The beginning of the path
This story began quite a long time ago. It's hard to say whether I should tell this story now because there is such a long way ahead. It seems to me that it all started in my childhood. There was something special about the way I saw the world. However, perhaps all children see the world like this, but then they grow up and forget about it. You know, deep inside I have always been convinced that the world is beautiful, that everything has its meaning, and that people can comprehend this meaning. On top of that, I have always had a hyper sense of justice. I could not pass by, if someone needed help, I stood up for those who were offended or bullied. I can’t believe I have never taken a beating, it’s incomprehensible indeed. Once at school, some children promised to beat me because I stood up for a good teacher, but for some reason they never did.
I remember myself from my earliest years, and I quite clearly understand that all those qualities were somehow innate. I came into this world with those qualities. There is nothing more convincing than understanding that this world is beautiful, no matter what. I have always felt that everything has this deep meaning and life has its meaning. Perhaps, that pushed me later to look for the answers.
My family followed the traditions; however, I can’t say that they were deeply religious people. When I grew up, I understood that there were many different traditions, religions, and worldviews around. I tried to figure out how the world worked in reality. I was wondering the way Kant was once wondering in “Critique of Practical Reason”. He wrote: “Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me." I think that such awe is experienced by all people who subconsciously feel the call of their souls and the desire for endless personal development. People are born with this urge. Throughout history, they have striven to know its origins. Life is unbearably difficult for a person who cannot answer the main questions: “How does the world work? What is my place in this world and what is the meaning of my life?" Trying to answer these questions, religions, philosophies, worldviews, and different concepts were born. People have always been looking for the answers.
Unfortunately, science cannot yet give any convincing answers, and people can only rely on their reason and logic, on morality and consciousness, and the innate desire for knowledge. However, I have never doubted that reality is objective and cognizable, and that mind is given to us for a reason. I had a lot of questions, and not all of them were purely theoretical. It was important for me to understand how the world worked. I wanted to know about mysticism and magic. Do they exist? What happens to us after death and does anything happen at all? What is there beyond the distant stars? Is there life up there? And what are life and death?
There were so many different beliefs around, from occult and religious to exclusively materialistic. Materialism did not suit me with its limitations, moreover, it could not explain my inner aspirations, my mind, my personality, and my morality. At some point, however, I realized that I was not a person of faith. I could never blindly believe, putting my mind aside. Blind faith contradicts the very essence of a human being who seeks knowledge of objectivity and evidence. I saw a lot of contradictions in religions and could not find any convincing or logical answers there.
I found myself in a very difficult situation when I felt the moral law inside myself and saw the starry sky above my head, but at the same time, I could not find a single philosophical system that would give convincing or logical answers to my questions. I could not find a system of beliefs that would without any contradictions put together what modern people already know about our universe and what we long to know.
I read books and asked knowledgeable people in different teachings questions, and still, there were no comprehensive explanations. Thus, I decided that the only yet unexplored direction was occultism. Then off I went searching for the unknown. Occultism turned out to be so vague and uncertain that the world through this prism became even more incomprehensible. I met both healers and magicians, and an endless number of people who considered themselves knowledgeable in absolutely everything, although they could not give any sensible answers even to simple questions. They told me strange and very vague things about magic, and about some unknown forces, and about enlightenment, and healing, and development of supernatural abilities. Their ideas were confusing and unclear and turned into a great mystery even for themselves. It was impossible, even theoretically, to distinguish which of these were just fiction, and which had some real basis deep within. There was no system, no logic, and no support in the real world. It had nothing to do with the reality we see around or scientific facts. It also had nothing to do with the laws of nature, with its simplicity and beauty, with the depth and consistency of all the processes in nature.
Only one thing was obvious to me: a system that correctly describes true reality must be as logical, consistent, and meaningful as the reality itself. Otherwise, it cannot be. The world is objective, it is what it is, and the system that describes it is also like that. There was only one option left for me - to continue searching, hoping that such genuine knowledge about the world exists.
I told myself that if the real Teacher who had genuine knowledge of the world, and who could answer my questions, had already been born on earth, then I would find him. I would find a person who would finally tell me about the truth and delusions. I was looking for the Teacher who knew about the world and who would show me the path to myself. If there was no Internet, I would probably go to Tibet, looking for a guru. Luckily, I was born at the end of the 20th century and had internet access by that time.
