Aum Shinrikyo and the fools


Buddhism temporary satisfied my thirst for the meaning of life, but it was theoretical. It was not that I did not practice it – I did and even became a strict vegetarian but I felt that I needed a teacher. The task was difficult because I did not know any Buddhists and was extremely non-sociable. The answer came from the radio: the voice of Shoko Asahara, the leader of the Aum Shinrikyo Buddhist sect, for an unknown reason could be now heard on a radio station called The Lighthouse (the official station which until recently transmitted only the voices of the Party leaders). Late every evening he monotonously read a mixture of Buddhism together with his own thoughts convincing the invisible audience that they “had particularly good karma because they live here and now so they were able hear him and obtain Dharma”. After I spent many evenings listening to the guru in the dark kitchen together with my cat, my acquaintance who knew nothing about all that suddenly offered me to take me to the gathering of the sect. “They are funny guys” – he said. It was certainly my good karma I thought and agreed.

Next early morning I was walking back and forwards inside the metro station waiting for my acquaintance. I came early, he was late, and the strange event took a place. The station was not crowded: here and there sparse people were sitting on the benches, and the thin stream of passengers was moving between the white marble columns. Suddenly two people, a man and a woman, separated form the near by bench and walked towards me. The woman was fat and her face had an insane, glassy expression. “You were born from a black toad, you were born from a black toad!” – she shouted at me. Somehow I felt that there was something important in all that, something more than just a psychiatrically disturbed person. My acquaintance came immediately after and we left.

In the Aum Shinrikyo quarters a tall Japanese monk, seeing how easily I folded into the lotus position (the test for neophytes), told me that I evidently have never killed anyone in my previous lives and that I came from the higher realm (I wonder what for). I attended quite a number of sessions: the monks read to us the guru’s writings and then we meditated. I have never spoke to the other adepts and when the monks announced that now we must provide them with our addresses and telephone numbers and sign up some papers I stopped visiting. Instead I began studying theosophy and the occult.
     

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