When we are together the next afternoon in René’s room and looking at the sketch which he made from a photograph of Elsje, consider it a wonder, a moment later I experienced another wonder, which came to me as a divine gift, without René knowing anything about it, even if it happened through his life.

A divine trumpet blew in my ears and blared at me:

‘Rise, dead people, you will live.

God calls all of you to His throne.

There is no death, whatever others claim about this subject!’

It happened so unexpectedly, so of its own accord, as I had not dared to expect.

René is busy ...

I look at his symbolics.

He did not need to go to Amsterdam today.

A moment before this we were talking about Dr. Lent’s new car, the boys’ bikes and about many other things which we had fixed up together during these years.

Then he said:

‘I will make a sketch of Elsje, Frederik.

I will not yet try to make the original, that will come later.

I want to make something good, something beautiful of it, which Hans will be happy with for his life.

I will just try it, do you understand?’

‘Go ahead, if I have to go, just say so.’

‘No, you are not disturbing me, Frederik.’

He draws, I look.

An hour passes.

I observe him.

I start to tune into his life consciously and see how the hand gradually becomes unsteady.

René lays it down next to him, looks at the sketch, also wants to say something, but cannot.

He lies down on the bed.

I close the door.

I hear him breathing deeply; for a human being he is in a swoon, unconscious.

It is just as well that Anna and Erica are not at home.

I wonder what I should do.

I already know!

I force him to sleep.

It is the sleep from his youth.

He could then suddenly fall asleep and sink away deeply.

I believe that no change has come in this.

I raise his eyelids ... Wonderful.

You would swear that this is the epileptic sleep, an ailment, but that is not true.

René is asleep, but he is also awake.

I now ask ... I now demand, force him to listen:

‘Can you hear me?

Can you hear me?

Can you hear me speaking?’

The lips want to move.

I continue:

‘Can you hear me?

Be calm, stay calm, because I am here ... I must ask you a few questions.

Can you hear me?’

There comes: ‘I can hear you.’

‘Is speaking easy for you?’

‘Can you not understand me then?’

‘I can understand you – can I ask questions?’

‘I am ready.’

‘Who are you?’

‘I am ... I am Rachi-Hadju, Frederik.’

‘Do you know me?’

‘I know you.’

‘Have I much time?’

‘No ... I will give you a few minutes!’

I get hold of a pencil and paper ...

‘Are you ready?’

‘Ask me ...!’

My first question was: ‘Is there life after death?’

‘Yes!

Later the explanation will follow.

I will reply with yes or no, so do not go into the laws.’

‘Are you certain of this conscious?’

‘Yes ...!’

‘You are speaking outside this conscious?’

‘Yes ... do not mention my name, that would disturb me.’

‘I understand you!

Is there eternal life?’

‘Yes!’

‘Are there burning hells?’

‘No!’

‘Is there a God of love?’

‘Yes!’

‘To be seen as Father and Mother?’

‘Yes!’

‘Have we people already been in this world before?’

‘Yes ...!’

‘And where was that first birth?’

‘On the Moon!’

‘What did you say?’

‘On the Moon.’

‘Does that mean that we lived there?’

‘Yes ...!’

‘Also on other planets?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is the soul a personality after this life?’

‘That is the spirit!’

‘And the soul?’

‘Is the Divine attunement.’

‘Will I get an explanation for this later?’

‘Yes!’

‘When the soul is born in the mother, is it then already a personality?’

‘Yes!’

‘It can therefore already influence the mother during pregnancy?’

‘Yes!’

‘As he experienced this life?’

‘Yes!’

‘Do you know my thoughts?’

‘Yes!’

‘The woman with her beard ... was that correct? ’

‘It is possible, yes!’

‘Am I now one with your subconscious?’

‘Yes!’

‘Are you speaking to me from there?’

‘Yes ... you will get an explanation for it!’

‘When will we no longer come back here?’

‘If you have experienced your laws.’

