Conscious Media Network Leonid Sharashkin 2

(Transcript)
http://www.cmn.tv/trans cripts /trans cript-leonid-s haras hkin-2/

February 06, 2011

Leonid Sharashkin: The Art of Soaring

May, 2010
Regina Meredith: Theres a type of deep wisdom that comes from the heart of the
Russian spirit, one that knows pain and, in particular, knows laughter. Leonid
Sharashkin came into contact with a book titled, The Art of Soaring, at a time when he
needed some serious emotional adjustment. He found the work to be profound and
chose to bring the book to the English-speaking world, just as he did with, Anastasia,
which he also continues to this day.
Leonid Sharashkin: I completed the translation of all nine volumes in the Ringing Cedar
series, and now Im traveling throughout the world giving workshops about how to
turn this dream into reality. And I see that, you know, no matter where I go, even to
Japan, where the books are not yet available in the Japanese language, people can relate
to the essence of the messages and people are crying and laughing, and I presented
even a talk at [a] dance academy in Japanprofessional dancers. Two months later I
received an email from them with them dancing on a potato patch, planting their Dicons
[radishes] and vegetables.
Regina Meredith: (laughing together)
Leonid Sharashkin: So, its amazing how this simple messages of returning [to] and
regaining this joy of living not through some kind of special practices, but through your
every day life; they are really catching on. And so many people [are] writing to me how
it is really changing them on some very deep level.
Regina Meredith: Yes.
Leonid Sharashkin: And gives meaning to their every day existence.
Regina Meredith: It brings a type of beauty and enchantment and, definitely,
sovereignty back to the living experience. And, Im very happy to hear that thats still
really going strong globally because it seems to me that this is just the beginning of
what our futures will be looking like. This has to be a serious model for the future. And,
anyone who hasnt read it, I highly encourage them to read all nine of the books, as Ive
encouraged many, many friends and relatives to read the series, and everyone comes
away with the same feeling. I dont know any other way to put it, but its a very
material, real kind of enchanted way of viewing our own lives.
Leonid Sharashkin: True, and you know many people use the term remembrance.
Regina Meredith: Yes.
Leonid Sharashkin: You read it and its not that you get these concepts from the books,
rather all of a sudden you start feeling aahhh! This is how life should be. This is . . .
Regina Meredith: Why didnt I think of that? Its so true! Exactly.
Leonid Sharashkin: These books arethey help people draw some of the memories,
some of the inspiration from the depth of their own being.
Regina Meredith: Very, very true. Well, Im glad thats still out there and in motion, and
youre in motion constantly because when you find something has value, you really
commit yourself passionately to that. And, now, youre working with yet another
project, a couple of projects, both of which Im totally intrigued with. And this book,
which is an interesting little book called, The Art of Soaring, and were going to get into
what that is in just a moment because it really has to do with awakening the adult
imagination, and this is an incredibly challenging thing for a lot of people to do!
Shockingly so.

Leonid Sharashkin: Absolutely, but you know even when I was editing the Anastasia
books I realized that we will not be able to make a lasting change if we do not change
our mindset. You know today were all really locked up in the negative perception of
reality. I do not have a TV at home, but when I travel I cannot escape the TV screens
with CNN news at the airports, and what I notice; they keep telling you about 10
percent unemployment. But, sorry, 10 percent unemployment is 90 percent
employment!
Regina Meredith: Yes.
Leonid Sharashkin: So, all our civilization is about conditioning us to see the negative
side of things. So, I feel that unless we switch our minds from this negative perception
to the positive one, we wont be able, really, to change anything for the better.
Regina Meredith: No, youre right.
Leonid Sharashkin: So, this is the very logical first step.
Regina Meredith: Youre absolutely right, and these world views that we each have, we
each possess start in utero. Well, one might say they start prior to that, but certainly
from our conception to the point where we are cognizant on an energetic level, were
already being programmed just like a computer to accept and reject certainmaybe
certain practices, certain people, certain tastes, proclivities for all kinds of thingseach
thing narrowing down our potential of experience and completely thwarting the
imagination. So, lets talk about what, The Art of Soaring is, so we can understand, so
our viewers can understand why the imagination is so key to bringing ourselves back
alive, again, in our potential.
Leonid Sharashkin: You know after translating the Anastasia books, I thought I was
done with editing and translating. I thought I would just retire to my family farm back in
Russia, and devote the rest of my life to raising my family and planting my vegetables.
But, I was faced with some very dramatic controversy and conflict in my professional
life, and I was looking for solutions how to overcome all this feeling of frustration and
negativity. And, I came across the book, The Art of Soaring, that is about changing our
reality through changing our inner world, but through laughter, through humor,
playfully. You know the concept that we are really the creators of our reality is very
popular today; its almost too commonplace to talk about.
Regina Meredith: Yes.
Leonid Sharashkin: But what I noticed, for many people it becomes so serious. They
create out of resolving problems with their own thought, another problem. They are
justhumph!all tense, all serious about it.
Regina Meredith: I dont want to make the karma any worse. I have to get on top of
this; I need the discipline; I have to meditate.
Leonid Sharashkin: Yeah, absolutely. (laughing together)
Regina Meredith: Too many have tos.
Leonid Sharashkin: And it turns out that in Russia there was an ancient tradition and an
ancient teaching about how to overcome problems, issues, conflicts, violence,
negativity through laughter. Because laughter is this amazing energy that just releases
all the tension, and all of a sudden things that you thought were impossible become at
your arms reach.
Regina Meredith: Yes.
Leonid Sharashkin: So, this is what, The Art of Soaring, is about. This book gives a
series of very simple techniques of how to turn what you think is an impossible
challenge into a joke.
Regina Meredith: Mmmhmm.
Leonid Sharashkin: And when it becomes a joke you can no longer be serious about it,
and instead of channeling all your inner mental energy into maintaining the image of it
as a serious issue, all this energy is freed up and all of a sudden the problem
disappears, or at least you can use all this energy on resolving the problem, rather than

