Spiritual practices and meditations

Anastasia Novykh

Spiritual Practices And Meditations

Foreword

Meditation is one of the ancient ways of cognizing the world and spiritual development of a human. Despite the fact that the word meditatio (reflection) is a term of Latin origin this way of spiritual training was known from times immemorial in the East. During thousand of years civilizations and preferences of the society have been changed. But a human, his physiology and spirituality are still the same. Therefore the issues of physical and spiritual health and respectively effective ancient ways of his self-improvement are still of great importance.

At modern stage of scientific and technological progress scientist only start to examine the impact of meditation at the human body, but it’s done mostly at primitive physical level. Due to modern equipment they have found out and registered that meditation significantly strengthens immunity, favourably influences nervous and endocrine systems and is quite effective for treatment of many diseases. Some prominent physicians use ancient techniques of meditations for rending help to their patients thus managing to recover not only physical but also psychological health of a patient and his emotional balance. However despite these results details of influence of meditation at all systems of the human body remain still a secret for the science. Nevertheless it doesn’t prevent people for many thousands years to use this ancient way of cognizing the world and self-cognition both in spheres of physical and, what is especially important for people, spiritual self-improvement.

Meditation for Concentration of Attention

Thought is a real power. A lot greater than humans can imagine.

Sensei

“Now we will practice the simplest meditation on the concentration of attention, so that you can learn how to control the Qi energy. But before that, I would like to repeat again for those who came late. In addition to the material body, the human also has an energy body. The energy body consists of an aura, chakras, energy channels, meridians, and special reservoirs for energy accumulation. Each of them has its own name. I will tell you later in detail about all of them, depending on the meditation.”

“And what is a chakra?” I asked.

“Chakra is a tiny spot on the human body through which different energies enter and exit. It works….so for you it would be easier to understand… like an iris or diaphragm in a camera. Do you know what that is?”

We nodded assent.

“It is the same way with chakras; they instantly open and instantly close.”

“And does all that energy really come out in that instant?” Slava was surprised.

“Well, it’s not like emptying a bucket of water. After all, a human being is an energy and material creature, where energy and matter exist by their own laws and time, however they are fully interconnected and interdependent. Any other questions?” Everyone was silent. “Then let’s begin. Right now, your objective is to learn to feel inside of yourselves the movement of air, the movement of Qi. You all think that you perfectly understand and feel yourselves. But I’m pretty sure that you can’t see right now, for example, the toes of your feet. Why? Because you don’t have internal vision. Internal vision, just like internal feeling, can be trained with time, in everyday training. That’s why we will start with the simplest and easiest meditation. We’ll try to learn to control thoughts and feelings, to evoke them and to guide them.

“All right, now make yourselves comfortable and relax. Calm your emotions. You may close your eyes, so nothing will distract you. Dissolve all your thoughts and everyday problems in the emptiness.”

As soon as that phrase was spoken, I recalled a pile of tiny household chores. “Gosh! Those impudent thoughts again,” I thought. “You were told to get dissolved.” I tried again to not think about anything.

“Concentrate on the tip of your nose…”

With closed eyes I tried to “see” the tip of the nose, guided more by my internal feelings. I felt my eyes slightly strain.

“Now breathe in deeply, slowly and gradually. First, with the bottom of the stomach, then with the stomach, chest, raising shoulders… Slightly hold your breath… Slowly breathe out... We concentrate our internal vision only on the tip of the nose… You should feel and imagine that the tip of your nose is like a small light bulb or small flame, and it flames up with your every breath out... Breathe in… Breathe out… Breathe in… Breathe out… The flame flares up more and more…”

At first, I felt a slight burning and pricking in my nose. There was such a feeling as if I were filled with something material, like a jug with water. Later it seemed to me that in the area of the nose tip appeared a dark distant contour of a purple tiny spot. At first, I couldn’t clearly focus on it. Finally, when I was able to get it fixed, it started to lighten up from inside. Moreover, when breathing in, the light narrowed, and when breathing out, it widened. When I got used to breathing this way, I heard the words of Sensei.

“Now switch your attention to another part of meditation. Slightly raise your hands a little forward, palms facing the earth. Breathe in as usual: through the bottom of the stomach, then through the stomach and chest. Your breath out should be directed through the shoulders, hands, to the center of your palms, where the chakras of the hands are located, and through them into the earth. Imagine that something is flowing through your hands, Qi energy, or light, or water, and then overflows into the earth. This flow rises from the bottom of the stomach up to your chest, and there it is split up in two streamlets and overflows into the earth through your shoulders, arms, hands. Concentrate all your attention on the feeling of that movement… Breathe in… Breathe out… Breathe in… Breathe out…”

A thought flashed across my mind, “What does it mean to breathe through the hands? How can it be?” I even panicked a little. Sensei, obviously feeling my confusion, came up and placed his palms over mine, without touching the skin. After some time, my palms began to burn, like two stoves, spreading warmth from their centre to the periphery. And what astonished me most of all was that I really felt how tiny warm streamlets were pouring through my shoulders. In the region of my elbows they weakened, but I felt them very well overflowing through my palms. Deep in these new, unusual feelings, I asked myself, “How am I doing this?” While I was thinking it over, I lost the feeling of the steamlets. I had to concentrate again. In general, it worked with variable success. After one of my next attempts, I again heard Sensei’s voice.

“Close the palms of your hands in front of you, firmly grip them so that the chakras of the hands are closed and the movement of energy stopped. Take two deep, fast breaths in and out… Lower your hands and open your eyes.”

After the meditation, when we started to share impressions, I understood that everyone experienced it differently. Tatyana, for example, didn’t see the flame; instead of it she felt some kind of light movement through her hands. Andrew had a shiver in his legs and light dizziness. Kostya shrugged his shoulders and answered, “I didn’t feel anything special, except a pins and needles sensation. But that is quite a normal reaction resulting from the oversaturation of the body with oxygen.”

“After the third, fourth breath in, maybe,” answered the Teacher. “But at the beginning the brain becomes fixed by the thought, in particular before the movement of the Qi. And if you listen to yourselves, relax and breathe in deeply, you will immediately feel a widening or paresthesia feeling in the head, or in other words, a certain process that develops there. That is exactly what you need to understand, what is moving there, and learn to control it.”

