Духовная работа

[exorthodox]

Возможно, нужно было сразу написать тематику странички. В LJ в шапке был заголовок – "Духовная работа, психология и религия". Но везде свои плюсы и минусы. Собственно, последние две области можно было не указывать, поскольку они оформились в самостоятельные формы ортодоксии, а духовная работа представляет противоположный полюс. Но что такое духовная работа, объяснить не так просто. По своей сути она связана с мистической стороной религии, но начинается со стабилизации состояния, что сильно пересекается с психологией.

Странички в сети, где говорится о реальной духовной работе, можно пересчитать по пальцам. Обычно это словосочетание присутствует в рекламе курсов по саморазвитию или у откровенных шарлатанов. Найти что-то настоящее при адекватном внутреннем запросе очень сложно. Запрос здесь – вещь ключевая, это тот внутренний компас, который реагирует на крупицы истины как на крупицы железа, вкраплённые в породу. Других способов отделить полезное от бесполезного не существует.

Книжек и текстов с такими крупинками – тьма. Само по себе слово не может быть истинным или ложным, оно лишь указатель. Но для коммуникации ничего другого у человека нет, поэтому одни и те же слова произносятся и теми, для кого за конкретным словом стоит внутренний опыт, и теми, кто генерирует смыслы, подобно ИИ.

Множить слова и давать определения так или иначе приходится. Если определить духовную работу как поиск истины, тут же натолкнёшься на непонимание ортодоксов, исследующих «истину» как понятие. Можно подойти к определению со стороны познания себя, и тогда непонимание встретишь со стороны ортодоксов-психологов, которые будут убеждены, что знают всё про «я» в человеке, потому что их этому учили. Формулируя запрос как путь к Богу, поиск высшего или раскрытие духовных потенциалов, сталкиваешься с ортодоксами от религии или морали. 

Одним словом, дать определение – трудно, ответить на вопрос, кто может её вести – возможно, но это будут конкретные люди, сделавшие Путь сутью своей жизни. Путь может выглядеть как Путь к себе, к Богу, к Истине – по сути, это одно и то же, даже если в начале и не выглядит таковым. Помочь в продвижении по Пути может любой, кто сам прошёл определённый отрезок, и лишь до того предела, который уже достигнут им. И, конечно же, не всякий, кто объявляет себя достигшим хоть малости, таковым является. Чтобы отделить правду от лжи, у искателя есть лишь слова и тот самый внутренний компас. Ну и – собственная искренность, до которой поначалу тоже бывает трудно добраться. 

Comments

[aozora_in_exile]

+1

[sestra_kerry]

may I ask, what kind of result is presumed as an outcome of 'spiritual work'? Higher morality? Happiness? Unique contact with the Universe?

do you think following any official cult is necessary for that?

[exorthodox]

The result is not ‘presumed’, it is obtained. I am writing about the real experience, and the result is that people become more alive and free, they learn in practice how to free themselves from their automatic behavior. First of all, the Path begins with real solving psychological problems. Psychology repairs the ‘software’, while the work provides practical knowledge that is the key to psychology in general. Then those whose aim is to be closer to God get such opportunity.

There is no need to follow any orthodox religion. But only those who have a contact with God can lead others to God. I was lucky to meet a real Master, and he had been started by searching for the truth. But he found God, because God is real.

All paths have already been trodden, so any ‘new’ path will be close to some existing tradition. In my case it is possibly to speak of Sufism – without Islamic component.

[sestra_kerry]

thank you, it's an interesting view.

however, it doesn't seem logic to me that to 'have contact with God' (whatever or whoever different people from different cultures mean by this word) someone needs another human. Isn't it in the best interest of everyone to have such contact directly?

I never needed any people to feel what I feel (since I remember myself). And it was 8 years of hardcore Orthodox Christianity plus more or less close encounter with all sorts of people from many other religions or 'view systems' as Buddhists consider themselves.

My best external experience in terms of seeing - not God, but absolute and eternal happiness, - was in Guangzhou in the Temple of Six Banyan Trees. The monks were such incomparable example of being perfectly happy, calm and connected with the higher plane which I haven't seen anywhere else. But it was a feeling of resonance, without any wish to 'follow the Master'

So, from this point of view I do not understand your way of spirituality. For me, a person is always alone in this.

[sestra_kerry]

or do you mean cultivating the habit of creating of space between your impulses and actions? Is this what you mean by 'automatic behaviour' - acting in accordance with impulses, both internal and external, not having any freedom to choose your own path?

