MY FORMER LIFE
1. INTRODUCTION
The concept of past lives, or
reincarnation has played an important role throughout history. The word
reincarnation taken apart means re (again) carnation (in the form of body or
flesh). Belief in multiple physical lifetimes is included in several religious
doctrines, has been made public by celebrities and has been adopted as a form
of therapy to explain our current problems by referencing our past life
challenges.
In Hinduism, the
idea of Karma or in more colloquial terms “what
goes around comes around” is the golden rule that keeps behavior in line,
cautioning that even if you get away with wrongdoing in this life, you will be
held accountable in the next carnation. This is demonstrated in the much
maligned caste system in
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Reincarnation
was the generally accepted philosophy prior to Christianity, where
reincarnation was replaced for some with the belief that Christ has atoned
for our sins and we can go straight to heaven without having to bear multiple
lifetimes. Regardless of the popularity of Christian thought, notable scientist
and author, Benjamin Franklin, had a keen interest in reincarnation, along with
other visionaries of his time.
There is much disagreement as to what form we
take in each lifetime. Some theories say we can be as low as an insect (that’s
why stepping on them is bad form, it could be a relative). Others say the
lifetimes are human. Still others, such as Scientologists
believe that we come from an extraterrestrial zone
and are really another evolving life form known as “thetans”.
Whatever the form,
the concept of coming back experienced a western revival during the twentieth
century. Edgar Cayce, founder of ARE, the Association for Research and
Enlightenment, claims to have remembered many lives in a trance state. Many
consider Mr. Cayce a modern day prophet and his written work extensively covers
the subject of rebirth. Actress Shirley McLaine received much notoriety (and
some ridicule) for “coming out” with several books chronicling her search and
discovery of her past lives.
Many therapists
are incorporating past life
regression hypnosis and therapy to help people understand their present challenges
by resolving issues further back than childhood. This therapy usually consists
of guided hypnosis to regress back to the former lifetime. Some claim this to
be helpful, while some feel that people will “fabricate” past life data because
they are being asked to do so by the hypnotist. Skeptics claim that too many
people tend to remember a spectacular lifetime as a notable figure and few
claim to remember being a chimney sweep or coal miner. This is an exaggeration
of the well-known tale where an ego driven person pays a charlatan to be told
that they were once Napoleon.
An important
concept when considering past lives is the concept of “soul mates”, two spirits that will
interact in some fashion life after life. This concept has been used to explain
premature intimacy based on that feeling that you have known a virtual stranger
“forever”.
As spiritual
beings, we are visitors in this physical realm. The fact that we came here and
lost all memory of what happened to us before we were born is one of the many
reasons that it takes so much courage for a soul to incarnate on earth. This is
why spiritual inquiry so often feels like a remembering—because it is. The memory is wiped clean by the trauma of rebirth and that carting our
past lives around like baggage from life would be too burdensome and
traumatizing for the average person. Remembering past lives are for the most
enlightened sort, not something to be taken lightly, according to many experts
in the field. Nevertheless, self help books and tapes abound to help us travel
back in time and a favorite quip in our modern times is to allude to having
remembered, done it or seen it “in a former life”.
The account of my
former life in this book is not what I remember of my past life. Rather it is a
guess (I hesitate to call it even intelligent). But it does take into account
the Theories of Karma and Wish-fulfillment and the actual results in this life
of mine. But essentially it remains a work of fiction. But I do admit using
actual facts of early Twentieth Century to compose my story.
10 February,
2009
Mahendra Mathur
Westmoorings,
1.
MY ELDER
BROTHER
There was neither
non-existence nor existence then; there was neither the realm of space nor the
sky which is beyond. What stirred? Where? In whose protection? Was there water
bottomless deep?
There was neither death
nor immortality then. There was no distinguishing sign of night or day. That
one breathed, windless, by its own impulse. Other than that there was nothing
beyond.
Darkness was hidden
behind darkness in the beginning; with no distinguishing sign, all this was
water. The life force that was covered with emptiness, that one arose through
the power of heat.
