Kitabı oku: «Nectar for Your Soul»
Translator Ryan Wyeth
Translator Mark Rawlins
Cover designer Tatiana Ivanova
© Vladimir Dubkovskiy, 2018
© Valeria Dubkovskaya, 2018
© Ryan Wyeth, translation, 2018
© Mark Rawlins, translation, 2018
© Tatiana Ivanova, cover design, 2018
ISBN 978-5-4493-8961-9
Created with Ridero smart publishing system
In this book you will find answers to the eternal philosophical questions of mankind:
• Who are we, the “new and improved” results of natural evolution from monkeys, or God’s creations?
• What is the meaning of life?
• What has been happening on our planet in recent decades? What is the reason for the cataclysms and crises that have descended upon the Earth, and when will they come to an end? What is the meaning of the Great Transition of 2012 foretold in the Mayan calendar?
• Why is there so much injustice and suffering, and why are there so many unhappy people in the world?
• Is it possible to find harmony in family relations, and how exactly can this be done?
• Why are believers’ prayers not answered, and how does one need to pray in order to ensure that they are?
• Is it possible to change the world around us and the people we are close to? What is our conscious mind capable of, and is it possible to harness that potential?
• What is the “Formula for Happiness”?
This book contains many simple and beneficial recipes for improving one’s life. All recommendations are based on deep scientific research and backed by years of practice.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the express written consent of the copyright owners.
Author’s email: v.dubkovskiy@gmail.com
© Vladimir Dubkovskiy, Valeria Dubkovskaya, 2011.© Tatiana Ivanova, cover design, 2011.
Nectar for Your Soul – A Russian bestseller
Nectar was published in June 2011. By October of the same year it had already become a bestseller among the one million plus books sold by Russia’s number one online megastore – Ozon.ru. Since then and up to date of publication of this edition (March 2013) Nectar has been in the top three best sellers in Ozon.ru.
Nectar’s English Facebook page can be found at:
https://www.facebook.com/nectarforyoursoul
Nectar’s Russian Facebook page can be found at:
https://www.facebook.com/soulnectar
On December 30, 2011, the International Nectar Fan Club was established in Kyiv (Ukraine). Its Facebook page is located at:
https://www.facebook.com/nectarclub
The reviews1 from Nectar for the Soul’s2 first readers
Andrei Aleksandrov, 29 years:
Hello Valeria and Vladimir! I read Nectar for the Soul. Thank you very much for your effort! The book didn’t just broaden my horizons in terms of how I relate to the world: I’ve also been struck by the feeling that I too should make my contribution to the development of humanity. Thank you so much! Your work should go through millions of print runs in all the languages of the world.
Larisa Ivukova, 45 years:
The appearance of this book is an event for all intellectual people on our Earth. The moment this book fell into my hands, I could immediately feel that this is an endless source of knowledge, energy and strength. It goes far beyond what is generally understood to be a “book.” I can confidently say that Nectar is not only a tool for development and an enormous depository of knowledge, but also a powerful source of strength, love and inspiration. It is a universal book: it is accessible for the understanding of any reasonable person who is discovering this information for the first time and is an enormous personal development engine for all of us who have already long been studying these topics. The enormous base of evidence; the logical sequence of all the chapters, which proceed “from the simple to the complex”; and the authors’ clear and precise position on many complex questions give readers the opportunity to construct a personal understanding of the meaning and value of their own lives. And for myself I’ve made the following conclusion: Nectar is a singular KEY for understanding the most important questions for humanity and is a “tuning fork” for future development. In particular, I’d like to note Valeria’s distinctive and miraculous “presence” in the book. Each word is filled with light, love and grace and “goes down smooth,” just like nectar! An enormous “thank you” and deep bow to our Teachers and this, their Great Labor!
Irina Atarbaeva, 31 years:
I RECOMMEND that EVERYONE have this book in their library!!! It answers all the questions that one accumulates throughout live! An ENORMOUS “thank you” to the Dubkovskys for this excellent nectar for our souls!!!
Aziz Atarbaev, 44 years:
Our Dear Vladimir and Valeria, thank you so much for this book! I am an air force reserve officer and have seen and endured much in my life, and it was very interesting to find out that I chose this all for my own growth. I personally read many of the authors that you made reference to and I say that with you everything is simpler and more accessible! Everything’s become peaceful and serene and my goals have become more vivid and understandable! I’m going to recommend the book to all who want to understand earthly life!!! WE THANK YOU, OUR SPIRITUAL TEACHERS!!!
Vladimir Betin, 41 years:
Nectar for the Soul is the book of life. I call it the Bible of the Soul. In it are answers to all the questions that are important in life: Who am I? What is my purpose? What is the meaning of life? How do I find these things out so that I can travel my path and not fulfill someone else’s program? and many others besides. I am sure that this book will broaden the consciousness of millions of people; it’s simply a matter of time. And so I would like for everyone to open themselves up just a little bit to understanding and allow light into their souls. Having studied this book, you begin to value every day of life, every minute; you understand that it depends on you alone, what is going to happen down the road and how your life will be set out. You reconcile your life goals with that which you do and don’t allow your valuable time to be stolen away. Why is it necessary to toil in this life and do good rather than awaiting Heaven? In this life, we have everything that is necessary for resolving these issues: all that’s necessary is to act. Having studied this book, you will receive a powerful motivation to act. The time for doubt and indecisiveness has gone. Now is the time to act! Thank you Vladimir Evgenievich and Valeria Aleksandrovna for the years of life you’ve saved me in coming to an understanding of these materials. I really value this and am glad to be one of the first to have the opportunity to read NECTAR FOR THE SOUL.