worrying about it.

Regina Meredith: Yes, and I had a friend who was a mentor of mine, and like a second
mother to me, who was from Russia, pre-Bolshevik Revolution, hoof it out on foot with
her mother, as a matter of fact. And, she kept telling methis was before the wall
came down, and this would have been in the 70s and 80s and she kept saying to me,
People in the West dont understand the Russian heart and soul is filled with an
acceptance and a living in magic and artistry beyond what the outside world really
comprehends because itsit was at that timevery cloistered during the Communist
years.
Leonid Sharashkin: I couldnt agree more, and you know its amazing because during
the 1,000 years of our recent history, Russia was constantly in war or slavery. And
people could not attach themselves to their material possessions like here in the West.
Regina Meredith: Yes.
Leonid Sharashkin: Because those could be taken away from them at any moment.
They couldnt even attach themselves to their families because even wives and
daughters could be taken away to satisfy the inclinations of the landlord at any
moment.
Regina Meredith: Yes.
Leonid Sharashkin: They couldnt even attach themselves to their own lives because
their lives could be taken away from them at any moment. So, they had to attach
themselves to something else, to their inner essence. And they came up with this
amazing way of transcending all this suffering through laughter, through humor. By
not even being serious about all these extremely traumatizing experiences that the
Russian people had been put through century after century after century.
Regina Meredith: Yes, and it does; it makes for a very interesting mind. I always notice
with my Russian friends, there is so much silliness, silliness in the conversation, fun,
joyful ways of portraying things that it just doesnt occur to most minds to even come
up with. And, so, I say that because when you first start readingwhen I first started
reading, The Art of Soaring, you know I always thought well, Im pretty creative. Im
kind of loose in that sense; I can flow with it. But, even so, with being posed with having
to create something to the point of extravagance and absurdity, our minds have been
narrowed by our world view so much its hard to access like what would I, if I could use
my mind as a power, how would I create this situation?
Leonid Sharashkin: Mmmhmm.
Regina Meredith: And, so, can you talk to that for a little bit about what were up against
because of our world view being so well entrenched, all of us everywhere in the word?
Leonid Sharashkin: Yeah, you know we have this mental block. We think that well,
silliness and playfulness and imagination, its only for children, and we adults, we are
really like serious people!
Regina Meredith: Mmmhmm.
Leonid Sharashkin: We have our mortgage bills to worry about; we have our jobs, our
social status, etc. So, you dont see an adult climbing up in the tree, or like, you know,
doing something that children do and enjoy doing, not because we wouldnt enjoy it
actually, I climbed a tree a week ago; it was so much fun!
Regina Meredith: Yes!
Leonid Sharashkin: But because we created a mental image of it as not being
appropriate, or so forth, we lock ourselves up and we lock up these abilities and with it
we lock up these abilities of seeing human laughter and lightness even in conflict and
adversity. You know what I notice in Nature, Nature never looks back at darkness. In
the morning after the darkness of the night, after all the dangers of the night and being
eaten up, the birds start singing, instead of sitting there serious and worrying about all
the dangers . . .
Regina Meredith: The next night thats going to come.

Leonid Sharashkin: Yeah, the next night.