Looking for the Teacher
The most difficult thing, perhaps, was to formulate what I was looking for. How can you describe the truth you are looking for if you do not know what truth is and what illusion is? After reading various philosophical books, I had a very vague image of the Teacher. He was supposed to be a priest, and a magician, and a hermit, and a leader, and a scientist, and whoever you could imagine. It sounded absurd and naive. I posted my incredible request on one of the most famous philosophical and esoteric forums at that time. I got a lot of completely different answers, as it usually happens. Some offered their services, some warned of terrible dangers, some wished good luck, some claimed it was impossible to find a great Teacher, and some insisted that truth does not exist at all.
I want to point out that everybody has a worldview, a certain system of beliefs. And even if a person claims that he has no worldview and he does not believe anything at all, this is also a point of view. My worldview at that time was an unthinkable combination of ideas, partly still based on traditions, and partly crafted from various philosophical teachings. Naturally, at that moment I did not realize how illogical and confusing everything was in my mind.
For quite a while, my quest was fruitless. As I already mentioned I met completely different people. When you are looking for truth, objective knowledge about the world, but the knowledge that goes beyond the scope of scientific research, the most difficult thing is to understand who exactly you should listen to. Who of those who call themselves a magician, a guru, a teacher, and so on is the one he claims to be?
How to evaluate the level of knowledge of a person in a certain area in which you know so little? I guess, there are not so many criteria. First of all, I was looking for a knowledgeable person. Secondly, yet having an inner understanding of morality, instilled by the tradition, I was looking for a person with high moral values. I had no doubts that a real Teacher is a person who lives for the good of the world, a truly spiritual person. And finally, if the Teacher knows how the world works, then his system of knowledge about the world should be internally logical, like the world itself. In other words, this should be a worldview without contradictions within itself, and it also should not contradict genuine scientific knowledge. It should, by all means, give exhaustive and understandable answers to my questions. In addition, such a system must be viable, that is, practically applicable to the world and people, making them better. After all, if such a system exists and describes the world correctly, then it will be like a universal formula, applicable to everything. Not an easy task, isn't it? I believed and hoped that the Teacher had been already born.
What was the probability that he would speak the same language as I did, and would read my message and pay attention to me in the first place? Without the Internet, I would have to go around the globe to find him, but modern technology allows the impossible to happen. And, nevertheless, such a chance is even more incredible than winning a lottery, simply because more than seven billion people live on Earth. And this still happened. I met the Teacher. It was not like an epic adventure when an apprentice travels to a remote ashram in the mountains and awaits at the doors for many hours. It was not like a beautiful scene in a book where an apprentice saw the great Master and fell on his knees hoping that the Master would teach him. And obviously, it was not like a beautiful scene in a movie where an apprentice undergoes special tests to gain the attention of the Master.
It never happened just because life itself makes us overcome countless obstacles to find our true selves. And the very first obstacle is pride. We were communicating for a while and very soon I realized that I was ignorant and all my attempts to argue with him about spiritual matters were unsuccessful. Looking back, I honestly laugh at myself. People often fail to see the absurdity of their actions. If you admit that there is a person who is more knowledgeable in some area, and you would like to learn from him, then why would you start arguing with him? And the answer to this question is obvious. Spirituality directly affects our lives. And if you admit that someone is more knowledgeable in spirituality than you, then this entails great internal changes, for example, rejection of some wrong beliefs. Knowledge about the laws of the universe does not always turn out to be sweet, very often it is bitter, like life itself. And even admitting that you were mistaken, which means you spent part of your life on useless delusions, and listening to another person, can be very difficult and unpleasant. Life is as it is, and the worldview that describes life corresponds to it. And if a person grasps red-hot metal, he burns himself, because these are the laws of Nature, and it is useless and stupid to argue with this. And it is also useless and stupid to argue with the Teacher who tells you about these objective laws, even if it is unpleasant for you. Everything in the universe is based on the laws of Nature, and they work, regardless of whether we know about them or not, whether we like them or not. And nevertheless, people continue to argue simply because pride lives in them, and often their desires go against the laws of Nature and good. And this was the first obstacle.
I had only two options: to admit that I was mistaken or to say something like “Whatever….” and keep my dear but absurd beliefs. Luckily, I had enough courage to admit that I was wrong. However, I didn’t have enough courage to call the Teacher “my Teacher”. Nevertheless, our communication continued. I thought that I was giving my interlocutor a chance to tell me more, but in fact, it was he who gave me a chance to get rid of delusions. We build our beliefs all our lives, and even if they are wrong, subconsciously we feel very sorry for wasting our time on delusions.
