fter the additional training, as usual we left together, and we saw the novice who had taken part in the conversation
between Sensei and the minister. He stood near the club. Having noticed Sensei among us, he came up to him and inquired politely, “Excuse me, have you got a minute?”
“Yes, I am listening to you,” Sensei said calmly. “The matter is that our conversation was interrupted… And I did not have time to ask you some questions that are of great importance for me. You have rather an unusual world outlook, at least I have not heard anything like that. And I feel that your words are not groundless, as they coincide to some degree with my concept of essence of things. If it will not bother you, could you answer some questions?”
“Yes, of course,” Sensei responded with the same politeness.
These words encouraged the novice. He grew bolder and said, “What is the true belief, the way to God in your understanding?”
“The true belief is knowledge. Certainly, there are a lot of ways to God, but you can wind along the pass repeatedly or you can go straight. A direct way to God is a way through knowledge and love.”
“How is this knowledge expressed?”
“It is expressed through versatile cognition of the world in its various aspects: beginning from microlife to the macroexistence of space systems; through cognition of yourself both as a biological and spiritual structure and accordingly the essence of things around you. Certainly, to learn everything is impossible, but you should aspire to it. A human should constantly grow in his knowledge, he should develop his intellect. The most valuable way is the cognition of God through your mind when true knowledge, overcoming the animal nature, opens the gate of the subconscious with the help of the key of love. It is an eternal unshakable truth that has always existed in the days of all highly developed human civilizations ever existing on the Earth.”
“Sorry, I have not understood everything. Could you explain it in a little bit more detail?”
“In general, it means complete maturation of the human soul, a full victory over the material essence, that is, over the Devil. In Christianity and in Islam it is called enlightenment, holiness which leads to paradise after death. In Buddhism, it is called awakening and coming out of a chain of reincarnations into nirvana, and so on. Actually everything is much simpler.
“I shall try to explain it to you in general. Figuratively speaking, it looks like this. We think that we are that very mind which sees, hears, thinks, and analyzes. But actually it is only a small part of our consciousness. Let us name it Something. This small Something floats on a surface of an ocean. The ocean is our subconscious where all our genetic memory is stored in various depths, conditioned and unconditioned reflexes, that is, all our stored experience. But all this concerns our material essence. This is our animal nature. Underneath the subconscious at the bottom of the ocean, there is some kind of a gateway. Behind this gateway there is a soul, a little part of God. This is our spiritual nature. This is what we actually are and what we very occasionally feel in ourselves. The soul regenerates during reincarnation, it gradually ripens through knowledge and love from our mortal Something as far as Something is connected to the soul. But the problem is that this Something is also connected with the ocean. Moreover, from the outside it is more subject to the influence of the ocean. It is thrown constantly here and there with waves that are various thoughts, emotions, desires, and so on. Sometimes it is so overflowing that Something loses its touch with the soul and then, after a storm, tries again to grasp it. But when this Something becomes stronger in aspiring to reach the soul, without paying any attention to the storms of the ocean, and it pushes through the thickness of the waters into the bottom, having given up fear, then it finally reaches this gateway. With the help of a key of love, it opens this gate, joining the soul. Only then will a human understand who he really is. He fully realizes freedom, eternity and God. Only then is the soul free to go to nirvana, paradise, that is, into the world where only love reigns.”
“So it means that this Something that is our consciousness determines the destiny of our soul, doesn’t it?”
“Absolutely right. Everything depends on our choice and on our aspirations.”
The novice thought a little and then said quietly to himself, “So real paradise is not in the body.” “The body will never give you paradise, as the body is an eternal worry, an eternal problem. Paradise can be reached only through the connection of the soul with God.”
“You said that very rarely do we feel ourselves being real, those who we actually are, our soul. How is this divine presence felt? Is it possible to understand with the help of these sensations what paradise is?”
