Kitabı oku: «Abu. To Be Who You Are», sayfa 3

Catholic Goans funnily, they look like colonial atavists. After all, in Goa, no one speaks and more so does not think in Portuguese. And the native language is considered the one in which you can think. By the way, the services in the temples are held according to the schedule: either in Konkani, local Goan language, or in Marathi, the language of the state of Maharashtra, or in Kannada, the language of the neighboring state of Karnataka, and even in English.

In fact, the first visit to Goa, apart from delight, surprises and a lot ofimpressions, brought me the first scars on the body. One of our Indian acquaintances, speaking fluently in Russian, volunteered to show us the northern beaches of Goa. We were delighted and agreed.

In the darkness, the full moon was shining brightly diluting the darkness so that one could feel like a cat, since visibility remained good for the human eye. We bewitchingly looked at the moon. Suddenly something like a black velvet curtain blocked the moonlight along with the moon itself. Eclipse. It was a bad sign, so I felt. Polia did not attach much importance to this. But I became anxious for some reason. The moon had nowhere failed to influence me.

Suddenly the Russian-speaking Indian returned, but not alone. Explaining to us that we will go on two motorcycles, so he had invited a friend. Polia liked the friend – big-eyed, with long thick black eyelashes. And she jumped decisively on the seat behind him: “Excellent! Let’s Go! A new adventure! The northern beaches of Goa in the night”.

I agreed in silence. Where? Who cares! This was an opportunity to see something new. On the way we came across a Hindu temple, where the service was going on. This I could not miss: “Stop-stop. Give me some time. I want to see this pooja”.

For the first time, I actually saw the Hindu temple from inside. There were people sitting on the floor, a pleasant aroma from the visible smoke swirled from the entrance doors into the night, the brahmin was at the center, the only person facing the entrance. I sat down next to everyone on the floor. I caught the sounds of pleasant meditative and at the same rhythmic music and started swinging alone everyone to its beat. I wanted to mew, like a valerian cat, inhaling the aromas of incense. I did not understand a single word, just got some information from outside. Well, sound waves and aromas do not need a sense or translation. I was always very perceptive to such rhythmic streams of sounds.

For the mystic, the world has two grades: the sacred (sacral) space and the space of everyday life. The mystic connects these two worlds with some sacred action. He is between these worlds, at the crossroads of two worlds. I got there where I had longed to be.

But then Polia appeared in the doorway, started to grimace and waving her hands at the exit. I had to obey again.

It happened on the way back, somewhere in Anjuna. Already considerably high on the Old Monk rum, I insisted on driving the motorcycle. As a result, my speed did not go well with the turn and I left imprints of half of my face and part of the right side of the body on the lateritic sidewall. My passenger, the Russian-speaking Indian, who was sitting behind me, jumped in time, unhurt. My friend Polina with the second guy stopped dumbstruck. While I was lying unconscious, my co-passenger panicked and went hysterical with flabbergasted eyes and waving his hands like a propeller: “Everything is over. We need to scoot, urgently! We have to get out of the scene, otherwise we will be in a lot of trouble, problems with the police. I can lose my job and respect. Let’s just sit on the bike and get out of here! Someone will soon notice her, identify her and deal with her. We cannot stay here, they will drag us to the police. This is a huuge problem!”

Polina, standing in a silent stupor, at this time was having other thoughts. How will she tell my mother and son about what happened, how will she take my coffin, or will I be cremated according to Indian tradition? And only the second friend turned out to be sane and adequate. He came up to me and began to feel my pulse. And when I opened my eyes and even stirred a little, then Polya calmed down and exhaled: “We take her with us, – she decisively gave orders to her friend. – We are going straight to the hotel”. The driver and Polina’s hands encircled me so that I would not fall along the road like a roly-poly. My co-passenger was still a bit upset about the scratches on the motorcycle, shaking his head, clucking, lamenting, and after calculating how much repairs would cost him, he followed us.

