I am tearing away today from the iron grip of politics to re-direct my gaze to something more ennobling, something more uplifting which is the primary purpose of this column.

Some questions have been received on some of the subjects treated in this column. I am addressing three of them today. One arises from the article on Leadership and Responsibility published last month, specifically on 24 February, in which I stated that we cannot but take life seriously. In it, I referred to experiences in the Beyond as captured in the book, “A Wanderer in the Spirit Land” transmitted by an Italian who had passed on, named Franchezzo. There is also one on the challenge of being mentally challenged and the third one is on what is called hermaphrodites arising from the publication captioned Tearing Down the Barriers following the new attitude of the Church of England to same-sex marriage and the response to it by the Anglican Communion in Nigeria, also referred to as Church of Nigeria. It was featured on this page on 16 February.

Question:
I sometimes wonder what type of experiencing people with learning difficulties have to learn in a particular earth-life. Some of them are hardly aware of their surroundings to make any learning useful.

Answer:
The challenge mentally retarded people have concerns the affliction of their frontal brain. The physical body is a tool for the spirit encased therein. The brains are parts of the physical body. The body does not have a life of its own, being a tool, until it is animated by the spirit. The spirit cannot be diseased; it can only be walled in  and constrained. A person with a handicapped brain can be likened to a healthy man with a defective tool. Such a person is constrained all right. We may wish to note that the man and his tool are not the same. The situation makes the physically challenged to be a burden to himself and his surroundings on which he is absolutely dependent. The hampered balance in the exchange between inflow and outflow of experience-radiations causes him great pains. In most cases, such people often have liver problems, and the liver is connected with life. In his monumental work, “A Gate Opens,” Herbert Vollmann states: “The word hypochondriac (a sufferer from morbid depression) is related to ‘hypochondrium’, by which is meant the area under the arch of the ribs, thus the region of the liver, which points to the fact that this disease is associated with the liver. Not for nothing has the word liver an identity of sound with life.” Mr. Vollmann quoted an English researcher, Caspar Blond, M.D. who wrote in a medical journal, ‘Hippocrates’ (Vol.11, 1956)…”Cancer is the result of a chronically progressive liver insufficiency. There is no doubt that food poisons play a part in this.” ‘(Liver insufficiency means an inadequate working capacity of the liver.)”’
All the pains and attendant struggle a mentally retarded person goes through to be free from the constraints give the spirit maturity. The struggle, pains, and love of relations and those who may cross his path help to enrich his inner worth. Outwardly, the experiencing of such people may be deficient, in reality, it could be beneficially rich through inner struggle and pains with the hind brain, cerebellum, keeping memories and transferring same to the spirit. In the end, we find that there is no experience that is not beneficial. The spirit with hardly any fresh karma incurred absorbs all experiences for its necessary development and maturity.

Question:
Having known what happened to us when we die, why do I still feel sad when someone I know passes over? Does this mean that my faith in the scheme of things is shaky? If so, how do I improve on the vacuum I feel when a friend or family member passes over?

There are two issues the question has highlighted. There is the impact of the death of a friend or a family member on the living. There is the reaction to the death. The impact generates a feeling of emptiness. And there is sadness as a reaction, arising from perhaps a feeling of emptiness or from the sheer occurrence of death. Or from both. With death comes the realization of a definitive parting. The impact of this realization is capable of engendering a feeling of a vacuum in the life of a relation or very close associate, a friend, or a loved one, depending on the closeness of the relationship. The sadness will depend on our understanding of what has taken place as well as the level of our maturity, brought about by experience and using the appropriate knowledge therefrom.

The departure of a friend or a relation from earthly life often presents an instructive experience for the living. Indifference is impossible. Sadness that often overtakes us, especially when it is momentary, may arise from coming to terms with the definitiveness of the separation. Because death is a momentous step into the Beyond, its occurrence is often accompanied by sobriety and in many cases, fear. Sobriety by its very essence imposes moments of reflection on the living however fleeting. Indeed, no matter the level of our maturity, death cannot be a moment for overt rejoicing. Reflection brings in its train a sudden recognition that it would inexorably be our turn one day with the concomitant self-examination of what may lie in wait for us. This may result in fear. Knowledge of what happens to us when we depart earthly life is knowledge of where our path leads us when we pass over. From time to time we have a glimpse of this in our dreams. The dreams may show how much ground we still have to cover from the nature of the environment we often find ourselves in vivid dreams. Of course, radiations from over-exerted frontal brain, cerebrum, can distort the picture especially when the exertion takes place close to when we go to bed.
For a knowing one, sadness may arise from concerned and loving sensing without being judgmental that the departed could have done more in terms of adequate preparation for his departure. There may also be a subconscious fear for the departed which may arise from an unconscious contact by the departed for whom life on the other side is perhaps a strange shaking experience, as was transmitted by the Italian referred to in the foregoing, captured in “A Wanderer in the Spirit Land”. What is called for on such an occasion are prayerful wishes that the departed may receive help on his path and in his new experiences. A weak faith may be a reason for sadness. It is possible there are still areas that constitute knowledge we may be grappling with. Knowledge leads to the conviction which in turn gives rise to faith. Knowledge gives confidence and victorious calmness in the ever-present help of our Maker, Lord, and Creator. The vacuum which occurs upon the death of a family member or a friend will be filled gradually and sadness eliminated as faith grows and inner maturity increases. With maturity, there is a greater hold on our emotions and control on activities we may permit ourselves generally.

