Chapter 15. When Ignorance is Good
It took time to learn to speak more or less freely about the Teaching. At first it was very difficult psychologically. The reason was not only and not so much the need to expound the worldview itself. It turned out to be the least of the problems. As soon as the information was sufficiently arranged and systematised in my head, it became much easier to retell it. After a few times, I developed a certain skill, and then a habit. Especially since telling things had been a common thing for me since childhood. The difficulty lay in two other things.
The first was that I had to declare myself a prophet. And it was hard to get used to thinking of myself that way, and now I had to tell others about it... I can imagine how such statements looked. It is one thing to refer to someone as the main authority, and quite another to recommend oneself as such. Here, pointing to the God of Wisdom does not work as a lightning rod. Rather the opposite. " You see, I'm a prophet. And not just anyone's, mind you, but the very prophet of the God of Wisdom." — sounds, to put it mildly, a bit pretentious. Telling people such things has always been extremely awkward. Even in letters. Even more so, to emphasize in personal conversations. At such moments, I always wanted to hide somewhere. I still have that feeling even now, although it has been softened, again, by years of habit. But back then, at least during the conversation with Nosey, when my prophetic status was used as an argument, it was very difficult for me.
The second point is that the Teaching appeared at a critical time for the world, to help people to change and overcome the crisis. It had come before, but in a limited form — sometimes for a narrow, sometimes for a rather wide, but still closed circle of initiates. And the crises were not like the present one. Now mankind is under the threat of complete self-destruction, the world is on the verge of doom. A situation that requires urgent measures. Therefore, the Teaching is now given openly, to all people, as a means to overcome the difficult situation and as a help in the further development of human civilisation. And that also sounds very pretentious. As if — well, another saviour of the world has appeared. Nobody have no way to save it, and now he with his Teaching will take and save... Realising that it can cause such a reaction, one does not feel too comfortable. And although the Teaching is given not as a miraculous remedy that will transform everyone and everything overnight, if you only believe in it, but as a path on which everyone will have to work to transform themselves and the world — this does not change much. To understand that the situation with the Teaching is not quite as it seems at first sight, you need to look at it, understand it, get into it. People are often inclined to follow the first impression.
On the other hand, many people are looking for a miracle remedy to change the world or at least themselves. That is why they believe various fraudsters promising quick solutions to personal and general problems. Such people may rejoice at the appearance of the Teaching. But it will disappoint them very soon. Almost immediately. Because it does not offer such solutions. It offers to work — together, hard and long — while pointing out the direction for making efforts and providing with the necessary tools. So such people are hardly the audience of the Teaching.
In general, everything was very difficult from the very beginning. Some of the difficulties we saw and understood at that time — to a greater or lesser extent — some were discovered later. But, one way or another, something had to be done. And in the process we learnt to do it correctly.
...They wrote to us a lot, and it would take a long time to tell, especially if you remember everything. I don't remember everything. We destroyed the archive of letters, which was a big box. Besides, not everything that has survived in my memory deserves attention. So I will tell only about some of those with whom I had a chance to communicate. Among them there were very interesting personalities, and sometimes just curious characters like Nosey.
Among the correspondents with whom things didn’t go beyond letters, there was, for example, a girl who refused to acknowledge as occultists those who were not followers of Blavatsky. It is difficult to say what she meant by occultism. I had no time to find out, as she interrupted communication. She had an incredibly jealous husband. According to her, if he found out that a strange man was writing to her, it would be a scandal and divorce. Despite the fact that the letters were exclusively about spiritual and occult matters. Later it turned out that she wrote not only to me, and also interrupted correspondence for fear of her husband's jealousy. A curious and sad situation. She desperately needed such communication, and had started it time after time — but stopped for fear of losing her marriage. A painful conflict from which it is hardly possible to emerge unscathed. It probably didn't end well for her in the end.
People of all ages wrote to us — young and middle-aged, and older. The youngest was a 12 year old girl who was advised by us to ask her parents' permission before responding to such ads.
