Lauri Erik Karén

In the image of his international career, this trip to France ended up being a European tour. Four ceremonies celebrating his life were held in as many countries. Although my father lived most of his life in France, Finland remained his country to the very end. His ashes peacefully rest in the soil of Helsinki, in the waters of a lake near Hyvinkää where he spent time in his youth as a boy scout, as well as in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, so that his body may return to Japan where he was born and lived his first seven years.

Despite the happiness for where he is now, so much love poured out of the hundreds of people who came, it was hard not to feel terribly sad about his physical absence. Everyone had a funny story to tell about him and sweet songs to share, making us all laugh through our tears. He loved world traveling, children, cats, and chocolate. He was an extraordinary writer whose extreme concentration enabled him to accomplish in a couple of hours what took a full day for anyone else. The rest of the time he was a very quiet man, who read extensively and enjoyed the flowers and the birds in his garden.

He met his wife-to-be exactly fifty years ago, because of a novel! He had just landed in London from Finland, on a job for the BBC. With no money in his pocket and a deep love for reading, he walked into a store and asked for the thickest, cheapest book. He was handed The Count of Monte Cristo.... in French. The following day, he stepped into my mother-to-be’s French class.

The government officials who attended his funeral in Helsinki, remembered him as the foreign correspondent who, in 1969, took an official stand against Kekkonen, then President of Finland, in power for sixteen consecutive years. My father publicly denounced his hypocrisy for luring the Finnish people into believing that their only hope was in befriending communist USSR-Russia. For years, my father was blacklisted as the President’s Public Enemy #1. They reconciled much later.

Until my father retired, he worked for Helsingin Sanomat, Finland’s largest newspaper. Aatos Erkko, its owner, supported my father to the very end, honoring him with his biography to be published at a later date, his third and last book. My father’s archives include many pictures of him with the myriad of heads of states he interviewed throughout his illustrious career. In 1974, he covered the Watergate scandal, being the first Finnish correspondent for Helsingin Sanomat to be based in Washington D.C.. The U.S. were my father’s favorite assignment. He always said that it is the only country in the world where journalists are not only respected but also feared.

Despite revolutions, presidents dying, and wars being waged in our very living room, to me, Lauri Karén, was just my father. A man who didn’t speak much, was goofy, deep and simple at the same time, whose curiosity led him to widely varied interests. After he left his body, I went through the few hundreds books he had collected throughout his lifetime. It was a profound journey in his consciousness. There were books in ten languages, mostly political material. I also discovered about fifty dictionaries - five of which on American slang-, books on birds, flowers, sundials, Persian carpets, the power of pyramids, yoga, martial arts, and the secret intelligence of plants. There were also books on pretty much every city and country in the world (he was fascinated with cities with strange names), handwritten notes and newspaper clippings pouring out of each one of them. In the days leading up to his leaving his body, he was reading the Dalaï Lama in Finnish, Nostradamus in French, David Icke in English, a thriller in Swedish, the Japanese-Finnish dictionary his father, Artturi Karén had compiled, and Italian Made Simple. I wasn’t surprised to find dozens of books on reincarnation. Although a Protestant, he was a firm believer that we have many lives. He remembered vividly living in centuries past, as a government official in Japan, holder of a secret that led to his murder by a Samuraï. This is the reason why in this life-time, he never accepted any official position.

My father was convinced that our physical body is just "a cosmonaut’s suit" which we leave at the time of death for our soul to fly free in other dimensions. The son of my cousin Matti, little Finnish Oskar, was trying to organize in his five year old consciousness the fact that my father was gone. After countless questions, his whole face lit up with a bright smile: "I get it! Uncle Lauri is the air in a balloon that floats around and will never go out."

It is my uncle Aulis, a Lutheran priest in the footsteps of his own father, Artturi Karén, who performed my father’s funeral. He related a dream he had had a week before my father passed away. Aulis was visiting his daughter’s new home. It was filled with light. He was astonished to see Lauri there, happily singing in a corner. My uncle Aulis listened in surprise, noticing for the first time that his brother had the voice of an Angel.

