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Napoleon’s confession on the island of Saint Helena. The private tragedy of Abraham Lincoln, 16^th President of the United States. What have great people suffered from, and why are the majority of families unhappy? The collection of knowledge necessary for achieving happiness. The formula for happiness. Who believes in God and how do they practice their faith? An ancient Sumerian recipe for success. How a 43 year-old woman overcame infertility.

Ignorance is the source of all suffering.

Socrates

Napoleon Bonaparte gloomily walked on the shores of Saint Helena. The year was 1818, the third year of his exile after his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo and his abdication from the throne. Like all those doomed to a life of imprisonment, he now lived only on memories, reliving in his mind, day by day, his eventful, turbulent life. For what was already the tenth time, he recalled all the episodes of combat and romantic exploits, faithfulness and betrayal, accomplishments and mistakes…

“In my life there were but three wonderful days: Marengo, Austerlitz and Jena, if you don’t count a fourth, when I granted an audience to the Austrian Emperor, in a ditch on the field of battle,” he unexpectedly broke the silence.

Napoleon’s companion on his walk, the Count Emmanuel de Las Cases, stopped and produced his notebook.

“This, I cannot believe, Your Excellence!” he cried, hastily making a note, fearing to miss even one word.

Las Cases, who had been an officer in Napoleon’s entourage and a faithful servant, had agreed to voluntarily share in his vanquished emperor’s exile. He was Napoleon’s most regular companion on his short daily walks, during which he meticulously recorded all Napoleon’s remarks in his notebook.

“Nevertheless, it is so,” Napoleon sighed sadly.

“But even Alexander the Great did not achieve fame such as yours!” objected Las Cases “and his glory burned brightly for many years!”

“If you consider the essence of fame, you will come to the conclusion that it amounts to very little,” responded Napoleon, “It is no reason for pride, no matter the words of the ignorant, praises of fools, or the approval or vilification of the crowd.”

“I remember well what honors you were given by your soldiers and the people after your great victories. Were you then not happy?”

“Such honors were pleasing only at the beginning of my successes,” Napoleon sadly shook his head, “Those who strive for honors are like lovers: the conquest devaluates the prize.”

“But you were the richest monarch in Europe, your wealth was envied by kings!” Las Cases refused to yield.

“Those who search for happiness in luxury and extravagance are like people who prefer the glow of candles to the light of the Sun,” Napoleon noted philosophically.

Waiting for Las Cases to finish writing this phrase, Napoleon uttered the following:

“The strong-willed avoid indulgence like ship’s navigators avoid rocks.”

It is difficult to suspect Napoleon of insincerity. All suspicions that the abased emperor was lying when he admitted the unhappiness of his famous life disappear once one has read all his dictums that Las Cases scrupulously recorded in his notebook for posterity. Now anybody can read his words; after Napoleon’s death, Las Cases’s notebook was published in France under the title Maximes et pensées du prisonnier de Sainte-Hélène. Manuscrit trouvé dans les papiers de Las Casas [1].

What did Napoleon lack that he needed for happiness? He achieved all those things which people usually strive to attain: fame, power and wealth. Perhaps love? In the letters of Las Cases there is not a word about this, but history has been preserved in Napoleon’s letters to Joséphine, which were written twenty years before his exile and which shine a bright light on their relationship. There were many such letters, but two are sufficient to understand who loved and who was loved in their marriage.

Letter of April 3, 1796:

“My one and only Joséphine, apart from you there is no joy; away from you, the world is a desert where I am alone and cannot open my heart. You have taken more than my soul; you are the one thought of my life. When I am tired of the worry of work, when I feel the outcome, when men annoy me, when I am ready to curse being alive, I put my hand on my heart; your portrait hangs there, I look at it, and love brings me perfect happiness, and all is miling except the time I must spend away from my mistress. By what art have you captivated all my facilities and concentrated my whole being in you? It is a sweet friend, that will die only when I do. To live for Joséphine, that is the history of my life I long….

“To die not loved by you, to die without knowing, would be the torment of Hell, the living image of utter desolation. I feel I am suffocating.My one companion, you whom fate has destined to travel the sorry road of life beside me, the day I lose your heart will be the day Nature loses warmth and life for me.”

There were many such letters, but few replies.

Napoleon’s letter from November 13, 1796:

“I don’t love you, not at all; on the contrary, I detest you – you’re a naughty, gawky, foolish Cinderella. You never write me; you don’t love your own husband; you know what pleasures your letters give him, and yet you haven’t written him six lines, dashed off so casually!

“What do you do all day, Madam? What is the affair so important as to leave you no time to write to your devoted lover? What affection stifles and puts to one side the love, the tender constant love you promised him?

Of what sort can be that marvelous being, that new lover that tyrannizes over your days, and prevents your giving any attention to your husband? Joséphine, take care! Some fine night, the doors will be broken open and there I’ll be.

“Indeed, I am very uneasy, my love, at receiving no news of you; write me quickly four pages, pages full of agreeable things which shall fill my heart with the pleasantest feelings.

“I hope before long to crush you in my arms and cover you with a million kisses as though beneath the equator” [2].

We will return to Napoleon later, but for now let’s return to one of the phrases from his letter to Joséphine, dated June 8, 1796: “I never believed in happiness.”

Two more of Napoleon’s phrases, recorded by Las Cases in his notebook, will be useful to us later:

“It seems to me that the ability to think is tied to the soul: the more reason achieves perfection, the greater the perfection of the soul.”

“Great foolishness is written concerning the soul. We must strive to know not what others say about it, but what our own reason can reveal to us, regardless of others’ opinions.”

Do you believe that Napoleon ever had a chance to find happiness in his marriage to Josephine? We maintain that he did, and after having read this book, you will find the reason for our certainty. We are convinced that every person who has the ability to reject false notions and to open themselves to new knowledge can become happy, regardless of the circumstances of his or her life at the present moment. In this book we will set forth this new knowledge, but for the moment, let us acquaint ourselves with the story of one more great person: Abraham Lincoln (1809—1865) the sixteenth president of the United States. He was a man possessed both of a great mind and great masculinity, who made massive contributions to the unity of his country. He earned the respect of both his friends and enemies, of everyone but his wife, who was a great source of suffering for Lincoln. American psychologist Dale Carnegie speaks of them in his book How to Win Friends and Influence People:

“The great tragedy of Abraham Lincoln’s life also was his marriage. Not his assassination, mind you, but his marriage. When Booth fired, Lincoln never realized he had been shot; but he reaped almost daily, for twenty-three years, what Herndon, his law partner, described as “the bitter harvest of conjugal infelicity.” “Conjugal infelicity?” That is putting it mildly. For almost a quarter of a century, Mrs Lincoln nagged and harassed the life out of him.

