Moj laskovij dedushka – my kind grandfather

As it has been already told, Anna, my grandmother met her husband Mikhail, the army officer in the rank of lieutenant-colonel in her family estate. He started as a soldier, and was promoted for his courage and initiative in battle situations. However, Anna’s problems with her husband became unbearable when he changed his military uniform toward priest’s cassock?

Father Mikhail’s children, my mother, her brothers and sisters, have spoken about two very different reasons why did it happen. The first reason stems from Mikhail’s army heydays, and the second one was inspired by the practical considerations.

How a Militant’s Uniform was Changed for a Priest’s Cassock

Father Mikhail in year 1920. From left to right Yevgenia, Alexander, Yerast, Tamara, my mother, Victor, Valentina in Estonia. Father Mikhail’s wife Anna was left in Russia in hope to return for her when “things come down in Russia”. 

Once upon a time, when Mikhail served in Caucasus mountains, he met Muslim dervishes in a remote tavern near Turkey boarder. He was returning from a fair where he procured several thoroughbred horses for his army superiors. At the tavern, he stopped to take care of horses and taste delicious food like soup kharcho and shish kebab from the freshest mutton. Muslims who feasted around the camp fire on a meadow, the tavern’s backyard, invited him to share their friendly company. At home, the alcohol was tabooed for Muslims, and time-to-time they crossed the border of some neighboring Christian land, like Armenia, to enjoy the “forbidden fruit” and they downed their manly meals with local crystal-clear grape liquor chacha. They told Mikhail that he was one of them, a dervish with super powers, but he was not aware of this. The compliments did what they always do – took a person off the guard, and Mikhail fell asleep. He woke up when bonfire was already turning into a handful of gray ashes, the sky was dark blue, and night was enveloping the splendid mountain views that attracted tourists to this region. But at night time, moi laskovij dedushka discovered that dervishes cheated on him, they stole his thoroughbred horses and disappeared, letting him sleep and feel a fool, when he would open his eyes. Who would help a man in despair? Only stars were flickering on the nightly skies. Terrible loneliness and despair had crawled into Mikhail’s heart and he started his bargaining with God: if Almighty will return him horses, he will switch his army uniform toward priest’s cassock. As Muslim dervishes were magicians, he prayed hard asking for an extended amount of Divine support!

The covenant with God was confirmed by tavern’s owner who offered an old mare to Mikhail to chase the thieves. Mikhail commented later that he was partying with the Devil himself, but with burning love toward God he straightened things out. The cloudless night gave him victory over treacherous, but also drunk thieves and at the dawn he returned the old mare to the tavern’s owner, paid for meals and chacha that dervishes forgot to do, and proceeded to his fortress together with his horses and dervishes’ horses as well. When Mikhail was asked how the dervishes would get home without horses, my laskovij dedushka muttered under his breath, looking aside, as if cutting off more questions, that they would not need horses anymore. His courage was recognized by his army superiors and he was promoted to the rank of army officers.

Mikhail kept his promise to God, and became a priest! Another time, at a twilight hour, my mother, Mikhail’s daughter Tamara, being in not so romantic mood, spilled a strange sentence, “Oh, these stories!” and added that her father came from very poor background and became priest hoping for a lucrative and not too exhausting occupation. When I asked who were his parents, my mother pretended that she did not hear my question…  It was swept under the rug that my grandfather was a typical armejski gulyaka — a military carouser, and that his life story contained exciting facts that normal commoners would prefer to keep in darkness. The resulting fear of letting his children out of the nest to face the real world made Mikhail tried to keep his children home if possible, guarding them from meeting the world. During the transition called death this strangeness did not leave him, on the contrary, in afterlife, it reached the stage of maniacal passion of keeping his children so close to home as possible.

