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108 SPIRIT AND THE MIND
I’ve always been so health conscious and I’ve never smoked. I see people who smoke packs of cigarettes a day with no trouble at all— why me? My white blood count has dropped; the chemotherapy has damaged my bone marrow, and the cancer is probably there too. I know I’m depressed, but I can’t get myself out of it. I know I won’t be alive much longer.”
Silence fell again in the room. My eyes moved slowly across it, observing the beautiful teak furniture, plush carpeting, the style and elegance of fine furnishings, architecture and design. Large windows overlooked a wooden deck and spacious open yard filled with flowers and trees. But the scene lacked joy. A dark shroud covered what had once been a garden of Eden.
Dr. K. stirred. Eyes moist and with a strained smile, he continued: “You know, Sam, lying here in the quiet, hour after hour, I don’t have much else to do but think—and read if I have the strength. The world looks very different from here. It’s so hard to appreciate how the world looks from the deathbed. When I was working, I dealt with death day in and day out, hour after hour. It was constantly before me, every minute a part of my work. But even though I dealt with it constantly, I never really saw it clearly. I never saw it the way I do now. It’s so real now, so present. So close—so frightening.”
Now face-to-face with the omnipresent death that can take any of us from this dream world forever, we stopped—mute. In this deafening silence, we stood open and vulnerable before the vast, awesome presence of a mystery beyond comprehension. Before this terrifying vision, all worldly realities dissolved. Only fear and stark questions remained. Where will I, myself, be going? Will I be no more; will I be lost in the void forever? What is this brief existence in consciousness? Is it a mistake, a meaningless chance occurrence? Where . . . where will I be going?
In this terrible trembling silence and in the midst of this open, suffering vulnerability, our souls met. “Sam, there are no answers left in this world. Do you think vibuthi would help?”