Olga Stepanets
Contents
• LIFE BEFORE THE BEGINNING OF REAL LIFE
• THE BEGINNING
• LAO
• SATHYA SAI BABA
• OCEAN
• DEFECTS
• SILENCE AND BEAUTY
• SOME RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE DIVINE TEACHERS
• THE BEGINNING
• LAO
• SATHYA SAI BABA
• OCEAN
• DEFECTS
• SILENCE AND BEAUTY
• SOME RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE DIVINE TEACHERS
Life Before the Beginning of Real Life
... I grew up in a village and spent all my time in nature. I observed everything around me, knew where and which flowers appear first, which herbs and fruits one can eat. I was very active and loved to climb everywhere and everything, including trees...
... My main characteristics included being responsible and orderly as far as I remember myself. I was also very stubborn and always held my ground. However, I was humble enough to recognize when I had made a mistake as well.
... I read avidly and eagerly. I especially liked fantasy, in which I loved to read about a bright future, where all people love each other and live in harmony with surrounding nature.
... I always wanted to care about someone.
... I grew in an atheistic family and did not believe in the existence of God.
... I graduated from university, got married, and gave birth to two children. I got to know earthly love, but... it extended to everything! I loved everything around me! At this time, I formulated for myself that the meaning of my life consisted in love!
... I always keenly experienced any injustice. I even became the deputy of a city council in order to protect the interests of simple people.
... I had a family, children, an interesting job, and a stable income. What else does an ordinary person need for happiness? However, the dissatisfaction about the life I lived grew little by little in the depth of the soul...
The Beginning
At the age of 45, I started becoming interested in spiritual literature, including the books of Helena Blavatsky. They captivated me greatly and made me think that a human is a multidimensional being.
But what could I do next? How could I begin the cognition and transformation of myself? There was no response to these questions in those books.
I mentally started appealing to God, Whose existence was not a question of doubts for me anymore. I asked Him for help.
And help came!
One day my daughter brought from her friend a book of Vladimir Antonov “How God Can Be Cognized” [11]. This book impressed me very much! I immediately renounced my non-vegetarian diet and soon began to practice the exercises that were described in that book. My life stopped being pointless and obtained a confident meaning! It became filled with joy and love from the exploration of opening prospects.
... Shortly I found like-minded people. Oleg, the leader of our group, offered us the simplest methods at the beginning, such as attunement to the harmony of nature, psychophysical exercises, and others, which were described in books of Vladimir Antonov and which were accessible for everyone. We all received first-hand evidence that these exercises were indeed effective and gave results, if one repeats them everyday until they become habitual.
It was especially pleasant to practice them in the morning under the warm trickles of the “rain” from a shower. Thus I was able to fill myself with love as soon as I woke up and then started a new day with positive emotions!
I then clearly and definitely comprehended that it would not be possible for me to correctly develop myself as a consciousness, if I did not learn to stay in the emotions of tender love from the very beginning of the spiritual Path.
Oleg taught us to watch ourselves, to overcome our defects, to be strong and firm, to live in the anahata, and to constantly aspire for God with our thoughts.
... Our classes took place primarily in nature, which allowed us to simultaneously memorize species of plants and birds. During my childhood, I had learned to recognize only a dozen birds by sight, but it turned out that there were many more of them in our forests!
It was also a discovery for me that having boiled some water on a campfire, one can quite easily brush one’s teeth in camp conditions and wash the entire body.
At one point in time, we intended to spend two days with overnight stay in the forest with our tents; one woman of forty years became afraid of going with us. For her, camp conditions of life turned out to be an insuperable obstacle. In this way, God draws aside people who are not capable of overcoming their own habits.
... After my personal meeting with Vladimir Antonov and his co-workers — people who entirely dedicated their lives to spiritual self-perfection and to giving the knowledge about the Path to God to other people — I got an opportunity to learn by observing their living examples of spiritual selfless devotion.
... I remember quite well our first meeting with Vladimir. I was worried and afraid of doing something wrong... However, his joyous hug made me forget all my fears!
Vladimir hugged me and kissed me as if he was my own relative who knew me and loved me for a long time! In his arms, you feel as if the Infinity is hugging you, as if the tender Ocean of Love is admitting you into His soft waters, and you dissolve in this Love.
I observed him. He is always calm and placid. If he looks at you, it is Love itself that looks! He is sometimes strict when he speaks about your mistakes, but it is impossible to be offended by this, because what he says is always true. He is tender and caring and every time finds endearing words when he addresses you. He never looses anyone from his sight and remembers everything important about everyone. During winter he shakes snow off our jackets so that it cannot get to the scruff of the neck; in his flat, in narrow passages, he always moves aside and stops to allow you to pass.
He is always dressed very simply, without wearing anything unnecessary. Things serve him for a very long time, because he never throws anything away until it is completely worn-out, until, as he joked by using a medical term, a complete tissue disintegration of this piece of clothing happens.
To me, and probably to any one of us, it has always seemed that he has paid special attention to my person by trying to teach me to live being Love, and not simply to feel it, to manifest it to the world, to saturate my entire body with it, to smile from my anahata always and to live joyfully.
