Anastasia Novykh. Sensei of Shambala. Book II

   Sensei was moving slowly and carefully as if it were not the dead dolphin in his hands but a little child whom he gently supported and patiently taught to swim. Little by little they moved away from the shore. Only when the water reached the chest of Sensei, he stood still. I thought that now he would push away the body to the depth and it will sink down. I felt so sorry for this dolphin. Despite these sad circumstances due to which we got a chance to meet this beautiful creature of nature and the short time of our ‘acquaintance’, this dolphin seemed to me so dear and close. I felt something unusual towards this animal and this feeling was hard to be described in words as if his grief, when he was alive, was my grief, his pain was my pain. This strange feeling of some invisible unity started to overfill me from inside. I half-closed my eyes fearing to see the moment of his going down to water and I thought that it would be better if my memory saves the picture of his ‘voyage’ with Sensei. However, having closed my eyes for a moment I suddenly heard the voice of surprised Tatyana, “Is he alive or what?”
   I opened my eyes and saw with astonishment that my friends were observing with curiousity Sensei and the dolphin which was still in his hands. The water was rippling in the regions of the dolphin’s tail. First I thought that it only seemed to me. But in a few instants the tail waved again, even much strongly. We couldn’t be wrong. The guys noticed it, too. We exclaimed with joy, “Look, look, he is alive!”
   Our noise attracted attention of the guys who were left on the shore and they made an attempt to come closer to us. While we wanted to near Sensei. But Nikolai Andreevich stopped all of us, “Keep quiet, don’t make noise. Stay still. Don’t scare him…”
   Our group stood frozen, looking at it with admiration. The movements of the dolphin were weak first as if he recovered after a long slumber. But a bit later they became much more brave and intensive. The most amazing was the fact that this wild wounded dolphin obviously experienced the pain from a man who almost killed him but he didn’t even try to loose from the hands of Sensei though the last one only supported him afloat. On the contrary, judging by vivid movements he looked as if he was filled by life energy. It seemed that the dolphin somehow understood it and didn’t hurry up to slip out from careful and kind hands.
   In some time the dolphin threw up from the water his flat tail which was similar to a whale’s one, but in a miniature, and dove after slapping with it funnily on the water. Coming to the surface not far from Sensei, he showed his side and balanced some time on the surface without assistance ‘observing’ Sensei who has been recently holding him in the hands. Sensei also froze looking at the dolphin. In a few instants obviously after this silent ‘dialogue’ finished, the dolphin turned around and slowly swam to the depth of the sea. Contrary to our expectations he didn’t dive anymore but tried to be on the surface. Sensei cast a glance at him, then dipped into the water, sleeked his hair and started to come back to the shore.
   When we all crowded on the shore, Victor remarked, “He is still swimming weakly. As far as I know, dolphins are high-speed creatures.”
   Eugene responded him in his favorite country dialect, “If you were beaten so by the gaff, I would look at you swimming… It’s good that at least he can tow his body like that.”
   “Yes, he is still weak,” Sensei uttered thoughtfully looking how the dark silouhette with a half-moon fin slowly moved away from the shore, disappearing from time to time among waves.”
   “I wonder, too, whether he will survive,” Eugene said busily.
   “Keep your fingers crossed,” Stas replied.
   Eugene immediately followed his advice. He crossed his fingers, put off his hat and touched his head. Stas noticed his movements and smiled, “You should better touch wood, not the head.”
   “Blockhead is like wood,” Eugene answered in such a manner as if it were just triffles.
   We smiled. And having waved his hand towards Eugene Stas turned to us, “Help us bring the stuff. We have no longer desire to continue fishing.”
   We didn’t need to be asked twice. We went all together to take out fishing tackle, rucksacks in order to unload the air-bag. The guys floated the boat to the shallow water and dragged it along the coast like barge haulers.
   While we were making our preparations, the strong wind has risen. Leaving this place we threw again a glance at the sea looking for our dolphin. But he was not seen anywhere between the huge waves. We heard a sad cry of a seagull whirling over the water… Well, unfortunately, everything has its beginning and its end in this life.
   We hung our heads. It seemed that nobody wanted to believe that our almost alive dolphin sank though the common sense told quite the contrary. For some time we were going not saying a word, looking back with hope at the place where the dolphin had been seen for the last time. But every time we lowered our gazes to the sand underfoot.
