Heaven In Hell

(Free Article)

Hell looks like many things to many people. For me it looks like a trip to Costco.

My wife and I make the hour-long drive to the closest Costco once every couple of months. It’s something we both would rather avoid doing if we could, but also know that it is the only place one can buy certain bulk items at affordable prices (toilet paper, paper towels, cooking oil and such) while we reserve most of our grocery shopping for local markets or purchase directly from farmers in the area.

If asked to describe what it is that I so detest about going to Costco, I’d be hard-pressed to put my finger on it. Perhaps it is the miasma of desperation that hangs in the air like swamp gas, poisoning the patrons’ minds and turning them into a mob of cart-pushing undead. Every Costco I have ever been to has certainly carried the aura of a controlled zombie apocalypse. Costco, for me, is the crucible in which our toxic consumerist values are forged. It is the hospice which provides palliative care for our withering souls.

But this article is not about my hatred for this dystopian establishment. It is about what happened to me there today…

Before I begin, however, I want to rewind two weeks earlier to an evening when I was lying on my back in a state of deep trance under the guidance of a close friend and clinical hypnotherapist. This was the third session I had ever done with him (the first being nearly a year ago, which I wrote about in my April 19, 2023 post Elixir). Because I am an experienced meditator, entering into the trance state takes a matter of seconds whereas for the layman it might take up to thirty minutes under guidance by the hypnotherapist to bring them there, depending on their own internal and egoic resistance.

As with the first two sessions, this session was profound and revelatory . But its true potency lay in the aftermath of what has since resulted in the subsequent two weeks. What brought me to undergo hypnosis again was a deep feeling of ‘stuckness’ I had been experiencing for the past 9 months in my work life. As many of you are aware, I was laid off last autumn although the experience was more of a relief than a disappointment when it happened. The truth is I had been feeling for some time like there was some significant piece missing from my perspective on my own life. A blind spot I’ve carried for a very long time that I had always managed to ignore or work around but that I could no longer avoid. It was as if life was finally forcing me to confront it head on. And it felt fucking uncomfortable.

I reached out to my friend and told him, “there’s something that I just can’t see. It’s like there is this opaque spot in my vision that I can’t penetrate. And I feel it is something subconscious that is blocking me right now. I can’t get at it with my conscious mind.”

As I sank into the trance state, he asked if there was any part of my subconscious that wanted to speak to me, that felt it needed to communicate something. To my utter astonishment, an image of my late grandmother came surging to the forefront of my mind’s eye - so vivid, so high in resolution that I struggled to believe she wasn’t standing in front of me. I could see the detail on the embroidery of the casual sari she would often wear at home. I could smell the sandalwood soap on her skin and the scent of jasmine flowers in her hair. She wore a pained expression on her face - an expression of angst and worry.

She spoke to me without moving her lips and I conveyed what she was saying to my friend. She said she had been with me ever since she passed away nearly twenty years ago in a car accident in which my aunt and cousin also died. She said she was worried about those of us she had left behind. She felt responsible for the pain we had been caused and she had stayed behind to watch us. But, most of all, she stayed with me because she knew I hadn’t forgiven her.

Upon hearing that, my body was seized by the most deep, racking grief and I sobbed uncontrollably. For I realized, in that moment, that I had never grieved for my grandma. In the chaos that followed that fateful car accident 20 years ago, my family members and I had diverted our attention away from the shocking grief of the carnage towards the sole surviving member of the crash, my own sister, who had spent the next two months in intensive care, fighting for her life. And eventually when we did grieve - we did so mostly for my cousin who was taken only at 29 years of age and my aunt who was only 56. My grandmother (we perhaps rationalized in an attempt to spare our own fragile hearts) had lived a full life after all.

But I personally had borne a resentment towards her that wouldn’t allow me to grieve. For, although I had loved her dearly in my childhood and she had been gentle and kind to me, that changed when I was sent to live with her as a teenager, by my parents. Looking back now, perhaps it was because she felt a sense of responsibility towards raising me that she hadn’t felt before - perhaps it was the sudden challenge of having to turn a wayward adolescent into a man - but my grandmother turned into a strict and authoritative figure overnight from the kind and nurturing person she used to be. And I rebelled against her authority with every ounce and fiber of my being.

Every day was a battle of wills, of egos, of personalities between us. Both of us were powerful and explosive personas. You know what they say about when an irresistible force meets an immovable object… that was my grandma and I. Yet, there were many nights she would creep into my room thinking I was asleep (particularly after we had had a nasty fight) and she would sit softly by the side of my bed and stroke my hair gently with her hand and hum a lullaby, just as she had done when I was a child.

I loved my grandma dearly - but that love grew buried over the years under egotism, resentment and indignation. And when she died - all those unresolved feelings became frozen in time and were buried even deeper within my subconscious, unbeknownst to me.

And yet…in that moment when she stood in front of me, while I lay in trance, the pent up grief of two decades came crashing over me like a dam released. And as my body convulsed with violent sobs, something else emerged within me that I haven’t felt since I was a child. I felt this aura of the most intense love for her. The way I used to love her.

I enveloped her petite 5 foot-frame in my arms, holding her tight, and she cradled into them like a child. I smelled the jasmine in her hair. She looked up at me and smiled that smile of hers that could melt hearts. And I said to her,

“It’s time for you to go now. Go into the light. You are not needed here anymore. I love you and release you from all your responsibility towards me. You do not need my forgiveness but I forgive you anyway. Thank you for your love, for your sacrifice. I love you. I will always love you.” (Even as I write this my screen has gone blurry again because my eyes keep welling with tears at the memory …)

And she looked at me hesitant and confused for a moment. But I smiled at her and gestured reassuringly to her to go onwards. And she walked towards a pale light in the distance, looking back at me once or twice to smile. Until she became just a faded silhouette against the pale light. Then vanished.

Since that cathartic moment - I have felt a profound shift of energy in my life. When I sit to meditate now, my awareness is effortlessly clear and I am effortlessly present. Though nothing has changed in my circumstances around my unemployment, the fear and stress that I have been feeling on a near daily basis are gone. Instead, I find myself infused with a joy and curiosity for the world once again that I haven’t felt in a long time. It has felt like waking up from a deep stupor…

Which brings me back to Costco.

As I entered the one place in the world I dread the most, earlier today, my wife informed me that she had to use the restroom. So, I stood by the Costco food court waiting while she went. And as I stood there, surveying the scene in front of me - hundreds of shoppers wearing dull or anxious expressions on their faces, jostling with their overflowing carts to try and get ahead of one another - something remarkable happened…

I suddenly saw “through” them. Their forms became transparent and within each individual I saw the most brilliant light shining through. On the surface, their faces appeared haggard or stressed or rushing or preoccupied - but inside they were blazing with the most phenomenal light. And watching them I felt my heart erupt with a profound love for each and every one of them - no matter what they looked like. Their forms seemed like nothing more than silly costumes they had just put on to go shopping. But within, they were my kindred spirits. I had the most unmistakable feeling that I KNEW them. We were all the same.

I watched as my wife emerged from the restroom and busied herself looking at some products on shelves. And as I gazed at her, I saw something that I had always sensed intuitively, but now could see with my naked eyes - her immense and shining warrior spirit. I felt in awe and admiration of her and was overwhelmed by a newfound reverence for the pact we had made, to build this life together, as I (somehow) know we have done countless times before.

Standing there in the middle of the chaotic store, I felt completely redeemed.

I had found heaven in the midst of hell.