other words, to build a suitable space for the manufacturers and to assist them. The idea proved to be effective: “Bolshaya Medveditsa” lives, develops and prospers to this day.
For about two or three years, I worked on the new business with my natural passion and inspiration. The project pleased me with new opportunities and unexpected solutions. I was able to create and imagine. I had total freedom to design something brand-new. However, later on, the situation repeated again. I ran into the same wall again. I got that feeling of being disappointed and following it – a sense of the emptiness and meaninglessness of everything I had been doing.
Business and daily rush seized me so much that there was no escape from my depression. I exchanged my expensive cars with the ones which cost a fortune, spent more money on clothes, chose absolutely unbelievable (regarding the price as well) destinations for my trips… Nothing I could imagine made my life more cheerful or better.
More often I started feeling I was a character of a famous joke about an owner of a luxurious yacht, who felt happy twice in his life only: when he bought it first, and when he managed to finally sell it.
That was the way I used to live those days: I felt a short flash of a desire to possess something new. I got it and, almost immediately, that feeling of inner emptiness came. To feel more alive, I always had to find some new reasons to get an emotional rush. More and more, I felt that I was not living, but just riding the same carousel in a circle.
Those days, I travelled all over the world looking for something (I didn’t actually know, what). That was a situation we call: go there – I don’t know where, get that – I don’t know what. There was hardly anything I hadn’t tried! I attended different workshops, studied everything that could catch my attention or give me a hint of a hope to find the answers to the most important questions. I tried everything I had met in my way. Everything the consumer’s world could offer – expensive or cheap, extreme or safe, classic or exotic…
All those things were done for one and only one reason: to feel happy, to find a new source of joy and inspiration. Nevertheless, days went by, – and the feeling of boredom came. Everything I’d used to love – skiing, yachts, parties – sooner or later stopped grasping any of my interest.
WHERE HAS MY HAPPINESS GONE? WHERE IS THE LOVE AND JOY WHICH USED TO BE WITH ME SINCE CHILDHOOD? WHO AM I? WHAT WAS I BORN FOR? WHAT SHOULD I DO IN THIS WORLD?
These questions didn’t let go of me. I was struggling, but I couldn’t find any answers yet. Also, I understood that I’d lost my freedom. Me, a person who values his freedom more than anything else, gave it up to his own business and entertainment. I lost myself in the lifestyle I used to live those days.
My feeling of disappointment worsened, taking me down to a new personal crisis. Some would ask: “What else do you need?! You’ve got a stable business, a nice family, a wife and a child… Everything seems to be great!” That was what my life seemed to be like from an observer’s point of view, but there was emptiness inside.
Needless to say, my disappointment affected all and each sphere in my life, demolishing them. The first line to be hit were my relationships with my closest ones, as I brought that annoyance and disappointment home. Though, my family which I wished could become my new support, didn’t save me from my inner pain.
In all honesty, one day I just stopped feeling what was going on in my own home. I started fighting with my wife more often. Once I had a huge fight with Marina right after coming back home from a yacht trip with my friends. So huge, that we decided to break up.
We lived apart for about a week. I had enough time to think about what my life had turned into. Those days the thought I could lose my family came to my mind for the first time. Meanwhile, it was absolutely clear that Marina didn’t want that and she was dreaming about our happy family life together. It was me and no one else, as if I were trapped in a dark labyrinth, trying to escape from it without knowing where the exit was.
MY WILL TO DO THINGS HAD ALL BUT LEFT. I HAD NEITHER POWER, NOR WISH TO DO ANYTHING AT ALL. THAT WAS THE DEAD END.
I COULDN’T LIVE THAT WAY ANYMORE. THERE WAS A NEED TO CHANGE MY LIFE, TO LIVE SOME DIFFERENT WAY… BUT WHAT DID THAT “DIFFERENT” MEAN?
That’s when there was a huge change in my mind. Maybe, the most important one. I started getting that if you want to escape from a dead end, you need to totally change your life.
A twist of fate
I started going to church, reading spiritual literature, visiting shrines, doing pilgrimages to holy places. I needed, I thought, to try that as well. Maybe, that was a way of escaping the reality and passions I used to live in. Anyways, I started acquiring a deeper interest in such activities. I started reading the Bible, prayers, stories about the saints, and about people who had a pure spirit. In those holy places, the places of power, I felt calm.
My main discovery that time was understanding that “yes, the way I live is wrong”. It occurred that there are some major rules of the world, which I was breaking by ignorance… And with my usual passion and self-commitment, I commonly put to sports and business, I dived into self-development. Just like a stranger who’s just got back from a desert, I was consuming that new knowledge thirstily and couldn’t quite quench my thirst.
I studied the rules of healthy family relationships and the rules of eating healthy. I was interested in each and every sphere of life, and I tried to check everything on my own.
I’d say that was the first time ever when I believed that despite the well-known material world, there is another, spiritual one, which is higher and purer. And that world is just as real as the matter surrounding me.
Even though I studied diverse holy texts, I couldn’t understand: how were these ancient truths be connected to my own life? I found no answers in conversations with priests.
Once my wife suggested I try yoga. I didn’t know much about that, but I agreed: anyways, that was something new and interesting! I visited a class and was impressed. For the first time in several years, I finally felt better: relaxed, calm, easy.
Later on, thanks to yoga, body and breath exercises, my physical and mental states started changing for the better. I began studying that practice deeper. And even though I didn’t understand the full depth of it, I continued.
When my friends invited me to visit the Himalayas, I agreed. By that moment it seemed I had already visited everywhere: America, many countries in Europe and Asia, but I hadn’t been to India yet.
The country looked strange to me. Everywhere was poor and dirty, but the eyes of the citizens were somehow happy. “How come?” – I thought. “How can you be happy living in such conditions?”
So, we got to Rishikesh. Got some rest and went to the mountains. We reached the height of 3,500 meters to a holy place there. And, all of a sudden, I got an awkward feeling that I was in a jelly – that the space around me was dense and tough. That’s the way a crystal purity shows itself. And that actual purity was squeezing me out of myself. I’d even say it kicked me out – that’s how hard it was to stay in that place.
UNEXPECTEDLY, I UNDERSTOOD HOW MUCH DIRT AND SLAG THERE WAS IN MY BODY. I SAW THAT MY MIND IS, ACTUALLY, AN OVERWHELMED COMPUTER, WHICH HADN’T HAD ANY FREE SPACE FOR ANYTHING NEW FOR A LONG TIME.
I felt so bad, that I couldn’t walk forward anymore, fell behind, and finally went back to the place where we started.
For the next several days I felt literally ill, physically feeling worse, I’d say, than ever before: sickness, vomiting, all the body was just turning