At that moment, I told the Teacher, "Just teach me wisdom, but for now on I will remain with my own beliefs." In reality, it sounded like this: "Teach me what the horizon is and where the sun goes, but I will continue to believe that the Earth is flat." For some reason, it did not occur to me that everything in the world is interconnected and everything exists within a single system, where one statement follows from another and cannot be taken out of context. People understand this by the example of biology or physics, but for some reason, they go blind when it comes to spirituality. At that moment, the Teacher answered me with the well-known phrase, “You cannot pour anything into a full vessel,” but I did not understand him.
The most difficult period in our relationship was yet to come. The thing is that for most concepts and phenomena that have not yet been described by science, there are no suitable terms. For this reason, to describe them, you have to use already existing words, and people are inclined to see what they are used to seeing in these words. Therefore, when, within the framework of any concept, a person, for example, hears the word "god", he immediately interprets it as he knows. Completely different associations can arise, which echo both with Christianity and with paganism, and simply with something extremely mystical, and even something non-existent, if the listener is a materialist. And having heard the word, a person can immediately give up on it and say: "I have already heard all this!" or “All this is mystical nonsense!” without even giving the interlocutor a chance to explain what this word means in his system of views. An old anecdote about a computer mouse comes to my mind: "Grandma, - grandson says, - I want to get a new mat for the mouse. “These young people are completely crazy, - says grandma, - A mat for the mouse… Next, he will get slippers for cockroaches!". Roughly the same thing happens with any other term that takes on a new meaning. And at first it was very unusual and difficult for me to understand that words such as "god", "creator" or "prophet" may not have any mystical connotation. Even later, it was difficult for me to use these words, and I replaced them with more familiar ones. For example, instead of the word “Creator”, I continued to say “Universe”. I won’t go into detail explaining why our Universe is called "the Creator". I want to emphasize that before you criticize something, you should figure out what you are dealing with. And this principle applies to everything. However, I somehow overcame this difficult period as well.
The Teaching and my family
My apprenticeship began about a year and a half after I met the Teacher. It took me quite a while to understand the new worldview, to compare it with scientific facts known to me, to see its consistency, to leave my pride in the past, and accept the Teacher wholeheartedly. However, I was not the only one who found out about the Teaching. Members of my family were informed about my spiritual development.
How do parents react when their only child finds a Spiritual Teacher that has nothing to do with the traditional worldview? Of course, they feel extremely worried because their child may end up joining a dangerous religious cult where he will be deceived, hypnotized, and brainwashed. It worried my family as well. They were watching very carefully how I was behaving and whether my lifestyle was changing. I continued to study and to work in the same way as before, I did not disappear anywhere, I did not attend any secret meetings, and I did not give my money or property to anyone. My behavior seemed to be completely adequate, and at some point, my parents just stopped worrying. My regular conversations with the Teacher ceased to be something special for them, and they started thinking about that as a communication with a friend.
Perhaps everything would not have gone so smoothly if my family members were deeply religious people. However, they were more worried about my psychological state in terms of universal human morality and adequacy than following any customs and traditions. It was not very important for them what kind of worldview I had if it allowed me to have a normal lifestyle. I remained, as I was before, - a calm, quiet person who was spending most of the time with the family. I was studying and working, I got married and gave birth to a child. In other words, I had the life that parents usually want their children to have.
It may seem strange that deep internal changes and a complete change of the worldview are so little noticeable to others. This is not surprising. People usually pay attention to external factors. For example, wearing a cross, or performing any ritual actions, prayers, or going to church. A particular worldview might also become obvious when a person deliberately tells you about it and actively promotes it. In our Teaching, there are no rituals, no obligations to wear any symbols or actively promote our views. At first glance, a person from the Teaching won’t differ from an average modern person. The main changes are in our souls and personalities. However, there were some external changes. For instance, I stopped using decorative cosmetics, simply because the natural beauty of a body became obvious to me, and therefore cosmetics became irrelevant. The style of my clothes changed more towards casual and natural materials rather than anything else. I have always led a completely healthy lifestyle, so I did not have to give up any bad habits.
