26. Anastasia’s grandfather

I looked about me. There was Anastasia’s grandfather, standing right close to the bench, using his walking-stick to push a piece of litter someone had thoughtlessly tossed on the grass toward a rubbish bin. I jumped up. We shook hands. His kindly eyes were sparkling with cheer, and he talked in simple terms. Not like his father. When I saw Anastasia’s great-grandfather back in the taiga, he hardly said a word, and his eyes kept staring into space, as though they were looking right through you.

Grandfather and I sat down on the bench, and I asked him:

“How did you get here? How did you find me?”

“It wasn’t much of a problem getting here and finding you with Anastasia’s help.”

“She’s really something, eh?! She’s had a child! She said she would have one, and she did. Alone, out there in the taiga, not in any hospital. It must have been painful for her. Did she cry out?”

“Now why would you think it was painful for her?”

“Well, women, when they give birth — it’s painful. Some of them even die during childbirth.”

“It’s painful only when a child is conceived in sin. As a result of fleshly lusts. Women pay for this with pain in childbirth and torments afterward in life. If the conception takes place with higher aspirations, the pain only intensifies the feeling of the great joy of creation on the part of the mother.”

“Where does the pain go, then? How can it intensify joy?” “When a woman is raped, what does she feel? Of course she feels pain and revulsion. But when she gives in of her own free will, that same pain is transformed into different sensa-tions. The same is true in regard to childbirth.”

“Does that mean Anastasia experienced a painless child-birth?”

“Of course it was painless. And she chose a suitable day, a warm and sunny day”

“What do you mean, she chose? Childbirth happens quite unexpectedly”

“Unexpectedly, if the conception simply takes place by chance. A mother is always capable of delaying or accelerat-ing her baby’s appearance by a few days.”

“But weren’t you aware of when the baby was due? Didn’t you take steps to help her?”

“We did feel something happening on that day It was a splendid day We walked over to her glade. Saw the she-bear sitting at the edge of the glade, moaning because her feelings were hurt. She kept moaning and pounding her paw on the ground with all her might. Anastasia was lying on the same spot where her mother had given birth to her, and there was this little ball of life lying on her breast. The she-wolf was licking him.”

And why was the bear moaning? How had her feelings been hurt?”

Anastasia had called the wolf over instead of her.”

“She could have gone to her on her own.”

“They do not approach Anastasia without an invitation. Just think what would happen if they all came uninvited, whenever they felt like it.”

“I wonder how she’s managing with the baby now.”

“Why don’t you go and see for yourself, if you’re inter-ested?”

“She told me I shouldn’t communicate with him until I purge myself of something. First of all I have to go ’round to the holy places. But I don’t have enough money for that.”

“Don’t go by what she said — she doesn’t always make sense. You’re the father, after all. You should do what you think best. You could buy a whole bunch of rompers and other baby clothes, packages of diapers, a little jacket, a rattle maybe, and demand that she dress the baby normally, and not make him suffer. He’s all naked out there in the forest.”

“I’ve been wanting to do that ever since I heard about my son. I will do it. As for not making sense, I think you hit the nail right on the head. That’s probably why I don’t really un-derstand my feelings toward her. First it was amazement, now some kind of feeling of respect has appeared, and something else besides which I can’t grasp hold of. But not on the order of love for a woman. I still remember the kind of feelings I had when I loved a woman before. This here’s something quite different. It’s quite possible that she cannot be loved in the ordinary sense of the word. Something gets in the way Maybe it’s her illogicality, her failure to make complete sense all the time.”

“Don’t take Anastasia’s illogicality, Vladimir, for stupidity. It is her seeming illogicality that is drawing forgotten laws out of the depths of the Universe, and possibly creating new laws.

“The forces of both light and darkness are occasionally astounded at her apparent illogicality, and then all at once the simple truth of being that everyone knows starts flaring up more brightly. Even we don’t always comprehend our Anas-tasia. Even though she’s our own granddaughter and great- granddaughter. She grew up under our very eyes. And since we don’t always understand, we are not always able to be of significant help. And so she’s often left alone with her own aspirations. Very much alone.

“Take you, for example. Here she’s gone and met with you, opened up her whole self to you, and to others, thanks to the book. We wanted to stop her. We wanted to stop her from loving. To us her choice of you seemed incomprehensible, even absurd.”

