Текст книги "Sensei of Shambala"

Andrew, who stood with us next to Sensei, asked, “Can we also train in this way?”

“If you have such a desire, certainly, train yourselves,” answered Sensei.

“And in this case, what kind of a perception will it be?” Volodya asked.

“Almost the same as the one during this demonstration. The most important thing is to come out with your consciousness over the boundaries of your body.”

“And how is that?” Andrew didn’t grasp the idea.

“Well, I’ll give you this simple example. Any human, when he sits down, relaxes, and tries to calm his thoughts, will start to feel that his consciousness is widening and comes far out over the boundaries of his body. Consciousness becomes three-dimensional. It covers enormous spaces. In this case, you simply limit it with a certain place. In the example that I showed you, it was the sports hall. Although, if you train hard enough, you will be able to feel what is going on at the other end of your district. Actually, it’s not that difficult.”

“In other words, the most important thing in the exercise with the ball is to achieve a complete calmness of the mind, like in the example with the lake?” Andrew asked again.

“Absolutely correct, and make an effort so that not a single thought could enter that space.”

“That’s hard.”

“Hard, but possible.”

“Stas said that the style of the ‘Old Lama’ is very ancient. Is that true?”

“Yes.”

“Does history record the names of those who mastered it?” asked Kostya.

Sensei smiled, thinking about something and answered, “You might know only Buddha. And, of course, his first followers.”

“Buddha?” said Kostya, surprised. “But I thought that he had a different kind of philosophy, the philosophy of good. Why did he need to fight?”

“Even good people may need to fight,” Sensei answered calmly. “But to master that art doesn’t always mean to attack someone. For them it was sort of a stage in spiritual development.”

Thus our additional training ended, and again we became witnesses to the valuable knowledge and abilities of Sensei. Our delight was endless. Having changed, we awaited the others near the sports hall. When the crowd came out to the street, Eugene glanced at Volodya and exclaimed with horror, “My God! Oho… What a shiner you have, beautiful.”

At these words everybody directed his attention to Volodya. His eye was completely swollen, turning into a big, black spot.

“Don’t worry,” Eugene tried to cheer him up, puffing up his chest, and declaring, “Bruises make men more attractive!”

Volodya replied with a smile, “And how about you, don’t you want to become more attractive?”

Everybody burst out in laughter.

“Of course he wants to. And I’ll be like a witness in that joke,” Stas was developing the situation. “When he was asked, ‘Did you see how one man hit another on the head?’ he replied, ‘I don’t know if I saw, but I heard a sound, as if somebody hit something empty’.”

Victor added, “And I will be a second witness. If I am asked why I didn’t come to help the victim during the fight, I will answer with a clean conscience, ‘How could I know who the victim was when they were fighting with each other so hard?!’”

Another wave of laughter rolled through our crowd.

“Come on, guys,” Eugene mimicked everyone. “Your jokes are good only for soldiers in barracks. Sensei, did you see, I hardly said a word, and they have already fabricated a case!”

12

Joking and poking fun at each other, the guys moved on. The weather was calm, and the sky was covered with scattered stars. Enjoying the evening cool after the intensive training, we didn’t noticed that our group was a little stretched out. Kostya and Tatyana had gone far ahead. Volodya, Eugene, and Stas dragged somewhere behind. And Victor, Andrew, Slava, Yura, and I were walking in the middle with Sensei chattering about trifles.

Just around the corner, we came face-to-face with a group of miners, about eight of them, all considerably drunk. They seemed to have seriously angered Kostya in passing, as when we approached them, his face was red with rage. Kostya kept snapping at them, obviously annoyed with the drunks. Andrew added fuel to the fire in an attempt to defend his friend. The most impatient of the miners rushed towards the two to fight. Andrew and Kostya dashed at him. But Sensei arrived just in time and stopped them, addressing the miners, “Calm down, men! Why should you curse here, in the presense of women? Noblemen do not swear.”

“What are you talking about?” A furious miner croaked, having seized Sensei. “Move along or else I’ll break all your bones!”

