Abu. To Be Who You Are

Losing all the interest for the party I felt how some kind of self-pity has attacked me and I felt a lump in my throat. And the questions began to arise: “what am I doing here?”, “how will I work in the country without knowing its language?”, “maybe it’s a professional unsuitability?”, “why did I come here?”, “why nobody has listened to me?” I wasn’t used to be on the sidelines. A leader, an actress, an anchor was crying inside me. Wiping my tears with a sleeve, I’ve run away to my room and kept on crying alone. Abu has instantly stolen all attention, and I was just a puppet theatre actress from Russia, with no knowledge of the language, not capable even to get a small talk flowing or to argue.

My roommate Arina has come for me, she tried to pacify me and to bring back. But I really needed to stay alone.

“If you have a bad day, just remember that you can cry. If you need to have a good cry in bed just do it. But don’t forget after that to stand up, pull yourself together and keep on moving forward.” Louise Hay

Someone came in and went out. I didn’t care, I had a good cry and fell in asleep. We all have our own inner battles with the demons and we struggle them with courage. Daily and in our own way. All our efforts big and small deserve praise and applause.

Has it ever happened to you to wake up one morning with a thought that you’ve lost a control over your life and can’t even say what is right and what is wrong? Each one of us has got such days and, believe me, it’s absolutely normal. I’ve discovered, that if to make the decision to change the situation then it’s already a halfway to success. The only thing left is to understand how to do it.

The next morning my eyes have been slits, and I was terrified to meet this new creature in the mirror. It was like an ordinary morning of a Chinese beekeeper. Washing and eyes drops didn’t work out and I was to wear the sunglasses before daybreak. And here went out the ballerina. I’ve left my room like Maya Plisetskaya deceased in Germany in her ninety, and with her words on my lips which has become my morning credo: “All my life I love the new, all my life I look into the future, I always wonder!… Not resign ourselves to the edge is not tolerant. Even then – Fight, fire back in the tube pipes, drums beat… Up to the last moment… My fight win only on that andkeep it up. Character – this is destiny.”

I convinced myself not to give up and not to allow any difficulties to break me down. By that, I learned to accept with equanimity the things which I was not able to change for now. I did my best to put behind my yesterday weakness, my tears and self-sabotage, left the room and followed Arina to the lobby downstairs, where our group was supposed to meet. Sudden of all I noted Abu was coming to me! AAAA!

Where would I get away now? Where to hide? Maybe he was just passing by? But he was not. It was too late for me to back down and nowhere too. If only, to jump into the swimming pool which I tried to avoid. He approached me quickly, gave me his look, that lighted the space in the crack of dawn, and what was the most terrifying, he began to talk to me! Here I had a thought that he was doing that with the purpose to tease me. Yesterday he had already found out that I couldn’t understand him because I didn’t speak English. And now he attempted talking to me again the same language I didn’t know. But he was smiling so sincerely that I couldn’t help but stopped, and that scene crashed into my memory for the rest of my life! I missed the meaning of his words. Nevertheless, I could feel something very warm, kind and full of light in his voice and gestures. And he had been talking now to me personally!

“A heart beats, beats, beats and will find a way to beat everything!” Renata Litvinova. At that time I decided not to react to his words, although I really wanted it. With a silly smile, I didn’t say anything but began to walk faster. Filled with anticipation, I had blown right past him to catch Arina and to ask her about the meaning of Abu words.

“And what did he tell you?” Arina asked.

“Don’t cry, you try. If you want I will help you.” I repeated impatiently trying not to miss a word. Arina translated me his words with a smile.

“So what does that mean? He offers me help? Him?!” I exclaimed while blushing.

“Yes, he wants to help you.”

“And how does he know that I need help? How did he understand that?” I still couldn’t make out what kind of miracles took place now.

“When you left yesterday he asked right away what happened to you and why you ran away so unexpectedly. I came up for you, figured out, went back and told him everything.” Arina explained.

“Don’t cry…” I repeated pensively and… began crying. The salt of gratitude was rolling down from under my sunglasses. But this time that was the expression of my joy through the tears.

I pulled myself together and tried to concentrate; whatever happened, I had to walk with a smile on my face. Life is wonderful; this shouldn’t be forgotten. A beginning is always the hardest part.

