“Losing the Human Form” and the Centrism in God

When we were relaxing around the campfire, I asked Vladimir to tell me in detail about the concept of “human form”.

He paused, collecting his thoughts, then began:

“The term ‘human form’ was introduced into the spiritual science by Carlos Castaneda from the words of Juan Matus. It determines the characteristic of thinking and behavior of the majority of people, which is not caused by objective necessities and expediencies, but the patterns imparted by education and imitation. People who have a ‘human form’, think and act mainly on the principles of ‘it is accepted’, ‘it is usual’, ‘everybody does so’.

“As for ‘losing the human form’ — this means, by the highest standards, to stop doing anything that is not necessary, and do only what is necessary within the Evolution of the Absolute.

“The latter includes — as a component not basic, but worthy of appropriate attention — also care for the livelihood and health of our own bodies. Our bodies are our temporary homes. And only while we have bodies — we can develop ourselves. Our development — this is just the cause for which the Creator created all in His Creation.

“The ‘human form’ — is a function of the manas, in contrast to the activities of the developed buddhi. In other words, the ‘human form’ ‘nests’ in the ajna chakra. And, until one has mastered the functions of the spiritual heart and not resettled into it, one does not have the possibility to radically transform oneself in this foreshortening.

“Therefore, in particular, a variety of ‘seminars’ for the ‘destruction of the human form’, arranged by adherents of the so-called ‘modern psychology’, where the methods are insults and humiliation in relation to the ‘disciples’ (more precisely — the victims) — all this cannot give any positive results. Such ‘seminars’ are merely a manifestation (as in a ‘scientific’ and therefore ‘legal grounds’) of the disgustingly vile mental qualities of themselves as ‘teachers’. I would rate their ‘work’ — as malicious hooliganism.

“The true spiritual Path… — its basis, its ‘carrier wave’ is turning oneself into harmony and refined love. Rudeness and violence are the opposite qualities!

“… So, there are directions of thought and human activities that are not only unnecessary but interfere with the positive dynamics in the development of souls. However, most people's lives are filled with just that.

“All of our options of thought and action may be divided into three groups:

‘1. Trended to serve the Evolution of the Universal Consciousness.

‘2. Necessary for our own sustenance and good health in the world of matter.

‘3. Waste, that are not necessary.

“For everyone, it would be wise to keep personal activities within the first two points only, with predominance on the former.

“Anyone who lives and works not for oneself but for God, dedicating the whole of one’s life to spiritual development and service to God through true spiritual service for people — only such one can be considered as the real monk or nun. Belonging to any of the religious organizations for this, of course, is not necessary. No need for a true monkshood is also in obtaining new names, in wearing any uniform, in living in monasteries, and in other external attributes.

“Being a monk or nun — should be before God and not in front of people.

“With regards to social activity, it is necessary to learn to love others, to give them what I have in surplus but they need. But to give those gifts, only to they who are really worthy of them.

“Selfishness, greed, the desire to misappropriate something that belongs to others — these qualities are incompatible with spirituality in a person. They surely lead to an accumulation of bad karma.

“To be selfish is ‘rightly’ — only for the Creator. That is, He created all His Creation — just not for our sake, but solely for Himself: for the sake of His future development. For each of us in this situation, it is right to succumb to His Wishes, which consist in all of us improving ourselves in accordance with His Will. As the result, He ‘swallows up’ us, taking us into Himself, when we grow up to Perfection.

“If we deviate from the performance of His Will for us — He makes us hurt. This is one of the manifestations of the ‘law of karma’.

“Moreover, at the higher stages of spiritual development, the spiritual seeker should have a good idea to exclude almost all personal desires (not in the little needs, of course). Because for the completeness of the Mergence with the Primordial, it needs, — in the relationship with Him — for there to be only one will, His Will: the second — prevents. Let remain in the one who goes by the Path only two wishes — and passionate! — service to Him, and the Mergence with Him!

“… The life of underdeveloped incarnate souls can be ruled not only by reflexes and templates, but also by whims. This is a following to petty wantings for the sake of pleasing the primitivism of one’s ‘lower self’.

“The opposite of this is the true spiritual dignity, which is named as unpretentiousness.

“Everyone can observe signs of whimsicality and unpretentiousness in him/herself and in other people. In myself — to get rid of these detected defects. In the other — to learn from their good and also to find in myself those bad which I see in them — in order to expel it from myself.

“At the same time, it is dangerous to be proud because of ‘I am better than others!’.

“Also letting into myself negative emotions of condemnation towards others — this is the second danger!

