Mysticism from A to Z. A clear introduction to the deepest and most complex spiritual issues. NGO-MA
consider the work of our thinking using the example of a computer. The computer completely repeats the work of our thinking. Here we have a folder, we labeled it “animals”, and this word “animals” is an abstraction, the name of a folder, and it will contain specific photographs, images of animals, and they will have a specific name: a cat, a dog, etc. There is also a folder “nature”, there is a folder “plants.” In fact, “plants” do not exist, there are specific plants that are photographed and have their own names. These are abstractions created with the help of images.
There are also abstractions that are created through concepts, and it could be rather complex concepts that are collected into one abstract. For example, such a concept is “mathematics.” It means some specific set of knowledge, but the set itself is some specific logical postulates. “Physics” and “mathematics” are abstractions created on the basis of certain concepts.
The third type of abstraction is a mixed abstraction, which presupposes both the presence of an image and the presence of certain conceptual postulates. For example, I will take such a concept as “Motherland.” This word may contain part of some conceptual meaning, and part of some figurative one. Someone thinks about birches, someone thinks about beaches, someone else thinks about some other things, but at the same time, there is an understanding that the Motherland is the place where I was born, where I lived. These are such complex, more mixed abstractions.
The fourth type of abstraction is abstraction that has arisen on the basis of other abstractions. You can also collect abstract concepts into some complex abstractions that are already based on abstract symbolic thinking. It is really very beautiful and so we have this fourth type of abstract thinking.
Why am I telling you all these things? I would like you to be aware of the depth and beauty of this mental body. The mental body is one of our individual bodies, so I would like you to know what categories it operates with. Then you will accept with a smile when you are told that someone has “killed his mind” or something like this. They certainly do not mean the lack of the ability to think. In this regard, a lot of profanities have arisen, a lot of delusions have appeared, but in fact all these gurus can still interact quite normally, can still communicate effectively, can describe the world quite well, so they have no problem with their thinking. And if they have any periods of absence of thoughts, then these are specific states in which they immerse themselves for some rest, which are akin to dreamless sleep, when our thinking is absent in the generally accepted sense.
It is often very strange to hear how sometimes the mind becomes synonymous with consciousness, which we accept as a wrong interpretation, and sometimes the mind becomes synonymous with the ego, which is also a great delusion. The ego cannot be called by this word – “mind”. Sometimes it might become a direct synonymous – mind, mind, mind. Mind is here, mind is there, one must get rid of the mind, the mind should die. Guys, let’s be correct, let’s be adults, let’s be educated people. If the mind is our mental body. then why should it die? It should not die at all. Let it work, let it carry out its operations. The point is that what we register as a thought is a specific type of thought. It is the point where the “shoe pinches”, as they say. “There exists thought registration and it is a specific kind of thought, and in the same time there is a background mental flow that occurs by default, and we know where we are now, what is happening around us, we know that snow is snow, that a fence is a fence and that the sky is the sky. We do not register all these thoughts; this is a continuous flow of mental information that absolutely effortlessly serves the current moment. This is our working mind, and the speed of this process is very high.
Now you can even do a brain scan and see the number of thoughts that appear in a particular brain: synapse flashes can be recorded by devices today. So, the number of these flashes of electrical signals that arise in the brain are huge, these flashes turn into a chemical reaction and then they are deciphered as thoughts. According to this research more than a hundred thoughts come to us per second. Tell me, how many of them are registered by us as thought? It’s good if we register one thought. The rest of them just become an endless stream and they are not registered as thoughts. So, very often when they talk that they have stopped their thoughts, in reality they have only stopped the registration of these specific thoughts, do you understand it? They say: “my mind has stopped, there are no more thoughts.” In fact, there is simply no secondary registration, but – everything is in order with their thoughts. A person remains adequate, he has all the completeness of information, he communicates, he interacts. There is simply no secondary loop that is registered as a thought, because this thought is registered within a special neural loop that is present in our brain, which has already been established and defined by neurophysiologists. This thought only when it passes along such a loop is registered as a thought, and it has its own specific features and tasks. As a rule, it is the thought that serves the “thinker”, which means the “one” who has thoughts and this is the ego-structure in thinking. Those thoughts that are registered within this neural loop are often called thoughts, apart from all the thinking process that takes place in this information flow.
Be mature people, be sober people, and be aware of this difference. When the neural loop stops working, it seems to you that thoughts have disappeared. In fact, the registration of a specific thought that serves the “thinker” has simply disappeared. There is this ego-structure in the mind, which is called the “thinker,” and it, of course, can stop functioning. When this ego-structure stops functioning, the ability to think will not disappear, you will still be intelligent, still be smart, still be aware, but you will not have a secondary emergence of the “thinker” in the thinking process. This is the ego-structure in the mind. The appearance of this kind of tension has been the manifestation of ego structure. There appear some questions “What should I think; but I thought this was not what I wanted; I should think more; I am stupid” and so on. This ego structure can go away, but that doesn’t mean that the thinking process has stopped, or your brain has stopped functioning, or your synapses have stopped flickering.
In this chapter, I talked about the thinking process, mainly about its types and about the fact that the “thinker” is one of the specific thoughts that requires registration of other thoughts, and it can really disappear. This is the fourth type of thinking process, which in the first chapter I called the thinking process serving the ego-structure.
5. What is mysticism? The first steps
I want you to understand that any teaching is a map, a map of the path that you will have to follow yourself and check everything from your own experience. The teaching should not replace your own practice, your own path in no case. This is the teaching of live feeling, this is the teaching of gaining experience, and not the teaching of any theories. In the theoretical part you are given some view. A view is a description of the path by those who have already walked along it. It is a description, a map, but you should check it for yourself. And, believe me, there is no greater joy to know that the descriptions were not entirely accurate, because mysticism is a discipline where language is not able to convey the full depth of experience. I have already written that, for example, love is the first spiritual mystical experience – it is the experience of love, and how difficult it is to convey it in words! How many books have been written about love, but until you have had this experience, until you immerse yourself in it, these words will tell you nothing. Therefore, we will check every step, we will move together, and my task is to support you in your practice and give reliable, clear indicators.
In this chapter I will return to the very beginning and answer the questions that often come to me: “What is mysticism and why do we need it as a discipline?” You know, nothing has changed since the time of Buddha. Of course, we talk about getting rid of suffering, and, in fact, in the simplest words: mysticism is the science that answers the questions: “Why am I suffering?” “Why is the suffering still here?” Despite the fact that there