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He ate, half-heartedly participated a little in the conversation, then crawled into his sleeping bag and stared for the longest time at the stars strewn about in the sky. In the mountains, stars seemed to be larger and to shine brighter and prettier. He remembered that he had read, or someone had told him, that to reach those stars would take many millions of light years, and he felt a sense of internal calm before that great vastness once again.
The more he looked at the stars and contemplated the vastness of it all, the more he felt a deep respect and spiritual presence around him.
His question about the meaning of life had become quite immediate, seeing as how he had almost died.
"Why is all this? Why was I born? What is the meaning and purpose of my life? I don't want just to exist; I am ready for anything so that I can learn the meaning of life and to live it," he thought.
And, drifting off to sleep, it seems he heard a voice, both internally and externally, a voice that spoke resolutely, yet with great love, asking him, "Are you truly ready to dedicate your life to the answer to these questions? Are you ready to go your own path?"
"Yes," he answered confidently.
A certain feeling of bliss in him became yet stronger; it seemed that the lights in the heavens became stronger, too, and they were answering him, "Be well! May your life be full." He looked at the depths of the heavens, but gradually it all became hazy and he fell asleep. Awaking in the morning, he threw himself into the flurry of daily activities and did not pay particular attention to the oath that he had sworn the night before, yet he had the feeling that his 'train of life' had switched to another track and was speeding onto a more interesting, yet more risky path. From that day on, the feeling never left him.
Chapter II
The School of Life Began in School
A few days after they returned, school began. It was their last year in school. There was a new girl now whose father was second-generation Korean. Her name was Lena. There was nothing particularly special about her; she was calm and hard-working. Arthur and Lena became friends. They both loved to read. At Lena's house there were a lot of books and Arthur's place also had its own library. They began borrowing each other's books and would discuss them during breaks. In this way, they came to have a common vocabulary… They read Duma, Stanislavsky, Stankevich, Jack London, Dickens, and many other authors of Russian and world-famous classics.
One day, however, something happened that brought their friendly talks to an end and left a bitter, bitter taste. Many years later they would meet and he would ask for forgiveness; when she granted it he felt a great weight had been lifted from his chest. But in the meantime…
* * *
After lunch one day, Arthur and some friends ended up in the park at the back side of the school – someone was sitting on a bench, someone standing, someone discretely smoking. They were carrying on typical macho guy talk: girls are bad and you just can't trust them, it's better to serve in the army without having a girlfriend, only men can be friends with men, girls are a lower form of life, and so on. In the distance, Arthur saw Lena leaving school. They started making fun of her in loud voices. The first frost had hit and she slipped on the steps and fell several yards apart. She got up with difficulty. Arthur's first impulse was to get up and help her and to stop the guys from jeering, but he didn't do anything; instead he just stood there, laughing, although not so loudly.
Once she got up, she saw that Arthur was part of the group. Even though they were far apart, you could tell that this initially hurt her some more. She then continued walking with great effort, limping painfully and holding her arm bent unnaturally.
She didn't come to school the next day. And only several days later did Arthur resolve to call her. But Lena would either not answer or she would hang up the receiver once she heard his voice. Her mother brought a doctor's note to school stating that she had severely sprained her knee and broken her wrist; in addition, she had gotten a cold while walking home and would not return for at least several weeks. She got a cast on her arm and leg and studied on her own at home.
She returned to school after New Year's break. As for her and Arthur, they basically never talked. Arthur had gone up to her and said, "Oh, come on, let's let it go…" but she gave him a long, hard look and calmly replied,
"You know, it's not important how much we read about honorable deeds, but instead how capable a person is of being a friend, and how honorable we are in our actions in life. Only animals, lowly animals, live by a herd mentality."
