Love is the death of the ego. Death of the Ego: Destruction and the Experience of Enlightenment Sooner or later, a person who has embarked on the Path is noticed by higher forces of various directions, both dark and light.

Death of the ego is life in love

First question:

Osho, yesterday you said that science and religion are diametrically opposed. But in the West there are many schools that teach scientific mysticism, and the teachings of Tantra and Yoga are very systematic. And your books are also very rational. It seems to me that there is a bridge between rational science and irrational religion.

Comment, please.

The bridge exists, and it exists only because science and religion are diametrically opposed. There is an abyss between them, and a bridge can be thrown across this abyss.

Opposites can meet, but this meeting is possible only because they are opposites. Opposites attract. It is from this that the movement and dynamics of life arise - man and woman, yin and yang, matter and spirit, earth and sky, etc. A bridge can only arise between opposites. If there is no inconsistency, confrontation, the bridge is simply not needed.

So, first of all, you need to understand that science and religion really diametrically opposed, but they can be connected by a bridge. The bridge will not make them one. In fact, the bridge will make their differences even more pronounced, even more noticeable.

Religion may have a scientific tinge, it may be systematic, methodical, but it will never become a science, it will always remain mystical. It can adopt something from science, for example, its approach, terminology, but at the same time it will still remain mysticism, poetry.

Poetry can be translated into the language of prose, prose can be translated into the language of poetry. But translating prose into the language of poetry will not turn it into poetry—it will remain prose. And the translation of poetry into the language of prose Not make prose out of it, it will remain poetry. Buddha speaks in prose, but what he says is poetry.

I am not a poet. I speak prose, but what I say is poetry, the soul of my words is poetry. And it remains poetry.

Religion can use scientific systematization - that's what Tantra and yoga have done. Science may use mysticism as a method of penetrating reality—all great scientists have done so—but it is still science. She relies primarily on reason. Religion does not rely on reason. Religion may become scientific at its periphery, but at its core it remains irrational. At the periphery, science can become very, very poetic, but at the core it remains rational.

Albert Einstein and other great scientists, great explorers, are very much like mystics. Their exploration of reality is almost identical to William Blake's exploration of reality. Einstein's eyes are mystical, but deep down he relies on reason. Even if, with the help of his poetic feelings, with the help of intuition, he makes some kind of discovery, he immediately translates it into the language of reason. He can trust it only when it becomes rational.

And the same thing happens with the mystic: even if he learns something very rational about reality, he transforms this knowledge into irrational, he translates it into the language of poetry.

They are opposites, but they can be bridged - and they always connect when you meet a contradictory person. But such a person is always contradictory. He speaks two languages ​​at the same time, he speaks in contradictions, paradoxes. All great scientists and all great mystics are paradoxical.

A master - of religion or science - simply has to be paradoxical. It cannot be one-dimensional, it must be in harmony with both realities - but then it is very, very difficult to understand.

It is difficult for you with me, because I am talking about the irrational, but I am talking about it rationally. I completely for inconsistency. But my approach? I gradually convince you of the illogical with the help of logic. I prove the illogical by citing arguments. And my argument for the illogical is necessarily logical, because the argument as such cannot be illogical—it must be logical.

Recently I mentioned that the ancient scriptures said that at the entrance to every temple there should be at least one image maithun- at least one. If there is more, fine. The Master is the entrance, the door, the gate. With his feet he goes into the ground, and with his hands he touches the sky. The Master is the bridge between the mind and the non-reason. The Master is the bridge between religion and science, between love and logic. The master is the gate, so he can convince you, he can use logical reasoning, but his goal is the illogical. And as soon as he manages to convince you, he pushes you into the mysterious, into the incomprehensible. This is a quantum leap.

I would like to tell you something more about this ancient tradition. All Indian medieval manuals for architects prescribe the obligatory presence of sculpture. maithun at the entrance to the temple.

"Maithun" is a Sanskrit word with a very deep meaning. It does not mean an ordinary sexual act and not an ordinary couple of lovers, it means Unio Mystica- mystical union. It means two people so deeply merged into each other that they are no longer two separate people. It's not just a couple making love, it's Love in which the vapor has dissolved. This is a state of dissolution in each other, merging into one whole.

Other guides for architects say that the temple should be the meeting of heaven and earth. The earth is visible, logical, material. The sky is vague, hazy, indefinite. The temple must be a place where the definite meets the indefinite. The temple should be the place where the known meets the unknown.

A man is logical, he personifies logic, mathematics, systematization, science. A woman is illogical, she is intuition, feelings, emotions, poetry, vague, indefinite and indefinable. Image maithun symbolizes this meeting of the logical and the illogical, mind and heart, body and soul - all pair of opposites yin and yang. And when yin and yang meet, merge and become one, a temple arises. Love is a temple, it is an orgasm, a state of orgasmic flow in which you do not know who you are - a man or a woman, in which there are no identifications, all identifications disappear when you are in a state of self-forgetfulness And self-remembering... forgetting everything you knew about yourself and remembering everything you really are, forgetting yourself as an ego and remembering yourself as a whole. That's the meaning maithun.

Maithun means two lovers in a state of deep union, in a state of inner marriage - not only outer marriage. Surprisingly, only man is able to achieve the state of inner marriage - animals are not capable of this. Have you ever seen animals make love? You will never see ecstasy in their faces, never in their eyes. Intercourse occurs with them as something prosaic, as a biological phenomenon. They do it as if they are carrying out a heavy duty.

Biologists and physiologists have come to the conclusion that female animals never experience orgasm, they do not know orgasm. Orgasm is a human privilege. Orgasm is an internal marriage. And even a person...

In the past, ninety percent of women did not experience orgasm - which means that they were unaware of internal marriage. Their love remained biological. Nature used them for reproduction, but there was no meditativeness in this. I believe that it was because of this phenomenon that all ancient religions were against sex - sex personified the animal nature. But they did not know that man is capable of transcending sex – and this is possible only through sex – that man is capable of reaching the inner through the outer. What is impossible for an animal is possible for a human being. A person can reach such a state of orgasm, ecstasy, when sex itself loses its meaning and is left behind. Bodies lose their meaning, minds lose their meaning. A person plunges into the innermost depths of his being - and even if only for a moment, he comes into contact with God.

Maithun is such a deep, incredibly deep love that it allows you to see God.

Maithun- this is a couple that ceases to be a couple, this is a state when a couple remains only externally, and inside it merges into one. For a moment, duality is overcome, harmony and complete harmony are achieved - that is why orgasm brings such relaxation. William Reich is right: if a person becomes capable of experiencing orgasmic joy, then madness, all kinds of neuroses and psychoses will disappear from the face of the Earth.

Tantra says the same. But the image maithun on the threshold of the temple required considerable courage. It was a profoundly revolutionary step. Those people must have been very brave. Thus, they proclaimed: "Only with the help of love can one unite diametrical opposites."

Master is love. The master is constantly in a state of orgasm. He is unity. His duality is gone. He knows that there is only oneness. In this state, opposites unite.

At the entrance to the temple, a man and a woman are depicted, merged in deep love, in a great ecstasy of unity: they dissolved and merged into one, and this one is deeper and higher than the two of them put together.

You must fall in love with the master. The Master is the door to God. You must learn to merge with the master, to become one with him. Only then will you know the connection.

A man and a woman stand on the threshold of the temple, imbued with a God called Love. And exactly the same should be the relationship between the student and the master: imbued with deep, boundless love. It is not sexual, not physical love - but it is the same as that which occurs between lovers. She is the same! The climax is the same! Lovers go through physiology, through biology, they go a long way to reach that climax. The disciple and the master reach it instantly. They do not take detours, they do not go through the body or through the mind. This is the meaning of surrender to the master, shraddha, or trust.

Their love opens the door to a new perception, a new view of reality. This new view of reality connects diametrical opposites. They move from the ordinary to the extraordinary, from prose to poetry, from logic to love, from separateness to unity, from ego to ego dissolution.

Have you ever noticed how this happens? In deep love, the ego disappears. He is not. So I insist: when you make love, do not forget at least once, reaching the peak, look inside. Is there an ego there? This experience can become satori.

Usually you don't look inside. You are so absorbed in the pleasure of love, the joy of love, that you forget about meditation. If in the moment of dissolution you remember, if you remember and look within, you will never be the same again. When you come out of love, you will become a completely new person. will be born in you new person. You will see and perceive reality in a new way.

Once you see that the ego does not exist, you will not let it in. And if it does come back, when you have deep understanding, you will know that it is false, that it is not real.

Lovers go from time to timelessness. Watch: at the moment of climax, time disappears. For a moment, time stops, the whole world stops, all movement stops. This stoppage of movement and time is what we call "peak", climax, orgasm.

With a master, time can also stop. And it stops! Every day it stops for many people here. For a moment. You merge with me, you are no more, I am no more – we disappear. And something arises that goes beyond our limits: we enter the temple, we connect opposites.

