INTERVIEW WITH s.n.lazarev

An author of the book “Diagnostics of Karma” Sergei Nikolaevich Lazarev--became world known for his work in the bioenergetics field. His precise diagnostics of a person’s health condition has made him famous fifteen years ago. Even though he was able to see [read] the body organs and successfully heal people with his hands, he had quit that practice after realizing that the energy field of a single organ and a body as a whole is structured according to a person’s karma; karma, in its turn, directly depends on your world perspective, personality, and actions. The process of mere mechanic cleansing of a human field can deliver effective results at first. However, if a person does not change his personality at the time of this cleansing, it could lead to greater misfortunes and sicknesses for a patient as well as a healer. He [Lazarev] created a particular system that allows you to cleanse your own field as well as self-heal. He single-handedly had healed himself from cancer, helping a great number of people to heal from this disease and overcome many other problems and ailments.

In brief, his main stances are about how much love a person has in his soul and how much a person is driven by the Unconditional Love in his life. If a person puts anything before his Love for God, it will only bring him misfortunes and he will end up losing whatever he put before God anyway.

These postulates have great resemblance with what I have been taught myself and what I practice. During his rare visits to Israel, we used to spend hours talking on that topic. And during his most recent visit I took a few days off and dedicated that time to discussing a multitude of topics in the tranquil atmosphere of the Dead Sea. He turned out to be an exceptionally interesting narrator with the wide scope of knowledge and a great ability to listen, keeping his mind open to any new information. At a certain point of our conversation, I got a great desire for at least some of the topics to be heard by others. I suggested making an interview out of our discussions and he agreed (despite the fact that he hardly ever gives interviews). So we got to the car, I turned on the tape recorder and started asking questions that I found to be of special interest to the readers. We would pass by the most eye-catching landscapes of Judaic desert, ever more tuning us into the philosophical ambiance.

L.S.N. - In order to start changing, a person must put a stop to all his desires. Since all the belief systems are directed to fulfillment of the concealed human desires, they essentially shut down your ability to change. That explains why a person reading a massive amount of literature, ends up with even worse results. No matter what he talks himself into thinking, his energetics will only get worse. A person can work on his problems for millions of years on the superficial level; sooner or later it will all sink in. Obviously, it is better to make realistic changes on the inside; however, not everyone is up for it. Many are ready to perform the heroic actions, but cave in when it comes to realistically changing themselves. I can see that by my own example. I only recently have realized that I cannot count on freebies and freeloading. I always wanted to purchase something of higher quality for a cheaper price. However, I recently realized that it’s a parasitical tendency, when you rely on a good thing to cost cheap. If I pay less than I have to, it means that in some sense I’m stealing.

R.B. - During one of your first lectures in Israel you said that Israel is exposed to a triple lethal danger because of its tremendous fixation on a prosperous destiny

L.S.N. – Yes, but it all was before this business with the intifada.

R.B. – Now, you are saying that things are getting better…

L.S.N. – On the whole, yes.

R.B. – I hope that it is also thanks to your help. Your books are selling out pretty fast in our stores.

L.S.N. – As a matter of fact, there is an influence. In other words, even if a small number of people accept this information, it will all resound on the subtle insubstantial plane.

R.B. – Could you shortly tell our readers about how you came to do the work in this field.

L.S.N. – What do you mean how I “came?” Someone takes a person by the hand and guides him; how does he come to do it? When your intuition is in a nonstop mode [on a nonstop alert,] it becomes apparent that situation takes over the events. I did not come to do anything yet, I am still walking the road!

R.B. - Are you somehow associated with science?

L.S.N. - The scientific point of view is an experimental base, an establishment. It is a so called permit to working access. The scientific research and studies are a huge routine usually used for defending your dissertation, not for the breakthrough. The creative breakthrough is fueled by enthusiasm, energy, the concept or idea. It does not need special advanced equipment; it suffices with the high school level technology. Only then after everything had been confirmed, in order to prove that it works people explore it and make a “scientific discovery.” The discovery had been made a long ago; it now has to be confirmed with hardcore visible facts in the material world. The conclusions that I have been making within these past ten years are only now being proved by academic scholars, psychologists and physiologists, who use my work as subjects for their doctorates and dissertations. So, there is no need for me to take my conclusions through to the last stage to prove it; others already made it their business to do it for me, and they are succeeding at that too. My objective is to make a discovery; then the scholars who read my books prove my research, using scientific facts and foundation. And since they do it with scientific approach, they are credited with being the first to make a discovery. They have a right to be called the pioneer explorers. Unfortunately, you cannot put a patent on the idea.
I researched the idea that a child can change its gender during the first months of pregnancy; it sounded wild and ridiculous at that time. Then the American scientists had performed a research study, proving that it was true. Another thing: I supported the idea that intestines can receive the information. They used to say it was a complete gibberish. It has now been scientifically proved that your intestines as well as your stomach are the nerve centers, while the solar plexus itself often works as a second and at times as a primary brain. They have everything including the latest technology and equipment, everything but the understanding of the idea. So, a labor division--where one party comes up with an idea and another party proves it--is not such a bad idea after all.

R.B. - One way or another, science has now started approaching an idealistic stance.

L.S.N. – I see it not so much as idealistic position, but it is just that science is entering the zone that used to belong to religion. Throughout the research of subtle planes, science and religion eventually come to collaboration. In this area both science and religion become secondary. Religion made its conclusions based on research of singular mystics who entered subtle planes. Science does the same now using technical equipment. Conclusions are factually the same.

R.B. – Your essential conclusion is that love for God should be the main goal in a person’s life. If a person places anything above or before the Divine unconditional Love, the Universe will teach that person a lesson in some way. We simply come to this world to accumulate and develop Divine Love. However, it is not clear for many what it all means.

L.S.N. – All your goals must eventually unite into one. If this main goal does not correspond to the principal goal of the whole Universe, it will undergo the natural sort out. It is a natural occurrence. A cell can concentrate on itself, it can think about itself, but it still unquestioningly obeys a command given by an organism, without questioning, explaining it or understanding. A cell obeys an organisms command just because it has to. A person must act the same way with the Divine Logic. If this logic is unclear or hard to explain, it does not mean that you should decline it.

R.B. - Many people did not believe in God at all before reading your books; so when they read that you need to love God, this concept sounds somewhat abstract to them. Sometimes I hear people say that in order to follow your recommendations, one would need to join a monastery.

L.S.N. – You can always find a particle of Divine love in your human love, in your love for money, your love for food, your love for your loved ones. Any vector contains a main direction, a primary current, an essential purpose. Any situation, that happens within the Universe contains an element of original cause. The less your love depends on money, well being, or desires, the closer it is to God. In other words, your love for God is the same as the union with God; you need to experience oneness with God, and you can only unite with Him via love. How does this love look? The love that has fewer conditions, demands, fears and so on, is the love that contains more of the Divine substance in it; the true love should not merge with superficial layers. Let’s say you love money. The next thing you know you get robbed and you lose all of your money. If you manage to preserve love in this situation, it indicates that you have some Divine love in you. You can say your human love has transformed into Divine love. However, if you feel like putting a rope around your neck and hanging yourself after losing your money, it means that your love was a mere infatuation. In other words, a human love primarily consists of addictions or fixations; human love usually comes down to your desire to use up, expend, freeload. Divine love consists of giving away. The more we give, the easier it is for us to get a sense of the Divine love. So, no matter how many lectures about Divine Love you read to a scrooge, he will never understand it.

