“No, my friend. There are dead Karmyosi, who” try to help people of the earth all the time. They give us signs, warn us, shape the circumstances in such a way so that people don’t commit fatal errors.
“Sorry to interrupt you, Kudai Kam. This is the case when a person is late for the place which is bound to crush, right?”
“Yeah, right.”
“I’ve had a few of such occurrences in my life. I remember one of them very well. I was about ten. One day my father and I wanted to cross a river on horseback by the hanging bridge. It was spring. The river was overflowing, the current rapid, and the water turbid and roaring. It was frightening to look down. But we tarried a little and didn’t go straight away. Father was shifting our belongings from bag to bag for some reason. As if he was searching for something. I kept asking him, ‘Pa, when shall we go?’ But I myself had that terrible sinking feeling. My heart jumped from fear. I thought that it was because the water and that when we’ve crossed the river, it’ll be over. So we stood on the bank until another horseman came to the river. He wasn’t one of the locals, not from our people. He asked us something, I don’t remember what it was, and stepped on the bridge. And his horse jibbed and just refused to go, you know. The rider kept whipping it up. So, just before reaching the middle of the bridge, he swayed awkwardly. We hear that low snap. The ropes that supported the bridge didn’t hold and tore. The bridge tilted and the man and his horse fell off. One second – and he was in the water. My dad and I ran along the bank and started throwing to him some sticks, ropes, everything that was near at hand. We thought that the current would wash him ashore and we’d manage to drag him out. Far from it! He couldn’t swim as far as half the distance. The water was cold. He got cramps in his arms and legs. We saw him struggle fiercely, trying to swim with all his strength. But then his motions became slower, he suddenly stopped moving and started drifting downstream. The next instant a wave overwhelmed him, and we saw no more of him. The horse remained afloat a little longer. But then it shared the same fate. It was very scary! Father turned back home. We were going in silence. He was smoking all the time. And I couldn’t help thinking, ‘That could happen to us! That could happen to us! How awful!’ And I kept thanking God for saving us. We didn’t tell mother anything, of course. But this episode has lived with me all my life. Father said to me then, ‘If something doesn’t let you go further, you must listen to this feeling.’ I asked him many times why it was like that. But he didn’t answer, he just said, ‘You simply must do so, that’s all!’ And so I did all the time. Not I understand that it was the Karmyosi who helped me. So that’s the way it is!”
“Yes, that’s right, my friend. They helped you. The Karmyosi constantly interfere in people’s life. They try to save them, give them various signs. And that’d be fine but people are too concerned about the mortal life, worldly desires and interests. Their mind is limited by their traditional perception. They don’t listen to themselves, to their states, feelings or emotions. They don’t think about what they tell them. They pursue some earthly goals like squirrels in a cage. And they become deaf and unable to hear them, to accept their help.”
“Just like that horseman?”
“Exactly. But the plague of the thing is that a person thinks he can shape his future on his own, without the help of the spirits and Gods. He is overconfident. And that kills him. Only a great shaman who is free from these delusions and limitations, can directly commune with the dead Karmyosi. This is the source of all his powers, the ability to obtain knowledge and command the elements of nature, to find those who have been lost in the taiga, to heal and many other things.”
“Only a shaman can do that?” asked the young man again. “But what about my father, who pointed it out to me?”
“Yes, you’re right, this must be either a shaman or a person who has long been in nature in the place of Power. He can get the connection to the Karmyosi and their aid. If your father was a shaman, he would hear directly what the Karmyosi tell him, and could stop that horseman. And he wouldn’t have died.”
“But why only shamans commune with the spirits?” asked Saosh Yant.
“Because a shaman sort of dies while alive.”
“Oh! How is that, Kudai Kam?”
“Well, not literally. He still has the connection to the body but he perceives the world as if he is already dead. I mean to say that the Karmyosi spirits and the spirits of place, the Ayami, take his soul out of his body and show him their own world. And he starts seeing the world in the same way as the dead see it. No one else can perceive it that way. Only a shaman, who is specially trained, can do that. Besides, he is also trained to act in this immense world. Not just passively go with the flow of his perception, but to be active, to make decisions and to remember about his main purpose: to help somebody, to find the lost or to heal the sick. To take a soul from Erlik, the God of Death, and return it to the man. And many other things. After a young shaman have learnt to do all those things, when in a trance, he himself can separate from his physical body which suppresses the soul’s abilities and powers. And he can act in heaven and enjoy all its powers. That is where all the might and superpowers of a shaman come from.”
“Tell me, Kudai Kam, will I be able to do such things myself?” his apprentice asked impatiently.
“It depends on how hard-working you’ll be,” said Kudai Kam ironically and cast a piercing, almost unbearable look at the young man. And again Saosh felt his flesh creep under this gaze. It made his heart sink. He didn’t feel quite himself. As if he was being transilluminated with a thousand X-rays.
“You mean,” asked Saosh hurriedly, in order to escape the uneasy feeling, “because of our mortal body we can’t have the superpowers so natural to the soul?”
“Yes, it’s because of the body which suppresses it. It binds us to earth and prevents us from perceiving the subtle world.”
“What I pity!” exclaimed the young man disappointedly. “It would be so nice if we knew everything and had such abilities, and didn’t make mistakes in our life. That horseman might have survived if he’d had such powers.”
“Yeah, but in that case people wouldn’t get the necessary impressions, which are the purpose of their life here on earth,” smiled Kudai Kam. “We must get this experience. Trials, errors, frustrations, findings, losses, illnesses and cures, ignorance and so on. It’s a kind of game in which a person must unravel the main puzzle and find the solution. If every man had such powers, the game would be uninteresting. No one would ever make any mistakes. They’d stop doing many of the things at all. Most of the time they’d just sit by the fire, commune with nature, with the spirits, the Karmyosi and the Ayami. With the Gods!”
“And life would become boring…”
“Of course. That’s way people have limited perception, they’re ignorant and weak. There is a restriction in the form of the physical body that holds back the perception in the physical world.”
