Emira Selimovic Elersic THE PATH OF DESTINY EMINA’S STORY Emira Selimovic Elersic THE PATH OF DESTINY Cover illustration: Igor Ribic Translated by: Michael M. Published by: Maat Brands www.maatbrands.com Copyright © 2012 by Emira Selimovic Elersic published through Maat Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written consent of Maat Brands. Dear mother, This book is my gift to you. For years something pursued me, Following me like a shadow. Now I know what my soul’s task was. I am happy to be able to fulfill my obligation to you. I am grateful to you for your sacrifice And the love that you bestowed upon me As the best nourishment On my own path of destiny. I call as a witness God, Who is the beginning and end of everything, The ruler of light and dark, The source of infinite light. Lead me, Show me my path every day, So my soul does not go astray. Give me the forgiveness To wring out doubts and fears. Give me the strength To express my suffering. Give me the wisdom To recognize my soul’s pain. Give me compassion So that my words may reach the hearts of all Suffering souls. Source of light in me – I love and need you. Come into my heart and forever liberate my intellect. My will is the purity of God’s intention. Blessing, joy, and peace in the soul. Thus be. Table of Contents CHAPTER ONE A FATEFUL MEETING THE LAW OF KARMA THE UMBILICAL CORD IS NOT CUT THE HEART’S LONGING THE HEART’S EMPTINESS FEAR OF LOSS THE BLESSING OF THE WATER CHAPTER TWO LOVE ALWAYS WINS THE BRIDGE OF LIFE THE HEART’S PAIN THE HEART ALWAYS HOPES PAIN ERUPTS AS ILLNESS TIME TO DECIDE CHAPTER THREE THE OLD HOUSE UNCLEANSED KARMA THE VOICE OF THE HEART FEAR IS MAN’S ENEMY THE SEARCH FOR HAPPINESS CHAPTER FOUR THE CHILD GROWING INSIDE CHILD AND MOTHER IN EXPECTATION OF A SON CHILDREN ARE NOT OUR PROPERTY EXPECTATIONS LEAD TO DISAPPOINTMENT LIGHT’S CHILD CHAPTER FIVE THE CURSE HAS MATURED A LOOK INTO DESTINY A DARK PREMONITION LOVE IS BLIND HOW TO LOVE? THE LAST WARNING THE PATH OF LOVE EVIL VANQUISHES SHE LOVED AND FORGOT HERSELF THE TOLL OF THE CURSE THE SOUL’S BLESSING DESTINY IS FULFILLED CHAPTER SIX THE FAREWELL A RAY OF NEW HOPE THE END PREFACE Everyone strives to make his or her life easier and more pleasant. A lot of people have succeeded in this. Scientific and technological developments in different areas have made for more comfortable and pleasant living. What was once impossible is now solved at the touch of a button. We have created heaven on earth. We cannot imagine life without our own car, television, computer, web page, cell phone... We have created all of this with the intention to save time and make our lives easier, but we actually have increasingly less time and life is becoming more demanding and complicated. Many people are realizing that everything that we have created in the external world has not, despite our advancement and great achievements, fulfilled our lives. On the contrary, there is more evil – wars, crime, misfortune, disease, discontent – in the world now than ever before. Many have chosen the opposite path. They no longer look for happiness in the outside world. They are stepping on the path of discovery of their inner self, where there is so much that is not known and has yet to be researched. They are aware that people must first change themselves in order to create their future. Who among us does not want freedom, yet is infinitely frightened by it? Who does not cling to convictions, beliefs, and sentiments without daring to think how much these very things may actually limit and often plunge him or her into sadness, anger, and discontent? What person does not want his or her child to have everything he or she did not was not capable of or was not successful at? But, despite our desires and best efforts, often without even wanting to, we spin in a circle of difficulties and problems as if some unseen force is dragging us into a cycle of infinite repetitions. All until we realize the deepest reasons for our discontent – until we recognize our own truth. Must mankind really endure so much suffering for the sake of his development? Religion teaches us that suffering is the path to spiritual development. Wise men from the Far East are telling us that joy is the source and meaning of life. Both glorify love as an expression of divine working. Despite the thousands of years old traditions of various teachings, it seems as though man is even blinder and deafer. Despite technical advancement and development, we behave less and less responsibly and more and more selfishly and unreasonably. Before you is the story of Emina. It is a simple, everyday story that happens to thousands and thousands of women. And yet, it is not nearly as simple and ordinary as it first seems. This is the story of a woman, who was cheated of happiness in love because she succumbed to the curse of her descent – unknowingly and unintentionally. An evil destiny led her and she could not understand or even conceive of resisting. In spite of the suffering her heart endured, she would not listen to prudent advice. Where is the line between the intellect and the heart? When can the heart mislead us into ruin and when does the intellect obstruct emotions? What is right and what is not? Who should we listen to and how should we behave? In life we often find ourselves in a situation where we must solve matters that we ourselves did not cause. Or so we think at least. Many a thing, of which we are not aware, is recorded in our subconscious, and so we think that it does not concern us. But unfortunately, this is not the case in life. Emina’s story is an example of uncleansed karma. Where or when it took place is not is not even important. What is important is that it could happen even today. What is more – there is a little bit of Emina in every woman. And Sanjanin is hidden in every man. And this is the very reason that Emina’s story is truly everyday and simple. Not because it is not something special, but because it happens in each of us. In what way is it spiritual? Because it carries a message and the insight for confronting your destiny. Although Emina succumbed, with her example, she enables modern women to avoid repeating her story. CHAPTER ONE A FATEFUL MEETING A group of merry young men in Sanjski most were setting out to go to the village Vrhpolje, where people from neighboring villages gathered every year to celebrate the start of spring. Handsome Sanjanin proudly stepped among them as though he were aware of his wealth. But this young man was not only handsome, refined, and attractive, as the descendant of a distinguished family, he was especially of interest to calculating mothers with marriageable daughters. The men swaggered about importantly and conversed seriously. Many of them smoked pipes, nodding to their colleagues with interest. The women turned about in their wide skirts, and huddled together so that passersby could not hear their malicious gossiping. The young girls remained somewhat at a distance, secretly assessing the young men, especially if the girl had fallen in love with one of them. Girls in another group gathered around the clairvoyant, who predicted the romantic fates of the inquisitive girls. The young men pretended to be having an infinitely good time, making eyes at the girls in secret when they became aware of their affection. Only Sanjanin was alone, leaning on the old linden tree in the village center. He was immersed in his own secret yearning, surrendering to the gentle rustle of the leaves. He did not care to wink and flirt with the girls. None of them touched him enough to warm his heart. And yet he dreamed about a love larger than life. Emina walked in the sunshine toward the group of girls. She was barely able to convince her stepmother to allow her to attend the festivities. She glowed with gratitude for the opportunity to enjoy the festival. So full of expectations and excitement about the great event, she had barely slept a few hours the night before. Although humbly dressed, without the colorful scarf and none of the shiny jewelry that adorned the other young girls, Emina resembled a goddess. She stepped nimbly toward the old linden, her svelte figure like a flower carved in the sunlight, her hair enveloping her sweet face. When Sanjanin caught sight of her, he stared at her spellbound. Emina felt his deep gaze and tenderly smiled at him. This was enough encouragement and the young man approached her shyly. “What is your name?” asked Sanjanin, barely able to speak, enchanted with her gracefulness. “Emina,” she simply replied. “I am Sanjanin.” They looked at each other as though they could not believe their eyes. It seemed to them as though they had known each other forever. They felt like two travelers, who finally arrived home after a long and tiring journey. Weary, but happy. They felt that they belonged to each other and had lumps in their throats. Each soul recognized the other. Each heart trembled in beat with the other. Fear stifled the feeling of bliss, their breath stopped short, and their chests ached: “Oh dear God, is this possible!” The handsome couple drew the clairvoyant’s attention. She observed their image and saw into their destiny. Their souls were burdened with the uncleansed karma of their descent. God brought them together, but human reason and greed would separate them. Evil does not know love. They would pay for the sins of others and for this reason plod brokenhearted on a thorny path of life. THE LAW OF KARMA “You reap what you sow,” is a popular proverb that nicely illustrates how the cause and effect relationship works. The law of karma says that everything is paid for – everything is repaid in kind. Whatever a person does, good or bad, comes back to him or her sooner or later. The purpose of living on Earth is to come to know your own essence through experiences. Who am I? We are all one and one is God. Therefore, each person must recognize something divine in him/herself and work in accordance with it. However, on Earth there also exists evil, which hinders a person in the search for his/her essence. Our experiences are not always positive. We react to negative experiences with anger, judgments, revenge, and malice, which only intensify the darkness. If we resist, we experience pain. Every deed (both good and bad) that we have done to or for others, we will experience ourselves. And so we have found ourselves in this endless cycle. The only path out of always repeating the same mistakes is forgiveness. The clairvoyant explained to the girls how they must proceed in life in order to avoid getting entangled in the chains of their predecessors’ mistakes. “Each person must tackle his own self and settle the past. Stop torturing yourselves, stop sinning, rid yourselves of the burdens of the past and begin to live in the present because lost time cannot be restored, but the present and future can be realized. Then you will be pardoned of everything as though you had never sinned. All will be forgiven as though you had never suffered. That, which you did wrong, was the mistake of your intellect and reason, which were led by your free will. Your suffering was compensation for your soul since it could not perform its tasks because you seduced and obstructed it.” The circle of inquisitive girls around the clairvoyant had grown noticeably. Every girl wanted to learn her destiny, corroborate her hopes, and guard herself against misfortune. The clairvoyant advised each among them for hours upon hours and helped her to understand the truth of life. Then she explained to all of them how the soul arrives on Earth. “At birth we cut the baby’s umbilical cord with scissors. After death we lay a pair of scissors on the belly of the deceased so that they may cut the link between body and soul. We are born naked – without anything. The soul brings with it nothing but the physical body. It comes to Earth to learn. Earth is a great school for all living things. Its doors are open to all. When the time for learning has expired, the doors are open to all so that they may leave. Just as we bring nothing with us when we came into the world, we take nothing with us when we leave. On no account should you fly to the moon. Learn to walk on Earth first and then the Moon. On Earth you learn gradually. When you master one level, you move on to the next. For this reason you must not overtake anything. In nature everything is harmonized. Water seeks the easiest path from its source. Everything has its purpose and meaning.” ”Why do we never know what is the task of our soul?” asked Emina, who in the meantime had come to see the reason why so many girls had gathered. “God is very merciful, that is why he has hidden from man his path of life while living on Earth – so that he does not know his time of death. When the soul is prepared to come into the physical body, God presents it with every resource so that it can perform its task. He gave to man intellect and reason, plus and minus; He gave him two energies: benevolence and anger – grace and disgrace. The human soul is always accompanied by two beings – good and evil. God does not want to control us and order us around. This is why he gave us free will. Man is not a puppet in God’s hands.” “How do we distinguish between good and evil?” the girls asked. “There is good and evil in every person. People, who are conscious of their internal world, their good and bad qualities, are also aware of the consequences of their actions. A person has benevolence or goodness as a quality if he or she is loving and gentle, and others feel pleasant and safe in his or her company. The quality of evil is the infinite fear of loss. The person cannot tolerate someone being better and becomes jealous, persecuted by a feeling of loneliness. Residence on Earth is learning. If a person does not follow the learning of his soul, life can be very cruel to him. Whoever steps on the path of evil incurs a lot of suffering. Evil blinds and seduces a person. That is why at first a person often enjoys it. Then it hits him. Only after he has successfully disentangled himself does he understand that evil obstructed him. Because of his blindness, he did not complete his task on time. Evil takes time. Years go by and we only realize that we wasted them when it is too late.” THE UMBILICAL CORD IS NOT CUT Sanjanin could not forget beautiful Emina. Her image obsessed him with the beauty that she secretly carried within. As hard as he tried, he could not shake the feeling, which he felt for the first time in his life in her closeness. Although he knew that his mother had already chosen a wealthy bride, he hoped that he could persuade her. He had never opposed his mother. He esteemed her and respected her as a mother, to whom he must be grateful for life and everything he had. In all his devotion he did not even notice that his mother’s goodness was of a very, very selfish nature. One evening he cautiously addressed her: “Mother dear, I know that you expect me to bring home a fiancée, who is attentive, hardworking, and a good woman, but be kind and listen also to my heart. Like a bolt out of the blue, I have been taken by beautiful Emina. I have felt love that I never even knew before. I have fallen in love. I cannot help myself. My heart longs for her.” His mother looked at him sternly and replied dryly: “Do not disgrace me. You cannot break off the engagement. The family of your fiancée are old friends.” “Mother, try to understand me.” “Listen, son. She has nothing. She is a poor orphan girl. Think about your descent. Our family is esteemed. Respect our good name. We love you, but in this case we cannot take your heart and will into consideration. You gave your word and you cannot go back on it.” “I know, mother,” Sanjanin tried to persuade her. “I would like to comply with your wishes. But my reason says one thing while my heart leads me. I have always been strong, but now something inside me has broken. This is stronger than I am and I cannot resist it. I love Emina.” His mother wept quietly: “Put your feelings aside, son. Be smart so that you do not regret it later.” Sanjanin gave in to his mother’s will. He succumbed to her feigned pain. He did not want to hurt her although he knew that their family’s good name meant more to her than the suffering of his heart. Because of his goodness, he surrendered to the influence of his relatives, so as not to offend them with his actions. He submitted to their expectations and did not even realize that he stepped into a void of life. His mother feared that her son would change his mind. Relatives urged her: “Strike while the iron is hot. You know what he is like. He is so much in love that he does not know what he is doing. He could disgrace us. We must bring his fiancée home as soon as possible.” The wedding guests gathered that same day and set off for the bride-to-be. They welcomed her with songs and a big banquet at Sanjanin’s home. Relatives, friends from all parts, and neighbors from the village gathered. They danced and partied until the early morning. Sanjanin devotedly tolerated the festivities and did not reveal his sadness or broken heart. At dawn he pleasantly said his goodbyes and went to work in a town faraway. THE HEART’S LONGING Emina lived at her stepmother’s in the shadow of her half brothers and sisters. She presented her sadness to the rising sun and shared her loneliness with the babbling brook. Every morning, while everyone was still asleep, she quietly crept out of the house and ran to the brook. She bathed in the cold water for a long time, as though she wanted to wash away her misery and bitterness. When the sun’s first rays shone on Emina’s slender body, she radiated in all her beauty like a water nymph in the prism of droplets that streamed down her milky white skin. Even the dirtiest, most tiresome work did nothing to diminish her charm. Emina’s long black hair fell on her back like a cascading waterfall and wrapped around her hips. Her big brown eyes beamed under long eyelashes and embraced everyone with a loving gaze. She never complained even though there was never a new dress, silk scarf, or small surprise for her. Nobody spoke a kind word to her, but she did not resent them for it. Neither insults nor distress could drive away her gleaming smile. People in the village liked her and her heart was open to everyone. She overcame troubles with her kindness and she knew no selfishness. One day while walking with a girlfriend to fetch water, she confided in her that she was in love with Sanjanin. She had to tell someone how her wishes constantly fled to him and how the mere thought of him made her heart skip a beat. Perhaps it would have been better if she had kept her secret to herself. All too soon her friend surprised her with news that destroyed her hidden yearning and deep hope. “You know, Emina, my mother and I visited my aunt in Sanjski most. While we were there the neighbors invited us to a party. Emina, I was stunned when I laid eyes on the young man you met at the festivities in Vrhpolje. It was Sanjanin. They were celebrating his engagement.” Emina stood as though in a trance and could not believe what her friend was telling her. Barely able to speak, she asked: “What if you are wrong? Maybe you confused him with someone else?” Her heart ached with pain. She felt dizzy. Her friend convincingly replied: “No, Emina. I made inquiries – I asked the neighbors. It was Sanjanin. I am certain.” Hidden behind a tree, her stepmother stood listening to their conversation. This was fateful for Emina. Her stepmother knew Sanjanin’s mother and was positive that she would never consent to a wedding with a penniless woman. And so she devised a plan to marry Emina off as soon as possible. She soon found her a husband. Because she was an orphan, others decided on her destiny and it was common for a poor girl to be married off into a wealthy family. Her stepmother chose a rich widow, who needed a housewife. He immediately warmed up to beautiful Emina because she was humble, diligent, and hardworking. No one even asked Emina how or what she felt toward the man who was a great deal older. She knew that she could not go against her stepmother because she would only provoke her malice and anger. When the wedding guests came for her, she left for her new home without a word. In her heart she consoled herself: “I cannot be any worse off. What have I got to lose? A person can lose only what they do not have. What can I lose?” But deep within she yearned for Sanjanin. Defiantly she thought: “They can take everything from me, do what they want with me, but they cannot take love away from me.” Her meeting with Sanjanin preserved a flicker of love and the fleeting hope that nothing was lost. THE HEART’S EMPTINESS When a person succumbs to the influence of others, he loses touch with himself. We cannot do as much harm to anyone as we do to ourselves. The person who denies his heart unknowingly departs down the path of evil. Because the heart is love. Love is God. He who does not listen to his heart forgets God. That is why, sooner or later, his shifty intellect leads him astray and into misfortune. Only in the big city did Sanjanin become aware of his loneliness and denied yearnings. He missed Emina. He never loved the woman who had enchanted his family. In his heart he was a very unhappy man. But he did not show this to anyone. He was even very good at hiding it. He was always at everyone’s disposal, trying to help them, full of good intentions so that no one would poke at his pain. His relatives were convinced that he had accepted his fate. Although they could not understand why he was stalling with the wedding. Emina’s love quietly glimmered in his heart. He yearned for her tenderness. For him she was the unattainable image of true love. He searched for his lost love in periodical romances with other women. He drowned his sorrow in wine. He surrendered to hopelessness and tried to forget Emina with work. Although young, life had disappointed him to the point that he promised himself that he would never again allow his feelings to lead him into temptation and cause him pain. Fear crept into his intellect. He warmed up to many women, but he always felt deceived. He lost his belief in love and life was only corroborating this. From his experiences grew the belief that there was no love for him. He was talented, kind, and always ready to help. He treated his disappointment over women with love for work. He found pleasure and passion in the company of fellow drinkers. He felt safe in this environment. He feared the pain, which the love that he had denied carried. The worse his heart ached with pain, the more he was driven to occupy every moment with work. It was as though he wanted to overcome the sadness and bitterness that gnawed at him with hardwork and kindness. As if he wanted to convince misery to leave him alone and allow him to enjoy a little bit of love. His romantic relationships were mostly with women who wanted to take advantage of him. When they got what they wanted, they went their own way. The fear of loss was always stronger than his feelings. For this reason he was constantly losing and was ever more convinced that there was no love for him in this world. Fear had so darkened his intellect that he no longer heard his heart. It was buried under the immense weight of convictions and hidden beneath pain and his last hope for love died away. FEAR OF LOSS When Sanjanin’s fiancée learned about his lady friends and love affairs, she went back home. His family tried in vain to convince her to go back. She stubbornly insisted: “There was no love in our relationship. He loves another woman. We found ourselves in a love triangle, which is the source of mischief. He is with me only physically, while his heart is elsewhere. Although I am well provided for, my life is empty. I no longer want to live under the same roof in this emptiness. Understand, mother, that we are like two strangers to each other. You cannot make anyone love you. I am still young and I want to live a full life. With him I am condemned to eternally lead a miserable existence. Only if Sanjanin comes for me and proves his love to me, I will go back, otherwise I will not.” His mother was disheartened and unhappy that her son disgraced her so. But she was certain that she would change his mind. She was well aware of the immense influence she had on her son and she knew that he would do anything to please her. She sent a message for him to come home as soon as possible because it was time for the wedding. Sanjanin did not know what to do. His heart was broken. His thoughts strayed to Emina, but he renounced his own happiness because he knew that his mother did not approve of this marriage. He did not want to fall out of favor with his relatives. But the more he wanted to please them, the more they resented him and reproached him for acting contrary to their expectations. His mother was very distressed and offended. The woman he lived with and provided for, but did not love, went home to her parents angry. This was a big disgrace for his family. He did everything to please his mother; even renounced his own love, but he could not deny his heart. And this is exactly what they held against him. For his fiancée and mother, it was not enough that he did everything they wanted. They wanted his emotions. His mother was ashamed because he betrayed family tradition. His disappointed fiancée, who wanted Sanjanin’s heart and not just the material and other security that he provided, left him. Both his fiancée and mother were unhappy because he did not live up to their expectations. But how could the poor man live up to their expectations when he did not even have the strength to fulfill his own desires and his heart’s yearning? For this reason he felt very, very guilty. He made such an effort to make everyone happy and it was all for naught. This saddened him deeply. Still, Sanjanin did not want to acknowledge his pain. He intended to speak to his mother. He hoped she would understand, but she did not utter a word. He was aware of her stifled anger and he wanted to approach her to explain his behavior. She loftily refused him. She remained cold and inaccessible to his aching heart. He felt powerless to do anything. Life had played him for a fool, and he was ashamed to admit that the only thing left for him to do was to try to find Emina. When a person experiences love for a split second they can no longer deny it. Their mind may make all kinds of excuses to avoid dealing with their emotions, but their heart speaks louder. THE BLESSING OF THE WATER In moments of sadness and loneliness, Emina resorted to the water. She sat motionless on a decaying tree stump and stared at the rushing river as though she were in a trance. Every evening she escorted the setting sun with her gaze. Even when the sky was filled with dark clouds, in her thoughts she was parting with the sun. With it the sun took all of the suffering that Emina had endured that day. Its rays caressed her and skimmed her slender figure, lighting up her tired face with its scarlet beams. Her fragile body carried life’s burdens in suffering, but the fires of belief in true love burned within. Inside she felt an abundance of joy and happiness, beauty and tenderness, infinite light. She wanted to awaken every individual ray of light and in her thoughts wrap it around her beloved. Everything that she did, she did while thinking of Sanjanin. She blessed even the slightest, most unimportant tasks with thoughts of him. With him life got its meaning and purpose. She would sacrifice everything for him. Although a cursory meeting, it made a deeply impression on Emina’s heart. Nothing was more sacred to her than Sanjanin. She kept house attentively and lovingly, making things beautiful to remind her of their meeting. She gathered wildflowers in the meadow everyday to conjure up the colors of her love and bring the sun’s warms rays inside and onto the cold gray walls. Even though she knew Sanjanin’s mother had given him to another and that his family would never accept an orphan like her. Although she did not love him, Emina was a good caretaker to her aging husband. She was a faithful and hardworking housekeeper, but she never became his wife. She always thought only of Sanjanin. She was sending him her love, unaware that thoughts are the strongest bonds that unite people in spite of the distance between them. CHAPTER TWO LOVE ALWAYS WINS Life is God’s plan. No matter how we may resist it, we cannot change anything. We can only ease troubles if we accept them, trust, and believe that some good always comes out of something bad. Destiny does not differentiate between the rich and the poor, the happy from the unhappy, the good from the bad. Destiny always comes in its own time and performs its mission. Sanjanin returned home to satisfy his mother and reconcile with his fiancée. Some unknown force drew him to walk across the square although the path along the street was closer. He was absorbed in thought as he walked. All sorts of ideas for breaking out of his mother’s hold went through his mind. He knew that she expected him to take this woman as his wife even though he felt nothing for her. But how could he convince his mother of this? When he first poured his heart out to her, she rejected him cruelly. He was thinking this when he suddenly stopped short. There at the village’s tap in the square stood Emina, illuminated by the sun’s rays, pouring water into a pitcher. He did not know whether he should approach her or avoid the encounter. Yet again, some unknown force drew him to her. When Emina saw him, her heart stopped as though she had seen something from out of a dream. Yet there before her actually stood Sanjanin. Their souls recognized each other. This was not a meeting where the words that are spoken are soon forgotten, but where thoughts are spread out and cherished. It was a hot and humid summer day. The air was thick and heavy with the approaching storm. It had to rain – as if nature knew that it had to wash away all the past, dissolve all the pain, and put the pieces of broken happiness back together again. Emina trembled in fear and anxiety. Inside she felt the unstoppable urge to hide in his safe arms and lean her head, tired from heavy thoughts, on the shoulder offered to her and run her finger through the soft curls, which she longed to stroke although they were not her own. In this vulnerability and sensibility she was awakened by the fleeting touch of lips that slipped past her like the eternal promise that leads to where two are one, where she felt his heart beat as her own, where her thoughts were his wishes and her wishes his promises. If time could have stopped at that moment, Emina and Sanjanin would have been the happiest people in the world. But as it was, in the very next moment they both ached with the pain of separation. Sanjanin took her by the hand and devotedly asked: “Dear Emina, please be patient a little longer so that I may settle some things. Please, Emina, wait for me. Trust me and believe. I will come for you.” She knew that he was referring to the woman to whom his mother had promised him. Emina knew his heart and was aware that he would not do anything to hurt her. She also knew that his mother would not release him. Ever since she lost her husband, Sanjanin was both a husband and son to her. He did everything that needed to be done around the house. He kept her company so that she was not lonely. He made an effort to cheer her up so that she would not be sad. But she remained an embittered, grumbling woman. She knew no gratitude. All of her life she looked only for her own benefit and complained when something was not fulfilled for her. She endured much in life, but was still greedy and domineering even in her old age. His mother was unfair and malicious to her even though Emina had never done anything to her. Still, Emina did not hold this against her because she knew that malice is born out of distress and uncontrollable pain. She smiled at Sanjanin and kindly said to him, “I also have to settle some things. My family arranged for me to be housekeeper to a widow. We are not married. I merely live with him. I feel sold and deceived. They may have shackled me, but my heart is free.” He embraced her tenderly and softly whispered: “Emina, free yourself of your shackles. Do not be afraid. Know that I am always with you.” In her sadness Emina quietly cried. Sanjanin cheered her up and filled her with hope: “Do not cry, my love. Be brave. Know that I stand by you. Trust me. Everything is still going to be fine.” Sanjanin and Emina parted with difficulty. They both felt as though a piece of their heart left with the other. The sun set behind the mountain and painted the sky crimson red – reminiscent of their aching hearts. THE BRIDGE OF LIFE Ever since Emina’s chance meeting with Sanjanin, she found no peace. She felt a duality in her soul and thought about him all the time. And so she set off to see the clairvoyant. “We have already met,” the clairvoyant greeted her. Emina just smiled awkwardly. “I have come for some advice,” said Emina, asking the clairvoyant to reveal her destiny to her. “When soul meets soul and one heart opens up to another, the body learns not to resist and rejects all others. When you love, love. Never forget your wishes because wishes are a good start. If a person lies in a bed only for the sake of peace, or just to have a roof over his head, this love has no future. We become slaves to mere survival. This shortens a person’s time and the soul cannot perform its tasks. On life’s path the soul has many tasks that it must complete at the right time. Gather experiences. When a question tortures you and you cannot find the answer, give it time. In the meanwhile, perform other tasks. Time will bring the answer you are waiting for. Some people do not dare to look into their soul. These are people who fear themselves. They are afraid of pain and that is why they are afraid of the truth.” “I feel that my soul must perform an important task – important not just for me, but for my family as well. Please explain to me how I can recognize my mission. I want to know all about the soul,” Emina said and the clairvoyant began telling her about the soul, and its tasks on Earth, in great detail. “Six weeks before death the physical body appears to recover. We often think that the sick person’s health is improving. This is the soul giving strength to the physical body so that we my bid farewell to family and loved ones. He who did good things in life, and did not succumb to evil, may leave peacefully. That is when we say that a person died peacefully, as if they had fallen asleep. The soul performed its task, rid itself of the burden of the physical body, and leaves the physical body. Then it hovers over the physical body for a while and observes it. When a person dies, his family should not cry for him for at least six weeks because tears bring water that drowns the soul. We must realize that we have come to Earth only for a limited time. We are not here for as long as we want, but for as long as destiny has predetermined. In the physical body we may, with our free will, leave the material world sooner, but the soul cannot leave before its time. For this reason it roves the material world and hovers between two worlds. Only when the time comes for the fateful departure, the soul steps before the superior force that determines the soul’s path forward. In the spiritual world, departed acquaintances and relatives expect the soul six weeks before death and look forward to welcoming it. Meanwhile, in the material world, family and loved ones mourn their loss. Six weeks after death the soul is still before the doors of the other world. Although it knows that it is no longer in the material world, it is very confused because it has grown attached to its physical body. For this reason God has given the soul six weeks to realize that it has left the material world and bid it farewell. The soul that has completed its task soon comprehends and passes through the tunnel. It then finds itself at a crossroads where one path goes to the left, the other to the right, and a third straight ahead. There is no fourth path because the fourth is the material world. Left and right are heaven and hell, purified and unpurified areas. The path straight ahead leads to rebirth or reincarnation. When the soul stops before the superior force, its life flashes before it. It is conscious of what it did with its free will in the material world. That is why it is frightened. When it sees and feels what happens in hell, it trembles and plunges into silence. If the soul conceals its actions, the superior force orders witnesses, who were with the soul on Earth, to speak. These are the feet that carried the physical body –they reveal where they walked. Hands reveal what they did; the mouth what it spoke; the eyes what they saw; the ears what they heard and the nose reveals what kind of air it breathed. Six witnesses tell the truth and reveal what the person’s free will, with its intellect, ordered them to do. Everything is accounted for and the soul must endure hell’s fire to cleanse it of its sins. When the soul has been cleansed, it arrives into the purified area, and with its rebirth has the opportunity to make amends and complete what it left unfinished on Earth. God is merciful and forgives the soul that corrected its mistakes on Earth as it went along. The soul that goes to heaven performs heavenly tasks and gets new obligations and the destiny to come to Earth again. Emina listened attentively and asked the clairvoyant to tell her how evil works. “Our body is born into the material world in the shape of a cross. Each path that we walk leads through crossroads where we can free ourselves of the cross when it is time. Everything that we do in exaggeration in the material world we repay and experience as suffering in old age. The lifeline of such souls in the human body is not fixed – it is extended. These are visible sins. Invisible sins are the ones we pay for in the spiritual world. If you cannot prevent or stop evil in the material world, at least get out of its way. The human soul that has surrendered to evil pays for its sins. For a while it will do evil and cause others suffering. Then evil acts against it and so begins visible suffering. Such a soul in the human body in the material world shows everyone that it is paying for excessive sins. Such people become sick in their physical body and are dependent on others. Some may lie bedridden for years, are in wheelchairs, or live in solitary. They suffer and are dependent on others for such a long time that they want to