CHAPTER 10: Jon's Past Lives
I awakened to the sight of Carol and the two children just entering the pool. I knew that, once again, only a few seconds had passed in the year 2150 while I had experienced a whole day, from morning to night, in 1976. I wondered if I would ever understand the concept of subjective simultaneous time.
Surprisingly, the few seconds of sleep in 2150 had reduced my fatigue. I decided to join Carol and the children in the pool.
Before reaching the edge of the pool I removed my tunic and dropped it down an opening provided for this purpose. It would travel to the underground cleaning plant, be washed, and be returned to this recreation area. As I stood naked at the side of the pool I was pleased to realize that I no longer felt uncomfortable at my nudity-even in front of the children. Since everyone swam naked and strolled about the pool naked, I would have felt uncomfortable if I had been clothed.
I located Carol at the far end of the pool some 100 yards away. Diving in, I swam toward her. I had never enjoyed swimming as much as running, but after the loss of my leg, when I could no longer run, I found swimming very satisfying. Swimming with two strong legs was even more so, and I reached Carol feeling more refreshed than when I had entered the water.
We played water tag with Neal and Jean. Their agility in the water was remarkable. Like young seals, they seemed equally at ease above or below the surface, so without Carol's help the game of tag would have been no contest at all. After about fifteen minutes of this delightful but strenuous activity, I climbed out and lay down on the soft mats beside the pool. Shortly Carol joined me and we lay side by side in the warm sun watching the seemingly inexhaustible children continue the game.
Suddenly I was aware of a tingling in my Macro identity bracelet. I looked first at it, then at Carol, who said, "It's C.I. calling you."
I lifted it to my ear and heard C.I. request that I meet with Lea back at my C.I. room overlooking the lake. Then I heard Lea's soft resonant voice saying that she was already at the C.I. center and would be waiting for me.
"I'll be right there, Lea," I said and started to get up to run back to the research building when Carol reached out to stop me.
"There's a faster way," she said. "Come with me."
We stopped at the clothing rack, where Carol picked up a freshly cleaned tunic for herself and one for me. As we slipped into these, Carol led me toward the exit of the recreation area.
As we ran I picked up the telepathic farewells from the children and returned them, expressing my happiness at having met them and my hope of seeing them again soon.
Carol said that we would probably be seeing them every afternoon. By this time we were near the exit and Carol was pointing to a red ten-foot metal-looking square on the ground. We stepped into the middle of this and, as Carol used PK to push a button at the edge of the. square, we disappeared into the ground.
Neither metal nor cement was used in any of the buildings. What looked like metal, cement, or marble was all some sort of synthetic material which could be molded into almost any shape and strength to stand up under tremendous loads: Our red square turned out to be another void that took us down almost 300 feet below ground to their subway area.
As we swiftly descended Carol informed me that we would use one of their two-seated subway cars which would take us the almost three-mile distance to the research building in less than two minutes.
We walked to a torpedo-shaped bubble containing two large comfortable seats, which, as we sat in them, enfolded us. Carol turned a dial to a setting marked C.I., pushed it in, and our bubble car seemed to rise on a column of air into an opening above us. Then in complete darkness I had the sensation of tremendous acceleration for a moment followed by great deceleration and then we were getting out.
Walking to the middle of another red platform we rose to the surface just outside the entrance of the learning center. It was all so fast that my impressions were still rather garbled.
Carol left me, saying that she would see me back at our Alpha. I hurried into the building and up to what I now thought of as "my" C.I. room. As I opened the door I saw my beautiful twin soul standing by the window turn quickly with a smile. My heart seemed to contract, my breathing accelerated, and tears stung my eyes.
"Lea," I said, "you are the loveliest, most exciting woman in the world. I can't think of words that really describe how I feel about you."
"You are me, Jon," she replied, "my twin soul, and you don't have to tell me how you feel. They are my feelings, too."
We stood silently, then reached out with our minds to each other and felt the strange and delightful sensations of mind contact.
As we slowly disengaged from our deep mind contact I could not help comparing Lea's fair-complexioned blond beauty with the dark loveliness of Carol. I compared Lea with the sun and Carol with the moon and knew that, while they were as different as the sun and moon, I loved them both.
Seeing the dancing lights in the blue eyes before me I knew that my thoughts were shared.
"I'm glad," Lea said, "that you have learned that Macro love is not limited to one person."
"I still don't understand it, Lea," I replied, "how I can love you both in such similar and yet different ways. Then to realize, by actually experiencing your feeling, that you really have no jealousy even as you observe me comparing your physical and mental attributes with Carol's."
Lea nodded her lovely blond head. "I know," she said, "that you would not be able to believe this possible if you had not developed telepathy. But then, it's easier for twin souls because it would be impossible for me to be jealous of myself."
"Oh, Lea," I cried out, taking her in my arms, "how am I going to do it? I have only three months. The possibility of losing you is more than I can handle. I never want to live separated from you again."
