Shaman. Book 1. Renaissance

It was strange that I did not even notice that they all had been here before. As if they were from some other life that I did not know before, but which was constantly following me like a shadow. Overcoming my reluctance to move and to make at least some movements at all, I came to the chest of drawers and picked up the first book. It was lying at some distance from the rest and was notable for its bright, colorful cover. The first thing that immediately caught my eye was the image of firemen, although judging by their faces and eye expression; they looked like someone else, but not firemen. Perhaps this strange incongruity drew my attention. The book was called «Fahrenheit 451».

The book title told absolutely nothing to me, and it was rather good than bad. My curiosity noticeably perked up and I began to read. Long time ago I liked reading and I could spend the whole evening diving with enthusiasm into a regular literary work. Then my passion faded by itself or maybe not by itself…

I did not notice when an hour passed. My whole being was filled with some new, forgotten long ago feeling. Suppose, I could not create by myself, but I knew for sure that I was on the right way. I read about 40 pages, but didn’t catch yet, what was the plot, although I liked the book in general. The dawn broke, even the sunrise seemed different to me, I vividly and with interest watched the solar disk, rising higher and higher and illuminating everything around.

Not waiting until the critical time, I hurried to dress, wash and left the house in the direction of the work. Although already then I was keenly aware that the work itself was not interesting for me anymore. And I couldn’t even remember if it was ever interesting. Such situation is probably quite common for people who have lost their way and forgotten about their true aspirations. On arriving at work, I was ready to spend the day as quickly as possible and return home to continue reading the story of Ray Bradbury. To my great surprise today wasn’t usual. Moreover, the changes began in the morning, when I still did not really understand that I was already in the workplace…

At the entrance, there was a small line and I even imagined for a moment, that I could just turn back and not to go to work. How it would be nice just to walk around the city, shrouded in the morning coolness. To drop by a nearby café, order a strong coffee and start thinking about the future project, at the same time I even didn’t have any idea what project it might be and how it could be developed, but I liked this feeling and I remembered it for a long time. Meanwhile line quickly disappeared somehow and I was inexorably drawn into the general crowd, peacefully and quietly following to their places. I quickly changed my clothes as usual, exchanged a few words in the hallway and on coming into the shop floor rushed to my workplace. Usually my first minutes were devoted to the preparation for the work, but as soon as I made a couple of steps, I was immediately beckoned by my boss. The conversation was short and quick:

– Pack your things; you are transferred to another department. You’ll find out all details on the spot, and also…

– Where am I transferred??? Why… I… I have not finished my work … – I tried to interrupt my boss, but due to surprise my words were slurred.

– Pack your things, details will be later – Petr snapped out and I slightly hanging my head walked to my workplace with not such a cheerful mood as it was before this conversation.

Everything seemed to be mixed up in my head. On the one hand, 10 minutes ago, I wanted to leave the company myself, and now I was completely disoriented by a simple transfer to a new place. I wanted to rebel, resent, but whom to and what for. Slightly ironic grimace froze on my face.

Sometimes you get used to certain circumstances and things; become attached to them so much that any interference in the usual routine causes almost a state of shock. This is a sure sign that life has gone deep into the track and it’s high time to change your environment.

On coming to a new place, I was handed a job description and some other documents. Having not come to my senses yet, I thumbed through it mechanically and, looking around, I started to learn my new job and my new colleagues. The day passed quickly and I did not even manage to notice that it was time to go home. And then I remembered about the book and about everything else. Having jumped up quickly from my chair and quickly said goodbye to everyone, I almost started running home. There was the book waiting for me on which I pinned my hopes for the revival of my abilities.

Today I decided not to distract on anything and already by the midnight, I had read the last page. I was definitely impressed by the main character, Guy Montag. His intention to find himself was very similar to what happened to me the last two days, which seemed like eternity, days that covered with an invisible veil everything that had happened before. Once again, the author of this bestseller reminds us, the readers, that somewhere far away, inside of every person there is a sense of the true path, that very path which will inevitably lead him to the absolute happiness! Even if this path is associated with overcoming a plurality of visible and invisible barriers.

The next few days every evening I sat down in my comfortable chair and enthusiastically read works of art until late night. And one day I noticed one unusual book. Several times as if not deliberately I avoided it and took another one. But now, I picked it up without thinking. Pages of this book like white wings opened before me, offering to plunge into the world of unbridled fantasies.

It was the work by Bernard Werber “The Thanatonauts’. The unusual book title and the beginning alerted me a little, but the more I sit over the book, the more interesting and charming it seemed to me. This book awakened in me the vague desire to learn something new and incredible. Having strengthened in my mind, this desire was growing more and more during the plot development. The story itself was quite strange to understand, especially for such an ordinary person as I was. It should seem, the two completely different characters met. After several years of searching of themselves and their mission in the world, they began to explore the completely unknown by that time area of human consciousness – the limb. Step by step, they moved through the limb levels, each time being on the verge of death. This fine line between life and death let them move to an intermediate state of being their soul fluttered in space like a butterfly, revealing more and more facets of our vast universe. On deciding not to go to bed, I finished reading this book in one breath. I was still under strong impression from reading the content even after a few days.