A person can sense what Divine Love is not when he gets money, but when he loses something, especially if it’s his life. Those who are about to die, can sense their death. Many begin to believe in God and sense that this unexplainable love for the Creator becomes a reality; the rest of their lives feel like an illusion, while feeling of affection and fixation disappears. You can only experience that true love, if you are able to lose something precious to you and let go of your material well being. You must be able to fast, keep the lent, care for others, and enjoy giving more than taking. If you are able to do that much for the start, you will see that this very mythical obscure unknown love can become a reality. If you only want to take and consume, if you don’t want to care about others, if you are selfish, holding your well being, a bite of food, and a piece of gold as your main primary goal, you will not be able to understand what Love for God is.

R.B. - Whatever you have just said is commonly known. However, you have introduced the revolutionary idea in your discoveries by saying that an individual can engage in religious and spiritual practices and turn into a spiritual being, but it would still hurt his soul. And when something injures your soul, it is bound to consequently reflect on your physical body; so in the end both body and soul will end up suffering.

L.S.N. – Your soul will not suffer from it, but spiritual and religious practices do not guarantee the purity of your soul; and that is what I was talking about. Ordinarily, a person views his material values (such as money, food) and the Divine aspect as two opposites. Spirituality and Divinity, though, have never been viewed as two opposite or separate things. What we never took into consideration is that even the highest spiritual endeavor still belongs to things of earthly nature, hence can never belong to Godly category or be identical with Divine aspect. So, the same processes can be activated. The mechanism works the same way, whether you worship your food and money or your principles. Besides, it is easier to turn away from your material values, such as food and money; it is much harder to let go of your spirituality, abilities, or intellect.

R.B. – So you are saying it can sometimes be harmful for a person to strictly follow certain religious rules or strictly observe certain esoteric postulates…

L.S.N. – Not exactly. If a person strictly observes his financial politics, earns his money, puts it aside, circulates his budget, than it’s not bad and won’t harm him. It will only start doing damage, when money becomes his priority; at that time he would be capable of giving up on love for his folks, his children, and the feeling of love in general—all for the sake of money. In other words, while a person views money as something of secondary nature, being able to give it up or sacrifice it for the sake of love, it is not dangerous. It works the same way with your spirituality. What does it mean to be ready to sacrifice your spirituality? It means to forgive a person who is wrong in your eyes; you have to realize that love is more important than righteousness and justice. When justice is more important to you than love, it indicates that you give your priority to spirituality. If a person who is engaged with spiritual or religious practices puts love in the second place, his spiritual work can start doing him harm. This happens to religious fanatics, for whom religious and spiritual laws are more important than life, love, and anything else to them. It also happens when people hold their moral principles above all, even when facing a life and death situation; they would not abrogate their principles no matter what the circumstances. This is an unnoticeable invisible line; if a person crosses it, he will start stepping away from God and Love to indulge his concepts and his spiritual wealth.

R.B. – I got to meet people who had serious problems with their psyche; however, they did not become religious fanatics. They were usually involved with some esoteric, mystical, most frequently eastern teachings.

L.S.N. – Let’s see now. A student went to the first grade. After that he must go to the second and third grades. A friend of his runs up to him during the break and tells him: “Did you know what kinds of things they are teaching in college?! Just skip this school; you don’t need it. Let’s go study in college.” You can approximately imagine the outcome of such a schooling and what kind of results students will come up with. You should keep in mind that you must be emotionally prepared to perceive and realistically understand the esoteric knowledge primarily coming from the East and from India. In order to discuss any incidences of ethereal planes such as out of body astral travels, a contact with other worlds, journeys in your sleep and awake states, you must first have a few grades of basic education. The basic education implies that you need to adjust yourself emotionally. You should not have any hatred, envy, bitterness, hurts, greediness, gloominess, fears, or regrets; if you overcome those, it will help you establish harmony with your environment. The only way your soul won’t go insane when reaching ethereal insubstantial planes is, if it’s harmonious and doesn’t contain any aggression.

Many esoteric specialists offer somewhat hasty and abrupt information that does not agree with an individual that it’s being given to; if a person still keeps holding on to his grudges, being greedy and envious, this information can kill him. So, what is the most likely scenario for such a person, after he gets access to these esoteric mysteries? He will most likely shut himself down from this information, and it will be his only salvation. So, he can keep attending these schools for many years without any apparent results. Majority of this kind of schools appears to give knowledge, while in reality they eventually cause nothing but a bundle of certain problems to its students. Theoretically, you could skip a first year of college; however, not everyone can afford to do that.

R.B. – What kind of emotions in the modern society do you find to be most harmful and obtruding to the growth of Divine and unconditional love?

L.S.N. – The closer you are to love, the more dangerous it is to keep the aggressive emotions within yourself. So, the most dangerous emotions are those that are directed to the people you love; those are usually emotions of hurt or feelings or hatred; also it is dangerous to judge your parents, siblings, and yourself as well as your children and your love partner. It is one thing to envy someone or hold a grudge against someone from the “neighboring village,” and it is completely different when you hold a grudge against your parents or yourself. This is a real catastrophe. So, the key is not in what sort of emotions we experience, but whom these emotions are directed at.

R.B. – I have heard that philosophers say that it is harder to love a person who is close to you and who you live with than it is to love the rest of the world.

L.S.N. – That’s because the greatest pain comes through a person who is close to you. The greater is your love, the more intense cleansing do you have to go through. So, as soon as we experience great love, we should be aware of the great pain that comes with it. For that reason people who are dear to us should cause us the greatest amount of pain and sorrow. Your readiness to accept this pain will help both your beloved and you yourself in your growth. Pain usually detaches you from certain things; it provides some sort of a split. It is very important to react to pain correctly. First of all, you need to uphold your divine spark at the time of being deprived of your human happiness. In other words, you need to conserve your compassion, goodwill and ability to forgive. Second of all, you should work on self discipline and self guidance as well as upbringing and guidance of others. If you don’t respond to pain, then you will fall into depression. You need to react to every kind of stress you have; you just have to do it correctly. If there is something you don’t like, you have to change yourself. You must remember that the best kind of a change is a change of your own self, since the condition of your field is identical with your psychological state. Your field later on determines everything that happens around you. In other words, the whole cause-effect mechanism in the surrounding world is connected with a person’s inner condition. The way I am on the inside determines the events that occur around me on the outside.

R.B. – I made an observation that mentioning God to people often provokes a question: How come God is so unfair? Many people wonder why a nice person who goes to church and seems to live a right life has to suffer, experience sicknesses, and go through hardships, while a thief and a criminal is wealthy and well-off financially and physically?

