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Looking at such a sinister picture, everything in my mouth dried up, and a shiver ran along my entire body. In spite of my desire to run away, my body stood still, unable to move. I looked at the guys. Tatyana almost crawled over Kostya and grabbed him with a death grip. Kostya himself looked like a plaster monument. Slava stood with an open mouth and wide-open eyes. Even Andrew, despite his earlier optimism, was stamping out with his teeth a fine, nervous quiver. His face was covered with sweat.
Eugene, looking back at us, obediently went up to the dark figure. Raising his hands, he solemnly pronounced, “Oh Great magician, wizard and sorcerer, ruler over all the nations, whose power and might over all land, water, air, and fire stretches over the entire Universe. Your loyal disciples have fulfilled their holy duty. Take in your bosom these lost souls, in order to restore your true and fair authority and power on Earth!”
Eugene made a low bow. During his speech, Sensei turned to him in surprise.
“What? What?” he asked. “Which might, which power? What are you talking about?”
Eugene and Stas both rolled with laughter.
“What’s the matter? What are you laughing about?” asked Sensei, while smoking a cigarette. “And where are the other guys? Have you met them?”
Drowning in laughter, Eugene waved towards us, “They are still in a stupor over there and can’t come out.”
“What kind of stupor?” asked Sensei, not understanding and looking into the dark. “What nonsense have you told them?”
But Eugene couldn’t stop laughing, hopelessly waving his hand.
“What a clown!”
“Sensei, don’t you know Eugene?” replied Stas, dying laughing.
Looking at all that turmoil, Andrew was first to understand what was going on. Shamefully pulling his hand away from the button, he sighed with relief.
“Well, guys,” said Andrew, coming out from the darkness to them. “That was great. The joke was good, but who’s going to wash my pants now?!”
This comment provoked an even bigger storm of laughter. Sensei said with a smile, “What did this clown make up this time?”
Andrew started to tell in detail how this “guide” led us through the village, changed according to his stories into the Brocken mountain. We also joined him, enriching the story with our impressions. At the very end, our entire big company, together with Sensei, roared with uninterrupted laughter, recalling our recent feelings.
“I just came earlier today,” explained Sensei, laughing through tears. “The light in our village was cut off. Probably the cable was damaged somewhere.”
“What a story,” Tatyana uttered with her clear voice. “I don’t want to mention what we suffered from Eugene, but there was also this cat!”
Meanwhile, the small ball of our big fear sat peacefully, frightened by human laughter.
“It’s Samurai,” Stas waved his hand and explained. “Sensei’s cat. He always follows him.”
“Stas, you should have clued us in to what was going on,” Andrew said with a smile.
“How?” he shrugged his shoulders. “You dashed aside from every shadow, and if I were to start making faces, we would have had to search for you all over the village.”
The guys laughed, having imagined this picture.
“I say,” Eugene justified, “it was an ordinary joke. Like Ostap Bender said, ‘The most important is to bring confusion into the enemy’s camp… Because people most of all are afraid of the unknown.’”
“That’s right,” said Sensei. “Fear begotten by imagination sees danger even where there is no danger at all. There is one ancient eastern legend about fear. A wise man met the Plague on his way and asked, ‘Where are you going?’ It answered, ‘To a big city. I have to kill five thousand people there.’ In a few days the same wise man again met the Plague. ‘You said that you’d kill five thousand people but you’ve killed fifty thousand,’ he accused. ‘No,’ objected the Plague. ’I‘ve killed five thousand; the others died from fear.’”
Having discussed all the funny details of this journey and having dispersed the myth of our unjustified fears by humor and laughter, we switched to more serious topics. Our group was joined by three other guys: Ruslan, Yura, and Victor (senior sempai). A little later came Nikolai Andreevich (“Dumpling”), who turned out to be a psychotherapist. Meanwhile we were talking about Qigong.
“What does the word ‘Qigong’ mean?” Slava asked Sensei.
“Well, translating this word literally from Chinese, Qigong refers to work with the energy of the air, because ‘Qi’ means ‘wind, gas, breath,’ and the syllable ‘gong’ means ‘work, action, or deed.’”
“And this system was invented by the Chinese?” asked Andrew.
“Not really,” answered the Teacher. “It is the Hindu system of self-regulation, which migrated to China at the beginning of a new era.”
“I’ve read that there exist different types of Qigong.” As always, Kostya put in his remark. “I think there are two different schools.”
“There are a lot more of them,” said Igor Mikhailovich. “In the modern world there are plenty of different schools of Qigong. For example, Confucian, Buddhist, medical, military…”
“Medical?” I shuddered. “What does it heal?”
“Many diseases.”
“So, we need only to breathe the right way?” Andrew interrupted my next question.
“Not only. You also need to think the right way. There is a saying that ‘a thought guides Qi, and Qi guides the blood.’ Blood is like the ambulance of the body; it includes all necessary medical supplies. In the very ancient medical treatise Huangdi Neijin, it is said that ‘when a thought rests in stillness it is free.’ It means that you can master Qi. The human who thinks the right way has good health.”
“To put it short, a sound mind can only exist in a healthy body,” Kostya made a conclusion for himself.
“Not really. I would say, with healthy thoughts there will be a sound mind, and with a sound mind will be a healthy body.”
“Could you please explain to me, you always emphasize the importance to think the right way, both during physical trainings and now,” remarked Andrew. “But for some reason, before I thought that all we need is just to act the right way. Because thoughts can be different during the choice of action: both good and bad.”
“That’s where you waste priceless time on the struggle with your own self. You shouldn’t have to choose between a good and a bad thought because you shouldn’t have any negative thoughts in your mind at all. The goal of the Highest Art, the Art of Lotus, is to learn the proper way of thinking; in other words, ‘to kill a Dragon inside,’ or ‘to conquer a Dragon.’ Have you heard of such an expression?”
“Yes.”
“That is the purpose. The greatest victory is the victory over yourself. What does that mean? It means to win your own negative thoughts, to control them, and to control your emotions. I repeat once again, there shouldn’t be anything ne-ga-tive in your mind. Only positive thoughts! Then you won’t need to spend time fighting with yourself, and your doings will always be positive. Peace should be first of all inside of you. Peace and harmony.”
“So, it means that human thought is reflected in any action?” asked Andrew, thinking about something known only to him.
“It is not only reflected, it guides all action. Because the thought is material.”
“Material?” It was Nikolai Andreevich’s turn to be surprised.
“Of course. It’s a much finer substance, not studied enough yet. But it does exist, it is real, its movements are traced. There have been many effective experiments on psychics and psychic phenomena. There were experiments with our own psychics; for example, Nina Kulagina, Julia Vorobieva, and many others. I don’t even mention the rich world practice. This research is conducted all over the world, although it is known by different names. For example, in England it is known as mental investigation. In France it is ‘metapsychics’, in countries of Eastern Europe ‘psychotronics’, in the U.S. ‘parapsychology’, in China ‘investigations into extraordinary functions of the human body’, and so on.
“And if you look deeply into the history of mankind, you will find there is much evidence that it was known from the earliest of times. In all mythical, magical, and religious views and teachings of people, a firm belief exists that it is possible to influence anyone and anything through thoughts, regardless of the distance, time, and space. In other words, generally speaking, this knowledge has always existed.”
Nikolai Andreevich joined again in the polemics, “Well, now you have given us examples of local psychics who became known to us just recently. Why weren’t there such people earlier in the Soviet Union? I’ve been practicing psychotherapy for many years. But studying the mind of different people, my colleagues and I have never come across such phenomena. It’s true that recently there were people talking nonsense and considering themselves to be sensitives. And they even tried to prove it. But in reality, it was just their sick imagination, while real psychics didn’t exist in the Soviet Union.”
“Why didn’t they exist?” Igor Mikhailovich was surprised. “They existed, and there were a lot of them! From time immemorial in Russia there existed many of such people. But how were they treated? In ancient, unenlightened times, very seldom were they considered saints, but in the majority of cases, those who refused to obey the church were burned in a fire, put on stakes, depending on the whim of the king.
“Only starting from the second half of the eighteenth century, after the opening of the Academy of Science, the phenomena of the psychic life of human beings started to be researched in Russia more seriously, from the medical point of view. And about one hundred years later, research in that sphere was conducted by many prominent scientists; for example, by one of the founders of your own science, Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev. When he was the head of St. Petersburg’s imperial military and medical academy, he himself financed the creation of an entire research institute for the study of brain and psychic activities.
