Chapter 28. Who Wants Free Cheese?
In those same years, I took a small but important technical step forward: I started using Skype. For some reason it had seemed too complicated and uncomfortable to me before — although I didn't like talking on the phone, and the idea of a video link appealed to me. Besides, I enjoyed writing letters. At some point, however, I decided it was time to give it a try. Especially since it promised to save a lot of time. I write slowly, because the on-screen keyboard is quite a handy tool, but it is no substitute for well working fingers. Conversation, on the other hand, allows you to tell in a few minutes what would take hours to write. Having tried it, I was satisfied with the result. The time saving was really huge. And seeing the interlocutor while communicating is not only pleasant, but also very important. And besides, it became possible to accept new followers into the Teaching without waiting for them to come to me.
Then my daily routine changed. Before that, for a couple of years, it had been as follows: rising at eight o'clock in the evening, talking to Hantur, writing letters and other work, then watching films in bed, and going to bed at ten o'clock in the morning. I had always been a night owl, but at that time, I fully switched to a nocturnal lifestyle. It wasn't a good environment to work in during the day. The TV in the next room, my parents talking and so on made it hard to concentrate. Night was my time. However, this regime had one side effect. I got out of bed at the end of the day, so I had time to eat only once a day. The result was that I lost a lot of weight. So much so that my neighbour, who had not seen me for several months, was afraid for my health when she met me.
This fact had a positive side. When I lost weight, it became easier for my father to move me between the wheelchair and the bed. After all, time passed, and he was getting older. He was in his 60s. On top of that, he had kidney stones. When he had an attack, he couldn't lift me. Now I weighed a little less, and under normal circumstances that played a part. However, on days when my father's illness worsened, there was no difference. So we thought about buying a hoist.
I had suggested this before, as I realised it would only get heavier from here on in. We knew that there were designs in the form of a rail attached to the ceiling above the bed. But when we started asking about the price, it turned out that this thing and its installation cost almost as much as installing a small lift. So we couldn't afford it, even in the long run. Then we found another type of hoist, simpler and much cheaper. This one we could afford, albeit grudgingly. But my parents thought it was too expensive. A couple of years later I offered to buy it again, even though the price had gone up. They refused again. When my father started having really serious kidney problems, my parents bought the hoist after all. It went up in price, costing twice as much as before, and they had to give away almost all their modest savings. Fortunately, it really made things easier. We used it when my father's kidneys seized, or on those now infrequent days when he got very drunk. Although on those occasions my father would take offence, thinking he could manage as he was, and would scandalise and threaten to break the hoist.
So my routine became different. Now I got up at three o'clock in the afternoon, read, write, Skype, then the main working hours until four in the morning, then three hours for cinema and audiobooks, and bedtime at seven. So I slept eight hours and ate twice a day.
...Meanwhile, the situation in the family was not improving. Mum was not feeling well — age (she was a year older than my father) and the physical and mental strain that had accompanied her entire life were taking their toll. She was getting weaker, she was in constant pain. It became difficult for her to even walk and she started to use a crutch of sorts. She rarely went out to sit on the bench at the entrance, and finally she stopped going out at all. Luckily it turned out that when my father stopped drinking, he became bored, and he liked to go to the shop and the market. Before, he didn't even want to buy bread and would only go for a drink. That's all changed now. So at least we didn't go without groceries.
He was also very interested in fishing. He had been interested in it before, but because of his drinking, he had completely abandoned it. Now he got new fishing gear, renewed acquaintance with a couple of his former friends, who were also fishing enthusiasts, and began to go with them periodically to the Sož and various neighbouring reservoirs. Sometimes he brought a few kilos of fish, sometimes a few fish, and sometimes nothing. Sometimes, there were unexpected catches. So, once there was a large crayfish on the hook. My father, triumphant and anticipating the treat, brought it home and asked to have it cooked. But since that would have involved throwing the crayfish into the boiling water alive, and my mother felt sorry for it, she said to my father, "If you want to eat it, boil it yourself." Father felt sorry for the crayfish too. He wanted to eat it, but he couldn't throw it into the pan. He and Mum bickered all evening, shifting the heavy mission to each other, while the prisoner sat in a big bowl, wiggling his moustache and waiting for his fate. In the end no one dared to do the cruel deed. The next day my father took the crayfish back and let it out, scolding it goodbye and telling it not to get caught again.
Anyway, the prospects was getting bleaker and bleaker. How long could things go on like this? How many more years? I was getting weaker, Mum was getting weaker. My father was holding on, but his health began to fail too. The darkness was closing in. The end of our family's existence could already be felt. Everyone realised that it wouldn't last too long. But what could be done?
