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“Oh!” Sensei grinned. “If this priest got imbued with training, it means an edifying process will start now. Let’s go and see.”
When they approached, Father John was already in his repertory. Stas had accidentally injured Eugene’s lip during the sparring bout, when they both were just trying to demonstrate an interesting clench to Volodya’s guys. Father John began to bustle about Eugene like a caring hen about her chicken, applying a cold compress made of a wet handkerchief to his lip nearly by force. Eugene was waving away in amazement first, saying there’s no problem at all, but then he surrendered to Father John’s pressure and persuasion. Such scene automatically attracted the attention of the rest of spectators.
“You see… you see… it’s always like this: if one’s mind is stupid, his body suffers,” the priest was explaining Eugene the sense of his blunder. “The God’s power must be inside you. Without it, your body is a mere dust, the infinity of suffering.”
“But, in the end, the infinity of suffering upon training leads to ‘the body position steadiness upon fighting’,” Eugene responded jestingly, attempting to stand up from the “penal and injured” beam.
However, the priest who had evidently not finished his edifying homily yet, put his hand on Eugene’s shoulder and riveted him to his previous spot. It was much more comfortable for Father John to preach from above than to “breathe in the navel” of this nearly two-meter-high giant.
“Not really, not really… God’s Spirit is the main thing in a human being. It’s exactly it, and not the transient flesh, is the real source of power. You should rely on it…”
“… but help yourself, too,” Eugene interrupted Father John friskily, making another attempt to stand up.
But Vano seated him with his “iron” hand again. The priest shook his head and looked at Sensei who had just approached them. Imitating an old-mannish voice, making his favorite accent on “o’s”, Vano quoted the poem, “Look at this modern youth! Their deeds, their words! When we very young, we were not foolish like this! Instead, we asked advice: ‘May I do this, or may I do that?’”
Sensei and Volodya smiled, looking at the priest.
“What I’m trying to explain you, little fool, is that you should rely not on your muscles, but on the God’s Spirit which is inside you,” Father John continued to preach to Eugene. “Without it, you are deprived, mere outcast of flesh!”
“Me, deprived?! Mere outcast of flesh?!” Eugene lost his temper and rose at his entire robust enormous height opposite to the skinny priest.
The funny side of the situation caused loud laughter of the group watching what was going on. Vano looked at Eugene’s mighty trunk with pumped muscles, eyed him all over contemptuously, waved his hand and said:
“Weakling! Don’t you think it’s the real power?! It’s only a swollen bag with bones inside it. Should you blow on it, it will fly. I can now show you what the real God’s power is like, accumulated through incessant praying sacrament.”
With these words Father John raised his forefinger instructively, and then pointedly started to strip his upper trunk part. A pitiful sight appeared before the present – a thin, bony priest looking as if he had recently been released from the Buchenwald torture-chamber. There was not a single shadow of muscles on his body. Only unusually thick veins were peeping out from under the priest’s pale skin, which made him resemble a belly-pinched cow in a careless farmer’s cattle-shed. But this important feature along with uncommonly broad wrists and enlarged elbow and shoulder joints could be noticed only by a true pro. For others, his appearance most likely evoked pity and burning desire to give this underfed miracle of nature some foodstuff as soon as possible. Even Eugene who had first got enflamed of fighting, stopped short and cooled down right after seeing such walking skeleton.
With unconcealed smiles on their faces, everybody was looking at the strange priest calling opponents to test his destiny. One would think that even a single finger touch could spill this poor fellow. Driven by either sympathy or respect, no one dared to approach Father John who had managed to become a friend for all of them in less than twelve hours.
“Well?!” the priest pompously put his arms akimbo, standing all alone in wait-and-see position. “Who considers himself strong? Step forward. Even two, three or eight people at once. The power of Spirit is a great power. It is capable of much more than this.”
Seeing sympathy and compassion on the guys’ faces, Sensei came to Father John’s rescue, “Come on, come on, don’t hesitate, skeptics. If the father discourses he can, it means he really does.”
After such “blessing”, the people somewhat began to stir. Seeing Vano’s serious sparring mindset, Eugene came up to Sensei and, failing to find appropriate words in his vocabulary to fully express his indignation, he stretched his arm into the priest’s direction couple times.
“Sensei, how is it possible?!” his compassionate nature finally expressed itself. “I might even kill him accidentally. I wouldn’t take such a sin upon my soul… You know my blow…”
And, not finding proper words again, Eugene stroke a heavy Yoko kick on a nearest tree which was much bigger in size than Father John’s trunk. The mighty blow made the tree shudder, and dried branches began to fall from the top.
“But how?!” he repeated his question.
Remaining absolutely indifferent to Eugene’s demonstration, the priest instructively uttered in response:
“A man’s power is not in his flesh, but in his soul. Jesus spitted upon a fruitless fig-tree, and it withered, whereas your power has only made the branches fall down.”
“OK,” Eugene puffed up, being ready to prove his case in action.
That was exactly what Vano was hoping for. He livened up and started to stir up the audience’s passion like a barker in a marketplace.
“Who else wants to experience the power of the inner spirit? Only this one?” the priest pointed to Eugene. “One is as good as none against such a tremendous power… Come on! Some other daring should join him... I earnestly and very seriously recommend you to display yourself, for I’ll show it first and last time.”
The guys smiled understanding his message in their own way and began to nominate candidates for sparring with the skinny priest, rather for fun than a real fight. Meanwhile, Sensei just grinned enigmatically, and then warned them, no one knew whether jokingly or seriously, “Look, but remember: eyes may deceive. The priest is fond of fooling. When he speaks in such a way, one should be on the alert. I advise you to fight in full contact,” and then he added with a note of black humor: “so that this time won’t be the last time for you.”
Finally, eight guys intending to participate in the joke surrounded Vano at a distance of two to three meters from him. Eugene specially occupied the position right in front of the priest. On one hand, Father John had managed to involve him into sparring. Yet, on the other hand, the guy sincerely pitied the priest. “He doesn’t even imagine what power he faces, – Eugene was thinking to himself. – Three special operations officers who have been at many hotspots, plus our guys. Why is he kicking against the pricks? They will make mincemeat of him here with a single stroke… A single stroke?!»
At that moment, an “excellent idea” came to Eugene’s mind. He decided to play a “noble knight” – to be the first one to attack Vano and knock him down to the ground with a simple hold, so that the priest would be insured from strokes of the other assailants and from corresponding possible “multiple injuries”. After all, it’s customary not to hit a man when he is down. Inspired with such an idea, Eugene took a fighting stand, displaying readiness with his entire appearance. Then, right off the bat, he jumped up to Vano striking a punch into his chest, being absolutely sure that the priest would be on the ground after it. Yet, nothing of the sort happened!
Father John was freely standing with one foot put forward. But, exactly at the moment of the stroke, his lean body quickly and easily moved aside like a plumelet blown by hurricane. Eugene’s crushing punch driven by the force of the guy’s over one-hundred-kilo weight passed by the priest’s chest at some several centimeters distance. At that very moment, Father John’s veins got unusually swelled, and Vano’s right hand flew out towards Eugene’s chest, like a bullet upon a gunshot, delivering a mighty open-palm counter-blow which resembled a bell stroke. Contrary to all laws of physics, the “noble knight’s” body was thrown from the priest’s bony hand at such a speed as if Eugene had full-pelt collided into a train making up for a 24-hour delay. Before the “noble knight” had time to touch the ground, the other fighters who had been previously standing with smirks on their faces, reacted to Vano’s attack immediately. Or rather, their brains reacted, having been prepared for various extreme situations during years of training. The subconscious evaluated the conditions and, having immediately blocked all emotions, switched on the self-defense instinct to secure their own safety.
Stas was on the right, closer to the priest than anyone else. Therefore, upon Vano’s demonstrative counter-attack, he promptly delivered a Mavashi kick. However, nearly at the same moment when Stas’ foot had just lost contact with the ground, Father John squatted and, with adroitness of a panther, made a heavy ankle trip on Stas’ pivot leg. Both guy’s legs flew up into the air, and he tumbled down on his back, though he immediately mechanically made a roll-over to a safe distance. Only thereafter Stas began to come to his sense and to evaluate what had just happened. Recovering from the heavy collapse, his body evidently wasn’t in a hurry to join the fight again. So, Stas had an opportunity to behold this grandiose sparring bout in all details. Eugene was just in the process of scrambling out of the near bushes, and his delighted eyes were also glued on the scene of the frail priest’s incredible transformation.
In the meantime, Vano was gracefully settling scores with the rest. His legs were showing up by turns in the middle of the general conglomeration of moving bodies. Following Stas, three of the fighters flew out of the general circle with a time difference of couple seconds, being by no means driven by their own intention to experience all the pleasures of such aerobatics.