Elena and Aleksei Tkachyovy, 36 years:
It’s a great honor for us to be among the first to read this unique book! Nectar for the Soul is a Holiday for the Soul! The information therein is deep, important and very interesting. We read it in one breath. Elena: Having read this book, I experienced a pleasant “shock”: I found answers to a multitude of questions about life: where to find happiness, what the meaning of life is, how to achieve family harmony, life after life and an array of others. Finding everything that’s written about in Nectar for oneself would require years of intense searching. But now all of this can be grasped in a few days’ time. This book is an excellent tool for developing one’s consciousness and understanding of the Truth. I have two degrees of higher education, I am open to new information and nevertheless Nectar was, for me, a revolution in the brain, in my Consciousness. Our company includes several hundred people and we are putting every effort into ensuring that every person has this amazing book in his or her library!!! Vladimir and Valeria, I give you great thanks for your efforts!!!3
A Parable of the East
[An] Eastern King […], desiring to know the history of man, was brought by a sage five hundred volumes; busy with affairs of state, he bade him go and condense it; in twenty years the sage returned and his history now was in no more than fifty volumes, but the King, too old then to read so many ponderous tomes, bade him go and shorten it once more; twenty years passed again and the sage, old and gray, brought a single book in which was the knowledge the King had sought; but the King lay on his death-bed, and he had no time to read even that.
(From Somerset Maugham’s book Of Human Bondage)
We know full well that modern people, world leaders and simple mortals alike, are burdened with just as many cares and worries as the eastern lord mentioned above. They also don’t have the time to read even fifty books that reveal the meaning of life. For this reason, billions of people live in suffering and die in ignorance, not even suspecting that this is reflected on the eternal life.
As such, we undertook the task of tying together if not “all the world’s wisdom” then at least a very large part of it and of fitting it all into one book, which we offer you to read now, rather than waiting until you’re on your death bed. We have named it Nectar for Your Soul, though other names would have fit just as well, names like The Encyclopedia of Everything and A Travel Guide through Life: Both the Earthly and the Eternal. We hope that, having come to the end, you’ll agree with this assertion.
The Authors
About the Authors
Vladimir Dubkovskiy was born in 1953 in Leningrad (modern day Saint Petersburg). After graduating from law school at Leningrad State University, he served with the Military Prosecutor’s Office as a Captain of Justice. He then worked as a prosecutor in the Investigations Department of the Leningrad Public Prosecutor’s Office, was a member of the International Bar Association, a reporter for the newspaper Leningradskaya Pravda, an employee of the Soviet-American joint venture “The Hermitage”, and a screenwriter for the first two documentary films about prostitution in the Soviet Union. From 1989 to 1999 he switched to the business world, and was the founder and head of a number of commercial companies which focused on manufacturing, commerce and insurance. In 1999, together with Valeria, his wife and business partner, he founded the School, and then the Academy, of System Business. Branches of the Academy successfully operate in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and Kazakhstan, and tens of thousands of managers from various commercial companies have studied at them. For their achievements in this field, Vladimir and Valeria received 15 awards from the Eurasian Academy of Business including best business-trainers, authors of the best training program, and authors of the best books, of which they have written more than 50, with a total printing run of one and a half million copies.
Vladimir was awarded the title “Honorary Citizen of the City of Memphis,” (Tennessee, USA) for his contributions to the development of Russian-American cultural relations (during his work at “Hermitage”). His literary and scientific activities served as the basis for his election to the position of Associate Academician of the International Informatization Academy (in General Consultative Status of the United Nations).
Valeria Dubkovskaya graduated from law school at Leningrad State University, where she studied with Vladimir, to whom she was married in 1975. For twelve years she worked as the Head of a Section of the Civil Registry Office before becoming Vladimir’s partner in all his endeavors.
Since 1999, she has headed the School and Academy of System Business together with Vladimir. She holds both Russian and international seminars. She is the author of many lectures and psychological training programs, and a brilliant orator. An active member of the Eurasian Academy of Business, she has been awarded many prizes and diplomas for her contributions to the training of managers from a large number of companies.
Valeria is also a mother of two children: a shining example of womanhood in the business world. She is referred to as “Soul of the Academy” and “Guiding Light” by her thankful students. She has received wide recognition from participants for her musical training programs “House of My Dreams,” “Person of the New System” and many others. But Valeria has been carried to legendary status by her “prophetic” blessing-autographs, which are inevitably fulfilled.
e-mail: valeria53@mail.ru
Chapter 1.
Where is happiness hiding?
Napoleon’s confession on the island of Saint Helena. The private tragedy of Abraham Lincoln, 16th 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.
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!
Chapter 2.
Farewell, ignorance!
The true reasons for global warming, natural disasters, economic crises and other negative processes. The pulse of the planet (Schumann Resonance) and precession of Earth’s axis. Scientific progress and spiritual degradation, materialism versus the Creator. The end of the Epoch of Ignorance and the Great Transition to the Era of Aquarius, mankind’s Golden Age.
Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.
George Bernard Shaw (1856—1950),British writer and Nobel laureate
At this point, many of our readers are likely feeling offended on the part of humanity; so many accusations of ignorance rang out from the pages of the first chapter! And to boot, people don’t know the meaning of life, and they aren’t even aware of their own destinies, and they haven’t even heard of sexual cycles. It would seem that humanity is just a mass of utter fools suffering in the grip of their own false knowledge and total ignorance.