“She was always complaining, always criticizing her husband; nothing about him was ever right. He was stoop-shouldered, he walked awkwardly and lifted his feet straight up and down like an Indian.

“She complained that there was no spring in his step, no grace to his movement; and she mimicked his gait and nagged at him to walk with his toes pointed down, as she had been taught at Madame Mentelle’s boarding school in Lexington.

“She didn’t like the way his huge ears stood out at right angles from his head. She even told him that his nose wasn’t straight, that his lower lip stuck out, and he looked consumptive, that his feet and hands were too large, his head too small.

“Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln were opposites in every way: in training, in background, in temperament, in tastes, in mental outlook. They irritated each other constantly.

“Mrs. Lincoln’s loud, shrill voice,” wrote the late Senator Albert J. Beveridge, the most distinguished Lincoln authority of this generation—“Mrs Lincoln’s loud shrill voice could be heard across the street, and her incessant outbursts of wrath were audible to all who lived near the house. Frequently her anger was displayed by other means than words, and accounts of her violence are numerous and unimpeachable.”

“To illustrate: Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln, shortly after their marriage, lived with Mrs. Jacob Early – a doctor’s widow in Springfield who was forced to take in boarders.

“One morning Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln were having breakfast when Lincoln did something that aroused the fiery temper of his wife. What, no one remembers now. But Mrs Lincoln, in a rage, dashed a cup of hot coffee into her husband’s face. And she did it in front of the other boarders. Saying nothing, Lincoln sat there in humiliation and silence while Mrs. Early came with a wet towel and wiped off his face and clothes.

“Mrs. Lincoln’s jealousy was so foolish, so fierce, so incredible, that merely to read about some of the pathetic and disgraceful scenes she created in public – merely reading about them seventy-five years later makes one gasp with astonishment. She finally went insane; and perhaps the most charitable thing one can say about her is that her disposition was probably always affected by incipient insanity” [3].

You could say that Lincoln, like Napoleon, was simply unlucky in his marriage. But if we take a look at the research of sociologists, we see that 90% of people are “unlucky” in marriage. This distressing statistic is tied to the fragility of family unity in the world around us. On average, almost every other marriage in the world officially ends in divorce, and of the remaining half of marriages three fourths of wedded couples can be found in the category ranging from “habitually-indifferent” to “it can’t get any worse.” Those marriages in which it “can’t get any worse” retain their legal status for a number of reasons: lack of desire to divide possessions, complex legal procedures, fear of judgment on the part of society…

“Unplanned” or “unlucky” marriages don’t exist, and in the pages of this book it will be revealed how any marriage can be transformed into a happy or, at the very least, peaceful and comfortable marriage. But don’t rush to thumb through the pages in search of this information; our recipes work only if you study the contents of each chapter attentively and in their proper order.

Familial disarray is not the only reason for suffering. People suffer from injustice and the knowledge of their inability to combat that injustice, from fear of impending old age and from poverty, from pain after the loss of loved ones, from creative failure, and from loneliness and disease…

While researching the boundless theme of “Human Suffering,” we found deeply unhappy people in all historical eras and in all circles of society. Torturous suffering affects not only average people, but also kings, presidents of countries and corporations, top models, and the stars of Hollywood and show business.

The dream of many young women to be a supermodel seems appealing on the glossy covers of magazines. But the famous German beauty Claudia Schiffer revealed what goes on “behind the covers” in her interview for the magazine Fivetonine: “Top-models are going extinct like mammoths, their lives are completely thrown into disarray, they turn to alcohol, debauchery and narcotics” [4].

It also turns out that almost all famous artists and wealthy people are unhappy.

Nikolai Gogol (1809—1852), the famous Russian prose writer and dramatist, wrote in a letter to his friend: “Hanging or drowning appear to me as medicine or relief.”

Lev Tolstoy (1828—1910), the great Russian writer, author of novels known around the world such as War and Peace and Anna Karenina, admitted in a letter in 1878:

“I am hiding the rope in order to stop me from hanging myself from the rafters in my room at night when I’m alone. I don’t go hunting anymore, so as to avoid the temptation to shoot myself. It seems to me that my life has been a stupid farce.”

Gustave Flaubert (1821—1880), a French writer, complained in his journal: “Everything seems loathsome to me. I would hang myself with joy, but only pride prevents me…” [5].

Flaubert kept himself from suicide, but many of his famed peers were unable to do the same.

In the eyes of many readers the great American writer Ernest Hemingway (1899—1961) resembled the hero of his well-known story “The Old Man and the Sea,” whose slogan was “Do not surrender under any circumstances!” He was a Nobel laureate, succesful fisherman, first-class hunter, frequenter of pubs – in general, a real man: smart, strong and warmhearted. But this was all merely a mask, behind which hid a deeply suffering soul.

Hemingway repeatedly attempted to kill himself. Even on the way to the clinic, where he planned to get help for his depression, Hemingway tried to throw himself from an airplane, and then on the ground, after landing he tried to kill himself on the blades of a spinning propeller. Having returned home after treatment, Hemingway all the same went through with what he had earlier attempted and ended up shooting himself with his favorite rifle on July 2, 1961.

The writer’s granddaughter, the beautiful Margaux, was at one time the highest paid model in America and then a successful actress; but she too could not escape depression, fell into alcoholism and marked the thirty-fifth anniversary of her grandfather’s death in a most peculiar way, by ending her own life.

The tragic story of Hemingway immediately calls to mind the tragedy of another great American author, Jack London (1876—1916), who killed himself as the result of prolonged depression, exacerbated by alcoholism.

London also extolled the will to live; the heroes of his novels and stories, who were able to overcome any difficulty, became images of strength and masculinity for generations of readers around the world. At first the author himself resembled his heroes, enduring many hardships and blows of fate. On the surface he always appeared as a cheerful, energetic, strong-willed man and displayed unbelievable work ethic; in the course of fifteen years, he wrote so much that the full collection of his works constituted forty volumes!