If suddenly a wave of his Love flowed over me, I immediately realized that he was watching me and supporting me.
... There were a lot of cases during my discipleship when I could laugh at myself.
On one occasion, during a spring freshet, we had to cross a flooded river. Water was higher than the edge of our boots. What could we do?
Nevertheless, Vladimir calmly said:
“Well, let’s take our boots and pants off — and go!”
We already had an experience of winter swimming, but such a solution would never come to my mind! And someone might even hesitate, be stopped by it...
Later on, we crossed flooded places many times in this way.
... On another occasion, we passed by the place where it was said in the film “Places of Power. Three Steps of Centering” that mushrooms grow even during a very early spring. It was spring at that moment; the middle of May. In some holes, here and there, one could still see snow. It is in central Russia that May is almost summer, but in its northern part, spring comes one month later. I firmly said to myself that I would in no way believe in mushrooms growing this time, if I did not see them with my own eyes! How amazed I was when I found a family of prickly cups that just came out and that grew on a big old stump covered with green moss!
God truly works miracles in order to knock down our human patterns of perception of the world!
But what could I do next? How could I begin the cognition and transformation of myself? There was no response to these questions in those books.
I mentally started appealing to God, Whose existence was not a question of doubts for me anymore. I asked Him for help.
And help came!
One day my daughter brought from her friend a book of Vladimir Antonov “How God Can Be Cognized” [11]. This book impressed me very much! I immediately renounced my non-vegetarian diet and soon began to practice the exercises that were described in that book. My life stopped being pointless and obtained a confident meaning! It became filled with joy and love from the exploration of opening prospects.
... Shortly I found like-minded people. Oleg, the leader of our group, offered us the simplest methods at the beginning, such as attunement to the harmony of nature, psychophysical exercises, and others, which were described in books of Vladimir Antonov and which were accessible for everyone. We all received first-hand evidence that these exercises were indeed effective and gave results, if one repeats them everyday until they become habitual.
It was especially pleasant to practice them in the morning under the warm trickles of the “rain” from a shower. Thus I was able to fill myself with love as soon as I woke up and then started a new day with positive emotions!
I then clearly and definitely comprehended that it would not be possible for me to correctly develop myself as a consciousness, if I did not learn to stay in the emotions of tender love from the very beginning of the spiritual Path.
Oleg taught us to watch ourselves, to overcome our defects, to be strong and firm, to live in the anahata, and to constantly aspire for God with our thoughts.
... Our classes took place primarily in nature, which allowed us to simultaneously memorize species of plants and birds. During my childhood, I had learned to recognize only a dozen birds by sight, but it turned out that there were many more of them in our forests!
It was also a discovery for me that having boiled some water on a campfire, one can quite easily brush one’s teeth in camp conditions and wash the entire body.
At one point in time, we intended to spend two days with overnight stay in the forest with our tents; one woman of forty years became afraid of going with us. For her, camp conditions of life turned out to be an insuperable obstacle. In this way, God draws aside people who are not capable of overcoming their own habits.
... After my personal meeting with Vladimir Antonov and his co-workers — people who entirely dedicated their lives to spiritual self-perfection and to giving the knowledge about the Path to God to other people — I got an opportunity to learn by observing their living examples of spiritual selfless devotion.
... I remember quite well our first meeting with Vladimir. I was worried and afraid of doing something wrong... However, his joyous hug made me forget all my fears!
Vladimir hugged me and kissed me as if he was my own relative who knew me and loved me for a long time! In his arms, you feel as if the Infinity is hugging you, as if the tender Ocean of Love is admitting you into His soft waters, and you dissolve in this Love.
I observed him. He is always calm and placid. If he looks at you, it is Love itself that looks! He is sometimes strict when he speaks about your mistakes, but it is impossible to be offended by this, because what he says is always true. He is tender and caring and every time finds endearing words when he addresses you. He never looses anyone from his sight and remembers everything important about everyone. During winter he shakes snow off our jackets so that it cannot get to the scruff of the neck; in his flat, in narrow passages, he always moves aside and stops to allow you to pass.
He is always dressed very simply, without wearing anything unnecessary. Things serve him for a very long time, because he never throws anything away until it is completely worn-out, until, as he joked by using a medical term, a complete tissue disintegration of this piece of clothing happens.
To me, and probably to any one of us, it has always seemed that he has paid special attention to my person by trying to teach me to live being Love, and not simply to feel it, to manifest it to the world, to saturate my entire body with it, to smile from my anahata always and to live joyfully.
If suddenly a wave of his Love flowed over me, I immediately realized that he was watching me and supporting me.
... There were a lot of cases during my discipleship when I could laugh at myself.
On one occasion, during a spring freshet, we had to cross a flooded river. Water was higher than the edge of our boots. What could we do?
Nevertheless, Vladimir calmly said:
“Well, let’s take our boots and pants off — and go!”
We already had an experience of winter swimming, but such a solution would never come to my mind! And someone might even hesitate, be stopped by it...