   “Well, finally,” Eugene was the first who couldn’t stand this mournful general silence. “Dolphins don’t sink. They are fishes!”
   “They do,” Sensei replied with even and calm voice, without a slight trace of any emotions. “There are cases when they sink within one minute, especially when they are excited or scared. But if they sink, it happens quickly… As far as that goes, dolphins are not fishes at all, they are warmblooded mammals like human beings. They possess well-developed brain. And by the way, the cerebral cortex of dolphins is bigger than the cortex of humans.”
   “Therefore it has more convolutions than some Homo sapiens,” Nikolai Andreevich added in jest looking at Eugene.
   Sensei smiled and went on, “Like humans, dolphins react to different situation, including the stressful ones. They also possess fear.”
   “I can’t grasp it anyway, how can they sink?” Eugene shrugged his shoulders, either really not understanding or pretending.
   “It’s simple,” Sensei answered. “They just swallow the wrong way like people. If a dolphin is under stress, it’s enough that water goes through blowhole to lungs… and that’s all.”
   “Through a blowhole?” Ruslan asked again. “It’s something like human nostile, or what?”
   “Right, but it is located in the very top of the head. It is directly connected with lungs.”
   “That’s great! Just sneeze once and the whole sea…” Ruslan didn’t continue his phrase letting the inertly smiling crowd to finish his “brilliant guess” by itself.
   “I wonder how he coughs in the water,” Andrew inquired.
   “He doesn’t. Dolphins never cough.”
   “Lucky they are … these warm-blooded mammals,” Victor envied because he suffered from coughing from the very morning. “They might never catch a chill.”
   “Why am I not a dolphin?” Eugene uttered dreamingly.
   “You are wrong,” Sensei replied to Victor. “They got sick the same way like us. We have even identical microorganisms which cause respiratory diseases. But unlike us dolphins endure badly the chill. Very often it turns into pneumonia and almost always it ends with the death of an animal.”
   Eugene made a surprised glance, “Really? Then it’s good that I am not a dolphin.”
   “But if they swallow water the wrong way, how can they live there?” Kostya inquired.
   “They die only when they are seriously stressed, when they panic, actually the same way like people. Apart from that they live quite well! They have such a good system of muscular and respiratory valves which ideally functions in the most severe external conditions.”
   “Well,” Nikolai Andreevich sighed. “It means that the fear equals all.” And he asked Sensei in a while, “Then it means that the psychological factor is the same way important for dolphins during apnoea as for people, isn’t it?”
   “You are completely right.”
   “Apnoea?” Ruslan wondered. “And what is this?”
   Eugene hemmed.
   “Here you are… Apnoea means breath-holding. Even I know that!”
   Ruslan glanced at aqualungs in the air-bag and relied with a crooked smile, “Of course, you should know that.”
   “Don’t worry,” Stas invigorated him. “If you dive like us, you will know it, too.”
   “Right, with a head to the sand,” Eugene added with a smile and looked at Stas.
   They both laughed, obviously having recollected some funny case from their past. Offended Ruslan said, “Am I an ostrich or what?”
   “If not, you will become the one,” Eugene declared kindly, exchaning again glances with Stas. The guys felt some dirty trick in his words and insisted on telling what was hidden behind these grins. The fellows told a story about their first unlucky experiments when they had been learning diving. Actually there was nothing special but surely it looked quite comical due to Eugene’s interpretation. At the end Stas uttered, “It would be great if people were able to stay long time under water without additional devices like aqualungs.”
   “It’s quite real,” Sensei remarked as if by the way. “The brain of the human has a lot of programs. You just have to know how to use these abilities… What is human breathing in fact? It’s an interchange of air breathes in and out. This process takes place due to diaphragm and ribs muscles contraction which causes the volume change of the thorax. The gas exchange takes place on the level of lungs alveolus and it enriches blood. The blood transports oxygen among cells and extracts carbonic acid. And what does regulate this breathing rhythm? The breathing center which is located in the medulla. There is hidden a golden key to the ‘switch of speed’.”
   “Do you mean the programs?” Kostya asked.
   “Right.”
   Eugene grinned self-satisfied.
   “Aha, and the key lies there like in a fairy tale, and nobody knows where it lies. And those who know keep silent as they cant’ reach it through the hole.”
