The Strings of Glass Beads

                TATYANA MARTIROSYAN (SELF-TRANSLATION)



THE WHITE RAIMENT (I)
Abraham loved God with all his heart, all his soul, and all his might. And his love for God was so great that he was entirely happy. He perceived the world exactly in the way the Lord had created it; therefore he never got disturbed when encountering evil. He always did what he was supposed to do, so he succeeded in everything he did. He was a shield to his neighbors, he pacified enemies, he was honored in foreign lands as mighty prince, and he had sons.
It was a curious story: Sarah’s barrenness, the promise of the Most High to send him a child, thereby making a great nation of him, a long wait interrupted only by yet more promises… How could one not get distressed? What’s the use of a long life and increasing wealth if there was nobody to pass it on and a stranger was managing the house? But Abraham believed the Creator. His eyes being always shining, his ears being always open to the euphonious song of havens, despondence avoided him. It settled in those faithless, filling their souls with cold despair and bending their bodies down to the ground, whereas Abraham walked with God, and the flame of love and gratefulness always burnt in his heart. And he never suffered for not apprehending His design. He felt the love of God and believed that the Lord saw him and knew everything. Abraham always followed His will, and when God was silent, he listened to his heart. So, he pitied Sarah when she, exhausted by the long wait, prayed him to go in unto Hagar, her handmaid, hoping that she might obtain children by her. Shortsighted and self-interested was that wish of Sarah, and yet he understood her grief and believed in her willingness to love his child from another woman. Besides, he so rejoiced at the thought of the future child that all his doubts disappeared. And did the happiness of having a son fade when those doubts had proved to be true? Oh no! Abraham’s soul was full of gratitude to the Creator for all His gifts.
Oh Isaac! Laughter! His eyes are shining with joy of life; young friskiness makes laugh even a stone. Oh Isaac, son! Love overfilled Abraham’s heart; bright golden light flared in front of his eyes and therefore he did not at first catch the words of the Most High, “Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac… and get thee into the land of Moriah… and offer him there for a burnt offering…” Long he stood there unable to believe his ears. On the very threshold of horror he stood, his soul trembling, sorrowing, yet not daring to grieve. For Abraham loved God. And he remained motionless waiting for God knows what. But God was silent.
And Abraham listened to his heart, as he always did. Soothing the shiver, overcoming the fear, suppressing the pain, he penetrated into the very bottom of his own soul. There was love in there. “I love God above all things. I know it… have always known… the Lord is my light, my joy, and my stronghold,” he thought. “So, shouldn’t I give Him—whom I love above all things—my dearest treasure?” Yet he felt pain at this thought, and as the golden light grew dim, he realized where he was wrong: to give something to the Creator does not mean to lose it. The Lord loves both him and Isaac, and if He takes Isaac away, it would be so much better for Isaac to be near God than even at his father’s! And as he thought so, his heart as if burst, as if blazed up like the sun, and his spirit ascended to havens. It lasted only for an instant, and the feeling was incomparable—almost unbearably excellent and fearful. He as if was flying, rushing swiftly through misty whirls, and simultaneously watching all this as though from outside. Then he saw his own self standing on the top of a mountain; he was wearing white raiment shining as snow, and an angel of the Lord was talking to him tenderly and was blessing him.
When Abraham came to himself, he was calm and serene despite the exaltation he had experienced. Abraham gave thanks to God and set out to fulfill His will.


