… which opened up as the practitioner deepened into himself
The profanation of the very concept of "esotericism" in the modern world has reached its climax. It is all the more important to pay attention to the primordial understanding of this term, referring to the interview of the Doctor of Philosophy in the field of general psychology, the creator of the methodology of the Magic Theater Vlad Lebedko, to the correspondent of the newspaper "Seeker" Olga Zhgun.
Olga: What is esotericism?
Vlad Lebedko: In the modern sound of this word, I don't know what everyone puts into it. From ancient times it was a kind of Secret Knowledge, which was revealed as the practitioner deepened into himself. The point is not that someone was hiding this knowledge (although there were some rituals that were not revealed to the uninitiated), the point is that as he studies himself and his interaction with the world, new layers of meanings are revealed to a person. These meanings are simply inaccessible until there is experience of the corresponding experiences that occur in the course of self-knowledge and knowledge of the world.
The same thing that is called now by this word … yes, whatever.
A: What do you do?
V. L.: You see, what a thing. Now around what is called esotericism, occultism, magic, something so mystical, there is some kind of excitement: healthy or unhealthy - it's hard to say. It is convenient for me to answer your question using the coordinate system proposed by my friend, a Kiev psychologist and mystic, Oleg Bakhtiyarov. He spoke about the fact that there are three worlds: the World of Technology, the World of Culture and the World of Truth. (I will use the name World of Spirit instead of the World of Truth). At the same time, Bakhtiyarov believed that Truth is only in the church. Now, after five years have passed since the writing of the Chronicle of Russian Sannyas, I cannot name people who belong to the World of Spirit, I don’t know those or I don’t know that they are. I know great psychotechnologists, wonderful people of culture, and I consider myself a psychotechnologist and a person in contact with the World of Culture.
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There are, in my opinion, two fundamentally different vectors in which people develop. The first is the vector of individual salvation. These are units, people about whom we, as a rule, do not know anything, who do not advertise themselves, they are simply engaged in their own salvation. Whether in the church or not, that's not the point. I think it’s not only in the church. And there is a vector of universal human evolution. Here, the replenishment of the piggy bank of universal human experience and states of consciousness, including knowledge, and the most diverse experiential experience, is already underway. In the first vector, there is a pronounced vertical, that is, the division into where a person is going from and where he is going. In the world of the universal vector of culture, this vertical does not exist. There, such a thing as Chaosmos can serve as a description - the combination of Space and Chaos (order and chaos),there it is very difficult to single out the oppositions: good - evil, bad - good, because for each representative of this vector (and most of them) these concepts can be directly opposite. I don’t know how to connect these two vectors, although I suspect that there were such people. Perhaps, the major figures of European civilization, from Plato to Jung and Deleuze … They made a huge contribution to the universal human treasury, but it is difficult to say how they had with individual salvation, because it is not visible from the outside.starting from Plato and up to Jung and Deleuze … They made a huge contribution to the universal human treasury, but it is difficult to say how they had with individual salvation, because it is not visible from the outside.starting from Plato and up to Jung and Deleuze … They made a huge contribution to the universal human treasury, but it is difficult to say how they had with individual salvation, because it is not visible from the outside.
And in order for a desire for spiritual development to appear (a word around which a huge amount of speculation now revolves), it is necessary … It appears in a comprehensively healthy and already normative adult person. Otherwise, it is a camouflaged desire to show off, or vanity, or pride, or a desire to simply improve their health, or a tribute to fashion. Until a person has become an absolutely adult, aware of himself as a person, there is no need to talk about spiritual development, but when he has become, it is even more difficult, because in order for this to happen, an opportunity is needed …
A: Which one?
VL: For example, in 1995, I met one person in Minsk. Indeed, an adult, independent person who has realized himself socially, internally and personally. He had a case: he jumped with a parachute and the parachute did not open. By some miracle, he remained alive and even healthy. He was on the verge of life and death, on the verge of a super-event. Because of this, he developed a craving for the unknown, a craving for the transcendent, transcendental. I don’t know how things are with other people who juggle the word “spirituality.” In the past, I had a lot of lies about this, a lot of slogans that also came from some kind of vanity, from the desire to be cool, because spiritual is how cool. Now I think that I, after all, in this respect, only just a neophyte. And as I said, I am a psychotechnologist. In this respect, I can saythat a psychotechnologist I am a strong and unique specialist. As for the spiritual sphere, as it turned out, I made up a lot for myself, I lied a lot. Now I can say that I am still quite young, maybe I still have something ahead of me.
The need to develop spiritually is not originally inherent in a person, it can appear in an accomplished person, as a result of some kind of super-event. Everything else will be a game of spirituality, esotericism. This is a pleasant passing of time, sometimes useful, as a result of which a person can enrich himself with some knowledge, solve some of his problems. Someone comes to esoteric parties to meet someone, someone in the hope that this will help him, and so it remains to revolve around a person who provides such services. This is what is happening in this world now. It is not optimistic … But, in my opinion, the vector of movement of universal human development is just as important and necessary as what can be called individual salvation, because if we consider history as an integral process, then we can see some kind of positive development. And now we are at a certain turning point in the transition of humanity to another stage. It depends on each of us how human society will develop further.
