

# Ludimila Kriskovich

## Just Believe in Yourself

#

Smashwords Edition

* * *

Copyright © 2012 by Ludimila Kriskovic

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with.

This book is dedicated to you. It's no accident that you are holding this book.

Before you were born, God planned this moment in your life. This is how important you are!

This book describes the true life of a woman looking for happiness with an open mind. This person passes all possible tests in her life, but happiness has not met her on life's journey.

Then there are the questions: what does it mean, this elusive happiness, True Life, Love, Hatred, Resentment, and Forgiveness? They are all our feelings, and man can understand them only through spirituality.

She is on the spiritual path, but with none of the happiness she seeks so desperately. Then there are the questions:why is there a division of the Road of Life and the Spiritual Path, if a man without a soul does not exist? Only spiritual change and the merging of two roads into one path can lead to human happiness.

The book provides life examples and practical answers to many spiritual questions of life. The reader is provided with the method itself, in practice, to find his own way home; the road to an understanding of his soul; to know why his soul came into this world; to learn the truth about who he actually is and what prevents all of us from being healthy and happy; and how it can be gained.

## CONTENTS

Introduction

CHAPTER 1 Physical life

The beginning of my life on earth

I was born in the U.S.S.R.

My socialist childhood

First life experiences

School

Music school

The first desire to know

Sport

The wheel of life set in motion

My parents

Transitional period

A visa to enter adult life has been obtained

Student

Wife

Work

Chernobyl

Divorce

My daughter and I

New job

In search of a prince

Second husband

My second child

Business

Perestroika

Health problems

My brother

My oldest daughter

The School of Universal Energy

The last warning

Preparation for immigration to Canada

English

Closing my business

Departure is delayed

Goodbye, Motherland!

Finally, I'm home!

Life from scratch

New life experiences

My teenage daughter

Goodbye, my dearest little mommy

Long-awaited work

First Canadian boyfriend

Second Canadian boyfriend

Third Canadian boyfriend

Do I even need a boyfriend?

Learning to live anew

People always try to prove what is already obvious... or the last drop

The beginning of a new life

My children

I'm happy

CHAPTER 2 The Spiritual Path

The Beginning of a Soul's Life on Earth

The influence of society on the minds and actions of people

The influence of family on the feelings and actions of people

Parents

Happiness and Suffering

Earthquakes, disasters, and catastrophes

What does this or that situation teach us?

What is spirituality?

What is love?

Wisdom and enlightenment

The truth

Consciousness / Conscience

We can believe or not believe in God, but we remember him

Fortune and happiness

Is it possible to bypass or avoid destiny?

Time to forgive and not be offended

Freedom of choice

Where to find help?

What to do?

CHAPTER 3

The merger of the road of life and spiritual path, or

How to act, or Change themselves, rather than waiting that someone will do it for us

##  Introduction

Just believe in yourself

Everything has its own beginning and its own ending, which is in itself the beginning...

When I first read this story, I cried from the beauty of it, the love, the feeling of truth. And each time I read this tale, tears fill my eyes, and I feel that inner love that connects me to God's Source. I have given it to different people to read and its reception has been widely varied. Please try to read it with your soul, not with your mind. Neale Donald Walsch wrote this story, "A Little Soul and God".

Once upon a time...

Once a Little Soul said to God:

" _I know who I am!"_

And God replied:

" _That's great! So who are you?"_

The Little Soul exclaimed:

" _I am Light!"_

God smiled wholeheartedly and affirmed:

" _That's true! You are Light."_

But very soon, just knowing who you were became not enough. And so the Little Soul went back to God and said:

" _Hello, God! I would like to feel how it is to be Light."_

God replied:

" _All right. So, you are Light, but you cannot see yourself when you are in Light, so we will place you into darkness."_

He continued:

" _When you are surrounded by darkness, don't wave your fists around, don't yell, and don't curse darkness. Be the Light in the darkness, and remain calm. Let your Light so shine that everyone will know how special you are!"_

The Little Soul happily replied:

" _Thank you. I must experience what it's like to be Light!"_

God asked:

" _What part of light would you like to be?"_

The Little Soul didn't understand.

God explained:

" _Light consists of many parts. Light can be kind, gentle, creative, patient, helping, forgiving, friendly, and attentive. At any moment, as you desire, you can be any of these parts of Light or all of them at once. This is what it means to be Light."_

And so, the Little Soul, trembling with excitement, pronounced:

" _I would like to be the part of Light that is called 'forgiveness'"._

" _All right," said God, and added: "But there is no one here to forgive."_

The Little Soul couldn't believe it:

" _Nobody?"_

God explained:

" _Everything that I created is perfect. You could not find even one soul, out of all that I have created, that is less perfect than you are. Look around!"_

God asked:

" _So then who is there to forgive?"_

The Little Soul sadly said:

" _I wanted to experience what it's like to forgive. I wanted to know that part of light, to know what it feels like."_

And right after these words, another sympathetic Soul stepped forward and said:

" _Don't worry, Little Soul. I will help you. I can come into your next life and do something so that you can forgive."_

The Little Soul asked:

" _Why? Why are you going to do that?"_

The Sympathetic Soul answered:

" _It's very simple. I will do it because I love you."_

It seemed that this response surprised the Little Soul.

" _Don't be surprised," said the Sympathetic Soul, "You did the same for me. You've just forgotten it!"_

And so the Sympathetic Soul explained:

" _I will come into your next life and will create "bad things" for you in that life. I will do something truly horrible, so that you have the chance to "forgive"._

The Little Soul asked, a bit nervously:

" _But what are you going to do that is so truly horrible?"_

" _Oh," said the Sympathetic Soul, winking, "We'll come up with something."_

The Sympathetic Soul continued:

" _But you have to know something."_

The Little Soul asked:

" _What is that?"_

" _I will have to slow my vibrations and become very evil in order to do these bad things. I will have to pretend to be someone completely unlike myself. And in return, I ask only one favor," said the Sympathetic Soul._

The Little Soul said, with tears in her eyes:

" _Anything! Anything at all! What can I do for you? You, who would do this for me, like an angel!"_

God said:

" _Of course, this Sympathetic Soul is an angel. I send you nothing except angels."_

The Sympathetic Soul continued:

" _At the moment I hit the hardest, when I break your heart, at that very moment when I do to you the very worst things you can imagine, at that exact moment..."_

" _What?" interrupted the Little Soul, "What...?"_

The voice of the Sympathetic Soul became much quieter, and she said:

" _Remember who I really am."_

" _Oh, I will remember! I swear! I will remember you exactly as I see you right now!" cried the Little Soul._

The Sympathetic Soul continued:

" _All right. If you forget who I really am, then probably I won't be able to remember who I really am for much longer, probably you too will forget who you really are, and we will both be lost. In that case, we will need another Soul to come to us and remind us both of who we really are."_

" _No. I won't forget!" promised the Little Soul again. "I will remember you and will be grateful to you for this gift, the possibility to experience for myself Who I Am."_

And so the agreement was made. The Little Soul was incarnated into a new life, with the desire to be the Light, the very special Light, called Forgiveness.

Each time a new Soul appeared in her life, bringing her joy or sadness, and especially when it was sadness, the Little Soul thought of what God had said to her:

" _Always remember," God smiled when he said this, "I send you no one but angels."_

The Beginning...

I was waiting for the moment when I would be ready to write this book, when my inner world would complete the necessary tasks that would get me to the starting point. Now, I feel that the time has come. Too many people have become lost in their lives and have forgotten who they really are. I ask for all the powers of the Universe to help me remind readers of who they truly are.

Perhaps my own life experience will assure someone that happiness is possible in this world – you just have to want to find it and to believe in yourself. That is why the title of this book came easily to me: "Just Believe in Yourself".

I have divided my story into three chapters: physical life, spiritual life, and the unity of the two lives. I deeply believe, and my life has shown, that only the unity of these two paths can allow a person to experience fully the happiness and joy of his life.

There is only one language – the language of the Heart. There is only one religion – Love.

## CHAPTER 1

## Physical life

The beginning of my life on earth

I was born ten years after the end of the Second World War in the capital of the Republic of Belarus, Minsk, one of the republics of the former U.S.S.R. I was born at a time when people had only just begun to return to a normal life after many long years of war, suffering, deprivation, and losing loved ones. Nobody talked about it, but feelings of revival were in the air. According to my very first sensations, it was a feeling of some growing happiness, like the anticipation of a miracle and gratitude for every day of life.

I don't remember any rainy days in my childhood; they have been erased from my memory. Memory holds only sunny, summery, warm days.

My first memories from my childhood are of my yard. In the part of the city where we lived, two-storey houses were constructed for four, six, or twelve families, but there was no specifically planned-out courtyard. These houses stood around a sports field, and therefore, were close to each other. Dirt paths led to the houses, and between them remained some unused land. My family and our neighbors used this public land for gardening. At the time, each family had a small garden, growing berries, various vegetables, and fruit trees. This garden not only provided some food for the families, but it was also a good opportunity to work with the land for those people who were used to labor.

Each family in our building had a separate entrance, which created a sense of independence. My brother, who was older than me by five years, and I had full freedom of choice about where to go and what to do, like most children at the time. Nobody even thought to worry about something happening to us. This freedom probably played a role in the fact that my memories of this time are only happy and bright.

To me, my courtyard seemed a huge place for unlimited investigations and learning new things. I'd like to define my yard. It is EVERYTHING around our house. It is EVERYWHERE that it is possible to go. It is EVERYTHING that you can touch, break, or build. It is EVERYTHING that no one can restrict. At the time, there was not much variety in kids' toys. But they were all loved and kept for a long time. I didn't have any toys for playing in my courtyard. What for? It was so interesting there already.

Here is a meadow yellow with dandelions. They warm the eye like little suns. You can weave them into a crown and imagine yourself as a fairy-tale queen in a magic castle. You can make a magical soup from them that can heal any scratch. Here is a wooden fence, dividing who knows what, but one that you can't climb so easily; the same fence, from which you can't so easily climb down without tearing your clothes or bruising your legs. You must be creative. In those times, it was difficult to buy anything. All industries were just beginning to be restored, and the family budget didn't have much money. None of that mattered, as my mom would say: "Most importantly, there is no war." Or perhaps just wisdom showed itself: "If you can't change the situation, change your attitude towards it."

I don't remember my parents fighting against the situation by asking endless questions: why is it so bad, I'm sick and tired of this, and when will this be over... This is where the miracle happens: when a person accepts calmly any given situation the way that it is and does not try to waste his energy on useless attempts to change this situation, then the person will be shown the best way to live in this situation. The answer comes naturally.

It was difficult to buy not only ready-made clothes, but even fabric for making them. But my father was a history teacher at the technical college, and he would bring home old, written-off red communist flags. My mother washed them, boiled them, separated the fabric from the backing, and sewed underwear and dresses for me out of it. Later on, this affected my oldest daughter's clothing selection: for many years, I dressed her only in red.

I was around five years old. It was a bright, warm, summery, sunny day. I was happy, going out for a walk in my new red dress. This time I decided to explore a new territory and started walking in a new direction. Near some building, I happily discovered a huge rain puddle, and I started testing the depth of this fantastic, glittering puddle that reflected the light of the sun. But then, my leg sank into an unseen hole, and I fell completely into the puddle. My new dress! There was no end to my distress. I was sitting in the puddle and sobbing. Two kind "young ladies" (probably students) came over to me and started talking to me. Crying, I told them about the tragedy with my new dress. They took me by both hands and led me to their dorms. Even now, I remember that feeling of comfort and the sense of adventure I was experiencing for the first time. I sat on the bed naked, eating something, and watching my clothes being washed and then dried with a big heavy iron. What a happy moment! I was standing, like a new shiny coin, my face washed and my hair combed, in a newly washed and ironed dress. A little later, they took me home, and I never saw them again. I don't remember their faces or their names, but I still feel the warmth of their hearts.

How often in our lives do we feel the need to help others, but unable to find a "logical" explanation or spare time, we find only excuses for not doing simple, kind things. And as a result, we don't warm our own or anyone else's hearts, we don't give joy to ourselves, nor to others, and we don't let our feelings express themselves.

I was born in the U.S.S.R.

At the time of my childhood, my country was "building" socialism and planning to start "building" the most enlightened communist community on earth. Everyone had roughly the same income. There was no point in comparing who had the best furniture, the best clothing or car. Everyone was equal. It was not discussed. Everyone accepted this as an undeniable fact. But I'm sure that it was only on the surface. After so many years of Stalin's brutality, people had a deep-seated fear, accumulated from numerous dramas that had happened to them or to their loved ones. And they tried not to stand out from the crowd. To be like everyone else was a forced way of life.

My mother sometimes recalled her university years. A girl in her class wrote incredible poetry. Her poems were rather straightforward and honest. One night, a black windowless pick-up truck pulled up to their dorms, several people burst into the room where she was sleeping, and took her away somewhere. Where did they take her? Nobody saw her again or knew what happened to her after that. This was the Stalinist method. People who didn't "fit" the regime simply disappeared without trial or investigation. Although I think these methods are used even today, they're just more subtle and the actions not so obvious. This fear hovered around quite long during my childhood. I didn't witness these times but I felt the fear when my mother told me stories like that.

That was the fear of the generation that went through this... and this fear was passed on to the next generation.

I remember only good things from my childhood, did my memory not keep the bad or did nothing bad ever happen?

I remember a summer evening. Many neighbors from the nearby houses had come out into the courtyard after work and dinner. The adults were sitting on the benches and discussing the latest (and the future) news. The kids played team games... hopscotch, jumping ropes, hide-and-seek. Someone hides, someone finds, someone makes others laugh, someone frightens, someone catches, and someone throws. There was something for everyone. Amazing memories! Kids found game partners for themselves – whether by age, gender, or as they wished. The adults had nothing to do with it – it was none of their business. I remember running around until I was dizzy, getting so hungry I could faint. And the most popular "sandwich" was a piece of rye bread sprinkled with sugar. Delicious! We always had a healthy group appetite. Even if you weren't hungry, seeing the other kids eat with such relish made you drool. It was normal to share food with the other kids. It seemed like someone else's bread smelled better, tasted better, and the sugar was sweeter. Or maybe that wasn't the reason.

At that time, you couldn't buy as much bread as you wanted. Families were given ration cards. This was a certain amount of groceries a family was allowed to buy each month. This wasn't so bad, but you couldn't always find bread in the stores. And when it did appear on the shelves, the whole family lined up to buy one loaf of bread per person in the family. The more family members were in the line-up, the more loaves they could buy. This was a highly unpleasant time for me. My father made me stand in these line-ups, taking me away from, in my opinion, much more important activities.

Every winter in almost every neighborhood, people made ice-skating areas by pouring water on the ground. In the middle of the "ice rink", they would put a big real Christmas tree with paper decorations and twinkly lights. In the evenings, there was music, and whole families would come with their skates and pass the evening after work skating in circles around the tree.

My brother's and my first skates resembled metal sleds, about twice as big as our feet and we attached them to our shoes. This was an unforgettable time for me. Imagine, a frosty evening, a huge Christmas tree with decorative lights, a waltz melody playing, the sound of skates gliding across the ice, people holding hands, moving around the tree to the tempo of the music. No rush, pure enjoyment, many pink cheeks from the cold. Why did people forget about these kinds of pastimes?

Our apartment had a separate entrance on the first floor. In front of the entrance was a square concrete porch with some steps. Every year my mother planted flowers around the porch. She loved dahlias, but didn't neglect other types of flowers either. The flowers were always colorful, simple, and created a happy atmosphere. We made bouquets out of them when we went to visit others, for birthdays, or to bring for our teachers on the first day of school. Everyone who had the smallest bit of land planted flowers. I loved the colors, the smells, and the variety of flowers along my path on the way to school. Each time the flowers were different: sometimes budding, sometimes wilted and old, sometimes flowering, and sometimes sick. Just like people... birth, death, different ages, different stages, a constant process of change. Flowers were everywhere.

The streets were incredibly clean. Socialism had a plan for everything. The state planned in advance what to plant, when to harvest, when to clean the streets, and when to water the flower plots. The people, like instruments following a plan "descended from the heavens", made it a reality. The idea behind Socialism was actually good.

Kids went to kindergarten, played sports, and got health care all for free, and adults, also received free education and health care. There was almost no unemployment. No one worried about losing his or her job; it was not too difficult to find work.

The media reminded people constantly that everything in this country belonged to everyone, and that we had to take care of it as if it belonged to us. People believed these good ideas and words. This was no different from any faith or religion. Some religious teachings also have good ideas and right words; people believe in them and follow their religious leaders. To agree with an idea and follow it is not necessarily to change yourself. To agree with an idea and to follow it is to go the path of least resistance and not to bring your new ideas to humanity.

The Socialist plan decided everything. Everything was good and correct in the plans for the creation of Socialism, but one very important thing was not included in those plans: the "question" of the process of individual change and self-improvement as part of the whole Communist system. Without the development of people's creative abilities, without an internal faith in one's own ability to create the world's first Communist country, any idea, even the most brilliant one, hit a dead-end.

The Government's plan forced every person to be a part of it, but not to create or to develop. This, like still water, will flower and deteriorate without movement to keep it fresh.

People believed that conscientious labor according to the Government's plan would lead eventually to the creation of Socialism. My mother told me how she understood it. She imagined Communism like a society in which there was no money and everything was free. You go to the store and take no more than what you need. Everyone trusts each other. Everyone is equal. Great fairy tale. In this way, the government gradually made people lose their ability to think, to create. They were taught to live according to the plan that somebody had created, someone had approved, and someone had put into action. People began to understand this later, after the fall of the U.S.S.R.

My socialist childhood

As a child, I loved to watch the clouds, how they constantly shifted, changed, how they came from nowhere and disappeared into nothingness. Clouds can look like animals, like people, like flowers, or like monsters. And how fascinating it is to look at a starry sky! Where is the beginning and where is the end? What's behind that star? How to comprehend infinity? Who keeps all of this in such impeccable order? The sky, the clouds, the stars inspired many fantasies and never gave the idea that man could control any of it.

Kids can be so fascinated by their games! And they don't need any guidance or toys. I remember my favorite childhood game called "secret". You find a piece of glass from a broken bottle, attractive flowers, rocks, sticks... anything that catches your eye. You dig a small hole in the ground, carefully arrange your finds in a pattern inside, and cover your creation with the glass. It's so beautiful! You admire your creation and cover it with dirt, feeling completely certain that nobody will ever find this "secret" and only you know about it. The process was the interesting part, the result irrelevant. From birth, each person has an innate desire to create, to be a creator. Where there is a desire, there will be ability.

I went to kindergarten from age three and spent all day there with pleasure. My parents worked six days a week. My mother, on her one day off, had a huge job to complete: do the laundry, cook, sew, make pickles, patch up, clean the apartment. Why was she the only one doing it? Perhaps it's a cultural tradition passed down through generations. Perhaps my grandmothers too took all of this work upon themselves. But what is certain is that I also took on this duty, without even asking "Why?" Apparently, my grandmothers gave me this "infection". On the other hand, if my parents had not followed the cultural tradition and had instead done the work together, they would have probably "killed each other."

I remember well how my mother was washing the sheets by hand in the big bathtub, with the help of a wooden board, when I walked into the bathroom (I was about four years old) and noticed her sweaty nose, red face, and hands swollen from the hot water. I remember how I went up to her, took her wet hand, and kissed it. I could feel how tired she was. My own kids could never notice it, feel it, comprehend it. Perhaps it's just an experience that they need to go through, and I have already been through it in a past life.

Kindergarten – that was "my job". The two-storey building looked like a small modern castle and was surrounded by a fence you couldn't climb. Between the fence and the building were playgrounds with sandboxes, slides, and benches for kids of different ages. Parents just dropped the kids off at kindergarten and then picked them up. They didn't pay money. The government paid for everything: feeding the kids three times a day, health care, summer camp, New Year's celebrations, presents for the holidays, New Year's costumes for the kids. In this way, the government cared for the new generation.

It's difficult even to imagine in our time your child being fed three times a day for free. Porridge for breakfast – a different sort every day – bun with butter, tea or hot chocolate, and fruit. For lunch, hot fresh soup, borscht or sour cabbage soup, mashed potatoes with fish, chicken, or beef, and compote made from dried or fresh fruit. For an afternoon snack, cottage cheese cake, omelet, dessert, and fruit or vegetable juice. Even now, I wouldn't say no to that! I've always had a healthy appetite, but I remember that kids without much appetite were not left hungry or ate at least a part of this delicious and healthy food.

We had an airy sleeping room where we slept after lunch. Each had his own bed with clean sheets. In the summer, when it was hot, our beds were put on the terrace, and we slept outside in the fresh air. It could be compared to a mother's care, but it was the government's care about the new generation. The government cared about its future work force. We always had medical personnel in the building. Children got vaccinations, dental care, yearly medical check-ups, with their blood, urine, and stools checked.

Nurses who worked at the kindergarten gave children their prescribed medication throughout the day. In the evening, when their parents picked up these children, the nurses sent the medication home with them so they could continue taking it in the evenings and on weekends.

The government took full responsibility for the medical care of the kids who went to kindergarten. Parents had no idea when and which vaccinations needed to be done. They only knew that a given vaccination had been administered and this or that side effect was possible. As for the children that were brought up at home, their parents took them to the closest free clinics, and the medical staff informed them about vaccinations or scheduled tests. How well, how correctly and carefully everything was organized!

How wonderful the New Year's celebrations were in kindergarten! From birth I was a very organized, brave, and obedient girl, and probably for this reason, I was always chosen to be Snegurochka, "Santa's helper girl". One year, I was even invited to be Snegurochka at the neighboring kindergarten. Every New Year, a huge live Christmas tree, smelling like resin and forest was delivered to each kindergarten. It was decorated with various bobbles and toys, with a huge star topper and colorful lights. Each child received an animal costume and an accompanying poem or song that he had to perform for Santa Claus. Santa Claus had a magic wand that lit up the lights on the tree when he touched it. But first we had to shout all together: "Light up, Christmas tree!" I genuinely believed in all these miracles and wholeheartedly rejoiced at these incredible days.

And how wonderful was the time spent at summer camps! Kids from the kindergarten were taken to camp for a week. We lived in fully equipped buildings with hot water and toilets inside.

The magical world of the awakening forest, the singing of birds, walks along forest paths. This has stayed with me my whole life.

In the media, at any time, you could hear many speeches by the head of state, Communist party members, regulations, decisions, and so on. Of course, this was Communist propaganda. And for children from infancy were created conditions to cause them to love their country and believe that they were born in the greatest place on earth. I too genuinely believed that I was incredibly lucky that I had been born in the best country in the world! In kindergarten, we sang many patriotic songs, praising Lenin and our country that was "building" Communism. These were very happy songs, and I remember many of them even now. While kids enjoyed singing patriotic hymns, their parents, by their own example, showed that for them, as creators of the bright future, there could be nothing more important than work.

First life experiences

I remember, when I was still in preschool, if my father picked me up from kindergarten, I would run immediately to the bus stop to meet my mother after work. I missed her a lot and feared that something might happen to her. I'd like to focus a little closer on this "fear" and of how it stayed in my life almost forever.

It's noteworthy for me to have forgotten about this event for many, many years. My desire to be free from the past uncovered this memory hidden so deeply inside me.

I was around five years old. I had always been a good girl, as parents understand it – a child who eats well, doesn't get sick often, plays with their toys by themselves; in short, one that doesn't bother anyone. On that day, I don't remember the real reason, but I absolutely refused to do what my mother had asked. I remember that I got so angry with her that I grabbed her hair with all my strength to cause her pain. My mother didn't chastise me, she didn't even raise her voice, she simply refused to notice me from that moment, as if I didn't exist. This lasted several days. I remember how chills went up my spine, how tense my whole body was, how deeply I felt my helplessness, how hopelessly lonely I was in the world.

Nobody had taught me how to say the simple but very important words: "Forgive me, please, Mom. I'll never do it again." I didn't know about the existence of such a simple solution. In my country, people were not used to telling each other "sorry" and "I love you" very often. I only heard the word "sorry" in my childhood when my father was spanking my brother with his belt and saying, "Say you're sorry, bastard."

That was my first, and probably the most significant experience of the appearance of fear, the fear of being alone in the world. And how I catered to my mother afterwards! How afraid I was to say what I thought out loud, what if she didn't like it and stopped talking again! I didn't know that this was fear, what fear was... I just changed. This fear took away a part of my freedom; it started to control my actions. I hid this fear so deeply that very soon I had forgotten about it and about what had happened. And subconsciously, the fear of being abandoned, forgotten, lonely, had taken up permanent residence in my heart.

This probably explains why it was always difficult for me to say "NO', even when it needed to be said – because of the fear of being left alone.

I remember, when I was still in kindergarten, my father once took my brother and me to the central park. This was one of those exceptional events that happens once in a lifetime, stays in your memory forever, and causes many other effects.

It was a hot summer day. Mom was at work, and Dad suddenly decided to show some attention to the children. He took us to the city park. At the entrance, he bought us ice cream, then we rode various rides, ate more ice cream, drank cold fizzy water with syrup, ran around the maze looking for each other, and ate ice cream again. Dad was always different without Mom around. I liked him like that.

At the time, you could find street vendors everywhere who sold carbonated water. Glasses were washed in a thin stream of water in front of you and then filled with fizzy water with or without syrup. It was so delicious! I never heard of anyone getting sick from it. Why? Sometimes a person can be healed of cancer with vitamin C pills, if he believes in their power. And sometimes, the fear of getting food poisoning can cause real food poisoning. Please find the answer yourself.

The day passed quickly, and we got enormous pleasure out of the time we spent together. The large amount of cold ice cream and water had cooled our enthusiasm about visiting the park. In my family, it was custom to drink things warm, no colder than room temperature. My body had gotten used to warm drinks. When you get used to something, then you begin to run on autopilot. And all of a sudden, here's something cold, how do I react to it? You must react to a disturbance. So my body reacted too. When Mom got home, she noticed immediatelythat I wasn't well. She put a thermometer under my arm and read the result with horror – forty degrees C. The first question was directed at my dad: "What did you do all day?" I don't remember the answer because of my fever, but my fever got worse after Dad's answer. My mom was beside herself and said that she would never entrust the kids to him again.

Unfortunately, it's no use crying over spilt milk. That night I was burning up, and in the morning, I couldn't swallow because my throat hurt. In the morning, the doctor came, prescribed me some medication, and said I had to stay in bed for a few days. During one of those days when I was home alone, I felt an ache in all my joints. I brought all the pillowsto my bed I could find and put them all around my legs. My legs warmed up, and I fell asleep. This is how my mother found me when she got home from work. She sensed that there was something wrong and called the emergency doctor immediately. The doctor listened to my heart, checked my throat, and suggested that my mother take me to the hospital right away. The ambulance took me to the children's hospital, and my mother left me there. The next morning, the doctors examined me and concluded that the tonsillitis had caused some heart complications. They determined that my condition was lower than satisfactory and prescribed a three-week long hospital treatment. So, for three weeks, the hospital became my new home.

I remember that the ward was big, clean, and well lit. Six metal beds stood along the walls, and a big table stood in the middle of the room. Near each bed was a bedside table where we kept our personal belongings. Each day we had a strict schedule. A nurse came at six in the morning and woke up all the children, giving each a thermometer. After ten minutes, our body temperatures were recorded into a journal. Then we had blood and urine tests. The nurses helped us with everything. After the tests, we had breakfast in bed. They fed us very well. After breakfast, we took our medicine, and a small rest in bed before the doctor came. The doctor, armed with temperature records and our latest test results, listened to our hearts with a stethoscope, and examined the body and the throat, to continue the treatment, to make any changes to it, or to send us home. After the doctor's visit, we had to receive the treatments that the doctor had prescribed.

The hospitals were well stocked with modern medical equipment. The government cared about the health of the people. Health care was completely free.

After the treatments, the patients returned to their beds. Lunch was served exactly according to schedule. Then our medicine and a two-hour nap. At this time, silence was strictly observed. After the nap, a snack, more medicine, rest, dinner.

We received ahealthy diet food, almost without salt, sugar, or spices. I remember how once we got mashed potatoes with a piece of salted fish. When the nurse had put a plate on each bedside table and left the room, I, noticing my bedside neighbor was absent, quickly grabbed her piece of fish and ate it. I craved salt so badly, and my one piece was clearly not enough to satisfy my craving. In this way, I experienced what it was like to be a thief. I ate my portion too. Then I covered myself with my blanket and pretended to be asleep. I was afraid that someone might find out what I had done.

It's interesting that the taste of the salty fish is longforgotten, but the feeling of having done something bad repelled any desire to steal for my entire life. I think that if stealing, or any other act in life, brings joy, then you want to repeat it again and again. I'm almost forced to say, "If you want to steal – do it, but do it with pleasure!"

Visiting hours were after six p.m. Concerned moms, dads, grandmas, and grandpas rushed to visit their adored children. And the kids were waiting impatiently for their treats or their gifts. On the very first day of my hospital stay, my mom brought me several lined notebooks, pencils, an eraser, and a coloring book. This was a real treasure for me. Usually, my mom gave inexpensive, but very valuable gifts, so I was never bored in the hospital. And it was great to receive some rare attention from my mom, who worked all the time. My dad, apparently, was grounded because of his reckless behavior in the park.

The days flew by, my hospital stay went as planned, and the doctor assigned a date for my release from the hospital. The evening before I left, the doctor spent a long time talking to my mother, and based on her reaction, it was obvious that my heart problem had remained. The next day, ready to leave the hospital, I waited for my mom but she was unable to leave work and pick me up.

My mom worked at the Railway Head Office in the position of department manager. Work there resembled the military. A huge, impressive building four storeys high, regal steps leading to the entrance, columns on the sides, everything pointed to the importance and power of this societal structure. The workday began with a bell. What do I mean by that? At five minutes to nine everyone must be in their seats.Exactly at nine a.m., a loud bell rang through the building: the signal for the beginning of the workday. The second bell rang at eleven a.m.: workplace exercise. At the bell, everyone had to go immediately into the hallway, or to stand up and take their place at the desk for exercising. Once the bell had gone and all employees were in position, a recording was turned on which directs the exercises to music. It was a series of simple exercises, like "lift your hands, legs hip-width apart, touch your right arm to your left leg," and so on. After ten minutes of exercise, another bell rang, signaling the end of the exercises and the continuation of the workday.

Almost everyone brought their lunch from home. Usually they brought a lot of bread, potatoes, sauerkraut, and sausages. Officially, you were allowed to have a one-hour lunch, but everyone tried to complete as much work as possible and shortened their lunch to the bare minimum. Work. Exactly at five p.m. the bell rang that signaled the end of the workday. At the bell, people stopped working, put their papers away inside their desks, and left the building. Discipline. My mother worked in a place, in a society, where personal problems had to remain personal and did not interfere with work.

For this reason, my dad came to pick me up from the hospital instead, which I was not happy about. I was seeing him through my mom's eyes. If my mom wasn't happy with dad, then that meant I had to feel the same way. This is the case when we gradually begin to see the world through the eyes of those we are dependent on, those we love.

It was a sunny fall day. Without holding my dad's hand, making a face to display my disapproval of his behavior towards Mom, I walked slightly in front of him. Very soon, I felt weakness in my legs, but showing stubbornness, decided to walk home by myself, without asking for help.

I was happy to be back at home. Dad went to work; my brother was still at school. I wanted so badly to do something nice for my mom that I tidied up the house a little, but again felt pain in my legs. I went to bed with pillows all around my legs and fell asleep. When my mom got home from work and saw me in the same exact position as before I went to the hospital, she was very upset. This disappointment grew into anger at my dad when she found out that I had walked home from the hospital, that my dad hadn't carried me home. A sick child appeared in our family –me. My mom believed that the heart was the most important organ in the human body, that it's an engine that's very difficult to repair. The question, "How's your heart?" became a commonplace question for me. I felt healthy and perceived this question as additional, welcome attention towards me.

School

I said goodbye to my kindergarten, and my parents registered me in school. It was September 1st. I walked with my mom to school, carrying a bouquet of fall flowers, cut from our garden. First time and first grade. All the students had a uniform: for girls – a brown dress with a white apron overtop on holidays and a black one for normal days, for boys – a dark-blue suit with a white or blue shirt. Those who could afford to buy the uniform did so, and those who could not sewed it themselves. I had a brown pleated dress and a white scalloped apron that my mom had sewed for this special day. I was very anxious about the unknown but most of all, I was proud of myself for being an adult and going to real school.

It was a warm sunny day. The first-graders met their teachers in a small field behind the school. Many excited and anxious children dressed in neat school uniforms with their parents created an atmosphere of a significant day. Each knew the letter of his first-grade division, 1A, 1B, 1C... and found his teacher, holding a sign in her hands with the appropriate letter. Each freshly baked student stood near his teacher and curiously observed his classmates. And when all the first-graders had grouped themselves into their classes, welcoming music started playing, the teachers began to pair students and organize them into neat columns. Each took his appropriate place: parents in the audience, students in pairs behind their teachers.

Everyone was ready and waiting. For whom... for what? The music faded away and the principal, a VIP in the school, took the stage to welcome the new recruits. I remember my sensations, how everything went quiet, how everything was soaked with tension. And the name of this tension is discipline. This was the first moment in my life, when society began to take control over my actions and influence my life. I will mention many times, how society, culture, family, and tradition influence our lives.

Discipline is the rules that everyone must execute. In accordance with these rules, everyone was in his or her appropriate place. Parents, teachers, children, and the principal were ready for the beginning of the new school year.

The principal, looking around at his "domain", satisfied by what he saw, began his welcoming speech. I don't remember a word of what he said, but I remember how I felt: He is so powerful; He is so intelligent; He can do anything; He is always right; He is in control of everything.

There was nothing surprising in the fact that after the principal's welcoming speech, all the first years, followed their teacher to classin straight ranks, showing impeccable discipline.

In those times, after years of Stalinist repression, the fear of jail or even death as a consequence of not conforming to the rules of society was still alive. So the children, fed by their mothers' milk mixed with this fear, willingly followed the rules. To control people, you need to plant the seeds of fear in their souls, and the fear will do the rest.

And so there we were, in the classroom for the first time. The teacher's desk was piled with bouquets of flowers. Three rows of desks... thirty to thirty-five students per class. The teacher assigned us to our desks, two students at each one. The students were organized by height: the shorter ones were put in the front of the class, and the tallest ones got the desks in the back row. The desks were wooden with a hinged panel at stomach level, so it was easier to stand up. I was assigned a desk somewhere in the middle of the room. The teacher began to explain to us how to sit properly when listening to the teacher, that our arms had to be bent at the elbow and folded on top of one another. The students practiced how to do this. Then the teacher explained what to do when asking or answering a question: the left hand must remain on the desk, bent at the elbow, and the right elbow must be on the desk with the hand in the air, fingers outstretched. The students practiced how to do this, too. The correct spots for notebooks, books, pens, pencils, and backpacks were shown. Then the teacher explained what to do when you were called to the blackboard to answer a question: the student must flip up the hinged panel on the desk, place the (right or left) leg into the aisle between the desks, push off the desk with both arms, stand up, and walk to the board. The correct position at the blackboard had to be in the middle of the board and at the level of the teacher's desk. You could speak only after the teacher gave you permission.

All the rules had to be stated. The laws of school life were established. All of our "MUST-dos" were rehearsed. And that was the first school lesson of my life in first grade on September 1st.

During the second period, our teacher led us on a tour of the school. We followed her in neat pairs, as she showed us where the girls' and boys' washrooms were, the cafeteria, the library, the gym, and the principal's office. She explained that students that broke the rules would be called to the principal's office for a "talk". In short, that magic wand, in the form of the principal, for enforcing discipline, was shown to the students so they knew who was boss.

During the third period, we had a tour of the school grounds. We saw the school garden with its vegetables and flowers, the exercise equipment on the sports field, and the workshop, where the older students learned the skills of woodworking. We were instructed on how to enter the school and how to exit it, which doors to use and how to cross the street in front of the school. In those times, almost all first-graders walked to and from school by themselves, as their parents were at work. Parents simply put the house keys on a string around their first-grader's necks, directing them at age seven into their independent, government-managed school life.

In the fourth period, we went in a column to the library to receive our textbooks. At that time, the government provided the textbooks to students for free. Sometimes you got a textbook that wasn't brand new, but that the librarianshad fixed up. We put our textbooks away into our school bags, and our teacher explained that we had to take care of the books, that we were not allowed to make notes in them, not allowed to get them dirty, not allowed to fold the pages, and not allowed to carry them around without a book cover. The entire fourth period took place under the slogan of "What you are not allowed to do with your textbooks."

Classes were forty-five minutes long with fifteen-minute breaks in between. The last bell rang, my first day of school ended, and I headed home.

Schools at that time contained all three schools in one – primary school, middle school, and secondary school. Primary school was for kids aged seven to ten, grades one to four, and they received a certificate of completion at the end of their primary education. Middle school was grades five to eight, and at the end a certificate of completion of an eight-year education program, granting the right to go to a trade school or start working. This education was compulsory, but going secondary school was a choice the students themselves or their parentsmade. Getting a certificate of completion for secondary school, grades nine and ten, opened the door to higher education.

I loved going to school. We wrote with a pen that had a replaceable metal feather. This feather was dipped into an inkwell. In the first two grades, each student brought his own inkwell every day, placed it in its notch in the desk, and every one to two words dipped his feather in the ink. There were daily accidents with ink blotches, ink spilled on textbooks, ruined aprons. But how perfectly you could write in your notebook! Each letter was formed by pressing on the feather in the middle and not pressing on the outsides. This was the old-fashioned Russian style of writing. I liked neatness in my notebooks and could write beautifully and with great pleasure.

Several times throughout the day, our teacher asked us to stand beside our desks and do some light exercises. For example, stretching our hands outwards, opening and closing our hands, we would say together: "We've been writing, we've been counting, our hands are getting tired. Now we're having a little break, and we'll be ready to write again." And every day at eleven a.m., all the students went to the main hallway, stood in long rows, and did exercises for ten minutes to accompanying record of music and instructions.

We had the same teacher for all of primary school. She was like a mother to us. She gradually taught us to write, starting with making straight lines, then slanted lines, then half circles, circles, and dots.

Our education system was designed for an average-level student. Everything was taught gradually, without pressure but strictly according to the schedule set out by the Ministry of Education of the U.S.S.R. From the second grade, we were taken to theatres, the circus, and the philharmonic. The parents just paid for the ticket, and the school took care of the rest. We saw every new show at the circus and many children's plays in the city theatres. We listened to classical music at the philharmonic. Once a week, parent-teacher meetings took place. At these meetings, the teachers told the parents about their children's successes and setbacks, any problems with their children's behavior, and anything else that needed to be brought to their attention. I liked going to school.

Music school

One of my friends lived near me, and we would walk to school together. Her mother played the piano. I remember the strong influence that music had on me, how deeply it touched something inside me. Already in preschool, I started asking my mom to buy me a piano and to let me learn how to play it. My mom even asked my doctor about the effects of piano playing on my unhealthy heart. The doctor, displaying the highest level of professional knowledge, rattled off a lot of things to my mom about how it was not prohibited, but not recommended. So my mother was unable to say no to my pleading eyes.

However, my mother couldn't afford a piano at the time, and she said that she would start saving up for it. After her promise, I started paying close attention to the way her money was being spent. And since I wanted to get my piano as soon as possible, I started often saying to her "Mommy, don't buy me this juice, better save that money for my piano."

Time passed and the long-awaited day came. The truck with the black new shiny piano appeared on the horizon. This truck couldn't pull up to my front door, because the road around the house was for pedestrians only. But this was only half-bad. Four sturdy men lowered this four-hundred-and-fifty kilo "beauty" on leather slings and brought it to the door. Several attempts to drag the piano through the door and rotate it to bring it up the stairs failed. The doorway turned out to be too narrow. I was watching all of this unfold and burning with impatience and excitement. My parents and the movers held a meeting in front of the piano. It was a silent meeting. Each was trying once again to "feel out" with his eyes possible variations to manipulate the piano in the entrance, at the turning point to the staircase. And when all possible variations that played out inside everyone's head turned out to be impossible, practically at the same time, all of the meeting participants turned their heads to the sky, as if asking for an answer from above. And they got it! The piano could be delivered through the second-floor window! Great idea! But it weighs almost half a ton... someone said that they had seen a small crane nearby. Somebody said that it could be lifted on planks of wood. But the idea of using large wooden planks somehow passed away before birth. Finally, the piano, securely wrapped for the safe "hands" of the crane, was smoothly lifted to the second-storey window, cleared of glass, window-frames, everything, now just a hole in the wall. The caring hands of the movers received my treasure, and they placed it in the spot my mother had indicated.

My joy knew no bounds! It seemed for me that the whole world had changed! This was the only valuable thing in my house that belonged only to me. How frequently I reminded my brother, "Don't touch it! It's mine!" A few days later the tuner came. Everything was ready to begin lessons.

My mother took me to the music school for piano lessons. The young teacher, who I thought was mythically beautiful, tested my musical rhythm. I passed the test easily, and the teacher offered me my first music lesson. I had waited for this moment for so long! What can I remember? The teacher was playing some melody, to show me an example of what I could learn. I remember the enchanting sounds of the music, the sunbeams coming through the open window, the smell of perfume... I remember my strong desire and impatience to learn to play the piano. I will always remember how that music influenced me, how lightly the teacher's fingers moved along the keys, speaking to me in the language of music.

The school cost money, but it was quite affordable for us. So I became a student of the first grade of music school. I practiced at home every day for at least two hours. Twice a week in the evening, my mother took me to my music lesson, so my teacher could check that I had done my homework and teach me something new. I usually got the highest grade. But a less-than-perfect grade caused many tears and disappointment. It's interesting – nobody forced me to be perfect, nobody got mad at me for not being perfect, only my own wish to have the highest grades and be perfect brought me so much disappointment.

On Sundays, we had musical theory lessons. During the first few lessons, my theory teacher gave me a sharp reprimand about my work. We wrote musical notes, and I made many mistakes. The teacher checked my book and said: "I can't imagine how you can study in a public school if you're so dumb." Simple and tasteful. She killed my desire to learn musical theory forever.

With one sentence, she taught me to deceive. One sentence, but how much was accomplished! I was very upset by her words, but I didn't tell my mom about them. Who wants to inform their mother that according to a grown-up, she is dumb! I wasn't completely sure whether it was a lie or the truth. The next lesson, I felt so uncomfortable, so out of place, that I was actually unable to understand what the teacher was talking about.

On the one hand, I'm clever; on the other, I'm dumb. I decided to take the side that was to my advantage. To be clever. I stopped going to musical theory, but lied to my mother and said I was still going. I never liked lying. But I didn't see any other alternative then. So I remained musical theory-illiterate for the rest of my life. But piano playing came easily to me, and brought many deep wonderful feelings.

Once a year, the music school held student concerts in the big auditorium for the parents. I participated in those too, successfully. My deception was only discovered after seven years of piano lessons, when I was supposed to get a diploma for completing music school. During the preparations for granting the diploma, someone discovered that I had never been to theory lessons. I never got the diploma, but I have never regretted it.

The first desire to know

In the second grade, when I learned how to read well, I felt a strong need to learn. Used to my parents being busy and my brother being unable to give me anything but a hit over the head, I decided to get a library card. The library was close to our house, and every time I walked past its windows, the colorful book covers would catch my attention. I remember how I circled the library several times, not daring to go in. Finally, I overcame my uncertainty and entered the building. A friendly woman behind the front desk took down my first and last name, the number of my school, and gave me my first ever library book. It was a large picture book with only a few pages. I brought this book home, sat down on the couch, opened it proudly and happily, and read the entire thing very quickly. It was the first book of my life! I liked it so much that I wanted immediately to read another book and rushed back to the library. I didn't get a different book on that day, they told me to come back tomorrow. Rules are rules. There were very many books in the library, and I was constantly reading.

The most important thing is that I gained this life experience by myself, without waiting for somebody to help me.

Sport

In the third grade, a young man came into our P.E. class. He introduced himself as a graduate of the sports institute and a tennis coach. We had about forty students in our class. The coach started telling us about tennis. Almost nobody had heard of this game. His talk was so passionate, so captivating, that after class, when the teacher asked, "Who would like to sign up to learn to play tennis?" practically the entire class said they wanted to join.

And so, the first lesson. Almost forty students were lined up on the tennis field, ready to take the rackets in their hands and play. The coach greeted everyone and began to explain that before you can take the racket, you need to train your body. Everyone moved to the sports field, designed for exercises in stretching, jumping, and running. Two hours flew by, and the coach announced the end of the first training session. He scheduled the next one in two days. When I came home, I started telling my mom about the lesson. My mom said that I was not allowed to play sports, that the doctors had prohibited it, that I had a bad heart, and that she was also forbidding me to play.

I remember this event like a blow, like something that was taking away my freedom. I still remembered, subconsciously, the experience I had when my mom stopped talking to me. I didn't argue, but I felt a strong sense of bewilderment and some sort of injustice. The next day, having gotten home from school, eaten, and played the piano, I imagined that I would now be going to tennis practice. I decided to go there and watch from the sidelines. When I was walking up to the tennis courts, I ran into the coach, who asked me to help bring the tennis balls onto the court. Before I knew it, I was practicing with everyone else.

This time exactly half of the students that had signed up showed up to practice. I liked learning how to play tennis. But each practice, there were less and less students from my class. A month later, I continued coming to practice, but there was nobody else left from my class. In the end, only about eight people remained who continued to practice, roughly the same age (perhaps one or two years apart), from different schools.

This continued for about two months. I went to school, to music lessons, and to practice. No one in my family knew about my tennis practices. No one asked me about anything, anyway. My brother always occupied my parents' attention.

Only many years later, I realized how much my brother had "done for me", taking all of my parents' attention upon himself, and giving me freedom.

My brother was five years older than me, with an extraordinarily sharp sense of humor, and he had "gifted hands" and was very talented. He didn't like discipline and always tried to go against the rules. In his ten years of school education, he "switched" schools five times. He was constantly being expelled from school for misbehavior. For example, in primary school, he covered the blackboard in wax and ruined a Russian lesson because it was impossible to write on the board with chalk. In this way, he expressed his disagreement with his teacher. He displayed it everywhere and had no fear of punishment. Where there is no fear, "creative energy", that in this case was directed at the expression of freedom, it is very productive for gaining experiences. He did "bad" things, but he never repeated himself.

I remember our neighbors complaining constantly to my father about my brother's behavior. They would complain, and my father would punish him. Once, I don't know what happened between my brother and our downstairs' neighbors, but my brother broke the glass in all their apartment windows. As usual, swearing, my neighbors complained to my dad about my brother's bad behavior. My dad was so angry that he took a leather belt and started beating my brother with it. It was a terrible scene. My mom was at work. I, screaming, tried to protect my brother from the strikes, but it was impossible. I received some of the blows. I was crying, feeling the unfairness of it. I didn't even know what to do.

When my dad was tired of the beating, he poured some sort of grain into the corner of the room and made his son stand on his knees in it.An old method of punishment my father had applied from his own experience in his childhood. All night long, my brother stood on his knees on the grains. My father probably thought that he needed to punish his son properly just once, and then he would remember the lesson and be afraid to misbehave again.

This method is used when one person wants to control another – plant the seeds of fear and the fear will make it happen. The next day my father was certain that the "job" he had done had been valuable and had shown his unruly son a good lesson. In the morning, everyone went about their business as usual. When I was returning home from my "secret" practice, once again I saw broken glass in the neighbors' windows, which they had just put in that morning. I don't remember how my dad reacted, but there was no fight that evening at home. My father never again used the belt as a punishment for my brother.

Yes, we all teach one another.

I trained in secret until the first snowfall. On that day, my coach, as a reward for my good progress, gave me my first, very own tennis racket. This new, wooden racket brought me great happiness and pride. But when I was walking up to my house, I thought with horror that this racket might give away my secret if my mother saw it. I wrapped it in newspapers, found a quiet spot behind my house, and covered it with a thick layer of snow.

This went on for a month, until my coach showed up at my house to meet my parents. It was Sunday, when my mother, as usual, was trying to finish an impossible amount of housework. Through the window, I saw my coach approaching our front door. I nearly died from the horror that my mom would find everything out. What must be must be. The coach rang the doorbell; I opened the door for him, invited him into the living room, called my mom, and ran away to another room. After her talk with the coach, my mom called me and asked me, quietly but very strictly: "I forbade you to play tennis. Why did you lie to me?"

I remember that I stood there like a Steadfast Tin Soldier and with tears in my eyes repeated insistently that I would train anyway. I guess I put a lot of certainty and stubbornness into my words, because my mom understood right away that a ban would not help, it would just worsen the situation. So, focusing her attention instead on the coach, she stated his obligations in an official voice. She said: "You are required to receive permission for training from my daughter's doctor." To which my coach said: "Of course. Once a month every athlete must get a medical check-up, after which I will know about the doctors' conclusions – to allow practice, to forbid it, or to implement something recommended by the doctors. Please, don't worry."

When the coach left, I felt so overjoyed, that I no longer needed to lie, that I didn't need to hide the tennis racket I was so proud of. My mom asked me: "How's your heart? How are you feeling?"And these, probably, were the most wonderful questions – they brought me closer to my mom, and allowed me to do something I enjoyed so much. I ran outside, dug my racket out from the snow, ran back home, and showed it to my mom. I guess my face was lit up like a shining light, because my mother smiled and, without saying anything, continued with her housework.

So from the third grade, I was a pretty busy kid: school, tennis, and music. I had enough time to do everything. Everything was going well. I think that God from birth made me disciplined, organized, and responsible. I can't take all the credit. I believe that I "earned" this in past lives.

At the end of fourth grade, at the beginning of the summer, I played for the first time in the citywide tennis competition against girls my age. The first competition of my life and my first "gold medal"! I was pleased, but I don't remember anyone in my family being particularly happy about it. No one congratulated me. I wasn't disappointed because I didn't know then that it could be otherwise.

This was the culture in my country. The customs, habits, behaviors of sports were not yet formed for people, it was a new phenomenon. My parents didn't know how to react, how to congratulate me, no one had shown them how, and so they didn't show it to me.

The wheel of life set in motion

After fifth grade, everything in my life took its proper place. My schedule was like the president's: very packed. In the spring (in May), I had a short tennis practice before school. I had to get up at five in the morning, run to practice for five-thirty, and play until seven thirty.

I particularly remember one warm spring morning. I left the house to go to practice, and the sun touched my face with its just-awakened and stretching rays. I felt such a strong energy in my body that it felt like it would never run out, because there was so much of it and it was infinite. The yet-quiet city, the clean air, in light drops of dew, the gentle sun rays, made me feel delighted just to be on this magnificent earth. I keep within myself the sensations that I felt at the first hits of the tennis ball on the court on such an early summer morning. It sounded like the beating of a heart in the midst of the tennis court, surrounded by stillness, freshness, and light.

An hour of morning practice flew by quickly, and I had to hurry home, to have breakfast and clean myself up before school. My mom always woke up very early and made breakfast for all of us, as well as the lunch that was waiting for us when we got home from school. At any time of day, soup, meatballs, mashed potatoes, or something else could be found on the stove or in the fridge. My mom cooked very well all her life, and if someone stepped into our house, he did not leave without being treated to one of mom's "creations".

In the wintertime, practice often started after eight p.m., and ended at midnight. My coach walked everyone home. My mother really didn't like these evening practices.

And so having washed up and eaten breakfast after morning practice, I would rush to school. Five or six classes a day, forty-five minutes each, with ten to twenty minute breaks in between, went by quickly. After school, around two p.m., I had lunch, and then played the piano or went to my music lesson. This took about two hours, after which I went to my second tennis practice, which went on for ninety minutes. After evening practice, I came home, had dinner, and did my homework for the next day. Like the president's schedule, right? Nobody forced me to do it. I was the one that wanted to play tennis and the piano. It was my wish. And this, I am certain, is what gave me so much energy, my cheerful mindset, and joy from learning new things. I probably got lucky in this sense with my parents. They didn't know what sports games were and were not much interested in musical instruments. They worked. They fulfilled their duties to the government. They did not interfere with my freedom, for which I am very grateful to them.

After sixth grade, I started going to tennis competitions in other republics of the U.S.S.R. The government paid for all sports expenses: uniforms, tennis rackets, tennis balls, running shoes, restaurant meals, and airplane and train tickets. We always had a medical worker travel with us. Doctors warned my coach and meseveral times about the potential risk to my heart, but I always felt that there was no problem with my heart. Perhaps it was my strong trust in my feelings, perhaps the doctors were wrong, but after several years of practice, my heart started showing good results at medical tests.

How often in our lives something or someone can stop a person, not allowing him the chance to do what his soul wished for. But when a person trusts his feelings, they are his best and most reliable guide. Through feelings our soul communicates with our body.

Competitions in different cities of the U.S.S.R. would last about ten to fourteen days. During that time, I missed both regular school and music school. After my return, I had to make up for what I had missed. I never complained. To whom would I complain? My mom would say: "Stop with that training already!"

During competitions, we always stayed in good hotels and ate at good restaurants. The coach was with us everywhere. He was for us both a mother and a father there.

I remember a large team competition between the Soviet republics in Armenia, Yerevan. We stayed in a hotel high in the mountains of Ararat. The water there is so unbelievably fresh and delicious that when you start drinking it, you can't stop. This is probably what water was like when God created the world. Water in other towns often had a strong chlorine smell, or you could only drink it after boiling it first.

A special bus took us to the tennis courts. We always had a policeman with us in Yerevan. At first, I was so surprised: "Why is that necessary?" But soon I understood that although the U.S.S.R. was one country, each republic still retained its cultural, family traditions, and customs. In those parts, the custom of kidnapping brides or someone who was found attractive still existed. So the police were a sort-of shield from Armenian or Georgian customs.

We often don't think about how significant the influence of the culture and traditions of the country that we live inis. It's like the lenses in our eyes, through which we see. Often a whole lifetime isn't long enough to remove the lenses and see the world with one's own eyes.

It's a well-known fact that Armenia and Georgia were at war with each other for centuries. It would seem like – what is there to fight over? Both republics belonged to a large power called the U.S.S.R.: one state plan, one unit, one budget. But the traditions of these countries from habit included a hostile relationship with one another. For what reason can a young Georgian man despise a total stranger from Armenia? There is nothing personal here; this culture's influence. I was "lucky enough" to observe first-hand how this works.

The national team of Armenia was playing against the national team of Georgia. Observers from both sides were in the audience. The Georgian tennis player began to lose to the Armenian tennis player during the second set. At first, the noise of discontent came from the side of the Georgian supporters, and then it joined with the loud cheers of the Armenian supporters. When the situation on the tennis court began to shape up in favor of the Armenian player, a Georgian supporter threw a rock on the tennis court, in the direction of the Armenian tennis player. As if instructed, both sides of supporters jumped on each other and started sorting things out – using their fists. At that very second, the Armenian player reacted the same way – he picked up the rock and threw it at his opponent. This is why there were so many policemen everywhere. Everyone knew about the possibility of these incidents and took preparatory measures against them.

Sometimes team training preceded our competitions. Often this team training or preparatory training for competitions took place in Sochi, a city in the south of the U.S.S.R. Then I would miss both school and music school for almost three months. Afterwards, I had to work hard to "catch up" on both programs.

Once my coach told me that I was going to Sochi by myself because I had been chosen for the national U.S.S.R. team and nobody else from Belarus had been invited. The gathering would go on for six weeks... leaving tomorrow.

Once again, I told my mom a lie, fearing that she wouldn't let me go if she found out I was going by myself. I told her that my entire team was going to Sochi with my coach. As usual, my mother did not show any interest in my sporting activities, which in this case worked to my advantage. The less questions, the less I had to lie, the less to fear. In the morning, everyone went off as usual, and I, taking my packed bag and my tennis rackets, took the bus that brought me to the airport. When I went up to the check-in desk, I realized that I had left my plane ticket at home. I remember even now how hot I felt for one second. The next second I spent figuring out approximately how much time it would take to go back home, get my ticket, and make it to the plane on time. Impossible. The next second I was running to the taxi. When I returned to the airport with my ticket, my plane was already starting its engines. I don't remember exactly what I said or didn't say to the airport workers, but very likely a twelve-year-old girl by herself, with tennis rackets and a desperate desire to fly, softened their rules and they helped me "fly onto" the plane. When the plane landed in Sochi, it took a lot of perseverance, asking, searching to find the hotel where the national U.S.S.R. team was staying.

The team training went very productively for me, and I learned a lot about playing tennis.

When I came back to Minsk very tanned, for the first time, I felt an attitude of hostility from my classmates. Perhaps it was just jealousy. They had been going to school this whole time, while I, having received permission to miss classes, "relaxed" in the resort town of Sochi. I'll never find out what they really thought.

I remember how I felt. Again the fear of being alone. The fear that at some point took up residence inside me needs to be fed constantly. It will use any opportunity, through the thoughts in my mind, to get this "feed".

I felt that my classmates' attitude towards me had changed, but I was so busy that my thoughts switched quickly to fulfilling my obligations, which I had assigned to myself. My grades in school were almost always perfect. I remembered things easily, enjoyed doing math, and no subject in school caused me any difficulty. In music school, with my beloved teacher, I studied new pieces, etudes, adagios by new composers. My beloved Czerny, Bach, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky...

By that time, I had become not only the champion of the city, but also of the republic. The next step to conquer – the U.S.S.R. championships. I prepared for them. My first U.S.S.R. championship against girls my age took place in Kiev, the capital of the Ukraine.

Kiev is a very beautiful city, with a wide avenue running down the center of the city and the deep, fast river Dnieper. At that time in Kiev such famous cakes as "Kievskii" and "Khreschatyk"began to appear. It was a miraculous experience, full of new taste sensations. I always took home a few cakes from Kiev as a treat for my family.

The championship was going smoothly and I – with some effort – made it to the finals. I think that not having any experience in winning such high-rank tournaments is the reason I didn't feel any fear or any doubt. I didn't have anything to compare it with, and so I just played tennis as well as I was able. I remember in the evening, before the finals, I was trying not to think about anything, just get a good rest. That night I slept very well, and in the morning, full of strength and energy, tried to concentrate only on the upcoming game. I think that the girl I was competing against and I were on the same level of tennis ability. Neither of us scored by casting crushing blows to the opponent. It was a contest of endurance, of concentration, and of the ability to keep the ball in the game for a long time and without mistakes. I remember how my body was shaking from exhaustion at the end of the game. I turned out to have a bit more endurance than my opponent, and I became the champion of the U.S.S.R. among girls my age.

It was a big occasion for Belarus too. Many newspapersprinted my photo with congratulatory remarks. Right after the competition, there was a formal ceremony with prizes and gifts. UryAntonov himself, the creator of such airplanes as the An-24, An-18 and others, personally gave me a model of the An-24. It was so nice. I was also given a very expensive and beautiful crystal vase and a certificate stating that I was the champion of the country.

When I returned to Minsk, as usual, nobody was there to meet me. My parents were working. I took the bus home, with the heavy vase in my bag and my tennis rackets under my arm. I think that it's a good thing that upon returning home that I once again did not pay attention to the lack of interest from my family about my sports successes. It helped me not to develop a big ego. It taught me to turn my attention to other things and concentrate on something more important. An hour after returning from the championships, I was hurrying to my classmates, to find out what homework I had missed. In the evening, I was playing the piano to prepare for my music lesson the next day.

The next U.S.S.R. championship for my age group took place in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan. In the old part of Tashkent there are narrow streets, about two meters wide, on both sides surrounded by blank walls of buildings. We walked through them to go to the market to buy some fruit.

Once we came there with our tennis rackets over our shoulders, and a vendor offered us a huge watermelon in exchange for two tennis balls. That was fun! Although the payment for the watermelon was not very big, the experience of trading, not buying, was interesting.

I was staying in a hotel room with a girl my age from Latvia. We brought this watermelon to our room, cut it in half, and ate out of it with spoons, each from her own half. The sweet, delicious, juicy watermelon made our stomachs puff up like watermelons. In Tashkent they make delicious kebabs consisting of small pieces of meat. There are beautiful women with long braids, wearing traditional dresses, and kind men, wearing scull-caps and drinking tea for hours in the tea-houses. This is how I remember that republic.

The competitions were going on as usual. I won fairly easily and made the finals. It so happened that the girl I was sharing a hotel room was my opponent in the finals. I had been observing her game before our match, and I was sure that she was much stronger than me. The match began immediately with a battle. Nobody made mistakes. Each won only with a scored ball. I lost the first set 4:6, and won the second 6:4. We were both tired when the third set began. This wasn't a tennis competition; this was a contest of willpower. We could both no longer hit the ball with full strength, or run to the net and play volley. We just played a long rally, until someone made a mistake. We played for over four hours. I lost this match. My willpower was a little bit weaker. I wasn't upset about my loss. Why? Probably because I had too many other important things to do.

One event in my sporting life affected my whole life. This team tennis training was taking place in Tallinn, in Estonia. Tallinn is a very beautiful city, with many ancient streets, low buildings, and delicious little sweet cakes.

The national team of the B.S.S.R. (the Belarusian Socialist Republic) was holding preparatory tennis training for athletes for the upcoming national competitions. There were about twenty of us, of different ages, and I was one of the youngest participants of this team. We not only played a lot of tennis, but also spent a lot of time in physical training. In the morning, before breakfast, we ran for about an hour along the sandy shore of the Baltic Sea. This was a real test! Our legs ached and were heavy like rocks that were impossible to lift. After breakfast and a very short break, we played tennis for about two hours. Then lunch, rest, a second practice, after which we had flexibility training and stretching. Dinner and dead sleep.

On one of these days, my coach gathered all the tennis players and started making remarks to each one about what the athlete needed to pay particular attention to, what each one needed to work on more. I had always felt good about my body. I thought that my shape was good, strong, and quite beautiful. But the coach, on that day, in front of the whole team, told me that I needed to lose weight. And added that I would better to lose weight now rather than later or I would become like my mother. I was a teenager. This was a time when one word could easily "kill". I swallowed my tears and didn't respond.

After this meeting, I went for a walk alone. For the first time in my life, I felt hurt. My heart ached with pain for my mom. Yes, my mother was a little overweight, but that had no influence on my love for her. And actually, until that day, I had no idea that someone might be bothered by my mom's weight. I wanted to protect her, but I didn't know how or from what. It hurt deeply that my coach, whom I respected so much, had just betrayed me in front of everybody. It seemed to me as if he had undressed me in full view of everyone else. I visualized my body and understood suddenlythat I was fat and ugly – how had I not noticed it before! The tragedy playing out inside my head was just unbearable. It seemed to me that the world was collapsing in front of my eyes, that I would be unable to look my friends in the face after such humiliation! I even walked up to the bridge, and this thought went through my mind: "Is it possible to keep living after this?"

After this incident, I stopped loving my body. And any joke regarding my body or even any discussion about it caused me to become defensive and incited a desire to protect myself. I started looking at and thinking about my body through the hurt that my coach had caused me. I carried this hurt on my shoulders for many years. The coach forgot about what he had said after one minute. But I continued to carry this heaviness practically my whole life. So whose problem is it, and who is to blame?

Again training, school, music. Sometimes it seemed to me like I was missing something very important in my life, that my other classmates were going to the movies, spending time together, talking, chatting about boys. My mother never encouraged my sports successes. She believed that all these things had no future and could not become a lifetime occupation.In her opinion, it was not prestigious to be a coach – but that university, an institute with mathematics and physics courses, would give me a good specialization in life. And so under the influence of my mother's thoughts and such reasoning, when I was fifteen years old, I decided to stop playing sports.

Now there was no more tennis in my life. Waking up in the morning, after breakfast, I went to school, came home, had lunch. Played the piano, did my homework. Went over to a friend's to chat. Two days passed like that. On the third day, I began, quite literally, to lose my mind. The sound of the ball hitting the racket, the smell of earth, rising from the water-soaked court, haunted me. I thought about my tennis friends, with whom I had gone through many difficulties. I thought about my coach, who had become close to me. And such a longing seized my heart that it's difficult to describe. On the fourth day, I went to practice. I apologized to my coach that I had behaved in such a way. He allowed me to continue training, but something had broken inside me.

My parents

What a beautiful word – parents. These people gave you life. I'm deeply convinced that nobody has the right to blame or criticize his parents. Each of us must respect them, if only because they brought us into this world.

My mom and dad grew up in big Belarusian peasant families. My dad never told me anything about his childhood. He just said that there was hardship and poverty. He grew up in a family of six children. For a while, his parents, my grandma and grandpa, lived with us, but I was very young and remember very little about them. Grandma was always sick, always grumbling about something, and spent most of her time in bed. My brother, my grandparents, and I all shared a room, and I used to play there.

Once I was playing very close to an electrical socket, and Grandma, without saying a word, got out of bed, picked up a broom, and started spanking me with it, shooing me away from the socket. Evidently, my dad experienced this educational method. Perhaps this was one of the reasons my dad never talked about his childhood. I remember Grandpa as a very noisy man who was always shouting and drinking vodka. I do not remember a single fairy tale told by my grandmother or grandfather, any gentle touch. This is all that I know about my relatives on my dad's side.

My mom told me more than my dad about her family and her difficult childhood. She was born in a big family of five children. Her village was located far away from the regional center and was surrounded by impenetrable marshes, forests, and lakes. The village had only a few houses. My mom's mother contracted typhoid, which was raging through the area at the time, and died when my mom was about three years old. Some people warned her that it was dangerous to visit a relative with typhoid, reminded her that she had a big family, but she went anyway, and left two kids even younger than my mom without a mother's care. All is God's will; God knows what He is doing. No pictures of my grandmother remain; just three things my mother remembers: A tall, beautiful, dark-haired woman, standing at the wood stove.

I'm not sure whether she was actually tall, since to young kids, all adults seem tall.

My mom's grandfather lived in the same village (I'm not sure whether it was her paternal or maternal grandfather). My mom told me that they were very poor. The preschool-aged children had practically no clothes. In the summer, they had only hand-sewn dresses, without underwear, and in the winter, they almost always stayed at home, at the wood stove because they had no shoes to walk through the snow on. Many of the children were not aware of such a concept as underwear.

If they wanted to visit their grandpa in the winter, they would run across the snow barefoot. They had a large farm, with cows, pigs, chickens, and horses. They all required care and heavy daily labor.

Mom would tell me that when somebody hurt her, she would grab her pillow and walk across the snow barefoot, with the pillow in her hands, to her grandpa's house. This was how she displayed her dissent. My mom's grandpa taught her how to count and a little writing even before she went to school. He taught her many tricks. My mom would ask questions, and her grandpa would answer them. None of her siblings showed any interest in reading or writing.

From age seven, the children had to go to school, which was six kilometers away from their village. Every day, all the school year long, the children had to walk twelve kilometers through the woods. Of course, when there were severe frosts, they stayed at home. My mom told me that she was very fond of mathematics, something I inherited from her.

Mom learned very early on to sew underwear for herself, or simple skirts and sweaters out of pieces of fabric cut from old, worn-out clothing.

The forest was a second home for the residents of these remote villages. There they could gather mushrooms, nuts, and berries. The forest gave them wood for heating their houses and cooking for themselves and for their pets. My mom was a very brave girl. When there were too many dangerous snakes in the forest, she would go in and kill them. She said that she wasn't afraid of them and did it to protect the others.

After some time, after the death of his wife, my grandfather married his dead wife's cousin. This new wife had just barely turned seventeen, and she was only a bit older than his oldest son was. In those times, when the question of survival was paramount, the topic of love, of courtship, was inadmissible. My grandpa chose her, went to her parents, asked for her hand in marriage, got their permission, they had a modest wedding, and their family life began. This timid, poorly educated – practically a girl –the job of caring for five children and the large household hoisted immediately upon this young woman's shoulders. And very soon there were nine children. The older children helped around the house, the middle ones looked after the youngest. From age three, each child had his own responsibilities. Each had so many duties that school, in comparison, was no longer that important. The children often missed school, and didn't have a particularly strong desire to study anyway.

My mom was the exception in her family. She loved learning, wanted to receive her secondary school diploma, and get a higher education. When she received her certificate of completion of her eight-year education, the question arose of her continuing to attend secondary school. Further education was only possible in the regional center school – very difficult to walk to, especially every day. My mom's father was completely against her continuing her education, because all hands were needed around the house. However, my mom was quite stubborn in achieving her goal. She walked all the way to the regional center, on foot, rented a tiny room there, and continued to study. She had absolutely no money. She helped the woman who owned the house in exchange for her room and for a little bit of food.

Mom's stepmother, or rather, her new young mom, was a very kind person. She couldn't read or write at all. She felt with her heart that she needed to help my mom flee the nest and give her the chance to see a different world. One night, when everyone was sleeping, in secret from her husband and with a little cloth bag of food over her shoulder, she walked through the forests and fields to the regional center to my mom, to give her a little bit of money that she had saved up for her coin by coin and some simple food. And before dawn, on that same night, she came back to the village, and nobody noticed her absence. A deep bow to you, my dear grandmother, for helping my mom. With that you helped me in life too.

I have remembered this small incident my whole life. Once, as a teenager, I was visiting my grandma in the village. It was the beginning of summer. I was sitting on the grass under an apple tree, reading a book. My grandma came up to me so quietly, like a gentle breeze. In her wrinkled hand was an apple. This was a fascinating sort of apple. This variety of apples cannot be stored for a long time; you need to eat it as soon as you pluck it from the tree. These apples are so transparent that every brown seed is clearly visible inside. This is a very beautiful and tasty apple.

It's not what you say that's important, it's the way you say it. It doesn't matter what you give, it's the way that you give it. What touched me was the way that she gave it to me. In this gesture was so much kindness, so much love and calmness. She was simply smiling and holding out the apple to me. Her eyes said so much, so deeply, so beautifully, so calmly, that it can only be compared with God's love, the existence of which almost everyone has been forgotten. But she remembered it. She knew what it was like to love without words, with the heart. She didn't know any sciences or any letters. She knew only the language of love.

My grandmother lived a hard life. She lived the life for which her soul had come here. She never blamed anyone, never fought for her rights, never complained about the difficulty of her circumstances. Grandma accepted everything exactly as it was. This is a true belief in God. She never lost the connection to God. This connection gave her the strength to remain calm and to live her life with peace in her soul. She was almost never sick. She died after age eighty. On that distant and last evening of her life, she tidied up her small house, washed, put on clean clothes, went to the gate, as if to say goodbye, went to bed, and did not wake up in the morning. It was a beautiful death. She deserved it. Thank you, my dear grandmother.

And so, my mom got her secondary school diploma. She started choosing the university where she would receive her higher education, but the Second World War began. The war changed all plans. My mom's older brothers were drafted immediately for the army. Many sisters had their own families and lived apart. Their husbands were also drafted. My mom was at a loss for what to do. How to get an education and survive. She found the Railway Institute in Siberia, which provided a uniform for its students. My mom thought that at least there would be some kind of clothing available. The university was chosen out of necessity, not for what the heart desired. My mom went to Siberia, applied, got into the university, and started studying. Her oldest brother, who was an officer in the war, sent her a bit of money for the first few years, to help his sister survive. Mom often recalled this help with gratitude. Then he was killed. My mom was left without any sort of financial support. On Sundays, she would go with her classmates through the villages, looking for work for a piece of bread. My mom said that at that time, she was completely bloated from water. They would drink a lot of water with a small piece of bread to relieve their hunger at least a little.

During her university years, my mom met a guy. It was a very brief relationship, because he soon had to go to war. They wrote each other for several years, fell in love, and were planning to get married after the war. The war took him. I am certain that this was the one and only love in my mom's life, for which she never found a replacement. Mom used to show me his photo and sigh every time.

In her last year at university, my mom met my father. He was incredibly good-looking. His white clean face, strikingly black hair, and bright blue eyes made him a magnet for many women, which he never opposed. Mom said that she never planned to marry him, but he got stuck on her like a mollusk. Mom and Dad received their Siberian higher education diplomas in the same year. Mom went back to Belarus. At first, she lived with her sister in the village. There my dad found her. He proposed to her. Mom told me that there was no love on her part, but there was also no choice. The war had taken almost all men. My mom very much wanted to have children so she agreed to marry him, and they moved to Minsk.

Transitional period

I finished my eight-year middle school education. After this, at the time, each student had the right to choose – to start working or to continue studying. There was no question for me. Only studying.

I finished my seven-year musical education. This is for my life. This is for "bragging rights". This is for expressing emotions. This is for singing to music. This is continuing to play the piano just for pleasure.

It's as if society, by giving me documents of completion of these educational stages, was confirming that I have the minimal necessary amount of knowledge. With this minimal knowledge, I can live and work, occupying a minimal societal status. With minimal knowledge, I can also, by continuing to study, eventually occupy a different status, which would be one step above the minimum. The recognition of society happened, and I was "placed" on the lowest rung of public life, where practical experience is not required, but without which I will not be needed.

Tennis continued to surround my life. I had two years left until the end of secondary school, and the question of choosing a career and further education was being raised more and more often. I knew that further advancement in music was impossible. I had received a musical education, and that was enough to say no to a future in music.

I loved tennis and wanted to tie sports into my future life. At that time, sport was considered an unreliable and temporary business. Coaching was a little-respected profession, considered for those who didn't want to study, just to chase tennis balls. Once again I faced the influence of society on personal choice. It would have been easy for me to get into the University of Physical Education, to study, to continue playing tennis, to be prepared for a career in the sports world. If I had been taught to go with my desires, I would have chosen sport. But I was taught how to be in agreement with public opinion, and personal desires that aligned with public opinion were to be seen as rare and lucky coincidences.

A lot of homework was assigned in the upper grades; my sport activity was starting slowly to wind down, I played music rarely, I started to want new things. I learned how to knit, sew, embroider, and mend. It looked like a new stage in my life was approaching, and I was in a transitional period of my life.

Finally, the last school bell went. The exams finished. My secondary school diploma received, allowing me to apply to university. Goodbye school. Goodbye childhood. Welcome to adult life!

A visa to enter adult life has been obtained

I had a month to submit my documents for application to university. In the evenings, my old classmates and I would gather on the benches in some square and exchange information about the influx of students into this or that university. Many of us were willing to apply to any university, as long as it was easy to get into even with very low exam grades because of a shortage of students. They didn't think about the specialization they would receive or about the job that they would perform afterwards for the rest of their life. In most cases, the kids that were trying to get into university were those whose parents had a higher education. And some kids attempted it just because they didn't want to be like their parents, who, without education, had very laborious jobs.

My parents both worked and were very busy. I don't remember any discussion in my family about my higher education or any of my parents' advice. And this is a very good thing, since I had freedom of choice. I, totally free from school, from music, from sports, decided to visit a university and gather some information that would help me to make the correct decision. I had loved math and physics from childhood. Absolutely didn't understand chemistry. It's a miracle that I passed my high school chemistry exam.

I went into the Belarusian State University. I walked around the different floors, reading the signs indicating this or that faculty, about the professional specializations that could be obtained there, and what I would need to do to become a student of the given faculty. Words like lawyer, translator, biologist, geologist, and engineer didn't interest me at all. Without knowing it, subconsciously, I was looking for something that would make my soul respond, and create a desire to act. I was looking for the keyword.

And so I'm standing in front of the sign of a new faculty with such a tempting title: "Faculty of Applied Mathematics." Sounds good! I turn my head to the right, and there's the "Mechanical-Mathematical Faculty." Also sounds good. My heart started beating faster, sensing that the target was nearby. I started reading informational leaflets about these faculties. Words like computer, theoretical mechanics, descriptive geometry brought me indescribable delight! I had no idea about the meanings of these words. That meant I was in the right place.

My secondary school diploma had only the highest grades, except for my "behavior" grade. I had a lower than average grade for behavior, which is why I couldn't get a gold medal at graduation. Because I played tennis and missed a lot of classes, I was unable to participate in the social life of the school, a "sin" that requires punishment.

Studying had always come easily to me, and I had no doubts about "can I or can't I do it." I had a strong interest in learning new things. And here were so many new words! I had heard the word "computer" but I had never seen what it was. This was probably the keyword I was searching for. As it turned out, this keyword tied me to the world of computers for my entire life.

I chose the faculty with the promising title of "Applied Mathematics". I was put on the list of applicants to take entrance exams. There were four exams. To get in you needed to get twenty points... I got nineteen. Studying in the normal daytime department was inaccessible to me due to my missing one point. I was offered night school. I agreed. I don't remember being upset or disappointed. I took it the way it was.

Student

I see that time as the true beginning of adult life. New life – new life experiences.

I had to go to class at the university in the evening. The night school was designed for students who worked during the day and studied at night. Since I didn't work, I started actively training during the day with a new and famous coach. He paid me a lot of attention, evidently he saw a lot of potential in me, but in trying to follow all of his directions, I felt that something had changed in my heart, that fire wasn't there, the desire wasn't there that would have helped me to advance towards further sports achievements.

Since I had more free time, I started spending more time at home, and I started paying more attention to my family. My brother was always creating problems for my parents: getting excessively drunk on vodka, ending up at the police station for misconduct. My parents never had time for me, which perhaps helped me to obtain relative independence in life. My brother was being fired constantly from jobs, just like from schools. He couldn't stay still; he always needed to find problems in his life.

In addition to training, before going to classes, I needed to do homework, coursework, prepare for exams. My brother and I shared a room, and my parents lived in the other room. Our kitchen had no door and was a continuation of the corridor. We had one bathroom, with both a toilet and bathtub. During the day, while my parents were at work, I could study in their room.

But my mom, tired of the constant problems with her son, decided that the only thing that would help him become a man was marriage. Mom picked out a modest, quite pretty young woman who worked at her organization and decided to introduce the girl to her son.