Regina Meredith: Lets build a little fortress.
Leonid Sharashkin: So, instead of that, they are looking forward to the coming of the
Sun. So, the Art of Soaring is about reclaiming this ancient wisdom of not looking back
at darkness, but moving towards light. And laughter is this like wave that carries you
into this new, really new existence and new mindset where everything is possible.
Regina Meredith: And the men that have written this book, [Vladimir] Dolokov and
[Vadim] GurangovI dont know if I said that correctly . . .
Leonid Sharashkin: You said it.
Regina Meredith: OK. These two men are what would be termed in Russia, as magicians.
Now, here we might call them like very wise, artful healers. But talk about the difference
between that and the way that, for example, I love the way thatIve forgotten which
one of the two men starts their day, when they were talking about going into the water
and doing a dance, starting to take in intuitively whats going to be coming up that day.
What defines a magician?
Leonid Sharashkin: So, magician as defined in The Art of Soaring is not somebody, you
know, all mysterious, who is able to create all kind of tricks. Rather, it is somebody who
is soaring, who is light in his inner being, who is playful in life. So, the authors, they are
just ordinary people. They are not gurus; they dont call themselves teachers. They are
just ordinary people who figured out that there is this Way, and there is this ancient
teaching, that the rediscovered, of transcending all controversy in our lives through
humor. So, their day starts with, just with laughter, with humor. And, I was intrigued by
this book and it helped me a lot to redefine how I saw controversy and darkness and
problems in my life. But, actually, before committing to translating this book and making
if available in the English language, I really wanted also to see whether the approach
really worked. The book contains a theoretical section, the discussion of the principles.
Regina Meredith: Yes.
Leonid Sharashkin: Why this lighthearted, playful approach really works, and the
second part of the book is the real life success stories of the people who started
applying these techniques. So, I wanted to see on my own experience whether it held
any truth to it, and it worked! It did work.
Regina Meredith: And, you went through the entire process? How long . . .
Leonid Sharashkin: Yeah. Can I give you an example?
Regina Meredith: Yes, please do.
Leonid Sharashkin: So, one of the techniques presented in the book is if you come
across a conflict or some darkness, find something positive within the negative and
exaggerate it to such an extreme that it will become laughable.
Regina Meredith: Yes.
Leonid Sharashkin: And when you arrive at this image that made you laugh, instead of
cringing inside, stick to this image in your inside, and the problem will disappear. So, this
is how it worked for me: At that time I was in a rural place in Missouri, and my place
was not accessible by large truck, so whenever I had a delivery or another big piece, I
needed to go to an intersection of two rural highways, where there was a parking spot
where the big truck could park. And, I would unload it on my car and take it home. So,
this parking space was surrounded by grass, by a lawn and it was private property,
already, but it was demarcated. So, you couldnt tell, really, where the public parking
space ended and when the private property began. And the owner of the lawn lived
across the road and owned a convenience store. So, because I am a foreigner, or in
the legal sense, an alien, and I have an accentand you know in rural Missouri, people
are very conservative; they do not like anybody who is different. So, he was singling me
out. So, whenever a truck was coming to deliver something for me, and sometimes
going with the rear wheel of the truck over his grass, he would jump out of his
convenience store and start yelling at us across the road, You guys get off my land!