I got used to this book so much that I did not want to release the situations and the events that had happened with the main characters. Unnoticeably to myself I began googling any information related to this topic. I came across one article or another and it all seemed to be no more than a fantastic fiction. And after three days of fruitless search, when I was quite desperate to find something worth attention, some unpopular forum caught my eye. I would shut it before, but now one of forum posts attracted my attention. Someone Mathieu Launter offered assistance with the development of limb in confident, even slightly immodest tone. His offer was written as if the journey to the limb was a quite common thing and all people practiced it from time to time. Feel like going to the outskirts of the galaxy – you’re welcome! One, two, a small breath and that’s it – you’re there…

It was all of a sudden for me. Distant and childlike innocent thoughts now took on quite real outlines. The first moment I did not even believe in what I’ve just read. Slightly excited I went to the balcony and sat down on the very bench where I liked to dream when I got free time and to have a slightly think. Now thoughts raced like a wild whirlwind in my head, not allowing me to concentrate properly on anything. Fresh breeze hauled, I closed my eyes, enjoying the coolness of the night city. Suddenly, vague images of heroes of Bernard Werber, their launching chairs for sending to the limb, bright, but pleasant glow of Milky Way appeared before my eyes…

Now I felt that anxiety that had possessed me, slightly subsided, and I was able to come back to the room and sit down at the computer again. I was more than sure that Mathieu Launter was just an invented nickname, but later it will turn out that it is quite a real name. Mathieu was a French immigrant in the second generation. I read his message until the end. Below I saw his contact information as a signature. Not even knowing how to start a conversation, I wrote that I wanted to start training immediately. I was ready to sit down at the books, manuals right now; I was ready to work through all kinds of practices all day long, just to get closer to my dream…

Now time at work lasted so long that it seemed impossible to wait for the moment when I was able to start my new hobby again.

For the whole day, I had much time to have a good think about what I wanted to get from learning at master Mathieu. Sometimes in moments of weakness, I was captured by inexplicable fear. A little longer and I was ready to give up this slightly wild idea. While on the other hand it was the percentage of insanity that caused a burning desire to start immediately!

I came home and not digressing to secondary things, clung to the monitor at once. In one move, I opened messages and among 10 incoming ones sent to me for the last day I saw the one, the one I was waiting for so eagerly. There were only 4 lines where I found out that I could start training that day. I completed the commercial part of the agreement, and after half an hour I received the keys to the whole range of theoretical and practical material needed to achieve the result. A separate file included video instructions, telling about all the niceties of training step by step.

With some difficulty overcoming the temptation to proceed to practical exercises immediately, I started learning theory a little anxious. There was a lot of material, no end of it. But it was not the main problem. Lectures were so full of complicated scientific terms, that sometimes I just lost the ability to understand what was said there. Besides, the text was not deprived of lyrical component. My perseverance and will to achieve the desired objective were so strong that, despite all difficulties, I went on studying the course, hoping that sometime later, I will be able to master this discipline from top to bottom. I was reading page after page, more and more affirming the idea that all this could actually be real. Although strong doubts about the success of my business still remained in my heart…

«The structure of human consciousness objectively associates with the environment. As the harmonic component, it fits well into a life symphony. Obeying the universal energy principles, our body also has a frequency component where every organ, every cell and every atom inside it vibrates at its specific levels. Besides the whole structure is arranged in such way bodies with higher frequencies gradually replace that starting from the sacrum of the spine, organs with lower vibration frequencies. It creates the conditions for passing the energy wave to the brain, where it enters the electromagnetic resonance with a neural network…»

Reading all this I seemed to soar over my own body, and sometimes I began to think that my thoughts went a little beyond the written text, to the area of pure inspiration and creativity! Being an inveterate materialist, I was intuitively looking for information directly related to our daily life, whether it was money, occupation, personal life, etc…

After reading several lectures and being pretty tired, I decided to put everything aside and have a little think about what I had just learned. Different thoughts occurred to my head; somewhere I admired the level of master knowledge, but somewhere, on the contrary, deeply disagreed. I didn’t have any definite attitude to everything I had read. So I decided to go on…

“… all social reality is the projection of our inner state, and vice versa – the inner human world is an accurate representation of the entire structure of the universe. Man is a small copy of the whole space, which we could hardly imagine. The path to perception of the world lies through self-perception…”

Here it is!!! That very thing I was looking for! For a moment, I even forgot that I was going to the limb, about adventures I could meet there. All my thoughts were focused on one simple idea – to know myself and thus to come closer to understanding the meaning of life.

My inspiration was enough for one hour, after which I felt a strong desire to go to bed immediately. It was dark outside the window. However, it was light in the room; the moon was illuminating all around with its pale light, giving objects and things an extraordinary cool tint. Everything stood motionless and sank into a sleepy slumber. Watching this picture, I did not notice how I fell asleep.

