Anastasia Novykh. Sensei of Shambala. Book IV

Anastasia Novykh
Sensei of Shambala
Book IV

Prologue

   The voice became silent. But in a few instants the words sounded in the darkness with a new force.

 
“Creation of the universe is mastered
By His great hand.
As a skillful Master of creation
He adds new colours.

Bright colours of the nature,
Blue river canvas,
Bunch of wildflowers,
Blue of great mountains.
But mostly He is attracted
By the invisible flight of the Soul
In fearless gaze of a young and old man,
And of that one who is close to God and comes to Him.

And they are not stopped on their great
Way
By any illusive burden of existence,
That attacks in this instant
As pain, despair and poverty.

Since they are led by great Will
Of the One, whose Essence is Love.
The choice is given and it is Freedom,
And Knowledge of that secret
Hidden in cover of only four masterpieces.

And if you open that cover and will see the boundary of the Extreme Lotus,
You will cognize what is thrice written by the hand
Of the One who embodied the Voice of
God into a covenant.
That Truth hides the universe,
It keeps a secret seal,
If you tears if off, you will lessen the
Imaginary people’s values

But what you will find there is more precious that the world,
More valuable than what lies beyond its boundaries,
And it is deemed to be long forgotten,
As it is a key to the Word given.

The one who strives to God, can’t be stopped,
The one who wants power over the world, is welcome!
You will decide which way to chose,
When you utter the Word of 12 which creates everything.

But remember that now in you power
Is the destiny of worlds, the destiny of people.
Be careful and passionless
Be reasonable in your wishes.

As He entrusted the brush for some time,
That creates the world from nothing.
But this instant will be over as well
So be worthy to look into His eyes with Honour!

This secret makes clear many things,
It gives the chance and peculiarity to the one
Who wants to know the Truth with a sincere heart
Who is faithful only to God and comes to Him!”
 

* * *

   Life is so amazing, so many-sided, diverse and unpredictable both for the whole nations, and for each man individually. Its events, hidden and evident, are transient and impressive. Their invisible trace they leave in people’s memory is mysterious. They don’t only leave but unnoticeably change the future destiny both of a man and of nations, depending on their own choice.
   Reading once more my diary from the point of view of independent mature age and recalling those years I all the same come to the conclusion that that last day of rest on the sea coast of our young that time company headed by Sensei became one of the most important days in my life. It was the day which not only left indelible impressions but deeply changed my world view, understanding of the global structure of this world and strengthened more my spiritual positions and clearly determined the sense of my life. And I’m grateful to Sensei for that as the coming years of my formation as a personality gave me the possibility to understand more deeply what he had told us that time.

