The Master/On the Spiritual Path

On the Spiritual Path

What is the “Spiritual Path”? Who can be called a “Master of the Path”? And whom do I personally call this?

Every embodied person, who has a sufficient level of intellectual development, in his or her time comes to realize the short-term nature of his or her earthly life and thinks about its meaning and aim.

When such a person realizes how foolish it is to waste his or her own allotted time on illusory earthly pleasures, he or she ceases to fall into those traps. And it becomes clear to them that only one Aim is true for them, which is God, the Creator. And the meaning of human life consists in cognizing Him and becoming One with Him. In order for this to be possible, it is necessary to develop oneself as a soul, to as close as possible in quality as the state of God.

This process of development of the self-soul, of the search and cognizing God is the Spiritual Path. People who enter it are called by different terms: spiritual ascetics or travelers, spiritual warriors, seekers of Truth, or monks… But the name of these people is not so important. The main thing is that their only Goal once and forever is God, and their whole life honestly corresponds to this Goal, without containing anything superfluous.

The one who travelled this Path to the end, having reached full Self-Realization in God, and then returned to people or remained with them for the sake of helping them, is a Master of the Spiritual Path. Such Persons are also called Avatars, Christs, Messiahs, and Sons or Daughters of God. These words mean that these Persons are One with God, and that They speak and act not from themselves, but from Him, fulfilling only His Will in everything. To meet such a Person, and even more so to learn from Him or Her — is a rare opportunity, the highest gift that can be received by a good fate.

One can come to the Earth as an Avatar — and almost immediately correctly become aware of Oneself and of One’s own Mission. Such were, for example, Jesus, Babaji and Sathya Sai Baba. But one can also develop oneself to this state, starting one’s personal spiritual Path from the standpoint of an ordinary intellectually developed person. Only those who also devoted their past earthly lives to the search for God can accomplish this in one incarnation.

Such a Master, after attaining Oneness with God, can retain His or Her material body. Thus, They remain on the Earth to provide spiritual help to people. They are well aware of human nature and know all the steps of the Path, starting from the very beginning, because They mastered it Themselves very recently. Therefore, Their help may be most effectively provided — if, of course, people accept it.

How to recognize a true Master? After all, so many people now call themselves spiritual teachers (gurus), and have hundreds or even thousands of followers. And all these “gurus” quite convincingly lie about their experience of understanding the Truth, and offer their own way of progressing to It.

Let each person decide for himself or herself in each case: to believe or not, relying on their life experience and personal beliefs.

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My own case happened as follows. First, I got acquainted with the methodology of human progress on the spiritual Path through the book, “Ecopsychology”. It was written by the Man whom I call the Master. The material of this book was presented in a simple language that is understandable for most Russian-speaking people. It was immediately clear that this was the work of a scientist-practitioner, who devoted his entire life to this topic, and that it was not a superficial compilation of excerpts from different books on this topic. The clarity of the Aim of the Path, a clear, logical sequence of steps to achieve It, and the high ethical requirements for those who want to enter the Path, were the main criteria by which I recognized the proposed methodology as true.

It was also significant that the book was not based on any one religious doctrine, but contained the best that is in each of them. This gives everyone, without exception, the opportunity to study it, regardless of their initial religious beliefs, and without restrictions and discrimination.

Having studied the main spiritual books of mankind, the author of the book “Ecopsychology” came to the conclusion that basically all religious teachings are the same and do not contradict each other. There is but one Teaching of God, expressed in different languages, taking into account the different conditions of life of people in different parts of the Earth and at different historical times — about what God wants us to be and what we should devote our lives to.

… Then the Tao Te Ching and the Bhagavad Gita, edited and annotated by the Master, were truly priceless to me! He returned them to their readers, having cleared them of the distortions introduced by the incompetence of former translators and compilers. The New Testament and the Quran also played a significant role…

In the subsequent personal interaction with the Master, it was important for me to see the conformity of His life to what he says and writes. This concerned both His habits and everyday life, His manner of communicating with people, His tender and compassionate relation to all the living, including plants, and the depth of the statements by Him on discussed subjects. But the main thing was His ability to show by Himself-Consciousness the states of God in His different Aspects. Equally important, was His ability to teach others first to feel, and then to reproduce the Divine States on their own. I’m talking about His ability to lead others to the main Aim. If someone just says that it should be done, but is not able to show — then such a person cannot be trusted, even if thousands of people call that man a guru.

Another important point is the ability of the Master to point out the vices and imperfections of a disciple in such a way that they do not take offense, do not leave, but manage to get rid of those vices. After all, it can be quite difficult to see one’s own vices in oneself.

From the point of view of an “ordinary” person, to hear from someone about one’s vices, which sometimes happens in a rather harsh manner, is unpleasant and makes one want to “get away” from the person whom points out such vices.

But for the spiritual ascetic it is happiness: in this way, he or she gets the opportunity to be purified, and therefore get closer to God by the quality of the soul.

It is a feeling of happiness for the purification that accompanies the lessons received from a real Master!

Yes, it may be (for a short time) painful, but to get offended at the Master is out of the question! The very ability of a devotee to be offended — at some point disappears (must disappear)! There must be an understanding that this lesson is from God, and that He teaches it to me through the Master!

It makes sense to imagine yourself in the place of a Master and think: how does He feel? Is it easy for Him to know about people’s terrible secrets, to see all their vices and ugliness of souls — and yet continue to communicate with them, to tolerate and forgive them, and even continue to lead them to God? Such is the work of a Master. And we should at least try not to complicate this work for Him.

… There is a different method of “combating vices” that is wrong. It should be mentioned here. It happens that teachers of spiritual practices have not yet got rid of their own vices, but in working with their students they act not from God, but from their own imperfect minds. By using the power that they have acquired over people, such “teachers” turn the process of “exposing vices” into a sophisticated mockery, thus satisfying their sadistic needs. This kind of “purification” causes only harm! Lessons which are not from God, but from a vicious person, who imagines oneself to be a “Teacher”, are difficult to accept: inevitably there is resistance, and therefore, one is unlikely to get rid of the vice that has been shown.

Such treatment to students, among other things, is dangerous and can lead to the possibility of the student committing suicide, especially in regards to those students who have unstable states of mind and suicidal tendencies. Therefore, it is very important for everyone to learn to distinguish between true and false teachers before making a decision of whose hands to entrust one’s development, life, and destiny.

Teaching spiritual practices is incompatible with the personal enrichment of the teacher (“Freely you have received; freely give” (Matthew 10:8). It is also incompatible with any other manifestations of his or her own egocentrism.

The energetic purity of the teacher is as important as the ethical component. After all, during common meditative work, the energies of consciousnesses of the participants are united. The teacher, who has a coarse and dirty consciousness, “pours” this dirt on students — both on souls and bodies. The result is that “suddenly” and “as if from nowhere” diseases come — both physical and mental.

Physicians in such cases can only shrug, asking themselves: “How to treat it all?”.

After all, without understanding the mechanism of occurrence of such diseases — it is impossible to get rid of them!

To cure this or that disease, it is necessary to know its causes and to withdraw from the pathogenic source! But it happens sometimes that such a source is… the “teacher”…