In fact, reality cannot be divided, it cannot be divided into logic and love, into time and eternity, into body and soul, into God and matter - it is indivisible. Although there are opposites, they are not at odds, but complement each other. They support each other. Without one, the other is impossible.

Is it possible to imagine poetry if there is no logic? Is it possible to imagine logic if there is no love? They look like opposites, but deep down they support, nourish and strengthen each other.

So connection is possible, but it is always due to love. It always comes through the gate. Gates I call the master.

In a moment of love or trust... you just Here and now! In the infinite now and the absolute here. You are on the threshold.

Remember: the threshold is the entrance. Porfiry wrote: "The threshold is a shrine." The threshold is what connects opposites. What is a temple really? Threshold. The temple connects this world with the other world, it connects the market and meditation. That is why the temple stands on the market square - it should stand there.

And so I insist: do not renounce the world - be in it! And while remaining in this world, look for another, and you will find it. It's hidden somewhere here in the market. If you listen carefully to the noise of the market, you will be surprised - there is music hidden in it, great music! Drop your likes and dislikes. Listen carefully. Get in touch with him. And everywhere in the known you will find the unknown, in the visible you will find the invisible.

Porfiry is right, the threshold is sacred. The threshold is the boundary between this and that, between two worlds: the ordinary, the wicked, and the transcendent, the sacred. A threshold is a line, a point at which we move from one level of consciousness to another, from one reality to another, from one life to another life. Entering the temple symbolizes entering one's own depths - or heights. Existentially they are one and the same. Call it depth or height, in fact, these words mean the same thing - the vertical dimension.

There are two dimensions: horizontal and vertical. The threshold connects both of these dimensions. Ordinary worldly life is a horizontal dimension, religious life is a vertical one. Let me remind you of christian cross: it symbolizes these two dimensions, horizontal and vertical. The cross is a beautiful symbol, the cross means the threshold. The cross is the bridge where the horizontal and the vertical meet, where the ordinary and the extraordinary meet.

And, of course, the most natural metaphor for entering and entering is lovemaking. An ancient text says: “A place where cows frolicked with bulls accompanied by their cubs, or a place where lovely women flirting with their lovers is a suitable place for a temple."

Strange statement. Listen again. You will be shocked, especially Hindus, Christians, Buddhists – everyone will be shocked. But this statement is from an ancient oriental text. It reads: "A place where cows frolicked with bulls accompanied by their cubs, or a place where beautiful women flirted with their lovers, is a suitable place for a temple."

A strange but extremely important saying. That's the way it should be. The temple should be a connection, a bridge.

You say: “Yesterday you said that science and religion are diametrically opposed.”

Yes. They are diametrically opposed, so they are attracted like a man and a woman. They may fall in love with each other. And they also complement each other – all opposites complement each other.

And you continue: "There are many schools in the West that teach scientific mysticism, and the teachings of Tantra and Yoga are very systematic."

True, scientific mysticism can be taught, but mysticism always transcends science. That's exactly what I'm doing here! I teach you logical illogicality, scientific mysticism, worldly religion.

Remember, whenever something true happens, there is a paradox because a bridge is needed. And yet, mysticism is mysticism, science can be used as a means, but mysticism will never become science. Its highest flight remains unscientific, transcendent.

Tantra and yoga are indeed very systematic, but only at a certain stage. After some practice, they push you into the chaos, they push you into the chaos of existence where there are no systems – because all systems are small, all systems are tight prisons built by the mind.

Prison is very systematic. Don't you know? Have you ever been in prison? Go see... It's the most systematic thing in the world. Your home is not as systematic as a prison - everything is orderly there, everything goes according to certain rules. Prisoners get up early in the morning strictly in certain time, have breakfast, wash, they live almost like robots - everything is systematized.

In fact, when everything is too systematic, you end up in a prison, you lose your freedom. Freedom requires chaos.

Psychologists have noticed a strange thing. It lies in the fact that in the army people are taught to be systematic, and their goal is war, their goal is to create chaos, their goal is death, their goal is to kill and be killed. Their goal is to destroy. Their target is Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And yet, the military is extremely systematic. The army strictly observes order in order to create disorder. See this complementarity? The army maintains order in order to create disorder.

What about the other opposite? Artists create order out of disorder, but they lead a very disorderly, slovenly, idle life. If you see how an artist lives, you will start thinking about suicide. Just disgusting! No system. Look at Chaitanya Hari - when he goes to bed, when he gets up - no system. But he creates beautiful music, he creates order.

Artists create order, so they must complement this with disorder in their lives. The military creates disorder and therefore must complement this with order in their lives. Everything exists in balance.

The Enlightened Ones Speak Very logical because their goal is illogicality. Modern physicists speak absolutely illogically – the theory of relativity is illogical. The theory of uncertainty is illogical. Non-Euclidean geometry is illogical. Higher mathematics is illogical. They Very illogical, but they create logic, their goal is logic. They strive for order.

You will find this balance everywhere. Life cannot be one-sided, otherwise it will cease to exist. She needs both day and night, and summer and winter, and birth and death, she needs love and hate.

So, I say that science and religion are diametrically opposed, but I'm not saying that their connection is impossible - the connection is always and constantly. It occurs both from the side of science and from the side of religion. And when that happens, a great master appears, a Buddha or an Einstein. Every time a connection occurs, an amazing phenomenon occurs.

Second question:

Osho, could you talk about dreams? IN Lately I often dream that I am dreaming and that I experience painful situations from the past or the future and behave differently in them. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night or after a short afternoon nap feeling as terrified and defenseless as if I were five years old. Ever since I've been here, I've been constantly feeling your presence in my dreams. What do all these new experiences mean? I know you don't attach much importance to what happens to us in sleep, but isn't sleep part of finding yourself?

Savita, whether you see dreams or not, you still sleep. Whether you dream with your eyes closed or with your eyes open, it doesn't matter. You see dreams both at night and during the day. There are night dreams and there are day dreams. You just go from one dream to another - from one kind of dream to another.

Listen... You sleep at night and you have a dream, then suddenly your dream is interrupted and you feel terrified, but it is also a dream. Now you dream of horror, defenselessness, fear. Then you fall asleep again and start having another dream. In the morning you open your eyes and start dreaming open eyes. Dreams go in a continuous succession. Your mind is made of dreams. Your mind is made up of dreams.

Remember the one who sees dreams. Wake up and realize the witness. Pay no attention to dreams.

This is the difference between East and West. Western psychology has become too addicted to dreams, to the analysis of dreams. She believes that it is necessary to delve into dreams.

Savita is a doctor, a psychoanalyst, therefore, naturally, she is offended by the fact that I belittle or do not attach importance to your dreams. Do not be offended - I have a completely different approach. If you analyze dreams, they will never end. By analyzing dreams, you may begin to understand them better, but awareness will not happen in this way. Thanks to dream analysis, you may even begin to dream good dreams but good dreams are still dreams. By analyzing dreams, you may begin to understand your hidden motives, repressed desires, aspirations, but you will never know who you are. How can you understand who you are by analyzing dreams? Dreams are the object and you are the subjects. You must commit paravritti, you must turn one hundred and eighty degrees. You need to stop paying attention to dreams and start paying attention to the dreamer.

The East is interested in the observer, not in the observed. Whether you see a tree in reality or you dream of a tree, it doesn't matter. For the eastern approach, it does not matter whether the tree is in a dream or in reality. In both cases it is an object, in both cases you are not. Then what difference does it make, does this tree exist in reality, or do you only dream of it?

The only thing that matters is the person, the mirror in which the tree is reflected - real or unreal, it doesn't matter. What matters is the surface inside you clean water, in which it is reflected ... Transfer your attention to the witness, enter deeper into the witness.

And that is precisely what my task here is to help you - and not to analyze your dreams. You can do it in the West, and in a much more scientific way. The West has made great strides in the art of dream analysis. The East, on the other hand, has never been interested in dreams, asserting that everything is a dream - so what is the point in their analysis?

And the dreams have no end. If you analyze dreams and their source does not disappear, it will constantly produce more and more dreams. Dreams will be dreamed endlessly ... That is why no one has ever been able to conduct a complete psychoanalysis of a person. There is not a single person on Earth who has been truly and completely analyzed, because the goal of complete psychoanalysis is the disappearance of dreams. But that doesn't happen. This did not happen even with Freud or Jung. They continued to dream. This means that they continued to live with their repressed desires and fears, and this means that they continued to be the way they were. Dreams continued to be dreamed because no fundamental change had taken place in their source.

The movie projector works, and you continue to analyze the film on the screen and constantly think about how to analyze it. But you are all different, and you have different methods of analysis - so there are different schools of psychoanalysis. Freud says one thing, Jung another, Adler a third, and so on. Now there are so many types of psychoanalysis, so many psychoanalysts, and everyone has their own opinion, and it is impossible to convince anyone. Because this is all a dream.

