Afterlife

AFTERLIFE The priest from Karnak The sun was burning hot, and it was only in the shade of Ramses II’s enormous columns that brief respite could be found. The columns surrounding me in circular rows, described magnificent battles and epic adventures, with hieroglyphs cut into the substantial sandstone. Along the ceiling cobalt blue and gold shone against okra red and mustard yellows. The painted scenes described Ra, Osiris, Hathor, Thoth and a pantheon of other gods. A regal, dark and silently watching Anubis stared blankly as Maat raised her wings for protection. No building in the world could compare with Karnak. The most beautiful building my eyes have ever seen. My whole life I had dedicated to its construction, until finally I had been initiated into the larger mysteries and the road lay open for me to become the High Priest. But now I lay attentive and brooding with my face down on the smooth stone tiles before the feet of the High Priest of Karnak. He gazed with saddened eyes down upon my bald head and bare torso as he slowly began to speak. ‘Why? Why this misfortune Ptah-Amun-Ra? You who more than anyone embodied the since long forgotten knowledge of the power of the light. You who have been Karnak’s and the initiates' long anticipated hope. Why?’ ‘Master, I have not touched the Queen. I only used my ability to embody the light,’ I said. ‘One who has touched her can never be pardoned. The Pharaoh demands I make the decision. You must die. But as you are Karnak’s most skilled priest, you have been given the mercy to choose which way your life ends,’ said the High Priest. In waves of despair, sorrow and meaningless words of my innocence I finally managed to make my last difficult decision. To be buried alive was my greatest fear. To have my throat cut I imagined as a messy and painful death. ‘I choose the spears,’ I said as I slowly stood up and was led away by the guards. *** Everything began the day Martin asked if I had ever tried a regression. Of course I had read all about this. I was familiar with professor Brian Weiss, Sylvia Brown, Edgar Cayce, Madame Blavatsky, Anton Mesmer, Jung, Freud and the rest of the long line of psychics, priests, doctors, scientists, “self-proclaimed” healers and various charlatans. Nevertheless I had never tried it myself. As a doctor I had never felt the urge to search for early traumas, through regression, for myself. The reason for this was that reincarnation is to me as natural as night and day to me, and nobody would have to spend time and energy in order to convince me. I really did not require any proof. The possibility to convince just a single individual about a truth that no one would believe felt like wasted energy, as I had since long passed the point where it felt important to convince others about my beliefs. Everyone should find his or her own truth. ‘Okay, I’ll come along,’ I said. ‘It might be interesting as an experience for my patients.’ I could never forget the day we travelled to Berndt in Bettna. I once again had intense pain from gallstones, and six months later I had intensive surgery in Falun. In addition to the piercing gallstone pains I had a bad toothache in my left mandible. I was tired, irritated, and in heavy pain, unaware that the pain was the beginning of something new. In spite of the pain I sank ever deeper. Berndt’s calm and friendly voice made me relax and finally completely disappear in archaic memories of myself. When Berndt asked what I was doing I was on my knees in front of the High Priest with difficult spiritual pains. As a doctor it had always been my goal to help the suffering, but finally even I had lost respect for the power of the light and my own role. I was a tool, nothing more, but love had made me naive and helped me lose my judgment, a fault which I have repeated several times even in my current life. Slowly I started to realise the shocking truth that past lives traumas, mistakes and teachings return, sometimes as flashing short-lived images or the intuition of something archaic and deeply grounded. Something we recognize but lack words to describe. Something that for a sudden moment releases materialistic behaviour, encouragement and challenges. Something the religious sometimes describe as a revelation or an idea of salvation. My time as a revered and knowledgeable healer was out. My death would finally also transfer a degree of wrath into my future lives. The wrath over being unjustly punished for a crime not committed. Was this what has been described as cellular memories? Was this what time upon time made its mark on my current life? To always uphold the importance of truth, to feel recurrent wrath over the world’s never-ending capability for unfairness, to like Sisyphus labour to accomplish the impossible. *** The Temple of Karnak was as always bustling with activity. As the other priests stood and conferred, I amused myself by focusing energy. I took a number of dead flies and sent them up in the air above the small group of chattering colleagues with playful energy. The flies fell without a sound down on their bald heads. With a wide smile I saw them one after another brush off the falling flies. One of them suddenly burst out: ‘Not again! It’s Ptah-Amun-Ra who’s entertaining himself. Will he never grow up? We must inform the High Priest!’ A few days later I got reprimanded by the High Priest and instructed to focus more on my work and not use the pure energy for selfish nonsense. ‘When will you grow up and understand,’ he finally said with a friendly smile. His admonishment educated and also always protected me. *** I felt instinctively that although he was forced to make the decision regarding my execution he was still my closest friend and confidant. A small perhaps insignificant detail that was to return even in this life. Where others believed I had failed I returned like a Phoenix, often protected by the person my colleagues would think of last. Not infrequently an individual high up in the hierarchy. Was this also a coincidence, a Jungian synchronicity? *** A few days later there was a large commotion surrounding the holy lake. For some inexplicable reason a young boy had fallen into the water. While the priests who did not know how to swim ran around looking for something to save the boy with he was gradually sinking to his death. By drawing upon all my power, I focused the pure light on the boy. Slowly, I saw how he was invisibly pulled up during the time it took for the other priests to finally find a long stick with which to reach out to him. Gradually the boy was pulled back in to the edge, and I went away quietly and pleased. There was no reason to talk about what had just happened. Perhaps the High Priest might be the only one to believe that what had occurred was true. Time no longer existed in this state of consciousness. The events suddenly shifted away from the holy lake. A large contingent was approaching the Temple of Karnak from the south. It was apparent that it was someone of importance. Male and female servants were followed by guards and soldiers. All of a sudden someone shouted out: ‘It’s the Queen of Thebes approaching! By Ra’s inscrutable mercy, what is she doing here?’ The images shifted abruptly and in the next moment I was standing with the High Priest in front of the Queen of Thebes. Her beauty was radiant. Her raven black hair shone against her copper yellow skin. Her painted eyes observed me kindly yet intensely. ‘The Queen has come here to seek grace from Ra, the priests and Thoth. She seeks healing. Her body will not give her and her ruler an heir. She has heard that there exists someone who masters the ancient forgotten knowledge to heal with light,’ said her councillor. The High Priest looked around himself anxiously. Now there was no way out. Karnak had always been protected by the Pharaoh and the temple was never wanting for anything. Now was the time to repay old debts. ‘Not I, but my most excelled student shall help the Queen.’ The next moment I had on my own initiative been left alone with the Queen in a small dark closed off room in the temple. While the Queen sat with crossed legs in front of me I spoke calmly and respectfully to her. ‘Her Highness has no illness. It is the mother to the child who needs energy.’ The same moment I saw myself form an intensely blue ball between my hands. I threw it softly up and down through the air as the intensity of the blue ball’s colour and energy slowly increased. I then took the ball of energy and put it above the Queens heart. ‘Should you not put it over my stomach?’ ‘No, I am giving you Ka,’ I said as the blue ball disappeared into her chest. It was maybe a year later that the Queen returned to Karnak. She was radiantly happy and in addition to her royal cortege she was accompanied by a beautiful little boy. The future of the upper and lower kingdom was secured. A short while later she returned. This time she drove a war chariot with two striking white horses. She was definitely a very unusual woman. Strong, intense and possessing a will of steel. In my deeply regressed condition I felt instinctively that a Queen did not normally drive a chariot like this. There were soldiers that guarded her progression but none dared to intervene and slow her down. ‘You shall come with me to Luxor. There is something I wish to give you,’ she said smiling as she eagerly urged the stunning animals. The ride through the Alley of Sphinxes down towards the palace in Luxor made me buzz with relish. The horse’s hooves thundered against the stones and the breeze gave a pleasant cool in the burning sun. The journey in the Queen’s golden chariot was the most wonderful experience in my whole life as a priest in Karnak. How can I have forgotten all of this, I thought to myself as I went forward through the Queen’s carriage. Having arrived in Luxor we walked slowly through the summer palace’s garden. We spoke softly and I suddenly felt an intense love for her. In my regressed state it was as if I knew that my love was reciprocated, but such love was naturally unthinkable. ‘I wish to give you a gift for what you did.’ ‘No, I have not done anything. It was not me. It was the light.’ ‘Perhaps,’ she said decisively as she reached for something golden. ‘This is a scarab of pure gold, an immaculate piece of craftsmanship. It is forever yours,’ said the Queen as she clasped it around my neck. In the next moment I understood why I was to die. I heard murmurs, whispering silent voices conspiring and I saw dark glances thrown from behind high pillars. Everyone retreated. I was shunned, as if I was walking down a road alone surrounded by people who refused to look at or acknowledge me. Nobody wanted to risk getting involved in something beyond their control. Instinctively I felt that this was a revolting, low but human characteristic. Something we all can see in our everyday lives. ‘Oh, they think I have touched the Queen physically because she received a child after the visit in Karnak. What scheming jackals. I signed my own death the same moment I was left alone with her,’ I thought to myself as I lay on the couch, and started to feel increasing pains under my right ribs and in my jaw. Were these pains similar to those I felt when I was executed by the spears at the temple of Karnak? The next instant I saw the Queen bitterly and mournfully speak a curse over my tomb. Her wrath was enormous, and she spoke that all who dared touch the tomb of my remains would die. She consciously ensured that a sufficient number saw and heard her curse. It was a way of exploiting peoples’ superstition for a final protection. I saw her put the golden scarab in the grave. Outside I saw people take detours and spit towards the tomb out of fear to fall victim to misfortune. The Queen had sealed this tomb for eternity. *** I remember that the first thing I asked about as I slowly returned to Berndt and Martin was the time. To me it felt like maybe half an hour had passed. We had started around five o’clock. I was shocked to learn that the time was now half past seven. It took several weeks before I was able to mentally and spiritually recover from what had occurred. Something had happened that would forever change my work as a doctor. There was no way back. The journey back to my secret, which had been well hidden for millennia, had begun, and I soon regained the knowledge of the light and its healing power.