Zhenya, his daughter and my aunt whom we met in the chapter “A Spinster’s Big Dream”  told me that when she announced at home that she got a position of assistant of the teacher of singing and dance in the school for orphans, and she was also offered a small place to stay in the same school to help administration, if needed, instead of joy, as work was hard to find, Father Mikhail’s reaction was wild and out of control. He yelled loudly, “No, I did not allow you to leave home and abandon your aging parents!” Zhenya continued, “My mother, grandmother Anna, had opposing opinion, she suggested that I have to accept the offer and return to school right away, before the vacant position would be taken by someone else. But gone mad Father Mikhail continued condemn loudly the thankless youth and shouted threats to kill himself! Despite absurdity of this threat – as killing himself in astral world was hardly possible, Zhenya stood at home and her heart was bleeding!”

I asked Zhenya to drop by my studio what she did! We talked, and from my studio, Zhenya went straight to school.

During following six months since Zhenya left the family for the school, Father Mikhail did not “kill” himself. Zhenya stood in school helping both teachers and administration, in other words, doing everything what was needed to be done. Of course, she needed to learn English faster, but already she surprised me with some English sentences that she used for greeting students in her singing class.

The word what really happened to Zhenya before she left home, came from the third party, a friendly spirit Jose Martines, who had died on the eve of his 60^th birthday from OD in Los Angeles. He divulged that Father Mikhail was caught red handed beating Zhenya for her decision accept the job and stay in the pupil’s dormitory. Jose, as an advanced seer on earth, was in the know of this interesting information because he was invited to join the group of other souls to examine the situation and assess the problem. Mikhail was arrested, and Jose added that the old bunk was locked up to a mental institution. The Russian Hierarchy sent their Great (St. Seraphim from Sarov) to examine the situation personally.

Then Jose recalled that St. Seraphim asked him to contact me, and ask, if I will heal Father Mikhail. Jose added that if I do, he would like to be part of that healing and volunteer as a helper.

“Consider, you have the invitation already,” was my answer.

  St. Seraphim from Sarov (1754—1833)

Soon a circle of the invisible spirits gathered in my studio. The soul of the St. Seraphim from Sarov was presented. The best way to introduce him would be to read his two quotes about the purpose of our lives on earth. “Acquire a peaceful spirit, and around you the thousands will be saved.”

“It is necessary that Holy Spirit enters our hearts. Everything we do for Christ, has been given to us by Holy Spirit, and prayer is the most decisive tool, as it is always available to us.”

Wikipedia: “Saint Seraphim of Sarov (1754 -1833), born Prokhor Moshnin is one of the most renowned Russian saints in the Eastern Orthodox Church. He is considered the greatest of the 19^th century startsi (elders). Seraphim extended the monastic teaching of contemplation and self-denial to the layperson. He taught that the purpose of the Christian life was to acquire Holy Spirit. Seraphim was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church in year 1903. Pope John Paul II referred to him as a saint.”

If we translate his advice in the modern language, it would say, “He taught that the purpose of the Christian life was to acquire from cosmos energy of so high vibrational frequency as possible and as much as possible considering the prayer to be the most effective tool for creating direct connection from human being to the realms of Divine Light and truth vibrations.”

On February 18, 2017 Father Mikhail was the first to arrive, he chose a seat and smiled ironically. Not very inspiring beginning of the healing. Nevertheless, I started with my quiet prayer and, as usual, appealed to Father Mikhail’s guides and angels offering them a chance to work through my body and grounding channels. I tried to call in “Golden Light” as much as possible.

Seraphim of Sarov took the seat next to Father Mikhail. I thanked him for honoring our modest gathering with his presence. I started calling in the Divine Light to increase the presence of high vibrational energy in the healing area. My Third Eye showed me how Jose Martines was pushing his cart for collecting negative thought forms, if such would be released during the upcoming healing.

I was suggested to work with coming up images of Mikhail’s throat and heart chakras. We set up a similar screen as we did cleansing Anna, and soon the stream of already familiar curses was flying across the room toward the gluey screen, the Hildegard’s invention.

The energy moves intensified when I reached to Father Mikhail’s heart area. It was bright red and flaming. His heart should be a very angry one. It was surrounded by the color of the burnout desert tones. There were no traces of emerald green, the basic colors of the heart chakra. I left it as it was for now, and moved to the Solar Plexus area… filled with empty bottles of alcoholic beverages.