Later on, we crossed flooded places many times in this way.
... On another occasion, we passed by the place where it was said in the film “Places of Power. Three Steps of Centering” that mushrooms grow even during a very early spring. It was spring at that moment; the middle of May. In some holes, here and there, one could still see snow. It is in central Russia that May is almost summer, but in its northern part, spring comes one month later. I firmly said to myself that I would in no way believe in mushrooms growing this time, if I did not see them with my own eyes! How amazed I was when I found a family of prickly cups that just came out and that grew on a big old stump covered with green moss!
God truly works miracles in order to knock down our human patterns of perception of the world!
Lao
We Are Walking
We are walking...
Everything is rain-washed and shining with purity...
A forest is rustling, greeting us,
And it opens its arms, saying: “We are waiting for you!”
We are walking... The smell of fresh grass
And of tender May leaves
Fills the space around us...
Lao says:
“Open your hearts wide: I am your Friend!
“I will help you all
“To pour your voices into the melody of the forest,
“To dissolve in its harmony,
“To feel that the Earth is living, and to embrace it!”
We are walking...
We love and are ready
To accept and hold
All living, the entire created world,
On the palms of our selfless love!
However, what happened next on the place of power itself — in the ashram of Lao — was even more wonderful! Lao showed us His monastery, which existed and exists in a “non-manifested” world!
... It had a lake, and a mist was floating above its surface... From that mist, dim contours of Asian styled gazebos (the ones with curved roofs) appeared... Tiny brooks and small waterfalls were seen among stones... There were a lot of flowers with gentle fragrance and many other plants... Thickets of bamboo were here and there... Small fields of scarlet poppies irradiated warmth, and it was possible to feel it even on the physical plane... It was a marvelous human-made tropical garden in a northern land!
A song started sounding again in my heart:
Garden in the Ashram of Lao
A gentle scent of flowers...,
The warmth of petals...,
A marvelous Garden — the Garden of blissful Love!
A soft and light wave of calm
Fills you —
A marvelous Garden — the Garden of blissful Love!
Many tender arms
Create and take care of
A marvelous Garden — the Garden of blissful Love!
Light is streaming everywhere:
In you and in me...
A marvelous Garden — the Garden of blissful Love!
How can you find a way to this Garden?
On the palms of God is
A marvelous Garden — the Garden of blissful Love!
As the soul blossoms,
Your flower will grow into
A marvelous Garden — the Garden of blissful Love!
Thus, shining with Love,
And inspiring people,
May a marvelous Garden flourish on the Earth!
It was impossible to leave this place! The blissful state of the consciousness in the ashram of Lao has imprinted forever in me and helped me in my hours of need.
“Learn to love, to create love, and to hold on the palms of love, everything living — plants, animals, and people — like I do,” — this was what Lao explained by His Love to us.
Sathya Sai Baba
When we came to the place of power of Sathya Sai for the first time, His Mahadouble rose higher above young birches, and it seemed that warm orange reflections fell even upon the white birch bark and on the unmelted snow.
We clung to Him, and He folded us in His Arms! We melted, we dissolved in His Love... The forest disappeared, we disappeared, and nothing remained but His Tenderest Love...
... On His other place of power, His Mahadouble rose high above a valley with a small river and above nearby meadows. We stayed not far away in tents for several days, and no matter where we moved our bodies, I felt that Baba was holding my hand and led me everywhere, as if I were a little child. He was absolutely Living and Intimate! I felt His love all the time!
He said to us in verses:
“Having taken My Hand,
“Hold it! Don’t lose!
“I will lead you through your life
“To My Abode!”
Baba often gave advices to me, taught me to listen to Him and to write down His words.
One day, when we again came to Him, I felt the necessity to take out a pen and a notebook from my pocket. However, my mind was resisting, saying: “There is nothing to write down, no one says anything!” In spite of this that impulse kept appearing, and finally I prepared everything necessary. Only then His words started flowing:
“You must become a pure source that spills My Knowledge for people: those people who still do not know Me and do not hear Me!
“Manifest Me through yourself!
“The purity of your perception has to be perfect, without any admixture of the self!
“My Love should flow from your eyes and from your heart in everything you say and do! My Love should flow from your entire way of life on the Earth!
“Service to Me through giving My Knowledge to people is what I can do only through sufficiently developed incarnate people, including you.
“I am Everything! I am the One Who creates inside Myself and from Myself! The universe is developing by expanding inside Me.
“I am Love, Which goes to people on the Earth, which manifests Itself in the form of My Fire Mahadoubles through Which I help people on the Path to Me!
“Feel this Love that has neither time nor space boundaries! Dissolve in It! Become It! Hold the entire universe on the arms of Love together with Me!
“Love and help people in their evolution, but remember that they have freedom of choice!
“Carry My Word to people! Whoever has ears, let them hear!”
We clung to Him, and He folded us in His Arms! We melted, we dissolved in His Love... The forest disappeared, we disappeared, and nothing remained but His Tenderest Love...
