Читать книгу ABU. To Be Who You Are - А. Манвайлер - Страница 5

For happiness it is undoubtedly more important what is in a person than what a person has. Schopenhauer And there is nothing new under the sun. Ecclesiastes 1:9

From the beginning, knowledge is present in every man. The game is how to extract them, these fossils of a soul? There are no guidelines. Therefore, you must deal with the rationalization of your own “I” yourself. In the process of creating a new avatar of yourself everyone has to face a lot of doubts. This is normal. The only thing I have not learned to cope with is my own lunar dependency. The most powerful full moon in my life has always influenced the course of events. Bioenergetics and astrology are powerless over simple human life, as it is impossible to systematize in synthesis.

During different phases of the moon, my sensitivity is aggravated at times to physical pain. Emotions are at peak. It becomes impossible to curb my morbid emotionality. I become harsh, hostile and resolute. The full moon causes the greatest ups and downs. There is a persistent desire to reach the top, even if this choice is a mistake. I want to seek and take risks. Impulses are incorrigible. It is time to realize the most hidden desires and plans. It is beyond me to stabilize the emotional condition at such a time. How else can I explain the miracles and my visions coinciding with the full moon?

Like the ones of Jorge Luis Borges, who became my favorite writer. Since the moment his books came into my hands, I came to believe in a network of diverging, converging and parallel trails. The illustration of these labyrinths was my own life. His characters, like me, never sought the meaning of life, they never forgot that the likelihood of a person finding his justification or some distorted version of it is nil. They simply lived and enjoyed life, avoiding any kind of system and rules. Do they have their own hierarchy? No. They are free from systems. Languages? Any spoken syllable in one of the languages means the mighty name of God. When I read the plot “The Rose of Paracelsus”, it became clear that my society, family and surroundings made some hideous medical history out of its life, and from its gifts – some misfortunes. It’s foolish to change the world that was not created by us. Revolution must be done in our own evolution.

The day you were born doesn’t matter, but the day when the light appeared in you. As soon as I formulated for myself a specific goal, a task, miracles started happening. There were means, opportunities and time for its implementation. No doubt, we ourselves draw our own lives, and no matter what kind of artist you are, the color of thoughts is important.

Before my first visit to India I had already managed to get two educations (middle and higher) – direction and acting; to get married and divorced; to give birth, raise and send a son to the army; to work in different theaters as an actress; to leave the theater for nowhere. I tried out my strength in film crew and as a film actress. The entire search did not give my longings the desired effect. More often, I would close my eyes and concentrate on efforts to stop the shaking from the irritating reality that surrounded me. It would seem that I was surrounded by an apartment with European-quality repair; I had my own foreign car, an interesting and well-paid job, a lively and healthy husband, a son serving in the Airborne Forces, the prestigious armytroops, and a happy stable and prosperous life. But that is an outsider’s view.

I began to dream more often of a distant country from school memories, where fantasies do not masquerade as real people, but are quite real, and I can interact with them. Dreams became more and more colorful and filled with new details until I finally came to believe in them and did not allow myself to take them as the reality itself. The illusions of my sandy sea shore, colorful exotic trees, unusual entities, metamorphic characters – all weaved into one and enjoyed life with me. Reflecting on dreams opened a desirable and exciting world and led to a flow of thoughts that triggered my intentions to be where they existed. I liked their mystical captivity. There, in my fairy-tale country, birds flew; the light was so pure that it seemed to resonate within me, ringing like music, echoing “OM” in velvety low-frequency male voices.

And coming back from my dreams, I again found myself in a worldly Moscow, on a flat land. Here nothing took off, and the noise quickly wore you down with its cacophony of roaring cars on the Moscow Ring Road, the growl of aircraft landing in front of my windows, the creaking of the metal structures of the garbage truck, people’s voices, squealing of children and slush under the dark low gray sky. I blinked not from the bright glitter of my dreams, but from the monotonous repetitive reality of the urban technogenic world of robots.