The crying morning at the sunrise from the Hemakuta mountain in Hampi turned out into a sensual rise of my soul. My awaken heart was beating some rhythmical melodies echoing Krishnas’ tambourines under the hill. Abu could see me with my own eyes, his sensitivity to another’s pain made him helping me. Before, I used to seek the strength and confidence from outside; I forgot to check within me, while they always were there.

From that day on I noted that my life became exactly the kind that I have always imagined. The world around has become a fairytale, and I am its heroine. The mystical coincidences revealed too many miracles to not to believe in magic. I began to create my new reality. The life transformed. I stepped to the path that led to the return of my integrity, the authentic real me. I awakened after the centuries-long sleep.

At the Hemakuta hilltop at the sunrise in Hampi, I was beginning to meditate, that helped to look deeper within me.

Life was beautiful, and I was open to its novelty. I began to observe my mind and to keep the focus on each given thought, replacing negative thoughts with positive when it’s only possible. I felt much more love and compassion than before. Hampi was now my symbolic place of strength.

“Even a tiny seed of hope is sufficient to sow the field of happiness” Mark Levi. And one more time together with the first rays of the rising sun Osho phrases became dancing in front of me in Shiva Nataraj dance bringing with them the sacred destruction of the past.

Recently, while viewing our photos, one thought struck me: it was always like that with us, and probably our story still lasts somewhere. Someone was taking my picture. And Abu in the background had just walked into my frame accidentally. By accident?

It’s significant to learn not only to give but also to accept gifts, I mean not to refuse help. When we let accept help or some gifts, our heart opens and radiates the energy of gratitude. And the miracles will inevitably happen. And I became to attract new opportunities and a happy destiny like a magnet. All that matters to keep thank God for having this precious privilege to feel, to give and to accept.

And so I got accepted Abu’s offer as a gift. Your teacher is not that one who teaches you, but that one from whom you learn. I’ve found my teacher, my master- Abu. I took his gift so deeply, as deep as I myself was. This sacred miracle of each breath, each heartbeat. This every luminous, vibrant sensation and the tingles in the body. This joy, sadness, an explosion of creativity. This sudden merge and a chance to find yourself in another.

How to recognize your man? Oh, it’s very simple. You will go forward and bump into him in your halfway. He didn’t know. You didn’t call. You were found. And whatever direction you were taking before, now your diverse paths got converged, and you keep on going the one way. There’s nothing neither good nor bad in this world. There’s only our attitude towards things.

You can fall in love with beauty. But love is only the soul. William Shakespeare.

5 – THE NEW LIFE TOGETHER

THERE ARE PEOPLE WITH WHOM WE LOSE TIME. AND THERE ARE THOSE WITH WHOM WE LOSE THE SENSE OF TIME.

“We don’t meet people by accident, they are meant to cross our paths for a reason.” Osho.

I’m absolutely certain, a hundred per cent, that no man appear in woman’s life by chance. Only that man comes to a woman’s life, who matches her internally and externally.

My working tourist season in Goa started as soon as the order from the management came. They said I was to go for my first excursion with tourists the next day, despite the fact that our own tour hadn’t finished yet. The workload was to the eyeballs, weh ad tours non-stop, everyday, sometimes nine days in a row without rest. I was working at my full capacity. Nevertheless, we used to find time for each other. Because, whoever they called the god of love, – Eros, Erotes, Amor or Cupid, had provided the winged boy with a bow and arrows to shoot them when I and Abu first met.

On the other hand, the time spent waiting turned out for us into the catalyst for stimulating our lives for the next meeting. The super intensive work season didn’t let us meet sometimes more often than a couple times a month. We were like two actors from different theatres, who loved each other but were always on tour. But we always comforted ourselves with the thought that any period would come to an end and we both knew when our time would come. We had the rare opportunity to meet on tours in those days when we arrived somewhere together each with his group, let’s say in a restaurant where we brought our tourists for breakfast. Almost all tour routes were drawn up by Abu. Or we met in the tiger reserve where we used to bring our tourists to after elephant rides. After each that very short encounter, we both remembered those moments again and again and took them as the most precious in our lives. Oh, days of innocence, when the world was full of eternal youth, you had already become the mythology of that old time! Sometimes it seems to us, we miss some far away places while in reality, we miss the time we spent there. That’s how time cheats us taking cover behind the mask of space…

