The Rebel (Antichrist phase)

 I am Binu Peter, the eldest of two children of Mr. M.P. Pathrose and Mrs. (late) Leelamma. I have a sister and we had a smooth and happy childhood in Kerala, India, and I thank my parents, especially my mother who devoted her full time for our well being.

I did my schooling in two schools, till sixth standard in the first school and till tenth in the second school. After graduating in Chemistry, I got a Post Graduate Diploma in Marketing Management (equivalent to MBA) and was recruited by a pharmaceutical company in Ahmedabad, India.

One day I saw the people in the office were excited and they told me that the idols of Hindu God Ganesha were drinking milk. I witnessed it and being skeptical, wanted to experiment with milk colored with saffron. But that atmosphere was not conducive for experiments. My Hindu friends asked me whether I believed in it. I said yes, partly because I didn’t want to offend them and partly because it was an unusual experience. A majority of people believed it to be a miracle but others said that it was only the force of surface tension.

The same thing didn’t happen the next day. Surface tension, capillary force etc. can’t be active on one day and disappear the next day.

This incident led to discussions on religions with my friends. The kind of questions that we asked were like- whom did Cain marry? How did water-borne micro-organisms perish in the flood during Noah’s time?

The MD of that company started a cosmetic division and I submitted an advertisement campaign for a hair oil; he liked it and inducted me into his team. He had high regards for me and instructed me to write a training manual and I put in long hours of work to prepare one.

At around 8 o’clock, one evening, I heard a voice commanding ‘quit and go back to your native place and I will glorify you’. It was in my native tongue, Malayalam, and there was nobody else in that room.

Being in a pharmaceutical company making drugs for mental diseases, I was aware about the symptoms of schizophrenia and I feared I was becoming one.

If there was another person in the room, could he hear that voice, I pondered. No, this I had heard in my mind. My mind was playing games with me.

After a few weeks I heard that voice again, if you haven’t quit yet I would make it difficult for you to work. This time it was more authoritative. But I ignored it. The launch was scheduled and we started prelaunch activities. We released print advertisements in which all the products were listed and the customers could ask for samples of two products.

And I was given charges of sending samples. We made projections and prepared samples for four thousand customers. The response was good and we prepared samples for another two thousand people. Some customers wrote to us that they were delighted to get the samples as they had seen it only as a marketing gimmick. And I was assigned to reply to them as I could write well. I was to devote half of my working time for drafting replies. The MD would sign it to ensure maximum customer satisfaction.

Soon the sample requests swelled to eight then ten, twelve thousand and it was unstoppable and company staff started losing interest. They were focused more on the product launch.

For some products the demand for samples would be less so, when the stock got over the production people refused to make samples citing batch size. The dispatch staff took their own decisions and started replacing customer requirements with what was available at hand. Sending each sample to different parts of the country by courier was expensive so, instructions were given to send samples of a particular state to the regional office and to hand it over to the local couriers. So, the dispatch people would send samples to the regional office only after a box was full.

The customers started complaining that they had asked for samples of product X and received samples of product Y, some others had not received it, some received it but only after a long delay and some asked why were we cheating them if we had no intention of sending them samples etc.

                                                                                 -1- 

Some colleagues asked us to stop sending samples as we were stretching our limits. But this was a golden opportunity to reach out directly to the customers and making them use the product  would encourage them to become buyers.

By the time the response crossed sixteen thousand I became disoriented. The number of letters, unreplied, was giving me nightmares. We had bitten more than we could chew.

Answering to negative replies so unnerved me that I started making fundamental mistakes. The MD pointed it out and said that it was surprising because it was me who had written the training manual and now, I was making mistakes in my letters.

I remembered that voice. It had threatened to make it difficult for me to work unless I quit.

Should I take it seriously or not, that was the dilemma. Quitting a well-placed job was not easy. Going back to my native place was out of question because job opportunities were few there. So, I decided to stick on.

That voice was not ready to leave me alone. For a third time I heard it and this time it plainly said, if you don’t quit immediately on your own, I will make them terminate you.

By now I was convinced of its power.

I started working more smartly. My superior asked me to drop sampling and to concentrate on launch activities. By now I had decided to take my own decisions on what kinds of work I would take and how much time I would devote to each. I would prioritize each work and I would take decisions.

 One day he threatened to ask the MD for a replacement if I was not carrying out his instructions.

For a moment I was dumbstruck for this was precisely what that voice had predicted.

Whatever that voice, that supernatural force, was telling me it was getting realized. It was trying to guide me in a specific direction and why should I resist it further. Afterall I was assured of being glorified and I should trust that voice. I took that risk and put down my papers a few months after the product launch.