I was lucky. I just lost a little blood. Shattered, but not broken, I laughed at myself and my recklessness. Well, for the first time in my life I had sat on the pillion seat of a motorcycle, without a helmet, drunk, in the night, after a two-minute briefing, where the gas was and where the brakes were. But I drove this iron horse through speed breakers, pits and potholes, as if all my whole life I was not driving electric cars in the park or even my cars with right-hand drive, but like a real biker-girl racer. This led to the tragedy, when I did not want to be overtaken and accelerated without knowing the road, but the sharp turn left no choice: either directly into the ditch with a hot stream and snakes, or risk completing the maneuver. I chose the second one. And, of course, there was no time to choose. Obviously, I could not manage the controls and did not even slow down.

Fools should be taught. I got off easily. But even two weeks had not passed under the sun, I was already living a nocturnal life. The proximity of the hotel from the famous and most popular street of northern Goa – Titos lane – made things easy for me. It’s like the Arbat street in Moscow. At every step, there are hangouts, cafes, bars, restaurants, pubs, clubs. The street ends with an exit to the sandy beach of Baga with its shakes and music.

All day long, sitting alone in a hotel room by the windowsill, gazing at the beauty of nature through the window, in entangled thoughts, with fresh wounds, I remembered my childhood on the windowsill of the hospital in anticipation of my mother. Only now everything was fine with me. Everything was put to good use. It was a forced retreat this time for me, vipassana, meditation period. I do not know what else to compare it with, but I silently thanked fate for its outcome. This experience gave me the opportunity to reflect on my whole life. Circumstances seemed to be striving for this only. The days were followed by clear, fragrant nights with looney smile of the Cheshire Cat smiling at me.

By the end of our three-week vacation I already knew not only Titos lane, but also the Dudhsagar waterfall, Anjuna Flea market, two Saturday Night markets, Arambol, Morjim, Mandrem, Vagator, boat station at Sinkerim, Fort Aguada and much more. The main conclusion was – I fell in love and appreciated my life, because it is love of life that effectively helps me moving forward. Now I was convinced of the correctness of my choice and I knew exactly what I wanted and what I deserved.

In India, at last, I learned to trust myself and my own feelings, to live my own life!

For years, I have been waiting for my life to change, but now I know that it was life that was waiting for me to change myself. If you think that for happiness you need another person, you are mistaken. For happiness you yourself are enough. Another person is needed so that you can share your own happiness with.

Never and nowhere else in my life I have felt more at home than in Goa. Many people do not even have a homeland. This may sound strange, but it’s a fact. Someone may object, they say, I was born in Russia or in Ukraine, which means that my homeland is Ukraine or Russia. But this is just an illusion, my dear readers. The fact that you were born in a certain country or you have

the corresponding citizenship, as well as a passport, does not mean that you have a homeland.

“The homeland is a specific place. And this place must be on Earth. That’s all” V. Sinelnikov.

Now I understand that God saved me for something, gave lessons and showed that we must learn to read signs. I began to understand the degree of danger from which I was saved. It could have been worse. You need to listen to your intuition and not be led by circumstances, to think about yourself and not deviate from your goals. In Russia it would have taken another 20 years, but in India I was completely transformed within 20 days. Every person creates affliction for himself. My former self flowed out of me, along with the blood and scabs of healing wounds, leaving only scars on my skin as a reminder. Inside there was a creative process of growth, filling each and every level inside me. The change of darkness and light ceased to matter.

The second time I came alone. Now I was more circumspect. I should not have taken the risk. I rented a charming little house and lived for my own pleasure. “To suffer is a lot easier than change. In order to become happy, one needs to have courage” Bert Hellinger. I realized: nothing will happen until one experience is replaced by another. Until new impressions are gathered, their critical mass will not push everything else out of memory. For me, India definitely has healing properties. To each his own. I managed to find in myself the much needed potential, perhaps at the very last moment.

By the time of my second visit, I was no longer afraid of an exotic uncertain life, because I knew that no matter what happened, it would only make me stronger and more confident. Self-study of English was not easy, there was no one nearby who could help, even though I was in the language environment that I needed. But I was not going to part with my dreams just because there are some difficulties. I was striving to fulfill my dreams and not forget about them.