THE WHITE RAIMENT (II)
She did not feel like getting up; it was cold too. She started counting from ten to one, like they do when launching a spaceship. It did not help. Then a bell rang, and the cheerful baritone of the Chief drove away the remnants of her dream, “The project’s won; the money’s on the account; after the work is finished all the team will get a vacation; and this means…” What it meant, Lerah knew herself: she had to get up and go to the office, though it was Sunday. Lerah assured the Chief that she was delighted, put on a dressing gown and went out on the balcony. Outside, the morning has just woken up; it washed in the night rain, opened the purl-gray cloud canopy, and gilded the windows of buildings, making them shine as stained glass. Lerah enjoyed the chilly, crystal air of March trying to pay no attention to a slight pain in her chest. “It’s all nonsense,” she thought, “I’m Okay. True, there were four months of intensive work upcoming, but after—at least two weeks of sheer far niente... And Garik, too, is likely to be given a two-week leave, if only he makes an effort. And—to the seaside, together…” However, there was something else… Some vague recollection was rising from the very bottom of her soul, thrilling and pacifying in the same time, like the sunlight glittering through clouds. Following her old habit to analyze feelings and gut reactions, she got concentrated. What was it? Oh yes, mom! Mom came to her in her dream…
She lost mother a few years ago. For a long time she dreamed of her every night. The dreams were different, yet they could be classified in three categories. The first one she called “Mom’s Come Back”. With the normal degree of distortion, those dreams restored the scenes of their past everyday life; mother behaved as if she had come back from some trip, while Lerah, half crazy with happiness, cried, “They’ve deceived me! Mom hasn’t died! Here’s my mom!” The impression was so vivid that, awakened, she could hardly distinguish between dreams and reality. Gradually, the unconscious feeling crystallized into a belief that mother’s death was relative, while in the absolute reality she was alive, and they were together as ever. This belief was fed also by the second category of dreams where mother, very calm and serious, was as if sitting at a table opposite her and either reproaching her for something or explaining something for her, or giving her advice. The third category dreams could be classified as nightmares. Lerah was walking down some long dark hallway, peering into each room, looking for mother and not finding her. She would wake in tears, with aching heart, and it took her a while to regain consciousness.
Gradually, the intensity of emotions faded, the dreams became less and less frequent; she seemed to have got her life together. And, all of a sudden, she was granted this splendid dream. Lerah concentrated. Yes, the vision was amazing. Mother was all shining. Light was emanating from her face, her hands, and from the marvelous snow-white raiment she had on. Looking at Lerah with a tender smile, she told her about something wonderful that had recently happened to her. Lerah could not remember the actual words, but she kept the memory of mother’s image radiating harmony and tranquility which helped her to survive. Yet life was growing more and more severe, getting overfilled with ruthless common vanities, and narrowing the choice. And the day came when there was no choice left. What was left was to guess how long she would last. Today, tomorrow, in a week, or in a month the claws of cancer will crush her heart sentenced by physicians without any option to appeal. Moreover, there was nobody to petition. Garik was gone long ago; married money and left. She had no children. Nobody wanted her anymore. “Oh mammy, dearest, if only I could start all over again…” Lerah bit her lip, “I won’t cry! But why, what does it mean now? Oh mammy…” She began to cry, quietly, whining, like when she was a kid.
She lasted a week, then another week, and then she suddenly realized that she was no longer “lasting” but, on the contrary, she felt rather well. She still was afraid to admit it loudly, but deep inside she was positive that she had recovered. The clawed killer vanished… but how? At last, she made up her mind and got examined. It was not an illusion. She was healthy. Life was full of inspiring promises, like on that spring morning when… Mammy! She had not been dreaming of her for a long time… So, why was she suddenly anxious?
That night Lerah dreamt of her. Mother was dressed in rags and tatters. Woeful, distressed, she said that she had been bestowed the greatest favor which turned out the greatest ordeal for her. She was allowed to see the Book of Life, and, turning over the pages, she found out the record related to her daughter. It read that Lerah would die from cancer.
She tore the page out.


