8. The answer

“What’s all the big excitement about some kind of eagle?” “The eagle will be very much needed for the little one,” she answered. “For our baby, Vladimir!”

“To play with?”

“Yes. Only play has a considerable significance for his fu-ture learning and feelings.”

“I see.”

I said this, even though I didn’t fully understand this busi-ness of playing with a bird, even an eagle.

“But what were you doing with the cedar? Were you pray-ing, or talking with someone? What happened with you and the cedar, and why did Great-Grandfather seem so severe when he talked with you?”

“Tell me, Vladimir, do you think there is, well, some kind of intelligence out there? Does there exist a Mind in the invis-ible world of the cosmic — in the Universe? What do you think?”

“I think it’s true. You know, even scholars talk about that, as do mediums, and the Bible.”

‘And this something — what would you say is the best word to describe it? I need to know this so that you and I can agree upon a definition. Say, for example, Mind, Intelligence, Being, Forces of Light, Vacuum, Absolute, Rhythm, Spirit, God...?” “Well, let’s say £God’.”

‘All right, then. Now tell me, does God attempt to com-municate with Man, what do you think? I do not mean by a

voice from heaven, but through people, through the Bible, let us say — to offer a hint on how to be more happy?”

“But the Bible was not necessarily dictated by God.”

“Well, by whom, then, would you say?”

“People could have done that — people who wanted to invent religion. They sat down and wrote it collectively”

“You think it is that simple? People just sat down and wrote a book, and thought up narratives and laws? A book that has lasted for millennia and is the most popular and widely read book that has existed to date?! Over the centu-ries a whole multitude of other books have been written, but few of them can compare with the Bible. What does that mean to you?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. ‘Ancient books, of course, have been around for a long time, but most people today prefer contemporary literature — novels, detective stories and all sorts of inferior stuff. Why is that so?”

“Because reading them hardly requires any thinking. In reading the Bible one is obliged to think at a faster pace and there are many questions one must answer for one’s self. Only then will it become clear. It unfolds itself, so to speak, to one’s consciousness. If one looks upon the Bible merely as a statement of dogma, then reading and memorising a few commandments is sufficient. But any dogma imposed from without and not grasped by one’s inner being precludes taking advantage of the opportunities afforded Man as Creator.” “What questions do we need to answer when we read the Bible?”

“To begin with,” replied Anastasia, “you might try to figure out why Pharaoh was unwilling to allow the children of Israel to leave Egypt.”

“Well, what’s there to think about? The Israelites were slaves in Egypt. Who would want to let his slaves go? They worked hard and brought Pharaoh a good income.”

“The Bible says that more than once the Israelites brought a plague over the whole land of Egypt. They even killed peo-ple’s first-born offspring, along with those of animals. Sorcer-ers were later burnt at the stake for such acts, but here Phar-aoh simply refused to let them go. Now answer the question: where did the Israelite slaves get enough goods and cattle to spend forty years travelling? Where did they get the weapons to seize and destroy cities along their route?”

tcWhat do you mean, where? Didn’t God give them everything?” “Do you think that was only God’s doing?”

“Then who?”

“Man, Vladimir, has full freedom. He has the opportunity to make use of all the bright resources God gave him origi-nally, but he can make use of other resources too. Man rep-resents a union of opposites.

“See, Vladimir, how the Sun shines. That is God’s creation. It is for everyone. For you and me, for the snakes, the grass and the flowers. But bees use the flowers to get honey, while the spider’s power is to draw poison. Each of them has its own function and no bee and no spider can do otherwise. Only Man has a wider scope, only Man can act in more than one way! One Man can rejoice at the first rays of the Sun, while another might curse. Man, you see, can be both a bee and a spider.” “Does that mean God wasn’t the only one helping the Israelites? How can you tell, then, what God actually did, as opposed to what was merely attributed to Him?”

“When something significant is created through Man,” Anastasia explained, “there are always two opposites at work. Man exercises freedom of choice. Which he will accept more of depends upon his purity and conscious awareness.”

