Текст книги "Sensei of Shambala"

“Thus, when this flower blossoms and starts to increase in size, it starts to emit vibrations instead of a scent, the so-called leptons or gravitons, call them as you like, that is, the energy of Love. You feel the moving petals of this flower that bring vibrations to your whole body, to all the space around you, radiating Love and Harmony to the world.”

“And is it somehow felt at the physical level?” Eugene asked.

“Yes. The Lotus can be felt as though the regions of a solar plexus are burning, spreading heat. That is, these feelings arise in the regions of a solar plexus where, as legends say, our soul is hidden. These regions start getting warmer and warmer. The main sense of all of this is that wherever you are, whomever you are with or whatever you do or think, you should always feel this heat, heat that warms not only your body but also your soul. This internal concentration of Love is located in the flower. Finally, the more you take care of it and glorify this Love, the more you feel that this flower expands and tightly surrounds your body with its petals, and you stand inside of the huge Lotus.

“And then it comes to a very important point. When you reach the stage when Lotus petals surround you from all sides, you feel two flowers. One is inside under your heart that is warmed all the time by the feeling of inner Love. Another one, the bigger one, is like the astral shell of this flower that surrounds you. On the one hand, it radiates the vibration of Love to the world and on the other hand, it protects you from the negative influence of other people. Thus the cause-and-effect law works. To put it in the language of physics, there is a wave effect. Briefly, you radiate waves of good feelings, intensifying them manifold and thus creating a graceful wave field. You can feel this wave field all the time supported by your heart and soul of Love, and it positively impacts not only you but also the surrounding world.

“What happens with everyday practice? First, you always control your thoughts, learn to concentrate on positive things. Therefore you are not automatically able to wish bad things to anybody or to be bad. This practice should be done every day and every second for your whole life. It is some kind of distraction method, as nobody can fight with negative thoughts by force. Love cannot be compelled. Therefore you should distract your attention. If a negative or undesirable thought comes, you concentrate on your flower, you start to give your Love to it, that is, you forget all the negative things. Or you switch your attention to something else, to something positive. But you feel the flower all the time: going to bed, getting up, at night, during the day, whatever you do, when studying, working, doing sports, etc. You feel how Love flares up, how currents of Love are moving in your chest and are filling your body. You feel how this flower starts heating up inside with a special warmth, the divine warmth of Love. And the more you give, the bigger the Love is inside. Constantly radiating this Love, you perceive people from the position of Love. That is, second, what is very important, that you tune yourself into the frequency of the good.

“And the good means success, luck, health. It means everything! You start feeling happier, and that has a positive impact on your mind. The central nervous system is the main regulator of all vital activity. Therefore, first of all, this practice improves your health. Besides, your life becomes smoother as you start finding reconciliation with everybody. Nobody wants to quarrel with you, you are welcome everywhere. You won’t have any major problems. Why? Because even if you have some troubles in life, as life is life, you start perceiving them in a completely different way than just ordinary people. You already have a new vision of the life that helps you to find the most optimal decision for the situation. Because the wisdom of life awakens in you.

“And third, the main thing is that you start feeling yourself becoming Human, you come to understand who is God, that God is an all-encompassing substance, and not just a fantasy of a few idiots. You start feeling the divine presence in yourself and strengthen this power by your positive thoughts and feelings. You will never feel alone in this world anymore as God is in you and with you, you feel His real presence. There is an expression, ’If you are in Love, you are in God, and God is in you as God is Love.’ It is very important that you start feeling the aura of the flower that is inside and outside of you.”

“How is the aura felt around the body?” Stas asked.

“With the lapse of time, you see this vibration around yourself as a glowing light. The air seems to become lighter and more transparent, and the surrounding world turns more intensive in its colours. The most fascinating thing is that people start noticing these transformations in you. There is a common expression, ’a man glows, shines.’ That actually means the glow of this wave field resulting from the workings of Love in the individual. People surrounding him also start feeling this field. They are glad when this individual is somewhere near, as they also start feeling joy, internal excitement. Many people are getting better. They will feel good even in his presence, however sick they have been. Everybody is attracted by this person, wishing to open their hearts and souls to him. That means that people perceive Love. This is the heart’s open gate towards God. This is what all the great souls said and what Jesus meant when he said, ‘Open your heart to God.’