Jose Martines was already collecting these dirty bottles into his cart for moving them out from healing area toward … my dump? Would I find them in my solar plexus area? The more bottles Jose picked up, the more bottles seemed to appear from all thinkable corners in my studio.

Maybe you have seen horror movies when targeted by dark forces characters started seeing snakes in their living space, they attacked humans everywhere, appeared in bathtubs and washing sinks. In my studio, instead of snakes, empty bottles multiplied everywhere. I started to pray in terror calling for help from the higher powers. A burning furnace appeared from nowhere, and I started to burn whatever appeared to look like released thought forms of Father Mikhail’s occupational attributes. I did it, or someone else did it using my mind and hands? Father Mikhail stopped smiling ironically. His spirit face was stoning into a contortion of fear. I was on the brink to give up cleansing attempt, because I had lost control of what was going on in the studio during that healing.

I saw that the amount of negative thoughtforms connected to Mikhail’s persona was bigger than his physical flesh form could accommodate. Where the soul of Father Mikhail was accumulating them? If I was not able to understand it, how could I hope to heal him?

Nevertheless, I stopped asking questions, and decided to continue throwing into flame whatever was on my way as long as the flaming furnace was there, and my stamina could take it! I was throwing into burning stove his clerical garb, asking forgiveness from the Heavenly Powers for allowing to drag myself into this world without clear understanding what I was stepping into. I continued working through my imagination so long as I could.

Finally, I called for the closing of this healing session thanking cordially all participants, Father Mikhail included. But he left the scenery without looking back, and soon the darkness behind the window swallowed him, as he had never existed. Thank came from Seraphim of Sarov for attempt to help a troubled soul. We spoke in Russian.

“Tatyana, I cannot talk to you right now, as you are really falling apart. Overall impression? I did not understand a thing what you did, but he was clearing before my eyes, how did you do it?”

“I called the cleansing light, prayed and asked for help! I saw what was inside of his energy “frame” as much, as it was shown to me.”

“Your work will be reckoned, but I did not understand, how you did it. Tanya, go to bed, you’ll pass out in a faint …”

Same healing
from the point of view of Jose Martines

The next day, Jose Martines, on earth Korean war veteran and clairvoyant in his own right, showed up to discuss the healing session of Father Mikhail. We both were impressed by the release of empty bottles of alcohol in described amount. I asked Jose, what did we saw – real bottles or only images of these bottles? Jose answered that they, the bottles, seemed to be real things. But they came and disappeared so strangely, as if being something else, not real. Maybe on the given astral level, thing and its image are one and the same?

And then the idea struck me that if it is one and the same in astral world, then it is the same here, and the ancient India sages’ conviction that everything around, including our bodies, is Maya, a dream, is the harsh truth after all! Marlene Dietrich spilled once – in astral world, everything is a pipe dream only!” But if this is so, the cosmic law of oneness would whisper in your ears that as it is up there, so it is below, and whatever we see, comes from a “pipeline,” someone’s imagination, from a dream, from a … God’s dream only, or my dreams matter also? My head was spinning, I came so close to overturning my materialist worldview. It was nesting strongly in my childish “common sense” consciousness despite being challenged by my “second sight” experiences since childhood.

Jose seemed also to be lost in his thoughts. His assessment of the effectiveness of our healing attempt was brief. “We were aided, it was heavenly to be aided!” After sharing his opinion, he fell back into silence!

Then he said that my decision to destroy the images of his clerical garb, to burn it in our field furnace was an excellent idea! He was jumping out of his socks when I shouted to the old man to remove his black cloak, or whatever it was, and a flood of dark gluey liquid gushed out of him in such amount that Jose was afraid that we would be swamped in it. But it did not happen, the liquid disappeared into ground. When I asked Jose how he saw the chakras of grandfather’s throat and heart areas, did his spirit body revealed it at all? The Jose’s answer was shocking.