“Well, all right, let’s accept that. So, you were attempting to talk with Him when you were standing at the base of the cedar?” “Yes, I wanted Him to answer me.”

‘And Great-Grandfather objected?”

“Great-Grandfather thought that I was speaking too irrev-erently, that I was too demanding.”

“You really were demanding, I saw it. You were stamping your feet, and pleading. What on earth did you want?”

“I wanted to hear an answer.”

“What sort of answer?”

“Y)u see, Vladimir, God’s essence is not in the flesh. He cannot yell down to everyone from heaven, telling them how to live. But He wants things to be fine and whole with everyone, and so he sends His Sons — people into whose mind and soul He has been able to break through at least to some extent.

“His Sons then go and talk with other people, they speak different languages. Sometimes through words, sometimes with the help of music or pictures, or various actions. Some-times they are listened to, at other times they are persecuted and killed. Like Christ Jesus, for example. And still God is sending forth His Sons. But as always, it is only some of the people who pause and listen to them, while others who are called do not get the message at all. And they violate the laws of a happy existence.”

“I see. And that’s why God will punish mankind by a global catastrophe — some kind of fearful judgement?”

“God never punishes anyone, and He does not need catas-trophes. God is Love. But that is the way it was planned from the very beginning. Created that way from above. When mankind reaches a specific point, one might say, in its unwillingness to accept the essence of truth. Once the elements of darkness manifest in Man reach that critical point, in order to avert total self-annihilation, a global catastrophe rushes in which takes away a great many people’s lives and crushes the destructive life-support system of artificial creation. The catastrophe serves as a lesson to those who are left alive.

“Following a catastrophe there is a window of time in which mankind seems to go through a fearful hell. But it is a hell of their own making. It is those who are left alive that fall into this hell. Then for a while their children survive as in a pristine, original state, and they eventually reach a stage one could call Paradise. Then they fall away again, and it all starts over again in tears. This has been going on for billions of earthly years.”

“If all this has been inevitably repeating itself for billions of years, what then were you asking for?”

“I wanted to find out how and by what means people could be made wiser without subjecting them to a catastrophe. You see, I have figured out that a catastrophe can be blamed not only on those who do not accept truth, but also on the absence of a sufficiently effective means of making the truth be seen, of making people alert to the truth. I was asking Him to find such a means. To reveal it, either to me or someone else. To whom, I feel, is not really important. What is important is that it is there to be seen, and that it works.”

‘And what did He tell you? What kind of voice does He have?”

“Nobody can tell what kind of voice He has. His answer takes form, as it were, in Man’s discovery of a thought spon-taneously occurring to himself. After all, He can speak only through His particle that is present in every Man, and this particle is already relaying information to every other part of the individual with the help of the rhythm of vibration. Hence the impression arises that Man is doing it all by him-self. Though Man himself can actually do a great deal. After all, Man is God’s likeness. In each Man there is a tiny particle breathed into him by God right at birth. He has given half of Himself to mankind upon the Earth. And the forces of darkness try by whatever means they can to prevent this God- reflected particle from acting out its high purpose, to distract Man from communication with it, and, through it, with God. It is much easier to fight with a small particle when it is all alone, especially if it is not connected to the Basic Force of the Universe.

“But if these particles unite amongst themselves in bright aspirations, it is much more difficult for the forces of dark-ness to hinder them. Even if one single particle, living in just one single Man, is in fall contact with God, then it is impos-sible for the forces of darkness to overpower him, to defeat his spirit and mind.”

“That means,” I surmised, “you appealed to Him so that the answer would be given birth in you as to what to say to people, and how to say it, in order to avert a global catastrophe?”

“More or less.”

‘And what answer was given birth in you? What words must be spoken?”

“Words... just words alone, pronounced in the usual way, are not sufficient. So many words have been spoken already Yet humanity on the whole continues to move toward its own perdition.