Whatever you say, if you say it loudly, convincingly, authoritatively, logically, backing it up with arguments, people like it - it seems to them the truth. And everyone seems to be right All interpretations seem right because no interpretation is worth anything. All interpretations are wrong!

In the East there is a completely different approach: observe - do not analyze. Analyzing, you are too fond of sleep. Forget about the dream - look at the viewer. The viewer is unchanged. He dreams at night and he dreams during the day. First you have a dream, then suddenly you wake up and you see horror. Then you fall asleep again and have a pleasant dream, beautiful dream, a happy dream or again a nightmare ... and so it goes on again and again. One thing is invariable: the spectator, the observer, the witness.

Pay attention to the witness. And what I'm trying to tell you is that while you're dreaming day and night, the only good thing about those dreams is that you say, "Since I've been here, I've been constantly feeling your presence in my dreams."

This is good. At least there is always something that can help you find yourself. Pay more attention to this presence.

Gurdjieff used to say to his disciples: “Do the same thing over and over in your sleep, and sooner or later you will get rid of dreams.” He gave simple techniques, simple tricks - and they worked! To one man he said: “Each time you dream, try to see that you are raising your hand above your head. At first do it many times a day to get used to it, soon you will do it almost automatically, and then you will be able to raise your hand above your head even in your sleep. The man asked, "And what will happen?" “When you succeed, come and tell me,” Gurdjieff replied.

Three months passed, during which this man every day, constantly, during walks and during meals, every time he remembered, raised his hand and said to himself: "Tonight I will raise my hand in my sleep."

And now, three months later, one night he dreamed that he was walking along a road along which many cars were driving, it was very noisy, and suddenly he remembered and raised his hand above his head - the dream stopped. And in That the moment the dream stopped, he suddenly saw himself for the first time - there was a turn, a conversion. It happened in the middle of the night. He jumped up and began to dance, he was overwhelmed with joy. Since then the dreams have disappeared.

And when dreams disappear, reality gets closer and closer every day. It is dreams that prevent you from seeing what is really there.

Arriving in the morning to Gurdjieff, he did not have time to utter a word, as Gurdjieff said: “So, it happened - I see that your eyes are shining and shining differently. They got clarity. The dreams that constantly passed before your eyes disappeared. So it happened! You were able to raise your hand! Now don't worry: as soon as you have a dream, raise your hand. Most likely, dreams will no longer appear, because you have consciously done at least one thing. Even in your dream you remembered to raise your hand. You remembered a trifle, but remembering itself is a great thing. You remembered even in a dream. So, you have found a watcher – now there is no reason to worry.”

I would like to say to Savita: “Invite me into your dreams as often as possible. Let me enjoy them too. Sleep every night with the knowledge that I will be in your dream. Let it be a conscious effort, an intention, and one day it will happen. It won't be just a dream. I will be present in it just as I am present here, or even more, because now I see dreams in your eyes. If in a dream you see me as I really am, even for a moment, all dreams will disappear.

The analysis is useless. Dreams must go. When dreams go, reality comes. Dreams will come out through one door, reality will come in through another door. And reality is silence, silence, peace, bliss…

Third question:

Osho, why does it feel like you are dying when you love? Is love the desire to commit suicide? Or just a self-destructive instinct, like lemmings throwing themselves into the sea, or moths flying into a fire? All this is strange...

Love- This death but the one who dies in love never really existed. The unreal "I" dies, only the idea of ​​the ego dies.

So love is death, it is suicide, it is dangerous. That is why millions of people have decided not to love. They live without love. They have made their choice in favor of the ego – but the ego is false. You can constantly cling to the false, but it will never become real. Therefore, in the life of an egoist there is never confidence and peace. How can you turn the fake into the real? It always disappears. You have to cling to it and constantly recreate it. This is self-deception. And it creates suffering.

Suffering is a function of the unreal. Real bliss - sat-chit-anand. Truth is blissful, and truth is awareness. Sat means truth cheat means consciousness, anand means bliss. These are the three qualities of truth: truthfulness, awareness, bliss.

The unreal is suffering. Hell is that which does not exist, but that you create yourself, and heaven is that which exists, but that you do not want to accept. Paradise is a place where you really are, but you don't have the courage to enter it. Hell is your own creation. But because it is your own creation, you cling to it.

Man has never left God. He lives in God, but still suffers because he creates a little hell around him. Paradise does not need to be created - it is already there, you just need to relax and enjoy it. Hell has to be created.

Take life lightly. There is no need to create anything, there is no need to protect anything, and there is no need to hold on to anything. What really is will exist whether you hold on to it or not. And what is not in reality cannot remain, whether you hold on to it or not. What is, is, and what is not, is not.

You ask: "Why does it feel like you're dying when you love?"

Because the ego dies, the fake dies. Love opens the door to the real. Love is the gate of the temple. Love opens you to God. It brings great joy, but also great fear: your ego disappears. And you have invested so much in it. You lived for his sake, you were taught and brought up for his sake. Your parents, your priests, your politicians, your education, your school, your college, your university, they all created your ego. They created ambitions, they are factories for the production of ambitions. And one day you find yourself crippled by your own ambitions, locked up in the cage of your own ego. You suffer a lot, but you have been taught all your life that your ego is of great value, so you go on holding on to it - you suffer and still hold on to it. And the more you hold on, the more you suffer.

There are times when God comes and knocks at your door. This is love - God knocking at your door. Through a woman, through a man, through a child, through love, through a flower, through sunset or dawn… God can knock in a million different ways. But every time God knocks on your door, you become afraid. The priests, the politicians, the parents have created the ego – and it is in danger. It starts to feel like it's dying. You retreat. You are holding yourself back. You close your eyes, close your ears - you don't hear the knocking. You hide back into your hole. You close the doors.

Love is like death - it is death. And whoever wants to know true bliss must go through this death, since resurrection is possible only after death.

Jesus is right in saying that you should carry your cross on your shoulders. You must die. He says, "Until you are born again, you will not see my kingdom, you will not see what I teach you." And he says, "Love is God." He is right, because love is the gate.

Die in love. It is much more beautiful than living in the ego. This is much closer to the truth than living in the ego. The life of the ego is the death of love. The death of the ego is the life of love. Remember, when you choose the ego, you are choosing real death, because that is the death of love. And when you choose love, you choose an unreal death, because when the ego dies you don't lose anything - from the very beginning you had nothing.

This is the point dock Ikkyu. You are not, so why be afraid? Who will die? Nobody to die! Who are you holding on to? Who do you wish to save? Who do you want to protect and hide under armor? Nobody here. There is only emptiness... emptiness... total emptiness.

Listen to the song Ikkyu. Accept this emptiness and fear will disappear. Be a moth when you find the bright flame of love! Fly into it... and you will lose the false and gain the real, lose your dreams and gain the ultimate reality. You will lose something that was not there and gain something that has always been.

Fourth question:

Osho, why is the relationship between a Western woman and an Eastern man unfortunate? They always break at some point. What is the real problem preventing a relationship from reaching maturity?

All relationships break at some point - they have to break. You can't build a house on your doorstep, and you shouldn't. Love is a door: go through it. Pass, do not avoid. If you avoid it, you will not see the deity in the temple. But you should not build your house on the threshold, at the door. Don't stay there.

Love relationships are necessary, but they are not the end goal, relationships are not the end, but only the beginning. I am for love. But remember: love also needs to be transcended.

There are two types of people - and both become neurasthenics. The first type includes people who are terribly afraid of love because they are afraid to die. They are attached to the ego. They avoid love. They call it religion, but it cannot be religion – it is just ego and nothing else. That's why monks - Catholic, Hindu, Buddhist - have such strong egos, subtle but very strong, hidden but powerful. Their humility is superficial, like a sweet icing on a poisonous ego. Their egos are pious, but egos are egos. Moreover, the pious ego is more dangerous than the ordinary ego, because the ordinary ego is obvious, it cannot be hidden. The pious ego is hidden and can be carried around forever.

So this is the first type of neurosis: people avoid love and think they are going to God. But in this way you cannot come to God, because you have passed by the door.

The second type of neurosis occurs when people see the beauty of love, when they have the courage to plunge into it and dissolve their ego for a few moments... because in love the ego can only dissolve for a few moments. The ecstasy of love cannot be eternal, because it is an ecstasy caused by the meeting and dissolution of two particles in each other. Unless you dissolve into the whole, you cannot know eternal ecstasy. Dissolving with a particle - with a man, with a woman - you dissolve only with a drop of God. But it's not the ocean yet. Yes, for a moment you will taste it, but then the taste will disappear. This leads to the second type of neurosis: people become attached to love relationship. If love passes with one woman, with one man, they find another woman, another man, and so on endlessly. They start living on the doorstep. They forget the deity, they forget the temple. Love must be transcended and prayer must be attained.

Don't succumb to the first type neurosis and avoid the second type neurosis. Move on.

