Description of performance technique, physiological peculiarities and possible mistakes during the Lotus Flower spiritual practice has been taken from the primary source: Sensei of Shambala (Book I) and Birds and a Stone books by Anastasia Novykh. The description is taken from the literary text word by word.

• Lotus Flower spiritual practice description

• Elucidations from the standpoint of human physiology
• Mistakes in the Lotus Flower practice

Lotus Flower spiritual practice description

    “This spiritual practice is called “the Lotus Flower”. It consists of the following. You imagine that you plant a lotus seed inside yourself, to the solar plexus area… And this small seed grows owing the power of Love generated by your positive thoughts. Thus, controlling the flower growth, you artificially get rid of negative thoughts that constantly whirl in your head.”

    “Why, do we really think of negative things all the time?” Ruslan asked.

    “Of course,” Sensei answered. “Just follow your thoughts carefully. People spend a lot of time on visualization of different conflict situations, negative memories of the past, imagine how they quarrel, prove something to somebody, deceive or hit back; they recall their illnesses, material deprivations and so on. This means they always keep plenty of negative thoughts in their mind.

    Whereas, performing the Lotus practice, you intentionally get rid of all such negative thoughts under your internal control. And the more positive image you keep in your mind, the quicker this seed of Love will grow. In the beginning you imagine the seed starts growing, and a small stalk appears. It grows further, leaves cover the stalk; then a small flower bud emerges. And finally, as more and more power of Love is supplied, the bud blossoms into a Lotus. The Lotus Flower is golden at first, but as it grows­ it becomes dazzling white.”

    “And how much time does it take it to grow it?” I asked.

    “This depends on each person. Some people need years, others just months, or days, or even seconds. Everything depends on your desire and efforts. It is necessary not just to grow this flower, but also to support it all the time with the power of your Love, so that it would not wilt or die. This permanent feeling of flower growing is to be held at the level of the subconscious or, to be more precise, at the level of controllable remote consciousness. The more you give Love to this little flower, cherish it in your mind, take care of it, protect it from surrounding negative ­influence, the more it grows. This flower is nourished by the energy of Love, I emphasize, with the inner energy of Love. And the more you feel Love towards the whole world, towards all people and everything around, the bigger the flower becomes. At that, if you start getting angry, the flower weakens; if you break in rage, it wilts and becomes ill. In such case it’s necessary to make every effort to restore it. This is a sort of control.

    Thus, when the flower blossoms and increases in size, instead of a smell it starts to emit vibrations, the so-called leptons or gravitons, call them as you like, i.e. the energy of Love. You feel how petals of the flower are moving, making you whole body and the entire space around vibrate, emanating Love and Harmony to the world.”

    “Is this somehow felt at the physical level?” Eugene asked.

    “Yes. The Lotus may be felt as a special burning in the solar plexus area, a spreading heat. That is, such sensations arise in the solar plexus area, where, as legends say, our soul resides. That area starts getting warmer and warmer. The whole sense of all this is to feel this heat all the time, wherever you stay, with whomever you are, or whatever you do or think; and this heat warms not only your body, but you soul, too. Such internal concentration of Love is within the flower itself. Eventually, the more you take care of it, the more you glorify this Love, the further you feel how the flower is expanding, surrounding your body entirely with its petals, and you find yourself within a huge Lotus.

    And then there comes a very important point. Once you reach the stage when Lotus petals surround you from all the sides, you feel two flowers simultaneously. One is inside, under your heart and permanently warms you with the feeling of inner Love, while the other one, the bigger, is like an astral shell of the flower that surrounds you and, on one hand, radiates vibration of Love to the world and, on the other hand, protects you from negative influence of other people. Hence, the cause-and-effect law operates. Speaking in the language of physics, a wave effect takes place. More simply, you emanate the waves of good, intensifying them many times through the soul and thus creating a blissful wave field. You feel this wave field all the time and support it with every fibre of your Love, whereas the field positively influences not just yourself, but also the world around as well.