Initially, we both were sure that we wouldn’t be able to spend more time together than those rare moments of our tea ceremonies on my balcony between the early pickups for excursions. That time we communicated via our symbolic language of gesture or the “paper with a pencil” language invented by us. In this manner, in addition to all languages of the subcontinent diluted with numerous dialects of other countries, had appeared a new “Abu-Alena language”. With his knowledge of eight languages, Abu was a well-educated Goan and he could afford to speak with me using the ninth one without agonizing about the colonial inferiority complex. India always was affected by influences from abroad. And Nehru, the first prime minister of India, rightly identified that India’s true genius lied within its ability for fusion. Try, however, explaining to a non-Russian, who Snow Maiden is. Or try to understand without knowing English that Jesus Christ’s remains are buried in India, in Kashmir. Our language was a crazy fusion of fun with pantomime, a puppet theatre with ballet and graphics with painting. Such evenings together were well worth living for.

We finally got lucky with a coinciding weekend on St.Valentine’s day. In the evening of 13th Abu invited me to take a ride, to hang out around and to have dinner together. No doubt I agreed. My hands got shaking with excitement, but suddenly I noticed a metallic wardrobe with my clothes which was at that moment half empty inside and half filled with my uniform. Almost all my clothes had been given for laundry. The coming date excited me so greatly that, with the best speed I could, I rushed downstairs to pick up my clean things. And that even helped me to get gained an hour extra for a traditional woman’s dance with changing clothes near the mirror. No, the reflection didn’t bully me with the age; like a little girl I was singing a hymn to the passage of time: “A man of my dream is just like you.”

When I saw his bike’s headlights in a dark alley and heard so familiar “Yamaha” engine sounds closing to me rapidly, my heart was already jumping towards him faster than its master. Like a grasshopper I jumped onto the back seat, the first time in my life holding onto the man I loved. And we rushed through the Goa narrow alleys with the strange sensation of flying, blown with the warm breeze and the tactile closeness. The Goan night accepted our union. Among the hectic movement around we plunged into the flaming sensations stopping the loud roar of the engine, which actually only completed the noise in our heads and filled with excitement each bump in the road.

Together on a bike… It’s the most expanding feelings vehicle. The new story fell into the new path, and we were carried away with the flavours of old plots. One day absolutely accidentally you find yourself in the right place at the right time, and a million paths will cross. Initially, you see your wishes clearly and realize them, and the daily observation of them in this material world will settle you for their fulfilment. Have you ever noticed that coincidences in your life are not random at all?

Abu fasted and I was sipping cocktails losing any sense of time and without being afraid of losing myself forever in the abyss of my love story as if I saw the light of a day without bonds and chains for the first time in my life. We both seemed opened books to each other. When we were reaching the next 24- hour cafe to get a water for Abu and a cocktail for me it was the middle of the night already. When we were turning around the front three young inadequate Indians on one scooter crashed into us and were scattered out on the road right away. But Abu not only could hold the bike with one hand but also caught me in the middle of falling down with another one. Making sure that the incident closed and no one got hurt, I decided that it’s a perfect time for a celebration of my second birthday, though with Abu most probably it was the twenty-second already.

The night was almost over when I got the idea to see the sunrise as we were not sleeping anyway. Taking a deep breath I took Abu to my magic place at the Black Rocks with stunning sea view from where you could not only see the sunrise but also if you’re lucky to watch dolphins and to gaze shooting stars of diamond crumbles falling straight into the ocean. I revealed this place to him as my most sacred viewpoint which I’d never told about any living being. But with Abu, I felt like sharing. The Universe is a field of miracles and only our resistance to see can dull our eyesight. He believed me, smiled and allowed me to bring him there. Sitting at the crack of dawn on the cold Black Rocks and not breathing we sensually explored our body contours experiencing the sweetness of the first shy kisses in the dense milky fog.

