Delta Life

Once upon a time, there was a little stone. In fact, it was not alone in being small! There were countless others like it. This one was called Mineral. Mineral was first born in a star. As Mineral grew to its adolescence, the mother star came abruptly to the end of its life. This was an extremely shocking event for Mineral. The mother star was not only a mother but also a home for Mineral. Like many other little stones, Mineral, too, questioned what happened to their mother, and why. Some of the little Stones talked about an afterlife, and said that their mother was invisible to them but it was, actually, in a different life. Mineral wanted to believe in this suggestion, because it loved the mother star so much that it could not imagine a life without her. Still, his belief in an invisible level of life did not enable a communication with the mom.

After this shocking event, Mineral grew to become an attractive grown up. Not only Mineral itself but also everyone around it appreciated this beauty. Soon, Mineral married to another stone. Together, they made such a nice couple that they were called The Crystalls. As a home, The Crystalls chose a planet that was called Earth. There, they joined a community of minerals. Their journey on Earth took them through numerous ups and downs of life. They had joyful moments at times and, at others, they had to undergo heavy burdens. They experienced the extreme cold and extreme hot… But they were always together. They witnessed all the beauties together, and faced the hardships together. After a long life, they started thinking about what is going to happen to them eventually. They remembered the mother star. Would they, too, just disappear without a return, or would their life journey carry a meaning beyond what they could see with their eyes? Was there a life for them after death? They could not accept that all the beauties and bonds they sipped throughout their lives did not have a continuity! All the heat of love and pressure of life they had experienced until then had to have a meaning!

The Crystalls pondered over how everything had started from a single particle. Wondering what was before that particle directed them to the story of that first particle in a life that is other than the current one. The tricky aspect of that story was that not a second mineral had experienced and returned from such a level of life. And yet, there were a lot of others who were unstoppably sliding towards the same end that is certain to come but that is uncertain in character. Did heat and pressure mean anything after death, did bonds with the loved ones warrant an eternal continuity? Or were they alone in this journey of existence without anyone hearing their cries for eternity? The last years of The Crystalls passed with such quests of a life beyond death. Eventually, they died with their questions. The pain of death engulfed their being as they separated from the rock they had inhabited for eons. Slowly, their bodies fell apart… They were washed by the tears shed from heavens, and were buried in the roots of a plant.

As The Crystalls’ fellow minerals were stressed by the grief of losing them, the fellows realized that this stress brought them one step closer to the same, unavoidable end. So, the fellow minerals started asking the same questions as The Crystalls did. They wished that their friends had found their answers and could share those with them! What the fellow minerals didn’t know was that the rock was actually swimming in an ocean of such answers; an ocean that was recognized by The Crystalls only after death.

After recovering from their initial shock of separation from the life they were used to, The Crystalls found themselves in a river of life along with other minerals who had died. As they all traveled in that river, they were washed out of their bodies and for the first time in their lives, they witnessed their real existence in awe. Wow! How big were they! How beautiful were they! And yes, the heat of love they had experienced in their first life did carry a meaning, because now they could experience heat in its pure and original form: light. The pressure of life they had endured before did transform to an incomparable beauty: flower. And the bonds with the loved ones did warrant a continuity, because what they had originally considered as the hands of death were nothing but the roots of plants and the rains from the sky inviting for reunion.