Every man, religious or not, deep in his heart believes that there is life after the last heart beat, that life goes on after the physical death of the body. For most people it is painful to think that after the finishing tape there is no new starting mark. Life only exists here and nowhere else.

Everyone, I’m sure has thought about Hell and Heaven, imagined the torments and sufferings of Hell and perfect bliss of Heaven. We are able to imagine a lot of things but not what we have never experienced. It’s impossible to explain the meaning of love to the one who is unable of this feeling. He will only laugh at you.

Though a man can picture Hell and Heaven he is unable, no matter how hard he tries, to think of absolute Nothing which he has never experienced in his life. When you are soundly asleep or unconscious or in a coma, your brain keeps on functioning. To be able to tell about death you have to experience it and return to your body which is impossible. At least to the same body. Those who have survived being clinically dead were able to approach the end of the line. But they haven’t experienced death as it is because they remained alive though their heart has stopped beating. They have been close but not on the other side of existence.

Although there are lots of clever books, armies of priests and crowds of scholars the question ‘What’s over there?’ still remains unanswered. Same way as many thousands years ago there are two options, two possible ways to answer this question.

The first option is simple. Homo sapiens are no better than any other living beings. They are born, they live and die exactly the same way as other mammals. Everything is clear and simple. No room for illusions.

It’s quite strange to think of cats, dogs and birds having the afterlife. Everyone who maintains that animals also possess what we usually call ‘soul’ risks to be laughed at or thought of as an eccentric idiot. When people eat pork they hardly ever think where exactly the cute little pig gone - to Hell or to Heaven. Homo sapiens has always killed animals and eaten their meat. He has never been tormented by the thought of their having a soul and emotions of some kind.

However, if no living being can have another life, why should homo sapiens be an exception? The laws of nature are the same for every living being including humans. But people despite obvious logic feel themselves the top of the universe. They think they are the only ones created ‘in manner and appearance’. Only humans have soul, only they are able to think. Animals only have reflexes - conditional and unconditional. Only humans have civilizations and afterlife. The impression is that the Universe was created to serve the humans. If aliens could listen to homo sapiens they would think they all suffer from megalomania.

So for most people the first possible answer to the eternal question doesn’t seem suitable. With the exception of pessimists and strong-willed people. Nobody wants to die. Everybody wants to have eternal life. People aren’t happy even with a life span of thousand years. They want Eternity. They won’t agree to less.

That’s why the second possible answer is more popular: a man doesn’t die, he just passes from one state to another. It’s the body that ceases to exist, the soul lives forever. However, it is still unclear what exactly happens to the soul after it says goodbye to the body. There are so many different versions that it makes your head spin.

Representatives of different confessions in pursuit of the truth (and most often of their parishioners’ wallets) try to persuade you that their faith is the only absolutely true while the others are heresy and nonsense. Go to a different church and you’ll hear the same. People are at a loss: where to go? what to believe in? The question of faith is the key issue in the life of a person. Much in life depends on the kind of choice you make. Your future is built up in accordance with your choice of faith. And not only your own future, the future of your descendants also depends on the consequences of your choice.

Sometimes whole generations have to pay for somebody’s rash action or ill-considered decision. Take, for instance, Middle East. The grains of hatred sown thousands of years ago make Arabs and Jews kill each other today. To kill notwithstanding the fact that they had the same forefather - Abraham. A typical example of a family conflict turning into a permanent slaughter and involving more and more people.

In everyday life people’s attitude to the problems of faith is extremely light-minded. They choose religion that seems to suit them better, just like buying shoes at the store. Whether it has something to do with the truth doesn’t bother them much. It fits their certain purposes and that’s it. Trendy, prestigious and useful careerwise. Quite often people become members of different parties, societies, churches led by gregarious instinct: everyone else was doing the same. Why? For what purpose?

For a man to start really thinking of what there is after death and to come close to the realization of the Truth there should be a certain incitement, something to stimulate him. Abstract philosophic pondering won’t be of any use. Only the one who has become physically aware of the God’s presence can talk about it. Only the one who has experienced the feeling of death can tell what it is like. However, those who are capable of seeing the future won’t share it with a crowd. Everyone has his own way to the realization of the Truth and has to go it by himself.