I remember that Sunday. As usual, my mom had cooked up many different tasty dishes, and I set the table in the living room. My dad wasn't home, I don't know why. I was always happy when he wasn't home because his constant shouting at my mom upset me. I liked the girl right away. She had a very thin waist, good height, dark hair, and a beautiful smile on her face. We were practically the same age, which also helped our rapport. My brother liked her too. A good time was spent at that table.

Then they dated for a few days and decided to get married.

My mom's plan had worked. The only thing left was to marry them, and then all her worries would end. Apparently, my mom took the desired for the genuine. She made up a story and started to bring it to life.

So, the wedding day was set. The food was bought. The guests were invited. The tables were set. The taxi was decorated with balloons and bows. The documents were signed confirming that the freshly baked husband and wife are ready to start a family life. The joyfully drunken shout: "Kiss!" Evening. Everyone has gone home. And the newlyweds also go home. Home for them became our house. My parents continued to live in the bedroom. My brother and his wife took the living room.

As usual, everyone forgot about me. I started sleeping on a cot in the same corridor that connected the kitchen without a door and the bathroom with a door that opened into the corridor. The corridor was less than two meters wide. My cot fit exactly with my head at my parents' room and my legs at the living room door. A very "lucky" location! No matter who wanted to go to the bathroom at night inevitably bumped my bed because there was so little space and because it's difficult to manipulate your sleepy body at night. My senses perceived all the smells and sounds created in the bathroom. Dreams, even in the form of nightmares, disappeared for me for many months.

But the night was nothing in comparison to the early morning.

My dad once fell and broke his arm. He went to the clinic for therapeutic procedures for a long time, but the doctors still could not help him restore the flexibility in the joint. The doctor suggested that he mop the floors every day. Yes, that's not a typo – mop the floors. The doctor explained that rinsing the floor rag in the bucket of water, wringing it dry, and washing the floor with it was a very good exercise that might restore the functionality of his arm eventually. "Teach a fool to pray, and he will break his forehead."

At that time, only zinc buckets existed for washing floors. This "surprisingly musical instrument" created remarkably varied, but always loud sounds, which depended on the action being performed: put it down, pick it up, move it, pour water in, pour water out. My dad performed this exercise, recommended by the doctor, every day at six a.m. to this "music".

I got home from university around midnight, slept (tried to sleep) on the cot in the middle of who knows what, and in the morning, just when deep sleep came, I got the racket of the bucket in my ears, Dad's body shoving me as he climbed to the kitchen with the bucket over my head. How I felt then is indescribable. What to do? Where to go? An answer did not come to mind. So I endured it.

I complained to my mom that my brother put on very loud music during the day, and I couldn't study. I told her that at night, I was waking up constantly to track each person who desired to visit the bathroom. I was mad at my dad that in the morning, when I could sleep a bit longer, he didn't let me do so. But what could my mom change? To say something to my dad about it was impossible. There was only be one answer – swear words. Mom was glad that she could keep an eye on her son and that he had a wife.

And as for me? Mom would always answer me proudly: "And you'll survive."

Thank you, Mommy, it turns out you were right. I survived all of it.

I started studying in the library and spending very little time at home. I started thinking about marriage. There was no place for me in my parents' house.

After the end of my first year exams at university, I got the opportunity, with the help of some of my dad's friends, to transfer to the second-year daytime department, but to the "Mechanical-Mathematical Faculty". I became a regular full-time student with a government-provided allowance. It wasn't a lot of money, but since I didn't need to pay for clothing or rent, it was enough to buy my textbooks, notebooks, some food, and to treat myself to a theatre ticket.

At the end of my first year at university, I met an officer from the internal troops of Belarus, or rather, from the Department of Management of Internal Troops. He was older than me. It was my first experience with serious dating. Prior to that I had dated a few guys from the university, we would kiss a couple of times, and break up quickly. This man attracted my attention only because the opportunity to leave my parents' house came with him.

At that time, it was not conventional to rent your own apartment, live alone, and work. He and I went on a few dates; he told me how he would soon get his own apartment from the government, that he had a good salary, that he was thinking about the growth of his successful career in the future.

I was very impatient then. When I wanted something, I was used to getting it very quickly. Everything had always come easily to me: in tennis, in school, and in music. My habit of making every wish of mine come true pushed me to take a step that was very unusual for a young woman – I proposed to him. He was taken aback at first, didn't know how to respond. But when he thought about the fact that I was a young and attractive woman, with well-educated parents, that I went to a very prestigious university, and that at his age, it was about time for him to get married – he agreed.

Did we talk about love? I don't remember.

I only remember the bustle around this theatrical performance. Introducing my parents to my fiancé's mother (his dad had died many years ago), buying the rings, the dress, all of these motions created a feeling of happiness before an encounter with the unknown future.

At the end of my second year at university, I received a new title in my life: "wife". Now I had many titles: daughter, sister, student, and wife. All of these labels determine our existing relationships with other people at the current moment in life.

Wife

Back then mothers didn't talk to their daughters about menstruation, pregnancy, birth control, sex, and so on. It was not discussed in schools.

I had my first period when I was nine years old. We were on vacation with my whole family at the Baltic Sea. When I saw the blood, I thought that I had cut myself while diving and swimming in the sea. I didn't even think to ask my mom about it. At that time, I didn't have the slightest idea about the existence of these kinds of differences between men and women. A month later, when I had my period for the second time, I was playing tennis. I had no idea what to do, how to hide the bleeding. God knows how I managed to find some rags and shove them in my underwear; while playing tennis, they would fall out onto the ground occasionally. I would pick them up and quickly shove them back in, thinking that nobody could see me. In the future, I learned to be protected perfectly in this sense, but I never shared my experiences with my mom. When my mom was a child, nobody ever talked to her about it, and so she, keeping with tradition, acted the same way. No one is to blame here; this is the influence of family on the way that we behave in life.

Before my wedding, my mom and I had no discussions about my intimate life. In society, too, it was assumed that we do not have sex, and so you can't talk about something that doesn't exist. The only mention of sex was in jokes. And if the topic of one's sex life did arise, it was awkward, like talking about something dirty, something inappropriate for discussion, or something so intimate that it was impossible to discuss. Only your doctor had the right to ask about the regularity of your sex life.

I remember an incident that happened to me right after I finished school. Around seven p.m., I stopped by my house to tell my mom that I would be home late, that I had met a guy who was an artist, and that we were going to the city center together. Mom only said: "You'd better be home by nine." I always did what my mother told me.

We were having so much fun wandering through the city that I didn't notice that it was already twenty to ten. My new friend turned out to be very sensitive to my anxiety; he hailed a cab and fifteen minutes later, he was walking me to my door. A beautiful scene opened before us. My mom, armed with a long and bendy branch, was standing, waiting for me outside my house. My friend disappeared with barely a good-bye, and I never saw him again. My mom said, "Next time, I'll lock the door."

There was never a next time. With just this one example, my mom was successful in combating both sex before marriage and remembering who the boss of the house was. That evening I didn't try to argue with my mom; without saying a word, I went to sleep.

I had always respected my parents. I never questioned their decisions; I never even considered the question of who was right and who was wrong. I lived in my parents' house, my parents provided everything I used there – I had not acquired it myself. That meant that while I lived there, I had to follow the rules set out by my parents. My parents gave me life, and that's already enough to honor them deeply.

My mom took my wedding preparations very seriously. On her shoulders fell practically all the necessary tasks, from getting a wedding dress for me to ordering the taxi that would take the newlyweds to where they would spend their wedding night.

On the day of the wedding, all of my girlfriends gathered at my parents' house, trying to reinforce the significance of the approaching moment with their presence. They were all my age, and none of them had yet considered the question of marriage, there weren't even yet men around them. I was the first of my friends to start a family. On that day, just for my wedding, came my long-time friend from Sochi, with whom I played for many years at the same tennis competitions, practiced at the same tennis training, and played doubles with. I still keep a small photo of her, and sigh a little, remembering my youth.

Like every bride, I looked happy and incredibly beautiful. I felt my beauty on the inside, and everyone around me had only to witness it. In accordance with the previously defined schedule, the taxi, decorated with flowers and balloons, delivered the bride and her closest friends to the entrance of the registrar's office.

This was the establishment where newlyweds, in front of witnesses, received an official government document confirming that state representatives were witness to the official transformation of the bride and groom into husband and wife. The bride and groom, according to custom, went to the registry in separate cars, as if demonstrating that they had been apart, but at this establishment, their paths would unite into one. Our cars stopped at the doors of the registry. Witnesses, friends, and everyone who wished to attend the official wedding ceremony left their cars and stood behind the bride and groom.

I was wearing a beautiful long white dress with a veil over my head. I don't know what came over me, but I couldn't stop laughing. Everything was amusing and fun to me, especially at the entrance of the official door of that building – I was even crouching with laughter. This was happening, perhaps, because I had a fear of the unknown and was trying to hide it in this way, or perhaps my dress and veil were making it feel like a theatrical performance. Perhaps it was funny and exciting to me that my dream of leaving my parents' house was coming true. Perhaps it was the realization of the fact that there was absolutely no love between us, and we were all here participating in this total nonsense that caused me inexplicable delight. Perhaps what was happening at that moment did not correspond at all to what I had imagined as a little girl and caused my uncontrollable laughter. Regardless of the reason, falling over with laughter, holding the hand of my future husband, I walked into the big hall, decorated for these types of theatrical performances.

A worker of the registry showed us where we were supposed to stand, indicated the places for guests and for witnesses, stood behind the table, picked up a large ledger tome with Belarusian ornamentation around the edges, and started reading something akin to a welcome speech at a meeting of the Bolshevik party. I didn't remember or understand a single word that she said in those ten minutes, but her final phrase, "I pronounce you husband and wife" did remain in my memory.

Then she asked us and our witnesses to put our signatures into a different ledger of a smaller size, after which everyone started clapping merrily and walking up to us, congratulating us. We left the room, got into the taxi, this time the newlyweds taking the same car, and set off to celebrate the wedding.

My mom, with the help of her relatives and friends, set the tables for eighty or so people in the main hall of the building in which she worked. The tables were piled with delicious home-made food and delicacies that my mom was able to find that were impossible to buy in stores. The vast amount of vodka and wine bottles made the tables completely magical. The guests ate a lot, drank a lot, yelled "Kiss!" a lot. All that I remember was that I was exhausted and I wanted to sleep.

Before the wedding, we had already rented a room in a three-bedroom apartment of a multi-stored building. After the wedding, we went straight there. Due to fatigue, or some other reason, the anticipated wedding night did not happen. We fell into bed and slept until morning. When we awoke, we looked at the clock with horror – we had about half an hour before we had to appear in front of our guests for the second day of the wedding celebration. We jumped out of bed and began quickly to straighten up our appearance.

Then we called a taxi and hurried to my parents' house, where set tables and our guests were already waiting for us. The guests were "curing" themselves from last night, yelling "Kiss!" and some of them made allusions to our first night after marriage. I pretended that everything had been so fantastic and unforgettable that was not possible to describe it. Jokes always help in life when there is nothing to say.

I was genuinely happy when everything ended, and we returned to our own room. We played at getting married, now came the time to play at married life. Life is always a game, first playing with dolls, then at 'school', then at 'family'.

For the first time in my life, at the age of nineteen, I was playing the role of an adult. Here I was, with my husband, and I didn't need anyone to explain anything to me, not that anyone ever asked for my explanations anyway.It was interesting to play at family life. Everything was new. In the morning we left our room. My husband went to serve, and I went to school. I would get home before my husband, burning with impatience to show him what a good housewife I was. Already on the second day of our life together, I suddenly understood that I couldn't cook to save my life. I started calling my mom at work and writing down detailed recipes of dishes that I loved but had no idea how to make.

All my life, I had been so busy with tennis and music that I just didn't have the time to learn culinary skills. Now the time had come to learn. When I came to the store to buy meat, I found out with surprise that not only pork but also beef exists. I called my mom to understand the difference between these two kinds of meat and to find out how long it takes to cook them.

I continued to be surprised. I had always loved learning new things. Here's the first soup and the first meatballs. The first delight from making food has passed, but the constant desire to improve in the kitchen remains, like the desire to be an exemplary housewife.

That's what I had seen at my parents' house and was trying to recreate in my family. And how was I supposed to build a family life, a relationship with my husband? I didn't know, because I hadn't yet had any experience in that. So I had to repeat that which I had seen and was used to.

So passed the "honey month" of our married life.

Why a "honey month"? First of all, this is just what we call it. The name comes from olden Russian times, when it was custom to give the newlyweds a wedding present of a barrel of honey, say, ten or so kilograms. The newlyweds had to eat all of this honey within the first month. Thus was shown concern for the health and strength of future children and newlyweds. In olden Russia, honey was considered a powerhouse of vitamins and minerals. While giving birth, a woman was given honey, which gave her strength and eased contractions. Men ate a spoonful of honey before coming to bed with their wives.

Since nobody had given us honey at our wedding, the name of the month remained just a name.

People probably also called the first month of married life the "honey month" because this month is supposed to be spent sweetly getting used to each other, sweetly being alone together, sharing sweetly loving pleasure with each other. I'll say straightaway that neither the first nor the second nor the third or fourth happened to me. I had an initial interest in everything, of course. It was interesting to know what is it like to live outside of your parents' house. It was interesting to know what is it like to get your own pots, pans, and other household items. It was interesting to know what it was like to sleep with a man. It was interesting to know what are you supposed to feel during sex. Initially, there were a lot of interesting things.

Where there is an interest, there must be an expectation of a particular result. This expectation depends largely on one's own previous experience, the experience of others, and personal fantasies. The more expectations, the more potential disappointments. I didn't have any previous experience of my own, and nobody had shared their experiences with me at that time. This is good, since it lowered my expectations and limited my fantasies. And so with great interest and minimal expectations and fantasies, I spent a "honey month" with a man. Ask me about my husband? I don't remember anything, because I was very busy satisfying my own interests.

Soon we moved to a new, rental separate apartment. As they say in the fairy tales, they lived happily ever after. It's a good fairy tale, but that's not what life is like. Nobody ever knows how long, how happily, these are just dreams. We were living very normally, very generically. I didn't know any other way of life and thought that whatever we had was good enough. Sometimes, I got the desire to love fervently, embrace passionately and kiss wildly, share everything in the world, even the most intimate things. Sometimes, I could share my innermost thoughts and feelings with my husband, but his reaction was not what I expected. Sometimes, I did something that my husband didn't like and that insulted me. Sometimes, he behaved in a way that I didn't like. Sometimes, he said things that I didn't agree with at all. Only love can find a happy medium. But what is Love?

In our culture, a legend was passed from generation to generation, according to which a prince on a white horse galloped to a young woman, freed her from something, and they started living happily ever after. A similar story exists in practically any culture. Since the legend is passed on through generations, it shapes the concept of life and of love for people.

It is thought that a person experiences heartache because the soul is searching for its second half, that the soul can only feel complete when someone completes it, gives it, becoming part of the completed person. Of course, this situation is possible, but it's one in a million. And what are other people to do? There are two possible answers: to learn to love oneself and complete that which needs completion, or to suffer. That's why people suffer so much, because they don't know how to love themselves and fill their soul with peace and happiness. And how can one person love another if he has no idea how to love himself? How can I make soup when I have no idea how to make it? How can I calm down and help another person if I don't know how to bring myself into balance?

People say, "I love him" when their "loved one" satisfies certain or most desires of the "lover". The larger the package of satisfied desires, the "stronger" the love. Their expectations are always tied to the satisfaction of their needs. And their needs can be diverse: sexual, monetary, prestigious, social, or egotistical. It's like an exploitation of one person by another that occurs under a sweet pretext, under imaginary scenarios and stories, showing "concern" of one person for another.

Here's an example that I don't think will surprise anyone. A wife is cooking an exquisite dinner. Did her husband ask for it? No. The wife has made up a fairy tale in her head. While she was making it up, she forgot that it was in her imagination and started to see her creation as a true event that will certainly occur.

The fairy tale began roughly like this. The wife didn't work all day, she's well-rested. She wants to feel a sea of love. Since the specific act of intercourse lasts on average two and half minutes, this is clearly not enough for the desired "sea of love". A sea of love is when you're basking in words of admiration, listening to speeches of praise, are the center of attention of your partner, your exploited person, when his eyes burn with desire and excitement. The selfish wish arose, and so did the plan for the realization of this wish.

The wife thinks:

I'll go and buy some nice food; I'll make a wonderful dinner. Fish in a sauce? Hold on, he had fish at the neighbor's and said that his wife made such amazing gefilte fish that he couldn't stop eating it. That means he might compare my fish to hers; what if mine isn't as good? I'd better not risk it. I'll make a nice turkey garnished with mushrooms and pancakes. Yes, I'll have to stand in the kitchen for four hours, but I so want to surprise my husband pleasantly. I'll make a turkey with a golden brown crust. I'll display it on a pretty plate, I'll put on it a tomato cut in a rose shape, add pickles on the side and some fried mushrooms. Fold paper napkins in the shapes of pyramids. Set out wine glasses with golden rims. Arrange the silver cutlery. Light lavender-scented candles.

The heroine makes up this story with so much love, intensifying the significance, the importance of her work that her husband must undoubtedly appreciate and that will certainly impress him.

The heroine continues to develop the story:

He will get home in six hours and fifteen minutes. He will open the door. I will be wearing that dress that he likes, and I will run to the door to greet him. He will say how beautiful I look today. He will see the decked out table and will hug me tenderly. He will do this, and then that and...

In the process of the creation of this fairy tale, the heroine didn't once think about herself. Typically, this sounds like "she gave all of herself to him". Her ego knows perfectly well that in "forgetting about herself", it assumes that the one for whom she has forgotten herself will forget about himself too, that all of his thoughts, words, gestures will be dedicated to her only, to express his gratitude. All of his attention for ME. This is the objective for which this fairy tale was "written".

Everything is ready. The table is set. The dress is on. The candles are lit. The time is six-fifteen p.m. The last adjustment in front of the mirror. A glance at the clock.

"My sweetheart will be here any minute."

Listening for a noise at the door. A peek onto the street through the window.

"Oh, I forgot to take the wine out of the fridge."

A look at the clock. The time is six-thirty-five p.m.

"He must have been held up at work. He's coming now."

The heroine is getting a mild headache from listening, waiting, peering.

"It's all going to get cold soon!"

It's seven p.m.

"What is this! He should have called me if he was going to be late!"

The headache is intensifying. Her mood is worsening.

"I didn't eat all day because of him!"

Unpleasant hunger pangs. It's seven-o-five p.m. The husband opens the door and says with a smile: "Hi! I'm so hungry!"

Now would be the perfect time for the fairy tale to play itself out. But by this time, our heroine has created a new story and has forgotten the old one. In this story, her husband plays a different role. It's a breeze for a "professional author" to change the script:

He left work early to visit his mistress. That's why he didn't call me to tell me he would be late. Clearly they had a good time together, and the sex was excellent, not like with me the last time last month. And now he comes home, smiling. Hungry after sex! Now he wants food!

Her greeting to her husband is: "Let your mistress feed you!"

It's not difficult to guess what happens next, it just depends on each person's imagination.

Returning to the question of love, I'd like to repeat an old truth – a person must first learn to love himself; only then he will be able to love others. In loving himself, he will not let anyone exploit him, which means he won't do it to the other person, because he knows what it is like.

When passionate love – in the form of a heightened desire to quicker satisfy one's own desires – is not present, you have less expectations of your partner, fairy tales are created less frequently, and life is calmer.

So it was in my marriage. We were just two people who had decided to live together. Of course, periodically, my fairy tale about my prince, which was alive and constantly being updated in my mind, called attention to itself through my sighs; but apparently the amount of these sighs was not yet big enough to change something. I believed that the most important thing was that I had a family, no matter what it was like. Perhaps I made that up or perhaps it was my fear of being alone speaking?

Our only hope is life, which is teaching us reason constantly. Life is a good teacher, if the student wants to learn.

It was my first birthday in my new family. When I was small, my mom would always come into mine and my brother's room early in the morning, while I was still sleeping, and leave presents on a chair near my bed. There were always a lot of presents. There were toys, pens, notebooks, drawing paints, dolls. Once my mom put a pineapple there. I woke up while it was still dark and tried to figure out by touch what was lying there. The way the pineapple felt is in etched in my memory. Satisfied that everything was ready for my celebration, I went back to sleep. I remember only my mom during my birthdays. Thank you, Mommy, for giving you and me this day.

When I grew up, I would always call her on the morning of my birthday and say: "Happy birthday of your daughter!"

A deep bow to you, my mommy, for giving me life.

And so remembering my birthday history, and not having any experience in married life, I began to be a writer of a fairy tale.

My husband woke up early. Ran to the store to get flowers. He already bought me a present, and he put it beside my bed, remembering what I told him about my mom doing the same for me on my birthday. Affectionate words. In the evening when he gets home from work, I'll make dinner, invite my parents over, and we'll celebrate my birthday.

Expectations, expectations, expectations. The ego's favorite exercise. The more unfulfilled expectations, the more fairy tales can be created, the more food there is for the egotism with the labels "I've been forgotten", "I've been betrayed", "I've been short-changed", and so on.

My husband had a different story. His family didn't celebrate birthdays at all. The day is insignificant to him... that's his family custom. Thus, he did not wake up early, didn't run and didn't buy. On that day, the general with whom my husband served also had his birthday. My birthday was forgotten, since the general had a much greater need for flowers offered up to him in the morning than me. My own Me was overwhelmed with anguish and sorrow. That was my first experience of hopes and wishes not coming true.

Very soon a sprout of new life took up residence inside me. I didn't have a very clear idea of pregnancy, kids, of concerns, and responsibility. It happened because I was married and that's how things should go. When I announced excitedly to my husband that we were expecting a child, I didn't find any trace of happiness on his face. I felt hurt, but I swallowed it. So, gradually, I was collecting resentment towards my husband.

I was going into third year at university full-time and that was my job. I felt my body changing. Until I was three months pregnant, I could eat a lemon and a pickle together, but now I can't even imagine it. I went to the doctor monthly. Everything was fine.

I didn't have any information about how I should eat or what to pay special attention to. My doctor's job was to take my blood pressure, look at my test results, and listen to the heartbeat of the fetus. The level of insight our society had at the time. In our country, we never spoke aloud about sex, menstruation, so perhaps pregnancy was also in the category of "the less you know, the better you sleep."

So I was raising my child inside me as it happens in nature, relying on my instinctive wishes. I drank carbonated water and ate ice cream in such quantities that I could have watered and fed half the students at my university. Towards the seventh month of my pregnancy, probably because of the amount of water I was drinking, my legs and arms were swelling, and I couldn't breathe through my nose. I went to the hospital a few times to get rid of the excess liquid.

The doctor recommended that I use nasal drops to ease my breathing. Relying on his knowledge, I did this regularly, and I could breathe through my nose pretty well.If I knew then that these drops would affect the health of my child, I would have thrown them into the garbage immediately. The dangerous side effects of these nasal drops were proven only after many years. And the evidence for this came from many women who, using these drops during pregnancy, had already harmed the health of their children.

But my advice to all pregnant women is, please, be very careful with any medicine you take. It's possible that at the moment there just isn't any statistical information about its potential harm.

I gave birth to my first girl fairly easily. She was healthy and had a normal weight at birth. In hospitals at that time, there was the rule that after birth, the child is taken away and brought to the mother only on the third day. When I first saw her, it seemed to me that there was nothing more perfect and fascinating in the world. They brought my daughter so tightly wrapped in blankets that I could only see her little face. She had chiseled features and a long nose. I called her "Pinocchio". She would swallow a few drops of milk from my breast, get tired, and fall asleep. The hospital workers advised me to wake her and offer her my breast again, but she slept very soundly and there was no chance of waking her. I was comparing my little girl constantlywith other newborn babies, and every time found that my child was the best of all. That's how maternal egotism works.

On the fifth day after I gave birth, we were discharged from the hospital. My husband and dad picked us up. My mom was working on that day and wasn't able to come.

We went to my parents' house. At that time my brother and his wife were living somewhere else, so we decided to live with my parents for a few months, counting on my mom's help and expertise.

My husband put our little girl, swaddled in sheets and blankets by the hospital workers, down on the bed. The little miracle was sleeping. But a few minutes later her face puckered, got red, and there was a scream. And at that moment, I realized that I had no idea what to do with her! I looked hopefully at my husband but I saw only total bewilderment. My dad, hearing the child's scream, left the room immediately. I had nothing left to do but act.

I unwrapped the large top blanket. Then I unraveled the big warm sheet. I was surprised to find that she was wrapped up in another, thin, sheet. Having obtained some experience from the first sheets, I unraveled this one, and...

For the first time in my life, I saw for a newborn child! Her spindly arms and legs, released from the sheets, were flinging in different directions while she screamed. Some sort of rag lay between her legs and was very wet. She was crying like people cry when utterly grief-stricken. This is how I saw my first acquaintance with my tiny little girl.

I covered her little body with sheets, blankets, and, what else, ran to call my mother at work. The phone booth was not far from our house. I was screaming into the phone like people call for the ambulance, hoping to save a dying person. Fear simply paralyzed my sense of reason.

Mom came in a taxi very quickly; clearly she was impressed by my screams of horror for help. She went up to the top floor, washed her hands, and entered the room filled with my girl's screaming very calmly. At that moment, my mom seemed like a magician. She walked calmly up to the little person. I had never seen a smile like that from my mom... a smile of radiance, joy, and happiness. Mom started talking to her in a calm voice, full of such deep love, that I was standing and watching this like a witness of a miracle happening in front of my eyes. There was peace in my mom's voice, with no fear, none of the feelings that were overwhelming me. This opposing energy flow from my mom calmed me down, after which I started watching closely, trying to learn to do what she was doing.

My mom was saying kind and gentle words to her granddaughter and simultaneously changing her wet diaper (for me that was the rag) for a dry one, wrapping her in a new sheet, but the little bundle continued to cry. Mom said that I needed to feed her. I sat down in an armchair, put my daughter on my knees, and started breastfeeding her. After two lazy sips, she fell asleep. Mom reassured me that this was normal, when the child gets stronger, she will be able to breastfeed for longer.

My mom helped me a lot in those first days. In the evening, she filled the baby bath with water, and I tried carefully to put my child in there. Suddenly my baby started crying, even though the water was at body temperature, and I got so scared that it seemed to me like my child's head could fall off from screaming. This fear was driving me crazy. It took me two weeks not to be afraid for my child. The fear of causing harm, the fear of doing something wrong was very strong.

So in life, in many situations, new experiences frighten us. Very often, fear takes away the opportunity to gain this or that experience, and we simply stop doing it. And then, after some time, life gives us the opportunity to gain the same experience, but in a different situation and possibly with different people. Sometimes, a person spends their whole life going after the same experiences, and returning with nothing, after some time, receives them again. Sometimes, a lifetime isn't enough to learn one lesson.

But I was not used to giving up easily. I had to overcome this fear and begin to enjoy the role of a mom. Each day I had more and more breast milk. My daughter breastfed very weakly, got tired very quickly. The doctor who came to check up on the child said that my baby was just too lazy to breastfeed, that I needed to try to give her milk in a bottle.

Clearly, this doctor was not very experienced. But since I had no experience at all, I again was trapped by the advice of this medical worker. I pumped my breast milk into a bottle, put a nipple on it, and gave it to my tiny one. Dear God, she ate like someone eats after months of starvation. She drank at once triple the dose of milk recommended for babies her age! Then she slept for about threehours, which had not happened before. At the next feeding time, I offered her my breast, full of milk. Yes, I had given birth to a very smart child. She didn't even try to suck the offered nipple, she simply started crying, demonstrating her complete lack of desire to do this work.

Again my fear made me go off track; it made me react from a position of fear. I immediately filled a bottle with milk and my little "slacker" drank every last drop.

One can only dream of a situation where I, without fear, calmly, patiently, would continue to offer my breast to my baby until her hunger forced her to work. Probably in the future, much in he, and also in my life would have changed for the better. It would have taught her to work and made me realize that where there is fear, there is no love. But I can only speculate about that now.

Three months after giving birth, I started going to university again. I would go only for a couple of hours, mostly for the purpose of finding students who would carbon copy their lecture notes for me. For the first little while, it was very difficult to find someone willing to do this, but a bit later, I became friends with a girl who helped me a lot in all my university years. A big thanks to her. God always sends help when we need it.

I had a lot of breast milk. Once, in the middle of lecture, I felt dizzy and my breasts gave me indication that they would soon burst from the large amount of milk in them. I ran out of the auditorium to the bathroom. I ripped off my sweater like people do in certain situations where they can't wait any longer. From the nipples of my breasts, which resembled two large balls, milk was gushing like water from a faucet. I directed these streams at the wall, and the milk flow went on for about five minutes. That saved my life.

I found it extremely unfair that I had so much easily flowing breast milk and my child didn't even try to drink from my breast, that she recognized only the bottle of milk. It's an old saying: "Holding on to resentment hurts no one but you." Who knows, maybe this influenced my future relationship with my daughter.

One day, I heard that a family had a new baby, and his mom didn't have any breast milk at all. I was very happy that I had an opportunity to give my milk to a child. They took one liter of milk every day from me. My milk was full of fat, and my girl and that boy were gaining weight very well.

In helping others, we help ourselves.

My relatives and friends helped me with my daughter when I had to go to university. My study was going on as usual, and I was doing well on my exams.

After a few months, when I learned how to be a mom, we moved to a new apartment. We lived there for about a year, and two incidents happened which I would like to tell about.

This happened at lunchtime. I had just made soup for my daughter, poured it in a bowl to cool down, put the bowl on the table, and turned away from the table for one second. At that exact moment, my little daughter ran up to the table and her hand reached out to the edge of the bowl. The entire contents of the bowl poured out onto the chest and face of my child. My daughter was screaming wildly. I grabbed the bottle of vegetable oil and poured it onto all the burned parts of her body. I had heard about that somewhere and the thought came into my mind at that moment. The worst part is that we didn't have a phone to call an ambulance. I knew that the neighbors weren't home.

What to do? To run out onto the street to the phone with the daughter I was afraid to touch, or to leave her, screaming, alone for a few minutes and run to call for help? I ran out of the apartment, closing the door in the face of a child screaming from pain. While I was running to the phone and calling for the ambulance, I almost lost my mind from the despair, from the guilt, from the injustice that had occurred.

I ran into the apartment, but saw that my daughter was no longer screaming, just sniveling. I didn't know how else I could help her. In a split second, I had created a story in my head of how my daughter grew up, but her disfigured face and neck had remained the same, that she would never get married... What does fear do? It knows its job. It makes use of the moment to feed itself.

The ambulance arrived very quickly. The doctor said that it was very important that I had covered the burns with vegetable oil. The doctor treated the burns, put some sort of cream on them, and a minute later, my daughter had forgotten about her pain. They took us to the hospital for some additional tests and further treatment, but that evening we were already home and nothing was troubling my daughter. A couple of weeks later there was no hint of the burns on her body. And I'm sure that in her memory there is also no hint of it.

My stories, however, caused me pain from which I took quite some time to recover.

I was trying so hard to be a good mother and wife. I did everything that I could for my daughter, everything I was capable of. I read books to her, we drew together, went for walks, and I showed her this world. There was nothing more important to me than my child.

I tried to be perfect in everything. Only now I understand that it was my ego that was working so hard. On my way to achieving perfection, I didn't allow myself to make any slip-ups, any mistakes. If something "imperfect" happened to me, it caused in me immense anxiety and sharp feelings of guilt. Again my ego, through guilt, was trying to control my life, as I understood later.

What did this experience teach me? Probably for the first time in my life, I received a lesson that showed me that there are things that we are unable to predict or to control. You need to learn to take things as they are, to do everything you can, given the situation, and not to blame yourself for anything. And even more importantly, you must ALWAYS try to find something good in every bad. After all, the burns could have been much worse, and I should be glad that everything worked out so well in the end.

The second incident happened in the same apartment.

My husband was working. I was raising my daughter, running the household, and studying at university. Yes, this is how the domestic responsibilities were normally divided. We were like any other family. I had always been organized, not a lazy but a hard worker. Apparently, my sports habits were activated in my family life. Everything in the house was done on time, everything was always washed, ironed, cooked, and there were no problems with school.

One day my husband and I started arguing for some reason. He lost his temper and started screaming his argument. I, without thinking, said to him: "You're just like your father."

He started hitting me in the face, with full strength, many times. The next day my face resembled that of someone who was in a car crash.

Nobody had ever hit me in my whole life. I received my first, and to this day only, experience in what it feels like when someone beats you up. Maybe it's not so bad when you know you deserve it? I had only been repeating my husband's mother's words when she had told me about her late husband. I wasn't being deceitful; I was only telling the truth as I knew it.

I felt very humiliated and insulted. Anger, and sometimes even hate joined these feelings, towards this person. He had breached my personal territory; he had defiled my personal space. I already knew even then, that I couldn't live with him, that he had broken something inside me.

But how could I tell my parents? What would the people at university say?

The mere thought that the world would find out that I had been beaten by my husband, that the champion of the U.S.S.R., the perfect school student, the excellent university student, had been beaten up. I wanted to put my pillow over my head and hide from the whole world. Clearly, I needed to hide this fact from the world, which is what I did. I hid my grievances away, took a deep breath, and tried to forget what had happened.

For a week, I applied compresses to my face and they didn't let me down. I got my face back, but in my eyes, a sadness appeared, which I needed to hide.

Today, I see this story a bit differently. My husband wasn't beating me; he was letting out the pain he had been collecting from childhood. His father had died early on. He almost didn't remember him. He had grown up with the hurt that all the other kids had dads and he didn't. So he had created stories in his life of how his dad would have been, how he would have acted, what he would have done. He had been polishing this image of his dad for many years and had brought it to perfection. He had worked on this image for so long that he had started believing in its existence. His father became to him a hero, a role model. And I had unwittingly raised my hand against the sacred. I guess I deserved it.

At that time, when I had hidden from everyone, the deep offense or even hatred, towards my husband, he came home and told me good news for our family. We had been given a two-bedroom apartment in a brick multi-stored house located near my parents' house.

My husband served in the internal forces and for good service, considering his young family, he was given this apartment out of turn and for free. Of course, this was great news. The mere thought of moving to a new place, buying new furniture, having our own apartment, delighted me. The excitement from this news buried my resentment towards my husband deeply inside me, and we moved to our new apartment.

My daughter was growing up. I was continuing my university studies. My husband was working. We were like everyone else.

And finally the last university exams ended, I received my graduation diploma, and the government has already thought about my future job. After my graduation, I was given a job placement as a programmer in the B.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences.

Work

At the same time as I was supposed to start my working life, my mom retired and agreed to be with her granddaughter for a year during the time I was at work. Everything was coming together perfectly. My mom came over in the morning and spent the whole day there. My daughter was a very calm girl, who didn't cause her any problems. Only one thing worried me constantly – she had a poor appetite. My mom and I always tried to cook something tasty and new for her that might boost her appetite. Very often, an attempt to give her an extra spoonful of food would cause her to throw up, and we had to cook for her all over again. Now I had a helper for a whole year, which allowed me to start working without worrying about my daughter. Thank you, my dear mom.

It was 1977. The B.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences was the scientific center of the Republic of Belarus: a whole little city of scientific buildings. Each building belonged to a specific institute that had its own scientific direction in the study of physics, math, history, cybernetics, the Belarusian language, and so on. I was sent to work in the Cybernetics institute.

This was a four-storey building with a separate isolated entrance on the first floor to a huge computer lab. For the first time in my life, I encountered computers, and these were huge computers. The processors were taller than a person, with a multitude of little lamps, which showed the status of the information being processed. The magnetic tape and disk drives were also huge. Data was input into the computer via paper cards with holes "punched" by a perforator when entering data. When I was first shown this machine room and told the names of all the devices inside, it seemed impossible for the human mind to comprehend, that it was too difficult.

I was led to my office, shown my desk, and introduced to my supervisor. There was a good attitude towards young professionals then. I got very lucky with my first supervisor. He was very a patient, knowledgeable, educated person. He gave all his knowledge to young specialists like me. I'm certain that meeting this person influenced my life. He taught me how to share my knowledge with others and how to help them when they need it.

For a long time, I couldn't understand why some people, when explaining something to me, would always leave out important details, without which their explanations ultimately didn't have any practical meaning. Only much later I understood that these people left out this "secret" to maintain their reputation as an indispensable person. My supervisor, on the other hand, gave away everything that he had. I always felt this and tried to answer him in kind, working conscientiously and learning patiently.

It's no wonder they say that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Probably God sent me this teacher, so that I would gain experience and learn to share my knowledge with ease and be responsible for the work assigned to me.

If you want to receive – give away everything.

Remembering those times, I concluded that the story of my life had already been written, all that was left for me was to follow what was written. Already then my supervisor advised me to learn English and emphasized that it would help me in my life. How did he know? Or perhaps he was just passing along a message?

I fell in love with being a programmer. My work, my home, cooking, laundry, and cleaning were the main components of my life.

So passed my first year at work. My mom tired of her daily trips to our place. My husband was working. The time had come to send my daughter to a preschool. So in the morning everyone went to their place: to work or to kindergarten.

Chernobyl

On that day in April 1986, my co-workers started saying that something had happened in the Ukraine with a nuclear reactor. No one really knew anything for sure, but tension was in the air.

In this sense, I was lucky that I had a husband who had access to the real information. The radio and television in those first few days were more concerned with not creating chaos. Better to keep everyone in the dark than to have them panic. My husband called me at work at the end of that day and in a commanding voice said that the radiation from the explosion was spreading very fast with the wind, to avoid walking around outside, and to stay at home with closed windows. All of us, including my parents and friends we could get in contact with, complied with these requirements. But on these sunny and summery days, thousands and thousands of people were spending a lot of time in the open air.

Only after some time passed, when people started suffering the first health problems as a result of the radiation, we understood that God had protected us.

After a very short time, all the rescue personnel of the Soviet republics who worked at the reactor during those critical days began to get sick and die. Many were evacuated from the zone of contamination. This disaster in Chernobyl brought about a lot of stress, fear, illness, and suffering.

Events of this kind show that regardless of occupation, material status, gender, religion, eye color, and so on, we all walk the same earth. We all need to care for the cleanliness and health of our collective home. We are all responsible for what happens on it.

In the early summer of next year, I went to the forest with my dad. Everyone knew that we couldn't pick berries and mushrooms because they were full of radiation and hazardous for our health. But what we did see greatly surprised us. Berries were abnormally large and incredibly brightly colored; the grass was so tall that it seemed like we were in the jungle. The sight was frightening, unnatural, but beautiful.

About five years after the incident in Chernobyl, I watched a program on TV. It showed a family, not very young, who had lived all those years on the radiation-contaminated territory. The husband and wife had refused to leave their house and remained there alone, the only ones from their entire village. Throughout those five years, they had eaten the fruits and vegetables from their garden, along with the animals that had been eating and drinking contaminated grass and water. When their health was tested, the radiation had not affected their health at all, and the level of radiation in their bodies was normal.

One fact astounded me–their belief that nothing would happen to them turned out to be so strong that it made this miracle happen. This is true faith in God, in his protection and his omnipotence. Do we believe?

Divorce

For the first time in my life, I got a raise for doing high-quality work, and I ran home so excited to tell my husband about my first success! But to my surprise, not only was my husband not excited, he was even disappointed by my happy news. After his incomprehensible words, suddenly I saw clearly that he didn't respect me at all, that he didn't even allow the thought that I could be bright, intelligent, that I could be valued at work. He thought that only he had the right to this and that I should know my place – home, laundry, cleaning, and work that is not so important, but necessary. He kept everything important in life for himself. This again made me sense unfairness and hurt.

In the eyes of society, I got very lucky with my husband. He held quite a prestigious title, had a good salary, and could get access to things that a normal person couldn't get. He had a title and position with many privileges.
I was born with a complete lack of understanding of why career is so important to many people, why people are interested in politics, and why they love hockey. But because God wants us to understand the truth, in the end, for all of our "not understood", he gives us situations through which we can answer our questions.

My husband had all of the "instruments" that helped me to understand what I yet did not. There was nothing more important to my husband than his career. He talked with passion, with personality, only about politics. He never missed a hockey game, even if it was on TV late at night.

Now, it's difficult for me even to imagine how I could have lived with a constant feeling of irritation. Here's my husband talking to the general, and I hear only the same words over and over again: "Yes. Yes sir. Will do. It will be done as quick as lightning. Yes sir."

This sounded to me like: "I'm ready to die carrying out my duties."

Irritation.

My husband had always been so quick to act if asked by his chief, but so indifferent to all of my requests. Again... disappointments. We were at a party, and my husband was screaming himself hoarse arguing about which political party is in the right and which party can only cause harm. I always wanted to ask: "And how do you know?"

His criticism in any aggressive form like this always drove me crazy. But my own criticism of my husband drove me even crazier. I was very busy having to be doubly irritated at what my husband was saying and at my reaction to it.

Maybe hockey in itself is not so bad, but from the first day of my married life, it became a barrier to our sex life. Very often until late in the evenings, my husband was chained to the TV. He was so happy, excited, involved in watching the matches that drawing attention to myself would have been the height of stupidity.

Thus, drop by drop, different sources filled up my cup of patience. It felt like I was gradually being cut off from oxygen and it was getting hard to breathe. Of course, I thought that I was right and he wasn't; that he was the bad one, and I was good; that he was acting wrong, and I correctly. So the cup of patience could be filled in large portions.

God always gives something that helps to learn the life lesson better.

I discovered that I was pregnant again. My joy knew no bounds. I had already created a fairy tale in my head that my daughter would have a little brother or sister, that I would once again experience the miracle of being a mother, would get to greet his first smile, see his first tooth.

All of my hatred for and frustration with my husband disappeared, and I told him excitedly about my pregnancy. It was impossible for me to predict this. I opened all of myself to share with him this joy, this miracle, this gift from God, without a shadow of a doubt that this news would make him happy. In response, I heard: "Get an abortion. I don't want any more kids," harshly, without any room for discussion.

This was much more painful than the blows he had given me to my face years earlier. Everything in me was screaming from this unfairness. I couldn't accept the simple fact that it wasn't up to me to decide whether to keep this child or not. I realized that I couldn't possibly raise and feed two kids on my own, so everything happened very quickly.

My husband found a gynecologist friend, and this friend removed the budding new life inside me.

Something broke inside me again. Evidently the cup overflowed, and I decided that I had to do something to change the situation. I wasn't aware of the simple truth that if you want changes, then change yourself first and the situation will change by itself. I didn't know that it was possible to change myself. I was always looking forward and missing myself. And who did I see in front of me? My husband. So I decided to change my husband.

For starters, as per my plan, I filed for divorce. According to my plan, in court, the judge, seeing what a good wife I was and that we had a preschool-aged child, wouldn't give consent for a divorce. Thus, my husband would have no choice but to change his behavior, and begin to respect me and listen to me. A beautiful story I had created in my head that I started to believe.

The court date. I spoke in court condemning my husband with full force. I remembered it all: the beating, the negligence, the lack of sex, his refusal to have a second child. Apparently my speech deeply touched the jury's hearts. They divorced us immediately. Wow! It was like in the famous Russian song: "I was leaving only to return. You misunderstood, I was joking."

When I exited the courtroom, I couldn't believe what had just happened. This had nothing to do with my plan. This was a mixed feeling of fear, hopefulness for a new life, regret, uncertainty about the step I had taken, and a weak hope that everything would still work itself out. After the court date, my ex-husband and I went in different directions without saying a word to each other.

I went home. My daughter was with my parents. He came home late. Slamming the door, he came up to me and said angrily: "We will trade our apartment. You'll go live in a two bedroom apartment with a shared kitchen. You won't even get a kitchen towel from me. Everything in here is mine." This meant my daughter and I would have live in one room, with the second room belonging to a total stranger, and we would share a kitchen and bathroom.

We had never been able to talk to each other properly, we always started an argument; each thought that he was right, and as a result, a fight. Thus, in this new situation, we were unable simply to pronounce words, we could only growl like angry animals. After this short phrase, I felt that it was true that nothing here belonged to me, that actually, I didn't really need anything. But the feeling of resentment for my ruined life, for his failure to appreciate all of my efforts to be a good wife and hostess was pushing me to seek revenge against him, to show him that I was a force to be reckoned with.

It's easy to see from the last two sentences that the voice of my soul and the voice of my ego were present in my thoughts simultaneously. The voice of the soul is always a calm thought, which is easy to miss. To the soul, the fleeting valuables of the material world are meaningless. The voice of the ego is always a harrowing, demanding, unyielding, omnipotent, and controlling thought that simply gets into your head and leaves no room for doubt. The ego always wants to fight, argue, battle, take revenge, prove something.

Now then, the new plan, called "No you won't even get a towel from me" appeared in my life and was very persistently and demanding its execution loudly.

My ex-husband moved out the next day to live at his sister's house. He only repeated that I needed to search for a trade: a room for me and my daughter and a one-bedroom for him. He said it this like a commander gives orders to his subordinates. All I had left to say was "Will do!" But I didn't because my new plan occupied my mind.

At the time, my daughter was very often at my parents' house. My parents didn't interfere with what was happening in my life, although my mom had never liked my husband. My parents acted very wisely in giving me the chance to make my own decisions and not blame anyone for it in the future, and in helping me to raise my daughter. Thank you, my dear parents, for your help during that difficult time.

I didn't even try to search for an apartment, but I didn't know how to defend my right for my own separate apartment. I had no experience in such things. When there's a question, an answer will always be found.

A couple of days later, a friend came to visit me and brought a friend of hers. We laid the table... set out the wine... drank it. I started telling them about my troubles. To my surprise, this friend of hers, just like my ex-husband, had worked for a long time in the internal forces and knew all the ins and outs there. I couldn't believe my ears. My plan began to materialize almost instantly.

This man gave me some phone numbers to call and helped me to write a request (I never would have thought of this), which I had to take to the party committee of the internal forces of the B.S.S.R. This was a real plan with an order of actions, as a result of which, according to this man, I would get whatever I wanted.

At the time, the Communist party of the U.S.S.R. played the dominant role in the building of the bright future of our country. That's what we were all told, that's what was hammered into our heads. If you asked how I felt about this party, I would tell you that these political games and rules never affected me, and I perceived it as an existing fact with non-existent benefits for me. But I was wrong. In order to benefit from the existing system, you needed to examine it on the inside and use its own rules, words, traditions, and guidelines to get the benefit that you needed. A person that worked in the system was prevented from using his knowledge to his own benefit by the fear of losing his spot in the feeder. But he could give advice, show off his aptitude and opportunities to others – that's allowed. God sent me a helper who, knowing how this system worked, depicted every step on my way to accomplishing my goal. I started with completing every recommended action, visiting a number of senior generals, seating in big rooms behind desks under the red Communist flag. The plan was executed completely. The last item in this plan said to "wait".

I didn't need to wait very long. I got a call from the assistant of the general for whom my ex-husband worked. He asked me politely to come see them at a certain day and time. When I walked into the general's room, my ex-husband was already there. The general was courteous and concise. He said to me: "I do not approve of my subordinate's behavior. When dividing your apartment and belongings, you have the right to decide what to do with the apartment and which items to leave for the father of your child."

To my husband, he added: "Any questions?"

To which he answered "Absolutely not!"

The general continued: "Execute."

The reaction came immediately: "Yes, sir."

For the first (and maybe the last) time in my life, I actually enjoyed this kind of dictatorial dialogue, and I found it very appealing in my situation.

I found a one-bedroom apartment for my daughter and I fairly quickly, and a room for my ex-husband. At the same time, I also found a new, better-paying job a few steps away from my new apartment. I had turned to a new page in my life.

My daughter and I

The divorce, the move, the new job, my daughter going into first grade – the events of one year.

The school was close to our new apartment. And here was my daughter already, like me once, going to school for the first time on September 1st. Time flew and flies fast. My daughter's father also came to see her off to her first class. I was never against them meeting, spending time together. But I noticed that after spending time with her paternal grandma or with her dad, my girl was somehow tense around me. I guess I didn't have the wisdom to ask her about it, or my fear of what my daughter would answer prevented me from asking questions every time, and I left everything as it was.

Once, while she was still in primary school, I saw my daughter with the neighbors' son, sitting under the porch of our building and carefully wiping out bad marks from their grade books. I was so surprised by this. I had never scolded her for bad grades (they were exceptions to the rule). I would even jokingly say, "What kind of a grade book is this without a bad mark?" Why did she want to hide this from me?

She always liked to tell fibs, and I took them as childhood fantasies. But in the future, life showed that telling lies became a habit for her, which was very difficult to break. Should I have fought it? Every fight will find resistance. I used to tell her that I noticed her deception. She continued to lie, which fostered in her a feeling of closure, self-restraint. It only seemed like she was a well-behaved, obedient child, who didn't bother anybody. Only many years later, I understood that when a child obeys his parents, they need to check his health and observe his behavior more closely. That's how I see this situation now, but back then, being a very young mother, many simple but wise thoughts were simply missing from my mind.

I renovated our one-bedroom apartment. I painted big white daisies on the pink walls in the kitchen. My daughter slept in her own bed behind the cabinet, which gave the illusion of her own tiny isolated bedroom. She went to bed early so I could watch TV. My work and her school were near the house. Everything, as far as it was possible, settled down, was we were set up for normal life.

I had clear priorities in life. The most important thing was my daughter. Making breakfast, lunch, and dinner, doing laundry, cleaning the house, buying new toys, theatre tickets – all of this was my responsibility, which I never neglected. I signed her up for tennis classes and piano lessons at music school. I tried to offer her what I learned in my time. I couldn't offer her other activities, since I didn't know anything else. She learned how to play the piano, went to tennis practice, and never said that she didn't like it, but also never showed any excitement about what she was doing. I was glad that my child was busy and didn't waste her time doing nothing.

Even now, many years later, I feel as if I'm making excuses, as if still trying to prove to myself that I was a good mother. Yes, I was trying to be perfect in everything. I never did anything halfway. If I was cooking, I cooked with my full attention; if cleaning the house, then until it shined; if buying tickets to the circus, then I got the best seats; if reading, then enjoying it fully. It's hard to say if this is good or bad. It is clear that this habit makes life harder. I never allowed myself to relax, to act in accordance with what I really wanted. Because yes, sometimes I felt not so good, or became very tired, but regardless of these or other circumstances, I continued to prove to myself – straining, overworking – that I was perfect. These are the machinations of my egotism. The ego likes to prove everything; the ego is always awaiting praise. If nobody praised me, then I tried, clearly supporting my ego, to become even more perfect, in the hopes of getting praise eventually. Praise from whom? From my satisfied Ego! And he can never get enough!

My egotism was tied directly to my relationship with my daughter. "My daughter" – in this phrase you can already hear my egotism. My daughter has everything, my apartment is always clean, I have lunch ready strictly on time for her arrival home from school.... All of this says that I put myself in a rigid framework of my own rules and regulations, approved by my own egotism. I never involved my daughter in sharing the work: cleaning the house or cooking. I found a very good excuse: "She'll have plenty of washing, cleaning, and cooking to do in her life." Sounds good! Anyone (so it seemed to my ego) would appreciate this maternal sacrifice. Being the ego's victim is the utmost bliss! Yes, I can do everything quickly and in an organized manner. I got this ability at birth: one either has it or doesn't. To achieve organization in everything that you do in life is possible only as a result of lengthy practice, but there's no guarantee that it will happen. God gave this to me; I didn't put any effort into it. God gave, but what did I do with it? I believe that everything God gives is given with love. I believe that I was given this quality so that I would have more time for doing useful things, but not for "feeding" mine and others' egotism.

My mom had also never asked me to help around the house. Perhaps this was because I was a very busy child, or perhaps just based on the principle that "it's faster to do it myself than to ask." I'll never know. I didn't know how to do almost anything around the house until I got married. Hence, in childhood, I didn't have any experience being an equal member of the family in terms of participating in household chores. This created a sort of isolation from the family for me, my non-necessity to the family, in the sense of "nothing given, nothing gained."

Using my own experience from my parents' house in freeing my daughter from household responsibilities, I was sure that I was doing a good thing for her. In actuality, I was pushing her away slowly, making her idle and indifferent. I was teaching her constantly only to take but not how to give.

Time passed, my daughter was successfully going to school, playing tennis, and playing the piano. I continued to bathe her in the tub, like a baby. One day, I felt some kind of ball-shaped lump on her stomach. If the "ball" was pressed, it shifted from side to side. I thought it was very strange and decided to take her to the doctor. The doctor didn't draw any conclusions, but sent her for additional tests. Medical tests, doctor's check-up, professor's check-up – this became a dominant part of our life.

Nobody said anything... each tried to seem intelligent and mysterious. One professor from Moscow said that the girl should be examined with some very rare equipment, which existed only in one place in Minsk, and that the Minister of Public Health would have to give approval for the examination. He added that receiving this approval was extremely difficult.

I remember even now how a chill gripped my body, how fear paralyzed my thoughts. I had only one wish – to receive this approval for the exam. I don't remember who I talked to, what I said, where I went. I remember only that I did all this completely mindlessly, not allowing myself even to think of the worst.

The approval was granted. The day of the exam set.

The doctors took my daughter to the exam room, and I sat in the waiting room of the city hospital for the results. Time practically stopped for me. I was so collected, so concentrated on the idea that everything had to be fine that it felt like the veins in my neck were bulging.

The professor came out and called me into his office. He said that, in all likelihood, my daughter had liver cancer, that it was untreatable, but there was a small chance of survival. This chance was immediate surgery.

In that moment, the world collapsed for me. In my mind, there existed only the notion that my daughter and I were something inseparable. It's very difficult to describe the pain that I felt then. It was fury: what did we do to deserve this? It was fear in the face of the horror of what I would have to go through. It was absolute denial that this was real! I agreed to the operation, but I felt the strength began to drain from me.

I don't remember how we got home. I only remember a feeling of enormous guilt for what had happened to my girl. I didn't know how to act, what to say, how to soothe her. I told her that everything was fine and that she would have to spend a bit more time in the hospital.

I don't remember how I told all of this to my parents. When I visited their house a few days before the surgery, my dad was sitting in the armchair, his legs pulled up under him (which he never did in his life), crying softly. He was crying like someone who had no strength left to cry or to live. Forgive me, please, daddy, for the pain I caused you.

On the night before my daughter went to the hospital, she developed a high fever and was complaining of pain in her ears and throat. I made her a compress for her ears, gave her some pills, and she fell asleep. In the morning, she woke up with a slight fever, but I decided that since she was going to the hospital, the doctors could help her there.

In the hospital, I helped her to change into her gown. My little girl looked calm. But when the nurse came to take her to the ward, she clung to me, as if looking for protection. With great difficulty, I pried her little hand from mine. The nurse took her by the hand, and they went to the ward. Suddenly, my daughter ran to me, crying, and asked: "Please don't leave me here!"

I can't find the words to describe the helplessness, the guilt, the unfairness that was tearing me apart.

In the few days before the surgery, the doctors had to do some additional tests and preparation. The next day after I left my daughter at the hospital, I came to visit her with some fruit. The nurse on duty in the admission ward said that I wasn't allowed to go into my daughter's room because she had a high fever. I knew that the fever was from her inflamed throat. Nevertheless, I asked her: "Why does she have a fever?"

To which the nurse expertly, briskly stated:"In accordance with her disease."

I heard this as:"What do you expect, lady. Your daughter has cancer; of course, she has a fever."

I was a witness of a "crime", of how medical workers can kill with their words, even though these weapons can't be brought to court.

The father of my child almost didn't take any part in this process. I felt insulted by this, but I tried not to pay attention to it.

The day of the surgery. On that day I decided that if my child wasn't going to live, then I would also have no reason to continue my meaningless existence. I was sitting at home and every half an hour called the hospital to find out what was happening. I was scared even to think about my parents, but I felt their distress from a distance. The surgery took one hour, two, three, four. It seemed like I couldn't hold out any longer, like it would never end. But suddenly, the people on the phone told me that the surgery had been successful and that I could go to the hospital to talk to the surgeon.

I flew to the hospital faster than a plane. It was a mad flight, on the brink between life and death. But what the doctor told me overturned, shook, and sent all of my feelings and worries into a different direction.

Very calmly and slowly, the doctor sat down in his chair then invited me to follow his example. He took a long time choosing the words with which to begin. His first sounds, such as "well... um... ah..." began to make me slightly irritated. Finally, he collected his thoughts and calmly said: "When we opened your daughter's the abdominal cavity and saw the liver, to our great surprise, it was absolutely fine. But we found a benign tumor, which we have removed and your child is now no longer at risk."

He also added that this surgery was comparatively difficulty and that there would be side effects to the removal or her tonsils.

I don't remember any words of regret about the false diagnosis, about the mental trauma that had been inflicted upon my parents and me. In our country, at least in those times, it wasn't customary to apologize... that was the culture. But I didn't even need his apologies. I was alive again. My child was safe. I was thinking only about my parents, about telling them the news. They didn't have a phone, and again I flew faster than a plane. It was a flight into life, with hope and happiness.

Having flown around enough for that day, I came home and had a very high fever. I measured my temperature –a red-hot stove. All of my joints ached, my head hurt so much that I couldn't move it. In the morning, I called for a doctor and he diagnosed me with a viral infection. There was no question of visiting my daughter in the hospital, the last thing she needed was an infection. My only help in this world were my parents. My mom went to the ICU where my daughter was. My girl felt good. The doctors were promising that she would be discharged in ten days. On that same day, in the evening, my dad had a heart attack and had to go to the hospital. He had kept all of this suffering, worry about his granddaughter inside, and when everything had calmed down, they had made themselves known.

A week later, I was well again. I took my child home from the hospital, and my mom agreed to be with her for a month until she was healthy again. A month later, my daughter went to school. Two months later, she started playing tennis and the piano again. As turned out later, the reason for her health problems were those ill-fated nasal drops that the doctor had prescribed to me while I was pregnant. Yes, medicine sometimes heals, but also maims...

New job

My new job was in a new computing center with the latest equipment where I did system programming. It was a well-paying and promising job, with many young people my age, a lot of activity, and a lot of work.

For the first little while after the divorce, when I was alone with my child in my apartment, especially in the evenings when she was asleep, sad thoughts came into my head. Sometimes, it seemed that I would be living this life without a man, without a personal life forever, that nothing would ever change.

During such times I was lost in my sad thoughts, I created mental stories about how it hadn't been so bad with my husband after all, that I had made a big mistake, that... Everything was so familiar in that old life, everything was so well learned, that if it all came back, nothing inside me would have to change. Everything would go on as usual. Of course, I had lots of moments when I genuinely wanted everything back. The mere thought that I needed to become responsible for my own life, to take it into my own hands, made me miserable. And immediately the old habit went to work, dreaming about a prince on a blue horse who would gallop over to me and make me happy. Someone would do it, but not me. I wanted to give my "work" to somebody else.

Even if I had a brief encounter with a man, I wanted immediately to receive some sort of stability and regularity in our relationship. Unconsciously, I was searching for possible analogues with my previous family life, following the path of least resistance. I thought that I was looking for love. As if it's possible to find Love outside of yourself!

At work, I had about ten computing machine operators working under me, mostly young women who had completed a course on operational computer maintenance. I was still quite young myself, but since I had a degree and experience in this field, my position gave me the right to supervise their work. For a while everything went smoothly while I learned all the nuances of my new job. Soon I had mastered how everything had worked before me, and I started making suggestions to my management for improvement of the computing center. My direct supervisor was a Georgian man, who was a bit older than me and very fond of women. I was young and pretty, so our relations were flirtatiously professional. He supported me in everything, which gave me additional confidence in all of my endeavors.

Without my realizing it, my confidence grew into arrogance; my communication with my subordinates began to hold a tone that did not tolerate objections; the egotism directing me, with or without reason, insisted that I was always right. Any criticism, even the slightest, caused a feeling of wild protest in me and a lack of restraint in expressing this protest.

Without having any experience working with people, I thought that if I understood how to do this or that task, then other people, if they were not too lazy, could also understand it; if I could do this task in five minutes, so could they. Accustomed to never making concessions to myself, I made no concessions to my subordinates. I was like a strict general in the air force. The air force must have strict discipline and order, high professionalism, and knowledge. I, somehow imagining myself to be similar to those up high, began to live and breathe my job. I had to be involved in everything. It seemed to me that if I didn't strictly manage everything that was possible to control, it would mean the end of the world.

I worked overtime, raised my voice at the operators if they made any mistake, I took upon myself all possible tasks to prove myself to my superiors. My complete lack of a personal life, my desire to be needed by someone or for something, to be recognized by society, to be seen, pushed me further and further towards this path of imaginary self-assurance.

During this time, when I was completely going crazy from working and was exhausted from constant stress, the head of my institute announced the merger of three large branches into one department. My direct supervisor asked me whether I wanted to head this new department, which would consist of more than a hundred people. This was the best possible question in my life for my "assured" ego. Without rushing, as if assessing the pros and cons, I said confidently:"I can handle it."

My supervisor nominated me. Each department put forward their own candidate for this high-level position. The list of candidates was put onto the institute's bulletin board for everyone to discuss.

After the list of candidates for this position was announced, there was an explosion of emotion and indignation from people, the possibility of which I couldn't have even predicted.

I was the youngest, the least experienced, the least professional, the most emotional, the most unrestrained, the most attractive (I mean the female quality), and the most capable of creating new ideas out of all the candidates for the job. But my candidacy provoked irritation in ninety percent of the people. They remembered both my raised voice when talking to operators and my flirtation with my supervisor. Different people had different reasons, but everyone agreed on one thing – I had to be crushed. When people talk about someone, they always add something of their own. People's rumors, conversations, remarks, memories created an astonishing image of me. In the eyes of the team, I was a monster. The operators under my supervision wrote a collective petition to the director of the institute accusing me of abuse of power, arrogance, inability to work with people, having an affair with my supervisor, and so on. People discussed me behind my back, and their fantasies increased the size of the monster.

Perhaps to build a career you need to know how to play political games and begin with a big smile on your face and devotion in your eyes. I started with turning over large amounts of work, my face a grimace of overexertion.

The most interesting part of this whole story is that I started to believe that I deserved this kind of treatment, that there was nobody in the world worse than me. My thoughts went very far in "pushing me under a rock." I "worked hard" on confirming my complete worthlessness in life. I would remember over and over who had said what, and then I would add something from myself to make my worthlessness more vivid. I could only think and suffer, and then think about how to intensify my suffering. I was lost in my thoughts. I no longer distinguished between night and day. I thought that the world had collapsed, that the world had turned away from me, that everyone was condemning me. I took a month-long leave from work. My daughter was with my parents for vacation.

I had a lot of time and freedom to relish my worthlessness, my ineptitude for living in this society. I almost didn't leave the house. If I had to go to the store, I thought that everyone knew about me, that they were judging me in their minds but were too timid to say so. It was total insanity. But right before the New Year, a thought flashed through my mind:"Everyone knows you here. Leave Belarus, celebrate the New Year somewhere, where nobody knows you."

Three hours later, I was on the train to Estonia.

I celebrated the New Year very successfully among people I didn't know. We drank a lot of champagne, danced and smoked a lot, woke up with a headache, again drank, ate, talked, smoked.

The change of environment cured my schizophrenia. Looking at what was going on in my life from the side and from a distance, I suddenly felt my fears dissipating, as if they had never been there at all. Really, what had happened? Some people under me, insulted by my harsh words had decided not to pass up the chance to get revenge. They started spreading rumors about me at a moment of a competition for power, which got a response from many jealous or vain people. One shouts and the echo spreads.

After my vacation, I was transferred to another department, located in a different building in a different part of town, to do a very interesting, but not at all managerial job, for which I was infinitely happy.

At the same time, I found traded my one-bedroom apartment for a two-bedroom apartment in the same district. Life became a lot more comfortable – each had her own separate room.

Everyone was healthy. Everything was good, except that the nagging thought of my prince refused to leave my head.

In search of a prince

At that time, I played tennis for fun. Courts were free everywhere, and lots of ex-tennis players wanted to play, so you could enjoy not only playing tennis but also interacting with other tennis fans. From time to time, we got together as an amateur team and traveled to friendly tournaments to nearby republics, such as Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia. This was always really interesting. We competed seriously, but we also relaxed seriously, with large amounts of wine, steam rooms, saunas, long playful conversations, and reminiscing.

Everywhere I searched for him.

I started playing tennis regularly with one young man. He was Jewish, which in our culture always had a negative connotation. I personally never felt any negative emotions towards people of this nationality, but I was wary of how other people might react to it. It was a lot of fun to play tennis with him. And after some time, we decided to go to my house after tennis to have dinner together. It was a fun evening full of good conversation, which seamlessly shifted into spending time together in my bedroom. I hadn't even realized how much I was "starving" for physical affection, how important it was for my body.

Our contact began to become regular, and I was flying simply from the pleasure of having a satisfied body. Sex gave me wings, lightness, and a good mood. I even started to consider the possibility of marrying him. I began to think that having a good and regular sex life was the key to marital success. I asked my partner whether he wanted to join his life with mine. To my great surprise, he said that he hadn't thought about it but why would we change a good thing?

My initial surprise was soon replaced by a complete lack of understanding of what was happening: How is this possible? I want to link my destiny to his, and he doesn't!

Then my lack of understanding changed to anger: Who is he to reject me?

Then my anger found for me a suitable explanation: What else can you expect from a Jew? No wonder everyone hates them!

This is a case of me looking at my world through the distorting lenses of my egotism. Notice my thoughts in this situation, how loud they are, how demanding, and how they will not tolerate objections. How could there possibly be any space here for other thoughts?

After I found "an explanation for what had happened" and realized that I wouldn't find my prince in this man, I was upset for a while and continued to dream about a new, different prince.

At lunchtime, we always went to the cafeteria in our building. Once, while standing in line, I heard two young men talking. They were talking about something trivial, but one of them said something that made me think a very strange thought. He said: "I don't eat bologna sausage."

I thought: What am I going to feed him?

I realized immediately that this thought was crazy and had no real meaning. I laughed at myself and forgot about it.

A few days later, from afar I saw this man on his bike. Remembering my strange thought in the cafeteria, I again smiled and forgot about him.

Soon I met him on the tram. He looked so preoccupied and very miserable. For the first time, I looked at him with curiosity and I had the desire to talk to him. I didn't do it, but I started thinking of it.

Imagine my surprise when I met him at work and found out that he would be working in my department!

My birthday was coming up, and I decided to invite all my colleagues over to my house. Of course, it was just an excuse to invite him over. Everyone who was invited came on time, but he was late. When he arrived, he said that he wasn't going to come but had decided to at the last minute. When he was making a toast to my birthday, it seemed to me that I had been waiting for those exact words my whole life. My emotions, my feelings were ignited in full force. After hearing those words (everyone hears what he wants to hear), I could think of nothing but being alone with him. The guests left, and he stayed. He also stayed the night. In the morning, when he left and I was alone, I felt a light disappointment in him and a light frustration at myself. I felt it, but I didn't pay attention to it, because my mind was already busy with writing a new tale.

In my mind, I tried to find an explanation that the fact that he was a bit younger than me wasn't so bad but it's not normal in our society so people might judge me for it. This made me uncomfortable, since I had been a lot younger than my ex-husband and society had approved of that. What would happen in this case? Fear of the unknown played its role. He was from the country, I was from a city. How would we understand each other? He didn't have anything in the material world; he was a night school student; he lived in the student dorms. A lot of thoughts that were against a relationship with this man, but the strong wish to fall in love, to have a husband, to have a whole family, to not be alone, was winning.

When we met the next time, we couldn't stop talking to each other. It was as if we hadn't seen each other for many years and now, finally, we had met and had a lot to catch up on. In the morning, he noticed the time and said that he had an exam in a few hours; that he had forgotten about everything in the world with me and had to run to his dorm to clean himself up to take his exam.

We worked together and spent our free time together. It was a wonderful period of getting to know each other. Everything was going extremely well, and I thought that I had finally met my True Love, my prince.

Our love flowered in the spring. We wandered through the evening city filled with the aromas of flowering trees, holding hands. In those moments, it felt like my life had become whole and he had filled the emptiness in my heart. He became the most important thing in my life. He made me happy. For him, I was ready to do and to give everything.

And immediately, all-seeing God immediately gave me a situation in which I could have learned to keep my head out of the clouds and fairy tales and to see reality. I could have, but I didn't.

He was in his final year in the night school division of the institute. At the beginning of summer, he would have to take exams and defend his thesis. He said that he didn't have enough time for writing his thesis, but that he had all the materials for writing it. All that was left was to collect the materials in a logical order and write this large project.

When I found out that my Love, my Prince were in need of help, I, like a soldier defending my Motherland, threw myself into "defending" my loved one. I took forty days off work. All day long, I copied information carefully from various sources into his thesis. I worked like someone who might work at the end of the world. I was excited to prove my Love to him in this way. I wanted to be needed and important in his life.

Me, me, me, me. The ego always loves to enjoy being indispensable in someone else's life. But I wasn't thinking about that, I was mindlessly showing him my sacrifice, my devotion, my desire to keep this man near me.

We almost didn't see each other in those days. He worked and took his exams while I scribbled his thesis page by page. I probably couldn't have done this work better if I was doing it for myself.

The writing of the thesis was completed one day before his defense. He simply came over, said thanks, and left to prepare. There were no loud words of gratitude; there wasn't even any recognition of the enormous amount of work I had done. But as I found out later, something else was my "thanks" for all of my exertion, all of my effort, all my weeks of work.

The exams have been written, the thesis defended. We rushed happily into each other's arms. Finally, we could spend more time together. But a week after his thesis defense, I suddenly felt that something was amiss with my female organs. I had some sort of strange discharge and a very strong and unpleasant smell. Being completely in experienced in any sort of venereal diseases, I couldn't possibly imagine that this could be it. Through my friends, I found a good gynecologist, and, a second after the exam, she diagnosed a "sexually transmitted infection". What? I had sexual contact with only one man, and he was "holy". She calmly explained that this infection usually shows itself within five to seven days. That meant he had gotten this infection while I was writing his thesis. I was having trouble believing it. The world was again collapsing in front of me.

The doctor prescribed some pills and said that both partners needed to take them, and ideally the carrier of the infection. When I came home, I called him at his residence and asked him to come over for a very important conversation. He was packing to leave to visit his mom in the country but my tone of voice convinced him of the gravity of this conversation.

I told him about my doctor's visit and the pills we both needed to take. I asked him how he could have cheated on me while I was toiling away at his thesis. I said that it was over between us, that we would be breaking up forever.

He explained that it had only happened once at his residence. The girl had walked accidently into his room, laid accidentally in his bed, they had sex accidentally, after which he got infected accidentally and passed the infection to me accidentally. Who could remain untouched by this explanation? Of course, it wasn't his fault, this was providence, this was a misunderstanding! His pale face, eyes full of tears, voice filled with regret, were weakening my confidence in the break-up.

But I decided to be resolute and continued to repeat that this was the end of our love. And when he, in tears, stood on his knees, asking me for forgiveness, my satisfied egotism stuck out its little head and nodded: "Yes. I forgive you."

We took the pills and pretended, or maybe it was the case, that nothing terrible had happened and that we loved each other. For the first time in my life with this man, I was feeling something very much resembling love. I was very afraid to lose it, to lose my hope for a happy family life, and to be left alone again, without a man. Fear always takes away love. I hid my fear deep within me and enjoyed the fairy tale that I had already written in my head.

After this incident, we started talking about marriage. I don't remember how it all happened, but I remember that the aforementioned event sped up our wedding.

The documents were sent to the registrar, the date of the wedding set, the guests invited. I was so happy that it's difficult to put into words. I was ready not only to give him all of me, but to become his slave, figuratively speaking. My dream had come true. I had met my love, and we were going to live in one big happy family. That's what I dreamed of, that's what I wanted.

I altered the dress that I had worn at my first wedding. It wasn't bad, but I already knew that there was no point in spending a lot of money on my outfit – the outfit itself doesn't bring happiness.

The day of the wedding arrived. Everything went according to plan. Everything went wonderfully. The guests went home. A new family was created and everyone wished them happiness.

Second husband

Nothing had changed in my attitude towards family life in my second marriage. Again my same devotion, the same readiness to take everything upon myself. Whereas, in my first marriage, my husband controlled practically everything, in this case, the control moved automatically into my diligent hands. For some time, our married life was simply wonderful. My husband was flawless with my girl. We visited our friends and relatives together; we went camping at the lake. A happy family life. A family life in which I, out of habit, forgot about myself, thought that I had to give everything, do everything, and not ask for anything in return.

The female body is an amazing instrument of God, who created the woman to increase the population on this wonderful earth. When this program is activated, the woman comes under its full influence. When I saw a pregnant woman, my heart began to beat faster, and the thought of a small child made me catch my breath.

And so I became pregnant. It wasn't planned, but it happened. I didn't even get the chance to get used to the fact that I had a new life inside me, when I suddenly felt a sharp pain in the lower part of my stomach, and we called an ambulance. At the hospital, they performed an abortion, explaining that it was a spontaneous miscarriage and that there was no chance of saving the fetus. I spent three days at the hospital, crying constantly. The heartache was so strong that at times, it seemed like I couldn't handle it any longer. On the other hand, this heartache wasn't real; it was a creation of my imagination.

But life went on, and everything went back to normal. We found a trade for my two-bedroom and my husband's one-bedroom apartment for a large three-bedroom apartment and moved right away.

New apartment, new concerns about repairs, renovating, buying new furniture. Did any of this worry my husband? Of course not. Here I was again creating a tale in my head that I would renovate the apartment, I would buy new furniture, I would fix everything up, and then my family would have perfect happiness. Did anyone ask me to do it? No. It was my plan, my sacrifice, my decision. Each of us always has a choice.

When we decided to move into this new apartment, we had talked about the fact that we would need to redo the living room. This meant that we would need to knock down the concrete wall that separated the rooms and put up a new brick wall in a different place. I had imagined even then how wonderful the apartment would look after such a massive renovation. And there we were, in this apartment. My husband had completely forgotten about these dreams, whereas I was ready to go.

My principle in life is:"What's said is done."

I was born this way, I do whatever I say.

Я такая родилась, если я говорю, то делаю то, о чём говорила.

Seeing that time was passing and that my husband would never start on the renovations, I thought that the "first blow is half the battle" and that he would join in soon enough.

I took a few days off work and asked my brother to come over and knock down the concrete wall with a hammer. I didn't have any experience to know how difficult this work would be. My brother came over, demolished the four-meter wall with a large hammer within an hour, and left. When my husband came home from work and had dinner, he didn't even mention the question of how we would remove this huge pile of concrete blocks from our apartment. I felt resentment towards him. I felt that he was treating me unfairly. But again the desire to have a family, to have my own cozy nest, the fear of being left without a man forced me to swallow my hurt and go towards my dream.

The next day, I got two buckets and started piling chunks of concrete inside them. When I lifted them, they were heavy! I had to carry them through the apartment to the elevator, about thirty meters to the garbage container, and empty the buckets piece by piece because the container was very high and I couldn't even lift the bucket halfway. I was furious that I had to do all of this myself, since it was clearly man's work. My anger helped me as it strength inside me, enabling me to work like a wound-up clock.

It took me three days to drag all the wall pieces out of the apartment. Three days of hard labor. Nobody asked me to do it. I had decided to do it myself. My body will keep the memory of this work forever. When I was lifting the heavy weight, the blood vessels on my legs swelled up in many places from overexertion and left permanent black spots, like "monuments" to the brutal work.

After this, my mood improved because a chunk of the hardest work was finished, and I could go on to the next step. Again, my husband took absolutely no initiative. I had to think about the bricks that I would need to build a new wall. It was impossible to buy bricks in a store at the time. I talked to my mom and using some of her connections, she arranged for bricks to be sold to us. We had to go there in a truck, load them in, and unload them into our apartment.

When I told my husband about the work that would need to be done, and again heard no reaction, fury and irritation overwhelmed him. For the first time in our married life, I raised my voice at him. My patience had run out. I screamed at him, saying that it was completely unfair towards me to do nothing while I was falling over from exhaustion and dealing with all these problems. He didn't respond, so I paid some workers and they brought the bricks to our house, but my husband and I dragged them into our apartment. I was so grateful to my husband that he was helping me with the bricks! Now it sounds like a joke. Back then, it was like a song.

When the bricks arrived at our apartment and the endpoint of the renovation began to glimmer on the horizon, I remembered another one of my cherished dreams – to have a child. Life had taught me a lot by then. I realized that there was no point in sitting and waiting for the weather on the shore – I had to create the weather myself.

My husband never showed much activity or any strong desire for anything. I had always been a diametrically opposite kind of person. I was always active and had a lot of desires. I was thinking of my age, that time was flying, and soon it would be too late to even dream about having a child. I picked a good moment, telling my husband that we didn't need to use protection, to get pregnant. Yes, I was lying. Yes, I had calculated the exact time when I was most likely to conceive. Yes, it was my decision and my choice. At the intimate moment, I was begging God to send me a child. It occurred. It happened. I was jumping for joy! I was going to have a baby!

The renovations weren't going as quickly as I would have liked, but it didn't really bother me by that point. All my thoughts, all my wishes were focused on the appearance of a child in my life.

When I told my husband the news, I once again (for the second time in my life) didn't see any joy or excitement in response. This only served to assure me that I had made the right choice – I would have never gotten a child if I had waited for him to express his desire for one.

Finally, the renovations were finished, my stomach was quite visible, and I decided to discuss it with my daughter. We were having lunch all together at the kitchen table, and I asked my daughter: "Have you noticed that I gained a lot of weight?"

She nodded indifferently and vaguely, which meant, no, she hadn't, was it so important? With excitement in my voice, I told her that she would soon have a brother or sister. My daughter's face reddened, her eyes somehow got smaller, and she muttered something unclear and very little like "Congratulations." She didn't ask any questions. It was clear that she wasn't happy about this development. I just thought that when she saw this baby, she would absolutely love him and everything would be fine.

