piritual lessons gradually became more and more important to me. Being so simple and accessible at the same time, they
gradually changed my vision of the world. Some new feelings grew inside of me. I started to perceive everything in another way as if I had opened the other side of reality for myself..
Even nature, the air that I never noticed before, turned into a special material substance that I felt as light pressure from all directions whatever I did. This feeling was somewhat similar to the sensation of water elasticity when you dive into it. But in the case of the air, everything was much easier. Nature around me became brighter, colors became richer as if an invisible dust veil had been removed from my eyes.
Spring was storming outside. It animated the grey space of cities with its fresh, salad greenery. The world of nature existed according to its own cycle as if wishing to show greatness and independence from the tiny creatures occupying it. This living creature had its own secret of life and death, which was carefully protected during its long existence.
The time spent in trainings and conversations with Sensei flew by so quickly that imperceptibly I came up to the point of final examinations. To tell the truth, I didn’t want to spend any precious time on them even though I had realized that examinations and further studies were not trifles, they were necessary. As Sensei used to say, a human should constantly develop his intellect and enlarge his mind, meaning he should expand his knowledge everywhere and in everything wherever it is possible, to strive for the knowledge of science. Because the mature human comes to God through knowledge, namely the knowledge of himself and the world around him.
At spiritual and common trainings, Sensei continued to surprise us with his personal examples, with the breadth and depth of his knowledge. During common trainings, he mostly taught those skills that our brain perceived easily, as they say, without any shock. There were strikes, techniques from different styles, healthimproving gymnastics, which were demonstrated by his narrations from the various points of view: medical, strategic, and philosophical. At the additional trainings, we were lucky to contemplate his mysterious demonstrations to a greater extent when most people were leaving. But once there was an incident.
During one of the trainings when most people were practicing strikes in pairs, Sensei was standing right next to us, showing Andrew a difficult strike with a hook. It is necessary to note that that day the Teacher was a bit thoughtful, absorbed in his ideas. Unexpectedly he stopped his movement and turned back, abruptly peering worriedly into the opposite side of the hall. Volodya and Victor were sparring there, but their sparring was a little bit strange. Volodya conducted an aggressive and rigid attack. He attacked his sparring-partner dexterously and quickly with his hands and legs. Meanwhile Victor was somehow perplexed and hardly had time to fend off missing strikes. Sensei sharply clapped his hands, shouting “Yame!” that means “Stop!” But Volodya was obviously captured by the passion of sparring and did not hear him, though the rest of the crowd turned to Sensei at this call. And then something happened.
Sharply waving his hand, Sensei made a movement in the air simulating a blow. At the same instant, Volodya flew aside with such a force and along such a trajectory as if Sensei stood near him and not near us. We were all astonished by what we had seen. Silence was established in the hall. The Teacher had interfered right in time. If Volodya had hit him one more time, Victor would have been in trouble. Writhing in pain, poor Victor tried to restore his breath by a special technique used after dangerous strikes, which Sensei gave us once at additional lessons. Meanwhile Volodya, having flown about five meters head over heels, also tried to reestablish himself after his unexpected flight. He was strenuously rubbing the place that Sensei's blow would have struck if he had been standing next to Volodya.
Everything happened in a split second in the presence of everyone in the group. Though I saw it with my own eyes, I could not believe it even though my mind was used to such surprises from Sensei. In a minute, the crowd burst out with emotions. Andrew pulled Eugene by a sleeve, without taking his eyes from Volodya, “Hey, what was that?”
Eugene was probably in shock too, “Wait, my spirit trembles in me from a queer vision.”
Meantime the Teacher’s face changed, as though he was annoyed with himself for this negligence. Coming up to Volodya, he made a number of gestures above his body. He was scolding him quickly, obviously indignant at the attack. Volodya answered something, shrugging his shoulders and bashfully hiding his eyes. The crowd was riled up based on what they had seen. Sensei was bombarded with questions that he was reluctant to answer.
“What kind of a blow was that?” The guys asked eagerly.
“Well, how can I say it,” the Teacher said with a sigh. “It is connected with the mental energy of a person. It isn't anything worth your attention. It is only one of the steps of spiritual development in the martial arts.”
“So we can learn it, can’t we?”
“Certainly, maybe you can if you are patient.” Sensei quickly continued the interrupted lesson, hushing up this incident as it seemed to me. At the end of the training, the majority of people present had increased adrenaline in their blood and corresponding optimistic forecasts concerning the future.
Unlike the others, our company silently observed the agitation because we were sure that at additional trainings Sensei would not avoid our direct questions.
Before the additional training, the Teacher’s mood improved a little bit, and his good mood was a good sign. The senior guys hastened to take advantage of it. During the additional training, they tortured Sensei with inquiries to “contemplate personally” something like that. At the beginning, Sensei laughed the matter off but then he agreed under their pressure to show us the so-called ‘saving screen.’ He told us first to find some objects for ourselves.
We ran to the room used for sports stock and armed ourselves with what we could find there. The guys grabbed poles and basketball balls. Andrew even took his nunchaku. I thought for a long time about what to choose. Finally I decided to take a tennis ball, as I thought that if Sensei failed and the object hit him it would not hurt him. But Sensei had never made any mistake in his actions before, which inspired special respect for his abilities.