“We can learn to distinguish between whimsicality and unpretentiousness — in what concerns food, clothing, conditions created in the housing, etc.

“… If we have liberated our lives from the abundance of unnecessary ‘conventions’ and capriciousness in thinking and behavior — then we are able to direct maximum of our attention and efforts into improving ourselves as souls, consciousnesses. Having developed ourselves sufficiently in this way, we can truly transform our perception of the world: from the usual for most people self-centrism — to God-centrism.

“In other words, it must be the replacement of acting in accordance with the habits and patterns of behavior imposed by traditions and upbringing, as well as the whims, — to those actions which are really necessary in accordance with the objective necessity, i.e. as if to look at the situations through the eyes of God.

“Replacement in ourselves of the self-centrism to God-centrism — this would mean a complete ‘loss of the human form’.

“The mastering of this cannot be ‘artificial’, i.e. compulsory: just for the considered transformation, it requires to achieve, first of all, an adequate level of growth of the intellectual function of the consciousness — namely the advanced functioning of buddhi, but not manas. Other possibilities for the realization of this problem — do not exist!

“But it is possible to help an evolutionarily ready person to see the matter under consideration and the concrete situations on this subject, reminding him or her about this direction of the spiritual development. That is, for example: whether you want to do this for yourselves — or for God? Or: what does God need in your behavior in this situation? Is your behavior right, if looking with the eyes of God at what are you doing now?

“Everything that we do, may be reviewed from this standpoint. Am I doing something just in this way, because I am used to it, or because it is what mom or dad showed me, or because everyone is doing it in just such a way — or I do this because it is useful for God, for other people, for the development of me in my spiritual studies?

“The successes of each person in his or her spiritual development can be considered, in particular, by a criterion of replacing the self-centrism — with God-centrism.”

* * *

“One more thought,” — Vladimir continued, — “closely associated with the fact of which we just talked about, is the ethics of relationships with concrete people. There is a so-called ‘golden rule’ of ethics: ‘Don’t do to others what you don’t want to be done to you!’.

“But we must add here the very important second half: ‘Do to others only what is objectively necessary for them, not what I want to do to them!’. That is, I should act in relationships with others — in accordance to the objective interests of the partner or partners, but not from my personal interests.

“Following this rule allows us to study, in the best way, God-centrism. Doing so, we exclude self-interest from the relationship: we learn to act in the interests of the other person or other people! And then, it becomes very easy — when the fullness of understanding comes — to act in the interests of God, not from my own personal interests!

“Also, exactly in this way the sense of feedback can be developed: first — with the partners-people, then — with the Partner-God. After all, we learn all the time to feel: whether what I am doing is right?, whether it is pleasing to him, to her — or to Him?

“The process of developing God-centrism not only provides rapid convergence with the Creator in the quality of the consciousness, but also gives obvious benefits for life in the material world.

“Although there is a storm, hurricane, cold, heat, pain — we can learn not to resist all this emotionally, and so — to not suffer! Usually people in such situations begin to resent mentally and emotionally: such, they say, is repulsion! But in fact, in similar conditions, we can simply feel the manifestation of God's Will: as a lesson for me, for my improvement.

“… The appropriate places of power can help in the development of God-centrism. There — we really feel ourselves fully in the Embrace of God, until the complete loss of feeling ourselves: ‘There is only God, I’m not!’.

“There are such places of power, which — if stationed there long enough — taught us these states of theirs. For example — to the widely opened spiritual heart, to the vastness of the refined consciousness! Or — to a state of complete absorption of oneself into the Holy Spirit. Or — to the Oneness, One Us of the Creator.

“Recall, for example, as we learned to be in the state of Surya. And we had just got used to Her state, being One with Her! At those minutes it seemed to us that we, from that moment, will always be able to be the ‘Suns of God’ like Surya!

“Or — the ‘Wall’ of Sophia!

“But now, at this place of power — those states are… not natural. One needs to make special efforts to be in them. But it has become the natural state of just this place of power — Sarkar's working site.

“… I will tell you in this regard: decades ago, I had a dream of creating an ashram. When I found each subsequent place of power, with its great opportunities — I every time thought about this. But then — another similar, in intensity and significance, place appeared — and I again was dreaming: here would it be! ... It happened to me, probably, about twenty times!

