I was listening to old songs the other day and one of them, performed by BG^a, had the following words: “God, I am Yours, no one else’s. There is nobody here except You. Let them take whatever they want; I just want to be with You, where there is Light”^b. And hardly anybody knows for sure the location of the place where one can find this Light.

An excerpt from the book by Ruslan Zhukovets The Science of Spiritual Growth

Anyone who explores their internal world and practices self-awareness will benefit from learning the fundamentals of the human body of emotions and the body of mind. The mind and emotions are interconnected - this is a fact, but how exactly?

Practicing self-awareness is the essence of what we call spiritual work. Spiritual work is an integral part of the Path and involves techniques that are aimed at changing our state of being with individual efforts—by using the capabilities of individual Consciousness in the first place—as well as by performing expression and energy-based practices, etc.

I am currently reading the medieval narrative of Hell in Christianity and find the text quite dramatic though untenable. Everlasting souls, you see, are subjected to equally everlasting tortures in Hell. These souls are tormented in all possible ways and suffer from burns, lacerations, and other sequelae of atrocious demonic games. Still, there is one problem: if something lasts forever, then it cannot be changed, whereas something that can be injured is, alas, impermanent.

An excerpt from the book by Ruslan Zhukovets “The Fire of Aspiration. The Book on Sufi Work”

Disregarding the practice of contemplation makes it nearly impossible for one to come to know self and God. Contemplation gives us a unique opportunity for cognition, which cannot be acquired through any other practice used on the spiritual Path. Any person who is persistent in self-awareness and self-exploration, sooner or later finds himself practicing contemplation, even though he may not know at the time that this particular activity is contemplation and not just self-observation.

An excerpt from the book by Ruslan Zhukovets “The Path of Transformation: Mystical Experience”

A modern seeker commonly lives among people, unless, of course, he winds up in some religious sect or ashram, which effectively ends his search, as now he has to follow rules and rituals of the place that generally cuts its members from the society. Having said that, withdrawal from society not necessarily means separation from the world, as the latter can still occupy one’s thoughts.

An excerpt from the book by Ruslan Zhukovets “The Path of Transformation: Mystical Experience”

Everyone is familiar with the term “ego”. In the Western tradition, the concept of ego made its way into the popular vocabulary from psychoanalytical theory whereupon was assimilated into spiritual domain. In spiritual texts, ego is referred to as an artificial construct created by the mind and as a center around which a person’s personality is formed and desires accumulate. The ego is created out of necessity for the communication and interaction purposes; in fact, it is a tool for survival in a society. 

The article by the student under the pseudonym Putnick (Traveler)

I have no doubts that everyone has encountered the feeling of resentment or interacted with offended individuals. Why is it so hard to work out hard feelings? Why don’t people let go off the triggering situation and make up for their pain by forgiving the offender? Forgiveness implies that the offender is in fact an asshole yet I forgive him and by this I bespeak his meanness and my generosity of spirit. Why even a “forgiven” resentment still reminds of itself in one way or another, fill out our hearts with venom, poison our thoughts, and at times even call for vengeance?

An excerpt from the book by Ruslan Zhukovets “On the obvious and unobvious”

The feeling of resentment is directly tied to the inability to express anger, that is, when expression of anger is prohibited. Perhaps someone close to you acts is a way that makes you feel angry but your manners won’t let you express it. This prohibition is a part of your mind’s conditioning which dictates that any manifestations of the energy of anger within you are to be blocked and suppressed. The tougher the ban on expressing emotions the stronger is the fear of the energy of anger should it come to manifest in you or splashed on you. As a means of self-comforting compensation, you label those who express their anger freely as inferior, uncivilized and rude. However, it makes no difference in a sense that you still have to deal somehow with those of them whom you would like to point out that their behavior is inappropriate at the moments when they drive you crazy – yet you fail to do that. You are in need of the tool for delivering your feedback, so that the guilty party could recognize that you have had it up to here. Resentment becomes a tool of the type.

Word has it that the first step is the most crucial one and that sleep is the small death. Nobody knows where people get this from, but should you try not following them in the train transfer station and you never get to the departure platform for the one and only train everyone needs to catch. Well then, assuming sleep is indeed equals death and that the very first thing done in the morning is very much like the first step in the life of your new day, it’s better to make this step wisely.