Will hellish torment be eternal? According to the Bible, eternal is not hell and torment (hellish torment), but fire, smoke.
Stanislav and Christina Grof (USA)
SHINING CITIES AND TORTURES IN HELL
ANCIENT WISDOM AND MODERN SCIENCE
The central theme of mediaeval literature on the art of dying is summed up nicely in the Latin dictum:Morscerta, horaincerta”(the most definite thing in life is death, only its hour is not determined). The medieval philosopher adds to this statement that it is precisely because of the uncertainty of the moment of death that we must always be ready for it.
The consciousness of the extreme importance of dying as an integral part of human existence is a characteristic feature of all ancient and non-Western modern cultures, in which the theme of death has a profound impact on religion, ritual, mythology, art and philosophy. The same attitude towards death was an essential part of Western culture before the industrial revolution. Western man had to pay for technical progress at a high price deep alienation from the fundamental biological aspects of existence. This process is expressed most vividly in relation to the basic triad of life: birth, sex and death. The revolution in psychology initiated by Sigmund Freud has largely lifted the taboos placed on human sexuality. In the last decade we have witnessed some progress in the study of the phenomena of birth and death. This finds expression not only in the rapid development the process of realizing the significance of the experience of birth and death, but also in revolutionary changes in medical practice regarding childbearing and caring for the dying.
It is no coincidence that the removal of taboos associated with birth and death was accompanied by the revival of spirituality, which also became one of the victims of materialistic science. As modern knowledge about these phenomena develops, it becomes more and more obvious that birth, sex, death and spirituality are closely interconnected and reflected in the human subconscious. Because such beliefs form an essential part of many ancient cosmologies, religions, and philosophies, new discoveries are rapidly filling the gap between ancient wisdom and modern science. In the process of convergence of modern physics, consciousness research and mysticism, many ancient systems of knowledge, previously considered obsolete, are found to be remarkably relevant to our daily lives. This is especially true of the ancient knowledge of death and dying, the practice of shamanism, the Books of the Dead, and the mysteries of death-rebirth.
In order to understand the origins and scope of the revolution taking place in relation to death and dying, it is necessary to clearly understand the degree of dehumanization and alienation brought to the Western world by technological progress.
Belief in an afterlife is part of our religious tradition, but for the sophisticated Westerner, religion has almost completely lost its original vitality and meaning. In non-Western cultures, the provisions of cosmology, religious and philosophical systems, according to which death is not an absolute and irrevocable end of existence, have remained in the same force, and conscious life in one form or another continues after biological death. These concepts of the afterlife cover a wide range of ideas, ranging from completely abstract states of consciousness to the image of the afterlife, similar to earthly existence. But in all these beliefs, death is seen as a transition, or transformation, and not as the complete annihilation of the individual.
Eschatological mythologies not only describe in detail the post-mortem states of consciousness or dwelling places of the dead, such as heaven, heaven or hell, but also offer accurate cartography as a guide for the dying person in the successive changes of consciousness that occur during the critical period of transition to another life.
Such belief systems undoubtedly have the ability to alleviate the fear of death, and in their extreme expressions they even suggest an inverse relationship between the values of earthly and posthumous existence. For Hindus, unenlightened earthly life is a state of alienation, imprisonment, delusion, while death brings reunion, spiritual liberation and awakening. death gives individual I am the opportunity to break with the world's illusion and gain the divine essence. In religio-philosophical systems that emphasize reincarnation, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Tantrism, dying can be seen as a more important state than life. Knowledge about the experience associated with dying, and the right attitude towards it, can have a radical impact on the future incarnation. For Buddhists, biological existence is inextricably linked with suffering, and the goal and victory of the spirit is to extinguish the fire of life and stop the "wheel of being" - the chain of repeated incarnations.
Death is sometimes seen as a step to a higher level of the spiritual or cosmological hierarchy, an advancement into the world of revered ancestors, powerful spirits, demigods. It is associated with the transition from earthly life, full of suffering and problems, to a blissful existence in the solar abode or in the kingdom of the gods. More often, the concept of the afterlife is dichotomous and includes polar representations: hell and purgatory, on the one hand, paradise and the kingdom of heaven, on the other. The posthumous path of the soul is complex and difficult. Thus, it is important to be well prepared for the coming of death. At the very least, knowledge of cartography and the laws of the afterlife is necessary.
Many traditions are characterized by the belief that, in preparing for death, a person must do more than just acquire knowledge about the process of dying. Methods have been developed to change consciousness using psychedelic means and non-pharmacological methods that made the experimental "training of dying" a reality. The psychological encounter with death is so compelling and overwhelming that it is almost impossible to distinguish it from the true biological end. The experience ends with a sense of spiritual rebirth. This is the main moment of initiation in shamanism, initiatory rites and religious mysteries. Such a symbolic death not only gives a deep awareness of the fragility of biological existence, but also facilitates spiritual insight and penetration into the transcendental nature of human consciousness.
Literary sources, known to us as the Books of the Dead, give the dying person precise and detailed instructions. The most famous of these books are the Egyptian and Tibetan, although there are similar literatures in the Hindu, Muslim, and Middle American cultural traditions. In medieval Europe, numerous works were devoted to this topic, known under the general title "ArsMoriendi", or the art of dying. Since a person is capable of experiencing the states of consciousness associated with dying during life, these texts can also serve as a guide for meditation and initiation.
Thus, in antiquity and in the era pre-industrial culture, the dying person was armed with religious and philosophical ideas that transcended death, and may have had prior experience of being in altered states of consciousness, including a symbolic encounter with death. He met the approach of death in the circle of loved ones, receiving support and comfort from members of the family, clan or tribe, and sometimes even special competent guidance in the successive stages of dying. The average western man before death finds himself in a completely different situation. The religious doctrine of the afterlife has been discredited by materialistic science and is considered only in relation to history and geography. Religious life to a large extent has only external manifestations, having lost touch with the original internal sources. As a rule, the educated Westerner considers the belief in a conscious life after death and in the afterlife path of the soul as a manifestation of the primitive fear and superstition of people deprived of the advantage of scientific knowledge. AT Cartesian-Newtonian worldview, consciousness is a product of the activity of the brain, and therefore it ceases to exist at the moment of physical death. And although there is disagreement about what counts as death - cardiac arrest or the cessation of the electrical activity of the brain - the idea of a conscious life after death is incompatible with materialistic science.
In the context of our pragmatic philosophy, which celebrates success and material well-being, old age and death are seen not as integral parts of the life process, but as a defeat, a painful reminder of the limitations of our power over nature. A terminally ill and dying person in our culture is considered a loser, and so does he himself.
Modern medicine relies entirely on advances in technology and overspecialized equipment, having lost the holistic approach characteristic of traditional medicine. In relation to the dying, the desire to conquer death at all costs or to delay its arrival prevails. In this struggle for the mechanical continuation of life, very little attention is paid to how the patient spends his last days, his psychological, philosophical and spiritual needs. The elderly and dying are removed from the family and from everyday life.
life, they are placed in care homes and hospitals, where meaningful human communication is replaced by sophisticated technical tinsel: oxygen tents, flasks and infusion tubes, electrostimulators and mentor of vital functions.
Not only modern religion, philosophy, social structure and medicine cannot offer the means to alleviate the mental suffering of the dying. Until recently, even psychiatrists and psychiatrists maintained an atmosphere of universal denial and prohibition that surrounded death. The confrontation with death - a complete biological, emotional, psychological and spiritual crisis - turned out to be, perhaps, the only life situation where competent psychological help was not available. Mental health professionals have dealt with many non-essential issues with meticulous attention to detail, systematically avoiding research into dying experiences.
Although at present the state of affairs is far from ideal, the last decade has seen radical changes in the field of knowledge about death and attitudes towards it. The beginning of this process was largely associated with the work of the Swiss-born American psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and her book On Death and Dying. In addition to her world-famous work in relieving the emotional state of the dying, Dr. Kübler-Ross has been able to arouse a positive interest in the experience of death. Another important direction thanatological research has developed independently in the field psychedelic therapy for cancer patients. It has been shown that LSD-induced death and rebirth experiences and mystical states of consciousness can change patients' attitudes towards life and death and alleviate fear of death. The results of modern studies of death and dying have largely confirmed the general provisions of the eschatological systems of non-Western cultures. This aroused new interest and recognition by the West of the most ancient and Eastern religions and philosophies. It becomes clear that these belief systems are based on a deep understanding of the human mind and non-ordinary states of consciousness, on knowledge of the most universal aspect of human existence, and therefore they are of great importance to all of us.
EXPERIENCE OF CLINICAL DEATH AND NEAR DEATH
The rejection by Western science of the concept of a conscious life after death as a construct based on superstition and fear of death was, however, not the result of a thorough study of the issue, characteristic of the scientific approach. On the contrary, until recently, medicine and psychiatry have carefully avoided this problem. The possibility of the existence of consciousness after death was rejected not because it was contradicted by the data of clinical observations, but a priori, because the concept itself was incompatible with existing scientific theories. However, scientific paradigms should not be confused with truth - they are, at best, a working model that organizes modern research. If important scientific data do not fit within the framework of the paradigm, it must be replaced by a more adequate conceptual scheme.