And one time he even called 911, saying that, There are some aliens who are
trespassing on his property, so sheriffs came.
Regina Meredith: (laughing)
Leonid Sharashkin: So, now, because of this outburst of anger against me, I started
feeling very tense every time I had a delivery of a few boxes, or something coming my
way. And, its one thing to have a personal relationship issue; its another not to sleep
well when youre expecting a delivery, right.
Regina Meredith: Right. (laughing)
Leonid Sharashkin: Or, even driving by this convenience store, I would always feel
ahgggh! So, I needed to do something about it, and I noticed that he enjoyed greatly
his social status. He had a massive golden ring with a precious stone, and his
convenience store was sort of a community center. All the real men from the
community would come in the evening to play Dominos there. And, he would stay
behind the counter and put his hand, with this massive golden ring, on top of the
counter and watch the game. So, I started playing out in my imagination this absurd
scenario: So, there is this game of Dominos happening one evening, and at a very
deciduous moment he comes forward and takes out of his pocket a six/six domino
stone, and it starts expanding in his hand until its the size of this room, like this huge
panel. And then he puts it crashing down on the table; the table collapses and he wins
the game, and all the players around the table look up at him in amazement and awe.
And from this point onwards this legend starts circulating and the rumor that he is the
best domino player in the world. So, people from all over America start coming to his
convenience store to learn domino-playing from the man. And then people from all over
the world start coming and they build an international airport close to this rural
intersection in Missouri, and direct flights from New York, Tokyo, Moscow, from the
entire world landing like . . .
Regina Meredith: This is the lavish absurd part; I love it!
Leonid Sharashkin: You know and he builds a big domino-playing academy of the world;
a marble white building, a skyscraper, with a six/six domino on top of it. So, when I
arrived at this absurd image, I laughed; I could no longer be serious, and all of a sudden
I felt all this tension falling away. You know what happened? Not a single time, ever
since, has he even walked out of his convenience store when my trucks were coming?
They continued coming regularly, but the problem just dissolved. For some time I was
even concerned whether he was alive, or not, because he just wasnt there.
Regina Meredith: He wasnt threatening you. (Laughing together)
Leonid Sharashkin: He disappeared, pretty much. But one time I saw him riding a
mower, mowing his lawn, so I know he is alright; he is well. But his attitude, his anger,
all this conflict all of a sudden disappeared just because through laughter, through
humor, through applying this technique from The Art of Soaring, I dissolved the conflict
from within myself and saw it dissolving in my real life.
Regina Meredith: I find it just beautifula beautiful way to do it! So much better than
thinking oh, well, we have to have a talk and, you know, that kind of way that usually
does not work because it hasnt resolved anything in your field; it hasnt resolved
anything in their field. But whats so cool about it is that at the same time, you were
feeding him the thing that he most desires.
Leonid Sharashkin: Absolutely.
Regina Meredith: He wants to be honored; he wants to feel in control of his own life,
and you created this quantum field of absolute honoring and abundance for him, and
this is that gifting thing, right?
Leonid Sharashkin: True. (laughing together)
Regina Meredith: Even to the point where its and absurd cartoon, but, nonetheless,
thats a lot of supportive incoming energy, even though youre doing it to release your
own tension, right?

Leonid Sharashkin: Absolutely, and it works for anybody. I started sharing these
techniques with people here in America, and of course, that many people already read,
The Art of Soaring. So, now I receive a flow of funny stories like that, when something
magical happened just because people changed their attitude within. In the book it is
called renaming.
Regina Meredith: Yes.
Leonid Sharashkin: We lock ourselves up in a particular view of who we are. Im a
nurse, or Im a husband, or Im this, or Im that, or I am the one who can never earn
enough money. Or, I am the one who has this relationship issue. Or, I am the one who .
. .etc., etc. So, we create an image: I am this. I am that. So, the authors playfully
suggest that one of the techniques is, instead of saying I am the woman whose
girlfriend is cheating on me, you rename yourself I am a crocodile made out of sweet
peas, with two yellow dandelions instead of my eyes.
Regina Meredith: Yes.
Leonid Sharashkin: Whatever your wildest imagination can show you. And, all of a
sudden, you notice that the problem disappears. Just yesterday, I shared this
technique, here, with one of the attendees of my workshop, and she came the next
day and told me, You know what, we had our house on the market for six months; not
a single showing. Last night I came, after talking with you, and conveyed this technique
to my husband and we laughed, and then went to this vision that eventually the house
will be purchased by aliens, extraterrestrials, and they will turn the subdivision lot, here
in Los Angeles, into a portal for communicating with other galaxies.
Regina Meredith: (laughing together)
Leonid Sharashkin: Some of it was so absurd that they all laughed, and all this tension
of not being able to sell the house disappeared. The next morning they got a phone call
from their real estate agent that somebody wanted to look at the property.
Regina Meredith: Yes.
Leonid Sharashkin: Stories like that keep piling up, and they are always funny; they are
always about how all of a sudden these concepts of changing your reality through
changing your inner world becomes accessible to everybody because laughter and
humor and imagination is something that everybody can relate to.
Regina Meredith: Its very true, and when you think about it, its often been said that if
you want something or you want to draw something to yourself, you have to let it go,
right? And, so, in a sense, although thats very kind of dower, almost, in the way its
presented, there isagain, it has the same common theme thats youre releasing this
painful kind of attachment, this painful kind of expectation that human beings tend to
hold onto in order to achieve and outcome. Ive just got to grind away at it! Meaning I
have to work hard to get what I want. Thats another world view, though.
Leonid Sharashkin: True, and this is the term that they use a lot in The Art of Soaring;
world view. You know we think that the way we see the world is the world. But, no; its
like we can be changing our operating system and changing our glasses and seeing the
world in all the different lights and colors, etc. So, its really a matter of our choice. This
is the amazing part of the book. They make you laugh and realize that there is no
unsolvable problems, that there are no missions impossible, that we are in charge of
our own destiny, and we are always making the choice of what we want to manifest.
So, if you say oh, I cannot do it. The circumstances are so dire that I will be miserable
for the rest of my life, well, its your choice. You are choosing to see yourself this way
and this is the reality that you choose for yourself. These books, The Art of Soaring, the
sequels that I am now working on, they are all about giving this understanding, that we
all are the creators of our destiny and we all have the choices.
Regina Meredith: But its done in a so much more powerful and beautiful way then what
we traditionally experience, looking especially at those who have come through the
scientific model of creating your own reality. You know its getting into holographic