This Summer Solstice brings back very special memories for me of countless summers with him in Finland. After taking a sauna, we would sit by one of the 60 000 lakes of this land at the end of land, eating blueberries we had picked in the forest, at twelve on our watches not knowing from the bright sunlight, whether it was noon or midnight.

I was about eleven years old. At the time, we were living in Geneva. One morning, my father thought we should go and ski. By the time we arrived, there was a snowstorm and all the ski lifts were closed. Anybody else would have just turned back home. But my father decided we had come to ski, and being the good Taurus that he was, that was that. So up the mountain we walked, in the worst of blizzards, with our ski boots on and our skis on our shoulders, in knee-deep snow. By the time we reached the summit, night had fallen. Nine hours of exhausting effort for a magical five-minute downhill ride in the silence of the dark.

In all the pictures I took at the various ceremonies honoring my father’s life journey, I asked that he appear. And he did! In each photograph there are orbs, but one in particular draws a beautiful heart-shape right over his coffin. He had been curious for a long time about the other side and was excited to take that big journey. He abandoned his body around 6 AM on May 7th, 2006, a few days after his 79th birthday, the day after his first grand-daughter’s birthday, exactly 49 days before his second grand-daughter’s birthday.

His departure from our planet still awakens much grief, and yet, at the same time I am blessed to still see him and talk to him. In a way, he is closer than ever. It is a very profound experience to be guided and taught by him from the other side. Although much sleep is still required to process the amount of information shared, all that he was, and is even more now that he has re-integrated his cosmic self, permeates and expands all that I am. Suddenly the quotation at the beginning of his auto-biography makes complete sense:

Se, joka ei tiedä, mistä hän tulee ei tiedä, mihin hän menee sillä hän ei tiedä, missä hän on."

(He who doesn’t know where he comes from, does not know where he’s going, because he does not know where he is.)

My father, Lauri Erik Karén, was right all along: death IS an illusion.

We may pursue all sorts of things in our lives. In the end, only two things count: being who we are and the love we shared.

With all my love. M.

My Father Today

My father believed in reincarnation and had promised he would give me a sign after his death to prove that the afterlife was real. He kept his word. These conversations started about 4 months after his death in a strange and unplanned way. My dear friends Jane and Karl had been working with the Ouija board for many years and invited me to a session with them.

I was very dubious. Yet, when my father unexpectedly came through, I knew without a doubt that neither one of them could have made it up. It was clearly his voice and his special humor. There was no doubt that he was still alive and well and talking to me from the other side. At first he let the Elohims -who also called themselves 7-, talk for him as he was not familiar with the workings of the board. Later on, he became more fluent in this new "language" and was able to speak to us directly without any translation. Enjoy hereafter a few extracts from these conversations.

August 14, 2006

Elohims: Not all the guest speakers can work the board from this side.

MK: are you talking about my father?

7: Yes.

MK: would you translate please?

7: Yes. He would not have believed this ouija board would have worked in his physical form. He thinks it's much like a telegraph.

MK: does he have something to say to me specifically?

7: He says he would like to tell it to you in your dreams. He wants you to know how much he loves you and he's sorry he doubted your gift.

September 28, 2006

7: Lauri has been waiting. He prefers to speak through us. He says that communication through the board is a quantum leap akin to moving from a typewriter to a computer. He wants to assure Michelle that there is continuity of the soul and that the soul seeks to be both creative and joyful.

MK: Is he well?

7: Yes!!! He says he likes this new journey. He says it is as though he has awakened from a deep sleep.

MK: That's exciting!

7: He thinks so too. He says it is difficult to emphasize enough that the spiritual realm is a place where the whole of our existence can be experienced as though someone had taken off the blinders.

November 8, 2006

7: We have an honored guest with us tonight.

MK: My father?

7: Yes. He is ready for questions.

MK: Where is he right now?

Lauri: It is very much like Finland because that is what I am projecting as a mental construct.

