Spiritual Practice School
Merit, or punya, is accumulated through good deeds performed toward beings who are spiritually or morally superior. The highest merit comes from devotion to the Highest God or the Absolute. Spiritual practice is the most powerful way to accumulate such merit. A person who becomes a monk and lives a sincere monastic life generates great merit – so much so that the lifespan of their parents increases by an average of 20 percent.
Most people live ordinary lives and gradually waste their stored merit. This is why many are unusually lucky and successful in youth, but lose that fortune in later years. Luck is not random – it is the fruit of past merit. The main ways people deplete their merit are through sexual pleasure and the indulgence of taste. Any enjoyment – of food, of sensations, of life itself – consumes merit. The more one delights in worldly experiences, the faster one’s spiritual reserves are spent.
All animals – beasts, birds, fish, and insects – possess souls. When they are harmed or killed, they suffer and try to escape. They cry out if they can, twist away, struggle. This very reaction – the instinct to avoid pain – is the clearest sign of a living soul. It is by this criterion that animals must be distinguished from plants.
Plants, including trees and fungi, do not possess souls and therefore do not experience suffering. They do not flee, do not cry, do not resist harm. Yet, both humans and plants are living organisms, and so harming a plant still creates a karmic imprint – specifically, the karma of damaging one’s own body or organism. Moreover, certain trees and plants serve as homes for devas or nature spirits. Destroying such beings may therefore also generate the karma of destroying a dwelling.
Stones have no soul and are not alive. They do not react to harm, for they are not sentient.
Nearly all diseases are the result of karma. Each illness corresponds to a specific type of past action. Cancer, for instance, arises from the karma of greed – the location of the tumor depending on the nature of that greed. Toothache is often the result of slander or harsh speech. Allergies and asthma may stem from the use of chemicals to kill insects – a subtle but real karmic debt.
In war, a soldier accumulates full karmic responsibility for every life he takes. The idea that a commander or national leader can take on that karma, freeing the soldier from guilt, is a falsehood – a dangerous manipulation. The only merit a soldier may gain in such a situation is from serving someone who himself possesses great merit.
A woman who refrains from seeking pleasure in sex will experience little or no pain during childbirth. Her suffering is directly linked to past indulgence.
The exceptional beauty of Russian women is said to result from the vast merit accumulated by their ancestors. Much of this was earned during the Soviet era, through sacrifice, discipline, and collective labor – actions that, though not always recognized as spiritual, still carried deep karmic weight.
Vegetarianism
Within Buddhism, there has long been a debate about whether buying meat constitutes the karma of killing. Some schools have answered this question in the affirmative. However, a considerable number of schools have answered it in the negative. In particular, Tibetan Buddhism has taken a fairly firm stance in favour of the latter view. From the perspective of the second point of view, the following argument is typically put forward.
Imagine a pig. Suppose this pig is wandering somewhere in the mountains, and suddenly a large boulder falls from a cliff and kills it. Now imagine that a monk is travelling in the same mountains and comes across this fresh carcass. The monk, so that nothing goes to waste, prepares and eats the pig. Does the monk accumulate the karma of killing through this action? All schools unanimously answer this specific question with a no: the monk does not accumulate the karma of killing, since he does nothing that could have influenced the animal’s death. And if one asks what caused the animal’s death, everyone logically explains that it was simply the manifestation of the animal’s own karma.
Now imagine that a certain homeowner invites a monk to visit, intending to treat him to whatever God provides. Suppose the monk accepts but promises to come not today but the next day. The homeowner, for such an occasion, slaughters a pig and prepares pork for the monk’s arrival the following day. The question arises: does the monk in this case accumulate the karma of killing? All schools unanimously answer this question in this second scenario with a yes: the monk accumulates the karma of killing, since in this case the animal was killed for his sake. And therefore, when a monk is offered an animal that was killed for his benefit, the monk must refuse the meat – and by doing so, he will thus avoid accumulating the karma of killing.
Next, let us consider the original controversial case – the third scenario: the case where a butcher kills a pig in order to later deliver the meat to a store for sale.
Here is the reasoning of Tibetan Buddhism. Why does this pig die? Just as in the case of the boulder, the pig encounters circumstances of irresistible force. And just as in the boulder case, it dies due to its own karma. The only difference is what or who manifests the karma for this animal: in the first case it was a boulder, in the third case it is the butcher. Of course, the butcher himself in this case does accumulate the karma of killing. But what about the karma of the buyer in this third scenario? He walks through the store, sees already‑dead meat, and buys it. Whether he buys this meat or not, nothing will change for this particular pig: it was already dead, and it will remain dead. That is, it is exactly the same as in the first case with the boulder. Thus, the case of buying meat in a store is identical to the boulder case; consequently, just as in the boulder scenario, the buyer does not accumulate the karma of killing. This is how Tibetan Buddhism reasons.
