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This article was submitted by one of our correspondents who has been contributing to our magazine from behind bars. Despite remaining incarcerated, the author is actively engaging in meditation and striving to develop both equanimity and compassion.
Prisoners are the loneliest people on Earth.
We exist in the ghost realm between life and death.
To me, I am alive, but to you, I am dead and no longer exist.
So, how could I have any type of relationship with anyone? When a person dies, as time goes on, everyone forgets that you ever lived. How would it feel if you were still alive but everybody you ever knew acted as if you were not? What if you had to suffer through losing all of your so-called “friends” one after the other until there were none left? Is that how it feels to be a ghost? Screaming for someone to notice your existence but no one ever does. All we want is to be acknowledged and maybe even loved, but how could a ghost ever be?
We exist on the other side of a one-way mirror. Even if we succeeded in getting a message to you, it would be ignored, because we are dead. You would consider it pointless to respond when to us it would mean the world.
So, what are the hopeless, invisible ghost-people supposed to do?
We are expected to witness every emotion we ever had slowly die out like a tiny candle, until only freezing darkness is left. We are also expected to watch as our families slowly die one by one. When finally one day there is nothing left. Then we are truly alone. That is when our tortured soul dries up and turns to dust as it falls to the ground.
Only, this is not the end.
What is not expected of us is that, like a Phoenix, we shall rise again up out of the dirt where we were buried, to live again in the visible world, where we will now be seen clearly and heard loudly.
The day will come when you will look to us for strength and love. We will compassionately provide it to any and all humans and ghosts alike.
We suffer today so that we can be free tomorrow, full of loving kindness and wisdom.
From compost grows flowers and out of darkness comes light.
