Mahendra Nath's Site

MY FORMER LIFE PART III

ENDING LIKE MINCEMEAT

Dandi – 23 May 1930

The Indian National Congress declares 26 January as Independence Day, or the day for Poorna Swaraj. The Congress executive committee was authorized to decide when the Satyagraha campaign would commence but Gandhi said, “I know it is a duty devolving primarily on me.” He withdrew to his ashram at Sabarmati to contemplate. Presently he thought of a plan and wrote to the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, to negotiate otherwise on Eleventh March ‘I shall proceed with such workers of the Ashram as I can take, to disregard the provisions of the Salt Laws’. The Viceroy refused to se Gandhi.

As he painfully began his 200-mile walk as the unique "Recpolman (R—eligion, EC—onomics, Pol—itics)" Gandhi, breathless spectators watched and some compared it to the march of Napoleon to Paris on his return from Elba. I thought this to be the hour for which I was born even if it turns out to be the hour of my death. Virtually every resident of each city along this journey watched the great procession, which was at least two miles in length and of which I was a humble follower and reporter. Trudging along with Gandhi, trying their best to follow him in act, word and thought, ten disciples were stricken with fever. When the Mahatma came to the village of Ankhi on his walk he rebuked the inhabitants for their passive refusal to allow the local British police to buy food. "It is against religious principles to starve anyone," said the saint. "I would suck snake's poison even from General Dyer, should he be bitten."

On April 6th Gandhi, upon arriving at the seashore, picked up a lump of mud and salt and boiled it in seawater to make the commodity which no Indian could legally produce—salt He then spoke to us reporters: God be thanked for what may be termed the happy ending of the first stage in this, for me at least, the final struggle of freedom.... It remains to be seen whether the Government will tolerate as they have tolerated the march, the actual breach of the salt laws by countless people from tomorrow. I expect extensive popular response to the resolution of the Working Committee (of the Indian National Congress).

He implored his thousands of followers to begin to make salt wherever, along the seashore, "was most convenient and comfortable" to them. A "war" on the salt tax was to be continued during the National Week, that is, up to the thirteenth of April. There were also simultaneous boycotts of cloth and khaddar. Salt was sold, illegally, all over the seacoast of India. A pinch of salt from Gandhi himself sold for 1,600 rupees. In reaction to this, the British government incarcerated over sixty thousand people at the end of the month.

In Peshawar, Satyagraha was led by a Muslim Pashto disciple of Gandhi, Ghaffar Khan, who had trained a 50,000 member army of non-violent activists called Khudai Khidmatgar. On April 23, 1930, Ghaffar Khan was arrested. A crowd of Khudai Khidmatgar gathered in Peshawar's Kissa Khani (Storytellers) Bazaar. The British ordered troops to open fire with machine guns on the unarmed crowd, killing an estimated 200-250. The Pashtun satyagrahis acted in accord with their training in non-violence, willingly facing bullets as the troops fired on them. One British Indian Army regiment, troops of the renowned Royal Garhwal Rifles, refused to fire at the crowds. The entire platoon was arrested and many received heavy penalties, including life imprisonment

For his next major action, Gandhi decided on a raid of the Dharasana Salt Works in Gujarat. He wrote to Lord Irwin, again telling him of his plans. On the night of May, 4 Gandhi was sleeping in a cot under a mango tree, at a village near Dandi. Several ashramites slept near him. Soon after midnight the District Magistrate of Surat drove up with two Indian officers and thirty heavily-armed constables. He woke Gandhi by shining a torch in his face, and arrested him under a regulation of 1827.

As he stood in the dock Gandhiji— like Socrates with the bowl of hemlock— delivered perhaps his greatest oration.* At his British judge the saint thundered: "The only course open to you, the Judge, is ... either to resign your post or inflict on me the severest penalty . . . for [doing] what in law is a deliberate crime, and what appears to me to be the highest duty of a citizen. ... I do not expect [acquittal and the judge's resignation] but by the time I have finished with my statement, you will perhaps have a glimpse of what is raging within my breast!"

Because he made a "seditious utterance" in praise of Mahatma Gandhi, the Mayor of Calcutta, Mr. J. M. Sengupta was sentenced to ten days' imprisonment last week, while he sat mute and motionless in court, refusing to make any defense.