“Why didn’t I feel anything?” asked a disappointed Slava.

“What did you think about?” Sensei asked half in jest.

It turned out that Slava didn’t really know what he had been expecting, maybe some kind of a miracle. Sensei replied, “Right, that’s the reason you didn’t feel anything “because you concentrated your thoughts not on the work but on waiting for some extraordinary miracle. But there won’t be a miracle until you create it yourself. You shouldn’t wait for anything extraordinary when you breathe correctly or concentrate on something. No. The biggest miracle is you, yourself, as a Human! After all, where does all great spiritual art lead? It helps you become human so that you gradually wake up and recall the knowledge that was given to you primordially. These meditations are only a means of awakening from spiritual lethargy and recalling long-hidden and forgotten information that you knew and used once upon a time.”

“What do you mean knew?” Slava didn’t understand.

“Well. For example, everybody knows how to read, write, count, if, of course, he is normal, without mental disorders. Right?”

“Right.”

“But first he had to be taught. While later he already easily reads, counts and so forth. That is, he already exactly knows that, for example, one plus one equals two, two plus two equals four. It seems so simple and real! But at the beginning he was taught all this, although in reality he simply recalled. These are hidden, subconscious abilities. Or, here is another easier example that has to do with the physiological level. If a man who doesn’t know how to swim is thrown into the water, he will drown. But it has been proven and confirmed by deliveries in water that a newborn baby, when lowered into pool, swims like any other animal. Does it mean that he already possesses these reflexes? Indeed. But later it’s simply forgotten. It is the same with a human. He has a lot of knowledge that he doesn’t even suspect he has.

“But… all of this works only with a positive factor. If some mercenary interests prevail in him, for example, to learn to cheat somebody or to be able to hit someone with energy from a distance, or maybe he wants to be able to bend everyone’s spoons so they throw him money for that, he will never achieve anything. Only when a person learns to control his thoughts will he really become human, and only then will he be able to achieve something.”

“So, does it mean that spiritual practice is a method of awakening a human?” asked Andrew.

“Absolutely right. Spiritual practice is only an instrument for repairing your mind. And the result depends on how you use this instrument. In other words, it all depends on the desire and skill of the master. And in order to learn how to hold this instrument in your hands it is necessary to control your thought, to concentrate it, and to see it with your internal vision. In our case it means to learn to control our breath, to feel that you breathe out through the chakras of hands. You need to learn to evoke certain feelings so that later you will be able to control the internal, hidden energy.”

“In my opinion, this is a hallucination,” remarked Kostya.

“Yes, a hallucination, if you regard it as a hallucination. But if you regard this energy as real power, then in reality it will be real power.”

“It’s strange, but why?”

“Because, I repeat, a thought controls an action. While energy itself is an action. That is all. Everything is very simple.”

… During this discussion, while the other guys were listening, Slava was carefully examining the palms of his hands. And as soon as a lengthy pause appeared in the discussion, he hurried to ask, “I do not completely understand about chakras. You said that there should be opening points. But there is nothing in here!”

The senior guys laughed.

“Of course,” said Sensei. “Visually there is nothing like that.”

Eugene, standing next to Slava, couldn’t help it, turned his hands around and seriously asked like a doctor, “Well, patient. Do you see bones and tendons there?”

“No,” replied Slava, still puzzled.

Eugene smacked his lips and mournfully said, “He is hopeless!”

The guys laughed.

“You see, chakras are certain zones on the human body that are more sensitive to warmth,” patiently explained the Teacher. “They, of course, can’t be seen, but this is real and can be registered by modern equipment. For scientists, just like for you, these zones are still a mystery: the cells are the same, the connections are the same, but their sensitivity is higher. Why? Because chakras are located here while chakra belongs to the astral body, that is, to another, more profound physics. A thought is a binding link between the astral and material bodies. That’s why it is very important to learn to control your thoughts… Then you will be able really to guide Qi moving inside of your body.”

* * *

The discussion switched to other problems, including the meditations practiced by us at home.

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

“Of course. What is the main point in it? You have to feel these goose bumps 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 same desire so he can 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.”

(extracts from the book by Anastasia Novykh “Sensei of Shambala”)

Cognize Youself

The quality of instants lived by you in this life are much more important than senseless years of existence. How you lived, and not how many years you lived, is important.

Sensei

“As the law says: spiritual for spiritual … And if you guys strive to learn the art for material profits or satisfaction of your megalomania,” Sensei shook his head, gazing upon us, “no good will come of it.”

“Why?” Slava asked.

“First, you will never learn anything. Second, if, of course, you are lucky enough, you will gain at least schizophrenia.”

“Yes, it’s a nice future,” Ruslan said smiling.

“Well, there is no such threat for you,” Eugene said chuckling.

“But we are not going to kill anybody,” Andrew was looking for excuses.

“Physically, maybe not. But your thoughts contain too much of a beast. And this is the first step towards aggression and violence.”

“What should we do now?”

“Control your thoughts every second.”

Keeping silent for a while, Sensei added, looking at Andrew, “Have you ever thought about who you are in fact? Who you are in essence? Have you thought how you perceive the surrounding world? Not from the point of view of physiology, but from the point of view of life… Who are you? How do you see, how do you hear, why do you feel, who in you understands and, who exactly perceives? Look inside of yourself.”

Sensei continued addressing the guys, “Have you ever thought at all about the infinity of your consciousness? About what is the thought? How is it born, and where does it go? Have you thought about your thoughts?”

“Well,” Andrew became confused, “I think all the time, reflect on things.”

“It seems to you that it’s you who thinks and it’s you who reflects. But are you sure that these are your own thoughts?”

“Whose else? This body is mine, therefore the thoughts are mine as well.”

“Try to analyze them, if they are yours, at least for one day. Where do they come from, to where do they disappear? Dig through your thoughts thoroughly, and what will you see there except shit? Nothing. Just violence, just ugly things, just the desire to gorge yourself, to put on fashionable clothes, to steal, to earn, to buy, to raise your megalomania. And that’s all! You will see for yourself that all thoughts generated by your body end with one thing: the material supply around you. But is it really you inside yourself? Look into your soul and you will face the beautiful and eternal, your true “I”. All this external vanity around is just nonsense… Are you aware of it?”

