With these words they have thrown me so high and so far to the sea that it took my breath away. Frankly speaking, such a distance flight was so unexpected by me that I was a little bit scared and at first forgot all the advices including the one that I should turn around right at once. But then when I realized it and tried to undertake something, it was too late, I stroke my body against the water like a midge against a glass. I have not only a pain in my belly because of this stroke against the water surface (it ached as if it was burnt by the fire) and sinking to the cold water took my breath away, as with all these evident signs of the “sea” panic, fear and “burnt” belly I had to swim big distance to the shallow water.
   “So how was it?” Tatyana merrily asked me. She was first to meet me on the way back.
   “Nothing good,” I answered. “It seems to me that I was thrown like a little frog into the water which landed on his belly with protruding eyes.”
   I looked at my belly. It was all red after such a “happy” landing, or to say it more precise, water-landing.
   “Not bad!” uttered Tatyana with sympathy after she had seen the injured area on my body. “How come! Does it ache?!”
   “Of course! It burns…”
   Meanwhile Nikolai Andreevich came close to us. And looking at me, he was sorry about me, “Oh dear, girls why don’t you take care?! I can understand when the guys have gone crazy, but why do you need it?!”
   “Who knew that it might happen like this?” I shrugged my shoulders. “I have not thought that the may be so…”
   “Right, everything is learnt by your own experience,” grinned our psychotherapist. “The water has its surface tension. Jumping from the big height without knowing a certain technique of water entering, you may even get smashed. It’s not a joke!”
   Ruslan, who stood not far from us and listened to the “teachings” of Nikolai Andreevich, asked with confused air, “How can one get smashed against the water?”
   “Easily!” Nikolai Andreevich confirmed.
   And turning towards me, he said which ointment I should use in order to remove pain and where the first-aid set was.
   Me and Tatyana went to look for the first-aid set. When we finished with our “medic aid” and were returning to the beach, we met already Ruslan who hobbled with red belly going the same way like me and Tatyana not for so long, to take the first-aid set. He happened not to believe to Nikolai Andreevich and my sad experience and decided to jump in a “frog” style taking start from the “jumping-off place” arranged by Eugene and Stas. So he jumped in a way that he not only stroke with his belly but even managed to hurt his leg. So me and Tatyana again went beck to render first aid help to this misfortuned victim of his test experiments. After the injury of Ruslan, Sensei and Nikolai Andreevich just drove out all the guys to the beach, for non-observing the safety rules on the water. Sensei even hold all of us in a joking manner the whole lecture on the proper behaviour on the water.
* * *
   The guys unwillingly parted with the sea and putting on their rugs on the beach in a scattered way, and started to take sun bath having rest after active swimming. However less than in ten minutes of this total “seal-rookery” Volodya dragged his rug closer to Sensei who was acquired a tan near Nikolai Andreevich and reminded him, “Sensei, you promised to tell us about secret societies.”
   “Yes, indeed!” supported him Victor who was not far from them and also dragged his rug closer to Sensei.
   They were at once followed by Eugene and Stas who pushed away Volodya and Victor and got to the center like piglets to the thick of their congeners, together with their rugs. All the others quickly joined them. As a result of such mass movement of rugs everybody crowded around Sensei.
   “Sensei, please tell us!” the guys backed up.
   “Well, if I have promised, then listen carefully…” uttered Sensei friendly and thinking about something for a while he started his story. “In order to understand the goal of secret societies, which knowledge and methods they use, we should go deep into the sources of confrontation between Good and Evil. In East from ancient times people believe that the main center of opposition to the Evil and dark forces on Earth is Shambala, which is a firstprimary source of knowledge and huge spiritual power. But I would like to notice that though Shambala possesses all these features, in general it’s neutral relative to the human society, giving people pure knowledge and full right to make their own choice between the forces of Good and Evil. That’s why spiritual knowledge of Shambala is spreaded in the human society and the Evil is opposed as a rule by people themselves who are on the spiritual way.
   “Of course, from time to time the human society is visited by Bodhisattvas from Shambala who are mostly occupied first of all with restoration of lost spiritual knowledge, true history of development of human civilizations which were either lost by people in time or hidden from the majority of people or modified by other people in their greedy and power-seeking goals. Bodhisattvas also give additional information about the world depending on the level of scientific achievements of civilization. That is thy take neutral position relative to the human society and as far as possible they give pure information to people, without a touch of fantasy of dirt of ages, as well as various human ambitions. Whether they accept this information or not is a personal choice of every human who was lucky in the human society to become a possessor of those knowledge of Shambala which are dreamt of by many high and mighty of this world. And correspondingly to resist the Evil, if you possess this information, and do real Good in this world or to please your own vanity with this knowledge is also a personal matter of each human and of people in general. But I emphasize once again that within the human society only people themselves who follow the spiritual way resist the Evil and the Archons. By the way, those people are called from ancient times the Arhats.”