Poona – 27 FEBRUARY 1931

The Dharasana Satyagraha went ahead as planned, with Abbas Tyabji, a seventy-six year old retired judge, leading the march with Gandhi's wife Kasturba at his side. Both were arrested before reaching Dharasana and sentenced to three months in prison. After their arrests, the march continued under the leadership of Sarojini Naidu, a woman poet and freedom fighter, who warned us satyagrahis, "You must not use any violence under any circumstances. You will be beaten, but you must not resist: you must not even raise a hand to ward off blows." Soldiers began clubbing us with steel tipped lathis in an incident that attracted international attention. I am badly injured with fractured bones in my shoulders, arms and legs. Somehow I land here in Sassoon Hospital, Poona.

United Press correspondent Webb Miller reported that: Not one of the marchers even raised an arm to fend off the blows. They went down like ten-pins. From where I stood I heard the sickening whacks of the clubs on unprotected skulls. The waiting crowd of watchers groaned and sucked in their breaths in sympathetic pain at every blow. Those struck down fell sprawling, unconscious or writhing in pain with fractured skulls or broken shoulders. In two or three minutes the ground was quilted with bodies. Great patches of blood widened on their white clothes. The survivors without breaking ranks silently and doggedly marched on until struck down.

Vithalbhai Patel, former Speaker of the Assembly, watched the beatings and remarked, "All hope of reconciling India with the British Empire is lost forever. Following attempts by the British to censor Miller's story, it eventually appeared in 1,350 newspapers throughout the world, and was read into the official record of the United States Senate. Salt Satyagraha succeeded in drawing the attention of the world. Millions saw the newsreels showing the march. Time magazine declared Gandhi its 1930 Man of the Year, comparing Gandhi's march to the sea "to defy Britain's salt tax as some New Englanders once defied a British tea tax.

There is inevitableness in the fate that has overtaken Hindu India. We have divided and subdivided ourselves into mincemeat, not fit to live but only to be swallowed. Never up to now has our disjointed society been able to ward off any threatening evil. We are a suicidal race, ourselves keeping wide open for ages, with marvelous ingenuity, gaps that we are forbidden to cross under penalty and cracks that are considered to be too sacred to be repaired because of their antiquity. So writes the Poet Rabindra Nath Tagore. And I cry.

Next to my bed lies a young man who was also injured at Dharsana. Name of this handsome twenty-one year old is Nathuram Godse. He is a Marathi Chitpavan Brahmin - a community known for its social and Hindu conservatism. We exchange our life stories.

Godse had dropped out of high school and become a freedom fighter and activist with the Hindu Mahasabha, a party espousing extreme Hindu Nationalism in particular opposition to the separatist politics of the All India Muslim League. He was a close admirer and student of Indian revolutionary Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, who had written the political doctrine Hindutva.

Godse backed Gandhi's campaigns of civil disobedience against the British government. His story in his own words:

Born in a devotional Brahmin family, I instinctively came to revere Hindu religion, Hindu history and Hindu culture. I had, therefore, been intensely proud of Hinduism as a whole. As I grew up I developed a tendency to free thinking unfettered by any superstitious allegiance to any isms, political or religious. That is why I worked actively for the eradication of untouchability and the caste system based on birth alone. I openly joined anti-caste movements and maintained that all Hindus are of equal status as to rights, social and religious, and should be considered high or low on merit alone and not through the accident of birth in a particular caste or profession. I used publicly to take part in organized anti-caste dinners which thousands of Hindus, Brahmins, Vaishyas, Kshatriyas, Chamars and Bhangis participated. We broke the caste rules and dined in the company of each other. I have read the speeches and writings of Dadabhai Naoroji, Vivekananda, Gokhale, Tilak, along with the books of ancient and modern history of India and some prominent countries like England, France, America and Russia. Moreover I studied the tenets of socialism and Marxism. But above all I studied very closely what Veer (brave) Savarkar and Gandhiji had written and spoken.