die, but they cannot. The soul that in the human body kills someone and causes a violent death has been caught in evil’s clutches. The soul of evil is personified in the human body and directs with its intellect and reason and causes disaster. If the person shortens his own lifeline and commits suicide, he becomes the sacrifice of uncleansed karma. The soul then hovers and roves between two worlds and can cause a lot of evil. It returns to the material world, and draws the attention of the living with various signs: something in the house may rattle or crack, a doorbell may be heard, or the lights may switch off. Such a soul needs help to rid itself of evil and peacefully depart to the other world.” THE HEART’S PAIN Despite their concealed anger, distress, and hurt feelings, Sanjanin’s family prepared a welcome home party for him. Yet, he was not happy. He was struggling with his feelings. He wanted to please his mother. He did not want to fall out of favor with the woman he lived with, but he could not hide that Emina was in his heart. Thoughts of her left him sleepless and made the nights long. His heart yearned to be near her. Ever since their second chance meeting, he could find no peace. He did not know what to do. Only his soul knew that he must find Emina. But his mother tried persuading him: “Why do you not want to talk to your fiancée? She has been kind. She listened to me, and did everything around the house. She is well off and hardworking. I do not understand what is not to like.” But Sanjanin made no reply. His mother persisted, “Go and apologize to her. It is not nice the way you are behaving. What are people going to think of you? At least try and be decent.” Sanjanin was deaf and indifferent to all his mother’s pleas. “Why are you just standing there? Are you not going to say anything? Do you hear what I am saying to you?” His mother poked at him and tried to get his attention in all sorts of ways. Because she did not get to his heart with persuasion and coaxing, she tried changing her tune. She constantly thought of things that needed to be done around the house to occupy him. He performed everything without uttering a word, but showed no sense of belonging. When even in this way she did not succeed at influencing him, she cried and was sickly. Sanjanin had to help her. He complied with her requests in every way and took care of her. He was attentive and obliging, but his heart remained cold. That day he sat across from his mother at the table and observed her. He was surprised when he saw her face was cold and conniving. This realization confused him because her face radiated with satisfaction and a strange happiness. Involuntarily he asked: “Is mother so very cruel? What has caused this satisfaction? Is it possible that hatred is filling her and making her happy?” However, Sanjanin believed his mother and trusted that she was only looking out for his best interests. Nevertheless, he began to doubt and his head was filled with strange thoughts. “What is hatred? How can anyone hate love? Everything that gives man strength, will, health, and happiness. God gave me intellect and reason, love in my heart, and a soul to guide me on life’s path. He also gave me a fixed number of days to live on this Earth. Why should I listen to others and limit myself?” THE HEART ALWAYS HOPES After her meeting with Sanjanin, Emina did not go back home. She was so confused and powerless that she first set out for her aunt’s. She knew that she could never return to the old widow again, but at the same time she also knew that Sanjanin had been intended for another woman. But Emina’s heart suffered most of all, aching for her beloved and yearning to be close to him. Her aunt stared at her with surprise and could not believe that Emina could be so imprudent. “What have you done my dear child? You were not wanting for anything at the widow’s. Although there was no burning passion between you, you had a roof over your head. The man is wealthy. He has pastures, fields, and forests. How can you give up all of that? And for some man named Sanjanin, who on top of everything else, is already taken?” Emina contradicted her immediately: “He is not taken. They only live together. There is no love between them. I will not be destroying anything. Do not worry aunt.” But her aunt was mistrustful: “And what are you going to do, dear Emina, if he does not come for you?” “Do not think like that, dear aunt. I do not know his fears, but I know my own and I am going to face them.” Emina had no doubt in her beloved. She believed in love. She trusted his words. “What makes you think so? His family never wanted you and his mother has always hated you. Do you not see that, Emina?” But Emina was determined, “He will come. Believe me, aunt. Believe in love. Believe in destiny. I know that he will come.” “Oh, dear God, what stubbornness, what determination!” Her aunt surrendered powerless because she knew that her niece’s heart had strength that she could not defeat. So she said, “Take your own path – the path of your heart, Emina. Your path must have the purpose of the soul and your love must have its meaning.” “Thank you for these words, aunt. You are the first person that understands me. Please let me stay with you until my heart’s desire comes true.” “Stay with me. You have nowhere else to go poor child. We shall see if he will really come.” Overjoyed, Emina hugged her aunt. For the first time in her life she felt like someone understood her. She felt that there was at least someone who cared about what she felt in her heart. Being in love inspired her with a secret happiness, but she was scared at the same time. She could not live without him. She expected him at any moment. Although she knew that his mother had intended him for another, Emina believed that he would come for her one day. She sat in the garden for hours, tending flowers and dreaming of her beloved. She recalled their meeting and imagined how lovely it would have been if they were together. She got along well with her aunt. Emina was hardworking and did all kinds of work around the house. Her aunt loved her and let her surrender to her dreams and yearning. But Emina was slowly sinking into fear. What if he had forgotten her? Had he possibly changed his mind? Misgivings about him coming for her forced their way into her thoughts. Fear gnawed at her heart. Sleepless nights took her joy for living. Dark lines of doubt and suspicion began to mar her pretty face. She decided to consult the clairvoyant to have her explain what is going on with Sanjanin. Will he keep his promise? What if he would submit to his mother’s hatred? Love is the strength of life. But sometimes, when people doubt it, it is so weak that our world begins to crumble around us. The clairvoyant told Emina that Sanjanin is like he is because his mother has him in her clutches and is taking advantage of him. The umbilical cord between them has not been cut. That is why she still has such a tremendous influence over him, although he is not even aware of it. He is so burdened by her bitter way of thinking, her judgments, and her disappointments that he cannot attend to his own needs and desires – his own life. Hatred toward beauty, youth, and life, comes from the past – from deep contempt. His mother suffered a lot in the past. Something smothered her reason and ruined her character. For this reason she cannot shake off the past. She uses so much energy on the past that it is destroying her present and she is losing sight of her objective for the future. Her heart is vulnerable, her reason is wicked, and her soul is weighed down.” “How can a person rid themselves of this and free their soul?” Emina asked the clairvoyant. “Know, Emina, that there is the uncleansed karma of your families between you. The curse of descent can be either on the husband’s side or the wife’s side. The soul has a definite task on the material level and on the spiritual level. On the spiritual level strange things happen and a person asks why they cannot find the reason or answer. Life revolves in a vicious cycle. The person’s reason is missing knowledge and the soul is always surprised anew. Such a person has been chosen to cleanse karma, which means that the soul pays for the sins of others – and not his own. These are souls, which are on a higher level of consciousness than the rest. Everyone on Earth experiences happiness and suffering. Every soul has its task and every living thing on Earth has its path. A person’s destiny is predetermined – it is written before they are even born – but on their life’s path they have free will to decide whether they will fight or give up in life. God gave humankind free will so that we may combine it with reason. God is the master of the soul, but man is the judge and arbitrator of his own free will and reason. The human heart has its conscience; the human soul has its subconscious. But reason and emotion are two adversaries and each replaces the other. Reason has influence and leads a person in one direction, while the heart has energetic strength and drags him in the opposite direction.” “Oh God! How do you incorporate them?” Emina involuntarily asked aloud, causing the clairvoyant to laugh heartily. “Emina, it is hard to believe in something that is inconceivable to our intellect. The spirit wants to, but the intellect resists. Fight Emina! Let your thoughts enlighten your intellect. Fight within yourself, do not doubt yourself, and do not let fear obscure your reason. Fear is a great enemy to man. Time is very important in our life, so do not let time pass you by. You must keep up with the times. God was very merciful when he wrote our destiny. This is why he concealed our time of death from us and gave us time to live.” Brimming with deep impressions, Emina said goodbye to the clairvoyant and went to her aunt’s. She wanted nothing more to do with her past. Now, hope for the future was awakening within her. “He will come. Do not be afraid. Have trust, Emina.” Emina mustered up the courage and decided, “If love is given from God, if Sanjanin really loves me, he will come. If I have only imagined that he loves me because it is what I want, and he does not really love me, then it is better that he does not come. I will at least learn that I was mistaken. Then I will remain alone and stay with my aunt. I want for nothing.” When she thought in this way, she rid herself of doubt and fear, the pain in her chest went away, and she was able to breathe deeply. Only then could she hear her heart’s voice, “He will come. You know that he will come, you were just scared.” Free of fear and doubts, Emina heard her inner voice, which filled her with hope and gave her strength to endure and persevere. PAIN ERUPTS AS ILLNESS We can forsake everything and dupe anyone. But when a person deceives himself, the consequences are very, very serious. Sanjanin tried to hide his love. Still, despite his best efforts not to reveal his feelings, all the depth of unexpressed tenderness and unfulfilled emotions was awakening within him. The suppressed pain in his heart erupted as illness. He had to rest for months. He had to give up the work that distracted him and kept him from thinking of Emina. He increasingly felt the void in his heart. He was realizing more and more just how very much he missed her. Everything became so unimportant, so empty, and so shallow. Nothing occupied his mind enough to keep him from thinking about Emina. “My family objects to me marrying Emina. But within me the wish to be near her grows stronger everyday. If I surrender and live under the influence of others, I am truly a controlled person, then what will be of my character? If I leave Emina, she will become the victim of my indecisiveness – convenient for solving the selfishness and material advantage of others.” Two voices were fighting within Sanjanin. He struggled with the material voice that kept telling him NO and the voice of his heart that kept telling him YES. The voice NO meant opposing and condemning himself. Sanjanin thought for a long time. He wandered around gloomy and silent. He was deep in torturous debate with himself. One day the answer matured within him. “Regardless of everything, I am going to choose the path of love and listen to my heart.” Emina learned that Sanjanin had become ill. She suspected that his illness was an aching heart. She wanted to help him, but she knew that she could not get past his mother, who was deeply offended because her son did not listen to her. Anything related to Emina only made her even more malicious and thirsty for revenge. She just could not accept the fact that her son’s heart was set on this girl. Emina was afraid that Sanjanin’s illness would ruin him. She was afraid of losing him. And so she was always with him in her thoughts. She carried his heart in her hands and encouraged his soul that it was worth holding on. He slowly recovered and life soon returned back to normal. He had not learned his lesson. People who do not recognize illness as a reminder or warning that they are doing something wrong in life will be caught in a vicious cycle and will experience the same disappointments over and over again. As soon as he was strong enough, his mother resorted to all sorts of tricks to keep him attached to her. When she realized that she could not get to him anymore, she grew more ill. She knew that his heart longed for Emina, and so she took advantage of his weakness and indecisiveness. She was always finding something that needed to be done, but she could not do herself, to keep him around. He complied with his mother in everything. Without her having to say a word, he knew what he had to do. Serving his mother gave him a feeling of worth. He was proving to himself that he was worth something. He alleviated his yearning for Emina through work. He wanted to run away from his feelings. He knew that he was vulnerable and he felt powerless. He had been hurt and disappointed too many times. He never allowed himself happiness in love. Still, Emina awakened hope within him. His mother was constantly trying to persuade him to stop thinking about Emina. She poisoned his heart with malicious thinking about passionate love – that sooner or later it ruins a person. She tried to show him that Emina was a woman who loved unwisely. His mother cautioned him not to be taken in by his feelings because they were temporary – that passion may ignite the heart, but its fires are soon extinguished. And that is what Sanjanin feared most. He was afraid of losing the love that God gave him. He would rather suffer alone far from away Emina than risk getting too close to her only to lose her. He was not even aware of the suffering he caused her with this. His mother’s malice, bitterness, and selfishness pulled him into a black hole. He felt he was not worthy of love. His mother provoked him more and more and sewed the seeds of mistrust and doubt in the genuineness of Emina’s feelings. Life taught her that feelings are not to be trusted. Sadness and her displeasure toward life, which so cruelly cheated her, ate away at her. Although his father had already passed away, his mother could not forgive him for not fulfilling her expectations. She felt deprived of love. This pain had affected her so profoundly that she became malicious. She wanted to get revenge against life and did not even realize that she was vengeful for her past. Sanjanin succumbed to her fears, doubt, suspicion, and mistrust. She transferred all of her disappointments and bitterness onto him. Just as she no longer expected anything in life, so he too stopped believing that there was anything beautiful in this world. TIME TO DECIDE Man has free will. God gave us the chance to decide what we want to do with our lives. All we have to know is what the consequences of our actions are. If you do this and that, such and such happens. The choice is always our own. This is why we ourselves have to know what to do in a certain moment. Sanjanin was away from home more and more and was more silent. Words, which should have been said between him and his mother, got stuck in their hearts. They did not talk about their feelings. There was peace at home –Sanjanin did everything so that his mother had no complaints, but their lives were empty. They lived miserable existences like two robots with rehearsed behavior, stiff movements, and mechanical voices. There was no tenderness in their words if they even spoke to each other. They became apathetic in the clutches of eternal dissatisfaction. Sanjanin was deaf to his mother’s words. All that he wanted was Emina. In the dark, solitary nights he prayed the answer for freeing himself from his mother’s clutches would be revealed to him. His heart was withering away because of suffering, and his last flicker of hope was dwindling. He decided to search out his happiness regardless of what his mother would say or others would think of him. One evening, when the moon made the night as bright as day, and not a creature was stirring, the solution came to him. “The old empty house in the mountain village that lies next to the river Sana.” He jumped out of bed and nearly shouted out for joy, “I will marry Emina and we will live in the old empty house.” CHAPTER THREE THE OLD HOUSE That which destiny unites, Man does not separate None of his relatives wanted to attend the wedding, but Sanjanin did not let them upset him. He set off for Emina and her aunt could not believe her eyes when she saw him standing at the door. It was such a surprise that she joyfully embraced him even though she was seeing him for the first time. Emina was so happy that she shouted out with joy. She rushed into his arms and snuggled close to him. Her aunt prepared a celebration dinner for them. The happiness that radiated from their faces replaced the wedding festivities and no one missed the wedding guests. The great happiness of their hearts was a true wealth of love. When they left, Emina’s aunt waved goodbye and with her blessing, they went to meet their destiny. Emina soon transformed the old house into a fairytale vision from a dream. She touched the whole village with her kindness and beauty. People liked her. Her house was well-known all around. She surrounded the house with roses of different colors like a castle from a fairytale. She loved flowers. She changed the old deserted house into a warm and friendly home. With Emina Sanjanin finally knew true love. She tended the house and garden lovingly to delight her husband when he came home. Sanjanin could not believe that Emina had conjured up such a fairytale setting out of the old abandoned farmhouse. As an orphan who never knew the warmth of home, she most wanted a safe cozy place and a little love. She welcomed her husband like a king. In his embrace she forgot all the hard work, quiet lonely nights, and the unheard yearning of her heart. She snuggled up to him like a little girl in her father’s safe and warm embrace. His warm hands awakened tenderness in her and her body became willing and sensitive to his every move. Her soul opened into infinity and she felt his strength and love inside. She surrendered herself to him genuinely and completely. With all of her being she opened herself up to him like a flower that unravels its petals unto the sun. She entrusted him with all of her secrets and brought him into a magnificent