And I again got behind the wheel and went to work, on shooting area to pretend to be alive. Avalanche of hurry-scurry filled another day, weeks, and months. One project was coming to an end, a new one was starting, and they had shot one TV series, and were already preparing for another. And I was already feeling nauseating during the process of script reading, perhaps from saturated, material and quite safe creative work. My soul was hungry; I strengthened my subconscious union between dreams and determination to rise up to the purity of light and no return.

My soul demanded change. I, apparently, had a completely prosperous and comfortable life, that would make even my mother happy – like others, I had everything. I lived in a separate apartment in the capital city with my husband and son, worked in a creative sphere, changed cars, communicated with friends and acquired a standard set of entertainment. I went to rest around the world as part of package tours or sightseeing tours and excursion routes of different countries. I visited Europe, Africa and Asia. In some countries, not just once. BUT. I was already infected with the Sehnsucht. Mom did not understand what kind of haunting ghosts there in her daughter’s head were, instead of joy of her well-being.

I was feeling so cold, suffocated, cramped in the largest country of the world. The realization of the imperfection of the world around me did not get along with my agile mind. I needed to be convinced of everything myself or to be challenged in an experienced way. In the present experience, I could only agree with Saltykov-Shchedrin: “If I fall asleep and wake up in 100 years, and people ask me what is going on in Russia today, I will say drinking and stealing”.

But there is another world: the world of books, where every human life is a personal book of everyone. The number of possible books is unlimited, as is the number of stars. Each new heir adds a new chapter or rules the page of the predecessor. I found temporary salvation in reading, books held my steady interest, where through the word I could travel in time.

Any hero chooses one of the paths from the numerous ones in his own life, dismissing the rest, but there are all-rounders, like Ts’ui Pen, choosing everything at once. He simply did not believe, unlike Newton and Schopenhauer, in a single, absolute time. He believed in the innumerable series of time, a network of diverging, converging and parallel times. I could boast not of my own books, but of readings like Borges. And I felt like his heroine, striving for the impossible, trying to unravel the mystery of being, to discover my potential, to create myself a laconic book. A book where novelty arises from a combination of words, rather than in a new message. Even Plato knew it: “All knowledge is nothing but a memory”.

Most importantly, I was still ready to give up everything for the sake of Love, which I had never found. I was ready to throw myself into the ocean and take on the face of a mermaid for the sake of a man I loved, or become a bird, and then the only possible direction would be up. Only in dreams, I was so exalted and so full of delight that reality in contrast became increasingly unbearable. Especially when the cold came – and what’s even worse for me – frost. Travelling teaches you more than anything else. Sometimes one day spent in other places, gives more than ten years of life at home.

Another movie project was finished. I worked there not only as an art-decorator, but also played the episodic role of a forensic laboratory assistant. Despite the success of the movie and the decision of the producers to continue our series, my decision to change everything became stronger. I had several months of comfortable freedom left, and the hated period of cold was setting in, then there came the opportunities to escape from it. Already in the final shootings and preparations for the “shapka” (a cheerful ocassion marking the completion of the film project, accompanied by drinks, snack, dancing, calm communication of colleagues and discussion of new plans in an informal atmosphere), my determination was reinforced by talking with Lucia. The rather strange and rare name of this girl confirmed her eccentricity and suited her well. She was special. She worked with us on the project as a barmaid, as she couldn’t care less what role she was playing. She just wanted to get acquainted with the filming process, take part in this:

– You know, Alyona, we’ll finalize the last shift now, and I want to return to India again. I watched the film and the filming process, and I did not like it.

– To India? This has been my dream for long. Cold is here, and I am going to get sick again. – With surprise and curiosity I entered the conversation, sipping hot tea from a plastic disposable cup given to me by Lucia.

– Dreams should be realized. My guru taught so, when I lived six years in the Osho Ashram in Pune. And the Indians said that people get sick from unfulfilled dreams, – she continued smiling.

It’s hard to describe my emotions after her two simple phrases. I worked with her for a whole 16-series project, for days and nights she gave me lunch in plastic boxes, poured tea and coffee, having studied my taste (how many sugar cubes to put), and amid all the humdrum of work, I did not notice such an interesting person in the barmaid?!

