Journeys in the Search for the Meaning of Life. A story of those who have found it. Rami Bleckt
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.
My father was so concerned about his debts: return a book to someone, 2,000 rubles to a neighbor… He asked a priest to come and read him his last rites and for Arthur to give as an offering whatever remuneration he would name (very unusual for those times).
At three in the afternoon, his father began to look attentively at an icon which hung above the entrance to his room (Some elderly women had recently hung them in rooms of the critically ill.). He repeated something to himself a few times and in about a quarter hour he took a deep breath and left us. 'Left' was the right word, Arthur knew, not died; he could feel it. A sense of peace accompanied his father's passing; a pleasant smile was left on his face.
In a kind of daze, Arthur reminded himself of his duties: funeral, priest, reparation of debts, returning to Moscow.
Arthur's mother had been visiting her parents in the Far East. They had not been able to get through to her until a raging thunderstorm there had finally settled down and so she hadn't been able to return until a few days after the funeral.
She had a lot of friends and relatives in the city who gave her their support. A year and a half later she married a great guy and, with every passing year, Arthur talked with her less and less. Somewhere he remembered reading that the greater the love was between spouses, the sooner they were able to find new partners. Ties to his relatives now held him less than ever from the life which he wanted to lead.
This event with his father forced Arthur to reflect. His father had been relatively young (under 50) yet nevertheless, suddenly – he had gone. The question of the meaning of life arose again. "After all, everything is temporal," he thought. "You can't make sense out of the continuing fuss and bustle of life." What's more, he started to be afraid of death. He understood that he would die one day, too, and maybe he only had one, two, or three years. Nobody knows.
A few months before, a young man, his neighbor, was hit by a car, and he died on the spot. And now, Arthur's father, who had been so young. He used to think he would die when he was from 80 to 100, but now he realized that it could be considerably earlier. He felt acutely aware of his questions about the meaning of life.
After his father's funeral, he read books for a few weeks, walked around alone in natural areas. He didn't know at the time that each day was bringing him closer to a meeting which would categorically change his life. His father's words before his death, the book about some supposed life after death – these had a strong influence on him. But he just wasn't getting a unified, complete picture of what the world was and he had now lost all interest in it.
One day a friend from his student days called and invited him to live at their weekend home. His parents were travelling abroad and they needed someone to house-sit – water the plants and so on. Arthur agreed. He wanted to be alone. It had been a month since his father's death. He drove over to his friend's place to get the keys and the next morning he was ready to go.
Chapter V
An Encounter with Zheka, the 'Holy Father'
The next day, Arthur left his apartment early to buy groceries and deal with some things. Hardly had he gotten out the door when he heard the church bells ringing. At the beginning of the 90s, this was a new, unusual occurrence in Moscow, one to which Muscovites hadn't quite adjusted. He remembered that not far from him was a church that was opened a few years ago, and which now had a large, active membership.
Apparently there was some kind of festival – the closer Arthur got, the larger the crowd of people. Someone was coming out of the church towards him. Several women wore long dresses and scarves which surprised him a bit.
He didn't have any particular attitude about church in general. He would sometimes go in, place a candle, and stay for some of