Internal changes
All other changes were internal, and therefore not obvious for others. In general, I was gradually working on various spiritual qualities. To be honest, hard spiritual work inside a person is hardly noticeable to other people. What is more, at the first stages, it may not manifest itself in any way at all. Perhaps the most vivid manifestation of the new worldview was honesty. I had never been a bad liar, but I was an ordinary person who could lie a little if necessary. For example, I could say that I was sick when I did not want to go to work, or I could say that I was busy when I did not want to do something when my colleagues asked me. Small lies surround people practically everywhere, and often they are not considered a lie at all. In the Teaching, understanding of truth and lies moves to a completely different level. Gradually you become aware that cognition and development of personal qualities are the main goals, and the desire to lie and deceive disappears and becomes irrelevant even if we talk about little things. To be honest, lies, like other ideas of this kind, tend to strive for infinity. If it is possible and normal to lie about little things, then it is even more logical and justified to lie about more important things. And here the path of a person becomes very “slippery”. Let’s have a look at a different situation of this kind. For example, if it is possible to let one person die for the sake of saving ten, then why is it impossible to save a hundred by killing ten, or a billion by killing a million? They say the devil is in the details, and they are right. My refusal to lie about little things surprised many people, but never became an obstacle in relationships or work. I think most people quite clearly understand that lying is not good, even if they lie from time to time.
Advancement along the spiritual path is like an amazing transformation. You change and the world is born again through you. And if the world seemed dull and obvious before, then today you suddenly manage to look deeper and find a whole universe inside a simple stone. When people talk about esotericism, about knowledge hidden from sight, they believe that someone has hidden this secret knowledge from them, when in reality it is their blindness. Magnificent things are under our feet every day, everywhere around us, and above our heads, but people do not see it. Secret knowledge is secret not because someone has hidden it, but because it is in front of our very eyes, yet people can’t see it. People see death where there is only life, they take for suffering something which is not suffering at all, they claim that they know themselves, knowing practically nothing about themselves, and they claim that truth does not exist when they are the embodiment of it. The Teacher helps to heal mental blindness. The world has been born through me many times and will be born again, and I continue to be born in it. People have great powers to change reality, but they do not use them. Great powers are given for great purposes and nothing else. If you live with petty desires that are aimed only at satisfying the needs of your ego, then you are given appropriately. Forces equal to the forces of the Universe are given for the aims equal to the aims of the Universe. There is nothing superfluous and nothing useless in Nature, everything lives according to the Great Oughtness.
Obstacles on the way to yourself
Finding the right spiritual path and following this spiritual path is not the same thing. Most people understand that it is wrong to lie, steal, betray and do other nasty things, but they still do them to one degree or another. There is hardly a thief who would wholeheartedly claim that stealing is good and right, and nevertheless, he is a thief. This is where numerous circumstances and nuances of human life come into play. Moreover, even after taking a specific spiritual path and understanding why it is inappropriate to act in a certain way, a person often cannot change immediately. For a proper evolution, knowledge alone is not enough; it must transform into awareness, acquire practical strength in your soul, take root in your personality, and change your spirit. It takes time and a lot of effort, and not only efforts of your mind, but also mental efforts, and strong willpower. For example, sometimes it is very hard to avoid lies, just because some life situations turn out to be surprising, unpredictable, or scary. People lie because of fear and simply because they don’t have time to think properly. Thus, they do something wrong and a few minutes later they realize that it was bad. You feel surprised at yourself and ashamed, and you promise yourself not to do it again. However, we usually stumble like that more than once. Gradual work on spirituality allows one to stumble less and less.
When you have chosen a certain path, especially at the very beginning, it is uncomfortable because others do not follow it. Your relatives, friends, and colleagues may give you a cold shoulder. After all, if a person, for example, stops lying, then this can cause inconvenience at work. For example, at work, you have to lie, cover up someone, or sometimes people cheat with documents or mislead others, claiming that the boss has left, when in fact he is sitting in the next room. And in such a situation, you have to make a fundamental decision, which sounds like this: "money or conscience." And you need to be honest with yourself and admit that if you chose money, it means that your desire to follow the chosen spiritual path is fake. Spiritual development is always an action, without action, it simply cannot be. Or, if you choose conscience, then you have to endure inconvenience and talk to people around, defending your point of view.
Fortunately, I did not have any big problems. When the first situation with lies arose I explained to my boss that I would not lie under any circumstances. It was obvious that she was surprised, but she took it into account and never asked me to lie. The only sad thing is that it didn’t stop her from asking others to lie. The team took it for granted and simply did not ask me to lie when necessary. Once there was a checkup in the office. And I found myself in an unpleasant situation when, having revealed unnecessary details, I could have seriously let the manager and colleagues down. Fortunately, I was not involved in the problematic situation, so the investigator did not force me to give detailed testimony. In such a situation, I chose silence. My behavior was very suspicious for the investigator, and he began to ask about my silence. I replied that I was only responsible for my part of work, and everything was fine there. He accepted this answer because a person cannot be responsible for something he did not do. This is how I saved myself from lying twice. I didn’t lie from the very beginning, so I didn’t do anything bad, and therefore I didn’t have to take responsibility for any bad actions. Nevertheless, such situations are always unpleasant and make you feel like being drenched in mud. When you change, your circle of acquaintances, friends, and colleagues can remain the same only if they are ready to accept your new personality.