7: He says it is as real as physical reality.

MK: What work is he doing right now?

7: At the moment he is adjusting to the new environment and enjoying his exploration of his non-physical home. He is fascinated by the non-physical realm.

MK: Why is that?

7: He would like to figure out a method to communicate about it to people still in corporeal form and who fear death. He says "Death is great!". He is fascinated by his newly found abilities to manifest his thoughts instantaneously.

MK: Can he teach us that?

7: It is simply a matter of believing it is possible. That is the trick. Although not as simple when it involves another person. Freewill comes into play. It must be the desire of both people.

MK: What else is he doing?

7: He is gathering research. He is truly astounded he says, by the contrast between the reality of the non-physical and his preconceived ideas.

MK: How is the non-physical different?

7: He thought it was an end more like a dream, nothing like the solid very real experience that it is. Yes! And with greater possibilities than corporeal form such as manifesting thought forms and exploring the myriad possibilities of that thought form and then vaporizing that construct and creating a new one.

MK: Do those mental constructs affect us on our plane, or is it only for fun?

7: Both. Though the spirit realm must be given permission to do anything that would influence the physical.

January 28, 2007

7: We have our honored guest Lauri Karén here.

Jane: Welcome!

Lauri: Hello! This is Lauri. I have been practicing. It is like the movie about the Ghost.

MK: The Demi Moore movie?

Lauri: Yes. How he learned to move physical objects as a non-physical being.

MK: What do you now know about reincarnation?

Lauri: It is a certainty. The surprise for me is that incarnations occur simultaneously.

September 16, 2007

Jane: Hello and welcome.

7: Aloha.

Jane: Welcome!

7: Yes.

Jane: Whom do we have with us this beautiful night?

7: we will move ahead with our very excited guest star, Lauri Karén!

Jane: Welcome M. Karén

7: He says he has been practicing the telepathic teletype.

Jane: You mean the board?

7: Yes.

(the energy shifts. Planchette slows down and...)

Lauri: Hello Michelle! Pretty good don't you think?

MK: Very good!

Lauri: I am the sanomat (Finnish for "newspaper") reporter in the fourth dimension.

Jane: It is an honor to have you. Your daughter missed you.

Lauri: No need to miss me, I am always right with you. Now, questions or stories about my adventures?

MK: Stories about your adventures...

Lauri: I have further investigated the multiple timelines. Very complicated. There have been experiments in time that have altered the continuum and opened portals to the Earth system. Undesirable entities have gained access to the Earth. One such portal is over the Middle-East.

MK: Is this why there is war over there?

Lauri: These entities thrive on fear and violence. It is a concern because an altered timeline has replaced the timeline put in place by Master Jesus.

Jane: How can we help on this side?

Lauri: Realize your mastery and begin visualizing its repair and stabilization.

MK: What does 'mastery' mean?

Lauri: It is not that you cannot walk on water, it is that you do not yet believe you can. This is due to effective indoctrination and mind control.

7: We are fading. Lauri says he loves you and sees your smile always. And now dreams of 7. Goodbye.

A few more communications followed this one. And then I moved to AZ. My dear friends Jane and Karl moved to HI and those eerie nights of communications with the other side of the veil in the magic of their sacred ranch, were replaced by my own clear knowingness of his continued presence. I know he has much work to do on the other side but I also continue feeling his support and love in unconditional ways.

A little over 6 years later, shortly after the sudden, unexpected, accidental death of my sister, I had a dream. My father was showing me around a house I didn't recognize. He led me upstairs and opened a door. From under the covers on the bed, my sister emerged, with a mischievous smile, happy about the good trick she had played on me. I couldn't believe that she was still alive. Why had everybody told me she had crossed over!

I have no fear of death, because truly, there is only life. Life in different forms. Life in different dimensions. Just life. All the time spent in fear is truly wasted. Life is meant to be experienced, explored, lived, one moment at a time, in presence to the present, with all our heart.

Because in the end, the only thing that really counts, the only thing that truly remains is the love we gave, unconditionally.