Read Ebook: My Life and My Efforts by May Karl Olesch Gunther Translator

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Ebook has 515 lines and 106883 words, and 11 pages

If someone should go in a straight line from the earth to the sun within three months and proceed beyond the sun for another three months into the same direction, he would reach a star named Sitara. Sitara is a Persarabian word, meaning nothing more than "star".

This refers to the now outdated old German geographic mile, which had a length of 4.6126 statute miles. Thus, Sitara has precisely the same size as Earth.

Down below, Ardistan is ruled by a line of vile thinking, selfish tyrants, whose most supreme law reads mercilessly short: "YOU SHALL BE YOUR NEIGHBOUR'S DEVIL, SO THAT YOU SHALL BECOME YOUR OWN ANGEL!" And high above, Jinnistan was ruled for countless ages by a dynasty of generous, genuinely royal-minded regents, whose most supreme law reads delightfully short: "YOU SHALL BE YOUR NEIGHBOUR'S ANGEL, SO THAT YOU SHALL NOT BECOME YOUR OWN DEVIL!"

And for as long as this Jinnistan, this land of the nobly spirited people, exists, every citizen had been required to be secretly, without exposing him- or herself, the guardian angel of one other person. So, there is happiness and sunshine for Jinnistan, but in Ardistan, there is just a deep spiritual darkness and the forbidden, and therefore secret, lamentation for liberation from this hell! No wonder that down there, in the lowland, an ever growing desire for the highland developed! No wonder, that the more evolved ones of the souls there sought to free themselves from the darkness and sought redemption! Millions and millions enjoy life in the morasses of Ardistan. They have grown used to the miasmas. They do not want to have it any other way. They would not be able to exist in the clean air of Jinnistan. These are by no means just the poorest and lowest, but even more so the richest and most distinguished inhabitants of the land: the pharisees, who need sinners in order to appear righteous, the prosperous, who require poor people for contrast, the lazy ones, who must have workers for their convenience, and most of all the smart, cunning ones, for whom the stupid, trusting, honest ones are indispensable, to be exploited by them. What would happen to all those privileged ones, if the others were not to exist any more? Therefore, everyone is most strictly forbidden, to leave Ardistan and to escape the pressure of its laws. But the harshest punishment is inflicted upon him who dares to flee to the land of neighbourly love and humanity, to Jinnistan. The border is guarded. He will not get through. He will be apprehended and brought to the "spirits' furnace", to be tortured and tormented, until the pain forces him to beg for forgiveness and to return to the hated oppression.

This is because, between Ardistan and Jinnistan, there is Maerdistan, that steeply ascending strip of jungle where the infinitely dangerous and strenuous way up passes through its labyrinths of trees and rocks. Maerd is a Persian word; it means "man". Maerdistan is the frontier land, where only "men" may dare to venture; anybody else would necessarily perish. The most dangerous part of this almost entirely unknown area is the "forest of Kulub". Kulub is an Arabian word. It means the plural of "heart". Thus, the enemies who have to be conquered one by one, if one would want to escape from Ardistan to Jinnistan, lurk in the depths of the heart. And in the midst of this forest of Kulub, that place of torture is to be found, about which I have written in "Babel and Bible", page 78:

"In Maerdistan, the forest of Kulub, Lies lonely, hidden well, the spirits' furnace." "Do spirits forge there?"

"No, but they are forged! Storms bring them, drag them, here at midnight's time, When lightnings light the sky, tears pour like floods, Where hatred comes on them in grim delight, And envy digs its claws into the flesh. Remorse will sweat and wail where bellows blow. The pain is by the block with staring eyes, A blackened face, the hammer in his hand. There, now, o sheik, the pliers grab you fast. They toss you to the blaze; the bellows creak. The flame flares upwards, far beyond the roof, And all that you possess and what you are, The flesh, the mind, the soul, and all the bones, The sinews, fibres, tendons, flesh and blood, The thoughts and feelings, everything and all, Is burnt from you, is tortured and tormented Up to the whitest blaze - - -"

"Allah, Allah!" "Don't scream, o sheik! I'm telling you, don't scream! For screamers are unworthy of this pain, Are thrown away to be the dross and refuse And must, at last, be molten down again. But you would want to be the steel, a blade That glistens in the paraklet's own fist. Be quiet, thus!