“They looked terrible! Both former energy centers were occupied with parasites, as Mr. Gogol’s stomach appeared to be, when we cleansed it. I washed them with a garden hose.

My childish common sense made me ask everybody whom I considered to be smarter than me, did astral world carries biological matter as we have it on earth? Paramahansa Yogananda assured us that astral world did not have it. Yukteswar answered that in astral world everything is possible and therefore he cannot say “yes” or “no”, as only experience can bring some clarity in this question. I asked the same from St. Seraphim from Sarov. His answer was most intriguing. He said, “How interesting question? I had never thought about it.”

Jose tried to find out what the Russian Hierarchy guy thought about our healing. St. Seraphim from Sarov confirmed that he could not understand a thing how it was done, but he liked results. This time he asked some questions regarding the healing technique. We talked about 40 minutes and he encouraged me to keep detailed diary and write the book about my healing experiences – giving people hope to be able to heal themselves without spending tons of money on alternative healers. I asked about obvious discrepancy between the quantity of empty bottles and the small measures of the soul. How can little soul carry so much bottles?

St. Seraphim from Sarov answered the following.

“Human spirit is built from many levels of different energies. And every level shows the soul differently depending on the particular levels’ frequencies…”

Paramahansa Yogananda had spoken about it in “Prisoners of Fame” in lengthy matter.

St. Seraphim of Sarov added:

“The soul of one and the same human being can look on different energy levels surprisingly different. On some level it may look like the soul of an angel, and on the other level, it can look like soul of an angry monster.”

Was he pointing to Father Mikhail? I decided to dig a bit deeper into childhood of moi laskovij dedushka.

Father Mikhail’s Childhood

Once I said to Father Mikhail that I was curious to know why his children and his wife had never spilled a single word about his parents, about The Sirotins, the seniors, and how he got his last name “Sirotin” that stemmed from word “Sirota” – “Orphan.” Was Father Mikhail an orphan or abandoned infant, and the last name “Sirotin” was invented during registration for the Christianizing ceremony?

Grandfather confirmed that there was a thing that prompted this last name, but he was not found under the cabbage in the monastery vegetable garden, because the story of his birth was very simple. He observed with some hellish curiosity, if I would continue writing down what he had to say. I did! And he continued his story.

“I was conceived outside the law, in the church. A drunk young man desecrated a nun who gave birth to the unwanted child. I grew up in a monastery as the son of a drunken janitor. According to rumors, his wife had died in childbirth – birthing me, the gadenish, “the bag of misery,” or “unholy creature, birthed by snake-type inhabitants of hell.”

“Do you know who was your father?”

“Who would tell me this? They told that this was a passing by traveler, a stranger. But why she, the nun, my mother, did not tell me the truth? What she was afraid of? Gossip said that my alleged “mother’s” death because of me had broken the janitor’s heart. Bullshit, he had no heart.”

“Did someone pay for your upbringing?”

“I had no idea. But my so called “father” was always drunk, maybe someone did pay him for keeping his mouth shut. I grew up in muddy environment being beaten constantly. In that situation, my only way out was to become an altar boy. And this was my only education I ever had. And observing priests, I learned the church language and how the priests conducted the sermons. The janitor got rid of me at the very first opportunity when an army recruit showed up in our city. Janitor introduced me to him, saying that my dream was to become a soldier to protect our tsar and otechestvo – the land of our fathers.

“The same day, I was taken into an army can for rookies, and both men proceeded to the kabak to celebrate the opportunity to turn some government money into a vodka feast. What do you want from me? This was how I became a priest after my discharge from army, as all I learned in my life was how to conduct church sermons.”

“In your astral world, did you meet your mother?”

“Yes, I found her here, and I marked her with an eternal curse, and promised to tell the world about her shame…”

“What was her name?”

“Do not dig too deep into this shit.”

“I am sorry to hear it. Why did you curse your mother? Cursing her, you cursed your children and grandchildren, and your entire family! My brother and me too, your grand-grandson and his lovely daughters… As Bible says about cursing…”

Suddenly I felt my blood boiling, I was his granddaughter after all! Strange words started to flow out of my mouth!