During the notice period a colleague invited me to visit the art galleries in Udaipur, Rajasthan and I booked the bus tickets. But at the last moment he backed out and I proceeded alone and ended up at Sreenathji Temple, Nathdwara (Lord Shiva, the father of Ganesha is the deity there) in the wee hours of morning. After darshan when I came back to collect my bag from the cloakroom there was a man standing there who had lost his bag and his money in it. Both of us got on the same bus to Udaipur and the conductor was sympathetic to him and issued a ticket without taking money.

When the bus stopped at a temple midway, both of us got down and this person stepped on a bundle of currency notes. All of us saw it and he handed it over to the conductor who refused to take it saying that it was a ‘prasad’ (gift) from Srinathji to compensate for his loss. It was a miracle for all of us and he started crying. I came back and told my friends about it, adding that the Hindu Gods were potent and I hadn’t seen such miracles in my religion.

Soon I left Ahmedabad and came back to my native place and waited for that voice to guide me further.

And there was no voice! I kept on waiting for guidance but to no avail.

Anyway, that voice had promised to glorify me so I should take initiative and find work that could glorify me.

I had already experience in writing a training manual so I wrote a novel with village life as backdrop. After finishing it I was not satisfied and rewrote it. But I realized that it was not enough to fulfill what that voice had promised so I decided to try my luck in movies. I followed up with a Film Director and met him and soon realized that movie was also not my field.

I was a confused person for I didn’t know how to proceed. I started doubting myself. Wasn’t it foolishness to act so whimsically upon something so unrealistic? Had the work pressure gone on to my nerves? Had I really heard that voice? If I had heard it, why was I not hearing it again? There was no way of getting answers.

                                                                                       – 2 – 

Then I decided to start a footwear business with my earnings. My uncle agreed to become a partner and we commenced activities.

In between my sister got married and we were happy about her new family.

I tried to develop a new footwear model so that it was readily accepted in the market. I realized my limitations in creativity only when I tried to create something new.

Naturally my thoughts turned towards the Creator, whose wisdom created all the living beings in this world. How magnificent his creativity was! How wonderful his creations were! The colors of flowers, the vast variety of plants and animals, wherever I looked I found the handiwork of God.

It was just amazing. Everything is filled with divinity. Each creation is unique in its appearance and characteristics. Each man is unique in terms of facial features, fingerprints, DNA code etc. etc. And there are around 800 crore human beings alive today, each distinctly different from another!

I praised glory to the Master of the Universe and humbled myself. I was a big zero in front of him. I was really lucky to be given a chance to discover the glory of the creator.

And I heard that voice again!

A year had already passed by after I left my job, I was wiped clean of my savings and my image among my own people had hit rock bottom. But when I humbled myself that voice was ready to talk to me again!

This time it asked me to read the Bible and I read it fully. From Genesis in the Old Testament to the Revelations in the New Testament, I read it.

I read it looking for discrepancies and mistakes. Instead, I found the presence of the God from the beginning till the very end. Bible is the greatest book ever written. It is the book of truth.

One night I had an influx of messages into my mind at around 11 o’clock. The messages were just flowing continuously and I took a piece of paper and started scribbling it down. I was asked to write a book linking those messages. It was to be structured as seen from the viewpoint of an angel from the Kingdom of Heaven visiting mankind.

My chappal business suffered a natural death because I could no longer concentrate on it. I had a task at hand. A task entrusted by my commanding voice.

Writing the book ‘A Day with Manual’ (in English) was an easy job. The work was finished within a month for I knew all the details beforehand. I felt that everything from the very beginning had happened right in front of my eyes. I was a witness to the creation of Adam and Eve and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. I was a witness to the life of Jesus on earth. I merely had to write down the details.

But some of the details were not conforming with my own beliefs; like the fatherhood of Cain and Abel and the creation of mankind from two groups, namely children of Man and children of God. If I was to write according to my belief, I couldn’t proceed with writing the book. But when I counterchecked it with the Bible, I couldn’t believe myself; The Bible was backing what I had written.

When I reached the last few pages, my pen was writing on its own. My hand was not leading the pen; rather it was the other way round. The pen was using my hand to hold it. What I wrote was a warning about the tribulations that was about to fall on mankind, like a snare. It was about the visit of the Holy Father. It was about a selection process and the selected ones being given everlasting life.

My plan to end the novel with a hilarious scene was thus foiled.

I read it and found it difficult to believe what I had written myself. Many secrets were revealed in that ‘novel’, but I needed reassurance on its authenticity.

What if it was an outcome of my own creativity? What if the entire book was a fantasy?

I gave the handwritten copy to a relative to read and she asked me whether it was true. I answered that I didn’t know, because truly I didn’t know.

                                                                                         – 3 – 

Then a thought occurred to me to sell it for money. In 1999 I sent it to a publishing house in Delhi. And every night I had dreams that I was not prepared. The settings of the dreams would be different but the message was the same; that I was not prepared.  I would have prepared for English but I would be sitting for Mathematics exam.