“And during Soviet times? Almost from the start of its existence, supreme attention was paid to the study of psychic phenomena of the brain and of one of its main mysteries – thoughts. It can be proved by historical fact that those investigations were held by the order of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin under the personal control of Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky in the special department of the Secret Service that was dealing with secrecy and protection of state secrets. This department even had a special neuro-energetical laboratory. This elite special department used in its work various healers, mediums, shamans, hypnotherapists.”
“God, and why did they need all those ‘healers’?” Nikolai Andreevich was really surprised.
“Well, all that was for the same reason: the extraordinary abilities of those individuals. They were able to manipulate human beings with hidden forces that significantly surpassed the abilities of any machinery. All these phenomena were very seriously examined! They sent even scientific expeditions searching for this knowledge: from the studies of the mysteries of ancient civilizations to the search for the legendary Shambala.”
“Shambala… it sounds familiar… What is it?” Andrew asked impatiently.
“Shambala? Well, it is kind of an abode located high in the mountains. But it is famous because the group of scientists living there have long surpassed mankind in their spiritual, scientific, and technical levels.”
“Now I recall,” said Nikolai Andreevich. “Legend says that Shambala is an abode of Wise Men. But what has science to do with that? Do these Wise Men study something in particular: astronomy or mathematics, or just philosophy?”
“In Shambala, they study only the most ancient primordial science, the Art of White Lotus, which includes everything, and exact sciences as well. Moreover, it is a source of all sciences studied by mankind.”
Nikolai Andreevich distrustfully looked at Sensei.
“What do you mean, ‘only the most ancient’? The majority of exact sciences appeared quite recently; well, maybe two or three hundred years ago.”
“You are wrong. All this knowledge was given to people time and again for the development of their civilizations, in ancient times as well. Long before written history there were other human civilizations that achieved a level of development much higher than ours now. Some of them were destroyed, some reached the Absolute. However, remnants of their existence are still being found today. Read about strange archaeological findings and you’ll become certain of that. In the future, people will find even more interesting proof of what has happened a long time ago on the globe. A lot is written in ancient literature about the existence of this knowledge. For example, ancient nuclear explosions, the results of which scientists now find in the most ancient strata, precise maps of the stellar sky, identified planets that weren’t discovered by us, the ‘vimanas’, aircrafts, and so forth. It means that this knowledge was given to people before and it originated from one source: the science of Shambala.”
“And how far ahead is this science compared to modern knowledge?” Nikolai Andreevich asked arrogantly, crossing hands over his chest.
“Considerably far ahead,” replied Sensei simply. “Much farther than you can imagine. But to put that into perspective, I will give this example. At the time when people still piously believed that the Earth stood on three whales and the Sun turned around it, the scientists of Shambala had already conducted scientific experiments and different tests on the Sun. Modern civilization is still very far from that, and it’s not clear whether it will ever reach such a level. Why do you think people at the peak of their power so actively searched for Shambala? For instance, in the span of time known to you, such celebrities as Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and so on, searched for it. Because according to all ancient legends and myths of different cultures, all the knowledge of the Universe and cultural heritage of extinct civilizations is concealed in Shambala.”
“I wonder why was it searched for only by tyrants?”
“Not tyrants, but people striving for absolute power over the world. All people in power possess true information, they knew and know about the existence of this abode, about the existence of this powerful knowledge concealed in it. They perfectly understand that the real power over the world is concentrated in Shambala. That’s why many people searched and still are searching for it. However, Shambala itself never gave anyone the possibility to conquer the whole world. It balanced, in a way, certain forces. And if a man standing at the peak of his power zealously tried to realize his dream of domination over the world, he simply ended his existence. Many people in power contacted with representatives of Shambala and fulfilled their requests. Everybody tried to help, because it’s simply impossible to give up the temptation to know more than mankind knows… Aside from public leaders, many ordinary people were also in search of knowledge of Shambala.”
“Does it mean that nobody has ever found it?” Kostya asked.
“Not exactly. The paradox is that Shambala has never hidden its existence. It doesn’t interfere actively in people’s lives unless it concerns something globally important for all of mankind and in particular for Shambala. But if it’s necessary, its scientific society decides itself whom it is reasonable to contact.”
“Well, let’s assume that. But if this abode of Wise Men doesn’t hide its existence, why couldn’t it be found by people who were at the peak of power? After all, they had everything at their disposal: equipment, finance, and human resources!” Nikolai Andreevich was puzzled.
“Yes, you’ve listed everything but their hard hearts and greedy thoughts. The unalterable rule for contacting Shambala is the high morality and purity of a person’s intentions. Only possessing the first of all these qualities can get someone access to the required knowledge.
“You see, we come back again to our starting point. Why can’t a human develop these phenomenal abilities consciously when it is quite possible? Because there is too much egocentrism, vanity, greed, anger, envy in him. In other words, too many qualities inherent to a beast, to animal nature. And if he comes into contact with this inexplicable psychic phenomenon, his animal nature turns against logic because it fears losing its power over the human mind. That is, animal nature tries to preserve its power over the human by rationalizing the phenomenon or criticizing it, when all that is necessary is simple childish faith.
“In some cases, of course, people spontaneously discover their phenomenal abilities, as a result, for example, of some kind of trauma, intense stress, and so forth. But, if negative qualities prevail in the human mind, it’s the same as if a Neanderthal finds a monkey wrench and, not knowing how to use it, applies it, from his negative point of view, to his friends.”
The guys smiled, and Eugene asked, “Will he hit them on their heads?”
“Even worse, on the big toes. Then his friends will completely forget about their heads.”
“And if at that moment a good, spiritual nature prevails in the human?” I asked with curiosity.
“And if there prevails a spiritual nature in a person, then he will correctly perceive new information on a subconscious level, using his phenomenal abilities for good intentions. Because in this case, faith gives birth to knowledge, and knowledge strengthens faith. And without faith no miracles are possible in this world.”
“It’s an interesting thought,” said Nikolai Andreevich, and remaining silent for a while, added, “I wonder, when Stalin came to power in our country, did he stop research into these phenomena?”
“On the contrary, this research became even more intensive and continued even after his death. This interest hasn’t waned, even to the present day. This subject is examined by many scientific institutes.”
“Hmm, but I’ve studied works of many well-known authors of different institutes specialized in my sphere, but I haven’t run into subject.”
“It’s not strange because this subject belongs to the sphere of hidden control over the masses. I think that you understand well enough how secret these works are. I can give you an example of the Leningrad institute named after Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev. By the way, the work of Bekhterev was continued by his granddaughter, Natalya Petrovna Bekhtereva. There they study closely the human brain. And one of the priority directions of that institute is research into people’s psychic phenomena.”
“But the Leningrad institute is one of the leading in…,” Nikolai Andreevich froze, saying half a word, evidently shocked by his guess. Having coped with the excitement, he continued, “Well, but if it has been studied for so long, if the military has shown such an interest in it, and if huge amounts of money were spent, then probably there should have been huge scientific progress in psychic studies.”
“Progress?” grinned Sensei. “What kind of a progress can there be with such motivation? Their institute still can’t explain the phenomenal effects of this biomass that weights a little more than a kilo the cerebrum, just like other world scientists. It has remained, despite all of their efforts, the mystery of mysteries. Space is investigated much more than the human brain.”
“I agree… But you say that the sacred knowledge can be given only to people of high moral standards. Not all the scientists are complete egotists with excessive megalomania. For example, that very Bekhtereva…”
“Absolutely correct. And if you carefully follow the work of academician Bekhtereva as a human and a scientist, you’ll see that after having studied the human brain all her life, she came to the conclusion that she knows very little about it, about its potential. Nevertheless, the deeper she delves into the study of the brain, the more she believes in the idea of its extraterrestrial origin, that is, of its true source of origin, based on the exceptional complexity and superfluity of the brain. I’m pretty sure that soon she will publicly announce it, just as it was announced by the great scientists of the world not just in the sphere of psychic research, but in other natural sciences, for example, by Einstein, Tesla, Vernadsky, Tsiolkovsky, and other great scientists. This list is huge and would take a long time to go through. But all those people came to the conclusion that humans are very unique and mysterious creatures and in no way could have originated on the Earth from some kind of infusorium!”
We stood silent, slightly shocked by what we had heard.
“So, it means that the power of extraordinary, phenomenal people is concealed simply in their thought?” Kostya asked again.
“Absolutely right. Thought is a real power. A lot greater than humans can imagine. Thought is able to move planets, to create and destroy entire galaxies, which initially was proved by God Himself.”
Nikolai Andreevich smiled and said ironically, “It’s a very convincing answer, I can’t even argue with it.”
“Really?!” Andrew expressed our general amazement. “Then why don’t we feel the presence of this gigantic power in ourselves?”
“Because you don’t believe in it.”
“Is that so? The beginning was so complicated, but the end is so simple,” stated Kostya.
