By Banji Ayoola
It is abominable and immoral to go out with our departed friend’s wife or husband; to cast furtive glances at her or him; to even think of seducing her or him; to let our dirty thoughts hover around her or him; to harass or molest, or defile her or him with seductive, immoral thoughts or glances.
The consequences for us are so weighty, so grave. It is a shame and self curse.
First of the consequences is the disturbance it would cause you; the inner turmoil you would be subjected to; the storm that would rage within you if you ever allowed yourself to go as far as indulging physically in the immoral act. You would feel tortured and uneasy inwardly ever afterwards that you have betrayed a true friendship.
Know it that true friendship does not terminate at physical death. True friendship lives on even after physical separation or death of either of the friends.
The bond of special love, warmth and good volition which links two true friends, which is rare; the special feelings towards one another; the many enriching experiences, the jokes, the pains, the joys that have been mutually shared.
The rich and uncommon emotions shared; the fears, happiness, joys and sorrows shared together, the anxieties, the beautiful, the good, the bad and the ugly experiences shared together; the special solemn moments shared together.
The warm banters lovingly thrown at one another; the wild jokes; the quarrels which you settled in love; the rare intimacy you enjoyed with one another; the places and people you visited together; the sweet fond memories of people and places you both shared.
The pains, suffering and disappointments that you shared together; the happiness and joy you shared together; the joy you both gave your parents and relatives whenever they saw you together, or whenever you both visited each other’s home together; the glow on your and his or her mother’s eyes whenever either of them saw you together; the special care they lavished on you both; are all living and stored somewhere in the womb of time.
Though your departed friend has left the flesh; though he has dropped or exited the physical body he used while on earth; and is now in, or has now moved over to the other world, necessarily to continue his journey, as you too will eventually do one day; he continues living all the same. He is still alive.
He is still your neighbour whom you must be careful not to harm in whatever manner. He continues experiencing; he sees, although in a finer body, with finer eyes. The connection glows still. It still exists, although now in a finer form.
You still think warmly lovingly of him. You still often remember the warm moments you shared together. You still remember the experiences you both shared, joyful and sorrowful.
The rich experiences he or she shared with you are part of his or her cherished exclusive possessions that he or she has taken along. They are part of the wealth he or she has acquired on earth; which have enriched him or her; which have contributed to molding him or her into the present state of his or her maturity.
You have played an important part in his earth life. And he or she has done same in yours. And you are still needed to continue now to lovingly generate warm, helping, loving thoughts, wishes and prayers and lavish him with these to ease conditions for him in the beyond; to help create lighter luminous conditions around him in the beyond; that would help him gain better recognitions about himself, about life and Creation; and move on joyfully knowingly upwards towards the Light.
More than many other human beings who had crossed his earthly path, who had experienced with him on earth, you related with him most intimately, most warmly.
And this your experiencing with him while on earth was richer if you had spent your childhood together. By this you understand him more intimately than most people that crossed his path, even more than his wife.
With these, you are better able, more than many other human beings who had crossed his path on earth, to connect with him strongly in your emotions, link up with him purely from within you, and send him warm, loving, helping thoughts, wishes and prayers, which he now needs to ease his path in the beyond.
So it is that you may be permitted to see him or her in dreams and perceive how he or she is faring in his or her new environment on his path in the beyond. So it is that in dreams, you the earth-man may be allowed still to experience joyfully together with your departed friend the joy, the bliss of his new environment in the beyond.
On his new path, he or she needs your sincere good, kind thoughts, wishes and prayers, to help ease conditions for him over there in the new world to which he is now born; in which he must now live.
True friendship swings in the Law; as does true marriage. Certain conditions must exist before such unions are consummated. And such unions often transcend the earth, they reach beyond the earthly. They verge on the inner core, on the spiritual which is boundless and timeless; which is beyond time and space.
An immoral relationship, an affair with the spouse of the departed true friend destroys this friendship, which has been carefully nurtured over the years by both of you, your other joint friends, your relatives and other well wishers, luminous helpers and servants; that has been strengthened and protected over the years by many helpers and servants.
The earth-man or woman who cannot control his or her libido, or who is shamelessly reckless as to think of having an affair with the spouse of his or her departed true friend can no longer relate purely with his or her departed friend.
He no longer is able to lavish his departed friend with helping, loving thoughts, wishes or prayers. Because he has betrayed the departed friend by grabbing his wife or husband to gratify his or her lust, despite the clear Commandment: “Do not let thyself lust after thy neighbour’s wife!”