Spiritual speculation, attempts to derive profit from the people’s striving for the Truth, commercialization of personal revelations can only lead to degradation and spiritual impoverishment. To declare oneself a prophet is very tempting. People usually don’t think much of tomorrow if today promises them material wealth and power. There should be a good reason for a person to refuse those traditional temptations. Something powerful enough to make him reconsider his perception of the world. What might it be? Perhaps loss of a close person or loss of freedom? Such an incitement can be an event but it can also be something imperceptible for the others. Like the last drop of water overfilling the cup.

A person can change in the twinkling of an eye without any obvious reason. It only means that the process of inner changes that has been going on for a certain time became visible for other people.

In our daily life we usually concentrate on the outward, visible side of life which is quite understandable. To be able to survive we have to find ways of interacting with the surrounding world. It takes most of our time and efforts. Little is left to analyze what has been accumulated by the brain. Strange as it may seem, monasteries and prison cells are ideal places for digesting and analyzing the information provided a person can psychologically cope with isolation. It can only be acceptable for well-prepared and strong-willed people. The rest may not stand the isolation test, especially if they happened to be isolated not at their free will and are not able to terminate the experiment by themselves.

We have already discussed the negative aspects of enforced isolation in the ‘places not so remote’. Let’s now touch upon some positive aspects. Wherever you find yourself your brain keeps functioning and just as your stomach needs food, your brain needs something to feed on. A person who has never experienced hunger will not understand what it’s really like. He won’t know the difference between famine and dieting when he has to refuse himself certain foodstuffs. And we are only talking the stomach level. Can you now imagine what it is like for the brain to be put into the information vacuum?

At first you might feel a relief as if your brain has disposed of a heavy burden. Thinking becomes easier. Many businessmen who I happened to share the cell with had to admit that to their surprise they have never slept so well in years! Not on clean sheets in a warm bedroom but fully dressed on the smelly bunks!

They feel this way because their mind is at rest and their conscience becomes clearer. On the outside people don’t know how to rest. They think they are relaxing but in fact it has nothing to do with relaxation as their bodies and minds don’t benefit from it.

During the first weeks of detention your mind, used to processing heaps of information every day, is at rest notwithstanding the efforts of the prison staff to make it concentrate only on the negative aspects so that it’s easier for them to break you down. After a few weeks’ ‘holiday’ your brain is ready again to function in its usual manner. It is prepared to process a lot of information but there still none. Lack of information from the outside makes you desperate - you have to ‘feed’ you brain to preserve its function. And you switch to your inner storage of information which for the lack of time hasn’t been processed yet. At this storage you might reveal a lot of interesting things. Little by little you come to the realization that the Universe around you is no bigger than the world inside you.

Human body is perfect in its design. In case certain sensory organs become out of use others start functioning with doubled intensity. It’s common knowledge that if a person has lost his eyesight his sense of smell and hearing become considerably stronger. When a person finds himself behind bars his intuition becomes much keener. He soon develops the ability to guess a lot of things and even seems to be better informed of the latest outside developments than certain people who have unlimited access to information. Many prisoners are able to feel the emotions of their relatives though they haven’t been in contact with them for weeks and months. Eventually a prisoner comes to realize that the palpable world is only a tiny part of the boundless and exciting world we have been lucky to be born into.

Human beings similarly to other mammals recognize the power of the strong over the weak. The ones who survived in bloody massacres would give their newly born babies the names of the tyrants who have killed millions of innocent people. Why do they do it? The answer is simple: they hope that with the name their child is going to receive the power of the dictator. That’s why children are named after Timor and Alexander of Macedon. The name of Adolph Hitler may become quite popular soon - lots of Germans feel proud of their famous countryman. The name hasn’t become popular in Ukraine yet - older generations still remember the Nazi atrocities, but who knows… There are still so many advocates of totalitarian regime in my native land.