* * *

   After the visit of an unexpected guest called Ariman to our tent “camp” located on the sea coast far from civilization I didn’t have a chance to sleep well. All the night I was tortured by terrible nightmares connected with the events of the day before. Slaves, crowd, rule of Archons, mean eyes of Veliar, friendly smile of Ariman. And all of that was against a background of some internal depression and despair. Not only that this serial of total thrillers projected from the subconscience to my dream stretched out till the morning, it was accompanied by different external “trick effects” emitted by Tatiana, my neighbor in the tent. I should say, she also suffered all the night: she moaned, quivered with the whole body, suddenly stretched out her hands. As our tent was small for two of us, so I naturally reacted sensibly to all this sound and martial process of Tatiana’s dream, and was awaken terrified by those “trick effects” supplementing my “horror film”. So, that night was more than “joyous”.
   Nevertheless at down I managed to fall asleep. But my peaceful dream in its final series lasted not long. At the end, obviously for the “spectator” to be kept impressed by this “horror”, I dreamt of something so terrible that I was abruptly awakened out of fear, and even after I opened my eyes, I couldn’t understand whether it was all true. But when I realized that that terrifying “reality” was just a dream, I sighed with such a relief as if a load was off my mind. A human needs so little sometimes to feel happy, he has just to wake up from the reality alien to him.
   In silence I laughed at myself. Why was I so confused yesterday and paid so much attention to the old wives’ tales of Ariman? Now it came to such a result. I wondered if it’s possible to control my dreams, or what is better, to manage them. A thought came across my mind that when an opportunity offers, I should ask Sensei about that in details. Since we waste for dreams almost eight hours per day! And by the way, is it a dream at all? As once Nikolai Andreevich, psychotherapist by profession, said, a dream is just an altered state of consciousness. If it’s so, it can be managed for the benefit of the Spiritual nature. Why should we waste the entire eight hours per day in vain, giving them to the power of our Animal nature?! It shouldn’t be like that! I’m sure that there should be a way to use this time more rationally. Life is so short and every minute is precious in it if it’s lived for the benefit to the Spiritual nature.
   However, as soon as I put my thoughts in relative order, there appeared another problem. Suddenly I felt some bitter after-taste in my mouth that began to be filled by profuse saliva as if I half-bit a thick lemon segment. This unusual for me sensation caused in its turn a vivid recollection of the day before. It was Ariman (unexpected guest who visited us with his own luxurious yacht and spent almost the whole day with us) who accompanied our group on the way to rest houses and proposed us to test the power of our subconsciousness. We immediately agreed on it, except for Nikolai Andreevich and Sensei who left us a bit behind when talking about something of their own. Ariman held a short verbal “performance” helping us to concentrate, and after that almost all of us felt for some reason that strange lemon after-taste in the mouth. Ariman promised us that next morning as soon as we wake up, our subconsciousness will reproduce in mind word-for-word everything he told us during his visit. Of course, we didn’t believe it. And Eugene even said that “there will be just a few drops from the whole flow that would leak through his personal mill-ponds and dams”. Our guest smiled him in reply and fixing his gaze on the guy’s eyes promised him the whole spring flood with broad overflows. Surely, we didn’t take it for serious that time. But now…
   After practically a sudden flash of memories concerning that scene of the day before, my thoughts, as if it were a repeated broadcasting, began to transmit the speech of Ariman. And what was more striking, it was so word-for-word that I was first even scared and confused. But then I quickly found my diary and started to write down there everything in order not to forget it. However it seemed the last thing was quite impossible. After I spent some time for writing all of that I decided to read it again in order not to forget something. And my memory reproduced the same text, repeating it again and again, as a gramophone record. This time my person panicked strongly of course as I got it finally that my stupidity and naivety brought me like a bird to the cunningly knitted clap-net of my subconsciousness nicely decorated by the words of Ariman. What a pity that I underestimated my memory the day before! And all of that because of my ignorance, so to say “just for fun”. What a “fun”, indeed! Now someone is having fun for sure, but not me. Why are we, people, so strange?! All the time we have doubts, please our Ego, and just play about the knowledge, but don’t cognize. And as a result we get into a tough spot, so it’s high time to cry “Help! SOS! Help me!” However often, whatever hard you cry, if you drown you can save your life only yourself. The same story happened to myself.
   Well, it was my own fault, so I had myself to correct my mistakes. It was high time to put my thoughts to order. As an “emergency help” I tried to distract my attention from that “turbulent torrent” and to concentrate on the meditation of Lotus flower. First it didn’t work, because one or another phrase from Ariman’s speech constantly diverted my thoughts. And I couldn’t get rid of that obtrusiveness unless I understood that that thoughts flow didn’t distract my attention but attracted. It meant that I wanted to listen to it, or if to put it correctly, not me, but my Animal nature. So what’s the matter? My wishes are up to me! Having realized my mistake, I began to make my practice of Lotus flower more purposefully since all my wishes and intentions united in one flow of concentration, ignoring all the rest.
   Though the Ariman’s speech calmed down, it continued to remain on some second background of my thoughts. Well, Ariman is Ariman! That’s why I decided to use as big guns a new meditation of Lotus flower which was last time told us by Sensei during one of the meditation trainings when he narrated about the endless variety of Lotus. Before that my attempts to master the new meditation were obviously fruitless though Sensei emphasized many times that all depends on the human himself, on his inner nature. But this time evidently due to purity and sincerity of my intentions, the Lotus flower showed itself in a completely unusual way.
   When I achieved the clear concentration on the solar plexus, suddenly I saw with some internal vision my Lotus flower! I clear saw it, and not imagined as usually. This flower was beautiful. I have never seen this in my life! Snow-white petals irradiated bright but at the same time very soft light. And the center of the flower gleamed with some golden glow. And what was most striking this divine flower was alive! I noticed that the more I gave it my tenderness and love, the more it reacted to my sincere feelings by waving its very tender and pure little petals. First this waving was slightly noticeable, very alive, I would call it “breathing”. And then the flower began like waking up and showing itself more and more. At some instant it seemed to me but then I really heard very pleasant sound outgoing from one of the waving petals, it was as if sweet singing of a light breeze. Following it another petal sounded its way, producing by vibration a wonderful sound which wasn’t alike any of sounds I knew before. After it the third petal “showed” itself in this increasing melody. And just in a few instants I fully sank into the charming symphony of Lotus which consisted of harmonious, delicate, very pleasant to hear sounds. This music just enchanted by its divine sounds. And the more I sank into it, the more I had increasing feeling of internal all-embracing joy and endless freedom. But the most striking was the feeling when this outstanding sound emanated from Lotus began to turn to the bright soft light which wrapped me up from all the sides filling inside by its wonderful purity. It generated such a feeling of complete joy I never felt before that I dissolved in it fully sinking to the indescribable bliss. As if I disappeared with my body. Only Lotus remained and the cognition of the huge universal Love!
   Leaving the state of meditation I felt myself so splendid that I wanted to embrace the whole world. I was in the perfect mood. And what was most striking, there reigned in my thoughts absolute clarity and purity of consciousness. There was no hint on presence of “gramophone record” with Ariman’s speech. Full with optimism, joy from successful meditation and so significant for me victory in gaining morning revenge over my Animal nature, I went out of the tent. First what I saw was a very funny scene.

