|
Practice of the Straight Path
The doctrine of the Straight Path was not invented by people. No, it has been suggested by God. This doctrine was set out in details by Krishna and then repeated by Jesus Christ, Babaji and Sathya Sai. Quran and Buddhist scriptures contain the same description of it and even use the same term.
This doctrine may be summarized in short in the following three points:
1. There is God — One Universal Consciousness of the Creator, Who lives in the highest eon of multidimensional space.
2. He is Love.
3. We have to become one with Him through transforming ourselves into Love, into a “universal spiritual heart”. And understanding and accomplishment of this are the only things it makes sense to spend one’s life for.
Now we will describe specific methods of advancing on this Path.
They can be divided into several groups depending on their level of difficulty: preliminary, intermediate and highest.
Preliminary methods help one develop faith. And faith is essential for emergence of the incentive for making spiritual efforts.
But what is faith? This is a rather multi-level concept.
Some say about their faith: “Well, I know there is something out there…: cosmic intellect, UFO…”
Others will assert with confidence: “Yes, I believe in God!” And they will even make a “sign of the cross”. But they do not make slightest spiritual efforts — even to find out what God wants from us, let alone to transform themselves in accordance with His Will. On the contrary, they will be drinking hard, stealing, hating, killing, and only occasionally thinking: “What if God might not like this? Oh, well — all this is not going to be soon!”. Just like I would not be interested to hear about methods of manufacturing golden jewelry or faceting diamonds — they are not interested to hear anything about God.
Once I was talking to a former head of an Orthodox parish. He was telling me that he was working on his dissertation. I said to him: “But we are already in the age when it is time to think about using the time left to make as much as possible in the monastic pursuit and not in acquiring earthly titles… Will God need your degree?” He replied: “Well, God — it is not known if He exists or not, but the Ph.D. degree is almost mine!”…
Faith acquires a real value only when it is characterized by love for God. Because only love can make a person want to transform himself sincerely, willing to become what his Beloved wants to see him. And later it may even grow into a passion, which will make one give up everything that stands in the Way to the wide-open Embrace of the Creator… This is when one comes to a true monasticism: to being one-to-one with God…
So, helping people strengthen their faith is the sole purpose of such techniques as making standard ritual bodily movements, repeating prayers, singing mantras, performing ritual dances and worshiping images of God and “saints” on icons or in the form of idols. But these methods look totally absurd to those who have mastered these stages long ago.
It is only on this stage of development that some primitive views “work”, like that “consecration” is a means of transferring special mystic power or that belonging to a “Parampara” — a succession of teachers originating from an Incarnation of God — is something essential. Although in reality, there are many energetically devilized aggressive primitive people among “consecrated” priests, and disciples of spiritual Masters often warp Their Teachings grossly even in the “first generation” of the continuity chain.
But with all seeming absurdity of playing rites, initiations, common and individual mantras games, etc. — God “adjusts” to these games that people play and helps sincere seekers overcome difficult first steps of the great Path against this background.
Although the true baptism of the Holy Spirit (which was described by apostle Philip) in no way resembles the corresponding rite of any church that is known under the same name, God accepts this act from sincere neophytes, if they perform it as a vow to Him that they have an unwavering resolution to seek and to find Him as their Goal.
But when companies of murderers accept baptism before setting off for their bloody crimes, like it was, for example, during the Chechen war, — does not it look like a abominable desecration of the Teachings and the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ for us?
The same can be said about christening of children: does not common everyday experience tell us that it is a completely useless act? One may have seen both christened and-non-christened children get sick, die, become drunkards or criminals when they grow up.
Christening is an oath of devotion to God, and not at all an act of “guard magic”. And only an experienced and mature person can give such an oath, and he must do it himself, but not “godparents” for him.
… But strings with crosses that people put on the children’s necks sometimes turn out to be slip-knots for little babies. Sometimes they get entangled in those strings that strangle their necks…
Crosses worn around the necks were used by executioners during the compulsory christening of Russians to mark those who had already been christened so that it would be easier for them to catch and subject to tortures or to kill those people who tried to evade this. But why do people wear crosses now? Do they really think that God needs them to? But it is enough for God if there is a sign of christening in a sincere Christian’s soul.
… But on the other hand — prayers before meal, icons in one’s house, attendance of churches, participation in rituals, repetition of mantras and feeling a cross on one’s chest — all of this can strengthen one’s faith by reminding one about God. And God gives the worthy seekers confirmations of correctness of their initial efforts by affecting their emotional sphere: He grants them an experience of bliss by creating flows of grace.
… But there are no “saving” rituals, nonetheless. And upon acquiring loving faith a person should start studying the Will of God, as opposed to canons of the organization, in which he started his Path. And he also should make real efforts on self-transformation — transformation of himself as a soul, as a consciousness.
As we can see, there is nothing wrong in getting involved in ritual forms of religious practice at a certain stage of one’s development. This has been typical of all times, countries and religion forms. And it does not make sense to try to figure out which ritual forms are better and which worse. The Orthodox ones, for example, are beautiful. Others are wonderful, too. The more peace, harmony, pure and tranquil joy, bliss and love they carry, the better. These are exactly the qualities that religious rites should help believers cultivate.
The main issue is not the form of ritual practices, but the ideology that is preached by the organizations that provide these practices. We have already discussed this in the previous chapters.
* * *
All people differ by their psychogenetic age, i.e. by the age of the soul. The age of the body (the ontogenetic age) is a different thing. In his next incarnation each person can quite quickly and easily realize what he developed in his previous incarnations. This relates to his intellectual potential, level of development of the chakras, amount of the mass of consciousness, inclinations in professional field, intensity of certain psychic traits.
This is why it is perfectly normal that we can meet grown-up people that possess dramatically different abilities to comprehend religious issues. It is also normal that a huge number of believers along with their leaders remain on the preliminary stage of spiritual work until the end of their current incarnations: in their next lives they will have a chance to continue their Path.
But they do need to be informed that this stage is just a preliminary one. This will help those of them who can go wake up and move further.
People who are still at the previous stage of mastering their religiosity believe that the faith in the ideological concept and rituals of the organization of their choice is a sufficient condition for their “salvation” (Russian Orthodoxy separated some of its rituals for greater show to a special group of “sacraments”). These people are not yet capable of comprehending words of God, not even those of them that are written in the Holy Scriptures. Opinions and orders of their earthly “pastors” are much dearer and more valuable to them.
For example, despite the fact that God told people not to kill, “Christians” “became famous” for so many terrifying atrocities throughout the history of Christianity on Earth! So many wars, murders, tortures and other crimes they have committed! As for killing of animals — scarcely 0.001% of “Christians” obey the Will of God in this respect. Where is the place for Christian love?! There is no sight of you among “Christians”! This is because those “Christians” are not true ones!
* * *
But the initial stage of spiritual advancement implies making real efforts on self-transformation.
And the first thing that the aspirant has to do is accepting the principle of Love. He must not accept it as just a nice phrase, acknowledging the beauty of it, but as a strict rule of conduct. And no practical methods — be they exercises of hatha yoga, work with chakras and meridians, winter swimming, etc. — will bring us closer to God (in fact, they can even lead us astray, sometimes), if we do not follow commandments of God regarding Love in reality.
Let us look at the nutrition, for example. If we contaminate our bodies with coarse energies of dead bodies of animals, this will not allow us to attain the required degree of refinement of consciousness for getting closer to the Abode of the Creator; on the contrary, it will drag us towards hell and create for us a bad karma, which will have to be redeemed in our next incarnations.
We have thoroughly discussed the subject of correct nutrition
in the book 'Ecology of Human Being in Multidimensional Space'. Here I will only say that a human organism has to be provided, as a rule, with sufficient amount of proteins that contain all necessary amino acids. The proteins of this kind are supplied with eggs and milk products. There are also great amounts of protein in mushrooms, nuts, soybeans and some other foodstuffs. Therefore, there is no necessity to kill animals from healthy nutrition perspective.
After all, a human being as biological species does not belong to the class of
predators and the anatomy and biochemistry of the human organism are not fit for
eating bodies of animals — this is the reason why it suffers of this kind of
nutrition.
But health and karma considerations are not principal here. The main point is that God is Love. And He allows us to get close to Him only if we become Love.
But material substances are not the only food that we consume. As “food” we, as souls, also use impressions (Russian religious psychologist George Gurdjieff was among those who talked about it in these terms in the beginning of the 20th century.
And if we want to “turn away from what is evil and cling to what is good” we
need to take any opportunity to use the “food” of this kind — in nature, art,
communicating with spiritual people, etc. and attuning to the subtle and
harmonious phenomena. At the same time we need to keep away from coarse
impressions, which are primarily created by people of the tamas guna. This was
taught by Jesus Christ, Babaji, and Sathya Sai Baba: Their opinions regarding
this issue are presented in the section 'What Does God Teach Us?'.
Avoiding external coarseness is just one of the methods. But the main task for us is to eliminate internal coarseness, including that which comes out of us. This can be attained by controlling emotions, which are states of us as consciousnesses.
Each emotion emanates beyond the body, affecting surrounding people and other living beings. And the more intensive it is the further from the body it emanates.
Solving of the task of controlling one’s emotions radically will be possible only at the next, higher stages of work. But if we do not set this goal right now and start to accustom ourselves to self-control, we can hardly expect ourselves to achieve any success in the future.
For now, an effective method of struggling with bursts of coarse emotions and various manifestations of egotism will be repentance work, which we have discussed in detail above.
* * *
Now I will stress that a superficial and shallow attitude towards ethic issues can sometimes produce an opposite effect compared to what was expected.
For example, we discussed acceptance of the Compassion principle as one of the first steps towards Love. But does everyone clearly realize that compassion does not have anything to do with plunging into onerous emotional states of “worrying about” someone?… People who fall into states like that become unbearable for others, especially for those whom they “worry about”. Bioenergetic impact of the fields with such characteristics sometimes can be the “final blow” for those wounded or sick people who become subject to such “worrying”. The victims may feel a desperate need to get rid of this “compassionate” monster who overwhelms them with such a state — to get rid by all means, at the level of the deepest instinct of self-preservation, which is beyond control of the intellect…
Such “compassion”, just like bioenergetic vampirism, ruins loving relationships between people, destroys families…
No, compassion does not at all mean “heavy” emotions, but overall pure and careful attitude towards all manifestations of life, if possible, avoiding causing any unnecessary harm to anyone, as well as willingness to help everyone in what is good.
The initial stage of spiritual work is not sattva yet. It is still rajas. And among the most important factors that determine success at this stage are energy and self-discipline, cultivating the ability to make efforts and super-efforts on the spiritual Path.