The first serious study of the experience of death was undertaken not in the twentieth century, but in the nineteenth, and not by a psychologist or psychiatrist, but by the famous Swiss geologist Albert Heim. Mystical experiences during a fall in the Alps, which almost ended in death, aroused in him an interest in the subjective experience associated with life-threatening situations and dying. For several decades, he collected observations and testimonies of people who survived serious accidents: wounded soldiers, masons and roofers who fell from great heights, workers who fell into natural disasters in the mountains and railway accidents, drowning fishermen. However, the most important part of Heim's work is based on the reports of climbers who have experienced serious falls in the mountains.
First Heim published his findings in a paper at the convention of the Swiss Alpine Club in 1892. He concluded that the subjective experience of near death is surprisingly similar in 95% of cases, regardless of the accompanying circumstances. Mental activity at first is sharply accelerated and aggravated. The perception of events and the prediction of the outcome are usually quite distinct. Time stretches to an unusual extent, and people act with lightning speed and in full accordance with real circumstances. As a rule, this stage is followed by a sudden review of life.
By Heimu, incidents in which a person suddenly finds himself in the face of death are much more "terrifying and cruel" for the bystanders than for the victim. In many cases, the audience was deeply shocked and experienced a lasting moral trauma, while the victim, if not seriously injured, got out of the situation painlessly.
In 1961, Karlis Osis et al. analyzed more than six hundred questionnaires returned by doctors and nurses to detail the experience of dying patients. Of the 10% of patients who were conscious an hour before death, the majority had a variety of complex visions. Some images more or less corresponded to traditional religious ideas about heaven, hell, the Eternal City, in other visions there were worldly images of indescribable beauty: exquisite landscapes with exotic birds, idyllic gardens. Less common were terrifying visions of devils and hell and the feeling of being buried alive. Osis emphasizes the similarity of these near-death experiences with the images of eschatological mythology and psychedelic phenomena caused by LSD and mescaline.
In 1971, Russell Noyes, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Iowa, examined a large number of accounts of individuals facing death, including Heim's accounts of Swiss climbers, descriptions of death scenes in literature, and autobiographical observations of prominent figures such as Carl Gustav Jung. Noyes singled out similar, recurring elements in these experiments and defined three successive stages of dying. The first phase, which he called "resistance," is characterized by a sense of danger, fear of death, and, finally, humility before death. This is followed by a “review of life”, when memories of the most important moments of life flash before a person or a compressed panoramic picture of his entire life path appears. The last stage - "transcendence" - is associated with mystical, religious and "cosmic" states of consciousness.
Noyes' analysis of death experiences can be illustrated by the account of a young woman describing her condition during a car accident. Her car's brakes failed on a big highway. The out-of-control car slid along the wet pavement for several seconds, hitting other cars, and eventually crashed into a truck.
“In those few seconds while my car was in motion, I experienced sensations that seemed to span centuries. The extraordinary horror and all-consuming fear for my life quickly gave way to the clear knowledge that I would die. Strangely enough, at the same time there was such a deep sense of peace and peace that I had never experienced before. It seemed that I was moving from the periphery of my being - the body that enclosed me - to the very center of my Self, a place of imperturbable calm and relaxation. The mantra flowed into my consciousness with an ease I had never experienced during meditation. Time seemed to disappear; I watched my own life: it passed before me like a movie, very quickly, but in amazing detail. Having reached the border of death, I seemed to find myself in front of a transparent curtain. The driving force of the experience was pulling me through the curtain - I was still absolutely calm - and suddenly I realized that this was not the end, but rather a transition. I can only describe my subsequent experiences as follows: all parts of my being, whatever I was at that moment, felt a continuum beyond what I previously considered death. I felt that the force that guided me to death, and then beyond it, would forever lead me into an endless distance.
Just at that moment, my car crashed into a truck. When he stopped, I looked around and realized that by some miracle I had survived. Then something amazing happened: sitting in a pile of broken metal, I felt that the boundaries of my personality disappear and I begin to merge with everything around me - with the police, the wreckage of the car, the workers with crowbars trying to free me, the ambulance, the flowers on the next flower bed, TV reporters. Somehow I saw and felt my wounds, but they seemed to have nothing to do with me - they were just part of a rapidly expanding system that included much more than my body. The sunlight was unusually bright and golden, it seemed that the whole world was shining with a beautiful light. I felt happiness and overflowing joy, despite the drama of the situation, and this state persisted for several days in the hospital. This incident and the experience associated with it completely changed my worldview and concept of existence. Previously, I was not particularly interested in matters of the spirit and believed that life is concluded between birth and death. The thought of death has always scared me. I believed that "we pass the stage of life only once", and then - nothing. Along the way, I was tormented by the fear that I would not have time to achieve everything I want in life. Now I have a completely different idea of the world and my place in it. My sense of self surpasses the idea of a physical body limited by time and space. I know that I am part of a vast, limitless creation that can be called divine."
The publication of Raymond A. Moody's Life After Life in 1975 increased Western interest in the subjective experience of the dying. The author of the book, a physician and psychologist, analyzed one hundred and fifty descriptions of the experience of near death and personally interviewed about fifty people who had experienced clinical death. On the basis of these data, he identified characteristic, recurring elements of the experience of death with great constancy.
A common feature of all communications was the complaint that these subjective events could not be described, that our language was inadequate to express their essence. The same is true for mystical states of consciousness. Another important element was the sensation of leaving the body. Many respondents said that, being in a coma, they observed themselves and their surroundings from the outside and heard the conversations of doctors, nurses and relatives who discussed the patient's condition. They could describe in detail the manipulations performed on their bodies. In some cases, the consistency of these descriptions with reality was confirmed by subsequent verification. Out-of-body existence can take many forms. Some have described themselves as a bundle of energy or pure consciousness. Others felt that they had a body, but a body that was permeable, invisible and inaudible to those belonging to the phenomenal world. Sometimes people experienced fear, confusion and a desire to return to the physical body. In other cases, there were ecstatic sensations of lack of time and weight, calmness and serenity. Many heard strange sounds: obviously unpleasant noises or, conversely, the caressing sounds of magical, divine music. There are a lot of descriptions of movement through a dark closed space - a tunnel, a cave, a chimney, a cylinder, a gorge, a gutter, a sewer pipe. Often people report their encounters with other beings - deceased friends and relatives, "guardian spirits" or "guide spirits". Particularly frequent are visions of a "luminous being" who appears as a source of unearthly radiance, but at the same time shows such personal qualities as love, warmth, sympathy and a sense of humor. Communication with this being occurs without words, through an unhindered exchange of thoughts, and is often accompanied by an experience of life review and divine judgment or self-esteem.
Based on these data, Moody tried to recreate a picture of a typical post-mortem experience. And although his "composite" model is the result of a generalization of a large number of experiments, and not a reflection of the actual individual, it is of great interest for our discussion.
The dying person reaches the pinnacle of physical suffering and hears the doctor stating his death. Then he hears an unpleasant noise, a loud ringing or buzzing, and at the same time feels that he is moving very quickly through a dark narrow tunnel. He suddenly finds himself outside his own body, but still in the same environment and observes his own body from the side, like a spectator. From this unusual position, he sees the attempts to bring him back to life and is dismayed.
After a while, he gathers and somewhat gets used to his new state. He notices that he still has a body, but of a completely different nature and with different capabilities than the physical body he left behind. Then other creatures appear. They meet him and help him. He sees the spirits of the dead - relatives and friends, and then a spirit filled with warmth and love, unlike anything seen before - a luminous being - appears before him. This creature without words asks him questions, helps to evaluate life, showing its most important events in a moment. At some point, a person feels his approach to some border or barrier, obviously separating earthly life from the next after it. However, it turns out that he must return to earth and that the time of his death has not yet come. The thrilling experience of unearthly life makes him resist returning. He is overwhelmed with a sense of joy, love and peace. Despite all this, he is somehow reunited with the physical body and continues to live.
Later, he tries to talk about what happened, but encounters a number of difficulties. Firstly, human language is unsuitable for describing unearthly events, and secondly, those around them treat these stories with distrust and ridicule, so that he abandons his attempts. Yet this experience has a profound effect on his life, especially on the idea of the relationship of death and life.
Remarkable are parallel passages in Moody's studies and descriptions of the afterlife in eschatological literature, especially states bardo in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Similar, if not identical, elements are observed during psychedelic sessions where the subject experiences an encounter with death as part of the "death-rebirth" process. As will be shown in the following sections, there are also a number of analogies with spontaneously occurring states in some patients with schizophrenia.
IMAGES OF THE DEATH
A comparative study of ideas about the afterlife among different peoples and in different religions reveals their deep similarity. This similarity can be traced even in those cases where, before the formation of eschatological beliefs, their carriers had no proven contacts. The coincidence of some themes is quite remarkable, especially the commonality of the two most important polar images of the afterlife: the abode of the righteous - heaven, or paradise, and the place of stay of sinners - hell.
The main empirical features of heaven and hell are always the same: the infinite joy and happiness of heaven and the endless torments of hell, although the formal side of these ideas varies widely from concrete images reminiscent of earthly existence in all important manifestations to completely abstract metaphysical constructions. It is not always clear whether the images that have a very specific embodiment in the visual arts are a literal and accurate reflection of ideas about the afterlife or metaphors for a state of consciousness that is difficult to express directly by means of art.
Modern consciousness research offers an interesting new perspective on this problem. During psychedelic sessions, in spontaneous hallucinatory states and in the practice of experimental psychotherapy, both ecstatic and nightmarish states of an abstract nature, as well as very specific visions of heaven and hell, arise. A great impression is made by the fact that sometimes these eschatological images and symbols are related to a cultural system completely unknown to the subject or are absolutely alien to his prehistory. Such facts support Jung's concept of the collective and racial subconscious.