All this thinking and reading led me to believe that it was my first duty to serve Hindudom and Hindus both as a patriot and as a world citizen. To secure the freedom and to safeguard the just interests of some thirty crores (three hundred million) of Hindus would automatically constitute the freedom and well-being of all India, one fifth of the human race. This conviction led me naturally to devote myself to the Hindu Sanghatanist ideology and programme, which alone, I came to believe, could win and preserve the National Independence of Hindustan, my Motherland, and enable her to render true service to humanity as well. Since the year 1920, that is, after the demise of Lokmanya Tilak, Gandhi's influence in the Congress first increased and then became supreme. His activities for public awakening were phenomenal in their intensity and were reinforced by the slogan of truth and non-violence which he paraded ostentatiously before the country. No sensible or enlightened person could object to these slogans. In fact there is nothing new or original in them. They are implicit in every constitutional public movement. But it is nothing but a dream if you imagine the bulk of mankind is, or can ever become, capable of scrupulous adherence to these lofty principles in its normal life from day to day. In fact, honour, duty and love of one's own kith and kin and country might often compel us to disregard non-violence and to use force. I could never conceive that an armed resistance to an aggression is unjust. I would consider it a religious and moral duty to resist and if possible, to overpower such an enemy by use of force. (In the Ramayana) Ram killed Ravana in a tumultuous fight and relieved Sita. (In the Mahabharata) Krishna killed Kansa to end his wickedness; and Arjuna had to fight and slay quite a number of his friends and relations including the revered Bhishma because the latter was on the side of the aggressor. It was the heroic fight put up by Chhatrapati Shivaji that first checked and eventually destroyed the Muslim tyranny in India. It was absolutely essential for Shivaji to overpower and kill an aggressive Afzal Khan, failing which he would have lost his own life.

I admire his thoughts and tell him I would join hands with him when and if I recover. He says we are both in the same boat - he might recover from his present injuries but the injuries in his heart and mind may not let him live long either.

This was in 1930, the hardest year of my life. It was then that it became evident on the one hand that my income was insufficient for me to live on, and on the other I had been forgotten, and not only this, but that what was for me the greatest and most cruel injustice appeared to others a quite ordinary occurrence. News came from Shikohabad that my old parents had passed away and the rest of the family had accepted my running away from them. I felt myself abandoned by everyone.

8. LAYING THE WORN-OUT ROBES AWAY

From the doctor's summing up I concluded that things were bad, but that for the doctor, and perhaps for everybody else, it was a matter of indifference, though for me it was bad. And this conclusion struck me painfully, arousing in me a great feeling of pity for myself and of bitterness towards the doctor's indifference to a matter of such importance.

When sickness, injuries, deaths, or recoveries were mentioned in my presence, especially when the injuries resembled my own, I listened with agitation which I tried to hide, asked questions, and applied what I heard to my own case. The pain did not grow less, but I made efforts to force myself to think that I was better. The only thing that brought me some succor was the recitation of mantra Om Namh Shivaya.

Something must be wrong. I must calm myself — must think it all over from the beginning. Yes, the beginning of my injuries: I was hit on my side by a policeman’s stick, but I was still quite well that day and the next. It hurt a little, then rather more. I was brought to the Sassoon Hospital in Poona, then followed despondency and anguish, more doctors, and I drew nearer to the abyss. My strength grew less and I kept coming nearer and nearer, and now I have wasted away and there is no light in my eyes. I think of my broken right shoulderthe humerus of my right arm that has been fractured at three places — but this is death! I think of mending the fracture, and all the while here is death! Can it really be death?" Again terror seizes me and I gasp for breath. Breathless and in despair I fall on my back, expecting death to come immediately.

And to replace that thought I call up a succession of others, hoping to find in them some support. I try to get back into the former current of thoughts that had once screened the thought of death from him. But strange to say, all that had formerly shut off, hidden, and destroyed my consciousness of death, no longer had that effect. I now spent most of my time in attempting to re-establish that old current. Banishing all doubts I take up my books, enter into conversation with fellow patients, and sit carelessly scanning the visitors and staff with a thoughtful look leaning both my emaciated left arm on my pillow. But suddenly in the midst of those proceedings the pain in my right side would begin its own gnawing work. I would turn my attention to it and try to drive the thought of it away, but without success. *It* would come and stand before me and look at me, and I would be petrified and the light would die out of my eyes, and I would again begin asking myself whether *It* alone was true. And what was worst of all was that *It* drew my attention to itself not in order to make me take some action but only that I should look at *It*, look it straight in the face: look at it and without doing anything, suffer inexpressibly. I take a look at the Chandrogya Upanishad’s quote: “Mortal is the body, held by death; it is the abode of that Immortal (unbodied) Self. The bodied one is held by pleasure and pain; but pleasure and pain do not touch the unbodied Self”

I sleep less and less. I am given opium and hypodermic injections of morphine, but this does not relieve me. The dull depression I experience in a somnolent condition at first gives me a little relief, but only as something new, afterwards it becomes as distressing as the pain itself or even more so. Special foods were prepared for me by the doctors' orders, but all those foods became increasingly distasteful and disgusting to me For my excretions also special arrangements had to be made, and this was a torment to me every time — a torment from the uncleanliness, the unseemliness, and the smell, and from knowing that another person had to take part in it. Oh! Why did not I have a family to be around me at this time?