    What happens owing to everyday performance of this practice? First of all, you always control your thoughts and learn to focus on positive things. Hence, you are automatically unable to wish anybody ill or to be bad. This practice should be performed every day and every second, and it’s intended for your entire lifetime. It’s a sort of a distraction method, since no one can fight against negative thoughts by force. Love cannot be compelled. Therefore you should distract your attention. If a negative or undesirable thought comes, you focus on your flower and start giving it your Love, i.e. you forget all negative things artificially. Or your switch your attention to something else, to something positive. But you must feel the flower all the time: when you go to bed, wake up, at night, during the day, whatever you do: studying, working, doing sports, etc. You feel how Love flares up inside, how currents of Love are moving in your chest and filling your whole body; how the flower starts heating the body from the inside with special warmth, the divine warmth of Love. And the more you give Love to the flower, the more you generate it within yourself. Permanently radiating such Love, you start seeing people from the standpoint of Love. That is, you tune yourself up to the frequency of good, which is the second, very important point.

    And good means success, luck, health. It means everything! You start feeling happier, which positively influences your psyche. You see, the central nervous system is the main regulator of the body vital activity. Therefore, first and foremost, this spiritual 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 big problems. Why? Because, even if something happens in your life, for life is life, you start perceiving such events in a completely different way than most people. You already have a new vision of life, which helps you develop the most optimal solution appropriate for a given situation, for Wisdom of life awakens in you.

    And the third and main point: the soul awakens in you, and you start feeling yourself a Human, come to understand what God is, that God is an omnipresent substance, but not a mere fantasy of several idiots. You start feeling the divine presence within yourself and augment this power with your positive thoughts and feelings. You no longer feel lonely in this world, for God is in you and with you, and you feel His real presence. There is an expression: “Who is in Love, is in God, and God is in him, for God is Love”. It is also very important that you start feeling the flower aura inside and around you.”

    “And how is this aura felt around the body?” Stas asked.

    “Eventually, you see this vibration around yourself as a light glow. The air seems to become lighter and more transparent, while the world around becomes more intensive in its colours for your eyes. And the most fascinating thing is that people start noticing such transformation in you. There is a common expression: “a person glows”, “shines”. This actually means the glow of the wave field generated by the person’s Love. People around such person also start feeling that field. They are glad when this person is near, they start feeling joy and internal excitement. Many people are getting better. They feel better in his/her presence, even if they are very sick. Everybody is attracted to such person and open their hearts and souls to him/her. Hence, people feel Love. This is an open gate of Heart towards God. This is what all Great Souls told about and what Jesus meant when he said: “Let God into your heart”.

    The Lotus Flower spiritual practice was applied from time immemorial. Since olden times, the Lotus was said to give birth to Gods. It’s been said God awakens in the Lotus, meaning that a divine substance (the soul) awakens in the Lotus Flower, in Harmony and Love inside, for you should always take care of your flower, permanently control your thoughts and feelings so that the Lotus Flower would not wilt.

    “So, does a real flower grow in there indeed?” Slava asked with surprise.

    “No. There is no material flower there, of course. It is a kind of an imagination game. This process can be called differently: awakening of divine Love, achievement of enlightenment, full unity with God, Moksha, Dao, Shinto, etc. Call it as you like. Yet, all this is only words and religion. And in actual fact this means you create a certain force field with your positive thoughts and feeling of Love, and such field, on one hand, influences the surrounding reality and, on the other hand, changes the internal frequency of your mind.”

    “And what about the soul?” I asked.

    “The soul is you in fact. It’s a sort of an eternal generator of divine power, if you wish, but it needs to be activated by your permanent thoughts of Love… Once I will tell you more about the soul and its purpose.”

    At that, Kostya joined the conversation:

    “You’ve said this practice is very ancient. How ancient is it?”

    “I have already said it exists for as long as people exist as rational beings.”

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

    “You take a too short period of time. The mankind in its civilized form existed a lot of times before, even with much higher technologies than now.   Another thing is why those civilizations disappeared. Once I shall also tell you about it.”