It took me just a couple of days to read the rest of the lectures, included into the course. There I first became acquainted with the system of Tibetan chakras that were as I understood a purely conventional representation of subtle energy centers in the human body. Through the prism of the structure and location of the organs in our body, the master easily and elegantly explained the structure of cosmic bodies, their movement, and their past and future development. Although the concept of the future and the past, it seemed to me, did not exist for Mathieu at all.

Having got a large flow of new information, my mind was tossing from side to side, trying to find at least one island, where you could stop and take a breath in this infinite ocean. Many hours were devoted to dialogues with the master about it:

– Ask any questions, I am at your disposal.

I did not even expect such courtesy from my teacher. Until recently, he seemed to be rude and tough enough. I even thought that it was the most appropriate way to promote such ideas, differing greatly from the normal life.

– I am interested in the limb very much and I want to learn it thoroughly. But now, I would like to ask what I can do to feel that my life has a definite meaning. I understand the question may be stupid, and I’m still not quite experienced in my life, but right now I’d like to understand the basis, fundamental nature, in order not turn from the desired path accidentally. I am afraid that later, being already in advanced years, I will wonder again like now, but there won’t be such energy and desire to find answers any more…

– All right, my friend. Hmm… I am not so much surprised as pleased with your question. And not concrete actions, but path; path which is longer than your whole life, a much longer path will be your answer…

– But maybe we can already refer to some things, objects, able to give a support, belief in myself and better tomorrow?

– Yes, sure. You can write a book, compose some music, and draw a painting… In short, any human creation born by gusts of pure inspiration is able to give you what you are inquiring about…

There were a lot of such conversations during the entire time of my studies. From them I learned the basis, relying upon which one could look calmly at the future. I was like a sponge absorbing every master’s word, trying not to miss anything.

So, time for practice came. Sometimes I felt such a strong doubt that involuntarily I tried to focus more on theory, as if being afraid that I would fail. However time passed by, all lectures were read, and it was high time to start acting.

The next day I finished my work earlier and immediately began to study practice. I decided that today through thick and thin I would really start my study. Excitement and anticipation of something wonderful and mysterious was literally bursting me inside. From the first minutes, I realized that the biggest part of all practices, and maybe even 90 percent of them were… breathing exercises. It countered with my philistine ideas concerning the limb development. Being a child, I heard a lot of legends and stories about shamans, wizards and other representatives of the dark forces. I thought their life was shrouded in darkness and accompanied by various rituals and witchcraft. Now, however, it was relatively simple and clear, magic areole vanished into thin air, as if it had never existed.

Finally, I used an easel in work. Breathing exercise schemes were new for me, and I had to sketch out everything in details. It turned out to be difficult for me to draw, I succeeded pretty badly, and sometimes I could not really make out my own records. But, nevertheless, it was the first real step towards discovery of my creative abilities. After reviewing the materials for the first week, I started to practice. I stood in front of the mirror, fixed hands front and side parts of the lungs, and began to inhale air by my belly slowly and rhythmically. So, the development of the lower yogic breathing passed. Then I switched my hands and gradually worked out the medium and upper breathing. At first, I was confused wildly in my hands, several times my breathing collapsed heavily, but after a half of an hour, I began to succeed. Another part of the training was exercise – “the take-off point’. For its working out, I went out and walked to a nearby yard, where the sports equipment was located.

I quietly hung on the bar, having chosen the highest one, in order my feet could not touch the ground. Gently rocking, I felt a light breeze blowing me up and causing a pleasant shiver throughout the body. A couple of minutes passed, and I was still hanging. Hands were pretty tired already. But, due to the master’s advice, I bravely endured the inconvenience and was waiting for the moment when I could abstract from reality surrounding me. Everything was buzzing around, somewhere kids were screaming; somewhere car rushed past with roaring, following one after one… Suddenly I felt a sharp ringing in the ears and ceased to hear everything around me for a moment. That moment was enough to lose control of myself and my sense of reality. Somehow, hands relaxed themselves, I hardly felt them. Buzzing in ears turned into a ringing vibration, and I began to fall. … In less than a second, my feet hit the ground hard. But something else, separate from my body, as if not noticing it, continued to fly down into the very depths of the earth. I understood! I understood why it was needed, a simple and yet very uncommon exercise. Only now I did truly realize that I am made of several bodies, gathered together as a Russian nesting doll. This feeling was so strong that I could not control myself at once and try to make at least a step.

Next 7 days I was systematically complying with all master’s recommendations. Perhaps the most difficult thing was to stay awake making 700 rhythmic breaths. And the minimum rate – 600 cycles – I was able to make only in the last two days. The second week of training with new exercises was waiting for me. Moreover, the new techniques didn’t replace the previous, but imposed on them, thus complicating the process. It was designed for all 4 weeks of my study.