* * *

   On the sea coast, not far from canes Eugene sat in lotus position, with a bucket on his head. He fanned himself with some bunch of grass from time to time, with the lonely cane sticking up as a pistil. Stas was sitting near him on the stool and looked at his friend pensively. Victor washed himself in the basin not far from his tent. He splashed with great pleasure, so water scattered in the air to all sides. Sensei and Nikolai Andreevich were walking at the same time alongside the coast towards our tent camp. Some of our guys were swimming far in the sea, so far that only the crown of the head was seen. It was the distance right only for Volodya, if to take into consideration that Sensei and Nikolai Andreevich who were as good as him were that time on the coast.
   I came closer to Stas, greeted him and just wanted to question about that unusual Eugene’s pose as Kostya climbed out of his tent. He stretched himself with pleasure and began to do some morning exercises but stopped at once having seen Eugene with a smoked bucket on the head. First his face showed sincere surprize which immediately turned to a grin. Having forgotten about the exercises Kostya approached lazily Stas and merrily asked, “I see that Eugene decided to change his profession from a wrong-way-guide to a shaman? Or does he play an alien? Well, he even has found an antenna! What for? For data transmission to a UFO?”
   “It’s not an antenna, it’s a panicle,” Stas answered him patiently as if Kostya wasn’t the first who asked him such questions.
   “A panicle?!” Kostya burst laughing looking at Eugene who waved again around himself with that “antenna”. “Why does he need it with a bucket?”
   “The panicle is to brush aside flies, and the bucket to shield the thoughts,” Stas explained in a monotonous and absolutely serious way.
   “What? Shield the thoughts?!” Kostya laughed once again.
   At his laugh Andrew crawled out of his tent, evidently out of curiosity. Rubbing his sleepy eyes he joined our merry company.
   “What are you doing here?” He was amazed not less than Kostya looking embarrassed at Eugene.
   Stas hemmed.
   “Don’t you see? We are taking a crash course of repulsing enemies attacks with aggressive thoughts, of endurability and survivalism of positive thoughts in especially unfavorable conditions. Briefly saying, it’s the struggle with arimanism.”
   “What do you mean under arimanism?” Andrew didn’t get it.
   Stas shifted his gaze from Eugene to Andrew’s sleepy baggy face.
   “Are you ok, guys? My dear friends, you seem not to wake up yet. Don’t worry, it will happen to you soon as well!”
   “It sounds like a promising start!” smiled Andrew.
   Kostya declared with a triumph in his voice citing one of his favorite classics, “A wise man is superior to any insults which can be put upon him, and the best reply to unseemly behavior is patience and moderation!”
   “Well, well,” grinned Stas and stared at Eugene again.
   Andrew immediately responded to Kostya’s words and uttered with a snicker, “Which magnifying glass have you used this night in order to find the traces of wisdom in yourself?”
   Kostya returned to Andrew in stilted style, “You know, respected Andrian, the son of your father. We, I mean “my Majesty and my Highness”, judge the wisdom not through the things which might seem for some narrow-minded persons to be living essentials in the night, rather we judge them exclusively from their pragmatic use. Since the clever man differs from the wise one, as the clever one knows how to come out of a difficulty and the wise one just avoids it.”
   Such a Kostya’s speech made even Eugene to raise a little his bucket and looking at the guy from his shelter he said quite amazed, “No so bad!”
   Our group rolled with laughter. And Eugene collected himself and hurried up to put on the bucket again and to continue his experiment.
   “But why do you need a bucket?” Andrew asked laughing Stas.
   “I explain once again for dummies. Ariman seems to have established a very strong telepathic connection to all of us. Therefore, as Nikolai Andreevich said in the morning, everybody protects him as he can. As you know, a thought is material and it’s a certain wave. The brain serves as a receiver. In order to break the constant contact, you should either isolate a source transmitting these waves, or a receiver. The source is located beyond our control, therefore we have to isolate a receiver. So Eugene is trying to screen himself with a bucket from this influence.”
   “Well, now is clear,” drawled Andrew with a smile. “It means that Eugene exhausted his patience and he decided to help himself with the bucket?”