These qualities can be perfectly developed by engaging oneself in various dynamic sport activities, of which especially great are those that connect one with living nature (hiking, mountain climbing, etc.). Practicing oriental martial arts would also be very good for that purpose. But it is important to emphasize, that this practice should in no way lead to growth of aggressiveness, brutality and rudeness. Another important thing to understand is that the techniques of martial arts per se cannot lead the seeker to spiritual heights: this can be achieved only by working with chakras and through mastering the art of meditation, which are integral parts of the training in the best schools of this orientation.
In any specific kind of study at this stage — be it karate, hiking, or something else — both instructors and students should pay their principal attention to increasing the level of their morality, which is based on causing no unnecessary harm to any living beings.
It would be appropriate for everyone to start thinking about and to make right decisions regarding their service according to karma yoga principles and change professional occupation, if necessary, or start studying in order to acquire a new profession.
Of the variety of hygienic recommendations the following four should be accepted at this stage:
Washing the body with soap daily, if possible, preferably in the morning.
Getting up early and going to bed early.
Not wearing clothes made of synthetic fabrics, especially those that have close contact with the skin.
Exposing the entire body to sunlight: it brings health, which is quite necessary. In winter, one should periodically expose the body to the light of “quartz” lamps, especially in case of ailments (those of catarrhal type, in particular).
Other hygienic recommendations as well as advice on healing oneself of common diseases can be found in the book
'Ecology of Human Being in Multidimensional Space'.
The people with unstable emotional sphere as well as those who cannot concentrate or have unpleasant obsessive thoughts will benefit from taking a course of hatha yoga lessons. Exercises of this stage were developed in ancient India, and their performance teaches one concentration of consciousness in various parts of the body, as well as relaxation of body and mind; they also contribute to elimination of many bioenergetic defects within the body and can heal one of some chronic diseases.
The mechanism that is at work here is as follows: maintaining postures of hatha yoga for a long time causes accumulation and redistribution of energy in the energy structures of the organism, which leads to their development. The following dynamics of sensations is typical when mastering new asanas. For the first few days of practice one may not feel anything out of ordinary, only regular adaptation of the body takes place. During the next few days appears absolutely new “mysterious” and pleasant sensation of energies “flowing” inside the body, which “flow” in meridians like streams of a liquid; one may even hear a babbling sound at times. But in one or two weeks they suddenly disappear, to one’s regret, which in fact means that the asana has fulfilled its role at the current stage. But what was taking place is the following. As a result of doing the asana, the corresponding meridian started to function. While its conductivity was still low, one had interesting murmur-like sensations. When the meridian opened fully, the energy started to move freely inside of it and the “murmuring” stopped.
At the initial stages of mastering exercises of hatha yoga the necessary condition for doing asanas is performing shavasana after the whole set or after particular asanas, which are performed separately (except for relaxation ones). This is needed for the leveling of energetic strains that may develop due to the low conductivity of meridians. If this condition is not fulfilled, neurotic symptoms (lability of mood, sleep disturbances and many others) and even visual impairments or disorders of other systems of the organism may develop.
Description of relaxation asanas will be given below. Other exercises are described in specialized literature.
Practicing hatha yoga without switching to “cruelty-free” diet always leads to the coarsening of consciousness of the students. Subjectively it is perceived as attainment of power. But it turns out to be a terrible trap: possessing coarse power of consciousness we program ourselves for living in hell.
Apart from exercises of Indian hatha yoga some systems of Chinese dynamic gymnastics can be used for the same purpose, for example, those, where development of meridians with images of light (small sun, etc.) is performed during smooth and slow “roll-overs” from one foot to another.
Hatha yoga practice (or other trainings) can be supplemented by exercises, which develop an ability to create clear visual images. This will prepare one for mastering the highest forms of meditation as well as create prerequisites for attainment of clairvoyance.
We can start with simple things: let us imagine a tomato, an apple, a juicy pear, then let us imagine that we examine them, smell them, bite them, enjoy their flavor and swallow them with great pleasure…
Let us get carried to the morning silence of a lake: in a boat, surrounded by wet reeds… Small tender dew-drops are hanging from every leaflet… Fish splashing, whistling of duck wings… Reed warblers start singing their songs…
Or we may imagine that we are lying on the beach in the morning sunlight… Warm and tender light pervades our entire body and soul, saturating them with bliss…
Or let us visualize ourselves picking mushrooms: cutting and plucking black slimy milk mushrooms out of wet autumn foliage…, admiring a big and solid sep…
We may visualize numerous similar images. They must attune us to subtlety, beauty and bliss. They must teach us sattva.
Later on we may complicate the training in the following way: we may imagine ourselves to actually be some imaginary sattvic object — a sweet juicy pear, a strawberry, a tender fragrant flower, or a caressing sun. We may learn to place these images filled with our own consciousness, with our self-awareness, into the chest — into the anahata chakra.
When this ability is well developed it will not be difficult for us to invite an image of our beloved Divine Teacher, which we know very well from photographs, into anahata… And He will “come alive” there: He will start smiling and speaking… But it will become possible only if we deserve it: if we lead an impeccable life, established in sattva, study the Teachings of God intensively, and transform ourselves in accordance with them.
Work with images has another name — “visualization”, which was borrowed from Buddhism. But it is important to warn the reader from non-critical attitude towards specific recommendations for “visualization” that he or she may find in literature or lectures of some ignorant Buddhist specialists: as we have also discussed there is a great number of sects and schools within Buddhism that deviated from the true Path.
Some authors recommend surrounding one’s body with images of “wrathful gods”, i.e. devils and demons, for “guard magic” purposes. And those images also “come alive” by getting filled with corresponding hell beings.
A once famous mystic and doctor from Saint Petersburg who was not “overburdened with intellect” and possessed grossest ethic vices, while being a good extrasensory diagnostician, started to study these “black magic” methods with a group of his students. The effect was that people were getting sick after just talking to him. And when that entire gang visited other esoteric groups to stare at people practicing — students were fainting there.
Coarsening of him as a consciousness reached a tremendous level, and he turned into a devil in the flesh, but he continued to teach extrasensory healing and to “heal”. Although it is clear that people like this cannot really heal anyone, they can only do harm by “putting an evil eye” on people.
He ended up becoming a knife-victim, murdered in his own bathroom. It was most likely one of the victims of his “healing” or some of his or her friends.
But hell is not what we need! We prepare ourselves to becoming God, not devils! Therefore, seeing this sad example of spiritual degradation as someone else’s tragic experience, let us turn away from it and go to the abodes of Purity, Light, Tenderness, and Love — in order to attune to them and to become one with them.
* * *
If you already possess some skills, which could be of use to other people, — gather some of your friends and teach them what you know. Your knowledge, abilities, and efforts will combine, and you all will grow together, preparing yourself to the next stages of spiritual growth.
Back to the Contents
Basic methods are those which allow one to attain such level of purification and of energy structures’ development of the organism, which would enable one to feel God, to learn how to attain Samadhi (the emotional states that occur during contacts with Consciousness of God in His Divine Fire aspect) and to grow one’s refined consciousness further by developing its power — in order to come at the subsequent highest stages of work to the complete Victory of Mergence with the Creator in His Abode.
In Hindu and Buddhist traditions these methods are known as “Raja yoga”. Their variations were developed in Chinese Taoism and Muslim Sufism. They existed on the territory of Russia before its “christening”, which is clear judging by the high spiritual status of those who are incarnated here now. But the only spiritual practice of this level that is known in Christianity is the “Jesus prayer”.
Raja yoga is based on working with chakras, main meridians and the “cocoon”. The purpose of this work is to “cleanse” them to transparency and also to develop them — in order to attain through them the Divine level of subtlety.
Hence it becomes obvious that techniques of “coloring” chakras practiced in some schools are harmful, and using them is a consequence of tremendous spiritual incompetence of the leaders of those schools. For tender white is the subtlest color, and any other is obviously farther from the level of subtlety of the Creator.
Another typical mistake that people may make when working with
chakras is placing the emphasis on development of the ajna chakra and its
“window” (trikuta), which ostensibly leads to attainment of clairvoyance. This
tendency has a long history and originates in the incorrect interpretation of
Krishna’s words in the
Bhagavad Gita (8:10), where He recommends channeling energy through trikuta. But from reading the next verses of Gita (8:12) it is clear that He is talking about the energy of Atman. But in numerous schools, whose leaders have not cognized Atman yet, attempts are made to perform this with regular bioenergies, which leads to activation of one of the coarsest (originally) chakras and as a consequence to coarsening of the entire consciousness. Such people develop, in particular, a “piercing”, sharp and unpleasant gaze. A tendency like this halts them for a long time in their spiritual development.
But the clairvoyance, which some seekers gain as a result of such practice, is of no real value, because it enables them to see only emotional auras around the heads of other people and is good only for “spying” upon their emotional states.
But the true clairvoyance is exercised by structures of the lower “bubble of perception” (see below). Possessing it enables one to see energies of different levels of subtlety-coarseness scale in multidimensional space. As a result of gaining this kind of clairvoyance one becomes able to directly observe various subtlest Manifestations of the non-incarnate Consciousness of God.
Work on development of chakras and other fine structures of organism is incompatible with taking alcohol (even in the form of kvas or alcohol-containing milk products) and other psychedelics, since these substances destroy those subtle structures. Breaking this rule causes serious diseases.
* * *
Work with fine energy structures as well as meditative trainings cannot be effective if the room in which they are performed is illumined with fluorescent lighting, since it produces a coarse energetic impact on the organism.
One also must not wear synthetic clothes, because they block a significant part of the spectrum of bioenergies and distorts energy processes inside the body. (The latter instruction does not relate to raincoats, which we put on only in case of rain).
Watches and other metal objects should be taken off during the classes: bioenergetic work makes watches magnetize and go out of order, while all metal objects create energetic interference.
We have already talked about incompatibility of psycho-energetic trainings with eating “killed” food. If this rule is not obeyed the energy structures of the organism get constructed of coarse energies.
Practice at this stage of work is better performed in a group. The size of the practice room should correspond to the size of the group: too big of a hall would be unfavorable since the group energy will get dissipated in it.
* * *
First serious information (of that which is known to us) about the role and functioning of chakras and about methods of working with them was presented in
the book 'Ecology of Human Being in Multidimensional Space'. The fantasies of Aurobindo Ghosh regarding this that were set out in his books are completely baseless; they have only deceived many readers while there was a shortage of written esoteric information in Russia before Perestroika.
* * *
Let us get down to specific information about work at this stage of spiritual advancement. The suggested exercises have been published several times. They have been tested by many years of teaching them to great numbers of people and proved to be highly effective.
It is good to start each practice session with emotional attunement and purification of the energy of the surrounding space. For this purpose there exists a wonderful technique, known as the “Cross of Buddha”. It is performed in the following way.