It is morning and I limp to the bathroom. I began to wash. With pauses for rest, I wash my hands and then my face, clean my teeth, brush my hair, looked in the glass. I am terrified by what I see, especially by the limp way in which my hair clung to my pallid forehead. Always the same. Now a spark of hope flashes up, then a sea of despair rages, and always pain; always pain, always despair, and always the same. When alone I have a dreadful and distressing desire to call someone, but who? Another dose of morphine—to lose consciousness. I will tell him, the doctor, that he must think of something else. It's impossible, impossible, to go on like this. My very soul seems to be withdrawing its limbs inside the shell of my body.

An hour and another pass like that. But now the doctor comes in fresh, hearty, plump, and cheerful, with that look on his face that seems to say: "There now, you're in a panic about something, but we'll arrange it all for you directly! He begins with a most serious face to examine the patient, feeling his pulse and taking his temperature, and then begins the sounding and auscultation. I know quite well and definitely that all this is nonsense and pure deception, but when the doctor, getting down on his knee, leans over him, putting his ear first higher then lower, and performs various gymnastic movements over him with a significant expression on his face, I know that he realizes gravity of my illness. When the examination was over the doctor says a specialist is in the Hospital and he would try to bring him to see me in two hours time. But I would rather die see Lord Shiva in Heaven.

When the specialist arrived, the sounding began again and the significant conversations about the kidneys and the appendix, and the questions and answers, with an air of importance instead of the real question of life and death which now alone confronted me. The celebrated specialist took leave with a serious though not hopeless look, and in reply to the timid question I, with eyes glistening with fear and hope, put to him as to whether there was a chance of recovery, said that he could not vouch for it but there was a possibility. The gleam of hope kindled by the doctor's encouragement did not last long. They gave me a subcutaneous injection and I sank into oblivion. It was twilight when I came to. They brought me my dinner and I swallowed some with difficulty, and then everything was the same again and night was coming on. Again minute followed minute and hour followed hour. Everything remained the same and there was no cessation. And the inevitable end of it all became more and more terrible. I urge my sol to break out of this shell and merge with the universal spirit.

Till about three in the morning I was in a state of stupefied misery. It seemed to me that I and my pain were being thrust into a narrow, deep black sack, but though they were pushed further and further in they could not be pushed to the bottom. And this, terrible enough in itself, was accompanied by suffering. And suddenly I broke through, fell, and regained consciousness. Then wept like a child. I wept on account of my helplessness, my terrible loneliness, the cruelty of man, the cruelty of God, and the absence of God. And in imagination I began to recall the best moments of his pleasant life. But strange to say none of those best moments of his pleasant life now seemed at all what they had then seemed — none of them except the first recollections of childhood. There, in childhood, there had been something really pleasant with which it would be possible to live if it could return. But the child who had experienced that happiness existed no longer; it was like a reminiscence of somebody else. And the further I departed from childhood and the nearer I came to the present the more worthless and doubtful were the joys. In the next life I will seek the bliss of the omniscience.

It is as if I had been going downhill while I imagined I was going up. And that is really what it was. I was going up in public opinion, but to the same extent life was ebbing away from me. And now it is all done and there is only death. Then what does it mean? Why? It can't be that life is so senseless and horrible. But if it really has been so horrible and senseless, why must I die and die in agony? There is something wrong! Maybe I did not live as I ought to have done, but how could that be, when I did everything properly. Then what do I want now? To live? Live how? And I ceased crying, but turning my face to the wall continued to ponder on the same question: Why, and for what purpose, is there all this horror? But however much I pondered I found no answer. I long for a state where there is no more birth, no more death, no more disease, sorrow or suffering.