“Only the human who looks at the world through a prism of love can understand divine presence. And to understand what paradise is… Well, for you to have a slight notion of it… If you choose the happiest moment in your life when your true love comes, when your life storms with waves of happiness and all-embracing joy, all these sensations will be equivalent to a small divine droplet of love scattered on you. But when a human enters nirvana, paradise, that moment when the soul joins God, figuratively speaking, is the same as if a human swims like a dolphin in the ocean of this infinite divine love. It is impossible to describe with words the fullness of these sensations, just as it is impossible to imagine it in full scope. Unfortunately, the human mind is limited, but in this limitation lies its beauty. Here, in a limited mind, an endless love should be born.”
“Yes, everything is so simple and clear… You said that it is possible to reach the gateway through love and knowledge. In fact, people became saints in different times. It was through love, of course. What should we do with knowledge? In those times, people did not have all the information we do now.”
“People even now have too little information. But the matter is that when a human reaches this gateway, any knowledge becomes accessible to him with the help of it. There are no restrictions there.”
“I thought that if I limited my consciousness the way it was told to us in my sect, I shall come to God.”
“Well, first, when you are limiting your consciousness with blind belief, you need incredible efforts to resist the attacks of your animal nature. Why? Because blind belief gives the animal nature freedom of actions. At any moment, it can overflow your mind with unexpected doubts, and your belief will fail like a house made of cards. But if your belief is based on the strong foundation of knowledge, which allows you to prove to your mind in a well-reasoned and thorough way the real fact of the existence of God and by that to bring your animal nature in the corner and to leash it there, then you will receive real freedom and will be able to come to God.
“Second, Jesus never limited His pupils as your religious sect does. Your leaders try to build a small empire of authority based on the teachings. They force you to kiss their hands, to bow down in front of them. Who are they? Even Jesus, in spite of the fact that He was a Great Soul, was always a friend to the apostles, and if you remember this story, He even washed their feet. He did not bring people the enthrallment of a crowd but mostly the freedom of personal choice. He gave people a precept of love, this very key to the gateway. Recall His words, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul, and with your entire mind.’ In this way, he showed that high morality, soul, and reason are the three components for maturation of a soul and its union with God. This was told by prophets of all teachings, for there is a sole source of knowledge. Let's choose Mohammed as an example…”
“Mohammed? Do you think his religion brings us closer to God?”
“Religion is created by people, but Mohammed preached the teachings. His true teaching is based on the same knowledge that Christ gave us.”
“It can’t be true!”
“Why can’t it be? Do you know anything about Mohammed?”
“I don't know about him, but I have met in person his fanatic, violent followers when I worked as a journalist in Afghanistan. Believe me, it left in my soul bad memories. I saw what Islam is.”
“You did not see Islam, you saw how the teaching of Mohammed was transformed by mercenary politicians. You can find fanatic believers in every religion. Is it possible to judge the teachings looking only at those people? Blind and furious fanaticism is the worst sign of any religion, the worst distortion of any teaching inasmuch as it completely awakens a person’s animal nature, covered by a shield of good intentions. It is a manifestation of politics, a longing for world domination that is inherent in the ruling clique of each religion. Study the teachings of prophets yourself, did they call for it? All of them called for the spiritual development of a human. They called for the whole world to be united in sole love for God, suppressing in ourselves our animal nature, a devil, call it as you wish. A human, being in God, can not do evil things.
“Mohammed was a very unique person. I advise you to read about his life simply from a human position, without bias and conventionalities. Beginning in childhood, he aspired to self-cognition, and first he was guided by natural human desires. He was a poor boy, an orphan, a usual shepherd. When Mohammed was young, he thought that if he became rich he will fully understand himself. At the age of twelve, he began to work as a caravan escort. Along one of his routes he met a wise man who gave him a grain of knowledge and trained him to meditate; as a result, it radically changed his destiny. Mohammed began with his spiritual practices in order to understand the essence of God.