“What can I do? So is the nature of knowledge,” answered Sensei with a smile.
“Well, how can it be,” Slava was struggling to understand, “if I felt such a power, why wouldn’t I believe in it?”
“The whole trick is that first you should believe, and then you will feel it.”
“And what if I believe but don’t feel it?” Slava couldn’t calm down. “What then?”
“If you really believe in it, then certainly you will feel it,” answered Sensei and added, “All right, we can discuss it for a long time, but it’s time to begin the meditation.”
“And what is a meditation?” asked Tatyana. “I’ve read that it is psychic training during a trance. But what it actually is, I still don’t understand.”
“In a few words, a simple meditation is the training of thought and a deeper spiritual practice is the training of spirit.”
“Does it mean that thought and spirit are the same?” Kostya broke into the conversation again.
“No.”
The cat sitting close by stirred at its place, as if making itself more comfortable.
“Now we will practice the simplest meditation on the concentration of attention, so that you can learn how to control the Qi energy. But before that, I would like to repeat again for those who came late. In addition to the material body, the human also has an energy body. The energy body consists of an aura, chakras, energy channels, meridians, and special reservoirs for energy accumulation. Each of them has its own name. I will tell you later in detail about all of them, depending on the meditation.”
“And what is a chakra?” I asked.
“Chakra is a tiny spot on the human body through which different energies enter and exit. It works…so for you it would be easier to understand… like an iris or diaphragm in a camera. Do you know what that is?”
We nodded assent.
“It is the same way with chakras; they instantly open and instantly close.”
“And does all that energy really come out in that instant?” Slava was surprised.
“Well, it’s not like emptying a bucket of water. After all, a human being is an energy and material creature, where energy and matter exist by their own laws and time, however they are fully interconnected and interdependent. Any other questions?” Everyone was silent. “Then let’s begin. Right now, your objective is to learn to feel inside of yourselves the movement of air, the movement of Qi. You all think that you perfectly understand and feel yourselves. But I’m pretty sure that you can’t see right now, for example, the toes of your feet. Why? Because you don’t have internal vision. Internal vision, just like internal feeling, can be trained with time, in everyday training. That’s why we will start with the simplest and easiest meditation. We’ll try to learn to control thoughts and feelings, to evoke them and to guide them.
“All right, now make yourselves comfortable and relax. Calm your emotions. You may close your eyes, so nothing will distract you. Dissolve all your thoughts and everyday problems in the emptiness.”
As soon as that phrase was spoken, I recalled a pile of tiny household chores. “Gosh! Those impudent thoughts again,” I thought. “You were told to get dissolved.” I tried again not to think about anything.
“Concentrate on the tip of your nose…”
With closed eyes I tried to “see” the tip of the nose, guided more by my internal feelings. I felt my eyes slightly strain.
“Now breathe in deeply, slowly and gradually. First, with the bottom of the stomach, then with the stomach, chest, raising shoulders… Slightly hold your breath… Slowly breathe out… We concentrate our internal vision only on the tip of the nose… You should feel and imagine that the tip of your nose is like a small light bulb or small flame, and it flames up with your every breath out… Breathe in… Breathe out… Breathe in… Breathe out… The flame flares up more and more…”
At first, I felt a slight burning and pricking in my nose. There was such a feeling as if I were filled with something material, like a jug with water. Later it seemed to me that in the area of the nose tip appeared a dark distant contour of a purple tiny spot. At first, I couldn’t clearly focus on it. Finally, when I was able to get it fixed, it started to lighten up from inside. Moreover, when breathing in, the light narrowed, and when breathing out, it widened. When I got used to breathing this way, I heard the words of Sensei.
“Now switch your attention to another part of meditation. Slightly raise your hands a little forward, palms facing the earth. Breathe in as usual: through the bottom of the stomach, then through the stomach and chest. Your breath out should be directed through the shoulders, hands, to the center of your palms, where the chakras of the hands are located, and through them into the earth. Imagine that something is flowing through your hands, Qi energy, or light, or water, and then overflows into the earth. This flow rises from the bottom of the stomach up to your chest, and there it is split up in two streamlets and overflows into the earth through your shoulders, arms, hands. Concentrate all your attention on the feeling of that movement… Breathe in… Breathe out… Breathe in… Breathe out…”
A thought flashed across my mind, “What does it mean to breathe through the hands? How can it be?” I even panicked a little. Sensei, obviously feeling my confusion, came up and placed his palms over mine, without touching the skin. After some time, my palms began to burn, like two stoves, spreading warmth from their center to the periphery. And what astonished me most of all was that I really felt how tiny warm streamlets were pouring through my shoulders. In the region of my elbows they weakened, but I felt them very well overflowing through my palms. Deep in these new, unusual feelings, I asked myself, “How am I doing this?” While I was thinking it over, I lost the feeling of the steamlets. I had to concentrate again. In general, it worked with variable success. After one of my next attempts, I again heard Sensei’s voice.
“Close the palms of your hands in front of you, firmly grip them so that the chakras of the hands are closed and the movement of energy stopped. Take two deep, fast breaths in and out… Lower your hands and open your eyes.”
After the meditation, when we started to share impressions, I understood that everyone experienced it differently. Tatyana, for example, didn’t see the flame; instead of it she felt some kind of light movement through her hands. Andrew had a shiver in his legs and light dizziness. Kostya shrugged his shoulders and answered, “I didn’t feel anything special, except a pins and needles sensation. But that is quite a normal reaction resulting from the oversaturation of the body with oxygen.”
“After the third, fourth breath in, maybe,” answered the Teacher. “But at the beginning the brain becomes fixed by the thought, in particular before the movement of the Qi. And if you listen to yourselves, relax and breathe in deeply, you will immediately feel a widening or paresthesia feeling in the head, or in other words, a certain process that develops there. That is exactly what you need to understand, what is moving there, and learn to control it.”
“Why didn’t I feel anything?” asked a disappointed Slava.
“What did you think about?” Sensei asked half in jest.
It turned out that Slava didn’t really know what he had been expecting, maybe some kind of a miracle. Sensei replied, “Right, that’s the reason you didn’t feel anything because you concentrated your thoughts not on the work but on waiting for some extraordinary miracle. But there won’t be a miracle until you create it yourself. You shouldn’t wait for anything extraordinary when you breathe correctly or concentrate on something. No. The biggest miracle is you, yourself, as a Human! After all, where does all great spiritual art lead? It helps you become human so that you gradually wake up and recall the knowledge that was given to you primordially. These meditations are only a means of awakening from spiritual lethargy and recalling long-hidden and forgotten information that you knew and used once upon a time.”
“What do you mean knew?” Slava didn’t understand.
“Well. For example, everybody knows how to read, write, count, if, of course, he is normal, without mental disorders. Right?”
“Right.”
“But first he had to be taught. While later he already easily reads, counts and so forth. That is, he already exactly knows that, for example, one plus one equals two, two plus two equals four. It seems so simple and real! But at the beginning he was taught all this, although in reality he simply recalled. These are hidden, subconscious abilities. Or, here is another easier example that has to do with the physiological level. If a man who doesn’t know how to swim is thrown into the water, he will drown. But it has been proven and confirmed by deliveries in water that a newborn baby, when lowered into pool, swims like any other animal. Does it mean that he already possesses these reflexes? Indeed. But later it’s simply forgotten. It is the same with a human. He has a lot of knowledge that he doesn’t even suspect he has.
“But… all of this works only with a positive factor. If some mercenary interests prevail in him, for example, to learn to cheat somebody or to be able to hit someone with energy from a distance, or maybe he wants to be able to bend everyone’s spoons so they throw him money for that, he will never achieve anything. Only when a person learns to control his thoughts will he really become human, and only then will he be able to achieve something.”
“So, does it mean that spiritual practice is a method of awakening a human?” asked Andrew.
“Absolutely right. Spiritual practice is only an instrument for repairing your mind. And the result depends on how you use this instrument. In other words, it all depends on the desire and skill of the master. And in order to learn how to hold this instrument in your hands it is necessary to control your thought, to concentrate it, and to see it with your internal vision. In our case it means to learn to control our breath, to feel that you breathe out through the chakras of hands. You need to learn to evoke certain feelings so that later you will be able to control the internal, hidden energy.”
“In my opinion, this is a hallucination,” remarked Kostya.
“Yes, a hallucination, if you regard it as a hallucination. But if you regard this energy as real power, then in reality it will be real power.”
“It’s strange, but why?”
“Because, I repeat, a thought controls an action. While energy itself is an action. That is all. Everything is very simple.”
