I thought long and hard about whether I should share the following real-life experience that paradoxically stems from a dream:
I dreamt that I had died and suddenly found myself in a place where it was night. Opposite me stood someone who looked like Christ, as we see Him in movies, like a simple man with only light surrounding Him.
He told me, “Look, you’ve died, but not completely. You will return to life for only one week.”
And indeed, I suddenly found myself alive again on Earth. But this time, knowing that my existence would not end after death, I began to view life differently.
Everything seemed funny to me — the world’s anxiety about survival and especially the obsession with acquiring, grabbing, sidelining others, trampling over people to win, dominate, and grow richer. I saw people who had hurt me in the past, but now they seemed amusing rather than angering me.
I found myself on a main avenue, and seeing people rushing about, I raised my arms, like some madman in the middle of the road, and started shouting hysterically while laughing: “Step on me! Push me! Hit me! CRUCIFY ME!”
And at that very word I shouted — “crucify” — I froze. Everything around me froze as well, as if the world had stopped because, at that moment, I got the answer to the question that had tormented me since childhood, a question no one could answer: Why did Christ have to sacrifice Himself to save the world? Was there no less fatal or painful way?
Now, not only did I have the answer, but I felt a profound satisfaction saturate every cell of my being, even in my sleep. I understood that through His self-sacrifice, Christ signaled the value of human life, which only has meaning when it is about giving. True life existed before and will exist after this one.
The morning I woke up, I vividly remembered the dream, which is rare for me, as I almost never recall my dreams. And I realized, with some emotion, that it was the dawn of Holy Monday.
I’m not religious; in fact, I consider myself an atheist, an agnostic, and a strict rationalist due to my profession and studies. Yet I’ve always believed that there was some sage whose teachings were exploited by the institution of the Church to gain worldly power.
I know the Christ I dreamt of wasn’t real; it was my mind deciding to answer the childhood question I subconsciously carried all these years.
Still, it seems that it doesn’t matter whether I believe or whether something exists. What matters is that from that day — last Holy Week — my life changed radically.
Since then, I don’t care about what I lose. I give more, I even let people take advantage of me, and at the same time, I observe the ingratitude and malice of those around me increase as I evolve into a better, more giving person.
And when, after successive blows, I thought it was foolish to continue this way simply because of a dream’s influence, I realized at that very moment that all this difficulty serves as a reward for my effort. It propels me deeper into the ecosystem of evil, allowing me to confront and laugh at its malicious ignorance.
Perhaps the battle for growth and expansion against the universe’s inherent entropic chaos manifests itself in calm, painful, and liberating Love. This love emerges through self-awareness within an advanced form of existence like the human being.
The parables and traditions of Christ, or whoever delivered them — such as “forgive them, for they know not what they do,” “let those with ears hear,” or “turn the other cheek” — suddenly made sense. The meaning of life, which one cannot grasp superficially, now resonated, though I had never understood it before.
Life is a wonderful thing, worth living without fear and false worries. Instead, it should be lived with the certainty with which birds embrace tomorrow, in accordance with another saying of Christ.
At this point, I remembered something a teacher once told me — a teacher who has since passed away and whom I had misunderstood so much. Yet he left me the following rhetorical question as a legacy: “My God, how do you keep the roof tiles in place without nails?”
At some point, suffering from doing good in return for others’ evil brings immense pleasure. Loving your neighbor gives you strength and protects you from everything that devours the foolish usurpers who hoard as many material goods as possible. These people fail to properly use them for what they are purposed to, they are tools of Love, meant to be shared and distributed fairly among all.
I think a religious fanatic in my place would believe a miracle occurred. But I prefer Shakespeare’s perspective: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.”
Am I afraid of death? Not anymore. Even though the week has passed, and I’m still alive, I know my mind reminded me how to spend each day and how to use it.
When you adopt a less selfish perspective on life, you realize it’s a precious opportunity to experience the unparalleled chance of overcoming the inevitable material temptations of the flesh to contribute to the completion of that unknown essence — what it is, what we are.
And for one more reason, I no longer fear death. Now, I have a friend out there — above or perhaps within me — who gives me answers and strength to continue facing life with joy and gratitude. My own, personal Jesus.