THE WHITE RAIMENT (III)
Could all of this have been avoided? Why, yes. His best friend Dimah did avoid; was sitting as still as a mouse, just whispered, hardly moving his lips, “Kolya, don’t do it!” That desperate whisper implied that it would not help Victor Sergeyevich, that it would spoil his own life for nothing, that they would shut down the project for good, that outside the assembly hall the spring was blooming, and that he was only twenty five… Was there really a choice? Anyhow, it was not a conscious choice; his decision was based not on weighing all pros and contras but on the deep inner conviction: “I can’t live in a lie.”
When he stood up and all the eyes had turned at him, he was bewildered by sudden disappearance of sounds, as though his ears were plugged. However, in reality the silence fell on the conference hall later when, looking straight at the Chairman of the meeting, he said that he did not believe in that his Research Supervisor was an enemy-of-the-nation.
The system failed, but it got re-regulated very fast. Having come to senses after the shock, the society had wrapped him with a vacuum cover, isolating him as alien body, and put the regular mechanism into action.
Paradoxically, in the camp he began to revive, that is to see, to hear, to feel smells. There was something else too: his perceptivity had sharpened enormously. But the most important was the sudden realization of that he was surrounded not by anthropomorphic creatures but by people. There were not many of them: a priest Father Arseni, a tractor driver Alyesha, a compositor Stepan Georgievich, and a criminal known by a nickname of Cashier which he got due to specialization in cash-boxes robbery.
It manifested itself when the criminals, as was their custom, took away the firewood collected by Father Arseni who was on duty that day. With his usual kind smile, Father Arseni again began to collect fuelwood. And Kolya, who had earlier been an indifferent witness of many such episodes, rose suddenly and without a word followed the criminals. Having heard the shout of Stepan Georgievich, “Kolya, don’t do it!”—just as at that meeting—he stopped dead. Then Alyesha, who at first seemed not to be noticing what had been going on, came up and stood next to him. The criminals also stopped, smirking and changing insulting remarks. And again all the sounds vanished suddenly, and Kolya, looking straight at the nearest bandit like at the Chairman of that meeting, moved forward.
He awakened in a hospital, with broken ribs. Alyesha, all wrapped in bandages, was screaming beside him, and from the bed by the window Stepan Georgievich was nodding shyly.
Father Arseni came to see them as often as he could, and again Kolya was astonished by his tolerance, his absolute refusal to judge anybody, whoever it was. And when Kolya—by the way, well cured—was on his way back to the barrack, he found Cashier waiting for him round the corner. Without giving him a chance to utter a word, the poor guy handed him a crumpled letter. It was from Kolya’s mother. As he was held incommunicado, it was a pure miracle that mother’s letter had reached him. He did not believe in miracles back then, all the more he valued the risk Cashier had undergone. 
Thus began their friendship. They were so different that in the normal course of life only a caprice of fate might gather them together. But here in the camp they created a kind of brotherhood. And, though it was born due to Kolya’s reckless heroism, it was Father Arseni who became its indisputable leader. His endless kindness, tolerance, insight, and, most important, the combination of soft-heartedness and steadfastness attracted all people. He was not well educated; his knowledge of natural sciences was rather poor, and Stepan Georgievich exceeded him far in erudition. But he could penetrate in the very core of a matter even if he first heard of it. He could look at things with unprejudiced eyes of a child and could turn any conversation into a philosophical dispute. Owing to him, Kolya for the first time doubted that logic was the best tool of cognition and that scientific proof was the only possible decent argument. He began to think that his life had not been lost hopelessly, that he could stand everything, and that the camp life might well be looked at as an experiment. However, the newly acquired feeling of reconciliation with the absurd paradigm did not last long but had been broken by an incident awful even in the conditions of the arbitrary rule of a camp. Major Kostenyuk, a petty tyrant hated by all, including his fellow officers, found fault with Alyesha over trifles and, having had all the barrack formed                                up, began to beat him. He was growing more and more furious, and Kolya soon realized that something out of the common was going on. Kostenyuk got enraged as never before. A few minutes later Kolya understood that the major was going to beat Alyesha to death, and if… If what? What could he do? Rush at that monster? He would just get killed before he could do a few steps. But he could watch it neither! Kolya trembled all through; he was about to cry, but the scream stuck in his throat as he saw Father Arseni coming out of the line and approaching the major. In the calm, firm voice Father Arseni ordered the major to stop the beating. Kolya benumbed with horror of what might follow, but something inexplicable happened. Kostenyuk stopped obediently, ordered them all to disappear, and, without looking at anybody, went away. Astonished, Kolya, almost not realizing what he was doing, ran up to Alyesha and helped to transfer him to the barrack. After Alyesha had been provided with the necessary aid, Kolya, not daring to discuss the happening with Father Arseni, found a moment and shared his delight with Stepan Georgievich. But to his great surprise, the compositor shook his head, “Father Arseni did nothing of the kind”, he said. “He was standing in the line, still and silent like others.”
Kolya did not argue. He went out of the barrack, leaned against the wall, and closed his eyes. And—the third shock— he remembered the detail he had disregarded at first: when Father Arseni went up to the major, he was wearing an extraordinary, as if shining, white raiment.   