Andrew adroitly managed to escape from the line of Vano’s attack couple times, but very likely because the attack was directed no at him specifically. Inspired with such an unreal hope for a possible victory, the guy conducted a violent attack. Snatching a moment when Vano’s face was remaining exposed, Andrew delivered a straight and mighty Mae Geri kick. Yet, the priest’s body immediately bent backward like a pendulum. Vano promptly hit the approaching foot up, thus having sharply accelerated its movement. And, instead of letting the guy who had lost his balance “quietly” land on his back, Vano stroke a kick into his buttocks in such a way that Andrew had sharply changed his flight trajectory from free-vertical to forced-horizontal, and flew to the bushes like a torpedo. Apparently, he had irritated the priest with his jumps and leaps too much.
During that demonstrative flight, without any mutual coordination, Kostya and Ruslan – the remaining fighters – quickly jumped aside from Father John, not intending to test their further destiny with similar sensations of weightlessness. Father John suddenly found himself on his own, so he turned round and beckoned these two:
“Please, be my guests...”
To which words they answered, smiling:
“No, thank you, father. We already made our communion in the morning…”
Such answer made everyone laugh and cleared the air conformably. The atmosphere get filled with indefatigable humor and good-natured jokes from the side of both Father John and those who had experienced the “God’s power” of the skinny priest on themselves. When all fighters had taken the vertical position and began to discuss their extremely fleeting fight admiringly, Father John robed his “camouflage” clothes back on. Joining the conversation, he instructively raised his finder to the sky and uttered significantly, “Now you see, kids, what powers the God’s faith and service to God give us…”
Then he smiled, cast a sidelong look at Sensei and added, “…Well, together with long years of friendship with Sensei, of course.”
The crowd responded with laughter again, recalling various curious incidents related to “long years of friendship with Sensei”.
After that case, Vano’s authority inside the company became still higher. It rose particularly and excessively in estimation of Eugene who endeavored to please the priest in every possible way after his unforgettable flight. He even helpfully offered to clean his SUV which already turned into “the most outstanding and practical car on our roads” on the guy’s lips. He said such a luxurious, splendid vehicle should not be dirty during the night when its owner slept inside it. I should better be brought into the proper brilliant and shining condition right away, and so it would be both pleasant to look at it and easier to breathe inside it. Father John did not particularly resist such “open-hearted” Eugene’s offer and silently, though with a cunning smile, handed him the keys.
First of all, Eugene moved the car to a new place, claiming the ground was flatter there while the river was not too close. After that, he took a bucket and hastily ran to take water, being accompanied with other guys’ jokes like “the priest’s footman”, “preparing to take monastic vows”, etc. But Eugene only smiled in response. He washed both the SUV exterior and interior with such thoroughness and care as if he had long ago dreamt of cleaning Father John’s vehicle.
Light breeze was blowing. Stars were twinkling in the sky, loose. Warmth of the fire, freshness of invigorating piny air and a charming picture of the stars were creating a feeling which many people apparently experience when they escape from the civilized, smoky and mechanized box of the city to the freedom of animate nature. It was so pleasant to sit in such a quiet night, to talk easily and to glance now at the fire, then on the sparking sky.
“What a beauty!” Tatyana said looking up. “The stars are so bright, so attractive…”
He hardly had time to describe her impression, when Kostya wedged himself into her world of charms with his usual logical intelligence showing.
“This is because we are sitting close to water. Moreover, the city illumination is far from here. The air is rarefied. Therefore the stars are so bright.”
Andrew hemmed and couldn’t refrain from a sarcastic remark:
“You have such an amazing anatomy of thinking, pal! Should there by lieutenant Rzhevskiy with us, he would already fought a duel with you, kicking straight on your face. The lady is saying about stars to you, while you are responding about the rarefied air.”
The company burst out laughing. Kostya was assailed with jokes and anecdotes from every quarter, and he was hardly able to parry those with his favorite aphorisms, begetting still more laughing. In the end, failing to stand such a verbal pressure, the guy jokingly attacked Andrew who had been the “scandal” instigator.
“It’s always like this! As one French comedian said, ‘He has touched me all over! I’m only a target for his pointed arrows’.” Then, looking at his friend with reproach, he recited his pet poem which he usually used when he wanted to escape from a tickler, “I know, monsieur, how telltale you are. / Your head is chock-full with examples. / But isn’t it enough? Take care of yourself. / And give me away to my destiny.”
“Well, what can I say?” Andrew was at a loss. “A true diplo-mat! What I do respect him for is that when he abuses you, you feel pleased with the way he’s doing it.”
To that, Eugene grinned and cast a sidelong look at the priest, “Such evening as tonight can turn anyone into a skilled diplomat.”
Everybody laughed again. Yet, when the laughter ceased, a lasting pause set in. The people got reabsorbed in silent observation of the stars and the fire. Tongues of flame were ardently performing their charming dance to melodious crackle of burning brushwood. Such passion made shafts of sparkles fly up in a spinning whirlwind, continuing their rash “pas” in the darkness space. And this made them look like a multitude of tiny starlets living in their single inimitable instant.
Scrutinizing the celestial bodies, Nikolai Andreevich was the first one to disturb the silence.
“Indeed, the starts are extraordinary… It’s so incredible to think how many worlds are around us, how many galaxies living their own separate life, colliding, scattering, collapsing… Tremendous disasters happen somewhere out there, while somewhere else new forms of life are being born. And this entire life is permanently in full swing in this vast Universe. If you only imagine those enormous masses and sizes, those stupendous velocities of galaxies movement of several hundred kilometers per second, and this entire gigantic process, you automatically face a question: who are we at all, compared to these zillions of stars? Not even a flash… Yet, we are aware of this seething life. And we are not just aware, but we also perceive and study the processes of life creation and of such huge objects destruction. There is an impression that we are allowed to glance through a keyhole of the universe only with one eye, to see both the microcosm and the macrocosm.”
“Why with one eye?” Ruslan asked with a chuckle.
“Why do you ask why?” Kostya responded with humor. “Surely, in order to bate our curiosity to the way the others live. It is the eternal issue of domicile, really!”
Nikolai Andreevich smiled and said, “I believe, if it’s all about the issue of domicile, we would not be given such detailed information in formulas and figures, in thorough confirmations of the evident which are provided for human brain. A different question is more appropriate here: “What for?” Obviously, in order for us to understand something, something very important about ourselves, our essence, our nature…”
Father John nodded agreeing with him.
“Perhaps, the reason God doesn’t hide His keyholes from us is that He knows our nature and wants us to delve deeper into the laws of His creation ourselves, so that in execution of those laws we, as His children, could become participators of His perfect creation. In Bible, in the cathedral epistle of St. Jacob, chapter 1, line 25, there are the following remarkable words, ‘…the one who delves into the perfect law, the law of freedom, and resides in it, being not a forgetful listener, but an executor of deeds, will be blessed in his deeds’.”And, having finished the quotation, he supplemented his speech with an explanation, “He’ll be blessed, because he has understood the essence correctly.”
“Yea-а-аh,” Nikolai Andreevich drawled pensively, he then brightened, having recalled something, and addressed Sensei. “By the way, I had a unique patient, an astronomer. It was an ordinary depression case. He felt lonely because his wife had abandoned him for another man. So, the scientist quite interestingly expressed his mental state, associating it with the life of stars. The main thing was that he did have an understanding, though in a peculiar veiled form, that loneliness was actually an illusion of one’s mind, its fiction, for objectively a person was always socially surrounded. Thus, the feeling of loneliness appears mostly because of one’s inability to adapt oneself to society. The astronomer used to interpret his thoughts in the language of his profession. As he said, if we look at a star, it seems to be a lonely object. Yet, indeed, it’s only an illusion of our naked eye, for even modern telescopes distinguish three to five hundred stars in one such star.”
“Oh, there are even more interesting things than this!” Eugene waved his hand, demonstrating good knowledge of the subject. “If you take a modern microscope and examine this one…” his forefinger pointed at father, but then his eyes timely came across with the priest’s eloquent stare which made Eugene sharply change the direction of his finger to the opposite side where Stas was sitting. “…this suspicious individual, you’ll find so many stuff there!.. A whole Universe of diverse community of fleas, microbes and various disgusting parasites.”
“It’s you who are a disgusting parasite!” Stas countered with a smile. “It can be seen even with a naked eye…”
The entire company burst out laughing. Once the revelry abated, Nikolai Andreevich continued, “Well, this only proves the fact that stars and people are creatures resembling one another in many ways. Everything’s like in our life. Stars like people “live” in groups – in accumulations in which they are connected between each other by forces of mutual gravitation. And the most interesting thing is that, just like in human society, stars most often make up binary systems…”
“What systems?” Victor asked.