We stood silent. Suddenly the scene seemed very familiar to me. It already happened to me once, in exactly the same way down to the smallest details: this word-for-word discussion, and this glade, and these bright stars, and most importantly, this voice familiar to the innermost of my heart, this kind face… I knew that it had already happened. But when, where? I tried to exert my memory, but I was unable to recollect it. I shook my head a little to get my mind out of this deadlock and back on track.

Sensei went on, “You have lived 16, 22, 30 years, and you, about 40 years. But each of you, do you remember how you lived? No, there are just some miserable scraps connected by emotional splashes.”

“Yes,” Nikolai Andreevich said in a thoughtful way, “life passed so quickly that I didn’t manage to notice it. All the time I spent studying, working, dealing with insignificant, endless family problems… There was no time to think about myself, about my soul, since there were always urgent matters.”

“Exactly,” Sensei agreed. “You think about the future and about the past. But you live in this very moment called ‘now’. And what is now? It’s a precious second of life, it’s a gift of God that should be rationally used. Tomorrow is a step into uncertainty. It’s not improbable that it may be your last step in this life, a step to the abyss, to infinity. And what will happen there?

“Each of you believes that he has plenty of time on the Earth, that’s why you don’t think about death. But is it true? Each of you may die any second, for any reason, as on the one hand you are a biological being. But on the other hand, you are not just a biological being, you are a human who possesses a particle of eternity. Having realizedit, you will understand that your fate is in your hands and a lot of it depends on you, not only here, but also there. Just think it over: who are you, a perfect biorobot or a human, an animal or a spiritual creature? Who?”

“Well, a human… maybe,” Ruslan said.

“Exactly, maybe. And what is a human, in fact, have you thought? Go deep inside of this question. Who feels in you, how do you move in the space, who moves your extremities? How do your emotions arise in you, why do they arise? And do not shift the blame onto someone who bothered you, offended you, or vice versa, if you envied, gloated, gossiped. Is it your spiritual nature in you?

“Find a crystal source of your soul in you, and you will understand that all this material glare – cars, flats, villas, social status – all this material wealth you spend your conscious life reaching for will turn into dust. Dust which immediately will be transformed in this source into nothing. And life passes by. Life which might be used by you to be transformed into the endless ocean of wisdom.

“What is the sense of life, have you ever thought about it? The highest sense of life of each individual is the cognition of his soul. Otherthings are all temporary, passing through, just dust and illusion. The only way to understand your soul is through your internal love, through moral purification of your thoughts, and through the absolutely firm self-confidence to reach this goal, that is through internal faith… Until you have a glimmer of life in you, it’s still not too late to recognize yourself, to find your basis, the holy life-giving spring of your soul. Get know yourself, and you will understand who you are in reality.”

* * *

Sensei said, “It’s a good result. To catch a thought of your animal nature is hard and to fight with it, even more so. It is impossible to fight with this category of thought in principle because violence generates violence. And the more you try to kill it, the more intensively it’ll appear in you. The best way to defend against it is to switch to positive thoughts. In other words, the principle of Aikido of smooth withdrawal should be used here.”

“What if they are chasing me the entire day? Can’t I just chop them off with some swear word?” asked Ruslan.

“No matter how you chop them off, negative thoughts will keep appearing according to the law of action/counteraction. That’s why you needn’t fight with them. You should withdraw from them, artificially developing in yourself a positive thought. In other words, concentrate on something good or recall something good. Only in this way of smooth withdrawal will you be able to win over your negative thought.”

“And why can thoughts sometimes be absolutely the opposite of each other? Sometimes I too get confused by my thoughts.”

“Let’s say it this way: in the human body, there is a spiritual nature, or soul, and a material nature, or animal, call it as you wish. The human mind is a battlefield of these two natures. That’s why different thoughts arise in you.”

“And who am ‘I’, if thoughts are alien?”

“Not alien, but yours. You are the one who’s listening to them, the one who is choosing your nature. If you prefer the material, animal nature, then you’ll be evil and nasty, and if you listen to the advice of your soul, you’ll be a good person, and it will be pleasant for other people to be around you. The choice is always yours, you are either despot or saint.”

“And why did my admiration for taming my anger lead to pride, to the growth of megalomania? Because it seemed like I did a good deed, but the thought got carried away in a different direction?” I asked.

“You turned to the soul, your desire was fulfilled. And when you weakened your control over yourself, you were pulled over by the animal nature by your own favorite egoistic thoughts. You liked that you were complimented from all sides that you were so smart, so judicious, and so forth… There is a permanent war of two natures inside of you. And your future depends on which side you choose.”

I pondered a little and then specified, “In other words this dodger who reminded me about the pain and prevented me from concentrating, who inflated my megalomania…”

“Absolutely correct.”

“But there is an entire pile of these thoughts there!”

“Yes,” confirmed Sensei. “An entire legion. That’s why it’s impossible to fight with them. It’s not Gong-fu, it’s much more serious. It is possible to fight with the one who shows resistance. But fighting with a vacuum is senseless. Against a vacuum of negative thoughts, it is only possible to create the same vacuum of positive thoughts. In other words, I repeat, shift your mind to positive and good thinking. But always stay vigilant, listening what your brain thinks about. Observe yourself. Pay attention to the fact that you don’t do anything but the thoughts in you are constantly swarming. And not one thought. There can be two and three or more at once.”

“It’s like in Christianity, they say, on man’s left shoulder sits the devil, and on the right, an angel. And they are always whispering something,” remarked Volodya.

“Absolutely correct,” confirmed Sensei. “But for some reason, the devil whispers louder, he probably has a rougher voice. What’s called the devil in Christianity is the manifestation of our animal nature…”

Stas joined the conversation, reflecting aloud about his experience, “Well, if the mind is a battlefield of two natures, and as far as I understand it, their weapons are thoughts, then how can you distinguish who is who? How do the spiritual and the animal nature manifest in thoughts? In which way?”

“The spiritual nature means thoughts generated by the power of love, in the broad sense of the word. While the animal nature means thoughts about the body, our instincts, our reflexes, megalomania, desires, entirely devoured by material interests, and so forth.”

“Well, then we should live in a cave,” Ruslan expressed his opinion, “So that we have nothing and want nothing.”

“With a head like yours, even a cave won’t help,” Eugene teased him.

