“For example,” he would say, “you have your muggings and your crime on the streets. People complain. But we in Russia do not have such crime. Because the people would lynch muggers. Your people here prefer not to be involved. They permit others to be hurt. We have community love. We don’t permit.”
“No,” I’d say, “you have drunks.”
“Perhaps, but no drunkard would freeze to death in the snow. Everyone protects drunkards. That is love. You respect the rights of someone to die if he is not your problem. You see?”
I could see his point. But to me his logic was faulty. It was neither respectful nor loving to let a drunk freeze to death. Far more likely, it was apathy or worse … a desire not to be “involved.” Yet the stories I had heard of Russians who, overnight, turned their backs on any individual attacked by the state were truly terrible examples of “not becoming involved,” even though involvement might put one at real risk. I had to conclude it was much too easy to be simplistic about such matters.
But the subject that haunted Vassy most of all was the issue of good and evil. He saw it as a black and white dilemma. And he saw both good and evil as forces outside of man—as God and Satan. Sometimes when we argued and his intractability versus my stubborn analysis became frustratingly heated, I would scream and shout at him, and he would feign calmness, which enraged me even further. During such times, he would grasp my shoulders and say, “Don’t allow yourself this. It is Satan getting the better hand.” He spoke with genuine belief and conviction. It wasn’t pious or self-righteous. An anguished expression reflecting his unhappiness at my inability to cope with my “evil” would flood his eyes. He actually seemed to fear that I had been overtaken by Satan during my more explosively frustrated moments.
I remembered how, upon entering my Malibu place from Paris, his first act was to unpack the beautiful Bible and place it in an honored position on the bureau in the bedroom. “Where we will always be aware of it,” he said.
I used to walk by that Bible, open its leather-bound cover, and wish I could read the Russian writing. Maybe somewhere in its contents lay the keys to understanding Vassy’s fundamental values, which were sometimes so foreign to me.
He would often talk about how spiritually in tune we were, that I always could feel everything he was feeling, physically and mentally. He said it would be impossible to lie to me because not only would I know it immediately, but he would be lying to himself. I said I felt him the way one sees colors, clearly, very sure and always right about his innermost moods and fears.
As his work process became more and more tortured for him, I tried to help alleviate the emotional conflict by talking about it. He didn’t like that approach. He never believed anything could be solved by talking—only by feeling. Wouldn’t open discussion help alleviate the problem and help open the lines of communication again? “No,” he said, “Russians don’t talk. They feel their passion. You Americans analyze your passion until there is no passion left.”
“But how do you resolve your differences that way?” I asked.
“We don’t. We accept them until we cannot accept them anymore.”
“Then what?”
“Then change happens. All things have their time. Nothing should be permanent except struggle with the dark side within ourselves.”
There it was again. The concept that happiness and resolution were not possible because it was one’s destiny to suffer was beginning to seriously get me down. It wasn’t an ever-present emotional cloud, exactly, but it certainly lurked under the surface of every projected idea Vassy and I contemplated in working together. Yet he really did enjoy being happy—unlike many people I knew who felt they didn’t deserve happiness. No, he loved happiness. He brought explosive passion to joy, to sex, to laughter, but always I was conscious now that our relationship was tinged with an anticipation that the happiness not only would end, but should end in order to make room for predestined struggle.
So Vassy and I launched into a permanent argument about good and evil. Neither of us questioned the concept of reincarnation. Neither of us questioned the existence of God or that God was total love. Neither of us questioned the struggle toward the realization of God. Where we came apart at the seams was in the process of the realization of God. I wished, if possible, to come to a resolution of this difference.
When we left Tahoe and returned to Los Angeles, I called Kevin Ryerson, the medium through whom I had had my first personal encounter with channeling. Vassy was accustomed to consulting with “seers,” so one more would just add to his knowledge. He had full respect for spiritual entities who spoke through human channels.
Chapter 12
I had long since shared with Vassy my experiences with John and McPherson. Indeed, one of the ties that bound me to Vassy was the knowledge that I could freely discuss my new awareness and beliefs with him. Vassy had had an acquaintance with trance mediums in Russia. He said many people there visited psychics and mediums these days, because most of the personal information gleaned from them eventually checked out.
So Vassy, well acquainted with trance medium-ship, accepted Kevin as an individual who simply had a talent for acting as an instrument of communication with spiritual entities, who only differed from us because they were not physically incarnate. That spiritual entities existed in the spiritual realm was not a question for Vassy. That they had lived before on the earth plane was not a question either. Vassy’s problem was whether or not some of them might be evil. So the thrust of Vassy’s interest and inquiry on this particular evening was the dichotomy between good and evil. It was an issue that plagued him and he was genuinely attempting to resolve it in some way.
When Kevin arrived at the house, Vassy and I were eating Russian kasha (a kind of roasted buckwheat) with garlic and onions. Kevin was wearing one of his immaculate, all-beige outfits, but was not deterred in the least by the prospect of spotting or staining it. He joined in the consumption of the kasha with verve and enthusiasm and Vassy didn’t wait for Kevin to trance out and bring through John and McPherson. He engaged Kevin immediately in a discussion of his favorite value-confusing topic—the forces of evil.
