PERPETUAL FIGHT

The essence of good and evil
is a certain disposition of the will

Epictetus
Of Courage, Chap.XXIX

few hours ago it was the daytime. Now it’s dark and only the lights of a night city can be seen. It’s the same city but lighted with electric lights instead of the daylight. And what’s better, day or night? Depends on a situation, most of us will say. Yep, it seems so. We get into the night to start a new day. We never stop this journey, our journey from the light to darkness and back to the light. We sleep to get new connections in our brain among the new data that we had learnt during the daytime. If we didn’t do it we would have forgotten it very soon. Subconsciously we prefer to move from the dark to the light and not vice versa. We’re searching for the light at the end of a tunnel, running from the darkness. So, it seems that the darkness is bad and the light is good, doesn’t it?

First of all, there is not a steady definition for the evil as it is. That what was normal few centuries ago now is considered to be abnormal, a sin… Two different people getting into one and the same situation will give absolutely different appraisal of it. One may say that it’s a real catastrophe, another one will tell you that there is nothing awful in it at all and that it may be taken easy. So, everyone has his own evil and good.

Although, there are several certain sins that we all know. They are listed in the Bible. It doesn’t mean, however, that all they are taken for evil by everybody, but at least, the worse of them...

For every one of us darkness is evil and the light is love.., truth..., good…, God…

As long as humanity exists on this globe it’s been fighting against evil… Though, there are some curious points about it…

Both, evil and good, exist in this world, the world that was created by God. So, it seems, they both appeared here on purpose…

Why, for example, our happiness, the true happiness that makes our head spin around, never lasts long? We all want it to be with us forever. It seems though, that with time we get used to it and this wonderful feeling just starts fading… That what brought us so much joy and enthusiasm becomes somewhat staled. We ask ourselves ‘Why? How come? How can I get back that fantastic and joyful feeling that made me fly!?’ Time passes us by and we come through a new dark line of our life, whether it’s wide or narrow. It brings into our life new sadness, disappointments, blue, hesitations and other things that we always want to avoid so much, but don’t seem to be able to do it at the end… Of course, it depends on how wise we are in evaluating that what’s happening to us, how deep we’re able to look into it to find the real meaning of all this… However, I’ve never met anyone who, even being really wise, was able to avoid that darkness of his life. Though, as soon as we cross the border of this darkness and enter the light again we seem to find the happiness we had considered to be lost forever. A new wave of love lets us rise to the clouds to take a new joyful walk on them… Quite often, the darker is the line we go through, the more joyful and bright is the happiness we find when this line’s ended…

What is curious of all this is that, as it was said above, when two people get into the same situation they see and evaluate it quite different creating two different versions of it so, it sounds like two different situations. It’s really so in fact. And it seems indeed, that the spectacular forms the reality he lives in, and not vice versa. Each of us could create for himself somewhat more joyful and light reality that would be filled with much more love and all the things he would love to have there. We all could do it, if we only gave it a try and believed we could do it:) It’s a big and hard work though… The idea I was going to form out of it is that all the darkness and the light, all the good and bad that we have in our lives goes from us. It’s finally created by our mind and is taken out from ourselves.

Why do we all have that darkness inside? Couldn’t we just be sweet loving and amazing human beings?:)

What would we be without evil that is around and inside of ourselves? Many say that without it life would be insipid. To me it doesn’t sound too senseless, but I would add one more reason that seems to me much more important.

Maybe we’re still at school? All of us, those who was just born (happy Birthday, by the way:) as well as those who is going to finish his journey soon. The school that we will never finish while we are here… Maybe that serpent that met Eve in Heaven, left Heaven together with her, and now all Eve’s children have a little serpent inside? Is it a real evil? Or, maybe it’s a kind of a teacher that we all have. Temptation is its method of teaching us. In difference from the good, that we are being taught by our parents, our school teachers and professors, priests, and etc., evil never speaks to us loudly. The serpent crawls to our ear to whisper its sweet words quietly. Although, sometimes we hear it much more clearly, than all those ones speaking loudly and yelling about the pure love that is God. We use to find something attracting in Lucifer’s game from time to time.