My family accepted me, but after a while, I still changed my job. I have never been afraid of changes. And speaking of changes, this change was certainly for the better. However, feeling “out of the pack” is not the biggest problem. There are two serious problems. The first is daily routines. Spiritual development, like any other serious work, takes time. It takes time to communicate with the Teacher, read, think, analyze, and only then put everything into practice. If there is no time for internal work, then development will proceed extremely slowly. And it is a mistake to believe that you can do without regular communication with the Teacher, without reading, and without thinking. And it is also a mistake to believe that fifteen minutes before bedtime is enough for this. Even a hobby takes time, and spiritual development is not an additional activity that accompanies your life, it is the core of your life. It is our personality that forms our worldview, actions, the assessment of these actions, and interaction with others. Our whole life and the lives of others depend on our personalities. Spirituality is a process of personality formation; it determines the final product - the person himself. Man, by his actions, forms the society in which we live. That is why spiritual development is the core of a person and society as a whole, and everything else is attached to this. People often think that everything is exactly the opposite. Hence, there are so many problems in this world. If daily routines absorb a person completely, then he begins to live the animal life - he survives, hunts, eats, rests, and hunts again, reproduces, takes care of offspring and his dwelling. No, there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just not enough if you are a human being and not an animal. Unfortunately, I also had a period when daily routines took over me completely. I worked a lot, arranged my life, took care of my family, traveled around the world, had fun, and then worked again. And there was no end to it. It seemed normal, but in this hustle and bustle of life, I did not have enough time for the most important thing - for life itself. It was survival. And though it looked different to the survival of a caveman, it was still only survival. All this was aimed at a comfortable life of the body, and nothing more.
Don't get me wrong, comfortable life is wonderful, and everyone on this planet, ideally, should have a comfortable life, but everything has a limit. If all the time is spent on pleasing my body, then what remains for me, for my personality? Survival swallowed me, leaving no time for life. The Teacher told me that daily routines swallowed me up, but then I did not see it. We practically stopped communicating, because I had neither the strength nor the time to communicate. This went on for several years, and this period, despite all my efforts, became the most difficult in my life. I didn't notice that I had lost myself. My body was exhausted, and I gradually sank into misery. Coincidentally, it was during that period that I faced the illness and deaths of my family members. Combined with the stress and unfavorable atmosphere at work, this led to depression and anxiety disorder. I tried to keep up with the pace of life and at the same time was looking for medical help. Doctors tried to help me, but their efforts brought only temporary relief. And at some point, I found myself in such a deep and dark hole that I stopped seeing both the sky and the sun. I was suffocating in myself. And lying at the bottom of this pit, crushed by the weight of problems, I realized that if I didn’t start climbing up right now, I risked staying in this pit forever. Crying from inner pain, I pulled myself together, despite the merciless resistance of my body, which by that moment had neither the strength nor the desire to change anything, and said that survival was over, and I began to live. Life demanded changes. I made a fundamental decision and left my prestigious job, though they asked me to stay. I started to work remotely, and gradually I worked out an optimal schedule for myself, which left enough time for spiritual development and inner work. I started working on my fears and internal blocks. During my depression, I looked so deeply inside myself that I saw a lot of illusions and fears that they generated. It was time to face fears. I started communicating with the Teacher again. All this time he was patiently waiting for me to wake up from daily routines and to continue my studies. The Teacher helped me to get out of the swamp, and my take-off was rapid. I rethought myself. The knowledge that had been accumulated by that moment had finally begun to work. My true personality woke up, and my depression disappeared immediately as the ground on which it had nested was gone. I think that the doctors would be extremely surprised by such a recovery, but I never met them again.
