I Knew I was Older

Some years ago I was sitting on a rather lonely but pretty beach on the island of Langkawai in the Andamen Sea. It was a hot afternoon when I made acquaintance with a British lady and we got to chatting. We were both staying in this German owned ten room hotel out there in the middle of nowhere. She was very attractive and a great conversationalist and obviously very smart. One thing led to another and I invited her to join me for dinner in the meager thatched covered dining room, lit by Chinese lanterns and a bit of electricity on this equatorial island just south of Burma. Without digging deep I came to understand they she either currently or in the recent past had been a member of a religious community in England. She was fascinating. Somehow the conversation turned to Darwin and his theory of evolution and I mentioned how it seemed probable that we human beings had evolved from the apes. She smiled knowingly and crinkled her eyes, made a small laugh and touched my hand. " Oh my dear," she said, " we've been here for so much longer."

She went on to explain that we are all souls who are very very old. She didn't use the term reincarnation and she didn't go into details. But she was emphatic that apes and human beings are completely different. This was not an attack on the theory of evolution but a sincere belief and an understanding of things that certainly go over my head and I have never forgotten that conversation over a good glass of wine under the stars on a unfamiliar Sea. We parted with a sweet kiss knowing that we'd never meet again..on this lonely island.

It's a true story and the reason I link to this BBC report, which is a bit mind boggling to comprehend. But then isn't all of it. Time Before the Big Bang.