The publisher returned it saying that they couldn’t arrange logistics for such a book.

And I started to see dreams which could easily been made as movies. They were such interesting dreams.

I sent it to another publisher and those bad dreams started haunting me again. They also returned it saying that it didn’t match their style.

And surprisingly those dreams stopped again. I was haunted by bad dreams only when the book was in the hand of publishers. I shelved it because I wanted to sleep peacefully at night.

The good dreams returned and some of them I remembered when I woke up and wrote it down as short stories.

In 2000 my father was hospitalized and that wiped out our savings. I set out to Delhi to find a publisher for my first novel. I reached Delhi by train at around 10 pm and a stranger came and gave me directions on where to stay. He gave his phone no. and said that if I decided to stay there for long, I should contact him.

The next morning I went out for tea and met a Sardarji (person belonging to Sikh community) who asked me the purpose of my visit and said that I won’t be able to publish it in Delhi and asked me to return home. I said I wanted to take a chance and he left. After a while he came with his friend, another Sardarji, and asked him to tell me that I was not going to publish anything in Delhi and both of them asked me to return home.

I got a temporary job of selling promotional cards of multinational food chains, door to door, and started residing with some people working in the same company. I found Delhi an interesting place; strangers would just pop out of nowhere, gave me what I wanted and disappeared.

I found divine presence wherever I went and decided to stay there permanently. I had to find a better job, I phoned my mother and asked her to send my certificates.

The moment I decided that the divine presence disappeared.  Suddenly I was in want and there was nobody to help. Earning enough to buy food itself became difficult. On Christmas Day noon I went to a Jacobite Church first and then to a Catholic Church for food. The Jacobite church was closed. I was told that the priest was staying in an adjacent building and I went to meet him; he was about to leave for a Christmas feast with his family. After a brief conversation he informed me that he was getting late.

I got the message and went to a Catholic Church nearby. They gave me a spoonful of sugar-coated jeera (cumin). 

I was hungry and was lost.

 I had enough money to buy a loaf of bread from a nearby shop and I sat on a bench to eat it. I prayed to God to give me power to make it taste like cake. At least this God owed me.

Nothing happened, bread was still bread and it was difficult to swallow dry bread. I ate two pieces and gave the rest to a person who was more needy than me and went to a Sikh Gurudwara and they gave me a spoonful of prasad.

I sat on the roadside suffering from hunger, thirst, loneliness, fear, anxiety, depression and frustration. It saddened me more when I remembered that whoever came to my home that day would receive at least a piece of cake from my mother.

My mother phoned me and said that she had sent the certificates with a relative and asked me to collect it.

A few days later I was working with a friend and we decided to meet at regular intervals so that we could support each other if either of us failed to sell cards. In one house the owner shouted at me for ringing the calling bell and I apologised. After a few minutes he calmed down and asked to meet him at 5 o’ clock in the evening.

                                                                                         – 4 – 

At 2 o’clock I met my friend and both hadn’t sold even a single card and we had no money for food. We worked for an hour and half more but still we couldn’t find a prospective buyer. We met again and this time I assured that I would make a sale at 5 o’clock and went to meet that person.

He was not interested in the cards, instead he put forward a proposal to start a business together. I was ready as long as it was sufficient to buy me three meals a day. How much was I ready to invest, he asked and I retorted that I had to get all the details beforehand to decide it. What exactly was the field of business, I asked him and he said ‘everything.’

It was only an MLM (Mult- level marketing) company that claimed to deal in everything and I enquired whether he was driving me towards it. He was surprised to hear it and asked me what I knew about that company to which I answered that it was fundamentally a money chain business. Those at the top end of the pyramid, who joined at the initial stages, reaped all the benefits but that money would be stained with the tears and sighs of those at the bottom on whose dreams they capitalised. I had an opportunity to join it at the very onset, I told him, but I preferred to starve than to eat with that money.  He gave me a dirty look and I walked out.

I had a numbing headache and was fatigued. This was an emergency situation. I had been working on foot the whole day without food. Unless I found food before I lost strength to walk would I ever find food?  Selling cards, which offered discounts on food chain outlets, was difficult on an empty stomach. The only solution I could think of was to rely on the Gods.

We had seen a temple and a Gurudwara on the way and proceeded towards the temple. My friend was a Hindu and he went inside.  I checked if any board stating non-Hindus are not allowed was exhibited. A hungry man can’t have any religion, I reasoned and went inside. Bunches of banana and coconuts were in front of the deity and I prayed to the Deity to make the Pujari (priest) give us a banana each. I asked my friend whether it was right if we took one  without permission. Before we could ask, the Pujari took all of it away as if we shouldn’t be given a chance even to ask.