   “The Arhats?” asked Victor.
   “Yes. If to translate from Sanskrit, “Arhat” means worthy. Nowadays this word is used by Buddhists in their terminology, they call so humans who came close to the Nirvana state. But actually from ancient times people called as Arhats those who were worthy to bring spiritual knowledge of Shambala to the world. To these people belong also those who were called by ancient Slavyans as Vezha, Sokrovennik, Mezhanin.”
   “You see, the Arhats and the Archons! The difference is so slight, only a couple of letters, but they have such opposite goals!” Stas was surprised.
   “Right, but this “slight” difference changes the signs to completely opposite,” emphasized Sensei. “And the fact that there is a slight difference in names, it’s all due to people rumours. Since first there were the Arhats, who spreaded spiritual knowledge. And then appeared those who were called by ancient Greek wisemen as the Archons, emphasizing the popular method of the Archons to alter and to distort those things which became popular among people due to the Arhats. This opposition is inherent in all human civilizations whatever people call these both sides.
   “The Archons just work according to principles of Ariman. And yesterday you had a chance to contemplate the principles of Ariman. It seems that he tells the same spiritual things as Bodhisattvas of Shambala but he distorts the truth so skilfully in favour of the matter that a human doesn’t notice under the details the global substitution, the change of direction on the way to the opposite side. But a human who has more of spiritual in him, will understand this substitution and reveal it. Ariman just plays on the human weaknesses, on the wishes of the Animal whatever nice word form it would put on. It fully confuses a human. The same principles, the principles of his Master are followed by the Archons.”
   “What does mean a word ‘Archons’?” asked Yura.
   “The word “Archons” origins from the Greek word “archontes” what means “elders”, “forefathers”, “chiefs”, “rulers”. Much later the orthodox Christians started to treat them as “servants of the devil”. The gnostics who were guided by ancient knowledge interpreted the Archons as spirits-world rulers, creators of the material universe whose power can be overcome only by a spiritual person. But in general they thought that the power of the Archons is not limitless, according to the plan of God. Taking into consideration the opposition of the Arhats and the Archons during thousands of years, they are right to some extent, of course.
   The Great Archon, or he is also called the “Archon of this world” what is the same as the “king of this world” is Ariman… But in more ancient times his name as the name of the Great Archon was Abraxas, as it is interpreted nowadays, “the spirit of the universal whole who isn’t absolutely evil, but being ignorant, takes himself for absolute God”. This legend can be taken as a fairy-tale only by those who are completely unaware of knowledge and order of the world. For wise people it’s a hint, a tip.”
   At this moment Nikolai Andreevich said, “The last one happens probably because people know little or don’t know anything at all. And where is no knowledge, there is misunderstanding and fear.”
   “Right you are. What do people know about Ariman? Mostly, due to activities of the Archons, they are given the information corresponding to the level of a six-years-old child, something like “Satan is a bad awful monster, with horns and hooves, who will drag you to his dark kingdom and will boil you in a pot with pitch, if you will not obey to us and do everything we tell you.” By the way, not only in the religion but in the politics the Archons use the same technique of information supply for majority of people, throughout the world. And it happens so because the serious information, especially the political one, isn’t apprehended by the majority of people. It leads to a paradox: each individual considers himself to be smart and clever, but most of them understand the serious information just on the primitive level of explanation typical for a little kid. It was so both in ancient times and now. That’s why the Archons used it and use till now, nominating his people as interpreters.”
   Volodya uttered with doubts in his voice, “Probably, people apprehend it so because they don’t know the whole truth which is boiled in the pot of political kitchen. And nobody, of course, will ever tell them the truth as it will just undermine the authority of those who launches all this disorders.”
   “Yes, yes,” echoed Eugene, “As they say, if you like sausage and politics, it’s better not to know how both of them are cooked.”
   The guys laughed. And Stas complained with humour addressing Sensei, “How does it come so? In relation to religions the Archons shamelessly slander their own Master when they intimidate people with “awful monster”?!”
   “Well, they use any means to achieve their goal. And their goal is simple – to distract the attention of a human from his internal spiritual development by external material things. To hide the true reason of Evil which is concealed inside of the human, in his Animal nature. And, of course, the main thing for them is to achieve an unlimited power over people. They strive to it and dictate the society their rules of life, impose wards and don’t shun to awake in people beast instincts. They profit from people’s fear and ignorance. Since if a human knows truth, he will stop fearing them, he will see the light. He won’t care anymore about their lies, will turn around and will go to the spiritual side. That’s why the Archons do everything so that not to let it be. So, guys, whatever it be, be careful in this world. Don’t forget that we are here temporarily, we are guests of Ariman. It’s all his Satrapy.”