In truth, we didn’t accuse people of being ignorant; we simply established that ignorance as fact. We couldn’t make accusations, since we know all too well that humanity as a whole is not to blame for the situation that has arisen. To blame modern-day people for their lack of awareness would be equivalent to condemning a bear for the fact that it hibernates during the winter. That’s just the way it is: bears go into hibernation in winter, wildflowers close at night, and trees shed their leaves in fall. Who made it like that? God, of course! He constructed the world so that everything proceeds in cycles and predefined rhythms; from the entire Universe down to each individual flower. People have cycles as well: infancy, childhood, youth, adulthood, and old age; throughout their lives people lay down to sleep at night and in the morning they get up. Cycles and rhythms penetrate every aspect of our lives. They can be found in the planets as well, and in human civilization, and in each individual person. And they are all so closely connected that each one’s movements are dependent on those of the next.
For example, the vibrational frequency of our planet, known as The Schumann Resonance, has, during the course of thousands of years, remained at a constant strength of 7.83 Hz. (Vibrational frequency is the number of full cycles completed by the source of an oscillatory motion in one second. The unit of measurement for frequencies is Herz (Hz), the number of oscillations per second.) It was so stable, that military personnel used it to calibrate their instruments.
Soon after its discovery by German physicist Otto Schumann in 1952, it was noted that, when in dream state, a healthy human mind pulses at exactly the same frequency of 7.8 Hz. It was then proven that the intensity of the Schumann Resonance directly affects the higher neural activity and the intellectual abilities of a human being.
A human being is, before all else, a complex electromagnetic system, for which reason we can, with full justification, refer to the Schumann Resonance as a tuning fork for life, any changes in the “hum” of which are immediately reflected in the workings of the human brain.
In relation to rhythms of the mind, the following information will be useful to us later on:
The human brain generates electric signals, the vibrational frequencies of which are dependent on the person’s state of being. In sleep, these frequencies are less than 8 Hz, in the process of awakening they rise to 12 Hz, and in an active, lively state the mind emits waves in the range of 13—30 Hz.
In 1994 the Schumann Frequency suddenly began to increase and reached a level of 8.6 Hz, after which it steadily rose to 13 Hz!
The intensity of our planet’s magnetic field is also changing; 2,500 years ago it was one and a half times greater than it is now. A sharp fall in intensity occurred 500 years ago, and during the past 200 years it has slowly descended to its current level.
The shifting of Earth’s magnetic poles has also been documented. It was first recorded in 1885 and since that time the south magnetic pole has shifted 900 km towards the Indian Ocean while the north magnetic pole has moved towards Eastern Siberia. The speed of this shifting has also increased. Until 1970 the north magnetic pole drifted no quicker than 10 km a year, but during the ‘90s its speed increased to 40 km a year, and at the current time it has already reached 60 km a year.
The movement of the magnetic poles has not only been observed on Earth; analogous processes take place on the other planets of the Solar System.
The effects of these processes are easily noticeable both in nature and in society.
Hurricanes, earthquakes and floods have veritably fallen upon the Earth. In comparison with the previous decade, the number of natural catastrophes in the world has more than doubled, from 130 to 288 a year.
Particularly unsettling for many people is the recent increase in volcanic activity. Scholars have calculated that it has increased four times over since 1973. Considering the fact that there are around twelve thousand volcanoes in the world and that roughly 1,000 of those are active, such concern is fully justified. In April of 2010 the eruption from just one volcano, Eyjafjallajökull, in Iceland, paralyzed air traffic throughout Europe for an entire week. Hundreds of thousands of people suffered from the cancellation of hundreds of flights; and yet it is far from the largest volcano!
Global Warming is another phenomenon that both excites and confuses the minds of scholars, government leaders and average citizens alike. Not too long ago the majority of scientists asserted that it was caused by the massive emission of industrial gasses. If this is the case, it can be stopped by cutting such emissions. Nowadays, many scientists have admitted that this is yet another misconception. The primary sources of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are volcanic activity and fires. This is not the first time that the Earth has seen global warming. The temperature anomalies that mankind is encountering in the twenty-first century “also took place on the planet many millions of years ago in a cyclical manner.” This was the conclusion reached in December of 2007 by the participants in a Russian-French climate change symposium in Saint Petersburg.
In addition to this, ice samples taken from deep within Antarctica and Greenland show significant variation in levels of carbon dioxide gas in the atmosphere and that the climate experienced warming in pre-industrial epochs. Furthermore, increased CO² concentrations didn’t precede these periods of warming, but rather were consequences of such changes.
This means that the theory of anthropogenic warming is mistaken. This point of view was upheld by American and Chinese scholars, and the governments of these and a number of other countries refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol, which would require governments to cut back their emissions of industrial gas.
The Earth’s climate really is changing, but this is not a result of human actions, but rather of the repeating processes (cycles) that take place in the Earth-Sun-Space System.
The changing of Earth’s magnetic field and shifts in its magnetic poles strongly influence the planet’s biosphere, of which we and you, our dear readers, are a part, along with all the animal world.
The “navigational instruments” of some animals that make seasonal migrations have begun to fail them. Newspapers increasingly inform us of the mass suicide of whales and dolphins, whole herds of which throw themselves onto land. Of course, we won’t be talking about any “whale suicides”; it’s simply that whales orient themselves according to the magnetic poles and don’t know that in some places their vector of alignment has moved towards land.
