ALONE WITH THE WORLD | У Игоря

“The Return of Power” series
Format 60х90/16
Desirably 320 pages.
Writing paper
Abstract
Igor Nikolayevich Kalinauskas is a psychologist, Doctor of Science, writer, and the founder of a new field — intropsychology. His many years of work have been aimed at an intellectual explanation and technical elaboration of psychological, intellectual, and spiritual relations between man and himself, others, and reality.
“Alone with the World” provides various approaches to such the mystical, mysterious, and familiar phenomenon that is man. This is a book-dialogue and a book-technology, but most of all a book-opportunity to:
See, recognize, and accept one’s self as being whole, alive, and real.
Relate to one’s fate as being the most important work in one’s life.
Take an active approach to one’s own life, while gaining a permanent sense of pleasure from creation in the process.

Igor Kalinauskas
ALONE WITH THE WORLD

PART ONE. DIALOGICAL 5
DIALOGUE WITH A NEOPHYTE 7
AN INSTRUMENTAL CONCEPTION 8
DIGRESSION TO THE PAST (BUDDHA) 11
Outline on Self-knowledge 12
Self-consciousness is always nothing 15
Can we speak 17
Truth has to be experienced 19
SUBJECTIVELY EXPERIENCING TRUTH 20
Knowledge, experience, work 24
Methodology 28
Method 28
Man as a whole 29
Human love 31
Typology 31
The Nobody man 32
Having your “self” 32
The Human dream 32
The method of Informational Immersion 32
PART TWO. TECHNOLOGICAL 33
WHY DO PEOPLE COME TO GROUPS OF SELF-REGULATION AND SELF-DEVELOPMENT, AND WHAT CAN YOU FIND IN OUR GROUP? 33
Why do I want to change? 33
Mechanisms of our problems 37
LEVEL OF TRUTH (group Style) 37
Originality and the program 39
The ABC’s of understanding your self 40
Introduction to the technique 41
Relations between man and the world 41
The practicial philosophy of each person 41
Attention! The soul is tired 42
Uniqueness among originality 42
What to do with the circumstances 43
To reach a Dialogue 43
Rules of the Dialogue 44
Let’s think about health 44
ACTIVITY AND REACTIVITY 45
Activity, or life with a purpose 45
Crises in the meaning of life 46
SEVERAL STAGES OF LEARNING 47
The stages themselves 48
Setting the task 48
I, the Other, and… the third voice 48
Separating identification and the choice of life 50
From false personality to self-consciousness 50
INSTRUCTIONS FOR BASIC EXCERCISES 51
Contemplation 51
“Fiery Flower” 51
“FLIGHT OF THE WHITE BIRD” 53
MAN AS A WHOLE 54
MAN CHANGES 54
THE IMAGE AND THE WORD 56
What’s behind the words 56
About action out of surplus 58
THE METHOD OF REASON-POSITIVE THINKING 59
Reasons for emotions 59
Life — A creative act 60
Active being 60
General principles of self-regulation and principles of the method of DFS 61
TRAVEL THROUGH STATES OF BEING 64
MAP OF THE ANCIENTS (Classification of states of being) 66
Map of psychological development 66
Rhythm — the quality of interelations with the world 68
CHANGES IN THE STATE OF BEING, OR INSTRUCTIONS FOR SAFETY MEASURES 69
Changes in state of being 69
Once again about the instrumental I-concept 70
The Relations of instruments and reality 71
Centers as a part of mental energy 71
Scary instruments 72
False personality and integral consciousness 73
Relations with the body 74
Developing mental energy 75
Benchmark postulates of the system 75
THE METHOD OF QUALITATIVE STRUCTURES AS A WAY OF ORGANIZING THE INTERNAL SPACE OF CONSCIOUSNESS 76
Thought experiments 77
The company as a whole 77
The value structure of personality as a whole 78
What is movement as development and how is it different from expansion? 79
A little “mysticism” 81
An example from the “exercise book” 82
CONSCIOUSNESS AS AN INSTRUMENT 82
The functional aspect of the instrument of consciousness 83
The aspect of organization and communication of functional consciousness 83
What do we need to solve? 84
How to find solutions 85
Fears “defending” territory 85
Extending your limits, recognizing your needs 86
THE VALUE STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY 86
About self-perfection 87
The problem of expanding the personality code 88
Life as a goal 90
Expanding the set of roles 90
INTRODUCTION TO SOCIONICS 91
Types of people’s IM 91
Principles of functional typology 93
Contents of the functions of IM 94
1. Subject Sensation 96
Object sensation 97
2. Subject logic 97
Object logic 98
3. Object intuition 98
Subject intuition 99
4. Object ethics 99
Subject ethics 99
PRINCIPLES OF DETERMINING  INFORMATION METABOLISM TYPE 100
Intertype relations 101
Relations of dualism 102
Relations of activation 103
Conflicting relations 103
Relations of social ordering and social control 104
The law of the quadra 106
COMPLETE EVOLVEMENT OF THE  INFORMATION METABOLISM TYPE  (Kalinauskas’ steering wheel) 107
THE PROBLEM OF SEPARATING IDENTITY (Personality and conscious) 109
Essence doesn’t come on its own 110
Three stages which can’t be passed, and a fourth 111
Consciousness at the stage of essence 112
Variants of separation of identity 113
Consciousness and personality 113
NEEDS (Main problems of fulfilling one’s needs) 115
Needs and regulating fears 117
The image of social needs 118
The context of ideal needs 119
Basal fears — Our “fences” 119
DEVELOPMENT OF THE TOOLS AND THE GAME 120
AND ONCE AGAIN ABOUT THE BODY 123
ONCE AGAIN ON MENTAL ENERGY 124
PATH TO THE WHOLE 126
Contemplation, concentration, meditation 128
The power of vision. How it influences our communication 128
About energy metabolism in the system of psychoregulation 131
ABOUT THE VOLUME METHOD OF PERCEPION 132
PROBLEMS OF EDUCATION 136
THE BORDERS OF POSSIBILITIES  (The technology of finding “border control guards”) 139
Range: Individual and real 139
Borders and fears 141
DIALOGUE (Theses) 142
Voices in dialogue 144
Communication with the World 145
I know that voice 145
Live communication 145
RESONANCE 147
For complete resonance 147
Keeping your relations with surrounding people 149
Instruction in communication technologies 149
OUTSIDE THE CAGE (For those who have not yet become explorers of the unknown) 151
A MEETING WITH YOURSELF (View from within) 154
A GENERAL ANALYSIS OF THE GROUP’S WORK  (How the group studies together) 155
Exercises for thought 157
PART THREE. THE ISLAND OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE SEA OF TECHNOLOGY 159
METHOD OF QUALITATIVE STRUCTURES* 159
Aspects of the whole 161
The square of aspects (sketch for thought) 161
LIFE AND EXISTENCE (As part of a discussion) 162
What is existence? 162
Birth in the school 164
GROUP OF “STATEMENTS”  Part one. Practical training 164
GROUP OF “STATEMENTS” Part two 166
A topic for thought 167
GROUP OF “STATEMENTS” Part three 168
GROUP OF “STATEMENTS” Part four 169
Consciousness and the unconscious 169
Statement 170

PART ONE. DIALOGICAL
You don’t love a crazy mob of birds!
You don’t love hatred and evil, of course.
You have to practice and see the real gull, the good in every one
of them, and to help them see it in themselves.
That’s what I mean by love.
R. Bach

When people take an unknown text into their hands, they usually want to know what this text is about ahead of time, so as to decide whether or not to read it. Thus the annotation that comes before the text can serve a good purpose. For example, something like the annotations given below.
This book offers an informational approach to the problem of “consciousness and the brain,” and analyzes the relation between consciousness and information. The main results of an informational approach to the problem are formulated in this book, and an analysis is given of the problem of deciphering the neurodynamic code of mental phenomena. The physicalistic approach to the problem of “consciousness and the brain” is thoroughly examined and criticized.
(D.I. Dubrovsky. “Information, Consciousness, Brain”.
Moscow: High School, 1980)
These are the secret words which Jesus said and which Didim Iuda Foma wrote down. And he said: the one who finds the interpretation of these words will never die.
(The Gospel from Foma. in the book of M.K. Trofimova “Historical-Philosophical Questions of Gnosticism”
Moscow: Nauka, 1979, p.160)
Our text is a sort of unique annotation to itself. We go, as the reader can make certain, beyond the scope of the normal, since Tradition lightens understanding of that which is known, without doing anything in relation to that which isn’t known.
Possible annotation №1
This text is completely dedicated to a Dialogue, and is a Dialogue itself.
A Dialogue is an exchange of information between two sides which understand each other by means of a third side which fulfills the functions of a translator.
Only subjects can enter the Dialogue.
A Subject, or subjective reality, is everything which can’t be made into an object.
Objective reality, or the World, is everything that anything at all can be said about, and which isn’t self-consciousness. In other words, the only reflection of subjective reality is self-consciousness.
This text is the practice of Dialogue with the speaking World. Dialogue, meanwhile, becomes real practice only in live contact between the one who knows and the one searching for knowledge.
***
Having stated, in a compact form, the meaning of this publication, it’s also worthwhile to say several words about the principles upon which this book is constructed.
In the text, This manifests itself in the same way as a photographic plate does in the developer. At first some spots, with no form or shape, can be seen on the plate. Gradually these spots become clearer, all of a sudden gaining a certain, concrete meaning. The subject that was photographed is reached instantly and irreversibly. Further, certain details appear even more clearly and expressively, but these details don’t make a significant addition to the main appearance of the photograph.
If you hold the plate in the solution longer than is necessary, it turns black, and the photograph disappears. The shot fixed in time by memory will still remain in the imagination, but will never be as bright as it was at the exact second when its contents were captured.
Something similar happens when understanding This. Understanding comes immediately, completely, and instantaneously. But you can see a black spot in front of you just as quickly, and forget that which you thought you had understood. Thus, when reading a text, take a break from time to time. As soon as you feel that you have understood everything, or, rather, that you don’t understand anything at all, or that, moreover, you don’t want to understand it, put the book down; it has already done its work.
After all, the book’s goal isn’t to give the reader new information or refute old information. “Understanding” and “not understanding” aren’t important either. If, without finishing reading what is given, you start to search for the information’s SOURCE, then we say that the text has done its job. If you quit reading and don’t want to “dig” to the roots of the information, then we say the same thing: the text has done its job.
Possible annotation №2
1. Each person is the conductor of an endless ocean of knowledge and strength lying behind him.
2. Know one’s self as a part of the World, and the World as a part of one’s self.
3. From the World of effects to the World of Causes.
***
This text is a rotation of “views from without” — attempts to show This to man who has never head anything about it, and “views from within” — reflections about This by people who practiced or who have been practicing for a certain amount of time.
Everything that you have read up until now is a “view from without.” Now we propose a series of “views from within.”
View from within 1
Practicing This, I want: to acquire mental energy, acquire good health and a good mood, develop my opportunities and self confidence, widen my horizons, specify my knowledge, reduce my shortcomings, and increase my thought activity and communication; if I achieve these results, then I will practice for a long time.
View from within 2
A deaf person speaks to a deaf person, A blind person gives a blind person directions, And each dream is in color. When will all those who know wake up?
View from within 3
The problem of self-consciousness is connected to the problem of contact with the World. In order to solve this problem we must first get to know our self and get rid of our aggression towards the World. All roots of people’s problems are in people themselves.
The most effective way of making contact with the World is for a person as a whole to make contact with the world as a whole.
Our relation to the World should be direct. In order to achieve our goal (direct relations to the World) we must:
— change our selves,
— change our relation to the World.
Our work on these things must be done constantly.
DIALOGUE WITH A NEOPHYTE
Neophyte. I want to be able to open the reserves of the human psyche, and to develop methods that can be used in our time which will allow people to get control over their own unused capabilities.
Instructor. Is it true that all human capabilities have already been exhausted, and that we need additional reserves in order to do what we’ve thought of doing?
N. A real possibility has arisen to fill our lives with new content.
In. Why don’t you like the capabilities that we already have, and are you sure that it will be better to have new capabilities?
N. Those states of being which we have mastered don’t exist on their own. There is the sound of all which surrounds us, which is real, and from these sounds we hear the music of the surrounding World. I want to learn to hear this music, to sound together with it.
In. And if you hear suffering, sadness, or pain, will you want to continue to listen to it?
N. I came to these lessons because I wanted to learn to control my consciousness, to relax, and to focus when necessary.
In. Once you learn them, will you really use these new skills?
N. I can’t accept the automatism of the flow of life, with its daily rotation of home — work — home. I want to attempt to get outside the limitations of this circle.
In. And what if you find the same commonness outside the limits of this circle?
Н. My motivation comes from my interest in studying the mind, and a need for knowledge of the mechanisms and the particularities of man’s internal world.
In. Are you sure that you will need this knowledge?
N. I came to these lessons out of my interest in unordinary phenomena, and out of a desire for self-perfection. I also want to form a real idea of the World around us.
In. Have you already decided what you’ll do once you reach perfection?
AN INSTRUMENTAL CONCEPTION
The next “view from within” shows theoretical states of being which serve as the basis for practical lessons, thus they are given in compact, instrumental language.
By “mental energy” we mean the series of human qualities connected with the concepts of “feeling,” “sensitivity,” “supersensitivity,” and “biofield,” as well as “experience” and “emotion.” From the point of view of a Dialogue, there is all reason to combine these qualities into one measurement of being, named the “mental energy instrument.”
View from within 4
The task of this method is to help solve the problem of the Dialogue, the problem of interaction between “I — Other,” between subjective and objective reality.
We, as a rule, can’t handle the tension from the Dialogue, and refuse to take part in it using either the method “there’s only Me” or the method “there’s only the Other.”
In order for both participants (I and the Other, the 1st and 2nd voices) to really understand one another, there must be a 3rd voice in the Dialogue as well (a person can take part in the dialogue as any one of the three voices). There are four forms of the 3rd voice: plot, authority or quotations, an overall system of criteria, and witness.
A Dialogue between the 1st and 2nd voices can only take place when there is something objective for both of them — a 3rd voice. Any other communication besides a Dialogue is just a way of exchanging information.
What can be (must be) the 3rd voice in our Dialogue with the World?
The system (method) for the 3rd voice comes from our (human) instruments — the body, mental energy, and consciousness. The foundation of the instrumental part of the I-concept comes from the method of qualitative structures (MQS is a way of thinking about the whole). In any living (developing) object which is viewed as a whole we can see: the organizational aspect — construction, the functional aspect — production, the communicational aspect — the link between the object and other objects, with the World; and the coordination point — something which connects all aspects into a whole.

When speaking about a person we can highlight the following aspects: the organizational aspect — the body, the functional aspect — conscience, the communicational aspect — mental energy, and the coordination point — self-consciousness (I exist) or self-relation (I-concept) (figure 1).
Figure 1

Why are instruments proposed as a 3rd voice? Because they belong to both objective and subjective reality at the same time. They are objective both for you and for the Other. This is expressed by the fact that we enter a Dialogue by means of instruments, and we get, as a result, three sum-total relations to the World:
1. The sum-total relation of man to the World as a natural being — individuality. The base instrument of individuality is the body.
2. The sum-total relation of man to the World as a social being — personality. The base instrument of personality is consciousness.
3. The sum-total relation of man to the World as a whole to a whole — essence. The base instrument of essence is mental energy.
In order for our instruments to take the position of the 3rd voice, so that we can objectively execute these relations, we must first separate ourselves from them (the instruments), in other words separate them from ourselves. This is a hard task to fulfill. The following problems arise when solving this task.
The body is the easiest instrument for us to become aware of. But despite this easiness, we often ignore our body’s needs and require our bodies to fulfill programs coming from our personality that we force upon our bodies. Unfortunately, our personality does not feature separated consciousness. We think that our body is an “animal,” and torture ourselves in almost the direct meaning of the word, because we think that the “animal’s” ideas are “black”. There is Another possibility as well: the body is a god. This doesn’t lead to any good either, since in this case we oppress both our personality and our essence. You’ll laugh if you look at people’s bodies around you. But you’ll cry if you look at what you’ve done to your own body.
Consciousness. It’s very hard to make our consciousness into an instrument. That’s because our consciousness rarely operates in the present time (our consciousness works for the most part in the past or the future). Our consciousness constantly evaluates what is more beneficial and what isn’t (better or worse), while often the criteria for this evaluation aren’t clear to us on an operative-conscious level. These criteria aren’t known to us because they are far away in our subconscious; they are automatic. Thus our task is to realize what our evaluation criteria are. However, having understood what these criteria are, we can clearly see that the criteria don’t suit us, either partially or completely. We see that these criteria are forced upon us, and that we live and make evaluations based on these criteria. A typical example of the absurdity of the position dictated by the automatism of criteria is the bloody war between peoples in Swift’s writing due to the “problem” of which side to break an egg from.
Look at real situations from your life, at the choices you make. When choosing a profession (“should I be an engineer or a doctor?”), do we really make our decision knowingly and sensibly, without being under the influence of evaluations that we made a long time ago, often times as a result of listening to other people?
Try to think about an object for several minutes, and you will see: your consciousness manages to visit both the past and future over this time. We are even proud of our all-encompassing, “cosmic” thinking, without realizing that the object itself is real, and that we have overlooked it in the present.
The majority of people, when they visit an art museum for the first time, look at paintings which they already know from reproductions they’ve seen before.
Mental energy. As of today people’s relation to this instrument is one, unfortunately, of fear. Many people say “it doesn’t exist, it’s not real, it’s a drug, imaginary,” although each person has had situations confirming the existence of the “supernatural.” Practice shows that every person can learn to “hear the rhythms and levels”. It’s simply a matter of time. But a problem arises: how can we make this function active, manageable?
A person receiving the mental energy of the Other often forgets that he has a “voice” himself. Choosing a place “on the field,” he thinks only about how to stop this place from damaging himself, and doesn’t think at all that he can damage any place. Learning to have a voice is a hard but important task which requires action.
In order to solve all of the problems named above we must have a stable self-consciousness which stipulates the effectiveness of our instruments, and the real connections between them, which helps to avoid situations in which the famous heroes of Krylov’s fables, the swan, the crab, and the pike, found themselves. Self-consciousness is wise and happy. Our self-consciousness, when being separated from all instruments, enters a Dialogue with the World.
Stable self-consciousness and the quality of instruments give you the opportunity to meditate as deeply as possible. You hear the ocean of knowledge behind you and you see it in front of you. These two come together. You enter a Dialogue with the World.
Don’t you think that Mozart was in such a state?
Having learned several practical skills for “looking from within,” let’s move on.
You already understood that This is a certain technique of life (in the direct meaning of the word “technique”, from the old Greek word “technos” — “art”, “ability”). This technique can affect both certain parts of your existence, and your existence as a whole. If a person all of a sudden ceases to be satisfied with the quality of his life, then he looks for ways to improve the quality of his life, and wants to become his own master. In such situations one usually says: “I have a lot of problems that I need to solve.” The art of life is born as a way of solving people’s problems. The path from acknowledging a problem to solving it goes through four stages:
1. Understanding — the problem exists.
2. Perception — there is a reason for the problem.
3. Hope — the problem can be solved.
4. Liberation — solving the problem.
This is the way in which absolutely all of man’s problems, from technical ones to everyday ones, are solved.
DIGRESSION TO THE PAST (BUDDHA)
Four noble truths about the world:
1. All human life is suffering and pain. Birth is suffering, bad health is suffering, and death is suffering. The presence of a person who we hate is suffering, and being away from the person we love is suffering; in other words, living through our fives senses means constant suffering.
2. The reason for this can be found in man’s existence, which leads from re-birth to re-birth, which is accompanied with constant desires and aspirations, which we fulfill from time to time, leading to an insatiable thirst for satisfaction.
3. As long as any being moves in a cycle of re-birth, thereby changing in one way or another, it will suffer. Man is meant to improve his spirit, to remove it from earthly pleasures, so as, in the end, to escape from all cyclical processes, thereby becoming nothing. Consciousness should return to the state of natural transparency and purity.
4. The eight-fold path of relieving one’s self from suffering is: righteous view, righteous aspiration, righteous speech, righteous effort, righteous contemplation, righteous thinking, righteous memory, and righteous actions.
Only a person who has already passed through this whole path can lead another on it, thus the default, but most important maxim of the eight-fold path is to find oneself a righteous teacher who can explain to you what righteousness is.
That’s approximately how life’s problems and their solutions were viewed a little over two-thousand years ago. How do people look at their life now?
View from within 5
I live in the World, on Earth, somewhere in a specific house, thus I am somehow connected to the World around me, and am part of a Dialogue with this World to some degree. But what Dialogue does each person have? Where is the I in each of us? What is the problem here?
Each person acknowledges his existence at a certain point in his life. But how do we acknowledge ourselves? Who am I? Where is this I? What is it? Reason? Body? Feelings? Consciousness? Having thought about it, it seems that none of these things can be our “real I,” either in part or in whole. Thus it follows that we don’t know who we are, even though we are in a constant Dialogue with other people and the World. So then what is my Dialogue with the World? What is my Dialogue with other people who are similar to me in some degree, and who also don’t know what their own I is?
View from within 6
A person is part of the World. The relations between man and the World should be harmonious. History shows that between man and the World around him — alas! —there is discomfort and conflict. The reason for that is the monopoly position of linear consciousness over man’s other instruments. The problem is that our consciousness strives to explain everything in parts, but does so in a primitive way due to a lack of information. The disconnectedness of man’s actions makes it hard to form a single criterion for communication between man and the World. It’s impossible to have harmony without this criterion. Man is forced to lie to himself. Man has to change most of all so as to improve his interactions with the World. And you have to acknowledge your self in order to do that.
View from within 7
There’s no doubt in my mind that phenomena which are considered to be the realm of fantasy today will receive universal recognition one day in the future. Man has passed from the world of things to the world of processes. We need to revaluate our old views of the World.
One gets the impression that mankind, having formed some kind of development program, has reached the point when it’s time to install this new program. The information for this development may have been brought to our age from the depths of time, from spiritual schools, from esoteric teachings, which testify to the fact that man has yet to fulfill all of his potential, and that there are further paths towards fulfilling this potential. Only then can one understand that this knowledge came to us through centuries of obscurantism, through the flame of the fires of the inquisition, through savage battles and earthly cataclysms. This knowledge wasn’t forgotten simply for the reason that we need it today. Thus the “spiritual boom,” the mass “searches for truth,” and the general interest in spiritual schools of various epochs and nations is by no means a fluke. This is the process of mankind’s development, the rule of life.
Spiritual schools solve the problem of man’s reformation in one way or another. There are spatial-time differences between these schools, as well as differences in technologies. Each technology suits the time and place when and where it was born. The product of this technology — man — suits the objective reality that gave birth to this technology.
Which product, which technology can live in our time, and be happy among people today?
It’s unlikely that there is a ready answer to this question, but there’s no doubt that this question is important.
Our work is to search. To search for an answer.
This is a search undertaken by those people who want to find an answer.
***
If the first of the four stages about which we spoke states that “I exist, but I don’t know who I am,” then implementation of the postulate “Get to know one’s self as part of the World, and the World as part of one’s self” would seem to cover the next three stages. But how can we get to know our selves?
We propose the following outline to the reader.
Outline on Self-knowledge
“Know yourself!” — This is the maxim of all ancient and new spiritual teachings. When following this maxim, do as follows: do what you can to know your self.
A lot of various information has been comprised about man as a biological, social, and psychological object. What else is there for us to wish for? The answer is that which is lacking in all this information; at least a hint at what a complete human I is. Because after all, analyzing, for example, human psychological reactions, we take into account everything besides the presence of the researcher him or herself, even though this person undoubtedly has an influence on the situation.
Let’s make a graph of any of man’s emotions, for example, surprise (fig. 2).
Fig. 2

A man looks at a flower and is surprised (fig. 3).
Fig. 3

And all of a sudden this person suddenly recollects the flower and asks himself: “What exactly am I so surprised about?” And he looks at himself and at the flower which surprised him from the outside (fig. 4).
Fig. 4

He can analyze the flower and his surprise as objects, and look for the interrelation between the flower and his surprise, and write a whole psychological tractate on the topic. But how can he describe the eye which saw both the flower and his surprise? He would need another eye to do so, but how is it possible to understand, all at one moment, the flower, surprise, and the eye which sees all this? In philosophy this effect is described in the following way: it’s impossible to both understand something and, at the same time, understand how you understood that something. Understanding and understanding of your understanding take place at different moments in time.
This can be continued to absurdity: it’s impossible to understand understanding and understand your understanding of understanding.
In other words, a person can see everything at any moment in his existence besides himself. But his I exists at any moment in time. In other words, a person can’t understand his own I because this is his own instrument of understanding. How can you see your own eye? Not a reflection of your eye, but the eye itself? The real human I, or the point of a person’s understanding, or the eternal observer, or the true subject, clean, absolute subjectivity, can never be objectified, or put before our glance, because it is our glance itself.
Naturally, in order to understand yourself, you have to somehow get around this impossibility of seeing your instrument of understanding. Let’s imagine that we studied psychology and put some structure with “P” information into our brain in order to use it as an instrument, thereby entering into contact with other people. If citizen X yelled at me and said a lot of nasty things to me, then I, perhaps, interpret this in the terms given in information “P”. For example, “IT SEEMS TO ME that the aggressiveness of citizen X is a manifestation of her hidden inferiority complex.” I interpret citizen X’s actions in precisely that way because I have information “P”: about aggressiveness, inferiority complexes, etc. Let’s try to draw (figure 5) our point of view (IT SEEMS TO ME that this and that are taking place).
Fig. 5

But it follows from everything stated above that information “P” can’t be your true I, because you can separate yourself from this information and look at it from the outside (Fig. 6).
Fig. 6

It would be better to say: “My memory, in other words the information, knowledge, and psychological structure which I simply call “P”, seems to be this and that.”
It seemed that way to you only because you identified yourself with information “P”. If you separate yourself from this information, then, of course, everything will remain as before, except that you will know that it seems so not to you, but rather to information “P”, and that it seems so to this information only because you filled, or gained, or put your understanding, or your point of view, or your true I into information “P”. (fig. 7).
Fig. 7

After separating yourself (and this is, undoubtedly, a shift in your consciousness) a strange thing happens. You begin to understand that information “P” turned up in your brain coincidentally. If you lived in a different time, and in a different place, then information “P” would be replaced by some other information, for example, magical consciousness, a different psychological theory, or simply schizophrenia. Thus it turns out that our understanding, our true I, the eye of consciousness, clear subjectivity, or in other words that which under our method is called SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS, is absolutely empty (not blank self-consciousness ⎯ that’s not self-consciousness). Empty for whom? For you, yourself, of course. Man doesn’t have any other understanding, he has no other self-consciousness.
We can’t ascribe any qualities to self-consciousness. We can’t say where it’s located, what its borders are, where it came from, and when it will disappear. It’s simply absolute emptiness, which is a pre-condition of the fullness of our life. Self-consciousness exists, but it always falls out of view of cause-and-effect relations, which are reached through the help of self-consciousness. This is an absolute “zero,” with the help of which information, coming from outside, becomes “units” of our consciousness.
“If there’s no empty space to be filled, then there’s no process of filling this space, or in other words time.” (Abu Silg).
Upon entering a dialogue with another person, we expect that this person will UNDERSTAND us. We don’t expect that he won’t understand us in the way we want him to (for some reason this is called “understand correctly”). Rather, we speak to him because we expect understanding. We don’t usually speak with objects that are incapable of understanding, and if we do speak with them, then we understand what we said for this object. We call such objects inanimate (just think how many people you’ve talked to as if with an inanimate object!).
Here’s an example: a small child, looking at a photograph showing a couple dancing ballet, says in his own language: “Dada mama no boo boo pu-u-u,” which in translation means “Daddy has no boots, and mom is swimming.” We say that the child didn’t understand the subject of the photo correctly. After all, the woman isn’t swimming at all, but rather curtseying. Simply, she’s more nude than is usually the case in everyday life. The child decided that she’s swimming, because he saw how his mother swims. He didn’t understand correctly from our point of view, but he UNDERSTOOD. The child understood as best he could at this point in his development.
Undoubtedly, the boy already has understanding, or self-consciousness. But a psychologist will tell you that a child doesn’t have self-consciousness, or rather, its self-consciousness is poorly developed. And the psychologist will be right from the point of view of the psychological interpretation of self-consciousness. But he’ll be wrong in our definition of self-consciousness as a means of understanding, or of understanding as such, or of zero understanding, or clear, absolute subjectivity — just call it providing emptiness which can be filled.
We showed that self-consciousness always falls out of view of cause-and-effect relations, which themselves are understood with the help of self-consciousness (understanding). We also showed that no qualities can be attributed to self-consciousness other than the quality of being nothing.
Let’s summarize in theses:
1. Self-consciousness exists.
2. Self-consciousness doesn’t have qualities, but it is a precondition of all qualities which we can achieve.
3. Self-consciousness can’t be included in cause-and-effect relations, which we understand with the help of self-consciousness.
In other words, self-consciousness exists, and is active, but is nothing. Speaking with another person, we attribute him self-consciousness only in that case if we are satisfied that he understood us, that he “heard” us. It’s his business what exactly he understood, but we must know for a fact that he understood us, and that he is an animate object. There’s only one way to tell if he understands us: to listen to his answer. Any answer.
Thus it turns out that a Dialogue is the only way for each of us to meet another person who understands. Analytical methods don’t work; a Dialogue in any language, using any signs, is the only method for finding another self-consciousness on Earth.
Self-consciousness is always nothing
Now let’s take a look at this question: Two people met and talked with each other. It’s their business how they understood one another, but they SPOKE, so each of them thought that the other has self-consciousness.
Do these two people’s self-consciousnesses differ from one another? Judging by the theses proposed above, we can’t accept either the affirmation that these people’s self-consciousnesses are the same, or the affirmation that these people’s self-consciousnesses are different. To say something about self-consciousness means to attribute qualities to it.
Thus the variant of figure 8a is not possible.
Fig. 8a