“Nobody forbids you to have all of this,” continued Sensei. “If you want, please, follow the modern world, use all the goods of civilization. But to live just for that, to place the accumulation of material goods as the main purpose of your existence on Earth, it’s stupid, it’s unnatural to the spiritual nature. This goal is an indicator of the predominance of the animal nature in people. At the same time, it doesn’t mean that you should live as a bum in a cave. No, I already told you that all these high technologies are given to mankind so that humans could free up more time for their spiritual perfection. But certainly not for a man to collect a pile of these iron things at home and blow up his megalomania because he possesses all that dust.”

After keeping silent for a while, Sensei thoughtfully pronounced, “A human is a complex synthesis of the spiritual and the animal nature. It’s a pity that in your mind more of the animal nature than the one from God predominates. The other day, I decided to give you one ancient practice to help you balance these two natures, so that the animal won’t burden you so much. It has existed just as long as humans have. This spiritual practice is not just for working on yourself, on your thoughts, but what is very important, it is for the awakening of your soul. In relation to life, it can be compared to a dynamic meditation because it is constantly functioning, regardless of where the human is located or what he does. A part of this human should always be in this state, controlling all that happens around or inside.

(extracts from the book by Anastasia Novykh “Sensei of Shambala”)

Spiritual Practice “Lotus Flower”

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

“Do we really think about negative things all the time?” Ruslan asked.

“Of course,” Sensei answered “Just follow your thoughts carefully. People spend a lot of time visualizing different conflict situations, negative memories of the past, they imagine as they quarrel, prove something, deceive someone or hit back, they think of their illnesses, material deprivations, and so on. It means they always keep a lot of negative thoughts in their mind.

“By doing this practice, you intentionally get rid of all these negative thoughts by internal control. And the more positive image that you keep in your mind, the quicker the growth of the seed of Love. In the beginning, you imagine that a seed starts growing, and a small stalk appears. It grows further, leaves cover the stalk, then comes a small flower bud. And finally, getting more and more of the power of love, the bud blossoms out into a Lotus. The Lotus Flower is at first golden, but on growing it becomes dazzling white.”

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

“Actually, it depends on you. Some people need years, and others just months, or days, or even seconds. It all depends on your desire, whether you will make an effort. It is necessary not only to grow this flower, but also to support it by the power of your love so that it will not fade or die. This constant feeling of growth should be held at the level of subconscious or, to say it more precisely, at the level of a controllable, remote consciousness. The more love you give to this little flower, the more you cherish it in your mind, take care of it, protect it from surrounding negative influences, the more it grows. This flower is generated by the energy of love, I emphasize, by the internal energy of love. And the more you feel love towards the whole world, to all the people and to your surroundings, the bigger the flower becomes. And if you start to get angry, the flower becomes weak. If you yield to anger, the flower fades and becomes ill. Then it is necessary to put forth the maximum effort to restore it. It is a kind of control.

“Thus, when this flower blossoms and starts to increase in size, it starts to emit vibrations instead of a scent, the so-called leptons or gravitons, call them as you like, that is, the energy of love. You feel the moving petals of this flower that bring vibrations to your whole body, to all the space around you, radiating love and harmony to the world.”

“And is it somehow felt at the physical level?” Eugene asked.

“Yes. The Lotus can be felt as though the regions of a solar plexus are burning, spreading heat. That is, these feelings arise in the regions of a solar plexus where, as legends say, our soul is hidden. These regions start getting warmer and warmer. The main sense of all of this is that wherever you are, whomever you are with or whatever you do or think, you should always feel this heat, heat that warms not only your body but also your soul. This internal concentration of love is located in the flower. Finally, the more you take care of it and glorify this love, the more you feel that this flower expands and tightly surrounds your body with its petals, and you stand inside of the huge Lotus.

“And then it comes to a very important point. When you reach the stage when Lotus petals surround you from all sides, you feel two flowers. One is inside under your heart that is warmed all the time by the feeling of internal love. Another one, the bigger one, is like the astral shell of this flower that surrounds you. On the one hand, it radiates the vibration of love to the world and on the other hand, it protects you from the negative influence of other people. Thus the cause-and-effect law works. To put it in the language of physics, there is a wave effect. Briefly, you radiate waves of good feelings, intensifying them manifold and thus creating a graceful wave field. You can feel this wave field all the time supported by your heart and soul of love, and it positively impacts not only you but also the surrounding world.

“What happens with everyday practice. First, you always control your thoughts, learning to concentrate on positive things. Therefore you are not automatically able to wish bad things to anybody or to be bad. This practice should be done every day and every second for your whole life. It is some kind of distraction method, as nobody can fight with negative thoughts by force. Love cannot be compelled. Therefore you should distract your attention. If a negative or undesirable thought comes, you concentrate on your flower, you start to give your love to it, that is, you forget all the negative things. Or you switch your attention to something else, to something positive. But you feel the flower all the time: going to bed, getting up, at night, during the day, whatever you do, when studying, working, doing sports, etc. You feel how love flares up, how currents of love are moving in your chest and are filling your body. You feel how this flower starts heating up inside with a special warmth, the divine warmth of love. And the more you give, the bigger the love is inside. Constantly radiating this love, you perceive people from the position of love. That is, second, what is very important, that you tune yourself into the frequency of the good.

“And the good means success, luck, health. It means everything! You start feeling happier, and that has a positive impact on your mind. The central nervous system is the main regulator of all vital activity. Therefore, first of all, this 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 any major problems. Why? Because even if you have some troubles in life, as life is life, you start perceiving them in a completely different way than just ordinary people. You already have a new vision of the life that helps you to find the most optimal decision for the situation. Because the wisdom of life awakens in you.

“And third, the main thing is that you start feeling yourself becoming human, you come to understand who is God, that God is an all-encompassing substance, and not just a fantasy of a few idiots. You start feeling the divine presence in yourself and strengthen this power by your positive thoughts and feelings. You will never feel alone in this world anymore as God is in you and with you, you feel His real presence. There is an expression, ’If you are in love, you are in God, and God is in you as God is love.’ It is very important that you start feeling the aura of the flower that is inside and outside of you.”

“How is the aura felt around the body?” Stas asked.