... On His other place of power, His Mahadouble rose high above a valley with a small river and above nearby meadows. We stayed not far away in tents for several days, and no matter where we moved our bodies, I felt that Baba was holding my hand and led me everywhere, as if I were a little child. He was absolutely Living and Intimate! I felt His love all the time!
He said to us in verses:
“Having taken My Hand,
“Hold it! Don’t lose!
“I will lead you through your life
“To My Abode!”
Baba often gave advices to me, taught me to listen to Him and to write down His words.
One day, when we again came to Him, I felt the necessity to take out a pen and a notebook from my pocket. However, my mind was resisting, saying: “There is nothing to write down, no one says anything!” In spite of this that impulse kept appearing, and finally I prepared everything necessary. Only then His words started flowing:
“You must become a pure source that spills My Knowledge for people: those people who still do not know Me and do not hear Me!
“Manifest Me through yourself!
“The purity of your perception has to be perfect, without any admixture of the self!
“My Love should flow from your eyes and from your heart in everything you say and do! My Love should flow from your entire way of life on the Earth!
“Service to Me through giving My Knowledge to people is what I can do only through sufficiently developed incarnate people, including you.
“I am Everything! I am the One Who creates inside Myself and from Myself! The universe is developing by expanding inside Me.
“I am Love, Which goes to people on the Earth, which manifests Itself in the form of My Fire Mahadoubles through Which I help people on the Path to Me!
“Feel this Love that has neither time nor space boundaries! Dissolve in It! Become It! Hold the entire universe on the arms of Love together with Me!
“Love and help people in their evolution, but remember that they have freedom of choice!
“Carry My Word to people! Whoever has ears, let them hear!”
Ocean
The sea was so huge, tender, and caressing... Waves, by incessantly running over the shore, by splashing while colliding with sand or small pebbles, created a constant rhythm, their own melody, in which the verses of the poems of Divine Maenuel came into being as if rolling waves.
Become a River, Become the Ocean
Become the river that flows...
Become the river that carries
Its waters of pure and tender love to the Ocean...
Become a Wave...
Become the Waves That one after another
Manifest with Themselves
The Ocean of Infinite Universal Love...
Thus you will become the Ocean of Me,
The Ocean That lives creating islands inside Itself,
So that It can love
Rivers, steppes, forests,
And people... —
Those people who grow
And who, like rivers, carry
The waters of pure and tender love to the Ocean...
The consciousness expanded freely and easily over the vastness of the sea!
Meditative states that are expressed in verses — quite often have a stronger effect and are imprinted deeper. This is what Maenuel dictated to me on His seaside place of power:
Turn into the Ocean!
The sea... A gentle whisper of breaking waves,
Early morning mist...
The sea... One wave after another
Embraces me...
I want to dissolve in this mist!
I want to reach the edge of the horizon!
I want to become Light and expand over the sea!
I want to rise as the Sun over the land —
And shine!
The sea... The sea of Light!
The sea of Love is in Heaven!...
The Sun... The Sun of God will help me
Get into the Ocean!
The Primordial Ocean,
The Ocean of Infinite Love!...
By pushing myself away from the solid earth,
I get into It!
By filling yourself with Love and opening arms
Expand yourself more and more and go deeper!
Dissolve so that nothing remains
And turn into the Ocean!...
The sea... The Sea of Light reigns in Heaven!...
The Primordial Ocean
Tenderly cradles the Earth
In Its huge Arms...
Wonderful! I was at the Black Sea several times before, and what arose in the soul now, on these places of power, was so dear and familiar that it evoked memories from my past life... I, as a consciousness, began to recall the ability, which I developed then, to attune with the sattva of nature and to dissolve in the infinite expanses above the sea and in the sky, shining with goldish-pink light.
All this became even clearer to me (it was like a breach into the deep memory of the consciousness) — when I read the chapter about Danish Lady-Gott from the book [8].
I realized that I had known Her! I remembered Her body, which was slim and tall, much taller than mine. It seems that I was a child at that time... Her hair was gathered on the backside of Her head in a simple haircut. I knew Her character, which was strict but fair. She was and is the Lady Who loves wisely, truly!
Yes, I was Her disciple in my previous incarnation, and now I started to recall Her lessons...
... I, without being aware of this, always used the pure and clear energy of water to recover myself from unfavorable energy influences...
... And when I began spiritual practices, it was easy for me to attune myself with the harmony of nature, to fill my body with goldish transparent light and to wash it inside and outside with sponges consisting of light, thus calming my emotions and mind...
... The depth of the perception of the Ocean of the Primordial Consciousness changes as the consciousness grows. Now in meditations, I can perceive the Ocean of the Creator Which surrounds me from all sides, or I can, by merging with It, flow freely through my energy cocoon and my body inside of it...
If the soul grows in the aspiration for the Creator, it transforms into the Consubstantiality with Him...
Now I aspire to never separate myself from Him...
Defects
The spiritual Path is never easy, because it is, first and foremost, a struggle against one’s own imperfections which prevent one from approaching the Creator.