“This spiritual practice of Lotus has been used since time immemorial. Since olden times, the Lotus was said to beget God, as God awakens in the Lotus. A divine substance – a soul – awakens in the Lotus flower, in harmony and love inside of you. You should always take care of your flower, controlling at all times your thoughts and feelings so that the Lotus flower does not fade.”

“Is there a real flower?” Slava asked with surprise.

“No. The material flower does not exist there, of course. It is imaginary. This process can be discussed in a different way: the awakening of divine Love, the reaching of enlightenment, full unity with God – moksha, dao, shinto. Call it as you like. But all of this is just words and religion. And in fact it means that you create by your positive thoughts and feeling of Love a certain force field that, on the one hand, affects the real world around you and, on the other hand, changes the internal frequency of your mind.”

“And the soul?” I asked.

“The soul is you, it is a kind of eternal generator of divine power, if you wish, but it needs to be activated by your constant thoughts of Love… Later I will tell you about the soul and its meaning in detail.”

But then Kostya joined the discussion, “You have said that this practice is very ancient. How old is it?”

“I have already told you that it has existed as long as people have existed as Homo sapiens.”

“Well, how long, seven, ten thousand years?”

“That’s too short a period of time. Mankind in its civilized form has existed a lot of times before, with much better technologies than now. Another thing is why these civilizations disappeared. At some point, I will tell you about that too.”

“But if this practice is so ancient, there should be some memory of it in our civilization.”

“Certainly. The fact that the spiritual practice of the Lotus Flower has existed for so long may be proven by various ancient sources. The Lotus was given, for example, to some Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt. And if you look for the literature on this issue, you will find evidence that Egyptian myths and legends say that even their Sun God was born out of the lotus flower. This flower served as a throne for Isis, Horus, and Osiris.

“In ancient Veda, the oldest Hindu books written in Sanskrit, the Lotus is one of the central issues. In particular, regarding the three main male incarnations of God – Brahma-Creator, Vishnu-Protector, and Shiva-Destroyer – they say the following, ‘The body of the God Vishnu bore a giant golden lotus with lotus-born Brahma-Creator on it. The golden thousand-petalled lotus was growing and the universe followed it growing.’

“In China and India, this flower depicts purity and chastity. The best human qualities and intentions were associated by people with the lotus. In China, they think that there is a special Western heaven with a lotus lake and that every flower growing there is bound to the soul of a dead person. If an individual was virtuous, his flower blossomed out, otherwise the flower faded.

“In Greece, the lotus was considered to be a plant devoted to the goddess Hera. Hercules made his voyage in a lotus-shaped boat.

“However, all these legends and myths are not made up by people. They appeared because of people’s self-development with this ancient spiritual practice. As earlier the animal nature prevailed in most people, the Lotus Flower was given only to the chosen ones, spiritually mature individuals. It is natural that other people later regarded these individuals as gods. An individual with a grown-up Lotus and awakened soul becomes God-like since being in Love he can create everything just by his thought.

“And when it was time to spiritually educate people, the Bodhisattvas of Shambala gave this spiritual practice to Buddha. Due to practicing this technique of the Lotus, Siddhartha Gautama reached enlightenment sitting under the Bodhi tree. On approval of Rigden, Buddha gave it to his disciples for further dissemination within people. Unfortunately, over time, people distorted the teachings of Buddha and created a whole religion based on this practice. The Buddhists imagine their paradise as an unusual place where people are born like gods on the lotus flower. They are looking for this place, although it is always inside of them. They made Buddha into a god, even though he was just a human who had known the truth due to this spiritual practice. In such a way, the Lotus became a symbol of Buddhism. There is even an expression, ’Buddha sits in a lotus’ or ‘Buddha stands in a lotus.’ He has shown people by example what an individual can reach by defeating his animal nature. He has really done a lot of useful things for the spiritual development of mankind by disseminating this spiritual practice among people in its original form.

“The same prayer was given by Jesus Christ to revoke the divine Love.”

“Does it mean that prayer and meditation are the same thing?” Tatyana asked.

“Actually, yes. The prayer ‘Our Father’ is the same. It is just so simple, people ask for bread and so on, but the main sense is the same: an individual develops himself, grows out his soul by controlling his thoughts, by his desire, by his firm Belief and Love.