   “What? Satrapy?!” Andrew didn’t get it. “What is that?”
   Eugene explained him in his own way.
   “It’s a place where murderers rule.”
   “Really?!” Andrew asked with naivety, turning to Sensei.
   Sensei looked grinning at Eugene and replied, “Almost. A Satrapy is a place under the rule of a satrap. ’Satrapēs’ is a Greek word. It comes from the ancient Persian word ‘sitrab’. So was called a governor of the region (satrapy) in Ancient Persia who had unlimited power.”
   “That’s what I mean, a Satrapy is big soul-murder for a nation!” took up noisy Eugene. “Nobody wants to live in a Satrapy,” and he added cunningly at once, “but everybody dreams to become a Satrap.”
   The guys looked with amazement at Eugene. Meanwhile Volodya began to ask Sensei about secret societies.
   “Does it mean that secret societies are a doing of the Archons?”
   “Why? Secret societies were organized both by the Arhats and the Archons,” specified Sensei.
   “It’s clear with the Archons,” agreed Nikolai Andreevich. “Every power is based on possessing hidden information which is manipulated with selfish ends. But why do the Arhats need secret societies if they follow spiritual way?”
   In reply Sensei said, “This world, as I said, belongs to Ariman. That’s why from ancient times the Arhats had to organize secret societies trying to be maximally useful to people. Not because they wanted it so but in order to keep in purity the received knowledge so that people would be able to oppose the Archons with its help. But for the Arhats, unlike for the Archons, this secrecy was a double-edged weapon. Since only sometimes the help of the Arhats became for many people so significant spiritually that ordinary people kept in their memory glory and respect to such secret organization. But these people’s rumors, without their knowing, was harmful for the Arhats. As soon as their secret organization became among people popular and known, simply saying, too many people knew about it, the Archons immediately concentrated their forces not only on destruction of this organization, but what is worse, on substitution of the internal ideology of this organization by penetration of their people into it and elimination of the leading Arhats. That is, externally for ordinary people who were unaware of internal matters of this secret society, the organization seemed to be active, but spiritually it was already empty. Playing on its popularity and using sometimes the names of killed by them Arhats, the Archons already manipulated in their own way with the consciousness of people.”
   “And what was that organization of ‘Freemasons’ you mentioned which was one of the first influential circles of the Archons?” inquired Volodya.
   “Oh, this is a classical example how the powerful organization of Arhats’ ‘Spiritually free bricklayers’ turned with the time into the secret society of Archon’s ‘Free masons’.”
   “Really?! It would be quite interesting to listen about this case,” uttered Nikolai Andreevich with interest and sat more comfortably.
   “You are welcome,” approvingly nodded Sensei and began to tell his story. “The movement of ‘Spiritually free bricklayers” was founded in Ancient Egypt. And primarily it was created by the Arhats as a positive spiritual society of people. Ta-Kemet, as Egypt was called in great antiquity, was a special place for Shambala. But it’s not an issue of our discussion. The initiator of this movement was a man called Imhotep. If to use terminology of the ancient Russian language he was Vezha, a disciple of the Sokrovennik.”
   “And who was Imhotep? A pharaoh?” asked Slava who listened attentively to Sensei.
   “No, Imhotep wasn’t a pharaoh. Nowadays he is famous among the majority of people as the Architect who headed the building of one of the first step-pyramids. This pyramid was named in honor of pharaoh Djoser who lived that time and who founded in 2778 b.c. the 3rd dynasty…”
   “Aha, two thousand seven hundred… it’s approximately, in the three thousand years before Christ?!” half-affirmatively, half-interrogatively uttered Kostya and began at once to calculate. “If to add almost two thousand years of our era to that tree thousand years b.c…. It means altogether almost five thousand years ago?”
   “Right you are,” confirmed Sensei.
   “Ancient man!” uttered Andrew having heard these calculations and added with a smile, “Now I see why I haven’t ever heard of him.”
   “No, you have! At school. He is mentioned in the history,” prompted Tatyana.
   “Hem, during history lessons Andrew had more important things to do rather than to listen,” Kostya informed her with humour.
   “Who would say it!” returned him Andrew. “Though, frankly speaking, I didn’t like history lessons. It was so dull. And the teacher spoke so boringly that we were almost sleeping.”
   Kostya wanted to add something else about this but Nikolai Andreevich politely changed the topic to more interesting issues.