My friend suggested that we go to a Sikh Gurudwara as he was confident of getting langar (communal feast offered by Sikhs) there. We went there and prayed to the Gurus of Sikhism. This time we were not ashamed to ask if we could get something to eat and a Sardarji gave us a spoonful of prasad. We asked another Sardarji when they would serve langar and he asked us to wait for a while. After waiting for an hour and twenty minutes we had to make a choice between waiting for food and returning to our place of stay because the more we waited the lesser were the chances of catching a bus back. If we waited for food, we might have to sleep on the pavement that night; and we went back.

The next morning a Hindu friend came to me and said that he knew what happened the previous day and being a stranger in Delhi I was his guest and he couldn’t let a guest starve. Anytime I needed money I just had to ask him and I thanked him for those kind words. This was divine attitude, I told him. There was nothing holier than feeding a hungry and thirsty and giving a supporting hand to those lonely ones lost in despair.

Most of our target audience were staying in apartment complexes and getting through the security guards was a tough task. They wouldn’t let sellers like me inside. One day the area assigned to me had a huge apartment complex. I just went to the security and told them a random flat number and said that I wanted to meet that flat owner. He let me in and I went straight to that flat. The owner was not interested in buying cards, so I tried a couple of flats more. None of them were interested.

I sat down on a staircase and watched children playing there. Suddenly there was a commotion and I saw people going hither and thither and someone was shouting chor (thief). I stood up to see what the commotion was about. He is here, someone shouted and all of them came rushing towards me. The next moment the security was dragging me by the collar towards the security cabin with a group of people following us.

Soon I was being questioned like a thief. The servant from the flat I mentioned was going out and the security guard enquired about me and was told that I had left some time back. I was missing and this alerted them and soon there was a manhunt for me. They inspected my ID card, took contact details and made me sign on a paper that I would be responsible for anything missing from that complex during that period. 

                                                                                        – 5 – 

 Suddenly life in Delhi became a nightmare and I decided to return. Even if I found a good job I wouldn’t be able to continue there. In the train I remembered those Sardarjis who had forewarned me that I wouldn’t achieve what I came for in Delhi and I was returning empty-handed.

I came home and my mother opened the bag containing the certificates. There was three thousand rupees in it. I had starved while carrying all that money with me! She didn’t feel like informing me when she called me and I didn’t feel like opening it! Strange, that’s all we could say about it.

This money should go to the church, she said and I objected; I was still furious at those places of worship. None helped me with some food when I was in need.

What if I started writing dramas, wouldn’t it be a safe bet, I thought. And I wrote two dramas in Malayalam, adaptations of Shakespearean plays. I sent one to a publisher who appreciated it but declined it, saying that there was no market for dramas. He agreed to publish it if I rewrote it as a novel. I had enough with novels, I said. The second drama, I didn’t even show to anyone because I knew what fate awaited it.

Enough was enough. I had my share of difficulties and failures. The books on which I had pinned my hopes were rejected by publishers. My book ‘A Day with Manual’ was not even allowed to be shown to others.

My relatives and well-wishers had already written me off as a failure. One of them said that they were forced to hung their heads in shame whenever they talked about me. I was arrogant and incorrigible, because I was not listening to their advice to find a job and settle down.

It was better to flee abroad and restart from scratch; this time I wouldn’t be fooled by that inner voice.  I saw a recruitment agency’s newspaper ad and applied for a job in Sharjah.  They wanted twenty thousand rupees payment for visa and I borrowed the amount and paid them.

A proposal came and they agreed to fix the marriage as soon as the visa came. The agent whom I paid money got an idea to produce a movie and was broke before long. I didn’t hear from him afterwards. The bride’s family backed out. Her friends were not allowing her to marry a jobless person.

After numerous unfruitful interviews, I found a job as a sales Manager with a mobile phone franchisee. Though I was getting only a fraction of my first salary, I had a job now. Two weeks later he was asked to close down shop. He didn’t know what hit him. I was back on the road without a job. And that was a fast exit too!

Our family firm in which my father was a partner, closed down owing to differences of opinion between the partners and sluggish demand for our product, crepe rubber. Our sole source of income thus dried up.

My mother was troubled with knee pain and had been treated by many doctors. She tried ayurveda, allopathy and yoga but to no avail.

By now I was wavering in my faith in God. This phase of life was unjustifiable. For what reason was I getting penalised? The only mistake I did was to obey that voice and that too under compulsion! Nobody should worship that God in the future. I set out to prove that no God existed; everything was a myth. If I could write a book bearing witness to God and his son Jesus, I could also prove that Jesus was a fraud. (Details given in the Son of Man phase, Question 9)

If God wanted me to believe him, he had to prove that he was not a hard-hearted God intended only on punishing people. Cure my mother’s knee pain that was incurable and I would reignite my faith.

