Sensei of Shambala - Anastasia Novykh

“Absolutely correct. And if you carefully follow the work of academician Bekhtereva as a human and a scientist, you’ll see that after having studied the human brain all her life, she came to the conclusion that she knows very little about it, about its potential. Nevertheless, the deeper she delves into the study of the brain, the more she believes in the idea of its extraterrestrial origin, that is, of its true source of origin, based on the exceptional complexity and superfluity of the brain. I’m pretty sure that soon she will publicly announce it, just as it was announced by the great scientists of the world not just in the sphere of psychic research, but in other natural sciences, for example, by Einstein, Tesla, Vernadsky, Tsiolkovsky, and other great scientists. This list is huge and would take a long time to go through. But all those people came to the conclusion that humans are very unique and mysterious creatures and in no way could have originated on the Earth from some kind of infusorium!”

We stood silent, slightly shocked by what we had heard.

“So, it means that the power of extraordinary, phenomenal people is concealed simply in their thought?” Kostya asked again.

“Absolutely right. Thought is a real power. A lot greater than humans can imagine. Thought is able to move planets, to create and destroy entire galaxies, which initially was proved by God Himself.”

Nikolai Andreevich smiled and said ironically, “It’s a very convincing answer, I can’t even argue with it.”

“Really?!” Andrew expressed our general amazement. “Then why don’t we feel the presence of this gigantic power in ourselves?”

“Because you don’t believe in it.”

“Is that so? The beginning was so complicated, but the end is so simple,” stated Kostya.

“What can I do? So is the nature of knowledge,” answered Sensei with a smile.

“Well, how can it be,” Slava was struggling to understand, “if I felt such a power, why wouldn’t I believe in it?”

“The whole trick is that first you should believe, and then you will feel it.”

“And what if I believe but don’t feel it?” Slava couldn’t calm down. “What then?”

“If you really believe in it, then certainly you will feel it,” answered Sensei and added, “All right, we can discuss it for a long time, but it’s time to begin the meditation.”

“And what is a meditation?” asked Tatyana. “I’ve read that it is psychic training during a trance. But what it actually is, I still don’t understand.”

“In a few words, a simple meditation is the training of thought and a deeper spiritual practice is the training of spirit.”

“Does it mean that thought and spirit are the same?” Kostya broke into the conversation again.

“No.”

The cat sitting close by stirred at its place, as if making itself more comfortable.

“Now we will practice the simplest meditation on the concentration of attention, so that you can learn how to control the Qi energy. But before that, I would like to repeat again for those who came late. In addition to the material body, the human also has an energy body. The energy body consists of an aura, chakras, energy channels, meridians, and special reservoirs for energy accumulation. Each of them has its own name. I will tell you later in detail about all of them, depending on the meditation.”

“And what is a chakra?” I asked.

“Chakra is a tiny spot on the human body through which different energies enter and exit. It works…so for you it would be easier to understand… like an iris or diaphragm in a camera. Do you know what that is?”

We nodded assent.

“It is the same way with chakras; they instantly open and instantly close.”

“And does all that energy really come out in that instant?” Slava was surprised.

“Well, it’s not like emptying a bucket of water. After all, a human being is an energy and material creature, where energy and matter exist by their own laws and time, however they are fully interconnected and interdependent. Any other questions?” Everyone was silent. “Then let’s begin. Right now, your objective is to learn to feel inside of yourselves the movement of air, the movement of Qi. You all think that you perfectly understand and feel yourselves. But I’m pretty sure that you can’t see right now, for example, the toes of your feet. Why? Because you don’t have internal vision. Internal vision, just like internal feeling, can be trained with time, in everyday training. That’s why we will start with the simplest and easiest meditation. We’ll try to learn to control thoughts and feelings, to evoke them and to guide them.

“All right, now make yourselves comfortable and relax. Calm your emotions. You may close your eyes, so nothing will distract you. Dissolve all your thoughts and everyday problems in the emptiness.”

As soon as that phrase was spoken, I recalled a pile of tiny household chores. “Gosh! Those impudent thoughts again,” I thought. “You were told to get dissolved.” I tried again not to think about anything.