feeling of oneness so that they no longer felt their own bodies. Like a ray of white light, they sprang forward into the dark, silent night. Their bodies knew the language of the soul. UNCLEANSED KARMA Sanjanin left for work in the morning. Emina was outside trimming her rosebushes when the clairvoyant approached on the path that passed by the house. She had heard so much in the neighboring villages about the young woman who had a beautiful garden with multi-colored roses that the clairvoyant decided to visit her. When she reached the garden fence, she recognized the woman in the garden was Emina. She recalled their meeting beneath the linden tree. She remembered the flames of love that burned within Emina and Sanjanin. And she remembered the ill premonition she had that their love would be permeated with suffering and misfortune. When she stepped into the yard she flinched. “In this house are uncleansed energies. When the negative energies mature, something evil will happen within it.” Emina approached the clairvoyant, happy to see her after such a long time. She invited her inside for coffee. “You have made a nice home, Emina. It appears that you manage well in the village. Everyone is talking about you.” “I am doing well. People have accepted me. When I came, I knew only my husband. Now I know nearly everyone in the village. They like me and I am happy.” “Happiness increases when we share it with someone,” cautioned the clairvoyant. “And when we give our happiness away and our beloved does not return it, we run out of it and we become cold. Two spirits lead the human soul. The first leads it to kindness on the way to love. The second leads it astray and drags it into quarrels, selfishness, doubt, malice, arrogance, and hatred. If a person surrenders to it, love turns into hatred. Guard yourself against this, Emina.” “How can I guard myself against this?” “You know that on earth there exist positive and negative forces and that they have equal power. We come into this world with only the force of pure love. What you do in this world, you get in the other – either hell or paradise. When reason and intellect leave a person, he closes his heart and is no longer his own master. If he does not differentiate good from evil, he wants to unite them, but they cannot be united.” “And free will?” asked Emina. “God gave man free will to decide for himself whether he would follow good or evil. With prayers we ask God to guard us against evil. Free will cannot destroy what two hearts that love each other have arranged. Do you want to know your destiny?” “I fear it.” “Why are you afraid, Emina? If you are aware of your future, you will be better prepared for your destiny.” “You will tell me about my destiny another time. Instead, this time tell me how a soul chooses its body, how a child is born, how it chooses its parents.” The clairvoyant suspected that Emina wanted a child. In her perspicacity she also knew that Emina was already pregnant, but did not yet know it. For this reason she decided to explain everything to her in detail. In the birth of a child, the six weeks prior to its birth and the first six weeks afterward are important. Prior to its birth, the child’s destiny is determined and souls accompany the child’s soul into its body. When the child is born, it cries. The professional explanation for this is that it cries because it catches its breath. The spiritual explanation is that the child cries because the soul sees its destiny. During its first six weeks, the child sees its destiny and then it steps into the material world and begins to become acquainted with it. Then the canals of perspicacity close, and the person forgets his destiny. Some chosen individuals remain clairvoyant, but they can only see the destinies of others, never their own. Everyone is clairvoyant to a degree. A person has a flash. That is when a canal opens and the person comes into contact with his soul – he gets a message. The more a person works on himself, the more open the canal is and the more they are aware of themselves. In the first six weeks after the child’s conception, the shape and composition of the genes are determined in the fertilized egg. Or in parapsychological terms, higher consciousness or the spiritual mind writes the person’s destiny. The soul is becoming acquainted with and harmonizing with its physical body. During this time the mother can have problems such as nausea, vomiting, and so on. The mother is supposed to carry the child for nine months. Six weeks prior to its birth, she is free of all responsibilities in order to prepare for the birth. The six weeks after birth are critical for the child’s survival – that is when the child’s free will arises. The mother should nurse the child for nine months. Nine and nine is eighteen and that is when the child comes of age. However, a person has free will. If the person does not know how to stop, think, or bridle himself on time, life forces him to this.” “How does learning happen? How can parents help children?” asked Emina with interest. “Our life is divided into three periods. A child is under his parents’ wings until he is twenty years old. This is the time of learning. A person does not have the means to be able to live independent of his or her parents. At eighteen or twenty, the child is mature enough to start to care for himself and earn his own living. We are also talking about coming of age. If he does not complete his learning by this time, it will remain a debt for the rest of his life. Many a person finishes school late in life. During the time of proving oneself, from 20 until 40 years of age, all of a person’s energy is directed into the material aspect of life – career success, having a family, house, car, vacation home, and the other things a person aspires to have. That is why there are the most divorces, problems, and difficulties in this period because people simply run out of energy for all of these things. A person forgets himself because he is so taken by the material aspect of life. Partners become estranged because they no longer have time for each other. Some divorce and others persevere and hope that things will somehow get better. Only between forty and sixty years of age comes time for love. This is the time of true love. In our twenties we were in love and in our forties we love. We learn that material goods are not the things that the human soul longs for. We stop giving ourselves away and begin taking care of ourselves. In so doing we open the doors to real love. We can only make others happy when we love ourselves enough – when we have admitted our own desires to ourselves.” Emina talked with the clairvoyant long into the night and completely forgot that her husband should have been home from work a long time ago. But he had not come home. Emina did not realize just how late it was until after the clairvoyant had left. But Sanjanin did not return home that night. On his way home he had learned that his mother had become seriously ill. He did not go to work, but rushed to see how his mother was doing. His mother was even more bitter. Her will for life had obviously withered away. She probably expected her son to stay with her. She felt deceived and deprived. She kept crying until she convinced her son that she was terribly ill. The truth is that she so suffered in her loneliness and feelings of rejection that she thought she was ill. Sanjanin felt sorry for her and stayed with her. He did not want to lose Emina, but his mother’s influence made him so powerless that there was nothing he could do. He was so ashamed of his feelings in front of his poor mother, who had been deprived of love in life, that he did not even send word to Emina. In her pain his mother became wicked and waspish. She tried everything to destroy her son’s love affair. She was infinitely jealous. Since partaking of love had not been granted to her in life, someone else should also suffer. She sought vengeance with her husband through her son. Emina learned to live alone. It was not hard. It was only difficult to fill all the endless hours of waiting, tired yearning, and constantly awakening sadness. More and more frequently she was asking herself if she must really suffer so. Is not love actually free of pain? She felt the unspoken grudges that her mother-in-law harbored toward unfulfilled expectations in love. Emina felt like a victim flooded by disappointment, bitterness, anger and vengeance. She realized how she had wasted her life in search for true love. Maybe she overglorified emotion; maybe she was missing a little bit of sober judgment to protect herself from her own ruin. In loneliness Emina was becoming ever more aware of her yearning for true love and how it seemed to be slipping away from her. Sanjanin was indifferent. It was as if a black hole was expanding and coming nearer to his heart. He roamed between his mother and wife without knowing where his home was. His mother tied him to the past, while Emina expected the future from him. Emina’s sadness did not affect him. Her anger hardened him even more. In this way he stubbornly withdrew. Her pleas did not reach his heart. He was firm in his decision to help his sick mother. He did not see or did not want to admit that his mother was taking advantage of him. He did not even dare to think that his own mother envied his happiness and in this way prohibited him from creating his own home. This is why he avoided Emina. He explained to her that he could not leave his sick mother alone. In reality he could not admit that he was hurting Emina whom he loved. He evaded meeting her. When it was most difficult for her, he kept to himself and withdrew so that she would not arouse with her feelings the same sadness, anger, resentment, diappointment, and pain in him. He took care of his sick mother, but his heart was ever more divided and unhappy. His mother chained him to her with her selfishness and backhanded extortion. It pained Emina when she realized how powerless her husband was. She felt his good heart, which his mother used for her own selfish intentions. She knew that she could not defy his mother. As cruel and painful as it was, the connection between mother and son is greater than that between husband and wife. This made it even harder for her because she knew that there was nothing that she could do to help even though she wanted to. Sometimes she secretly looked at him and it seemed as though she were looking at herself carved in stone. They were so different and yet in their souls they were so much alike. As if once upon a time they had shared sad times that cut deep wounds into their hearts, and then went their separate ways. He put on the serious and decisive appearance of masculine strength, clarity, and determination. She hid in her heart and was drowning with yearning and expectations. Every time he tore himself out of his mother’s clutches, their hearts fluttered in love. But their souls were breaking under the weight of the heavy burden. Still, the feelings of happiness washed away all the bitterness, sadness, and pain. They felt each other and were overwhelmed with the contentment of being together. But why so much woe? All the unbroken ties to the past, silent grudges, secret vengeance, and deep wounds in the heart that reopened every time, spoiling the loving moments for which they both so longed. Emina knew that only unconditional trust and devotion could save them. She knew that they met again to help each other solve, forgive, and heal old wounds. Still, she was infinitely afraid that she would lose him. She knew the underhanded illness that erupted and ruined a person if he covered his eyes and tried to run away from himself. She could not stifle these worries and fears and they took away her strength for living life. THE VOICE OF THE HEART When Emina wanted to tell her husband something, it was like describing the colors of a sunset to a blind man. His eyes reflected pain, fear, and lack of understanding. Perhaps it would have been better had she tenderly embraced him in his moments of powerlessness and confusion. The warmth of her touch would soften the bitterness and tears of silence would wash away the suffering. But she searched in vain for some kind of sign that he wanted her closeness. His thoughts wandered God knows where as if he wanted to run away from her desire for his embrace. Although he was with her, she did not feel his closeness. She tried in every possible way to tell him how much she missed him. She infinitely wanted his understanding. If he would just smile for a moment, she would know that he loved her. Just one touch would awaken her faith and hope. She yearned to sense his emotions. She wanted so much for him to understand her suffering and accept her loyalty and devotion. But the more she longed for his closeness, the further away his heart was. He was like a caterpillar in a cocoon. Something pushed her to reveal her suffering to him – to describe her sadness and pour a river of melancholy thoughts. She still hoped that he would embrace her if he understood the bitterness that ate at her heart in the lonely dark nights when he left her alone. She felt pushed away and rejected and her unfulfilled wishes for tenderness and love boiled up in her heart. Powerlessness branched out in her veins. Disappointment drooped her shoulders and she turned to him with her last glimpse of hope. He sat before her bent over and stared emptily forward. Even the little friendliness with which he had entered the house disappeared from his face. The lines on his face were like carvings in stone and his heart like a mountain of rock. His soul was far away from her heart. She was shattered and deeply hurt that he had no ear for her heart’s aching. She felt truly alone and abandoned even though he sat across from her and she could have touched him with her hand. She recognized ungranted love. He rose without a word and marched toward the door. Her soul screamed for her to go after him and her heart longed for his embrace. But the weight of her pain nailed her to the ground and she sat alone with herself in the withering light of the setting sun. FEAR IS MAN’S ENEMY Fear plotted on its own and took away Sanjanin’s courage to give in to his feelings and surrender to happiness. He lost his will for life. It eroded Emina’s joy to express herself and surrender to her creativity. Life lost its meaning for her. She sat by the water and thought about the clairvoyant’s words. The clairvoyant had spoken to her about fear. Emina felt it deep inside like a pain that ached her heart – like a weight on her shoulders. “Fear is man’s greatest enemy. When fear consumes a man, he is in complete darkness. It spins him around in a cycle of evil. He loses his grip of reality and sober judgment. His thoughts are obscured and his feelings are oppressed. Fear leads to loss. What we fear most is exactly what happens. Like attracts like. When we tremble with fear of losing something, that is precisely what happens. Fear devalues a person. He does not dare to do this or that. Fear changes a smart and happy person into a gloomy and hardened one. Fear drives people into thinking and talking to themselves, their doubts, fears, suspicions, and assumptions. They are increasingly caught in dark thoughts and lose themselves in them.” Emina suspected that fear had smuggled its way into her marriage. She felt it in her own dark thoughts. She realized it in the sadness that she felt more and more each time her husband left her alone and went to his mother. The clairvoyant warned her about these destructive feelings. “Fear destroys relations in marriage. Only few people manage to conjure up enough heartfelt love to understand the fear that has consumed their partner and offer safe emotional shelter so that they do not get lost in ominous feelings. Most of us react to fear with fear. Coldness creeps in between a couple and alienates them. Despite this they stay together on account of fear. They make excuses that they are together because of children, material goods… or because they do not want to hurt each other. Fear has devoured their strength and personal independence. They can no longer live alone. Many couples stay together because of one-sided love. One of them infinitely persists, enduring, humiliating himself, suffering, forgiving, and always looking for new solutions. To no avail. The other does not even react to all this. The second person lives his or her life. The unsatisfied partner tried to capture the other’s attention in all sorts of ways… with silence, fighting, pleas, demands, reproaches –anything just to awaken willingness for a solution. Only the person who loves from the heart is capable of reacting to such pressure with understanding and readiness to help his partner out of distress. Most of the time people are afraid of such confrontations. They turn their back on troubles, running away from themselves because they want to avoid pain. Men look for solace in bars, women drown in reflection looking for reasons and increasingly burdening their soul. They become strangers under the same roof and look for fulfilment elsewhere. They are running away from themselves. They are lost, unsatisfied, and aimless.” Emina knew that Sanjanin loved her, yet she was afraid of losing him. She feared his mother’s influence on him. She knew that his mother wanted to chain him to her. Emina was afraid that Sanjanin would not stand up for himself – that he would rather deny his own heart than break his mother’s. THE SEARCH FOR HAPPINESS Emina knew that nowhere was it written that life must happen the way we ourselves want it to. We have to struggle, whether it is good or bad. But sometimes she felt so very powerless. That is when she went to the clairvoyant, who always said something good for her. “If a person listens only to his heart and does not consider reason, he can fall into deep suffering. In love the heart soon begins drowning in its goodness and softness, that is why reason is needed to help it scrape through. Feelings that are too powerful can ruin a person. The person who does not follow reason is attacked by doubt and ends up entangled in obscure thoughts. This can soon make the wealth of our emotions, which fear devours, disappear. There is not a person in this world who does not long for love – a partner with whom they can share their wealth. Every person looks for his match. We all long for happiness. Some find it in material goods, others in prestige and fame, still others in love. The latter have it the hardest because they expect that their partners will live up to their expectations and heal their wounds, filling them with grace and contentment. Those very people, who look for emotional fulfilment, usually meet partners, who are emotionally lame. His heart is torn to pieces and he cannot express his love. They are scared. They look for support in partners and lean on them with the weight of all their sadness and bitterness, while worshipping them like a god or goddess. For a woman marriage means safety, peace, and mildness. In a marriage, partners are mirrors to each other. In each other they recognize themselves – their beauty and divinity. In the same way the other also opens our curtained wounds not to hurt us, but to free pent-up energy and forgive in our hearts. In marriage, partners heal each other if they are devoted and