In the winter of 1923-24 I fell ill with pneumonia. For eight days, the temperature was kept at 40.8 degrees. About the ninth day of my illness, I had a significant dream. Even at the very beginning, in semi-oblivion, when I tried to say the Jesus Prayer, I was distracted by visions - beautiful pictures of nature, over which I seemed to float. When I listened to the music or gazed at the wonderful landscapes, leaving prayer, I was shaken from head to toe by an evil force, and I soon began to pray. From time to time I came to my senses and saw clearly all the surroundings around me. Suddenly, my spiritual father, Hieromonk Stephen, appeared near my bed. He looked at me and said: "Let's go." Remembering with all my heart the teaching of the Church regarding the dangers of trusting in visions, I began to read the prayer "May God arise..." After listening to it with a quiet smile, he said, "Amen," and it was as if he had taken me with him somewhere. We found ourselves as if in the bowels of the earth, in a deep dungeon. In the middle, a turbulent stream of black water flowed. I thought about what that would mean. And in response to my thought, Father Stephen answered me without words, in his mind: "This is a toll-house for condemnation. Condemnation is never forgiven." In the deep stream, I saw my friend, still alive at that time. With horror I prayed for her, and she came out as if dry. The meaning of what she saw was this: if she had died in the state in which she was at that time, she would have died for the sin of condemnation, not covered by repentance. (She used to say that in order to turn away from sin, children should be taught to condemn people who act badly.) But since her hour of death has not come, she will be able to purify herself through great sorrows. We went up to the source of the stream and saw that it flowed out from under the huge, gloomy, heavy doors. It was felt that behind these gates there was darkness and horror... "What is this?" - I thought. "There are toll-houses for mortal sins," the host thought to me in response. There were no words between us. Thought answered thought directly. From this terrible, tightly closed gate, we turned back and seemed to rise higher. (Unfortunately, I do not remember the entire sequence of what I saw, although I convey all the visions quite accurately). We found ourselves as if in a ready-made dress store. There were a lot of clothes hanging on the hangers all around. It was unbearably stuffy and dusty. And then I realized that these dresses are my mental wishes for good clothes throughout my life. Here I saw my soul as if crucified, hung on a hanger, like a suit. It was as if my soul had been transformed into a dress and was suffocating in boredom and languor. Another image of the suffering soul was here in the form of a mannequin, put in a cage and carefully fashionably dressed. And this soul was suffocating from the emptiness and boredom of those vain vain desires with which it amused itself in life in thought. It became clear to me that in the event of my death, my soul would be tormented here, languishing in dust. But Father Stefan led me further. I saw, as it were, a counter with clean linen. Two of my relatives (still alive at that time) were endlessly shifting clean linen from place to place. It seemed that this picture did not represent anything particularly terrible, but again an incredible boredom and languor of spirit blew over me. I realized that this would have been the fate of my relatives in the afterlife if they had died by that time; they did not commit mortal sins, they were virgins, but they did not care about salvation, they lived without meaning, and this aimlessness would pass along with their souls into eternity. Then I saw it was like a classroom filled with soldiers looking at me reproachfully. And then I remembered my unfinished work: at one time I had to work with crippled soldiers. But then I left, did not respond to their letters and requests, leaving them to their fate in the difficult transitional time of the first years of the revolution... Then I was surrounded by a crowd of beggars. They stretched out their hands to me and said in their minds, without words: "Give, give!" I realized that I could have helped these poor people in my lifetime, but for some reason I did not do it. An indescribable feeling of deep guilt and the complete impossibility of justifying myself filled my heart. We went further. (I also saw my sin, which I had never thought of - ingratitude towards the servants, precisely that I took their work for granted. I must say that it is very difficult for me to convey the images I have seen: they are not caught in words, they become coarser, fading. Here is the way for us to be blocked by the scales. On one bowl my good deeds poured in an incessant stream, and on the other empty nuts fell noisily and scattered around with a dry crack: this was a symbol of my vanity, self-esteem. Apparently, these feelings completely devalued everything positive, since the cup with empty nuts outweighed it. There were no good deeds without an admixture of sin. Horror and anguish seized me. But suddenly a pie or a piece of cake fell on the bowl from somewhere, and the right side overweighed. (It seemed to me that someone had "loaned" me his good deed). So we stopped in front of a mountain, a mountain of empty bottles, and I realized with horror that this was an image of my pride, empty, pompous, stupid. The host thought to me in response that if I died, then at this ordeal I would have to open every bottle, as it were, which would be backbreaking and fruitless. But then Father Stefan waved as if it were some kind of giant corkscrew depicting grace, and all the bottles opened at once. I, freed, went on. I must add that I walked in monastic clothes, although at that time I was just preparing for tonsure. I tried to follow in the footsteps of my confessor, and if I stepped by, snakes came out and tried to bite me. At first, the confessor was in ordinary monastic attire, which later turned into a royal purple mantle. Here we came to a raging river. In it stood some evil anthropoid creatures, throwing thick logs at each other with fierce anger. When they saw me, they screamed with a kind of insatiable malice, devouring me with their eyes and trying to pounce on me. It was the toll-house of anger, manifested, unrestrained. Looking back, I noticed that saliva was crawling behind me, the size of a human body, but without forms, with the face of a woman. No words can convey the hatred that sparkled in her eyes that were constantly looking at me. It was my passion for irritability, as if identical with the demon of irritability. I must say that there I felt my passions, which I had developed and fed in life, as something united with the demons that stirred them up. All the time this saliva wanted to wrap itself around and suffocate me, but the confessor rejected it, mentally saying: "She is not dead yet, she can repent." Relentlessly, looking at me with inhuman malice, she crawled after me almost to the end of the ordeal. Then we came to a dam, or dam, in the form of a kind of rampart with a complex system of tubes through which water seeped. It was an image of my restrained, inner anger, a symbol of various mental evil constructions that took place only in my imagination. If I had died, I would have had to squeeze through all these tubes, to strain myself with incredible torment. Again