In this way, I reassured myself, but a barrier began to appear between my daughter and me. She never showed an interest in anything, never showed initiative, or any strong desires. But if she did wish for anything, I made it happen immediately. I don't remember a single instance of telling her "no" or forbidding her to do something. I thought at the time that this was the right thing to do, that this was the way to express my love. I did the very best for her that I could and I didn't know any other way to behave. See, even now, I'm making excuses, as if to her. But for what?

My second child

There is nothing more wonderful in this world than waiting for a miracle. And a true miracle is another living being growing inside of me. And the anticipation of an even greater miracle brought me such happiness that it was simply indescribable.

My husband wanted a son. The sex of my child didn't matter at all to me. But once, when we were all sitting behind the kitchen table having dinner, my daughter and my husband started talking about a boy that would shoot toy guns and fight with the other boys on the street. I couldn't have possibly predicted my reaction to these words. All of a sudden, with tears in my eyes, I said: "Don't talk about my girl like that!"

I forgot about it afterwards, without giving it any meaning.

Very often, I caught myself singing aloud when I was walking down the street or doing something around the house. Through singing, I expressed what was going on inside me. It's hard to say what this really was. Perhaps my egotism was singing. Perhaps my ego, having gotten what it wanted in such a laborious way, was celebrating its success. Perhaps my maternal instinct was triumphantly rejoicing. But somewhere deep inside me I knew that this was my celebration alone, only my joy, only my wait for a miracle, and that my prince, my husband had nothing to do with this joy.

Occasionally, my resentment slipped out, and I, finding any excuse, articulated it through yelling at my husband, directing a lengthy monologue of accusations in his direction and a never-ending stream of tears. It was like talking to a wall. I walked to the wall full of tears and complaints. I stood in front of this wall, so pitiful, so miserable, so upset. I'm talking and talking to it about my problems. Asking and asking this wall to pay attention to me. Begging and begging it to change something about itself. And in response, I got silence. And in response, there is no reaction. And in response, there is no response. What could be more impressive? So, from time to time, I was "impressed" in this way and continued to wait for my miracle with a song on the inside and outside.

I went to the doctor for regular tests. Everything was normal. I didn't feel like there were any problems, but towards the end of my pregnancy, the doctor said that she needed to "sew up" my uterus to prevent a chance of miscarriage. I wasn't at any risk for a miscarriage; this doctor just wanted to insure herself against an accident. But I only understood this later. I agreed to follow her advice. I didn't want to take risks with my long-awaited child.

My due date came. Exactly on that day, I felt weak cramps in my stomach, the precursor to contractions, but they stopped quickly. I continued to wait. I waited for a week after my due date. My stomach became so huge, and I felt so exhausted, that I was ready to do anything as long as all it ended. The doctor, after doing an exam, said that I needed to wait another week because there were no signs of contractions. I agreed, relying on the authority and knowledge of the doctor. Again, out of habit, I believed the doctors.

At the end of the second week after my due date, I told the doctor that I couldn't wait any longer, that something had to be done. I can't imagine what could have happened if I had continued to wait as the doctor had recommended.

I went into the hospital on Victory Day. This is a big holiday, but I had more important things on my mind. Doctors examined me, kept on doing tests. Finally they gave me a birthing date. As I understood then, this was the result of "sewing up" my uterus. I'm a very strong woman by nature and this interference with my body impeded the natural function of contractions during birth.

That morning I was given a very strong injection that was supposed to induce contractions. I remember that this shot made me first feel very hot, then panicked, and then indifferent. I lay down in the birthing chair and waited for the contractions to come, but nothing happened. Doctors gave me more injections; the contractions started, and then stopped again. Following the doctors' instructions, I was straining as hard as I could, but the child inside me wasn't moving. Suddenly, I realized clearly that I didn't want to live any more, that I couldn't suffer any longer, and at that moment, I saw a tunnel, filled with light. I entered it. It was so light there, so pleasant and so free.

All of a sudden, I heard the loud, screaming voice of the doctor:"Help us, you're losing the child!"

At these words, my mind came back and I started doing everything that I was capable of. The doctors grabbed the blanket and pressed with it on my stomach, practically squeezing the child out of me. I was out of my mind with fear and pain. When the child appeared, it didn't scream. The doctors jostled around it, giving it shots, slapping parts of the infant's body. In those minutes nothing existed for me except fear. And finally, the long-awaited cry. They showed her to me for a moment. It was a girl. She was chubby and very cute, her face wrinkled from screaming, looking very much like my mother-in-law.

According to the rules of the time, the child was taken from the mother and brought to her only on the third day.

I had been in labor for twelve hours. My body was black from my head to my stomach from my blood vessels bursting as I pushed hard to save my child.

But all of this was absolutely meaningless in comparison to the joy I felt because I had my baby, my little girl. A new life came to this earth and all my troubles were behind me.

My husband didn't visit me in the hospital for three days. Why? He was disappointed that it was a girl.

I swallowed another insult.

When my husband picked us up from the hospital, he gave me a big bouquet of flowers. This time I didn't have any fear of interacting with my child. My mom was waiting for us at our apartment. She had cooked up lots of delicious and healthy food, waiting impatiently to see her second granddaughter.

We were at home. My dear mom greeted us at the door. My husband's sister had also come over to see the new baby. My oldest daughter didn't show any emotions. I noticed this, but I didn't know how to react, what to say. What could I have said? It's either there or not there. It's the internal work of a person, which emotions can sincerely show. If a person is happy about something, there's no need to hide it. If it's a feeling of egotism, anger, or dissatisfaction, people usually hide them under a mask of indifference.

Finally, I saw my little girl. She was the height of perfection! Everything was so beautiful! I couldn't stop admiring my miracle!

There was a big difference in the feelings I experienced towards my daughters in the first few months after they were born. With my first girl, my fear, my anxiety, uncertainty, worries, inexperience took away all the moments of love, pleasure, and peace. And only after five months did I felt confident in interacting with my first little girl. With my second child, I wasn't anxious, I wasn't afraid of anything. This enabled me truly to enjoy motherhood, observing this small human growing and constantly changing. Where there is fear, there is no love; where there is no fear, there is love.

The very first evening after I came back from the hospital, when I was still very weak, my husband went to sleep in a different room. When I, awaking during the first night and walking up to my daughter's crib, didn't see him, I couldn't believe my eyes. But I found an excuse for him, that maybe he had worried too much and was tired, and that the next day everything would be fine. On the second night, when he was quietly closing the door to the other room behind him to leave me alone with the baby again, I broke down and asked: "Why don't you want to sleep with us?"

To which he answered calmly that he didn't want his sleep to be interrupted because he needed to go to work.

In those times, there were no diapers in our country. I used (like in the old times) soft cotton cloths that could be boiled, washed, and reused many times. For three months after my daughter's birth, I boiled these cloths every day, washed, and ironed them. It was a big daily task. Every day, I washed my apartment, so that my baby girl didn't breathe in dust. I made breakfasts, lunches, and dinners for the whole family. I walked outside with the baby every day in the fresh air. There was no time for being upset, for reminiscing, for paying attention to the behavior of my family. I was trying to be perfect in everything.

Did anyone ask me to do this? No. It was my choice.

I had a lot of breast milk. But with this child, there practically wasn't any left over. This was a little person who loved to eat and very often, overate. I fed her lying down. This is very comfortable and very significant. First of all, it allows the mother to rest and relax a bit. It creates an opportunity for the mother to establish a contact with the child. The wisdom of generations is passed on through breast milk, when the mother is relaxed and focusing only on her child. Intellect is sucked out together with the mother's milk. These incredible moments of breast feeding a child. There is nothing more wonderful in the world than these moments.

When my little girl was three and a half months old, I noticed that she was making movements, resembling attempts to sit up. I would kiss her and joke that it was too early for my little doll to sit up. She continued to make these movements, as if asking for help: "Mom, help me, I want to sit up!"

I knew that it was very early for her to sit. At home, when she wasn't sleeping, she kept on trying and trying to sit. I would distract her, and she would just turn from side to side. Once, while in her stroller on the street, she was making her attempts over and over again, and all of a sudden, burst out into sobs. She was crying so loudly that it seemed like the end of the world was already here. I helped her to sit up, and she calmed down immediately. She sat very confidently before she was four months old.

Having read many smart books while pregnant, I started to bathe her in the large bathtub from the time she was two weeks old. At first, I supported her head, and she floated on the water like a buoy. Gradually, I freed my hand, and she floated on the water without my help. It was a miracle. For some time, children retain their natural instinct, the ability to stay afloat. If it's supported from the age of two or three weeks, then the child will feel very confident in the water. I filled the tub for her every day. Sometimes I would even leave the bathroom for a minute and she would stay in the water by herself. Everything was great, but each time she wanted less and less to leave the water. Every time I took her out of the water, she screamed loudly, demanding that I put her back where I got her. My heart began to constrict when I thought she would scream when I took her out of the water. My unwillingness to hear that scream made me stop these bathing procedures.

My oldest daughter sometimes spent time with her sister, but as is stored in many photographs, there was no joy there, no love. I never asked her to do anything. I just did what I had to do and did everything to the best of my ability. I felt better when I stopped hoping for the help of other people.

On one of those rare days when my oldest daughter was playing with her sister, who was around seven months old, she got distracted and stopped holding her up. The child walked by herself across the whole living room! Her stride was very confident for the first steps of her life. Perhaps she could have done this even sooner, but we'll never know.

My husband continued to sleep in a separate room. I got very tired from doing housework and couldn't concentrate on my internal world, but from time to time, I felt the heartache. Again, I had no regular sex life. If something did happen, it was like the neighbor walked in for a minute, got his pleasure when he wanted it, and went on about his day. Only God knows how many times I performed my favorite exercise, "Talking to the Wall". And in response... silence.

After four months, my baby got diathesis all over her body. This was a truly trying time in my life. I was feeding her only with breast milk at the time. Doctors suggested that I pay attention to the food that I was eating. I could have eaten barley for weeks but the allergic reaction on my daughter's skin still remained. Doctors prescribed her very strong medicine. I gave it to her for a whole month but there were no improvements. We were seeing doctors constantly, having consultations, doing tests. I did everything that I could, consulted with all the specialists I could find in Minsk. At night, I held her hands so that she wouldn't tear her skin apart. And if she did try to scratch a spot on her body, I tried to gently pat it, so that she could keep sleeping.

I didn't sleep normally for the whole year. Every forty minutes, I woke up because of the diathesis bothering my child. Often at nights, I walked back and forth along the room to calm her down somehow. I wanted only one thing – to sleep. This was my only wish.

My husband didn't offer even once to spend the night with his daughter, so I could sleep in the other room. Anyway, by that time, I had stopped trusting that he could take care of her.

A few times, my dad came over during the day, took the stroller with the child, and went for a walk for a couple of hours. This was the golden time of my sleep that I will never forget. Thank you, daddy, for your help. My mom, if she did stop by for half an hour, only played with her granddaughter a little and left. She was always in a rush.

Of course, I was upset with my husband, my oldest daughter, my mom. I needed help so much then, but that help never came. Everyone was used to seeing in me a strong woman that would walk into a burning house, stop a running horse.

Now I know that God gave me this trial. When people create problems for us, we become weaker. If God gives us a trial and we endure it, we only get stronger.

When I had completely exhausted my strength, I decided to change my surroundings for a while and go to the country with my daughter for a month to stay with my husband's mom.

There I found support, there I found help, there I found love.

This was an amazing woman, who had spent her whole life in the village, raised three kids on her own, got an education, and worked as a teacher. She was retired, and we spent all of our time together. I always felt calm around her, like people feel when they have a trusted friend nearby. It's like the feeling of a shoulder that you can lean on. At night, when I was rocking my daughter in my arms and crying from exhaustion, she would sit down near me and just sit there, to support me. In the morning, when my baby woke up and I with her, her many cloth diapers were already washed. She had some sort of exceptional ability to help without words, express love without words, provide support in a difficult moment without words. We were together everywhere, cooked together, talked at length. I was so happy there. She warmed up my heart with love. She gave me hope that everything would be fine.

In their village, there was a woman who could heal people with her hands by sending them energy. I thought instantly about my daughter. We went to this woman and she agreed to treat my daughter. She made only a few simple gestures with her hands, after which she said that the child would feel better soon. We thanked her and went home. That evening, my daughter suddenly started crying loudly. I took her in my arms and saw that her skin was covered with small blisters. I felt that I was going insane. The child was crying louder and louder, and the blisters continued to appear. Screaming over the child's crying, I asked my mother-in-law what we were going to do, since there was no way to call an ambulance in the village. I started to panic. Blood rushed to my head, I was bewildered from the fear. After five minutes of this panicked terror, my child stopped crying, and her skin became completely smooth and clean, as if there had been nothing there at all. We were standing there looking at the child and couldn't believe our eyes. It was a miracle. Right away, we remembered the healer who had treated my girl that day and came to the conclusion that this was the body cleansing itself before healing.

That was my first encounter with alternative medicine.

After that day, my baby began to sleep a lot better, and once in a while, she got a bit of diathesis but it disappeared quickly.

After two nights of peaceful sleep, we happily decided to celebrate. My mother-in-law was a master of making moonshine from a very delicate and difficult process she had learned from her parents. She made this moonshine from sprouted grain with a small addition of potatoes, to create a process of fermentation. This was a crystal clear vodka with 90% strength and a smell of wheat. This alcoholic drink had a fascinating quality – when people drink it around the table, they don't feel drunk at all. I mean, drink it the Russian way, a lot of it. But when they stand up, they feel all of the symptoms of a drunk person.

This was the experience that my dear mother-in-law and I had. We sat for a long time behind the table, eating, drinking, and talking. We felt great. But late at night, when we decided to go to sleep and stood up from the table, we both fell down, because we were completely drunk. Laughing, we crawled to our beds because our legs refused to obey us and fell asleep immediately. The next morning, we felt surprisingly good, which showed the high quality of the alcoholic drink that my mother-in-law had produced. A deep bow to you, kind and wise lady, for your selfless help in a difficult time for me.

We came home. My youngest daughter had started walking and was interested in everything that she could reach. This created an additional burden for me. I had to focus all of my attention on her. As soon as I turned away, her mouth was full of rocks or sand. She was trying to discover this world through taste. She got to know this world, while changing herself, and this brought me indescribable joy. Each day brought something new in her behavior, gestures, or words. She started to talk and pronounced her words very clearly. At feeding time, while she sat at the table, I would put in front of her one letter from the Russian alphabet. I named this letter. I named this letter in the same tone of voice as I named regular words like glass, plate, berry, and so on. Every day, I put a new letter on the table and named it. At age one, my daughter knew the whole Russian alphabet. She couldn't pronounce all of the letters, but she could point each one out on a big blow-up ball without a problem. The naming of letters and what they looked like entered her life exactly like the labeling of objects surrounding us.

Life went on as usual. My oldest daughter was going to school, playing tennis, and steadily entering adolescence. Her favorite phrase became: "Leave me alone, I'm doing homework."

She sat in her room with the door closed and in response to any of my attempts to involve her in family life, she covered herself with her favorite phrase, like with an impenetrable shield. Once, when my younger daughter was sleeping badly and the older daughter came home late, I couldn't fall asleep until she got home, so I decided to have a serious talk with her. I told her that I had slept very little and not to come home so late, as I got worried, and, well, to have some compassion for me! After this talk, she started coming home much later, almost every day. I tolerated this, but one day my patience ran out. I met her in the door with a belt in my hands. God knows how I despise any sort of punishment, especially corporal! But at that time, I didn't know what to do. Words weren't helping. I wanted to sleep so badly that I thought I would die from exhaustion – so I needed to use the old-fashioned elders' method of punishment – the belt.

In a raised voice, I asked her why she was home so late. But she, seeing the belt in my hands, without saying a word, made a face that meant: "I hate you!"

Reading the answer in her face, blood rushed to my head, either from lack of sleep, or from exhaustion, or from the thought of "who's the boss here?" It's difficult to say now, but I was furious like I had never been before in my life. I spanked her a few times with the belt. She stood there, like a statue dug into the ground, with the same expression of hatred on her face. She only hissed through clenched teeth: "Go on, hit me again."

I lowered my hands. I realized that in punishing her, I was punishing myself very deeply and very powerfully. I saw in front of me an "iron lady", who did not comprehend compassion or respect. It's hard to describe the heartache, the disappointment in my life that I felt then. I had never before asked her to do anything, I had never refused her anything, and this is what I got in return.

After this incident, I never waited for her to get home and never asked her to do anything again. My oldest daughter never tried to talk to me, and I was afraid of talking to her. I always felt that it was all my fault, but what "it" was exactly, I didn't know.

Business

While I was on maternity leave, I was fired from my job. This was a massive layoff of people due to the reduction of plans and the economic crisis in our country. It meant that after a month, I would no longer get paid and that my family would have to live on my husband's salary. My unexpected layoff was a shock for me. For a couple of months we lived normally, having had some savings. My husband didn't have a steady job, but frequently left for the entire day or sat in his workshop all day, claiming that he was working. Respecting his job and hoping that the family would survive on his salary, I never asked him for help around the house or with the baby.

Once I discovered that I had such a small amount of money in my wallet that I couldn't even buy a bottle of milk. I told my husband that I didn't have any money, and that he needed to do something immediately because the family needed to be fed every day. He was silent as always, but I thought that this was a desperate situation and that he was sure to come up with something. In the morning, I heard him shut the door behind him and go to work. He got home late at night and didn't even mention money. I was very busy that evening, and we didn't discuss it. The next morning, I again heard only the sound of the door closing behind my husband. This was a true betrayal. I was sitting at home with a child and was tied up from hands to feet, while he, without explaining anything, just left, and he didn't even care that I couldn't even buy food. I understood clearly that I could rely only on myself. I swallowed this betrayal then, but it was very difficult to swallow.

Naturally, when he came home, I executed the exercise called "talking to the wall". When I let out my accumulated resentment in this way, I felt better for a little while, but a few hours later, felt that my uncontrollable emotions had caused harm to my body, which expressed it through headaches, heartburn, or heartache. I compressed my grudges inside me, gradually creating problematic blockages in my body.

My exercise but with a slight delay. My husband got paid and bought the necessary groceries.

A few days later, I was in the bookstore and saw a box with an enticing description of a new software for creating databases. The word "database" was the key to initializing a stream of new ideas in my head. I reasoned in this way. I could rely on nobody in this life, so I needed to work. I couldn't go to work for another year; I had to be with my daughter. Thus, I needed to start a business that I could do from home.

Without having any concrete ideas in my head, I bought this software along with a book explaining how to create a database and how to turn it into a program that would be ready for use. I started, in bursts, using any free minute, studying this software. Having almost no free time, I studied it while my daughter was sleeping, while she played in the sandbox, while I was making lunch, stirring the soup with one hand and holding the book in the other. I wanted so badly to be financially independent! As I studied this system, I began to envision my business clearly.

This was so new for me! But nothing ventured, nothing gained. A person allows himself to take a risk only when fear does not control his desire. I had a strong desire to start my own business, without having any experience of how it was done, and I had no fear of failure.

Having read all the instructions and practiced how to create, how to support, how to work with databases, I felt that I was ready to go from theory to practice. Right at that time, I started taking my youngest daughter to kindergarten and having more spare time.

And so I had a tool with which I could earn money. I had to find the people in need of my knowledge for their business. Nobody taught me how to do this so I could rely only on my intuition. I decided to call various companies and offer my database creation services. At that time, this was a very novel concept, and many people had only a vague idea of what it was and how a database could help their businesses. I made calls all day long (while my child was at kindergarten) for two weeks. This was a very good test for me. My egotism was constantly sending me the thought: Who needs your stupid databases? Nobody is going to call you back.

I would stop further development of the story my ego was creating. From time to time, fear stuck out its head with the thought: I'll be left without a job like this. What are we going to live on?

I tried to stop my fear by telling myself that I had lots of other options for making money. I could knit people sweaters or sew dresses and skirts.

Everyone was used to seeing in me a strong woman that would walk into a burning house, stop a running horse. But whose shoulder could I lean on?

It wasn't so easy to believe in myself, to believe that it was possible to make my wish come true. My dream was conflicting with my own doubts.

My doubts were fueled constantly by harsh and sometimes even rude responses over the phone. I took this new experience of communicating with people as a personal insult or as a personal compliment. I let the intonation of every person's voice pass through to my internal emotions, since I was unable to protect my internal world from external interference.

After the second week of constant futile phone calls, I suddenly felt that I had done everything I could, that I couldn't continue making these calls. I told my husband with tears in my eyes:"That's it. I give up on this dream."

How did I feel? I was in a hunched position, which is the traditional pose of ego.

The next day, I started cleaning the apartment, even though everything was already clean, showing myself that your place is in the kitchen, "business-woman".

But a phone call interrupted my cleaning. The head accountant of a very large company informed me that a few days ago her assistant had talked to me on the phone, that I had offered my database creation services, that she was very interested, and that she would like to meet with me. Her simple, human way of talking without any attempts to make herself seem better than she was crossed immediately the position of a hunched body out of my memory and gave the feeling of wings behind my back. After a few words, she asked if I could come to the office immediately and talk about a number of problems my help was needed to solve. When I heard the address and found out where this company was located, I felt that this had not happened without some intervention of the powers from above. The firm was near my house.

While I was cleaning myself up before my meeting with my very first client, from that very minute, I felt the appearance of some kind of confidence and freedom inside me that opened a new page in my life. I had known a similar freedom before when I was in school, or playing the piano and tennis. I knew then that I could do everything. Then the search for a prince on a blue horse made me forget about my abilities and put me in a state of waiting for the prince's help. Apparently, not finding any help from the blue horse or the prince, I remembered that which I had known well before... I need to rely only on myself.

I entered the office and we started immediately talking about the questions that this company wanted to resolve with the help of the possibilities of a database. The question of whether they wanted to hire me wasn't even discussed. We just went to work, skipping the official part. Apparently, everything had been decided for us up above, and we just needed to agree with their decision, which is what we did.

This job exceeded all of my greatest expectations. Everything that I had dreamed about came true. I had a job that I loved, financial independence, my own work schedule, interaction with new people.

According to the standards of society, I was a completely successful person. I had a husband, kids, parents, a car, and a business. Just live and enjoy. I enjoyed it the best I could, all of it, to the best of my abilities.

Perestroika

The time when I was starting my business coincided with a period of time in our country that has been given the name "Perestroika" (meaning restructuring). Of course, if I were to give it a title, I would have called it "Destruction".

When people rebuild a house, they empty out the part of the house that they need to work on, but they leave a space in the home to live in. When restructuring a house, people first make a plan in their heads. They imagine clearly what they want to change, demolish, build up, restructure, and what to build anew. When the plan is ready in their heads, it needs to be executed. Before starting to work, people prepare materials for the job, hire specialists, or learn how to do it themselves. If the plan in their heads was successful, then the restructuring will help these people to live more comfortably. If the plan was erroneous, then the restructuring will bring massive headaches and problems, and will not improve their lives for the better. This can happen if there is a plan. Since there was no plan, that means this "Perestroika" happened by God's will.

The "Perestroika" can be described using the following example.

Some people have been living in a house. Everything is arranged, everything is familiar. Each person knows his neighbors, he knows from whom he can buy bread and to whom to sell the new crops from his garden. These people went to work in the morning and came back to their house surrounded by new neighbors, new people. Nobody can explain anything. Strangers all around. Who sells bread? Who buys vegetables? Those people no longer exist... there is no more certainty. And in addition, each person has his own currency: Belarusian zaichiks, American dollars, Ukrainian hryvni, Russian rubles. What to do with them?

Destroy, not build. You can quickly destroy, but time is needed to erect. Maybe this was God's plan?

In our large country, even in higher education institutions, people were not given the knowledge or even the basic ideas about entrepreneurship, about the possibility of a person organizing his own business venture, planning its activities, working with vendors and customers. All of these questions belonged to the state's activity. The government thought. People just implemented what the government had thought up. During the "perestroika" when all of the business relations between republics, companies, and people were destroyed, when people were being fired due to company closures or bankruptcy, when the money in people's bank accounts was being "eaten up" by inflation, people began to panic. Panic was the first reaction to what was happening in the country. After that the panic turned into, for some people, the feeling of fear of what would happen the next day, and for others, and there were quite a lot of them, a feeling of uncertainty.

Fear always stops us from action, and uncertainty forces us to look for ways to act. People were discussing what was happening everywhere. The first to "suffer" was the intelligentsia. In our country, many people had higher education, had worked for a long time, and often for their whole lives, in one place. Having reached their professional peak, for a long time they continued to live calmly, without worrying about future self-improvement and changes in their life. If water stands still for a long time, it spoils. Both people and the earth are made of seventy percent water. Maybe this was included in God's plan?

When a country goes through an economic, political, financial, and psychological crisis simultaneously, who cares about super precise resistors, which are calibrated by a laser and controlled by a computer? When a person is hungry, and he has no money to buy food, how can he think about visiting the theater? Who can you ask for help if the government apparatus itself had lost its meaning in the Communist Party as the guiding organization leading to communism?

People could ask for help from God, but there was no belief in him either.

This is why almost the entire intelligentsia was sitting at home (not willingly, by force), waiting for the weather to change. There was only demand for people of trade professions. In a short amount of time, the majority of the intelligentsia "ate through" their money, and those in demand began to live much better materially than before the "perestroika".

For a time, this situation in the country became a "restructuring" of the people located on different levels of the social ladder. The level of each person on the social ladder depends highly on his income. This is one side of the coin. To occupy this level in society, you also need knowledge, intellect, entrepreneurial spirit, the ability to talk, and much more. This is the flip side of the very same coin. And at that moment, the people who had only the first side of the coin started trying to prove their superiority in society through having money. They bought nice food, drove cars, wore expensive clothing, which was completely inaccessible for people whose professions were not in demand at that time.

I felt then only the complete injustice of what was happening. Around me, I saw many people changing their behavior drastically. This was an ugly or uncertain, or suppressed, or defeatist, or indifferent attitude to life. The social ladder, built in society on the basis of a fairy tale about the building of enlightened communism, was destroyed. The illusion of the societal social ladder created not on the basis of intelligence but on the amount of money in your pocket held for some time in the restructured country, as a symbol of general chaos. Or perhaps this wasn't chaos, but rather the beginning of changes according to God's plan?

And so, some people were enjoying their long-awaited significance in society. Other people, forgetting about their diplomas, knowledge, education, having lost any hope for the return of the old society and not believing in themselves, started working at in-demand, unqualified, but still paid jobs. There were those who just sat at home, waited, took no action, didn't think too much, didn't discuss... waited. Eventually people appeared with new ideas, with an entrepreneurial approach. These "new people" started making movements directed at searching for change. They were the pioneers that laid the path from one type of society, where everything was always decided by the government, to the other type of society, where the person has the chance to decide for themselves, to act for themselves, to try by themselves, and to change by themselves.

The success of the first entrepreneurs in the country was varied. Some quickly made enough money to open their own companies, firms, production, and to continue with their business. Others, having lost the last of their money to investing in the search of their business, gave up and turned to drinking or looking for a job. Some found themselves in entrepreneurship, others got life experience. But both the lucky and unlucky entrepreneurs showed the uncertain people that there was a way out of the current situation, and that they needed to look for it.

It's like being lost in a forest, when you don't know how to find your way home but suddenly hear far off the crowing of a rooster. You don't yet know the way that leads to the rooster, but you already have hope for getting out of the forest.

At the time of the "Perestroika", all the money being saved in banks lost its value. I had been saving money for my first daughter to use when she turned eighteen. When I had put the money in the bank account, it was enough to buy a good car, garage, and put on an expensive wedding. After the "Perestroika", if you were to take this money out of the bank, you could buy only the cheapest TV with it.

My father, who liked to save money for a rainy day, lost all the money that he had saved up bit by bit, skimping on basic needs. This was exactly the kind of rainy day for which this money was being saved. The money fulfilled its purpose, but the people had many worries, disappointments, and fears.

Our ancestors left us many sayings, among which one can always find the words to describe the essence of what is happening at any given time. These words: "Every cloud has a silver lining."

Many pensioners, no longer hoping for a financially secure old age provided by the government started taking out plots of land in the country and growing fruits and vegetables for themselves. But most importantly, many people again asked for help from Mother Earth.

Health problems

Life went on. My oldest daughter was in middle school. The youngest was in kindergarten. My husband worked. And I sat behind the computer all day, creating databases and software for them. There was a lot of work. There was enough money for living comfortably.

At that time, I was like a wound-up mechanism. I don't remember what I felt then, what I thought about. I raced madly through life with only one desire – to do everything on time. To cook breakfast for my family while they slept. To start cooking lunch while making breakfast. To complete a project on time. To meet with my client in time to be able to make dinner. Before dinner, I had to pick up my daughter from kindergarten. I had to find some time to wash the windows or floors for my mother, or to cut my parents' hair. I had to find time to clean my apartment before the dust became noticeable. I had to find time to do laundry before the last clean shirt was taken from the closet.

I had to do everything on time, a time that I had set for myself. Who asked me to plan my life in such a hideous way? Nobody. I was my own director, producer, and actor. Always proving something to myself, wanting to be perfect in everything. I had never realized this. I was running like a saddled-up horse foaming at the mouth and didn't notice that I had long been in need of rest.

I lost myself in my concerns which could all, without exception, have waited. Between "concerns", I found rest in smoking. I would stand on the balcony, take a "stinking" stick into my hand, and suck on it, thinking that I was resting during that time. And this "rest" happened more and more frequently.

My body probably gave me preliminary SOS signals, but I didn't have time to pay attention to them. Then my body, worn out from the stress caused by constant vanity, and by long periods of sitting stationary in front of the computer, began to falter. I got migraines more and more frequently. More and more often, I had very low blood pressure. More and more flaming sparks of pain shot through my neck and back. I tried to ignore all of it. I took a few pills on the go and continued to run.

The body shows the screaming of the soul. But who can it show it to?

One day, I couldn't move because of a sharp pain in my back. Pills didn't help. My soul, having lost all hope of being heard, put my body in bed, to give me some time to be with myself. And I so badly didn't want this! I didn't even know what it was to be with myself. I believed that a doctor would come, prescribe me medicine or a course of treatment, and I would be healthy again.

I called the doctor to my house. She came, examined me and said: "What were you expecting, at your age? Be glad that it wasn't any worse."

This was beyond all possible expectations! I was just over thirty-five years old!

When the doctor left, I was in shock. It was like a sentence to life imprisonment. It was a message informing me of the end of my life. It was the last drop in the chalice of my trust in medicine and doctors. How much more could I take?! Doctors forbade me to play tennis because of my unhealthy heart but life showed that this was a false diagnosis! By mistake, they had made my second pregnancy dangerous for not only my life but also for my daughter's life. They absolutely didn't help with the allergy that my daughter had and still has, despite the amount of strong medicine that she had taken! They had given a deadly and false diagnosis to my first daughter that had caused irreparable damage to the health of my whole family!

Everything inside me was indignant, deploring the unfairness of life. I blamed all medicine and doctors. Who is responsible for the words that are said? After all, a word can heal or a word can kill. Who is responsible for false diagnoses? I didn't have an answer then. I didn't know yet that every person must be responsible for his own life and not to give that responsibility to somebody else. I understood that later.

Apparently, my strong emotions and the rest I got from staying in bed did their job. A few days later, I was able to return to my insane rhythm of life.

This situation changed something inside me. I had already started to pay attention to my health and realized that I needed to do something about it, to change something. But what?

When there is a question, the answer appears.

My husband had a friend with whom he had a business together. This man, who was completely like any other man in the world, could somehow send the energy of the universe to a person, and in many cases this person was healed. To me, this seemed like a complete miracle, something that only a very special person could possess. Once, when this man was at our house and I had a huge headache, I got up the nerve to ask him for help. This was more about my curiosity about what this man could do rather than any hope of getting rid of my headache. Happily, he agreed to help. He looked at me attentively for a few seconds, and then said that it was done and that my headache would soon disappear. I thanked him and went on about my day. Only in the evening, I realized that I had worked all day without a headache, that it had gone away almost immediately after his "work", and that I had forgotten about it instantly.

I only smiled, thinking that many coincidences happen in life.

This happened every time when I had problems with my health, this man was somewhere nearby and ready to help. Every time his help worked. I began to trust this person and his abilities.

Once he told me that he had a friend, a woman who could also heal using energy, but that she was a folk healer and psychic. I asked him to introduce me to her. I had no idea what I could talk to her about. Such concepts as energy, God, and clairvoyance gave me mixed feelings. On the one hand, I had grown up in a family where words like God, religion, prayer, obedience, and fasting were never even said aloud. On the other hand, I knew for sure that some kind of energy that I had no control over was inside me. I felt that it was something that I couldn't betray or deceive. I felt it inside me but I didn't know the words to describe it.

Once this woman appeared in our house. We started talking. She told me about many interesting things that I had never heard of. She talked about healing herbs and prayers, about seeing that which couldn't be seen with the human eye, about meditation and Universal energy. It seemed that this was all from the area of miracles and only the chosen few could access it.

I started talking to her about my health problems. She readily agreed to help, telling me that she would treat me every day, at the same time and from a distance. I didn't even try to ask her how it was possible for her to treat me while in her own house many kilometers away. It was difficult for me to even formulate such a question.

I sat at the appointed treatment time, alone in my house, and just tried to feel what I felt. It was so unusual for me. I felt streams of energy in my body, changing directions. This is impossible to describe, this needs to be felt. Almost two weeks passed of very pleasant treatment, and I discovered suddenly that my neck felt completely normal, headaches stopped bothering me, the ache in my back was gone, and that my blood pressure was normal. I was a participant of a miracle at work. Many words and tears of gratitude were given to this wonderful healer.

I knew then that I had found what I was looking for – a person who could always help me if I had a problem with my health.

My brother

My brother was five years older than me. As long as I remember myself as a child, I had always wanted to be near him, but I remember only smacks on the head and the rude words that I received and heard from him. When I think about my brother now, I know that God sends nothing but angels.

My brother and I lived in the same room, and our parents in the other. I was in primary school, played tennis, played music, and always in a rush. Once my brother came very close to me and in a commanding tone that would not tolerate objections, said:"Look at our room. Look what a mess you've made here. Look, your stuff is everywhere. If I see this again, I will throw away all of your things and you'll never see them again."

Then he left the room. For the first time in my life I noticed what was going on in our room. My underwear, shirts, shorts, and sports pants were in every corner. One of my running shoes was peeking out from under the bed; another one of my shoes was lying in the middle of the room. I noticed that among the things strewn across the whole room, nothing belonged to my brother. I glanced inside our shared closet and saw that his clothing was neatly folded on his shelves.

This one phrase changed my attitude towards maintaining order for my whole life.

I folded my things carefully on the closet shelves, put my shoes away, and looked around the room. I liked what I saw. Everything was in its place. Cleanliness and order. Thank you, my dear brother, for the lesson that you gave me.

My brother had an unusual sense of humor. He found something to laugh at even when it seemed there was no place for a joke. His jokes were always very short, like a shot reaching its goal.

Once my mom made cabbage rolls for dinner. These are made of ground meat mixed with rice and wrapped in cabbage leaves, with sour cream poured on top. We piled cabbage rolls onto our plates and sat down to eat together, all three of us: my mom, my brother, and I. The delicious food made us quiet down for some time. We were chewing the food with relish when my mom suddenly, with a feeling of satisfaction from good food, said: "This is why I love cabbage rolls, because they have cabbage in them."

I immediately reacted to her words and said: "I love cabbage rolls because there's meat in them."

My brother, using the same tone with which we were praising the food, said: "I love cabbage rolls for the sour cream."

My brother caused many problems for my parents. The school, the neighbors, and even strangers complained about him. My parents, trying to distract him from bad behavior, tried to give him something to do. Once he showed an interest in photography. My parents bought him a camera, a magnifier, basins for washing the film, and other equipment needed for developing film and printing photos. Then he became interested in burning patterns, pictures into wood. In our house appeared jigsaws, cardboard plates, and some other objects unknown to me. Then my brother became interested in fishing. Fishing rods, hooks, and fresh fish appeared in the house. The time of exploring the new skill was a calm time for my parents. My brother took photographs, studied how to get the best result, printed photos, and again studied something. Whatever he took up, he could always get the best result. But as soon as he got this result, he lost interest in doing it. He was interested in the process of learning a skill, not using the skill over and over again.

At the time, my mom sewed us clothes, knitted sweaters, or made napkins in the evenings. It was a very cold winter. The weather reached thirty Celsius below. I asked my mom to knit me warm pants out of sheep wool. My brother, who had never taken knitting needles into his hands, said: "I can knit them for you."

Within five minutes, my mom was showing her son how to make loops to begin knitting and how to make a pattern for the pants.

My brother so enthusiastically knitted me these long pants for two weeks that he forgot all about the problems that he had "planned" to create for my parents. I wore these long knitted pants for almost three winters. They were fantastic. Thank you, my dear brother, for the warmth of your hands.

My brother wanted to gain experience not only in learning "good" things, but just as passionately wanted to learn things that were not on the list of parental support but that captivated him for his whole life.

He started smoking very early. We had a neighbor in our house, a single man, who was fond of drinking. He didn't like to drink vodka alone, and he started to invite my brother frequently over to keep him company, which was the beginning of a future alcohol dependency. My parents worked all day long and couldn't control this. Already in the oldest grades of school, he started coming home drunk. He began to drink more and more. A few times while drunk, he would steal somebody's car just to drive around and leave it somewhere. The police would catch him, and my dad had problems getting his son released from the drunk tank.

My mother dreamed of marrying off her son, which she thought would solve all of their problems. He got married, a child was born, but the problems didn't decrease. Then my parents decided to give their son and his family their own apartment, which they thought would fix their family life and stop their son's frequent drunkenness. They moved to the new apartment, but my brother's drinking turned into a firm alcoholic dependency. When my brother was in a bout of binge drinking, his wife would call a taxi, put him in the car, and send him to his parents, with the thought "enjoy what you brought up." It's very difficult to live with an alcoholic, sometimes impossible. My brother's wife was a very good woman, but constantly to put up with a drunken person in front of a son was difficult. They got divorced.

My brother returned to my parents' house under our mother's caring wing. Like most mothers, my mom tried to give her son lots of attention, assuming that his would help him stop drinking. She often played board games with him just so he would be distracted and wouldn't think about vodka. Often at night, when my brother woke up and asked for a drink, and if the vodka had run out, my mom went to the store to get vodka. Sometimes, the strength, patience, and hope left my mom. Our father could only curse his son for his drinking, which caused her even more suffering.

Who could she ask for help? Me – I was the daughter after all, and he was my brother. I had my own family, my own problems and cares. But these were my parents. When my parents asked for help, all my family's problems took second place. I ran to my parents' house every time they needed my help. At my mom's request, I made my brother an appointment with a specialist who treated alcoholism with hypnosis. I took him to the sessions. He finished the course of treatment. After this treatment, he didn't drink for a couple of weeks, and then started drinking even more. Then we found other doctors... nothing helped.

My brother never asked us for help. He liked to drink. All of our efforts brought no results. My brother worked in his garage between periods of drinking. In these short breaks, he could make enough money to buy the vodka necessary for his next binge.

Interesting fact. Long before my brother became an alcoholic, he and I were talking about life one of those rare moments when we were close with each other, and he frankly said: "When I'm over forty, I dream of having saved up money to sit at home and drink vodka."

At the time, I had taken it as a fairly stupid joke. But he had been telling the truth. His wish came true even better than he could have dreamed.

When my brother was drinking, it was a mess without an ending. I tensed up each time the phone rang, thinking that it was my mom calling again, that something had happened again. In my family, I talked constantly about my brother's problem. I'm certain that at that time, my daughters felt neglected because their mom ran from the house like crazy, and when she returned, she was always in tears and full of grievances. This big problem with my brother made my parents' life, my life, and my family's life very stressful.

Apparently, this stress took its toll on my father's health. In the late spring, my mom called me to say that my dad had lost consciousness in the bathroom after a shower, and that the doctors were afraid of taking him to the hospital because he may not survive the transfer. Without letting her finish, I threw the phone down and rushed over to her. When I arrived, I saw my dad, lying on the couch with his eyes closed; it looked like he was sleeping. The doctor said that my dad had a stroke, that he hoped he would regain consciousness. He never did. He died three days later.

For the first time in my life, I encountered death. It had never occurred to me that one of my parents could die. I never discussed death with my parents. They were probably afraid of it. And all of a sudden this tragedy crashed down on my unprepared head. While my dad was still breathing, without regaining consciousness, my mom sent me to the cottage to water the garden. Why was it so important for her to think about the garden then? What was really going on inside her? I'll never find out.

I went to the cottage and felt that I was losing my mind. I didn't know how and what to think, how and what to say, how it was possible that my dad could die, what it was exactly, death. When a new question occurs to a person, it means their mind is undergoing changes. My heartache was due to the fact that I didn't want anything to change; I wanted everything to always be the same and familiar. But that doesn't happen in life. Our life can't offer us anything permanent.

When we buried my dad, I felt as if I was sleeping. He was lying in his grave in the middle of the room where I was born and had spent a significant part of my life. He had no wrinkles; probably death had smoothed them out. Everything inside me refused to accept what was happening as reality. I wanted everything to be over, if such a thing had already happened.

When my father left this earthly life, my mom's life also changed. For better or worse, she had lived with my father her whole life. In all these years, much in her life had become familiar. It's very difficult to change habits. And now the time had come for her to change many of her old habits. This is a big job, requiring a lot of effort, taking up a lot of energy. And on top of that there was her son, an alcoholic, not allowing her to relax. Now that my mom was a widow, her needs for my assistance increased. Almost every day my mom had a reason to call me and give me something to do. One day, I was washing the floors in her house; the next I had to go to the cottage and shovel earth; another day I had to drive my mother to the cottage and another day pick her up. I never told my mom, I never could. As I saw it, even if my mom was wrong, I agreed with her and did things the way she wanted. Pulling myself apart into two families, I was unable to give my full attention to either of them.

Once, my mom called me late at night and said that my brother was drunk and had hit her in the shoulder. She said that I needed to call the police and come to her house. She added: "Who can save me if not you?"

I saw no end to my outrage at my brother's behavior. He had raised a hand to my mom! I hated him!

I called the police. I was afraid to go inside the house; I was scared to encounter my drunk brother. I waited for the police for three hours. All this time, I was walking around the house alone on a cold and windy night. For the first time in my life, I felt hatred. This feeling was tearing me apart. I walked and repeated the words that were tearing out of my chest: "Let my father take him. Let my dad free my mom from this drunken freak!"

Without realizing what was going on in my own head, I was begging God for the death of my own brother!

The police came. Took my brother to the drunk tank for a few days. And then, again binge drinking, again problems. He didn't live himself and didn't let others live. My life seemed like a black tunnel without an exit.

There's a good joke about a goat for this situation.

A guy is walking down the street complaining. Everything is going wrong, things are tough at work, there are problems in his family, his health is shot. He runs into an old friend, or in another interpretation – a sage – and hearing his complaints about life, the sage advises him to buy a goat.

" _That would help?" asks the miserable man, dumbfounded by this advice._

" _Absolutely!"_

A week later, this unhappy man is walking along and cursing even more himself and everybody around him.

" _Bad, so bad. My family is falling apart. No job, no money... and on top of everything this goat, I have to take care of it, feed it, milk it. Everything is so bad!"_

And the sage-friend says to him:

" _Want some advice?"_

" _Yes!"_

" _Sell your goat."_

The poor man did so. The next day he's walking and bouncing! Sings happily:

" _Thank you, kind man. Life is so good!"_

I mean to say that when life seems very difficult and unbearable, it only seems that way. We need to learn to accept life the way that it is and not complain.

My brother, in a short period between drinking binges, met a woman. There were feelings between them, it's difficult to say what kind of feelings, but these feelings influenced their desire to get married. All the three actions in their life happened very fast: meeting, marriage, moving. Perhaps my brother wanted to hide his alcohol dependence from his bride by speeding up procedures, so that nobody would have the time to tell her the truth. Or maybe the bride, finding out that this guy with the red face from too much alcohol had his own car, garage, and an apartment in the center of the city (with his mother, but that problem was temporary), decided that her finest hour had come.

My mom sighed with relief, again assuming that the second wife would whip her son into shape. My dear dreamer. Your dream never got to come true.

This new wife did involve herself actively in my brother's life. The very next day, my brother, under the influence of his wife, announced that he wanted to live with his wife in the big room, and that my mom had to move to the small room. My mom was very upset because living in the small room she wouldn't have access to the things that were very dear and familiar to her. Of course, she called me and asked for help. I went to her house and had a huge fight with my brother. I threatened him with the police, called him an alcoholic. I screamed that he had no right to decide what my mom would do or where she would live. My brother was slightly drunk (I got lucky) and spewing out very dirty words, threw me out the door. He said that I was to never step foot in his house again, and if I did, he would cripple me.

I was scared. I knew that people with an alcoholic dependency are very sick, that it's difficult for them to control their emotions. Only God knows how much I cried at home. My family members, probably tired of my constant problems with my brother, took no part in my concerns.

My parents' house became foreign to me. I visited my mom only when my brother wasn't home. My heart would skip a beat from the fear that he could appear. My mom was also very stressed out. She was no longer the head of the household, although she continued to live in the big room. I tried to invite my mom over to my house as often as possible, but she was used to her house, to her neighbors, and she didn't want to bother my family with her presence. My heart was being torn into pieces. I wanted so badly to help my mother restore justice that my wish became my obsession.

My brother continued to drink. I had no idea then what could have possibly compelled that woman to sleep in the same bed, to be constantly in a small room with a drunk person who smelled very bad and couldn't articulate his words. Later I understood that she had a clear plan.

Once I brought groceries to my mom's house, and she asked me to come up to her room and listen to the sounds that her drunk son was making. Hiding my fear, I went up to the second floor with a skipping heart and heard the roar of a beast. It was a terrifying sound, very much like the roar of an animal trapped in a cage. At that moment, I understood that my brother was very sick, and that he didn't know what he was doing. My anger at him vanished immediately, but the fear remained. I was afraid of my brother, afraid that he would hit me or my mom. I was afraid for my mom, who had to live in these circumstances. Many times I invited her to come live with me, but she didn't want to.

I was thrashing around in this life too, like a trapped animal, but not in a cage, rather in a big circle. Around the perimeter of this circle were checkpoints with the names of my obligations: work, cooking, my mom, the cottage, my brother, youngest daughter, oldest daughter, husband, laundry, cleaning, work. There was no place for me in this circle. For a moment, I couldn't or didn't know how, or didn't want to, check in with myself, to ask myself the simple question: "How are you? What would you like?"

Again, my life was covered in darkness in which light does not belong.

I started making good money and decided to buy a car. I didn't understand at all, and still don't understand car makes and their various advantages in terms of fuel efficiency, reliability, and so on. For me good indicators of a car's quality are its color and how it looks.

I asked my husband to help me choose the right car. As usual, he answered something between yes and no, and made no movements towards doing it. I realized that I could wait for him forever. I asked my friends to help me. They advised me to buy a car from one of their friends, telling me that the price was good and that the car wasn't in bad shape. I brought this car to my house. I went up to our apartment to ask my husband to come downstairs and look at this car. But, he said that he was busy and didn't want to do it. Thisinsulted me this and brought me a lot of heartache.

Once, I drove my mother home from her cottage and without going up to the apartment, went home. A short while later, my mom called me and said that my brother had been taken to the hospital in very bad shape. I had a dual reaction to this news. On one hand, sympathy for my brother, and on the other, a feeling of relief that finally something in this life would change. I went to my mother's house. She told me that when she went up to her room, she heard groans from her son's room. She opened the door and saw a striking picture: her son was alone in the room, lying on the floor, his face an unnatural color, choking. My mom instantly called the ambulance, which arrived very quickly. Doctors took him to the hospitaland said that his insides were burning, starting with his throat, and that they would explain the details later.

We called the hospital frequently, and they told us that my brother's wife was already there and that all of the information about his condition would be given to her. The first question was how did she know that he was in the hospital?

The next day, anticipating a disaster, my mom went to the hospital. She talked to the attending physician and found out that her son had drunk seventy percent vinegar essence. The liquid had burned his throat, lungs, and stomach. The damage was not reversible, and there was no chance of recovery. My mom probably had dual feelings as well.

The last few years my brother didn't live, he existed in a constant nightmare. Alcohol dependency had taken his life. His entire existence became brutal torture. Alcohol had made him into an animal, one that demanded only alcohol, and had turned off his brain. He lived in a world surrounded by snakes, floods, and monsters. In very rare and brief moments of clarity, when he remembered that he was a person, he felt guilt. As soon as reality appeared in his thoughts, it scared him, and he, trying to "forget" this fear, drowned it out with vodka, which led to running in a circle that had no escape. My brother had turned not only his own life into a nightmare. The nightmare became my mom's life as well.

Was his wife's life a nightmare? Yes, there was some discomfort. But for the sake of getting what she wanted, she could put up with it. According to the laws of our country at that time, all assets belonging to the husband or wife become shared by them only after three years of living together. Exactly three years had passed to the day of their living together. Perhaps it's a coincidence.

My mom said that this poisonous liquid was standing in the kitchen cupboard in a place inaccessible to her son. If he had tried to get this liquid himself, he would have had to take many things out of the cupboard to get to it. Even if he had done so, he would have been unable to put everything back in its proper order. Only his wife knew where this poison was. But if you're not caught, you're not a thief. This mystery died together with my brother. It's possible that she did one good deed in her life, putting my brother out of his misery.

My brother died on his third day in the hospital.

I had never liked my husband's second wife, but I decided to pay my last respects to my brother by not showing any negative feelings towards her. My brother's son from his first marriage, my nephew, participated in the preparations for the funeral. My brother's body was brought over in a closed coffin. Relatives, friends, my mom's friends, spent their last few minutes with my brother's body in my parents' house and to support my mom. Everyone went to the graveyard to give my brother's body to the earth. After the funeral, everyone went to the restaurant for a commemorative glass of vodka, to say their last words to the person who had ended his existence on this earth.

My husband and I took my mother home after this tense day. We went upstairs. And we discovered that while we were burying my brother, all of the things that had belonged to my brother and also many things that belonged to my mom and had at least some value, had been removed from the house.

The freshlybaked widow had brought part of her plan to life. She had found the most appropriate time for it – the day of the funeral. She had come to this house with empty hands. In three years of family life they had acquired nothing except bottles of vodka. But she decided to leave this house with something that didn't belong to her, but would make her happy. Be happy, widow.

Then this woman began to execute the second part of her clever plan. My brother had owned a good garage, a used car, and many machines for woodworking. The deceased had also lived in an apartment that should be divided up. A specially trained lawyer, found in advance, was ready. My brother's son was fighting for his rights. Everyone forgot that my mother was still alive. Bustle, bustle, bustle.

I was lucky that I managed not to react to any of these movements because my life also began to change. If somewhere something is freed up, then somewhere something is added and somewhere something changes.

My oldest daughter

I still do not understand why my relationship with my oldest daughter is not like my relationship with my mom. People usually say, the kind of relationship you have with your parents, the same relationship you will have with your children.

How frequently I have asked myself this question, and only after many years, I realized why it happened. First, the surgery in her childhood affected our relationship. The doctors' false diagnosis was a shock for my parents and me. The shock grew into a fear of losing her some day and the guilt that I didn't protect her from this ordeal. These feelings controlled my thoughts about her all of these years. I never asked her to help me or to do something, thinking that in doing everything myself, I would lessen my guilt for what happened. And my oldest daughter, growing up in an atmosphere where my parents and I practically worshipped her, became an egotist, used to only taking and not giving anything in return.

No relationship in this world be it a marriage, a family, a working team, between parents and children, brother and sister, any relationship between human beings cannot exist without the mutual "give-take-take-give" exchange.

Some people find it very easy to give, but very difficult to take. I was one of these people. For others, it's easy to take but difficult to give. My oldest daughter was like this. Both lead to an imbalance in the relationship and the relationship breaks down. If people are given help, attention, advice, or just some time, and their gratitude knows no bounds, the response is the "give-take-return" exchange. When people are grateful, they not only return the energy of love to the giver, but show their desire to give. If people accept help but feel that they deserve it and that it's not worthy of gratitude, then the exchange is disrupted, and the one that gives gradually loses any desire to give any more.

Once, when she had finished university and become a lawyer, my daughter went to a nightclub with one of her friends and met a man there. Usually she didn't tell me about such encounters, but this time she told me about him. This man was from Belarus, but had immigrated to the States ten years previously. Every year, he went to Minsk from the States for a couple of weeks in hopes of finding a wife. I don't know why, but I immediately said to her that she needed to try to get to know him better, that it was a good opportunity to change her life for the better.

He was going back to the States in a few days, so all subsequent events happened quickly. I asked my daughter to invite him to our house for dinner. She agreed. I made delicious food and set out the table as if for a very important person. This person appeared in our house. I guess it's true what they say – that everyone sees what he wants to see.

On the one hand, I saw a very tall, very fat Jewish man. On the other, I saw a foreigner, which seemed practically the height of mystery. In all seriousness, I had never been outside of the former U.S.S.R., and I only learned about the rest of the world through what I saw on TV. When he started telling us about his life here and there, about his job there, I realized that he was very well-educated, well-read, intelligent, and on top of that, a programmer. Having a common profession always disposes people towards one another.

I had often said to my children that they need to be better than their parents. I don't know where I picked up this nonsense, but at the time, I believed it. I meant that children must not repeat the difficult moments of their parents' lives, but must instead find an easier way through life, as if learning from the mistakes of their parents.

I definitely have a talent for writing fairy tales. When I saw this person, the writing of the fairy tale in my head happened automatically. Here's my daughter living in the States. Her husband works as a programmer, makes good money, and Jewish husbands are very attentive towards their wives.

This was the result of remembering how after high school, I had a Jewish admirer, who was asking me to marry him and go to Israel with him. If I had done so, my life would have been completely different, and I wouldn't have been sorting out crap for my whole life. This Jew would have carried me in his arms around Israel. He would have been so attentive and caring. A fairy tale? Yes! But I wanted to make this fairy tale come true in my daughter's life, since I had let my own fairy tale pass me by. And the fairy tale continues. They have a big house, beautiful cars, healthy kids. I would visit them every year for Christmas. People would ask me, "Where were you?" and I would say "In the US visiting my daughter and grandkids." Nice story!

And now my eyes are seeing this man through the events of my fairy tale. I've lost contact with the present; I've peeked into the made-up future. I've returned to the present but forgot to remove the illusion that is between my eyes and this man. And this is what I now see in front of me – a tall, intelligent, wealthy, attentive, large, and caring husband for my daughter.

I think that every person sees in his life what he wants to see.

A few days later, my daughter said that this man loved her, wanted to invite her to the States, and marry her there. I didn't even think about asking her whether she loved him. I probably considered it to be irrelevant. I just said that if I was in her position I would go, you can always get a divorce. A person always looks at life and gives advice to others relying on his own experiences in life. At that moment, I thought that my life was practically over, that I had nothing good to look forward to. So my daughter would get married, there would be kids, inflation would happen again. Everything would be the same as it was for me. But in our children's lives, everything must be better...

Advice is good, but a person will always do what he wants to. I notice that when you give a person advice and this advice coincides with what he thinks, the person forgets about your advice... he just does it. But if whatever he does turns out to be a mistake, only then does the person remember who gave him this advice and will blame him for it. To give or not to give advice is for each of us to decide.

And so my future son-in-law returned to the States and started calling my daughter practically every day. He was very reliable in his promises, which gave me hope that my daughter had met a good person.

Very soon, the question came up of buying tickets to the US. My daughter had to buy a two-way ticket, since officially she was only going there to visit a friend. I wasn't surprised that nobody, including my daughter's father (my first husband) and her fiancé, had the money to pay for the ticket. I gave her money for the ticket, for upgrading her wardrobe, and for living in America for the first little while. I had such heartache in those days. It can be compared to the way a person feels when he knows that a loved one is leaving him, perhaps forever, and yet the important words have not been said, the explanations have not been found that would make this parting easier.

In those days, only once in my life, did I have the joy of going shopping with both of my daughters together. I will remember this time for my whole life. Why did it happen this way? Why didn't it happen more often? I don't know. I could find many reasons, but none of them would give me back the feelings that I felt then. It was a feeling of pride in my daughters. They were so young and beautiful. It was a sharp feeling of uncertainty: am I good enough for them? Neither one of them, not even once in her life, ever showed any feelings of love for me, ever hugged me back, ever kissed me back, ever snuggled up to me, trusting me completely, ever asked me, "How are you?"

I didn't blame anyone except myself. My guilt stopped me from relaxing, from feeling the joy of motherhood with my already grown and growing daughters. So it happened, I did not intend for our relationships to turn out that way. Probably our souls, having made an agreement in heaven, wanted to get this kind of experience in life.

My oldest daughter flew to America to start a new life.

I was unable to come to their wedding because the American embassy wouldn't let me. They explained it to me very simply: "Your daughter stayed in the US under false pretenses. She went for a visit and stayed there to live. We can't trust you not to do the same."

I felt that she was mad at me for it. But we never talked about it.

She called often for the first little while. We were very tense while talking to each other. I was always so happy, so enthusiastic, so unnatural, always ready to say many pleasant words to her, God forbid I would upset her somehow. If I did ask a question about America, about how she was doing, I would get answers that can be characterized as "If you haven't seen it, you wouldn't understand." I felt that immigration was very difficult for her, but that she didn't want to share her problems with me. I didn't feel that I had the right to ask about it, or perhaps I just knew that I wouldn't receive an honest response anyway.

I very much dislike lying. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I don't like to remember who I lied to and what I said. My daughter didn't like to tell the truth. She once said: "Who needs your truth?"

Even in this, she didn't want to be like me.

Life went on both here, in Belarus, and there, in America.

The School of Universal Energy

All this bustle around my daughter's move to America, sitting for long periods in front of the computer tensely trying to finish the current project on time, and my constant internal struggle helped to bring back my illnesses. Frequent headaches and backaches reminded me that I needed to do something about it. I found excuses not to do anything. Once my husband's friend who could heal with energy came into our house. I started complaining about my health. He said that he would be happy to help me. He also mentioned in passing that there was to be a seminar that would teach students how to help themselves and others strengthen their health. He said this very quickly, without attempting to catch my interest. But when I heard this phrase, my heart stopped like it does for people who get the key to solving a mystery. In total disbelief that I could possibly learn what this person could do, afraid that I was asking a stupid question, I asked him: "Could I sign up for this seminar?"

The simplicity of his answer was bewildering to me. "Of course! Anyone can learn how to do this. Why didn't you ask me about it earlier?"

Why not? Apparently everything develops only when its time comes. When the student is ready, the teacher appears.
I discussed it with my husband. He agreed to go with me.

This seminar was three days long. About a hundred students came to receive training in the first three levels of the School of Universal Energy. The instructor of these three levels was a woman from Minsk who was at the highest level of the school and who had acquired her teaching skills from the founder of this school, a Vietnamese man, Master Dang. Many people had come to support the new students and to hear the seminar again themselves.

I came there not really certain of what I was going to listen to and learn. But as soon as the seminar began, I realized that this was the place where my soul was so desperately trying to go. We had to fill out special forms and the first question was: "Why did you come here?"

Without hesitation, I wrote that it was my desire to help my family and myself to be healthy. Tears formed in my eyes because my desire was so strong. I swallowed the teacher's every word, not missing any question or any answer.

Never before in my life had it been so interesting to hear about something of which I had no understanding, and to which in most cases, I had never paid any attention. I didn't even know that such a thing existed in this world. It's impossible to find this in any book in the world. This is a unique teaching, like a gift to mankind that God has entrusted to Master Dang to pass on.

First, we learned about Human or Universal energy. We heard many examples of how humans and animals, when in mortal danger, can do things that are impossible in everyday life. Everyone knows these examples: they can be found on the Internet or heard on TV. It's easy to see that people in these moments in their lives cannot be divided into rich and poor, educated or ignorant, Hebrew- or English-speaking. There are no differences in skin color, country, or religion. But the most important thing explained to us was why this happens and about how it's possible to achieve these remarkable abilities for your body without being in mortal danger. And this is something that every person can learn.

We were told about nerve centers on the human body located in the same places as acupuncturists place their needles. In the School of Universal Energy, these centers are called Chakras, and we were taught how to work with them but without needles. In very simple and accessible words, they told us how these Chakras are connected to the physical body of the person, to his organs, and about how through these Chakras, you can treat illnesses. The simplicity of this method again confirmed the known, that everything that comes from God is very simple.

Using very simple language to enhance understanding, we were shown how the work of these nerve centers or Chakras depends directly on our emotions. For the first time in my life, I was listening to explanations of words like greed, fear, envy, hatred, jealousy, blame without the common and familiar subtext of "this is something bad." To my surprise, I heard that we shouldn't fight against these emotions. Any fight causes opposition, which strengthens that which started the fight in the first place. These so-called bad emotions cause harm to the health of the owner of these emotions.

Love was mentioned a lot. I had never thought about the true meaning of this word. For the first time, I understood that there exists egotistical Love, sexual Love, and God's Love. I had never known the true meaning of fear, that fear can paralyze the life of a person, make life into an imprisonment.

I had always thought that the human mind controls his body. But what does the soul do during this time? How can we hear our own soul? How can we find that balance between the body, soul, and mind? We received the answers to all of these questions. They explained how to apply all of this in our lives.

And the most important thing that I picked up from these seminars was that everything needs to begin with yourself. If you want to love, learn first to love yourself. The thought flashed through my mind then that I didn't love myself at all,how could I possibly expect love from my children?

If you want to change your life, change your mind. To change your mind is to learn to listen to your soul. The mind works as an interpreter for the "voice" of the soul into thoughts, which control the body.

There was a lot of information. They explained and showed us simple breathing exercises, elementary meditation, an exercise to strengthen the work of the Chakras. These simple instruments and techniques allowed us to start practicing immediately after the end of the seminar. By placing our hands on the parts on the human body that needed energy, we could transfer additional energy therethat would restore balance and heal the illness.

After the first day of the seminar, when my husband and I walked out onto the street, our souls were overflowing with happiness and love. We were laughing like crazy. We walked a long way without feeling tired. We felt such an energetic and emotional high that it seemed like we could move mountains. This was our souls expressing their joy after receiving an additional boost of energy.

After the seminar, I began to transfer myself energy every day and felt that it was working. I wanted to try my new abilities on another person. Of course, there could be no better candidate for this experiment than my mom. I came to her very mysterious, very enigmatic, very much wanting to demonstrate a miracle.

Her whole life she had suffered from knee pain and high blood pressure. I told her that at a seminar I had learned how to heal with my hands. My mom, with a light irony in her voice, said: "Like old ladies used to heal in the old times?"

I told her that was the truth. I asked her to sit down in a chair. I put my hands on her knees and transferred energy there for two minutes. When I took my hands away, my mom's eyes were full of surprise and she quietly said: "My knees don't hurt. I had forgotten what it was like to be without knee pain. But now they don't hurt."

I can't describe what I felt then. I realized that now I could help my mom, that this was something that would actually help, that God had given me the ability to thank my mother for giving me my life and for being my mom.

For the first few months, I couldn't stop being amazed at what was happening. I cut my finger on a knife. I touched the fingers of my other hand on the bleeding wound and in front of my eyes, the blood began to stop and immediately grow over with a solid crust. It's a miracle!

After three days of receiving energy, my houseplant that was always bordering between life and death became so healthy and beautiful. It's a miracle!

Life became a different color. I began to feel calmer. I started slowly treating myself better. I started noticing that I was becoming different. I started judging people less for their actions, started trusting my feelings more. I noticed that the more I helped others, the more I was helping myself.

The last warning

My brother's death left only two people in our birth nest – my mom and I. Our men had left us. We had to continue our journey through life.

Everything changed for us. My mom, accepting life the way it was, started calmly living in her apartment. I visited her whenever I got the chance. I felt so good there, in my house, with my mom. This was that place on earth where I could be myself. I shared everything that was happening in my life with my mom. My mom was always the closest person and friend for me in my life. With great pleasure, I healed her every time I visited her. And my mother received healing with great pleasure.

I bought a car from my cousin who lived in Germany. The car helped me to move faster and have time to do more things. The wheel of life was still spinning fast, but without as much strain as before.

Once we went to visit my mother-in-law in the country. I loved my mother-in-law very much and when with her, I felt as if I was with my mom. After spending a few days there, we got ready to return home. It was a frosty sunny morning. My mother-in-law walked out onto the road and waved to us as our car started forward.

Usually I drove but on that day, my husband showed initiative. My youngest daughter was sleeping in the backseat. I was enjoying the scenery of the start of winter outside the window. When we had gone less than halfway, on a slippery turn, the car suddenly lost all control. Everything happened extremely fast.

Suddenly the car, as if from a gust of wind, was blown from the road. After flying through the air for a few meters, it hit the road, flipped over, and landed on the roof. Moving by inertia, sliding along the side of the road on its roof, the car crashed into sandy soil. There was silence in the car for several minutes. I asked a question first, to my daughter: "Darling, how are you?"

She answered in an almost normal voice that everything was fine and asked: "What was that?"

My heart suddenly felt relieved that the most important thing in my life was okay. I remember that moment very well. There were no worries, no fear... nothing. We were sitting in the car upside down, held onto our seats by our seatbelts. My husband knew that the car, with its tank full of gas, could blow up any minute. I didn't know this, and so I was in no rush and not nervous.

It's no wonder people say: "The less you know, the better you sleep."

We started looking around and saw that we could only see the ground with a small strip of light on top of it. My husband started furiously taking out shards of broken glass in the driver's door and tossing aside the earth to free the door. It would probably have taken him a very long time to free us from that earthly imprisonment. But if you're not destined to drown, you won't. A few minutes later, some people who had also been in an accident slightly before us rushed to help. They had been thrown onto the wheels of the car, but on the other side of the road. They helped us get out of the car.

When I crawled out of the car and stood up next to my daughter, everything swam before my eyes. It seemed to me like everything was in motion, reeling and swaying. At that moment, I loudly said: "The most important thing is that we're all alive!"

When the accident happened, my daughter had been sleeping in the back seat of the car without any seat belt. On top of the backseat, we had placed jars of fresh cow milk and boxes of eggs. I looked over my daughter and was surprised that she was covered from head to toe in milk and that broken eggs were sliding down her clothes, but none of the glass jars in the car had broken and injured my child. She didn't even have time to be scared. She only woke up at the moment I called her in the flipped car. I had been wearing a huge fur hat and it had protected my head from the blow. My husband had blood streaming down his face, but it didn't look too severe.

The people that helped us get out of our car said that we got "lucky" that the previous accident in the very same spot had "dug up" the earth for us, softening the impact of our landing. We called the emergency services, called our friends, took our things out of the wreckage of the car, and started waiting for help.

The emergency workers flipped our car over and put it down on the spots where the wheels are supposed to be. We saw an astonishing picture. Both front doors were pressed into the interior of the car. The wheels were sticking out in different directions. The windows were practically nonexistent. The front part of the car, together with the engine, was deformed beyond recognition. The diagnosis for my car was given without hesitation – cannot be restored.

We were taken to the nearest hospital for scans and to check our conditions. The doctor asked each of us questions, examined our bodies, analyzed the scans. In the end, he said that our child was completely fine, and that my husband and I had slight concussions and that we would soon recover. He added that we were very lucky.

Yes, we got lucky. It was probably too early for us to die, each of us still had a lot to do on this earth.

Our friend picked us up from the hospital and drove us home. I called my mom and told her what had happened. She said that she had felt something was wrong and that she had been praying to God to save us. I smiled at those words. My mother had never mentioned God, and all of a sudden, such a big change had happened. This is exactly the kind of situation when we remember about God.

For the first week after the accident, my husband and I were unable to sleep. We had received a serious shock, scare, stress, and everything related to these emotions. We drank vodka starting in the early morning hoping that our eyes would close and sleep would come to us. We didn't get drunk even sharing after a whole bottle of vodka. A few times, we went to the store that sold alcohol around the clock and bought another bottle of vodka at night.

The picture was like this. I had a big black eye from when I hit my head in the car. My husband had a bandaged-up forehead and one side of his face was streaked blue. I held on to my husband's arm to feel more secure in walking. We were constantly laughing loudly; probably to express our happiness at being alive. And so this remarkable and enamored couple "sauntered" to the store at night to buy a bottle of vodka. A bit later, I would remember this and want to die of shame. Now I remember this with a smile, as the gaining of a new life experience.

When the "elation" from the accident passed, depression came. For another week, we didn't want to speak, laugh, drink vodka. We only wanted to sleep.

We needed to return to regular life. The wheel of life was starting its normal rotation.

Sometime later, when the wheel of life tasks had gained its regular momentum, I was standing at the bus stop waiting for my bus. This was the bus stop where I waited frequently. I felt that some force was simply pushing me to the notice board. Suddenly, I noticed an old ad with wind-ragged edges and faded colorsthat had been hanging there for more than a year,. I had walked past this piece of paper hundreds of times, never paying any attention to it! I again had the feeling that the same force was making me read this ad. I read "Immigration to Canada". After reading these words, I went hot. It was like the feelings that a person experiences when he finds the key to solving a puzzle that has been bothering him his whole life.

Apparently, God sent me many messages about the fact that I had to change my life, that I had to stop running like a squirrel in a wheel, forgetting about myself. I was stubborn and ignored these messages. When I had the accident, that already in itself, had changed something inside me. It allowed me to realize that the accident was the last warning telling me that I had to change my life.

What I did for the next two days is inexplicable, it has absolutely no logic behind it. I found several companies on the Internet that helped to compile the documents necessary for immigration to Canada. I visited all of these companies, and having chosen one, paid them for their services and applied for immigration to Canada. I did this without telling anybody about it.

Preparation for immigration to Canada

Only a few days had passed after all the necessary information was collected, the papers signed, the bills paid, when I got a phone call informing me that my application for immigration had beenreceived by the Canadian Embassy in Moscow. All that I had to do was wait and learn English. The average waiting time was six months.

Nobody close to me knew about this. Why? I don't know. I didn't think about anything then, I just acted. It was a feeling that cannot be described, but it was something very close to the explanation, "For the first time in my life, I was doing something right."

The first person to find out about this was my mom. I walked into her room glowing like a polished kettle. I sat her down at the table, telling her that the talk would be serious. Without any preparation, without any words that could soften the possible blow, without any fear that I could hurt my mom, I simply and honestly said: "Mommy, I'm planning to immigrate to Canada. I've already filed the documents. It's going to happen in six months."

My mom suddenly became very small, as if she was shrinking. I felt many different emotions rising up inside her. It was the fear of being left alone. It was pride for me and my bravery. It was anger that I hadn't consulted her first. But she quietly said: "You're an adult; it's your decision."

Immediately, I started enthusiastically telling her that I would take her with me to Canada as soon as I had settled down there. I was saying this very fast, to justify my actions. While I was saying it, I suddenly felt that it would never happen. Years have shown that my feelings were correct.

My mom changed the subject instantly, as if showing that everything had already been said, and that there was nothing left to talk about. Suddenly, she said harshly: "What more do you need in this life? You have everything – a husband, an apartment, a cottage, and money. Why do you want to leave?"

How many people asked me this question! And I didn't know how to answer them.

Of course, my mom was right. In the eyes of society, I was very successful in business. I could make as much money as I wanted and with enviable regularity. I always had money to spare that I lent constantly to people, simply for some time without interest. What else could I wish for? In the eyes of society, I had a complete family; I had a husband and kids. What more could I need? I lived in a comfortable apartment in the city center. I had a cottage in the country. I had everything that I needed to be happy!

But does all of this make a person happy? Possibly, but only for a very short period of time, after which you again need to search for something, again need to want something, or get stuck as if in a bog and wait for death to come.

What to search for, what to want, what to change? In business, I couldn't possibly want to change anything, everything was simply wonderful. I had no desire to get something material: property, an apartment, a car. I wasn't even interested in talking about it. I had already gotten the experiences in my life of what it was like to do it, how to find it, how to establish it, how to use it. I had never liked and still don't like repetition. To change my family life? I had already been married twice. There was no hope that the next husband would change anything.

The second person to find out about my plan was my husband. He heard me out and, as always, said nothing. I started trying to persuade him to immigrate with us. I said this to make amends to him, to at least somehow justify my decision. I talked and talked and didn't believe it myself. I didn't see him there with me. I didn't understand what was happening to me. I felt that I was doing something very right in my life, but that logic didn't work there.

I bought a very expensive book about Canada with numerous photographs, descriptions of climate, cities, provinces, population, and so on. I had no information about this country. In school, in the newspapers, on television everyone always mentioned America with the built-in meaning "USA". For the first time in my life, I noticed how mass media shapes our view of life. I read this book with great enjoyment and excitement. I looked carefully at the photographs, admired them, and kept on reading. But when I reached the description of Vancouver, saw the photos of people with umbrellas, evergreen plants on the street, something clicked inside me. I knew that this was my new home. And immediately, I realized that it was very close to the city where my oldest daughter lived. There was no end to my happiness! So appeared an unexplored point on the world map, which would become my new home.

From that point on, I did everything as if hypnotized. I suspected that I had a huge fear of the unknown sitting inside me, but I didn't want to let it out, fearing that it would crush all of my dreams.

The next person to find out about my intentions was my oldest daughter, who was living with her husband in the US. She called me regularlyfrom America. We spoke, communicated, but still no genuine warmth appeared between us. This tension could be felt without words. When she heard the news, she didn't express any real happiness. This caused a strong pang in my heart but as usual, I shoved this hurt deep inside and tried to forget about it. Her husband drew my attention to the English language and gave me many examples from his life about how difficult it was for him to learn a new language.

He told me that for ten years he couldn't normally speak and understand English. He emphasized that it was important to understand English and not so important how well you could speak it. He told me how difficult it was to find a job even for those who spoke good English. With these examples, he was creating fear inside me, but my faith that I could do it squashed these portions of fear every time. He promised to come to Canada when I got there with my youngest daughter, to help us in our first few days of living in Vancouver. I felt an enormous gratitude to him for his promise, his desire to help us, and started to simply "deify" him.

And so, the question of English arose. I had once known English at the high-school level, but at that moment, I had forgotten everything, even the alphabet. I bought a few beginner computer courses for learning English and started working with them every day. My daily schedule changed. I had to stick into my busy schedule another two or three hours for daily practice of English. After I changed my priorities in life, putting learning English in first place, I found out that it's possible to be an active businesswoman, a good housewife, my mother's helper without perfection. Practicing English daily by myself was somewhat successful, but I started considering hiring a tutor to help improve my very low level of English.

My oldest daughter called me and told me big news. They had two weeks off and wanted to come to Minsk. Dear God, how much I had missed seeing my daughter! In my thoughts flashed a new fairy tale, about how I would hug her, press her to my heart, how we would be close to each other, how we would talk about everything. It's not bad to dream, it's bad not to dream.

After hearing this news, I started preparing for their visit, buying up various exotic products, vegetables, and alcohol, polishing the apartment, again ready to prove something to someone. I wanted to prove that, look, I am so good and worthy of your love. This was subconscious; I didn't realize it then but it was just my behavior.

They came later than they said they would. As it turned out, they had been to some other European countries, had stopped by to visit my cousin in Germany, and then come to Minsk. They said right away that they had only four days left of their holiday and that they still had to visit their friends in Minsk.

My big egotism brought me severe pain then. Dramatic scenes immediately played out in my head in which I was the victim and everyone else simply heartless people. It looked somewhat like this: "I cleaned this apartment practically with my tongue. I bought food and made plans for delicious dinners for two weeks while they would be in Minsk. They didn't even share their plans with me when they decided to go on this trip."

Today, this "heartache" from the past makes me smile.Today, I want to ask myself, the me from the past: "Who asked you to lick the apartment clean? Who asked you to buy all that food? Who was supposed to report to you about their plans?"

I don't have various possible answers to these questions. There is one answer – nobody. An interesting picture is being painted now. I am my own witness of how I created heartache for myself. I didn't do all of it for myself. I didn't need to stock up on that much food and live in a super-clean apartment!

When a person does something for himself, then any outcome of this action will not cause him heartache. Isn't that true?

I did all this work expecting that my actions would help to draw my guests' attention to me, praise me, appreciate my hard work. In other words, I was asking them to love me. Without having the slightest understanding of how to love myself, I was trying to find this love outside of me.

Yes, yes, now I'm so smart, but back then I didn't know this about myself.

My son-in-law had become even larger and more self-assured in these few years. My daughter had also changed a lot in the years that I didn't see her. She used to dress elegantly, with pretenses to high society. Now it was low-rise jeans, a faded sweater with nothing underneath, and unkempt skin.My heart just bled at seeing this. But now I think that this was blood rushing to my head from my desire to hear that it was very hard for my daughter without her mom, that she needed me. I ignored the blood beating against my brain and started with showy excitement praising their good looks and everything that I could possibly include in this list.

My daughter and son-in-law sat down at the table and I, with my husband's help, who also couldn't help himself around the international guests, jumped around them, trying to offer them this or that food to try, this or that drink to sip, this or that vodka to drink. I drank a full shot glass of vodka every time a toast was made. But the vodka refused to relax me. Then my daughter said that she was going for a cigarette. Oh God, you should have prepared me for this somehow!

By the way, about smoking. I smoked my first cigarette as the result of an order. It sounds amusing, but it's the truth. The national teams of the U.S.S.R. or Belarus often went to tennis training events to different republics of our vast country. I was almost always the youngest on the team. Apparently my young age forced the other girls on the team to keep their smoking secret. But one evening, I walked into the hotel room next door to mine where the older girls from the team were staying and saw them sitting on the balcony with cigarettes in their hands. One of them found the solution immediately. To prevent me from telling the coach about the girls' smoking, she said: "Take a cigarette. Sit down and smoke!"

