MANAN FF - TILL THE END OF TIME

MORE LIFETIMES

Manik was perspiring profusely now, for the second time, despite the heavy air conditioning in Dr. Dhawan's office. Sweat poured down his face, drenched his shirt, rolled down his neck. A moment ago he had shaking chills and his body shivered. But malaria could do that, alternating bone-chilling cold and inflaming heat. Francisco was dying from this dreaded disease, alone and thousands of miles from his loved ones. It was a terrible, painful way to die.

Manik had begun this office visit by drifting into a deeply relaxed, hypnotic state. He quickly went back through time and space, into a past lifetime, and immediately he began to sweat. Dr. Dhawan tried to dry his face with tissues, but it was like trying to stop a flood with one's hands. The sweat kept pouring down. Dr. Dhawan hoped that any physical discomfort caused by the drenching sweat would not affect the depth and intensity of his trance state.

"I'm a man . . . with black hair and tanned skin," he gasped through the sweat. "I am unloading a large wooden ship . . . heavy cargo. . . . It's boiling hot here. ... I see palm trees and flimsy wooden structures nearby. . . . I'm a sailor. . . . We are in the New World."

"Do you know the name?" inquired Dr. Dhawan.

"Francisco . . . my name is Francisco. I am a sailor."

Dr. Dhawan had meant the name of the place, but Manik had become aware of his name in that lifetime.

"Do you know the name of this place?" Dr. Dhawan asked again.

He paused for a moment, still sweating profusely. "I don't see that," he answered. "One of these accursed ports. . . . There is gold here. In the jungle . . . somewhere in the distant mountains. We will find it... I can keep some of what I find. . . This accursed place!"

"Where are you from?" asked Dr. Dhawan, looking for more details. "Do you know where your home is?"

"On the other side of the sea," he answered patiently. "In Spain . . . where we are from." He was including his fellow sailors, unloading a ship's cargo in the broiling sun.

"Do you have family in Spain?" inquired Dr. Dhawan.

"My wife and my son are there. ... I miss them, but they are all right . . . especially with the gold I send back. My mother and my sisters are there, too. It's not an easy life. ... I miss them greatly."

Dr. Dhawan wanted to learn more about his family. "I am going to take you back in time," he told him, "back to your family in Spain, to the last time you were together, before this current journey to the New World. I will tap you on your forehead and count backward from three to one. When I reach one, you will be back in Spain with your family. You can remember everything.

"Three . . . two . . . one. Be there!"

Manik's eyes were moving under closed lids as he scanned a scene. "I can see my wife and my small son. We are sitting to eat. ... I see the wooden table and chairs. . . . My mother is there also," he observed.

"Look into their faces, into their eyes," instructed Dr. Dhawan. "See if you recognize them as anyone in your current life." He was concerned that shifting between lifetimes could be disorienting and might pop Manik entirely out of Francisco's time. But he handled it smoothly.

"I recognize my son. He is my brother... how beautiful!" He had found his brother before, as the abbot, when Manik was a monk. Although they had never found them as lovers, Manik's brother made an endearing soul mate. Their soul connection was wonderfully close.

He ignored his mother, focusing completely on his young wife.

"We love each other deeply," he commented. "But I don't recognize her from this life. Our love is very strong."

He was silent for a while, enjoying the memory of his young wife and the deep love that they had shared four or five hundred years ago in a Spain so much different from today's.

Would Manik ever taste this kind of love? Did the soul of Francisco's wife also cross the centuries to be here again, and, if so, would they ever meet?

Dr. Dhawan took Francisco back to the New World and the search for gold.

"Go back to the port," he instructed, "where you have been unloading the ship. Now move ahead in time to the next significant event in that sailor's life. As I count backward from three to one and tap your forehead, let it all come into focus-the next significant event."

"Three . . . two . . . one. You are there."

Francisco started to shiver.

"I'm so cold," he complained. "But I know that infernal fever will return!" As predicted, a few moments later the heavy sweating began anew.

"Damn!" he cursed. "This will kill me, this sickness . . . and the others have left me behind. . . . They know I cannot keep up. . . . They know there is no hope for me. ... I am doomed in this God-forsaken place. We didn't even find the treasures of gold they swear is here."

"Do you survive this illness?" the doctor gently asked.

Manik was quiet. "I died from this. I never leave the jungle. . . . The fever kills me, and I never see my family again. They will be very grieved. . . . My son is so young." The sweat on Manik's face was now mixed with his tears. He was grieving his early death, alone in an alien land, from a strange disease that no sailor's skill could defeat.

Dr. Dhawan had him detach from Francisco's body, and he floated in a state of calm and tranquillity, freed from the fever and pain, beyond grief and suffering. His face was much more peaceful and relaxed, and Dr. Dhawan let him rest.

He pondered this pattern of losses in Manik's lifetimes. So many separations from his loved ones. So much grief. As he made his way through the uncertain and nebulous mists of time, would he be able to find them again? Would he find all of them?

Manik's lifetimes contained many patterns, not just losses. In this regression, he remembered being a Spaniard, but he had also been an English soldier, killed by the Spanish enemy when his forces invaded their fortress.

He remembered being male, and he remembered being female. He had experienced lifetimes as a warrior and lifetimes as a priest. He had lost people, and he had found them.

After he had died as a monk, surrounded by his spiritual family, Manik had reviewed the lessons of that lifetime.

"Forgiveness is so important," he had said. "We have all done those things for which we condemn others. . . . We must forgive them."

His lives illustrated his message. He had to learn from all sides in order to truly understand. We all do.

***

NEXT: Nandini receives a message from her mother.