a feeling of terrible, unrequited guilt seized me. "She is not dead yet," thought Father Stefan and led me on. For a long time I was followed by screams and a furious splash from the river of anger. After that, it was as if we climbed higher again and found ourselves in some room. In the corner, as if fenced off, stood some monsters, formless, having lost their human form, covered and soaked through with some disgusting shame. I realized that these were ordeals for obscenity, obscene jokes, indecent words. I was relieved to think that I was not guilty of this, and suddenly I heard these monsters speak in terrible voices: "Ours, ours!" and I remembered with amazing distinctness how, as a ten-year-old schoolboy, I had written some stupid things on pieces of paper in class with a friend. And again the same unresponsiveness, connected with the deepest consciousness of guilt, seized me. But the leader with the same mentally pronounced words: "She is not dead yet" - took me away. Nearby, as if leaving this fenced-off nook, I saw my soul in the form of a figurine enclosed in a glass jar. It was a toll-house for fortune-telling. I felt how fortune-telling humiliates and diminishes the immortal soul, turning it into a lifeless laboratory preparation. Farther on, in the opposite corner, as if through the windows leading to the next lower room, I saw an innumerable number of confectionery arranged in rows: these were the sweets I had eaten. Although I did not see demons here, these manifestations of cheryogory, carefully collected during my life, reeked of demonic viciousness. I would have to absorb it all again, this time without pleasure, but as if under torture. Then we passed a pool filled with an incessantly rotating red-hot, as if molten, golden liquid. It was a ordeal for mentally perverted voluptuousness. Fierce flour emanated from this molten moving liquid. Then I saw the soul of my friend (not yet dead) in the form of a flower wonderful in color and ridiculous in shape. It consisted of wondrous pink petals folded into a long tube: there was neither a stem nor a root. The confessor approached, cut off the petals and, planting them deep into the ground, said: "Now he will bear fruit." Not far away stood the soul of my cousin, all filled with military ammunition, as if there was no soul at all. This brother loved military affairs very much for his own sake, and did not recognize any other occupations for himself. After that, we moved to another, smaller room, in which there were freaks: giants with tiny heads, dwarfs with huge heads. Right there I stood in the form of a huge dead nun, as if made of wood. All these were symbols of people who led a self-willed ascetic life, without obedience and guidance: in some the bodily podvig predominated, in others the rationality was too developed. As for myself, I realized that there would be a time when I would leave obedience to my spiritual father and die spiritually. (This is what happened when, in 1929, violating the advice of Father Stephen, I went into schism, not wanting to recognize Metropolitan Sergius, the future Patriarch. My feet seemed to be frozen to the floor, but after the fervent prayer of the Mother of God, I again got the opportunity to follow Father Stefan. It was not a toll-house, but a kind of image of my future deviations from the right path to salvation. Then there was a row of huge empty churches, through which we walked for a tiringly long time. I could hardly move my legs and mentally asked Father Stefan when this path would end. He immediately thought to me: "These are your dreams, why did you dream so much?" The churches we passed through were very tall and beautiful, but alien to God, temples without God. From time to time, there were lecterns, before which I, kneeling, confessed, while the facilitator, waiting, stood nearby. The first priest to whom I confessed was Father Peter (our cathedral archpriest, to whom I really confessed for the first time after this dream). Further, I did not see my confessor during confession, but I often confessed at the lecterns. All this spoke to me about my future life, about salvation through the frequent Sacrament of Confession. Suddenly, we heard a kind of drumbeat, and, looking back, we saw in the wall on the right an icon of St. Theodosius of Chernigov, who seemed to remind me of himself. The saint stood in a nod to his full height, alive. I remembered that I had stopped praying to him lately. Then, when we went on, St. Nicholas of Myra came out to meet us. It was all pink and gold, like a rose petal, pierced by the golden rays of the sun. My soul shuddered at the contact with the shrine, and I threw myself on my face in horror. All the wounds of the soul ached painfully, as if naked and illuminated from within by this tremendous closeness to holiness. Lying on my face, I saw how St. Nicholas kissed his spiritual father on the cheek... We went further. Soon I felt that the Mother of God could descend to us. But my feeble, sin-loving soul was tossed about desperately from the impossibility of direct communion with the holy object. We went and felt that the exit was near. Almost at the very exit I saw the ordeal of one of my acquaintances, and on the way out - one nun, who seemed to be thrown up on a board. But here the sins of others did not attract my attention at all. Then we entered the church. The narthex was in the shade, and the main part of the temple was flooded with light. High in the air near the iconostasis stood the slender figure of a girl of extraordinary beauty and nobility, clothed in a purple mantle. The saints surrounded her in an oval ring in the air. This wondrous girl seemed to me extraordinarily familiar, dear, but I tried in vain to remember who she was: "Who are you, dear, dear, infinitely close?" And suddenly something inside me said that this was my soul, given to me by God, a soul in the virgin state in which it had been from the baptismal font: the image of God in it had not yet been distorted. She was surrounded by holy intercessors, I don't remember who they were - one, I remember, was as if in ancient hierarchal clothes. A wondrous light poured from the window of the church, illuminating everything with a gentle radiance. I stood and watched, freezing. But then, from the twilight shadow of the narthex, a terrible creature on pig's legs came up to me, a depraved woman, ugly, short, with a huge mouth, with black teeth across her belly. Oh, horror! This monster was my soul in its present state, a soul that had distorted the image of God, without form. The monster seemed to want to cling to me with schadenfreude, but the host pushed me aside with the words: "She is not dead yet," and I rushed after him in horror to the exit. In the shadows, around the column, sat other similar freaks - other people's souls, but I had no time for other people's sins. As I was leaving, I looked around and again with anguish saw in the air, at the height of the iconostasis, that dear, close and long-forgotten, lost... We got out and walked along the road. And then, as it were, my future earthly life began to be depicted: I saw myself among the old, snow-covered monastery buildings. The nuns surrounded me, as if to say, "Yes, yes, it's good that I came." They led me to the abbot, who also greeted my arrival. But for some reason, I terribly did not want to stay there, wondering at myself in my sleep, since at this period of my life (before