...It was very hard for me in this situation. Although it was a little easier than my parents. They saw nothing ahead of them; I had hope for a change for the better. It was connected, of course, with the Teaching. I had a purpose that gave my life meaning. And it gave me some prospects. Yes, there was still no significant progress in terms of advancing the Teaching, and the deteriorating situation made it less and less likely — but I had to work. Then there was a chance. To achieve results, you have to keep going and do something.
Now the problem of not even going abroad, but simply surviving, was becoming more and more acute for me. If something happened to my parents, it would be the end for me too. None of my relatives would take care of me, and even in such a way as to create conditions for me to continue working. The only people who need me — my disciples and V.B. — will not be able to take care of me because they are separated and each has his own problems. I didn't want to burden them or anyone else with it. Therefore, I distinctly felt the cold fingers of death on my throat, tightening slowly but steadily.
Although death itself was not the biggest problem. I hadn't been afraid of it in a long time. However, so many unfinished tasks lay ahead... In fact, they were all unfinished. Barely begun. Who will be engaged in the Teaching? No one is ready to take it on, and we don't have any other Teachers yet. I have to hold on and move forward. Of course, the irreparable will happen one day. It is necessary that by that time the Teaching should be on its feet, that it should be organised, and that those who will have to work further should be prepared. This is still a long way off. So we continue to do what we can. Either we will manage to achieve something in the near future, and then everything will probably be sorted out somehow, or... Or it won't. Then everything will be over for me, and the development of the Teaching as a living and working system will be slowed down for a very long time. It's hard to imagine how long...
...The first task — to tell people about the Teaching — we solved as best we could. Amradkhari kept looking for people interested, giving them links to the site and pointing them to me as a Teacher to whom they could turn for mentoring. I got an account on the social network VKontakte, and people who wanted to become a disciple often wrote to me directly there.
At some point, thanks to Amradkhari's efforts, more and more of them started to appear, and gradually a more or less steady flow of people emerged. I was approached quite often. But what was the inflow was almost the same as the outflow. Many people applied, and only a few stayed.
For me personally, it was surprising to see how frivolous and careless many people are about such things as spiritual search. There were times when someone would write to me, saying they wished to become a disciple, but would change their mind so quickly that, after my welcoming response, they would fall silent. Or we would manage to exchange a couple of messages. I would ask the person to introduce themselves briefly, explain how they had learnt about the Teaching, and why they had decided to study it. They would reply, and then I would invite them to ask any questions they had about the Teaching or discipleship that they wanted answers to first. And that would be the end of it. No questions, not even a simple "I've changed my mind, goodbye."
The latter, by the way, completely perplexed me. All right, you wrote to me without thinking, you were in a hurry, although haste in such a matter as making a decision about spiritual discipleship is strange in itself. But can you at least say goodbye? Didn't they teach you to say goodbye as well as hello? Apparently almost no one was taught, because few people gave themselves the trouble to say "Goodbye", let alone explain their refusal to communicate or apologise for bothering them. They just disappeared. It may be a small thing. However, it is a very telling small thing. If a person does not consider it necessary to observe even the most basic norms of politeness in communication, it says something about his attitude to other people. It's just sad to see such a thing.
There were times when communication went a little further. We would correspond for a few days, the potential disciple and I would clarify the questions we were interested in, I would talk about how the training process was going, we would agree on regular correspondence or video calls — and then he or she would disappear.
In almost all such and similar cases it was clear that none of them knew anything about the Teaching. Amradkhari gave everyone a link to our website, or even specifically to her "Diary". This text explained a lot, could help a potential disciple to orientate and decide whether he or she wanted to study or not. It was possible to read something else — an article about the Teaching, a collection of questions and answers about it, the pandect texts, finally. It would have been natural and even necessary to do this before applying to become a disciple. Applying blindly, without any idea of where you are going to end up, is strange to say the least. I wouldn't do that. They did. Perhaps they read something afterwards and realised that they were in a hurry and the Teaching was not exactly what they needed. That's why they disappeared. Later on, I began to specify every time whether my vis-a-vis had read anything. I was usually told that no. Then I gave links to introductory materials, offering to read them and then write to me again, if the desire to learn did not disappear. As a rule, it did. Sometimes they even explained to me what it was that they didn't like. Usually it was either that the Teaching did not allow mixing elements of different worldviews, or that the authority of the Teacher was great in it. Both claims contradicted logic, common sense, and the long-standing principles of discipleship. It was very strange to see people looking for a mentor and a spiritual path, but not wanting to trust the mentor or stick to the chosen path. All in all, it was much the same as it was back in the days when we used to put adverts in the newspapers.
