Absolute freedom and happiness – our true essence. Вадим Сычевский

This essay is a summary of the key points of authentic spiritual practice, which are presented in detail in the book «Dharma – The Way Things Are. Real Experiences and Realizations of a Spiritual Practitioner» (© V. Sychevskiy, 2022, © AEGITAS Publishing House, 2022). Unfortunately, nowadays it is very often believed that «going into the astral» is a spiritual practice. This is a very dangerous misconception. To put it briefly, the Lower Astral World are the images of our worldly desires. Therefore, a simple «going into the Astral» outside the context of proper spiritual practice are nothing but horrifying visions of Hell, the Animal World, and the World of Hungry Spirits in the Lower Astral World and, accordingly, a serious blow to the psyche. However, if you read the original Buddhist or yogic sutras, you will not find in their descriptions anything about «entering the Astral», «contact with astral entities», «connection to the streams of energy» and further immersion in pitch darkness. Because true spiritual practice based on the True Dharma, which was given to the world by the Great Teachers of the past, is completely opposite to the nonsense and lies broadcast by the urban crazies. They think they are masters of meditation, because they practice under the influence of drugs. Their practice is often only technical and in instead of immersing themselves in the Practices of Goodness, Merit, Law, and Tranquility they engage in religious activities to satisfy their egoism and wealth. In meditation, only the data that we have accumulated will manifest. Therefore, what we experience after we sit down to meditate is very important. Further, when the data manifests, we completely stop its action through concentration and Contemplation. But what happens if from the very beginning we do not change the initial data and do not master Calmness and Contemplation? For example, although meditation has become very fashionable, hasn't the world been getting worse and worse? The fact is that if you do not change the initial data with the help of preliminary practices, then it will remain at the level of the lower worlds, full of worldly desires and, accordingly, suffering. Moreover, if the internal data is of a low level, and there is no ability to stop the action of this outgoing data, then no matter how much you meditate, you will not get better from this. Nevertheless, ordinary people, trying to «be in the trend», sit and think: «I meditate». But there is no point in sitting in your pants. The meaning will come only when we persistently change the data of our Five Aggregates, controlling the actions of the body, speech and thoughts based on the True Dharma fixed in memory.