“Awakening is not a thing. It is not a goal, not a concept. It is not something to be attained. It is a metamorphosis. If the caterpillar thinks about the butterfly it is to become, saying ‘And then I shall have wings and antennae,’ there will never be a butterfly. The caterpillar must accept its own disappearance in its transformation. When the marvelous butterfly takes wing, nothing of the caterpillar remains.” ― Alejandro Jodorowsky
I’ve been thinking about his passage ever since I read it some days ago and it’s been stirring in my brain some rather unusual thoughts. I’ve been thinking about life, about death and about what lies beyond. I’ve connected the quote above to the quote in 1 John
“We are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.” [1 John 3:2]
I’ve been caught by the idea, “what we will be has not yet been revealed.” What we know now is not necessarily what we will experience then. Death will be an awakening of sorts, a coming to our senses if you will when we will smack our foreheads and say, “I should have known.” Most of the discussion about the after life is about how much it will be like this life, only more of the good stuff. But what if it’s fundamentally different? There isn’t much description of heaven in the Bible precisely because words are are not sufficient to describe it. Heaven is as different from earth as the womb is different from a vacation at the ocean or skiing down the Rocky Mountains. Exhilaration, Exhuberance and Harmony. How do you compare these two world?
Trying to rationalize good behavior in this life will lead to good eternal life may be missing the point entirely. Trusting in God, putting our full trust in Him and His values, are essential to survive in the world into which we will be born.
It is an Awakening!
