Текст книги "Sensei of Shambala"

“What did Mohammed do? Did he give people belief?”

“Mohammed gave people not only belief, but also knowledge. Unfortunately for 600 years, people have falsified the teaching of Christ, having transformed it into religion. But Mohammed tried to bring people the lost knowledge in his renewed teaching. He told people everything he knew himself without concealing anything. Moreover, if you read history books, what kind of state was Arabia in before the year 610 when Mohammed began to preach? The country was in a general chaos of various idolatry and because of its leaders there often rose enmity between Arabian tribes. Mohammed did a great deed. He united militant people, Arabs, into a general brotherhood and in belief in the One worthy of worshiping. He told the truth about God, about things that Jesus taught: that God is eternal, omniscient, and almighty; that all people are equal before Him. He spoke about the immortality of the soul, about reincarnation (the resurrection of the dead), about judgment, about punishment beyond the grave for those who create evil in this world, about the necessity to establish justice, mercy, and moral duties in relations between people. Due to his wisdom, Mohammed managed to lead Arabs out of their deepest ignorance and political chaos and to show them the way to civilized cultural growth and prosperity.”

“Perhaps it was really so. But what should we do with the ‘sacred war against the unfaithful’? In fact, Muslim people claim that Mohammed himself preached it.”

“During those dark times, Mohammed had to deal with wild tribes that understood only force. The word ‘moslem’ comes from a word ‘muslim’ which means ‘obedient,’ that is, obedient to Mohammed but not ‘faithful.’ This meaning, the word ‘moslem’ got much later. So, in those days, devoted people were those who were obedient to the Prophet and who followed him, spreading the teaching to other territories of Arabia to transform the chaos there into order. Unfaithful people were people who were not following his teaching.

Mohammed was not only a great prophet, but he was also an ingenious commander and a wise politician. It was not easy to calm down the passion of wild militant tribes. Besides, Mohammed had to declare ‘sacred war’ against those religious priests who usurped authority and who were not interested in the unification of Arabs nor in worshiping their Gods. He struggled against those who had mercenary purposes, deceived people with the help of their belief, and spoilt human souls. In these actions, he is similar to Christ. So, the Prophet struggled for the same purity of belief, as Jesus did, for worshiping the Holy One, for direct spiritual connection of each person with God.”

“Well, let's admit that time was dark and tribes were wild,” the novice pressed Sensei. “But now so many years have passed and still a strange ‘sacred war’ is being conducted. If God is the only one, why does the war still continue? How can you understand a person who winds explosives around his body and voluntarily goes into a crowd of peaceful inhabitants for death in the name of God, carrying away lives of other people with him?”

Sensei explained, “Because instead of the teaching that was given by the Prophet, the Muslim got religion, the leaders of which are more interested in mercenary purposes, personal well-being, and political influence in the world than in the soul of that Muslim. They convince him that after his ‘pious’ action, his soul will get to Mohammed, to paradise. In fact, it will not get there, as the way to God is closed to everyone who creates evil. And this Muslim will be reincarnated repeatedly and again pass through all terrestrial circles of hell to make his soul as clean as it was before the creation of evil by this person. These deceived people are victims of religion. But the real guilty people are those who distorted the true teaching. This is the victory of the Devil over any religion.”

“I heard that in the Koran there are some ‘suras’ that reject your words.”

“In the Koran?” Sensei asked incredulously. “Do you know that the Koran was written after death of the Great Prophet? The adopted son of Mohammed, Zaid Ibn Thabit, collected all records of his sermons and, pay attention, he made an edition of the Koran in 651. Mohammed himself preached only orally. Sketchy records of his sermons and lessons were made by his first followers who partly remembered and partly wrote down the words of Mohammed. But even despite further additions to the Koran during the creation of religion, the knowledge that was truly given to Mohammed from the archangel Gabriel is still there. Now scientists are simply struck by the fact that while deciphering some ‘original parts’ of the Koran, they find real scientific knowledge…”