The same thing has happened with the birds’ “compasses”; they’ve been demagnetized and now point in the wrong direction.
During the past several decades, Great Britain has been literally attacked by flocks of wild tropical parrots, which are believed to have come from India. Their numbers are yearly rising by a third. Around 20,000 of these exotic birds occupy all the gardens and parks of London. Just one sports complex in the county of Surrey was found to be home to 3,000 wild parrots, though the rainy climate of England does not suit the birds very well.
In 2004 hundreds of Swedish carrier pigeons, sent from Arad (Romania) to Athens in order to mark the opening of the Olympic Games, went astray and failed to return to their dovecotes. More specifically, of the 850 pigeons only 50 managed to find the road home. The same thing happened to their Hungarian brethren; of 1,500 pigeons only 40 returned.
For hundreds of years 28,000 pelicans have flown the proper route to Chase Lake National Wildlife Refuge in North Dakota (USA). But last season, the birds failed to return. It is believed by Ornithologists that they went astray on the way there. And so, their nests remained empty. The rare sight of the brown pelican has also disappeared from Northern California.
Humanity has reacted to these global cosmic changes with record levels of alcoholism, increased crime, psychological illness and a sharp fall in the birthrate in all the developed countries. One could say that people’s “navigational instruments” have also been damaged. Our conscious is as closely tied to the Earth’s magnetic field as an embryo is to the body of its mother. From this has arisen terrorism, common crime, stress, drug addiction, chronic fatigue, psychological illness and many other negative phenomena that we see in our everyday lives.
We can clearly see what is happening to our planet and to humanity, but few know of the true reasons for these happenings. Ignorance about this question gives rise to suffering, from which there is only one method of escape: understand the nature of these cataclysms and, having reached this understanding, change your attitude towards them and take effective measures to improve your state of being.
You have likely already noticed the repeated phrase cycles and rhythms. Our entire lives and, by the way, the economy as well, are subject to them. Academics have established that the economy, like the Sun, has periods of decline and of activity, short and long cycles of strictly defined length.
In the ‘30s the renowned Russian scientist Alexander Chizhevsky (1897—1964) not only proved the cyclical nature of all phenomena of a physical, biological, economic and social character, but found their uniting thread and showed that they are fully dependent on the oscillations of cosmic radiation and solar electromagnetic activity.
At the middle of the twentieth century and particularly in its second half appeared the works of hundreds of scholars from various countries affirming the cyclical nature of all Earthly processes, whether social, historical, economic, natural, or demographic, and the connections between them and, most importantly, the cycles of the cosmos.
Now we are close to arriving at a conception which answers questions about the reasons both for global ignorance and for the cataclysms that have assaulted the planet in previous decades.
We are referring to the precession of earth’s axis, or the precession of equinoxes (Latin: praecessio aequinoctiorum). The cycle of precession lies at the root of everything that is currently happening and that will happen in the near future on our planet.
The precession of equinoxes is the slow movement of the Earth’s axis of rotation in a cone-shaped path over a period of 25,920 years. This phenomenon is easily demonstrated using a spinning top (the children’s toy) as an example. If you spin a top, it will turn about its axis while simultaneously exhibiting a wavering motion which increases in relation to the decrease in the speed at which the top spins.
The thing is, the planet Earth is not a perfect sphere, it is somewhat flattened at the poles and slightly more convex at the equator. Additionally, the Earth’s core is shifted away from its center towards the surface by the irregular gravitational forces exerted on the Earth by the Moon and Sun. As a result we have precession, in the process of which the Earth’s axis of rotation moves in a cone, pointing in turn to various constellations, which are famous as the Signs of the Zodiac: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces, twelve constellations in total. The projection of Earth’s axis changes from one Sign to the next in the course of 2,160 years (25,920:12) and people have long become accustomed to refer to these periods as epochs or eras, as in the Era of Taurus, the Era of Pisces and so on.
These epochs make up a unique chronological scale according to which proceed changes to both people’s consciousness and the psycho-physiological condition of humanity.
Chapter 3.
According to your faith be it unto you…
How ignorance and fallacious conceptions divest humanity of the very potential for achieving happiness. The basic types of worldviews: religious, scientific, philosophical and skeptical. Why are skeptics doomed to be unhappy? What’s more important: faith, knowledge, or faith founded in knowledge? The eight conditions for curing ignorance. Why are many good books about the strength of positive thinking ineffective? Proof of the materiality of thoughts and the strength of the conscious: scientific facts and practical experiments. How knowledge and faith help to fulfill desires. Why the prayers of believers are not fulfilled and how one ought to pray in order to see results. The story of Pope John Paul II’s canonization. Russian academician Georgiy Sytin and his “miracle.” The falseness and hypocrisy of Lourdes.
A man does not suffer nearly as much from the events in his life as from his attitude towards them.
Michel de Montaigne,French philosopher (1533—1592)
Earlier we mentioned the following observation of Roman Philosopher and Emperor Marcus Aurelius: “Take away your opinion, and there is taken away the complaint, […] Take away the complaint, […] and the harm is taken away.” This same thought was repeated one and a half thousand years later by Michel de Montaigne, whose words are used as the epigraph to this chapter. We could have incorporated dozens more similar sayings from noted thinkers throughout the ages, affirming the preeminence of our conscious over external conditions. This means that happiness, as a distinctive condition of the soul, is fully determined not by that which happens to us and around us, but exclusively by our attitudes towards those events. Thousands of books contain this Truth; though few read such books, as people are more interested in other things. We will here include one small but highly characteristic example of people’s interests today.