I was returning home via a wild beach in that part of Baga, where a river crosses it, when a friend called me. I took the mobile phone out of my pocket and focused on the conversation when a bunch of Indian kids shouted to me: “Snek! Snek!” (which means in Russian “snow” – editorial). I paid no particular attention to them and continued the conversation, going to the stairs with columns to the second floor of the building.

“Snek! Snek!” – children were screaming with startled eyes even louder and no longer alone, but with an adult woman running out onto the balcony “Strange children, – I thought, – where did they see the snow?” Perhaps it would be there in a February Russia, and not a piece of ice from the refrigerator. Or they have seen animation “Ice Age” enough. But the woman already were hanging from the balcony, leaning forward pointing at my feet: “Snek!” The behavior of an adult woman was startling. And I looked down at my feet. A large snake was wriggling before me. One more step, and I would have stepped exactly on it.

My reaction was lightning fast, although I was disoriented in the direction, but I jumped so far that I could be envied by an Olympian long-jumper. And the shrill shriek that I let out was probably heard all over the Western Ghats. My veins around my neck were swollen, but I was out of danger. Thank you, dear children and kind woman, for your concern. It turned out that the word they were shouting to me all this time was not “snek (i.e snow)”, but “snake”. Peculiarities of studying English not only in the language environment, but also in tropical Goa are taught quickly. From that day I stopped mixing-up the pronunciation of “beer with a bear” and “bag with a back.”

Being on the beach, among the palm trees, under the sun, I lay and looked up at the sky. In general, I was absolutely happy, no matter what. I was unfailingly moved forward by my dreams. Thoughts about moving became more and more real and clear. I counted my savings.

In the end, I was not the bewildered heroin e of “Eat, pray, love”. Because I had already two marriages behind me and a son, I just wanted to have the right to live carefree, without any plan and calculation, without any constant thought about how to find stability.

I decided that the most important thing is to try as much as possible to do what you like. And try everything that I once wanted. Where I will do this, it was decided. Goa, India. Probably, if I had not known myself so well before, I would not have achieved anything in life.

And I had nothing to complain about, to cry, nothing to regret. And there were no thoughts that it could pass very soon, like everything else passes. There was no thought that if you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans. I decided to go through everything, absolutely everything that mother India would offer me.

Only after my arrival in India I did suddenly understand what was happening to me. The long-awaited period of freedom was here for me. I want to be a child. To study the world again. I want to get that experience that was lacking, because I was born an adult. Because it was always necessary to be reasonable, hard-working, rational, to rely only on yourself. Because at that time, the hungry and terrible time of the beginning of the 90’s in Russia, I gave myself the word that till my son becomes mature I will live for him, forgetting about myself, I took this responsibility. And in my forty years I finally got my right to bright clothes and irresponsible behavior. Refreshing gulps of freedom greedily fed my imagination. I can be myself. Without obligations, work, children and other complexes and attachments.

I, myself, had always been my own enemy and struggled all my life with myself. And now the struggle with self was over, it has transformed into love. You cannot argue with your needs and desires. And if for some reason my thorny path was needed, it was so that all my desires now are accepted as the only correct ones. All this became clear from my first visit to Goa. The state that gave me my female rebellion, showed me firmly: denial and vanity are over. All the doors are open, just push, do not look for the key.

The plan of what I want to do next was getting ripe in my head, and this plan was much more interesting than any film sets and the stage of theaters. I thought of everything because Iremembered all the signs that life showed me. And I accepted myself as I am. I will go to any extent, if I must.

Goa seemed a paradise to me, a place of immortality, but I was ready to die in it even when the hour of deliverance from the tyranny of the body came. The feeling of deficiency had vanished. And I enjoyed my favorite summer, the sun, to the hilt.