My sister was hospitalised for delivery and mother was attending her. She asked mother to consult a physician in that hospital. He was not available and appointment was given for a gynaecologist. My mother told the gynec that she wanted to meet a physician and was there by mistake. But the doctor insisted on having a checkup to make use of the visit. She found a growth in the uterus and sent her for a scan. They recommended immediate removal of uterus and the operation was done and she was cured of the knee pain. The major problem of knee pain had a simple solution but we were blinded from seeing it.

And God proved that he was a caring God.

My sister started helping me with cash clandestinely.

                                                                                        – 6 – 

Everything went on well, but that feeling still haunted me that I was not earning. And we decided to try sericulture. We planted mulberry bushes and the yield was to be taken after six months.

Meanwhile my uncle recommended me for a job and I got it. Two weeks later that voice asked me to quit. I didn’t and continued there. A relative brought a marriage proposal and we went to see the girl. One relative who came with us asked about dowry, they were offended and backed out.  

Soon I couldn’t enter the office. I would start sneezing as soon as I entered office, I caught a big allergy. I left that job also.

We could rear the first batch of silk worms only after a year. There was a hole in the protective net and lizards attacked the silk worms, so we had to drop it midway. The next time we earned one hundred and fifty rupees and the third time we got ninety rupees. Three people (me and my parents) worked hard for a month and got enough money to buy a single meal in return. Silkworm was not for us and we left it.

I turned bitter towards God. There was no point in believing him because if my fate, after writing a book bearing witness to him and his son, was this, could others be better? When my parents prayed at night, I switched on the T.V and kept the volume high. I asked them to vary the timings of the prayer as per the T. V programs.

After a few days I asked them to stop praying. Anyway, the God was deaf towards our prayers, so why pray at all? One of my early childhood memories was that of my mother teaching me to make the sign of the cross and to bow before God; the moment I kneeled down a centipede bit me and I cried for a long time. God didn’t let me even to bow down before him!

My father was furious and said that my marriage was not coming through because of my attitude towards God. God demanded complete submission and that was what I lacked, he said. I was hurt because he had hit the nail on the head, but I retorted that depending on such a God was futile. If God expected blind obedience, he was mistaken.

 Already there were people spreading rumours to potential bride’s parties that we were deep in debt. And no family would give their daughter to a person who was in my position now. It was better to marry a Hindu girl with problems in the horoscope as it was the only option left, I told them. (We believe that our ancestors were Hindus who got converted to Christianity)

Many nights I dreamed that my present phase was only a temporary one and the permanent placement was yet to come. In the PGDM course the time gap between Summer and permanent placement was a year and I reasoned that I could look forward to the coming year. On waking up I found that it was only a dream; I was still in the darkness searching for light. I felt cheated as I was given false hopes in my dreams.

My mother confessed having undergone an abortion and said that that sin was the root cause of our troubles. I strongly disagreed and said that the real reasons lied elsewhere and she had nothing to do with it. I was relieved for not having shown her my book ‘A Day with Manual’ because I had condemned abortion as a sin in it.

In between I rejected a proposal because I was not getting the right vibes. My mother was crying for me daily and asked me to attend Mass and Christian prayer meetings. I didn’t want to hurt her further and started attending it and she was relieved to some extent.

After a few meetings I started to point out my disagreements.  The verse that in sin did my mother conceive me was one of them. Baptism was to free the child from this sin. She said that it was written by David in Psalms. (51.5)

‘I don’t know about David, but you didn’t conceive me in sin. He sinned and was passing the blame all the way up to Adam and we shouldn’t give it undue importance. He was justifying himself for his sins before God, without taking ownership.’ I told her.

‘If you know the truth, tell them’, she said. ‘Not now, maybe later’, I told her and decided that it was time for her to know more about me. I told her about my book and said that my life got mixed up with the Bible somehow and till I knew the whole truth my life would be filled with difficulties.

                                                                                        – 7 –

I told her everything about my life from the time I started hearing that voice.  I told her that I was asked to leave Gujarat by a voice and I did it against my will. Gujarat was troubled after I left. Droughts, floods, an earthquake, Godhra carnage and a communal violence- man and nature had gone mad alike.

The problems had intensified after I was asked to flee from there. Gujarat needed our prayers and we prayed for them.

She wanted to know more about my book and I agreed to translate it to Malayalam so that she could read it. I had a better grip over the language from writing two dramas in Malayalam.

I changed my stand on condemning abortion as a sin to saying that not undergoing an abortion was a good thing. And I stated the fact of Adam not being the father of Cain and Abel only vaguely as I didn’t want to create a controversy. Only people who could read between the lines would understand it.

We had a discussion about the infighting between the Keralite Christian factions, (Jacobite and Orthodox factions) and I said that I couldn’t accept the fighting priests as servants of God. They would be judged harshly for they had promised to work in the vineyard of God and were fighting instead of leading the sheep in the right direction. There was no body to tell them that they were committing crime against God by fighting with each other, she said.

