Wilja Witcombe/Devanampiya Tissa

Wilja Witcombe is a German national who works as a business development specialist in Sri Lanka.  Wilja found the book, Born Again, by Walter Semkiw, MD, in a book store in Sri Lanka and she was drawn to the contents as she too has had a dramatic experience involving a past lifetime.  Wilja composed a narrative regarding her story, which will appear in a new book by Dr. Semkiw entitled Origin of the Soul and the Purpose of Reincarnation.  The tale of Devanampiya Tissa and Wilja is provided below:

The King and I

by Wilja Witcombe

Have you ever been told as a child that you are disobedient? That you should behave, “follow protocol,” drop a curtsey to guests visiting your parents as well-behaved little girls do (at least at the time I was a kid)?  I couldn’t see the point that I had to do something like this … remembering that “originally” others had to curtsey to me and not vice versa.

To make me comply with what was expected of a well-educated girl, my parents sent me to kindergarten, where I had to curtsey on arrival and departure. I did this to have peace of mind.  But do not think that I would have done the curtsey at home – no way!

The same stubbornness I showed with titles. The fact that I refused to use academic, political or aristocratic titles when addressing people annoyed my parents. I especially remembered when we had to meet our family doctor who, following good old German tradition, had to be addressed as “Herr Doktor,” and not as “Herr Peterson” as I used to address him.

Whenever my mother took me to the hairdresser as a little girl, she dropped me at the men’s section to have my hair cut, not at the ladies’. Whenever “the job” was done and I looked into the mirror to acknowledge my new haircut, the only thought I always had was, “I look like a little fat king again!”

My first piece of jewelry was given by my maternal grandma when I was three years old. It was a gold ring over 120 years old with a pinkish stone, handed down from generation to generation. Grandma told me to always remember the name of the stone and where it came from: the stone, so she said, is a padparadscha (belongs to the family of sapphires) and comes from a far-away country called Ceylon. Therefore, Ceylon was the first foreign country I heard about as a child, growing up in post-war Germany.

When I was about 3 years old, my father introduced a young colleague to our family who was the first foreign worker in our small, rural community. The gentleman came from     Calcutta in India. He had studied engineering in the UK and had found a job at the company my father was working for as head of the chemical lab. As the young Indian engineer did not speak German at the time and as most of his new colleagues didn’t speak any English, my father gave a helping hand, looked after him at work and asked him every weekend to come and join us at home.

Prem had a problem with German food and therefore enjoyed being at our place on Sundays where he would cook “Indian style.” He had a small suitcase filled with all kinds of chutneys and spices as well as original tea from the plantation of his brother in Assam. I grew up with the oriental taste of the exotic cuisine from India at an early age – a taste which appealed more to me than the good old German “hausmannskost.”

I was always very fascinated by the gifts our Indian friend would bring back to Germany when he returned from trips to Calcutta. Jewelry and sarees for his German wife were just out of this world … the colors, the designs, the touch and feel of the materials, the furniture that followed, the rugs, the ornaments … something I had seen before … I began to feel somehow homesick, but homesick for what?

My parents had given me three first names. Being a girl, they used the female version of my father’s name “Klaus” and called me “Claudia.” I never felt comfortable with this name.   It just wasn’t me. The last of the three names was “Wilja,” which I always liked best – it felt “me.” But of course, as a child, I did not dare to complain about my name and kept quiet.

Years passed. I started school, finished school, started university, finished university, started my business career and started to travel more and more. During the winter season in Europe, I felt the necessity to escape to warmer regions on planet Earth. In 1986 I went for a 6-week holiday to Asia – my first trip to the Far East. I immediately fell in love with Asia, the different countries, people, cultures, religions, customs and traditions. I just couldn’t get enough of what this continent had to offer, what it could teach me, and I therefore decided to return to the Far East each year.

At this time, I changed my name to “Wilja”– that made me feel more “me” and “complete,” more in sync with my own true self. My environment was amazed but so what? Dare to be different! Live your own life the way you feel it; right!

In May 1997, I visited the Maldives. The hotel director of the holiday resort I stayed at was a very open-hearted man named Rohan, who looked after his guests very well and with a lot of commitment, enthusiasm, passion and joy. I immediately had a warm, comfortable and trustful feeling towards him – a feeling as if I had not seen him for a long, long time, but of course, we had never met before.

