Читать книгу Reforming Hell - Marilyn "Mattie" Brahen - Страница 4

CHAPTER 1

Stories in the Garden

I’m looking back from the present. For those of you who never met me, my mortal name is Leigh Ann Elfman. My eternal name is Leianna, given to me 35,000 years ago when I was born to the angels Eve and Michael, their only child.

It’s 2008. Sometimes you have to look back from the present to figure out where to continue telling the story. I left you guys, left off at the very beginning of 1972, and the world was so much easier to take then, when we didn’t have wackos blatantly masquerading as pious vigilantes or a flim-flam president. I know there were other sleazy presidents in the past. But our current brazen bozo in the Big House is beyond sane belief.

Back then, we didn’t have religious bigots telling us their beliefs were more important than democratic freedoms. We didn’t have extremists who kill over cartoons, films or books, unable to handle justified criticism of their distinctly unspiritual behavior.

It’s 2008. I’m 60 years old, my auburn hair is streaked through with silver, my face, I’m told, is still youthful despite a few new pounds filling out my chin and cheeks, and my brown eyes are still my best feature, even with a few lines at their corners. So much has happened in 36 years. Eve, as my mortal mother, Miriam Elfman, is 80 years old, and according to my spirit master, Quatama, also known as the Buddha, this is Eve’s last mortal lifetime. She’s outlived the rebalancing of humanity’s DNA, after the damage caused by the first Fall from Grace, when she and her brother Adam were trapped on Earth and interbred with mortals. That mixed angelic and human genes, but the damage has now been reversed. A subtle evolution will begin taking place; mankind will become a new, improved species.

Bear with me here. I know humanity still seems to be off its rocker. The last eight years I’ve been cynical, badly heartbroken, and angry. I get to do something about my anger. I’m the Queen of Hell now. I get to judge those who really sin in the eyes of the Creator. This doesn’t always match the perpetrator’s religious belief. God doesn’t particularly care what religion you are. Many souls who rise to the heavens are extremely perturbed by this at first. Then they realize that nobody’s listening to their complaint. Judgment really hinges on ethics and spirituality, not on what religion we follow.

I’m having one of those days when I can barely make it through without my muscles aching, just getting through the day job and cleaning up the dinner dishes. I tumble into bed, fall asleep, and wing it up to the eighth physical astral plane. This is one of the high heavens I’ve got access to, something you might not think I’d have, since I’m the Queen of Hell. But God asked me to take that position, to relieve Lucifer of his duties.

Few mortals even know about that change in management Down Below, or all the other changes there, that I get to do the judging. Actually I’m waiting for some really large rats, human ones, to come my way. You don’t just lie your way into world chaos, destroying other lives impertinently, and not expect to be called to judgment. On the other hand, Heaven doesn’t approve of fanatical religious leaders killing in the name of God. None of these people are going to Heaven. They’re heading for a total isolation cell for a thousand years or so to teach them the value of a human life.

I did freak out insanely in the beginning, when judging the 9-11 bombers, and initially stooped like the Furies to their violent level. But then I calmed down, put them back together, and it’s been isolation cells ever since for each of those misguided fools. And, believe me, isolation hurts a lot more than physical punishment. YOU try being denied all sensation, stuck in total blackness, with nothing for reference, nothing visible, audible, sensory or structural, just hanging in a void for even two days. Oh, yeah, you can hear yourself scream.

Hell is tidier and much more logically run these days. We even have social workers and behavioral therapists on our staff.

And then there’s my second job: President of the High Council of Heaven. I actually asked to be relived of that duty in 2003. They let me go for two years, and then told me I had to preside again.

I don’t like it. All these well-meaning people come up to Hea­ven to complain and half the time they want me to do what those zealous Muslims insisted Denmark should do: pass legal judgment based on one specific religion. I’ve had to educate both crowds of astrally-projected Muslims and throngs of out-of-body Christians and Jews, especially the orthodox believers, explaining that in Hea­ven we don’t bend rules to suit mortal religious beliefs. The Hindus, Buddhists and pagans have less trouble understanding that Heaven has no secular restrictions. Or perks!

Like the group that recently came, including that nauseous woman who kissed her son and sent him off to blow himself up, along with other children. They demanded that the suicide bomb­ers be returned to the heavens and that the 70 virgins attend them. I dearly wanted to tell them that the 70 virgins married nice, peaceful boys whose mothers brought them up right. But I didn’t. I only told them that their sons had committed murder and were not expected in Heaven anytime soon.

They didn’t like that answer. They started clamoring and crying out to M—, but M—, though he sits on the High Council along with me, cannot change Heaven’s rules to fit human delusions. He told them, what many of their eminent scholars had told them: that they were interpreting Islam wrong. When they heatedly accused him of being an impostor, he took it stoically, his eyes sad. Later on, they realized their error and sent apologies to him, which he accepted. I told him—to cheer him—that if Jesus appeared on Earth today, some people would probably demand to see his driver’s license.