   “You are wrong,” Sensei smiled. “Those who want always will find… and will reach. There are plenty of such practices of breath-holding. You just have to look for them and not to be lazy, but don’t tell us stories that there no of them only because you are unaware of that. Let’s take for example a practice of breathing control in yoga. It’s called Pranayama. Though in its original form it was given namely as an instrument for activization of one of the most ancient reflexes of a human, a ‘submergence reflex’, and not into the water but into the depth of the consiousness where a human gradually neared the source of the soul. But ourdays this practice is rather distorted by people and is boosted into the whole teaching where yogis mostly waste their time and energy for learning how to control the breathing, to speed up some processes in the body, for example, to heal wounds or slow down for example the general metabolism or beats… It’s also good, of course, because this way people learn how to control their thoughts. But they knocked to pieces the whole and complicated the simple. Therefore modern people, when practicing it, see the piece and think that it’s the very whole…” and Sensei added addressing himself again directly to Eugene, “So if you want just to hold your breath, you may use this practice as well. The choice is wide. The technique of breath-holding in the alternating consciousness was known to people from the time immemorial. This practice can be found everywhere: in Tropical Africa, in Northern America, in Lapland, on the Bali island. I don’t even mention those techniques which are inherited from one generation to another by people who live on sea fruits, for example pearl hunters.
   Eugene pondered for a while and started to debate aloud.
   “Well, tell me how long can someone stand under water without air? A maximum of two minutes, and only if it’s a professional diver. I mean, without aqualung,” the guy specified.
   “He’s right,” Nikolai Andreevich agreed. “Then it comes to anoxia, simply to say, to the lack of oxygen which leads to irreversible processes in the substance of the brain. A man loses consciousness…”
   “And that’s all folks, alles kaput,” Eugene finished the sentence supporting his ‘companion’.
   However, Sensei objected, “In alternating consciousness even a not trained person is able to stay much longer than any professional diver.”
   “Well, Sensei, don’t tell us stories,” the guy didn’t believe.
   “Let’s bet on it?” Sensei proposed immediately with a mysterious smile.
   “With you, Sensei? Not at any price,” Eugene waved away at once under the general laughter of the guys. “Am I a self-murderer? I know anyway that I won’t stay under water so long as you.”
   “No, I don’t count myself,” Sensei calmed him. “Let’s take anybody from this gang, chose yourself.”
   “You say, it’s my choice?” Eugene smiled archly and started to ‘drill’ us with his eyes. This very moment, as bad luck would have it, the grip of my plastic sachet was torn by pure accident.
   “Oh,” my person uttered with confusion and started to collect quickly fishing tackle and some other things from the sand.
   Andrew and Volodya who were walking close to me, began to help me. Eugene drew his attention to the ‘object’ of his winning choice and declared self-satisfied, “Let’s take her for example.”
   “Alright,” Sensei agreed. “Do you mind?” He asked me.
   I was so naпve to take it just for a funny joke and decided to back Sensei. I declared in the same self-satisfied manner as Eugene, “Of course, I agree. What’s the problem? I’m a hereditary diver of the seventh generation. Do you know how Siberians dive? Oh! They dive in the mountains of Altai and come to the surface in Kara Sea!
   “Do they come to the surface or float on the surface drowned?” – Eugene specified with a malicious smile.
   “It depends on your luck,” I answered.
   Our dialogue made all the guys laugh.
   “Well, well,” Eugene rubbed his hands anticipating his victory. “And what will be the prize of our bet?”
   “Choose by your own!” Sensei answered merrily.
   “Then.., then,” the guy was confused.
   “One day on duty in the camp,” Stas gave him a hint as it was their turn to do it.
   “Right you are,” Eugene expressed his consent. “One day on duty in the camp! That is to say all those things like tidying-up-with-a-broom, washing-dishes, making-fire and all other small and boring routine things in the camp.”
   “Alright,” Sensei said. “As soon as we arrive to the camp, we’ll start the competition.”
   They shook hands with each other and Volodya agreed to be a referee of the bet. We continued our way.
   Eugene was so inspired by his obvious advantage that he began to ‘psychologically influence’ his opponent, preparing me to the cleaning procedures and explaining in details what I had to do.