I gave the draft to a priest for review and when I told him about Cain and Abel, he said that Bible was only a myth and there was no need to give undue importance to each word in it.

This time I didn’t look for a publisher, I didn’t want those dreams to haunt me again. I had twenty thousand rupees, borrowed, kept aside to pay the balance for the visa and was ready to invest it if I got an assurance from the Almighty that what I wrote was true. I prayed to God for an answer.

And again, I heard that voice asking me to read the Bible again. I opened it and started reading a random page and it happened to be the Chapters 14, 15 and 16 of St. John. The following verses caught my attention.

John 14: 15-16  And I will ask the Father and he shall give you another Comforter, that may          abide with you forever: Even the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it sees him not, neither knows him, but you know him, for he dwells with you, and shall be in you. 

John 14:26   But the Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit, which the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.

John 15:26    But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth, which proceeds from the Father, he shall testify of me.  

John 16:7-14  never the less I tell you the truth. It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you: but if I depart, I will send him unto you. And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness and of judgment. Of sin because they believe not in me: Of righteousness, because I go to my Father and you see me no more:  Of judgment, because the Prince of the World is judged. I have yet many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now. How be it when he, the Spirit of Truth is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself: but what so ever he shall hear that shall he speak: and he will show you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine and shall show it unto you.

I didn’t understand what Jesus meant by the terms, the Comforter, the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of Truth.  Either there were three people or he was addressing a single person using three terms. Why was he addressing a person using three terms? Was it relevant today as these truths were told to his disciples? There was no answer to my questions. Any way it was not me because I was in the habit of judging others, not comforting them.

Whatever it be, some conditions were fulfilled in my book. It talked about sin, about righteousness; as the story was about a search for people living in righteousness, and it talked about the Judgment of Satan, who was the prince of the world till the time of Jesus. And it revealed many truths like Cain and Abel not being the children of Adam. And it was giving some insight on the future of this world.

                                                                                       – 8 –

 And it had a big message, an important message. That the time for the onset of the Judgement Day and the subsequent establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand.

The book was important, very important. It was not a mere novel as I had thought, but the fulfilment of Jesus’ promise and I had dared to make profit from it. No wonder God was angry at me again and again. I was indeed naive to hide the light from others. The obstacles in my life, whenever I turned away from the God, were not accidental. The marriage proposals stopped midway intentionally. I wouldn’t have spread the message if I had become a family man.

I decided to self-publish it. May 15, 2003 was fixed as the date of release.

Ten days before that I got an offer from a company in Calicut where I hadn’t even applied. My cousin brother suddenly had an urge to help me and he used his influence on his friend who was the director of that company. I asked him what his inspiration was to help me after all these years and he said that such a thought was induced by God. Same was the case with my book, God induced, I told him.

I told my mother about an uneasy feeling that the company was going to have a bad phase once I join it. She asked me not to harbor such thoughts and to put my heart wholly into my new job. Now we could proceed with the proposals in full swing as I was employed.

I gave a few copies of my book to my relatives, to the churches around, to some preachers, and to four newspaper offices and went off to take up the job. I distributed it free of cost as the knowledge had come to me free from God. And I was not going to profit from selling the knowledge of God. This time I was relaxed because my duty was over. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have got the job.

The parish priest read my book and was so impressed that he called my mother and complimented her. I thanked him in my mind for making my parents proud about me. My grandfather who was worried about me from the time I left my job, and who had strongly condemned me for wasting time in writing, read it and blessed me. A week later he passed away.

I was provided accommodation in a room that opened to a hall which was used as a store for keeping unsold mattresses, heaped one above the other, in several rows. It was in the top floor of a three-storey building.

Everything went on satisfactorily for three months though the progress in the marriage front was nil. Many proposals came but all met obstacles. It was as if someone was actively working to block the proposals.

I was lost again. I had realised the importance of the book and I published it and distributed more than a hundred copies, free of cost. Was something more expected from me?

Though my inner voice said yes, I refused to listen. For now, it was asking me to leave the job and take up this book so that it reached the nuke and corner of the world. I humbled myself for I was of little strength for such a big task.

 Further, I was in no way a Roman, so this should be about someone else. The next day I got a letter addressed as Mr. Peter. This was unusual because the people here address others by the first name not the surname. One night I woke up from a dream and knew that it was not Roman but the word was actually Raw man. It was not about nationality but about my character.  My response to my duty from the very beginning was very naïve.

The Lord God has ordained me a big role, much bigger than I could imagine and I was reluctant to take it up!

Still, I was obstinate, disobedient and unwilling to listen.  I reasoned that if I got married before revealing myself, God would never compel me to do so. So, though confused and fearful of disregarding God’s wishes, I decided to go ahead with marriage proposals.