my illness) I was already striving for monasticism. Then one day we came out of there and found ourselves on a deserted road. Next to her at the side sat a majestic old man with a large book in his hands. The spiritual father and I knelt before him, and the elder, tearing a sheet out of the book, handed it to Father Stephen. He took it and disappeared. I realized - he died. The elder also disappeared. I was left alone. In bewilderment, with fear, I went forward, further along the deserted sandy road. She led me to the lake. It was sunset. From somewhere came the faint ringing of the church. On the shore of the lake there was a wall of pine forest. I stopped in complete bewilderment: there was no road. And suddenly, gliding over the ground, the figure of the confessor appeared in the air in front of me. He had a censer in his hands, and he looked at me sternly. Moving towards the forest, facing me, he censed and seemed to be calling me. I followed him, keeping my eyes on him, and entered the thicket of the forest. He slid through the trunks of the trees like a ghost and censed all the time, staring at me incessantly. We stopped in a clearing. I knelt down and prayed. He, silently gliding around the clearing and not taking his stern eyes off me, censed it all over and disappeared - I woke up. Several times during this dream, I came to my senses, saw the room, heard the breathing of a sleeping relative. Consciously not wanting to continue the dream, I read a prayer, but again I seemed to lose my temper against my will. When I finally woke up, I clearly realized that I was dying, and then I felt my whole life as aimless, not preparing me for eternity. "For nothing, for nothing, life has been lived," I repeated, and with fervent prayer I clung to the Queen of Heaven, so that She would ask me for time to repent. "I promise to live for Thy Son," poured out from the depths of my heart. And at the same moment, as if with blessed dew, it poured over me. The heat was gone. I felt lightness, a return to life. Through the shutters, through the cracks, I saw the stars calling me to a new, renewed life... In the morning, the doctor stated my recovery. (Nun Sergia (Klimenko)." The past unfolds the scroll..." Moscow, 1998)

Meeting the Lord

Earlier, when I had just come to the Orthodox faith, it seemed to me that the Lord, seeing our sinfulness, no longer showed us His miracles. But what happened to me soon made me think differently. And I am ready to tell you about everything. But for this, perhaps, I will start in order. My path to Orthodoxy turned out to be difficult and tediously long. I was born at the time of active construction of "paradise on earth", when it was stubbornly suggested that there is no God, and that "religion itself is the opium of the people". Most of all, Orthodoxy was denigrated. And in my soul there is a firmly rooted attitude to the faith of my ancestors as something backward and primitive. But the question of what is the meaning of earthly existence began to worry me quite early. And since childhood, I have tried to comprehend the mysteries of nature by studying it. Having spent more than one year on this, I did not receive an intelligible answer. Intuitively, I felt that behind the material manifestation of life there was a life unknown and, perhaps, more diverse and complex. I guessed that the inner nature of man, his soul, was somehow connected with the invisible life. At one time I was fond of psychology and philosophy. But the various theories did not inspire confidence in me, and I stopped being interested in them. At that time, the concept of "Creator", "Creator" was already in my mind. But I stubbornly avoided the concept of "God," which for me was associated with fanaticism. And as a result, with all recklessness, I plunged into the boundless multitude of Eastern beliefs, so temptingly promising to reveal the Truth. Suddenly I began to guess that they were stubbornly "leading me by the nose", trying to lead me away from the Truth altogether. No longer relying on my own strength, realizing only my complete insignificance before the Incomprehensible, I then prayed to the Creator with all the sincerity and despair that overwhelmed me: "Lord, bring me to You! Show me the way that leads to You, the Truth..." From that moment on, I only lived and breathed this inner prayer-supplication. And the Lord heard me. And He opened the way to Himself. I was baptized. Soon, the Orthodox faith, having deeply touched me, became the only meaning of life. I was shocked that all my life I had walked next to the Truth, not knowing it at all. Perhaps, in order to cherish the faith of my ancestors more reverently, the Lord led me to it along such a thorny path. The mercy and generosity of the Almighty to me did not end there. Suddenly I found an extraordinary state of inner peace and tranquility, unknown to me before. At the same time, my long-unhealthy body miraculously freed itself from the captivity of numerous sores. His body perked up, feeling the long-forgotten youthful freshness. And it seemed to me then that I received all these extraordinary gifts forever. This went on for more than one month, while I diligently comprehended church life with its amazing Sacraments. At first, I didn't realize at all why I was being given this new strength. And instead of multiplying them and cherishing them, I began to spend them unwisely and recklessly. Gradually, more and more indulging in temporal vanity, I began to neglect the services, forgetting about the Sacraments, which so nourish and purify the soul. And what was the result? All the gifts given to me by grace from above, I just as unexpectedly lost. It was then that all my previous illnesses returned to me, but with even greater force. And inner peace was replaced by a soul-exhausting delusion. As if the grace of God did not touch me at all. By that time, I was already forty years old. And in her arms is a late child, who is only five and a half years old. It was necessary to take care of him, feed him, clothe him. And forgetting about the most important thing - the salvation of the soul, I completely plunged into the domestic whirlwind. My existence without God again began to resemble a senseless, hectic race, from which I constantly felt only incredible fatigue. Fortunately for me, the Lord looked at me again and heard my weak but desperate call. And this time He showed His infinite mercy. The day before, completely unaware of anything, I was still indulging in worldly vanity. I worked as an artist and tried to complete a large order on time. Sharply deteriorating health forced me to immediately go to the doctor at the end of work. I haven't sought medical help for a long time. And the dry words of the surgeon: "Tomorrow urgently for the operation..." - were a shock for me. Everything inside me immediately turned cold. Suddenly, my whole life, a life in which there was no time to stop and think, suddenly and abruptly stopped, frozen in front of a terrifying unknown. "What about me?.. What will happen to me? What will happen to my loved ones, to my little child? - I thought.