   “Who exhausted the patience?!” Eugene rumbled in his bucket like a metal robot and taking it off from his head he added, “My patience is endless, it’s firm like steel! But extra vigilance has never been excessive.” And already addressing to Stas he uttered, “No, the bucket doesn’t help.”
   “Why do you try then to isolate radio-waves with an iron?!” Kostya interfered inspired by the experiment of the senior guys. “As far as I know, only the lead can be used for it.”
   Eugene immediately was jokingly indignant at that.
   “You, dunderhead, want to say that my bright head needs to be put to the accumulator?”
   “Why to the accumulator?!” Kostya laughed with all. “You may just wet the towel and wrap it around the head.”
   “Right!” Andrew backed him. “Then your brain will feel better and the isolation will be good.”
   Eugene looked with an unfavourable eye at these two advisors and then slightly grinning put the bucket on the sand and resolutely directed his steps towards Victor. The latter having finished his morning ablution dried himself with a towel and watched at Eugene’s clownery.
   Eugene came close to Victor and began to take away the towel from him, “Stop rubbing! You shine like polished. Give me the towel, don’t be greedy.”
   “Here you are, take it,” our seniour sempai smiled at that. “You may even take it for ever! I don’t grudge anything for my friend.”
   “Of course, he doesn’t,” ironically uttered Stas, “especially when it’s my towel!”
   Our group laughed again. Meanwhile Eugene took the terry-towel, wetted it in the water and without twisting it began to wrap it around his head like a turban. This made him look like an icicle melting down in the full blaze of the spring sun.
   Right in that moment Sensei and Nikolai Andreevich came up to our group.
   “Do you have a headache?” Nikolai Andreevich asked with care in his voice.
   “No, he tries to screen himself against radio-waves this was,” explained Andrew while Eugene collected his thoughts to find a proper answer.
   “How can you protect yourself with a wet towel from radio-waves?” the doctor said with a smile.
   “Indeed!” interfered Victor combing back his resistant forelock. “I wanted to tell him this but he didn’t give me a chance to utter a word! The water is on the contrary a conductor. A dry matter can be a dielectric.”
   With these words Eugene glanced at Kostya and Andrew in a severe way, took off the towel from his head and started to twist it in a demonstrative manner like a whip. Andrew and Kostya exchanged their cunning looks and disappeared in canes under the loud laugh of the other guys, so to say, to get out of harm’s way.
   We stood in one circle together with Sensei. Stas used this opportunity and addressed to him, “But if to speak seriously, Sensei, please, forgive us! We were yesterday fools and losers. Word of honour, we feel so sorry and ashamed for that,” the guy put his hand to the heart and said it in a sincere way.
   “Sensei, indeed,” Victor agreed to him, “Forgive us! Frankly speaking, I didn’t expect that I’m so full of arimanism, empty egocentrism. I was led like a stupid ass. Now I hate myself for it!”
   “That’s true,” I thought listening to such revelations of the seniour guys. “And I was also so stupid! Sensei spent so much time for us, he wanted us not to believe blindly but to make a deliberate choice, pay high tribute to the spiritual things and understand what life is. And we behaved like pigs! Ariman needed less that half of the day to dip us into the mess of endless material wishes of our Animal nature! He smartly gained our confidence, made up a show giving us unobtrusive advices which attracted our Animal nature like dog hearing a whistle of his Master. He made such a subtle substitution of our strives to the spiritual life by the hell of the material world which we have to overcome, according to him, in order to realize our wishes.”
   “We didn’t expect that the matter would catch us so yesterday,” Stas uttered sadly almost in unison with my thoughts. “It’s such a deceit! When I have realized all of it… My conscience tortured me the whole night! And this… ostrich beside me, too.”
   The guy nodded towards Eugene. We also looked to that direction. Meanwhile Eugene kneeled, pulled his t-shirt on the head and quickly dug his head to the dry sand, obviously testing a new way of “waves screening” advised to him by Victor. Our company involuntarily grinned looking at Eugene. But then we glanced seriously back to Sensei.
