Experience.

Because... how can you explain someone you barely know you were judged and hanged, and then you had a brief memory of the life between lives where no one scolded you for what you did and never threatened you with a quick return to Earth to atone for your sins or pay your karmic debts? Well, just telling it, the way I did.

The conversation I was referring to in my previous entry ended up quite abruptly when this guy claimed he could not care less about others’ “experiences”. I just couldn’t believe my eyes, as I truly feel we only can base our knowledge —in the present day and considering where we are now— on experience. That’s all we need, that’s where the answers lie: we need data, to find out what we can believe and not, which theories are closer to the truth.

For me, experience is all that matters. I was bold enough to tell him I had been judged and executed, but after his attitude, who is going to bother and tell him more about it, my reasons for not believing in karma? This morning I was reading Song of Ice and Fire (fourth volume), and, as always, the word “hanged” sent me shivers all through my body. That made me reflect about how important it is to live it. Everything. No matter how hard or painful it is, that is the only way to understand. We just need it, I guess it’s human nature. And the more I think, the surer I am that is the only “secret” of reincarnation: to experience things. Because the words of other people are not enough to make us see why we must or must not behave in one way or the other. Punishments or rewards are not effective to make us better persons, at most it can make us fearful for a while and we will think twice before being evil, but it won’t teach us why we can’t inflict pain in others as long as we ourselves don’t feel that same pain.

There are other things that send shivers through my body: lynch mobs and people shouting at presumed criminals, claiming for justice (vengeance), calling someone “murderer”, when they haven’t even been condemned yet. This already used to happen to me when I had no memories. Of course, when I remembered, I understood why I used to feel like that. You might be a criminal, but no one deserves a painful death... or just... death. This is a question I’ve asked myself all my life: do we have the right to decide when someone must die? Recently I saw the faces of this group of Hindu men who were going to be hanged for rapists... and I only felt sadness and compassion for them. I don’t think they deserve that. And I’m saying this knowing perfectly what it is to be raped. Even if they had killed the girl (I don’t remember if they did), I don’t think they would deserve death. They don’t even deserve any kind of suffering. I don’t know what they need, but I’m sure an eye for an eye is not getting us anywhere. But it seems that notion is still ruling the world... and I don’t think that is going to change soon.

Not in vain, this quote by Gandalf was one of the first to catch my attention when I read The Lord of the Rings for the first time.

The thing is that people don’t seem to realize this kind of things. They think they’re right, and they will search for answers outside of them which will reaffirm what they believe. So, they say they believe in justice, and they want to believe the Universe has to be governed by a Law called Karma which will ensure that justice, forgetting the only Law that rules the Universe, if any, is Unconditional Love. And that implies Forgiveness. And if there are people like me who have remembered there is no punishment in the other side, just Forgiveness and Understanding, they will refuse to listen and will look other way, clinging to their desire of justice (vengeance) and the way they think is “right”.

H.A.N.G.E.D.

The chapter I was reading this morning finished with a woman who was going to be hanged. That sent me to a moment of strong past life mood for a few minutes, as each time I read the word “hanged” (quite frequent in Martin’s saga) reminds me of the two times I died that way. I wouldn’t know which is clearer. The circumstances, the feelings, the images... are quite different. I feel I wanted to die in the first occasion, I didn’t care too much the end was near. I think the second one was harder, as I didn’t expect things would turn that wrong... I’m not sure but I feel I had hopes until the very last minute a miracle would spare my life. I have no memories of the hanging itself, save some strange physical sensations in the second hanging, but darkness prevails in both cases. Emotions surrounding the execution linger though... contempt, sadness, rage, shame, fear, a bit of arrogance and disbelief in the second. A deep, deep sadness. Something is common in both: I was completely aware the result had been the consequence of my decisions. I could put the blame on anything I wanted, but the plain truth is it was all my doing. Some like to say this is karma. I don’t care what they call it, but I’m certain it’s not a law. And death is not the end, that is true, but when a life is over, it is over. Emotions linger, that is true, but if my end had been different, I wouldn’t have reached the other side carrying a note saying I have a karmic debt to pay. Because the only thing we encounter on the other side is Unconditional Forgiveness. And like one of Michael Newton’s patients said when he was asked whether he was going to be punished for committing suicide: “Punishment? Of course not, that is human”.

According to this, what is the point of choosing a life in a slum in India? Experiencing a cruel and slow death, as some like to suggest? This is nonsense for some people, in my opinion because they can’t get beyond their human eyes and the eternal suffering we all have to go through on Earth. What did I gain being hanged... twice? It’s not the execution itself, it’s all that surrounded those events. Dying is nothing unnatural, not even a cruel death. We all die. We all suffer through our lives, more or less. It’s the circumstances, the events leading to that death, the feelings before and after... that’s what matters, that’s what makes us understand poverty has to be eradicated from Earth, only if we live it we can truly understand. And becoming more compassionate, more sensitive to the needs of these people, is reason enough to incarnate in one of these places, so that in our next life we will want to work for a better world where people don’t have to live in these conditions. I think this makes a lot more sense than karma.

Of course, you may not believe my experiences, but please, don’t believe in unproven theories either. Just look inside you and see for yourself.