So now I wing my way upward to the eighth plane and rather than stop at my home there, I go straight to the Garden, heading to my favorite part, where the fragrant flower beds extend seemingly for miles. I especially love the hyacinth’s sweet aroma. When I arrive, J.C., Quatama and M—are already waiting for me.

They want to talk to me. I knew J.C. 35,000 years ago, before I ever incarnated on Earth. His name was Yeshua then. He and Quatama were both my spirit masters, when I first lived as Leianna in Eliom.

You’re probably more familiar with Eliom as Eden and with Quatama as Gautama Buddha. I still think of and spell his name as Quatama. He’s reached Nirvana and is one with everything, and knows me beyond my own current knowledge of myself. He allows whatever will help the world reach its own Nirvana.

M—is, of course, the prophet of Islam. I know that Muslims aren’t supposed to “portray” him, but I’m not a Muslim, and this isn’t a portrayal . . . I’m telling a true story. But out of respect to him and his followers, I am only using his initial in place of his name.

M—was the previous Keeper of the Earth before me. Before him it was J.C. and before that it was Quatama. The Keeper, in theory, watches over the world and leaves some legacy to the Earth and its people, a legacy which helps to keep both the Earth and mankind balanced. I haven’t chosen my legacy yet.

In 1971, when Quatama first told me that I was the current Keeper, I asked him who the previous Keeper had been, who had symbolically handed me that baton. But M—felt I wasn’t quite ready to learn his identity. I knew nothing about Islam.

Since then I’ve learned that the name M—, in Arabic, means “one who is praised,” an honorable name, but he isn’t just any M—, he’s The M—. I also had no idea that, for a very long time, two of my dear astral friends, Ali and his wife Fatima, were M—’s son-in-law and his daughter. At first I was upset when I found all of this out. I was in no way going to kow-tow to anyone’s religious superstar. But Ali and ’Tima calmed me down and helped both M—and me to compromise and trust each other. They are a blessing in my eternal life.

Yeshua, called Jesus by most of today’s modern world, lets me affectionately call him J.C. I never call him Jesus. During his one earthly lifetime—his name in Hebrew was Yeshua—I had both the honor and sorrow of being his mother. Today our roles are slightly reversed. He calls me Little Sister, and I still call him Yeshua.

When M—came forward and identified himself after September 11, 2001, I had my hackles up, my back against the wall, with radar on full alert.

I needed to let him know that I was not subordinate to him, that I owed him nothing that I didn’t wish to give out of my heart’s true desire, when he came around and told me that he had been the previous Keeper.

M—couldn’t understand why Allah would now give that re­sponsibility to a divorced Jewish-American woman from Northeast Philadelphia. He complained to Quatama that if I hadn’t the simple courage to face my own destiny, it didn’t seem likely I’d ever leave any legacy to the world as great as Islam. The only reason, he said, that he accepted my becoming the Keeper was because Allah willed it.

When M—added in a gravelly tone, “I will have to strive to understand how such a thing could be,” that ruffled my spiritual wings. I very calmly looked up at him and said, “Well, we’re apparently going to find that out now, aren’t we?” He understood exactly what I meant, because when you are in spirit, your feelings are heightened by your words, and he very quietly replied, “You are being an irritating woman.”

“No, I’m not,” I told him. “I think you’re uncomfortable with my being a woman.”

For years, we verbally sparred back and forth, neither of us gaining or conceding an inch. I read about one-third of the Koran and found contradictions in it: compassion and cruelty, spiritual tolerance and religious prejudice. Other books of religion also contradict themselves, while insisting they’re the last word from God. God’s absolute word? Many religious passages are not about what God has to say to humans, but what humans say to God, asking God to sanction their behavior unconditionally, and then insisting that God does so. Who could prove this except by faith? If the “sanctioned” behavior is harmful to us, shall we blame God for it or say our prayer went unanswered? If the “sanctioned” behavior harmed others, are we denying our own responsibility for our violence, and blaspheming when we call it God’s will? Humans fight for human reasons. Humans wrote these religious works. Perhaps some passages were inspired by God, but I can’t consider them absolute.

Years ago, I decided never to join any mortal religion, including Judaism, but I still study spiritual texts, believe in God, and have my own philosophy. I call it Universophy, which is not a religion. The world doesn’t need any more religions. It needs bridges to connect these beliefs in peace.

In 2006, M—and I had a breakthrough. We simultaneously realized hostility was useless. He accepted my individuality and I accepted his, and we learned to deal with our differences honorably, even affectionately. Never angrily. We realized if his legacy was to survive, he would have to sincerely help me with mine.

The hyacinths are staggered with rows of geraniums, tulips and borders of ageratum. A mild spring permeates the Garden today. M—waits for me, holding a large clay pot, thick with pinkish orange blooms, which he offers me. Quatama and Yeshua materialize behind him. M—explains: “For your house on the eighth plane. I know you like begonias. They are from my garden.”

