2. Mrs. Yerg Y.
Story of
People Who Died but Re-Alived
Story #1:
Mrs. Yerg Yon-Yoo
Mrs. Yerg
Yon-Yoo lived in village number 6, Bang-Duer Sub-District, Muang District,
Pathumthani Province, Thailand. In 1916,
when she was 30 year old, she gave birth to her third child, but the infant
died soon later on. Mrs. Yerg lost so
much blood from giving birth to her child, and her body was so weak as well as
her pulse. As a result, she passed away
leaving her husband and children who were grievous.
According to
the local tradition, the corpse was kept for memorial service for the period of
seven days. So, her family invited
Buddhist monks to perform the memorial service every evening. However, after the period of three days, Mrs.
Yerg’s breathless corpse still looked like a sleeping person unlike other
common dead corpses that looked very pale.
As such, her relatives still hoped that Mrs. Yerg may come back to life,
so they did not placed her corpse into a coffin, but simply cover her body with
a white blanket. If Mrs. Yerg did not
become alive again, they planned to place Mrs. Yerg’s body into a coffin after
seven days for cremation ceremony further.
In the
morning of the seventh day, Mr. Pare who was Mrs. Yerg’s husband and other
relatives arranged for merit making ceremony preparing to place Mrs. Yerg into
a coffin for cremation on that very day.
During the ceremony, Buddhist monks and numerous village people attended
the religious service. However, amidst
the people who were grieving at the ceremony, Mrs. Yerg’s body which was
covered with a white blanket started to move and roused with opened eyes.
People were
surprised and scared, so they started to run away. Then, Mrs. Yerg spoke with a gentle voice “I
am not dead yet, my husband.”
After
hearing Mrs. Yerg speaking, people started to surround Mrs. Yerg who was so
depleted because she had not eaten anything for seven days. After Mrs. Yerg had a meal and her body
started to function as usual, she no longer had sickness from losing blood
during giving birth to her child. Thus,
Mrs. Yerg started to tell people about her afterlife experience in details.
Mrs. Yerg
said when she was sick of losing blood from delivering her third child, she
felt so weak and tried to sleep, but she saw the spirit of her dead child standing
close to her feet. Her child pulled her
toes saying “Mom, let’s go.” Then, she
no longer felt sick. With care toward
her child, her spirit roused and followed her child. But not so long after that, Mrs. Yerg was
lost in the middle of nowhere and unable to follow her child. She became aware of this when her spirit
stood alone beside a big wall. Mrs. Yerg
was amazed why she ended up standing there alone. She felt like getting lost, and the place
looked frightening. The wall that she
saw looked like a prison’s wall which was very tall and long. There were guards standing at forts of the
wall. Mrs. Yerg walked along the wall
thinking that she would be able to find people, but she found nobody at
all. After a while, she heard the bangle
noise from the other side of the wall, Mrs. Yerg was curious of what was behind
the wall, so she walked until reaching a gate.
As she looked inside, she saw so many prisoners who were chained at
their neck and legs, and these made the bangle noise. Mrs.
Yerg doubted why so many people were punished to be chained like that, so she
asked the guard at the gate “Can I go inside to take a look?”
The guard
replied “No! Only the accompanied ones can enter this zone.”
After
hearing that, Mrs. Yerg continued walking along the wall until she arrived a
big square connected to a big road where numerous corpses were carried
along. In the middle of the square,
there was a throne where an elegant man was seated. Beside the elegant man, there was another
person sitting with a black book that looked like an ancient scripture placing
on the desk at the lower level to the elegant man’s throne. The elegant man and the person sitting beside
him dressed like actors of a drama. Mrs.
Yerg could figure out that the elegant man was the judge of purgatory (hell) or
‘Yomma-Raja’. The corpses which were
carried along the road were laid down in front of the throne by the ogres. As the corpses were laid down in front of the
throne, the judge of purgatory questioned the book-keeper who worked on the
black book “What misdeeds did he do?”
The book-keeper opened the black book and said “This person is
sinful. He committed so many misdeeds,
and did no good deeds. He deserves
punishment for his karma.” Then, the judge
commanded the ogres to drag the convicted to receive punishment further.