For the best performance of this exercise we should accept the so-called “student posture”: we should sit down on the heels holding the spine straight, toes looking backwards and palms of hands resting upon the thighs. Then we send waves of our benevolence and love from the chest forward, saying mentally: “May all beings have peace! May all beings be calm! May all beings feel bliss!” We produce each of these three states inside the chest first and then radiate them forward. Then we repeat this to the right, to the left, backwards, up, and down. This is a powerful technique that allows us to bring harmony to ourselves, to the surrounding space, and to the living beings around us.
After this, especially at the first few sessions, a very important element of practice would be a physical warm-up, which not only allows one to “cheer up” the energies within the body and to get rid of unnecessary mental dominants, but also teaches one to concentrate as a consciousness in the working parts of the body. The latter will come in handy in the future when we will be working with chakras.
Stand up. By making paddy movements with the legs and the trunk swing both arms back and forth, then rotate them simultaneously. Concentrate in the shoulder joints. Visualize light emerging and growing brighter inside the joints.
Tense the muscles of the arms. Bend and unbend the arms repeatedly in the elbow joints. Watch white light gathering from the entire body to the working muscles.
Extend the arms in front of the body. Move the relaxed wrists quickly up and down. Tense your fingers. Bend and unbend them. Move the wrists while tensing muscles of forearms and wrists. Then let go of the tension and relax the entire body.
Bend your head from side to side while keeping the neck relaxed. Roll the head over your shoulders making a circle. Turn the head to the right and to the left around a vertical axis. Imagine that the neck segment of the spine is an axle and cervical vertebras are ball stringed on it. See the beam of white light coming up the axle. Tense the muscles of the neck. Repeat the same exercises but this time with the muscles of the neck tensed. Imagine a stream of white light diameter-of-the-neck wide rising through it. Again relax the entire body. Shift the head from side to side while keeping it vertical and without moving the shoulders, then rotate the head in the same manner.
Raise your arms over your head. Take the right hand with the left one by the wrist and pull it over the head while bending the body to the same side and stretch the side muscles of the trunk. Repeat this movement with another hand.
While holding the arms up, tilt the trunk to the sides first in the pectoral and then in the lumbar segments of the spine. Tense the muscles of the trunk and make tilts and turns of the body. Imagine that the trunk gets filled with light. Relax the body. Turn the trunk around a vertical axis while relaxing the muscles and keeping the feet on the floor, trying to turn the head as far to the back as possible, concentrating in the spine.
Shift the pelvis to the sides without tilting it and bending the legs, keeping the muscles as relaxed as possible. Concentrate in the area of the spine below the navel.
Raise the right leg so that the thigh is parallel to the floor. Rotate the ankle as if drawing a circle on the floor. Concentrate in the ankle joint, seeing white light and warmth emerging inside of it. Rotate the shin, concentrating in the knee-joint.
Swing the shin from side to side, keeping the knee in one place and concentrating in both hip joints.
Draw a circle with a straight leg, first in front of the body, then at the right side and then behind the body.
Repeat these exercises with the left leg.
After the warm-up we will take some rest in one of the following postures (asanas):
First of them is a so-called “half-tortoise posture”.
Sit on the heels with the toes looking backwards and move the knees apart. Put the forehead and the extended arms on the floor with palms pressed against each other. Relax the body and mind completely. Watch the stomach sag more and more as the relaxation becomes deeper. This is a wonderful exercise that allows one to get rid of physical and mental tiredness. It should be performed for about ten minutes.
The second asana is called the “crocodile posture”. There are two ways of performing it.
Lie on the stomach, protruding the elbows forward as far as possible, the chin resting on the palms.
The second option — put the elbows forward and place one forearm upon the other on the floor, holding the head and the upper part of the body up by tensing the muscles of the back.
In both cases, imagine yourselves as happy small crocodiles that have crawled out to a sandbank to warm themselves in the sun. Sun is warming our backs through, and we are melting away in the bliss of its tender warmth that saturates our bodies.
Bioenergetic purification should be performed both of the organism as a whole and of its separate segments corresponding with chakras. There are a lot of purification techniques and each of them allows one to get rid of the next portion of impurity, which means elimination of diseases, overall improvement of health and getting closer to the Ultimate Goal.
Now we will describe a few general purifying exercises of pranayama type.
Stand up. Bend slightly to your right so that your right arm hangs freely without touching the body. Try to feel your arm thoroughly from the shoulder joint to the wrist. Imagine that a pump chamber, to which “air”-light is being fed through the arm like through a hose, expands in the chest with every inhalation and contracts with every exhalation. Special attention should be paid to the exhaling. Try to achieve a high clarity of sensations. The “hose” should be as thick as the arm and nothing should prevent the “air”-light from moving freely through it.
Perform the same exercise with the left arm, and then with each leg. The “hose” should come down from the chest to each leg through the corresponding side of the body.
Place images of two vessels, for example, barrels, under your feet. Let one of them be empty and the other full of white liquid light. Touch this light with your foot-hose and pump it through the body-pump into the other barrel. With each inhaling the pump chamber inside the body and the head is expanding, drawing the light from the full vessel through the leg. With each exhaling the chamber is contracting, the light pouring out through the other leg into the empty barrel. The light cleanses the whole body from inside.
When the barrel with light gets empty — fill it up again and overturn the content of the other barrel into an image of fire so that all dirt that has streamed out burns. Turn the body around over the barrels and repeat the exercise.
After you finish do the same, this time placing the barrels under your hands.
In this way you should attain a feeling that your whole body is filled up with bright white light.
After performing pranayamas you will need to rest in one of the relaxation asanas.
Now let us learn four psycho-physical exercises. They got this name because their psychic component is combined with simultaneously performing physical movements, with the latter contributing to the mastering of the former. The basic idea of these exercises was invented by Peter Donov, a mystic of the beginning of the 20th century; later it was developed by Omram Michael Aivankhov, and then by us.
The first exercise of this series is called “Awakening”. A person awakens from a long sleep of self-isolation from harmony, beauty, and love of the outside world. (While standing, raise the hands up and stretch yourself as if after a sleep). Let all the purity, light, and the vitality from outside into you. Feel the waterfall of astonishingly pure, transparent, light, and subtle feelings and morning freshness flowing from above. Fill yourself with this morning freshness. Fill yourself with these fresh waves, overfill yourself with them! (Hands move down to the shoulders, as if assisting this process; then move up again, then repeat these movements several times). Try to reach as high and subtle an emotional state as possible.
The second exercise is called “Giving Away”. Hold your hands against the chest and then make a wide gesture moving them forward and apart: what we received we must give away to other people — the level of spiritual advancement of an individual is measured by his or her ability to give. Also, so that a vessel may get filled with fresh water it needs to be emptied first. He who does not empty himself by giving away what he has, does not get renewed, does not grow. We repeat this exercise again and again, pouring out, giving away all the good that we accumulated — generously, free, without desire to receive any reward. Send subtlest and intense waves of streaming fresh and pure love far forward. Feel how the chest gets inflated by energy of love that comes swelling from behind. A flower that exhales a tender fragrance starts to blossom out in the middle of chest. Send these bright vibrations forward. This is the fragrance of love itself!
The third exercise is “Reconciliation”. Raise the right hand above the head and concentrate in the palm and the space that immediately surrounds it. Then slowly bring the hand down and draw with it a sinusoid with a half-cycle of about thirty centimeters. The edge of the palm should be facing the direction of the hand’s movement. While doing this try to feel the space, in which the hand moves, as some energy field, to which we assign a new characteristic: peace, harmony, and calm. You may “extend” the hand mentally. (You may imagine various ways of performing dancing movements: jerky and quick versus gentle, smooth and elegant. Each of the ways disposes both the performer and the audience to corresponding emotional states). And this simple but powerful gesture, which symbolizes harmony, will be helping everyone as they master this exercise (one should feel it deeply through) in every situation, even if performed without being accompanied with movements of the body.
The fourth exercise of this group is called “Climbing Up”. Raise the hands up with the palms facing sideward and then bring them down laterally, making sweeps. Repeat this movement several times, with each sweep we are hatching out of another coarse envelope, as it were, and becoming lighter, purer, we raise to the source of the light above — the sun… It becomes very close to us; few more swings and we reach it… Flow into a space, which is filled with purest and subtlest light, and enjoy being in it… Then slowly get down to the earth feeling the sun in your chest. Touch the ground… and shine out at people and all other living beings with sunlight coming from your chest.
All sessions involving work with chakras and meridians should be followed by a relaxation exercise called “Shavasana”. It allows one to rest from bioenergetic work, which can be very tiring, as well as to get rid of bioenergetic defects that have not been eliminated yet.
“Shavasana” is relaxation of body and mind in the position of lying on the back.
Lie on the back and make sure that you feel comfortable. Nothing should distract you. Then begin to relax the body starting with the toes. You may imagine a surface perpendicular to the axis of the body — like a glass wall — and move it through the body from the toes to the head; behind this surface no tension remains. Feel that you lose any sensation of those parts of the body behind the surface. Alienate them, saying mentally: “This is not mine, this is not mine!…” If you regain sensation of any part of the body, move the plane through this section once again. After the surface has passed the head you may experience the following states:
The first state: consciousness (awareness of the body) vanishes. You fall into something resembling a deep sleep, but this is not a sleep. Consciousness is regained in about 18-20 minutes. You feel thoroughly rested, as if after a long deep sleep. This is quite a blissful state. You do not have to stand up abruptly, just enjoy it.
The second state: consciousness is retained, but absolute peace comes down on you. You may scan the entire body with the “inner sight”. You may enter the inner space of your body from below and see light and dark regions. Gray or black colors mean disorders on one of energy planes, which correspond to the manifest or still latent stages of diseases. Try to gather all dark stuff in heaps as if with a rake and throw it outside the body.
When doing shavasana you may also experience involuntary exits from the material body: you may suddenly become aware of yourself being in your usual form but in an unusual position — for example, soaring above the floor or standing on the head and so on. There is nothing to worry about, though: once you feel like getting back into the body — you will find yourself there right away. But under no circumstances one is encouraged to perform such exits: these are still exits into a coarse space dimension — into the so-called “astral plane”. One should learn how to exit immediately into the highest spatial dimensions, but the methods for doing this are different.
Children under the age of 12 must not be taught shavasana: having realized that they are out of the body they do not always want to return into it.
* * *
All these exercises should be practiced regularly: it is impossible to get the full effect from them after only one session.
At one of the next sessions after the previous exercises have
been mastered we can proceed to the exercise called “Latihan”.
The term “Latihan” was introduced in the beginning of the 20th
century by a Sufi named Bapak Mohammad Subuh,
who used this word to denote one of the ways of communicating with the Holy
Spirit. He visited many European countries where he taught this method to
Catholic monks and healed with it many diseased people, including those who
suffered from cancer.
This technique consists in addressing the Holy Spirit for help
and asking Him to concentrate above one’s head (one has to become aware of Him
there) and then to “shower” Himself down through one’s body as through an empty
shell or transparent bottle without a bottom. This will be a true baptism of the
Holy Spirit.
