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

Carlos Castaneda

After years of perfection, there comes a moment when human form can't take it anymore 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 to the state " 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. The 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 will call it the World, the Universe, Emptiness, Relaxation, Magic, the Absolute, the state of “seeing”, whatever you like – 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 a 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 was waging a furious, mortal fight, fully aware of all their actions, everything that happened 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- refer to religions when talking 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 physical body, and in special condition spirit - this is how you 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 Power 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 instructions of the Power - that Divine Power that leads us all: everything is 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 like an allegory that makes you think.

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ego death

From the very beginning of this study, we have emphasized that death and rebirth are the key to every process of initiation (The Encyclopedia of Religions (Vol. 6) criticizes the broad general approach that today deals with the concept of initiation, and yet it recognizes that in this concept there are an element that combines 8 categories of events classified separately from each other.It should be noted that already in the work of Van Gennep, a pioneer in this field (although he dealt with rites of passage, not initiation), a list of stages is given: separation, limit, aggregation, where separation implies the psychological death of the former environment and status of the individual, while the limit refers to the intermediate state between the psychological death of the individual and the aggregations). At the risk of repeating myself, let me quickly go over the main points of this concept once again.

In primitive societies, the relationship between initiation and death is so close that many initiation procedures are analogous to funeral rituals (Encyclopedia of Religions, vol. 3, p. 1131). These things are interconnected: not only does initiation lead to symbolic death, but material death itself is interpreted in initiatory theories as part of a process that inevitably leads to rebirth3 (See the chapter on death in M. EHade. Occultism, Witchcraft and Cultural Fashions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976).

These anthropological descriptions of the duality of death-initiation have great importance and in application to our own society. We have already hypothesized a hidden need for initiation in our modern society. Mass drug use and the formation of esoteric groups is most likely a confused and desperate expression of this need. Our society lacks initiation rituals just as it lacks death rituals, because death is often the most repressed topic of our century, just as the topic of sexuality was tabooed in the last century.

In the light of the assumptions made, such coincidences are not accidental. Death and initiation are interconnected at the archetypal level. Not only have they experienced the same lot of repression, but they belong to the same repressed psychic realm. It is in the world of drugs that the theme of death continues to be updated again and again. Often there are people who say that they turned to drugs with a desire to gradually die. Even when there is no talk of the physical death of an individual, psychic death can be constellated. Drugs are often turned to because of the worthlessness, meaninglessness, emptiness of life, a dead existence filled only with reflex actions.

When a person dies of all family values, attachments and ideals, he seeks a life experience worthy of the word "life", even if this is a purely subjective experience that can only be shared with a select few. He feels a kind of progressive mental death as the effect of the drug wears off (generally speaking, the effect of substances is different - heroin, alcohol, marijuana, etc. differ in their effect). When using hard drugs, a person usually experiences a sense of death during withdrawal, often with severe physical symptoms, which contributes significantly to the physical addiction we have already written about.

Thus, it is impossible not to notice the connection that exists between the use of drugs and the unconscious theme of death and rebirth. The battle of life and death is undoubtedly the matrix of any major life action, but this matrix is ​​especially evident in the case of drug addiction. It is not the physical danger that is worth it, but the fear of death (see G. Mattenklott, Der Ubersinnliche Lieb, Hamburg: Reibek, 1982, pp. 225-226). Taking drugs is not part of the opposition of life and death in some generalized abstract context. With each dose, a person can literally (and not just metaphorically) lose his life, and if he does not go too far, the drug forces him to turn to him again and again. Each dose, more or less unconsciously associated with the expectation of death and rebirth, creates this death "de facto". This expectation, as we know, is ambivalent, and the element of "death" can easily begin to prevail not only physically, but also in the sense of a deep mental experience. But at the same time, this expectation in its own pure form there is an attempt to create something like self-initiation.