‘Are you in a hypnotic sleep?’

‘Yes ... the psychic sleep, which is free from all material ...’

‘How will I be able to check this?’

‘Did I not say my name to you?’

‘Rachi-Hadju, you mean?’

‘Did you expect any different?’

‘Do you live through me?’

‘Through you!’

‘Can you remove yourself from your life?’

‘Soon!’

‘Do I understand properly that this will happen yonder?’

‘Precisely!’

‘The worlds which I experienced ... You know boeha ...?’

‘Yes!’

‘Were those conscious experiences?

Has all of that value?’

‘Preparation, spiritual transfer.

We were one!’

‘How does the soul come back to earth?’

‘It sinks away until the embryonic stage!’

‘I will get to see those laws?’

‘Yes!’

‘You were crazy all those years?’

‘No, it was awakening!’

‘There is no final judgement?’

‘No, you are faced with the now!’

‘That is it?’

‘Yes!’

‘Is it possible to descend deeper into this universe?’

Yes, but... but... but... just wait a minute."

"Are you tired out?"

‘Yes ...!’

‘Then I will stop.

I am satisfied for the time being.

I thank God for your kindness.

What do you command me to do?’

‘Go now, they are awaiting you there!

Do not speak about it.

It is only then that you will go further.

I greet you, I am going, but I am close to you.’

‘Are my dreams real?’

‘Haven’t you seen the signs?’

‘I have, but I am just a human being?’

‘I too, but we connected the East to the West ...!

I am going!

Or is there anything else?’

‘No, I have nothing more ...

I thank you!’

I look into René’s eyes, it is as if they are broken.

It is amazing ...

I penetrate his being, I feel myself coming to him and reaching unity.

In this way I pull him back to the surface of this life.

He is awake and opens his eyes.

‘Did I sleep just then, Uncle Frederik?’

‘Wonderful, isn’t it, René, that does a person good.’

I see that he is like a child.

I have not heard that ‘Uncle’ for a long time.

His eyes are shining.

He says:

‘Is that the sketch of Elsje?

I became so tired, oh, how tired I became.

Does it look like her, Frederik?’

‘It looks like her, but it could be better.’

‘I can see that too, Frederik, she is much too beautiful to make a mess of her.

Do you not say such words?

I will just wait, but it will come.’

René is like that, he possesses self-criticism.

A good thing, it is space for his character.

He says:

‘I will go for a walk, Frederik, see you later, perhaps I will see you there.’

He has gone, I am alone, the logbook in my hands.

There comes:

‘The first divine tones, they are pure sounds, which I was able to listen to.

It was God who spoke to me!

Divine comfort, it is divine benevolence.

Love and happiness, knowledge!

Imagine, there is no death!

And I believe it.

Even if I still have no explanation for everything, these are foundations to go further.

What we suffered and strived for has now come to me.

I cannot understand it with my human mind yet, but Sjah Oteb will know what to do, Mohammed too.

My Sultan, I bring this life to you.

However, we, here in the sober West, possess a great wonder.

A ‘winged one’!

This life will fly where it wants.

The master has been born.

The first words passed his lips.

I have that certainty in my hands.

There is no more for today yet.

What I certainly feel is that I must go to the East!

Alone with him!

I will make the supernatural preparation.

I will do that!’

I also go outside.

The women came back and have done their shopping.

I can see him in the wood, he is standing there and is looking at a tree, which has caught his interest.

‘Look, Frederik, how beautiful this tree is.

Are they not wonders?

Vincent van Gogh wanted to paint the soul of this life.

When he had almost made it, he shot a bullet through his head.

Poor man, I know what you wanted!

Now you must see to achieve that, Frederik, and then still stay standing on your own two feet.

I do not say that I will become a Van Gogh, just forgive me for it.

Isn’t it the case?

The old masters could do that.

Contemporary art takes us to expressionism.