On the other hand, darkness is just a lack of light. If there were no shadows our life would probably seem too plain. Some dishes need pepper. It enriches them, while sugar would spoil their taste:)

Though, leaving cookery and getting back to that whispering teacher, don’t you think that serpent makes us stronger and helps a lot to our spiritual growth tempting us that much? Don’t you think that’s the real one that makes us wiser, that helps us learn our lessons better than all those speakers about love and understanding? The one that, like our sleep, helps us create new connections between the data we have learnt during the daytime. To me it really seems so sometimes. Being teased and knowing what is really good for us, and realizing the illusionary nature of all the sweet and exciting gifts that that serpent offers us, we keep learning and training to become stronger and wiser to choose the good, even though it’s not that easy. To choose the good, we have to rise higher, and it’s sometimes farther, than those evil’s gifts that we could get just extending our hand to them… Isn’t it the best lesson to become real and to find that inner light that each of us has in his heart..? Have you ever felt really happy when you followed your dark side’s tastes? I mean, not at the moment when you were enjoying the gift you’d got. At first we really enjoy it…, but later, when everything is over and you realize that you could be stronger to take several steps up instead of going down just for fun…? And do you remember how you felt when you were strong enough to rise and to say ‘NO’ to the devil’s sweets?:) Didn’t you feel like flying then? Like you were the kind of your world? I bet you did:) It seems to us, that playing on a dark side we own our world as well as when we’re on the opposite side. But if you look deeper you’ll realize that it’s not so in fact. We just go with the flow letting that stream take us down, losing control under the situation. It doesn’t ask for any work to enjoy it, it can be got easily and fast, we don’t need to do anything for it…

You know, I don’t agree with those who say that we should hate the dark side of us. First of all, it’s useful. It can really make us stronger if we only want to become so. It’s a part of us, the part that is definitely not the best, but it’s our part. It exists just to help us maintain the light in ourselves. We cannot deny ourselves, even partially. All we have to do, I suppose, is to get the best of the evil that inside and to start using it FOR and not AGAINST of our own selves. I believe we have to love that dark side of us. Only love can give understanding. We need this understanding, cause then we probably won’t be so much attracted by the mystery of the darkness, since it will not have the mystery for us any longer, but will let us find a real and pure love in this world, and to love the light much more than before. It will just be a stock of our anti-patterns, reminding us our initial point, showing us how we be when we started our journey to the love and wisdom, helping us never loose the will to become better everyday. It will be just the darkness opposing the light and showing us the right direction, the shadow that we leave behind moving towards this light, shining bright on our faces…

I wish to all of us that our perpetual fight wasn’t against darkness, but for the light.
I hope, we all will keep our hearts filled with love always, then, I know that for sure, we will always win.

Have a bright and joyful trip!:)

DREAMS MAY COME TRUE

Reality can destroy the dream;
why shouldn't the dream destroy reality?

George Moore

My best friend is a very wise woman. She knows how life goes, where it goes and why it goes there and not in any other direction. Maybe I´m not that wise, but I know that too. So when something unpleasant happens to us, of course, at first we, like many other ‘normal’ people, get nervous, irritated, but when the first reaction passes by and we become able to start thinking, we try to find the meaning of what has happened. When we cannot find the certain explanation, we say: ‘it’s karma in action’. I know, many people don't believe in this ‘bullshit’, but we do, and this let us see justice of life in all its apparent injustice, to feel better about it, and keep going.