We remained silent for a moment, while Nikolai Andreevich asked, “From the point of view of psychology, is it nevertheless an objective factor or a subjective feeling? For example, I clearly felt the concentration on the tip of the nose. But movements through the arms I felt only partially, where I was focusing my attention.”
Sensei started to explain something to the psychotherapist, using terms unknown to me, probably from his professional language. And as I understood from their speech, they touched on the problems of sensitiveness, including healing and diagnostics of different diseases. The latter interested me very much.
During this discussion, while the other guys were listening, Slava was carefully examining the palms of his hands. And as soon as a lengthy pause appeared in the discussion, he hurried to ask, “I do not completely understand about chakras. You said that there should be opening points. But there is nothing in here!”
The senior guys laughed.
“Of course,” said Sensei. “Visually there is nothing like that.”
Eugene, standing next to Slava, couldn’t help it, turned his hands around and seriously asked like a doctor, “Well, patient. Do you see bones and tendons there?”
“No,” replied Slava, still puzzled.
Eugene smacked his lips and mournfully said, “He is hopeless!”
The guys laughed.
“You see, chakras are certain zones on the human body that are more sensitive to warmth,” patiently explained the Teacher. “They, of course, can’t be seen, but this is real and can be registered by modern equipment. For scientists, just like for you, these zones are still a mystery: the cells are the same, the connections are the same, but their sensitivity is higher. Why? Because chakras are located here while chakra belongs to the astral body, that is, to another, more profound physics. A thought is a binding link between the astral and material bodies. That’s why it is very important to learn to control your thoughts… Then you will be able really to guide Qi moving inside of your body.”
The senior guys joined the conversation, discussing some kind of their own meditation issues. At the end of our meeting, Sensei asked Eugene and Stas personally to accompany us to the tram stop and help us to get to the tram.
“And no tricks of yours!” Sensei ordered jokingly to Eugene.
“Yes, sir,” Eugene saluted, “no freaks!”
Sensei hopelessly waved his hand. When the whole crowd moved laughing towards the path, the Teacher called the cat. But it grandly walked out in a different direction. Sensei tried to run it down to catch it, but to no avail. That prankster slipped into the nearest bushes. Squatting down, Sensei tried to pull it out. Using this opportunity, I came up to the Teacher, as if helping to catch the cat.
“Can you diagnose…”
Without letting me finish, Sensei replied, “You mean that wound in your head, my dear… Samurai! Now you want to scratch. You naughty cat. Come out!”
“How does he know?” I thought to myself, simply shocked. Inspired by hope, I thought, “If he knows about it, then maybe he’ll help heal it!” Meanwhile Igor Mikhailovich asked, “What is the diagnosis of Aesculapius?”
“My parents say nothing serious, something with vessels. But as far as I understood by eavesdropping in the conversation between my mother and the doctor, I have a malignant growth in the cerebral cortex. And it’s not clear how it will progress.”
“An impressive argument,” said Sensei, shaking off his hands and looking towards the bushes as he addressed the cat. “Well then, sit there as long as you wish. When you freeze, you’ll come out yourself!”
The crowd, noticing Sensei’s “trouble” with the cat, started to come back, offering to help catch it.
“Never mind!” Sensei waved his hand. “He will come home on his own.”
To my complete disappointment, for that small amount of time that could have been used for conversation, we walked with Sensei keeping silent until we joined the others. I expected him to show some kind of a reaction, some sympathy, some hope for a possible cure. But in vain did I think that he was about to say something. His answer was only silence. Inside of me there was a small hope that I would hear some kind of hint or advice or moral support during general conversation. But he was simply walking and joking with everyone, followed by loud laughter of the crowd. That made me completely furious.
10
11
Eugene, looking back at us, obediently went up to the dark figure. Raising his hands, he solemnly pronounced, “Oh Great magician, wizard and sorcerer, ruler over all the nations, whose power and might over all land, water, air, and fire stretches over the entire Universe. Your loyal disciples have fulfilled their holy duty. Take in your bosom these lost souls, in order to restore your true and fair authority and power on Earth!”
Eugene made a low bow. During his speech, Sensei turned to him in surprise.
“What? What?” he asked. “Which might, which power? What are you talking about?”
Eugene and Stas both rolled with laughter.
“What’s the matter? What are you laughing about?” asked Sensei, while smoking a cigarette. “And where are the other guys? Have you met them?”
Drowning in laughter, Eugene waved towards us, “They are still in a stupor over there and can’t come out.”
“What kind of stupor?” asked Sensei, not understanding and looking into the dark. “What nonsense have you told them?”
But Eugene couldn’t stop laughing, hopelessly waving his hand.
“What a clown!”
“Sensei, don’t you know Eugene?” replied Stas, dying laughing.
Looking at all that turmoil, Andrew was first to understand what was going on. Shamefully pulling his hand away from the button, he sighed with relief.
“Well, guys,” said Andrew, coming out from the darkness to them. “That was great. The joke was good, but who’s going to wash my pants now?!”
This comment provoked an even bigger storm of laughter. Sensei said with a smile, “What did this clown make up this time?”
Andrew started to tell in detail how this “guide” led us through the village, changed according to his stories into the Brocken mountain. We also joined him, enriching the story with our impressions. At the very end, our entire big company, together with Sensei, roared with uninterrupted laughter, recalling our recent feelings.
“I just came earlier today,” explained Sensei, laughing through tears. “The light in our village was cut off. Probably the cable was damaged somewhere.”
“What a story,” Tatyana uttered with her clear voice. “I don’t want to mention what we suffered from Eugene, but there was also this cat!”
Meanwhile, the small ball of our big fear sat peacefully, frightened by human laughter.
“It’s Samurai,” Stas waved his hand and explained. “Sensei’s cat. He always follows him.”
“Stas, you should have clued us in to what was going on,” Andrew said with a smile.
“How?” he shrugged his shoulders. “You dashed aside from every shadow, and if I were to start making faces, we would have had to search for you all over the village.”
The guys laughed, having imagined this picture.
“I say,” Eugene justified, “it was an ordinary joke. Like Ostap Bender said, ‘The most important is to bring confusion into the enemy’s camp… Because people most of all are afraid of the unknown.’”
“That’s right,” said Sensei. “Fear begotten by imagination sees danger even where there is no danger at all. There is one ancient eastern legend about fear. A wise man met the Plague on his way and asked, ‘Where are you going?’ It answered, ‘To a big city. I have to kill five thousand people there.’ In a few days the same wise man again met the Plague. ‘You said that you’d kill five thousand people but you’ve killed fifty thousand,’ he accused. ‘No,’ objected the Plague. ’I‘ve killed five thousand; the others died from fear.’”
Having discussed all the funny details of this journey and having dispersed the myth of our unjustified fears by humor and laughter, we switched to more serious topics. Our group was joined by three other guys: Ruslan, Yura, and Victor (senior sempai). A little later came Nikolai Andreevich (“Dumpling”), who turned out to be a psychotherapist. Meanwhile we were talking about Qigong.
“What does the word ‘Qigong’ mean?” Slava asked Sensei.
“Well, translating this word literally from Chinese, Qigong refers to work with the energy of the air, because ‘Qi’ means ‘wind, gas, breath,’ and the syllable ‘gong’ means ‘work, action, or deed.’”
“And this system was invented by the Chinese?” asked Andrew.
“Not really,” answered the Teacher. “It is the Hindu system of self-regulation, which migrated to China at the beginning of a new era.”
“I’ve read that there exist different types of Qigong.” As always, Kostya put in his remark. “I think there are two different schools.”
“There are a lot more of them,” said Igor Mikhailovich. “In the modern world there are plenty of different schools of Qigong. For example, Confucian, Buddhist, medical, military…”
“Medical?” I shuddered. “What does it heal?”
“Many diseases.”
“So, we need only to breathe the right way?” Andrew interrupted my next question.
“Not only. You also need to think the right way. There is a saying that ‘a thought guides Qi, and Qi guides the blood.’ Blood is like the ambulance of the body; it includes all necessary medical supplies. In the very ancient medical treatise Huangdi Neijin, it is said that ‘when a thought rests in stillness it is free.’ It means that you can master Qi. The human who thinks the right way has good health.”
“To put it short, a sound mind can only exist in a healthy body,” Kostya made a conclusion for himself.
“Not really. I would say, with healthy thoughts there will be a sound mind, and with a sound mind will be a healthy body.”
“Could you please explain to me, you always emphasize the importance to think the right way, both during physical trainings and now,” remarked Andrew. “But for some reason, before I thought that all we need is just to act the right way. Because thoughts can be different during the choice of action: both good and bad.”
