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Life for God/Modern Developed Hesychasm

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Modern Developed Hesychasm

Vladimir Antonov

The essence of this religious branch can be defined as the development of oneself as a spiritual heart, which leads, in particular, to the attainment of inner silence (in Greek — hesychia). Thus a spiritual seeker obtains one of the necessary conditions for the direct cognition of God and subsequent Mergence with Him — in the aspect of the Creator (God-the-Father, Primordial Consciousness).

Let us also remember that the Latin word religion denotes, in its original meaning, the mergence of a developed individual human consciousness — with the Primordial Consciousness. We can also speak of religion — as a Path to the attainment of such Mergence.

But the dominating everywhere on the planet at present ritual religious forms, of course, cannot lead both to any cognition of God in all His Manifestations, and, moreover, to Mergence with the Creator. Participation in rituals may serve only as a starting point for neophytes who — with the help of these rituals — get their first mystical experience. This may give them evidence of existing “otherworldly” spaces — and such people start to study them and make their own real efforts towards spiritual Perfection.

It is also important to understand that it is in that human society, which is keened on rituals, different sectarian beliefs appear where they claim that only they are right in matters of faith, only their God is true… Though God — is only One, not only for all the people of our planet but for the entire universe. And the methodologies of spiritual development of people — are also based on common principles, although the specific methods in the developmental stages of the spiritual Path may be somewhat different in different schools and spiritual traditions.

And it is only among those, who relied solely on the “saving power” of rituals, where are allegations about the unknowability of God…

Yes, for those people God really is unknowable, since they still did not come on the path of religion — but already teach others… from their level of development and understanding…

Let me, by the way, note that neither Jesus nor any other Divine Teachers taught people rituality. Rituality was thought of by people themselves! It is not “of God”! And it can become a “trap” for those who really could start their own serious efforts on the Path to God.

On what should such efforts be based?

First — the study of ethical principles, offered to us by God Himself, and the correction of myself (as a soul) in accordance with them.

Everyone must also have a fairly clear understanding of what mean such words as God, man, also such concepts as the meaning of our lives on the Earth and beyond, and what are the objectives, principles, and specific methods of spiritual development. All this is explained in detail, observing this topic from different foreshortenings, in particular, in our books.

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In contrast to a sectarian outlook, let me emphasize that the ideas of developed modern Hesychasm are identical to the ideas of all true spiritual schools: all of them have been created by one God — through His Messengers (Messiahs, Avatars) and prophets.

These schools were manifested in different parts of the planet: in Atlantis (Thoth-the-Atlantean — Hermes Trismegistus), Greece (Pythagoras), China (Huang Di, Lao Tse, and Others), India (Krishna, Babaji from Haidakhan, Sathya Sai Baba and Others), Judea (Jesus Christ).* Spiritual Schools of the same level were set up also in other countries, including Russia, where they in ancient times were led by Assyris and Kurgan-Bashi (the first — in its taiga part, the second — in the steppe one) [17-19,31,35].

Yes, the methodological bases of all the main existing spiritual branches — are identical, whether it concerns Hesychasm, Taoism, Sufism, Raja Yoga and Buddhi Yoga*, etc. — unless they have been distorted and perverted by ignorant people; this, unfortunately, happens very often [11].

In Eastern European countries — after the establishment of Orthodoxy in them — a number of spiritual seekers attempted to escape from the oppression of religious rituality.* They, in particular, looking for ways for obtaining the love, which Jesus Christ urged people to, — developed the method of inviting Jesus into their own spiritual hearts. It was named as “Jesus prayer”. Different versions of this prayer-meditation sometimes gave the positive effect of “opening” of the spiritual heart. Such an adept then for the first time felt the emotions of the heart love, the mastering of which we are continually encouraged to do by God.*

By those successful adepts, the call was proclaimed for the acquisition of hesychia — inner quietness that can be obtained only in the depths of spiritual hearts.

Among those ancient Hesychasts, Symeon the New Theologian should be mentioned, first of all. He was One Who really has reached Perfection in the cognition of the Creator and merging with Him [17-18], although there were also others Hesychasts who have attained great success on the spiritual Path.

But almost all of the first Christian-Hesychasts finished their lives on the Earth under terrible tortures in the monastery prisons — as “heretics”. Thus they — the true followers of Jesus Christ — were treated by those who insisted on the “saving power” of only their rituals. Those executioners, defending their false faith, became enemies of both people and God… [17,24-26,37,41].

* * *

The author of this article, a scientist-biologist, with his colleagues, has continued — under the direct guidance of God — strengthening and further developing the ideas of Hesychasm.

One of our most important scientific developments is the system of psychic self-regulation based on work with the chakras and main meridians of the human body [18]. The technique consists in the fact that simply moving the concentration of consciousness into either of these bioenergetic organs leads to well-defined changes of emotional and volitional proportions of the practitioner. Because of this, one teaches oneself to easily regulate both mental and physical abilities — and emotions. In particular, such a practitioner gets rid of the negative emotional dominants easily by entering into restful, bright, and clear states of the consciousness.