Another time, an elderly lady wrote, with whom I had a rather interesting correspondence. We discussed various topics, including the Teaching. Everything was going fine until she started talking about Lukashenko. Naturally, I spoke negatively about him. And then she told me the amazing news. It turns out that Lukashenko is Jesus Christ, and we are witnessing the long-awaited second coming. And if I have a bad attitude to him, then I am a servant of the Antichrist, and my teaching is satanic. Therefore, she no longer wanted to communicate with me. I was sorry to lose the correspondence, which had taken such a fascinating turn, and I suggested not to hurry with decisions and to discuss everything. But she flatly refused.
Speaking of Jesuses. A bit later we learnt that at about the same time in Homieĺ there was a little man who declared himself to be Christ. He even had followers who gathered at his flat and listened to his sermons. Alas, by the time we heard about him, he had already been arrested. Hantur was very sorry for the missed opportunity to visit him and look at Jesus in the flesh.
One day a guy wrote to us asking about a good technique for energising himself. When asked why he wanted to do it, he replied — of course, to achieve a high spiritual level. After all, the more energy you have in you, the higher your spirituality. I tried to explain that this was not true and that such games with energy could end badly for him — but I was not heard. I don't know what happened to him afterwards. He was also remembered for writing his letters with a six-colour pen, each letter in a different colour. I was impressed by this man's patience. To sit and click the rods before writing the next letter, and so several pages in a row... I wish I could put that kind of perseverance into something useful.
Another guy wrote in looking for help. He said that every night after dark, a creature he called a shadow came to him and strangled him. Just appears out of nowhere and pounces. I started to see what I could do, gave him some advice. He said nothing worked, and then he fell silent. I thought it was the end. Strangled. To my surprise and joy, he wrote a few weeks later and told me that he had joined the local Baptist congregation, who had given him a prayer. The shadow never appeared again.
I don't know what kind of creature it was. Probably some kind of energy parasite that feeds on fear — and a very strong one at that. I didn't know how to fight such things back then. Soon I had such skills, and Saveli gave me the opportunity to use them for the first time.
As I suspected, he didn't last long as a disciple. About six months. Towards the end of that time he became dissatisfied with everything, began to be fastidious and defiant. He was no longer satisfied with anything — neither to recognise the authority of the Teacher, nor to be disciple at all. One day he got particularly angry and said to me: "Why are you the Teacher? Maybe I am the Teacher! I will leave, and I will be a Teacher myself. I have the texts." I reminded him that he had promised to return the texts. He replied mockingly that he didn't care what he had promised, and that he wouldn't give them back, that's it. I realised that he could not be any kind of Teacher, and he did not need the Teaching any more, but he did not want to keep the texts either. Then there followed a struggle for them, and in the end Saveli did not keep them. But at some point of the dispute he became furious, and I felt a strong and very painful blow in the heart area, as if someone had stabbed it with an invisible knife. So it turned out that he had the ability to concentrate energy in a fit of anger and direct its release into his opponent. And he was unaware of his ability, doing it completely unconsciously. I didn't tell him. If a person so unrestrained and prone to outbursts of rage learnt to wield such a weapon, no good would come of it. He hurt me something there, because the place where the blow came hurt for a long time, about ten years. After that incident, I was concerned about energy defences.
Saveli left, saying he was returning to Satanism. Now he called me every day, cursing the Teaching in every possible way and telling me with enthusiasm about his future plans — how he would gather a gang of Satanists, and how they would commit various crimes, from car theft to drug trafficking. I did not hang up the phone, but patiently explained to him that he was wrong, and that it should not be done. These conversations went on for about two weeks. Day by day his fervour faded. On the last evening he called me in a panic, saying that he was surrounded by some dark creatures, demons, devils, it was unclear, and they were coming closer and closer. Then he started screaming and begging for help. That's where my newfound skills came in handy. I told him to shut up, concentrated, and looked through the world of energy to where he was. To be honest, I thought Saveli was going crazy, and I didn't expect to see anything there. But to my surprise I found out that he was telling the truth, and that he was indeed surrounded by some dark mass. Having made the necessary energy manipulations, I struck at it, and it receded. At that moment Saveli said, "They've disappeared", and I heard sobs in the receiver. He could not continue the conversation.