- After all, the operation is to be performed under general anesthesia. And this means a considerable probability that my sinful soul will leave the body forever! With what will she appear before the Lord?.." To solve the family's financial difficulties, I worked day and night, completely forgetting about God. For more than a month I have not attended church, confessed and communed of the Holy Mysteries. The accumulated unrepentant sins weighed on the soul. But I justified such a long absence from church before my aching conscience and before God by temporary circumstances, extreme fatigue and lack of time. With the sudden news of what was coming, my whole life and its values changed instantly. And on that long and painful night before the operation, I did not sleep at all, thinking that the most important and only thing left for me now was the salvation of my soul. The consciousness of his sinfulness led to burning despair. And everything inside me burned with a painfully burning fire. Barely waiting for the morning and leaving the preparations for the hospital, I rushed headlong to a familiar monastery to the priest to whom I had always confessed, hoping that he would not refuse to help me. To my great happiness, the priest was in the monastery. I spent more than an hour in heartfelt repentance and weeping for my sins. The Lord was so merciful that He did not refuse me Communion of the Holy Mysteries. I immediately felt better. The sacraments removed a heavy burden from my darkened soul. And the instructions of the priest, who did not hide the truth, set me up for the worst, helped me a lot to cope with animal fear and properly prepare myself for the operation. Finally calmed down, I surrendered myself to the will of the Almighty. For the rest of the time before the operation, I only repeated the Jesus Prayer. Trying not to lose her, I lay down on the operating table. When the anesthesia "went" and a chill was felt in the mouth, thoughts began to blur, as if melting. And I only managed to say in my mind: "Lord, in Thy hands..." But then, gathering my strength, feeling the importance of this prayer at such a crucial moment in my life, I nevertheless finished: "... I give up my soul." Before this incident, I had undergone operations under general anesthesia more than once. And every time I came to my senses, there was only a feeling of deep sleep without dreams. And this time... When I finished praying, it was as if I had flown out somewhere. At the same time, consciousness did not leave me for a fraction of a second. It was as if I surfaced in another dimension. I confess right away that what began to happen to me from that moment was beyond earthly sensations and concepts. And for all the scarcity of human language, it is not subject to complete description. But I still dared to do it, guided by the will from above. ... Nothing in me and outside of me even remotely resembled earthly. All human sensations disappeared immediately. Everything earthly is gone, disappeared without a trace. But I knew for sure that it was me and that all this was happening to me. The sensations of oneself were so unearthly bright and integral that it is impossible for the human mind to appreciate it. On earth, however, burdened by the flesh, the sense of self is very limited and self-contained. In addition, human consciousness, constantly torn apart by the flow of thoughts and a flurry of emotions, does not have integrity, as I realized after a while, having assessed my state THERE. So, my consciousness was concentrated together clearly and clearly. In the next moment, I suddenly wanted to define myself, to realize: what am I, what am I? And my consciousness suddenly and invisibly separated from myself. And I saw myself from the outside. And I was able to examine myself in great detail. From an earthly point of view, this sounds, at least, strange and implausible. But THERE is its own reality and its own laws of being, absolutely not subject to our understanding... If we talk about time, then this whole episode happened very quickly. But the temporal concepts of THERE are also peculiar: time THERE exists, as it were, in time. And the moment when I examined myself from the outside was an independent and capacious piece of time in the general course of momentary events, not stopping for a moment. In the next moment, I saw a huge bright space in front of me, causing a calm, bright joy. This immense expanse of light stretched to the horizon, which was clearly visible. And behind me, I felt, there was a line separating me from the abyss (so I felt the place from which I had just "come"). It was as if I was on a plane under which there was a dark and deaf abyss. This invisible and unknown plane separated that oppressive, gloomy abyss from the boundless bright space in which I now found myself. Even on earth, before the operation, I desperately prayed that the Lord would give me at least a little more time, at least a little of it, to pay off debts to my neighbors. I painfully prayed to Him to give me this opportunity. And when I was THERE, I had only one goal. Everything in me was subordinated to her and concentrated on this goal. It was an irresistible desire to get to HIM. Who was above everything and in everything, to Whom all things are subject. The word "God" was absent in my mind at that time. But I knew clearly that this was the Final Authority, the Author of everything, the Judge. I needed to get to HIM with a REQUEST. With a REQUEST that I brought with me from where I had just come, and which was more important in me and for me. This was the only thing that was important to me. I didn't even realize, I didn't think about what this request was. But it was this REQUEST that was the only driving factor that made me yearn for HIM with an irresistible thirst with all my being, and that was what filled and overwhelmed me. For a moment, I felt completely alone. But it was only a moment. Because the next moment (regardless of me and my motivation) suddenly there was a movement in which I was no longer alone. And I immediately felt this someone's presence, although I did not see anyone yet. But someone or something very warm, big, reliable suddenly appeared from somewhere next to me, taking care of and accompanying me in the movement that suddenly began. There was a feeling that such an unexpected appearance of someone was given with the highest permission, out of sympathy for me, who found myself in unusual conditions, in support and direction of me. And I immediately felt confident and trusted in the unknown guide and tried to convey my intentions to my companion. But this was quite unnecessary, since he knew all about my intention here even without my knowledge. And, unquestioningly obeying my main desire-goal, he carried me along with him. I will make a small digression to supplement my story. A couple of days after the operation, a neighbor visited me. I told her, without any details, that I had "traveled" during the operation. Then she remembered that more than seven years ago, also being under general anesthesia during an operation, she also "traveled". She began to describe everything in great detail, and I was struck by the surprising resemblance (even in small things) to my impressions. The impressions of her journey were so strong that she remembered everything with unfading clarity for more than seven years. But there was one difference in our "travels" with her, and a very significant one. Namely: no one accompanied my friend THERE, and she experienced a feeling of immense loneliness THERE. I can also add that she is a person who believes in God, but is not Orthodox and unbaptized, denying Christ as Savior. Now I will continue again about my journey. The companion that guided our movement with