“You have no doubt heard words to the effect that smok-ing is bad, that alcoholic drinks are bad. And this is repeated by a number of sources, including your own physicians, in the language you best understand, yet you still go on doing it. You go on doing it without regard for the deterioration in your own health, and even painful sensations will not restrain either you or many other people from these destructive habits. God says to you: ‘You should not do that.’ And the message reaches you through pain. And it is not just your pain, but His too, and yet you take painkillers galore and go on doing your own thing as before. Again, you are not interested in thinking about what produces the pain.

‘And all the other higher truths are known to mankind, but they are not being acted upon. Time after time they are rejected in favour of momentary illusory gratifications. It means another way must be revealed to allow them not only to know but also to feel other kinds of pleasure. Once Man has learnt of these, he can compare and realise everything for himself, he will unblock access to the God-bestowed particle within him. It is no good simply threatening Man with a catastrophe, it is no good simply blaming those who do not accept truth. Everyone who brings the truth to others must understand how needful it is to seek a more perfect method of explaining it. Great-Grandfather agreed with me.”

“But that’s not what he said.”

“There was a lot that Great-Grandfather said that you did not hear.”

“If you were able to communicate with each other without words, why then did you say the words that I did hear?” “Would you not consider it offensive if people conversed using foreign words you could not understand, given that they knew your language too?”

Various thoughts ran through my mind: Either I believe everything she tells me or I don’t. She herself, of course, believes. And it’s not just that she believes it, she acts upon it. She takes it all so intensely — maybe I should try to somehow restrain her enthusiasm. So I tried to dampen her fervour by saying:

“You know what I think, Anastasia — maybe you don’t need to take it so to heart and get so stirred up with your de-mands, as you were doing at the cedar tree. Even the blue glow or vapour from the cedar came crushing down on you. Wur grandfather and great-grandfather were right to be con-cerned. It’s probably very dangerous. If God has not given the answer to any of His Sons as to how to explain everything to people most effectively, that means there is no answer. It means that a global catastrophe is the most effective way of getting His message across. Maybe He’s even annoyed with you for poking your nose in too far and will punish you so you won’t do it again, just like your grandfather said.”

“God is kind. He will not punish.”

“But He isn’t speaking to you either. Maybe He’s not in-terested in listening to you, and meanwhile you’re wasting so much energy”

“He is listening and He is answering.”

“What is He answering? Is there something new you know now?

“He has hinted at where to find the answer, where to search for it.”

“He’s ‘hinted’? To you?! So, where is it?”

“In the union of opposites.”

“What does that mean?”

“It happens, for example, when two opposite extremes of human thinking in the Avatamsaka commentary merge into a new dynamic whole. This was behind the philosophies of Hua-yen and Kegon, which offer a world-view of even greater perfection, not unlike the models and theories in your modern physics.”

“What was all that?”

“Oh, please do excuse me. I do not know what came over me. I completely forgot myself.”

“What are you apologising for?”

“You must forgive me. I used words which are completely unfamiliar to you.”

“You’re right. They are unfamiliar. I have no idea what they mean.”

“I shall try not to do that again. Please, do not be angry with me.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not angry Only explain in ordinary words where and how you will go about searching for this answer.”

“I certainly cannot do it alone. It can only be known through the joint effort of the divine particles to be found in various people living on the Earth — people with opposite modes of thinking and comprehension. Only through a joint effort will it be seen, and then in a dimension invisible to the eye — the domain of thoughts. One can also call it the di-mension of the forces of light. It exists between the material world, in which Man lives, and God.

“I shall see it, and many others will, too. Then it will be easier to attain a universal conscious awareness. It will be easier to bring mankind through the dark forces’ window of time. And the catastrophes will not be repeated.”

“Specifically, what do people need to do right now to make the answer appear?”