When Rohan asked me what I was doing business-wise and I explained the project I was working on at that time, he immediately offered me his help and assistance to explore business opportunities in Sri Lanka, the country he originated from. Although he was working on this tiny atoll in the Indian Ocean, his wife, brother and father would be at my side in Sri Lanka to make introductions and arrange business meetings for me. Everything felt so “normal” and for the first time in my life, I did what I had never done before: I plunged into the “unknown,” told him that I would take his offer and go to Sri Lanka in July: he should inform his family and start arranging business meetings.

July came and I left for a 3-week business trip to Colombo, Sri Lanka. I met Rohan’s family at the Hotel Intercontinental and immediately fell in love with them all, fell in love with Sri Lanka! For the first time in my life, I felt “at home”– a strange, weird, unknown feeling that I could not understand myself as I had visited over 60 countries, liked most of them, but never had any emotional sensation of this kind.

So it was: I embraced everybody and everything that I encountered. I absorbed the culture, the customs, the traditions. I absorbed Buddhism, was taken to different temples for poojas (religious ceremonies) and was taken to various astrologers and “holy men” to get my future predicted and talismans made to protect me.

I learned about religious ceremonies. Strangely enough, I felt very close to Buddhism on   one side, but on the other side (over the following years), I became more critical and   sometimes angry with the way Buddhism was practiced. I couldn’t understand why I felt so compassionate about this philosophy, but here it was again: this stubbornness from my childhood stopping me to bow or kneel down in front of Buddhist monks (it is called     “worshiping”) to show respect, to always sit lower than they do, to serve food to them, offer gifts, etc. Something deep inside me was unhappy, or should I say, tried to signal something. I did not understand myself why I balked at this.

Rohan’s family was a treasure: they all looked after me like a very close relative that had not been in the country for a long time. They made a lot of introductions, they arranged business meetings, and they were always around me to make my stay in Sri Lanka as comfortable, successful and pleasant as possible. When my 3 weeks were over, I returned to Europe, but I had already scheduled my next visit for September/October of the same year. That was only the start of a series of trips that were to follow over the next five years.

In October 1997, Rohan, who came for a short holiday from the Maldives to see his family, took me for a meeting with the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranike, who was the world’s first female Prime Minister in 1960. It was a private meeting at Mrs. Bandaranaike’s residence in Colombo, and we had a lengthy chat about my experiences of and feelings for Sri Lanka.

Exactly a year later, in October 1998, I met Mrs. Bandaranaike again. This time, it was an official meeting at the Prime Minister’s office to discuss charity matters.

When the meeting was over, I was taken to one of the back rooms to wait for my car and driver. In this room one of Mrs. Bandaranaike’s private secretaries was seated, an elderly man, sitting at his desk and staring at me in dismay. He could not say a word, he was speechless – he just stared at me with his mouth open, obviously not believing whom or what he was seeing. First, I took it jokingly by asking him if my lipstick or mascara was smudged or upside down, but he still seemed to be flabbergasted and in shock, as if he had seen a ghost. It took me at least 10 minutes to encourage him to talk to me and for him to regain his composure.

When he was finally able and willing to talk, he asked me if I would know who I am. This time, it was I who stared at him. “I think so,” I heard me saying. He then asked me, “Have you been to Anuradhapura?” (Anuradhapura is the ancient city of former kings of  Sri Lanka. Today only ruins are left of the royal palaces.) “No,” I replied, “it is still on my “to do” list. But why do you ask me that?” And again, the man went silent, just staring at me. It again took me some minutes to persuade him to come up with the next piece of information.

He finally said to me, “I have my Third Eye open and can see the past of a person. I therefore would like you to go to Anuradhapura, alone, and walk around the ruins. You will then feel and know that you once have been one of our ancient kings, and you will be able to identify what part of the palace and buildings had been built during your reign.” Now I was stunned and speechless. The secretary did not want to disclose any further information, but insisted that I should go to the ancient city of kings to discover my past.

After this extraordinary encounter, I started to wonder if this man was fantasizing or if there could really be this odd chance of me having been an ancient king of Sri Lanka that was reborn this time as a white female from Europe! At least it would explain my immediate passion for the country, the people, the culture, etc.