him felt more and more clearly to me. I became more and more aware that he was obliged, with Someone's supreme permission, to show me all this and I had to go through this entire route assigned to me from above. But I was still possessed most of all by only one goal - to get to HIM as soon as possible. My companion seemed to immediately catch everything that was happening in me. Any movement in me was immediately transmitted to him, like a thought, as if in a conversation between two people who understood each other well. But the language of our communication with him was not at all human. Catching my impatient desire, my guide obeyed me unquestioningly. We soon found ourselves in a confined space, in the center of which there was a kind of crater. This crater at an angle went into some unknown space under ours, as if inside it. In indecision, I stopped very close to this crater. My guide also stopped. It was as if we were waiting for something, feeling that we needed to stop. Now I had the opportunity to see my companion in detail. He was neither male nor female. His long, wavy hair fell from his head onto his outstretched wings and merged with them. He was wearing a robe that hid his limbs. My whole companion - his head, face, long flowing hair, wings and clothes - shimmered, shimmering with color waves, which was very much like the shimmering of light on the mother-of-pearl surface of a sea shell. His body did not resemble coarse human flesh in quality, but as if it consisted of opaque dense ether. The fragrance that emanated from my companion was not just a smell. It was an unusually wonderful spiritual aroma, the likes of which I had never felt in earthly conditions. His face, radiating unearthly peace, was soft and unperturbed. There were eyes, nose, and lips on his face. But all this was unified, without sharp boundaries and outlines, thus expressing the softness and beauty of the face even more. Later, on earth, I tried to understand why my companion was so strikingly familiar to me, as if he resembled someone. After a while, I remembered. Yes, yes, undoubtedly - "Trinity" by Andrei Rublev! The amazing faces of the icon reflect the same equanimity and calmness, the same softness and beauty of unearthly tranquility. And even the external resemblance, the proportions of the face and body are very close to the appearance of my companion, which was very reminiscent of the images from ancient Russian icons. And it occurred to me that in the prayerful feat of the holy iconographers the true vision of the invisible world, hidden from sinful, carnal eyes, was revealed. While I was looking at my companion, he made it clear to me affirmatively that we had reached my desired goal. All the time of our communication I also clearly felt that, in submitting to me, he was more than that controlled and completely subordinate to the will from above, which invisibly but inseparably guided and controlled him all the time. I also felt just as clearly that my companion knew something I was not privy to. But for some reason I did not have the slightest desire to know more than what was allowed to me from above. The next moment I saw how people like me, with their guides, suddenly appearing from somewhere, rush into the funnel with lightning speed and disappear there, as if being drawn in, sucked into it. Like colorless transparent shadows, they flashed one after another. Companions held their wards between their wings, carefully covering their priceless burden with them. The space where I lingered with my guide for a reason that was not yet clear to me was for them only a brief moment on the way to their goal. My companion, following the flickering shadows, smoothly turned his head, and I saw his equally beautiful profile. For a while, he calmly watched what was happening, as if waiting for something. Suddenly, an irresistible craving arose in me - the desire to follow along with everyone else into this funnel. But my companion instantly caught what was happening in me and immediately let me know that I should join him. Without hesitation, I immediately, in an instant, found myself under his outstretched right wing. And from there, as from a safe haven, she watched what was happening. My impatience grew more and more, and I wondered: what are we waiting for? I was so impatient to submit to the general movement and follow into the beckoning funnel. But my companion seemed to be waiting for the moment to tell me what I myself should have guessed and not insisted. Finally he said to me, "It's not time yet." He told me this very convincingly and firmly. And I immediately, without hesitation, agreed with him, as if I instantly understood everything that it was not the time for me to go THERE. From that moment on, I suddenly felt myself moving downward, in a completely different space. It was as if I had fallen out of that dimension and was going down, flying alone, without my guide. But his sudden disappearance did not alarm or frighten me in the least. I fell through a white mist, it was more like white light, and I felt serene, good and peaceful. All my desires, which had previously occupied my entire being and were the most significant and important for me, suddenly disappeared, dissolved, leaving no trace. The bliss I felt in return is indescribable, for I had never experienced anything like it in my life (or even suspected anything like it). Everything around me was filled with a state of endless and boundless LOVE for me and for the environment around me. It was an all-encompassing LOVE, a LOVE that emanated from HIM, a LOVE that permeated and encompassed my entire being, resonating in me with a childlike devotion and an equally selfless love for its Creator. Blissful awe, boundless happiness filled me. It was as if I had existed only for the sake of this reverent love for HIM, while at the same time absorbing the LOVE radiating from the Almighty. And there were no boundaries, no limit to the depth of this all-encompassing and all-pervading LOVE. It seemed that everything that existed at all was only LOVE and nothing else. For a while, I sank like this, enjoying unearthly serene happiness and sweet bliss. But when I went down and was already out of the white light, the feeling of bliss disappeared immediately and without a trace. And I was instantly seized by an inhuman cry. It was as if I came to my senses: after all, I could not convey to HIM the most important thing, for the sake of which I had come all this way. And the realization of this plunged me into indescribable horror. Directing my "gaze" upwards, I began to call out to God. The concept-word "God" has already appeared in my consciousness. I cried out to Him in despair and weeping, repeating incessantly, "Lord, forgive me! Lord, save my child!" - but not yet with words, but as if with your whole being. The feeling of unbearable grief was immensely deep in me. It was as if I had lost something that was the only meaning of my existence, and now consisted only of inhuman pain, inconsolable crying, and incessant lamentation for God. Yes, because I lost that boundless LOVE, and it was painful, sorrowful and unbearable for me. It was as if I was dying again and again every second, burning incessantly from the excruciating pain that enveloped me. Later, on earth, I kept thinking back to the memories of that boundless divine LOVE and to the memories of unbearable sorrow, comparing them. Perhaps it is not by chance