L.S.N. - First of all, we need to acknowledge what stands behind the concept of justice. A person tends to create this concept on his own. What is he using as a foundation? Let’s say, you read in the Old Testament that if you carry out all the God prescribed instructions, your kinfolk will live long and prosper, and that you will be healthy and have no ailments. The above presents a certain format; a corresponding analogy can be found in the ancient Indian philosophy. If you betray and steal, you will be punished for it in this life or the next. So there are two explanations: 1) God is unjust. 2) God is fair, but we don’t realize His justice. You are either paying for something from your past life, or there is something in you that you still have to work out; your problems may be present in a subtle invisible to you, nevertheless present layer. Everything can be explained even without the idea of past lives. Suppose there is a negative heredity in your blood line; it is not necessarily noticeable in your external condition. Things that happen to people are determined not by their superficial layer of awareness, but by their subterranean level of consciousness, lying deep inside. And so, it is very common that we have things on the inside that are not obviously manifested in what we appear to be on the outside. But those things sitting deep inside of us can be traced by observing the events we experience on the outside; these events happen as a consequence of our inner condition. So before we decide whether God is fair or not, we need to understand what the justice is. If we look at things from the Divine point, there is only one justice: if a person is moving toward God, he will be under constant protection. Accordingly, a person will be deprived of that protection, if he is moving away from God. Is this justice?--Yes, it seems fair. Is it something you can find in the Old Testament? Yes, this knowledge can be found in the Old Testament, but not in the eastern teachings. What does it mean to move toward God? You can discover God through the feeling of love. Progress will continues, while the feeling of love is more important to you than any other material or spiritual values, even your life. Divine logic works for God. Human logic works for your wellbeing, your body, and your life. People often do things for the sake of showing off and gaining points, hoping to get some benefits from God; and then they get mad when in return God puts their physical bodies through sufferings and inconveniences. God saves our souls and our feeling of love by putting our physical bodies through discomfort or sufferings. Unlike us, God can see the condition of our subterranean spiritual structures; thus He knows what we need to go through to sustain the Divine love. We never see those spiritual structures for we are hardly ever bestowed with such a vision. Therefore, we can never completely grasp or imagine the Divine logic. It is pointless to be distressed about it or present any stipulations or prerequisites to God. The logic of love is indestructible; it is eternal. We originated from God, and we will go back to God. If we are experiencing problems with our physical bodies, it indicates to the lack of love in our souls. No matter how indecently a person acts on the outside, if he is harmonious in his soul, he will still be insured from above. This protection, however, will not last forever, if he carries on with the old behavior pattern; when we repeatedly act a certain way on the outside, with time it is all bound to seep through and deposit inside of us. So sooner or later a crook and rascal will have to rip what he sawed. You are doomed to have problems sooner or later, if you judge others or choose the material or spiritual values over Love.

R.B. – You wrote in your books, and it’s a quite well known fact, that the feeling of Love can be seen in the material world most manifestly through a mother’s love for her child. In other words, a mother’s love is rather unconditional; however, there is another side of a coin here, when, as you said, parents are excessively attached to their children and worship them. Can there be too much of parental affection and love?

L.S.N. – There is always too much of attachment, even if it’s in a minimum amount. There can never be too much love, though. What does the whole system come down to? It is about what principles a mother is governed by in her love for a child. What kind of qualities is she trying to bring out in him? That is a question that a mother needs to ask herself.

R.B. – And how do you see that fine line, a line between love and attachment for a child?

L.S.N. – If you have a wrong world perspective, your attitude toward others cannot be harmonious. A mother with such a world perspective may love her child, but at the same she will be involuntarily, unknowingly killing him.

R.B. – What are the typical cases of this happening?

L.S.N. – A mother needs to ask herself what it is that she wants to eventually see in her child. What is she trying to get out of her child? If a mother wants her child to be smarter than she is, uphold her intellect, her talents, etc, than she will be expecting him to be more capable, skillful and accomplished . She will concentrate her child on his abilities, expecting him to advance his skills and talents. If a mother wants her child to live well and prosper, she will get centered on his life. She will try to secure his life, giving him money, sweets, food, attention, fine clothing, and so on. The more a mother concentrates on her child’s life or his skills, the more destructively it will reflect on a his life and abilities. In other words, how should one person treat another? It says in the New Testament that you should treat others the same way as you want to be treated. As I recall, this idea is also expressed in the Old Testament.

R.B. – It says in Midrashim that a Judaic wise man Gilel was once asked: Can you explain the quintessence of Tora while I stand on one foot? He answered: Yes, the essence of Tora is that you need to treat a person the same way you treat yourself; the rest of it is just comments to that notion.

L.S.N. - The thing is that the New Testament repeats many things from the Old Testament, but with a somewhat different accent. Any assertion, even if it was utterly fair and necessary three thousand years ago requires some sort of modification to adapt to the present time. There is a saying that you must treat another person the same way that you would treat yourself. What does it mean? It means that you need to fulfill the primary function by impeding any form of envy, hatred, or aggression; you should slow down your aggressiveness, stipulations, stealing and such. By the time The next step comes into picture, you no longer have any hatred, and you need to move toward love. How do you move in the direction of love? You need to take a somewhat different approach here; a path toward love lies through self restraint, holding yourself back, at times requiring you to undergo a rigid regime. So, first of all, you should treat other people the same way as you treat yourself, also helping them to get a sense of their own divine spark. So, when it comes down to your own child, you should not over-feed him, but restrain him, punish him, while never stopping to love him. Some mothers treat their children only the way that they want their children to treat them in return, when they get older. In other words, a mother wants her child to carry her in his arms, kiss her, hug her, buy her all kinds of goodies; she treats her child in that manner, hoping that a child would treat her that way some day. She, however, does not realize what effect such a treatment has on a child; it’s killing him, by tying [attaching] him on to material values. So, in that sense, it is hard to fully fulfill a phrase saying that you should treat other people the same way as you want them to treat you. This phrase does not specify how one person should actually treat another. We should nurture and feel the Godly essence in ourselves, while helping others, especially our children, do the same. That is the time when you can start understanding Christ’s saying that your worst enemies are your loved ones. By “loved ones” he meant people who make you overeat, fussy over you, worship you, and without knowing or wanting to do so, harm your soul. This is how parents often involuntarily harm their own children. So, a mother should learn how to love her child, at the same time keeping some distance between herself and her child.

What did kings used to do in the old times? If they saw that their royal line was dying out, in order to prevent the death of a future king, they would give him away into a peasant’s family for upbringing, where his ambitions and physical comfort were demeaned. This foundation later on allowed him to exist in harmony with himself and the world. The king, however, would not want to be treated as a peasant, he would not allow it. So, why then would he send his child off to grow in a peasant’s family? Because he will only be a king after he grows to be a king; when he is a child, he’s not a king yet and is not supposed to get a royal treatment.

So, we are different today, and we must elevate and expand our understanding of how to treat others. On one hand, you want things that benefit your well-being such as securing your life, and reinforcing your abilities; these are all human desires. On the other hand, you don’t want any disgrace, humiliation or sickness in your life, and you don’t want to die; however, this is what purifies your soul. If you only want to be wealthy and prosperous in your life, there will be someone in your life to rob you, betray you, and get you sick. If you refuse to move toward God voluntarily, you will be pushed to do so through the pain. So do you need pain in relationships? Yes. A certain dosage of pain is necessary in your life; it unties you from stability, attachments, etc. And so, if a mother wants to bring her child up correctly, she must learn to create the right environment for him to live in later on. And in some instances a mother needs to expose her child to pain, give her child a sense of pain and in some instances expose him to injustice, teaching him at the same time how to deal with those things.