“I still don’t understand her choice myself,” I admitted. “My readers, too, wonder. ‘Who are you?’ they keep asking. ‘Why did Anastasia choose you?’ I can’t give them an answer. I realise that, according to all logic, she should be in the company of some kind of intellectually- or spiritually-minded person. He would no doubt be able to understand and love her. They could be more useful together. But me, I have to change my whole life, I have to deal with a whole lot of questions which for other more educated people have long been clear and comprehensible.”

“Do you regret now how your life has changed?”

“I don’t know I’m still trying to make sense of it all. As to why she picked me out in particular, I can’t answer that. I look for an answer but can’t find one.”

‘And how are you looking for an answer?”

“I’m trying to understand things within myself — who I reallyam.”

“Maybe there’s something special there, eh?”

“Could be there’s something there. After all, they say: like attracts like.”

“Vladimir, did Anastasia talk to you about pride and self- conceit? Did she speak about the consequences of this sin?”

“Yes, she said it was a mortal sin, leading people away from the truth.”

“Well, she didn’t pick you out, Vladimir. She didn’t pick you out, she picked you up. She picked you up like a worn-out good-for-nothing. We didn’t realise that ourselves at first. I hope you’re not too offended?”

“I don’t entirely agree with you. I had a family — a wife and a daughter, and my business wasn’t doing too badly So, I may not have been anything special, but I wasn’t at the bottom of the heap, either — not someone to pick up like a tramp or a useless piece of garbage.”

“You haven’t been in love with your wife for quite a while. YDU have your own life and interests, she has hers. It was only the daily routine that kept you together, or rather, the inertia of past feelings, which have been getting weaker and weaker over time. Neither have you had anything to talk about with your daughter. She’s not interested in your business dealings. That’s something that seemed important only to you. It brought in a financial income. But today’s income may well be nothing tomorrow, or a loss, or a bankruptcy even. And then you were ill. You practically killed your stomach. With that dissolute lifestyle of yours there was no way you could climb out of your hole of disease. It was all over. And nothing was left.”

“So what’s it to you people? What am I to her? An experi-ment? Is she looking for some kind of fringe benefit?”

“It’s simply that she’s fallen in love, Vladimir. Genuinely, sincerely, just as with everything else she does. And she’s happy that she hasn’t taken anyone out of your world capable of bringing happiness to another woman. She has not placed herself in any privileged position. She’s glad to be just like other women.”

“So, it’s just a whim of hers, eh? She wants a typical hus-band from our world — one who smokes, goes out carousing... Well, I must say, that’s quite a self-sacrifice just for a whim!” “Her love is genuine. It’s not a whim, she’s not looking for any fringe benefit. Even though she appeared illogical, at first, to the forces of both light and darkness, to us and to others, in reality she clearly illuminated the whole concept and meaning of Love. Not with words, doctrines or moral teachings, but with actual achievements in the lives of people in your world, including your own personal life. The forces of light, the forces of the Creator, speak through her Love. And not only do they speak, they show clearly as never before: Took and see, see the power of a woman, the power of pure Love.’ At the very last moment before death it is capable of giving new life. Capable of lifting up any Man, rescuing him from the tenacious paws of darkness and carrying him into the brightness of infinity Capable of surrounding him with the Space of Love and giving him a new life, which is life eternal.

“Her Love, Vladimir, will restore to you the love of your wife, the respect of your daughter. Thousands of women will look at you with fervent glances of love. You will have complete freedom of choice. And if, from all the varied mani-festations of the external appearance of love, you succeed in catching sight of that special one, Anastasia will be very hap-py In any case you will be rich and famous, there will be no possibility of bankruptcy for you. The book you have written will circulate all over the world and bring you a return — and not just a monetary return, it will give you and others a power greater than mere physical or material strength.”

“I must say,” I observed, “the book is really starting to sell quite well. But I did write it myself, even though some people say Anastasia helped me in some way. What do you think — is it just my book, or did she have a hand in writing it?”

“You did everything a writer is supposed to do. You got the paper, your hand controlled the pen and you described what happened. You put down all your deductions in your own language. You saw to the publication of the book. What you did was no different from a writer’s usual course of action.” “So, the book is mine alone? Anastasia didn’t do anything?” “No, she did not. She did not manipulate the pen on the paper.” “But you talk as though she still facilitated its appearance in some way If so, explain in more detail. What exactly did she do?”

“To make it possible for you to write this book, Vladimir, Anastasia gave her life.”