However, this reasoning is flawed. In reality, the opposite is true: the case of buying meat is identical to the second scenario, where the homeowner killed the pig for the guest. The homeowner kills the pig for the monk. If the monk were not expected to come, the pig would have remained alive. It is exactly the same in the case of the store. The butcher kills the pig for the buyer: if the buyer were not expected to come, the pig would have remained alive. The difference between these two cases lies only in the fact that in the store scenario, the actor is not a specific individual but a community. That is, the global community of all butchers kills pigs for the global community of all those who buy and eat this meat. If there were no such consumers of pork, then butchers would not kill pigs.
Therefore, when a buyer walks through a store, sees meat, and buys it, they automatically become part of this community – the community of meat consumers. And accordingly, since through their purchase they automatically join this community for whose sake these pigs are killed, they naturally accumulate some karma of killing these animals. To put it even more simply: when a buyer purchases a chicken in a store, they reduce the store’s stock of chickens by one. This information is automatically transmitted from the store to the butcher. And the butcher, upon learning that a shortage of chickens has appeared in the store, kills the next chicken. Thus, by buying a chicken in the store, the buyer automatically triggers the mechanism of killing the next chicken. That is, the buyer is not the cause of death for the very chicken they bought, but for the next one.
The above reasoning, of course, does not mean that all the karma of killing a chicken shifts from the butcher to the buyer. No. The butcher still bears nearly all the karma for killing the animals they slaughter. The above reasoning merely indicates that the buyer of this meat also bears some portion of the karma of this killing.
Worldly Desires
Everything that directs a person away from their true self, from their True Ego, from the Absolute, and towards the external world, towards samsara, is called worldly desires. Worldly desires are the cause of all suffering. Worldly desires are opposite to the desire for spiritual growth.
The fewer worldly desires a person has, the more beautiful their appearance.
The fewer worldly desires a person has, the higher their overall level of health.
The fewer worldly desires a person has, the longer they live.
The fewer worldly desires a person has, the fewer stresses they experience and the lower their overall stress level.
The fewer worldly desires a person has, the fewer stresses they have, and as a result, the less they need food – which, for the most part, serves as a way to cope with stress through eating.
The fewer worldly desires a person has, the calmer they are.
The fewer worldly desires a person has, the calmer they are, and the better their reaction time – which gives them greater chances of survival in unforeseen circumstances. Also, a good reaction is a key factor that enables a person to win in a fight or in martial arts.
The fewer worldly desires a person has, the more successful they are in their professional, scientific, or athletic pursuits.
The fewer worldly desires a person has, the more adequately they perceive reality.
The fewer worldly desires a person has, the shorter their sleep.
The fewer worldly desires a person has, the stronger their willpower.
The stronger a person’s willpower, the fewer worldly desires they have.
The ability to endure pain varies. Some people have a low pain threshold, while others have a high one. One of the main factors influencing the level of a person’s pain threshold is the level of their worldly desires. The fewer worldly desires a person has, the higher their pain threshold.
The fewer worldly desires a person has, the greater their merit.
The fewer worldly desires a person has, the higher their spiritual level.
The desire to accumulate merit, the desire for spiritual growth, the desire to engage in spiritual practice, the desire to observe the precepts, the desire to follow the Dharma, the desire to live according to conscience, the desire to save others – all these are not worldly desires.
Meaning of Life
The meaning of life lies in spiritual growth.
A person is born, lives, grows up, and dies. Then their soul is reborn in a new body – and this continues almost endlessly. This is called the cycle of samsara. If a person strives for spiritual liberation in each of their lives, they will eventually be able to break free from the cycle of samsara. If a person does not seek spiritual liberation, with each subsequent life they come closer and closer to the world of hell.
In Buddhism, the collective of all people who seek spiritual liberation is usually called the “stream of Truth” or the “ascending stream”. The collective of all those who do not seek liberation and spend their lives pursuing false goals is called the “descending stream”. The descending stream consists of people who mistakenly believe that the purpose of life is supposedly to obtain pleasures, that one should simply live and enjoy life. In our time (the early 21st century), the ratio between the ascending stream and the descending stream is approximately one to a thousand.
