of death.
Fear of the possibility that I would no longer know where I was.
The bird noticed.
Do not look for the way by means of distance. Remember where you wish to return.
I thought of the tree.
At that moment I felt it.
I did not see it clearly, but I knew it was there, the way a person knows where his home is even when he is far from it.
I continued.
We passed between layers of light that looked like transparent fog. Every so often large shapes appeared around us, some resembling clouds and others structures made of thin lines of light.
And then I heard the sound of water.
I was surprised.
I saw no river.
The sound grew stronger, and after it came the smell of wet earth.
The smell was so familiar that for a moment I forgot where I was.
I saw myself as a little girl, standing barefoot in a yard after the rain.
The picture was clear.
I felt the cool earth beneath my feet, the mud between my toes and the damp air on my face.
I smiled.
But then I noticed something that did not belong to the memory.
At the edge of the yard stood a tree with silver leaves.
I stopped.
There was no such tree in the yard of my childhood.
I knew that with certainty.
And yet, within the picture, it looked as if it had always stood there.
I reached a hand toward it.
The yard vanished.
I found myself again in the space of lights.
"What was that?" I asked.
The bird came closer.
What did you see?
I told her.
She was silent.
"It was not a real memory," I said. "I remember the yard, but there was no such tree in it."
Are you sure?
"Yes."
Then you already know that what you experience is not necessarily an accurate description of what took place.
I remembered the Entity of Memory.
She had taught me that memory is not the past itself, but the way consciousness rebuilds it again and again.
But now there was something more troubling in it.
If I could see, inside a familiar memory, something that was never there, how would I know which of the sights to come would be real?
"Are you leading me to a place where I will see things that did not happen?"
I am leading you to a place where experiences are kept. Not all of them belong to you.
I looked at her.
"Then why did I feel that I was that little girl?"
Because your consciousness is still learning to distinguish between an experience it absorbs and an experience it remembers.
I did not like the answer.
It was too logical, and still it did not calm me.
We continued moving.
The lights around us grew fewer and fewer, until before us appeared a dark, vast space.
Within it floated thousands of transparent spheres.
Some were small as drops of water; others were so large I could not see their edges.
Inside each of them, pictures moved.
I saw a stormy sea, forests, cities, animals, stars, strange creatures.
The spheres were not arranged in rows. They moved slowly, drew close to one another and moved apart, and at times passed through one another without breaking.
I felt as if I had arrived inside an enormous thought.
"What is this place?"
Here traces of experiences are kept.
"Whose?"
Many beings'.
I drew close to one of the spheres.
Inside it I saw a woman sitting by a window, holding a baby.
She looked very tired.
The baby was asleep.
The woman looked at him for a long time, and then began to cry quietly.
I felt her love.
It was so strong that I could almost sense it in the body I no longer had.
And then something else reached me.
Fear.
Not fear of something that had happened, but of all the things that might happen to the child in the future.
I recoiled.
"I feel what she felt."
Yes.
"But I do not know her."
You do not need to know a person in order to sense something of their experience.
I looked at the sphere again.
The woman kissed the baby's forehead.
I understood how little of her experience was visible to the eye.
Someone standing beside her at that moment might have seen only a tired mother holding her child.
But inside her there existed a whole world.
I continued moving among the spheres.
In some of them I saw creatures that did not resemble human beings. In one of them I felt a consciousness existing inside a deep sea, with no eyes and no limbs I could identify. It knew its surroundings through tiny changes in the movement of the water.
For a moment I experienced the world in its way.
There were no colors.
There were no shapes as I knew them.
And yet, I knew where other creatures were, where the cold waters flowed and where a warm current rising from the depths of the earth began.
When I moved away, I remained stunned.
"All my life I thought the world looked the way I see it."
The bird hovered at my side.
The world is not limited to the ways in which one creature is able to sense it.
I thought of the animals on Earth.
Of bats, fish, insects and birds.
How many different worlds exist in the same place, only because each creature experiences it through different senses?
And now, when I was no longer dependent on the five senses I had known, the possibility opened before me of experiencing creation in ways I could not have imagined.
I felt excitement.
But then I heard the voice.
Continue.
I stopped.
The voice was the same voice I had heard beside the Tree of Eternity.
