Recife, Brazil. January 11, 1985. The last soap opera of the night had just finished, and my paternal great-aunt, Julieta (deceased in 1997), whose house I was staying for a few weeks, during the summer holidays early that year, went to talk to her neighbors, in that old-fashioned habit of placing chairs in front of the houses for a bit of “chitchat”.
I stood there, feeling strange, eyes fixed on the turned-off TV. I rarely watched soaps, but, in my grand-aunt’s house, with that deep-rooted custom, as a good retired Brazilian spinster that she was, it was customary (as a religious thing) to sit in front of the television to watch one soap after another, until the end of the broadcast. The screen dimly reflected the room around. A young man, who lived in the neighborhood (I recall he was 26 years old at the time), passed, without a shirt, in front of the living room window where I was. He was walking in the middle of the road, shouting something to someone… Shortly after, a teenage girl around 11 or 12 years of age (a little younger than I was those days – I had just turned 14)… then… wham!… I got into a trance, the most spectacular trance of my life, perhaps not in phenomenological terms but in the sense of implications for my future, a mystical experience so important that up to this day I consider it to be visceral, like a second birthday, which I celebrate, alone – and with God and His-Her Representatives.
20 years have now passed… I usually scribble these autobiographical narratives at the date these events happened in my past. Now, however, as requested by Eugênia-Aspásia, the dear Spiritual Guide, here I am, detailing particularities that are very dear to my heart, before the multitude, two months before the actual celebration of that day’s anniversary. There are purposes in Eugênia’s request that are unknown to me, but, as I have already said before, I understand that an autobiographical narrative is one of the most persuasive and impactful, for being more complete, reliable and concrete. And, as for this particular experience, it is something very precious and confidential to me, since it deals with my own issues, regarding a distant future, which concerns only me and the good spirits by whom I am guarded.
In October of the previous year (1984), only three months before (exactly three months), I had written a text named “I” (which I wrote about in the article: “Encounter with the Shadow”, available in the texts archive of the Quantum Leap Institute’s Portuguese language website), which triggered a powerful process of self-knowledge, which, I understand today, would lead to this January 11, 1985 (the essay “I” was finished on October 10, 1984).
There, paralyzed, with glassy eyes looking at the turned-off TV, in a fraction of a second, my sense of identity of a Brazilian teenager of the 1980s simply disappeared, like mist in the wind, while it was shown to me, two centuries in advance, what was going to happen in a very distant future. Totally overtaken by the vision, I grabbed pen and paper, and, in very brief lines, I wrote down on an A4 paper sheet (which I keep to this day), what I deduced from that experience, preoccupied to record that seminal event, finishing writing after having signed it at 9:25 p.m.
Two months later, I went back to school to carry on with my studies. I was on the 8th grade of Middle School at the time. Some more observant classmates asked me, “What happened to you? You have changed!” To which I used to answer, with no interest in opening myself, as I still do regarding that very intimate moment for my soul: “It’s just your impression…”. The teen who was fun and “the leader of the classroom”, gave way to a “serious old man” in a youngster’s body, which took so long “to leave me,” as it took me years to digest the weight of information and responsibility that had been passed on to me.
A part of what was shown to me has already begun to happen, and this now distant January 11, remains an extraordinary milestone for me. I don’t like very much to remember the content of that experience. It overwhelms me, and it almost completely takes from me the joy of living. Even when I tell friends about it (without revealing what was shown to me, of course), I approach the memory of what really happened in a way that is similar to the mechanism of psychological repression, in which entire memories are suppressed, in order to protect the sense of comfort and stability of the ego and its identity. And, in the face of what was revealed to me, I still feel like that same frightened teenager I was 20 years ago — although I am now infinitely more mature and lucid, in rational terms.
2005 “has arrived”. It seemed it would never come from the perspective of that boy who used to listen to “Material Girl” and “A Piece of Sky” (*) and loved Joseph Murphy’s books. Back then, I made a pact with a friend (I will protect her identity, but I hope this page gets to her). She was 22 years old and I was 14 (I only turned 15 at the end of the year). We used to talk for a long time, sometimes for successive hours, often accompanied by my sister Marilia. I asked her to look for me, to see if I had become who I, in a few words, (obviously I didn’t tell her everything: I never did), told her I would become (I got a few details wrong and she got others right). She answered me, confidently, “In twenty years, I will see you potbellied and holding a glass of beer, just like all normal men.”
I’m not exactly potbellied, but obese (though, in the last three months, I started to lose weight – please don’t laugh: 4kg). But as for the beer, and all the implications of its absence in my hand… well… that’s where she got it really wrong and I got it right… I mean: They were right, including the precise detail that I had to make clear to her, by declaring, solemnly and emphatically: “So-and-so really promise me, because I know we are going to go separate ways, but I also know that I will be a public figure, and, therefore, you will have to take the initiative to look for me, since you will be able to find me, whereas I will not be able to find you. Are you going to look for me?” She promised me she would. Frankly, I do not believe she will keep her promise… Am I being too pessimistic? Anyhow, shortly afterward, we did go our separate ways and, today, I am indeed a public figure. Where are you, old friend?
