Love - road towards heaven

Among the Bosnian people, especially in the south-western part of BiH, there is a custom that every family have their own graves, which are usually placed in the vicinity of the house. There is documented proof that there was a custom of burying the dead in the woods, yards or underneath bushes. In old graves one could usually see, especially around Sarajevo, a planted tree above the grave, so that often, the graveyard resembled a forest. This practice was familiar in the entire country. Reason for this was the desire to ensure good deeds to the dead, namely, if one would plant a cherry tree the fruit would be eaten by birds so called "bird's alms", which should ease the soul of the dead. But, there is probably a deeper tradition behind this practice, Illyrian one, dedicated to the cult of the deity of nature and fertility, Tana and Vidasus, therefore the act of planting a tree next to the deceased would have the role of gift for the ancient gods, such as, for example, the practice of leaving gifts at the spring to god Bindu with the goal of seeking amelioration.
For people who spread hatred and quarrels it is said that they are the "firewood of hell", they're used to light a fire on which souls such as theirs will burn. The notion, that the largest sin which dooms someone to hell is if someone separates two people which love one another (i.e. husband and wife), was created based on the belief above. That sin is characterised among the people to be so large that it cannot be annulled even if the man builds nine mosques with his money and his own hands. Again, it is believed, Allah will not forgive his sin.

Recount of a touching folk song:

Hazrat Fatima was walking,
Across heaven and hell,
She opened the doors of heaven,
She didn't see her  dear mother,
She opened the doors of hell.
-"what are you doing there, mother dearest?"
-ask me not my dear daughter,
I committed a great sin,
I broke off a reel of a graft,
I muddied clear water;
I started a quarrel between a boy and a girl,
Allah would've forgave me everything,
Only not those two."


How much love is considered to be the most noble and to Allah the most dearest occurrence, with which an individual can gain many deeds and open the doors of heaven for himself, is evidenced by the belief which claims that the person who introduces two people, which fall in love and get married, earned so much good deeds with God that he is free of the obligation to pray and go to the mosque his entire life.

Ljubav - put ka dženetu

Kod Bošnjaka, posebno u sjeverozapadnom dijelu BiH, običaj je da skoro svaka familija ima svoje mezare, koji su često smješteni uz neposrednu blizinu kuće. Postoje dokumentirani zapisi da je bio običaj zakopavanja mrtvih u šumu, bašču ili pod grmljem. Na starim mezarima često se moglo vidjeti, posebno oko Sarajeva, iznad mezara posađeno drvo, tako da je često samo mezarje ličilo na šumu. Ova praksa bila je poznata u cijeloj zemlji. Razlog tomu je bila želja da se mrtvom osiguraju sevapi, naime, ako bi se posadila trešnja njene plodove bi jele ptice takozvana ptičija sadaka, što je trebalo olakšati duši mrtvoga. No, iza toga se vjerovatno krije mnogo dublja tradicija, ona ilirska, posvećena kultu božanstava prirode i plodnosti, Tane i Vidasusa, te bi postupak sađenja drveta pored mrtvaca imalo ulogu dara za drevne bogove, baš kao što je, na primjer, bila praksa ostavljanje dara na izvoru bogu Bindu u svrhu traženja izlječenja.

Za ljude koji šire mržnju i svađu u narodu se kaže da su "džehenemski potpalj", njima se loži i potpaljuje vatra na kojoj gore duše slične njima. Upravo na temelju takvog vjerovanja nastalo je i razmišljanje da među najveće grijehe kojima čovjek sebe može svjesno osuditi na džehenemske vatru jeste ako rastavi dvoje koji se vole, naročito muža i ženu. Taj grijeh se u narodu karakterizira toliko velikim da ga ne može poništiti niti da taj čovjek o svom trošku i svojim rukama sagradi devet džamija. Opet mu, vjeruje se, Allah neće oprostiti grijehe.

Dirljiva narodna pjesma pripovijeda:

Šetala se hazreti Fatime,
po dženetu i po džehenemu,
dženetu je vrata otvorila,
milu majku nije ugledala,
džehenemu vrata otvorila,
majka joj na dnu džehenema.
-“Šta ćeš tuder, moja mila majko?”
-“Ne pitaj me šćeri moja mila,
veliki sam grijeh učinila,
kalemu sam kalem odlomila,
pa sam bistru vodu zamutila;
zavadila momka i djevojku,
za sve bi mi Allah oprostio,
samo neće momka i djevojke…”

Koliko se ljubav među Bošnjacima tradicionalno smatra najplemenitijom i Allahu najdražom pojavom, uz koju pojedinac može steći veliki sevap i sebi otvoriti vrata dženeta, tvrdi vjerovanje koje kaže da ona osoba koja upozna dvoje, pa se oni zaljube i ožene, zaslužio je toliki sevap kod Boga da je oslobođen obaveze da cio život klanja i ide u džamiju.