I felt dying worldliness in myself and immediately was overwhelmed with interest. Like a guenon monkey, eating candy, I began to question her about India, and with each sip the taste of tea changed. The search for traces of my legendary quest of self over the past few years suddenly began to manifest as my footprints on the wet sand of the shores of the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal, in the snow of the Himalayas. India!? Ashram? Osho? What does it mean?

– Meanings change depending on the country and the era, – Lucia said with all the same calmness and a simple smile. – Like earlier, the path through the desert was considered safer until ancient meteorologists learned to determine the time of the monsoon, how to use the wind and how to sail. Knowledge, which they used to go only with camel caravans, floated across the seas beyond the oceans. The methods of movement vary, but there is a risk in any way.

I made further discoveries equal to the launch of the first man into space. During the short conversation I reincarnated in different images: I was a religious pilgrim, a lonely traveler, a messenger of God, a preacher of dogma. The lines I had previously wrote down for myself from the book Bhagavat Sri Radshnis and Lucia guru Osho turned out to be the same person. In order to measure the fluctuations of my body from the information received – that simply seized me and influenced me deeply – I was involuntarily folding the short candy wrappers into bundles during the entire conversation, without giving any importance to it. I was fascinated by her stories. And at the end of the conversation, Lucia introduced me to Knot magic.

– What? What magic? – I exclaimed.

– Knot magic is a form of magic using specially tied knots. These knots, as you have now at hand, are a reflection of your abstract ideas, concepts and thoughts that are soon going to acquire a concrete physical form. Look, – and she lifted the snake intertwined by me while I was fiddling with wrappers, and kept it between us at eye level.

– What does it mean, Lucia? – I have been weaving such wrappers throughout my childhood in the curtains of the doorway.

– It is believed that the number, shape and location of knots can affect the effectiveness of a particular goal. The power and intensity of influence can depend on the material. These paper candy wrappers are just wrappers for the implementation of the plan, but I can see that you are already in the flow.

On these words, I had to agree with my cine colleagues who considered Lucia to be more than a strange girl. However, the minstrel Lucia breathed into me, the melodies of renewal and interest in life. She pushed me to the vector of the direction so much needed by me.

After the conversation the images of towns and villages lined up in rough concentric circles and radial roads, deep rivers and bridges of strange structures, while driving home along the well-known roads of the city rushed inside my head. On the waysides I noticed cooing birds and hissing snakes, bright saris with contrasting patterns and faces with red dots on the forehead, ornamented elephants and stone bulls, conical taqiyahs and colorful turbans, motley carpets and camel’s humps. And with all the abundance of unfamiliar images, harmony followed, my path was determined. Lucia became the catalyst for the process long neglected inside me.

That night I did not sleep well. Thoughts swarmed like bees on a field with a sweet clover. Images preferred to remain vague. Moonlight streamed into the room. It beat me in the face and seeped right into my visions. How could I forget to close the curtains? I went to curtain the window and found myself transparent in the moonlight, whereas, in the reflection of the window, I was with flesh, exchanging places with a ghost of myself. And one mirage obscured another. Fading, I sank into my own dream, into my other world, trying to become less and less, like Alice, hoping eventually to completely disappear here and appear there. I closed my eyes andclimbed under the blanket on the autopilot, trying not to frighten off the mirage.

I woke up, as if I had emerged from an oblivion, where it was so good, with full confidence in the plans of action. Only the delicate scent of the jungle with the rich aroma of exotic spices (coriander, cinnamon, turmeric, cloves) did not leave me, although I did not yet know how they smelled, but there was this self-created olfactory power. The real world disappeared, as if dissolved, and the beauty of the moment of the world of dreams, which had not yet been forgotten and from which I did not want to come out, forced me to hold my breath, so as not to frighten it away. I turned to my faith.

Everything disappeared as soon as the phone rang, which brought me back to reality. But now my everyday life of ceased to seem insignificant. Conversation over the phone, pronounced names, events in the conversation became an empty sound. The people around me began to talk and move with some kind of mutual disdain, possessed by oppressive silence. The process of washing with icy tap water turned into ablution.

I would prefer to be entangled in a sequence of awakenings and dreams, to perceive them not as two forms of existence, not as two contradictions, but as states constantly flowing into each other and creating a relentless series of magical sensations.