But he too lived behind a mask his entire life, even suffering from depression in his youth.

Since childhood Jack had been subject to bouts of depression, but none of his many friends and comrades knew of this. He was always filled with barely contained energy and life, smiling and supporting others even in the most difficult moments of his life. At the age of 37, London became the highest paid author in the world and owner of an enormous tract of land, on which were planted 140,000 eucalyptus trees.

The great author was well acquainted with the many sides of life, but that which he saw during his time on earth stirred up in him first ennui, then deep depression. London began to drink, which was the beginning of the end. At first he became disillusioned with the people around him, then with his beloved eucalyptus trees and then with literature itself. Having driven himself into a corner Jack London ended his life by drinking a fatal dose of poison on November 22, 1916.

Noted Japanese writers, too, are not set apart by their optimism.

Mishima Yukio (1925—1970), the most famous Japanese writer of the twentieth century, killed himself by committing seppuku.

Kawabata Yasunari (1899—1972), Nobel laureate, killed himself by releasing poisonous gas into his study.

This list could go on much further. Just a roster of famous people who have commited suicide would take up dozens of pages.

There are those who claim that great and wealthy people simply “act out of boredom,” that if they needed to think more about their immediate needs they wouldn’t have time to fall into such deep suffering. However, further down the social ladder one finds that ordinary people do not suffer any less than kings, top models and creative geniuses. The only difference between the first and the second is that the tragedies of each star comprise a story in and of themselves, sufficient for a novel or loud headlines in the media, whereas the suffering of billions of average people is simply a statistic for sociologists.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), stress and depression have become an epidemic which affects all of humanity. The world has seen sharp increases in suicide rates: according to the WHO, around a million people commit suicide each year (that is, one suicide every forty seconds). The number of people who commit suicide surpasses the number who are killed by war or crime. In China alone the number of suicides yearly exceeds 250,000 people.

When researching the theme of “suffering” the thought arises that our entire planet is a stronghold of evil and unhappiness, and that in their lives on Earth people are consigned to suffer from the start. Just such a point of view received wide acceptance during the fifth century, when St. Augustine (354—430) put forth the idea of the “original sin,” committed by Adam and Eve in paradise. In the “Epistle from the Patriarchs of the Eastern-Catholic Church on the Orthodox Faith,” (1723) the Christian Patriarchs stated “It is our belief, that the first man created by God fell from grace when, having heeded the treacherous advice of the serpent, he broke God’s commandment, and that from this the original sin flowed out into all man’s descendents, so that not one person, born into flesh, would be free from that burden and all would feel the consequences of the fall in their earthly lives… For their infraction, God’s justice has sentenced mankind to toil, sorrow, infirmity, birth defects, a grievous life on earth, wandering, and ultimately, death” [6].

And so, according to the Christian version, Adam and Eve are responsible for all the troubles of mankind, who’s crime consisted of the fact that they, tempted by the cunning Serpent, ate of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, a deed strictly forbidden by God. The Creator was swift in His reprisal, and sent the unheeding people out into the Earth, to toil in sorrow by the sweat of their brow. Eve, who was primarily to blame for their exile, was additionally sentenced to the “pain of childbirth” and to forever be under her husband’s control. And finally, God cursed the very Earth into which He was sending the sinners (Gen. 3:16—19).

The holy fathers were consistent in their negative attitude towards knowledge. In the course of many centuries not only progressive scholars were burned on the fires of the Inquisition, but books as well, which contained forbidden knowledge. It is well known that in 1562, Diego de Landa Calderón (1524—1579), a Spanish monk who was sent to the Americas in order to convert the Indians to Christianity, gathered together and burned massive quantities of Mayan manuscripts. For this and other “feats” he was elevated to the order of Bishop, whilst the priceless knowledge of Mayan culture was forever lost to humanity, which is now racking its brains in an attempt to understand the Mayan prophecy about the Great Transition of December 21, 2012.

By announcing that the eating of the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge is the reason for all suffering, both for those who ate of the fruit and for all their descendents, Saint Augustine and his followers turned the problem on its head, and they themselves, not God, doomed millions of people to suffering. Under the idea of original sin there is nothing left but to suffer or to hang oneself (shoot oneself, poison oneself, etc). What more can one do who has been sentenced by God (!) to live a life of sorrow on an Earth cursed by God (!)?

In reality, the state of things is exactly the opposite; the reason for all suffering is ignorance, and the accumulation of knowledge is the natural mode of deliverance from these things (ignorance and suffering); the renowned Greek philosopher Socrates (469 – 399 B.C.) spoke of this one thousand years before Saint Augustine was even born. It was precisely ignorance that Socrates viewed as the reason for all the afflictions and suffering of mankind. “The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance,” affirmed the great thinker. Socrates, as is known, was recognized by the Oracle at Delphi as the wisest man of his time. Later, millions of people throughout the world would agree with the orcale. And so this wise man left us with a precise diagnosis of the problems (ignorance) and a working recipe for ridding ourselves of them (knowledge). Socrates’ logic is irrefutable, as ignorance is simply the absence of knowledge, a lack of education. There is no reason to find something offensive in this word, ignorance; it is not stupidity, but an unknowing individual, unaware of the answers to certain questions, and nothing more.

The truth of Socrates’ words has been confirmed by history, since there are actually happy people on the Earth! The very fact of their existence decisively proves the fallaciousness of conceptions about original sin and the need for all people to eternally pay for that sin. Happiness, as has been shown, can only be achieved by those people who have managed to comprehend the meaning of life and their destinies (i.e. who have gained knowledge of their destinies), and by those who have the capacity to realize that destiny (who have discovered how to do this). This is attested to by several years of research such as our own and such as that of world renowned American psychologist Abraham Maslow (1908—1970) [7], along with many other scholars.

Socrates presented the complete ignorance of his contemporaries in terms of questions about human nature, the soul and the meaning of life; in precisely those questions which open up the road from suffering to happiness.

We’ll now take a look at what changed regarding this in the twenty-five hundred years that have elapsed since Socrates’ death. Has mankind managed to overcome global ignorance? How much more knowledgeable are we, the people of the twenty-first century, than Socrates’ contemporaries? Or are we just as ignorant as our ancestors?