[exorthodox]

Automatic behavior is described by Gurdjieff: "a human is a machine", "men can not act; everything only happens to them".

Interaction with God, of course, is one-by-one. Another person may only help to prepare for such direct interaction.
Believers already have the opportunity to feel something and to pray and receive answers to prayers. If it is enough for them, there is no need to do something else.
The Path is to achieve the "direct interaction", the greater closeness with God.

[sestra_kerry]

ehhh...for me as a scientist that's always the same problem with religion - the theory is based on very vague definitions, to say the least.

In science, if you define the object as 'red square' - you can be 100% sure that the object is rectangular, with four equally long sides, and of red colour.

In religion, 'red square' may be indeed red and square, but it might be also orange triangle or blue circle. Still called 'red square'. This is the situation with the term 'God'. God is inside? Or it's outside, but there is interaction? What kind of interaction, is it real or just imaginary? What is a form of such interaction, and should one who hears voices in his/her head go to the church or to psychiatrist?

When I'm talking about 'connection' - strictly speaking, it's a feeling that I can describe as deep emotional connection with all the world, including the Universe beyond our planet, but I can also tell myself that the Universe has a personality so it's personal God. For those 8 years that I was attending church that somehow counted for contact with God (at least nobody confronted me about it).
This is what Neil De Grasse Tyson identifies as religious feeling and 'spiritual connection' with the Universe as opposite to the intellectual connection made by science.

Does it count as 'interaction with God' you describe? If yes, it's difficult to me to imagine how to make this feeling 'direct' or 'greater'. It operates only as ON/OFF, it's there or it isn't. Could you please explain what counts for 'direct/close' or 'indirect/far away'? I'm a bit confused.

[sestra_kerry]

>Automatic behavior is described by Gurdjieff: "a human is a machine", "men can not act; everything only happens to them".

Can't say I live like that, I rather feel like I'm happening to things rather than they happen to me. Difficult to say how much true is this about the others when you can't read their mind

[exorthodox]

I also worked in science for 25 years, and I couldn’t imagine that it is possible to distinguish reality and subjective perception reliably. The principle of Sufi knowing of God is based on such ability (I'm not talking about sufism for masses). It's called awareness (mindfulness), and it's popular today. However, it is not easy to develop true awareness, and that is why there are more talks than skills.
And when I was attending church, I also had nothing but faith – just like everyone else. All definitions are useless unless they are linked to your experience.
An example of direct interaction can be seen, for example, in the Bible, when God speaks to Jonah.

As for Gurdjieff... Self-awareness means observing your own emotions and thoughts without merging with them.

[sestra_kerry]

>I also worked in science for 25 years, and I couldn’t imagine that it is possible to distinguish reality and subjective perception reliably.

Why? I thought there are many scientific criteria of knowledge objectivity.

> I also had nothing but faith – just like everyone else.

I wouldn't be so sure. There are people who come to church exactly because they had a direct experience with something they later identified as 'God'. And for them (for me too, actually) it was not a matter of faith but of direct knowledge from experience. Another matter is, and that's what I'm trying to explain, that the definition of 'God' is so vague that some people can identify their own, let's call it 'mystical experience', as a revengeful old man with a big stick portrayed in Judaism or Islam, or for that matter three men in one as in Christianity, or many gods and goddesses of different shape and colour as in Hinduism or Buddhism.

White in fact, what such people call 'God' is some process in their head. Neuroscientific experiments even identified a zone in human's brain responsible for the feeling of 'God's presence'.
However, I wouldn't simplify it that way, because my experience in neuroscience, including experiments with neuroelectric recording, show me that human's brain (or other animals' brain, for that matter) is opened to an insanely vast amount of both internal and external stimuli, and such 'feeling of God's presence' indeed can be a result of contact with the objective and real Universe on the levels we do not yet understand, or understand insufficiently (like magnetoreception or perception of radio waves, how crazy it may sound).

So, what I'm trying to say, judging from your story you call that 'feeling of presence' a contact with God, but I'm still confused why you introduce 'God' in the situation where you can't precisely identify if this comes from inside (and then it's not a God but biochemical and electrical processes in your brain) or from the outside (and then it's the huge Universe around us).

[sestra_kerry]

here is what I'm trying to say, in more detail and in Russian:

https://sestra-kerry.livejournal.com/1216467.html

[exorthodox]

Thank you, I’ve read this text.
As to scientific knowledge and its “objectivity”, things aren't so clear. Scientific research always deals with material things. We see the results of processes but we may study only the mechanical part of it. Neuroscientific experiments could help us to find the cause of changes, which will always also be material. This doesn't prove anything, and using such methods no one can will be able to say what is consciousness.

