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Book II
Sensei of Shambala. Book II
A stone fallen to the sand —
rustle of sand grains.
A wave reaching the land —
rustle of sand grains.
Your running headlong,
A foot in the sand —
rustle of sand grains.
Life is just a step,
And its years are rustle of sand grains.
Prologue
“But not everything is so bad. Moreover if you decided to stay, let them have one more chance and let me…”
At this moment a light breeze flashed by over the sea brightening the moonlit path. The last one sparkled charmly with its silvery plays alluring to the mysterious expanse. The nature as if intentionally teased the Creature, on the one side surrounding It by its eternity, and on the other side by its natural earthly beauty. Obviously this easy capful of wind hid some innermost mystery known only by it. “If you want it so much, go ahead, try it. When we are still here there is a bit of time…” “But the field is ripened long ago. And the bushes of weed are growing too fast and overburden the Earth… The crops are too weak, though they were carefully cultivated: the seconds of illusion overshadowed for them the reality of the eternity.” “However, I hope to find out…”
The new capful of wind brought away the words to its endless expanses. Two parts of the Creature again united themselves in their essence. A short silence reigned. Only the fire crackled softly with its burning branches. Fine thin twigs quickly turned down to the charry formless ashes. It was so strange as only one instant passed by but it seemed that this odd matter has never existed as if it has never happened to be.
1
All the guys ran to swim. Finally it happened so that Sensei was left alone. He stood in the shoal water gradually getting used to the water temperature. Taking advantage of his loneliness I started to tell him my strange dream about the Red Horseman which I had seen in my dreams last night. This unusual vision impressed me by its unordinary realism, brightness and emotionality. Telling it to Sensei I complained that I couldn’t recall its meaning, and remember only that it was very important for me. Contrary to my expectations that he would fully decode this dream from physiological and philosophical points of view, Sensei only smiled and, looking at me somehow mysteriously, said, “The time will come, and you will know everything.”
These words fully intrigued my person but Sensei didn’t add anything to them. Having left me completely confused he joined the group of our guys who had a lot of fun trying to stop the incoming waves with their athletic bodies. “It’s a strange dream. And a strange answer. What could it mean?” I thought about it again.
Observing Sensei from aside I couldn’t stop wondering how natural he was in all spheres of life. In our group he wasn’t too much remarkable, although maybe only by his bigger fortitude and very good sense of humour. But if we touched, figuratively saying, the strings of his spiritual life, they brought such a nice melody charming with its unordinary sublimity, simplicity, elegancy and at the same time with unusual wisdom which really attracted everybody to him…
He was an extraordinary mysterious Human. Analyzing my past I made an interesting conclusion: everything whatever Sensei came across, started to get changed. I was lost in guesses how he managed to do it? Take for example my destiny. Half a year ago despite my 17 years my body was on the verge of death. And at that difficult period of my life when I was almost completely desperate and my relatives’ eyes were full of sorrow and condolence, exactly at that ‘last moment’ I met Sensei, the martial arts’ master, whose knowledge and abilities evidently exceeded the limits of common people.
Sensei literally changed not only my destiny but the whole world in my perception. Now I’m pretty sure that this meeting was not a happy fortuity as I had thought before. Putting altogether all the ‘unexpected fortuities’ that unavoidably brought me to certain consequences in my life, I became sure that this meeting was rather a rule, a manifestation of Somebody’s will from above. And if thanks to Sensei I stayed alive then it means Somebody needs it.
But what for? And why? What can I do in order to fulfil the task I was left for? It’s difficult to guess about something you don’t know. How can someone get know the full intention of the Higher forces? It happens often that an occasional meeting, a word, even a wordless action may cause such a flow of events that invisibly will lead to some global changes both for some individuals and for society as a whole. But an ordinary person who gave this original impulse will probably stay unaware of the general result of his doing as he lives in the limited little world of his thoughts and surrounding of exclusively ‘his reality’. And what is really striking is that everybody adds every day, even without knowing it, by the will of his own choice his small contribution to this increasing snow ball of coming events.
I intuitively felt that the clue to the true sense of my destiny lays in this mysterious dream. And as every curious person I wanted to know everything at once and in details. But a mystery continued to be a mystery.
2
After the good breakfast our big group laid down on the sand putting our bodies to the tender rays of the morning sun. Our group consisted of enthusiasts of different age, we had a common passion to the martial arts (and not only), and were unanimous in our special and sincere respect to our coach Igor Mikhailovich whom we called in a friendly way as ‘Sensei’.
Sensei was really an extraordinary personality. By his appearance he didn’t distinguish himself from our group. He was a young athletic man with blond hair. Although a careful observer could notice at first glance his unusually eagle and wise eyes. But despite of that… the eldest and the most significant was our 40-years old phychoterapist Nikolai Andreevich. The most serious one was Volodya, the old friend of Sensei, who was in charge of some secret service department. The loudest one was Viktor, our senior sempai, the young policeman. The most funny, humorous ones were Eugene and his friend Stas, tall athletic guys from the senior group. And the youngest ones were Ruslan and Yura as well as our merry group which once had watched films about martial arts, went to look for a good Teacher and found such a knowledge source as Sensei. We didn’t expect even in our dreams that such unique individuals do exist in this world. ‘Our merry group’ means Andrew, Kostya, Slava, Tatyana and me. This year we finished school and passed all exams. School was left in the past and the whole life with its sorrows and joys, victories and defeats, ups and downs was before us. We were right in that uncertain ‘in between’ which seemed to us the best time for the ‘respite’.
It was only the third day of our unforgetable vacation with Sensei on the sea coast. But what a nice vacation it was! It was that very golden time when you have a chance not only to have a rest with your best friends but also to enrich yourself with outstanding impressions, and the most important, with wisdom due to the hearty communication with Sensei.
Slava and Yura headed by Volodya, following the army order, went to the sea to clean the dishes with the sand as it was their turn that morning. The boys didn’t have any objections to do that. It was enough of light reminder from Volodya, who said in a deep commander voice “Let’s go!” and they grasped enthusiastically the pots. This funny scene caused the whole flow of jokes towards Volodya. But the last one wasn’t confused by that and replied in a military manner, “The order is the order.”
Nikolai Andreevich took again a book which he used to read from time to time already for three days. Judging by the questions which he raised during the discussion with Sensei, the book concerned obviously his psychoterapeutic activity. He argued that psychology was unfortunately still a young science and that nowadays a good psychologist must be also a good philosopher as namely philosophers stood at the origin of the philosophy as a science.
“Take, for example, Socrates, one of the initial founders of the psychology. Listen to his remarkable words,” Nikolai Andreevich opened a marked page and read aloud, “One should not cure eyes separately from head and head separately from body as well as one should not cure body without curing soul…”