The great emperor Akbar built himself a beautiful capital in India. But this city was never used for its intended purpose, because Akbar died before its construction was completed. Therefore, the capital was never moved from Delhi to this city. The city is called Fatehpur Sikri. It is one of the most beautiful cities ever built, but no one has ever lived in it.

Everything was thought out to the smallest detail. For advice, they turned to the great architects and the great masters of that time. Akbar asked all the great teachers of India to give him a little saying that could be written on the gate at the entrance. At Fatehpur, Sikri led a bridge across the river, and Akbar built a beautiful gate on the bridge. One Sufi suggested a saying of Jesus, and Akbar liked it. Many sayings were offered, but he chose this one, and it was written on the gate. This saying is wonderful. It is not in the Bible, it came from another, oral source. It says: "Life is a bridge, walk on it, but don't build a house on it."

Love is also a bridge. You have to go through it.

So no love affair never is not successful. It gives you hope, great hope, but it always ends in disappointment. This disappointment is an integral part of love, just like ecstasy. At the beginning - ecstasy, at the end - disappointment. But disappointment helps you move on, otherwise how can you do it? Will you look for the true deity in the temple if you are tied to the door? If you think, “The door is enough for me, I am satisfied,” you will never go further.

Jesus says that man reaches God through love, that love is God, but that is only one part of the truth. The second part is this: man never reaches God through love - he reaches God only when he goes beyond love. If both parts are understood correctly, you have understood the phenomenon of love. Love is God, and love is not God. In the beginning she is God, in the end she is not. In the beginning it brings ecstasy, a honeymoon, but then comes the disappointment, the boredom that ends every marriage.

Imagine two people sitting side by side - they are bored. Everything has already been explored, and there is nothing more to explore. This is the turning point! Either you start looking for another man, another woman, or you start going beyond love.

You have lived love, you have seen its beauty and you have seen its ugliness, you have seen its joy and its suffering, you have seen its heaven and its hell. Love is not only heaven, no, otherwise no one would ever aspire to God. She is heaven and hell at the same time. Hell and heaven are two aspects of love. Hope at the beginning, disappointment at the end.

As you go through that hope and through that disappointment over and over again, one day you realize, “What am I doing on the threshold? We must move on!” And you go further, beyond love, not out of anger, but through understanding.

So first, no relationship is ever successful. And this is good, otherwise you would not turn to God. Why think about God? Man thinks of God because love is a glimpse of God. Man thinks about God because love gives hope. Human forced think of God, because love leads to disappointment. All hopes turn into hopelessness.

Without love, there can be no search for God, because without love a person does not know hope, meaning, significance, greatness. But love is just a glimpse of the higher, don't get attached to it. Take her hint and look for something more, keep looking. Use love as a stepping stone.

You ask: "Why do relations between a Western woman and an Eastern man develop unsuccessfully?"

First, no relationship works out well, whether between an Indian man and a Western woman, or between a Western man and a Western woman, or between an Indian man and an Indian woman. They cannot be successful by their very nature. It may seem that the relationship is developing successfully, but success never comes. They come very, very close to success, but they never reach it. They push you on grandiose journeys, but never lead to the achievement of the goal. They kindle hope in you - but only hope. However, at least they lead you to the threshold. One step taken, half way done, but half way left.

Secondly, establishing a relationship is more difficult between an Indian man and a Western woman, or between a Western man and an Indian woman. The problem is not with man and woman, but with East and West. A man and a woman remain a man and a woman both in the East and in the West, there is no difference. But it's all about different types of mind. It is because of this that difficulties arise.

Indians have one type of mind, Western people have another. So when an Indian meets a Western woman, or vice versa, there is no communication between them. They speak different languages. It is not only that they do not speak the same language - English, German, French or Italian - they can speak one of these languages, and yet they speak different languages ​​due to the fact that they have different types of mind. They have different expectations, different upbringings. The Indian man says one thing and the Western woman understands another. A woman says one thing and an Indian understands another. Unless they drop their mind, unless they become just a man and a woman, it will be very difficult for them.

Vedanta Bharti is probably asking the question from his own experience? One night, overhearing Vedanta Bharti, I heard this dialogue.

Vedanta Bharti: “Oh my dear, oh my beautiful! Am I the first man you've slept with?"

American girl: “Of course, the first one! Why do all Indians ask the same stupid question?

Different types of mind... The Indian type of mind is imbued with male chauvinism. The Western woman is now a free woman, she lives in a completely different environment. This is not the woman you are used to in India. Now it is impossible to possess a Western woman, she is no longer a property - she is just as free as a man.

In India, a woman has always been treated as property, a man can possess it. Not only the ordinary man, but also the great men in India perceive the woman as their property. You must have heard the famous story from the Mahabharata. Yudhishthira, one of the greatest people in the history of India, who was considered very religious - he was called dharmaraj, the religious king or the king of religion, - playing, put his wife on the line. He played for her, because it was believed that a wife is property. He staked everything: his kingdom, his treasures, and then, when he had only his wife left, he staked her too. And yet, in India, he is considered one of the greatest religious people. What kind of a religious person is this? To think of playing on a living person? But in India, a woman has always been considered property, and a man - the owner, the absolute and sole owner.

There is no such slavery in the West anymore, it has disappeared. This is good. It must also disappear in India. Nobody one cannot possess - neither a man nor a woman - one cannot turn anyone into property! This is ugliness, this is sin! What could be a greater sin than this?

A person can be loved, but not possessed. The love that possesses is not love at all, it is ego.

In India, the man is a chauvinist. Indian woman has not yet claimed her right to freedom. There is nothing like the women's liberation movement in India. The woman continues to live as before.

So when an Indian falls in love with a Western woman, there is a problem: he becomes possessive. Also, the Indian mind is obsessed with sex, and this also creates a problem. You are surprised when I say that the Indian mind is obsessed with sex because you think India is a very religious and moral country. Yes, it is true, but the morality and religion of India is based on such strong repression that deep down there is an obsession with sex.

If a wife holds someone else's hand, her husband goes crazy. Just holding hands! You can hold someone's hand just as a sign of friendship. It doesn't have to be sexualized, but an Indian man can't think that way. If his woman is holding someone else's hand, it means that they are having a sexual relationship. He is beside himself with rage. He won't be able to sleep. He's ready to kill that man, or his wife, or himself. This is a pathology.

In the West, everything is perceived differently. You can hold someone's hand as a sign of location, friendship, sympathy. It doesn't necessarily have a sexual connotation. And even if there is, no one cares. This is a manifestation of individual freedom. A person must decide for himself how to live and with whom. No one else can make decisions for him, but that creates problems.

Look, in the West, sex is not as important as people in the East think it is. Practically, sex has become a mere exchange of energy, love game, entertainment. He is no longer taken as seriously as before. In India, sex is still taken very, very seriously. And when there is seriousness in relation to something, it means that the ego is involved in this. The ego is always serious, it takes everything seriously. When the game arises, it indicates that the ego is absent. Any playfulness is beautiful because it is liberation.

When you fall in love... when an Indian falls in love - and it happens all the time here - he falls in love very seriously. That's the whole problem. And a woman may not even consider that this is serious. She may think that this is a momentary hobby. At the moment she likes you. There is no obligation in her feeling, there is no "tomorrow" in it. But the Indian mind brings to the relationship not only “tomorrow”, but all of life. And there are people who even think about future lives. These are undercurrents, they are not talked about, but conflict is inevitable.

She fell in love with you because she likes to love, it's a wonderful feeling. She fell in love not specifically with you, but with love itself. That's the difference. You don't fall in love with love itself, you fall in love with a specific woman. For you, it's a matter of life and death. If tomorrow she starts flirting with someone else, you will go crazy. But you misunderstood. It was the gesture of the moment.

An American girl has just returned to New York from England, where she spent her holidays, and is talking to her friend.

“Mabel, I've been thinking about Keith since I left England. But now that I'm back home, I don't think I should write to him because we barely knew each other.

“But, Wendy, you promised to marry him!”

- I know, but that's all!

In the West, marriage is no longer as serious as in the East. Marriage has become just a kind of friendship, there is nothing special about it.

If you do not understand this difference between types of mind, you will have a big problem, you will not be able to communicate. A man in the East has always enjoyed freedom: "Men are men" - that's what they seem to say. But the woman was never given freedom. There is no discrimination now in the West. Both men and women are free. A woman can do everything that a man does, now she has the right to do so.