THE FOURTH STATE (I)
This birth was the most thrilling in my life. It, I admit, yielded to the third one in magnificence, it was not so intricately-spectacular as the seventh reincarnation, and, perhaps, the eleventh rebirth was more harmonious, but… How to express? Never before had I enjoyed emotions of such depth and strength. For the first time in my life, I did not entirely given myself up to the element of explosion but was also watching it from outside. I was as if creating my own self. It was splendid! In a flash, my whole nature, all my being, shrank to a dazzling point of exultant delight, and then it blazed up, overshadowing everything with blinding shine. And, having heard expressions of admiration from all over the universe, at the culmination of the explosion, I cognized the harmony of my new being. But before dissolving in it I pulled myself together and produced one more excellent luminous cloud. With furious pace, it rushed forward carrying my response—salutation, gratitude, and love.
Then my luminosity began to decline; then I estimated the losses in my substance; then I started a mad game: now blazing up violently, now getting into prostration; then, inevitably, the time came for the quiet, serene burning. And after that I started investigating the world, getting amazed and glad at everything new. With renewed energy, I tuned in the information exchange and, having noticed two happy lovers staring at me in enchantment, I sent them a ray shield.
God, how grateful I am to You!
Time will pass, and I will again pray to You, and You will again send me a sparkle of Your light—the divine impulse.
And I will again enjoy the great happiness of birth.


THE FOURTH STATE (II)
Tonight, tonight, tonight…
Tonight!
The air in the office was electrified by anticipation of the evening. The papers did not wish to lie on the table—they flew about the room by the slightest breath. The mirror on the wall tempted to look into its depths like in the window to the future, to the fate, to this evening… And now and then numerous visitors—from colleagues and subscribers to street madmen—peeped in to ask something or just to chat with her a little. The last of them slammed the door, and Maya looked at the watch: still two hours to wait. The view of the locked door and the sudden silence caused her an unbearable pang of pain. And that gray creature with sad narrow eyes—the fear—started trembling desperately.
Maya pressed her temples. The phone rang; she had to go to the Press Centre. Wonderful! To move! Not to wait. Not to get crazy. Not to think. Not to… The colors, sounds, and bustle of the streets stunned her as if she had not left the office for years. Maya threw back her head. The bright blue sky, the radiant clouds... A breeze fell upon a tree, played with thin twigs. The tree caught it and threw to Maya: breathe! Maya started to breathe, deeply and thankfully. Splendid! Now get hurry, hurry, hurry… to the Press Centre. She must visit about ten editorial offices. She must do her job. She must stay alive until tonight. Until tonight, tonight, tonight… It’s not that long. An ecstatic thrill overfilled her.
In the last office on her list, the staff was discussing a recent movie, the winner of the most popular awards in the world. “This is the most thrilling film of our century,” Maya heard, and suddenly she broke out, “No!” she cried, “The most thrilling film of our century is on now!” All the faces turned to her with the same question, “Where?” And, triumphantly, she thrust her arm towards the opened window and cried, “There!” They did not understand and cried again, “Where, where?” She laughed, approached the window, and bent out pointing not only with her hand but also with all her being at the world spread outside, “There!” And she turned back beaming. They laughed and roared in response, interestedly, sympathetically. They understood. Though, what could they understand? They did not know that tonight, tonight, tonight…
At last, the evening came; she reached the crossroads where they arranged to meet and saw him on the opposite side of the street. Having sensed her gaze, he turned, and Maya saw a golden halo blazing around his head. “My God, this is his aura! I’ve seen his aura,” she thought, and everything drowned in the golden haze. 


