He was, as people describe, “daredevil”, witty and sharp. During his youth he
was a hooligan, his mind was bright and creative, but his life was difficult.
His family tolerated hardship inflicted by the rich class, whom he despised
and even revenged for such injustice. With the rise of the Soviet Power he began
exemplary work and study, being inspired by the idea of Communism – a fair society.
However, later he realized the injustice of the Soviet regime.
So he lived till the age of 35 and then his life changed. He wrote about himself: “I spent my childhood, youth and yearly adulthood like everybody else. I was no superhuman and I do not wish to be called honorable. Once I was a thief of the Nature, I stilled from it, killed the joy, didn’t care about anything but myself – did everything to make MY life better. Later I distanced myself from all that…and began to come to the idea of getting close to the Nature…”
What caused this change? When Porfiry Korneyevich was in his
30-s – something happened to him: he got cancer of his arm. No one could help
him, his cancer was very advanced and he (like other people in his condition)
was prepared to lie bedridden and slowly die. Then he decided to speed up the
dying process by getting sick with something else. He walked out in the frost
without clothes with the purpose to catch a cold. However the result was zero.
Then he repeated it and even poured out on himself a bucked of icy water. Again
he did not get sick. He repeated the same for the several days, but instead
of disease he began to receive energy, desire to live and great joy! All of
a sudden his illness began to disappear. Noticing this, he continued his experiments
till the illness (cancer) was completely gone. He was very impressed by the
phenomena.
Earlier he had the question in his mind (everyone at least once in a lifetime
has this question): “Why must a human being be a subject to disease and death
despite all of the comfort he surrounds himself (herself) with?” Now the thought
came to his mind: “How so? The conditions from which a man hides himself actually
give him good health!”
This was the beginning of his search to find an answer to the following question:
“Is there perhaps a hidden mystery in the Nature and human being?” He gradually
began to temper his body, getting close to the Nature and slowly eliminating
all that separated him from it. At first he removed his hat and walked without
it in strong frosts and harsh winds. Then to verify if he was right, he wanted
to check whether other people would have the same benefit of health from his
method. He began to offer his method to people suffering from various diseases.
It also worked for other people: they recovered from diseases! This meant the
tempering of the body worked!
But not everyone had the courage and strong will to begin the tempering. Therefore he decided to try to heal people with the forces that he received from Nature as a result of his tempering. He constantly looked for confirmation from Nature by practical result whether his actions were right.
He succeeded to cure a woman who was unable to walk to 17 years.
His experiment continued: he tried to become closer and closer to the Nature.
At first he removed his hat, then shoes, then clothes, leaving just shorts.
More and more time he spent in Nature. His health strengthened, he was embracing
any weather conditions. He did not hide from anything, walked towards Nature
with trust and love, without any fear. Nature, as if an intelligent and alive
entity, granted him powers, taught him and tested his sincerity, showed his
mistakes. As he wrote about himself: “I studied all that which weakens and
destroys in humans and in Nature and all that strengthens and develops, and
found the methods and knowledge to evolve and manage them for myself and each
person.”
As a result, he succeeded to spend weeks in the steppe, during
frost, without clothes and barefoot, with no ill effects. He learned to control
his body and psyche with his consciousness and will power in order to withstand
any disease, weakness and laziness. He learned to live without food and water
for a long time without any harm to his health (the longest experiment was 108
days, and this, according to him, was not his limit), and much more.
At the same time he preached his method to all he have met and helped the ill
and those unable to cure themselves and to rise from bedridden conditions.
He tested on volunteers the useful qualities of Nature that he discovered, watching them and controlling the process. As he explained: “ This is not an usual tempering of the organism against cold weather and common cold, but an awakening and, development and conscious control of the inner forces and abilities of the nervous system.” – This is a quote from his document, “The History and Method of My Tempering”, which he sent to the medical scientists and authorities in 1951.
Gradually Porfiry Korneyevich developed and codified the number
of rules of his tempering and named them “Dear Child” (This is how he addressed
each person). It was also sent to the Kremlin, to L.I. Brezhnev.
Before that Ivanov had transmitted his teachings orally. The authorities became
suspicious towards him. They tried to create obstacles to him in every way.