I remember two strong feelings inside me then. Pride at being their equal and the desire to get a new life experience. I remember the feelings as strongly as the unpleasant taste in my mouth after exhaling and inhaling smoke from the cigarette. I didn't like it, but one of them calmly said: "It's okay. When you learn how to smoke properly, you'll like it."

This is a perfect example of how the people around us influence our lives. She said it, and I believed her. I didn't try to look for my belief, my truth. I took her words as my truth and started gradually learning whenever I got the chance.

Once, my mom found a pack of cigarettes in my bag. She took these cigarettes, tore them to pieces in front of my eyes, and threw all of this in the garbage. I remember even now the way my mom looked at me. The cold in my stomach, the pressure of blood in my head symbolized the growing fear inside me. My mom didn't say a word. She left the room.

Back then, I honestly didn't know anything about the harm of smoking; I only guessed that it wasn't good. Why didn't she tell me then about the dangers of smoking, talk to me kindly? I'll never find out. But by her own example, she taught me how to treat my own children in the future. This is another example of how family influences our lives. Apparently, I acted the same with my kids, simply imitating the way that my mother behaved with me. The influences of people, family, society, and so on force us to see the world through their eyes and follow in their footsteps.

Forbidden fruit is sweet. Fear of my mother didn't force me to quit smoking, it taught me to hide my cigarettes better.

I remember an episode from my process of finding enjoyment in smoking. I had a friend at school. We had the same name and we were born on the same day of the same year. As life has shown, everything about us was different and our fates are different. This is the example I give people when I want to express my complete lack of belief in the idea that the time and date of birth can predict our fate.

My friend was then also in the process of getting used to smoking. We decided to learn this thing once and for all! Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today. We skipped our classes in school, bought about six packs of cigarettes and went to the graveyard. We found this place simply perfect for our exercises in falling in love with the process of smoking. We picked an abandoned little grave at the very end of the graveyard with a low bench. We settled down comfortably on it and started to smoke. After finishing one cigarette, we used it to light up another and continued to smoke. I don't remember how long we smoked for, and how many cigarettes were left, but I remember well how awful we felt then. We both got greenish faces, nausea, headaches, racing hearts, a vague taste of shit in our mouths, but we didn't get the main thing that we had been so determined to obtain – enjoyment from smoking. We spent a few more hours at the graveyard in this state, until it got dark and it was time for us to go home.

After that day, she and I didn't smoke for a long time, but as soon as the toxic elements left our bodies, we resumed this process BUT in normal amounts. Life experience is an important thing. I can spend hours talking about how sick I felt then, but if my reader hasn't experienced it, he will never know his own truth. Let's return to the kitchen, to our group that having finished the festive dinner, was leaving the empty table. My daughter, having informed me that it was time for a cigarette, opened the door to go to the stairwell. This was in place of the words that she didn't say out loud: "I couldn't care less what you're going to say or think. I'm an adult and this is none of your business."

I say to her: "I'll go with you."

We smoked, talked a little, smoked again. Returned to the apartment, went to smoke again. I was like a dog on a leash. But I was tied to my fears, to doubting myself, the desire to draw attention to myself once again. My daughter was doing what she wanted. I was doing that which helped feed my egotism. Being hunched over on the floor is the favorite position of this energy.

Only God knows how difficult those four days were for me and my husband!

I told them about how I was preparing for immigration. My son-in-law told me what a difficult and trying process it was. I asked him to talk to me in English. My son-in-law said that I didn't yet know the alphabet and that was the first step of learning the language. I showed him the computer programs that I created for my clients. My son-in-law said that with these skills, it would be impossible for me to find a job in Canada.

I was "touched" by the gifts that my daughter brought from America. For her grandmother – a soft warm blanket; for my husband – good cologne; for her sister – many small nice things, and for me – weight loss pills. Everything inside me nearly died when I saw them. In this way, my oldest daughter expressed her feelings towards me. Now it's funny. Then, it was shock on the inside with words of overwhelming gratitude on the outside. I was trying to show that everything was fine.

We went to the biggest market in the city, where my daughter bought clothes made in Europe. I remember how every time we stopped in front of something that I liked, I caught myself thinking that I so wanted, at least once in my life, to receive a gift from my daughter that I liked and that was given to me with love. I yelled at myself immediately for the nonsense that was going on in my head and said nothing. I had always liked to give my mom gifts. I knew how good it felt to do it. Apparently, my daughter didn't need this experience of giving gifts to her mom.

My daughter and I never did talk heart-to-heart. I wanted this very much, but I didn't manage to find a way there. She never showed me this way. Nobody is at fault. Everyone is on their own.

And here is the goodbye dinner. My heart was aching so much that I was ready to scream through the whole world. My dear daughter, why are you so far from me? Here you are now, with me, and your heart is somewhere else. But I put a smile on my face and talked about nothing in particular. When the bags were already packed, the door was open, the taxi waiting downstairs, I already knew very well that I wouldn't see her for a very long time, and perhaps never.

When my husband and I saw them off, we said to each other that one more day would have killed us. My husband felt everything, saw everything, and by that point had begun to understand me, how difficult my relationship with my daughter was for me.

We sat down at the table, drank a whole bottle of vodka, which for the first time in these few days worked correctly, and slept for almost twenty-four hours. Thus, ended our meeting with our American visitors.

English

It only seems to us that when people say unpleasant things to us, they wish us ill. Give yourself some time, go back in your mind to the events of the past, and you will be able to see that the person who irritated you was pointing to what you needed to work on. In my case, it was my son-in-law and the English language.

I thought that if I studied English independently and daily, I would improve my English, that I am so wonderful, so diligent, so perfect.

Let's write a new fairy tale.

My son-in-law would come to visit, would see my English course on my computer, would listen to my broken English pronunciation, and would say:"You're so brilliant. You're so well-educated. Everything about you is so great!"

He would say this and go back to America. And I would stay here, admiring my abilities and continuing to follow this course. End of fairy tale.

My son-in-law said that I didn't know the alphabet. And he was right. If you don't know the letters, you will never learn to read. I resented him for these words, and wanted to prove that he was "wrong", that I did know the alphabet. The result – I learned the alphabet and the spelling theory very quickly. What a teacher my son-in-law is. He taught me! For which I'm grateful to him.

My son-in-law told me how difficult it was to start immigrant life. He showed me that without knowing English, this process can be three times as hard. This pushed me to think: what kind of English is spoken in Canada – American or European? I read more closely the instructions of my computer course and found out that this was not American English and was intended for Russian-speaking students. That means that what I was learning was wrong and would never work in Canada! Thank you, my son-in-law!

He said that with my professional skills it would be difficult for me to find a job. Good. Thank you for the warning. I will expect the worst. I know myself. I learn quickly. And as my old math teacher used to say: "Kids, in life, always expect the worst. If it turns out slightly better – you'll celebrate!"

My son-in-law's remarks clearly gave me strength. Thus, the "injection" was received, and the process of healing began.

I started looking for an English tutor with American life experience. Usually the first session is free after which you decide if you will pay for the course or not. I met with various tutors for quite some time, but I always found a reason for not wanting to work with them.

He who searches will always find. How much wisdom our ancestors have given us through these proverbs! But how often do we remember or use this wisdom?

It was a young man who had lived in America for ten years. I felt right away that this was the person that I needed. I went to him every second day. I got homework from him. I worked on it at home. I worked with him on new assignments. He had a good teaching system. I didn't have long left before my departure. I woke up much earlier than the rest of my family and studied English not only by my tutor's program, but also the vocabulary. I worked like a wind-up mechanism.

Gradually, I started to understand my son-in-law's words that immigration is not an easy journey. So I worked full-out. After some time, I started reading well and could pick out sentence cases and grammar. I started listening to English tapes, watching films. And suddenly, I realized that I didn't understand anything that those people, in real life, were saying. My tutor gave me simpler recordings to listen to. I listened to them many times until I started understanding a bit of what they were talking about. My tutor spoke to me only in English.

I realized that when I was reading text, I understood a lot. I could read with my eyes. When I read the same text aloud, I got scared of my voice and completely lost the meaning of the words. My eyes and voice weren't working together. When I was listening to my tutor, I understood a lot of what he said. My hearing was tuning itself to the English language and working. But when my tutor and I started up a dialogue, I would get scared of my voice and of his fast speech, and switch off completely from understanding what was going on. I could do something separately, but not together.

At one of our meetings, I started getting hysterical. I was crying loudly and explaining to my tutor that I didn't understand anything, that I would never be able to do it. Thanks to God, he sent me a good teacher. He calmly explained to me that this was normal, that when learning a new language it takes a lot of time to combine hearing, the eyes, and the brain; it's necessary to develop new habits.

He suggested that we return to what we had already covered so that I would gain confidence in repeating it. Easier said than done. I almost went back to square one of our course. Gradually, I started to notice that I began to feel more relaxed and that allowed me to understand English speech better. From time to time, I was gripped by fear from the thought that I wouldn't be able to learn English. And at that moment, my brain would create a fairy tale for me.

Here I am in Canada; I don't understand anything anyone says there, my daughter and I are living in a tiny room that exits into a long corridor. Along this corridor are many doors. At the end of it is a shared toilet and bathroom. Many Chinese children are running up and down the corridor.

This is how fear draws pictures for us to increase in size. Probably there are those among you who have become involved in your fairy tale, didn't stop it in time, and started to suffer an illusion never destined to happen. You need to be able to stop in time. You can stop by asking yourself, "What am I thinking about?"

My soul was directing me to continue working on my English and not build fairy tales in my head.

A lot later than expected, I finally received an invitation to go to the Canadian Embassy in Moscow to take the English language exam. What did I feel? Everything! Fear, impatience, happiness, excitement, uncertainty, determination.

My husband and I went to Moscow together. He agreed to support me at such an important moment in my life. It was a cool test. Our train arrived in Moscow later than scheduled. We practically had no time left to get to the Embassy and register my attendance. We ran to the taxi like "Indians wounded in the ass." We jumped out of the taxi at the exact moment as the gates of the Embassy were closing. We ran inside the Embassy at the last second of the allowed time.

There were already about twenty people there waiting for the exam to begin. The exam took place in a separate room for each family. There were a lot of rooms and very soon everyone went off to their allocated room, and my husband and I were left alone. I already felt that something was happening. After a while, I was invited into a room. For a little while, I was there alone and started asking God for help. I saw that everyone else had only one examiner, so I was a little puzzled when I saw two people entering the room. I clearly realized at that moment that if God didn't help me, I had nowhere else to turn for help. They took turns asking me questions. I was answering quite well. Then they mentioned that my age was on the brink of the cutoff, that I was going by myself with a child, and some other considerate reminders.

I was so collected, so focused, the way it only happens in sport, when a person is fighting for the gold medal. Apparently the oral discussion went well for me, and they gave me some political newspaper to read aloud and comment on it. Even in Russian, I couldn't have given any commentary on it, but in English...

Suddenly, I plainly recognized that the two of them had come here to refuse me in view of the reasons that they had so politely mentioned. And suddenly, as an ex-athlete, I got a second wind. I decided to fight for my dream! I clearly read something in the newspaper, very clearly gave some sort of explanation of what I had read that they had no choice but to continue to "torture" me with new methods. They decided to use the next form of "torture" depending on its reliability.

They gave me a piece of paper. Where did they get such a huge piece of paper? They put a timer in front of me set for five minutes. My assignment was: write an essay in five minutes to fill this whole page. The topic of the essay was "What will I miss about Belarus when living in Canada?"

Imagine this picture. I'm sitting with a pen in my hand, with my elbows on the table, with fire in my eyes, waiting for the timer to be pressed. Don't even ask me what I wrote about there. I didn't have any idea of what I could possibly write to fill that whole sheet! But I wasn't thinking then, I was acting.

I was writing as if death was hanging over my head. My "examiners-executioners" were watching the timer and "waiting for my death". I have no idea what I wrote about, but I remember that I had a lot of thoughts and that they easily formed into sentences and fit onto the paper. The timer signaled "Stop!"

They took my piece of paper from me and went to another room. I was left alone. I was praying frantically. And then they came in and said the best words in the world: "Congratulations!"

After these words, something happened to my body. I jumped so high that I practically reached the ceiling. At the moment of my flight, I was screaming from happiness, like people scream from fear. It was a squeal that expressed only one thought: I did it!

Closing my business

It turned out to be quite difficult to close my business in my country. I went through this experience in full and, notice, completely alone. Nobody in my life supported my decision to immigrate. So all of the difficulties that arose on my path gave them a reason to say once more: "See. Everything is telling you that you shouldn't leave."

I decided to not provide the reason for such words, to allow people to sleep well and remember what our ancestors taught us: "The less you know, the better you sleep."

I experienced a lot of new things. Before the state apparatus would sign the papers about the closure of my business, this apparatus had to check my work. The apparatus wanted to find out if I hid my income, if I shorted my tax payments, and if I had any other debts to the state. I'm not against this, this is fair. But when I came to this "apparatus" and told them that I was immigrating to Canada in a few months, I was very surprised that I was placed among the "traitors to the Motherland" immediately after these words.

I felt this, and by their actions, the employees of the state apparatus confirmed the correctness of my feelings.

The tone of voice of this representative, after receiving the information about my immigration, changed instantly from being friendly to highly official. An expression of a very busy and preoccupied person appeared on his face. After flipping through some papers, he said in a sing-song voice: "The investigation of your business activity can only be scheduled for the end of next year."

I was simply astonished: "But I'm supposed to leave in a few months!"

His answer was plain and simple: "Everything is booked up. I can't help you. Goodbye."

I left the room. Seasoned in tennis battles, tried in difficult life situations, I didn't intend even for a second to give up. Of course, there was a moment when I wanted to get upset, to get offended, to start crying, to get angry, but I was able to stop this desire in time, due to its ineffectiveness. I decided to take a different course of action. I bought a few bottles of good Cognac, expensive chocolates, some delicious appetizer, and went back there on the same day to the same representative. When I was going back there with this "gift", I experienced very bad feelings. I had never done this before, and had always thought that such actions were not for a decent person. But I saw no other way to change the current situation. Again life proves that we should never judge anyone. A person never knows what he will end up having to do.

I walked into the office determined to fight for my dream, but to my great surprise, I had nobody to fight with. I walked up to his table, placed the bag on the floor near his feet. He didn't even look at the bag and calmly asked: "Would it suit you if we started the investigation tomorrow?"

I calmly answered: "Yes. Thank you."

He gave me the office number where I had to go the next day. I left the room feeling like my body was filthy.

I arrived at the appointed office the next day. Behind the table sat a very young woman, whose whole appearance showed the importance of her position. I introduced myself and explained why I was there. Everything about her showed her disdain for me. And I suddenly realized that this is how traitors of the Motherland were treated during Stalin's rule. Apparently this was passed on to this young woman through genes from her parents.

She inspected some kind of paper on her desk for a very long time, so long that I started doubting her ability to read. Then she stood up and started walking slowly. She walked and walked, and finally reached the carafe of water. Slowly, as though pouring vodka, she poured herself some water and started drinking the water even slower, looking out the window. She was interested in everything outside of the window, people, dogs, grains of sand, specks of dust. She was so interested in everything that I started thinking that something very important was happening out there, but not in here. She returned to the table just as slowly and calmly said that currently everyone was busy with other clients, so she would call me when someone was free. I asked her: "When will you call me?"

She answered very confidently: "I don't know."

If at that moment there had been a gun in my hand, I would have shot at the windows in order to drown out the scream that was coming from my heart with the shattering of the glass. But I didn't have a gun. Nothing came to mind except to thank her calmly and walk out the door.

When I left the building, my knees were shaking. My thoughts were trying to make me feel even worse. They reminded me that I was an honest citizen of my country, that I always paid all of my taxes. What did I do to deserve this? And so on.

"On those who offended you, you can carry water." When I wrote this Russian expression, I started to wonder, what does it really mean? Why did I choose this particular expression for this particular situation in my life? Let's figure it out, since our ancestors left us a lot of wisdom.

So, when does a person feel resentment against someone else? When he does not agree with the other person, if he feels a strong sense of injustice towards himself. In this way, the offended person is correct, and the other person is wrong, in the mind of the resentful. Then why doesn't the resentful say everything that he thinks, why doesn't he make the other person become resentful? Fear. Fear of losing that person, fear of being left without help, fear of not being able to do what he wants to so much, and so on. Any type of fear fits in well into the role of the resentful. In this way, when a person experiences fear, in relation to another person, the fear will force the resentful person to perform anything that the other person wishes or commands, even carry water.

Fear rolled up to me too when I left that building. The young woman had created this situation so it would be easier for her to manipulate me. Resentment, as one of the forms of fear, stops our life. But I had no time to stop, and I decided to use an already proven method. I went to the store again and bought vodka, chocolates, champagne, and fruit. I packed all of this into a box. I returned the same day, five minutes before end of the young woman's shift, to offer her this "box" like a souvenir. With a confident step, I walked up to her table, put the box right on the table under her nose, and, without saying anything, stood there, smiled like a complete idiot, and looked her in the eye.

To my great surprise, my move made a very strong impression on her. She quickly and kindly offered me some water. Without waiting for my response, she rapidly said that I needed to bring all of the documents proving my income, expenses, and paid taxes for all of the years that my business existed. With the frank smile of a schizophrenic, I asked: "When?"

She happily answered: "Tomorrow."

The next day I brought her everything she had asked for. She coldly said to put it down and that she would call me when she finished working with my documents.

Three days went by, then a week. There was no phone call. I decided to stop by her office and ask her how my file was coming along. I walked in and saw that nobody had even touched my papers. I thought again about the gun, but blood rushed to my head. My thoughts were attacking me, with the desire to finish me off finally: "This snotty little girl has completely lost her integrity!"

And suddenly I remembered that I was a "traitor". Somehow I immediately felt better when I found an explanation for all of this.

I said nothing, went out the door and again ran to the store. I bought up battle-proven products, but about three times as many of them. I lifted this new box with great difficulty. When I was walking into the office of this young "brat", I had to open the door with my foot, because my arms were full of "offerings". Without pausing in my movement, I abruptly dropped the box on the floor and said that the deadline for completing this case was in one week. When I said this, I was afraid of my own voice. It sounded like the voice of someone ready to kill another person in the event of any additional annoyance. I said this and left.

A week later, I picked up the certificate that said that I had no debts to my country. Hallelujah.

Departure is delayed

Thus, step by step, the necessary problems were solved for our departure. Everything was extremely hard and emotionally difficult to bear. I tried to spend more time with my mom, to help her in everything, to take my daughter and myself to the dentist, to update my wardrobe. Many, many, many different tasks to finish.

My emotions were overwhelming me during that time.

When I got back home from my mom's place and imagined that I may never see again the house where I was born, the house that my whole life was connected to, where so many things happened... loud sobs burst out of me at this thought. It was so hard and painful for my heart!

If I was in the forest, I said goodbye to every stem of grass, every tree. I said tender words to them and cried.

A few times, my husband tried to stop me from taking this step, from immigrating, which tore my heart into pieces. He bought me a piece of gold jewelry to remember him by and told me that he loved me. My heart was soaked in pain. I cried when I remembered something, cried when there was nothing to remember.

My daughter and son-in-law called me regularly. My son-in-law promised to come to Vancouver to pick us up at the airport and help us in our first few days there. My oldest daughter was pregnant. They were expecting their child about two months after our arrival in Canada. They were preparing for our arrival.

Finally, for the first time, I got an approximate date from the Canadian Embassy after which we could buy our tickets and go. I gave this approximate date to my son-in-law. He said that he would take time off work and come to Vancouver.

Suddenly some problems occurred with our medical certificates and the time of departure had to be postponed. My son-in-law was very displeased. After some time, I received a paper that allowed me to fill out the last documents and after that was arranged, to buy a ticket.

Without knowing an exact date of departure, I shared this information with my son-in-law, but I felt that he was very tense. As always, I started making excuses, apologizing, saying that this didn't depend on me. And suddenly he exploded.

He spoke to me like a person who cannot be trusted with anything. He said that he was sick of all of this. Waiting, delaying the departure date, my constant problems were sitting across his throat. And he delivered the fateful phrase: "If you change the departure date one more time, I won't come to Vancouver and will not help you settle in."

That was it. He hung up the phone.

The first thought that came into my head:"Why does my daughter allow him to speak to me like that?"

This idea caused me pain that pierced my heart with something very cold. After that, I had some other sad thoughts: I don't know how to rent an apartment in Vancouver, my son-in-law had promised to take care of it; I have never been abroad and don't know how people live there; I've never spoken English in real life; I have nobody there to ask for help or to ask for advice. These thoughts scared me and put me in a lifeless, long black tunnel with no light. Everything that I had gone through in the past few months and this premise suddenly made me completely helpless. My body was shaking as if from cold, my heart ached so much that the ringing of this pain sounded in my ears. I couldn't believe what I had just heard. It was late at night. My daughter and husband were already sleeping.

I was sitting in the kitchen with the phone in my hand. Life had suddenly stopped. All of a sudden, I felt how tired I was, how long I had been living on this earth. I didn't feel any desire to keep fighting for my dream. I took a bottle of cognac and began to drink. After a few shots, I became weak. I had no desire to live; I had no strength left to carry this resentment, nothing. I asked myself the eternal philosophical question: "What should I do?"

The answer was obvious – to die and then all problems would be gone forever. Immediately, I felt better. The alcohol, the accumulated exhaustion from all these months, stress, worries, constant fighting for my dream, led me to the path where everything is "fine and peaceful". I took a box of some sort of antibiotics, started shoving the pills in my mouth, and drinking them down with cognac. There were a lot of pills. I sat at the table for a few minutes, and suddenly felt something happening inside my head. I felt that my body and my mind began gradually losing sensitivity. I had a quiet thought to go to the bed where my husband was sleeping and say goodbye. I went up to him and said: "Sorry, if something is wrong."

He woke up quickly, turned on the light, and started shaking me, muttering: "What have you done? What have you done?"

I said that I didn't want to live any longer, that I had taken a lot of pills.

I don't really remember what happened next. I only remember that I felt the emergency doctors were very rough in their actions. They brought me to the bathroom, shoved something rubbery and unpleasant down my throat, and poured in a lot of water, flushing out my stomach. I came to in the hospital bed, I was very cold. The doctors were constantly asking me stupid questions, such as what's your name, how old are you. I was very cold, I very much wanted to sleep, they were really bothering me. By the end of the day, I realized that I was still alive. This didn't please me in the slightest. I felt a tremendous guilt before my husband, who had to worry so much about me. I was terrified that my mom or my daughters might find out the truth. I was scared to find out the truth about myself, the real reason for my action. In trying to hide the truth, guilt, and shame, I was causing myself enormous heartache, which I also tried to hide.

In the hospital, I had to have many unpleasant discussions with the doctors. I was so afraid that it would affect my departure to Canada! I was so tense inside; I was trying so hard to please everyone, so that nobody would see how bad I was. Only my husband knew what happened to me, to everyone else – it was food poisoning. I was discharged the next day.

A week later my body was back to normal, and the documents came that informed me that it was time to buy tickets to Canada.

Goodbye, Motherland!

The tickets were on the table. The suitcases were packed.

It was a complete nightmare. Besides a constantly restrained panic and heartache, I felt nothing.

Departure was early the next morning.

I bought red flowers in a flowerpot for my mom. As I walked up to my mom's house, I was trying with all my might to show her that I was cheerful, that everything was fine. I went up to the second floor and saw my mom sitting at the table. She looked calm, but we both felt that this was not at all the case. I handed her the flowers, hugged her tenderly, kissed her gently, and said: "Mommy, you will water them and think of me."

After these words, I immediately, for the thousandth time, started telling her that as soon as I settled down in Canada, I would bring her over there, that everything would be fine, that I loved her. I talked and talked. My heart ached so much that I often ran out of breath. And then I said that I had to go. My dearest mommy said: "I'll walk you out."

We went down to the first floor and stopped at the entrance. The doorway divided my mom and me. I was already outside the door, and the dearest person to me on this earth was in front of the door, inside the house. She was so little, so old, so painfully familiar, and beloved. I cut her hair and knew that it was soft and not thick. I rubbed ointment on her back and will always remember how soft and delicate her skin was. I healed her knees, and felt when they hurt. I kissed her hands that worked so much. And now I'm standing before the person that gave me life, fed me, raised me, supported me all of my life, and I say: "Goodbye, Mommy."

We both knew even then that we would never see each other again. My most important person in this life, my mommy, thank you for everything. Forgive me, please, if I did anything wrong. I love you with every cell of my heart. My mom made blessed me, even though I had never seen her do that before, and said: "Go."

I left without turning back.

I cried on the walk home. It was so painful that it's impossible to describe. I was walking away forever from the house where I was born, where I knew every bush, every tree, every corner of the apartment. I was walking down the street that I could walk with my eyes closed. I was walking away, never to come back.

My husband and I had officially gotten divorced by then, but it didn't change anything in our lives. We were friends. Our last dinner together.

The tension was off the charts. We had to wake up very early in the morning.

Several times I said to my husband, let's go to bed, but each time, he found some excuse and refused. I lay down in the bed. I knew that it was our last night together. I so wanted to be close to him, so wanted to press myself to him, I felt so lonely. I was very scared about tomorrow. He never did come into the bedroom. He slept in a different room. My heartache was already at maximum level, so this ache only made it more intense.

Our friend took us in his car to Poland, where we had to spend the night in a hotel, and in the morning, fly to Vancouver.

That night, in the hotel, I waited for him again. He didn't even come close to me. I lived with this pain and resentment for him for the next several years.

When I said my last "goodbye", there was panic, pain, fear, unsaid resentments, unspoken love between me and my husband. He had tears in his eyes, I had a wound. We parted. We flew away.

Finally, I'm home!

Our plane landed in Vancouver on schedule. The plane door opened and people started descending the stairs. My daughter and I stepped onto the stairs too. When my foot first touched Canadian ground, I suddenly said out loud: "Finally, I'm home."

I smiled at the words and immediately thought: I've already gone mad.

The first words spoken in English, the first Canadian documents, the first contact with my "new home" went very smoothly at the airport. It seemed like all my problems had been left behind, and that here I had to learn how to live anew. I forgot for a moment about my constant heartache, hiding it so far within me that I almost had the impression that it didn't exist, that everything was fine.

My son-in-law was waiting for us at the airport. He was God to us then. He knew everything, and we nothing. I trusted him in everything, and was glad to see him there with us.

We got into his car and went to our new place of residence.

While I was still in Minsk, just before I left, I found the phone number of a family that had already lived in Vancouver for several years. I called them, and they agreed to help us rent an apartment in the building where they lived. I was very happy about this, since they were Russian-speakers from Minsk. My son-in-law signed the documents, taking responsibility for our good behavior, or in other words, he made us look good, which allowed us to move into our new apartment. Thank you, dear son-in-law, for that help!

And there we were in the empty one-bedroom apartment. My son-in-law had brought inflatable beds, so we could sleep for the first night. The first dinner in Canada. The first day in Canada. Our new life was coming into its own.

Over the next four days we all showed good teamwork. The furniture, the necessary dishes, and other essential items were purchased. The computer that my son-in-law gave us was set up. We had somewhere to sleep, somewhere to cook, and something to cook with; we had computer and telephone connections with the outside world. Thank you, dear son-in-law, for this help!

The final day of my son-in-law's stay in Canada came. My fear was making itself known but there was no time to pay attention to it. My son-in-law offered to help us set up e-mail addresses on the computer. When the time came to enter our passwords, my son-in-law told me to turn away while my daughter entered her password. Everything sank within me; I didn't want any separation from her. I said nothing, understanding that a new life was taking force, that this was simply something new that had never happened before. But then my son-in-law added that I had to give my daughter freedom, because he knew how much I loved to control everything. Pain shot through my heart. This unfairness towards me revealed itself in full force. This was my oldest daughter's opinion of me!

I could do nothing but keep quiet and hide my feelings from everyone, including myself. My youngest daughter observed this comment from my son-in-law with unusual ease. The beginning of our separation was laid. My son-in-law had played the role assigned to him by God successfully and left for America to go to his pregnant wife, my oldest daughter.

I went out onto the street to walk him out and as my beloved mother-in-law used to do, bless his departing car with a wish for a safe trip. I didn't know then that our life paths would separate us for many years, and perhaps forever.

And so, Canada, apartment, my daughter the teenager, me, and God. A new life.

Life from scratch

We came to Canada in December, not long before the New Year. Our Russian-speaking neighbors halfheartedly invited us over to celebrate New Year's. We were endlessly happy about this, since for the first time in our lives, we were celebrating the New Year without our family, outside of our usual environment. I cooked delicious food to share with them. We put on festive dresses and in full readiness, started waiting for the promised phone call from our neighbors. The time was nearing midnight, and I decided to call them myself. They very reluctantly said that they had a friend over, they had been busy, but we could come over whenever we wanted. We went immediately.

We walked into the apartment to celebrate our favorite holiday of the year "New Year's", where no one had been waiting for us, no one was glad to get to know us. I tried to appear cheerful and happy, if only they would allow us to be with them. We celebrated the New Year. We soon went back to our apartment. The only thing that stayed in my memory after celebrating this New Year is that I got very tired playing the role of the clown.

The next day, recognizing that I couldn't depend on anybody, that I was my own director and performer, I started studying my new life. Using a dictionary, I started translating the instructions for everything that I wanted to use here but didn't know how: the toaster, the phone with an answering machine, the remote control for the TV, the vacuum cleaner, and so on. For the first time in my life, I was reading instructions in English. Not only was I reaching for the dictionary at practically every word and trying to expand my vocabulary, I was also becoming familiar with social conventions. The instructions for the items that I bought were created with maximum protection from insurance companies. The instructions described all processes in so much detail, as if they were put together for preschool-aged kids, so that in any unforeseen circumstance, the makers of this product could say: "We warned you!"

I received some interesting information and learned how to use all of these household "helpers" myself.

At the airport, at the Immigration Services office, I had been given a big stack of various notices, ads, and informational flyers for immigrants. This was quite important and necessary information for starting a new life. Partly with a dictionary, and partly already knowing the words, I read through these flyers and gradually got some ideas of where to begin.

In Minsk, I knew already that my daughter's school would be near my house. Right after the New Year, my daughter and I, who knew absolutely no English, went to this school. For the first time, I spoke English in real life, and to my great surprise, people understood me. I was given the address of a public organization where I had to go with my documents to receive a referral for my daughter to study at this school.

And so, I had a new challenge – how to get to this organization? I was so focused, so concentrated on my new life, like a soldier in battle. By that time, I already had a map of the city, and I found the bus numbers going in the direction I needed. How was I supposed to pay for a ticket? Where could I find out the bus schedule for my bus? I called my oldest daughter in America every day and asked her about everything. Already in the late stages of pregnancy, or perhaps just not wanting to waste her time on me, she always gave one-word answers, which created even more questions for me. I asked my neighbor some questions, and she explained the public transport system in Canada in general terms.

Finally, nervously, we were on the bus. I was completely focused. Near the bus driver was a big metal box. The passenger can throw in the exact amount of money for a ticket in change, validate a single-use bus ticket, or show a monthly bus pass. To get the bus to stop at the necessary bus stop, the passenger must pull the "string" that can be found throughout the whole bus. If somebody has pulled this string, then the tableau above the driver lights up with the stop name and the word "Stop". The entrance is through the front door, the exit from the rear. A tape recording informs the passengers about the next stop. I had to hear the name of the stop (this was English after all) and verify what I had heard against what I saw on the tableau. We got off the bus. I remember the feeling of pride that I felt in myself. I did it!

The first success. My daughter went to school and she liked it!

My daughter's place in this new life was determined, and that allowed me to start the search for my new place. The eternal philosophical question: "Where to start?"

How can a person make an action plan, if the person doesn't have the components of this plan? Without having any plan, I, like a blind kitten, was trying to find something without knowing what.

Children don't learn to walk in one day. I had to learn how to live in a completely new environment, relying only on myself. This gift from God came with no guiding suggestions, nobody reaching out a helping hand. I had to search myself for the answers that I needed from people and the helping hands that I needed. I had to learn by myself, not wait "by the sea for the weather to change."

Every morning after my daughter left for school, I started "working".

It looked something like this. First of all, I started my work day by feeling proud of myself and satisfied with the work I had done: "Today I already know how to use public transit and can go anywhere without a problem."

Then I took out of a folder and spread out in front all the immigration flyers and found one that I felt was ready for my inspection – or I was ready for its inspection. Intuitively, I always held in my mind and in my actions only one task. I didn't get distracted by any other questions and didn't start new tasks until this one task was finished.

The flyer with information about free swimming pool use for new immigrants caught my attention. I had seen a large sports center near our house. I had always loved to swim. I found out how to get to the government office where I could get the documents that would allow me to visit swimming pools for free. I noted the opening days and hours, prepared all of the documents I had at the time, and "to battle". A few days later, my daughter and I had cards allowing us to swim for free and to use any sports facilities in any Vancouver public-sports center. Then every morning, I swam from six to seven in the wonderful pool near our building. Not only is swimming good for your health, but I had also found a small opportunity to study and get used to my new life through talking to people at the pool, through observing their behavior. The flyer with the information about free swimming pool use for new immigrants disappeared from my folder.

Another informational flyer announced an opportunity for newly arrived immigrants to find friends that would help them adapt faster to their new life. As soon as I imagined having a Canadian friend my age, I instantly felt more confident in this life. Time to act! Already much more confidently than in my first few days in Canada, I walked into the office indicated on the flyer, filled out the necessary documents, and gave a description of my imaginary friend to the workers of this government branch. They explained to me that in Canada many people work for free, that it's a good way to get Canadian work experience, a good recommendation, and to be active and social in the life of Canadian society. This sounded like an old and forgotten Communist fairy tale. It was very nice to hear this and to feel pride in my new country. They said: "Wait. We will send you a notice when we find a suitable candidate for this volunteer work."

"Thank you."

This flyer disappeared also from my folder.

The next flyer talked about a free opportunity for new immigrants to learn English. Why not? To battle! In this office, I was invited to take a test before applying for a free English course. I answered all the questions, wrote down all the answers, and I was told that these courses were not for me, they were only for people who were just starting to learn English. They immediately started offering a huge amount of paid English courses, to which I responded: "No, thank you."

Thus, gradually I was getting my experience, my understanding that Canada is not heavenly manna but helps immigrants for free in the bare minimum and at the very beginning of the person's stay in this country, and that the rest is in the hands of the person himself. This flyer disappeared from my folder as well.

In several flyers, I found information about help in looking for work and writing a resume and cover letters. Words like "resume, cover letters" sounded like scientific terms for high-frequency matters, spoken in Russian with a Chinese accent. When the question arises, the answer will come. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. And that's exactly what happened to me practically the next day after "working on these informational flyers."

I received an e-mail that a company with a hundred years of experience, with a hundred-percent success rate that helps people find a well-paid job is dying to offer me this service. I was used to trusting people, especially representatives of organizations. In the former U.S.S.R. and even after the "Perestroika", I never had a single experience in my life that gave me a reason to distrust someone.

When we need to make a decision, we all rely on our own experience. If there's nothing to rely on due to lack of one's own experience, we have to rely on the experience of others. Many people make this huge mistake. In life, there are no identical people, situations, consequences, and experiences. Taking the experience of other people at face value, a person sometimes stops their own development and creates unexpected circumstances for himself that can appear many years later. The best thing is not to rely blindly on your own experience or the experience of others, but to rely on your own feelings. If you have a desire and eagerness to get a new life experience, go after it!

For example, take a person who has never lent money to others, but he knows many instances where the money never got back to its owner. So, relying on others' experiences, this person will never lend out money. This person will never experience new feelings, will not change anything about himself, he just relies on the experience of others. It's possible that in some situation if he lent money, he would have gotten it back doubled, but this opportunity was missed. When a person has himself lent money and lost it forever, the experiences of others are not so important to him anymore. In life, there is often no logic, there are feelings that must be trusted.

In making the decision to work with this "magical" company, I relied on the lack of my own bad experiences and my desire to discover the unknown. I relied on this subconsciously, without thinking about it. This explains the fact that when I received this message, I believed every word and had no doubts in my mind. I decided to call this company to make an appointment.

Phone calls were very difficult for me. When I talked on the phone, I got so stressed that my entire body was covered in sweat. When I was trying to listen to what was being said to me, I wanted to stop my own heart, so that its beating wouldn't drown out the voice in the phone receiver. My arms and legs went cold from a sharply tensed-up sweaty body. Already in school, I learned that repetition is the mother of learning. So I tried to make calls as often as possible.

After learning how to use public transit, at the exact time and day of our meeting, I found myself in a huge glistening building in the center of the city. Preoccupied office ladies and gentlemen whizzed by me in suits meant for proving the importance of their business. This was my first time in such a place. I had only seen this in the movies. I had to go to the fifteenth floor. I found several elevators, but I couldn't understand how they differed and which one I needed. I also didn't know which button to press to call the elevator. There were a lot of questions; I looked for answers only through the unfolding situation, so, when the elevator doors opened, I confidently walked in with the other people, my whole appearance showing that I knew what I was doing and that I had done it lots of times before. To my surprise, the elevator started going down. When the door opened, I saw a parking lot, packed with cars. Since only a few people left the elevator, and the others continued to enjoy being inside, I understood that I needed to go up, not down, and also got out of the elevator. After standing for several seconds in proud solitude in front of the closed elevator door, I suddenly understood the meaning of the buttons on it. If you want to go down, press the button and wait. When the elevator door opens, check the arrow above, showing the direction of the elevator. If this arrow corresponds with your desire, then jump in, and if not, wait for the elevator direction to change. Having received this new information, I knowingly waited for the return of the elevator from the basement and took off breezily to the fifteenth floor.

The whole floor was filled with light; the floors were shining, reflecting, and multiplying this light. I walked in search of the office number I needed and couldn't believe that I was here and that this was reality. I opened the door to the office. A young woman with a sparkling smile on her face greeted me, asked for my name, and expressed overwhelming joy at seeing me there and at the right time. Her whole appearance was showing how important my coming to her was, how much she had to tell me. The view out of the window simply stopped my breath.

I sat down in the comfortable armchair offered to me. The employee started telling me about the history of their company, how it was created, how it grew, and how it strengthened. She showed me some photographs, diplomas, statistics to prove that I was in the right place at the right time.

She asked me questions about my work experience in Belarus and about my education. After I answered all her questions the best I could, she took a calculator and started quickly figuring something out. After a few minutes of intricate calculations, she confidently named an estimated amount of my annual income in Canada. It was a lot of money. Without emphasis, she added: "You will make this after you go through our training."

What training? This question didn't even occur to me. I was simply mesmerized by her promises. Just like the question didn't arise: "How much am I going to have to pay for this?"

This was a completely new experience in my life! I, like a child, genuinely believed everything that I was told and promised. From her words, it followed that this company would not only help me find a well-paying job, but with a confident hand, would open the door to working in Canadian society. Then she took me to meet the other employees of this company, who made me feel like part of a family. It seemed like I had found such caring, honest, and sincere people who would help me establish myself in my new life. During this short journey through the offices of this company, I was constantly hearing words like interview, business breakfasts, resumes, cover letters, recommendations. Someone showed me a professional video camera and added that I would also be filmed when preparing for interviews. I would know how I looked in the eyes of the employer. Yes, this was flying high!

My heart even started beating faster from the thought that all my problems were behind me. At the end of this wonderful presentation, the lady accompanying me asked when I would like to start. She didn't say a word about payment, she focused my entire attention on the help that she was going to give me. This highly professional approach had a curiously strong effect on me. I said that I was ready to start training this second. She smiled kindly, and we discussed the time and date of my next visit to her. She reminded me several times that the next time, I had to wear business clothes, emphasizing my professionalism and competence, and that I would be filmed, and that this material would be used in preparing me for interviews.

I left this building completely happy and full of rainbow dreams. I wanted to dance and sing, jump and skip.

I showed up in the office again on the appointed day and in full readiness to start the training process. I was told, as an aside, that I had to sign a contract, which I could have read with a dictionary in minimum three hours. I glanced at the numerous pages of the incomprehensible contract, glanced at the kind and friendly faces of the people surrounding me, and signed the last page, well, without looking. How nice it is when a person has no information about what's going on! I was simply enjoying life, I simply signed what these kind people had asked. The lady helping me quickly took one copy of this signed contract for herself and left me the other. She left the room for a few seconds and came back with a piece of paper, which she held out to me with the widest smile on her face, and asked politely: "How would you like to pay... cash, credit card, or check?"

I glanced at the amount that I had to pay and felt nothing. I thought simply that if I were to pay this four-figure amount right now, then in a month my daughter and I would have nothing to live on. I thought this, and started filling out the check to pay the bill. I gave her this check, attempting to appear financially independent and confident about the future. All sides of this agreement behaved very professionally.

Yes, my fear stuck out its head and wanted to say something, but didn't have time, since the check was signed. Money? To me, it always was and will be just money. The deed was done, and there was no point in talking about it. I trusted my feelings. I didn't test them for logic. At that moment in my life, I was practically embodying a test of the well-known saying: "He who doesn't take risks doesn't drink champagne."

Our next meeting was scheduled for five business days later, when my check would clear.

My training, or rather, my preparation for a bright future, gained regularity. Twice a week I went to the city center to obtain new skills and new experiences in my life. My first month was especially productive and exciting.

Everything that happens to a person for the first time in his life is always very important and is remembered for a long time, if not forever. All these important moments in a person's life make up his development and improvement. A person makes progress when he goes through changes, when new thoughts, new outlooks appear in his consciousness.

I saw myself on the screen of the video player, and I was taught how to move my body before, during, and after the interview. I learned how to write a resume and cover letter, what to say during an interview and what to keep to myself. I improved my English significantly, and felt more confident when I spoke and when I tried to understand the speaker. I received a relatively complete picture of business relations in Canada. Only then did I start slowly understanding the huge differences in the culture, habits, and business relationships of Canadian and Belarusian people. Whenever something made me protest or dislike the Canadian lifestyle, I reminded myself that this was my new home and that I must learn to love and respect the order established in this house. Everything was going well because I didn't get stuck in my new life, I moved forward every day.

At the same time, my money was going in the opposite direction. After a bit of work, I received the amount I needed from Belarus and felt good.

I swam in the pool, went to my training, did the laundry, cleaned the house for my daughter and me, called my mom practically every day, and called my oldest daughter. Life was going relatively well. And finally the happy day came – my oldest daughter became a mom and I a grandma! My daughter gave birth to an incredibly beautiful (the photo), little girl. I was very happy about this. A few times, I wanted with my whole heart to give her advice, but every time, I ran into a defensive wall and felt clearly that she didn't want my advice.

After a month and a half of my classes, I started noticing that the training program was coming to an end, that they had already said everything, even though they had promised that they would lead me by the hand until I found a job. As soon as I got this feeling, to my great surprise, they gave me some news. They offered me a job for a small business owner who developed software and databases using the same instruments and programming language that I had used in Belarus. I couldn't believe my ears. Work in Canada! The salary I was offered was quite small, but I found it perfectly satisfactory to start with.

In Belarus, March 8 is considered women's day, a big holiday. Every year, without exception, I gave flowers to my mother on this day. Always on this day, there was a man with flowers near me. These are stories from my past life. The present also made this day significant for me – my first working day in Canada.

Was I nervous? No. I didn't know what this was, I didn't have anything to compare to. I was going to this office with curiosity.

When my new boss was showing me the layout of the rooms, the office, the bathroom, the kitchen in his house, I felt very comfortable. When he started explaining my duties at this position, I realized that I understood only fifty percent of what he was saying. When I started with my vaguely understood duties, I realized that I didn't know the names in English for practically all of the items in the office, and even worse, the meanings of many words in the computer's operating system. I had a problem forming questions in English, and I had nothing but questions in my head. The question was there, but the English words aren't.

I worked for eight hours. I don't even know how, but when I came home, I realized that everything was very bad. I started to grasp the real meaning of immigration. It's not only a language barrier, it's not only a new culture, not only a step down on the social ladder, it's also huge work with my egotism, my habits. I got very scared. I lost everything there and I had nothing here.

I lay in my bed, put my pillow over my head, and started to cry. I was even too scared to cry loudly. And at this most significant moment not only in my life, but in the life of all women of Belarus, my oldest daughter decided to talk to me on the phone, which didn't happen often on her side. My youngest daughter brought the phone receiver to my bed and said that my oldest daughter wanted to talk to me. Crushed by grief, tears, exhausted by my first working day in Canada, and continuing to hold my pillow over my head, I said that I didn't want to talk to anyone.

The next morning, my son-in-law called my youngest daughter and said: "Tell your mom that my wife has decided to never again talk to your mother. The decision is final and not subject to discussion."

When I heard this from my youngest daughter, I couldn't believe my ears. Why this unfairness? What did I do that made her take such a step? And the already familiar ache squeezed my heart: "Darling, why are you doing this?"

I was so tired of her coldness towards me by that point that I decided not to take the first step. I decided to give her the freedom that she had sought for so long. I decided to free her from me at her own wish. I wasn't angry at her at all, but I didn't have the strength any longer to continue this cold, years-long war, started for a reason unknown to me.

Only God knows how much I waited for a phone call from her, how much my heart ached when I saw babies in the arms of their grandmothers. Only God saw how often I looked at the road from the window of my apartment and imagined her coming to visit me with the whole family and being able finallyto press her to my heart. Apparently God didn't hear my prayers, or I didn't know how to pray, or it wasn't in God's plan.

I think that my office work didn't impress my boss, and he allowed me to work on the software at home. I bought a used car from him and got my driver's license, so life was going well. For a couple of months, work was successful for both of us. The project was finished. My boss was satisfied. But... he refused to pay me for the past two weeks of work. And suddenly, it turned out that I had no documents proving that I worked for him. I remembered the company that had directed me to him to which I had paid a lot of money. I called them to make an appointment, but I met a complete lack of space for me in their schedule and desire to continue to work with me. I went there several times in the search of truth, which didn't bring me any visible benefit, but it did bring a big invisible experience, which is always ready to come to my aid at my command.

New life experiences

Around the same time, I got a letter informing me that "a friend has been found for me." The government agency that had promised to find me a volunteer that would help me get used to my new life in Canada fulfilled its promise. This woman called me and agreed to visit me and my daughter. I cooked some delicious food by a Belarusian recipe, laid the table, did everything necessary for having important guests. A new person entered my life.

She had been born and raised in Canada, was practically the same age as me, and I was very happy to meet her. We talked, and I felt how much more I had to learn in the English language. On the other hand, she said that for only a few months of living in Canada, my English wasn't bad and quite understandable. It was very interesting to hear stories about her life and share my life stories with her. Our meetings became regular and soon we became friends. She started inviting me to restaurants with her friends every Saturday. I went a few times, but I didn't find it enjoyable. I think it's because of the different cultural habits and customs of our countries. But in any case, each time I gained a new experience and a new opportunity to get to know my new country better.

Once my friend called me in the middle of the week, and said that we were going to a party thrown by her friends. She asked me to make something to eat and bring it with me. She told me the address, time, and date of when we were meeting. A woman of about forty to forty-two, very pleasant-looking, surrounded by two charming little kids aged four and two opened the door. Smiling, she invited us in. There were quite a lot of guests in the house, but as I noticed immediately, there were only women there. We introduced ourselves to each other and started leisurely drinking wine, eating various foods, and talking to each other. I started noticing that the kids were constantly calling "mom" not only to the woman that had opened the door, but another woman as well, also very beautiful. After observing them for a while, I realized that this was a lesbian family. I had never met this kind of family and had never talked to this kind of women. I immediately asked them: "Why do the kids call both of you "mom"?"

They explained that that they were officially married, and that they had given birth to the kids with the sperm of the same donor, with direct assistance from doctors. From observing them carefully, I noticed that this couple had a clear division of functions within the family, the masculine and feminine, and that there was complete discipline and order within the family. To my great surprise, I happily observed that there was love and respect in their relationship. Without judging them at all, I accepted my new experience with gratitude. The evening continued.

If somebody thinks that only Russians drink a lot, they are wrong. Canadian women can compete with Russian men in wine drinking! I limited the amount of wine I drank that evening for a simple reason, I had to drive home. And so, when the wine had brought full relaxation not only to the guests but also to the hosts of this cozy house, this married female lesbian couple started showing sexual interest towards each other. They started kissing each other passionately and sneaking hands into each other's bras. I looked around at the other women and saw that some of them had also found a match for themselves and were entering sexual harmony with the hosts. My heart stopped from fear. I felt ashamed for them, for myself, and for these and for those. I slipped out of the house English-style, without saying goodbye, got into my car, and drove home.

In this way, I received my unfinished experience of interacting with people involved in relationships with people of the same sex. Why an unfinished experience? It's very simple. My fear before the unusual, the unknown made me close my eyes and run away. I, assessing the situation as "bad" and wrong, judged these people. On what basis? The culture and customs of my country taught me the idea that this is wrong. Who knows, maybe I would have liked same-sex sexual games? But my train left. Perhaps if I had stayed a bit longer without letting my fear control me, I would have felt that these kinds of relationships are not for me, they would never interest me. In that case, I would have, without fear and judgment, walked up to the welcoming hosts, thanked them for the honor, and left with dignity. How often in life people miss the opportunity to look at the world through their own eyes and work out their own opinion about what is happening.

I continued to meet with my new friend regularly. We went to various open-air festivals, near lakes or on large fields, sometimes we just walked around the city. So with the help of my Canadian friend, I was getting used to my new life.

Once she said that the next Saturday would be her birthday and she was inviting me over to her house. I was very happy. I had never been to and knew nothing about how birthdays in Canada were celebrated.

A lot of guests gathered in the living room. There were people from many corners of our earth. Canada is known for the diversity of nationalities of its citizens. A big table was standing in the corner. The birthday girl didn't cook anything. Each guest brought something and put it on the table. The table, with abundant and diverse food, looked very attractive. Each brought one or two bottles of wine. When this wine was set out on one side of the table, it looked fantastic. Each person poured himself wine and put food on his plate himself. People were standing up, eating, and talking to each other.

The birthday girl put a chair in the middle of the room, brought out all the presents given to her by the guests, put them near the chair and, sitting down, started "working" with each of them. I had given her flowers, so my gift did not get her attention at that time. I, mouth open from astonishment, started observing what was going on. Someone brought a little box with a balloon inside, others a card with typed text on it. Many people gave her boxes of condoms and various sex toys.

In the country where I was born, everything is different. There is a table piled with food made by the hosts. The presents are expensive, and the guests have no idea about the gifts given by the other people. The customs of countries differ, just like our thoughts, raised with these customs.

I was so surprised by what was going on that I expressed this through the desire to say a toast to practically every guest and finish it off with wine. It was fun. It was great. Long after midnight, the guests started to leave. My friend asked me if I could drive. Confidently, I answered: "I'm practically sober!"

I got behind the wheel of my car and started driving home. On my way, I was surprised to see how many cars had been stopped by the police. I even laughed at them: "If you're drunk – stay at home!"

I parked my car in front of my house, turned off the engine, and got out of the car. And suddenly I realized that something wasn't right with me. I had difficulty coordinating my whole body in the direction of the entrance to my building. The key is in my hand, I'm standing in front of the door and just can't get myself to concentrate on the keyhole. It was constantly changing size, location, and its amount. For a long time, I tried to put the key inside, but the key hit the door, the wall, and just couldn't catch the fleeing keyhole. I got very tired while trying to open the door. It was a curious experience in my life.

Money was being spent quickly. I had no work. From the big stack of informational leaflets, there were only a few left that I wanted to "inspect". I read that a person can use books, videos, audio materials from all libraries in Canada for free. I immediately found the nearest library, and the first library books appeared in our house.

The question of money started slowly causing me stress. Studying the information that I had received, I decided to file for unemployment assistance. I had never yet had this experience in my life. Did this offend my vanity? No. A new country, new circumstances change a person very much. The strength of these changes and the direction of these changes depend very much on the person's intent. If one accepts calmly everything that is going on in life, one can see more truth, the picture of life more like it really is. If one sees whatever is going on in life from a negative position, then life will seem the way that the person wants to see it, he will live in an illusion.

I very much wanted to get to know Canada in all of its manifestations. I was very interested to know what this Canadian unemployment assistance looked like. My wish to know came true in full. I went through this experience from excitement to depression.

Of course, monetary assistance is a precious help to every newly arrived immigrant. You get enough money to pay for your apartment, minimal utilities, and a little bit for food and clothing. While getting this assistance, each person was required to look for work. I was supposed to make note of the organizations where I sent my resume and present these notes, in a report, to a different government department, which informed the welfare department about it. Sometimes the government department offered work, but only with the lowest pay. I was always considered overqualified for these jobs due to my higher education and experience. I was ready to work at any job at that point, but God refused me in this.

For the first little while, while I still had hope that they would help me find a job, I went there with pleasure and every week. Eventually, I started noticing how difficult it was for me to go there, how tired I was from all of it.

It's only an illusion, that a person gets money as assistance in unemployment. He works for this money by his daily search for work, weekly report about his fruitless job search, being amid people who have lost faith in success. In this life, you must pay for everything. It's easy to pay with money. Take it out of your pocket and hand it over. When you're paying with your anxiety, stressful situations, depression... it costs a lot.

Noticing how quickly I started sliding down into a depressive mood, I started playing tennis much more actively. There are a lot of public tennis courts in Vancouver, partners are easy to find. I started playing tennis and feeling better.

My teenage daughter

For the first six months, while my youngest daughter needed me at every step, there were no problems in our relationship. She went to a public school where there were quite a few kids with rich parents. It wasn't easy for her to get used to her new life, but it didn't stop her from quickly learning English and getting good grades in all her courses. The new life made her work, even though she wasn't used to it. She needed to abide by the discipline and rules of the school, contain her emotions, despite it being very difficult for her. Life demanded internal change, but she adapted to life on the outside while battling it internally.

Even in Belarus, when she had started tennis training with a coach friend of mine, he called me and started complaining about my daughter's behavior – after just a few sessions. Then, for the first time in my life, I understood that I didn't want to see this problem. My daughter had always done what she wanted. I tried to talk to her, but nothing came out of it. Remembering the words of our ancestors "silence is gold", I gave her freedom. She decided for herself whether to go to training or not, how to study in school, who to befriend. In the end, there was no training, no academic success, no friends. Nobody had helped me with these questions, nobody had advised me. This is my life. It's her life too. It's not good or bad. It is the way that it is.

When we were leaving Belarus, her father had given her American dollars at the very last minute of our parting. I was very surprised. He had prepared for this in advance. At that time, I considered him my closest friend. He had kept it from me. My heart resounded with pain then, apparently, I felt that this money would "successfully" accomplish its mission.

It was quite a large amount of money. Money is always a good test for a person.

Worrying that this money might be lost or stolen, I put it in the bank. My daughter and I agreed that when she needed it, I would take the necessary amount from the bank and give it to her. She kept track of every dollar that she spent from the total amount and knew the remaining amount of money in the bank. Each time, my heart pinched from the fact that we were dividing something. We're here, in Canada, so far from our usual environment, we need to be together in everything, we don't need to divide anything. That's what I wanted. Of course, when I was out of work, when the money we had was running away from us with the speed of light, I thought that perhaps in the hardest moment of our life, her money would save us. I talked about this with my daughter. It didn't interest her. But every time she took part of this money for her own expenses, it pushed us apart. I saw how important it was for her to spend this money and not discuss it with me. Whenever I gave her money for something, I always asked what she was going to spend it on. And here, she had a perfect way to show me her "independence" from me.

My daughter was used to me always having money in Belarus. She never received a refusal if she needed some. Upon arrival in Canada, the saved-up amount of money was spent quicklyon furniture, dishes, and various small items. Our life situation changed drastically. The money was "melting away", there was no income, the future was uncertain. My daughter was observing what was going on in our life, as if from the outside. She believed that I would find a way out of the current situation; that she didn't need to take any part in it. Even when I found a temporary job with some Russian people cleaning dental offices in the evenings, my daughter never asked me about anything. I remember, after the first day of work there (I had to wash toilets), I so wanted to share everything that had happened to me in that time, to tell her everything. I started telling her, but after a few words, she interrupted me and said that she needed to do homework. Oh, God, how painful that was for me! I had nobody in this world except my daughter, but even she didn't want to take part in the establishing of our life. On the other hand, I understood clearly that she had no fault in this. She was a teenager. I was an adult. She didn't choose these circumstances. I had created them myself. I also had to fix them myself.

I decided to find the key to my daughter's heart. I decided to change our relationship for the better.

First, I thought that perhaps she was getting very tired at school. The new language, the new rules were making her stressed out. I also thought that she so wanted to have friends, but it wasn't working out for her. I had to pay more attention to her. I thought about this and decided to act.

We lived in a one-bedroom apartment, with was one separate room in which my daughter lived and the other common room with the kitchen and television was for me.

When my daughter came home for lunch in the middle of the school day, her lunch was always waiting for her on the table. I tried to cook as many diverse and delicious things as possible. I started asking her about things at school in more detail. On very rare days, my daughter answered my questions willingly. But normally, she was just rude to me. My desire to establish a contact with her was huge. I made excuses for her; it was so difficult for her in this new environment.

Once she came home for lunch and soup was waiting on the table. She sat at the table, as usual in a bad mood and started eating. The soup turned out to be too hot for her, and she furiously screamed and threw the bowl of soup against the wall. The bowl broke. The soup poured down the floor and the wall. I stood there and didn't know what to say, what to do. Such an unbearable heartache gripped me. In this world, was only the two of us. We had nobody to help us fix all of this. I didn't feel anything but pain. My daughter went back to school hungry. I was left with my pain. When she came home from school, she went to her room and slammed the door angrily behind her.

I decided not to give up on my decision to find a way to my daughter's heart. I decided to give her time to calm down, not to bother her... and went for a walk. I walked along the streets of the city until the deep night. My heartache didn't allow me to cry. When I was opening the door, I noticed that my daughter turned off the TV and slipped into her room.

The next day, I started talking to her as if nothing had happened. My fear of making the situation worse than it already was made me play this role. My daughter did not apologize; she continued to behave as if nothing had happened as well.

But a very important change had happened in our lives. She felt instinctively that she could manipulate my fear. She felt subconsciously that she could do whatever she wanted, that I was under her control.

More than anything in life, I was afraid of being left alone. I didn't have friends. I didn't have family. I only had one daughter. My oldest daughter had forgotten about me. And this fear started controlling my relationship with my daughter.

I started pouring soup earlier before lunch, so that it wouldn't be too hot when she came home for lunch. I freed up the computer for her immediately when she appeared in the apartment. Practically every evening, I left the house and walked around the city streets until nighttime. I had no strength to talk to her. I had no faith that words could change anything about our relationship.

But the situation was getting worse, even tenser, and even more silent.

Once we were grocery shopping and my daughter answered me very rudely. My nerves gave out. We were sitting in our car; I was screaming in full voice and crying. I told her that I couldn't live like this anymore, that we had to change our relationship, that I did everything that was within my strength in our new life, that I needed her help, my dear daughter, not her anger. Then, for the first time, she reacted to my pain and said that she would try to fix something; that she understood how difficult things were for me at that moment. I calmed down immediately. I believed her. But the next day nothing had changed. Only a new hurt from an unfulfilled expectation was added to my already existing pain.

I didn't give up. I decided not to talk to my daughter, hoping that she would want to talk to me herself. I didn't talk to her for several days. I was killing myself. She looked completely indifferent to what was happening. It wasn't working. I started talking to her again as if nothing had happened.

Once I got a very bad pain in my back. I couldn't move. I felt that it was not only my tense relations with my daughter making themselves known, but also the new environment, the new country changing me on the inside. Long before, I had stopped going to doctors for help. And this time too, I decided to deal with it myself. I stayed in bed for several weeks, suffering from the intense pain. And with this pain, I still got up and cooked food for my daughter and myself. She came in, had lunch, but never came up to me, never hugged me, never said a kind word. Why didn't either of my daughters want to do this? I had so often hugged, kissed, spoiled them. I didn't know the answer.

The pain in my back passed. I continued to do everything possible to fix my new life. As soon as my daughter left for school, I sat down at the computer and looked for work, sending out resumes and cover letters. I started periodically being invited for interviews, but this didn't bring any results.

It's very difficult to find a first job in a new country when a person has no recommendation letter. Every time, the wait for a phone call after the interview brought stress into my life. Visiting the career service center weekly added stress to my life as well. All of these reasons added stress, but they were not as important to me as my relationship with my daughter. I thought about it constantly, trying to find a way out of the current situation.

Once, handing out my resume to the organizations of one of the districts of Greater Vancouver, I read an ad about a two-bedroom apartment for rent. This two-storey house with twelve apartments looked very attractive. I suddenly thought, what if I changed the district we lived in, the apartment, got a second room, maybe this would help us to start over again, would help change our relationship. And I immediately created a beautiful fairy tale in my head about that happy moment when we were so close to each other, how much we loved each other. The fairy tale affected my actions. I found the building manager and looked at the apartment. I liked it a lot, and I got the impression that this was the key to the solution of our relationship. I hurried home to tell this news to my daughter. She wasn't against it, but she didn't show any particular happiness. Apparently, she inherited this from her father – not reacting, just seeing what would happen. It must be very interesting to observe from the side. A person observes, does nothing, does not participate, and has no responsibility.

Life gave me many experiences in moving from one apartment to another so I knew that it was not an easy task, but doable. I was burning with the desire to move, like a drowning man grabs a reed. By that time, I had a few acquaintances among some Russian families who helped me to get boxes, bags for packing our things, and promised to help us in moving.

A few days before the move, I came home and saw a large hole in the wall of the corridor. The houses in Vancouver are made out of "paper", especially meant for the possibility of earthquakes, since one side of Vancouver is located among the mountains. I couldn't believe my eyes, but understood clearly in that moment, my daughter had expressed her anger. I found an explanation for her anger; she was a teenager, hormonal changes, and so on. When she appeared at home, she explained to me that she had gotten angry at something, that it was an accident. I was glad even for this explanation, that she was at least explaining something to me. God knows, how I wanted to repair our relationship! After her "honest" words, I got some hope that everything would be fine between us, I just had to have faith.

We moved to our new apartment without any problems. While we were busy bringing order into our new place, everything was fine. I did not forget about my dream to change our relationship with each other. As soon as the apartment had been put in order, I started trying to find common interests with her.

Almost every Sunday, I started going to a church that was near our new house and many of my Russian acquaintances also went. I don't belong to any church or religion but I respect people that have found themselves there. I liked going there because after every service (I used this time to improve my English), there was church singing.

Over a hundred people went onstage and sang church songs. Amazing voices, amazing acoustics, and such a joyous energy radiated from the singing people. There were people of every skin color, different nationalities from all corners of our wonderful earth, fat and thin, blondes and brunettes, bald and hairy. When they sang and enjoyed what they were doing, all of the physical differences between them disappeared; they became one brightly colored and happy family. Every time that I saw them and heard their singing, the same thought came into my head: "God created all of us. God loves us all equally. It was people that divided humanity on the basis of external characteristics: white, yellow, rich, poor, and so on."

I tried to convince my daughter to come with me there and share the pleasure that I felt from the singing of these people. When she did agree to do this, she was simply mocking me. Every time, she was unhappy about something, refused to walk beside me and talk, was rude to me, I told myself that it was time to stop torturing both of us. If she didn't like it, then I would go there by myself, and give her freedom.

I didn't give up on my hope of improving our relationship. I remembered that when I was a teenager, I was so busy with sports, music, books, that I had no time to express my teenage angst. I started asking everyone that I could find about sports clubs for teens. Since I couldn't pay for this, being on welfare, I was looking for public sports clubs.

Someone suggested judo martial arts. I asked my daughter whether she wanted to start training. She agreed. I went to the address given to me, talked to the coach, and he set up a time and day for the first training session. We went there. Everything was unusual, but it was a very friendly atmosphere. She trained for a day, maybe two, and said that she didn't like it, that pressing sweat-soaked bodies against each other was very unpleasant for her. Every time that she spoke to me honestly, I was ready to jump for joy, I always understood her when she talked to me like that. I then said: "Let's look for a soccer team. There must be a lot of girls your age, you can find a friend, and training in a group is very interesting."

The tone of her voice suddenly changed and acquired a metallic tint. She stated: "I do not want any sports training. Leave me alone."

This didn't work either. I didn't give up. I started trying to convince her to come to play tennis with me. She played in a good mood until the first faulty ball, and then she was so irritated, so rude to me, that it was impossible to continue playing tennis. I think that she didn't like that I played tennis much better than she did. She wanted to be better in everything, and if that didn't happen, it poured out through her anger.

I tried to find these lost keys to her heart. I invited her to come to any restaurant of her choosing. We left the house. I asked where we were going. She answered rudely that she didn't know. I started suggesting places that we could go and she was even ruder in return. Why didn't I stop this torture then? I think that my fear put me in a position of worthlessness. It was just a nightmare. I was crying on the street. She was being rude to me. I again said, "Let's go be together, let's eat together," and she was again rude in return. When we walked up to a Vietnamese restaurant, and I convinced her to go inside, she behaved very inappropriately. My heartache was simply suffocating me, not letting me catch my breath.

The attempt to pay more attention to her didn't work.

The attempt to leave the house to give her time to relax after school and not irritate her didn't work.

My screaming and tears, telling her that I couldn't live like this any longer, didn't work.

Silence for days didn't work.

The attempt to distract her with sports didn't work.

The attempt to find places where we both felt good didn't work.

And suddenly I understood that I didn't know anything else that I could possibly do to change our relationship.

I decided to leave her alone. It was the same point that everything started with. She wasn't interested in me and our relationship. And I couldn't be this worthless anymore. Pain. Pain. Pain.

Phone calls to my mom eased this pain slightly. But right at the time when all of my ideas for improving my relationship with my daughter ran out, when I was exhausted from my fruitless job search, when I fearfully realized that I was completely alone in Canada, the phone rang.

It was my ex-husband tellingme they had taken my little mommy to the hospital, that they had operated on her, that the surgery was very serious. A few days later, she died. I couldn't go to her funeral for many reasons. But that's not important. My little, my beloved, and my dear mommy had gone to the place from where no one returns. The person dearest to me was gone forever. Only God knows how much I needed my daughters' support then! My oldest daughter, even at that moment in my life, knowing how close I had been to my mother, continued to ignore me. My youngest daughter didn't even make a noise expressing her condolences.

Always when you expect something from others and don't get it, it hurts you very much. Don't expect and it won't hurt. I realized this quickly and stopped expecting a warm word from them. Immediately it got a bit easier and not as painful.

I poured all of my tears, all of my sobbing about my mom's death onto the evening and night streets of Vancouver. I was leaving the apartment not to do something "good" for my daughter, but because it was difficult for me to be around her.

I was looking for work very strenuously but with no results. My daughter had already formed a habit of being rude to me and hurting me. I started frequently calling my ex-husband and complaining about my daughter's behavior. I didn't know what to do. I was completely lost. There was only enough money for the bare minimum. But there was always food on the stove and in the fridge. My daughter continued to spend "her" money, and never even bought me a chocolate bar with it. Our relationship went from bad to unbearable.

Once she opened the fridge and didn't find any milk there. She rudely asked me, "Where's the milk?" I said that "I forgot to buy it, but you're not a child, take some money and go to the store." She was screaming that I was obliged to do it!

My nervous system simply gave out. I clearly didn't know what to do, but once, after again hearing from her "I hate you!", I grabbed a long plastic stick that I used to put on shoes and started beating her with it. I had never before punished her. She didn't resist, she took the position of a victim of an angry mother, and repeated many times that she hated me. The stick broke quickly. My strength drained from me. Pain and despair paralyzed me. I felt so scared, so lonely. At that moment, it seemed that I could never be forgiven. I went to my room. My bed was soaked in tears.

My daughter asked me, as always rudely, for money to buy something. I said that we had no money at the moment for such things, that we had the money only for the most necessary things. For the first time, I did not fulfill her wish. I had never done this before. She went crazy. She started saying "scary" words for me. She said that according to Canadian laws, I was obligated to give her a bit of money every day. She suddenly added that she hated me, that she would put me in jail for constantly beating a teenager. Now it sounds ridiculous, but then, I was exhausted by our conflict, I wasn't able to hear it as funny, I took it as an insult. Pain. Pain. Pain. Despair.

She brought home a classmate and mocked me in front of her. I didn't know how to respond, how to react, but my heart ached very much.

I asked my good friends to come to our place and talk with my daughter. I thought that perhaps people from the outside could somehow put a stop to her anger and calm her down. But it didn't go the way I wanted. She slammed the door to her room loudly. When they were knocking on her door, asking her to come out and talk to them, my daughter rudely answered: "Go away!"

These people sincerely sympathized with me and left. I asked another friend to come and talk with her... again rudeness, again hatred.

A few days after my attempts to fix our relationship with the help of my friends, I got a call from a social worker. She said that they had received information from my daughter that I was constantly beating her, that she didn't have enough food to eat, and that I didn't give her money to buy the food she needed. I wanted to die after these words. This was a blow below the belt. I don't remember how I found excuses for my behavior and what I said to this social worker. I was told that I was on their radar and even smallest complaint from my teenage daughter would put me in big trouble, up to and including court, after which my child would be taken from me and taken into custody by the state.

This moment can be compared to falling into a black tunnel, where there is no light and no escape.

For weeks, I left the house every time that my daughter appeared there. I walked along the streets and cried. My heartache became so strong that I thought I was going insane. I cooked food, cleaned the house, filled the fridge with all necessary groceries, and left the house. When pouring rain or bad weather prevented me from leaving the house, I locked myself in my room and drank wine. Wine helped me to relax at least briefly. But wine also strengthened my despair in the morning.

I realized that I couldn't live like this anymore. My daughter had betrayed me. I thought that I would kill her and then kill myself. This is a thought of a person who has completely gone insane. This is probably what had happened to me. I didn't see a way out. Then I thought that I would just kill myself and let my teenager be glad that she had finally gotten rid of such an awful mother as me. This is what an inflamed brain creates.

I was in this state for many days. But a simple and bright thought came to mind. I would send my daughter back to Belarus, to her father. Perhaps at a distance, our relationship would change. There appeared a tiny ray of light in the extremely long and black tunnel. I called my ex-husband and shared this idea with him. He happily said: "Yes, of course. Send her to me," and that in a couple of months, he would teach her to cook, clean, and care for others. His optimism at that moment warmed my heart very much. I felt for the first time in many, many months that I was happy, that I had a place on this earth where I could send my daughter. Thank you, my dear ex-husband; you saved my life a second time.

And so, the plan was made. I realized that after buying my daughter a plane ticket I would practically be left without money. Knowing her personality, I was afraid that even after I bought the ticket, at the last minute she could refuse to go to Belarus, and I would lose all of my money. I decided to get it from her in writing. I made up some document that required her signature, confirming that she would go back to her home country. She signed it and apparently realized that I wasn't joking.

I bought the ticket. God, you were the witness for how difficult it was for me to do this. Sending my daughter back home, I was parting with her for the first time in our life together. How did I keep on adding pain to an already ever-present heartache?

My daughter started meticulously packing her things. She packed them in such a way that there was no hope left that she would ever return to me. As it turned out, she also took some of my things. Why did she do that? I would have given her anything that she could have asked for.

On my daughter's last evening in Canada, I locked myself in my room and drank wine. I could do nothing else. Tormented soul, tormented thoughts, tormented body.

When the morning came of the day that my daughter was leaving me, I felt as if the world around me was collapsing. I took her to the airport, checked her in for her flight. And here she was, already standing a few steps from the door that would part us, possibly forever. I said: "Baby girl, I love you."

She spoke these words of wisdom: "Now you will find out what it's like to be alone."

She turned away from me with contempt and walked away. As it turned out, for many years... possibly forever.

On the way home from the airport, I bought many liters of wine, returned to my two-bedroom apartment and drank wine in solitude for three days. I just drank wine, slept, woke up, the thought of my complete solitude in this life scared me, and I, trying to hide this fear, drank wine again, slept. This went on for seventy-two hours, where there was no day and night never started, there was only pain, and there was only fear.

On the morning of the fourth day, the phone rang. I was being invited for an interview.

Goodbye, my dearest little mommy

I had called my mother very often from Canada. A relative of ours from my dad's side was taking care of her. My mom loved this woman and she was well looked-after.

My mom knew about what had happened between my oldest daughter and me. She, knowing how much I loved my children, said to me sternly: "Never call her first. Let her find her way to you, herself."

I took my mom's advice. My mom once asked my oldest daughter, "What did your mom do to you, that you don't want to talk to her?"

The answer was simple: "I don't want to talk about it."

There is no answer, there is no reason, the fairy tale is playing in her head.

My mom knew about my problems with my youngest daughter. She used to say: "She'll get her anger out, grow up, and become your best friend."

I'm still hoping for this, mommy.

When my oldest daughter decided to break all ties with me, she suddenly started sending my mom money every month. I don't think that this was a coincidence, but I was very happy about this. My old mommy changed a lot when she started receiving this money. She started talking about my oldest daughter with emphatic love and grumbling at me. Money is a good test for a person. I continued simplyto love my mom, even though the feeling that she betrayed me appeared sometimes. I chased this feeling away.

When my ex-husband told me that my little mommy had been taken to the hospital, that she underwent a serious operation, and that she was in critical condition, I concentrated all of my attention on her. All of my problems with my daughters, money, or work, suddenly lost their importance. By that point, I could heal people from a distance. Immediately after receiving this message, I started sending healing energy to my mommy. While sending this energy, in my own body, I felt physicallythe grave condition of my dearest person. I did everything that I could for several days. Eventually, I started feeling that my mommy's condition had started to stabilize, that she was getting better. And then the phone rang... my mommy had died.

How to describe what happens to a person when he loses the most significant, the dearest, the most beloved person in his life? It can be compared to losing your right hand. A person must learn to live without it. The first reaction is fear of the unknown: how is it possible to live without this person? Fear manifests through heartache and tears, if you're lucky enough to be able to cry. When this pain has expressed itself completely, there comes a feeling of emptiness. This person filled a part of you, after all, and now there is a void there. The emptiness scares you too. This void must be filled. It gets filled gradually, as the person learns to live with this emptiness and slowly fill it. The best way to fill this void in the first stages is with gratitude and love towards the person that has passed away from this life.

I was surprised that my feelings and the reality of my mommy's health were so different. I called my nephew, who was the last person to see my mother alive. This is what I discovered.

My mommy had to have very serious surgery on her intestines. Usually, after such a surgery, even young people rarely recover. She, however, to the doctors' surprise, regained consciousness, and for a few days was quite stable. My mom asked her grandson to come see her. While she was waiting for him, I was sending her energy constantly, and her condition was stable. My mommy knew that she only had one family member – her grandson, her son's son. Life had flung her two granddaughters and me to distant lands. When her grandson came to her, she knew very clearly what to do. She was waiting for him to give me a message: "My daughter, I can feel how you're helping me to get better, how you are keeping me in this life. I'm tired of living. I want to leave."

She died a few hours later. Forgive me, my dear person, for not being near you at this moment. Thank you, my nephew, for being with her then and for passing on this message.

After my mom's death, I spent nine days in tears, in memories of those happy days of my life when I was under her wing, when I had no cares or worries.

On the ninth day, knowing that the soul of the deceased person leaves earth on this day, and according to the tradition of my homeland, I laid the table and set out wine to commemorate the departed. When I lit the candle standing on the table, suddenly its flame grew in size and took on an unusually flat and elongated shape. I, as if spellbound, sat down on the chair in front of the candle and felt the presence of my mommy's soul. Her soul started communicating with me through thoughts. These were amazingly calm and quiet thoughts, flowing into my mind.

"Thank you, my dear daughter. You were always a good girl and never caused me problems. Forgive me, please, if I did something wrong. I always loved you."

I sat, rooted to the spot, sobbing. My youngest daughter came out of her room and was a witness to what happened. She stood silently and listened as I repeated these thoughts aloud. When the stream of these thoughts stopped, I knew clearly that it was the last contact between our souls. I started answering her: "My dearest mommy, thank you for giving me life, for raising me and for giving me a start in life. Forgive me, mommy, if I offended you or did something wrong. I love you, my mommy."

The candle continued to hold its unusual shape. A very quiet, as if retreating thought came to me: "Thank you and forgive me...."

The candle flame became a normal size. Instantly,my heart felt lighter. We had said goodbye, we had said the last words to each other. In our souls, there is no distance. They met to leave each other for a while.

But as time has shown, my mommy's soul remained near me for another few years. Her soul was worried about me and couldn't go to the light. My mom came to me every time in my dreams, warning me about something or worrying about my actions. Only when I found peace in my life did the soul of my little mommy leave, to merge with the light of God. Thank you, my dearest person, and a deep bow to you for all your earthly deeds.

Long-awaited work

I had a dream shortly before this phone call. I was in a theatre, looking for my seat in the front rows near the stage. My spot turned out to be beside an elderly woman who, smiling, was inviting me to sit down near her. When I sat down in my seat, she held out her hand to me, and we started watching what was happening on stage. When I woke up, I felt the force of the impact of this dream on me. It was a prescient dream.
After three days of continuous wine drinking, the phone rang and a rather old, female voice invited me for an interview in a few days. I thanked her, but I was not in a hurry to rejoice. I decided to accept this news calmly, in order to avoid another disappointment, which at that moment, I simply couldn't have handled. On the other hand, it was an important phone call for me; it showed me light in the tunnel, in the darkness of which I had been for the past while.