“That’s where you waste priceless time on the struggle with your own self. You shouldn’t have to choose between a good and a bad thought because you shouldn’t have any negative thoughts in your mind at all. The goal of the Highest Art, the Art of Lotus, is to learn the proper way of thinking; in other words, ‘to kill a Dragon inside,’ or ‘to conquer a Dragon.’ Have you heard of such an expression?”
“Yes.”
“That is the purpose. The greatest victory is the victory over yourself. What does that mean? It means to win your own negative thoughts, to control them, and to control your emotions. I repeat once again, there shouldn’t be anything ne-ga-tive in your mind. Only positive thoughts! Then you won’t need to spend time fighting with yourself, and your doings will always be positive. Peace should be first of all inside of you. Peace and harmony.”
“So, it means that human thought is reflected in any action?” asked Andrew, thinking about something known only to him.
“It is not only reflected, it guides all action. Because the thought is material.”
“Material?” It was Nikolai Andreevich’s turn to be surprised.
“Of course. It’s a much finer substance, not studied enough yet. But it does exist, it is real, its movements are traced. There have been many effective experiments on psychics and psychic phenomena. There were experiments with our own psychics; for example, Nina Kulagina, Julia Vorobieva, and many others. I don’t even mention the rich world practice. This research is conducted all over the world, although it is known by different names. For example, in England it is known as mental investigation. In France it is ‘metapsychics’, in countries of Eastern Europe ‘psychotronics’, in the U.S. ‘parapsychology’, in China ‘investigations into extraordinary functions of the human body’, and so on.
“And if you look deeply into the history of mankind, you will find there is much evidence that it was known from the earliest of times. In all mythical, magical, and religious views and teachings of people, a firm belief exists that it is possible to influence anyone and anything through thoughts, regardless of the distance, time, and space. In other words, generally speaking, this knowledge has always existed.”
Nikolai Andreevich joined again in the polemics, “Well, now you have given us examples of local psychics who became known to us just recently. Why weren’t there such people earlier in the Soviet Union? I’ve been practicing psychotherapy for many years. But studying the mind of different people, my colleagues and I have never come across such phenomena. It’s true that recently there were people talking nonsense and considering themselves to be sensitives. And they even tried to prove it. But in reality, it was just their sick imagination, while real psychics didn’t exist in the Soviet Union.”
“Why didn’t they exist?” Igor Mikhailovich was surprised. “They existed, and there were a lot of them! From time immemorial in Russia there existed many of such people. But how were they treated? In ancient, unenlightened times, very seldom were they considered saints, but in the majority of cases, those who refused to obey the church were burned in a fire, put on stakes, depending on the whim of the king.
“Only starting from the second half of the eighteenth century, after the opening of the Academy of Science, the phenomena of the psychic life of human beings started to be researched in Russia more seriously, from the medical point of view. And about one hundred years later, research in that sphere was conducted by many prominent scientists; for example, by one of the founders of your own science, Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev. When he was the head of St. Petersburg’s imperial military and medical academy, he himself financed the creation of an entire research institute for the study of brain and psychic activities.
“And during Soviet times? Almost from the start of its existence, supreme attention was paid to the study of psychic phenomena of the brain and of one of its main mysteries – thoughts. It can be proved by historical fact that those investigations were held by the order of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin under the personal control of Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky in the special department of the Secret Service that was dealing with secrecy and protection of state secrets. This department even had a special neuro-energetical laboratory. This elite special department used in its work various healers, mediums, shamans, hypnotherapists.”
“God, and why did they need all those ‘healers’?” Nikolai Andreevich was really surprised.
“Well, all that was for the same reason: the extraordinary abilities of those individuals. They were able to manipulate human beings with hidden forces that significantly surpassed the abilities of any machinery. All these phenomena were very seriously examined! They sent even scientific expeditions searching for this knowledge: from the studies of the mysteries of ancient civilizations to the search for the legendary Shambala.”
“Shambala… it sounds familiar… What is it?” Andrew asked impatiently.
“Shambala? Well, it is kind of an abode located high in the mountains. But it is famous because the group of scientists living there have long surpassed mankind in their spiritual, scientific, and technical levels.”
“Now I recall,” said Nikolai Andreevich. “Legend says that Shambala is an abode of Wise Men. But what has science to do with that? Do these Wise Men study something in particular: astronomy or mathematics, or just philosophy?”
“In Shambala, they study only the most ancient primordial science, the Art of White Lotus, which includes everything, and exact sciences as well. Moreover, it is a source of all sciences studied by mankind.”
Nikolai Andreevich distrustfully looked at Sensei.
“What do you mean, ‘only the most ancient’? The majority of exact sciences appeared quite recently; well, maybe two or three hundred years ago.”
“You are wrong. All this knowledge was given to people time and again for the development of their civilizations, in ancient times as well. Long before written history there were other human civilizations that achieved a level of development much higher than ours now. Some of them were destroyed, some reached the Absolute. However, remnants of their existence are still being found today. Read about strange archaeological findings and you’ll become certain of that. In the future, people will find even more interesting proof of what has happened a long time ago on the globe. A lot is written in ancient literature about the existence of this knowledge. For example, ancient nuclear explosions, the results of which scientists now find in the most ancient strata, precise maps of the stellar sky, identified planets that weren’t discovered by us, the ‘vimanas’, aircrafts, and so forth. It means that this knowledge was given to people before and it originated from one source: the science of Shambala.”
“And how far ahead is this science compared to modern knowledge?” Nikolai Andreevich asked arrogantly, crossing hands over his chest.
“Considerably far ahead,” replied Sensei simply. “Much farther than you can imagine. But to put that into perspective, I will give this example. At the time when people still piously believed that the Earth stood on three whales and the Sun turned around it, the scientists of Shambala had already conducted scientific experiments and different tests on the Sun. Modern civilization is still very far from that, and it’s not clear whether it will ever reach such a level. Why do you think people at the peak of their power so actively searched for Shambala? For instance, in the span of time known to you, such celebrities as Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and so on, searched for it. Because according to all ancient legends and myths of different cultures, all the knowledge of the Universe and cultural heritage of extinct civilizations is concealed in Shambala.”
“I wonder why was it searched for only by tyrants?”
“Not tyrants, but people striving for absolute power over the world. All people in power possess true information, they knew and know about the existence of this abode, about the existence of this powerful knowledge concealed in it. They perfectly understand that the real power over the world is concentrated in Shambala. That’s why many people searched and still are searching for it. However, Shambala itself never gave anyone the possibility to conquer the whole world. It balanced, in a way, certain forces. And if a man standing at the peak of his power zealously tried to realize his dream of domination over the world, he simply ended his existence. Many people in power contacted with representatives of Shambala and fulfilled their requests. Everybody tried to help, because it’s simply impossible to give up the temptation to know more than mankind knows… Aside from public leaders, many ordinary people were also in search of knowledge of Shambala.”
“Does it mean that nobody has ever found it?” Kostya asked.
“Not exactly. The paradox is that Shambala has never hidden its existence. It doesn’t interfere actively in people’s lives unless it concerns something globally important for all of mankind and in particular for Shambala. But if it’s necessary, its scientific society decides itself whom it is reasonable to contact.”
“Well, let’s assume that. But if this abode of Wise Men doesn’t hide its existence, why couldn’t it be found by people who were at the peak of power? After all, they had everything at their disposal: equipment, finance, and human resources!” Nikolai Andreevich was puzzled.
“Yes, you’ve listed everything but their hard hearts and greedy thoughts. The unalterable rule for contacting Shambala is the high morality and purity of a person’s intentions. Only possessing the first of all these qualities can get someone access to the required knowledge.
“You see, we come back again to our starting point. Why can’t a human develop these phenomenal abilities consciously when it is quite possible? Because there is too much egocentrism, vanity, greed, anger, envy in him. In other words, too many qualities inherent to a beast, to animal nature. And if he comes into contact with this inexplicable psychic phenomenon, his animal nature turns against logic because it fears losing its power over the human mind. That is, animal nature tries to preserve its power over the human by rationalizing the phenomenon or criticizing it, when all that is necessary is simple childish faith.
“In some cases, of course, people spontaneously discover their phenomenal abilities, as a result, for example, of some kind of trauma, intense stress, and so forth. But, if negative qualities prevail in the human mind, it’s the same as if a Neanderthal finds a monkey wrench and, not knowing how to use it, applies it, from his negative point of view, to his friends.”
The guys smiled, and Eugene asked, “Will he hit them on their heads?”
“Even worse, on the big toes. Then his friends will completely forget about their heads.”
“And if at that moment a good, spiritual nature prevails in the human?” I asked with curiosity.