And neither is the variant of figure 8b.
Fig. 8b

We can only speak in paradoxes about self-consciousness, and to speak in paradoxes means to be silent.
The world is that which we can say something about, where self-consciousness is the speaker, thus it can’t say anything about itself. Self-consciousness keeps silent about itself. To keep silence when speaking out loud means to speak in paradoxes, for example: “Self-consciousness is one, singular and plural. Or, as one philosopher said: “Understanding is one, but is encased in many.”
We’ve already determined that self-consciousness is found almost only through dialogue. Let’s say that you tried to have a dialogue with a rock. It didn’t work out, and you decided that the rock doesn’t have self-consciousness. But to say that the rock in principle can’t have self-consciousness means to attribute qualities to self-consciousness through the rock, and to include it (self-consciousness) in cause-and-effect relations. This is prohibited by our three theses, thus one should never say that the rock is silent only because it’s a rock. Thus, in fact we can only uncover the presence of self-consciousness, and never its absence.
Judging by our rationale, the fact that we can’t speak with the planet Venus as with a subject, and hear, for example, an intelligible answer to the question “How are you today, mother Venus?” doesn’t serve as proof that Planet Venus doesn’t have subjectivity or understanding. We simply weren’t able to speak with this planet, and that’s all. And what if we had heard an answer? Then maybe it’s time for us to go see a psychiatrist?
Now we’ve reached the question to what extent we can consider our Dialogue to be real, and to what extent we can trust this dialogue to the self-consciousness of the person we are talking to. For one person wind is wind, while for another it’s the whispers of the Universe.
Before speaking about criteria of truth and belief, let’s make several observations.
First of all, there are people for whom a rock is not just a rock, and the entrails of a ram aren’t just an anatomical object, but rather an arrangement of stars in the sky — not just an astronomical fact. These people are professional fortune tellers. Let’s put aside the possibility that these people might be crazy, frauds, or simply dark, superstitious people; we’ll discuss that when analyzing the criteria of truth and belief. We’re interested only in the fact that these people look at some facts of objective reality to be a language through which some kind of subject speaks to them. This is a subject, which, for example, can know the future. Fortune tellers are always in a Dialogue, and if not with the whole World, then with some kind of assumed beings who speak through the means of objective facts. Another such category of people is poets. And by the way, no one has yet accused poets of being crazy just because they think that surrounding reality speaks to them.
A scientist also perceives reality as being a text which should be read, or deciphered. This text doesn’t have an author, although we know that it changes all the time. But could it be that these changes are the author himself?
Reality starts speaking as soon as we attribute self-consciousness to the World, in other words give the World an unfilled emptiness. Philosophers will say that in this case man perceives the World in an anthropomorphous way; that is he attributes the World its own qualities.
But is it possible, when reading the World’s text, to delete man as part of this text? Man’s qualities are part of the World’s text, just like the World’s qualities are part of the man who reads the World.
The art of the Dialogue is implementation of the continuity of the integrity of Man and the World.
Taking part in the Dialogue, man keeps his integrity in any particular activity, merging with the activity of all mankind, merging with the life of the World.
Can we speak
Here are two excerpts from literary works which communicate the perception of reality as being speaking reality.
“Some crows began cawing from an oak nearby the road. The tree is beautiful, full of branches, and has six large, black birds sitting in it.
When I turned around again to look at the horses snorting in the river, I saw transparent drops of water going down their necks, and the whole landscape had gone dull, as if the clouds had hidden the sun. The horses raised their heads uneasily. The cloud didn’t cover the sun, since it was still just as hot as before, but the fantastic colors of the morning, and the pure greenery died down. The thin grass bent down slightly, as if a cold wind went over it. The bell in the church rang shortly and quietly, and it seemed, when walking by, that somebody was pulling the rope without any interest. Uneasiness clung to my chest, I began to moan, and closed my eyes.
When I opened my eyes again the sun was beating as before, and the colors were once again clear and lively, and the horses put their heads down and drank. I thought that I had dreamt up what had happened before. It was the same feeling that you get when, finding yourself in a new place, you feel as if you’ve been there before. Or, starting a new piece of work, you feel like you’ve already done the work before.
I looked at the oak: there were no crows in it, but I saw six birds flying away which went behind the hills. So that was another sign. (Saulius Tomas Kondrotas, “Zalсio zvilgsnis”)
He chuckled and asked me if I really thought it was a car. I told him that it had to be a car and he said that my concern revealed to him that, somehow, I must have felt that whatever was behind us was something more than a mere car. I insisted that I thought it was just another car on the highway, or perhaps a truck.
“What else can it be?” I said loudly.
Don Juan’s probing had put me on edge.
He turned and looked straight at me, then he nodded slowly, as if measuring what he was going to say.
“Those are the lights on the head of death,” he said softly. “Death puts them on like a hat and then shoots off on a gallop. Those are the lights of death on the gallop gaining on us, getting closer and closer.”
A chill ran up my back. After a while I looked in the rear-view mirror again, but the lights were not there any more.
I told don Juan that the car must have stopped or turned off the road. He did not look back; he just stretched his arms and yawned.
“No,” he said. “Death never stops. Sometimes it turns off its lights, that’s all.” (Carlos Castaneda, “Separate Reality”).
It’s seems that we’ve come to a point.
The crows in the tree — are they a sign?
The headlights on the car — are those the lights on the head of death?
You can see as many signs as you want in objective reality, and interpret the stars in the sky as a text about the future as much as you like, but who will prove that signs are really signs of something to come, and that reading the starry sky has some kind of meaning?
Who will prove that there is a causal relationship between the appearance of the six birds on the oak and the slaughter in the Belvedere, which came afterwards?
Who can prove that the lights chasing after the car were really the lights on the head of death, and not the delirium of a half-crazy Indian?
Something can appear to each one of us individually, but truth can be only that which is true for others as well. In other words, truth can be only that which is objective, which doesn’t depend on kinks in our consciousness. It’s a good thing when our subjective truth becomes objective, when it is practical truth for other people as well. (Practice is the only criteria of objective truth, although logic is a formal instrument which distinguishes truth from lies. Logic determines what is formally truth, while practice uncovers reality, and the objectiveness of truth. Logic shows that formal truth is not (or is) simply a self-willed construct of our conscience).
Well, what if our subjective truth doesn’t get a practical and formal confirmation? We call this simply an opinion or mistake. People take various approaches to a person who strongly insists on his mistake, depending on the type of mistake which is made. When such a person repeats emphatically: “All dogs in the world have rabies, and they’re all trying to bite me,” clearly we’d better isolate this person. But if this person is a poet, and makes such declarations only in his poems, then nobody will waste their time to check the objectivity and truth of the poetic judgments and images.
After all, we can’t identify an artistic view on the World with a TRUE view of the World. “Too subjective,” — we usually say.
But a poet is part of the World…
Truth has to be experienced
Let’s leave aside the question of subjectivity and objectivity for now.
Let’s speak about suggestion (influence) and experiencing truth.
How do you know that the Moon isn’t a silver platter attached to the sky, but rather a cosmic body circling around another cosmic body — Earth? You know that and you believe that because you’ve been taught that it is so. You don’t have any reason to doubt this, since the Moon, to be honest, doesn’t interest you much, (let’s say that you are completely indifferent to astronomy).
If something changes in astronomy, you will accept these changes with indifference, especially if the new information comes from an authoritative source.
But it’s a different story when we talk about something that really does mean something to you (under the term “real meaning” we have in mind that a person is practically interested). In this case you rely less upon what the authority says, and believe more in yourself and your own experience. And now take a look at your own personal experience in life, and you will see how few things and phenomena there are on earth about which you can say: “They take place in such and such a way, I know that from my own experience.”
There are very few truths on earth which you personally can account for as being truths. But we “process” enormous amounts of information which we believe; we are ready to stand up and shout if anyone doubts the existence of the abominable snowman, and this is only because the abominable snowman was shown on TV, and the show host said: “The film was shown to authoritative experts who confirmed that the scenes were real.”
We believe in physics, chemistry, and medicine, although the majority of us will never get the chance to test that which we believe in. The majority of our knowledge is based on the authority of the encyclopedia, or textbooks, or our father, or mother, or neighbor, etc.
Scientific communities are the most obvious example of information exchange where the main criterion of truth is authority. You will object that scientists in particular are the most critically-minded part of society, and that they subvert all kinds of authority. But we said “information exchange.” The scientific community wouldn’t exist for a single day if scientists didn’t trust one another. “Trust, but check” — this is how the scientific community holds together. And information checks are made on the basis of some assumptions which are taken to be absolutely true. In this case it’s important not that the assumptions change, but rather that they exist at all. Albert Schweitzer said that “Rational thinking which is free from assumptions ends therefore in mysticism,” and he was absolutely right.
We can check information only in so far as we have assumptions that we believe absolutely, and on the basis of which we can check new information. Our entire existence, all of our rational thinking is constructed on the Circle of Absolute Belief — on several assumptions, the majority of which we don’t realize, but on the basis of which we act every minute of our lives. Psychologists call these self-evident norms.
You believe something because something outside you has a certain power of suggestion, and you are open to this suggestion. To be open to suggestion means to be able to subjectively experience truth, to be open to the Archimedean “eureka.” Truths are strengthened when something in objective reality “pressures” us, and there is a moment of understanding in our self-consciousness (subjective experiencing of truth); when self-consciousness equates with the source, the suggestion, when a paradoxal thing happens — being and self-consciousness become equal, objective and subjective realities become the same thing.
We are subject to suggestion in every moment of our lives; a stream of self-evident absolute truths falls upon us constantly.
These are, first of all, our feelings. These feelings are always equal to themselves.
Shri Aurobindo said that “feeling, in essence, is not the result of reactions of physical organs, but rather of contact between consciousness and it objects. He meant that which we called equality between being and self-consciousness.
Subjective experience of absolute truth is that moment when we take something to be a whole REALITY, to be that which is.
The goal of our method is a Dialogue with the WHOLE WORLD, in other words an exchange of texts with everything which “happens” to us, and to EXPERIENCE EVERYTHING which “happens” to us.
To have a Dialogue with the World means to understand everything as being REALITY, that is to constantly experience “eureka,” and to view the World as something which IS, in other words to accept the wholeness of the World as Truth.
To be in a Dialogue means not only to listen to the World, seeing reality, and the truth of the World, but also to speak with the World with our own actions, doing REAL actions.
In other words, to be in a Dialogue with the World means to see that which exists, and to do that which you do.
How can a person achieve this?
Very simple — you have to be “here and now” all the time.
TO BE.
TO BE HERE.
TO BE HERE AND NOW.
OR MAYBE EVERYWHERE AND ALWAYS?
***
In order to further demonstrate This, we propose that the reader think about subjectively experiencing truth. One of the immortal Omar Khayyam’s quatrains can serve as a good epigraph.
One more day has passed, friend, like the light moan of the wind, it’s left our life forever. But I won’t worry as long as I’m alive,  about the day gone by, and the day that hasn’t yet been born.
SUBJECTIVELY EXPERIENCING TRUTH
Let’s start our reflections with the following case. P. V. Simonov once told about how a professor from an Indian state center of psychiatric research was invited to a Russian research institute. He gave a speech, and spoke and spoke. All of a sudden he stopped and asked the audience a question:
— Dear friends! Who among you is in the past in your thoughts right now? — and about half the audience raised their hands.
— And who among you is in the future in your thoughts? — and the second half raised their hands.
— And who am I giving this lecture to? — the professor asked, and stopped his lecture at this point.
One of the main problems when developing a Dialogue with the World is the art of living in the present, or, as Indian philosophers say, to be “here and now.” The essence of their thesis is that if we don’t live every moment in the present, then we collect an enormous amount of material that isn’t lived in the “now.” Gradually we turn around psychologically towards the past.
Here’s a classic example: a person prepared for a long time to buy a new car. This is a rather hard task. This man spent a lot of time and effort on finding the right car, and bought it finally. We can say with almost complete certainty that this person will continue buying this car for a long time: he’ll speak about buying it, and remember how he saved money, how he found the actual car, etc. In other words, he’s going to be in the past for the majority of time.
We can note that the subjective experience of time takes place in various ways for various people. For one person a week is nothing — time flew by from Sunday to Sunday — and he didn’t notice it. For another person this is a very long and substantial length of time.
Usually we say that time seems to become longer in extreme situations because the amount of experiences we have in the present increases many-fold. This is why one small portion of time can be stretched out, and can be equal in its subjective psychological meaning to almost our whole life.
Books which speak of the “here and now” lead us to such an ability to live in the present time that nothing remains un-experienced, in other words each moment in the present is lived to the fullest. In this case our time, our living time, or, as Vernadsky said, human time — is not time stretched out, and is not a displacement in space, but rather is the time of life itself, important time for our personal experience.
We know that children have such an intensive experience of time. Psychological studies have even been done on this topic from which data show that a year in the life of a five-year old child is subjectively lived 10 times longer than a year in the life of a fifty year-old person. But if this is possible for a child, then obviously it’s possible for any of us too, if we really do want to make close relationships with the World
***
What difficulties do we find on this path?
First of all, we come up against the fact that we spend a lot of time leading the so-called “fight for the past,” and that we waste an enormous amount of psychological strength fighting against that which has already past us, that which we can’t change. And even understanding that, we still continue to go back, and we speak constantly of what happened to us, and to others, yesterday, the day before yesterday, last year, etc. If we were able to freeze this internal dialogue, each of us would be amazed by what a large amount of time we spend in the past.
It’s possible that we spend no less time in the future, playing all possible and impossible variants of future situations in our minds. It’s as if we are making a supply, just in case. What if all of a sudden…?
There’s an interesting parable on this theme.
A woman brought peaches with her from the south. When packing these peaches she took out the bad ones, ate them, and put the remaining peaches very carefully back into the crate. She went through the peaches from time to time, ate the bad ones, and put the good ones back. And thus she never once ate a whole good peach.
How many such stories take place constantly with each of us! And the meaning of each story is the same: by extending the past into the future we deprive ourselves of the present.
A change in the subjective duration of time can serve as a criterion that you are fully experiencing life. And we don’t mean when time gets longer and longer because you have nothing to do, but rather when you don’t notice time, when life flows very fast, and you have intensive experience. You have trouble the next day remembering what you did the day before because yesterday seems so far away. This is what we should strive for. This task, honestly, is hard to fulfill, because all of our culture, all of the automatism of our thinking is built on the principle that we are constantly in the past or the future.
***
What relation does all this have to the topic of our thoughts?
The point is that our relations with the World are mediated.
We use information which we get in word-logical form from others, in other words information about the past received in the past, from people other than ourselves. We use this information even when we are alone with ourselves, when we are going over things, “with our heads in the past” so to say.
…Somebody tells you something. You listen very attentively. And so what? Somebody remembers something. Somebody has some kind of associations. Somebody moves ahead, somebody moves back. And in a rare moment you remain here.
If a person is told in such a situation: “You’re not listening to me, you’re talking with yourself, your eyes are turned inside,” this person often takes offense. He thinks that he’s been insulted, that he’s been accused of having bad manners, or tactlessness, even though he was told the truth. Psychologically this person is not here, isn’t present, and doesn’t take part in the dialogue, because it seems to him that he’s already heard these words.
But the thing isn’t just what is being spoken about, and not even the process of the conversation itself. A Dialogue understood to be a psychological event includes a number of subtle, weak interactions which most of us don’t even think of in normal life. We don’t have time for that. In other words not only do we not have enough time for a Dialogue with the World, but even for spending time with ourselves.
Sometimes we are very surprised, and even get angry when a person who has received some kind of information, or even passed an exam on this information, doesn’t use this knowledge in real life. Moreover, this person’s actions seem to contradict the information received earlier. Why does this happen? It’s because this information is not the truth for him. This person agrees that objectively this is the truth. “Objective” here means: “Something that doesn’t relate to me, something that is located completely outside of me.”
The real matter of our conscious, in other words, that which is part of the practice of our life, depends on those moments when we subjectively experience truth. Every such moment — a moment of resonance — is always accompanied by additional energy, even in those cases when we’ve worked very hard and felt great stress. No matter how much we try to convince ourselves otherwise, that we believe in something else, the truth inside each of us is made up only of such moments. If we look carefully, without forejudging, at the contents of our subjective reality, at the space of our conscience, we always find these lighthouses — moments when we experience truth. All other information, no matter how convincing it is to us, is not our true being, but rather just a word-logical supply of information which we can use or not. And even if we use it, this information won’t change us. How does a person change from knowing, for example, the theory of relativity? This person simply knows that this theory exists, that it is made up of one thing or another. But this person himself didn’t change so as to accord to this information.
So! Information which we don’t experience as an event doesn’t add any new qualities to our being. And this is the essence of any self-teaching, self bringing-up, etc. This is the problem of real transformation, of real influence on man.
No matter how much we “force” word-logical information into a person, this person will still act in accordance with his own subjective understanding of truth, which we may not know anything about. These are the moments that determine this person’s whole being, his practical philosophy, his relation to the world, regardless of what belief in which system he demonstrates out loud.
It’s not hard to see, when analyzing people’s actions, that by no means is it always the case that word-logical belief coincides with practical philosophy. This is because truths that we learn by logical means aren’t our own subjective experience.
There is a beautiful and great example of this experience.
The academic Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky, one of the three great minds of our time (V.I. Vernadsky, A. Kh. Chizhevsky, and K.E. Tsiolkovsky — people who laid down the bases of cosmic thought in European science), viewed life as a living integral phenomenon. As an integral phenomenon, the biosphere of our planet has a tendency to increase in its level of organization and in its level of complexity while having a tendency to increase the influence of living things on non-living things. Vernadsky contends that this takes place due to an increase in the amount of information taken by the biosphere from the Universe.
It follows from this concept that everything living on our planet is interconnected, interacts, and has mutual influence. We all exchange information with one another in one way or another, and the majority of these exchange take place at a level which is outside the control of our conscience.
Scientific thinking comes to the same conclusion that ancient empirical teachings did: man, being the “king of nature,” is inseparable from it.
S.L. Rubinshtein, one of the classics of Russian psychology, argued this thesis quite convincingly in his work “Man and the World.” All conditional divisions, according to him, have led man to start viewing himself as being separate from the world, alone. The World exists separately, and Man exists separately. Man views the world as if he’s not a part of it, isn’t present in it.
In reality though, to view the World and Man as being separate from one another is quite absurd, since Man is a part of the World. It’s impossible to separate the observer from that which he observes, because they both belong to one whole. And although we make such a separation, and say that we have nothing in common with that which we observe, it doesn’t mean that Man really is separate from the World.
The narrowing of the scale of observation sometimes leads to losing subtle qualities. If earlier we were interested by, so to say, rough, fundamental things, then further progress requires understanding complicated interactions which take place in greater and greater quantities. These are interactions of various parts of one whole on one another.
This requires rebuilding the entire basis of man’s relation to the world, rebuilding man’s everyday conscience, because, strange as it may seem, the thesis “Man is separate from the World” has become a deep part of the thinking of the masses, even of those people who aren’t directly connected to the scientific world.
A problem arises which is extremely difficult to solve: how can we make our consciousness accord with the theory of the noosphere, or at least with the theory of relativity?
If a person is a materialist because of some subjective experience of truth which took place in him long ago, in other words because of materiality of the surrounding World, then he will be a materialist in everything. And if this person is an idealist, then he will remain an idealist in practice all his life, no matter how long he preaches materialism.
Every person is allowed to live as he wants, if he’s alone, if he thinks that he can be alone. But that’s an allusion. We are part of a whole, and we are interconnected with all people, with every living thing that exists on our planet, and with everything which exists in Space. Since the World is united, everything in the World is interconnected too, and if everything is interconnected, then it’s possible to find these links, no matter how weak they may be. We have self-consciousness, in other words the highest point reached by nature. We take part in the evolution of life on our planet by developing our self-consciousness. And may this knowledge become a moment of truth for us.
Knowledge, experience, work
There are many shades to the word “belief”: trust exists before belief; confidence is given to us by belief, and belief itself is deliberate (or non-deliberate) devotion.
Confidence in its general form is built on the statistic “that’s the way it was for everyone,” “always,” etc. However there are some subtleties as well: for example, we know that we all die, but we don’t accept this unconditionally. In other words, confidence has its limits and can work in various ways — both constructively and deconstructively.
Trust exists before belief, it’s like belief in advance, or temporary belief. It’s no coincidence that Russian language has the saying “trust, but check.” Trust also has its limits, which are connected to a feeling of safety.
Belief is connected to our subjective experience of truth. It gives birth to belief.
That is to say that belief is the result of experience, and this experience can be organized.
Knowledge, being only an objective given, plays just a small role in man’s motivation for what he wants until it turns into trust or belief, or knowledge in its pure form — a non-dynamic element of our psyche. Knowledge enters us like something alien. And only that knowledge which turns into a subjective factor (trust, belief, etc.) becomes the “flesh” of our psyche. We can know very little and have our own internal world, or the opposite can happen. Thus knowledge is “not alive” until it enters our subjective world (in other words until it becomes trust, confidence, or belief). Knowledge within us lives in the form of belief, trust, or confidence. Otherwise it is just dead weight.
***
A person for whom everything is subjective is in a state of over-excitation. If everything is objective, then nothing around him worries him.
Extreme objectivity and extreme subjectivity are two opposite sides of the spectrum, and only being in a Dialogue gives one the sense of their symmetry: the symmetry of subjective and objective worlds.
Experiences are highly valued on the market of mass demand; their production has pushed modern practical psychology very far ahead. But this situation can be dangerous. After all, if we occasionally become cynical as a result of having too much information, doesn’t this also have an effect on the field of experiences? A person can have doubts about their sincerity, or have fears that they are artificial, or organized.
Only the ability to manage the structure of our experiences leads to some kind of core which exists in each of us. If we find it, then we don’t need any traders of experiences. After all, we can produce these experiences ourselves, and thereby fulfill our need for emotional communication. That which looks within us is that which we are looking for. We need to learn how to do everything ourselves, so as to get to the core and do things independently, otherwise we will continue to buy emotions.
It’s possible that this is why a convenient God was thought up (like a seller of experiences): so that we could remain consumers. God gives to us, and we consume. Tell yourself: “I am God,” and you will have to start giving. But this is hard to do: those who give are beaten, they are held responsible for everything, as if to say “givers don’t give the right thing.”
What, from this point of view, is a dialogic way of interacting with the world as a whole, with a situation, with a certain person, and, in the end, with one’s self?
From the point of view of everyday life, building relationships by using a Dialogue gives us the possibility to see what the situation is, to see what’s happening within us, to see that that which is buying within us is an equal problem.
The complexity of this position is clear: it forces a person to give up his consumer position, and to start doing. It forces a person to be an adult, and, consequently, to be responsible for his actions.
When speaking of our internal world we can point to two parts: the field of that which can be bought (this part breaks very easily, and can be withdrawn) and the field of that which we produce, which can’t be destroyed even when we hypnotized.
Unfortunately, we have deteriorated so much that we prefer to look at a person as being weak: we are all children who need parents (this is where the cult of personality, religious sects, etc. come from). This, of course, is far from the truth. People remain in their youth not on their own accord, and those who have knowledge and skills are required to give these people the chance to be sure that they are each capable of doing, that each of them has the kingdom of God within — each person’s I. How do we get to this place? There’s only one “recipe” — work.
A person needs to learn how to do, to produce, and until he learns to do so he remains in a state of illusion.
***
Continuing our conversation about knowledge and experience, we offer the reader the next “view from within,” which we have named the “point of view of a scared personality.”
View from within 8
What is philosophy and who needs it?
From this point of view, the term “philosophy” means what it is.
Philosophy = “philеа” + “sophia” = “love” + “wisdom” = “love of wisdom”.
Love is passion.
Philosophy is passion, obsession, a blind feeling. Philosophy is madness in a certain way.
“Some people are crazy about women, others are crazy about money, and I’m crazy about God,” said Ramakrishna.
A philosopher is a person who is crazy about the Truth.
You understand that passion isn’t knowledge or information, but rather a person’s relation to something. If you think about it, information, knowledge and wisdom all seem to be a person’s relation to something too, but we accept information to be that which stands behind all information. This means that we accept information to be an interpretation made by other people (those who provide the information). Thus we stopped receiving information about the real world long ago. We take the world to be a picture made up of impressions held by various people, or our own people. The real world disappears behind impressions and interpretations. We feel attachment and passion for these impressions and interpretations. We no longer see the World through information. Passion for the World, for Existence, and for truth is replaced by passion for passion. A person becomes a self-enamored Narcissist, and his Dialogue with the World turns into a monologue to nobody.
If you really love then you’ll never say that you own the object of your love. To love and to own are opposites. And yet we say all the time “I have knowledge, I have information”. This is a merchant’s relation to Truth, not that of ONE WHO LOVES. But Sophia (Wisdom) can’t be a commodity. Sophia can come only to one who loves her eternally – the one who we call a philosopher. These are the same people who, out of their own stupidity, call themselves sophists – the owners of Sophia. The lot of the sophist is to be an aggressor. In the majority of cases the sophist is spiritually bankrupt. (Don’t lose heart! Every person has the chance to become a philosopher, even the sophists do).
Thinkers and wise men can be divided into two groups: those who talk, and those who keep silence. It’s possible that there are philosophers among the silent people. These people are the most faithful lovers, for only Sophia-Truth knows about their passion. These people enter into a Dialogue only with Sophia. Talkers, meanwhile, can be separated into philosophers and sophists. Philosophers are natural guides: they don’t think anything up or invent anything. As one philosopher-talker said, “Philosophers reveal harmony.” Thus it turns out that in fact a philosopher-talker keeps silence. This philosopher becomes entirely empty and transparent so that other people can see the light of his beloved Sophia through him, so that these people can see her and fall in love with her. The philosopher isn’t jealous. He loves, not owns. Truth shines to all through him.
The sophist, meanwhile, is not transparent to Truth. He never tries to enter a Dialogue with Truth. For him Truth is an object, and it’s impossible to love an object. One can only own an object. It’s impossible to speak with an object. There is no sense or meaning behind an object. An object is a senseless hieroglyph.
Any person can become a philosopher. “Love knows no age.” EVERYONE is submissive to love.
A philosopher may make money by being transparent to the light of Truth. But this money isn’t earnings, but rather charity. A philosopher doesn’t ask for money, and doesn’t say thank you for it either. There is no price for Truth, just like there is no price for love. If you pay for this enlightenment, that’s your choice.
A philosopher can earn money for the books that he writes. To write is to work, and money is paid for labor. But there is no Truth in books.
This is clear even from the names of the books which philosophers write. You, of course, know the “Upanishads” This book’s name simply means “Don’t read me, if you’re wise.” In Sanskrit “Upanishad” means “sit down next to me.”
Only a teacher can tell his student this. This can be said only by a philosopher to someone who wants to see the light. Only a person can tell another person this, not a book to a person. Who will you sit next to when you take “Upanishads” into your hands? If you know a person who you can sit next to, and see Truth in him, then you don’t need the “Upanishads”. Philosophers write books in order to make you disappointed in books, thereby causing you to throw these books away and set off on a search for Truth. This is a search for something you can’t possess.
The sophists also write books, in fact even more frequently than philosophers do. Sophists write in order for their books to be read, commented on, and quoted. New books and new sophists are born from books written by sophists. Sophists create an evil infinity of questions and answers. They build a monster whose name is “The Library.”
A philosopher is a lover of Truth, while a sophist is a servant of the Library.
Every person comes from Truth, and in this sense we are all equal, although people’s intellectual capabilities, as is well known, are not distributed equally. But what does our small and limited intellect mean as compared to the infinity of Truth? To compare them is like trying to scoop up the Cosmos with a spoon…
What happens to the sophist who tries to find Truth in the Library?
He feels that Truth is infinite. Having met Truth in the library, he understands that the library is also infinite. But Truth’s endlessness is absolute, while the Library’s endlessness is relative. The Library has a finite number of things. The Library seems endless only because a million lives would not be enough to read everything that is there to be read. But we have enough imagination to be able to picture a super-power intellect which can process all the information in the entire Library, even though the Library is constantly expanding.
All of our attempts to create an artificial intellect are the result of our fear before the supposed endlessness of the Library. It comes from our fear that we won’t be able to get control over all the information in the Library. But what fear should a person who is full of desire for power feel before the real infinity of Truth, which can’t be possessed?!
Desire for power doesn’t fit in here, but modern man fears desire for love even more than he fears Truth. Fear of the Dialogue, of Love, keeps man bound to the Library. Following his desire for power, man starts to accept the wicked endlessness of the Library to be the endlessness of Truth. That’s how he becomes a sophist.
Why should a person get to know the Library? One should do so only in order to learn to love (to learn to express that which one feels, if such a need arises) and to enter the Dialogue himself. And a dialogue with the world, with Truth, with Existence: this is what love for Truth is, in other words philosophy. But modern sophists have devoted themselves to the Library, in other words to studying the alphabet.
Sophists are ready to study this supposedly endless alphabet all their life. But what’s the point of studying the alphabet if you don’t see who to write to? Who will you write letters to? To yourself? Isn’t it better to just keep silence?
***
The “young and angry man” who made these comments on philosophy, the Library, and sophists is obviously afraid of human culture. He’s right in some way, because it’s extremely hard to put culture into a Dialogue with the World as a third voice, especially if the person who is trying to enter the Dialogue is looking for books instead of searching for objective reality. But our This doesn’t stand either in the position of “digestion,” in the sense of assimilating culture, or in the position of negating culture. Individual “cultural” formations in This are called personality. We don’t call either for “feeding” personality, or for destroying it. We simply recommend not identifying with personality.
A person who doesn’t identify with personality will never have the feeling of being nobody upon realizing the immensity of culture. He will also leave alone those who are named here as sophists, and, upon giving up his sickly eloquence, will start to deal with Reality.
Let us repeat again: within this system a person is viewed as a whole, made up of I and the instruments named above. Personality is the aggregate of all relations formed on the basis of consciousness, while culture is any definition that suits you plus the fact that personality, and not only personality, lives in this culture.
One should keep in mind that from the point of view of This, ceasing to identify one’s self with instruments and ceasing to include them as a third voice in the Dialogue with the World is just the first step on the way to direct contact with the World, to contact without instruments. This is being alone with the world. Perhaps the following excerpt from the popular Chinese book “The Ocean of Pleasure for the Wise” speaks about this state:
“Without even leaving the courtyard, the wise man gets to know the World. He sees the natural flow of existence without even looking out the window. The farther he goes, the less he learns.
Without seeing things, he names them. He creates without action.”
***
One noble truth says that the reason for man’s discontent comes from his embodiment, from his attachment to “Me, myself”.
A certain Gautama once offered an eightfold path to solving this problem.
We propose a 108-fold path of getting rid of “Me, myself”.
This path is not more complex than Gautama’s way, but it’s not easier either.
From the point of view of “everyday arithmetic”:
108 = 8 = 1
Thus the Great Typology, or the 108-fold path, looks like this:

1
2 2
3 3 3
Methodology
A person is a whole. But the whole can only be viewed as a collection of parts. The sum of the parts is not equal to the whole.
Study of the parts does not lead to understanding the whole.
Study of the whole does not lead to understanding the parts.
We can only comprehend the whole by breaking it down into parts, although this will not lead to understanding of either the parts or the whole itself.
Method
Any whole is made up of (or is not made up of), or, rather, can be viewed (or cannot be viewed), in terms of three aspects, or dimensions:
— organizational aspect (stability),
— functional aspect (change),
— communicational aspect (consumption of materials, energy, information) (Fig. 9).
Fig. 9

Organizational aspect: This is the structure of the whole, the “bricks” from which it is made, and the interaction between these “bricks” as part of the whole.
Functional aspect: This is the way we “live”, it’s the “how” and “in which way” the whole operates, and the “products” which the whole gives.
Communicational aspect: This is the inclusion of the whole into other continuities. It is the way of linking the whole as one “brick” to the World.
When examining the whole in this way, it should still remain whole, without being broken down into aspects. This is made possible by starting from a zero point, or coordinate point, which doesn’t belong to any one aspect, but which holds all three aspects together, making the whole to be whole.
This method of examining any whole is called the method of qualitative structures.
Man as a whole
We postulate that:
Man has a set of three instruments:
1. Consciousness (C)
2. Mental energy (ME)
3. Body (B)
Self-consciousness is the zero point which separates man into whole man, or total man.
Instruments used by man can make up any of the three above-named aspects:
In other words, there are six main types of man as a whole set of instruments (figure 10).
Fig. 10: a, b, c, d, e, f

Man’s sum-total relation to various levels of the World is based on the instruments he possesses:
— Personality, on the basis of consciousness (P),
— Essence, on the basis of mental energy (E),
— Individuality, on the basis of one’s body (I).
The six types of the whole as a set of instruments are identical to the six types of the whole as a set of sum-totals of relations. Any one of the sum-totals of relations that arises on the basis of the according instrument can dominate in a person of a certain base type.
For example:
Fig. 11: a, b, c

Each of the six types of man as a set of instruments exists in three variants.
In each of the sum-totals of relations one of the instruments is the base, while the others are subordinate to it. This subordination takes place under certain rules. The structure of each of the sum-totals of relations is explained in the following way:
(B) Base, or leading instrument:
— The actor and the instrument are active at the same time.
(S) The instrument as a commodity, or the instrument as a slave:
— An instrument which is manipulated and which is put into being. This instrument has a value. It is the “currency” of the main instrument.
(L) The instrument as linking material:
— An instrument which provides internal links to the whole and which fills the empty space that the base instrument can’t fill with the commodity instrument; this instrument has no value for the base instrument.
The structures of sum-totals of relations look as follows.

Each sum-total of relations exists in six variants:
Figure 12 a, b … etc..
S (Slave)
M (Material)
0
B (Base)

Human love
Each person can love on three levels.
Love of individuality manifested by possession of bodies.
The main motive of individuality is “I want a child.” The main demand made of the body is that it be healthy. The ideal form of partnership is the family.
Love of personality manifested by exchange of ideas.
The main motive of personality is “I want pleasure.” The main demand made of the body is that it be sensitive. The ideal form of partnership is freedom of choice.
Love of essence manifested by empathy.
The main motive of essence is “I want to hear the Other.” The main demand made of the body is rest. The ideal partnership is resonance of mental energy.
Love of essence is manifested by empathy.
Typology
How many different types of people are there on the planet? Six types of the whole multiplied by three types of domination multiplied by six types of sum-totals of relations = 108.
6 types of the whole Х 3 types of domination Х 6 types of dominating sum-totals of relations = 108
There are 108 types of people.
There are 108 ways to be “one’s self”.
There are 108 possible incarnations.
It’s worth studying the large typology just in order to, upon mastering the art of reincarnation, live through all possible incarnations, and then, having finished the cycle, to free oneself from “Me, myself.”
The large typology is the art of being nobody.
Are you afraid of being nobody?
The Nobody man
One man had nothing to lose. He was proud of that, and considered himself to be free.
Once he wanted to see the reflection of his face. He came to a lake and, having looked at its surface, was very surprised to see that the water reflected only the sky and clouds.
“Where am I?” the man asked angrily.
“What if I don’t exist at all? No, that’s not possible! Probably my face is hidden in the depths.”
Having decided thus, he walked into the lake and disappeared into the deep water.
The man didn’t come back, and nobody mourned his loss. Nothing remained of him, neither any memories nor any of his possessions. Well, to tell the truth then, HE DID HAVE SOMETHING TO LOSE.
Having your “self”
It’s better to remain the person you are, because if you become nobody, you won’t even be able to take fright at the fact that you are nobody.
The Human dream
One man couldn’t find his place in life. Once he thought: “I don’t know the World well enough to find my place in it. I’ll try to see the whole Universe in a dream, and then I’ll decide what I should choose.”
He had dreams all year, but he saw only a small part of the Universe in those dreams. He slept many more years and saw many more dreams; his dreams expanded, just like lungs gathering oxygen, and it seemed to him that each moment was bringing him closer to fuller understanding. Finally, his imagination merged with the Universe, but he couldn’t even think about his place in life because he was afraid of missing his dreams.
The man didn’t manage to keep dreaming, and his dreams broke into little fragments, and the Universe turned out to be there where it was before: outside the reach of his thoughts.
“Maybe I’ll find my place right here where I’m lying?” — the man thought to himself, and woke up.
The method of Informational Immersion
This method is built on the principle of informational immersion. What’s the essence of this method and what is it used for?
Your task is to accept new information during the educational process. Otherwise this education will be ineffective. But there is a mechanism which makes it impossible to do so. Usually, when listening, a person tries to understand what he is being told. “To understand” means to explain that which is new using old experiences, concepts, etc., in other words to adapt new information to pre-existing information. If it’s not possible to adapt the new to the old, this information is considered to be incomprehensible, and is rejected. No education takes place because it is so difficult to overcome the barrier of “incomprehension.”
The essence of the method of informational immersion is that it is possible to overcome the barrier of “incomprehension” by absorbing a large amount of information. Thus the student can immerse himself into that which he “doesn’t understand.” He’s forced to “give up,” to reduce himself to his I from childhood, and in this case he can absorb information as fully as possible, albeit subconsciously.
And if you want to learn something very fast, to take it in completely, then don’t turn on the mechanism of “understanding” right away. The first time you read something, go through it from start to finish attentively, but without trying to understand what is written. Later on you’ll be able to work on structuring, systemization, etc., but these will be the next steps in your work with new information.
If you make a mental note of that something which is incomprehensible to you, then you should rejoice, because this is a meeting with something new. You won’t have any trouble in the educational process with such an approach. When working with your conscience, train yourself to take away the barriers of “understanding”. A basic exercise in contemplation will help you to solve this problem.
There are techniques for incorporating information which give one the chance to perceive information outside of its understanding, and then reproduce that which you perceived. This can be achieved through contemplation as well, and in that case you can first of all increase your ability to process information, and secondly develop the skill of perceiving information fully. It will become possible to think in large capacities, thereby reaching maximum effectiveness in analyzing each situation.
Development of the ability to work with large capacities gives one the possibility to feel the space around one’s self, the way it sounds.
PART TWO. TECHNOLOGICAL
Enlightenment takes place only with those who do a lot to achieve it, but never takes place as a result of that which they do.
Action is not the reason for enlightenment. Action is only the reason which creates the situation whereby one can fall into catastrophe (enlightenment).
That’s it!
Rajnish
The hardest task in this body is to remember and to be attentive.
Abu Silg
Shorthand notes taken at practical lessons conducted by the author in groups learning methods of active self-regulation make up the basis of this part of our book.
WHY DO PEOPLE COME TO GROUPS OF SELF-REGULATION AND SELF-DEVELOPMENT, AND WHAT CAN YOU FIND IN OUR GROUP?
The main reason that leads people to attend various groups of self-regulation is, to a greater or lesser degree, a conscious desire to fulfill a certain motive in life.
There can be several such motives, and we will try to uncover and analyze them.
Why do I want to change?
We often see such a situation when man isn’t satisfied with his level of self-fulfillment, and vaguely feels that his level could be much higher, that he has unrealized potential. But he doesn’t know how to realize this potential. He doesn’t know how, and therefore he looks for a place (a source) where someone can help him. In this case we can say that a desire for self-fulfillment leads a person to the group of self-regulation. This is a person’s desire to improve his level of self-realization, or, in other words, his desire to expand his opportunities.
What happens if, as a result of lessons in a group of self-regulation, a person gets what he was looking for? Let’s say that earlier his opportunities were measured by ten standard units, and of these 6 were fulfilled. Thanks to the lessons, the number of opportunities reached 20. But how about fulfilling these opportunities? Let’s look at the mechanism for fulfilling opportunities:
a) there are objective conditions for fulfilling one’s opportunities;
b) there are means to fulfilling one’s opportunities.
The following figure shows these two maxims (fig. 13).
Figure 13

There are now more opportunities, but have the means for fulfilling these possibilities increased as well? Have the objective conditions changed? No. Therefore man is still fulfilling those same six possibilities. In other words, it turns out that man has acquired new knowledge, but psychologically he feels even worse, since the difference between his level of knowledge and his everyday lifestyle has become even greater, while his level of self-fulfillment has gone down relatively.
Let’s look at what causes this gap. Man acquires new knowledge, but he can’t transform them into skills because he still has his old map of the World, his old means, his old ways of solving problems, etc. On the other hand, having spent a lot of time and energy on acquiring this knowledge, man doesn’t have any opportunities to use this knowledge for life if his map of the World remains unchanged. It’s as if he’s sitting between two chairs: the old map doesn’t suit him, while he doesn’t yet have a new map.
This person’s standard of living goes down as a result, he starts to be less responsible at work, he breaks off his old relations, and he changes his value set due to this new knowledge (for example: work interferes with lessons, thus he spends less time focusing on his work). This reformation takes place easily — people often start attending such groups because they are dissatisfied with their work (to a greater or lesser degree). Something similar takes place with personal relations: these relations distract the person from lessons, but the lessons are quite incomprehensible to many old friends. Thus one feels psychological discomfort, and this is what man gets as a result.
Figure 14