At that moment, Tatyana jabbed me in the side and whispered that she ought to call her parents so they didn’t worry. I looked at my watch and realized that we should have been home already. We apologized and ran into the club where the nearest phone was located. After our long and persistent knocking, at last the door was opened by an old watchman with sleepy eyes. He had probably already begun to carry out his professional duties. Having scolded us a little because strangers were hanging around and he had not gotten any rest, he nevertheless allowed us to make a call. While Tatyana was speaking to her parents, I had time to jot down in my diary some of Sensei’s words. Having informed our parents that we would be late, we hastened to the exit to join our company. When we came out, Sensei was still addressing the novice.

“You refer to the Bible with too much prejudice, as if it were a primary source. I understand that you were taught this way in your sect. But you are a journalist, you should be much more curious than ordinary people. The Bible, like the Koran or the Tripitaka, was written by followers. Moreover, these books went through numerous changes, meaning they already reflected religious points of view instead of the initial teaching that was given by the Great. To focus your attention, I repeat that literally for 600 years the teaching of Christ was greatly distorted and it was necessary to give a new teaching to Mohammed; it was the same, however, as Christ taught. But later this teaching was also transformed into religion by people who left only its form but changed its contents.”

“But the Bible and the New Testament in particular were written from the words of Jesus by his followers.”

“If you had had an opportunity to hear the teaching from Jesus Himself and to compare it to the one that you can read now in the Bible, you would find huge blanks and the absence of much knowledge,” Sensei said with bitterness in his voice. “You assert that it was written by His followers, but you don’t even wonder how. They were not the first followers, they were followers of followers. The teaching of Jesus was preached orally for a long period of time. Then lists of sayings of Jesus started to appear. One of the most ancient fragments from the Gospel according to St. John is dated 125 A.D., and the earliest and the most complete manuscript is dated to 200 A.D. You can imagine how the oral sermons could be mangled in two hundred years. One person understood in one way, another person did not understand, the next one concealed something, and so on. Moreover, in 325 the first Nicene ecumenical council, under the direction of the emperor Constantine, selected and canonized the four Gospels included in the New Testament out of numerous versions, with the purpose of strengthening the Church and personal authority. Exactly at that time, the teaching of Christ was completely altered, and a powerful lever of authority for managing crowds was made from it. Exactly at that Council, the orthodox point of view on corporeal revival was authorized under pressure of the emperor Constantine. All otherwise-minded Christians and the supporters of spiritual revival were declared heretics, and subsequently they were pursued and slaughtered all over the Empire, even though early Christians professed the ideology of reincarnation. Mention of it can be found in the Bible. As a result, a natural question arises: why were authorities so afraid of it? Why did Constantine finally alter the teaching, having transformed it into religion? What was the reason behind that? Because the teaching gave people knowledge that released them from their fear of existence in our frail world. Knowledge brought people true freedom and the awakening of their souls. They were not afraid of death, they knew about reincarnation, about things beyond the border. And the most important thing is that they realized there was only God above them instead of any emperor or bishop. But it was terribly frightening for politicians and churchmen to lose their authority, for they were more absorbed by their material interests. The teaching of Jesus, which should have made people free, was transformed into religion and knocked into people's heads on penalty of death. Expansion of Christianity succeeded through violence, crusades were arranged, and so on.

“Besides, the Bible was rewritten by hand many times by different people, up to 1455 when Gutenberg's Bible was printed. Division of the text into chapters was first made in the 13th century by cardinal Stephen Lengton. The division of chapters into verses and their numeration was made by a Parisian publisher, Robert Stefan, who published the complete text of the Bible in 1553 for the first time. I won’t even mention the fact that in the modern world, for example, the Catholic church considers itself authorized not only to interpret the Bible according to their opinion, but also to supplement it.

