We have already discussed that in order to realize the meaning of our lives as humans, to realize our Love to God that should manifest in the desire to serve Him, cognize Him, become like Him, and to merge with Him in the Embraces of Eternal Love, — we have to grow ourselves as spiritual hearts and to refine ourselves as consciousness.
But there is another aspect of self-development that needs to be understood and fulfilled. I am talking about the destruction of one’s lower self (ego).
Lower self is a part of a person that manifests itself as a feeling of separate existence, isolation from the All, from the Absolute.
A large number of vices are manifestations of a pathologically inflated lower self. Among these are greed, the desire to take possession of what belongs to others, arrogance, pride, conceit, resentfulness, anger, revengefulness, jealousy, self-admiration, attachment to material objects, and so on.
All this creates trouble and pain to both other people who surround such a person and to him. He cannot be loved and respected by people. Moreover, actions performed under influence of this kind of emotions form a negative karma (destiny) for him. While coarsening of consciousness, which inevitably results from the domination of coarse negative states, steers the development of such a person into a demoniac pattern and determines for him hell after death.
This is why Jesus put such a great emphasis in His preachings on the importance of conquering the “sticking out” lower selves of His disciples. In particular, He taught never to sit on the “high” place, to think “big” of oneself; on the contrary: He said that he who is willing to serve people should feel himself as their servant. (More details you may find in [9]).
Lao Tse, Krishna, Gautama Buddha, and Babaji, taught the same. Today this is taught by Sathya Sai Baba [9].
The opposite qualities to those of the “protruding” lower self, which is proud, boastful, arrogant, self-admiring, touchy, rude, hasty, revengeful, envious, irritable, angry, greedy, lascivious, — are simplicity and humility (humble thinking of oneself) [8-10].
The studying of spiritual literature, in particular “The Philokalia” [37], can help in acquiring these qualities. The mistakes that a person discovers in himself must become subject of a thorough intelligent repenting, which we have discussed in detail in books [4-8,10].
But the ultimate solution of this problem can come only through practice of meditation.
The point is that it is impossible to be in the Divine eons as a separate entity: one can be there only in a “dissolved” state, the state of “non-I”. When a drop of water gets into an ocean it must dissolve in it, disintegrate into molecules. If this does not happen — then the drop will not be identical to the ocean and will not become a part of it, no matter how many times it dips into or swims inside it.
The same is true for us: for the sake of Mergence with our beloved Creator we have to sacrifice our selves — they have to die. Only in this case we can associate with His Self — our Higher Self.
… But let no one think that it can be accomplished as a result purely mental process. No. In order to realize the Mergence with the Creator one has to go a long Path of purifying oneself of vices and refining of one’s consciousness. One’s love to the Creator has to be so strong that it would enable one to renounce all “earthly” goals. One has to get into the highest eon and to bring up the Atmic energy kundalini to and move it through the body. Upon coming through the body it merges into the Creator. Starting from this moment a person may consider a part of “himself” as already being in Him [7]. And all that remains to accomplish is to learn to shift the concentration of self-awareness in That part of oneself and to dissolve There along with it.
And then, being Him, we need to learn to act from Him using our physical bodies… In this case we become like Divine Teachers.
* * *
Once God told me:
— A death of your body is possible tomorrow. Be ready.
And after some time He added:
— You should have more humility.
… Winter. Morning. It is still dark. I walk down the road with a backpack. Along the sides of the road there are high walls of packed snow that has been cleared off the road.
All of a sudden I see headlights: a tractor is rushing at high speed by the shoulder of the road right towards my body. It is impossible to jump aside to the road: there is a dense traffic there. I am pressing into the snow wall hoping that the tractor will pass by. No: it proceeds without slowing down or turning aside. A deliberate run-over attempt! At the last instant I jump on the snow wall, cling onto it — hoping that the body does not start sliding down! The vehicle flashes by within less than an inch of my feet. I survive! If the body had slid down — the severe injuries would have been inevitable.