According to scholars, it took from the start of the Common Era until 1750 for the scope of human knowledge to double. Knowledge had doubled again by 1900 and a third time by 1950. In the ‘70s, human knowledge doubled within the span of ten years, in the ‘80s within five, and by the end of the ‘90s human knowledge was being doubled practically once a year.

The amount of information, particularly digital, is growing even quicker. If, at the current rate, the information created by mankind in a year were to be converted to book format, it would comprise twelve stacks of books, each one reaching from the Earth to the Sun (93 million miles).

The growth of knowledge is particularly evident in technological development. The modern cell phone contains a microprocessor which has more processing power than all the processors which were on the Apollo spacecraft during its flight to the Moon in 1969!

Thousands of colleges and universities are dedicated to the training and education of people all around the world. In the U.S. alone, 260 billion dollars are dedicated to education and science each year.

And so, from the scope, i.e. the amount of knowledge alone, it would seem that we have surpassed Socrates’ contemporaries hundreds if not thousands of times.

But the question is this: what is this knowledge about? What, for example, does the owner of a new cell phone know about his own conscious and subconscious? What does a designer of modern, flashy cars know about his soul, about the meaning of life, or even about the sexual cycles of his wife? What, for example, does the president of a bank or a mighty industrial corporation know about his destiny in life? What about the average citizen, with or without a diploma from a renowned university? What do they know, for example, of the Akashic Records and the experiences of the Monroe Institute in researching the World of Souls? What do people know about the achievements of quantum physics in the realm of human consciousness and the material of our thoughts, of the cycles in development of human civilization and about the real reasons for climate change?

We maintain that 90% of all people don’t know the answers to these questions and don’t even think about them. We were brought to this conclusion by the results of our own research, which we have been carrying on now for more than ten years among our pupils, the number of whom at this point exceeds 50,000 people. Where have we found all these students?

In 1999 we, the authors of this book, founded the “School of Business” in Russia for training managers of direct sales companies in successful methods of carrying out their duties. There are more than two hundred such companies in Russia, and the question of professional training for their managers was and is to this day a very pressing issue.

Our great and continually successful experience in this field turned out to be in high demand, and the School soon transformed into an international one, opening branches in Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and Kazakhstan. Hundreds and sometimes thousands of people regularly gather for seminars at our school, and in almost every class we carry out surveys that include many questions which shed light on the level of people’s knowledge, their needs and their interests.

Our pupils represent a perfect sample of the middle class in each of these countries. Among managers there are people from every age group (from 20 to 60 years of age) the majority of whom possess college diplomas, that is, people we are accustomed to calling educated. But only individuals among them possess knowledge of the questions enumerated above.

Official information, acquired as the result of sociological research in various countries, attests to the majority of people’s low level of education, particularly as regards questions that are common to high school and college programs.

In Russia, for example, 40% of the adult population doesn’t read books at all, and those who do read are generally satisfied with detective novels and harlequin romances.

The English, looking into the education level of their own population, stated with both shock and concern that some children (from the ages of 8 to 15) sincerely think eggs are laid not by chickens, but by cows. English adults are also not distinguished by their knowledge. According to statistics from the British Ministry of Education, around 16 million members of the adult, working population of England “don’t measure up” to grade school education standards (the level of knowledge possessed by an eleven-year-old schoolchild).

In the U.S., 60% of adults questioned responded that Homer is the main character of the TV show The Simpsons and only 20.5% knew that he is in fact an ancient Greek poet, author of The Iliad and The Odyssey.

Scholars at the University of Michigan conducted research and came to the conclusion that only 28% of Americans, 14% of Europeans, and 5% of Japanese can be considered “scientifically literate.” Under their system, in order to fall into the category of “scientifically educated” a person needed to understand, for example, what is a molecule, a neuron, a nanometer, DNA, and other such “complex topics.” According to their research, 70% of people living in the United States are unable to understand even an article published in the “Science” section of The New York Times. Remember that this is not a scientific journal, but a newspaper, intended for the general population, where all materials are prepared with the mindset that they will be read not by scholars, but the simplest of U.S. citizens.

The results of all research clearly point to the fact that the majority of people in the world possess a very low level of general knowledge. The level of knowledge about the soul and the meaning of life is entirely negligible.

We earlier mentioned the sad statistics about divorce, which draw a gloomy picture of family life for the majority of wedded couples. As it turns out, people’s ignorance is primarily to blame for this, an ignorance based in lack of knowledge about elementary issues in the sphere of sexual relations. Dale Carnegie’s abovementioned book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, presents convincing arguments which support this point of view:

“Dr. Paul Popenoe, as head of the Institute of Family Relations in Los Angeles, has reviewed thousands of marriages and he is one of America’s foremost authorities on home life. According to Dr. Popenoe, failure in marriage is usually due to four causes. He lists them in this order:

1. Sexual maladjustment.

2. Difference of opinion as to the way of spending leisure time.

3. Financial difficulties.

4. Mental, physical, or emotional abnormalities.

Notice that sex comes first; and that, strangely enough, money difficulties come only third on the list.

All authorities on divorce agree upon the absolute necessity for sexual compatibility. For example, a few years ago Judge Hoffman of the Domestic Relations Court of Cincinnati – a man who has listened to thousands of domestic tragedies – announced: “Nine out of ten divorces are caused by sexual troubles.

“Sex,” says another specialist, Dr Butterfield, “is but one of the many satisfactions in married life, but unless this relationship is right, nothing else can be right.

“Sentimental reticence must be replaced by an ability to discuss objectively and with detachment attitudes and practices of married life. There is no way in which this ability can be better acquired than through a book of sound learning and good taste.”

One of the authors of this book, Valeria, worked for twelve years (1980—1992) as Head of a Section of the Civil Registry Office in Leningrad (modern day Saint Petersburg). During this period tens of thousands of couples came through her office registering important events in their lives: marriages, births and divorces. Here is Valeria’s personal opinion on the matter:

“The majority of marriages that I registered occurred because of love. Because of this, almost all these young people sincerely believed that this feeling alone was enough to create a strong marital union. If this was combined with good living conditions then perspectives truly seemed bright. But most of these people didn’t have the slightest idea about the rules of family life. Their comprehension of the sexual side of married life came exclusively from practice; they didn’t even suspect the existence of special books on this topic. And very often, as a rule within the third year, they showed up in front of me again to file for divorce. I know with surety that the underlying reason for this sad end was sexual maladjustment, ignorance of their partners in the realm of sexual relations.”