The reports of people who have experienced near-death experiences or the nearness of death also have a wide range from descriptions of abstract states of consciousness to detailed picture visions. In laying out his early observations, Moody emphasizes precisely the absence of mythological elements, such as "an artist's paradise with pearly gates, streets of gold, winged angels playing harps, or hell with flames and devils with pitchforks." However, in a later supplement to his book, he writes that he finds more and more people who, during their encounters with death, saw concrete and detailed archetypal images of heavenly landscapes, shining cities and luxurious palaces, exotic gardens and majestic rivers. As a negative experience, he cites descriptions of astral regions inhabited by confused spirits, confused disembodied beings who have not been able to completely free themselves from the physical world. Obviously, the question of the relationship between the abstract and the concrete in post-mortem experience does not reflect subjective differences in interpretation, but the actual existence of different types of post-mortem states of consciousness.
The images of heaven and hell, both in concrete and abstract incarnations, are polar opposites. They are, in a sense, negative reflections of each other and complementary to each other. The depiction of these two abodes of the dead in art always emphasizes them. opposite both in general atmosphere and in details. The heavenly kingdoms are full of space, light and freedom. Infernal spaces are closed, dark, cause a feeling of oppression and horror. The same polarity applies to landscape, architecture, inhabitants, and what happens to the dead.
The heavenly kingdom, or paradise, is usually bathed in white or golden light, clouds and rainbows shine there. Nature is represented by its best creations: fertile soil, fields of ripe grain, beautiful oases and parks, luxurious gardens and flowering meadows. The trees are overburdened with magnificent flowers and ripe fruits. Roads are paved with gold, diamonds, rubies, emeralds and other precious stones, paradise landscapes are irrigated with fountains of youth, streams with living water, lakes are clean, rivers flow with milk, honey and fragrant oil. The creations of heavenly architecture are translucent and are represented by palaces shining with gold and precious stones. The halls are illuminated by crystal lamps and decorated with dancing fountains. The air is filled with the scent of incense. Hell, on the other hand, is dark, barren, and desolate. The landscape is dominated by volcano craters, gaping abysses, heaps of rocks, dark gorges and fire-breathing pits. Instead of trees of life and lush gardens, thorny trees grow in hell, covered with thorns, swords, daggers, and poisonous fruits in the shape of a devil's head. The pure streams and springs of youth in the garden of love are replaced by muddy dangerous rivers, lakes of fire, fetid puddles and treacherous rotten swamps. The twins of heavenly palaces are ominous underground structures surrounded by impenetrable walls, with inhospitable cold corridors and fetid air. Tall chimneys and blazing furnaces of forges envelop hellish cities in sulfuric smoke.
The same polarity extends to the inhabitants of heaven and hell. Divine beings are exquisitely beautiful, they are ethereal, translucent, light and surrounded by a luminous aura or halo. They are benevolent, give healing, help and protection. Demons or devils are black and gloomy, have a bestial, terrifying appearance. Cruel and vicious, they embody unbridled instinctive forces. This contrast is most clearly expressed in the images of the supreme beings of the afterlife and is beautifully illustrated by the Christian image of the three-headed Satan, parodying the Holy Trinity.
Paradise and the kingdom of heaven are inhabited by peacocks, parrots and other exotic birds with brilliant plumage, bright butterflies and affectionate animals. Eagles, hawks, owls and other disgusting birds of prey, bloodthirsty jaguars, hounds, flying vampires, giant reptiles, poisonous reptiles and monsters devouring human souls live in hell.
As for the existence of souls, the joy, happiness and serenity of heaven have a counterpart in the form of inhuman bodily torment and all possible mental suffering in hell. Instead of sweet harmonious music and laudatory songs in honor of the supreme deity in hell, there is a cacophony of teeth grinding, inhuman cries and pleas for mercy. In contrast to the aroma of incense and the divine incense of paradise, hell is saturated with the acrid smell of sulfur, burning garbage, rotting corpses, dung and carrion. The righteous in heaven feed on ambrosia, nectar, Soma, sweet fruits, or directly an emanation of divine energy, while souls doomed to hell are tormented by unbearable hunger and unquenchable thirst, they are forced to eat impurities and even pieces of their own flesh.
Recent work on the study of consciousness has forced modern science to change its views on heaven and hell. Now it has become clear that they are states of consciousness available to any person under certain circumstances. As Aldous Huxley pointed out in Heaven and Hell, drug addicts quite often experience the happiness of the kingdom of heaven and the torments of hell. These states of consciousness also occur spontaneously during mental disorders, which we call "acute psychotic episodes." We found out that visions of heaven and hell occur in people before clinical death. These facts indicate that we must reassess our attitude towards eschatological mythology. Instead of regarding the information about heaven and hell as a useless delusion, we should consider it as an invaluable guide to staying in an unfamiliar world, into which each of us will enter sooner or later.
POST-DEATH JOURNEY OF THE SOUL
The images of the abodes of the righteous and sinners are only one of the important aspects of the afterlife. In many cultures, there is the idea of a post-mortem journey of the soul. The deceased does not immediately reach the final destination, first he must go through a series of extraordinary events, temptations and trials. Sometimes they consist of traveling through terrain similar to earthly deserts, high mountains, jungles or swamps. The soul may encounter strange fantasy creatures and fight them. In other cases, the setting of the afterlife has very little in common with anything earthly. The stages of the post-mortem journey may be a series of unusual more or less abstract states of consciousness instead of specific places and events. A common theme in ideas about the posthumous path of the soul is often the idea of a Divine Judgment. It is present in one form or another not only in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Zoroastrianism, in Egyptian traditions, but also in the countries of the East, such as India, Japan and Tibet, and even in Central American religions. While some descriptions of the soul's post-mortem journey seem simple and naive, others offer a complex and sophisticated picture of non-ordinary states of consciousness. In Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, this journey is part of the most complex cosmological and ontological schemes, including cycles of rebirths, a chain of individual reincarnations and the law of karma - the dependence of the subsequent incarnation on the results of a previous life.
In human history, two cultures have shown a particular interest in death and dying: Ancient Egypt and Tibet. Both religions share a deep belief in the continuation of conscious life after physical death. They created complex rituals to facilitate the transition of the dying to the afterlife and cartography to guide the journey of the soul. The written accounts of these teachings are known in the West as the Egyptian and Tibetan Books of the Dead. These documents merit special discussion in the context of our study.
The Egyptian Book of the Dead is a collection of prayers, chants, magic spells and myths related to death and the afterlife. These funerary texts are known as "Appearance in the Light" or "Exit in the Day". Their material is very heterogeneous and reflects the historical conflict between two strong religious traditions:
the volume of the solar god Amon-Ra and the cult of Osiris. On the one hand, the texts of the Book strongly emphasize the role of the sun god and his divine retinue. Certain magical formulas are supposed to help the deceased to board the solar boat and enjoy a blissful life, accompanying the sun god on his daily journey. On the other hand, the texts reflect the traditions of the ancient funerary cult of Osiris, who, according to legend, was killed by his brother Set and resurrected by the sisters Isis and Nephthys. After returning to life, he became the ruler of the Kingdom of the Dead. According to this tradition, the deceased was ritually identified with Osiris and could be resurrected.
The solar god Amon-Ra, during his daily journey, went through a complex sequence of events. During the day, he crossed the sky in a solar barque, and the area that he passed at night was the land of souls - duat.
The ancient Egyptians believed that the earth was flat, and the entire inhabited world, that is, Egypt, was surrounded by a chain of mighty impenetrable mountains. The sun rose in the morning in the east through a hole in this mountain range and disappeared in another hole in the west. Behind the mountains lay the duat, it was located parallel to the mountain range on the terrestrial or celestial plain. The Duat was surrounded by another mountain range, thus the Kingdom of the Dead was in the valley and separated from Egypt and from the luminaries - the sun, moon and stars that illuminated the sky. The Duat was a land of darkness and gloom, fear and horror. It was divided into twelve regions according to the number of night hours. Each area had a gate guarded by three deities, and each was full of dangers for the crew of the solar boat. They had to overcome the fiery spaces, where the heat and hot steam burned the nostrils and throat. Terrible fantastic creatures threatened them on the way, and they had to be fought. The main enemy of the solar god, the giant serpent Apep - the incarnation of Osiris's brother Seth - again and again tried to devour the solar disk.
The kingdom of Osiris was located in the region of the Reed Fields duat. To be admitted into the kingdom, the soul had to pass judgment in Hall D of the Truths or in the Hall of Maat. The god Anubis with the head of a jackal weighed the deeds of the deceased on the scales. On one of the bowls lay his heart, and on the other was a feather, the symbol of the goddess of Truth, Maat. God T from with the head of an ibis, the scribe of the Kingdom of the Dead, wrote down the verdict of the court. A monster that combined the characteristics of a crocodile, a lion and a hippopotamus stood ready to swallow the condemned soul.
Traveling through the gloomy valley of the afterlife was a danger to both people and gods. The only reliable passage through the duat was the path of the sun god, since the rising of the sun every day announced his victory and rebirth. For the followers of Ra, the goal of the afterlife was to step into the sun boat and accompany the sun god on his journey forever. The followers of Osiris were supposed to be delivered by a solar boat to his kingdom, where they went ashore and, in the event of a successful outcome of the court, remained forever.