communicate with each other. When they look for blame and faults in the other person instead of themselves, accusing and prejudging each other, they can bring illness onto themselves. Each person should be honest to himself and listen to his heart. Change is in a woman’s nature. It is difficult for a woman to persevere in a monotonous, desolate, empty relationship. Men find it hard to decide or choose changes. For this reason, the woman is always the one who must make the first move so that the man, if he really loves her, can follow. When a person is in love, the energy of attraction is stronger than he is. Love is blind and deaf. This is when no sage advice helps. A person does not see clearly until the infatuation passes. That is when many a person recognizes that he has fallen into suffering but cannot and no longer knows how to help himself. In the hopes of saving his love, he loses his self-respect and devalues himself. Unlucky love knows no pride. Some people who are unhappily infatuated even think of death. Dying is easy. No courage is necessary for death. But it is hard to live if life beats us down and has no happiness.” The clairvoyant taught Emina to keep a right mind and reason. She advised her to never let her feelings drag her into pessimism and gloomy thinking. “So do not attack or hate your enemies. Because when you do, you are giving them strength and bowing to their malice. Do not let them entangle you in pessimism. Do not let their greedy vultures eat you alive. Do not let evil win. An enemy can kill your body, but he cannot break your spirit if you do not let him. Pride and dignity maintain light in a person. While fear and doubt ruin him. A bad thought always harms a person. It poisons his body and eats away at his soul. It leads a person down the wrong path. It induces illness. A good thought, like seed, falls onto the heart and, sooner or later, produces love.” CHAPTER FOUR THE CHILD GROWING INSIDE Emina had promised her husband that she would bear him a son. She knew that his family recognized only firstborns who were boys. A son preserved the family’s honour and property. The destiny of a woman is to serve her husband. A woman’s worth was measured by the number of sons she bore and raised. Wives devotedly carried their destiny. They covered their souls with a black scarf that draped down their foreheads hiding every sensual curl, which could slip out and stir up the lust of passersby. They hid their lips and the smiles on them, covered their ankles, and concealed the voluptuous curves of their bodies. Emina soon conceived and hoped that she would fulfil her husband’s great desire for a son. Permeated with the tender breath of the child growing inside of her, she tackled difficult tasks with even greater eagerness and lovingly prepared a comfortable home for her much longed-for son. Even now that she was with child, she did not know how to think of herself. She took care of everything by herself – silently and devotedly without displeasure or ever complaining. In the lonely late hours of the evening she weaved a basket for her son and knit a warm blanket, cradling him in her mind and whispering the melody of a lullaby from her youth. CHILD AND MOTHER Emina remembered the clairvoyant’s words about uncleansed karma. The closer her due date came the uneasier she became. Something worried her, but she did not know what. And so she set off for the clairvoyant’s to ask her to tell her everything about mother and child. Emina had won the heart of the clairvoyant’s who was glad to explain all the secrets of spiritual life to her. “Every being is assigned a soul. When the soul is prepared for life on Earth, a star is born in the sky. A person is accompanied on Earth by good and evil, which puts obstacles in the soul’s way when the angel is opening the door for it. When evil dominates, we are talking about uncleansed karma. When good dominates, the soul comes to Earth unencumbered and a child is born. Negative energy impeding the child’s arrival on the physical level results in miscarriage; the mother cannot carry the child to term. When evil torments the soul, the soul separates from the body and returns to the kingdom of souls and the embryo is aborted. A mother’s love for her child is unconditional. She loves her child when it is still in her belly even though she has never met him or her and does not know what he or she is like. When the child grows up and the umbilical cord is cut, her love is no longer unconditional. The child talks back; the mother becomes angry. This is the encounter of two souls.” “What about in cases when another woman assumes the role of the mother?” Emina asked. “The soul takes on the task of a soul which did not perform its task. Still when the soul accounts for itself, it is only responsible for its own tasks. The energy of the soul connects to the energy of the soul that will take over its task. People are not aware of this or they would resist it with their free will. The soul knows a great deal, but it does not have the energy to transfer its knowledge to the person. The soul knows the person and simply trusts him. The role of surrogate mother is undertaken by a soul that was with the soul, whose role it must assume, before birth in the same community of souls. The surrogate mother loans only her body and enables the soul transport to Earth. But the soul of the child is connected to the mother who gave her ovum. The child’s soul always looks for the soul of its mother. The mother who bears the child is not always the child’s spiritual mother as well. That is often the grandmother. The mother, who bears the child, sets out into world, and the child remains with its grandmother – spiritual mother. Because the soul is very attached to the physical body, the child also loves its biological mother and is very attached to her. However, the child will never perceive her as its spiritual mother. It is similar with children who are adopted. The mother, who bore the child, was only its biological mother. The child’s soul searches for its spiritual mother. For this reason the child may change many foster families. The child’s soul will wander until it finds its spiritual mother. Meanwhile, the soul performs other tasks. Such is often the destiny of children whose souls must perform tasks already in youth because evil hindered their arrival onto Earth. The same is true for artificial insemination, which enables the soul transportation to Earth. When the soul is strong enough and chooses such transportation by itself, the artificial insemination succeeds. The souls of children, whose biological mothers are not also their spiritual mothers, stray a lot in their youth. Still, no later than in their thirties, at Christ’s age, the soul begins to look for its spiritual mother. If it does not find her in its surroundings, it begins researching past lives. A person asks himself: Who am I? What am I? When the soul performs its task, the person is collected enough to find the answer and its spiritual mother.” Emina returned home calm. IN EXPECTATION OF A SON Emina’s due date was approaching. The nights became fearful. Emina was alone. Her husband had not returned home from work even though he had promised her that he would be back on time. The pressure in her belly was getting stronger. Emina made it to her nearest neighbor’s just in time. Her frail body writhed in the contractions. The pain in the small of her back was getting worse and it no longer eased up. The tension in her belly was becoming unbearable. She had the feeling that it would rip open her body. When she could no longer bear the pain that was opening her body, she murmured a stifled cry. The next moment a baby’s cry pierced the silence. Emina rested. She wearily looked to her neighbor, who held the tiny baby in her arms, and quietly hoped that her expectations would be fulfilled. But deep within she anticipated the truth and the neighbor only confirmed Emina’s ominous thought. “It is a girl,” she said and gently laid the baby on her mother’s chest. Emina had a lump in her throat. She lovingly snuggled her daughter close to her, felt her warmth, and gazed at the tiny face and small hands that reached out to her. Upon seeing her weakness, she realized that she was afraid of what her husband would say because she did not bear him a son. A tear rolled down her sunken cheeks and disappeared on the tender strands of hair that covered the head of the child, who filled her with happiness and tranquility. Even though her body was an open wound, she felt no pain. She pressed her warm lips to her daughter’s forehead and blessed her in a whisper: “My child, I carried you under my heart, I protected you, and I love you. God inspired your soul into the body of a woman, darling daughter. May God bless you and protect you from everything bad destined for a woman on Earth. May He give you the strength to rid yourself of suffering and the wisdom to recognize a ray of hope in the darkness of the inevitable. As hard as it may be, never let desperation and dejection drag you into oblivion. The world into which you have been born is not a world of love like the placenta in which you grew. Do not expect others to return your kindness with kindness. Forgive, not just with words, but also in your heart. May a spark of compassion always glow in your heart for everyone because we are all worthy of it and need it. Do not criticize others and do not judge them. Our residence in this world is too short for us to learn the entire truth. So do not look for it. Calm yourself when it will be hardest so that your bitterness and disappointment will subside. Guard your heart against anger, which like a dragon breathes fire, destroying everything around it. Turn your back on anger. Do not provoke it and do not look at it. Close your eyes and escape to your depths. You will find peace in silence. And like a star that lights up in the quiet dark sky of night, so too will hope be kindled in you. With it you will overcome all obstacles and troubles.” CHILDREN ARE NOT OUR PROPERTY Because Emina wanted to make her husband happy, she decided to have another child and was certain that it would be a son. Nevertheless, she went to the clairvoyant’s because she was uncertain about the path of life that she had planned for herself. The clairvoyant told her many interesting and new things about children. “Our children teach us a lot. They do not teach us with words, but with their actions. Children learn to step into the adult world. At the same time, they prepare their parents to relieve them of the burden of worries and their childhood. We must observe children and respect their wish to grow up. We have to know how to listen to them and help them develop their abilities. We cannot force our wishes onto them and expect them to fulfill the dreams that we were not able to. When a child grows, it has a thousand wishes and expects its parents to fulfill them. Parents always find the time and means to fulfill their children’s wishes, but few are wise enough to teach their children how to fulfill their own wishes. If a mother does not know how to set limits for her child, he will get into big trouble when he grows up. We have to take time out for a child, talk to him, listen to him, and advise him. The material goods with which parents often show their love for their children are not a substitute for love, attention, and understanding. We have to explain to the child what his obligations and tasks are in the grownup world so that he will be able to realize his goals himself. If a mother spoils her child with love, the child will only change for the better with difficulty in life. A child does not need pity. A child needs free will and good advice. Everything else is his world.” “Is it possible that parents, who love their children more than anything in this world could have such a harmful influence on them?” Emina could not believe that too much care and worry for a child could do more harm than good to a child. The clairvoyant continued. “Parents offer shelter and love. They raise the child and become his first teacher. Over the years they become attached to their importance – the child’s dependence on them. They become accustomed to leading him by the hand, and it is difficult for them to accept that a child has to grow up and become independent. Children want to spare us pain and help us come to terms more easily with their growing up and leaving childhood. But because of fear, parents cannot accept their wish for independence. This is why parents should be aware that a child has his own soul, which must perform certain tasks in life. If parents do not listen to their children’s wishes and desires, children will look for support to fulfill them from their friends, company, and the environment, which is not always in their favor. They can soon give in to harmful influences from which they cannot escape without the help of their parents. For this reason when he is grown up, we must allow a child free will and we must not influence the child with our will or fears. The child’s soul has its future and its house. It lives under the same roof with its parents for a limited time only. And parents will never know all the secrets of their children.” “Is it possible that we cause a child so much misfortune with our love?” Emina asked the clairvoyant quite upset. “Love does not mean assuming responsibility for someone – that we live their life for them. We must enable our children to develop their abilities, express themselves, and go their own way even if it may not agree with our notions and expectations as parents. They must know that we love them and that our heart is always open to them no matter what may happen. You see, Emina, I look at some mothers and the way they raise their children with fear. When a child first learns to walk and stumbles upon an obstacle, his mother screams, “Be careful! You will fall!” The child is confused. The child does not know what a fall is, does not know a blow. He becomes scared. If the mother would leave the child alone, assessing that this experience cannot hurt him, she would gently caution him and let him pick himself up. Then she would explain what happened to him and he would understand that he fell because of his carelessness. If the mother fears for him, she transfers her fear onto him and then the child cannot experience the fall and will not learn how to pick himself up.” EXPECTATIONS LEAD TO DISAPPOINTMENT Weeks passed and Emina soon recovered. After a hard day’s work, she thought of her daughter and was filled with joy. One evening, when she had just put her daughter to the breast, a man appeared at the door. Upon seeing the child, the gentle smile on his lips softened the face that was gloomy and withered with worry. Overwhelmed, he walked over to his wife, tenderly kissed her forehead and smoothed her hair with his coarse hand. He looked at his daughter confusedly. Emina shyly lifted her gaze and uttered in a voice just loud enough to be heard, “It is a girl. Her name is Mejram.” Sanjanin lightly touched the child’s head as if to convince himself that it was really his. Taken by her sweetness, he tenderly embraced his wife and, exhausted from work, smiled at her. Emina’s heart sighed with relief. She was grateful to him for accepting his daughter with love even though he had wanted a son. Mejram filled her mother’s life with joy and Emina continually hoped that the child would awaken the same feelings in Sanjanin. It had been a long time since she had seen him smile. He would come home gloomy, tired, and worried. Dark sadness and the weight of burdens crept into the room with him. He entered without kissing her and, like a stranger, quietly walked past Emina without touching her. He looked sullenly and his thoughts wandered somewhere far away from his family. Discontent grazed in him. Emptiness was in his eyes. Every move he made revealed that he was fed up and disappointed. Little Mejram grew into a cheerful little girl who filled the house with soft laughter. She ran about and curiously asked questions wanting to know everything. Why did the rooster crow every morning? Where does the sun go when it sets behind the mountain? Why is her mother not happy to see the colorful flowers in the field and why does she not chase butterflies? What did she do to make her cry? The little girl could not understand her mother’s tears. She often woke in the middle of the night because she reached out in vain to feel her mother’s warmth. She caught sight of her mother sitting in the flickering light of the kerosene lamp in the corner of the kitchen; her skilled hands were busy at lacemaking and silent tears rolled down her face and fell onto the lace like a blessing. For everything that Emina was not able to give her husband, although she very much wanted to, Sanjanin found comfort in drink. In cheerful company he forgot the worries and troubles that hung unsolved over his head. He enjoyed himself in the pub. The wine was stronger than Emina’s love. Her feelings smothered him and her devotion annoyed him. Emina belonged to him body and soul. Her life was in his hands. She followed his every cue and fulfilled his every wish before he even expressed it. She felt his sadness and shed tears for him while he washed away his sadness with alcohol. Emina believed that she would make him happy with her devotion. But in reality she was the one who always longed for his closeness. Sanjanin was coming home from work more and more sullen and taciturn. In the hopes that he would talk to her about the dark thoughts that obviously gnawed at him, Emina nudged at him in vain. He was returning in the late night hours more and more frequently. Staggering, and stinking of alcohol, he collapsed into a chair in the kitchen. His head fell onto the table and without a word, he soon began snoring loudly. Emina did not say anything. She busily worked and cared for her daughter. Mejram’s smile made her forget her sadness and she hoped that her husband would one day change for the better. But he did not. It was a long night when Emina was waiting for her husband to return from work. Although sleepiness was getting the better of her, she could not close her eyes. She sat up until morning. Still there was no sign of Sanjanin. The first rays of the sun shone from behind the mountain when he stood wildly at the door. Emina winced when she saw him. His glance was strange and repulsive, as if his head was full of hateful thoughts. His eyes shone with scorn and anger that she had not known in him. When he spoke she knew that they were not his words. “The entire village has me for a fool because you bore me a daughter. You disappointed me! I wanted a son! You disappointed me!” Her husband yelled in his drunkenness, the words he had listened to all night in the pub erupting from him. Slander knows no limits. It is unbelievable how we can always uncover someone else’s weaknesses. Intentionally or not, we taunt and poke them into a pile of unclarified thoughts. When alcohol coursed through the veins of the villagers, they often picked on someone. They had taunted Sanjanin all night and tore open his hidden emotional wounds. When they mocked someone else, they forgot their own sorrow and cares. Every person gathered for a glass to wash away his misfortune and drink himself into oblivion with the intoxicating