Rig Veda hymn
My elder brother is three
years older than I but is five classes ahead. I had started schooling about the
same age as he had but I did not want to hurry in the matter of studies. I
believed in putting a sound foundation for this edifice and therefore spent two
years instead of one in each class.
My age is nine years. He is
twelve. The fact that he came into the world earlier gives him almost the
birthright to boss over me and look after my welfare. And I am expected to
consider his commands as law.
My elder brother is the
studious type. One seldom sees him without a book. The only time he rests his
brains is when he is building castles in the air. He says he likes to think he
will be a great man and is preparing himself to be one. Questioning the madness
of his thoughts would be considerable impertinence on my part.
I can never put my heart
into my studies for long. To read continuously even for an hour is an ordeal
for me. At the first opportunity I try to get out into the playing fields. But
the joy of play is always marred by my brother. The moment I return, he asks,
“Where have you been?” I never can answer back and say that I was out playing.
And my silence is taken as a proof of my guilt. My brother starts has usual
elder brotherly lecture, “If you study English like this, you dim-wit, you will
take a whole lifetime to learn it. Look at me. I devote all my time to studies.
If you are so fond of playing why don’t you go home and play? Why waste
father’s hard-earned money?”
Sometimes I start weeping
at his rebuke. Sometimes I even wonder if he isn’t right about my being a
dim-wit and wasting my father’s hard-earned money. Sometimes it leads to a
resolve to mend my ways. Within a couple of days my weak mind drifts away from
hard studies to the old and enjoyable habit of playing which is easy on the
mind. I have to hear more of my brother’s advice and rebuke. I wish I could be
quick-witted like him. I also wish I was handsome like him.
The examinations came
around. My brother passed, but I failed. Now there is a difference of five
classes between us. He was now the pride of the family while I ‘the black
sheep’. As if this was not bad enough for me, my brother began reading the Gita
and Ramayana during the summer holidays. To me both the books were
incomprehensible and even boring. His being a star was confirmed while I was
consigned to the status of dust. I wished for a miracle to happen which would
make more like my brother in school class as well as in religious studies.
During the summer holidays
I spent my time with my friends playing cards, chess and cricket. But my
brother immersed himself in history and religious books. He quoted to me from
Kathopanishad:
No man can be made truly happy by wealth.
What use are these: wealth, long life and desires and objects of enjoyment?
They wear out the vigor of all the senses and even the longest life is verily
short. These two, ignorance and knowledge, are wide apart and lead to different
points of goals. The
good and the pleasant take hold of a man. The wise man examines and
distinguishes them. He prefers the good (Sreya) to the pleasant, but the
ignorant man choose the pleasant (Preya) for the sake of the body. He gives a personal example by
using his spare time in earning some annas by supplying cold drinking
water from a well to a detachment of soldiers near the Fort.
Much as I respect and admire my elder
brother’s thoughts and actions, I know I am condemned to choose the pleasant
for the sake of the body in this birth. It is easy to have lofty thoughts when
the pleasant things come rolling to you because you are born handsome and
intelligent. I, with my plain looks and dim wit, have to go looking for the
pleasant.
It is now the second time I
am studying in the Fifth Class. Arithmetic, English, Geography, History and
Science are still difficult to follow. But a friend of my brother, Narendra,
appears on the scene, understands my predicament and takes upon himself the
task of coaching me. He also tells me not to worry about religious studies just
worship God in the shape of Lord Shiva. I admire Narendra, follow his advice
and pass my examination this year. I thank Narendra and wish he was part of my
life instead of my brother.
My brother says: “You do
not deserve any credit for the success – anybody with hard work and Shiva’s
blessings can pass the examinations. And do not ever get in touch with Narendra
again. You do not know his hidden wicked ways. He has already left the village
in pursuit of his nefarious desires”.