I know that the course of that revelation has dissipated itself, almost stealthily. But my intention was not that surreptitious nor was there any intention to conceal this wish to contour this revelation: it simply cannot be made public. However, here it is registered an encouragement for all of us to follow the voice of the heart, even if adapting it to the context of the reality that was given to us to live, and, especially, separating it from the gross burden of egoic passions and the whimsical dreams of neurotic adolescence, full of neediness and endless sorrows. You may not have a great mediumistic revelation record in your past, but you can recall today an inspiring humanitarian ideal that may be shelved in the dustiest chest of your psyche.
Today, I am 34 years old. A lot of water has passed under the bridge of my conscience. I can now say that I really am a mature soul or, at least, an adult one. If the Divine Providence allows me to, I know that I will be even better in ten, twenty years, or who knows (?): in thirty years. I dream of the day when I will answer anyone who asks about my age: “Sixty-five years old, at your service”. That is it (!), the age of “grown-up people”! And I have been saying that in public for ten years. Until then, we are, in relative measures, varying from person and circumstance, immature for incumbencies of higher responsibility.
I got “older”, psychologically, in a curious phenomenon of psychic engrafting, in a space of a few seconds, on that day when I was 14 years old. The “senex” archetype, as Jung would say, the “wise old man”, came to live, more expressively, in the routine of my mental life. Today, as an active medium at the service of teachers from the Higher Dimension of Life, I feel myself maturing five to ten years every year, due to the daily psychic interaction with the great-disembodied mentors, in particular with the lovely Eugênia-Aspásia. But I never think it is enough to become wiser and more experienced… because, before us, to the infinite… there are impressive Suns of knowledge and sentiment!… Obviously, that has nothing to do with the loss of joy or joviality, because, as I said, when I became serious in my adolescence, I was “immature” in that “maturity”, without paradox. True wisdom does not show off, it is not grumpy, nor it presents itself as pretentious. It is simple, almost childlike (in the connotation of spontaneous and pure), but mainly it is serene, lucid and creative.
Are you 20 and afraid to get to 30? Are you 30 and think that you are preparing to “shut down the factory”? Are you 40 and thinking of retirement? Are you 50 and getting yourself ready for death? Review your points of view! Thank God, today I am far beyond adolescence (!) — a period of life in which turbulent uncertainties and conflicts are mixed with very rare joys and few points of reference to go on with. And how anxiously I productively wait for my mature years! – really productively: I fully live my age, as my personality feels necessary. In them, I will be able to fully be myself, as my precarious level of evolution allows me to manifest myself. Then, my brain will already be properly sharpened to express with clarity and depth what I desire, the ideas that I have been working on for years (or centuries?). This will be the year 2035. If Our Lord authorizes me to be still incarnate, I will be, on October 26th, turning 65 years old, and based on today’s conceptual models, I will be entering the “old age”: the last and fullest age, in which we are no longer slaves of our instincts, and in which the spirit manifests itself more freely and consciously. Having a long and productive old age, offering wisdom, serenity, comprehensive and enlightening insights to young people, it is the best a human being can bequeath to humankind. At this age, love is less ego-centered, ideals are less riddled with self-interest, passions become serene and may well be more properly channeled for the good.
2035… 2045… 2055… There I will be – if I continue to enjoy the blessing of being incarnate – at 85 years old! Wow! One should be proud to say: “I am 85 years old, young man/woman!” That is: “To what extent are you able to measure yourself with the polished tool of a brain with 85 years of experience and a millennia-old spirit behind it, operating the wonderful biochemical machine of thought?” Meanwhile, some 45-year-olds want to look like 20. Poor little things! So much age-related childishness stuns their thoughts and, especially, their feelings! They may be beautiful and fit, but please: what an embarrassment! – Wanting to look younger? One must be a very “young” spirit (in the negative sense of it: of a very young spiritual age, a less experienced spirit in the evolutionary path) to wish something of the sort. The assurance, tranquility, clarity about what we are, what we want, where we are going, and about how and when to expect what and from who; a wider, deeper and more certain view about people, events and phenomena of Life!… These are some of the many benefits that age brings to those who have a minimum of discernment. Something as phenomenal as it is sweet, which, in the fullest sense of the word, is indescribable!
You want me to wish you a long life, but you forget that this perhaps means many years in middle and old age. And, quite frankly, I can tell it right now: this is the best part of the deal! And I long to be part of the lucky ones who enjoy a very long
and creative life of service and utility to the common good. Perhaps the Divine Providence deliberates to make me “return home soon,” and, from there, I will be envying those who are becoming old in the physical body. But if I am deserving of any merit, I would like to be around here, even if suffering from back pain or weak legs, but guiding younger ones and comforting more hearts, seizing, until the end, the time that has been offered to me, because only God knows when we will be able to enjoy a new opportunity in the school of the material plane of life, where everything is difficult for the achievements of the Spirit… where we are continually tested and challenged to show our better, nobler, more human and, consequently, happier side!…
Benjamin Teixeira de Aguiar
(Text written at the dawn of November 9, 2004)
(*) the Americans singers Madonna and Barbra Streisand, respectively.