At this point we could not stand it any more and moved in a crowd to the instigator. Even I flew into a rage towards these drunkards and was ready at that moment to tear them to pieces. The senior guys ran up to us, but unexpectedly Sensei stopped all our attempts and gave a sign to Victor for everyone to leave. We grumbled with indignation. But Victor, Stas, Eugene, and Volodya took us away like diligent shepherds leading a flock of sheep without letting us stop.

I kept turning around, waiting for the Teacher to show off one of his supertricks against eight enemies. But Sensei only stood there smiling and explained something with gestures as if he were making excuses. When I glanced back the next time, I saw that the smiling miners were fraternizing with him, saying goodbye to him as good friends. “Well, really!” I thought. “What is the point of practicing Kung-fu for so many years?” Judging by the puzzled responses of my friends, I was not the only one who thought that.

When Sensei came up to us, Andrew said with indignation, “Why did you make excuses to them? They were the ones who bothered us and stirred up trouble. We should have beaten them to teach them not to do it again. If you hadn’t stopped me, I would…”

“Surely,” Sensei interrupted him, “if I hadn’t stopped you, they would have been seriously injured, not only in their soft tissues but also in their organs, and they might have even gotten a concussion of the brain. Do you realize that these are men who have families at home, who are probably the only bread-winners of these families? Do you realize that they are miners? Have you ever been in a mine?”

“No,” Andrew replied.

“I have been there… These guys, whom you wanted to break to pieces, they go down to a mine like to hell, to a depth of up to one kilometer and more. Just imagine the pressure on their bodies. Not to mention,” Sensei started to list on his fingers, “heat, lack of oxygen, very harmful methane… And despite all of this, they realize that they risk their lives every second. Because any moment they can be crushed, injured, or even killed. Injuries happen regularly in the mine. And people take it hard. Their mind is always on the brink, so to say, at the breaking point. This state of mind is comparable with the state of mind of soldiers on the front line during the war. That’s why Stalin used to say, ‘The mine is the second front.’ Do you know why they drink? In order to relieve somehow this stress, this internal feeling of permanent fear. That is why highly qualified specialists in psychology and medicine should work with miners for them to overcome this psychological block. But of course they don’t get this help. That’s why many of them drink.”

“Yes,” Kostya sighed, “ Thus it apereth what great unhappynes / And blyndnes cometh to many a creature / By wyne or ale taken without measure. ”

“Exactly… Besides, every miner who has been working for a long time in the mine has a clear understanding that he has no future. You have some chances; for example, you may finish high school, have a career. And they have no chance; only to croak in the mine or to die of diseases they contracted there. They understand it quite clearly. But they have their own pride and megalomania, the same as yours.”

“No,” Andrew negated. “I do not posess any megalomania at all.”

“Really?! But you just wanted to beat them up only because they bothered you. This is evidence of your megalomania, that you, such a king, have been offended. They have the same pride. But unlike you, they don’t have any future. And you wanted them to lose everything? Just imagine what would have happened with them, with all their stress, unrealized ideas, dreams, and lost chances, if they had come to themselves in the emergency room after your beating. It would have brought them additional suffering, much stronger even than physical pain. What for?”

We hung our heads, feeling ashamed. Although Sensei addressed this speech mainly to the guys, it was all quite applicable to me as well. His words had completely shaken me. I felt some inner discomfort caused by my recent aggressive thoughts and I felt very ashamed of myself. Suddenly I perceived the whole depth of Sensei’s thoughts and realized how well he understands each person.

“What for?!” the Teacher repeated. “Because you felt uncomfortable? You could have calmed them down and walked away, right? Nothing happened to you. It’s quite clear that you are able to smash all of them just with your legs.”

“Of course, I would…” Andrew started to flare up again.

“You see, it’s your megalomania again. But I teach you to train your body, not to beat up people on the streets. The main sense of the martial arts is completely different, and all these tricks may never be used by you in your life. I hope that they will be never used. Your task is to learn to understand the reason and the effects, the depth and the sense of the situation, and to solve it peacefully.”

“What did you say to them?” Kostya asked.

“It’s very simple. I explained to them that they had children like you and that another group of drunken men like them might bother their children and beat them. I described this case from the human point of view. Notice that their megalomania has not suffered. And what is more important, they left satisfied, with the intention to defend others like you. Every situation like this may be solved much more easily, with peace.”