R.B. – In one of your lectures you mentioned something that corresponds to the eastern and Buddhist teachings; you said that that a woman’s conduct has a great effect on the man’s condition. In other words, the way a woman behaves 80% determines the condition of a man who lives with her. A woman is a soul of a family; she has a great spiritual responsibility lying on her shoulders.

L.S.N. – There is no responsibility. A concept of responsibility implies demands. When you are trying to understand something from a point of view of demands and responsibilities, you will never be able to comprehend anything. The family is a union of people with a purpose of prolonging your kinfolk and bringing children to life. Who gives birth in a family? A woman does. So, a family’s primary element is a woman. There are no responsibilities, demands, or conditions; it is just a biological fact. Since a woman gives birth, she needs additional energy; it needs to be more powerful than man’s. God gave a woman more potent energy so that children live off of it. I observed how when some women give too much attention to their work and career, their children start getting sick. This is not accidental, there is no coincidence here. So, a woman’s more powerful energy influences her children; and then through her children and through herself it affects her husband.

Therefore, if a woman is discordant, it will cause problems in her family, as well as problems with her husband’s and children’s health and destiny. There is one more point to consider: no matter how powerful one’s energy is, it is not as powerful as information; subtle fine information controls and governs the energy. So, on the energy level a woman is stronger than a man, while on the informational level a man is stronger than a woman, that is if a man has a correct world perspective and a woman has a right energy. However, if a man has a wrong world perspective, it will accordingly affect a woman’s energy, and a woman will be killing him with her energy. So, a man will actually get what he deserves.

R.B. – In one of your books you mentioned that every second in our lives either brings us closer to God or gets us further away from Him, and that we need to always try accumulating and developing God’s love in ourselves. What are you trying to say here?

L.S.N. – Every split second, The Universe is expanding. Expansion is destruction. Destruction means loss. So, every split second our souls experience the pain of loss. If in our everyday lives we are used to responding to pain with hatred, condemnation, and bitterness, it means that every split second we are attacking the Universe. This sets off the program of self-destruction, which causes diseases, a faster aging, and death.

R.B. – You frequently mention that the main problem of western society lies in its inability to accept the loss of its future, that society fears for its future too much. In your own terms you also use the phrase: a dependence on the future. What do you mean by that?

L.S.N. – If you take human values, be they material or spiritual, eventually the more subtle planes you enter, the more you can see the union of things that would never be able to unite on the outward level. When we fixate on our human happiness, be it spiritual or material, we lose love. Therefore, the finer and more subtle is the level that we attach to, the more dangerous it becomes. A person can appear to be very greedy on the outside. However, if he‘s pure on the inside, his love energy is great, and for the time being his tendency will not harm him. The problems don’t appear immediately. In other words, your fixation on human happiness is more dangerous on the inside than it appears to be on the outside. All the values have their roots planted in the future. So, dependence on the future is the seed of all your problems; this seed unravels later on with the increasing force. Let’s say a child gets born; he’s got a lot of love in his soul, and he wants food, nice clothing, money, abilities, and successful life. He eagerly takes all these things in and only thinks about them; and still he feels very well. Why is it so? Because he’s got a great love reservoir, and his dependence on human values did not seep into subtle insubstantial planes yet. So, he dives into that happiness, strives to it and all goes on well. You need to teach a child to restrain his desires, teach him not to pressure others for the sake of his personal enjoyment or just to indulge himself, teach him the right eating habits, avoid overeating, learn how to forgive, and not hold grudges against others. A child will deplete his potential of love very fast, if he violates the laws that help him sustain love, which in its turn saves him, letting him do whatever he likes on the surface without having to suffer.

Parents sometimes eat up, so to speak, their own children’s love potential to a point where a child is born with insufficient reservoir of love. It is dangerous for this sort of individual to have any money, even if it’s not big money. A relatively prosperous destiny can be disastrous as well. A personal benevolent life will ignite a wild outburst of jealousy, followed by the diseases, death, etc. So what is the conclusion? The reservoir of love is scarce, because on the subtle indistinguishable level there already are certain attachments and fixations. What is happening to the whole human race these days? The world religions supplied our humanity with a great reservoir of love; several thousand years ago there were a great number of people who chose seclusion, isolation, monasteries, and rigid self-restraint, giving up all their human benefits and values. I was surprised to learn that up until the end of last century in Russia a first child born in the family was given away to a monastery; it did not matter whether a child was beautiful, unattractive or talented. The first child was supposed to pray to God for forgiveness of his family’s sins. So, these days we cannot even imagine how religious we all used to be up until one or two hundred years ago. The world religions provided us with the powerful potential and reservoir of love; we received it and used it all up. These days everyone only thinks about money, well being, and fulfillment of wishes; reservoir of love is depleting. People begin resembling a child who is deprived of his parents’ love. In such cases a person’s life is endangered at the sight of any kind of happiness. If such a person wants to survive, he must learn how to restrain himself in his eating habits, in his hatred toward others, in his ambitions and grudges. At that point he would need to restrain himself on the most profound and subtle levels. The subtle levels or planes are directly connected with the future. Therefore, you will have to withhold your fears, judgment, and gloominess since they are the first indicators that you are getting obsessed with your future. And this his is a much harder task than it is to forgive, let of grudges and hurts.

R.B. - How can a person develop Divine Love in his everyday life; there are so many abstract concepts out there, and life is a turmoil. It is especially true for the West where the industrial lifestyle assumes that we have to spend large amount of energy on the external world. Too much time is preoccupied with things like maintaining your bank account, paying your bills on due date, not being late for work and so on. What sort of practical advices can you offer?

L.S.N. - The practical recommendations are very simple. First and foremost, you have to understand that there is such a thing as civilization (the western one in this case) directed toward depriving a person of contact with God; such a civilization runs a risk of collapsing. Thirty five hundred years ago God had instructed Hebrews to dedicate one day of the week to Him; that day a person cannot work or be occupied with any other things, besides thinking of God and aspiring toward prayer. Both religion and government have allowed the possibility for people to think of God; that is why Jews managed to survive and carry on. There are governmental structures moving in the opposite direction, fixating a person on his daily problems; such a regime instead of collaborating a possibility of experiencing the Divine in yourself, deprives a person of that ability. Consequently such a system it is predestined to become extinct and vanish. When your mind has to be occupied with the material welfares, it is hard to think of anything beyond how you are going to pay your rent. Western civilization had fastened a person to this kind of thinking. This process has been enduring for decades, not centuries or millenniums. So, first of all, a problem needs to be solved on the governmental level. There should be laws that if not obligate but at least allow a human being to think of the Divine. This fact needs to be recognized by psychologists, philosophers, and sociologists; otherwise, the society is doomed. Nowadays any person can find a few spare evenings to dedicate to his own soul. This comes down to limitation in food, sex, and ambitions; it also implies prayer and intervallic lent and fasting. A person needs to learn that the most important value isn’t your bank account, but condition in which your soul remains. This soul has an ability to love and forgive, simply be joyful about the fact that it is being growingly filled with the feeling of love more and more by each day.