that I was shown such a huge difference between these states. Now they, these states, like two points between God and darkness, constantly remind me of the meaning of my earthly existence and what I should strive for in this life with all my might. The memory of the pain and sorrow I experienced because I was cut off from God made me think that even after experiencing this, I could only vaguely guess the hopelessness and suffering in which sinners languish in hell, inconsolably crying out to God. And their terrible pain is great not only because they burn in hellfire, but also because they are cut off from God, from His boundless LOVE. And isn't this separation from God a burning in hell, and is not the sophisticated demonic torment and cruel torture a consequence of complete isolation and absolute insecurity by Divine LOVE? Now I understood that human nature, wholly preoccupied with the consuming cares of the world, is incapable of understanding all the horror and hopelessness of the sinner languishing in hell. We live on earth as if death with its inevitable changes in existence will not affect us personally. My hopelessly contrite crying did not cease and tore my soul more and more. This went on for some time... But suddenly, at some point, I clearly felt that I was seeing Him. And His presence immediately filled everything with white light. It was something powerful and all-encompassing, without concrete forms, filling all things and radiating a dazzling white light, the light of the unfading Eternal Sun. The dazzling majesty of the Creator made me tremble and weep even more. I was shocked and absorbed by everything that was revealed to me. Then I noticed that there was someone else next to Him, but much smaller, and his outline was like a human silhouette: a head and the upper part of folded wings and shoulders, everything else was immersed in a white mist-light. I didn't see Lik either, as he also dissolved in the white light. I felt the love and warmth coming from him towards me, and also that he was familiar to me with this warmth and sympathy for me. This someone, so palpably familiar to me, was talking to HIM (God), and I clearly understood that this conversation directly concerned me. It was as if he interceded for me before God. And into my desperate weeping, which did not stop for a moment, suddenly burst involuntarily a contrition of incredible strength in its sinfulness, which grew more and more. And the Lord seemed to be listening to my weeping. And the fact that I was finally heard by Him began to have a calming effect on me, as if His LOVE that I had lost began to return to me again. But, strange as it may seem, my broken crying still did not stop, it became deeper and stronger. At some point, the white light and everything it contained began to disappear, as if dissolving. And I felt that I was descending into denser layers. From contact with this density, the sensations gradually began to change to less pleasant. The weeping and prayer in me still did not stop, and moreover, intensified, but it expressed, along with repentance, deep gratitude to the Almighty. I descended lower and lower, until suddenly I heard voices sounding already on earth, and fragments of the phrase: "... She's waking up..." Although there were no bodily sensations yet, somehow I felt that I was being moved somewhere. I saw a white mist in front of me and thought that perhaps I was going back to where I had just descended. Later I realized that it was a hospital wall covered with white tiles. But before that, I could not understand where I was for a long time. At some point, I realized that I was already calling out to the Lord aloud, in human language. Sometimes I would interrupt my earnest prayer to the Lord to ask questions to the voices I had heard: "Where am I?.. I'm on the ground?.. I am a man?..." In response, I heard my sister's soft voice, calming me down with affirmative answers. Gradually, I slowly began to realize that it was really me, that I was on earth, and that everything that was supposed to happen to me had already ended, but I did not yet realize what it was. Before the operation, I was very afraid that I might not wake up and that my loved ones would be shocked by this loss, that it would be very difficult for them without me. And my petition to HIM (to God) consisted of a request to leave me still on earth, in order to "pay off debts to my neighbors." And most importantly, my sinfulness had a very strong effect on me. And I was well aware that I could not "leave" in such a bad state of my affairs... My desperate screaming and crying continued, and I felt as if I was being burned with a red-hot iron. Later I realized what was burning me so unbearably. They were tears. They streamed from my eyes, so that all the clothes around my neck were wet. Gradually, I began to be filled with aching bodily pain. And I felt myself slowly returning to my body. My return to the body was long and unpleasant. Especially at the first moment of realizing what is happening. I felt an unpleasant earthly heaviness that poured into me like molten lead, a great sorrow and deep disappointment from returning to earth. But, despite such negative and unpleasant feelings, my crying-crying, along with gratitude, also included the realization that my request was still heard by Him... According to the nurse, I cried out to God for more than an hour and a half, desperately and tearfully. I was hardly persuaded not to make noise, because there were still sick people in the ward, after which I stopped praying aloud, but continued to do it in my thoughts for a long time, until I fell into sleepy oblivion. They started operating on me at six o'clock in the evening. At two o'clock in the morning, I woke up, remembering everything very vividly. More and more I began to be seized by an unrelenting desire to stand up and write down everything that had happened to me. I became more and more confident that I should do this not for myself, but for someone. It was as if someone was forcing me to do it. At that moment, I had the impression that what happened to me THERE was so natural and there was nothing special about it. It seemed to me then that all the experiences that I had THERE were close to any human soul, that it was available to everyone... But the demand growing from somewhere above still forced me, as it were, to capture, to fix on paper what remained in my memory. And, still perplexed by the unclear demands from the outside, I finally got out of bed, obeying the calls from above, and with difficulty controlling my body weakened after anesthesia, I wrote everything down. Before that, I did not have to engage in writing. And I was very struck by the feeling that something seemed to be in possession of my hand. From somewhere, what I had to write down easily poured into my consciousness. And it was not difficult for me to do this. At some point, I suddenly thought: "Maybe someone needs this; Perhaps this story about an extraterrestrial journey will help someone to gain faith that our life is not just a brief and meaningless moment on earth and the meaning of this brief moment is so important for the future, imperishable life. And most importantly, by my example, someone will be able to gain faith in the true God." Earlier, before what happened to me, I was often tormented by lack of faith and doubts. I came to Orthodoxy some nine months ago. And now I know for sure: God exists!