When the School reopens, my
brother calls me and says, “I see that your success in the examination has
turned your head. But let me warn you that pride destroys one. When you come to
ninth class you will know how difficult it is to get through. There is Algebra
to be learnt, and Geometry and English History. It is not easy even to remember
the names of those English Kings. There have been dozens of Henrys and scores
of Williams. It is a regular rigmarole. There must be an acute shortage of
names among these wretched people that they invented this queer system of
first, second, third etc., to differentiate between their kings. It is no joke
to remember what event took place in which Henry’ reign. And the moment you
write Henry the Eighth instead of Henry the Seventh you can rest assured that
you will not get a single mark. And Geometry is really devil of a subject. If
you write ACB instead of ABC you’ve had it. Now take English Composition. Some
stupid examiner will ask an essay on Punctuality which should not be less than
four pages – a subject which can be adequately covered in one sentence! Don’t
lose your head because you have done well this year. Take my advice and don’t
waste your time; otherwise you will repent”.
I listen to him patiently
as a younger brother is supposed to. The gruesome picture he paints of the
ninth class really shakes me. I know I can not change my ways and therefore I
decide to leave school at the earliest possible opportunity. My ways do not
change. I work only when absolutely necessary, just enough to keep me going in
the class. The rest of the time is spent in playing. The only books which
interest me are novels, which allow me to escape actual life, and Hindu
Scripture which paint my failed world (for that matter, any world) as Maya.
The examinations come
around again. The previous year’s luck holds my hand and I barely scrape
through to the seventh class. My brother reaps the result of his hard work and
passes his High School Examination in the first division and is rewarded by our
father admission at the prestigious
One evening I follow a kite
far away from the home when suddenly I see my brother. Seeing me running like a
mad dog after the kite he catches hold of my hand and says angrily, “You ought
to be ashamed of yourself running like this with street urchins. There was a
time when people became Naib Tehsildars after passing the eighth class. Many
are still working as Deputy Collectors and Superintendents. Look at our mother.
She has never been to a school. Our father did not go beyond the fifth class.
But can you and I ever hope to reach their wisdom? They may not know what type
of Government America has or how many times Henry the Eighth married or how
many stars there are in the firmament, but there are other and more important
things that they do know – things one learns from experience alone. Don’t
forget father raised a family of nine and spent a major portion of his life on
half of what my expenses will be at
I reflect on what I hear.
If I were in his place, I muse, I won’t go to
Just then a kite passed over our heads. It had a long
string. My brother jumped, caught it and ran towards our home. I followed him.
Chapter 2 IN
THE SERVICE OF A PRINCESS
I am eighteen but have still not been able to pass my
intermediate examination while my older brother has entered public service as a
Deputy Collector after showing his mettle at the Provincial Civil Service examination.
He has also arranged for me to be an apprentice in the Forest Service of the
Province and has me attached to Rishikesh Division at the foothills of
Within a month of my coming here I meet such a lovely
being that I am content and happy. She is so perfect that she has captured me
completely. So much innocence combined with so much intelligence; such kindness
with such firmness; such inner serenity in such an active life.
The other day I had met the Manager of the Tikari
Estate and he had asked me to visit his hermitage, or rather, his little
kingdom. I did not bother and had no intention of going there till by chance I
discovered the treasure hidden in that quiet part of the hamlet.
At nearby Ramjhoola a special
The sun was still above the top of the mountains when
we climbed the steps to reach the Tikari House courtyard. A thunderstorm was
gathering around the horizon in small compact whitish-grey clouds and Sarla
expressed her concern about it. I dispelled her fear by pretending to be a
disaster manager (why do I get these outlandish notions of being what I know I
can not be?).
The maid who came to the gate asked us to come in –
Rajkumari Devika was expecting us. On
being ushered in the Hall I saw the most charming scene of my life. A handsome
young girl of medium height was decorating a thali with fruits, flowers,
and a coconut and vermillion powder for the Aarti. She was wearing a
simple saffron sari the end of which had slipped from her shoulders and rested
on her left arm revealing her beautiful figure. ‘Please forgive me,’ she said,
‘that I gave you the trouble to come to me’. I paid her an insignificant
compliment while my soul was taking in her whole appearance, her voice, the
grace of her bearing.
During the mile long walk to the Gangaghat Devika
talked of books that she had read. I heard her speak of English novels and of
Hindu Philosophy. These were two subjects on which I had also spent
considerable time during my rather dismal student days. How delighted I was to
look into her dark eyes when she spoke of Oscar Wilde, Thomas Hardy, Rabindra
Nath Tagore, Rumi and Adi Shankaracharya.
