I never thought that I will believe in God (don’t get scared about this word, because what I mean with it can be totally different from what you imagine). In my family nobody spoke about God. We went occasionally to church, but it was on some holidays and it was rather a tradition, at that time most people in our village were observing the customs of our country, Bulgaria. I remember one day a friend of our family came to visit us and he was talking some things about God. I didn’t understand him, but also I didn’t pay much attention, I was just a kid. Then I became acquainted with my cousin. She and her family believed in God and they went to church every Sunday. I were close with my cousin, but I don’t remember for the time that we spent together that she talked about God. One day we went to the youth meeting of their church and what I liked about it was that it was an opportunity to meet new people there. I don’t remember what the pastor or the other people were talking about God.

Years after that I went to study computer science in Germany, Darmstadt. In my third year one of my friends, Ognyan, said that he was exploring the world religions. One night we went out for a drink and I asked him what were his conclusions about the religions and he was so excited to tell me. He told me about some kind of religions in which people were manipulated and had to do some devil things and other frightening stuffs. And after long researching he found out that Christianity was the most right religion and then he explained me what are the views of the Christians. While he was talking I was feeling very good. He talked about one hour or more and after we said each other goodbye I felt very peaceful. I was looking at the world from some other point of view and it was very beautiful.

In a few days I visited him and when I was about to leave he wanted to give me “The New Testament”. I told to him that I wasn’t prepared for it and it was not my time for it now. He said that I can take it in order to read it when I wanted to. After some discussion I gave up and took the book. At home as I opened it I read something like this “Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob;” and so on and I thought why would people want to know this stuff, who can remember so many names. I continued to read it for about 3 months and I saw how much wisdom is there inside. I definitely started to learn about life at that time. There were many things that I didn’t understand but I understood many things about Love. I looked back at my life and I cried. The Love in “The New Testament” was so pure and embracing.

After some time and speaking with Ognyan I understood that there is heaven and hell and that only the Christians will go to heaven, those who believe in Jesus. It was very disturbing for me because I couldn’t believe that all other people that don’t believe in Jesus will “burn” in hell. All other so beautiful and GOOD people in hell, just couldn’t imagine it. I had so many friends who I loved and they loved me and I couldn’t imagine that they will go to hell. This was my major barrier to believe what most Christians believe. I was like in the middle of the love and wisdom I felt from “The New Testament” and this strange belief. I would go to a disco and listen to the nasty lyrics of the songs and would ask myself, “and these people will go to hell?”. The other thing that I was imagining was a world without the Bible, how could the people in such a world be saved.

All the inner conflict lasted about 2 months. As I was browsing the Internet I landed on a website with many many links. I scrolled it fast and there were stuffs like esoteric literature which were “forbidden” by the Bible, so I didn’t want to look at them. As I was scrolling down I thought, “hey what was that, something about the death” I scrolled up and it was written “near death experiences“. It sounded interesting and I checked it out. And as the most unexpected thing it changed my life again :). People who were dead had met God and experienced the Love and had been given a chance to return back to earth and share their experience. The main message was that nobody is condemned and we should love each other. These were real stories of real people, living people. Every story sounded so honest and had so much love inside. One of the things that I understood was that we create our own “hell” if we don’t love ourselves and the other people.

I tried to share these experiences with the Christians I knew, but when they just heard the title they rejected it and said that it was from the devil and I was riding for a fall. This was not uncommon for them, because they also rejected Vanga, a very well known psychic medium in Bulgaria. But I couldn’t understand why wouldn’t they believe that these experiences are true. Actually there were also many experiences with Jesus. But this is how they were. I believed in the near death experiences and I liked so much the life review.

I understood that God is what we make out of him and there is not only one way to God, but there are many ways. And people are on their ways no matter whether they realize it or not.

Then I and a friend of mine went to a meditation course of Amma in Hof Herrenberg, Germany. It was for 2 days and the people there were so kind. This was my first time when I went somewhere and people accepted me as though I was living there. The atmosphere was very peaceful and relaxing and it was a great retreat from my student life. In those two days I felt so lively and energetic. I didn’t know what meditation is and I don’t know whether I understood it, but the moments we spent there were fabulous.

I watched the movie “The Celestine Prophecy” and I was fascinated by it. It shows the energy in our world and the exchange of energy among people and nature. I was really inspired by it and when I walked I sent energy (positive thoughts) to the people passing by.

Then I watched the movie “Pay It Forward”. Incredible movie with incredible power behind a simple idea. Actually I watched the first 15 minutes of it and then I turned it off because there was something deep inside that I felt. I took some papers and went out to think about my life. I and some friends had an idea weeks ago, about a web site, which shows how people change the world into a better place. I imagined the web site in every possible language, accessible to many people. Everybody sharing his own way of changing the world for better. And it could benefit so many people, they could see that there are ways for a better life. I took the paper and draw a line in the middle and put on the left side how many people will change for better if I finished my bachelor of computer science. Obviously it was mainly me and my mother would be happy for me also. I would complete my degree and will be able after that to work and get a good job. On the right side I put myself putting all my power in realizing this web site. How many people could it affect. If at least 3 or 4 people were affected, then I would feel much better about what I have done.

So comparing the two paths that I could take I decided to follow my dreams. I dropped 5 exams from my semester in order to have free time to work on the web site. After spending some time researching I understood that this is a serious web site and I have to learn many things that I still didn’t know. And in the free time I started learning them and researching how it can be done. But dropping 5 exams actually didn’t gave me much time. I had to work in order to earn my own living and I needed some free time when I had to rest. Beside that I couldn’t manage my time very good and at some moments I wasn’t doing much about the idea. It took me 5 months to realize that what I wanted to do is very big and the responsibility about it is enormous. And I wasn’t ready for this. I also found out that I had so much to learn about love and good deeds. There were so many things that I missed about it and I wanted actually to participate in the changing of the world for better and not only programming the web site. The realization of these things came to me rather smoothly. All of these things revealed themselves with time.

There were so many things that I had to learn. I had to understand that all the power is within me and not somewhere else where the other people say or where I think it is.

Now I’m trying to follow what my heart says and I am sure that there are many other things to learn. And this site is about sharing the things that I have learned and experienced with you and all other people, things that may be helpful.