It came from within the depths of the space.
The bird turned at once.
I felt her alertness.
"Is he here?" I asked.
Yes.
"Who is he?"
She did not answer.
The voice was heard again.
She is still afraid.
This time I felt that he was not addressing me.
He was speaking to the bird.
She has reason to be afraid, she replied.
I looked at her in surprise.
This was the first time I heard an exchange of thoughts between them.
She chose the fruit, said the voice. She is entitled to know.
The bird did not answer.
I felt anger beginning to rise in me.
"I am right here," I said. "You can speak to me."
The silence returned.
And then one of the large spheres began moving toward me.
It was almost completely transparent, but inside it I saw a silver light.
As it came closer, I noticed movement.
A bird.
The silver bird.
She stood on a wide branch of a tree I did not know.
Beside her stood a figure.
I came closer.
The figure was tall, slender, and had no clear body. It looked as if a gentle light had gathered into a human form.
I could not see its face.
And yet, something in it aroused a strange feeling in me.
It was familiar to me.
Not the way a person is familiar to me because I have met him before.
But as if I knew the way in which it thought.
I tried to come closer still.
Suddenly I felt a sharp movement.
I was no longer outside the sphere.
I stood inside it.
I was in a very quiet place.
There was no sun in it, but the light was soft and bright.
Beneath me spread a wide surface that looked like white stone, and beyond it grew a tree with silver leaves.
The bird stood on one of its branches.
I came closer to her.
"Do you know this place?" I asked.
She looked at me.
Yes.
But her voice was different.
It sounded familiar, and yet it was not exactly the voice I had heard throughout the journey.
I looked around me.
"Where am I?"
In a place from which one can set out on many roads.
I felt that I knew that sentence.
I did not know from where.
The bird came down from the branch and stood before me.
Are you still willing to go out?
I stopped.
"Go out where?"
To human life.
I looked at her.
For a moment I did not understand the words.
And then I saw my hand.
It was not my human hand.
It had no fingers, no skin or nails.
In fact, I had no hand at all.
I saw only light moving in the place where I expected to see it.
I looked down.
I had no body.
And yet, I was there.
I felt that I was thinking, remembering and wanting.
But I could not recall who I had been before that moment.
The bird came closer.
You know you will not be able to take with you everything you know here.
I felt a slight fear.
"Why?"
Because the life you wish to enter is experienced through a body, time and a limited memory.
"And I will forget?"
You may not remember this place.
I looked at the silver tree.
The leaves moved in a wind I did not feel.
"And you?" I asked.
What about me?
"Will I remember you?"
The bird was silent.
And then I felt from her something I had not experienced before.
Sadness.
Not a great sadness, but something finer.
Like longing for something that has not yet been lost.
Perhaps you will not remember me as you know me now.
I looked at her for a long time.
"Then how will I know you were here?"
She came a little closer.
Perhaps one day you will see a bird, or a tree, or a certain light, and feel there is something familiar in them. Perhaps you will ask a question and not know where it came from. I cannot promise you that you will remember.
I felt that I stood before an important decision.
But I did not know which.
The bird turned her head toward a space that opened beyond the tree.
Within it, sights appeared.
A blue sea.
Mountains.
Cities.
People's faces.
I saw a baby born, a child learning to walk, a woman laughing, an old man looking at the sunset.
I saw love, anger, loneliness, joy.
I saw pain too.
Hospitals.
Partings.
Graves.
I looked at the bird.
"Is all of this waiting for me?"
These are some of the things that can happen in a human life.
"And I will not know in advance what will happen?"
No.
I looked at the sights again.
They changed rapidly.
I felt enormous curiosity.
I wanted to know how cold water feels on skin.
How laughter sounds when you have ears.
How love feels when it is bound to a particular person, to particular faces, to a particular voice.
I wanted to know what it means to be hungry, tired, happy.
Even fear made me curious.
And then I asked:
"Why would anyone want to leave a place like this in order to live a life that has an end?"
The bird looked at me.
I cannot answer for the will of everyone.
"And for my will?"
That too you will have to understand by yourself.
I looked again at the space.
For a moment I saw a woman holding a child in her arms.
She kissed his forehead.