R.B. – One rabbi was quite well known at the time of war; after seeing all the suffering that his people had to go thorough, he stopped believing in God. He said that there was no God, for He would not allow all the horrors if He existed. And so it was, a lot of orthodox Judaists have perished from European nation. There were many people observing traditions in the Eastern Europe. What do you see as a cause for that? In fact Jewish nation not only had to undergo a catastrophe, but it also was banished almost two thousand years ago. Even on their own land in Israel Jews up to this day live rather problematical complex lives.

L.S.N. – Let’s examine the eastern classical understanding of karma for the start. As it states, a hard destiny in this life indicates to the wrongdoings in the past lives. So, according to it, if the Jewish people have such a destiny, it means that in their past lives they were stealing, murdering, treating people in undignified manner. That is all logical according to classical Indian tradition. However, in reality those things did not actually happen. Let’s take a look at Judaism. God clearly specified: “If you commit my amendments, I will protect you, banish other nations, help you expel them and you will be healthy and your days will be prolonged.” In the end, the earnest believers were the ones explicitly destroyed. So where is the logic and justice in that? There is no explanation, if we look at things from the classical point of Judaism interpretation.

We need to take one fact into consideration. Orthodoxy has never mentioned that people who come to Orthodox temple can get gravely ill after that, get hospitalized, with psychical deviations and so on. I used to write about it, because that way you can discourage and frighten the congregation. In reality it is a profoundly positive process. If a person is inwardly oriented toward worldly aspects instead of love, there will be some great inconsistencies and clashes. That all could lead to death at the time of baptizing, during you brush or even briefest contact with God. While these mechanisms need not be publicly advertised, people need to have basic knowledge and idea that these things exist and operate.
Moreover, Orthodox religion never mentioned the fact that a quite large number of monks went crazy, became ill and died, after they started actively praying. It is a fact as well, even though little known. I was once reading a book on how Seluon Afonski was describing given problems. Since this book was not published by Orthodox religion, it contains some curious information. This all indicates that during aspiring to God you cannot count on freebies; it is a quite dangerous process. This process requires you to carry out and understand a certain pattern. When a Holy man Seluon Afonski converted to God, he received the answer: Keep your mind in hell. He had a feeling that he was going crazy; he started having problems. What it all actually meant (I shall give my personal interpretation) that striving to God takes you to subtle insubstantial planes; those planes are directly connected with your basic human earthly happiness. Those subtle higher layers are associated with your ultimate desires and consciousness.

So, during the prayer, you need to learn to put a stop to your consciousness along with your ambitions, intentions, and wishes. If you fail to do so, you will expose yourself to danger at the time of the prayer. The above mentioned book says: “You need to stop your mind’s work and your intents, for those are dangerous for you at the time of your prayer.” What are your intents? An intent is your goal, your desire, your future. Simply speaking, using my personal research vocabulary, a person encounters the problem with the future, as he begins praying to God for the extensive periods of time. His contact with future increases, which has its own risks. So, to escape danger, he must shut down his contact with the future. In order to do that, you should impede the very things that keep you connected with the future; and those are your desires, your mind, goals, yearnings, and intents. As we proceed, the question comes up: Why people who continuously prayed to God were so rigid in their conduct; near well tormenting themselves. It is because they thought it would help them. Or we can ask another question: Maybe they could not live otherwise? Did you ever think about that? Why is it that the more spiritual the monk was and the more he prayed, the more he would torment himself? The monk kept himself in the stern regime, because his increasing contact with the future would cause stronger attachment and fixation on the human values; so he had to keep himself in the more austere regime. Otherwise, he would get fixated on those values, and his soul would experience problems, leading to physical sickness and death. That is why many saints and holy men were forced to [chain themselves] lock themselves in chains, kneeling down, deprived of sleep.

If a person has a brush with the higher spiritual values via his prayer, he will be exposed to much bigger danger than if he were simply working in the mud or just doing the rough material work. In other words, God is a very serious and dangerous process which can open up to the great extent your possibilities, desires, aptitudes, helping your intellect and spirituality evolve. So, in order to continuously strive toward God and to maintain your aspiration, you need to from time to time sort things out within your soul through the derogation of your body. If you fail to do that, your dependence on the subtle insubstantial planes will increase. So if we look at the Hebrew population thirty five hundred years ago, we will see that the great truths spoken at that time were necessary, rational and reasonable. So, a question arises: What was the purpose of Jesus’ coming? Why after repeating everything that was said prior to him, he began talking of other things. Why does the first commandment start with the words: “Blessed are the poor in spirit.”? So, most likely, some things were left unfinished or unaccomplished in Judaism. Even superficial analysis shows that an issue of spirituality is left unresolved. How can you overcome your dependence on spirituality? Judaism does not provide that opportunity, nor does the Christianity. Christianity, however, gives an understanding through Christ that spirituality is not your primary supreme goal. Christ told us not to think of tomorrow, and that those poor in spirit were blessed. Spirituality also comes through books and communication. So, we can say that the topic of dependence on spirituality and future is not surmounted. And if that’s the case, Jewish nation needs to go through the periodic stages of soul cleansing in order to physically survive. The soul is being cleansed through disparagement humiliation of your destiny, your physical body, your life, and so on. We should keep in mind that energetically a Hebrew nation plays a parental role for the modern civilization. So, we can make some conclusions here. In order for the whole civilization to survive, the soul of Hebrew nation needs to maintain contact with God; in other words, it must keep getting cleansed. If Hebrew nation fails to overcome its dependence on spirituality, it will be doomed to go through constant nonstop physical humiliations along with demeaning of destiny and dignity.

R.B. – So, the main problem of the Jewish people is their obsession or fixation on the future and spirituality.

L.S.N. – I was examining one female patient, whose daughter was very religious. I told that woman her daughter’s energy obviously indicates that the religion served as her salvation and protection. God promised to protect you and give you a long life, if you believe in Him, if you fulfill all the prophecies, and if you don’t occupy yourself with anything during the Sabbath, only eating the kosher food. What is the “God will protect me” phrase supposed to mean? It used to be valid and pertinent three thousand years ago. What does this phrase mean now? A person’s energy became so much more powerful ever since that time. If a person says “God will protect me,” he concentrates on his own life and wishes in his prayer. Therefore, he expects his desires to be fulfilled.

The Orthodox people that are praying to God are certain that their desires will get fulfilled and God shall protect them; so, when they are praying to God, they increasingly focus on worshipping their lives and their desires. This kind of prayer to God increases your dependence on the human aspect and does not put a stop to the theme of desires, life, and future. In other words, you believe that God has to protect you in the future. No matter how strange it may appear, God protects and saves Jewish nation by making it go through massacres and humiliations. If it was not for those, the Jewish nation would have died out, vanished disappeared from the face of the Earth.

R.B. – I’ve got a personal question. I myself have lived in the Indian temple as a monk for quite some while. They had quite rigid rules in there. I am still following certain amendments. I heard you say that the closer a person gets to God, the more he would have to renounce or give up things that are earthborn. However, only three years ago you recommended that I switch to a more down to earth, material lifestyle.

