Found A Heaven In My Bed

Found A Heaven In My Bed

Pak Arif told me his dream,

“I dreamt I was in heaven. Some heaven dwellers welcomed me and asked whether I still remembered them. Certainly, I said. You are Foxy who has died. You are Benji and Chicko, my dogs who are still alive.”

“Yes, We were fated to be born as dogs.”

“And you are the Cerukcuk bird, who was despairing, as your nest fell down, since a part of the waringin branches had to be cut off.”

“And I’m the waringin tree my branches you wound.” Said another heavenly being. “Why didn’you have the nerve to protect me and ignore his claims that my fallen leaves would block his rain-drain?”

“I met my wife who eloped with another husband and many people who had deceived, cheated me, even the man who had murdered me. Strange as dreams are, how easy it was to forgive them. And as I met my many wives I had married,- I didn’t remember I had married so many women - I wondered, they aren’t jealous and didn’t quarrel.

“Conscious (in heaven) that we were just puppets in the hands of the great Dalang (puppeteer), we were unconscious, didn’t realize (on earth) that we were just puppets, but convinced, certain that we were not acting our roles or dreaming, but really living our lives.

“They welcomed me without hate, jealousy, without loving, feeling, since in heaven there is no difference between man and woman anymore, no relation of parents and children,, no difference between man, animal, plant, there’s no time and space, no night and day. In His eyes, we were all equal, alike.

“Then I awoke. How happy I was, I wasn’t murdered and still alive. I reached, touched beside me. Oh what a relief, my wife was still sleeping at my side peacefully. How nice and happy it was to be still living on earth. And I was grateful that I found a heaven in my bed at that time.

“Since that dream I’m more kind, more loving towards Benji, Chicko, to trees, plants, weeds and bibi our house-maid – ‘I sincerely hate her’ said my wife in jest, play – and the petroleum vendor, and all those people who are regarded as of the lower-class, in the opinion, eyes of the public.

“Sure, however easy it is to live for those who have freed, liberated themselves of desires, wishes, as those that are in heaven, I’m still thirsting after all human wants, needs, desires with all its joys, pleasures, pain, sorrow and sadness. I’m still drawn to ‘forbidden fruits’. Yet do I not want to exchange this life, so brief, yet so precious, with an eternal, peaceful, blissful life in heaven.”

So, pak Arif told me his thoughts.

August 1999