Does everyone need spirituality? About human spiritual development

DMDmitry Mugenov

Does everyone need spirituality at all? Or is it only for people who are already involved in it?

AVAlexander Volchek

Look, let us distinguish the categories. If we are talking about people who treat spirituality as a hobby, a trip to the store, or an activity like drawing or sports, I am not going to argue and try to prove something. That is not our purpose here. You can keep asking that question endlessly. Simply endlessly. Keep asking it and debating it without end. To avoid endlessly going around the question of whether spirituality is needed, we first need to examine what spiritual life actually is.

DMDmitry Mugenov

What do people even call spiritual life?

AVAlexander Volchek

People usually see spiritual life as something separate, special: going to a place of worship, sitting in meditation, or performing a ritual. Very often, they understand it as an abstraction. What abstraction? Someone says, “There is a soul.” I always explain it this way: if you accept the soul as a fact, or know and accept that spirit exists, you encounter that when you go to church and direct your attention toward it. It would then be strange to say you should not engage with it. We need to ask what comes first. The physical body? There is a physical body. Again, people perceive spiritual life through an abstract idea, such as soul or spirit, while there is also a physical body. Which is primary: the physical body, the soul, or the spirit? You need to answer that for yourself. I am not even going into the idea that everything consists of the spiritual world. Not going there at all. Here is a fairly materially oriented person considering this, while still having some belief in a soul. They say, “I would like to devote some time to spiritual life—say, thirty or twenty minutes a day, like drawing or playing the piano.

I practice the piano, so I would give this the same sort of attention.” I say, “All right, you do that, but please consider whether the physical body is primary in relation to the soul, or the soul is primary.” What does “primary” mean? If the soul is secondary and the body is primary, the soul is a component of the physical body. If it is a component of the physical body, it is some kind of physical object. Yet we immediately agree that it is not a physical object. If not, what is primary? Something created it; something comes first. Then there is something more fundamental than the physical body and the soul—something else, something unknown. Usually, people's perception goes no further. Usually, it goes no further. They have also heard of hell, heaven, demons, angels, archangels, and saints. It is all mixed together. An icon of a saint who lived two hundred years ago, an icon of Nicholas the Wonderworker, an icon of the Archangel Michael—it is just an icon. But what is the Archangel Michael? What is an angel? Is Nicholas the Wonderworker a human being, a personality? Was a spiritual being behind him, or did particular spiritual energies come through?

What lies behind it? What stands behind it? What stands behind it? So, Dima, when we turn to spiritual life, we get down to this question. The soul is a component of a person. The physical body is also a component. If the physical body is a component, then there must be a person of whom it is a part.

DMDmitry Mugenov

If someone does not believe any of this, does that mean they do not need to engage in spiritual life? They do not need spirituality?

AVAlexander Volchek

Look, if someone does not believe, if, as I said at the outset, they see spirituality as a material abstraction or a hobby, I have no issue with that at all. I am not undertaking a debate or discussion about it with them. But if someone has heard of, understands, and believes in aspects beyond the physical world, they should at least stop deceiving themselves about it. To do that, they need to begin understanding it. Suppose there is a person with a physical body and some soul or spirit. They perceive their physical body at least to some extent, in some way. They perceive the body somehow. But their perception of spirit and soul is very limited. Or they believe in God. Someone says, “I believe in God.” Says, “I believe in God,” and then asks, “Do I need to engage with spirituality or not?” If you accept this, of course you need to engage with it. It is like living in a house or an apartment and not looking after it—

what does not looking after it mean? Not cleaning the bathtub or toilet, not cleaning the different surfaces. The apartment will gradually rot and deteriorate; the house will gradually fall apart. You absolutely need to look after it. You likewise need to attend to the life of your soul and spirit, to yourself as a human being. Neglect it, and it will break down. It is the same with health. Teeth and dentistry are a very good example for understanding spiritual development. You brush your teeth as a natural way of keeping them healthy, hardly in order to develop them. Could you do things to develop your teeth? In theory, yes: buy additional special products, perhaps special toothpaste, or have procedures that improve their condition further. But what do people mainly do? Maintain them. They attend to their health rather than developing it; they at least do something to preserve their healthy condition. There are enormous numbers of things in the spiritual world that you need to do just to maintain your state, let alone develop it.

Notice that people do not want to maintain or understand the state of the spiritual world. They want development, results, greater strength in the spiritual world; they want to be better in spiritual terms. They compare themselves and boast. We recently recorded a video discussing how people—even those who believe in the spiritual world—basically cannot name a single parameter for comparing people's spiritual development, state, or strength. How do you compare them at all? Yet when studying human development, we know perfectly well that people differ in spiritual strength. Their states of spiritual development are different, absolutely different. Just as people in ordinary society differ in driving, cooking, speaking different languages, playing the piano, growing plants in a garden, or running a business. One is a good carpenter, another a good astronaut, translator, or Russian teacher. Very different skills and knowledge, including how to train a dog, care for it, read its various signals, and understand its characteristics.

People differ enormously in the spiritual world. Yet a person does not seek to understand that world or maintain some basic hygiene—

basic hygiene, if we can call it “hygiene.” Instead, they seek to award themselves little stars and check certain boxes. I have various development groups, and people in them often want to show their importance, emphasize that they have changed and developed. Look at business clubs and different forms of modern education: they are geared toward reaching particular numbers rather than acquiring knowledge. Serious, substantial education says you first need a foundation of knowledge. A foundation of knowledge. You need to acquire knowledge, not necessarily achieve the final outcome of having a business that generates a hundred million dollars in net profit. In some areas, knowledge and hygiene are needed in their own right.