At the lecture of Swami Vivekananda we sat spell-bound
and almost breathless, to the end. Among other things he said, “We talk
foolishly against material civilization. The grapes are sour. Even taking all
the foolishness for granted, in all
An older lady noticed us, looked at Devika with a
smile, lifted a warning finger and whirling past, and pronounced the name
Kunwar Krishnapal twice with much emphasis. “Kunwarji is a fine young man with
whom I am engaged”, Devika explained. It was no surprise to me because I had
already been made aware of this circumstance by Sarla. Hardly had the lecture
finished when lightening and thunder brought some confusion to the dispersal of
the audience.
When I went next morning to Tikari House, the maid
asked me whom I wished to see. “My Goddess”, spontaneously I replied.” The
Tikari temple is next door”, she pointed out to me. Without any irreverence I
told her I meant the Princess. Sensing my adoration she probably repeated the
conversation to Devika. Thereupon Devika obtained the Maharani’s (her mother’s)
approval for employing me as her personal assistant to perform her outdoor
errands and escort her when she stepped out of the Tikari estate on part time
basis – I need not resign from the Forestry Department..
I could not help telling Devika that, till I met her,
life comprised of one failure after another but with her entry into my life,
the life had become a dream world. She took no credit for it but only said that
in one of his poems Tagore had said that unintending, God’s finger weaves the
veiling art of maya and that from the vast old ocean-womb rise great heaps of
incomplete, indistinct dreams that wait to receive their bodies from time. One
should not get carried away by misfortunes – and fortunes – of life, she advised
since any body can be the recipient of any dream.
My days are as blissful as those reserved for His
saints. Come what might happen, I shall never complain that I have not
experienced the purest joys of life. It is only half an hour to the Tikari
House, where I find all the happiness granted to man. The other day she
revealed to me divine illumination as expressed by Thirteenth Century Sufi
mystic, Rumi.
Love is the royal threshold to God’s mystery, Rumi
wrote. The carnival of small affections and polite attachments which litter and
consume our passing time is no match to love which pulses behind this play.
Today and yesterday and unfortunate tomorrow and the series of tomorrows are
surely dreams that dreaming dreamers dream as reality. Rumi continued that
Time’s is closed down by the dawn of death tearing us from the illusion of our
moments and we cease to be the dreamers of small daily griefs and aches and
enter laughing our home. Devika finally turned my heart against greed by reading
this verse
“Take heed, attend and you shall know
How blind greed sucks you in its undertow.
Every person whose pox is this sweating sin
Has a miser’s heart in deed and thought within.
The lust of possession blinds the heart,
The lust of rank and place keeps you apart,
Like falling hair it robs the eyes of light,
Greed nipples its litter with grasping spite.
While Devika was reciting these lofty lines in a
manner that suggested she was already beyond greed, I was condemned to reflect
that I did lust to posses her - and a rank - deserving of her hand.
One day I accompanied Devika to the Mahant of Swarg
Ashram, about an hour away in the hills. On entering the courtyard of the
Ashram we found the good old man sitting on a bench. When he saw Devika he became very animated,
forgot his knotty stick and tried to get up. She ran towards him, made him sit
down again while she touched his feet and seated herself at his side. She held
the old man’s attention with her talk, raising her voice to reach his almost deaf
ears, said how she thought he looked much better and brisker than the last time
she had seen him. The Mahant said it was not so much his body but his Atman that
he was worrying about. What distressed me was my limited intelligence that kept
me from the conversation.
On the return journey when Devika enquired why I was
so quiet, I could only impute it to my disease of moodiness. She retorted, ‘If
something irritates me and is about to make me depressed, I jump up and sing
some song up and down the garden, and immediately the mood is gone.’ In a
lowered voice I blurted out, ‘My bad mood was perhaps an inner resentment at my
own unworthiness, dissatisfaction with my own self, which is bound with some
envy stirred up by foolish vanity.’ With a tear in her eye she said it will be
her endeavor to make me more self-confident so that I could leave my friends
with their pleasure and add to their happiness by sharing it with them.