To hear 'honorable' cut him like a knife, and in a way it sounded new to him… He was ashamed, although she spoke plainly, without reproach. She spoke of how our character is revealed by our knowledge, our education, and who we truly are. Likewise, we are affected by our dependence on peer pressure and group influence over us, and no one loves traitors and cowards. We should learn to be friends and just good people instead of well-versed, arrogant and cowardly men.
He feigned a writhing pain in his face to try and make a joke of it all, but she left with a sorrowful look on her face. He felt an internal loathing of himself.
In the ensuing months he watched several films, all of which spoke of friendship, virtuous behavior, and honor, and derided cowards and traitors. The book by Kaverin, "Two Captains,"[1 - This book won millions of hearts with its sympathetic and incredibly noble heroes.] affected him especially deeply.
Arthur finished school but this lesson in life remained with him for a long, long time. From that point on he swore an oath to try and be honorable and never to let anyone down or betray them.
Chapter III
From Poor Student to Wealthy Entrepreneur
Arthur finished school among the top students, mainly thanks to his parents getting him a tutor. They dreamed of him being accepted into a respected college. He studied earnestly and, with his father's help, he entered a prestigious Moscow institute, what made his parents happy and proud.
His first year was hard but in his second year he was able to find some free time for himself. He started going to various parties with friends but they didn't particularly attract him or give him much pleasure.
The parties mainly revolved around irresponsible thrills – drinking, making low-class jokes, and spending time with some girl or other who was devoid of any moral standards. He'd wake up in the morning with a person who meant nothing to him and what he felt wasn't any personal satisfaction but more a kind of emptiness or dullness in his head. He thought to himself, "Is this really what life is all about?"
Just to get some animalistic sex, he would have to go to the other side of Moscow, breathe cigarette smoke, drink lousy cocktails, listen to dirty jokes, participate in dumb conversations, criticize someone or other, and discuss the latest gossip.
He really preferred to go to the theater and meet interesting people. Many of his fellow students would snicker at him about this, but it didn't bother him.
Likewise, his teachers caused him to think about the meaning of life. After all, they were people assumed, by default, to be leaders; they were expected to know the answers to many questions and to help society prosper.
They got a good salary with benefits at the institute, and it wasn't that hard to get their degrees. That's why many teachers, former students of the institute themselves, had been eager to work there after they finished their studies or, having worked for some time in their fields, they returned to the institute to assume teaching duties. Arthur observed that they were not the happiest of people.
To get on the staff, some of them resorted to ugly tactics: they would spread stories of something bad a colleague had done, scheme against them, and try to use their connections to get a position they wanted.
Over time, they became more bitter and dissatisfied; many began to drink despite their growing salaries and high degrees. Only two teachers differentiated themselves from the rest through their calmness and peacefulness. You could tell that they wanted no part of this "office politics". They came from good families.
One of the older teachers surprised Arthur. He had taught courses on scientific communism and often spoke of morals. At the very start of the perestroika[2 - Perestroika, literally 'rebuilding', was the period during which the Soviet Union changed its economy to a capitalist-style open market.] period, however, he left the institute and opened a bar. He sold liquor to students and made a number of shady deals.
Arthur thought about all these things many times and asked teachers about the meaning of life. They told him that the reason for being was to raise oneself in society's standing. "We should become socially successful individuals, accomplished professionally, becoming, for instance, engineers, officers, doctors, leaders…"
This was nothing new to him; they had said the same stuff in school. "All right," he thought, "So I devote from 20 to 30 years of my life to be a professor. And that's all? That's the meaning of life?
Once, however, Arthur was at a reception for a well-known artist who had attained everything he had dreamed of in his career – fame, fortune, devotees. Yet the artist himself admitted that he was feeling less and less happy about life, although he led an exciting lifestyle and increasingly received awards and gained new admirers. This all forced Arthur to consider and reconsider his future. At any rate, he knew that it was important for him to graduate, but then after that he would make a cardinal change in his life.