I’ve noticed a curious thing: most of the dreams that I’d had during my school years began to become fulfilled when I reached 18. Maybe my willing power wasn’t strong enough when I was younger, or maybe this Universe doesn’t hear kids and teens at all:)
The problem is that in those far and sweet times I had different preferences, didn’t know a lot of useful stuff about life, and when I wanted something to happen, I really meant it to happen THEN, in that moment or in the nearest future. I knew what I wanted, I liked it the way it WAS THEN, and I wanted it. You know, time passes by, things change, people do the same…

When we were kids, my mom used to take me and my brother to her parents’ village for our summer vacations. Three months without parents, it was nearly a total freedom!:) It was really cool:)
Once, being on such summer vacations, when I was about 10, I remember we were watching a childish movie called ‘Bronze Bird’. It was a movie about a campany of kids of about 12, helping adults in their battle against ‘enemies of the new socialistic order’ in the revolutionary years in Russia. You know, we lived in the USSR then and there was plenty of such kind of movies on TV.
In the movie, there were two boys, a leader of that campany, and his best friend. As you can imagine, being a very easily excited girl, I just fell in love with the main hero. Well… they were heroes! Was it possible not to fall in love!:) After that I’ve watched that movie few more times as it was not so bad at all, and each time watching it I was dreaming about that main hero. Even being a big dreamer during whole my life, I am always realistic at the same time. So was I when I was a kid, and I’ve thought once: ‘Well, I know, it’s uneasy to be together with the main hero, he’s too popular. But his friend is also a nice guy. So, if I only could ever meet that guy, it would be great anyway…’ This thought appeared suddenly, crossed my mind very fast and disappeared like a falling star in the august sky. Though, I remember it very well, especially now, after that what’s happened to me later…

Anyway, years have passed, the movie together with that whole story were left behind. Since I’d grown up and become somewhat more serious and not that easily falling in love, all those childhood dreams seemed just a funny bullshit to me then…

A few years ago, I started my work in one holding company. There were a lot of commercial agents working there. And there was also one short man, he didn’t seem that nice to me, an alcoholic type (his appearance in your room would be enough to make you believe me, even if you were sitting there with your eyes shut. Any time, even early in the morning… he was totally alcoholized:)) That man was calm and polite, I would say there was even some servility in his behavior when he entered our boss’ cabinet. I feel sorry for such people normally, and always try to be as polite with them as it's possible, maybe even more than with any other ones.

Once, while I was talking to one of my friends in that company, that man passed us by. My friend glanced at him, then looked at me and said: ‘By the way, do you know who’s that man?’ I answered: ‘No idea’. Then she said: ‘Well, have you ever watched a childish movie called ‘Bronze Bird’?’ (That was the title of the movie that I loved so much when I was a kid! While she was saying this I started to guess but I could hardly believe it!) ‘So’, - continued she, - ‘this man performed the best friend of the main hero in that movie’. I was thunderstruck. It’s possible to get quite shocked when you see what time and alcohol can make to people that you liked so much when they were very young…

Thus, my colleague made me remember that movie, that summer time of my childhood, and… my stupid childhood dreams… There was only a single idea that crossed my mind then: ‘Thanks God, my childhood dreams don’t come true that often!’ It was quite a relief:))
In about a year, the holding became smaller as all the companies had been separated and got their autonomy. Sometimes it happens, first we´re so happy together, and later every part gets tired of the other one and wants its autonomy back:) I hope it has never happened and will never happen to you. Anyway, this situation made people in our part of that ex-holding communicate more and know each other better.

One day my friend comes to work and tells me that that man has started to phone her drunk, telling her how much he likes me and insisting her to give him my phone number… One more thunderstruck:))) I said: ‘Never, never give him my phone number, please!’ She answered calming: ‘Be sure, I’ll never do it’. I knew she wouldn’t. She’s a good girl:)) Although, this incident made me worry a little. But at the end, I thought: ‘This fellow seems to be polite and very calm. He’s probably very shy and would never dare to act directly, so it’s stupid to take it serious’. But you know, probably I’d never been so mistaken in my life as when I thought so. And it didn’t take that guy much time to confirm it.