LIFE AND DEATH Death “I want to live! - he shouts, bold, - Let the deception! Oh, give me deceit!" And there is no thought that this is instantaneous ice, And there, under it - a bottomless ocean. Run? Where? Where, really, where is the error? Where is the support to stretch out your hands to it? Whatever the dawn is alive, whatever

Chapter 5 - LIFE AND DEATH Invisible Helpers and Mediums There are two classes of people in the world. In one, the vital and dense bodies are so closely fastened to each other that under no circumstances can the ethers be separated and remain with the dense body constantly and in any

LIFE AND DEATH No one seems to understand the mysteries of life and death. From one point of view, everything in the world is alive. Every cubic centimeter of space is so full of life that even if all living things were swept away, the whole plane of existence would be repeated anew. From another point of view, not

230 Life and Death This pair of life meditation and death meditation can help you immensely. In the evening, before falling asleep, do this fifteen-minute meditation. This is death meditation. Lie down and relax your body. Feel like you're dying... and the body can't move -

Life and Death At night, before falling asleep, do this fifteen-minute meditation. This is death meditation. Lie down and relax your body. Just feel that you are dying and you cannot move your body because you have died. Just create the feeling that you are disappearing from the body. Do it ten or

1+1+3+6=…life or death? The magical power of numbers has long attracted the attention of people. Even in the Bible it was said: “In the beginning was the Word!” Since ancient times, the word and number were represented by some magical phenomena that can protect a person from black power or death, save him from

The child comes clean, nothing is written on it; there is no indication of who he should be - all dimensions are open to him. And the first thing to understand is that a child is not a thing, a child is a being. Osho

Before knocking on the right door, a person knocks on thousands of wrong doors. Osho.

Don't expect perfection, and don't ask or demand it. Love ordinary people. There is nothing wrong with ordinary people. Ordinary people are extraordinary. Every person is so unique. Respect this uniqueness. Osho.

Inside every old person there is a young person wondering what happened. Osho.

Without you, this universe will lose some poetry, some beauty: there will be a lack of song, there will be a lack of notes, there will be an empty gap. Osho.

Get out of your head and into your heart. Think less and feel more. Do not get attached to thoughts, immerse yourself in sensations... Then your heart will come to life. Osho

If you have lied once, then you will be forced to lie a thousand and one times to cover up the first lie. Osho.

Miracles happen every moment. Nothing else happens. Osho.

If you are calm, the whole world becomes calm for you. It's like a reflection. Everything that you are is fully reflected. Everyone becomes a mirror. Osho.

Reasons are within ourselves, outside are just excuses... Osho

The most inhuman act that a person can commit is to turn someone into a thing. Osho.

The greatest fear in the world is fear of the opinions of others. The moment you are not afraid of the crowd, you are no longer a sheep, you become a lion. A great roar resounds in your heart - the roar of freedom. Osho.

Only occasionally, very rarely, do you allow someone to enter you. That is what love is. Osho.

If you can wait forever, you don't have to wait at all. Osho.

Just watch why you create a problem. The solution to the problem is at the very beginning, when you first create it - don't create it! You don't have any problems - just understand that.

Love is patient, everything else is impatient. Passion is impatient; love is patient. Once you understand that patience means love, you understand everything. Osho.

If you don't change right now, you will never change. No need for endless promises. You either change or you don't, but be honest. Osho.

The head is always thinking about how to get more; the heart always feels like giving more. Osho.

When you think you are deceiving others, you are only deceiving yourself. Osho.

Bliss is the only criterion for life. If you do not feel that life is bliss, then know that you are going in the wrong direction. Osho.

What's wrong with someone laughing for no reason? Why do you need a reason to laugh? A reason is needed to be unhappy; you don't need a reason to be happy. Osho.

Make life around you beautiful. And let every person feel that meeting with you is a gift. Osho.

If you can't say "No", your "Yes" is worthless too. Osho.

To fall is a part of Life, to rise to one's feet is its Living. Being Alive is a Gift, and being Happy is your CHOICE. Osho.

The only person on earth we have the power to change is ourselves Osho.

I don't have any biography. And everything that is considered a biography is absolutely meaningless. When I was born, in what country I was born - it does not matter. Osho.

Suffering is the result of taking life seriously; bliss is the result of the game. Take life as a game, enjoy it. Osho.

When you are sick, call a doctor. But most importantly, call those who love you, because there is no medicine more important than love. Osho.

A woman in love with you can inspire you to such heights that you never even dreamed of. And she asks for nothing in return. She just needs love. And this is her natural right. Osho.

Everything that is experienced can be stepped over; what is suppressed cannot be overcome. Osho.

Any borrowed truth is a lie. Until it is experienced by yourself, it is never true. Osho.

Until you can say "no", your "yes" will not make any sense. Osho

Don't take life as a problem, it's a mystery of amazing beauty. Drink from it, it's pure wine! Be full of it! Osho.

The rapid development of esotericism and the spread of all kinds of spiritual practices leads to the fact that an increasing number of people go through a spiritual crisis or spiritual transformation of the individual.

Now many are drawn to Knowledge, looking for new ways of spiritual development.

Who am I? Why am I? Where did you come from? Where am I going?

And when a person is no longer satisfied with the answers from the government, education, society, religion, he sets off on the Path. What can a traveler encounter? What pitfalls await him on the Path?

The concept of a spiritual crisis was introduced by the founder of transpersonal psychology, an American psychiatrist of Czech origin with more than thirty years of research experience in the field of non-ordinary states of consciousness, Stanislav Grof.

Prior to this, psychiatry, having imposed its stencils on the spiritual experiences of a person, attributed the mystical states and activities of world religions and spiritual movements to the field of psychopathology.

Any acute experience or stress can lead to a spiritual crisis.

But especially often all kinds of spiritual practices, passion for esotericism, deep religiosity provoke a spiritual crisis of a person. These practices are just designed to be a catalyst for mystical experiences and spiritual rebirths.

Traditional spiritual practices are focused on liberation from dependence on the material world. The main link of this dependence is the human Ego.

It is precisely at the destruction of the Ego-programs that the efforts of those who follow the Path of spiritual development are directed.

The main experience of a spiritual crisis is that a person does not see the meaning of life, the future is gloomy, the feeling that he is missing something very important and valuable does not leave him. The process is accompanied by strong emotional experiences, a person experiences an almost complete failure in personal, social, public life or in the field of health.

Having experienced fatal moments, he is freed from the influence of the Ego, acquires a higher level of conscious thinking.

Traditional psychotherapy in this case can only play a supporting role. A person who is going through the stages of a spiritual crisis does not need to be treated! But he can be helped to go through the transformation as painlessly as possible. But, by and large, a person can cope with his spiritual crisis only on his own, alone with himself.

Manifestations of a spiritual crisis are very individual.,…

no two crises are the same, but the main forms of the crisis can be observed. In humans, these forms often overlap.

Being in a spiritual crisis, people suddenly feel uncomfortable in a previously well-known world.

I must say, some are already born with this discomfort.

Experiencing "madness"

During a spiritual crisis, the role of the logical mind often weakens, and the colorful, rich world of intuition, inspiration and imagination comes to the fore. Unexpectedly, strange and disturbing emotions arise, and once familiar rationality does not help to explain what is happening. This moment of spiritual development is sometimes very frightening.

Being entirely in the power of an active inner world, full of vivid dramatic events and exciting emotions, people cannot act objectively and rationally. They may see this as the final destruction of any remnants of sanity and fear that they are approaching complete, irreversible insanity.

Symbolic death

Ananda K. Kumaraswami wrote: "No being can reach the highest level of being without ending his ordinary existence."

In people, the topic of death causes, for the most part, negative associations. They perceive death as a frightening unknown, and when it comes as part of their inner experience, they are horrified.

For many people going through a spiritual crisis, this process is quick and unexpected. Suddenly, they feel as if their comfort and security is vanishing, and they are moving in an unknown direction. The usual ways of being are no longer good, but they have yet to be replaced by new ones.

Another form of symbolic death is a state of detachment from various roles, relationships, the world and oneself. It is well known in many spiritual systems as the main goal of inner development.

An important aspect of the experience of symbolic death during inner transformation is the death of the ego. To complete the spiritual transformation, it is necessary that the former mode of existence "died", the Ego must be destroyed, opening the way for a new "I".

When the ego disintegrates, people feel as if their personality has disintegrated. They are no longer sure of their place in this world, not sure if they can continue to be full-fledged human beings.

Outwardly, their old interests no longer matter, value systems and friends change, and they lose confidence that they behave correctly in everyday life.

Internally, they may experience a gradual loss of identity and feel that their physical, emotional and spiritual essence is suddenly and violently destroyed.

They may think they are really dying, suddenly having to face their deepest fears.

It can be a very tragic misunderstanding at this stage to confuse the ego's death wish with the urge to actually commit suicide. A person can easily confuse the desire for what can be called "egocide" - the "killing" of the Ego - with an attraction to suicide, suicide.

People at this stage are often driven by a powerful inner conviction that something in them must die. If the internal pressure is great enough and if there is no understanding of the dynamics of ego death, they may misinterpret these feelings and embody them in external self-destructive behavior.

From myself I will add the following.

Increased responsibility or Many knowledge - many sorrows

Sooner or later, a person who has embarked on the Path is noticed by higher forces of various directions, both dark and light.

Some seekers rush back and forth at first, experiencing many temptations and trials. However, sooner or later a person must make his Choice.

It is customary to single out two main Paths - the occult and the mystical.