Although, along with the two reasons mentioned above, another reason was given. Not so often, but nevertheless. It was that in the Teaching no one was asked for money. I was asked how much I charge for teaching, and I replied that it was free. People asked if followers had to pay tithes or other compulsory contributions, and I said no. They asked how often voluntary donations should be made, and I replied that no one asks for donations. And then they would say to me, "Something is not clean here. Free cheese is only in a mousetrap. No one is going to waste their time and energy on others for nothing. There's some kind of trick here." Distrust was born. There were other times when I was told, "Everything that is really valuable costs money. No one gives away value for free. So your teaching is some rubbish, not worthy of attention." They said this instead of personally familiarising themselves with the Teaching — at least through the publicly available texts — and forming their own opinion about it.
I have never ceased to be amazed by such judgements since I first heard them. It's a paradoxical thing... It is common to judge those who charge disciple money. They are accused of profiting from gullible people, and of demanding payment for knowledge that should be in the public domain. But when they are not profiting from them and offering knowledge for free — just learn — that is, doing what they think is right, they cannot believe it. Either they fear the trap and run away, or they disregard what is given for free.
A tragic contradiction. How the souls of people are soaked with fear, distrust and the conviction that nothing truly good and valuable is given for free, simply out of a desire to share... Truly, such people live in a scary world... And they may never know they were wrong. They may never find out because when they see the opposite, they don't believe it. And they don't dare to test it.
...Nevertheless, some of those who wrote to me still decided to study and stayed. Our little community gradually grew. At one point there were twelve of us — those who had already entered the Teaching and those who had not yet entered but had been studying for at least a few months. Of course, twelve people is not twelve thousand. But for us, who had always been two, three, at most four, it was a notable achievement. There were those who, after a little bit of study, left. Others came to take their place.
Among them, for example, there was a girl who practised the occult, in its most profane form, collecting and using a little bit of everything from everywhere. She left because she did not understand why the Teaching did not use fortune-telling — for example, runes — and other practices belonging to different spiritual traditions, religions, and so on. Accustomed to mixing incongruous things, she could not get her head round the simple fact that the worldview of the Teaching did not include all that she accepted as reality. There are no those gods, there are no those principles, no that symbolism, etc. She had not been able to part with her previous perceptions.
There was a middle-aged man who had previously belonged to a sect and was engaged in collecting information about the followers that was useful to the sect. This man was afraid to trust anyone and was hesitant to reveal anything about himself, apparently assuming from his own experience that we were the same way. Eventually paranoia drove him to leave.
There was a guy who was not comfortable recognising the authority of the Teacher. He hung in there for a while. But one day, when he didn't like something about the worldview of the Teaching, and I told him it was so whether we wanted it to be or not, he flared up: "Why does everyone have to agree with you? Do you want slaves?" I realised that from that point on, anything I said to him would be understood to mean that I was trying to enslave him — so I stopped communicating with him. It was the only way to show him that he was wrong. I don't know if I succeeded. But some time later he wrote to me that he would like to donate money to the Teaching on a regular basis. I refused for obvious reasons.
There was also a girl who simply treated discipleship negligently and did not even try to follow the Teaching in anything, and deliberately acted contrary to it. I simply kicked her out of the discipleship, saying that if she really did not want to learn, she had nothing to do here. She took offence.
But there were those who stayed and joined the Teaching.
There was a girl who took the name of Tashfara. A former Orthodox Christian, like Amradkhari, she too stopped finding answers to her questions in religion and went on a spiritual search. Amradkhari's "Diary" helped her to come to the Teaching. After reading it, she did not decide to study immediately, but eventually she wrote to me.
A guy named Roman was interested in various predictions. Having found that many of them speak about the emergence in Russia or in the post-Soviet space of a true teaching, which is either about to appear or already exists, he began to search for it purposefully. And when he found the TUT, he did not doubt that this is it. Personally, I'm sceptical about predictions of any kind, — but it's an interesting case in itself.
We were joined by a man ten years older than me, a former law enforcement officer, retired from the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs. He had never believed in God, mysticism, or the supernatural, but he felt the need to find answers to questions about the meaning of life, the purpose of man, and other things that science could not say anything intelligible about. He immediately realised that the Teaching was not a religion and that everything it spoke about should be perceived not in a religious, but in a completely different way. He also found here the answers to his questions. He entered the Teaching under the name Endekatos Hoplites, that is, the Eleventh Warrior, because at the time of his arrival there were ten of us. It seems that he was the only one who learnt about the Teaching not from Amradkhari, but found our website himself.