The next day he came and again asked to be a disciple. Was accepted, and again received the texts. Although now I had absolutely no doubt that it wouldn't last long. He declared that he would be an ideal follower of the Teaching, that he would change his life abruptly, and that from that day on he would stop smoking (though he did not smoke, as far as I remember), drinking (sometimes a little on holidays), lying, fornicating, etc. I told him that he would not be able to stop all these things at once, and that one day it would all come out and overwhelm him. One should come to such achievements gradually, working on oneself and overcoming one vice after another. He replied that he would try not to give in. And our communication continued.
Usually when I invited a new acquaintance to my house, Hantur would participate and the three of us would talk. Sometimes Saveli was also present. For example, when a woman came in, whose correspondence with me was interesting, but the conversation was sluggish, almost insubstantial, and at the same time tense. She was irritated about something. When she said goodbye, she couldn't stand it and reproached me: "I've been sitting at your place for over an hour, and I haven't even been offered tea!" I replied: "And you didn't come here to drink tea." She left offended.
It was quite different with a guy who lived in the village and came to talk to us once every few days. We gave him tea, but he could not drink it because he was used to the purest well water, and our tap water disgusted him. He said that the taste of the tea is not felt due to the chlorine, rust, and all sorts of other nastiness. And we just shrugged our shoulders, — we were used to it, and it was fine... It was very interesting talking to him. He turned out to be one of the smartest people I have ever met, both before and since. Any topic, from psychology and religion to politics and ethics, you could discuss with him very deeply, thoroughly, literally breaking it down into molecules. His considerations were always clear and his arguments were always reasonable. We communicated both in threes and fours. And in conversations with him alone, my personal record of conversation duration was set: exactly twenty-four hours, with three breaks for food. Compare that to Nosey and his pitiful nine hours... We just couldn't stop. And then we hit the beds and fell asleep.
We became friends. We discussed the Teaching, and other spiritual systems, and just books that he took from me to read. We competed and wrote speed poems (the first and last time I did something like that). We plotted to write a fantasy novel together, and even sketched out a plot outline. Then one day we started talking about painting. He ripped a piece of paper out of his notebook, drew a line on it and said: "This is what I think is the greatest painting in the world." I replied, "It's the horizon." He was dumbfounded and lost speech for a few seconds. Then he said: "You're the first to understand that."
Unfortunately, this man had serious psychological problems. Some things he talked about, some things were just noticeable. Sometimes his eyes would glaze over, he would suddenly cut off a sentence almost halfway through and say, "I could kick you in the head right now." I'd say, "So what?" He'd say, "And nothing." Soon he would come to his senses and the conversation would continue. Eventually his condition began to deteriorate and he stopped coming. I can't tell you how sad I was to lose my new friend, and how worried I was that I couldn't do anything to help him.
Hantur saw him a few years later in the city. He was walking down the street, dishevelled, with a lost and half-crazed look in his eyes.
My parents saw that I had people coming to see me all the time, and they knew it was connected with my activities, but I didn't tell them who they were. New acquaintances, that's all. If they knew that among my visitors were Satanists, crazy — that guy wasn't the only one — and some other people they didn't want to see in their homes, I don't know what would happen to them. Indeed, sometimes ignorance is good. Not just for my parents, but for me. If they knew, my thing would be a lot more complicated. I might have had to fight another battle, the outcome of which would have been difficult to predict in that extremely tense situation.
I've had a few clairvoyants as guests. At least that's what they claimed to be. These ones were clearly not looking for a spiritual path; I think they were just curious to see a man who declared himself a prophet. One came with her teenage daughter, whom she said had powers too. They both felt bad after the visit. I thought she'd say there was some kind of harmful energy. But no. She just said that our energies just didn't match, and that's why we had such an unpleasant effect. When asked what she saw with her clairvoyance, she said that she saw "something bright". Another clairvoyant did not experience anything negative and confidently said that the energy here was good, clean and light. She told me that she could see people's auras and that thanks to this she could easily calculate maniacs: their auras were crossed by a black stripe. I ironically asked her to look at my aura — was there a black stripe? She glanced round my head and said, "No. It's fine."
