Текст книги "Sensei of Shambala"

36

At spiritual lessons, we polished old meditations. Everything was as usual, except that Nikolai Andreevich was absent for almost a week, which was unusual for him. At last our psychologist appeared in full health and high spirits. He came before the beginning of the training when our merry party was standing in the glade with Sensei, Eugene, and Stas. Nikolai Andreevich's eyes shone with extreme pleasure and delight…

Having greeted everybody quickly, he addressed Sensei and began telling him excitedly, “We finally finished the experiment, everything proved to be true. The results are simply tremendous… This technique of altered state of consciousness that you gave, in fact, it radically changes the picture of our world, the whole conception of our existence… But I will now tell you everything in detail…”

Our guys looked in wide-eyed astonishment at the unusually excited behavior of Nikolai Andreevich. Sensei listened to him attentively while smoking a cigarette.

“…In my opinion, I picked a more or less suitable candidate. One guy, a full-fledged alcoholic, was treated at our clinic. Two years of boarding school was his entire education. He grew up in an orphanage, one of those post-war orphans. Army, then a coal mine, and hopeless alcoholism, that was his life. But when I brought him into the altered state of consciousness, he told me such unusual things. He was also speaking some old Russian language, and all my colleagues who were present during the experiment were just shocked by his answers. We recorded all that he was saying and brought it to a professor, a historian, a great expert in this area. The result surpassed all our expectations. Even the professor was surprised. It appeared that this alcoholic spoke the language of the Drevlian people, who the professor told us were an ancient east Slavic tribe. Our subject regaled us with amazing details and household trifles of the seventh century. Many of them coincided with data from archaeological excavations, but some are still unknown to science. He also mentioned some geographic district and the river Sluch where he said he used to live. And finally he told us about some big conflict with someone from the Dregovich tribe. All this coincides with amazing accuracy with the available data… You can't even imagine what a great achievement in science it is! But it is necessary to confirm these data some more times for the validity of the experiment. We need to prove it scientifically. Look, I have picked up one more candidate…”

“Wait, wait, we agreed that I would give you an opportunity, and you would try. That's all,” Sensei said firmly.

“Just try to understand me. This is so valuable for the world science…”

“I understand everything,” Sensei said calmly. “However, we did not talk about the world science but about you. You wanted to be sure, and now you are sure. It's not the right time for the world science yet.”

Nikolai Andreevich became silent, got calm and uttered, “Sorry… But the experiment was really tremendous. I was such a zealous atheist, but now… It really proves… Why do I say all this, it completely changes almost everything.”

“That's good. The main thing is that you understood it.”

“Understood?! You are putting it too mildly… It is a complete revolution in my consciousness, it is a significant revolution of mind. Indeed, I'm not only convinced of the veracity of your words, but I also believe in you with all my heart and soul!”

Sensei smiled and said thoughtfully, “I have heard this before… Ah, yes… exactly. Peter spoke to Jesus the same way before he renounced Him three times.”

Nikolai Andreevich insistently tried to make Sensei change his mind, convincing him with the help of forcible arguments. Sensei only smiled silently, and then changed the topic of conversation to meditation.

37

Spiritual lessons gradually became more and more important to me. Being so simple and accessible at the same time, they gradually changed my vision of the world. Some new feelings grew inside of me. I started to perceive everything in another way as if I had opened the other side of reality for myself.

Even nature, the air that I never noticed before, turned into a special material substance that I felt as light pressure from all directions whatever I did. This feeling was somewhat similar to the sensation of water elasticity when you dive into it. But in the case of the air, everything was much easier. Nature around me became brighter, colors became richer as if an invisible dust veil had been removed from my eyes.

Spring was storming outside. It animated the grey space of cities with its fresh, salad greenery. The world of nature existed according to its own cycle as if wishing to show greatness and independence from the tiny creatures occupying it. This living creature had its own secret of life and death, which was carefully protected during its long existence.