   “Well,” Victor sighed sadly, “we thought that nothing will lead us astray from the spiritual way. But this time we behaved like… Forgive us, please…”
   “Alright, guys,” Sensei uttered in a friendly manner. “You are just people. If you understood all of that, that’s good. It means he didn’t visit in vain…” Sensei kept silence for a bit looking at us with some pensative kind-hearted gaze and then he said merrily, “Alright, drag this ostrich out, let’s go swimming!”
   Our company felt relief. Faces of the guys brightened, a mark of fear and inner suffering disappeared. These simple human words meant for us really a lot. Once again I was amazed by Sensei’s Essence. He turned out to be even in such a situation a very humane Human. Since if to analyze it, it means that by our yesterday’s behaviour and stupid wishes we just betrayed Sensei, betrayed ourselves, our spiritual nature. But if the last one completely depended on reconciliation with our own conscience, in regard to Sensei, this unordinary Soul, we really felt awkward and even mental anguish for our “swinishness” and egocentrism. And it oppressed even more than internal anguish.
   But Sensei simply forgave us. Or rather he didn’t show that something special happened, that he was hurt or dissatisfied. The other one would maybe in the best case moralizing for three hours, and in the worst one would turn out neck and crop with all our hesitations and stupidity. And he would be right! But it would be just an ordinary man, not Sensei! On the contrary he treated us with understanding like a careful parent treats naughty kids. He said just a few words, nice and kind-hearted, which not only let us realize the sense of our mistake, but warmed the soul of each of us. And this unspoken forgiveness revealed the essence of his Great Soul.
   The seniour guys began to fulfil the request of Sensei to “drag out the ostrich” with such an inspiration that our company burst into laugh again from their endless humour. First Victor and Stas tried just to “tear” Eugene away from the sand. But the last on felt that he is separated from the sand elements and started to resist obviously for fun, that’s why all three of them fell down to the sand because of their too active actions accompanied by the loud laughter of our company.
   Having stood up Eugene shook off the sand from himself and complained in jest, “Have you seen this! All in vain. Neither dry sand, nor empty bucket help to tackle this “conflagration” of thoughts!”
   Nikolai Andreevich remarked at this smiling, “Right. As firemen used to say, what is a fire-bucket? It’s just an empty vessel having a shape of a bucket with an inscription “fire-bucket” and used to extinguish a fire.”
   “And the main sense is that the fire is extinguished with water, not with an empty bucket,” Sensei specified with a smile.
   “Exactly!” Stas backed the joke and turning to Eugene he said, “A bucket is an empty thing. And as it is known you can’t mill the wind!”
   “You can’t mill the wind,” Eugene jokingly copied him when the guys laughed again. “Where have you thing the wind here?” He comically knocked at his head. “There boils so much in this pot from the very morning that I’m dizzy from that soup!” Eugene couldn’t stop with his “complaints”. “Well, really, I’m fed up with this thoughts attack! How can I get rid of it?”
   “How to get rid of it, you say?” Nikolai Andreevich said smiling and gave an advice at once. “The same way like of sclerosis.”
   “Of sclerosis? And how exactly?” Eugene pricked up his ears, obviously suspecting some trick in these words.
   “Well, it’s not easy to cure sclerosis, of course, but you can forget about it with its help.”
   While we were laughing Eugene nodded merrily agreeing with the doctor.
   “I always suspected that I’m lucky like an immortal vampire.”
   “You mean you look so terrible?” Stas interrupted him and that made guys laugh even more.
   “Fie, you, vulgar persons!” Eugene got indignant in jest. “I wanted to say that I’m lucky to be as healthy and… to have a bad memory like an immortal vampire.”
   “Ah,” drawled his friend and breathed out with relief. “Faugh, I got worried about you”
   In reply to this Eugene changed his voice with cunning smile and mumbled like an old man, “Be careful, don’t overstrain your worries! Or rather you won’t have health enough for that.”
   Our company just burst into laugh either from these jokes of the guys or just having a good mood. Having laughed a lot, the guys moved to the sea. I went to do my morning exercises. And a bit later I joined our swimming group with the other guys who woke up.