A: But if such a moment comes, more often in adolescence, when a bunch of questions appear, which are very difficult to answer yourself. That is: why do people live? Why does man live? Why do I live?.. How can I answer them?
V. L.: It's great that a person asks such questions, and it's great if there is no unambiguous answer to this question, or the person understands that each answer is just a kind of conditional approximation … Every year this question may become more acute, - in this case development takes place. If this question is supplanted and in its place is everyday life, then here the situation is more sad, in the sense of the development of the soul. In my opinion, if the issue becomes painful, really urgent, then this is development. A person's degree of internal instability increases, if the psyche is healthy, then this leads to development …
A: And if unhealthy? And what does unhealthy mean?
V. L.: A person may be prone to some kind of suicidal attempts, psychotic reactions. In principle, 90% of people are neurotics, and there is no need to talk about a completely healthy psyche. I was talking about a healthy psyche in the sense that this does not imply a psychiatric diagnosis and, which is important, a certain degree of self-criticism.
Then the exacerbation of these everyday issues may be accompanied by a crisis, depression, despair, horror. This is what existential philosophy has been talking about throughout its entire existence - that in a crisis a person grows. In moments of despair, when the question "who am I?", "Why am I?" has no answer, not from the outside, not from within. Answers can come temporary, not as words, but as some kind of experience: unity with the world, love, admiration for the world, experiences of “horror and admiration that you are a human being,” as Castaneda said. A person may be pushed towards them by some specialist, who may be a psychologist, may be a person without special education, but having serious inner experience. Someone is lucky to meet this, someone is not.
A: What is the result of this? How can you turn an experience into a benefit for other people?
V. L.: Here again we are dealing with an internal result and an external result. The experience itself is the result. The external result can be a lot: a loving person can perform feats; a person who has been visited by inspiration will write music, poetry, invent or discover something. In the World of Spirit, no one is guided by the result, there is the process itself and each next step is both the truth and the result.
A: And if there was some kind of experience, and it is in your power to resume it. What to do with it?
V. L.: It is impossible to renew the past. In this case, the conservative mind of a person, fixating on the past and trying to return it, creates a lot of vicious circles when you want to find an ideal image of what has already been, you strive to follow the same pattern, but the world changes every second, you need to keep up with something new, so you need to be ready and open to this new thing, it can be completely different from the past.
A: So if something like that appears, you can't throw it back and live on as if it didn't happen?
V. L.: Why not? If you have such an experience, it can push you to take up some activity that will contribute to the fact that you will open up and live in a new quality. It will be a beacon that helps to create motivation, desire … Maybe this desire will grow into an intention to comprehend who I am? "Why are we all?" In the activity in which a person is trying to reveal these questions (it can be anything: your work, hobbies, yoga, meditation, etc.), some experiences can occur that go beyond the circle of everyday life, let's call them transpersonal, transpersonal. They do not depend on activity, but they do not occur without activity - this is such a paradox.
A: Why did it happen that you started doing this? What for?
VL: Well, in the book "Chronicles of Russian Sannyas" I wrote almost everything about this. When I started - in 1984 - there were two reasons: the first reason is the mass of discomforts, neurotic states, the second is the desire to be one of the chosen ones. This led to the fact that I wanted something like that, and at the time when I started it, it was not a massive fad. One of my features is the desire for uniqueness, that is, when everyone liked pop, I liked hard rock, when I was in fashion for something, I chose something that was not in fashion. This is something teenage-rebellious - rebellion manifested itself in this way. Therefore, now, when the fashion for esotericism has appeared, I have ceased to classify myself as "esotericists", I am looking for realization in a slightly different area … On the one hand, this trait is selfish, based on the same vanity,on the other hand, it has a rational grain, because when we get out of this first impulse of vanity to experience our uniqueness, then such a thing happens that vanity leaves, because you have no one to compare yourself with. When everyone follows the beaten path, a competitive reflex is inevitable - who is better, who is faster … And when you are unique, you have no one to compare yourself with.
A: Well, I don't know what else to ask you …
V. L.: Then you have to go and drink some tea.
V. L.: So, we talked over tea about what is the main drama of a person. In my opinion, it lies in the fact that we, as biological beings, really want our butt to be warm, so that tranquility occurs, but the paradox is that as soon as this comes, we can put an end to the development of the soul. Lucky for those who have circumstances knock a warm chair out from under the ass, who have to constantly be unsettled in this instability - this is the possibility of development. This is also known from mathematics, from such a field of physics and mathematics as synergetics, the science of self-developing systems. Since the middle of the 20th century, this science has been developing most vividly, and it has been proven that a condition for the development of any system is its fundamental instability. In solving equations, in physical systems, in biological systems, in economics,including in social processes. Where everything is calm, simple, unambiguous - the case, as a rule, leads to decay.