I had but to call to mind what I had been three months before and what I was now, and with what regularity I had been going downhill, for every possibility of hope to be shattered. Pictures of my past rose before me one after another. They always began with what was nearest in time and then went back to what was most remote — to my childhood — and rested there. Then again together with that chain of memories another series passed through my mind — of how my illness had progressed and grown worse. There also the further back I looked the more life there had been. There had been more of what was good in life and more of life itself. The two merged together. Just as the pain went on getting worse and worse, so my life grew worse and worse. There is one bright spot there at the back, at the beginning of life, and afterwards all becomes blacker and blacker and proceeds more and more rapidly — in inverse ratio to the square of the distance from death. And the example of a stone falling downwards with increasing velocity entered his mind. Life, a series of increasing sufferings, flies further and further towards its end — the most terrible suffering. I am flying....I was already aware that resistance was impossible, and again with eyes weary of gazing but unable to cease seeing what was before them, I stared at the back ceiling and waited — awaiting that dreadful fall and shock and destruction of this body in which I am trapped now. I seek release from this body to fly to heaven of my vision.

Another two weeks went by in this way. The doctor came at his usual time and told me that my condition was very serious and that the only resource left was opium to allay my sufferings. It was true, as the doctor said that my sufferings were terrible, but worse than the physical sufferings were my mental sufferings which were my chief torture. Did I do wrong by denying myself an ordinary family life and sacrificing it for Gandhi’s Satyagraha? I was given a large dose of opium and became unconscious. This opium seems to be gateway to Nirvana. But at noon my sufferings begin again. All wrong actions of my life flash before me. I console myself by thinking that God will forgive me – after all forgiving is part of his business.

And suddenly it grew clear to me that what had been oppressing me and would not leave me was all dropping away at once from all sides. I must release them and free myself from these sufferings. How good and how simple. And the pain? What has become of it? Where are you, pain? Yes, here it is. Well, what of it? What death? There was no fear because the death is necessity for change. At last I have a calming deep sleep as I sleep the sleep of death

In place of death there is light. So that's what it is! What joy! All this happened in a single instant, and the meaning of that instant did not change. “It is all over!" said someone near me. I heard these words and repeated them in my soul. Instead of pain I now feel bliss; instead of death I now sense life.

I am identified exclusively with ego; I am overwhelmed by my fear of the cessation of my own existence as a separate being. Because the ego will, in fact, die. However, since I have developed some soul-perspective, I remain quietly conscious through it all, just observing: watching my ego dissolving, watching the body dropping away. Now whatever in me that is left uncooked will steer me towards my next incarnation in order to continue my karmic work. When the seeds are all cooked and my karmic work is complete, my identity at the moment of death will be solely with Atman. So when my soul-karma is indeed totally finished, then life and death and ego and soul will all appear like bubbles of phenomena arising out of timeless Awareness, only to dissolve back into Awareness again. And through it all, I shall be the same. There is nothing to be feared. I look at the face of death – it is nothing. I am spirit and melt into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless, the cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
the solemn temples, the great globe itself,
shall dissolve. And, like an insubstantial faded pageant,
will not leave any track behind. Indeed, I am part of a dream and my little life is now rounded with sleep.

Nay, but as when one layeth his worn-out robes away and, taking new ones, sayeth, “These will I wear to-day!” So putteth by the spirit lightly its garb of flesh, and passeth to inherit a residence afresh. The Gita.

9 IN THE HEAVEN

“Even the highest heaven is temporary and non-eternal. The realms that exist between the earth and the highest heaven mark only the phenomenal growth and progress of the individual souls. Those, who go there and remain there, are subject to birth and rebirth. They will come back again. But those who have attained to perfection transcend all heavens, understand eternal life and remain perfect for ever and ever.’ - Bhagwat Gita, VIII, 16-27

On release from the body my soul experiences a wonderful revitalizing peace with dream visions of wondrously uplifting experiences.

A glimpse of Shiva and Parvati tells me I am already in my heaven. I am welcomed by their two yahoos who conduct me to a beautiful home where I meet my parents and colleagues who had died during the war.

After this reassuring meeting I still wish to have a look at my body. In a jiffy the yahoos swoop me down where I see my body being cremated without any mourners. I have no desire to linger here for the pains of my last life remind me that just as my heaven is in my mind so the earth can be my heaven in my mind in the next life. I shall be a much better person in the next life. I blow a wind that quickens the cremation and back to Heaven I come. The yahoos tell me that to retrace steps to Heaven’s air there would be trouble and toil. Only a few whom benign Shiva has loved or who have lead lives of selfless action are borne back to heaven. Somehow the yahoos get Shiva’s permission for my reentry.

