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

/> “At first, he also gave this spiritual practice to his disciples. Then, according to their level of awakening, he gave them more profound knowledge.”
“You said last time that Buddha’s knowledge was partially lost,” Kostya just couldn’t calm down, “and partially distorted. And I read that the Dalai Lama, who in Lamaism, one of the major branches of Buddhism, is the highest being among the reincarnated personalities, an earthly incarnation of highly respected Bodhisattva… Avalokashevara… No, not like that, Avalokiteśvara,” Kostya hardly enunciated. “In other words, he is a living god, as they say. There is also written that the death of this living god becomes the beginning of his new earthly incarnation. And a special commission of the highest lamas finds him among infants who were born over a year after the death of the Dalai Lama. So, I think that if this Bodhisattva constantly reincarnates, how can this knowledge be lost?”
“Who?! The Dalai Lama is Bodhisattva?! It’s not even a parody of Bodhisattva. Who is the Dalai Lama by himself? Well, for you to really understand it, I’ll tell you his history. The teaching of Buddha was initially oral. It had great resonance among people because its spiritual practices were simple and easy to understand, especially the Flower of Lotus. His philosophical teaching was written down for the first time from the words of his followers, just think about it, almost 600 years after his death, on palm leaves (Tripitaka) in 29 A.D. This was the most ancient early-Buddhist collection of manuscripts that had been written in a distorted version in relation to the real teachings of Buddha. It was written by people pursuing their personal goals of enriching this knowledge, and in particular, of creating the basis for a religion. Moreover, after the death of Buddha, dissidence happened between his disciples. A part of them adhered to traditional views, the so-called doctrine of Hinayana, which in Sanskrit means ‘the low vehicle,’ or ‘the narrow way’ of salvation. In its initial form, this way was more or less closer to the truth because it emphasized the significance of the personal efforts of the practitioner to liberate himself from the bonds of Samsara (the transition of the soul from one body to another) on the way to final salvation (Nirvana). And still, it was heavily distorted with time by people who turned it into a complicated, fluffy cult.
“Another doctrine, Mahayana, which in Sanskrit means ‘big vehicle’ and ‘wide way of salvation’, is the beginning of our story about the Dalai Lama. The doctrine of Mahayana reformed all sides of Buddhist teaching, turning Buddha from the wise man and the Teacher into a typical deity, and the Bodhisattvas into his emanations. By their understanding, anyone could become a Bodhisattva by reaching the ruling clique of that religion, even though the very word Bodhisattva has a completely different meaning. This word originates from Shambala.
“The word Bodhisattva translated from Sanskrit means: ‘The one whose essence is knowledge.’ Buddha introduced this concept among people, taking into account the level of spiritual development at that time. But even in his decoding of that word, its meaning sounded like this: ‘Bodhisattva is the being of Shambala who reached the highest level of perfection and came out of Nirvana having the will again to submerge into it but refused it because of his love and compassion to living creatures and a desire to help them attain perfection.’ So what did these fake Bodhisattvas do? They took out only a few words from Buddha’s definitions: ‘of Shambala,’ ‘came out of Nirvana,’ ‘having will’ and also ‘help them attain perfection’ and changed that to their own interpretation. They changed the entire meaning of the words in such a way that they could benefit from them. They hoped that the world would never find out about this. But this fact points out to their immeasurable stupidity in regard to true knowledge. True spiritual knowledge, no matter how much it is distorted, no matter how much it is hidden, no matter how much it is destroyed, will still be brought by Shambala to people in its pure form because this is the only crystal source of spiritual knowledge on the Earth from which all the teachings of the world originated.
“It is impossible for a person to become a Bodhisattva. Although, in the history of mankind, there were a few unique individuals who were able to grow with their soul to the level of Bodhisattva. But these unique people can be counted on the fingers of one hand for the entire history of the existence of mankind, not just for that tiny period of so-called history known to you. So, the highest level that people can achieve in spiritual practice by working on themselves, I emphasize again, by working on themselves, is to develop their soul through love to such a degree that death won’t be able to rule over them. In other words, they can liberate themselves from the chain of reincarnation and unite with divine love, with Nirvana, call it as you wish. For you it’s hard now even to understand the meaning of this word Nirvana. But no earthly pleasures can be compared even with a thousandth of this highest state.”
“So, Bodhisattvas are really beings from Shambala?” asked Andrew.
“Yes. They created their small world, known to people as the Abode. From there the world is given knowledge, both scientific and spiritual, so that people can grow spiritually and develop their souls.”
“Are messiahs also Bodhisattvas?” inquired Stas.
“Sometimes, Bodhisattvas, when giving their basic teaching, had to become messiahs. But this is very rare. More often, as a rule, messiahs are their disciples brought up from the ordinary people.”
“In what sense?”