A: Well, if we start from the statement of Korolenko: "A man is born for happiness, like a bird for flight." Why is it impossible to develop in a comfortable environment? Maybe this is possible in principle?
V. L.: I don’t know, I haven’t met. Idyllic models of the future of civilization, in which everything is comfortable, harmonious - they seem to me to be something at the level of utopian communism.
A: God be with them, civilizations, let's take a single person. Is it really only through neuroses, depression?
V. L.: Why, neuroses, depression? Through a clash of contradictions. Another thing is what position a person can take in relation to contradictions. The fact is that when a person narrows his consciousness, his life becomes flat, banal, simple, down to biological forms of existence. If a person expands his attention and consciousness accordingly, then he inevitably comes across the fact that life is woven from an incredible amount of contradictions, that he is simultaneously "a slave, and a king, and a worm, and God." Naturally, you want to isolate yourself from all of this, take one thing and somehow calm down. But if you want to face the truth, it turns out that you are surrounded by contradictions from all sides. In relation to this, you can take some kind of neurotic position that follows from the repression of contradictions. Or such a positionwhen you will perceive it as a drama, but not as a tragedy. In the drama, there is always a struggle, a struggle of motives, even according to the laws of direction. In man, as a dualistic being, endowed with soul and body, contradictions are inevitable between the striving for biological comfort, balance and the striving for something incomprehensible for which the spirit yearns. These positions are exposed - it is impossible to balance them. While developing, a person undergoes this or that suffering, or a position of love comes. When he begins to realize the fragility of human being, in himself, in others, a feeling of love for life, for its contradictions, for the beauty of these contradictions, for the aestheticization of these contradictions can arise. On the path of aestheticization, there are genius works of literature, painting, and music. Or from the position of love, some actions, feats, self-sacrifice, etc. are possible.
A: For some reason, most people are not interested in either this drama or spiritual search, and they are quite happy if they develop material well-being, personal life
V. L.: You know, I have not seen happy people. Some side of a person's life can calm down, he seems to have solved some questions for himself, but this is the position of a closed system in which a person thinks that he is happy, has taken some stable position, but this position is a dead end.
A: What is enlightenment?
V. L.: I don't know what enlightenment is, I did not name what happens to me enlightenment. If this is what the people I have met and who, well, if they did not call themselves enlightened, but who were rumored to be enlightened, and who did not deny it … If so, then this is one of the big "flowers by the road. " One of the dead ends, again, if this is what I saw.
A: What does a dead end mean: does it stop moving, it stops developing?
V. L.: In my opinion, those people about whom they claimed to be enlightened, and who did not refuse it, were rather one-sided. Maybe I didn't look well …
A: Maybe they were hiding well?
VL: Maybe … In general, enlightenment is a word that entered our culture from Zen Buddhism. There a person who came to a certain quality of experience and life was called enlightened in Zen. In Russia there was never such a word - there were saints who were canonized after death, this was determined by the incorruptibility of relics. And now the word "enlightenment" has become slang.
A: You say that only a state of instability, uneasiness leads to development. And in Buddhism, yoga is the opposite. It turns out that this is not a development, it leads to a dead end, right?
V. L.: No. It's not that simple and linear. In real practice of Buddhism, not everything is so calm and smooth. Imagine a Buddhist monastery where rit-rit takes place, that is, a practice where from five in the morning to nine in the evening you constantly sit for forty minutes and walk for ten minutes, with a short lunch break. After half a day, an ordinary person who encounters such a practice begins to howl like a beluga, because everything is far from calm. All kinds of pains, fears, temptations begin to open up to you. And so they sit there for years and decades, with short breaks. The outer life there seems to be in no way dramatic: you sit - walk, sit - walk, but what opens up to you inside is not so calm. Another thing is that you have to take a certain position towards this, contemplative, i.e. do not panic because of this, do not fall into neurosis,But to contemplate these very contradictions, demons, demons that tempt you, all these pains in the body are incredible, and if you start falling asleep, then the mentor walks with a bamboo stick and hits you.
If there is some kind of Christian deed, then it is a constant struggle with temptation, austerities, exploits, chains, etc.
If life does not present a person with opportunities to develop, but he still wants to touch something in himself that goes beyond the limits of everyday life, then he goes to a monastery, where he is provided with these conditions. Although the meditative states themselves, which can occur in the course of such practice, they can be ecstatic, calm, and blissful, they sometimes come as a small respite against the background of this most intense practice. But there are people who are not allowed to calm down by fate itself.
A: I have met such people who say that a person lives in order to learn to be happy despite adverse circumstances. They propagandize precisely peace, inner harmony and tranquility. So this is a dead end, right?
V. L.: No. If a person, not in words, but in fact, experienced that samsara is nirvana, as the ancients said, that there is nothing in the world except paradise, and only the human mind comes up with this drama in order to go through it to return to the same … These are all very complicated questions, they should be asked to the one who belongs to the World of Spirit. I repeat - there are a lot of paradoxes in these questions …