There is no telephone in prison cell. No chance of calling well-connected friends or relatives and asking for help. Prisoners are purposefully cut off from the rest of the world. They are not allowed to have any money, so to buy power or influence within prison walls is problematic. Even if you were named after the world famous grandfather it won’t change anything in your status behind bars. To hope only for the outside help is quite silly. In the prison cell you can only count on yourself, your inner strength and capabilities.

There is hardly a prisoner who hasn’t attempted to read religious literature. When a prisoner asks for the Bible people on the outside are sure to think that he has repented. Or at least started regretting his actions. Prison authorities hold the same opinion and usually allow religious literature to be passed to prisoners. Besides, they think, religious people are easier to manage.

But in fact, the true reason of prisoners’ interest in religion has nothing to do with repentance. Watching how my cell-mates were reading the Bible I remembered a joke about a guy who fell off his balcony. While falling down from the tenth floor he promised to God that if he survived he would stop smoking, drinking, cheating his wife and would start going to church and donate money to charities. The guy got caught on the branches of the tree and finally landed on the pile of sand. He tried moving his head, then his legs and slowly got up. No bones broken. He looked up and sighed: “Oh, my God! Just a few seconds of flying and such a lot of rubbish has come into my head!”

To my mind, no more than 1% of prisoners really turn to God in prison. Another 20% leaf through religious books just to while away monotonous prison days. The rest, though sometimes unconsciously, pursue a definite purpose.

Powerful flows of energy from outer space run through the substance and air space that surround us. Their power is much stronger than anything on the Earth, it has no boundaries. A man can be a conductor of such powerful energy flows and direct their strength to the required purpose. Having mastered the deeper knowledge a man becomes immensely powerful, capable of achieving anything. Getting out of prison is no problem for him. Others get the impression that he was born under the lucky star - he always succeeds in whatever he does. (Sometimes a man can himself in the situation when he unconsciously becomes a conductor of the energy flows; however, when it is done deliberately the power of the flows is much stronger).

In the severe conditions of prison life people intuitively and subconsciously strive for deeper knowledge, for the unknown power they can physically sense. For the unprepared person meditation practice seems too complicated and even mystical, involving too many spiritual exercises. In a way it is true but only to a point. In fact, the most complicated and intricate systems appear quite clear and simple. The key to the system is the first step. If done correctly the other steps will follow smoothly. They are, in fact, just the perfection of the first step.

I have seen prisoners who practiced meditation behind bars. Yustas, for instance, performed only the simplest exercises but he nearly reached perfection, so precise was his performance. Another prisoner practiced extremely complicated techniques, but his performance was inaccurate and the effect therefore was worse than Yustas’. However, his mental state due to regular exercises was much better than that of other prisoners.

Statistics shows that people who find themselves in extremal circumstances (and imprisonment is, no doubt, one of them) practice meditation exercises more often than those in normal circumstances. I find nothing surprising in this fact: they are motivated by the desire to survive at all costs.

Unfortunately not many prisoners would want to perform complicated exercises. They usually confine themselves to the prayer and when praying they concentrate on the words which makes their prayer a mechanical exercise.

Prayer has always been and remains the most effective and affordable meditation exercise. Praying means not only opening your heart and mind to God; it also helps to clear your mind of negative thoughts, it gives you strength. For many people prayer becomes their first step towards the Truth.

The smaller the cell the easier it is to practice meditation exercises; the fewer people around you the less of your energy is spent on the interaction with the outer world. As a punishment a prisoner is sometimes put in a segregation cell. Some would think: what kind of punishment is this? Nobody to get on your nerves, no stool-pigeons, a good chance to relax for a while. However, it’s not as simple as that. As it turned out, many people can’t stand isolation. When placed in a big cell they moan and groan seeing in their cell-mates the source of all their troubles and misfortunes. But the moment they find themselves in a segregation cell they start banging their heads on the wall demanding to be put back to the cell where they had been so miserable. They would rather put up with the worst of cell-mates than be alone. Strange, isn’t it?