M—lives on the eighth physical astral plane with his wife Aishah. When he was alive, she was his third wife. Fatima has told me that her father had nine wives then. She didn’t expect me to find this extraordinary, as I myself have more than one astral husband now and our astral group marriage also includes Sharlan, the only other sister-wife in it.

As far as I know, Aishah is M—’s only wife now. When we were introduced, she was polite but taciturn with me, serving us coffee in M—’s vast garden, standing off to one side while her husband talked with me. I asked him if she wanted to join us, and he said no, she had no reason to. Yet I knew that she could hear our conversation, standing near us at the edge of the patio, by the back door of their spacious, single-story home, as if awaiting her husband’s further instructions.

But the woman he was instructing was me, in the history of Islam, beginning with his meeting with my eternal uncle, the angel Gabriel. My uncle Gabriel verbally dictated the Koran to M—, who wrote it down and brought it to his people.

During those lessons, the pot of coffee stayed ever full, fragrant and warm, even though we poured generous cups. A plate of sweet pastries filled with pistachio nuts also sat on a plate nearby, but these did not replenish themselves, to my chagrin, because they tasted divine. When the plate lay bare, I sighed, and then Aishah appeared, a fresh plate in her hand. She laid it down, took away the empty one and smiled briefly at me. And M—murmured, “My wife appreciates your compliment to her baking skill.”

Today I accept M—’s gift, the pot of the sturdy begonias, taking it in my own hands. “Thank you. They’re beautiful.”

A white, wrought-iron table and four chairs appear beside us. I place the begonias, as a centerpiece, upon it and sit down. Yeshua and Quatama also seat themselves, and M—sits directly across from me. He clasps his hands and speaks: “The time has come for me to choose whether to guide my people toward change and its acceptance or to stand behind those who reject it, who insist rigidly upon the old values and the immutability of the law.

“The problem, of course, is that sharia is applicable only on Earth and only for Muslims. Allah is most tolerant and generous toward all good-hearted humans in the afterlife.” He glances at Quatama, who smiles but says nothing. “The Seraphim tell me that my choice will be influenced by you, Leianna, by decisions you have made before and those you will make in the near future, and that these decisions will decide what your legacy will be. And so, I cannot make my own choice until I understand yours.

“I need you to begin instructing me in the story of your current life, mortal and astral: what you do, who you love, your challenges, dreams and hopes. And I need to understand the purpose of this Alliance, which Allah has asked you to create between Heaven and Hell. Who benefits from it? I have no knowledge of Hell. The pious never lived and ruled there until now . . . until you.”

“Where do you want me to start?” I ask him. “What happened yesterday creates today and influences tomorrow. To answer you fully, I’d have to backtrack into the past.”

M—considers. “I now know the truth of Lucifer’s fall, and how Gabriel’s brother, Michael, was your angelic father, and that Eve was Michael’s wife and your mother, when you lived among the angelfolk in Eliom, before your incarnations on Earth.

“I know that Adam, your other uncle, was Eve’s brother and not her spouse, and how Adam and Eve trespassed on Earth and were trapped there. And how the obedient angelfolk willingly joined the endless cycles of incarnations on Earth to rebalance the damaged genetic code altered by the hybrid offspring of Eve and Adam.

“I also understand now how Lucifer’s rebellion over this caused him, his family and his followers to be flung into Hell, and how you and your betrothed—Lucifer’s son, Bael—were separated for 35,000 years.

“Quatama also explained why Heaven allowed your reunion with Bael in 1971, that they wanted you to form this Alliance between his father’s dark realm and Heaven’s glorious light.

“What I haven’t learned is the aftermath, what led up to Lucifer’s release from Hell, and what circumstances allowed you to take his place. Is there really a reform movement in Hell, and can any of it be taken seriously? Can you succeed in this at all, and how could it possibly benefit our world?

“You must also enlighten me as to your plans for your mortal life, since you are Earth’s current Keeper, regarding the legacy you propose to give to the Earth as its Keeper.”

Sudden silence. Both Quatama and Yeshua still sit quietly, al­though Quatama has a mirthful look on his face. As if to say, and you thought I put you through your paces before!

Finally, I respond to M—’s daunting questionnaire. “You’re asking for a lot. Trying to tell it only from my personal viewpoint won’t let me express what other people, whose lives intertwined with mine, also experienced. May I tell it through their eyes as well, as they told me, but in their individual voices, as a storyteller would? I’ll try to be as detailed as I can.”

M—smiles at me thoughtfully. “Then pretend you are Sche­herazade. Tell me the stories as she would. When all of the tales are told, perhaps we will greet our future with greater compassion and clearer understanding. Inshallah.”

“God willing,” I agree.

M—and I are to meet each night, here in the Garden. There I will spin each tale and weave each into a tapestry that will hopefully reveal a better fate for all of humanity and the good, green Earth we share.

May the ending bring healing to all that dwell upon it.