In this way comes healing of the body.
Having surrendered to the Stream coming through it, the body
starts dancing and performing other smooth and harmonious movements… This
phenomenon is a kind of laya yoga — a series of methods of “dissolving” oneself
in Divine Streams as well as in static states of Divine Consciousness.
In fact, this is very simple if we really believe, if we really
love Him and are willing to surrender to Him. And the Holy Spirit is always
present everywhere as an ocean of Light, including the space above our bodies —
watching, loving, teaching and… waiting when we finally pay with love our
attention to Him and ask Him for help…
If you have prepared ourselves with all the previous exercises,
including “Awakening” — you will succeed in doing this one right away. If not —
you may try to imagine yourself… in paradise, under a heavenly waterfall,
immersed in the tender sunlight, aroma of flowers, singing of birds…; a cascade
of heavenly water is falling down through the body, purifying the soul and
making it worthy of paradise…
In order for the laya dance (the dance of “dissolution”) to
start, being guided by the Holy Spirit, you should stand on the tip-toes and
raise your hands; the clothes should be light and loose — so that you almost do
not feel it…
After the dance it will be good to have a rest in a relaxation
posture.
After achieving the mastery of the above said we can get down to the cleansing of chakras.
… There are seven chakras, in total. Sometimes another number is quoted, but this is a result of misunderstanding. For example, other energy centers or even structures artificially created inside or outside the body are referred to as chakras.
There are also erroneous opinions as to localization of chakras. For instance, in a range of incompetent publications anahata (the spiritual heart) gets placed in a stomach area and manipura “slides down” to the umbilical region.
In reality chakras are located as follows:
Sahasrara — a chakra that has a form of a lying disk and is located under the parietal bone in the region of the forebrain hemispheres. Its diameter is about 12 centimeters, its height is about 4 centimeters;
Ajna — a large chakra located in the middle of the head, coincident with the central parts of the brain;
Vishudha — a chakra located in the lower half of the neck and at the level of collarbones;
Anahata — a chakra located in the chest between the collarbones and solar plexus;
Manipura — a chakra of the upper part of the abdomen;
Svadhisthana — a chakra of the lower part of the abdomen;
Muladhara — a chakra, located in the lower part of the pelvis between the coccyx and the share bone.
The level of development of individual chakras corresponds with psychological features of a specific person. So, when the following chakras are developed:
Sahasrara — there is a pronounced ability of thinking strategically, i.e. an ability to see the “big picture”, to comprehend the whole situation “from above”, which allows such people to be broad-thinking managers;
Ajna — a person possesses a “tactical thinking” ability, which allows him to successfully deal with “particular” problems in science, business, family life, etc.;
Vishudha — the ability for aesthetical perception is observed; good painters, musicians and other artists are people with well-developed vishudha;
Anahata — a person possesses an ability to love emotionally (to love not “from the mind”, but “from the heart”);
Manipura — the ability to act energetically; but sometimes it is accompanied with a disposition towards dominance of irritation and other manifestations of anger;
Svadhisthana — a well pronounced reproductive function;
Muladhara — psychological stability in various situations.
The condition of chakras is closely interrelated with the condition of the organs of the physical body located in the corresponding to each chakra parts of the body. Chakras play an important role in supplying the organs with energy, while diseases of the organs negatively affect the condition of chakras.
For example, the following chakras are responsible for the following organs:
Anahata: heart, lungs, arms, and mammary glands;
Manipura: among other organs — stomach and other structures of the digestive system;
Svadhisthana: the organs of reproduction, urinary bladder, legs, and others;
Sahasrara: forebrain hemispheres;
Ajna: the rest of the brain, as well as eyes, ears, nose, and nasopharynx;
Vishudha: the entire neck, thyroid, both jaws, including teeth, and others. (The border between the “spheres of influence” of ajna and vishudha coincides with the palate).
* * *
Let us get down to work with chakras. There exist certain combinations of sounds (a sort of mantras), singing of which contributes to development of chakras by producing resonant vibrations. Mantras will also help us to attain clear sensation of our chakras. Here are these mantras:
for sahasrara — AM (a-a-am),
for ajna — VOM (vo-o-om),
for vishudha — HAM (ha-a-am),
for anahata — YAM (ya-a-am),
for manipura — RAM (ra-a-am),
for svadhisthana — VAM, (va-a-am),
for muladhara — LAM (la-a-am).
Sing these mantras — gently, producing high frequency sounds (taking female voices as a pattern for the pitch), but not in a loud voice, at the same time concentrating in the corresponding chakras. When moving concentration of consciousness into the next chakra, enter it from behind the back or the nape of the neck, as if getting into a cell or a niche.
Repeat the whole set of mantras several times, trying to achieve clear perception of vibrations in all chakras.
This exercise must be practiced every day. When there is no possibility to sing the mantras aloud you may sing them mentally to yourself but only after you thoroughly master singing them aloud.
Maximum attention both now and at the next stages we will pay to work with the anahata chakra — just doing this will make your life brighter and more joyous.
If the very subtle and gentle singing of mantras for chakras is not mastered — no further work will be successful. Men usually are the ones who have difficulties with this especially frequently, since subtlety is often an unknown thing to them. The following recommendation may help them. Take some water in your mouth and start gargling so that a gurgling sound can be heard. Bring the water lower down the throat. The sound should become higher. Let it reach as high of a pitch as possible. Those are the notes, at which you should sing the mantras for chakras.
Let us learn another method of development of chakras. Visualize a white 3-dimensional figure formed by four equilateral triangles with joined sides. This figure is called tetrahedron. Insert this figure into each chakra one at a time from behind with one of its apexes looking forward while rotating it rapidly counterclockwise (looking from behind) around a horizontal axis coming from back to front. For the two outermost chakras the rotation of the tetrahedron should be performed around a vertical axis; in case of sahasrara the apex of the tetrahedron should look upward, while in case of muladhara — downward. The direction of rotation of the tetrahedron for these two chakras should be counterclockwise (looking from inside the body). Performance of this exercise will be easier if you combine it with “blowing” of the corresponding mantra into each chakra.
All exercises with chakras described above (as well as with meridians, which will be described later) are more efficiently performed while standing. And the next exercise — also while walking slowly in a park or a forest.
But I should warn that trainings like these increase sensitivity of students to energetic impacts from the side of other people as well as to information that may be introduced by spirits of different levels of development. Therefore, there is a risk for those who are not mature enough from the intellectual and ethic standpoint of failing to react adequately to such impacts, especially in conditions of real or imaginary threats.
This is the reason why people who have not reached the age of 20 should not engage in this kind of work. In fact, even among adults only few will benefit from it.
Psychoenergetic trainings that lead to the attainment of high levels of consciousness’ refinement and — as a consequence — to the feeling of its “nakedness” under no circumstances must be conducted for the masses of people. Only the selected ones should be admitted to them. All other people will have a possibility to grow intellectually and ethically working on their self-improvement exoterically: by accumulating new knowledge, serving other people and strengthening their faith.
But there is a simple exercise with the spiritual heart that everyone may try doing without any pre-conditions. Imagine that your head has moved into the chest. Feel the nose, the forehead and the lips. Move the lips. In order for the head not to rise to its usual position you may imagine that you put a hat on your head. Then follows the most important thing: you need to open your eyes and to “blink” the eyelids there… From now on learn to look at the outside world from your chest. You will perceive the world in a totally different way: not as tough and hostile, but as subtle, tender and responsive to emotions of love.
This is what is called opening up of the spiritual heart. As we can see, this is quite easy to do. The only thing required for it is one’s will!
In the future one needs to learn to look from anahata not only forward, but also backwards.
The next stage is to do the same with the rest of the chakras. (“Windows” of muladhara and sahasrara look downwards and upwards respectively. But you can also look forward and backwards from these chakras).
Learning to look backwards is important not only because it contributes to development of chakras, but also because by looking forward we accustomed ourselves to seeing the world of material objects, while pure and subtle eons with Consciousness that lives in them are behind.
Moreover, by performing this exercise we prepare ourselves to the future exits from the body. And this should be also performed backwards, from anahata.
A great number of mystics of various countries and cultures get deceived by learning to exit from the body forward or upward. This manner of exiting from the body gets them into a certain sub-layer of the “astral plane” (depending on their own status on the subtlety-coarseness scale) — a rather dense eon that is the closest to the material world. From the “astral plane” one can very easily see the material world and people with their thoughts. This comes along with the possibility to “spy” upon them, play jokes on them or influence them in some other way… This turns out to be interesting and exciting…
But when the body of such person dies he stays attached to material objects. He did not get any closer to God and his incarnation was spent in vain.
But if we made necessary transformations of our main meridians, especially of chitrini (Brahma-nadi) — one of the subtlest structures of the organism, then by passing through chitrini we immediately “fall out” into eons of the Holy Spirit at the least. And there we can see Him as Light-Love and feel Him as Tenderness. There we learn to merge with Him and to become one with Him.
… Do not these prospects that can be so easily attained spur you to reject your old dogmas and vices and to dash “with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength” towards the Embrace of God?
In the mean time you may practice filling and “inflating” chakras with image of pure shining and sparkling white light, which you may “blow” into each chakra from an imaginary hose that comes from a powerful pump.
Images that we create in the subtle eons become a reality in them. Not only can we cleanse our energy structures with the help of these images but also heal other people by eliminating black areas of diseases and even by performing “surgeries” using images of various surgical instruments.
Starting from this stage of work you can well become a good healer. Healing is one of the ways we can give our love to people. This is why the Holy Spirit is always happy to help us when we heal, especially when we ask Him for it. During a healing session His Consciousness flows through the chakras of the healer. This facilitates development of chakras and makes them more refined.
Now let us learn another exercise with tetrahedron:
Rotate the image of the tetrahedron behind each chakra as a dentist’s drill.
Then insert it into the chakra like in a cavity of a decayed tooth. Dirt flies out in all directions; wash it down with the image of a shower.
Increase the size of the imaginary tetrahedron, this will allow you to enlarge the chakra.
Upon working all the chakras through take a “shower” and perform shavasana.
… The next technique of the development of chakras is the following: get inside each chakra one at a time starting with anahata and feel the whole of yourself there like in a cave filled with light. Then by pressing against each wall of the chakra with your hands push them away to infinity…
And here is one more wonderful exercise: imagine yourself to be a powerful light bulb as big as the body, that is turned on, tungsten filament being in anahata. And then illumine the surrounding space with yourself-the-light from your anahata.
In the future, you may move the tungsten filament from anahata into each of the remaining chakras and “burn” the arms, the legs and all parts of the body through with it, especially those, where any ailments are present. In this manner you get coarse energies “burned away” from the body, cleanse, lighten and heal yourself, accustoming yourself to being one with this light. For “God is Light and in Him there is no darkness at all” (1 John, 1:5). In this way — gradually — we can get closer to the state of God.