“Despite all of these corrections and distortions, the genius of Jesus lies in the fact that some of His knowledge, due to the initial duality of its sense, could reach descendants. That is why up to now the Bible awakens interest in the teaching of Christ in people. Because of the interpretation of this knowledge ‘in its own way,’ Christianity has never been united and at all times existed as many churches, branches, and sects struggling among themselves.”

The novice thought a little and then asked, “Which expressions of Jesus do you think were kept in their dual sense?”

“Let's take even His most widespread expression frequently used in your sect, ‘For where two or three are assembled in my name, there am I in the midst of them.’ It is not plurality of people as your minister asserts. It is the integrity of one individual, where the soul, reason, and consciousness are gathered for the single purpose of understanding God. Or here are other words of Christ, which religious leaders use for attraction to their sect, ‘No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.’ Jesus meant an individual choice of sense of life: either a human aspires to God, to freedom, or he aspires to mammon, that is, to riches, to the material world. Everything is very simple.”

“It seems to be interpreted the same way in our sect.”

“Yes, but under the aspiration to God, your religious leaders drum into your head that only through visiting their sect and studying their program can a person surely come to God. Actually, a person can come to God if he changes himself inside and if he grows an internal love and strengthens his belief with knowledge.

“Or, for example, Jesus said, ‘So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many are called, but few chosen.’ Life is given for us to grow spiritually. During it you can make a step forward, that is, to progress, or you can make a step back, to regress. Jesus said that if today God has made you a freer person and if He has enabled you to pay more attention to Him, it means that in the previous lives you deserved it. If you used this life for the regression of your soul, then in the next life He will put you in a more difficult condition for you to realize it. Any person inside, if he concentrates on his deep sensations, can feel the experience of previous lives.”

“You said that in the Bible there are still some mentions of reincarnation. Which ones?”

“For example, if you remember in the Gospel according to St. John, there is an episode about Nikodemus, one of the university teachers, who secretly came at night to ask Jesus questions. So, Nikodemus asks Jesus, ‘How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born?’ Jesus answered, ‘Verily, verily I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.’ Besides, there are also such words as, ‘In my Father's house are many mansions,’ meaning there is a plurality of existence of worlds.

“Christ told His pupils about the law of reincarnation, allowing them to understand that the soul regenerates for high-grade maturation. He talked about how to save the soul and how to reach the Kingdom of God, how to understand eternal life. He also said that the more spiritually advanced a person becomes, the harder the trial of the resisting animal nature or devil.”

“Yes, judging by the Gospel, even Jesus was subject to attacks from the Devil. I always thought, why? How can it be if He were the Son of God?” the novice asked.

“Of course, Jesus was the Son of God,” Sensei replied. “He was a strong soul. But He also named Himself the Son of Earth as the Great Soul of Him was embodied in the ordinary body of a human. The animal nature is inherent in a human body. The animal nature is its integral part. Therefore even Jesus, being Bodhisattva, was subject to ‘temptation’ of the animal nature of His flesh, of His negative thoughts. He felt the same pain, the same feelings as an ordinary person. So Issa was in the same conditions. And for Him it was a thousand times more difficult than for any of you. Because He knew freedom, He knew God.” It seemed to me that Sensei said these words with an unbearable nostalgia in his voice. The expression of his face changed as he continued, “And here, carrying out this mission, He finds himself in a human body with all its problems, with all these thoughts and emotions. With all the animal nature He had to put in a corner, in the depth of His consciousness, which always has to be kept like a barking dog on a leash. And your minister still says that it is paradise?!” Sensei exclaimed, “If that isn’t hell, I don’t know what is!”

After these words, Sensei paused and lit a cigarette.

“But does the Gospel only mention one episode of Christ’s personal struggle with the Devil when He was in the desert? In fact, if Christ was put in the same condition as people were and the Devil is negative thoughts, it means that these thoughts should have been in Him all His life.”