“Double systems,” Sensei explained. “It’s like two suns rotating around a common center of masses.”
“Yes,” Nikolai Andreevich confirmed. “That astronomer told such systems are very stable… And, in addition to double ones, there are also three-, four, fivefold stars. To tell the truth, these are rarer than double ones. And he surely paid particular attention to the threefold stars phenomenon, comparing it to his own situation. It turns out that triple stars cannot coexist stably. You know why? Two stars simply discard the third body, while they themselves may steadily rotate side by side during a long period of time.”
“It’s a natural law of mechanics,” Sensei uttered, shrugging his shoulders. “The third body disturbs movement of the other two and usually leads to such system decay.”
“Amazing laws which in many respects coincide with human society!” Nikolai Andreevich said.
“It depends on how you look at that society,” Svat chimed in with a chuckle. “Especially, at a trio. If a trio includes a woman, it’s a delicate issue, I agree. But, if it’s a male company, they can occasionally form systems so stable, especially in drinking, that their mutual gravitation is truly marvelous. And the main thing is that there mostly gather not four or five of them, but exactly three, not more and not less.”
“This way, it is easier to think. A certain integrity of mind is generated,” Bogdan remarked with a grin.
“It’s correct,” Oleg confirmed and specified. “Four is already an excess, one is excessive.”
“The most interesting thing is that it’s just the same up there,” Nikolai Andreevich pointed at the sky, laughing with all the rest. “Fourfold, fivefold stars make insecure groups which dissociate much faster. Surely, same laws of nature operate there. Such cohabitations of stars may form and decay many times throughout their existence. And, as my patient explained, a star may constantly change its partners. For example, in compact star accumulations a star may fly from one “company” to another as many as six times during its lifetime…”
Eugene archly glanced at Father John.
“Father, it’s a heavenly adultery. How does the church tolerate this?”
Father John made a “clever” face, looked at the stars and declared in priestly voice, “It’s all God’s will, child.”
It made everyone laugh again.
“It’s probably true,” Nikolai Andreevich nodded merrily and addressed Sensei again. “In general, I had not a patient, but rather a whole well of psychological arguments for our depression clients. He infected me with his comparative analysis so much that, after our conversations, I became interested in his science myself. He even brought me books on amusing astronomy.”
Sensei grinned and asked in jest, “I haven’t quite understood who was the patient out of you two?”
“Well, sometimes such cases may take place in medicine,” the psychotherapist supported his humor with laughter. “You know, at times some doctors say: “Sometimes you come across such a “talented” loony who can bring you into his own condition without you batting an eyelid”.”
The group burst out laughing again.
“Yet, can you imagine what I’ve read in those books?!” Nikolai Andreevich continued, enthusiastically sharing his impressions. “It appears that in complex star systems consisting of a hundred, two hundred, a thousand stars the situation with their interaction is completely different from that in simple accumulations. A star cannot feel each of its neighbors anymore. Instead, it feels the overall field, and so it moves evenly enough. It looks as if the influence of the neighbors is smoothed out.”
“Such stable groups may often be found in galaxies,” Sensei remarked as if it went without saying.
“Exactly! I’ve noticed this, too. Everything is like in human society. Mass psychology on stream! A mass grades a person’s individuality, i.e. it equalizes completely different people in many respects and imparts new qualities to people belonging to it. Let’s take Le Bon’s concept, for instance. What are the main distinctive features of an individual inside a mass? Firstly, it’s anonymity, disappearance of the conscious personality. Secondly, it’s predominance of the unconscious personality, deterioration of intellect and rationalism. Thirdly, it’s orientation of the mass’s thoughts and feelings into one and the same direction. And the main thing is formation of an aim in individuals to immediately implement the ideas they’re being inspired with. We may say, it’s almost like in star systems.
“However, there are also other amazing facts. I became interested to discover specific figures, i.e. the number of stars in such complex accumulations, for in the human society, and even in the animal world we view something similar. Biologists conducted quite interesting studies on mass psychology with comparative analysis of animal behavior. Processing various data, scientists discovered an optimal size of a human group – not more than one hundred fifty people. Moreover, this number may be applied to various communities, starting from a tribe of hunters or collectors, right up to church, military, corporate groups. And it all began with biologists’ observation of baboons and chimpanzees behavior, when they determined a positive correlation between the size of a cortex, namely of its frontal and temporal parts, and the size of an animal pack…”
“What is correlation?” Victor interested, not really understanding Nikolai Andreevich’s professional language.
“Well, it’s interrelation, interdependency… So, they were observing apes during those experiments. The apes were living in groups consisting of about fifty specimens each. All pack members knew each other. Furthermore, they were even involved in various types of relationships: they were friends or at odds with one another, they entered into diverse alliances. Based on the observations, the scientists made corresponding calculations taking into account the size of a homo sapiens brain and came to the optimal size of a human group – not more than one hundred fifty people! As they also determined, if a community grows larger, people start feeling themselves aloof inside it. Hence, they simply lose capability to follow everything happening inside the group. As a result, the group loses its individuality and then splits into separate groupings. And the main thing is that it becomes almost impossible to rule over such group. What does is mean? It means that assistants become necessary. Consequently, a management system originates… So, stars and humans have much in common.”
“Naturally,” Sensei ascertained evenly. “It is the world of the matter. And its laws apply to both microcosm and macrocosm. The matter is characterized by a certain reasonable organization, by certain laws of survival and limited time of existence. The matter is starting and ending. Hence, it’s no wonder stars and humans are so similar.”
Sensei took some brushwood and added it to the fire.
“And it relates not only to humans, but to the rest of the animated world as well. Let’s take ants as an example at least. Do you know how organized their life and their infrastructure are? They set up new colonies where each member fulfills a strictly defined function: some ants gather food, others defend the colony, still others are occupied with ventilation or establish new shafts, and some others fight. In the colony, there are pilferers, parasites, hangers-on, and there are “slave-holders” as well. In other words, they have the same hierarchy, the same organization… A similar situation is on the level of galaxies, if we enlarge the scale. They snatch matter and planets out of one another, they “eat up” each other, they collide, they scatter. Well, humanity behaves just like this, too… Even in a small group someone aspires to become a leader. Two leaders cannot get along together, so there is always a conflict.”
“That’s true,” the psychotherapist agreed.
“So, the matter is the matter. Nevertheless, despite such, say, isolation, all the matter is closely interconnected.”
“How come?” Andrew didn’t understand. “Does it mean I’m connected to some star or some microbe living in a distant galaxy?”
“Yes,” Sensei answered simply, putting another portion of branches into the fire.
Andrew raised his eyebrows with astonishment.
“Are you familiar with such concept as gravitational fields?” Sensei asked Andrew.
“Well...”
“Properties of these fields are far from being thoroughly studied by the modern humanity. Yet, gravitational fields are characterized by tremendous velocities. If we compare their velocity with the velocity of light, it would be same as comparing a speed of the most up-to-date sky-rocket with a speed of an old, feeble tortoise. For gravitation fields, no concept of distance actually exist, instead there is a concept of instantaneous transference. And, owing exactly to the general gravitational field the basic element of which is the Po particle, each atom on the tip of your nose is connected with each atom of the sun, of other planets and stars, and even, as you’ve said, with each atom of a microbe living in some distant galaxy… You see, the matter as such is a gigantic organism which is permanently altering because of its energies transformation…”
“It’s so difficult to imagine such tremendous infinity with hundreds of milliards of stars as a single organism,” Volodya said in bass voice, looking at the night sky.
“Nevertheless, it is exactly as I’ve described,” Sensei uttered. “For instance, in our head there are also milliards of nerve cells which virtually form their own galaxies flaring up from the birth moment. There are about one hundred thousand chemical reactions taking place in one’s cerebrum each second. And, should we look at this from the position of a micro-creature, say, some quark “inhabiting” one of those cells, for this tiny creature the cerebrum would also seem to be an unexplainable, unknowable infinity. It’s normal... Our mind is very limited. Moreover, we are never left in peace by the animal nature with its egoism, with its self-assurance that it’s the “hub” of the global evolution, and its “irresistible” corporal appearance. Whereas, what are we in fact for such a tremendous organism? Only dust of the long ago extinct stars.”
“In what sense?” Svat didn’t get it.
“In direct sense,” Sensei responded. “Have you ever thought of what is your organism in reality?”
“Well, it’s clear. Muscles, bones, blood...”
“You should scrutinize it deeper,” Sensei advised in a friendly way. “In reality, it’s a certain set of chemical elements which consists on average of 65% of oxygen, 18% of carbon, 10% of hydrogen, 3% of nitrogen, and of 1% of everything else.”
“But what about bones?”