“Just an ashram — it is a place of compact residence of many like-minded people! Moreover — favorable conditions for meditation!…

“But — imagine: if we had built an ashram here, that is: to build a house, make a kitchen-garden, a garden, to switch the Internet… But… after a week or more… we will begin to feel the necessity to leave this place: it would be boring, there would be the need for greater dynamics in the work at the newly received stage of development… And that wonderful great place — would become ‘a place of stagnation’…

“Could we have reached this our current level of development, if we were living permanently at one place, even of the best power? I’m sure that we could not…

“Adler once, when I thought on this subject, offered to consider the whole Earth as the Ashram! And to create ‘mini-ashrams’ at different parts of the planet, where we could, if necessary, drive or fly…”

* * *

“Let’s consider one more topic in connection with the problem of ‘human form’.

“Almost the entire population of the planet believes in the existence of God. Atheists, in fact, are few. But what is interesting to note, almost all the ‘believers’ believe… in vain! Because they do not change themselves for the better! People must understand that it is only changing for the better, and not bows and prayers, that God expects from us!

“Someone who reads the New Testament, can argue to me: the apostles spoke that only believe — and then you will be saved! Nothing, they say, is necessary, except to believe in that Jesus was the Christ, Whom had been waited for!

“But… we need to understand what the time then was: how difficult it was to introduce into people’s minds the understanding of the greatness of the Mission of Jesus! Therefore, at that time, in that situation — those words had been justified.

“But, in fact, that is not enough — only to believe! And ‘the devils also believe…’ — James the Apostle said*…

“So, what should we do? We should — fulfill God’s Teachings!

“A simple ‘faith’ — does almost nothing!*

“But in order to easily fulfill the Teachings enough, it has been necessary to know the thoroughly studied and scientifically formalized methodology of the spiritual development.

“Knowledge on this subject — during Earth’s history — was given to people many times by Avatars, Messiahs. (This can be read in our book Classics of Spiritual Philosophy and the Present).

“But people tend to forget the knowledge which God gives. And even more — to pervert it… And then — to argue with those who perverted not as we, but differently. And even to fight against them, to kill… For example, how many times in Earth’s history have people quarreled over the names of God: our God — such, He is true, but your God — wrong!…

“Though God — really is One and the same for all people…

“… Now there is an opportunity to restore the knowledge about God and the Path to Him — with the help of integrate knowledge collected with the help of us. We also present the consequence of many well-verifiable methods of improving ourselves. They were exhaustively developed and described in the books and shown in the movies — by us.”

* * *

“By the way, the Tao Te Ching* — this is not only a great history book, but it is — a textbook for each of us! We should not only read it — but learn to live with the help of this book!

“In particular, Lao-Tse taught a simple life!

“We can either direct our indriyas to God, seeking to know Him, love for Him, join with Him, serve Him — or we are introducing our indriyas into the material plane, trying to, for example, decorate our bodies, feast on tasty but harmful for the health dishes*…

“And also there is the very valuable advice of God: Don’t want in the world of matter more than what you already have!

“… When we having mastered the management of indriyas, we direct most of them from anahata backward, but not forward; all this becomes very well understandable during the work. Watching in this way towards God, we gradually learn to see Him. And — if we truly love God, and contemplate Him directly, also listen to Him, learning from Him — Merging with Him is simple and natural!

“In other words, we can send our love, for example, to fine food for the sake of pleasure from it — or to God. In which of these two ways will we go upwards on the spiritual path — easier and faster?

“Love — this is the mechanism to achieve a mergence.

Thus, we merge either with the temptations of ‘material’ life — or with the Creator.

“That is — what is the main difference between materialists and simply ‘believers’, on the one hand, — and, on the other hand, the friars, who know God and service Him!”

* * *

“Ordinary people usually live with a dominant concentration of consciousness — in their heads. But to cognize God from or in heads — it is not possible!

“To cognize God, we must learn to move out of our heads into the spiritual hearts, then ‘move’ in it, then — be it and grow by it, at the same time gradually subtling ourselves to the level of the Creator’s subtlety.

“Trying to perceive God in the aspect of the Creator in our bodies — it is the methodologically wrong start. But the right way — to find Him in the spiritual heart, which must already be much larger than the body.

“And then, having learned to merge with Him and live in this Mergence, we then can give to Him our material envelops — for Him to manifest Himself through them in His Creation. That is — the fullness of God-centric realization!

“… We live usually and now in the environment of our non-incarnate Divine Friends. They are for us — even more real than embodied people. We can, like here and now — sit with Them in a single company near a campfire, to communicate freely with every of Them. It is easy to embrace Them — Each or All together — with the hands of consciousness emanating from the spiritual heart.

“They are our best Friends!”