This largely unconscious attempt is being made today in a historical and cultural situation that favors the inevitable overestimation of the significance of paradigmatic mythologies and masters who can somehow orientate in relation to these experiences. In such an attempt at initiation, the distinction between the sacred and the profane is not respected, and the proper respect is not given to the sacred, as has been done since ancient times. It also ignores the preparatory and purgatory sacrifices that accompanied and limited drug use in primitive societies. This attempt is on the verge of failure, not so much because of the inadequacy and riskiness of the undertaking itself, but because of the way and under what circumstances it is carried out.

Despite all the attempts made to ritualize the use of drugs, two errors are observed when referring to these substances - naivety and short-sightedness. It is not only a matter of insufficient attention to toxicological issues, the corresponding cultural and psychological obstacles are underestimated. The body of a person reacts to drugs with signs of poisoning in parallel with the fact that his psyche is unable to integrate this experience.

Let's try to go beyond cultural naivety and look at this unsuccessful initiation from an archetypal point of view. Does the model of initiation, the impulse to experience death and rebirth, fulfill its function? To a certain extent, we are forced to accept that this pattern is activated, with both parts of the initiation being constellated. On the other hand, the dynamics of the archetype always trigger an exchange between two opposite bands and develop along the path of ambivalence (Even popular psychology and folk wisdom argue that in love there is a share of hatred and vice versa. But let us turn our attention to a more specific archetypal theme. For example, the hero's battle against darkness or against the primal chaos of the unconscious, which has already been mentioned, gives impetus to the birth of consciousness and a strong ego, but it can also go too far and lead to a fragile ego that will one day be swallowed up by the unconscious (as happens in psychosis), thus turning victory into its opposite). An attempt at initiation can end, paradoxically, with the victory of death, not rebirth.

To be more precise, it should be noted that when taking drugs, an early phase occurs, which could be called the death phase. It is about releasing current tension and anxiety, so what can be called the death of conditioning.

Higher goals and strong emotions are not lost (they are actually felt exalted), but it is precisely the anxieties that have overcome us until now that disappear. It is known, for example, that soldiers sometimes resort to alcohol before an attack (not only in our time, Homer also mentioned this), and, as was clear from the Alamut legend, the "assassins" got this name after the ritual use of hashish before committing murders.

It is logical to assume that alcohol and hashish are needed to give courage in the face of death. But such an explanation essentially tells us nothing. From a psychological point of view, this is a tautology. What is courage? Is this a denial of death or is the connection with it accidental? Maybe the help from alcohol and hashish lies not in muffled thoughts about death, but on the contrary, in a non-traumatic acquaintance with it through the emergence of a feeling of being outside the condition of ordinary problems. It is no coincidence that in traditional societies similar goals were set in preparation for death.

To use analytical terminology, one might say that the drug user experiences a more or less intense death of his ego, a departure from that position of consciousness, rationality and enlightenment to which we are attached due to the dominant imperative of European culture. This observation may help us understand some facts. Drug use is considered a crime, especially in the West, primarily because it is seen as an attempt to undermine the psychology of Western man. The rapid spread of drug addiction in societies undergoing accelerated modernization can be interpreted as an unconscious and desperate attempt by many people to compensate for the mental one-sidedness caused by this process. It becomes clearer why, in the West, drugs are often and perhaps unconsciously associated with other forms of rejection of the dominant culture.

It is highly unlikely that the brief and shallow experience of "ego death" after drug use (the feeling of "lightness of being") would fit the need for death in the initiatory archetype, or that this experience could satisfy that need. Such a “death” is not accepted consciously and is not experienced as a real death, it is only a release of excess tension. When the ego is neutralized, the unconscious is spontaneously activated, and this is due entirely to hallucinogens and less frequently to other substances.

In general, in the first minutes after taking drugs, the psyche does not experience the feeling of death, but only an altered state of consciousness. The point at which the experience of death is strongest comes later, when the drug has taken effect. If we consider drug addiction as an unconscious attempt at self-initiation, what strikes us most is the reverse order of initiation—rebirth at the beginning and death at the end.

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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).

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.