* * *
Developed chakras can be combined into functional groups, called dantyans in Chinese. The upper dantyan is made up of the three upper chakras, the middle dantyan is represented by anahata and the lower one — by the three lower chakras.
Out of the three the most important is the middle dantyan, since it is by employing this structure that we can transform ourselves into Love and to infuse into God. The other two play auxiliary roles. The upper dantyan helps to develop the middle one with its intellectual and aesthetic appraisal functions. And the lower one, being the main power center of the organism, provides energy for this process.
All dantyans (as well as all chakras) should be developed harmoniously, although the middle one should always be given priority over the other two during the trainings. In the face of God, the main function of the organism is love. But love cannot become full-fledged unless it is supported intellectually, ethically, and energetically. This is why one should pay attention to the development of each of these functions, while always remembering about the necessity to strictly adhere to the policy of constantly increasing the level of refinement of consciousness: setbacks to coarse states of consciousness would constitute a crash of all efforts and a halt in development at best, and even a complete failure at worst.
The correct development of the lower dantyan (also denoted by the term “hara”) can be achieved optimally by practicing special meditative techniques at special “places of power”. One of the secrets here is reviving the functions of “embryonic” meridians, which used to connect the energy systems of the fetus and the mother together. It is upon this “revival” that hara starts functioning as a single complex, as a unified power-center.
Upon mastering all exercises described above it would be appropriate to put the main meridians of the body to rights.
The whole human body, as well as the bodies of animals and even plants, is being run through by numerous canals, invisible with regular eyesight, which channel energies of various levels of refinement around the organism. These canals, called meridians (or nadi) were discovered and utilized in ancient Chinese medicine (Zhen Tsyu therapy).
Meridians can be discovered, in particular, because of their increased — compared to adjacent body tissues — electroconductivity (but one should keep in mind that electric current, even the weakest one, is inadequate for them, therefore the methods of punctate electrodiagnostic and electropuncture can be used in the extraordinary cases only).
Meridians can be seen by people whose range of perception was expanded through systems of trainings similar to ours.
As a result of inflammatory processes in the body tissues, contaminating type of nutrition or external negative energetic influence meridians can lose their conductivity. In this case, lingering disorders of the organs that got deprived of proper energy supply may develop. Such diseases usually cannot be completely cured by using drug therapy. In cases like this, acupunctural methods and similar therapeutic techniques: laser, vibration and other kinds of influence through “biologically active points” of the integument turn out to be efficient. These methods work because they restore conductivity of meridians by means of sending currents of energy through them.
Let us talk about several meridians that can be successfully used in psychic self-regulation.
All chakras are connected with one another by large meridians that run along the spine, as well as the front and the middle part of the body. A wide canal called sushumna (tu-mo or du-mo in Chinese) runs along the spine from muladhara to sahasrara. One of its functions is to distribute the energy accumulated in muladhara to other chakras. This energetic potential forms primarily of svadhisthanic energy — udana (through sublimation, i.e. transformation of udana into energies of other chakras), unless one does not waste the latter due to overtiredness or illness.
Within sushumna — in its back section — there is a significantly narrower canal (its diameter is about 2 centimeters), called vajrini, through which udana flows to other chakras.
The third of the spinal canals — chitrini (Brahma nadi) — is located behind sushumna. It begins at the end section of sahasrara, passes under the occipital bone and runs down the back part of the neck and then — down the backmost part of the spinal column, coinciding with the spinous processes of vertebras and the skin. Chitrini is an exceptionally important structure for us. It will serve us as a standard for one of the subtlest states, to which we will afterwards attune the emotional sphere. On the G.Gurdjieff’s “Scale of Hydrogens” the state of chitrini is assessed as H-3. This is the Holy Spirit’s level of subtlety. Upon learning to concentrate in chitrini one can easily “dive” as a consciousness through this canal into eons of the Holy Spirit and directly communicate, embrace and then merge with Him there. This is how religious truths turn from abstractions into reality.
The system of chakras is also communicated by the front channel
zhen-mo. It begins from the upper end of sushumna, forks into two branches that
turn around sahasrara and join in the forehead area to split into several small
canals that run down the face and join again in the vishudha region. One more
branch of this canal crosses through the middle of the head, reaches the chin
coming through the palate and joins the other branches at the neck. After that
the canal runs down the front side of the trunk, branching off to every chakra,
passes the share bone and heads for the coccyx. We will be especially interested
in the upper part of this canal that unites the four chakras of the so-called
“emotional center”: anahata, vishudha, manipura and ajna into one functional block.
The leading role in this complex is played by anahata and vishudha, of course. The intensity of emotions depends to a certain extent on the manipura chakra, while the ajna chakra serves as a liaison for interaction with hypothalamic-pituitary complex, which plays an extremely important role in coordination of emotional and behavioral reactions of the entire organism through the endocrine control system.
Only those people whose front canal is well-developed and who know how to use it are able to experience truly exalted positive emotions in communicating with other people and with nature. But such people are extremely few: only a handful per thousands. Most people do not have a developed front canal and it takes special efforts to develop it.
In Chinese tradition the system of the spine and the front canals is called “microcosmic orbit”. By means of circulation around the “microcosmic orbit” one of the stages of transformation of energy within the organism is performed. The aim of this stage is production and accumulation of the “golden elixir” in the human organism — this is what the subtlest energy obtained as a result of such transformation was called in the ancient alchemy. The previous stage of this process takes place when samana — the energy derived from food — gets down from manipura to active svadhisthana. Performance of exercises with the “microcosmic orbit” produces a strong emotional effect, changing the entire personality, making man buoyant and willing to give his sincere cordial love to other people.
On one of the subtlest planes the system of chakras is communicated by one more canal — the middle meridian. This wide meridian connects developed chakras, running vertically through the middle of the entire body. It forms along with development of chakras: it cannot be found in people whose chakras are undeveloped. Its width corresponds to the diameter of chakras. This is also a very important energy structure of the organism.
* * *
Let us begin with sushumna. The easiest way to cleanse it is with an image of a “bottle brush”. In order to do this you need to imagine yourself moving back from the body out of anahata and becoming a little bigger then the body. Then start to scrub sushumna with this “bottle brush”. An important detail that you should keep in mind while doing this is that you need to also cleanse the passage from sushumna to muladhara, which goes not just down from the sacrum in a straight line, but down and forward.
The next in turn for cleansing is the middle meridian. It is convenient to work with this structure at special “places of power”, which are auspicious for moving concentration of consciousness below the body. This implies that by this time the consciousness of the practitioner should be developed by performing the previous exercises to such an extent that allows him or her to be able to move as a consciousness below the body without losing the subtle state.
Upon entering the middle meridian from below you need to “wash” its walls with an image of a wet rag with a soapy foam, for example, or in any other appropriate manner.
After that it is quite important to cleanse the partition between sushumna and the middle meridian. In order to do this you have to be in both meridians at the same time, coming into sushumna from above and to the middle meridian — from below. The partition between them and possible dark spots on it become visible. Elimination of these spots brings the next stage of purification of the body.
When sushumna is cleansed, you may start working with the “microcosmic orbit”. For this you enter the two lower chakras and bring their energy up the sushumna, “throw” it over the head and bring it down through the front canal back to the two lower chakras. Then repeat this cycle of energy circulation. During this process, coarse energies, including those that were causing diseases, get transformed into subtle ones in the zhen-mo meridian.
After first few times of working with the “microcosmic orbit” you must perform a deep relaxation in shavasana.
In the future you may learn to change the trajectory of the energy moving around the “microcosmic orbit” — so that the energy flow will pass through the diseased regions of the body (if there are still any). This will enable you to heal them.
You have just learned to make energy circulate around the “orbit”, which included sushumna meridian. But in the future you should learn to do the same through chitrini and within the energy “cocoon” that surrounds the body. All this will bring yet another levels of health improvement and refinement of consciousness. In the practice of our school, this is usually performed quite easily at the corresponding “places of power” — areas that have a special energetic significance for a human being. You may well find them somewhere around the place you live in.
In conclusion of this chapter I should mention that there are methods of Chinese Qi Gong that got into our country, which involve work with the “microcosmic orbit” without preceding thorough cleansing and development of chakras and meridians. In such cases the entire work gets performed only at the level of visual images, while purifying, healing, and refining effects are not obtained.
The energy “cocoons” mentioned above surround the bodies of all incarnate living beings. (They are also called “etheric bodies”. But one should take into account that the meaning of the latter term is unclear: some authors may denote with it other structures and states, when they simply do not know what to call them). The “cocoons” form of the aggregate biofields of all cells of the body. There can be multi-layer “cocoons”, i.e. they can consist of several layers of energies of different densities located at different distances from the body.
The “cocoons” of healthy people are more or less egg-shaped. But their borders can have either protuberances or dents against the diseased regions, which corresponds to either increased or decreased activity of the cells in the affected parts of the body. This is significant for performing extrasensory diagnostics and can be determined by palpating the boundaries of the “cocoons” with the palm of the hand. But it is preferable to learn to see the “cocoons” as well.
The latter can be mastered easier with one’s own “cocoon” first, if one places the point from which one looks at about 50 centimeters behinds one’s heels. After learning this one may watch the “cocoons” of other people, animals and plants from one’s own “cocoon”.
The concluding knowledge of this chapter would be that the “cocoons” consist of two unequal parts, which Juan Matus
(see
'The Teaching of Don Juan Matus') called “bubbles of perception”. This name originated from their similarity with swimming-bladders of some types of fish.
The division of the “cocoon” into the two “bubbles of perception” takes place at the collar-bone level. The upper “bubble” includes the head and the neck, while the lower one encloses the rest of the body. In other words, the upper “bubble” includes the upper dantyan, and the lower — the other two and the legs.
The upper “bubble” is very important for communicating with material world, while we use the lower “bubble” for communicating with the non-material one. A practitioner can perceive from them separately either material world or other eons.
The quantitative growth of consciousness and meditative work are performed primarily by the lower “bubble of perception”.
The main part of it is the middle dantyan, refining in and expanding from which we get closer to Perfection. It is not the first time I emphasize this, because this is the most fundamental postulate of the entire psycho-energetic work, and any deviations from this mainstream lead to prolonged straggling and to wasting of so precious time of our short stay in the bodies here.
Harmonious development of the second important component of the lower “bubble of perception” — hara — is also absolutely essential for meditative achievements. But regarding this structure as the basis for spiritual growth, which is typical of many martial arts schools, is a gross mistake.
The overall energy structure of the body can also be considered as consisting of 4 vertical segments. But talking about it in practical terms makes sense only at significantly more advanced stages of spiritual development.
After completion of the courses that we have just described, only a few of the total number of students are able to move immediately on to the next — the highest — stage of spiritual ascent. Only those can go that fast who were already mastering these stages in their previous incarnations and now only reviewing what they studied before. The other people should stop for a while in order to establish in the states they have learned to attain.