I do not want to even consider that, I will look for it elsewhere, I will strike a happy medium.

Did you not also think that it should be like that?

I believe that I will reach that height after my fortieth birthday.

Not before, because I myself must awaken for it.

I understand a great deal about art, I can almost see behind it, Frederik, even if you never hear me speak about it.

I think a great deal!

But now something else, Frederik.

I wanted to know whether you have complaints about me?

Am I now as you would like it to be?

Do I do wrong things?

Tell me honestly, Frederik, it will help me.

Have I faults in my character?

Can you see ill-mannered things in me?

Are Mother and Father satisfied?

I want to work on myself in order to create, otherwise I will not make it!

And now something else.

Do you know who Marja is, Frederik?

I keep hearing that name again, but inside me.

But where have I heard that name?

Do you not know?

Marja ...

It sounds so far away and yet it is so close to my life.’

I said: ‘All of us are satisfied with you, it is going well.

You cannot do your best any better.

But I do not know that Marja.’

‘I believe that I have read about this name somewhere, it was probably in Italy.

Then I will smother those thoughts, this name would disturb me.

I can hear someone saying that Marja is there, but I do not want that Marja.

My soul speaks to me, as Mother experienced that, Frederik.

It is as if I am very old.

I see things differently.

I am no child, not a boy of this age, Frederik, I am old.

And that old age speaks to my life.

I see it in everything, can you also see it?’

‘We will wait and see, René.

Give yourself completely to your art and all of us will go one way.

We will do what we can to make life as pleasant as possible for you.’

‘Then it is okay and I must remove that from myself.

But can you speak to life, Frederik?

I keep hearing myself speaking to life.

That tree there says: you must see me like this, it is only then that you can paint my life.

A flower says it differently again.

But all life has something to say.

Can you feel that, Frederik?

I believe that we will understand each other well.

I am starting to understand what I want to do.

My friends cannot yet say that.

I sometimes have to laugh at their empty talk and this is why I do not like them either.

It is emptiness.

Elsje possesses everything.

Do you not find her extraordinary, Frederik?

What a voice she has, hasn’t she?

Did you sense her poetry?

Did you understand it?

I had wanted to add:

‘If I look into this blue above, I can see you

Now melancholy enters my heart, do you know?

Now the calyces close, did you see it?

I did too, but I am here!’

And further:

‘Soon I will awaken, you too!

Then do not disappear and remain, for me!

I live in a grave, but see you standing ... do you know?

Listen, Frederik ...

Tief wie das Wasser (Deep as the water)

spiritually connected

I wait ...!"

And I also hear:

Where we go to

There I am

Will I remain...

Will you come as well?

You will think I am ridiculous, won’t you, Frederik?

I could go on for hours.

What is writing poetry?

How do you do that?

I know, this means nothing, but I absorb the words just like that.

They rise up from inside my life and are formed of their own accord.

It is also like that with painting and drawing.

I do not actually have to do anything, it happens of its own accord.

Do you know what inspiration is!

What is inspiration, Frederik?

Don’t you know?

I will find out!

But that will take a while.

This poem ... or no, it is not a poem ... they are loose words, they fly out of Elsje just like that.

I just mean, that I feel that child and can understand her.

For the rest I do not like her.

Do you understand, Frederik, that such a young and such a beautiful girl gives herself to such an old man, which Hans is, after all?

Is that really not a disgrace?

Why does old age not stay with the same race (see article ‘There are no races’ on rulof.org)?

Why not youth with youth?

I will never fall for it, Frederik.

For example, I never get into conversation with a girl who does not feel for art.

Did you think that there is no life in me?

That I do not feel?

Did you think that I do not have the longing to kiss a girl?

I tell you honestly, Frederik, that I do not wish that emptiness.

If I hear that you are talking about it, you will never hear a word from me again.

Mother does not understand it and Father gives you an unsatisfactory answer.

You understand me, so does Anna, why are you two not my parents?