THE FOURTH STATE (III)
The idea first came to her when passing by the university laboratory of physics she glanced through the open door, saw the violet stream of plasma and froze mesmerized. The violet shine was flowing deeply immersed in an estranged movement from nowhere to nowhere, from minus infinity to plus infinity. But in the same time, paradoxically, there was something vivid and rebellious in its nature. And also, it somehow saw Maya. They were looking at each other penetrating into the very essence of each other, absorbing it and memorizing the feeling of unbelievable rebellious harmony. This had been lasting for a few minutes, till the laboratory assistants noticed her and burst into laughter. Grinning and waving hands, they offered her to come closer; Maya got embarrassed and went out.
Late in the evening, locked in her room, she closed her eyes recalling the violet miracle and her own feelings. Suddenly, she realized what it all was like. Yes, exactly so. First, an uncertain sadness, unreasonable restlessness, inner isolation from the rest of the world when outwardly you do everything you are supposed to do, while inwardly you are deeply immersed in the intense search for the only rhythm, the unique form which the work of soul should take. Then, the first line appears filling the soul with bright joy: “That’s it!” Then, recollections, impressions, feelings, discoveries, flashes of inspiration flow through the burning brain which transforms them into words united by the rhythm like beads on a string. Then the turn comes for admiration and amazement at your own work. Then, the thinned soul looks around and shrivels from pain. Then, you return back to the world of things and relations.
Say what you want, but this world, regardless of its apparent indifference, does changes a bit due to every creative act.


THE FOURTH STATE (IV)
“Now I’m asking you… to forget what you’ve just heard… for a while… and remember what you came for,” the master was speaking slowly, with pauses, giving the listeners time to come back from the heights (or depths) where they had been led by his intricate thought. He was watching the audience with his large wet shining eyes of uncertain, changeable color; his glance, they said, could awake the hidden thoughts and latent abilities of a person and put them into motion, they also said that if a sea were able to look, it would look that way.
Meanwhile, the visitors got animated and began to whisper and to pass soft drinks to one another. He smiled, waited for a while, came down from the pulpit, and stood at the very edge of the stage.
“You may ask questions.”
A lot of hands rose. One by one they stated their problems (the deadlocks they had been led to by the roads of life) and got quick clear answers. He explained to everyone what had happened and specified several possible solutions, always adding that they could find even better alternatives themselves if they tried; finally, looking straight into their eyes, he charged them with the bright energy of hope.
The master once more watched the listeners. Cheered up, with eyes glittering happily and thankfully, they mentally were already there where the new horizons had been opened for them, yet they lingered because they felt glad in this light cool hall with high windows.
Only one spot kept radiating restlessness: a young man who never dared to ask his question. He was sitting with drooped head, biting his lips, but as he felt the master’s gaze, he straightened. The master nodded encouragingly. The youth smiled.
“I have read your book.”
The master raised his eyebrows.
“I mean the last one,” the guy said, “The Thought and Motion”. I think it is brilliant as hell. It tells what I… all people… have been trying to understand since the very moment we started thinking. I was as if speaking with my own self. But it is also the most devilish lie that…” he halted.
“Why?”
“Because when I read your book through and closed it, I felt exactly like I would after talking to myself.
“What exactly did you feel?”
“Emptiness, no, it was poisonous bitterness. That feeling of being deceived, bluffed… Because… all the damned questions for which I seemed to have received the answers rushed upon me again… they even multiplied… I thought I was getting crazy… I thought I’d better not to think at all… I was the most miserable man in the world… and I “closed myself” like a book… and tried to live… simply to live… then all the damned thoughts gathered and fell upon me again, like hungry wolves…
And what shall I do? I can’t kill them, I can’t give up, and I don’t want to get into a madhouse.”   
The boy fell silent defiantly, ready to oppose to any suggestion.
“You are complaining about movement in a circle, but nobody compels you to do it, nobody, except yourself. You yourself had outlined that circle. You are like that beetle which follows in its own footsteps and devours its own excrement. This causes the feeling of being poisoned and hunted down. What should you do? Get off the circle. The situation may be coped only if you rise above it.” 
“How?”
  “For example, start writing. Don’t try to run away from the mad wolves, don’t try to feed their ever-hungry bellies, but look straight in their eyes and begin to write about them. Very soon they will become nothing more than images, and you will realize that they always were just shades.
When the guests were gone, he went out into the garden and lay under a mulberry. Looking at the flowers and leaves, he thought how finely and precisely the exquisiteness and simplicity combine in curves and colors of all living things. He recalled everything he had heard at the meeting and decided what might be taken for his next book. In the end, he remembered the guy with his mad wolves and smiled. He dozed smiling, and in the dream he kept looking at the sunshine penetrating through the dense canopy. Gradually, the lace of leaves thinned and vanished, and the golden shine filled everything. And this miraculous light was in the continuous complicated motion and simultaneously it was emanating a divine tranquillity. It was living and it was looking at him without eyes and talking to him without words. He was overfilled with delight. “God!” he exclaimed, “I wish it could always be like this, but, alas, this is just a dream...” And with regret he closed his eyes.
People still keep visiting him; they come from the remotest corners of the world to sit beside him for a while in the cool silence of the hall or in the garden, and they leave as if washed with the life-giving water, intending to start life anew.
They say that his eyes have acquired a constant color—golden brown—and shine against the sun like amber.


