How to Protect Yourself from Energy Vampires?

AGAnna Gurina

Sasha, a question about energy vampires came up during the break. Could you tell us about them?

AVAlexander Volchek

You want to know—

AGAnna Gurina

Do they exist?

AVAlexander Volchek

Who the vampires are?

AGAnna Gurina

Who they are and how to recognize them.

AVAlexander Volchek

Notice what happened when that question came up. I'll answer it very quickly. When it came up, I immediately looked at you, and you said, ‘I'm definitely not a vampire.’ As in, ‘How am I a vampire?’ What matters here is whom we perceive as a vampire in the first place, and why you reacted that way. Basically, almost everyone has some vampirism in them. Almost everyone. There are always exceptions, but broadly speaking, everyone has certain characteristics through which they engage in vampirism. What is vampirism? You'll see in a moment why there's a lot of it in you—or in whoever asked the question. Sasha just asked the question, right? Yes. Vampirism is when I take energy, when a person takes energy without giving any back. In other words, they feed on other people. Right?

AGAnna Gurina

Yes.

AVAlexander Volchek

In this case, when we're talking about energy vampirism, they feed on another person's energy. The biggest problem for modern humanity over the past hundred and fifty years is that people have completely forgotten how to live with their energies in balance, and how to perceive and understand what true energies really are. If I do this job, is it worth this much money, or more, or less? If I sell a course, is it worth this much or less? Am I still owed something? Or is it worth more, and do I need to give something? Have I given enough or not enough? If I do things for my family during the day, how are we going to count the energy involved in helping the children? What will we express it in? Hours? Money? People have learned to do certain things, but how do we measure this? By how much of our time we spend? ‘But my time is worth more. I'm worth more, so my time with the children is worth more, too.’ So if you earn five thousand dollars a month and I earn five million dollars a month, then if I spend an hour with the children, you have to spend fifteen days with them.

That's the logic we'd have to follow, you see. So the main thing about energy vampirism is to acknowledge it in yourself, notice these moments, and examine them—to examine how everyone does this in different situations.

AGAnna Gurina

I understand the general idea of how it works: giving and taking. I understand that overall. But suppose I feel that someone very close to me only takes my energy, and I'm always drained after interacting with them?

What can I do? I love this person, and I don't want to—

AVAlexander Volchek

What if it's someone you're not close to who takes it? What if your children take it?

AGAnna Gurina

If it's someone I'm not close to, I can easily limit contact.

AVAlexander Volchek

All right, but what if your children take it?

AGAnna Gurina

Right, what if my children take it?

AVAlexander Volchek

What if you're taking it from your children? Do you know how many parents feed on their children?

AGAnna Gurina

Absolutely, yes.

AVAlexander Volchek

Again, this happens primarily because people don't understand or know how energy exchange works. The point isn't that you're giving and taking. You want to calculate it in material terms.

AGAnna Gurina

No.

AVAlexander Volchek

I'm sorry; perhaps that's how I put it, as if you wanted to calculate it. But looking at it more broadly, what are you going to do about it? How will you get an equivalent exchange, and how do you want to feel it? We understand that giving and taking aren't a linear structure or a single parameter. It's a quantity of something. What's more, those quantities flow into different processes. I don't always give in one place and receive the same amount back in that same place. It's a cycle that gets distributed among other things, so it's very difficult to calculate. It's about listening to the world, being in equilibrium, in balance with everything. Can there be a situation where someone close to you takes from you? Let them take; perhaps that's how this balance works. They take here and give somewhere else, and you, in turn, receive somewhere else. If you agree to it. That's very important: if you agree. And you do agree, don't you, that we can't act in an exactly equivalent way in every situation, all the time? Polina just brought me coffee, for example, and I go—

‘I'll make a little check mark and start keeping track. Now I have to give her something back, right?’ Or she brings you coffee, but you didn't want any. You say, ‘I'm not giving you a check mark at all.’ She says, ‘You have to give me one.’ And off it goes. Things start happening. It's an unequal situation. If situations are unequal, there will always be situations where a person only takes or only gives. Notice that there are always situations where people only take or only give. In principle, there's no problem with that. What's more, if we consider a person's true development, we might say that, fundamentally, a person should be of service to other people and to the world. They aren't doing it to replenish themselves, but simply because they should be of service. There are some contradictions here. On the one hand, there is an energy balance. On the other, a person is of service, and service doesn't involve a position of receiving. If, Anya, you say, ‘I'm not serving this person; I'm simply bringing them kindness,’ because you're a good person, then you bring them kindness without limit, for any length of time. It doesn't matter how many lifetimes, how many hours, or how much time: you simply bring it, without receiving anything back.

I might say, ‘Anya, could you help me with something?’ You'd say, ‘I'd be happy to help, and I don't need anything in return.’ So why are you willing in one case? We're getting close to the answer. Ding, ding! Why are you willing in one case to serve wholeheartedly and give all of yourself? You agree that there are circumstances in which you're sincerely, truly willing to serve and give all of yourself, don't you?