This has nothing to do with my love for my parents.

Frederik, do we only live once on earth?

Does the human being only have the opportunity once of coming to himself?

Then it is not worthwhile making a fuss, you will not make it anyway and you will never make it.

What do you think, Frederik, am I wrong?

I ask you this, because I am thinking about it.

I find Elsje especially beautiful.

Not because of her shape, which you call a castle, but what concerns the contents.

Did you not think about it like that when you were my age?

I want nothing to do with that life, Frederik.

Believe me, but I cannot understand that Hans can say: this is my wife.

He is a father to this life.

Is it perhaps not the case?

You are thinking.

You are old, Frederik, and yet young, you understand the youth and you can sense me.

What do you think?

I know why Hans took Elsje to him?

But he should have given her a social life.

Now Elsje gives herself away.

And must that happen?

Oh well, that is none of my business.

I saw, I felt, Frederik, that you were following me, but did you feel what I experienced when she read out her poems?

I felt a pain under my heart.

I do not yet know how.

I wondered why I am suddenly so anxious.

Did you also feel that?

But did we not have a wonderfully beautiful day!

I will not let you speak, Frederik, because I know that you cannot answer this.’

He goes with me in a dreamlike state.

His lips mutter:

‘When Autumn comes Summer is in my heart

When Winter comes, then it is Spring in my heart

If what I feel and see does not come, then I surrender ...

Because He sees ...

He knows ...

He knows me!’

And then suddenly: ‘In order to penetrate the green and the sap of life, Frederik, what a Willem de Zwart (painter 1862 - 1931) and all those others had a good perspective of, is certainly not easy.

And I want to go there.

I open myself to nothing.

You now know that it is deadly serious for me.

When are we going to the East?

Would Father and Mother approve?

Since this morning I am longing to see the East.

And we have the means.

You told me that I could come along if I did my best.

That is why I asked you a moment ago whether you still see faults in me.

But I will confront Father and Mother with the same fact and then they won’t get away with it no longer.

Just leave it to me, Frederik.

Are we going?’

‘We are going, René.’

‘The two of us, Frederik?’

‘We are going.’

‘And can I ask all kinds of things on the way?’

‘We will agree to that, won’t we?’

‘Man, how happy you make me.

I knew that I could count on you.

Come on, we will not make a murderers’ den of our hearts, I will talk about it.

Do you wish to know how I am going to do that?’

‘Just go ahead.’

‘Do you mind that I talked about Elsje like that?’

‘No, because it is the truth, but do not let Hans hear it.’

He comes and stands before me, looks me in the eye and says: ‘You don’t think, do you, Frederik, that I want Elsje?

I do not like that child, Frederik.

I do not like that being, even if she is beautiful; I will tell you what I think, feel, otherwise not.’

We are home.

Karel is also there.

But he is waiting, apparently.

It comes out at the table, when he says:

‘Mother, I want to ask you something.’

‘What is it, my boy?’

‘Father must listen too, is that okay?’

‘Just come out with it’, Karel says.

‘Well, I wanted to know whether you are satisfied with me.’

‘But of course, you are doing your best.’

‘Frederik says that too.

But now here it comes.

I was told that if I did my best, I would be allowed to go to the East with Frederik.

I ask you, Father and Mother, and also Anna, do you approve?

May we leave as soon as possible?

I am on holiday from school and can go away for three months, or shorter, if you agree with me.

Good grief ... isn’t that something, Mother?’

‘Say something, Karel’, Erica asks.

‘I do not mind, Mother, and you?’

‘But so long, can it not be shorter, Frederik?

Can there not be a month taken off it?’

It is okay, we will prepare ourselves for the departure.

‘Where do you wish to go?’ Karel asks.

‘In the first place to the big cities, Karel.

Paris, London, then to Egypt and from there to Italy, Budapest, Vienna, Berlin.

When we come back René will be a different person.

A desert trip is not to be scorned, the Pyramids, Luxor, the ruins.