Illyrians - the largest mystery of Europe

That are ancestors, the Illyrians, were a warlike, mystical people, with shaman cults is known regardless of the fact that there is little data about them. But, the thing that is more interesting is the fact that it has been written by Roman historians, such as Pliny, that among the Illyrians there were many magicians, healers and clairvoyants of high regard, known across the Roman Empire.
Illyrian religion constituted numerous shaman cults where among the most important deities were those that represented symbols of the cult of fertility - god Vidasus (Cernunnos, Pan) and Tana (Diana, Aradia). Similarly, among the numerous spirits and god's of the earth (nature) and sky, the dominant place was occupied by the snake, incarnation of the Grand Mother, to whom the hearth and threshold were dedicated. Still today in Bosnia it is traditionally believed that every house has its own snake protector, which protects the home and family from evil and bad luck. That this belief is not one of the many but very important, but also holly, is confirmed by its taboo - if the snake is accidentally or on purpose killed, the owner of the house will die.
According to a legend the snake is not only the protector of the house but also planet earth. Namely, in Bosnian mythology it is mentioned that above earth there is a gigantic snake which formed a circle with its body (bit its own tail) around the planet and in that way it protects it from all danger and bad luck, which additionally justifies her name of a protector.
Illyrian are equally prone to worshiping both earth spirits and gods as well as celestial ones, among which we will single out sun and moon as well as the stars. Belief of the Illyrians that stars are the seats of the human soul reveals an intriguing fact that our ancestors considered that they stem from another planet, i.e. space.
Traditional belief about Bosnia claims that one should not gaze at the stars at night because of the fear that at that moment one of them doesn't "fall", because if it happens to be the star of that person, the person will die immediately?! Analysing certain segments of Illyrian legends and beliefs, such as the one about the black dragon, god of evil, which attacks the sun and moon trying to swallow them (black out), we can see parts of the ancient myth about the demise of a civilization or even planets from which the ancestors of the Illyrians escaped.
Representation of the snake as the Grand Mother, symbol of life, and protector of humans from one side and the black dragon, god of evil, which constantly attacks sun and moon, trying to devour them and cause the end of life on earth, and humans themselves, is an ancient myth about the struggle of good and evil. But, behind it all is something much deeper and mystic. We could refer here to the theory of David Icke about the reptilian race of earth, which is present from the ancient times of Sumerian and Babylon, whose symbols are represented in various segments of the ruling families throughout the world.
If we recap the history of religion at its very beginning we will come to an obvious fact that today's monotheistic god is twice as young as all pagan gods, and that the teaching of monotheism cannot be taken seriously in the attempts to fathom the history of the human race and its genesis, irrespective of the fact that monotheism, especially Christianity, took numerous segments of the pagan religion. The oldest religious movement which is familiar to us is the Neolithic cult of the Grand Mother, which is called the first and oldest deity in human history. And the Grand Mother is what connects the Illyrians with the reptiles (snake, dragon, salamander) and their alien heritage or ancient race from which they stem.

What connects Bosnia and India?

There is a large possibility that the Illyrians had some connection or even common heritage with the people from India, which can be grasped if we analyse certain legends from Bosnian mythology. The most interesting tale about the mysterious creatures called utve zlatokrile - half humans, half birds, which didn't have sexual distinctions. It is claimed that they have escaped to Bosnia from India, "that cursed land".
Another rarity of the Bosnian people but also connection with India is located in the traditional belief in the migration of the human's soul into an animal and vice versa (reincarnation), which is actually the basic concept of the Bogomils in Bosnia during the Middle ages. How much this belief was widespread and accepted from the folk is best witnessed from the fact that still today in the 21^st century, there are old people who prolong the belief about the migration of the soul. In Velika Kladuša there are still old ladies from which you can hear the claim that evil people, especially murderers and thieves, turn into cows after death, horses, pigs, etc. so that they could repay their sins in the new life, serving other people. This traditional belief, which is found in total opposition about the classic monotheistic maxim of the soul leaving to heaven or hell, clearly points to the deep rooted belief about reincarnation among the Bosnian people.

Third eye or stars

In the end, we will return to the beginning of the text which speaks about the Illyrians as skilled mages and clairvoyants and the part about the belief in the connection of humans and stars in the sky and we will compare all that with the hinduistic teaching about chakras. Ajna or the sixth chakra is located in the middle of the forehead, above the eyebrows, and is connected with the pineal gland which is inactive in most humans, and it gives the ability of telepathy, clairvoyance, astral projection, etc. to mystics. This sixth chakra is often called the third eye and can be seen on ancient drawings of numerous deities.
In Illyrian-Bosnian tradition the third eye is called "star" which has the function to connect man with its star in the sky, seat of the soul. In practice this belief is widespread among the stravarke which annul negative energy while performing the ritual, using molten lead, covering their forehead with their hand i.e. their "star" for fear of negative energy blocking their invisible connection with the star in the sky. As each one of them claim, if that would happen, it could be possible for them to lose their mind and fall ill physically.
This ritual process directly goes in favour of the assumption that the Illyrian believed that they stem from another planet, with which they stayed in contact through the "star" on their forehead or the third eye. Or that their astral bodies descended to earth and populated it in the bodies of some ancient human beings. From that event it is easy to assume that through the generations they lost the precise detail from which part of the universe and from which planet they came so they considered all of the stars to be seats of the soul and their genesis.