As a result he spent in sum 12 years in prisons and psychiatric clinics in his
life, where he was tortured almost to death. He was sent home to die, but instead,
he slowly recovered his powers, again by opening his body to Nature.
The most important fact is that in his dealing with Nature, not only his body acted but his consciousness too. It changed almost completely. He realized his previous moral defects and conquered them, i.e. made them subordinate to his will. The reason is that in Nature it is impossible to gain anything, especially health if a person is of immoral character, evil emotions and is not trying to eliminate it. The Nature feels it and such a person can’t tolerate cold weather or be without food for a long time. For a person with positive pure consciousness, Nature is open, helps to tolerate a lot and trusts to communicate with itself.
His love and tolerance for people were enormous. He tolerated
many injustices from them before his 50-year experiment and even more after
it.
But this didn’t stop or harden him: his attitude towards people remained the
same and he tried to give everything to those coming to ask him for help. His
soul ached for the needy, poor and the ill. From the first sight he saw through
everyone: he already knew why people came to him and that he was able to receive
them. In every person he tried to awake consciousness and love and to conquer
false pride, fear, resentment and distrust in people. Everyone was rewarded
by him, according to his deeds. He didn’t hide anything from people and informed
them, including the authorities, about his every experiment. And if they prevented
him from an experiment, he did not resist them, because one of his life principles
was such: “Do your business and do not interfere with others”. And also: “Nature
is all of us, people, our desire”. Therefore he did not try so to speak “jump
ever their heads” to push his idea on people. As he said: “By revolution you
will not gain your goal, but by evolution” – slowly to strive for change by
letting people’s consciousness grow and readiness of the conditions of Nature.
His goal was not only to make every person healthy, happy, but mainly to “change the stream of people’s consciousness”, their life style, the attitude about Nature and themselves. The unnatural life-style and attitude for the Nature lead the humanity in general and everyone personally to a deadlock, to self-destruction. At present time it is becoming more and more evident with appearance of global humane problems, as our planet is becoming more and more exhausted and ecologically imbalanced. Human activity poses the threat of destruction to the planet and itself. In this a human being is not wise and is unable to see everything from the prospect of the planet and humanity, he lives in his closed space with his egotistical interests, viewing everything from the point of view of personal profit and gain, not thinking about the consequences of his actions. A bit more and everything may vanish catastrophically, thus these remarkable human species, with their inventions, this “king of Nature” would cease to exist without a trace.
But in a human being and in Nature everything is in harmony, they were created thoughtfully in order to live without getting themselves and the Nature to the miserable condition. A human being is not using a half of his possibilities as it now becomes more evident and is a subject of frequent discussions. This means he is not a complete human being, even from a physical stand point, what to speak about morality! Here all the reasoning is merely on paper, but in reality it takes a gigantic effort to overcome egotistical defects, which one can never eliminate completely. Perhaps the reason lies in our relationship with Nature, which was not given much thought. How can a human being, a parasite on the body of Nature, “a thief and a murderer” (how Ivanov described him) develop moral purity, an abstract spirituality, if in his core his existence is immoral and non-spiritual towards Nature? This question usually does not occur in people’s minds because all these harmful consequences of human activity are blamed for imperfection of technology or some social problems. Nothing is said about immorality of a human being in this respect. He thinks this is the only possible way of his existence.
Ivanov presents his point of view about this matter. He might seem personally unacceptable to some, for others – utopian or fanciful. But this is a personal matter of everyone, however, it is necessary to get acquainted with his conclusions, because we need to find some way out of the arising situation.
The Teacher left us in 1983, leaving his teachings to the people, written in his notebooks (was known about 250), “The Dear Child” and letters to authorities and scientists. All was left without much attention in the past. Now this system of health-improvement has thousands of followers who try to study the legacy of Ivanov, because it is an absolutely unique philosophy, a new, special outlook on history, Nature and human destiny, and not just another method of overcoming disease and tempering of an organism.
He left for people a hearty request: “I am asking, I am begging all people: Take your place in Nature. It is not occupied by anyone else and not bought for any money. But it is only by your own actions and work in the Nature for your own benefit, so your life would be easy”.
- Julia Kaznovskaya