After a small pause he added, “Every fool can snap and punch… But do not give in to your animal instincts. It’s much more important to be human in any situation, to understand why and by which reason this aggression is caused. And how to solve the dispute in the right way in order to find a friend and not an enemy.”

As we came to the tram stop, Sensei concluded, “Remember that any blow caused by your rage will come back to you at the end.”

We stood in silence and looked ashamedly at Sensei. After making a new appointment, we went home.

13

Almost the whole way home, we were silent. When coming to the center, Andrew, who had sat all this time with a thoughtful air, burst out, “I feel so guilty after Sensei’s speech!” “Sure,” Kostya agreed. “I’m thinking why did I get involved with those guys? As they say, no wisdom like silence!”

“Don’t worry,” Andrew reassured him. “You see how it turned out. Every cloud has a silver lining… Yeah, Sensei has done a tough brain reboot.” “It will take a long time to digest it”, I thought. All the way back I was tormenting myself, not with thoughts about the incident but about myself. Something in my ordinary internal state was unusual. But what exactly? I rehashed the conversation with the Teacher over and over again and felt this discomfort and… Stop! It dawned suddenly on me. Of course, it was a new feeling! When this powerful blow shook the huge underwater rock of ignorance and egoism, suddenly a long-forgotten, deep feeling emerged in me. But I could not completely realize it. When it arose to the surface of my mind, I understood what Sensei wanted to say. It happened to me for the first time. I understood clearly his simple truth. It was the real discovery for my internal world. I was so happy to feel it as if I had managed to reconcile with myself.

I came home in an elated mood. It turned out that there was a surprise for me as well.

“We have got good news,” my mother said with her shining, charming smile. “Uncle Victor has called us today from Moscow. He managed to arrange treatment with the best professor from that clinic. So we just have to set up an appointment.”

If I had heard this news before, I would have been extremely happy. But now it struck me that I didn’t really care what was happening to my head on the physical level. The main thing was the feeling I realized in myself. It was some new level of perception that concerned the soul more than the body. But in order not to ruin my parents’ good mood, I spoke out, “That’s great! I had no doubt. It comes easy to uncle Victor with his high standing and connections! He is a nice guy and a real go-getter.”

The whole next day, I pondered this new feeling. I returned to a normal life, so to say, with my body and especially with my soul. And when it was time to go to meditation practice, I couldn’t wait to get there as soon as possible. This time it was I who hurried sluggish Tatyana to pack up her things more quickly.

We came to the tram stop and met the boys there.

“Girls, just imagine,” Kostya said laughing. “Sensei has almost spoiled our Andrew.”

”What happened?” we asked.

Andrew stood, silent but smiling, and Kostya continued with excitement, “After we saw you to the door, we went home. And when we were almost over there, some guys started to bother us. They seemed to feel an urge to light up a cigarette at night. They insisted so as if it were a kickback for twelve years. Andrew was a real gentleman and did his best to explain to them that we don’t smoke and would not recommend it for their own health. Besides, he added that the public health ministry warns that smoking is bad for their health. He concluded that instead of poisoning their lungs with this disgusting thing and hanging around and idling, they should instead go in for sports, for example, Kung-fu. It would be more useful for both their souls and their bodies.”

“And?” Tatyana asked impatiently.

“They started to ask for trouble.”

“And Andrew?”

“Just picture it, our Andrew began to deliver a speech about their miserable life, and he said that their words would boomerang against them. I thought that he was lost. But then I saw it was all right.”

“What happened next?”

“What happened next? Tensions were growing. Andrew kept his patience for a while, enduring their insults, but then in order to be more convincing, he whacked them in the face and made a moralizing conclusion, saying, ‘You see, all your bad words boomerang against you with the same force’.”

“How could he blurt it out,” I wondered.

“And what was at the end?” Tatyana asked with a smile. “Any victims?”

“Everything was all right,” Kostya waved his hand. “Ah! I forgot to tell the funniest thing. Later they asked him if they could be his disciples.”

Everybody laughed, but for some reason I was uncomfortable. First, I didn’t expect such a stupid thing from Andrew. And second, I felt sorry for Sensei.

“Yeah, Andrew, you are a pervert,” Tatyana said laughing.