There was a woman, also ten years older than me, in the Teaching — Mirna. She had something to do with the world of psychics and sorcerers in her life and had some abilities herself. Tired of the vanity and worldview mishmash that reigned in this sphere, and wanting to see a direct, concrete and unambiguous spiritual path that would explain reality well, she searched for and found the Teaching.
There were four of us — me, Hantur, Amradkhari and Alex — four more joined the Teaching, the rest dropped out one way or another. Now there were eight of us, — and this was a new situation.
What can be called a community, albeit a small one, had emerged. The peculiarity of it was that it was scattered in different countries and cities. We had to learn to see ourselves as one community. Despite modern means of communication, which not only simplify correspondence, not only make it possible to call each other at any time, but also allow us to communicate via video link, practically face to face, it was not so easy. It's not easy to become one family, being scattered around the world, and with everyone under the pressure of their own problems. Nevertheless, we worked on it.
In addition, we worked on developing the Teaching and bringing them to the people. Several new projects appeared.
One of them was the launching of a channel of the Teaching on YouTube. Endekatos Hoplites took over this task. He administered the channel, edited and uploaded the videos that I recorded. This was something new for me. I had a lot of communication experience — but mostly face to face. This is the specificity of a Teacher's work with disciples, each of whom tells something about themselves, asks for advice, and sometimes reveals themselves in a way that he or she could not reveal to anyone else. This does not imply the presence of a large audience. That's why I'm used to talking with closed doors. I have addressed all people in general — but in writing. In fact, not only individual messages, but the whole pandect became such an address. However, speaking to a large audience from a screen was indeed new and unusual. I had to learn, to get used to it. It was not easy. I wanted to do the best I could, but it turned out that I was always dissatisfied. I spent hours on each clip, doing dozens of takes. In the end I had to put up with the unsatisfactory result and record as it turned out. I recorded at night, in my home environment, on a webcam, under normal lighting. The quality of the video sequence was correspondingly poor. We didn't have the opportunity to do high-quality studio shooting, or even just use chroma key. The clips were slightly embellished only by modest intros provided by Endekatos Hoplites.
The channel was launched in the spring of 2016. The first videos with my poems (just text on the screen) and a series of forty recorded lectures on the Teaching appeared on it. The lectures were very difficult for me. Then I got more or less used to it, things got easier, and the content became more varied.
In the autumn of the same year, we had another resource, important in its own right, but at the same time especially dear to my heart, because it was the fulfilment of a long-held dream.
It was an electronic journal. I've already mentioned how I used to make handwritten newspapers and magazines in my school days, and I've mentioned that the idea of producing a printed publication of some kind has been on my mind ever since. I nurtured it for many years. And now the journal was born. It was called "Our Space", was defined by us as a spiritual-cognitive, and was intended to tell about the Teaching and to cover various phenomena of life and events from its point of view. At first it had eight rubrics, but in the course of time the number increased to thirteen. The journal was a website made by Hantur where articles were posted. When there were enough articles to create an issue, Hantur would put a cover picture on the issue and make it available as a downloadable PDF file. The issues were smaller and more frequent at first, then became less frequent, but became more voluminous.
The journal grew out of a failed blog. I had started one, but had only a few articles to publish when it gave up. The reason was problems with the company that owned the server. There was no desire to restore it. But there was an idea to expand the project and turn it into an electronic journal. The articles that had time to appear in the blog were included in the first issue.
I wrote almost all the materials. It was a great pleasure. Although I have to admit that I made a serious mistake here. I was counting on the fact that our team, consisting of intelligent and creative people, would take a more active part in filling the journal with content. However, this was not the case. The participation of others has been very meagre, and I have had to work almost alone, with few exceptions. To date, I have written about 700 articles of various sizes for "Our Space".
Over time, the journal became a valuable database on the Teaching. It practically turned into an encyclopedia of its worldview, principles, ethics, internal structure, and its approach to life and various aspects of it. Its materials cover various topics, give their analysis, show details and nuances, allow to structure information better. There are many things in it that are not covered in the current three books of the pandect, or that are covered there in a very general way, or that are touched upon in passing. It has therefore become our second main source, along with the pandect.
We have had various troubles here too, from server problems to a hacker attack that took down the journal's website. But we manage to overcome them. The journal continues to live and to be updated with materials, albeit not at the same pace as in the first years of its existence.