In the meantime, a precise and simple recipe for harmonization of sexual relations was revealed around the middle of the ‘50s. But none of our acquaintances and students had even heard of it. Having learned of this knowledge gap, we immediately included the topic “Methods for the Mastering of Sexual Energy” in our School’s program, along with a detailed study of the aforementioned formula. Just one month after this, we received a message that several dozen married couples (!) had drastically improved their relationships. Some even reported a return to the sort of relationship that was characteristic during their honeymoons! And all they needed to do was attend a three-hour long class! Incidentally, all these sexually-harmonized people’s successes in business also took a sharp turn upward. We promise to return to the formula for harmonious sex in chapter 9, where we will examine many practical recipes for improving one’s life.

And so we see that there are more than enough reasons for human suffering. Great minds have exhausted themselves thinking on this question throughout the history of mankind. And simple people have, in the meantime, always searched out their own, common methods for relieving stress. Sociologists have revealed which “stress medicines” are used by modern people:

– Television – 46%

– Music – 43%

– Alcohol – 19%

– Food – 16%

– Medication – 15%

– Sports – 12%

– Sex – 9%

– Yoga, meditation – 2%

These numbers add up to more than 100%. This means that some of the participants in these surveys chose not one, but two or more answers, for example, drinking generous amounts of alcohol and going to a rock concert. The end result of this sort of “medication” we already know from the World Health Organization’s reports on the turbulent rise of stress, psychological disease and suicide.

But along with ignorance, that is a lack of knowledge, a large part of humanity possesses deep misconceptions regarding many of the processes and phenomena in our lives; they live in a system of false conceptions, i.e. are possessed of false knowledge. Modern society is rife with myths and misconceptions. There are so many of them, that just a short description of them took up five volumes, The Encyclopedia of Delusions, released by the Russian publishing house EKSMO in 2004 [8]. In the West a similar book was written by famous author Steven Fry, titled The Book of General Ignorance.

“Many facts that we consider irrefutable are actually downright fabrications, and much of our knowledge is erroneous. We live in a world of universal ignorance and general misunderstanding, but we’re too ashamed to admit it,” asserts the author of this book, and we could’t agree more [9].

However, we must make an important note: far from all ignorance is dangerous, and not all misconceptions lead to tragedy for people. Could our lack of knowledge about the inventor of rubber boots or the myth that the color red will enrage a bull actually affect our happiness? In truth bulls are colorblind. These things fall within the category of benign misconceptions and harmless ignorance.

But then there are other questions. Ignorance or fallacious conceptions about such questions rules out even the possibility of finding happiness. These questions are precisely those that we have come to regard as the eternal questions of mankind:

• Who are we, a product of evolution or God’s creations?

• Where did we come from when we entered the world, and where do we go after death?

• Do people have souls, and are they eternal?

• Is there a life “beyond the grave”? Does that life include a Heaven and a Hell?

• What is the meaning of life? Does each person have a specific destiny, and if so, how do we find out about it?

• Is there such a thing as Fate, and who decides it? Can a person change his/her fate, or is their entire life predetermined?

• Why is the world made to include so much unhappiness and suffering?

• Are souls reincarnated in a new body after death, or do we only live once?

• Do people have guardian angels and how can one make contact with them?

• What is the meaning of our dreams? Do they have some sort of logic or are they simply the expression of our deep-seated wishes and fears?

• Do each of us have a “soul mate” somewhere in the world, and how do we search them out?

It is ignorance about these questions that bring down sorrow upon a person both here and in the afterlife, regardless of whether or not someone believes in life after death. When people do not know the answer to these questions, or when they possess false conceptions regarding them, it is only possible, at best, for them to find physical pleasure and short-lived happiness during their time on Earth.

We assert that happiness is a state of the soul, which is attained through the implementation of the program for its (the soul’s) fulfillment. Only in such a case will one’s “soul sing for joy.” It is precisely the soul, and not the body, which is able to sing from bliss (which is not the same as true happiness) as a result of this or that earthly achievement or physical pleasure. But is it possible to realize your plan if you do not even suspect its existence? Or if you guess its existence, but cannot imagine what it might contain? Of course not. This is why for ignorant people happiness remains an unachievable dream.

One of the most destructive ideas that stems from ignorance is the opinion that people are created for complete happiness. This theory is the opposite of the “original sin” point of view, but no less dangerous. And it is a theory which has a large number of proponents, among them many respected figures.

There is a widely known saying from Leo Tolstoy’s classic of world literature which says that “man must be happy.”

In Russia there’s another popular saying, also attributable to a former author, Vladimir Korolenko (1853—1921): “Human beings are created for happiness as birds are created for flight.” This author and his works have long been forgotten by the general public, but this phrase took flight and is loved by all.

Konstantin Ushinsky (1824—1871), the founding father of Russian scientific pedagogy, also threw in his ten cents in support of this view of man’s fate: “The right to happiness is an inalienable right of all people.” As the highest authority on pedagogy in all of Russia, Ushinksy’s assertion made its way into all school programs in not only Tsarist but in Soviet Russia as well. And again people saw in this idea what they wanted to see: if a person has a right to happiness, then someone else (but not ourselves) has the responsibility of ensuring that happiness.

This deep misconception with respect to the meaning of life has taken root not only in Russian minds; long ago it spread throughout the entire world. It was developed rapidly during the third century B.C. by the great ancient Greek thinker Epicurus (342—241 B.C.), who not only played a major role in the philosophy of antiquity, but who also exercised significant influence on the worldview of millions of people in the following generations.

Epicurus stated that “for us pleasure is the beginning and end of a happy life.” That satisfaction of material needs will remove suffering and lead to happiness is the core of his philosophy, which quickly and easily took root in the soil of Greece and subsequently succeeded in spreading throughout the world.

The noted French writer and philosopher of the Renaissance Michel de Montaigne (1533—1592) proposed that man exists not to create ethical ideas for himself to strive to attain, but rather to be happy. To be fair, in his book Les Essais he does note that “our good or ill has no other dependence but on ourselves.”