About 6 weeks after this strange meeting at the Prime Minister’s office, I was invited to a private event in Colombo, and destiny repeated itself: this time, an elderly woman   looked at me in disbelief from a distance, and then approached me to tell me what I had heard before: that I had been one of Ceylon’s ancient kings and have obviously returned to finish “my job” from the past.

So here I was – puzzled, amused, concerned, curious, surprised, wondering, amazed, worried … Who was I? What did these two people see in me? How could they see my past? What secrets did life keep for me to uncover?

Another strange thing happened: since my first visit to Sri Lanka, I became interested in Ayurveda, the ancient science of life, i.e. healing. I had various meetings with Ayurvedic doctors and noticed that whenever I introduced myself by saying “Hi, my name is Wilja,” they looked at me a little bit surprised, though I didn’t know why. One day, one Ayurvedic doctor told me that the way I pronounce my name is Sanskrit, the ancient language of Asia, and it means “high efficiency”! So here I was again ... I do not think that my German parents had any idea of Sanskrit when they chose this name as one of my first names, but I am thankful they did!

Years passed. I commuted a lot between the UK where I lived and Sri Lanka, and then decided in 2002 to finally move to Colombo. Rohan had returned from his assignment in the Maldives and was now in charge of managing six hotels for a big Sri Lankan conglomerate. He and his wife had encouraged me to move over and be part of their family. I had a contract in Sri Lanka for a project to develop, strengthen and promote two industries of the country. This was something new to me as I had always been in private industry doing sales and marketing, but development work was something that I always wanted to do as a teenager. I started my new assignment with a lot of joy and passion, always supported by “my little family.”

Then, life’s road took another turn: my dear friend Rohan, while on a business trip to the UK to promote Sri Lanka as a tourist destination, suffered a massive heart attack on the last day of his trip. When the phone call came to inform us about him struggling for his life in a hospital in Birmingham, his wife and two young daughters were living in my house as their new house had not been completed on time and they needed a temporary home. Lekha, his wife, left for the UK. I stayed in Colombo, looking after the children. Rohan’s time was up: he died two weeks later, having just turned 43 while being in a coma.

We were all shocked. Was this a bad dream? How could this happen? Why did it happen? Our future was gone! No Rohan, no future!

Now it was my turn to look after the family, after Lekha and the two girls, to help them come to terms with reality, their new lives, paint a picture of a new future. Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, months into years.

I was always wondering what karmic relationship I had with Rohan. It was clear to me that I had known him not only for the seven years we have had together in this lifetime. I was wondering why he had persuaded me to come and visit and then move to Sri Lanka. What was our history, our joint past?

In November 2006, I saw Walter Semkiw’s book, Born Again, in a shop in Colombo. I bought it, read it and sent an email to Walter giving him my feedback, inputs and personal experiences. Walter replied within three days and since then, we have started to communicate and cooperate on the topic of reincarnation. When I mentioned to him my passion for Sri Lanka, I suddenly remembered the two “identifications” of 1998 as an ancient king. Walter volunteered to ask Ahtun Re, the Egyptian spirit guide whom Kevin Ryerson, the medium who is mentioned in Walter’s book, is channeling through, for clarification.

Some days later, Walter confirmed what the two people had told me in 1998. According to Ahtun Re, I had been an ancient king of Ceylon, one who brought great “spiritual reform” to Ceylon. Ahtun Re had also given some letters of a name but if you have never heard a Sinhalese word, it is difficult to absorb the correct spelling. Ahtun Re said that the name was along the lines of “Devalnu,” though the name was an unusual one and the true name could be a variant of Devalnu. Walter explained that even for Ahtun Re, names can be difficult to ascertain precisely, as Ahtun Re perceives them phonetically. In his experience, though, Walter said that Ahtun Re is very accurate in finding a soul in time and place. Walter asked me to do some research and report back to him as he had another session with Kevin/Ahtun Re lined up for the following weekend.

I started my research surfing the Internet that night and downloading a list of all kings of Ceylon of the Anuradhapura period. The next morning, I called up a colleague who had studied Sri Lankan history. When I asked him about a king from Anuradhapura who had brought spiritual reform, he immediately said: “That is King Devanampiya Tissa (reign 247-207 BCE).  He introduced Buddhism to this country 2,200 years ago!”

Wow!!! So here I was ... Now it made sense to me why I fell in love with Sri Lanka and   her people immediately and why I was so skeptical about the practical side of Buddhism in Sri Lanka.