But in another situation, where you think someone is taking from you, you say, ‘What the hell? This person close to me is taking everything from me.’ What is that? It turns out the cause isn't that the person is taking everything. The essence of energy vampirism lies elsewhere. Where, then? Or you might say, ‘I only help people who don't take everything.’ But in principle, that's not the right position either. If I say I help everyone, then I help everyone, whether that person is good or bad, regardless of how they exchange energy with the world. I simply help everyone. Yet you're singling people out and looking at them differently. What's hidden here? Something very simple: the ego. You want to treat this person in a way that isn't humane. You think they owe you. Here's the nuance, the whole paradox. On the one hand, you can live in the world in service, bringing something to everyone and constantly thinking about how you've treated other people. On the other, you move toward a true understanding of the universe's cause and effect through connection with yourself.

But there's no receiving energy for yourself in that. Consider those two directions. I keep showing you these two directions. You've heard them from me for years; I keep returning to them. Neither is about receiving something for yourself. I'm certainly not ruling out the exchange of life, energy, and everything else, or saying it doesn't exist. I'm not ruling it out. But that doesn't mean I interact with other people because I need to receive something. When you say ‘receive,’ it's immediately manipulation. Then you need to sit down and reach an agreement, with agreed terms. But we just discussed what those terms could even be. People do make agreements: I go to work, and you pay me a salary for it. The thing about work is that you may not like it. People quit their jobs; the arrangement can easily end. But in marriage, they haven't made an agreement. Well, I've seen signed contracts like that. For example, a contract might say that the wife has to have sex at least five times a week. I've heard of contracts like that, too. You know those things exist. Or it might say the husband has to have sex at least five times a week, or that each person has to work.

If someone doesn't work, something happens, or they have the right to divorce. There are different terms depending on the country. In some places you can put those things in a contract; in others you can't because they violate certain requirements. The point is that people agreed on terms. But in energy exchange, in real love and a real, whole connection between two people, there's no contract. Marriage isn't a contract. If you treat marriage as a contract, use another word for it. Call it work, a social project, a nonprofit organization—call it whatever you like. This matters. And when you have a child, you have no right to turn that into a nonprofit or a contract, because that person isn't making the decision with you and hasn't agreed to it. They grow up and say, ‘Excuse me, I didn't want a mother who looks like this or a father who looks like this. We never agreed on any of this. I wanted people of a different skin color, or people born in another country, or parents who earn different amounts of money.’ Notice that a child has the right to say that. If we make demands on them, they can say right back, ‘Mom, hold on, please.’

‘You think you earn good money. I want you to earn ten million dollars a month. I don't understand why you are the way you are.’ The child has every right to say that. If adults reason this way, live this way themselves, and express these positions, why can't someone express a position in the other direction? A man comes to a woman and says, ‘You know, you ought to work. I make a hell of a lot of money. How much do you make?’

‘How much do you make?’ He says, ‘A lot.’ ‘How much is a lot?’ ‘I earn a million dollars a month.’ ‘Oh, please, what's your million? Last month—last year—Elon Musk announced he'd made a billion dollars a month. You're nobody. You're utterly broke. You're nobody, and there's no reason to live with you.’ Is that the approach we're supposed to take to social equality or social relationships? Then sign a contract. Let's put down in a contract who does what, what each person is willing to do, and what circumstances each brings. Energy vampirism arises in that system. That's the point. Unfortunately, in the situation you're describing, you're acting as an energy vampire at that moment. In the original question you asked, you are. I'm in no way defending the other person. I'm in no way saying that you're acting wrongly in that situation; support is needed, along with everything else. But if we're looking at ourselves, at ourselves personally, we simply need to acknowledge it. Once you've acknowledged it and dissolved it within yourself, imagine, for example, that I meet another person who sends nothing back in my direction.

Nothing at all. Take a child, for example. I can't run an A/B test with a child. I have four children. What would an A/B test mean? Have one, throw it away; have another, throw it away; have one and replace it. There are men in the world who do that, including men everyone admires. But I can't do that. So I've had a child, and I acknowledge from the outset that this child may do nothing but consume my energy. Still, I'll try to do everything I can to remain a genuine human being with them. I'll simply keep trying. And if I remain a genuine human being with them, then if they behave that way, I have the right, in terms of the universe's true laws, to set boundaries. Simply to set boundaries. I have that right. That's the whole point. Just as I have the right to tell an employer, ‘Excuse me, the contract I signed says I work eight hours.’ In the Russian-speaking world, we've been trained to think you're a slave to whoever pays you. And some countries always surprise us. In Spain, for instance, you tell people, ‘Why don't you keep the restaurant open later? Why don't you open earlier?’ They say, ‘We don't want to.’