L.S.N. – There is a characteristic national Jewish feature; it is a tremendously high pragmatism. Why are all the bankers of Jewish nationality? Because they have an outstanding sense of practicality; there is no idealism whatsoever. There is only a clean-cut pragmatism. Being a total realist is a talent. A banker has to be an absolute realist, a completely down-to-earth person. Let’s take a Russian person for example: he can mount up a great stack of ideas and overload anything or anyone with them. A Jewish person, on the contrary, will say that everything is all right and will continue doing exactly what realistically is needed for the situation. Why is it so? Because a Jewish person is much more down to earth of a person than a Russian is. A Russian will always stick his head into ideas, creating theories, such as the communism. Again the question is why? Where does this practicality in a Jewish nation come from, where does pragmatism take its roots? Why are all the bankers Jews? The reason is this: when a person is overly fixated on the spirituality, he needs to be balanced out by another extreme, i.e. by increasingly occupying himself with things of secular nature. So, the Divine aspect remains in the middle of these two extremes. It embraces both material and spiritual sides.

So, the Jewish nation is fixated on the spirituality too much; therefore, in order to survive, it needs to simultaneously proceed with pragmatism, practicality, and business. It also rescues the nation in a way. So, on one hand, pragmatism and down to earth attitude can serve as a salvation for a person; however, the very same pragmatism and practicality should not cross a certain line; when things come to that point, it begins to injure a person’s soul. If pragmatism simply balances out a person’s excessively heightened spirituality, it is normal. However, as soon as practicality increases to the point of becoming greediness and stinginess, human race becomes extinct. Therefore, it is not so much about spirituality itself, as it is about keeping things balanced; there needs to be equilibrium between spiritual and material things. In other words, you need to alternate in your aspirations toward spiritual and material things, in order to experience the godly essence.

Let’s say a person used to be occupied only with spiritual things in India; in his next lifetime the same person will be born in America or some European civilized country and will only be caught up with the material things. I examined one Buddhist once. In his past life he was an incurable pocket picker. This was needed to balance things out in his soul. He used to say that life is baloney, and used to stick to rigid principles. Now, in this lifetime he dove into a completely different condition. This is what is called a mid-group.

R.B. – Where is that line or boundary between the spiritual and Godly aspects? In fact, people who decide to move toward God, where do they end up? With the specialist, i.e. priest. However, as you say, priest can often send you off in the direction of spirituality instead of God.

L.S.N. – When you are ready to lose and let go of things, it is easier for you to experience the Divine quintessence; you are ready to withdraw from the worldly side. What does it mean to let go of or abandon your spirituality, abrogate your principles? The true meaning of losing your spirituality and abrogating your principles is to forgive the one who betrayed you; it is to remain peaceful at the time when your hopes and goals collapse. You need to be able to restrain your desires in eating, in some other areas of your life. That is to say, the more elevated desires and yearnings need to be upheld, while the business related desires that can potentially harm others need to be withheld.

So, you must learn to accept the collapse of your future and your virtues, your sense of righteousness, spirituality, hopes, goals, and desires, while preserving your love and kindliness. As your understanding advances, you will start realizing that the loss of insubstantial spiritual things is just as necessary as a loss of money and other material values. So, losing all your belongings at times and never losing your feeling of love, you can gradually start distinguishing love as a reality, while spiritual and material values are illusionary.

In order to reach this level of perception, you need to constantly aspire to love and God. If you are doing things as if you trying to carry out some rituals or acquired knowledge, you are bound to be thrown either into one extreme or another. Love is so created that you cannot adjust any rituals to imitate or surrogate it. You can create a suitable background, a so called environment for love; however, only your personal search and endeavor can let you experience love in its full beauty.

R.B. – One can get an impression that if you want to move toward Divine love, you will constantly have to thump from one extreme to another, shifting from material things to spiritual values and vise versa. Is there any mid road that does not require you to hit one wall, then another? You’ve said number of times that when people move toward God, they travel a zigzagged route; in other words, they must throw themselves from one opposite to another. Is my understanding correct?

L.S.N. – The thing is that throwing yourself from one extreme to another is outdated. The physical and spiritual aspects used to be much different. On one hand there used to be a spiritual person sitting and meditating, and on the other hand there was a merchant, who was trading silks, sitting with his fat belly on a stack of money, drinking wine. These days a scientist can make good money on his work and turn into a businessman. Also, a merchant and manufacturer can be reading all kinds of books, devoting himself to research of spiritual planes. Socialism proclaimed: “You have to erase the border between the mental and physical labor.” These days it is becoming increasingly hard to discern the difference among money, financial assets, material and spiritual values. Nowadays, if you want to have material goods, you have to be a spiritual person; you also need to have education, good stable nervous system, and knowledge. Formerly, a person used to obtain all these things from his past lifetimes; these days a person can get an education, expand his intellect, and potential, and then earn good deal of money for his spirituality. The two concepts of “spirituality” and “materialism” are no longer as antagonistic as they used be. Speaking about the sinusoid line of movement toward God; it implies that a person needs to regularly submerge into material human life and then abandon it, aspiring to spiritual life. In other words, a person needs to occasionally find time for occupying himself with the spiritual life, creating corresponding background, which is seclusion, fasting, repudiation, and shutting himself down from all the problems.

R.B. - While we are on the subject, I remember that you once said that “these days you have to be both a holy man and a man of business.” What does it mean? How can one apply it in real life?

L.S.N. – Let’s look at the West; people are primarily businessmen out there. They find that the life is all about a bank account and paying for their residence. If a person, a unit of a certain society does not strive toward God, it will lead to death of the whole western civilization. Therefore, you should find some time when you don’t think about your rent. Why did Soviet Union set off such a strong outburst of researchers, scientists, and art? It happened because people were given an opportunity not to occupy their heads with the thoughts of paying the rent; people knew that they would not starve to death. Everyone at that time was provided with a survival minimum; there was a protection that allowed people not to worry. In the West people also have a sense of security; they, however, are tied up in economical and financial sense and are subjects to spiritual slavery.

In the Soviet Union a person did not have a lot of money, but he did not have to worry about paying for his rent. A person in the West has a relatively large amount of money, but all he can think about is how to pay for his rent. In other words, a person is seemingly protected, but this security is illusionary and superficial. On the inside a person becomes a slave to his own apartment and bank account; his soul is tied up by money. If a western civilization wants to survive, it needs to establish the kind of economy that would allow a person to take care of his soul, freeing him from a non stop fear of losing his place to live.

There is certain stimulus coming from your fear of losing your job and a place to live; it intensifies a working process in a way. However, when this fear crosses a certain line, it will reflect destructively on your soul. If this is the case, all the advanced western technology along with the huge productivity will only contribute to suicidal tendencies in the society. These trends can be viewed in the American nutritional system. The mechanism works precisely, the food is treated in a highly technological manner. The food quality is horrible; it is genetically transformed, mutated, containing great amount of hormones and chemical elements. Americans eat this food, thus deviating from God’s laws and killing their own civilization through their own businessmen and scientists.

R.B. – I remember you saying that in the West there are a lot of people who on the outside appear to be obsessed with money, while on the inside they are total idealists. In other words, on the unconscious level they are greatly attached to spirituality.