“Okay Now everything’s got obscured again. How come? How is it possible for her, living in the forest, to give her life for some book? Who is she? She herself says: Man. Other people call her an alien, or a goddess. Now that all ends up in some serious confusion. I really want to straighten this out for myself.”

“It’s all very simple, Vladimir. Man is the only creature in the Universe who can live on all planes of existence at once. In their earthly existence most people see themselves only as an earthly, materialised manifestation. But there are those who perceive other levels of being, levels invisible to the material senses.

“Calling Anastasia a goddess is not a sin against the truth. The main difference between Man and all other forms of ex-istence lies in Man’s ability to create the present and the fu-ture by his thoughts, inventing forms and images which are afterward materialised. The clarity, harmoniousness, pace of thinking and mental purity of Man as a Creator is what de-termines the future. And in this sense Anastasia is a goddess. For the pace at which she thinks, the clarity and purity of the images she formulates, are such that she alone has proved capable of withstanding the whole dark mass of opposing forces. She alone. Only there is no way of telling how long she’ll be able to hold out. She’s still waiting, believing that people will realise what is happening and will help her. Believing that they will cease producing darkness and hell.”

“Who’s producing darkness and hell?”

“Prophets who believe in and talk about the end of the world — they themselves are producing mental visualisations of the end of the world. The whole mass of teachings foretelling the ultimate doom of mankind, are hastening the day with their visualisations. There are a lot of them, a whole lot of

them. And these people have no idea, while they seek salvation for themselves and search for the Promised Land, that a hell is being prepared specifically for them.”

“But the people that are talking about the Last Judgement or a global catastrophe, they actually believe in it, they’re sincerely praying for the salvation of their souls.”

“They are motivated not by faith in the light, in the Love that is God, but by fear. And this fearful scenario is something they are fashioning for themselves. Think, Vladimir! Try to imagine. Here we are, you and I, sitting on this bench. Tou see lots of people before your eyes. All at once some of them start to go into fits of convulsion from terrible pain, as though they were sinners. All around us on the Earth millions of corpses are rotting, while you and I sit here untouched by it all and watch. It’s as though we are sitting on a bench in Paradise. But doesn’t it wrench your heart to see all the horrifying images of what’s going on? Wouldn’t it be better to die or fall asleep the moment before witnessing such tragedy?” “What if all the righteous who are saved,” I wondered aloud, “are in the Promised Land, where there are no rotting corpses around, no frightful images?”

“When you get news, even from the other side of the world, about the death of a loved one, or a relative, don’t you feel grief and sorrow in your heart?”

‘Anyone in a situation like that would surely be distressed.” “Then how can you imagine Paradise for yourself, realising that most of your fellow-countrymen, your friends and relatives, have already perished, and others are dying in frightful torment?! How hardened must a heart become, how deep a pit of gloom must it fall into, to feel pleasure under such circumstances? Such souls are not needed in the kingdom of light. For they themselves are the creatures of darkness.” “But why do the great teachers of mankind,” I queried, “— the ones who’ve put or are now putting various doctrines down

on paper — talk about the end of the world, the Last Judge-ment? Who, then, are they? Where are they leading people? Why do they talk that way?”

“It’s difficult to define precisely what they’re getting at. It’s possible they will bring about a change in people’s con-scious awareness simply because the crowds of people they draw find their ideas so attractive.”

“Those who are alive today can effect such a change,” I observed. “But what about those who came before and left their teachings for us as a legacy?”

“They might have indeed prepared the way for a change, in the hope that their followers would make the change happen and discover the truth. Perhaps they’re waiting for the course of history to show the vast majority of mankind the hopelessness of their present path, and counting on ensuing events to help them turn their followers and believers to the light.”

“If you people knew all this before, why did you sit there in the forest and remain silent all these years? Why didn’t you try to explain it to somebody earlier? Anastasia said your people have been living this way of life for generations, over thousands of years, preserving the truth about Man’s pristine origins.”

“In various corners of the Earth,” the grandfather replied, “there are people who have preserved a way of life apart from technocracy making use of capacities which are inherent only in Man. From time to time they have made attempts to share their conscious awareness with others. And each time those who tried perished before they could say anything substantial. Even though they presented powerful thought-forms and images, they were resisted by the vast majority of mankind.”

“Abu mean to say they would trample on Anastasia and crush her?”

“Anastasia has somehow managed to stand up to them. At least so far. Maybe it’s because of her illogicality!”

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