“Bones are also a sheer chemistry, an original “depot” of mineral salts. They are made of calcium, phosphorus, magnesium and about thirty other microelements. Well, and there is water, of course, the notorious Н2О. Now, think what the stars, say, in our galaxy are made of. Surely, they’re made of the same chemical elements, where hydrogen and helium are ones of the most prevalent... As I’ve already said, there is a total mass of the matter. By means of certain forces, sets and combinations, it is transformed into various material objects. For example, new generations of stars are permanently created out of interstellar gas by dint of condensation, and planets are formed out of dust, i.e. of the same set of chemical elements contained in that gas. What is the light of stars maintained with? With the discharge of nuclear energy in their kernels during the process of synthesis of heavy elements such as carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, silicon, iron and so on. And, when the lifetime of a star comes to its end, the star gives the major part of its matter back to the interstellar space, enriching it with heavy elements. There is a usual phenomenon of gigantic explosions of so called super-new stars which actually produce almost all chemical elements.”
“The elements contained in Mendeleev’s table?” Oleg inquired.
“Well, let’s say – contained in the complete table including those elements which have not been discovered by this humanity yet… And again, the discharged gas becomes a construction material for new accumulations of stars, for planets and for life on the latter. Thus, it turns out that the same matter of which, say, our Solar System, our Earth and we all were made, had been repeatedly used for composition of stars which had existed previously.”
“You discourse the truth indeed, my son,” Father John echoed. “That’s why the Holy Bible says that God created a man out of earthly dust and breathed life into him, and the man became a living soul.”
“Absolutely right. Consequently, if a person wastes prana, i.e. the vital energy “the ”breath of life”, on his or her Animal, his or her material, such person will, unfortunately, turn into dust, take it for all in all, whereas if a person spends prana on his soul growth, some completely different laws came into action – the laws of the spiritual world. It surely does not mean that the human matter won’t be further processed and used to fertilize the earth. Physical body is a mere shell for maturing of the spiritual substance, and it is mortal like any matter. Nevertheless, if inside this shell a synthesis of the thought power, the soul and the “breath of life” takes place during the shell existence, a completely new spiritual creature is born, say, a Personality of eternity, whom the laws of matter have no influence upon.”
Sensei fell silent. All of a sudden, Valera who had not said a word throughout their conversation asked unexpectedly, “And what is life in its genuine sense?”
Sensei looked at him attentively and answered quite bluntly, “It’s nothing, but ezoosmos – the inner impulse of energy.”
After this answer, everybody was silent for a while, evidently thinking over what they had just heard. Then Kostya started ratiocinating aloud, “However, if life is a mere impulse of energy, then, in principle, there should be quite a lot of such energy including rational one. Yet, so far, for example, they even haven’t discovered another planet like ours possessing the necessary conditions for the rational life development. So, we are indeed solitary in our rationality.”
“I have to “disappoint” you,” Sensei said ironically. “There are milliards of such planets as ours! And there are zillions of such individuals sitting by the fire and looking at the sky. But these facts really convey nothing.”
“Why don’t they contact us if that is so?”
Eugene grinned, having recalled something funny, “Why would they contact such humanoids who live in their social mess and are constantly whimpering and complaining? Do you know the recent rumors?” He bent forward and whispered conspiratorially as if communicating some supersecret information, “They say that the lack of contacts with the Earth from the outer space definitely confirms the existence of rational civilizations out there.”
The guys laughed looking at the “humanoids expert”.
“No, joking apart!” Kostya objected, adjusting the eyeglasses which had moved down from his nose bridge. “What rational life may possibly exist in the outer space, if there is nothing at all there, except dust and other stuff of that sort?”
“Rational life exists not only on other planets, but even in the cosmic space itself,” Sensei returned to him. “That life certainly differs from our air-breathing form which needs oxygen. The main thing for any life is the energy impulse, i.e. ezoosmos. Such impulse can be given, for instance, by thermal energy, by the energies of electromagnetic, gravitational fields and so forth. And life will be generated by such impulse, but it’ll be a life different than biological. Our mind has become accustomed to think only amino acids may be construction blocks in living organisms of rational beings, and so we simply don’t want to see and to accept anything, but such belief. Yet, if we consider amino acids, these “bricks” are scattered all over the space, however this doesn’t mean anything. Amino acids as such are far from being a “house” in which rational beings are settled. They are only “bricks” which are still to be put together to make the “house” shape.”
“How may an alternative life look like otherwise?” Kostya asked in bewilderment.
“Well, for example, there are rational beings with corresponding intellect who live outside any planets, in the inter-cosmic space. They occupy vast territories. It’s actually one of the biggest populations of rational beings… What they are composed of cannot be even called a matter in our human understanding. If you use the earthly language, the structure of their, say, “cells” (the latter containing nothing similar to amino acids) reminds a form of little retort, little cylinders. But, once they match together, they change their shape. Those are isolated particles. Their structure is much more organized and much higher than ours... In its natural state, such creature is not very long, though it depends on its “age”. Their sizes may vary from several millimeters to several meters. When such creature resides in quiescent state, it disintegrates and merges with the outside world, whereas upon travel it simply organizes itself, and that’s all… In principle, these creatures can get on any planets.”
“On ours, too?” Ruslan wondered.
“Naturally. Although it’s difficult to see them with a naked eye here. Some modern equipment would be needed, since they move at totally different speeds… They can organize themselves, they can fall into separate parts, but even during such disintegration they continue existing on the energy level, and they can reintegrate themselves if needed. They can also easily pass to a parallel world…”
“Well, is these rational beings do exists, we should somehow feel their presence,” Kostya declared.
“By no means. We simply cannot intersect with them due to their velocities, therefore we cannot feel them either. Nevertheless, it’s possible to record their movement. When they enter our atmosphere, the isolated groups of their “cells” draw together. During their movement, they resemble something like an oblong body with a spire winded around it. The spire looks like a rod in a manual meat grinder. At that moment, perhaps, it might be possible to record them with modern devices, at that filming must be very rapid and thoroughly focused on these objects. As for any other method… In principle, they discharge no energy. They expend the obtained heat on themselves. Their accumulations may also be seen, if we follow the thermal energy distribution along the spectrum: the temperature of the sunbeams, for instance, usually decreases behind them, because the process of “absorption” takes place.”
Having considered for a while, Kostya asked another question, “By means of what do these creatures move?”
“By means of sliding on gravitational fields. They use gravitation for travel. Their movement resembles rotation of spires. In the case of our atmosphere, there’s appears an impression as if they are revolving the air, although it’s not like this in reality. Such spiral movement is connected with our magnetic fields.”
“Is it possible to catch such creature?” Andrew expressed a “wild idea”, being probably incited by a primeval hunting instinct.
“To catch?” Sensei grinned. “Well, it would be same as trying to catch a fish with a sweep-net rim without a net.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s not that easy. Our inter-atomic, corpuscular cellular distances are too big for us to feel the movement of these creatures through us at least somehow. We are the void for them.”
“What do you mean?” Father John wondered.
“Well… What is a human being or rather its body in the largest accounts? It’s the void. If we look inside our microcosm, we would see that our molecules, atoms, electrons are at big distances from each other. And, the further we delve into their division, the more void we’ll discover. The void inside a human body mounts to about 97.7%. In principle, if we remove the entire void, the remainder of the human being would figuratively go through an eye of a needle... In the case of those creatures, we cannot get in touch with them because there are two hindering factors: the interatomic distances and the acceleration in time. As I’ve already mentioned, their ezoosmos operates at a different frequency. Therefore, we actually don’t intersect. It’s a paradox of the parallel which have been neither described nor studied by the modern science.”
“I haven’t quite understood…” Andrew said.
“Say, for example, while I’ve been telling you all this, zillion neutrinos has passed, or rather has flown through our bodies, and none of you have even felt them. Yet, incidentally, one neutrino consists of five Po particles, while “little retorts” of these creatures consist of three Po particles each. Furthermore, during our existence we move at a certain speed in a certain time flow,” Sensei explained patiently. “These creatures are omnipresent exactly due to the fact they can freely accelerate, whereas we are incapable of what they do since we can’t get out of this time; we are limited here. You see, for a transfer we need… say, to accelerate our inner energy potential in order for us to move to another time or another parallel together with our astral, mental and other shells. The acceleration must occur on that level, and then – yes, we would move. But, again, how would we move? We’d disappear here and appear in a more accelerated time. However, should we appear in that world, we’d basically get into a similar parallel with possibly same seas, skies, sun, yet we’d find ourselves in a completely different world which naturally does not intersect with ours due to its frequency characteristics. For instance, on a site where we have a building located, there would be a desert or a forest.”