“And if there prevails a spiritual nature in a person, then he will correctly perceive new information on a subconscious level, using his phenomenal abilities for good intentions. Because in this case, faith gives birth to knowledge, and knowledge strengthens faith. And without faith no miracles are possible in this world.”
“It’s an interesting thought,” said Nikolai Andreevich, and remaining silent for a while, added, “I wonder, when Stalin came to power in our country, did he stop research into these phenomena?”
“On the contrary, this research became even more intensive and continued even after his death. This interest hasn’t waned, even to the present day. This subject is examined by many scientific institutes.”
“Hmm, but I’ve studied works of many well-known authors of different institutes specialized in my sphere, but I haven’t run into subject.”
“It’s not strange because this subject belongs to the sphere of hidden control over the masses. I think that you understand well enough how secret these works are. I can give you an example of the Leningrad institute named after Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev. By the way, the work of Bekhterev was continued by his granddaughter, Natalya Petrovna Bekhtereva. There they study closely the human brain. And one of the priority directions of that institute is research into people’s psychic phenomena.”
“But the Leningrad institute is one of the leading in…,” Nikolai Andreevich froze, saying half a word, evidently shocked by his guess. Having coped with the excitement, he continued, “Well, but if it has been studied for so long, if the military has shown such an interest in it, and if huge amounts of money were spent, then probably there should have been huge scientific progress in psychic studies.”
“Progress?” grinned Sensei. “What kind of a progress can there be with such motivation? Their institute still can’t explain the phenomenal effects of this biomass that weights a little more than a kilo the cerebrum, just like other world scientists. It has remained, despite all of their efforts, the mystery of mysteries. Space is investigated much more than the human brain.”
“I agree… But you say that the sacred knowledge can be given only to people of high moral standards. Not all the scientists are complete egotists with excessive megalomania. For example, that very Bekhtereva…”
“Absolutely correct. And if you carefully follow the work of academician Bekhtereva as a human and a scientist, you’ll see that after having studied the human brain all her life, she came to the conclusion that she knows very little about it, about its potential. Nevertheless, the deeper she delves into the study of the brain, the more she believes in the idea of its extraterrestrial origin, that is, of its true source of origin, based on the exceptional complexity and superfluity of the brain. I’m pretty sure that soon she will publicly announce it, just as it was announced by the great scientists of the world not just in the sphere of psychic research, but in other natural sciences, for example, by Einstein, Tesla, Vernadsky, Tsiolkovsky, and other great scientists. This list is huge and would take a long time to go through. But all those people came to the conclusion that humans are very unique and mysterious creatures and in no way could have originated on the Earth from some kind of infusorium!”
We stood silent, slightly shocked by what we had heard.
“So, it means that the power of extraordinary, phenomenal people is concealed simply in their thought?” Kostya asked again.
“Absolutely right. Thought is a real power. A lot greater than humans can imagine. Thought is able to move planets, to create and destroy entire galaxies, which initially was proved by God Himself.”
Nikolai Andreevich smiled and said ironically, “It’s a very convincing answer, I can’t even argue with it.”
“Really?!” Andrew expressed our general amazement. “Then why don’t we feel the presence of this gigantic power in ourselves?”
“Because you don’t believe in it.”
“Is that so? The beginning was so complicated, but the end is so simple,” stated Kostya.
“What can I do? So is the nature of knowledge,” answered Sensei with a smile.
“Well, how can it be,” Slava was struggling to understand, “if I felt such a power, why wouldn’t I believe in it?”
“The whole trick is that first you should believe, and then you will feel it.”
“And what if I believe but don’t feel it?” Slava couldn’t calm down. “What then?”
“If you really believe in it, then certainly you will feel it,” answered Sensei and added, “All right, we can discuss it for a long time, but it’s time to begin the meditation.”
“And what is a meditation?” asked Tatyana. “I’ve read that it is psychic training during a trance. But what it actually is, I still don’t understand.”
“In a few words, a simple meditation is the training of thought and a deeper spiritual practice is the training of spirit.”
“Does it mean that thought and spirit are the same?” Kostya broke into the conversation again.
“No.”
The cat sitting close by stirred at its place, as if making itself more comfortable.
“Now we will practice the simplest meditation on the concentration of attention, so that you can learn how to control the Qi energy. But before that, I would like to repeat again for those who came late. In addition to the material body, the human also has an energy body. The energy body consists of an aura, chakras, energy channels, meridians, and special reservoirs for energy accumulation. Each of them has its own name. I will tell you later in detail about all of them, depending on the meditation.”
“And what is a chakra?” I asked.
“Chakra is a tiny spot on the human body through which different energies enter and exit. It works…so for you it would be easier to understand… like an iris or diaphragm in a camera. Do you know what that is?”
We nodded assent.
“It is the same way with chakras; they instantly open and instantly close.”
“And does all that energy really come out in that instant?” Slava was surprised.
“Well, it’s not like emptying a bucket of water. After all, a human being is an energy and material creature, where energy and matter exist by their own laws and time, however they are fully interconnected and interdependent. Any other questions?” Everyone was silent. “Then let’s begin. Right now, your objective is to learn to feel inside of yourselves the movement of air, the movement of Qi. You all think that you perfectly understand and feel yourselves. But I’m pretty sure that you can’t see right now, for example, the toes of your feet. Why? Because you don’t have internal vision. Internal vision, just like internal feeling, can be trained with time, in everyday training. That’s why we will start with the simplest and easiest meditation. We’ll try to learn to control thoughts and feelings, to evoke them and to guide them.
“All right, now make yourselves comfortable and relax. Calm your emotions. You may close your eyes, so nothing will distract you. Dissolve all your thoughts and everyday problems in the emptiness.”
As soon as that phrase was spoken, I recalled a pile of tiny household chores. “Gosh! Those impudent thoughts again,” I thought. “You were told to get dissolved.” I tried again not to think about anything.
“Concentrate on the tip of your nose…”
With closed eyes I tried to “see” the tip of the nose, guided more by my internal feelings. I felt my eyes slightly strain.
“Now breathe in deeply, slowly and gradually. First, with the bottom of the stomach, then with the stomach, chest, raising shoulders… Slightly hold your breath… Slowly breathe out… We concentrate our internal vision only on the tip of the nose… You should feel and imagine that the tip of your nose is like a small light bulb or small flame, and it flames up with your every breath out… Breathe in… Breathe out… Breathe in… Breathe out… The flame flares up more and more…”
At first, I felt a slight burning and pricking in my nose. There was such a feeling as if I were filled with something material, like a jug with water. Later it seemed to me that in the area of the nose tip appeared a dark distant contour of a purple tiny spot. At first, I couldn’t clearly focus on it. Finally, when I was able to get it fixed, it started to lighten up from inside. Moreover, when breathing in, the light narrowed, and when breathing out, it widened. When I got used to breathing this way, I heard the words of Sensei.
“Now switch your attention to another part of meditation. Slightly raise your hands a little forward, palms facing the earth. Breathe in as usual: through the bottom of the stomach, then through the stomach and chest. Your breath out should be directed through the shoulders, hands, to the center of your palms, where the chakras of the hands are located, and through them into the earth. Imagine that something is flowing through your hands, Qi energy, or light, or water, and then overflows into the earth. This flow rises from the bottom of the stomach up to your chest, and there it is split up in two streamlets and overflows into the earth through your shoulders, arms, hands. Concentrate all your attention on the feeling of that movement… Breathe in… Breathe out… Breathe in… Breathe out…”
A thought flashed across my mind, “What does it mean to breathe through the hands? How can it be?” I even panicked a little. Sensei, obviously feeling my confusion, came up and placed his palms over mine, without touching the skin. After some time, my palms began to burn, like two stoves, spreading warmth from their center to the periphery. And what astonished me most of all was that I really felt how tiny warm streamlets were pouring through my shoulders. In the region of my elbows they weakened, but I felt them very well overflowing through my palms. Deep in these new, unusual feelings, I asked myself, “How am I doing this?” While I was thinking it over, I lost the feeling of the steamlets. I had to concentrate again. In general, it worked with variable success. After one of my next attempts, I again heard Sensei’s voice.
“Close the palms of your hands in front of you, firmly grip them so that the chakras of the hands are closed and the movement of energy stopped. Take two deep, fast breaths in and out… Lower your hands and open your eyes.”
After the meditation, when we started to share impressions, I understood that everyone experienced it differently. Tatyana, for example, didn’t see the flame; instead of it she felt some kind of light movement through her hands. Andrew had a shiver in his legs and light dizziness. Kostya shrugged his shoulders and answered, “I didn’t feel anything special, except a pins and needles sensation. But that is quite a normal reaction resulting from the oversaturation of the body with oxygen.”
