The Two Friends.
In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
At the end of the last century, there lived in Siberia two friends, who learned about Porphyry Ivanov, peace be upon him, and began following his advice. Their new life has amazed them, and they were filled with the wish to tell people about this way.
A strange idea occurred to the friends: to walk to the house of the God of the Earth without food, clothes and dwelling in house, telling about his teaching to the meeting people. They prepared themselves internally during a year, and then started on their way in winter, with the book “The History of Parshek”, dressed in summer pants and shirts only.
In such clothes, without sleep and rest, the friends were walking during a week. But the people they met did not wish to talk with them and hear about the God of the Earth. Then they met a man who said to them, “Boys, ye are probably cold. Come to my house to warm yourselves.”
The friends have seen a bit of what happened to Porphyry Ivanov, peace be upon him, who walked in the human wilderness during fifty years. The people laughed at him, broke on his way bottles, put him into prisons and mental hospitals. No one wanted to think for what he had chosen such a way, and very rarely he was asked whether he was cold. A prophet has no honor in his own country, and there was no chance that people would understand these lads. As they told later, they suddenly found that they had no more strength to go on, and accepted the offer of that man.
Their feet were not frost-bitten, but swollen. Two weeks later, the friends became able to put on shoes, and continued their way by rail.
At that time I came to the Luhansk region to know about Porphyry Ivanov, peace be upon him, from the keeper of his house Petro Matlaev, who spent near the God of the Earth many years, and whose opinion has great weight among his followers. Those lads arrived in the house of Porphyry Ivanov, peace be upon him, when I was there.
With shining eyes they narrated about their fantastic experience: how close they were to Nature, and how the living things suffer from people — the friends did understand them while walking on equal terms with Nature.
There are such moments when it may safely be said that one tells the truth, and that was the case. I looked into their eyes and understood that this story was true.
And how severely Petro Matlaev reproached these lads... “Ye,” said he, “what have ye done?.. What should we do today is to follow the rules the Teacher gave us...”
He said to them many right words. But how great their faith was.
¹)Post scriptum. In 2012, there came out in Kiev the work “The Immersion in Nature” (“Погруженіе въ Природу”), where the inspirer of that experiment Alexander Pavlov gave a detailed account of it.