    “But, given this practice is so ancient, there should be some records of it in our civilization as well.”

    “Certainly. The fact that the Lotus Flower spiritual practice existed long time ago is proven by numerous ancient sources. For instance, the Lotus was given to some Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt. And, if you look into relevant literature, you will get convinced that Egyptian myths and legends say that even Ra, the Egyptian God of Sun, was born out of the lotus flower. This flower served as a throne for Isis, Horus, and Osiris.

     In ancient Vedas, the oldest Hindu books written in Sanskrit, the Lotus is one of central subjects, too. In particular, considering three main male incarnations of God: Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Protector and Shiva the Destroyer, Vedas say the following: “From the body of God Vishnu, a giant golden Lotus appeared with Lotus-born Brahma the Creator on it. The golden thousand-petal lotus was growing, and the Universe followed its growth”. In China and India this flower still symbolizes purity and chastity. People associated the best human qualities and aspirations with lotus. The Chinese believe there is a lotus lake on a special “western heaven”, and every flower growing there is connected with the soul of a deceased person. If an individual was virtuous, his/her flower blossoms, otherwise the flower wilts.

    In Greece, the lotus is thought to be a plant devoted to Goddess Hera. Hercules made one of his voyages in a golden sunny lotus-shaped boat. However, all these are just legends and myths, though not so untruly invented. Such legends and myths were based on real facts of people’s self-development through this ancient spiritual practice. At that, earlier, when the animal nature prevailed in most people, the Lotus Flower was given only to selected, more or less spiritually mature individuals. And this is natural that other people regarded such individuals as Gods later on, for a person with a grown Lotus and awakened soul becomes really God-like as he/she can create in Love by his/her only thought.

    When the time came to spiritually educate the majority of people, Shambala Bodhisattvas gave this spiritual practice to Buddha. Owing to the Lotus practice, Siddhartha Gautama achieved enlightenment, sitting under the Bodhi tree. With Rigden’s permission, Buddha gave it to his disciples for further distribution among people. Unfortunately, people eventually distorted Buddha’s teaching and established a whole religion based on this practice. This resulted in the fact that today even Buddhists themselves imagine their paradise as an unusual place where people are born on the lotus flower like Gods. They are looking for such place, although it is always inside of them. They even turned Buddha into God, although he had been just a Human who had come to know the truth owing to this spiritual practice. Thus, the Lotus became a symbol of Buddhism, and there is even an expression: “Buddha sits in a lotus” or “Buddha stands in a lotus”. He showed people by his own example what an individual could achieve by overcoming his/her animal nature. He did a lot for spiritual development of the mankind, disseminating this spiritual practice among people in its original form. A similar prayer was given by Jesus Christ to awaken the divine Love.

    “Do you mean prayers and meditations are same things?” Tatyana asked.

    “Well, yes. The Jesus’ prayer ‘Our Farther’ is same as the spiritual practice, although it’s very simple, and people ask for bread, etc., but the main sense is the same: an individual develops himself, grows the soul by controlling his/her thoughts, with his/her sincere desire, firm Faith and Love.

    Generally speaking, Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed and all other 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 perceive their divine nature. Why was it so pleasant for everyone to be near Buddha, Jesus or Mohammed? Why is it said saint people are radiant? Why do we feel attracted to some complete strangers once we meet them? Because they radiate Love, because they permanently strengthen this power, the power of good, the power of Love, the power of divine manifestation in a human being. It is said God resides in such people. And this is exactly so.”

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

    “No. You should not only concentrate and think, but, most importantly, awake the sensation of warmth in the solar plexus area and support it all the time with your positive thoughts. Not everybody can master it at once. You should go into the root of the matter, imagine the process more realistically, and, I repeat, awake these very sensations. Why do I draw your attention to this? Because, when a person awakens such sensations, he/she starts supporting them not just with mind, but also at the level of the subconscious. And this leads to the soul awakening. It simply can’t, but awaken. And the more you nourish it with your Love, 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.”