   “Maybe I should also clean the dust on rush?” I suggested to him, laughing and keeping up this fun.
   “No, well, don’t trouble yourself!” satisfied Eugene started to treat me with kind gloves. “We are gentlemen. Let’s not go beyond the camp chaos.” And he added at once, “However, if madam has a desire, she can not only clean the dust from rush. She can wipe that small puddle.”
   Eugene pointed out to the sea and everybody burst out laughing again. This way we were going to the shelters all the time exchanging ‘mutual compliments and concessions’ with him under the roar of other guys.

4

   Already from afar we have seen that our camp looked somehow unusual, as if it were covered with a white moving spot. Of course, we tried to keep order but everything was too white… Coming closer we have observed the true ‘banquet’ of seagulls. Our sudden appearance scared these thieves and they were in panic. Breaking away from their rich meal, they flew up as if on command and so to say made sail leaving us piles of leftovers. Our group was in stupor from such a barefaced impudence.
   You should have seen this scene. Everywhere lay about in disorder plastic torn paper bags with cereals, macaroni, what is more, thoroughly mixed with the sand. So to say, sand-cereals-macaroni foundament mixed with droppings of birds, with small hills of poured out flour, salt, sugar. And all this morning disaster was supplemented by open work tissue papers whirling by the wind, like in a play, on the whole shore. And if to take into account our previous bet, my person for example lost its wits and I, so to say, ‘lost heart’.
   In a minute of deathly silence during which some with surprise and others with fear were observing this nice landscape named a ‘landfill’, Eugene scratched his head and threw to Andrew with triumph, “Well, well. Is it called ‘not a living soul’?!”
   Andrew hurried on to counter, “Right, but for your lonely maniac!”
   “The fact is that he was not lonely,” Victor remarked in jest examining the multiple remnants of the devastation. “And judging by traces left this ‘leader’ was more likely a representative of the local fauna and had four paws and even maybe a tail. Obviously he was the first in our food shelter.”
   “Right,” Eugene stood up for the unknown animal. “He ate too much there. He was bored and invited all he could to this party.”
   “Nice party,” Stas hemmed. “Who will clean up all of this for them?”
   “Make a guess with one try,” Eugene proposed to him with a smile and looked satisfied towards me.
   Then as if it suddenly came to his mind he started to look actively for our improvised broom made from branches bound together. It happened to be ‘half-dug’ in the sand. Eugene raised it, shook it down, pretended having blown away the last specks of dust and handed it over to me with an open hand.
   “Take it, Cinderella! Today you will forget about the rest on the sea shore. A bet is a bet.”
   I took up the broom because I understood that we should bring our camp to order anyway. And I began to plan in my mind where to start the big cleaning of the territorium from. Meanwhile Sensei took away the broom from my hands and addressed to Eugene, “But she didn’t lose the bet yet.”
   “But she is unlikely to win it,” the smiling guy uttered with self-confident expression on his face.
   “I would propose the following,” Sensei said. “If it turns like this, let’s complicate the task…”
   “Noway! A bet is a bet, as agreed upon,” Eugene started to protest as he thought that Sensei would propose now something extraordinary for his person.
   “But you will benefit from it!”
   Eugene calmed down looking with suspicion at Sensei and trying to figure out where was the dirty trick. Meanwhile Sensei went on, “Take an assistant. Your total time under water will be summed. That is, the time you both stay under water against her one diving.”
   Eugene hasn’t found out anything onerous for himself and immediately agreed fearing that Sensei would change his mind.
   “Alright, alright!” and he added toadily, “Sensei, I have always known that you are the most fair judge in the world. However, who knows,” he pointed out to me with a cunning smile, “Maybe she grew gills instead of lungs on the way.”
   Everybody laughed and I pretended laughing, too. However, a rapid wave of doubts that it was just a joke rose in me. If they didn’t joke, then it meant a real disaster for my person. I didn’t know how to dive at all, not speaking about long breath-holding. And this bet is against two well-trained guys! “I got into a mess,” my person thought scared.
   “Well,” Eugene rubbed his hands anticipating his victory after he chose his partner. As I assumed, it was Stas, “Let’s not lose time and go to the sea!”
