Now I realize that it was invaluable experience, which the majority of contemporary mankind lack. People of other cultures, who do not use hieroglyphs, are deprived of the experience of building correct and harmonious visual images. Beautiful landscapes, photographs, even paintings fail to provide such an opportunity to process and make elaborate the space of the image. But people … their thoughts take the form of images, not of words, after all.

Comparing the space of the visual images of an individual, who uses hieroglyphs to write, with that of somebody, who uses an alphabet, as, say, the English do, is similar to comparing a classical violin concert with city noise. And our psyche is nothing, but a set of patterns in the space of visual, audio, and kinaesthetic images. It is this fundamental difference that accounts for the lack of western people’s understanding of the behaviour of their oriental neighbours.

Quite often, when my male and female pupils approached me, their eyes filled with tears of despair due to the seeming hopelessness of their situation, be it love or economic problems, I would apply a simple technique to change their inner picture of the world, their way of thinking and attaining their goals – a very simple technique indeed. Guess what? Yes, indeed, I would take a large piece of paper and a brush and would write some hieroglyphs, and then I would encourage my pupils to meditate while looking at it, telling them that looking upon those magic symbols was the key to their situation.

No, I was not cheating them. That was a simple shaman technique. Some elements of this technique are used by modern psychology. Nowadays it is called ‘working with submodalities’ and ‘goal behaviour’. But no matter what elements modern psychology borrowed from ancient practices, this would be just leaves torn from a living tree, doomed to death and oblivion.

Well, I will write about it too, some day. But now, let us go back to that day, the longest day in my life.

So, the spring of 1184.

.......

I was sitting on the slope of a mountain, coming back in my thoughts to that delightful moment and experiencing again and again that ambrosial feeling. A smile was wandering over my lips. It was not the meditative smile of the Buddha, it was the mischievous smile of a young girl who did something she shouldn’t have. If only he knew that the storm of his feeling was caused by a ‘girl’, whose age was over eight centuries. But I was proud of myself: one problem had already been solved. The energy, as hot water, started its way up, along the spine, up to the top of my head, and I had to use much effort to curb it and to direct it the right way, so that it would rotate all the orbits. It was so light and pure – I was just floating above the earth without any effort. Baguas were rotating in all joints at the speed of 60,000 revolutions per second. Sure, it was not easy to control the speed and the direction of rotation in all seventeen points at the same time, but with experience you stop thinking which way to rotate every joint, they start revolving by themselves when I wish it so.

If you ask a centipede how it walks, the poor creature would probably freeze and stay still until the end of its days, trying to figure out how it manages to do it. If you ask a bird how it flies, it will not understand your questions. The same with people: with age they forget their first step, the difficulties they had to overcome, the persistence they had to have and the bumps it cost them to learn to walk steadily.

But if you ask an adult, “How do you walk?” he would misunderstand it. By the way, my observations make me think that many people cannot walk, run or sleep correctly. And this costs them a lot of bodily diseases, which are often rooted in these seemingly primitive, basic things.

The matter is that it is very simple. Using modern concepts, which comprise the nature of electromagnetic fields and their interaction, the predetermination of a certain way of life and the innate disposition towards certain diseases can be explained as follows.

Right after conception the formation of the embryo’s spine starts. It takes the form of a flexible chord, something like a threadlike tube with a high concentration of blood, which indicates iron. This chord, in terms of the 20th century’s physical picture of the world, functions as a little aerial, which catches all electromagnetic waves coming in from the universe. And these fields affect the formation of the fine structure of the spine. Its nuances are determined just by the juxtaposition of the planets at the moment of the conception. This is why karma – some determination of one’s fate – enters the embryo right at the moment of its conception and immediately after. This is why the day and the time of the conception are so important for astrological forecasts.

The human backbone consists of thirty vertebrae. And there are thirty pairs of nerves in each of the vertebrae. The tiniest angles that form some time after conception send impulses to certain organs. This explains why people, who are born under the same Zodiac signs, have similar features of the character and are prone to the same diseases. The signals, of course, are very weak, but they are coming and coming – for years. They are like drops that eventually wear away the stone. The books of destiny are not in the heavens – they are in your backbones. Change the record, and you will be able to change your destiny. The key to success here is the agreement among all physical and psychological methods you might choose.

Fortunately, in my time people did not separate the physical and the psychological. Your body is the home of your soul, and they should match. That’s why all practices combine training both the body and the soul. And this was the reason why the practices were allowed to choose the path of the spirit, and not to fall into the karmic pitfalls of the low order.

Every step along the path towards perfection of those Who Are Walking the Great Way is a step towards freedom. Has freedom any boundaries? I don’t know. I don’t know it, even now. For me, the boundary of freedom runs where my knowledge and my command of practices end. It’s very simple.

First, a foetus rests in his mother’s womb, and this sets the limitations to his freedom. Then the baby stays in the cradle, which becomes the boundary of his freedom. The first step – and the toddler extends his freedom beyond the fence of his parental home. The ladder of freedom has its beginning, but nobody knows where it ends.

Yes, on that happiest and longest day of my life I was floating above the slope of the mountain. I was radiating light, I was as lustrous as a rainbow. Luckily, the sunshine was exceptionally bright that day, and nobody noticed me. Were it night, however, I would have been running the risk of being noticed.

A light wind of disturbance distracted me from daydreams and sentiments. I looked down and saw the Butler from Shi’s house. He was followed by Van. There was something in the peaceful scene that seemed wrong to me. I lowered myself to the grass at the edge of the terrace and continued watching them, trying at the same time to read the book of the recent past.

While I had been indulging in my sweet daydreams, the following incident was taking place in Shi’s house.

Once the servants had come back from the market, the Butler summoned Van.

“Was the way to the city difficult for you?” he asked.

“No, Sir,” answered Van, in due humble and respectful manner, not anticipating anything wrong.

“Was the market crowded today?”

“Yes, very crowded, Sir.”

“Do you love your young Illustrious Lord?”

“With all my heart, Sir,” replied Van, and with this her cheeks acquired the slightest tint of pink.

What else could a servant reply? This was the only possible answer for her. However, the slight flush caused the fatal decision.