But this does not mean they should do nothing, no. There should be a lot of reading, thinking, discussing, helping others and listening to how God assesses one’s actions… It is necessary to seek increased harmony with nature, especially in the early mornings. It would also be good to learn to identify the voices of best singers among birds, know them by names and how to attune to their subtlety. Among them are — song-thrushes and blackbirds, starling, blackcaps, white-throats, robin redbreasts, skylarks, large curlews, woodcocks, black-grouses, and snipes…
The acuity of the subtlest perception of nature that should be achieved can be illustrated by the following meditative etude, written down by Svetlana Zaitseva:
Mist
What can be softer than mist?
Its touch is hardly felt,
It is not like a dancing of snowflakes,
that slide down the face,
Or cold kisses of the rain,
carried by the wind.
No, the mist touches everything
gently
and quietly,
Extremely lightly
and… whispering.
It is just a soft shadow of the rain,
But its presence is real:
the hair is wet
and tiny specks of moisture
are slumbering on the eyelashes…
But its main charm is
that it blurs the shapes and distances
of the material plane…
Everything becomes slightly magic
because of this innuendo…
You move with a strange sensation, as if in a dream,
Receptivity is increased,
Openness and softness are like the mist
that surrounds the soul…
The envelopes are off…
You become an ocean
of eternal Love,
Permeated with rays
of the rising sun!…
|
Special indoors aesthetic lessons developed by my former colleague Galina Vaver can also be used.
And development of the “power in subtlety” (or “crystallization of consciousness” in G.Gurdjieff’s terminology — by analogy with the growth of a crystal) can be best attained at this stage through meditations at special “places of power”, winter swimming, and “meditative running”. Other methods of “crystallization” include special exercises of athletic gymnastics and Sufi “spinning”: both should be preformed while being in special meditations, but it does not make sense to write about this in a book.
It is important to emphasize that “crystallization” will be correct only if performed by consciousness concentrated in the spiritual heart. At the same time it can be successful only when the structures of all dantyans, including the lower one, are developed and working properly.
Correct “crystallization” is performed by consciousness that grows in the subtlest eons: in this way we will cultivate Divinity in ourselves. But coarse “crystallization”, that is, performed by people who eat dead bodies of animals, live in coarse emotions, and are devoid of correct spiritual aspiration, can form devils out of them. The same psychic techniques will produce either the former or the latter effect, depending on the inner state of the one who practices them.
This is one of the reasons why it is so dangerous to reveal secret esoteric knowledge to those who are not ready to apply it correctly.
Winter swimming, i.e. swimming in ice-cold water, is a wonderful method not only of tempering the body, but also of increasing the energetic might of the organism.
Statistics holds that among those who practice winter swimming
sickness rate decreases for cold-type diseases 60 (!) times, and for other
diseases — 30 times. As a therapeutic method winter swimming can heal many
diseases, including radiculitis, both high and low blood-pressure, pulmonary
tuberculosis, pancreatic diabetes, chronic gastrointestinal diseases,
inflammations in genitals, menstrual cycle abnormalities, dermatoses, and so on.
One should not begin to swim in cold water necessarily in autumn, as some people think: one may start right during the hardest frost, if one likes. But it is recommended to master the psychic self-regulation techniques that we described above first. In this case, winter swimming will directly contribute to strengthening one’s ability to preserve the subtlest psychic states. Coming out into the frost naked and submerging into ice-cold water become not only an act of volition, but also a controlled experiment on oneself in order to maintain the subtlest states of consciousness in the conditionally adverse environment. It is beneficial to disidentify oneself from bodily sensations and to merely observe them from the depths of the subtle planes.
The organism responds to the cold shock with energetic stress, which may be colored with positive or negative emotions — depending on the mood, with which one set about winter swimming in the first place and one’s psychic self-regulation skills. The activity of the energy system of the organism increases and initiates an intensive heat generation process. The right mood and disidentification from bodily sensations allow one not to feel the coldness of the air and water even during a hard frost. After staying in ice-cold water, a person also does not feel cold for some time, while when the frost is not too hard, one may even start to feel hot due to continuing process of intensive heat generation in the organism. But after 10-20 minutes, resources of the organism get depleted and one starts chilling and shivering. As one proceeds with training, the intensity of the latter sensations decreases. At such moments one may warm oneself by performing active movements, indoors, or coming near a fire. These kinds of stress and depletion of the energy system of the organism train this system, increase its mobility and capacity.
One of the most eminent popularizers of cold tempering in our country was Porfiriy Ivanov, who with his life example demonstrated the possibility of merging harmoniously with nature in all its manifestations. He was walking barefooted even during sharp frost wearing only pants, swam in natural water reservoirs many times a day or douched himself with water from wells during winter, as well as slept in the snow without clothes.
Although swimming in ice-cold water is undoubtedly the most effective tempering procedure, do not get too upset if there is no suitable water reservoir where you live. You may, for example, run barefooted in the snow and, if there is the possibility, lay in the snow for a while without clothes. You may pour well-water on your body. As a last resort you may lay in the bath-tub filled with cold water or pour it on your body from a bucket or basin.
But it should be kept in mind that water with temperature over 8 degrees centigrade (about 46° Fahrenheit) does not induce the launch of the described energy processes in the organism and swimming in it is less effective, while it may even cause untrained individuals to catch cold.
Cold procedures can be performed both as a part of special training and every day in the morning or in the evening after work in order to relieve fatigue, as well as in all those cases when for various reasons we have lost inner harmony or do not see light in ourselves anymore.
All cold procedures must be performed using psychic self-regulation methods and not merely through an act of volition. Attempts to increase their effect by creating sharp temperature contrasts also do not make too much sense. For example, if you plan to pour cold water on your body it would be appropriate to submerge the wrists into it first and imagine streams of blissful freshness and joy rising up the hands. Then you may wash your face and feel the freshness and joy entering your body through your face. Spill few handfuls of water on your head imagining that this is the water from a melted snow in a spring puddle on a meadow, that this is spring itself. And then you may really feel the sincere desire to get united with this water with your entire body.
After swimming or douching, you should observe the energetic processes inside the body. And there you may see the bright white light-fire blazing up, which you should distribute evenly over the entire space inside the body. This fire heals the body and rids us of coarse energies.
In conclusion I should say the following. Even without prior
studying psychic self-regulation techniques, winter swimming saved many people
of severe diseases that were considered terminal, including cancer. There are
many well-known cases of quick healing of respiratory diseases in the acute
stage using this method. Enthusiasts of winter swimming accumulated certain
experience of healing children and this issue deserves a thorough in-depth
study. But it is not a panacea (the cure of all disease). For example, in case
of chronic diseases, which are accompanied with slightly increased body
temperature, it does not always produce the positive effect. The organism
apparently does not have the resources that could be activated by submerging the
body into ice-cold water. Such patients should rather get hyperthermal (high
temperature) bath treatment.
There may be no constraining to winter swimming, even for therapeutic purposes, since it is being mentally ready that to a large extent predetermines the effectiveness of this method.
(See also video Winter Swimming, 15min., 180Mb — about its technique and healing effect)
Meditative running is a powerful method of increasing energetic potential of the organism and development of its energy system as a whole. This method was created by Tibetan spiritual seekers (it was called “Lung-Gom” running). In our country, the group version of this technique became popular thanks to efforts of Yan I. Koltunov (Moscow).
The method consists in performing pranayamas and meditations during a long group running, which is done at a slow pace. Performed in this manner, the meditations and pranayamas help students: a) distract their attention from bodily sensations, allowing them not to concentrate on being tired, b) create and maintain positive emotional state, c) train their concentration, visualization, and meditation abilities, d) develop “personal power” (power of consciousness), e) harmonize loads on muscle, cardiovascular, respiratory, and other systems of the organism, etc.
Running sessions of groups consisting from 5 to 50 people should be led by an instructor who should uninterruptedly (!) assign exercises to the group.
Compared to the static variant of psychic self-regulation lessons exercises of meditative running are performed at an incommensurably higher energetic level, which increases their efficiency dramatically.
It is advisable that this method is used after all participants have mastered basics of psychic self-regulation. Unprepared beginners should not be included in the group since everyone who is unable to participate in meditative work synchronously with the rest of the group will make this work more difficult for the group as a whole.
Below we are going to set out our modification of this method as a program for a two-hours of running (without taking the warm-up time into consideration). As we will see, this program is an intermediate stage to the higher methods of spiritual work, which will be explained in the following chapters.
First sessions should be limited to not to exceed 30 minutes. Then we can gradually increase the load.
Because of certain adjustments that take place in the muscular system during the period of the trainings one should increase the quantity of protein in one’s diet (milk products, eggs, nuts, mushrooms, etc.). Drinking milk afterwards will also be very good.
I should also mention that women may experience menstruation delays during intensive running trainings (this a well-known phenomena in sports medicine); this should not be considered as a dangerous indication.
If you decide to run in the morning, you may do it on an empty stomach or have just a glass of water with a teaspoonful of honey or jam. In case the running sessions are held during the day or in the evening, the last intake of food should be several hours before them. It is very difficult to run with a full stomach.
Clothes should be light. So, if the air temperature is above 0 Centigrade (32 Fahrenheit) just a tracksuit will be enough. When it is below –10 Centigrade (12 Fahrenheit), you may put additional training pants, light sweater, and a cap. But you may also dress lighter — overheating of the body should be avoided while performing this type of exercises.
During summer heat, it makes sense to make the route go near natural water reservoirs and to make stops for swimming. It would be still better to run in the morning and to stay near the water during the day. This time may be used for discussions and studying food resources of the forest. In winter, the running session can be followed by swimming in an ice-hole (but it is absolutely necessary that a warm room or a big fire made in advance is near the ice-hole). If these conditions cannot be found, a hot shower would also do just fine. The running session must be followed by the washing of the body.
Before running, you should perform an intensive warm-up of the body that would involve all muscles and joints (its description can be found above). In winter, it is better to warm up indoors, so that you come out to the frost in the already warm condition attained due to muscular activity.
Then the running itself begins. The instructor should be running behind the group so that everyone can hear him or her. The first thing he or she should do is giving the command to maintain the correct posture:
‘Attention to the posture. The body is straight. We may even slightly bend it backwards. The body should be in such a position so that the muscles of the back are not strained. Relax the muscles of the back. Throw the head slightly back. Relax the back muscles of the neck. Attention to the feet. Place them on the ground straight with toes looking forward. Feet are relaxed. They touch the ground smoothly and gently. Relax the muscles of the shins and the thighs. Feel that legs are relaxed all the time so that we cannot feel the moment we are touching the ground. Attention to the chest. It is slightly raised. Imagine that the collar-bones are like small boards lying on it, feel them. The chest remains expanded during the entire running session. Raise the chest and let it stay in this expanded position while breathing. The abdomen is relaxed, but it does not hang down as long as the chest is expanded. Make sure that the body does not bend forward — otherwise it will get tired very soon. Fix it in the correct position. Attention to the wrists: they are relaxed and hang loosely. Imagine that we are suspended on a long wire attached to some distant cosmic object. The body is suspended, it hardly touches the ground and is relaxed.
