4. Methodological Principles of Spiritual Self-Perfection

General Theology - the Science about God / 4. Methodological Principles of Spiritual Self-Perfection

4. Methodological Principles of Spiritual Self-Perfection

4:1. The Perfection of the Creator has three main aspects. They are — Love, Wisdom and Power. Therefore, each human being in the course of the personal evolution should develop these three qualities.

4:2. Everyone should begin with accepting the following main ethical principles:

“Don’t do to others whatever you would not want them to do to you!”

and

“Help everyone in everything good!”

Then it would be appropriate to begin mastering the functions of the spiritual heart — an organ in the human multidimensional organism responsible for producing emotion of love.

4:3. The spiritual heart is a bioenergetic structure originally located in the chest. The first step of its development is mastered when it has filled the whole chest, what makes one capable of living in the state of stable concentration of the consciousness in the spiritual heart, perceiving the outer world with it and acting “from it”, including speaking.

When this is accomplished, and as long as one abides in the spiritual heart with the concentration of the consciousness, one is no longer able to enter into emotional states other than variations of cordial love.*

This radically changes one’s relationships with the environment, including other people. Also the health gets improved dramatically.

Those, who have settled in this state, who got used to and will continue living in it until the end of their incarnation, after leaving the body are going to appear among other blissful souls in paradise.

We have developed the methods of realization of what has been said above. These methods are described in detail in our books [3,4,6] and also demonstrated in our video films.

4:4. In order to succeed in spiritual development, one has to transform oneself into a large soul consisting primarily of the spiritual heart.

One should learn to live without leaving the emotions of Love: tender freshness, tactful care, willingness to help other people in everything good sincerely and selflessly, respect to all worthy ones, gratitude to anyone who helps, forgiveness of offenders, willingness to abandon oneself and sacrifice oneself for the sake of others. And even when fighting for the sake of others' good, one should not leave the state of Love.

Let everyone strive for ridding themselves of all kinds of arrogance, selfishness, greed, violence, and all kinds of the emotions of anger, including the emotions of condemnation, revengefulness, irritation, envy, and jealousy. The listed emotional states should be considered as adversary to Love.

Gaining full control over the emotional sphere is possible through intellectual work on identifying and overcoming own vices and cultivating missing positive qualities. It is advisable to supplement these efforts with mastering of the methods of psychic self-regulation, which are based on working with structures of the human organism responsible for generating emotions (these methods are described in the books [3-4,6,9]).

4:5. “God is Love”, taught Jesus Christ. He was this Love Himself. And He invited us to join Him in becoming this Love.

In order to be able to approach our Creator — Who is Love — we have to transform ourselves into Love. There is no other way.

And this is not just a slogan made up of nice words yet unfeasible, but a comprehensive system of knowledge and methods thoroughly tested and verified over decades by numerous spiritual seekers.

4:6. Development of the intellect is a crucial element of one’s spiritual advancement. Children should to be given education of as high quality as possible. Adults should always seek ways to acquire new knowledge — preferably that, which will be useful on the spiritual Path.

4:7. It makes sense to devote the professional activity not to earning money and accumulating material wealth, but to learning as much as possible in the beginning of our lives in order to use the acquired knowledge and skills in the future to serve God through serving other people.

4:8. Doing good deeds by helping other souls in their evolution — let this be the major incentive of everyone’s social activity.

Let it be sincere giving. Then other people — the best of them — will begin to respond by giving back. It is in this way that groups of true and reliable friends with common spiritual goals form.

4:9. Giving birth and proper upbringing of children is also a service to God.

4:10. In educating children, special techniques can be successfully used, which are quite helpful in preparing them for serious spiritual work in the future (basic principles of the methodology of such work and examples of specific methods are described in our book [9]).

4:11. Children should be involved in creative work at the level adequate for their age. Let them help parents in their work, let them take a paid job outside of school time. Teaching them various labor skills should become a part of school educational programs. Through this, children should learn to create and to value everything good created by others.

Otherwise, many children become destructive when they grow up.

4:12. Marriage and the education of children represent numerous excellent opportunities for self-perfection, primarily for development of such aspects of love as tenderness, attention, and altruism.

This experience also significantly contributes to the intellectual progress of an individual soul by providing numerous psychological lessons in particular.

God — as a Teacher — is the “Supreme Psychologist”. Thus, we should master psychology as well.

4:13. The prevailing opinion that the main task of man in relation to God consists in sole praying and that nothing else is necessary is deeply erroneous and harmful. One should realize that God does not need our prayers, which are begging, in essence. What God wants from us in the first place is righteousness expressed in ethically correct attitude toward all living beings, including other people, as well as toward Him. In particular, He wants us to seek Him, serve Him, learn to love Him, and strive for developing ourselves to such a degree that we can offer ourselves to Him as a gift, as perfect as possible.