“In a while, his early dream came true. A successful marriage to a notable woman made him rich. Mohammed understood, though, that richness was not the thing to which his soul aspired. He started to search for this something in authority, but couldn’t find it there either. This fact drove him to search inside himself, inside his human essence. Mohammed often spent long hours at night in meditations, and finally they brought him to enlightenment. He understood the sense of internal essence, the sense of existence of all mankind as a whole, he found God - "al-illah" – which means “worthy worshiping,” and due to that his soul woke up, having opened a source of true knowledge. Then, as the legend says, he received revelations from above, from archangel Gabriel or, as he is still called in the East, archangel Jibril. Mohammed not only received revelations from him but also became his favorite pupil. Gabriel told him sacrament of the teaching and the secret knowledge. In order to show the truth and the depth of knowledge of this teaching, he moved Mohammed in space and time, into the city of Jerusalem, where he arranged a meeting with Bodhisattva Issa and his enlightened pupils Abraham and Moses. Through these travels in time, Gabriel showed him the elusiveness and frailty of the material world in comparison with true knowledge and showed that only God has real force and is worthy of worshiping. All this knowledge sown in his strong soul bore rich fruits. The worthy pupil justified Gabriel’s hopes. At that stage, Mohammed had done for mankind more good than anybody else could have done.”
“But what about Jesus??
“Make no mistake, Jesus was a Bodhisattva, which means he was already born as God. But Mohammed was a person who managed to awaken the divine essence in himself. So when archangel Gabriel felt that Mohammed was prepared enough, he said to him, ‘Now you should go to the world and bring this knowledge to other people.’ Mohammed answered, ‘How can I explain to people in words the ideas that I learnt from you in spirit?’ ‘Go and tell them that there is one God and He lights everything up like the sun with His Divine Love. I am like the Moon in the night of human life, I am reflecting the light of God and light the way in the darkness of consciousness. You are a guiding star showing the way to divine light.’
“Inspired by this conversation with Gabriel, Mohammed left the cave in which he meditated, and the first thing he saw was a breathtaking view of nature. In the huge evening sky, a young crescent shone dazzlingly, and a bright star glowed next to it. In that same instant, he had an insight and understood how to express this teaching to people. He understood that God is love, that God is a permanent action. God does not speak with words, He communicates with people through mediators, archangels, who bring His will to the consciousness of people. But a human himself is free to choose whether to understand God through his soul or not.”
“What did Mohammed do? Did he give people belief?”
“Mohammed gave people not only belief, but also knowledge. Unfortunately for 600 years, people have falsified the teaching of Christ, having transformed it into religion. But Mohammed tried to bring people the lost knowledge in his renewed teaching. He told people everything he knew himself without concealing anything. Moreover, if you read history books, what kind of state was Arabia in before the year 610 when Mohammed began to preach? The country was in a general chaos of various idolatry and because of its leaders there often rose enmity between Arabian tribes. Mohammed did a great deed. He united militant people, Arabs, into a general brotherhood and in belief in the One worthy of worshiping. He told the truth about God, about things that Jesus taught: that God is eternal, omniscient, and almighty; that all people are equal before Him. He spoke about the immortality of the soul, about reincarnation (the resurrection of the dead), about judgment, about punishment beyond the grave for those who create evil in this world, about the necessity to establish justice, mercy, and moral duties in relations between people. Due to his wisdom, Mohammed managed to lead Arabs out of their deepest ignorance and political chaos and to show them the way to civilized cultural growth and prosperity.”
“Perhaps it was really so. But what should we do with the ‘sacred war against the unfaithful’? In fact, Muslim people claim that Mohammed himself preached it.”
“During those dark times, Mohammed had to deal with wild tribes that understood only force. The word ‘moslem’ comes from a word ‘muslim’ which means ‘obedient,’ that is, obedient to Mohammed but not ‘faithful.’ This meaning, the word ‘moslem’ got much later. So, in those days, devoted people were those who were obedient to the Prophet and who followed him, spreading the teaching to other territories of Arabia to transform the chaos there into order. Unfaithful people were people who were not following his teaching. Mohammed was not only a great prophet, but he was also an ingenious commander and a wise politician. It was not easy to calm down the passion of wild militant tribes. Besides, Mohammed had to declare ‘sacred war’ against those religious priests who usurped authority and who were not interested in the unification of Arabs nor in worshiping their Gods. He struggled against those who had mercenary purposes, deceived people with the help of their belief, and corrupted human souls. In these actions, he is similar to Christ. So, the Prophet struggled for the same purity of belief, as Jesus did, for worshiping the Holy One, for direct spiritual connection of each person with God.”