Path of the Occultist. He studies the Divine Law and uses it for his own purposes. It relies on reason and will, and not on love. He learns to control the mind so that it becomes a useful collaborator in the fulfillment of his goal.

Path of the Mystic. This is the path of love and sacrifice. In his choice, he is always guided by his heart. Love enables him to identify himself with God.

People who have embarked on the Path have a sharp increase in their ability to influence the world around them, people and circumstances..

If such a person is left “unattended”, he can break a lot of firewood.

And one day a person clearly understands that he is “under the hood”. When an individual is determined with his direction in the Path, the appropriate forces begin to lead him.

Previously, like all people, it seemed to him that he could do everything that came to mind, he was limited only by his conscience and state laws.

And then he begins to understand that any of his actions, thoughts, emotions, causes the so-called effect of circles on the water.

A person already clearly sees the connection between his actions and their consequences. And all this is monitored by higher forces, which, explicitly or not very clearly, begin to correct his behavior.

Incomprehensible events occur, visions come, vague urges, sometimes direct instructions. It can be all sorts of "accidents" that interfere with the execution of the plan.

These can be bodily sensations: the legs do not go, the throat is intercepted, the head hurts, the chest is squeezed, it is stabbed in the side (each has its own). All kinds of emotional reactions, for example, the mood deteriorates sharply at the thought of the intended action.

So-called mining is happening more and more often. Working off is essentially a restoration of balance. boomerang effect.

This is where the laws of karmic retribution come into play. And since a person on the spiritual Path begins to intensively live out his karma, the working off comes to him several times faster than to an ordinary person. The simplest example: said nasty things to a passer-by, moved a few meters away, fell down.

In addition, there are increased requirements for such a person.

He can no longer afford frivolity, as before. He is already required to be aware and strictly observe the Laws (we are not talking about state laws).

Having gone through great battles with himself, the warrior finds integrity.

Carlos Castaneda

After many years of impeccability, there comes a moment when the human form can no longer withstand and leaves. This means that there comes a moment when energy fields, distorted during life under the influence of habits, straighten. Undoubtedly, with such a straightening of the energy fields, the warrior experiences a strong shock and may even die, but an impeccable warrior will certainly survive.

Carlos Castaneda. Wheel of Time

The awakening of the kundalini is a catharsis on the bodily and spiritual level, often associated with extreme experiences, and, as a result, with unusual states of consciousness and perceptions. All the revelations of the saints are essentially the result of the awakening of the kundalini energy.

It is necessary to write Your Book not on paper and not in words, but in life.

So I started writing a book.

I started writing on scraps of paper. Thoughts come more and more interesting. The words seem to come down from above. I write the truth, what I feel. I am in the deep here and now. I write everything that comes to mind, without censorship, all the "darkness". I write about my “sins” and about my virtues. By writing down everything that comes to mind, I began to explore the world of my most intimate thoughts and thereby become aware of myself. I released what was censored. I went into a "stream of consciousness" state. An information channel has opened...

Like the Chukchi: what I see, I sing about.

Or, as in haiku, Zen verses:

Branch without leaves.

Raven sits on it.

It's autumn's eve.

At first I wrote at intervals. Then they started to shrink. And so I write continuously. I walk down the street and write. Whatever I do, I write. I'm afraid to miss the idea. Mountains of sheets and notes. Awareness rain down on me like a cornucopia.

I no longer have time to write, I continuously slander my thoughts - the truth - on a portable tape recorder. Everything is clear. All relationships, how one clings to another. All thoughts are fundamental, global, whatever they may concern.

Only much later did I realize that as a result of in-depth introspection and self-awareness, as a result of loneliness and accumulation of energy, as a result of approaching the area of ​​death-birth, I began to disintegrate as a person, lose dualism in perception and, without realizing it and uncontrollably, enter into a state of "absolute knowledge" (or full awareness). Enlightened mystics talk about this state. Being in it, you understand and see the essence of things, the essence of being and non-being, you will know God.

The world began to fall apart intensively. Has ceased to be the same as before. Became transparent. The depth of space and the usual three-dimensionality are not felt. All the same, but not the same at the same time. I begin to perceive everything, to see everything in all its simplicity and essence, without interpreting in any way - as pure faceless energy.

Came home and climbed the wall. A state of unreasonable fear maximum intensity.

Many enlightened mystics speak of similar experiences of existential fear. For example, Yogi Bhagavan Shri Ramana Maharshi in his book “The Message of Truth and the Direct Path to Yourself” (Leningrad, 1991) describes the most important event in his life as a sudden and intense fear of death, which he experienced at the age of 16. It was after this experience that spiritual truths were revealed to him. Already mentioned by me B.S. Goel noted that the final phase of the awakening of the kundalini is associated with a total nervous breakdown, which in essence manifests itself as the death of the ego.

All! End! With monstrous efforts of the psyche I try to maintain control. The personality falls apart. I cease to feel the same, in general, any, anyone. There is a process of loss of self-identification. Such a disintegration of a person's self-consciousness occurs at the moment of death. A loss forms and ego. Death.

This tension is much stronger than that, which occurs in a situation where, being in a deep knockout, you still have to continue real fight. And if you don't fight, they'll kill you. The physical condition is also at the limit - the heart is pounding monstrously, breathing is of maximum intensity. Although physically I do nothing - I just stand in the apartment.

By chance, there was a pen and paper at hand, and not a rope, to strangle himself and jump out of this nightmarish tension. And I started writing...

So, I start writing an endless book. I can write all the time, and my writing is like writing on endless paper, which is unwound from an endless roll - a roll of Life, and I fix the moment of Life with letters (trying to fix it!) And I write very carefully.

And this book is impossible to write! It can only be continuously added on - after all, it is life itself, the awareness of an innumerable number of events of being. This book is not written on paper and not in words - awareness. This book is the way. She is lifelong.

Previously, I wrote mountains of notes, and it was fast, sloppy and useless - but it was a Fact.

This endless roll of my writings can be cut into sheets and stitched into books. But all these books will be only one Book, which I write for myself and for everyone at the same time and do not write for anyone, and the only purpose of this writing is to give myself fulcrum and get out of the Great Void of Infinity that I have fallen into. From the Void - but the Void, filled to the brim ...

This Great Void of Infinity is terrible complete lack of desire. And so, in order to get out of it, I consciously, by the force of my tension, form in myself a desire to publish a book, which, in fact, I don’t care about, I just want to be, I want to exist. The cursed Power that brought me to the Void. And at the same time thank you. She showed me something - I'll call it the World, the Universe, Emptiness, Relaxation, Magic, the Absolute, the state of "seeing", whatever - it does not change the essence. I have become like a crazy monk seeking enlightenment, and the only thing that keeps me from disappearing is that I am now forming in myself the desire to write this book with all my might!

This book is like a cry from my soul, like a straw that I hold on to in this world. I so want to go back: to desire something worldly, earthly – fame, money… but I can’t… I want to show this book to everyone in order to get out of the Void and form a foothold. Thrice curse this Void, and at the same time I saw something and understood - thanks to her.

And God forbid you to endure all the horrors, all the sorrow and at the same time the infinite happiness of being in this Void-Fullness, in the Radiant Void, in the Absolute! God forbid you come to "much wisdom", to knowledge (of God) - and at the same time to great sadness. No wonder the biblical Ecclesiastes or Preacher said: “There is much sorrow in much wisdom; and whoever increases knowledge, increases sorrow.” The knowledge of God is "much knowledge." Isn't that why all the saints grieve, there are no smiles on the faces of the icons?

If now, having stopped writing, I don’t create a new desire, then I will go to Eternity…

I exist as long as I have the power consciously support some desire. I'm afraid of the Emptiness around me and inside me, and at the same time I don't want to I can not to leave it is like a black hole, and I became its prisoner. I am unhappy in my happiness, and vice versa. Infinitely happy and terribly unhappy simultaneously! A state of complete absence of dualism. Whether you read this book or not, whether it's nonsense or not, nothing will change.

In principle, I have already written everything, and at the same time I can write indefinitely. Zen paradoxical state - when everything is already completed, but at the same time, nothing is finally completed. At every point, in every letter - and even without letters in general, everything is contained - all information about everything - and nothing is contained. Probably, I am a genius, and with this statement I want to get out of the Void and somehow form my “I” that crumbled into nothingness. People! Take me back to you, I've gone too far to go back myself! Damn everything! And at the same time - a paradox! - I am happy in my misfortune, (or vice versa?). How close and at the same time infinitely far from each other. How far everyone is from me and how far I am from everyone. total loneliness...

When I wrote it down, I let go for a minute. Write, write! To make it a little easier, even for a moment. It's like a drug - writing: to write and give to read, in order to return to the ordinary world at least for a moment from the black hole that sucked me in.

I want to experience something again that would affect me - even if it is, for example, humiliation, fear. I want to be afraid!

But nothing touches in this black hole. Only for a minute does tension ease, as after taking a drug by a drug addict. And then again takes another property into the Void, but again - into the Void. From one void to another. Rave! Everything is Void. Gone crazy.