The time spent in trainings and conversations with Sensei flew by so quickly that imperceptibly I came up to the point of final examinations. To tell the truth, I didn’t want to spend any precious time on them even though I had realized that examinations and further studies were not trifles, they were necessary. As Sensei used to say, a human should constantly develop his intellect and enlarge his mind, meaning he should expand his knowledge everywhere and in everything wherever it is possible, to strive for the knowledge of science. Because the mature human comes to God through knowledge, namely the knowledge of himself and the world around him.

At spiritual and common trainings, Sensei continued to surprise us with his personal examples, with the breadth and depth of his knowledge. During common trainings, he mostly taught those skills that our brain perceived easily, as they say, without any shock. There were strikes, techniques from different styles, health-improving gymnastics, which were demonstrated by his narrations from the various points of view: medical, strategic, and philosophical. At the additional trainings, we were lucky to contemplate his mysterious demonstrations to a greater extent when most people were leaving. But once there was an incident.

During one of the trainings when most people were practicing strikes in pairs, Sensei was standing right next to us, showing Andrew a difficult strike with a hook. That day the Teacher was a bit thoughtful, absorbed in his thoughts. Unexpectedly he stopped his movement and turned back, abruptly peering worriedly into the opposite side of the hall. Volodya and Victor were sparring there, but their sparring was a little bit strange. Volodya conducted an aggressive and rigid attack. He attacked his sparring-partner dexterously and quickly with his hands and legs. Meanwhile Victor was somehow perplexed and hardly had time to fend off missing strikes. Sensei sharply clapped his hands, shouting “Yame!” that means “Stop!” But Volodya was obviously captured by the passion of sparring and did not hear him, though the rest of the crowd turned to Sensei at this call. And then something happened.

Sharply waving his hand, Sensei made a movement in the air simulating a blow. At the same instant, Volodya flew aside with such a force and along such a trajectory as if Sensei stood near him and not near us. We were all astonished by what we had seen. Silence was established in the hall. The Teacher had interfered right in time. If Volodya had hit him one more time, Victor would have been in trouble. Writhing in pain, poor Victor tried to restore his breath by a special technique used after dangerous strikes, which Sensei gave us once at additional lessons. Meanwhile Volodya, having flown about five meters head over heels, also tried to reestablish himself after his unexpected flight. He was strenuously rubbing the place that Sensei's blow would have struck if he had been standing next to Volodya.

Everything happened in a split second in the presence of everyone in the group. Though I saw it with my own eyes, I could not believe it even though my mind was used to such surprises from Sensei. In a minute, the crowd burst out with emotions. Andrew pulled Eugene by a sleeve, without taking his eyes from Volodya, “Hey, what was that?”

Eugene was probably in shock too, “Wait, my spirit trembles in me from a queer vision.”

Meantime the Teacher’s face changed, as though he was annoyed with himself for this mistake. Coming up to Volodya, he made a number of gestures above his body. He was scolding him quickly, obviously indignant at the attack. Volodya answered something, shrugging his shoulders and bashfully hiding his eyes. The crowd was riled up based on what they had seen. Sensei was bombarded with questions that he was reluctant to answer.

“What kind of a blow was that?” The guys asked eagerly.

“Well, what should I say,” the Teacher said with a sigh. “It is connected with the mental energy of a person. It isn't anything worth your attention. It is only one of the steps of spiritual development in the martial arts.”

“So we can learn it, can’t we?”

“Certainly, maybe you can if you are patient.”

Sensei quickly continued the interrupted lesson, hushing up this incident as it seemed to me. At the end of the training, the majority of people present had increased adrenaline in their blood and corresponding optimistic forecasts concerning the future.

Unlike the others, our company silently observed the agitation because we were sure that at additional trainings Sensei would not avoid our direct questions.

Before the additional training, the Teacher’s mood improved a little bit, and his good mood was a good sign. The senior guys hastened to take advantage of it. During the additional training, they tortured Sensei with inquiries to “contemplate personally” something like that. At the beginning, Sensei laughed the matter off but then he agreed under their pressure to show us the so-called ‘saving screen.’ He told us first to find some objects for ourselves.