    And keeping silence for a while, Sensei added:

    “Life is too short, and you better advance in glorifying spiritual nature in your heart…”

    “And, generally speaking, how does this look in reality? Tell us, please, one more time, especially for dummies”, Andrew asked jesting.

    “You simply feel the fibres, the internal power of Love growing. Let’s say, you feel as if you are waiting for something very, very good. For example, you are waiting for a huge, long-awaited present, which you’ve dreamt about for time. And so you receive it, you are happy, you are overfilled with gratitude. You are even shivering with excitement, i.e. you have a feeling in the solar plexus area as if something beautiful, good emanates from you, or you are waiting for that. This is the kind of feeling you should experience, which you generate artificially and permanently maintain in the solar plexus area. Eventually, it becomes natural for you. And people begin to feel it. In other words, you radiate joy… And that’s all. It’s not necessary to have a flower there or something. These are just images for an easier perception.”

    “And what about the flower around one’s body? How is that?”

    “Well, are you familiar with such notions as astral, mental, and other energy bodies, simply saying, the multilayer aura around a human?”

    “Yes.”

    “So, when the force field of good expands in you, you start to feel as if there are many layers of petals. You feel you are covered, protected, flourishing in the lotus. At the same time, you feel you are like the sun above the world, warming everything with the warmth of your boundless Love.

    This is a permanent meditation. Wherever you are and whatever you do, you evoke such fibres, sensations, flows of energies. The main sense is that the more you practice, the stronger the fibres become. Finally, the process becomes material, and you’ll be really able to have a positive influence on people. You’ll be able to do this only when you completely change yourself internally in thoughts, and externally in actions.”

Extract from Sensei of Shambala book by Anastasia Novykh

Elucidations from the standpoint of human physiology

    “A usual phase of despondency ensued for Max, during which he again started to make futile attempts to grow the “flower” inside him. And, since he achieved no success, he ran to Sensei to “cry on his shoulder” and look anew for the answers to his inconsolable questions.

    “Sensei, what’s my mistake? Seems I’ve done everything correctly... In a quiescent state I imagined how I planted a seed in the solar plexus area. Then I started to “nourish” it with the power of Love, I adhered to positive thoughts in mind... In the beginning, I even felt a slight vibration in the solar plexus area and visualized the seed sprouted... But after several days, there was nothing... I cannot even feel that primary warmth...”

    “Well, certainly. For as long as you were doing everything with the feeling of Love you succeeded. However, when you digressed and attempted to practice only with your mind, you had no success. It’s natural. The Lotus Flower means steady control and perpetual longing for Love. In order to grow this “flower”, one should always attune oneself to love for God, to love for all existing. Such internal state should be maintained despite all twists and turns of life. And, I emphasize once again, the “flower” should be nourished not with thoughts, but with a sincere feeling. The whole gist of this spiritual practice is in awakening of the feeling of Love with its further strengthening and permanent, I repeat, permanent preservation, right up to emergence of a physical sensation in the solar plexus area.”

    “But why exactly in that area? Generally speaking, are there any explanations for this from a human physiology standpoint?” Max rushed into questioning.

Sensei grinned almost inconspicuously. At that moment, Volodya joined them on the bench. And, since the supplementary class was nearly over, other guys caught up with him as well.

    “It may as well be explained from a human physiology standpoint, say at a very rough, primitive level,” Sensei responded.

    “Why is physiology a primitive level?” Max asked with his favourite jeer, feeling his person was in the centre of everyone’s attention.

    “Oh, it is primitive indeed!” Sensei smiled. “A human being is in fact a pure physics, a set of sheer formulas of energy movements. And the entire human chemistry derives from there. While what I’m trying to explain to you is merely a most primitive layout on fingers of your physiological associations.”

    “I would listen about this “primitive layout” an extra time with great pleasure, too,” Volodya said in a bass voice. “Although in your performance such “extra time” is never superfluous. I always hear some new additions.”

