Inner Practice: We Will See Each Other Again
In the days before there were reliable aircraft, people would travel from continent to continent on huge passenger liners.
When the ship was about to cast off, the passengers would line the ship’s decks, next to the pier on which stood their relatives and friends. As the steam horn sounded the departure, those on board and those on land waved, blew kisses and shouted their last goodbyes as the ship slowly moved away. Soon, the ship was too far away for those on the pier to distinguish who was who in the grey mass of passengers still standing on the decks, but they still would wave and gaze. A few minutes later, the boat was too far away to see even the mass that was the passengers, but still the loved ones would remain on the pier staring at the ever diminishing ship.
Then the boat would reach the line of the horizon, and disappear. Yet, even though the relatives and friends on dry land could not see their loved ones anymore, let alone speak with them or touch them, they knew that they had not disappeared totally. They had just gone over a line, the horizon line that separates us from what is beyond. They knew that they would see each other again.
The same happens when our loved ones die. If we are lucky, we are by their bedside, embracing them and saying our last goodbyes. Then they sail off into the ocean that is death. They fade away from us. Finally they reach the horizon, the line that separates this life from what is beyond. After they have passed that line, we cannot see them anymore, let alone speak to them or touch them, but we know that they have not totally disappeared. They have just gone over a line - death - that separates us from what is beyond.
We will see each other again.