When we had armed ourselves, Sensei stood 7 or 8 meters away from us. Concentrating, he lifted his hands forward and placed them slightly to his sides. In turn, we started to throw various objects at him as hard as we could. It was fantastic but no matter how hard we tried, all objects simply missed Sensei, changing the trajectory of their flight in the distance of half a meter from his palms. Victor, Stas, and Volodya decided to challenge Sensei by throwing the objects at him from behind. But Sensei didn't even change his position, he only opened his hands wider to the sides. To put it briefly, we experimented a lot, but all the objects missed Sensei.
I didn’t understand whether all of us became crosseyed or there really was some invisible powerful wall around him. My mind resisted the last reason and was indignant in trying to prove that it could not be. This conclusion forced me to try throwing the tennis ball again and again. Now I was throwing it without any pity into this invisible wall to be convinced for a second that an obstacle really existed there. I think all other guys also had similar feelings because their passion gradually changed into confusion.
In my opinion, again Sensei began to turn from a normal person into a supernatural creature. My head really started to go crazy from all this improbable plausibility. Meanwhile Sensei had removed the screen and began to explain the principle of its action, in this way bringing the logical work of our consciousness to a normal, natural rhythm. Then I noticed that while listening to Sensei, some signs of envy (the animal nature) began to slip into my head again. First it happened accidentally, and then they got stronger and stronger. Then some doubts rose in my head, although Sensei explained everything in a simple and understandable way based on what we had just seen with our own eyes.
I caught myself on the idea that while listening to Sensei talk about spiritual opportunities, I was thinking dirty thoughts with the inflated mania of my own egocentrism. “Wow!” I thought. “With such an underlying basis of egoism, all valuable knowledge will pass by my ears. My mind will choose out of Sensei’s words only those ones that are necessary for the animal nature instead of the spiritual one. That means I will never succeed… So I need to concentrate on good… This knowledge is necessary for me only for good purposes, for learning my essence. I do not want to cause any harm. Let all people live in peace and love. I do not wish anyone evil and do not envy them. All of them are good and worthy in their lives. The main thing for me is perfection of my soul.” Adjusting myself in this way, I began to listen to Sensei more attentively. The conversation had already moved on to creating blows in the distance.
“…this blow is very powerful,” Sensei said. “Mental forces of the person are involved in it.”
“How is the blow itself committed at such a distance?” Stas asked.
“Basically, distance is an illusion. Therefore in your understanding it acts like the projection of a blow. In fact, there is another type of physics in which space and time are compressed. Therefore a person who delivers such a blow, like a person who really receives it, feels direct physical contact.”
“Does this knowledge come from the Art of White Lotus?” asked Victor.
“Yes. This is a special technique of Lotus from the Art of the ‘Punishing Sword of Shambala.’ People of Shambala knew and still know this Art… Once a very long time ago, Masters of Lotus came out to our world rather frequently. They perfectly knew not only the Old Lama style, but also knew the Art of the Punishing Sword. Such a Master could gain a victory over an entire army. Until now in the East there are legends about warriors who appeared from nowhere and returned to nowhere. But in the area where they stopped, they enjoyed great honor and respect among the local population because better protection for the peaceful inhabitants could not be found. These Masters possessed an energy power much more serious than any modern weapon. For people who don’t have knowledge of this Art to receive such a destroying blow from nowhere is more than awful.
“Time passed, and the necessity of such Masters’ arriving disappeared. But certainly it does not mean that the Art of the Punishing Sword vanished. In the gate of Shambala there is a specially trained person who carries out decisions made by the council of Bodhisattvas. If you remember once I told you that Shambala will never allow somebody to capture the whole world or to use spiritual knowledge to harm mankind. So this Master realizes such decisions without leaving his cell. For this purpose, it is enough for him to be in a special state of consciousness and to wave the ‘Petal of Lotus,’ a special ritual sword somewhat similar to a short Turkish saber. The name of the Art of the Punishing Sword of Shambala appeared because of this sword.
“Evidence of this Master’s activity can occasionally be found in the modern world. Mysterious deaths still remain a secret not only to pathologists. For example, in the process of an autopsy, it was discovered that the heart was cut precisely into halves as if a sharp object had been used, but the skin and nearby organs were not injured. Or there were ‘inexplicable’ cases where in the presence of numerous guards a body was cut into pieces as though from a sword and the clothes were undamaged. It doesn't matter how thoroughly a guilty person had been protected by the newest technology or the whole army, he isn’t able to evade this penalty. It is an original cause of fear before Shambala for all tyrants. Therefore people searched and continue searching for contact with it because they know, no matter how powerful and authoritative they are, they are powerless before Shambala.”
Sensei broke off, and it seemed to me that his words still echoed in my ears. All the guys stood in thoughtfulness perhaps because, like me, they were also shocked by everything they heard. Nobody dared to break the silence, hoping that the Teacher would add something else to this extraordinary information. At last, Volodya lost his patience and spoke in a bass, “This Master of the Punishing Sword probably has a force similar to atomic energy if distance does not matter for his blows.”
“Atomic energy in comparison with this force is only a children's toy. Mankind is far from knowing its real abilities and real forces because of the prevalence of the animal nature.”