L.S.N. – I was talking about a child who can occupy his mind with thoughts about money, sweets, skills, and talents, and not have any problems while doing so. However, when this child hits his puberty, his dependence on those things will move from superficial material level onto the more subtle spiritual planes. When your dependence seeps into the spiritual planes, i.e. deeper layers, it is the surest sign that it’s time for you to age and die. The same mechanism goes for the whole civilization. So, at this point our civilization is tied to not only material, but also spiritual aspect. How is it usually manifested? Let’s take Islam, for example; the idea or principle in that religion is more important than life, justice or anything else for that matter, which indicates to a prevailing importance of spirituality and excessive fixation on spirituality. It indicates to a certain quite noticeable signs that our civilization is aging. It also indicates that it will be rather hard to endure undergo the process of overcoming human happiness and dependence. Also, your dependence on spiritual aspect is more dangerous than your dependence on the physical and material values. Certain spiritual research or counseling, he should not be charging for his help. Throughout the recent years your whole life served as an evidence of your purely spiritual direction, moving toward God and helping people. You are, however, charging for your work; many people, especially in Russia, seem to question the idea of you charging money, and quite sufficient amount at that too.

L.S.N. - Let’s first start with defining my status. I am a psychologist, a professional who is working in the field of helping people psychologically. I got convinced that this sort of help cannot be competent or realistic, if a person does not make changes in his own character. As a psychologist I realized that a person cannot make changes in his character without understanding the concept of “love for God.” So, I am working in my field: I do psychological consultations, which is the topic of my dissertation. My diploma is based on the subject of psychological counseling and psychological adjustment. As a specialist I charge for my sessions. An educator teaching in the school or university carries out the same spiritual practices: he passes on the knowledge. A doctor cures, helping to save lives. But does it all mean that you need to deprive doctors, psychologists, and teachers of their salaries just because they are involved in spiritual practices? There is also another rationale for charging. When a person is involved in spiritual practices, he runs a risk of getting fixated on spirituality, causing the dependence on the human aspect and worldly secular things to grow. If a person lives comfortably, continuing to charge money, it will become increasingly dangerous for him to employ in spiritual practices. That is simply a logical conclusion; I keep talking about it all the time. This mechanism works impeccably in the mechanical solely spiritual case. My case is somewhat more intricate; I have a number of factors working here. First of all, I am recognized as a scientist, doing research and working in the field of psychology. Second of all, if a person is constantly praying and is involved in spiritual practices, it is bound to increase his fixation on the worldly material aspect; as a rule, this tendency will be blocked [cured] with a number of methods including but not limited to extreme poverty, self tormenting, extreme self limitations, intense psychological, physical, and other kinds of losses, or systematic blockage of this dependence. In my books I don’t talk about how I am being “cured” or detached; it is too personal of a matter. I have mentioned that every time I write a book, I have near-death situations and experiences, such as catastrophes, car accidents, losses, and betrayals. It is all a cleansing process. Furthermore, using my understanding and through my love for God, I try to systematically get rid of my dependence on the human happiness in its any form or aspect, be it spiritual or physical. So what happens if this is accomplished? In this case, a person can continues spiritual practices and have money, while primarily realizing all the risks and dangers that come along with spiritual practices. In the West in the United States individuals involved in spiritual practices are among the wealthiest people, as you know. I don’t think however that it does them any good. Here is why: while they still have a certain potential of love, they don’t get obsessed with what they do. However, as soon as love reservoirs come to depletion, a person starts to get overly fixated or attached to spirituality, and then it becomes dangerous for him to have a lot of money. Possessing material welfares is dangerous, if you are hooked on or overly attached to spirituality; sooner or later your wealth will start causing you problems.

I myself realize that giving appointments and having individual sessions with patients is dangerous for me. An increased danger comes from my spiritual level that I attain through my research; it doubles the risks. My level of well being also poses a rather serious hazard, and I fully realize that. You will be harmed, if you fail to realize all the dangers that money, spirituality, and human stability can cause. Only after you realize it, you will be able to start overcoming those things.

Also, don’t forget that the times are changing; the spiritual and material aspects grow closer together. These days if you want to preach, you need to rent some space, pay your taxes and report to IRS. Here we’ve got some other laws working; the laws that correspond to the present situation, current state of affairs. If I did not charge money for my individual sessions, and if I did not receive some money from selling my books, I would have had to make my living by doing some other work. Everyone wishes and expects that a person practicing spirituality does all the dirty work for you, risks his life, researches new information, and then gives out precious instructions on how to be healthy and wealthy. But what would be of a person who does all the work? He’ll end up with no room and board, living in poverty. This is called freeloading, which is a very dangerous harmful tendency. You need to earn what you receive, including knowledge. People who were able to receive the secret esoteric knowledge had to go through all kinds of self-restraint, such as sitting in the dug out holes or caves over the years, tormenting themselves; only then were they able to get in touch with the higher knowledge.

These days people have much easier access. There is no need for tormenting yourself for ten, twenty years to get access to this sort of knowledge. You simply need to pay a certain sum of money to a person holding that knowledge; but people still don’t want to do that much. The scenario is pretty much the same. Only in the past a person would say that he did not want to make any sacrifices such as starving or sitting in the cave, but wanted to get admittance into higher knowledge, while trading [silks] goods, eating gourmet food and drinking vodka, expecting someone else to initiate him into the sacred knowledge. Nope, it does not work this way. In order to get something, you have to sacrifice something, give something in exchange. In our own country of Russia it costs one hundred U.S. dollars to have your tooth fixed, while a mere consultation with an expert costs three to four hundred dollars over the price of an appointment with me. No one seems to mind it, though, when a doctor charges three to five hundred dollars for his consultation, and if you add some minimum treatment, it will sum up to several thousand dollars. No one will pick on or complain about the doctor. So what are people used to? They are used to getting the essential information for free. And so it is, my books are probably the cheapest in Russia. Logically, my lectures and individual sessions cost more.

R.B. - I agree with you. I can personally add that if you set up a low price, people do not appreciate it; they won’t value your work. For example, I was consulting my friend. When we met a year later I asked him if he started reading the material or working on himself. He said that he didn’t. On the other hand, if I charge a person a full price, he will value my work and treat my information very seriously.

L.S.N. – A friend of mine, a doctor, asked me once in a confidential conversation: “Do you want me to reveal the main secret of my treatment?” This doctor was diagnosing patients brilliantly; he was also treating people with acupuncture, otherwise known as reflexo-therapy. So this is what he said: “I will reveal you my secret; I put a few needles, and a person quits smoking.” So what is the key to the recovery? What is the most important target, the main spot where you have to put a needle? The main spot is a customer’s wallet. The more you charge a client, the higher is the probability that he will quit smoking. After paying a great amount of money, a patient feels obligated to quit smoking. That is a human nature; everyone has a very simple way of operating. A person is likely to get sick, if he has little energy. Who has little energy? A person who is used to taking instead of giving. That is what the whole mechanism comes down to. If you are used to taking, you will want to get as much as you can, and pay as little as possible. Such a person will always complain, no mater how little the tickets cost; he won’t do any work, expecting to get the most out of the lecture.

You could even see the soviet train of thought showing through; it taught people to take away from the riches. In a way it’s a soviet psychology that trained people to take; no one seemed to be touched by the fact that an intelligent, wealthy, and hard working person had to sweat day and night for his wealth. Only later on, after a person has earned his wealth and after it began to work for him, a rich person could getting spoiled. However, everyone only seems to see this end result. No one looks at how it all started, the beginning of the process, and at how a person became wealthy.