In Hinduism and Buddhism there exists the concept of Dharma – the universal law of existence. In the East, it is more common to follow Dharma rather than the Law of Karma. The saying goes: “Dharma protects those who protect Dharma”.
The vast majority of people both in the East and around the world try to build their lives in a way that, as much as possible, aligns with Dharma – or, in ordinary terms, does not go against conscience. However, unfortunately, few people understand what Dharma truly is. Few understand what is truly harmful.
The vast majority consider Dharma to be whatever is commonly accepted as Dharma. Most people take as life guideposts whatever is commonly accepted as such. Few realise that what is commonly accepted is in fact erroneous. Few understand that what is commonly accepted is in fact harmful.
On the contrary, the First Right Law of Dharma is the Law of Liberation from Worldly Desires: “Worldly desires are the cause of all suffering”. The Second Right Law of Dharma is the Law of Karma. As for further Right Laws of Dharma, one may consider the Eight Karunas (see the chapter “Message to the Seven Churches”).
Dharma is not limited to just these ten laws. This entire book should be regarded as a “School of Right Dharma”.
To live freely and unbound, one must attain liberation.
Law of Projection
Any thought has power. Any image manifests in reality.
A weak single image manifests as imperceptible consequences.
A strong image manifests as a tangible reality.
A special case of a strong image’s manifestation is when a person conceives something and then brings this idea to life. This is usually called creation.
The gods always have very strong images. Therefore, their images are life‑giving.
A strong, repeated collective image manifests as a real, inevitable event.
An extremely strong thought can give rise to life.
Meditation of becoming is precisely one of the ways to make one’s thought strong and repeated.
The Law of Karma and the Law of Projection are interconnected. The greater a person’s merit, the more their consciousness manifests.
Law of Resonance
When people are near each other or touch each other, they experience the same emotion, the same feeling. Another name for this law is interpersonal identification. This law is sometimes also interpreted as the crowd effect. The crowd effect is a specific case of the Law of Resonance. This law operates in any human interaction – even when people are at a great distance from each other, even when communication takes place via telephone, mail, or the internet.
When touching another person, one’s state is transmitted – but not karma. Due to the Law of Resonance, it may seem that by touching another person one can transfer their karma to them, or, conversely, take their karma for oneself. However, this is not the case. Karma is not transferred in this way. Karma cannot be transferred at all. No one can take on another’s karma. On extremely rare occasions, certain individuals such as Buddhas – who are fundamentally free from any karma – may take on another’s karma. But this is a highly exceptional circumstance.
The Question of Primacy
Being determines consciousness – and consciousness determines being. These are two sides of a single dialectical principle.
Illustration of the first: Being determines consciousness. A person has an innate desire to live. To survive, a person carefully studies the things on which their life depends. One such thing is their mother. A person studies their mother very closely, striving to understand what their mother is thinking and what their mother wants from them. As a result, the person develops an internal image – an image of their mother. In seeking to understand their mother more deeply, the person tries to imitate their mother’s actions and repeats what their mother says. Through this, the person learns to speak. And by mastering speech, they also master the thinking that underlies it. That is – being determines consciousness.
Illustration of the second: Consciousness determines being. For example, a person notices that it would be more convenient to sit not on the ground but on something higher. They form within their consciousness an image of something that could help them with this. The person creates the idea of a stool. Then they draw this image on paper and, by examining the drawing, check whether what they have imagined matches what they need. After confirming that the drawing fully matches the idea and the idea fully matches the desire, the person takes wood and tools and makes the stool. So, first there was no stool; then came the idea of the stool; then the stool appeared in reality. That is – consciousness determines being.
Materialism asserts that matter is primary and consciousness is secondary. Idealism, on the contrary, asserts that consciousness is primary and matter is secondary. On what basis do people take one side or the other? Anyone wishing to understand the essence of this debate would do well to first grapple with the “Law of Disappearance”.
“The Law of Disappearance”:
Everything that has a beginning also has an endFrom this law follows a natural corollary:
Everything that has no beginning also has no endThis law is easily proven by the absence of any real‑life examples where something has a beginning but no ending. This dialectical law must be taken into account by any philosopher, regardless of whether they are a materialist, an idealist, or something else. That is, a thinker who rejects this principle should be considered an ignorant thinker, a layperson. All Abrahamic religions should also be considered such laypersons. In contrast, most Buddhist and Hindu schools recognise this principle. Science also acknowledges it.
As for the question of what is primary – matter or consciousness – most Buddhist schools hold that both matter and consciousness exist eternally and therefore have no moment of origin. Consequently, there is no need to ask “what came first”, since both were present from the very beginning.