“After the third, fourth breath in, maybe,” answered the Teacher. “But at the beginning the brain becomes fixed by the thought, in particular before the movement of the Qi. And if you listen to yourselves, relax and breathe in deeply, you will immediately feel a widening or paresthesia feeling in the head, or in other words, a certain process that develops there. That is exactly what you need to understand, what is moving there, and learn to control it.”
“Why didn’t I feel anything?” asked a disappointed Slava.
“What did you think about?” Sensei asked half in jest.
It turned out that Slava didn’t really know what he had been expecting, maybe some kind of a miracle. Sensei replied, “Right, that’s the reason you didn’t feel anything because you concentrated your thoughts not on the work but on waiting for some extraordinary miracle. But there won’t be a miracle until you create it yourself. You shouldn’t wait for anything extraordinary when you breathe correctly or concentrate on something. No. The biggest miracle is you, yourself, as a Human! After all, where does all great spiritual art lead? It helps you become human so that you gradually wake up and recall the knowledge that was given to you primordially. These meditations are only a means of awakening from spiritual lethargy and recalling long-hidden and forgotten information that you knew and used once upon a time.”
“What do you mean knew?” Slava didn’t understand.
“Well. For example, everybody knows how to read, write, count, if, of course, he is normal, without mental disorders. Right?”
“Right.”
“But first he had to be taught. While later he already easily reads, counts and so forth. That is, he already exactly knows that, for example, one plus one equals two, two plus two equals four. It seems so simple and real! But at the beginning he was taught all this, although in reality he simply recalled. These are hidden, subconscious abilities. Or, here is another easier example that has to do with the physiological level. If a man who doesn’t know how to swim is thrown into the water, he will drown. But it has been proven and confirmed by deliveries in water that a newborn baby, when lowered into pool, swims like any other animal. Does it mean that he already possesses these reflexes? Indeed. But later it’s simply forgotten. It is the same with a human. He has a lot of knowledge that he doesn’t even suspect he has.
“But… all of this works only with a positive factor. If some mercenary interests prevail in him, for example, to learn to cheat somebody or to be able to hit someone with energy from a distance, or maybe he wants to be able to bend everyone’s spoons so they throw him money for that, he will never achieve anything. Only when a person learns to control his thoughts will he really become human, and only then will he be able to achieve something.”
“So, does it mean that spiritual practice is a method of awakening a human?” asked Andrew.
“Absolutely right. Spiritual practice is only an instrument for repairing your mind. And the result depends on how you use this instrument. In other words, it all depends on the desire and skill of the master. And in order to learn how to hold this instrument in your hands it is necessary to control your thought, to concentrate it, and to see it with your internal vision. In our case it means to learn to control our breath, to feel that you breathe out through the chakras of hands. You need to learn to evoke certain feelings so that later you will be able to control the internal, hidden energy.”
“In my opinion, this is a hallucination,” remarked Kostya.
“Yes, a hallucination, if you regard it as a hallucination. But if you regard this energy as real power, then in reality it will be real power.”
“It’s strange, but why?”
“Because, I repeat, a thought controls an action. While energy itself is an action. That is all. Everything is very simple.”
We remained silent for a moment, while Nikolai Andreevich asked, “From the point of view of psychology, is it nevertheless an objective factor or a subjective feeling? For example, I clearly felt the concentration on the tip of the nose. But movements through the arms I felt only partially, where I was focusing my attention.”
Sensei started to explain something to the psychotherapist, using terms unknown to me, probably from his professional language. And as I understood from their speech, they touched on the problems of sensitiveness, including healing and diagnostics of different diseases. The latter interested me very much.
During this discussion, while the other guys were listening, Slava was carefully examining the palms of his hands. And as soon as a lengthy pause appeared in the discussion, he hurried to ask, “I do not completely understand about chakras. You said that there should be opening points. But there is nothing in here!”
The senior guys laughed.
“Of course,” said Sensei. “Visually there is nothing like that.”
Eugene, standing next to Slava, couldn’t help it, turned his hands around and seriously asked like a doctor, “Well, patient. Do you see bones and tendons there?”
“No,” replied Slava, still puzzled.
Eugene smacked his lips and mournfully said, “He is hopeless!”
The guys laughed.
“You see, chakras are certain zones on the human body that are more sensitive to warmth,” patiently explained the Teacher. “They, of course, can’t be seen, but this is real and can be registered by modern equipment. For scientists, just like for you, these zones are still a mystery: the cells are the same, the connections are the same, but their sensitivity is higher. Why? Because chakras are located here while chakra belongs to the astral body, that is, to another, more profound physics. A thought is a binding link between the astral and material bodies. That’s why it is very important to learn to control your thoughts… Then you will be able really to guide Qi moving inside of your body.”
The senior guys joined the conversation, discussing some kind of their own meditation issues. At the end of our meeting, Sensei asked Eugene and Stas personally to accompany us to the tram stop and help us to get to the tram.
“And no tricks of yours!” Sensei ordered jokingly to Eugene.
“Yes, sir,” Eugene saluted, “no freaks!”
Sensei hopelessly waved his hand. When the whole crowd moved laughing towards the path, the Teacher called the cat. But it grandly walked out in a different direction. Sensei tried to run it down to catch it, but to no avail. That prankster slipped into the nearest bushes. Squatting down, Sensei tried to pull it out. Using this opportunity, I came up to the Teacher, as if helping to catch the cat.
“Can you diagnose…”
Without letting me finish, Sensei replied, “You mean that wound in your head, my dear… Samurai! Now you want to scratch. You naughty cat. Come out!”
“How does he know?” I thought to myself, simply shocked. Inspired by hope, I thought, “If he knows about it, then maybe he’ll help heal it!” Meanwhile Igor Mikhailovich asked, “What is the diagnosis of Aesculapius?”
“My parents say nothing serious, something with vessels. But as far as I understood by eavesdropping in the conversation between my mother and the doctor, I have a malignant growth in the cerebral cortex. And it’s not clear how it will progress.”
“An impressive argument,” said Sensei, shaking off his hands and looking towards the bushes as he addressed the cat. “Well then, sit there as long as you wish. When you freeze, you’ll come out yourself!”
The crowd, noticing Sensei’s “trouble” with the cat, started to come back, offering to help catch it.
“Never mind!” Sensei waved his hand. “He will come home on his own.”
To my complete disappointment, for that small amount of time that could have been used for conversation, we walked with Sensei keeping silent until we joined the others. I expected him to show some kind of a reaction, some sympathy, some hope for a possible cure. But in vain did I think that he was about to say something. His answer was only silence. Inside of me there was a small hope that I would hear some kind of hint or advice or moral support during general conversation. But he was simply walking and joking with everyone, followed by loud laughter of the crowd. That made me completely furious.
10
All the way home, I was terribly angry. And at home I simply couldn’t sit still. “Everything is over, everything is over!” I lamented in my mind. “Just when some kind of hope appeared, it all collapsed. I’m fed up with it, I’m tired of everything. Everything in this world is so senseless! I can’t stand it anymore, it’s too much for me. Damn it all, this struggle for life with this stupid school, meaningless training, and indifferent Sensei. The end is always the same!”
My imagination was already drawing a horrible, terrifying picture of my own funeral, the bitter tears of my mother, relatives, and friends. I clearly visualised the nails hammered into my coffin and its lowering into a damp pit, thrown over with dirt. There was an absolute scary darkness around, emptiness and hopelessness. And that’s all!
What happens afterwards, above me, where life runs like a full-flowing river? Another picture appeared in my mind. Everything was just like before, nothing has changed. My parents as usual continued going to work. My friends went to training, looking cheerful as usual, laughing happily at their endless jokes. While Sensei, just as before, continued his interesting training, demonstrating and telling the amazed crowd about their own abilities.
Nothing has changed in this world! Except, I was not here anymore. That was the point, the reason for my resentment and sorrow. This was only my personal tragedy. And in general nobody else but myself needed my thoughts, my worries, my knowledge, and my life. I was born alone, and I will die alone. Then what is the purpose of this senseless existence? Why are people even born? What is life for?
This mixture of the philosophy of life and the fear of death was going on in my head. A horrible melancholy seized me, and it was quickly changing into depression. I was fading under the pressure of my depressive thoughts. My health rapidly became worse, and horrible headaches appeared again. I missed school and all my hobby classes, including my favorite dances. I really didn’t need anything in this world. But…
The time of the next training was drawing near. Despite the external squall of negative emotions, I had somewhere deep inside me a permanent, unchanging feeling of confidence in my own strength and full tranquility. That’s why I argued with myself, to go or not to go. This exact internal feeling for some reason irritated me most of all.