When they approached, Father John was already in his repertory. Stas had accidentally injured Eugene’s lip during the sparring bout, when they both were just trying to demonstrate an interesting clench to Volodya’s guys. Father John began to bustle about Eugene like a caring hen about her chicken, applying a cold compress made of a wet handkerchief to his lip nearly by force. Eugene was waving away in amazement first, saying there’s no problem at all, but then he surrendered to Father John’s pressure and persuasion. Such scene automatically attracted the attention of the rest of spectators.
“You see… you see… it’s always like this: if one’s mind is stupid, his body suffers,” the priest was explaining Eugene the sense of his blunder. “The God’s power must be inside you. Without it, your body is a mere dust, the infinity of suffering.”
“But, in the end, the infinity of suffering upon training leads to ‘the body position steadiness upon fighting’,” Eugene responded jestingly, attempting to stand up from the “penal and injured” beam.
However, the priest who had evidently not finished his edifying homily yet, put his hand on Eugene’s shoulder and riveted him to his previous spot. It was much more comfortable for Father John to preach from above than to “breathe in the navel” of this nearly two-meter-high giant.
“Not really, not really… God’s Spirit is the main thing in a human being. It’s exactly it, and not the transient flesh, is the real source of power. You should rely on it…”
“… but help yourself, too,” Eugene interrupted Father John friskily, making another attempt to stand up.
But Vano seated him with his “iron” hand again. The priest shook his head and looked at Sensei who had just approached them. Imitating an old-mannish voice, making his favorite accent on “o’s”, Vano quoted the poem, “Look at this modern youth! Their deeds, their words! When we very young, we were not foolish like this! Instead, we asked advice: ‘May I do this, or may I do that?’”
Sensei and Volodya smiled, looking at the priest.
“What I’m trying to explain you, little fool, is that you should rely not on your muscles, but on the God’s Spirit which is inside you,” Father John continued to preach to Eugene. “Without it, you are deprived, mere outcast of flesh!”
“Me, deprived?! Mere outcast of flesh?!” Eugene lost his temper and rose at his entire robust enormous height opposite to the skinny priest.
The funny side of the situation caused loud laughter of the group watching what was going on. Vano looked at Eugene’s mighty trunk with pumped muscles, eyed him all over contemptuously, waved his hand and said:
“Weakling! Don’t you think it’s the real power?! It’s only a swollen bag with bones inside it. Should you blow on it, it will fly. I can now show you what the real God’s power is like, accumulated through incessant praying sacrament.”
With these words Father John raised his forefinger instructively, and then pointedly started to strip his upper trunk part. A pitiful sight appeared before the present – a thin, bony priest looking as if he had recently been released from the Buchenwald torture-chamber. There was not a single shadow of muscles on his body. Only unusually thick veins were peeping out from under the priest’s pale skin, which made him resemble a belly-pinched cow in a careless farmer’s cattle-shed. But this important feature along with uncommonly broad wrists and enlarged elbow and shoulder joints could be noticed only by a true pro. For others, his appearance most likely evoked pity and burning desire to give this underfed miracle of nature some foodstuff as soon as possible. Even Eugene who had first got enflamed of fighting, stopped short and cooled down right after seeing such walking skeleton.
With unconcealed smiles on their faces, everybody was looking at the strange priest calling opponents to test his destiny. One would think that even a single finger touch could spill this poor fellow. Driven by either sympathy or respect, no one dared to approach Father John who had managed to become a friend for all of them in less than twelve hours.
“Well?!” the priest pompously put his arms akimbo, standing all alone in wait-and-see position. “Who considers himself strong? Step forward. Even two, three or eight people at once. The power of Spirit is a great power. It is capable of much more than this.”
Seeing sympathy and compassion on the guys’ faces, Sensei came to Father John’s rescue, “Come on, come on, don’t hesitate, skeptics. If the father discourses he can, it means he really does.”
After such “blessing”, the people somewhat began to stir. Seeing Vano’s serious sparring mindset, Eugene came up to Sensei and, failing to find appropriate words in his vocabulary to fully express his indignation, he stretched his arm into the priest’s direction couple times.
“Sensei, how is it possible?!” his compassionate nature finally expressed itself. “I might even kill him accidentally. I wouldn’t take such a sin upon my soul… You know my blow…”
And, not finding proper words again, Eugene stroke a heavy Yoko kick on a nearest tree which was much bigger in size than Father John’s trunk. The mighty blow made the tree shudder, and dried branches began to fall from the top.
“But how?!” he repeated his question.
Remaining absolutely indifferent to Eugene’s demonstration, the priest instructively uttered in response:
“A man’s power is not in his flesh, but in his soul. Jesus spitted upon a fruitless fig-tree, and it withered, whereas your power has only made the branches fall down.”
“OK,” Eugene puffed up, being ready to prove his case in action.
That was exactly what Vano was hoping for. He livened up and started to stir up the audience’s passion like a barker in a marketplace.
“Who else wants to experience the power of the inner spirit? Only this one?” the priest pointed to Eugene. “One is as good as none against such a tremendous power… Come on! Some other daring should join him... I earnestly and very seriously recommend you to display yourself, for I’ll show it first and last time.”
The guys smiled understanding his message in their own way and began to nominate candidates for sparring with the skinny priest, rather for fun than a real fight. Meanwhile, Sensei just grinned enigmatically, and then warned them, no one knew whether jokingly or seriously, “Look, but remember: eyes may deceive. The priest is fond of fooling. When he speaks in such a way, one should be on the alert. I advise you to fight in full contact,” and then he added with a note of black humor: “so that this time won’t be the last time for you.”
Finally, eight guys intending to participate in the joke surrounded Vano at a distance of two to three meters from him. Eugene specially occupied the position right in front of the priest. On one hand, Father John had managed to involve him into sparring. Yet, on the other hand, the guy sincerely pitied the priest. “He doesn’t even imagine what power he faces, – Eugene was thinking to himself. – Three special operations officers who have been at many hotspots, plus our guys. Why is he kicking against the pricks? They will make mincemeat of him here with a single stroke… A single stroke?!»
At that moment, an “excellent idea” came to Eugene’s mind. He decided to play a “noble knight” – to be the first one to attack Vano and knock him down to the ground with a simple hold, so that the priest would be insured from strokes of the other assailants and from corresponding possible “multiple injuries”. After all, it’s customary not to hit a man when he is down. Inspired with such an idea, Eugene took a fighting stand, displaying readiness with his entire appearance. Then, right off the bat, he jumped up to Vano striking a punch into his chest, being absolutely sure that the priest would be on the ground after it. Yet, nothing of the sort happened!
Father John was freely standing with one foot put forward. But, exactly at the moment of the stroke, his lean body quickly and easily moved aside like a plumelet blown by hurricane. Eugene’s crushing punch driven by the force of the guy’s over one-hundred-kilo weight passed by the priest’s chest at some several centimeters distance. At that very moment, Father John’s veins got unusually swelled, and Vano’s right hand flew out towards Eugene’s chest, like a bullet upon a gunshot, delivering a mighty open-palm counter-blow which resembled a bell stroke. Contrary to all laws of physics, the “noble knight’s” body was thrown from the priest’s bony hand at such a speed as if Eugene had full-pelt collided into a train making up for a 24-hour delay. Before the “noble knight” had time to touch the ground, the other fighters who had been previously standing with smirks on their faces, reacted to Vano’s attack immediately. Or rather, their brains reacted, having been prepared for various extreme situations during years of training. The subconscious evaluated the conditions and, having immediately blocked all emotions, switched on the self-defense instinct to secure their own safety.
Stas was on the right, closer to the priest than anyone else. Therefore, upon Vano’s demonstrative counter-attack, he promptly delivered a Mavashi kick. However, nearly at the same moment when Stas’ foot had just lost contact with the ground, Father John squatted and, with adroitness of a panther, made a heavy ankle trip on Stas’ pivot leg. Both guy’s legs flew up into the air, and he tumbled down on his back, though he immediately mechanically made a roll-over to a safe distance. Only thereafter Stas began to come to his sense and to evaluate what had just happened. Recovering from the heavy collapse, his body evidently wasn’t in a hurry to join the fight again. So, Stas had an opportunity to behold this grandiose sparring bout in all details. Eugene was just in the process of scrambling out of the near bushes, and his delighted eyes were also glued on the scene of the frail priest’s incredible transformation.
In the meantime, Vano was gracefully settling scores with the rest. His legs were showing up by turns in the middle of the general conglomeration of moving bodies. Following Stas, three of the fighters flew out of the general circle with a time difference of couple seconds, being by no means driven by their own intention to experience all the pleasures of such aerobatics.
