A familiar head unfolded before me from the mist of eternity. Alpha’s kind, smiling face looked at me.
– Let’s hurry, my child, we will have a lot to do today – he said as I crossed the threshold. He took my hand like fairies in a fairy tale and we flew through the sky. He took me to an unknown region of dreamland. I haven’t been here before. Barren mountains of immeasurable heights rose on all sides of the wide, flat plateau. I didn’t see a road anywhere; it seemed that the only way to approach this landscape was the way we came. Anyone who can’t fly can’t get in or out.
– Who lives in this desolate, sad country? – I asked Alpha.
– This is a temporary residence for those who are going back to Earth. This is the place where the law of consequences comes into play. You can learn a lot by talking to the souls here.
– But why are they in such a sad and bleak place?
– Those who start from here do not deserve a better place.
I saw many souls in a simple barn-like building. They talked in a group. We entered among them with Alpha. They pointed at us in distrustful whispers. I ended up next to a dark-faced, evil-looking soul.
– Where are you going brother? – I asked.
– I’m going to be born on Earth. The last time I was there I killed 9 people, and I won’t settle for less this time either!
– You are wrong, my child – said Alpha. In your upcoming life, you will not be able to kill any of your fellow human beings because you will be the child of an alcoholic father and a mother suffering from syphilis, and as such, you will be born lame, with a crippled hand and a crooked spine. Your legs, which once carried you to commit murder, will carry your bulky, limping body. And your hand, with which you took the lives of your fellow men, will be crippled, incapable of any work. Your parents will see in you the punishment for their dark sins, and you yourself will bear the indelible mark of your evil deeds in your crippled body until a depraved soul like you kills you.
The soul looked in front of himself in fear, and Alpha reached towards him and pulled a long white cord from his heart, the cord of life.
– Go on your way, and if you return here after decades, may the Almighty Love wash you clean in the fire of your sufferings!
Down on Earth, the husband met the sick wife in a ragged shack of the outlying slums. Their mouths met in a thirsty kiss. Their bodies fused. Alpha tied a long white cord between them. The murderous spirit was conceived, there was one less criminal in dreamland, and a new life began on Earth.
This wonderful experience left me speechless. Is this how people are born?
I didn’t have much time to think because Alpha was preparing the next soul.
– What is your crime?
– I was a rich capitalist; I earned my fortune with the sweat of poor workers. I used everyone; made them work a lot and paid them little.
– You will become a poor worker who is made to work for starvation wages by unscrupulous rich people. What you have done wrong to others, now you will be experiencing yourself.
– Go on your way!
The hidden life cord became visible in the heart of the manufacturer, and Alpha took his protégé to a happier house now. A simple young couple was holding their wedding. In one room, the wedding party was enjoying themselves, in another other, the modest bride threw the myrtle wreath from her head.
– Do you love me, my darling? – asked the groom hugging the blushing bride, and turned off the light.
– What’s next?
A tall, broad-shouldered figure stepped forward.
– What is your crime? – asked Alpha.
– I was a denier of God, I still am, and I will remain so. If there was a God, He would not allow people to suffer so much. He would wipe away the tears.
– Ignorant child, how can you pass judgment on a piece of music of which you have only heard one chord? How can you criticize a writer from whose novel you’ve only read one thought? What right do you have to say that God is unjust towards people when you have only seen a short part of the life of every human soul? Go to Earth, my child, but since you don’t want to see God, you must be born blind. In the hours of solitude, when you cannot look outside, you will see God in the depth of your soul. Go, my child!
The next soul was familiar to me. I met him when I began my wanderings in this world.
– What is your crime? – asked Alpha.
– I killed my child because he was born illegitimate.
– Now, you will be redundant, and the same fate will befall you!
An assertive and energetic soul stepped in front of Alpha.
– What is your crime?
– I was a doctor and dissected animals alive.
– You will be the sickly child of degenerate parents whose soul can only be preserved with surgeries.
– But I served science!
– You will do the same now, my child. Your disease will be so rare and interesting to doctors that they will always be happy to operate on you. You will still serve science, but now with your own body, through your own pain.
The doctor’s life cord got connected to a wealthy older couple who had been waiting for a child for years.
– Let’s meet the next one! What is your crime?
– I didn’t help the starving, even though I could have, as I had enough means. I did not listen to the cries of the deprived.