In June of 2010, Apple announced the impending release of the new iPhone 4 smartphone, and crowds of people formed huge lines ahead of time in front of stores. The press reported that a Justin Wagoner from Dallas had decided to await the beginning of sales in front of a store for an entire week. He set up a tent in front of the store and brought with him a week’s worth of food and drink as well as a folding chair and sleeping bag, and all this in order to become the first owner of the new smartphone. Earlier, one million units of Apple’s tablet computer the iPad were sold in a total of 22 days.
It’s impossible just to consider that even the wisest of philosophical books had similar success; in the value systems of millions of people a new smartphone and tablet computer rank significantly higher. Because of this millions of people, unsatisfied with their lives, try to struggle with circumstances rather than changing their worldview, despite the fact that it specifically is responsible for all their major problems.
We would do well to touch upon this question, despite the fact that we personally would really like to quickly move on to the presentation of interesting facts and revelation of the methods for obtaining happiness. But we well know that all “solid” facts and precise recipes will inevitably shatter upon one’s system of conceptions if it contains contradictions. For this reason, please exercise a little more patience and try to attentively follow the entire path of our reasoning; that way the facts and recipes can be properly understood and will bring maximum benefit.
And so, everything depends on one’s worldview, which consists of a system of firm views, principles, values and beliefs that define our attitude towards reality as well as our understanding of the world as a whole and of our place within it.
Under identical circumstances, one person will be happy, another not. It’s like in the famous parable about two travelers in the desert, dying of thirst. When they meet a man who offers them each a half glass of water, one cries out with joy, having seen a half-full glass, while the other is greatly upset, having paid attention only to the fact that the glass is half-empty.
Billions of people found themselves in a similar situation in 2008 when they were hit by the world economic crisis. The crisis hurt everyone, but people reacted to it very differently.
On January 6, 2009 in Germany, billionaire Adolf Merckle, one of the richest people in Europe, committed suicide by throwing himself under a train.
“The desperate situation of his companies, caused by the financial crisis, the uncertainties of the last few weeks and his powerlessness to act, broke the passionate family entrepreneur and he took his own life,” stated a press release distributed by the family of the deceased.
In Chicago, on February 23, 2009 another billionaire, Steven Good, CEO of the company Sheldon Good & Company Auctions International, committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. His company auctioned off real estate.
These are just two examples from many instances of suicide by people who lost significant parts of their estates during the crisis. Others rejoiced at the fact that they hadn’t lost everything. The difference between the first and second is only in their belief systems regarding the significance of money in a person’s life and, ultimately, the meaning of life itself. If it consists of hoarding billions then of course their losses become serious grounds for suicide. And ignorance about what awaits those who commit suicide after death transforms those grounds into action.
When reality begins to contradict one’s personal belief system, a personality crisis occurs. For this reason it’s important to clarify when, how and by what a person’s belief system is formed.
This process starts with the parents. It is precisely from them that a child receives the first, incredibly important information about him or herself and about the surrounding world. These founding concepts and values take shape through childhood and for many people remain fundamental throughout their lives.
What defines a person’s religious identity? Only a few individuals make a conscious choice during adulthood; everyone else receives religion from their parents. The famous Russian researcher of beliefs and religions Victor Nyukhtilin writes in his book Melchizedek:
“Having examined the believers around us, we unfortunately see that more often than not each person’s faith is nothing more than automatic participation in the club of some faith on the basis of birth, locality or observance of tradition. Christians everywhere don’t know the meaning of their holidays, Muslims don’t know that Allah is that same God who is in one instance Jehovah and in another the Trinity, don’t know one line of the Koran and consider Christ the enemy of Islam, though Christ is considered by Islam to be one of the great prophets of Allah… Once, having asked some Buddhists from Kalmykia, the only Russian republic where the official faith is Buddhism, to explain the difference between the first and second turnings of the Wheel of Dharma, I was met with merry laughter: we didn’t become Buddhists to fill our heads with such nonsense. Well then what for? Adherence to a faith most often is defined from childhood and takes a form based on external characteristics involved in religious patriotism rather than a sense of God within oneself.
For this reason it makes sense for each person to ask him or herself, how well do I understand my faith and how do I live out my connection to God and not the inescapable traditions of my fathers, which I accept as an established part of my life and in my mind, but not in my heart. To what extent is my faith the state of being of my soul and not the national style of my life?
And on the other hand, shouldn’t at least a slight discomfort arise at the thought that if you were born, for example, just five hundred kilometers further south you would be a Muslim and not a Christian? And if faith had carried your parents just a little closer to the equator and a little further to the right, you would be a Buddhist. And if you were an atheist lost in a big city, addled by a nervous disorder, and on a straight path to the Jehovah’s Witnesses…
In practically every one of these situations, a person has no choice! He receives his religion, so to speak, along with his birth certificate… Religious denominations seem to have sort of divided the Earthly sphere into spheres of influence, and those born in one of these spheres immediately acquire a faith not of their choosing during childhood.
And the important thing is that many of those people have religion but don’t have Faith… “Inhereted” religion, unfortunately, doesn’t require Faith, but is limited to observation of rituals” [14].
During a person’s adolescence, the formation process of his or her worldview is influenced by teachers, friends, mass media, books, films… Some information is rejected immediately as it is received, some partially settles in, and a few parts take on the status of worldview. It is only natural that of the ocean of information found in the world a person receives only droplets and remains ignorant about the rest. And when questions arise during life, the answers to which lay beyond the bounds of one’s personal knowledge, a person inevitably makes mistakes.
