The Master/Meeting with the Master

Meeting with the Master

For me, my acquaintance with You took place not this summer in the train, when You put your hand on my shoulder in greeting and sat down opposite, but earlier. When asked if I had been in Your city before, I said Yes, I had visited once on a school camping trip as a child. And for some reason, I began to tell about my class teacher, who was remembered due to her words: “I will destroy you all!” and “I will teach you to live beautifully!”. And You recalled your grandmother, who also was a school teacher and hated children and all people in general. Then, you mentioned something described in Your autobiography, “Essays on the Main”, and other books.

I knew it was a kind of test: had I read those books? And though I had read almost everything You wrote, I was in a state of total loss of memory: I could not recall anything at all from what I had read! I honestly answered that I did not remember. Situations like this usually leave me embarrassed and confused. But at that moment, for some reason, I felt… absolute peace. I was looking at You, at Your enormous backpack, shabby jacket, many years-old sneakers in patches and understood, and felt that here I was at home, and that everything now will be just fine!

And it became so! And so it still is!

In spite of the fact that during our first personal meeting I forgot, it seemed, everything that I had read in Your books, I consider my acquaintance with those books to be my first meeting with You. That was three years ago, but it seems like millennia ago.

That meeting happened during a book festival in a southern city by the sea. One of the books titled, “Spiritual Work with Children” stopped me in my tracks and did not let me pass by. At the time, I was just starting to work with children and acutely realized that knowledge of the subject and pedagogical techniques alone was not enough. The most important thing was missing, and without it any approach to teaching and raising children can’t be integral and, as a result, successful.

That was the main thing I was looking for!

But, instead of reading this book first, I started by reading “Ecopsychology”. I didn’t even read it, but drank it in like a person who had long been parched with thirst. At the time, much in it seemed incomprehensible and strange to me. However, there was a realization that all of this was the truth, extracted and tested by life experience, and fulfilled and implemented by the author of this book. Here they are — simple and clear answers to all my questions! Here is — God, and He is like this! And direct cognition of Him is the meaning and purpose of life! He is cognizable and it is possible to merge with Him, to enter Him! But to make it possible, one needs to change oneself, to correct one’s own life, and remake oneself. And here are the answers, step by step: what to do. And I, after believing and accepting this knowledge, began to do all this, as I knew how and by trying to do the best that I could.

No less important than this book, was my acquaintance with Your disciple. He didn’t speak either about himself, nor about his own accomplishments, and he didn’t glorify himself, like so many whom I had heard before. And there was so much love in his words about You and about the work of Your life that I believed those words, or rather, the love contained in them. And I started to learn from him. I used to visit him for a while every few months: to learn new meditative techniques from him. Later, I worked on them on my own at home.

But, the most important thing that I learned through him was to love. And I… fell in love with him the first time we met. And for the next three years I tried to cope with my feelings, considering them almost a nuisance on the way to God, blaming myself for them.

* * *

My personal meeting with You came at a turning point for me. My strength — both of the body and soul — was exhausted by a struggle with a disease, which had lasted for six months. I tried many remedies, which were offered by different doctors one after another. Each of them gave their own explanation of what was happening to me. But none guaranteed that the disease would recede. I was hinted that its next stage may be cancer.

Such a situation is always a serious signal to man from God; and even more so — for one who follows the Spiritual Path. I was trying to understand: what was my mistake? What did God mean by it? But… I couldn’t figure it out.

As is often the case, it is during the most difficult moments of life that God offers us to pass a test of our ethical worthiness. After all, no matter how hard things get, we cannot betray Him by leaving the state of love! That’s what most of His lessons are!

I didn't pass that test from God and… I gave up…

I’ve been knocked down by difficult circumstances before; after all, this was not the only exam of His that I had “failed”! But before, I always managed to find the strength to stand up, correct the mistakes that I had made, and move on. But now, probably for the first time in my life, I gave up for real and just stopped fighting. I felt that I had no strength for anything else and that I had to honestly admit that this was the end… and that I would never be able to get up again!…

The hardest thing for me then was… the shame. I was ashamed before God and before You. It was as if I had simply blotted out and nullified all that I had learned thanks to You, and thanks to the Knowledge that was so hard for You to obtain. Perhaps it was this feeling of shame that became my request for help. For if I still had this feeling, then there was hope…

And You immediately responded to this request, which I had not even expressed aloud, by inviting me to come to You! You picked me up like a child’s paper airplane that had landed badly, fixed me up, and sent me flying again. And now I can fly again! And how grateful I am to mine and other people’s mistakes! They brought me to You, to where You are.

* * *

Whatever we did together, whether it was walking through the woods, riding trains to places of power, meditating there, learning new (for me) Divine States, warming ourselves by the campfires, drinking coffee, eating macaroni with mushrooms directly from the frying pan, reading, or listening to music, I just could not get over the fact that such simple actions could be performed by a Man who Himself had found God and showed people the straightest and shortest Path to Him, bridging the gap between two worlds, which we — people — had made separate: the Creation and of the Creator. He also gave others the possibility to touch God and to cognize Him, giving them the opportunity to come Home.

Everything You did was never personal. Everything was just a manifestation of God, and so everything was a lesson to me, even washing dishes at home. Not to mention how You live: what clothes You wear, how You treat people and things, and how You spend the limited time that we each have in this world. Will I ever understand all Your lessons? To begin understanding became possible for me only when I learned to perceive You as Love, and when I realized that, consequently, everything You say and do is necessary in order that, in due time, I can also become such Love.

* * *

I often heard from different people: “Write a book!”. “First I need to live it!” was my usual answer.

It was not until You Yourself told me about it, that I decided to write. And so, here I am writing. And I, indeed, had to live it first.

If it weren’t for You, my life would have been a few chapters shorter. And I would have never known what a happiness it is to talk about the Path to God.

Now, looking back at everything that has been left behind, I try to analyze and comprehend all the stages of the Path that I have passed.

It is so important for me to understand: why, when the time came for a real battle, did it turn out that I was not ready for it?