“Concentrate on the tip of your nose…”

With closed eyes I tried to “see” the tip of the nose, guided more by my internal feelings. I felt my eyes slightly strain.

“Now breathe in deeply, slowly and gradually. First, with the bottom of the stomach, then with the stomach, chest, raising shoulders… Slightly hold your breath… Slowly breathe out… We concentrate our internal vision only on the tip of the nose… You should feel and imagine that the tip of your nose is like a small light bulb or small flame, and it flames up with your every breath out… Breathe in… Breathe out… Breathe in… Breathe out… The flame flares up more and more…”

At first, I felt a slight burning and pricking in my nose. There was such a feeling as if I were filled with something material, like a jug with water. Later it seemed to me that in the area of the nose tip appeared a dark distant contour of a purple tiny spot. At first, I couldn’t clearly focus on it. Finally, when I was able to get it fixed, it started to lighten up from inside. Moreover, when breathing in, the light narrowed, and when breathing out, it widened. When I got used to breathing this way, I heard the words of Sensei.

“Now switch your attention to another part of meditation. Slightly raise your hands a little forward, palms facing the earth. Breathe in as usual: through the bottom of the stomach, then through the stomach and chest. Your breath out should be directed through the shoulders, hands, to the center of your palms, where the chakras of the hands are located, and through them into the earth. Imagine that something is flowing through your hands, Qi energy, or light, or water, and then overflows into the earth. This flow rises from the bottom of the stomach up to your chest, and there it is split up in two streamlets and overflows into the earth through your shoulders, arms, hands. Concentrate all your attention on the feeling of that movement… Breathe in… Breathe out… Breathe in… Breathe out…”

A thought flashed across my mind, “What does it mean to breathe through the hands? How can it be?” I even panicked a little. Sensei, obviously feeling my confusion, came up and placed his palms over mine, without touching the skin. After some time, my palms began to burn, like two stoves, spreading warmth from their center to the periphery. And what astonished me most of all was that I really felt how tiny warm streamlets were pouring through my shoulders. In the region of my elbows they weakened, but I felt them very well overflowing through my palms. Deep in these new, unusual feelings, I asked myself, “How am I doing this?” While I was thinking it over, I lost the feeling of the steamlets. I had to concentrate again. In general, it worked with variable success. After one of my next attempts, I again heard Sensei’s voice.

“Close the palms of your hands in front of you, firmly grip them so that the chakras of the hands are closed and the movement of energy stopped. Take two deep, fast breaths in and out… Lower your hands and open your eyes.”

After the meditation, when we started to share impressions, I understood that everyone experienced it differently. Tatyana, for example, didn’t see the flame; instead of it she felt some kind of light movement through her hands. Andrew had a shiver in his legs and light dizziness. Kostya shrugged his shoulders and answered, “I didn’t feel anything special, except a pins and needles sensation. But that is quite a normal reaction resulting from the oversaturation of the body with oxygen.”

“After the third, fourth breath in, maybe,” answered the Teacher. “But at the beginning the brain becomes fixed by the thought, in particular before the movement of the Qi. And if you listen to yourselves, relax and breathe in deeply, you will immediately feel a widening or paresthesia feeling in the head, or in other words, a certain process that develops there. That is exactly what you need to understand, what is moving there, and learn to control it.”

“Why didn’t I feel anything?” asked a disappointed Slava.

“What did you think about?” Sensei asked half in jest.

It turned out that Slava didn’t really know what he had been expecting, maybe some kind of a miracle. Sensei replied, “Right, that’s the reason you didn’t feel anything because you concentrated your thoughts not on the work but on waiting for some extraordinary miracle. But there won’t be a miracle until you create it yourself. You shouldn’t wait for anything extraordinary when you breathe correctly or concentrate on something. No. The biggest miracle is you, yourself, as a Human! After all, where does all great spiritual art lead? It helps you become human so that you gradually wake up and recall the knowledge that was given to you primordially. These meditations are only a means of awakening from spiritual lethargy and recalling long-hidden and forgotten information that you knew and used once upon a time.”

“What do you mean knew?” Slava didn’t understand.

“Well. For example, everybody knows how to read, write, count, if, of course, he is normal, without mental disorders. Right?”