 The next proposal was rejected by girl’s party saying that I didn’t go to church and so, was a non-believer. What a joke!

                                                                                       – 9 –

My mother had set Dec 2003 deadline for my marriage and she was getting frustrated. But she was also convinced that God had other plans for me and whenever I came home, she reminded me to devote more time for my real duty. Every time I went back giving her word that I was going to resign soon but changed mind as soon as I reached office.

We would try one more time and then we would let God decide my fate, I told her. The next proposal was handled by her, she rejected it without even informing me. I was furious and, in my anger, I shouted that everything would be alright only after her time.

That night she told me that she didn’t know what she was doing. She said that she considered me as someone close to God and that might be the reason for our troubles. She said she was getting scared of God’s fury falling on us.

I consoled her and asked her to pray to God. If he had a plan for us, he would work out his plan. There was no need to be scared of God. If he expected people to be afraid of him, he was not worthy to be called God. There was nothing to worry because all these miseries were not without his knowledge.

As it was Christmas eve, she went to church to attend midnight mass. I stayed at home.

I went back after Christmas and celebrated the birth of Christ with my friends, drinking.

The next Saturday I came home carrying an assignment from Office. She said that I was  getting involved with company affairs instead of devoting time to my duty. Which was more important- your book and work for God or your job and work for another man, she asked. I answered ‘my job’ because it was giving me some returns at least.

Ninety percent of the books that I had printed were lying with me and there was no way to get back even the investment. Let’s not talk about the book and God again, I said, for only then would we have peace at home. ‘But…’ she started and I stopped her because I was already mad with anger towards God. I told her that I also didn’t know what I was doing, just as she had said, and might even commit murder if someone compelled me to do something that I didn’t like.

After sometime she came back and said that God would bless me with children the next year. I said I would stab her with a knife if she ever talked to me about God’s blessing. Long back someone had tried to live as the Son of God and what blessing did he get in return, I retorted.

I went back and an ex-employee came to the office for his pending dues and the finance manager told him about the financial constraints. He shouted that we were parasites holding on to our jobs. Why were we sticking around, it was better for us to resign and do something else. Another message and I acted deaf.

On Thursday night that voice talked to me again. This time it was very friendly and offered me dominion over everything if I resigned immediately and did justice to my work.

That sounded familiar…dominion over everything. Jesus was tempted by Satan with a similar offer, dominion over everything if he bowed before him. And Jesus had rebuked him.

So, who was this voice talking to me? What if it was Satan? From Satan’s perspective glorifying me would be uplifting me to hell! This shouldn’t happen, I had to be prudent.

Further I was not confident about my knowledge on the Bible. I should be knowledgeable at least about the words said directly by God and Jesus.

Genesis, Books of Mathew, Mark, Luke and John; these were the books I should be knowing, the other books I can afford to have only faint knowledge. I was confident about Genesis as I felt that I was direct witness to it happening. But I was not certain about some portions regarding the words of Jesus. For e.g., the parable of the Unfaithful servant. The steward gave concessions to the debtors and the Master was happy with him for that. It was against logic. The master should be angry as he was actually making losses. Also, the parable of the fig tree that the master asked to be cut down after three years of futile waiting; then there was the parable of the Judge who went out to give justice fearing a woman. There was no way to understand what Jesus meant by these parables. My knowledge was incomplete.

And now I started harbouring doubts about that voice guiding me. The moment I started doubting it, a mighty cloud of fear descended upon me.

                                                                                       – 10 –

I felt that God had condemned me to death. This time there was no voice, I just knew it. Every cell in my body was screaming to be alert. 

I had angered the highest authority and there was no chance to appeal for mercy.

I started imagining how God would end my life. Already some force had tried twice to take my life with fire; so, fire would be a possibility. A meteor strike was another possibility. I preferred the second choice.

Strangely I felt an inner peace. Like the inner peace Issac would have felt when he felt that there was no chance of escape from death. His own father Abraham was about to sacrifice him. The storm would have been in the mind of Abraham.

God would be in a dilemma, I thought. He gave me the knowledge to write a book and guided me from 1997 for seven years. Now if he killed me then he had to find some else and start all over again.

That Sunday, 5th Jan 2004 I was alone in that building, the ground floor had heaps of paper (a printing press was working there), the first had a lot of wooden materials and the second floor had numerous mattresses stored one above the other. A perfect setting for an inferno.

I switched off the main switch to ensure that there wouldn’t be any short circuits. A deaf and mute person who was there saw me acting unnaturally and reported this to the Director; Some miscommunication happened and he came rushing there asking where the fire was.  Together we checked the building and found everything satisfactory other than an UPS which started working when I switched off the mains.  