“With the lapse of time, you see this vibration around yourself as a glowing light. The air seems to become lighter and more transparent, and the surrounding world turns more intensive in its colours. The most fascinating thing is that people start noticing these transformations in you. There is a common expression, ’a man glows, shines.’ That actually means the glow of this wave field resulting from the workings of love in the individual. People surrounding him also start feeling this field. They are glad when this individual is somewhere near, as they also start feeling joy, internal excitement. Many people are getting better. They will feel good even in his presence, however sick they have been. Everybody is attracted by this person, wishing to open their hearts and souls to him. That means that people perceive love. This is the heart’s open gate towards God. This is what all the great souls said and what Jesus meant when he said, ‘Open your heart to God.’

“This spiritual practice of Lotus has been used since time immemorial. Since olden times, the Lotus was said to beget God, as God awakens in the Lotus. A divine substance – a soul – awakens in the Lotus flower, in harmony and love inside of you. You should always take care of your flower, controlling at all times your thoughts and feelings so that the Lotus flower does not fade.”

“Is there a real flower?” Slava asked with surprise.

“No. The material flower does not exist there, of course. It is imaginary. This process can be discussed in a different way: the awakening of divine love, the reaching of enlightenment, full unity with God – moksha, dao, shinto. Call it what you like. But all of this is just words and religion. And in fact it means that you create by your positive thoughts and feeling of love a certain force field that, on the one hand, affects the real world around you and, on the other hand, changes the internal frequency of your mind.”

“And the soul?” I asked.

“The soul is you, it is a kind of eternal generator of divine power, if you wish, but it needs to be activated by your constant thoughts of love… Later I will tell you about the soul and its meaning in detail.”

But then Kostya joined the discussion, “You have said that this practice is very ancient. How old is it?”

“I have already told you that it has existed as long as people have existed as Homo sapiens.”

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

“That’s too short a period of time. Mankind in its civilized form has existed a lot of times before, with much better technologies than now. Another thing is why these civilizations disappeared. At some point, I will tell you about that too.”

“But if this practice is so ancient, there should be some memory of it in our civilization.”

“Certainly. The fact that the spiritual practice of the Lotus Flower has existed for so long may be proven by various ancient sources. The Lotus was given, for example, to some Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt. And if you look for the literature on this issue, you will find evidence that Egyptian myths and legends say that even their Sun God was born out of the lotus flower. This flower served as a throne for Isis, Horus, and Osiris.

“In ancient Veda, the oldest Hindu books written in Sanskrit, the Lotus is one of the central issues. In particular, regarding the three main male incarnations of God – Brahma-Creator, Vishnu-Protector, and Shiva-Destroyer – they say the following, ‘The body of the God Vishnu bore a giant golden lotus with lotus-born Brahma-Creator on it. The golden thousand-petalled lotus was growing and the universe followed it growing.’

“In China and India, this flower depicts purity and chastity. The best human qualities and intentions were associated by people with the lotus. In China, they think that there is a special Western heaven with a lotus lake and that every flower growing there is bound to the soul of a dead person. If an individual was virtuous, his flower blossomed out, otherwise the flower faded.

“In Greece, the lotus was considered to be a plant devoted to the goddess Hera. Hercules made his voyage in a lotus-shaped boat.

“However, all these legends and myths are not made up by people. They appeared because of people’s self-development with this ancient spiritual practice. As earlier the animal nature prevailed in most people, the Lotus Flower was given only to the chosen ones, spiritually mature individuals. It is natural that other people later regarded these individuals as gods. An individual with a grown-up Lotus and awakened soul becomes God-like as he can create love just by his thought.

“And when it was time to spiritually educate people, the Bodhisattvas of Shambala gave this spiritual practice to Buddha. Due to practicing this technique of the Lotus, Siddhartha Gautama reached enlightenment sitting under the Bodhi tree. On approval of Rigden, Buddha gave it to his disciples for further dissemination within people. Unfortunately, over time, people distorted the teachings of Buddha and created a whole religion based on this practice. The Buddhists imagine their paradise as an unusual place where people are born like gods on the lotus flower. They are looking for this place, although it is always inside of them. They made Buddha into a god, even though he was just a human who had known the truth due to this spiritual practice. In such a way, the Lotus became a symbol of Buddhism. There is even an expression, ’Buddha sits in a lotus’ or ‘Buddha stands in a lotus.’ He has shown people by example what an individual can reach by defeating his animal nature. He has really done a lot of useful things for the spiritual development of mankind by disseminating this spiritual practice among people in its original form.

“The same prayer was given by Jesus Christ to revoke the divine love.”

“Does it mean that prayer and meditation are the same thing?” Tatyana asked.

“Actually, yes. The prayer ‘Our Father’ is the same. It is just so simple, people ask for bread and so on, but the main sense is the same: an individual develops himself, grows out his soul by controlling his thoughts, by his desire, by his firm belief and love.

“In general, Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, and all the 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 know their divine nature. Why was it so pleasant for all to be near Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed? Why are saints said to shine? Why don’t we like to leave strangers on meeting them? Because they radiate this love. Because they always strengthen this power, the power of good, the power of love, the power of this divine emanation in people. They say that God is in this human. And it is true.”

“So, does it mean that you should just think with love about this flower?” Andrew asked.

“No. You should not only concentrate yourself and think over it but, most importantly, awaken this feeling of warmth in the regions of the solar plexus and support it at all times with your positive thoughts. Not everybody can reach it at once. Therefore you should go into the root of the matter, get the more realistic view of it, and, I repeat, awaken all these feelings. Why do I draw your attention to it? Because when an individual awakens these feelings, he starts supporting them not just with his mind but also at the level of his subconscious. And it leads to an awakening of the soul. It just can’t help but awaken. And the more love you share, 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.”

After keeping silent for a while, Sensei added,

“Life is too short, and you’d better progress in glorifying your spiritual nature.”

* * *

I couldn’t wait to get home and plant my small seed. Sensei, of course, said that one can do this spiritual practice in any place. But I decided to start this noble doing at home in peace and quiet.