    “I think so, too,” Stas, a tall athletic guy, uttered. His friend Eugene, being in no way inferior to him by his height and dimensions, half-rose from the bench and solemnly shook Stas’s and Volodya’s hands in jest.

    “I absolutely agree with you.”

    “Well, taking into account such collective intention, let’s do it,” Sensei gave up. “Let’s review one of the past lessons. So, all of you imagine what the solar plexus is.” He rested his gaze on Max who nodded in bewilderment having said neither yes nor no. “OK, I see. This plexus, otherwise called the celiac plexus, constitutes an aggregate of ganglions of various size and shape, conjunct between each other with a numerous connecting branches of manifold length and thickness. The plexus may be quite different by the number of nervous tubes approaching, by the number of ganglions forming it, and by the form of this mighty conglomeration. The solar plexus in its centre more resembles connected apexes of a triangle, while by its external form it most often looks like an uneven circle, because nerves radially diverge from the solar plexus extensively to the abdominal cavity organs like rays of sunlight. And, surely, there are plenty of nerve endings there. The solar plexus belongs to the largest vegetative plexuses. It is even called the “abdominal brain”.

    Now, what happens when a person is performing the Lotus Flower spiritual practice? If we would figuratively project the process of internal energies circulation to human physiology, we’ll get the following picture. When a person purposefully concentrates attention on his or her solar plexus with a feeling, I emphasize, a positive feeling, there appears an irritation of nerve endings including the vagus nerve, one of the twelve pairs of cranial nerves, or the so-called wandering nerve. By the way, let me point to the fact that both the right and the left wandering nerves participate in constitution of the solar plexus as its parasympathetic part. Moreover, the plexus includes the largest part of the common rear tube of both wandering nerves. Now, let’s go back to concentration. After the wandering nerve is irritated, signals are transmitted along this nerve to the cerebrum. And there, having passed through distributing ganglions, the signals get to hypothalamus…

    …Let’s now go back to the beginning. What happens when you’re performing the Lotus Flower spiritual practice? When irritation induced by concentration of positive feelings in the solar plexus area goes from the wandering nerve to hypothalamus, the nervous signals in turn go through both of these centres. At that, along with greater stimulation of agathodemon, there is also a less intensive stimulation of cacodemon. When the agathodemon centre is stimulated with such type of energy, more simply the energy of “Love”, a person feels bliss and all-embracing joy.

    Now, let’s consider Max’s example. Basically, something similar is experienced by nearly all beginners. Should a person loosen his or her attention or fully digress to an animal feeling, there occurs a surge accumulated by parallel stimulation of the cacodemon centre. At first, such process manifests itself in emergence of negative thoughts and agitation of negative emotions. This is followed by doubts. And (please, note it particularly!) when one gives the power of his/her attention to such thoughts, as a result of such synthesis he/she gets an irritation of a number of other nervous system centres, due to which he/she sinks into depression, becomes despondent or aggressive. Later on, the process of person’s attention seizure by negative thoughts further aggravates, and the cacodemon centre is further stimulated. It turns out to be a vicious circle. And the person, say, falls into the animal nature’s net again.”

    “How could one break such vicious circle?” Max asked.

    “That’s the whole point! Human brain is attuned to the animal nature frequency from the very birth, although it’s the most primitive program of all brain abilities. The cacodemon centre is stimulated nearly all the time by a person who lives an ordinary life and does not participate in its spiritual nature evolution. Therefore, such individual stably possesses such elements as envy, anger, hatred, greediness, cupidity, jealousy, fear, egoism, etc. Some have them more expressed, others less. However, from day to day such people bite their own tail and suffer of this biting still more. They have extremely rare stimulation of agathodemon, mostly in the form of weak irritations of this centre and for very short periods of time. At that, such surges are subsequently overpowered by the more stimulated centre of cacodemon.