This takes the following forms in real life: man changes his work to a position that doesn’t require high qualifications or spending lots of time on the job. Man wants to leave the city and come to a “quiet place” closer to nature, farther from civilization and people, so as to work only on himself. Metaphorically speaking, he wants to “escape.” At the same time he often feels that he has “understood all truths,” that his previous experiences were quite deep, and that it’s better for him now to live quietly, not seeing and not listening to the world’s “hustle and bustle”. At the same time, the amount of information he receives decreases significantly, and he is simply trapped in a crisis of spirituality. But this is an extreme case. The majority of such “searchers” flounder at intermediate levels of the process described above. Undoubtedly, both they themselves and society as a whole lose from this state of affairs.
How can one avoid such a situation? When expanding the range of one’s opportunities, it’s equally necessary to increase the set of means that can be used to fulfill these opportunities, to change the conditions of one’s life, and to purposely increase the amount of work one does to fulfill these new opportunities. Only under these conditions can a person accomplish his or her goal of increased self-fulfillment, which was the motivation to begin with.
Besides that, there are other motives as well. Everybody knows the following economics principle: every living being tries to use the least amount of energy possible for any action. And man is not an exception. Deep inside, every person hopes for a “miracle”: as little effort as possible, with maximum results. This desire for sudden rebirth, this thirst for a miracle, is in the foundation of many teachings.
A person with this motive looks for a miracle in any system which he comes across. If he doesn’t find this miracle, then the system doesn’t interest him any more; he looks, he tries to find out, how to get this miracle. In order to do so you need to enter the leader’s group (they know more there), and since this group is limited (six people, in accordance with the base provisions of the theory of small groups), this means it’s necessary to move someone out of the group and come closer to the leader. If a person has rather strong motivation, then he enters the leader’s group, and if he doesn’t find a “miracle,” then he leaves the group, “fighting and denouncing” everything. If a “miracle” exists, then he is often a propagandist of the system, advertising the leader.
Among those who work in groups, one can meet people with a social inferiority complex which arises due to a lack of respect from the outside. My goal in such a case is to increase my status, to be recognized. This goal depends on the person’s level of pretension.
Each person has their own initial level of pretension which depends on two parameters:
а) on the appraisal of the reference group (in other words important people, authorities, and the level to which the person suits the ideal);
b) on one’s feeling of personal social necessity (on how much a person feels his own irreplacability).
In order to fulfill this goal, one has to do the following:
а) expand, replace, or reform the reference group;
b) increase one’s own qualification;
c) reduce the level of pretension (in other words, tell one’s self: that’s not much, but that’s my fate, my karma, etc.).
A person finds all of the above to be true when he starts studying in groups.
The reference group changes. There is an atmosphere of good will in groups as a rule (with various levels of understanding). Each person who comes to the group is accepted as he is. A person guarantees an increase in his social status just by belonging to such a group (increase in status within the group, increase in self-esteem, and thereby an internal feeling of increased self-worth). This status increases even more if the lessons are successful.
The level of social pretensions changes as well. There are groups where this level decreases (everything is unimportant, shallow; the important thing is self-perfection). That said it remains unclear what this self-perfection is for, and if man himself doesn’t recognize this problem, then he lowers his own level of pretension. A leader, as a rule, puts himself much higher than the rest. He’s the ideal which the rest should strive to duplicate, although it’s impossible to reach his level. Disciplinary requirements are very high, while requirements on quality of work are average. There are usually two internal groups within such groups: the people in the first group fulfill all requirements very carefully, while those in the other group view fulfilling these requirements superficially. The members of each of these two internal groups support one another, but have an arrogant view towards members of the opposite group (“they’re just lost”). Such groups often take on the form of a club.
But it’s possible to increase the level of one’s social fulfillment as well. The bases of this process are founded on creating social significance for the group’s activity (participation in scientific research, experiments, etc.); emphasis is put on the quality of the work done, and the requirements made of people’s discipline result from this premise, and do not exist on their own. The humanism of relations within the group is determined by vigilance toward one another’s work. You can’t come to such a group “just for fun”. You have to work to be a part of such a group. Social status depends to a large degree on one’s abilities, not just on belonging to the group. Thus those who don’t want to work leave the group. This group can have the most favorable form of interaction between the leader and the members of the group: democratic cooperation.
If special effort is made, lessons in groups can lead to improving one’s qualifications, in other words to learning methods which can help improve the quality of work done. If no such efforts are made, then the qualifications, on the contrary, become weaker. The group suffers from dilettantism, and becomes obsolete.
An analysis of the possible variations of groups working on self-regulation leads us to the following conclusion: only in the process of socialization of personal experience does a person fulfill that goal which brought him to studying at the lessons.
To try to develop one’s opportunities without expanding the means by which one fulfills these opportunities means to run up against a wall. If you study based on a system for development, you will change whether you want to or not. Your requirements will change, as will your opportunities. Here you will have the task of increasing your means for realizing these opportunities, since it’s ridiculous to have an opportunity and not know what to do with it, how to apply it. Having such an opportunity will only make you feel worse.
There are many specialists who can help you reveal your capabilities, but a person who reveals these capabilities will only feel worse. He hasn’t fulfilled his present capabilities to the fullest, and now he gets something in addition to those capabilities which he already had. You need opportunities only when you know how and where to fulfill these opportunities.
The main goals which we recommend trying to fulfill are:
1. To gain the skills of an active person, under the condition that you want to make the transition from being a person who reacts to and depends on the conditions around him to being an active person who creates the conditions that surround him himself.
2. Learn to live in a Dialogue and to gain the means for doing so.
Mechanisms of our problems
There are three main mechanisms whose malfunctions create the majority of our psychological problems:
1) practical philosophy, your relation to the world: lack of desire to become an adult;
2) inadequacy of the core of self-evident norms and difficulty in revising these norms;
3) the concept of health.
Our efforts are aimed at these three targets, and only by dealing with them can we really achieve those goals which served as our purpose for taking this trip.
But remember! You can’t teach someone how, but you can learn how to do so. This doesn’t take place all by itself, but it can be done.
View from within № 9
Only recently did I see a need to analyze the reasons why people come to the group. The results of this analysis were surprising to me: there were all kinds of reasons, besides the simple goal of researching the group. I came to the group due to my internal shortcomings. I got a lot in the process of taking lessons: my social status increased, I got access to interesting information, I became stronger physically, and I got new skills. I took exactly as much as I wanted. Now I have almost no more of that internal discomfort that gave me a desire to go to the group in the first place. I have satisfied my goals to a large degree. And the question: “why?” — persistently demands an answer. So it’s time to make a choice: can I do this like a researcher’s job?
View from within № 10
A lot of opportunities for solving many of my problems opened up to me during the period, and I feel fear towards these opportunities. The question “why” is following me everywhere. I get the feeling that I’ve lost my direction and goals. But maybe I didn’t have them to begin with? Maybe I’m just going with the flow, and I don’t know why or where to? I don’t know what to do precisely because my activity has decreased.
LEVEL OF TRUTH (group Style)
Any company or group of people has its own level of truth which determines the hardness or softness of communication within the group. Studies of the level of truth in a concrete group can shine light on several mechanisms of group dynamics and reveal the character of the group itself.
Why do people come together?
If people come together in order to satisfy their needs for communication under the principle “I’m good – you’re good,” then we get a company where the level of truth is very low. An increase in the level of truth in this company leads, as a rule, to the company falling apart.
Business companies can be created where the problem of one’s significance is solved. These companies are built on the principle “I give to you, and you give to me.” The level of truth is higher here. These groups include those based on common interest, where the problem “I’m significant, and you’re significant” is solved as well.
None of these groups have a leader, since these groups doesn’t strive for anything, don’t move anywhere, and reflect a static position.
But there are groups which have an internal goal. These groups begin their existence with a certain status, then strive to achieve a different status. These are “groups of movement”, and they require a leader. Since these groups are formed around the goal of change, they follow criteria whereby all people are divided into those who help to move, and those who disturb movement. This is how the goal is formed
Groups which strive for a goal have their own dynamics. All “groups of movement” inevitably depend on a leader. This leader is a coordinate point for the group. And this is true, even though many people don’t want to admit this fact.
A leader is necessary because the group members can’t altogether keep both the trajectory of movement and the goal in their heads. That said the group members want, either subconsciously or consciously, to have a guarantee that the goal is met. Therefore there is a leader who carries the group’s ideal. Without such a leader the group may start discussing “how better” to do things.
If a leader carries the group’s ideal, then a change in leader is always accompanied by discrediting the former leader.
There are groups which don’t move at all, but which make a product. These are “production groups”. They have a hierarchal structure, which is necessary because of the technology of the process, and the sequence of actions necessary to process raw materials. Here the problem of raw materials arises. All production groups have this problem. This can be production of various kings of goods: either physical or intellectual/mental goods. This type of group includes sects, whose function is to produce believers. Thus sects have a need for people like raw materials, and use various methods to attract people to the sect.
Other such groups include those which produce healthy people (in a group understanding), who are also involved with using raw materials and making production.
Groups of this type often feature the idea of betrayal, and punishment for this betrayal. A person’s specialization plays a big role in such groups, since people with certain skills are needed at each step of the technological process.
One can also occasionally find groups of another type as well: “the miners”. Such groups form around certain ideas of future knowledge which they have to uncover. These are, for example, amateur groups which are looking, for example, for the abominable snowman, or groups which wish to delve into the secret of mental energy.
What’s the difference between “movement” groups and “miner” groups? The movement group moves towards that which is already known, and the only problem is to follow the right path. This could be a group of tourists, for example. Miner groups don’t have a path; they’re always in an uncertain situation information-wise. This suits their specific need for activity, since the situation of uncertainty requires exactly this quality. A passive person falls out of such a group right away, The goal, in essence, is inconceivable. This means that the person searching learns something about him or herself though, since something happens to the person during the search. Factually, this means “uncovering” something about your self.
Uncovering an active beginning in one’s self – this is exactly the principle upon which spiritual teachings are based.
The “mining” group has its own dynamics. Here everything is held on the degree of interest the person shows. There are ups and downs, which can be called the dynamics of feeling. If the path ends all of a sudden, in other words the “prey” is caught, then this group doesn’t feel satisfaction. After that the group splits up, or turns into a group of another type.
“Here’s the key to all mysteries of life:
You look only for that which is eternally higher and eternally farther than you.” (V. Sidorov).
There’s a difference between the technique of life and the amount of purpose in life. And if you and I are in the movement group, then there’s a leader to follow. This group always has a beginning and an end; it doesn’t search for a new goal when it comes to the place it wanted to reach.
You don’t need a high level of truth in order to do technological exercises. But if you and I really want to go deeper into meaning, then we should stop being part of the movement group, and become part of the “mining” group. Anybody who wants to acquire some kind of meaning in life, and not just the technology of life, will feel the same striving. And this isn’t a method, but rather the nature of the being: if we look for an end, then we find an end.
Originality and the program
Many things in us are programmed. That said, each person’s brain is unique. Society must be extremely well-developed in order to take this originality into account. But what are we supposed to do if there are two people within us: one who is unique, and the Other, who is social, a personality “woven together” by other people?
Society makes such people for itself, which is why the process of socialization, with its own technologies, exists. One can single out these technological chains, articulate them, and then, after understanding what inside you is common to all people, develop that which is singular, because only then will such a personality appear that is interested in studying these traits.
There are real dialectics in this. The ancients used to say: “That which is looking inside you is that which you are looking for.” There is a mechanism of self-fulfillment which is hidden here. If you want to see your depths, then you need to first determine what in you is common to all people, in other words that which programs you. If you do so, then you will stop being interested in those companies which work at “petting” one another. You will become active, and, looking for that which is programmed within, you will become unique.
Your level of truth depends on the degree to which you admit that you share common features with others. The more that people understand that which is programmed within them, the greater the truth there will be in their relations with other people.
One should also remember that we have psychological defense which does not allow us to see the mechanism as a mechanism, since such a discovery can destroy a person, if he doesn’t have a certain level of organization of conscience.
Socionics shows this in the clearest way, as man, having received some knowledge, enters a paradoxical situation and begins to doubt himself: is this mine, or is it just a mechanism?
The process of raising the level of truth to the maximum isn’t as simple as it seems at first sight. It’s necessary to limit this process, and for it to come at the right time, in the right place, and with the right people. There needs to be a certain level of development since we are dealing with complex structures of living beings, and the mechanisms for defending thee structures are meant to ensure the stability of our existence. It’s not without reason that Freud said: “Before treating a neurotic, think what to give him instead.”
The ABC’s of understanding your self
Here’s why there are certain rules for using information, and why it is very important to follow them. This is an extremely complex problem, since we break these rules at every step we take. The fact is that it’s impossible to professionally study people not only due to resistance from the outer environment, but also because the researcher can’t transgress the defense mechanisms within himself.
What is the risk in this situation? Formation of an active person is related to gradually refusing to use mechanisms of psychological defense. This can lead to destruction of one’s personality. That’s why it’s necessary to implement this process correctly – only in this way will the process of refusing to use mechanisms of psychological defense be accompanied by corresponding growth in one’s moral firmness.
When working a part of any system, you must understand what you’re doing: each step on this way will deprive you of the mechanism of psychological defense, and it will be much harder to get them back then to lose them. This is exactly why “soul searchers” often look weak, unenergetic, and poorly adjusted to life. Having lost several mechanisms of psychological defense, they haven’t yet got that level of autonomy which will give them the necessary level of energy.
Furthermore, a group which wants to go down this path, the “mining path,” should remember that there is a law of ups and downs in the emotional sphere — development can’t go only upwards. To support one another during low points: this is where friendship and mutual support starts.
One of the laws of following this way is don’t try to live someone else’s life, and don’t force your own life on someone else. This is the biggest difficulty, and it’s imperative to overcome it in order to form your own activeness. This is especially hard to do in the relations between parents and their kids.
Parents often try to force their children to accept their own theses about life. Parents disturb their children’s boundaries by interfering in their lives, thereby taking advantage of their power and impunity. It’s well known that the more a mother follows her mission, the more she is like a highly-qualified nanny who fulfills her responsibilities correctly and professionally, without making any conditions, and having limits to her interference. All parents should feel such limits, and should try not to exceed these limits when speaking with their children.
“Man doesn’t know what he’s doing, but this is the power of the species” (Abu Silg). You want to know what’s happening, and the first thing that you see is that which you did while you didn’t know what was happening.
All of our suffering is a type of psychological defense. And there’s nothing so hard for man to give up than his sufferings, since these are what tell man that he isn’t perfect, and take away his responsibility for his behavior. This is the position of a passive person.
Introduction to the technique
There is a principle that says that you are what you eat. This approach makes us completely dependent on consumption, and forces us to regulate our eating habits: we try all kinds of diets, choose literature to read, limit our socializing, and dose our friendship and our love.
But there is a Different principle, which is contradictory to the first: the person you are makes what you eat into you, — in other words you can, without changing your approach, digest everything that you consume into that which you need, into that which you are yourself.
The first position is reactive – the position of a passive person.
The second position is active, in other words it gives man the possibility to view the World as it is, while at the same being the person who he wants to be.
Let’s try to change our instruments in this direction. We understand technical development to be the development of our instruments to such a degree that their status depends as little as possible on our consumption, so that they can transform everything consumed into the internal quality that we need. This is a way of making a person the creator of his own life in all its aspects.
Relations between man and the world
People develop their relations with the World in various ways. For some people there is only the Other, and no I. This is an infantile way of understanding the world, which allows a person to be passive, and to not take responsibility for that which is happening around him, and to justify his actions by the surrounding conditions, situation, etc. In the end this philosophical position leads a person to strive to reach complete dilution into the surrounding World (“the World exists, but I don’t”). Some “spiritual” teachings are constructed in such a way to bring a person to that sublime state when nobody is responsible for anything, since there is no one to answer to: I am dissolved in the eternal World.
Another philosophical concept is an aggressive one. This concept contends that there is only I, and that the Other doesn’t exist. People with such a conception narrow “their circle” to the maximum, wishing not to admit the reality of the Other and fearing reality. This is an egotistical position. And then there are “spiritual systems” which implement this philosophical concept.
Denying the existence of either one’s I, or the Other is a result of fear before the confrontation “I — Other”. After all, if one concedes that there really is I and there really is the Other, then one has to admit the complexity of relations between I and the Other. There is tension in this confrontation.
The system offered in this book assumes that there is I and there is the Other, and proposes a Dialogue as a way of interrelation between the two. A dialogue will give you the reality of feeling, and feeling is a special form of understanding the outside world. There are many various types of esoteric schools that speak about this, and, unfortunately, very little attention is paid to the art of feeling as a way of understanding reality in our culture.
Everything else — our health, our appearance, our communicativeness — are side effects, but not a goal. Because that which concerns you has the wrong relation between objective and subjective reality. Thus one needs to work on the cause rather than try to eliminate the consequences.
The practicial philosophy of each person
The practical philosophy of each concrete person is this person’s relation to the world (this shouldn’t be confused with a person’s world view, which is an ideological category). In this sense each of us is a philosopher, and we all need skills of practical philosophy.
To begin with let’s try to clarify the meanings of the terms world view and relation to the world.
World view is a person’s system of views on the World.
Relation to the world is a person’s system of relations with the World (the relations of the subjective with the objective; in this case “objective” means everything which isn’t I).
What is our relation to the world manifested in?
Objective reality exists outside our conscience and is independent of it. If we accept that, then each person’s interest should be directed towards that which is outside of us and independent of us, towards that very reality. But where is our attention really directed: at that which depends on us. At the same time man skillfully avoids taking an interest in that which doesn’t depend on him. Thus the grand majority of people are idealists in their practical philosophy. They claim that only that which they hold to be true in their own conscience really exists, in other words only that which depends on them is true. Everything else doesn’t and cannot exist.
To be interested only in that which depends on you is very convenient. Children are useful to us when they depend on us, when they are subordinated to us. A friend is a good one when he is dependent on us, and our loved ones are also good when they are dependent on us. And just in general, that reality which I agree with is a good reality. Following such philosophy in practice, and in our everyday life, we gather around us those people who are dependent on us, make our own convenient place, and that reality which doesn’t depend on us can’t reach us at all. We thereby think that we have adapted.
Attention! The soul is tired
And here something interesting happens. Having found our own convenient place, we all of a sudden feel an inner melancholy, a sort of languor of the soul, and begin to look for something which doesn’t depend on us at all, like in our childhood. Going on this search, a person can find a sort of closed group, or sect, where he will be absolutely dependent on the rules of the sect, or on the person who is the leader of the group. Once he finds such a group, this person calms down — then the soul’s languor starts again.
Thus man runs back and forth between two extremes, between two poles: absolute dependence and complete independence. This is the essence of the problem of the relations between “I — Other.”
This is real practical philosophy, in one extreme position of which we have the thesis that only I exists, and that there is no Other, while on the other hand we have the second extreme position — that the Other exists, but that I don’t exist. This can be seen in all of our actions, in other words in everyday life, and is that which we call practical philosophy.
What is the solution to our constant swinging back and forth between two poles? The solution is to really become a materialist, and to accept the real existence of objective and subjective realities, and to admit that they are equal.
Uniqueness among originality
Each person is unique, while around him everyone else is unique as well. And one needs courage in order to accept this fact in one’s thinking, and to accept this fact completely. Then you will begin to look not into the distance (to the cosmos, or to the “astral” distance, or to some other far away place), but rather nearby, where your children live, your husbands, your wives, and your parents — real, living people. If you can do that, then you will refuse to use violence against the Other, because he’s just as alone in his uniqueness. This is when real relations between people, with mutual understanding and deep communication which we strive for become possible.
The very reason for violence disappears: man doesn’t want to admit the fact that there is He and the Other, that there are subjective and objective realities. By accepting this fact man no longer needs to run away from these realities, since he understands that this is mankind’s fate. Find the courage within you to accept this fact and it will be easier for you to make contract with those close to you. You will become the source of a Dialogue, and your communication with others will become easier and freer.
What to do with the circumstances
Another problem comes up though: what can you do with those circumstances which really do exist, and what means must you use in order to change them? We offer an approach which may solve your problems fundamentally by removing the source of these problems, and eliminating the need to battle with their consequences.
The sad thing is that we resort to extremes, but extremes most often lead to violence.
It’s very important to recognize and separate in your conscience internal dependence and dependence of a functional character. Functional dependence means role mechanisms which don’t concern the depths of your soul. Your deeper problems will be solved by a Dialogue, where there is I and there is the Other. If two people simply speak in turn, without recognizing that there is a third voice as well, that of one’s self as the subject, and that of the Other as the subject, then there is still no Dialogue. Most often this is just a simple exchange of information.
To reach a Dialogue
Can perceiving your own personality help you in solving the task of reaching a Dialogue?
The core of our personality is a series of self-evident norms. This core is developed during the process of a person’s integration into society. We do not have any control over this process, yet it plays a very large role in the formation of our personality. (We repeat that here we view a person as a whole, personality as an instrument of social activity, and the subject as being that person who acts with this instrument or with any other instrument). The core of a person’s personality is formed by the time a person becomes an adult, and it often turns out that some of the norms that make up this core are not adequate for the existing reality, and only impede a person. The complication here is that the integrated core is protected from review, and can’t be recognized by the person himself from inside. Here we need the work of the Other, and a jeweler’s work at that. How can we help a person separate that which he needs from that which he doesn’t? In other words, we need a specialist. Psychiatrists know very well what the result is of our efforts when we review the core of our personality in amateur groups.
The process of separating unneeded norms is called “support” of the core of self-evident norms, and is a deep psychological operation. This job is as difficult as that of a surgeon, since each task is unique. The knowledge which our system offers you is clearly not related to psychosurgery, but it can help you to uncover those self-evident norms which most impede you in fulfilling your intentions, and which contradict your changing world view. This will help you to free some of your mental energy.
Rules of the Dialogue
When mastering the technique of the Dialogue, try to fulfill three rules:
1. Never explain your actions using the actions of others (even if this is God).
2. Don’t try to live your life for another person, and don’t push your life on other people.
3. Never help anyone if you aren’t asked to do so (the only exception is saving someone’s life). You can only offer your help.
There is a social-psychological aspect to mastering these principles. Your small social group (family, colleagues, friends) don’t like it when you change. All social relations are built on conventions (contracts), so as to exclude the possibility of unexpectedness during interaction, and so as to make the contact stable. According to conventions, we should behave in the expected way, and our behavior should be entirely certain. This is a natural process of socialization, which makes us people, but also conserves us, making us reactive, predictable, and dependent on that image which the surrounding people have given us, or which we have formed ourselves.
When trying to apply the principles described above in practice, you can go outside the limitations of that image which you have gotten used to. This, naturally, won’t appeal to the people around you. Don’t forget that.
Let’s think about health
One very important part in the process of recognizing one’s own World view is each person’s conception of health; the model of health that each of us can find within him or herself.
For some people the sign of health is maximal functioning of the body (I can do a lot), while for others it is maximal safety (I am very safe). There is an enormously large number of different concepts of health. Your model is determined by your practical behavior, which is an eternal chain of choices.
There is a trap in the model of health — in essence, all models are physiological, or, in other words, vulgarly mechanical. Their common concept, in essence, can be boiled down to the formula: “In a healthy body – a healthy soul.”
There was no concept of health at all for many centuries. There was just suffering and deliverance from suffering. The body “appeared” in ancient times, when man became three-dimensional, and philosophy became empirical-materialistic. That’s when the formula “A healthy body means a healthy spirit” appeared too. So healthy, that only in the middle ages was it possible to prove the opposite too, at the expense of huge losses of life: the spirit is capable of many things too, regardless of the body which it is in.
The spirit fraternized with the body during the Renaissance (the “top” connected with the “bottom”, and a kind of mennipea was formed). Then the Enlightenment came, and the spirit and the body retreated under the onset of consciousness. Man proclaimed: “I think, therefore I am.” A rational way of thinking was born, and an epoch of quite various forms of entertainment was born. These entertainments were generated neither by the body or the soul, but by new refinement of consciousness.
The onset of chaos has come in our age of the scientific-technical revolution. The body has become weaker as a result of the experiments made on it, and can no longer live without pharmacology. The spirit is now in complete confusion, and it’s not clear if the spirit exists at all, and if so, what is it? A diametrically opposed situation in our conception of health has occurred: instead of a common conception, there are now many: from “I’m working like a dog” to complete exhaustion, to the most rational weighing of everything on the scales of “bad for me — good for me,” whereby people want to conserve their good health.
What concept of health should we apply to our selves in practice?
The whole question concerns our intensity of energy and conductivity of energy. After all, this is what the everyday criteria of health boils down to: if I have energy, that’s great, if not — that’s bad. Some people drink coffee in order to get energized, while others use drugs or meditations, etc., for the same purpose. In other words, the general measure of being healthy is having energy.
ACTIVITY AND REACTIVITY
It’s not hard to see that modern man is all-consuming when it comes to information. And if he’s very careful with his body, and often employs special diets, then with information, we, as a rule, consume everything. In all likelihood man needs some kind of re-coding mechanism in order to consume all information without limiting this information’s entry, so as not to destroy the integrity of the space of consciousness. People have started thinking about this question in recent times, thereby leading to increased interest in problems of the stability of self-consciousness and the I-concept.
The world is becoming more and more dynamic, and our ability to change with age is decreasing. It’s becoming harder both to understand and accept everything that happens around us. We are losing our psychological stability (therefore there is such a strong gap between the adult and teenage generations today). (One has to keep in mind that stability and conservatism are different things in essence: stability is keeping what you have while also being able to accept new things, while conservatism is the inability to accept new things). Compensation for such instability is most often achieved by limiting one’s activity (I can’t accept something, so I’m not going to pay attention to it). But the dynamics of the World force us to change all the time, and to learn. We live under constant pressure and for this reason the need for a psychological technique that makes it possible to increase one’s psychological stability as much as possible without limiting one’s activity has arisen.
Activity, or life with a purpose
Limiting one’s activity means stopping the process of learning and development. A person shifts to an automatic form of existence, completely relying on already-known mechanisms for taking decisions and actions. What stops them, what is on the Other side of the coin? What is capable of living actively? Your real I. Consequently, we need to develop our own I in order to increase our activity. And in order to develop our own self and help it to become stronger, we need to act. Constantly. And the more actively we do so, the better. How can we manage that?
If you study your own mechanisms and automations, then you will develop your true I. In other words, by studying the universal which is inside you, you will thereby develop that I which makes these mechanisms. And at the same time, by studying that which is unique inside you, you will develop those automatisms which are the universal within you. That’s because you are developing that which is acting, that which is in an active position. You can’t change anything inside you without activity, and in order to make yourself active you have to make these situations your self, and go through them.
The art of forming the situation yourself — this is a position of absolute activity. By developing this quality you will free yourself from the position of being a passive person who needs a parent. We get used to the idea in childhood that the situation surrounding us is not our problem. This is a child’s mechanism, but once we become adults we, by force of habit, keep waiting for somebody to create the situation for us. In essence, there is a child alive in each of us who is waiting for an already-created situation. This child within us prevents us from making situations for ourselves.
Very often we expect one thing, but do something entirely different. We want to change, but this doesn’t happen by itself. We need to do something in order for there to be change.
Today people say that activity should be judged based on the final product. If we look at society as a whole, then the final product is people. But what is the final product of man? His life. Life as a whole, as a creative, whole act. The ancients believed that if a person isn’t happy to be alive, then what can he be happy about at all?
For us life as an independent value has disappeared; it’s been taken away in the process of producing people. Life has been broken down into final goals of achieving something, owning something.
One has to become active in order to form the situation, and the first enemy of activity is fear. Fear destroys our creativity, and forces us to adjust. The argument is about the same for the majority of people: I can’t do anything with that, those are the objective reasons. But he who “looks for reasons” is the one who doesn’t want to act. The one who does want to act looks for the means to do so.
For an active person, the question is about the means, and the problem of qualification arises. Before telling a person “let’s go,” you must first give him the means: how and with the help of what means can he do what you tell him to.
Nobody every told us what activity us, what life is, which also requires qualification. And many of our problems come from the fact that when learning technique, learning the art of life takes place at the level of chance: in courtyards, in hallways, in groups of people. There is no organized knowledge to receive on this question.
Crises in the meaning of life
There are three most typical crises of the meaning of life in people: the teenage crisis, or the crisis of individuality at 13—14 years, the personality crisis at 25—27 years, and the crisis of essence at 37—40 years.
Why these periods in particular? It’s well known that children live by absorbing what’s around them. In their teenage years children go through a reconstruction of everything, and the mechanism of living by absorbing shuts off. At this age people start to live on their own energy, fulfilling their individuality. The basal program of this period is to find a partner. In this age we are most of all concerned with proving our uniqueness.
At 25—27 years of age the mechanism of individuality shuts off, and we get energy from our personality. In other words, all of our relations on the basis of consciousness dominate. The basal program at this age is to gain social territory.
At 37—40 years of age personality as a source of energy turns off, thus the source of a person’s energy becomes essence. The basal program for this age is to fulfill oneself as a subject through meaning. Contact among people on the base of essence has the least amount of convention, and is the state of deepest resonance. In order to be able to really understand a person’s essence is one of the highest values of the spiritual world. There is instrumental resonance, but this is something else — it isn’t very informative, and if you really pay attention to the essence of another person, much will open up to you in that person. Furthermore, taking an interest in the essence of this other person, you will develop your own essence. There are empirical techniques for determining the age of essence. One of the hypotheses is that the age of essence is determined by the same negative emotional influence which stops the state of complete openness in childhood. Most often this stoppage comes at 10—14 years of age. In the period of the third crisis, all the complexity of the external world falls hits a person, just like it does a child. A crisis situation arises. The motivation to achieve may disappear in this period, and man re-orients himself towards a search for meaning. It’s not without reason that people started to study in many spiritual schools starting from 35 years of age.
If the essence is weak, and doesn’t give life enough energy, then man becomes psychologically obtrusive to the people around him, in other words, he begins to impose his life on others (most often on his children).
Knowing that man has a layer called essence, you can make your own analysis of the moment when your essence stopped: “turn” your life around, find the moment when understanding the whole stopped (including absolutely everything), and follow the influence of this event on your whole life. Such an internal action has a great correcting effect.
One can hope that interest in practical constructive psychology will increase, and that such a plus-value as life will appear in our culture, and that knowledge will appear as well, along with the technique of the art of living.
SEVERAL STAGES OF LEARNING
The very first difficulty which will come up on the path of each person who wishes to and starts to study and practice the techniques of living is the barrier to understanding, or in other words, the inability to learn.
The criterion of our relation to any new information is I understand — I don’t understand. If I don’t understand, then I try to find out. But how? As a rule, I try to explain the new with the old. And in this way I distort the new.
Starting from a certain moment, when the space of our consciousness is already filled and becomes rather rigid, we stop taking in principally new information altogether. We say: “I don’t understand!” — and this is often equivalent to saying that that which we are talking about doesn’t even exist.
In esoteric teachings this barrier was passed by means of a rigidly fixed system of relations between the teacher and student. The principle came in the following: the student was supposed to Listen, Think, Do. He was prohibited, sometimes for a very long period of time, from speaking.
This is similar to teaching a foreign language through the complete immersion method, going up and over the barrier of “I understand – I don’t understand.” This is a method, which, as you know, gives positive results.
The stages themselves
One can highlight clearly fixed stages of education in almost all esoteric systems. These stages are all equal, despite differences in technical methods.
The first stage is probation (preparation for studies). Here at times even that which is understandable is provided in incomprehensible forms, thereby destroying any kind of system of valuing the new information provided. Blows are made on fixed points, in other words pressure is applied to those places which are called “self-evident norms” in social psychology.
The next stage is learning itself. This is first of all “promotion,” in other words separating false personality and rebuilding the student’s value structure.
Next one gets practical skills. Here one’s world view and one’s I-concept are reconstructed thanks to employing practical actions, as a result of which the person gets new knowledge as a new skill.
There is a rule in all of these systems: a person can say “I know this” only when he knows how to do this, when he can do it himself. It’s understandable that it’s impossible to simply carry the laws of these teachings directly into our life. There studies took place in monasteries, or in closed schools. It’s not for nothing that these teachings are called esoteric.
Setting the task
The task that stands before us today is absolutely practical — to take control of our mental energy instrument. Therefore we are going to use knowledge taking into account today’s day and age and our task, much in the same way that K. Stanislavsky, E. Vakhtangov, and A. Chekhov, for example, used yoga and Suffist teachings when searching for ways of professional control over the emotional sphere in their work in the theater.
Today’s man, as a rule, is exhausted to a greater or lesser degree. We even know that there are certain people around whom one feels a sense of exhaustion. These people are sometimes called “energy vampires.”
What is the reason for this exhaustion? Here we can give the following example: for centuries people threw various waste into the Rhine River. And the river was able to clean itself, since as little as 25 years ago it was still relatively clean. Today, they say that the Rhine is a river of poison. The system didn’t manage on its own, and is being catastrophically destroyed. Approximately the same thing is happening with man as well. If earlier he replenished his spent energy in a natural way “without even knowing anything” about mental energy, then today our use of energy is much higher than our ability to replenish this energy.
This is because mankind has made the transition from a world of things to a world of processes.
If earlier, even 100 years ago, man was born and died in approximately the same world, nowadays everything is different — processes which used to replace one another once every one hundred years, if not even less frequently, are now replaced within several years. The world around us is constantly changing; if man doesn’t change together with the world, he will helplessly fall by the wayside, and will live only in the past. “In order to stand in one place, you have to run with all your might.” (Abu Silg).
I, the Other, and… the third voice
One needs a certain number of quality instruments which we don’t, unfortunately, have in order to adequately adapt to a changing world. If we speak specifically about the state of mental energy, then the problem is that we need to expend certain amounts of energy which we can’t allow ourselves to use for the reason that this is “unhealthy” for many. Furthermore, those for which such expenditures of energy are “healthy,” are not capable of managing this process.
What must we understand and take into our consciousness in order to begin specific, practical lessons and have a specific practical result?
Most of all we have to understand that our consciousness is broken down into many parts, and has many sides. We have one system of criteria for one side of life, in other words one consciousness, and we follow one group of principles, while in Another side of life we use a totally different system of criteria, a different consciousness, and we make our choices based on absolutely different principles than in the first case. And we have not just two or three such sides to life, but rather, as a rule, many more. This isn’t good or bad. It just is.
The solution to the problem of integrity of consciousness is connected directly to the problem of the Dialogue, and to the opposition of I — Other.
(Do you remember that we already talked about that in the first part of the book? Shall we repeat it?)
There are three ways to solve this problem. In the first there is only I and no Other. This is a sort of vulgar idealism. The second way is that there is only the Other and no Me — a “childish” variant, whereby a person refuses to believe in subjective reality. This can be called vulgar materialism.
Both this and the Other way contradict the principles of dialectics, and feature fear of objective reality. The “only I” way takes this fear away by pretending it doesn’t exist, while the “only the Other” way takes away this fear by dissolving into objective reality.
There is only one dialectic solution to this problem: there is I and there is the Other. We need to have a certain amount of courage in order to have such communication with the World, and to employ practical relations in each action and decision we make, because this is always a tense situation, and not every person is capable of dealing with it. People, as a rule, choose either the first or the second variant. Again, this isn’t good or bad, it just exists, and we have to work with it.
In order to keep such a tense state in a Dialogue, some third party must appear which is equally objective both for Me and for the Other: a so-called third voice, which will serve as the re-coding device between Me and the Other.
The third voice is not something new to you — you have used it and you use it now. It can be any kind of objective fact, let’s say, the time of year, or an authority or quote, or some kind of common interest, let’s say a hobby. It can also be any significant person to both of the parties, or even an ideal subject (for example, God at a confession).
The third voice proposed in the given system of a Dialogue is an instrument, since it belongs to both subjective and objective realities. This instrument is part of the World and part of Me.
This is the most practical way towards stable self-consciousness, towards fulfilling a quality Dialogue with the World.
We all have instruments, but we have to learn how to use them. In order to do so, our system proposes using the way of separating identification.
Separating identification and the choice of life
How can we say “My consciousness,” if we don’t control our consciousness ourselves? How can we say “My body” if our body isn’t able to fulfill the tasks which give it? How can we say “My mental energy” if we get infected by a random bad impression for the whole day, suffer ourselves, and make others suffer too?
We can only relate to ourselves as to a conscious being when we really do know how to direct this consciousness.
We already stated that in all similar systems there are clearly expressed stages which respond to objective regularities of people’s development.
For us in this place it’s important to realize the following complex fact. Freud himself said “Before curing the neurotic, think what you’ll give him instead.” After all, even such a formation as a false personality, in other words a personality built contrary to its natural entity, is also capable of adapting. When, during the process of our work, we break down the false personality, which is absolutely necessary, since a false personality hinders us from getting control over the instrument and separating our identification with it, we then enter a difficult situation. We don’t have our old mechanism any longer, but our new mechanism is still coming to be. This period of transition of the subjective is experienced as a great increase in tension.
We know from social psychology that often a person feels most free subjectively when he’s free from making a choice, when he has the greatest possible amount of self-evident norms, in other words when the choices that he makes are practically automatic, and don’t require any special comprehension each time. We can view our life as an endless chain of choices, each of which requires some kind of work on our part. But when there are already many adaptive mechanisms, and the situations are rather stable, then we make the majority of our decisions automatically, without any participation by our self-consciousness. Man feels himself to be under less tension in such cases, in other words subjectively he views this as being the best way to live.
Any new knowledge always leads to tension, which is sometimes an insurmountable obstacle to continuing one’s work. It’s very hard for a person to overstep this tension, and it’s hard for a person to endure certain psychological discomfort if this person is used to living without it.
Those of you who looked to literature offering one teaching or another are familiar with the following points of view: we are all asleep, and our task is to try and wake up, or: we live automatically, not knowing what we’re doing, and our task is to grab the reins into our own hands. Overcoming unconsciousness, which is perceptible in and of itself, leads us to the necessity of exiting our automatic mode of work, whereby even small choices start to require our perception. And this is very hard to do at first.
From false personality to self-consciousness
The path to stable self-consciousness lies through a review of self-evident norms. You must destroy your false personality in order to have a stable self-consciousness. Only the power of the need for a stable self-consciousness determines one’s ability to overcome such emotional discomfort.
The fact is that if one’s personality is built not on natural facts, then it’s impossible to achieve high-quality use of that mental energy which you will gain, since it will be distributed unevenly. False personality will “consume” this energy, which will lead to blockage of certain “centers” (see the section “Travels through states of being,” “The map of the ancients”, and figure 15 to learn more about centers and levels). In this case you will no longer be able to operate like a complete mechanism, and part of your mental energy apparatus will simply be shut off.
We are often forced to deal with such distortions, and there are very few people for whom this instrument works harmoniously without any special training.
In which way can false personality be destroyed? There is such a method as psychological promotion. This term can be found in Suffi and yoga techniques. The principle of promotion is also used to some degree in psychotherapy and psychodrama.
Here is a pretend dream, which can be called “I saw false personality in my sleep.”
“I dreamt that I saw a woman looking for scissors. She wants to cut her nails. The woman moves her things all around, opens the cabinets, moves the chairs and table, but she can’t find the scissors. Having touched something in the medicine chest, she suddenly lets out a scream of joy, but alas, it is just pincers. Her attention is scattered between a number of small things, none of which she ever beholds completely.
To be honest, nobody would even notice her fingernails if she didn’t rush so much to cut them. Billions of people have poor fingernails, and we don’t care.
She keeps looking all over the place and doesn’t see me, hiding between the windowsill and the flowers on it. Maybe I’m responsible for her absent-mindedness, disorder, and constant bustle?
I don’t like her, and it makes me mad that she starts looking for other things when she can’t find me, becoming more and more embittered.”
…The deep meaning of these basic exercises, such as the “Fiery Flower,” “Self-Remembering,” and “Contemplation” (we’ll speak more precisely about these books later on) is that you gradually prepare your mental energy instrument for those burdens, for those new energy flows, for that concentration which you have to master. The main exercise — “Fiery Flower” — gives absolute safety for fulfilling other exercises. (You have to do this exercise every day for thirty days, without missing a single day.)
INSTRUCTIONS FOR BASIC EXCERCISES
Contemplation
Preparation phase
Sit down as comfortably as possible, put the object at a height and a distance away from yourself which allows you to contemplate it without unnecessary tension. The object should be as simple as possible (something like a match box).
First phase
Close your eyes and try to create a white luminous space inside you. Then open your eyes and look at the object without stopping for 5 minutes (the particularity of such “looking” is that you don’t examine the object, you don’t focus on certain details of the object, and your eyes don’t move around the object. Instead you contemplate it, and look at is as a whole, and take the object inside you).
Second phase
Close your eyes and contemplate the same object for 5 minutes in the empty white luminous space.
“Fiery Flower”
Preparation phase
Sit straight, without leaning against the back of your chair, and put your legs at a right angle to the floor. Lock your hands together (left hand on top, or for lefties — your right). Your eyes are open, your look is soft, out of focus.
First phase
Focus all your attention in your tailbone. The tailbone is where the “fiery point” is located. The “fiery point” rises in a slow, gradual, constant movement within the backbone, leaving a “fiery stem” behind itself, then reaches the center of the head, and turns into a “fiery cup.”
Fiery energy comes to the top though the “cup,” and the “stem” drops down and forms into a fiery ball in the first center. (The ball forms around the stem, in approximately the size of an apple.) We hold this position.
The fiery energy comes from above and collects into a fiery ball in the second center. We hold this position.
Fiery energy continues to come from above and collects into a fiery ball in the third center. We hold this position.
Second phase
“Fiery roots” go from the fiery ball down both legs all the way to the toes. Fiery energy comes from below up the roots to the fiery ball of the first center. Thus there are two flows of fiery energy: up, through the cup and “down” through the “roots”.
“Fiery leaves” go from the fiery ball of the second center into both arms. When the “leaves” reach the palms and fingers the hands are opened with the palms up. Fiery energy enters the fiery ball of the second center through the fingers and palms.
There are three flows of fiery energy: through the “cup,” through the “roots,” and through the “leaves”.
Third phase
Now we begin the fiery pulsation. Upon entry, we take in fiery energy from space through the “cup,” the “roots,” and the “leaves,” and when exiting, the fiery energy, going through the same channels, burns up everything which is unneeded or painful in the body.
Breathe calmly, regularly. Make two-three pulsations while holding your breath, then take another breath. The number of pulsations should be 24—36.
Fourth phase
We stop our pulsation. We take the “fiery roots” into the fiery ball of the first center, and also bring part of the “fiery stem” from the tailbone to the first center. We take the “fiery leaves” into the “fiery ball” of the second center (our hands close, with the right on top, or the left hand on top for lefties). We also take in part of the “fiery stem” between the first and second centers.
We close the “fiery cup,” take it into the fiery ball of the third center, and also take part of the “fiery stem” between the second and third centers there as well.
We give away the “fiery ball” of the first center to the space right in front of us with thanks.
We give away the “fiery ball” of the second center to the space right in front of us with thanks.
We give away the “fiery ball” of the third center straight up to space with thanks.
Note: All feelings should be real, BODILY, like the feeling of burning from pepper.
Fig. 15 a, b, c
d, e, f,
g, h, i

“FLIGHT OF THE WHITE BIRD”
Preparation phase
Sit as comfortably as possible, relax, close your eyes, and cross your arms and legs, with the right hand and the right leg above (or the left for lefties).
Text of self-hypnosis:
1. I’m lying on warm yellow sand and there is a clear blue sky above me.
2. A white bird is flying through the air. I get up and fly next to it; I am that white bird.
3. I’m lying in the calm blew sky and the blue sea is shining beneath me.
4. I see a yellow sand beach in the distance and it’s coming closer. I fly close to it, land on the warm yellow sand, and turn into a person once again and lay in the sand.
5. I’m lying on warm yellow sand, above me there is a calm blue sky, and I’m relaxed.
6. A pleasant cool breeze touched the heels on my feet, a pleasant coolness filled the muscles in my legs, and now my muscles are light and strong. A pleasant coolness filled my stomach, the muscles in my back, and my muscles are light and strong. A pleasant coolness filled my breast, my arms, and now it’s easier for me to breathe. A pleasant coolness filled my neck and head; my head is clear and clean. My whole body is filled with pleasant coolness, my head is clear and clean, my muscles are light and strong, I take three deep breaths, open my eyes, and get up. I had a rest!

MAN AS A WHOLE
View from within № 11
The task of interaction between Man and the World is solved in this system through a Dialogue between the whole and the whole. But we, being who we are at the present day, aren’t whole, and thus having a Dialogue with the World is hard for us. The goal of all transformations is to recreate man as a whole, with a stable self-consciousness. The main element which is subject to constant influence is mental energy, but that doesn’t mean that nothing happens with the body or self-consciousness. However we can’t see just how harmonious or disharmonious our instruments will be. We are still inside ourselves, and our self-consciousness awakens only in certain moments. You can’t call this kind of consciousness stable. We need a view from without, and if we don’t have it, then it’s quite risky to try to change ourselves using any kind of algorithm. In the best case there will be no results, and in the worst case these results will be unexpected and undesired. And only if a qualified view is made of you from without will you have the chance to become such a view for yourself with time.
MAN CHANGES
A view from without
A change in the quality of the mental energy instrument always changes a person as a whole, because the change of part of the whole leads to a change in the whole altogether.
Let’s remember the instrumental aspect of the I-concept:
If a person dedicates himself to any task which modifies some of his parts, then he changes as a whole as well.
Fig. 16

When changing the focus of a person’s attention towards a construction, the following change in structure takes place: mental energy as an aspect of communication deviates toward the side of the construction. That’s because if a person studies under a certain system which changes his body for a certain type of activity, such as running, jumping, karate, etc., then his energy changes as well, and suits the tasks laid out for his body.
Fig. 17

When shifting a person’s attention towards understanding, the structure looks as follows: mental energy deflects towards the aspect of functioning and changes in accordance with those changes which take place in our consciousness.
Fig. 18

What happens when any kind of developmental system acts on the very aspect of communication, in other words on mental energy? The balance isn’t broken. But it’s entirely possible that well-developed mental energy will give such a command to the body that the body is not yet ready to fulfill. As a result the construction may be ruined (trauma, illness). Exactly the same situation is possible in regards to consciousness, which will lead to dangerous changes in one’s consciousness, thereby provoking a mental breakdown.
It’s clear that along with training of the mental energy instrument, work should also be done with the body and consciousness as part of the system which works with mental energy, otherwise the instruments will start to “separate” from one another, the links between them will weaken or be broken, and wholeness will be lost.
This very danger is especially strong when there is a lack of stable self-consciousness in the coordination point. At the beginning of the process of development of self-consciousness, an instructor is a “replacement for self-consciousness”. This instructor can make corrections to the process if there are any deviations in the instruments which ensure that wholeness is kept.
Thus, all three aspects of the structure should develop as part of one system, not several (for example, to shape one’s body using karate, one’s consciousness using meditation techniques, and mental energy using our methodology). A synthesis of methods is impossible until wholeness and stability of self-consciousness is formed.
THE IMAGE AND THE WORD
Man has the following trait: as soon as he learns a new word or phrase, he then tries to bring this dead word-logical information to life using his direct feeling. But since he doesn’t have any experience with this word, he turns on his fantasy. He uses his fantasy to give unknown words known feelings, in other words he creates the illusion of subjective knowledge. Otherwise new words or phrases don’t stick in one’s consciousness. But if the new information “catches,” then the person has managed to find some experiences that relate to the new word or phrase. This process can take place both on an unconscious or conscious level.
If we turn off a person’s dominant hemisphere of the brain, then this person will give grammatically correct nonsense, such as “a loud dawn broke on the leaves.” If the subdominant is affected, then in response to a request to describe water, this person will only be able to list images such as wet, splashes, fishing, fountain, swimming, etc., instead of water’s general characteristics.
It’s quite clear from this example that the lack of adequate associations between words and images in man is absurd. Such a person can’t lead a normal life.
What’s behind the words
Every system of mental regulation has its own language which it uses to describe world view, feelings, understanding, etc. And what happens when a person decides to practice, for example, yoga? This person reads about chakras, nirvana, a special understanding of the World, unusual feelings, etc. This information is understandable to a person as words. Then the person tries to bring these words to life by finding the according feelings inside him. But he doesn’t have them. This is because our emotional impressions are quite different from those which we read about in literature about yoga. After all, we didn’t live in India, and didn’t meditate in the Himalayas. When meditating in our apartment, even in exactly the same way as is described in books, we will never get those same feelings that real yogis get. In other words we will never understand that internal feeling which stands behind these texts.
It’s useless to try and fill the new language of a new system of mental regulation using the feelings that we already have. The result will be absurd, just like in the case of blocking the right hemisphere of the brain. This is where the meaning of the phrase “You can fulfill a thousand rules made by Buddha without taking a single step forward” comes from.
Therefore, in order to fulfill any system you will need a Teacher — a real person who will guide you through the necessary situations in your real conditions (a person who will create, and provoke). These situations will give you new feelings, and will open the meaning, which is contained in the language of the new system. Only in that way can we fill the language with real contents, and only then can this system give us the results that it promises.
Without a Teacher, the following happens: a person searches for illusions and fantasies in order to bring words to life, believing that, probably, that is what feeling is. The person feels that this image suits the description in a book. It’s good if, upon becoming disappointed in this system, the person just throws this system away. It’s much worse when a person destroys himself, and becomes inadequate for that World in which he really lives.
The interaction process may look like the following.
Fig. 19

This means that one searches for an according image for each word, and, at the same time, looks for a name for each image. But it’s impossible to achieve a perfect accordance. There isn’t a single language with enough words to describe all images.
If the volume of feelings exceeds the number of words which can be used to express these feelings, then a person finds himself in a situation where he nothing to say except the interjections “O! Oho! and Aagh!”.
Our system offers a language made up of two types of symbols: levels and rhythms. Levels 1, 2, and 3 are normal, and levels 4, 5…10 relate to changed states. There are also rhythms А, B, С, and D. By making various combinations of levels and rhythms we receive a total language of 40 double signs.
In order for symbols to become alive they must be filled with emotional feelings. The technology of this process in this system is as follows: a state is formed in which activity is lived much more deeply. This is how the contents of the sign relating to this state are reached.
Thus, mastering the given system of mental regulation is actually a unity of four processes:
1) Study of the grammar and logic of the language, its system of concepts, and ways of using these concepts;
2) Accumulation of actual sensations (visual, auditory, etc.);
3) A conscious transition to various states and deeply feeling them in accordance with the according situation of activity;
4) Communication with people of various sounds.
One can achieve a large number of various world views when speaking with various people. After all, each person has his or own world view. This is even better then reading books. In this way one acquires the semantic contents of various states of being.
From this it follows that if you don’t consciously try to leave your usual state, and don’t try to live in various states, then you can’t incorporate the given method. Even knowing that such a state can be especially effectively used in a certain activity, you still won’t do so until you get the full volume of feelings of this state of being. Abstract-logical information can be incorporated only if you have trust for authority. If you add feeling which confirms this information to this trust, then it will be become deeply engrained in your conscious. In the opposite case it will dissolve and disappear.
So, having mastered all 40 states of being, a person can achieve resonance with the entire polyphony of the world, rather than just with certain of its notes (on average over the course of one’s life a person travels through just 4—5 states of being).
It’s impossible to achieve absolute resonance, since the level of immersion into each state is unlimited. Each person reaches his or her own level, his own limit, but nothing stops him from extending these limits.
About action out of surplus
All systems of self-regulation can be divided into two groups:
а) Compensatory systems (systems which work out of a shortage, and which confirm this shortage);
b) Surplus (active) systems, built on surplus.
In order to understand the difference between these two, let’s look at how the principle “help others” is implemented in each of them. In the compensatory system this will sound the following way: I’ll help, because otherwise I’ll feel bad. In a surplus system it sounds differently: I can help, since I have surplus energy.
The system that we offer is a surplus system. Let’s remember the dictum of the ancients: “Every true thing comes from surplus.” What’s the meaning of that phrase? The meaning is that a man’s real belief is in the place that he’s going to, where he feels good (in other words, where there is a surplus).
How can we get excess energy? This task is solved in various ways in various systems. For example, a person studying was supposed to keep silence for three years (the vow of silence), and gained much energy as a result. This happened thanks to other means as well.
While living, a person absorbs (or consumes) the surrounding World, and, having absorbed it, leaves a trace behind him (will call this his personal story). This looks the following way (fig. 20).
Fig. 20

While consuming, a person doesn’t manage to “digest” everything and turn it into his own personal story. That which he doesn’t digest remains in the coordinate point. When there is a large concentration of material in the coordinate point, there is then an increase in quality, and one gets the possibility to give away. A person becomes a doer, not a consumer. Thus the hands on the map start moving in the other direction.
When there is a surplus of energy, a person becomes a doer. But then he leaves the safety of the Law of the Great Average, going past the zone protected by this law. This becomes either madness, or creativity (fig. 21).
Fig. 21

There are several ways which allow us to have a surplus of energy.
1. Having an additional source of energy (any system which is located outside a person). This includes Belief, Hope, and Love, which manifest themselves as a need: a person needs to be devoted to his business, his love, or his communication with others. One feels extra energy from this additional source. The formation of a “magnetic center” takes place quite intensively.
2. A strengthening of energy metabolism with the help of various methods. For example, one can drastically increase the intensity with which each moment is lived. One can absorb “food” of all types: information, emotions, and events. People can thereby put themselves in a situation whereby it is really necessary to live at the maximum of consumption and absorption.
3. Formation of a “magnetic center,” in other words stable self-consciousness. When the first two points are fulfilled, and the magnetic center crystallizes, one then gets various “powers,” and together with these powers – the temptation of might. It’s very hard to calculate how this development will go. One gets a constant surplus, and you enter a flow in which you have to be careful not to drown.
4. Change in quality of the principle of being. A person begins to live by doing.
In order to go down this path, one needs to determine which state of energy they have (which of the three types of energy are available in surplus, or at least in an amount that is great enough to replenish the supply). Where don’t you need external stimulation? The answer to this question gives a correction to any method. In this case an increase in energy metabolism will be formed in the correct way.
It’s especially important to learn to be happy with obstacles, since they give the maximum possible strength, and open new stores of energy that you didn’t know you had earlier.
Overcoming obstacles is a chance for development.
THE METHOD OF REASON-POSITIVE THINKING
We propose believing in one easy method capable of giving you invaluable help in your work: the method of reason-positive thinking. The principles of this method are:
1. A shift from the world of consequences to the world of reasons.
2. There are no objective reasons for negative emotions. Each situation is a source of information.
Reasons for emotions
Most often we have negative emotions only because there can be so many consequences from one reason. But our proposed way of thinking (point 1) helps to focus our efforts towards finding the reason for the origin of any situation. If we get down to this reason, then, when coming upon a whole class of situations, we will already know their reason, and can easily gain control over these situations. As you see, this is entirely different from the defensive mechanism of false personality. We are speaking not of protection, but of entering a Dialogue.
You are riding in a bus at rush hour, and there is a lot of stress in the bus. What can you do? You can be nervous with everyone else, or individually. However, you will be forced to admit later that you didn’t exist at that time, that you didn’t live, and that you lost your time.
Stop your automatic reaction. Try researching and comprehending the situation. Maybe you can change it?
The system which we propose makes a person less emotional, and in the beginning of one’s education there are phases when it seems to the surrounding people that you are less emotional. And these people will no doubt start talking about this, trying in various ways to “provoke” you.
No, emotions never disappear, but they, even very strong ones, stop destroying us. The whole system exists only in order to show our real beings to us. And your perceptible life in relation to the World will become much more diverse and beautiful as a result, and your intellectual processes will become deeper.
Life — A creative act
The method of reason-positive thinking gives us the possibility to make such internal organization whereby we gradually start to get control over our life, turning it into a creative act. We begin to create our life ourselves.
After all, we, to be honest, live in the past all the time now – we’re always behind. The question is simply how far each person is behind… The process of living itself is one of turning a plural future into a single past. Do you remember the painting “A Knight at the Crossroads” by V. M. Vasnetsov? We constantly make choices, and the infinite plurality of choices which lies before us turns into the uniqueness of everything that we have behind us. But nowadays we look like that knight sitting with his backside faced forward on a racing horse. We don’t look at that which is coming towards us, but rather at that which is left behind us, and we are constantly fighting for the past.
When we learn to step through all this, when we learn to sit on the horse facing in the right direction, then we will learn to hear what the World is telling us. This is the same problem of Dialogue, only from the Other side.
After all, the main reasons for our actions lay in the future, not in the past. They are determined by a model of need in the future. The future is the criterion of our actions, because we take action today in order to achieve our goals in the future.
The past gives us only experience and means. If I build my Dialogue with the World correctly, then I begin to hear everything that reality tells me. I can foresee what’s going to happen, and I can make choices more consciously. In this case the sayings of the ancients that it’s not the situation that makes us, but rather we who make the situation, can be entirely true. The situations that happen to me suit me as the person whom I am. I get what I deserve, and I get that which is harmonious with me, because a person sees only that which he wants to see, and hears only that which he wants to hear.
Active being
In order to change a situation, it’s necessary to change yourself as well, to change your “I want”. Do you remember when we spoke about the power of need?
Never explain your actions by the actions of other people: this is one more ancient bit of wisdom. If I change, then I begin to see more in objective reality, and there is a great number of possible choices. And it’s only because of our own stiffness that we think that the main reason for our limited set of choices comes from outside us.
This is what active being is all about. You enter a Dialogue and you change your objective reality calmly. You don’t do so in desperation, or under the pressure of negative emotions, but rather by purposely moving towards your future. This gives your life a constant meaning, not a material one. And in this case all other values, both material and final, take on a Different meaning and a different content. This is because we have a context, a real feeling of our own being, of our own creation of our being.
We can never say that it’s normal when, of all the objects which we are told to aim for, one disappears — being as such. This is a misunderstanding, and it must be stopped. Only in this case will there be much less stress, much fewer crises about the purpose of our life, etc.
It’s hard, but we can learn to do so.
Often we don’t have enough strength, and the situation hits us hard. The situation is such as it is, but we are already different, and it seems to us once again that all people around us are responsible for our “sufferings.”
A final solution to this problem will be achieved only when we come to the point when there isn’t a single situation in our life where we, by our own will or under the will of anyone else, act contrary to our knowledge.
General principles of self-regulation and principles of the method of DFS
Everybody knows about autogenic training (AT), or has at least heard of it. A strange thing happens with AT. AT sessions are held in many places. The idea of the sessions is to teach people in rest homes or health centers, but the number of people who do AT sessions independently is very low. There is a great number of interesting books on this topic. But despite this, there are very few people who do AT regularly. These are mostly people who need this practice for their functional business or employment.
It’s quite possible that the same thing happens with any completely perfect method, since this is a general rule of people’s activity: a person does something new only in the case that the usual means don’t work. The usual means are those means which a person receives during the process of socialization, education, learning professional skills, or when talking with people. He uses these means without thinking about them, and these, of course, aren’t special means, but those which are habitual.
For example, when a person doesn’t have clear information, it might be typical for him to make a decision by flipping a coin: heads or tails. It turns out that such a practice isn’t so foolish. An interesting experiment was once held: during the fishing season the captains of fishing trawlers were offered to flip a coin to choose the area in which to fish. These fishermen couldn’t make a clear decision themselves using their professional skills and intuition. That season the catch increased by 15%. It turns out that such a simple thing as flipping a coin plays a very large role.
There is a system of self-suggestion used by some people: a wedding ring is hung from a silk string and fortune telling is done with it. The person’s fortune, and the importance of this sign for us, is determined by the way in which the ring swings — lengthwise, crosswise, or some other way. This is a kind of “speaking pendulum.” There is also a “perfected” wedding ring — the divining rod. Fortune telling is done with such a rod.
Tests were done in one laboratory of the department of theoretical problems of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR whereby it was proven that all these things act as a sort of magnifier in relation to that information which a person receives at the subliminal level, in other words these things strengthen not the entrance of information, but rather the exit of information (a person does not receive more information through the frame, but is able to give more information that is already available, but which doesn’t have an exit). The question of whether the pendulum answers correctly or not depends on what unrecorded information there is in the person who resorts to using this method.
The pendulum strengthens this weak signal by up to 10 times, while the frame increases this signal up to 100—200 times. Sometimes the pendulum strengthens signals to a well-trained, specially taught person who does this professionally by up to 1000 times. And visualization, if it is used knowingly, can increase the signal by up to 10,000 times. Thus, such a person can see something in his dreams which will help him to solve some kind of difficult problem thanks to the fact that visualization is a very effective way to increase weak signals. Thus, one can say that self-hypnosis is a very wide field of activity aimed at oneself.
This can be activity aimed at self-management in accordance with the given program. This can also be activity aimed at self-formation in accordance with the final product, or it can be activity for management of some kind of functions that a person has in accordance with technical or functional requirements. In other words, in each case we have one of three working situations in front of us:
1. Finding that inside us which we already have, but which we haven’t yet recognized.
2. Forming that inside us which we would like to have.
3. Perfecting our skills at managing our own internal world.
These are all very different activities. This mans that when thinking of self-regulation, we have in mind two very large and very different fields of activity. These are activity aimed at changing ourselves in accordance with any kind of model, and activity aimed at activating possibilities of self-regulation, such as, say, functional opportunities, existing within ourselves. These possibilities may potentially be present, but they haven’t been activated. In accordance with this, the further logic for building any kind of method of self-regulation should lead to either the first or the second variant.
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The method of differentiated functional states (DFS), or, speaking in simpler terms, the method of mental energy resonance, is built on structuring unclear, and at first hard to feel elements of understanding that are connected to such concepts as energy, sub-sensor sensitivity, and the emotional sphere.
How is this method built? We are quite sure that the final product of any system of self-regulation is change in the I-concept. We can say with a high degree of certainty what method was used by analyzing these changes. Therefore, we consciously orient ourselves towards this task: what has to be done to the I-concept in order to gain the possibility of managing the structure of a person’s emotions, feelings, and mental energy?
Solving this task required using the idea of the instrumental element of the I-concept. This idea, expressed through various descriptions, was born thousands of years ago in the concept of the trinity “body-soul-spirit,” or the ancient Chinese system of “three boilers”, separating energy under the principle “land, man, and sky.” This three-pronged separation has existed in all cultures since ancient times. Each culture separates three main forms which can be used to classify man’s activity,
1. Activity using muscles, physical activity, vital activity,
2. Activity which is mostly emotional, through feelings,
3. Activity which is mostly cognitive, or mental.
In order to solve tasks in the field of mental energy, it is most important to use the so-called instrumental element, in other words to include the notion of an instrument, of relations, in one’s I-concept: the body as an instrument, the psycho-emotional sphere as an instrument, and creation as an instrument. Here we have in mind that part of general relations with the body, with the psycho-emotional sphere, and with consciousness, about which we can say: “I can do this and that with this.”
Let’s say I know how to think in three ways, or I know how to activate my memory in a certain amount, or I am able to do calculations with the speed of a computer — these are all characteristics of my consciousness as an instrument. In other words instrumental characteristics are brought together. Why is this important? Because when we speak of the three main types of activity, this isn’t the same as when we speak about instruments.
All three forms of activity (with domination of vital, emotional, or mental activity) can be inherent to each of the three instruments.
This approach has existed for a long time in spiritual traditions. This approach has been described by Uspensky in his stories about Gurdzhiev’s system as a psycho-technical tradition. There’s nothing new in this. We are saying that we can form a system of instruments with the help of special exercises and conscientious decisions. We learn, for example, what a person can do with the help of mental energy. Does man have anything instrumental in this field? This is the reference position, our beginning approach.
Further on we propose a specialized language. In this case language is a key factor, since it is used to clear up all of a person’s disturbing feelings, such as “I feel something,” “it’s burning,” “it pricks,” “it seems” and “it appears” in the field of mental energy. This language is very simple. The domination of one or another form of activity is specified by the word “level” and is coded in the following way:
Level 1 — this is activity with domination of a person’s vitality.
Level 2 — this is activity with domination of a person’s emotions.
Level 3 — this is activity with domination of the cognitive, intellectual sphere.
Level 4 — this is work of the mental energy instrument, whereby all of these levels are equally represented, and are in “unison.”
Further on we can see the concept of rhythms. What do we mean by the word rhythm? Rhythm means the characteristics by which you understand the surrounding environment through your activity. This is the main distinguishing factor of our method. Here language takes into account that one’s state of being — functional, psycho-emotional, and one’s psycho-energy state — is determined not only by the form of activity, but also depending on which environment this activity is directed, and how this environment is understood.
The origin of this notion comes from the concept of “tempo-rhythm”, which is common in the acting profession. The concept of rhythm includes a certain understanding of the surrounding environment, and the domination of a certain understanding and feeling of inclusion in this environment, since activity must be accompanied by a feeling of being included in this environment.
Thus, we now have four rhythms or four ways of reasoning:
Rhythm А — Understanding an environment as being a continual, expanding sphere; the rhythm of the eternal.
Rhythm B — The rhythm of the living, a wave, a stream.
Rhythm C — Understanding an environment as being discrete, as being a plurality of discrete objects, a symbol, or impulse.
Rhythm D — Understanding an environment as being destructive, chaotic.
These are the four possibilities. Likewise, sixteen combinations are possible, sixteen words, sixteen code designations for sixteen functional states. During lessons one gradually forms a semantic field which makes it possible later to activate this understanding.
Our practice (and we have already taught several thousand people) shows that this language can be learned easily, that the code is short, and that the semantic field is quite strong. The only problem is that our language is insufficient. Why? Because the language should have some form in order to allow us to use the instrument.
Thus the next problem is that of form, of construction of an instrument, all the more so of such an unusual instrument as mental energy. In order to so we need to use some sort of archetype image.
This image must be archetypal, in other words it should automatically awaken a certain number of deep associations, deep semantic fields, so that a person can be drawn into these fields as completely as possible. We use the archetypal image of the fiery flower. A similar construction with the name “gold flower” is used in one Chinese psycho-technical system. This system has rather different aims than we have, but such an analogy can be made.
Why is the flower fiery? This is very hard to describe. Basically, the long path of comprehension brought us to this archetype. But, since at present this has gone through an experimental and practical test, we can simply say that the images of “fire” and “fiery energy” allow us to solve two tasks:
1. To control our psycho-emotional sphere and our psycho-energy tone.
2. To not strengthen our blood circulation at the same time, unlike autogenic training, where, as is well-known, one feels warmth (it’s simply hot, warm, and my muscles are relaxing), while at the same time there is a flow of blood to that place towards which one directs his or her hypnosis.
The process of burning is well-known to our bodies, since oxidation takes part in it. Oxidation is burning in a certain meaning. There are other associations as well, and thanks to this one gets a large semantic field. What can help us to feel those feelings which are given in the instruction? A pepper bandage can help, and, in general, that burning which we feel from hot pepper on our skin. But sunshine is the very best – that burning which intense sunlight gives us. This is an absolutely precise feeling. Frankly speaking, the reality of physical feelings is one of the main problems in the learning process.
The exact formula which we use in our instructions is fiery energy.
One has to be able to concentrate on these instructions. I give precise instructions to exercises and explanatory maps in my book “Alone with the World.” But fulfilling these exercises without an instructor who has been specially prepared is risky, since one always needs individual correction. Each person practicing this process does so individually and there can be side-effects. Thus one has to be able to properly describe the nature of these feelings, as well as know what to do with them.
TRAVEL THROUGH STATES OF BEING
View from within № 13
1А — Movements become wider and happier, as if they are stretched in space. One wants to look into each corner. Life takes on a kind of solemnity, and becomes slower. This state of being is more suitable to dreams and thoughts than to actions.
1B — This state of being increases one’s interest in everything living, in nature, and helps one to relax, as well as to have a good appetite. This state of being is good for monotony, and for long physical labor (for example, walking a long time). That said it’s very difficult to concentrate on one’s mental activity. One is afraid of mechanisms that make loud noises or knock. The existence of these things seems hard to believe and unnatural.
1C — When transitioning into this state of being one is no longer afraid of mechanisms. On the contrary, the strength and power of machines grabs your attention. One hears a clear rhythm in everything that makes noise or knocks, and one can catch on to this rhythm. This state is good for any kind of physical activity which requires a rhythm: sports games, cleaning the apartment, washing, walking, etc. But one wishes to change one’s activity after some time.
1D — A person doesn’t want to do anything in this state; activity makes one irritated. One becomes grouchy, and doesn’t have a sense of accomplishment from the results of one’s work. There doesn’t seem to be any future in this work. The people surrounding you want to avoid you, and you start to defend yourself by laughing and transitioning to state of being 2C.
2А — The depth of inner emotional feelings increases, as does the activeness and range of these feelings. One makes wide gestures, and has frequent mood changes due to which one can easily take offense or start laughing uncontrollably. All of our cares seem insignificant, and unworthy of attention. We do our work slowly, with a feeling of extreme importance. Your behavior is viewed as eccentric by the people around you. You vocal range widens.
2B — This state of being is viewed by the people around you to mean that you want to communicate: everybody comes to you with questions, asking for advice. You, in turn, want to help everyone to solve their conflicts. Your communication with other people is quite complete, and you can’t stop half way through your sentence. You want to tell everything, to explain everything. You have very little desire to move, and it’s harder to fulfill all kinds of physical labor. It’s much more pleasant to speak with people.
2C — You find it hard to concentrate, and you change the topic of conversation often, as a result of which your attention jumps from one object to another, to different activity. You make many small mistakes in your work, and don’t finish everything. You don’t feel a sense of wholeness as much as in rhythm 2B, and all jobs that you do are of equal importance. Your mood changes very easily. You see every objective thing as a source of constant internal unrest. You walk very fast, and uneasily. Those people who live in rhythm B are seen to be sleeping, and irritate others. Others want to make these people walk faster.
2D — Internal pain, sadness, resentment. A person in this state of being sees the surrounding people as enemies. This person feels anger, can’t do work which requires patience, and is easily irritated. This person is easily irritated and humiliated, and cries often. The surrounding people try to avoid this person.
3А — A sense of enthusiasm in which a person has widened sense of understanding of the World, people, and one’s self. This person can see more (just as like a state of being with de-concentrated attention).
3B — This person is constantly serious, and can’t stop thinking. It seems to this person that he does all his work with his head. This person is not interested at all in food, and eats in small doses. This person has a slower reaction speed than under rhythm C. This person is in the right state of being for thinking.
3C — Clear, precise thoughts, and brain work done with calculations or searching for information is done very quickly. One is constantly calculating the optimal variants when doing a job, and easily shifts from one job to Another.
3D — This sense of being is one of feeling stupid. This person is stubborn for no reason, and gets caught on one thought (such as “I don’t want it, and that’s it). This person’s logical reasoning is broken. This person can’t think creatively, doesn’t want to analyze anything, and feels a lot of pressure. This person wants to cry, which brings relief.
4А — This person loves life, and sees the hymn of life in all of its splendor, with its happiness and pain. This person has a sense of the depth and infinity of the World. This person thinks most often not in words, but in images.
4B — Internal happiness, and a sense of being at one with living nature. This person feels whole, and sees wisdom in which is around. This person doesn’t want to talk about little things, but rather wants to think; it’s easy for this person to make contact with people.
4C — This person is well-organized, has lots of ambition, and is confident in his actions. Nothing distracts this person, and the surrounding people try not to disturb this person. This person is in a productive state of being, and can easily fulfill work related to making calculations or doing physical labor. Movements are precise and coordinated.
4D — Sad solemnity. Or anger. Death as birth.
MAP OF THE ANCIENTS (Classification of states of being)
Ancient sources and systems of mental regulation tried to classify the various states of being which a person went through, since it was noted already then that people have various relations to themselves and to objective reality in each state.
Map of psychological development
One can speak of a map of psychological development, or a map of psycho-technique. The map looks as follows (table 1).
Table 1. Map of psycho-technique