It is this gift that God will be pleased to receive as an offering from man.

4:14. He does not need any killing of animals and plants as an “offering to God”. Those killings are just criminal acts and are not in any way “pleasing things to God”.

4:15. Implantation of the ideas of irreparably sinful human nature, nothingness of man who destined to remain an eternal antipode to God is an error and transgression in the face of God. It contradicts the very Intention that the Creator has for us. It creates a huge obstacle for spiritual growth.

4:16. It is better to begin the development of the power aspect of the soul through engaging in manual labor. If this is currently impossible, then various kinds of athletic training can be helpful.

It is necessary to have a strong and healthy body in order to advance successfully on the spiritual Path.

The power aspect of consciousness can be developed further through special methods of development of the energy structures of the organism and special meditations. But they can be taught only to intellectually mature people, who have gained the required subtlety of consciousness and the ability to remain in the emotional state of love for a long time.

4:17. The opinion that people attain paradise or end up in hell as a result of some particular action (or actions) is erroneous. Actions significant from the ethical standpoint determine one’s destiny only for the periods of embodiment — in the current or future incarnations.

But what determines the place, where one abides after the death of the body — be it hell, paradise or other spatial dimensions (including the Abode of the Creator) — is the state of consciousness one has accustomed oneself to during the life in the body.

People who get used to living in coarse emotional states, upon leaving the body continue to exist in these states among other beings similar to them.

Those who have lived (including the recent period before departing from the body) in subtle and pure cordial love, after death of the body find themselves in paradise.

But in order to reach the Abode of the Creator from the “starting” point of the paradisiacal state, one needs to go through a long and difficult meditative practice guided by one or several Divine Teachers. To this process one has to devote the whole life in order to succeed.

Let us emphasize that nobody can pass this part of the Path on their own. The errors made here can have grievous consequences. For example, it is possible “to get lost” in spatial dimensions... Or to break down as a result of some stressing factor and to lapse into coarse emotional states... This can wipe out all one’s positive meditative achievements and lead to serious diseases.

4:18. Spiritual work cannot be successful if it is performed by people using drugs, including alcohol and tobacco products.

4:19. The human organism is multidimensional and in this respect it is similar to the multidimensional Absolute. Therefore, the process of self-cognition coincides with the process of cognition of the Absolute.

In particular, everyone has their potential representation in the Abode of the Creator, which is called Atman or Higher Self.

4:20. One of the main tasks of the spiritual work is to transform the human egocentrism to God-centrism — both mentally and in meditative realization.

4:21. The finishing steps of spiritual ascent can be mastered only through monastic life.

4:22. Monasticism is unidirectionality of spiritual seeker’s consciousness focused on only one Goal — full cognition of God and merging with the Creator in His Abode, and also helping all worthy ones walking the same Path.

4:23. The tasks of a true monk cannot be accomplished by mere wearing special clothes, accepting new names, kow-towing and saying standard prayers. All this has nothing to do with the true monasticism.

4:24. Leading a parasitic way of life which is sometimes extolled as a virtue by adepts of some degenerated religious schools is in fact a vicious practice that has a detrimental effect on the destinies of the followers of this distortion.

God considers panhandling as an indecent occupation [1].

4:25. Celibacy (complete restraining from sexual contacts) is by no means a necessary attribute of the true monastic life. It rather does harm than helps on the spiritual Path, creating a sexual “dominant” (a dominating idea of sexual dissatisfaction) — instead of one’s having the Creator and the care for people as a sole dominant. Celibacy hinders the development of such important variations of love as sexually tinged tenderness, attention and care in relationships with the spouse and children.

Celibacy also can be harmful to one’s health causing sometimes prostatitis in men and neuroses, based on sexual dissatisfaction, in both men and women.

4:26. Having sex is not a “sin” by itself, as long as

a) no violence or doing any harm is involved,

b) partners are adequate,

c) sex does not overshadow more important aspects of life.

A harmonious sexual life is absolutely normal for all healthy adults, even for those who have devoted their lives completely to the attainment of the highest spiritual goals.

But people entering into a marriage should be at similar stages of their spiritual advancement [1].

4:27. Recent popularization of the idea that “the more sex — the more spirituality” is another extreme, no less harmful for spiritual development. In this case sex is brought into the center of attention, instead of the Creator, multi-aspect self-development, and participation in the Evolutionary Process through service to God, which consists in helping other people in their earthly existence and facilitating their spiritual progress.

“Where your treasure is there your heart will be also”, taught Jesus Christ.