   “As far as I know, Imhotep was also an outstanding doctor of his time.”
   “Yes, and not only the doctor,” confirmed Sensei. “Imhotep was such a significant Person that he is worth that I tell you about him in details…”
   Sensei made a pause in his story and asked Victor to pass him over a bottle with mineral water which he held in his hands, drank a bit from it and returned to Victor. Then he went on telling.
   “Imhotep was born not far from Memphis, the capital of Ancient Egypt that time. He was a son of a commoner, an excellent bricklayer called Knofer. There were no schools that time at all. Children were taught in the family. As a rule, the specialization of parents was learnt by their children. Thus, any profession was a family matter and it was transmitted from one generation into another. Imhotep inherited from his father a mastery of bricklayer when he was still young. And he would remain to be one if his path wouldn’t cross with the Sokrovennik, who estimated at true worth not only his keen mind but also his human qualities. Imhotep was twelve when he met the Sokrovennik and made a choice of his life path really worth of Human.
   “Soon Imhotep became a disciple of the Sokrovennik and was initiated into the basics of the science of White Lotus. Beside natural sciences, for example, grammar, mathematics, physics, geometry, astronomy, medicine, the Sokrovennik told him true original spiritual knowledge about a human. He revealed to him as well the practice of Lotus flower. And when Imhotep began to practice it on his own, with all his diligence, he was surprised with the changes which started to happen with him.”
   Kostya even whistled quietly and said with admiration, “Wow! So, practice of Lotus flower was known even in the year three thousand b.c.? Well, well, well… It’s Egypt… And Buddha was born in the six century b.c…. Wow! What a time difference, it’s almost two and a half thousand years!”
   “Why did you mention Buddha?” asked Andrew in perplexity.
   “What do you mean ‘why?’?” He is always depicted sitting in the lotus flower.”
   Kostya uttered it with such a surprise as if Andrew didn’t understand the obvious thing from the “logical chains” of thoughts of our Philosopher. Eugene listened to the guys, hemmed and probably to stop all these talks in the future, addressed to Kostya with accented politeness, “Dear Einsteino-Sokrato! Would you be so kind to make you conclusions silently so that not to disturb the esteemed audience to enjoy the fruits of pure knowledge,” and changing his voice from polite tone to a strictly warning, he added, “Without your aggravating complication!”
   Sensei simply smiled to all these “tactful” negotiations of the guys and patiently explained to Kostya, “The practice of Lotus flower was known to people from great antiquity. And by the way it was known not only to this human civilization. I have already told you that this practice is very ancient and it exists as long as a human. Just from time to time knowledge about it is lost or hidden by people under the myths. The Archons don’t waste time, too.
   “In Egypt this knowledge was given during the so called by people “golden age”, when, according to ancient Egyptians, “Gods ruled on Earth”. But by the time of Imhotep this knowledge was partly lost and developed into the form of religious worshiping. Lotus was honoured as a sacred flower. Partly it took shape of primitive symbolic worshiping and was connected with fertility of fields as plenty of lotuses were blooming at Nile high water (a river which brought black silt to fields, due to which Egyptians gathered not a one harvest per year). But in general the lotus flower was worshiped as a symbol of spiritual purity. Like a human with a pure soul, to whom no filth of this world sticks, lotus was also grown from the dirt but always remained pure and unspotted. Moreover, this sacred flower was connected by legends with highest gods of Ancient Egypt, for example, Osiris, his spouse goddess of fertility Isis, their son, the god of light Horus, who were depicted as sitting on the throne made from the lotus flower, or the god Ra, who “was born from lotus”, a new-born sun, sitting on the lotus, etc. Lotus was connected with sacral symbols, cosmogonical myths (one of them, for example, tells how from a blossoming lotus flower, growing on the hill, which in its turn appeared from the initial chaos, a sunny baby came out, who “illuminated the earth covered by darkness”). By the way, this picture of the baby sitting on the petals of lotus flower was popular till the Roman epoch.
   “And though a lot of knowledge of the “golden age” was lost, many real events of that time were camouflaged in myths, but in general, by the time of Imhotep Egyptians believed in existence of, saying in our language, a “dusha” (a “soul”) more than modern people. Ancient Egyptians, for examples, thought that this world is temporary, that the life follows the death the same way like the day follows the night. And the death was considered only as a point of transition in the flow of complicated existence. That is, they had belief into the process of reincarnation, if to say it in our words.”
   Yura asked, “Sensei, but why did you say that Egyptians “believed in existence of, saying in our language, a “dusha” (a “soul”)? Didn’t they have such a word, a “soul”?”
