So it happened one day that Hillel left his body and went to Heaven. Hillel looked down from Heaven and saw among the many gathered at his funeral those who had loved him dearly, his immediate family, to those whose lives, in one way or another, had been touched, perhaps through his inspiration or his smile, leaving them a warm feeling in their hearts. It was a big crowd and looking down, Hillel was amazed at how many people he had touched.
There were also many who had showed up to pay their respects who were doing what they thought was the “right” thing to do. “Who are they here for? Their peers? Their community?” Hillel wondered, as they clearly weren’t there for him. Hillel thought that it was sad that these people showed up to his funeral to play sad when they could be at home with their families playing love, something that he deemed of much greater value than making an appearance. He wished for them to discover sooner than later the heart beneath all the posturing.
“…An adored coach, gym teacher, a loving husband, father and grandfather…” Those were the last words that he heard as the funeral scene faded and he shifted his awareness to where he was now, not on earth in a box…but in Heaven.
It looked white and puffy and vast, just like he had heard about in all the tales that he never believed. He was alone and he didn’t have any map or rulebook or instructions on how to go to where he needed to go, like he had relied upon down on earth, but he just placed an intention in his heart and started to walk. And in very little time he found himself approaching a large group of souls who were sitting around an etheric harp where an angel was playing beautiful music.
After a few minutes listening to the angel’s fingers dance along the strings, he thought to himself, “If I have to listen to this for eternity, I am going to be bored stiff!” A moment of doubt crept into him and suddenly he thought that maybe a life in a box was better than a life of eternal harping.
He walked off from the crowd, who seemed entranced and delighted by the angel’s music and found himself to be once again walking alone. He continued to walk and suddenly saw he was approaching another group of souls who were dipping brushes into buckets containing iridescent colored paint and making bold strokes on their blank canvases, as if each soul was her own personal Picasso.
As Hillel entered the crowd, he found a bucket of paint and a stool and a blank canvas in front of him. Examining the paint, it seemed to be the clear color of water and he thought, “Now who do I have to speak to in order to get some colored paint around here?” He sat for a few more minutes, or so he guessed, as time was not quite the same here as on earth, where everything seemed to have a schedule and it seemed like everything on the schedule for today needed to be accomplished yesterday and that you were always chasing behind the schedule, desperately trying to catch up to it, and for most people the “To Do” List only burst into flame and turned to ash when they were finally placed in a box and lowered into the ground.
He asked the man next to him where he could get some colored paint. The man said, “My friend, you are welcome to dip your brush into my bucket and take however much of my sky blue paint as you want. These buckets are magical and the paint never seems to run down or dry.” Hillel thanked the man but, at the moment, sky blue didn’t excite him the way it seemed to excite the man by his side, who was painting in broad strokes as if he were in Heaven. “Oh wait, he is,” thought Hillel. “But so am I and while I am surprised and excited to be able to continue on beyond the capacity of my body, so far this doesn’t feel so ‘Heavenly’ to me.”
Hillel thought that perhaps he could search everyone’s bucket for the color of his desire but there could be millions of people here and that not only was he not sure he would find the color of his choice but he wasn’t sure that if he did he even cared to paint with it. He supposed this was better than sitting idly listening to angel music but was this really his eternity?
Finally Hillel resigned his desire to control the situation and decided that he would decorate his canvas with the clear paint and just imagine that it was his favorite color: a deep grass green. He dove his brush into the bucket and when he passed the bristles of his brush over the blank canvas, in its wake was the very grass green color that he had wanted! He painted some grass, which he used to joke to his children and grandchildren was his only artistic talent, but soon found himself done with painting green grass.
He dove his brush back into the bucket and imagined a golden yellow to add some bright flowers to his field of grass. And golden yellow sprinkled his field and he found himself absorbed in his creation: a grand blue sky…majestic red rock mountains…a quiet green-brown lake with a duck with spots on her tail swimming peacefully, her small ducklings in close formation behind. Hillel realized that it was a mistake to seek to acquire color from anyplace outside of himself.
When he finished his masterpiece he felt something was missing. Without sharing his beauty, what was the point of even creating? He got the attention of the people next to him who looked at his work and smiled and nodded, but still he felt an emptiness, that while they shared his art with their eyes, they were too busy creating their own expressions to really fully dive into the his piece with any depth.
He imagined how his grandchildren would love to play in the thick green grass with the golden yellow flowers under the grand blue sky framed by the majestic red rock mountains and swim in the green-brown lake with the ducks. Suddenly he saw his painting come alive! His grandchildren were running through the grass. The boys were racing each other towards the lake. Two girls were gathering flowers, creating their own bouquets. The other two girls were swimming in the lake, looking like two misfit ducklings as they followed behind the mother duck and her offspring. His creation moved beyond the technical; it was now filled with existence.
Hillel watched the boys and girls play until the sun set down behind the red rock mountains and their parents came to take them home, leaving the picture closer to its original image. He watched the peaceful scene with a calm smile on his face. It was no longer just a frozen picture of nature but now contained the invisible presence of his swirling, playful grandchildren. Hillel felt this peace in his heart and by the time he was ready to move to his next adventure, he left the painting on its rack and took only its essence with him. And it was enough.