In many families parents and children are in conflict with one another. Taking this into account, few know that there are many so-called “indigo children” among those born in the last two decades. Indigo children are unique people: their level of immunity is many times higher than normal and their IQs significantly exceed the average. In fact, this is a new race that is set apart from us by their very genetic code. Interacting with them requires special knowledge, the absence of which leads not only to conflict, but to tragedy; in the eyes of these children, wise beyond their years, who have come into the world already understanding many truths, normal adults appear stupid and undeserving of respect. And when these “stupid people” begin to “raise” and even punish their unusual children in an attempt to make them like everyone else, indigo children show aggression; there are marked incidents of these children’s violence against their “uncomprehending” parents.
On the Internet there are already dozens if not hundreds of sites that shed light on these uncommon children, in book stores there has appeared special literature which gives insights that are simply necessary for normal interaction with indigo children. But have many parents and teachers delved into this knowledge? Assuredly no. Our experience, from interaction with hundreds of people at seminars shows that the majority haven’t even heard of indigo children.
We already wrote a little about people’s sexual illiteracy. But the knowledge of sexual cycles, revealed by Dr. John Kappas, does little on its own for family happiness. One also needs a specific worldview regarding the basis of marriage. Many men live in a belief system in which a wife is three things in one: housekeeper, nanny, and sex machine. His role consists only of financial support and giving her presents on major holidays. Such men are then surprised – why did this previously sweet wife suddenly transform into a malicious Gorgon? And how many women act similarly to Mrs. Lincoln, of whom we spoke earlier?
Gloria Taylor Brown, president of the American Women of Wisdom Foundation, affirms:
“The shift in paradigm will require that men and women see each other as we really are. We will both have to step into who we are for the good of all concerned. If I want a positive relationship with a man, then it is necessary for me to see the good in him. We will have to support one another completely, both as individuals and as a couple.
We will have to honor the God and Goddess in one another. It’s what the Hindus are doing when they say, “Namaste” – I bow before the Divine in you. That is the way we must learn to see one another. We will have to learn to see the best in each other, to say, “The God in me honors the God in you.” And this means redefining our concepts of what constitutes a relationship.
There are many kinds of relationships. For many, sex is simply an animalistic urge to reproduce, but we can look beyond the body and simply have a spiritually based relationship” [15].
You’ll agree that this is a distinctive worldview, but it doesn’t simply fall from the sky; it can only be acquired by studying the corresponding books or attending seminars of such people as Gloria Brown.
Scholars define four basic types of worldview: religious, scientific, philosophical and skeptical. They’re probably right; among people you can find representatives of all these types. But we don’t plan to study them in detail; we’re more interested in knowing, what are the proportions between them? We came to the somber opinion that no less than 90% of people are skeptics.
We already showed that practically none of those people who count themselves believers know even the fundamentals of their religion. A scientific worldview is held only by scientists, and philosophical only by philosophers, who together with scientists make up an insignificantly small layer of society. There are so many skeptics that they even form their own societies and take great pride in their skepticism, considering it, to all appearances, a sign of great intelligence. They proclaim – we won’t be deceived or cheated; we aren’t gullible simpletons, easily sucked in by any old drivel.
The basic principle of skeptics’ thinking is doubt, the notion that everything which lies beyond the bounds of one’s personal experience is unreal or fallacious. More often than not, elementary ignorance is hiding behind skepticism, and skeptics, ashamed (or not ashamed), hide this with a proud denial of everything they cannot comprehend due to the limits of their knowledge. And all the skeptic’s knowledge, as we already revealed, flows from his or her personal knowledge, which is often highly insignificant – it’s all just like in one famous parable about twins.
The Parable “The Twins’ Discussion”
“Two twins held a discussion in the womb of a pregnant woman. One of them believed in the combing life, the other was a skeptic.
Second Twin: You believe in life after birth?
First Twin: Yes, of course. Everyone knows that life after birth exists. We’re here so that we can become strong enough and ready for what awaits us later on.
Second Twin: That’s stupid! There can’t be any life after birth! Can you imagine what such a life would look like?
First Twin: I don’t know all the details, but I believe that it will be brighter and that we might walk on our own and eat with our mouths.
Second Twin: What foolishness! It’s impossible to walk on one’s own and eat with your mouth! That’s just ridiculous! We have an umbilical cord that feeds us. You know, I want to tell you: there can’t exist life after birth because our life is our umbilical cord, and it’s far too short.
First Twin: I’m sure that it’s possible. Everything will simply be a little bit different. That’s conceivable.
Second Twin: But nobody’s ever returned from there! Life just ends with birth. And in general life is just one big instance of suffering in darkness.
First Twin: No, no! I don’t know exactly how our life after birth will look, but in any case, we’ll see Mom, and she’ll take care of us.
Second Twin: Mom? You believe in Mom? And where is she?
First Twin: She’s all around us, we reside in her, and thanks to her we move and live; without her, we simply can’t exist.
Second Twin: Complete foolishness! I haven’t ever seen any Mom, and as such it’s clear that she simply doesn’t exist.
First Twin: I just can’t agree with you. Sometimes, when everything quiets down, you can even hear how she sings and feel how she touches our world. I firmly believe that our real life will begin only after birth.”