Between mouthfuls of food Vassy, the Russian Christian, questioned Kevin, the nonreligious but God-loving American trance medium, about what he thought of the whole matter of good and evil, and as I watched and listened I was impressed by how well thought out the specifics of Vassy’s point of view were.
“Don’t you think,” asked Vassy of Kevin, “that if humans, and the earth plane itself, are the result of having fallen from the grace of God, then evil is a part of the supernatural Divine Force? Therefore evil itself is a part of God?”
Kevin calmly chewed his kasha. This was clearly not the first heavyweight “good and evil” discussion that he had ever encountered.
“I don’t believe,” said Kevin, “that there is any such thing as evil.”
“No, no,” Vassy went on, “this is philosophically extremely important to me. Don’t you think that evil was created for us to overcome?”
“I think,” said Kevin, “that what you are calling evil is really only the lack of consciousness of God. The question is lack of spiritual knowledge, not whether or not there is evil.”
“No, no,” said Vassy, “if evil is ignorance of God, then how to explain those people who consciously rebel against God? They consciously destroy God inside themselves with conscious knowledge. Therefore they are not ignorant of God.”
“It is impossible to destroy the God in oneself. It is immortal,” answered Kevin. “That is why people, primitives, who have never in this life encountered even the concept of God, cannot be condemned as evil.” Kevin seemed to enjoy the novelty of someone seeking his point of view rather than using him simply as a human telephone.
“But,” continued Vassy, “there are very intelligent, knowledgeable people who are against God.”
“No,” said Kevin, “then they don’t really know God. Whatever your concept of God mi
ght be is what you yourself will end up being. If an intelligent person rebels against God, he is only rebelling against what his concept of God is. Ultimately, then, that person is rebelling against himself.”
Vassy chewed and thought for a while. I made a small salad with lemon and mustard dressing as the discussion continued.
“We are all under the law of God, is that not correct?” asked Vassy.
“No, wait a minute,” said Kevin. “We are not under the law of God. We are as the law of God. We are God. We have to totally accept ourselves—to accept the laws of self which are divine. Then we become God. And God and self are one—therefore we are basically total love. You do agree that God is total love?”
“Of course. But where is the place of evil in this scheme then?”
“It doesn’t exist. That’s the point. Everything in life is the result of either illumination or ignorance. Those are the two polarities. Not good and evil. And when you are totally illuminated, such as Jesus Christ or Buddha or some of those people, there is no struggle any longer.”
Vassy rose and began to pace around the kitchen. “No,” he said, “we are created to have struggle on this earth. There is no life without conflict.”
Kevin smiled. “Oh,” he said, “I can very easily picture a life without struggle. Very easily.”
“But no,” protested Vassy. “Even the body alone is such a struggle. For example, just to eat involves struggle. This discussion is struggle.”
“Sure,” said Kevin, “but that’s not what we were created for.”
“No, but struggle is some sort of conflict between two polarities. For example, I believe that nature was created to be undisturbed. I believe that an apple has some sort of pain when we eat it. And flowers have pain when we cut them.”
Kevin put down his fork. “Well,” he said, “if you can believe that, then it’s just as easy to believe that the apple is pleased to be eaten because it knows that it exists for the nourishment of other conscious beings. It is in perfect harmony with God and therefore understands that its purpose is to nurture life. Eating, therefore, isn’t necessarily a struggle because everyone benefits—the humans who eat it and the apple which fulfilled its purpose.”
I stood in my kitchen, munching on a carrot, entranced with the conversation, which sounded like a home-grown version of My Dinner with André. My thoughts were like a tennis ball, bouncing back and forth as I identified with each player’s point of view.
“I am stubborn,” said Vassy. “Everything you say is okay until there are three persons on a desert island and only one apple. The struggle and conflict is who will survive.”
“Depends upon the people,” said Kevin. “If you had three Buddhist monks faced with the conflict of survival through one apple, they would probably meditate and not eat it at all until they lost consciousness from starvation and simply passed from the earth plane. They would know because of their spiritual education that they were only losing their bodies and not their souls anyway. Therefore their higher knowledge would absolve them of having to engage in any conflict with each other. If you had three pirates faced with the same conflict, they would probably massacre each other, which would only manifest their ignorance of the immortality of the soul. My point is that this would be an example of the ignorance of higher knowledge, not evil per se. Straggle and conflict is in direct ratio to the knowledge of God. The more knowledge one has of God and one’s own immortality, the less struggle there is. Therefore there is no evil—only the lack of knowledge.”
Vassy thought. Then he said, “Yes, but for me, I am only interested in this lifetime, in this short-term straggle with its mistakes and ignorance. I am not trying to change or understand the cosmos. I am only trying to overcome my ignorance in my struggle now—not in future lives, but now. So to me the short term is more important.”