My friends appeared at my home and settled my doubts. Before that I didn’t even think of getting ready. Their inspiring laughter, discussion of simple problems, and exchange of impressions about how they had worked on the meditation at home distracted me from my heavy thoughts, raising my mood a bit. My friends were finally able to drag me out from my “graveyard” to the training, declaring that I was being an incorrigible pretender. Andrew also lectured me for a while using his eloquent examples, and made a conclusion at the end:
“I understand when we miss school classes. That’s clear, it’s boring. But the training?! It’s a real adventure that you won’t read in any book or see in any kind of a movie! It is so interesting and cognitive! While you, sleepyhead, say ‘Don’t want to; I’m not going to go.’ Then you’ll sleep over the best years of your life and you would have nothing to remember later.”
“Aha,” I thought gloomily. “If that ‘later’ will ever come.”
My imagination was already drawing a horrible, terrifying picture of my own funeral, the bitter tears of my mother, relatives, and friends. I clearly visualised the nails hammered into my coffin and its lowering into a damp pit, thrown over with dirt. There was an absolute scary darkness around, emptiness and hopelessness. And that’s all!
What happens afterwards, above me, where life runs like a full-flowing river? Another picture appeared in my mind. Everything was just like before, nothing has changed. My parents as usual continued going to work. My friends went to training, looking cheerful as usual, laughing happily at their endless jokes. While Sensei, just as before, continued his interesting training, demonstrating and telling the amazed crowd about their own abilities.
Nothing has changed in this world! Except, I was not here anymore. That was the point, the reason for my resentment and sorrow. This was only my personal tragedy. And in general nobody else but myself needed my thoughts, my worries, my knowledge, and my life. I was born alone, and I will die alone. Then what is the purpose of this senseless existence? Why are people even born? What is life for?
This mixture of the philosophy of life and the fear of death was going on in my head. A horrible melancholy seized me, and it was quickly changing into depression. I was fading under the pressure of my depressive thoughts. My health rapidly became worse, and horrible headaches appeared again. I missed school and all my hobby classes, including my favorite dances. I really didn’t need anything in this world. But…
The time of the next training was drawing near. Despite the external squall of negative emotions, I had somewhere deep inside me a permanent, unchanging feeling of confidence in my own strength and full tranquility. That’s why I argued with myself, to go or not to go. This exact internal feeling for some reason irritated me most of all.
My friends appeared at my home and settled my doubts. Before that I didn’t even think of getting ready. Their inspiring laughter, discussion of simple problems, and exchange of impressions about how they had worked on the meditation at home distracted me from my heavy thoughts, raising my mood a bit. My friends were finally able to drag me out from my “graveyard” to the training, declaring that I was being an incorrigible pretender. Andrew also lectured me for a while using his eloquent examples, and made a conclusion at the end:
“I understand when we miss school classes. That’s clear, it’s boring. But the training?! It’s a real adventure that you won’t read in any book or see in any kind of a movie! It is so interesting and cognitive! While you, sleepyhead, say ‘Don’t want to; I’m not going to go.’ Then you’ll sleep over the best years of your life and you would have nothing to remember later.”
“Aha,” I thought gloomily. “If that ‘later’ will ever come.”
11
As usual we came early. Having greeted Sensei, the guys ran to the changing rooms, while I unwillingly dragged myself behind everyone with my head hung low. And suddenly very close to me I heard the voice of Sensei: “You’ve mastered yourself, well done!” It was so unexpected that I even got embarrassed, surprisingly looking into his eyes. He was carefully looking at me, and his eyes shone with endless kindness and sympathy. And as usual, without giving me time to collect myself, he added, “Well, it’s time for you to go change.”
Meanwhile another group of people came up and greeted him. They started to tell him about their problems.
“There you are!” A thought flashed across my mind. “Is it possible that he knew about all my thoughts, doubts, and torments?! Then if he knew, maybe that’s normal, maybe that’s the way it should be? And if he said well done, it means that not all is lost yet.” Nevertheless, the words of Sensei affected me like an elixir of youth given to an old woman. I rushed to the changing room, having forgotten that very recently I hobbled all broken and tired through this life.
“Where are you rushing to?” Tatyana asked puzzled, looking at my wild speed of putting on my kimono. “I can’t believe my eyes, just recently you were dying, and now you are rushing headlong into the sports hall.”
“Ah, Tatyana,” I smiled. “Andrew was right when he said that we shouldn’t worry too much.”
Looking at the surprised expression on her face, I added, “I’m in a hurry to live, so that ‘I won’t later regret the senseless years of my life…’”
Tatyana laughed, and I ran into the sports hall full of overflowing energy and joined the other guys who were warming up. To tell the truth, I myself didn’t expect such activity from my almost dying body. Where did it come from?
Five minutes before the beginning, Eugene, who was warming up next to Stas, looked in through the door and shone in the rays of his blinding Hollywood smile.
“What good luck! I see a familiar face.” Eugene moved his hands apart.
A sturdy built guy, not too tall, with a strong-willed face and military bearing, entered the sports hall. The amazed exclamation of Eugene made others look around. Sensei and the senior guys came up to the newcomer:
“Hi, Volodya!”
“Welcome back!”
“We’re glad to see you!”
When the delighted participants calmed down a little, Sensei asked, “So, how was your trip to the south? Did you warm your bones thoroughly at the resort?”
“Aha, I have even burnt myself. I wouldn’t wish such a trip on anyone. As they say, if you have nothing to worry about, your command will help you with it.”
“What’s going on down there?” Eugene asked.
“What, don’t you watch television, country boy?” Stas said with a smile.
“What? What? What is a “tilivision”? You should know that news is spread in our village only through rumors. And if somebody doesn’t understand it, one fist punch in the ear, and the heads of brothers get clear. That’s it!”
The guys laughed. Eugene transformed into the role of priest and addressed Volodya, “Confess, my son, confess in detail, about your overseas sufferings and about the sorrowful deeds of hell. Relieve your soul!”
“Well, Eugene! Even the grave probably won’t change you,” remarked Volodya, laughing with everybody. He added more seriously, “What can I say, people are getting mad there, they can’t share even a piece of earth… They ruined such a resort!”
Meanwhile another group of people came up and greeted him. They started to tell him about their problems.
“There you are!” A thought flashed across my mind. “Is it possible that he knew about all my thoughts, doubts, and torments?! Then if he knew, maybe that’s normal, maybe that’s the way it should be? And if he said well done, it means that not all is lost yet.” Nevertheless, the words of Sensei affected me like an elixir of youth given to an old woman. I rushed to the changing room, having forgotten that very recently I hobbled all broken and tired through this life.
“Where are you rushing to?” Tatyana asked puzzled, looking at my wild speed of putting on my kimono. “I can’t believe my eyes, just recently you were dying, and now you are rushing headlong into the sports hall.”
“Ah, Tatyana,” I smiled. “Andrew was right when he said that we shouldn’t worry too much.”
Looking at the surprised expression on her face, I added, “I’m in a hurry to live, so that ‘I won’t later regret the senseless years of my life…’”
Tatyana laughed, and I ran into the sports hall full of overflowing energy and joined the other guys who were warming up. To tell the truth, I myself didn’t expect such activity from my almost dying body. Where did it come from?
Five minutes before the beginning, Eugene, who was warming up next to Stas, looked in through the door and shone in the rays of his blinding Hollywood smile.
“What good luck! I see a familiar face.” Eugene moved his hands apart.
A sturdy built guy, not too tall, with a strong-willed face and military bearing, entered the sports hall. The amazed exclamation of Eugene made others look around. Sensei and the senior guys came up to the newcomer:
“Hi, Volodya!”
“Welcome back!”
“We’re glad to see you!”
When the delighted participants calmed down a little, Sensei asked, “So, how was your trip to the south? Did you warm your bones thoroughly at the resort?”
“Aha, I have even burnt myself. I wouldn’t wish such a trip on anyone. As they say, if you have nothing to worry about, your command will help you with it.”
“What’s going on down there?” Eugene asked.
“What, don’t you watch television, country boy?” Stas said with a smile.
“What? What? What is a “tilivision”? You should know that news is spread in our village only through rumors. And if somebody doesn’t understand it, one fist punch in the ear, and the heads of brothers get clear. That’s it!”
The guys laughed. Eugene transformed into the role of priest and addressed Volodya, “Confess, my son, confess in detail, about your overseas sufferings and about the sorrowful deeds of hell. Relieve your soul!”
“Well, Eugene! Even the grave probably won’t change you,” remarked Volodya, laughing with everybody. He added more seriously, “What can I say, people are getting mad there, they can’t share even a piece of earth… They ruined such a resort!”