Like the ancient Egyptian, the Tibetan culture was completely turned to the spiritual principle and to this day has retained a wealth of knowledge about the deepest mysteries of inner life and consciousness. However, the study of death - the only certainty that life gives us - should be central to the study of consciousness, regardless of cultural traditions, because understanding death is the key to liberation in life. In the Tibetan religious and philosophical tradition, death, like life, requires a completely conscious attitude. For an enlightened person, the time, place and circumstances of death can no longer be random. Dying is, as it were, "undertaken consciously." The spirit is transformed, and the body disintegrates into elements and disappears without a trace. Such a phenomenal outcome, a complete liberation of the spirit, is called the "Great Transition" and is possible only in the rarest cases. Somewhat more often, although also extremely rare, a person reaches the state of the “Rainbow Body”. In this case, seven days after death, only hair and nails remain from the body - "unclean parts". A similar death was last recorded in the 1950s in China. If liberation is not achieved by a person during life, it is possible to achieve it soon after death. This is the purpose of the Book of the Dead. The Tibetan Book of the Dead is of later origin than the Egyptian. Undoubtedly based on older oral sources, it appeared in written form for the first time in VIII in. n. e. and was written by Padma-Sambava, a Buddhist preacher in Tibet. This book is a guide to going through the Bardos, the intermediate states between death and the next incarnation. It contains very accurate information even in relation to the duration of stay in a particular state. The purpose of the book is to help the deceased recognize post-mortem states in which liberation is possible. This recognition is likened to the recognition of a mother by a son. The knowledge gained during life with the help of instructions and practice - the Son of Wisdom, after death meets and recognizes Mother Wisdom - light and true purity.
The first part of the book describes the separation of the spirit from the body and the states immediately following death. In this first bardo at the moment of death, the spirit receives a dazzling vision of the Primal Clear Light of True Reality. At the same moment, the spirit can be freed if it is able to recognize the Light and is not afraid of its inhuman brightness. Those who miss this opportunity due to lack of preparation get a second chance when the Secondary Clear Light descends on them. If this opportunity is missed, they must go through a complex sequence of states in the following Bardos, in which their consciousness is increasingly moving away from the liberating truth and approaching a new incarnation.
AT The Bardo of the Ordeal of Reality The soul encounters a number of divine beings: peaceful deities surrounded by brilliant light, malevolent deities, door guardian deities, knowledge keepers, and so on. Simultaneously with the visions of these deities, the spirit of the deceased feels a faint light of various shades, indicating certain "loka", or kingdoms in which he can be reborn: the kingdom of the gods (de-valoka), the kingdom of the titans (asuraloka), the kingdom of people (mana-loka), the realm of demi-humans (tirialoka), the realm of hungry ghosts (pretaloka), and the realm of hell (naraloka). Approaching this light hinders liberation and facilitates rebirth.
If the spirit of the deceased does not use the possibilities of liberation in the first two Bardos, it falls into the third - the Bardo of Seekers of Rebirth. At this stage, he acquires a body that is not composed of dense matter, but endowed with the ability to move freely and penetrate solid objects. The law of karma determines whether the soul will experience happiness or torment in this Bardo. Negative karma dooms to torment: collisions with predatory animals and the destructive forces of nature. Positive gives unearthly pleasures. Those with neutral karma experience nothing at this stage but dull indifference.
The most important moment in this Bardo is the judgment, during which the lord and judge of the dead, Dharma-Raja, evaluates their actions with the help of a mirror of karma. This mirror reflects all good and bad deeds, which are measured in the form of white and black pebbles. After the judgment, the six paths of karma are opened before the deceased in accordance with the results of the assessment of his virtues and vices. While in the Bardo Seekers of Rebirth, it is important to realize that all beings and events are illusory and are only a projection of the deceased's own consciousness. If here too the possibility of liberation is not realized, rebirth is inevitable. All that the book can offer in this case is ways to avoid unwanted incarnations and choose the most favorable one. Although the Egyptian and Tibetan Books of the Dead are the best-known examples of this kind of literature, they are by no means unique. Similar works exist in other religions: in Islam, Hinduism, Chinese and Japanese Buddhism, in Central American cultures. Much less known are such documents in our culture. At the end of the Middle Ages in many European countries, especially in Austria, Germany, France and Italy, works were widely circulated, which are usually combined under the name "The Art of Dying" ("ArsMoriendi"). These literary sources fall into two categories: first, books that focus on the experience of dying and the art of instructing the dying in the last hours of life, and second, books that deal with the meaning of death for life.
The texts of the first group are an extensive collection of information about important empirical aspects of dying. An example is the phenomena interpreted by the clergy as an attack by Satan, attempts by the forces of hell to seduce the soul from its path to the Kingdom of Heaven by violent intervention at a critical moment. Most of the instructions speak of the five most important consequences of the Devil's struggle for the soul: hesitation of the dying in faith; despair and cowardice; impatience and irritability associated with physical suffering; conceit, vanity and pride; greed, stinginess and other worldly manifestations and attachments. The attempts of the Devil are met with opposition from the divine power, which sends to the dying man a premonition of Heaven, a foresight of a higher judgment, a sense of help from above and a promise of salvation. Modern consciousness research shows that people who face symbolic death during psychedelic sessions or in a state of acute biological crisis, really "see" many of these phenomena. There is no doubt that the descriptions of dying in "ArsMoriendiand other such guides should be taken seriously: they are more surprisingly accurate empirical data than arbitrary fictional constructions.
The texts on the process of biological death also offer specific instructions for the dying and their helpers to follow in the last hours before death. Most medieval manuals agree that it is especially important to put the dying person in the right state of mind. It is absolutely unacceptable to inspire false hopes for recovery. The dying person must receive all-round support in order to face death and accept it. Courageous acceptance of death is considered a decisive moment; attempts to avoid death and refusal to submit to it are two of the most important dangers that the dying person faces. Some texts clearly state that more forgivable to inspire a dying person with a fear of death, which may later be in vain, than to deny the proximity of death and allow a person to die unprepared for it.
The books of the second group talk about the importance of understanding death for a righteous life; their vivid images emphasize the transience of being, the omnipresence of death and the meaninglessness of all worldly aspirations. Until recently, obsession with the idea of the fragility of existence, expressed in craving for death and contempt for the world, was considered by Western philosophers as a symptom of social pathology. Nevertheless, according to observations of the results of LSD exposure and according to experimental psychotherapy, an encounter with the most amazing and repulsive aspect of existence can result in spiritual insight and a qualitatively new attitude towards the world.
The Dual DirectionArsMoriendi': to death and to life is obviously a feature of all the Books of the Dead. They not only contain knowledge about death, they teach an alternative approach to life through the experience of death. This point is so important that we will discuss it in more detail.
RITUAL COMMUNICATION WITH DEATH
The opportunity to gain the experience of death without actually dying, to visit the realm of the dead and return from there, to communicate with the world of spirits, has been provided to many people since the first days of human history. The most ancient example of this kind is the phenomenon of shamanism.
The main point in the initiation of the Ural-Altaic and Siberian shamans is the acquisition of the experience of death in the form of ritual death and rebirth. According to many shamans, during the "sickness of initiation" they lie in their tents or in some secluded place for three to seven days in a state close to death. At this time, they travel to another world, where they are attacked by demons and ancestral spirits and severely tortured. Although the details of this process may vary greatly between different peoples and individual shamans, in all cases, initiation is associated with a general state of horror, torture and inhuman suffering. The body of the initiate is cut into pieces, all liquids are drained from it, the flesh is stripped from the bones, and the eyes are torn out of the sockets. When only one skeleton remains of him, the spirits of various diseases divide the pieces of his body among themselves. The initiate then receives new flesh and blood and performs a magical flight or ascends to heaven on a rainbow, a birch tree, or a long pole. In this experience of death and rebirth, the shaman receives supernatural knowledge and powers from semi-divine creatures of human or animal appearance. Initiatory death always ends with resurrection and overcoming the crisis. It is equally natural for a shaman to stay both in "objective reality" and in various areas of the unearthly world. Shamans are engaged in healing, become fortune-tellers and soothsayers and accompany the souls of the dead on the posthumous journey.
The theme of death and rebirth is present in many mythologies. The heroes go to the afterlife and after hard trials, overcoming many obstacles, return to earth, endowed with supernatural power. Gods, demigods and heroes after death are reborn to life in a new guise, forever young and immortal. In less concrete symbolism, the same theme is sometimes expressed in the image of a hero who is swallowed and then regurgitated by a terrible monster.
In different parts of the world and in different historical periods, such legends became the basis for sacred mysteries in which neophytes experienced ritual death and rebirth. The Assyro-Babylonian rites dedicated to Tammuz and Ishtar are one of the earliest (about 4000 BC) examples of the allegory of the dying and resurrecting god. In the legend, the Mother Goddess descends into the underworld in search of a magical elixir to revive her son and husband, Tammuz. In the ancient Egyptian mysteries of Isis and Osiris, the mythological model of the ritual was the murder and dismemberment of the body of Osiris by the brother Seth and his magical resurrection by the sisters - Isis and Nephthys. Information about the mysteries of ancient Greece and neighboring states is especially numerous. The famous Eleusinian sacraments in Attica were built on the esoteric interpretation of the myth of the fertility goddess Demeter and her daughter Persephone, who was kidnapped by the ruler of the realm of the dead, Pluto. This myth, usually interpreted as an allegory of the seasonal cycle of vegetation, becomes for initiates a metaphor for spiritual transformation. Orphism, the cult of Dionysus, the mysteries of Attis and Adonis, although based on different myths, have the same central theme: death and rebirth. Similar rites were practiced in the cults of Mithra, Hermes, in India and Tibet, among the peoples of the North, among many African tribes, in pre-Columbian societies and in many other cultural traditions.