The unprepared person and the one who is heading towards the Truth differ in their attitude to the severe ordeals that come their way. The unprepared ones treat them as a bad patch in their lives. The weaker the person the more depressed he might become. Failure to overcome depression leads to mental disorders, drug and alcoholic addiction, suicides. Cowardly people, not capable of resolute actions, tend to end up this way.

Life conditions can’t be always favorable. Struggling for survival is an integral part if life, be it a separate person or a whole nation. Any ordeals - abstinence, forced silence, isolation - are mere exercises but of a higher level than the ones we are used to. Their objective is to strengthen your will, make you capable of great endurance. All the difficulties you are faced with in your life are not your misfortunes, they are meant to test you. A strong person won’t be broken down by the obstacles on his way, he’ll learn to overcome them.

For most people test of enforced silence is not easy to endure. Humans like to talk. They even do it in their sleep. To make a person shut up against his will is next to impossible. This human weakness perfectly suits cops’ objectives.

Those who have been in extremal situations know that you lose strength with every uttered word. The more you talk the weaker you become. No wonder doctors won’t allow seriously ill patients to talk much.

The ability to accumulate energy during a silent meditation and then control its consumption in a conversation is very precious. All the people on their way to the Truth have to master and develop it.

Mahatma Gandhi , for instance, apart from daily meditation exercises would plunge into absolute silence one day a week. It helped him to restore and balance his inner strength in prison as well as during his exhausting struggle for India’s independence.

Any more or less educated person knows Gandhi as one of the spiritual teachers of our time. But only in prison I realized the full meaning of his teaching, the meaning of non-resistance to evil. Gandhi has taught us a lot of things that can be used in real life situations. A handful of people armed with Mahatma Gandhi’s teaching are able to effectively oppose totalitarian regime based on fear and physical suppression.

If God is with us, who is against us? What does it matter if the authorities are backed up by well-trained armed forces? Power and influence in the material world are fickle and illusive. There is only one step between prison cell and the post of the country’s leader. It was behind bars that Gandhi formulated the principles of his teaching which shook not only India but the whole world.

I open my eyes and return from the banks of Ganges to the prison bunk. I have out for a walk and had a good rest while my cell-mates stayed in the cage. They think they live but, in fact, they hardly exist. Most of them won’t leave their bunks for days. The only thing they regret is not being able to sleep 24 hours a day.

Sleep is a wonderful state when a human body is asleep while human mind goes travelling in different times and spaces. There are no bunks, no wardens, no barbed wire. Only the feeling of boundless freedom and the excitement of flying. Waking up you sometimes can’t make out what is more real - a prison cell or the world you have just been to.

Most prisoners only live for the day. They don’t give a damn what’s going to happen tomorrow to say nothing of what awaits them beyond Life and Death. For them sleep is the only link to the world beyond ‘I’. Those who are closest to the end of the road are able to see their future in their dreams. The vision is so distinct that they are afraid to go to sleep. They didn’t understand what exactly they were dreaming about but listening to their stories I couldn’t help realizing that they were being prepared to physical death and passing to the other world.

Some are already there, others are taken to the open doors and shown the world they are going to join. Many see their own life - the way it would have been had they not made a fatal mistake. Others talk to the dead who come to visit them.

It feels weird sitting and talking to a man in his prime who is laughing, eating and drinking and to know that very soon he is going to quit this world.

People have always wanted to know their future. Very few realized that knowing it is a heavy burden. Being deaf and blind seems easier at times. Life is not as complicated then. Very few people can fully realize what they have been allowed to see during meditation or sleep. Most would try to erase it from their memory. People prefer to avoid thinking about unpleasant or incomprehensible things. They only believe in what they can touch and feel, the rest is beyond them.

They are shown the way but they refuse to see it.

They are offered assistance but they won’t accept it.

They still hope they will be rescued by their friends who remained on the outside while those friends think of them as scapegoats who can be blamed for everything. People unfortunately prefer to look at the world through the rose-tinted glasses and eventually to undergo cruel suffering when their beliefs have proved nothing but vain illusions.