– He who does not hear with his spiritual ears, loses his physical hearing as well. You will live your life deaf amidst the mockery of immature and malicious people.
The next soul was a charming woman.
– What is your crime?
– I had a beautiful child and a good husband, and I cheated on him. I disgraced him, ruined his life; he committed suicide in his unhappiness.
– Since sensuality is your sin, you will get a life that will cure you of your troubles. You will be a harlot waiting on street corners for those who will drop a few pennies for the bitter pleasures you give them. All your life you will be tormented by a burning desire for the pure and quiet married life that you so carelessly threw away. If you get to despise the plague you live in, and your time is up, I’ll be waiting for you here. God be with you!
A slender boy followed.
– I don’t want to go to Earth – he begged before Alpha could even ask him. It’s so bad there, people hurt me, let me stay here!
– Your time is up here, my child, you must go back to Earth, just as you must die there when your time is up. What is your crime?
– I stole bread and wood because I was hungry and cold!
– Your sin is not great, it’s just that you should have asked instead of stealing. A good dose of impatience and inconsistency. You wouldn’t even need to go back this time but you still have to overcome this flaw. You will have wealthy parents who will love you. And when you grow up, you will have to stand next to a machine throughout your life. You will have to watch its every move because a momentary distraction could cost you your life. There you will learn patience and consistency.
There was only one soul left. He approached us sadly.
– Are you here again? – asked Alpha.
– They sent me back again – the soul sighed. I can’t find a mother who would give birth to me. When I live in a mother’s womb for a month, the doctor comes and cuts me out, causing terrible pain. Nobody wants me while I so want to be born; everyone I love is already down on Earth.
– Don’t forget, my child, that you did the same thing when you were a woman on Earth. You did not like children, and when a new life appeared, you also went to the doctor. How many souls did you send back?
– Four.
– Then there is one more round to go!
Alpha searched for the life cord. In a nobleman’s palace where the noise of the world does not penetrate, in white silk shoes, the baroness ran along the silent corridors on a quiet night to the Hungarian teacher’s room. The teacher was attractive and young, the baroness was charming and head over heels in love, and her body was covered only with a thin nightgown, a mind-blowing piece of lace… No one saw them, only the old moon through the white batiste curtain, and Alpha, who quickly connected the life cord.
– What will happen to the soul connected to the baroness? – I asked.
– A month later, after desperate tearful nights when the baroness notices the beginning of a new life, she will go to the doctor… and the soul comes back here. Since he has paid his debt, he can do whatever he wants out of his own free will. He can stay here or go back to Earth where his loved ones are waiting for him.
– So, is there free will? None of these souls left this place out of their own free will; they all left under the influence of force.
– God gave every child free will at the dawn of creation. They all used this freedom as they pleased. One for good, the other for bad. Those who used it for good, live far away from us, in higher worlds; those who used it for bad, slowly sank into deep material worlds, like the Earth. The lower a soul sinks, the more limited its free will, but if it returns to God’s way, it will regain its freedom, in the proportion as it advances in good. The murderer who started his journey today, if he had not used his free will to kill his fellow humans in his previous life, would not have come down to Earth with such a limited range of options. When in a crippled body in the midst of suffering he thinks about how unjust God is, because He has crushed him, the innocent, who has done no wrong to anyone, then in his dream we will show him the monstrous deeds of his previous life. Even if he will not consciously understand the dream, it will soothe him a little. And after his death, if he comes here again, he will already know the law of the consequences of actions. Then he will be able to pay off his debt with more mental strength.
– Will the next wretched life not be sufficient repayment for the evils committed in his past life?
– Remember, my child, he took the lives of nine of his fellow men, so he too must die a violent death nine times. This is not God’s punishment, because He does not punish anyone, but the fear of death and the curse of the murdered victims haunt the murderer until they reach him. When they reach him, it’s time to pay. Men may hide their evil deeds under the cloak of darkness but nothing can be hidden from the soul. Thoughts will find and punish the murderer.
– Dear Alpha, I’m getting confused now. If it is as you say, the process will never end. When will the many tangled threads be evened out and how can the law of consequences be reconciled with the redemptive work of Christ?