Go to bed with a dream, wake up with an aim. You never know where exactly you are going, only – where you hope to come. “When you are doing something, do it now. Otherwise you ll never do it.” – Goethe voice whispered in my ears.

Oscar Wilde wrote: “Knowledge would be fatal. It is the uncertainty that charms one. A mist makes things wonderful.”

And Leonardo da Vinci specially smudged the space, creating riddling images in which there are no exact forms, and we must think them over. I made myself an interesting proposal or rather challenged myself to a duel.

Leonardo da Vinci outpaced not only science, far ahead of his time, but time itself. Living in the XVI century, he talked already about “life air”, and 300 years later, Lavoisier discovered oxygen. He built a glider model, and in 400 years aviation was beginning to develop. Leonardo himself was borne of Catarina, a young and merry beauty, in a peasant hut in Florence. His mother dies, and he lands as an illegitimate son to his father’s house, the notary Piero da Vinci. He is taught reading, writing, arithmetic, Latin and music. But the best he can do is drawing and modeling. Already at the age of 20 he was proclaimed a master. Art for him was always a science. He traced the correlation of painting with anatomy, optics, physics and mathematics. The world for him was a giant laboratory. He drew knowledge from dreams. I felt the connection of times and worlds, my angle of vision changed, freed myself from the long-drawn down attachments and immersed myself into joyful world of my dreams. Irritation was replaced by gratitude for the end of already travelled path. A new era was beginning.

In my country, at the higher Faculties of Humanities, we are taught knowledge of the history of cultures starting from antiquity. I also wanted to start with the Indian jungle. From the oldest Vedas. Throughout life, all the signs indicated to me my personal direction. So, in France, the artist Paul Gauguin fled from Europe to the island of Tahiti in his search of “primitive paradise”. Many thinkers saw the path to the spiritual renewal of life in the return to nature. Leo Tolstoy called for “interrogation”. American transcendentalists R. W. Emerson, G. Toro, T. Parker linked their spiritual quest with nature. Jean Jacques Rousseau contrasted nature with society, the conflict of “naturalness” of the natural state with the “unnatural” culture and civilization. And Mahatma Gandhi made a domestic spinning wheel – a symbol of salvation from “Machinism”.

I was certain that I will find my India in myself whenever I want. I read the signs of my own parallel world, dreams and fantasies that took on a clear form. My Abu waited there for me, the time has come. Away from vain suffering, tension, fatigue.

I’m coming to you, my angel. You are waiting for me, and I even know how you look, but I feel you! In my imagination it was my Leonardo – the ancient physique of a participant in contests and tournaments, an excellent swimmer, jester, narrator, orator, a gracious Knight, dancer, singer, thinker. Such people appear on Earth no more than once in a thousand years. What do I expect, in my short life? So, I not only supported the intrigue and interest in alluring obscurity, but finally opened these astral gates for myself. I started writing my book of life.

Leaving the cinema, I left behind the static repetitive frames, despite the everyday vanity of being. Before me, at last, a full panorama unraveled. I ceased to be interesting audience of others, they failed to evoke any further emotions in me. I was done with “creating” for someone, it was time to create myself.

I was tired of the nightmarish dreams of reality, where I’m pushed onto the stage, when I do not know what to do there, what to say, without knowing the role, and the public is waiting, full hall of people, gazing and craving for artificial spectacles. When the basis of all religions, Vedic truth

(derived from the words: to know, to tell, to explore) is replaced by film feed, I needed to wash my heart, and not tear my breasts in front of the crowd.

What is it? Is it consciousness and wisdom? Or emptiness and self-esteem? There is no difference. My eyes are wide open, I see some visions. Visions turned into reality: I go to the ramp of the plane with a friend Polina at the small military airport of Goa – Dabolim. Polina, out of breath with the first breaths of tropical air, looks unhappy, and I, taking the first step, is pulled into the whirlpool of delight: “I’m home”.

I flew to the desired formula: one plus one equals one. Unity.

Life does not always give you what you want. But if you look closely, you will see that it gives what is needed for growth. The main rule of reality is not to get lost in your illusions.