    In contrast to the latter, people following the spiritual path purposefully work on the agathodemon centre stimulation. Where does it lead them? Let’s particularly take the Lotus Flower, since its circuit inside a human organism is the very result of any spiritual path which leads to, say, one and the same inner Gate. Thus, if a person practices the Lotus Flower correctly, controls his or her emotions, thoughts, power of attention and endeavours to be in the state of Love most of the time or better permanently, localizing this feeling in the solar plexus area, such person is able to achieve the following result. Continuous irritation and stimulation of the agathodemon centre intensifies its activity, launching certain mechanisms that suppress the little by-stimulation of the cacodemon centre... Here there’s already pure physics, so I won’t go into details incomprehensible for you. To cut a long story short, figuratively speaking in physiology language again, something similar to total or partial inhibition of the cacodemon area takes place. It results in release of an energy that sharply intensifies agathodemon activity, which in its turn leads to a surge that actively stimulates the pineal gland. This gland is also called epiphysis. And the very consequence of epiphysis operation under such new conditions (more simply, the result of the wave frequency change) is that a person experiences opening of spiritual vision or the “Third Eye” as they call it in the Orient. Well, and this in its turn promotes awakening of tremendous powers of the soul. Such person not simply changes internally, but he or she begins to discover the well of genuine knowledge, the reality of superior worlds...”

Extract from the book Birds and a Stone

Mistakes in the Lotus Flower practice

    “He was sitting in a car together with Sensei, waiting for a meeting with one man regarding Cassandra company issues. Max was enduring not the best days of his life, as it seemed to him. He was in a sombre mood because of all this everyday fuss. Max recalled how several days before he had given up the Lotus Flower practice again, explaining it to himself in such a way that the practice hadn’t amount to much for him. Moreover, he had plenty of issues at work which required urgent solution. At that, no matter how hard he tried to pay attention to and to resolve issues, the number of those didn’t decrease. Max turned dejected over again, and again started to think of restarting spiritual practices seriously... He raised this very topic in conversation with Sensei, using the opportunity to talk to him in private.

    “Why do I have no result in practices?” Max complained. “I start performing the Lotus and seem to have a surge of joy. But then...”

    He waved his hand.

    “It’s a natural process,” Sensei responded. “Many people experience the same thing. At first, everyone feels a surge of spiritual agitation, say, an emotional upsurge and extraordinary comprehension of the divine nature depth. For many it seems so simple that they wonder why they haven’t understood such elementary things before. That is, a person is awaking spiritually. But... in a day or two a spiritual recession begins. The animal nature livens up. The person does not feel that agitation any more. Mean and dirty thoughts start attacking him or her, saying all spiritual is nonsense, trickery. The person begins to think that it’s all a marasmus, a stupidity, that he or she starts going crazy, to rave, nearly to have schizophrenia because he/she becomes different from others. Such person turns lazy to pray, to meditate, finding thousands of excuses that he/she is too tired or has no time... There arises a feeling of awkwardness, sometimes of a heavy guilt for the experienced moments of spiritual upsurge. Yet, towards whom the guilt is? Towards one’s own animal nature! Or certain problems begin pressing such person, some trouble happens. The person gets absorbed in that bustle. Hence, everything possible is being done in order to distract one’s attention from the spiritual. And, yielding to such provocations, the person simply loses the battle with his/her own animal nature and completely forgets what took place just couple days ago.

    Whereas a clever person will look inside himself or herself and try to understand why there is no such spiritual intention, such bygone agitation and pleasure during spiritual practices anymore. He/she will understand it’s simply the animal nature having livened up... And a stupid person will follow his/her matter’s tastes. Nevertheless, after a while, when the animal nature’s pressure abates, he or she will again rush to search for the spiritual, start reading, rereading... Such person always needs examples, proofs, demonstration of spiritual abilities. All this will cause another mighty spiritual surge. This process may be compared with a release of adrenalin into one’s blood during an excessive exertion. But later, when the action of such “hormones” finishes, the person again has a break-down during which he or she again surrenders to the animal nature. To avoid such recessions, one should clearly know a lot of things, should be aware of his/her position, and be ready for the forthcoming competition. When a material barrier arises, it should be simply put away, say, one should “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's". The person should remain on the spiritual side and double-strengthen his/her urge. The goal is to come out of situations designed by the animal nature with the preserved “flower”. You should divert your attention from the imposed negative which will press down on you from every quarter. Attention should be focused on inner love and on positive things. You should have firm belief inside you, for your faith begets your future reality.”