“Absolutely right. But Christ was the Great Soul full of the force of love, therefore He kept all these negative thoughts in Himself under strict control. The moment mentioned in the Gospel was His fight in His mind to consolidate the authority of His soul above his body. It was His personal Armageddon, which everyone is obliged to pass when he is born into a body. Bodhisattva unfortunately is not an exception. Why did He fast for forty days and nights? Because it takes about this long for the body to be exhausted, to become weak, for the animal nature to finally surrender. Jesus opened Himself spiritually to let His soul completely occupy His consciousness. But animal thoughts of the body constantly tempted Him, trying to win authority over the mind. They spoke in a hungry body, ‘If thou art the son of God, command that these stones be made bread.’ His thoughts answered on behalf of his soul, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.’ In this way, He emphasized His strength of mind, the essence of a real human, that is, of His soul. Negative thoughts chased Him again, ‘…If thou art the Son of God, cast thyself down, for it is written, He shall give His angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall uphold thee, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.’ Jesus answered Himself, ‘…It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God,’ thus showing His resistance of Spirit and control over crazy thoughts of the body. When thoughts of the animal nature tempted Him to own all empires of the world trying to wake in Him the main trump card, hunger for world authority begotten by insatiable megalomania, Jesus rejected them also by saying, ‘And to Him alone shalt thou render worship.’ Issa won this Armageddon with honor. He defeated His negative flesh thoughts with the power of His Spirit, with the force of immense love for God. The Soul of Bodhisattva was completely awakened in Him and He found himself. After that, Jesus began to carry out His mission, using in full all His knowledge and the force of immense divine love. That is why He created miracles by His belief. He cured sick people, revived the dead. As for this divine force, there are no barriers either on the Earth or in space.

“In general, during His life, Jesus had a clear, concrete division of thoughts of the soul and ‘straddled’ thoughts of the body. Take the time He prayed in the garden of Gethsemane before Judas's treachery. His Soul left his body, and the body exclaimed, ‘O my Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.’ The body was addressing the Soul as if the Soul of Jesus was part of God and had His force.

“Or here is another episode when Jesus was already hanging on the cross. He suffered greatly, He felt all the pain of a body with His Soul. Issa abandoned His body. When His Soul left the body, His mind cried, ‘Ili, Ili! Lama savahfani?’ That means, ‘My God, My God! Why did you leave me?’ It clearly shows how strongly Issa as the Great Soul not only owned His body but also reigned over His mind.”

The novice was silent for a bit and then asked, “Tell me please, for a long time I have being tormented by this question, whether it is true or not that we are initially guilty?”

“The human is initially free, and there is no sin in his deeds. In fact, what is a sin? A sin is something that oppresses us inside at the level of the subconscious, it is something that separates us from God and makes us feeling afraid and guilty. So it is a natural consequence of an action of your mind after breaching universal moral laws and values. This is a sin. These laws are the code of your honor, your conscience. And if you have broken it yourself, you should become better and more pure in thoughts and deeds.

“Your religious leaders constantly drum to your heads that you are a slave of God and that you are initially guilty. Why? Because they profit if a person supports them financially, paying off ‘sins’ that he didn’t commit. This is a certain psychological trick for a crowd. If you make a person believe that he is guilty, initially guilty, fear begins to grow in him. Your religious leaders use this artificially created fear for absolving your sins immediately, of course until next time.

“But a human inherently is not a slave of God; he is a son of God. A Father cannot hate His son, He can only love him. For God is Love, and love can not have any fear. God gave people freedom of choice, and this is His most valuable gift to people as to His children.”

“What about the legend that the Serpent brought harm to people?”

“This information was greatly distorted. The original legend is as follows. When God created a Human, that is a soul, He admired His creation, for it had been created in the image and likeness of Him. A human at that time was not in a body or in the world as some religions assert now…”

“Why wasn’t he in a body if he was created in the image and likeness of Him?”

“How can you think that God is a constant material personality, that is, someone embodied like you and me and at the same time omnipresent?”

“Well, other religions also say it.”

