Sensei of Shambala - Sensei of Shambala. Book IV

“Well, but why was it nevertheless connected with the heart?”

“From ancient times it was the solar plexus which was considered to be the centre of concentration of the will-power. And it was also connected with doing the spiritual practice ‘Lotus flower’. Since exactly in this place is located the soul, which is connected only with thin energy and material structures of the human, but not directly with the matter of the body. So, when the human reached the state of union between his willpower (that is single-mindedness of thoughts) and wishes of the soul, it was considered to demonstrate the spiritual maturity of the human.

“Besides it was believed from the earliest times that the will-power is influenced in a way by, to say in our language, feelings and emotions. And again this impact was ascribed to that region. It’s partly true. And as far as the heart concerned… Since the heart is a central pump of the body which pumps over the blood. And the blood is a special very peculiar fluid which is far from being studied, even with all modern knowledge. Those main forces, so to say, energies, which combination leads to the formation of the material structure of this fluid are one of the main elements in the Arimanian system, simply to say, in the system…,” Sensei thought for a while, evidently trying to find the matching words, “let’s say it, for you to be more clear, in the system of ‘programming the matter’.”

“It’s an interesting information,” Nikolai Andreevich said with animation and uttered at once with the impatience of the striving scientist, “Could you please tell us about it in more details?”

“It’s an interesting information, indeed,” Sensei agreed with him. “But there will be no more details on this issue. You are not ready to it.”

Frankly speaking, I was a bit surprised to that flat reply of Sensei. Since it was a question not from any of us, who would ask just out of curiosity, but it was a man who was dealing with science for long time and who would surely need this knowledge in his work. But Sensei cut short, as if even not wishing to hear to any objection on that issue. And I thought: if he answered that way, then there should be a serious reason, then this knowledge is really very serious and it need a certain spiritual maturity and preparation even for such a clever and practical man like Nikolai Andreevich.

Having answered to doctor, Sensei, after some pause, continued as if nothing had happened, to tell the story about ancient Egyptians.

“So, as far as the heart concerned… There was knowledge in Ancient Egypt but when it became to turn into religion, the priests distorted it intentionally.” And he added with the humour. “You can’t see neurons with ordinary eyes and you can’t touch with your hands the will-power. So the priests decided to ascribe the notion of ‘Akh’ to the heart, since there existed among people different expressions which poetically connected feelings with the heart. Because it’s a quite tangible organ and it’s located also almost in the centre. So who among laity would notice this substitution? But then here is a direct evidence of material proof, ‘embodiment of the will-power and human wishes’ which can be seen and touched by most curious persons after the death of man. So to say, the impressive visual advertisement which very soon began to bring huge profits to priests. Thus it came to total mass copying of distortion.”

“Well, people are people,” Nikolai Andreevich sighed.

“Indeed.”

“Egyptians were so naive!” Slava uttered with a gibe.

“This materialization was inherent to many nations,” remarked Sensei.

“Sure,” drawled Andrew. “It’s called, Ariman works professionally!”

Kostya on seeing that the discussion turned again not the way he was interested in waved his hand towards Andrew, “Wait!” and already addressing to Sensei started again to inquire, “Thus it means… Five elements of ancient Egyptians composing the human essence are: Ba, the soul, Akh, the will-power and wishes… And the other?”

“The other?! Well, it’s Ka, the element which was believed to be a spiritual double of a man, his vital force (‘breathing’, ‘spirit’) which is given to him from birth and after his physical death is his guide in the beyond world, and then it leaves him. It was considered that Ka is born and grows together with a human acquiring his merits and imperfections. Ka may exist independent of body, for example, to reach the heaven and talk to gods there or just move on earth. The Ka sign was depicted as two hands lifted up bent in elbows (quite often this sign was positioned on the head of the double), that somehow reminds the hieroglyph in its meaning ‘to raise, to seize’. The human was ascribed to have a multitude of Ka, or how they were also called Kau.”

“It reminds the human astral body,” assumed Nikolai Andreevich.

“Why does it remind? This is it in fact. However ancient Egyptians beside it managed to stuff into the notion of multitude of Ka also protective functions of the aura. But it’s not too important. In general they interpreted it more or less correctly. As far as Ka as the astral body concerned, it was deemed that Ba exists in Ka and has a feature to become bodiless or bodily. Though by its structure Ba was more ascribed to etheric substances…”

“Well, it seems these Egyptians were not so simple…” Slava changed his opinion at once.

