possible to lure the fish, lavishly throwing the bait into the water, however the result remained unchanged. Only small fish was biting. Willy-nilly, they indeed arranged a whole eating festival for the fish, having overfed it with the most exquisite forest dainties. In the end, Eugene and Father John performed a ceremonial “absolution” for all the caught little fish. They delivered an edifying speech to the fish on how not get caught in the future, in case the fish would come across hooks filled with free bait, as well as on how the fish was supposed to earn its living through hard work. Then, accompanied by Eugene’s festive piping of some merry song, they set the little fish free, having thrown them back into the river.
Having lost interest in fishing, Eugene and Father John began to make up practical jokes to be played on other the fishermen and totally worn out the entire company. Once they got bothered with this as well, they started chaffing each other, practicing composing of new jests. Naturally, Father John particularly excelled in inventiveness. Owing to his efforts, Eugene was finding ants in his sandwiches and other food during the entire day. In general, despite their “interpersonal opposition”, they completely supplemented each other. Sensei even jokingly nicknamed them “the two halves of Aesop’s soul”. The ancient Greek cracked slave fabulist would have probably been ineffably surprised in his VI century B.C., if somebody had told him about such an unexpected reincarnation of his soul in the distant future.
The day flew past in an eyewink. As early as at the lunch time, following Valera’s example, the entire company simultaneously began gathering brushwood for the campfire and thus cleaned the forest territory adjoining their meadow without even noticing it. As a result, they brought a whole hill of dry branches and logs. After the lunch, the camp turned somewhat deserted. The special operations group headed by Volodya decided to examine the area along the river in a quest of good fishing places and promised to return not that soon, whereas Valera desired to stay.
Evidently, Volodya’s guys got very much carried away with the fishing “hunt”, for when the company was already finishing their supper, there still hadn’t come back. Valera even decided to walk along the bank to look for Volodya in the same direction as the special operations group had walked away, and also to check the remote fishing spots for biting. He reported this to Sensei. After Valera had left, Eugene proudly stated concerning the entire “squadron” disappearance, “See! They haven’t taken me with them, that’s why they have got lost.”
In response to his words Vano promptly remarked, “Without you, they definitely have more chances to get back.”
Eugene made a comical face, and the guys burst out laughing of his clownery over again.
By the way, as early as during the supper Eugene had made everyone laugh again with a scrupulous inspection of his food, checking each centimeter of it like a customs officer. Fortunately for him, there appeared no “enemy saboteurs” there. So, by the tea time he already somewhat relaxed. The guy was victoriously looking at Vano who was sitting opposite to him, demonstrating his total control of the situation. When Eugene was handed over a glass of tea, he decided to drink it even without adding sugar so as not to swallow another Father John’s bait. Having taken the glass from Nastia with an aromatic hot drink, he noticed floating tea-leaves in the glass and mildly cooed with a smile, “Hey, girls, who has made the tea? You should have taken the boiling water. See, the tea leaves are all on the surface.”
“What do you mean, Eugene?” Tatyana wondered. “The tea’s packed in bags.”
After her words Eugene immediately stopped smiling. He started scrutinizing the “tea-leaves” in his mug. Stas curiously glanced into Eugene’s mug, too, and ascertained with a snicker, “Yes, these are the ants.”
“Oh, my God! But how?!” he was totally positive the girls would have never made such a provocation. Eugene caught Vano’s cunning look and only now noticed the teapot next to him. “How dare you! The Green Peace will pursue you! You’re the violator of the international convention! It’s a shocking! I’ll complain to the United Nations! I’ll send a letter to Pope!”
Eugene kept funnily expressing his indignation for another half an hour, announcing aloud an approximate list of his “complaints” each of which was certainly followed with Vano’s hilarious comments. Some of the present eventually got abdomen aches of interminable laughter caused by the couple’s jokes. Luckily, the process of “official letters” composing was timely interrupted by Nikolai Andreevich who decided to spend the time more rationally using it for talking with Sensei, especially since it was possible to discuss some vital topics openly, when no “unauthorized persons” were present. Although there was Vano with them, he didn’t ask any superfluous questions, and Sensei himself didn’t hesitate to tell about everything freely in his presence. Nikolai Andreevich waited a little while until the company stopped laughing after another jest and tactfully started to turn the conversation to a different direction.
“Yet, indeed, where is our special operations group?”
“Probably, they have found a splendid place, given they’ve given up the supper,” Victor surmised, swallowing up cookies one by one.
“Yeah, when fish bites, you forget everything in the world. An entire prostration in time,” Nikolai Andreevich jested. “Speaking about time, by the way. I wanted to question you about it in detail long ago,” he addressed Sensei. “I often experience such periods, particularly after meditations, when a subjective notion of time nearly disappears. I’d say, there ensues an effect of some crystal clear consciousness. Work capacity increases tremendously. When you work with documents after meditating, there’s such an impression as if you possess and entire library in your head, and all the necessary information easily rises to the consciousness surface.
“Generally speaking, the time phenomenon has interested me as such long ago. And I have so many questions. Well, everything’s quite understood with the official part: in science time is used as a unit to measure certain periodical processes. Obviously, in philosophy time is a state of matter, a form of successive change of events. Clearly, it’s connected with space. And, while the universal characteristics of time are duration, inimitableness and irreversibility, the characteristics of space are extension and the unity of discontinuity and continuity. This all seems to be clear enough… However, in the highest accounts... In my opinion, there exists a tremendous difference between how we measure time and how we actually live it. I’ve got such an impression as if there are several kinds of time perception in our consciousness simultaneously fighting for suffrage. One perception is scientific endeavoring to substantiate precision and quantitative expression of time rules. The other perception is social which aspires after violating these rules. The third one relates to the effect of subjective time perception, for instance, during meditations. The fourth one strikes with its phenomenal occurrences in stress situations. In this connection, I have a whole series of questions to ask you. But, first of all, I’d like to know what is time in reality?”
“Time?” Sensei shook his head and said. “You’re initiating a big subject… In principle, you’ve noted correctly that time is quite a relative concept. Judging about time significantly depends on who, from which reference system and for what purpose is observing this phenomenon. Considering its manifestation in reality, time may be subdivided into:
1) veritable time which straightly depends on the power of Allat; if you remember, everything in this world (whether it’s matter or energy) including time exists only thanks to Allat which I’ve already told you about;
2) global time (or absolute time) is the time period passing from appearance to complete disappearance of the matter on a scale of the Absolute;
3) objective time is our habitual time-calculation in seconds, hours, months, years which are conditional to the time of the Earth’s revolution on its axis and around the Sun, i.e. to physical processes steadily recurring in equal time intervals;
4) subjective time is an individual perception of time by each person.
“But, for you to realize these processes better, I shall, perhaps, explain these time concepts on a figurative demonstration. – Sensei asked the guys to give him a box of matches and took one match out of it. – Here, look. Let’s assume that this match burning from the moment the fire appears until