Читать книгу Tales Written by the Dying in Awe - Vysheslav Filevsky - Страница 11

When the sky of heaven created me, the planet earth (as you call me) and my physical sky, I looked like the sun. I was a sphere boiling with fire. This fiery existence was unpleasant for me because there was no peace in it. My ideal is to live in great peace. But everything in its time.

I cooled down. Soon my body pleased me well, and so I gave many thanks to the merciful Inconceivable. However, sometimes, as if against my will, earthquakes and hurricanes happened. But they only emphasized my quietness. They just strengthened the sensation of my benign nature. So with pleasure, I perceived myself as a planet.

I especially liked it when moisture evaporated from my surface and turned into rain-bearing clouds. Sometimes I even felt a need to transform into an aqueous whirlwind and distribute my power in a huge storm cloud, because I knew that my skin, my surface, needed the moisture. It needed it everywhere. With my mind, I formed clouds. Then I spilled water on those parts of my skin that were thirsty. From this I felt a great satisfaction.

Over time, the sky of heaven created a spiritual sky of earth. Those skies and earth gave birth to many living creatures. One of these creatures, people, developed the need for spirits. The merciful spiritual sky of earth generated them too.

It became harder for me. People considered the spiritual sky of earth to be the prime cause of everything. Those concepts proliferated and eclipsed the sky of heaven, blocking my view of it as if with thick, dark clouds. Because of this, I suffered. But people did not stop at this point. They began to worship their own kind. This was their choice.

The spiritual dark clouds became impermeable. It got very hard to breathe. No longer could I form a rain-bearing cloud and spill my moisture where it was needed. My skin dried up here and overheated or supercooled there. People treated me more and more barbarically, more and more cruelly. My diseases became severe, constant, and incurable. I felt impending death. And then I cried out to the benign sky of heaven, which had been cut off from me.

The Great Inconceivable heard my pleading and returned my hearty love and tremulous veneration. It taught me how to dissipate the clouds of customs, beliefs, and bustle. It even endowed me with the grace of love for the living beings that led me to destruction. Step by step, I became happy again. And the forthcoming death did not scare me any longer, because I stopped being a material thing. I learned how to thin the dark spiritual cloud of human customs and faiths and see the sky of heaven.

Heaven’s Benevolence

Sometimes righteous men think, “How good it is to be a saint! How good to sit endlessly in a mountain cave and devote oneself to the meditation of heaven. To settle in a nest among the thick branches of a tree and meet the eastern sun with prayer.” However, everyone realizes that prior to happily separating oneself from the world, one needs to develop the skill of finding nourishment, like an animal or a bird does, or to acquire the ability to generate the nutrients necessary for life inside of one’s own body.

Such practices exist. This is how one can become a saint and hermit. But it is good to be aware that acquiring such skills can take half a lifetime of hard-praying labor. Only afterward will the delight of a cave or a nest be felt.

But where is the guarantee that all of this tough work will be crowned with success, that the would-be saint will not find himself back at the bottom of the ladder and realize that his life was spent in vain, and that instead of a nest, he has made a loop for himself? Besides, society would actively assist him with that!

But does not the same happen in the life of a man devoted to earth? For example, look at a bawdry-minded person: he discovered something, composed his theses, and was glorified by the world. And then it turned out that the work of his entire life was a mistake. It would be best if the bawdry-minded man had died before this revelation. Then he would have suffered mockery, humiliation, and death from alcohol abuse or heart failure.

It is all a matter of the concept that moves a person, is it not? Well, anyhow, this too turns out to be not so important. The main thing is whether a person has the favor of the Most High or not. This is the essence. Is it possible to attain this favor? Who knows? Nobody is aware of what is written about him in the Book of Life. Meanwhile, everyone can see himself in any role on earth.