My black days came: he’d given a real chase to me. All my friends in the company knew how much he liked me! Indeed, it was impossible for them to forget it since he used to tell them about it quite often. The smell of alcohol was always around me. And, you know, it was not just a smell of alcohol… if you ever sensed how real alcoholics smell, you know what I’m talking about it. You can take one breath and you get completely intoxicated. At least that’s what happens to me. I’ve spent so much time without taking a single breath during that year that I could easily pass an exam to become a professional diver and to save on aqualung. That’s for sure:)))
I’ve even tried to talk to him several times, taking risk of losing my consciousness:) but it was hopeless. He just looked at me like he had a goal to torture me. And I know he did…
Imagine then the great happiness that came to my life finally when that man found his love! I’ve never seen that woman, but I was so thankful to her that if I’ve only met her, I couldn’t help giving her a big warm hug from all my heart!:)))

…We all are God’s creatures, and at the same time each of us is a grain of God. I know that very well, and I knew it when that story was happening to me. I knew that I was to behave another way in that situation, to be much more understanding, friendly, and just to love that man. I mean the universal love… I knew that, I realized what was going on, why it was going on to me and what was the purpose of all this. I knew I could have passed one more exam of my life that time… but I didn’t. I knew I was a loser then. I was so irritated that it was unbelievably uneasy for me to deal with my emotions… I knew that probably, if I behaved another way then, I wouldn’t need to wait a year for that guy to stop his game. So, my pride won and my wisdom lost. And I lost together with my wisdom:) Well… some other time, maybe…

Recently, my best friend has found her love. It wasn't actually her brand-new love, but a man that she had been in love with for the first time about 20 years ago. She was extremely happy. Well, it wasn’t in fact a new love, but one of her old once. My friend has been walking on clouds all month long. She couldn’t sleep nor eat. She was in love up to her ears. It seemed hopelessly to meet her in the nearest 20 years.
A week ago I got an SMS from her finally. It didn’t sound good though. This love stress had had quite contradictory effect on her organism. On one hand, she lost some pounds. I believe some of you know how pleasant it is to get rid of your extra weight:) On the other hand, her pressure rose extremely high, so high that doctors suggested her to spend some time in a hospital. But she refused. I would do the same. I just don’t like the yellow color they paint walls there. It’s some specific yellow, I would call it ‘depressive yellow’. It can be very powerful in killing the rests of your will to live:)). It doesn’t exist anywhere in the world except for Russian hospitals, I believe:))
But that wasn’t all that had happened to my friend. There was also a well-known phrase: ‘I’m looking into my karma tasks’. It didn’t sound that optimistic. It never does. It sounds like ‘à la guerre comme à la guerre’, like something that you feel you cannot change and need to take it as it is.
When I phoned her she told me: ‘You know what? He drinks! I knew he had been drinking quite with his previous wife, but I thought he would have stopped… You know, I’ve programmed everything: that I needed a man from my past, the one who had remembered me. The one who would be warm-hearted, loving, taking care of me, I even programmed his subsistence level. And you know what? I got that all just on time I had planned to get it, just the way I wanted it to be, even the subsistence level’ (well, I on my turn, not to make you think that my friend is able to get WHATEVER she wishes, will add that she didn’t ask for much, just exactly what she needed to live her common life. She considers, and I'm agree with her in this point, that it's also very important to know what you may wish and what you man not... just not to get disappointed not getting what you have wished. God always gives us only that what we really need in this life, even though sometimes it may seem unfair:)). She continued: ‘He is just the man that I have wished, but…’ ‘…you forgot to mention alcohol…’ – I continued. ‘Yes!’, - said she. ‘How I could forget about it! Every one of my men had some problem with it, and I’ve been always wondering, maybe it’s about my karma? Don’t know how I could forget about alcohol this time!’ ‘And what are you going to do now?’ – I asked then. ‘Well, I’ll wait and see. I just don’t know how long I’ll be able to wait…’

She’s still optimistic about it anyway. Because she’s wise, that’s one of the good reasons for me to love her:) She’s nearly as wise as her mom was.