realities, and really youre talking about scientific parlance, which is very valuable. Its
wonderful that these mysteries, this magic has essentially been unlocked and explained
on certain levels, how we can create this reality scientifically. But that doesnt unblock
our emotional charges that we walk around with.
Leonid Sharashkin: It does not and, actually, you know todays scientists, I think they
forgot that even Einstein was saying that imagination is more important than
knowledge.
Regina Meredith: Yes.
Leonid Sharashkin: He felt thatand, we all know that the greatest scientific
discoveries, they come not through intellectualizing, but in a flash, in a flash of
inspiration, in a flash of awareness or insight. So, imagination has such an important
role to play even in science, itself.
Regina Meredith: Yes.
Leonid Sharashkin: I have a doctoral degree; I have a PhD, but it doesnt prevent me
from seeing that, you know, science is a tool. It is just one of the tools to do certain
things in our reality, but its not the whole of reality. Its not the whole range of the
tools that we can use. Art and imagination, its all accessible to everybody. You know
the irony of it is that we all have imagination within ourselves, but today we have
persuaded ourselves that only special people have imagination. The artists, they have
imagination, or those who make movies. So, these are the people who can create all
this imagery and we are just the consumers of their imaginations. No. Read The Art of
Soaring, try just one of the techniques and you will see that you can create a more
fascinating movie within your own mind than anything youve ever seen on screen.
Regina Meredith: Its very true. I kept practicing it as I was reading. I thought gee, this
is really fun just to give yourself the permission, even, to become zany and insane in
the way youre creating this world, this abundant world of whatever it is, whether its
peace, joy, happiness, health, whatnot.
Leonid Sharashkin: True and you know these techniques can be used to resolve any
kind of issues, even health issues.
Regina Meredith: I was just going to ask you; tell us about that.
Leonid Sharashkin: Yes. So, what is the health issue? Today we have an approach that
the health issue, or depression so, some kind of disease of the flesh or of our spirit,
its our enemy; we need to fight against it. So, surgery, or pain killers or
antidepressants, this is the solution. So, we are fighting with the consequence, not with
the real cause. But in the ancient world view, from which The Art of Soaring emerged,
they were seeing a depression, the feeling that well, something is wrong, not as a
disease, but as a signal that something is wrong with your lifestyle, with your world
outlook, with your relationship to others, with your diet, with something. So, it was seen
as signal, as an invitation to transcend this depression or bodily condition.
Regina Meredith: Mmmhmm.
Leonid Sharashkin: And to move forward to the health existence. So, instead of taking
pain killers or antidepressants, The Art of Soaring shows some very efficient techniques
of actually thanking this disease, or thanking this feeling of depression for coming to
you and reminding you . . .
Regina Meredith: Maybe youve gone out of balance.
Leonid Sharashkin: Exactly.
Regina Meredith: Yeah, uh-huh.
Leonid Sharashkin: And, so, this very simple technique is to thank and to give your
depression a gift. So, dear Mr. Depression: Thank you very much for spending so much
of your valuable time with me. So, I thank you profusely and I give you this gift, and
imagine something that would make you laugh inside.
Regina Meredith: (laughing delightedly)
Leonid Sharashkin: And, people come up with all kinds of imagery. One lady, she was

