An ancient story describing the sequence of events that led to the birth of the first theft, is told in Rosalis von Sass’s book, “Threads of Fate Determine Human Life.”  The story describes Evie’s jealousy of Yora, who has a wreath of shiny, red feathers. She decides to steal it and bury it in the forest. Although a little voice inside her tries to warn her against it, Evie chooses to ignore it. To make matters worse, she does not admit to stealing the wreath, thereby adding to the burden of her wrong actions.

Feeling blinded by the desire to possess such a wreath, Evie sends her husband, Vau, to the dangerous swamps so he can bring her similar feathers. While hunting for the shiny bird, Vau is badly injured when his spear hits a wasps’ nest. This turn of events is karma in action – Vau suffers consequences for his choices to participate in his wife’s greed and hurt others.

In the story, Evie did not tell the truth and instead chose to listen to the voices of her intellect and emotions, which steered her away from doing the right thing. Going down this path of ignoring her intuition, which is the spiritual inner compass, had Evie convinced that this wrong path was the right one. Her choice burdened her with heavy karma, which she carried with her throughout lifetimes. Because of it, through the incarnations that followed, a kind of “mold” covered her delicate body and face and dimmed her inner light. Evie continued to be led mostly by her intellect, which suffocated and overpowered her spirit. At the time this story was written, Evie was an ugly, sick woman, who was always unhappy and full of resentment against God who, according to her, “always distributed gifts to human beings so unfairly.” She did not realize that her situation was a direct result of the former choices she had made.

Vau, unlike Evie, did not give in to the ways of the intellect. In the incarnations that followed, he kept his connection to the Light by listening to his intuition. He became a famous researcher and experienced tremendous joy through his love for nature’s creatures. He shared this love with his beloved daughter, who was Yora’s reincarnation.

This story shows the inner conflict between the intellect and emotions versus the voice of the spirit. The spirit speaks to us through our intuition. When we ignore our inner guidance, we make harmful choices and burden ourselves with heavy karma, leading to suffering. If we don’t correct the karma in time, it may prevent us from developing in the right way according to the Universal Laws of Creation and stop us from returning to our spiritual home – Paradise. The story teaches us that even a single wrong act that we might consider insignificant, can profoundly affect our spiritual development across many lifetimes, unless we make choices that align with the Universal Laws of Creation. The Law of Karma, one of the Universal Laws, operates with perfect justice and accuracy. It is not a punishment, but an opportunity for learning and correcting choices we made in the past. If we fail to use this opportunity, it becomes a cycle of an ongoing suffering.