You know, her mom was very much into esoteric stuff. It seemed she had read all the books on that. To die, she was preparing as though she was going just to change her location. I remember I was talking to her two weeks before she died. She told me then: ‘Well, my dear, you know, I’m leaving soon. Be happy, please!’ I didn’t hear any disappointment or sadness in her voice. She sounded so peaceful and happy… She’d been waiting for her vacations for so many years and now she was taking them finally to leave this stifling office and to visit an amazing place she’d been dreaming of. That’s how she sounded.
She said to my friend once: ‘Remember, my dear, nobody should get stuck to anything or anyone in this life. That’s why everyone you love always has something disagreeable in his character. This is made so as to not to let you get too much depended emotionally on that person’.
Her vacations started a year ago, just two weeks before her 70^th birthday… I’ll say the same that one lovely guy says in such cases: ‘May God rest her soul in peace’. Though, I’m absolutely sure she’s in peace as she was really wonderful…, a pure soul… And I'm so glad that I had an opportunity to know her...

...Some people believe that it's very important to be careful with our dreams. Cause in case we are not, our dreams may disappoint us coming true one day some surprising and unexpected way:) Looking back to what has happened to me and my best friend I would say, they are not too wide from truth:))

THE RIGHT TO BE RIGHT

Things pass for what they seem,

not for what they are.
Few see inside;

many take to the outside.
It is not enough to be right,

if right seem false and ill.

Balthasar Gracian

The Art of Worldly Wisdom

xcix. Reality and Appearance

Several years ago, I watched a very impressive spectacle in one Moscow theatre. It was represented by the French Cultural Center in Moscow and performed by Russian actors. The title of the play was 'ART', and this fact seemed strange to me because of a photo of a skier on a playbill...
The performance was so amazing that when it was over I couldn't do anything other than keep diving in the ocean of my thoughts and emotions created by that show... It was one of those pieces of art that really make you think, and a lot...
About a year later, when I found information about that play again, I decided to go there with my colleagues. They told me: 'Ok, as we haven't had any 'cultural program' for about a year, let's go there. But you say there are no decorations, nearly no action... well, then we'll probably have a nap and you'll enjoy the play'. I answered: 'Deal. Though, I doubt you'll manage to fall asleep'. To my great pleasure, all three were absolutely astonished watching that show, they couldn't neither take their eyes from the stage, nor talk to each other as they usually did in such kind of places...
Probably, such reaction wasn't caused only by the great play of the actors. Though, it was really great. It just showed how interesting a human's psychology was. Indeed, there were nearly no decorations, no action, no special effects, and even the actors, all three, were wearing just simple black clothes. Why? To show a human's psychic in its pure action, I would say. The amazing drawings that our minds and hearts create, whether these drawings are dark or light, monochrome or colored, simple or complicated, calming or exciting...

The story develops around a piece of art that one of the three friends, Serge, buys. A very expensive piece of art. His friend, Pierre, considers it to be just outrageously expensive. And if it's so expensive for France, imagine how expensive it would be for any other place!:)
What a piece of art is it? Well.. it's a painting. What's painted? Hmmmm... here we start....
The problem is that those two guys have quite different opinions.
Serge believes that it's a mountain covered with snow, with a skier speeding down this mountain.
Pierre, extremely irritated by his friend's purchase, insists that it's just a big white square that doesn't cost a single coin, the thing that only a hopelessly stupid man could buy for 4,000,000 francs, to adore it staring at the skier invented by his own sick imagination. There is also the third friend, Alan. He has several explanations for the whiteness of the square: the skier is wearing snow-white clothes, or maybe he just speeds too fast and we can hardly see him, or maybe he has already gone and we weren't just on time to notice him. That guy has a lot of versions, including the Pierre's one. He is just not sure which one of them is correct. And he becomes the scapegoat in this story for his inability to take any of the two sides. This guy seems to have a problem with self-definition. Or, maybe there is something else?