There was also a third clairvoyant, with whom we, however, did not communicate. Someone had told her about me and she was looking with her clairvoyance to see what was wrong. Her verdict was quite different. She said she saw something dark here, and compared me to a horrible black spider sitting in the centre of a web, waiting for its victim. When I heard about it, I was almost flattered. It's not every day you are informed that you are so terrifying.
Anyway, it was enlightening. Three clairvoyants, three different pictures. Quite a demonstration of how much trust you can put in this kind of "talent". There are plenty of them out there charging people for their services.
I don't see auras, and I can hardly even imagine what is meant by that word. Maybe there's nothing at all. But I had developed some other abilities by then. For example, I began to detect all sorts of energy evil like parasites and other harmful elements. It was only modestly, and not always, but it was enough to help Saveli, for example. There were also times when something happened that I could not define otherwise than "knowledge falls into my head". That is, it suddenly turned out that I knew a fact about someone, for example, with whom I was talking at that moment. Or something else. I didn't ask for it, and it came.
Sometimes it was not knowledge that "fell into my head", but someone's sensations. For example, once I caught the sensation of a suicidal person throwing himself from a high-rise building. A feeling of flight, then regret about what he had done, a wild desire to live, horror, panic, an inner scream — and darkness. It was very creepy, just shocking. And another time it was the sensation of a man walking in a great mood through a sun-drenched summer city. Something very good and joyful had happened to him, he was smiling, almost singing — and I caught myself smiling with him.
I can't say that I enjoyed catching knowledge and other people's feelings "falling into my head". For one thing, it can be less than pleasant. I wouldn't want to find myself being in the shoes of a suicidal person again, even for a few moments. To be more precise, maybe I would dare to have such an experience, but I would dare to do it myself. I don't like it when something like that happens uncontrollably. And that's secondly. And thirdly, it's very embarrassing when suddenly you find out something about someone without their knowledge. You feel guilty even in front of someone you don't know. As if I was peeping. It's not very pleasant. Later I learnt to control it, to recognise something at will, and the cases of spontaneous catching almost stopped.
I also began to be able to see my guardian and communicate with him. Even before that I had met people who told me that they could see their guardians (and called them, of course, exclusively "guardian angels"). They all described them in different ways — as having a human form, or not. Basically, there is nothing to object here. Among the guardians there are indeed both humans and non-humans. But something tells me that most of these storytellers are just making things up. As for me, I see mine as a vague white figure with no definite features, standing to the right and a little behind, where a guardian is supposed to be. I communicate with him the same way I do with Emere, that is, mentally. Though they are not conversations in the literal sense of the word, but exchanges of remarks, hints from his side, and sometimes answers to questions.
Before the Teaching, I did not believe in the existence of guardians, or "guardian angels", as well as in all other mysticism. It seemed extremely ridiculous. That is why it became one of the most unexpected discoveries later on. It turned out to be one of those facts that my mind did not want to accept at first. But when it turned out that there was no mysticism here, that their presence had a logical explanation and normally fit into the picture of the world according to the Teaching, it became easier to accept. Though there was one more difficult moment. When you know even only theoretically that they exist, it becomes rather uncomfortable to think that someone is constantly near you, sees everything you do, easily reads your thoughts and desires. Even someone benevolent. It takes some getting used to. And you can get used to it. Gradually you start to take it for granted. Well, he's around, and let him be. But when you start to see him too — there he is standing there! — the discomfort returns, and at first it's even worse. You have to get used to it again. It's different for some people, but for me it was like this.