Sensei went on to tell his story, “One more element composing the human being was Khat, the physical body of a human.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Kostya gladly. “And I started to get worried whether they had a notion of body at all!”

Sensei smiled almost unnoticeably and added, “With the word ‘Khat’ ancient Egyptians called not only the physical body but everything to be rotten… And finally, one more element which formed a triad with Ka and Khat was Hu.”

“Hu?!” asked Eugene with surprise while the seniour guys began to smile.

“Yes, Hu,” confirmed Sensei grinning. “Under Hu ancient Egyptians meant initially reasonable force which by its influence on the body was comparable only with the notion of Ba. Later this term was transformed into a ‘not the best part of the soul’ which lives due to Khat and Ka and dies together with the physical body, that is, with Khat. In our understanding, it’s an Animal nature.”

Kostya uttered amazed, “Does it mean that the notion of the Animal nature was known still in such ancient times?!”

The seniour guys couldn’t help laughing either because of this question or because of this surprized and funny expression of Kostya’s face, and Eugene added with enthusiasm, “What do you want? Hu is hu in all times and among all peoples! As it was Hu, it remains Hu, you can’t do anything with it.”

After these words our group fell about. And most of all laughed Sensei, so to say, ‘until cries’. The guys began to cast Kostya with their jokes until at last Nikolai Andreevich renewed the conversation.

“I have met already somewhere this notion, ‘duality of the soul’, but I don’t remember where exactly.”

“Well, there are a lot of mentions of it in teachings of different peoples of the world,” remarked Sensei. “For example, in India people practicing a religion of Jainism have such notions as the jiva, that is the soul, spiritual nature, and the ajiva, that is material nature. These people consider that in surrounding world jiva is always connected with ajiva and not just connected but encapsulated and enslaved by it.

“Or let’s take the conceptions of ancient Chinese about the human. They thought that there two special souls in the human, beside other souls: Hun and Po. The Hun soul, in their opinion, manages the spiritual nature of the human and is connected to it by ‘Yan’ forces. After death of the body this reasonable nature turns into the good spirit Shen, and after some time, it flies to the sky. The Po soul manages the human body, that is his material, animal essence, and it connected with ‘Yin’ forces. This is a lower sensual nature which dies together with the body and remains with the corpse as a Gui spirit until its total decay, then it goes to the ground and dissolves. Whereas the live body of the human is the only thread which connects Hun and Po together. Death of the body leads to their division. By the way, at certain time ancient Chinese had mass spring rituals during which they called upon to Hun and Po. At the heart of these rituals there was a popular belief that namely the union of Hun and Po gives life and of course the fertility.”

“And what other souls were there except these two?” asked Victor.

“Almost the same as Egyptians had, just in some different interpretation. Lin, for example, according to ancient Chinese believes, is a soul which exists in all beings and things, qi is a vital force. There are spirits of all inner organs and parts of the body. And also, as you have already heard, Shen is a good spirit of the dead, Gui is the evil spirit of the dead.”

“Now it’s clear,” nodded Victor.

Eugene hemmed and uttered with a note of humour in his voice, “Now I see why Chinese have such names as Hun Lin and Hun Po! I thought that this is the way they swear and use bad language. I thought one should really love someone to call with such a name! But in fact, there is quite another reason!” And looking aside at Stas, he added with a smile, “Well… So, Stas, if you were born in China, you would have now a more proper name, for example, Stas Hun Po!”

“You know, Hun Eugene Po, I’m already fed up with your propaganda of your historical Motherland!” grinned Stas.

“Of my historical Motherland?!” Eugene whose figure in no way reminded the inhabitant of China gave a start with his patriotic feelings. But he immediately calmed down and narrowing his eyes began to bow and friendly nod to Stas, “Welcome… to visit us, well…”

“Well?! Ah, you are the Chukchi man! Sorry, brother, for insulting you. I thought however that you are a Chinese,” Stas laughed together with everybody.

“You are rong, no … wrong! I’m a Chinese Chukchi man, well!”

