8. Jack Hart

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The first time round, in 1997, I reached San Diego from Baltimore without any adventures. When in USA in 1998, I for the first time ran into them.

When I was going to the airport with my daughter, it was raining and snowing. The weather was clearly not summery. So it seemed. While waiting several hours for the plane, which was not due by evening, I received two vouchers: one for a room in a hotel and the other for supper and breakfast in a quite expensive restaurant.

In the morning, when a hotel minibus was taking me to the airport, it was fresh, and the cool morning sun was shining. Thin patches of snow lay here and there on the green grass, but the road was dry. The flight to San Diego took several hours.

In San Diego, it was warm summer weather. The people were dressed in summer-wear. Palms, flowers in beds, unusually clear violet and yellow plantations of flowers on the side of hills along which curved wide highways with many-storied concrete structures, were there to gladden the eyes. The city shone with cleanliness and overflowed with prosperity, truly a characteristic of all southern resort cities.
Two very important meetings awaited me upon first arriving in San Diego – with Jack Hart (jackhart2000@yahoo.com) and with a Canadian lady.

I had become acquainted with Jack in early April 1997, when I first arrived in San Diego for the Conference of the University of Seven Rays. On that occasion Jack specially came to introduce himself to me, from Meditation Mount where he was then working. We were brought together through David Keane. David had asked me to translate into Russian for Europeans, the Meditation Course, which the educational center at Meditation Mount was distributing by correspondence throughout the world. Then I had talked with Jack all day long, and we have remained very good friends. Later he had sent me a letter, in which he shared, that the Board at Meditation Mount had decided to finance the founding of a correspondence meditation school throughout Russia and Ukraine. David Keane had financed the translation of the 18 booklets. Several of the booklets I had translated myself, the rest by translators acquainted with esoteric terminology. At the beginning of 1998, Jack had sent me an invitation to go on a journey to familiarize myself with California and Arizona. Of course, I agreed.
During the second conference of the University of Seven Rays, Jack and I spent a whole week residing in the same room. He had arrived in San Diego from Prescott in Arizona where he was then living. He came with a friend from Canada, Paul Bura. Paul headed the Toronto chapter of the Theosophical Society, which has close links with Meditation Mount. This small, frail and elderly man was born in Western Ukraine, and until the age of 12 lived in exile in Siberia with his parents. His father was of Polish descent, and during the years of the War II, his family left through Iran, going firstly to England, then to Canada. Paul learned electrical engineering, and worked at this specialty all his life until he went onto the pension. He married an English lady, and so English became his first language. He lives now in the house of his parents. They were buried on Canadian soil. Almost every year, he arrives for a regular week at Meditation Mount. Only while there is he able to relax in soul and body, and gather up spiritual strength for the full year.
Later on he confided with me, that he was anxious about his meeting with me, fearing that he might have clean forgotten Russian, which no-one had spoken with him since he was 12. As it turned out, he had not forgotten.
During the second trip, Jack and I greedily spoke about everything in the world, and never tired of things to say. As it turned out, we had lots in common. We spoke soul to soul and nobody interfered.
The villages and little towns glistened. The American landscape differs greatly from the Russian, where you can drive for miles and miles and see only vast cultivated fields. Whereas in America, every plot of land has its own owner, and so people live everywhere. Houses are built everywhere. All around, green lawns are grown. The houses are looked after and kept clean and tidy, as with a theatrical set. I couldn;t quite believe, that they were able to maintain the buildings and streets in such order and such cleanliness.
For part of the journey, Paul accompanied us making three. Once in Mexico, there were four of us. Charles Sommer, a pensioner priest, had joined us. Jack was acquainted with everyone. Where would we have been without him? People would come up to him, joyfully embrace him, speak with him warm words of gratitude and without complaint carry out all his questions and tasks.
Jack was an extraordinary man. Of middle height, with a sunburn bald patch, in shabby jeans, with an attractive smile and a good face. He was a very business like person, as many Americans are. And importantly, he was a vegetarian. I was interested in how he had decided to abstain from meat. He explained that once he had awoken in the morning, and an inner voice had said: "Jack, you must become a vegetarian". And so he began. He always listens to his inner voice. This voice always prompts him at the right time, when and how to make an important decision. When we ate out, Jack asked for salads. Practical and economical. As with all Americans, money is not thrown to the winds. It is not easily gained.
When we reached Prescott, where he passed the winter having bought there a house and land, we lived together the two of us for several days. His bachelor house was clean and comfortable. He set me in the bedroom, and slept himself in the small study. I happened to notice that there were three things that he greatly respected and always took with him in the boot of the car: a portable computer, a sleeping bag and a steel tourist mug with a long hook-like handle. Even in the study, at night time he snuggled into his sleeping bag.
In the red corner of the hall stands a small rectangular magazine table with candles and ritual objects which help him to meditate. On a low round table stands a massive ceramic candlestick. He had bought it in Canada. Around the candle are placed a circle of figures of men and women, holding hands. When it is late in the evening and at the time of meditation, only the candle blazes, the shadows of the members of the circle are projected onto the wall, and it seems as though you are in the center of this mystical circle. Around you are many people ; the whole of humanity. You and they merge, forming a united purpose. In meditation, you share with them your thoughts and wishes for the Common Good. The ceramic candlestick becomes as a receiving and transmitting antenna. In the circle of people, even if they are only shadows upon the walls, everything is made easier, especially if you are a bachelor and are whiling away a cold winter evening in solitude