“Man is placed on the earth not to become rich, but to become happy.” So thought the distinguished French writer Gustave Flaubert (1821—1880), who has greatly influenced the belief systems of millions of people not only in France but throughout the entire world. This is the same Flaubert, by the way, who wrote in his Memoirs (1853): “Everything seems loathsome to me. I would hang myself with joy, only pride prevents me…” But few are acquainted with this side of his work, and Flaubert’s depression, by the way, had its roots precisely in his false conceptions about the meaning of life and the absence of any concept of harmony in the Universe.

The Indian philosopher Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1914 – 2008) also enabled the wide spread of this illusion about people’s destinies.

In 1957, having undergone training in India, Maharishi created the worldwide Spiritual Regeneration Movement, and in 1958 began missionary work first in America and then in Europe. By the start of the twenty-first century, his Meditation Centers had spread throughout the world and his followers exceeded five million people.

What was the philosophy introduced by Maharishi to the Western World?

“Life is Bliss. Man is born to enjoy the grace of God. Just float in a stream of bliss and nature and this stream will take care of everything else.”

Of course, how could millions of suffering people not like such a philosophy? All that remained was to find this “stream of bliss,” immerse your head in it, and forget all about your troubles and sorrows, along with all your plans and responsibilities. The stream will take care of the rest.

Intentionally or unintentionally, Maharishi’s philosophy engendered the rise of the hippy movement, which took hold of the West during the 1960s. Hippies protested against traditional culture, called for peace and unity with nature, grew out their hair and wore ragged clothes, listened to rock-n-roll, smoked marijuana and engaged in meditation, sex, Zen Buddhism, and Taoism. Of course, they didn’t work anywhere and lived “in the stream of bliss and nature,” exactly as Maharishi suggested. But the word hippy only superficially resembles the word happy, and so the hippy movement, having exhausted itself, had already come to nothing by the 1970s; but the philosophy of bliss remained. And so, today 200 million drug addicts (according to the UN) are searching for the oblivion of “the stream,” which is carrying away not only happiness, but their very lives as well.

Over the loud choir of preachers suggesting the possibility of a Paradise on Earth it is almost impossible to hear the voice of German dramatist and philosopher Gotthold Lessing (1729—1781) coming to us from the depths of the eighteenth century:

“The primary reason for our dissatisfaction with life is the unfounded assumption that we have a right to complete and undisturbed happiness; that we are born for such happiness.”

Please read these words one more time: “…the unfounded assumption…” Where did Tolstoy, Ushinsky, Flaubert and other great minds draw their assumptions from, or, more precisely, assertions? Most likely from a great desire to be happy. Just as every man wishes to be happy, so that it was so easy for the sayings of these authoritative figures to pass on to their children and grandchildren… As a result millions of people in the world are absolutely sure that they are born to be happy. And because of this, they are in truth born bound for a completely different end: a collision of their false belief system with harsh reality, leading to stress, which is soon followed by depression and suffering. This is the source of Flaubert’s depression, of Gogol’s sad thoughts, and of the suffering of millions of people throughout the world.

So much suffering is produced by this one illusion! And so many more harmful misconceptions are firmly entrenched in people’s consciousness!

We are fully united in the conviction that it is not the harsh conditions of life that are themselves the reason for suffering, but our conceptions about what is good and bad for us and about how the world ought to be. This thought was clearly expressed two thousand years ago by the great Roman Emperor and no less great philosopher Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121—180). As he departed this life, he left to posterity not only a prospering and well-defended Rome, but also an entire collection of wise thoughts, which later formed a book by the title The Meditations. Here is an example taken from among them:

“Take away your opinion, and there is taken away the complaint, […] Take away the complaint, […] and the harm is taken away” [10].

And so, everything depends on our thoughts, on our attitudes towards the people, subjects and phenomena that surround us. It is precisely our thoughts, values and convictions, i.e. our worldview, rather than material conditions, that defines the quality of our life.

Another German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer (1788—1860), was among those who share the sensible beliefs of Gotthold Lessing. He writes:

“There is one misconception at the root of all problems – it is the belief that we are born to be happy.”

But Shopenhauer’s words went unheard; as a rule people only hear what they want to hear.

For this reason the ideas of their countryman Friedrich Nietzsche (1844—1900) received wide acceptance throughout the world. Among his ideas is the concept of suicide as an escape from difficult situations. He claims, that if happiness does not show its smiling face, we can quietly part with life, ridding ourselves of all stress and suffering in a single stroke:

“My death, praise I unto you, the voluntary death, which cometh unto me because I want it.”

The idea of suicide so attracted Nietzsche that he actually poeticized it:

“…Do I go out like a candle, which is not blown out by the wind, but palls, having spent itself; a burnt-out candle? Or in the end, do I blow myself out, so as not to burn low?”

Could even the great Nietzsche write in ignorance? And why not? Who added him to the list of great philosophers? This is unclear, but what is well known is that Nietzsche spent the last twenty years of his life suffering heavily from physical and psychological ailments. It was in precisely this period that he wrote his great philosophical works. What else can we expect from a man sick in both mind and body but hymns to death’s sweet deliverance? That deliverance, by the way, finally came to the philosopher in a psychiatric ward.

We have already noted the results of our own research regarding “spiritual questions” among our students. Their level of knowledge was nothing to scoff at. Now let’s take a look on the world level; what do people believe in and what do they know of the global questions regarding their existence? Let us begin our review in the Unites States, the country with the greatest number of universities scientific institutions and the greatest amount of financial investment in education. However, as it turns out, all these universities and investments are ineffective at enlightening people about the global questions of their existence. An analytical report from Gallup International paints a striking picture of American ignorance regarding what goes on beyond the boundaries of traditional science. The following results were received by Gallup as the result of phone interviews with 1,002 people over the age of 18 during June of 2005:

59% do not believe in extrasensory abilities;

68% do not believe in ghosts;

69% do not believe in telepathy;

74% do not believe it is possible to look into the future or the past;

79% don’t believe it is possible to contact the souls of the dead;

80% do not believe that souls are reborn into new bodies after death (reincarnation).

Only 1% of Americans simultaneously believe in all the above phenomena, and 27% do not even believe in one of them! And this despite the fact that all these phenomena are confirmed and proven by thousands of experiences and experiments and are written about in hundreds of books! But, as it turns out, people prefer comics, detective novels and trashy novels to such books.

Research into such questions in Western Europe and in Russia yielded similar results.

