Tales Written by the Dying in Awe. Vysheslav Filevsky

that at night, it is possible to walk on clouds and collect stars in a pannier.

      Truth of Life

      A clever townsperson starved in a village, while a stupid peasant lived in abundance. The townsperson had neither the skills nor the dexterity to grow food.

      A one-legged man ran ahead of a three-legged man, because he pushed off harder.

      A living creature without genitals reproduced itself more successfully than a living creature with huge genitals did, because it did so in another, easier way.

      A blind person turned out to have more foresight than a five-eyed person, because he possessed a spiritual vision.

      A person with no ears heard better than a four-eared person did, because his hearing organ was more perfect.

      A headless person was cleverer than a two-headed one was, because he just thought with his heart.

      On the other hand, a living creature with ten fingers could play the piano, while an armless one was not able to.

      Happy and Unhappy Kings

      Unhappy is the king who rules according to his moods or to speculative ideas. For a while, he is able to obtain respect or even love. But that time will pass away, and his people will curse both his fantasies or ideas and he himself; after all, any ideas on earth are false.

      Happy is the king who feels himself a tiny particle of his human body – the king in whom his people’s blood circulates and who is full of his people’s spirit. Such a ruler does not point out the way to his subjects. He does not instruct them but exists with them in perfect unity. He is the precise incarnation of his people’s conscious desires and is happy to be so. But even more magnificent is the monarch who embodies the hopes that live only in his people’s subconsciousness.

      Such a king is deified by his subjects, and they are not mistaken. It is happiness to be under the wing of such a ruler! His subjects realize clearly that this monarch is a messenger of heaven or maybe the son of God himself, a great prophet, the motherland’s savior. Such a ruler will remain a bright star in the people’s memory forever. And if this benefactor’s terrible crimes are discovered after his death, the people will not accept the denouncement. Any crimes committed by this favored person of God were crimes of the people themselves. Who is honest enough to blame himself for what has happened? And finally, who will commit the blasphemy of infringing on the holy will of the Everlasting and humiliate his messenger?

      Discourses about Love

      Once I tempted the hermit with the question of what love is.

      “It is hardly possible to explain,” he replied.

      But I didn’t give up. And this is what I heard: “Love is probably the most unusual thing in the world,” the hermit started reluctantly, “if, of course, one does not mean the passionate attraction between living creatures, or lust, which is even worse than that. It is fine to deify love. But in worshiping it, be careful, for love is created by the sky of heaven. It is the cause of love, and the cause of love is something that has no signs, something that is impossible to describe.”

      “But people describe everything by assigning human qualities to the surrounding world, especially invisible phenomena,” I argued.

      “This burden is on their conscience; it is up to them,” the hermit said. “As for me, I am a human. This is why I too venture to describe love. In my opinion, love is a medium, like shining spiritual bubbles similar to those that appear upon the opening of a soda bottle. These bubbles move slowly from the bottom of the bottle to the top and then down again. They seize our consciousness, penetrate our soul, fill it, and bring to it a state of unexplainable happiness. This is similar to staying inside of a spring. Forgive me, the marvelous one.”

      “So love has a source as a spring does?”

      “I think it has. A great source. This is why love is only a secondary cause creating something according to the will of the sky of heaven. Perhaps it is identical to the spiritual sky. Perhaps it is the third great thing created by the sky of heaven, along with the earth and sky.”

      “To put it more precisely, with material and nonsubstantial matter?” I asked.

      “You understand correctly.”

      “Love is dispassionate. In this respect, it resembles its parent. And like this essence, this sexless parent, love has no signs.”

      “That image that I described for you with regard to love is, of course, just a fantasy,” he said. “In the first place, this is because love is immobile. But it can enter and leave both the soul and the consciousness of a living creature. In Christianity, there exists a notion called the Holy Spirit, and in Taoism, there is te. This is what love is.”

      “But if love enters and leaves, this talk is about motion, is it not? And in the Bible, it is written that the Spirit of God ‘was hovering over.’”

      “I was imprecise. Love does not move, but rather it appears and grows thin. In order for it to be born, it is necessary to pray to the sky of heaven. But this is not enough. After it appears, love needs to be fostered. Otherwise it disappears. And then a living creature finds himself adrift in the waves of the sea of common life.”

      “So love is mortal?” I asked.

      “Can love die? Maybe, since it is birthed by the sky of heaven. But it seems to us that love is indestructible. Because after getting thin and disappearing, love appears again.”

      “Is it correct that love moves to its antithesis – hatred – and then from that it transforms into the state that we call love?”

      “Alas, you are in the grip of your customary notions. This pair of opposites, love and hatred, belongs to the area of passionate, dark affections. It has no relation to a spiritual love.”

      I realized that all I had heard was too sophisticated and distant from earthly matters. However, it was my own fault; it is not worth asking something that cannot be answered. It is even worse to ask someone who does not think in an earthly way.

      Consciousness, “Pure” and “Overshadowed”

      Human brains, consciousness, how much they consist of! How many acts can be performed by a human being with the aid of the consciousness and brain! There are people who think that consciousness is almighty, that one’s fate depends entirely on it, both while living in one’s body and even after death. Nevertheless, my spiritual experience says that there exists an area of unconscious matters. For example, it is possible to go to a temple and renounce sins and, in defiance of one’s brain, to make one’s fate more favorable. The almighty consciousness turns out to be disgraced.

      The brain of a common earthly living creature is overshadowed by passions and ideas: scientific ones, religious ones, artistic ones, sensual- pleasure ones, and so on. It seems to me that such brains (or such consciousnesses) stick to the action field of religions, of the great law of retribution – the law of cause-and-effect relations. People with such consciousnesses are prisoners of the ideas of right and wrong, truth and lie, light and darkness, and so on. Throughout their lives, such people struggle against the cobweb of their earthly notions and buzz plaintively. It does not matter how eagerly they try to overcome what is written about them in the Book of Life – here they are! It would seem that they have already broken the manacles of predestination! But destiny laughs at them. And here you are, brought to shame and struggling as those flies do, helpless, captivated by the worldwide spider.

      Meanwhile, the brains of other people