My sweet memories of childhood here were not only about the summer holidays in Kaliningrad, but also of the earlier creche days: when at a quiet hour I was lying on a cot in my pajamas under a blanket among the children peacefully sleeping and snuffling, and I looked at the clouds. Everyone was asleep, and I, with open eyes, quietly played with my imagination. These animated images from the clouds, changing and reincarnating into evil, and then again in good characters… And I was not afraid of either, realizing that the crumbling picture of one plot is the beginning of the next one. And I liked their unpredictability, innumerable variations and their speed. The happiest times and events in my life came back to me from my childhood dreams, I again found it interesting to live. I returned to my happy, long lost and almost forgotten self.

Here I wanted to whirl and whirl, drowning in the new emotions with which the Goan land is so generous, over this warm, divine coastal sand, surrounded by aroma of spices. The game of life continued. The interest of the explorer of the world around and the world inside himself was set off and turned into a plot without a genre. Whirling. So, I allowed myself to have everything I want. Never say “never”.

All happened long ago, all will happen again. Only recognition of the moment is sweet.

4 – ABU – THE FIRST MEETING

– Impossible. -Possible, if you believe in that. Alice in Wonderland

There’s no any sense to waste all your life for only the one path, especially if this path has no heart. Do this as if it’s just a dream. Act bravely and don’t look for excuses. Before you embark on any path ask the question: Does this path have a heart? If the answer is no, you will know it, and then you must choose another path. Carlos Castaneda

You’re never given a dream without also being given the power to make it true. Richard Bach

The journey from Moscow to Goa took place without incident.

“And, whenyou want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” Paulo Coelho.

Life always waits for a right moment to start acting. And I began creating myself consciously.

With full awareness, that it’s impossible to refill a full cup if not to get sorted out the baggage of the old stuff in the form of my past experience, out moded conceptions and the loose ends to tie up, I’ve made a cleaning of my life in all three dimensions: the past, the present and even the future, in which I had already had the loose debris- my hardened view regarding the future. Looking at my own mother, I stopped living as if I had two hundred years more ahead. The reorganization has brought me remarkable force and new energy. I’ve brought to an end each and every open issue to avoid even a hint of the possibility to stop or cancel my plans. I’ve handed out all my winter shoes and clothes to my friends, gave away some of the furniture, utensils, technique and the souvenirs I brought from my trips. I’ve even cleaned my virtual space by deleting all useless files and photos based on the principle that purification releases the energy. I’ve had enough even of the unreasonable stereotype of creative disorder covered by some art tendencies. It’s time to speed up, and a big load means less speed. The old accumulated information has become unnecessary for me now, it has might be atrophied completely the ability to hear the voice of my soul.

Any information tend to accumulate, it goes nowhere out of our subconscious, we have to filter it, otherwise, it inevitably trashes our channels and portals, creating enormous info noise. Because of that, we can easily make a lot of mistakes, and I’ve already had more than enough of them.

I’ve cleaned all the garbage out of my life in the physical, energy and mental layers. Without a deep searching of goals, senses, missions and destiny, or in another case it would take me twenty more years of my life and plenty of energy. So I’ve divorced my unloved husband with no regrets. Surely it hasn’t been without scandals, but with my son’s blessings too. The first time I’ve been married by my mother’s order, and the second one by my son’s request. Now I could live not for my mother, not for my son’s sake, but for my own. Burning my favourite Indian incense I’ve also been burning all the bridges, and I couldn’t help bursting into tears when I’d got a letter from my son in the army.

By that letter, he informed me, that when he’s back, he was not going to live in the illusory family any longer. He was going to rent a flat with a friend. Also, he saw how I suffered because of him, as my marriage, after all, was his idea and it wasn’t able to make me happy as he wished. He was thankful to me for my best years given to him. And in conclusion, he said: “Mom I will be happy if you become happy!” Those words have become the real blessing and the guidance from my son. Didn’t it look like some kind of mysticism, when 18 years ago I gave myself exactly that quantity of years for my liberation?

It’s impossible to love forcibly, with the best of intentions, by the fear of being alone or by order. It’s much easier to live with no love but what’s the sense. “Till the time you vacant space in your life for someone important to you, that you are, you will always seek and lose.” R. Bach. Now I was to find. I knew that love is tough if it’s true love, but where insecurity and risks are greatest there hopes are greatest too. Initially try to hear yourself. Learn to feel joy in your own company. Become happy enough that you’re not bothered anymore by the fact whether someone comes to your not.