I felt something I did not know how to identify.
Longing.
A desire to be there.
Not only to watch life.
To live it.
The bird came closer.
Are you ready to set out on the journey to human life?
I wanted to answer.
But before I could, another voice was heard.
Do not answer yet.
The light around me changed.
The bird turned sharply.
From within the space appeared the same presence I had heard before.
I did not see its form.
But I felt it approaching.
There is something she must know, it said.
The bird spread her wings.
Not now.
If she leaves without knowing, she may not remember why she asked to return.
I felt fear.
"Return where?" I asked.
No answer came.
The light grew stronger.
The silver tree began to recede.
I stretched out my hand — or what I thought was my hand — toward the bird.
"Wait!"
She tried to come closer to me.
Do not be afraid.
"What am I supposed to remember?"
The distant voice was heard once more.
The promise.
And then everything vanished.
I found myself again among the transparent spheres.
The silver bird hovered before me.
I felt as if I had fallen from an enormous height, even though I had no body that could fall.
I tried to concentrate.
The space around me was steady, but inside me a storm was raging.
"What did I just see?" I asked.
The bird did not answer at once.
"Was that me?"
What did you feel?
"That I was there. Not only that I saw the place. I felt that I was the one standing before you."
That feeling is real.
"But is the memory real?"
She was silent.
I felt anger.
"You cannot lead me to a place like this, show me myself before birth, and then tell me you do not know."
I did not say I know nothing. I said you must distinguish between what you experienced and what you can conclude from it.
I looked at the sphere.
The picture inside it had changed.
Now I saw only the silver tree.
"So perhaps it is another consciousness," I said. "Perhaps I felt her memory as if it were mine."
That is a possibility.
"And perhaps it really was me."
That too is a possibility.
"Then how will I know?"
The bird came closer.
Not every question is resolved at the moment it is born.
I wanted to argue.
But then I remembered something else.
"The voice said something about a promise."
The bird froze in her place.
I felt at once that this word had changed something.
"What promise?"
She did not answer.
"A promise I made?"
Silence.
"To whom?"
For a moment I thought she was about to move away.
But instead she descended to a small sphere that hovered beneath us.
There are memories that do not disappear because they were forgotten, she said at last. At times they are simply not accessible to consciousness as it exists at that stage.
"Are you saying I can remember?"
Perhaps.
"And do you know what I promised?"
The bird looked at me.
I know there was a promise.
I felt the space around me contracting.
"So you really did know me before I was born?"
She did not turn her gaze away.
I knew a consciousness that was ready to set out into a human life.
"And that consciousness was me?"
She was silent for a long time.
And then she answered:
That is exactly the question you must learn to ask.
I felt frustration.
But beneath it another thought began to awaken.
If my consciousness existed before birth, what does that mean for everything I thought about life?
Was the body my beginning, or only the way in which I experienced a certain chapter of my existence?
And if I existed before, why did I remember nothing?
Was the forgetting part of the very possibility of truly living a human life?
I thought of my children.
Of the day they were born.
Of the first time I held them.
Until now I had seen in those moments the beginning of their lives.
And suddenly a question arose in me whose implications I did not want to rush to accept.
Were they too something before they were born?
Does every person carry within him a past he does not remember?
Or am I simply trying to turn one mysterious experience into an explanation of all creation?
I remembered what I had learned beside the Tree of Eternity.
Knowledge is not wisdom.
And the fact that I experienced something does not guarantee that I understood it.
I looked at the bird.
"I do not want to believe in something only because it is wondrous."
I felt from her a kind of satisfaction.
Good.
"I want to know if it is real."
Then you will have to investigate.
I looked around me.
The thousands of spheres continued moving quietly.
Suddenly the whole place looked different to me.
Before, I had seen in it a wondrous collection of experiences.
Now I understood that it could also be a dangerous place for one who seeks answers.
One could enter another's experience and feel it as if it were your own.
One could see a picture and build an entire story around it.
One could fall in love with an explanation only because it gives meaning to something you did not understand.
I had to learn to distinguish.
But before I could ask how, one of the distant spheres began to glow.
The light inside it was dark red.
It moved toward us rapidly.
The bird turned.
Move away from it.
"Why?"