Eugene again made us laugh by his clownery. He was cast by a gust of jokes but the guy bravely countered them playing the role of a ‘Chinese Chukchi man’. These five minutes of fun were over so sudden as they began. Nikolai Andreevich asked Sensei about something concerning the spiritual nature. Unfortunately because of the guys’ laugh to one of Eugene’s answers I missed what was this question about. But answering it Sensei said the following, “Perhaps I will share this topic a bit more time and will tell you a Chinese legend about it…”

The guys calmed down and began to listen to the legend with interest.

* * *

“Once upon a time a wiseman called Tang Qiao. He lived many years, knew a lot about what is going on the Earth and among the stars. But he was considered to be the wisest among people because he knew a lot about what is going on inside the man. Once his disciples came to him and found him to do something unusual. Tang Qiao finished to dig a tomb for himself in the garden near the tree where he often used to have a rest and reflect. The disciples got frightened and began to ask why he had done it before his death, before the term determined by the heaven. The wiseman answered, ‘In order to remember about the Peace.’ The disciples were surprised and asked Tang Qiao to clarify the meaning of his wise words. And he told them the following story. ‘Today I sat to have a rest near the tree and began to reflect on my life spent on this earth. And I got so deep into reflections that I have seen how a good spirit Shen parted from my Hun soul, and an evil spirit Gui parted from my Po soul. They sat opposite to each other and began to talk.

Gui suggested to Shen temptingly, “It would be nice to live one more time!”

“What for?” the Shen spirit was surprised. “Only the fool after finishing his fatiguing and hard way and coming to the door of his home, returns in order to overcome this way again.”

“Nevertheless, it would be nice to live one more time!” said merrily Gui.

“What for?” again asked tired Shen. “To jump like a marmot out of the cradle in order to hide in a tomb? No, I wish I could finish soon this miserable existence.”

The Gui spirit sighed dolefully and said, “Still it would be nice to live once again!”

“Tell me why? To perceive again what is suffering, diseases and privations? Since life is an eternal thirst and unspeakable suffering!”

The Gui spirit burst into tears, “It would be nice to live one more time!”

Listening to them, I felt for an instant sorry for the Gui spirit since it will die together with the body and will dissolve in the ground irretrievably. And that very moment I thought, “Right, it would be nice to live one more time!” At once I was as if fallen into a dream. The Gui spirit picked me up and merrily carried through the darkness into the new life, whispering to my ear, “Yes, yes, yes! It’s nice to live one more time! I will bring you back your youth, will fill your existence with joy, will give you such knowledge and will teach you such skills, arts that our life with you will run in luxury and pleasures.”

“But which payment will you take for this?” I asked with fear. “Will it be my Hun soul?”

“Oh no!” with triumph exclaimed the Gui spirit. “The Hun spirit is yours! Don’t worry about it. It will follow you and you will pass your life without fear and anxiety. But I have one rule, one condition: I will always go one step in front of you.”

I reflected a while. And not seeing anything bad in it, I agreed, “Alright.”

We immediately happened to be in primeval forest, in the most impassable thicket. The Gui spirit was bravely going ahead, moving apart for me prickly branches, so that I was able to advance freely, without injuring me even one time. And I thought, “How stupid is my Gui spirit. Let him go ahead. It’s even very good for me. Let him do all dirty work for me, and I will just enjoy the life.”

We reached the abode of the powerful dragon. The Gui spirit came close to him first and the last one touched him with his sting and filled up with power. I have seen that nothing bad happened to my spirit and also came close to the dragon. He touched with his sting my body and it became young. The dragon hit with his tail the ground and we found ourselves in the world grown younger with us which was full of heady aroma of wonderful flowers and where marvellous birds were singing their songs. I rejoiced about the feeling of life fullness and went to people.