Andrew adroitly managed to escape from the line of Vano’s attack couple times, but very likely because the attack was directed no at him specifically. Inspired with such an unreal hope for a possible victory, the guy conducted a violent attack. Snatching a moment when Vano’s face was remaining exposed, Andrew delivered a straight and mighty Mae Geri kick. Yet, the priest’s body immediately bent backward like a pendulum. Vano promptly hit the approaching foot up, thus having sharply accelerated its movement. And, instead of letting the guy who had lost his balance “quietly” land on his back, Vano stroke a kick into his buttocks in such a way that Andrew had sharply changed his flight trajectory from free-vertical to forced-horizontal, and flew to the bushes like a torpedo. Apparently, he had irritated the priest with his jumps and leaps too much.
During that demonstrative flight, without any mutual coordination, Kostya and Ruslan – the remaining fighters – quickly jumped aside from Father John, not intending to test their further destiny with similar sensations of weightlessness. Father John suddenly found himself on his own, so he turned round and beckoned these two:
“Please, be my guests...”
To which words they answered, smiling:
“No, thank you, father. We already made our communion in the morning…”
Such answer made everyone laugh and cleared the air conformably. The atmosphere get filled with indefatigable humor and good-natured jokes from the side of both Father John and those who had experienced the “God’s power” of the skinny priest on themselves. When all fighters had taken the vertical position and began to discuss their extremely fleeting fight admiringly, Father John robed his “camouflage” clothes back on. Joining the conversation, he instructively raised his finder to the sky and uttered significantly, “Now you see, kids, what powers the God’s faith and service to God give us…”
Then he smiled, cast a sidelong look at Sensei and added, “…Well, together with long years of friendship with Sensei, of course.”
The crowd responded with laughter again, recalling various curious incidents related to “long years of friendship with Sensei”.
After that case, Vano’s authority inside the company became still higher. It rose particularly and excessively in estimation of Eugene who endeavored to please the priest in every possible way after his unforgettable flight. He even helpfully offered to clean his SUV which already turned into “the most outstanding and practical car on our roads” on the guy’s lips. He said such a luxurious, splendid vehicle should not be dirty during the night when its owner slept inside it. I should better be brought into the proper brilliant and shining condition right away, and so it would be both pleasant to look at it and easier to breathe inside it. Father John did not particularly resist such “open-hearted” Eugene’s offer and silently, though with a cunning smile, handed him the keys.
First of all, Eugene moved the car to a new place, claiming the ground was flatter there while the river was not too close. After that, he took a bucket and hastily ran to take water, being accompanied with other guys’ jokes like “the priest’s footman”, “preparing to take monastic vows”, etc. But Eugene only smiled in response. He washed both the SUV exterior and interior with such thoroughness and care as if he had long ago dreamt of cleaning Father John’s vehicle.
* * *
The deepening gloaming had nearly changed into the night when the company finally calmed down after their Oriental combat passions. Having taken sits closer to the campfire after supper, everybody was extending pleasure, slowly drinking the sweet-scented herbal tea.Light breeze was blowing. Stars were twinkling in the sky, loose. Warmth of the fire, freshness of invigorating piny air and a charming picture of the stars were creating a feeling which many people apparently experience when they escape from the civilized, smoky and mechanized box of the city to the freedom of animate nature. It was so pleasant to sit in such a quiet night, to talk easily and to glance now at the fire, then on the sparking sky.
“What a beauty!” Tatyana said looking up. “The stars are so bright, so attractive…”
He hardly had time to describe her impression, when Kostya wedged himself into her world of charms with his usual logical intelligence showing.
“This is because we are sitting close to water. Moreover, the city illumination is far from here. The air is rarefied. Therefore the stars are so bright.”
Andrew hemmed and couldn’t refrain from a sarcastic remark:
“You have such an amazing anatomy of thinking, pal! Should there by lieutenant Rzhevskiy with us, he would already fought a duel with you, kicking straight on your face. The lady is saying about stars to you, while you are responding about the rarefied air.”
The company burst out laughing. Kostya was assailed with jokes and anecdotes from every quarter, and he was hardly able to parry those with his favorite aphorisms, begetting still more laughing. In the end, failing to stand such a verbal pressure, the guy jokingly attacked Andrew who had been the “scandal” instigator.
“It’s always like this! As one French comedian said, ‘He has touched me all over! I’m only a target for his pointed arrows’.” Then, looking at his friend with reproach, he recited his pet poem which he usually used when he wanted to escape from a tickler, “I know, monsieur, how telltale you are. / Your head is chock-full with examples. / But isn’t it enough? Take care of yourself. / And give me away to my destiny.”
“Well, what can I say?” Andrew was at a loss. “A true diplo-mat! What I do respect him for is that when he abuses you, you feel pleased with the way he’s doing it.”
To that, Eugene grinned and cast a sidelong look at the priest, “Such evening as tonight can turn anyone into a skilled diplomat.”
Everybody laughed again. Yet, when the laughter ceased, a lasting pause set in. The people got reabsorbed in silent observation of the stars and the fire. Tongues of flame were ardently performing their charming dance to melodious crackle of burning brushwood. Such passion made shafts of sparkles fly up in a spinning whirlwind, continuing their rash “pas” in the darkness space. And this made them look like a multitude of tiny starlets living in their single inimitable instant.
Scrutinizing the celestial bodies, Nikolai Andreevich was the first one to disturb the silence.
“Indeed, the starts are extraordinary… It’s so incredible to think how many worlds are around us, how many galaxies living their own separate life, colliding, scattering, collapsing… Tremendous disasters happen somewhere out there, while somewhere else new forms of life are being born. And this entire life is permanently in full swing in this vast Universe. If you only imagine those enormous masses and sizes, those stupendous velocities of galaxies movement of several hundred kilometers per second, and this entire gigantic process, you automatically face a question: who are we at all, compared to these zillions of stars? Not even a flash… Yet, we are aware of this seething life. And we are not just aware, but we also perceive and study the processes of life creation and of such huge objects destruction. There is an impression that we are allowed to glance through a keyhole of the universe only with one eye, to see both the microcosm and the macrocosm.”
“Why with one eye?” Ruslan asked with a chuckle.
“Why do you ask why?” Kostya responded with humor. “Surely, in order to bate our curiosity to the way the others live. It is the eternal issue of domicile, really!”
Nikolai Andreevich smiled and said, “I believe, if it’s all about the issue of domicile, we would not be given such detailed information in formulas and figures, in thorough confirmations of the evident which are provided for human brain. A different question is more appropriate here: “What for?” Obviously, in order for us to understand something, something very important about ourselves, our essence, our nature…”
Father John nodded agreeing with him.
“Perhaps, the reason God doesn’t hide His keyholes from us is that He knows our nature and wants us to delve deeper into the laws of His creation ourselves, so that in execution of those laws we, as His children, could become participators of His perfect creation. In Bible, in the cathedral epistle of St. Jacob, chapter 1, line 25, there are the following remarkable words, ‘…the one who delves into the perfect law, the law of freedom, and resides in it, being not a forgetful listener, but an executor of deeds, will be blessed in his deeds’.”And, having finished the quotation, he supplemented his speech with an explanation, “He’ll be blessed, because he has understood the essence correctly.”
“Yea-а-аh,” Nikolai Andreevich drawled pensively, he then brightened, having recalled something, and addressed Sensei. “By the way, I had a unique patient, an astronomer. It was an ordinary depression case. He felt lonely because his wife had abandoned him for another man. So, the scientist quite interestingly expressed his mental state, associating it with the life of stars. The main thing was that he did have an understanding, though in a peculiar veiled form, that loneliness was actually an illusion of one’s mind, its fiction, for objectively a person was always socially surrounded. Thus, the feeling of loneliness appears mostly because of one’s inability to adapt oneself to society. The astronomer used to interpret his thoughts in the language of his profession. As he said, if we look at a star, it seems to be a lonely object. Yet, indeed, it’s only an illusion of our naked eye, for even modern telescopes distinguish three to five hundred stars in one such star.”
“Oh, there are even more interesting things than this!” Eugene waved his hand, demonstrating good knowledge of the subject. “If you take a modern microscope and examine this one…” his forefinger pointed at father, but then his eyes timely came across with the priest’s eloquent stare which made Eugene sharply change the direction of his finger to the opposite side where Stas was sitting. “…this suspicious individual, you’ll find so many stuff there!.. A whole Universe of diverse community of fleas, microbes and various disgusting parasites.”
“It’s you who are a disgusting parasite!” Stas countered with a smile. “It can be seen even with a naked eye…”
The entire company burst out laughing. Once the revelry abated, Nikolai Andreevich continued, “Well, this only proves the fact that stars and people are creatures resembling one another in many ways. Everything’s like in our life. Stars like people “live” in groups – in accumulations in which they are connected between each other by forces of mutual gravitation. And the most interesting thing is that, just like in human society, stars most often make up binary systems…”
“What systems?” Victor asked.