"But, Jon," she laughed softly, "have you never heard that it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?"
"How can you take it so lightly?" I asked.
"Because, Jon," she replied, "I know that the only separation possible exists at the micro levels-never at the Macro ones. We can be separated by time and space, but never in the Macro depths of our minds."
"All right," I stated, "there's my greatest motivation for developing Macro awareness-so I will never have to feel separate from you again."
"The reason I asked you here today," she said, "is that both Rana and I feel you are ready to remember a few of your past lives."
"Terrific!" I said, "When do we start?"
"Right now," she replied. "Sit down and we'll ask C.I. to provide the stimuli for Macro contact."
She picked up my thought and said, "Macro contact can be achieved without either sexual union or even touching. This is fortunate because if we joined sexually now it -would diminish your desire for Macro contact so greatly that it would probably be impossible for you to attain third-level awareness in the short time allotted."
"Then, you mean we can't share Macro immersion until I demonstrate third-level awareness?" I asked.
"Not and be able to permanently bridge the time barrier that separates us now," she replied. "But that only means we have less than three months to wait, and we can do that since it means a lifetime of being together thereafter in the Macro society."
As she finished these last words, C.I. began the now familiar visual and audio stimuli which helped produce such vast mind expansion. Very quickly I found myself flowing like a river through infinite space until I was joined by Lea and we were again one mind and one soul.
Then in my mind I heard Lea say that we would be going back in time until we reached a point where my soul had incarnated into a prehistoric Chinese culture.
Suddenly I found myself both experiencing the body of a thirty-year-old Chinese slave trader and simultaneously, observing from outside that body. I knew that I was a cruel and vicious person who took pleasure in the ill treatment of the slaves whom I owned and traded. Scene after scene of brutal, de
grading treatment of others passed before my eyes and I felt sick with self-hatred and shame. Then I died and suffered the miserable existence of sharing the low astral planes with similar depraved personalities like myself until I was born again into one of the earliest Egyptian dynasties.
I became aware of this next incarnation when I again saw and simultaneously experienced myself as a giant black Numidean slave working in the stone quarries of the Pharaoh. Unfortunately my physical vitality was tremendous, so I lived scores of years in extremely hard labor with many cruel slave masters who seemed to delight in laying their whips upon my massive back and shoulders. Finally, and mercifully, I died.
While I had the impression that there were other lifetimes in between, the next incarnation that I became aware of was in a later Egyptian period. I was a Pharaoh who succeeded in freeing the slaves in his land during his reign. I saw myself trying to rule wisely and well, but being constantly frustrated by the corrupt and treacherous priesthood. Finally my royal wrath could no longer be contained and I killed the fat and foppish high priest along with as many of his lesser priests as I could get my hands on. But my bloody actions divided my country, and I, too, was murdered at the end of a long civil war.
Again I had the impression of many incarnations intervening before I saw and felt myself wearing the robes of a cardinal in the early Renaissance church of Rome. I was a fanatic at insisting that sins be driven out of human flesh by torture. Gleefully and with "holy vengeance" I devised newer and better torture methods, such as-my God-chopping off my victim's limbs a section at a time. While I frequently used the burning stake, I usually reserved it for women who refused me their sexual favors. I was indeed a monstrous hypocrite. Because the pope was weak and I was rich and ruthless, I became the most powerful priest in the church. Fortunately for the people of Italy, who lived in fear of me, the plague favored them by carrying me off prematurely.
This death was followed by a hideous period, on the lowest astral planes. Since my selfish desires kept me from rising to higher levels, I was forced to associate with the most loathsome and distorted personalities.
Then brief impressions of other lives flashed by until once again I became aware of a vividly clear incarnation as the daughter of a poor stone-cutter living in a Spain shuddering from the excesses of the Inquisition. I was the eldest in a very poor but large family of eight daughters including myself. I worked long hours to support my aging parents and my many sisters and probably would have lived a long life of this menial drudgery if I had not had this one heretical obsession: I refused to accept the idea of eternal hell. My family spent many years trying to force me to recant this heresy until my sisters, in order to save my poor soul, called upon the officers of the Inquisition for help. My obsession was stronger than the pain of many ingenious means of torture and, in a last desperate attempt to save my soul, I was burned at the stake surrounded by the faces of my sisters praying for my redemption.
The pain and fear associated with this past flaming death caused me to wake up with a scream in the year 1976. It was 4 a.m. and Karl was asking me if I was all right. After assuring him that I was okay now, I fell back to sleep and awakened in my C.I. chair back in 2150.
Lea was bending over me wiping the sweat off my face with a damp cloth. Seeing my eyes open, she lowered her face to mine and gently kissed my lips. Then she said, "Now you know one of the reasons why micro man doesn't want to remember past lives."
"My God," I exclaimed, "if they are all as horrible as mine, I don't blame anyone for not wanting to remember them!"
