From Russia Without Love: A Textbook Example of a Pain-body Attack

Ah, Mother Russia! Source of so much suffering! Add me to her long list of victims.

I've been planning a week-long trip to St. Petersburg, my final excursion before returning home to the U.S. I went last week to the Russian Embassy in Rome to apply for my visa. I was in line by 6:30 a.m., as my friend advised me to do. He said on the day he applied for his visa, he was second in line at 5:30 a.m. and the consular officer saw only two people that day.

"And if you think Neapolitans are bad at standing in line," he said. "Wait 'til you see the Russian ladies at the Embassy."

So I was prepared for any eventuality and I went into this adventure with low expectations. Especially so after recently returning through Rome from a trip to the UK. While waiting in line for an Italian Carabinieri to pretend to look at my passport, a large group of Russians flooded the lines from all angles, men, women and children, pretending not to notice anyone who had been waiting for a good long while in this lengthy queue.

Everyone else is so much more docile than I am. Maybe it's my American-ness. Maybe it's the fact that I'm tall and fairly athletic. On that day, I made a point of remaining completely conscious while at the same time calling out the Russians for their boorish behavior.

It was actually more like a game that day in Rome. There were a couple of other Americans in line and when the Russians kept up the charade, claiming no English language skills, I decided I was going to beat them at their own game. No weapons are permitted in airports so why not? (This is the very argument that energizes 2nd Amendment types, I realize.)

There were a couple of stout Slavs, broad, low to the ground, crew cuts. When I'd muscled my way to the head of the line, I turned and looked at one of them and said, "I'm just glad I beat you."

"Just go," he said.

"Ah, so now you speak English," I said, winking.

But at the Russian Embassy my fears were unfounded. The first woman in line was keeping a list. I put my name by number 10 and waited. When 8:00 rolled around, I held my breath to see if the list would hold water. Number nine went in and I looked up to see if, in fact, my position would be respected. To my surprise, the sea of people parted.

Once inside, I was the only person there that early to beg for a visa. I waited 45 minutes for the consular officer to finish his coffee or whatever. I didn't need to be there so early, not that day anyway. I began to wonder whether my friend had brought his tale of woe upon himself somehow.

I had two strikes against me in terms of the visa process. First, I didn't have health insurance, which the form says is a requirement. In the interview with the consular officer, we chatted about that and he directed me to check "no" on the form--it wasn't a deal-breaker.

The second problem was the expiration date on the visa. My backpack had been stolen in October with my passport in it. The U.S. Embassy in Copenhagen had been kind enough to replace the lost passport with one that would not expire until next October.

Unfortunately, the Russians prefer not to issue a visa if the applicant's passport is scheduled to run out within six months. Again, the consular officer checked that and said it wouldn't be a problem. I was approved for the visa and he directed me to the cashier's window to lay down my 95 Euro.

Ominously, just before I left his office, he pointed to the box on the form wherein was written my cell phone number and said, "We will call you at this number if there is any problem."

There was a problem.

A woman with a Russian accent called this morning to inform me that her computer wouldn't allow her to issue a visa because my passport was set to expire within six months. I tried to explain to her that the consular officer and I had already been down this road and that he had approved the visa before I had paid for it. Sorry, I would have to go to the U.S. Embassy and get an extension.

Except that because my passport was already a replacement, it could not be extended. That's written inside the passport along with the cite to the federal law that requires this restriction.

Meanwhile, on the handshake from the consular officer, I've outlaid thirteen hundred small ones for airline ticket and hotel.

Ah, Mother Russia! Source of so much grief!

I remained conscious after I put down the phone. Nonetheless, I started to feel lethargic, almost a purely physical depression. My thinking too was negative, imaginative almost exclusively of the worst case scenario.

"You had a right to feel bad," one might argue. But why? Nothing bad has actually happened.

It's funny but if this had happened to someone else, if someone else stood to be separated from thirteen hundred bucks and miss out on an interesting trip, I would feel sympathetic but it wouldn't cause my own thinking to turn negative. It wouldn't have affected my physicality in such a way that getting anything done that day would be virtually out of the question.

What is it about my $1300 that makes this situation so much different? It's because I've already evaluated this situation in terms of good and bad, and because it's my $1300.

Here's what our good friend, Eckhart Tolle had to say about just this situation in A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose:

Indirectly, an emotion can also be a response to an actual situation or event, but it will be a response to the event seen through the filter of a mental interpretation, the filter of thought, that is to say, through the mental concepts of good and bad, like and dislike, me and mine. For example, it is likely you won't feel any emotion when you are told that someone's car has been stolen, but when it is your car, you will probably feel upset. It is amazing how much emotion a little mental concept like "my" can generate. (pp.133-134)

Let's be honest, in the grand scheme of things I have no idea whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. And in the grandest scheme, there can be no such thing as bad (see The Philosophy of Success).

Negativity is completely illogical. It serves no purpose except to make me feel bad. So why was I doing it?

What we're dealing with here in my reaction to this potential degradation in my financial circumstances is a text book example of a pain-body attack. This semi-autonomous mass of unfelt past emotion resonated with these events for some reason and was therefore triggered by them.

I felt bad for most of the day until it dawned on me what was happening. At that point--and whenever I discover a pain-body attack in progress--my thoughts immediately shifted to, "Fantastic! Feel it! Feel it!" Because when the pain-body is consciously experienced, consciousness burns it up. It diminishes a little more each time until one day it's completely gone (see Another Swing at Inner Peace).

In just a few moments, the pain-body scurried back into whatever hole it had crawled out of and I was back to my natural state (see The Joy of Being, Explained).

I'm off to Rome early tomorrow morning to speak with the Russian consular officer who approved my visa. Wish me luck.

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This is meant in a good-humored way. Russians, let me know if I've hit my mark.