‘Move with concentration of consciousness to muladhara. Then look to the center of Earth from it and see an ocean of Fiery Light there. Let us send a beam from muladhara towards this ocean. Here, it reaches the abode of this Power… A powerful reciprocal impulse of energy rushes up that beam and fills our chakras and our entire body. Let us repeat the exercise. Concentration is in muladhara. We are sending a signal beam to the center of Earth…, and receiving a reciprocal impulse of Power!… Feel energy inside the chakras. The entire body is filled with power and light, it expanded, the density of energy inside it increases… Repeat this over and over…
‘Let us imagine a giant vacuum-cleaner 30 meters below the Earth surface with its nozzle facing upwards. We are going to turn it on and it will start sucking all dark energies inside and around us and sending them to the center of Earth. Here, we turned the engine on, it started grumbling, the sucking power increases… We observe the space around the group and see the dark energies fly away, sucked down by this vacuum cleaner. Track their way… They rush at enormous speed towards the center of Earth — and vanish there… Everyone examines the space within one meter of their body. We click the switch and the engine power doubles. Watch dark pieces rip off and fly away. Scan thoroughly the space around the head…, the neck…, the chest…, the belly…, the pelvis…, the hips…, the knees…, the feet… And now let us turn the attention into the space inside our bodies. Click the switch once more. The power quadruples! The vacuum cleaner starts shaking. Incredible sucking power tears off all dark stuff that remained inside the bodies. Scan the head, the neck, the chest, the belly, the pelvis, the hips, the legs… The body gets filled with the purest light that comes from above to replace what has been gone…
‘Let us turn the palms of the hands upward. Imagine a tennis ball made of white-goldish light lying on each of them. We toss them from one hand to another. They grow brighter. Superpose them into one ball on the left palm. Let us inflate this ball with energy from our anahatas.
‘Muladhara — “inhale” from below, anahata — “exhale” into the ball. Muladhara — “inhale”, anahata — “exhale”. (Repeat this ten times). The ball is as large as a large water-melon… (Some more “exhales” into the ball). It is already one meter in diameter… All balls merge into one common ball… Look at its surface from inside. It separates us from the surrounding space securely. There is a subtlest transparent environment filled with lucid light inside the ball. It is incredibly easy to breathe in it, we feel amazingly light and weightless… It seems that all bodies merge into one organism inside the ball… We continue running inside the ball.
‘Let us do a series of pranayamas. “Inhale” the light through the legs and “exhale” it through muladhara forward, pushing out everything that hinders its flow. This is the light that we may see in abundance below the Earth’s surface. The left leg — “inhale”, muladhara — “exhale” (3-4 times). The right leg — “inhale”, muladhara — “exhale” (3-4 times). The left leg — “inhale”, svadhisthana — “exhale”. (And so on — going through all chakras). Muladhara — “inhale”, anahata — “exhale” (3-4 times). The spine — “inhale” from below, ajna — “exhale” (3-4 times). The left leg — “inhale”, the entire right side of the body — “exhale” (3-4 times). The right leg — “inhale”, the entire left side of the body — “exhale” (3-4 times). The left arm — “inhale” — through anahata — the right arm — “exhale” (3-4 times). (And then the other way around). Muladhara — “inhale” from below, sahasrara — “exhale” up. (Repeat this several times; then it should become the uninterrupted flow of light). Make this flow stop and watch a cloud of light forming above us. It wants to pour into us; open ourselves up and let it in, let it fill us with its tenderness and purity…
‘Feel a small sun between the palms. Look at its goldish light, feel its caress… The sun dissolves in our hands…, we soak its warmth and light through our arms into anahata and sense a pleasant expansion inside the chakra. And now we will emanate the light and the warmth of the sun from anahata at all living beings around us…
Let us shift concentration of consciousness into the rightmost part of anahata. Find the subtlest plane of light there and cast off all coarse layers inside the chakras and then inside the entire body. (Repeat the same from the rightmost part of vishudha, then ajna and sahasrara, then from the leftmost part of sahasrara, ajna and so on in a circle).
‘Let everyone imagine that they are foxes. A red fox with a large fluffy tail runs smoothly in the forest. Running is a natural state for a fox. We run upon soft green moss among trees, bushes and stones. We run, ignoring everything that surrounds us. The fox has a goal. The fox has to see the sunrise. A pointed gently sloping woodless hill is ahead. We run up its slope and freeze at the top. We stand on the top watch the disk of the rising sun go up from the forest at the horizon. Anxious expectation, readiness… The sun rises and touches the hill with its light. Here, it is up. We look at its disk. The streamy light flows out of the sun and fills the body. Let the body get filled with light, let the light grow thick and liquid. We fill the entire body from the tail to the eyes with this light… Density of the liquefied light inside the body increases…
‘And now each of us is a fallow-deer. A jump — and we soar upwards, enjoying the freedom. The body gets filled with happiness, exultation of flying over the woods and fields, immersed in the tenderness of the clear morning and golden sunlight. We get overfilled with happiness, ecstasy and bliss. We breathe in the freshness of the warm wind, mixed with sunlight. Down below is a forest river and hills covered with grass and bushes. A small wave of wind touched the leaves. We get close to the ground. Aroma of flowers reaches our senses. We touch the ground and shoot upwards again into the space of light, towards infinite joy of flying!… Feel the warmth of rays of the sun with our soft and gentle fells, we smile at the sun, at the whole world, at all living beings that surround us: birds, flowers, grass, trees, beetles, butterflies, animals and people. We want to fill them all with the light of joy, to melt hardened and rude souls… What a happiness it is — to live in harmony with everybody and everything, to live in love!
‘Now let us get back into our human bodies that keep on running and start to form an “envelope” of light around them. We “bandage” the body starting from the point located 50 centimeters below it with wide bandage clockwise if looking from below. Form an envelope around the feet…, the shins…, the hips…, the pelvis…, the belly…, the chest…, the neck…, the head… Then let us touch its walls from inside with the hands of consciousness… Let every one of us imagine their mirror image above themselves, their double, running upside down. Now let us continue making an “envelope” to include the double’s body: the head…, the neck…, the chest…, the belly…, the pelvis…, the hips…, the shins…, the feet. Then detach yourself from this “envelope” and fly about 5 meters up. Do not look down… Enjoy the coolness of the wind, the expanse and the freedom…, then get above the park (the forest, boulevard, the stadium). Birds fly around us, let us greet them. Now rise close to the cloud layer (if there are clouds), and look at them from below… We get ready to break through the clouds where the sun shines (if we run during the day). We turn into a rocket for a second and skyrocket there — into the world of exultation and light. The sunlight reflects in the dazzling white clouds beneath us. The shine and sparkling of joy in the bright sunshine! Feast on this light and fill ourselves with its joy…
‘And now let us head for the outer space and leave the Solar system… We glide in the expanse of the boundless cosmic space… Stars are all around us… Silence… Let us feel the eternity and endlessness of the universe in all their entirety… Stars are shimmering… This is the cosmic pulse. Let us feel this rhythm. Stars are shimmering rhythmically. Silence. Calm. Eternity and Infinity… Wisdom of the boundless space… Let us start returning… Now, we approach Sun. It grows larger, we immerse ourselves in its familiar tender light, fill ourselves up with its rays again and get ecstatic… We suspend ourselves over white dazzling clouds and dive down through them… Underneath is the surface of our home planet, forests, rivers, fields, villages and cities… Let us start descending. We fly over the Earth surface and shine at all living beings with the sunlight that we accumulated in our bodies… Send your care and tenderness to trees, birds, animals, people… Let us wish all people to live in peace and harmony with everyone and everything… Let us pour the light of love into all emptied and hardened hearts. Let them get rid of coarseness, hate, violence, selfishness, lie and addiction to alcohol! Let the whole world become filled with the bliss of peace and love! Let all living beings’ hearts become filled with sunlight!
‘We descend to our city, to the park, then even lower and look at the group of people running down below. These are our bodies, we approach them, get into them, move immediately to muladhara and send a beam of light to the center of Earth from there, receive a reciprocal impulse of Power, that starts filling the chakras, the entire body… (We repeat the latter element 3-4 times).
‘Now let us work with “microcosmic orbit” for some time. Then let us feel ourselves in anahata…, in manipura…, in svadhisthana, in muladhara, in svadhisthana again…, in manipura…, in anahata…, in vishudha…, in ajna…, in sahasrara…, then above the head… We swim in the light, fly freely, feel joy, tenderness, purity and subtlety of the sunlight. Then we start to condense our flying form, draw the light of the subtlest space into it as if with some magnet… The flying form accepts anthropomorphic shape, grows dense and filled with light, starts shining like a morning sun and then becomes our “sunny double”. We slowly superimpose the physical body on this “sunny double”. We feel dense sunlight, this precious load of golden elixir inside ourselves, making sure it gets distributed evenly inside the body.
‘Now let us place a ball that consists of goldish white light between the palms of the hands. We place it in front of manipura. Then we connect a tube to the back part of manipura, through which a stream of light starts rushing into the chakra and then into the ball. The density of light in the ball increases (but its size remains the same). Now that we have filled the ball to the limit we disconnect the tube and dissolve it. Attention — into the ball. Internal processes begin inside it that lead to the colossal rise of pressure. A subtlest goldish-white fire rages inside the ball… We insert the ball into manipura with our hands. The chakra is bursting with power. The whole body gets filled with incredible strength!… We can hardly control the body, it wants to make giant leaps, to tear at full speed… A red triangle starts moving forward slowly out of manipura… It drags the body by the center of the stomach. (In 1-2 minutes we stop accelerating our pace with the command:) Dissolve the triangle!… The front runners — run on the spot! Get closer to one another. Manipura — “inhale”, vishudha — “exhale”. (Repeat several times). Imagine a fragrant whitish-pink rose in front of anahata. Rays of the rising sun are sparkling and playing in the dew-drops on its delicate petals. We insert the flower into anahata. The chakra gets filled with its delicate aroma. (Let us insert images of flowers into all chakras). Immerse yourselves into the blue of the clear morning sky…, we let the light of the sky into the body and fill the inner space of the body with it… (If it is winter and there is a pure snow — we may take off our shoes and run in the snow barefooted for some time).