Question:
How does it happen that a person can be both male and female at the same time carrying organs of both genders?

Scientists who occupy themselves with the phenomenon call it hermaphrodites. It is a phenomenon, which, over the ages, has perplexed scientists and made nonsense of all theories. One of the theories is that the situation may have arisen out of an excess of “X” chromosomes over “Y” chromosomes. Even if the excess theory of one type of chromosome over the other were plausible, it is only a pointer to the observation by the science of a development, of excess of one property over the other, not the cause. The cause certainly lies deeper — beyond what science, great and helpful as it has been, can ever unravel. However, where science fails, observation may give us a partial clue. But it is only partial. It is in the enlightenment contained in the higher knowledge spreading on earth in these times that we have the total picture — In the Light of Truth – It answers all questions of life and existence.

There have been reports of human beings who have undergone what is generally referred to as sex change by some hermaphroditic people. When the change occurs, the latent characteristics are permitted to blossom and the seemingly suppressed parts are removed. A well-known figure who has undergone such sex change is Bruce Jenner, renowned as a US Olympic gold medalist, stepfather of Kim Kardashian, the reality TV star, and in his own right a media and also reality TV star. Born William Bruce Jenner in October 1949, he went under the knife to become a woman in 2015 at the age of 65. From then, he became known as Caitlyn Marie Jenner. He did say at the time: “For all intents and purposes, I am a woman…I was not genetically born that way and as of now I have all the male parts…But I still identify as a female…It is hard for people to understand but that’s what my soul is.” He said to ABC and was reported by USA TODAY: “…being transgender is not the same as being gay, I am not gay.” He added: “I lived a lie my whole life and I can’t do that any longer. Let’s take the damn ponytail out.” He is father of six, two fathered by him while Kris Jenner, his wife, brought four to the union from a previous marriage, among them Kim Kardashian. “I am not a girl in guy’s body. I hate that, I am a person, and it’s who I am. My brain is much more female than it is male,” he said to the world of his admirers.

Many women seeking recognition and public acknowledgment, and driven by public adoration steel themselves. Some of them are weightlifters, boxers, and footballers. They are crane drivers; they run marathon races. In the process, they develop muscles. The refinements peculiar to women become suppressed when masculine activities become intensified. With time, the refinements sever themselves for lack of development and use. All these, before they manifest physically may take more than one earth-life. But due to the propensity of the female soul for masculine activity, she has spun threads that she puts in life which sooner or later she will live through. This column has said repeatedly that every one of our thoughts or activities takes on a form. But these forms do not immediately manifest physically because of the density of the physical body. In another earth-life, a body conforming to her earlier wishes which have already taken on form becomes her garment which we call the body. This means since she likes masculine activities, Nature allows her to have her way. The consequence is that she has a female soul in a male body. Where the distortion of the soul has not been complete, the case of hermaphroditism occurs.

A female soul in a male body feels drawn to a male soul as any gender can bring about a distortion of its soul. In the case of any distortion, neither the woman nor the man can have children except where the distortion has not been completed. I must emphasize, however, that this is not the only cause of childlessness. An abortionist, for example, may become childless in another earth life. A human being whose soul has been distorted feels misunderstood by the society, and is frustrated and restless out of a feeling of inadequacy. Men who hanker after feminine activities will at some point in their existence inhabit female bodies as well. It is unnatural for a man to become a woman and vice versa. Therefore, where there is hermaphroditism, it is a distortion brought about by those concerned themselves. But in the goodness of the Creator, the Almighty, as soon as such people realise their errors and swing fervently to what they should be, their radiations change, they clear their own path and the distortion will gradually be corrected. It is, for this reason, women are admonished to be women, taking on only female roles of nurturing, caring, beautifying, and ennobling. And men should be men. But modern thinking is that what a man can do, a woman can do better. It is considered unfashionable to admonish women to steer clear of wearing trousers, or other masculine thoughts and activities. It is obvious from trends that there will be more cases of hermaphrodites in years and decades to come because both men and women are busy breaking down the gender barriers wisely put in Creation by the Creator. Teachers encourage it. Society does not see anything wrong with it, all in the name of modernity and progress which may be described as sham progress! All the perpetrators and converts are only deceiving themselves and will have themselves to blame. The Laws of Nature, also known as the Laws of Creation or Divine Laws, do not need human opinions or concepts, nor go by them. What a man soweth, even in thoughts, that shall he reap, multiplied, we are told. Adamantine and self-enforcing are the Laws!