On the “first level of reality” there is a physical body as an object with one energy center and a fiery body with three energy centers.
Physical body. We have various images of a person (ranging from an electric cloud to that which we usually understand to be a body) depending on what means we use to look at a person’s body. The ancients solved this task quite easily in their systems: the physical body has one energy center, and the sign of this body is minus infinity. By creating the concept of a “body within the body” they thereby made it possible, by changing states of being, to keep their affection for the physical body.
Fiery body. Has 3 centers (1, 2, 3). The fiery and physical bodies are located on level I of reality, and can be perceived by everybody since they are accessible to our sense organs.
There is a notion that if a person develops the ability to link three centers into one whole inside himself, he will then become invulnerable on level I of reality. One of the ways to do so is to free one’s self from one’s dominant, and make a transition to domination of the fourth state of being.
The “second level of reality” is accessible only to a more “refined” perception, and signifies a certain level of psychological development whereby a person, being whole, can already understand something which is usually unconscious. Level II of reality features vital, astral, and mental bodies.
The vital body can be received by developing the 1st center of the fiery body. The vital body has 5 energy centers, and here we have a similar task to the prior one: having developed these 5 centers, to connect them into one whole and unite them with level 1 of reality.
The astral body can be received by developing the 2nd center of the fiery body. The astral body has 7 energy centers. Development here looks like this: first the 2nd center is developed, and on the base of this center we get 7 centers of the astral body, and their integration into one whole and unification with level 1 of reality later on.
The mental body can be received by developing the 3rd center of the fiery body. This body has 9 energy centers, and we also do work here at integrating the centers.
It is believed in many systems that one can start from the place that is most convenient, but, according to the deepest sources, it’s necessary to encompass the entire whole, and this is possible only in the case that we provide some additional space for states of being — “the third level of reality”.
Level III of reality has a causal body (12 centers). This body has feedback with level II: each of its 4 centers are connected with the astral, the mental, and the vital bodies. There is a complex way in which these bodies are united together.
It is believed that the person who managed to implement this state of being inside can easily see into the causes of all phenomena.
The highest point of development is the body of Bodkhi, the body of blooming, the body of the Absolute. This body has one energy center with a sign plus infinity. The body of Bodkhi is directly linked with the physical body. It might be for this reason that to be born in a person’s body is happiness, since the body of man is divine.
One of the ways of psychological development is to gradually move from the bottom to the top, combining development and integration. But there is also a kind of secret path (the jumping path) from the physical body to the blooming body, and in this case one can move in the opposite direction — from the top down.
The ancients believed that a person reached absolute perfection when he mastered all of this and combined it in one whole. This person was considered to have been born three times. But is it possible to really follow such a path?
In our culture there are technologies which make it possible to develop states of being of levels I and II of reality (from the fiery body to the “mental”). However, the experience of the direct path is still unknown to us, just like the path which gives us knowledge about the class of states of being of level III of reality under the name “causal body.”
As for the body of Bodkhi (blooming), there are quite a few descriptions of this state of being. All of the sources suggest that it comes all of a sudden, and is hard to predict.
This map of states of being can determine the volume of research works in the field of constructive psychology for mastering that theoretical and practical knowledge of various mental technologies which we get in the form of texts.
Rhythm — the quality of interelations with the world
Rhythm is an inseparable part of us and our surroundings. We know that there are yearly, daily, moon, and other rhythms. We use rhythm to help orient ourselves in time. A feeling of rhythm helps to organize us and connects understanding of the external and the internal to a single whole. Rhythm is the quality of interrelations with the World.
Many methods are built on a more intense feeling of space. We can learn to do this, but we fear “straining our feelings” and close these channels of perception.
When learning to use mental energy, we will learn to perceive that which surrounds us (“atmosphere,” as they say in the theater). And a feeling of rhythm will be our helper in this.
Using our feelings to imagine an infinitely expanding sphere, we look for rhythm А, the rhythm of the eternal.
If we get ready for a constant wave that moves into us and out of us, we feel space to be a process and we enter a situation, where everything is connected to everything else. This is the rhythm of the living, rhythm B.
If we imagine discrete impulses inside us and outside us, the World appears like a kind of mechanism. This is the rhythm C, the rhythm of the eternal.
If we aim our feeling of perception at chaos, confusion, disorder, disintegration, we feel the sound of rhythm D.
Mastering the language of rhythms-levels, we can manage the understanding of quality of the surrounding environment, and this gives us the possibility to attune ourselves to the surrounding environment. Only then will it be possible to improvise creation of states of being.
Let’s go to uncertainty, to infinity, being happy with the new, taking part in the sound of the space inside us and outside us.
CHANGES IN THE STATE OF BEING, OR INSTRUCTIONS FOR SAFETY MEASURES
Our goal is to study the language of the system so as to then use this language for modeling the states of being and their diagnostics. Theoretically and practically we have everything so as to have an excess of mental energy. And we can respond to the effect of energy, thereby getting rid of our fears on this topic. In other words, we have all means to be able to have a surplus and to be a source of energy for those surrounding us. There is lots of energy in space, take as much as you want, just be the conductor for it.
People interact with each other by using mental energy, without knowing that. The only true position as concerns energy is to have a large surplus of energy and not think about who to interact with and how to behave as concerns this energy, and not make a constant analysis: who influences you and how. It’s necessary to live in such a way so that other people feel good when they are in our presence. This can be tested using one’s life experience, and I think that all other positions in this question are painful.
Changes in state of being
When learning a language we have to get to know new states of being — changed states. For example, states of the 5th, 6th, and 7th levels are changed states. This can be viewed as movement upwards on the vertical.
But the transition to changed states is possible not only by making vertical movements (5, 6, 7…). Such states can also be achieved by moving horizontally relative to the dominant state. And in this case we can have a parallel perception of level I of reality (our usual perception) and of level II of reality. When opening the 1st center this will be “vital” space, in the 2nd center — “astral,” in the 3rd center — “mental,” and under an accord — “causal” space (the space of reasons).
This transition is possible when there is a certain amount of energy in the according center. The transition leads to a new state of being and carries certain feelings in it.
We can describe any one of these states of being using the language of our system, keeping in mind that the maximum amount of energy (quantity) moves to a different quality, both horizontally and vertically.
Thus, the given system gives us the possibility to model any state of being and to learn a whole set of states of being without even mastering other methods. This set of states of being is equal in volume to the sum of all states of being which have been described in literature (besides the state of blooming, whereby one needs not only technique).
Thus we can additionally classify states of being into the classes “vital,” “astral,” and “mental”. In order to achieve these states of being we must first put in a lot of work and time, as well as use large amounts of energy and do long exercises with our consciousness.
One person who did this for about 5 years was riding in a trolleybus, and, working on the first center, got a large volume of energy in this center. All of a sudden he started to have parallel perception of two spaces:
1) He perceived the first level of reality entirely sufficiently (the trolleybus’ route lasted 40 minutes);
2) At the same time he moved to a different space and “spent” 3—4 days in a different place and in a different manner, as if one thing happened in one space with one set of time characteristics, while something else happened in another space.
This took place automatically, and when the man tried to repeat it consciously, it didn’t work.
Taking drugs is nothing else than a way of entering a different space. However, one loses one’s ability to perceive the first level of reality when taking drugs.
There may be spontaneous shifts to another perception if one works hard. One shouldn’t be afraid of these shifts.
Descriptions of parallel “causal” (in accord) perception are quite rare in literature, while expansion on the first, second, and third levels, which give a changed state, are described in all rhythms. If this takes place with a person who doesn’t know the language and the system as a whole, then he classifies all of this as “foolish mysticism”.
It is hard for an untrained person to keep states of being 5, 6, and 7 (in any rhythms) since the amount of energy spent increases, and a person finds that he doesn’t have enough energy. One needs to undergo a great change in energy already at the 5th level, but if one isn’t specially prepared then the state of being, for example in 5B, which creates dramatic changes in energy, can’t be sustained for more than 10 minutes. And there have been cases when people got “burnt out” when moving vertically. Thus one needs to work for a long time, and very patiently.
Spontaneous switching on of parallel perception during classes with the mental energy instrument can take place, and one doesn’t have to fear that, or class one’s eyes, otherwise there is a danger of falling into the trap of getting high.
Once again about the instrumental I-concept
Let’s analyze more closely the question of the instrumental aspect of the I-concept. Remember that the starting point for this approach is to isolate the sum of instruments: the body, mental energy, and conscience.
It’s very important to clearly understand what mental energy is. When looking at a person as at a set of instruments, we come up against the following problem: how can this great plurality of elements be synchronized within itself, and how does it work as one whole? We can guess that the mental energy instrument is such a synchronizing mechanism. This is a motor and synchronizer at the same time, in other words a whole set of biocurrents, and fields, and all the differences of potentialities — these as a whole will make up this instrument.
When we look at man as a subject of activity, we separate three systems of relations with the World (do you remember that?):
Individuality— the sum total of relations of man with the World as a biological being;
Personality — the sum total of social relations;
Essence — the sum total of energy-informational relations with the World.
One should keep in mind that essence is formed out of man’s relations with the World, but not necessarily keeping conscience in mind. This is the sum total of relations of the whole with the whole: the World as a whole and man as a whole. In order for this to be completely understood, we use the method of qualitative structures (MQS).
In each object we can separate the organizational aspect, the functional aspect and the communicational aspect. (Do you remember that too?)
An object (abstract) which has only the aspect of organization is like an unloving object, in other words some kind of physical fact, which doesn’t act, doesn’t function, and doesn’t have any interaction with the surrounding World.
An object (also abstract) which has only the functional aspect is like pure activity outside of all objectivity.
If we look at the communication aspect abstractly, then we will see only the World’s relations with the given object.
Thus the organizational aspect is like the body of any object, while the functional aspect is the system of its functional parts (a way of making any given product), while the communicational aspect is the sum total of actions aimed at this object by any other object.
In this structure we can also highlight the coordinate point, or the zero position. This point is extremely important because it holds these aspects between themselves, not giving them the possibility to come apart. What are the concrete contents of the coordinate point in a concrete object is a difficult question. If we look at man as being a whole, from the point of the given structure, then the coordinate point is self-consciousness (it can be more or less stable).
What is the relation between the structure of instruments and the structure of their relations with reality?
The Relations of instruments and reality
The base instrument of individuality is the body. Consciousness and the psyche also work on individuality, but we underline that the base instrument is the body. It’s not without reason that we speak about the sum total of distinctive signs (examples: photographs, dactyloscopy and others), which are unique and individual. The body, which carries biological individuality, dominates in everything that concerns interaction between man and the World as a biological being. Psyche and consciousness serve the body in this instance. We know that if we deny a person the right to normally satisfy his biological needs, and do this for a long enough time, then he will lose his physical appearance, or will physically die.
The base instrument of personality is consciousness. Here we can speak of personality type on the basis of information metabolism, in other words as a means of processing the incoming information. All typologies are supported by this in one way or another. When we speak of “personality” we have in mind a conscious being which can speak, understands language, and can enter its own type of social relations since these relations are realized in some languages. This isn’t necessarily a verbal language, it can be a language of ceremonies or symbol as well, in other words any language made by man, not natural.
The base instrument of essence is mental energy, thus essence is the hardest formation to find in man. Consciousness and the body also take part in the life of essence, but under the command of mental energy. In this case mental energy is the base instrument.
It’s also necessary to understand that the sum total of all relations (individuality, essence, and personality) is a larger whole than the sum total of instrumental data which make up man’s behavior as a part. We can’t compare the base instrument and relations which are based on it.
Centers as a part of mental energy
We have to specify the following as well. When we speak of “centers” of mental energy (the first, second, third) and about how the mental energy instrument has distribution of energy depending on the needs of the instruments (the first center produces energy for the body, the second for the emotional-feeling sphere, and the third for consciousness), this doesn’t mean that if the third center dominates, there is domination of consciousness as an instrument.
“Centers” are parts of mental energy. Thus there are cases when under domination of the second center and under a strongly developed conscious as an instrument (not in the third center, but rather in conscious as an instrument!!) energy starts to enter the consciousness not from the 3rd, but rather from the 2nd center. The center thereby becomes exhausted. The consequences of this have a strong influence both on man himself and on the people surrounding him.
Now let’s try to monitor the following: why is it that in our development process we don’t recognize the presence of such an instrument as mental energy? Let’s think about what systems of criteria develop in man starting from birth.
PLEASANT — UNPLEASANT is the first system which turns into action. There is nothing conscious about it, it’s just an act of feeling. But there is feedback with a baby — it can be a facial expression, a voice, or an “emotional language” that speaks of its feelings, about what is pleasant to him and what isn’t. There is already a moment of choice connected with the mental energy instrument. This is a general reaction: a baby feels unhealthy, that he feels pain, but he can’t say where.
I WANT — I DON’T WANT is the next system which is formed as a result of the manifestation of subjective pain. This means that the mechanism of choice is already turned on, and that individuality begins to form.
GOOD — BAD — this is a criterion of consciousness. This criterion appears as a measure of how well the child understands what people want from him. Personality is formed.
There are three dichotomizing criteria. If they didn’t contradict each other during the education process, in other words if they were matched together, then there wouldn’t be any gap between instruments. But it is impossible to achieve this in practice. Let’s say that I like it, that I Want it, but it’s not good… Or: I like, but I don’t want it, even though it’s good. In this case, while there is still no self-consciousness, the whole set of conflicts between sources leads to inaction or destructive behavior.
RIGHT — WRONG is the next system of criteria which arises together with the appearance of self-consciousness. Adult people use this system for the most part. The structure of self-restriction and goal-setting comes to be.
The consequence of this system is the criteria MUST — MUST NOT. Man isolates his territory in the World, and builds “his own World” and a “picture of himself.”
Scary instruments
At the same time, all kinds of methods of discrediting the previous leader (in other words the leader of the instrument) arise. For example, you say that the body is an animal which needs to be kept in a bridle, etc. In the majority of cases this leads to two situations: either we join the body from above, in other words put pressure on it and smother all of its needs, considering them to be base (in the extreme case — asceticism), as a result of which we can’t exist as a full-fledged biological being, although we supposedly win as a spiritual being… By destroying our integrity?
The second variant of relations to the body is its to raise it, to bow before it, since you can never manage the body. After all, it’s Nature! There are many examples — from the supernatural cult of sportsmen to the just as supernatural cult of the beautiful female body.
Mental energy also falls under this control. We call mental energy a part of the irrational, although in reality, when we don’t have enough information, we often use information from our mental energy, such as “it seemed to me,” “I got the impression,” or “I feel.” We hereby aim for unconscious sympathy and antipathy. This instrument works, but “consciously” we also try to force it down.
There are people who say “I’m a conscientious person,” “I’m rational,” or “those feelings aren’t information.” There is Another variant as well, the relation from below — the cult of the irrational, which leads to cheap mysticism which has nothing in common with spiritual teachings, but rather with psychological breakdowns.
And there’s only one instrument which we cherish, which we take care of, and before which we kneel — consciousness. We’ve created such concepts as “subconsciousness” and “ultraconsciousness.” This instrument’s boundaries expand more and more, which makes it possible to “ultraestimate” it.
We have to harmonize our interactions with all instruments in order for mental energy to work normally as an instrument, in other words in order for us to be able to use this instrument effectively. In the opposite case we will never be able to separate truth from self-suggestion, since the main question of mental technique is the question of the reliability of the information that comes from this instrument. And considering that the code by which the exchange of information between the surrounding environment and mental energy takes place is not made up of words, or images, but rather is purely made up of “energy,” we therefore have trouble achieving such quality of this instrument that will give us reliable information.
False personality and integral consciousness
How can we solve this problem?
We say that the key moments are: stable self-consciousness and not identifying ourselves with our instruments.
In other words I highlight instruments, determine their boundaries, their interrelations, and have the possibility to control these instruments thanks to stable self-consciousness.
What kinds of practical problems does one have here?
All ancient empirical teachings propose a very complex lifestyle which is impossible to maintain under today’s conditions. Thus one of the most practical tasks we face is to take the most effective parts of these teachings and transpose them onto our modern-day life.
What are the main obstacles that arise in this process?
The first one, of course, is false identity. A person is unable when he’s a child to regulate those influences which affect him. He doesn’t yet have an effective system for making choices which can bring all influences in his life line with his natural properties.
How often does it happen that adults require a child to have those qualities which no child can have! Let’s take the simplest example, on the level of the body: reaction speed. Each person’s reaction speed is different. Since neither the child’s parents nor other people who have contact with the child have any idea about this concept, they use their own judgment to require that the child be able to fulfill those tasks which he can’t possibly fulfill based on the quality of his instruments. The conflict between the qualities of the instrument and the requirements made of it is one of the sources of false identity as a form of defense.
We know that one’s IM type — information metabolism of personality — is formed by the age of five or six, and is constant in size. Each IM type has its own way of processing information, but, due to the lack of such knowledge among surrounding people, a child is required to do that which he isn’t capable of doing. This leads to distortion.
The next source of distortion is forcing a certain behavior contrary to the child’s natural level and rhythm. This isn’t done on purpose, but happens due to the fact that it’s impossible to take into account the whole sum of influences, and the complexity of such a system as man. This makes it hard to have adequate “planned” influence. This gradually leads to the formation of a set of adaptations which stand in the way of man’s true nature.
The main source of growth of false personality however is the conflict between various systems of criteria.
Thus we say: in order to take away the mechanism of false personality, first of all it’s necessary to make one’s consciousness whole. Instead of a number of consciousnesses built on various systems of criteria, one needs to create consciousness built on one system of criteria, or whole consciousness. A person has to do this work him or herself.
The reason why people can’t form complete space of conscience is that during one’s life a person has very many self-evident norms, which, as a rule, aren’t analyzed by one’s consciousness. And when in the work process these norms are put forward to one’s consciousness for discussion, even just a discussion with one’s own self, a person enters a very uncomfortable situation which may be impossible to overcome.
Once complete consciousness is organized one then has the opportunity to make the transition to structured thinking, in other words to a higher, as we consider today, form of thinking, when all consciousness becomes like one whole for the subject. This instrument’s effectiveness is many times higher.
Relations with the body
The second task standing before us (the first task, as you remember, was complete consciousness and our relation to it) is our relation to such an instrument as the body.
All kinds of taboos, prejudices and “norms” were born from our relation to the body as to an “animal.”
Ancient teachings, including teachings from various traditions, all agree on one thing: the body is the soul’s horse. Yes, the body is an animal, but the horse that I ride takes me where I want to go. In other words the horse doesn’t hurt its owner, and doesn’t worship it either. A horse can be tamed. There are cases when people who use their bodies intensively (hatha-yoga, karate, hunger, running, etc.) do so because they are afraid of their bodies. In this case the body, naturally, begins to command the person. A strong, active body personifies I; when he says I this person means his body. Of course this person can achieve a perfect body, but no more. There will be no harmony here, and the entire system as a whole will strive towards the organizational aspect, and will become regressive, or, at a minimum, conservative.
Another situation is even more common: the functional aspect of the body is overexcited, in other words consciousness is exploited to the point where it’s quite worn out. As a result the system as a material whole is gradually destroyed (“the body becomes sick”). Something similar happens within one’s consciousness as well: if one’s thinking is weaker than one’s memory, then the person lives “with his behind him”. In the opposite case, if the activity of one’s thinking is much stronger than one’s memory, then one begins to have “stratification of consciousness.”
Thus, a complete space for consciousness and the body — “a tamed horse” —is the basis for lessons of mental energy
Developing mental energy
One can practice mental energy at the same time as one trains the body and consciousness, but one needs to remember that when we don’t have success in our work with the consciousness and body, then we don’t reach regularity in our work with mental energy either.
In other words we can develop this instrument separately, without working with the other instruments. And we will accomplish certain results — we’ll raise our sensitivity, our capacity, and we’ll learn to re-distribute our energy, but we won’t learn how to understand what this instrument is telling us. This is very clear from natural “extrasensory individuals.” Often they feel something, but what? This is a question which they often can’t answer.
Increasing our sensitivity to the mental energy instrument makes our lives significantly more complex. After all, there are many unharmonious “sounds” around, and when we have sharp sensitivity even an electric bell can have an influence on our psychological state like a punch to the body: one gets a painful feeling in the second center. Thus, besides plusses, there are also several minuses…
In order to stand this we have to have separation of identity. Only when separating your identity from your instruments can you understand that this is taking place not with you, but with your instrument, and you will be ready to defend your instrument.
So, a change in the normal way of existence is a necessary condition for developing this instrument.
The next problem that arises when developing instruments is concentration. Only a rather strong level of concentration makes it possible to stand any onslaught from the surrounding environment, and at the same time not only remain whole but also change the situation around one’s self. One’s level of concentration — this is the power of psychological concentration.
The famous saying “One needs to make a whole before lighting the fire” very precisely expresses the way to solve the problem of concentration.
A difficulty may arise at the first stage of this work. You begin to change, often without noticing it yourself, but those around you will certainly notice these changes, and will start, to a greater or lesser degree, in one or another form, to “provoke” you. This too must be endured, lived through, so as not to become too absorbed in an analysis of what is happening to you. After all, according to folk wisdom, when the centipede starts to think about how to walk, first it gets confused, but then it can perfect its walking.
Benchmark postulates of the system
There are three benchmark postulates in our system. These postulates are offered as the center of the future complete consciousness which you have to form.
The first postulate is moral.
“Each person is the guide on an endless sea of knowledge and power lying behind him.”
Let’s take an in-depth look at this sentence.
Each. What this really means is that when I have contact with any person I always remember: potentially this person has the same endless reality as I myself have. All teachings in which this word (“each”) is replaced with “YOU” or “I” are called satanic, or “black” in old language.
Guide. A person is part of the World, and is together with it in many various ways. A person transforms the energy and the information of this World through himself.
Behind him. Each person has a context, and volume. Rhythm is one of the bright expressions of This. The dominating rhythm determines the contents of a person’s context. If he functions according to his own natural rhythm, then his energetic capacity is many times higher than if he functions against this rhythm.
Second postulate — target.
“Get to know yourself as a part of the World, and the World as a part of you.”
The first part of the postulate expresses exactly what we are talking about to a certain degree. It’s important to get to know one’s self in all relations to the World, in all of their manifold forms. Everything that we say about instruments, about separation of identity — all of this is related to the first part of this postulate.
The second part of this postulate is addressed to those who fulfilled the first part. According to it, we can and must love this World, and this is the essence of man’s destiny. And in this case man will become a part of us. This knowledge has a meaning for us only in that case when the goal of this knowledge is to increase harmony in the surrounding World.
The third postulate is methodological.
“From the world of effects to the world of causes.”
The basis of this postulate is the method of cause-positive thinking, which recognizes the necessity for us to understand the real cause of every situation which we come upon, and, first of all, try to understand this reason in ourselves. After all, we know the truism: “There are no objective reasons for negative emotions.” One shouldn’t confuse emotions (which are produced by consciousness) with feelings (which are produced by the mental energy sphere) (emotions are made by consciousness, while feelings are made by the psychoemotional sphere or the soul). Each situation is a source of information.
THE METHOD OF QUALITATIVE STRUCTURES AS A WAY OF ORGANIZING THE INTERNAL SPACE OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Our system proposes a method of qualitative structures (MQS) as the basis for working with consciousness.
Various kinds of thinking used by man in his intellectual work are known.
1. Straight thinking: if a, then b. A simple logical chain is the way in which statements are made.
This logic is most often used in everyday life, but it’s too simple, thus it’s quite easy for this chain to be closed, and for a person to start going in circles.
2. Thinking taking into account feedback. This is a method which makes it possible to react to changes in reality, but which doesn’t exclude danger from “reflections in reflection,” of so-called “dumb eternity.”
3. Dialectical method. This method makes it possible to see tendencies in the development of the subject being studied. In order to do so one clarifies the contradictions within the subject and looks for a way to eliminate these contradictions by means of synthesis. Using a dialectical way of thinking, one can see the birth of development in the object itself. A systematic understanding of complex objects becomes possible.
4. Method of qualitative structures. At the same time, three aspects of the subject studied are separated:
— the functional aspect: studying this aspect makes it possible to study the productive activity of the object;
— the organizational aspect: this aspect is in dialectical contradiction with the functional aspect — the more actively the object functions, the more it’s construct is subject to being destroyed;
— the communicational aspect: examination of this aspect leads one outside the borders of the object itself. Study of the communicational aspect makes it possible to study the object’s informational entrance and to understand what exactly influences the object’s activity.
These three aspects can be shown in a scheme such as that in figure 22.
Fig. 22

The coordination aspect (the coordinator’s point) gives the object the property of totality, in other words its qualitative distinctness as a Whole.
Thought experiments
The company as a whole
The organizational aspect of a company is its material base, its employee structure;
The functional aspect of a company is its production technology;
The communicational aspect of a company is its goals, equipment and financing, which determine the communication between this company and the outside World.
The coordination aspect ensures the preservation of the object as a whole (but not of its actual organization, functioning, or external communications). If the coordinator gives preference to one of the aspects, then the system will lose its continuity, and the company will either work on strengthening its organization (expanding its territory, creating a more reliable base, etc.) to the detriment of its production, or theorizing in place of production of real goods (why can’t we work better, who’s at fault?). It’s also possible that functionality will increase without taking into account these constructions (exceeding the plan at any cost). By observing in the direction of which aspect the coordinator’s point moves, one can predict how the given object will develop. The fact that at the same there is a risk of losing continuity is obvious. Such an outlook on objects was used in several cultural and spiritual schools. In the culture of the Ancient East the concept of the zero position was equal to the term “chakra,” while for suffites this is called the “point of real actions,” and for Castaneda it is the “assembly point”.
The value structure of personality as a whole
Let’s look at how the matrix of the method of qualitative structures is employed as exemplified by an analysis of the value structure of man’s personality. To do so we use a set of dichotomous criteria (fig. 23).
Fig. 23

The level of organization composes ± value, the level of functionality composes ± requirements, the level of communication composes ± reasons, and the shape-generating axis composes the axis of problems and their solutions.
This following question is typical: what is located in the coordinator’s point of the internal space of the value structure? Strictly speaking, here we should have our reflective I, capable of separating everything that isn’t I. A feeling for the whole is connected to having this point, but more often than not people place something else entirely into this point — their feelings, their self-esteem, etc. At the same time the integrity of the internal space of consciousness is deformed, but the person feels safe. One has to be brave in order to place something “abstract — self-consciousness — into this point.
The ancients believed that Another person should be placed into this point during the period of apprenticeship. In this case the educational process will be as effective as possible. This was called “surrender” (the person “surrendered” himself for study).
For some people an idea stands in this point, or a postulate, or a dogma, since these people replace their own subjective I with an idea.
In reality this matrix reflects a way of internal operation of information which is based on appraisal thinking.
In our culture the word-logical method of describing the World is the most dominant. This method gives maximum precision and is the most appropriate for science.
The second method, demonstrable-graphic, ensures maximum depth of perception, and is dominant in art.
We use the method of qualitative structures to try and balance out these two types of perception, and to make them equivalent.
How can the process of acquiring this matrix take place? One needs to practice: a practical application of the new way of thinking, otherwise it’s unlikely that you will be able to acquire this matrix.
In many spheres of our activity this method gives the best results, especially when we need to catch the continuity of a complex object.
What is movement as development and how is it different from expansion?
The movement of an object towards expansion in size of one of the aspects is not a real movement of the object as a whole. It is simply an “acquisition” at one of the levels, in other words, expansion.
Let’s take a look at the difference between the concepts of “development” and “expansion” as it concerns such a whole as man. We can picture this whole, according to the method of qualitative structures, in the following way.
Fig. 24

A change in the level of man’s development leads to strengthening of his organism and to accomplishing the goal of absolute health, but this is always just expansion in this direction rather than movement of the entire whole.
Displacement of man’s development on the functionality vector leads to expansion of the sphere of his social activity and is aimed at achieving absolute knowledge in the according sphere, in other words expansion in this direction, but again not movement as of the whole.
Displacement of man’s development on the communication aspect vector leads to a widening of the energy-informational entrance, and represents absolute energy, being expansion in this direction.
The essence of self-development as growth of the “territory of influence” is movement on one of the vectors. That said, this is not whole development.
One can classify all known systems of self-perfection by the characteristic of the direction of self-development: expansion under the communicational aspect, orientation towards “absolute energy” (man as the “King of the Universe”), under the organizational aspect “the King of Nature,” and under the functionality aspect “the King of the World.”
It’s not hard to see that all the variants of self-perfection have one property in common — they don’t lead to development of the whole, but rather just to expansion in one direction. The whole develops only when there is movement in entirety, in other words when the coordinator point moves.
If we speak about man, his real development will be the development of self-consciousness, while movement in its entirety will be movement of self-consciousness in the space of the World. Only then can we speak about development of the whole as such, in other words about total development.
A natural question comes to mind: what is harmony? What development does not lead to deformation of the whole, and does not disturb harmony? Harmony is a balance of development of all three instruments. In order to achieve harmony one must refuse to expand. Then harmony will become possible no matter what the size of the three aspects of the whole as long as all three are included in one’s life as a whole. (Here one can speak only about such a quality characteristic of instruments as “volume,” and of the power of ‘volumes” on the levels of expansion of instruments).
How can one achieve a state of balance, of wholeness?
Let’s try to find the answer to this question by thinking about what man’s life is from the point of view of expansion?
Man, according to the territorial imperative (every living things strives to fill his territory), devours the surrounding reality, winning himself his place in space (his home), his place in society (social status), and his place in the World (my World) (fig. 25).
Fig. 25

Man digests that which he consumes, and everything that is digested makes up his personal story, that footprint which we leave in our life.
Due to the fact that that we don’t have the time to live the current moment in life completely, we are often like the passenger in a fast-moving car: this passenger can’t see everything clearly because he’s going so fast, and keeps turning around to see what he’s left behind. The car is our life, and we are the passengers in it. At a certain point our fear of death forces us to turn our backs against that which is in front of us, and we see only our own personal history.
Expansion, in other words eternal, uncontrolled functioning, which takes place at the expense of the level of organization and of the construction itself, leads to curtailment of the system to its collapse into its original point. And our life looks like this: birth, expansion (consumption), destruction, collapse, and death. From a zero point to a zero point. Our life took place, and we left our own personal story, but was there really any development?
There is a chance here though, since moments of stable self-consciousness can gradually crystallize something real in the coordinator’s point. I. This crystal can be the reason for the phenomenon whereby we the passengers become the drivers. We can make the transition from consumers to producers, thereby becoming the authors of our own life. In order to do so we have to stop wasting our power on expansion, and “even out” and harmonize all three instruments. When we grow a crystal of our real I in the coordinator’s point, the magnetic center of the subject, then the hands may move. A person will thus begin to live from surplus, and will become a passionate personality, in other words producing from himself. We can feel at home in the World without expansion, and we gain peace and quiet inside. The coordinator’s point will be the entrance point, and we can give birth to our life, and create it. A person hereby becomes an event, and will feel differently in the World. His personal story will lose its significance. “And you have to leave spaces in your fate” (B. Pasternak).
Life becomes an event, and you feel that you always have everything that you really need. You lose your fear of finding yourself without the things you may need. In this case you won’t need to store up any goods, since you have a constant source — a whole life.
What motivates man once he has everything? Surplus. Surplus energy, strength, time, information, etc. And once again we go deeper into the meaning of the ancient saying: every real thing comes from surplus.
We hereby understand the meaning of another saying as well: the real belief of man lies in the place he goes to when he is happy. The ancients knew about this, and for that reason studies in many spiritual schools were made up of two parts: first man was given means to make him “feel happy,” and if the person didn’t leave after that, then he was taught something really new. Because when a person is unhappy, then he believes only in that which helps him. And it’s hard to predict what he will believe in when he’s happy again.
A little “mysticism”
From the point of view of qualitative structures, a person’s real development as a whole can be seen in the following way (assuming that the three main essences of the universe are material, energy, and information) (fig. 26).
Fig. 26

At the moment when a person’s coordinate point moves from the universal coordinate point, then a person feels particular emotional experiences which were called enlightenment in ancient schools; we call this state the zero-transition. From this moment a person begins to have a qualitatively different perception of the World and of his place in the World, and everything that happens hereon with a person can be called movement of the whole within the entirety in the coordinate point.
***
So then, let’s note the most important bases:
1) The method of qualitative structures is a way of thinking as a whole.
2) There is no hierarchy under this way of thinking about the whole, and all aspects are equal.
3) The vector of the communication aspect has the property moving in the direction of bigger size.
4) The coordinate point is in the zero position.
5) If the whole loses the coordinate point, it gets destroyed.
An example from the “exercise book”
View from within № 14
Let’s illustrate what the usage of the method of qualitative structures gives us on the example of such a whole as “family”. The organizational aspect of a family is taking care of the home together, the functional aspect is to reproduce, and the communication aspect is work. The coordinate point can be love, mutual respect, or something else which draws people to form a family together. The conceptual side of the coordinate point determines the family type (fig. 27).
Fig. 27