While still a schoolboy, Arthur knew that physical health was a requirement in life – without it you could neither attain much nor would you really enjoy it. He understood that you had to pay attention to your body. He was glad to do it: he actively played several sport games, hiked in summer, practiced bodybuilding and had a strong, tight body.
* * *
Just before Arthur graduated in the late 1980s, perestroika had begun.
In his last year, he read Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelag. He saw the internal rot of the system which had inflicted its deceit, lies, and forced on tens of millions of people. He had no desire to work for the government, although he was offered work there, work which would've given him the opportunity to travel abroad regularly, a rare and special perk in those days. He readily rejected a number of tempting offers, some of which came as a result of his parents' connections and others which came as a 'package deal' from families offering a daughter. For months he had gotten a series of invitations from very influential people who offered him to get to know and marry their daughters. It turns out he was quite the promising bachelor: he neither drank nor smoked and his education promised an excellent career.
One well-connected man put it like this, "Look, as a wedding present I'll give you a new GAZ-24 car and keys to your own condo and I'll help you get ahead in your career." But he refused all the tempting offers and preferred to get his diploma free of any ties that would obligate him after graduation.
He passed his exams quite well, graduating with honors. He stayed in the dorm for several months afterward because he had injured his knee in sports.
Those days the first manifestations of freedom of speech appeared – television and newspapers didn't have communist slogans. Privately-owned stores and restaurants arrived, ushering in a new milestone in the economy.
One day at lunch in the institute's cafeteria, he met a man named Orlovsky. He offered Arthur a job taking care of certain boxes he would bring to him. "Hey, you can't walk anyway yet. May as well get paid for doing something," he told Arthur with a wink.
His last name of Orlovsky certainly fit him well – he looked like an eagle.[3 - Orlovsky, or Orlov, comes from the Russian word 'oryel', which means 'eagle'.] Although his name had Slavic origins, his ethnic origins were Jewish, a fact he did not try to hide.
When asked what he did for a living, he would say he was an 'entrepreneur' or 'businessman. Orlovsky's business within the institute was procurement of various types of commercial-grade equipment.
A month later, they once again met in the institute's cafe, started talking, and became friends. Orlovsky had remembered Arthur to be honest and responsible and offered him a job working with him for good money. The work was rather interesting and they travelled a lot. The essence of the job was first to buy something, and then to sell that 'something'. Entrepreneurial blood coursed in Orlovsky's veins; he knew what would be useful to buy or sell and from whom to whom.
He opened several underground shops, among which was one that made underwear. They were successful in selling their products and made a good profit at it. On top of his salary, with every sale Arthur got a good commission and within a year he had become very rich. He could easily make in a week what the institute's director made in a year. And he didn't have to go to any party meetings or participate in dirty office politics.
He bought himself a new Zhiguli car, a large, well-appointed condo in Moscow, and also one for his parents, plus, their lifelong dream – a weekend cabin.
And so it was natural that in one of their business trips, when joint ventures were just in their inception, he asked Orlovsky what this busy life was for. Orlovsky told him, "You can achieve some title or place in society, but if you don't have money, there's no point. If you have money, you can do what you want and own what you want." In this way, Orlovsky planted the seed in Arthur to have "money for money's sake."
Arthur decided to work a year for Orlovsky and then go his own way. He had gotten everything he wanted and he could take a vacation wherever he wanted. This was pretty much anyone's dream, yet still, he wanted more and more. He dived in deeper to this 'whirlpool of life', where money was the main goal, and from which it was not all that easy to get out. But in a year and a half something happened that sharply changed his life and the lives of all those connected to their business.
* * *
One night, he and Orlovsky got out of their car to have dinner. In front of them a new Mercedes and a new Russian car stopped and a couple of large guys got out. They grabbed Orlovsky by the neck and pounded him a few times against the wall.
They assumed Arthur was his driver and just told him that if he moved, they would cut him up into pieces and drop him onto the wet asphalt. Their faces didn't portend anything good. They began to ask Orlovsky why he hadn't given them any money. It wasn't dark yet and people were walking around, but no one dared to help or even call the police.
