lt was raining in Sofia. Our plane broke through the clouds and a bright blinding sun flashed over their dark-blue mass. I was flying to Russia thinking that in all probability it was true. The earth is enveloped in thin layer of human souls. Nothing can be lost in this world, be it our thoughts, desires or our spirit. Everything is stored in space. The academician Vernadsk, along with Teilhard de Chardin the Darwinian theologist called this invisible accumulator the sphere of reason. Other scientists define it as an all-penetrating vacuum and the Buddhist Kalmyks think of it as the great emptiness and nirvana where time flows both forwards and backwards.Technological civilization is just a change of clothes. Will a savage dressed in a Pierre Cardin suit stop being a savage?
Many present-day politicians neglect the spiritual side of life. It is already a little late to bemoan the proliferation of dozens of millions of guns, grenades and mines among Russia's citizens. It is a fact. Bans, decrees and restrictions in this area have in the past proved quite ineffective. The overall level of discontent has reached its peak. Now the most important thing is to prevent the people who have guns from using them . And that is where the sphere of the spiritual comes into play.
I spent several hours talking to His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama in India. At the Vatican l sought answers from the Pope and in Sergiev Posad (the Monastery of St. Sergius) I talked at length with the Patriarch of All Russias Alexis 11 and became more and more convinced that only the spiritual purification of the people will enable us to enter the 21st century, the third millennium, with minimal losses and in a state of national good health. The path to redemption and spiritual purification is long and full of thorns, but then there is no other way out. We have slid back down to the Middle Ages, to the time of Russia's disintegration into separate independent principalities, and we have become an easy prey for anyone with power be it a sword or a nuclear weapon , or simply economic and criminal might.
Nobody could stop the disintegration of the great superpower: the independence movements, devolution of power, establishment of new areas of sovereignty, new customs and tendencies. Everybody realized that catastrophe would follow if this process were not checked. And yet, the process proved to be beyond our control. The chain reaction was in its final stages and nobody dared to attempt to defuse the explosive charge.
l realized that taking such a step would destabilize Kalmykia, alienate some of my allies, and swell the ranks of the opposition who did not understand that we were standing on the verge of a precipice. It was clear to me that my authority with the people would be fatally undermined should I take this step. However, there was no other choice.
On March 11 1994, I made a statement declaring that the Kalmyk nation renounced its right to self-determination and that I was substituting the Kalmyk constitution with the great steppe law which we had worked on for many months.
Kirsan Ilyumzhinov
The President's Crown of Thorns 1995