On Monday morning mother called me and said that she wanted to hear my voice and we talked for a while. I wanted to say that I was still alive but didn’t because I feared she would say something about God and I would lose my temper. Instead, I asked if she was still alive. It was time for a meeting and I cut short the conversation. Throughout that day I was busy with work.

That night at 3 AM I was woken up by the Director and was told that there was a call from home. Instantly I knew that somebody was penalised for my obstinacy. He told me that my mother had suffered a fall and nobody had seen her falling. I was asked to rush home and that day was a hartal and vehicles were not allowed to ply. Luckily, I got an Interstate bus and rushed home.

I had this strange feeling that I wouldn’t see her again. And everything came rushing to my mind. The words I had spoken to her were the cause, I realised. I recollected the words I had spoken to her. Did I actually ask her if she was still alive when I wanted to say that I was still alive after the previous day’s experience. I realised that I made a slip of tongue. That was the trigger, I was convinced.

I had also said that everything would be all right after her time. I had said it in a moment of rage but she would have taken it seriously. My own words failed me.

I wept bitterly like Simon Peter, both of us were failed by our own words. That what was written in the scripture was fulfilled, And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death. Who the father was and who the brother was, I didn’t know at that time. But I knew that this was fulfilled.

By the time I reached the hospital (8 AM) she was no more. She had committed suicide; she had set herself on fire after dousing with kerosene and coconut oil. There were two inscriptions on the wall, ‘one shall die, let it be Leelamma Pathrose,’ and the second one, ‘Leelamma Pathrose for the sake of all.’

I was intrigued by her statement one of us should die. Did she also go through a similar situation like me? I had said that I would kill her in a fit of rage. Would she have had dreams of killing me in self-defense? How did she know that if she died, I would be spared?

On the way to the hospital, she said that she had done it for her children. She told those accompanying her that she was in a peaceful state of mind. Neither did she cry in pain nor did she ask anyone for help. To a nurse she said that she was doing it so that her son could marry. When they tried to administer her medicines, she asked them to let her die peacefully.

                                                                                        – 11 –

She had sacrificed her life for my sake. She had done what she could to save me from the wrath of God.  She had created an excuse for me to leave my job and to take up my real duty. She considered my duty more important than her own life!

She was my idol; she was aware of it and broke it herself. She was my never-ending source of comfort and she destroyed my comfort zone. She didn’t wait to see my marriage for there were no eyes. She was charred to death and had an unrecognisable face. I shivered when I saw the fury of God’s anger.

Before her body was brought home, people condemned her to be a mentally disordered one. She was under secret psychiatric treatment, they whispered. When there was no apparent reason how could anyone subject herself to this kind of punishment?

Was she disturbed by dreams or did someone treat her rudely? Someone said that there was a palmist in that area who could reading palms. She would have prophesied about a death happening in our family; otherwise why should she write that one of us should die? All her activities until then were scrutinised with a prejudiced mind.

The church authorities told me that she had written anonymous letters to them demanding unity among the warring Christian factions. They also told me that she had asked them to put out the pyre on the Christmas Eve, this was their biggest proof of her insanity. (I checked with my father about this and he told me that he had asked her about it;  she said that she had seen Jesus in the pyre and that was the reason for her objection) No one else asked her the reason, they simply judged her without listening to her side. 

The police also wrote the reason to be mental illness in their report.

The parish priest who had complimented her on my book said that she committed sin and should be buried separately. She had not received the last rites. He conceded to bury her in the family tomb only when my uncle threatened to use force.

God was punishing me even after her death and those punishments were harsher. My aunt said that she had seen a dream just before the time of the incident; she saw my mother falling into a gorge followed by my father. My father later said that it was God’s grace that he didn’t fall unconscious on my mother when she was burning. If he had tried to extinguish the fire with his hands, he would have endangered himself. God gave him courage to act bravely and to call the neighbours.

He added that she had cut a papaya tree on our compound earlier, citing that it was not yielding fruits.

I opened the bible for consolation. But what I got was the 47th and 48th verses of St.Luke: 12, And that servant, which knew his Lord’s will and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he that knew not and did commit things worthy of stripes shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more. 

I got the answer to my question- what the God was capable of doing if I challenged him? In one moment, I would have been rendered an orphan. I, who was proud on being blessed with everything, would have lost everything in one stroke. I thanked God for sparing my father and cursed myself for not being able to save my mother’s life.

I decided to yield to God’s wish that moment itself. When my employer called, I said that I was resigning.

If I didn’t explain why she did it, people would continue to condemn her as  an insane person. If I revealed only a part of it people wouldn’t understand me and they would condemn me also insane! I have to do full justice to my duty and that was the only way to give her justice.

I decided to submit myself fully to God’s will.

Jan 6th 2004 marked the end of the rebel (Antichrist) phase and marked the beginning of the next phase. 

                                                                                         – 12 –