“Well, let's admit that time was dark and tribes were wild,” the novice pressed Sensei. “But now so many years have passed and still a strange ‘sacred war’ is being conducted. If God is the only one, why does the war still continue? How can you understand a person who winds explosives around his body and voluntarily goes into a crowd of peaceful inhabitants for death in the name of God, carrying away lives of other people with him?”
Sensei explained, “Because instead of the teaching that was given by the Prophet, the Muslim got religion, the leaders of which are more interested in mercenary purposes, personal well-being, and political influence in the world than in the souls of individual Muslims. They convince him that after his ‘pious’ action, his soul will get to Mohammed, to paradise. In fact, it will not get there, as the way to God is closed to everyone who creates evil. And this Muslim will be reincarnated repeatedly and again pass through all terrestrial circles of hell to make his soul as clean as it was before the creation of evil by this person. These deceived people are victims of religion. But the real guilty people are those who distorted the true teaching. This is the victory of the Devil over any religion.”
“I heard that in the Koran there are some ‘suras’ that reject your words.”
“In the Koran?” Sensei asked incredulously. “Do you know that the Koran was written after death of the Great Prophet? The adopted son of Mohammed, Zaid Ibn Thabit, collected all records of his sermons and, pay attention, he made an edition of the Koran in 651. Mohammed himself preached only orally. Sketchy records of his sermons and lessons were made by his first followers who partly remembered and partly wrote down the words of Mohammed. But even despite further additions to the Koran during the creation of religion, the knowledge that was truly given to Mohammed from the archangel Gabriel is still there. Now scientists are simply struck by the fact that while deciphering some ‘original parts’ of the Koran, they find real scientific knowledge…”
At that moment, Tatyana jabbed me in the side and whispered that she ought to call her parents so they didn’t worry. I looked at my watch and realized that we should have been home already. We apologized and ran into the club where the nearest phone was located. After our long and persistent knocking, at last the door was opened by an old watchman with sleepy eyes. He had probably already begun to carry out his professional duties. Having scolded us a little because strangers were hanging around and he had not gotten any rest, he nevertheless allowed us to make a call. While Tatyana was speaking to her parents, I had time to jot down in my diary some of Sensei’s words. Having informed our parents that we would be late, we hastened to the exit to join our company. When we came out, Sensei was still addressing the novice.
“You refer to the Bible with too much prejudice, as if it is a primary source. I understand that you were taught this way in your sect. But you are a journalist, you should be much more curious than ordinary people. The Bible, like the Koran or the Tripitaka, was written by followers. Moreover, these books went through numerous changes, meaning they already reflected religious points of view instead of the initial teaching that was given by the Great. To focus your attention, I repeat that literally for 600 years the teaching of Christ was greatly distorted and it was necessary to give a new teaching to Mohammed; it was the same, however, as Christ taught. But later this teaching was also transformed into religion by people who left only its form but changed its contents.”
