Good day, Friends! We continue to study the book by Alexander Naumkin "Kalagia".
"15. As for the methods in the means of achieving enlightenment, they can be infinitely different.
The means here will be the discipline of the Spirit - meditation, called Meditation in the West, and in the East Dhyana or Jan, or Zen; and in a way - a kind or kind of discipline of thinking.
Meditation of the West differs from the Dhyana of the East by the "coldness" of the mind and the all-pervading dominion of the mind. To understand the Dhyana of the East, it is necessary to combine the prayer state of a person of the West with pure reason, purification of prejudice and superstition from ignorance, while completely abandoning reason, for the reason of the West is based on the dictate of feelings, while the reason of the East is entirely subordinate to reason and does not run over during Dhyana. forward. A Russian person rarely thinks deeply, but if it happens, then his heart empathizes with Thoughts. This is close to the discipline of the Spirit "(A.P. Naumkin. Kalagia. Moscow. 1993) [1].
The difference in the ways of thinking among different peoples, in my opinion, comes from the difference in their origin. I adhere to the point of view of some bloggers that races and nationalities are the gene pool of different cosmic civilizations, and genes contain ancestral memory and spiritual heritage. Those who have been to the East saw a difference in the perception of the life of the local population with the lifestyle and perception of the world of Western people. These features of the Eastern mentality and way of life are expressed, first of all, in the conduct of everyday life and religious worship. How much I have felt deep sympathy for Indian culture all my life, but still, during my visit to India, I realized that I could not fully merge with this people. Of course, this circumstance was influenced by my upbringing and formation in Russian civilization. Also, I think, the gene pool of a person and the experience of his past incarnations matter.
Each religion was created by representatives of High civilizations for a specific people, taking into account the geographical characteristics and specificity of the prevailing mentality. Even if you look at the arrival of the Aryans in the Indian environment many thousands of years ago, you can see the assimilation of the knowledge and traditions of the "white people" to the way of life that reigned at that time.
As a researcher of this issue, I went through to some extent the experience of Krishnaism, which reflects Indian culture. The most valuable find was the reading of the maha mantra on a rosary. This spiritual practice is used in all religions, but in the East it is practiced to a greater extent - as one of the ways of worshiping any Deity and serves as an indicator of selfless service. Having visited Vrindavan, I saw a lot of devotional service to the Deities through all kinds of worship: several times a day at home and in numerous temples of puja, people with beads walk around the city, reciting mantras to themselves, you can hear the chanting of prayers from some temple to the whole street, children's activities for the study of the exploits of Gods and demigods, as well as ways of worshiping them.
If you take Western religious worship, and Orthodox Christianity in Russia as well, then you can see cold ritualism, which is tied mainly to church services or the study of the Bible by a group of people at home, as, for example, in Protestant churches. Western believers experience the state of prayer mainly at church services and I can confirm that on the basis of the scriptures, many conjectures and superstitions about the structure of the world and the afterlife grow up. Priests at all times have used these delusions to manipulate the parish (for example, the issuance of indulgences).
But my research on Deity worship in India showed their superficiality in most cases (without deep immersion in the knowledge of Vedic culture) or fanaticism, that is, getting stuck at some stage. Of course, there are truly enlightened monks and clergy in ashrams and temples who have tremendous spiritual experience and wisdom. Like the enlightened ones in different parts of our world, they are far from the crowd and only a select few have access to them.
If we talk about Russian seekers of truth, then the legacy of Slavic ancestors and Vedic culture endows us with a special mentality, the presence of CONSCIENCE, moral qualities and open-mindedness. Therefore, often, having visited various traditions, we can conduct a deep analysis of various spiritual experiences and make a qualitative leap in development. For example, if we talk in general about the way of interaction between people in India and in Russia, then Russians have a higher level of ethics. In Russia, you will not see so much theft and deception on the streets as in India. This is probably due to the low social standard of living in India, but in my subjective opinion, the desire to benefit at any cost is inherent in the people of the East and in higher social strata. Maybe this is a huge brake on spiritual advancement. And the religions of Western Europe, for example, make too many assumptions for believers to please a degrading society (for example, the topic of same-sex marriage), which does not lead to rapid progress in the discipline of the Spirit. The East is too squeezed in terms of sex education, and the West is too perverted.
"16. Deep thinking begins with thinking with words, and with the degree of deepening and expanding Consciousness into Thought, thinking moves from words to phrases, then to concepts, to ideas - blocks of concepts. In the future, imagination is connected to deep thinking - it forms an idea of ;;the subject of thinking ; the presentation causes the necessary impressions and leaves them in the feelings, fills the feelings with impressions born in such an "unusual way; impressions, in turn, form sensations in the senses, which, with the deepening of the work, Thoughts in the mind pass into the senses, where they acquire sound.
