Daily Theosophy

She died when she was 74. This was some 200 years before her rebirth as Mona, about whom our story tells

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(Mona – continued)

In this new life she was the third child (after the two brothers), and the last one in this family. She was playful and liked beautiful things. Even as a small child she could sing some songs and was quite good in keeping tune. But she remained always the third child, and a girl, and her brothers, when they grew older, always looked at her with some childish disdain: she was only small, and only a girl, born for nothing better than cleaning and washing. When the boys became twelve the parents sent them to a better kind of school, but when she became twelve, her parents did not find it necessary to give her the same level of education, “because she was only a girl,” and, as they said, “they had already spent enough money educating the two boys.” She did not say (or dare to say) anything, but inwardly she was very angry. Always these brothers! They always got everything better and nicer, and were praised more by their parents than she, and moreover if the brothers would humiliate her, nobody came to her help. But if she shouted to her brothers her parents told her that she should shut up, and when she said it was unjust that they got all kinds of things and she did not they answered that God had wanted it that way and that she should not protest. Inwardly she hated that God. But that was where all people around her were always talking about. Regularly she had to go with her parents and brothers to a statue of some so-called holy being which was only a piece of stone and seemed to care as little for her as her own family, or perhaps the statue did not care for her at all. After all, she was only a girl. But, she thought, later when she was big she would marry and be the boss of the whole family. If her husband would not listen to her she would force him in one way or another.

At school all went pretty well. She was good in making things with her hands and had a good taste. Also in this life a new instrument had been invented: it could produce music, and she really loved the soft classical music in which she could dream away and forget the unpleasant people around her. Even though she had quite some girlfriends at school, and some boys always seemed to look at her from around corners, but shy away when she looked back, she always had the same problem. As soon as she was doing the same thing as one of the other girls, the other girl would do a little bit better than she – at least that is what the teachers decided. She herself was convinced that her own work was better, and if she really could not deny that the work of someone else was better, then she would become angry and jealous, and did not want to speak to that girl anymore. She did not really shout, but took on an attitude, an attitude of pride. Of course many other girls (and boys) also had their own secret problems, and also had attitudes, but most of them were not aware of their own particular attitude.

After school she met quite a nice guy, and she really loved him, and he loved her also. So they decided they wanted to marry. But in that country where she was born, and in that time, girls did not have much right to decide about their own married life – in fact also boys were not expected to have their own chosen girlfriends. So they went to both their parent with cheerful hope to ask permission to marry each other. He was 22 and she was 23 at that time. His parents agreed, but her own parents, on seeing that boy, liked him, but he was officially of a somewhat lower social standard than her own brothers, and for that reason her parents refused the boy. Both of them were shattered. But that was how things were in their society. So later she was married to another man, selected by her parents and who she could accept, but she did not really love him. He would tell her to wash the dishes and clean the house and when he went to his own friends he left her alone at home. This went on for quite a few years. Her husband and she had three children together, two girls and a boy. In the mean time her mother had become elderly, and Mona was supposed to take over the business. Then of course, she would have less time to work at home, but at the same time she would become more independent, her world would widen and she could make new friends of her own. What happened in fact is that after a while she earned more money than her husband, who was working for a government office and received always the same salary (and that wasn’t very much). Her dream was to buy a music producing instrument. From the profits of the shop she managed to get money together to do so. Now also she could feel superior over her husband, and what she had always secretly wanted is to take “revenge” on him of the disdain she had continuously received from her brothers. She changed, and her character became more disdainful. He, however, did not understand what had happened to her: she had been such a nice young woman, she had success, and he gave her love (he thought), she could listen her music, and instead of happier she seemed to become more and more unhappy. Actually Mona became quite haughty and annoying. First they had shared their income together, but now she earned much more than he, she would no longer give him anything. He loved her still, but she did not love him, she never had really loved him. So he tried to show his goodwill and understanding to her, but this resulted only in creating more distance between him. One day she said to him that she didn’t need him anymore. But after some arguing, and being afraid of what aunts and uncles and sisters and brothers would think and say, they decided to stay together. But now they hardly talked to each other any more. The children also suffered, because they felt the friction between their parents, and saw how their mother became more greedy and harder in her business, and seemed to find her money the most important thing in the world. Her son went abroad when he was grown up, and their daughters gave her some care, but no more than was their expected duty as daughters, and they did so without love for their mother and with some disdain even. Mona became more and more lonely, and more and more jealous with other business people who were more successful than she was. She had forgotten about the beautiful things of life, and the pictures on the walls in the house she had once appreciated so much, including a beautiful landscape picture given to her by him, now she did not even take the trouble to dust them anymore. When she became older her husband became ill and had to go to hospital. She went to the hospital to visit him only once, and that to tell him, that if he would stay there for long and did not bring in his salary, she would certainly not feel responsible for him. They never met again. After two weeks he died, and she did not even care.