Business, what to do? There will be meetings, some conversations... Meetings - empty, transactions - again empty. Money, papers - all the same Emptiness.

Or for life to somehow shake and shake out of the Void into the Void of deeds for a while - this is a chance to forget. All Emptiness and the empty Emptiness of all Emptinesses. Got to the handle. Zen - not Zen - all one belongs to the Void and is the Void itself. Everything is from the dough of the Void, and the dough itself is Void. I can play like this - "Emptiness" plus other words - to infinity, and it will be all the same and different at the same time, and I can also write endlessly ...

But all this does not change anything, these are only pathetic attempts to return some points of support, to return to the world. The fulcrum is already relaxed and can no longer become chronic tensions - they have all disappeared.

How all dualities and interpretations disappeared. How all fears, all programs, all complexes - completeness and inferiority disappeared: everything dissolved in the Void with me. I died…

Complexes are the same points of support. It would be nice to have at least some kind of fear complex now - sexual, or something. Still, some point of attachment to this world… At least something will hurt me…

I want to be called crazy or something else - just to return to the world! Aha! Now I felt, realized one point - the fear associated with sex.

I, despite sufficient sexual experience, had a fear of being realized in sexual activity forbidden for me and opening up in it. "Prodigal sin", the fear of going beyond the generally accepted norms in sex, a ban on actions that are considered indecent for me. Basically, original sin. A deeper examination reveals a layer of sexual guilt behind the layer of sexual sophistication, which is not realized, and therefore it seems that it is not there. And this guilt does not depend on the number and type of sexual contacts that a person had, or on the number of children he has, etc. - it is something else: it is the inability to perceive sex “purely”, as energy, without any interpretations.

This is how my (yes, I think, and not only mine) idea of ​​​​sex was formed. After all, sexual education and sexual culture in the former Soviet Union left much to be desired. (There is no sex in the USSR!) And the thousand-year conditioning of the sinfulness of sex by religions has left its mark.

"Sex, sex again!" - once exclaimed Sigmund Freud, examining the problems and complexes of his patients. The basic assumption of Wilhelm Reich, the founder of Body Oriented Therapy, was that sexual fear is present in all neurotic problems. The regulation of sexual activity by social conventions gives rise to a conflict in a modern civilized person: he wants to, but he can’t. The free flow of sexual energy - the most powerful energy of a human being - is blocked.

It is possible that the "sexual complex", "sexual neurosis" is something typical of the average person in modern civilized society. Animals do not have such problems, because they are natural, they follow natural, not social laws, they are not limited by the conventions and rules of the social game. There are no neuroses generated by civilization. I refer the interested reader to the works of Reich, Freud, or similar works of psychoanalysts and psychotherapists, as well as to the tantric teachings, to the works of Osho. They deeply reveal the topic of human sexuality and tell that sexual energy can be used for spiritual transformation, achieving higher spiritual realization and cognition of God the Creator.

… And it felt so good for me that I found this foothold that I don’t even want to describe my forbidden desires so as not to lose it. Hold on to this fear. To nurture it, this point of support - I do not want to lose it. She's the only thing left of me now. Let me be all one big fear, complex - but not Emptiness!

Or maybe not show anyone what I write, make it a secret - let there be points of support? Make complexes for yourself, consciously cultivate them, cherish fears: after all, it doesn’t matter at all what you do if you do it consciously. I don't want to go back to the black hole! All books are about the same thing. Everything is the same - life and death, hatred, happiness, joy, sadness ... All are just forms of being. Everything is energy. Feeling of absolute equality of everything before everything.

I want fear! The bigger, the better. So good with fear! So wonderful to be afraid! I want it to be like before. Emptiness, please let me go, so that you can pick me up again later. Aha - here comes the fear of death... Consciously cultivating your fears is also a method to return to your former self and reassemble yourself from the emptiness of formlessness; to be afraid, but to be afraid not indifferently, only detachedly observing one's fear, but to be afraid as before - with one's whole being. To hell with her, with the book, with art. I want to get out relaxation, I want to be like everyone else, to be tense, even for a day, for an hour, for a second. I want to take a break from Great Relaxation, from the Void. The word "want" has already appeared. Wishes have arrived! The desire to hide something. Desire to hurry and twitch. This is a lifeline. Ha! Ha!

All creativity, all genius, perish. I don't want them. Again "I do not want"? So close to Relaxation. Carefully!

But so far it seems to have let go. God grant that for a long time. I will tell everyone about my condition, prove that I am right, that I am smart, strong, that I am a genius - but not into the Void. Or vice versa: I'd rather be a fool, a nonentity, but I will! It is better to be the very last - but to be, and not to disappear into the Void. You are not in the Void, you dissolve in it and disappear from everywhere. What difference does it make whether you are a nonentity or a genius, a fool or a smart one, weak or strong, cowardly or brave... - the main thing is that you exist, you are not in the Void!

I will strain myself with slow writing, beautiful, neat letters. Maybe (I wanted to shorten it to “maybe”), with this tension I will create a fulcrum. Eureka! Here is the method: consciously straining, create points of support.

…Bitch! Again I feel the approach of the Void. To hold out a little more, not to succumb to its all-consuming action, just a little more!

I'm going to training (thinking about the future!). Method: think about the future or the past - then there will be points of support. Then you will come out of the deepest "here and now" in which I got, expanding from the non-existence of absolute zero into some form extended in time and space.

I write more or less accurately. I re-read. Rereading what has been written is also a method of returning points of support. It moves me from the "now" into the past and thereby creates a tangible, existing space of the time continuum.

I can write endlessly - this is writing about everything and about nothing. Everything is already written in any word and without words at all. But maybe with my writing I will discover for myself some other method that will allow me to fully gather myself from decay, and this method will work? Again I feel the approach of the Void - I don’t want to go there ...

I want to find a foothold and look at the world through my eyes again, and not “see” the world. To see without looking - to see the essence of things, to see not objects, but energy. To see not with the eyes, but touch all by yourself. I want to get back to myself. Call me crazy, crazy, but at least call me something - I want to be someone.

I want to communicate with people who knew me before, so that through this communication they “blind” me, the former or not the former, but somehow, blinded my points of support, my personality. Maybe they will bring me back to life with their attitude towards me. I will do my best to help them in this - I will carefully justify all their expectations.

Why do I need the burden of a writer or something else - it doesn't matter what? Here again there were words "anyway". I'm afraid of these words ... What good word"I'm afraid"! Right on the soul it became easier. I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid! I can write this word endlessly. Or I will write books with tension (but not with the maximum, the maximum will again lead to the Void) - something small, limited, concrete - and this, perhaps, will leave the global Absolute - the Absolute of the Void. I don’t want to enter the Void, I don’t want its enormous, monstrous energy and pressure (again, “I don’t want to”!).

I want to think hard. Now I will intensely recall the thought that I forgot, return to my former way of thinking, to my former self. Aha! Remembered! You entered the state, but now how to exit? Rather show someone the records. And you don’t seem to sleep, and you don’t seem to be awake, you don’t seem to be alive, but you’re not dead either - the great plain of Emptiness and Eternity. You don't wish this on your enemy.

This is page 13. (There were 13 pages of handwritten text. – Note, author.) Good bad sign! Everything turned upside down: what is bad for everyone is better for me and not necessary, and vice versa. I fell into the negative world, the negative world of the Looking Glass. I keep my writing. I consciously strain to give myself support and not fall into the Void again. Void is a terrible word. Previously, there was a word as a word, but now! .. Everything. I'm finishing. CUM. (Death is like a total, final, final orgasm, in which all energy leaves a human being. In an ordinary orgasm, only a partial discharge of energy occurs. - Note, author.) TschiiB. In German, it means bye, see you soon. The more you try to tense up, the more you relax - a damn black hole! Death??? Page 13! The pressure in the Hole is infinity!!! I am crucified on my inner cross!! I'm dying!... Dissolving in the Void... In Infinity... In the Absolute... In the Universe... I don't exist...

Woke up...

The perception of the world is no longer what it used to be. Unstable. Chatting. Time is gone. Caught in the continuity of the eternal "here and now." I try my best to maintain control. Here he is - terrible judgment of God on my judgment day. Here it is - the disintegration of personality. This is how it is - the touch of death, the experience of non-existence. This is how a person in hell probably feels... Here it is, as Castaneda said, “the pressure of the Great Emanations of the Eagle” – the Eagle, as the Force that rules the fate of living beings.