   He made an inviting gesture to all our group suggesting to witness this event. The people eagerly agreed on the proposal of our comic fellow and followed him leaving the things. Lighting a cigarette Sensei remained behind, together with Nikolai Andreevich. I and Tatyana also stayed there as we used to pack up the left things in one heap. Meanwhile Nikolai Andreevich said in low voice adressing to Sensei, “Eugene is so sly. As soon as condition of the deal became favourable, he immediately changed his attitude to the situation. However, many people do like him. This is a typical example of egocentrism.”
   “What can we do,” Sensei shrugged his shoulders and answered in the same low voice. “Man seeks a better fate like fish seeks deeper water,” and he added with a smile, “How can he deprive himself the dearest? Indeed, this egocentrism is an automatical habit of people. How can we talk about the love for one’s neighbor if they don’t even want to understand each other?”
   “It’s the most sad thing about all of it.”
   Meanwhile I and Tatyana have already finished our work. I came with doubts to Sensei hoping to solve a dispute before starting to realize its conditions.
   “Well, I…”
   Sensei didn’t let me finish the phrase and express all my numerous doubts. He said in a kindly manner, “Go and get ready. Get used to the water.”
   His soft confident tone calmed me a bit. Still hoping that it was just a joke I went to the sea together with Tatyana. There was already a ‘support team’ presented by Kostya, Andrew and Slava. I should mention that our big group has divided itself to two parts: those ones who ‘supported’ Stas and Eugene and those ones who ‘sympathized’ with me.
   Unlike the senior guys who ran to the water with much noise like torpedoes and dove deep at once in order to cool off their bodies warmed-up by sun, I and Tatyana tried to get used to the water as usually, step-by-step. However, the guys who so to say ‘supported’ us decided to speed up this process and started to sprinkle us from all sides pretending to help us intensively to get used to the water. As they were intentionally attacking us from shallow water, I and Tatyana had to run away to the depth, of course, with a following submergence.
   Having seen enough of Eugene and Stas breath training before diving Kostya put up the ‘crown of the winner’ from twisted algae on his head and began to play the role of my mentor in ‘diving in shallow water’. All this process was accompanied by killing jokes of the guys. But despite the philosophical teachings of Kostya I wasn’t able to hold breath under water for long. Kostya even tried to slightly hold me in place under water fixing my shoulders and mumbling from the surface his ‘instructions’. However, all of that just scared me even more as sooner or later my instinct of self-preservation prevailed and I managed to ‘scramble out’ to the surface with amazing quickness sometimes even drowning my ‘mentor’ at panic. After several unvoluntary submersions Kostya exploded with even more ‘innovative proposals’ on improving the diving method, for example by making my body heavier in the water with a ‘necklace of bricks’, ‘beton handcuffs’ etc.
   “Finally, what task do you have?” Kostya said in jest shaking out water from his ear and adjusting a hanging algea which fell down after his another submersion to water by his ‘bad disciple’. “You need to submerge under the water. Right? Right. But nobody said about emersion.” We laughed again.
   “You are so kind, indeed!” Tatyana said with a funny intonation.
   So unlike the senior guys who didn’t lose time and seriously trained we had a total clownery. Therefore just in case I mentally reconciled myself to my future one-day role of Cinderella.
   Finally Sensei and Nikolai Andreevich came closer to us. I thought that looking at our attempts Sensei will turn this bet into a next big joke and everything would be over with it. But when he came up and seriously asked, “So, let’s begin?” my heart sank. Being afraid of showing my fear in front of my friends I started to talk to Sensei with lips trembling either from fear or from cold water, “Sensei, I can’t… I’d better go to tidy up at once.”
   Sensei calmly replied to me, “Don’t give up. Keep off your fear. Take away all the doubts. Believe since it’s said ‘Lively faith brings everything’.”
   I looked confused at him with a silent question, “How can I do it?” But Sensei answered looking at my eyes, “Just relax. Don’t think about your breath. Your task is to achieve a deep state of meditation with a minimum of thoughts. Concentrate on the count from one to ten. You will stand 10 seconds, will you?”
   “Well, if it’s just ten seconds, I will stand easily,” I replied with proud for my such a small ‘result’.
   “So why do you worry? Count to ten and emerge. And don’t count quickly like 1,2,3… but slowly, with pauses, count three-digit figures like 501, 502, 503 etc. Is it clear?”
   “Yes.”
