Divine Parables/Vladimir Antonov — Psychical Self-Regulation and Spiritual Growth
Vladimir Antonov —
Psychical Self-Regulation
and Spiritual Growth
Many people suffer because of their failures in the material world, because of illnesses… This results in depressions, neuroses, and other kinds of mental disorders. Many of them become alcoholics, drug addicts, criminals or commit suicide…
There are two main reasons for this: first, people do not understand the meaning of their lives, and second, they do not have knowledge about how they can change themselves in order to successfully overcome those difficulties that we unavoidably encounter, living on the Earth.
We discussed in detail the philosophical and religious aspect of this subject in our books Classics of Spiritual Philosophy and the Present, Ecopsychology, and Forest Lectures. I can assure you that it is impossible to succeed in mastering psychic equilibrium and in achieving true happiness in life without including God in one’s outlook, as well as without serious work dedicated to the improvement of one’s ethical sphere in accordance with what God expects from us. The most correct way to begin this process of self-transformation is to study the true picture of life in the Absolute and try to understand one’s own place and tasks in It; only in this case one can become completely convinced that he or she needs to make personal efforts to transform oneself.
Unfortunately, many people raised in an atheistic environment or influenced by false religious views turn out to be incapable of comprehending and accepting the true knowledge about the existence of God, knowledge that implies not the practice of begging something from God or seeking “salvation” through certain rituals — but active and creative work dedicated to the perfection of oneself as a soul (consciousness). It is this work that God expects from us!
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Our experience of teaching the art of psychical self-regulation in Russia, in that time when the Communist Party governed and when it was forbidden to talk about God, demonstrated that during such classes almost all students without suggestions of the instructor began to feel the presence of God and started experiencing themselves not as physical bodies but as souls incarnated in bodies. And then, quite naturally, they began a conscious search for religious philosophical truths.
It is for the sake of such people that I am writing now — for the sake of those who need first proof — and only then they are ready to accept the Truth: to accept it not as BELIEF but as KNOWLEDGE.
Nevertheless, in order to acquire this KNOWLEDGE, one should make personal efforts to transform oneself.
Let us try to change ourselves! Let our goals in the beginning be the harmonious existence among other people, good health, and the experience of true happiness!
Let us begin with this and experience this personally, applying to ourselves that knowledge, which already has helped and been useful for a large number of people!
Chakras and Psychical Self-Regulation
The only way of mastering the art of psychical self-regulation is to gain control over the functions of the chakras.
Detailed knowledge about the chakras, their functions, and possibilities of work with them is presented in our book Ecopsychology. Now let me cover briefly only those points that are important for this article.
… In total there are seven chakras. Every one of us has them — in the head, in the neck, and in the trunk.
Every chakra is responsible, among other things, for supplying bioenergies to those organs of the body that belong to the sphere of influence of that chakra. If the chakra is contaminated with coarse energies, this may result in chronic diseases of the corresponding organs. By cleansing the chakra with the help of the methods described in the book mentioned above, one can cure such illnesses.
But a more important point is that every chakra participates in the generation of certain psychical states.
For example, the two head chakras are responsible for the intellectual function; the neck chakra — for the emotional evaluation of situations perceived by us; the chest chakra, which coincides according to its localization with the heart and lungs, — for generation of the entire spectrum of the emotions of love; the chakra of the upper part of the abdomen — for vigor; the chakra of the lower part of the abdomen — for the reproductive function; and the lowest chakra, located at the level of the coccyx and pubis, for the connection with the energy of Kundalini.
It is important to know that the chakra ajna, located in the center of the head, is the source of many human afflictions. Even its name in Sanskrit means “non-wise”, or “fool”, bluntly speaking.
This chakra, as all others, is necessary and should be cleansed and developed. Yet one must not allow it to dominate! Otherwise, it produces egocentric emotions, making its owner an egocentric person.