Counting coins

Her only occupation now was to sit at home alone, counting her money. She still worked part-time in the shop, the other work time in the shop was taken care of by a young niece of hers, to whom she paid a fixed and very low salary. All the profit the shop came to her. So she now had to spend a lot of time counting her money. And this she did over and over again. And she wanted more money. She had made it to her purpose to become a rich woman, a wealthy widow – the wealthiest of all women which knew her, and certainly wealthier than her brothers, who both were over 70 now. She lived to an age of 92 (not having succeeded in becoming the wealthiest), but in the last three or four years she had lost her sane mind and shouted to everyone who came to her. The only way to calm her down was to let her listen to some classical music – which,

she said, was the music of God. But after half an hour or so she would continue to count her money, and that it what she did most of the day. Sometimes in the middle of the night she woke up, shouting that somebody had stolen her money – which was never true, but that idea was just in her mind. And then, in the near dark, she would again count her money. Then, when 92, in the winter at waning moon in the late evening she died. She had been slightly sick the last days before her passing, but apart from one of the two daughters who still came to see her once in two weeks, nobody had noticed, let alone care. As soon as Mona had died the daughter took all the money. But Mona did not notice this anymore. She was, in her mind, still counting her money, and even more fanatically than when she was alive. Of course not the real money, but the idea of having money was so attached to her mind, that she didn’t notice. This went on for some 30 years. All the time she had to protect her money. Many enemies came to her, some looking like dead people, or living people she had not liked, some like greedy monsters and beasts who threatened to tear her to pieces and take her money. She herself had become a ghost now, and all good thoughts had left her. She had only one thought: money. And her feelings were greed and fear. She did not really hate anyone though, because besides this bad character trait of jalousie and greed, she had in many respects been a goodhearted women in a large part of her life.

Her attachment to money became worse and worse, but she had, sometime after the death of her body, discovered that she was dead, so she could never really get more money. But the desire to become the richest widow was still in her. And even when all other feelings had faded away that desire was still there. She now was a real spook. She went to places where there was a lot of money, but of course she could not touch it, let along take it away with her. But sometimes she could make rich people who were still living on Earth afraid by producing knocking sounds, and everyone would be looking around, but see nothing. Some sensitive people felt some eerie feeling, but that was all. Something prowls here around us, some would say. “No, nonsense, spooks do not exist,” answered a man in the company, but secretly he was afraid that he was not really sure whether spooks do not exist. One time a lady fainted, shouting that somebody had touched her purse. But the purse was still there, and everyone laughed at her. Here stardust body became older and uglier, full of holes like an old sponge, and all mind and intelligence had left it, and finally life left that body also.

The only thing Mona, who was now but an automated corpse of dead stardust, could accomplished was that once she managed to throw over a pile of coins in a casino. Her state was awful. Awful. But, luckily, everything comes to an end. Mona’s ghost at last lost the appetite for money and lost its consciousness. And then she heard beautiful music. The money was completely forgotten. For the first time in fifty years (20 before and 30 after her death) she felt happy. The music had wings of beautiful colors made of fine stardust and carried her up – higher and higher, and finally her own love – which had been hidden for such a long time – carried her beyond the moon into pure happiness. It didn’t last long though. Soon she was reborn, destined to become a professional musical artist.

She loved to dress beautifully and designed her own costumes. Some would be better than hers of course, and she would feel the pain, but even so she was aware that only one person can be the best at a particular moment in a particular thing, and she managed to feel happy for that person. Often she herself would be the most applauded and she liked it. Yet, if she received a reward she would always share it with the people around her. She had to go through some disappointments also, but withstood them, and on the whole she lived a happy life.

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(Peter)

Peter

Little Peter was born in what people call the western part of the world (even though on a round globe “west” and “east” everywhere depend on the place where you stand or are born and therefore do not really exist on a fixed place). His father and his mother’s mother had been born on another continent, either to the east or the west, but his own mother had taken birth in the same country as Peter, some 34 years before.