A discussion of communion with death in a ritual form would be incomplete without mentioning initiation rites, in which not one person, but entire social groups and even nations are initiated. Initiation rites are important transformative rituals, usually associated with biologically significant moments such as childbirth, circumcision, puberty, marriage, second maturity, and death. Van Gennep, describing these rites, notes that three characteristic stages can be distinguished in them. In the first stage, which he called “separation,” initiates are removed from the social environment and kept in isolation for weeks and even months. At this time, with the help of ritual songs and dances, from tales and legends, they gain knowledge about the unfamiliar territory that they will enter. In the second stage, "transition", powerful methods of changing consciousness are used to simulate the transformation. These methods include sleep deprivation, fasting, pain, mutilation, social pressure, isolation, emotional and physical stress, in some cases psychedelic funds. Initiates experience extreme pain, chaos, confusion and fear and emerge from this process of destruction with feelings of renewal and rebirth. The third stage - "reunification" - involves the return of the transformed individual to society in a new role. The depth and intensity of the death-rebirth experience provide the necessary dramatic setting for the completion of an old social role and the acquisition of a new one. However, the experiences of ritual annihilation repeated throughout life, followed by the feeling of rebirth, have another important function: they prepare a person for actual biological death, giving him a deep, almost at the cellular level, confidence that these states, periods of annihilation, mean transition, not the end of existence.
DEATH AND REBIRTH
IN SCHIZOPHRENIA AND IN PSYCHODELIC STATES
As we mentioned above, psychologists and psychiatrists have usually viewed the concepts of the existence of consciousness after death and the posthumous journey of the soul as a product of a primitive, magical way of thinking or as a reaction to the fear of death and the finitude of being. Until recently, few people took seriously the suggestion that descriptions of the after-death experiences of the soul could reflect empirical reality. Similarly, shamanic reports of travel to other worlds, temple mysteries, and initiatory rites have been discussed using the terms "primitive superstition," "group suggestion," and "collective psychopathology." Not only the critics of religion, but also the clergy and theologians, treated the descriptions of heaven, hell, and the afterlife journey of the soul as historical and geographical information, and not as a cartography of non-ordinary states of consciousness, because such an interpretation seemed incompatible with the scientific worldview. However, in recent modern studies of consciousness, data have been obtained that indicate that the judgments of Western science about ancient and Eastern systems of thought and spiritual practice are untenable.
It has long been known that patients with schizophrenia during periods of exacerbation or in chronic psychotic states describe deep experiences of a religious or mystical nature, very close to traditional eschatological ideas. Such experiences include convincing sensations of encounters with demons, inhuman torment in hell, scenes of the Last Judgment, or, conversely, encounters with saints, angels, spirit guides and other heavenly beings, even union with God. In some cases, the figurative structure of experience goes beyond the Christian tradition, and elements close to Eastern eschatology appear in it (memory of past incarnations, states close to the states of the Bardo of the Tibetan Book of the Dead).
Another type of schizophrenic phenomena is the experience of "death - rebirth", which is especially significant for understanding death and dying. Many patients in acute psychotic states experience dramatic experiences of death and rebirth, or even the destruction, disintegration, and re-creation of the entire world. In those rare cases when these experiences have a complete form and are well generalized by the patients, noticeable positive changes are observed in their mental activity and social adaptation. In this process, there are features of a deep similarity with the ritual transformations of temple mysteries and initiatory rites.
As a result of clinical observations of schizophrenics, psychiatrists came to the realization that eschatological descriptions in religious writings are more related to empirical reality than they are an expression of death denial and fantastic desires. This circumstance served as the basis for a number of Western scientists to transfer religious beliefs from the category of primitive superstitions to the category of phenomena of psychopathology. In the fifties and sixties, new important data became available to scientists. At this time, psychiatry received results of global significance in the field psychedelic research. The catalyst for this tumultuous process was the discovery in April 1943 by the Swiss chemist Albert Hoffmann of the psychoactive properties of LSD-25, lysergic acid diethylamide. When it's new powerful psychedelic the tool became available to scientists all over the world, a systematic and large-scale study of a phenomenon known for a long time to anthropologists and historians began. The essence of this phenomenon is that some substances can cause deep mystical and religious states, including eschatological visions, in a normal individual.
The fact that psychedelics, by exerting an amplifying and catalytic effect on the human consciousness, induce similar states in a random sample of experimental subjects, suggests that a matrix of such experiences exists in the subconscious as a normal component of the human personality.
Although scientific interest in psychedelic means arose relatively recently, their use in ritual practice can be traced back to the most ancient times in the history of mankind. Plants containing mind-altering active substances have long been used for diagnosis and treatment, for awakening supernormal abilities, for magical and ritual purposes. During excavations Late Paleolithic settlements in Turkey, the remains of plants were found in the grave of a shaman. Pollen analysis found that these plants contained psychedelic substances. In Chinese medicine, hallucinogenic substances have been used for over 3,500 years. Indo-Aryan tribes several millennia ago used the legendary sacred drink Soma, known from Vedic literature. Cannabis under various names has been used for centuries in Asia and Africa in folk medicine, religious ceremonies, as well as for relaxation and pleasure. In the Middle Ages, potions and ointments from psychoactive plants were widely used in the rites of the Black Mass and in witches' sabbats. The most famous of the ingredients of witchcraft potions are belladonna, dope, mandrake and henbane. use psychedelic vegetable matter has a long history in Central America among the Aztecs, Mayans and Olmecs. The most famous of these plants are the Mexican cactus (peyote), the sacred mushroom (teonipacatl) and several species.Ipomoae, which give "seeds of morning glory" (ololiki). In the rituals of African tribes, an extract fromTabernantheiboga. The South American tribes of the Amazon Basin are preparing a strong psychedelic remedy, the main component of which is the juice of a tropical lianaBanisteropsis. The shamanic practice of some peoples of Siberia, such as the Koryaks, Samoyeds, Chukchi, includes the ritual consumption of fly agaric.
As Aldous Huxley writes in his essay Heaven and Hell, many people are under the influence psychedelic means experience states of ecstatic delight and extreme horror, indistinguishable from those described in the sacred books of world religions. The ability to simulate these religious and mystical states of consciousness in a laboratory setting and make them the subject of direct study offers an enticing insight into the psychology and psychopathology of religion.
The most interesting aspect of the impact psychedelic means per person is their ability, without any programming and guidance, to cause deep experiences of death and rebirth and facilitate the spiritual insight of a person. The human subconscious, activated by chemical stimuli, tends to spontaneously reenact the experience of death, which can result in a transcendent state of consciousness. After overcoming the most superficial levels psychedelic experience - the sensory barrier and the level of biographically determined content - the consciousness of the experimental individual focuses on the problems of the fragility of existence, on sensations of physical pain, emotional agony, on the phenomena of aging, physical decrepitude, and, finally, on death and dying. This stage of the process is characterized by a focus on everything related to death: visions of dying people, epidemics, scenes of war, devastation, cemeteries and funerals. However, the most important element of the process is the extremely realistic feeling of a complete biological crisis, comparable to a true death. Often subjects lose the symbolic nature of these experiences and come to an illusory belief that their biological death is approaching. This amazing insight into the depths of human existence has two important consequences: the first is a deep existential crisis that makes a person seriously question the meaning of life and reassess his own value system.
Excessive ambition, competitive aspirations, the thirst for fame, power and possession gradually disappear with the realization of the inevitable end of any human drama by physical annihilation. The second important consequence is the discovery of the spiritual realms of the subconscious, an essential part of the structure of the human personality, independent of racial, cultural and religious background. Thus, these manifestations belong to the area of the collective unconscious (in Jung's terminology) and can be considered as archetypal.
Confrontation with death is only one aspect psychedelic experience. The second important aspect is the struggle for life, which many perceive as a re-experiencing of birth trauma.
In the "death-rebirth" process, the experience of dying, one's own birth, and the birth of a child are closely intertwined. A chain of extreme physical and emotional suffering is followed by liberation: a birth or rebirth with visions of blinding white or golden light. As a result, there is a feeling of the destruction of the old personality structure and the emergence of a new one. These states of consciousness are strikingly similar to ancient descriptions of shamanistic initiation, initiatory rites, temple mysteries, and ecstatic religious mysteries.
Numerous and complex phenomena psychedelic process "death - rebirth" sometimes have manifestations that the subjects perceive as stages of biological birth. In the completed process psychedelic therapy, the patient must go through all these stages several times in a different sequence.
First phase psychedelic process at this level can be called "cosmic absorption". It is often associated with the onset of the birth process, when the original balance of intrauterine existence is disturbed first by chemical signals, and then by uterine contractions. The experience of "cosmic absorption" begins with an overarching sense of unease and a sense of danger to life. The source of the danger is unclear; the individual is characterized by a paranoid perception of the immediate environment and the whole world. Increasing restlessness usually ends in a sensation of a giant sucking whirlpool. A frequently occurring symbolic variant of this phase is the absorption of the individual by a fearsome monster: a dragon, a whale, a tarantula, an octopus, or a crocodile. Another symbolic option is a descent into the underworld and encounters with its dangerous inhabitants. A clear parallel is drawn with eschatological visions of the open mouth of the god of death, the gates of hell, with the hero descending into the underworld. The expulsion from paradise and the theme of the fall of the Angel also belong to this phase of experience.