We ran to the room used for sports stock and armed ourselves with what we could find there. The guys grabbed poles and basketball balls. Andrew even took his nunchaku. I thought for a long time about what to choose. Finally I decided to take a tennis ball, as I thought that if Sensei failed and the object hits him it would not hurt him. But Sensei had never made any mistake in his actions before, which inspired special respect for his abilities.

When we had armed ourselves, Sensei stood 7 or 8 meters away from us. Concentrating, he lifted his hands forward and placed them slightly to his sides. In turn, we started to throw various objects at him as hard as we could. It was fantastic but no matter how hard we tried, all objects simply missed Sensei, changing the trajectory of their flight in the distance of half a meter from his palms. Victor, Stas, and Volodya decided to challenge Sensei by throwing the objects at him from behind. But Sensei didn't even change his position, he only opened his hands wider to the sides. To put it briefly, we experimented a lot, but all the objects missed Sensei.

I didn’t understand whether all of us became cross-eyed or there really was some invisible powerful wall around him. My mind resisted the last reason and was indignant in trying to prove that it could not be. This conclusion forced me to try throwing the tennis ball again and again. Now I was throwing it without any pity into this invisible wall to be convinced for a second that an obstacle really existed there. I think all other guys also had similar feelings because their passion gradually changed into confusion.

In my opinion, again Sensei began to turn from a normal person into a supernatural creature. My head really started to go crazy from all this improbable plausibility. Meanwhile Sensei had removed the screen and began to explain the principle of its action, in this way bringing the logical work of our consciousness to a normal, natural rhythm. Then I noticed that while listening to Sensei, some signs of envy (the animal nature) began to slip into my head again. First it happened accidentally, and then they got stronger and stronger. Then some doubts rose in my head, although Sensei explained everything in a simple and understandable way based on what we had just seen with our own eyes.

I caught myself on the idea that while listening to Sensei talk about spiritual opportunities, I was thinking dirty thoughts with the inflated mania of my own egocentrism. “Wow!” I thought. “With such an underlying basis of egoism, all valuable knowledge will pass by my ears. My mind will choose out of Sensei’s words only those ones that are necessary for the animal nature instead of the spiritual one. That means I will never succeed… So I need to concentrate on good… This knowledge is necessary for me only for good purposes, for learning my essence. I do not want to cause any harm. Let all people live in peace and love. I do not wish anyone evil and do not envy them. All of them are good and worthy in their lives. The main thing for me is perfection of my soul.” Adjusting myself in this way, I began to listen to Sensei more attentively. The conversation had already moved on to creating blows in the distance.

“…this blow is very powerful,” Sensei said. “Mental forces of the person are involved in it.”

“How is the blow itself committed at such a distance?” Stas asked.

“Basically, distance is an illusion. Therefore in your understanding it acts like the projection of a blow. In fact, there is another type of physics in which space and time are compressed. Therefore a person who delivers such a blow, like a person who really receives it, feels direct physical contact.”

“Does this knowledge come from the Art of White Lotus?” asked Victor.

“Yes. This is a special technique of Lotus from the Art of the ‘Punishing Sword of Shambala.’ People of Shambala knew and still know this Art… Once a very long time ago, Masters of Lotus came out to our world rather frequently. They perfectly knew not only the Old Lama style, but also knew the Art of the Punishing Sword. Such a Master could gain a victory over an entire army. Until now in the East there are legends about warriors who appeared from nowhere and returned to nowhere. But in the area where they stopped, they enjoyed great honor and respect among the local population because better protection for the peaceful inhabitants could not be found. These Masters possessed an energy power much more serious than any modern weapon. For people who don’t have knowledge of this Art to receive such a destroying blow from nowhere is more than awful.