struggling with depression and she wrote me, she wrote a small poem, a song. And the
song was; I am a pregnant Barbie doll. So, she gave her depression this gifta CD
produced song, I am a pregnant Barbie Doll, flying on a hairy balloon. So, whatever it
is, but this released her depression and she saw that where antidepressants could do
nothing, all of a sudden in a flash, in five minutes she resolved the whole issue on its
own within herself.
Regina Meredith: Its just beautiful! Now, one of the things hes talking about in the
book is they are still in the theoretical stage setting it up asthey use the analogy of a
gamer, a video gamer. I thought that was quite interesting because he was talking
about that really rarified strata of video gamers who are called divers. Remember that
part?
Leonid Sharashkin: Mmmhmm, absolutelywho can be totally immersed in the game,
yet, remember somewhere in their subconscious that it is still a game.
Regina Meredith: Yeah, and hes talking about that its still a game, and this is really a lot
of the lovely Eastern philosophies talk about of being the one who observes, being
aware, being the awareness at the same time youre involved in the dance, so to speak.
Leonid Sharashkin: Mmmhmm.
Regina Meredith: And, they talk about this is an important element to have almost this
its not a dual type of awarenessbut in this expanded awareness while youre playing
the game and that helps in not taking thing so seriously, as well.
Leonid Sharashkin: True and you know I feel that today, with our computer technology,
we start seeing all kinds of like parallels between how computers work . . .
Regina Meredith: Yes.
Leonid Sharashkin: And how our minds operate.
Regina Meredith: Yes.
Leonid Sharashkin: Look, computers have viruses and they can become sick and they
can have hard drive failure, all these things that we can suffer from, too. And this
parallel with the computer world starts helping to remind people that we can become
our own programmers. Instead of buying an operating system from some software
manufacturing company . . .
Regina Meredith: Preprogrammed.
Leonid Sharashkin: Yeah! Preprogrammed and then having to download security
patches and everything on a daily basis, we can become creators of our own operating
system; we can rise above the program, the social conditioning that we went through in
our lives. We can become the creators of our reality. And, I have a friend who has a
Ph.D. in Biology, and he has been studying the cognitive abilities of mammals, and one
day he asked me, Leo, do you know whats the difference between a rat and a human
being? I said, You know I never really thought about it, but now that you ask, Im not
really sure. And he said, Ill tell you; here is the difference. He was making a larger
cardboard maze and he would put a rat inside maze, and he would hide a piece of
cheese in one corner. And he would see how much time it would take the rat to find
this cheese. So, on the first day it takes 15 seconds; on the second dayand, he put it
in the same cornerit takes 10 seconds; on the third day it takes just 5 seconds
because the rat starts to remember this is the path to the cheese, and just tracks it
there. On the fourth day, he would place the piece of cheese in a different corner of the
maze. So, the rat would rush to the corner where the cheese was the previous night.
[He] cannot find the cheese. Oh, dumbfounded! But then, five seconds later, becomes
active and searching, looking for the cheese and eventually finds this piece of cheese
and eats it. So, he told me, Here is the difference between a rat and a human being:
When the rat doesnt find the cheese where it used to be, where it was the previous
night, it becomes active, it does something about it, and humans seem to be the only
creatures on this planet who, after not finding the piece of cheese where it used to be,
they will be just sitting there and complaining and inventing entire religious theories

about how they transgressed in a previous lives, and this is why the cheese was taken
away from them.
Regina Meredith: (laughing)
Leonid Sharashkin: So, this was his insight that he got from observing the behavior of
mice and rats. They do not have this kind of programming; they are open-minded. No
cheese; not a big deal; Ill find it elsewhere. And, we are overlaying the reality, what
really is in the world in our experience, were adding so much of our own ideas to it,
that it becomes really a jungle. We cannot find our way.
Regina Meredith: Yes.
Leonid Sharashkin: So, The Art of Soaring is this amazing technique of rising of the
jungle and saying ah-hah! There this is where I was going; this is what reality is really
all about.
Regina Meredith: Yes and they even talk about that, what you were just saying oh, I
have to rise above . . . They even talk about the subject of karma in this book.
Leonid Sharashkin: True.
Regina Meredith: But its not the way we would think of it, as something you have to
pay a penance for or grind through or something in much of the parlance that exists
right now. They are talking about it in much more lighthearted way. Can you talk about
their view of karma and dealing with it?
Leonid Sharashkin: Absolutely, mmmhmm, you know and the amazing part is that what
they are talking about is not new. They are referring to some ancient parables, etc.,
that show that even our ancestors knew that there are ways of overcoming karma,
overcoming all kinds of problems light-heartedly. For example, they give an example of
an ancient story when a man wasa peasant was making love to a neighbors wife,
and so, the Shiva God, passing by, and [he] asked, Oh, Shiva, tell me how many more
incarnations to I have in this flash? And she said, Well, you have 10 incarnations left.
And, he was overjoyed that it was just ten incarnations left of suffering . . .
Regina Meredith: (laughing together)
Leonid Sharashkin: That he became enlightened in the same moment. Here is an ancient
story; yet, it conveys this understanding that were not locked up in our karma. So,
they have the same approach; if you seriously believe in karma, you keep maintaining
your karma with the energy of your thought.
Regina Meredith: Yes.
Leonid Sharashkin: You are creating your karma; you are giving it existence by believing
that yeah, I need to work with it. I need to be good. I have like that many more lifetimes
to go. So, you are all locked up, but you are your own prisoner. And, they present all
these beautiful lighthearted approaches of how to realize that, yes, karma is just one
operating system; its one world view; its one image, but Im the one who is in charge
of all the movies played in this theater. So, why dont I play another movie where I can
just resolve all my karmic circumstances in five minutes? There it is.
Regina Meredith: There you go; its a choice! Yeah. Its beautiful. I like that so much
better. What about the notion of becoming a healer, because they talk to the person
that is reading this that really wants to be a part of the journey of others in going
through this healing process. And, yet, we judge ourselves for that. Oh, I dont know
that it was really me that had that effect, and so forth. How did you perceive that?
Leonid Sharashkin: Yeah. Talking about healers, you know what I like also about The Art
of Soaring book is that the authors are not serious about anything, including
themselves.
Regina Meredith: Yes.
Leonid Sharashkin: They do not present themselves as someone special, someone who
knew the way and now is enlightening us, the ignorant people. No. They are very
lighthearted, they are playful and where the healingthey practice healing, themselves;
they are healers. They help people overcome bodily disease and all kinds of life