THE SOLITARY WAY (I)
I subdued the black fire of suffering.
From the noble silver of contemplations and golden sparkles of joy I forged a crown, encrusted it with the diamonds of the cognized truths, admired it, and hung it on the nail in my room. Day after day I contemplated the crown of my creation enjoying and admiring its beauty. But time passed while I had nobody to share my joy with. Because I lived alone, and though friends called on me and appreciated the work of a master, they would not stay long, but soon left carried away by the cares of this world.   
Dust covered my crown. The nail it hung on sagged. And the day came when sitting in the corner, I watched with desperate indifference as it slipped off the nail and fell down. It would have inevitably fallen into dirt since my room had not been cleaned for a long time, but for an angel who appeared all of a sudden and caught it in the air. The angel just glimpsed at me, and I realized that he would not say me anything nice or encouraging. But I also understood that my work would be saved.
And I stood up and left easily the littered cloister of the past. It was not the lightness of freedom but liberation from a burden.
I hit the road burdenless.

THE SOLITARY WAY (II)
I am looking in the mirror, peering into every detail of the reflected world. And I want to see more than a mere reflection. Mirror is an enigma. The enigma of mirror is the enigma of life. The Holy Spirit had been reflected in water, and Adam Kadmon was born. Water is a mirror. Reflecting is giving birth. A cell copies itself through splitting, i.e. it is reflected in an invisible mirror.
Our world is a reflection of the world of havens, but where is the mirror?
What is its nature?
Why the distortion is so strong?


THE SOLITARY WAY (III)
I am walking down the road. Through asphalt, I sense the earth; it is breathing and loving… I look up and see the bright blue sky; it is waiting… A tree stops me, smiling with thousands of green eyes. I press my hand to its trunk and lock the system: Sky-Earth-Tree-Me.
I am dissolving in the energetic harmony.
I start counting: one, two, three, four… A subtle energetic stream comes into being... it begins to swing me. I know that this is a hidden door to the other world, but the back entrance is not for me. I love trees for their beauty and mystery and I pity them a little bit.
I have an advantage—motion.
I am on the road.
I am always on the road.


THE SOLITARY WAY (IV)
Higher than the highest mountains I rose in spirit. In the face of havens I looked and saw a smile of welcome. A golden cloud washed me with the rain of irradiation. And two wings from the heavenly height fell on my shoulders.
And I flew up, soared to the Kingdom of Light. That light flamed brighter than fire, brighter than lightning, brighter than the midday sun. It began burning unbearably. My eyes had blazed up. An intolerable burning pain had blinded them.
I awoke, naked and barefooted, in darkness. I stepped and sensed slippery slabs under my feet. I stretched my arms, and they embraced emptiness.
Only the dazzling memory of the divine light remained.
Only the dull pain in the shoulders remained.
Maybe my flight was merely a dream?
And I went forward with closed eyes and stretched arms like a blind man.