And it happens quite often that it is impossible to see these defects without assistance. It is helpful when there is a good friend nearby who can help you with this.
One also needs to always be open to the “blows” given by God-the-Teacher and be able to withstand these “blows”.
Vladimir knows how to precisely show you your imperfections right in that moment when you are “mature” enough to comprehend it and accept it.
Here are some examples of what he said to me about my defects in the past:
“Olga, why did you come to us with such a face, the face of a housewife tired out by life?
“We should become spiritual leaders, and this means that we do not have a right to lose the states of joy and love! Otherwise, no one will follow us!
“People have enough afflictions and problems...
“We should lead them! We should not be ‘sterile flowers’!
“We should live in continuously growing love for God and in permanent happiness because of this, no matter how bad the body feels.
“Sat-Chit-Ananda* is not a mantra or a slogan. We should live in bliss even if the body is being cut, quartered, or burned. Let’s imagine that the body has been greatly, but not completely, burned down and feels great pain... Or let’s imagine the attacks of devils... Pain and troubles on the material plane must ‘drive’ us deeper into the Mergence with God, into the Bliss of this Mergence! This is their predestination for us!
“What does our activity consist in? If we are earning money, communicating with idle friends, watching television every evening, nursing a husband, serving him, etc., and apart from all this we have a hobby for weekends that consists in playing spiritual games, pleasing ourselves with this (in the same way as people, for example, go to church on Sundays to put a candle there, thinking that by doing this, they carry out their duty before God, thinking that if they light a candle for God, He will take them to paradise)... But this is a lie, a whopping lie! No paradise comes from such deeds!
“We should live with a permanent and strong aspiration for transforming ourselves! Only such correctly directed aspiration brings us closer to God! We do not approach Him only by the mere fact that we have rotated a tetrahedron [13] or visited a place of power... Not exercises themselves are significant here! But we should build our personal relationship with God! We should establish and develop a personal relationship with Him! During the years of practice, the establishment and development of such relationships result in our Mergence with Him!
“Thanks to the intensity of the struggle with oneself — the bliss of interaction with Him grows day after day, year after year!
“Also, no one should think that he or she will be brought to the Abode of the Creator on a leash, like a dog!
“Sathya Sai Baba says very well that there should be no intermediaries between a person and God! In other words, everyone should personally develop his or her relationship with Him! In Agni Yoga there are also words that everyday perception of oneself before God is the hardest but most indispensable condition for success on the spiritual Path.
“You have not developed a personal relationship with God; therefore, any serious spiritual work is still a dream for you... Right now I directly set this task before you! The problem exists, and you need to fix it!
“In my words, however, there is not even the slightest allusion that you are so wrong that we have to say goodbye to each other... No, on the contrary, God confidently marked you out as His promising disciple. However, there is a problem, and this problem should be solved!
“Look, all of you, being away from us, have gotten ‘pinched’ during the time that we have not seen each other! You all became ten years older during the last winter! What did you do all this time? You visited places of power, stood there with gloomy faces, believed that spiritual work was advancing, right? But you did not come closer to God during this time! This is a fact!
“Maybe, you have grown as consciousnesses, but I repeat that we do not approach God just because we stand on a place of power. The growth of love is what brings us closer to God! He is Love, and we also have to become Love! If Love disappears in us, we move away from God! We — as spiritual hearts — must grow, grow, and grow!... However, the spiritual heart is not some kind of balloon! It is the consciousness in the state of Love! And you did not develop it...
“What did not allow you, Olga, to live as a spiritual heart all this time?
“Understand that I want to change this situation positively, I want to get it off the ground. I love you! And you also should love God, all the Divine Teachers, and everything! The growth of Love has not happened in you during all this time; on the contrary, its quantity decreased! The anahata inside your body has not become joyful after all this time!
“There is no doubt that we will overcome these difficulties, but for this it is necessary to change something. Namely, it is necessary to change, first of all, your relationship with God! Maybe this summer you will have an opportunity to give classes. It also seems that you need to change your social environment in which you live. If you do not change it, nothing will turn out well! You need to decide by yourself if you want to change it. I do not insist on anything. However, you have to see your problem right now with my help. I should not harp on this, but I should pose the problem before you. You should understand that I am saying — with absolute goodwill — that something must be changed in your life, despite the fact that you are a very promising disciple. You yourself should solve this or, if you want, you may put your decisions before God for discussion, asking Him whether you are right thinking to act in this or that way.
“And right now, joy should arise in you just because of the fact that you know from this moment that you need to change! You should say yourself: ‘I will change myself!’
“... We can go to places of power, we can develop ourselves as consciousnesses with the help of some techniques... But if we do not communicate with God while doing this, if we do not seek Him, — there will not be much benefit from this. God will reject those aspirants who do not love Him!
“The most important thing is Love for God! Those believers who visit the church and beat their heads against the floor are closer to God than those who focus their attention on places of power — instead of on Living God! Remember this forever! The love of those who are still looking for God only in temples, even thought their love is imperfect, is more directed to God than it was directed in your case!