The heaven is well provided with excellent paths. The Siddhas, the Vaiswas, the Gandharvas, the Apsaras, the Yamas and the Dhamas dwell there. There are many celestial gardens. Here sport persons of meritorious acts. Neither hunger nor thirst, nor heat, nor cold, neither grief nor fatigue, neither labour nor repentance, nor fear, nor anything that is disgusting and inauspicious; none of these is to be found in heaven. There is no old age either. Delightful fragrance is found everywhere. The breeze is gentle and pleasant. The inhabitants have resplendent bodies. Delightful sounds captivate both the ear and the mind. These worlds are obtained by meritorious acts and not by birth nor by the merits of fathers and mothers. There is neither sweat nor stench, nor excretion nor urine. The dust does not soil one's clothes. There is no uncleanliness of any kind. Garlands (made from flowers) do not fade. Excellent garments full of celestial
fragrance never fade. There are countless celestial cars that move in the air. The dwellers are free from envy, grief, ignorance and malice. They live very happily. When soaked with the delight of reunion with family and friends, I ask the yahoos to take me to the heaven that was visualized by a prophet.

Now Gabriel appears and escorts me to another section of Paradise. There are Gardens, underneath which rivers flow. Therein is their eternal home and purified mates i.e. they have no menses, urine, or stool, etc., And God is pleased with them. There are seventy-two houries whose hymens have not been opened by sexual intercourse by ether man or jinn. By the powers endowed by the prophet I become a thirty-year-old man with the virility of one hundred men; and I will age no more!

In the Paradise I get a garden ten times bigger than that of the world. Entering Paradise I glance right and left and seeing the gardens ask: "For whom are these"? I am told that they are for me. When I proceed further, a red ruby is brought before me in which there are seventy houses, each having seventy rooms and each room having seventy doors. I am told: "Go on meditating and climbing," until I reach my throne on which I sit and recline. Then the houris assigned to me, come to me. One of them comes and sits down by my side on the throne. She is wearing seventy suits of clothes, each of a different colour, and she is so beautiful that in spite of those clothes her flesh and blood and bones, even bone-marrow is visible. This lowly occupant of Paradise asks her: "Who are you"? She says: "I am the houri who had been preserved for you till now”. Then I continue directing amorous glances at her for forty years and do not withdraw my eyes from her.

There are bricks of gold and silver and the mortar is of musk and its gravel is of garnet and pearls and its dust of saffron. There is a tree in Paradise, the trunk of which is of gold and its branches are of emerald and pearl. When the wind blows such a melodious sound is produced that the hearers have not heard a more melodious sound. Similarly, I can’t describe the trees, canals, fruits, walls, doors, in brief, everything of the Paradise - things which neither any eye has seen nor any ear has heard about or the thought thereof has passed any mind.

Yet, this all becomes monotonous after forty years and the yahoos lead me to astral lands which surpass human description with gardens of flowers made with vibrations of light. The glowing blossoms never fade in the realm of hued rainbows, cascading fountains of prismatic lights; skies and seas have opalescent bright waves. The astral heaven is a luminous land of joy, freedom and incredible beauty in an atmosphere of well-being and love. I find upon arriving in the pure clean beautiful astral world where there are no weeds, insects or barren lands with snakes or offensive reptiles, but rainbow rivers and opal lakes. Our astral forms are never subjected to heat or cold but with an eternal spring and even temperatures. I see myself as my exact counterpart of how I looked in my youth in my last incarnation. My spiritual quality is my astral beauty as little importance is placed on facial good looks. I see the astral beings drink nectar from flowing astral brooks and fountains of light. In the astral soils there are wonderful ray like luminous vegetables. I rejoice with my relatives and friends from past lives who are easily recognizable and I realize the immortality of love and friendship from the tragic parting of earthly life.

The lifespan in the astral world far exceeds that of the life on earth. The average span of life for the advanced astral inhabitant is up to one thousand years according to the measurements on earth. My spirit longs for a human birth again.

The Yahoos next usher me in the presence of Yama who gives me a discourse on the fate of people after their death. Wicked souls have many strange and unpleasant experiences after death in the afterlife. Excitable and restless people often experience terrible nightmares while sleeping, likewise when people of troubled wicked disposition leave their body experience accordingly to the law of karma terrible astral nightmares during their death sleep due to the mirror image of their gathered evil. People of evil actions experience periodic dreadful nightmares in the nether regions of the astral world.