“Right, exactly,” Kostya kidded. “He is a dangerous man, we can even say an old offender. He usually perverts even my great sayings and puts them into the most inconvenient position.”

“Don’t exaggerate telling us about your great sayings,” Andrew teased him. “Our new Socrates, so to say.”

“Why Socrates? There were more famous people in this world…”

This funny dialogue would have continued endlessly but just then our tram came.

14

We left early for the training, and as it turned out, it was not in vain. Andrew tried to bring us to the secret glade, reassuring us that he knew the road. For about half an hour, we strolled about the streets of the village, teasing all the dogs around. Finally, desperately arguing with each other where the turn was, our company came to a small lake.

“You are a dunderhead!” Kostya said. “Where is your glade?”

“Theoretically it should be here,” Andrew shrugged his shoulders.

“Aha, so it was driven by a flood to the other side? Let’s go back.”

On the way back we bumped into Eugene. “Finally we have found at least one other living soul,” Kostya sighed with relief.

“Have you been lost in our Shanghai?” Eugene poked fun at us.

“Yeah, we relied on the memory of this dunderhead.”

“Where is the glade?” Andrew asked.

“Over there,” Eugene waved his hand in a completely different direction.

“I told you we turned to the wrong way! There was no hillside,” Andrew reproached Kostya.

“And how did you happen to come here?” Tatyana asked Eugene.

“Don’t you know? I can spiritually locate any man, I need only think about it.”

“Don’t joke with us,” Kostya said with a smile. “But really what are you doing here?”

“Do not ask me twice. I live here, l-i-v-e!” Eugene said in a funny way. “I had just left and saw your flock rushing to the lake. I didn’t even have time to open my mouth. Well, I thought, they will figure it out soon and go back. Just so! I saw you coming back five minutes later. I went to the road so that you didn’t take me for a sign-post.”

We beamed with smiles after such a successful meeting and arrived together at the glade. In that secluded nook, created with love by nature, almost everyone was there, including Sensei and Volodya. We loudly joined the others, greeting them.

Having noticed that it was again Eugene who brought our company to the place, Sensei asked jokingly, “Has this muddle-head organized an excursion for you again?”

“No, we have a new one now,” Kostya nodded to Andrew. “This one surpassed even Eugene.”

And then Kostya started to tell eloquently about our adventures. He was so carried away by the overall laughter of the crowd, he became so expressive that he blurted out at the end something unnecessary what we had decided to hide from Sensei: “Well, really! Now imagine entrusting him with disciples after that. He will lead them into such a dead end that he will not know how to get out of it.”

“Which disciples?” Sensei caught on the word, although it seemed to me he had not been listening too carefully before.

“Yeah,” Kostya became confused after he realized he had said too much. “There was a story…”

“Which story?” Sensei showed interest.

Kostya could do nothing but reluctantly tell all the facts. Andrew also joined the conversation, making an attempt to justify his behaviour with good intentions. Sensei shook his head after hearing all this baby-talk.

“You see… There is an old very ancient legend: Once upon a time a king had an only son. One day he heard that there was a great martial arts Master who was famous even among kings for his Wisdom. He was said to work wonders because he made an excellent Master from an ordinary village boy in just one year. The king made up his mind to send his son to him.

“One year passed and the king asked, ‘Well, has he grasped the way of the warrior?’

“‘Not yet,’ the Master replied. ‘He is too self-confident and he wastes his time on pride. Come back in five years.’

“In five years, the king asked the Master the same thing.

“‘Not yet. His eyes are still full of hatred, and his energy boils over excessively.’

“Another five years passed. The Master said to the king, ‘Now he is ready. Look at him! He is so strong, as if he were carved from a stone. His spirit is stainless. His internal virtues are full and perfect. His challenge will not be accepted by any warrior, as they would run away in fear just from his glance.’

“And the king asked the Master, ‘Why did it take so long with my son? He is much smarter than that village boy.’

“And the Master replied, ‘It is not the mind but the heart is important. If your heart is open and your thoughts are pure, your spirit is stainless.

And this is the main thing in the way of the warrior… The village boy came to me with a stainless spirit, and I just had to teach him the technique. Your son has spent years learning this Wisdom. Without this source of power, he would not be able to make a single step on the way of the warrior.’