“Double systems,” Sensei explained. “It’s like two suns rotating around a common center of masses.”
“Yes,” Nikolai Andreevich confirmed. “That astronomer told such systems are very stable… And, in addition to double ones, there are also three-, four, fivefold stars. To tell the truth, these are rarer than double ones. And he surely paid particular attention to the threefold stars phenomenon, comparing it to his own situation. It turns out that triple stars cannot coexist stably. You know why? Two stars simply discard the third body, while they themselves may steadily rotate side by side during a long period of time.”
“It’s a natural law of mechanics,” Sensei uttered, shrugging his shoulders. “The third body disturbs movement of the other two and usually leads to such system decay.”
“Amazing laws which in many respects coincide with human society!” Nikolai Andreevich said.
“It depends on how you look at that society,” Svat chimed in with a chuckle. “Especially, at a trio. If a trio includes a woman, it’s a delicate issue, I agree. But, if it’s a male company, they can occasionally form systems so stable, especially in drinking, that their mutual gravitation is truly marvelous. And the main thing is that there mostly gather not four or five of them, but exactly three, not more and not less.”
“This way, it is easier to think. A certain integrity of mind is generated,” Bogdan remarked with a grin.
“It’s correct,” Oleg confirmed and specified. “Four is already an excess, one is excessive.”
“The most interesting thing is that it’s just the same up there,” Nikolai Andreevich pointed at the sky, laughing with all the rest. “Fourfold, fivefold stars make insecure groups which dissociate much faster. Surely, same laws of nature operate there. Such cohabitations of stars may form and decay many times throughout their existence. And, as my patient explained, a star may constantly change its partners. For example, in compact star accumulations a star may fly from one “company” to another as many as six times during its lifetime…”
Eugene archly glanced at Father John.
“Father, it’s a heavenly adultery. How does the church tolerate this?”
Father John made a “clever” face, looked at the stars and declared in priestly voice, “It’s all God’s will, child.”
It made everyone laugh again.
“It’s probably true,” Nikolai Andreevich nodded merrily and addressed Sensei again. “In general, I had not a patient, but rather a whole well of psychological arguments for our depression clients. He infected me with his comparative analysis so much that, after our conversations, I became interested in his science myself. He even brought me books on amusing astronomy.”
Sensei grinned and asked in jest, “I haven’t quite understood who was the patient out of you two?”
“Well, sometimes such cases may take place in medicine,” the psychotherapist supported his humor with laughter. “You know, at times some doctors say: “Sometimes you come across such a “talented” loony who can bring you into his own condition without you batting an eyelid”.”
The group burst out laughing again.
“Yet, can you imagine what I’ve read in those books?!” Nikolai Andreevich continued, enthusiastically sharing his impressions. “It appears that in complex star systems consisting of a hundred, two hundred, a thousand stars the situation with their interaction is completely different from that in simple accumulations. A star cannot feel each of its neighbors anymore. Instead, it feels the overall field, and so it moves evenly enough. It looks as if the influence of the neighbors is smoothed out.”
“Such stable groups may often be found in galaxies,” Sensei remarked as if it went without saying.
“Exactly! I’ve noticed this, too. Everything is like in human society. Mass psychology on stream! A mass grades a person’s individuality, i.e. it equalizes completely different people in many respects and imparts new qualities to people belonging to it. Let’s take Le Bon’s concept, for instance. What are the main distinctive features of an individual inside a mass? Firstly, it’s anonymity, disappearance of the conscious personality. Secondly, it’s predominance of the unconscious personality, deterioration of intellect and rationalism. Thirdly, it’s orientation of the mass’s thoughts and feelings into one and the same direction. And the main thing is formation of an aim in individuals to immediately implement the ideas they’re being inspired with. We may say, it’s almost like in star systems.
“However, there are also other amazing facts. I became interested to discover specific figures, i.e. the number of stars in such complex accumulations, for in the human society, and even in the animal world we view something similar. Biologists conducted quite interesting studies on mass psychology with comparative analysis of animal behavior. Processing various data, scientists discovered an optimal size of a human group – not more than one hundred fifty people. Moreover, this number may be applied to various communities, starting from a tribe of hunters or collectors, right up to church, military, corporate groups. And it all began with biologists’ observation of baboons and chimpanzees behavior, when they determined a positive correlation between the size of a cortex, namely of its frontal and temporal parts, and the size of an animal pack…”
“What is correlation?” Victor interested, not really understanding Nikolai Andreevich’s professional language.
“Well, it’s interrelation, interdependency… So, they were observing apes during those experiments. The apes were living in groups consisting of about fifty specimens each. All pack members knew each other. Furthermore, they were even involved in various types of relationships: they were friends or at odds with one another, they entered into diverse alliances. Based on the observations, the scientists made corresponding calculations taking into account the size of a homo sapiens brain and came to the optimal size of a human group – not more than one hundred fifty people! As they also determined, if a community grows larger, people start feeling themselves aloof inside it. Hence, they simply lose capability to follow everything happening inside the group. As a result, the group loses its individuality and then splits into separate groupings. And the main thing is that it becomes almost impossible to rule over such group. What does is mean? It means that assistants become necessary. Consequently, a management system originates… So, stars and humans have much in common.”
“Naturally,” Sensei ascertained evenly. “It is the world of the matter. And its laws apply to both microcosm and macrocosm. The matter is characterized by a certain reasonable organization, by certain laws of survival and limited time of existence. The matter is starting and ending. Hence, it’s no wonder stars and humans are so similar.”
Sensei took some brushwood and added it to the fire.
“And it relates not only to humans, but to the rest of the animated world as well. Let’s take ants as an example at least. Do you know how organized their life and their infrastructure are? They set up new colonies where each member fulfills a strictly defined function: some ants gather food, others defend the colony, still others are occupied with ventilation or establish new shafts, and some others fight. In the colony, there are pilferers, parasites, hangers-on, and there are “slave-holders” as well. In other words, they have the same hierarchy, the same organization… A similar situation is on the level of galaxies, if we enlarge the scale. They snatch matter and planets out of one another, they “eat up” each other, they collide, they scatter. Well, humanity behaves just like this, too… Even in a small group someone aspires to become a leader. Two leaders cannot get along together, so there is always a conflict.”
“That’s true,” the psychotherapist agreed.
“So, the matter is the matter. Nevertheless, despite such, say, isolation, all the matter is closely interconnected.”
“How come?” Andrew didn’t understand. “Does it mean I’m connected to some star or some microbe living in a distant galaxy?”
“Yes,” Sensei answered simply, putting another portion of branches into the fire.
Andrew raised his eyebrows with astonishment.
“Are you familiar with such concept as gravitational fields?” Sensei asked Andrew.
“Well...”
“Properties of these fields are far from being thoroughly studied by the modern humanity. Yet, gravitational fields are characterized by tremendous velocities. If we compare their velocity with the velocity of light, it would be same as comparing a speed of the most up-to-date sky-rocket with a speed of an old, feeble tortoise. For gravitation fields, no concept of distance actually exist, instead there is a concept of instantaneous transference. And, owing exactly to the general gravitational field the basic element of which is the Po particle, each atom on the tip of your nose is connected with each atom of the sun, of other planets and stars, and even, as you’ve said, with each atom of a microbe living in some distant galaxy… You see, the matter as such is a gigantic organism which is permanently altering because of its energies transformation…”
“It’s so difficult to imagine such tremendous infinity with hundreds of milliards of stars as a single organism,” Volodya said in bass voice, looking at the night sky.
“Nevertheless, it is exactly as I’ve described,” Sensei uttered. “For instance, in our head there are also milliards of nerve cells which virtually form their own galaxies flaring up from the birth moment. There are about one hundred thousand chemical reactions taking place in one’s cerebrum each second. And, should we look at this from the position of a micro-creature, say, some quark “inhabiting” one of those cells, for this tiny creature the cerebrum would also seem to be an unexplainable, unknowable infinity. It’s normal... Our mind is very limited. Moreover, we are never left in peace by the animal nature with its egoism, with its self-assurance that it’s the “hub” of the global evolution, and its “irresistible” corporal appearance. Whereas, what are we in fact for such a tremendous organism? Only dust of the long ago extinct stars.”
“In what sense?” Svat didn’t get it.
“In direct sense,” Sensei responded. “Have you ever thought of what is your organism in reality?”
“Well, it’s clear. Muscles, bones, blood...”
“You should scrutinize it deeper,” Sensei advised in a friendly way. “In reality, it’s a certain set of chemical elements which consists on average of 65% of oxygen, 18% of carbon, 10% of hydrogen, 3% of nitrogen, and of 1% of everything else.”