“Right.”

“But first he had to be taught. While later he already easily reads, counts and so forth. That is, he already exactly knows that, for example, one plus one equals two, two plus two equals four. It seems so simple and real! But at the beginning he was taught all this, although in reality he simply recalled. These are hidden, subconscious abilities. Or, here is another easier example that has to do with the physiological level. If a man who doesn’t know how to swim is thrown into the water, he will drown. But it has been proven and confirmed by deliveries in water that a newborn baby, when lowered into pool, swims like any other animal. Does it mean that he already possesses these reflexes? Indeed. But later it’s simply forgotten. It is the same with a human. He has a lot of knowledge that he doesn’t even suspect he has.

“But… all of this works only with a positive factor. If some mercenary interests prevail in him, for example, to learn to cheat somebody or to be able to hit someone with energy from a distance, or maybe he wants to be able to bend everyone’s spoons so they throw him money for that, he will never achieve anything. Only when a person learns to control his thoughts will he really become human, and only then will he be able to achieve something.”

“So, does it mean that spiritual practice is a method of awakening a human?” asked Andrew.

“Absolutely right. Spiritual practice is only an instrument for repairing your mind. And the result depends on how you use this instrument. In other words, it all depends on the desire and skill of the master. And in order to learn how to hold this instrument in your hands it is necessary to control your thought, to concentrate it, and to see it with your internal vision. In our case it means to learn to control our breath, to feel that you breathe out through the chakras of hands. You need to learn to evoke certain feelings so that later you will be able to control the internal, hidden energy.”

“In my opinion, this is a hallucination,” remarked Kostya.

“Yes, a hallucination, if you regard it as a hallucination. But if you regard this energy as real power, then in reality it will be real power.”

“It’s strange, but why?”

“Because, I repeat, a thought controls an action. While energy itself is an action. That is all. Everything is very simple.”

We remained silent for a moment, while Nikolai Andreevich asked, “From the point of view of psychology, is it nevertheless an objective factor or a subjective feeling? For example, I clearly felt the concentration on the tip of the nose. But movements through the arms I felt only partially, where I was focusing my attention.”

Sensei started to explain something to the psychotherapist, using terms unknown to me, probably from his professional language. And as I understood from their speech, they touched on the problems of sensitiveness, including healing and diagnostics of different diseases. The latter interested me very much.

During this discussion, while the other guys were listening, Slava was carefully examining the palms of his hands. And as soon as a lengthy pause appeared in the discussion, he hurried to ask, “I do not completely understand about chakras. You said that there should be opening points. But there is nothing in here!”

The senior guys laughed.

“Of course,” said Sensei. “Visually there is nothing like that.”

Eugene, standing next to Slava, couldn’t help it, turned his hands around and seriously asked like a doctor, “Well, patient. Do you see bones and tendons there?”

“No,” replied Slava, still puzzled.

Eugene smacked his lips and mournfully said, “He is hopeless!”

The guys laughed.

“You see, chakras are certain zones on the human body that are more sensitive to warmth,” patiently explained the Teacher. “They, of course, can’t be seen, but this is real and can be registered by modern equipment. For scientists, just like for you, these zones are still a mystery: the cells are the same, the connections are the same, but their sensitivity is higher. Why? Because chakras are located here while chakra belongs to the astral body, that is, to another, more profound physics. A thought is a binding link between the astral and material bodies. That’s why it is very important to learn to control your thoughts… Then you will be able really to guide Qi moving inside of your body.”

The senior guys joined the conversation, discussing some kind of their own meditation issues. At the end of our meeting, Sensei asked Eugene and Stas personally to accompany us to the tram stop and help us to get to the tram.

“And no tricks of yours!” Sensei ordered jokingly to Eugene.

“Yes, sir,” Eugene saluted, “no freaks!”

Sensei hopelessly waved his hand. When the whole crowd moved laughing towards the path, the Teacher called the cat. But it grandly walked out in a different direction. Sensei tried to run it down to catch it, but to no avail. That prankster slipped into the nearest bushes. Squatting down, Sensei tried to pull it out. Using this opportunity, I came up to the Teacher, as if helping to catch the cat.

“Can you diagnose…”