I walk further, thinking. An ordinary man would have burst with negative emotions: offence, spite, a desire to avenge oneself, etc. Or rather, it is his lower self that would have burst. How did he dare?! Bustard! Catch him! Punish! And if it is impossible to catch and punish — it all translates into prolonged stress, stenocardia, high blood pressure, stroke, infarct, etc. …
In cases like that it is best to recall the words of Juan Matus that he said to Carlos Castaneda (see the review in [9]):
“A (spiritual) warrior could be injured but not offended. For a warrior there is nothing offensive about the acts of his fellow men…
The other night you were not offended by the lion. The fact that it chased us did not anger you. I did not hear you cursing it, nor did I hear you say that he had no right to follow us. It could have been a cruel and malicious lion for all you know.
To achieve the mood of a warrior is not a simple matter. To regard the lion and the water rats and our fellow men as equals is a magnificent act of the warrior’s spirit. It takes power to do that.”
Sufis say [86] that there are three types of people:
1. Demoniac;
2. Animal-like, who live only primitive instincts and whose intellect can be compared with that of animals;
3. People who are capable of engaging in a serious spiritual practice.
If we get stuck in the conflicts that representatives of the first two groups thrust on us we will not only lose such a precious time that God allotted us for self-perfection in these our bodies. But we also run the risk of growing embittered, accustoming ourselves to anger… and becoming like them — without even noticing it.
Temptations to get involved in the conflicts, in which interests of the lower self are being vindicated, are a sort of “filters” that stand in the way to the Abode of the Creator. Only those who are free of self-centeredness can pass through them.
… Looking back at my life I clearly realize now that I could not have accomplished anything serious either for myself or for other people if I had not learned to ignore insults, slander, betrayals, and even murdering of my body performed by a gang created by my former student who had refused to follow the fundamental principles of spiritual practice [4,10].
… How many people in today’s Russia have the only dominant in their life: hatred towards those who depraved them of their savings in bank deposits and investments in various financial “pyramids”! But what sense does it make to dedicate years of one’s life to this “warfare” of emotions? There is no way one can retrieve the money, anyway: it is simply gone, regardless of the courts’ verdicts in one’s favor. But we have this life not for wasting it in the attempts to draw our money to ourselves. It was given to us so that we could draw ourselves to the Creator!
But anger, even “righteous”, — can lead us only to hell.
… I also know very well what a desperate (as it seemed then) lack of money is.
When KGB prosecuted me for my religious convictions — in the “soviet” times, I sometimes had to collect and turn in empty bottles from the streets.
Or when my body was crippled by that gang and I was disabled for several months — I also had no money. I could not even receive any “sick leave” compensation: the center where I had worked before it happened had been closed by me. And my “best friends” who used to travel with me tens of kilometers to the woods and even to seminars in Moscow (from Saint-Petersburg) decided that they could not receive anything from me anymore and thus lost any interest in me. At that time, when it was not them, but I who needed help, it turned out that I lived “too far away”: one long hour of traveling by subway… In this manner God showed me the true nature of those to whom I was going to dedicate my life…
At that time we lived together with my mother on her pension. But she died soon: her heart could not withstand the view of her son’s crippled body…
But God used to say all the time then:
— Do not worry about money! Come to Me! I will take care about the rest.
And He ordered me to write books: the first one, then the second, the third… Every time publishing them turned out to be a problem. But the resolution would always turn up somehow. Along the way He introduced me to new (for me) types of people: liars, thieves, those who were willing to do something for other people only for money, or primitive people who would set to leading others on the “spiritual path”…
But I also met those who saw a long-awaited Good in me, and the Creator behind me — they would begin to help me, although they lacked the resolution necessary to make their own spiritual efforts…
He also brought to me those who were able to effortlessly master the most complex things and demonstrated an absolute devotion to the cause. They were the people, who, as Krishna said in the Bhagavad Gita [9], already sought for the Creator in their past lives; and now He was presenting them with buddhi-yoga through me — so that they could get close to and merge into Him soon.
* * *
Everyone chooses their own abode themselves: some choose hell, some — paradise, while the others — the Abode of the Creator.
It is a pity though, that there are so few people on Earth, especially in our long-suffering country, who posses sufficient knowledge that would allow them to make a deliberate choice…
“There is no life except for the life to come!” — this is how one of the most important and fundamental themes for meditation is worded in the Quran [9]. In other words, this life in the body is but a preparation for the life “on the other side”, which usually is much longer than the one on the Earth. And one must live one’s earthly life having a profound understanding of mechanisms of destiny formation, the true meaning and the Purpose of life, and the ways of their realization.