You say, ‘But you'd make more money.’ They say, ‘We don't want to. We don't need that.’ We've been trained to think you have to provide service, attend to people, and keep doing things. But they have the right as human beings to say, ‘No, I'm not willing to do that in this case.’ That's your right with your child, your parents, your husband, your wife, or anyone else. It's your right, and every person's right, to act as they see fit and set boundaries at that moment. But remove that barrier of arguing, the thing that negativity rests on. Don't treat it as a question of a right or wrong energy exchange. From the perspective of how life and the universe are structured, you don't know what a correct energy exchange is. In terms of your karmic experience, perhaps you're supposed to serve this person now. Perhaps in a past life you abused them, whipped them, and kept them in your prison, and now you have to serve them. Let's simply suppose that people believe in karmic experience, as very many do. Then reason it through properly. Serve them, then. You'll be serving them for another ten thousand years, another fifteen incarnations.

Because every lash of your whip means ten years spent living with that person. Really. Why not? Someone says something negative to another person and thinks, ‘So what? I said something negative.’ But the other person experiences psychological trauma as a result and suffers for the rest of their life. If they've suffered for their whole life, then that one action of yours has brought you a lifetime of suffering, so please suffer for a lifetime, too. Then the question is: what if I did that to a thousand people? Then suffer for a thousand lifetimes. It goes on from there: I don't know, you'll have children who are ill, or you'll have no arms or legs, with all sorts of emotional experiences, swings of loss, joy, distress, and everything else. All sorts of factors. Those structures aren't the point here. But since we're reasoning and trying to understand in these terms, even the question of giving or receiving energy is very broad. Again, this doesn't mean the other person is behaving properly toward someone. They may also be acting wrongly. They may also be unable to hear this, and perhaps at some point they'll realize it. That's the whole point.

That doesn't mean we fully accept or mirror what the other person does. You say it's someone close to you doing this. Well, that's how life has turned out: someone close to you is doing it. It might be your mother, your father, your children, your brother or sister, the people you love, or your life partner. Then you need to learn to treat people as equals. You need to treat every child as your own. I've always told you that. Not, ‘I treat my own children well, and Volchek's children well; these children fairly well, and those—well, of course I treat them as children, but I'll choose these ones.’ You need to treat everyone equally, as equals. Then you start treating husbands and wives equally, too. But wives don't like that, and husbands don't like it. Everyone stops liking it. A person you treat well may like the neutrality of that position, perhaps, but other people don't like it in one way or another. A mother might say, ‘Aren't I your mother? Why should you treat all women well?’ But in principle, she should be happy if I treat all women the same way I treat her.

That's a great blessing and a miracle. If I kill all women, of course that isn't a blessing. But if I try to express the best qualities I can, pay attention to that, and treat women equally—my mother, my wife, my daughter, my sister, you, a female friend, another girl, an elderly woman in a store, or anyone else—if I treat them all equally, that's the fundamental point. Then a huge number of the boundaries that define vampirism disappear. Then we begin, at least in some way, to live and to feel. How can we measure anything at all? We stop measuring life by saying, ‘But he's my husband,’ or ‘She's my wife,’ or ‘I've been friends with this person for twenty years.’ So what if you've been friends for twenty years? You won't be able to find equivalent things to compare. This is where humanity's biggest problem comes in: comparison. Comparing who has done more, who is better; comparing appearances, suits, outfits, characteristics. Comparison. Showing certain things off or, conversely, hiding them. We start endlessly comparing everything: technology or anything else, comparing our lives. ‘Five years ago I did things badly; now I do them well.’

‘Five years ago I was happy, and now I'm unhappy.’ Comparison. ‘Vasya said this, and these people said that.’ Comparison—just endlessly comparing everything. And your spiritual being is crying out to you, ‘You don't have to compare yourself. You can simply connect with me. You don't have to compare yourself. You can simply connect with me.’ Then a huge number of comparisons will disappear, because you don't even understand the level on which you're comparing. You'll reach a different level of comparison and see that you didn't need to compare those things at all. They have no significance. None. Suppose ten-year-old children come to school and compare who has one dollar, who has two, and who has three. In terms of their future situation, it doesn't matter. In the future they'll say, ‘We used to compare ourselves and play those games.’ What difference does it make? It doesn't matter at all. Comparison. Who does more? Who is better: the mother at home with the children or the father who works? Comparison. All of it is comparison. And certain behavior makes these comparisons worse. Here's an example. A friend recently told me, ‘I bought a house in Europe. My wife took the children there, and now she says, “You have it good in Moscow, on your own, while I'm here looking after the children.”’

Some time passed, and six months later he went to see the children. He was with them in that house in Europe, while his wife was working in Moscow. She called him and said, ‘You have it good, vacationing in Europe while I'm here working.’ That's the essence of our lives. This story is the essence of our damn lives. What can you do about it? Make up your mind. Decide what you actually want. What can you do about it? Comparison—any comparison—is useless. Absolutely useless. Yet we constantly classify everything through these comparisons: who does more, or less, or better. It's endless. ‘But the woman gives birth,’ or ‘But the man works,’ or ‘This is for me, that is for me,’ or something else. What are all these comparisons for? Why do we need them? There are facts, differences, distinctions, and so many other things. But you'll never be able to compare two people to each other. People's spiritual beings are comparable to some extent, but only if you're thinking in terms of a person's spiritual being rather than their ordinary incarnation. If you'd like to see more videos on the channel, subscribe and like this video to support it. Kisses.