“Well,” said Kevin, “I don’t see how you can approach the deeper truth in the short term without understanding the nature of the long term.”
“Of course the knowledge of God relates to the long term, but the real practice of life is now—in short terms. My karmic investment is according to my life now.”
“Okay, but if you think in terms of God being both good and evil, you will end up manifesting both of those polarities in your life because you believe it is true. You are the result of your own thought. We all are. What we think is what we are. If you believe you are good and God is total love and God is in you, then your personal behavior patterns will express that belief.”
“So it is endless, yes?”
“Yes.”
Both men sat down on the couch while I brought them cinnamon coffee. Then Kevin asked Vassy a question that never would have occurred to me.
“Have you ever had an out-of-body experience?” he asked.
Vassy looked suddenly frightened. “You mean, have I experienced an astral projection?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, I have. Once. I was in a state of total peace. A state of nirvana during a period when I was practicing yoga and fasting. Suddenly I felt my self rise out of my body. I saw myself sitting meditating on the floor. It was extremely frightening to me.”
“Why?” asked Kevin.
Vassy leaned back against the pillows, trying to frame his words to his recalled thought.
“I lost control,” he said. “I didn’t know where it would be going. I had no ground under me. No earth, no restrictions. I was very frightened. It was very strong experience, very fantastic. Since that time, I have been more cautious with my spiritual searching.”
Vassy took a long sip of coffee, seeming to brush away the memory of what he had just described. I thought it interesting that he felt a need for restriction. Kevin continued.
“Do you think you would feel less frightened if you experienced it with another person?”
Vassy looked over at me with an involuntary expression of longing on his face.
“I believe I could have that experience with Sheerlee. She feels every thought of mine. I can’t lie to her. She feels everything I feel.”
I reached across and touched his hand. What he said was true.
“I feel,” he continued, “the connection with my mother. I feel her prayers. I always know when she is praying, particularly when she is praying for me. And when I check with her, I have always been correct. Sometimes when she is praying during nighttime in Russia, I can feel it during odd times of the day here.”
Kevin was silent.
Vassy stood up. “Listen,” he said, “we Russian Christians are sure that anyone who is not Russian Orthodox Christian is possessed by the Devil—in one way or another.”
Kevin put some sugar in his coffee. “I try to educate people, but I don’t try to change people. If they fina higher spiritual knowledge too difficult to cope with because they don’t want to give up their concepts of good and evil, then they usually join the Church. Within the Church they get the confirmation that good and evil do exist and they still get a touch of God. But it’s too bad that they give evil equal credence with good. Eventually everyone stumbles across some aspect of higher knowledge and they change of their own accord.”
Vassy put his hands squarely on the coffee table in front of him. “You are saying that the absence of struggle puts you closer to God?”
“Yes,” answered Kevin, “because you already are God. The discrepancy comes in not believing that. Human beings believe they are part evil—so they act accordingly. We are a product of what we believe, what we think.”
Vassy punched his head. “I have real difficulty with this,” he said exasperatedly. “Real difficulty. It’s very far from Christian understanding of God. It is difficult for me to be a part of this world where I know struggle with evil is required and believe that if I gave up that struggle I would be closer to realizing God.”
“That is the struggle,” said Kevin. “Struggle is the struggle. We are on this earth, in my opinion, to learn that we don’t need to struggle. That is the real
enlightenment. The process of learning that there is no struggle takes struggle, but life itself is not struggle.”
Vassy punched his head again. “But I am trying to write a script and it is a struggle. Or when I make a movie it is a permanent struggle.”
“Yes,” said Kevin, “but if you relaxed more and just let the creativity flow, you would find your need to struggle decrease. But if you believe that creative struggle is necessary to a good script then you will create struggle instead of a good script. Or maybe you will create struggle and a good script—but you will never know whether it could have been better if you had not struggled.…”
I laughed out loud.
“Sheerlee doesn’t like me to explain my philosophy about good and evil.”
“Yes, I do,” I said. “As a matter of fact, I’ve learned a great deal from this discussion.”
“Yes?” said Vassy. “What have you learned?”
“I have learned that it has been a struggle for me to watch the struggle you two have gone through in struggling to prove that struggle to understand only produces more struggle that is the most struggling struggle of struggles.”
“My dear,” said Vassy triumphantly, “may I have some vodka?”
Vassy and Kevin and I cleared the table. Kevin prepared to go into trance.
“Kevin,” Vassy asked. “Do you get ridiculed for this trance channeling you do?”
Kevin smiled patiently. “Oh, sometimes,” he said, “but usually the people who come to me are interested in higher spiritual knowledge or they wouldn’t be with me in the first place.”
“But,” I asked, “do they think you are only acting when the spiritual entities come through?”
“My dear Sheerlee,” announced Vassy, “I can tell you that spiritual entities exist. We know that in Russia. And as a director I can also tell you that they are not acting. No, they are not acting.”
Dancing In The Light Page 24