“In general, Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, and all the great souls knew this spiritual practice, as they used the same source. It helped them not only to become themselves but also to help other people know their divine nature. Why was it so pleasant for all to be near Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed? Why are saints said to shine? Why don’t we like to leave strangers on meeting them? Because they radiate this Love. Because they always strengthen this power, the power of good, the power of Love, the power of this divine emanation in people. They say that God is in this human. And it is true.”

“So, does it mean that you should just think with Love about this flower?” Andrew asked.

“No. You should not only concentrate yourself and think over it but, most importantly, awaken this feeling of warmth in the regions of the solar plexus and support it at all times with your positive thoughts. Not everybody can reach it at once. Therefore you should go into the root of the matter, get the more realistic view of it, and, I repeat, awaken all these feelings. Why do I draw your attention to it? Because when an individual awakens these feelings, he starts supporting them not just with his mind but also at the level of his subconscious. And it leads to an awakening of the soul. It just can’t help but awaken. And the more Love you share, the more it will be awakened, and the faster you will become yourself, as you have always been inside, and not in your external mortal body shell.”

After keeping silent for a while, Sensei added, “Life is too short, and you’d better progress in glorifying your spiritual nature.”

Our entire group of different ages stood silent, thinking about Sensei’s words. I felt some kind of tingling sensation in my body from the sudden delight and inspiration. I was so amazed by all I had heard, so shocked by this unexpected information, that it was hard for me to believe that these words were spoken by an ordinary man. His deep knowledge, from my point of view, was evidently not of this world. I wanted to ask about that, but something was holding me back. I suspected that this something already knew about everything because it was pulling me towards this creature with all my heart and soul. But as soon as I thought about that, my mind again started to argue with me, assuring me that this is an ordinary, simple man, just competently understanding philosophy, religion, psychology, history, physiology, medicine, and physics. “Stop! Where am I heading?” I thought. “Is it possible that a man can accumulate so much fundamental knowledge at one time? But on the other hand, why not? There happen to be talented people, like Lomonosov or Leonardo da Vinci, who was far ahead of his time in his knowledge. But I don’t remember them speaking clearly about the soul. And in general, why do I rack my brains wondering who he really is? The main thing is that I got answers to the questions that I had been asking for so long. It’s true, as they say, the one who searches will always find.”

I was sincerely happy, like a child. Can it really be? This is the way to reach that edge of eternity where the great contemplate the world! This is my only chance, my only straw. It’s not just a straw, it’s an entire saving ark, in which even physical death is not to be feared, in which it’s not scary to swim into eternity.

“So, any more questions?” Sensei asked.

We kept silent, looking at him with admiring eyes. Only Nikolai Andreevich, who was more or less the sober-minded man in our group, replied, “Well, let’s assume that I don’t believe in God. From the point of view of psychology, though, this is quite an interesting variant. Everything needs to be pondered… There is a lot of information, and I need to examine everything. Questions will arise later.”

“All right,” the Teacher answered genially. “Then, I suppose, it is enough for today, let’s go home.”

21

I was in an excellent mood. All the way home, I analyzed what I had heard, reviewing it in my thoughts from different points of view. And then I started examining my good mood. Something was strange with it, and I felt as if I were completely healthy. Analyzing my impressions a little, I suddenly realized what the matter was. Before I thought that my soul, that is my “I” which would go to eternity, was located in my material brain. And it seemed to me that I think with it, and all my thoughts arise from it. But I was having serious problems with my brain lately, as the doctors said. It didn’t really depress me physically, but more spiritually. I assumed that if my brain was damaged, then my soul might also malfunction.

I couldn’t wait to get home and plant my small seed. Sensei, of course, said that one can do this spiritual practice in any place. But I decided to start this noble doing at home in peace and quiet.

At home I quickly finished with all my petty tasks. When my parents settled down to watch TV, I sat comfortably in the lotus pose. Finally came the long-awaited time. Concentrating, I thought: “Let’s begin with planting…” but I panicked a bit. First, I didn’t know what the lotus seed looked like. I had seen the flower in a book, but not its seeds. And I didn’t know either what this planting would look like and what I would plant it in. I saw how seeds sprouted in the soil. But for some reason it didn’t satisfy me, as the soil in the soul, even an imaginary one, somehow didn’t coincide with my notion of eternity. Reflecting on it a little, I found an acceptable way out. One day I saw how my mother was germinating kidney beans by placing them in wet cotton wool. I liked this method a lot. “Then let it be a bean,” I thought. “After all, it’s my imagination. And the most important thing is what I do, the essence, as Sensei said.”