   “They had a similar word. And “dusha” is a word of Slavic origin, known to many European peoples. The Slavic word “dusha” has its roots in “dykh-”, “dukh” (“spirit”) which once upon a time meant stopping breathing, that is a sign of the end of life. What does it mean for a man to die? “To breathe one’s last”. But I should mention that Slavyans meant under the soul a spiritual creature which possesses both will and reason. In their conception it is something without body, that is without flesh. The soul is interpreted as a vitally important part of the human which at the same time is independent, that is separate from both body and spirit creature. Do notice that Slavyans’ “dusha” (“soul”) is feminine and that points out in its sacral meaning at primary role of the female nature, I will tell you about it a bit later. And the word “duh” (“spirit”) is masculine. Together with the soul it makes harmony.
   “By the way, the Slavyan word “duh” has many meanings. It means something incorporeal, an immaterial creature of the spiritual world, a shadow, a ghost. It means a vision. The spirit means as well the strength of the soul, bravery, prowess, strength. It gave birth to the word “spiritual”, that is incorporeal spirit, without body, which consists of soul and spirit.
   “Why do I tell you all this in detail? For you to understand, taking into account my further story, how much knowledge is kept in careful memory of Slavyan people… In general, the notion of soul as such existed within many peoples in different times, and the human soul was called in different ways. For example, the Indian in the Hinduism had this word in Sanskrit sounding as “atman”. Or to say more precise, the soul was called a “part of Atman” (that is a part of the Universal Soul), the true “I” of a man which can be cognizable only on the intuitive level. Persians (in Zoroastrianism) called the immortal human soul as “fravashi” (by the way, it’s a derivative word from Avestan words “fravart” – “to make a choice” and “pra-vart-ti” – “preexist”), that is something which exists before the human birth and doesn’t die after his death. Moreover, it was mentioned that fravashi as an embodiment of the soul is feminine. And it was depicted as a disc with wings (faroar). By the way, this symbol was known still to ancient Egyptians. It was deemed that while ascending to good god Ahura Mazda the fravashi goes through three stages – humat, hukht, huvarsht, which in ancient Persian means “good thought”, “good word”, “good deed”.
   “Greeks named the soul as “psyche” which root also means “breathing”. And their notion of breathing was similar to the wind, wings. And they depicted the soul not only as a flying bird like Egyptians but also a butter-fly which corresponded the same way as the soul to the word “Psychea”. Later this Greek word migrated to Latin and began to be called as “anima” (anima, animus)…”
   Nikolai Andreevich uttered with interest, “It means that the Latin word “reanimation” means not only the “repeated revival”?”
   “Right you are. At great extent it’s an attempt to return the soul.”
   But our Kostya got excited about another question. Having waited until a Sensei’s answer, the guy asked with curiosity, “So, how did ancient Egyptians call the soul?”
   “The Ba,” replied Sensei.
   Kostya obviously like all of us didn’t understand it and asked amazed. “The Ba? And that’s all? Just the Ba?!”
   “Yes,” said Sensei with a smile looking at confused and funny Kostya’s face, “just the ‘Ba’.”
   Eugene immediately reacted to this message, nudged Stas and uttered, “You see, and you always asked me why I’m so unceremonious when I meet you with open arms and shout whole-heartedly, ‘Ba! (Oh!) Glad to see you!” Now you see that I subconsciously greet your soul in ancient Egyptian language.”
   “Subconsciously…” mimicked him Stas. “Do you have it at all, your subconsciousness? In order to have “sub”, you should first have “over”!”
   Hardly Eugene opened his mouth, probably to object to his friend, Kostya again began to question Sensei, “Well, really, is it just the ‘Ba’?”
   “Of course,” nodded assent Sensei. “Or to put it more precisely, ‘Ba’ is the closest term to the notion of the soul. Ancient Egyptians interpreted ‘Ba’ as one of the five elements composing the human creature. Ba was depicted as a bird, a falcon with a human head that flew between two words, the earthy one and the beyond. Ba, as a soul, also was considered to be an embodiment of vital force of all people and it continued to exist after their death.”
   “And what are these five elements composing the human creature?” asked Victor.
   “They present some modified by people original knowledge. That is, in fact, these five elements are nothing more that a structure of a human, his Spiritual and Animal natures.”
   “Sounds interesting,” Nikolai Andreevich asked quite intrigued again.
   Sensei looked attentively at the listening group and went on, “Well, if you are so interested in it, let’s continue… One of the elements was called by ancient Egyptians, as you know, ‘Ba’, the soul, which was the foundation of the Spiritual nature. Ba was often depicted as a falcon with a human head and a lit icon-lamp in front of it as a symbol meaning that Ba belongs to heaven. People believed that stars are a gathering of many icon-lamps of blessed Ba, souls of star mother Nut.” Sensei made a pause and distinctly repeated. “Star mother! Remember that, further you will understand why it is so important. Besides, ancient Egyptians attributed their gods with Ba. For example, the Orion constellation was called not else that the soul of the god Osiris. Sotis, or Sirius in our language, was the soul of goddess Isis, the faithful spouse of Osiris… Please remember it, too.”