   These words not only calmed me down, I got even curious. I have never done before a meditation under the water. Strangely enough but my curiousity turned to firm confidence that everything would be alright. And this feeling grew from some my internal belief and absolute trust to Sensei. It wasn’t trust actually but some hidden knowledge of my soul about his Essence which was expressed only intuitively, on the level of perception.
   “So be it, I will dive,” my person thought after a range of sharp breathes in and out. The same was done by my first ‘opponent’ Eugene. Getting ready to start, when it was counted ‘three’ I breathed in with all my chest as much as I could and submerged at the same time with Eugene under the water. Sensei put his hand on my head in the regions of Sahasrara (the seventh chakra) and pushed it a bit, so I thought that he didn’t want to let me emerge before time. Instead of expected panic, I relaxed and began to count slowly to ten according to the advice of Sensei. Freely fulfilling this task I decided to sit a few more seconds under the water in order to add some more time to my ‘score’. But when I started to count again, I felt that some strong hands, obviously of Sensei, draw me out of the water. Frankly speaking, I was even a bit upset as I could stay there a bit longer. Only ten seconds?! Emerging to the surface I immediately began to express my indignation, “Why? I’m ready, let’s continue… I can stay longer…”
   But when I glanced at the others, I didn’t understand anything. Everybody stood in some dumb amazement, looking at me like at an alien who came from another Universe. Eugene and Stas were among the guys and also didn’t take their eyes from my indignant person in some strange amazement. I even thought that maybe they didn’t dive at all, maybe something happened? Only Sensei kept Olympian calm.
   “That’s enough of you,” he smiled good-natured. “You have already stayed ten minutes under the water.”
   “Who?! Me???” my person grinned thinking that it was a joke.
   “Well, well, everything can happen in life,” Stas uttered scratching his head. “Just it’s a pity that not everybody can get this ‘everything’.”
   “You see how all of them are anxious, especially some boasters,” Sensei waved towards Eugene who opened his mouth and stared wide-eyed, either for fun or really in surprise as if he was stricken by something. “Now someone will have to clean everything and to turn into Cinderella.”
   Eugene seemed to ‘come to himself’ after these words, comically chattered with his teeth and put his jaw to its normal state helping himself with a hand. After that he uttered in his usual joking voice, “Cleaning everything is not a problem! But we didn’t make an agreement that I would have to change my male sex.”
   Stas began to ‘quiet’ him launching a new wave of laugh.
   “’Cinderella’ is just a sort of individual entrepreneurial activity when you have to do a maximum of work in a minimal time and by the way for free...”
   “For free, for free,” Eugene bantered him, “Why are you so happy? We dove together, so we will have to clean together, Cinderella number two.”
   “Oh, no, we have the only Cinderella on the staff,” Stas objected to him with laughter.
   “So you have decided to become a Fairy, a tax inspector of cleaning so to say. You are a monster!”
   The guys began to joke and at the same time they seemed to recover from their stupor.
   “Sensei, what have you done to her?” Volodya was first who asked about the matter.
   “Nothing special, I changed her time perception, her ezoosmos.”
   “Ezoosmos? What is that?” Victor inquired.
   “I will tell you one day,” Sensei waved his hand. “So what, our bet is over, let’s go to bring our camp to the order...”
   “To separate the wheat from the tares, and the cutlets from the flies,” Stas completed the answer of Sensei.
   “It’s not possible that she has spent ten minutes under the water!” Eugene was ironically indignant, looked at the shore and probably was scared by the forthcoming work. “Noone can live so long without air!”
   Sensei uttered in a fit of temper, “You people, I’m fed up with your lack of faith! You have seen it with your own eyes.”
   “Aha, but maybe she had some respiratory tube under the water. It’s cheating! That’s a pure trick!”
   Sensei bowed tired his head to the side and grinned, “Certainly, it’s cheating! You were cheated that very day when you came into the world.”
   Everybody laughed. Sensei turned back and began to go out of the water together with Nikolai Andreevich.
   “Go, go,” Stas hurried Eugene with laughter.
   “Yes, my Ober-Sturban-Fuhrer-Frau Fairy,” Eugene reported without spirit and having sighed added with assumed sadness in his voice, “We, Cinderellas, always have such a dog’s life. Every day we get only penalties.”