I was already in love with India and was ready for any risks. I was very careful with my thoughts as I knew they create the reality. I’ve preferred India for my country or any other. I felt like a migrant or like a migratory bird. A person can do whatever he or she likes if he accepts taking responsibilities for that. Summing up my life by the age of forty, I’ve realized that my life was just beginning. The biggest resistance comes because of fear- the fear of the unknown. I wasn’t afraid as I was convinced that the Heavenly Powers never judge or criticize us, they accept us as we are, and afterwards only reflect our own beliefs automatically.

When I observed my countrymen in different countries, I’ve noticed tha wherever Russians would be settled down they never leave their country, except the cases when they fell in love. A refugee, an immigrant, an exile for Russian man it’s a dream of a glorious coming back. It’s an eternal paradox: looking to the future with the eyes turned back to the past. For many of them, it’s just another country, some abroad, a nation of strangers with the comfortable warm climate. A house, ordinarily rented, as a waiting room for the chimaera of dreams or, in other words, it’s waiting for an easy death in comfortable conditions.

Among other things in Goa, I paid attention to the enormous quantity of females of reproductive age, who brought themselves to the country with male outnumbering and still stay so naive to think that they can accomplish their maternal instincts. And in doing so they remain certain that their rights are still valid without any changing of the patterns in home-grown responsibility. Whereas truly happy international marriages, not arranged marriages in India, can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

I’ve also watched another category of my countrymen in Goa, leading a life of committed followers of “Dao De Dzin” on the theory of treatise Wu Wei attributed to Lao Tzu. More to the point, it’s non-action in which you can attain the Heavenly, or in other words, contemplative passivity. There’s a lack of motivation for an action due to the absence of causes. When there’s no thinking, no valuation, no desire. So they follow this lifestyle, completely forgetting that such existence is true only for enlightened people, whose mind is soft and disciplined, and totally enslaved by the human’s deep nature. Convinced in their progressiveness and enlightenment, they turn themselves into an alive fossil, creating their own system of discrimination onexternal appearances, feeding habits, areas of residence, but also they reproduce, preach and sell something.

Due to my age and experience, I preferred not to be considered to any category. I like the members of the cat family: tigers, lions, cats. They’re people with their own convictions, ideas, opinions and the way of thinking; people who like cats are always on their own, and each of them is unique and special; people who are not flocking in a pack, a crowd, a political party, a caste, a tribe or a family united by the same sound in the family name.

India has awakened me from forty years of sleeping when I first got to Hampi. There came an understanding, that the world is fragmented and impermanent. I felt like a tiny puppet among the centuries-old granite rocks of bizarre shapes looking like some giant decorations in a puppet theatre. Even casual conversations, advertisement on the way, insignificant small things were influencing me. I know myself the puppet systems, already had the experience of controlling them, but in Hampi, I’ve traded places with a puppet master, found my place of strength. And I’ve cut the threads from an illusory puppet master, artificially imposed by the modern repressive traditional world, as I’d got realized that even without them everything i interconnected in this world. I just need to pay attention to every detail, to tune in and surrender to Nature.

I understood that it’s useless making plannings for the life or thinking over big changes, but I need to act here and now inspired by new emotions and fresh impressions. We all tend to change as time goes on. I am individuality who is able to model my movement trajectory on my own, but not passively accept whatever, trying to fit in some stable prearranged order.

Exactly in Hampi, it struck me, that our personal greater good comes not from limitations and social roles we take, but from our bright and radical ideas, which undermine all social conventions, pushing forward the boundaries of our mind and its opportunities. Yes, I’ve decided, great changes are about to take place. Keep on moving forward! No plans!