The Gallup Center’s statements regarding the number of people who believe in God and spiritual life after death are of similar interest. It would seem that these numbers should coincide – all religions speak of the immortal soul – but look for yourself at the results of their polls:

What God is it that people believe in if they deny the existence of life after physical death?

We took an interest in similar research carried out by other organizations and received several other facts. 121,215 people from all over the world took part in internet-surveys regarding the question “Do you Believe in God” on the site www.yesnogod.com. Here is how their votes were divided:

As you can see, the number of believers is significantly less than in the Gallup Center research.

In June of 2006, on the eve of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Germany, a German sociological institute conducted a poll in which only 50% of respondents indicated a belief in God. At the same time, according to statistics 65% of Germans officially belong to either the Roman Catholic or one of various Protestant churches. Does it follow that 15% of Germans belong to the church but do not believe in God?

We began to sort through these contradictions by carrying out research among our students, and revealed that all the above mentioned statistics are unreliable; not one of them reflects the real state of affairs. Here’s why.

In responding to the proposed questions with a monosyllabic “yes” or “no,” each person saw in the answer their own understanding of the given question, an understanding which turned out, under detailed questioning, to be either incredibly vague or completely absent. And so, including themselves among believers in God were people who have never read the Bible (such people constituted 60%), who do not observe the majority of their religion’s tenets (82%), who do not go to confession (99%), who know nothing about the life of even one saint (93%) and who even have a very incomplete understanding regarding the life of Jesus Christ (75%). Even the “Lord’s Prayer” could be recited by only 15% of those who responded as “believers.”

Those who did observe religious ceremonies couldn’t explain their content, origins or significance for the development of the soul. “Believers” did not even know the very core of Christian teaching, couldn’t explain what it means “to turn the other cheek,” Christ’s command to “love your enemies,” or the phrase “blessed are the poor in spirit.” There were few who could even list Christ’s commands from the Sermon on the Mount, not to speak of regularly applying them to their lives. But the saddest result of our research was that many people’s very understanding of God turned out to be alarmingly primitive. Most people imagined God as some sort of entity that constantly fixes us in his field of vision and carefully tallies good and bad deeds so that after each person’s death they can be called to account for their actions. Such an image is very similar to that which reined among our ancestors hundreds and thousands of years ago.

Many people counted themselves among Christians simply on the basis that they sometimes attend church. Others did it just to feel “like everyone else,” in case the people around them primarily consisted of such “believers.” A few were sincerely convinced that to consider oneself a Christian and to call oneself a believer on the survey it was enough to simply not kill, not steal and attend church on major holidays.

People who considered themselves atheists also did not shine with knowledge about even one of the questions directed at them. “I don’t believe, and that’s it!” proudly replied the unbelievers. “What specifically do you not believe in?” we attempted to clarify. “Not in God, not in the devil!” “And why don’t you believe?” “I don’t believe, and that’s it!”

In general, things went along the lines of the following parable:

The Parable of the Great Atheist

In ancient times, several thousands years ago, there lived a young man who considered himself an atheist. At the time rumors were circulating about some Great Atheist who could defeat any priest in a debate. The young man decided to find this Great Atheist and become his pupil. And so, after much wandering, he came to the hut where he had been told the Great Atheist lived. His knock was answered by an elderly voice:

“Who has the night brought searching to my door?”

“I seek the Great Atheist, so that I might become his student,” said the young man.

The elderly man allowed him to enter and began to question him.

“What do you wish to learn from me?” he asked his first question.

“How to debate with priests and to counter their arguments. I already do not believe in either God, souls, or the afterlife, but my arguments don’t suffice for debate.”

“But why don’t you believe?” asked the old man.

“It’s all nonsense!” cried the young man, “They simply doesn’t exist!”

“But have you read the Bible or the Koran?”

“Of course not! I’m an atheist!” he proudly replied.

“And have you consulted with priests?”

“So far no. That’s precisely why I came here, to learn how to argue with them.”

“And what do you know of clinical death?”

“At this point nothing.”

“Have you tried to leave your body?”

“No! Can one even do such a thing?”

“Have you talked with people who claim that this is not their first life?”

“I haven’t met any such people.”

“And what do you know about reincarnation?”

“I don’t even know that word.”

“Well, then you are not an atheist,” the old man summed up the conversation, “and you have nothing to do with me.”

“Then what am I?” said the surprised young man, “I don’t believe in anything!”

“You’re simply a fool,” the Great Atheist sighed compassionately.

Why is it that we are examining these questions about faith in such detail? Is it really necessary, in order to find complete happiness, to be a true believer, to delve into religious canons and practice saintly compliance with all religious tenets?

Of course not. We raise the question of faith in God simply because without a clear conception of the soul and its relationship to God it is impossible to understand either the meaning of life or its purpose, without which understanding happiness will, in its turn, seem unobtainable and the defeat of suffering – impossible.

And so, we have established the firm connection between people’s suffering and their total ignorance about the global questions of life. The diagnosis is clear, but what is the cure? Is it possible that knowledge could be the cure? And what knowledge in particular is necessary to embark on the road to happiness?

The results of our years of research point unequivocally to one conclusion: understanding oneself, the meaning of one’s life and one’s purpose and the fulfillment of that purpose here on earth is the one path to achieving true happiness.

Happiness begins where ignorance ends

We have become convinced of this both due to our own long marriage experience of 35 years and the experiences of our students, many of whom have managed to transform from suffering, unhappy people to successful, happy ones. And there’s no big secret here – these people simply began to seriously study and to grasp concepts about which they previously had either no knowledge at all or had misconceptions. Of course success was achieved only by those who didn’t simply attend lessons but who obstinately worked at them and who, furthermore, did so by employing the special methods which we shall discuss a little later.

We have already noted that in 1999 we opened the “School of Business” for the professional training of managers from commercial companies. And we really do train people in successful sales methods. But that’s not all we do. In our School’s program there are twenty topics which could be categorized as relating to personal growth if not for one “but.” This “but” consists in the fact that all these “spiritual” topics, as we call them, turned out to have enormous influence on the professional growth of our students. As such, we have long ceased to divide the subjects taught at our school between those related to professional growth and those related to personal development. They are simply concepts which lead to improvements in life as a whole: to health, to successful business, to understanding the meaning of life and to self-realization, and, in the end, to happiness.