liquid. Emina never learned for certain whether they considered this activity an honour or shame. In her simple devotion to her beloved husband she just could not understand it. She only knew that alcohol turned her husband into someone who was the exact opposite of the man she so loved. From the corner of the room a child’s muffled cry mixed with the rude words. Sanjanin flinched. He stopped short as if some invisible force nailed him to the ground. His head hung down on his chest and a tear of remorse slid down his cheek. In the next moment he made a dash, grabbed his winter coat, and rushed toward the door. “Do not go! Please do not go!” cried Emina with the utmost effort. He was already at the door when her call stopped him. His anger had subsided. He had a guilty conscience. The woman is not to blame. She is actually good. He slowly turned and stepped into the house. Emina happily ran to him and threw her arms around his neck. He stood in the room as though he were stuck. His arms hung alongside his body. Although Emina snuggled next to him and was hugging him, he could not embrace her. As though he were ashamed of his feelings, he stared off into the distance. As though he wanted to withdraw from his wife’s outburst of love, he slowly wrenched himself from her embrace and went to his daughter. Emina began preparing dinner for her husband. Although she could feel the cold wall that her husband placed before his heart, she was glad that he stayed home. Wanting to make his favourite food, she was so absorbed in cooking that she did not even notice that her husband had fallen asleep fully dressed. She gently woke him, unbuttoned his collar to help him breathe easier, took off his shoes, and softly persuaded him to eat dinner. Her husband was exhausted; his hard life had drained his strength. When worn out, he reached for a glass of wine to put off his problems and troubles, and helplessly forgot about himself. Emina cheered him up. “Do not be so sad, it is not the end of the world. Our daughter is a happy and bright child. We should be glad and thank God that we have a healthy and happy child. Even though she is not a boy and she will leave home when she marries, she is our child and we both love her.” Her husband’s silence was a sign that he completely agreed with her. Nevertheless, she knew that he had succumbed to the demands and expectations of others. She knew that she could be happiest with him and she felt that he loved her, too. But at the same time, she was aware that his relatives were stronger. Her husband wanted a male issue and he would never forgive her for bearing him a daughter for their firstborn. She embraced him tenderly. “They say that if the first child is a daughter, the second will certainly be a son. We could decide to have another child. We could have a son.” She ran her fingers through his hair lightly and his armor slowly melted away. In his heart he had already forgiven her because he knew that she was not to blame. He knew that she loved him immensely. But in his head he kept convictions that were not his own. He succumbed to the rules and demands of the surroundings. He clung to them tightly. This gave him strength and dignity. For him, emotions were the worst weakness to which a man could surrender. He was certain that emotions were a man’s downfall. Although he loved Emina, he never showed her. Perhaps he was embarrassed or scared, but Emina was in pain. Overwhelmed with emotions, this was all that she ever wanted of him. She was happy when he touched her affectionately. “Trust that everything will be fine,” she softly whispered in his ear. “We will have a son. I promise.” LIGHT’S CHILD Happiness returned to the family. Her husband’s relatives looked down at her because she did not bear a son, but Emina did not let it bother her. She only wanted her husband to love her. Her belly was bloated and round and she was constantly talking to her son in her thoughts. “My dear child, be healthy and strong so that you will make your father happy. Make him proud; follow his path of honour and honesty. Do not judge his weaknesses or mistakes. My son, I love you and can hardly wait to take you in my arms and hold you close.” The months passed and the summer turned to fall and brownish red leaves replaced the green on the trees. October came, this time mellow and fair. The forests were iridescent with warm colors ranging from red, orange and yellow to only still slightly green. Farmers were content that nature was so favourably inclined to them and that they could harvest their produce and prepare for winter. There was plenty everywhere. People were grateful for nature’s gifts. Emina was becoming increasingly clumsy. Her belly hindered her housekeeping and only with the utmost effort did she manage work in the field. Her due date was approaching. At dawn the first rays of the sun shone on the diminishing greyness of the night sky. Shadows slowly disappeared and the world was becoming more pleasant. Emina felt the first contractions. She looked out the window in pain and caught sight of the only star that survived the night and heralded the bright morning. Upon looking at the pulsating star, her pain subsided. “My dear child,” Emina spoke to the child that was leaving the safety of her womb. “Be strong and brave. It is time that you leave your soft cradle of love and tenderness and set out into the world of cruel recognition and step on the path of learning. Your soul knows your task. Trust it and allow it to lead you.” Emina let out a smothered cry when she felt stronger pressure on her pelvis. Still, when she looked toward the bright star in the sky, her body was calmed. “My darling child,” Emina encouraged her child in her thoughts, giving him strength to push his way into the world. “I love you. I will always be with you even when our umbilical cord will be cut. You will always be my child and I will always love you.” Meanwhile, her neighbor prepared hot water and soon the small head of a baby appeared. A strange calm and the hush of expectation filled the room. Mejram, who stood nervously listening outside the door of her mother’s room the entire time, quietly opened the door just enough to see what was happening. She saw the neighbor with the baby in her arms. “It is a girl,” the woman whispered almost frightened. The baby girl was quiet and did not want to cry. She looked through the window as though she were looking for something. She gazed into the sky as if she saw and searched for the star that her mother talked to during labor. The neighbor woman was moved to tears because she was not accustomed to babies that did not cry at birth. She carefully laid the baby next to Emina and then she heard the baby’s gentle, singing cry. It was as though a heavenly violin played a song of blessing. Emina was overcome with mercy and she tenderly touched her daughter. “My darling daughter. You came as a gift from God with heaven’s glow – like an angel of love lighting up the darkness.” The neighbor could not believe her ears. She had never heard such grace in a child’s cry. She had brought many children into the world, but had never come across anything like it. This child was different. Sanjanin’s family decided to name the baby Emira. Her sister called her Ira and in time the nickname caught on. Emira’s birth changed everyone’s life. Emina was happy again. She felt love in herself and her face radiated happiness. Even her husband, although he had wanted a son, accepted Ira wholeheartedly. She knew how to win his heart with her innocent laugh and high spirits and always chased away his dark thoughts. The villagers considered the little girl a true miracle. They visited Emina just to see Ira. They arrived bitter and gloomy, but left content and at ease. CHAPTER FIVE THE CURSE HAS MATURED Despite her happiness, Emina knew that she had not fulfilled the promise she made to her husband to bear a son. Although she was of poor health, she would decide to have another baby if she were only be sure that it would be a son. Emina’s promise loomed over her like a dark cloud. It incessantly followed her and became a burden that she could not get rid of. She kept trying to tell herself that she had two wonderful children. Her husband loved her, understood her, and supported her in everything. He forgot about a son long ago and turned into a good father for his daughters. But something was always nagging Emina to have another child. The clairvoyant came to the village. Women went to her in troops to ask about their destiny. They wanted to know if their husbands loved them, if their children would marry into wealth, what kind of harvest they would have. Only one thought ate at Emina. Bearing a son. After a few days, she mustered up the courage. She searched out the clairvoyant and entrusted her with her troubles. A LOOK INTO DESTINY “If God loves us and is merciful, why does He punish us? Why have I been chosen?” Emina asked the clairvoyant. “Emina, God is merciful. He does not punish us. With all of the sins that each of us have committed, if God were to punish us, there would be nobody left on earth. Now you see that God is merciful. God created man and all of these resources for the material world. He gave man an intellect and reason. He gave him a physical body that is made up of four elements. As the fifth element God breathed into man’s body a soul that is a piece of His light. He placed two supernatural forces on Earth – good and evil. While travelling our life’s path, someone always comes along to help rid us of evil. Or we may meet someone, who tempts us into evil. This is why we have free will. Will you resist evil? Or will you turn your back against all that is good and join the darkness? Will you accept the light? Your task is to contend with evil. Evil is an invisible force that opens its door and sweetly invites you in. As long as you only have one foot in the door, if you resist, you can always come back. When you have fallen and surrendered to evil, it will have you in its clutches. You know, Emina, we pay for everything in life. Everything takes its toll and uncleansed karma takes the most and causes evil.” She stared at the clairvoyant, who had leaned over the table and was slowly lifting her head. She put down her pencil and with a piercing gaze looked into Emina’s heart. Emina heard the clairvoyant’s voice as if it were far away. “Fear has big eyes, Emina. I am looking through your eyes into your soul for the eyes are the window to the soul. I respect your free will, but your soul’s task is to sweep away evil’s energy and stop the curse of your predecessors, which has matured in the house in which you live. Cursedness goes from generation to generation. There is a dark cloud over your house. I see that God has sent you into this family to put an end to evil’s curse. I see that you are scared, but the choice is yours. If you will have enough courage to put an end to evil, it will stop. If you cannot do this, you have a child who has the strength to perform this task. Your soul is innocent, but you are ignorant.” “How can little Ira be able to do what I have been trying to do all my life and could not? She is just a child.” “It is true that she is small, but the knowledge of her soul is as old as time.” A DARK PREMONITION Even Ira began behaving strangely. She began to cling to her mother more and more and making excuses for always being on her mother’s heels. “Mommy, where are you going? Do not go and leave me alone. Dark clouds are covering the sun, mommy, do not take my sunshine away.” Emina looked at her daughter in surprise. She discovered fear in her eyes as though she had a premonition that she would end up alone. In her child she found consolation, happiness, and a reason for living. She knew that she must finish the task that she had set for herself. Emina was far along in her pregnancy. Tired, she sat at the kitchen table waiting for her husband to come home from work. A pot of stew gently simmered on the stove and the table was set for dinner. Towards morning tiredness got the best of her and she fell asleep at the table. Only the caresses of gentle little hands woke her to broad daylight. Emina flinched. Where was her husband? What had happened that he had not come home? Had something happened to him? Beside herself with worry, she quickly made breakfast for Ira and ran to ask the neighbors if anyone had seen her husband. But no one in the village had seen him last night. This time Sanjanin did not come home. Emina’s home became sad and empty. Even Ira’s cheerfulness could not fill it with happiness. Emina shut herself away in her pain. She rarely said anything, and when she spoke it was only to say what was absolutely necessary to Ira. She avoided the neighbors, who would only ask her about her husband’s whereabouts and spread gossip. One day, gazing through the window that overlooked the village path leading past their house, she saw a friend of her husband’s. Without thinking, something drove her to him. She wanted to know what was with her husband. When Emina asked him about her husband Sanjanin, the man made no reply. She asked him again in a louder voice and stared directly into his eyes, which were only slightly open. He felt quite awkward. He shifted from one foot to the other and looked out somewhere into the pasture to avoid her inquisitive stare. He saw too much sadness in her eyes. He did not want to hurt her even more. He though it would have been easier if she did not learn the truth. He comforted himself thinking that she would manage somehow. After all, she was smart, hardworking, and skilled. Why should he destroy the last morsel of hope that kept her alive? He turned as if to continue his path, but Emina caught him by his sleeve. “Please tell me. I know that you know where my husband is and that you are hiding something from me. Please do not. Do not worry about how I will take the truth. Believe me that sometimes the truth is better than infinite uncertainty, constant questioning without an answer, and endless fear and doubt.” His friend mumbled in a voice just loud enough to be heard, “He has another woman.” Then with his head bowed, as though he were to blame for Sanjanin’s infidelity, he hurried down to the path to disappear from Emina’s view as quickly as possible. But she did not even see him. In her fog of tears, the glimmering sun was fading to just a pale dot that shone in the dark sky. LOVE IS BLIND Emina truly loved her family. She struggled with herself and tried to silence her heart, which urged her to have another child. She realized the seriousness of the clairvoyant’s caution advising her not to conceive another child. But Emina was a simple woman and did not understand the clairvoyant’s explanation about cursedness and destiny. Still, deep inside, she felt that the clairvoyant was right. Actually, she knew all of this a long time ago, but was not really aware of it. She knew that she should behave wisely, but at the same time something pushed her to act differently – to her own detriment – against herself. She could not resist. And so, despite her feeble health, she decided to have another child. Her husband had already come to terms with the fact that he had two daughters, so Emina had to persuade him. Although she knew that he wanted a son, she also knew that he was worried about her health, so he would not necessarily agree to have another child. “What do you think about trying again? This time I have the feeling that we will be lucky. It would be nice to have a son. The girls will marry and move away to keep house at their husbands’ homes. Who will carry on our family?” “It is true that I want a son and that the girls will move away. I have also wanted an heir, but I love you too much to exchange you for a son. I cannot imagine life without you. I am afraid that in your condition another pregnancy could be fatal.” But Emina could not be talked out of it. She wanted to fulfil her promise – no matter what. All her life she had tried to be like the other women, who had sons, in the village. “Do not worry about by health. I will manage,” she assured Sanjanin and coaxed him to give his consent. “We both want a son. The girls have made us happy and Ira especially is a godsend – full of love, compassion, happiness, and joy. A son would be like you –honest and just, firm in his decisions, with clear intentions and good-hearted to all. We would be very proud of him.” And so Emina conceived again. She was fully convinced that this time she would have a boy. Their oldest daughter Mejram was already of age to go away to school and so she had to leave home. Although Emina protested, she had to submit because in her husband’s family such was the custom to lighten the mother’s load when she was expecting another child. There was sheer delight in the house the first three months of pregnancy. Ira was truly a miraculous child. She was bright and a very fast learner. Her curiosity and enthusiasm over new things kept everyone around her busy. She could never know enough and was always occupied with something. She roamed about, exploring the pastures all day. She observed butterflies, watched the flowers and the way they painted their petals, and listened to what the sun told her on its path across the sky. Ira brought happiness to her father and mother and helped them forgot their worries and troubles. Then the child in Emina’s belly awoke. With these first pokes the child called its mother’s attention to the frail human being that was growing inside of her. Suddenly, everything changed and happiness escaped them as though they had never known it. Emina’s husband was becoming more and more estranged. He was leaving home more frequently and coming home later and later. Emina missed him very much, but never said anything. Her husband’s soul knew that Emina would leave him. It knew about the curse and was slowly withdrawing. It looked for oblivion and comfort elsewhere. It was running away from the loss that was approaching. It was afraid of suffering. HOW TO LOVE? Emina spent her nights crying and her days hiding her pain from others. Finally, she could take no more and set off for the clairvoyant. “When I found out that my husband has another, something dark – a strange evil premonition – laid on my soul. My intellect told me that it was not worth it, but my heart let it in and deep inside I can no longer hide it. I have become vulnerable, sensitive and very saddened. I did not see it; they told me so, but my heart cannot believe it.” “Do not fall for the exterior, do not react to words. Attend to the person. Let every word and action develop and follow the person’s behavior. People do not trust each other and are not careful or patient with themselves. When two people fall in love, they want to fulfil their expectations and yearnings as quickly as possible. Because of fear that we will lose a loved one, we are jealous, violent and often selfish, lacking understanding. Infatuation fades like the wind, we do not develop love because we are too impatient. Love takes time, understanding and respect. We must allow our partner free will. Dear Emina, know that there is only one true love in life and all the others are false. Only one person is destined for you. If we miss them or never meet them, but persist in a relationship that a person, and not God, has artificially concocted, we