Sitting in a really warm and comfortable Moscow apartment with uninterrupted electricity, gas and water and looking through my recent photos from the Indian trip, I’ve been smiling to the future. By that, the Universe was sending me its signs. All that was left was to read them and to decipher with a help of my intuition. What a strange meaning the words have taken! Almost twenty years ago when I was clawing my way into the metropolitan life for me and my son, I worked according to my vocation of the puppet theatre actress, lived independently avoiding the manipulative controlling from my mother and it used to be enough. That time I’ve been convinced, that everything was going according to the plan. And now the question arose: “What kind of job could I possibly get in India to have the opportunity to stay there?”

While still in sunny Goa, I had bought at the bookstore the entire series ofchildren’s books “Akbar and Birbal” for my further self-study of English, and that’s when I’ve made the optimistic decision- coming back to live and work in India. I’ve certainly been an optimist. “Optimists have their dreams come true, and pessimiststheir nightmares.” B. Show. I’ve myself set off some remote control at me, and with my own hands was switching my programmes. And all the programmes were showing only my sense of purpose. In any source of the information I used to find only the confirmation of the rightness of my decision.

“The only way to live good is leaving those places where you feel bad. Don’t change your dreams only because you don’t know how to make them true.

Only three things make a person happy: love, an interesting work and an opportunity to travel.” Bunin. Listen to your heart and act how your intuition tells you and you will find your way.

“Life is like a blank canvas. It’s up to you how you want to paint it. Just paint what you want. And don’t listen to those who don’t know how to paint. Not that one is happy who has all the best, but that one who extracts the best from what he has.” Confucius.

Even opening my diary from two decades earlier, I got into the pages with the Victor Tsoy quotes from my youth: “There’s no prison more scaring than that one inside your head”, “I am a free man as I always did what I liked and never did what I didn’t like”, “Our hearts demand changes”. Yes, life would be very tragic if it were not so funny. I was laughing. Browsing through never-ending advertising websites in search of work, I’ve come across the right vacancy. A new job as a tour guide. I felt quite capable for that role, and also it seemed an interesting job to do suited to my mentality and character. All things were incredibly successful. The biggest part of obscure issues of my future has taken the form of a happy ending. That’s for sure, to there where someone is waiting for us we arrive just in time.

Soon I’ve been invited for an interview. I wasn’t surprised by that. Who searches, always finds. That was bound to happen. After the meeting, the place of my work has been defined- a tourist guide in the North Goa. Hurrah! The training course has been started, it added to my English lessons also daily classes on India culture and history. The reading list I was searching all over Moscow, rare books I ordered over the Internet. I read and wrote down all the information, systematized dates and events, discovered for myself so many new things. I was running all over town from one training to another, barely remembering to fill the car. In order to catch the happiness, you have to know how to run. Success in life and self-realization are possible only at a fast speed.

I approached the completion of my plan knowing that its realization would definitely change my life for the better. I had no doubt in its achievement, unconditionally believing in myself, my own strength and courage. Also, I’ve held sacred my faith that I’m able to fight for my love. First of all, I’ve made my bet on true feelings for making my life complete with a true relationship.

“Any human will bring us sufferings. We just need to find someone worthy of our sufferings.” Bob Marley said. “A relationship is not a goal and not a reason for living, but just an instrument for a full healthy life. The only purpose of communication is collaboration, co-creation.” V. Sinelnikov

I’ve started taking each day of my life as a precious gift offering to me. I’ve simply accepted the game with my arising wishes in the same manner as the Arabian Sea was playing with its beloved waves in the vastness of the Indian Ocean. I believed, that a real and decent man inevitably would feel me and wish to stay with me until the end. Just because.. I’m such woman.

A happy free woman!

“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” Confucius.

According to your faith be it done to you.” – those are words from the Bible. Jeff Foster convinced, and I join him, that we are bound to get in this life those things in which we believe. We must know that we not always will have answers to our questions, but it doesn’t mean that we’re lonely in this world. We must understand that the life not always will have a meaning or go according to our plans, but it doesn’t mean that we won’t be able to find what we’ve been looking for so long. Whatever we wanted will find us in right time, when we are destined to get it, and when we’re ready to accept that gift. We just need to let go, to clear the way, to have faith. And allow what is meant to be ours, find us.