‘We continue running. Concentration — in the center of the palms. In the center of the palms pulsating warmth emerges. Feel the pulse in the palms! Feel the pulse! Feel it! Concentration — in the thumb-cushions. Pulse and warmth emerge there! Feel the pulse! Feel it! (And so on, repeating this for all intervals between fingers and the cushions of all fingers’ end phalanges). Feel the wrists. There is pulsating warmth in them. The pulse! Feel the entire arms, the arms along with the chest, then with the head, feel the pulse in the whole upper part of the body! The entire body turns into a pulsating heart! Imagine yourselves to be a pulsating heart! It grows in size — two times, ten times… A huge pulsating heart, tireless and powerful organ filled with hot blood, with immense inexhaustible power in it!… We keep on pulsating!… Feel ourselves like pulsating hearts!… Gradually shrink and condense yourselves, sense the body again and realize the concentrated power of this gigantic organ inside the body…
‘Look mentally into the space of light above the head. Expand as consciousnesses in the surrounding space. Let us concentrate on the plants around us: grass, flowers, bushes and trees. (In case of winter we should make corresponding exceptions). We feel their state and send our tenderness to them… Let us attune to the emotional state of the birds singing, and then send our love to them.
‘A wall of wind-light approaches us from behind. The subtlest light blows through our bodies on the subtlest plane, washing and carrying away all coarse layers. Body shells got deflated, we realize that we are incorporeal beings floating in the space of light, driven by the wind-light. We merge into one big ball of light and continue floating…
Everyone reclaims their individuality again by condensing into forms of white swans. We fly up in the rays of the morning light. Above is the blue of the skies with bright white clouds floating. We enjoy the flight, feel the warmth of tender sunlight. Feathers vibrate gently in the currents of warm air. We move our wings slightly. We enjoy the flight. We look down. A river winding about in the forest carries its waters to a big lake with small islands. We get down to the water, approach its mirror-like surface. We touch the water with our paws, splash a line, stop, look around. All swans are talking tenderly with one another in their musical swan language. We swim up to one another, fluff our feathers and gently place our heads onto the backs of our friends from the flock. Vishudha gets overfilled with bliss of this moment. We swim up together to the green patch of reeds and admire its reflection in the water. Well, it’s time to fly again! We take off softly and head to the sun effortlessly. We get higher and higher… Let the sunlight flow into the bodies, let it condense inside them, filling them from the tail to the eyes. We fly towards the sun and get filled with thick golden light… The entire body gets filled with thick, heavy and blissful light-power, unshakable power of love… We get down — and fall into our human bodies. A golden fuel of life spreads all over them. We create an increased density of this fuel in the lower chakras. Next portions of the same kind of light pour into the bodies from above, the bodies get filled up with it…
‘(The exercises for climbing up steep slopes on the route:) A strong current of white light blows at us out of Earth through muladhara. It inflates the body like a balloon. The body gets blown up and grows weightless… It becomes difficult to keep it from taking off, we can hardly touch the ground with our feet… It takes tremendous efforts to reach the ground with our feet…
‘We enter into anahata with concentration of consciousness, look at the world out of it…, then enter into manipura, look out of manipura, enter into svadhisthana…, into muladhara…, again into svadhisthana…, into manipura…, into anahata…, into vishudha…, into ajna…, into sahasrara…. Imagine yourselves above sahasrara in the form of a small disk-shaped cloud… We draw in light, become brighter and brighter… All of us merge into one large disk. The disk starts drawing in subtlest light from the surrounding space and gets filled with it… The light inside the disk grows brighter… The higher the density of the light inside the disk the more intensively it draws in the energy from the space… We accumulate tremendous power in ourselves… Now the disk is able to move in space instantaneously, at the speed of a thought…
‘We imagine ourselves beyond the clouds — in the bright sunshine… We are behind our running bodies… Now we are far ahead of them… We extend ribbons that consist of light to our bodies. Each ribbon is attached to the center of the stomach of the running body. Start towing the bodies. The disk accelerates slowly, the ribbons get strained… Tow the body by the center of the stomach, the speed increases gradually… The ribbons turn into navel-strings. The energy of the disk transfuses into the bodies through them. The bodies get filled with the power that was pertinent to the disk and with the qualities that were pertinent to it…
‘Everyone imagines themselves to be a small cloud above the running body. Draw in the light from the surrounding space. By drawing this light we condense ourselves into the human form, becoming our “sunny double”, who runs as it were on the first floor — above the head of the body, which runs on the ground floor. Imagine yourselves totally to be running on the “first floor”. We run in the space of goldish light, draw in this light and thicken it inside ourselves… The light inside the body of our “sunny double” grows thicker, more dense… (we may perform the “Cross of Buddha” meditation, a series of pranayamas and other exercises while running on the “first floor”). Get down to the ground to the right of the running body. Let us take it with the left hand by its right hand. Now we run together holding hands with our bodies. Let us transfuse ourselves into the running body, superimpose ourselves on it and feel the blissful power of golden elixir inside…
‘Attention — into muladhara. We perceive it as a firm foundation. A house built on this foundation will never suffer from any storms… We feel the power of the golden elixir in muladhara. Connect muladhara with the Fiery Light in the center of Earth with a beam of light and fill this chakra with that Power. Muladhara is filled up with dense light and energy.’
Slow down to walking, surprised at how unusual it is for us to walk. Running has become a natural state of the organism, hasn’t it? Watch your breath and pulse. They are the same as those during regular walking.
After the running you should swim or have a shower, perform a deep relaxation and other exercises.
I should repeat myself by saying that this program is designed for approximately two hours of running without a stop. But in order to keep muscles from overstraining first runs should not exceed 30 minutes. In short versions of the program it makes sense to keep the introductory concentrations aimed at control over the posture and relaxation of the muscles, as well as exercises with the all-group ball, pranayamas, exercises with creation of the “envelope”, and meditations with sunlight.
It should be noted that the impressive lightness and the sense of being filled with positive emotions that appear during group meditative running cannot be achieved when running individually.
Here are examples of the meditations that can also be included in the program of running:
The “Cross of Buddha” performed from the dictation of the instructor.
While running on the “first floor” you may deviate from the previous trajectory and far aside from it perform actions that the instructor suggests.
If you run in the forest or a park you may “extend” your hands that come out from your anahatas and gently touch or caress tree-tops with them.
Shift your self-awareness far in front of the body, then run along the body holding hands with it, then hurry the body by pushing it on the back. (This meditation can be easily turned into a merry game, filled with jokes; casual witnesses of such moments get amazed at seeing a group of laughing runners compared to usual sight of exasperated and exhausted sportsmen).
When running on the “first floor”, “connect” “cosmic hoses” to the chakras and fill them up with “cosmic fuel”: fill muladhara with the “fuel of eternal life”, svadhisthana — with transparent subtlety and purity, manipura — with energy of powerful and harmonious motion, anahata — with white light of all-embracing love, vishudha — with subtle blueness of the morning sky and first golden rays of Sun as well as with morning dew and aroma of flowers, ajna — with active and mobile “intellectual fuel”, and sahasrara — with the subtlest all-pervading and all-embracing cosmic light. Feel the wholeness and conformity of the entire system of chakras, of the entire organism, as well as its imperishability and ability to withstand all difficulties that may emerge on our path. Perfection can be found primarily in Love. Let us feel love for all living beings. Perfection is also in Wisdom. Let us get filled with understanding of everyone and everything and unite this quality with Love. Perfection is also in Power. Let us feel perfect and unconquerable power, merged into one with Love and Wisdom, as well as readiness for great selfless service. Let us realize in ourselves the qualities of Those Who already attained Perfection. Let us feel one with Them. Let us feel Them in ourselves, the simplicity and clarity of Their perfect Love…, deep, universal and powerful Wisdom, as well as boundless courage and impregnability of Their perfect Power… Let us imprint all these qualities into ourselves forever.
Imagine yourselves to be running behind your bodies and cleanse them inside and out of all that is different from light. Then wash them from a hose and fill them with light.
While running one the “first floor”, let us feel energy structures of our organisms… Perform exercises with the “microcosmic orbit”. Then concentrate in chitrini behind anahata. From this point, rush forward through anahata into the space of the purest light. Expand in it and merge with it…, then condense yourselves again to a human body dimensions… Feel this power distributing all over the body that keeps running on the “first floor”: the body becomes solid and resilient. Tense the muscles of the legs…, those of the lumbar segment of the body…, of the arms…, of the chest… Feel clearly that all muscles of the back are tensed… Jump on the ground of the “first floor” with your strong and resilient bodies, make a somersault… Run on the “first floor” raising the knees high in the air…, then touching the buttocks with the heels…
Concentration — in the center of the stomach. From there, extend a “tentacle” and attach it to a distant cloud. Transfer attention to the “tentacle” completely. Then contract the “tentacle” and pull the body forward with it. No additional muscle efforts should be made! Just contract the “tentacle” (the speed at which we run accelerates dramatically, while we do not feel any additional load on the muscles).
Slow down to walking. With the “tentacle” snatch at various objects and pull yourselves to them. Tense and relax the “tentacle”. No energy of the body is being spent for these actions, thus the body does not get tired.
Imagine that you run behind your bodies. Then with a wand made of light cleanse the middle meridian from the bottom up to the head chakras.
You may allow yourselves to play and to frolic. While running far ahead of the body, turn a somersault in the air, jerking your legs in a funny way intentionally: you must not feel shy — nobody sees it anyway, except for you. Watch friends doing this (everybody laughs).
Running on the “first floor”, feel it as your home — familiar and cozy… Before getting down to the “ground floor”, each of us attaches one end of a rubber string to the “first floor”. The strings will stretch without hindering our movements, but we will always be able to pull ourselves back to the “first floor”… Attach the strings to the “first floor” and get down to the “ground floor”. The other end of the string everyone attaches to the center of their stomach. You may touch the strings with our hands. Stretch them — and find yourselves on the “first floor” at once.
“Run outside” of your bodies and continue to run ahead of them. No people will see you, so you can do whatever you want there! Have fun to your hearts’ content! Go down on all fours and imagine that you are little dogs, trying to make one another laugh! You may, for example, jump and yelp in different voices… Or run on the back paws, then on the front ones… Everything gets filled with sincere joy… Well, it’s time to get back to looking like human beings… Get back to your bodies.
(While climbing uphill:) imagine that you are in a rapid stream of water. It drags you forward at enormous speed…
Immerse into the space of light inside the body. Then scan it through and cleanse it, then turn your attention to the Light that exists inside Earth, look at Earth like at a living planet, which loves us. Let us comprehend the nature of the Light that fills her — and there will be no doubts left that Earth is a living being and that she loves us as her children. Let us send an emotion of our gratitude to her…
Let us immerse into the Light inside Earth. Let us feel its tenderness and our close relation to it. Let us submerge in it completely and expand as consciousnesses from anahatas across the entire inner space of Earth. Now we are one with our dear planet. Everyone is now aware of themselves as being in the space of the Mother-Earth filled with tender Light. We are the inner space of Earth plus a small jut on its surface — the inner space of the body… From the inner space of Earth we watch this jut of light moving on its surface.
Let us move the concentration of consciousness back into our bodies and feel the | 