When your chief goal is to rob and steal, it indicates that you are turning away from love. In order to create something, you need to have energy. You can only get energy through love. If you want to steal and rob, you don’t really need any love for that; the freeloading psychology is anti-Godly by its nature. It is a natural for this kind of people to never understand and always be opposed to what I am saying.

R.B. - You also used to say that in our times all the processes are accelerated or expedited. A person can very quickly gain the negative luggage as well as the positive one. Did I understand you correctly?

L.S.N. – When two current of time or two opposites unite, it triggers an instant expedition of all the processes. At this point two currents of time – the future and the present, eastern and western civilizations – are uniting. We can see that by observing the escalating conflicts in the Near East. This is the point of collision of the western and eastern ways of thinking, the very point where they collide. There is one another factor working here. Let’s say, a person who is praying to God, becomes fixated on spirituality; when a person is aging, he is also getting attached to spirituality. So, one can get an impression that praying to God makes us age faster. However, in reality it works somewhat differently. When a person prays to God, his reservoirs of love are growing; spirituality that derives from love is growing as well. When your spirituality grows, you are more prone to get obsessed with it. When a person gets old, his spirituality does not grow; he simply slows down and clutches on to it. So, what I am saying, that in both cases we can register the dependence on spiritual values, but it looks somewhat differently in each case. In one instance it implies development, while in the next case it indicates to degrading.

R.B. – How do you practically see the Road? Let’s say, for example, a person never observed any church rituals or believed in God; then he went ahead and read your books. What advice can you give that person, what should he begin with?

L.S.N. – Don’t overeat, get rid of your fears, don’t regret about the way things happened in the past, learn to love your loved ones and yourself. Do not think negatively about yourself and others, never be judgmental. In the beginning you have to follow basic guidelines. The rules of the road, the traffic rules first concentrate on things you cannot do; only later on you learn about things that you can and should do. So, at first you need to accomplish essential elementary tasks that are very easy to explain. Do not kill love in yourself. Do not abandon love. Afterward, we can talk about how to increase that feeling and what you need to do further. From time to time you need to go on lent, fasting, and self-restraint, especially in the spring time. This way you are creating the benevolent soil for freezing over or halting your human functions; that in turn allows you to experience the Divine quintessence in yourself more easily. This is what I call a healthy life style. First and foremost, the healthy way of living implies impeding your desires and your well being; your desires include your spiritual endeavors as well. This is the first grade stuff. So, initially you need to deliver the survival minimum; then you have to see how it worked out. You have to sense that you could be kinder and see the Will of God in what happens. You need to be more patient and tolerant with people, you need to learn to love a person with all his faults. You need to be strict and disciplined with yourself and all others around you. The whole point of guidance and upbringing is to help a person experience love. In order to do that, you need to restrain a person’s desires, halt his impudence, help him, care for him, and encourage him. In other words, you need to start with simple basic things. No matter how simple it seems, it is the hardest and longest path that you need to conquer; only then you can start discussing more elevated and out of this world topics.

R.B. – You often say that a person needs to take his hardships calmly. A person is being truly tested throughout critical situations. It is extremely hard to react to events without any emotions. Women are quite emotional by nature. It is hard not to react, if your loved one passed away or if you were betrayed. It is hard to live like a cold machine.

L.S.N. – Now look, any kind of stress can activate a program of self-destruction, if a person does not react to it. A person can never turn into a robot. A person can become suicidal, if he does not respond. So, it is logical that there should be some sort of reaction to a painful experience. Let’s say a person who was dear to you died; what reaction would you have? A suicidal one. Why is it so? What can you do? A person can say that he cannot do anything. So, this outburst of energy should go somewhere. Where will it go? It can be spent on suicide and regrets. However, if you tell a person that he should not kill himself and that this energy outburst can be spent on creating, he will naturally ask what he can do. At that time you can explain, “A soul of the deceased is connected with your soul. If you experience gloominess, you will do the damage to the soul of your loved one and yourself.” Therefore, the first thing you need to do is to stop feeling gloomy. You need to give more love to a soul of the deceased. In order to do that you need to put yourself under certain restrictions. That is the whole point of grieving period. The mourning essentially comes down to self-limitation in food, joy, and desires. What is the point of this limitation? The whole purpose of it is to bring you closer to the feeling of love, let you experience the feeling of love more easily.

If you turn your grief into gloominess, you will have an opposite reaction. So, the purpose of grief or mourning period is to restrict yourself in the earthly things and to experience the Divine love in your soul; when you fill your own soul with love, you are thus helping the soul of the demised. Are these specific actions? Yes. Are they hard to accomplish? Yes, they are very hard to carry out; these actions require a great deal of energy. So, instead of destruction and suicide, all of the energy will be spent on creation.

Whatever conflict you are facing, (death of another person is also a conflict) you can choose to spend your energy either on destruction or creation. If a person you trusted betrayed you, you’d start wondering why he let you down. The answer may be that you got overly fixated on your moral ideals and that something is not right inside your soul, and you must sort things out within yourself. If you realize that given circumstances are pushing you to work on yourself, it will help you transform your energy into creation instead of hatred and desire to destroy. You need to bring yourself into senses; you need to help a person not to betray you again. You can still restrain a person who betrayed you. It will be a disciplining process, because he needs guidance and upbringing; otherwise, if you encourage his act of betrayal, he will take on the wrong path and start liking it. That’s what I am talking about. So I have to discipline myself and that other person. It’s a really hard thing to do; it requires energy, a great amount of energy. Is this a creative process? Yes. So, it’s not about just accepting something. What does it mean to accept something? To accept a traumatizing situation means to recognize a Divine will behind it. By relying on the Divine will and accepting the Divine reasoning, you’ll stop your own will and desires that come down to revenge, aggravation, and addictions. My protection will be about upbringing instead of revenge. You can accept your situation completely and realize that you needed it for your own refinement; it still doesn’t mean that you don’t have a right to action. When you’re being cleansed through a certain situation, it means there was no other way for you to get cleansed. First came mandatory cleansing followed by voluntary cleansing, where you have to change yourself. What does it mean to change yourself? It is also a kind of self-defense. Let’s say there is someone that could kill you. If you change yourself, your energetics will change too and you won’t get killed. Am I defending myself? Yes! That is one of the ways to protect yourself. You can defend yourself by killing a person who acts aggressively toward you, or you can protect yourself by changing your act and changing from the inside. Those are all various forms of defense. A person who is accustomed to moving toward love, develops the most potential and forthcoming defense systems (reactions to pain). So a person does not run away from pain, but understands that pain contains the creative process and that pain is a necessary component. It, however, does not mean that you need to become masochist and take that pain in. Pain serves its function in your life; it is only necessary as a warning sign. The pain will lessen, as a person changes himself. He needs to understand that if he does not want to change voluntarily, he will be helped in a mandatory manner. Is it necessary? Yes, it is. Is it painful? Yes it is painful. It, however, does not mean that it is the only kind of treatment that there is. If a doctor puts iodine on your wound, it will sting and hurt. It is a painful process, but not necessarily unavoidable. You should not allow it to come to the point where you get wounds and pimples that undergo painful treatment. To be able to do that, you should not be envious or feel aggravated, and you need to develop correct eating habits. That is what the whole system comes down to.
 

Interview taken by Rami Blekt

Translation: Anna Argutinsky akargutinsky@gmail.com