The guys threatened to Orlovsky and his family. They promised to damage him if he didn't give them a large sum of money. Arthur got frightened. Where would they get money? The guys left. Orlovsky was shaking in fear. He couldn't eat in the restaurant and he said in a trembling voice that he had his own local 'mob' guys for protection.
The next day, however, a bunch of other even bigger men showed up, many from the North Caucasus, and they demanded all his money and property. Orlovsky told Arthur that they would no longer be able to work together, that he should stay away from him, and he would have to quit the business and give the money to these hoodlums, otherwise things would end badly.
Arthur learned later that after a few days passed these hoods had grabbed Orlovsky's daughters on the way home from school, forced them into the car, scared them and told them to tell their father that the next time they would tie them up, torture them, and if they lived, return them to their father. Scared beyond belief, the daughters returned home and told their mother. Orlovsky's wife demanded that he would give them all their money.
Orlovsky sold everything he could, including his two large apartments but still couldn't raise the needed $5,000. Arthur gave him the money he needed, which surprised Orlovsky (those days you could've bought a large apartment or five to ten used cars with it). Then Orlovsky disappeared from his life. He heard rumors that he had immigrated to Israel and then to Western Europe, where he suffered from a serious heart attack.
* * *
Arthur took everything into consideration but he was sad to have let the elderly employees go, realizing quite well that they would hardly be able to find a new employer paying as well as Orlovsky did.
And then the ruble took an unexpected dive. Since Arthur's money was all invested in his apartment and car, and he had a few thousand dollars in cash, he lost very little. He was able to trade his two-bedroom apartment for two smaller ones. He lived in one and rented the other out. The money from the rental was enough to live on, plus he had that cash supply as a reserve. He also sold a few gold items he had purchased while working for Orlovsky.
And so, once again that question – what good is all this commotion in life?
He still had connections in business and he knew what activity would bring the most profit but he wasn't so anxious to throw himself into a new 'whirlpool'. What was most interesting – he had lost his infatuation with money. It wasn't fear; rather, he realized that you could earn money your whole life yet lose it all in a flash. Criminals, economic crisis, etc. – he had seen firsthand how some people lost in a day what had taken them a lifetime to earn. All that money lost its value; their lifelong labor had been for naught financially. What was interesting to note – the more money a person lost, the more he suffered.
He thought to himself, "Even if there was a completely secure bank, even if I could make myself a fortune and have everything I wanted, would that really constitute a purpose in life?"
A month after Orlovsky's disappearance something else happened again to affect Arthur's approach to life.
Chapter IV
A Message from "The Other World"
After a week in the hospital, Arthur's father died of a heart attack. Arthur had already gone to see him as soon as he heard of his admittance to the hospital. His father had suffered from asthma all through his life and this last winter's bouts with pneumonia had greatly exacerbated the situation.
The doctors said he needed certain expensive medicine, for which Arthur paid immediately. Nevertheless, the doctors' prognosis was that, even if he lived, he would be an invalid. During that time Arthur and his father spoke more – and more from the heart – than they ever had.
After his father got out of intensive care and Arthur visited him, his father told him that he had been clinically dead for a short period. He had had an out-of-body experience during which he went through a tunnel and then saw himself and the operating table. It seemed as if he had met with deceased relatives who told him, "Give your son some advice and return to us." His father also told him that he had seen a light, full of love, which is virtually impossible to feel while on Earth. Even barely touching it gave you a feeling of peace and joy. But Arthur didn't lay much value on what his father said because he felt he was still delirious.
After Arthur left the hospital, he saw a stand with books and magazines and he decided to buy something to kill the time at the hotel. The first thing he saw was a book by Moody, 'Life After Life'. By morning, he had finished reading it and was going to visit his father, imbued with a good feeling he had gotten from the book.