“What religions?! Study this question more closely. All world religions say that God is the only One, He is omnipresent. God is similar, how can I explain it, to energy, to a magnetic or any other field. This is a single field in which everything exists. God is the mighty energy of thought, which creates everything and appears to be everywhere. But He is not a person with a beard sitting on a throne, nothing of that kind, although if He wishes He can be temporarily embodied in a Human. God created us in His image and likeness, those of us who are inside of these bodies. A particle of Him, the soul, lives in each of us. Human ‘paradise’ was in heaven, as Jesus used to say.

“So, the Essence created by God was of a divine nature, that is, the soul. It did not know bad things, it knew only good things because it inherited divine love. It is natural that this Essence had great abilities and no barriers. Besides God, these Essences were also loved by Lucifier, angel of Light, who is the right hand of God. And he said to God, ‘These Essences do not understand how much You love them because they know only good.’ And Lucifer began to assert the individuality of the human, his position as a free Essence for cognition. He wanted humans to truly love God instead of simply existing in front of God as a plant pleasing His eyes. God ‘ordered’ Lucifer, ‘If you love them as much as I do, teach them this.’ God settled people on the Earth, which was specially created for humankind, with seas, land, plants, and different animals. Lucifer created a human body in which God placed a soul, giving birth to two natures: the spiritual and the animal. The power of mind was given by God to humans as the Children of God. The mind became a battlefield where the thoughts of both natures fought, which proves the creation of humans by God and Lucifer together. It also shows that Lucifer was and remains the right hand of God as he actively participated in the creation of humankind and actively participates in the education of the soul. Thus, Lucifer enabled people to understand and to learn perfectly what is good and what is bad. God gave people freedom of choice between these two natures. Since then, Lucifer has taken care of people.”

“Why does Lucifer call himself the Legion?”

“It is because he acts through thoughts of our animal nature. As a rule, there are legions of these thoughts. Watch yourself because it may seem that you think only your own thoughts. But try to keep this thought in your mind for even ten minutes, and you will be surprised how many different unnecessary thoughts appear in your head. This is a legion. Therefore, figuratively speaking, Lucifer is always present in us, checking our confidence, the strength of our love for God.

“The power of thought given to us by God is huge; this force is called belief. The human who believes can really work wonders. The proof of this is not only in Jesus but also in many of His followers and followers of other great ones who worked and continue working wonders up to now. But the problem is that it does not depend what someone believes in, this force can be used for both good and evil. The result depends on the side your consciousness is inclined to take. If you are inclined to evil in your thoughts, that is, your material, animal essence gnaws at you, then a great number of problems appear in your life. They appear all the time and everywhere – at work, in private life, in your family, and so on. These problems gnaw at you because evil thoughts take the force of your belief and try to lead you away from thoughts about God in every possible way. If you turn your consciousness to good thoughts, the bad thoughts lose this force, become weak, and after that we can completely control them. With the constant support of positive thoughts in our consciousness, the course of our life will become more even. The most important thing is that a human develops himself spiritually and recognizes the force of love.”

“Do evil thoughts completely disappear then?” the novice questioned.

“No, they always exist in you,” Sensei explained, “but they do not have enough strength to affect you. Figuratively speaking, evil thoughts are waiting for an opportunity when you weaken your control so that they can take away your force of belief again. This sharp-sighted guard of the animal nature lives in your body as an integral part. As long as the soul is in a body, these tests of your patience will never stop. But when the soul completely ripens and leaves the cycle of reincarnation, Lucifer is also sincerely glad for it just as a strict and wise teacher can be glad for his pupil because the soul has passed all tests with honor and joined God in its true Love. God is a parent. He is always glad to see the successes of His child.

“So, our life is like school for the soul. Each embodied person experiences his personal Armageddon, taking as part of his winnings either good or evil thoughts. Therefore the knowledge given to people can lead either to freedom or to slavery. But no one prevents us from our free choice, neither God nor the Devil. If we choose God, we strive towards God; if we choose the Devil, we strive towards the Devil. That means that we pave our road to paradise or nirvana or we throw ourselves to the hell of reincarnation.”