voluntarily join a circus that lasts as long as we endure it. The victims are the children, who are abandoned and superfluous, and end up carrying their parents’ bitter experiences with them in their own lives.” Emina understood what the clairvoyant was telling her, but in her heart she felt differently. It clinched her and she was scared that she would lose her love. “Fear kills love,” continued the clairvoyant when she sensed Emina’s anxiety. “Jealousy is fear… mistrust in yourself. He who respects himself is not jealous. Women often threaten to leave their husbands. This is not a threat, but the unconscious direction to do this and the husband really does leave sooner or later. Women are devalued today both physically and spiritually. A man can treat himself to many a thing while a woman suffers. The standards and rules of society are no longer in harmony with human nature. We have created a world that is increasingly more hostile. You cannot just receive love, but must also give it in return. And so you cannot just give love, but must also receive it in return. The person who only gives is more selfish than the person who only receives. Our obligation is to awaken love in the person, who does not know love and, for this reason, does not give it. Otherwise our relations are cold. This person will not wake up by himself. When you love, love unconditionally. Love for you and not your partner. Love only as much as you want to give. Do not love in order to do someone else a favour. Love with all your heart and do not expect to get love back. Love for you and not for anyone else because you live for you and not because of anyone else. You do not even live for your own child. A child leaves the nest like a bird. A person needs love. And so learn to give it and do not be afraid to accept it. Do not expect your partner to give you love if you yourself do not give it. You both have the same possibilities. A person can only lose what he does not have.” “I know that I should hate him for hurting me so, but my heart cannot do it. I still love him and I miss him very much,” admitted Emina to the clairvoyant. “Hatred is only suffering. The person who hates burdens his brain and hatred settles in his body. The person that hates suffers the most himself, empowering the object of his hatred to control him. We never hate good people, only bad. But that is how we ourselves become bad. Maybe the person even regrets having hurt us, but we are so overcome with hatred that we are unable to see this. The person who hates is filled with so much anger and vengeance that he is not even aware of how the object of his hatred feels and what he is experiencing. Hatred is always one-sided. When we hate someone we really hate only ourselves.” “Tell me why I must suffer so. What have I done to offend God that He has burdened me with so much suffering.” “People often talk about how they have suffered in the past. This means that they do not die from suffering. Our life is like a book – you open it, read it and close it. A person does not die because of suffering but because their time of living on Earth has expired. When we die we rise up – as if crossing a bridge – to merciful God.” THE LAST WARNING Emina was fighting with a merciless enemy. Ever since she had heard the news about her husband, she walked as though moonstruck. She did not talk to anyone or mention her misfortune to anyone. She just suffered in her heart and sobbed silently. She simply could not accept that her husband had betrayed her. She still believed in him. She felt that Sanjanin’s reason had succumbed to the energies of evil that spun him around in their cycle. They had obsessed him so that he did not even know what he was doing. Still, with her own reason, she could not comprehend his behavior. She could not sleep that night and remembered the clairvoyant’s words not to conceive again. Now she became aware of what the clairvoyant was trying to tell her, although she did not understand completely. What did she do wrong? She did not want to hurt anybody, especially not her husband whom she loved so very much. All that she ever wanted her whole life was a little bit of love. She infinitely wanted love – to be loved. For this reason she wanted to please her husband and bear him a son – to show him how much she loved him. Now he was gone. But Emina knew that he would return. She also knew that she had squandered her love. It was a horribly quiet night. Emina sat near the window looking at the pale light that distorted the shadows between the trees in the orchard. In this still night she heard a voice. “Emina!” Someone had called her. The shout echoed in the rustling of the leaves, “Emina!” She had clearly heard someone shouting for her outside. She listened and could not believe her ears. Someone was calling her. Who could be calling her in this late night hour? She told herself that she had just imagined the whole thing. The mysterious wind whispered like the moaning of a trapped soul. Emina was growing more anxious and decided to go to bed. She took only two steps when she was shaken by a voice immediately behind her. “Emina, help!” Emina ran into the yard. The cold wind enveloped her frail body while she wandered as though moonstruck among the old apple trees in the orchard. She stared at the innocent image of the pale moon in the sky and asked: “What have I done wrong that I must suffer so?” Still upset, she sat up all night and trembled. It was nearly morning when she was finally able to close her eyes. In the morning, little Ira woke her mother to tell her about her dreams. “You know, mommy, last night it howled. Someone knocked on the window. Wicked animals roamed the yard. I was so scared!” “What kind of animals were they?” Emina asked her daughter in misgiving. “They were black birds. Evil black birds. I was afraid that they would peck me. They looked so greedy.” “Do not be afraid, my dear daughter, it was just a dream.” “I was not dreaming mommy,” replied Ira. “There really were black birds. They came and took your red scarf.” Emina hugged her daughter. They stood in front of the house in the sunshine. Emina tried to hide her pain from her daughter. She went about her housework and sent Ira for milk to the neighbor. The night had exhausted Emina. She was weak and completed only the most pressing tasks around the house with her last strength. She just could not understand what she had done to offend her husband that he should leave her. She had loved him very much the entire time and thought only of him –even now. She had always complied with him in everything. She never asked for anything for herself and never reproached him for anything. She was deep in thought when Ira surprised her by returning with the neighbor. She came to cheer Emina up. The neighbor wanted to help her, but Emina was of very few words. She did not like to talk about her husband. Despite all of her suffering, she defended him in front of her neighbor. “Maybe he was sad and lonely. Suffering takes a person’s soul. Homesickness is a hard illness.” The neighbor jabbered and turned the topic of discussion to his lover. “An unhappy person is very sensitive to attention. Maybe a woman fell in love with him and he succumbed. He was always pleasing everybody. And if she was persistent enough, she seduced him while he was depressed and soon won his heart. Some women know how to win men’s hearts, how to charm them.” Emina knew her husband well and she knew that he liked for people to praise him and was proud if a woman needed his help. She knew his masculine naivety and complacency, and she knew that succumbing to a woman’s wiles was a sign of masculinity for him rather than infidelity to his wife. But she was quiet. She did not want to get involved in a discussion about her husband, much less about his infidelity. But her neighbor continued: “Men soon reproach women for their infidelity but do not even notice their own. As if a different set of standards applied to them. They expect emotions from women, but they cannot even manage enough of their own to come home instead of heading for the pub. They have a few drinks and then they cannot be held accountable for their actions.” Night after night Emina asked herself why her husband left her. The more she looked for blame within herself, the more she was realizing that she was just a victim of her own love. She even thought that she was to blame because she loved him so much… too much. She was too devoted. She would comply too willingly to all of his wishes. The neighbor saw that she would not be able to lift Emina’s spirits. Emina was absorbed in her thoughts and was not even listening to her chattering. Nevertheless, she wanted to help her. “Emina, maybe you should go to the clairvoyant. She will be coming to our village. Maybe she can advise you. Perhaps she will open your eyes. Talking to her will help you get things off your chest.” THE PATH OF LOVE The clairvoyant felt how hard it was for Emina. She knew that her heart was broken and that there was very little hope that she would be able to overcome evil. And so she spoke to her about love. She wanted to inspire her with the beauty of life. “God is love. God does not punish us. God is just. He created two invisible supernatural beings on Earth: Good and Evil. He created man and gave him reason and intellect, a destiny, a physical body and free will. For this reason man himself must decide between light and darkness… good and bad. This means that our good deeds will be repaid with goodness and our bad ones with evil. You must assess whom you help, to whom you give your kindness or you can ruin yourself. You must stop evil. He who does evil will always do evil because evil begets evil. That is why evil must be stopped. God gave us reason and an intellect. We cannot come to a standstill. We must always strive, yearn and want. We each have our mission. If we do not fulfil it, the soul suffers. That is why we must always fight for progress, but we cannot forget ourselves in the process. We must tend what they have. It is very important that we tackle everything with the heart. Everything you begin, begin in the name of God. What is God? God is energy. What is energy? Energy is love in our heart. God is everywhere. Wherever you turn, God is with you. It is a person’s free will whether they care for love or surrender to hatred. There are many kinds of love: love for those close to us, for friends, children, and spouse, work…everything, which we do we can do with either love or hatred. That is why the only path to happiness, success, and internal fulfilment – is the path of love. Everything you do, do with love. Never ever avoid problems and turn your back on troubles. If you make a mistake, do not repeat it. Change your way of life. At every moment our body is warning us about what we are doing wrong. Yet we do not hear it. We are so burdened by the past that we have no energy left for the present. The past is only an experience. A person must experience misfortune because only then can he understand and recognize good.” Emina bid her farewell, somewhat comforted. But deep in her heart she still carried her pain. She was remembering the happy times that she shared with her husband. It was raining out. The night was dark. The rain whipped the tree branches in the orchard. The wind howled like a strange voice as though someone were crying. The thunder echoed in the valleys and bounced off the peaks. It howled and wailed with the heartbreaking sound of accusation. Emina was warming milk on the stove for Ira. Suddenly, she felt as though someone were standing next to her. She looked around. She turned around, but there was nobody. She looked through the window and saw the image of her mother. Her mother stood before her in the lustre of the lightning. She heard her loving, yet commanding voice: “Emina, resist! Help yourself, Emina! Save yourself! Do not give up! Fight!” Emina’s entire body shivered. She screamed in horror and in a flash her mother’s image disappeared. There was a strange glow in the room and Emina stood as if in a trance. “Fight, Fight!” echoed in her head. But she felt no strength inside. When little Ira awoke in the morning, she saw her mother lying on the floor in the kitchen. She kneeled next to her and put her palm on her forehead. She looked through the window at the bright sunshine and quietly prayed: “Mommy, wake up. You have been asleep too long. Mommy, you will catch cold.” Emina heard her daughter’s sweet voice. She barely opened her eyelids and in the haze saw a child’s face leaning over her. Ira gave her strength and the will to live. Emina had fought with the darkness and had defeated dark shadows. She opened her eyes with the utmost effort. “What happened?” she thought. “How long have I been lying here?” She felt something soft beneath her head. Two delicate hands were holding her around the neck. “Mommy, please get up. My hands hurt because I have been holding your head in my lap for a long time.” She embraced her little Ira, pulled her close to herself and sobbed under her breath. “My darling daughter. You are all I have left.” Ira smoothed her mother’s curly hair and comforted her as though she were her mother. “Do not worry, I will always be with you. I love you. I will never leave you.” Emina rose clumsily with her belly very much in the way. She took little Ira by the hand and led her out into the sunshine in front of the house. “My dear daughter, you are a brave and good girl. Do not worry. Everything will be all right with me – just as it should be. Children should not be sad. Look at the sky. The sun always shines in the sky, even when you cannot see it because of the dark clouds. The sun is always in the sky. Dark clouds come and go. So do not be sad.” But Ira felt that darkness was creeping into the house. Unhappy premonitions were surrounding her. So she begged her mother: “Black birds are circling above the house, mommy. Black birds are knocking at the window. You have to chase them away. I am afraid of them.” “Ira, within me reason and intellect have prevailed. In a person there is the force of character and that is why it is hard to believe what is incomprehensible to our intellect. I had the will to stop evil, but I did not believe in myself. I was afraid that my husband would not understand me. I felt that I had to do something. The clairvoyant cautioned me. I did not have the courage to confide in your father. The clairvoyant ordered that I had to deal with this by myself – that it is my soul’s task. If I had confided in my husband, had asked him to listen to me, it would have been like describing the colors of a rose garden to a blind man. He lives in his conviction… in his greyness. My world is unknown and incomprehensible to him.” EVIL VANQUISHES Emina was certain that her husband did not love her although her heart told her differently. She always asked the clairvoyant to tell her why he left her. But the clairvoyant replied that he had not left her – that in his heart he was with her the whole time. “You see, Emina, your husband loves you from the bottom of his heart, but the uncleansed karma of the curse has matured and a third matter has settled in him and rules over his reason and intellect. Evil has begun to reign over his body. Your husband has lost his free will. His intellect is no longer the master of his body because evil has begun to govern it. His intellect and reason are divided and his heartfelt love for you has been suppressed. Evil is winning. Fight, Emina!” Emina confided her fears to the clairvoyant and told her about the frightening hallucinations she had been having at night. “Evil or the devil is the first angel of God. It has within it good and evil. Evil leads us astray, but a person has free will to decide which he will serve. A person can encounter the energy of evil consciously or unconsciously. He who unconsciously falls under the influence of evil can rid himself of it if he becomes conscious of it and decides to fight against it. Because neither good nor bad accepts a person into its circle if that person has not consciously made his choice. Every house has a soul, which its first master breathes into it. People carry good and bad energies that remain in a space even after the person leaves. Because the soul is attached to the material world, it comes back. In many old houses and castles there are souls that have not been let loose. We say that they haunt. The influence of these negative energies is shown in different ways: the house creeks, the lights turn off, doors slam…a person can become sick, get a fever, fears persecute this person at night, he cannot sleep… There happen strange things that are cautioning him something is wrong. The spirit communicates to the person that which is happening through the conscious. The kind of message that is delivered to the intellect, which in turn communicates with reason, depends on the level of the conscious. Because our intellect is very uncertain and unstable, our reason does not always get the right message. Dear Emina, everything that you have said has happened to you these terrible nights and everything that little Ira has dreamed are warnings that you are entangled in a cycle of evil. These are all warnings of uncleansed karma. When you first came to me, I told you that it is the task of your soul to clear away the curse of your descent. This old house was allotted to you before birth because there are uncleansed energies in it and it is on you to settle them. Energy cleansing is necessary. The energies of evil do not force a person to serve them. The person must decide so himself. If you give in to these energies, they will make you a slave and you will find yourself in a cycle of evil. Then everything will go wrong. The old proverb says that everything is going to rack and ruin. Your time is running out Emina. Pay regard to your free will. If you decide on the cleansing, come to me no later than six weeks before childbirth. I will help you cleanse karma – the curse of your descent.” Emina sensed that the clairvoyant was right. She thought about what to do. Her reason told her one thing and her heart another. She decided that she would perform the cleansing after her child was born. “I must first take care of my child,” she said to herself. “Then I will still have enough time to take care of myself. When the child will be a little older, when I will not be as busy with the baby, I will go to see the clairvoyant.” She wanted to believe what her heart was telling her and did not listen to her reason. She was overtaken by time. SHE LOVED AND FORGOT HERSELF Emina’s love was loyal and devoted. From the moment she felt Sanjanin’s warm embrace, it was as though she were spellbound. She lived with the thought of him. There was nothing she would not do for him. Her love for Sanjanin gave her the strength to make her way through life alone. Every time he came, she lovingly waited upon him and was happy to offer him everything she had. She embraced him tenderly and felt his tiredness and bitterness. She did not move. She felt for him and bore all his worries. She suffered in his place and deliberated about his troubles, although she knew that she could not help him. But he was so deep within her that she could not tear him from her thoughts, much less her heart. The more she loved him, the more she forgot herself. For