I sent an email to Walter with all the necessary details and within a week, I had his, i.e. Ahtun Re’s positive feedback: yes, King Devanampiya Tissa was the ancient king I had been once before. Walter noted that Ahtun Re did get the first part of the name right with the letters “Deva-n.” No other king of Ceylon has a name that starts with this combination of letters. 

Now came the next piece of the puzzle: who was Rohan before? He must have been part of my “royal life.” That was absolutely certain to me. I started to read as much as I could on King Devanampiya Tissa and also booked a telephone session with Kevin Ryerson/Ahtun Re.

A couple of days before the session, I found the piece of information I was looking for: King Devanampiya Tissa was married and had a little son. His wife, whose name is not known, was jealous that in case of his early death, one of his brothers would take over the throne instead of their son. To assure her son’s right to the throne, the wife decided to kill Tissa’s brother by sending him a basket of ripe mangoes. She poisoned the biggest, nicest and shiniest mango and put it on top of the basket. When the brother received the basket, Tissa’s young son was with him. The son took the top mango, ate it and died.

This was my realization. I intuitively knew who Rohan had been: I had known him for only 7 years in this lifetime, the lifespan of a child … Rohan had been King Devanampiya Tissa’s son – my son!

When I had the telephone session with Kevin, I asked Ahtun Re what karmic relationship I had with Rohan. Ahtun Re immediately confirmed what I had found out some days earlier: that Rohan was King Devanampiya Tissa’s young, innocent son who was poisoned by his own mother and died!

Now I understand the saying: death ends a life, not a relationship!

So, here I am: living in Sri Lanka, looking after Rohan’s widow and my karmic great, great, great, great grandchildren!  Is the karmic lifecycle now complete? I don’t know.

I do now see and understand the hints and signs destiny had provided throughout my life: my first piece of jewelry with the padparadscha stone from Ceylon, my identification with a Sanskrit name, my early introduction to spicy, Indian food and Asian culture, were all part of my preparation for what was to come later in life; my rejection of “obedience” as a child when it came to “behaving properly,” my love for Asia ….

Each day is full of surprises, something new, more challenges, and the unexpected! I feel that there is more to come …. The future has just started, and I am embracing everything that surfaces as I am more and more spiritually open and prepared for it!”

Epilogue

by Walter Semkiw, MD

In Wilja’s wonderful narrative, we see how she received unconscious clues about her past incarnation, such as when, after she had a haircut as a child, she saw herself once again as a fat little king.  Wilja has also expressed an enthusiastic desire to help IISIS to develop.  Just as King Devanampiya Tissa brought spiritual reform to ancient Ceylon, Wilja, by supporting reincarnation research, demonstrates the same urge to enact spiritual reform today.  Lastly, I would like to point out that in my experience of Wilja, the Sanskrit name she chose for herself, which means “high efficiency,” is very apt, for Wilja is an organized dynamo. 

There is a poignant aspect to Wilja’s story.  In the civil war that is being fought in Sri Lanka, the island that was once known as Ceylon, both sides in the conflict, the Sinhalese Buddhist majority and the Hindu minority, the Tamils, believe in reincarnation.  This raises the important point that just believing in reincarnation is not sufficient to bring peace. 

Believing in something is different from knowing that something is true.  With beliefs, we do not always follow the precepts of the belief system, as there is still a level of uncertainty.  As an example, if you are driving down the highway and you don’t see a policeman, you may be tempted to exceed the speed limit.  Who doesn’t?  On the other hand, if you are driving and you see a policeman right behind you in your rear view mirror, you become very obedient regarding traffic laws.  In the same way, there is a difference in believing in reincarnation and knowing that it is true.  Knowing that you are accountable for your actions creates a different mindset. 

When people know that reincarnation is true and understand, as demonstrated in the Anne Frank/Barbro Karlen case, that religion, ethic affiliation and nationality can change from lifetime to lifetime, then behavior will change.  When the Sinhalese Buddhist knows, without a doubt, that he or she can reincarnate as a Tamil Hindu and vice versa, then the motivation to fight will be lessened. 

Though past life images aren’t available to compare facial features of Devanampiya Tissa and Wilja, which would normally be used to corroborate the match, Wilja’s story is a good example of how past-life information can unexpectedly come into a person’s life and how we are reunited with people we have known and loved in ages past.