* * *

   When we were getting into the sea, Volodya has already come back from his long distance swimming. He stood in the water together with Sensei, obviously having rest after such a strong physical effort and talking to him quietly about something. Swimming behind them I have occasionally heard Volodya’s words, “I’ve even thought about the reincarnation.”
   “Don’t worry, there won’t be any death lethal injection,” said Sensei in his usual humorous tone.
   “Thank you so much, of course,” Volodya answered merrily. “On the way back I considered myself that it has some negative features. First, I will not remember my previous life and everything that was in it. Second, it can happen a change of sex!” He smiled. “And with my normal orientation I don’t need it at all.” The men laughed. “But frankly speaking, it was cool!”
   Though I haven’t heard all it was talked about, but I think that Volodya was tortured by the same thoughts like the seniour guys and all of us after yesterday. Just everybody went through it in his own way. The most interesting is that despite the fact that we were all friends and Sensei was with us, everybody fought inside of him alone, defended himself and resisted his own Animal nature. And it was natural. Since as Sensei used to say, everybody goes his own way, alone, from birth till death. And everybody accumulates his own experience which he obtains on this way. The others may only give advices but not go instead of him.
   Thinking about Volodya I unnoticeably switched to my thoughts. And I thought that it’s so important to consider everything from positive side. Even if the life brings you a lemon segment, don’t worry about its bitter taste, just take it and change this segment into a delicious and sweet lemonade. It’s pleasant for you and good for health, especially for your spiritual health. Let’s take this visit of Ariman. If to consider it from the spiritual side, it was such a precious lesson for us, such a black-and-white contrast, a good-and-bad measure. To tell the truth, but for these flows of arimanism, nobody knows when I would have courage to rebuff my Animal nature and concentrate so seriously and heartily on the new meditation and, most important, achieve such outstanding results! It’s true that every cloud has a silver lining.
   “Look, the dolphins came to visit us!” Stas called everybody having interrupted my thoughts.
   The guy pointed to the approaching us familiar couple of dolphins. This time we fearlessly rushed to them. One of the dolphins, our common favourite, headed for Sensei at once. Swimming up to him he uttered some merry sounds and turning on the back showed Sensei its belly, probably for scratching.
   “Hey, you, the naughty guy!” grinned Sensei caressing his belly.
   It seemed to me that the dolphin even closed his eyes out of pleasure. The second dolphin was just friendly swimming around us.
   Some of us came to Sensei, including me. Suddenly Sensei suggested to me, “Do you want to ride… a dolphin?”
   “How can it be?” I didn’t grasp.
   The guys also looked at Sensei quite amazed.
   “It’s very simple! Come here. You take his upper fin, like that… And that’s all! The dolphin will give you a ride with pleasure.”
   “With pleasure? The dolphin?” Kostya asked with doubts in his voice.
   “But if he drags her far to the sea?” Andrew inquired in jest.
   “He won’t,” grinned Sensei. “This dolphin is much smarter than some Homo sapiens.” And already addressing to me he uttered. “Go ahead!”
   Our favourite turned around in the water during our conversation as if he really understood what we had been talking about and got ready like a fast horse. Of course, I was a bit scared just imagining this unusual ride. But I was ashamed to show it in front of the guys, especially because it was the initiative of Sensei. Therefore I pretended to play a very self-confident person, swam closer to the dolphin, caressed its back and carefully seized his upper fin so that he would not feel discomfort or pain, in my opinion.
   But my mask of the “brave person” didn’t last long. As soon as I seized the fin, Sensei playfully splashed the water and the dolphin got off with a jerk and rushed alongside the coast. Our of fear I held his fin so strongly as if it were my last hope on the sinking ship. However the dolphin was moving with steady speed leaving his fin over the water and making maneuvers with his strong tail. Out of fear I closed my eyes tight and left only narrow chinks for vigilance. We flew like an arrow with such a speed that I was seriously frightened. Though it was a clever dolphin but he was an animal and what could he intend each next moment? How could I “ask” him to go back? If he really heads for the sea I won’t be able to reach the coast! So, all this cocktail of panic feelings of my Animal nature and such an incredible “water flying” could make my hair stand on end if it were not wet.
   The dolphin continued to twist quickly joyfully rushing along the sea space with my person as a human “load”. But the biggest fun still awaited for me. My worst fears became to come true quite fast. Having swum some distance the dolphin began to turn towards the sea. My instinct of self-preservation immediately prevailed. Having let off the fin, I swam as hard as I could to the coast. But in comparison with the previous torpedo flight my own speed reminded more the lazy turtle slowly moving on the land in the full blaze of the sun.
   However the dolphin wasn’t going to leave me to the mercy of fate. Having turned towards Sensei he swam to me very close by from the right side as if offering me his help. Floundering in the water I seized with one hand his fin. And the dolphin as if on command rushed again playfully towards Sensei. I had to pull myself up in order to seize the fin with the left hand. How come the dolphins have so much strength? Coming back to our point of departure all my fears disappeared at once and it was a great pleasure for me to ride at such a speed and to be close to such a friendly unordinary creature.