DMDmitry Mugenov

What if someone is afraid to look into spirituality because things might get worse? Many are afraid to explore it because it seems things can only become more difficult: you might begin seeing things you cannot handle. What should they do?

AVAlexander Volchek

It is like saying, “I will not look into our personal relationship, because that would be very hard. I would sleep badly and feel stressed.” Or, “I am a visual person, so I will not get into systematic reports.” Or, “I am creative, so I will not get into your business management or financial systems. I do not need that; I am immersed in creativity.” Then you will have financial problems in life, problems with financial recordkeeping. You need to understand calmly that noticing a difficulty or feeling fear does nothing to reduce the problems that may follow. To understand many things in life, you have to go through difficulties, including trials and suffering. Those too. I see any spiritual study as a blessing, a gift from above. I am always happy to immerse myself in new knowledge, interests, and materials, to discover aspects of disharmonious development within myself, to see manifestations of ego, Ahriman, or Lucifer.

I am glad to see it, to truly see it. Just as I am glad to learn early that rot is accumulating behind a wall, because I know that if it continues, it will spread through the whole house. Then I will no longer be able to fix it for five hundred dollars; I will need repairs costing a hundred thousand dollars. I would be glad to detect a disease early rather than discover it after the fact while telling myself, “At least I did not suffer or live under stress.” There are things that can definitely, with certainty, be corrected or repaired in advance. So running away out of fear here is the same as running away out of fear in ordinary life. There are things you will have to face. You will have to face them in any case, Dima. There are things you will have to face regardless. Everyone, for example, will have to face death. It is the hardest thing for a person, but everyone will have to face death and see other people die. Mostly, though, people do not care how others die. They will see someone close to them die.

Most people will have someone close to them die. If you do not see someone close to you die, then at least you yourself will die very quickly. You will have to face it. You will have to face your own death. For some, the experience of death is drawn out; for others, it lasts a moment. But they still encounter it. Not buying a dog because you know it will die in ten or fifteen years is a very particular way of thinking. A very particular way of thinking. What do you feel and see? You understand naturally that all animals die. Notice that the dog you did not buy will die in fifteen years anyway. That is the most interesting thing. That very same dog will die in fifteen years. You say, “I will become attached.” But that is what living is: seeing things born and seeing them die, flowers growing and dying in the garden. You can suffer because the roses died, a rabbit ate them, or aphids damaged them. Or you can enjoy them when they bloom. Relate to it from that position alone, understanding that this is real life.

DMDmitry Mugenov

Suppose someone understands and accepts that these spiritual aspects of life exist, that spirituality and spiritual life exist, but knows nothing about them. They want to begin exploring. Where should they start?

AVAlexander Volchek

First, stop viewing spiritual life through material understanding and perception. The first thing to direct your attention toward is that the spiritual world is all around you. It is the source. At the beginning, we asked which is primary, the physical body or the soul. Understand that there is a spiritual world, a spiritual human being, and components of that world and that spiritual human being. If we map what is actually happening in the spiritual world and with you as a human being, we can build a two-dimensional model—not even a three-dimensional one, although it is impossible to map a person's spiritual being in three dimensions. It is multidimensional. That is difficult to grasp, so even if we draw a two-dimensional picture, we will see that this current life is a point on the map. Not the highest or lowest, deepest or fullest, largest or smallest—just a point on the map at a particular interval of time. A point at a particular interval of time. Can you, and should you, focus only on that point? You can focus only on it. There is nothing wrong with concentrating on that point while retaining a proper understanding that you are in an enormous world, attending to that point.

There is no mistake in that at all. None. Please, focus only on that point, that particular action, but understand that enormous numbers of other causes and effects are circulating around it. There are past lives and enormous numbers of patterns. Carry that understanding with you every day. Carry it every day. Stay with it all the time. Understand that spiritual life is not a reflection of how much money you have, your mood, your state, your feelings, or your emotions, as though those were a measure. Everything that happens has a spiritual cause. Everything—absolutely every event—has a spiritual cause. Do not go on arguing with that. Yes, we understand that when I pick up a glass, I simply pick it up. There is no spiritual cause. Yet if we look deeper, even that has a spiritual component. Why could the glass be picked up at all? What components is it made of? How was it made, who made it, who brought it here? Why am I capable of doing it? There is a spiritual aspect and cause to it. This brings truth and real forward movement, rather than the falseness of going to church only when someone dies—

or only to ask for help. Or making the sign of the cross when a black cat crosses your path. Or suddenly speaking in a completely different, pious voice when a priest arrives. It does not matter whether the priest is a murderer or a good person. It does not matter—to that person, it does not matter. It does not matter whether the priest actually perceives the spiritual world or simply trained as a priest. Do you see the absurdity of it? It is absurd. We are used to doing this. We call doctors doctors simply because they completed a particular education or saw a certain number of clients. We call someone a saint simply because they have certain attributes. We say someone understands how to manage a business because they have a certain fortune or head a company—even if they inherited it, even if they are utterly incompetent. Utterly incompetent, but they inherited the company. People will attend their lectures and listen. That is the essence of the modern world.

And that is an area in which a person can make incredibly substantial progress in their development.