I started preparing for the interview. When I was looking through all my notes over the past year of my attempts to find work, I decided to count the amount of resumes I had sent to various companies in my entire time in Canada. There was exactly one thousand resumes plus the same amount of cover letters. I had been invited for thirty-eight interviews, and nobody had wanted to hire me. A huge physical and spiritual job had been done. After getting this number, I suddenly tensed up inside, my pain made itself known, and I became scared that it would be like this forever and nothing would change. I felt very sad and lonely then.

I came to the interview like an athlete enters the final match of the competition. Tired, but relying on a second wind that would come to me at the moment the game started.

The owner of this real estate company was a relatively old and rich man. His business had existed for many decades, their methods of accounting and documentations were outdated, but they were fine with that. The partner of the company owner was an older woman, who was the one that interviewed me. I didn't know how to respond to some of her professional questions, since I didn't have enough Canadian work experience. When she asked me about my family situation, I lost control of my emotions and told her everything that had happened to my family and started crying. I think that she simply took pity on me and decided to hire me.

God never gives us more than we can handle. Apparently, one cup was filled to the limit, and my life gave me a new cup to fill.

My new office was quite far away from where I lived. I had to move to a one-bedroom apartment regardless, so I started looking for an apartment close to my new job.

It was a well-furnished office, consisting of three rooms. I sat in one room with an Iranian woman. We had the same position, and as it turned out, they hired us at the same time with the idea of firing one of us in the future. I took up my work as though this was my last chance to stay alive. I tried to do my work so thoroughly, with such diligence, that sometimes it seemed that my body could not handle such tension. The Iranian woman, on the other hand, having lived in Canada for many years, did everything unhurriedly, without stress. For a few weeks, I did my work exactly as I was instructed. But soon I got some ideas about how to improve some tables, on how to keep records and receive calculations from a database that I could create for this company. I brought up this idea to the company owner, to which he said: "Do it, but as volunteer work. Then you will show me the result and we will discuss it."

So I started working in the evenings and weekends on creating a database.

Soon I moved, with the help of my friends, to quite a good apartment near my work. I started walking to work, just to kill time and not be alone at home.

A couple of times a week, I played tennis at the sports center near my house. Slowly,my life returned to normal.

My new job gave me good Canadian work experience. I found out how bookkeeping works, how client service works, how employees celebrate Christmas and other holidays. Everything was new, everything taught me something.

It was very difficult for me to establish contact with the Iranian woman. First, she smoked a lot. When I came close to her, which happened frequently while working, her smell aroused very unpleasant and nauseating feelings in me. I learned how to talk to her and exchange documents at a maximal distance. She tried her best to please the owner, the supervisors. She could pull out a chair, wipe the dust from the floor, offer to give a ride in her car. I observed all of this and realized clearlythat I could never acquire these skills, as God did not give them to me.

All of this was fine for me. But one thing drove me constantlycrazy. She would tell me one thing, but tell our supervisors something different. Of course, her English was much better than mine was, and she could express any thought freely. Only with time did I realize that she was "working on" getting me fired so she could stay at this position.

The company owner valued my skills and my ability to pay attention to detail, which is quite important in accounting. So time went on, the work was being done on time, but our relationship went into a deadlock. I stopped talking to her because every time, she flipped my words upside down. I did my work silently.

It was very difficult to be in the same office all day and not talk. On my lunch break, I always went to the river that was twenty steps from our building and ate the food that I brought from home. Then I walked for ten minutes or so in the small forest near the river. I meditated there for a few minutes. I always found peace in this place. But as soon as I started having problems with this Iranian woman, one and the same thought started coming into my head:"I do not belong to this place. God, please set me free from this company and from this woman."

When this thought first visited me, I was horrified – this is your job, you searched for so long, deal with it! But thoughts don't come to us by chance. I started paying attention to this thought and intentionally asking God to change the situation.

I didn't have to wait long. She complained about my silent behavior to the supervisors (I don't know exactly what she complained about), but apparently they liked my work. They called me into their office, and the company owner offered me accounting courses, for which he would pay. He explained that during two years, I would attend these evening courses and work as I did now. He emphasized that he needed his own competent accountant, whom he could trust and that I had the potential for this.

Not very often in my life can I surprise myself so much! I didn't expect such a response from myself; I was simply astonished by what came out of my mouth. I said that I didn't want to do these courses, that I didn't like accounting. He thanked me for my honest answer, and said that I could go back to work. I went back to my desk and continued working. Twenty minutes later, the owner's assistant put a letter on my table, which said that I was fired and that I would get my last paycheck by mail. She added with a smile that my work was done for the day and that I was to get all my things together and leave.

I had enough strength and restraint to gather all my things, stand up from my desk with a smile, thank everyone for the experience I had received, and "calmly" leave the building. I was in shock, in the full sense of the word. I drove the car and felt nothing. I opened the door to my apartment, sat on the couch, and felt nothing. I froze in one position for a few hours. I had nothing: no thoughts, no tears, no regrets. I had nobody in this world to tell about what happened. I had emptiness. I plunged into it, to the place where there is no light and no darkness, there is nothing.

A phone call made me come back from this nothingness. A beautiful male voice was saying that we had some communication with each other on the Internet and that I had given him my phone number. He wanted to meet me. I answered shortly and simply: "Come to my place. I need a drink."

First Canadian boyfriend

He came into my apartment with a dog. I had never particularly liked dogs, but on that day, I was completely indifferent, I just didn't want to be alone. My shock had clearly not gone away; I had just shoved it very far down and "buried" it under fear. I was afraid even to think about the fact that I had been fired; the thought was so terrifying to me. I couldn't imagine that I had to look for work again, get welfare. And do it all alone.

He turned out to be just a bit taller than me, which I had never liked, but on that day, this fact caused me no discomfort. In his blood, ran the blood of American Indian aboriginals and Chinese. He was educated, not stupid. It turned out he worked as an English teacher, and that he was temporarily not working and getting unemployment assistance. Birds of a feather flock together.

We were sitting at the table, eating, drinking wine, and telling each other about ourselves. I don't remember whether the conversation was interesting. I only remember that everything was so tense inside me that when I spoke, I didn't understand what I was saying; when I listened, I didn't understand what he was talking about. Everything happened as if in a dream. He stayed for the night. In the morning, he very confidently said: "You will come live in my apartment. Tomorrow I will help you with the move."

I said: "Okay."

He said that he had everything in his apartment, that I only needed to take my personal belongings, (I want to say: "and get out"), and to put my furniture and rarely used items in storage.

I answered: "Okay."

He started calling around to find the closest storage space. On that day, he ordered a car for moving my furniture. Two days later, I moved in with him. He had a one-bedroom apartment in a private home in a small town near Vancouver. It was a very comfortable apartment, with a wonderful view of the mountains in the living room and access to the rainforest from the bedroom.

During these days, I thought about nothing, asked about nothing, and I had no doubts. I just did what I was told. He was directing me, and I obeyed. He cared about me, and I liked this. He decided for me, and I agreed.

I was so tired of being alone, of not being needed by anyone, of not being loved by anyone, that he seemed like a prince sent by God. I was in absolute shock, and that showed when I ate. Food got stuck in my throat, as a spasm made it impossible to swallow food. I could eat only liquid food. I was losing weight extremely fast, which I was happy about, since I had always had some extra weight on my body. Only during sex did I feel relaxed. Nobody had touched me, caressed my body for so long. I had so long been alone, surrounded by problems, joblessness, hatred from my daughter, that I accepted with gratitude all of his caresses, his kisses, his attention. He turned out to be a good lover. Sometimes we spent the whole day in bed. This was exactly what I needed. I felt protected, loved, and satisfied.

The first month of our life together can be compared to a honeymoon month. Neither of us worked. Both of us were receiving welfare. Both were hungry for sex. He drove me everywhere in his car and showed me beautiful places, forests, and lakes. We cooked together and laughed a lot. I knew only a few commonplace English words and expressions, and he enlarged my vocabulary constantly. He corrected my pronunciation and informal speech diligently. I got very lucky with my English teacher. He paid for everything, which I liked. It was a completely new experience in my life.

But the "honeymoon month" passed, and we started talking about work.

We came to a mutual agreement that we had to start looking for jobs. We started sending out resumes. He found a part-time job very quickly. I was left alone during this time and enjoyed my own company. I started meditating again, sending healing energy to others and myself. We played tennis together. I felt good. A few times, we took trips to other Canadian provinces to visit his friends. These unforgettable moments of meeting new interesting people, listening to their life stories their ways of life, made me understand and love my new country, my new home more and more. I started periodically being invited for interviews, but I already clearly realized that "what must be, must be", and I didn't need to worry.

I think I was in the illusory clouds. I was simply living with a person and thought that I had found protection. We need to pay for everything in this life. If a person is paying for your expenses, he's not doing this because he has nothing else to do with his money, but rather in the hope that everything he pays will return to him. He subconsciously expects rewards, that "he who pays the piper calls the tune." While I learning English and staring him in the mouth so as not to miss a single word, he felt like a man, in the sense that his woman knew her place. This warmed his ego, in support of which, he constantly got ideas of visiting new places, having unexpected sex, giving attentive guidance to my insurances and taxes, and so on. I agreed to his every proposal, because I didn't have my own ideas. I was in a stage of exploring my new life. Thank you to this person, he helped me very much in getting comfortable in my new Canadian life.

It didn't take long for me to feel that there was nothing left to explore here. It was a subconscious feeling, which showed itself through expressing my opinion. If in the beginning stages of our relationship, I was in agreement with all of his actions, words, wishes, now I started disagreeing with him more and more frequently. And little things cause small arguments. I was still living under the oppression of the fear of being alone and in most cases, just gave in to him, but inside me was a growing protest. I got the feeling that I was doing something wrong. I felt that I had gotten stuck in this life. If I was called for an interview at local companies, I always thought that I wouldn't live here anyway, why would I need a job here? Probably for this reason, nobody ever offered me one there.

While I was in this internally stuck state, I was invited to interview for a company that was quite far away from where I lived. He went to work. I was left alone. I was very nervous that morning. I checked the map several times. I made notes so I wouldn't get lost. When I was getting dressed, a button fell off the blazer that I had been planning to wear to the interview. For a long time, I couldn't find the folder with my resume, which turned out to be right under my nose. In the end, when I got into my car, I felt very distracted. But I had to go. I reached the city without any problems, even though the road was quite difficult, I had to drive and to change several highways.

It was a gloomy day. Clouds covered the whole sky. I easily found the street I needed and was driving carefully so as not to miss my turn-offs. Suddenly at one of the turns, the sun came out and blinded me. I didn't notice the red light; I didn't even notice a stoplight at all. I was driving sixty kilometers an hour through a red light. From the right, a yellow Porsche was driving eighty kilometers an hour through a green light.

Our cars met in the middle of the intersection. My car flew up from the impact, turned one-hundred-and-eighty degrees in the air, and landed on its wheels on the sidewalk of the opposite side of the road down that I had been driving a few seconds ago. It all happened very fast. During my "flight", I felt that soft pillows surrounded me, that I was flying in a space where there was only air. I didn't lose consciousness even for a second. At the moment my car slammed onto the ground, I was surprised by my sensations "in flight". Then I moved my arms around, felt my whole body, everything indicated that I was completely fine and sitting in the seat with my seatbelt on. I turned my head to the right and swore. The entire right side of my car up to my seat was flattened. I was touching the right car door with my right elbow, sitting in the left-side seat. I looked around, hoping to find the damaged yellow car. I sighed with relief when I saw that the womandriver had gotten out of her "crumpled" car, was cursing in English and asking the surrounding pedestrians to be witnesses. I sighed with relief and continued to sit in my "car" or what was left of it. It seemed to me that the police came instantly. A policeman came up to the car, opened, surprisingly easily, the door on my side, and asked how I was feeling. I said, in a very strange voice, that everything was fine. He asked if I needed a doctor, I answered no. He gave me his hand, helping me get out of the car. My knees were shaking, but all of my body parts were intact. The police were asking me questions. I answered honestly and calmly. One of the policemen said: "You were lucky twice today. You were unharmed. You will have a better car than this one and your insurance will pay for it."

I smiled. They asked if I had someone I could call to pick me up and added that the insurance service would evacuate theremains of the car. I called my good Russian friend and asked her to pick me up from the place of the accident. She promised to come get me.

I took my purse out of my shattered car and, with great surprise, discovered my crystal inside it. The first year that I came to Canada, I passed two levels of Reiki – this is a form of energy healing, but using different techniques than the School of Universal Energy. The Reiki Master that taught me had a unique ability to find crystals that were directly linked to and meant for a specific person. She had found a crystal for me.

My crystalis so amazingly beautiful. It has an irregular shape and is about twelve centimeters long and five centimeters wide. Inside this crystal is a clearly visible butterfly with silver-colored wings. It seems like this free butterfly is flying up into clear space, leaving below it silver dust and many emerging small butterflies.

I immersed this crystal in a bath filled with water to heal any of my health problems. I always felt better after these baths. If I had an ache, I would hold the crystal against the body part that hurt, sent Reiki energy, and it always helped. I never took my crystal with me anywhere. I don't remember how I put it in my bag. How could it have happened, if I hadn't even intended to do so? It remains a mystery how it got into my purse. I want to believe in its magical powers. I believe that if a person has not yet fulfilled his mission on this earth, he will not die, even if he wants to.

All the "viewers" left the scene of the accident, the police left, my broken car was towed, and I was standing under a tree waiting for my friend. She came quite quickly, even though it was a fairly long way. She hugged me, sympathized with me the best she could, warming my heart. She asked where to take me. I wanted to say "home" but something stopped me from saying this word. I answered: "To my boyfriend's."

She drove me right to the house, didn't want to come inside, saying that her daughter would be home from school soon and that she had to go. Thank you again, my good friend, for the help you gave me then.

I went into the apartment; he had not yet come home from work. I felt exhausted and had a headache. For the first time without his permission, I took a bottle of wine, put a little bit into a wine glass, and started sipping it. As soon as the wine "hit me" slightly, it relaxed me, and I felt extreme pity for myself. I was sitting on the stairs leading from the apartment door to the second floor, holding the glass of wine in my hand, and sobbing. I was thinking about my mom, my daughters, my ex-husband. I was thinking that still being alive after such a serious accident was again a warning sign sent to me, telling me that I had to change something in my life, that I went astray. But what could I change? How long does it take a beggar to pack his bags? For a beggar to pack is to tighten his belt. I was thinking about the fact that I didn't have any "titles" left in this life. I'm not a sister and not a daughter; I'm not a wife and not a mother. And I felt so miserable that I was nothing.

Interrupting my unhappy thoughts, he came home from work. He started walking up the stairs and saw me in tears. But his first reaction was not to my tears but to the fact that I had taken his wine without permission. He didn't like any actions I took outside of his control. When he controlled the situation, everything was fine and peaceful. When even the smallest situation was outside of his control, he got nervous. I think that he had a lot of fear accumulated from his past relationships with women. And so it was then; his first question was not: "What happened?"

He asked: "What are we celebrating?"

It was the wrong question and it hurt me. I thought again how lonely and how miserable I was. And again, fear piled its "bags" on top of me and gave direction to my thoughts. I thought that at that moment, he was the only person I had. This thought gave birth to another: "You've already disappointed everyone in your life. You don't deserve to be loved."

This thought made me feel guilty. For what? That's not so important. This familiar feeling for me, that I'm not good enough for other people, for my kids, for my husband, made me tearfully "excuse myself" before him for the car accident. He listened to me, he felt that I was under his control completely, and he softened. He said that he would take care of everything, that I would have a new car, that everything was fine. I calmed down. I believed him. I took it as "he knows how to make me happy."

I again let myself be completely under his control. I was again agreeing with all of his ideas and suggestions. Or maybe it was my "clever female mechanism" simply pretending? Regardless of the reasons for my behavior, he helped me very much. He helped me with the numerous insurance company visits, filing documents, and filling out forms.

This proved to me that God had sent me an angel. When something good happens to a person, he's capable of seeing a divine manifestation. But if something "bad" has opened its door, the person loses this ability. Or perhaps he just doesn't want to learn? What does the "good" teach us? To take, to grow our ego, to increase our laziness, to halt our progress. The "bad" wants something, but we're lazy. So we miss valuable life lessons, so we sit for years in the same grade.

Very soon, the insurance company informed me that my check was in the mail and that the case was closed. The amount of money was twice the cost of my destroyed car. My boyfriend offered to give me some of his own money to buy quite a decent car. I agreed. I experienced a very strange feeling then. I agreed and started to cry.

In my whole life, I had trained myself only to give. When I gave, I felt confident and comfortable. I had always liked giving. For the first time in my life, this person was giving to me (I don't mean boxes of chocolates, flowers, or small gifts). I didn't know how to take it. I felt confusion, shame, discomfort, fear in the face of this unknown to me feeling. But my desire to experience this new feeling won out, and I, through tears, accepted this help. It took me some time to calm down and stop finding excuses to myself for taking this money. The first, still extremely weak feeling that taking is also nice visited me.

My man chose a car for me himself. I had never known anything about cars, about their differences, and so on. More than that, I was not interested in it. To me, the indicators of a good car are its color and whether it's comfortable to sit inside it. He chose a medium-aged Japanese car, a light blue one. He said that this was a very good car, that I wouldn't find any better. I agreed. He gave me his money, I added to this my insurance money, and this car became mine. It happened on the sixth day after the accident. Canada gave me a very pleasant surprise in this sense and added to my love for it.

I often thought about the fact that nobody in my home country knew about my car accident. I wanted my kids and my ex-husband to show me some compassion. As soon as this thought came into my head, I suddenly got a call from a good friend of mine with whom I had worked together in Minsk and stayed in contact with through the Internet. She always called from her work phone, so I didn't need to worry about paying for the phone call. I told her about what had happened. She genuinely sympathized with me. Thank you, kind person; I needed your support then. She took down my new address, my cell phone number, my email address, and said that she would try to get in touch with my ex-husband, tell him about what had happened, and give him my phones and address.

Our world is full of miracles! The next day, she happened to run into my ex-husband in the Metro, even though I don't believe in coincidences. She told him about my car accident and gave him all of my coordinates so he could get in touch with me. She called me the next day and told me about it. Of course, I was waiting for my daughters or my ex-husband to get in contact with me to give me their support. Nobody contacted me. They couldn't forgive me. For what? I don't know. The heartache was strong, but I firmly shoved this pain deep inside me and tried to forget about it.

Returning to my life with my boyfriend.From the outside it looked as though everything was fine. Once we were playing tennis and he was rude to me. I played tennis far better than he did. This drove him crazy. He wanted to be ahead in everything, and his rude behavior was an expression of his desire never to see me being better than him was in anything. This was a repeat of what had happened on the tennis court between my youngest daughter and me. Repetition is the mother of teaching.

This time, I reacted to his rudeness. I refused to get in the car with him and walked to our apartment instead. It was a fairly long way. When I got there, I saw him sitting on the balcony drinking wine. He was ignoring me deliberately. I decided to smooth everything over. I made dinner and invited him to the table. He sat down silently and poured himself a full glass of wine. He didn't offer any to me, and this "sounded" extremely irritating to me. I demonstratively poured myself a full glass of wine and downed it. We ate silently, and the tension mentally increased between us. He finished his wine and poured himself more. When I stretched out my hand to take the bottle, the explosion happened.

He jumped up from the table and started viciously explaining to me that I was a nobody. He, as a teacher who knew his subject well, emphasized that the way I was behaving in his house was inexcusable, that I had a fat stomach, that he was sorry that he had wasted so much time on improving my English, and lots of other "explanations". My familiar and habitual heartache reminded me of its existence. What a familiar habit! It had just been sleeping somewhere inside me, and at that moment, well-rested, simply locked me in its embrace. I was saying something in response, but I don't remember what. This oft-repeated feeling of loneliness in this world, filled with suffering and despair, was pushing me again towards the thought that in this world, it was impossible to escape suffering.

As soon as I got stuck in a hopeless position, a weak idea, which I was fortunately able to pay attention to, came to me: "Leave, and then we'll see. Go to the friend that gave you a ride after the accident."

It was two in morning. I gathered some of my personal belongings very quickly and went downstairs. The car keys were not in their usual spot. He was standing near my car. When I walked up to my car, it was already almost three. He angrily said that he had the car papers, that I could leave this house only after I gave him back the money he had given me for the car.

Why is it so easy to find hatred and so easy to lose love? Why is it so difficult to find love and so difficult to keep it? These eternal philosophical questions didn't worry me then. I displayed simple animal reflexes. I started yelling through the whole street, screaming for help, flailing my arms as though a horde of bees was attacking me. He saw that I had lost my mind completely, got scared that the neighbors might call the police, and decided to give me back the keys and documents to the car. I grabbed them like a goalie grabs a ball flying at his net, piled my things inside, and drove off. On the way to my friend's house, I felt that a gust of fresh air had filled my heart. It was the same feeling as when a bird breaks free.

I was knocking on my friend's door around five in the morning. She opened the door to me and smiled. Through this smile, God let me know that everything was fine, that life went on. She didn't work and we talked for a long time, until her daughter woke up to go to school. My friend let me stay with her for a little while. I often healed her with universal energy or did Reiki on her, so it was a payment for my accommodation. I put my things in her basement. I set up the fold-out cot during the night in the room connected to the kitchen. Everything was relatively good. I bought groceries and cooked food or we cooked together. I walked every day through the park near the house. I was without a family, without a job, without a home, and without a title in my life. I was nobody. It's amazing, but I never had a doubt, even for one second, that I had chosen the right path when I immigrated to Canada. I have always felt and feel at home here, in the place where I have to be.

Ten days later, the man I had left sent me a message through the Internet saying that he missed me, that he wanted to see me. My Ego was excited about this news, and the thought that I had to pick up my things that were still at his apartment was spinning constantly through my mind. But the most important thing that made me respond to his "request" is what Christina Orbakaite sings about: "That's it, leave, we won't meet again. And then everything from the beginning, kicked him out, forgave, and called him back, and again from the beginning."

This is a well-known road for millions of people. What causes them (and me) to become stuck in this vicious circuit? Fear. Where there is fear, there is no love... there is the exploitation of a person by a person for satisfaction of his own needs. Sexual desires? Yes. Filling boring lonely evenings? Yes. There are many needs of this sort.

I called him and asked him to come to my friend's apartment. He agreed to everything so easily, he was so polite and caring, that it made me forget about yesterday and rejoice about the present. He came and told me immediately that he wanted to take me from here and move me to where he lived. I agreed instantly, knowing that I could always return here where I lived currently, and this gave me courage and confidence that I wasn't risking anything.

Taking with me the bare minimum of things, I followed him. The relation between us was already different. It was more tense, more polite, but with more freedom for me.

A couple of days after we moved back in together, I got a phone call from a company that serviced the Vancouver Airport. The kind voice in the phone receiver told me that my resume had impressed them so much that they decided to invite me for an interview. I had just returned from Vancouver to my boyfriend's place and lived quite far from this airport. To go to work right away? I told them that I was out of town, and that I would return in a week. I was certain that this information would forever make them forget about their desire to see me for an interview. The kind voice thanked me politelyfor taking my precious time for the call and wished me luck in everything.

Imagine my surprise when, exactly a week later, this kind voice called Sarah was again heard in the phone receiver. She started immediatelynaming days and times for the interview and I could choose what I wanted. I chose one of the options offered, thanked her, and hung up the phone. Something was stopping me from taking this news seriously. On the day, that I was supposed to go to the interview, my boyfriend got a day off unexpectedly. I decided to send them an email and tell them that due to family matters, I couldn't come to the interview. To my second great surprise, they answered that they understood completely and offered me the choice of several subsequent days for the interview. I chose a day and time and sent them the message. They sent their confirmation. Something was happening called "Every bullet has its billet."

Finally, I came to the airport for an interview. I had been there only once when I came from Belarus. My heart ached at the thought that at that time, my daughter was with me, and now we were lost. This was only a brief moment, and the next moment, I was sitting at a table in a café with two representatives of the company. They asked me questions, I answered. And suddenly one of them asked if I could start working right then. I said, as always without thinking: "Yes."

So I got a job that took minimal effort to find. Then I started to realize that I never needed to worry, that the story of my life, like that of all the people on this earth, is already written, I just need to be patient and never forget the wisdom of our ancestors that "What must be, must be."

I came home late and told my boyfriend that I had worked the first day at my new job. He congratulated me, since, I think, he was thinking that my turn had come to pay the bills. This thought slipped through my mind for a split second but I decided not to dwell on it.

Right away, everything changed. I had to go to bed earlier and wake up at the crack of dawn. To get to my new job, I had to drive for about one and half hours if everything went well on the road. For the first week, my boyfriend woke up with me and made me a sandwich for lunch, and packed it in a special lunch bag. Sometimes I found something with which he showed his attentiveness: candy, chocolate, an apple, gum, and so on. It was very nice.

I didn't realize it then, but it's quite obvious now that the world around us changes as we change. When I was living in fear, felt lonely, fragile, or dependent, then I received even more fear, more isolation, rudeness, and control. As soon as I, without consulting with my boyfriend, independently and freely made the decision to start work at a job that was far away from where I lived, he suddenly got scared. Fear of the unknown is a very well known form of fear. This fear made him be polite and attentive, caring and creative in "building" my lunch. For how long? That always depends on the degree of expected gratitude for it. The more expectations, the shorter the period of politeness. The more active the creativity mixes with the expectations, the faster the person tires. When a person gets tired, he gets angry. When he gets angry, he loses control of himself. When he loses control of himself, he starts to blame the person near him for everything that comes to mind. The wisdom here is not to take the irritation, anger, the yelling of the close person, personally. He is just practicing with his fear, his egotism. There is nothing personal here.

I was undergoing changes in a diametrically opposite direction. When I finished the first day of work, I already felt how long I had been a "housewife". Funnily enough, it had only been three months since I had been fired, since my move, my car accident, my new job. In those three months, I had gotten tired of obeying, of worrying about money, of not having my own place to live. As soon as I started working, my tiredness started transforming into an energy that creates a feeling of freedom. This energy started breaking down my fear and freeing up even more energy for action. Already a week later, the question appeared in my mind: why not live during the workweek at my friend's place, who lived twenty minutes away from my work? I talked to my friend about it. The answer: "Welcome!"

I talked with my boyfriend. For the first time in our relationship, we were talking as friends. He saw a different side of me. He saw me as strong, decisive, and free. I also saw a different side of him. I saw his fear of being left alone and his uncertainty. That situation can be described with the words from a well-known song: "Two lonely people met, started a fire by the road, but the fire doesn't want to start, and that's all there is to say about it."

I started spending the nights at my friend's place during the work week, going to my boyfriend's on the weekends. This suited me very well. A complete life – work, changing up my environment, regular sex. He didn't like any of it. He wanted everything or nothing. "The evening stopped being languid." Already after two weeks of this life, the question arose in my mind: why not find my own apartment five minutes from work?

I got the feeling that God was directing me down the path that led to my new place. I headed confidently to the area of Vancouver five minutes from the airport, and as it turns out, where they were already waiting for me. I saw the first ad on my path about an apartment for rent, called the phone number, and to my great surprise, an elderly voice answered. A woman past eighty opened the door to the two-storey building. She invited me to look at the apartment for rent. We went up to the third floor; she opened the door for me and showed me the apartment. It was the apartment of my dreams. The top floor, a corner suite, a wooden floor, white walls, a spacious living room with adjoining kitchen, quite a large bedroom, at a price that didn't "bite". After five seconds in this apartment, I said:"I want to live here."

The elderly woman, the manager of this house, looked at me carefully and said: "There are a lot of people interested in this apartment. I choose you."

Later on, I found out that this building manager was a German immigrant who had lived in Canada more than fifty years, that she took care of her tenants like a mother, and I grew to like her very much.

My boyfriend didn't help me move. Some of my Russian-speaking Latvian friends helped me take my furniture and other things from storage and move them to my new apartment. Everything went smoothly, without any difficulties. When I was finally alone in my new apartment with my things, my furniture, I deeply felt how important it was for me to have freedom and not depend on anything. Life was improving. A job; a comfortable apartment.

My boyfriend visited me a few times in this apartment, but our relationship wasn't working anymore. He did not offer to live with me in Vancouver. I didn't invite him to do so. There was nothing to talk about. The sex lost its meaning. The feelings of mutual affection evaporated. My boyfriend became my ex-boyfriend.

And I, as had already happened before, didn't manage to find for myself a title amongst such beautiful and warm words: mom, sister, wife, lover, friend, daughter. All that was left was gratitude for the experience I had gotten.

Second Canadian boyfriend

I liked my job. I kept track of working hours and created the schedule for the team, more than a hundred people, and worked on a new database for this company. The team comprised people from practically all nationalities in the world so many languages were spoken. The airport, especially one as big as Vancouver, is a unique place that can be compared to a small, independent, multilingual town.

The airport is a gate through which people pass with their hopes and disappointments, joys and sorrows, anger and kindness, fear and love. They carry these feelings through the energies surrounding them. These energies are directed into or out of the country, and their meeting point is the airport. I felt these energies, causing me to become tired quickly. I was able to come to an agreement with my supervisor, and I started work around five in the morning and was free after one in the afternoon. Every day after work, I went to the ocean. The ocean always restored my strength, brought me into balance. I walked along the shore and asked God to teach me how to be happy.

I was still dreaming about a prince. I still wanted to meet that one person that would make me happy, that would fill the emptiness inside me. I missed my children very much; I cried often and could not understand what I had done that was so horrible that they had turned away from me.

I had very good relationships with people in my team. During lunch, and lunchtime was different for everyone, many of them came into my office and shared their bad news or their good news. I tried as much as possible to transfer energy on a distance, to strengthen their health, or to give them the opportunity to deal with their problems in the best possible way.

Life was improving again. Only one thing was unfulfilled in my life – a man. I couldn't find another way except to look for him on the Internet. I had a few five-minute meetings with various men from which I wanted to run to the end of the world. Seasoned by my previous experience, I was no longer in a rush to invite anyone to my apartment. Sometimes I doubted that "my prince" existed at all, but the doubt disappeared every time that my desire to meet him came out.

Once, during my lunch break at the airport, by chance I met the glance of a man who had just arrived in Vancouver. This was a man, I think, from one of the Easterncountries. When our eyes met, we both froze for a second. Something so familiar and comfortable bound us for a moment. We even made a step towards each other, but his child ran up to him and demanded his attention. Our paths crossed for one moment, leaving a trace in my soul that showed what it feels like when allied and close souls meet. For a few days, I couldn't forget that remarkable feeling, which again gave me hope that everything is possible in this world, that I had to be patient.

This happened right before Christmas. I had been exchanging messages with a man over the Internet. He was a Turkish refugee and had been in Canada about the same time as I had. In his photo, he looked very unusual, and I found it attractive. He was a blacksmith, which was immensely exciting. We always see what we want to see. I was living in a fairy tale about a prince on a white horse, and so I gave every man who caught my attention a role in the fairy tale. If he couldn't handle this theatrical role, I forgot him immediately. But this man with an unusual appearance, with a man's profession, suddenly found his role in my fairy tale. And my vision of a strong person, working with fire with a naked torso, gave him a simply magical beauty. I invited him to dinner at my apartment.

He walked into the apartment alone, without a dog, which I was already happy about. He was again just a little taller than I was, which surprised me, since in his photos, he looked tall and strong. He had big shining Eastern-black eyes, which charmed me. He was neatly dressed, and he smelled like good cologne.

We sat down on the couch and started talking. It was very, very interesting.

He told me about his childhood. He had been born into a very poor family. When he was six years old and his parents had no money to feed him, he was given to another childless family for money. He still remembered his birth mother. It was very difficult for him to get used to life in the new family, as he was already quite big. He was loved there, but the bleeding scar from being torn away from his birth family remained with him forever. His new father was a blacksmith and taught his stepson this trade. My new friend was very grateful to him for that.

He had a higher university education and won many awards in gymnastics competitions. It was easy for us to talk about it, since we had both walked the path of education and sporting achievements.

He told me about his personal life in Turkey. He had been married. He had loved his wife very much... he worshipped her. He talked about how they once had sex in a bus full of people. She had been sitting on his lap in the backside seat of the bus, and he suddenly felt a sharp sexual desire. They moved to the rhythm of the bus going down an uneven road. He said that they had never had an orgasm like that, that it was an explosion of energy that cannot be described in words. Even then, I felt sexually attracted to him.

He told me that he had a best friend, with whom he shared everything, whom he trusted like himself. He told me how happy he was when he had a best friend, an adored wife, and a small son. But his wife said that she was leaving him for another man, whom she loved with all her heart... his best friend. In one instant, he lost everyone that he had loved and trusted so much. He let her go to him because he loved her very much and wanted her to be happy. He shared the immense heartache that he felt then. He had nothing left except his work.

At that time, he held quite a high position in a political party that was trying to push the idea of building communism in Turkey. He led a very active political life. But times changed, a new government came that condemned the supporters of the communist movement and put the leaders of this movement in jail. My new friend landed in jail for two years.

For those two years, he was tortured. Every day, at the same time, they shoved a needle into the same spot on his spine. By that time, the parents that had raised him had left this world. His ex-wife and best friend had disappeared from his life. Nobody visited him in jail.

For the first time in my life, I was talking to a person who had gone through hell. My compassion knew no bounds. He told me that he worked on his spiritual development, that only his constant meditating and belief in God enabled him to endure this hell in jail. Our mutual acceptance of God as an integral part of our existence helped me to see common interests between us, which gave me hope that perhaps he was my prince.

After he was released from jail, he walked free with no money, no shelter, no friends. For almost a year, he slept on the street. To make a bit of money, he made masks out of leather and painted pictures to sell.

When people go through the experience of being homeless, it's very difficult to rise up again; it requires a tremendous effort of the soul. Even if it happens, the scar of this pain never grows over; it will occasionally draw attention to its existence.

Once he found himself a job in a blacksmith studio. The high quality of his work drew many clients to this employer. In a short period, my friend saved enough money to rent his own blacksmith studio and start working for himself. When he had enough money to buy a ticket to Canada, he fled from Turkey and asked for refuge in Canada.

And here he was, talking to me. He also can't find a title for himself amongst such warm and attractive words, such as son, husband, friend, father. He was a nobody, like me.

I believed every word he said because I can't lie myself. And he was telling me the truth of his life, his life experience. My brain, after such stories, started creating new fairy tales. Every time a person receives new information, he assesses it through his own life experience. Perhaps another woman would have perceived these stories as something threatening her peace of mind. Torture, homelessness, dirt –key words that make some people hesitate. But that didn't happen to me. I had always believed that if I couldn't do something, then who could? I, like mother Teresa, wanted to help him. (I had forgotten that I didn't even know how to help myself.) I wanted to help him with his business, with renovating his house, with keeping his apartment clean, with everything. I didn't realize it then, although now it's clear, that with this desire, I wanted to attract him, for him to appreciate my efforts, and that a big and bright Love would suddenly come crashing down on us. I can dream. But I can also make my dreams into reality.

That evening, learning from my own life experiences, I didn't keep him at my apartment. We started meeting, talking. I started cooking for two, and we ate together, getting to know each other. And one evening he stayed. He started coming back to my apartment every evening after work. We became a couple.

My life changed yet again. After work, I didn't go to the ocean because I started working normal nine to five hours, and "had to" make breakfast for my partner. Who asked me to do this? Nobody. I thought that I was helping him. I bought food to make him dinner and meet him in full readiness. Did he give me money for this? No, and didn't offer to even once. I cooked dinner, set everything out on the table, and waited for him to come. He always felt free; he had freed himself from obligations to me from the first day of our "connection". He was free to decide when to come and when to be late. I simply waited for him.

I could only offer him a "repertoire" from my life experiences, which was to wait, do laundry, cook, love, caress, help, and not ask for anything in return. And God had sent him to me to teach me something new. I resisted any changes in myself. After all, it's so simple to do something that I've done so many times before. It's so difficult to change yourself and act differently, in a new way.

God had sent me this person to help me. All my attempts to build our relationship the way that I was used to failed completely.

I remember I was helping him with the renovations in his big house, which he was preparing to sell or to rent out. I, as a drummer for communist labor (that's what they called people in the U.S.S.R. who worked very hard not for money, but for the idea), simply did miracles of heroic labor. I painted the walls, washed the floors, cleaned up the yard trimmings and much more, not for a couple of hours a day but for eight or ten hours a day. He didn't pay me for it, but accepted my help gladly.

After I had finished a big job in his house, he left a small note on the table in this house with the words "I love you". My talent for writing fairy tales had its finest hour. I immediately imagined him standing on one knee before me, asking me to be his wife, how I would quickly agree, and we would begin preparations for a new life together. Nothing like that happened. He wrote this note under the influence of the moment when he saw the work I had done and liked it. He should have written different words, something like "I love you for the work that has been done."

Now I am so clever, then I was "fighting for my love, and defending my right to be loved." When kids don't get their favorite toy, they demand it and cry. I was acting exactly the same way.

Towards the end of the first month, I started noticing that my inner and unconscious protests started making me irritated and angry. All this was happening inside me, and I was hiding these feelings very carefully deep inside my soul, hoping to fool myself.

The deeper we hide our feelings, the harder we try to mask them with a smile and allowing others to do whatever they want, the brighter we manifest this in the form of vibrations and fluctuations of the external environment. What did the universe feel or God? He couldn't see my face, he couldn't understand the language in which I was speaking, but he could feel my vibrations accurately. I was asking God about what? About the slavery that I had rushed to so much? About my anger at myself for acting this way? About my fear of being left alone? It seems that God heard my prayers and cast from the master's shoulders not as much as I was asking for, but much more.

I started hating my job. Everything was happening very quickly. I moved to a new office in the airport. It was a basement location without windows. The only door into this office opened into a narrow corridor, along which long people pushed big open metal containers filled with garbage all day. Not only did the loud metallic rattle of the spinning wheels make my teeth and ears ache constantly and the vibrations of the aircraft taking off give me heart palpitations, but the strong unpleasant smell of rotting garbage emanating from the containers wafted constantly into the office. But this wasn't all. The employees of this company were having lunch in the common room constantly, and the smell of their microwave-heated food mixed with the smells of the corridor. These smells were mixed thoroughly and constantly, because the numerous employees were entering and exiting the common room of the office constantly. Only I alone had to stay there regularly for eight hours straight. It became unbearable. I talked to my supervisors, but they didn't want to change anything. It was a cheap location for them, and all other circumstances were minor side effects.

I told my partner about what was happening in my work environment. Calmly and confidently, he said that I had to quit and start working for myself. He also added that I could always rely on him and his help. He said this so beautifully, he promised so confidently. I trusted so easily and so easily quit. This time, I couldn't hope for government unemployment assistance – I hadn't been fired, I had quit. Now I was again without work, but now also without welfare.

We had already been together for almost two months. He started staying later and later at work. Once, having come to my house very late and glanced at the set table that was waiting for him, he started to have a nervous breakdown. He started saying quickly that for two months he had been coming here, that he had forgotten about his apartment, that he never saw his friends, that I had taken away his freedom. I didn't understand what he was talking about. For two months, he lived with full service, without spending a dime. Why did I do this? I don't know. Apparently, my perpetual fear of being alone constantly made me into a crazy person. He told me that in the moment when I, at his suggestion and relying on his promise to support me, had quit my job, I was hoping to work together with him!

I said that he could live at his own place, and I at mine, and when we wanted to, we could meet. He left then without even touching his food.

I felt relief when the door slammed behind him, at least I didn't need to wait for anybody any longer.

The next morning, I didn't want anything anymore. I lay in bed crying quietly. I had no energy to feel the unfairness, anger, hatred, or disappointment. I felt only the crushing pain around my heart and a dead end. There were no thoughts then, there was a world without light, total darkness. For several days, nobody called me. I almost didn't get out of bed. I had again landed in that black tunnel, where there is no light or way out. I didn't even have the strength to feel afraid in this darkness, or to try to take one step to change something.

When the phone rang, I jumped, as if from the sound of an exploding bomb. It was him. He wanted to visit me... I agreed. He saw me in this helpless condition and decided to give me lots of work to do, so I wouldn't have time for depression. I was happy that at least somebody cared about me.

He said that he would pay for my work, that I should keep track of my hours, and he would pay me later. He did not specify when this "later" would be. He had a blacksmith shop with an office on the second floor. I went there every day and worked. I did administrative and accounting work. He didn't come over anymore. Once I decided to visit him in his one-bedroom apartment. We had a good talk, a good dinner together. When I hugged him, he suddenly removed my arms from his shoulders, and said that he had decided to end all close relations with me, that he wanted us just to be friends. This was a stroke of lightning. For what? Why? I started crying and asked him about it. He said that freedom was more important to him than anything, but perhaps someday, everything would change and we would be together again. He hurt me. I agreed to be his friend. Better someone than no one at all. The fear of being alone was playing its victory march again. The fear of being jobless made me continue working for him. God was teaching me, but his lessons were difficult for me.

I worked for him very strenuously, thinking that he would soon pay me for my work. Once, when he had to pay off his monthly bank credit, he talked with me as a friend about his financial problems. I don't know how these words came out of my mouth, but I agreed to loan him money from my credit card. He was so happy and promised me confidentlythat he would give it all back after a couple of weeks. It was ten thousand dollars. I paid off his accounts with this amount of money. A few days later, in the middle of the night, his shop was robbed and all the expensive machines he had rented out were stolen. The rental period for this equipment was ending in a few days, and he had to pay fifteen hundred dollars in the coming days. He asked me to bail him out again. It defies explanation, but I, apparently under hypnosis, took all of my money – five thousand dollars from my bank account and ten thousand dollars from two other credit cards – and gave it to him. So it happened that I gave him twenty-five thousand dollars and didn't even notice how it happened.

As soon as he paid off the necessary accounts, his business started sinking rapidly into bankruptcy. Everything was going wrong for him. Everything was falling apart. I stopped working for him and reminded him of his debt before me (thirty-five thousand dollars), including payment for my work. He promised confidently that he would soon sell his house and give me back all of my money. I didn't have any legal papers proving his debt to me. I wasn't thinking about it then. I was thinking that he needs money, that he's my friend, that he can't deceive me, that we need to rescue people in distress, that we need to help one another.

One evening he stopped by my apartment and we started talking. That evening I felt so lonely, so miserable. I was thinking about the fact that besides him, I had nobody in this world. I, like a stuck-on leaf, started telling him about my love for him, about my desire to be with him. Well, how could I not recall the angel that God sent to me, when he exclaimed in a very rude manner:"Look at yourself! What have you become? And you call this love? You don't deserve love!"

He left, loudly slamming the door behind him.

I had never experienced such heartache. I was shaking, as if during an earthquake, my ego wounded with maximal intensity. Or maybe unconsciously, I sensed that in giving him all of my money, I was trying to pay for my happiness, to buy him, to make it so he couldn't get away from me. I didn't think any of those thoughts when I was helping him, but I'm not sure that it was absent from my subconscious. There was no end to my tears. It was a broken blister on my soul. I couldn't even think then, I was choking on the pus. The pus came out... it got easier. There was no anger, no hatred; there appeared a wish to find my way home, to my soul.

I started to meditate intensively. Life was slowly going back to normal.

Jumping ahead, I can only say that I got a good life experience out of it. A year later, he had given me only ten thousand dollars. When I asked when he would give me the rest of the money, with confidence, he said that he didn't owe me anything. He even recommended that I take him to court. What could I have shown there? My obsession with helping people? I think this number would not have gone over successfully, and I didn't even try. Did the loss of money cause me pain or mental anguish? Absolutely not. It's just money. I believe deeply that the easier money leaves us, the easier it returns. My life is evidence of this. Many of my friends criticized me. They asked me how could I have acted so recklessly, how could I have loaned money and not requested a document to prove it? Yes. I was able to do so. Could you do the same? See what a wonderful life experience I got out of it. Not everyone can do it. Maybe not everyone needs such an experience.

After this incident, I never again needed money. It came easily.

Third Canadian boyfriend

Again I'm alone with my interests. This time the money loss, the loss of the illusory volunteering job taught me something, made me more confident that I could work for myself. I, like in the old times of establishing my business in Belarus, started sending out advertisements to find contract work creating databases. As soon as I believed in myself, that I could do it, instantly orders started appearing for creation of databases. I started working from home and making decent money, although it was unstable.

Life was improving, but I still maintained the dream of my prince. I was again searching for him on the Internet, even though something was telling me that I could only find a problem there, not love. I ignored my quiet thoughts and heard only what was coming from my fairy tale. I loved to make up fairy tales and very often forgot that they weren't real. He who searches will always find. Find what? Whatever he is looking for.

Everything was as usual. Everything was familiar. We met over the Internet, I gave him my phone number, and he called. He called me on Saturday morning and invited me to come visit him in Nanaimo. This is a small town on Vancouver Island not far from Vancouver. You can only get there by ferry. I had long heard about the existence of ferries, but I had never seen them. Curiosity seized me. I decided to go, without expecting him to be my prince, simply to see a new city by ferry.

Everything was happening on a magical schedule. After our phone call, I needed about fifteen minutes to get ready. I jumped into my car and raced over the mountains to the ferry. Following the signs, I drove onto the ferry without any delay. My car was the last in the ferry packed to capacity. I hadn't even turned off my engine when the gigantic metal door of the ferry began to close behind my car. The ferry took off. I got out of my car and went to the passenger deck of this huge vehicle.

The ferry was sailing majestically towards Vancouver Island, and I was enjoying the view of the islands, the blue sky, the sun, the glistening ocean water. The ferry ride took less than two hours. Finally, the ferry reached the shore, and the cars started driving off the ferry into the city. I was the very last to drive off the ferry.

I felt right away that the energy of this island differed from the energy of the big city. This feeling was expressed by the thought that in the city people are too preoccupied, everyone is always in a rush, everyone is worried. Here, on the island, life is more relaxed, less rushed, more calm. It even seemed to me that the air here was lighter. Filled with new sensations, I drove down the road and got lost. I called my mysterious friend and said that I was somewhere, no idea where, but I felt that I wasn't understanding anything. He responded very calmly that it was very difficult to get lost on the islandhere. I looked around, told him the names of the nearest streets, after which I was directed to our meeting point.

We met. A regular country boy; his clothing reminded me of a country boy on holiday. I was hungry by that point, and his invitation to lunch was very welcome. We went to a place, similar to a pub, which always served "unhealthy" food and alcohol. I said no to alcohol straightaway because I was certain that I would see this new place, walk around, and go back to Vancouver. We had lunch and, leaving the car in the parking lot, went for a walk around the city.

It's a very nice little town, surrounded by sixty percent by the ocean. We walked through the park, went to the old part of the city, and I started thinking that maybe it was time for me to go home.

It's always interesting to get to know new people. Each person has a unique story, and often more than one that a person has lived through and left its trace in his life. I didn't find anything particularly special about our conversation.

But suddenly, he put his hand on my shoulder. I was not expecting such a reaction from my body. Sometimes I can surprise myself. Immediately I felt very strong sexual desire. It was an explosion of sexual energy from both sides. It was incredible – it was only one touch, but it kindled a spark of extraordinary power. Our voices instantly changed in sound. They became so sweet, polite, with slight shortness of breath, the way they are when people want something very badly, but don't want to say it, as if too shy, hoping for a wordless understanding. This sparkling touch changed his thoughts, which made him invite me to his house, say that he had a guest room, that he would cook a nice dinner, that we would watch the latest news on TV, that nobody would bother me there. In short, he put forward all possible reasons and explanations to convince me to go where we could be alone. He wanted it, and he was trying to persuade me to do it. I also wanted it, but I was pretending as if I was embarrassed to admit it. I hesitated for about five minutes, and then with slight excitement said: "Let's go. Show me how you live."

We got my car from the parking lot. On the way to his house, he bought groceries for dinner, a bottle of good wine. He had a small but very neat house with trimmed green grass and trees around the house. When we entered the house, we couldn't talk anymore. We acted.

I hurried to the shower. He hurried into the shower after me. Never in my life had I had experienced such fervent sexual desire. It looked like two hungry dogs attacking one bone, called sex. We felt instantly that God had created our bodies for one another. It was simply a miracle. It felt like our bodies had joined into one, that there was no more separation between us... we were one. For the first time in my life, at the first touch of a stranger, I didn't need time to get used to it, to adapt, to get used to it. This was the moment when I felt that my second half, my new lover, finally made me complete inside.

Sex always creates an illusion. Drugs create an illusion. Each of them creates an illusory moment of happiness, unity, freedom. This was such a moment and is hard to forget. This was a moment that you want to repeat again and again. I started creating a new fairy tale based on this moment. When a person feels good, he wants to prolong this good thing. I spent two days there. I even thought that now, finally, I had found my prince.

At the time, he was temporarily out of work and living on welfare. I also didn't have a job then. For the second time in my life – a meeting of two jobless people. I should have remembered God. God never repeats a lesson if a person has passed it. God was giving me the same lesson again, but had switched the roles of the performers.

Learning from my experience of past relationships, I didn't offer for us to live together. He, realizing that he had finally found the woman of his dreams, didn't want to contradict me in anything. In this new relationship, I didn't expect anymore than he would make me happy; although I took into account how important it was for the health of my body to have regular and excellent sex. I didn't expect something extraordinary from him, but it was easy for me to be with him, and what was very important for me, he didn't criticize my regular meditation, my spiritual practices.

The first few months of our relationship were wonderful! We traveled a lot. I saw many wonderful parts of the province in which we live. We both loved to swim in the pool and in the ocean, play table tennis. We liked to sit in his backyard by the fire and talk about nothing in particular.

After a temporary break between jobs, he started working in Vancouver. He rented a room for himself, and we met practically every day, but he always went back to his apartment or house for the night.

I got the idea in my head to buy a good new car. My friend asked me: "You're practically not even working now. How are you planning to pay for it?"

Without hesitation, I answered:"God gave me this idea; let him be responsible for it!"

It was evening, we had nothing to do, and I invited him to take a walk with me to look for a car. He, as always, easily agreed. Near my house was a Volvo and Subaru dealership. We walked along several rows of cars. I, as ever, didn't understand car makes and certainly couldn't tell which was a Volvo and which a Subaru. Suddenly, a red car clearly caught my attention. I walked around it several times and said that I wanted to take it for a test drive. They gave me the keys to this car and I drove it to get a feel for what kind of relationship we had. Already after five minutes of driving this car, I said that it was mine. My friend burst into laughter and asked me: "Do you have any idea how much it costs?"

I answered that it didn't matter.

I parked the car at the entrance to the office and went to fill out the documents for it. They offered immediately to take my old car and gave me pretty good money for it. I agreed. I wasn't particularly interested in understanding and remembering their detailed explanations regarding the cost of the new car, its maintenance, or the cost of the monthly insurance. But when they named the total cost, I was quite surprised that the number was thirty-five thousand dollars. The interesting coincidence surprised me –the same amount that my Turkish ex-boyfriend owed me. And now the same amount appeared before me as a debt. My friend was completely silent, probably thinking that I had completely lost my mind. I signed all the documents. I pulled out my two credit cards and paid the initial amount for my new car – ten thousand dollars. I had on my bank account the exact amount of money I needed to pay rent for the next month and for a bit of food.

When I got behind the wheel of my new car, I felt calm and happy. Live and rejoice! I again repeated that God should take responsibility for what had been done.

Exactly two days later, I got a phone call from some organization. I didn't really understand what they wanted. They were inviting me to come to their office, and I thought they were potential clients who needed a database. Their office was fairly far from Vancouver, and it took me one and a half hours to get there by car. When we started talking, I finally got that they wanted to hire me for a three-month contract job. Hourly pay. They offered me an hourly salary that I had never even dreamed of.

These were a golden three months. These were a harmonious three months. These were three months of strenuous and very interesting work with amazingly good people. These were three unique months in my life, when work and my personal life were perfect. I got this experience, for which I am very grateful. But our life can't offer us anything stable, everything flows, everything changes. My contract ended. My car was paid off in full. The amount of money in my bank account was enough for a year. It was an experience of how an illogical an unrealistic wish to have a car materialized. Life is full of surprises when we act at the command of our senses.

Things were going differently with my boyfriend. He wanted to marry me. I had never allowed this thought. He suffered when he felt that he couldn't attach me to him. I didn't suffer at all. I liked our sexual relationship, and I felt that my body needed it.

Everything with him was banal, everything could have been predicted, there was nothing to explore.

Once we were talking about something and I suddenly felt that his sexual attractiveness, or better said his sexual energy, disappeared. I didn't see it, but very clearly felt it. I even told him about it. We laughed at my sensations.

But after this day, his sexual desire, and later his sexual abilities, began to fade. He didn't want to admit it. He was making up different reasons, excuses for it. I also didn't want to believe that this was the end of what I had liked so much about our relationship.

And so came the time when sex no longer interested him. When this was gone, nothing was left in our relationship. We broke up... then tried to be together again. Again broke up, again tried. Finally, we broke up.

Do I even need a boyfriend?

I was looking for love – but this is the most common method of running from loneliness, which has tortured, tortures, and torture most men and women throughout most of their lives. No matter how hard I tried to find my prince, no matter how I tried to avoid a lonely life, in the end, I received what I was struggling so hard against.

Loneliness is terrifying. It's terrifying that this lonely state might last forever, for the remainder of one's human life. Desperate to avoid this condition, a person wastes all of his strength, all of his energy, all of the passion of his soul and becomes poor. And the worst kind of poverty is loneliness and the feeling that nobody needs you.

I knew this. It caused me great pain.

In loneliness, each sees himself for what he really is.

I thought about all of my "princes", and it reminded me of porcupines trying to warm up on a cold winter night. They're cold, they're nestling against each other, but the closer together they get, the harder they prick each other with their long needles. The pain of the needle pricks forces them to move apart, but they again come close to each other because of the cold, and so it goes on all night long.

I didn't want any more needle pricks; the maximal permissible dose had been injected into my heart. I tried to accept my loneliness the way it was, without giving this state a label of "good" or "bad". I didn't yet know then how to help myself. I felt that I had only one wish. It was the desire to be happy. How? With whom? Alone? These words lost their meaning for me. I knew only one prayer:"God, help me to become happy. I will go through all of your lessons, regardless of how difficult they may be."

I regularly meditated, did spiritual exercises.. I was working on myself.

I had always read many spiritual books. But never had the idea of trying out "other'" experiences come into my head. Life has shown me many times that when I ask something in the spiritual world, I always receive an answer. I was praying for help in finding my happiness, and I started receiving it in the form of new ideas and thoughts. My new thoughts were giving me directions for finding my way home.

In one of the books, I read that it's important for a person to be able to be lazy and to learn to "listen" to one's body. I decided to try the "laziness" experience. Some people have this gift from birth. They clearly know what laziness is and have well-developed habits for using this gift. For some, it is very difficult to be hard working. For the lucky ones, a balance of laziness and diligence will bring the greatest pleasure and success. God had made me extremely hard working from birth, but the laziness he left up to my own experiences.

It was Saturday. Normally I would have a plan for how to spend the day. A habit I wanted to replace with a different one – to live without a plan. I gave myself the goal of truly feeling what it was like to be so lazy not even to make a plan for the day.

I concentrated on the thoughts that were coming into my head: I need to dust and wash the floors.

Remembering that today I was lazy, I looked around the room and thought that it was fine the way that it was, the dust isn't asking for food. The next thought came into my head: I need to go for a walk and get some fresh air.

I lazily looked out of the window, and saw that the trees were swaying from the wind, clouds were covering the sky, and thought:I'm too lazy to get dressed. And who says that I need to go for a walk? Whoever needs to walk can walk themselves.

For a few hours, I struggled against the habitual thoughts coming into my head and got so tired that I fell asleep, as if after hard physical labor. I slept for more than two hours. I had never slept for so long during the day. When I woke up, I continued the experiment. The usual, repetitive thoughts and actions were attacking me. They wanted to set me back on my usual path, where everything happens out of habit, where everything happens automatically. I listened to my thoughts as if from the outside, as a witness of what was happening inside my head. I listened, but I acted the way that laziness acts in my understanding. An hour later, my body was so worn-out, so tired, that I fell into bed and slept for another two hours. After I woke up again, I realized that I had been torturing my body my whole life, that I had never listened to what my body was telling me. When I got very tired, I kept going, kept doing something. But all I needed to do was give my body a chance to rest. My "need to dos" were born out of my habits. The more I lived, the more habits I accumulated, the less I evolved and improved, the more I lived according to habit, like a biological robot.

During just one day that I lived consciously, as a person should, I managed to uncover the secrets of my soul's constant suffering. I had always wanted to "mold" the world to me, to my well-established habits, many of which had become outdated with time and were in need of demolition or, at minimum, an update. During just one day, I experienced how difficult it is to change habits, how enormous and strenuous of a task it is. During just one day, I realized that if I wanted to change my life, if I want to be happy, I had to start this change with myself. Everything is inside me... I need to find it. Apparently God had heard my prayer and pointed me in the right direction, and I had to find the way home myself.

Luckily, I didn't need to choose, compare, deliberate, calculate, seek advice from others, wait for outside help. I was alone in this physical world, without a title, without a family, without close friends, and without a job at that moment. I had only myself: eye to eye, breath to breath, heartbeat to heartbeat. I had one thing left: to work on myself.

My existence split into two parts, each of which got its own title: "Real work" and "Illusion". "Real work" was work on myself, the process of getting to know myself, it was the building of the world in which I wanted to live. The "Illusion" included everything that was not "real work": my job, seeing people I knew, all social events. When this division happened in my mind, for the first time, my life started to acquire real meaning and real interest.

The problem with my children, of course, never left me. I chased it inside, I hid it from myself, I didn't want to look it in the eye. Once, by chance or not, but it was a Saturday, thoughts of my daughters simply flooded me. Anger at their unfair behavior towards me made me grind my teeth. But in that very moment, remembering my real work, my strong desire to experience this anger inside me made me change my usual course of action.

I told myself – be angry, but consciously be angry but be with your anger, feel it, live through it. I grabbed the first plate I saw and with all my strength, threw it on the floor. When I was throwing this plate, I put all of my anger into this throw, all of my long-standing grudges against my children, and I did it consciously. I was astonished that after the shards of the smashed plate scattered on the floor, I felt that the soap bubble called anger burst inside me and that a space filled with warmth and light filled its place. I was standing amidst the shards of glass and smiling. This was a new experience.

Now I started to pay attention to my thoughts and my body's reaction. As soon as I tracked my emotion (anger, loneliness, irritation) consciously, I felt that the emotion awarded my conscious attention burst like a soap bubble and turned into a feeling of warmth and peace in my body. As soon as I was certain that this wasn't a coincidence but a pattern, I believed in a very simple discovery for myself.

Why do we love happy moments in our life and want to repeat them over? We empathize with a happy event happening in our lives, we are open to feelings, we have nothing to hide, because it has the label of "good".

As soon as we experience an event that in our definition is "bad", we try to hide it, not only from the eyes of others, but also from ourselves. We don't express the feelings appropriate to this event; we create a block in our consciousness inaccessible to warmth and love.

But if we don't divide the things that happen to us into good and bad, but feel everything happening to us openly and wholeheartedly and love it simply because it is ours, the block is not created. The energy of this emotion moves through us and is absorbed into the universe. Everything that happens to us in this world depends on the extent to which we believe in ourselves.

I started to be much more attentive towards what was happening inside me. Very quickly, I began to feel the next block was ready to open and find an outlet for its release.

I always took actions to cleanse my physical and energetic body of blocks. My best medicine, best healer, best restorer of my balance was the forest.

As soon as I felt discomfort inside myself, felt sorry for myself or lonely, I imagined that the block of rejected, unexperienced energy was ready to find a release, and I started on my real work. I went into the forest; I greeted the entire population of this forest and asked for help. I asked it to cleanse me of my usual heartache, of the discomfort inside me, of dark thoughts. I asked and then walked around without any thoughts or expectations. Each time, the forest helped me. Each time, I felt better and wanted to keep on living.

But once, when I again succumbed to the melancholy of complete loneliness, when it seemed to me that this would go on forever, I went deep into the forest and started to scream: "Well, God? You've forgotten me; you've turned away from me? What did I do in my life that was so bad that even you, the only one I have left, don't want to help me?"

I cried so hard that frightened birds flew from the trees. And at that moment, when I had lost all belief in God or the universe or the cosmos, the sun came out from behind the trees and touched my eyes with its rays. For the first moment, it seemed unreal to me to feel the sun's rays on such a cloudy day, but then a quiet and calm thought came into my head, a message from God: "Everything is fine. Be patient."

I calmed down immediately. I believed that God wouldn't give me more than I could handle.

Again and again, I returned to my real and illusory life. Again and again, I lost faith that someone or something could help me. I was left alone. It seemed that nothing would ever change. With these feelings, I again came to the forest, to my only friend, my helper, and my savior. I walked along the forest paths asking the forest for help. Suddenly, something broke inside me and I lost all hope for change in my lonely life. I screamed and cried through the whole forest: "Why do you mock me like this, God? What have I done so wrong that you have taken away everything and everyone that I loved so much? Maybe you want to take my life too? Then take it! I don't need a life like this! I don't want to live!"

I really didn't want to live anymore. I was very tired. I didn't believe that I would see my children again, that I would have a friend, that I would someday have happiness and peace. I was striding down the forest path with such anger, with such despair, with such determination to end my useless life, that I didn't even notice the strange pain sensation in my right ankle. I looked at my leg only a few seconds after the initial signal and froze in surprise. My lower right leg was swelling up incredibly fast and turning a dark-burgundy color. I thought it looked like a snakebite. God distracted me from my dark thoughts. I sat down on the grass and started sending energy to my leg until I was certain that it was starting to go back to normal. I forgot that I had a useless life. I drove my car home, thinking that it wasn't my time to leave, that I still had a lot to learn.

After that incident, after that poison was added to my body, something changed drastically inside me. I felt that the dose of poison helped me to return to my real work.

I slowly started getting into the habit of observing consciously the thoughts that came into my head, my feelings, how frequently and easily my own thoughts changed my mood.

Once, without any reason, but just at the behest of my soul, I went to the city center. I walked through the streets for a long time, among many people of all ages and appearances. Some thoughts about how each of them had someone, at least one someone, and I had nobody, came into my head, but with my new habit, I chased them away and didn't dwell on them. Feeling that I was getting tired, I decided to walk to my bus stop across a huge bridge going from downtown. The previously chased-away thought of my loneliness returned to my head as soon as I stepped on the bridge. Without finding any obstacles, it started to gain courage and quickly use the opportunity to develop freely and transform into a stream of thoughts. This stream of thoughts grabbed my attention and made me plunge into the black tunnel: "Nobody needs you. You don't have anyone because you don't deserve attention. Even your kids don't love you and will never come back to you. You will spend the rest of your life completely alone! Why do you need a life like this?"

I was at the highest point of this bridge and even glanced down to find a place to fall. In that very moment, when I had lost myself in my own thoughts, or to put it bluntly, gone insane, I reached the maximum possible feeling of loneliness. In that peak moment of loneliness, I lost touch with God, with the universe, with the cosmos, with that which keeps me alive, allows my heart to beat, and me to breathe. My thoughts built this isolating wall, made me lonely. But, because of the real work that I had done earlier, my attempts to observe my thoughts from the outside, something happened to me, which is difficult to describe in words.

Practically simultaneously with reaching the maximal disconnect from the whole world, I "heard the voice" of these thoughts. These thoughts were being driven into my head, as if by a hammer, demanding, screaming, not allowing any pause between words. I looked at what was happening with the thoughts in my head, as if from the outside. And I clearly felt the voice of my ego. My ego had gotten "hungry" and now it was using the opportune moment to receive a huge portion of food.

Ego, tobacco, alcohol, or drug addiction – these are simply different types of energy "attached" to our bodies. For their existence, a person must feed them. A smoker – with cigarettes; an alcoholic – with vodka; a drug addict – with drugs; egotism – with loneliness. The above "food products" are "organic food" for these kinds of energies. Very often, these "smart" energies can work together for a common ration. These energies are well adapted to the constant gathering of food, and when they get hungry, they use a highly developed creative ability to be fed. This creativity is expressed in thoughts of varying content.

For example, at that moment, the ego was feeding on thoughts about loneliness. So as not to be too annoying and not too general, and to maintain a sufficiently strong stream of food, the ego changes the form of the thought into one that says that this loneliness will last forever. This sent new information, which will prepare a new portion of food – this will go on forever, I will never see my children again. Again a new keyword has been delivered to the brain – children. Another portion of food is prepared – I will never see my grandchildren either. There is no limit to creative possibilities here. The ego will drag you around wherever it wants like a fish caught in a hook and until it overeats. Observe, please, an interesting picture appears.

As soon as I understood CONSCIOUSLYthat it was the voice of my egotism, I asked a very simple question: "Who is talking to me?"

I know that we always perceive the voice of my soul or the voice of God as calm, quiet, undemanding thoughts, which are so easy to miss and we may not notice among the loud demands and desires of our ego.

And I felt that I had taken the next step on my evolutionary path – the first time, I realized and felt for how the ego works. I "saw" this not through breaking my ego, but with the eyes of my soul, with my eyes. I did my work, and the black cloud that stuck inside my body, causing me so much pain just a few minutes ago, disappeared. In its place, or rather, in place of my suffering, poured a warm stream of light, and I smiled.

The soap bubble disappeared again. I didn't want to think, I didn't want to analyze. I wanted to live and be happy. An enormous amount of energy flooded my body, I didn't know what to do with it. I walked home, which was more than an hour's drive away. I had no tiredness after this walk; I had the feeling of the beginning of my new life.

Learning to live anew

Step by step, I started to understand myself more, to feel myself, and trying to learn to help myself when I needed help. I noticed that when I observed my thoughts as if from the outside, like a camera, more frequently I could tell quickly where they had come from. If a thought appearing in my mind was unhappy about something, criticizing someone, comparing with something or someone, demanding something, desperately wanting something, then this thought had come from my old life experiences, from things said by my mom, a teacher at school, my coach. If my thought was so quiet and calm that I had to listen closely, then it was a thought of my soul, a thought received from God.

After all, each of us has endured many experiences but before making a "right" decision, a quiet godly thought has come into our mind. But we are stubborn; we are used to listening only to the commands of our loud ego. The ego knows this. It drowns out this quiet thought with its "yelling" so that we forget about that only, first correct thought that comes into our mind. With time, when the train has already left, we start to say that we knew the right decision but didn't take it.

The more I started working on myself, the less I wanted to plan something, or to put it simpler, the less wishes I had. I started living in a world new to me.

In the morning, I didn't know how I would spend the day. But each day started bringing amazing surprises. Suddenly I would jump into my car and rush to the ocean, and a fantastically beautiful rainbow would appear before me. Or I would get the desire to walk through the forest. And there, I would met an astoundingly dark blue bird, resembling a crow, but much larger. This bird allowed me to admire it and then flew away. I walked around for two days impressed by this wonderful meeting in the forest. My worries and anxiety slowly began to dissolve. More and more, I found myself in an unusual but surprisingly pleasant state of calm. I started feeling that I wasn't alone, that my soul was guiding me, that God had not forgotten me.

Suddenly the phone rang, and a very pleasant young voice was inviting me for an interview. This was a call from a company that did repairs on ships of different sizes and costs. Their workshop was a fifteen to twenty minute drive away from my apartment. I went to the interview, they asked me questions, I answered. I felt that I was fated to meet these people. They hired me as an accountant and a database developer. Not a bad salary. Good people. Life was getting better.

I started working in October. Imperceptibly Christmas and New Year's drew nearer. Every day, I heard and saw how people were preparing for Christmas, how they were buying presents in advance. The thought that I had nobody to buy presents for, nobody to greet, nothing to plan came to me, but it was sent back with peace. It is what it is.

I decided not to fight against my own life; I wanted to accept it the way that it is. After all, it's only an illusion that when we are amongst people, even total strangers, if we are involved in a social life, then everything is fine with us, we are not lonely. Yes, we are people, and we like to be social. But very often, the most precious time for a person is the time he spends alone with himself. I realized that during the time called "loneliness", I learned very much about myself, who I really am. During this time, God gave me so many surprises, so many amazing moments, that it became a precious time for me.

I was learning to live anew, how kids learn to walk. I bought myself a small New Year's present, decorated a Christmas tree, bought food and wine. I did it with the internal intention that I can do everything that I want to in this life. I can even celebrate New Year's alone. Of course, my usual thoughts, sent by my emaciated ego, visited me, but I greeted them and then asked: "What, Ego, you're still alive?"

I smiled and sent it back to where it had come from. I liked that I had real strength, which was helping me. I had found this strength inside me. I became more convinced that I have everything that God has. I started to believe that I only needed to find it within myself and learn how to use it. An enormous job that takes more than one day, more than one life.

I celebrated New Year's alone. I didn't feel heartache, I was calm. For a moment, the old habit of celebrating the New Year in a big group came up, but I didn't react to it and kept my calm. In the morning, I already knew that the fear of celebrating the New Year alone had been illusory, like the fear of the unknown. When the experience stopped being unfamiliar to me, the fear also disappeared. It was a small but very important step in acquiring freedom. The way to total freedom is possible only through total loneliness. This didn't sound scary to me anymore, it sounded like an attractive song, the words to which should be learned or perhaps even written anew. In loneliness, a person often feels less lonely.

Of course, from time to time, sad and very familiar thoughts about my loneliness visited me. I had spent many years developing the habit of thinking that only in a family, only with friends, could I be not lonely and happy. To train a new habit, or to not have one at all, I needed time and experience in how to do it. I had celebrated the New Year by myself for the first time; a new experience. It turned out there was nothing bad about it. The path to freedom consists of obtaining all possible experiences of a single issue. When a person feels relaxed and happy with friends and with family, and the same without them, then the question of who to celebrate with simply doesn't exist. This person will receive either option equally well.

Thus, getting to know myself, I was getting to know the world around me, and the limitless capabilities of people. It was difficult to start on the search for a path towards myself. But when I stepped on the path that led home, the real adventures started in my journey through life.

On the outside, nothing in my lonely life changed. The phone didn't ring for weeks. Nobody in this world called me and asked how I was doing. My children didn't try to find me. I didn't have a boyfriend. I had a job. I came home to complete solitude. I found myself in that situation. But I am not the situation. If I couldn't change my situation, I had to change my attitude towards it. And that's what I did. The situation is by itself, and I'm by myself.

I believed deeply and believe, that if a person wants to change his life, wants to be happy and not to suffer, he needs to change his mind. Without a change in a person's consciousness, the world around him will not change, only the outside appearance, the form will change, but not the content. In changing my consciousness, I saw what wealth I possessed: health, peace, calm, the desire and ability to help myself and others. For me, this is a treasure whose value mankind can never determine. It's something money can't buy. It is true strength and freedom. It is power over yourself. It is control over your ego. It is life without fear. It is seeing life as a wonderful adventure, which never ceases to amaze and bring surprises. When a person is "covered" in sad thoughts and worries, he is not able to see the abundant moments in life that give reason to smile and not to criticize.

I remember a funny incident that happened in the pool. I was swimming in one of the lanes and suddenly a woman called out to me and asked: "Do you speak Russian?"

Apparently, my Slavic appearance spoke for itself. We started talking. She asked me to give her a ride home. She got into my car and started praising me enthusiastically, that I had such a good car, that everything was good in my life, that I clearly had a lot of money. This was already funny. When a person expresses such emotions upon seeing something, it is very often just an expression of jealousy. I asked her only one question: "What do you do?"

Her short answer astounded me. She said that she was a fortunate person, that she got so lucky in Canada, and that she received disability assistance. To each his own. Everybody has his own idea of luck.

I'm lucky too, because I'm healthy. I'm lucky that I live as my heart desires. I'm lucky that I'm learning to see the world with my own eyes, not through the eyes of society, my family, the culture into which I was born and raised. When I learn, I know that this road is tough, but it leads forward. When I don't change anything and don't learn anything then I suffer, and don't know where my life path is leading me, it's like living and waiting for death.

I have only one wish – to be happy in this world, regardless of the weather, my job, other people, circumstances, and so on. I know that as soon as I learn this from my own experience, then I will be able to help others. I know that in the moment that I'm suffering or feeling lonely, my mind has lost touch with my soul or with God. The moment of feeling lonely, isolated in this world is the moment of getting lost in your own thoughts, of losing touch with God. When I feel bad, I ask myself a simple question: "Do you believe in God?"

After all, our souls are component energies of God, they are part of one, they are united. A person's egotism builds isolation pipes, puts the light-blocking lining between the physical body of a person and our collective home, the universe, God, the soul. I want to destroy my isolators. The more I destroy them, the less loneliness there is in my heart, the more I feel protected, the more love there is in my heart, the less wishes I have.

As if society can protect me! One part of society can only protect from another part of society. One part of society causes pain and suffering, and another part protects from this but only when it is beneficial to that side of society. When the benefit disappears, so does the protection.

My invisible house, my invisible family protects me constantly, without lunch breaks. Many times in Canada, when I had no job, when I had only a few dollars left on my bank account, God created a situation for me in which I found a job. When I wasn't ready for loneliness, God sent me a friend. When I needed to make the right decision, God gave me wisdom. God sent me angels so that I would learn. God doesn't punish, he changes situations so that we can improve. God gave us the right to choose. I, just like everyone else on this earth, have always had and always will have the ability and freedom to choose – to learn or to remain ignorant.

The more experiences I went through, the more consciously I saw my life. I started living less habitually like a biological robot. The more habits I destroyed within myself, the more surprising my life became. Living according to habit is to obtain a familiar result. Living giving your entire attention only to one moment, "now", cleansing yourself from the heaviness of the past and without dreaming about the unknown tomorrow, that is to be free from expectations of the result, to believe in God and his Love.

I come from a family where the concept of God, belief in him, the meaning of prayer didn't exist. In my childhood, I heard only about the destruction of churches and about God as a stupid fabrication. In school, we were taught atheism, denial of God, not believing in God. For a long time, it was very difficult for me to say aloud words like God or prayer. It was a habit, glasses that were put on me from my early childhood. These glasses refracted my vision according to the lenses that had been put in these frames. When I started gradually destroying these lenses, I felt that these were only words to which I reacted out of habit.

Perhaps I got very lucky (that sounds funny, it's the soul's choice) that I was born in such a country. In countries where from the first day of their birth, children are told about the necessity of living according to the strict rules of God, that God penalizes and punishes. The lenses on these people's eyes can become huge; destroying could take more than one hammer, perhaps more than one life.

But words are not the most important thing; the most important is what a person believes in, how he perceives this visible and invisible world. I understood that my faith determines everything. Words that try to describe the indescribable, to define the infinite, are just words each person perceives according to the degree of his faith. We use words like God, prayer, saints, prophets, to express our common belonging to that invisible world from which we came, to which we will depart. These are key words that help to find the way home. Everyone will get there, but some people want to go there directly, while others, without haste, take the back roads.

People always try to prove what is already obvious... or the last drop

I had not seen my last boyfriend for more than six months. This whole time I assumed that our connection was completely severed, and I was open for new relationships. Yes, an interesting man could perhaps have brought me various pleasures or disappointments. But somewhere deep inside, I realized that I was already different, and I had no need for a man. Serenity and peace had filled me up inside, completed me, equipped me. It's very difficult to find the right words to describe my inner state, which is equivalent to the meaning of using many words to describe a very simple, but very powerful feeling when you have EVERYTHING.

It's more of a habitual way of thinking, passed on from generation to generation, held up by parents and fueled by society, that two halves, in the form of a man and a woman, must meet and form something whole and very harmonious. I had searched for that man for my whole life. I searched for someone who would fill all of me. And I always searched for IT somewhere outside of myself. But my second half turned out to be inside me, I had just never noticed it before.

Now to talk about men at that period of my life.

Expecting nothing, except the possibility of receiving additional pleasures, for which I had no particular need, but which could theoretically bring me new, fresh life experiences, I took a step in the search for my "happiness". Oh God, it sounds so ridiculous! I again relied on the help of the Internet. I described myself as a free woman, looking for happiness in an open relationship. My investigative drive for the first two days was enormous. I found more and more pictures of men and sent them emails inviting them to go for a walk with me sometime. Just look at my photo, read my description of freedom, and go for a walk with me, and then see, maybe something would happen, would spark.

I typed out this invitation only once for the first man I chose and the rest got only copies of the first: "Yes,, I liked your photo and profile so much, that I really want to go for a walk with you, if you're up for it, that is."

I was so carried away by looking at more and more new photos, that the process drew me in completely, leaving no room for expectations of any sort of result. After two days, I got bored of doing the same thing over and over again. And that's when the answers started to roll in.

Guys, this was so interesting! Some answered directly that they could go for a walk with me (probably physically he is healthy) but that it won't work out between us (probably he doesn't know how it should work)! Others simply deleted my invitation after reading it, not leaving me in deep thoughts about what was wrong with me. But others (probably well-brought up) deigned to give me their attention and responded politely that, well, I could go for a walk with you, but it's raining outside and the weather is windy.

But three (an interesting number!) did want to take a walk with me.

What a blissful feeling – to be free! What a pleasure to SIMPLY BE on this earth! You are the master of your life. You are Life! When you don't expect any results and enjoy the very process of doing (regardless of the type of activity), you are in the present, the past and the future have disappeared, you are CREATING.

With such feelings of complete satisfaction with my internal state, I decided to meet with all three men in turn.

The first contender for my freedom invited me to the cinema. He was a tall, very dark-skinned man (younger than by five to six years) from Jamaica, which provoked a sense of curiosity since in Belarus, it's impossible to find such a specimen during the day with a torch. He had never been married, didn't have any kids, and had once played soccer very well. I stared at him like a rare wonder. The color of his skin (simply dark chocolate!), teeny-tiny curls in his hair (just like a young lamb), the shape of his head, the length of his legs – everything was given my close attention. Yes, there was quite a lot to look at, and perhaps I would get to touch as well... It was a strange new feeling: I was with him, but I felt like a camera placed somewhere for observation. I had no emotions, just interest – and it felt so good! We were watching the movie, and he started to touch the palms of my hands lightly. I answered him with the same. I was sitting very close to him but didn't move away. I decided to give total freedom to this new experience in my life and observe how all of this happens without the input of any sorts of emotions, feelings, or expectations. If the event was taking place, then that meant I needed to get this experience.