“But the Bible and the New Testament in particular were written from the words of Jesus by his followers.” “If you had had an opportunity to hear the teaching from Jesus Himself and to compare it to the one that you can read now in the Bible, you would find huge blanks and the absence of much knowledge,” Sensei said with bitterness in his voice. “You assert that it was written by His followers, but you don’t even wonder how. They were not the first followers, they were followers of followers. The teaching of Jesus was preached orally for a long period of time. Then lists of sayings of Jesus started to appear. One of the most ancient fragments from the Gospel according to St. John is dated 125 A.D., and the earliest and the most complete manuscript is dated to 200 A.D. You can imagine how the oral sermons could be mangled in two hundred years. One person understood in one way, another person did not understand, the next one concealed something, and so on. Moreover, in 325 the first Nicene ecumenical council, under the direction of the emperor Constantine, selected and canonized the four Gospels included in the New Testament out of numerous versions, with the purpose of strengthening the Church and personal authority. Exactly at that time, the teaching of Christ was completely altered, and a powerful lever of authority for managing crowds was made from it. Exactly at that Council, the orthodox point of view on corporeal revival was authorized under pressure of the emperor Constantine. All otherwise-minded Christians and the supporters of spiritual revival were declared heretics, and subsequently they were pursued and slaughtered all over the Empire, even though early Christians professed the ideology of reincarnation. Mention of it can be found in the Bible. As a result, a natural question arises: why were authorities so afraid of it? Why did Constantine finally alter the teaching, having transformed it into religion? What was the reason behind that? Because the teaching gave people knowledge that released them from their fear of existence in our frail world. Knowledge brought people true freedom and the awakening of their souls. They were not afraid of death, they knew about reincarnation, about things beyond the border. And the most important thing is that they realized there was only God above them instead of any emperor or bishop. But it was terribly frightening for politicians and churchmen to lose their authority, for they were more absorbed by their material interests. The teaching of Jesus, which should have made people free, was transformed into religion and knocked into people's heads on penalty of death. Expansion of Christianity succeeded through violence, crusades were arranged, and so on.
“Besides, the Bible was rewritten by hand many times by different people, up to 1455 when Gutenberg's Bible was printed. Division of the text into chapters was first made in the 13th century by cardinal Stephen Lengton. The division of chapters into verses and their numeration was made by a Parisian publisher, Robert Stefan, who published the complete text of the Bible in 1553 for the first time. I won’t even mention the fact that in the modern world, for example, the Catholic church considers itself authorized not only to interpret the Bible according to their opinion, but also to supplement it.
“Despite all of these corrections and distortions, the genius of Jesus lies in the fact that some of His knowledge, due to the initial duality of its sense, could reach descendants. That is why up to now the Bible awakens interest in the teaching of Christ in people. Because of the interpretation of this knowledge ‘in its own way,’ Christianity has never been united and at all times existed as many churches, branches, and sects struggling among themselves.”
The novice thought a little and then asked, “Which expressions of Jesus do you think were kept in their dual sense?”
“Let's take even His most widespread expression frequently used in your sect, ‘For where two or three are assembled in my name, there am I in the midst of them.’ It is not plurality of people as your minister asserts. It is the integrity of one individual, where the soul, reason, and consciousness are gathered for the single purpose of understanding God. Or here are other words of Christ, which religious leaders use for attraction to their sect, ‘No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.’ Jesus meant an individual choice of sense of life: either a human aspires to God, to freedom, or he aspires to mammon, that is, to riches, to the material world. Everything is very simple.”
“It seems to be interpreted the same way in our sect.”
“Yes, but under the aspiration to God, your religious leaders drum into your head that only through visiting their sect and studying their program can a person surely come to God. Actually, a person can come to God if he changes himself inside and if he grows an internal love and strengthens his belief with knowledge.
“Or, for example, Jesus said, ‘So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many are called, but few chosen.’ Life is given for us to grow spiritually. During it you can make a step forward, that is, to progress, or you can make a step back, to regress. Jesus said that if today God has made you a freer person and if He has enabled you to pay more attention to Him, it means that in the previous lives you deserved it. If you used this life for the regression of your soul, then in the next life He will put you in a more difficult condition for you to realize it. Any person inside, if he concentrates on his deep sensations, can feel the experience of previous lives.”
“You said that in the Bible there are still some mentions of reincarnation. Which ones?”
“For example, if you remember in the Gospel according to St. John, there is an episode about Nikodemus, one of the university teachers, who secretly came at night to ask Jesus questions. So, Nikodemus asks Jesus, ‘How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born?’ Jesus answered, ‘Verily, verily I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.’ Besides, there are also such words as, ‘In my Father's house are many mansions,’ meaning there is a plurality of existence of worlds.
