GOD AND THE PYRAMID OF AUSTERLITZ

A little over 9 years ago I had a life altering experience. It was weeks before I got on a plane and started a new life in Asia. It was a cold, windy, rainy day in February 2000 when I visited the Pyramid of Austerlitz. I even decided to write a little about it in my book Pantau in India.

This is what I wrote:

The next day I drove over to Austerlitz to sit on top of Napoleon’s Pyramid. They had made a start to restore the Pyramid to its former glory. It was Wednesday, February 2nd, 2000. I had made an important decision. I had decided to make this day the Day of my Death.
I climbed up to the top of the pyramid, climbed the ladder that gave access to the plateau and the obelisk. The sun had just come up over the forestry horizon of the Utrecht Hill Ridge and she shone tender yellow bundles of rays through small openings in a dark grey blanket of clouds. I sat in lotus position, rocking and shaking like an oriental monk, staring at the rapidly passing clouds. Like Napoleon, I had stuck my hand in my coat, feeling my heartbeat in the palm of my hand.
Throughout my life I hadn’t met anyone who was truly happy. I had never met anyone who could show me the way to happiness. I was tired of taking my Prozac three times daily. I was tired of not knowing what kind of future I should have. I wanted to end the misery, the pain, the restlessness, the anxiety. I wanted to end my life. Today was the day of my death. Tonight. In the waterbed. I had already switched off the heating system in order to let the water cool down. Sleeping pills. Collected over a period of five months. Enough to kill all the residents of my apartment building. The CD-player switched on. Streisand in random and repeat-mode.
I directed my face to the sky and saw a blue opening in the clouds. I was caught in a bundle of light. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. It was as if I received a positive message from the ether. As if lightning struck me from a clear sky, a divine voice seemed to talk to me. I could hear it very clearly.
‘A soldier ought to know how to overcome his grief and the melancholy of his passions; that there is as much true courage in bearing mental affliction manfully as in remaining unmoved under the fire of a battery. To abandon oneself to grief without resisting, and to kill oneself in order to escape from it, is like abandoning the field of battle before being conquered.
‘Napoleon Bonaparte once spoke those historic words, my dear Véronique. It was Me who inspired him to say them. There is no need for you to kill yourself. When you listen to your heart, the stars in the universe will conspire to make your dreams come true. Go. Véronique. Go! GO! Travel through the world and find your destiny! It’s out there for you. You can experience everything you want as long as you listen to your heart and do what it tells you to do.
‘Listen to your feelings. They’re the language I communicate in. As I take an interest in your happiness, I have been trying to send you messages of wisdom, but for years you’ve been ignoring me. And as I fly above you like a crow, my view is much better than yours. I can see good and bad things coming your way. If you listen to your heart, I can let you know in advance what choices to make and which path to take. I know the outcome of every decision you make. Ye be warned. Let me help you, so I can promise you a happy ending. Walk with Me and Thou shalt find happiness. Amen!’
I shook my head. Many people had gone mad after taking drugs and I had been smoking my butt off as well as pumping professionally prescribed chemicals into my brain for almost half a year now. I couldn’t trust my own brain or these strange voices from the sky, no matter whether the voices had good intentions.
I shook my head again as I had felt the strange feeling and hearing the divine voice to be the combined effects of the high amounts of THC and anti-depressants in my blood. I denied hearing the voice.
‘You’re not real. It’s my brain that’s gone mad!’ I shouted at the sky.
The voice disappeared and it immediately started to rain. I descended the pyramid, went back to my car and drove home. I agreed that my life was like the Chinese circus act with the white porcelain plates rotating on flexible sticks. It was meant to fail at some point. My life was like a house of cards that was doomed to collapse. I didn’t need anyone anymore. It was the day of my death.

So, now 9 years on I can look back to that day and conclude that I didn’t kill myself. That night I decided that it was the first day of the rest of my life. Last Saturday, I visited the Pyramid for the first time in 9 years. Now fully restored, it was an interesting experience. I even decided to take a picture of the thing. Goodbye Pyramid of Austerlitz. And thank you God.