After the movie, he gave me a ride home and wanted to visit my abode. On that day, I resisted nothing and continued to observe. We sat down on the couch, as if to watch TV, but he started kissing me. Again... nothing inside. I noticed that the big black lips were not so comfortable to kiss, and he himself was too large and somewhat awkward... When he invited me to join him in bed, which was so predictable, I didn't experience any particular happiness, but the interest remained. I enjoyed looking at the big very dark-skinned body with small curls everywhere, and about the rest, I have absolutely no recollection. When he left, he said that he had never met such a relaxed woman in his life. Yes, freedom is a good feeling. But when he called the next day asking to see me again, something inside me said that this was a bit much. Enough. In this case, there was nothing to explore. The experience had been received. I forgot his name the very next day.

The second prospective candidate to meet me was a Canadian man, again younger than me. We, strictly following the original plan, really went for a walk. We drove up to the ocean shore; he left his car in a paid parking lot and paid for the minimal parking time of thirty minutes, which already caused me great joy. Imagine such a frugal, prudently greedy man... It's really fun to see what greed or prudence, or whatever one might call it does to people. Yes, I saw this, but I wasn't disappointed. How could an experiment disappoint me?

We walked for a few meters along the amazingly beautiful coastline, and my boy started stealing glances at his watch and worrying that the half hour had already passed. Nice! I felt so good, so relaxed. It's such a pleasure to observe people's behavior without a drop of judgment, simply like a humorous sketch. He was so worried about getting a ticket for his expired parking meter that he forgot why he was there. The poor guy had no chance of focusing on me, because his mind was occupied fullywith counting the time. He lost himself in his thoughts, he was absent from the present, he was in the future, which doesn't exist and is merely an illusion.

We came back to the parking lot fifteen minutes earlier than we had to. Amazing! And nothing about it was really so bad, when you looked at it like a camera from the side, when you didn't take this behavior as a personal offense, but just for what it was, without hanging any labels on what is happening. I saw only that this disease afflicts most people on our planet. But there was an interest in how this disease would manifest itself in a different situation.

We got into the car, and he invited me for something to eat. I'm not a big fan of restaurant food, but as my mom used to say, go where you're being called. By following this call, we ended up in a small Japanese restaurant at a table for two. It's so nice to observe – what will happen next? We ordered food, a bit of wine, and started talking. About what? I have no idea. Even under torture, I wouldn't be able to recall our conversation. But one thing interested me very much. In the middle of our meal, he glanced at the breasts of the young waitress and told me to look at her breasts and determine their size. Cool! I know that I should help people to satisfy their curiosity, but I didn't have a tape measure with me to run up to this girl and measure the size of her chest. Not having this tape measure, I felt that the evening was no longer languid, that I was simply getting bored. And my crown trick came into play automatically. I suddenly remembered that I had forgotten to switch off my iron and had to go home immediately. By the way, in Canada almost nobody uses an iron in his everyday life. Canadians smooth their freshly-washed laundry with their hands, stack them in a neat pile and put it on the shelf, and then think that it's all as good as ironed. Fifteen minutes later, I was home. And never again thought of him or his name.

But I still had one "last" hope! The evening that he called me, it was very rainy and windy outside. I didn't want "to be exposed to natural disasters", so I decided to invite him to my house, and what's more, feed him a homemade dinner. I didn't overexert myself in the kitchen, but the dinner looked good on the table. Candles in all corners of the room created a romantic setting.

When I opened the door to him, I was pleasantly surprised that he turned out to be a lot bigger than in his photo on the Internet. Well, there should be a lot of a good man! His dark skin differed somewhat from the skin of "my first contestant" from Jamaica. This new contender for my freedom was from Africa, so his skin color was very black without a chocolate shade. It's so nice when one has the chance to compare and gain new experiences in life! He was wearing a white suit, which emphasized his very black appearance. And his shoes caused me indescribable joy... they were bright yellow! What a bachelor!

He brought flowers, chocolates, and a bottle of wine. I took the complete gentleman's kit from his black hands into my white hands. Gently swaying his body fat, he went straight to the table. I didn't ask him about whether he wished to wash his hands before eating because it was obvious from the first glance that he was groomed, dressed, and washed, in short, ready for a meeting with a woman.

I let him choose whichever seat he liked best at the table. It's a game I have. I offer a man the choice of two possible options, which differ from each other only on how comfortable it is to watch TV from them. Not once in three years did one man choose the spot at the table where the TV can only be seen by twisting around! Every one of them, without hesitation, sat down in the best spot! And this is as it should be; the best part of mankind should have the best! That's my little joke.

I smiled sweetly; one could say reassured that the anticipated miracle did not happen, which means everything is fine, as it should be. I was burning with impatience to see how my last experiment would go. My experiment, evidently sensing my impatience, didn't keep me waiting long and began to give "scientific" results of which one can only dream!

Before his fluffy black cheeks, on a table with a tablecloth, stood plates with salted salmon, baked potatoes, and a fresh vegetable salad. He looked at me very strictly and slightly wrinkled his sweaty nose from indignation, and stated confidently: "I don't eat salted fish. I like veal."

Knowing how easily I can burst into uncontrollable laughter and ruin my experiment, with great difficulty I contained my instinctive reaction to this joke, and said that there wasn't any veal but that he could eat as much salad as he wanted. Before he had touched anything on his plate, I quickly put his piece of fish onto my plate... why waste it? He poured the wine into glasses specially polished for the occasion. We each had a sip of wine and started eating. He turned out to be very quick in consuming such simple and low-calorie food. Two minutes into our meal, his plate was empty, and he sharply looked at his watch and asked me to turn on the TV. Used to carrying out the orders of my princes immediately, I stood up from the table with my mouth full of fish and rushed to turn on the TV. In the split second that I turned away to turn on the TV, my black-skinned friend had left the table and sat down on the couch in front of the TV.

The evening became truly interesting. I was slightly bewildered. First, I hadn't finished my dinner; second, I had nobody to finish it with; and third, I just wanted to eat and observe what would happen next. I sat down at the table and continued to eat and drink wine... alone, as usual. For a minute, my friend searched nervously for the program that he needed so desperately, and then sighed with relief and calmed down when he found it. It was soccer, some kind of championship. I couldn't believe my eyes; I couldn't believe how God "worked".

I was born with a "hatred" for politics and soccer. And all of a sudden, this is how things turned out. God is providing me a lesson: how to transform negative feelings into positive ones. After I accepted this soccer lesson consciously, the problem in relation to soccer disappeared instantly. I continued to eat and observe. From the first second of this astonishing soccer match, my "prince" was immersed completely into the enchanting world of sport. He started to jump up when there was a threat of a goal and scream when the ball entered someone's net. I was watching him and couldn't believe my eyes – a miracle, happening in front of my eyes! Realizing that he had completely forgotten about my presence, I decided to continue my experiment.

I asked him quite loudly: "My friend, would you like some more wine?"

He continued to be immersed in the game and didn't answer my question. At this point, my delight reached its peak. I realized that I had to act! Smiling, I came up to him with a glass of wine and said: "Alagasaparazabaovabaminapupu."

Don't try to understand this; nobody speaks like this anywhere in the world. I was doing this to attract his attention. And he noticed me! He answered: "Yes, of course!"

I didn't stop at the achieved result, I continued our conversation: "O aba buba mi?"

He answered me again: "Yes, yes, of course!"

There are no words. My experiment was a success. I started clearing the table and washing the dishes. I had finished everything by the time the game was over. He stood up from the couch, went up to me, and tenderly said: "Why did you do the dishes by yourself, I would have helped you!"

After which his phone rang, and he said that he had to pick up his twenty-five-year-old son from work, that he had enjoyed meeting me very much and hoped to see me again.

All of these three "astounding" guys added that last drop that helped me to lose interest and desire to find a male specimen in the form of a "prince on a blue horse". They helped me to reach a new level of independence and freedom. The absence of this desire gave me a feeling of happiness with deep meaning inside. It's very difficult to find the right words for this, but it's a feeling inside that my life finally has meaning and that I'm doing something very right.

And very soon, this feeling had a name to describe it. I'm simply living in the present. I'm simply giving ALL of my attention to what I'm doing now. And the quality of my actions became very high. The past doesn't bother me. I'll never change it anyway. The future doesn't worry me. Nobody knows what could happen in five minutes. I'm enjoying life now. I stopped building five-year plans in my head: what I have to do, when, in what time frame. I do EVERYTHING from my heart's desires.

I felt a strong desire to clean my apartment and the thought unexpectedly comes to me that there are going to be changes in my life and it's better to greet them in good order. And, lo and behold, some phone call appears, a conversation, an interesting meeting, which give me new life experiences, change something inside me for the better. At first, I thought that these were all coincidences, but no. Life itself manifests in this way when you live in the present, when you're going with the flow of life instead of creating resistance.

Now I know that I did a huge amount of work to acquire this. But acquiring is not quite the right word. We can't acquire something that we never lost. This is who we are. We just forgot about it.

My life gained harmony, balance, stability. The more I trusted my thoughts and the desires of my heart, the less I worry about something. I feel that the universe, God is guiding me. Such wonderful feelings as calm, stability, security, and safety, are inside me. My God, I searched for this for my whole life. I looked for stability in my relationships with my loved ones but I found it for a very short time only. I looked for security and safety but always felt my vulnerability inside. Our world can't give this to us. It's not good or bad, it's the way that it is.

A new world had opened before me. A world where we are united and together and nobody can be lonely.

The beginning of a new life

After a long and fruitless search for my prince, after all of my suffering and worries, after not understanding why my kids abandoned me, after the process of adaptation to a new country, I finally felt confident. I got the feeling that the space, the emptiness, which had been meant for a prince in my thoughts, didn't exist anymore. I had an understanding that all my suffering was simply the result of the work of my brain. The heartaches and suffering when the ego demands something, wants something, expects something. I wanted to live with my prince – it didn't happen, but the suffering did. I expected that my kids would start talking to me again – they didn't want to, but I suffered. I wanted to control my life – but it was flowing its own way, and I was suffering in parallel. The less wishes, the less expectations, the less suffering.

One morning I woke up, smiled at the new day, and thought, what do I want? The question was asked but I couldn't find an answer. I realized that I had no more desires. I even sat up in bed, this discovery so surprised me. I thought that this couldn't be, I had always been full of desires. I started searching scrupulouslyfor at least one wish. But I didn't find one. I had already bitten the apple of freedom; I had already tasted life going with the flow, at the bidding of the soul, by the plan of God. And all of my plans, desires, grown from the experiences of my past, the advice of my friends, my old habits, the influences of society, culture, family, degree to which my ego was fed, seemed so irrelevant, uninteresting, and bothersome. Strenuous effort, relentless control of the situation had always accompanied every one of my desires. Yes, I was always able to achieve a lot, if not everything, when I wanted something. But what price did I pay for receiving what I wanted? How long did my happiness last upon reaching my goal? And then again, a new wish, extreme tension, health problems, five minutes enjoying what I achieved and again, in a circle. No wishes, no suffering.

I was able to achieve the experience of filling all my feelings with love, peace, and calm that it's impossible to describe in words. It can be compared to the feeling when you already have a lot more than you need. It's when you have so much love inside you that it overflows, that you are obliged to share this love with other people because for you, no other desire exists. This new feeling came to me so smoothly, very quietly, very gently, as only God can give. What happened to my inner world brought me not only completeness within, love in the broadest sense of that word, but also a feeling of stability, security, and consistency.

Our world is unable to offer us ANYTHING permanent. All combinations of living conditions, human relationships, natural disasters change our lives constantly. These life changes enter into constant conflict with the human desire to control his life. People waste almost all their energy trying to obtain a sense of stability, security, and consistency. For this, they have many kids, or worries about money. And all of this illusory feeling of constancy can pop like a soap bubble at any moment. All people of earth know about this but nobody wants to say it, and it's very stressful. How easy is it to live under constant stress? Each of us knows the answer to that.

But my internal world became that place, that home, that hearth, where there is always love. When I started to worry or out of habit be anxious about something, I knew that I had gone far away from home. I had to return home, find stillness, and continue my adventure through life with peace in my soul. I not only found the way home... I am home.

As soon as I changed my mind, my life changed completely. In terms of life circumstances, they remained untouched. My loneliness stretched out in time and remained unchanged in form. In terms of quality of life, my life started to have meaning, never-ending interest, and novelty. For the first time in my life, the heaviness of life circumstances disappeared, as did my serious attitude towards these circumstances. I started looking closer at these circumstances to see that all circumstances in my life were part of a plan prepared by God.

After I calmed down in my desires and expectations, I understood how important it is to trust what is happening, how new, consciously received life experiences change our consciousness. In which direction? Each has the right to choose.

In my case, when with the help of my Turkish friend, I lost quite a large sum of money, I understood how the universe was testing me. The best means for testing the degree of my faith is money. The Russian expression states, "my money wept". My money may have wept, but I wasn't disappointed for a second. That's all. After all, I don't know, maybe I paid him for the time that I was working for him, was busy, and wasn't worsening my depression. Maybe he saved my life?

Maybe then, I wouldn't have been able to stand my loneliness? I hadn't given him that money at gunpoint; I did it at my heart's will. I gave it easily, but an even bigger sum of money came to me just as easily. What's there to be afraid of?

I know that many people will say that I was just a stupid woman, that it's a coincidence that I was able to get my money back and multiply it from a different source. Maybe. In that case, I got the experience of great stupidity. Without this experience, in the same situation, I would have done exactly the same thing. Having this experience, in an analogous situation, I have no desire to repeat this experience, as it wouldn't be interesting anymore. I believe that when we complete a life lesson successfully, it will never repeat itself. If we don't complete it, it will return in different situations until we are successful.

The first time in any situation, a person gets the experience, and the next time, he makes his choice.

My desire to obtain new experience was apparently supported in heaven, and my invisible family tried to fulfill any desire of mine.

I found a second job. I worked from my apartment, on my computer. I really liked my job, there were many puzzles, and I had to find the keys to solve them. I created and maintained the database and did simple bookkeeping. Everything was good, but my boss was sick in his whole head. It was very difficult to find an angel in him. He could easily raise his voice, start crying, jump up, and spray with spit. I understood that he was not well mentally and began to feel sorry for him. Not in vain does the Bible, which I never did read, say "do not judge and you will not be judged." Pity is also a form of judgment. I understood this later when the rooster "pecked me".

At the very beginning of my work for this man, he was in a complicated situation with his business and he made his entire small staff work on shipping goods. The drama theatre has nothing on this spectacle. I couldn't really help at that point, since I had only been working for a couple of days. Everyone was rustling through papers, trying to determine which of them was right for the current shipment and which was not. My new boss darted around bug-eyed from one person to another and yelled that something was very wrong with this company, his own company. When his daughter tried to explain something to him, he lost his temper and started yelling. He screamed that his business was dying, that nobody could help him. Then he started crying, choking, coughing, again crying, until he got tired. When the tiredness came, he suddenly asked if anyone was hungry, because he could get some food. I was surprised at such an abrupt transition from one state to another. This happened several times in four hours.

Why didn't I leave, didn't quit that job right then? I don't know, but I suspect that my fear of being without a job or without enough money became more creative after my many new experiences of working on myself. My fear disguised itself as goodness, sending me compassionate thoughts: This person is so mentally sick, so miserable. I need to help him. And the question arises naturally: "Who asked me for help?"

Apparently, I still liked to step on the same rake over and over again. Apparently, the blow on the forehead with the rake caused increased interest in the blow, expressed in the form of the question: "What was the blow for?"

To find the answer to my question, I continued to work for him.

When I had no contact with him and working independently, I enjoyed my work. But as soon as I had to work with him directly, it was very difficult. But, like Mother Theresa, I continued my mission. My motherly feelings towards him led me to make a surprising discovery.

He came to me and started complaining that he was having money problems, that he had to order goods from China, and it was impossible without money. I don't know how it happened, but having some money on my bank account, I offered to lend him all of my money and save his business. When these words came out of my mouth, I was simply in shock – again?

I was so surprised at myself and thought that I didn't know myself at all. I hadn't pass this lesson, so I needed a repeat. This time I had all the necessary papers certified by a lawyer, and I lent him the money with good interest. He promised to give it back in two months. He didn't say that he wouldn't pay me my salary either, and I didn't ask, I just gave him everything that I had. It's a good thing I had another job or else it would have been really fun.

At the end of these two months, he came to my house, and I reminded him about the money. He went into a fit of rage. He yelled through the whole house. He ran up to the printer and started tearing the cords out of the sockets. He shouted, how could I not trust him, ask such a question, that the printer was his and he was taking it. Simply theatre. I watched this as if from the side, not reacting in any way. I pitied him. He was so useless, so sick. I continued working for him, waiting for my money.

Soon he gave me back the loan, with interest. After that, I told him that I wouldn't work for him anymore. The theatre started again. He met me near my house. He was standing, waiting for me in snot and tears. He was crying, in the fullest sense of that word, and asking me to continue working for him, that he would increase my hourly wage. He bought me? I felt sorry for him? Perhaps. I agreed to continue working for him, but I had already realized that I would have to understand something, to change something in my mind.

I worked for him but no longer enjoyed my work. I kept putting quitting off, saying that I would quit later. His business was in trouble again. He hadn't paid me for five months already; a decent amount of money had accumulated. I continued to work for him because I didn't want to lose my money again. I believed that he would give it back to me. He gave me exactly half of what he owed me, and said that I was being fired for poor work.

I felt very relieved when he said this. The mere thought that I would never see his face and hear his voice again made me ecstatic. I felt hurt and anger for the unfairness of this life out of habit. I recognized this habit. I didn't betray myself in that moment, I continued to love myself, and not criticize myself.

I said, Well, my dear, let's look at this realistically, what is this situation teaching you?

I figured it out; I understood that one could not judge people. I learned that if somebody bothers me very much, I must leave that person, because I am losing my own freedom, I am becoming a slave. I understood that he had been a real angel sent to help me. Since I had seen an angel in him, I remembered who we really were and why we met. So it all ended nicely. The experiences have been received, and the gratitude for a good job to the soul of that person remains. I'm ready for my next experiences.

My children

My children. Now it sounds unreal to me. So many years have passed since I've seen them. They flew away from the nest and didn't want to return. It's easy to leave, it's difficult to come back. Don't watch how storks fly away, watch how they come back. Misfortune will torment, misfortune will teach. What will torment, will teach.

I don't forget them even for a moment. They are always with me. Only my love towards them has changed. I love them without any expectations. I just love them, I understand them deeply, I don't criticize them for anything, and I'm always awaiting their return.

Of course, I could have called my oldest daughter even then. It had always been easy for me to apologize, easy to start talking first, easy to defuse tension. That's not a problem for me. I felt how deeply she had hidden her true feelings, how strongly she had committed to the image of the "Iron Lady". So deeply and strongly that she believed it herself.

Of course, I could have gone to Belarus to take my youngest daughter with me to Canada. I felt the painful suffering and trials she was going through far away from me, how deeply to bleeding, to hatred... her own egotism tearing her apart.

I didn't do one or the other. I wasn't able to do it. Something stronger than me didn't allow me to dial the number, talk, buy a plane ticket. I was ready to do everything possible, if I could understand what I could possibly do. I didn't feel guilty. If I was to live my life all over again, I would have done everything the same way. I always acted in the best possible way according to my beliefs and understanding. I didn't know what it was to love myself, so how could I have loved them? If you don't know how to drive a car, how could you teach your child to do so? There's only one way out – to learn how to drive a car yourself and then to teach your child, if by that time, the child hasn't learned to do it himself or has the desire to learn.

Only in Canada, when I was left alone, did I look at my past life as if from the side. I had been chained to my mom my whole life. I kept trying and trying to pay off my debt to her for giving me birth and raising me. I paid this debt, but it kept growing. I paid, but it didn't get smaller, it got bigger. This isn't my mommy's fault; many, many people on this earth are chained in this way.

These and other chains are inherited, passed on from generation to generation. These chains help significantly in creating the life that we all have now. It is hatred, anger, wars, illnesses, polluting the environment, heartache. It is difficult for humanity to develop with such chains.

A child was born. With his mother's milk, he sucked habits inside himself, a style of life, "correct thoughts", factual thoughts, good behavior, and so on. Right after he was born, everything had been decided for him: how, where, when, and how much. So it should be. So it has to be. This is correct. The new person was immediately given the opportunity to be lazy, simply to do as he was told, and not try to get to know himself, to look at this world with the clear eyes of his own soul, without the correcting lenses of family, culture, society, or religion. Where is the evolutionary development? Where is the development of new outlooks on life? Where is the search for new traditions and attitudes? Many, many generations simply repeated the life that they were used to and which didn't require any efforts. Through my own experience, I learned how difficult it is to change habits, and how easy it is to live habitually.

Humanity has apparently reached a certain limit in this familiar life. In order to move to a new stage of development, humanity must obtain new outlooks on life and freedom for their execution. When I was left alone, I was in a panic because I didn't know who I really was. All my life, I had tried to be a good daughter, a good wife, a good mother, a good sister, a good friend. I tried to be the way considered good in the eyes of parents, husbands, kids, sisters, friends. I lied to myself. I lied to everybody for the simple reason that I didn't know myself, I could only imitate what others were doing.

When I started getting to know the true me, many things I had considered good for me turned out to be useless or even bad for me. I started to find my own solutions for familiar questions, and that's how the evolutionary process works. New experiences, new solutions, new outlooks. But a person develops them only when they have the freedom to do so.

Everything was put in its place; everything found an explanation in my relationships with my daughters.

I couldn't take any actions towards them because I needed time to do a big job on myself. I tried very hard; I wanted very much to understand my daughters and to understand myself. I did it! I realized that with my ongoing spiritual work, I had largely freed myself of the heaviness of my past habits, of stamps for how to do what. I gained freedom in my life, the right to decide for myself. Having received this right for myself, with my own teeth I tore the heavy chain of the duties of my children. Having obtained my own freedom, I gave freedom to my children. They can calmly receive their own life experiences; improve their consciousness, which familiar responsibilities does not chain to their mother. Best of luck to you in everything, my dear girls. Don't forget that in this life there is nothing bad, there is nothing good in isolation. These are parts of one whole, like night and day, like times of year. A person cannot feel real love without knowing hatred. A person cannot see light in the light; he needs darkness to see light.

Everything happens in the life of a person in a way that will help him improve –if he has the desire to do so. Life gave me yet another experience that helped me to understand my situation better with my children.

In Vancouver, I met a woman about ten years younger than me who had also immigrated to Canada from Minsk. She lived with her husband and son. She didn't work and with her "heroic" domestic labor was trying to prove her significance in this life. There is nothing bad or good in this. It is what it is.

She had a very good memory and a sharp practical mind. I'm certain that her ego put a lot of work into this. The ego, to obtain a "secure" position in a person's life, forces a person to obtain new, often unnecessary information, but this is stored carefullyin case this information can be demonstrated before others. Their speeches of praise or their surprised-interested looks will reach the goal set by the ego. It's easy to notice that the bigger a person's egotism, the quicker his answer to any question. Notice that a person with a heavy ego on his shoulders has no gap between a heard question and its answer. There is no space, no place for feelings; there is only readable information recorded in his brain. Such a person knows everything, you can't surprise him. Common words for such a person:"I know."

This woman, falling into the category described above, from time to time would fall into a deep depression and during this time would leave me alone. As soon as her depression got sick of itself, she often called me and we would spend a long time talking on the phone. You can't call it a friendship; it was more like providing free psychological assistance to a person not looking to change his life, but seeking validation.

As time has shown, she taught me a lot, for which I am grateful.

Her speech was always so confident, so correctly formed, that it forced me to listen closer to it involuntarily. I remembered Hitler. He was also confident that he was right; this confidence came from inside him, from his inflamed brain. His absolute faith led many people to believe his delusional ideas. A person through deep faith can call this a materialization of an idea.

She spoke so well about the spiritual world, about faith in divinity, about the right of a person to choose and change the direction of his life. She always knew where and what to say to keep our conversation going. I swallowed her hook, and she used me every time that she was bored. I spent a lot of time on the phone, trying to help her figure out her heartaches or depressions. She came to my house frequently, sometimes very late, to cry, to talk. I talked so much and believed that I was helping her. I believed her every word, since I knew that I always say whatever I'm thinking.

She wanted me to give her a course in spiritual knowledge. I was very happy and thought that our ranks had grown, that more happy and healthy people would appear on this earth. I was doubly happy when I found out that her husband also agreed to learn about this. She made a small comment about her husband: "I'll bring this little bull on a leash."

I thought that her husband was probably very far from desiring spiritual development.

They passed the initial classes; they found the ability to help themselves and others. They didn't have time to start practice, as her husband left her and she was left alone without financial support. And in a state of panic with a wounded ego, she asked me to lend her money, not a huge sum, but also not small. Again a test? Again money? I gave her what she asked for. She went to California for three months, and when she came back, she didn't even want to talk about the money. Now this was really getting funny. Am I really that dumb and stupid that multiple blows on the forehead with a rake didn't teach me anything? Something is wrong with this rake! Laughter, real laughter from the enjoyment of the joke happening in my life accompanied me for a few days. Life is full of humor when life makes you laugh at your own stupidity. Is it really stupidity?

No, as it turned out, it's new life experiences!

I called her husband as the sole holder of finances in this falling-apart family. He was surprised at this debt and promised to give me back the money at the first possible opportunity.

I was also very surprised when I heard about his new experiences in helping people. He told me that he was able to cure the headache of a person that he was on the phone with and that he had stopped another person's heavy bleeding. I realized that he wasn't trying to help himself because he didn't yet believe in himself. But when he got the opportunity to help another person, he didn't think about his doubts, he just helped. This is the spirituality of a person, even if he doesn't talk about it. I started wondering – should we trust the words of other people? According to his wife, he was so far from kindness, from wanting to help people. But as life showed, it wasn't like that at all.

I spent so much time talking to that woman; so much of my physical and mental effort went into my desire to help her. And suddenly, I noticed the key word – desire. Yes, of course, my desire to help was the veiled desire of my emaciated ego. All this time, I had been indulging her ego, her boredom, her desire to use me for this. All this time, I had also been indulging my ego. I shared the knowledge that I had, I gave what was happening significance, I stuck out my "I". So how are we different from each other? We're not. We become different after we ask ourselves a simple question: "What does this situation teach us?"

I asked myself this question. After receiving the answer, I had nothing left for this woman except words of deep gratitude.

I understood that all of my words, spoken with such passion, with such confidence, with such a strong desire to help – were meaningless. This stream of information flowing from me is simply information for the brain. This informational stream does not change a person's consciousness, it harms him... it inhibits his development. It puts refractive lenses on him, through which in the worst case, he will start seeing the world through my eyes out of habit, or in the best case, he will become certain that this is not right for him.

What is the desire to ask another person for advice? It's the desire to find validation for what that person has already decided to do. If he does not find validation for his decision, this makes him irritated, disappointed, dislike the person giving the advice. A person will always do what he wants. If you don't give advice, if you suggest they find the solution themselves, then in this case, both sides will benefit. Both sides will have the opportunity to believe in themselves, believe that the right thing is being done.

This experience made me smile widely. I, intuitively, not yet knowing the appropriate words, trusting my loving maternal heart, did not pour all of my accumulated information, all of my acquired life experience on the heads of my dear daughters. I gave them the freedom to gain the experiences themselves that would change their consciousness, without recording additional information into their already overloaded brains.

It's no wonder the saying goes – one misfortune is worth a thousand instructions.

We need to talk less. We need to listen more to the voice of our soul, our heart.

Everything is fine. Everything is following its own course.

I'm happy

What does it mean to be a happy person? This is an eternal philosophical question.

I think that each person has his own definition of happiness.

These definitions are so different that they beg the thought that happiness is not known to humanity. When humankind obtains a unified definition of this state then the question will stop existing.

Everyone knows that there is no happiness in the acquisition of material goods; it's just a momentary satisfaction that paves the way for a new desire. Everyone knows, but many still doubt it and try repeatedly to find confirmation of happiness in material goods.

Some people think that they are happy because they have no time to think about the fact that they are unhappy. I have met many people like this. They have chained themselves to many different tasks, such as saving money for their retirement, even though they're just slightly over forty. They live like a squirrel in a wheel; the end of one circle is the beginning of the next.

I was asking God for one thing – to help me become happy. What did I mean? I don't know. This word attracted me with its sound, and subconsciously, I felt that it was exactly what I wanted to get to know. When I was asking for help, I didn't impose any conditions; I was asking for help, and in return, guaranteeing that I would go through all of the life lessons necessary to achieve what I desired.

Intuitively, I believed that happiness was inside me, not somewhere around me.

I spent more than half my life searching for happiness. I would find something, lose someone, move somewhere, meet someone, but when left alone with myself, I was afraid to look inside, afraid to find out the truth about myself. These fears made me repeatedly build plans, rely on someone or something else, in short, run from myself.

In running from myself, I arrived at the place where before me and behind me there is nobody and nothing. I had nobody to talk to, I had nobody to ask for advice, I didn't have the shoulder of another person to lean on. This caused me immense pain. I was looking around, hoping to find something or someone and each time, I didn't notice myself. I was seeing myself only as a source of constant pain, and I was looking for the cure for this pain outside of myself. God always sends us nothing but angels so that we can learn. Apparently, God really believed in me when instead of an angel, I received myself to study.

When I understood this, when I saw this as an incredibly valuable gift from God, when I started to get to know the real me, my life became a most interesting adventure with many puzzles and mysteries. I had always loved to solve puzzles, but the solution to this puzzle became the meaning of my life. When there is meaning in life, then there is happiness.

The more I begun to know myself, the less I felt lonely. The less I felt lonely, the more I was becoming convinced that loneliness is simply impossible, that these are all games of our egotism. We are all one. We are all players in the theatre of life, where acting roles switch constantly with roles from the audience.

The more I learnt about loving myself, the more I loved others. The more I got to know myself, the less I criticized myself. The more I accepted myself without criticism, the less I judged other people.

How can I judge someone for smoking if I smoked for so many years myself?

How can I judge a person for hating another person when I hated my own brother for his alcoholism?

How can I judge a person for his desire to control the lives of all of the members of his family if I did that myself for many years?

How can I judge what I did myself? We all came into this life to learn. Some of us learned some lessons in past lives and don't need to repeat them. Others didn't learn these lessons or they have very young souls, and they need to start from the primary grades. Having learned not to judge myself, I learned not to judge others. Sometimes it's difficult, but I continue to work on it.

Isn't this happiness, to live at peace with yourself?

You could say that happiness is not life without troubles and sorrows... happiness is a state of the soul.

If we exchange the words "trouble" and "sorrow" for the words "life experiences", then we can give a new definition for happiness. Life without new life experiences is bleak and meaningless. It's happiness to have them!

Some wise man said it in different words: True happiness for us is a negative: it is the absence of disasters.

My life has turned into a series of happy moments. When I don't avoid problems in my life, when I take all of the circumstances of my life as learning material that will help me to learn something new, there are no problems, there is only a crossword puzzle that I want to solve.

A small example. For more than two years, I've worked for a company that repairs expensive, large and small naval ships. Before me, many bookkeepers and administrative assistants worked there. People came and after working for a few weeks, quit or sometimes, the owners of this company fired them. Staff turnover is not a pleasant thing, as each time a new person needs to be trained. Each time the new person makes a series of mistakes before he learns. The staff is small, and this affects all employees. When I came, everyone met me very cautiously, clearly anticipating that yet another temporary person had arrived. Their tension affected me immediately. I was very tense and official.

I continued to work on myself spiritually... I was changing. Gradually, increasing my love for myself, I felt that the attitude of all of the employees of this company was changing the same way. I always came to work in a good mood. The people surrounding me at the beginning were very suspicious about this, thinking that I was an outstanding actress. Then they stopped being surprised. They believed me, they believed that the way to happiness is possible, that it's real.

People have become so used to their flights and their falls that they consider it the norm. I came to work and sent energy to all of my co-workers. They felt it subconsciously; they always expressed pleasure at seeing me. Is this not happiness?

How often, when an employee had a backache or headache, did they ask me for help and help was given to them. They didn't believe in my various energies, they simply trusted me. And it always worked well. Is this not happiness?

Once, my young supervisor, who simply could not believe that in two years of working there I had practically not made any significant mistakes in the accounting, sent me an e-mail. All of these years, she had been controlling me, trying to catch me making a mistake. Exhausted, and without having found anything serious, she reprimanded me for not having bound two pages of some document with a paperclip. I couldn't believe my eyes! What was this, another joke that my life had thought up?

Smiling, I felt some discomfort in my body, a slight compression, inherent in a slightly stressful situation. Out of habit, I tried to forget about it. But the old habit didn't work anymore. And the new attitude towards everything happening in my life that I want to work on and in this way develop myself, showed itself. I decided to change the stereotypical rhythm of my life for a new approach.

I reasoned like this. In order to have big changes, I need to start with small ones. If this small incident made me displeased, then this is a sign that I have something to work on. I do my accounting work well. My supervisor's desire to control everyone and everything interferes with her life, it not only stresses her out, but also me. I love myself. I love this young and very beautiful woman. I want to help both of us. People's habits, including my own, are to pretend that everything is okay, everything is fine, and ignore negative internal reactions to large and small events. What causes people to swallow the bitterness of unfair treatment of them, distrust in them, produce a reluctance to trust each other? Fear.

I don't feel fear anymore. But I still have the habit of how I'm supposed to act in these situations. When I had fear, the habit worked habitually. Without fear, my habit lost a component, and I didn't want to use it again.

I decided to act as my soul was telling me. I talked with my second boss, the husband of this supervisor. I said that if there is no trust in me in this company, if I'm constantly being controlled, checked, then this means that I'm causing a lot of trouble. If I'm troubling someone, I need to leave. If I stay, I lose my freedom.

The response was simply amazing. He said that he would talk to his wife.

The next day I met with her. We talked so freely, so openly, like two close friends. I realized that in having gotten rid of fear within myself, in acting with love and the desire to help us both, in changing myself, I had also changed her the same way. She was also receiving a new experience... the experience of freedom. She had never thought about her desire to control people, she had never paid attention to how this control took all of her energy and exhausted her. She felt the love coming from me, and she answered me with the same. In the end, we both felt happiness. If you want to change the world, change your mind. By changing your mind, changing the world, is this not happiness,?

Is this not happiness, in these small situations, to show genuine, not egotistical love for people and to receive it in return?

Some wise person said that true happiness by its nature loves solitude; happiness is the enemy of noise and luxury and is born primarily from love for yourself. How could I not agree with that?

It is a great blessing for me – to enjoy happiness. But this happiness increases millions of times when I have the opportunity to give this enjoyment to others.

This is the meaning of my life – helping people.

Everything must begin with yourself. To overcome fear and look at who you really are. Look your egotism straight in the eyes. Look without criticism, but with the desire to help yourself. You need to learn to be patient. In the world of the soul, there is no time, no distances. To step over your fear to look at the true you, you need to leave any struggle behind. Any struggle creates resistance. In the world of the soul, there are no leaders, there are no contests, there are no winners and losers. In the world of the soul, there is only love and the desire to improve.

Patience and more patience. Remember about your desire to obtain happiness and peace. Remember that happiness and peace will appear imperceptibly, quietly, when you are able to see the true you, not the clothing that covers this truth.

You will need a lot of patience to take off these sweaters and jackets, tuxedos and bathing suits, ball gowns and sweatpants, underwear and scarves, rings and necklaces, polished shoes and work boots, slippers and stilettos, fur coats and raincoats. You will need even more patience to work, figure out, understand, and free yourself from fear and laziness, from jealousy and attachment to something or someone, from greediness and expectations, from many desires and judgment of yourself and others, to see theLight and Love. Everyone can do this; the most important thing is to really want it and to believe in yourself.

It's always difficult to begin. It's very difficult to move a large rock off a cliff. This will require a lot of effort. But as soon as the rock is set in motion, your efforts will no longer be necessary, the rock can keep going on its own.

We were all born in one home. We are all children of one family. We forgot about this when we came into this life. We need to remember it again. Our memory is blocked by our egotism, our desires to be richer, more beautiful, thinner, more educated, more successful. When we remember who we really are, we will smile at each other. When we remember this, we will understand that there is nothing bad and nothing good in this life. There is only Love and Evolution. And all the events in a person's life are part of this evolutionary process. The rise, the fall, the breakdown, stability, uncertainty – everything is temporary, to keep the balance. When we remember this, we will have nothing to divide up, we will have nothing to compare, we will have nothing to share. We will feel that we are ONE, not only in the heavens, but also here, on earth.

Only a Human can help Humanity. We must remember this.

## CHAPTER 2

## The Spiritual Path

The Beginning of a Soul's Life on Earth

When people talk about spirituality, many associate this concept with the clergy, priests, religion, or a mystical world beyond the grave. I don't belong to any church, I don't believe in any religion, but I respect and do not judge people who belong to and believe in it. Therefore, my understanding of spirituality is associated with my feelings, with my sensations, and my connection with everything around me.

I breathe and have no control over this process. I do not need to remind myself before each inhale – now is the time to do it. We also don't need to control our heartbeat. Blood runs through our veins, new teeth grow, nails grow, hair grows or falls out – it all happens without human control. Who manages it all? Who operates it all? Who controls it all?

When breathing stops, the heart stops, blood circulation stops – death comes. Even if you really want to do it yourself, mentally, nothing will come of it. Someone or something is holding the power and control over these processes. Everyone knows this, but not everyone wants to accept this fact. For many, it is difficult to recognize that their mind and physical body are not the masters of their lives and often not the lives of others. Therefore, they fight to prove their power and control over themselves.

Everyone came to this earth to carry out his mission, to gain his own experience. Everyone came to this world with nothing, and will leave this world with nothing. I would say it another way. Every physical body comes with his Soul. When a person's Soul leaves the body, the physical body of the person transforms into another physical form. It's like a yellow leaf that falls from a tree and is gradually transformed into a fertilizer that enriches our planet.

A person does not come into this world alone, he comes with his soul; therefore, he can never be lonely.

So what controls our physical body? Our Soul. Our unique soul, every second, takes care about of our breathing, heartbeat, circulation, growth, aging, and death. The mind of man can't control the soul. The mind of man can understand his soul, can unite with his soul, and can control the physical body together with his soul. The mind of man can also ignore his soul, forget about its existence, and not even try to understand what his soul wants. And this forgotten and misunderstood soul, without any support, will continue working to provide merely the functioning of the human body, but such a soul does not develop.

When the soul is aching and moaning, it would be nice to think about it. The soul of every man is a link with the universe, with God. To understand God, man has to understand hissoul. God is infinite; God consists of not only all our souls but of the energy of stars, the sun, the moon, the galaxies.

In getting to know his soul, a person finds his true self, finds God.

Spirituality is understanding your soul; it is life according to God's rules.

Spirituality is the awareness that our souls are invisible parts of one indivisible whole. It is the understanding that our selfishness separates our physical bodies into rich and poor, smart and stupid, black and yellow, successful and lost, strong and weak. Only through spirituality, only through knowledge of oneself, only through unconditional love for oneself can one find true happiness on this earth. To find it, you do not need to walk or travel somewhere... it is here, it's in all of us. Everything should start from you. If you want to love, you should learn how to love yourself. If you want to forgive, you should learn to forgive yourself. If you want to change this world, you should learn how to change yourself... this is spirituality.

We do not come into this world by chance. Everything happens for a reason. Time, place of birth, family, culture, society, country – all this must give our soul the experience for which it came. The soul chooses the body most suitable for this purpose.

The child, in his physical body, in the initial stage of his growth, reflects his soul; he sees the world through the eyes of his soul – this is light, peace, calm, and the joy of livingin this material world.

The soul, having forgotten about the experiences of past lives, announces its transition from a state of complete freedom into a limited state of the physical body through the crying of the baby at birth.

The first adaptation experiences of the soul in the physical body occur gradually through continued contact with his mother, eating, sleeping, his first tooth, his first word, and on through life. The range of perception of the world is expanding constantly. A small child is still perceives the world as whole with himself.

Children are born with two kinds of fear –falling from a high place and hearing a loud noise. This is the way the body naturally protects itself. This way nature takes care of this kind of instinctive protection. Fear is necessary for us in correct proportions in order to protect our lives. Acting without fear a creative process, which broadens the mind. When a person (the child) is involved fully in the process of creation, he is in a state of inner joy and harmony.

In the process of getting to know the world, it is very important for a person to get all of his experiences himself.

Often parents bring the child to the park, showing him flowers in the flowerbed and saying: "Picking flowers isn't allowed!"

And walk him down the trail, constantly saying:"Look here, look at that ..."

And even "better", while in the forest, giving the child a toy.

To get to know this world, we need to touch it, to smell it, to see its color, and often simply to taste it. And when a child (person) has acquired his own experience, then this experience has a tendency to expand and the desire to know more appears. But advice – one can listen to it, accept it, pay attention to it, but nothing has been changed inside. And as a result, the experience has not been acquired, the expansion doesn't happen.

For a child, it is extremely important not what people around him say but what they feel. If they feel calm, then the child feels secure. But children sense deception instantly at the subconscious level. If you pay attention to the child, it is easy to see. But if you do not pay attention to it, the child often begins to deceive, and we are genuinely surprised.

"Where does this come from? I never lied!"

You can say that everything is fine. But what are you supposed to do about the suffering within yourself? After all, children feel the difference between the words and vibrations that come from you. Isn't it better to be honest with them?

Being honest with yourself and with your children has a double benefit: for yourself, to understand what is going on in your life, and for your children, so their hearts are open to you in the future.

A person can open his heart only when he is not afraid of being misunderstood. You should not fight fear. Fear must be recognized, accepted as it is, felt, and allowed to leave. But if you felt fear, even of something quite small, and hid it, forgot about it, you created a block, a wall that separates you from the joy of existing. And this block, initially very tiny, will not forget to remind you of itself in any similar situation. Remembering what happened earlier, the fear will make itself felt in the form of a chill in the solar plexus or other unpleasant sensations. Fear reminds itself, trying to stop life and growing through the power of thought. Fear reminds itself, transforming a tiny amount of the joyful energy of a man into a tiny block, which has no access to light. The first tiny "block" appeared. This is how a man receives different experiences. There is nothing bad and nothing good in life.

Very often, something we call "bad" is actually teaching us something, so it requires effort from us. But after a "black" streak, there is always a "white". How you can see light in a room filled with light? What is a dark room? It is just a room without light.

How can you imagine day without night, the sun without the moon, the wind without stillness, the heat without the cold, the sky without clouds, white without black? This is all the process of changing states.

Man is not born on a certain part of the globe by accident. Each such point on the globe has its own unique family, habits, traditions, culture, and society that affect humans. The child is born pure as a ray of sunlight. We can compare him with a new compact disk. This CD is brilliant, there is no dust on it, no scratches, and it is ready for the person's life experiences to be written on it.

It is well known that the taste of breast milk depends not only on the food that the mother eats, but the mood with which the mother fed the child. Breastfeeding a child should be "holy", with full attention given to the process, with love for the baby being breastfed. This way the mother's wisdom and the wisdom of his ancestors are passed to him.

It is also known that if a man makes food in a bad mood, this food will bring nothing but harm. So a child on a subconscious, energetic, unseen level receives the full range of our internal emotions, from fear to love.

The soul chooses "its" body for gaining the experiences for which it came into this physical life. Hence, the choice of country, family, tradition, culture is also a part of God's plan. Since everything in the universe seeks to expand, a soul is seeking new experiences in a new country, thus broadening its "horizons." Looking at the world map, we can reflect about the uniqueness of each country. Almost every one of them has their differences in skin color, religion, traditions, language, dress, architecture, education, bank notes, etc...

The influence of society on the minds and actions of people

I am probably very lucky that I was born in a country like the Soviet Union. I am talking here strictly about the spiritual meaning of these words. When I was growing up, the conversation about God never even came up. Maybe in some families in rural areas, the belief in God, some religion or church persisted, but for the people around me, God and related concepts did not exist at all. But I always felt something inside me, something stronger than me, something I couldn't betray. I did not know the words to describe my feelings as I did not know of similar examples from the lives of others, but when I was in a difficult situation, I always relied on that feeling. Whenever I went against my inner feelings, I felt worse.

Each time I told a lie, I felt bitterness and heaviness in my heart.

I remember once I didn't want to return a book to the library because I liked it very much, so I lied and said that I had lost it. This book stayed at my house, but it didn't bring me the joy I had expected.

I haven't told another lie in my life because my feelings suffer from this, not because I'm scared that my lie would be revealed. Indeed, through our feelings, we are listening and talking to God.

Why was I lucky that I was born in the U.S.S.R.? My family, society, and the traditions and customs of my country have not instilled any habits in me, they have not taught me the right or wrong concept of God, what I should and should not do for God. They did not teach me how I should pray, how I should behave so that God would not punish me. I found the road to God by myself, and I did not have to clear the mountain of someone else's ideas and habits to see the manifestation of God with my own eyes everywhere.

If I had been born in an Eastern country, from a young age, I would have been accustomed to prayer, the true meaning of which even adults very often do not understand, they simply repeat words out of habit. They would have put a scarf on my head and pointed out what is good and godly, and what a violation of the laws of God is. Through my family, society, traditions, and customs of the country, I would have developed many habits, and I would have lived believing that this was the only correct way. I would have lost myself there. I would need to work hard to feel God through my own feelings, and not as it should be according to my mother's opinion, my society, and its traditions. On the other hand, it does not matter how the way is found, it is important to find it.

The influence of family on the feelings and actions of people

Buddha said that the whole secret of existence is in the absence of fear. Albert Einstein said that if people do good things just because they are afraid of punishment or hope for a reward, then we should greatly regret this.

Fear and its consequences always play a big role in a person's life.

Quite unintentionally, my mother, sowed a large grain of fear in me that sat there almost my whole life: the fear of being alone in this world. Now I know that this was a lesson according to God's plan.

After many years, already an adult, I remembered the incident in my early childhood when my mom didn't talk to me for a few days, and my heart resounded with pain. I did not want to pay attention to it then; habitually I hid my pain deep inside, pretending that it did not exist.

Only when I started deliberately "working" with my fears did I decide to find this fear in its hidingplace in my soul and look into its eyes. This fear, which took residence inside of me early in my life, did its job constantly. This fear was controlling my actions in life. Even in school, for fear of not having friends in my class, I often catered to girls in the class, acting as they wanted, not as I wanted. Being married, I often acted against my wishes because of the fear of being left without a husband. Throughout my life, I was looking for my prince only out of fear of loneliness.

Only when I found myself in Canada, far from home, from my relatives, from my friends and children, left completely alone, did I recognize my fear. When I met with this fear, it truly scared me. I thought suddenly that I had nothing on this earth except this fear. Since I had nothing to lose but this fear, I decided to go with it. I did not resist my fear. I did not blame my fear. I did not try to find any words to describe it... I began to feel it. I concentrated fully on those feelings I experienced in my early childhood. Suddenly, a strong sense of loneliness, worthlessness, fear that this would last my entire life, made my body shrink. I felt so sorry for myself. Tears poured from my eyes. I was sittingon my couch, broken by grief that happenedalmost fifty yearspreviously,drenched intears andexperiencinga brutalheartache. But, I did it consciously! I was feeling my loneliness without a single thought. I went to meet my long-lived feeling of fear and was with it. I felt that the pain was tearing my heart apart, but I was there with it. I felt the pain and did not try to stop it... I was willing to give total freedom to my pain.

I do not know how long this suffering lasted, but suddenly it all stopped. I was sittingon mycouch,bathed intears, andsmiling. There was a sense that the balloon that had been sitting inside of me and causing me pain had burst. In its place, for a few moments, I felt an emptiness, which light and joy quickly filled. I felt that my body had become lighter by many kilos, something that I had always wanted, but never managed to attain. Joy and peace filled my soul. I did not want to think about anything, I just wanted to enjoy the feelings that arose inside of me.

To talk some more about the influence of family on feelings and actions of children, I want to give you an example from my relationship with my dad. Only when I became an adult, when I already had two children, when I had not lived with my parents for a long time and could see our relationship from the outside, was I able to recognize the truth. I looked at my behavior and my feelings that my family had imposed on me and realized that they were not mine.

I have always condemned my father. For what? For no personal reason, really, simply by force of a habit which my mom had instilled in me. My dad had always lovedme andneverhurt me. He could be a bit nervous, but he expressed his dissatisfaction with life this way, it never had anything to do with me. And so often I was rude to him, didn't give him the chance to pat me on the head, caress me. Now I would do anything to give him this opportunity, to give myself a chance to feel his love for me and express my love for him. But the train has gone, and the next station is in the next life. This habit to see my father through my mother's eyes, believing that my mom was always right, deprived me of the opportunity to get to know this man, who happened to be my father in this life. What do I actually knowabout him? Almost nothing. Sometimes he read poetry to our guests. When this happened, my mother always made a face, she didn't like it. Perhaps she had her own habits. Which poets did my dad like? I don't know.

There is no right or wrong here. There are habitual reactions to people's words and various events, which are not personal opinions or personal attitudes of a person. Everyone came into this world with the right and the opportunity to find out who he really is, what he likes or doesn't like, what choices he should make. Very often, his choice is right only for him, and it is not a repetition of others' behavior or conforming to others' thoughts, even his family's. It's never too late to do the most important thing – to desire to know the truth about yourself, about your thoughts, feelings, and about what you should do. Many thoughts, many things, many words will change; they will become yours. Where there is change, there is development, and therefore, the evolutionary process in motion.

Parents

It is usually assumed that children belong to their parents, that children are their parents' creation. When people talk about children, they always try to find similarities between the child's and the mother's or father's characteristics. Yes, it is true that parents create the physical body, but that's it, nothing more.

Every physical body has its own soul. Without a soul, the body is just a piece of meat. Without a body, the soul is just a ghost. Nobody on this earth can live without the two components of the human being: body and soul.

Thus, the belief in the ability of parents to create something as extraordinary as children is false.

Parents are the creators of only one part of this unique creation called "Man". The soul deals with God. The soul belongs to God; God controls the soul. The soul is the creation of a supernatural reality.

Moreover, in the moment of creation of the child's physical body, both parents are instruments of God, used by God to create the embryo. Parents, through their sexual desire, through intercourse, show to God that the "instruments" are ready for use. God considers the actions of this couple as an implicit promise to love, care for, and educate their child.

Scientists have proven the inability of man to create eggs and sperm. The man does not create the sperm, a living organism; God creates the sperm inside the man's body. For artificial insemination, scientists use a few cycles and find some criterions for male sperm to fertilize an egg to create a fetus. The case of the charming cloned sheep Dolly does not provide any evidence that people have the power of Creation, the ability to create.

Only God has the power to create life – people never could and still cannot do it.

God creates millions of sperm cells inside the male body, each of which is a living organism with its own characteristics and capabilities. Of this vast number of sperm, only a very small number has the ability to connect and work with a certain egg to create a fetus. This living organism can be very dynamic and able to move quickly and powerfully. This living organism has a mind and a sense of smell. It knows how to find the right direction, and it can determine a special odor emitted from the egg, which came into the tube during ovulation.

Each sperm cell has a soul controlling it.

The egg of a woman is a living organism too. Each egg has its own age, date of birth, life expectancy, cycle of growth, sexual maturity, conscious feelings, and an ability to choose a sperm to be its match. Moreover, each egg has thousands of tiny doors for thousands of sperm, which attack and try to get into the doors. Each door of the egg has its own secret, its mystery, its own "right" type of sperm for this door. One door likes the first it sees, another door likes a strong one, and the third door likes the small, but smart one, but only one will become the egg's match. The egg has accepted the sperm's marriage proposal, has opened the door for the sperm to come in, and created the fetus.

Several husbands are not allowed here. Once a choice is made of a single sperm, as soon as the door has opened for him, as soon as he alone has entered, the remaining thousands of doors remain closed. As soon as the chosen sperm's tiny head has entered, at the same time, the slamming door cuts off a long tail consisting of the other sperm and this is left behind the closed door. At the very moment when the egg has opened her door lovingly to allow the sperm to enter, the head of the sperm sends its DNA code immediately to combine with the DNA code of the primary egg to create the fetus. Depending on the type and the DNA of the sperm, the fetus will be male or female. If a sperm does not have a DNA code, it can't form the original cell with the ability to create other cells of the human body.

The growth process of cells, organs, arteries, the formation of the nervous system, bones, flesh from the fetus and to the infant, is entirely God's responsibility, in His hands and His attention, and not the parents or other people. No one but God has the uncanny ability to transform one cell into the thousands and billions of other cells of different shapes, quantities, and functions that exist in harmony and are connected to each other individually or by a common function.

Frankly speaking, the father's role in the creation of the fetus is rather modest. The role of the mother is more important, which includes nutrition, providing "a roof over its head", the protection, the growth of the fetus. Parents play an important role in the child's life, but not the dominant role. It all depends on the decision of God: the moment of birth, maturation, aging, death, and destiny of the man.

So, God is the real and the only parent of humanity.

Thus, there is no mistake when we say that human beings are the children of God.

Happiness and Suffering

How to find happiness? This is the eternal question of humanity. No one on this earth wants to suffer; everyone wants to be happy. But the reality is that there are very few happy people on this earth. Every person in every country, of every nationality, every social class, rich or poor, in every era, in the past, present, and in the future asks this question. Nobody can answer this question. Although some people have answered this question, no one has achieved it in real life.

When we talk about happiness, we mean good luck, something out of the ordinary, something warm, unexpected, and something that bolsters our feelings, which makes us happy and makes us forget our sorrows.

The meaning of this word is dependent on the events taking place in our lives.

Most often, the word "happiness" is used at weddings. At the wedding ceremony, people are wishing the bride and groom a hundred years of happiness, meaning that the new husband and wife should live a long, active, and fortunate life.

In fact, happiness is very difficult to achieve, even for one person. For couples, for a man and a woman, husband and wife, it is even harder. Try to live happily for one month, one year, and you will see that it is very, very difficult. When we speak of a hundred years, it is a wish, a dream, which no one has ever accomplished. Many of happiness' demands, many conditions are associated closely with the physical body and the environment, society, customs, habits, the country, the nationality, the language. Don't forget about the internal requirements, such as thoughts, feelings and emotions, as well as the need to account for each human soul and its spiritual level of development.

Let's talk about the most general case, where the majority of people are pinning their hopes for happiness – life together, as a couple or through marriage between a man and a woman.

To obtain happiness, they need to feel in harmony not only in terms of their physical bodies and personalities, but also in terms of their thoughts and feelings, likes and dislikes, in their opinions, their habits, their customs, requirements, desires. The greater the number of harmonic factors they share, the happier they are. If they do not have much in common, it is almost impossible for them to be happy.

In real life, even brothers and sisters, including twins, have differences: they have different physical bodies, different souls. It's a rare case when two harmonious bodies and two compatible souls meet. So a couple in real life can be relatively happy for a certain period, for a certain time, in a certain space.

Some people define happiness as something so fragile, like a soap bubble. Yes, for me, this definition is accurate. Most of my life I was trying to find and keep such a bubble.

Of course, there is happiness in the union of a man and a woman, living together, building a family with children. This social phenomenon exists in every country, every nationality, every era.

The nature, level, and duration of this happiness are not the same for everyone, there are no clear rules and universally accepted laws here. In an identical situation, some people can be happy while others are not. A person can be poor but happy; rich, but unhappy; educated, but unhappy; unable even to read, but happy. Some people can live in primitive, uncivilized conditions but feel happy. Others can live in a palace with servants, but happiness eludes them.

Based on scientific research, when men and women reach puberty, the testosterone and estrogen produced by their bodies create a strong desire for love and sex with the opposite gender. This strong desire to love and to satisfy their sexual needs, under a different meaning, joins a man and a woman as a couple. As a result of this union children are born, thus continuing the human race.

Scientists practically and cynically have proven the influence of testosterone and estrogen on the pairing of couples and the propagation of the human race in the material world.

Spiritual people, psychologists, and sociologists see this problem from another point of view, from different angles, more fully, more insightfully, considering also the question of happiness.

Every union between a man and a woman has a cause, and the goal is always the same – to find happiness.

Without this union, many people feel lonely, unhappy, and suffer. Without this union, many people do not have sex, even though they want to. Without this union, many people do not need sex and do not want to have children. Without such a union, they all continue to dream of such a union to be happy together.

Enlightening Chinese folklores show their views on the union between a man and a woman. This is a story about a student, who came from a famous Chinese dynasty. He passed his exams brilliantly and began working as a judge. Everything was going well for him, except that he could not marry. He was engaged many times, but every time something went wrong at the last minute. In those days in China, women had very little power. It was a rare and strange case that such this educated and successful man could not marry. The former student was advised to go to the sage who read his book in the moonlight and ask him about his love life. The old man told the young man that he couldn't marry now, because his bride was three years old and she was the daughter of a vegetable merchant at the city market. He had to wait another seventeen years to marry her when she turned twenty. The former student did not believe this, but as it turned out, he did have to wait all those years to marry a girl of twenty, the daughter of a vegetable merchant at the city market.

In Indian folklore, we can find enlightening legends on the same topic. Once there was a beautiful princess. She ordered the horse carriage to take her around the neighborhood to sightsee. When they reached a small creek on the edge of the jungle, the princess saw an old man reading a book on the bank of the creek. Now and then, he unwound a thread binding a pair of "marriage" chopsticks and threw it into the stream. Seeing this, the princess ordered her coachman to go and ask the old man what he was doing.

The coachman returned and said that the old man had come from heaven and his job was to unite people in marriage. The princess again ordered him to go back and ask the old man about her predestined marriage. The coachman returned and said that the old man had tied two chopsticks, one for the princess and the other for the coachman, together.

The princess's rage knew no bounds. She beat the coachman black and blue with a whip and then kicked him out of the country.

The driver went in pain, with his back bloody from the whipping, to another country. A sacred white elephant picked him up by and took him to the royal palace. In this palace lived an old childless king. He surmised that Gods had chosen the young man to be his successor. The king adopted the young man as his crown prince.

Soon the young man became king. In one of the wars, a neighboring country wanted to make peace with them and befriend them by giving the hand of its princess to the young king. She was the very one who had beaten the coachman black and blue, sent him away disdainfully, and forbade him to return home.

On one hunting trip, the king was seriously wounded. He had a high fever for many days and nights. The queen had to look after him and change his clothes herself. When the king had fully recovered, the queen timidly asked him about the whipping scars all over his back. The king softly answered they were the results of "the whipping of predestined marriage."

These stories show that many people see a marriage between a man and a woman as something that God already predetermined, something that the Creator ordered, and that he handed over for execution to the Angels. People cannot disobey this. People can't refuse this. People can't avoid this.

The union of two people is not only a union of two bodies, but also of two souls.

The union of two people, which God prepares in advance usually brings great results, and a husband and wife that are happy: people call such a marriage a match made in heaven.

In fact, there are many complex causes and inexplicable factors behind a "holy" matrimony.

But in spite of everything, a happy marriage is always dependent on the love, the greatest gift to mankind from God. Love unites a man and a woman, creates a family as a unit of society, brings happiness to humankind.

Marriage without love leads to divorce, to suffering. But even if people are united by love, then no one can guarantee them happiness, because love has many forms, characteristics, and stages.

Human love is the most long lasting. If we compare it with all the living beings on the planet, it is always changing, both in form and content, and alters periodically the object of love. Young love, mature love, old love – they are all different; therefore, love and happiness are also changing constantly. If we do not recognize these subtle changes, we will suffer and will not be happy.

Love at a young age overwhelms, floods you like a wave that occurs under the influence of developing testosterone and estrogen; the last thing such a pair is concerned about is children and procreation. The man and woman love each other deeply; they need each other, want always to be together, to live together. When all their wishes are fulfilled, they are happy; if not, they feel miserable.

Once children arrive, the love between husband and wife must fit love for the children into itself; marital happiness depends on the happiness of the children. If the kids are happy, the parents are too. If children are sad, so are the parents. If the child is smart and obedient, the parents are happy. If the child is sickly, incompetent, stupid, bad, a failure, the parents are unhappy, too. Children often tie parents together. It seems that their marriage is ruined, but thanks to the children, they still try to compromise and stay together in a harmonious relationship.

When old age comes, if the husband and wife are still together and love each other, it is natural that these feelings are not the same as in the beginning. If there is still kindness, devotion, and affection between them, it can no longer be called love but rather we can observe the true meaning of "one hundred years of happiness."

Happiness in old age is not the same as at a younger age or in adulthood. The very meaning of happiness has changed. There is no longer a blind passion, sexual urges, young love. If we do not recognize these changes, if we do not act accordingly, then we cannot find happiness, and we will suffer.

Anyone can find happiness – the lonely, the young, the elderly, even the child – and not necessarily in a family, but in a society, and in himself.

We could find happiness everywhere, but each time we run into suffering instead.

Happiness and suffering are two sides of the same coin. They have the same origin, but they appear under different names and in different forms, depending on our thoughts, feelings, and actions.

It's the same combination of two words: heaven and hell.

Without wisdom and enlightenment, we are unable to escape hell, even if we stand before the gates of paradise; we can't go there, we do not know how to open the door in front of our face.

Take an example of the inevitability of hell where there is no wisdom and no enlightenment.

At the beginning of the last century, Japan was developing much faster than its neighboring countries, such as China, Korea, and Vietnam. Because of its arrogant attitude and the desire to dominate other countries to form a great Asian empire, Japan started the Second World War. As a result, Japan was practically destroyed, defeated, and in general, suffered sad consequences of the war. As a result of discriminatory nationalistic ideas, hostility to the Jewish nation, contempt for the Russians, idolization of the German race, and wanting to conquer the world, Hitler and his Nazi army invaded the Soviet Union, France, Hungary, and Poland and began the greatest war in the world, which killed hundreds of millions of people.

There is a close relationship between thoughts and feelings.

Thoughts can't exist without feelings; feelings need a reason.

Feelings are important; thoughts are less important.

A person can't spoil the mood of another person with the words: "The heart has its own reasons, which are often impossible to understand."

"One can see clearly only with the heart. The most important things are invisible to the eyes," said the Little Prince's new friend Fox in the fairy tale "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

A blind heart usually brings nothing but misfortunes. I heard this story from my friend. This is a love story that occurred without any apparent reason and due to great stupidity.

A teacher in an American school was married and she had two children. She fell in love with a student who was twelve years old at the school where she worked. They made love, and as a result, she gave birth to a girl. For this misconduct, she spent six months in prison. When she was released from prison, she continued her relationship with this student and became pregnant a second time. She gave birth to a second girl. This time, she was sentenced to seven years in prison. This teacher was already forty-two years old when she was released from prison. She announced that she would like to see her lover again and that she was ready to have another child with him, if he wanted to.

Happiness does not exist without love. Love is an essential factor in finding and keeping happiness. Love should be in everything that makes a person happy. Happiness by itself does not exist. Enjoyment of happiness means that love exists, but making love does not necessarily involve happiness.

But it is very difficult for a love without wisdom and enlightenment to bring happiness – such love brings only suffering.

In fact, many people suffer because they show their love in the wrong place, at the wrong job, the wrong way, to the wrong person, as in the story above.

Only the spiritual path of development will help a person recognize this error and correct it. Only an enlightened love will bring true happiness.

Any of us can have this kind of happiness, and this is fair. This is a gift from God always awaiting everyone. You just need to have the desire to accept it. There remains only one problem. Will humanity accept it? Do you want to accept it or refuse it?

When people talk about happiness, most of us always think of the type of happiness that is in a family, in a marriage that should be based on true love. Without true love, none of us can be happy. Love must not only be sincere, but must have other good qualities. The quality of your love, your level of happiness, depends on your level of knowledge, understanding, patience, generosity, caring, desire to sacrifice everything you have, respect, and drive.

To be happy in your married life, you have to love everything in it.You must love your wife, your husband, your children. You must love your job, your house, the trees around the house, the shrubs, the flowers, the yard. You must love the walls in your house, the paint on the walls, the arrangement of rooms. You have to love the view from the window, the air, the cosmos. The deeper your love, the broader your love is – from man to animals to trees to plants to household appliances, – the happier you will be.

Be very careful, your marital happiness might collapse due to the most trivial detail that you would never suspect would be able to cause it. It can be a brick, a door, a fence, a quarrel between husband and wife, an unequal relationship between parents and children. Love your children more, take care of them more, express your love with words and actions, and you will feel happier.

Speaking of personal happiness, to have your own, you must first to learn to love yourself, not anyone else. We must learn to love ourselves clearly and wisely.

People think that it's so easy to love ourselves.

Some people think that to love ourselves is to be selfish.

In reality, loving yourself is not easy, not simple; it's a very difficult task.

Even simply loving your body is already extremely difficult.

We all know of Michael Jackson, the well-known singer and dancer. He didn't like his body, he didn't like his face, he didn't like the color of his skin. He tried to change this and as a result, his face was deformed and his body and skin were damaged.

Although you don't do what Michael Jackson did, notice that your thoughts are very similar to Michael's thoughts.

Perhaps you do not like your face, your neck, the shape of your body, the length of your legs, the color of your skin, your situation, your language, your weight, or something else. This all shows that you do not love yourself, and it makes you suffer.

There are many stories that tell about how people don't like themselves. These stories are endless.

Perhaps you do not like what you have.

Perhaps you do not like what your wife, your husband, your children, your brothers and sisters, your friends have.

Perhaps you do not like your name, your position, your job, your money, your car, your house, your talent, your society, your country, your religion, your culture,...

The result – suffering and unhappiness. To find happiness, you have to do the opposite; you have to love, and to love everything.

Loving yourself means being able to help yourself.

Loving another person means being able to help them.

This is real, true love.

This should be your clear point of view, that you must love everything, but not blindly – love without nonsense and rage, love with the guidance of God, with Wisdom and Enlightenment.

Why does a person, if he loves himself, have to love not only other people, but also everything else?

Because a person is a part of a large group, he is not an isolated element, like a lion. A person can't live alone, apart, separately, and, moreover, he should not be afraid of people or avoid them. Human beings need to cooperate and to share.

People are afraid of loneliness. People suffer when they are alone. A lonely person can't develop his abilities, but he can find something to do in public life and be grateful for it to the community. The more contacts a person has, the better and more opportunities he has for development.

If a person is happy when he is watching the sun rise in the early morning, when he hears the birds singing and the noise of the waterfall, admires the floating clouds, flowering gardens, stars, when he enjoys seeing pictures, watching movies, reading books, then he realizes that, in reality, our earth is a true paradise.

Our earth is an amazing gift that God bestowed upon mankind.

True paradise is here and not somewhere else that we are dreaming about or looking for. And there's no better place in the universe than our earth, our common home, where our entire human family resides. For this enormous family to find peace, comfort, and happiness, each of us must learn to love ourselves, learn how to take care of our physical bodies, our thoughts, our feelings and our spiritual life.

This knowledge, when applied in your life, will make you happy for much longer than one minute.

Earthquakes, disasters, and catastrophes

If God has absolute power, if God loves people, why does he allow tsunami disasters, earthquakes, and other catastrophes, such as Chernobyl? How many times have people asked this question?

Catastrophes have been happening on the earth for billions of years from the time it was formed. In fact, catastrophes happened before the beginning of the history of earth; they took place in the universe and in space. Disasters occurred, occur, and will occur not only on earth, but always and everywhere in all areas of the universe and beyond.

These are old wives' tales about God's punishments, the sins of the people, and so on. Why does the grandmother tell her grandchildren about this? She wants them to be afraid to misbehave and to disobey. Then it will be easier for the grandmother to cope with her grandchildren.

Suppose God is indifferent to catastrophes. Why does help come to people from all sides when there is a natural disaster or dreadful misfortune? How, without the invisible helping hand of God, would the victims of the disaster be able to get help?

When we hear about an earthquake or a catastrophe that claimed many lives and left many people homeless, our hearts are filled with kindness and compassion.

Where does this kindness and compassion come from?

This is in no way natural or accidental; it's how we can see God's intervention.

Kindness of the human heart and altruistic human emotions certainly do not occur naturally.

These are people's thoughts that arose under the influence of the invisible world of God and his messengers, which make people feel compassion for the victims of disaster and help them. There would be no help in the form of food, medicine, transportation if the unspoken presence of God didn't exist.

Without the helping hand of God, we would have nothing.

Each of us knows many cases of some people being extremely lucky during a natural disaster or catastrophe. Do not ask questions about why God did not save everyone. Such questions are useless and impractical. We, the people, have so many simple ideas about God, so many demands for him and expectations from him.

People do not ask what they have done for God, but they never forget to ask him to do something for them. If God did not satisfy their needs, they make a "sour" expression. They blame God for what He has not yet done for them. And if God did something against their will, then they have a "good" reason to feel that God insulted or hurt them, whichever they like best. Typically, these people do not think about God – they remember him only in an emergency, to ask him for help.

Once they are saved, as soon as there is no more danger, they forget immediately about God and claim that their own skills and luck saved them.

They have forgotten about God. They think of him only when they are unhappy, when they have problems, when they have troubles, when they are in despair.

Why do they think of God? To blame God for his injustice and lack of attention to them.

We should not blame God for anything, we must learn to be thankful for all the good he has done, does, and always will do for us.

Tsunamis, earthquakes volcanic eruptions, and even manmade disasters are natural phenomena or speak to the human factor – the chance of making a mistake, and we cannot evade them.

What does this or that situation teach us?

The universe is in constant flux and constant change.We also are changing constantly the places to which we are going: kindergarten, school, work, or college; the hospital, sanatorium, cemetery.We change our mood, our appearance, our reaction to what is happening around us.

Moving constantly, we are changing constantly: from such lovely babies to such rude teenagers, from charming brides and grooms into responsible parents, from active doers to darling old people.

If you are not in harmony with the natural process of life, it's like swimming against the tide.

The human body is not able to change the direction of the flow of the turbulent river of life, but the human mind is able to convince the human body that it is possible.

As a result, the person is tense, he is stressed, he is exhausted, he is suffering but he continues to be stubborn.

To be in harmony with the natural process of life is like going with the flow.

This means that the human body and mind are relaxed; there is confidence in the direction of movement and the pleasure of overcoming obstacles.

This is a condition where we love all that surrounds us. This means that you love your family, but if you do not have a family, you feel love for yourself and the world around you. This means that you love your friends, but if you do not have them, you do not miss them, and find pleasure in your own company. This means that you love your children, but if you do not have them or they left you, you do not worry, as you understand that this is an ever-changing life and your kids do not belong to you. You love your job, but if you do not have a job, you do not worry, as you believe that a job will find you. You love your parents, but if you do not have them, you do not miss them, as you know that there is nothing eternal in this world, that each of us is only a temporary guest on this amazing planet called earth.

The right to choose was given to each of us at birth. What you chose is yours.

A man makes his choice not by chance.

Everyone is familiar with such historical facts as slavery, torture, burnings, executions, murder, and sacrifice. The soul of a murderer in one of its lives will not repeat this experience in future lives. Thus, works the law of expansion of knowledge, the intention to know the unknown. And the stronger the soul, the more experiences it has received in past lives, the closer this soul is to the cognition of divine love, the less it needs "negative" experiences in the physical world.

To gain some experience, such as forgiveness for example, it may take millions of lives if the physical bodies of this soul each time choose the path of human hatred and resentment. Each time, the soul, having stood in line for reincarnation, moves into a new physical body with the intent to gain the desired experience. And it will happen until the experience has been received. Then rest "in heaven", the desire for a new experience, signing contracts with other souls, lining up, the incarnation of this soul into a limited physical body.

Many of us tend to think that if we smelled, heard, experienced a taste, have seen and touched, it determines everything. They can confidently say: "I know what that is."

But it is "known" by only five human senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste, which the brain of a person analyze and interpret to give him information. It is all as limited as time and space limit our body. Almost every situation in life is obvious or understood easily only with respect to the time when this event occurs. What the causes and consequences are of what happened, nobody knows.

Let's look at a situation, a not so rare example from people's lives.

Your friend has admitted to you that he is sleeping with your wife. Once your ears have caught the message of your friend, instantly your brain made the verdict – bad news. As soon as the signal "bad" arrived, automatically you react negatively. Automatically, you harm your health. Automatically, you think that you're good and they are bad, you're right and they are wrong. Automatically, you isolate yourself from them and do not give yourself the chance to understand the lesson that you have to go through.

If you learned how to give yourself a short break each time before the automatic reaction occurs, and, during this pause, replace the words "bad news" with "an opportunity to get a new life experience," then this, your one positive thought, would change a lot. Your automatic reaction would disappear; a start would be made to establish the skill to not react habitually but with wisdom. The harm to your health would be significantly reduced. You would get a new sense of unity with all the "actors in this performance." Is it not worth getting this new habit for yourself?

Well, suppose that your automatic response was still triggered. Let's find a rationale for your response to your friend's message. Let's confirm you have the right to raise your blood pressure sharply and cause the heat sensation in your head. Let's justify your loss of balance as a sudden appearance on the stage in front of an auditorium. Let's agree with all the swear words that you said to your former friend as a part of your great performance.

When this part of your great performance has been played brilliantly, you notice that you will be late for the last train if you get the last bus, so you should take a taxi. You are leaving the stage and running to catch a taxi. When you are riding in the taxi, you see a big traffic accident with the last bus, which happened at the exact moment you were having your discussion with your friend. On the way to the station, a woman joins you in the taxi and in the future, becomes your most beloved woman on earth. Then what do you know?

Relying on information you have heard, you "know" that your friend has done something bad and that your wife has betrayed you. You "know" that your whole life is crumbling underneath you. And how could you "know" that your friend would save you from an accident and that you would meet your true love?

Our brain is able to absorb only very limited information. Our brains are not able to capture, understand, perceive the divine plan, which exists for each of us and is carefully constructed for each of our lives. Our book is already written.

Only the degree of our belief in the power of the Creator, the universe, defines our lives. If a person is suffering, it is an indicator of the absence of his faith, his broken connection with the universe, with God.

Everything happens in our lives for a reason. If a man trusts the Creator and believes in God, then he will perceive the events in his life with the understanding that they are trying to teach him something. "Bad" events are especially valuable for this person. Instead of being depressed, suffering, enduring, constantly scrolling through the "film" (event) in his head, the person should ask himself, with peace and love: "What is this event in my life teaching me?"

The answer will come, without a doubt; you just need not to wait for it. Ask and forget.

The answer may come directly to the person, in the form of thoughts, or indirectly through an event, but on the condition of peace and tranquility in his soul.

For example, every morning a man drinks a coffee in the shop around the corner. But this morning, for no apparent reason, he decided to call a friend and visit him. When he came to his house, the words he heard on the radio gave him his answer. An indirect answer could come from everywhere: from books, newspapers, people overheard on a bus...

Question – Answer – Action. If you got the answer, then act! And these new and unusual activities will be your new experiences in your life!

And if, instead of calming down and accepting what is happening as it is and learning something from it, a person through a soulful cry asks a different question: "Why is this happening to me? What did I do to deserve such a punishment?"

The answer will come, without a doubt; your own ego will give you the answer immediately.

And the answer, in the form of infinitely repetitive thoughts, will be something like this: "She is unfair and dishonest, he is evil and stupid, but I am so trusting, kind, sincere."

If you realize that it has happened already, and everything has its own reasons, that the past (even very recent) can't be changed, and then do not let your fantasies run into the future, because no one can predict it, then all you have is to remain in the present.

And what's wrong with the present? Let's consider this using the above example.

After all, if we divide for a moment everything that happens to people into their physical bodies and an invisible story generator in their heads, what do we get?

Their physical bodies were in the room the whole time. We know this thanks to our senses: sight, smell, touch, and hearing. We know this because THIS we can touch, smell, see, feel, lick. The physical world around these bodies has not changed. Has the situation changed? What is the situation in our example, and how it is possible to "attach" it to the physical body? The man and "the situation" can never merge in a single bound!

The situation can only affect people's emotions, cause an unconscious reaction to external stimuli. How can you "trust" (know) the situation if it can't be touched, seen, heard, and so on?

The situation is an illusion, which is a figment of our imagination.

We do not suffer from lack of imagination. Depending on the type of imagination, there are countless unconscious emotional reactions to the same event.

Representatives of the animal world unconsciously react aggressively only to things that pose a direct threat to their lives. But, unlike humans, they react to the threat, the threat passes and they forget about it. Watch animals the next time you are out: dogs, crows, ducks,... At a time of danger, animals demonstrate a real animalistic rage and great strength, but as soon as the danger has passed, they continue their lives quietly as nothing has happened. They "know" how to live in the present, one event, one thing after another. For them, there is no past, no future, but only the present moment – the here and now. This moment is real, and everything else – an illusion.

But the human, as a creature endowed with consciousness, not only responds to the situation that is as far away from being a threat to his life as the end of the world, but he also can't forget what has happened. The past does not exist, there are only memories of the past – and nobody can change what happened. The future does not exist, it's just a fantasy of how it might go, but no one can know it. The present, which is here and now, the person skips over because his attention is focused fully on the search for similar dramatic situations from past experiences or friends' stories, or from books.

When "keywords" open the flow of ideas from the past, the brain begins immediately to apply this information to "writing" a story about possible suffering in the future. And as soon as the scenario sounds "good", a person reacts instantly and violently with an obligatory rush of blood to the head and compression of all the cells in his body.

God created this world for happiness and love. Everything that he has created is beautiful and perfect, harmonious, and balanced. God did not create suffering for people.

Man creates all of his own suffering, because of his envy, greed, ambition, egoism, the division between good and bad, right and wrong, and so on. Any human suffering is a lack of belief in the Creator. After all, a man is much more than this particular situation and the human brain can't know the great plan of the Creator.