   Sensei kept silence for a while, obviously letting us better reconsider what we had just heard and then he went on, “The second element composing the human creature according to legends of ancient Egyptians, is ‘Akh’, or it was also called ‘Ab’. ‘Akh’ means ‘spirit’, ‘blessed’, ‘enlightened’, that is it originates from Egyptian lexical root ‘akh’, ‘to shine, to radiate’. Akh was regarded as a connecting link between a human and a shining vital force. It was believed that after the death Akh leaves the body in order to join stars. There was even such an expression, ‘Akh goes to heaven, and body goes to earth’.
   “Akh was depicted as a bird with bright feathers, an ibis, which was called by Egyptians as ‘akhu’, that is ‘shining’. Besides, in ancient Egypt they worshiped Toth, the god of knowledge (and the keeper of divine power and soul) who was depicted as a man with ibis head or fully as ibis. It was believed that his wife, Seshat, wrote down details of life of every human on the leaves of Heaven Tree.”
   Eugene couldn’t keep from making his funny comment, “You see, there were only birds, a falcon, an ibis!”
   In reply Sensei said, “They are birds to those who see only the exterior, but doesn’t see the internal essence. Akh was interpreted also as a spirit which symbolized a will and desire of an individual. Later this ‘spirit’ began to be associated as a ‘spirit’ of heart (the hati). It caused the confusion in legends which told that after death a human came to the beyond justice in front of Osiris, and it was his heart which supposedly responded for human deeds and not the Akh (spirit of will and desires) of a human was put on the scales in the presence of soul Ba, and the counterbalance of it was the goddess of justice, truth and order, Maat.”
   “Ancient Egyptians also had the beyond justice?” Andrew asked surprised.
   “Of course,” answered Sensei. “They considered the god Osiris to be a sun god who became after his death the supreme judge of the beyond world. According to their belief he made a decision about the further destiny of the human soul, where to direct it, to the fields of Ialu (or as it was also named Iaru), that is to the heaved in our language, which was located according to legends of ancient Egyptians in the Eastern heaven, or to give it to a monster to swallow it, so to say, to the ‘hell’.
   “So, when the true knowledge was distorted, it came to such an absurd that the priests, in order to become more important, began to tell people that in order to avoid this trial ‘on scales’ in the beyond world and in order not to get worried that after their death an anatomist would prepare their corps and by accident would hurt their heart or completely leave the body without this important organ they need to obtain a reserve heart from priests, the so called by them ‘heart-scarab’ with written magical formulas on it.”
   “Nice joke!” grinned Volodya with the guys.
   “Yeah, nice joke,” with a faint note of sadness uttered Sensei. “The human stupidity invents so much and then you have just laugh, wiping out tears.”
   Nikolai Andreevich pondered over it and made a conclusion, “It means that that time the knowledge was distorted. It is obvious that Christians took it over from Egyptians… And what was the original knowledge? What was hidden under the notion ‘Akh’?”
   “Everything is simple,” uttered Sensei. “The force which is called the ‘will’ of a human and gives birth to the initial impulse to realization of different desired depends only by thirty percent on the matter, that is on the processes connected with the work of brain. The other its manifestations are connected more with subtle matter, or to put it more simply, with energy and material world of a human, that is with his aura, soul, centers of agathodaemon and cacodaemon. This force, as a connecting link, has a unique feature, the more you concentrate is on something, the more it strengthens the potential of transformation of energy and material structures (composing our thoughts as well) into real deeds, events either of material or spiritual nature, depending on your own choice. By the way, due to these specific features to do something with a will, in ancient times this force was called a voice of reason, “a god which is inside of you”. Later this force was called with different names, such as concentration of reason, container of mind which makes union with the tongue and will carrier.”
   “Well, but why was it nevertheless connected with the heart?”
   “From ancient times it was the solar plexus which was considered to be the centre of concentration of the will-power. And it was also connected with doing the spiritual practice ‘Lotus flower’. Since exactly in this place is located the soul, which is connected only with thin energy and material structures of the human, but not directly with the matter of the body. So, when the human reached the state of union between his willpower (that is single-mindedness of thoughts) and wishes of the soul, it was considered to demonstrate the spiritual maturity of the human.