“If a human does not have original sin, then why is the death of Christ an expiation for human sins?”

“Just think thoroughly about this sentence. What kind of an expiation can it be? If it were in fact true, if only Christ took our sins, then whatever sins we commit now are already forgiven. Is that really so?! All this is nonsense. Each human himself is responsible for his sins before God.

“The death of Christ has been made the greatest secret, and religious leaders still argue about it. Why did He let them crucify Him? Jesus was the Son of God, He was able to destroy the whole planet, not just a group of miserable people, as the force of God was given to Him. People wanted it to happen when they crucified him. They said, if you are the Son of God, come down from the cross. But Christ was not tempted, He allowed them to crucify His body. Why? Because the whole purpose of Christ’s coming was both to give people his teaching but also to give people a choice. Jesus agreed to these tortures in order to show the will of God, the essence of which is freedom of human choice: either decide to turn to God or decide to remain in the darkness of thoughts of his animal nature. Christ brought this freedom of choice to people. This is the greatest deed that was hidden from the majority of people and it is the biggest sin of Christianity as a whole. For both before Him and after Him, people worked wonders and preached about the One above. But people remember only the crucifixion of Jesus, and the second half of His life in the East when He preached, worked wonders, and cured sick people is partly lost in time. In various sources of ancient times, for example in the Bhavishya Mahapuran written in Sanskrit, there were a few mentions of Him as of the prophet Issa.”

“Did Jesus remain alive in the world?” The novice was sincerely surprised.

“Certainly. Due to the efforts of Pontius Pilate, the body of Christ remained alive and Jesus had to return to His body. For, as a Bodhisattva being born into a body, He should be in it to his last breath.”

“Due to the efforts of Pontius Pilate?!” The novice was even more surprised.

“Yes. Actually, Pontius Pilate understood who Christ was. That is why he received freedom, the release from reincarnation, from Jesus. His name was engraved in the history of mankind.”

“Sounds interesting. When did he understand that Jesus was God?”

“When he met Jesus, moreover when he realized who was standing in front of him, Pilate tried to save Issa in every possible way, convincing Him to run away, warning Him that the crowd would kill Him. But Jesus refused, saying that if it was His fate for His body to be lost, then it should happen so and people should make their choice. Pilate even tried to convince the crowd that Jesus was innocent, for them to release Him, as there was such a tradition in honor of a great holiday. But people demanded to see Christ crucified and killed. It was their choice.

“However, Pontius Pilate did everything his own way. As Bodhisattva, it would be much easier for Christ to finish His mission this way in a human body. Because of love, Pilate tried to serve God according to his own understanding and saved the body of Christ, thinking it was Christ himself although there was no Jesus there anymore. When He was on the cross, He abandoned His body in order not to be tempted by painful torments. But the body still remained alive.”

“How could the body remain alive if it is written in the Bible that ‘One of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith out came blood and water’?”

“The reason is that it was specially performed for the public by Pontius Pilate’s men. This blow was struck by one of Pilate’s best soldiers very professionally. He hit between the 5th and 6th ribs on the right side of the body, to the left and upwards, creating the illusion that he had punctured His heart. But actually, no vital organs were hurt. The body was unconscious but still alive. This is one of the important facts confirming the participation of Pilate in saving Jesus. It was done to assure the crowd that Christ had died. The shins of the other two crucified but still alive criminals were broken on purpose. In this way, they could not stand on their feet and died painfully by suffocation.

“Moreover in those days the crucified were not allowed to be buried in separate tombs or to be given to their relatives for burial. They were thrown into paupers' grave. The body of Jesus, again according to the order of Pontius Pilate, was taken off the cross and carried to a cave. For almost two days, the body of Jesus was looked after, treated, and constantly smeared with herbal potions for bringing it to consciousness. To say it in modern language, they tried to reanimate him.