When a person's faith in God is not on the surface, not in beautiful words, but in the heart, then the person realizes that complex situations and problems in his life appear with a holy intention. The intention is to teach him something, change something inside him, because without this specific change, the next step in evolution is not possible.

It's like climbing up the evolutionary ladder. A person can't jump up the ladder, skipping a step. He has to go through every step of the ladder. But the movement along the ladder is a personal choice.

While the person was changing from infant to adult, he accumulated his life experiences, his fears, learned about love, and strengthened his ego. So, depending on the severity of his baggage, he is at a certain stage of evolution. The lighter his luggage, the easier it is to go to the next step. And the higher he climbs, the easier and lighter his luggage, the freer he is. And if his luggage is too heavy, he settles on one step permanently. This luggage chains him to the surface of the step. He becomes a slave of his luggage. And if you look at the inside of this baggage, you can see clearly how fear penetrates all of its contents. Fear of losing what you have. Fear of not getting what you want. Fear of the unknown. Fear of being deceived. Fear of being misunderstood. Fear of being sick. Fear paralyzes a person's life.

Fear creates certain conditions: greed, jealousy, blame, anxiety,...

What is greed? It is the fear of poverty.

What is jealousy? This is the fear of being left alone.

What is criticism? This is the fear of losing your credibility.

What is worry? These are stories invented in your head, which cause fear.

If we remove the fear that has soaked the luggage through, what's left?

Of course – items in the material world close to your heart: your car, your house, a gold chain, "a beautiful wife," a silver spoon, a country house, money, currency, stocks, a book, a pencil. And here again the person has a dilemma – how to perceive these objects of the material world: as great tools and assistants in his life to which there is no emotional anchor, or as a means to prove your well-being and power to society, which requires constant care to increase and improve them.

But if your luggage is very light, you go through life easily. There's a little bit of fear there, in order to protect your life, so that you wait for the green light instead of crossing the street on a red. There are free hands that contain no fear, which are always ready to accept a gift from God. There's the possibility to get a lot of life experiences, each time asking the question: "What does this event teach me?"

And each time remembering not to lose heart after a failure. After all, there is no such thing as failure; there is only a new experience.

No one can dispute the fact that mankind has attained enormous success and progress in science, technology, transport, computing, economics, and health care. But people are increasingly suffering; people are in desperate situations in various areas of their lives. Wars have been fought and are continuing on this earth. In some countries, even in highly developed ones, most of the population lives in poverty and hunger, disease and suffering. Regardless of whether a person is poor or rich, tall or short, modern or conservative, it is always possible to be in danger. This danger can come from society, people, nature, difficult situations, and it is not a subject for modern science and modern technology.

Using only the mysterious, unseen, and exciting opportunities of spirituality can solve this problem.

What is spirituality?

Before a person buys a tool, he must know for what purpose he is buying it. Before the person uses the purchased tool, he must examine its capabilities. The more often he uses this tool, the more experience he gains; the more opportunities the tool offers to him. If a person's ability is above the capabilities of this tool, he needs to replace the old with a new one and, thus, develop. It all depends on the person's abilities and desires.

Before making use of the opportunities offered by spirituality, this should be studied.

From the outset, let's get clear that spirituality does not fall under the category of religion and does not belong to any church.

The most accurate definition of spirituality is that it is the power of the mind, which is invisible and has no physical characteristics. This is different significantly from the concept of the power of human intellect and the power of the physical body.

Spirituality has no speech, language, appearance, odor, color, it is impossible to imagine. How can it be studied? That's why it is the most difficult subject of study.

History shows that people have always tried to understand spirituality, but humanity has failed to achieve any significant progress on this path. Lots of fantastic tales and colorful traditions were created during this time.

I believe that about twenty years ago, a gift from God was given finally to mankind, which facilitated the study of this wonderful, invisible, and extremely powerful spiritual world – the birth of the School of Universal Energy and Alternative Medicine. Thanks to this school, I, like millions students all over the world, obtained the tools, the keys to open the door that leads to the world of health, happiness, and the opportunity to help not only ourselves but others as well. Thanks to this school, I found answers to many of my questions.

What is God? God is neither male nor female. In fact, this sentence already includes many deep meanings, each of which depends on the level of a person's understanding.

If a person practices Buddhism, then he may understand it from the Buddhist point of view: "it may be that in seeing the picture, you see nothing, and in seeing nothing, you see the picture." A follower of a Chinese religion can understand this as the concept of "yin-yang and the five elements."

To clarify, I must say that God has no physical appearance, since God is neither male nor female; God is neither metal nor wood, nor water, nor fire, nor earth. One significant point – God can be all of this. God is that which not only has the power to create, but also to control the power of creation.

God creates all material and immaterial particles, creates all visible and invisible objects, colors, sounds, lights, and all human thoughts and emotions. Moreover, God develops all the material and immaterial interactions between visible and invisible beings, not only in this world, but also in the whole infinite and eternal universe.

When I became aware of this, my life became easier. It's always a relief when responsibility does not lie on the shoulders of one person, but is shared by all.

The soul is part of God. The soul has all the abilities, power, invisible characteristics, and the knowledge of God.

The soul of every person has power and knowledge, but the level of this power and knowledge depends on the energy of each individual soul. The greater the energy reserves of the soul, the more opportunities a person has. The soul controls the whole body, every organ, every system, and even every cell, every particle, every nerve. How does it work? In the likeness of God. All that constitutes a person, even the smallest cell has the tiniest soul that is under the control of the main human soul. God controls the soul. The soul controls the many billions of smaller souls that live in the human body, thus controlling the life and behavior of a person.

The same relationship – not being too literal here – can exist in a country. The president of this country is "God" to all. He signs off on everything; he confirms and controls. He does not control individual people; he manages the regional leaders of the country's provinces. The provincial ruler should ideally be the "soul" of this area. He obeys the instructions from above, and he sends his own instructions down, being much closer to the people. The leaders of the cities of this region obey the "soul", but they themselves also have "souls" under them, although with significantly fewer rights. And so on and so forth, until an individual resident of the country. This can be represented as a hierarchical tree.

What happens when such a "God" violates international rules? Most, if not all the people of this country will suffer. What happens when the "Main Soul" opposes "God"? What happens when people of one region go on strike? The country suffers. The options are limitless. Therefore, people have countless unique destinies, diseases, and suffering. So in the human body arise countless unseen "wars", contradictions, and disobeying of the main soul.

And if the person's soul, which is directly connected to God, makes mistakes? The study of spirituality helps to find the answers to such questions, to understand the role of the physical body and the soul. The study of spirituality is the study of wisdom and enlightenment.

This is an opportunity to recognize the basic spiritual characteristics of man, such as enlightened and unenlightened, wise and ignorant, misguided and knowledgeable.

It is also the understanding of the true meaning of words, such as truth and deception, faith and superstition, ignorance and awareness, good and evil, justice and injustice, freedom and coercion. The purpose of this study is to obtain the ability to avoid illusions, mistakes, suffering, to know how to find peace and happiness for yourself, your family, for the people, for the country.

Each of us seeks joy and happiness. We all have fears, worries, and pain. Each of us is doing everything possible to avoid suffering. But the past and present show that humanity continues to suffer, and this does not depend on the number of religions that mankind has.

The cause of all human suffering is stupidity of the physical body and mistakes of the Soul.

To be happy, we need to learn wisdom for the body and enlighten the soul.

A body without wisdom means, "little wit in the head makes much work for the feet."

A soul without enlightenment is like a nightingale in a tiny doorless and windowless room.

Finding wisdom and enlightenment is only possible on the spiritual path.

It is impossible to "encounter" wisdom and enlightenment in the material world because it is invisible.

To be on the spiritual path does not mean go to the mountains for twenty-five years and come back with wisdom and enlightenment. The spiritual path is the path of understanding the principles of life and death for every living thing on earth, understanding the meaning of time and space, cause and effect, what causes pain, how to be happy and healthy.

This path must be a practical one. You should employ the knowledge gained on the spiritual path in your material life. Your spiritual path and your life path are two roads that merge into one: your body and your soul, which are inseparable.

We must learn to take care of our soul with the same attention and understanding with which many of us have learned to take care of our body.

You should begin everything with yourself. Who other than you can know yourself better? Everyone knows himself well enough. But this knowledge can often be expressed with the phrase "it would be better not to know!"

Or maybe we only think that we know ourselves?

What is love?

If you have decided to look for happiness in this life, then the time to start doing it is right now and you should start with yourself. This is good news, because it means that you don't need to go anywhere, to spend money, to ask someone for permission; you don't need to be ashamed of your desire to do this.

You must allow yourself to do it; "never put off till tomorrow what you can do today" – don't make excuses such as being too busy.

Many of you are probably like I was once – never doing anything for yourself.

We do a lot in our lives.We are very busy. Each of us always has a long list of urgent tasks.We need to work, learn, raise children, help our parents, cook meals, clean up the apartment, renovate the apartment, go to the doctor, visit friends, read books, call friends.And then we need to discuss and criticize all of this.It's very difficult to "carve out" a moment for yourself.But when we have found this minute, "carved out" the moment, then we have absolutely no idea what to do with it.

And as we are unaware of what to do, the best way to fill this "moment" is to suffer.

We love to suffer and know how to do it very well. In this, we have reached perfection.

It's so easy for us to find problems in our lives, the right and the wrong, resentment, disorder, worries.

Please try the following experiment. In a conversation with a friend or with someone else, do not say a word about illness and do not judge anyone or anything. Many people will not know what to say.

Let's change the course of our thoughts and think about love. And we should always remember that everything should start with ourselves. All things are possible for a person if – this is the most important – he believes in it.

Many people associate the concept of "love" with sex. Forget about sex for now, this is not the subject of our discussion.

The idea of love is for many people also associated with the ability to give someone something tangible. As if giving chocolates or money shows love.

For many people to show love is to feel strong excitement and emotions.

Ask yourself honestly what love means to you. I'm sure there are other definitions of love as well.

He is jealous of me – that means that he loves me. I love my husband, my breadwinner. I love my boss – he always gives me a big bonus. Someone might say that she loves her daughter very much. But when her daughter accidentally breaks a vase valued at several hundred dollars, that loving mother can hit her own beloved child. For some people, the level of their obedience measure the level of their love. I love her very much and obey her in everything. Someone may say with confidence that he loves himself and not pay any attention the fact that he has eaten the whole meal, leaving nothing for the rest of the family.

We can find many examples of this sort. All these examples clearly show the stupidity of the physical body and the lack of enlightenment of the soul. "What the mind thinks, the tongue speaks."

So much is said about God loving everyone. Not too many people on this earth believe in this holy truth. Some people believe that God is punishing them; others believe that God has forgotten them; and still others do not believe in him at all.

There is nothing surprising in that. Do we love ourselves? – This is the whole issue.

It's like children – if they do not know how to love themselves, then no matter how much their parents love them, they can't respond in kind. These children need to learn to love themselves and only then can their parents can help them.

People need to love themselves, then and only then God can help them.

When talking about love, first we should refer to self-love.

To love oneself is a necessary and useful thing. It's not as bad as some people think, not understanding, accusing and condemning man's love for himself. After all, to love yourself is maximally convenient – you can easily express it to yourself when and how you want it. If you do not love yourself, then you can't even speak of loving someone else.

It is easy to say but hard to do. The task of learning to love yourself is in itself quite complicated, not to mention loving another person or other living beings, which is a thousand times harder to learn.

How much do you love yourself? How much do you love your body, mind, emotions, soul, and so on? Each of us, somewhere deep inside, knows the true answer, knows the truth about whether he loves himself or not.

When your body is thirsty, do you give it water?

When your body is hungry, do you feed it?

When your body is tired, do you allow it to rest?

When your body wants to sleep, do you make it stay awake?

When your mind needs stimulation, do you want to learn?

When your emotions overwhelm you, do you restrain them or not?

When your soul is in high spirits, do you think about the gods or of God?

When you answer each of these questions honestly and fully, then you will know for sure whether you love yourself or not.

This is a very interesting fact. If a sick person does not love himself, then regardless of the severity of his illness, it is very difficult to cure him. The more a person loves his body, the greater the chance that he will recover. The more one loves life, the easier it is to find a treatment for him and help him recover.

In contrast, if a person does not want to live anymore, does not love himself and other people, even the slightest illness, which is usually easy to treat, will get worse, and eventually will become incurable for that person.

The best way to maintain your health, slow down the aging process, and prevent disease is to love yourself. If you do not love yourself, others, your life, and your mind then your negative feelings will have a devastating effect on your health, happiness, mind, emotions, and so on.

If a healer does not feel love, or at least positive feelings towards his patient, the patient does not like himself, the healer has still not learned to love himself, or the patient does not love the healer, then the absence of this factor of love will lead to the patient not benefitting from the treatment.

And that's not all. Love for yourself and others has a lot of practical uses. If a person knows how to love himself, then his body will be healthier and younger, have better circulation, healthier skin, a stronger immune system, and calmer emotions. If a mother knows how to love her own child, it will benefit both her and the child. She will be healthy, especially when she is breastfeeding. Her milk will be better and more nutritious with antibodies that help prevent illness in the child. On the other hand, if the child is healthy, growing well, developing, not often sick, he not only looks better physically, but he directly proves the benefit of love.

The love we are discussing and studying has many faces. This is not only the love between God and humanity, between people, between the healer and the sick man, between mother and child, but also the love between a woman and a man, husband and wife. All kinds of love, without exception, bring practical benefits.

When a woman is in love, she looks much better. Love not only gives her wings but also strengthens her immune system and changes her appearance. When a man in love, he becomes more open, more active, stronger, and more successful.

You should love yourself. But knowing that it is a hard thing to do is not sufficient. You also need to know how to love with wisdom and enlightenment. If you do not pay attention to this, your self-love can hurt you and others.

Of course, you need to eat and sleep, but if you eat too much or sleep too long, it will affect you negatively and harm your body. There must be a reasonable limit for eating and sleeping. There should also be reasonable limits for areas, such as emotions, spirituality, mentality,... You should learn to love with wisdom and enlightenment, so as not to cause harm to yourself and others.

And it's not enough to only love yourself. You should truly love other people. This most directly concerns people who are close to you: your parents, spouse, sisters, brothers, relatives, and other such people.

How to love and how to express your love – this is exactly what you need to learn, what you need to understand and then apply in your life. You will need wisdom and enlightenment in your relationships with your friends and acquaintances, which will allow you not to be caught in the net of blind love or selfish love.

It is love without wisdom and enlightenment that causes such negative and painful human emotions like hatred, anger, envy,...

These emotions can be seen everywhere, every day, in every society, every country.

Love and hate are two opposing emotions, and they are so close to each other.

In many cases, they are just two sides of the same coin.

For example, it seems like a father has so much love for his son, but when his son breaks all the neighbors' windows, in his anger, the father forgets about his love. Love has transformed dramatically into anger, which provokes the physical punishment of his son. Many similar examples can be drawn with wives, brothers, sisters. You should pay attention to how you express your love.

Love without wisdom and enlightenment leads to wars that kill millions of people and bring irreparable damage to even more people. And these wars started under the catchword of love. The love for only one country, only one race or religion.

And how many terrible wars have broken out and begin due to false and blind love?

Mankind could have avoided many, many wars, if people knew how to love with wisdom and enlightenment.

So, what is love? How can we describe infinity? Being able to define concepts, such as infinity, love is an attempt to fit into a framework something for which a framework does not exist.

Love is multifaceted; it is infinite.

Love can be found everywhere and in everything; it is who we really are.

Wisdom and enlightenment

Enlightenment is a term used in philosophy and religion. We use this term only because the human stock of words is limited and it is easier to remember concepts added to the definition of well-known words.

In Buddhism, the word is often used to express the main goal of the spiritual path. Some believe that to achieve enlightenment is equivalent to becoming a Buddha.

None of us needs to become anyone else; each of us must remain himself and find his own way to achieve enlightenment and wisdom.

Our body needs wisdom; our spirit needs enlightenment to give the body and soul a real benefit.

Buddha achieved enlightenment more than twenty-five hundred years ago. People's consciousness is changing constantly, and finding new methods of achieving enlightenment.

Enlightenment is an understanding of everything that is happening, which a man learns from the deity, from God, from the saints, from the "residents" of the invisible world. This endless knowledge has no limit in space and time.

Naturally, this very difficult problem has existed for thousands, millions, or even billions of years since God created the universe and all living beings and humanity. For God gave originally a very small part of his divinity to the minds and souls of people and to a very limited number of people. Historical records show that only a very small number of spiritual people reached enlightenment, along with the ability to learn from the invisible world – the deities and saints.

Everything flows... everything changes. God makes new decisions.

Now the population of our planet is more than seven billion people. In the future, this figure will grow to thirteen billion or even twenty billion people. It is obvious that there will be higher demands for food, agriculture, water, land, transportation, and communication. Already we have so many problems with poverty, hunger, people struggling for life with the last of their strength, wars, or hatred.

We need the help of God; other help does not exist. If humanity has the desire to comprehend wisdom and enlightenment, God will give us the spiritual key to solve our problems, to meet the increasing demands of mankind, to teach people how to help themselves and others. And this is exactly what humanity has always wanted, hoped for, and looked for during many, many millions of years.

Wisdom and enlightenment – the highest state of mind derived from God.

We need to learn directly from God. Only God can teach us wisdom and enlightenment. Only God teaches us when we go down the spiritual path. But in order to "hear" these teachings, we must have a high, strong, and special spiritual energy. This means that the average person can "talk" (he will have new thoughts) with God. And this means that the average person, regardless of his level of education, country, skin color, depending only on his desire for his soul to develop, can get the key from God.

To study the mind of God, man must purify himself from all the external influences (traditions, culture), the rules and chains (thinking and living out of habit) with which he is "chained" to the human world. This is only an initial requirement to learn wisdom and enlightenment, but it is already very difficult to do.

When a person goes down the road that leads him to wisdom and enlightenment, it is long and thorny, with many trials for his mind, his will, his heart. I want to stress many trials for the MIND, WILL, and HEART. These are not the kinds of trials that should take place during long meditation in the mountains, strict diets, or the implementation of strict rules. This work is within yourself, which aims to find out who you really are, what prevents you from being happy, what causes you to suffer.

To go down the road of wisdom and enlightenment is to recognize what prevents you from experiencing the joy of being on this earth and to purify from this your mind, will, and heart. Do you have enough courage and willpower to go through all these trials and difficulties to achieve wisdom and enlightenment?

I chose this way for myself. I went down this path, I'm walking it, and I will walk it to my last breath.

When I have a problem in my life, I know clearly that my worries, stress, and suffering will not help me... they are not my friends. With a clear head and with the desire to learn, I try to find a precious lesson in this problem. If this problem brought me out of balance, if someone's words caused me emotional pain, I have something to work on; I have something to "clean up" in my mind. A person who irritates me actually points out to me what I need to work on. How could I not be grateful to him for that?

When the lesson is over and life continues, I soon realize that without this lesson, without this experience, I would have never gotten closer to my goal on this path – to be happy.

In reality, in our daily lives, our family, society, or country, and visible and invisible effects bind our hands and feet. Each one of us always fears these ties that restrict our thoughts and slow down our actions.

Many traditions and cultures are harmful to the human body, mind, soul, and emotions.

Many factors are also harmful to human health.

Even if God gave you wisdom and enlightenment so you could see these harmful factors, would you want to follow God's guidance and change what needs to be changed?

In truth, most people do not have the courage to recognize their own mistakes or the mistakes of others.

After all, we have so many things that need changing – the traditions, culture, faith, and the society to which we are so used and adapted. We do not want to change anything, and, moreover, we pretend that everything is fine; we pretend that no changes are necessary. That's how people live for generation after generation, inheriting and repeating what is no longer useful for making a step forward.

No change – no development. This is one of the biggest obstacles for the study of wisdom and enlightenment.

It is a fatal mistake when some people, who decide to reach enlightenment and find success on the spiritual path, think that they can neglect their body, leave it to die and themselves return to heaven, Nirvana.

The soul needs the body to develop and improve. The soul needs a healthy body. The higher the soul, the healthier the body.

Taking care of one's health is the duty of each individual, for his own soul.

It is a huge mistake when people learn only from books, trusting fully everything that is written in them. We should learn to be independent from anything that is written in any book, even in the Bible.

I learned how to trust my feelings and learn through my soul. I believe that anyone who has the desire and faith can learn how to do this.

I was never able to read the Bible. I tried to read it several times, but my soul never needed it, it was more like a tribute to fashion – everyone "has to" read it. I couldn't do it. I always wondered – how can I be sure that these are actually the words of Jesus Christ? After all, he didn't write the Bible, just like Buddha did not write his script himself. Five hundred years passed after Buddha's death before someone wrote a book called the Buddhist Script. The people who wrote it had not reached such wisdom and enlightenment as Buddha or Jesus Christ. Human beings wrote it, and therefore nobody knows what Buddha or Jesus Christ actually said.

Buddha said, Buddha told people not to believe.

Buddha taught people to achieve wisdom and enlightenment, but he never told people that they had to believe his words.

Each of us needs our own wisdom and enlightenment whenever we read a script or anyone's explanations. One's own wisdom and enlightenment will help a person to determine what is right and wrong, what is good and bad, what he can do, and what he is unable to do.

A body that possesses wisdom knows how to listen to the enlightened soul; only the enlightened soul knows how to teach the body wisdom and not be distracted by the temptations and demands of the material world.

There is no need to reject material things because the body needs clothes and food. It is not right to eat poorly, not to eat clean and healthy food, not to wear beautiful and modern clothes to look good in company, to meet societal standards, for business, or public relations. It's also not right to wear ridiculous, conspicuous clothes only to draw attention to yourself.

It's just as bad to not pay any attention to your spiritual development.

All of us need to rely on wisdom and enlightenment in daily activities, food choices, clothing choices, public relations, small and large problems, not to mention the big problems in life.

Quite often people have many problems in their love relationship. People can't resolve these problems, and they cause them to suffer constantly. This is because their deeds, their actions, their words, and their reasoning do not include wisdom or enlightenment.

Wisdom and enlightenment demand that we learn to understand and grasp quickly what is physical or spiritual, understand the close or distant relationships between problems, what is the value and what is the purpose, what is visible and what is invisible, what is essential and what is not.

It is important to understand what is limited, what is infinite, what is there, and what does not exist, what is relative and what is not relative.

The truth

Many years ago, I asked my eldest daughter: "Why do you tell lies so often?"

She replied: "And who needs your truth?"

Only many years later, I realized the wisdom of her answer. Back then, I reacted to my daughter's words with the desire to prove to her that she was wrong.I was certain that to tell the truth and to act according to just beliefs was always the correct way. Not to speak the truth is bad.My mom and school taught me this way.

Now I know that there is one truth only when it is God's truth.In this case, the truth about this or that is the same for everyone.In our world, a person's truth is always relative.If you realize this, then you'll be able rid yourself of many problems in your personal, family, and social life.

No need to go far. Look at yourself carefully and you will remember something that was right for you once... is it right now? You will certainly recall something that you used to think was a mistake... is it a mistake now?You will recall what you used to believe was very bad... do you believe it now?To be honest, each of us has made many bad decisions and judged others.Even within a single person, there are many different thoughts and points of view.You can see clearly these differences of points of view and thinking in a group of people.

Let's imagine a festive feast.Ten guests are served at one table.A delicious roasted pig is brought out from the kitchen and placed in the middle of the table.But not all the guests began to eat it.Some turn out to be vegetarians.One man complains that the meat is too fatty.Another person says that the meat is too tough.Several people express their delight in the quality of the cooked pork.

Who is right?We always judge what is right and what is not right, what is good and what is bad.And that's not all – we are always right and others wrong.Is that not true?

People condemn everything that does not fit into their point of view blindly, impulsively.For this reason, there are fights, arguments, jealousy, hatred, suffering, and even death.We should destroy these blocks, these limited perceptions of right-wrong, good-bad, subjectivism, recklessness, impulsive judgment.Only then, will we be able to resolve countless human problems even now.

We should remember that everything in this world is relative, that a lot depends on how we look at it. It is always relative – high or low, thick or thin, right or wrong, good or bad. time, space, nature, environment, knowledge, and foresight always limit these relative characteristics. So who needs our truth? Who needs our judgments?

Our physical abilities limit the human understanding of everything living on this earth. And our concept of the invisible world is even more limited. Absolutely everything in this world that we call true today may not be true tomorrow. Something that might be correct for the people of one region might be erroneous for people from another region. You can see that the truth according to the understanding of man is relative and unconvincing.

Despite this, we understand the real benefit of knowing the truth; we need to know the truth.

What kind of truth would we like to know about ourselves, our family, community, country, human nature, the world, space, time, love, happiness, pain, consciousness, soul of the body? In fact, we know very little about what is real around us.

And do we know who we really are?

Where we came from and for what purpose?

How long and how many times each of us has been on this earth?

What is the status of the physical body of each of us?

What kind of possibilities does each of us have?

What is the soul of each of us like?

Why are some of us men instead of women?

Why do some of us have colored skin?

Why do some of us have white skin?

Why some human race is the most developed?

Why some people are rich and happy, while others suffer from poverty and hunger?

Not knowing even our own body, how can we know anything else? If we can't understand something that is very close to us, very simple and very small, then how can we know the truth?

Why was the truth hidden from us? The truth has been hidden away because of the fear of mankind. If we want to find the truth, then we need to overcome our fear of rules, traditions, culture, criticism, our society, and country. In fact, not many people have been able to conquer their fears. This is the reason why it is so difficult to find the truth in this world.

The truth is that the truth has no form, no definition, and no name.

Tradition, family, culture, and society do not allow us to see and understand the truth distract our minds and block our hearts from expressing feelings of love and compassion.

For this reason, we suffer all our lives.

Consciousness / Conscience

There is no dispute that humanity needs cultural progress, scientific development, and improvement of technologies for improvement of human life. But science and technology are not marching together with spiritual development, which is quite dangerous for mankind and the world. By using advanced technology and advanced equipment but not using consciousness, we bring and will continue to bring more suffering, not happiness. Instead of helping the world, we are destroying it.

The word consciousness is in tune with words, such as kindness, generosity, which are the characteristics of a kindhearted person.

Speaking literally, the heart is an organ of a human body, without which the human being can't live. The man is alive as long as his heart is beating. Human health depends entirely on the heartbeat, which can be fast, slow, weak, or strong.

The heart not only plays a very important role in a person's physical body, but it also performs an equally important function in invisible areas like emotion and spirituality.

To understand this point of view better, I'll give you one example from the news. A middle-aged woman received a heart transplant. She was an exemplary housewife. But after her heart transplant, she changed drastically. Before she had never smoked, drunk beer, or sworn. But after the heart transplant, she began to smoke, drink beer, and swear, and she fell in love with hockey. These were the characteristics and desires of the young man who had died in a car accident and donated his heart to her.

This story shows clearly that the heart is not just a physical organ that distributes blood throughout the body. The heart plays its own role in spirituality, metaphysics, desires, thoughts, and personality. But we often associate these functions with those of the brain. Perhaps we do this because usually we connect the soul and the heart, not the brain.

Here's another story about a heart transplant. In this case, we're talking about a young man who was able to be saved only because he received the heart of another man who was killed in a car crash. One day, this young man walked into a bookstore, and an elderly woman who worked at the store attracted his attention. At that time, the woman was severely grieving her recently deceased husband, who had died in a car accident. After a short acquaintance, the young man proposed to her. In the end, she agreed to marry him, but on one condition: that their wedding took place after her mourning for her deceased husband. This young man agreed, as he needed time to recover after his heart transplant. Over time, he realized that his heart belonged to the late husband of this woman whom he loved and wished to marry.

From this story, we see the emotional function of the heart. Despite the fact that the heart was given to another person, the heart still preserved its love; the heart did not pay attention to appearances; these hearts continued to love each other. The heart of the deceased husband was still connected with the heart of his wife; and on the other hand, the heart of his wife could still recognize the heart of her husband, even if it was in another person's body.

People's hearts feel each other, despite age differences, despite differences in activity, family, education, career and popularity, financial status, or social status.

Thus, the human heart is not only life, but it is also the inner feelings, emotions, intellect of a person.

Where there is good or bad, right or wrong, happy or sad –the heart is functioning.

But that's not all. The heart has another function – conscience (consciousness).

The heart does not only fulfill a physical function, an intellectual function, or an emotional function. The heart plays another important role.

People can say: Above us is the sky, beneath us the earth, and between them is consciousness.

Consciousness is God. The conscience of a person is God, who lives in the heart.

Some people's conscience is like an angel inside them. Depending on the circumstances, the conscience can speak the voice of God or the voice of an angel. You should do what your conscience tells you. Listen to your conscience: listen to what is right and stay away from what is wrong. If you listen to the voice of your conscience, you will save yourself from many sins and temptations, of which there are so many in the material world: money, celebrity, power...

Every person has a conscience... everyone has a consciousness.

People are children of God. Directly or through an angel, God always expresses his love: helping, guiding, reminding people what is good and right.

But at the same time, God has given each of us the freedom to choose what to think, what to decide, how to act –this is in order to learn, to accumulate experience, and to develop.

Thus, people may have right and wrong thoughts, right and wrong decisions, good and bad actions, and each person is responsible for their own thoughts, decisions, and actions. As a result of this freedom, people who follow the directions of God and angels are good people who have a conscience, kindness, goodness, charity, and compassion.

The opposite kind of people is those who do not follow the directions of God and angels.

How are God and angels teaching men? Why do so many people not follow the teachings of God or the angels?

God and the angels do not teach the physical body directly, they do it through the soul. When people have very weak souls, neither God nor the angels can control their body. In this case, the body is under the influence of a weak soul, which falls into the "sinful network", and in some cases, a "diabolical" soul even takes possession of the body. A lack of consciousness or loss of consciousness can distinguish these people.

Why do people not listen to God and the angels? There are many reasons, both material and spiritual.

In the material world, so many affecting influences control and tempt people, such as money, fame, status, power, beauty... In the material world, there are many ways to cloud consciousness.

Spirituality belongs to the invisible world, which also has a huge effect on a person's consciousness. The spiritual world, the invisible world, has the angels, the devils, and the ghosts, who try to confuse the human soul.

It turns out that consciousness is not only thinking about what is right, fair, moral; in fact, it is always a constant and intense struggle between two opposing ideas – on one hand, the Devil, on the other hand, the Angel. The tragedy lies in the fact that there is not and never will be either victory or defeat. In other words, conscience and sin are in a constant struggle, in which there is no compromise, no winners, and no losers.

When conscience wins, the pain inflicted may be minimal, but nonetheless, it can't be avoided completely. On the other hand, if sin wins, then the injury can be overwhelming. Thus, people always have to fight, to be alert, in order to defeat sin, and thus to improve, enhance, and strengthen their minds. To do this, to develop and strengthen your loving heart and soul, to express your inner spirituality, you must follow the spiritual path.

Only by following the spiritual path of development are people able to overcome their vicious thoughts, to act against the evil of sin. If a person can't resist, he is far away from the spiritual road. In this case, his soul is so weak and has so little energy that it becomes very vulnerable to the effects of the forces of the invisible world, the opposite effects of the angels or deities, which control the person's behavior.

A pyramid can represent the spiritual path. Being on the bottom of the pyramid, where the energy is mundane and heavy, it's as if a person is covered with multilayered barriers and chains, trapping him in their rules, traditions, limitations, and habits, and he is suffering constantly under their heaviness. Here, the person's consciousness is in darkness, where there is no exit sign. But a person always has two opposing choices. To leave everything as it is, live in darkness and orient himself in life by habit, touch, unconsciously; or, with a great desire, like a breath of fresh air after choking, to find a way out of the darkness.

The mere appearance of this desire already means a lot for the soul. The soul is still weak, but it has a hope and a chance to be heard. When a person has the desire to get out of the darkness, then the questions began to appear.

For the first little while after the desire appears, it is difficult even to formulate the questions. It is necessary to give yourself time. You should be very patient with yourself, just do not forget about your desire. The soul should tell you what to do next. This tip may come through a spiritual book, a friend, a television program. This tip can come in unexpected ways and from a most improbable source; the main thing is to remember about your desire.

So the first spiritual book has been read, and the first spiritual question has been worded. This means that your soul started to store energy, to become stronger. When the soul becomes stronger, a person's consciousness becomes lighter, more enlightened. This means that a person begins to recognize the chains that make him suffer.

As soon as he has recognized one chain and is able to break it, he makes a step towards the apex of the pyramid; he has risen a little above the level of the pyramid where he first felt the desire to see the light.

Again a question, again an answer, again a conscious recognition of the obstacle, the chain, the cause, again a strengthening of the soul, again an increase in kindness, and, as a result, an exemption from the next chain on the physical body and soul, which is climbing up to the top of the pyramid.

The higher a man goes up the spiritual pyramid, the clearer is to him the truth of life, the closer he is to God, and the easier it is for his soul to control the body. The body recognizes a problem only by relying on the five senses and on experiences. The stronger the soul, the easier it is for it to find an answer in the universe and to recognize the truth.

When the body and the soul are united, life becomes an exciting adventure, where there is no bad, where there is no good, where there is only what is.

God is always and in all possible ways helping humanity to evolve and progress on the spiritual path. God sends angels to earth to help people. These angels are invisible and are within each person, and we can call them "consciousness". An angel not only covers the whole body, but also the space around the body. Realizing this, we can describe consciousness in different words – the guardian angel, which is the soul of God. God has entrusted the guardian angel the responsibility of helping the human soul. Since space, time, nation, and society limit human life, so the help is also limited.

Because of these limitations, humanity has never had calm, peace, and joy. Humanity even now has countless destructive actions, hatred, murder, and war. These are the trials of human consciousness. The higher the level of intellectual progress of mankind, the harder the trial.

As modern science and technology becomes more advanced, the consciousness encounters bigger and bigger trials, danger, disaster, and death, which are becoming ever more critical. If during the First World War, fifteen million people were killed; the Second World War took four times as many lives, not counting the wounded. If a Third World War began with nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, it would probably mean the mass destruction of all mankind. Mankind has had a lot of wars, and they continue to flare up in various forms, levels, and powers, destroying human life, societies, and countries.

God has given each person consciousness to live, to build a family, society, country, and the world. Consciousness is given to everyone to ensure that people can love each other, so that they are able to help each other to develop and improve. But consciousness alone is not enough to withstand the forces of the devil and ghosts. These dark forces are everywhere; they can appear at anytime, anywhere, in any disguise. They may look like good, nice, kind people. And their actions can be taken in the name of Religion, Faith, Nation, Race, Peace, Independence, Liberty,...

To defeat these forces, we must have not only consciousness but also great strength to resist them. Only one devil need inhabit a human body, such as Hitler, and that is enough for sixty million people to be killed during a war. Only one ghost inside a person, such as Stalin, was enough to kill millions of people in Russia. Only a small devil within Pol Pot was sufficient to destroy one-third of the population of Cambodia.

Even an ordinary, average person who does not have the ability to solve large national problems and wars in the world must always be on guard, wary of provocative actions of the dark forces that surround us constantly in various disguises.

It is not difficult to observe and be a witness of this. Every day, we can read in the newspapers, see on TV, or hear many stories on the radio related to how dark forces control people's minds.

We do not have to go far for this. We just need to listen to our own hearts; we must always pay attention to, feel, and understand who is the angel and who is the devil.

We always have to keep track of our own actions, to understand clearly whether they are right or wrong, good or bad. Reality presents us with many valuable lessons.

Many people are rich, famous, influential, and have power. But deep down, we realize that we do not know what they really think and plan to do. On the other hand, we see people that others have condemned, judged, ridiculed. We also see poor people, or even people breaking the law, and in fact, they probably are not people who have lost their consciousness and conscience. Sometimes a person can be a thief, but in his heart, he will always be compassionate to other people. Sometimes a person can be known and influential, but inside he is the devil, evil, and merciless.

We should never judge people because there are no good people and there are no bad people. We know only one side of a person; we do not know the other side, what he has in his mind. Only by walking on the spiritual path, the path of God, can we understand this reality.

Each of us has heard numerous stories from Buddhism and other religions about Satan, hell, God's punishment, reincarnation, cleansing sin, past lives, karma, and so on. People invented all those stories to warn others, to stop people from sinful acts. But in modern times, there are more and more people for whom these stories have gradually lost their importance and effectiveness.

On the other hand, if we try to do good deeds and keep away from evil deeds only because we are afraid of punishment, then those good things are negative and have a very small value.

If we want to give real significance to our good actions, it requires only the stimulus. It's about when we want to do good simply because we love to do it, we enjoy doing it, not because we want any reward for it. We keep away from evil affairs because we do not like to commit evil acts, we despise such things, but not because we fear punishment for it.

Life experience shows that in any society or country, there are many reformatories, institutions, but they cannot prevent or stop people from committing crimes and atrocities. This kind of punishment cannot deter them from reoffending. It is easy to suppose that such an imaginary "establishment" as hell cannot be an effective form of correction for criminals.

Experience shows that people can do good things when they have effective means; to treat their sick bodies, they need to have the energy. To save their souls, which is even more complex, requires a special spiritual energy, rather than any intricate rituals, mantras, condemning the body, bowing to the ground, or offering something in return.

Our physical world is not a world full of suffering, in which people feel lonely and worthless.

Our world is the most beautiful place in the infinite universe. We should be thankful to God for creating all living beings with such beauty and learn to be worthy human beings on this beautiful earth, learn spirituality to live happily ever after.

Suffering is not God's punishment.

Suffering is the result of human unconsciousness. Thus, to avoid suffering, we do not need to escape from this world; we need to clear the unconscious in order to have wisdom and enlightenment.

To live by the law of God, a man must learn to live with love in his heart, with wisdom in the body and with enlightenment in the soul. The law of God does not resort to such methods of intimidation as Satan, hell, trials, fire, or boiling oil. God's law also does not include imaginary landscapes with tranquil backwaters called Nirvana, surrounded by beautiful flowers and intoxicating scents to entice people to refrain from worldly temptations or to restrict their food intake according to a spiritual lifestyle.

Under the ground, there is no hell. Under the ground, we will find only stones and earth, and inside in the center of the earth, a very hot fire. In heaven, there is no paradise and there is no Nirvana. There we find only the frequency of unseen universal energy. Souls belong to it. Each soul has its own unique frequency.

We can compare it to a computer that has a unique website address on the Internet. Only the keeper of all information, all addresses, and all internet connections controls the system, which we can compare with God. No one sees him, but no one disputes that he has intellect and limitless and incomparable power.

We can believe or not believe in God, but we remember him

People always hope for the best. Many of us remember God only when they or their loved ones are having health problems. In our world, there are always people who pray and perform religious ceremonies, asking God for help. How many people have recovered from a disease thanks to prayers and rituals? If there are any, their number is quite small.

God loves people, and human beings are truly God's children. God always expresses compassion and patience and gallantly helps people. But it is not easy for God to hear and fulfill the desires of people. God does not hear and does not fulfill every prayer.

One of the biggest misconceptions of humanity is that we always ask God to hear us, but we do not want to listen to God.

Some people imagine God as the queen or king of the whole earth. They believe that God has the power to punish the man who blasphemes, brags, and does sinful deeds. They also believe that God, if he wishes, gives to anyone who asks. And if no one sins, and there is no one to punish, he just relaxes and enjoys his power. This is not so, God does not need such things.

God is not an official government to negotiate with. God is not a merchant, with whom we can make a deal. God is not a judge before whom you must make excuses. God is not Satan trying to frighten you.

God can be represented only as a good mother, who always loves, always helps and always takes care of her children, no matter how old they are, regardless of whether they are rich or poor, tall or short, or good or bad.

Our physical body could not live a single second without the constant love of God, without his constant assistance, care, and attention.

Could our hearts beat without God? Could our stomachs digest food without God? Could our lungs breathe without God? Might our liver work without God? Might our blood circulate without God? How would our nervous system work without God?

Each of us has been a witness of a person who was ill and did not take any medications, but his body overcame the virus by itself. Is not this a manifestation of the power, love, and help of God?

In our body are millions of systems and cells, which live, move, interact and communicate thanks to God. It's not possible to start up this "mechanism" and make it work with prayer.

A person's prayers can be heard only when he has pure thoughts, when he has Wisdom and Enlightenment.

The law of human life: Living – Aging – Disease – Death. No human being can avoid it. For some people, this process occurs quickly, while others last a long time, but in any case, eventually the human body will age, become ill. Death is the last stage of the physical body. No one can keep his or her body forever. The body must change when growing, when sick, and when aging. A person can only pray for what is within the laws of life and death, the transformation of the universe, time, and space. It does not make sense to ask for something that is against the laws of nature.

Do not think of the law of human life as the stages of suffering in human life. These are just transitions from one stage to another.

This is like a tree with brightly colored leaves in autumn or dry, dead leaves in winter. These two stages of the autumn and winter are just a necessary preparatory step for the new green leaves, the beautiful flowers in spring, and fruit in summer. There is nothing sad about dry or dead leaves. It's just a sign of the completion of one stage, one cycle, that the past in the past, and that a new task is ahead.

When a man looks at the dry or dying leaves, it does not cause him the negative or unhappy thoughts that often come to him when he looks at his aging body.

Nothing disappears; everything is transformed from one state to another. Fallen leaves from the tree become a good fertilizer for other plants and flowers.

Human life is very similar to these stages. Even if we get sick, grow old, and die, we should not have a negative attitude about it. If the body has fulfilled its obligations, completed the cycle of human life, then death is necessary for the body to regenerate and release the soul. Then the soul will find another body with different opportunities, which God will provide for it. Naturally, the new body will be different from the previous body, and there will be nothing in common between them. The new task of the soul will be similar, but there are no ties and obligations from the past life, as many people often think.

God created each person's physical body and his nervous system with unique qualities inherent only to one person, so that each person lives his life on this planet earth to learn, gain experiences, and continue to evolve.

The process of learning, gaining experiences, and developing is repeated in each life cycle that can be called reincarnation.

Repetition of lives in the human body happens because the person is the most highly developed creature on earth. Each new life for a person should be like the grinding and polishing of a natural diamond. Each new life for a man should improve him.

We will not return to the same physical body in every life. On the contrary, each of us begins each new life as a completely new person belonging to a new nationality, culture, speaking a different language, or having a different gender. with the soul that will best help us to develop.

Of course, it is within everyone's rights to live not believing in God, without trying to find out who he really is. And of course, it is within everyone's rights to live life as his heart, his soul tells him, to fulfill his mission, get the experiences that his soul has come to get. In any case, each person learns and develops, according to God's main plan. For those who live a life without faith in God, it will take a lot more life cycles.

Many people think that believing in God is the same thing as believing in a religion. I do not believe in any religion, but I believe in God. My faith in God is based on the cognition of wisdom and enlightenment.

It does not matter what one believes, each person has the freedom of choice.

But it is very important that faith without any enlightenment and wisdom is simply superstition and fanaticism.

Fortune and happiness

For many people, the concept of happiness is associated with a happy union between a man and woman, between husband and wife. This is not the case. Man can be happy without such a union, living without a husband or wife. Happiness depends on what one looks for and what one wants.

Happiness is not necessarily dependent on love with someone of the opposite sex but on many other things.

People often think that happiness is when good luck catches up to them or when success comes. Everyone dreams about success, but very few people are awarded it.

When people dream of success, they mean that they want something really good and unexpected to happen in their lives, something that will exceed all of their usual plans and expectations.

Similarly, moments of success may occur for people when they have escaped impending danger, when they clearly foresaw the consequences of certain actions and this saved them from disaster.

On the other hand, there are events in life that, for some people, are a common phenomenon and for others, good luck.

Many situations can be regarded as fortunate for some people but miserable for others.

There are a lot of accidents, which in a certain place at a certain time can be considered ordinary, and in another place and another time, as lucky.

There are people who are lucky right from birth. These children were born into a wealthy family and developed country. But children are born into poor families with many children in third world countries or during a war. These children are not lucky, in the traditional sense, right from birth.

This is the general point of view.

But if we consider the details, you can see a lot of individual cases and relative circumstances. Children will always be born into wealthy families that are not happy, but on the other hand, children born into poor families are often not happy either.

Very often, when people talk about happiness, about success, they have a coincidence in mind.

Instead of talking about coincidence, we should actually talk about the assistance of the invisible world and spiritual benefits.

Spiritual benefits are what our soul can create and accumulate. If we do not create them, then we will not have them. If we use some of the spiritual benefits, we need to accumulate more. If we do not accumulate them, we will not be able to benefit from them when we need it. We are constantly, daily in need of spiritual benefits. This is very important: when we do good deeds to create spiritual benefits, then we accumulate them for ourselves, for children, and grandchildren, for our family. It's like a seed planted in the ground for the growth of the tree of luck. The more spiritual benefits we can create; the more luck we will have.

Many people may say that they have done many good deeds, but they have not had luck. To understand why this is, we must have wisdom and enlightenment. Maybe not all those good deeds are enough to get the luck of which you are dreaming. Maybe you already have the luck but you not realize it. Perhaps the spiritual benefits that you have accumulated are sufficient only to neutralize the danger in which you could have found yourself.

We do not need to and we can't compare ourselves with others. One of the best methods of accumulating spiritual benefits is to help to yourself and others.

Luck should be seen in the very smallest and most ordinary events. If you have a small health problem, you should know that you're lucky because you do not a more severe disease. Even if you have a serious illness, you should know that you're lucky that you're still alive. If you know that you will die from some disease, you should know that your death is not a punishment from God. We should know that death is an inevitable factor of human life, the law of life and death for all living beings on earth. Sometimes the death of the physical body is the beginning of another stage in the cycle of human evolution.

In general, we must always remember that everything depends on fate, destiny, and God's plan. We must always remember that with wisdom and enlightenment, we will always find success in everything and in every situation. But the ignorant man can't see the happiness in anything and anywhere, he can only see misery, frustration, and suffering.

In fact, luck cannot be found in events or facts, but rather you'll find it in your thoughts.

Sometimes a person will have to change his attitude towards life, his thoughts, his emotions, and his actions towards himself and others completely to achieve the happiness of which he dreams.

If a person is able truly to love other people, enthusiastically help others, forget all their mistakes and shortcomings, to emphasize their good qualities and abilities, there is no doubt that luck will never leave him. If a person has a negative attitude to what is happening in his life, if he is stubborn, if he condemns everyone, if he is an extremist, if he is envious, jealous, if he keeps hate in his heart, and if he has a difficult character, luck will not find such a person. There is no hope for luck, and more than that, such a person must be prepared to face many unfortunate situations and illnesses.

It is very useful from time to time consciously to feel gratitude towards mankind.

Now some people ask the question, what has mankind done for me?

Think about the food you eat. Think about the clothes that you wear... the car that you drive. Think of the house where you live and about the water, electricity, and gas that you use. All this, mankind has done for us. We should all always have good thoughts and good feelings about humanity, people, society, and your own country.

And be prepared to answer the question, what have you done for humanity?

The more good deeds you do, the more spiritual benefits you accumulate, the more luck you will have in your life. Happiness has no boundaries. The more spiritual benefits you have, the more you do good deeds, the greater your happiness.

Is it possible to bypass or avoid destiny?

This is the ageless question of mankind. Mankind has no clear answer to the question: what exactly is destiny? And rightly so. There is no human destiny; there is no pre-prepared fate in human life. What is called fate or destiny is an illusion created in the mind of man.

Not everyone, no matter who he is, is immune to mistakes.

God created many things for people, but he does not "sign an agreement" about the future of people and their fates.

Many people understand the word "fate" in a negative sense, as something bad, which people sometimes need to carry on their shoulders all their life.

Fate is just a result of what people have done. God does not preordain this result, and this is not a punishment from God.God created all life on earth; he loves all that he has made and gives complete freedom to each of his creations to have their own destiny

Why are there rich and poor, noble and humble, happy people and those who suffer, healthy and sick people, successful people, and those who failed, and so on? Destiny or fate of man does not play any role here. This happens not because of a verdict or decision of God. People are not puppets in the hands of God, but God can create everything and destroy everything and everyone.

There are many legends, tales, and songs about fate the villain. Each of us should learn wisdom and understand such things clearly for ourselves. We should not blindly believe what is written in a particular song. If you believe every written word, then you are mistaken.

God is the Creator, and He wants the same for us, his children: that we too, always, can find a creative approach to everythingthat we can create and build. We should be creators in our physical bodies, in our real and invisible bodies, in our destinies, for our present and future.

We can create through our own thoughts, our own actions, hand in hand with such precious gifts from God as spirituality and enlightenment.

Although we are a product of creation, everything in our lives – our work, our destiny, our future – is not something fixed; it is constantly changing and infinitely varied. This law is called "Learn and Improve."

God creates people and gives them quite a lot of freedom. A person may think what he pleases and act as he wants to. God gives this right to him from birth.

But the paradox is that people up to the present day in many parts of the world exert all their strength to fight for their freedom, which has received such a beautiful name, "Human Rights."

God gave people all kinds of freedoms, but at the same time, people should be responsible for the consequences of their thoughts and actions.

Thus, in principle, what a person will have in the future or what his fate will be all depend on him and God does not impose it. Of course, man does not live alone in the desert. In real life, many factors, such as family, society, habits, customs, church, or religions affect and control our destiny and our fate constantly.

Naturally, the future, the destiny of man is always unknown.

So many factors and so many reasons affect various dates and events. How can we know our future and what fate awaits us?

We know about the winning numbers of the lottery after the prize has already been defined. None of us knows which numbers will win next time. Whoever won was lucky. It was a coincidence. These people do not have some exceptional talent, they are not perfect, and what is certain is that they did not know the next winning numbers of lottery. And there are no exceptions for men or women; otherwise, they would all be millionaires today.

No one on this earth can with hundred percent confidence know their future, their destiny, no matter who they may be, how well-known they are, and what position they hold. In the worst case, they will deceive and lie.

I choose, and would recommend the same for you, not to listen to what the fortune-tellers, astrologers, and horoscopes are predicting. None of them knows their own destiny, then how can they know the fate of other people?

Fortune-tellers rely on astrology, and they act just like the astronomers thousands of years ago. But modern astrology is incomparable with the knowledge of astrology thousands of years ago! How can they speak correctly about astronomy?

Several thousand years ago, by using only their own eyes, without professional telescopes, looking up into the sky, astrologers could only see a few stars in the endless sky. They could only give a few names for the stars like the sun and the moon. The Milky Way alone has billions of stars, but in the vast universe, there are billions of similar systems. How can we predetermine the relationship between the fate of a man and one particular star?

According to the predictions of astrologers, the same star influences many people, and this determines their fate, which means they should all have the same fate, the same life. But in reality, everyone has their own distinctive characteristics, their thoughts, their own unique destinies, and their own human lives.

The total number of horoscopes relies on the date, time, day, month, and year of birth for all the people in the world and it is equal to three hundred and sixty-five times twelve, which equals four thousand, three hundred and eighty. Since the world's population numbers about seven billion people, approximately two million people must have the same prediction. This prediction should work for both rich and poor, for both the successful and homeless. Funny, isn't it?

On earth, even two people exist who have the same character, the same thoughts, the same feelings, the same life, the same fate.

Many newspapers and magazines publish a weekly astrological forecast, which contains daily predictions. Chinese astrology uses the signs of twelve animals, Western astrology uses the twelve signs of the zodiac, and Eastern astrology uses twelve animals for the title of each month of the Eastern calendar. Among these symbolic animals, there possess negative qualities, while others fit the perfect profile. Using these characteristics, the horoscope tells which group is compatible with another group and which is not.

And the truth is that all these signs, symbols, and animals are fictional and created by people.

There is no such thing as an appropriate or inappropriate group of people according to their age.

A person born under the sign of the dog is not a dog. A person born under the sign of the cat is not a cat. Why might the horoscope predict that two people fit together, when those two people are not compatible with each other? Apparently, the horoscope writers do not take into account that while Vietnam uses the sign of a cat, China and Japan use the sign of the rabbit instead of the cat. And this in itself is already a big difference.

Therefore, it is good to be aware of this, but it is up to each of us to decide whether to believe in these predictions or not. Perhaps without horoscopes, many newspapers and magazines would lose many of their readers, including you.

Of course, history has shown some well-known masters that could reliably predict certain events. Nevertheless, it is very, very rare, and we must take into account that any prediction is always exaggerated. This rare prediction does carry some important information, but people tend to make this prediction ten times, a thousand times more meaningful than it is.

Most of the stories in books are exaggerated or made-up. Most of the events described in them never occurred. Moreover, some of the characters in these books, perhaps, were not ordinary people, but spiritual masters, whom God sent to earth to accomplish a specific mission, but they had to be born as ordinary people. And these people, as instruments of God, had to tell the people as "predictions" what God had told them, which was appropriate for that period of time and for that country.

Many know the story of twin brothers who came to an astrologer to find out their future. The astrologer calculated that they both have the same destiny. In life, one of them was very successful, and the other was very poor and homeless, consistently pursued by bad luck.

Now how can you believe someone who claims to be able to predict your destiny?

These two men, twin brothers, were born at the same time, with the same parents, but with two completely different souls and to say definitively that they have the same life and fate does not make any sense.

Through these stories, I want to show that it is necessary to study the true and amazing facts of God for yourself, not legends about God.

As soon as we explore the facts of God, full of purity and wonders, then we will have wisdom and enlightenment.

But if some of us still want to predict their fate, I know a foolproof formula. I learned this formula in the School of Universal Energy. This algebraic equation is at once very simple and quite complicated. Mankind = Enlightenment + Love, or M = E + L. The value of the variable M can be obtained when the values of the two other variables have been studied and their values known. The variable M denotes mankind: people, individuals, groups, nationalities and countries. The variable E denotes spiritual factors, such as wisdom, enlightenment, and the support of God and of invisible higher beings. The variable L denotes love, thoughts, emotions, and feelings of people.

Learn and find the values of the two variables E and L in this equation, and you'll get the result for the life to come, for work, for communication, for the country and the nation, even for humanity in the broadest sense of the word.

A good life, good destiny of an individual or a group of people depends on two factors: body and soul, enlightenment, and love. It does not depend on the date and time of birth, the sign of the dragon or tiger, this or that position of a star, or a prior decision by God. Those exceptional cases when someone correctly predicted an event can be viewed as special envoys of God for a special mission.

Even if we assume that God wants to predetermine something for the people on earth, he would only arrange something good. God would not "arrange" evil deeds for his children on this earth.

To understand this better, let's take your own example. Think about all your actions towards your children – truly, clearly, carefully, and deeply. Only then will you understand the sincerity, the feelings, and actions of God towards mankind. You can prepare only the best that you can do for your children. You would never push your children towards something risky or bad.

This is what happens with God in heaven. As parents, you always want to give children all your love, attention, your concern so that they grow up as conscious, compassionate people, and, of course, with a good future.

But in life, there are many times when our children hurt us. Often our children do not make progress or get good results, although we always wish for them to do so. We love our children and we do our best to help them to become good people, but to get the good results, our children must act accordingly.

Sometimes something in our children's lives goes wrong, they suffer a setback, but they do not want to lift a finger to change anything, to be successful, because there are so many reasons for this setback, and they are often very confusing.

To understand these reasons, large and small, all these failures, we must analyze them carefully and not jump into an emotional "dance" with rage and the blaming of God and other people.

Sometimes our children are not responsible for their failures, just like us, and this responsibility lies with the family, society, traditions, habits, political, and other circumstances.

Thus, when speaking of the destiny of a person, we must take into account all these factors, all the possible reasons, and not jump to the conclusion that this is a punishment of God.

God has given us so much... so many things.... such a beautiful planet in the universe.

What else does mankind want? What do you want?

Our planet earth is the only place in the universe where there is life and the air, the sky, and creatures. There are clouds, water, mountains, forests, and most importantly, the most highly developed beings in the universe: people. If there is life on another planet in an infinite universe, then there not will be people, and if even there will be living beings, then they have a lower level of consciousness.

So why do people still complain about their fate?

We need to learn how to appreciate what we have, what God has given us. We should not complain about God, the saints, the higher beings of the invisible world, we should not even have a single thought about it.

The soul of each one of us has evolved, has been perfected over thousands and thousands of lives from the tiniest soul to the present, adult soul that you have now.

If we refuse to be human beings, we can only be earth, stone, and dust, nothing more.

All our grievances, all feelings of hatred for life, all problems with our personal life, and the perception of life as a sea of suffering are erroneous and negative, and they should be completely eradicated.

All this should be completely cleaned out of our consciousness, of our thoughts.

God did not create the sea of suffering, if we have it; we've created it ourselves using purely human capabilities.

Everything that God creates for us in advance can be seen in the beautiful flowers, the forest brook, the shadow of a large tree on a hot day, the sound of music, and so on. Even the rain, wind, storm, typhoon, snowstorm, and iceberg have beauty, and they are a necessary part of natural cycles.

So, if you have a complaint, then you should complain about yourself and not about God or about the heavens above your head.

Time to forgive and not be offended

Should we, can we, must we forgive and not be offended? The Catholic Church teaches that we must forgive even our enemies. Buddhism teaches compassion. Some people believe that it should be "a tooth for a tooth, eye for an eye."

To know the right answer, which will be correct for every one of us and will correspond to the level of wisdom and enlightenment that each of us has already reached, we must deal with two problems associated with the answer to this question. People face these two problems every day. These problems cause so much doubt and turmoil for individuals, families, societies, countries, nations, for the world and mankind.

Forgiveness and resentment are the two most important and biggest problems in most people's lives, in the past, in the present, and in the future; they are not likely to be solved completely.

Moralists have always condemned resentment, religions call for forgiveness, but resentment still exists everywhere.

This feeling of hatred and resentment that comes from individuals, organizations, societies, associations, nations, and countries permeates the whole world. Forgiveness is still a luxury very few people can afford and is practically impossible to observe in society.

To find a complete, accurate, practical, and useful way to discuss the problem of forgiveness, we need to consider many more things associated with this question directly or indirectly, as well as some opposing aspects of it.

You cannot find the solution to this question in a few simple tips, in the proposals of psychologists, in the sermons of priests and monks, in Buddhist mantras or in the stories from the Bible.

Each individual instance of forgiveness and resentment has its own reason, own purpose, its own face.

There are some simple and very common reasons for resentment, simply due to a specific event or person. There are also very important and critical reasons for companies, organizations, and countries. Various reasons have to be evaluated, analyzed, tested, and resolved in different ways. You can't look for the same solution to different reasons and varieties of events. Moreover, it is not necessary to use generalized moral advice, which many people have wanted to give, but that has not brought any success.

Since forgiveness has many different reasons, the opposite of forgiveness, too, has many different causes and characteristics. Usually, the opposite of forgiveness is hate, resentment, anger, irritation,...

Forgiveness implies a certain degree of sin. The Bible lists many stories about forgiveness and sin. Many of you have heard the story about the woman who sinned, and should have been killed with stones, when Jesus passed by and intervened. He told the crowd that only those who have not sinned should cast a stone at this woman. No one threw a stone, because none thought that they were sinless.

This wonderful story passed down from generation to generation gives us a useful lesson in forgiveness and sin. Nevertheless, we must recognize the limitations of this story; the value and nature of sin and forgiveness limit it. Although this Bible story is widely known, in fact, it only applies to some types of sin and points of view, and while it contains some good solutions to the problem, it does not disclose the whole problem fully and accurately.

Human beings commit many different sins. They vary in content, in form, in their events and consequences. A person who has committed a crime must appear in court. In civilized countries, lawyers accuse or defend the accused, and the judge and the jury deliberate and pass judgment on the guilt or innocence of the defendant, according to the laws of the country, nation, age, or time. These defendants will have different sentences, heavy or light punishment, depending on the severity of the offense. Sometimes, the court discharges the accused because it is proven that he or she is innocent, or there is not enough evidence of guilt. Sometimes, even if it is proven that he or she is guilty; the court decides to reduce the sentence. Mitigation of punishment is a form of forgiveness, but it may depend on specific details, facts, and it's not as simple as we often think.

For example, if a man like a murderer or a terrorist committed a serious crime, but we continue to talk about morality and forgiveness, what would then become of society and humanity?

If it's only a minor offense and does not cause serious harm to any person or family, society, or the country, then we can discuss the forgiveness of this man.

But if the offense has caused a lot of other crimes, robberies, murders, especially by those who are called "war criminals", "instigators of genocide", "criminals against humanity", such as Hitler, Pol Pot, or Stalin, then how can we talk about forgiveness?

Perhaps it is neither good nor ethical to forgive ruthless, evil people who do not have anything human in them. Some people believe that forgiveness of the offender is immoral. Sometimes forgiveness of a crime or sin can mean complicity in a crime or sin, and that is already at odds with the will of God.

Religion advised us that we must forgive our enemies, those who act against us. Many of us have heard about the famous doctrine of the Bible – "turn the other cheek."

Spirituality is to learn to make decisions yourself, to act independently in all situations and under different circumstances.

When you are learning spirituality, gradually you will consciously feel gratitude, resentment, hatred, forgiveness, love, or no love. When you are learning spirituality, you will learn the freedom of choice. Each of us is given the full right from birth to act at his own discretion, to think what he wants, and not blindly to follow religious advice, stories from the Bible – any advice, including mine. I have no advice for you, no orders. Whether or not you "turn the other cheek" is your own choice, your own freedom of action.

The study of spirituality should be useful fundamentally. The spiritual world is in the invisible energies, but the study of this world always brings practical benefits into our material world.

With this real point of view, it is obvious that if someone really hits you on the cheek, it does not matter – it is important that we learn and understand the spiritual lessons, especially those valuable lessons that benefit others and ourselves.

Now we are discussing practical things and not beautifully spoken phrases that do not bring practical benefits or are used in lectures, so that you admire and applaud them. Lectures and prayers are very interesting to listen to, it's nice to think about them, but in real life, they remain only a theory without practical application.

In life, we always find a conflict with each other, and we can rarely avoid a slap in the face. So the study of spirituality consists of the fact that we must not take a blow to the face literally, but to see the hidden meaning, a hint to the real meaning of what happened.

It is possible that this event, among its other values, points to the existence of contradictions in our life, our failures, our wrong attitudes, bad behavior, and harmful actions of others towards us.

The more active we are in public life, the more we have contact with people, the greater the obstacles, problems, and difficulties in our way.

It does not happen very often that we meet good and kind people. Usually we are dealing with negative-minded, selfish, even heartless, and ruthless people. More rarely, we find good people who sympathize with others, people with a kind heart, who can open their hearts to us and help us.

In our life, everywhere, we can meet bad people, cruel people, jealous people. In real life, anywhere and at any time, we have the chance of meeting such people who are willing to hurt us for many reasons, which may be obvious or not. This can happen by chance, without any reason. Sometimes it's just their jealousy or envy. Quite often, we can run into people who decide to criticize us harshly. Despite the fact that we are acting correctly, at any time we can meet people who tell lies, who brag. We can meet swindlers, liars, people who offend us, who want to use us, to do us harm. All of this may be the meaning of the previous expression about the slap in the face by people in our lives.

In our daily social life, we regularly receive these "slaps in the face".

We meet bad people, come up against their evil deeds, selfish people, people with narrow-minded prejudices, jealous people, and envious people. We meet people regularly that intentionally or unintentionally cause us pain with their words, their behavior, or their actions.

If we perceive it all with displeasure, anguish, severe pain, hurt, deep hatred, and so on, we would not be able breathe or live.

We would not have time to work. We would not have time to rest. We would not have time for doing good things, to benefit from them and make sense of our own lives. Naturally, we would have no opportunity, no power, and no time to do good things for other people, our relatives, friends, brothers and sisters, family, society, and country.

Physiologically, people need food and they have material needs. If there is a need, there is a human weakness and an opportunity to act negatively, as well as to have various feelings, such as love, hate, anger, envy, or resentment.

This is the reason that in the course of our life, we can't always forgive a slap that we have received from others, just like we can't always good-naturedly turn the other cheek, as the Bible advises. Thus, there are exceptional cases.

We should learn to act clearly, realizing what is happening, and be able to adapt easily to the situation in order to survive, to get through any difficulties and dangers that may arise. Very often, arrogance and pride will result in even more damage than flexibility, simplicity, and accuracy in resolving difficult situations.

In other words, it is very difficult to forgive, because forgiveness means to ignore, overlook, or fail to notice everything, absolutely everything. We have to forget, to forget completely people's mistakes committed against us.

Of course, there are human errors that we can ignore, but there are also those that we can't forget.

If we can't forget them, then we should not do that, and we do not need to forgive them. Even if we forgive them, then perhaps it is not good and right, and we should not do so. Depending on each specific case and situation, depending on the time and place, we will always find the correct, appropriate attitude, and proper action.

There should not be any tips on how to forgive or not forgive; rather we should act according to God's guidance and the power of heaven above, according to our freedom of choice.

We talk a lot here about enlightenment, about love.

This means that you should enlighten yourself first; you should learn to love yourself first. And no one in this world can forcibly compel a person to do it. This is something that is difficult to grasp.

The search for enlightenment and love can bring a lot of practical use.

Returning to the discussion about "turning the other cheek," we can't forget the pain and humiliation of those slaps. Even if they happened many years ago, we might still remember them and we do not forget about them.

We can always find something that we can forget; this is something that we can do. This is something that will weaken our resentment.

We are able to stop thinking about our enemies, or not to think any more about how and in what way we will take revenge against them. When we are playing constantly in our heads scenarios about our possible victories over our enemies, then we lose a lot of physical energy through our feelings and resentment. It makes us weak; we can't eat and sleep normally. Worrying about how we will take revenge will make us tired, sad, and sick.

This means that the more we have reason to worry, the more we suffer... not our enemies.

The more we get offended, the more our enemies gain strength, and at the time when our enemies are indifferent to us, we are the ones who suffer, who are sick and sad.

Thus, we must do everything possible in our power to forget the crimes of our enemies. Forgetting does not mean the same thing as forgiving, as some of their actions do not deserve our forgiveness.

We must try to forget our enemies, not because of them and not for them, but most of all for ourselves. This must be done your own sake, for the sake of your emotions, your body, and your health.

Scientists have confirmed experimentally that the more a person holds onto resentment, anger, and irritation, the more his heart and his circulatory system will suffer. And this in turn will create toxins, increase blood pressure, increase blood glucose and cholesterol, will cause disruptions in the liver and kidneys.

Consequently, for the sake of ourselves, we should forget the hurt, or even for a moment forget about them, forget our pain, forget our enemies. And the realization that we are doing it for ourselves and not for someone else, and certainly not for the sake of our enemies, gives us a strong energy of self-preservation, which will give us the opportunity to do this and succeed.

This principle works in all situations.

When we say that you must learn to love yourself, it is only a motive. We can enhance this motive, this motivating force by removing, destroying our negative feelings of anger, anxiety, and hatred, and by gaining positive thoughts, positive actions, positive feelings.

God has created plenty of positive things for all of us. These are plants, grass, flowers, rivers, and mountains. When our hearts are filled with love for nature, flowers, forests, mountains, springs, and rivers, we can grasp many fantastic, amazing things.

This is about pleasure, happiness, and calmness.

As soon as we have felt, understood, embraced by the heart that from this point on, we have no space in our hearts and in our minds and no time for bad people, we will also become aware that our hearts are already full of pleasure, happiness, and calm, that they do not have enough space even for good deeds and good people. We do not even have enough time to do charity work for our favorite cases, for noble and useful things, and certainly, we do not have time for resentment, headaches, pain, and misery.

There is no need to love our enemies, something that some moralists and religious leaders tell us to do regularly. Love for enemies only exists in theory, only in words, in parables, in Buddhist prayers, and in the Bible. In real life, people are very rarely able to do it. And there is no certainty that this is correct, that it is a necessity to love your enemies.

This is not unconditional love, not bewildered love; this is a foolish love that is unaware of the existence of wisdom. Love without enlightenment and wisdom is love by mistake. It can't produce useful results, it can only bring harm.

Such defective love may be a motivating force to commit crimes or do evil, for evil people to do bad deeds and commit crimes again.

Therefore, there is no need for feelings of love for your enemies, but revenge – this is a different story. We should distinguish between these two different concepts and never look at them together. You can't love your enemies, but you should not take any action to get revenge on them. Moreover, you can help your enemies in certain cases.

In certain situations, for example, the US also helped Germany and Japan to support their economies during the period of recovery after the devastation of the Second World War. As another example, South Korea provided North Korea with food during the famine. To help does not mean to love.

We can also act a similar way towards our enemies in certain situations, in certain cases. We can help them when they are sick, when they are in danger. Even in helping your enemies, you do not love them, but you do not seek revenge on them. Even though we may not love our enemies, we remain human beings with wisdom and enlightenment, and not the people who go astray and wallow in hatred and suffering.

Almost everyone has a loved one or loved ones – it can be parents, a wife or husband, children, friends, or relatives. Usually we tell them about our love for them, but we need to go further than just words.

The great mistake of mankind, a big weakness of people, that took place in the past and continues to be repeated in the present, is that people recognize only the negative love, the theoretical love, and not real love, the love with no apparent benefit.

Thus, it is not the true love we all want and so desperately seek.

When true love fills your heart, your soul, your mind, there is no room for negative feelings, negative thoughts, and no room for resentment. As a result of this love, you will receive great benefits for yourself, for your body, to your health, and for your soul. These will be the fruits of your good deeds. These fruits will also bring benefit your family and loved ones, friends, and acquaintances. To enjoy these fruits, we must learn, we must explore and experiment to achieve wisdom and enlightenment. This painstaking work requires a great desire.

Probably, almost all of us have heard of Mother Teresa, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for her infinite contribution to mankind. It is very difficult to find even one person on earth who would devote her life to help mankind with such an open heart, and such love and compassion, as Mother Teresa did.

Mother Teresa taught us not to pay attention to bad behavior, wrong attitudes, and bad thoughts of sophisticated people.

Mother Teresa asked us to ignore the despicable people.

Mother Teresa told us to do useful and good deeds for humanity to fulfill the sacred and noble mission entrusted to us by God.

Mother Teresa said that criticism, praise, recognition, or condemnation of others are relative facts, but they are not true facts.

With deep respect for Mother Teresa, we can say that even her Nobel Prize does not matter.

We should only take into account God's assessment of us.

Usually when we talk about forgiveness and resentment, we are only talking about one side: our side. We ask only these questions. Do we have resentment towards other people? Can we forgive others? We do not ask the opposite questions. Have other people offended us? Why did they offend us? Why did they not offend us? Did other people forgive us? Why did other people forgive us? Why did other people not forgive us?

In real life, all these issues play a significant role and are very important.

In fact, even a monk who spent his entire life in the mountains can't escape a certain amount of criticism, insults, and outrage from people, although much less than that of ordinary people in a community.

In life, it is not possible to find a place or time where or when a person has no resentment and no criticism of others. It does not matter whether we are doing right or wrong, bad or good things – underestimation, discrediting words, and insults, and people's resentment will find us.

If we could get up high in the mountains or go far into the jungle, there we could find a secluded spot from the human bustle... where we could somehow avoid the confusing and problematic deeds of the world and its people. We can't do that, but we also should not do so.

To learn wisdom and enlightenment, you do not need leave society and avoid people; you need to be active in public life, both on the spiritual and on the physical path. The more you are involved in social life, the more you try to help your family and other people, the more puzzles (problems) will be in your life. We should try always to recognize the intolerable truths, such as ungrateful attitudes and various negative actions that are manifested in various forms, such as jealousy, envy, prejudice, criticism, or hatred.

And if you have a burning desire to find wisdom and enlightenment, then you should be learning constantly, and all intolerable truths will be transformed into tests that can be overcome, and by passing, you will find the strength to overcome all obstacles in your way. You will learn by using your wisdom, your enlightenment, your love and courage, how to overcome many of the things that prevent you and those around you from being happy.

We should all pay attention to the importance of those moments in our lives when we are criticized or accused of something. In truth, the critic, in rare cases, is negative, ignorant, and does not contain a grain of truth, but he creates the difficult to avoid obstacles. Criticism, negative comments, and accusations are fairly common in our lives. In most cases, they cause unpleasant feelings that are useless because people can't see the truth, which indicates that they need to change, understand, and improve. And as a result, a lot of people with good hearts, with good wishes have been discouraged, have been puzzled, have been scared, have been blocked by these criticisms, comments, and accusations. Fear has affected a huge number of people, and they not only stopped, but they did not even dare to stand on the spiritual and material path to learn wisdom and enlightenment to improve their love, to develop spirituality, to help themselves and others.

Another very important note is about causing pain or harm intentionally or unintentionally, which could be material or emotional, to other people. In the past, it's possible we were at war and hurt other people an infinite number of times, and sometimes even a lifetime is not enough to pay for all this animosity and resentment.

It's quite a tragic thing that in life, very few people can live and not cause pain, even if it's not great, to other people, intentionally or unintentionally.

Even more tragic is when we offend and don't even notice it.

Our concern about our forgiveness of someone is not as important as the question: "Did they forgive us?"

Even if we do not forgive someone, the damage is not so great, but if these people have not forgiven us, then the damage surpasses all imagination.

It is difficult to avoid criticism and hatred in human life. It is also difficult not to harm yourself or others. Only the application of spiritual knowledge in the material life will help a person learn to do truly good deeds for others and himself at anytime and anywhere.

All questions that exist only for human beings, such as gratitude, accusation, blame, hatred, forgiveness, and love, are multilateral with many characteristics. They all create tests and lessons that accompany us for thousands and thousands of years, but the human race did not understand them or forgot them. Humanity has no choice but to study, study, and study again. These tests and the lessons are much steeper when we talk about the family or society, where there are so many different factors, circumstances, and situations.

The history of humanity remembers the countless bloody wars that have destroyed countless numbers of people that broke out because of human hatred. And there was not, and there is no room for mediation; and there no one had or has any words to ask for forgiveness, which could stop the hatred and bring love and peace.

Despite the fact that all the hatred, all the wars, all the crime, and so on are a matter of human hands, we still have hidden enemies with veiled names, and they are the real enemies, the true enemies of humanity.

Our enemies are not people. The names of our enemies are dishonesty, dogma, and labels. This is something to think about. Here, you can find many new ideas that will bring huge benefits for the life of each of us who is willing to learn, study, and apply his knowledge in practice.

When we have learned not to see enemies in humans, then the heavens will open for us, the constant tragedy and suffering of humanity related to accusations, hatred, jealousy, and envy will disappear.

When our enemy is not a person, then we can solve the problem of resentment and forgiveness relatively easily.

When our enemy is not a person, then killing this enemy will not be a crime and a violation of any laws and will not go against our conscience.

When our enemy is not a person, then forgiveness is no longer a problem.

We said that it is very difficult to forgive. But when the enemy is just a word, just a thought, only superstition, only a point of view, then we can eliminate it, modify it, or replace it.

Perhaps it is not so easy to do. Nevertheless, it is much easier to do than to reduce the hatred for an individual, for people, a nation, or country.

Following the spiritual path of development, you can learn how to destroy your enemies, hidden under the name of great conceit, arrogance, pride, greed, selfishness, foolish desire, cruelty, and revenge.

Wisdom and enlightenment are the best "killers" of the above enemies.

Everything should begin with yourself. People, who have passed all the tests in life are evolved and developed. They deserve to get all the rewards from God.

All the rewards from God for sure will come, but they will come from the surprising spiritual world, through the spiritual path, in one form or another, at one time or another.

You should not wait for them, just like you should not do good deeds only because of the expected rewards.

I have already received many rewards from God: good health, a sense of youth, peace and happiness, and a life without any worries and commotions. What else should I wait for? I already have more than I need.

Freedom of choice

I am following the path of spiritual development, and I am constantly learning. Nobody forced me to do it. It was my own free choice. Other people do not want to learn, and this is their freedom of choice. No one and nobody should force or emotionally manipulate other people to learn spirituality. Anyone, including a child, should make that choice himself, without any pressure from any side from their parents, husband, wife, friends,...

Finding no help in the physical world to solve my health problems and having a great desire to help my children and my mother, I found help in the invisible world, in the study of spirituality.

Some people are beginning to explore the spiritual world out of curiosity. Some people learnt a little bit and gave up. There are many people with many reasons. And it does not matter if people continue to learn or not, it is important that the person has done what he thought was right for him, not because someone else did so. In this case, every action counts.

God has never forced anybody, and he does not deceive, but on the other hand, no one can deceive God. It's always a pleasure to talk about freedom, but freedom in life is very hard to obtain. In order to gain freedom, it is necessary to fulfill many conditions, both in the material and the spiritual life. Most people do not meet the sufficient conditions for freedom, and so they do not have it.

We can consider the freedom of choice using the example of food and clothing: how much are we free to choose our food and clothing that we wear? Is this freedom really there? As long as we have a lot of food that we would like to eat or clothes that we would like to wear, there will always be times when we do not have something or we are unable to afford something.

In life, the space and time in which we live limits us all. A person living in the East can't wear clothes worn by people in the West. For a person from a Western country, it is very difficult to wear the clothes of an Eastern country. People in Western countries are used to eating with knives and forks, and the people of China or Vietnam are used to eating with chopsticks. People in India like to eat with their hands. There are thousands and thousands of such examples.

There is no absolute freedom for people, there are limitations, and there is relative, human freedom.

If even with food and clothing, a person has no freedom of choice, what can we say about freedom of choice in politics or religion, which are at a higher intellectual and spiritual level?

Making a choice is a very difficult decision. Even if we are able to make a choice between two things, it is difficult. You have to know all the properties of each of the items. In fact, it is difficult to know clearly the true value or property of even one simple thing, to say nothing of when we need to choose one thing from many other offered things. These properties are, in fact, something that we cannot know. Many factors, such as skills, knowledge, time, and space, always limit us.