***

After a good time, I decided to supplement my notes with something that, I hope, can be of some value to a believer. This operation took place on March 14, 1996, during Lent. And what happened to me during it, I'm sure, wasn't a dream. Undoubtedly, this was reality. Dream impressions, as a rule, fade and are erased from memory. Even the brightest events of daily life gradually fade and are forgotten. And this.. I remember everything, down to the smallest detail, so vividly.. And what happened to me for the first time after the operation can also be attributed to the amazing. Truly, the Lord's generosity knows no bounds. He punishes the sinner with great love. Having honored me with a serious test, He richly rewarded me, lifting the veil of the mysterious and inaccessible to many mortals. And what I gained in a short moment of trials went deep into my soul. After returning to earth, for about three more months, there was a feeling that I had not quite returned to my body. It felt like a newborn baby. And the whole world was perceived by me in a completely different way. It was an extraordinary feeling of unity with all those living on earth, as if I were one body with all people, a feeling of equality before the Almighty with any person, even the most wretched and sinful. I felt very keenly that we were one for God, and therefore I had a deep awareness of responsibility for everyone. I felt that we have no right to offend our neighbors and we need to live only by love for each other. There was an amazingly deep feeling of love for everything earthly - nature, plants - and an amazing feeling of pleasure in every moment of earthly existence. It was as if a feeling of sincere gratitude to the Almighty was born in me for everything. For everything that has happened to me, is happening and can happen again. There was a sincere desire not to sin anymore and not to offend his neighbors. After the operation, the fear for the fate of the child completely disappeared. I understood how the Lord loves all of us infinitely and cares for all of us, only we do not always understand this and often resist His good will. And I realized much more deeply that each of our requests to God will undoubtedly be heard. One of the most valuable acquisitions I received from TAM was the complete absence of fear of death. In the past, before I believed in God, I often woke up at night with a chilling, sepulchral horror of death. Life with such a horrible end seemed to me then meaningless and worthless. I saw that we, people, like primitive insects, were swarming in earthly cares and passions, creating fragile and short-lived structures - structures of ants. And she understood more and more that man is stubbornly looking for the meaning of life in this process, inventing numerous and most complex theories of existence to justify his fuss. And it was no longer possible to conceal from oneself the fact that all this instantly crumbled at such an inevitable and inevitable fact as death. The widespread theory of existence that we live for procreation did not calm me down either. And, apparently unwilling to accept the frightening inevitability, I relentlessly tried to find a more reliable justification for human existence. Intuitively, I felt that there was a deeper and more undeniable justification for every human life. And so, thanks to Orthodoxy, I managed to radically change my attitude to earthly life and death. I realized that the life we so desperately and convulsively cling to turns into dust and dust at the feet of the Lord. And the experience given to me from above really showed that there is no death (in the understanding of an unbeliever). And there is only getting rid of everything superfluous and interfering and acquiring the wholeness of the true "I" in an inseparable connection with God. The consciousness that the true reality is THERE, and our earthly so-called reality, is only an imaginary reality, nothing more than an illusion taken for reality, has firmly entered me. And if my "journey" can be called only the first step towards death, then death itself is deliverance from earthly existence in endless tormenting passions. Now death for me is no longer a frightening inevitability, darkening the mind, causing an animal fear of the unknown. Death for me is now a liberation, a gift of God. The earthly sojourn, in comparison with the heavenly one, turned out to be so immensely painful and oppressive, and the unforgettable memories of the "white world" so sweetly real, that to exchange the earthly vegetative life for the heavenly abode would now be only happiness and a dream for me. But... Even when I was on the way FROM THERE, instead of being terrified of death, I was seized by an overwhelming horror for my sinfulness. And when my consciousness returned to my body, the fear of sin completely replaced the animal fear of death. And the horror that I did not atone for my sins before God is so great that it makes me think more not about heavenly bliss, but about eternal burning. Now I understand that only the death of a righteous man is deliverance, and the death of a sinner is terrible in its hopelessness. I began to understand more and more that the Lord needed only a soul washed in tears of repentance. Yes, pain is an ordeal. But perhaps this is the only thing that can deeply shake a person, forcing him to change his view of earthly existence itself and revive him to a new life. We do not value this gift of life so much, forgetting about the brief moment granted by the Lord. I distinctly remember that THERE I retained the most pronounced traits of my character, which guided me and THERE. These are assertiveness and anxiety, the inability to wait. Now I can only conclude that you need to educate your character here, on earth. THERE it will be too late. THERE we will only be presented with a fait accompli... At first after the operation, the attitude to food was unusual. I will not hide the fact that all my life one of my sins was gluttony, with which I successfully fought, then fell into it again. At first after the operation, I did not want to eat at all. It's not that there was no physical desire, but just that this process of eating suddenly lost its meaning for me, becoming simply incomprehensible. THERE my soul was satiated with the vision of the Lord, and it needed nothing more. And she did not expect any other substitute for spiritual food, living by unearthly grace. Thus I was exposed to an absolutely amazing state when neither flesh nor soul is burdened with coarse physical food (which I did not want to touch at all). But my soul still returned to earth, back to my body. There was no escaping it, it had to be accepted as a will from above. And the body finally demanded its food. At first I grieved very much because the soul was becoming more and more sleepy, a state of stupefaction and unreceptivity. My connection with what was THERE, gradually turned from a mighty stream into the thinnest thread. A thread that still connects me with that world. And thanks to this connection, I manage to survive now in this harsh and indifferent world. Yes, this is how cold and callous the earthly world is seen in comparison with the Heavenly one... For a long time, after returning FROM THERE, I kept silent about another fact that shocked my consciousness. I understood that it could cause most people to be painfully