Let’s say that parents find that they’ve reached the limit of their expansion in the organizational aspect (they have a home, a car, a summer home, etc.), and they change their focus to providing attention to their children (now we live for our kids, and let’s give them a better life than we had). The communication aspect (work) is moved towards the functional aspect, and serves the children’s needs for the most part. The coordinate point shifts towards the functional aspect, and the whole (the family) is destroyed. Then we hear complaints about inattentive children and egoists who have forgotten their parents.
CONSCIOUSNESS AS AN INSTRUMENT
Let’s set the limits of the whole about which we will speak. We won’t concern ourselves here with all problems of consciousness, especially since questions concerning consciousness are some of the most difficult —in both the philosophical and the psychological meaning. We use a specific, completely instrumental approach.
Let’s remember that having a stable self-consciousness and a whole consciousness is the main issue in mastering psychotechnology.
The functional aspect of the instrument of consciousness
What do we take to be the basic parts of this instrument?
The easiest thing for us to highlight in our consciousness is the process whereby we solve mental tasks, in other words our thought process. This will be the functional aspect of instrumental consciousness.
We all think, but it’s very rare that we try to understand how we do so. Very few people can relate to their thought process like a job.
Any process in man begins with activation of any needs. These needs, which are looking for a way to be fulfilled, motivate the search of an according object. One gets value.
Need plus value create the motive “I want.” This is the first motivating reason on the level of consciousness.
From this point of view the main function of thought is to serve our needs.
So, the motive has been formed. In a more or less open way, consciously or subconsciously, the problem is formed: where, in what, what is the contradiction that we have to overcome in order to fulfill this motive?
At this stage we set our focus on results. This focus is expressed by the fact that consciously or subconsciously man models himself a certain signal which he expects will tell him how to fulfill his motive (the model of future need). For example, two people are in love. If they have various models of how feelings should be expressed, then the effort made by one of them to express feeling may be entirely incomprehensible to the other. “He didn’t give me flowers, so he doesn’t love me. He didn’t say that he loves me,” etc. This is a very difficult problem. Often this signal takes one away from solving the main task. For example, a person gets the signal earlier than the process is really fulfilled. Or the opposite happens: everything has been completed, but the person still hasn’t gotten the planned signal. And at this point finding the signal becomes the goal itself, and the person may destroy everything that’s already been accomplished in his blind quest for the signal.
After setting the focus there is then an analysis of conditions and requirements. This can include analysis of objective reality — the chain of conditions which have to be met in order to solve a task, in other words on the level of claims. It can also include a subjective focus on one’s self (requirements) on the level of expectations.
From hereon the person designs a more or less precise plan of action, after which ideally a solution is born. Feedback in this case can naturally come from practice.
The aspect of organization and communication of functional consciousness
Since thought receives information from one’s memory, it’s obvious that the aspect of organization of instrumental consciousness is memory. The communication aspect is the code, or language.
And if we speak about personality types, and consciousness is the base instrument of personality, then this will be the IM code — information metabolism of personality. In other words this is an original deciphering of the way in which consciousness perceives, processes and gives information.
Expansion of the personality code leads to expansion of the space of consciousness.
The coordinate point, the zero point of consciousness, is need. It is exactly need which turns this whole mechanism on, and makes it whole, being in and of itself irrespective of consciousness.
Here is a general survey of the boundaries of consciousness as an instrument.
What do we need to solve?
The specific targets which stand before us so as to achieve the necessary instrument quality (consciousness), include the following:
1. Perfection of the thought method in accordance with the given target.
2. Memory as the space of consciousness (wholeness of the space of consciousness).
3. Expansion of the size of consciousness (in other words you recognize the method for perceiving, processing and delivering information which is characteristic of your personality, and then go beyond the boundaries of this method).
4. Recognizing and forming the structure of needs.
5. Acquiring the skill of extracting information from mental energy.
The first problem is to perfect the thought method. We talked about this when we spoke of the method of cause-positive thinking. We offered the main principle of analyzing objects under the method of qualitative structures. And now, judging by the above-stated, we can develop the process of solving mental tasks into a conscious act.
The second problem is to have whole space of consciousness. We have a “plural consciousness,” and from this we have a plural I and various systems of criteria for all cases in life. The three postulates which we mentioned above can serve as the starting point for creating whole space of consciousness.
The third problem is to expand the size of consciousness, to go beyond the boundaries of the type of information metabolism of personality — the personality code. Here the problem of false identity enters the picture. Every personality has a large number of directions, norms, etc., many of which have turned into irreplaceable values and self-evident norms.
In order to expand the code of perception we have to overcome these formations.
Here we have a particular difficulty, since the change in the method of speaking with the World changes our behavior, which requires that we change our habitual devices.
When beginning to develop sensitivity to mental energy, we awaken that mechanism inside us which we had in our childhood. Complete reaction — this is a reaction through domination of the mental energy instrument. But the whole problem is that we want to awaken this instrument inside us not only on the level of an adult person, but also on the level of a person who has a well-developed consciousness and stable self-consciousness, so as to use this in a practical and guided way.
Clearly, we are speaking not about refusing to have consciousness, but rather about controlling information which comes from mental energy.
It’s necessary to purposely turn off the appraisal mechanism which works inside us constantly. Otherwise we won’t be able to accept that information which, from the point of view of the situation that has come to be in our consciousness, supposedly doesn’t have any value.
We have to overcome the barriers which limit our perception of objective reality, and increase our contact with objective reality to a maximum. One must widen these boundaries gradually. This work can be done successfully only if one gets help from the outside.
The fourth problem is to recognize and form the structure of needs. The problem is that man doesn’t recognize himself as a system of needs. There are very few people who can answer the question which of their needs are activated at the current moment. Even on the level of value structure we usually have only a very approximate idea of what our value system is and what hierarchy there is within this system.
How to find solutions
All needs, according to P.V. Simonov, can be divided into three classes: biological, social and spiritual (ideal). These classifications are made according to the principle of which objects are used to satisfy a person’s needs:
Biological needs — material objects;
Social needs — social objects (communities of various classes);
Ideal — ideal objects (information).
There is a hypothesis that if almost all biological needs exist at the moment of birth (with the exception of the need to reproduce), then future social needs are born from the need for emotional contact, and most of all with one’s mother.
We know that a child which is torn away from its mother at an age of up to one year is doomed to be psychologically inferior. A deficit of emotional contact leads to emotional coldness and a lack of sympathy, empathy, etc.
Thus the need for emotional contact is basic to all social needs.
The need for new information is the starting point for the group of ideal needs. A newborn has this need as well. A newborn doesn’t need just any irritants, but rather new ones. And if a person didn’t get a large enough variety of impressions at all levels of perception in early childhood, then the process of mental development will be much harder for this child.
The territorial imperative is that all living things try to occupy a territory.
On the level of biological needs this is territory as such.
On the level of social needs, one’s social status is an expression of territory, or in other words a certain level of recognition from a certain group of people.
On the level of ideal needs this is a place in the World (one’s own world), in other words a relation to the world.
Fears “defending” territory
And what regulates the fulfillment of one’s needs on the subconscious level: fears which limit the “territory” of need.
On the level of biological needs such a fear may be the fear of the end: fear of death, fear that food will run out, etc. (although as far as the fear of going hungry goes, there is also an opposite example — the fear of eating (anorexia). While this might appear to be a contradiction at first, this is also a fear of the end).
On the level of social needs this is fear before one’s self. This fear regulates the fulfillment of social needs, and the fear of violating convention and one’s conventional image of one’s self.
On the level of ideal needs this is fear of eternity. We have all felt this fear, thinking, for example, about the eternity of the Universe, or about the fact that our whole Solar System is just an insignificant speck of dust on the edge of the Galaxy. In a primitive example, this fear is expressed by a person’s desire to avoid conversations on “high topics,” since a person fears going crazy.
If you want to consciously transform your needs, then you will undoubtedly run into all kinds of fears (if you really want to extend the limits of your needs).
Extending your limits, recognizing your needs
One has to act very carefully when extending one’s limits. It’s very dangerous to make quick changes. It’s no surprise that in all teachings these limits are extended gradually, in the right sequence and at a certain time. A sharp change leads to an inverse swing of the pendulum.
One has to understand one’s needs and systemize them, and see which of them has which place in your life.
Remember that the larger and more diverse your attempts to satisfy one or another need, the larger and more diverse this need becomes. (A. N. Leontiev, “Personality, consciousness, activity”)
As is well known, our needs and the means to satisfy them were formed under the influence of the people surrounding us before we understood much about this. Self-remembrance, or a “revision” of your life, gives one the possibility to understand when and why one or another need was formed, and by doing so — the possibility to transform it for real, in accordance with that which you yourself want.
Here we are at a key moment for gaining control over consciousness as an instrument. Without doing this work we can’t speak of any self-perfection.
The second method for analyzing the structure of our needs and how to transform them is to determine the values of the structure of personality. This method is simpler, since it is easier to recognize one’s system of values than it is to recognize one’s system of needs.
All ways a person has of satisfying his needs are socialized. Social needs dominate in man’s developmental process, as a person adopts the social experience of society. Even a child can go on a hunger strike so as to get social contact. And an adult, even a very hungry adult, is often unable to eat food which he didn’t have in the environment in which he grew up.
The means of fulfilling ideal needs are also socialized. We think in accordance with stereotypes that we learned in the process of communication and education.
Creating real and ideal value structures gives a clear internal reference point in all choices which you consciously make from now on if you are willing to put in the time and effort to do so.
THE VALUE STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY
A person can put together the value structure of his personality only when being alone and only in the case that he really wants to find out what the hierarchy of his values is. Thus it’s quite easy to trick one’s self. After all, we don’t trick anyone so much as we trick ourselves. This takes place because a person can fulfill absolutely different needs through one and the same value. For example one can use food to fulfill both the need to eat and the need for social status. And there are many such examples.
About self-perfection
In order to put your value structure of personality together, write on a piece of paper everything that is a plus-value in this World for you, or, to put it more simply, write down everything which is good. Then, in the next column, write down everything which is evil to you. Moreover, write these good and evil things down spontaneously, without separating them into large and small categories. Don’t be worried that there are so many plus values and minus values. The most there can be is about sixty.
You will thereby see your real circle of values.
After that we propose making a hierarchy of these values by using the method of critical choice. This is the most difficult place for achieving any kind of objective result.
In your mind, you also play a situation which may not happen in real life. You take two values and make a choice: if I choose this value, then I won’t have the Other, and if I choose the second, then I won’t have the first. Comparing them in this way, you’ll see which of them has a more important place in your hierarchy.
Further on you choose any next value and start to contrast it with the other value from below. In the end this new value also gets its place.
Having determined in this way the hierarchy of plus-values, you then shift to minus values.
The principle is the same, but now you are choosing the lesser of two evils.
As a result you can see your mechanism of choice, which a person doesn’t usually recognize.
First of all, conscious acquaintance with your own mechanism of choice will help you to save time. How often does a person suffer when trying to think of a justification to defend his actions, even though the person knows subconsciously that he will do the same action again and again? Now, looking into your notes, you can significantly decrease the time you spend on these “sufferings” or even avoid them completely.
Secondly, and this is most important: if we speak about self-perfection, then there is a possibility of consciously revising our value structure.
After all, we hereby gain the possibility of creating an ideal model of this structure, and to see how much it is different from the existing model, and determine what we have to do to achieve the ideal (fig. 28). This is a large practical task for us to make new, conscious choices in our life.
Fig. 28

Then, if you still have enough strength to fulfill your self-knowledge needs, we propose doing the following.
Put your plus-values and minus-values on a horizontal axis. From zero to the right — plus-values based on your hierarchy, and to the left starting from zero — minus-values, also based on your own hierarchy, starting from the biggest.
Having done that, take the plus-value which interests you the most, and break it down into plus-requirements and minus-requirements, in other words what do I want from it, and what don’t I want. Using the method of critical choice you can once again set the hierarchy of plus-requirements and minus-requirements, and put them on the vertical axis of your graph. Put the plus requirements going up from zero, and the minus requirements going down.
Thus you can find out the real content of one or another of your values.
In the sector of plus-values and plus-requirements, in the intersections, you will see your motives connected with this value. (That which is on the paradigm is determinant, and that which is on the syntagma is the determinate). Let’s say that for your value of “favorite job” you have such a requirement as being with like-minded people, and in the plus-values you also have solitude. We then check where they cross, and find the following motive: to go to work, and have like-minded people there, while at the same time having solitude. In other words, to remain independent within your community — this is your motive.
In the sector of plus-values and minus-requirements you get a set of choices connected to that value which you developed. (For the above-mentioned motive the main solution is to become a leader.)
In the sector of intersections of plus-requirements and minus-values you get a set of problems.
And in the sector of intersections of minus-values and minus-requirements you get a set of fears, in other words that which you try to avoid (fears connected to this value).
Again, the success of this task depends on how much your need for self-knowledge exceeds your need for high self-esteem.
So, we have made an analysis of our structure of needs, and we have noted a transformation in these needs depending on the goal that you are trying to achieve.
The problem of expanding the personality code
Now let’s move on to examining the problem of expanding one’s personality code.
We said that each person has a code which his consciousness works on. Analyzing consciousness on a system of quality structures, we determine the place of the communication aspect for the code. A person serves as a receiver through this aspect. And it’s clear that precisely the quality of the code regulates the quality of communication. Here we have the problem of increasing quality, or, in other words, expanding the code of our personality.
How is this code determined? First of all: by society. Humans are humans for the very reason that we adopt the experience of society. And we know that the information that we receive is filtered by the society depending on the characteristics of this society.
Secondly, each code is individual. The entire quantity of information received is transformed depending on this code. Here we have one’s internal code as well: how well do I get my bearings in information; how well do I know myself; how often do I communicate with myself; how well do I get my bearings in information provided by the body, my psyche, etc.
Is there anything hidden in one’s personality which can’t be tracked in external manifestations? This is a difficult question. Everything depends on the quality of the tracking method. Most likely nothing is hidden. Personality can’t show itself in any other way other than through action. And even when it seems to a person that only he knows something about himself, that only his own internal dialogue counts, this can still be discovered.
In a play situation, during a test, in other words even in an artificially-created situation, everything “secret” becomes evident.
Personality is cognizable. Our personality develops under certain objective laws which are being opened more and more by science.
Only once we understand that our personality develops under certain laws can we work at separating identity. Assertion of the fact that personality is uncognizable often leads us to fear ourselves more. But we know that the sum total of our societal relations doesn’t make up “my whole self,” thus fear of understanding their mechanism is unjustified. In our work it is absolutely necessary to understand this mechanism; this is an indispensable condition for success.
So, perceiving and expanding the code of your personality. The first step on this path is to remove the automatism of choice. At some point one must take away this automatism completely. As the ancients said — die in order to be born. The first thing that we will feel here is a great decrease in our number of positive reinforcements. This is a serious obstacle to our work. A person can’t live without these reinforcements, he needs to be able to invigorate himself in some way.
For example, if a teenager isn’t accepted by his peers in school, then he tries to receive their respect on the street. A person might not get “plusses” there. You can measure a person’s real future though this factor: how long a person can live without getting a single “plus” from the outside. This period, as a rule, is very short.
We depend on these “plusses”, and it’s not enough for them just to be said; they have to be said in our language. After all, when we get praise we don’t really hear it all, since this form of praise might not be part of our own language.
This isn’t bad or good. It just is. The whole problem comes from the following: do we always move in the direction where the “plusses” lead us? Do we choose them, or do they choose us? This is very important. Here we can see the difference between a personality capable of fulfilling a target action, meaning existence whereby the person manages his own life, or the opposite case.
In other words, we are interested in personality which, being immune to plusses and minuses, chooses reinforcements that come from a chosen source.
This is so-called target being. But the majority of people live only in their dreams and in chaos. I head for point “A,” I arrive in point “B,” and say that I wanted to come here.
What did Einstein’s greatness come from? From the fact that his very scientific activity was just a means for fulfilling the goal of his existence: an affirmation that the World can be cognizable; that the World has laws which can be learned. Einstein’s movement in this direction led a huge number of people in its wake, even those who sometimes didn’t understand the scientific essence of the question due to this all-encompassing goal of existence.
Life as a goal
Life as a goal. Although this is not yet an ideal, it is a very bright, beautiful path.
No plus-reinforcements or minus-reinforcements are allowed besides those which come from the goal we have set.
If a person is not capable of organizing himself in this way, then he moves, without even knowing it, in any direction from which he can receive plusses. He goes wherever he feels “happy.” (This is exactly what flattery is built on.) And we say that this man has broken his life into little parts.
If a person living in a certain micro-community where he is used to having a certain image starts to then change this image, he will get minuses instead of plusses right away from those around him. One doesn’t always have enough strength to be able to deal with this.
“Are you sick?” we are told. Or:  “You’re stale,” or “You’re boring.” There are thousands of forms. And often we retreat to that place where it seems not so important to us. But when we go backwards, even in little things, we lose our integrity right away. The result is that we deviate from our goal.
Expanding the set of roles
There is Another way as well. It’s not necessary to break our image so quickly, throwing ourselves from one target role to another. It’s a much more complex task to expand the set of roles that we already have. And at that point no image will lead to narrowing your code.
What, for example, is the problem of acting today? The problem is that actors have stopped transforming themselves, and one and the same actors go from film to film, from play to play. These people may be fascinating, cute, or smart, but they are all the same in various circumstances. They are the same in tragedies from the Middle Ages just like in production conflicts.
But in fact the same thing happens with us in our social roles. At work I’m the boss and at home I draw this line as well, but in fact at home I’m a husband or son, and not the head of a department. This leads to conflict.
It’s necessary, as V. Levi and others propose, to be able to separate one’s identity from one’s role, to look at one’s self from the outside, and to fulfill this role well.
One other way to expand the code is the so-called art of being nobody.
“He’s that kind of guy!,” is the way the people who surround us speak of us. But you can change. And you can change not only to good or bad. There are thousands of shades. And again and again. In the end you can achieve such a situation whereby the people surrounding you can’t give one simple appraisal of you, or confer you a certain code. But they will always be able to say what products you make. In this case there will never be any confusion between your, so to say, “personal qualities” and the product which you make.
It often happens that a person did something valuable, but it’s impossible to accept it because he’s “that kind of guy.” Everything this person does therefore seems objectionable. Thus we consciously impoverish ourselves.
The system of “being nobody” opens the path to practical mastery of various codes. This system allows us to stop saying I, meaning only the IM code of personality. You can separate yourself from your personality and recreate it in whatever way is necessary for your life goals.
This isn’t pretense, and it’s not a representation of something non-existent, but rather expansion, real expansion of the code. You will start to communicate with people in a broader, more high-quality language.
The supphites say: learn to speak with each person in his own language. Simple calculations show us that this is impossible. But mental technology can help us; using it, you can always speak with a person in his own language, and you will become a polyglot of human codes.
***
So we’ve come to the conclusion that there are two main ways to expand one’s code.
First way. I get information about various codes, concede their right to existence, and try to learn how to use them.
Second way. I have a conscious goal before me — to learn to speak with each person in his language. I become nothing in order to do so. In Indian philosophy this is called the law of great emptiness.
INTRODUCTION TO SOCIONICS
There are several practical applications of the theory of intertype relations, as authored by Aušra Augustinavičiūtė.
We want to offer you a version of functional socionics to solve two problems which relate directly to lessons of mental regulation:
1) so that you get to know your intellectual mechanisms;
2) so that you can foresee the behavior of another person in various situations and so that you know the rules of informational reaction.
We also try to find together with you the criteria for determining the type of information metabolism (IM) of each individual.
Types of people’s IM
Socionics makes it possible to determine a person’s IM type, in other words his way of receiving, processing, and delivering information. We call this the type of intellectual automatism.
How is that in the absence of reflection (without self-consciousness), information is received, processed and delivered to the outside by man?
There are two sources which lie at the base of Aušra Augustinavičiūtė’s theory:  C. Jung’s theory and A. Kempinsky’s concept of information metabolism.
Jung introduced the concept of four main types of information:
— logical (which gives an idea of interrelationship),
— intuitive (which gives an idea of wholeness),
— sensation (which gives an idea of the properties of objects),
— ethical (which gives an idea of relations between objects).
Jung also introduced the concepts of introversion and extroversion and defined them not as being a quality which is constantly inherent to a certain individual, but rather as a kind of situational state.
Extroversion means the prevalence of openness, sociability, vivacity, and mobility. An extreme level of extroversion can become hypermaniacal.
Introversion means clearly focusing one’s self internally, having less contact with others, less flexibility, being inclined to construction and theory, and being emotionally cold. An extreme, pathological degree of introversion is autism, a deep immersion into one’s self, and the loss of contact with the outside world.
Besides the four types of information highlighted by C. Jung, A. Augustinavičiūtė added the supposition that the mechanism of processing information from the outside and the mechanism of processing information coming from within a person must be different.
As a result each of the four types of information received two modifications: subjective and objective. Augustinavičiūtė introduced a designation of these elements, and offered to code IM types with their help. These elements are designated in the following way.

Table of designations of codes of information metabolism types

Augustinavičiūtė introduced the concepts of introtim and extratim, unlike introvert and extravert. What’s the difference between them?
An extratim perceives himself to be an object, and the World to be the subject. For this reason an extratim can rebuild relations between objects, but it’s very hard for him to change the object itself.
An introtim perceives himself to be a subject, and the World to be an object. Relations are fixed for this person, but he can change the object more easily.
The essence of these concepts can be understood quite easily using the simple life situation of an argument. For an introtim an argument means that a friend is still a friend, in other words the relations between them haven’t changed. But in order to make up with this person the introtim has to try and change his friend, appealing to his conscience, reason, etc. In other words, it’s very hard for an introtim to say to his friend: “you’re not my friend any more.” But it’s very easy for an extratim to do so, and he does so. It’s easier for him to change his relations with the object than to change the object itself.
Introversion and extroversion. These are qualities, or states, that a person has in a certain situation.
Introtimity and extratimity. This is a constant quality of a person.
It’s entirely possible for a person to be both an introverted extratim and an extraverted introtrim.
In order to code the IM types, A. Augustinavičiūtė introduced a system of coordinates made up of four functions of IM type:
Function I — reproductive, conservative, its contents determine whether the type has introtimity or extratimity;
Function II — productive, creative, constantly demanding appraisal from without;
Function III — the place of least resistance of IM type;
Function IV — suggestive.
Further Augustinavičiūtė noted that the first two functions are subject to man’s control over them, while functions III and IV aren’t controllable by man. Augustinavičiūtė stated the supposition that man needs communication with the IM type which complements him. We will try to understand just how correct this supposition is.
Presently socionics doesn’t have any 100% sure way of determining IM type through testing. Socionics is empirical and descriptive, rather than scientific in the strict sense of this word.
Principles of functional typology
Using the method of qualitative structures as a base, we will try to build a functional variant of socionics.
First of all, we’ll describe the base elements in the language of their appearance in human behavior.

So we have eight elements which can fulfill four positions which correspond to three aspects: organizational, functional, communicational, and the position of the coordinate point. We will speak about these as about four functions of thinking in the process of perception, processing, and delivery of information. This can be shown in the following way according to the method of qualitative structures (fig. 29).
Fig. 29

Contents of the functions of IM
Now we will speak about the contents of each of the four functions of the information metabolism type (IM).
Function I — the organizational aspect of the IM type means a conservative beginning and the person’s zone of confidence. A person doesn’t doubt anything concerning function I, and can easily make jokes about function I, since he is totally sure of it. But if one attacks someone else’s function I, then the other person will defend it aggressively, since his sense of the reality of his existence is linked to this function.
Function II— this is the product of the functioning of our consciousness. This is a creative element, the information from which man loves to manipulate. Negative comments about function II reduce a person’s activity, while positive comments, on the contrary, stimulate a person’s activity.
Function III plays the role of coordinate point and is the place of least resistance in man since its contents are linked to one’s own self-esteem. Each of us is subconsciously engaged in collecting information for function III all of our life (I have to know everything about that, since if I don’t know something, then I’m a bad person). Why exactly am I a bad person — this depends on the contents of function III. There are eight variations. I’m bad:
— if I’m sick;
— if I don’t have much money, I’m not good looking, or I’m poorly dressed;
— if I don’t understand;
— if I don’t know;
— if I don’t love;
— if I’m not loved;
— if I have an internal conflict;
— if I have an outer conflict.
If negative information is received concerning function III, even if it is completely coincidental, then a person’s reaction will be to avoid this information, since man isn’t conscious of this place, and is not capable of defending it.
For example, those who have an element (subjective sensor) in place of function III are inclined towards constant activity aimed at strengthening their health (hardening themselves, running, going hungry, dosing everything which is bad for one’s health, etc.), and this is done only with the aim of not looking bad in one’s own eyes.
One can determine if a person is aggressive or passive based on their method of defending function III. Passive defense is expressed by demonstrating a negative relation to one’s self.
Function IV — this is the communication aspect, the place of suggestion, the entrance which allows information of a certain content to go through without hindrance or control, since the contents of this function cannot be consciously controlled. Man subconsciously tries to go to that place where he gets as many plusses as possible for function IV.
On figure 30 a and b we give two types of information metabolism from the point of view of the method of qualitative structures.
Fig. 30 a, b

If we cut this figure horizontally, then we can notice the following.
— An introtim person is inverted to the World by extraverted elements (for him the World exists as an object), and is inverted to himself by introverted elements (in other words he himself is the subject).
— For an extratim person just the opposite is true. He is inverted to the World by introverted elements (he views the World as the subject), and he is inverted towards himself by extraverted elements (I’m an object).
If we cut this figure vertically, then we will see two more combinations of functions (fig. 31).
Fig. 31

The movement of information looks the following way (fig. 32).
Fig. 32

We are suggested in the block of function IV; this is an informational entrance;
From hereon information is checked from the point of view of the language of self-esteem (the block of function III screens that information which makes a person bad in his own eyes);
In the block of function I information is translated into the language of construction. That information which can destroy the construction is screened out or re-formed;
At the exit (the block of function II) information is transformed into what we say or do.
The path of information through the blocks of functions looks like this: 4→3→1→2 — everything is understood through double refraction.
One can make 24 combinations of four positions from the 8 elements listed above, but only 16 are viable. They are the following.
1) — Intuitive logical extravert (Don Quixote)
2) — Sensory ethical introvert (Dumas)
3) — Ethical sensory extravert (Hugo)
4) — Logical intuitive introvert (Robespierre)
5) — Ethical intuitive extravert (Hamlet)
6) — Logical sensory introvert (Maxim Gorky)
7) — Sensory logical extravert (Zhukov)
8) — Intuitive ethical introvert (Yesenin)
9) — Logical intuitive extravert (Jack London)
10) — Ethical sensory introvert (Dreiser)
11) — Sensory ethical extravert (Napoleon)
12) — Intuitive logical introvert (Balzac)
13) — Logical sensory extravert (Stirlitz)
14) — Ethical intuitive introvert (Dostoevsky)
15) — Intuitive ethical extravert (Huxley)
16) — Sensory logical introvert (Gaben)
There are entirely specific relations among these types. The automatism of our interaction on the level of personality depends on these relations. The type of interaction depends on the specific contents of the elements of all four functions which come into informational contact. It’s obvious that there can be 16 such variations of interaction as well.
In order to get our bearings in functional socionics, let’s speak about the specific contents of each of the eight elements and about their influence on man’s behavior depending on in which of the four positions this element is located.
1. Subject Sensation
Function I. This person is “absolutely” sure of his sensory feelings, and he is sure that medicine is nonsense; he knows how to take care of himself, he takes care of other people as well. This person talks openly and easily about his intimate relations, and makes the impression of a playful person. But this often doesn’t correspond to reality. This person is very obtrusive due to the conservativeness of sensory feelings.
Function II. This person loves sensory feelings, their diversity, and talks about this fact and is capable of organizing these feelings. This person needs these feelings to change constantly, knows how to eliminate sensory discomfort, and is a good cook.
Function III. This person collects information that concerns questions of health in order to be invulnerable in a sensory way. This person schools himself, hardens himself, and torments himself so that nobody can say to him “You don’t seem to be feeling very well.” He’ll never sit down in a car if it’s missing even one screw, in other words he doesn’t take risks concerning questions of sensory reliability.
Function IV. This person appraises the world from the viewpoint of sensory feelings: “If I’m sick, then the whole world is sick.” This person loves sensory joys, and it’s easy to convince him that he’s sick, or, on the contrary, healthy. He moves in the direction of greatest possible sensory comfort.
Object sensation
Function I. This person is absolutely sure of his potential opportunities, his appearance, his strength, and his capital; he loves to be photographed because he’s sure that he’s good-looking; he proclaims the cult of strength and ability; he’s sure about everything that concerns form; he confidently manipulates people. There are many generals and artists among people with such an IM type.
Function II. This person creatively manipulates everything that concerns form (appearance, power, money, objects, etc.). Such people have various skills that demonstrate their potential abilities (handicrafts of all types, drawing, aesthetics, etc.). These people notice the imperfection of movements. They find poverty so as to turn it into wealth (in many aspects).
Function III. This person is constantly interested in money, appearance, the power of energy, and his ability to manipulate anything. For him old age is a catastrophe, since he’ll look worse in his own eyes (the loss of “power”). This can lead to suicidal tendencies under passive defense of function III.
Function IV. This person constantly thinks about form, appearance, power, energy, and money. He’s interested in those places which have lots of energy, and wants to live the “beautiful life.” He will move in the direction of greatest strength.
2. Subject logic
Function I. This person is sure of his understanding, and it’s very hard to dissuade him from doing what he wants. He doesn’t know how to explain anything, since, in his opinion, everyone else understands perfectly. The first thing he says is “no”; it’s ridiculous to demand that this person say “yes”. You have to wait some time. Strengthening their function I, people with this IM type write down everything, and take notes about everything.
Function II. This person talks a lot, explains a lot, shares his understanding and ideas, and likes to teach others. He loves to take part in discussions, to philosophize, and knows how to defend himself: manipulation of logic is a creative function for this person.
Function III. It’s impossible for this person to admit that he doesn’t understand something, since in that case he looks bad in his own eyes. He gathers understanding all his life, and always says “yes,” even if he understands nothing. These people are always “in the know.”
Function IV. This person can be suggested by any logic, can be loved with understanding, and is easy to persuade by saying: “You think so yourself.” His understanding depends on his understanding of the surrounding people.
Object logic
Function I. This person is sure of his knowledge and in his understanding of the logic of the external World, but is conservative in this understanding. Having learned any rule (if а, then b), he then follows this rule all his life. He believes the printed word and authoritative sources of information. He makes his own order in everything, and you can live with him only by following his own rules. It is said about these people that they have “iron logic.”
Function II. This person loves to study the logic of the objective world, states this logic, is capable of manipulating this logic, is capable of accepting any logic, and uses his knowledge. These people are specialists at discovering and eliminating any disorder.
Function III. This person thinks he is a bad person if he doesn’t know something, thus he collects knowledge all his life, bases his actions on objective laws, and affirms that it is necessary to reckon with objective reality. He propagandizes that which has already been accomplished, approved, and implements that which has been checked. He believes that everything should follow written rules, and is very attentive to established reality.
Function IV. This person suggests himself using any order as long as this order doesn’t change later on; he is influenced by the printed word and by conditions (the facts of objective reality). He moves in the direction of greatest order.
3. Object intuition
Function I. This person’s zone of confidence is in his perception of the outside world as being a whole, finished, consistent situation. That said this person has a hard time with varying changes in the outside situation (for example, infringement of the continuity of the situation due to repairs). People with this function I strive to unite the group into one whole.
Function II. The creative products of this person are his ideas about organization and about the whole. Most often these people are theorists who manipulate ideas. These people are fated to unite everyone in the future. These people have a gift for building, and like to finish others’ work if the Other couldn’t do so himself.
Function III. This person views himself as being bad if he doesn’t perceive the outside world as being whole. Thus this person is very attentive to the outside situation, and to even the slightest changes in this situation. This person is inclined to constancy in his life situation, and is a master at keeping this constancy, even when the situation seems to be hopelessly changed to others. These people know how to optimize hardship, and have good aesthetic taste.
Function IV. This person moves subconsciously towards greatest continuity and constancy in the outer situation, and towards a lack of external conflicts.
Subject intuition
Function I. This person is convinced of his own internal continuity, moral substance, consistency, etc. If you manage to show him his contradictions, then he will have an aggressive reaction. This person is conservative in his goals and ideas.
Function II. This person has constant internal embarrassment and internal vulnerability since he produces internal conflicts. This person feels unneeded when there are no conflicts. This is where psychological vulnerability comes from. This person is a specialist at revealing unwhole situations in people’s internal world.
Function Ш. This person is constantly busy protecting his internal continuity and constancy. This person accepts information only in the case that it can’t cause any internal conflict. This person can ensure himself internal wholeness under any circumstances.
Function IV. This person unconsciously chooses that place where he has the least internal conflicts, thus he is often viewed by others as being stale and egotistical.
4. Object ethics
Function I. This person is sure of the certain relations of people to himself and to others, and it’s very hard to convince him otherwise (he has an aggressive reaction). This person is conservative in this way, and is likely to keep those people around himself who he knows will be good to him. This person knows how to keep the right people.
Function II. This person manipulates others’ relation to himself, and often makes up stories. This person likes to boast and brag, and tells any story as if he is the main character. This person likes to meet total strangers. He knows how to advertise himself, and to organize the needed opinion about him. This person gossips if he has a low level of culture. He sees bad relations and turns them into good ones.
Function III. This person thinks he is good when he is loved, and, defending this place inside himself, almost always acts as a psychologist: this guarantees his good relations with others. If he doesn’t have a good relationship with a person, then he tries to eliminate the conflict or avoid contact.
Function IV. This person strives subconsciously to be there where people like him, and avoids people with whom he has bad relations.
Subject ethics
Function I. This person is sure in his relation to anything, is conservative in this question, and can’t say anything at all about his relation besides simple phrases such as “good” and “bad”.
Function II. Relations to other people are a creative function for this person; he can show this easily, sincerely, and in various ways, and manipulates his relation, while often pretending to be inconstant. This person looks for situations where people are interested in his opinion, and feels needed when he finds such people.
Function III. This person thinks he’s bad if he doesn’t love anybody, thus he has to be in love with somebody at all times. This person talk about love frequently, is affectionate, can create his own theory of love, and is interested in this question. To not love means to be bad in his own eyes.
Function IV. This person subconsciously goes to that place where he can express his opinion, where he will be allowed to do so. For him this is the main criterion for choosing a good place.
PRINCIPLES OF DETERMINING  INFORMATION METABOLISM TYPE
We know the functional contents of each position from the description of IM type. We also know that function I is a zone of confidence, and that a “minus” leads to an aggressive reaction in this person, while a direct question leads to a short answer. For example, a person with the “subjective logic” (function I) can’t prove his understanding and answers questions such as “Tell me what and how you understood” unambiguously and aggressively.
It’s also well-known that function II is a creative, productive function, and that this person looks for “minuses” in function II in order to have something to do, and to feel needed. For example, if function II is subjective intuition, then this person looks for conflicts in order to do something with these conflicts, and in our case the search for “minuses” is a search for work. A direct question asked to function II leads to a long answer (I speak as long as people listen, or even fight for attention).
What do we know about function III? A “minus” leads to a reaction of avoidance, while a “plus” stimulates an approach. This is linked to “self-esteem” of the type “I’m good — I’m bad.” Each of us collects information throughout his life with the contents of function III. (Each of us wants to be good for himself.)
Function IV. This person looks for the largest number of “plusses” for function IV, and goes in the direction of the “good World.”
How can we make a practical definition of IM type? Following a person and his behavior in standard situations, we can make several assumptions. It’s hard to say anything certain about his IM type in difficult situations, when this person reflects his reactions, thus it hasn’t yet been possible to create a reliable enough means of determining IM type.
There is a way of determining IM type in terms of a person’s relations to other, already-known IM types, but this way is also not completely reliable.
In order to establish function I theoretically, we have to ask eight questions about function its contents, such as:
— how do you relate to others?
— why is that you understand one or another problem in a certain way?
— how do you feel?
— do you have any internal contradictions?
The most typical answer will relate to function I, while aggressive and confident reactions will be indirect signs. The theme whereby a person wants to answer but can’t most often determines the contents of function I.
Function II. One can determine the contents of functions II or II+III with questions such as: “What do you have to work on the most?” whereby a person sees his maximum number of shortcomings and imperfection which make up function II. Here the following question will help: “What will you do if you become absolutely free?” At the same time, try to clarify why this is necessary. The specific character of the answer will uncover the contents of function II with a great share of probability.
Function III. This person thinks that it’s indecent to talk about topics in conversations connected with function III. If you inadvertently touch on this topic, then your conversation partner will have a negative reaction: he might blush, and he’ll say how he wants to end the conversation.
If you ask this person to estimate what is most important to him, and what he respects himself for, then the answer will most likely correspond to the contents of function II.
When making diagnostics, don’t forget that most often a person offers from functions II and III, and chooses from functions I and IV.
Function IV. This function can be revealed by asking “where do you take vacation?” The answer to this question will most likely relate to the contents of function IV.
Furthermore, you have to remember that the contents of functions II+IV are connected with one’s understanding of the outside world, while functions III+I are connected to one’s perception of one’s self. The content of functions II+III determine what a person offers; the product of functions II+IV is that which he takes from outside.
Functions I and IV can easily be confused since a person is sure of himself in function I, while in function IV he may be suggested in something at the current moment, which is also often expressed by confidence.
The following sequence of actions is possible when determining one’s IM type:
1) determine zones: intuitive — logical;
2) by separating them in half, attribute these zones to one of the following classes: intuitive, logical, sensory, ethical;
3) solve the question: introtim or extratim?
At the beginning it’s possible to build a supposition on the basis of observations, then clarify this hypothesis with questions.
Intertype relations
When speaking of socionics, don’t forget that just like all other theories, socionics has its own limits of applicability. This is always simply a typological perception and the processing of information by one’s consciousness, but not in any case is it a whole person, and not even all his personality. A person, a personality — these are much larger concepts which can’t be reduced simply to informational metabolism.
For those who want to regulate the states of their psyche, socionics can be very useful in the sense of perceiving the automatism of one’s reactions and the reactions of the surrounding people. It’s impossible to approach practical realization of the problem of psychic regulation if you aren’t conscious of some of your automatisms, both positive and negative, which often control us, but which we don’t realize.
We get much help in solving this problem from knowledge of the mechanisms of communication between people with various types of informational metabolism. But here too socionics should play a very specific role which can be reduced not to strengthening of one’s psychological defense, but rather to understanding of the fact that all people are very different, and that moments of mutual understanding, conflicts and misunderstanding are most often stipulated for only by differences in their ways of perceiving and processing information. It’s entirely possible that this will push you to the need to communicate creatively with other people and to look for ways of passing along information in a language that is understandable to your conversation partner.
Let’s look at several ways of intertype relations and try to show what practical use there is from analyzing these relations.
Relations of dualism
Relations of mutual addition supplementing using the example of analyzing interaction between two IM types: logical-sensory extratim 1 and ethical-intuitive introtim 2 (fig. 33).
Fig. 33 a, b

When analyzing interactions it’s useful to pay attention to which products are made and consumed by both IM types. Remember that the products made are stipulated by the contents of functions II+III, while the information applied is stipulated by the contents of functions I+IV of the IM type. A person with IM type (1) makes products of the following content: a person with IM type (2) , in other words there are two limits to one and the same product.
Furthermore, each of them with their function 1 faces the entrance of the second function; the product of each of them strengthens function III of the other, in other words they automatically protect the most susceptible place for both of them — function III.
Strengthening functions II and IV of one another, the 1st and 2nd types form a closed informational system.
The closure of the system is visible if one examines the movement of information for types 1 and 2 (fig. 34).
Fig. 34

Since these figures have the same elements, we will put two figures into one.
The new figure shows the nature of interaction for types 1 and 2, which caries the name of mutual additions. One of them is introtim, the Other is extratim, and each of them is a symbol of the outside World for the other, and fills the whole external World.
Such a system of interaction is very good for friendship. Duals enjoy relaxing together thanks to their feeling of security, but this isn’t the best combination for those who work. Duals most often can’t be together when they work.
There are conflicts in families where the husband and wife mutually supplement each other and have a child: they start to fight for their child’s attention. And since the system is self-sufficient, such couples often don’t have children.
It’s much more important for the child to be in the company of duals, since children need the feeling of security which they receive when talking with people who compliment each other in order to have normal psychological development.
Relations of activation
Let’s look at relations of activation using the example of an analysis of interactions of an intuitive-logical extravert 1 and an ethical-sensory extravert 2 (fig. 35).
Fig. 35 a, b

There is no balance in these interactions: both sides are extraverts. Let’s look at the movement of information of each of the types and at the general movement of information (fig. 36).
Fig. 36

Here functions I and III mutually overlap. The product of each of them (function II) automatically strengthens the activity of the other, since the exit of one is an entrance for the other. This system is open and not compatible. This is the most preferable type of relations for a family, but you have to remember that breaks are needed in communication since activation can develop in both a positive and a negative direction.
In production the collaboration of activators can be very fruitful.
Conflicting relations
Let’s look at on the example of an analysis of interaction of an intuitive-logical extratim 1 and an ethical-sensory introtim 2.
What’s the essence of the conflict? For the first, the zone of confidence comes in the integrity of the external situation, while for the second the zone of confidence comes in one’s own relation to something. If 1 sees the internal contradiction of 2 (this is his function III), then 2 can’t defend himself; the first’s confidence is a source of constant doubts of the second. And on the contrary, the second’s confidence in his relation to something will make 1 dependent on him, affecting his function III. Thus there is always tension between the two since a negative affect on function I leads to a feeling of disintegration of the whole and leads to a fight over whole’s wholeness. There is an aggressive reaction, and here a person without the tension of realization is not able to do anything (fig. 37).
Fig. 37

If there is a constant negative affect on function III, then this can lead to a complete breach.
***
Take socionics seriously: it isn’t such a harmless exercise. Deep knowledge of these mechanisms can serve as a means of manipulation as well as a means of discovering and understanding one’s self and the people who surround you.
Relations of social ordering and social control
Let’s look at the following version of interaction of three types:
1. logical-sensory extratim
2. ethical-intuitive introtim
3. intuitive-logical extratim.
1 and 2 are mutually complementary,
1 orders 3,
2 controls 3.
What’s the essence of the relations of social order and social control?
The power of social order (1) in relation to the successor (3) is that the function he produces (function II) automatically suggests a successor, and any activity is quickly noticed by the successor. Since the successor can’t reject the one who orders him (suggestion), especially when he feels bad (a search for minuses to the second function), then in this interaction he is under constant tension (fig. 38).
Fig. 38 a, b, c

There is a very typical type of family whereby one of the spouses orders the other spouse. Fulfilling all “orders”, the successor overstrains himself in order to avoid that, and his feeling of self-preservation forces him outside the house. But the one who orders doesn’t have it easy either. He gradually turns into a neurotic person since he is forced to constantly complain in order to stimulate his successor to action. If the successor is a child, it’s entirely possible that he will often be sick, and that he will strive to run away from home when he is a teenager.
In relations between people who aren’t close, those who order fulfill the role of social activity.
One can see from the figure that the production of (1) goes into the entrance of (3) and stimulates him to take action, but at the same the relations between the two are not symmetrical — information moves only in one direction (fig. 39).
Fig. 39

The successor also has some power in relation to the one who orders since the successor’s zone of confidence (his function I) can be found precisely in the fact that the one who orders is always full of doubt (function III of the one who orders).
Let’s look at the relations between the controller (2) and the controlled (3) (fig. 40).
Fig. 40

The controller’s product is a creative element. For the controlled this is function I — a conservative place. If the product is given to the controlled in the form of plus-strengthening of his function I, then the controlled becomes confident about his existence. But if this product is given to the controlled person in the form of a minus-strengthening of his function I, then the controlled person starts to doubt himself, thereby leading to an aggressive reaction.
Considering that the controller’s production constantly and automatically controls the controlled person’s zone of confidence, the latter wants to report to the controller all the time so that the controller gives him his evaluation. The controller can manipulate the controlled person through this mechanism (through evaluations).
If you put the controller and the controlled in one work space, then the controlled person’s capacity for work will decrease significantly. He will look incessantly at the controller and will notice everything that concerns his evaluation.
If the successor and the one who orders are put in the same work space, then the successor’s labor productivity will be extremely high, to the point of complete exhaustion.
The interaction between the pair of supplements (1) and (2) with (3) is shown in figure 41.
Fig. 41

The production made by the duals’ II+III functions enter the zone of the I+IV functions of the successor — his zone of consumption. In the case of (1) this production goes to the entrance (3) and is a social order (you have to do this), while (2) controls the zone of confidence (3) (am I doing the right thing?).
The law of the quadra
Two pairs of supplements can form a quadra — a steady microunion of 4 people with various IM types, the structural elements of which are the same, but of course are located in various position. The quadra is an ideal psychotherapeutic group for a club type. When members of the quadra are united together they feel freedom, openness, and complete understanding. If we imagine the flow of information in the quadra, then we will get an outline such as in figure 42.
Fig. 42

— this is a double eight with opposite directions of movement of the informational flow.
As is well known, the IM type is given based on the first two signs: intuitive-logic extratim (1).
We can build the whole quadra for this IM type.
Let’s picture this IM type based on the method of qualitative structures, then we will add one element from the right, alternating subjects with objects, and not using forbidden combinations (fig. 43).
(2) — sensory-ethical introtim in relation to (1) is “supplemental”,
(3) — logical-intuitive introtim in relation to (1) is a “mirror”,
(4) — ethical-sensory extratim in relation to (1) is an “activator”.
Fig. 43

The system of the quadra is self-sufficient, thus there is no need for action, although these people are very happy to relax together. But if someone comes from a Different quadra, then the therapeutic effect will disappear immediately.
When speaking about relations of mutual supplements, we can note that a person who doesn’t have a dual nearby creates a psychological phantom of the dual inside himself, and often behaves like a dual. Often such a person begins to make his partner into a “supplement.”
Sometimes it’s possible for the IM type to make the transition to a mirror-reflection type. This takes places when the introtim becomes extraverted, and vice-versa.
COMPLETE EVOLVEMENT OF THE  INFORMATION METABOLISM TYPE  (Kalinauskas’ steering wheel)
As per the method of qualitative structures, we will show the type of informational metabolism in the following type (fig. 44).
Fig. 44

The contents of function I are determined by our plus-values, the contents of function II are determined by our plus-requirements (by that which we need), the contents of function III by our problems (those in which a person is looking for a solution to the question “how to live?”), and function IV by the place in the entrance of information, the contents of which is determined by that which is pleasant for us (embodiment of our “I want,”) and our plus-motives.
But we can’t speak of a complete enough study of the mechanisms of informational metabolism if we don’t take into account the dichotomic criterion which is the basis of the evaluation mechanism. We can oppose a set of minus-values to any set of plus-values, a set of minus-requirements to any set of plus-requirements, a set of minus-motives to any set of plus-motives, and a set of solutions to a set of our problems. In other words our wholeness includes the following couples: good — bad, must — don’t have to, want — don’t want, problems — solutions. Continuing these axes in a negative direction and adding the axis of problems – solutions, we receive a full breakdown of IM type based on the method of qualitative structures (fig. 45).
Fig. 45

Problems and solutions — these are shape elements of our thought. Problems are the essence of our internal work (subjective reality), while solutions are objective reality.
The axis of “problems – solutions” is conditionally aimed perpendicularly to the plane of the sketch. It’s impossible to determine the real position of this axis since it varies depending on the life program which we implement, and deviates towards any one of the other axes. You can say which particular life program is being realized at this stage of your life by analyzing the people who surround us to determine which IM types dominate among them. A complete evolution of IM types looks as follows (for example) (fig. 46).
Fig. 46