As he walked from the group of painters, he entered into the quiet alone space once again. He started to have a sense that time was not measured here with clocks or watches but with events and desires. One didn’t plan by the clock to listen to music now and then paint right afterwards and then—whatever happened next. Nor was one inclined to place them in a linear order in order to make their retelling later that much more simple, “First I listened to some music…and then I painted a canvas…and then…” One just was and what one did just happened.
He thought back to life on earth and how so much—from dinners to theater—was planned out at the start of the day, or at the start of the week or concerning bigger plans, like a vacation, bar mitzvah or wedding, even months or years in advance. One was one big scheduled DO-ing when he was supposed to be a spontaneous BE-ing. Earth had been populated with human BE-ings and yet it seemed to have de-evolved into a planet of human DO-ings. Somewhere along the way the painting took on a coloration that was not designed by the Creator. And while like his own painting it moved from stagnancy into movement, somehow the movement seemed to be gas-guzzling the fuel of Life Force Energy and soon everyone seemed to be moving with purpose but without passion.
He wondered what earth would have been like if everyone didn’t complete their Life Novel on the day that some good-meaning teacher or parent told them that it was time they started taking their life seriously and made some decisions about which direction they would walk and what they would do when they arrived, but instead allowed Life to just happen on its own…to eat when one was done playing and not because the clock said it was 6:00.
Walking alone allowed Hillel the opportunity to reflect on his past incarnation in human form and his current situation in Heaven and to gain a true understanding of Who He Was. The time alone for self-reflection allowed him to assimilate all that he was experiencing on his own, without someone else interpreting it for him and thereby changing it.
But, as if there was a dark cloud looming above, there was an overriding feeling of a lurking gloom, and he wondered whether the sun would ever fully bathe him with its illuminating warmth. His question turned to hopelessness, which turned to fear, and soon the dark cloud blocked all visible light and Hillel could see nothing but only hear the grumblings of the storm it contained. Perhaps out of habit, he started to run but soon realized there was no place to run to where the cloud of his creation would not cover him and so he dropped to his knees and prayed. Well, sort of.
Hillel never believed in God while he was in body and he still wasn’t convinced there was a Divine Creator. All his prayer really consisted of was one phrase: “I want to know!” and that was enough. You see, on earth people think that it is the wording that’s important but, as Hillel was starting to fully understand, the intention was the power that, like the playing grandchildren, turned a dead painting into a living BE-ing.
And then Hillel heard a voice. He wasn’t sure if it was coming from outside of himself or inside, or whether there was even an outside or inside to his Self. He also wasn’t sure if it was a God other than himself or if it was his own inner God that was speaking, or whether there was even a difference. Rather than seeking answers, he dissolved the questions altogether, for he realized these questions would only lead to more questions and would only serve to lead him more distant from true Knowing, from his Self.
His Heaven had started from expectation, taking form from the stories he had heard of angels and harps and music. But this was not where he chose to reside. He was given an opportunity to see through painting that he could create whatever art he would like to see, whether on an etheric canvas or the canvas of his life. He discovered that creating a personal masterpiece comes from filling one’s life with love and not just appointments, activities and obligations. And it was clear to him that his life in body, as well as his life in spirit, was his own—that he was the God of his creation.
He reflected back to his life in body and thought to how many DO-ings he had been involved with that were created by others, whether the imaginary God of Responsibility and Duty, or the equally imaginary God of Need. He reflected that while he did make choices all of his life, that it wasn’t until his later years that he realized what was truly important to him—his family—and how everything else paled in brilliance to the feeling he got when he was with them.
And with that he found himself on what appeared to be an outdoor basketball court, the blacktop heating up under the bright golden sun, which hovered in a clear blue sky. The white lines of the court painted but not perfect…but alas, they were perfect. Looking down at his feet, he saw a basketball that was slightly worn but also perfect in its imperfection.
He bent down and picked it up and started to dribble towards the basket. He did a spin move, pulled up and hit a jump shot from the edge of the key. SWISH!
“Beautiful shot, my son,” he heard from behind him and he snapped around to see his father sitting on the first row of a stand to the side of the court.
“Dad! I can’t believe it’s you!” said Hillel.
“Of course it’s me. I wouldn’t miss my son hitting his first jump shot in Heaven, now, would I?”
And Hillel ran to his father and as he threw his arms around the this man that he thought he’d never have the opportunity to hug again, he felt like a little child in his father’s big arms, even though now they were now both men. Hillel didn’t know how long he hugged his father, as there is no place to be in Heaven but the present.
“Dad, do you want to take me to the rest of the family that’s here?”
“In a minute I’ll take you to the others,” said his father. “What’s the rush? We have all the time in the world for that. Right now my only desire is to watch my son play some ball, something I didn’t make the time to do when I was in body and something that I’ve been wishing to see for what seems like an eternity.”
And with that Hillel realized that in some strange, intricate way, they were all Creators bringing to life their own personal creations and that the only difference between being in Heaven or on earth is that most BE-ings on earth have gotten so caught up in DO-ing and SEEK-ing and WORK-ing that they have forgotten about LIVE-ing and CREATE-ing and just BE-ing; that they are each Gods onto themselves and their creations are their own.
And with that last thought, Hillel released his father’s soft yet strong body and, fueled by the excitement of a child, he ran to the basketball, picked it up, did a few dribble moves, some shoulder fakes and sent up a hook shot that went…SWISH!
“Life happens; it has nothing to do with doing.”
—Osho, Nirvana: the last nightmare (p. 270)