“It would be fine if a lot of people could wake up in the morning at a set time — six o’clock, say — and think about something good. What specifically they think about is not important. It is important that they come out with bright thoughts. They can think about their children, about their loved ones, about how to make everyone happy If they could only think fifteen minutes like that. And the more people that do that, the quicker the answer will come. The Earth’s time zones may be different, since the Earth is turning, but the images created by these people’s bright yearnings will merge into a single, clear, fulfilled image of conscious aware-ness. The simultaneity of bright thoughts will intensify each person’s ability many, many times.”

“Oh, Anastasia, how naive you are! Who in their right mind would wake up at six o’clock in the morning just to think for fifteen minutes? People will only get up that early if they have to go to work, or have a plane to catch, or are going on a business trip. Anybody else will decide: ‘Leave the thinking to others, I’m going to get some more sleep!’ I doubt you’ll find many helpers that way”

“But you, Vladimir — could not you, at least, help me?” “Me? I don’t wake up that early unless I have to. But if I should somehow find myself waking up then, what good things should I think about?”

“Well, for example, you could think about the little son I will be giving birth to. Your son! Think how delighted he will be to be kissed by the Sun’s rays, to see the pure and magnificent flowers all around him, and have the bushy-tailed squirrel play with him in this glade. Think how good it would be if all the other children in the world could forever be kissed by the warm Sun — then nothing would make them sad. Then think about who you might say something glad to or give a smile to during the day ahead. And how good it would be if this marvellous world lasted forever, and what you could do — you in particular — to bring this about.”

“I’ll think about our son. And I’ll try to come out with other good thoughts. Only what’s the point? You’ll be think-ing here, in the forest, while I’ll be in an apartment in the city. That’s only two of us. You say many people are needed. So until we get a lot of people involved, isn’t it pointless for just the two of us to try?”

“Even one person, Vladimir, is more than none. Two to-gether are more than two apart. Later, after you write your book, more people will come along. I shall feel them and de-light in each one. We shall learn to catch each other’s feelings of the heart, understand and help each other through the dimension of the forces of light.”

“Everything you say still has to be believed. I myself don’t com- pletelybelieve in this ‘bright dimension’, this ‘domain of thoughts’. Y)u can’t even prove it exists, because you can’t touch it.”

“Yet your scientists have come to the conclusion that thought is something tangible.”

“They have, but since you still can’t actually touch it, it’s not something you can get completely set in your mind.”

“But when you write your book, people will be able to touch it, they can hold it in their hands. Like a materialised thought.” ‘Again you’re carrying on about that book! I’ve told you, I don’t believe in it either. Even less in your claim that you, with the help of certain combinations of letters known only to you, can arouse feelings in the reader — bright feelings yet, that will help the reader make some sense of it all.”

“I told you how it works.”

“Yes, you told me. But it still doesn’t make me believe. If I try to write, I shan’t tell everything all at once. People will laugh at me... You know something, Anastasia, can I tell you in all honesty?”

“Yes, tell me in all honesty”

“Only don’t be offended, okay?”

“I shall not be offended.”

“Everything you’ve talked up to me I’m going to have to verify with our scholars, and see what they say about it in various religious and modern teachings. There’s a lot of different courses out there now, a lot of preachers.”

“Go ahead and verify, by all means.”

‘And still, I feel you’re a very kind person. Your philosophy is interesting, quite unusual. But if you compare your actions with those of others who are concerned about the soul, about ecology, well, frankly, you’re way behind the rest.”

“Why should you conclude that?”

“Think about it. All the enlightened people, as you call them, have gone off by themselves at some point. Buddha went off for seven years into the forest and set up a whole doctrinal platform, and he has a lot of followers throughout the world. Christ Jesus went off just for forty days, and even now people are excited about his teachings.”

“Christ Jesus went off by himself more than once,” Anas-tasia pointed out. ‘And he did a lot of thinking when he was travelling about.”

“So let’s say more than forty days, let’s say a year even. The elders, who are now considered saints, were ordinary people who went into the forest to live in isolation for a time, then later monasteries were built on these sites, and a lot of followers arose, right?”

“Yes, Vladimir, you are right.”