“Well, one day I will tell you about it. Because we deviated from the subject too much… So, Bodhisattva will not prove to anyone who He is, and moreover He won’t create a religion. Bodhisattva may give a teaching about the spiritual essence of the human, how to develop it. But in no way a religion… In fact, any religion is just a show business begotten by the megalomania of the ruling class to fleece money from a crowd of stupid asses.”
“Well, why stupid?” Ruslan said resentfully.
“Because these people become very limited in their knowledge. They are constantly being told that they should listen only to the speeches of their religious leaders, they should read only their literature and stick only to their herd, because all other religions are wrong. For example, let’s not look for something else but return to the subject of our conversation, what did these showmen do with the teaching of Buddha? First, for their convenience and in order to have fewer questions from the crowd, they turned Buddha into a god. Second, they introduced complicated religious ceremonies, worship services, prayers, pointing out to the masses the wide and easy way to salvation, due to their show cult of bodhisattvas-mentors. The ordinary man not only has to perform the rituals, spells, vows and all their multilayered nonsense invented by them but also has to pay them for their lie and obey them implicitly. In fact, these false bodhisattvas, who are actually just sly and clever people, simply created another religion.
“And now we’ll return to the question about the Dalai Lama. So, it was Nagarjuna, who lived in the second century and started all this mess about reforming Buddhism. He was a pretty smart but cunning man with mercenary-minded interests. He was a Hindu philosopher, theologist, poet, and he founded the school of Shunyavada (Madhyamaka). And now the most important part. As Nagarjuna made a complicated thing from a simple one, he greatly distorted and partially pocketed for himself the knowledge given by Buddha for the masses, he turned upside down the essence of the very teaching, and he was severely punished by Rigden Jappo and sentenced to eternal conscious reincarnation.”
“Who is Rigden Jappo?” asked Kostya.
“Rigden Jappo leads a commune of Bodhisattvas in Shambala… So, later Nagarjuna was known under different names. In 1391, his soul was reborn in a man named Gendundub, who became the first Dalai Lama. He wanted to be worshipped, admired for being a great teacher... He was drawn by wealth, luxury, and worship. Now the Dalai Lama has plenty of wealth; he is worshipped by a quarter of the world. But on the other hand, he is not happy and will never be. He is doomed to eternal conscious reincarnation and eternal internal suffering. He cannot leave for Nirvana, cannot liberate himself from the continuous vicious circle of conscious rebirths. Nobody will let him free from this earthly life. Every lifetime, when he is 13 years old, during puberty when the life force begins to awaken and connect the human with the universe, when he begins to awaken as a personality and realizes who he is, for him it’s a big pain for the rest of his life.”
“What kind of pain?!” Kostya blurted out. “He is the Dalai Lama, he has everything! It’s a big joy to have everything and to be reborn constantly. How can he be bored of such a life?!”
The Teacher wearily looked at Kostya and said, “Well, how to explain it to you… Have you seen, for example, the movie ‘White Sun of the Desert’?”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember how the customs official, Vereschagin, sat down to dinner and when his wife put before him a whole plate of black caviar, he glanced at it and said, ‘Again this caviar! I just can’t eat it any more, damn it. Can you go and swap it for bread?’ In other words, everything becomes boring very quickly with time. And life becomes boring even much more. If you remembered at least a part of what you experienced in other bodies, you would be fed up with the monotony of bodily forms. To be reborn consciously and to know that this is your eternal destiny is scary, and you can’t even imagine how scary it is. That’s why Jesus punished the Wandering Jew with immortality. Do you remember this story?”
Kostya shook his head in embarrassment, “No.”
“When Jesus was whipped on the way to Golgotha, He felt very bad; He was very thirsty. And when He stopped on the threshold of the house of one of the Jews, whose name was Ahasuerus, and asked for water, he rudely banished Him, being afraid for his life that he would be punished. Jesus said to him: ‘You are afraid for your life; so you will live forever!’ Ahasuerus cannot die and wanders all over the world, no matter how much he’s bored by it.”
“So, will he never be forgiven?” Tatyana asked, feeling pity for him.
“Not until there is overall forgiveness, until the entire world repents. But that’s already another story.”
Sensei glanced at his watch.
“Alright guys, it’s time to begin a meditation, otherwise our conversation might go on for a long time. Today, we will repeat for some of you and some of you will try to work through the chakras of legs and the chakra Hara.”
“Where are they located?” asked Stas.
“The chakras of the legs are located in the center of the feet, and the Hara chakra is three fingers lower than the navel in the point of Dan-tian. Translated from Japanese, Hara means belly. This is a center of the human and it practically coincides with the center of gravity, both in the physical and the geometrical sense. This meditation, just as the previous one, is focused on concentration of attention… And now stand up, relax, put your legs as wide as your shoulders…”
We stood up in a comfortable way, relaxed, and concentrated on performing the meditation.
“Now we’ll breathe in as usual, in other words, voluntary, and breathe out into the bowl-like Hara, as if filling it with Qi energy until you have a