   All the others also moved on to the shore. It came to the whole torrent of words. I asked my friends whether I really had stayed ten minutes under the water. And they, in their turn, ignored my questions and asked me whether I had any additional respiratory tubes. So all together we chattered so noisily like seagulls when their seat is disturbed by an unexpected visitor. Finally nobody understood anything.
   We started the general cleaning works in our camp. Though Eugene comically made himself out the main character in this ‘individual entrepreneurial activity’, he cunningly avoided any work only pretending to take part in it. However he made us so laugh by his jokes and tricks that we didn’t even notice when we quickly cleaned all together the whole territory of the camp. And when we started to mock at him that he actually didn’t work he replied with a significant air that any fool can work but in his opinion the most important is to manage professionally the process. All of us expressed ‘thanks’ to him and we have thown him all together to the water.
   After such a ‘solemn’ finishing of our ‘work feats’ we began to summarize our losses. As our food supply significantly diminished, we decided to visit a market. Because these ‘flying robbers’ ate a little but celebrating a ‘big party on the island of civilization’ they mixed a lot of food, including cereals, with the sand. They have done it so meticulously as if they had had here a great disco party.
   When we prepared a list of food, the senior guys decided to take a car. However, Sensei suggested not to use the cars but to organize a ‘small jogging’ along the coast. Nobody objected to this idea, of course. Those who were very hungry took some crackers. The others decided to wait till the food would arrive, all the more Sensei used to say that it is healthy to fast from time to time.
   First of all, Volodya, Stas and Eugene made their mind to go for food. But when Sensei joined them and expressed the idea to train, Nikolai Andreevich, Ruslan, Andrew and me also gave consent to run with them. Though jogging was not going to be physically easy, I couldn’t miss such an adventure with Sensei. For me it was not just a trip but due to interesting remarks of Sensei it was the whole excursion to the people’s world, as well as to my own. As Sensei promised us, he has held a good physical training to us on our way. First we jogged along the coast and stopped only in half an hour. Then headed by Sensei we have done a warm-up. Then it was again jogging but already with acceleration. Then we made push-ups, jogging in the water, steeplechase. In general Sensei wasn’t stingy of new ideas and due to it this physical training turned for us into some unusual adventure of ‘marines’. And despite we felt the overloaded muscles when we reached the boundaries of ‘civilization’, the internal pleasure was much bigger as we have stood all of this.
   It was decided to go between recreation houses, in order to shorten the way to the market. Having swum over the water barrier-net which served as the boundary between the first recreation house and the ‘wild nature’, we went out to the coast like ordinary campers and went slowly along the coast. As usual people spent their vacation lying on the sand, they just changed the home picture in TV to the observing from the sand the many-coloured crowd with monotonous sea in the background. We could hear some rare conversations on everyday issues. Some of them complained and talked about others, some of them mocked at others. In brief, it was ordinary people’s life, nothing special. First we felt clearly the striking difference between those spiritual things Sensei told us and these utilitarian material-minded stuff discussed by people. But later on going deeper to this atmosphere of many-coloured mass we started to get infected involuntarily by its not pure air.
   I didn’t notice the moment when ‘provocative thoughts’ appeared in my head. They seemed to capture my attention by triffles. Somewhere I have seen a nice swimming suit and I thought how pretty I would look in it. Someone had nice earrings and I got a desire to buy something like that for myself. My imagination immediately started to draw a picture how I would look in that swimming suit with those ear rings. And as soon I gave freedom to those thoughts, Madam Envy immediately appeared in my mind. I noticed it only when she completely conquered my mind, hiding all the most pure feelings by her greed and dissatisfaction. “What am I doing?” I was indignant in my heart. “I try on strange images. But it’s not me! So to say, a bad penny always turns up. What should I do now?”
   My sad reflections were interrupted by Andrew who seemed to be easily hooked by the Animal nature, too.
   “Look at nice bodies of those lads!” he said with admiration to our guys showing at sun burnt young men who played volley-ball. They seemed to be a group of body builders. “Look at their muscles…”
   Judging by the way these guys were moving it seemed that they didn’t play volley-ball but rather showed off in front of the crowd demostrating their muscles in a good light. It’s naturally that they drew attention of passers-by who, in turn, gazed at their bodies with unconcealed envy.
   “Sensei, is it possible to build a body quickly and to grow such muscles?”