“Time passed, and the necessity of such Masters’ arriving disappeared. But certainly it does not mean that the Art of the Punishing Sword vanished. In the gate of Shambala there is a specially trained person who carries out decisions made by the council of Bodhisattvas. If you remember once I told you that Shambala will never allow somebody to capture the whole world or to use spiritual knowledge to harm mankind. So this Master realizes such decisions without leaving his cell. For this purpose, it is enough for him to be in a special state of consciousness and to wave the ‘Petal of Lotus,’ a special ritual sword somewhat similar to a short Turkish saber. The name of the Art of the Punishing Sword of Shambala appeared because of this sword.

“Evidence of this Master’s activity can occasionally be found in the modern world. Mysterious deaths still remain a secret not only to pathologists. For example, in the process of an autopsy, it was discovered that the heart was cut precisely into halves as if a sharp object had been used, but the skin and nearby organs were not injured. Or there were ‘inexplicable’ cases where in the presence of numerous guards a body was cut into pieces as though from a sword and the clothes were undamaged. It doesn't matter how thoroughly a guilty person had been protected by the newest technology or the whole army, he isn’t able to evade this penalty. It is an original cause of fear before Shambala for all tyrants. Therefore people searched and continue searching for contact with it because they know, no matter how powerful and authoritative they are, they are powerless before Shambala.”

Sensei broke off, and it seemed to me that his words still echoed in my ears. All the guys stood in thoughtfulness perhaps because, like me, they were also shocked by everything they heard. Nobody dared to break the silence, hoping that the Teacher would add something else to this extraordinary information. At last, Volodya lost his patience and spoke in a bass, “This Master of the Punishing Sword probably has a force similar to atomic energy if distance does not matter for his blows.”

“Atomic energy in comparison with this force is only a children's toy. Mankind is far from knowing its real abilities and real forces because of the prevalence of the animal nature.”

38

After such a training, our emotions concerning the things we had heard and seen stormed for more than a day. Thoughts about our abilities did not give us a moment's peace. We wished to reach everything at once. So for the next few days, this optimistic mood came out in assiduous trainings of body and mind. When it came time for the next spiritual lessons, we simply showered Sensei with different questions. Looking at all our excitement, the Teacher said:

“Guys, this distant blow, all the effects of Qi energy, and all those ‘miracles’ that I show you, all of them are trifles not worthy of real attention. True force lies in the soul. This is what is necessary to develop; learn and admire it. Divine love of the soul combined with the mind of the person is a true miracle. All that you saw is only a side-effect of different levels of spiritual development. It is nonsense, you should not pay attention to it.”

“But why is it nonsense?” Nikolai Andreevich said. “In fact, miracles generate belief.”

“Yes, they do. Miracles generate belief. But let's understand what kind of belief. What happens to a person when he sees miracles, that is, those phenomena that are inexplicable for his brain? First of all, it powerfully shakes his mind. The mind simply begins to go beyond the limits as it does not have the proper information to explain the given phenomenon. Our brain has amazing mechanisms of self-preservation and self-defense, the protective factor of our brain, so its compensatory functions are immediately activated. Using the language of physiology, zones of the brain and groups of nervous cells can't join in mental activity to their fullest extent. And there is an important point. If the animal nature prevails in person, this person internally starts to ignore the existence of such a phenomenon. He shifts the blame for everything to the unreality of an event, to trickery, or he obtains a desire to learn all these unknown things for the sake of his own mercenary interests of megalomania satisfaction.

“The person who has balanced these two natures begins to go from one extreme to another. It means that today he blindly trusts all this, but tomorrow he starts to doubt, and the day after tomorrow he starts to doubt his doubts again, and so on. To put it briefly, there is an active struggle between the two natures in the field of his mind.

“Inside a person whose spiritual nature prevails on the basis of belief grows the spirit of research into the given phenomenon, grows the knowledge of his own abilities and the secrets of nature for the sake of this process of knowledge, for the sake of perfection of the soul. His initial fear of the mystery of the phenomenon is muffled and, during the process of learning, it completely disappears and transforms blind belief into knowledge, that is, into true belief.