When you misuse the power of free choice, Yama continues, you forfeit your chance of incarnating in a divinely endowed human body and instead this misuse of power will cause you to take rebirth in a demonic womb or in some hellish state of existence either on earth or in a place of violence and suffering in other regions of dark astral worlds or in another universe, characterized by nightmares and fearsome beings. This terrible karmic fate of these demonic mentalities is to continue to be trapped birth after birth in darkest delusion unless they awaken themselves by right action and determination. If not they may further descend to the lowest depths even incarnating in an animal body for a time or in some astral bestial form as for the insane person who has lost all reason.

Our karmic pattern will determine how high or low are status is at birth. The deep truths of the karmic laws should not be viewed upon metaphysically as an abstraction but as a way of life. This is why it is so important not to associate with lowlifes. The snake is impervious to its own venom but the poison is harmful to someone who is bitten; our only rational course of action is to exterminate the snakes or not go near them without an antidote. The intelligent man remedies the situation by remaining in good company and by removing himself from the company of evil people. We are our own saviors, Yama concludes. I seem to have got the idea of leading a purposeful life on the earth. I ask for another stab at a human birth and that is readily granted. I am also told that my parents of the next life have already been chosen based on my past actions; but I have the choice of picking my own wife and children.

The houri whom I had beheld in the heaven for forty years, beacons me and I yearn her to be my bride and live with me for at least fifty years on the Earth. The prophetess of the Heaven, who herself is nine years old for eternity, tells me that the houri I have chosen is loveliest by far of all the houris. “She shall be your own. I’ll join you two in marriage, so she will spend all future years with you, as you well deserve. And she will make you father of her three lovely children”, she adds. The houri and I then embark upon a mission, with the two yahoos in the trail, to look for the souls that will grace the bodies of our children.

We go on to the farthest lands of heaven where men whose had distinguished themselves with valour in war, had left the earth prematurely and were waiting for parents to sire them in the next birth. Here a young, charming, tall and handsome colonel of Aryan descent comes to meet us. He has a strong presence and had served in the German Army during the World War but a small black cloud hangs above his head. The Houri exclaims: “It is him whom I want to be our son”. His name is Werneke. He stretches out both his hands in eagerness and says in welcome: “You have at last come. My longing for you two has not tricked me! Let me embrace you.” After hugging him I tell him a second body is in store for him and we will all live happily in the environment where he would feel comfortable.

With one duty done, we come to places of delight where old souls of great beauty and divine qualities once again were wishing for human birth in female form. One particular Athena-like soul enticed my entire being. I felt a pure angelic fatherly affection for her and determined to have her as my daughter. My hourie agreed wholeheartedly. In love to my hourie there is desire; to my son, ambition; but to my daughters – I did want two - there is something which no words can express. I have the distinct impression that this baby would be a great friend and helper with each of its siblings. It is a serious thing to move in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the person you can talk to may be a creature which, if you saw it with your third eye now, you would be strongly tempted to worship. This one would be a special daughter. I will ever be there to lead her, guide her, and walk beside her. Even the senior yahoo applauds my choice.

Next we make our way to a painted bedchamber where a young girl lies fast asleep – so fine in mould and feature that she seems a goddess – our second daughter-to-be. On either side her maids were sleeping. The bright doors were shut, but like a sudden stir of wind, the houri and I move to the bedside of the goddess. As the dawn awakes the fairy princess in the sweet gown, she is still charmed by a dream of going to the Earth in human form. The grey-eyed one had lived enough days of pleasure in this heaven where no tremor of wind is ever felt, nor is it subject to splash of rain or snowflakes. She longs to work in a tumultuous world and is happy to be the daughter of parents who are in bliss at striking gold a third time. This goddess, princess and fairy in one soul would work for the good of the world.

I tell the soldier, the doll and the fairy that for their souls a second body is in store. They have lived free from care in long forgetfulness and now they would feel happiness with the houri me in discovering India and other lands of the Earth. They ask me why the souls crave human birth. Not to leave them mystified, inspired by Shiva, I tell them:

The sky, the lands and sheets of water, the bright moon’s globe, the mighty sun and stars are created by the supreme spirit like a web is created by a spider. The same spirit is infused in living bodies of all the members of the world. From Spirit come all the races of man and beast .The life of birds, odd creatures that the deep seas contain beneath their sparkling surfaces. Fiery energy from heavenly source belongs to the generative seeds of all these creatures so far as they are not poisoned or clogged by mortal bodies and their free essence is not dimmed by earthiness and deathliness of flesh. The flesh makes them fear and crave, rejoice and grieve. Imprisoned in the darkness of the body they cannot clearly sea heaven’s air; in fact even when life departs on the last day not all the scourges of the body nor all the distress of life pass from the poor souls. Inevitably, many malformations, growing together in mysterious ways become deep-rooted. Therefore they undergo the discipline of living out results of the old actions in the next birth.

