MANAN FF - TILL THE END OF TIME

MANIK REMEMBERS A LIFE IN ANCIENT PALESTINE

On another day, another session of past life regression, Manik entered the middle of a difficult lifetime. Immediately Manik was angry, and he clenched his jaw tightly. "They're making me go, and I do not want to. ... I do not wish that kind of life!"

"Where are they making you go?" asked Dr. Dhawan, looking for clarification.

"Into the priesthood, to be a monk. ... I do not want this!" he said, insistently. He was silent for a moment, still angry. Then he began to explain.

"I am the youngest son. It is expected that I do this. But I do not want to leave her. . . . We are in love; but if I go, someone else will have her, not me. ... I cannot bear that. I would die first!"

But he did not die. Instead, he became gradually resigned to the inevitable. He had to separate from his love. His heart was ripped out, but he continued to live anyway.

Years passed.

"It is not so bad now. The life is peaceful. I am very attached to the abbot and I have chosen to stay with him. . . ." After more silence, a recognition.

"He is my brother . . . my brother. I know it is him. We are very close. I can see his eyes!"

Manik had finally found his deceased brother. Dr. Dhawan knew that now his grief would begin to heal. The brothers had indeed been together before. And if before, they could be together again.

More years passed. The abbot grew old.

"He will leave me soon," Manik predicted. "But we will be together again, in heaven. . . . We have prayed for that." The abbot soon died, and Manik grieved.

He prayed and he meditated, and the time of his death approached. He had contracted tuberculosis and he was coughing. Breathing was difficult. His spiritual brothers stood around his bedside.

Dr. Dhawan let him pass quickly to the other side. There was no need to suffer again.

"I learned about anger and forgiveness," he began, not even waiting for Dr. Dhawan to ask about the lessons of that lifetime.

"I learned that anger is foolish. It eats at the soul. My parents did what they thought best, for me and for them. They did not understand the intensity of my passions or that I had the right to determine the direction of my life, not they. They meant well, but they did not understand. They were ignorant . . . but I have been ignorant also. I have commandeered the lives of others. So how can I judge them or be angry with them when I have done the same?"

He was silent again, then resumed. "This is why forgiveness is so important. We have all done those things for which we condemn others. If we want to be forgiven, we must forgive them. God forgives us. We should forgive, too." He was still reviewing the lessons.

"I would not have met the abbot if I had my way," he concluded. "There is always compensation, always grace, always goodness, if we just look for it. If I had remained angry and bitter, if I had resented my life, I would have missed the love and the goodness that I found in the monastery."

There were other, smaller lessons.

"I learned about the power of prayer and meditation," he added. He was silent again as he pondered the lessons and implications of that saintly life.

"Perhaps it was better to sacrifice romantic love," he conjectured, "for the greater love of God and my brothers."

Dr. Dhawan wasn't sure, and neither was Manik. Several hundred years later in Germany, Manik's soul, in Magda, chose a very different path.