The importance lies not in what we are going to choose, but in the consequences of our choice. Will the selected item benefit or harm us? Sometimes the choice can bring little harm, and sometimes severe damage. Sometimes the choice can bring damage not only to our family and us, but to a group of people, a society, nation, country, to mankind, and the whole world.

And, of course, let's talk about the freedom of choice of the person, partner, lover, the person whom you will marry. This is a very important choice in human life. Happiness or misery, pleasure or sadness, success or failure in life depends on this choice. Many of you are lucky in that you have the freedom to choose your love, yet many people do not even have the freedom to choose their own marriage. In fact, even those who in their opinion are the lucky winners and the holders of the freedom to choose a spouse, do not have complete freedom of choice.

In life, we are always situated among many things, conditions, and circumstances. All of this distracts us, scatters our attention. It only takes one small or major change to our environment, circumstances, or conditions for "our free choice" to become quite different.

The choice of a partner or spouse in human society, in most cases, is the most confusing choice of all. This choice can be very successful, leading to lasting emotional relationships, but it will always depend on the era, country, nation, and society; each of which has different meanings and goals for these relationships

From an emotional point of view, marriage means the union of deep feelings in a relationship between a man and a woman. To create an emotional relationship, the necessary conditions in the environment must be satisfied: you have to be in relationships and communicate simultaneously with other people.

For the family, society, and country, marriage is a way to continue and increase the nation's population. Thus, depending on the country, nation, and region, family, society, customs, and traditions predefine a marriage. In any case, even if you have apparent freedom of choice, you can only speak about the relative freedom of choice of a spouse, which the invisible spiritual world always accompanies.

From a spiritual point of view, the love between a man and a woman has a very special meaning. On the surface, it is the union of the bodies of two people, but from a spiritual point of view, this is a meeting, a commitment of two souls, or the union of the two halves of a soul on earth.

Thus, the union between husband and wife, in fact, is not the result of the choice of two people, two bodies, as we are accustomed to think and see. This result is an amazing work of God, so that people can perform a mission on earth, such as to give life to a person, to love, raise, and educate children, to preserve and develop the nation and humanity.

Even if we are free to choose our spouses, our lovers, the deep truth is that God arranges it all from the invisible world.

This is very similar to what happens in the theater or the cinema. There is a script and what happens on stage is not really the artist's choice. The artist is responsible for only one thing – how well he will play the role. The role can be dramatic or comedic, principal or secondary, large or small, good or bad. What and how to play on stage depends entirely on the invisible author, writer, and director in the person of God himself.

If you feel and think about it, then the realization of this benefit for each of us will settle serenity, calmness, and clarity into our love, our marriage, and partnership.

Each of us can be happy with what he has indifferent to what he may have lost.

We do not need to complain anymore about our dissatisfaction with our partnership or our family.

We will not want to be like others anymore, to have a marriage like others, to have a family like others, to be happy like other people are happy.

Every person on this earth has his own faith, his own love or marital relationship, his own family, his own happiness.

Please, do not compare yourself to others because all happiness is relative, and every family has its own problems that other people may not know about.

We should try to get rid of the erroneous psychological thinking of the human being – that the grass is always greener. The grass on the other side of the mountain is not greener than the grass around your home.

Please do not get into this psychological trap, because this generates the majority of human suffering.

What we're talking about is not merely an idea or spiritual point of view; it has a strong scientific rationale.

When a merger of sperm and egg happens to create an embryo, it is a surprising act outside of consciousness, knowledge, understanding, and feelings. Scientists have collected all the conditions, these images were lined up in a row to demonstrate the process of conception. Artificial conception is an exception. Everything that scientists found was correct, except for one major detail: the egg does not choose the sperm that comes to the egg first, and not the one that is stronger; of the many thousands, it chooses the only correct spermatozoid for it. We cannot explain the reasons why this happens; it is not humanly possible.

The truth of conception may have the same meaning as love or marriage.

It is not a choice of one person or only one side – male or female.

These are harmonious vibrations between the two hearts and two minds.

Similarly, in the process of conception, harmonic vibrations occur between the soul of the sperm and the soul of the cell, the same feelings appear, a lively response happens, in which they are combined into one new piece and a new soul, a piece of body and soul of the fetus. This new physical piece and the soul of the fetus has yet to undergo a process of maturation, second by second, minute by minute for the creation of the billions and billions of cells of the body and nervous system.

This process ends with the formation of a magnificent body with many organs, body parts, and different forms and shapes the body.During this process, multiplying physical particles and the souls of these particles are in harmony with each other, sharing with each other the same goal – the nurture and protection of the living being, the embryo.This whole process is a preparation for the unification of a man, when the fetus becomes one and the soul of a man that God sent to perform a specific mission on earth, which is intended for this body.

In general, the question of choosing the souls of the body may be infinite and last as long as people wish to learn or study the spiritual energy and power of God.

Just as no one can explain and reveal the mystery of the surprising choice of the sperm by the egg, so no one knows exactly why we fall in love and get married to this woman and why she is married to this man.

Why, from a huge number of people, maybe from hundreds, thousands, or millions of other people in the world, do we find only one and have children with them?

Why are we happy only when we meet the one, when we live together with that one person on earth?

Why do we have so much heartache and cannot find a place for ourselves when we are apart from this one particular person on this earth?

Why, if a person does not have this only person on earth, does he continue to look for them or dream about them?

In reality, we do not like very beautiful people or the best people.

Our love has many secrets. Our heart has its own reasons for love, which our mind is not even aware of. Scientists do not know these reasons. Poets and writers are not aware of this either.

The answers are behind the mysterious door of spirituality. Please be brave and open the door.

Some people select the way which goes directly to the door, but this is not too common, and others are paving the road through the gardens behind the house or over undeveloped land.

Both are good, and eventually we all will discover this mysterious door.

Take the direct way or through the gardens, it is not so important.

The main thing is to go, do not stop; learn to make decisions for yourself, make your own choices. Make your own choices everywhere: in the choice of a wife or husband, a political party, the direction of the garden or a road.

The stability of the energy of the universe can be measured by the degree of love and compassion in every human being, which he shows to himself and those around him. And is there stability in our world today?

If a man has the desire to go along the spiritual path of development, he should ask himself openly and honestly: "What do I expect from this? What is the purpose of my walking on this road?"

If selfishness, greed, and lust for power control his desire, then this wonderful path of enlightenment will become thorny, and those desires will hinder the achievement of a high spiritual level.

But he, in this case, will have his own experience; that in itself is priceless.

Where to find help?

Rather than wait for help from something or someone, you should take the initiative into your own hands and start helping others and yourself to fill the earth with wisdom and enlightenment. How nice this all sounds! But how to do it?

Frankly speaking, it is not easy, but it's possible. First, you need to get a largely theoretical understanding and then begin to put into practice in your life what you have already understood. Then become a witness of how theoretical knowledge can be transformed into practical meaning.

When we talk to people about love, usually each of us has our own version or definition of it.

And what is your opinion?

What is love?

Is love an unknown phenomenon the finding and keeping of which will require a long and difficult process?

Why does each of us have his own definition of love?

If we really consider love an emotion, then where is its source?

Why are compassion and unconditional love the best way to cure a broken heart for this person?

When a person feels that someone sympathizes with him, supports him, and loves him, then at that very moment, the person feels that he is not alone. The more people able to unite in expressing their love and compassion for others, the less there are unhappy and lonely people. At such a moment, people radiate love, radiate energy, which warms their hearts and connects them with the creator and the keeper of the energy, with God.

Why do people always feel better when they are alone with nature, in silence, at the seaside?

When people learn to see all parts of the universe as one thing, and God as the creator of everything, love will find a permanent residence in their hearts.

Love is a state of inner peace, a state of infinite and constant communication with God.

In a state of love, the creation of peace and friendship between people happens easily as if at the behest of a magic wand.

Our hearts are no different from God's heart. We've all been sent to earth from a single source. We differ only by our consciousness, but when we enlightened, we are the same – we are ONE!

God's love for people is very significant and important, like the love of parents towards their own children. There is a visible and an invisible connection between parents and children. Similarly, there is a visible and an invisible connection between God and people, which can be both physical and spiritual, including the body and soul.

When you truly love, then you give everything you have. God loves people and gives them everything.

God gave us a perfect body compared to other living creatures on earth. God gave us the highest spiritual level in the universe with the ability to communicate with all life on earth, with the heavens and the earth, with the universe and God. Only a human can speak, knows language and words. Only humans have a culture, intelligence, education, music, art, opera, film, sports, and martial arts. Only a human has scientific, technical, mathematical, and medical knowledge.

Moreover, God created for us all of the natural wonders, such as the perfect blue sky to protect our common earth, sunlight to give energy to humanity and all living beings on earth, a large ocean to cool the planet, green plants to purify the atmosphere. God has created breathtaking scenery, provided the energy and minerals in the ground and above ground, in the ocean and under the ocean.

God has given, and we use many things. But how many people realize that all these blessings and gifts are from God?

Perhaps it is because God is invisible, and not many people are aware of the existence of God. There are those who realize this, but think that God is somewhere very far away, outside the universe, and thus they do not feel God's presence in their every breath, their every heartbeat, and in the world around them.

Who can help us when the soul is hurting? Where you can find help when you do not know where to go?

There is no need to go to distant lands in the fairy kingdom. Just open the window, smile at the sun, feel the breeze, realizing that all is one in this world, that you just briefly lost the connection with everything around you. Try consciously to restore this sense of unity, feel yourself as a part of this world.

Feel that without you this world would be different, that you are important to this world, but you are simply stubborn and you love when others persuade you. Those persuasions come through your life experiences, situations, problems with a single purpose – to learn to see this love, to be part of this love, to be the creator of this love, to be God.

In the meantime, let us continue our "education".

Disease, illness, disability, injury, old age, and death are a constant source of anxiety, unhappiness, and sadness for the people. This applies to everyone, no matter what kind of person or where he lives. It is a daily and real concern of humanity. It is good that medicine tries to help people to fight diseases.

Every second, every hour, and everyday people all over the world, in every country, regardless of position, availability of money, and living conditions, are faced with enormous challenges in the spiritual and invisible aspects, such as thoughts and emotions.

A man can't be happy when he separates the spiritual and material life. Of course, civilization and science are needed in our lives, but they only help people with health issues and with the issues of material life. They can't help people solve their spiritual problems, in particular, their thoughts and feelings. Often the pain caused by disease is not as strong as the pain of suffering. To cure the disease does not mean that the emotional pain will be reduced. A person can be sick, but not suffer. A person can be healthy, but suffer.

For centuries, people have tried to solve the problem of human suffering. They asked for help from spiritual masters and religious leaders. As a result, humanity has many spiritual masters, religions, religious leaders, priests, religious rules and prayers, and mantras. But humanity continues to suffer today.

I firmly believe that if each of us contributes to humanity, then the human life on this earth will be improved. Mankind has already made progress in science, medicine, and high technology. This is good. We need that.

But what is the price that mankind paid and is paying for these achievements? Everyone knows about the state of the environment, the numerous diseases, stress, tension, and so on. Why, to achieve success in this world is it necessary to suffer? Why can't we reach success in all areas of material life without heartache?

People have made progress in material life, but what should each of us do to succeed in our thoughts and feelings?

I want to make a spiritual, feasible contribution to assist people to even reduce slightly their anxiety and worries, allay their grief, reduce their emotional pain, to make them believe in themselves even a little bit, believe in their strength and in their capabilities. I went through a lot in my life; I know how it is when the soul aches. But I know how to help myself, how to help my thoughts and feelings, how to live without emotional pain and suffering.

Maybe my experience, my spiritual knowledge, my love for people will make my contribution a reality; maybe it will help some of you learn how to help yourself. Everything must begin with us.

People need to take a fresh look at their life, understand clearly what prevents them from finding peace, and they should want to change something. If the majority of people on earth want to be happy, want to break the chains, which restrict their movement ahead, God will come to help and fulfill the desire of mankind. It is time for mankind to make the choice, and everyone should start this global change within themselves.

Everyone should understand that something from the teachings of Jesus Christ or Buddha or Mohammed, while good for one person in one society, might not fit for another person in another society. That the doctrine may be correct in one situation and very tragic in the other; may help in one period of time, but not another. Mentally ask your heart to help you understand what is right for you and what does not work for you.

Following the teachings of others, even the highly spiritually developed, without changing ourselves, without developing our minds, without recognizing who we really are, is a dead end. Lengthy kneeling before an icon, thinking about various things, has never brought and will not bring benefits.

If a large number of people on earth want to clear their mind from all the feelings that cause suffering and express it through their inner intention, then the vibration of their divine intention will merge together. God will clear the consciousness of people in the shortest period of time and a new era will begin.

The difficulties in our life are improving our body and soul. We can neutralize the negative effects of everyday life consciously.

In our time, the struggle for peace and happiness in life came to a standstill and many people were in excruciating overload, previously unknown to us. The world is in the beginning of an exogenous-planetary transition, humanity is in urgent need of the intervention of God, so people can feel him in their daily lives.

Anger, hatred, and selfishness of mankind has put people in the face of international conflicts and wars, which have been going on from ancient times.Journeys to the moon or to other planets have been in the thoughts of scientists for a long time as a way to close our eyes and run away from the mess that we have created.

Our body needs food and clothing, and they are temporary. Consequently, our body is also temporary. The body is a tool designed to help evolve our soul and discover other dimensions in the universe. People know this. However, they do not dare to act and use their own soul.

All this for the simple reason that they are afraid to part with what is so valuable to them! Even knowing that all of humanity and all creations on earth are temporary, some people continue to worry about it. They do not want to accept death. To accept this philosophy and awareness of the fact that everything in this world is temporary, in their opinion, is to embrace a bad philosophy.

Wisdom and enlightenment are the result of our perseverance. We must learn from our experiences, even if they are bad.

And only with a noble and free from anger heart can we have a clear mind and pure thoughts.

When we die, we do not forget, we know everything.

Why we do remember nothing after being born?

We do not remember because our souls are universal energy, or "slices" of light from God. We were not people at first. The first time, like rays of light, God sent us to earth, and through many different eras, we have evolved into different living beings to learn and progress to become the people we are now.

Lack of memory of past lives is an integral part of proper growth and development. Thus, we are able to enter into a new life without guilt and with new features.

The most important thing is to be in the present rather than dwell on the past. Thus, when our souls come to the human body, then we forget all of the past, to learn in a new physical body. How does this new person learn? This person will explore a new culture. For example, if the person lives in Europe, he will explore the culture and customs of this country. When our souls come to these heavy physical bodies, we must study the customs and culture of each country. We must forget the past, to learn something new. If we remember all the old, how could we learn something new? While our souls are in the physical body, this is true. But as soon as our souls are freed from the hard physical body, then we will know everything.

If you knew that you were the king in your past life, but in real life, you are a regular worker then maybe you would want to kill yourself. If you were a bad person in a past life and in this life, you're good, then maybe you would blame yourself all your life. Thus, we must forget the past to get new lessons.

Those who are not indifferent to this world and have created many attachments remember the divine energy and the permanent protection you have from the first second after your birth. Hence, there is no room for anxiety or for fear! Do not rely on anyone or anything, only on God!

God has brought me, you, all of us into this life. Come along together in this life, let us join hands, and try not to restrict the freedom of others. Otherwise, we will lose our own freedom.

What to do?

We must always remember that all things exist in our minds, and we can always keep peace there, whenever we remember God, and that each of us is a part of the divine world.

To visualize and tie together our daily life with spirituality, we should try to acquire such personal qualities as the ability to feel compassion, love, and forgiveness. This would mean that a person lives according to the laws of nature. To live by the law is to live peacefully without worrying, with a sense of security. Living according to these rules will affect not only your life but also the life of all mankind. The result of the acceptance of the "natural law" is pure freedom. Only by achieving freedom are people able to see all of their everyday problems with an internal appreciation!

On the way to enlightenment, we must first learn to feel compassion. In order for natural love to become dominant on the spiritual path, we have to accept everything in our lives as it is. This is the first step towards enlightenment.

The roots of compassion, altruism, and goodness penetrate love. You should learn to love everything within yourself and not divide things into bad or good. Always remember that God, in spite of his absolute loving kindness, will create problems for us so that we can learn from them.

We must learn how to forgive or simply forget about resentments. By forgiving others, we relieve them of a number of problems, which they have to go through. By forgiving, we free our minds from hatred.

Why do we love only those who bring us advantage and benefits? Why do we not try to open our eyes? Why do we not see that those who have caused us harm and made us feel miserable, are angels that God sent to us?

God sent them so that we could learn and gain more benefits and more advantages! Only the soul returns to God, and it is God who gave us this gift. But if you are able to recognize this, then you're already at the next level of spiritual development!

Some of us think that they live with love in their hearts, and, therefore, ask only for themselves all the best. Stop being selfish! If you pray, you pray for everyone. If you wish for goodness, then you should desire the same for everyone! You ask God to pave the way for you, ask for the same thing, in exactly the same way, for everyone. Thus, you will pave the way for others, and then you will discover that the road is becoming smoother and freer, and you have more and more friends, and they are closer to you.

All that we desire for ourselves, we should desire for others too. Then we will not be lonely. We will have no more anxieties. Each will be our friend and favorite person, and everyone around us will love us. This is because we want all the good and the very best for them.

These are the characteristics of the Golden New Era, which is ready to open, where everyone will have a smile on their face and peace in their heart. The New Era is a period of union.

We need each other in this world, and we should appreciate and respect everyone. We must not forget the fact that we all want to be "Good!"

Always remember that if we suffer, it is a result of our own greed and lust for more.This is the result of our endless "want" of this or that, and when we have it, we do not want it, we want something different!

When you learn to be happy by yourself, you should teach others to do so as well.Start with those people who are the closest to you: your parents, spouse, and children.When they are happy, then we will be well and happy.

When you realize that other people are trying to upset you, then tell yourself that you are aware of their intention to upset you and leave them to God; ask God to remove from "them" their reaction to stress, so they do not cause any harm to themselves or others .

Remember that every philosophy and every word that we study and understand is an additional node and one more doubt in our minds. Just let love easily and thoroughly get inside you, feel the truth of life, and trust your feelings. The purpose of language is to express our thoughts to the outside world, but spirituality is invisible and has no boundaries.We can not use the limited to describe the invisible and infinite.

All of humanity, and each of us, is tied to the top, where there is light and happiness for everyone in this world of the universe.In this world, there are no divides, laws or money, and all human desires can be fulfilled.

We need to clean ourselves! Let's clean out all the old thoughts, selfish thoughts, unhappy thoughts, and all the thoughts that limit our freedom. They do not help us in moving up in the search for happiness. They stop all movement in finding our happy life.

Are you brave enough to do it? Do you dare to explore it?

This life can't offer us anything stable. Everything changes... everything is in motion. This movement is the vibrations of the galaxies, the stars, the cosmos, the universe. And we, too, as an integral part of the creator of all creation, through our life experiences, situations, and relationships with people, "vibrate" and make a personal contribution to this movement. Different life situations... different vibrations. Just one note: "Man and only man is given such a right – the right to make a conscious choice."

Knowing the limitations of the human body, feeling how good it is to live in love, and how destructive it is to live in fear and hatred, we should ALWAYS try to help our own feelings. Indeed, through our feelings, we are connected with the universe and with all its components.

We all need to remember these simple truths: "as the call, so the echo" or "as you sow, so shall you reap." Everything comes back: the love and the hate.

So what do we choose? And what do we need to do?

CHAPTER 3

The merger of the road of life and spiritual path or

How to act or

Change themselves, rather than waiting that someone will do it for us

There can be no plans, schedules, regulations, or rules drawn up on paper items with the deadlines. Life will establish this rule, as an integrated part of the universe.

If a man can't accept the fact that each of us is part of the universe, that an invisible but all-powerful hand of God directs each of us, then any "practical" guide to action will always be only a theoretical guidance.

It is a fact that an invisible force gives us the ability to breathe, supports all of the human body driven by all the processes of human life, such as birth, growth, aging, and death. This invisible and omnipotent power, which we call God, keeps the universe and its inhabitants in constant motion, in the process of constant changes and improvements.

It is a fact that scientists have proved many things that can be calculated, measured, weighed, or photographed using the latest technology and equipment. In the physical world or in earthly life, only evidence that proves the fact that it is occurring in a limited physical world can be obtained. Thus, in the physical world, many people only believe in the proven fact of the physical world. For such people, if proved, it is true, and if there is no evidence, there is no faith. This is a huge misconception of mankind.

We can also prove that an invisible force affects all creatures of the material world, but this power can't be confirmed officially and can't be studied in the laboratory. As a result of this problematic point of view, many people have lost the chance to believe in the power of God, especially now, when something new is going on and it still has to be proven clinically. Regardless of how it is useful, without proof, it will be rejected.

It is a fact that you can't prove the existence of non-existent facts in the physical world by using physical methods of proof. In the spiritual world, the laws and regulations of the human world do not work. The proof God's existence, the invisible world, is not knowledge but feelings and sensations. There is nothing to prove: it should be simply feeling in our every breath, every exhale, every beat of our heart.

Can a person separate physically the physical body and the variety of feelings to which he is capable of? No. But man has learned to separate his material and spiritual lives. This division has led to the fact that a man does not know how his own body works or how to manage his own feelings, causing man's suffering.

The physical and the spiritual world of a man have to exist as a single unit. When a person understands and realizes this, he feels that his soul has no boundaries, that he is inseparable from the whole universe, from God. When a person understands and realizes that God creates all human beings on this earth and God's program guides each of us, thus we have nothing to divide, that we have no reason to suffer and fight among ourselves. We are all part of one indivisible whole.

It turns out that you do not need to love others; you must first learn how to love yourself. Once man has learned to love himself, he will love everything and everyone as a whole with himself automatically. This love to himself will be proportional to the whole world around him.

Human consciousness is chained to the identification of himself with his physical body. The reason for the existence of human selfishness is the maximum concentration of attention on his physical body. It kills all human qualities inside a man.

A man says: "This is my car." The word "my" is the keyword to separate the machine from all other physical objects. The man said, and he separated the car from himself, acknowledging that he is not a machine.

A man says: "This is my idea." Everyone understands that this man wants to separate himself from the others, to show his inventiveness and peculiarity. Even if the correctness of this idea requires evidence, we feel division rather than unity in the word "my". The man said, and he separated this idea from himself, confirming that he is not the idea.

It's not a secret that human feelings are not the physical part of the body. When a man says: "My feeling tells me something," then the keyword "my" separates those feelings from what other people feel. The man said, and he separated his feelings from himself too, confirming that he is not a feeling.

The man says: "My body is getting old." He separated his own body from that of others. The man said and he separated his body from himself too, confirming that he is not his body.

In our lives, there are many such homogeneous words like "my", "me", "mine."

So who am I?

Body? No! Mind? No! Intellect? No! Feelings and sensations? No!

The body, mind, intellect, and feelings are my tools, and I, their host.

To strengthen the higher human qualities, we should develop the principle of unity; we should learn to see that everything is a single entity... the unity. We should take a principle of unity as the religion.

Religion is an awareness. An awareness of what? Who am I!

So, we're not talking now about other people – we're talking about each of us, nothing more. Everything must begin with yourself. We will try to realize what it is our true self.

2CM – Please try to keep this thought in your head:

I am not trying to add new information in my head – I am trying to learn how to clean up my mind, which already is junk overloaded to the limit. I am trying to remember nothing – I am trying to read and feel what I am reading about. In the following text, we will refer to this idea as 2CM – Cleansing Mind.

For example, when you remind yourself of the 2CM, try to "look" at what is going on in your mind as if from the outside and stop the last thought.It does not matter what kind of thought came to your mind, you should learn to detect and stop it at least for a moment.If you manage to break through the flow of your thoughts and "catch the tail" of the last thought then the goal is reached.

If the content of this thought was negative, try to remind yourself that you are trying to learn how to clean out your mind such thoughts.For example, if you recognized your last thought, and it "talked" to you about how you hate your boss for unfair treatment of you, how it hurts you, and so forth, then try mentally to isolate it from of the total flow of your thoughts.

Pay your attention on this thought; take care of it.

Try to realize that this isolated thought has nothing to do with your boss.Your boss possibly drinks beer with his friends at the bar, and your negative thoughts cause damage to your health.

Try not to judge yourself for any thoughts.It is just thoughts. They are invisible, they can't be heard. One by one, they should "be pulled out" from the rapid flow of thoughts in your mind. They should have your attention, understanding, and "talking to them," let them go.

1P – Try to remember and not to violate this rule:

I have to do everything with pleasure.

We are not talking now about such pleasures as lying on the green grass under the warm sun.We are talking about inner pleasures, when the brain does not understand everything, but you have a good sense when the brain does not agree. However, there are good feelings, when the brain requires evidence, and the soul has already felt the truth.

As often as possible, you should control your emotions and feelings: if there is an uncontrollable desire to begin or continue research of your true self then you have to put it off until later and wait for the desire to appear.

The more often you check your feelings, the closer you are to the emergence of such a desire.

Any kind of violence of your true feelings leads to a backlash, takes you away from the spiritual path.

In the following, we will refer to this rule, as in the 1P, as a rule that is performed with Pleasure.

I will constantly remind you by the abbreviation 1PM2CM when you need to verify 1PM2CM.

The verification of 1P2MCM is that, before reading the next paragraph, you need to draw attention to yourself, "look within", and to ensure proper implementation of the foregoing rules of 1P.

If you still keep the inner joy, pleasure, then you should take the next step to Control Your Mind.

If in the process of trying to control your mind you find that by reading this book, you often do not agree with this or that fact, then control of your mind is implemented correctly! Congratulations!

The mind is always trying to refer to someone else's information, opinion, a book, an article in the newspaper, and so on, to stop you from finding your truth.

We are not talking about the industrial technologies – we're talking about finding your own self, which only you can find!

If the mind protests, is trying to pretend to be "smart", or shows no signal, and the soul yearns to continue the search, the rule 1P has been performed successfully!

Now it is time to check the presence of a constant 2CM thought in your mind. You should now have the inner intention to take care of your overloaded mind, to calm him, surround him by warm 1PM feelings of and to release him from 2CM unnecessary information.

Without respect for these two conditions, you will be adding new information to your mind, not changing anything inside yourself. This is also good if you think so.

_________

1PM2CM: You must agree, you should feel that it's time to change something in your life, that there is no way to continue that. It does not matter what should be changed, it is important to change. This may be changing health-related issues, work, relationships, negative feelings, the place of residence, and so on. Therefore, there was a desire to change. It is a good thing.

_________

Once a desire to act appears then immediately, a resistance arises. Our laziness appears. If you ever wondered about the role of laziness in every human life, it is time to pay attention to it. These familiar words, such as "later on", "tomorrow", "many things to do", "from the new year", "on Monday" are the explicit expressions of opposition with the "face" of laziness. What to do? We do not need to work, in the sense of working with a spade. You just have to pay attention consciously to the presence of this resistance, mentally say 'hello' to it, and say, "I recognized you, my dear laziness. Do not even try; your tricks in the form of "serious reasons" are not going to work!"

When you talk to it, you already feel self-respect, even if what you are doing is something you have never done before, and this is the beginning of your changes!

Please do not ignore your "small" successes. Pay attention to them, give them your smile and your successes will want to multiply! Please do not worry if you can't do something, as recommended here. You may find your own approach. Most important is to try something new!

However, do not think that one conversation with this laziness is enough. For many years, you did not notice it, you just ignored it, and it missed your attention. For all these years, it was collecting and accumulating the experiences, words, reasons, explanations. You need to be alert!

Talk to it mentally, saying again and again, that you recognize your dear laziness. As soon as its ability and ingenuity runs out, it's a sure sign that it's time to move on to the next step in the way of your exploring and changes.

Some people trust completely the "authoritative" words of their laziness, which assert that there is no possibility for any changes. They just give up and forget about their desire to change something in their life.They can only complain of fate, God, the family, the boss, but not on their self, their laziness.

I hope that you have coped with the first step of this practical guide and are ready to take the next step.

Remember the lessons of physics taught us that the greater the power of effect, the stronger the resistance? Your desire might be measured not by force but by effort that needs to be done to fulfill your desires and that depends on many factors, such as the duration of the presence of this desire, the power of your habits, people around you, and the actions of your ancestors,. Let the actions that could be applied to any desire guide us.

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1PM2CM: When you feel that laziness does not find more reasons for your concern then you will need to be alert!

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Laziness will provoke your ego – its best friend.

The human ego "hates" any changes!

"Ego" will fight, just to change nothing!

The "ego" has your own approach, words, and explanations to stop you from actions and changes. These familiar words as "too late to change anything", "yes, I have no strength for anything", "even Steve could not do it, so I can't do it for sure", "health will not stand", are obvious signs of activation of your "ego". You should talk with him, explain that you know whose voice manifests itself, saying please do not try, and leave me alone.

Be careful and you'll see how it works in your mind, you will learn how to "hear" your selfish thoughts that have such a demanding and loud "voice".

The thought from God is always quiet and calm, it is so easy to miss and not pay attention to.

The thoughts from "ego" have the voice of a spoiled child: "I want to!... I do not want to do!... Give!"

The main things in this "case" is not to give up; do not retreat after the first failure. Any words limit any feelings, so it is always necessary to remember that word – it is only a limited part of all that is "hidden" under these words.

We cannot have failures. Any of our new actions, any of our new approaches, any of our new ideas are already a step ahead. Development helps us understand who we really are.

In order to "practice" with your "ego" to learn clearly to recognize his "voice" in the form of your thoughts, try paying more attention to yourself. I'm not saying that you should often came to the mirror and correct your hair; I'm talking about attention to your feelings, those thoughts that cause you suffering.

For example, you met your old acquaintance at a bus stop. You greeted, hugged, and happily met each other. She asked how you were. You said that everything seems fine and nothing significant had happened in your life. Your friend enthusiastically described her extremely successful life and interrupting on the half word, you waved your hand, jumped on a bus, and disappeared.

She completed her mission. She accomplished the task that God has assigned to her. Therefore, through this meeting with your friend, God sent you a lesson that you could learn. And how do you feel? The mood sank. True?

If you can just "stop" a drop in mood and determine that your "ego" was activated, then only one such conscious thought is able to give you back your good mood and make you smile.

This thought that you recognize what has happened to you, that you all understand and that you are aware. But what is the most important is the fact that you deliberately stop the flow of your thoughts for a moment, and this God's opportunity to put new thoughts and ideas in your mind.

This is an extraordinary feeling! This is the real power over your own thoughts! You will see that God sent your friend to test your readiness for the next lesson in life! If you have passed this "little" lesson, then you have opened the road for the next lesson. If you have not passed it, nothing terrible has happened –God will give you the same lessons until you pass them all. If this does not happen in this life, that's okay. In future lives, you will make up leeway in this life.

But if you "skip" a very beginning of your dropping mood, its falling and getting into a state of "bad" mood, then you are subconsciously under the control of your "ego". Your "ego" is always happily waiting for minutes to eat, will send you the following thoughts: What a wonderful life for people! It seems nothing good in my life is going to happen.

Your "ego" paved a small road, and if you did not recognize it, now it will "eat" a mouth full. My friend's husband earns a big money, therefore, well, they go to resorts for a rest, they have such good children, but my children bring me only a grief, and so on and so forth.... Is that not so?

But even if after a few hours, days, years, you realize what happened at the bus stop with your mood, then this will be the most evolutionary step forward. Never forget to congratulate yourself on your success achieved in the way of evolution!

Suppose that you coped with your internal tides and you noticed consciously, then you feel that something in you has changed. Please, do not miss those important moments in your mind! Gradually you feel such invisible power, at first small, in yourself that you had not even imagined.

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1PM2CM: But once you glad your changes, then again, beware!

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"Ego" will apply "heavy artillery".

"Ego" will be playing the role of victim.

This is a favorite "theatrical" role of human selfishness.

In this role, you have so much to say, you can fall so low, you can demonstrate your fall dramatically, so convincingly come into the position, sometimes for many years. "Ego" is sending a man the following thoughts: Isuffer because she has betrayed me, acted dishonestly towards me, spoiled me all my life, she is so bad, and I'm ALWAYS so defenseless, sensitive, good-natured, trusting, and it's so easy to hurt and harm me.

These thoughts simply paralyze the man. If they take control over the man, then he falls into the "black tunnel" where there is no light.

Looking at this situation, laziness also extends its hands for embracing.

Resentment, seeing those arms, is also in a hurry to show its hands.

But as soon as the resentment is activated, the hatred and anger want to "feed up" and rush to extend their arms.

And the man, immersed in the psychic energy with the names of "laziness", "selfishness", "resentment", "hate", and "anger" begins to talk to them, communicate with them, exchange views, coming up with new and new versions of "mental additions" to ones already in stock. If you do not recognize it, if not cleared in time, they will continually develop their energy potential.

If you pay attention to yourself, you will be able to detect that you provoke all these negative thoughts after you have wanted something that seemingly has nothing to do with the negative baggage.

For example, you might want to move to another apartment. Your laziness "distracted" you from the main thoughts, from the desire to move. Laziness has sent you the thought that "it is the same to burn twice, than once to move." Feel sad? You had thought you would ask relatives to help. Your relatives want to inform your mother about the move, which you will never forgive. That it is. The feelings of resentment toward your mother had covered your mind. Thus, the black tunnel, the sufferings have arrived. Who did it for you? You did it.

But that's not all – this negative energy potential is growing because of the similar mental energy it is borrowing constantly from other people, even if the people are not aware about it.

If you are too clever, this can kill you; if you are too stupid, this can kill you too, but the true awareness can save your life.

What is borrowing mental energy? This is when you were relaxed walking with a friend down the street of the evening city and suddenly your friend imagined that someone was standing behind the corner, and that he whispered that it is very dangerous to walk the streets at such later time. You feel his fear and you become scared. But you didn't see anyone around the corner – you just have stepped up your already existing fear and began to borrow the mental energy of fear from your friend, so now you are both scared, and you getonto the first bus. You breathe a sigh of relief sitting on a bus and begin to reason that was no risk. A woman, who heard your conversation, felt your fear, better to say, her own dormant fear had activated, and she began to tell you a terrible story. She talked about what happened twenty-eight years ago at the same place and at the same time. You all got scared.Everyone had more fear. That's how people share their "feelings". We must be alert.

An experiment, please. Go to the mall when you have not had lunch, but are already hungry. When hungry people surround you, you too want to eat. If you try to pay attention to your own hunger, you feel that you are not hungry. If you, as usual, did not pay any attention to yourself, it is very easy to perceive the hunger of these people as your own and eat again. Interesting?

It is the spiritual knowledge applied in the physical world.

So, we stopped on a sad note.We talked about the fact that there is a close relationship between a man and mental energies with the names of "laziness", "selfishness", "resentment", "hatred", "anger", and our other "teachers".

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1PM2CM: Usually people with this kind of "relationship" who still do not want to give up its intention to change their lives are able to identify the names of these "teachers" and assess instantly what is happening to them... it is bad.

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If it is bad when you have laziness, selfishness, resentment, hatred, or anger, as then you have to fight with them!This is mankind's greatest mistake.

God created EVERYTHING in this world. Even this simple sentence in itself manifests the UNITY. Everything in the world is in the unity.

So why did God create laziness, selfishness, grudge, hatred, and anger? To give us possibilities for learning and improving!

And people did not and do not want to learn lessons on time. To purify ourselves from these "teachers" constantly, they save, preserve, and cherish them as a symbol of their own choice! Is that so God is involved in the sufferings of the people?

Let's take a bit of a joke but in every joke, there is only a fraction of a joke. Imagine that God created a man and a woman. There is only them. Love reigns between. The birds are singing. The grass is green. This couple are fishing and singing songs all day. The child was born. Everyone became even happier. They are together with the songs. More children were born. So lots of fun all together. Then the children from their children were born. Again, all are in friendship and love. Thus, there are a lot of people having fun, singing, and fishing. And so it goes on for ages and generations. It is not possible to write a terrible story. So for all centuries you can only write one book. And this book is about how all have the fun, as everyone loves to sing and fish. And the next generation, after reading this only book will transmit it to the next generation. Bored? No, it is fun to read, as an anecdote.

If God, following our wishes, did not create a "bad", how would we know that we have so much good? How can you rejoice at the light when you're sitting in a white room filled with bright light? The light is clearly visible in the darkness!

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1PM2CM: The single-celled organism in the evolution had developed, improved, and transformed into plants, then animals, and then into a man. So, this evolution system, which God created, works brilliantly! Now it is the time for the evolution of a man! If a single-celled organism could develop into a plant, what can we expect from mankind?

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Mankind has two options. One way is to show off its stubborn horns, bend its sunken chest, and cough from the polluted air and say: "I do not want to change and I am not going to do so. I am a God. I am my own Lord!" After that, he makes a voluntary self-destruction. The other option is path unification: the path of unity, a path of changes and evolution. So what do we choose, gentlemen?

Of course, the first path: the shortest that does not require any effort. It is quick, painless, and permanent.

The second method requires the efforts of each one of us.

But I am a witness and a performer, it's worth it!

Fear has big eyes. And if you understand your fear, feel it, talk to him, comfort him, it will be transformed.

A man can't catch his fear, until he creates it by himself. Every person, surrounded by mental energies of fear, resentment, and hatred, is suffering. And he suffers because he can't see the light and feel the love coming from God, because a dense dark energy surrounds him. Clean them, learn how to transform them into the light. Learning means that you are changing. Changing means that you are developing;developing to improve and evolve.

So, we need to realize that our lives do not need to be divided into "bad" and "good". We must learn to understand that "good" is passing easily, and the "bad" can teach us a lot. A man can learn if he is able to overcome his "laziness" or something invisible, which was not created by God but a man.

God diligently created the difficulties for a man, to give possibilities for a man to learn and improve. Not all people like and want to learn. God has given and gives people the training material, has sent and sends those people-teachers who create and produce the difficulties, or "bad" things, so that his children could learn and become outstanding and intelligent people. As a free supplement to these hardships, God has given and gives each his own child a free choice. Only a man can make up his choice: learn or not learn.

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1PM2CM: The first people on this earth, having received the first "combat mission" from God by way of a difficult situation, were confused by this sudden change. They rejoiced over the centuries, the fish were caught, only one book was read, and then suddenly something happened. So they gather and think: what do we need to do? Suddenly a man comes forward and says, "I know what we should do. I have an idea."

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An idea was not just born in his mind, he started to apply his idea into reality. This new idea was first applied into the life of mankind. It not only allowed for resolving the difficulties for people, but also brought them much good in the future, as people used the idea for many other cases.

It's just a one difficult situation, but what a huge role it played in the evolutionary path of mankind! A single man has helped all of humanity. He helped because he did not have any fear and doubts, which could stop him. He helped because he did not have only personal interest and desire to help only to himself; he lived according to the principle of unity, not division.

All the people then thanked him and gave him the name to highlight his originality.

If they had settled on it, then everything would have been with us now in a different way!

By assigning a name, they divided the people into those who have a name, and those who have no name. Thus, millions of years ago, the fatal mistake was made, the consequences of which we mop to this day!

Thus, began the emergence of the first feelings of envy, fear, hatred, greed, selfishness, competition,....

What does the emergence of such feelings show us?

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1PM2CM: A man appears in this world without the "ego". Such were all the first people on earth who lived on the principle of unity. These people perceived interests of others as their own, took care of themselves in the same way as others were in the world of peace and love, and they were clean in their thoughts, as solar rays of morning light. They were always connected with God, the universe, with everything living on this earth. The energy of God or the energy of love nourished them constantly.

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They lived a very long time and did not know the diseases. Since they were pure in their thoughts, then they perceived the energy of God without any refraction, with every cell of their body working as a purely divine nectar.

They received God's love and returned it back. So there was a natural communication between people and God.

But the evolutionary process of creation can't stand still, it requires change, development, and improvement. God as a loving and caring father, wants to see his children in the development, he wants to see their own creations. Create and develop a man for new ideas, new actions, and for when changes occur.

When we are good, do we want to change something? When we are happy, we want it to last forever. Is not that so?

So what could God do? Create situations in which our wits, courage, resourcefulness, our expression of power over our own emotions are needed. After, we have to think before saying that everything in our life is so bad!

Yes, so God shows us that he has hopes for us, trusts us, believes that we will be able to cope with a situation, we will learn, will change, and will improve! We should be proud of such trust rather than saying "everything is bad!"

But some of the first people on earth, after the first name of the person for outstanding contributions to humanity was awarded, thought for the first time in their lives, but also in the life of mankind, the idea of "why did this idea not come to my mind?"

The keyword "me" or "my" first sounded! Thus, arose the first feeling of envy, there was a further division.

What does this mean? It's like in a room bathed by bright light, where there is a tiny dark corner where no light penetrates. And in the human body, where his heart was previously linked with God, there was a transformation of a tiny light of love into a tiny dark called "envy". Thus, for the first time, on such a tiny piece, a man lost the connection with God.

Once this transformation occurs with one man, changes have taken place in his feelings and he wants to share it with another man. Those supported this feeling of envy, after which a few people won a tiny ruptured relationship with God.

Then the negative feelings began to transform, multiply, develop, evolve; in other words, there was a steady "professional" growth of negative feelings. It was very difficult for people with pure thoughts to resist such an infection spreading from people who have violated the principle of unity and pure intentions.

From the frequent repetition of the same life situations, challenges, and without going through the lessons that God sent for people, they began to acquire the habit of living with such feelings as hatred, anger, selfish ambitions, and greed. The acquiring of habits means that people are living without changing anything, just accumulating the stock of "negative" and passing it automatically from generation to generation. More and more, there was a rupture of man from God.

What does it mean to rupture man from God? At the beginning of human existence, when people lived by the principle of unity and with pure intentions, they took and sent the light into the universe.

With the appearing of negative thoughts, or heavy mental energies, only a small part of the energy sent by God was in constant exchange with the man and the other part of it was transformed into a heavy energy, sank down on the earth, and penetrated into its depths.

Over millions of years of human existence, the negative energy accumulated too much, the balance of good and evil began to be broken more and more people, as mother's milk sucked into them the envy, greed, selfishness, or evil passed down from generation to generation. They almost lost complete faith in God. Lost faith in God and many people who go to church every Sunday only because of the fear of being condemned by society.

When a man loses faith in God, the Creator, his parent, then he feels lonely and insecure and this causes a huge and continuous suffering in him.

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1PM2CM: It is time for all of us to pay attention to how we live.

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How can you be happy if you do not know who you really are?

The man who can't answer this question is always blindfolded and is trying to identify a right place for him in this life by touch, and as a result, there are a lot of committed mistakes, problems, and for some, there is no way out.

Many people who have lost connection with God live and sleep on the go. They lose themselves in their thoughts. Fully immersed in the dark mental energy, in the absence of light, which means in the complete absence of thoughts from God, they are "cooking" similar sentences in their own mind by simply rearranging the same words.

Therefore, we are determined that after recognizing their own fear, resentment, anger, or envy, people have already taken the first step towards change and improvement.

The next step in this direction is your consent, acceptance, no denial, no condemnation, no hanging tags with the name of "bad" on the fact that you luckily have found out. Very often, immediately after the acceptance of this fact, your anger, envy, fear, desire to be a victim drops significantly. You will feel it! You will suddenly breathe easier; you will have the feeling that your body has become lighter!

If you have a problem of recognizing even only one negative feeling, it is a sign that your "ego" has taken complete control over you.

In this case, try to be away from your negative emotions. Try to accept the fact that you have a large and strong selfishness, which your long-term activities nurtured to meet only your own interests. Try to recognize the fact that your "ego" was operating without your conscious control and your attention.

Think about and try to find at least one case in your life when you would act to obtain benefits not only for yourself but for others. If you cannot find this fact in your life, it does not matter, you've already made a small step along the path of change, because such a thought, perhaps, had never come to your mind. Therefore, I congratulate you heartily with the fact that you can't find this fact in your life and the fact that you found it out!

In the end, it does not matter: the important thing is that you tried to take a fresh look at your life.

To change something in yourself, you should act gradually, with love for yourself, with a desire to understand what is happening in yourself and to love all that you have.

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1PM2CM: A fear, when it was understood, when it was realized as a kind of mental energy that was transformed from a divine energy, will again be restored into the divine energy. When we agree with something mentally, mentally take it as it is, we already transform our mental energy.

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If it were joyous feelings, they become brighter. If it were negative feelings, but we do not fight with them, but we intent to understand them, then our thought of acceptance of the fact will neutralize the negative effects of mental energy, reducing it and increasing the purity of our thoughts.

Just imagine that you have created a fear in yourself many, many times. Your thought created your fear. You have the ability to create using your thought. You have transformed the Divine energy into the energy of fear. You "know" how to do it! So why not use your own "ability" and transform your fear into the divine energy? Each of us can do it!

Why so many suffering people? Because they did not do their "homework".

Here is a student is in fifth grade for the first time. God prepared many instructive lessons that correspond to the fifth grade program for him. This man is lazy, does not want to learn, and finds all sorts of excuses not to learn. It's time to take the exams. This student did not pass all of them. God left him for a second year in fifth grade. The lessons, which he did not do in the past year still, have remained unfulfilled but they need to be done to move to the next grade. But since new technologies come into our lives, the fifth grade curriculum has included new lessons that can be done only by relying on knowledge of past material. The previous material has not been studied, but new additional material has been prepared, which is necessary for the final examinations in the fifth grade. If in the first year, the student has learned nothing, then it will require double efforts in the second year to catch up with the previous material and the current study. Not only has the amount of educational materials for the fifth grade increased, the laziness of the student has also increased. The greater the effort required, the greater the resistance to be granted. Do you remember the laws of physics?

The man did not pass the exams for the fifth grade again. The rest of the story of his life is not difficult to predict. Can you imagine where humankind has gone?

All together, we will have to fix, improve, change, and improve it. I have no doubt that armed with one dream, one desire, we can do much more than a single-celled organism could do. What do you think?

Continuing the conversation about our bad student, who remains the student of the fifth grade for life, we should talk about the side effect that appeared from the lack of desire to change, learn, and act. It is a presence of ninety-five percent of the atrophied brain. This is an opportunity to use only five percent of your brain. Here's what our student did. What harm has he has caused to humanity!

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1PM2CM: Once you have learned to recognize those invisible objects of your mental energy, and agreed that they poison your existence, you must learn to show perseverance when talking with them. You should learn to define clearly the group and category of the thoughts that arise in your mind.

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For example, you are looking for a place to park your car. After fifteen minutes of continuous search of space, you see that the car five meters away from you is going to free a place for you. Being a courteous man, you pull a couple of meters back, giving the driver freedom to get out, as quickly as possible, from your future parking space. You turn on the signal to let everyone know that this place is yours. Calmly watching the maneuvers of the driver releasing a parking space, you are distracted by searching the radio waves for Russian folk songs. When you find one, you look up and see another car has driven into the newly vacated spot.

Once your eyes suddenly see it, the flow of obscene words "suddenly" jumps out from your lips, a sudden rush of blood to the head "suddenly" happens, your body suddenly tenses, and you turn into an animal. Is it not so? After all, when a dog sees a cat, it starts immediately to bark and to strain. It is very difficult in such a small period of time to find the difference between man and animal.

Actions after receiving the irritant (for a man it is a driver and for a dog it is a cat) for a man and for an animal are very different.

When the dog sees that the cat has disappeared around the corner, he forgets immediately about the cat, he quietly wags his tail as if to say 'live well and life is good.' When the man sees that another car has already taken his parking space, he did not follow his natural instincts. In accordance with the natural instincts, as with did the dog: he should see that the parking space is already occupied, and he should forget about what happened and quietly look for another one. In this case, the damage to his health does not occur, and "negative" is not enhanced!

You can think many similar situations in a "normal" human life.

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1PM2CM: If you think about dogs and other animals, it is easy to recall and to observe that they all actively manifest the reaction after the irritation and then calmly eat grass or clean feathers, forgetting about what happened a moment ago. A man, unlike an animal, has a mind, has the intellect, conscious, and the right to choose how to behave and how to respond. Since a dog does not have all these abilities, as well as a right to choose, it acts as God created it, and it does not pretend to be neither a man nor a fly – it is just a dog.

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If you think now about this man, then he can hardly be called normal. If we call him a normal person, that would mean that many people in society behave the same way. The question then arises, is this society normal?

Let's leave society alone – it consists of just such people, like us, therefore, we are talking about such a person from society.

Why such an initial human response? Because people instantly perceive such situations as bad. The man failed to perceive everything happening in his life as a unity of good and bad, right or wrong. Having done so once, repeating it twice, he acquired the habit, according to which he acted without thinking.

If he knew how to love himself, what kind of damage this kind of stressful situation would have on his health, he would stop for a fraction of a second before reacting to the actions of another driver. During that split of second, he would realize that another car has already taken the place; it means that the action has already taken place and it is in the past. Can even a single man on earth change his past? No. You can't change what does not exist. A man can ONLY learn from what happened and not repeat the mistakes of the past.

It is very likely that only one such thought, only the realization that everything has already happened and is the past, will allow man to avoid any reaction to stimulation and just start looking for another parking space. It is a pity that a man has no tail to wag it in such minute.

During that split of second, if he perceived himself as an integral part of all humanity, as a part of one whole, he would not have any difficulty in thinking about another driver positively: maybe he did not notice me; maybe I did not notice him; maybe he is in a hurry, but I'm not in a hurry. Think about the other person in the same way as about yourself! This is a model of a new man; this is what we all need to strive for.

Well – it is easy to say but hard to do when there are so many vile and arrogant people. I agree, but who makes them such? Yes, we do nurture such kinds of people, and we do not exclude ourselves from this kind!

Even in this situation with the parking space, you can easily see how habitually easy it is for each person, to "make their own contribution to mankind."

Together with the swear words, the rush of blood to the head instantly woke up mental energy with such an interesting name: anger. Anger – a category of the common kind called "selfishness".

What does your violent reaction mean? It is the creation of additional mental energy of the same kind. Do you think that your swear words, red face, high blood pressure, and other common stressful changes in your body are merely cosmetic changes of the color of your face and an exercise for your internal organs? Of course not! A man is a creator! So you have created additional dark blocks, impervious to light and love, lost touch even more with God. Moreover, since we are all one, you share it automatically with others. Personal contribution to "the cause of humanity" is complete!

And if you want to continue the process of "creation", then you have to jump out of the car, run screaming towards the driver and try, as clearly as possible, to explain to him that he is an idiot. At this point, you are making a "big contribution to the suffering of all humanity." After all, the mental energy, such as anger and hatred, do not belong to one person: they are a common property of mankind. And if this "idiot" also wants to "create", then together you can create a powerful co-creation. You and this person should "share" with your already available anger and then you will be working on it together to multiply it.

We should remember that when he got home, he does not need to say anything because as soon as he opens the door of his apartment, this energy will annoy his loved ones subconsciously. Then he is surprised and says, "What have I said?"

No matter what you say, it is most important how you say it! When we say, "how he said", we are referring to the energy a man felt when he spoke. Sometimes people do not know how to speak beautifully and intelligently, but their words touch our hearts and we have a desire to love these people. Sometimes the words of a man are constructed brilliantly, but we perceive the man as speaking radio in the kitchen on the wall. Sometimes it is difficult to understand what the person wants to say but feel the warmth and love for him. Sometimes a person says the right words but they annoy us. Moreover, this is the case when one of us came home after a conversation with an "idiot". Think about it, please.

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1PM2CM: After all, everything is actually very simple. If you come into a meeting where many people could be dismissed and have the fear, hatred, or anger, your mood will also drop. If you come home with a bad mood and your children, with a shout of joy, run to you, hang around your neck, quickly say how they missed you, you will become more joyful at heart. However, unfortunately, the first negative thought, which you cannot stop in time, will take you back to where this mental energy resides.

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We must understand, it's time to realize that the more happy people on this planet, the more smiles and love, the better for all of us! The more negative thoughts, fear, hatred, and selfishness, the more and more we all suffer.

We must learn to think about ourselves and act in the interests of everyone. When we are angry, you have to think that we contribute to the World Bank anger. When we hate, our hatred breaks our relationship with God even more. The more we enjoy unity with nature, plants, animals, and people, the more love on this planet.

It is easy to understand, or at least possible, but difficult to do. Yes, it is not easy, but possible. Add together one hundred twigs and tie them with a rope. Now try to break it. It is not possible. It is a power! Untie this bunch of twigs. To break each twig separately is easy to do.

The eternal philosophical question arises: "What to do?" We must stop asking philosophical questions and move to action!

We must try to understand that if we want to change our life for the better, then we must start thinking in new ways. A man can't be happy when unhappy people surround him. So, starting this job, trying to help yourself is necessary to keep the thought in your mind that your happiness and your personal well-being is proportional to the total happiness and well-being of all mankind.

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1PM2CM: The hardest issue for everyone is to change their habits. For people who have become slaves to their habits, it makes their lives much easier, because there are not many changes in their life and their body spends less mental energy. When you are calm, then your ability to save energy is better and safer than when you are worried. This is the general thinking of most people. The cosmic features of conservation of energy are hidden in the human tendency to choose calmness. People like to be in the relaxed state. They rather like to feel more secure, than to be active.

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Let's find an explanation, how arises a habit: "To wait for someone and something that would do it for you."

You were living too long in peace and you became bored, you wanted to change your life: to live and have the stimulus in your life. To achieve this goal, you need to act. You need to have some new actions, some new things, have people pay attention to you and your belongings. When people paid you attention, you now want to have everything. You want to have everything, but with minimal social interactions, only for security. A desire to have more new things in your life is growing constantly. But you do not want to act independently, to find a solution by yourself, personally produce the desired thing, to think, to take actions, to improve yourself. So you develop a tendency to wait until the others present new things to you "on a platter" and not look for them by yourself. This is the worst habit of all the bad habits and the most difficult to break.

In my life, I have met many people who wanted changes but were waiting for me or for someone else to fulfill their desires.They could not do even small movements or small efforts on their part.This happened not because they are bad, stupid, or incapable people, but because they are mired in their own black tunnel and could not find an exit in the dark.Their habit was being a victim, living in resentment, hatred, condemnation until me or other people embraced them.

In everyone's life, there is the case when people hate their jobs, but they wait until someone finds different job for them.These people want but they can do nothing, suffer but they change nothing, complain but do not believe in themself.

There is no need to go too far for examples. A fastening in the door of the kitchen was broken. You asked your husband to fix it. You asked him about it for a week... a year. The broken door bothers you, but you showed very heroic patience – you wait, wait, and wait until your husband fixes it. How much additional "negative" did you bring into the world during this time! How did you "help" yourself and others! Think about it. What if you do not wait but do something? Repair the door by yourself or find "emergency" assistance when it broke, you would get a new experience, development and a "piece" of freedom as a bonus.

Such small things make up our lives. But this is not small, if to think that every thought contributes to this life, which is common for all of us.

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1PM2CM: The most important is to replace the habit of waiting with the habit of trying to help ourselves and others. In fact, this is a characteristic of a new man. After all, in trying to help ourselves, we study our capabilities, we increase in self-confidence and independence... we give ourselves a freedom. A man is capable of many things; try to open in yourself new abilities!

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From the story about my life, you know I was looking for medical help to restore my health.I believed in everything, but not in myself.Now I am grateful to all those doctors who closed "medical" doors.I knocked on another door God sent me to.God helped me believe in myself and I am healthy.I can help others and myself.This brings me happiness.When I am happy and healthy, I am contributing to humanity.

Are you not familiar with this situation when you asked someone for help, and the man promised to help you.Time passed, but the promised aid never came.During this waiting time, most go through processes of this kind: the joy from the proposed help, tired of waiting, irritation, blame, anger.This can be called: "To torture yourself".What kind of benefit does this bring for mankind?

From a spiritual point of view, this situation can be perceived differently.When the first signals of discomfort from the waiting for something has appeared, we should think that any help that comes easily and quickly is a part of God's plan.Hence, in this situation, God is teaching me something new.We must ask ourselves the question: "Can I help myself in this matter or should try to find help elsewhere?"Note that even in a normal situation, we have a choice to learn, change, and improve or to engage in self-torture.

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1PM2CM: And how ingrained is habit for many people to pay attention to and listen to those people who talk a lot and do very little? Change yourself and gradually they will talk less and do more. We should all pay attention and learn from the good human affairs, rather than talking about them, and in this case, we can imagine the darkness in the true light emanating from the beautiful words that cover the true meaning and characteristics of freedom.

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I was swallowing this bait throughout my life.I believed in the correct and beautiful words.I believed that if people say something, they tell the truth and act according to what they say.I was expecting what they told so confidently and competently, and I often hurt myself.Being on the spiritual path, listening to my feelings, paying more attention to my inner world, I began to notice that all is not gold that glitters, that good things do not need advertising.Paying more attention to those people who talk a lot, I began to realize that they share the theoretical information acquired from books, from other people, the media, and this theory and it is far from practical.Who knows what to do, he just does it and does not waste time describing the process.He who knows how to do, will explain simply and briefly how and what to do in practice.He who knows how things are done will not waste your time listening to theoretical lectures without practical application.

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1PM2CM: We need to get rid of the habit of being the owner and being attached to the material things or, in other words, get rid of the bondage of things. We must learn to think in new ways that we need all these material things, but they help us to live and we are independent on them.

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It does not matter what but if it has value for you, if you're still looking at this as the most valuable, most important, for which there is no substitute, in fact, this "does not matter what" owns you, you lose a holy freedom given to you by God.

I had a chance to work for a Canadian executive who was sick with blood cancer and used all possible medical resources to cope with this serious disease.He was becoming weaker and weaker.It required a huge effort from him to get out of bed and go on a very short walk.And even in this state, seeing that something was not in its right place, he was terribly annoyed.One day we went for a walk around his home.I was very glad that he had the strength to do it on such a bright, autumn, sunny day.I asked him to pay attention to the flower, on the bright yellow leaf, to the purity of autumn air.Nothing elicited any response from this man.But when we walked past my car, which was abundantly covered with fresh bird droppings, he suddenly reacted to that, he became very interested, and very emotionally and hectically, he recommended I wash my car immediately because these bird droppings could damage the paint on the car.

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1PM2CM: People to this day, following the rituals and dogmas, stand on their knees, beg and offer gifts to the saints and God. A new habit must replace such a spiritual habit. This new habit will demonstrate a sense of self-confidence and belief in the unity of all people and all living things, which God created with love and for love.

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I was very lucky that I was born in a country like the Soviet Union.I was lucky in the sense that from the first days of my life, I had the conditions and culture of the country of a new formation.People that were born, for example, in the Middle East, absorbed many cultural and religious habits, customs, and conventions, which are very difficult to shed.It is time to pay attention to dogma, rituals, and all cultural practices created many centuries ago and used more by habit than with any particular purpose.Did God can hear each request?Did God see the position of the body you occupy at the time of your prayer?Does God need our gifts and presents?God, as a loving father-creator, needs our love.God, as Love itself, does not require verbal, physical, sacrificial demonstrations of our love for Him.God created us for the happiness, he wants to see us the happy creators, who love and are loved.

It is very difficult to change habits.

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1PM2CM: When people talk about truth, goodness, beauty, it sounds so good that anyone can understand it from a theoretical point of view. But it is very difficult to realize this in practice. Everyone knows that living honestly means to live properly, to live according to the truth. But the problem is that people are often afraid of the truth. There is no logic, but it is. People like to live a lie, because it is very easy to do, and everyone lives this way. In a society, regardless of its level of development, we can't identify deceit because deceit can now be clearly expressed as the thought, which is the truth. In other words, the man lied and he believed in his deceit, and this deception became the truth for him. This explains why people feel more comfortable and more secure when they are deceived than when they live with the truth.

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Why do people try to hide from the truth, from such a sensitive issue in their own lives? People are afraid of the truth because only the truth contains new information and the disclosure of this new information will not be easy for anyone who encounters that. The disclosure of new information will require change.

Being afraid of the truth means being afraid of the changes. As simple as that! This truth can be realized only through the kindness; otherwise, nobody will be able to do so.

The law of nature – a harmony of all living creatures on earth that is peace, love, wisdom, enlightenment, success, and happiness.

Laws of nature are truth. To this truth became the faith, the belief, and the meaning of human life; a man should not be afraid learning the truth.

As for the word "spirituality", its meaning can be described simply as an intuitive recognition of truth through the deep feelings of the human heart.

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1PM2CM: We need to pay attention to the delusion of mankind, that everything must be proved. There is no evidence... there is no faith!

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In Vietnam, a song is sung as follows: "A chicken has two legs, a pig has four legs. To know why, bring a ladder, climb over it, and ask God about it."

People have now the tendency to find a way to prove a fact. Therefore, we go in circles that cost money and human efforts. But this very fact is the truth and can't be analyzed or challenged.

We should all be careful not to be blocked from public books that cover the very truth that lies deep in the heart of every person.

No one should never fall into the trap of his own thoughts. Maybe the mind says, it sounds right, with good sense and fine words, but the mind is unable to do so. So often in life, it turns out that "nothing has changed".

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1PM2CM: Many people do not try to change anything because of the fear of death. They fear not only their death but also the death of their loved ones. Moreover, when a man realizes that the death of all living beings is the fact of change, and if a man understands the meaning of death, he knows that he does not die and thus, he is not afraid of death.

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My personal liberation from the fear of death completely changed my life.This change in my consciousness changed my attitude towards family, country, society, habits, culture, relationships between people,...This change gave me the freedom to think independently, make decisions independently, cognize who I really am.

If a person wants to follow the path that God has created, purification of yourself for eternal life is the mission of each person.

Physical death is something that comes to transform and unite all elements for a revival. This is the meaning of death. Is the leaf of a tree dying? In fact, it is a reborn in a new life. Without yellow leaves, we would not have greens in the spring. Why are people afraid of death? People who are afraid of death need to study it.

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1PM2CM: To understand the truth of each individual life, we need to know the reason why a person is afraid of the truth. Only then will the man be able to understand the truth of his own life. In other words, because of the fear of the truth of our life, we can't understand it.

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You know the truth of my life, I am not afraid to disclose it.When I was opening the truth about my life, I experienced the fear that would not let me do it.When I realized my fear, I was with him, understood him after so many years of neglect, and it was transformed into love.I consciously cleansed those blocks that were inaccessible to the light and love in my heart that I created during my lifetime.I created them because I did not dare and did not know how to live by the truth of my heart, trying how my family, the society, and the country lived.

The revealed truth of my life began to teach me how to live properly.

When I began to live by the truth of my life, my fear of death, fear of being alone, fear of being misunderstood, fear of being unrecognized, fear of being unloved disappeared.

When there is no fear, freedom opens its wings; life becomes an exciting adventure.

When I learned the truth of my life, I realized whom I am, why I came into this life.

When I realized why I came into this life, my life became to have a true meaning.

Realizing the meaning of my life, I felt its unity, its inextricable link with all that permeates all living and nonliving, all visible and invisible. I felt the love of God in which there is no word "my".

Simply put, the illusion, which is the darkness, controls human life. When the darkness "sees" the light, how can it survive?

Here are examples from daily life. You see a person who steals. You want to go to the police so the man does not steal anymore and does not violate the peace and quiet of people but you are afraid he might take revenge on you. You really want to help your beloved woman but you are afraid that your wife will be jealous. You want to pull the thorn from your foot but you are afraid of pain and bleeding....

As long as you can see the darkness, a thief, a jealous wife, or bleeding wound, it is just as bad as something that could endanger your own safety. Therefore, you are afraid of all this, and this is the same thing as being afraid of the truth.

In life, everything causing your fear will follow you and will not let you go, sometimes even causing you more damage.

The fear of contracting a transmissible infection will set up your immune system to the standby state in which there is no any action to overcome the disease.

The fear of losing a loved one forces you to be weak and this fear to control you. Gradually, you lose those qualities of man for what other people respect you.

Fear of losing your business forces you to be under the control of those who have information about the business; as a result, you lose the qualities inherent to the business owner.

Scientists conducted experiments on a bipolar structure, which included such opposite things as light-dark, white and black, good-bad, positive, negative, that there are among people, events, material things, and all living creatures of God. Fear of "darkness" was the greatest fear in people.

If all living beings without fear are going through the changes to give rise to a new life, then you can be one of them. But because of your fear of darkness, you are not able to improve, to accept the new things.

The fear of the unknown means the fear of true or the fear of changes and this is the same as being afraid of the truth.

You do not have to go far or study human deception. The most critical question remains: "Do you want to learn and to clean yourself or not?"

The cleansing does not mean getting rid of old thinking or sacrificing something. The cleansing is a process of getting to know. You should cleanse your body so that the "painful" truth can get rid of the cover of darkness.

When the landscape around you saddens you, you cannot be happy. When you see only the darkness that covers the truth and not the true essence, it makes you suffer.

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1PM2CM: In the past, people often make a sad mistake and our "ego", manifesting this as selfishness, greed, hatred and lust, brings such terrible consequences.

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Ego is not only your body but is also your soul.

The soul does not live only one life, as you often think; the soul lived many lives in different bodies and situations, which are sometimes simple and sometimes difficult. To be in a simple or a difficult situation is not a problem, but the most important is that the soul had the opportunity to learn from the lessons of different scenarios in the world, extracting the wisdom and enlightenment and to evolve.

Who is learning: the body or soul? The body is temporary; the soul is eternal. Thus, the teaching in every life has two objectives: teaching of the body, which is short – how to live and how to survive; and the teaching of the soul, which is eternal – the soul learns how to improve itself.

Imagine the soul as a student who attends college. This student must take and pass all exams of each course to get a college degree and then find a job in the community. Each course is a time of your reincarnation into physical life, to learn. From this simple explanation, you can easily understand your own destiny in this life.

Here is a simple "advice" on the eternal question of "What to do?" During deep sleep, the frequency of the energy of our brain is reduced, thus the "conference room" is closed. "Ego" disappears. But when you wake up, the "conference room" opens and everything will continue. Do not blame your brain because it is disturbed and restless! We should say to it: "I already know it. Why do you continue to say it to me again and again?"

This process of "talk talk" makes people suffer. This is a very simple example that will help you better understand the meaning of "ego".

Do you accuse heaven and earth for bringing you into this world where you are forced to suffer? As soon as you suffer, you should ask your brain: "Whatever you discussed, I do not care!"

It's ridiculous to say, but recognition of this fact is crucial in the process of cleansing.

Just look at the sun's rays and you will see that the impartial light shines on all beings, helping them grow. It shines equally on the person who is grateful to this light and the one who does not even try to see the light.

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1PM2CM: The cleansing is a process that frees thought from dogmas, discriminations, or doubts. It is getting rid of such a process in which others influence thinking or like a punishment those who disobey. Once you get rid of this, the latent abilities of human and spiritual energy of God, hidden deep in your heart, will shine. At this point, you realize the truth – the truth about God, that He has no looks, no color, and no name. This is a supernatural energy. It's omnipotence, perfection, and constant change to create an infinite universe in which we find our beloved planet earth.

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Each of us has a self-realization: to find the truth and to know it. I am trying to say that each of us is the true and a child of God.

If you see that for someone, the spiritual path of development has helped them have happiness and restore health, but if you feel you have a concern or anxiety, you should remember the ancient words: "The later you obtain – the better you have."

Let's use an example with the construction of the house. In the process of building of your home, starting from the first hammered nail until the final stages of construction, the materials will be more modern and cheaper and the design will be better. Thus, it is better to have a house later, as it will bring more joy.

That means building the palace of love and spiritual being for your eternal life.

A truth is your true self. By living according to your true self, you will find an endless road of evolution of your soul.

During different times of lives, people have said much about the true essence, the truth, and events. However, no one can understand the deep meaning of the words "true self". For most people, the modern explanation of this meaning is an abstract concept, and this explains why it is so easy to distort the truth. People easily forget the truth. It is unfortunate that we are needlessly losing the opportunity to learn and develop.

The truth of human life is to learn and develop.

Many people have learned a lot but they have never been an evolutionary development. Why? Because what they have learned is an illusion. The illusion does not contain the truth, and it can't be connected with the truth. The truth it is a fact, and this should be well remembered.

Is the true self changing? The true essence is the truth, and the truth is often changing. Thus, the true self is also changing, so follow the path of natural evolution. In a broader concept, one must see the truth in each person. We can say that every man has his own truth. Why? Because even if two men are twins from one egg, their appearance and personality are still different.

This is the same as what said in ancient times: "Parents give birth to children, but God creates their individuality."

Scientists have confirmed that the structure of the fingerprint and the breathing rhythm of each person is a unique code that no other person has. Moreover, scientists have also discovered many interesting facts in their research that the fingerprints are not always the same; they can vary depending on the activity of each person in its life. This suggests that the truth is always changing and that the truth is active. For this reason, people need to redefine their mission to live happily and follow the path of evolution.

Being inside the library, you cannot learn anything from books. Each of us who wants to realize the truth, has to seek and find it by our self, through its experience, its sensations, its feelings. Perhaps the religious rituals look very nice but they cannot help anyone bring happiness, success, progress, and intelligence. The truth is changing, as each of us must change.

It is true that the earth is getting warmer, that ice caps at both poles are melting, that there is threat of major floods affecting large regions, including the islands and inevitably, the coastlines.

The truth is always changing. If a man can recognize his true role in spiritual teaching and evolution, he can do everything and be able to change everything.

In past times and up to the present, there is an unfortunate mistake in the human concept of the truth: truth is fixed as a constant, which is always and in any era, correct. So, we never find the truth. Divine truth is shifting and changing constantly.

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1PM2CM: But people like to know the truth or the circumstances of other people, and they cleverly hide the truth about their own lives! People usually show good things but they conceal bad things. This may sound strange, but it contains the truth, which reveals the basic nature of a man of the present time, which is a serious disease and leads humanity into the world of illusions.

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Each of us may think about its lives to evaluate our self. If at least one of you is not under the influence of this disease, I will give ten points out of ten. Understanding the truth about yourself does not mean that you are "complaining about yourself", but you need to know how to filter out the truth. It does not matter, "good" or "bad", the truth is about yourself. But what is important, can you develop? If you are already good, then try to be better. If you are bad, you should be "converted" from bad to good. In the warm eternal love of God, there is no concept of good or bad. If you act, then your true self will shine and your bad side will go away.

Only prescriptions of wisdom and enlightenment can cure the disease of denial of the truth about its own lives. Otherwise, it is incurable.

It is very difficult for us to improve, if we do not realize the truth about its life. In other words, it is very important to know: a man wants to either find the truth about himself or not. True self is within each of our souls. It has the structure and power of the infinite and eternal love. It is strange and interesting that people are equally rapidly taking both good and bad.It is not only a serious disease of mankind but the root of all suffering in our time.

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1PM2CM: We discuss the bad things and evil acts with the intention to fix them and with the hope that such things do not happen again. We should not judge or criticize someone for bad deeds. The more we criticize, the worse things go. In this way, we can transform evil into good and transform the darkness. We use the darkness as a fuel to generate a light.

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Why does God allow people to do evil, bad things? These evil, bad things are the lessons for the human race.

The Bible says "do not judge and will not be judged." Wise people say that "silence – gold." My life was teaching me this wisdom.

It was not easy for me to pass these lessons in my life.

Sometimes it seemed to me that there were more forces, and that too many tests dropped to my lot.But every time I lost hope completely that I could survive this or that, God gave me a helping hand.Again, I was getting on my feet, again believing that everything was fine.Every time I fell into the "darkness" and found a way out, I transformed my negative emotions into a feeling of love.God is love.

Even before my birth, the story of my life, like every human life, was written in heaven.This story was written in accordance with the scenario that the soul has chosen.Now I see my life as an interconnected chain of events that have taught me, that led me to what I have now.

And what do I have now? Nothing.

I have no family. I have no close friends.I am far from the homeland.It seems that my daughters do not remember me.I do not even have a negative emotion to the words that I just wrote.I own nothing in this world. Car? It provides me a comfortable life, neither more nor less.There is nothing and no one in this world, without which I could not live.I am free from everything and everyone.

There is no bad or very good in my life.I often "look for problems" with the only purpose: to learn and develop.When I feel that my mood drops or feel uncomfortable in my body, I immediately feel impatience to start learning.I clearly know, deeply believe, and this is confirmed through my life experiences, that all the "bad" in our lives really is the "good" for which we came into this life.We came here to learn.We came here to learn and not waste time.This should be remembered but many people have forgotten about it.

When I realized that I have nothing, neither bad nor good, then suddenly,I had the feeling that I had everything.This is the feeling of love that penetrates everything; this is the feeling of desire to help all, a sense of compassion for all, a sense of unity with all.When first this feeling came over me, such calm and peace came into my heart, it's hard to describe.Suddenly everything disappeared that caused such intense emotional pain.

My children? But they are not mine.Who else but my children have helped me in achieving all of these feelings?Who else but my children were my best teachers in this life?Who, if not the souls of my children, agreed to be the angels, which God sent me that my soul was able to get new experiences and learn? When I saw these angels in my children, the senses of grievance, injustice instantly transformed into a feeling of love for these two my favorite angels.Thank you, my dear daughters, for the fulfillment of its mission in this life.

It is not true, if I say that this feeling of complete connection with God, which once appeared inside me, settled there forever and motionlessly stayed as a rock.Everything and is in constant motion and change.But, once having experienced this feelings, realizing how it "works", clearing yourself from "negative", I have learned how to help myself.

I feel when my body needs help.

I do not expect that someone will do it for me.

I am helping my body immediately.I feel that my mood is worsening.I know when I am doing something that causes disagreement, the imbalance between my body and soul.I am trying to find a reason, to learn from every situation that happens in my life.Sometimes I can't understand what I am doing wrong, why I have a "bad" mood.

I tried this way. It does not work. I tried that way. It does not work.I am not upset; I continue to learn, to find something that requires my attention, my study.When the correct answer is found, the exam is passed, then again the feeling of "universal love and unity" resides in me.The more I am "practicing", the easier it is to keep this balance in itself.Very often, only one thought that I am standing in the face of a new "bad" lesson in life allows me to remain calm in any situation.Only a calm mind can hear the "voice" of God and to resolve any situation in life the best way, not only for me alone but also for others.

It is a miracle when a person is in touch with God. This is a complete lack of a sense of loneliness; it is security, reliability, wisdom, justice, peace, and love.

Everyone, regardless of the titles, ranks, and the availability of money in the bank, can find their way home, the road to God that we are all looking for... just go separate ways.

Do not be afraid of anything, look for your way, and let my love will help you.

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1PM2CM: As bad and evil deeds still have not taught people how to avoid such blunders, then God has created many new lessons for us to learn. As soon as we learn all, as soon as these bad lessons will teach us everything, then they run out.

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It is worth talking about another serious problem that exists in humanity, which makes people suffer so much: we do not recognize our own mistakes.

We are trying to hide them, to find all the possible excuses and blame other people. We do so, and we do not trust each other, which makes this problem even more complicated. It is just like death, in that we recognize the good deeds and praise the crime the same way!

In any human occupation, if people can accept the fact that they were wrong and then analyze and learn from those mistakes, then any kind of activity can certainly develop. In any human relationship, if people can recognize that they made a mistake, be able to accept this "mistake" as an opportunity to learn and improve, then human relationships, any human relationship can turn into friendships.

Learning from the good lessons of life is much easier than learning from the bad ones. After all, good flowers naturally give a sweet smell.

Today everything is bad, and tomorrow everything will be well. This is the essence of change. Change is the essence and driving force of spiritual evolution. With the changes, we have everything.

We are not talking about abstract concepts or complicated philosophy.

We do not care what books people claim. No matter how nice they sound, without the spiritual energy, they cannot find a practical application; they will forever remain just a theory.

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1PM2CM: Everything has two sides: black and white. Mankind has studied this for a long time, but never achieved any progress. In fact, instead of moving forward, we go back. But humanity does not understand this profound philosophy; as a result, we are creating problems for ourselves over the millennia.

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Take the medal in your hand. You can see two sides of the coin. True and false: two sides of one coin. The two sides of the coin are intrinsically connected and united. Everything that happens with two opposite sides is intrinsically united. What is inside? The spiritual and the invisible energy that maintain a balance of two opposing parts so that no part dominates the other and they exist in harmony.

Anything or any event that occurs on earth and in the activities of the universe cannot be without the guiding hands of the invisible God, which is the factor that maintains the harmony in all living things.

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1PM2CM: People for centuries have seen the positive in life as the value and profit, so they used them, and they did not account for the negative part. Where do we throw them away? Nothing can go beyond the universe. Thus, the negative things that have been ignored and discarded are still around us and growing every day to create problems and imbalances in the environment.

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If we talk about social issues, such as war, there are winners and losers. When the ancestors taught us that, "the winners become managers, and the losers become the rebels," they remind their descendants that they should not have fought and tried to live together in peace and harmony.

In fact, this negative, or the devil part, is still around us, and if we do not show it to our compassion, they become our enemies. Small skirmishes will lead to large-scale battles and wars. The racial struggle has been going on constantly for thousands of years.

There are no wars in the invisible, divine world. If there is something, it is an earthquake or a tidal wave within the human heart. Our life will continue if we follow God's will. If we are against the will of God, we will destroy ourselves. People will decide their own destiny.

Most disturbances cause storms and tidal waves that occur in the human heart and manifest themselves as greed, selfishness, hatred, jealousy, doubt, racism, racial discrimination, and separation.

What do we do with the storms and tidal waves that occur in the human heart? To cope with this problem, there is only one single remedy: spirituality. We need to change spiritually.

If you have a lot of money, a big castle, or a luxurious mansion, can you take anything with you after you die? It is only the hope that what is left behind the names will remind others about them. This serious human error causes the suffering of people continuing to live in this world. Why? Because for many eras and dynasties, how many good names can we remember? People do not remember the names of the deceased owners of castles and palaces, but those who have not inherited the palaces and castles start to blame themselves and God and that is not fair.

Nothing can move faster and bring more benefits than spiritual development.