I cut an absurd figure when people talk about her in
company. Even more so when they ask me how I like her – like! What sort of a
person is he who likes Devika, whose heart and mind is not completely possessed
by her! Like! The other day someone asked me if I ‘liked’ Kalidas!
In her golden eyes I have read a genuine sympathy for
me and my destiny. My heart is convinced
– and these words are like granting of a boon by celestial powers – that she
loves me! Yet, when she speaks of her fiancé with warmth and affection, I feel
like one who has been deprived of all his honours and titles and who has had to
yield his sword.
When my fingers unintentionally brush hers or when our
feet touch under the table, blood rushes through my veins. I shrink back as
though from a live electric wire, but a secret force drives me again.. Her innocence
does not divine how tormenting these small intimacies are. And when sometimes
in the her Library we look for a book and are so close to each other that the
heavenly breath of her mouth reaches my lips, I almost faint as if struck by
lightning. The truth is that she is sacred to me and all desires are silenced
in her presence. I am cured of all pain, confusion and melancholy the moment
her first glance graces me.
‘I shall see her’ is the first thought in the morning
when I rise and breathe fresh air of the dawn. And I have no other wish for the
day. How I pity those who go through life without experiencing love. I can now
understand the sublime love felt by Surdas for
If I were not an idiot, I could lead the best and happiest
of lives. I am now in very pleasant circumstances considering my background. To
be a member of this charming family, to be employed by the Maharani and to have
affections of Devika and to have no disrespect even from Kunwarji (actually he
is quite friendly). But it is true that our heart creates its own happiness.
Though my heart burns from the envy of Kunwarji’s good look, wit and knowledge,
we have this ridiculous relationship of our mutual love for Devika. Kunwarji is
the best man under the sun. Also, luckiest he certainly is.
It is true that nothing in the world makes a person
indispensable but love. I feel Devika would not like to lose me. Every time I
broach the subject of seeking a transfer to another Forestry Division, Devika
pooh-poohs it. How am I to explain that the generous and warm feeling which
flooded my heart with such bliss, so that I saw the world around me as a
It is seven in the morning and the world is waking up.
But my world has just ended. Last evening when I was leaving the Tikari House I
whispered to Devika that I had made up my mind to leave Lakshmanjhoola for
ever. She whispered back in my ears that she would like to meet me under the
mango tree at the garden at three next morning. I reached there a few minutes
early and watched her, with a red shawl covering her head and shoulders,
gracefully walking towards me. She fell in my arms and I hugged her with
reverence of a devotee towards his goddess. And it was instant nirvana. We sat
down under the tree and she rested her head on my shoulders and both of us were
silent just relishing the moments. To enhance the value of those moments I drew
her attention to the beautiful effect of moonlight illuminating the whole
length of terrace before us. She said she was overawed by the sense of
separation and future life. 'The obstacles in the path of our union are now
insurmountable,' she went on, 'but Mahi, shall we find one another again and
know one another? What do you feel? What do you say?'
'Devika,' I said, putting my hand on her exposed right cheek as my tears seeped into my eyes, we shall meet again, in this or next life.' My mouth went dry and incapable of uttering any more words as my heart was in anguish because of our impending separation. She now held my other hand in her hand and said, 'Without you I feel so incomplete and I will pray to be deserving of you'. I was overwhelmed. Never had anything more magnificent been said about me. 'Devika,' I cried, taking her in my arms muttered haltingly, 'and it will be my endeavor to reveal thee in all my actions and to be worthy of your love,' stealing a bit of Tagore even in those sublime moments. She actually fainted in my arms. Was it really happening to me? I had only read of such scenes only in poems; but for the most beautiful woman to faint in my arms was a scene for the Gods to see. Alas, much later I learnt that her fainting was induced by her thyroid problem. But at that moment I panicked - I could neither seek help for the fear of sullying her reputation nor leave her alone for the fear for her safety. I only prayed to Lord Hanuman to bestow us with a Sidhi for her to come out of the faint. And gradually she opened her eyes, took stock of the situation, kissed me and after I had helped her to get back on her feet, she slowly disappeared in the morning mist to return to her mansion.