The second phase - the experience of "hopelessness" is associated with the first clinical stage of the birth process, at which uterine contractions have already begun, and the cervix is still closed. The world seems dark and threatening, a person perceives the situation as claustrophobic a nightmare and experiences severe mental and physical anguish. There is no end in sight to the agony. Human existence seems meaningless, absurd and even monstrous. The main features that distinguish this phase from the next are the concentration on the role of the victim, the impossibility of salvation and the hopelessness of the situation. Many subjects said that this state could be the psychological prototype of hell.
The third phase of the experience at this level is the "fight against death for rebirth". Many of the aspects of this condition can be understood by relating it to the second stage of labor, when uterine contractions continue and the cervix opens. At this time, the fetus begins to slowly push through the birth canal, strong mechanical compression, the struggle for life and often suffocation. In the last stages of childbirth, the fetus comes into direct contact with a variety of biological material: blood, mucus, amniotic fluid, urine, and even excrement. Experienced states in this phase are quite complex and have a number of important manifestations: an atmosphere of titanic struggle, sadomasochism, various perverted forms of intense sexual arousal, scatological images and elements of purification by flame (pyrocatharsis).
The individual in this phase feels powerful currents of energy passing through his body, the accumulation of huge forces, which is resolved by an explosion. This usually evokes associations with images of raging nature, scenes apocalyptic battles, lethal technique. In acts of destruction and self-destruction, a huge amount of energy is released and absorbed. At times, sexual excitement reaches a supernaturally high level and is expressed in visions of orgies, various kinds of perverted sexual activity, sensual dances. Close contact with disgusting living matter brings to life scatological images. The individual may feel that he is floundering in sewage, drowning in a gutter, crawling in rotting garbage and drinking blood. This is often followed by the sensation of passing through a cleansing flame as preparation for a spiritual rebirth.
This phase of the experience differs from the previous one in the absence of a feeling of helplessness and hopelessness of the situation; suffering has a purpose. The accompanying emotional coloring is a mixture of agony and ecstasy. The images that emerge in this context reflect the struggle between the forces of good and evil, such as visions of the Day of Judgment, temptations of the saints, and the death of martyrs.
The strange mixture of religiosity, death, sex, aggressiveness, and scatology that is typical of this matrix explains the frequent appearance of images associated with the blasphemous rites of Walpurgis Night and satanic orgies or the atrocities of the Inquisition.
The "death and rebirth" phase is associated with the third clinical stage of childbirth. The passage through the birth canal ends with an explosion of relief and relaxation. Cutting the umbilical cord means complete physical separation from the mother, and the child begins to exist as an anatomically independent individual.
"Death and Rebirth" represents the end and resolution of the "struggle with death for rebirth." Suffering and agony culminate in total destruction on all levels: physical, emotional, intellectual, moral and transcendental. This is usually seen as the death of the ego, which includes the instantaneous destruction of all previous experiences of the individual. This moment is often followed by a vision of dazzling white or golden light, a feeling of release from pressure, a sense of expansion of space. The surrounding world becomes indescribably beautiful and radiant. The person feels cleansed and free, speaks of redemption and salvation. Numerous images of coming out of darkness (opening heavens, divine revelation, defeated dragons and demons, captive devil, destroyed hell) and the final victory of pure religious impulse express this state of consciousness.
In the process of initiation among shamans, the dismemberment and destruction of the body is followed by the ascent to the heavenly realm in a new body; the mythological parallel is the resurrection or resurrection of a dead god.
If the above psychedelic experience can be likened to the stages of the birth process, then the mystical experiences of cosmic unity are obviously associated with the initial unity of the fetus and mother. In the absence of negative incentives, the conditions of intrauterine existence are close to ideal, including complete security and safety and the constant satisfaction of all needs. The main feature of this state is transcendence: overcoming the dichotomy between subject and object, a sense of holiness, going beyond the boundaries of time and space, inexpressible happiness, involvement in the Cosmos. Archetypal visions in the experience of cosmic unity - paradise, heavenly cities, the garden of Eden, radiant divine beings. This state is also often associated with seascapes and galactic spaces. As in the previous examples, these images belong to the category of the collective unconscious and do not depend on the racial, cultural and educational background of the subject. A number of phenomena psychedelic experience can be categorized transpersonal. This is the identification of the consciousness of the individual with the consciousness of other people, animals, various creatures, which in normal states of consciousness are clearly outside its limits. Some of the experiments in this category can be interpreted as a regression of historical time and the study of one's own biological and spiritual past. AT psychedelic conditions, quite specific and realistic episodes associated with embryonic memory are often experienced.
Many describe sequences of sensations experienced at the level of cellular consciousness, which are apparently a reflection of the existence of the individual as a sperm or egg at the moment of fusion. Sometimes the regression goes even further, and the person "remembers" episodes from the life of his ancestors and even sees images from the area of the racial or collective unconscious.
In some cases, under the influence of LSD, a person identifies with different animals in the evolutionary series or has a distinct sense of "memories" of previous incarnations.
Another interesting phenomenon transpersonal experience - overcoming not temporal, but spatial boundaries. An example is the merging with the consciousness of another person or group of people, the population of an entire country and even all of humanity. The individual can also transcend specifically human experience and merge with the consciousness of animals, plants, and even inanimate objects. In its extreme manifestation, human consciousness is identified with the consciousness of the entire universe, the planet or the entire material universe. Another phenomenon associated with overcoming the usual spatial restrictions is the identification with consciousness of certain parts of the body, certain organs, tissues, and even individual cells.
to important manifestations transpersonal experiences associated with overcoming space-time boundaries include phenomena of extrasensory perception, such as out-of-body experience, foresight, telepathy, clairvoyance and clairaudience, travel in time and space.
One gets the impression that in a large group of phenomena related to transpersonal experience, consciousness transcends the phenomenal world and the space-time continuum as we normally perceive them. Often there is an experience of communication with the spirits of dead people and superhuman spiritual entities. Exposure to LSD also causes numerous visions of archetypal forms - deities and demons, and even complex mythological sequences. Intuitive understanding of universal symbols or awakening of the inner cosmic energy and activation of the centers of the physical body (chakras) are additional examples from this area. In extreme terms, individual consciousness, as it were, embraces the universal existence and is identified with the World Mind. completed, complete transpersonal experience is the experience of the mysterious primordial emptiness (Vacuum) containing all living things in germinal form.
Epilogue
During the period of rapid development of materialistic science, the beliefs and concepts of exoteric religions were considered naive and absurd.
Only now we see again that the mythologies and concepts of God, heaven and hell are not related to physical entities - events taking place at a certain time in a certain geographical point, but to the mental realities of an altered state of consciousness. These realities are an integral part of the human personality and cannot be suppressed and denied without serious damage to the quality of human life. To fully comprehend the nature of man, it is necessary to recognize their existence and study them. Traditional ideas about the afterlife can serve as a guide in this study.
Currently, there is strong clinical evidence in favor of the provisions of religion and mythology that biological death is the beginning of the existence of consciousness in a new form. The "maps" of the initial stages of this existence contained in the mythological literature have proven to be extraordinarily accurate (although how accurate the descriptions of the later events of the afterlife are is still unknown). Be that as it may, this ancient wisdom has another immediate and verifiable meaning - its relation to life.
An encounter with death in a ritual context or caused by an emotional or physical crisis can in both cases quench the fear of death and lead to transformation, that is, to a more enlightened and fulfilling way of life.
The state of spiritual crisis in schizophrenics, when elements of the “death-rebirth” process are included in them, can, if properly understood, become a unique moment of spiritual growth and creation. Similarly, the experience of death and rebirth brought about by the application psychedelic drugs, can in some cases radically change a person's attitude to death and dying, relieve pain and suffering, and lead to spiritual insight.
The Tibetan religio-philosophical tradition strongly emphasizes the need to learn and prepare in life in order to be able to distinguish the pure light of truth from the illusory states of unenlightened consciousness in the future and so that the confusion that accompanies death does not prevent one from making the right choice. According to this and many other traditions, a person must live life, constantly aware of his mortality, and his goal and victory in life is conscious death. This understanding of the relationship between life and death can help break down the negative attitudes towards belief in an afterlife that until recently held the West in a tight embrace.
Translation from English
I. Tikhomirova
Seven years ago, the Pravoslavie.Ru website published my article, The Holy Fathers and “Optimistic Theology.” The feedback from readers after that, as well as a more serious acquaintance with the patristic heritage and with the problem raised in the article, allowed me to significantly revise and expand it: a new chapter appeared, others were supplemented by patristic testimonies; some arguments of the opponents of the church teaching about the eternity of the afterlife retribution are considered, some inaccuracies are corrected. In addition, it is taken into account that some of the authors mentioned in the original version of the article have significantly adjusted their views on this issue in recent years.
This truth was later confirmed with particular force by the holy fathers and Councils of the Church.
“Whoever says or thinks that the punishment of demons and wicked people is temporary and that after some time it will have an end, or what will happen after the restoration of demons and wicked people, let him be anathema,” - this is the 9th anathematism against the Origenists, proposed by the saint Justinian the Great and adopted by the Local Council of Constantinople in 543.