“And here you’ve been living twenty-six years now in the forest, and you don’t even have a single follower. You haven’t come up with any platform. And here you’re asking me to write a book. You’re grasping at that like a straw. You dream of laying out your own combinations of signs in it. Well, if things aren’t working out for you like with other leaders, maybe it’s not even worth trying. There are others more capable than you who may well think up something without your input. Come on, why not get real and live more simply? I’ll help you adapt in our world. Now, you’re not offended, eh?”

“No, I am not offended.”

“Then I’ll tell you the whole truth, right to the end. To help you get a hold of yourself.”

“Go on.”

“You have some extraordinary abilities, Anastasia, there’s no doubt about that. You can pick up any information you want as easily as counting one-two-three. But tell me now, when did you first become aware of that Ray of yours?”

“It was given to me right at the start, as it is to everybody Only my awareness of it, and how to use it — that was some-thing Great-Grandfather taught me by the time I was six.” “So. That means at six years of age you were already able to see what was going on in our lives? You could analyse situa-tions, help people — even treat illnesses at a distance?”

“Yes, I could.”

“Now, tell me, what have you been doing all the twenty years since?”

“I have been telling you and showing you. I have been working with the people you call dachniks. Trying to help them.” ‘All these twenty years, day in and day out?”

“Yes, sometimes even at night, if I was not too tired.”

“So, you’ve been acting like an obsessed fanatic, stubbornly holding on to the dachniks all these years? Who made you do this?”

“Nobody can make me. I did it of my own free will. After Great-Grandfather suggested it to me, I realised for myself what a good thing, how important it was.”

“You know, I think your great-grandfather suggested the dachniks to you because he felt sorry for you. After all, you grew up without your parents. He gave you the very easiest and simplest task. Now that he’s seen you’ve begun to understand something greater, he’s given you permission to work with other things. And to drop the dachniks.”

“But this other is connected with the people you call dachniks. And I shall continue to help them. I love them very much and I shall never abandon them.”

“Now that’s what I call fanaticism. There’s something in you that you don’t have enough of to be a normal person. You must understand that. The dachniks are far from being the most important people in our society. They have abso-lutely no influence at all over social development. Dachas and vegetable gardens — they’re just small subsistence plots. It’s where people go to relax after their hard work or when they go into retirement. And that’s all. You understand? That’s it! And if you, with all your colossal knowledge and phenomenal abilities, are only interested in dachniks, then you must have some kind of psychological disorder. I think I ought to take you to a psychotherapist. If you can get that disorder cured, then just maybe you’ll really be in a position to help society.”

“I very much want to help society”

“So then, let’s go — I’ll take you to a practising psycho-therapist at a good private clinic. You yourself said a global catastrophe could happen. This way you’ll be able to help ecological movements, you’ll be able to help science.”

“But I shall be an even greater help if I stay here.”

‘All right, you can come back here later and start getting involved in more serious issues.”

“What do you mean, ‘more serious?”

“You decide. Probably something connected, for example, with heading off an ecological disaster or a global catastrophe. By the way, do you have any idea when the latter might occur?” “There are localised disasters happening even now in various parts of the Earth. Mankind has been preparing everything and more for its own destruction for a long time now.” “But when will it happen on a global scale — when will the apocalypse come?”

“It might occur in 2002, for example. But it can be pre-vented, or delayed, as happened in 1992.”

“YDU mean to say it might have come to pass in 1992?” “Yes, but they delayed it.”

“Who are ‘they? Who averted it? Who delayed it?”

‘A catastrophe on a global scale in 1992 was averted thanks to the dachniks.”

“Wha-a-at?!”

“There are all sorts of people all over the world who are working against global disaster. The 1992 catastrophe did not happen mainly thanks to the Russian dachniks.”

‘And you... that means you!... Even at six years old you were aware of the dachniks’ significance? You foresaw it? You worked non-stop. You helped them.”

“I understood the dachniks’ significance, Vladimir.”

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