“‘I develop myself’ is a sport’s principle, but we deal with a religion. Our School is scientific and religious! But religion is, first of all, love for God!
“What sense does it make to develop the anahata if it does not function, if there is no function of Love in it? The structure and the function of this organ should be developed simultaneously! It is not with places of power that you should establish relationships but with God, with the Divine Teachers!
“Look, right here and now: we can embrace Jesus with the arms of our spiritual hearts! And He is stretching His Arms to us for this!
“Love Jesus, Krishna, Sathya Sai Baba, Babaji, Ptahhotep, Surya, Elisabeth Haich, and Others! Love Them all! We know so many Divine Teachers!
“Otherwise, if you ask yourself the question: ‘Whom do I love?’ how can you answer? ‘No one, because there is no one to love.’
“... One of the concrete manifestations of love is service to the One Whom we love. We do this for Him, not for ourselves!
“By the way, if one does not have concrete incarnate people to be loved, one should, probably, suffer from this! I myself suffer from this all the time, even though I have concrete people to whom I can manifest my love! However, I suffer from having so few of them! I would like to have more and more!
“... It is bad when anahatas are empty, not filled with love!
“Everything that you do — looks like sports training! There is no religiosity in this! It is a very serious methodological mistake! Spiritual work must not be similar to sports training! Religiosity is, first of all, love-aspiration for God!
“Yes, your anahata maintained its form, but it is empty! This organ of yours was developing without functioning correctly!
“What can we do to become truly religious? We need to read, think, talk about God, interact with Him by trying to perceive Him, embrace Him with the arms of our spiritual hearts, and serve Him.
“If there are no people whom we can help in a given moment, we can direct our love to other beings, for example, to plants, to animals. We can love everyone except for the inhabitants of hell.
“And it is not possible to merge with God without being in love with Him!
“... ‘Spiritual work’ that has turned into sport trainings can be very dangerous because it can lead to the growth of an ugly self.
“The relationship with God should not be developed only during leisure time. Let God take the place of highest importance in the life of a monk! This is what distinguishes monks from secular people!”
“While working with disciples, you should always get feedback from them. In order to efficiently help a concrete person, it is necessary to know all the nuances of his or her spiritual development! It is essential to learn to take responsibility for the development of a disciple, for his or her upbringing. You must call the attention of a disciple to his or her defects! Otherwise, it is possible to create the illusion in the disciple that he or she is growing spiritually, while in fact this person degrades!
“When you do this, it is important to explain to the disciple how to become better — instead of saying how bad he or she is. In the latter case, this person only feels worse and moves away. You need to tell them how to become better with the exception of those special situations when it seems to a person that everything is alright, while in fact everything becomes only worse. In these cases, yes, you need to upbraid them!
“... The spiritual knowledge of our level should not be given to just anyone. You need to distinguish to whom you give it. We can speak about God, about the spiritual heart with everyone, but we must not give deeper stages to ethically immature people! This would be doing nothing but causing harm to them!
“... Do not harm! People who do not take the work on themselves seriously — should not be entertained.
“We also should not pull anyone towards God! To try to artificially ‘pump’ the interest of a person in spiritual work is harmful to this person, because he or she will not be able to cope with it.”
“Your meditation now is the state of God. You yourself must cultivate the state of the Creator inside yourself.
“We should grow the consciousnesses in the subtlety of the Abode of the Creator. For this, we have to make unceasing efforts. It is not possible to achieve the growth of the consciousness by mere relaxation and staying in subtlety. However, we need to alternate efforts with relaxation in order to take a rest.”
And it happens quite often that it is impossible to see these defects without assistance. It is helpful when there is a good friend nearby who can help you with this.
One also needs to always be open to the “blows” given by God-the-Teacher and be able to withstand these “blows”.
Vladimir knows how to precisely show you your imperfections right in that moment when you are “mature” enough to comprehend it and accept it.
Here are some examples of what he said to me about my defects in the past:
“Olga, why did you come to us with such a face, the face of a housewife tired out by life?
“We should become spiritual leaders, and this means that we do not have a right to lose the states of joy and love! Otherwise, no one will follow us!
“People have enough afflictions and problems...
“We should lead them! We should not be ‘sterile flowers’!
“We should live in continuously growing love for God and in permanent happiness because of this, no matter how bad the body feels.
“Sat-Chit-Ananda* is not a mantra or a slogan. We should live in bliss even if the body is being cut, quartered, or burned. Let’s imagine that the body has been greatly, but not completely, burned down and feels great pain... Or let’s imagine the attacks of devils... Pain and troubles on the material plane must ‘drive’ us deeper into the Mergence with God, into the Bliss of this Mergence! This is their predestination for us!
“What does our activity consist in? If we are earning money, communicating with idle friends, watching television every evening, nursing a husband, serving him, etc., and apart from all this we have a hobby for weekends that consists in playing spiritual games, pleasing ourselves with this (in the same way as people, for example, go to church on Sundays to put a candle there, thinking that by doing this, they carry out their duty before God, thinking that if they light a candle for God, He will take them to paradise)... But this is a lie, a whopping lie! No paradise comes from such deeds!