    “It’s difficult to maintain inner love inside oneself,” Max complained.

    “Actually, it only seems so difficult. It seems difficult because there are plenty of temptations around, because numerous thoughts start scrolling in your mind, and you scatter your attention on those. But in reality everything is simple. Is it hard for you to drink a glass of water? No. Would this distract you from a thought you’re considering? No. Same is there... During his or her life, a human being seems to be running through a forest swarming with animal nature thoughts. And there are many tricks, catches, traps and dug holes in the forest. Nonetheless, one must run with open eyes, learn to avoid and to notice such traps, to understand all those have nothing to do with him/her.”

    “Yeah, the animal nature hooks you up strongly.”

    “Naturally. That is what it’s supposed to do. Its aim is to bring you under its control; otherwise it will be under your control. It’s a war, Max, your war in which faith is your major weapon. A one who has chosen the spiritual path should just give up all vain illusions like “a mirage in the desert” as saints used to say. The one should learn to comprehend that the entire material world is merely an instant before the eternity. But the trouble is that, at the beginning of this way many people stumble over one and the same block: they are unable to believe in infinity of the future existence, in the fact there’s an eternal life there and only a temporary life here. The person needs proofs, but when he or she gets such proofs it often becomes too late to change anything. Yet, if a person has enough power, he/she needs no proof, feeling and understanding everything without that.”

    “What kind of power do you mean?”

    “The power of one’s soul. It’s a small part of God inside a human being! However, this part is, say, not activated, whereas true choice is a catalyst for its activation. A person can become saint here, on Earth. A person who has overcome his or her animal nature and achieved enlightenment, does not die, but simply passes to God...”

    “Yet, what do exactly I do wrong? I’m not totally hopeless, am I?” Max joked.

    “Not totally,” Sensei responded in a like humorous manner. “Hope, as they say, dies last.”

    “But what is my problem exactly?”

    Sensei looked at Max wearily.

    “Same as many others have. You enjoy watching the battle field from a distance and commenting the battle, but not participating in it. Your doubts are not just a fly in the ointment. They are a whole dinosaur, because they not only spoil, but totally destroy all the best in you... You need to overcome your doubts; otherwise they will draw you into slough. Cast them far aside! Live in a kind, good way, with God in your heart. Don’t do anything wrong even if it’s disadvantageous for you... A truly spiritual person does not really care for all these material problems, for they all are a mere mirage and illusion that will eventually fade away.”

    “But how can one not care? How to live in the world then? Problems are to be resolved somehow. You cannot simply sit on your hands, especially if problems concern not only yourself, but your family, too.”

    “You haven’t understood me. Problems should, of course, be resolved; however they shouldn’t turn into a sense of existence. And the main thing is that, no matter what happens, no matter how many problems you face, it’s important for you to remain a Human, because any trouble in your life is, first and foremost, nothing else, but a test of your animal nature extent. Therefore, a spiritually steady person simply does not care for having certain difficulties from time to time. Such person deals with those, not permitting their enslaving supremacy in thinking. Whereas a stupid person yields to such provocation of the animal nature and permits to lead himself or herself like a donkey being lured on a carrot, not even noticing he/she approaches the brink of a precipice. So, at bottom, any external problem which you take seriously is in fact your inner problem, your personal internal conflict between yourself and your animal nature. Everything is inside you!”

    Max cheered up after such words and even held steadily on the positive wave for a certain while. But then Sensei’s words got forgotten, and Max from mere habit became utterly absorbed in his everyday occupations, moving away from the spiritual and plunging into still more tangled labyrinths of the animal nature life.”

Extract from the book Birds and a Stone