Emina life without Sanjanin was senseless, empty and unimportant. Late in the evening, when silence had long settled over everything, she lied in bed, but could not close her eyes. Her thoughts always led to him. She lost her breath in the fear that something should happen to him and she would lose him. She begged and prayed that God would protect him, guide him and hear her prayers. “Dear God, great spirit in the universe, who unites and divides all things and is always creating new things, but is destroying the old at the same time, how can my wounded heart learn the rules that are so hard for it to understand? You say that love unites… that love is creative… that love makes one happy… that love is life itself. So why then, when we love, are we always so very unhappy? Why does love bring so much suffering? Why does love separate people, when it is supposed to join them with your blessing? If love is life, why are people dying because of it? And never say that love is God because then I shall begin doubting you as well.” THE TOLL OF THE CURSE The time of childbirth was approaching. Thunder roared all through the night. Emina did not get a wink of sleep. It was sorrowful and frightening. She felt the first contractions in her belly. She got out of bed to get help when she felt a warm liquid stream down her legs. Her water had broken. Labor had started. She hurried toward the door to rush to her neighbor, but her legs could not carry her anymore. She collapsed at the door and everything went black before her eyes. She quietly called out for Ira. The little girl immediately came running as though she had been prepared to help all night. “Run to the neighbor, Ira, and tell her that I am in labor and to come right away. Run as fast as you can. Run, Ira!” The little girl rushed into the night. She was drenched after just a few steps, but she felt neither the drops of rain that slid down her back nor the hot tears on her face. She hastened into the night without looking back. Emira was very afraid of the dark. She was even more afraid of wild animals. But her desire to help her mother was stronger than her fear. Bolts of lightning lit the path that seemed to never end. In the next flash, much to her horror, she discovered that she had been running the wrong way. She was already near the waterfall and the neighbor lived in the opposite direction. An hour later they were with Emina. She gave birth at the exact same time that she had seen her mother’s apparition. When the neighbor lifted the child, she exclaimed: “It is a boy!” The lines of a smile came to Emina’s face, and she imagined how happy her husband would be. She smiled defiantly. She had gotten what she had wanted. When the neighbor turned the baby around to get him to cry, Emina saw that he was bluish. His tiny little hands hung lifelessly next to his body. The lines on the neighbor’s face expressed her sadness. Emina’s heart ached and she could barely breathe. She could not believe her eyes. She had a knot in her throat. She would have screamed, but she was frozen with her mouth wide open. A tear rolled down the neighbor’s face. Emina felt as though she did not exist. The child was dead. THE SOUL’S BLESSING The neighbors soon gathered. They wanted to bury the baby, but Emina expressed her wish to wait for the father. First thing in the morning she sent word to her husband to come right away because his son had been born. She demanded that nobody tell him that the child was dead. Emina told Ira what chores to do around the house and sent the neighbors away. Then she called Ira and had her sit next to her on the bed. Ira snuggled next to her mother as though she wanted to guard her from harm. She was afraid that she would lose her. “My dear Ira, I know that a hard path in life awaits you far away from home. But do not let it break you. You are still small and find this hard to understand, but when you grow up, you will remember everything and will understand. I was at the clairvoyant’s, but did not follow her advice. There is a curse over our family. It will be on you to muster up the strength to put an end to it, or it will be carried onto the next generation. Do not allow this suffering. They have prophesied that you will heal the sick and bring happiness to the dejected – that you will bless broken souls. Have faith in yourself. In you there is the light of love and strength of compassion. Do not forget my name.” Ira sadly crowded into her mother’s arms and understood little of what her mother was telling her. “Learn well. Never lose your poise. People are very cruel; do not believe anyone. Trust only in yourself and your sharp intellect and reason because God gave you supernatural strength.” The little girl was not aware of her strength. All that she felt was pain because her mother was leaving her. “I will always be with you,” continued Emina lovingly. “My darling, I love you. But you are not just my child. You came into this world to help people. You are a great hope for everyone. God will lead you.” DESTINY IS FULFILLED When Emina received word that her husband was coming that evening, she asked that her best linen be prepared. She requested that she be propped up on two pillows so that she could wait for her husband sitting up, as is becoming, to show respect for her master. Beside her bed was the basket that she had weaved. In it her son lied as though he were asleep. Her husband came that afternoon. His face was tired and emaciated from the long journey. When he saw the lifeless baby next to Emina, his face expressed his pain. He begged Emina to move into another room so that she would not lie in the same room as the dead body and to bury the baby. But she firmly refused. “Wait until the morning. Now come and sit next to me.” Her husband sat devotedly as though he wanted to ask forgiveness. But Emina had already resolved not to even mention what had been. Sanjanin broke the torturous silence: “Do not give up, my love. We still have Ira. The child has died. Such is God’s will. There is nothing we can do. What is important is that you are alive. We have our entire future ahead of us. Do not be so sad.” Emina instructed him how to care for their daughter as though she did not hear his words of encouragement. “Be gentle with your daughter. She is very sensitive. Send her to school, she is smart enough and learns quickly. Ira is my future. She will finish what I could not.” She explained to him in detail how to care for Ira and then became silent. “And what will become of us, Emina? How will we live?” her husband asked. Emina looked into his eyes and calmly replied: “Ira is the only future.” Her husband understood her response to mean that she had forgiven him. He reached out to smooth her hair, but Emina took his hand and shook it as though to bid him farewell. Sanjanin accepted this as a sign of reconciliation and it was reassuring to him. He believed that his wife had forgiven him and hoped that everything would settle down in time. Emina asked him to call Ira, who happily approached and sat in the bed next to her mother. “Mommy, are you better? How are you feeling?” Emina softened upon her entrance. Ira always carried sunshine wherever she went. Emina embraced her daughter and quietly spoke to her lovingly: “Be a good girl, my Ira. Do not cry, sweetheart. Be smart and grow up quickly. Mommy will always be with you. I will always watch you and cradle you in my heart. Weave your long hair into braids when you will miss me. Run to the brook every morning and wash yourself in the murmuring water. Then lift your pretty head and look into the wide sky. Always have a smile on your face. Your smile will chase the dark clouds away and mommy will be able to see you. You know, my darling child, I yearned for love all of my life. It was all that I every wanted. Everything else in life is unimportant. And it was that very love that I searched for in vain. It was always slipping through my fingers. No matter how much I may have loved, I felt deprived. I drowned my sadness in the solitude of the setting sun. Never resort to the setting sun. Look for strength and joy in life. Turn to the sun in the early morning hours when it rises in the East and paints the day with color, pouring all of the beauty of life into it. May the sun accompany you. Always carry it in your heart. And take this to heart. Never look for anything outside of you. Anything you search for, and everything you will ever desire, look for in your own heart first. Then give to others. Always look for happiness in yourself.” Her rough hand tenderly stroked her daughter’s hair and little Ira fell asleep sobbing in her mother’s arms. Her mother’s face donned a look of peacefulness. She forgave her husband without a tad of anger. She blessed Ira with all of her love. Meanwhile, her husband dozed off on the chair. For a moment, tiredness got the best of him. When he awoke, Emina had already passed away. He stared at her angelic image, the blissful smile on her face and the white teeth that gleamed between lips that were slightly open. He was overcome with emotion. Although he had never before cried, he began sobbing like a child. He just could not believe that Emina had died. In that moment he completely realized how profoundly he loved her. How he carried her in his heart the entire time and how her love always accompanied him. He wanted to carry his daughter away from her departed mother, but Emina held her hand firmly. Ira woke up and burst into tears. She did not want to tear herself away from her mother. “Let me stay with mommy,” she cried inconsolably. “I told her to watch out for the black birds. Do not drag me away. I want to stay with mommy so that the black birds do not peck her. I will look out for mommy.” CHAPTER SIX THE FAREWELL When the neighbors gathered to bury the baby boy, they learned the terrible news that Emina had also died. “When I die, bury me alongside the path where Ira can visit me. Bury me beneath the orchard so that at least in death I will not be as lonely as I was in life,” Emina had asked of her husband long ago. She had ordered that her son’s grave be dug in that very spot, as though she had known that she would lie next to him. That afternoon there were already two coffins, one large and one small, below the apple tree in the yard. It was a fine day in May and the sun richly lavished its rays. The fragrance of nature in spring filled the air and the blossoms glimmered with love. In the yard a large number of people had gathered to pay their respects to Emina and her son. The pallbearers lifted the coffins and made their way toward the cemetery. A long line of people trailed down the village path behind the coffins. Even people from neighboring villages came. Little Ira hid beneath the apple tree in the orchard and observed the sorrowful procession from a distance. Nobody noticed her. People were deep in their sadness. Tears streamed down her face. Then she remembered her mother’s words and looked into the sky, but the sun was too blinding. The meadow spread out before her like a carpet of gold. Somewhere in the distance the dark silhouette of a house was outlined in the clear sky. Ira was too young to know what it means for a child to lose his mother. She was just scared. She felt so very alone and abandoned. She felt that she lost all love along with her mother. Now who would hold her tenderly when she had a rough time, and like her mother used to do, softly whisper in her ear, “I love you.” Who had hands so loving that they would heal her wounds, soothe her pain and make her heart happy? Who would manage as much love as a mother, who always forgives anew, never holds any grudges and never judges… just loves? Ira was lost in her sadness and she wanted her mother to come back. She was recalling the little pranks and all of the moments she made her mother mad because she did not obey. She begged her for forgiveness. She was so sad that she would have liked to die too. When they were about to lower Emina into her grave it began to pour. Still no one left. The sky was bidding Emina farewell. Some of the villagers stood speechless at the grave as though they were talking to Emina about their own destiny and comparing it to hers. Two women were walking home along the muddy path and saw the little girl bent below the apple tree. She looked as though she were one with the tree. She glowed with a strange calm and divine peace. “Who is that child?” asked a woman from a neighboring village, who had come to attend the funeral. “That is our hope, IRA, EMINA’S DAUGHTER,” replied the neighbor. A RAY OF NEW HOPE People remembered Emina’s funeral for a long time. There was talk about the clairvoyant’s cautions all over the village. Having witnessed its consequences, people were afraid of uncleansed karma. Emina’s grave at the edge of the meadow, where they often gathered for different jobs, always reminded of the destiny of unfulfilled love. When the first apples ripened, children, who came to pick the early fruits, kept her company. Soon after her funeral, the villagers witnessed an event that impressed on their memory forever. There appeared in the sky a light that shone on her grave – a light that opened the doors of heaven. When people saw this, they put down their work and prayed the Our Father. Emina had given them a sign that she had succumbed to the curse. Nevertheless, heaven’s light gave them faith because she had left a child that God would lead – a child bringing light. Sanjanin loved his daughter very much. They remained alone. Although Ira was small, when she saw her father was meditative and crying, she approached him, hugged him and said, “Do not cry, daddy. I love you. I will be good. I will obey you.” Her father did not know what to do. He lost himself when he lost Emina. Only now did he realize that he truly loved her. He missed her immensely. He was not used to housework and did not know how to raise a child. But little Ira stuck to him like glue. She talked to her father and comforted him. She wanted to help him, but did not know that her father had a lot of worries because of her. When her father listened to her words, he sunk even further into sadness. To him it seemed like he was seeing Emina before him. He wanted to be alone and by himself. He said to Ira, “Go and play outside.” He called on his cousin for advice. She told him it would be best if he would remarry. “Consider your daughter. Who is going to take care of her? The child needs a mother. You think that she is playing happily in the meadow, but I saw her. She only wanders among the trees and does not even play with the other children.” Sanjanin could not believe this. Whenever he sent her out to play she was always happy. She gave him a kiss and ran out. When she was out of the house and came upon the clearing in the middle of the meadow, she ran to the stream, quickly washed herself and lifted her hands. Then she began calling her mother quietly and lovingly. “Mommy, can you hear me? Come, mommy. Tell me how you are. Are you cold? Are you hungry? Do you walk beyond the spring past the meadow? I picked some cherries for you. They are not completely ripe, but I could not reach any higher. I am too small, mommy.” Ira ate the half-ripe cherries herself and left the ripe ones for her mother on a rock next to the stream. When she was sad, she ran to the stream, looked up at the sky and talked to her mother, hoping that her mother could hear her. She found inner peace in this. Then she always looked for her father. He was deep in thought, but Ira always approached him and tried to cheer him up. It was a Monday when she did not find her father at home. The neighbor was cleaning house and Ira asked her where her father was. “Go play,” she said, “Your father will be back this afternoon.” Ira went into the orchard and clung to the apple tree, spilling her troubles to it. Neighboring women soon came to hang out their laundry and Ira unintentionally heard their conversation. “How can he do something like that? What is she like? The poor child. She does not even know her. How can he take a stranger into the house?” Ira did not understand what they were talking out. Her father did not eat when she sat down for dinner with him that evening. She asked why he was so worried. She begged him to eat something so that he would not be hungry. When she could not talk him into eating, she could not eat either. Her father tried to persuade her, but she replied: “I cannot daddy. The bread gets stuck in my throat. I have something to confess, daddy. I did something bad. I eavesdropped on the neighbors when they were talking about you, but I did not understand anything. Then her father spoke. “My dear daughter, I have to marry. There is nobody to cook. I have to go to work. There is nobody to mind you.” Ira burst out crying, “No, daddy, please do not leave me. I will cook. I will milk the cows and take care of the house. I will obey you.” Ira jumped for the broom to clean the house. The broom was bigger than she was, so she barely dragged it behind her, much less swept with it. Her father burst into laughter when he saw her. “Come here, child, so that we can talk. You are big enough to know everything, but too small to understand.” Sanjanin took little Ira into his lap and promised her that he would never leave her and would always take care of her. She fell asleep in his arms and he gently laid her in her bed and carefully covered her with a blanket. Ira woke in the night and heard her father talking, “Oh Emina, why did you leave us? I would give up ten sons for you and my Ira if you were alive.” That morning Ira found her father asleep in his clothes on a chair in the kitchen. She lightly patted his head and he awoke puzzled. Ira chattered like a bird and began explaining to her father: “See, daddy, mommy came. She came to me at the sun’s first light and gently stroked me. Then she brushed and braided my hair. Look, daddy, she took care of everything. She prepared breakfast for us.” There was a cup of coffee on the table just as Emina had always prepared it for him. Ira took him by the hand and led him to the table as though he were a child. “You will not marry will you daddy? Mommy will take care of us. You see. She did not leave us.” Sanjanin was softened by the child’s innocence. His eyes swelled and he happily hugged his daughter. After breakfast they went to visit Ira’s grandmother. Sanjanin and his mother were serious and worried. They had important and confidential things to discuss, so they sent Ira into the orchard. She did not want to go, but she was quickly drawn in by the voice of nature. She looked round to the sun and asked it to tell her how her mother was. She was soon absorbed in her thoughts and dreaming. She was only awakened by her grandmother’s voice echoing through the orchard: “Emira, come to dinner. Emira…Emira!” Her father had already gone when she returned to the house. Thanks for the light of life. Thank you, Sun in the sky, Which brings joy every morning And carries away worries and troubles every evening. Thank you pale moon That illuminated my soul in the dark night. Thanks for all sadness and happiness, For birth and death, For life on Earth. Thanks to time That allowed my soul to perform its mission. Thanks for the moment of blessing When I will be able to go home To the origin of light. This is the Truth. THE END