This is not a place you should enter now.
But the sphere was already close.
Inside it I saw a vast space, almost empty.
In its center stood a figure.
It was alone.
Around it moved faint lights, as if small stars were going out one after another.
I drew closer without intending to.
I felt from it something I did not know.
Not fear.
Not sadness.
Loneliness.
A loneliness so deep that I felt as if it stretched beyond any time I was capable of imagining.
The figure raised its head.
I saw no face.
But I knew it was aware of me.
And then a thought was heard.
You came back.
The bird positioned herself between us.
Do not come closer.
I looked at her.
"Who is that?"
The figure inside the sphere began to move.
The red light spread.
For a moment I felt it was trying to reach me, not by movement, but by the very thought of me.
You do not remember me, it said.
I felt a tremor in my consciousness.
"No."
But I remember you.
The bird spread her wings.
The sphere stopped.
For a moment it seemed as if two invisible forces were holding it in place.
And then the figure said something that froze me.
You promised you would not leave me here.
The red light faded all at once.
The sphere moved away and vanished among the thousands of other spheres.
I remained without movement.
The bird folded her wings slowly.
I felt she was making an effort.
"What was that?" I asked.
She did not answer.
"Who is there?"
An ancient consciousness.
"Why does it know me?"
I do not know what it remembers of you.
"But it said I promised it something."
I heard.
I looked at the place where the sphere had vanished.
"It was alone."
Yes.
"How long?"
The bird was silent.
"How long has it been there?" I repeated.
Longer than your human life can help you imagine.
I felt sadness.
And fear too.
If a consciousness can exist forever, can it remain alone for an entire eternity?
Can it lose its connection to everything else?
And if so, what distinguishes a life of eternity from a loneliness without end?
I looked at the bird.
"I want to know who it is."
I know.
"And I want to understand what I promised it."
The bird came closer to me.
If you keep seeking the answer, you may discover things that do not fit what you believe about yourself.
I felt the meaning of the warning.
All my life I had known myself through my family, my memories, the choices I made and the things I learned.
Now before me stood the possibility that a past I do not know exists within me.
A past that perhaps is not mine at all.
Or a past that is mine, but which I am not yet able to understand how.
I did not know which of the possibilities frightened me more.
I looked again at the space of spheres.
"Then let us start finding out," I said.
The bird did not move.
"But this time I do not want only to see what I am shown. I want to learn how to know what I am seeing."
She spread her wings.
Then it is time you met those who live here.
"Are there others here?"
Many.
"And can they help me?"
Some of them. Others will try to convince you of things they themselves believe. You will have to learn to distinguish.
She began moving toward a wide opening that appeared at the edge of the space.
I followed her.
As we drew closer, I heard more and more voices.
Not singing as in the cave.
Conversations.
Laughter.
Thoughts that met and parted.
I felt the presence of many beings, different from one another, each of them carrying a whole world of experiences.
Beyond the opening, a broad light began to be revealed.
And within it, in the distance, I saw enormous structures floating among the branches of the Tree of Eternity.
Thin bridges of light connected them.
Consciousnesses moved from place to place.
Some were surrounded by shapes that looked like bodies, and others moved as free lights.
I stood in the opening and looked at the new world.
After everything I had seen since I bit into the fruit, this was the first time I felt I was about to enter a place where one can live.
Not only learn.
Not only observe.
Live.
The bird stopped at my side.
Welcome to the City of Consciousnesses.
I looked at the structures, the lights and the beings moving among them.
And then, just before we entered, a thought arose in me that I could not push away.
If the memory I had seen was real, and if I once chose to go out into human life, perhaps I did not come to the Tree of Eternity in order to begin a new existence.
Perhaps I returned to an existence I had known and forgotten.
But then I remembered the lonely figure, the red light and the words it said to me.
You promised you would not leave me here.
I looked at the city.
At all the consciousnesses that had lived in it for periods I could not imagine.
And I understood that the most important question was no longer only who I had been before I was born.
But what I had done then, and why someone still waits for me to keep a promise I do not remember making.
End of Chapter Nine
↑ Book index · עברית · ← Chapter Eight — What Else Do I Not Remember About Myself · Chapter Ten — The City Where There Is No Death →