depressed. But now, with the passage of time, gradually returning to my usual worldly existence, I realized that what I had been hiding could open the eyes of many people to our true earthly existence. For the first time, the three days after returning to earth were especially painful for me. What I saw and felt from the contact with the earth plunged my renewed soul into a depressing state. The earth seemed to me like a huge stinking garbage dump, littered with mountains of living human corpses teeming on it. Their swarming created an imaginary appearance of life on earth. From these living human corpses emanated a terrible unearthly stench, from which my soul suffocated and suffered immensely. From this earthly nightmare, which I had not noticed and suspected before, living here, my soul yearned to return to the sky. It seemed to me that my true homeland was THERE, in heaven, and here I was again by some ridiculous accident, by a strange mistake. I came back FROM there like a newborn baby. And I had the complete helplessness of this newborn, vulnerable baby and vulnerability to contact with the terrible earthly reality that had opened up to me. I was especially traumatized by close contact with people. Many of them had hidden strong aggression and anger, and I saw this in all sincerity. It seemed that their angry contents were about to spill out of them, and they could only barely hold back this inner onslaught. Their inhuman gazes, burning from somewhere inside, like red coals; His eyes, full of anger and malice, caused me incredible mental pain. I felt very sorry for these people, and at first I sincerely cried for their sins. But gradually it became more and more difficult for me to get in touch with them. At some point, I felt that my mournful crying for them had stopped, and the feeling of resentment that had suddenly appeared was growing. It was a grudge for these people, for their miserable condition, but it began to torment my soul unbearably. I came to my senses and began to pray for myself. But, obviously, she was too late... The earth really lies in evil. Being here on earth, we remain only perishable, weak people. And along with this resentment, something bad entered me, something oppressive and heavy, imperiously enveloping everything inside, causing a state of painful obscuration after a bright, unearthly joy. Subsequently, the dark forces mercilessly attacked me, taking revenge on me, as I felt, for my rebirth. Through people close and dear to me, these "non-humans" tried to destroy me and the light in me. With bitterness, I felt my helplessness. And only an uninterrupted connection with God - prayer and faith - saves me. Once a man who was far from old came to the monastery, where I go to services. He was very depressed from drinking, and an unpleasant tart smell emanated from him, since his clothes were soaked with what he walked under himself. I did not notice how he was next to me, and from the smell that suddenly hit my nose, I involuntarily turned around. And the first thing that came to my mind was: how can we stink with our sins without noticing it? And what do our guardian angels have to endure from us?.. The second thing I thought was: probably the Lord brought this unfortunate man here, to the church, during the service for a reason. This is a good reminder to us, sinners, of our deplorable condition. And the Lord often reminds us of our true condition, sending us sorrows and illnesses. Subsequently, it was confirmed that my disease belongs to oncology and is simply called cancer. That surgery in my body was generally contraindicated for him, as it can aggravate the situation, causing a rapid growth of metastases. It turned out that, in a hurry, the surgeon made a medical error. And instead of the supposed fatty tumor, which had grown rapidly over the past month and a half and caused severe headaches, he removed the oncological tumor. Before the operation, the very word "cancer", as well as the suspicion of this disease in myself, terrified me. But after what happened to me THERE, the illness of the body, which had previously caused inhuman despair, ceased to be terrible for me. The sickness of the soul was what made me feel and made me shudder at the thought of its consequences. The realization that the illness of the body is only a reflection of the illness of the soul changed my attitude to life. At some point, I was struck by the secret similarity in the sound of two words - "cancer" and "sin". Sin is a cancerous tumor of the soul, I realized, and if sin is not avoided in time, it can completely take possession of the soul and lead it to destruction. Then the death of the body will be only a consequence of the death of the soul. I don't know what would have happened to me if I hadn't cleansed my soul with repentance before the operation. I'm even scared to think about the likely outcome. I suspect that, burdened with many sins, my soul could not rise up. Rather, she would have been doomed to fall into the abyss... Some acquaintances now look at me as if I were a doomed patient, trying to hide their sympathy. But I myself know that it was with this illness that my true healing began, the healing of my sick soul, stricken with the tumor of sinfulness. And I realized that this operation was more on the soul than on the body. It was as if they had removed the heavy, oppressive shutter that separated me from God. Although the doctor made a mistake, I do not think of being annoyed about it, or even more so of scolding him, because I believe that everything happened with the highest permission. And I am very grateful to the Almighty for everything. Sometimes I wondered why I was honored with such a favor. For what such merits was I granted to experience all this? And I did not find an answer to this question, remembering that my whole life was only a crime against God. And I think that only the intercession of my deeply religious ancestors saved me from the pernicious abyss, at the edge of which I stood so close all my irrational life. Yes, only their strong prayer before the Lord for an unreasonable perishing child could have performed such miracles with me, a desperate sinner. And the prayer for me, I think, was strong, since all my ancestors, both on my mother's and father's side, turned out to be priests. The suffering death of one of them, Archpriest Alexis Porfiriev, is described in the recently published two-volume book by Hieromonk Damascene (Orlovsky) "Martyrs, Confessors and Ascetics of Piety of the Russian Orthodox Church of the 20th Century." I learned all this when I came to faith and began to take a keen interest in who my relatives were, because I vaguely remembered that as a child I accidentally heard from a conversation of adults that my great-grandfather was a priest. Later I learned from archival data that he was a very respected archpriest in Nizhny Novgorod. The surviving relatives, having in their families well-known ministers of the Orthodox Church who paid with their lives, carefully concealed from us, children, the whole truth, sometimes very terrible, since they lived in incredibly difficult conditions of persecution. For all things be glory to our Lord, both now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen. (The story of a resident of St. Petersburg Natalia Sedova." Lampada", supplement to the Orthodox newspaper "Blagovest", Samara, No 1, 1998)