   Quite amazing but as soon as my fear disappeared I cognized and felt what I didn’t notice when my Animal nature dominated. I have caught myself on the thought that I treated the dolphin like a human. As if I started to understand him and to anticipate somehow changes in his movements. For example, when we were in the middle of our way, the dolphin began to swim slower and to deepen gradually. I let off the fin somehow without fear clearly knowing on the subconsciousness level what was going to be but I didn’t understand it. The dolphin turned on his back in a funny manner showing me his belly and nearing like two hands his two side fins. I took them. In this position the dolphin again speeded up rushing with me to Sensei. Meanwhile the second dolphin “met” us and accompanied us playfully aside. This way we reached our group. I was fully delighted with the dolphins. They are so kind and friendly creatures!
   Our company has also admired what they have seen.
   “Why have you let him off when he turned back?” Kostya and Andrew began mocking at me.
   Hardly had I wanted to confess frankly that I was scared, Eugene “stood up” for me, “She got embarassed! Have you forgotten that yesterday she’d got the gills when she’d been sitting under the water for ten minutes. And the dolphins felt her their relative at once! Have you seen that horizontal races!”
   We laughed and the guys began joking about it and asking me about my feelings. Some of them also wanted to take a ride but this time attention of the dolphins changed to another kind of a game. Probably when I have been still floundering in the water, one of the stripes fell down unnoticeably from my hair. I used it to tie up the hair so that it would not hinder during swimming. And the smaller dolphin picked it up to his side fin and began racing with it around in circles. And the second dolphin started catching him up, archly hunting this stripe. Even when I “sacrificed” them the second stripe for fun, they still tried to take it away from each other in a such funny way that it made all our group laugh.
   Part of the guys left to observe the game of the dolphins and even tried to take part in it, the rest went just swimming. Eugene was most active in diving trying to get rid of some intrusive green flies which circled around him even after he went into the water. What was most strange is that they intended to sit only on him, without disturbing anybody else.
   “What’s up?!” Eugene got indignant laughing. “Mosquitoes ate me in the night and flies in the morning. Where did they get from, damn them!”
   In reply Volodya who was swimming not far from him noticed, “Of course, I’m not against flies as insects but I should say that flies won’t sit on something without a reason!”
   Stas picked up this joke and began developing it. “Well, you should be done from something in order to attract their attention to you.”
   “You want to say that I’m that something that doesn’t sink?!” Eugene grinned with indignation.
   Victor who listened to their conversation laughed together with the guys and suggested, “We can easily check it!”
   He rushed to drown Eugene with a boyish enthusiasm. The last one slipped out his hands, felt down aside and shouted, “It’s a lie! You will get into it but won’t catch it! That something doesn’t sink in the fire and doesn’t burn in the water!”
   The guys rolled again laughing after the last Eugene’s pun.
   Time of this unusual swimming with dolphins together with such a merry company flew by unnoticeably. Having probably played enough the dolphins made a few circles of honour around us and having left one stripe to Sensei, took the other one with them to the sea. We also began going from the water to the sand.
   “They are really intelligent creatures!” Victor said with delight looking back to the swimming away dolphins.
   “You can’t even imagine how intelligent they are,” emphasized Sensei. “How amazing their “social” ingenuity is. They don’t just follow the programmed standard instincts, but agree on their actions in favour of the population in general, its stability and self-preservation.” And he added with a smile. “By the way, unlike human demos kratos, they have a real democracy.”
   “What do you mean?” Victor didn’t grasp.
   “They don’t have special distinctions between leaders and subordinates. The leader differs from others only by the fact that he takes over responsibility in the critical situation.”
   “In which way?” asked Kostya who listened to them with interest.
   “Well… For example, a ship is coming close to dolphins. One or two dolphins-leaders swim close to it, investigate the object in details, and the others wait on secure distance for their decision whether they have to fear this object or to ignore it, etc.”
   “So to say, a leader is the one who shows his bum in the critical situation?” Volodya specified with a smile. “Well, then that’s a true democracy. We don’t expect this even from the authorities of the ministry, moreover from the government.”
   “That’s right.” Sensei nodded grinning. “People have something to be learnt from dolphins.” And in a while he added. “They really have a highly organized society. And “social” organization of dolphins is in some sense a copy of the primary structure of the human society about which people remember little and because of lack of knowledge they call it primitive matriarchy.”
   “Which knowledge do you mean?” Nikolai Andreevich got interested at once.
   “I will tell you later some day,” Sensei replied. And reaching the coast he suggested, “Wouldn’t you mind to have a breakfast? What do you think?”
   Our company supported this idea and began to cook the late breakfast with enthusiasm.