> you can't precisely identify if this comes from inside … or from the outside

Yes, it is possible to identify precisely by practicing awareness (now I have such experience).

If you have no special reason to communicate in English, you can use Russian.

[sestra_kerry]

I do have special reason not to communicate in Russian, and it's IMHO pretty obvious. The journal is in Russian 'historically' , last 4 years it's just a copy of 'a war digest' for people behind the firewall and not a real diary. The new journal is in English/Ukrainian/French/Czech, whatever of these is more familiar to you.

Well again it's all about definitions. From the point of view you're describing 'immaterial' or 'spiritual' it's some alternative kind of reality which is equally functional as 'material reality'.

For me as a person who was initially a 'materialist' then tried to understand 'immaterial' and returned somewhere closer, 'material' is the external reality, and 'immaterial' is what happens inside our head i.e. 'imaginary'. One can imagine whatever he/she wants, for example that we have immortal essence or we can fly. The reason why 'immaterial' works in certain way in spite of being imaginary...well, neurons function in a very specific fashion, as well as the rest of our body.

That might be not so obvious for people who do not see it every day in a medical lab or neuroelectrical recording device, but it's pretty obvious to me.
I'm not arguing with you, though - if 'spiritual' works for you, great. I'm just trying to be a realist.

[sestra_kerry]

>Yes, it is possible to identify precisely by practicing awareness (now I have such experience).

And how do you identify it, as internal or external? As a process in your head, or as some alternative reality which does exist but without laws of physics or under different laws? Or both?

When I'm trying to understand what you say (and I was asking the same questions to myself many times), I remember that we can sense a lot of things as 'real', the voices in the head for a schizophrenic are very real despite these are pathological biochemical processes in that head. What makes them real is how they function.

My friends buddhists often mention something like 'a stone statue that grew 1.5 meters taller by itself' or 'ability to fly because of body lightness'. Or for that matter turning water into wine. Even if it's not entirely imaginary, the probability of this to happen in this 'material' world is enormously close to 0, and a person who is in some parallel reality (or more parsimoniously inside his/her own head) would be so helpless in this one that his/her place would be in an azylum

[sestra_kerry]

correct me if I'm wrong, do you describe something similar to what Aldous Huxley described in his 'The doors of perception'?

[exorthodox]

The obviousness you're referring to is based on ideas, i.e., a priori choices. These ideas already are limiting perception. Reality is the same for material and ‘spiritual’, and the method of cognition is based on observing and distinguishing between internal reactions—where they are come from. This allows to separate the products of mind activity from direct perception.
Unfortunately, I haven't read "Doors of Perception."

[sestra_kerry]

That's amazing to read statements that are supposed to be arguments in a discussion but in fact they are not, because a sentence by itself is not a proof of anything, no matter with what confidence, one's own or someone else's, they are pronounced.

The obviousness I'm referring to is based on the objective reality I'm living in. In this reality, there are cause-and-effect relationships and laws of physics that we can perceive to one degree or another, since they have results and consequences.

The fact that gravity exists and if you fall from a window of 20th floor, you'd most likely be dead, is not an 'apriori choice'. It's exactly the laws of physics in our part of the Universe (or in our small universe in a multitude of others, whatever).
And if one makes a bomb and kills other human beings using it, stays alive and preaches about some 'God', whatever the meaning of this vague word - a lot of people will hate that person and it's a result of deeds and consequences.

Following your logic, the prohibition of raping kids or eating people is also 'ideas limiting perception'.
Sorry, but my perception of the higher levels of the existence is not changed anyhow by the necessity of follow discrete rules in a continuous world where actual people are actually living.

[exorthodox]

No one lives in an objective reality because humans are subjects. It won’t be correct to ascribe any "logic" to me – our world isn't logical, and reality doesn't match any logic. А logical world is incompatible with free will. I'm trying to describe reality describe reality as it is reveals itself in the process of studying it. So please don't extrapolate me with some kind of "logic." Awareness doesn't make a person a cannibal or a rapist. People just become more adequate. Maybe I allow myself to write here some extra things, but it is another case.

The laws of physics are part of reality, no one will deny it. But there are also another facts that reveal spiritual laws. Not long ago, I heard about a man who had fall from the 19th floor even without fractures. I've already cited the example of the astonishing statistics of treatments administered by different doctors using the same treatment plan. Mysticism doesn't violate the laws of the physical world (as you know, any physical law allows for fluctuations) and it perfectly fits the confidence interval.