Journeys in the Search for the Meaning of Life. A story of those who have found it

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.