The discussions in this book are about things that are just as strange for many people as life after birth for one of the twins. For this reason, the question of faith and of its formation, on which is based our specific worldview, which then affects the form of our entire lives, demands detailed examination. We’ll immediately take a moment to make a very positive note: faith and worldview can change, drastically and quickly. So the skeptics and ignorant who are mired in their prejudices do not face a fatal diagnosis. Full emancipation (in other words enlightenment) from these grievous ailments is possible for everyone who really wants it. Those who really want happiness must first cure themselves of ignorance. This is possible under the following set of circumstances:
First: strong dissatisfaction with one’s life.
We emphasize the word strong. Almost everyone experiences simple dissatisfaction, but it’s not enough to start change.
Discontent with one’s current situation must be so sharp that it at least leads to sleeplessness.
Second: admission that one’s personal experience is too insignificant to reveal the path to life change.
Third: understanding of the fact that if there are after all happy people in the world, this means that in principle it is possible to achieve happiness.
Fourth: rejection of fatalism, the feeling of resignation, the opinion that some prewritten fate rules over the will of mankind.
We are sure that the facts presented in this book completely suffice to fulfill this condition.
Fifth: agreement that people are not born happy, but become happy, and that this means there is some sort of concrete recipe (unknown to the majority of people) for achieving this condition.
Remember that there are thousands more well-known “rags to riches stories” than stories about those “born with a silver spoon.”
Sixth: understanding that if recipes for a happy life exist, then they are written down somewhere and this information can be found.
Seventh: preparedness to receive new knowledge; rid yourself of any fear of it.
Eighth: rejection of the concept that everyone around you is a self-interested cheat and put your skepticism to rest at least while reading this book.
Our experience shows that change in worldview proceeds along two paths:
First path: natural, slow change in understanding as the result of gradual reception of portions of new information. When the first portion is grasped and accepted, there comes the second, then the third… and so, step by step, a belief system is born (or transforms). This is how the typical process of education in schools and universities proceeds.
Second path: sudden, sometimes even momentary, when an entire worldview changes under the influence of a strong external factor. Among those factors, clinical death holds first place. Everyone who has survived it returns to this world a completely different person. We affirm this not only because hundreds of such cases are described in the books of world famous doctor Raymond Moody, but also on the basis of personal experience of one of the authors of this book, who has survived clinical death twice.
The other factors are often heavy trauma as in the case of the Bulgarian clairvoyant Baba Vanga, immersion in regressive hypnosis or a lightning strike. At times a book can serve as such a strike of lightning, when “the roof flies off” and opens up a whole new view of the world and oneself. Admittedly, this is an extremely rare occurrence.
Gradual change of conceptions, without lightning and clinical death, can be traced through a simple example. Consider yourself right now to be not just a reader, but a participant in an experiment on transformation of consciousness.
Let’s imagine you heard that a person can live without his or her brain. Would you immediately agree with this assertion?
If you responded “yes,” the next question is “why?” and then you would need to present arguments supporting this point of view. And if you have such arguments, it means that you received them somewhere at an earlier time: heard them, read them, saw them in a pop-science film, etc.
If you never before encountered this question, you would have two more or less likely variations of answer. The first: “I am not aware of the topic, and as such I can neither confirm nor deny this.” The second, skeptical, would sound like this: “What stupidity! That’s just impossible!”
We now propose to step by step acquaint ourselves with the following information:
• In 1336 in Germany under King Ludwig the Bavarian, at the execution of Ditz von Shaunburg, the following incident took place. Ditz, being condemned for revolt, received the king’s word that he would pardon four rank and file soldiers in the mutiny if he (Shaunburg) could (after execution) run, without his head, past these four warriors, who were placed in a row eight steps away. The king was forced to uphold his word, which he gave to the condemned man before everyone, when Ditz von Shaunburg really did run past all four lance knights who were standing eight steps away.
Please, stop for a minute and think about your attitude towards the story described. Once you’ve formed an opinion, read on:
• In the review of Dr. Robinson at the French Academy of Sciences is described an even more unique incident. An elderly man in his sixties was wounded in the Parietal lobe by the sharp end of a skewer. This led to slight bleeding. For the length of a month the wounded man seemed fine. He then began to complain of poor vision, but felt no pain. A short time later the afflicted man unexpectedly died with signs of epilepsy. Autopsy revealed that the deceased had no brain. There was preserved only a thin shell of brain matter containing a putrid decomposed substance. For almost a month the man lived with practically no brain.
Again, pause and reconsider the question: how do you react to this? If you reach the conclusion that these are merely historical anecdotes and do not convince you of anything, then there are other, more modern stories. For example, this one:
• In 1935 at Saint Vincent’s Hospital in New York a child was born lacking a brain (absence of a brain at birth is called anencephaly). Nevertheless, in spite of all medical conceptions, the child lived, ate, and cried like all newborns over the course of 27 days. Furthermore, the child’s behavior was completely normal, as affirmed by eyewitnesses, and nobody even suspected that he had no brain until the autopsy.
Getting “warmer”? Or you still don’t believe like before? Then read on:
• In 1940 Doctor Augustine Iturricha made a sensational announcement to the Anthropological Society in Sucre (Bolivia) and presented his colleagues with a dilemma that even today remains unanswered. He and Doctor Nicholas Ortiz had long studied the illness of a fourteen year old boy who was a patient at Doctor Ortiz’s clinic. The adolescent ended up there because of a diagnosis that he had a tumor in his brain. The youth was fully in command of his reason and retained consciousness until the very end, complaining only of a headache. When pathologists performed the autopsy they were amazed. The entire brain mass had been separated from the internal cavity of the braincase. A large abscess had taken hold of the cerebellum and part of the brain. The question arose, what was this child thinking with? But the riddle that Ortiz and Iturricha came across was not as mind-bending as that which the famous German brain specialist Hufeland became acquainted with. He completely reconsidered all his earlier views after the autopsy of the braincase of a man who was stricken by paralysis. The sick man retained all his mental and physical abilities until the last minute. The results of the trephination were stupefying: in place of a brain the braincase of the deceased contained a little over 300 grams of water.