In the book, a doctor and a scientist took a reasoned approach to what was reported by a great number of people who had come back after being clinically dead. They proceeded on the assumption that those people couldn't all have simply made up their stories. Basically, people were saying the same thing that Arthur's father had told him. What amazed and gladdened him was that the soul does not end when the physical body does.
When Arthur visited his father the second time, his father told him his life story and asked for his forgiveness. It was important for Arthur to hear this; ever since childhood he had always felt that his father didn't love him. But his father told him that he had worked hard to make him better, to get him a better education, and to give him a moral upbringing. Yes, he had been strict with his son because he knew how swiftly bad influences can change a young adult.
His father asked forgiveness for having hit him a few times in his childhood. Arthur knew that his father's strictness had pushed him to be better, had helped him to become a person at all. Raising his son had been his father's purpose in life. "A worthy goal, all things said and done," Arthur thought to himself. "If I have kids, I'll try to give them a better life, too." They held each other in their arms and asked for one another's absolution.
The third visit with his father shook him to his core, and that's why he wrote down in his diary what he could remember after he got back to his hotel room.
* * *
… When I arrived at his room, doctors were running around with grave concern on their faces. His father had apparently begun gasping for air that night and they had barely saved him. His situation had been almost hopeless, the supervising doctor told him.
Arthur's father was pale yet peaceful. He saw me enter and started talking to me:
"I was… there… again. It is hard there for those who have lived an unworthy life, which is the majority. But what's most amazing is that there they have a whole other understanding of good and evil. Many people considered to be good here are severely punished there, and vice versa. People's main concern about going there should be that we will be judged – Did you act from the heart, from the soul, or merely from your ego?
The main sin is egotism. We live in such ignorance; such a shame for people that we don't have the right values. So few people follow the path meant for them. You see, it turns out that following someone else's path is a grievous sin."
"Dad, how do you feel? Can I bring you something?" "Nothing, I'm all right. I don't have much time left anyway."
"Come on, Dad, stop it. Everything's going to be all right."
"But why do you think that death at its rightful time is bad? After all, death is just a passage to another state of being, another form of life. Imagine traveling to another country and everything there is new, but lots of souls there are familiar to you.
"What!?" Arthur asked, incredulous.
"My life flashed in front of me for a few seconds. Amazing! It's too bad that I worked so much and spent so little time with you or with friends; too bad that I took so little time off and practically never worked on developing my inner soul. In the end, you see, that is the reason we have come to this world."
"But, Dad, we went to the theater, to exhibitions. Remember how you sometimes forced me to go to some cultural events?"
"Those don't develop your soul; a lot of those artists will suffer for having led people astray, and they will suffer more than others. True culture should draw people to God, my son.
"So, Dad, you mean it's better just to go out on the town and get drunk in a bar?"
"That's even worse."
"Dad, this all sounds so gloomy."
"Have you been in a theater or a bar recently? See? You can do without it."
"I just don't seem to have the time, but if there's a good play or film then I would definitely go to see it. Is that really bad?"
"A good one, hmmm? There are less and less 'good' films or plays."
"But Dad, why can't we believe that you'll get well and you'll live right and you can help people live that way?"
"No, I have just been holding on to say goodbye and to ask you to forgive me one more time for everything, and to ask you to deal with unresolved obligations I'm leaving behind. You see, you're not supposed to die with indebtedness. If I had only known this all before, I would have undertaken to teach it to others."
"What would you have taught? Like going to the theater is bad?"
"No, that we have all come here to develop our souls. Egotism is the cause of our ills and the reason we don't focus our lives around love. My son, this is the work you must do."
"Maybe that is not my special purpose in life. You said everyone had his own path to take."
"This activity, developing your inner soul, is higher than any purpose an individual may have. It's the main purpose of every living being. Though our lives are short, we can achieve very much."
I didn't know what to say, much less to do.
