Sensei of Shambala - Anastasia Novykh (english novels for students .txt) 📗

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.”
Our entire group of different ages stood silent, thinking about Sensei’s words. I felt some kind of tingling sensation in my body from the sudden delight and inspiration. I was so amazed by all I had heard, so shocked by this unexpected information, that it was hard for me to believe that these words were spoken by an ordinary man. His deep knowledge, from my point of view, was evidently not of this world. I wanted to ask about that, but something was holding me back. I suspected that this something already knew about everything because it was pulling me towards this creature with all my heart and soul. But as soon as I thought about that, my mind again started to argue with me, assuring me that this is an ordinary, simple man, just competently understanding philosophy, religion, psychology, history, physiology, medicine, and physics. “Stop! Where am I heading?” I thought. “Is it possible that a man can accumulate so much fundamental knowledge at one time? But on the other hand, why not? There happen to be talented people, like Lomonosov or Leonardo da Vinci, who was far ahead of this time in his knowledge. But I don’t remember them speaking clearly about the soul. And in general, why do I rack my brains wondering who he really is? The main thing is that I got answers to the questions that I had been asking for so long. It’s true, as they say, the one who searches will always find.”
I was sincerely happy, like a child. Can it really be? This is the way to reach that edge of eternity where the great contemplate the world! This is my only chance, my only straw. It’s not just a straw, it’s an entire saving ark, in which even physical death is not to be feared, in which it’s not scary to swim into eternity.
“So, any more questions?” Sensei asked.
We kept silent, looking at him with admiring eyes. Only Nikolai Andreevich, who was more or less the sober-minded man in our group, replied, “Well, let’s assume that I don’t believe in God. From the point of view of psychology, though, this is quite an interesting variant. Everything needs to be pondered… There is a lot of information, and I need to examine everything. Questions will arise later.”
“All right,” the Teacher answered genially. “Then, I suppose, it is enough for today, let’s go home.”

21

I was in an excellent mood. All the way home, I analyzed what I had heard, reviewing it in my thoughts from different points of view. And then I started examining my good mood. Something was strange with it, and I felt as if I were completely healthy. Analyzing my impressions a little, I suddenly realized what the matter was. Before I thought that my soul, that is my “I” which would go to eternity, was located in my material brain. And it seemed to me that I think with it, and all my thoughts arise from it. But I was having serious problems with my brain lately, as the doctors said. It didn’t really depress me physically, but more spiritually. I assumed that if my brain was damaged, then my soul might also malfunction.
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 color. 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.
At school, I tried again to evoke the previous day’s state of mind, but I couldn’t really concentrate because of the constant circulation of school information and contradictory emotions. I was successful only in literature class when the teacher droningly explained a new topic. Half of the class carefully listened to her with drowsy eyes, and the other half tried to fight off sleep. Meanwhile, I again concentrated on the area of the solar plexus, focusing all of my attention on evoking warmth and a state of happiness. My good thoughts wandered somewhere in the background of my mind. The important thing for me was what was going on inside. I felt very comfortable, my body somehow relaxed, and in my chest I started feeling light pressure turning into warmth. After that I simply sat enjoying this state and continued listening to the new topic. A few days later, I found out that, starting at that moment, I clearly and easily remembered everything the teacher was telling us. This was a very pleasant discovery for me.
After the lessons, I ran into the library to fill the gap in my knowledge about the lotus flower. But what I read about it from different sources really staggered me.