...By early 2017, the course of my life had changed quite markedly. Now it was a new daily routine, Skype conversations — usually two hours, less often an hour, one or two a day, sometimes three — email correspondence (though reduced to a minimum), writing articles for the journal, recording videos for the channel at night. And I still need to read, and write something else, and so on.... It was just wonderful. My days were fully occupied, time always seemed to be short, it flew fast, everything was exciting. The feeling of being active, and not meaningless but important, the feeling of a grandiose work being done right now, with your own hands, is something incredible.
True, there was no more time to watch Brazilian serials and snooker with my mum. But there's nothing you can do about that... I always realised that once my life's work got going, it would fill all my time. And I loved it. Because the Teaching is my life. It's the only thing where it can be the fullest. Full of joy, novelty, meaning and creative labour that gives great satisfaction. I felt good no matter what. No life problems, even those that caused great pain, could outweigh this joy. Nor could it exhaust the strength it gave me.
However, one could speak only very cautiously of the matter gaining momentum. The Teaching simply had a few more followers, and a few new resources on the Internet. Plus a book, which has been out for several years since its publication. And this is two decades after the founding of the Teaching. Essentially, we were still banging our heads against the wall, which relentlessly stood in our way, no matter which direction we turned.
And the disciples who had come recently and wondered why there were so few people in the Teaching were again surprised at the same thing. But it was a different kind of astonishment. They said, "There is so much nonsense in the world that finds crowds of followers — yet our Teaching, rational, ethical, and well-explained, has almost none. How come?" What could one answer to that?.. There are many reasons. One of them is that it has few followers precisely because it is so. Because it's not rubbish. It's come into a world where something very different is in demand. People are demanding to be told what they want to hear, not to be told what's real. And they have to be told that everything has a meaning and that their desires are not the ultimate authority. Reality is a very tough thing. And when choosing between it and a comfortable illusion, many people choose the latter.
And another of the main reasons is that the Teaching does not resort to impure methods. It does not lure anyone with seductive promises, promising a solution to all problems and personal material prosperity. It does not lie by saying what would be pleasant for the public to hear. It does not justify anyone's vices and crimes. Does not pull money from anyone to pay for his activities. Does not flirt with anyone, does not flatter, does not compromise, and does not deviate from its principles. We act with clean hands. And it's very difficult to succeed acting this way. And that's putting it mildly.
...As for my physical condition, it had been as I described at the beginning for several years. I had become so weak that I could only work with two fingers on a small trackball mouse (only one very model suited me, I could no longer cope with the others). If my head fell on my chest, I couldn't lift it myself and had to call for help. And so on. Consequently, life and work became even more complicated.
Internal changes continued as well. Unlike the physical ones, they were for the better. How many years had passed since the revelation, and I was constantly realising new things, and these realisations sometimes made me literally wake up as a different person. There have been times when this has had an unexpected effect on my perception of myself.
For example, in my early youth, during my school years, I thought I was very smart. At one time I even felt that people around me did not understand me well because of this, and so I tried to express myself in a simpler way. Fortunately, this did not turn into arrogance, and it was over rather quickly. In the following years, my assessment of my own mental abilities became more and more critical. Unsuccessful literary endeavours played a certain role here. The next step in this direction was the revelation. Without being aware of the background of what was going on, I was genuinely wondering why Emere had not found someone smarter to carry out such a large and complex case. Further, as the grandiose picture of the world according to the Teaching unfolded before me in all its scope and depth, the more I learnt and understood, the clearer I saw how little I knew and understood. My mind in my eyes kept shrinking and shrinking, as if turning into a point, getting lost against the background of the opening expanses.
It really felt as if the more I learnt, the less I knew. It was only natural. After all, behind everything I learnt, new distances and depths were opening up. At some point I began to understand more clearly people who, being prominent philosophers, thinkers, etc., claimed to know very little, almost nothing. And also those who, while distinguished by honourable and even righteous lives, described themselves as very imperfect, great sinners. It used to seem like hypocrisy to me, a kind of spiritual coquetry. Now I realise that when you have at least a rough idea of what a real man should be like, then you realise how far you are from it. And you are, no matter how good you are. Against the background of what should be, you look, to put it mildly, not very presentable.
These two realisations, regarding the modesty of the own mind and personal qualities, along with a few other things, have served to inoculate me well against conceit. When you see yourself as an increasingly foolish and imperfect person from year to year, it doesn't feel very compelling to turn up your nose. I hope it stays that way. And if things change in the opposite direction, it will probably mean I've lost my mind.
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