We ourselves are symbols of our plus-values. Even the most inveterate skeptic has more plus-values than minus-values. Any other ratio between them would mean that this person constantly thinks badly about himself, and this is pathology. If we are surrounded by people with identical IM types, then this means that we are busy strengthening our positions, and are busy with self-affirmation.
Our supplements are the symbols of our desires and plus-motives. That’s precisely why two duals feel so good together that they don’t need anything else. If you are surrounded by duals then you can relax.
Our “mirrors” are the symbols of our plus-requirements, and are ideal workers. If there are many people around you with a mirror IM type to your own type, then your life program is in the phase of active distribution of production (achievement).
Our activators are the symbols of our problems. If you have namely activators around you, then the time of comprehension has arrived for you.
Our opposite types are the symbols of our minus-values. These people simply can’t live together. Their life together turns into a nightmare. It’s expedient to separate in space. It’s very interesting that people with opposite types of characters are very attracted to one another. They also want to have deep understanding. If you are surrounded by people with the opposite IM type, then an important life position for you is “escape from everyday life.”
The type which is opposite to your dual (relations of the superego) embodies your “I don’t want,” your fears, and that which you avoid, that which you don’t want to see and accept in this world. If such types of people surround you then you are focused on the problem of survival, and defend yourself.
The type which is opposite to your mirror (relations of quasi-identity) embodies your minus-requirements, your “I don’t have to.” You want to fight with such a person, and if there are such people around you then you are occupied with a fight and refutation, and you learn to conquer.
The type which is opposite to your activator (conflict relations) is your extinguisher. This person brings you back to reality by telling you that it’s time to take a decision, to make a choice, and that it’s time to turn a multitude future into a single past. Communication with a conflicting type requires conscientious, practical solutions on your part.
***
I hope you won’t deny that socionics is a very good way to see what really exists. The ambiguity of relations has a positive value for you personally; it’s good for you to be in a dialogue with everyone — this increases your self-realization. A person is made up of people, and it’s impossible to try and solve the problem of self-development without understanding this. If you understand that every person came to you in order to talk about you, you can learn much about yourself. Such a position will be very useful for you.
THE PROBLEM OF SEPARATING IDENTITY (Personality and conscious)
How can you achieve separation of identity with the instrumental part of your consciousness?
The problem is that from the point of view of western culture, consciousness is the most important part of a person. If we make an analogy with the eastern separation “body, soul, spirit,” then consciousness is the embodiment of this very spirit. All the more since ideal needs which are fulfilled by ideal objects are contained in our consciousness, and the overall progress of man’s development is meant to give as many people as possible the possibility to satisfy their spiritual needs.
But it’s difficult to satisfy one’s social needs until one’s biological needs are met. And until one’s social needs are met it’s very hard to ensure mass development of spiritual needs.
One needs relaxation in order to completely fulfill ideal needs, in other words time free from working to satisfy other needs.
Knowing the path of man’s spiritual development, we can say that it still found opportunities to fulfill these needs. The closer we get to know ancient art and science, the better we understand that the intellectual abilities and spiritual needs of our ancestors were quite high and diverse.
Domination of spiritual needs can also arise in a very unfavorable situation. However, there have always been people for whom these needs were the most important in life. These people are the ones who developed those systems upon which now, in the beginning of the 21st century, we have once again paid attention to in our search for solutions to the problems of our day.
One of the most significant signs of our time is that for the first time ever humanity has moved from the world of things to the world of processes.
Earlier a person was born and died in practically one and the same world. He lived in the world of things. In our time a person is born in one world and leaves life in a different World.
Processes which earlier replaced each other over the course of thousands or hundreds of years can change today in the course of ten or Another number of years. That which was a special event a quarter century ago is a simple fact of everyday life today.
To be a modern person in our understanding means to change all the time together with the World in which you live, synchronously with all the processes that come in this world.
Now let’s look at what reserves we have in order to, having lived 40,000 years of conscious life in the world of things, adapt now to life in the world of processes.
Essence doesn’t come on its own
A person adapts to the World around him from birth up to 14 years of age (on average) thanks to external influences. He receives his main energy from the outside World, from the surrounding environment.
From 14 to 25-27 years (on average) a person lives on the energy of individuality (including the need to continue the species). A person does everything that is called “self-assertion” on the energy of individuality.
By 26 years old individuality as a motor turns off. After that personality begins to give energy for adaptation, for overcoming all kinds of obstacles. A solid structure of social relations appears in one’s life, one’s position in society is determined, and one achieves everything that was received at the previous stage. A person lives on this energy until he is 37—40 years old.
So, until 14 years we have childhood (I have no responsibilities, and society is required to being me up); after the first crisis, from 14 to 25, a person should fulfill one of the main functions of his biological being — to continue the species; from 25 to 37 he should return everything to society that society gave him as a personality. The crisis of thirty-seven year-olds is one of the hardest, because further there are no universal adaptation mechanisms. From this age (37—40) there is only one motor and one power — essence. And if in this moment of crisis a person doesn’t have the possibility to activate the power of his essence as the leading part of himself, then he begins to move backwards, and becomes conservative. Only one function remains — keeping experience.
Earlier that’s the way it was — old people lived to save their social experience, and they taught young people. Now though, in the world of processes, the experience we have gained becomes out of date by the time of the crisis. It’s only valuable when the person has an open structure, when he can change. This system can be built only on essence. This is the key for solving problems of making the transition from the world of things to life in the world of processes.
The aforesaid has a direct relation to conscience. The information stored is of a certain program. The person who perceives this information will regulate his fate from this point of view. The mechanisms of individuality and personality turn on automatically sooner or later. But the mechanism of essence doesn’t turn on by itself. One first needs separation of identification with instruments, and to work hard on one’s self.
It’s very hard to find one’s own life at this time. Sometimes, thanks to that which a person has already saved up at the previous stages, it’s possible to go a little farther, hiding behind an illusion. But these reserves always are inevitably exhausted. As a result we get that which we call a “living corpse.”
Three stages which can’t be passed, and a fourth
Now’s let look at how we can help ourselves.
It’s necessary, naturally, to start from the fact that the problem of mutual relations with the world of processes is found in the field of our consciousness. If in the first stage of life (1—14 years) consciousness absorbs, and in the second (14—25 years) it extracts information, and in the third (25—37 years) it implements this information, in other words acts, then further on consciousness becomes inert.
Absorbing. Extracting. Implementing. These are the three stages, the three main directions of consciousness, the three crises of the meaning of life. Now we understand that if we got a large amount of knowledge in the second stage of life, and if this information isn’t yet out of date as of the stage of implementation, then I can extend the third stage for a rather long time. There are many examples of this, especially among scientists.
But then implementation is made. And what next? Next remains that which connects us to our ancestors over the course of all the millennia of humankind’s existence.
We read ancient sources of Indian culture, and understand them. We can feel them, enjoy them. We understand the problems of those people, and they are important to us too. And we see that the ancients knew how to solve these problems the same way we do. And ancient art? What summit of thought, conclusions, and penetration into the nature of the living and the dead did our ancestors make!
A whole person and a whole World are left by the last stage.
Whole!..
Essence by nature integrates the most general influences of the surrounding World on man. The same influences take place in the opposite direction as well, on the World.
Thus at the fourth stage we inevitably reach a situation whereby we have one — integral perception of the World and a Dialogue with it.
If this stage begins. If a person realizes his value and appeals to spiritual activity. We call this stage existence.
This is valuable to everyone. In any, fastest changes there are eternal problems. The problems of existence as such, problems of a whole person in a whole World.
A person comprehends them on all levels — from everyday common sense to the heights of philosophy — because when going through all the preceding stages he went quickly through the whole story of mankind, and, consequently, the whole history of man. And if a person can make generalizations based on his own personal experience, then he will be interesting right to the end.
These stages were clearly expressed by the ancients. By 45 years of age a man, having finished his worldly business, left everyone and went to the forest, to the mountains — to spiritual matters. Today’s world looks quite different, but the same stages can be followed quite neatly. In other words they have objective contents. These stages, which were established empirically a very long time ago, remain today too, reflecting the objective nature of man, and the nature of his psyche. These stages are determined precisely by development of the contents of consciousness.
If by 37 years a person doesn’t have a well-developed self-consciousness, then it’s very hard for him to get out of this third crisis of the meaning of life. The number of fatal events that take place with thirty-seven year-olds is immense. Mozart, Čiurlionis, Pushkin…
Consciousness at the stage of essence
What takes place with consciousness itself?
The code (TIM), which should change in accordance with the outside world, remains, and becomes less and less suitable. Its capacity decreases. This code stops letting information, which is necessary for fulfilling our growing needs, pass through it. The amount of unfulfilled demands increases.
In view of the general arrangement that a person is a personality, that he should function first of all in this quality, thought takes a greater amount of energy in relation to the space of consciousness. The functional aspect dominates more and more over the organizational aspect, and in the end the space of consciousness is destroyed.
Having exhausted ourselves on the functional aspect, we then turn to the organizational aspect. But there, in place of a whole, we have just one, albeit a relative and large, specialized piece and smaller pieces along with it — scraps of one, the second, the third…
And we have no possibility to build a new, wider model of our future. In our store rooms we have nothing but personal experience, while our personal experience, no matter how great it is, is of no need to anybody unless it is transferred into general conclusions. It’s hard to accept this uselessness, and often, in order to use our experience in some way, we begin to force our children to accept our experience as a plus-ideal or minus-ideal: “live like I did,” or “don’t live like I did,” giving them not the reasons for our problems or victories, but rather the misfortunes and victories themselves, which have already (in the world of processes) gone hopelessly out of date.
Thanks to what can we transfer our personal experience to our existence?
Thanks to wholeness, when we find a phenomenon of the whole in the small parts of everyday life.
But what is this wholeness if the space of consciousness has been destroyed? Thus the plan of action which makes up the fourth stage looks like this:
— conscious organization of the structure of needs;
— work on the wholeness of the space of consciousness;
— work on managing the thought process;
— work on separation of identity with consciousness as an instrument. It would seem that a person should show his worth in this, but it is namely here that he most often turns out to be inadequate. This is how the life of this instrument is connected to the stages of our life.
Finding a solution to this problem once and for all requires being able to separate one’s identity. All other measures are simply heel-dragging, and more or less temporary.
Otherwise, those who don’t separate their identity, being under the power of speculation, under the power of the custom of playing with thoughts like with toys, in the power of ceaseless plays on words, concepts, intellectual exercises, a game which we can’t stop because we see a reflection of the time of our life in it, a feeling of the subjective process of life — we won’t make the step to the fourth stage.
There is no Other function in a specific consciousness besides serving our needs.
Variants of separation of identity
There are two well-known variants of separation of identity from consciousness.
First variant: a gradual study of consciousness, insight into the specifics; understanding of the structure, types of development; use of a special method for expanding the code, for increasing the wholeness of space. This is all very good, but in general there follows the goal of perfecting the instrument, and separation of identity on this path, while it can happen, requires lots of time.
Second variant: the path leading directly to separation of identity (described in many empirical studies). This variant comes from the idea that we purposely enter the position of the observer in relation to the activity of our self-consciousness.
The first variant, naturally, also puts us in the position of the observer — after all, in order to study something, we have to look at it from the side. But here there is a qualitative difference: if the first variant goes from the small to the big, the second goes from the big to the small.
The second variant is built on the principle of separation of identity through meditation. Here’s an example: “Each day I spend a certain amount of time observing the work of my consciousness, and I do so until it stops by itself.” When calmly observing your stream of consciousness, without additional impulses, this flow gradually stops, and exhausts itself. When one is focused, and is turned off from the influence of the external environment, then one can observe the process in its natural manifestation. And stop the flow of consciousness all the way to achieving calmness, silence. (Remember our basic exercise on meditation.)
In order to achieve the results we want we must also examine the problem of the interrelation of consciousness and personality.
Consciousness and personality
We know that consciousness is the base instrument of personality.
(Base doesn’t mean the only, mental energy and the body also take part in creating the volume of social relations, but under the command of consciousness.)
Personality is only a part of us.
And there can’t be any separation of identity until you are able to really stop identifying your I with your personality.
From this comes the faulty position of those people who turn to special literature and, getting to know the technique of meditation from this literature, try to achieve real results on their own. One’s personality, being the replacement of the person as a whole, doesn’t allow for anything to be done with it, and won’t voluntarily give away its power over its owner.
For a person who has an intense social life, the needs of the body, as they believe, are an embarrassment. And he takes a step towards striking through, to “circumcising” his own individuality. The “animal” seems strange to him, and he’s scared of it.
Essence disturbs even more. Because when I get to the level of whole perception of the World, when global problems of human existence stand before me, then everything that I need to do each day seems so inferior. But I have to do these things…
So the essence level is also “bad” in that it has to be crossed out, which, as is well-known, is done.
And at that point the only thing left is personality — this is the ideal model, a secret idea! If there was just personality, then everything would be great!
This is how a person becomes alienated from himself. He begins to see himself only as man power. He calls himself simply that part of himself which he gives to society as labor force. And by doing so he refutes his nature, his spiritual essence.
This process, which Marx and Engels wrote about back in the 19th century, turned from being a general philosophical problem into a real problem of our day and age. And the “culprit” is not the exploitative state, but rather we our selves. Because this is prestigious, and because a person is valued most of all by this criteria.
Now we change our mind: the birthrate is falling, and families, the wholeness of man’s existence, are being destroyed. Cruelty is everywhere, as is violence. The number of psychological diseases is increasing. Where does this all come from?! Ah, protecting the environment! We protect the environment, but we ourselves don’t live like we used to. But these are two parallel problems: the environment can’t bear our violence, and the nature of man can’t bare it either (man’s ecology). And the most important thing is that the violence is most often inside us ourselves. We have time enough to fulfill a life of individuality and essence. But we rush, and can’t think about anything, because we don’t give ourselves the right to do so. But personality doesn’t get any richer from this. Our personality itself, being put by us in such a solitary position, starts to come apart. We think that the need for wholeness, even after such a short explanation, is obvious to all. But it’s very hard to implement this wholeness. People latch onto their personality with such might, as if someone was taking it away from them. But that’s not true! We just have to understand precisely: yes, personality is the functional aspect, but no less and no more than that. The life of one’s personality is part of existence, but not all of existence.
So, the thing we must do is to understand that personality is only part of the whole being.
Considering that the base instrument of personality is consciousness, all the main things in personality’s behavior are determined by two factors:
1. the contents and structure of consciousness;
2. practice (social).
Here we have a key moment in the interrelations of science and non-science. To begin with, I remind you that in ancient empirical teachings the question of social practice was often destroyed by its religious contents. Obviously, we can’t accept that.
We can’t and don’t want to get rid of social existence, but we can have an effect on ourselves, and change the structure and contents of our conscious, and thereby have an effect on the practical activity of our personality.
This isn’t a simple task. For a person made up of a personality, this question is solved more easily — he has fulfilled his social mission somehow or other.
But for young people the solution to this task often leads to rejecting social practice, to asocial behavior, and thereby to discrediting those ideas since a rejection of functioning also destroys the whole.
Our task is for people to harmoniously become whole.
If I accepted the fact that personality is only part of my whole, then I, naturally, come to the conclusion that consciousness too is not the only instrument with which I influence objective reality and learn about it. There is an integral whole behind consciousness, just like behind any other part of me — I. And this integral whole is perceived through self-awareness.
NEEDS (Main problems of fulfilling one’s needs)
1. Biological needs. This class includes needs that are satisfied by material objects.
The biggest conflict here is in satisfying one’s needs for safety and territory. At the present time this conflict is the most difficult to implement for various social reasons, as well as because when relating to the body as to an “animal”, in other words relating to the body with fear, people ignore the body’s needs, and thereby destroy their own foundation.
There is a modern parable which goes like this.
— Dear teacher, — some people said to a spiritual man, — we want to follow your path. We want to live spiritually.
— Do you have an apartment? Do you have a job? Do you have money for your life?
— No.
— Get yourself a job and a place to live, then come back – was the answer.
To get settled, to really get a safe piece of property that belongs only to you, to do so in accordance with the quality of your personal biological needs, not idealizing this moment, — this is what the system suggests to man.
But upon deciding what you really need to fulfill your property and safety needs, you will see that you don’t need much in general, and you can push off from there. It is absolutely certain that you will find a variant for a real solution to this problem.
Often people whose needs of this kind are infringed throw themselves into the crowd, into contact with others, since a person dissolves as a single object in the crowd, and feels safer as a result. But unfortunately this person, even after achieving this illusory safety, can’t act, because he doesn’t exist, and any announcement that “I’m here” will destroy this pretty self-deception.
Or Another variant: we want to make a couple, we find one, and this too gives us a short-term rest. Short-term because as soon as we have our first real emotional panic in these relations our unsolved problems come down on us with double the force, and often erase everything that the couple has built together, and even the couple itself.
In other words you understand that only a concrete real solution to your problems connected with your base biological needs for safety and property will allow you to move on further.
2. Social needs are fulfilled by social objects.
The base need is the need for emotional contact. This need connects one’s biological and social needs. The remaining social needs develop from this one, including such needs as the need for Us, the need for social territory, for social status, and others. In order to fulfill these needs, communication should take place on an informal level, whereby a person accepts another person for who he is, with all his plusses and minuses.
This isn’t possible in a formal situation, for example at work. There a person is required to be functionally active, and must develop not as a whole, not naturally and freely, but rather in accordance with rules and regulations.
In this case, it would seem, the best place for emotional contact is the family — a community which doesn’t have formal relations. But that’s not the case.
A man and woman come to the family to relax from their stressful work, but not having any separation of identity from this work, these people still bring the formal relations of their workplace home with them. These people already can’t accept their partner for who he or she really is, but rather try to change him or her in accordance with their concept about him or her. They try to force a certain, strictly fixed function upon this person.
Or another example. Many try to satisfy their need for emotional contact by making their children to be God. But, taking a child to be who he really is, you can’t raise him, in other words change him. Taking care of him, you deprive yourself of the possibility to satisfy your need for social contact.
Feeling this deficit, people often try to substitute contact on the level of consciousness for emotional contact, which is a manifestation of their need for social territory.
What can we propose as a solution to the problem? It’s easiest to solve this problem in the company of friends, where you are accepted to be who you are, and where you can conduct yourself without controlling yourself. But this doesn’t happen often, since here we need two-way communication. After all, you have to take people to be who they really are in response so as to keep this situation in time.
Undoubtedly you can look for such people using the method of trial and error. You may get lucky all of a sudden. But it’s a lot better, just like with biological needs, to try and solve this problem knowingly.
Objectively evaluating what quality of emotional contact satisfies you, try to then find a situation which suits this norm.
The method of trial and error, in our opinion, is bad for the very reason that the consequences of a chaotic search for a solution — debts on liabilities dished out right and left — can exceed your possibilities, in other words start to destroy your psyche, leading to deep emotional depression. There are many examples of such.
3. Spiritual needs are fulfilled by spiritual objects. The base need is that for new information, the manifestation of which can be seen even among newborns. And if you deny your child the possibility to constantly receive this information already at this age, then your child will grow up, as a rule, to be poorly developed intellectually. There is an important difference between the first two groups of needs and this one. If biological and social needs can be practically saturable, spiritual needs are not saturable in principle (P. V. Simonov, P. M. Ershov).
Objectively examining the situation in the World today, we can say that far from always and everywhere nowadays is there a real possibility to fulfill our spiritual needs. Many people never even start to fulfill their spiritual needs over the course of their whole life. Thus we have the right to confirm that mankind, unlike other forms of life on Earth, has not yet reached perfection of the species.
At present the main problem which arises when fulfilling ideal needs is that of the conflict between knowledge and existence.
The difficulty here often comes from the fact that having lost the situation in one’s subjective reality, a person turns out to be unable to take any real action.
Here Another person can come to our aid to whom we, trusting him from the start, give the right to be our mirror, and to criticize us. In all ancient and not so ancient teachings this person is called the Teacher, Helper, or Guide.
We know from a great many examples in history that only when having an Other can there be real movement on the Path.
Needs and regulating fears
All ancient systems of psychological regulation had one and the same target. They all originated from definitions about man as about a whole, and gave him the means to understand that there is I, and how to escape from the prison of identity.
The main problem of psychological regulation is the problem of meeting ourselves. What’s the difficulty?
A rational person as the product of evolutional development is an unfinished being. Rational man is only 40,000—60,000 years old. Man is currently in the developmental process, and if we want to understand something in ourselves, then we should look at man from the point of view of this process.
What’s happening to us now? We are tossing about between two poles: megalomania and the complex of the little man, and this is the course of many of our internal conflicts. This is our problem.
We want to be “psychics”, so as to somehow satisfy ourselves and escape our internal melancholy, and our feeling of inferiority and imperfectness. But in real life there are very application points for such functional abilities. The system given in this book is not here for us to become “psychics,” but rather to become the artists and creators of our own life.
Let’s follow the process of man’s development from birth. Let’s look at children: they live absolutely differently than adults do, they intake information and yet they live in a state of whole being, without opposing themselves to the surrounding World.
Receiving education, growing up, a person makes the transition to standard forms of life, and becomes the “owner of ‘chaotic’ consciousness. It’s as if he’s “falling asleep,” coming more and more often under the power of various stereotypes. Now only unusual situations can wake this person up. Only obstructions stop us from falling asleep completely.
But at the same time namely an adult person can consciously go down the path to whole being, and everything that he finds on this way, he’ll find by consciously connecting with the World, entering a Dialogue with it. Thoughts about the whole are one of the factors which often lead to fear. The thing is that man has been practicing separating himself from the World for 40,000 years. He’s afraid of wholeness, of continuity with the world, and thus he separates himself from the World using a multitude of “fences”. Not every one of us is able to escape from these fences. We have to want to escape, and to know how to do so.
Some of these “fences” have already had their day, and have lost their original meaning. Today they only disturb modern man. Some fences are needed though since they serve as protection in our lives. Mankind is not ready for a mass “exit to eternity.” The majority of us simply can’t sustain that.
So what can we do with our “fences?”
We have to get to know ourselves and our protective mechanisms by understanding the history of man’s path.
Forty-thousand years ago man was a natural being who was dissolved in the surrounding environment. But then man started to feel that he was different from the surrounding World. The concepts of I and not I appeared, and this terrified man.
The grain of sand and the Universe. The echo of this terror lives in each of us. We rarely allow ourselves to remember that there is I and there’s the Universe. The birth of consciousness is an incredible weight from the point of view of our feelings. There is an image and there is the word, but there is no wholeness of consciousness yet (only the leader’s voice as a foothold). And man hides behind We or for him (“Dad”). After all I and not I — this is tension. All the “fences” inside were needed in order for our psyche to sustain the birth of consciousness, since this is a very heavy weight. Even today we are very surprised by he who thinks a lot, reads, and “philosophizes”. We say to him: “You’ll go crazy, go take a walk instead.”
However more often than not we don’t build these “fences” ourselves. We simply receive them as part of the process of socialization. And most often our I is a fiction behind which stand We or He.
The image of social needs
In our age we are more often afraid that we don’t suit a generally accepted image than we are that we will die of hunger. This is because social needs now dominate for the majority of people. (There is much less demand for ideal needs presently.)
Fulfilling one’s needs leads to searching for one’s territory according to the territorial imperative.
After fulfilling biological needs, the fight for territory is then expressed in the need to have private space (a room, apartment, house, dacha, etc.). This is a base need, and when taking private space away from children you distort their psychological development almost irreversibly.
When fulfilling social needs we try to have our own “circle of acknowledgment” — this is the group of people where we are considered to be “good.” The family is a space where man is respected more than in any other place (ideally, of course), in other words the family can be a stable circle of acknowledgment.
Social territory also includes the “circle of identification.” This is those and that with whom and with which we identify ourselves, it’s our We.
Your “circle of meaning” is determined by the prestige of your profession, work, position, and your place in the social hierarchy. This is very important for people — to be socially significant in one scale or another.
These three circles make it possible for us to determine our place in society, and if a person doesn’t find it at home and at work, then he goes to other social spaces.
The context of ideal needs
Fulfilling our ideal needs is connected to our life world — this is that real context, that part of objective reality, on the basis of which we perceive ourselves. On the background of what scale do you perceive yourself? This is your territory in the World.
We can name Tsiolkovsky, Chizhevsky, and Vernadsky as examples. They created the bases of cosmic thinking. Tsiolkovsky lived in the Universe and thought on the scale of the Universe. Chizhevsky felt “at home” in the Solar System, and Vernadsky’s planetary scale allowed him to create his teachings of the anthrosphere. This is their territory in the World.
And what territory do you have? On what background do you really perceive yourself?
If you really perceive yourself to be part of mankind, then that is your World, your ideal territory, your house.
Basal fears — Our “fences”
Fulfillment of our needs cannot be “eternal”. It is activated by regulation of basal fears — these are our fences.
Fear of the end serves as such a regulator on a biological level. We fear that we’ll say something wrong, look wrong, or make a bad impression. This is the fear of remaining alone, together with the World and our self.
Fear of our self is our basal fear on the level of social needs: “all of a sudden I’ll do something wrong, or I won’t be who I should be.”
Fear of eternity (the fear of going crazy) is the regulator on the level of ideal needs. We try to be very protected in this place. Hidden form of this fear are deliriums of being followed, of influences, etc. Here’s it’s important to understand that that which we are afraid of is not actually going crazy, but rather losing our self-identity. This is fear before the scale of the World.
There are various views of the World which we follow regardless of whether we understand them or not. For example:
1. Space is exact, time is elongated.
2. Time is exact, space is elongated.
The particularities of our perception of reality depend on this. Often the reason for activation of our fears is that there is a discrepancy between the level of challenge and the level of expectations.

The level of challenge is that which I would like to be.
The level of expectation is that which I demand from myself.
Discrepancy between these levels is the reason for many psychological pathologies. The best variant for psychological health is when the level of expectation exceeds the level of challenge.
Remember this rule: always play on the down, and your psyche will be healthy. And if you raised your level of challenge, even jokingly, then raise your level of expectation jokingly too.
This is your daily psychological help for your self.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE TOOLS AND THE GAME
Influencing the organizational aspect — on the body, we can’t do anything in particular. In our culture there is no possibility to dedicate ourselves to the body in the same way that it is required to do so in, say, hatha yoga. Those who work with their bodies constantly are forced to do so as a result of their professional need. Such people include circus acrobats, professional sportsmen, dancers, etc. But their preparation looks like normal trainings, like studying certain skills, while at the same time the body as a whole might not be suited to this training (the principle of target functionality).
As concerns the development of consciousness as an instrument (the functional aspect), here the majority of people believe that everything in our consciousness is pre-determined by guests or by circumstances. Sometimes we mystify our consciousness, thinking that we can’t do anything with it in principle, besides developing our memory, learning something new, etc. There are no professionals in this field, thus we don’t have an “intellectual rodeo.”
Here we can see where people get their mythical relation to phenomena such as fast counting, amazing memory, etc. We don’t have a professional relationship with our consciousness, therefore we don’t know how to relate to our consciousness in a professional way. This is a condition of the process of man’s evolutionary development: our consciousness is still young: it is in the process of becoming, and has won its leading position relatively recently. At the same time in all ages there have been people who tried to approach consciousness instrumentally (for example, the intellectual traditions of Tibet). You can read about intellectual games in the novel “Glass Bead Game” by Herman Hesse. But this is an exception, and the rule is that the majority of people are not able to view their consciousness as an instrument and thereby identify with it so strongly at this stage of development.
As for mental energy (the communication aspect), here we don’t even have a monosemantic definition. We call it the emotional-determination sphere, or the emotional-feeling world, or mental energy, etc.
How can we relate to that? People relate to this sphere professionally in the field of acting, but acting isn’t for life. In our everyday life we consider acting to be insincere. And is it possible that we simply can’t act, since we lack enough emotion? Our emotional-feeling sphere, unfortunately, is quite poor. We, speaking with one another, try to almost completely exclude any emotions, and this leads to a distortion of the whole. This often serves as the reason for the appearance of unjustified aggression, cruelty, and callousness.
In terms of our potential opportunities in the emotional sphere, we can be compared to an organ, although more often than not we are similar to an out of tune piano which has sixteen stuck keys and forty broken strings.
It’s enough for you to develop your sensitivity to be considered to be a “psychic,” and if you develop your empathy to a normal condition then you will be “telepathic”.
But our goal is not functional exclusivity, but rather development as a whole, and if you can manage to relate to your mental energy in a working manner, then this will become possible. Quality of the organ, feeling, and emotion will become possible, like Bach’s music.
The system of work with mental energy is built on the language of levels and rhythms (DFS), aimed exactly at this: at development of the psycho-emotional sphere as support for full feeling of reality.
Practical usage of the language of levels-rhythms makes it possible to manipulate one’s state of being, to really change one’s behavior, and to create the music of experience.
When developing the psycho-emotional sphere, stability becomes of prime importance. After all, that which we call “evil,” or “bad luck” in everyday life is the result of a person’s psychological instability. Something besides consciousness takes action and gets rooted inside you; this is your “evil.”
Stability in the face of the influence of the external environment depends on the range of your behavior. If you are rooted firmly in your range (your IM type, your dominant, your type of character, etc.), then any movement outside your range will cause trauma to your psyche.
The problem of stability in the face of stress can be viewed as a problem of expanding your range. As people get older they become more vulnerable, since their range becomes firmer and firmer, and even decreases.
By playing at different behaviors, playing at other types, and in unusual states, you thereby gain the ability to deliberately increase your range, and to increase your stability in the face of changing aspects of reality.
Playing helps form the skill of creative interaction with reality, reduces one’s threshold of fear, and gives one the ability to give preference to development over adaptation.
Our task is to gain this skill, which in the future will help us to independently regulate our psychological state. This is a hard task. And in order to solve it you need to get the right technological means which will help you achieve what you want.
The main active means in our work is realization, formation of a correct concept of man, about the I-concept, and about communicative interaction. Situational education is not available to us now, and the only situation that we use now is a situation of too much information.
This is our situation at the current stage: our work is aimed at comprehending, because when undergoing situational education without comprehension, the skills we’ve acquired are quickly lost. Education built on feeling, but without comprehension, does not give any skills for further life.
For many of us the problem is that we live in the public eye, whereby we have to act in the view of many people.
How can we learn to be as effective as possible in this situation? There are simple rules which we have to follow.
We have to get to know our partner. Before you begin to act, look carefully at the person around you, and think about this person. Maybe you will have a foggy idea of who this person is, but it will at least be a whole perception of this person.
Cultivate respect for the situation which you enter, and if you want to be effective, don’t rush in. First look, listen, and think, and only then act.
Before you enter the room, think who might be there, what interest they might have, what their relation to your topic is, etc. This is preparatory work.
A high index of introvertedness — submergence into the internal world ⎯ will help you to take away your psychological tension before the changeableness of objective reality, and will raise your feeling of your own stability. At the same time this will prevent you from having a living dialogue, since it doesn’t allow the living suddenness of your partner’s behavior, and will replace your attention to your partner (how do people understand me?) with attention to yourself (am I really the one speaking?). There are two main types of reaction of living beings in nature to threatening situations:
⎯ passive-defensive,
⎯ active-adaptive.
This is a born-in trait for each of us, but what kind is it for each concrete person? And do we really have to know about it? Will such knowledge be strength?
The thing is that any action (self-regulation, development, etc.) is possible only then when that I exists which has objective knowledge about itself. We often don’t want to know about that which is really negative inside ourselves. We love to trick ourselves, and know only that which we consider to be good. We almost don’t try to understand the truth about ourselves.
There is also a direct link between the passive-defensive reaction and introvertedness. If we fall into a stupor on the physiological level in a threatening situation under this reaction type, if we can’t control our bowels, or other physiological reactions of such a type occur, all the way to anabiosis, then at a psychological level this role is played by the position of introvertedness: “I defend myself as much as possible, I protect myself from the situation which doesn’t suit me, I get lost in my own thoughts.”
This type of defense worked, and was effective, at one time. At that time mankind lived in a stable world, in the world of things. Now we live in the world of processes, we enter a constantly changing World, and we can’t keep our usual view of the world.
But our “foundation” is common sense. And from this point of view we can have a stable view of the world. We try to stop the process: “Stop the World, we want to get off at this stop!” Introvertedness stops us in the world of processes, since we can’t take away our psychological tension with its help. And if our biological reaction to stress is inborn, and can’t be fixed, then our psychological way of reaction can be corrected. Our psyche is much more mobile, and we can make the necessary ways of reacting to the situation inside.
Entering the Dialogue, we have to purposely be extraverted, we have to open up to the outside situation as much as possible, otherwise we won’t see the real situation, and we will pay attention only to ourselves for the most part.
Thus we can view the problem of the Dialogue from the point of view of the correlation of extravertedness and introvertedness as well.
In which way does the state of introvertedness attract man? In this state he reflects his subjective world more precisely, he is more independent emotionally, he perceives very fine shades of feeling, he perceives the details of a situation, and brings them inside, as if stopping the situation at hand.
An extravert, on the other hand, moves together with the situation, and doesn’t manage to notice shades and details. Attention and experience are completely brought outside. This is where we get the conflict of feeling between them, which can be described as the contradiction between fine sensitivity and emotional stability. Both the one and the other are a way of forming interactions with the World. Each of them has its own advantages and shortcomings. The problem is how to set dynamic balance between these ways. (For example: the base exercise of “The Fiery Flower” makes both the states of introvertedness and extravertedness instantaneous.)
Let’s return to the problem of how to act effectively in public situations. An introverted person ignores the situation — it is replaced by the internal model. This makes it possible for man to keep the concept and his composure, and to direct all his attention to exactly expressing that which he has thought up.
An extraverted person is appropriate to the situation at hand, but, when going after it, after momentary understanding, he can lose his intention. One of the two ways is used depending on what you want to do: to aim your attention towards the precision of your actions, or towards other people’s understanding of your actions.
How can we develop the insufficient skill of extravertedness? Only by comprehending the process of what is happening. After all, we have to analyze the process without stopping. Every living thing is a process, and man too.
Talking with a person, you enter a process, and it’s as if you take part in it, while at the same time your assessment-style thinking stops dominating, thereby leading to greater depth in your communication. Our culture is such that we aim for precision even in art. This leads to the habit of being introverted. We gain more precision, but we become less deep. Depth is achieved by focusing our attention on a process (in other words extravertedness), by refusing to be precise and detailed. What can help us to overcome the dichotomy of introvertedness — extravertedness?: Constant feeling while keeping stable self-consciousness.
Let’s imagine a person sitting behind the steering wheel of a car. New impressions come flying at him. But he doesn’t manage to experience this flow of impressions coming at him. The driver turns his head around, and the car is already being driven by Someone else, not him. In this way entire pieces of life turn out to have fallen by the wayside, and we can only make excuses: that’s what fate had in store for me, it was “karma,” the zodiac was aligned like that, etc. In the end we turn our backs completely “to movement,” and life turns into a chain of coincidences.
Increasing the intensiveness of your feeling, you can look all the time at the present. In this case you enter some kind of third, principally different state of being, which is different both from introvertedness and extravertedness. This state is known to several ancient schools. For example, among the Suffites, one of the techniques of the Order of Happy Lunatics was the technique of “going insane,” which meant to bring one’s internal reality to the outside as much as possible, and to bring one’s external reality inside. This led to absolute spontaneity of behavior while keeping one’s goals.
Extroversion and introversion don’t have to be an antagonistic dichotomy. A person has to, and can be led to a state whereby this dichotomy disappears. This state keeps the depth of perception and the precision of action, and in this case the path to resonance of subjective and objective realities is opened.
AND ONCE AGAIN ABOUT THE BODY
View from within №15
We see the following parts to such an object as the body as part of the method of qualitative structures which we already opened in this book:
1. The organizational aspect — organism.
2. The functional aspect — movement.
3. The communicational aspect — sensory feelings.
4. The coordinate point — the program.
The concept of the program is the most difficult.
We know that the coordinate point is that which gives wholeness to the structure. This element, which is neutral in relation to all levels of the given whole, is a coordinate factor.
The problem today is that the body’s program is dual. On the one hand, it’s a simply instinctive, genetic program of man as a biological being, while on the Other it is a program which goes from consciousness. And, naturally, decoupling of the programs leads to a breakdown in the wholeness of the given instrument.
We know what an enormous influence suggestion and self-suggestion have on the body. One word can lead to both a positive result, for example during muscle relaxation, or to a real somatic violation.
The program which goes from consciousness can still be distorted by false personality, by a distortion in the code.
In the case of a lack of separation of identity from consciousness, the program, which goes from it to the body, has no feedback, because it has no self-consciousness. Thus the body becomes vulnerable to external influences since we know that a consciousness which isn’t separated from identity is controlled by external influences, and that these distortions enter directly into the body.
Thus a person, even though it sounds paradoxical, can make himself sick.
Correct relations with our body, like with other instruments, are formed only in the case that the program, which goes from instrument to instrument, is corrected by self-consciousness.
Thus the first and most significant factor concerning interaction with the body is separation of identity.
But to let the body go immediately and to give it freedom is usually quite scary. After all there are a number of programs in it which haven’t been realized. Thus this must be done gradually.
View from within №16
Our body, as a rule, is in a very bad state today. Its level of functionality is cut. We don’t really trust the level of communication, in other words our consciousness, and the whole system deviates to the level of organization, and becomes conservative.
Appeals to increase one’s movement are one of the ways in which we compensate, a way to restore our level of functioning.
It’s very important to find one’s own methodology which is necessary and useful to your particular body among the great number of methodologies available. This, of course, is quite difficult, but this question can be solved when a person has stable feedback.
In hatha yoga, for example, there are about one thousand exercises, but only a small number of them are the same for everyone, while the remaining ones are all very individual. Thus that which is useful to one person can harm another. Today there are many examples that show that exercises taken from a book don’t lead to the expected positive result. We can say the same about other various methods as well.
Thus we need separation of identity when solving the problem of the opposition between “I and the Other” as well.
ONCE AGAIN ON MENTAL ENERGY
Problems connected with mental energy are some of the most difficult and most widely-discussed when studying man. Recently more attention has been paid to all kinds of people’s extraordinary abilities, for example telekinesis, telepathy, clairvoyance, etc.
Such interest shows two things. On the one hand, it shows that today science has received more perfected means of interaction with empirical knowledge, as a result of which we have turned to finding scientific explanations to all the knowledge that appeared in the history of mankind long ago.
On the Other hand, interest in extraordinary abilities is connected with a general interest in living man, and his problems. This is an interest in the problems of man’s existence taken together. This leads us to an understanding that this phenomenon is a serious problem, both a scientific one and a social one.
The paradox of the situation is that the interest in extraordinary psychophysical qualities, inherent to man, first appeared thousands of years ago. We know about this from ancient empirical studies, and various philosophical-religious esoteric schools. In these studies we can see all kinds of interpretations of these facts, as well as various methods of classification of the qualities of that which we today call one’s bio field, bio energy, and mental energy.
The scientific approach, on the other hand, appeared only at the end of the 19th century, when psychology as a science appeared. But for a long time such a phenomenon as, for example, telepathy and telekinesis, or treatment using “energetic impact,” was officially considered to be charlatanism.
What’s the difficulty behind any kind of explanatory principle as concerns these phenomena?
Each person taken individually is a unique phenomenon, and is unique in his wholeness. It’s well known that even nature is not able to produce two absolutely similar brains. Thus if the brain, which crowns man’s whole nervous system, is so diverse, then the phenomena which are known to man in their ancient forms are super-unique. Raphael’s Sistine Madonna can be copied, but it’s both impossible and senseless to create the same work of art. Raphael’s work is unique.
Man with his particularities is the same: a unique work of nature.
But won’t it be that if something is unique then it’s pointless to study it, since there are no consistent patterns which can be followed?
There are consistent patterns, but they have different properties. The greatness of nature comes from the fact that such abilities are put into each one of us. The breakthroughs of each person’s abilities are proof.
Accepting that, we can start to look for some kind of essence which still isn’t known to science, and try, with its help, to explain these phenomena. The bio field was named to be such an essence. It was said that the bio field is a special component among those elements which give off energy. We got this opinion from the fact that all well-known and measured rays which are emitted by man don’t give the same effect as that which happens, for example, under telekinesis.
But unfortunately as of this day there are no strictly scientific data that have been confirmed by experiments about the nature of this new essence.
Can we make due without it? Are there any other explanations? Let’s take, to begin with, the absolutely proven fact that solar activity influences the vital activity of any organism. Or the fact that changes in the geomagnetic fields of the Earth have an influence on man’s organism. After all, we’ve known for a long time about places which are bad for man, but now science too tells us that these are places where there is a surplus amount of positive ions. In other words, in principle man’s organism reacts to many things which aren’t registered by one’s consciousness.
It’s also known that man reacts to such a number of changes, including the weakest changes, that, judging by this fact, there is no need to introduce all kinds of “miracles” to explain it.
If we assume that all these measurements are connected, first of all, with an increase in the organism’s sensitivity as a whole, with an increase in the level of the organism’s organization, then this is quite enough for our work. We simply have to develop our sensitivity to that which doesn’t usually register with our consciousness. For this we need a code upon which we will register and decipher these phenomena, and the increase in sensitivity. And that’s all.
Thus that mental energy mechanism about which we spoke is detachment from the whole of the entire array of feelings which we, as a rule, don’t perceive, and don’t take into account. That mental energy mechanism is management of these feelings, strengthening by way of resonant states.
An important aspect of our work is development inside us of a feeling of space, of space as a whole, since these feelings must be perceived consciously. We, on the other hand, are usually subject only to mechanical organization of the space in which we are located. Our civilization has come to the point that we pay attention only to the world of thoughts and images, only to that which hearing and vision give to us.
Here we should turn to the world of feelings, and to do so we use a certain code, the language of these feelings.
The feeling of the presence or absence of energy inside one’s self is common to all people. Thus we have knowledge of experiencing three types (physical, psychological, and intellectual) energy. And if we have them, then why not use them? Consequently, once again we don’t need to introduce any new essence and arguments about whether the bio field exists or not.
The development of sensitivity leads us practically, first of all, to a more refined understanding of the other person, to the real possibility to ourselves and him, to the aspect which now, for some reason, falls out of our field of vision: the aspect of man’s wholeness, his integrated reactions, his integrated existence.
PATH TO THE WHOLE
What is the wisdom of this system, the wisdom of the instrumental perception of man? By separating ourselves into parts, we, in the end, receive a real feeling of our self as a whole which can’t be destroyed by destructive influences from the surrounding environment.
And this, in and of itself enormous power, can help only then when there is something to share.
This is why people rushed to find an exit. There’s no doubt that each person is capable of realizing the endless energy of knowledge and power which lies behind him. We are tired of being sick. This is the problem that stands before man. Once again we have to build a harmonic and healthy model.
First of all, we have to increase our sensitivity, thereby expanding the range of our understanding of signals which go from the world, from the situation and the people surrounding us. Therefore we speak of consciousness, about its interrelations with personality, since consciousness has the capability of “creating hazards,” of distorting feelings, discarding that which it doesn’t know, and that which it isn’t able to recode, which often under whole perception is absolutely not important. That’s why we speak of the body: these feelings turn up namely inside the body, and it’s important to know how to differentiate them.
We speak of wholeness because it’s not clear; how can we tune that which we don’t hold in our hands as a whole?
We have gotten used to the fact that we know how to do that which we learn; because we’ve learned to change not our selves, but rather the surrounding World. We’ve learned to take action with the tools surrounding us, but not with ourselves.
It was great progress for mankind when man learned to make various accessories which lighten his work and his everyday life. And civilization has reached unprecedented heights on this path. But we can aim the creative strength of consciousness at our selves as a part of nature as well. And we can thereby take the next step on the path of progress. This power, aimed at ourselves, gives us the possibility to change that wholeness which each person has in mind when he thinks or says: this is Me. If consciousness can lead to man getting ore from stone, and from it precious metal, then why not use consciousness to extract all possibilities given to us by nature, and realize our potential?!
This whole system provides information for influencing and changing your self.
Our possibilities depend on our level of motivation, on the power of our “I want,” or otherwise speaking, on the power of our needs. And the power of need, as is well known from the works of the academic A.N. Leontyev, “is equal to the size of the obstacle which a person is ready to overcome in order to overcome this need.” The energy, which, let’s say, the body is ready to spend on one or another job, depends on the level of mobilization, in other words is determined by the same power of need. The orientation is the whole state of the entire organism. If I relate to myself a certain way, then I set limitations on myself. Fear of eternity, it would seem, is an abstract thing, but not a single one of us can live without limitation.
However, objective data show that we have much more energy than we are used to using…
Mental energy of internal orientation gives us the possibility to show those abilities which are inside us. Now, when the overall situation in the World demands that we change ways of being that have existed for thousands of years, it’s time to calculate our reserves.
Destroying the old defensive mechanism among all people is too hard a task, and can’t be done by just one person. But it is possible to do so for yourself without hurting society, although it will be very hard to do so. You have to understand the real size of this task.
The matter here is not information; the matter here concerns understanding that the changes that should take place in our lives in order to grind the instrument of perception and influence, ⎯ not only to change consciousness, and the method of thinking. These are real changes, right up to a change in one’s body. These changes lead to focusing the creative power of consciousness on one’s self as an object. This is a reorganization of one’s self.
This is the essence of the future of mankind. And I’m sure that psychocivilization, as it was called by Stanislav Lem (“Sum of Technology”), is the most promising way out of the current situation, since we have reached the limits of our material resources.
Man is changing the planet, is reshaping it as he likes, often without thinking of the consequences, and is calling this creativity. But what constructive things have we done with our bodies besides clothing them?! They lost their real function long ago and have turned, most of all, into one of the ways of fighting for status…
We have to understand that fulfilling the task which he have taken on ourselves demands a revolution of self-relation.
We should stop viewing our wholeness as something constant, something which we can’t change. Rather, we should view wholeness as an object of study, of influence, and of change.
We need to understand that using three instruments, not forgetting about a single one, gives us such a possibility, since mental energy is the connecting link between subjective reality of consciousness and objective reality of the body. This is that very third voice which is present in the dialogue between consciousness and the body.
There has been a battle between the finite and the eternal ever since ancient times, between the “interfering” body and “potent” consciousness. Many thinkers understood that this conflict is not solved by negating one or the other, but rather can be solved only through a connecting link which gives the possibility of using the advantages of each instrument.
No whole is equal to the sum of its parts. This effect is that which we call self-consciousness of the whole. But if we are objectively a whole, then we aren’t such for ourselves yet…
An instrumental relation to ourselves and separation of identity with our instruments gives us the possibility to become aware of ourselves as a whole.
Contemplation, concentration, meditation
View from within № 17
Contemplation — this is perception (visual, hearing, tactile), aimed at an external object. When we have such perception in relation to that which is external, then we can also perceive that which is within us. For example, under contemplation, the image of a “white bird” appears on our internal screen right away, just like any Other image which we choose to see.
Concentration is management of our internal attention, focusing it right there where you decided to aim it. Concentration is an active selective position which keeps attention on the given object.
As for meditation, here we can name two groups:
— “Zen” meditation on the external,
— “Buddhist’ meditation on the internal.
We understand meditation as a specially organized state, and its basic sign is totality. There is the subject of meditation, and you can enter it wholly, with all your being.
Real changes take place as the effect of total feeling as a result of meditation. These changes can be temporary or constant.
There is dynamic, static, and situational meditation, in other words various forms; the main principle of meditation though is totality. Many “miracles” are connected with a meditative state.
One can enter one’s life like meditation.
The power of vision. How it influences our communication
When training your mental energy instrument, we increase the power of internal vision, open its potential possibilities, and begin to “see” more. But if the viewer doesn’t change at the same time, then the viewer’s interpretations of the new volume remain the same. Thus, when asking why we train our mental instrument, we might run into a dead end.
All ancient systems were based on the premise that man is still on his way, that he is developing and has not exhausted all his possibilities yet. The fate of these systems is to give man means of development. But it’s clear that when changing just our strength of vision, we won’t achieve much, and why make a microscope if we still want to pound nails? This is what a hammer is good for. We have to change the viewer himself.
But how can we change the viewer, what new qualities should he gain?
1) First of all he should be a responsible person, and should understand that knowledge can’t belong to just one person, and that, upon receiving knowledge, he shouldn’t just turn into its consumer, but rather take charge of the development of his knowledge, for its practical implementation.
2) To overcome within himself the barrier of egocentric self-relation, made by one’s confirmation of one’s separateness (“me” from “not me”) through constant deletion (the more I delete, the more I confirm myself in my own eyes). One can’t gain the skill of absorbing the surrounding people without overcoming one’s egocentrism, and the problem of resonance can’t be solved without this skill. The word “not” doesn’t exist for a professional of life, but you have to become this professional first.
And although we recognize ourselves more so now through “not” (“not me”, “not mine”, etc.), we have to remember that real self-consciousness is not connected with denial.
3) We have to learn to recognize our fears and overcome them. Now our mental energy instrument has such a quality that, when fulfilling its command, conscience or the body can be destroyed. One gets fears which pulse through one in waves.
As soon as the results of psychological training reach some sort of maximum, fear then does its work, and we get a spasm (like a muscle spasm from fear), and our results worsen. On the one hand, fears serve as the regulator, while on the Other they are a break in our work. And since the mental energy instrument does not always depend on speculation, there is the possibility of breaking through the ring of fears (fig. 47).
Fig. 47

