MANAN FF - TILL THE END OF TIME

PROMO

Dr. Dhawan's POV –

Earlier that day, Manik could not remember his name. In a hypnotic trance, he had emerged in an ancient lifetime, one he had previously remembered in the office. In that lifetime, he had died after being dragged by leather-clad soldiers. His life ebbed away as his head rested in his beloved daughter's lap, and she rocked rhythmically with despair.

Perhaps there was more to learn from that time. Once again, he remembered dying in her arms, his life fading away. I asked him to look at her closely, to look deeply into her eyes and to see if he recognized her as someone in his current life.

"No," he sadly answered. "I don't know her."

"Do you know your name?" I asked, returning his attention completely to that ancient lifetime in Palestine.

He pondered this question. "No," he finally said.

"I will tap you on the forehead as I count backward from three to one. Let your name just pop into your mind, into your awareness. Whatever name comes to you is fine."

No name popped into his mind.

"I don't know my name. Nothing comes to me!"

But something came to me, popping into my mind like a silent explosion, suddenly clear and vivid.

"Eli," I said aloud. "Is your name Eli?"

"How do you know that?" he responded from the ancient depths. "That is my name. Some call me Elihu, and some call me Eli. . . . How do you know? Were you there, too?"

"I don't know," I answered truthfully. "It just came to me."

I was very surprised at the whole situation. How did I know? I have had psychic or intuitive flashes before, but not often. This felt as if I were remembering something rather than receiving a psychic message. Remembering from when? I could not place it. My mind stretched to remember, but I could not.

I knew from experience that I should stop trying to remember. Let it go, get on with the day, the answer would probably arrive spontaneously in a while.

An important piece of some strange puzzle was missing. I could feel its absence, hinting at a crucial connection still to be found. But a connection to what? I tried, not very successfully, to concentrate on other things.

Later that evening, the puzzle piece arrived suddenly and very softly in my mind. All at once, I was aware of it.

It was Nandini. About two months ago, she had recounted a tragic but touching lifetime as a potter's daughter in ancient Palestine. Her father had been killed "accidentally" by Roman soldiers after they dragged him around from the back of a horse. The soldiers had not really cared what happened to him. His mangled body, his bleeding heal, had been cradled by his daughter as he died in the dusty street.

She had remembered his name in that lifetime. His name was Eli.

My mind was working quickly now. The details of the two Palestinian lifetimes fit together. Manik's and Nandini's memories of that time meshed perfectly. Physical descriptions, events, and names were the same. Father and daughter.

I have worked with many people, usually couples, who have found themselves together in previous lives. Many have recognized their soul companions, traveling together through time to be united once again in the current lifetime.

Never before had I encountered soul mates who had not yet met in the present time. In this case, soul mates who had travelled nearly two thousand years to be together again. They had come all this way. They were within inches and minutes of each other, but they had not yet connected.

At home, with their charts filed away in my office, I tried to remember if they had shared other lifetimes. No, not as monks. One story but not two, at least not yet. Not on the India trading routes, not in the mangrove swamps of Florida, not in the malarial Spanish Americas, not so far in Ireland. These were the only lifetimes I could remember.

Another thought dawned. Perhaps they had been together in some or all of those times but had not recognized each other, because they had not met in the present. There was no face, no name, no landmark in the present life, no one to connect to the people in previous incarnations.

Then I remembered Nandini's western China, the timeworn sweeping plains where her people were massacred and where she and a few other young women were captured. On these same plains, which Manik pinpointed as Mongolia, he had returned to find his family, his kin, his people destroyed.

Manik and I had assumed that his young wife had been killed amid the chaos, destruction, and despair described in his recall. She had not. She had been captured and taken away for the rest of a lifetime, never to be held again in the strong arms of her Mongol husband.

Now those arms had returned through the hazardous mists of time to hold her again, to hug her sweetly to his breast. But they did not know. Only I knew.

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