Apart from daily routines, unwillingness to develop further or lack of desire to do so is the second serious problem. This problem can arise at different stages of the path. At the initial stages, when a person has already figured out the general outline of the picture of the world, he may feel that everything is simple and understandable, and nothing else is needed. A person understands, in general, how the world works, and why he appeared in the world. He also has a concept of morality, and when questions arise, he can consult with the Teacher. It seems that this level is enough to live a normal life, and gradually change yourself for the better. It's like graduating from “high school”. You can stop there and it’s enough at some point. However, there are such great abilities and powers hidden in a person that it is simply not interesting to stop at this minimum. You can get a “master’s degree” or a “doctor’s degree” and then you will have completely different opportunities. And even getting these “degrees” is not the end of the path, but only the very beginning. At some point, you get a feeling that knowing how to read and write is already a great achievement. And it is at some point but indeed it’s just an instrument for real achievements.
At different stages of spiritual development, this feeling comes more than once. It comes whenever a certain period of the path ends, and you break out into free space. It's like sitting in a stuffy closet and then bursting out to see that this is just a room in a house. At first, you feel an incredible amount of space and you start exploring new rooms. But the time comes and the unknown calls from outside the house and you go out into the garden. And one day you will find out that there is a world outside the garden, and beyond, and beyond ... And every time you are born again, and you discover something new in yourself, and you learn to live in a new way. The most important thing is not to stop because there are new worlds beyond each world.
Born again
On the spiritual path, you are reborn more than once, and the world is born through you. At some point, you look back and see that you have nothing in common with the person you once were, and the world has nothing in common with the way you saw it. Illusions disappear and you see the true picture of the world, more and more clearly. Where you once saw death, you see life; where you once felt terror, you can live without fear; what was irreplaceable like a pair of crutches, is left behind as you become spiritually healthy; everything that imprisoned you falls apart like rusty fetters; things that made no sense because of mental blindness is filled with meaning and joy. Discoveries are endless, and only a person can restrain himself, imprison and lock in illusions.
Some vivid changes are usually acknowledged by people as changes. As I mentioned above, a found a better job, better for me, and better for the world because I work with real pleasure and inspiration. I moved out of the city to a house surrounded by a forest. I feel much better here. I overcame long-lasting depression and found my backbone. There is a lovely quote in one of our texts: “There are high rocks; the clouds, not knowing how to flow around them, are torn at their tops, like a rotten cloth. Look around and you will see that life is like rocks, and people are like clouds. And it should be different: people - like rocks, and life-like clouds.” (The Precious Belt, Enon III). Now I understand this quote, and my life is built around my inner strength. I live in harmony with the world and myself, I do not need to compromise my conscience, and I am calm. I am free because I follow the due. I am free because I can say “No” to myself when I have to and I control myself. I take care of my family and I am into charity as well. I live life to the fullest, I am a human being, a mother, and a wife. I think this is what people call happiness. Often, when people wish to find a spiritual path, they are looking for happiness, self-realization, peace, deliverance from suffering, and fear. They want to be successful and happy. And it seems so illogical that, striving for happiness, they do not find it. However, this is more than logical because happiness is not about that. All these wonderful changes have happened to me because I have never looked for them.
When I started this long and difficult journey, I was not looking for the bluebird of happiness, I was looking for Truth. And I understood that this path was not easy, and it did not always bring joy, but more often quite the opposite. People who follow the Great Oughtness do not always have a sweet life, because they stand up against all the ugliness in this world, and, the ugliness within themselves. Only by gaining true knowledge about the world, by understanding our true place in this world, and by living according to the Great Oughtness, we gain true happiness. Small personal happiness, which I mentioned above, and which so many people strive to have, is born from genuine happiness and is subordinate to it. Small is born from the great, and not vice versa. I live for the world and its future because that's why I was born as a human being. Whatever I see around I see myself. I live for people. My future is in the Teaching, and I know that it can and will change the world. It can give people the answers they crave for. It can show them the meaning of their life, teach them to live according to this meaning, and give strength for this. People will find their true selves in it, and they will be happy. It is a pity that it is so difficult to explain. It is difficult to show that to gain the whole world, you must first give yourself to this world. It is difficult to show that only giving is getting. It is very important to understand that small personal happiness is secondary on this path. When you have found true happiness, you understand that even if life turns its back on you and takes away your small personal happiness, it will not be able to take away true happiness. Anything can happen in this life but nothing has power over my personality, my humanity, and my attitude to the world. Life can hurt your body badly, but it cannot reach your soul without your permission. Life can put your body on its knees, but not your personality and not your will. And a person always keeps his right to remain a human being. This is his amazing true human nature and it is properly revealed by the Teaching.
This is what people call the “Path to yourself”. My path to myself has just begun because there is no limit to improvement.
Bon Voyage.