“Rejoicing at his son’s success the king said, ‘Now I see that he deserves to take a throne.’

“‘No, father,’ the young warrior replied. ‘I have found something greater. Before my mind was limited only to material wishes, but now it is endless in spiritual cognition. The greatest power, all the gold of the world, fades compared to it like a gray dust under the foot of the wanderer. And the wanderer is not interested in the dust, he is fully devoted with each step to the new discoveries over the horizon.’”

Andrew hung his head ashamed. There was a long pause. But then Nikolai Andreevich joined our company and the discussion switched to other problems, including the meditations practiced by us at home.

“I felt again this paresthesia,” Kostya said. “Is this all right?”

“Of course. What is the main point in it? You have to feel these ants that appear with the first breaths in your head. You have to feel how they ‘run’ inside of your arms and, most importantly, how they jump out of the centre of your palms to the earth. That is, you have to feel your inward and outward breath. And you should not have any outside thoughts at all.”

“This is the most difficult thing to do. When I concentrate on the tip of my nose, the ants start coming to my head, catching on each other. And the most amazing thing is that I even do not notice when they appear.”

“Right you are. It means that we are not used to controlling our thoughts in our daily life. That is why they guide us to any direction they want, confusing us in their ‘logical’ chains. And the uncontrolled thought may lead mainly to negative things as it is managed by the animal nature of people. That’s why there are different spiritual practices and meditations, to learn to control the thought first of all.”

We talked a little more about the striking points of our home practice. And then it came to the next meditation.

“Today we will unite two parts of the meditation into one,” Sensei said, “so that you understand how it should work and try to reach it in your individual training. Now find a comfortable position…”

Following his words, we relaxed as usual and concentrated on the meditation practice. First, we concentrated on the tip of the nose as the last time. Then the Teacher said, “Do not distract your attention and vision from the tip of the nose. Take an inward breath through the bottom of your stomach, through your stomach, breast… Outward breath through shoulders, hands, chakras of the palms to the earth. With the outward breath, a small light flares up more and more. Breathe in… Breathe out… Breathe in… Breathe out… Concentrate on the nose tip… Breathe in…”

I was completely confused. As soon as I had concentrated on the ‘streamlet’, which I could feel clearly as partial movement through the arms, I immediately lost control over my nose tip. And as soon as I had concentrated on the ‘flashing’ nose tip, my ‘streamlet’ disappeared. It all happened when my ‘outside’ thoughts came to me. I was unable somehow to unite it all. During one of my next attempts, I heard Sensei’s voice, which informed us of the end of the meditation. As it turned out, this incident happened not only with me but with my friends as well.

“It is natural,” Sensei said. “You should not think it over, just observe. Then you will succeed.”

It seemed completely unreal to me. But I was encouraged by the fact that Nikolai Andreevich and the senior guys didn’t have any problems with this meditation. “It means that not everything is so hopeless,” I reassured myself. “If they can do it, why can’t I do the same? I just also have to practice hard. That is the point.” There I caught myself on the fact that even in my thoughts I had started to speak with the words of Sensei. While I was reflecting on this, one of the guys asked a question.

“So you want to say that the way to self-recognition starts with observing yourself and your thoughts?”

“Of course. Self-observance and control over your thoughts can be practiced little by little during everyday training. And for this you need an elementary knowledge base. It’s a natural way of any training, either physical or spiritual. Just a simple example. A man lifts a weight of 20 kg. If he trains for a month, he will easily lift 25 kg, and so on. The same happens at the spiritual level. If you are prepared, it will be much easier for you to master more difficult techniques.”

“But there are a lot of different meditations and modifications. It’s difficult to understand which one leads to the peak,” Kostya as usual made a show of his erudition.

“It’s too far to reach the peak. All these meditations that exist in the world practice are just an alphabet that has been never a secret. And the real knowledge leading to the peak starts from the ability to put together words from this alphabet and to understand their meaning. Reading the books is a privilege of the chosen ones.”

“Not so bad! Everything is so complicated,” Andrew said.

“There is nothing complicated in it. You just need the desire.”

“And if you have the desire but hesitate?” Slava asked.