At home I quickly finished with all my petty tasks. When my parents settled down to watch TV, I sat comfortably in the lotus pose. Finally came the long-awaited time. Concentrating, I thought: “Let’s begin with planting…” but I panicked a bit. First, I didn’t know what the lotus seed looked like. I had seen the flower in a book, but not its seeds. And I didn’t know either what this planting would look like and what I would plant it in. I saw how seeds sprouted in the soil. But for some reason it didn’t satisfy me, as the soil in the soul, even an imaginary one, somehow didn’t coincide with my notion of eternity. Reflecting on it a little, I found an acceptable way out. One day I saw how my mother was germinating kidney beans by placing them in wet cotton wool. I liked this method a lot. “Then let it be a bean,” I thought. “After all, it’s my imagination. And the most important thing is what I do, the essence, as Sensei said.”

Having concentrated once again, I started to imagine that I placed inside of myself, in the area of the solar plexus, a small white bean, immersing it into something soft and warm. Then I repeated endearing words internally, nursing my small seed. But no feelings followed. I started to recall all the good words that I knew. And here I was astonished to discover that I knew many fewer good, beautiful words than bad, swearing ones. This was because I heard them everywhere on the street and in school and they enriched my vocabulary more often than the good ones. My thoughts again unnoticeably switched onto the calculation of some conclusions, logically clinging to each other. Discovering this, I again tried to concentrate on the flower, but nothing happened. After about twenty minutes of fruitless efforts, I thought that I wasn’t doing something right. Finally, I went to sleep, having decided to ask Sensei later in detail about my mistakes.

But I couldn’t fall asleep. Darkness covered everything around me. Objects and furniture in the room lost their natural colour. A thought came to my mind, “Our world is really so illusory. It just seems to us that we really live while in fact we are like children, imagining a game and playing it. But unlike children, adults don’t grow up, because they get so used to the created image that they begin to think that everything else is the same kind of reality. And in this way, our entire life passes in imagination and vanity. But, as Sensei said, “The real you is the soul, that eternal reality which exists in actuality. You need only to wake up, to awaken from illusion, and then the whole world will change...”

As soon as I went deeper into the contemplation of the eternal, I began to feel somehow light and good. And I felt how something started to warm up in my chest and even to tickle pleasantly. Small ants started running through my whole body from my coccyx to the back of my head. Such a pleasant, peaceful state came over me that I wanted to embrace the entire world with my soul. In such a sweet slumber, I fell asleep. I slept like in a fairytale because when I woke up in the morning, I felt such inspiration, such lightness that I had never experienced in life.

* * *

In a few days, when we were all going to the training, the guys started to share their impressions and results. It turned out that everybody understood Sensei and grew this internal love in a different way. Kostya imagined that he planted a lotus seed, as he said, “into some kind of a live substance of the universe.” He did it yesterday, while previously he was diligently searching through the literature looking for proof of Sensei’s words. He didn’t have any kind of feelings; he simply imagined the process and now is waiting for the result.

Tatyana imagined this love as the birth of Jesus in her heart, since she was brought up by her grandma as a faithful Christian. She had feelings of happiness, internal delight, and light pressure in the area of her heart. But her heart began to ache a little.

Andrew tried every day to concentrate purposefully on the area of the solar plexus in order to achieve at least some kind of feeling by thinking about the lotus. Only on the third day did he feel a slightly noticeable, light warmth, not warmth really, but as if “something was tickling in that place, as if touched by a feather.” And Slava wasn’t even able to imagine how all of this happens “inside of the organs.”

Before the beginning of the training, our company waited for a moment when Sensei wasn’t busy and came up to him with questions. We started to tell him about our feelings. Tatyana broke into the conversation out of turn and complained to Sensei about her heart. The Teacher took her hand and felt her pulse like a professional doctor.

“Right, tachycardia. What happened?”

“Don’t know. It started to ache after I concentrated on the birth of God in my heart…”

And then she spoke with more details about the awakening of her divine love.

“I see. You concentrated on the organ, on the heart. But you shouldn’t concentrate on an organ. The heart is the heart, it’s only a muscle, it’s the pump of the body. By concentrating on it, you bring it off its rhythm and interfere in its work. When you learn to control yourself, only then you will be able to concentrate on the work of the body and organs. By doing that now, you’ll only harm yourself. You need to concentrate exactly on the solar plexus. Everything is born from it. That is the primary chakra in Lotus, called Kuandalini.”

“Well, I read that when Kuandalini begins to awaken there, some kind of snake crawls along the spine,” Kostya bragged a little with his erudition.

“This definition is from yoga,” answered the Teacher. “It’s typical for people to mix up everything with time. Originally, in the Lotus, Kuandalini was a chakra located in the area of the solar plexus. What I told you about the lotus flower, I repeat, are just images, nothing more, so that for you it would be easier to understand, perceive and feel.”

“And in general, what does it look like in reality? Tell us, please, one more time, specially for dummies,” Andrew asked jesting.

“You simply feel the fibers, growing the internal power of love. Let’s say, you feel as if you were waiting for something very, very good. For example, you are waiting for some huge, long-awaited present you’ve dreamt about. And now you receive it, you’re happy, you’re overfilled with gratitude. You feel tingling all over your body, in other words, you perceive this feeling in the area of the solar plexus, as if something beautiful, good emanates from you, or you are waiting for that. You should have a feeling like this that you evoke artificially and permanently maintain in the area of the solar plexus. Finally, it becomes natural for you. And people begin to feel it. In other words, you radiate this happiness… And that’s all. It’s not necessary to have a flower there. These are just images for easier perception.”

“And the flower that should be around the body. How does that work?”

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

“Yes.”

“So, when this power field of good expands in you, then you start to feel a kind of multi-layer of petals. You feel that you are covered, protected, that you flourish in lotus. And at the same time, you feel that you are like the sun over the world, you warm everything with the warmth of your vast love.

“This is a permanent meditation, wherever you are and whatever you do, you evoke these fibers, these feelings, these flows of energies. The main sense is that the more you practice, the stronger they become. Finally, this process becomes material and you’ll really be able to have a positive effect on people. In other words, you’ll be able to do it only when you completely change yourself internally in thought, and externally in action.”