In science, the most widespread view is that matter exists eternally, while consciousness is secondary – that is, consciousness emerges at a certain stage of the evolution of matter and disappears at a certain evolutionary stage.
Buddhism asserts that physical matter can transition from a state of global vacuum, global empty space, global absence of motion, and global absence of time into a state with motion and time. We all provide the beginning of this motion: we are souls who have chosen to live in this physical universe. This, in principle, can manifest in the physical world as a Big Bang (though not necessarily). The universe expands, stabilises, exists, then contracts, collapses, and returns to the state of global vacuum. And this pulsation repeats endlessly.
The philosophy of Buddhism recognises science and accepts Darwin’s theory – and this is correct.
The theory of predestination (fate, fatalism) is not true.
The past cannot be changed. A time machine cannot be created. The past cannot be altered due to the Law of Cause and Effect (and also because the Law of Cause and Effect is correct).
The Question of God’s Knowability
This world is given to a human through sensations and through sensations alone. However, scientists have agreed to assume that the world which is given to us through sensations – and only through sensations – actually exists. Although it is practically impossible to prove this.
In the same way, it is impossible to prove the existence of dreams. No instrument can directly register a person’s dream. Instruments can only detect various electromagnetic oscillations of the brain. Scientists have discovered that when a sleeping brain emits a strictly defined pattern of electromagnetic oscillations, and if the person is woken up at that very moment, they will say they just had a dream. There is no other way to prove the existence of dreams. Nevertheless, scientists have agreed to recognise that dreams exist and are an objective reality.
That is, for almost everything that is or is not considered objective reality, scientists reach an agreement.
Regarding the existence of God, the global scientific community has agreed to consider Him unknowable and His existence impossible to prove.
However, this is a mistake on the part of scientists. They have not noticed that the method of studying God is identical to the method of studying dreams. There are people called saints. Saints testify that they have experienced communion with God. They say this communion occurs in a particularly deep meditative state. As a rule, the testimonies about God from various saints are similar. The similarity of reports from a large number of saints strongly suggests that they are dealing with the same reality. It is quite easy to distinguish holy people from non‑holy ones using the same electroencephalography. When a holy person enters the required meditative state, their brain begins to emmit waves with a strictly defined pattern – one that can be objectively recorded by a physical instrument. The similarity and repeatability of physical indicators, together with the similarity and repeatability of the meditative experience described by saints, should be interpreted as proof of an objective factor: the existence of God.
There is another scientific proof of God’s existence: the biblical writing Apocalypse. This work was written two thousand years ago, yet it describes events that are unfolding in our time – especially at the beginning of the 21st century. Apocalypse describes current events with remarkable accuracy. Most predictions by various seers suffer from one flaw: excessive metaphoricality. Because of this, nearly all prophetic predictions have no practical value – it is nearly impossible to learn anything in advance from them. Apocalypse, however, differs fundamentally from such predictions. It provides clear answers to key questions:
● Will there be a Third World War?
● Will America perish?
● Will communism triumph throughout the world?
To have such a distant and highly accurate foresight, one must be truly God. That is, the existence of a writing such as Apocalypse, and the real‑world confirmation of everything it predicts, constitutes a real and fully scientific proof of God’s existence. Apocalypse is a real text, and the whole world knows it almost by heart. In this writing, God transmits through John the Theologian information about what will happen on Earth two millennia later. For example, He transmits that a Third World War will occur on Earth. And indeed, at the beginning of the 21st century, a Third World War is unfolding. If there exists a sufficiently accurate real prediction of the events of the Third World War, then there must also exist a source of these accurate predictions. And the source of these real predictions is God. What more real proof of God’s existence could you need?
What is Truth?
If a person lacks a sufficiently clear understanding of what is right and what is wrong; if their life is going awry; if they feel their life isn’t worth a penny; if they cannot grasp what in this life has meaning and what does not; if they do not know where to invest their energy and where not to; if they have the feeling that they fail to understand something very important in life – all this means that the person does not know Truth.
One should be able to distinguish between philosophical absolute truth, spiritual absolute Truth, and the Truth to which a Buddha awakens – the awakening to which gives the Buddha their title. One should also be able to tell apart the concept of Truth (with a capital letter) and truth (with a lowercase letter).
Truth with a lowercase “t” refers to the content of a thought about the essence of what is being known, once it has overcome the status of a hypothesis through verification procedures that check its correspondence to the known – the alignment of thought and reality, as opposed to error (a contradiction between thought and reality). This is also called scientific truth. The criterion of scientific truth is practice.