The house was built on a hill. Surrounding, were patches of woods with boulder outcrops, left by the builders untouched. Early in the morning, we went up to one of the boulders. It was huge, about 5-6 meters high. On it Jack had found rock-paintings of Indian hunters, who had roamed these regions as nomads, prior to the arrival of white people from the East. From the boulder, there opened up a wonderful view of the distant mountain range, which even in April is covered with a snowy cap.
Prescott is located north of and within two hours drive from Pheonix. It is a small town built upon a mountain plateau. Here it is somewhat colder in the spring, than in the metropolitan areas of Arizona. From Prescott to the Grand Canyon is quite close, an hour and a half by car. We naturally paid it a visit. It is such an indescribable sight! There is simply no beauty like standing on a mountain plateau, and looking down below, where at the bottom of this deep ravine, flows a mountain river. Such a mighty force of energy had carved the gorge out of the broken plateau. It is felt so clearly during times of meditation. This stream and red cliffs, breaking off so sharply below, attract thousands of tourists from all corners of the world. The canyon is a remarkable sight of worldwide significance.
Jack had two sisters. We met with one, Sally, on the way from San Diego in Ojai Valley. We stayed with Sally at Laguna Beach. She looked younger than her years. She is an artist and musician. In summer, when she moved from the warm resort to her mountain home, she taught music there.
After dinner, she whizzes off somewhere in her sports car, and in the evening she arrives back happy and cheerful. She spent two and a half hours at the computer studio writing down music directly on a computer. Her work was so effective this time and she told us she had composed more melodies during this short period than for a month of writing music without a computer at home. (For information: one hour;s work at this studio costs $750.US.)
At her home, classical music is regularly playing. She listens to it standing, sitting and lying down on her sofa. In the winter days at the well- known resort, she whiles away the time in the company of her fluffy and clever cat. She had fallen in love with Laguna Beach at first sight, 50 years back when her parents brought her, their daughter, there for the first time. Even then she decided that that was where she would live, when she was grown up. Then when she had gro not the done thing here. If you come, that is fine. You are settled down. There is your room, there is clean bedding, there is a bathroom and refrigerator. Towards evening everyone dines together. The rest of the time, each sees to themselves. If you want to eat, you open the fridge and take whatever you want. Everything to eat is there. But no-one is going to do anything to get you ready. You can go and buy pizza or eat at a cafe. It is cheap. There are Chinese restaurants, in which you can buy a full meal for 5 to 7 dollars.
On the second day while at Sally;s, there came two Mexican cleaning ladies. Even Sally;s room needed tidying. Cleaning was once a week. For it, the Mexican ladies received $25. In other houses cleaning is done by the family members themselves. And they would do the cooking themselves. House-hold cooking is not better, but it is cheaper than in a restaurant. With Russians in America during their first year, everyone in the house does it themselves. That is how we are trained from childhood.
In the evening Sally would play musical instruments. Then she would have a Tarot card reading at the bookshop, and we would be up late with her in fortune telling, of what to expect in the near future. It is said that she writes music for every Great Arcane of Tarot. I am sure that is the way she gets results.
The next day we strolled along the beach – barefoot in the cold sand, being washed by light ocean waves, and we would roll up our trousers, as in childhood. From the side, we must surely have appeared like Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, only grown up, being far from our childhood.
Laguna Beach is an expensive resort, reminding us somewhat of Alushta in Crimea. Small hills come right down to the beach. From the peaks of these hills, the town rises up along the slopes of the mountain above. Behind this ridge of small mountains begins a green valley with continuous orange groves. If you were to drive north from Laguna Beach, then in a few hours you would find yourself in Santa Barbara, one of the most expensive resorts in America, widely known in Russia thanks to the television show of just that name. The soap opera was shown every evening on Russian television for several years. Unlike the mountain resorts, Santa Barbara is spread out on a plain, in a valley by the ocean. In the center of the town are 3-4 story houses, hotels, shopping centers, high quality entertainment centers, a theatre and a gallery.
I asked questions, and Jack replied. His parents had been educated at Harvard and belonged to the middle-class. At one time, they had drunk a lot. And then after they had been cured, they became activists in the Anti- Alcoholics Society of USA. His mother, for many consecutive years, was elected as vice-president of this society. His parents traveled to the Soviet Union in the 1970;s on the invitation of a similar society in USSR. They had then talked much of that journey. Jack dreamed of going to Russia. Like a magnet, Russia was drawing him to itself. And his dream is coming true. I am sure of it.
Jack never fretted about what he would do. He transferred through many occupations – from a sea-cook to a successful official in one of the departments of the municipality of New York. Once he came to Meditation Mount, and an inner voice said to him, "Jack, this is your place in life. Give up everything and come here. Here, you are needed." Soon afterwards, he moved to Meditation Mount and worked there for 17 years. A skilled administrator, he joined with an elderly and predominantly female group at the discipleship center. He laboured admirably in the field of esoteric enlightenment. Attentive, friendly and industrious, he gave forth all of himself to his work. He was deserving of great authority. He quickly resolved any questions. They knew him everywhere, in all the esoteric and theosophical societies. Honour and respect from people, such is the response for a good heart, love towards people and devotion to esoteric ideals.
It was not by accident that the Masters brought us together through the help of David Keane and Michael Robbins. In America I came specially to find Jack, in 1997 and again in 1998. But I have only just now understood this.
Chapter 9. Mexi



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