Specifically what knowledge is it that helped us and thousands of our students to change our lives on a basic level, to be done with despair and to achieve, if not complete happiness, then at least a peaceful, harmonious existence?

Before all else, it is knowledge of the Divine Nature of the Universe and of man as its building blocks, of the meaning for mankind’s existence and of personal destiny. In this area we were greatly helped by recent discoveries in the field of quantum physics.

Understanding of the cycles of development of the planet and of society, of the true reasons for the alarming events taking place on the Earth today: of global warming and natural catastrophes, of economic and demographic crises, of increased violence and mental illness, about the ties between them and their relation to cosmic factors such as, before all else, the precession of the earth’s axis.

Understanding of human energy, the ability to direct energy along paths in your body, the mastering of various methods of holographic therapy.

Understanding of the material character of our thoughts and the mechanism for fulfilling one’s desires in life, comprehending the “Dream Formula.”

Understanding the magical power of words and the fact that it is possible, with the help of verbal self-affirmation, to shake off disease and strengthen one’s self confidence.

Understanding the physiological basis of family relations and sexual cycles.

At our School, we teach our students a diverse range of topics and, for a start, help them to discover their potential. We work off the idea that each person, from birth, is endowed with a massive collection of abilities, but during the coming of age process, he or she accumulates false conceptions and fears, like a husk. In the end the individual transforms into a twisted, insecure, suffering being. We see it as our mission to use our collected knowledge to help each person to peel back this husk, layer by layer, and to reveal his or her true, Divine existence. Our experience tells us that it is within the power of each person who sincerely wants change in his or her life, and who is able to overcome his or her idleness.

In the following chapters we will reveal the basic sources of knowledge and give quintessential knowledge about them. Understandably, it is impossible for us to cram an entire course from our “School of Business” into one little book, but this is not necessary. From this book alone you will receive a large enough volume of knowledge for fast practical growth, along with the guiding threads which will allow you to independently follow the entire path which has been walked by us and many of our students.

We promised that we would discuss the special method of training which enables achievement of such outstanding results. In truth this is the method of self training, of internalizing the materials being studied. It requires only one thing, and that is perseverance. We will describe the method now, but first we’d like to make one observation.

In the process of preparing our classes we found a massive quantity of useful knowledge regarding each topic. Thousands of books have been written on the topic of achieving success and changing one’s consciousness, in which are contained hundreds of excellent formulas. Why, in the face of such an abundance of legitimately effective sources of knowledge, have millions of people failed to achieve success and continued to suffer physically, materially and spiritually? What prevents people from translating these formulas into real success?

The answer is simple: the improper approach to these materials. People buy books containing legitimate knowledge, read them, rave about the recipes contained therein and then throw the book on the shelf. Then they buy another book, read it as well, agree with its contents and place it on the shelf as well. As a result, they collect and entire library of beneficial books without receiving any of the benefit. And with such an approach it’s impossible to do so.

Our method is this (and we recommend that you apply it when working with this book):

Before all else, we reject the concept that printed sources of knowledge are books. If you treat them as books, you will follow the process described above: read, place on the shelf, forget. Books (unless we’re speaking of scientific treatises) as we usually understand them, are for reading, from which we expect either enjoyment or a method of passing the time.

We understand printed sources of knowledge to be tools for development. Even just this change in attitude alters the very character of our actions. We are constantly working with tools, but books we simply read.

Our work process proceeds like so: we take a marker in hand, let’s say, for example, a blue one, open our tool for development, and begin to study each phrase word by word. Study means to ponder, to get to the bottom of things, and if something isn’t immediately understandable, read it a second or third time. If even this is not enough in light of the complicated (unfamiliar) nature of the materials, we read it a fifth, even a tenth time, until we’ve finally got it. And until that point we don’t go any further, we don’t try to skip the difficult places.

If some phrase is set apart by cursive text or by a different font, we pay special attention to it, thinking about why the author wanted to draw our attention here.

We measure ourselves up against each concept included by the author, asking ourselves the question: how would I react in a situation similar to the one described? What do I know about these questions?

Those phrases that, in our view, are the most important, we highlight with our marker. And having completed our study of a particular source of knowledge, we review the places that we underlined one more time. We then create a written plan for the modification/expansion of our daily activities. Only then do we place the tool on the shelf and continue on to the next, beginning to put into practice the formulas that we have learned and accepted.

After a month or two, we return to the tool and reread it, this time with a red marker in hand. We mark out that which catches our attention on this, our second read. It always turns out that there are many things we had previously failed to pay attention to. As such, the tool’s rate of benefit to us grows. On our third read we use a green marker, and again we find places we wish to highlight. As a result, if a tool is truly valuable, it will end up entirely colored with different markers, and the ideas included in it will become part of our own world view and only then will they begin to work. By the way, almost all the authors of developmental books that we know of recommend rereading their book several times. For example, in his book The Greatest Salesman in the World, Og Mandino (1923—1996) suggests rereading the chapters of positive affirmations (he calls them “scrolls”) 90 (!) times. He rightly suggests that they will otherwise not become ingrained in one’s subconscious.

We will here give a simple example of the benefits of our training put into practice.

When our pupils study the formation of positive thoughts within oneself through the use of verbal self-affirmation, they each receive a printed tool (in the form of a small brochure) that we have prepared, which contain ancient Sumerian affirmations. They were used in the Kingdom of Sumeria five thousand years ago and the clay tablets on which they were inscribed were uncovered by archeologists while on a dig. We recommended arming oneself with this affirmation, written on a cardboard card. The affirmation goes like so:

You should place this card next to the place where you sleep in order to read it aloud first thing in the morning. You can place this card in the bathroom (in a place where you’ll notice it) or on the toilet seat – the important thing is that your eyes will come across it first thing after you open them.

You need to do this every day. Only then will the affirmation penetrate your subconscious and begin to really work. If you simply read a brochure full of affirmations and then place it on the shelf, its effect will be reduced to nothing, and the time and money that you spent on going to the seminar will simply be lost.

Of course the hardest thing is to form a habit of doing at least one of the things recommended in the seminars or taken from the printed materials every day. But there is no other way. The transformation of one’s conscious is a drawn-out process. Its length depends on the level of “trash” in one’s conscious, the amount and durability of false conceptions that have been soaked up during the course of one’s life. But believe us, the game is worth playing!