It happened so as Gui had promised. He shared with me his knowledge. In a flash I raised above among the joy of public emptiness and amazed all by my knowledge, mastership in handy-crafts and arts. Though I became the weak-willed servant of my Gui spirit. Since whatever I thought, the thoughts of the Gui spirit always dominated in my, whatever I said, the words of my Gui spirit flew out first. And whatever I did, the initiator of all my doings was always my evil Gui spirit. So I couldn’t do anything good for my Hun soul, neither with a thought, nor with a word, nor with a doing. I couldn’t even stay alone with it in order to gain myself and my way. And the whole world faded in my eyes. I couldn’t feel the aroma of flowers or listen to birds songs. I understood that the evil Gui spirit cheated me since I let him go one step ahead of me, became his weak-willed servant and enslaved this way in his power my Hun soul. I felt terribly sorry for that and cried. Since that time under the tree I needed to make one more step to gain for my Hun soul Peace and Harmony. That very moment I awakened and saw the light cognizing the essence. I took a shovel and began to dig a tomb for the body and the Gui spirit in order to come here every day and to remember about the Hun soul and its Great Home of Peace till my death.”

The disciples were wondering at his sincere story. And Tang Qiao uttered a wise saying, “Human vanity is fruitless. People rush, torment themselves with fears and anger cast by Po. Meantime the Great Dao remains in divine serenity. He, who has desires and thinks about them, is born in this world again because of his desires. Only he, who is perfect in spirit, who is free from desires and fear, hewill learn the secret of the Great Dao and leaves this world for ever. A wise man goes along the way of understanding the Highest in self-immersion and spiritual cleansing one step ahead of himself... For everything is called forth by the laws of the Highest. The Highest guides all things in existence and leads all things in existence to perfection. Perfection in turn implies acquiring the ultimate goal, the Peace. For the Peace is the very source of the innermost spirituality.”’

And Tang Qiao uttered a word of wisdom which remained in the memory for ages, “If you wish to gain Peace of the Great Dao, remember that birth leads to death but only through death you may come to life.”

Having narrated this legend, Sensei cast an inspecting glance at us. And we silently looked at him. Though there reigned silence, I have still heard in my ears the voice of Sensei who was saying the last phrase, “… remember that birth leads to death but only through death you may come to life”. “It’s expressed so precisely,” I thought. “Even if to regard my life: hadn’t my Destiny brought me so realistically with oncoming Death, I would probably not cognize that there is a genuine life. These words are a universal hint for those who in on the spiritual way! For example, if to regard my material wishes, when they are born in me sooner or later I begin to understand uselessness of these wishes and their emptiness that means that in fact these wishes die in me. And when I stop wishing such stupid things, my attention concentrates on really more important values of the life. Or if to regard instead of ‘wishes’ my ‘fear’. Again, when different fears appear in me it pushes me to finally start looking for a reason of these fears and ways how to get rid of them. So, in the end it will result sooner or later in ‘death’ of my fears. And having ceased fearing, as Sensei said, the human becomes free of fear, and it means that he starts to understand what is the genuine life. Right, if to study globally the human essence it turns out that unless we master our Animal nature, we will not feel what our soul wants and why we were given this life. As it was correctly said in this legend: in order to go the spiritual way, you should always be one step ahead of you, ahead of your Ego, so that your soul would lead you, then you will never be wrong with the direction and sooner or later will reach your innermost goal.”

* * *

My considerations were interrupted by Sensei who continued his narration.

“… The same notions about the soul and other elements of the human existed in ancient China… Or let’s take, for example, the conceptions of Turkic nations of Siberia, of that very Altay people. They also differentiate between almost five elements in the human: ‘kermes’, what literally means ‘not seeing’, it’s the spirit of the dead man. It could be ‘aru-kermes’, that is ‘pure’, or could be ‘diaman-kermes’, that is ‘dirty, evil’. Beside ‘kermes’ there is also ‘tyn’, breathing, an inseparable part of the human, ‘sur’, the ghost, double which can part from the body, ‘kut’, the vital force, if to steal it the man will be dead…” And thinking for a while he said, “Greeks also had a dichotomy of ‘bodysoul’…”

“What?” Andrew didn’t quite catch. “Tichotomy?”

“No, dichotomy,” repeated Sensei and explained immediately. “This word originates from Greek word ‘dicha’ which means ‘in two parts’ and ‘tome’, which means ‘section’. That is the consecutive division of the whole in two parts, and then of each part again etc.”

Nikolai Andreevich nodded confirming the words of Sensei and summarized again making his own general conclusions.

“Now it’s a little bit clearer why the soul was equated to ‘breathing’ in the Old Testament. The Egyptian source is evident.”