The time has come to recognize that my ideas and my feelings are an abstraction. A person can’t exist without a multitude of communication. At the same time man strives to limit the size of this communication. A paradox! The first insight we have to make is that I’m made from people (and for this reason my ideas most likely aren’t really my own, but rather have been brought to me by those people from whom I’m made). And everything that there is around us, which we use, is made by people. Saying that something is “mine,” we are forced to protect that. It’s much more useful to ask ourselves questions: where do my ideas come from? My feelings, my energy — what’s the point?
By working with the mental energy instrument, increasing my power of vision, I see the Other as if magnified ten times, and the Other seems to grow right before my eyes, by ten times (for example). But I’m the same! This is where the problem comes for those who develop only the power of vision.
The matter is that we have been adapted to a range of perception. Imagine what would happen if we started to see all microbes all of a sudden! Imagine what a shock that would lead to, what a tempest of emotions it would make. When we look into a magnifying glass, we aren’t afraid by that which we see, since between us and them there is a magnifying glass. There is a scale of distance, which has become habit, and has become necessary. When working in a group a person comes to objective destruction of the distance between “Me” and “Not Me” and accepts a scale of 1:1. The paradox of self-development comes from the following: we want it, but at the same time we are afraid, since we will have to go outside our own boundaries. The understanding that I is We too is a revolution in relation to one’s self.
Increasing our power, permitting the ability of our instruments, we reduce the distance between ourselves and the World. Fear of this process is reflected by the following: we become afraid of disadaptation (after all, everything is ten times bigger, and we have to get used to that), we fear not fulfilling out desire, we fear becoming the victim, etc.
When we increase the size of that which we perceive, the World approaches us, our sensitivity increases, and what can we do with that? All we can do is either quickly muffle it, return our previous vision, or remember that our vision improved, that the sensitivity of instruments has increased, and that our new power of vision brings kindness, lightness in our movements, and in our emotions, otherwise it will break everything in its path.
Any maximum ability of a person leads to spasms, to fear of leaving one’s self. We see the Other ten times larger, and this can lead to a break up, and to chaos in our system. Imagine that you listen to 100 radio stations (instead of the usual one), and the tuner is turning itself. This is where we get our fears from, this is an explanation of our feelings using the actions of witches, sorcerers, and magicians, in other words those who “sense,” our perception of our self as their victim. We strive to have such power of vision that will reduce the distance between “Me” and “not Me,” and we thereby get the possibility to fulfill our wildest dreams: to learn to read people’s minds, to become clairvoyant, etc. But why do we need that?
A person studies himself, and his capabilities. After all, a person’s psyche is eternal. Learning about ourselves, we leave ourselves more and more, and come to people, to nature. We learn about our eternity. We look, extracting knowledge about life, love, etc., and we want to perceive the abyss of man’s psyche which opens before us, the abyss of people’s capabilities.
The goal of our activity is to study the problem of resonance between objective and subjective reality. If we constantly remember that, then we can get rid of our spasms.
The process of studying resonance includes:
1) collecting information which is already known about resonance;
2) our own experimental experience with observation and objectivity;
3) creative comprehension of the results received.
We need to make the following practical steps towards achieving resonance:
1) to open ourselves to receiving information;
2) to receive as much information as possible;
3) to look for the reasons of anxious, “noisy” emotionalizing;
4) to not explain one’s actions by the actions of other people.
Active study requires lots of effort.
So, we accept the following arrangement: it’s normal to live in the thick of microbes. To live in a sea of energetic interactions is also normal. We want to study the problem of resonance, and to find an answer to the question: can I get to know the world not by parts, but as a whole, in resonance? How can I do so? Fear wins.
About energy metabolism in the system of psychoregulation
The organism must give itself energy in order to function normally, in other words make maximum absorption, transformation and accumulation of energy, as well as optimize the use of this energy. This process is shown in diagram form in figure 48.
Fig. 48

The organism’s energy depends on the quality of the fulfillment of the functions named.
We get the concept of good or proper food (in the wide sense of the word, since there is nourishment on the body, informational, and emotional-sensitive levels) based on the premises that we absorb energy. This approach makes sense, but it also has its plusses and minuses.
The plus is that we are able to choose food for ourselves, while the minus is in the selectiveness of the approach: a person can die of starvation right next to food which he thinks is unacceptable. Thus, narrowness in our approach to choosing food has a bad influence on our vital activity.
The same happens on the level of feelings and on the informational level: the range of interaction with the external World becomes narrower. We start to follow rules such as: the less you worry, the longer you’ll live, it’s better to live in one place without moving, etc. The formation of such arrangements reduces the range of openness.
But there is Another approach as well which allows us to increase our organism’s energy not by limiting our interaction with the World, but rather by increasing our ability to transform the food we eat into the right energy. This is the art of “burning,” as it is accepted in our system.
So, there are two approaches, our two concepts:
1) You are what you eat (you depend on that which you put inside you).
2) The person you are determines what you eat (you are able to transform and give any form its contents).
Fulfilling the second concept means increasing the volume of intake, but not in the sense of “fattening up,” but rather in the sense of eating various food. The range of absorption should not interfere with transformation, in other words when expanding intake one must also increase the power of transformation. This depends on the level of development of self-consciousness and on separation of identity from one’s instruments.
This method features work with “fiery energy” (remember the exercise which is called “Fiery flower,” which is not just a metaphoric name, but rather directly states the quality of energy which we’re working with). Fiery energy is all-consuming, and allows us to transform everything into that which we need. There is no “art of burning” without it.
For example, in yoga, the entrance is very precisely regulated on all levels: there are certain forbidden methods for the body, for information and for emotions. In our system, however, we are focused at maximum absorption at all levels.
Is it at all possible to store up mental energy, and how so? There are standard means:
1) To reduce the use of energy by decreasing the activity in communication, giving away the first voice. At first it’s hard to be quiet, but later it’s a pleasure.
2) You can spend all your time in psychological safety: be in nature, in the theater, go to the movies, or sit by the sea or on a river bank.
People live in a very narrow emotional-sensitive range: their emotions over the course of the day are just drops of water that go through a closed faucet (emotional poverty).
In order to quickly increase the inflow of mental energy one must absorb many emotions, in other words feel more. We get our main supply of feelings in our childhood. We feel everything very sharply in childhood (perhaps because we want so much to do so.)
The same difficulties occur when perceiving information. Here, too, we constantly limit ourselves (we don’t like the information, it’s incorrect, it’s not good, that can’t be true, etc.).
If the entrance to energy is open, and we have developed the 4B state and the construction of the “fiery flower” for it, then the energy that the system can support increases. The possibility to save energy increases (we recommend that you see the chapter “Travel through states” to get a better idea of these data).
In conclusion, we can say that in relation to energy this system puts a focus not on regulating limitations at the entrance, but rather on increasing the strength of the transformation (anything can be transformed into energy: emotions, information, food, feelings), which leads to an increase in energy production. The store of energy makes sense if we are capable of using it for supreme energy.
All systems of psychological regulation aimed at limiting entrance to the system, and focused on regulating consumption, lead to canons and rules, and are canonical (observance of prohibitions).
All systems which focus on transformation are principally non-canonical.
The second group is usually incomprehensible and unacceptable for systems of the first group. There are endless antagonisms and conflicts between them.
ABOUT THE VOLUME METHOD OF PERCEPION
Hypothesis: the effect of the whole slips away upon analysis. The whole is perceived when using the volume method of perception.
This methodology allows us to shift to the volume method of perception, and comprehending information when working with mental energy.
The structure of this space of perception can be shown in its most general appearance as it is in figure 49.
Fig. 49

Our problem is that we have a lot of imprecise information. Memory receives it from within and from without. Our consciousness has the property of being focused (it is manifested as speculation). The ray of attention disposes the mechanisms of consciousness to the regimen of selectiveness. We gain in precision, but we lose in depth. We can provide two poles of perception (fig. 50).
Fig. 50

One of the main tasks of this method is to make perception voluminous. It’s hard to express volume with words. It’s easier to do so with a gesture. It’s easier to express intonation with those methods which are used in art. If we put maximum volume into the word pronounced, then it will have colossal power. Mantras, fight songs and spells are all a way to put volume into the word.
Let’s try to conduct this version of the training: gather the volume of consent in your consciousness for half an hour, then say the word “Yes.” This word will sound absolutely different.
There are two types of training for mastering effective speech (after all, the word has various contexts, and it’s meaning field has almost no limits).
1st type. Achieving maximum abstraction. Any word has an average meaning, but we can go away from that meaning towards precision or towards depth.
Under this method we gather the volume connected with the given word, then say it out loud (it is born). This is the principle of the mantra.
2nd type. We can give a long speech or make a presentation which carries volume in one word (opening the volume of meaning).
Perception and comprehension of volume is a way of processing information which doesn’t violate its wholeness and continuity.
When transferring the status in the space of consciousness there should be a semantic and feeling dimension of the given state. When there is a deficit of information, perception with volume takes place by itself (“I feel”). But we have to learn to translate information from the volume type into a semantically developed space of perception.
Subjective reality has the same properties as objective reality does (space, time, and knowledge). Our speculation roams in space consciousness, highlighting certain areas. But people by their nature want to be settled. What is a home to man? A home is that which a man comprehends in the context of his everyday being (my being for myself).
A “home” is the habitable part of the space of our consciousness, and it can vary (incidental, chosen, foreign). To master one’s space of consciousness in its wholeness is to completely perceive it as one’s house. Consciousness is not “I,” but rather “my,” and it has to be studied. Subjectively this is shown as one’s perception of the question “what is my house?” To do so we need to try and answer the question: “Where is my consciousness? Who controls it? What is consciousness as a whole? On the background of which volumes of subjective and objective realities do I perceive myself? (In other words, where and in what volume do I really live?)”
“How can we be both inside ourselves and inside the World at the same time?”
View from within № 18
View 1. Work with the mental energy instrument gives a real increase in energy. Our working capacity goes up, and if before our position at work was passive (we preferred that nothing change, and that nobody bother us so as to do less work), then now our working capacity is much more active.
I get pleasure from work, and learn new things. The intensity with which I live each day has increased dramatically. I manage to do many various things connected to my work, house, friends, etc. I have fewer conflicts with other people since I have shifted towards understanding another person, and have more freedom in my contact with other people and more kindness for them. My self-regulation of my emotional states has improved.
View 2. Exercises shake up the organism, improve one’s mood, and improve one’s overall sense of being. As a result of these exercises one gets a better understanding of one’s self, one’s feelings, and one’s actions. One gets a sense of greater freedom. The number of one’s mental breakdowns decreases considerably, and one gains greater confidence in one’s self and in various situations. One gains a feeling of quiet strength and of large potential, and a desire to realize this potential.
Workers start to gather around me, which never used to happen before. My social status has gone up considerably, and I feel that my opinion is more significant to the people around me.
View 3. It becomes necessary to do fragments of exercises when one has a cold, a headache, or when tired, both mentally and physically. This always leads to relief, and helps to take away fatigue. I apply these exercises when I’m too cold. Some of the fragments help one to get rid of a feeling of depression, uncertainty and pessimism, and to normalize one’s mood.
View 4. The most important thing in our lessons is that they give one the possibility not only to practice self-regulation and increase one’s sensitivity and intensity of power, but also lead to understanding the world “life” in the widest sense, and to the desire to really live, and not doze. To live and to be happy with life.
View 5. Thanks to the language of states which we learn at lessons, one feels the diversity and richness of the surrounding World. One’s need for communication with other people, art, nature, and one’s self increase. The quality of this communication itself changes as well.
View 6. It’s hard for me to separate the method from its Carrier. I want to say that the Carrier is happy, large-scale, and is an adversary of routine and the institute of shop leaders. One takes a large, crispy bite out of the apple of Life from his red side.
View 7. This method structures the internal state, or rather its space, by the sixteen-measure basis. Recreating clean basis states, I enter areas of internal space that were inaccessible to me earlier. The part that I’ve already gotten control over begins to expand. I’ve come to understand and feel the internal state of other people, and, thus, I’ve started to understand them better. From here the situation becomes more reliable, and I expand my abilities of perception.
View 8. When fulfilling exercises with mental energy for expanding the volume among members of the group, people in the group relate to one another better, they have greater desire to be together, and they have a feeling of belonging to a whole. Such exercises seem to link us to this whole. Our state after the lesson: we want to hug the whole World.
View 9. Greater sensitivity, on the one hand, and communication through resonance with various people, on the Other, increases the power of weak signals that we didn’t notice earlier into significant signals, and allow us to accept them consciously. This makes our perception of the surrounding world deeper and brighter, and expands our perception of other people and works of art. Thanks to this we get the feeling that information is well-rounded.
View 10. Exercises on determining the states of the operator have led me to an amazing discovery: the transfer of information from me to the other or vice-versa takes place almost instantaneously, and this is possible in no other way except in the Whole. And I am it’s part.
View 11. Life becomes more sensible, I have belief in the future, and this gives me confidence in the present. I’m no longer worried by the thought of senseless waste of time in many situations, because if I live deeper in everyday situations, then I can find all kinds of interesting things in life.
It’s more interesting being alone as well. I will always have something to do with myself, in any conditions. Time has become more full, and I no longer have a sense that life is passing me by.
View 12. The evolution of mankind is a constant process of acquiring information about man himself and about the World surrounding him. Over the last ten years the flow of information has become like an avalanche, and man is no longer capable of coping with it. The increased amount of information has created premises for a quality jump in man’s development, for the appearance of new ways of perceiving and processing information.
PROBLEMS OF EDUCATION
Perception of the mechanisms of consciousness can help promote maximum self-regulation of the mental energy instrument. We’ve already spoken about regulating fears, about forming a World view, about properly understanding the roles of group mechanisms (orientation towards qualification), and have examined the problem of resonance. Now we can generalize what we’ve stated before.
Regulating fears — here the main problem is in the need to extend our threshold of engaging fears of the eternal and of our selves.
World view — the main problem is in overcoming our egocentrism.
The group — the main problem is forming a focus at improving our qualifications.
Resonance — the problem is how to expand our individual range.
Let’s examine the mental energy instrument from the position of the method of qualitative structures. First we make a hypothetical conception, and check to see if it’s true or not (fig. 51).
Fig. 51

If construction dominates, then the communication aspect turns toward it. Energy feelings will be well-developed (good sensitivity), and we won’t have our own sound.
If functioning dominates, then the communication aspect turns toward the direction of sound, and the construction suffers from this. We see witches and wizards everywhere, since our expenditure of energy exceeds the replenishment of energy, and we look for the reason for this lack of energy outside our selves.
How does energy information move (fig. 52)?
Fig. 52

The communication aspect is the entry of information. What is the problem of resonance? The problem of resonance is how to allow the atmosphere of a different subject (object) to enter us. For this the communication block should be open, otherwise resonance is impossible. Everything that enters (suggestion) is translated into that language that the person really uses at the coordinate point. Further on the capacity depends on the dominating conversion (this can be our language of “levels-rhythms,” or the language of “vampires and witches,” the “astral,” or “mental” language, etc.).
A person uses that mental energy language which he learned first; it’s hard to learn again, although it’s possible.
We can portray the mechanism of passing through information in a different way (fig. 53).
Fig. 53

The whole difference between the schools is in languages: one “sees,” others “hear,” third languages “feel,” and we speak in the language of states.
Information goes through then, when we find a name for it in our language. But after that it enters the block of the construction, and there it is re-processed. As a result we get additional energy which we need to sustain and implement.
Our task is to expand our range of functioning to the sixteen states at the entrance, and narrow it to sixteen states at the exit (in other words put a filter at the exit).
Now we will look at each of the blocks again.
Entrance block. In practice we have a range of sounds at the entrance. So, we’re not dealing with the range of the entrance, but rather only with its sensitivity (a more powerful signal is needed when sensitivity is worse). And this threshold of sensitivity is the individual particularity of each person. What does it depend on? This question is being studied, but there is a supposition that it’s connected with one’s World view. And there are many systems which allow one to change one’s threshold of sensitivity. But there’s no answer to the question why do children always have a painful reaction to 2D (check this in the chapter “Travels over States of Being”), while teenagers know how to defend themselves from this influence? It’s not clear yet when and how this change takes place. But we do know that the range of the entrance can’t be wider than the range of the language in the coordinate point.
Block of the coordinate point. If, for example, a person accepts information only in 3B, then he functions in 3B as well and his construction also serves 3B (direction of the 3rd center) (fig. 54).
Fig. 54

A situation arises whereby it’s possible to replace levels, but this doesn’t happen with the coordinate point since it has that language which was formed earlier. In principle, there are many such languages, and we can learn to choose them: to go either to the language of visualization, or to tactile feelings, or to our language.
Presently we are confused by so many languages. And there is often a collision of schools due to the fact that we name one and the same thing in various ways.
What happens in the coordinate point? Part of the information is alienated due to the fact that we can’t name it. This information is simply thrown away, and there is alienation in subjective reality.
What can we say about the language of visualization? It seems to be more dependable, because we’ve gotten used to trusting our eyes. We have the possibility to see both objective and subjective realities in a parallel way, but it’s very easy to get lost here, not knowing the laws of their interaction. (Almost all ancient systems were built on visualization due to the illiteracy of the students, and teaching one specific visualization could take up to three years).
Block of the construction (the organizational aspect). That information which goes through the coordinate point then enters the block of the construction. The construction of the mental energy block, or rather its image, is different in different systems. Studying without a system, we end up having a multitude of constructions (and a multitude of languages in the coordinate point). We don’t need to have an exact construction of the mental energy instrument as given by one system.
Mutual lack of recognition by representatives of various schools also takes place due to differences in constructions of the mental energy instrument.
We have to have a concrete foundation: if we have it, then we can build noncontradictory judgment upon it.
When information which goes from the block of the construction is able to destroy this block, it can be thrown away in only one way: to claim that it’s bad for one’s health (for example, through the idea of witches, wizards, vampires, etc.). The source of fears becomes clear. Their appearance depends on whether our construction is able to sustain the information that passed through the coordinate point.
The mental energy instrument in our system looks as follows (fig. 55).
Fig. 55

In terms of a construction our system offers the image of the “fiery flower,” which stipulates all processes of energy metabolism.
This construction is good in the sense that it gives us the opportunity to build any others on top of it. This system is open, and there is a large field of meanings around the language of levels and rhythms. Recoding of other organizational languages becomes possible at this point.
How can we make the transition to other languages? This depends on the degree of separation of identity from the mental energy instrument.
What is separation of identity? This is real management of the instrument, ideally all the way to freely turning it on and off while at the same time realizing what is happening.
Is this possible? Yes. After all, some people have such a state whereby when they are very concerned with their physical or spiritual health they become closed to the World. All of their energy goes to internal “servicing.” There are exalted people with hypersensitivity, but their own sound is reduced to a minimum. There are people who are emotionally deaf — these people’s mental energy instrument practically doesn’t work at all. And there are sensitive people whose mental energy instrument is highly turned on. In other words the real range for turning on one’s mental energy instrument is very broad. It’s possible to study the mechanisms of turning it on by speaking with people from this point of view.
We have to study our mental energy instrument systematically, working:
— with our communication block (the range is narrower or wider, sensitivity is lower or higher),
— with various languages,
— with various constructions,
— with the block of functioning (changing the sound).
The problem of successful complete separation of identity is connected to having or not having stable self-consciousness.
THE BORDERS OF POSSIBILITIES  (The technology of finding “border control guards”)
A barrier may arise during any study process: development seems to stop. It’s very important to be able to admit that this has happened, and to understand why exactly. After all, every person has his own range of change of physical, energy, and informational states in which he allows himself to live.
Range: Individual and real
When a person comes close to one of the boundaries of his individual range, then a defensive mechanism works on his subconscious level, and defense measures begin to work: I don’t want it, it’s bad for me, that can’t be possible, etc. It’s very important to recognize these moments as proof that you’ve exhausted your range, and have reached its limit (fig. 56). These limits exist for everything: for one’s physical and energy states, for memories and emotions, for information, etc.
Fig. 56

Only extremely stressful states can force a person to come closer to the boundaries of his individual range, or even exceed these boundaries. These situations can include the death of a close person, a catastrophe, a terrible illness, a crisis of the meaning of life, or destruction of one’s World view. Thus, in principle it’s possible to exceed these boundaries, and it’s only important how a person relates to that himself. After all, exceeding the boundaries of the range leads to new, unusual states, which can even give unpleasant feelings which are registered as bad health or lethargy.
As for “health” in the everyday meaning of the word, what guidelines do we use when we evaluate our state of being as healthy or not healthy?
Health is namely that range of states which we allow ourselves. This range is different for each person. We all have our own range of comfortable and uncomfortable feelings. Illness from the point of view of everyday life can be any state which approaches the boundaries of our range, or which exceeds these boundaries. There are psychosomatic illnesses — it’s entirely possible that they are the result of fear of exceeding the boundaries of one’s range.
Besides an individual range of states, there is also a really possible range, which is much wider and which exists to conserve man as a whole. Regulating fears prohibit us from coming close to these boundaries or exceeding them. These are fears of the finite, the infinite, and fear of our selves.
It’s easier to exceed individual boundaries than it is to exceed real boundaries. We view the latter as being danger with the entire whole, and normal methods of mental regulation (such as autogenic training) are not adequate enough for this (fig. 57).
Fig. 57

The first task which we must solve is to exceed our individual boundaries, and to expand them to real possible boundaries. We simply don’t want to expand them, we want to stay within the same framework, while at the same time expanding our opportunities. In order to get rid of the desire to exceed our boundaries, we must recognize that objective boundaries exist, and begin to gradually move these boundaries towards real boundaries. We must recognize that any actions which lead to narrowing of our range won’t allow us to solve this task.
Another problem is that this expansion should be done correctly. Our whole problem is that our work should be aimed at expanding the range of our energy, physical and intellectual possibilities.
We might not have enough word-logic information to determine new feelings, thus we should describe these feelings as simply as possible. Fear of new feelings manifests itself as illness or pain (they say that a cold is a classic example of fear as a defensive mechanism). There’s a great temptation to describe all new feelings sublimely. This is especially true of energy feelings, be we always have to strive to give our descriptions as simply as possible. Visualization strengthens the weakest signal, and if I see, for example, some face in parallel with reality, then this is simply some information which, having entered me, has become visualized in that which I see. We can even figure out which information led us to see this image.
So, problem number one is expansion of one’s individual range. This is creative work. In the future we can learn to exceed our real borders and be able to manage changed states (ecstasy, etc.). For the time being though we have to develop the orientation that having all 16 states is normal, and is healthy.
About levels. From the point of view of being directed towards one’s self, level I accords to the first center, etc. (to learn more about centers see figure 14, to learn more about levels see the speech by I. N. Kalinauskas on differentiated functional state). But from the point of view of objective reality the range of sounds is much larger on level I, than for each person separately. How can we expand our individual range by levels?
1) We can enter resonance with various people.
2) We can expand our range purposely, accepting sounds outside our boundaries, and without viewing new feelings as being destructive.
About rhythms. We can sense a dominant rhythm worst of all because we are used to it. We have to study reality from the point of view of rhythms. These are also quite varied in their manifestations.
The quality of determining states is better the more we separate our identity from instruments, and are capable of understanding that each person sees in his own way, living in his own range. We have to develop this feeling inside us. But we can socialize the result only when working in a group. We can only do so by exchanging experiences, studying, researching, and comparing.
Borders and fears
What are fears? What is the difference between subjective and objective realities?
Our motive is I want to determine the sound of the given object. But in order to do so we need to surpass the boundary of subjective reality — to let this sound enter us. One of the regulating fears is activated at this time.
1) One of the possible approaches to the boundary of the subjective and objective World is action. An attempt to exceed this boundary can lead to fear of taking action. Fear often leads people to lose control of the situation internally, foreseeing its fulfillment, and relax. But that doesn’t mean that people actually take action.
2) If a person is moved by the need for knowledge, then fear of eternity is activated. Dilution of “my” precise range in the range of that which is perceived leads to the fear of “going insane”. That fear comes when people give finite properties to eternity.
The concept of eternity should be filled with specific feelings. A person who isn’t able to experience eternity as a specific-feeling state can’t enter resonance.
Resonance can be viewed as dilution, as the absence of boundaries, as centric orientation in relation to one’s self. But a stable self-consciousness guarantees that a person can keep integrity in such experience.
So, we can’t solve problems of total resonance if we can’t sense the state of eternity, although each person has his or her own acceptable range of feeling. The way to solve this problem is to gather specific feelings of eternity. Humor is the means which makes it possible to overcome fear of eternity. It’s absolutely necessary to joke more often on “high” subjects.
3) If a social need combines with the need for knowledge, then one gets fear of one’s self. This fear disappears when a person does, thinks and dreams about one and the same thing. This is an achievement of completeness of personality. This is a very hard task to fulfill, and the only task which is more difficult is that of achieving full resonance between objective and subjective reality.
Fear of one’s self is manifested in low spirits, in the desire to have a special personality, and by excessive assertion of one’s social status. At the same time there is typically a positional battle, a fight for self-assertion. The majority of one’s energy is wasted on fluctuations between megalomania and the “little man” complex. The assertion that I am always real, in any manifestation, can held take this fear away.
4) Fear of the eternal — this is fear of death, and illness. The cult of living a long life is very doubtful from the point of view of feeling objective reality. After all, any illness is like a reaction to fear: I did something wrong, I did something I shouldn’t have done. Fear of the finite can be erased by saying to yourself: there is no health or illness, I am simply a living being in the gigantic World of the living.
One can speak about man’s actual needs based on what fear arises in man.
It’s very hard to admit to oneself that one has fear. As long as man strives to hide something, then no one understands the meaning of the group idea. Such an association of people exists like a circle where everybody “pets” and calms one another.
There is no path for real development until people admit the mechanisms of fear they have inside them. Working at destroying one’s fears is an individual process for each person, but usually the greatest difficulties arise when trying to overcome fear of the eternal. Speak with the eternal, imagining a cloudless or starry sky, and remind yourself that we live in the Universe.
It’s especially important to remember that obstacles are a good thing, since man is the child of obstacles, and we can never protect ourselves from difficulties. Such an approach will make it easier to recognize and overcome one’s fears. And one must relate to feelings as to a special form of activity, viewing them as a way to fill the gap between the information-logical and feeling sides of one’s consciousness.
DIALOGUE (Theses)
The problem of the dialogue is the problem of I vs. the Other. The solution to this problem is a practical expression of the philosophy of each individual person. This is an important moment of any study, and of any practical attempt to perfect the art of living, thus a Dialogue as a specific form of implementation is a general expression of implementation of one’s mental outlook.
The problem of Dialogue is to perceive the whole process of life as continuous interaction between objective and subjective reality, between one’s internal being and all objectivity, which withstands all this internal being.
The main problem of philosophy is of interactions between consciousness and being. In other words, interaction between subjective and objective realities.
I — Other.
I — a certain person.
Other — from creation as a whole to a concrete individual.
The art of living is in the art of the Dialogue. A person who knows how to have a dialogue is in control of his life. This is the recipe for a conscientious feeling of the process of one’s life, a mean’s for getting pleasure from the actual process of being.
***
One woman wanted to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. She went to a hermit who lived not far away from her village and told him about her desire. “Sit down, sit with me,” was his answer. “I can’t sit, teacher, I’m in a hurry,” the woman said, and kept going. And thus she wandered from one hermit to another for 33 years, until at the end of her path she once again came to the first one. And here the woman saw that this hermit was sitting under the tree that she was looking for, and was the tree’s protector.
“Teacher, why didn’t you tell me immediately about the tree?” And she heard in response: “First of all, the fruits on this tree ripen once every thirty-three years, and secondly, would you have really believed me?”
***
Let’s try to figure out what a Dialogue is. Most of all, a Dialogue means having a speaker and a listener. We’ll call the position that the speaker has as the first voice, and the position of the person listening – the second voice. Further on, we will add a third position, a third voice, which will be just as objective for both participants of the Dialogue.
In the future we will use this concept of the Dialogue, and we’ll suppose that it’s possible if there is a speaker, a listener, and some third thing which is objective for the first two (voices 1, 2 and 3).
Let’s look at the main types of dialogues through the forms of the third voice, which can help us to understand on what communication really depends.
1. Plot, fact, or case — equally objective for all participants of the Dialogue (conversations about the weather, harvest, etc.).
2. Reference to authority (mentioning quotes, names, etc.).
3. General system of criteria which link many amateur unions under the principle “fisherman – fisherman.” This is a more complex form of the third voice, and requires common parts in partners’ World views.
4. A witness, who can be a real person, — the third participant of the Dialogue, or some kind of fixed object (a stereo, camera, etc.), or an ideal witness (God).
***
Is all communication a Dialogue? In the example with two subjects A and B we see two monologues, where each person’s perception of himself is directed towards his perception of the other person (fig. 58). And thus we have a conversation with ourselves. There’s no Dialogue.
Fig. 58
A1— subject А’s perception of himself
А2 — subject A’s perception of B
B1 — subject B’s perception of himself
B2 — subject B’s perception of А

This problem is a problem for any form of communication — from the most intimate to the most public, and it’s suspense is shown in fear and an unwillingness to go outside one’s own boundaries, to admit other people’s right to exist and to speak with the real Other, and not with one’s own perception of this other.
Voices in dialogue
Solving the problem of man’s restraint within himself, we will build our communication on the principle of the Dialogue, and learn how to organize the Dialogue, how to make our communication lively, emotional, and deep.
The art of leading a Dialogue is the ability to have various positions in the dialogue.
Ist voice — the position of the speaker, of the person who gives information. This position is less informative than the other two, and is linked with large expenditures of mental energy. This is why there is a large amount of neurasthenic people among professional speakers.
2nd voice — the position of the listener, which is advantageous from the point of view of getting information.
3rd voice — the position of the observer, the most informative position.
When developing your skills at leading a Dialogue, learn to simply speak (1st voice), to speak by listening (2nd voice), and to speak by observing (3rd voice).
When speaking about a Dialogue, we can’t not note man’s ability to feel the state of the Other and to be able to empathize him. This quality is called empathy. Not all people are given this quality from birth, and not all in the same degree, but it’s possible to train this quality. It’s used most of all when teaching acting (Z. Hippius, “Problems of Psychological Training for Actors”).
Our method of psychological training also includes training of this quality, and this is precisely what can help you when resolving communication problems.
Communication with the World
Aspects of an interindividual Dialogue can be transferred to speaking with the surrounding World as well, in other words picture the World talking. Such a perception is technological and will allow you to relate to your life in a creative way. But if we speak about a Dialogue with the World, then I and the World are the first two voices of the Dialogue. What can serve as the 3rd voice?
This system offers man’s instruments as the 3rd voice (his body, consciousness, and mental energy). Thus we speak about an instrumental I-concept, about separating the instrumental component from one’s “image of himself”.
Accentuating three instruments, we can make an analysis of the state of these instruments, and solve the question: how can we really make them my instruments and find out, with their help, what the interrelations are between objective and subjective reality?
I know that voice
We can say that mankind is searching for a third voice in its Dialogue with the World.
How can we approach organization of the Dialogue is a practical way? Is there a special technique to leading a dialogue? We’ll give several recommendations on this point.
If you want to learn something, then give your 1st voice to a partner, since the first voice is less informative from the point of view of acquiring information.
When entering a Dialogue, consciously introduce a 3rd voice, in other words that which will be equally objective for both you and your partner. If you don’t yet know what system of criteria your partner has, then introduce the 3rd voice as a plot, and afterwards make the transition to a dialogue with authority. After that a system of criteria can serve as the 3rd voice.
A living Dialogue contains communication not only on the level of words, since in parallel there is non-verbal communication between partners (in the language of feelings, emotions, gestures, compassion, etc.).
When observing communication of other people, you will always understand if there is a 3rd voice between them. When communicating, train yourself to choose the 3rd voice of the Dialogue.
From the point of view of a Dialogue, you can then shift to a different perception of your self, using the instrumental component of the I-concept. You can organize your internal Dialogue in various ways, for example: giving your 1st voice to your body (the body listens), and the 2nd voice to consciousness (it speaks), and the 3rd voice to mental energy. There are other distributions of instruments available too, while your self-consciousness, separating itself like a non-instrumental substance, can act in the role of coordinator of your integrity.
Try to be careful to not offer a description of yourself or your partner at the beginning of your communication, otherwise your communication won’t be able to go outside the boundaries of conventional relations. Your image of yourself can’t be the 3rd voice of the Dialogue.
Live communication
Live communication is always a risk. It’s unpredictable.
Learn to give your 1st voice, and you will see that you yourself are the hindrance to that communication about which you are dreaming. Each person has something to give (in the sense of communication), but there are few people who want to take it. This is the essence of the problem.
We’ve gotten in the habit of considering that who takes to be an egoist. But that’s the way it is in the world of things. But to take and listen to another person — in this case this is altruism, a path to communication.
Become the person who is always ready to take in this sense, and you will solve the problem of communicativeness for yourself.
Don’t change your partner. When ordering the reality around himself, a person gets used to this order, and falls into a trap, becoming a slave to order: any small defect drives him crazy.
Functionally we are more and more dependent on one another, while psychologically we are more and more disunited. By ordering the external world, we begin to make order in our internal environment as well. We make our internal world as predictable as possible and become afraid of ourselves. We become afraid of the least unpredictability in our fulfillment in communication. But the most predictable is that which is the least alive.
A meeting with ourselves is a more dangerous experiment than a meeting with other people. Our main problems come precisely from our fear of meeting ourselves.
Our perceptions of our selves are a cage which we force ourselves into. There is a whole storehouse of stereotypes within us. It’s not dangerous to be with them, but we want real live communication after all, in other words that which is unpredictable. If you allow yourself to be unpredictable, then you will become alive, and can allow others to be alive as well.
Don’t change your partner, and you will have live communication with him.
When making the external environment predictable, we automatically transfer this to the Other and to the World as a whole. But the World is alive, and for this reason unpredictable.
So, the main hindrance in the Dialogue is our striving to order it, and in place of the 3rd voice, to propose “rules of the game,” in other words convention. We do this by forcing our description of our selves. Avoid doing so. Remember the ancients, and their address to those who search: did you learn to be happy with obstacles, with the unexpected, with living things? Have you learned to live?
When going into contact, refuse taking the guarantee, and try to go towards the Other, the way a researcher goes for the unknown.
Remember that conventional communication holds contents to the form, while that which is alive is killed. Learn to be free from established meanings.
We’ve already talked about a Different book. There’s no connection, or rather there is, but I don’t see it. We should talk. Think about why is it that millions of people play chess, but that there’s only one world champion?
This is the model of our culture, which is oriented towards champions, towards achievement. And this is the source of psychological problems: all participate, but only one wins, while the rest are frustrated. When you leave this game interesting changes will await you, and people will relate to you differently.
You see how closely practical psychology intertwines with practical philosophy. Bringing order to the external environment, we also make order in our internal environment, and our love for the unknown, for unpredictability, disappears. Our society is becoming more and more masculine, and women, who are the carriers of unpredictability, are suffering more and more. But a woman’s beauty can be found precisely in her unpredictability. Many men are afraid of this unpredictability, and thus are aggressive to women.
Generalizing, we can say that we differentiate Dialogue from conventional communication, which is subjugated to certain algorithms, and can’t fulfill our need for real communication.
***
There is one other difficulty, and perhaps beauty as well, in dialogic communication: when entering it, you are never sure ahead of time if a Dialogue will take place. Experience doesn’t help you here, and each attempt to enter a Dialogue is a risk. This is why it’s so tempting to use the customary conventions. And you will once again be lonely. The particularities of dialogic communication, the requirements that a Dialogue makes of its participants, give a unique possibility for maximum self-expression to each person. And we think it’s worth having a dialogue for this reason.
RESONANCE
Resonance is a technical word. In psychology its analogue is the concept of empathy, the meaning of which comes from perceiving the emotional states of the other person in the form of feeling.
In our system this concept of resonance acquires specific contents through work with mental energy sensitivity, and makes it possible to consciously form a state which is adequate to the partner’s state.
For complete resonance
In order to create the full volume of the concept of “resonance,” one must remember that communication includes both image-sensitive and word-logic information. Thus information about ways of reacting, perceiving, behaving and feeling which is revealed in the communication process should unite with one’s own feelings when communicating. Furthermore, under a conscious approach to studying the process of communication, it will be easier to note these feelings, and to gather them. After that one can consciously create the conditions which promote personal experience of any state, the existence of which you learned about in words from other people. In this case gathering information will be more effective.
Thus, two factors should be combined:
1) gathering information about how this process happens among other people;
2) indirect gathering of one’s own experience of feeling.
These two ways should interact.
This can be shown schematically in the following way (fig. 59).
Fig. 59

Thus the overall amount of information concerning communication will grow, and the level of interaction between word-logic and image-feeling information will also increase. As a result there we will become closer to the state of resonance in the communication process.
Here we have to note one other factor: the most complete resonance is achieved when a person completely reflects the state of another person with all his being, in other words with his mental energy, consciousness and body.
Considering that this system puts main focus on mental energy, we have to be able to put our consciousness and body under the control of this instrument. At this point resonance under mental energy will draw one’s consciousness and body into a state of resonance.
What are the main obstacles on this way?
Most of all, egocentrism: the habit of leading a spatial reading from a point which is placed inside us. In a dictionary of psychology, egocentrism is defined as the inability of an individual focused on his own interests to change his original cognitive position in relation to a certain object, opinion or statement. This leads to the subject not being able to understand that other points of view also exist.
In order to get rid of one’s egocentric habits, one must:
1) develop one’s ability for decentralization, learn to knowingly perceive the World from the point of view of the Other, be able to listen to others and develop a feeling of empathy;
2) one must be able to feel and experience on an emotional-feeling level, and then the question of resonance will open up to its full degree.
A person links within himself the subjectivity of I and the objectivity of the Other. And when you read in cultural texts: “From two you become one,” this means that a person unifies subjective and objective reality.
The I center is a point of realization, and is located at the juncture of subjective and objective reality, in other words between I and the Other.
Let’s speak more about that. Let’s imagine a person in the form of a sphere with certain contents. We know that each element of this sphere has an informational link with its source in the external sphere (fig. 60).
Fig. 60

The elements “x” and “y” are connected, but they aren’t identical to one another. Now let’s look at the totality of elements of subjective reality as at one “mass,” and at the totality of sources of the external environment as another “mass”. The most harmonious variant is achieved when the center of equilibrium of these two “masses” is located between them.
But there are a number of other variants which are possible as well, and the center of awareness can shift to any other place. Since we usually use a dichotomic system of evaluation, such as white — black, life — death, I — not I, we understand the subjective and objective parts not in one and the same moment, but rather by turn: either one part or the other. This is also connected to the fact that these parts don’t have equal weight for us, are not balanced, and that the center of awareness moves from first to I, then to the Other.
The task is to move the center of self-awareness to the point of balance, the “zero position,” between subjective and objective realities. Figuratively speaking, this is the flight of the bird between two worlds. Simultaneously one wing is located in objective reality, while the other is in subjective reality. We have I at the junction between the two. This is how we get a bird that flies between two worlds, is born by these worlds, and connects these worlds itself.
And what do we have in mind when we say I? After all, I is an official word, it doesn’t have any meaning, and it’s no surprise that children often can’t learn what it means, confusing the pronouns I and You.
If you want to find out what I is, then do the following meditation: reflect on which image comes to mind when you say I, then turn to word-logic information on this question. What happens when in one moment you combine information about yourself with how you experience yourself? Pronounce I with such an approach, and much will be revealed to you. And once you understand who you are, then never say “I did that, but I didn’t want to.”
And if you manage to combine in this I all objectivity of the World and all of your own subjectivity, then you will find out who a Person is.
Your discoveries of yourself and the surrounding World will lead to changes in you. Your close social groups will be the first to react to your changes.
Keeping your relations with surrounding people
This system rejects all possibility for isolation (monasteries and caves are excluded from this system). The following principles can help you keep normal relations with the people surrounding you:
1) study systematically, without jumping around. Changes will take place slowly and will work into the normal way of things;
2) follow the principle “he who changes, changes himself.” Let the surrounding people change themselves, let them open themselves, like opening a castle with a key, and the key will fit them, and these people will change themselves and give you the possibility to do the necessary work.
3) remember the rule of the majority: you are what you eat. Every person has a need, once learning, to speak about his search in the language of his communication partners. “Speak with Paul and John in accordance with their understanding.” This is one of the most important tasks of real education.
Instruction in communication technologies
Communication is productive when information is given in a structured way. If the level of organization (structuring) of information which a person absorbs exceeds the level of organization of the space of consciousness, then consciousness is transformed in accordance with the information absorbed. The space of consciousness also adapts to new information, just like a person adapts to new conditions.
An increase in the level of organization of the space of consciousness is especially effective if a person is given highly organized information which is very interesting but not exactly understandable for him. In this case information is absorbed completely, with distortion. Since this information isn’t clear, our thinking can’t make any manipulations with this information: Our thinking can’t break it down for analysis, and can’t connect it with something, in other words it can’t adapt the new information to prior knowledge. Information remains in its whole form, and, like a crystal placed in an amorphous environment, organizes this environment (the space of consciousness) in its likeness.
The following factors are necessary in order to increase the level of structuring of information:
1) Whole space of consciousness of the person who gives the information. The level of wholeness is expressed by how much each of your messages fits into a metasystem, by how much this information is interconnected, by what context it has, and what authority it refers to.
2) Taking into consideration the listener’s informational type (you always have to speak in the language of the person you’re speaking with).
3) Taking into consideration the dominant mental energy state of the person you’re speaking with.
When speaking with a person you must keep in mind the properties of this person’s conceptual apparatus, and always keep in mind that all people are very different. You must remember that in people’s subjective reality everything is distributed just as unequally as in people’s objective reality. We don’t like the fact that we can’t buy everything we want in every food store. But, having got used to this fact, we accept it. But if something is missing from the subjective reality of the person we’re talking to, then we often don’t want to take that into consideration, and get angry that we aren’t understood, not thinking about the fact that maybe this person simply can’t understand us at all.
Always, before asking for something from somebody, one has to keep in mind if that person has the means for such action. For example, it’s absurd to tell a person who doesn’t know mathematics to understand what you’re talking about when analyzing the functions of a Fourier series. This person didn’t study math, therefore there are no skills of mathematical thinking in his space of consciousness, and no means for understanding your words and actions.
Thus, if you want people to understand you, first try to perfect the conceptual apparatus of the person you’re speaking to, so that he can perceive and digest your information. In other words, give him the means he’s lacking. Did you ever think about whom you’re speaking to, when you speak to a person? You call him by his name. But what is a name? A nickname? If you use the words “son” and “father,” then you are simply referring to these people’s social role. You can say that you are speaking to your conception about a person, but if this person can be envisioned like a thing, then why do you need the person himself?
If you have courage, and aren’t afraid of unpleasant discoveries, then think about this, observe yourself for several days, and you will get an answer to this question. And at the same time think to yourself: how do we communicate? In which way? Why do we need these forms of communication?
The principle difference of the majority of existing psychological methods of communication from resonance, which lies in the base of our system, is that they propose increasing predictability in communication as their main goal, as if to take away spontaneity. In other words these methods propose reducing that which is individual and unique in communication to a minimum.
And this is understandable. A person is very complicated, and one needs so much energy in order to speak to complete integrity all the time that there won’t be any energy left. Meanwhile, every living being tries to expend as little energy as possible on each action.
For this reason a conventional language came to be as the median norm of communication. There is no depth to it, but one can quickly come to agreement about the process of activity, since the joint action and consciousness which have developed on the base of this language have allowed man to survive as a species.
The fact of the appearance of consciousness and its victory were a great achievement in man’s evolution. But now this “well-developed consciousness,” or more precisely presumptuous consciousness, has crushed in man both the voice of his body and the voice of his mental energy. The time has come for integral implementation of all elements which make up man, because otherwise we will get a patchwork, and we’ll need to stretch either here or there.
The prospects for the development of consciousness are in integration of the image-feeling and discrete-logical aspects of perception, in greater attention to that which is unique and unpredictable, and in the transition from resolute monologue communication with the World (“to make the world suit me,” “to get control”) to dialogic interaction with it (“tendency,” “love,” and “interpenetration”).
OUTSIDE THE CAGE (For those who have not yet become explorers of the unknown)
We all, without even realizing it, live in a statistical World view. If we analyze it, then we see that mankind’s generalized experience stands behind the majority of our conclusions. This way of forming our World view took place during stable times, when little changed over the course of one’s generation’s life.
In the 20th century mankind made the transition from the world of things to the world of processes. The external, material world started to change with greater speed, and together with it the scientific view of the World started to change as well. But the system of our mental reactions remains mostly unchanged and already doesn’t correspond to the fast-changing World. Thus many people say that the 21st century is an age of the psychological revolution, because otherwise we won’t be able to solve the majority of problems of man’s modern development.
Why can’t we change so easily as the external World does?
Let’s analyze how man’s consciousness developed in the process of man’s evolutionary development (fig. 61).
Fig. 61