"He rips you from the fire - - He casts you on the anvil - - holds you tight. It clangs and cracks on you in every pore. The pain will start its work, the smith, the expert. He spits into his fists, and then he grasps, Lifts with both hands, the giant hammer up - - - The blows do strike. Each blow is like a murder, A murder killing you. You think you're crushed. Hot scraps spew widely, everywhere around. Your self gets thinner, smaller, even smaller, And yet, you must go back into the fire - - Again - - and yet again, until the smith Will see the spirit in hell's agony, Through all the gloom of soot and hammers' blows, Who smiles at him in calm and grateful joy. This one is fixed into the vice and ground. The file does screech, and eats away from you Whatever still - - -"

"Desist! It is enough!" "It does go on, for now the drill is used, It spirals deeply - - -" "Silence! Oh, for God's sake!" etc. etc.

parakletos : a person called to one's aid, especially to intercede before God, used in John 14-16 for the Holy Spirit and in 1John 2:1 for Jesus Christ .

So this is how Maerdistan is like, and this is what is going on inside the "spirits' furnace of Kulub"! Every inhabitant of Sitara knows the tale which says that the souls of all important people, who are to be born, are sent down from heaven. Angels and devils are waiting for them. A soul who is so fortunate to come across an angel will be born in Jinnistan, and all of its paths are smoothened. But the poor soul who falls into the hands of a devil will be dragged to Ardistan by him, and hurled into an even deeper misery, the higher the task was which the soul had been given from above. The devil wants it to perish and rests neither day nor night to turn him, who was destined to be gifted or ingenious, into a rotten and doomed individual. All resistance and rebellion is futile; the poor soul is doomed. And even if he succeeded in escaping from Ardistan, he would still be apprehended in Maerdistan and dragged to the spirits' furnace, to be tortured and tormented, until he loses his last bit of courage to resist.

Only rarely, the heavenly strength, given to such a soul hurled to Ardistan, is thus great and thus inexhaustible that it could bear even the strongest pain of the spirits' furnace and face the smith and his fellows "through all the gloom of soot and hammers' blows, and smile at him in calm and grateful joy." Even the greatest pain is powerless against such a heavenly child, it is immune; it is saved. It will not be destroyed by the fire, but rather purified and fortified. And once all the dross has fallen off, the smith has to keep his distance, because there is nothing left that would belong to Ardistan. Therefore, neither man nor devil can prevent it now, and may all of the lowland burst out in an roar of rage, from rising up to Jinnistan, where everyone is his neighbour's angel. - - -

I was born in the lowest and deepest part of Ardistan, a favourite of distress, worry, and sorrow. My father was a poor weaver. Both of my grandfathers had met with fatal mishaps. My mother's father died at home, my father's father in the forest. On Christmas day, he had gone to a neighbouring village, to fetch some bread. Nightfall came suddenly. In a raging snowstorm he lost his way and plunged into the ravine of "Kr?henholz" , which used to be rather steep, and could not struggle his way out again. His tracks were blown away. He was searched for a long time in vain. Not until the snow had disappeared, his corpse, and also the bread, was found. Generally, Christmas has very often been, for myself as well as my family, not so much a joyous time, but rather a time of tragic misfortune.

Chapter End - Start Next Chapter I was born on February the 25th, 1842, in the tiny town of Ernstthal in the Erzgebirge , which was a very poor and small town then, mostly populated by weavers. Now, it has been incorporated into the slightly larger Hohenstein . There were nine of us: my father, my mother, both grandmothers, four sisters, and me, the only boy. My mother's mother scrubbed floors for other people and span cotton. On some occasions, she earned more than 25 pfennig per day. Then, she became generous and gave us five children two tiny rolls of bread, which only cost four pfennig, because they were extremely hard and stale, often even moldy. She was a kind, hard working, silent woman, who never complained. She died, as one would say, of old age. The real reason for her death was probably what is nowadays discretely termed as "being underfed". About my other grandmother, my father's mother, there is more to tell, but not here, at this point. My mother was a martyr, a saint, always quiet, infinitely hard working, constantly willing to make a sacrifice for other, even poorer people in spite of our own poverty. Never ever, I have heard her speak a bad word. She was a blessing for everyone she met, and a special blessing for us, her children. No matter how hard she suffered, she would never let anyone know about it. But at night, when she sat, busily knitting, by the light of the small, smoking oil-lamp and thought no one was watching, it happened that a tear came to her eye to run down her cheek, vanishing even faster than it had appeared. With one movement of the fingertips this trace of her sufferings was instantly wiped away.

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