Tales Written by the Dying in Awe. Vysheslav Filevsky

“Farewell forever, Earth, and forgive me! América do Sul, I love you!”

      Earthly Games

      For the one who seeks heaven, anything earthly is a fraud. Being on his way into other dimensions, he starts to find this fraud with every step. Finally, he realizes that all of the earth’s prophets and cult heroes are liars. Then he forgives them upon realizing the truth: they are prophets and cult heroes precisely for the earthly life. As for him, he, the one aiming for heaven, moves to the opposite side. A reasonable one aspiring for heaven does not enter into disputes with the earth. He pretends that he participates in its games, but he always keeps his fingers crossed in his pocket.

      For one enjoying earthly things, heaven is foolishness or an earthly game. Nevertheless, there exist many believers in the earthly sky. For its sake they are inclined to violations, including assassination. A reasonable one aspiring for heaven would agree with the sincere believers in the earthly sky but take no part in their affairs. He understands the squalid nature of the earthly games. The most important thing is to be silent and to serve the sky of heaven in the invisible temple of his heart. This temple cannot be defiled. It is impossible to punish anyone for serving this invisible church.

      —

      Mutual Understanding?

      An angel and a devil decided to make peace and start a friendly life together. They thought hard about how to understand each other. To this end, the angel started copulating promiscuously and drinking alcohol, while the devil devoted himself to prayer and pious meditations. However, the angel felt disgust and nausea, while the devil fell into a ghastly state of boredom.

      “What a horrible life the devil leads!” the angel thought.

      “What an idiot the angel is!” the devil thought.

      To both of them, to the angel and the devil, their own lives seemed the only possible and right ones. They tried to convince each other with the aid of their fists. But they soon saw that this was useless. In spite of their wounds, each maintained his own position. Then they realized that for the angel, it was not worth trying to live in hell, nor was it worth the devil in trying to live in paradise. They concluded that it was impossible to understand things that are impossible to understand, that peace and mutual understanding between them were as impossible as between fire and water. And then, sadly, they drifted apart to their kingdoms, one to paradise and the other to hell.

      God looked at them and smiled. He did not grant the mercy of nondistinction between good and evil to them. Why? The ways of God are inexplicable.

      A Person and a House

      Person looked at a photograph of his home. The house was far away. Person went into it in the mornings and lived there. He cleaned up, ate, slept in bed, and went out to his small garden and worked there. At night, everything was different. Person became larger and the house smaller.

      They – Person and his house – flew together to a town that Person liked. There Person played with the house and treated it as a toy. He put it various places, sometimes even in the town square or in the middle of a street, and feasted his eyes on it. When a rare passerby or car came along, it passed and drove through the house, and Person never noticed them.

      “How wonderful is it!” Person thought. “This is exactly how one needs to live in the material world: so that no one has a clue about your existence.”

      Getting Rid of Condemnation

      Once, Spiritually Cultivating One asked One Who Prays, “Honorable sir, how, in your opinion, is it possible to get rid of a condemnation?”

      “This is not so hard,” One Who Prays replied. “After all, all human imperfections concentrate in our souls, whether in mine or in yours.”

      “You are mistaken, honorable sir,” Spiritually Cultivating Person ardently objected. “I neither kill nor steal, nor copulate promiscuously, nor drink alcohol.”

      One Who Prays smiled slightly. “I speak not only about evident imperfections. Look deeper inside of your soul. Can you say that you have never wished death to a living creature that seemed to you unacceptably reprobate? Honestly, why play hanky-panky with yourself?”

      Spiritually Cultivating Person drew breath and said nothing.

      “Can you say that you have never wished to possess something that you did not produce or to gain possession of something belonging to someone else?” asked the One Who Prays.

      Spiritually Cultivating Person bit his lip.

      “Can you say that in your thoughts you have never wished to copulate with a beautiful girl you have met?”

      Spiritually Cultivating Person blushed.

      “So this is the answer to your question,” One Who Prays concluded. “As soon as a condemnation besets your heart, look honestly into your own soul. There for sure you will find the same thing you dared to condemn in the other one – or if not exactly that thing, then an allusion to it.”

      Spiritually Cultivating Person cried in despair, “So what is going on? We are bastards, all of us; is this why one may indulge in lust without any hope of purifying one’s soul?”

      “That is hardly true,” One Who Prays said. “I would advise you to overcome the imperfections that are natural for living creatures by practicing a hearty love of the Most High. Practice tremulous awe of the creator. Practice love, awe, compassion, deification, and spiritualizing of the one being in existence. In this there is hope, health, and a particular heavenly happiness.

      “Few are fascinated with this, though, because this kind of practice leads to transmigration to heaven as a still-living body. Who needs that? After all, living creatures want purification while staying passionate about and tied to earthly shadows. This is why I think that it would be better for you to seek the advice of an acknowledged earthly authority.”

      “One Who Prays speaks the truth,” Spiritually Cultivating Person thought, and he bent his steps toward such.

      Fly

      How can one live for one who is loved by nobody or almost nobody? You are correct: this is awful. This is why I love flies. I feel a great pity for them.

      Look at with what hatred people chase them out of their rooms with towels! Just imagine that this were you and not a fly some huge creature is trying to hit with a flyswatter – no, a human swatter? Imagine that it is your path along which flypaper is placed, and you become stuck to it and scream in despair, anticipating your inevitable end. Imagine that it is you, who – nobody knows why – is being poisoned by gases.

      Birds similar to the roc try to peck you with their beaks. Hidden frogs the size of cottages throw out their long sticky tongues and try to swallow you. Would this not seem too cruel and unfair to you? Would it? Only two or three times in your life would a loving being nestle up with you ass to ass, and finally you would taste felicity. However, this can serve a consolation for all the misery…

      Well, you know, as a matter of fact, sometimes flies like you. They wish to communicate with you. They flock about you, sit on you, make contact with you in the way that is available to them. But what do you do in response? Do you return the tender affection? No! Maliciously, you chase the loving creature away or even strive to beat it to death.

      Well, flies’ fates are unenviable. What is it, divine punishment? Maybe. Ponder