First man separated himself from the outside World. This was accompanied by man feeling how tiny he was in relation to the World, and this led the main mechanism of psychological defense to action: to reduce the size of the World surrounding us. And we put ourselves in the system of narrowing frames. We began to perceive ourselves on a very small background. And in this way we protected ourselves from the very large volume of reality.
Do you want to know how big your World is? Then think about what background you view yourself on. This is your World. It’s very compact, very stable. And the more stable it is, the easier we fall asleep. And if with the help of some psychological techniques we start to take away these boundaries, then we try to limit ourselves only to a shift from the smaller cage to a bigger one. And here we have a question: is it possible to live without this cage altogether? Can we live changing just as quickly as the World surrounding us? Can the World be open without collapsing, while at the same time keeping its self-identity?
In which way do we get to know that which surrounds us? By going from simple to complex. That’s how we were taught. The simple is a part of the complex whole. And we’ve gotten used to first seeing parts, but have never learned to se the whole. We don’t know how to see the situation as a whole and to take an effective decision.
But the idea of exceeding the limits still appears in our consciousness. From where? This takes place when a person has extinguished all the possibilities of his personality, but feels that that isn’t yet all that he can do.
It turns out that unbalanced situations make up the rule of reality, not statistical situations. Thus we propose to you a system of thinking and reacting whereby you constantly have the unknown in front of you.
This is a source of tension, since usually a person aims for that which he knows, and chooses standard types of behavior. In a stationary situation this is the most effective behavior, since the generalized experience of all generations helps us. But we propose a different picture of the World: when the unknown is ahead of us. For this we need to make our own psychological structure as mobile as possible. This is because there are places which are unpredictable in principle: the zero-transformation (the point of bifurcation), without which there is no transformation.
When everything is known, one can build one’s idea of a guaranteed future, but there can be no such idea for a self-developing system. Creation is always substantive, and requires a way of life built on the fact that there is uncertainty ahead. Earlier there was a very small group of people which lived exactly like this. But now the worst situation is among those who live based on a stationary World view: these people are much more often neurotic.
Many people simply aren’t ready for such a change in their World view. We don’t know how to control the situation since we don’t know how to accept the consequences. We don’t need to manage the situation under a predictable way of life. But under a dialogic way of communication with the World there is always uncertainty ahead of us. A Dialogue isn’t front-running and isn’t predictable. The art of managing the situation becomes important at this point.
What do we need to be able to manage the situation? Most of all, we have to see the whole situation, and learn to perceive our own life by situation, in other words we have to relate to each moment in our life as to something multivariate, with many possibilities. When you manage to do this, you will begin to see that it’s possible to manage the situation. And 99% of so-called “Siddhas” have exactly this explanation: the ability to see the situation and manage it.
The situation is an expression of the whole. All elements are interconnected in it, and each plays the role of the whole in life. There is nothing unimportant in such a situation. Under this way of viewing the World you achieve the secret of real action. You have to learn to see. This is the look of an artist, a master.
Teach yourself to see the World as a sum-total of situations, and then you won’t need any protective cages. This situation is I in the World and the World in Me. A situation is always two people, and there is I and there is the Other. A situation is the creative work of life.
Can I train this in myself? Yes. But in order to do so you need the same kind of people, you need someone to remind you about that all the time. To remind you that this is a very important thing, that it is very dear, and has to be valued.
What can help in this work?
Let’s remember the profession of the director. His main quality is his ability to create a dynamic situation. He knows how to combine all components of the situation into a single whole, and to answer for the path from its design to its embodiment.
When you start to think by situations, then you will understand that there are no small details, that there is nothing more or less important, and that it’s possible to manage a situation by approaching it statistically.
During the moment of the transition from one way of perception to another we refuse to have linear thinking, we refuse to use a value way of orientation. In this case we lose our normal way of life, and enter into risk. Here is the border between the limit (when there is a guaranteed future) and beyond the limits (when we don’t have guarantees). Our psychological protective mechanisms don’t allow us to go beyond the limits. And if we sometimes go beyond our limits, then these limits quickly bring us back.
We together will attempt to free ourselves from these mechanisms, since in our real life there are more and more non-statistical situations, and there is a greater and greater number of people who are forced to look for Another way of reacting in order to avoid neurotic phenomena which arise due to one’s inability to adapt to the fast-changing World. There is a general search for a psychological escape from the current situation. We are all looking for one and the same thing: how to live in a changing World.
First of all, it’s important to admit that the World has changed irreversibly, otherwise you can waste your whole life battling the new. Secondly, you have to understand that I must also change irreversibly.
There is a parable about this.
There lived certain beings on the bottom of a river, each of them clung to its rock, and in this way they managed to lead a settled, guaranteed way of life and even philosophize on the question of what is there above the surface of the water.
There was one strange being among them who let go of his rock, swam to the surface, and saw that large World about which those living on the bottom philosophized. He really did see that which other people only talked about.
That’s how people open the door to their cage and leave it. But inertia doesn’t allow us to do so, since we are afraid. We are afraid of going crazy, we are afraid of losing our guarantee, we are afraid of jumping into the unknown, into the unpredictable. In order to completely solve this problem we have to fulfill the complete volume of the situation in even the smallest action. Only then can there be a complete I — Other. And they (I and the Other) will be equal in size, they will be partners, they will be your wings with the help of which you can overcome your fear and make a new “jump from the nest,” and fly outside the cage of the boundaries of the guaranteed World.
A MEETING WITH YOURSELF (View from within)
View 1
Gradually we change our perception of our self: I have turned around to fact myself and have started to look attentively at that which I thought to be natural my whole life. It turned out that I was very wrong in many things. The process of destroying the image which I carried all these years has begun. Just like every birth, the process is difficult. Perhaps I shouldn’t regret that, but there are tears in my eyes — after all, I was blind for so long. It’s hard to admit that all my conscious life I spent in this cradle, protected from the World.
My whole life was a monologue, and although I tried to go to people, in reality I pushed them away from myself due to the fact that I was focused only on myself. Now I understood: they can all live without me, but I can’t live without them. I understand that such feelings are the illness of growth.
View 2
What do we do when we have no humility! How blind we are, how naïve! How bitter it is to understand that, To understand yourself in your actions.  Don’t allow me, courage, to flicker out! View 3
I can say that a new period in my development has started. I would call this a birth, when totally new perceptions about the surrounding World and my self have come to replace the old perceptions. I’ve seen the World in a new way, or rather, I simply saw it, and this is like an awakening after sleep. The World is something whole, which can be both very small, and very large, as far as my ability to see it allows.
The process of getting to know mechanisms has started. The actions of these mechanisms include individual persons (including me), as well as groups. These are mechanisms of interpersonal relations, mental energy interaction, role relations, and others. They exist objectively and act independently of whether we know about their existence or not. But knowledge about them frees me from unnecessary anxiety, doubts, and vanity, and brings a feeling of internal calm, and freedom from the contradictions that are tormenting us.
Each moment of such comprehension is a real feeling which is different from formal “understanding”. This feeling arises in moments of crises of the soul, when you turn out to be trapped in the grip of your own contradictions. Such situations appear in everyone’s life, but not so often, because man is afraid of them, and is afraid of quality changes which lead to feeling. And the defense mechanisms work automatically long before a quality change can take place. One let’s off steam, and nothing happens.
In our work the situation reaches its maximum tension: the state of an informational surplus. No information is accepted, plus-reinforcements don’t bring any satisfaction, and one gets a desire to destroy, to unmask, to throw everything that led to this situation away. One makes a mental jump backwards (this can be a real jump as well). This all happens because man approached yet another one of his limits despite his defense mechanisms, and now his entire supply of energy either on destroying the source of tension, or on overcoming some kind of barrier in his understanding of the World and himself, to being born anew.
Such moments once again convince us: “Freedom means comprehending necessity,” and each such moment is a “jump from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom.” This jump is impossible without expending energy which exceed our normal energy expenditures. And this, probably, is one of the reasons why work with the mental energy instrument in this system stands on first place.
View 4
I am a mountain river, And there is so much power hidden inside me! I took down everything on my way, I washed the shore with waves,  But if there are no shores, Then I get lost in my boundlessness, Flowing widely around the world, And it’s hard for me to find myself. But, like all rivers, I want to reach the ocean. And I understood: I’ll get tired on the way, If the shores don’t help me. View 5
Sometimes a strange feeling arises in me, as if my essence, which I used to feel, has been shaken up, and now I can’t see what and where, everything is mixed and blurred. But I can easily follow one thought: everything will settle soon, and it will be different than it was before. Instead everything will have many meanings, and will be interesting.
View 6
I have a feeling that I’ve reached my limit (my ceiling), and that I want to run back without any hesitation. The situation has been made worse by those changes in my behavior which were caused by my fear of losing my personality, by my fear that I can become a different person, and that my image of myself will change.
A GENERAL ANALYSIS OF THE GROUP’S WORK  (How the group studies together)
An analysis of the results of the work of our group shows that:
1) There is a certain natural gift (some people are more capable of such work, while others are less capable);
2) There is a limit to what each person is capable of;
3) The parameter of “rhythm” is clearly stronger than the parameter of “level” in the definitions of states;
4) There is a clear link between one’s motivation and one’s results;
5) Personal contacts are very important in long-distance interactions;
6) The level of agreement in results increases, in other words the number of coincidences of evaluations of states within the group gradually increases.
Practical recommendations:
1) It’s necessary to work further at modeling states depending on the action being taken.
2) One must remember that each state has its own physiological aspect.
3) It’s important to study the influence of motivation. An absence of need to model states suggests that there is no response to the question “what for?” One can trace the process of an increase and decrease in motivation, and the connection of this process with the I-concept.
4) Pay attention to the following tendency: an interest in information is even more abstract. There is a breach between knowledge and one’s existence, and the maximum result is achieved at their juncture.
5) Keep in mind that perception takes place spontaneously, regardless of one’s desire. The desire to evaluate one’s state does not mean defining that state, that it’s an evaluation criterion. Real states are far from our desired estimates.
In a group, for the most part, there is a consumerist relationship to work — the work one does is seen as being a payment for information. This concerns how decisions are taken, and the need to make choices oneself. The majority of members of the group don’t have such a choice yet, and they are part of the Great Average. They don’t have the strength to tear themselves away from the control of the Great Average, in other words they can seem strange and turn out to be unintelligible. As a result there is distance between knowledge and existence which constantly increases. Knowledge about a number of methods increases, but this doesn’t change practice, and there is no objectivity. Working on the basis of group resonance, and relations between members of the group should come together on a principally different basis — like activity from surplus.
Try to analyze if there is a surplus in your activity, and find an answer to the question: can I do that with surplus? Try to produce from surplus. The following variants are possible:
1) activity as payment;
2) activity as necessity;
3) activity because you want to act.
Surplus is possible in all these versions of activity.
In the first case surplus is a generous payment (generous emotions, generous tips — in the wide sense of the word “tips”). This method turns a beggar into a king.
In the second case, when activity is necessity, work with surplus means mastery and inspiration. This method turns the robot into a creator.
In the third case (the most mysterious version) it’s not clear how the motive “want” can be the source of surplus. The mystery of happiness is contained in the answer to this question. Find the answer to this question yourself, with your own power.
Stability in work with the mental energy instrument arises when we are able to make our mental energy our top priority, in other words when we are able to live under the management of mental energy. But this isn’t so easy. When a person completely subordinates himself to this instrument, then most often he looks like a “crazy” person. In order to prevent this, one needs means of self-control — stable self-consciousness.
In order to place the mental energy instrument in the dominant position, one needs measures which widen the boundaries of the fear of loss of conventional behavior, since it in our society this is allowed only to children, drunks, crazy people and eccentrics, and sometimes to unique specialists. Thus, we need:
1) development of stable self-consciousness;
2) creation of situations, whereby one can act with dominant mental energy (actor’s training).
Without such a situation there will be no quality jump. Here we need understanding, courage, and control over the means which allow us to return to our original “normal” state.
We need a new stage in controlling the mental energy instrument. Language is only a means, while the goal is to control states (among which there are 24 which go beyond the boundaries of “normal” states). We have to approach this with the stable everyday state “four”.
There are illusions of two types:
1) We don’t have to do anything much, mental energy will develop itself. This is an explanation of our fear. Development of the instrument will not take place all by itself.
2) Overcoming fear through irrationality: this is like inspiration, insight, in other words overcoming fear through the “jump”.
One has to remember: inadequate behavior is a primitive way of solving the problem of a lack of knowledge.
Exercises for thought
1. Read this story
The story of the discovery of America
A certain Columbus beat down the threshold of the imperial palaces of Portugal and Spain, looking for money for his expedition to India. He was lucky with Isabella of Spain — the queen made him an admiral, equipped him with three caravels, and blessed him in his travels. Columbus didn’t find the route to India, as it turned out later, but he discovered America instead. Europeans already knew about the existence of this land, but either forgot, or purposely hid this knowledge. But Columbus believed to the end of his life that he opened that which we was looking for. He didn’t have enough fantasy to admit that something unknown existed. The news about the discovery was disseminated around Europe. Some people believed the news right away, while others wisely waited, and a third group was startled and angrily took up arms against Columbus. After all, these people felt that no sea route to India could exist, without even speaking of America, the existence of which nobody even suspected. They called Columbus a charlatan and a pirate, and alleged that he was in conspiracy with his team, and that they lied so as to take more money from poor Isabella of Spain.
Time went by. The skeptics were forced to believe in the existence of the New World. They, of course, didn’t go there themselves, and didn’t walk on American soil. But the skeptics didn’t suppose that other expeditions were also in the conspiracy, and that they could fool all of Europe. There wasn’t enough fantasy and courage for that.
So all the people of Europe learned about America. But it turned out that this information didn’t have the same value to all people. Some people could go there, but they were happy in Europe. What difference did it make if they knew about the New World or not? Others wanted to go, but couldn’t. Some business or the consequences of earlier behavior kept them in the Old World. Knowledge about the existence of something else irritated them. The third group knew about the New World, and wanted to go there, and could. They dashed off to the New World, and found something there. Some found gold and glory, others were put in jail or killed. It turned out that the New World is not Eldorado, but rather the same Old World, only a wild one, therefore creating lots of new problems. Nothing changed from the point of view of people’s being, and the fate of man.
So what did change?
America changed. Europeans killed millions of natives, and destroyed ancient civilizations, thereby depriving us of the possibility of learning many amazing things about the history of mankind. But what did the history of mankind mean to Pissaro or Cortes, if mankind didn’t exist for them? There are only Spaniards, Frenchmen, Indians and gold which must be stolen from everyone (Our regrets about the loss of cultural valuables is basically hypocritical. What is the destruction of a culture that can’t fill museum halls as compared to the sad fate of native peoples who were treated like cattle?)
America changed, but so did Africa. Slaves came from Africa to American plantations. Nobody counted how many Africans were sold into slavery. Some claim that 7 million Africans were sent into slavery, while others say 20 million were forced into slavery. Slaves worked on coffee and tobacco plantations, while coffee, tobacco, and cane-sugar rum were consumed in Europe.
It is said that the biggest luxury on earth is the luxury of communication between people. Europeans, like all people, suffered from a lack of communication, and tried to stimulate communication using all means possible — coffee, tobacco, and alcohol. For some reason it wasn’t possible to communicate directly. These people always had to put some third thing between themselves and others, for example, a cup of coffee or a bottle of Jamaican rum. Thus, Europeans paid for the luxury of communication by buying coffee and tobacco, and thereby gave coffee and tobacco producers the luxury not to die from hunger. (Don’t say that a police man who smokes expensive cigars is a jerk. By shortening his life by smoking, he gives a chance to the poor worker from the tobacco plantations to survive.)
Europe changed too. Besides tobacco, Europe also got potatoes, tomatoes and syphilis. Potatoes turned out to be a useful thing. Those who didn’t eat enough before could increase their food intake through the “apples of the earth.” But potatoes brought the Irish real misfortune. The Irish managed to plant potatoes in all fields, but when the potatoes got sick and decayed right down to the root. Famine started in the country, and about 1 million people died. Many people decided to leave then. There are about 3 million people in Ireland today, while before the potato famine there were 8 million. The remainder immigrated to that place where the potato came from – the New World.
Time went by, and the world became industrialized. The forests of the Amazon – the planet’s lungs – became the victim of this industrialization. A strong deficit in clean air appeared. But besides air a person also needs paper made from pulp. And man also wants to drive a car, and a highway was built through the Amazon. The planet’s lungs, without which we can suffocate, are no being destroyed with a speed of 44 hectares per minute. Who will die sooner: Uncle Jim, who smokes four packs of cigarettes per day, or our civilization, which is destroying the Amazon?
It turned out that with Christopher Columbus’ discovery everything changed, while at the same time nothing changed. Man managed to remain who we was.
One can’t evaluate history from the scientific point of view. There was what there was, and that’s a fact. We got regular development of production power and of a special kind of production. And there can be no evaluation where there is regularity. Not all people are scientists, but among scientists there are people. From a certain, non-scientific point of view, the history of mankind is one of the craziness of mankind. We can only regret this.
2. Change the words “America” and “New World” in this story to the concepts: the rest of the World, more refined material, super-sensory existence, changed reality, super-mental World.
Try to make a new approach to reading, seeing in the image of America those mysterious measurements of the perceptible and super-sensory World, about which the ancients talked so confidently, and about which we speak so unconfidently.
Read the story with a new approach, separating yourself from historical details.
3. Questions for you
Does this story not show mankind’s standard reaction to any new discovery?
Is mankind ready to accept and learn to use delicate cosmic energy and other measurements of material?
Mankind already mastered atomic energy, and now we all live in a powder keg. What’s the point of penetrating into other measurements of existence, of mastering delicate cosmic energy? What will change in man himself as a result?
If mankind moves to other Worlds in that state, in which it’s in now, then what will happen to mankind and to those other Worlds?
If mankind can’t take care of the ecology of this World, then will it be able to manage the ecology of another World?
Will those, who since ancient times have mastered the art of working with delicate energy, allow mankind to go with all its camp to different Worlds?
4. Think
PART THREE. THE ISLAND OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE SEA OF TECHNOLOGY
And not a single clove
should come off the face,
But be alive and only alive,
To the end alive.
Boris Pasternak
An individual!
Who needs it!
Vladimir Mayakovsky
METHOD OF QUALITATIVE STRUCTURES*
“Any whole can be represented as a system, but not every system can be a united whole.” (E. A. Samburov)
This position is confirmed the by the fact that the concept of the whole is narrower than the concept of the system. Therefore, a description of the whole as a system, for all its functional obviousness, does not make it possible to uncover its quality distinctness as a whole. A part of the whole, unlike the element of the system, doesn’t exist independently, and isn’t conceivable only simultaneously with the whole.
Thus, one of the fundamental problems of philosophy and the methodology of science is the problem of describing the whole without losing its entity quality. This task is especially important in those fields such as description of psyche, study of complex social and ethnic processes, and solving ecological problems.
The idea of developing a method which will make it possible to describe the whole, without destroying it, arose under the influence of methodological developments by Yu. M. Lotman and M. M. Bakhtin, who pay significant attention in their studies to the question of conserving the whole.
The problem is that when describing any production part of the whole, we are required at the same time to have its complete description.
In order to conserve the totality of the whole in relation to its parts, its description should provide the possibility to examine any one of its parts through its relation with the whole.
On the Other hand, the existence of a part in the whole is also total. Thus the totality of the whole is manifested in the totality of the existence of its parts. In other words, the following principles should be fulfilled: “everything in everything,” “everything in one,” “one in everything,” and “one in one.”
In order to solve this task we propose the method of qualitative structures. The main part of this method is to introduce for examination that aspect which allows the whole to remain as such in the process of internal and external development.
Such an aspect is well-known in the system of philosophical knowledge: the category of quality. “Quality is the essential clarity of the subject, by virtue of which this subject is what it is, and not another subject, and by which it differs from other subjects. As a rule, the quality of a subject can’t be broken down to certain properties. Quality is linked to the subject as a whole, and embraces it completely and is inseparable from it.” (“The Philosophy Dictionary”)
Examining a subject from the point of view of its qualitative distinctness, we already thereby examine the subject as a whole which exists in totality, in both its external and internal reality. In other words, totality is the essential property of the whole.
It’s natural to assume that totality of external existence of the whole is completed by the following aspects:
1. Quality which comprises the totality of external being, — the functional aspect.
2. Totality of being of a part in the whole — organizational aspect.
3. Totality of qualitative distinctness of the whole as unity of external and internal being — the coordination aspect.
4. Totality of being of the whole as something single in the universal — the communication aspect.
A joint examination of these four aspects of the existence of the whole allows us to reveal the structure of quality as such, in other words to formulate the principle by which it was possible to examine qualitative distinctness of any specific whole.
1. The coordination aspect answers the question: “Is the given volume whole?” Thus the coordination aspect is a reflection of the principle of unity (in other words – totality). In this sense the coordination aspect (CA) can be compared with the object-link in the whole ideal object in the sense that this concept is defined by V. Smirnov. Specific objects of this type, which can’t be perceived in a discrete structure, can be found in various fields of knowledge: the concept of the continual by V. V. Nalimov, archetypes by C. Jung, and monads by G. W. Leibniz. We propose expressing the principle inseparability of the coordination aspect by using the notion of the “coordinate point” (CP).
2. The functional aspect (FA) answers the question: “How does the whole manifest itself in the external World?” This aspect includes various properties of the object, ways of using it, production of any kind of good, and ways of delivering information outwardly.
3. The organizational aspect (OA) answers the question: “Which whole is organized?” The object, at the same time, is the construction of the object. The whole here can be viewed as a system with a certain structure and well-known properties of elements. OA can also contain properties and relations of various sub-systems of the system being examined.
4. The communication aspect (CA) answers the question: “How is the separated whole related to the surrounding environment?” We understand communication to be the whole multitude of influences of the external environment on the given whole which exist in that space in which this whole is separated as a unique object.
The link between these aspects of the existence of the whole, which reveal the whole’s qualitative distinctness, can be shown symbolically (fig. 62).
Fig. 62

Aspects of the whole
Let’s now examine the aspects examined here in pairs so as to specify the semantic field of the proposed structure of aspects:
1. Coordination — organization. These aspects describe the internal existence of the whole in a mutually complimentary fashion.
2. Functioning — communication. Describe the internal existence of the whole.
3. Coordination — functioning. Describe the qualitative distinctness of the object.
4. Communication — organization. Describe the totality of existence of the whole as parts, and the existence of the part as a whole.
5. Coordination — communication. Describe the qualitative distinctness of interaction of the whole with the environment in mutually complimentary fashion.
6. Functioning — organization. Ensure the description of signs of development of the given whole in mutually complimentary fashion, as well as the change in stability and changeability of the whole’s existence.
The four aspects are all principally equal. And, reflecting the totality of existence of the whole from various sides, they don’t form any kind of hierarchy. This is a closed multitude, in which everything is defined through everything, and is contained in everything.
The square of aspects (sketch for thought)
Fig. 63

The method of qualitative structures is in fact a heuristic (heuristics are special creative methods which are used in the process of making discoveries) principle for examining any object which is conceivable as a whole. On the Other hand, at the same time displaying the structure of the actual category of quality, the method of qualitative structures is also a means for describing the existence of the whole both from gnoseological and ontological points of view (fig. 63).
Further development of this method is connected to study of the change in the whole through the concept of “relative capacity” of its aspects.
LIFE AND EXISTENCE (As part of a discussion)
When we speak about our life, most often we describe events that took place with us at various times. We remember certain facts, something that changed on our path or inside us ourselves, and we talk about things that happened to us. We tell our biography, describe our life path, and our personal history. At the same time, for the listener the speaker himself remains outside of this description, because we aren’t, after all, speaking about him, but rather about his instrumental elements, about those changes which took place with his consciousness, body, or psyche, in other words about those things with which the speaker identifies himself to a large degree.
At the same time, thanks to a re-valuation of certain events in the past (exaltation of certain ones, and degradation of others), or thanks to building fantasies about the future, one gets the illusion of self-development, of self-change.
What really happens with man from the time of his birth to the time of his death? Each person’s personal path in life can be viewed as being a path of movement marked by events (landmarks) from a beginning to and ending stop.
The programmed part of life is made up of the programs of the body, consciousness, and man’s psyche. These programs are well known to a sufficient degree, and we can say ahead of time what will happen to a person. (M. Zhvanetsky: “I will never be a woman, I’ll never be a poet, and I’ll never do a 20-foot long jump…”) Fulfillment of these programs takes place in a rather narrow corridor of possibilities. A person will never see his life as a whole as long as he is located within the confines of this corridor. The fact of death and the fact of birth will be crowded out from his consciousness, since they are only abstraction, and he will have the illusion of a guaranteed future and endless possibilities (“I have plenty of time” — Maya 1, illusion of level I). Attempts to change something in one’s life look like “bucking” within this corridor, and don’t lead a person outside its confines.
Man remains passive towards his life due to his inability to see his life as a whole. Something happens to him, but man himself has a very insignificant relation to what’s happening.
The sensitive reality of birth, which is forced out of man’s consciousness, has other consequences as well. After all, the state of “fatigue of the spirit”, languor for something unclear and uncertain, but wanted, is connected directly to birth and the early period of life. This takes place because a person is found in the state of whole existence without realizing it in the period of infancy, but then loses this state due to various reasons. But somewhere in the depth of his soul he remembers this time and desires it again.
What is existence?
Existence is that which is shown to a person, that which is realized by a person. Among that which a person has realized there may be man’s life itself, but it’s impossible to look at one’s self from the outside, and to perceive one’s life as an object which is located within the confines of corridor given to man for programmed realization. Such an opportunity arises only when one goes outside this corridor, however, as long as a person identifies with his instruments, he once again will not be able to do so. This becomes possible together with development of self-consciousness (or the “coordinate point,” the “magnetic center”). Only then can man look at a certain part of his life as a whole, finding, at the same time, himself and his existence within himself. Under this, qualitatively different perception of life, man gets the possibility to relate to life as an object, and to manipulate it, in other words become the creator of his own life. Now he can do something in his life himself, but some things still happen with him.
It’s very difficult to come to such a relation to one’s self.
One of the possible routes is to relate to one’s self as to an object, and to study one’s self and the opportunities that have been fulfilled or not. Getting to know one’s self as an object, a person gets the possibility to study his instrumental elements (his body, consciousness, and energy) and separate them from one’s self, in other words separate one’s identity from them (after all the body isn’t me, it’s mine, and the same goes for my consciousness and psyche as well).
Getting to know one’s “instrumentalness,” a person begins to speak about this to others, and in this way, through other people, as if looking into a mirror, he sees discovers his existence within his self for the first time.
The quality of this process depends on who these other people are. This can be one person, a reference group, a teacher, or a master. This process has the strongest effect when the Other itself has a large volume of existence.
Speaking to others about our self and receiving from these people a description and an evaluation of our self, a person sees existence within himself for others. This is a stage of studying one’s self, of accepting one’s self. This is a period of egoism, which can’t be avoided.
Knowledge about our self as an object together with the Other make up Me. A characteristic sign of finding existence within one’s self for others is the “illness of the neophyte.” On this stage a person clashes with the fear of seeing the emptiness of his own I, but, understanding that, he receives the ability to fill this emptiness with the help of the Other. The life of his subjective reality begins, as do illusions of level II (Maya 2).
At this stage there is I as an object, there is reflection, but there isn’t yet I as a subject, since there still isn’t stable self-consciousness, there is no coordination between all instruments, existence is chaotic, and the instruments don’t work smoothly. Some things still just happen in life, just like before, but the person does some things on his own already now too.
The goal of many spiritual schools is to bring a person to such a state, and their methods are built on the principle of perceiving one’s self (these are searches for the “real I,” “the God within,” a search simply for one’s self, etc.).
The next stage may be a step in man’s spiritual development. This stage is connected with the appearance of stable self-consciousness. Only with its advent does man gain fullness of subjectivity, from this moment man arises as a whole, the instruments of which got an owner. His life becomes the object of creativity, because a subject has the ability for real action and for forming a plan for life.
The formula of this stage looks as follows (fig. 64).
Fig. 64

The difficulties of this stage are connected with overcoming the fear discovering the emptiness of life, for no matter how I organize my life, “nothing will change” in the World because of that, in other words the World will prevail over intention. But there is material, the resistance from which one must overcome.
But that’s still not all. Making your life an object, becoming the master of this life, a person can one day discover the emptiness of the World, since everything takes place in the World independently from the actions of one concrete person. And at that time a person has to either admit the vanity of all his attempts, and know God, or enter a different phase of relations with the World, relating to it as an object, and entering a Dialogue with it.
These are ways for a Dialogue with the World, with a third voice which is the life of man. On this stage existence in one’s self for one’s self is born.
Birth in the school
Accepting the laws of the school where he studies, a person is immersed in a chain of events which periodically elbow man outside the boundaries of his corridor, and give him food for self-consciousness. This leads to the appearance in man of a “magnetic center,” which, when developing, can transform into stable self-consciousness and can transform a person into an active subject of life.
Feeling himself real, having experienced himself as a whole, a person gets the possibility to enter a Dialogue with another whole, including with the World. At the same time it is assumed that the World is a subject, and, in this way, has some coordinate point.
The juxtaposition of the coordinate point with the coordinate point of the World leads to experiencing a moment of “enlightenment,” about which we can say, that within it there will be existence as movement of the whole in the whole by means of the zero-transition in the coordinate point. From this moment a real movement begins in the space “Time, Knowledge, People,” in other words development of existence in one’s self for one’s self. This, in other words, is spiritual development.
GROUP OF “STATEMENTS”  Part one. Practical training
Why have we come together?
We don’t want to achieve everything.
We don’t want to value anything.
We want to speak some more on the topic of what is “existence in one’s self for one’s self” and “existence in one’s self for others,” as well as try and find an answer to the question “is a person given to himself as existence?” without reference to any sort of authorities. We want to realize ourselves in our thinking.
A text in the form of some king of polyphonic statement in response to these questions should result from our meetings.
We are all quite educated, but can we explain what we mean when we use the term “existence,” and how this concept is different from the concept of “life”?
Which philosophical concept do we rush to in real life (materialism, subjective idealism, egocentrism, etc.), what determines our choice in various life situations? How do we interpret the meaning of the phrase “existence determines consciousness” for ourselves? How do conditions determine our existence? In this case it turns out that the environment determines our consciousness. But intuitively we feel that this isn’t really the case.
People who are included in our European culture swim in it like soap bubbles. They aren’t independent at all from the opinion of that group in which they live. And their whole conceptual apparatus most often has no real contents, in other words it isn’t connected to any practice in their life, and is not independent from the opinion of “one’s circle”. Thus, a person lives in captivity to his illusions of the “general” opinion. And when he starts to work with some kind of system of spiritual development, then besides having illusions which are common to all people, he also gets his own personal illusion. The idea of spiritual development suffers from this, as do those who try to achieve spiritual development.
So, let’s try and find the philosopher within us and turn round to one another with this boundary.
To start let’s try and answer a series of questions with each person basing their answers on themselves.
I.
a) Existence as a philosophical category.
b) Existence as a term in real practice (how does it function in our culture)?
c) Existence as you interpret it yourself?
II. The meaning of the phrase “in one’s self”:
a) from the point of view of philosophy;
b) from the point of view of real practice (in speech communication);
c) your volume of “in one’s self”.
III. In which aspects can we find the meaning of the phrases “for one’s self” and “for others” in combination with the words “in one’s self”?
View from within № 19 The instant of fulfilling the training — statement
1. Existence is revelation.
Potential existence is the possibility of revelation.
Can we speak of existence separately from man?
If we look within the framework of mankind, then existence is a person’s relation to reality, in other words reality and existence are various concepts. In this case non-existence is everything not revealed, and otherness is the assumption about the existence of other types of being. If we look at a singular subject, then existence for this subject is everything that is revealed to him. Everything which is not revealed to him, but which he knows about, he perceives as being some kind of otherness.
2. In one’s self for one’s self and in one’s self for others.
In one’s self — in one’s subjective reality (if we look from the position of the subject).
In one’s self for one’s self — how I understand myself to be an object which exists.
In one’s self for others — my existence of myself as an object, about which I find out from others.
Both of these statements can be viewed both from the position of the subject, and from the position of the object.
We discover existence in one’s self for others when speaking with others. And we all, or almost all, understand existence for others; it is potentially present, and any person can realize this.
For any outside observer we are a part of existence.
A person as an object for another also must know himself in existence in his self for others. But, in this way, a person has a principally unknown part; that which is not accessible to an outside observer. This part is existence in one’s self for others. This is that absolute truth which can’t be understood, according to philosophers.
Existence in one’s self for others can be studied to complete exhaustion, but, wishing to understand a person, we must understand that any person is unavailable to us in existence in one’s self for others.
The subject is accessible to its self in existence in one’s self for others (the subject learns that when communicating with others). Is he accessible to himself in existence in his self for his self?
Spiritual teachings maintain that yes, he’s available. And spiritual development is nothing more than getting to know one’s self in existence in one’s self for one’s self, in other words representation of a person to himself as existence. And this part of the subject is accessible only to himself. This cannot be passed on in words. This is why a person’s spiritual development is extremely personal. Nobody can help a person in his spiritual development, but rather only direct his attention in this direction.
One can state that a person who wishes to know his self runs into two forms of self-representation:
1) getting to know one’s self in existence in one’s self for others (here there is psychological defense, and displacement, and substitution);
2) getting to know one’s self in existence in one’s self for one’s self.
GROUP OF “STATEMENTS” Part two
So, we’ve reached a certain coherence in the question what is “existence in one’s self for others”?
Existence in one’s self for others is existence as a description of the World and my self, which I’ve received through others.
What is existence in one’s self for one’s self? Whatever the case, it’s not that which I don’t show to others. The matter is not about hiding or not hiding, but rather about something else.
We suggest thinking in the following direction:
1) Is a person presented to his own self as existence, and if not, then is it possible? If it is possible, then how?
2) We know that there are two versions of representation of a person to his own self:
— in him self for others;
— in him self for him self.
In any case, we think that such representation exists or can exist for a specific person.
In one’s self is that which I reflected.
In one’s self suggests knowledge, but absence of reflection (for example, I know about the permissive ability of my hearing aid, but I don’t reflect on that).
The procedure of reflection is a deeply personal act. Each person can reflect for him self, and nobody Else can do this for you.
We suggest thinking about what you see as the difference between the concepts:
— existence in one’s self for others;
— existence in one’s self for one’s self.
3) What is “existence” in my reality?
Try to differentiate the concepts of “my life” and “my existence,” but in the psychological aspect as applicable to your self rather than in the philosophical aspect.
4) Can I separate my identity from life (what for, how, why?) and is it possible to separate one’s identity from existence?
To separate one’s identity from life is to understand that I and my life are not one and the same. I exist, and my life exists, and I myself observe or create my life. How is this different from pathological split personality?
5) How is one’s life goal different from the goal of existence (their content)?
A topic for thought
For what and based on which rules do we use the situation of communication?
We have a small opportunity: while each of us doesn’t have a description of himself made by all others, try not to let that happen.
Why is this important?
Think about it: how is a group formed? There will inevitably be a process of introducing all the participants. This will take place objectively, no matter what the desire of each specific person:
— everybody makes a description of me and tries to tell me what it is,
— I make a description of others and try to tell it to others, and also tell others my description of myself.
This has to take place.
Group mechanisms reduce the individual level of creativity in statements.
One has to try to stop the group mechanism from working, and to not tell other members of the group one’s description of each of them, as well not accept the descriptions that others have of you.
This isn’t easy to do, but, reflecting on these moments, you get an extremely effective way to find existence in your self for others.
There is also a procedure of finding existence in your self for your self. Do the following: mentally put all objective reality inside your self (in your subjective reality) and put your own I in this sum-total reality. What existence do you have there and how will you live there?
The principle of uncertainty: the process itself of describing something changes that which is being described.
A person who enters the sphere of existence in him self for others cannot independently avoid dependence from this sphere. He continues to miss something else which he can’t even determine himself.
When thinking about existence, you and I already reflected one of the objects: existence in one’s self for others is that very trap, that very cage, upon entering which man can’t free himself.
As for existence in one’s self for one’s self, here we have some vagueness. This concerns the concepts of “existence” and “life”.
(An interesting question: where am I when I think about existence in my self for my self?)
The essence of such education is to locate the conceptual object that interests us from various points of view (as if take its bearings).
The most important thing here is not to allow these points to come together. They come together when people start to argue, to discuss, and to prove, and in the end simply come to agreement (in other words turn out to be all in one point).
If there are no such discussions, then the meaning of each personal statement enters each of us and serves as the material for some kind of internal work.
After all, each of us carries some kind of semantic space inside, and it’s not the same for all people. The author of the statement is in the center of this space. When speaking, we follow a goal — to find diversity of space of the statement as concerns certain concepts. At the same time, there is a process of change of semantic space of the concepts used in statements inside each when we perceive someone else’s statement.
If we simply come to an agreement as concerns these concepts, then we turn out to be in the general point of view, but this will take place in the space in existence in our selves for others without change of individual realization. This realization is replaced by the agreed upon convention “as concerns.”
A new thesis:
“Existence is the World in which I live, and I being in the World.”
Whole living is typical of children (I and the World are inseparable).
Adults: chaotic existence — purposeful existence — whole existence.
We continue to speak out on this matter:
1) Existence in one’s self for one’s self;
2) Life and existence, the difference between them, the possibility to separate identity;
3) Representation to myself as existence.
GROUP OF “STATEMENTS” Part three
We can say that we’ve gone from the abstract to the real contents of the term “statement,” since the last ones are substantial, in other words oriented at life.
Try to prepare your final statement and to put the following into it:
1) what is the essence of the problem of interrelations of existence in one’s self for others and existence in one’s self for one’s self; lack of representation of a person to him self as existence, and what comes out of it;
2) your social-psychological evaluation of the rules of our communication, how you relate to them, do this have any practical meaning, and did it give you anything?
3) why do we need a method allowing us to realize two aspects of our existence, what does it give us and what does it take away, and what is this needed for or can be needed for?
4) a new concept appeared for discussion of our topic in the statements — self-conscious; our specific meaning of this concept; why couldn’t we make do without it?
Using the concept of “self-consciousness,” we have moved, imperceptibly to ourselves, to that field where the content is not specified, but is supposed (in several independent statements this concept was introduced as explaining itself).
This is once again the defense mechanism in existence in one’s self for others, under which we use one and the same words, but don’t mention their contents, pretending that they are the same for everyone.
Each person has a set of self-evident norms which he doesn’t himself stipulate for with himself. These norms fulfill the very precise role of regulating mechanisms.
Think:
— what is the function of this mechanism?
— why does this exist?
— what will happen if a person starts to reflect that?
The same set of self-evident norms which one person has can also exist in a social group, in society, in a specific culture, etc.
This mechanism has very difficult interrelations with self-consciousness. It’s possible (hypothesis), that this mechanism ensures domination of existence in one’s self for others over existence in one’s self for one’s self. Is this the price one pays for keeping one’s wholeness under the absence of stable self-consciousness?
And what is this “self…?” Maybe it’s a set of self-evident norms?
We’ll continue our thinking.
GROUP OF “STATEMENTS” Part four
Consciousness and the unconscious
The most progressive system of views on interaction of the conscious and the unconscious, as it seems to us, is the following:
1) one doesn’t experience time in the unconscious;
2) one doesn’t feel the separation of the subject and object in the unconscious;
3) this exists in the conscious.
Try for yourself to understand these concepts, because people who are interested in the problem of self-regulation have very different ideas about what the final goal of self-regulation is.
Perhaps people have psychological breakdowns for exactly the reason that the unconscious doesn’t experience time and separation of the subject and object, and people have an eternal desire for exactly such a state. It would be good for you to think about what relationship there is between the conscious and the unconscious.
The conscious, being attached to time and separating the subject and object, also has its own merits.
What is your view on this problem, and how does it look in your group of people? How would you like to build a relationship between the conscious and unconscious?
How can one consciously organize the act of the process of self-regulation?
It would be good for you not to forget, at the same time, that our group has a philosophical bent, not an engineering one. Thus one has to make some internal effort in order to direct one’s ideas precisely in this course, and to prepare one’s self for thinking rather than for construction.
Find out what it means to “speak out.” An ideological structure is built from “statements” which either reject, explain, or prove the need for self-regulation (for one’s self).
We recommend making statements as the result of your thinking about these three directions:
1) Your circle of knowledge and thoughts about problems of interrelations of the conscious and unconscious.
2) Interrelations of two concepts: perception and self-regulation.
3) Thoughts on the topic: in which way is it possible to have the fullest organization of the structure of interaction of the conscious and unconscious under the subject’s volition?
To read: Materials from the international symposium on the problem of the “Unconscious”, 1st half of volume IV. Tbilisi, 1979 (especially the article by A. G. Asmolov). In the book “Unconscious”.
Statement
View from within № 20
1. Perception and self-regulation.
There is a provocation in the very word “self-regulation”. This is no more than a wish, an appeal, an unreal system.
Because self-regulation doesn’t exist in one’s self for one’s self, while in one’s self for others one is regulated by others.
In other words self-regulation is an illusion.
Realization — to name one’s self in one’s self for others. But this is realization of others, I gave it to myself by putting it together like a mosaic.
One can also view self-regulation as realization and regulation in existence in one’s self for others.
2. Interaction of conscious and unconscious under the subject’s volition.
To begin with we need to define the concept of “volition.”
Volition is the sum-total of mechanisms of goal-setting and the mechanisms of concentration and management in order to achieve the goal set. There is thus a question: which goal should the subject follow?
We can look at volition as the need for overcoming obstacles. From these positions the problem becomes a goal in and of itself for overcoming obstacles.
3. The problem with existence in one’s self for one’s self and interaction of the conscious and unconscious are connected.
Only a clear answer to these two questions in the subjective sense without an attempt to extract some generalized truth can make it possible to take the next step towards analyzing the concepts of “self…” (regulation, perfection, etc.).
Hypothesis. Existence in one’s self for one’s self is not accessible to an outside observer. One can suppose that this is accessible to the subject itself.
4. About the group. We can’t imagine life outside the group. The group serves as a means of psychological defense, emotional communication, etc. Members of the group are subject to mutual suggestion and induction. Role-playing mechanisms operate in the group (including leadership).
5. The conscious and unconscious.
The unconscious is much broader, and includes not only automatisms of behavior, displaced and regulating mechanisms, but something else as well.
We can separate two structures of the unconscious:
— the subconscious: potentially accessible. That which can make the transition to existence for self-consciousness;
— superconscious: that which is unconscious in principle.
***
They didn’t want to achieve anything.
They didn’t want to value anything.
They didn’t want to speak out
without referring to any authorities.
And you? Do you want to say something?
And you? Do you want to say something?