– My child, if you stand in a pit, you can only perceive events on the surface of the Earth within a few meters. But if you go to the top of a high mountain and look out from there, you will see significantly more of what is happening on Earth. At your current stage, everything is chaotic but when you can look at it from a higher perspective, you will recognize the divine harmony in the chaos. The threads are indeed tangled but the unfolding is not as far as you think and it is not as cyclical as you see it now. Christ indeed redeemed man but only those who confess their sins with an open heart and decide that as much as their human frailty allows will not sin again and keep their vow. Christ came for and redeemed these people, not those who happily continue to sin, proclaiming that God will forgive their sins in the name of Christ. Can you imagine that God would be so unjust as to subject His purest child to the most horrible tortures so that the dirty and filthy could continue his sinful rule? This perception is just the result of human short-sightedness, nothing else.
– Try to understand Christ’s sacrifice as follows. It’s a bit of a rough analogy, but it’s closer to your human soul, so you can understand it better.
– You go down to the depths of the Earth where many earthworms live. They languish in dirt and cold. You feel sorry for them. You want to somehow explain to them that the sun is shining brightly above the Earth, butterflies are chasing each other in a green meadow among colourful flowers, but you can’t make them understand what you want. You have no other way. You go down among them and you are born as an earthworm, but with a human mind. You tell them about your above-ground experiences and invite them to the face of the Earth to feel the rays of the sun. They don’t believe you that there is another world, they laugh at you. Those who are still in darkness cannot believe that there is light. However, there are one or two thirsty souls among them who say, ”If this newcomer is right, let’s follow him!”. And they follow you up to the surface of the Earth. They happily look at the shining sky, the green trees, the colourful flowers, and their hearts are filled with gratitude for you. You were only useful for those who followed you and came up to the sunshine with you. The others who stayed below won nothing in you; those who continued to live their ignorant wormy lives without the benefit of your great sacrifice for them.
– Christ also came to us from his country of Light, but because we would not have understood him otherwise, he was born among us as a man. He said there is a more meaningful world beyond Earth, where the light of the soul shines brighter than the sun and where the flower of goodness blooms in a thousand varieties; if we follow him, we will get there too.
– But we did not follow him. Instead, we first laughed at him, then crucified him. Christ redeems those who follow him; not those who pretend to follow him by keeping up with formalities, but those who follow him in spirit. And if you observe it well, my child – continued Alpha – you will see the harmony and connection between Christ’s redemptive work and the law of consequences. He who wants good consequences must start antecedents that result in good. If the soul does this consciously, then it does not do harm even in thought. He forgives those who have wronged him, and he does not want to return the harm. This helps to untangle the tangled threads. If the nine victims of the murderer were souls who followed the path of Christ and they all unitedly forgave him, then everything would turn out differently. The love pouring on the sinner from nine sides would awaken deep repentance in the criminal’s soul. It would make him aware of the wrong, and it would show him that he was on the wrong path. That way, he would learn through less suffering, which he now has to do with a lot of tears and sweat. Forgiveness is a powerful force for the poor, sinful, stumbling soul. It helps the one who has forgiven, and also the one who has been forgiven.
– Dear Alpha, in order for me to understand all this, I should be as good and pure as you are, but unfortunately, I am far from that. Please just tell me one more thing, down on Earth, can I do what I want out of my own free will, or is it predetermined what I will do?
– You can do what you want out of free will but you cannot avoid the consequences of your actions out of free will. You can cut your hand if you want but you can’t avoid the result of the cut, the bleeding wound, it has to happen. And nothing is predetermined, but God foresees the future, knows each and every human soul and puts everyone in the place where, based on their spiritual constitution, they do exactly what needs to be done in that place. You can kill out of your own free will, but God knows you, sees the future, knows in advance that you will kill, so He guides you to a person who has earned this fate by his actions, who once killed himself, and now he will be killed by your hands. By killing him, you will tie a new knot on your own thread because the fact that he was responsible for a murder does not absolve you. You, out of your own free will, could have said that you wouldn’t kill, and then the one to whom this death needed to befall, would have received this fate from someone else’s hand.
– I also wanted to know, my dear Alpha, what will happen to unrepentant sinners? Didn’t Jesus say he came for everyone?
– My child, those souls will have their turn too one day. The work of redemption is ongoing, and every minute Jesus lifts a crying sinner to himself. Even the most adamant wrongdoer will once be disgusted by sin, and if he only asks Jesus with a single sigh to have mercy on him, the blessed hand of Christ will lift him up, pressing him to his heart to promote true repentance in the soul.