"Oh, they aren't all horrible," Lea assured me. "You had many lives that were rather peaceful and uneventful. But you didn't learn much from most of them. The five incarnations that you've just relived formed a learning pattern which illustrated to you the consequences of cruel treatment of others. Your soul selects an opportunity for you to grow on. If you waste the opportunity in one life, your soul balances that with an opposite opportunity in another life."
"That's a hard way to learn," I complained. "Does everyone have to learn that painfully?"
"Everyone who chooses the spiritual devolution of the soul ends up with total delusionary amnesia of their past and, thus, has no Macro awareness of the perfect order maintained by the soul in selecting learning opportunities. If you can't remember your macrocosmic oneness with all, you will desire micro power to alleviate your fears of loneliness and weakness. Micro man treats others selfishly, cruelly, to increase his feelings of power, adequacy, and security," was her answer.
"All right, Lea," I said. "I sure hope I learned something from those horrible experiences. Can't I relive some pleasant ones?"
"Certainly," she replied. "It won't be necessary to ask C.I. for help any more. We've opened a pathway to your past. In the future if you meditate deeply you will be able to recall fragments of many more lives. For the moment, however, lie back in your chair arid I'll help you practice retro cognition."
I followed her suggestion and allowed her mind to help me relax and 'put aside my conscious micro concerns. Soon, with her help, I was once again floating through time-on and on-through peripheral flashes of other lives and experiences. However, these were not ones that Lea wished us to look at in more detail, so we continued our journey along the mighty river of time.
Before long I focused clearly on a life as an islander in the tropical South Pacific. It was a lovely peaceful life in a small Polynesian society in which I watched myself grow from a young boy into strong manhood. I married a dark lovely girl whom I recognized immediately as Carol, although her physical appearance was certainly not the same as in 2150. We had a number of children, among whom I noticed were Neal and Jean.
Our life on this Pacific island was one of cooperation and love. Our head man was a very wise and patient leader who seemed to know how to resolve human problems at an early stage before great harm could arise. By the time I reached middle age he was a very old man, yet I recognized in him the soul of Rana. Upon his death I was accepted as leader by all and spent many happy years before the advent of the white traders.
I was very old when the great ships arrived bearing the cruel, lust-filled white men. I tried to warn my people of the anger I felt in these strangers, but like curious children they could not resist the fascination and excitement surrounding these strange beings.
The fascination was short-lived for soon the white men began taking our young men and women off with them when they sailed away. The day came when if we saw the great white sails approaching our island, we would all try to hide. But our island was small and the ships sent out search parties to rout out all who hid. It was then that I tried to organize an escape to another island, but we were discovered and I, as the leader, was executed.
It seemed that after this life I had a very pleasant sojourn on the higher astral planes in which I renewed acquaintances with many old friends and was briefly reunited with Lea. Together we planned new incarnations in which we could learn to further overcome the micro desires which kept us separate. She left our temporary resting place first in order to incarnate as a male of the British nobility during the late 18th century. I left the astral level soon afterward to incarnate as a male in one of the North American Indian tribes of the early 19th century.
In this last incarnation I devoted my life to philosophy and healing and became a respected medicine man. In late middle age I began to spend almost all of my time seeking out and teaching young children how to live more loving and accepting lives. While I experienced some opposition to my teachings from the more warlike members of the tribe, my reputation as a healer was so great that no one openly opposed me. I am convinced that in time I could have changed the course of history for my people, but again I was thwarted by white invaders. One day while almost all of our men were off hunting, white soldiers came charging down upon our camp, killing women and children and anyone else they could find. I died trying to protect the young children of my school, some of whom I recognized as member
s of my 2150 Alpha.
When I had returned to consciousness in our C.I. room I asked Lea why it was necessary for me to experience such tragedy and frustration. She took her time before answering, then replied with a question of her own.
"From the seven lives you have now reviewed, Jon," she asked, "what's the most important lesson you have learned?"
"I'm not sure, Lea," I replied. "It seems that sooner or later my hopes and goals were always thwarted and I died frustrated and dissatisfied."
"Only your micro self was frustrated and dissatisfied," Lea said, "and only your micro desires and goals remained unfulfilled. In other words, the negative seeds you have sown have always produced a crop of frustration and misery, but the positive seeds have always produced happy, satisfying experiences."
"But in these last two lives I was killed trying to protect others," I protested.
"No," Lea replied, "your frustration was caused by your micro resistance. You felt that what was happening to your people was unjust, and bad. You did not accept it as a growth experience, perfect for its time and space, carefully selected by every soul who experienced it."
"Are you saying that I should have welcomed the destruction of my people in those lives?" I asked.
"Only," Lea replied, "if you had Macro awareness could you have accepted micro cruelty, lust, and greed with understanding and loving acceptance."
"But if you are a decent person, you must fight injustice," I insisted.
"If you have a micro perspective," Lea answered, "then you will perceive injustice and have to struggle against it. But there is no injustice from a Macro view, for we can only experience that which we have created. So what were you resisting and fighting against?"
2150 A.D. Page 15