• In 2002 a little girl from Holland survived an intensive operation in response to a neurological infection (the diagnosis was Rasmussen’s encephalitis). They removed the left hemisphere of her brain, where the speech center is to this day thought to be located. Today this child astounds doctors with the fact that she has mastered two languages and is studying a third. The girl talks with her sister in perfect (for her age) Dutch, and communicates with her mother in Turkish. Doctor Johannes Borgstein, observing the little Dutchwoman, says that he has already advised his students to forget all the neurophysiological theories that they are studying and will study.
If these facts are too little for you, take a look into the authoritative scientific journal Nature; issues 415—420 from 2002 contain many similarly interesting materials.
In the preceding chapter we already mentioned Nobel laureate John Carew Eccles’s statement about the mind. We’ll now add to that the opinion of the great scientist and surgeon Valentin Voyno-Yasenetsky (1877—1961), who is also known as Luka, Archbishop of the Russian Orthodox Church. In his book Spirit, Soul and Body he asserts that “by its very construction the brain shows that its function is the transformation of outside stimuli into a well chosen reaction… The nervous system and the brain in particular, are not the apparatus of pure conception and cognition, but simply instruments designed for action.”
But even if the brain is absent, outside signals can be received by other organs. We earlier employed the example of how the beheaded Ditz von Shaunburg ran more than 20 meters. In Voyno-Yasenetsky’s book there is another example: “If a beheaded frog’s skin is irritated, it will take appropriate action directed at removing the irritation, and if it is prolonged, the frog will turn to flight and hop just as if it were not beheaded. In the wars of ants, which have no brain, there is clearly revealed premeditation and, accordingly, rationality, which in no way differs from that of a human being”.
Having studied a large collection of materials regarding the brain, we saw that in the last two decades science has definitively admitted the fact that the brain does not think and that mental functions are located beyond its boundaries.
The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus (544—483 B.C.) knew this 2,500 years ago; he said “The power of thinking is outside the body.”
Now tell us honestly, has your conception about the functions of the mind changed after reading these past four pages? We’ll honestly say that when we ourselves first encountered such facts we reacted to them with amazement bordering on aversion. Our belief system didn’t allow for the possibility of existence without a brain, even for a short time. But through the accumulation of information (of which only a small part was presented here) our views underwent a gradual change, which led to full acceptance of the fact, which is now a part of our belief system. And if someone were now to try returning us to our previous beliefs, this would prove to be impossible. We don’t simply believe in the possibility of life without a brain, we now know that this is so. Our faith regarding this specific question has received a strong foundation in light of our knowledge.
We are deeply convinced that for the modern person with an open mind only such faith, a faith founded on knowledge, has any meaning.
Only knowledge can serve as the basis of the new worldview that opens the road to a new life and to increase in one’s personal vibrations (remember that they need to be strengthened to the level of vibrations of the planet?). And only for this reason do we not simply state this or that fact which are Truths according to our conceptions, but include many arguments and proofs to support them. We well know that this complicates reading and makes it more demanding, but there is no other way if we want our book to bring readers practical benefit and not just a broadened horizon.
In our book, we will obviously be talking only about the soft, natural change of belief systems, through gradual acceptance of new, true knowledge.
There immediately arises the pointed and fully reasonable question: but where can one find true knowledge about the soul, Universe and meaning of life? And how does one separate the “wheat from the chaff” if we live in an ocean of illusions and fallacious conceptions? (Recall the multivolume Encyclopedia of Delusions that we referenced in the first chapter). How does one avoid falling from one delusion into another, no less harmful? Where is that prophet who can be trusted?
In modern times, the shelves of bookstores are literally breaking under thousands of books claiming to be “textbooks for life.” Among them there really are wise guides for changing one’s conscious, but readers’ skepticism renders them useless. Overcoming this most widespread of worldviews is undoubtedly difficult, and if an author didn’t work to include weighty enough arguments in defense of his or her views, the book will either be met with bayonets or will be indifferently laid aside after the first unsuccessful attempt at implementing it. This failure, of course, is written off by the reader as the author’s fault, not understanding that it is precisely the inadequacy of one’s own faith in the recipes presented that renders them ineffective.
The thing is that lack of faith is also a faith, but with a minus sign. For example, if a person doesn’t believe in his or her abilities, they believe that they don’t possess them. And the strength of the faith with a “plus sign” and faith with a “minus sign” are identical. As such, even the slightest distrust in information is capable of fully neutralizing it.
In 2006—2007 Australian television and radio producer Rhonda Byrne’s documentary film The Secret and her book by the same name, written about the contents of the film, received wide popularity in many countries all over the world. The film, released on DVD, and book not only became popular, they were thunderously successful and underwent millions of printings throughout the world. Time magazine included Rhonda in its 2007 list of most influential people in the world, and soon after this she was included in the Forbes rating of “The 100 Most Famous People.” The essence of The Secret can be briefly laid out:
Ücretsiz ön izlemeyi tamamladınız.