Such people are egotistic, jealous, touchy or quick-tempered… Some of them, after being broke, become ever complaining neurasthenics or drunkards or commit suicide.
Just as angry dogs protect their doghouses, barking at everyone — so such people protect their selves, provoking conflicts with others all the time. They perceive this way of behaving as a norm; they believe that all people behave so and that the essence of life consists in mutual struggle between individual egos. They can even justify such a way of life with the motto “struggle for existence“…
If such a predominance of the chakra ajna is accompanied with the hyperactivity of the chakra of the upper part of the abdomen, then we have the ajnic-manipuric psychotype. This psychotype can be observed most clearly in people who are always discontent with everything and everyone, irritated and aggressive. They are also called aggressive primitives. One of their characteristics is an inclination to drink a lot of alcohol. In this way they “calm their nerves”. It is the representatives of this psychotype that are most inclined to commit all kinds of selfish crimes and aggressive actions against other people, quite often due to drunkenness.
Anahatic Psychotype
I am not going to continue describing other psychotypes because we discussed this subject in detail in the book Ecopsychology. Let me just note that there is a psychotype opposite to the one we described above — the anahatic psychotype. People of this psychotype are treasures in human society! They are the most promising souls from the evolutionary standpoint!
And even though they may suffer from attacks of aggressive primitives, they are those who already have entered on the spiritual Path (they may just stand on this Path, but it is better to walk it!).
… God is Love; this truth was taught by Jesus Christ and by all other Divine Teachers.
One can become closer to God (what many believers dream about) only through becoming gradually similar to Him. This similarity should be obtained, first and foremost, in the aspect of love.
The knowledge about chakras explains to us how we can develop in ourselves this main quality of God. The point is that the emotions of tender love, care, admiration and respect for wisdom, as well as love-aspiration for the Creator — all these emotional states are born and maintained in a special emotiogenic structure of the organism — the chakra anahata. It is in this chakra where the special part of the consciousness, called the spiritual heart, is formed and continues its growth.
Only by developing oneself as a spiritual heart, can one gain true spiritual power and come closer to the direct personal cognition of the Creator and Mergence with Him.
By the way, this is the answer to the question raised by a number of people: is it good to have a developed anahata but suffer attacks of malicious primitive people? Isn’t it better to develop coarse power in oneself with the help of the methods of black magic or through “gladiatorial” kinds of sport, where the coarsest and most aggressive people usually achieve success?
I can answer that everyone has a right, given to us by God, to make the choice. However, one should reflect first on the consequences of this choice, since the destiny of those who preserve or even develop in themselves such coarseness is hell!
On the contrary, the prospect of those who develop themselves as spiritual hearts, as love, is paradise or even higher abodes!
The point is that after the death of the body, we abide in those states of the consciousness to which we accustomed ourselves during the life in the body.
Those who have accustomed themselves to various manifestations of malice — will continue to live in these emotional states among other souls similar to them. This is what hell is. (By the way, isn’t it appropriate to revise our attitude to those kinds of sports where such qualities are encouraged and developed intentionally? I am sure that sport must exalt Beauty rather than confrontation, aggressiveness, violence, and cruelty!)
Those accustomed to living in the states of tender and caring love will also continue to live in these states among other people similar to them. This is what paradise is.
One attains paradise or hell neither due to belonging to a certain religious organization nor due to performing certain deeds but as a result of correct or incorrect evolutionary advancement of the soul: to the Creator — or away from Him.
Any reasonable person understands this easily…
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So, what should we do if we value the principle of Love and believe in the existence of God but do not want to be weak?
The answer to this question has to be clear to you now: we should strive to become closer and closer to the Creator, growing and developing ourselves more and more as spiritual hearts. It is in this way that we acquire true spiritual power and invulnerability in relations with incarnate and non-incarnate beings of hell.