“We should live with a permanent and strong aspiration for transforming ourselves! Only such correctly directed aspiration brings us closer to God! We do not approach Him only by the mere fact that we have rotated a tetrahedron [13] or visited a place of power... Not exercises themselves are significant here! But we should build our personal relationship with God! We should establish and develop a personal relationship with Him! During the years of practice, the establishment and development of such relationships result in our Mergence with Him!
“Thanks to the intensity of the struggle with oneself — the bliss of interaction with Him grows day after day, year after year!
“Also, no one should think that he or she will be brought to the Abode of the Creator on a leash, like a dog!
“Sathya Sai Baba says very well that there should be no intermediaries between a person and God! In other words, everyone should personally develop his or her relationship with Him! In Agni Yoga there are also words that everyday perception of oneself before God is the hardest but most indispensable condition for success on the spiritual Path.
“You have not developed a personal relationship with God; therefore, any serious spiritual work is still a dream for you... Right now I directly set this task before you! The problem exists, and you need to fix it!
“In my words, however, there is not even the slightest allusion that you are so wrong that we have to say goodbye to each other... No, on the contrary, God confidently marked you out as His promising disciple. However, there is a problem, and this problem should be solved!
“Look, all of you, being away from us, have gotten ‘pinched’ during the time that we have not seen each other! You all became ten years older during the last winter! What did you do all this time? You visited places of power, stood there with gloomy faces, believed that spiritual work was advancing, right? But you did not come closer to God during this time! This is a fact!
“Maybe, you have grown as consciousnesses, but I repeat that we do not approach God just because we stand on a place of power. The growth of love is what brings us closer to God! He is Love, and we also have to become Love! If Love disappears in us, we move away from God! We — as spiritual hearts — must grow, grow, and grow!... However, the spiritual heart is not some kind of balloon! It is the consciousness in the state of Love! And you did not develop it...
“What did not allow you, Olga, to live as a spiritual heart all this time?
“Understand that I want to change this situation positively, I want to get it off the ground. I love you! And you also should love God, all the Divine Teachers, and everything! The growth of Love has not happened in you during all this time; on the contrary, its quantity decreased! The anahata inside your body has not become joyful after all this time!
“There is no doubt that we will overcome these difficulties, but for this it is necessary to change something. Namely, it is necessary to change, first of all, your relationship with God! Maybe this summer you will have an opportunity to give classes. It also seems that you need to change your social environment in which you live. If you do not change it, nothing will turn out well! You need to decide by yourself if you want to change it. I do not insist on anything. However, you have to see your problem right now with my help. I should not harp on this, but I should pose the problem before you. You should understand that I am saying — with absolute goodwill — that something must be changed in your life, despite the fact that you are a very promising disciple. You yourself should solve this or, if you want, you may put your decisions before God for discussion, asking Him whether you are right thinking to act in this or that way.
“And right now, joy should arise in you just because of the fact that you know from this moment that you need to change! You should say yourself: ‘I will change myself!’
“... We can go to places of power, we can develop ourselves as consciousnesses with the help of some techniques... But if we do not communicate with God while doing this, if we do not seek Him, — there will not be much benefit from this. God will reject those aspirants who do not love Him!
“The most important thing is Love for God! Those believers who visit the church and beat their heads against the floor are closer to God than those who focus their attention on places of power — instead of on Living God! Remember this forever! The love of those who are still looking for God only in temples, even thought their love is imperfect, is more directed to God than it was directed in your case!
“‘I develop myself’ is a sport’s principle, but we deal with a religion. Our School is scientific and religious! But religion is, first of all, love for God!
“What sense does it make to develop the anahata if it does not function, if there is no function of Love in it? The structure and the function of this organ should be developed simultaneously! It is not with places of power that you should establish relationships but with God, with the Divine Teachers!
“Look, right here and now: we can embrace Jesus with the arms of our spiritual hearts! And He is stretching His Arms to us for this!
“Love Jesus, Krishna, Sathya Sai Baba, Babaji, Ptahhotep, Surya, Elisabeth Haich, and Others! Love Them all! We know so many Divine Teachers!
“Otherwise, if you ask yourself the question: ‘Whom do I love?’ how can you answer? ‘No one, because there is no one to love.’
“... One of the concrete manifestations of love is service to the One Whom we love. We do this for Him, not for ourselves!
“By the way, if one does not have concrete incarnate people to be loved, one should, probably, suffer from this! I myself suffer from this all the time, even though I have concrete people to whom I can manifest my love! However, I suffer from having so few of them! I would like to have more and more!
“... It is bad when anahatas are empty, not filled with love!
“Everything that you do — looks like sports training! There is no religiosity in this! It is a very serious methodological mistake! Spiritual work must not be similar to sports training! Religiosity is, first of all, love-aspiration for God!
“Yes, your anahata maintained its form, but it is empty! This organ of yours was developing without functioning correctly!
“What can we do to become truly religious? We need to read, think, talk about God, interact with Him by trying to perceive Him, embrace Him with the arms of our spiritual hearts, and serve Him.