The sounding of the senses in the sense organs produces work of the opposite action, that is, the collection and accumulation of energy takes place, its condensation - first in the feelings, then in the presentation through the impression, and, finally, the imagination is ignited.
This accumulated fire of physical levels of Matter passes from imagination into Consciousness, it ignites and combines due to this ignition with the Fire of Thought. At the moment of combining the Fire of Consciousness with the Fire of Thought, the practitioner sees a flash of Light, as if in the eyes, before the eyes and inside oneself. This flash can be of various degrees of coverage of the mind - from a small spark in the form of a spark to an all-encompassing Light of dazzling whiteness.
In any case, the appearance of a flash of Light will mean the degree of connection of the Personality with the Essence. The acquired Knowledge corresponds to this degree. And it is not important which method was used to achieve enlightenment, FOR THE WAYS DOES NOT DETERMINE THE MEANS, BUT THE MEANS SELECT THE WAYS "[1].
As I said in previous articles, reflection or meditation cannot be empty for our level of development. I think in Buddhism, meditation on the Great Emptiness is practiced only by very advanced Souls. At our level of development, it is important to first highlight the subject of reflection. When different psychologists "teach us to dream" for a lot of money)), the benefit is that they stimulate to highlight the urgent problem, something that is already ready to leave the subconscious and acquire some form in our consciousness (expansion of Consciousness into Thought) ... This is probably why Alexander Naumkin presents such a logical chain: thinking with words - phrases - concepts - ideas (blocks of concepts). At the initial stage, help can be provided by a psychologist or a wise friend who can ask a leading question. At this moment, an impulse comes on demand and the person voices his (not yet fully realized) desire. Then, continuing to reflect on what was said in solitude, the individual focuses on the phrases of the expressed sentence. Then he correlates with certain concepts that are consonant with these phrases and moves on to the imagination. For example, an individual voiced a problem: why did I get into a situation of deception, where a certain person extorts money from me ... a deception by a certain person ... money ... a situation. That is, an action is taken to deprive of material resources. By focusing on such a concept and connecting the imagination, the meditator can see, for example, a woman going to the gallows, feel the weight of her shoes, a lot of people around ... So a prepared seeker can have a transition to some of his past lives, where he has already been exposed similar injustice and became a victim of fraudsters who took away the property and sent to the gallows. In such a plot, one can also see those who in this incarnation came with the same mission. Such vivid images can arise from past lives at the request of individuals advanced in meditation practices. Perhaps this image in the imagination was sent by the Soul Mentor in order to form an idea of ;;the subject of reflection and leave some kind of impression that will go to the senses and leave its sound there.
At the second stage of such thinking, the work of Thought condenses the energy in the feelings and makes the vision brighter. This requires good concentration on the object of thought, so that attention does not shift to other thoughts or external objects. Just to prepare for such work, the technique of working with a rosary for several years is good.
If you managed to keep the image, concentrating attention and energy on the subject of reflection, then the accumulation of "fire of physical levels of Matter" occurs, that is, the energy of the brain itself and passes from imagination into Consciousness, which in turn ignites and combines with the Fire of Thought. "With the Fire of Thought, the practitioner sees a flash of Light, as if in the eyes, before the eyes and within himself. This flash can be of varying degrees of coverage of the mind - from a small spark in the form of a spark to an all-encompassing Light of dazzling whiteness" [1]. And how great was the concentration of energy, the seeker receives an appropriate depth of understanding of the subject under study.
In our example, the practitioner may come to understand the lesson of this incarnation, which consists in recognizing his tormentor from a past life, and at the same time maintaining a neutral position in relation to him. The connection of the Personality with the experience of the Eternal Essence for such a short moment (enlightenment) will allow one to move on to the realization of the trials of the current life at a higher level, which will give an easier passage of the situation and a quick denouement of events.
What is described in the previous few paragraphs is not that easy and quick action. Perhaps such an awareness was prepared for several incarnations through the passage of such situations, and only when the necessary experience (quantity) was accumulated, thanks to the expressed intention (with the help of reflection to solve the situation) this small enlightenment of the physical mind took place (a qualitative state that became part of the matrix of the Soul of the individual), where meditation was the means, and the step-by-step immersion became the way.
When a person accumulates the experience of such work with his inner space, then each time this process starts to turn on faster and touch the deeper layers of the unconscious. An individual who thinks in this way leaves some internal blocks of consciousness and opens up new prospects for development. Peace and Goodness to all of us!