   “Besides it was believed from the earliest times that the will-power is influenced in a way by, to say in our language, feelings and emotions. And again this impact was ascribed to that region. It’s partly true. And as far as the heart concerned… Since the heart is a central pump of the body which pumps over the blood. And the blood is a special very peculiar fluid which is far from being studied, even with all modern knowledge. Those main forces, so to say, energies, which combination leads to the formation of the material structure of this fluid are one of the main elements in the Arimanian system, simply to say, in the system…,” Sensei thought for a while, evidently trying to find the matching words, “let’s say it, for you to be more clear, in the system of ‘programming the matter’.”
   “It’s an interesting information,” Nikolai Andreevich said with animation and uttered at once with the impatience of the striving scientist, “Could you please tell us about it in more details?”
   “It’s an interesting information, indeed,” Sensei agreed with him. “But there will be no more details on this issue. You are not ready to it.”
   Frankly speaking, I was a bit surprised to that flat reply of Sensei. Since it was a question not from any of us, who would ask just out of curiosity, but it was a man who was dealing with science for long time and who would surely need this knowledge in his work. But Sensei cut short, as if even not wishing to hear to any objection on that issue. And I thought: if he answered that way, then there should be a serious reason, then this knowledge is really very serious and it need a certain spiritual maturity and preparation even for such a clever and practical man like Nikolai Andreevich.
   Having answered to doctor, Sensei, after some pause, continued as if nothing had happened, to tell the story about ancient Egyptians.
   “So, as far as the heart concerned… There was knowledge in Ancient Egypt but when it became to turn into religion, the priests distorted it intentionally.” And he added with the humour. “You can’t see neurons with ordinary eyes and you can’t touch with your hands the will-power. So the priests decided to ascribe the notion of ‘Akh’ to the heart, since there existed among people different expressions which poetically connected feelings with the heart. Because it’s a quite tangible organ and it’s located also almost in the centre. So who among laity would notice this substitution? But then here is a direct evidence of material proof, ‘embodiment of the will-power and human wishes’ which can be seen and touched by most curious persons after the death of man. So to say, the impressive visual advertisement which very soon began to bring huge profits to priests. Thus it came to total mass copying of distortion.”
   “Well, people are people,” Nikolai Andreevich sighed.
   “Indeed.”
   “Egyptians were so naïve!” Slava uttered with a gibe.
   “This materialization was inherent to many nations,” remarked Sensei.
   “Sure,” drawled Andrew. “It’s called, Ariman works professionally!”
   Kostya on seeing that the discussion turned again not the way he was interested in waved his hand towards Andrew, “Wait!” and already addressing to Sensei started again to inquire, “Thus it means… Five elements of ancient Egyptians composing the human essence are: Ba, the soul, Akh, the will-power and wishes… And the other?”
   “The other?! Well, it’s Ka, the element which was believed to be a spiritual double of a man, his vital force (‘breathing’, ‘spirit’) which is given to him from birth and after his physical death is his guide in the beyond world, and then it leaves him. It was considered that Ka is born and grows together with a human acquiring his merits and imperfections. Ka may exist independent of body, for example, to reach the heaven and talk to gods there or just move on earth. The Ka sign was depicted as two hands lifted up bent in elbows (quite often this sign was positioned on the head of the double), that somehow reminds the hieroglyph in its meaning ‘to raise, to seize’. The human was ascribed to have a multitude of Ka, or how they were also called Kau.”
   “It reminds the human astral body,” assumed Nikolai Andreevich.
   “Why does it remind? This is it in fact. However ancient Egyptians beside it managed to stuff into the notion of multitude of Ka also protective functions of the aura. But it’s not too important. In general they interpreted it more or less correctly. As far as Ka as the astral body concerned, it was deemed that Ba exists in Ka and has a feature to become bodiless or bodily. Though by its structure Ba was more ascribed to etheric substances…”
   “Well, it seems these Egyptians were not so simple…” Slava changed his opinion at once.
   Sensei went on to tell his story, “One more element composing the human being was Khat, the physical body of a human.”
   “Oh!” exclaimed Kostya gladly. “And I started to get worried whether they had a notion of body at all!”
   Sensei smiled almost unnoticeably and added, “With the word ‘Khat’ ancient Egyptians called not only the physical body but everything to be rotten… And finally, one more element which formed a triad with Ka and Khat was Hu.”
   “Hu?!” asked Eugene with surprise while the seniour guys began to smile.
   “Yes, Hu,” confirmed Sensei grinning. “Under Hu ancient Egyptians meant initially reasonable force which by its influence on the body was comparable only with the notion of Ba. Later this term was transformed into a ‘not the best part of the soul’ which lives due to Khat and Ka and dies together with the physical body, that is, with Khat. In our understanding, it’s an Animal nature.”