But those who live with the big picture in mind, and in meditation, are sent through this wide Heaven where we abide in happy lands till the round of time is fulfilled and our stains are worn away. When the soul’s heaven-sent perception is clear the unmemoried may wish re-entry into bodies.

Now I pick a green mound from which to view some souls that I observe coming forward. One by one, six of them head towards us. First one is a pretty, loving and independent girl who makes a bee line towards the soldier. She is followed closely by an enchanting and determined young lady who also moves close to the soldier. Next appears a young and brilliant young man who shoots towards the doll. Not too far is a tiny and pretty young woman who has the marks of wisdom written all over her forehead and who is soon all over the doll. A handsome and playful young man whom Zeus had endowed with great intellect now comes towards the fairy with a beautiful little girl in the tow who constantly spreads sweetness. All the six souls are destined to make the Earth a better place for generations to come.

My message to all of them is: When on the Earth we should all live in the present, caring "only . . . about the small experiences . . . a meeting of the eyes, a glimpse of bare flesh, the orientation of a house plant, the shade of a paint stroke." After all, what is past largely vanishes from memory, while in the future all memories of us will vanish. .. Since past and future are equally lost to us, we should gather our rosebuds while we may. Afterlife we shall again embark on a "great journey" through exotic terrain until we arrive at a grand castle, only to discover that the Creator is a three-faced old man – pervading the entire Universe by His spirit.

Now by Shiva’s grace the yahoos draw the Earth near us, as if it were a model of the globe, to choose our (Houri’s and mine) parents for our birth. The ancient land of India and its present rulers, Great Britain, captivates us. We pause at London where First Round Table Conference is opened officially by King George V on Thursday, November 13, 1930 and chaired by the British Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald. The Indian National Congress, along with Indian business leaders, kept away from the conference. Many of them were in jail for their participation in civil disobedience. However, the Conference was attended by Muslim leaders including Muhammad Ali, Muhammad Shafi, the Aga Khan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Muhammad Zafrulla Khan; Hindu Mahasabha leaders including B. S. Moonje and Jaylar; Liberals including Tej Bahadur Sapru, C. Y. Chintamani and Srinivasa Sastri; Sikh leaders including Sardar Ujjal Singh and a large contingent of rulers of princely states such as Maharaja Bhupinder Singh of Patiala, Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III of Baroda, Maharaja Hari Singh of Jammu and Kashmir, Maharaja Ganga Singh of Bikaner, Nawab Hamidullah Khan of Bhopal and K.S. Ranjitsinhji of Nawanagar.

The idea of an All-India Federation was moved to the centre of discussion. All the groups attending the conference supported this concept. On 4th March 1931 British viceroy of India and Mohandas Gandhi negotiate. But on 23rd March Independent India leaders Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev are hanged by the British Government.

These are exciting times in India and to be born there on the verge of it becoming a strong, united and independent country will be to witness at first hand it regaining that country’s ancient glory. I choose the young lady at Aligarh, whom I had promised that I would return on a new-year’s day, as my mother. The houri, used to a royal environment, picks a prince of Bhopal to be her father – but she has five more years to enjoy her heaven before she descends on Earth.

With our work in the heaven completed we say good byes to the yahoos and tell them we are sorry we are unable to show our appreciation for their services in a tangible manner. At this the junior yahoo becomes audacious and exclaims he would also acquire a human birth and would like to have my fairy as his wife on the Earth. I am astounded but tell him that he would take birth at least five thousand miles away from my fairy and if he deserves her by his actions, the fairy would go to her.

Emboldened by this event, the senior yahoo eyes my doll to be his wife, when he is graced with a human birth. I tell him he would not be born within a radius of ten thousand miles of the place where the doll would be born. Yet, if his love is strong enough, my doll would find him.

At the end of the month I leave eternity of the heaven and slip into the eternity of my mother’s womb.

I have chosen to be on earth because there is something I want to learn that can only happen by inhabiting a body. I am here to repay a debt, learn about love, and teach forgiveness. I shall carry this information in my soul, all I have to do is remember. As I shall go through my journey, I will try not to forget how brave I am, being here now. I shall honor myrself!