The dawn broke extremely fast that morning, not only rocks but also people silhouettes were becoming visible. St Valentine’s morning began. And in spite of I was extremely exhausted and sleepy when Abu dropped me home that morning whispering “See you soon”, I couldn’t help but stay awake, smiling inside and dreaming about my superhero. My mood was lifted up with each second, with each heartbeat until the sun appeared in the sky. I was crazy with joy and fell asleep smiling, seeing dreams where the Caucasus mountains, the Goa beaches rocks and the granite lumps of Hampi were moving, dancing and spinning around together with me.

“Faith can move mountains. But not everyone has faith.” Blake.

I always looked for a man – a teacher who would help me exploring myself. My endless Universe needed a man who wouldn’t walk past the various phenomena of my soul and was able to turn on all my unrealized female modes: a girl, a mistress, a hostess, a queen. But only a king could do that, that’s why I needed a strong man overgrown his childish fears, a mature man who had come to peace with his ancestors’ spirit. A man who would like to be a creator of his woman and ready to create himself a queen out of me. Abu was that man and that’s why he listened so attentively about all my wishes. Abu was the best man I have ever known.

From that day on Abu became the King of my dreams. And I used to show him the royal respect and importance. Abu gave everything that made me happy. Our relation took the form of the decision to live together and we began our common life sharing one apartment and one space. I finally realized that I felt so wonderful and free close to my chosen man. It turned, that Abu was exactly that powerful image from my dreams who could understand woman feelings. Feelings, not words. He gifted me with his warmth. He was the Sun Man, and I was like a flower basking in the sun, in his tenderness, light and care. What an inexhaustibly rich and intricate pattern of a human life!

The most powerful word in the world is “WE”. It inspires, supports, pacifies… It teaches to live not only for yourself. “WE” are better than “me”, than “you”. This feeling gives us the strength to live, to have faith and dreams and what is the most important to love! At one of my exams on scenic design in the theatre institute, I had read a passage from “Exit the King” by Eugene Ionesco. Twenty years ago subconsciously I threw the boomerang with my wishes seeing the meaning of life only in great bright mutual love. In India my wishes became true, all my intentions were fulfilled precisely, in the real material life. I accepted back my almost twenty years old boomerang.

Here this extract is: “My sweet king, there is no past and there is no future. There’s only a present and it goes right up to the end. Everything is in the present. Be present. Pause. Stop torturing yourself. “Existence,” that’s just a word. “Death,” just a word. These are just formulas and ideas that we create for ourselves. Once you understand that, nothing can hurt you. Life is only an unanswered question: what is it… what is? That you can’t answer the question is the answer – let yourself drop into the infinite wonder and chaos and then you too will be infinite. Be amazed! Be dazzled! Everything is strange! Don’t let words define you, break through the prison bars and escape! Breathe! Pause. Let yourself be inundated by joy, be amazed and dazzled by the energy. Its glare penetrates your flesh and bones and flows through you like a river of bright light. If you want to.

Remember, please, that morning in June by the sea, the two of us… you looked out and you were filled up with an indescribable joy, something you couldn’t describe, you felt it, you said it was unchangeable and inexhaustible. If you felt it then, you can feel it now because the light comes from inside you. Look for it inside yourself.

Love insane. If you’re in love perfectly and madly the death is moving away. If you do love me, if you do love everything, the fear let you go. Love takes you, you forget yourself, and the fear goes away. The Universe fills. All rises from the dead. The hole gets vanish.

Hold me tight, don’t let me go. You’re alive because of me. I give life to you, and you give life to me. Do you understand? If you forget me, if you leave me, I won’t be able to exist any longer, I will turn into nothingness.”

After the exam, I felt delighted, felt triumph, and now I feel rather confused and all my thoughts messed up. Now is the real life. Everything I needed, what I really longed for and worked on, buries deeper and deeper under the avalanche of injustice. Breaks apart between two realities – this world and another one which is also visible here but imperceptible. The split happened not with me but in the Universe. And I just felt the fork in the Universe, going into nothingness.

But till that time we had been living incredibly beautiful and happy story of our love. I constantly thanked my God – the Universe without separating it into borders, states or religions. Since early childhood, it seemed to me that that one is more happy who sing, dance, smiles and laughs more. Without sideshow and cheating, without hierarchies and money-driven lifestyle, without certificates of birth, marriage, divorce or death.