   Kostya uttered amazed, “Does it mean that the notion of the Animal nature was known still in such ancient times?!”
   The seniour guys couldn’t help laughing either because of this question or because of this surprized and funny expression of Kostya’s face, and Eugene added with enthusiasm, “What do you want? Hu is hu in all times and among all peoples! As it was Hu, it remains Hu, you can’t do anything with it.”
   After these words our group fell about. And most of all laughed Sensei, so to say, ‘until cries’. The guys began to cast Kostya with their jokes until at last Nikolai Andreevich renewed the conversation.
   “I have met already somewhere this notion, ‘duality of the soul’, but I don’t remember where exactly.”
   “Well, there are a lot of mentions of it in teachings of different peoples of the world,” remarked Sensei. “For example, in India people practicing a religion of Jainism have such notions as the jiva, that is the soul, spiritual nature, and the ajiva, that is material nature. These people consider that in surrounding world jiva is always connected with ajiva and not just connected but encapsulated and enslaved by it.
   “Or let’s take the conceptions of ancient Chinese about the human. They thought that there two special souls in the human, beside other souls: Hun and Po. The Hun soul, in their opinion, manages the spiritual nature of the human and is connected to it by ‘Yan’ forces. After death of the body this reasonable nature turns into the good spirit Shen, and after some time, it flies to the sky. The Po soul manages the human body, that is his material, animal essence, and it connected with ‘Yin’ forces. This is a lower sensual nature which dies together with the body and remains with the corpse as a Gui spirit until its total decay, then it goes to the ground and dissolves. Whereas the live body of the human is the only thread which connects Hun and Po together. Death of the body leads to their division. By the way, at certain time ancient Chinese had mass spring rituals during which they called upon to Hun and Po. At the heart of these rituals there was a popular belief that namely the union of Hun and Po gives life and of course the fertility.”
   “And what other souls were there except these two?” asked Victor.
   “Almost the same as Egyptians had, just in some different interpretation. Lin, for example, according to ancient Chinese believes, is a soul which exists in all beings and things, qi is a vital force. There are spirits of all inner organs and parts of the body. And also, as you have already heard, Shen is a good spirit of the dead, Gui is the evil spirit of the dead.”
   “Now it’s clear,” nodded Victor.
   Eugene hemmed and uttered with a note of humour in his voice, “Now I see why Chinese have such names as Hun Lin and Hun Po! I thought that this is the way they swear and use bad language. I thought one should really love someone to call with such a name! But in fact, there is quite another reason!” And looking aside at Stas, he added with a smile, “Well… So, Stas, if you were born in China, you would have now a more proper name, for example, Stas Hun Po!”
   “You know, Hun Eugene Po, I’m already fed up with your propaganda of your historical Motherland!” grinned Stas.
   “Of my historical Motherland?!” Eugene whose figure in no way reminded the inhabitant of China gave a start with his patriotic feelings. But he immediately calmed down and narrowing his eyes began to bow and friendly nod to Stas, “Welcome… to visit us, well…”
   “Well?! Ah, you are the Chukchi man! Sorry, brother, for insulting you. I thought however that you are a Chinese,” Stas laughed together with everybody.
   “You are rong, no … wrong! I’m a Chinese Chukchi man, well!”
   Eugene again made us laugh by his clownery. He was cast by a gust of jokes but the guy bravely countered them playing the role of a ‘Chinese Chukchi man’. These five minutes of fun were over so sudden as they began. Nikolai Andreevich asked Sensei about something concerning the spiritual nature. Unfortunately because of the guys’ laugh to one of Eugene’s answers I missed what was this question about. But answering it Sensei said the following, “Perhaps I will share this topic a bit more time and will tell you a Chinese legend about it…”
   The guys calmed down and began to listen to the legend with interest.
* * *
   “Once upon a time a wiseman called Tang Qiao. He lived many years, knew a lot about what is going on the Earth and among the stars. But he was considered to be the wisest among people because he knew a lot about what is going on inside the man. Once his disciples came to him and found him to do something unusual. Tang Qiao finished to dig a tomb for himself in the garden near the tree where he often used to have a rest and reflect. The disciples got frightened and began to ask why he had done it before his death, before the term determined by the heaven. The wiseman answered, ‘In order to remember about the Peace.’ The disciples were surprised and asked Tang Qiao to clarify the meaning of his wise words. And he told them the following story. ‘Today I sat to have a rest near the tree and began to reflect on my life spent on this earth. And I got so deep into reflections that I have seen how a good spirit Shen parted from my Hun soul, and an evil spirit Gui parted from my Po soul. They sat opposite to each other and began to talk.