“Christ told his pupils about the law of reincarnation, allowing them to understand that the soul regenerates for high-grade maturation. He talked about how to save the soul and how to reach the Kingdom of God, how to understand eternal life. He also said that the more spiritually advanced a person becomes, the harder the trial of the resisting animal nature or devil.”
“Yes, judging by the Gospel, even Jesus was subject to attacks from the Devil. I always thought, why? How can it be if He were the Son of God?” the novice asked.
“Of course, Jesus was the Son of God,” Sensei replied. “He was a strong soul. But He also named Himself the Son of Earth as the Great Soul of Him was embodied in the ordinary body of a human. The animal nature is inherent in a human body. The animal nature is its integral part. Therefore even Jesus, being Bodhisattva, was subject to ‘temptation’ of the animal nature of His flesh, of His negative thoughts. He felt the same pain, the same feelings as an ordinary person. So Issa was in the same conditions. And for Him it was a thousand times more difficult than for any of you. Because He knew freedom, He knew God.” It seemed to me that Sensei said these words with an unbearable nostalgia in his voice. The expression of his face changed as he continued, “And here, carrying out this mission, He finds himself in a human body with all its problems, with all these thoughts and emotions. With all the animal nature He had to put in a corner, in the depth of His consciousness, which always has to be kept like a barking dog on a leash. And your minister still says that it is paradise?!” Sensei exclaimed, “If that isn’t hell, I don’t know what is!”
After these words, Sensei paused and lit a cigarette.
“But does the Gospel only mention one episode of Christ’s personal struggle with the Devil when He was in the desert? In fact, if Christ was put in the same condition as people were and the Devil is negative thoughts, it means that these thoughts should have been in Him all His life.”
“Absolutely right. But Christ was the Great Soul full of the force of love, therefore He kept all these negative thoughts in Himself under strict control. The moment mentioned in the Gospel was His fight in His mind to consolidate the authority of His soul above his body. It was His personal Armageddon, which everyone is obliged to pass when they are born into a body. Bodhisattva unfortunately is not an exception. Why did He fast for forty days and nights? Because it takes about this long for the body to be exhausted, to become weak, for the animal nature to finally surrender. Jesus opened Himself spiritually to let His soul completely occupy His consciousness. But animal thoughts of the body constantly tempted Him, trying to win authority over the mind. They spoke in a hungry body, ‘If thou art the son of God, command that these stones be made bread.’ His thoughts answered on behalf of his soul, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.’ In this way, He emphasized His strength of mind, the essence of a real human, that is, of His soul. Negative thoughts chased Him again, ‘…If thou art the Son of God, cast thyself down, for it is written, He shall give His angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall uphold thee, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.’ Jesus answered Himself, ‘…It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God,’ thus showing His resistance of Spirit and control over crazy thoughts of the body. When thoughts of the animal nature tempted Him to own all empires of the world trying to wake in Him the main trump card, hunger for world authority begotten by insatiable megalomania, Jesus rejected them also by saying, ‘And to Him alone shalt thou render worship.’ Issa won this Armageddon with honor. He defeated His negative flesh thoughts with the power of His Spirit, with the force of immense love for God. The Soul of Bodhisattva was completely awakened in Him and He found himself. After that, Jesus began to carry out His mission, using in full all His knowledge and the force of immense divine love. That is why He created miracles by His belief. He cured sick people, revived the dead. As for this divine force, there are no barriers either on the Earth or in space.
“In general, during His life, Jesus had a clear, concrete division of thoughts of the soul and ‘straddled’ thoughts of the body. Take the time He prayed in the garden of Gethsemane before Judas's treachery. His Soul left his body, and the body exclaimed, ‘O my Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.’ The body was addressing the Soul as if the Soul of Jesus was part of God and had His force.
“Or here is another episode when Jesus was already hanging on the cross. He suffered greatly, He felt all the pain of a body with His Soul. Issa abandoned His body. When His Soul left the bod