“By the way,” remarked Sensei. “Pay attention that ancient Jews had a conception of the soul and body as of one and indivisible.”

“Really?” with a slightly visible smile uttered Nikolai Andreevich. “Obviously someone needed to impose this opinion to the whole nation.”

“There are no doubts,” Sensei agreed to him.

“Wait, I didn’t quite get it,” Victor began to investigate this case. “What does it mean, ‘the Egyptian source is evident”? Does it turn out that ancient Jews plagiarized from ancient Egyptians and somehow forgot to indicate the source of their information?!”

In reply Sensei remarked, “First it were not namely ancient Jews as a nation who ‘plagiarized’ since in majority it was a wild nomadic nation that time which was busy mainly with cattle-breeding. It was ‘plagiarized’ by Jewish priests heading the Jews and exploiting already that time their nation almost like slaves. And second, they plagiarized not only ancient Egyptians.”

“Well, bu they didn’t plagiarized everything!” emphasized Victor.

Sensei only grinned and uttered with a smile, “On the other hand you have a possibility to get to know with different ancient folk legends, fragments of historical documents and chronicles, religious and philosophical writings of ancient Egyptians, Sumerians, Akkadians, Persians, ancient Greek, with doctrines of other nations worshiping Eastern religions.”

“Here you are!” uttered Stas startled. “That’s a news for me! And I thought that it were Jews themselves so smart to come to such an understanding of the world.”

“Of course, they were smart,” nodded Sensei. “Because they had to be really very smart people in order to process all that knowledge of more developed ancient civilizations and to represent it as their own religion. And not only represent but to spread their idea in the whole world claiming exclusive rights of only their belief against all other in order to convince the majority of people of special importance and ‘peculiarity’ of Jewish people among other nations. And in fact in the first turn it means special importance and ‘peculiarity’ of the clan of Jewish priests’ descendants who use their nation as a cover for reaching the personal world rule. A cover which is thrown by stones during many ages because of the ungovernable activity of the priestly leaders in reaching their power-seeking goals. Their people, unfortunately, were and remain to be their personal slaves and have nothing from their ‘priests’ except the total headache.

Thus they had to be not just smart but very wise people in order to transform for their selfish goals the traditional knowledge of different peoples sometimes changing their internal structure so that those who wanted to grasp it had first to learn the language, history and culture of the Jewish people. That is first of al he had to get to know the ennobled and thoroughly polished ’history’ of appearance of the clan of Jewish priests and their ‘great role’ in formation of the whole humankind.”

“That’s true!” Nikolai Andreevich grinned. “When you read in the Bible who bore whom and from whom originated all the peoples, you start to have doubts about your nationality.”

Sensei laughed merrily together with our group. Whereas Eugene couldn’t help adding one of his funny comments.

“Who wrote it in fact? All-round talents and self-degenerators!”

“Not self-degenerators but gifted people, you, village boy!” Stas corrected him with a laugh.

“Well, but I say so, those who degenerated that is generated himself,” Eugene explained to his friend.

Stas hopelessly waved with hand towards him under the overall laugh of the guys.

“What can I explain to him? He has only two eyes and furthermore behind his nose.”

In reply Volodya commented their funny dialogue, “You are like in that proverb, ‘The blind swapped from the deaf a mirror for a guitar’.”

Burst of laughter rolled on the sea coast. When the guys calmed down, Victor asked Sensei, “I wonder what is concretely transformed in the Bible?” and he begged with sincerity, “Sensei, tell us at least a few examples for my blind eyes to see the light finally.”

“Aha! And for my slowcoach please, too,” Stas added with humour.