* * *

For the next few days, I tried to evoke these feelings while doing different things. But it worked well only when I specifically concentrated on the lotus flower, doing some kind of physical work. Furthermore, I began to keep track of my thoughts a bit. One day, while sitting at home and doing homework, I tried to recall all I had thought about that day but could not do it; not only thoughts, but also all of my actions. I was able to recall some general things while details surfaced with difficulty. Most importantly, my good deeds went under the category “that’s the way it should be,” and I hardly remembered them. However, negative moments, negative emotional upsets were engraved in my memory in detail. That was the case when I deliberately felt the power of the animal nature. Sensei’s words came to my memory by themselves, “A thought is material because it’s born in the material brain. That’s why a bad thought oppresses. This is the first guard, which always tries to defeat the human. One day I will tell you about it in greater detail, about how your thoughts are born and why their power is so strong over you.” I thought, “Why doesn’t Sensei say everything at once? Why does he keep postponing it until an indefinite later? This later may never happen for some of us... But on the other hand, the way I perceived his words at the first training and now is completely different. Before, I simply listened, and only now have I begun to understand things because I started to practice and to work on myself. I already have some results, some experience and, therefore, I now have concrete questions. Sensei always gives detailed answers to concrete questions. Suddenly I had an insight: “He just simply waits for us to understand his words, so to say, when we let them work through ourselves, when our minds conceive everything on their own and take the side of the soul. Otherwise, all this knowledge, as Sensei says, will remain for us as an empty ringing in an empty head. Sensei said that we have to work constantly on ourselves, that every minute of life is valuable, and we should use it as a gift of God for the perfection of our souls.” These words strengthened my confidence and optimism. Later on, I recalled them often, when my body was seized with apathy.

(extracts from the book by Anastasia Novykh “Sensei of Shambala”)

* * *

It was high time to put my thoughts to order. As an “emergency help” I tried to distract my attention from that “turbulent torrent” and to concentrate on the meditation of Lotus flower. First it didn’t work, because one or another phrase from Ariman’s speech constantly diverted my thoughts. And I couldn’t get rid of that obtrusiveness unless I understood that that thoughts flow didn’t distract my attention but attracted. It meant that I wanted to listen to it, or if to put it correctly, not me, but my Animal nature. So what’s the matter? My wishes are up to me! Having realized my mistake, I began to make my practice of Lotus flower more purposefully since all my wishes and intentions united in one flow of concentration, ignoring all the rest.

Though the Ariman’s speech calmed down, it continued to remain on some second background of my thoughts. Well, Ariman is Ariman! That’s why I decided to use as big guns a new meditation of Lotus flower which was last time told us by Sensei during one of the meditation trainings when he narrated about the endless variety of Lotus. Before that my attempts to master the new meditation were obviously fruitless though Sensei emphasized many times that all depends on the human himself, on his inner nature. But this time evidently due to purity and sincerity of my intentions, the Lotus flower showed itself in a completely unusual way.

When I achieved the clear concentration on the solar plexus, suddenly I saw with some internal vision my Lotus flower! I clear saw it, and not imagined as usually. This flower was beautiful. I have never seen this in my life! Snow-white petals irradiated bright but at the same time very soft light. And the center of the flower gleamed with some golden glow. And what was most striking this divine flower was alive! I noticed that the more I gave it my tenderness and love, the more it reacted to my sincere feelings by waving its very tender and pure little petals. First this waving was slightly noticeable, very alive, I would call it “breathing”. And then the flower began like waking up and showing itself more and more. At some instant it seemed to me but then I really heard very pleasant sound outgoing from one of the waving petals, it was as if sweet singing of a light breeze. Following it another petal sounded its way, producing by vibration a wonderful sound which wasn’t alike any of sounds I knew before. After it the third petal “showed” itself in this increasing melody. And just in a few instants I fully sank into the charming symphony of Lotus which consisted of harmonious, delicate, very pleasant to hear sounds. This music just enchanted by its divine sounds. And the more I sank into it, the more I had increasing feeling of internal all-embracing joy and endless freedom. But the most striking was the feeling when this outstanding sound emanated from Lotus began to turn to the bright soft light which wrapped me up from all the sides filling inside by its wonderful purity. It generated such a feeling of complete joy I never felt before that I dissolved in it fully sinking to the indescribable bliss. As if I disappeared with my body. Only Lotus remained and the cognition of the huge universal Love!

Leaving the state of meditation I felt myself so splendid that I wanted to embrace the whole world. I was in the perfect mood. And what was most striking, there reigned in my thoughts absolute clarity and purity of consciousness.

(extracts from the book by Anastasia Novykh “Sensei of Shambala”, Book IV)

“Lotus Flower”: Love and Gratitude

(concentration on positive)

“This meditation also belongs to the Lotus ones. It’s very helpful and effective in such cases. And the main thing, it’s easy for every “drowning” man in the ocean of the Animal nature. It’s like this. First, as usual, you concentrate on the solar plexus, show there a lotus flower and concentrate all your love on its growing, that is, you practice the meditation of Lotus flower. When you more or less calm down your thoughts and concentrate on positive side, you start imagining that your body consists of many little balls, or atoms, or cells, in general, as many as you have imagination. It’s very important to see the structure of your body, to visualize each cell. Having seen all this conglomeration of cells you take each ball or cell, as you wish, and visually write on it, as if writing carefully each letter, a very strong spiritual formula which consists of two simple words, “Love and Gratitude”. The language, you are writing these words on, does not matter, because that’s the essence which is important. This formula works the same way as the Grail. Since Love and Gratitude are the only two things that a human being is able to give God.

Thus during this meditation, you gradually fill billions of your cells with these inscriptions, and as a result your thoughts are concentrated on this powerful formula and improve both your physical and spiritual health. The cell, on which you leave such an inscription, will forever stay under the protection of this effective and strong formula, like under protection of a talisman or tamga. When you fill yourself with this formula, you don’t only cleanse yourself from the dirt of negative thoughts, but you also reveal the inner light coming from these cells. It’s as if you light up a lot of tiny light bulbs, and it becomes so bright inside of you that even shadows disappear… It’s important also that you concentrate during this meditation only on these words and switch off all the other, irrelevant thoughts.

“Irrelevant?!” Ruslan said, either answering himself, or asking Sensei… though, Sensei was talking directly to Eugene.

“Of course. When we are just thinking about something, even then a few thoughts simultaneously teem in us, jumping from one subject to another. During the meditation this process is surely decelerated but we all are different. Sometimes, because of poor concentration, it happens that uncontrolled thoughts emerge in the background. So, while meditating, you can unwittingly switch to thinking about something else. But, exactly in this meditation it is extremely important to purposefully concentrate, without any needless thoughts.”