“If you have doubts, someone should beat your head with a heavy hammer so that you understand that you’re a dunderhead. A person who hesitates is very much stuck in the material world, in the logic and egoism of his thoughts, his mind… if he possesses one at all.”

The guys smiled at these words, and Sensei went on, “If you sincerely strive towards self-recognition, with pure belief in your soul, you will surely succeed. It’s a law of nature… And the spiritually developed individual will succeed even more.”

Andrew said with a thoughtful view, “Well, the alphabet is clear, but I don’t quite understand about the composition of words. Is that also a meditation?”

“Let’s say it’s something higher – a spiritual practice, an ancient primordial technique that allows us to work not only with the consciousness but, what is more important, with unconsciousness. There is a set of certain meditations that lead to a respective spiritual level… It’s simple. The main point is that an individual should overcome his guard, his material thinking, with the desire to conquer the whole world… The same eternal truth as usual, and the same eternal stumbling-block. If an individual is able to overcome it, he will become human.”

“I wonder, if someone reaches perfection through training his body, does it mean something?” Yura asked.

“It’s one of the ways of alphabet learning.”

“Recently we watched video about martial arts with Yura,” Ruslan inserted into conversation. “And before it they showed a documentary on people’s achievements in self-perfection of their body. Just imagine such a trick, one guy put a spear edge to his throat, fixed its handle to a minivan and pushed it without hands, not injuring himself. Another one lay on his back under heavy things. And nothing happened! The third one smashed bricks with a blow of his hand. But the most interesting was in the end. They took an ordinary bull bone and poured highly concentrated acid over it. Of course, it was destroyed. Then they poured this acid over a man. It immediately destroyed his clothes but brought no harm to his body.”

“Incredible!” Andrew exclaimed. “I can’t believe it!”

“It’s not unusual,” Sensei said, evenly as always. “The potential of a human is limited by his fantasy.”

“And what was that, Qigong?”

“Well, let’s say, aside from Qigong, there are a lot of similar techniques. But the source of the knowledge, including Qigong, is the same. That is, this is a work with energy ‘Qi’ – the constructive energy of the air.”

“I have read somewhere that ‘Qi’ is life energy, and you call it constructive. Why?” Kostya asked.

“Because energies, chakras, channels, and even energy centers in different teachings are known by different names. For example, under the energy ‘Chi’ in yoga, they mean noble recoverable energy. But in the science of Lotus under the ‘Chi,’ initially it meant a powerful destructive energy. The same is true with ‘Qi’.”

After keeping silent for a while, the Teacher added, “People just assume but they don’t possess precise information about the real nature of this knowledge. Therefore they mix up the meanings. As they say, it’s better to stand on the head than to hang in the air.”

“Hmm, that’s true,” Volodya agreed. “If to paraphrase my favorite poster that is an eyesore to all in front of our house, ‘There is no such obstacle that we can’t create for ourselves!’”

The guys smiled.

“What is Qigong in relation to the art of Lotus?” Andrew came back again to the serious issues.

“For you to understand it, Qigong like kindergarten and the Art of Lotus is like an academy. One of the first stages in learning the Highest Art is full control over the thoughts. If you can control your thoughts, everything will be under your control.

“Oh, it will be possible to…” Slava started to talk with excitement.

“No, impossible, because you will control your thought. That is, you will not be able to do something negative and wrong. That is the whole sense. We learn and practice Qigong, but in the Art of Lotus we don’t train, we recall all things hidden in our soul.”

“And those body phenomena we have seen in the film, is it possible for us to learn them?” Ruslan asked, thinking about something.

“Of course. It’s easy if you can use this energy in the right way.”

“And what is needed for it?”

“Elementary skills, concentration of breathing, a certain understanding of the essence of this phenomenon…”

“I just can’t grasp it,” Jura said in a thoughtful way. “How did that guy manage to break bricks with his hand?”

“Did you want him to break them with another part of the body?” Eugene poked fun at him.

“It’s possible to break them with another part as well,” Sensei smiled, “if you want strongly enough to do so. The point is that with a certain concentration and breathing exercises you can accumulate the Qi energy in any part of the body, in this case in the hand. And at the moment of the blow, the chakra opens up in the palm, and all this power is released to break something. It’s very important, I say it again, the very process of mind concentration, that is, the process of focused concentration.”