Andrey Malinovsky
I stumbled across Heartfulness meditation at the end of 2008 when I was already about 30 years old. At that time, I still didn’t know what I wanted from life, but I knew exactly what I wanted to avoid. Perhaps this was caused by the influence of literary classics and deep dissatisfaction, but with all my being I tried to get rid of the feeling of my own inner “philistinism”.
By the age of 25, I would say I was quite sociable – I worked for myself, snowboarded in the mountains, wrote poetry, and had fun in my free time. It seemed to me that by doing what I liked, I would get to feel happiness and fulfillment. Alas, the more time that passed and the deeper I plunged into what I was interested in, the more clearly I felt the limitations of doing this. I always wanted more from my life.
Every year, I felt my own uselessness more and more in relation to people who were close to me. It seemed that there was nothing important in my life that I could share with them. It was like despair. Obeying this feeling, I began to approach my life more radically.
Having a certain penchant for acting, I became interested in theater. It helped me to relax a little and to feel a “taste for life” again, I got acquainted with like-minded people. We created our projects, studied, and had a good time together. But one day, during a performance, looking into the darkness of the auditorium, I suddenly felt very clearly that I was deceiving myself. Suddenly, the realization came that we do not play on stage, but we live, for real, while true theater takes place outside of this. At that moment, all roles faded leaving only one – my most important role – it was me. Everything turned upside down again, but the theater of my actions became much wider.
After a while, a pure coincidence landed me in an unusual place where various acting and psychological training programs were displayed. The bulletin board in the lobby was full of suggestions on topics of interest to me – studying Sanskrit,
I came across Heartfulness in my 1st year of college and, although I started practicing Yoga classes, healing, and other practices. Literally everything could be found there! Having explored some of the options and finding them wanting, I was then drawn to one advertisement in the corner that read:
“If you are looking for health or wealth, then you are not with us, if you want to get superpowers, we will not be able to help.”
This advertisement seemed like the perfect example of marketing failure but, since at that time I was an absolute admirer of Hermann Hesse, I just needed to get into this “theater” which wasn’t for everyone!
My girlfriend and I went to the welcome meeting and in the room we saw a small group of people talking quietly by the window. We were invited to the table, and were served a cup of tea in almost complete silence.
After a while, one person began talking softly about the practice of meditation, he almost seemed reluctant to break the silence and everything was so calm and unobtrusive, that it came as a surprise. I don’t remember those words, probably I did not particularly listen to the speaker, I just enjoyed the serenity of the moment and I studied those sitting at the table.
Until that moment, I had never met such clarity and calmness in the eyes of people. It even seemed to me that they somehow shone in a special way. I still remember this! Apparently, the desire for such clarity and tranquility sunk so deeply into my soul and there was not looking back. I was so inspired by the simplicity and depth of this practice that I have been practicing it now for more than 11 years.
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