* * *

   Despite the collective activities in cooking food, it was eaten with real appetite only Sensei, Nikolai Andreevich and, what surprised me, I. I had such an appetite as if I have been starving for a week. The other guys ate with no interest, sitting around the table more to keep us company. They didn’t stop joking. Eugene was our star. By the way he didn’t take a seat at all but was walking in circles around us, picking fruits or biscuits. Somehow he wasn’t able to sit. As soon as he tried to take a seat, he was immediately accompanied by green flies around him that made attempts to sit on the food. So the guys lost the patience and having given him a paper-bag with food sent him to the “long walking journey”, so to say, far from our common table.
   “So, Eugene, are we going to visit Pripyat?” Stas asked him with a cunning smile.
   “What for?” He didn’t understand.
   “What for? To catch crayfish.”
   “Fie, I beg you, don’t remind me about them. Otherwise my mind will wrongly interpret your offer and will give a signal to the stomach so that it would return all its contents to the irritant which sent it this word impulse.”
   “Well! What a vocabulary,” Stas grinned. “It seems like Ariman completely cleaned up your ground, up to the scalp foundation.”
   “Right you are,” Victor nodded with a smile. “He began to sing like an important bird.”
   In reply Eugene mumbled like an old man and with a creak voice of an experienced man answered, “Well, when life squeezes you, you will sing in falsetto voice! Where shall you hide from its kind pincers? However good or bad but it’s my own Fate.”
   The company laughed and Stas uttered, “So you are a masochist besides all?! I didn’t know it. Only at rest-time we discover all personal features of a friend.”
   “But seriously, Eugene, how do you feel?” Nikolai Andreevich asked a pragmatic question. “Do you feel a bit better after the “heavy morning”?”
   “That’s all right, doc,” replied the guy. “My symptoms are already over.” And having caught skilfully a green fly circling around him he added, “just the clinical presentations left.”
   While the seniour guys were joking, our young company has been talking quietly about other things. Eating food I all the time asked my friends to hand me over either a fresh tomato, or a cucumber which I couldn’t take myself as they were far from my plate. They didn’t eat practically anything and Tatyana “poured oil to the flames”, “I wish I could eat that caviar from the golden jar on the table of Ariman.”
   “Or one of those salads, at least,” Kostya added dreamily.
   “Or grilled shark pieces,” inserted Andrew. “Well, Ariman had a first class food, not this one.”
   The guy nodded to the table with disgust.
   “Don’t tell me,” backed him Tatiana and making a wry face told me, “How can you eat all of that?”
   “Me?” My person got surprised. “With great appetite! Why don’t you like this food? Everything is fresh and delicious.”
   “Hem, delicious,” she mimicked me and declared arrogantly in an expert tone, “You’d better try that food yesterday, when there was such a chance. Then you would understand the difference!”
   “This food is also good!” I answered merrily trying to clear the air of discontent among my friends.
   “This food,” hemmed Kostya and fell into memories of the day before. “Have you seen his yacht! I will also buy one day the same one.”
   “Aha, just dream of it,” Slava grinned. “You know how much money you have to earn for it!”
   In reply Kostya said arrogantly, “Don’t humiliate yourself to the slave’s thinking level! Believe in yourself! Then you will have good chances.”
   Frankly speaking, I didn’t expect to hear it from Kostya and uttered with a smile, “You took over the Ariman’s philosophy so quickly.”
   “Philosophy?” Kostya looked sulky. “That’s life, if you didn’t understand it yet! That’s the reality! And you have to use it when you are still alive. And all the rest is philosophy!”
   I looked into Kostya’s eyes still hoping that he was just joking. But I met such a cold and sharp gaze that I decided not to reply. Though it was obvious that he waited for my reply probably to splash out fully his protest. But I felt that if I say a word it would lead to an empty conflict and anger. Why should I provoke him? Kostya isn’t a bad fellow. Just he didn’t grasp in full measure which trap Ariman put yesterday, and Kostya managed to be entrapped in it like a silly sparrow. Finally everybody makes his choice in this life and bears responsibility for it.
   I lowered my gaze to the plate and continued my meal. After he haven’t received an answer Kostya repeated again insistently, “Yes, it’s just a philosophy!”
   No objection followed his phrase. Tatiana said with a dreaming sigh, “What a cool yacht he has! And the furniture inside!”
   “One gets used to the good things very quickly,” noticed Andrew.
   “Don’t mention it,” nodded Tatiana. “After that luxury I can’t see this slum…”
   “It’s a slum indeed,” smugly hemmed Kostya, looking contemptuously around and stopping his gaze at the table. “Let’s go swimming or what. Otherwise I will feel sick looking at this food.”
   The guys nodded together agreeing with him. And they began to stand up from our improvised table.
   “Are you going?” Tatiana invited me.
   “No, thanks, I’d rather stay,” I uttered with a smile. “Unlike Kostya I have strong Siberian health.”
   Though we had parted in a peaceful way, I had an unpleasant after-feeling. However I didn’t let me get upset because of such trifles. Having sending my bad thoughts far away, I rubbed my hands anticipating to try biscuits and sweets. And filling my plate with different sweeties in order not to stretch myself for them, I sat closer to the group of the seniour guys headed by Sensei.
   Nikolai Andreevich glanced at many sweeties I brought with myself and held me up as an example, “Look how you should eat! And I hear from you just “don’t want”, “merci”, “pardon”!