The idea of universal salvation (of all people and all demons) was also condemned by the 12th anathematism of the Fifth Ecumenical Council: “Whoever claims that the powers of heaven and all people, and even evil spirits, will unite with that God-Word, in which there is no substance ... - be anathema." Subsequently, the general condemnation of the non-Orthodox opinions of Origen was confirmed by the fathers of the Council of Trullo in 692, as well as the VI and VII Ecumenical Councils.
There were several of these non-Orthodox opinions of Origen, of which the most famous are the pre-existence of souls, the plurality of worlds, the universal apokatastasis. The opinion condemned by the 9th anathematism - about the finiteness of hellish torments - was expressed not only by Origen. In addition to him, these same thoughts can be found in Didim the Blind, St. Gregory of Nyssa, Evagrius of Pontus, Theodore of Mopsuestia and Diodorus of Tarsus. And the Church has always uncompromisingly opposed this opinion.
Theological disputes about the non-Orthodox opinions of Origen began, as far as can be judged from some sources, even during the life of the latter and later, towards the end of the 3rd century, with a detailed criticism of the theological ideas of Origen came out: from the standpoint of Alexandrian theology - St. Peter, from the standpoint of Asia Minor theology - St. Methodius , and from the standpoint of Antiochian theology - St. Eustathius, and another 100 years later, about 400 years, there were as many as four Local Councils that condemned the teachings of Origen: Alexandria, under the chairmanship of Patriarch Theophilos; Roman, presided over by Pope Anastasius I; Cypriot, presided over by Saint Epiphanius, and Jerusalem. Moreover, according to Sulpicius Severus, a witness of one of them, it was precisely the idea of apokatastasis that caused the greatest indignation, which broke out when “when the bishops read many passages from him (that is, Origen. - Yu.M.) books… and reproduced one place, in which it was stated that the Lord Jesus… redeemed even the sins of the devil with His torments. For it is so inherent in His kindness and mercy that if He transforms a miserable person, He will also free a fallen angel.
Patriarch Theophilus of Alexandria reports in his district message on the decision of the Council of Alexandria in 400: "The books of Origen were read before the Council of Bishops and unanimously condemned." Following his example, Pope Anastasius convened a Council in Rome, the decision of which he writes in a letter to Simplician: “We reported that everything written in past times by Origen, which contradicts our faith, has been rejected and condemned by us.” At the same time, the Council of Jerusalem was convened, and the Palestinian bishops wrote to Patriarch Theophilus: “Origenism is not among us. The teachings you describe we have never heard here. We anathematize those who hold such teachings."
Finally, in the same year, the Council of Cyprus was held, presided over by St. Epiphanius, who also condemned Origenism. Sozomen mentions that Saint Epiphanius of Cyprus “in the assembly of Cypriot bishops forbade the reading of Origen's books; then he wrote a decree about this to other bishops, and to Constantinople, urging them to convene Councils and approve the same thing ”(Church History. VIII, 14). Saint Epiphanius, as is clear from his writings, considered the idea of the possibility of the restoration of the devil one of Origen's main delusions, and it is obvious that the idea of the temporality of hellish torments was condemned at the Council of Cyprus.
In the East, Origen was also condemned by Saint Alexander of Alexandria and Saint Athanasius the Great, in the West by Blessed Jerome and Blessed Augustine.
In Orthodox asceticism, opposition to the spread of Origen's ideas was no less widespread: starting with the Monk Pachomius the Great (who forbade reading Origen's works to his students), including such famous ascetic critics of Origenism as the Monks Barsanuphius the Great and John, Simeon the Holy Fool, Nile of Sinai, Vincent of Lyrin and ending with the Monk Savva the Sanctified, with whose direct participation these disputes were completed by the decision of the V Ecumenical Council, which, without introducing anything new, confirmed similar decisions of previous Local Councils. And after him, the same condemnation was repeated at the Lateran Council of 649, convened by the holy Pope Martin I, and, already regardless of Origen's name, by the Council of Constantinople of 1084, which decreed:
“To all who accept and teach others false and pagan opinions… that there will be an end to the torment of sinners in the Hereafter and that creation and humanity are to be restored in general; and thus the Kingdom of Heaven is presented as destructible and transient, while Jesus Christ Himself and our God gave us the teaching that it is eternal and indestructible, and we, on the basis of all Holy Scripture, both the Old and the New Testament, believe that the torments will be endless and the Kingdom Heaven is eternal; those who, by their opinions, destroy themselves and make others partakers of eternal condemnation, anathema.
“After a strict condemnation of Origenism, theological thought was given a certain norm by which it was to be guided in the disclosure of eschatological truths. It is not surprising, therefore, that the doctrine of a universal apocatastasis in the subsequent history of Christian writing had no adherents.
"Optimistic" theology
However, after a long time, the idea of a general restoration was again revived by a number of Orthodox theologians of the 20th century. This return of "optimistic eschatology" took place in different ways, but in many respects it was caused by the need to rethink the position of Orthodoxy in a non-Orthodox environment. Related to this is the fact that, as a rule, theologians who lived in exile were active supporters of this error.
The ecumenical context was the first impetus for the return of the concept of apocatastasis. In the distortion that ecclesiology received in the general ecumenical attitudes of the theologians of emigration (we are talking about the recognition or, at least, the assumption of the equal salvation of other confessions / religions), the logical necessity of overcoming the dogma of the eternity of hellish torments was initially hidden. The second factor, even more significant, is the influence of the ideas of sophiology, to which many of the "optimistic" theologians were not indifferent. The meaning of "Sophian total unity" assumed the same metaphysical prerequisites for universal restoration as classical Origenism.
The ideas of apocatastasis, dug up and cleaned from the dust of centuries, turned out to be so widely popular among the non-Church Orthodox intelligentsia that they even ended up in the “Orthodox catechism” “God Lives,” published by members of the Parisian Orthodox Brotherhood in 1979. The Catechism aroused great interest in the West and in 1990 was translated into Russian. The authors of this doctrinal work bluntly declare:
“Let's face it: the idea of eternal hell and eternal torment for some, eternal bliss, indifferent to suffering, for others, can no longer remain in the living and renewed Christian consciousness as it was once portrayed by our catechisms and our official textbooks of theology. This outdated understanding, which tries to rely on the gospel texts, interprets them literally, roughly, materially, without delving into their spiritual meaning, hidden in images and symbols. This concept is becoming more and more intolerable violence against the conscience, thought and faith of a Christian. We cannot admit that the sacrifice of Calvary proved powerless to redeem the world and conquer hell. Otherwise, it would be necessary to say: the whole creation is a failure, and the feat of Christ is also a failure. It is high time for all Christians to jointly testify and reveal their intimate mystical experience in this area, as well as their spiritual hope, and perhaps their indignation and horror regarding the materialistic representations of hell and the Last Judgment set out in human images. It is high time to put an end to all these monstrous statements of the past centuries, which make of our God of love what He is not: an “external” God Who is only an allegory of earthly kings and nothing more. The pedagogy of intimidation and horror is no longer effective. On the contrary, it blocks the entrance to the Church for many of those who seek the God of love.
Similar statements can be found among our compatriots.
As you can see, the ambitions of the "optimists" are stated quite openly and quite aggressively.
The first thing that alarms in the position of "eschatological optimists" is the point of view from which they consider the problem: from the position of people who know for sure that they will definitely not go to hell under any circumstances. It all looks as if, standing with one, if not two, feet already in paradise, the “optimists” are generously squandering the mercy of God, thinking up under what pretext to pardon the unfortunate fallen angels and those of people who are a little less fortunate than themselves.
I would like to believe that after the Last Judgment and the General Resurrection, the “optimistic” theologians, together with their adherents, will indeed find themselves on the right side. But their writings were compiled in this mortal body and for those who wear the same mortal bodies, and therefore it is important to note that the angle of view chosen by them is radically different from that held by the holy fathers: “All will be saved, I alone will perish.” Enlightened by personal holiness and the special grace of God, the greatest minds of Christianity approached this mystery with great humility, constantly “keeping their minds in hell and not despairing” (St. Silouan of Athos); “I am where Satan is” (Abba Pimen). Such an approach completely excludes any ground for the emergence of ideas of the finiteness of hellish torments, for it reveals the deep moral depravity of the “optimistic” position: we are all, first of all, defendants and any argument about the inevitability of an “amnesty” is incorrect - this is an attempt on the mercy of the Judge.
If the "eschatological optimists" understood this and followed the holy fathers, there would be no pretext for the resuscitation of a half-forgotten heresy, and there would be no need for this article. But since this understanding is not observed, and the “optimistic” theologians continue to persist in their error, moreover, to develop it and insist on the obligatory rejection of the original teaching of the Church for all Christians, as we saw in the example of the cited catechism, we will also have to consider their arguments.
The argument used to support the mentioned idea can be divided into three types: metaphysical, moral and legal.
Metaphysical argumentation: "The kingdom of the future age is the restoration of the world to its original state"
“At the Second Coming and the last accomplishment of times, the entirety of the universe will enter into complete union with God”; “After the incarnation and resurrection, death is restless: it is no longer absolute. Everything is now striving towards “άποκατάστασις των πάντων” - that is, to the complete restoration of everything that was destroyed by death, to the illumination of the entire cosmos with the glory of God, which will become “all in all” ”; “Every human life can always be renewed in Christ, no matter how burdened with sins; a person can always give his life to Christ, so that He returns it to him free and pure. And this work of Christ extends to all mankind beyond the visible boundaries of the Church. "Eternity is God, divine life", therefore, those who are outside of God cannot remain in this state forever and after some period they will inevitably be restored.