The point here is that complete and absolute privacy is impossible, never under any circumstances. This discovery was not a pleasant one. Believing people, whatever religion they belong to, don't need to get used to this. It is common for them to believe that they are always in the sight of deities or other higher powers, in whose sight their whole life is passing and for whom even their innermost thoughts are no secret. But what is it like for a man who has never believed in anything of the kind! First I find out that I am in front of Emere's gaze like this, and then the guardian's... In addition to all the other problems, it was also hard because of this feeling of openness, of vulnerability. With time, however, everything was digested, and there was an acceptance of the fact that there was no complete privacy. That's one of the inevitable realities of life. Well, if that's the way it works, and if it's normal, that's fine. After all, the constant presence of someone who tries to take care of you and help you whenever possible is not the worst news. May everything that makes us uncomfortable at first eventually turn into something that starts to make us happy.
And since religions and deities have just been mentioned, now it is appropriate to tell about one interesting correspondent.
He was an Orthodox hieromonk who lived in one of the Belarusian monasteries. It came as a surprise to us that our announcement reached there as well. And it was very strange that the monk thought to reply.
When I wrote my first letter to him, I had little doubt that religious propaganda was about to begin, so I immediately, somewhat demonstratively, told him about the Teaching. Against all expectations, there were no attempts to enlighten me with pious exhortations, nor an abrupt termination of correspondence in the style of "Begone, evil spirits!" He unobtrusively complained that I did not believe in God, expressed the hope that I would believe someday, and moved on to other topics. He was just interested in talking about life — mine, his own, and in general. He did not tell much about his youth, however, but only made it clear that he had once been a member of some Masonic organisation, which he regretted. He was a great lover of Dostoevsky and drew portraits of him with a ballpoint pen. He sent me one of these. Sometimes he wrote notes to newspapers. I read one of them. He wrote poetry, — and when his mother died, he told me about it in a sad poem. I replied with a poem too. We corresponded for a long time, and he even invited me to visit him in his monastery. I found it difficult to imagine how this could be realised. Although if we take into account that his monastery, as I understood, was also a monument of cultural heritage, it is quite possible that there was some kind of accommodation for visitors. Nevertheless, such a hospitable offer was, of course, rejected.
As time went on, our communication began to change. He spoke more and more often about religion, and devoted more and more space to his regrets that I was not a Christian. His letters began to be filled with hopes that I would eventually come to God, and so on. I realised it had started. I tried to explain that it was useless, that I would not believe anyway, and that there was no need to reduce interesting communication to the format of a religious sermon. He didn't let up. It was evident that he was immersing himself in religious thoughts more and more, and was already losing interest in anything else. Soon there was almost nothing left in his letters but God and what one should believe. Then I sent him a blank sheet of paper instead of a letter. He took it as a philosophical escapade and asked me what it meant. I replied — that it meant that if he didn't change the record, I had nothing more to say to him. He didn't change it. Then I wrote him that our communication was exhausted, thanked him for interesting conversations and politely said goodbye. That was the end of it.
Somewhere around that time we made a foray into the park, with the intention of visiting the Peter and Paul Cathedral. It was just very interesting to go there. So we took a tour. Four of us went — me, Mum, Hantur and Saveli. My disciples helped me to get out of the flat, load into the bus, unload from the bus, and then climb the steps to the temple. At the entrance, we were greeted by two donation boxes. A little further on — four more. And just inside the temple itself — another one. This did not give me the most favourable impression. We had just managed to enter the temple, and already seven times we were hinted that it would be good to give money. And also inside the temple there was a counter where they were selling Orthodox literature and all sorts of small paraphernalia — crosses, images and so on. Books were expensive. I bought a small brochure as a memento of my visit.
The cathedral was spacious and quiet. A few people were praying, crossing themselves on the icons, or placing candles in front of them. I expected to feel something special in such a place — a kind of spiritual atmosphere, strong energy, something like that. Or maybe the energy of this place would react to me as something hostile, and I would feel hard? But I didn't feel anything. It felt like I was in a theatre with a set that was supposed to represent a temple. True, perfectly made.
I was somewhat disappointed, and when we left the cathedral, said: "I came to visit the Christian God, but he wasn't at home." Perhaps not the most appropriate comment. But that was exactly what I felt then.
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