“In fact, guys, why do you think I show you all this? I do it to observe your thoughts, the level of your animal nature in relation to the spiritual one. The most important question is, why do I spend so much time explaining each phenomenon? I try to give your mind a hint to put away your complex of material life. I try to make you think about the eternal secrets of nature, about your non-cognized soul, about God. In fact, the more you learn yourselves, the closer you are to God, to those eternal, unshakeable, and everlasting things.

“What is your physical life compared to the Universe? It's nothing. In comparison with the Universe and planets, a human practically does not exist. His life is an unreal reality, just an instant in one of God’s thoughts…”

“How can it be?” Eugene did not understand.

“Well, someday I shall explain it to you in detail… Your bodies exist in a closed time cycle where you, that means your soul, have all the conditions for absolute maturation. You need to realize it with the help of your mind and join your soul in common aspirations to cognize it. Then your life will acquire true sense. Because it is your ripened soul, not those ashes of material bodies changed during development, that is valuable for God, for the Universe as a whole…

“So, true belief arises from knowledge. And knowledge comes through a word, through belief of your mind in the reality of the occurring phenomenon. Miracles, in fact, are only one kind of testing of the internal level of individual development. This method of testing was used in their terrestrial practice by those who possessed factual knowledge of the science of White Lotus. However we have a unique person in Satya Sai Baba, who decided to turn people to God with the help of the permanent demonstration of real miracles.”

Nikolai Andreevich thought a little, “It's a familiar name… Was it he who was shown on TV rubbing Gorbachev’s head with his foot?”

“Right!” Sensei grinned.

“He was called an incarnation of God on Earth… an Avatar.”

“Avatara” Sensei corrected. “But generally ‘avatara’ is translated from Sanskrit as ‘fall’ or ‘descent’.”

“Yes, Avatara. They said Avatara takes a human body to lift the development of the person a step higher, to bring him into a new century.”

“Absolutely right. He likes to say, ‘If you want to rescue a drowning man, you need to jump into water, that is to be incarnated.’”.

“What kind of man is he?” our company asked with curiosity.

“Well, Sai Baba is a great soul. And as human civilization is now at the point of global changes in reassessing its spiritual level of development and the events following these changes, Satya Sai Baba decided to make his contribution. He was going to surprise the world with miracles. Satya Sai Baba was preparing for this mission for a long time, he was developing the theory of the influence of miracles on the spiritual development of people. First, he predicted in the Upanishads his threefold incarnation in the epoch of technics.

And then when time came he began to check this theory in practice. So he reincarnated to Sai Baba in the village of Shirdi in 1872 in India. All his life he performed miracles, read thoughts, could overcome distances, take any material form, and so forth. He died in 1918, having informed everyone before his death that he would come back to Earth again in eight years in the south of India.

“And so it happened. Satya Sai Baba was born in 1926 in Puttaparthi, a small remote village in the south of India. In 1940, he was proclaimed Avatara. And he performs miracles up to now. When time comes for him to leave, he will reincarnate again as Prema Sai. He has already predicted not only the exact date and the place of the following incarnation, between the cities of Bangalore and Mysore, but also the names of his future parents.”

“They say on TV that he can levitate, simultaneously appear in different places, and, what is most interesting, he can materialize an enormous quantity of anything you like from a diamond to cookies, is it true? They say he just pulls them out of the air. Or is this merely gossip?” Nikolai Andreevich asked.

“No. It is really so.”

“But it is unreal!”

“It is absolutely real. But his main mistake lies in demonstrating miracles, things that are still mysterious for mankind. Those who saw his miracles are surprised and start to think them over, and those who did not see just laugh at him and consider all this to be a trick. The latter unfortunately belong to the majority. But he certainly carries out his mission honestly, and I wish he could help as many people as possible at least wake up. Nevertheless, the true enlightenment of the soul comes through a word.”

“Is he a real God?” Ruslan asked.

“You know, people ask him this question quite often. The answer is simple enough and true. As Satya Sai Baba used to say, ‘You are God too. The only difference between me and you is that I know that I am God and you do not know it.’”