“I think, you know your father’s name, and you curse aristocrats and nobility, because your real father, the stranger, the passing traveler, rejected his paternity, and later, when your mother, seeking better life for you, met that man and pointed out on too obvious resemblance between your father and you, what that coward did? This similarity did not soften your real father’s empty noble heart. He accused your mother in harassment. And you never forgave neither your father, nor your mother that they had abandoned you, and now you try to keep your kids so close to you as possible. Your pain made you keep them home against their will, my God! Now I can see why you were doing this? Times change, changing us as well. Let your kids fly out of the nest into their adult lives.”

“It is easy for you, being so much younger than me, to teach me! You are impolite, to begin with!”

“Impolite? You better ask – how did your curses had ruined my life? I tell you how! I cannot remember my mother, who grow up in the atmosphere of your curses and fights hugging or kissing me at least once in my childhood. But I remember her shouts, full of irritation. They suggested that I was not smart enough, not quick enough, did everything wrong, she instilled this in me. My brother Vsevo told me once, that the cascades of evil shouts at home made him think that this was the normal way how people communicate at home. Strange, he was the Sirotin’s favorite, but suffered more than I did. Once he asked, when I lived already in California, and he was visiting from Estonia, if he seems completely normal to me? He said that he cannot get rid from idea that everybody else was better than him.”

“Stop it, it is silly to think so!” I interrupted him. My brother was and is now nearing 80, a good-looking man, he did not become alcoholic or user, he kept steady job up to his retirement. He was married twice, was liked by women, his hobbies included mountain skiing. Today, nearing age 80, he still comes every year to USA to ski in Colorado skiing resorts. How did he come to conclusion that he was worse than others? But time to time the dark shadow of his grandfather’s curses were crossing his face revealing hidden nameless fears nesting in his heart, and blocking his real potential.

I said to my brother that I was thinking about myself the same thing, until America healed me from low self-esteem in most peculiar ways. Arriving to this country, I worked a year as a receptionist in a dry-cleaning enterprise. Tons of people brought their stuff for cleaning, paid in advance, and then arrived to pick it up. My work day lasted from 8 am to 10 pm. During the day, I had barely time to sit down to rest. I saw and talked to a lot of people. My English improved, and along the way, I noticed that having the same question in mind, I was examining the clients and waiting to meet an ideal person who did not have any psychological problems. But I never met one! All people had their problems, everyone had problems. An Armenian was convinced that a spot was left on his shirt because he was an Armenian national! I asked him, if he had put a stamp on his shirt “I am an Armenian national”, how the cleaners would otherwise know to leave a spot on his shirt? A lady without any specific national features, asked her money back for spots before examining her cleaned dresses. To cut long story short, I assured my brother Vsevo that there were no ideal people, some were hilariously limited, some stingy, some pretended to be stupid, some were conniving, some demanded a discount harassing me with comparison our prices with prices of the previous owner of this business, some were dying from self-importance, and a local priest was busy keeping holiness of his image submitting for cleaning his pants and underwear. Nevertheless, all together they were nice and funny crowd that healed me from my fear that I was worse than them! But if they get it out of me completely?

Once I was paid $150 for translation of couple of pages an easy text – from English to Russian, and I could not believe that I got so much money for so little work. Was I normal? And then I recalled that my mother used to mention with pride that she had never read a book in her life! Now I knew that this “pride” of despising reading came from her father, the priest! In my Estonia, I became a decent journalist and film critic pressing my entire life through hostile home environment that despised people who read books. Today, facing transition to the next world, I am still afraid to ask money for my books, as if it would burn my fingers. The “pride” of living by his own mind and refusing to read was, no doubt, the worst hellish shadow left by moi laskivij dedushka to hover above our family. It had power of an invisible stone wall that I had to break through alone. Today I am 84 and I am still not done with the issue. The members of the camp of my maternal ancestry explain me tirelessly who is who in family, some do it from behind their graves… Probably, this was how my karma was humbling me.