Mrs. Yerg
stood there looking at the judge considering punishment for many dead
people. Some of them were thrown into
bonfire. Some of them were slashed at
their back with hot iron cable, and some were thrown into the bushes full of
sharp thorns. As Mrs. Yerg was
witnessing various forms of torturing punishment, she was so frightened, but
she still eager to see more as the ogres kept carrying corpses to the front of
throne. For some of the dead people,
after the book-keeper checked the black book, he informed the judge “This
person is a good and virtuous one. This
person made much merit, and it’s not the end of his lifetime yet.” By the end of these words, the spirit was
transformed from a laid down corpse to be a sitting person showing respect to
the judge in a prayer manner. Then, the
judge said “You made much merit, and this is good for you. Please continue doing good deeds. It’s not the end of your lifetime yet, please
return and don’t be reckless.”
By the end
of the judge’s teaching, the ogres took the spirit out from the square. Once the judge saw Mrs. Yerg standing there,
he asked her “Who are you? How come you
are standing here?” The judge questioned
because, normally, the spirits of the dead must be accompanied by ogres
officials for judgment, but Mrs. Yerg was by herself and she was not tied like
other spirits. After hearing the gentle
voice of the judge, Mrs. Yerg replied “I got lost and arrived this place, sir.”
Hence, the
judge asked her name and ordered the book-keeper to check the black book for
her background and what caused her to be there.
After checking the book, the book-keeper replied “This is a good and
honest person. She behaves morally and
made many meritorious deeds. It is not
the end of her lifetime yet.” The judge
replied “Well, it’s good that you made merit.
The merit will be the earning to yourself.” After the end of the judge’s words, Mrs. Yerg
saw images of her meritorious deeds in front of her such as the images of a
Buddhist chapel with peak-gables and ringing bells hung around the roof-edges,
and a pavilion at a pier with clear and cool water flowing. Looking to another direction, Mrs. Yerg saw a
big hall where numerous dishes of meal were served. Mrs. Yerg did not quite remember where the
Buddhist temple was, but she felt very much delightful to see the images and
forgot all the fear until she heard the judge saying again “You have not
reached the end of your lifetime yet.
You will be able to do more good deeds.
You must return for now.”
Mrs. Yerg
was glad to hear that, so she showed respect to the judge again and walked away
heading to her house. As she looked
back, the place already disappeared. She
gained awareness again as she walked on another route of road which was clean
and shady with trees, bushes, and flowers planted nicely and orderly. Mrs. Yerg could smell the fragrance of
colorful flowers. It was daytime while she was walking, but the sky was cloudy
and the atmosphere was chilling. As she
continued walking, she arrived a village where beautiful houses situated on both
sides of the road. People there were
beautiful and dressed with valuable clothes.
When Mrs. Yerg walked by, they smiled and greeted her with good
friendship. This made Mrs. Yerg doubtful
about what merit made the villagers looked so happy. While Mrs. Yerg enjoyed looking at the
village, she reached a house which was also beautiful like other houses. Someone walked out from the house and told
Mrs. Yerg “Madam Yerg, this house belongs to you. By the end of your lifetime, you will come to
live in this house.”
Upon hearing
this, Mrs. Yerg was so glad, but Mrs. Yerg departed and headed to her human
house hurriedly since she missed her children.
Before she gained consciousness, her spirit heard some noise which
became louder and louder, and Mrs. Yerg found out later that it was the crying
noise of her husband who was sitting close to the head of her lying human body covered
with a white blanket. This was why she
responded “I am not dead yet, my husband.”
Mrs. Yerg became
alive again and continued her living by making more meritorious deeds. She was very healthy until 1977, at the age
of 91 year old, she called her children and grandchildren for a gathering and
taught them to live in harmony, never quarrel upon each other, makes merits,
spend money earned with much effort in the beneficial ways without causing
troubles to oneself and the family. Mrs.
Yerg informed her children and grandchildren that she would pass away in the
next four days, and they should not cry or grieve because birth, aging, and death
were a common nature, and nobody could flee from them. She wished every of her children and
grandchildren to live happily.
On the
fourth day, Mrs. Yerg passed away peacefully at her house in village number 6,
Bang Duer Sub-District, Pathumthani Province, Thailand.
Source:
http://www.mindcyber.com/content/data/7/0001-1.html
https://www.gotoknow.org/posts/404152
Translated from Thai to English on 14 August 2018
by Pittaya Wong
www.meditation101.org