But we will see, I believe that I am going too far.’

‘It is worthwhile, Frederik.

But will you look after my boy?

Will you bring him back as he is now, Frederik?’

‘Do you not know that, Erica?’

‘But when will you start the portrait of Elsje, René?’

‘I will do that when I come back, Mother.

It must be something beautiful.

I will do my best for it.’

René goes upstairs and Karel says:

‘My flesh and blood lives in your hands, Frederik.

You know exactly how far you can go.

Go, my blessing will accompany you.

I believe that this is good for him.

Go into the world and you will become developed.

Isn’t it the case?

I wish I could go too.

That will probably happen too, then we will all go.

Or is that not in store for us?

What a fortunate person you actually are, Frederik.

What did you do to deserve this?

Worthwhile, such a birth.

Also something which I worry about sometimes.

One has everything, the other nothing.

Everything is unjustly divided.

Look at me, for example.

I cannot complain, but if I had known years ago what I now know, Frederik?’

‘Then what, Karel?’

‘Precisely, then what?

Is life mapped out?

Can we people make of our lives what we want to make of them ourselves?

Do numerous problems not hold us back?

What do we actually want here?

With what purpose do we live here?

What can we hope to achieve later?

I believe, Frederik, that it would be worth a lot to me, if I knew whether there was another life behind this one.

You search for it, other people too, but what does that mean?

Hans and I are natural products.

We see everything too scientifically.

I like your world better, but with the money, you see.

Man, I wish that I could come too.

I have apparently not yet earned this.

Neither have you, Erica, otherwise we would already have been there.

All the places you have been, Frederik!

What do we know about this world?

Nothing!

Travelling, moving around – it is evolution.

I believe that my eyes are now opening for the first time.

For shame, what an injustice.’

‘Just listen to that old man, Frederik.

He is awakening.

Go, you are more than welcome ... but take me with you too.

Do not leave me at home.

Never do that.

I tell you, Frederik, that I want to see that harem before I leave here.

I want to get to know all those friends of yours.

I must see that Sultan.

Thank him for his beautiful clothes.

Just say that I am careful about them, or will you not go there now?’

‘We try all kinds of things, Erica.’

‘You see, Anna, Frederik is leaving us alone again.

Yet he is going away again.

But is it our own fault ... I cannot bear thinking about it any longer.’

Evenings of preparation, Hans and Elsje are also coming.

René lets her see all his art.

What he never does, Elsje gets done.

I am afraid.

I do not know.

I do not know what I should make of it.

However, these beings belong together!

Hans could be her grandfather.

And then ... his feeling, his thinking ...

Marja!

How is it possible.

Suddenly he hears that name inside him.

I believe that that name already lives under his heart.

And the being itself?

I cannot bear thinking about it.

I do not want to think about it.

I will banish that name from my thoughts, as he does.

What do we people actually want?

What do we have to sustain as possessions and what do we know about that?

What is it, which has placed us in this life?

Who belongs to us and who does not?

Were we together and of each other before?

If I go into this and into what came to me from his life, I would now be able to lay a great deal of little foundations.

However, I do not do it yet, I will wait and see, maybe another certainty will come.

When I look at these two lives, I tremble and shake.

I am then faced with an infallible power, which controls everything, which fiddles around with we people’s ears, shows us the way and asks: ‘What do you want?’

I can no longer think, I am full to the brim.

When Hans and Elsje leave, I feel relieved.

Guess what it is?

I go under the command of His Majesty.

What will await me?

Who?

Am I heading for happiness or misfortune?

It is just as well that you do not know everything.

Those are the masks.

And they must go, it is only then that life is worth experiencing.

We are already driving ...

In the direction of Paris.

Bye bye, we feel right ... you too?

Bye ...

Anna.

Bye, Father, dear Mother, we are going to look for flowers!

Hopefully we will come back differently, we will do our best!

Frederik and René!