Yes, an incarnate soul possesses an ability to transform itself not only qualitatively, eliminating some qualities and developing others, but also quantitatively, growing as a spiritual heart. Each one of us has the possibility to grow as a spiritual heart — first inside the chest of one’s own material body, then outside it — up to sizes of several meters, then — kilometers, then — thousands of kilometers… And after having grown to such a size and having cognized many other useful things, the soul can merge with the Creator, enriching Him in this way.
This constitutes the meaning of our lives: to develop ourselves to the extent when we become worthy of approaching the Abode of the Creator in the multidimensional universe — and of merging with Him. Yet He receives in Himself only those who have become Love as He is. There are no other possibilities of cognition of Him.
And what will happen to us if we begin to transform ourselves in this way? What changes will occur in us quite soon?
The first and the most important thing is that we will become capable of feeling, experiencing the state of love. And it will not just be a short period of emotional uplift but a stable state of benevolence and calm. The unpleasant emotions of dislike, hatred, irritation, fear, envy, impatience will go away. The illnesses caused by these or other dominant negative emotions will be cured too. The energy field of the organism will change as well: it will be pleasant for other people to communicate with us; we will improve our relations with those people who were not our friends and will find new sincere friends. Possessing true spiritual experience, we will have knowledge to share with others. In this way we will find companions in our spiritual quest.
And then quite soon we will have new Friends — Holy Spirits, Representatives of the Creator, Who will be our Spiritual Guides and Teachers.
Thus God — as living Reality and not as a mere symbol or an object of unstable faith — enters our everyday life and becomes Real Father-Mother, Friend, and Beloved Teacher.
How to Achieve This Practically?
There are natural ways to develop heart love in ourselves.
These are, first of all, all those positive things that are related to the reproductive sphere, for example, selfless, tender, and caring sexuality and care for children.
Besides, we can do this through emotional attunement with subtle beauty: the beauty of diverse manifestations of nature and with the beauty of harmonious human bodies.
Yet there are also auxiliary methods for cleansing and development of the corresponding energy structures of the organism — the chakras and several most important meridians. The use of these methods allows one to accelerate significantly both the mastering of psychical self-regulation and the spiritual growth in general. As we understand now, it is all about the chakra anahata and the spiritual heart that grows within it.
It is important to emphasize that one can progress more rapidly if he or she does this spiritual work in the middle of the nature and even better on special natural places called places of power (we described them in our books mentioned above).
… And now let me explain to you how to begin this work on oneself, i.e. how one can learn to separate oneself from the material body — of course, not forever but for the time of meditative training.
The only correct way to do it — is to exit as a developed spiritual heart from the chakra anahata.
When we master this, we become convinced that we are not bodies! We are souls, consciousnesses, energies that are aware of themselves and able to perceive themselves not only in the bodies but also outside of them!
The fear of the death of the body disappears then, since we can easily exist without our bodies!
From that moment on, we can continue our spiritual studies as free consciousnesses that explore the multidimensional Absolute under the guidance of our Divine Teachers or Holy Spirits. Their main task is to bring us to the Abode of the Creator.
It is very important for everyone to understand that he or she is not a material body! Unfortunately, even those people who consider themselves believers lack this knowledge!
Let me note that even in the translation of the New Testament into Russian (and probably into some other languages) there are such expressions as “my soul”, “your soul”. I have heard even such a foolish expression as “to lose the soul”…
But the soul is what man is!
Even the well-known interpretation of the international signal SOS (“save our souls”) is absurd, because it implies a call to save bodies, not souls!
And we need to save souls in a completely different way: through explaining religious-philosophical truths and through teaching the methods of spiritual self-development!
And there is no sense in mourning for deceased people, since they are alive! It is only their temporary “dwellings” — their bodies — that have died!
In like manner, there is no sense in clinging to the life of one’s own body when death is coming.
Another thing is much more important: how have I lived and to what extent have I managed to realize the purpose of my life in this body in front of God?
Therefore, let us hurry to become better! You know how to do this now!
Let us begin to work, and God will necessarily help us, because He wants this from us most of all and is personally interested in this!
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