Having concentrated once again, I started to imagine that I placed inside of myself, in the area of the solar plexus, a small white bean, immersing it into something soft and warm. Then I repeated endearing words internally, nursing my small seed. But no feelings followed. I started to recall all the good words that I knew. And here I was astonished to discover that I knew many fewer good, beautiful words than bad, swearing ones. This was because I heard them everywhere on the street and in school and they enriched my vocabulary more often than the good ones. My thoughts again unnoticeably switched onto the calculation of some conclusions, logically clinging to each other. Discovering this, I again tried to concentrate on the flower, but nothing happened. After about twenty minutes of fruitless efforts, I thought that I wasn’t doing something right. Finally, I went to sleep, having decided to ask Sensei later in detail about my mistakes.

But I couldn’t fall asleep. Darkness covered everything around me. Objects and furniture in the room lost their natural color. A thought came to my mind, “Our world is really so illusory. It just seems to us that we really live while in fact we are like children, imagining a game and playing it. But unlike children, adults don’t grow up, because they get so used to the created image that they begin to think that everything else is the same kind of reality. And in this way, our entire life passes in imagination and vanity. But, as Sensei said, “The real you is the soul, that eternal reality which exists in actuality. You need only to wake up, to awaken from illusion, and then the whole world will change…”

As soon as I went deeper into the contemplation of the eternal, I began to feel somehow light and good. And I felt how something started to warm up in my chest and even to tickle pleasantly. Small ants started running through my whole body from my coccyx to the back of my head. Such a pleasant, peaceful state came over me that I wanted to embrace the entire world with my soul. In such a sweet slumber, I fell asleep. I slept like in a fairytale because when I woke up in the morning, I felt such inspiration, such lightness that I had never experienced in life.

At school, I tried again to evoke the previous day’s state of mind, but I couldn’t really concentrate because of the constant circulation of school information and contradictory emotions. I was successful only in literature class when the teacher droningly explained a new topic. Half of the class carefully listened to her with drowsy eyes, and the other half tried to fight off sleep. Meanwhile, I again concentrated on the area of the solar plexus, focusing all of my attention on evoking warmth and a state of happiness. My good thoughts wandered somewhere in the background of my mind. The important thing for me was what was going on inside. I felt very comfortable, my body somehow relaxed, and in my chest I started feeling light pressure turning into warmth. After that I simply sat enjoying this state and continued listening to the new topic. A few days later, I found out that, starting at that moment, I clearly and easily remembered everything the teacher was telling us. This was a very pleasant discovery for me.

After the lessons, I ran into the library to fill the gap in my knowledge about the lotus flower. But what I read about it from different sources really staggered me. I found out the following: the lotus is a water-resistant perennial herbaceous plant with a long stalk and large flowers reaching 30 centimeters in diameter and resting upon big leaves. The leaves of the lotus have interesting, peculiar properties: they are covered with a special waxy covering and don’t get wet in the water. I interpreted this fact in such a way that the soul can’t be spoiled by bad thoughts, or in other words, by the impact of animal nature. It will just keep sleeping.

The lotus flower has twenty-two to thirty petals, faintly pink at the foundation and bright at the top, located spirally around the seminal box. I glanced at the photo of the flower. This seminal box, located in the center of the flower, looked similar to a golden cork, with multiple fibers around of the same color. It is interesting that the lotus flowers are always facing the sun: a little lower than the point of the pedicle attachment, the lotus has a so-called reaction zone that catches the light.

I read even more stunning information about its seeds: lotus seeds possess the extraordinary ability to retain their germinating power a few hundred (and sometimes even a few thousand) years. This peculiarity of the lotus is supposed to be the reason for using it from the time immemorial as a symbol of immortality and resurrection.

Also, I managed to clarify one interesting detail. The lotus possesses homothermy. It means that the flower is able to maintain its internal temperature just like birds, mammals, and people do. The lotus flower has a significant place in the beliefs of different nations.

And that’s all that I succeeded in finding out. But this was enough to partially grasp the meaning of why the Art of Lotus constantly mentioned by Sensei is named in honor of this flower. However, the complete understanding of its meaning I felt somewhere inside of myself, in the very depth of my true “I”.