THE SOLITARY WAY (V)
Lord, may Thy will be done.
I sincerely ask, “Forgive me,” for I do see the arm of justice, yet in my darkness I make new mistakes and commit new sins, and I ask again for forgiveness. 
Lord, may Thy will be done.
I sincerely ask, “Teach me,” so that I will never lapse into sin again.
It hurts me. But the most painful thing is that I don’t understand my guilt.
Lord, may Thy will be done.


THE COGNITION (I)
Of all things nothing is more tempting than knowledge and of all things nothing is more illusory than knowledge.
Eagerness for cognition is unquenchable and tormenting.
You make your spiral ascent, now soaring in the ecstasy of illumination, now clambering slowly, now falling dawn, dropping the bloodstained shreds of skin and of self-respect into the abyss. And the peak—here it is!—glaring with the pure brightness of heavenly truths.
The last turn, your feet are bleeding, your eyes are half-blind; you are whispering the cherished words with chapped lips. And what do you see? A handful of cheap gems sparkling in the light of your own imagination. You still remain in the same locked space of your personality, in the trap of Mobius, in the rings of the snake that had swallowed its own tail.
In a desperate final effort of fading consciousness, you break the shell of your personality, and the sun flashes in your heart, and you soar in the stream of plasma.
And what follows? Again disappointment: you can’t remain worthy of the truth you’ve cognized.
Having cognized the happiness and the horror of the fourth state, the golden heat of love without suffer, the infantile-blissful lightness, the peace of cradle, you inevitably return back to yourself, into the private hell separated from the all-human hell by an insecure hedge.
And the cycle repeats itself over and over.
But why?
Everybody knows where the source of the centripetal force is, but where is the source of the centrifugal force?
 

THE COGNITION (II)
“What is ‘miracle’?”
“Fundamental notions are not subject to definition.”
“Then please give me an example.”
“Life.”
“I wouldn’t call it miracle: life is too hard and ugly.”
“Creation of life.”
“But why should it be created if it inevitably becomes hard and ugly?” 
“Have you got children?”
“Yes, three.”
“How did you dare give them birth? Say, the first one was born because of your foolishness, but the second, the third? It wasn’t the instinct of propagation, was it?” 
“Oh no!”
“You love them! They are your precious joy, and this joy overwhelms everything, right?”
“Right. But…”
“But why do you deny this in the case of the Creator? Likewise, He is glad at the birth of every child. Likewise, He loves children and expects miracles from them.”   
“Expects? What about the predestination? The idea of predestination was the alpha and omega throughout all the times. In the Greek myths, for instant, it appears in all possible and impossible variations. Then, the Gospel—“It is written in the Prophets”—you can find something like that almost on each page.”
“Predestination is not absolute. People wrongly take for it the most probable course of events. Myths? Remember that the Greek gods were most of all afraid that some mortal would break the course of destination. Ergo, it could be broken. The Gospel? I believe there are programs in implementation of which the heavens are interested. Jesus had such a program, and He knew that. Yet, He had His choice. This is He who said, “It is written in the Prophets”.  This was His voluntary choice. As to us, sinners, yes, we are all programmed; they inserted a personal program into us before our birth. But they also put a seed of unpredictability into that same program. Water it with the dead water of hatred, and it will become a mutating virus. Give it to drink the water of life, and it will become a beautiful tree, quite like that mustard seed. It’s up to you. Here is one more miracle—the unpredictability.


THE FREEDOM

Motion is an aspiration to freedom.
Knowledge is a temptation.
Cognition is a delusion.
The whole point is to be always in the road.
The aim of the Traveler is to come to God with pure heart.
Freedom is serving out of love.