* * *

Vladimir paused, then asked:

“Well, enough said? Do we go further?”

Vladimir’s backpack stood all this time on the ground a few meters from him — suddenly fell on its back. Everyone laughed:

“It doesn’t want to go! This means, you have not yet told everything we need now!”

“Yes,” — Vladimir laughed with all. — “This is a clear sign! We have to continue.

“… We might notice that the attitude of the masses of almost all adherents of different religious movements to their religion — this is also nothing more than their ‘human form’. That is, they understand a ‘religion’ — as only the rules about how to dress, what ‘religious’ movements to do… Although it does not bare any resemblance to the true religion!

“And let us understand that the differences in ‘human forms’ — as primitive patterns of thinking and behavior — often leads to hatred and violence towards other people who do not think or behave in ‘our right’ tradition… We see how hatred becomes the ‘national idea’ for entire nations on the scale of countries…

“And there is no escape from the fact that all these masses of people just are not able to absorb quickly the knowledge which differs from their current beliefs!

“In contrast to them, true, righteous revolutionaries-rebels in the religious arena are always met with bitter resistance from the part of those masses of people for whom a religion is only the superficial, consisting of the attributes of the material plane!

“Let’s remember Pythagoras, Jesus…

“That is why it is so hard for God to help us!

“And only a few of people, ripped from the samsara, are able to understand God and receive His Gifts: cognition of Him and He Himself!

“And all others live in a world of illusions — and this can not be easily changed! There are almost no such possibilities.

“The only thing that can help here in the long-term scales, is expanding the intellectual horizons of young people — in contrast to penning them into the trap of stupid unidirectionality and hatred to all dissidents…

“… Specifically our task consists in broadcasting to people who are able to accept the truth.

“It can be, fist of all, those who are capable of thinking out of the common patterns. Among them, a higher percentage of persons worthy of the spiritual initiations may be found — in contrast to the crowds of people who are chained by the ‘rules’ and traditions, who live in the emotions of anger…

“It should also be remembered that not all the differently minded — think correctly. It should not become a slogan — ‘to go through a red light!’.

“Years ago in Russia, it was a witty song, it was popular on TV. There were lines: "Nothing is worse than to be like all! So I drive by oncoming lane!’. That is — a bold phrase, which calls for dropping the ‘human form’! But we can attempt to drop the ‘human form’ in different ways. For example, it can be proclaimed ‘permissiveness’ — and all at once become infected with sexually transmitted diseases… Or — to become addicts… These are the examples of dumb execution attempts to ‘break the human form’.

“But in reality, there is reason to change ourselves in the direction of mastering the methodology of spiritual development! Only then it will give a positive impact!

“Without the placing God in the right place in our worldview, all of such ‘droppings’ and ‘breakings’ of patterns of thinking and behavior — only lead to confusions and losses!

“Only if we set a God-centric relationship between ourselves and Him, taking into consideration the mentality of the surrounding society, — only in this case the possibility of right ‘destruction of human form’ appears, as well as knowledge of how to help others in this way. The last may be done only by one’s example, not by coercion!

“… I’ll make two more important focuses on this subject.

“The first relates to esthetics. It is significant to realize that the spiritual Path implies high esthetical beauty — as one of its major components. Only both Aspects of God: the Primordial Consciousness and the Holy Spirit — are the most subtle Components of the Absolute! So — in the rush towards Them — a variety of esthetic components of our existence is necessary to help in the subtling of the consciousnesses! It could be a work of art of different genres, and harmonious communication with nature, with animals, with esthetically advanced people. The sattvic erotic component is also very important: it can effectively help in refining the emotional sphere! Also let any relationship with other people be as friendly, as gentle and affectionate as possible! But — without exaggerations and sugariness!

“The study of ethical advices, given to us by God, and mastering the art of psychic self-regulation will allow us to use these possibilities to help both ourselves and others — to the greatest benefit and without errors.

“And now it is important to stress once again the inadequacy of attempts to introduce the idea of the ‘destruction of human form’, by means of a demonstration of unesthetic, rude behavior.

“The second focus concerns just ethical relations with other people. We should not impose on others what they do not like, with what they do not agree — even if they are wrong! It is not possible to help them by this kind of aggressive actions. Their reactions will be reverse!

“Look: just the deliberate provoking of others to negative emotional states — this is causing harm to them!

“And here it is also appropriate to recall the views expressed in this regard by Jesus Christ: ‘Woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!’* ”

Vladimir Antonov, Ph.D. (in biology)

Translated from Russian
by Mikhail Nikolenko

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