challenges through the techniques described in The Art of Soaring, but they explain
that, you know, we in this world, we tend to rely on somebody else for everything.
Somebody else is raising our children and giving them education. Somebody is growing
our food. Somebody is building our home. Somebodyeven in the spiritual realm, we
have somebody who is enlightening us, somebody who is healing us, somebody who is
saving us. And, they [the authors] remind us that we can all become our own healers.
And, actually, the reason why we can be healed so easily if we come to a healer who
has this power is because we have the faith in the healer, we have the faith that this
particular person can finally help us, where everybody else failed. And your faith in this
person is what heals you most and foremost.
Regina Meredith: Yes.
Leonid Sharashkin: So, instead of relying on somebody else for your fulfillment, they
say well, if you have as much faith in yourself, in your abilities, in your imagination as
you have in somebody elses, this will be your healing, instantaneously.
Regina Meredith: Absolutely, and in the Western medical model oh, no. Double blind
study; that was just the placebo effect.
Leonid Sharashkin: Yeah.
Regina Meredith: Yipee! Isnt that great news, you know. (laughing together) We all
have that capability on our own. You dont need the drug. You dont need the doctor.
You dont need the intervention in most cases, in many cases, certainly. So, they really
approach it from the ground level of your own internal belief systems. Thats what the
healing is about.
Leonid Sharashkin: Mmmhmm. And, again, we are not talking just about the bodily
healing; we are talking about healing our relationships, and money problems. You know
one of the ladies tried this technique. She was struggling with her mortgage bills and
then she played out this negative scenario; its another technique described in The Art
of Soaring. Instead of struggling with an issue, release it and play out in your mind the
most negative scenario you can think of until it becomes absurd. So, she imagined that
she will become bankrupt and will be thrown out of her home and with no possessions,
or anything. So, she will spend the rest of her life living under a bridge in Chicago.
Regina Meredith: Under a bridge. (laughing delightedly)
Leonid Sharashkin: And policing the sidewalks, looking for a banana skin to chew on.
And, she created this amazing vision where she would collect all [the] banana skins in
the world to subsist on, and then even extraterrestrials will be sending their spaceships
in the form of bananas filled with banana skins for her to chew on. So, when she
arrived at this vision; this absurd, comical, exaggerated parable she could no longer be
serious about the bills that come in the mail. And, she explained that like the problem
disappeared. All of a sudden her monetary situation improved just because instead of
sitting there and worrying and seeing herself as a victim who will be struggling with her
bills for the rest of her life, all of a sudden she changed her perception of herself. As it
says in the book, she renamed herself. Instead of saying I am the one who has
mortgage payment problems, she told, I am the one who is receiving food aid of
banana skins from aliens!
Regina Meredith: (laughing delightedly)
Leonid Sharashkin: And you know, because the one who is receiving the food aid of
banana skins from aliens certainly cannot have any mortgage bill problems, right?
Regina Meredith: Right!
Leonid Sharashkin: So, the problem disappeared on its own.
Regina Meredith: I love it, and the book is filled with that. Really, the second half is
nothing butwell, two- thirds of itis nothing but this kind of story. I mean not that
one, but a lot of stories like this.
Leonid Sharashkin: Yes.
Regina Meredith: So, you can see, it gives you a nice portrait of someone who comes in