It's possible that sometimes such people as this Alan can harass us even more than our unwavering opponents. Being in the middle, they are so close to us, it seems we just need a little more arguments and they will be in our camp. Cause our camp is the right one. We know that. It's so obvious since it's our side. We cannot be wrong, can we?:) And here, with his uncertain and unclear opinion that neutrality-loving man leads us to the core of the whole story.

It's really important to be right, isn't it? As long as the truth is only one (according to the way we usually consider it to be) if we're not right we're wrong. We are under the X-line. It's just nearly like being dead. So, to feel alive, whenever we do something wrong (even knowing for sure that it's wrong) we find whatever explanations that could make us right, whoever who could substitute us and be responsible for that what's happened. Many of us do it even in the most ridiculous situations. It's our first and mostly subconscious reactions: self-defense. But it seems that it's not only the matter of our security... There are a lot of situations, like the one that is showed in the play I'm talking about, when the subject is not that serious and principle. But we're in our own frame of reference, and A here has its unique co-ordinate of truth. All the other co-ordinates are false. But we're not alone. There are also such close people as our family members and our friends living in our world. Their A, B, etc. should have the same co-ordinates that our own A and B have. On the other hand, those people have in fact their own worlds, where A and B may have, and most often they do have, another co-ordinates. Sometimes these co-ordinates are quite far from what we have. What any of the sides should do in this situation?
The world is really big, you know. There is a lot of space for other frames of reference. Everyone goes on living in his own world which is closed for another one when the matter of differences becomes principal. Cause in everyone's world there can be only one truth for each particular subject.
Walls.., borders.., barriers.., whatever except for a normal exchange of energies that is to take place between close people.
But we are right and we have our own truth. If the other one truly loves us, if he is worthy of us, he must be smart enough to admit that he's wrong, and to ask for forgiveness. Most likely, we will forgive him. But since we know for sure that we are right, we are not going to ask for forgiveness. It would be just illogical to do so, wouldn't it?:)

Being right we should be happy, wasn't it the most important for us? Though, curiously, as the time passes, we don't actually feel that happy with our truth. Its value reduces unreasonably. Or, maybe it doesn't happen so unreasonably? And what if this rightfulness is not that what we desired that much? Maybe the truth we're searching for lays somewhat deeper than we usually expect it to be? Maybe a simple logic doesn't work here and we should use some other of our abilities in our search? Maybe the real goal that we seek is just being together with people we love, living in the common world?

What if in our fight for truth that we start to keep our loved ones in our world, we suddenly forget about this aim substituting it for another one? The means - making those people share our truth - that we used to be together with them, get modified and converted into our goal - making them admit our rightfulness - and, at the same time, become our hidden means to reach our hidden (sometimes hidden even from us) goal - to make our loved ones with their 'wrong opinions' leave our 'right' world...
I know it sounds strange and very contradictory, but it seems that's the way it sometimes happens... Consciously, we don't mean exiling those people from our life. But we all know how it usually happens, and nevertheless, very often, we go on fighting...

Although, going back to our first reason for making those people share our
truth... maybe our searching for truth is in fact searching for LOVE? But if it's so, then, instead of fighting for being right, wouldn't it be better just to LOVE?

By the way, for those who are curious about the end of that story, here it is:

'My friend, Serge, has bought a painting for 4,000,000 francs.
On this painting there is a mountain whole covered with white-white snow.
A skier dressed in white speeds down the mountain very fast, he goes farther and farther until he becomes a small invisible spot...'

The play ends with these Pierre's words:) And you know what? He's happy as you may probably guess. Probably, he's found some deeper meaning for his truth;)

...I just hope that the next time I feel an irresistible desire to become right, I'll find enough wisdom to stop for a moment and think... just to know if that's what I really want...:)