“You are always welcome,” answered Sensei with readiness and explained, “For example, if you take the most elementary what you can easily find yourselves. In the Bible (in ‘Genesis’) the description of the original state of the world as of the water chaos was taken at certain time from the Akkadian legend about the goddess of original element, embodiment of the world chaos, Tiamat. And Akkadians borrowed these legends from Sumerians. The legend about the paradise Eden as a blissful place on the earth is the transformation of the ancient Sumerian legend about the island of Dilmun, or as it was later called by Akkadians, Telmun. Dilmun is a blissful island, the original country, ‘pure’, ‘light’, ‘virgin’, without diseases nor death. One of the ancient Sumerian myths was connected with it, the myth about god Enki and mother goddess Ninhursag. By the way, Jewish ‘interpreters’ reshaped in their own way namely this most ancient legend distorting its sense caused by inaccurate translation into the Bible story about Adam, forbidden fruit, expulsion from the paradise, creation of the woman from the rib of the man. Though it was all described in Sumerian legend completely different and it was based on the primacy of the female nature, but noway of the male one… Ziusudra was settled on the Dilmun island after the Flood, his name is literally translated from Sumerian as ‘the one who found life of long days’. In Akkadian this man was called as ‘Ut-napishti’ and that already meant ‘the one who found breathing’.”

“Everything is clear, in the Jewish version it’s Noah,” Victor remarked with a smile.

“Right you are,” Sensei nodded, “Moreover this time his name is understood as ‘appeasing’.”

Kostya inquired with interest, “Which legend about the Flood did ancient Sumerians have?”

“I’ll tell you now… Jewish priests copied this legend from Babylon myths, they just changed the names of their heroes and introduced some alterations. And the legend itself was as follows. According to Sumerian legend Ziusudra was a son of the famous wiseman and pious ruler of his city. From Enki, the god protector of people, he received a news about the forthcoming Flood which was prepared by gods to be sent for people. According to Enki’s advice this man built a big ship called a ‘boat saving life’, survived the Flood which lasted seven days and seven nights. And then as a ‘saviour of human semen’ he got a ‘life like gods’ and ‘eternal breathing’ settling down with his spouse on Dilmun, the island of blissful… Later this legend formed a basis of the Babylon legend about the Flood, just the main characters were called in different way. That is Ziusudra was named as Atrahasis (‘exceedingly wise’) and as Gilgamesh (‘forefather-hero’).

“In general one should note that except Sumer the legend about the Flood as well as the one about the world tree, myths about twins were disseminated around the world, for example in such ancient centres of civilization as India, China, Egypt. And every nation gave its own names to the main characters of these legends. If you take for example the world tree, Sumerians called it as huluppu, ancient Babylonians called it the tree of truth and the tree of life. Ancient Egyptians named it as the tree of cognition, the beautiful sycamore with fruits of life, they believed that the one who sat on it became a god. The dead one in the form of bird was invited to land on that tree. There he was opened a great secret and namely he cognized his divine essence and his origin from the Supreme God. And in general in was believed in Ancient Egypt that death brings a man back to that divine country where he was expelled from for the time of his earthly lives.

I don’t even mention the creation of legends about Abel and Cain, Jacob and Esav, connected with myths about twins, in particular with Sumerian legend about matchmaking of the farmer Enkimdu and the shepherd Dumuzi to Inanna, with Egyptian legends about brothers-gods Osiris and Set where envious Set by the way with the help of seventy two accomplices-plotters kills kind Osiris.

Well, in general and so on and so forth. And it concerns not only legends but also many rituals, customs, signs which the nomadic tribes of ancient Jews took from more developed nations. Let’s take for example the very Ancient Egypt. Fertility was considered there as a gift of Osiris and was highly valued in the society. Egyptians strived to have big families because children mortality was quite high that time. Male circumcision was practiced in Egypt since times immemorial, however not as a baby but at a young age when the boys were from six to twelve years old. And it was stipulated only by hygienic considerations because these people lived in the region with a quite hot climate. But not more. Beside this, pig was considered by ancient Egyptians as an impure animal and it was ascribed to the kingdom of Set. That’s why they didn’t eat pork. One can make a long list of these ‘adoptions’.

“Well, I didn’t know that,” Victor uttered with curiosity.

Having listened to Sensei Ruslan asked somewhat with pretensions, “Why nobody knows about that?!”

In reply Sensei said quite calmly, “Why ‘nobody knows’? Many people know, especially the experts who study these issues. Just some of them keep silence out of politeness, the others do it because they belong to the interested circles.” The seniour guys grinned. “So as they say, those who want, will find out the truth. Information is available, you just need to have a wish…”

“I wonder when did ancient Jews manage to adopt so much from different peoples?” Stas uttered with a slight note of irony.

“I told you already that they were nomads and cattle-breeders,” Sensei repeated.