Death is a psychophysical phenomenon. A person can die as a mental substance, while retaining the physical shell. When dying, he will experience special states of perception and awareness - death, but if he still manages to survive and return to the body, to reassemble his personality, then he will gain experience real death and will know what and how is happening at that moment. Death is the disintegration of the personality, the ego, the destruction of awareness. The sensation of death is the experience of a state of total non-attachment, the deepest immersion in the “here and now”, complete non-duality, loss of self-identification. Let me remind you: at the moment of death, absolutely all interpretations disappear, the individual consciousness dissolves into infinity and unites with the universal, the divine - with God. You as a person do not exist when you are in God, you are the whole Universe, you are God. Dying, a person cognizes God in himself, meets Him, passes through Last Judgment– but he who is dying judges himself, ruthlessly judges. God is in you, not outside. And the only place you can find it is yourself. A meeting with God is a meeting with oneself, in particular with one's "dark" sides. Meeting with God, his judgment is not at all a conversation with a kind bearded man sitting on a cloud surrounded by angels, as adherents of religious denominations sometimes imagine - but a special religious-mystical state of perception of a person at the moment of his death: after all, it is then that we find ourselves in His Kingdom. At the moment of death - the disintegration of the personality - there is a deep awareness of oneself and an understanding of the structure of the Universe and God. At the moment of death, a person merges with God and cognizes Him in himself.

God is the universal creative principle, the universal creative energy of the universe. To cognize God means to understand those deep esoteric laws according to which the Universe was created and according to which the Universe functions, to cognize the interconnection of everything with everything in the Universe. God is impersonal, he is on the other side of both male and female principles. Tao is another name for God, as Osho said.

Being in a state to "see", when you perceive the essence of objects - their energy, when the perception is "empty", "pure", not deformed or distorted - you can understand and feel God. God is something ultimate. And being at the limit - in the space of death - a person meets with Him.

Death is just death. A special altered state of consciousness...

My second part - "controller", "I am separated" fixed everything. And everything is recorded only thanks to her. I only observed (and thereby realized) the process of destruction of my ego, and in fact - the process own death. I was an indifferent witness to my death.

Being in a state of "controller", a completely disinterested witness, I kind of lost the ability to be afraid or worry. I only detachedly and calmly followed my maximum fear, monstrous excitement, but I myself was not afraid and did not worry - the original essence of me, my “selfhood” was calm. I was separated from these feelings, they did not capture me, did not control me, did not dominate. And so I kept control always, no matter what happened, even at the moment of my death. “The spirit of a warrior must be calm, like the surface of a lake,” said sword fencing masters, ninjas. They were in the state of an indifferent witness. Their controller calmly and detachedly watched how the body leads a frantic, deadly fight, fully aware of all their actions, everything that happens to them - even their death.

Legend. When Alexander the Great fought in India, he was informed about an unusual yoga. Macedonian ordered the yogi to come to him, but he refused. The enraged commander rushed in search of the hermit and found him sitting on the bank of the river. In anger, the warrior drew his sword and shouted that if the yogi refused to obey, he would cut off his head. To which he calmly replied: “Naive person! How can you kill me? I'll just watch my head roll. You cannot kill me - my eternal awareness of myself, my self."

Isn't this the state of self-observation - the state self– do they mean religions when they talk about eternal life? The awareness of oneself as a material body is replaced by the awareness of one's essence as an incorporeal, eternal, incorruptible spirit, as an indifferent, non-material observer. How self, which exists forever, which was never born and never died, but only changes the outer shell. Eternal life must be sought not at the level of the physical body, but in a special state of mind - this is how one can understand the idea of ​​eternal life, which religions speak of.

The Higher Power led me... I was placed at the disposal of the higher powers of the spiritual order. People, spontaneously entering similar states, write books, saying that the text was dictated to them "from above", or draw pictures "at the behest of God", or fencing masters conduct a duel with swords, claiming that the weapon is conducted by "the hand of the Most High." In an extreme situation, in a battle not for life, but for death, a person unites with God, conducts his Force through himself. And then already something – you can call this “something” with the word God – acts instead of the person himself, helping him to survive. So, for example, he does not think what to do when he is hit by a car: everything happens spontaneously, in addition to his conscious will, by itself. "Something" - the Higher Power, God leads the victim and directs him, saving him from death.

Words, thoughts, ideas seemed to descend on me from above, from some information space - and I only wrote them down, fixed them on paper. I myself, by my own will, did not think – “thought”, “analyzed”, “acted” for me by the Higher Power…

I followed the directions of the Force - that Divine Power that leads us all: for all the Will of God! I kind of became her follower. People who want to become monks act in exactly the same way in obedience - but to some particular elder, and not directly to God, as I ...

It should be noted that it is practically impossible to completely restore the linear sequence of events, since they occurred, as it were, simultaneously, multidimensionally, in different planes, in different parallel continuities. May the reader forgive me for some discontinuity in my narration, a specific style of presentation, as well as repetitions (similar to a refrain in a song), which allow me to cover events deeper, from different angles. The intensity of my life during that period was very high, and the experiences were extremely multifaceted. I seemed to be in a state of vital (or death?) agony. In a short period I have lived a very long life, not even one, but many lives. Sometimes a day is longer than a century...

Sometimes it is not easy to find the right words and phrases. Be condescending and do not try to convict me of something by “catching my word”, meticulously looking for errors or inconsistencies. Do not look for any contradictions - they do not exist, just as they do not exist in Zen koans ... Arguing, we will only get confused in words.

It's not the words that matter, what matters is what they convey. Try to see the essence by reading between the lines, looking at what lies beyond the written words. So the meaning of the Zen koan is on the other side of its words. Take the stories in this book not only as real events, but rather as parables, metaphors that convey knowledge in symbolic form, as allegories that make you think.

The death of the ego is terrible for the individual precisely because of the lack of control, precisely because of the lack of explainability, because this feeling is not within the framework of explanation, within the framework of understanding. It is beyond your understanding, because what is responsible for understanding in this world ... it panics, the ground is slipping from under your feet. It is the fear of death... ego.
- How to get over the fear of ego death?
- It will coincide that at this moment you will still be attracted by curiosity, and your heart will be stronger than your mind and it will not be able to keep you within the limits. I create this craving and that's it ... one way or another you will be sucked in. Nothing happens to you, you simply perceive the world from the body, only from the body. You are consciousness, which is chained in the body and limited, so you think: I and another person; I and that world are big... Just because you think that you are the body. Consciousness is huge, infinite is closed now in this form limited by skin and clothes. And it's not physically locked up, but just an identification, just all the attention in the body. But I can demagnetize it ... just such a field is created where demagnetization occurs. And the consciousness is free from this confinement… breaks through. And then this house (body) remains, but the bars are torn off from it. And it's not a prison anymore. You can enter, live, feel like a person with all the experiences. You will guess that you are free, just look at the windows ... nothing is holding you. But if you want to play the role of "I want freedom ...", please, everything is at your disposal, but everything is open, the door is open.
Whatever you hear from me now, it will not make you bolder at this moment, because all words are powerless at this moment, all knowledge is powerless. When the experience itself comes, no matter what you were told before, it covers everything, because something stronger than reason is triggered. You don't mind your body...
- I heard that you can imagine death as if you were covered by a wave.
- You don't understand what you're talking about. No understanding helps, none. It's like going into a fire. When you feel this heat, all kinds of ideas stop working. They're working up to the fire. You say: "Yes, indeed ... I imagine that a wave covers me ... a fire envelops me ... I'm just warm ... like a blanket covered" But when you come into contact with fire. You think: “To hell with the blanket!” Everyone who wants to accept death, when this phenomenon happens, knowledge does not help, the phenomenon itself is stronger ... But there is a thirst for freedom, a thirst for love in you. This desire is stronger. This thirst is the same fire, only inside, the same. Everything I do, I kindle this thirst, kindle this fire, this love... stronger and stronger... the fire of consciousness in you, not the body in you, the observer in you, attention in you, silence in you. It just grows and one day it becomes stronger than thoughts, stronger than the body, just brighter and overlaps them. And it's not up to you, but quietly you will give up. At some point, you will realize that you cannot resist, something more opens up. It beckons, it pulls. I say it is absolutely safe. And only, in fact, at this moment the safety of life opens. And before that, it seems to you that it is not safe there, here, the future is not safe. But when you find out that there is no death, the feeling of danger disappears, you just understand that you don’t need to jump from a high floor, from a cliff, you understand what it can turn into. There is no fear, you no longer feel fear to stand on the edge of the abyss at all, you can bend over, no problem. You just understand how it can turn out, and therefore you don’t do it. It's just like you can drive through a red traffic light without any problem. You just never do it, that's all. But when it's a matter of life and death, you act like an ambulance... through all the traffic lights. It’s the same here, if you understand that freedom is a matter of life and death… you play all the questions, all the other games on the machine, play along with someone, but you are no longer interested… you want it, you are ready for this, you have matured a long time ago to that. For a long time, the word is relative. You are like an apple that can be seen to be ripe but still holding on. Does the apple fall down? No, it depends on the apple tree. The apple tree and the apple are one, and when the apple tree nourishes the apple, and it has had enough ... both of them understand: enough is enough. They can no longer be together, and their umbilical cord begins to dry out ...
Arthur Sita. An excerpt from the retreat 02.01.17