with a lot of complex issues; this one man in here, in particular, how one of the authors
worked with him a little bit at time to just allow the tension to be released in one little
area with one little remembrance, and then renaming, and then this thanksgiving
process, and so forth, until they wound down to the very base of what had really
happened in his life, and this rediscovery and reframing of it, and essentially everything
else healed.
Leonid Sharashkin: Mmmhmm.
Regina Meredith: The whole thing, the whole mechanism, his whole being healed.
Leonid Sharashkin: Yeah, absolutely, and you know what I also noticed just by
observing even my children; I noticed that they know this art of soaring without reading
this book.
Regina Meredith: Yes.
Leonid Sharashkin: They all have this playful attitude. (Gives an example in relationship
with his little girl) And, she finds me doing that and asks, Daddy, what are you doing?
I said, Well, I saw your doll broke and so, I am trying to see how I can fix it. And, she
said, Yeah, my little sister broke it, but you dont have to fix it, she says. I say,
Why? And, she showed me this. She said, Daddy, because its not a Barbie doll.
She did like, Its a giraffe! (Demonstrates how his child switched the head of the doll
to the leg, becoming the giraffes neck and head).
Regina Meredith: (laughing together)
Leonid Sharashkin: And not only that, she told me, Daddy, it was always a giraffe, and
not a Barbie doll, only the head was attached to the wrong place. So, you know its
this art of seeing a giraffe where everybody else would see a broken Barbie doll.
Regina Meredith: I love it!
Leonid Sharashkin: And our children have that. Its just in-built in our being the moment
we are born. So, the art of soaring is not about discovering a new system, a new
philosophy; its about reclaiming this pristine purity of perception that we are all born
with.
Regina Meredith: Reclaiming our own fairy tale.
Leonid Sharashkin: Thats beautiful.
Regina Meredith: Well, on that note, I think its best if everybody thats interested just
pick up a copy of the book. Where can they get this?
Leonid Sharashkin: They can get it on www.deepsnowpress.com.
Regina Meredith: www.deepsnowpress.com, OK.
Leonid Sharashkin: On the publishers website.
Regina Meredith: OK. How long has this been available to the English-speaking
audience?
Leonid Sharashkin: Two months.
Regina Meredith: Two months. Brand new, whoa! Yes, Im one of the first. I love it.
Leonid Sharashkin: Yes.
Regina Meredith: OK, well Leonid, its so wonderful to talk about this with you, and also,
another thing that youre getting ready to involve yourself with, which Ive been
fascinated with very much since we first me, is a school in Russia, which is reallyI
mean Im so enthralled with the notion where the children create the curriculum, the
children build the facilities and supply all of the artwork for the place, and work with
gardens and learn movement that we have long lost in our own beings. And [its in] this
beautiful environment. Can you say it, againTekos? The Tekos School?
Leonid Sharashkin: Tekos. The Tekos School, in Southern Russia, yeah.
Regina Meredith: And when you go back to Russia, youre going to be involved in this.
And, I shouldnt make promises I might not be able to keep, but our intention right now
is in a few months, when we go there, you and I and Scott are going to hook up
together, and were going to go to this school. And, we are going to talk with the
headmaster and some of the students.

Leonid Sharashkin: And, I very much look forward to that day because I visited the
school, myself, with my daughter a few months ago, and its literally like entering the
Fourth Dimension.
Regina Meredith: Yes.
Leonid Sharashkin: Because its not even just about the children there; its about what
they manifest as their abilities. They remind us all that we have all these infinite abilities.
The children have designed, built and decorated their own campus. They do it freehand,
all these amazing murals youll see there in the school.
Regina Meredith: Beautiful.
Leonid Sharashkin: They were not even traced with a pencil on the wall because its an
understanding of the principle that if you tell the child oh, you need first to practice, it
conveys that your skepticism. You believe that oh, the child does not capable of doing if
freehand. So, instead, the principle is giving them the brush and saying, Do it. Like,
Create it.
Regina Meredith: Beautiful.
Leonid Sharashkin: And because he has this faith in education being not stuffing
childrens heads with information, but rather creating an environment in which they can
blossom and draw out all this creativity and powers and abilities that we are all born
with. So, they were able to create this very magic space. And, I believe it will redefine
the way we see education and the way we raise our children the world over.
Regina Meredith: Mmmm. I felt that way just watching the DVD of it, even being
removed by and connected, lets say, by technology, you can feel the essence of that
coming through. We are going to set our intention to do everything we can to be there
with you.
Leonid Sharashkin: Yeah. Thank you, Regina; thank you, Scott. And, yeah, I would like
to wish everybody who is watching this broadcast, Happy Soaring!
Regina Meredith: Yeah. Happy Soaring!
Regina Meredith: For those of you who would like to purchase a copy of, The Art of
Soaring, you can go to www.deepsnowpress.com, and imagine your way to a much
more satisfying life experience. Meanwhile, you might also be interested in our first
interview with Leonid, regarding the story of, Anastasia, another beautiful and profound
view of the potential of the human being. Until next time, thanks for watching CMN.