“If there are no people whom we can help in a given moment, we can direct our love to other beings, for example, to plants, to animals. We can love everyone except for the inhabitants of hell.
“And it is not possible to merge with God without being in love with Him!
“... ‘Spiritual work’ that has turned into sport trainings can be very dangerous because it can lead to the growth of an ugly self.
“The relationship with God should not be developed only during leisure time. Let God take the place of highest importance in the life of a monk! This is what distinguishes monks from secular people!”
* * *
“You will definitely teach others.“While working with disciples, you should always get feedback from them. In order to efficiently help a concrete person, it is necessary to know all the nuances of his or her spiritual development! It is essential to learn to take responsibility for the development of a disciple, for his or her upbringing. You must call the attention of a disciple to his or her defects! Otherwise, it is possible to create the illusion in the disciple that he or she is growing spiritually, while in fact this person degrades!
“When you do this, it is important to explain to the disciple how to become better — instead of saying how bad he or she is. In the latter case, this person only feels worse and moves away. You need to tell them how to become better with the exception of those special situations when it seems to a person that everything is alright, while in fact everything becomes only worse. In these cases, yes, you need to upbraid them!
“... The spiritual knowledge of our level should not be given to just anyone. You need to distinguish to whom you give it. We can speak about God, about the spiritual heart with everyone, but we must not give deeper stages to ethically immature people! This would be doing nothing but causing harm to them!
“... Do not harm! People who do not take the work on themselves seriously — should not be entertained.
“We also should not pull anyone towards God! To try to artificially ‘pump’ the interest of a person in spiritual work is harmful to this person, because he or she will not be able to cope with it.”
* * *
“Hesychia means inner calm. Even when your body is running, you need to maintain this calm. “Your meditation now is the state of God. You yourself must cultivate the state of the Creator inside yourself.
“We should grow the consciousnesses in the subtlety of the Abode of the Creator. For this, we have to make unceasing efforts. It is not possible to achieve the growth of the consciousness by mere relaxation and staying in subtlety. However, we need to alternate efforts with relaxation in order to take a rest.”
* * *
“What is the difference between an orthodox granny and a Divine Teacher? A Divine Teacher thinks about all of humanity, while a typical orthodox granny concentrates only on her sins...”* Truth — Subtlety (of the consciousness) — Bliss.
Silence and Beauty
Juan Matus represented this in the following words:
Only Light is Everywhere!
Wherever you glance,
You see the Light far and wide...
It attracts you, It embraces you...
There is nothing more beautiful!
By falling in love with It,
You melt in It...
By dissolving in it,
You lose your self...
Only Light is Everywhere,
In every place and in everything!
It is beneath all things,
Everything is held on It!
It is Wisdom and Power!
It is Tenderness and Love!
By cognizing Its Depths,
You become born again in It!
Is it possible to cognize it
By igniting only sometimes?
Burn! And having burned the self,
You will turn into It forever!
However, this is possible only inside the inner calm that one has cognized and mastered.
Divine Lada spoke about the same subject:
Silence
Silence in the forest… Silence...
Snow is falling very quietly...
It has covered the ground and the trees...
Everything has quieted down...
Silence around… Silence...
I feel it... I feel how it surrounds...
I feel it by allowing it to enter my...
Silence... It embraces
Rising from the depths...
The self disappears in it,
Silence dissolves...
I hear the silence!...
It is full of Infinite Love...
From the depths of silence,
Where the Source is,
God enters into the silence
Of the soul...
Some Recommendations of the Divine Teachers
Babaji:
“Devote yourself to God completely!
“Out of all your personal desires, only one should remain: the permanent and ineradicable aspiration for Me, into Me!
“And one more thing for you to ponder over: what have you done yet for God? Not for your personal development, but for God.”
Lada:
“Learn to love nature that surrounds you!
“Learn to love silence, the living silence of nature!
“Learn to notice beauty even in small and indiscernible grass, even in a flower that is quite simple at first glance!
“Learn to listen to the silence around you and the silence inside you! Then you will learn to live with your heart!
“I am Love! I am Beauty! Love and create Beauty together with Me, and in this joint creative work, become One with Me!”
Sathya Sai Baba:
“It is a requirement for the disciples of My School — to act absolutely intelligently while carrying out the Intention of the Creator for spreading our common knowledge on the planet Earth.
“Those who do not understand this — act only for the sake of the satisfaction of the whims of their selves! I exclude such people.”
Jesus Christ:
“You will meet My Love everywhere! I am and always will be among you!
“Preach about Me from the Depths of the Father, by carrying the Truth to places where people will be able to understand Me! This is the only thing to which I call you!
“This is the Flow of our common Service.
“And remember that from every one who has been given much, much will be demanded!
“You are incorporated in this Flow and interconnected with All of Us. You must not stop! Otherwise, this will be the non-fulfillment of your duty!
“Absolute devotion is required from every one who is incorporated in this Flow! The one who looks narrowly, at his or her feet, will fall being unable to withstand the intensity of this Flow!”
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