It's Light and Takes Up No Space
Bernie Siegel
(excerpted from Prescriptions for Living)
What will we take with us on the ultimate journey? It's
fairly obvious that we cannot take material things with us
wherever we go. Just as airlines restrict your luggage and
the trunk of your car has a limited capacity, so, too, heaven has
space problems. Love is the only thing I know of that has an
unlimited capacity, is weightless and takes up no space.
I believe love does go with us wherever we go. It is the
one thing that is immortal and not limited by the physical body's
existence. When I say it goes where we go, I mean when our
bodies no longer exist our love continues on. Our love goes
with us wherever our spirit, soul and thoughts go, but it also
stays in the lives of those we have touched. Love is energy
and is not limited by the laws that apply to material things or
are associated with time. Thus you can take it with you and
at the same time leave it behind. Love is the bridge between
the land of the living and the land of the dead.
Best of all, perhaps, the love we leave behind remains strong
and can grow long after we are gone. In a study of Harvard
students, researchers found that of the students who described
their parents as loving, only twenty-nine percent suffered a
significant illness in the thirty-five years after leaving
school. Of the students who did not feel loved by their
parents, a remarkable ninety-eight percent had experienced a
significant illness in the same thirty-five years. The study
took into account other variables such as smoking, divorce, death
of a parent and so on.
We can give love and receive it, take it with us or leave it
behind. Love cultivates and sustains life and exerts its
effect long after we are gone. Love is like the light that
shines from a torch we hold aloft. It shines on what lies
ahead, what is at our side and what we have left behind. The
illuminating power of love doesn't defy the laws of physics -- it
made them.
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