“But what about bones?”
“Bones are also a sheer chemistry, an original “depot” of mineral salts. They are made of calcium, phosphorus, magnesium and about thirty other microelements. Well, and there is water, of course, the notorious Н2О. Now, think what the stars, say, in our galaxy are made of. Surely, they’re made of the same chemical elements, where hydrogen and helium are ones of the most prevalent... As I’ve already said, there is a total mass of the matter. By means of certain forces, sets and combinations, it is transformed into various material objects. For example, new generations of stars are permanently created out of interstellar gas by dint of condensation, and planets are formed out of dust, i.e. of the same set of chemical elements contained in that gas. What is the light of stars maintained with? With the discharge of nuclear energy in their kernels during the process of synthesis of heavy elements such as carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, silicon, iron and so on. And, when the lifetime of a star comes to its end, the star gives the major part of its matter back to the interstellar space, enriching it with heavy elements. There is a usual phenomenon of gigantic explosions of so called super-new stars which actually produce almost all chemical elements.”
“The elements contained in Mendeleev’s table?” Oleg inquired.
“Well, let’s say – contained in the complete table including those elements which have not been discovered by this humanity yet… And again, the discharged gas becomes a construction material for new accumulations of stars, for planets and for life on the latter. Thus, it turns out that the same matter of which, say, our Solar System, our Earth and we all were made, had been repeatedly used for composition of stars which had existed previously.”
“You discourse the truth indeed, my son,” Father John echoed. “That’s why the Holy Bible says that God created a man out of earthly dust and breathed life into him, and the man became a living soul.”
“Absolutely right. Consequently, if a person wastes prana, i.e. the vital energy “the ”breath of life”, on his or her Animal, his or her material, such person will, unfortunately, turn into dust, take it for all in all, whereas if a person spends prana on his soul growth, some completely different laws came into action – the laws of the spiritual world. It surely does not mean that the human matter won’t be further processed and used to fertilize the earth. Physical body is a mere shell for maturing of the spiritual substance, and it is mortal like any matter. Nevertheless, if inside this shell a synthesis of the thought power, the soul and the “breath of life” takes place during the shell existence, a completely new spiritual creature is born, say, a Personality of eternity, whom the laws of matter have no influence upon.”
Sensei fell silent. All of a sudden, Valera who had not said a word throughout their conversation asked unexpectedly, “And what is life in its genuine sense?”
Sensei looked at him attentively and answered quite bluntly, “It’s nothing, but ezoosmos – the inner impulse of energy.”
After this answer, everybody was silent for a while, evidently thinking over what they had just heard. Then Kostya started ratiocinating aloud, “However, if life is a mere impulse of energy, then, in principle, there should be quite a lot of such energy including rational one. Yet, so far, for example, they even haven’t discovered another planet like ours possessing the necessary conditions for the rational life development. So, we are indeed solitary in our rationality.”
“I have to “disappoint” you,” Sensei said ironically. “There are milliards of such planets as ours! And there are zillions of such individuals sitting by the fire and looking at the sky. But these facts really convey nothing.”
“Why don’t they contact us if that is so?”
Eugene grinned, having recalled something funny, “Why would they contact such humanoids who live in their social mess and are constantly whimpering and complaining? Do you know the recent rumors?” He bent forward and whispered conspiratorially as if communicating some supersecret information, “They say that the lack of contacts with the Earth from the outer space definitely confirms the existence of rational civilizations out there.”
The guys laughed looking at the “humanoids expert”.
“No, joking apart!” Kostya objected, adjusting the eyeglasses which had moved down from his nose bridge. “What rational life may possibly exist in the outer space, if there is nothing at all there, except dust and other stuff of that sort?”
“Rational life exists not only on other planets, but even in the cosmic space itself,” Sensei returned to him. “That life certainly differs from our air-breathing form which needs oxygen. The main thing for any life is the energy impulse, i.e. ezoosmos. Such impulse can be given, for instance, by thermal energy, by the energies of electromagnetic, gravitational fields and so forth. And life will be generated by such impulse, but it’ll be a life different than biological. Our mind has become accustomed to think only amino acids may be construction blocks in living organisms of rational beings, and so we simply don’t want to see and to accept anything, but such belief. Yet, if we consider amino acids, these “bricks” are scattered all over the space, however this doesn’t mean anything. Amino acids as such are far from being a “house” in which rational beings are settled. They are only “bricks” which are still to be put together to make the “house” shape.”
“How may an alternative life look like otherwise?” Kostya asked in bewilderment.
“Well, for example, there are rational beings with corresponding intellect who live outside any planets, in the inter-cosmic space. They occupy vast territories. It’s actually one of the biggest populations of rational beings… What they are composed of cannot be even called a matter in our human understanding. If you use the earthly language, the structure of their, say, “cells” (the latter containing nothing similar to amino acids) reminds a form of little retort, little cylinders. But, once they match together, they change their shape. Those are isolated particles. Their structure is much more organized and much higher than ours... In its natural state, such creature is not very long, though it depends on its “age”. Their sizes may vary from several millimeters to several meters. When such creature resides in quiescent state, it disintegrates and merges with the outside world, whereas upon travel it simply organizes itself, and that’s all… In principle, these creatures can get on any planets.”
“On ours, too?” Ruslan wondered.
“Naturally. Although it’s difficult to see them with a naked eye here. Some modern equipment would be needed, since they move at totally different speeds… They can organize themselves, they can fall into separate parts, but even during such disintegration they continue existing on the energy level, and they can reintegrate themselves if needed. They can also easily pass to a parallel world…”
“Well, is these rational beings do exists, we should somehow feel their presence,” Kostya declared.
“By no means. We simply cannot intersect with them due to their velocities, therefore we cannot feel them either. Nevertheless, it’s possible to record their movement. When they enter our atmosphere, the isolated groups of their “cells” draw together. During their movement, they resemble something like an oblong body with a spire winded around it. The spire looks like a rod in a manual meat grinder. At that moment, perhaps, it might be possible to record them with modern devices, at that filming must be very rapid and thoroughly focused on these objects. As for any other method… In principle, they discharge no energy. They expend the obtained heat on themselves. Their accumulations may also be seen, if we follow the thermal energy distribution along the spectrum: the temperature of the sunbeams, for instance, usually decreases behind them, because the process of “absorption” takes place.”
Having considered for a while, Kostya asked another question, “By means of what do these creatures move?”
“By means of sliding on gravitational fields. They use gravitation for travel. Their movement resembles rotation of spires. In the case of our atmosphere, there’s appears an impression as if they are revolving the air, although it’s not like this in reality. Such spiral movement is connected with our magnetic fields.”
“Is it possible to catch such creature?” Andrew expressed a “wild idea”, being probably incited by a primeval hunting instinct.
“To catch?” Sensei grinned. “Well, it would be same as trying to catch a fish with a sweep-net rim without a net.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s not that easy. Our inter-atomic, corpuscular cellular distances are too big for us to feel the movement of these creatures through us at least somehow. We are the void for them.”
“What do you mean?” Father John wondered.
“Well… What is a human being or rather its body in the largest accounts? It’s the void. If we look inside our microcosm, we would see that our molecules, atoms, electrons are at big distances from each other. And, the further we delve into their division, the more void we’ll discover. The void inside a human body mounts to about 97.7%. In principle, if we remove the entire void, the remainder of the human being would figuratively go through an eye of a needle... In the case of those creatures, we cannot get in touch with them because there are two hindering factors: the interatomic distances and the acceleration in time. As I’ve already mentioned, their ezoosmos operates at a different frequency. Therefore, we actually don’t intersect. It’s a paradox of the parallel which have been neither described nor studied by the modern science.”
“I haven’t quite understood…” Andrew said.
“Say, for example, while I’ve been telling you all this, zillion neutrinos has passed, or rather has flown through our bodies, and none of you have even felt them. Yet, incidentally, one neutrino consists of five Po particles, while “little retorts” of these creatures consist of three Po particles each. Furthermore, during our existence we move at a certain speed in a certain time flow,” Sensei explained patiently. “These creatures are omnipresent exactly due to the fact they can freely accelerate, whereas we are incapable of what they do since we can’t get out of this time; we are limited here. You see, for a transfer we need… say, to accelerate our inner energy potential in order for us to move to another time or another parallel together with our astral, mental and other shells. The acceleration must occur on that level, and then – yes, we would move. But, again, how would we move? We’d disappear here and appear in a more accelerated time. However, should we appear in that world, we’d basically get into a similar parallel with possibly same seas, skies, sun, yet we’d find ourselves in a completely different world which naturally does not intersect with ours due to its frequency characteristics. For instance, on a site where we have a building located, there would be a desert or a forest.”