When the author was beginning to study religion, he held the following principle: to collect and integrate all the best of all the historical spiritual experience of mankind. And it has succeeded. On this basis, the new branch of modern science — the methodology of spiritual development — was created. One of its topics is practical ecopsychology, where the development of man (as a consciousness, a soul) is realized, in particular, through meditative trainings on special natural areas, named as positive places of power. That is, for each following step of consciousness development, the appropriate — according to their energy — areas in the forest, steppe, desert, water reservoirs, where the development is much faster than in other conditions, may be found. Such places are usually the working sites that are created by the Holy Spirits — to help incarnate people. [12-13,17-19,39]

The personal apprenticeship under Jesus Christ and other Divine Teachers — the Holy Spirits — allowed the exploration and description in books — for the first time, and with a simple and understandable language:

— the essence of God,

— the Path to direct personal cognition of Him in all His Aspects,

— His purpose for the Creation,

— the nature of Evolution of the universe,

— the meaning of life and methods of spiritual work, from initial — up to the highest.

In particular, the essence of those typical in some Christian traditions terms, such as God-the-Father, the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, has been exhaustively explained.

* * *

Sometimes we are bound to hear such an opinion: “who will work in society, if everyone would seek solitude in the quietness of cells?”

But, first, understand that Hesychasts are looking for the silence which is not external but internal. And among the bustle of the outside world — Hesychasts will remain in the inner peace.

While yes, it is more convenient to start learning Hesychasm in quiet privacy, along with like-minded friends.

Secondly, know that never will any significant percentage of the members of any society chose to become Hesychasts. Why? — because:

a) young souls will not like long internal spiritual work; for them, as for children, it is appropriate to learn in the world through, on the contrary, external activities, thus gaining necessary life experience;

b) deeply perverse souls will not agree to follow the ethical standards, which are obligatory not only for all people but also and especially for the seekers of spiritual perfection; one need only to look at the ethics of nourishment [11-14,17-18,21,39];

c) also, many people are afraid to be “not the same as all”, being intimidated by aggressive atheists and sectarians; in fact, one needs firstly to become strong — to survive in such conditions, where one defends the right to live in accordance with God’s Will, not the “concepts” of a crowd…

… But an adult, intelligent and strong person, who realizes the meaning of his or her life and knows the responsibility of his or her actions before God — will fight for the right to execute the Will of the Creator — because of love for Him. And such a person can win!

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One should not think that the referred task of “opening up” the spiritual heart — is enough to consider the task of life — in front of God — as already implemented.

No, the ability to live in the spiritual heart, observe from it the world around, to think, speak, and act from it, also not losing this capacity having become tired, during sicknesses, conflicts, and other extreme situations, — is only the beginning, the possible start of a long and difficult, but happy Path of gradual drawing together — with the soul — to the Creator.

Of what does this Path consist? First of all, the gradual mastering of subtlety, and then — quantitative growth of the consciousness.

God in the Aspects of the Creator and the Holy Spirit — is the most refined form of consciousness of all that exists in the universe. That is why for the followers of the spiritual Path, attuning with the finest and most refined states of the environment, and growing tender emotions of care for others — are very important methods of development.

And the strength, necessary for overcoming difficulties on the Path, depends, among other things, on the size of oneself as consciousness. And we can actually grow ourselves — as spiritual hearts — up to the sizes that were difficult even to imagine in the beginning of the Path.

The stepwise consequence of the techniques for realization of the above — is worked out and presented to people — by us.

As the spiritual seekers (as the individual consciousnesses) grow along all the above mentioned directions of development*, they begin to perceive — with the vision of the soul — concrete Divine Teachers, Holy Spirits. There appears the opportunity not only to see and hear Them, but to embrace Them, to merge — as consciousnesses — with Them. And this is really the direct cognition of the standards of Divinity! In particular, this is the opportunity to learn to save and strengthen these states in ourselves!

Furthermore, a successful spiritual warrior, being led now directly by Divine Teachers, comes to the Abode of the Creator and learns to enter it and live in it — and then to come out from it for the purpose of helping other evolving beings.

The above cannot be mastered quickly: the growth of an individual consciousness is a very slow process, and also God tests many times each one claiming to approach His Abode — on the conformity to His ethical parameters. Overcoming the distance from the “opening” of the spiritual heart — up to the Mergence by the adequately developed spiritual heart with the Creator in His Abode, requires, at best, years of unceasing spiritual efforts.

However, now, when the road is paved and all the steps and milestones on it are marked, even “warning signs” are installed on especially difficult areas, — moving by it is much easier.

And let us always remember that a precondition for success on the spiritual Path is the constant improving of our own ethical purity.

This is — the modern developed Hesychasm.

And also let us understand that Jesus Christ wishes to see exactly this in the lives of His followers! This is what He teaches us!*

I wish good luck to all of those who are traversing this Path!