He is no longer able to send thoughts of pure love to his departed friend. He has, by his recklessness, cut off the cord of love linking him with his departed friend. He has now taken over the woman, the husband with whom his or her departed friend shared intimate moments.
And oftentimes, he or she was a welcome guest in the couple’s house, where he or she enjoyed their joint warm hospitality to the full.
Next is the pain of, and shock on the children of the departed friend who, on knowing about the immoral affair, would automatically grow hostile towards their mother or father and you.
They would now conclude that the immoral affair was either secretly on while their father or mother was alive; or that you two had been eyeing one another and waiting for an opportunity to actualise this immorality. They may even say that you, or you both, killed their father or mother.
They would hurl so much hatred at their surviving parent and you, their father’s or mother’s supposed true friend. They would now castigate you and their surviving parent bitterly, and accuse both of you as having conspired to kill their father to give way for your immoral affair.
The relatives of the departed one, the neighbours, other joint friends and the society at large, would react the same way.
So the warning goes out to anyone with an overactive or a riotous libido: Go out and pick from the better alternatives that richly abound outside your departed friend’s home.
The wife or husband of your departed friend still holds your friend in her or his emotions. She still warmly thinks of him especially when their union was based, consummated on genuine love, when true love for one another formed the foundation, was the basis of their union; and not just calculation, hypocrisy or deceit.
And this true love was still intact and robust when your friend left the flesh. This their true love for one another therefore still lives. The wound of his departure which she never ever wished or expected is still fresh in her heart.
She still bleeds inwardly, and oftentimes in her quiet moments, in her loneliness, even openly she occasionally sheds warm loving tears that her loved one has suddenly departed the earth, that she would no longer feel, see, hold him physically, that their loving earthly union would no longer be, that their earthly union has ended.
And warm, loving thoughts, wishes and prayers still stream, flow from her towards her departed husband, your friend through this living connection. This is what you attack and aim to destroy with your seductive, immoral thoughts, glances or move towards her.
Another danger for you: Though your friend has left, exited the flesh, and departed the earth in the physical sense; though he has dropped the physical body he used while on earth, and you do not see him physically any longer, he still lives, he still exists, he still sees.
And where he is still so much attached to the earthly, where he is earthbound, and particularly to his wife with whom he shared genuine love while on earth, with whom he recently experienced on earth so intimately, so warmly.
Where he is not yet strong enough to accept the reality, turn his back on everything earthly however precious, and move on joyfully towards the light ahead which beckons him on upwards towards the Light, he still holds his wife warmly in his soul.
The warmth of their relationship is still there. His love for his wife still holds him, still detains him closer to gross matter, to the earth. Thus he is still close to his wife, though he is no longer in the flesh.
He is not yet ready to part with her, with the woman with whom he had recently shared the most intimate emotions, in the company of whom he had recently experienced so much joy, who had lavished him with pure love and to whom in return he had given genuine love and care.
He still holds her warmly, though this is wrong. The right thing is for the departed, who, now filled with gratitude for all he had been permitted to experience on earth, joyful and sorrowful, to very vigorously direct his gaze, his steps in the beyond upwards towards the Light.
The rapturous joy, the luminous radiance streaming through his new environment, which bathe and pervade his new world in the beyond is magnetically attractive enough and this gives him wonderfully so much; it fills a striving soul in the beyond that he will have no time to waste any longer with the less attractive earthly which he had just left.
The departed one who may not be knowledgeable enough because while on earth, he did not concern himself with acquiring the necessary knowledge about life after physical death, or about Creation as a whole, may, due to ignorance, still cling to the earthly, to his wife.
In his disappointment at your betrayal of true friendship, he could consider you a rival, or even an enemy who conspired to cause his earthly death to clear the path for you to grab his wife. Such that, sadly, he now directs his gaze downwards to the earthly, such that he now becomes embittered and vengeful, and he starts hunting you around to exact his pound of flesh.
These further tie him to the earth unnecessarily, hamper him, and hinder his development, movement in the beyond. He may be detained in this volition in this close to the earth undesirable environment for decades, for hundreds of years and even for millennia.
And more saddening still, very unfortunately, even with this vengeful volition, he may lovingly be permitted another earth life again from out of this low environment in the beyond that is very close to the earth to redeem his errors.
He may be here again and again seeking revenge, causing havoc, accumulating further debts, and entangling himself further in guilt. Rather than be a blessing.
So the one who makes reckless moves towards the wife or husband of his departed friend causes harm, rather than bring blessing, rather than continuously generate and send loving, warm thoughts, wishes and prayers to his departed friend to ease his path and help him in the beyond, rather than stand in Creation as a true friend, as a true helper.