“Got it,” said Eugene contentedly. “So, I have simply to properly concentrate and imagine.”

Ruslan shrugged his shoulders, probably being not fully able to catch the essence of the meditation, “Hmmm… Is everything so simple? Use your imagination, that’s all?”

Sensei replied, “Though, at first glance, this meditation may seem too simple and kind of naпve, as Ruslan says “use your imagination, that’s all”, but… it is far from being simple… Because apart from the influence of this powerful formula, a person also involves the power of his thought. And, the power of the thought serves as a stimulus to realize the program defined by an individual. Results of this program are later reflected both in his physical and spiritual health. As the majority of people are constantly tuned to the wave of their animal nature, a large quantity of their both psychological and physical problems are, first of all, the results of their negative thoughts. This meditation is good not only for those people who want to establish an internal order, but also for those who already suffer from different illnesses. Because almost 80% of the illness depends on mind. The more a person thinks about the illness, the more he suffers from it.”

“That’s right,” agreed our psychotherapist. “Sometimes it happens that a person imagines his disease so well, that he can not get rid of it just because he routed in himself the thought that exactly in his case this illness is incurable. At this point, Sensei, I absolutely agree with you. For people who experience problems with their nerves, this meditation will be indeed much a better cure that all the modern pills altogether. Because drug therapy is incapable of curing human thought. Drug therapy is good only as an emergency for the body.” He made a short pause and continued, “Indeed, human brain still remains a quite mysterious substance and is far from being explored.” And, with a smile, he added. “It’s amazing that even in the very ancient times people, in certain questions, knew a little bit more then present-day mankind.”

“And you can not even imagine how significant, in reality, was this “a little bit”!” Sensei specified.

(extracts from the book by Anastasia Novykh “Sensei of Shambala”, Book IV)

The “Jug” Meditation

(for cleaning thoughts from negative)

“Today, we will do the same meditation as last time, to purify thoughts. For those who were absent, I will repeat. So, stand more comfortably, legs as wide apart as shoulders. Hands should touch each other with the tips of the fingers at the level of the belly. Tip to tip, in other words, thumb to thumb, forefinger to forefinger, and so forth. Like that.”

Sensei showed me this connection.

“It is necessary to relax by taking away all thoughts and to concentrate only on normal breathing. Then, when you have reached a state of full relaxation of all extremities and a feeling of internal peace, you begin to imagine that you are a jug. In other words, the top part of your head is as if cut off like in a jug. The source of water is the soul. This water fills the whole body and, in the end, overfills it, spilling over the edge of the jug, streaming down the body and into the earth. During the process, when it fills the body and flows out into the earth, all bad thoughts, all problems leave you with it; in other words, all that dirt and unease present in your mind. It is as if you are cleansing yourselves inside. And when you do it, then you begin to feel a clear division of soul and thought: the soul located inside of you and the soul located above the jug that observes the process. And finally, practicing this meditation every day, you cleanse your thoughts of the negative ones and further learn to control them, all the while keeping your mind in a clean state. Any questions?”

“Why should the hands touch exactly this way?” I asked.

“Because during this meditation certain energies circulate inside of the body. I will tell you more about them later. The tips of the fingers need to enclose this circle. Moreover, there is an irritation of the nervous skin receptors located on tips of fingers, which positively and calmingly affects the brain…”

Under Sensei’s guidance, we began to perform this meditation. I tried to imagine myself as a jug, but my imagination formed this image somehow half-way, because my mind just couldn’t agree with this definition. I stopped trying to prove anything to myself and simply thought, “I am a jug,” and concentrated on the internal source of water. An interesting feeling appeared, as if my consciousness went inside of me, went into my soul, and concentrated in the form of a point in the area of the solar plexus. That point began to widen gradually while crystal clear water spiralled in it. Finally, there was so much water that it boiled over, filling my entire body with its pleasant moisture. Filling the vessel this way, this pleasant feeling flew over the edge. A wave of small ants started to run over my body from top to bottom, as though going into the earth. I imagined that my body was cleansed of all bad thoughts. And in one moment, I felt so nice inside, so cosy, and so joyful that I couldn’t resist and slightly deviated from the meditation, thanking God for all that He gave me in life, for all His love for His children. In the next moment, I suddenly found out that my consciousness, in other words, my real “I”, was seemingly above my body. But my body didn’t look like a body at all. From its jug-like head emanated thousands of thin, multicoloured threads, which constantly moved and went into the earth. In the depth of the jug, something bright was shining, transforming these threads into more vivid colours. The beauty was of course simply charming. But then I heard the melodious voice of Sensei, reaching me from somewhere far, “And now take two deep, quick breaths in and out. Quickly close and open your fists. Open your eyes.”

I quickly came to my senses, though the state of this internal euphoria stayed somewhere in the depth of my “I”. As it later turned out, each one of the guys experienced this state differently. The senior guys did it better than I did, while my friends practiced it only in their bare imagination. Sensei told them that at first, it often happens this way with many people. But if they train intensively every day at home and if they have a desire to improve their moral qualities, then in a certain time they would experience new feelings and learn to permanently control their thoughts. The most important thing is to believe in themselves, in their powers, and not to be lazy.

* * *

The days flew by in the twinkling of an eye. I liked this new meditation so much that I performed it with pleasure before going to bed though, just like all the previous ones, in turn, one by one. One day, I asked Sensei whether it’s harmful to do them one after another in one evening. He replied that, quite on the contrary, it was very useful because then a human works more on himself spiritually, while the Lotus Flower also awakens the soul. “It’s better to perform them in the evening before going to bed and in the morning when you wake up. These are the simplest meditations to work on the concentration of attention, the awakening of internal sight, and the control over thoughts. They are absolutely harmless; that’s why everybody can learn them, even those who have never come across any spiritual practices. And at the same time, these meditations, being simple and clear, bring the most results.”

* * *

We performed the same meditation as last time, cleansing our intentions. I already started to feel more clearly the water streaming over edge of the jug, with some kind of wavy movement. After the training, the Teacher reminded us that we should permanently learn to control our thoughts and fish out negative parasites of consciousness. He also emphasized that we shouldn’t give in to our aggression, if it appears. And the most important thing, we should constantly cultivate in ourselves divine love by performing the Lotus Flower.

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