These are typical examples of attempts at a metaphysical substantiation of "eschatological optimism". Since at their core they all go back to the same Origenist scheme, it seems not superfluous to recall the words dedicated to it by Fr. George Florovsky:
“The whole pathos of the Origen system is to remove, to cancel the riddle of time. This is precisely the intimate meaning of his famous doctrine of "universal restoration", of apocatastasis. In Origen, this doctrine of "universal salvation" is not at all determined by moral motives. It is, first of all, a metaphysical theory. Apocatastasis is the negation of history. The entire content of historical time will dissipate without memory and trace. And “after” history only that which was “before” history will remain.
We will come to the same conclusion if we dwell more closely on the very premise of restoration in the metaphysical argument of the "optimists".
It is not entirely clear why they consider the idea of "returning to what was before" to be Christian? The Church expects a fiery transformation of the life of the world into the kingdom of the future age, and not an inevitable universal return to the primitive state. There is no question of any return of anyone to the primitive state at all. The Lord will say, “Behold, I am making all things new” (Rev. 21:5), not “Behold, I am restoring the old.”
God, “just as He created those who did not exist, so He will recreate those who have received being - a creation that is more divine and higher than the former,” testifies St. Gregory the Theologian. Saint Epiphanius of Cyprus, speaking of the future transfiguration of the world, cites the following image: it will be like “the change of a baby into a perfect husband.” The premise of "optimist" theologians about the return of the world to the womb of primordial nature is directly opposite to this patristic perspective. In essence, this is the same denial of history, exposing the non-Christian roots of this metaphysical scheme. That is why this premise itself was condemned by a separate paragraph at the Fifth Ecumenical Council: “Who says that the life of spirits will be like the life that existed from the beginning, when the spirits were not yet fallen and perished, and that the end will be the true measure of the beginning(highlighted by us. - Yu.M.), let there be anathema ”(15th anathematism).
The patristic vision of the afterlife of man can be characterized as symmetrical. Eternal paradise corresponds to eternal hell, eternal existence with God corresponds to eternal existence without God. It was to this symmetry that many holy fathers appealed in a dispute with supporters of the opinion about the finiteness of hellish torments. “For if there is ever an end to torment,” writes St. Basil the Great, “then eternal life, without a doubt, must have an end. And if we do not dare to think this about life, then what is the basis for putting an end to eternal torment? “Just as punishments are eternal, so eternal life should not subsequently have any end” (blessed Jerome of Stridon). According to this vision, eternal hell would exist as a potential even if neither Lucifer nor the progenitors of the human race had fallen away from God. As a potency conditioned by the free will of created beings, it would exist even if there were no one in it.
Of the "optimist" theologians, only Fr. Sergius Bulgakov honestly admitted that the Fathers of the Church had just such a vision and just as honestly admitted that he did not agree with it, at the same time attributing to such a paternal vision, completely without evidence, an understanding of eternity as a special kind of temporality. In fact, the teaching of the Church, on the contrary, is a completely consistent denial of any temporality in eternity: “We will have to go with demons to where the fire is unquenchable ... and not for a few times or for a year, and not for a hundred or a thousand years for the torment will have no end, as Origen thought, but forever and ever, as the Lord said ”(St. Theodore the Studite).
Here we come to the second consequence of the Neo-Originists' metaphysical argument, the denial of the performance of free will. “To accept, along with Origen, that evil will eventually exhaust itself and only God will remain infinite is to forget about the absolute nature of personal freedom: absolute precisely because this freedom is in the image of God.”
From the standpoint of Orthodox theology, human freedom, as Fr. Georgy Florovsky, should include the freedom to make a decision even against God, “for not by violence and autocracy, but by persuasion and good disposition, the salvation of people is prepared. Therefore, everyone is sovereign in his own salvation, so that both those who are crowned and those who are punished justly receive what they have chosen ”(St. Isidore Pelusiot). “God honored man, granting him freedom,” writes St. Gregory the Theologian, “so that good belongs personally to the one who chooses it, no less than to the One who laid the foundation for good in nature.”
The one we mentioned. Sergius Bulgakov, who most seriously developed the "optimistic" argument, recognized the existence of such a problem. In his opinion, it had to be solved in such a way that “such freedom ... does not have stability in itself, like a straining self. Freedom in evil presupposes a convulsive volitional effort of continuous rebellion, which is why one can break loose from it. "Eternal torment" has only a negative eternity, it is only a shadow cast by the self. Therefore, it is impossible to recognize behind them the positive power of eternity, and therefore it is impossible to assert their indestructibility.
However, here all the propositions expressed are dubious and unproven, starting with the postulated instability of "negative freedom" and ending with the proposed Fr. Sergius by the introduction of two eternities - positive and some negative, which is "flawed" in comparison with the first, as well as the alleged possibility of "breaking" in eternity from being outside of God to being with God and in God.
Stepping aside somewhat, it should be recognized that modern criticism of the theory of apocatastasis, as a rule, is limited to this point alone, which, of course, is its weakness. It looks as if modern theologians are ashamed to clearly point out that "eschatological optimism" unequivocally tramples on the primordially Christian, having the deepest biblical and patristic foundations, understanding of hellish torments, first of all, as retribution. This leads to very sad results: as a result of such a one-sided emphasis on the freedom of the individual, the impression arises that for salvation it is enough just to desire to be with God, and this, of course, is a delusion, because in this case both asceticism and perfection in the commandments lose all meaning. and, ultimately, the very existence of the Church and Christianity.
The patristic criticism of the apocatastasis is not characterized by such an unhealthy tilt. It, organically growing out of biblical theology, is focused precisely around the truth of Divine justice. It is noteworthy that, according to the above thought of the Monk Isidore Pelusiot, the freedom of the individual is due precisely to this justice. And to the champions of "eschatological optimism" we must, following the fathers of the Church, say: yes, there can be no universal salvation, because it is unjust. Of course, no one will envy the generosity of the Employer when He equally rewards the workers of the one-tenth hour and those who have endured the heat and hardship of the day. But in any case, we are talking about workers, not idlers.
Finally, as a third point, it can be pointed out that the denial of free will leads to the denial of God's love itself, for which eschatologists-"optimists" verbally stand up like this: "The concept of universal salvation, while denying the eternity of hell, simultaneously ignores the incomprehensible mystery of God's love, which is above all our rational or sentimental conceptions, and the mystery of the human person and his freedom. The love of God presupposes complete respect for His creatures, up to the “free impotence” to deny them freedom.
Thus, the position of the supporters of apocatastasis leads not only to the denial of the value of human freedom, but also to the denial of both Divine justice and Divine love. Quite in vain, some modern theologians oppose these two attributes to the extreme, trying to present them as mutually exclusive. Neither Scripture nor the Tradition of the Church tells us of such a categorical opposition. One cannot deny the other, since Divine justice is one of the expressions of Divine love.
“The stated teaching of the holy fathers of the Church on retribution explains why in their minds that duality never arose, that contradiction between justice and Divine love, which various heretical sects could not resolve in any way ... The Fathers of God, according to Scripture, understood not in the sense of punishing anger, but in the sense of such a property of God, according to which God rewards every free being according to his deeds, that is, in accordance with where a person has determined himself ... The truth of God is guided not by a feeling of insult, but moral dignity of being. This truth cannot contradict love, for it is compelled not by the desire for satisfaction, which excludes love, but by the direct impossibility, without denying Himself, to bestow peace and life on lawlessness.
(To be continued.)
The Lord, in His great mercy, partly revealed eternal torment to some of His chosen ones for their salvation and prosperity. Through telling them, our concepts of hellish torments have become clearer and more detailed. “There were two friends,” says a sacred story, “one of them, touched by the Word of God, entered a monastery and spent his life in tears of repentance; the other remained in the world, led a dispersed life, and finally became so hardened that he began to defiantly mock the gospel. In the midst of such a life, a layman died. Upon learning of his death, the monk, out of a feeling of friendship, began to pray to God that the afterlife of the deceased would be revealed to him. After some time, his friend appears in a subtle dream. “What, how are you? Is it good?” the monk asked the newcomer. “Do you want to know this? - the deceased replied with a groan: woe to me, the unfortunate one! The sleepless worm sharpens me, does not give and will not give me peace through all eternity. “What kind of torment is this?” the monk continued to ask. “This pain is unbearable! - exclaimed the deceased, - but there is no way to escape the wrath of God. For the sake of your prayers, freedom is now given to me, and if you wish, I will show you my torment. You cannot bear it if I open it as it is, completely; but at least partly recognize him. At these words, the deceased lifted his clothes to the knee. Oh God! The whole leg was covered with a terrible worm that ate it, and such a fetid stench came out of the wounds that the shocked monk woke up at the same time. But the hellish stench filled the whole cell and so strongly that the monk jumped out of it in fright, forgetting to close the doors behind him. The stench penetrated further and spilled over the monastery; all the cells overflowed with it. As time itself did not destroy him, the monks had to completely leave the monastery and move to another place, and the monk, who saw the prisoner of hell and his terrible torment, throughout his life could not get rid of the stench that clung to him, neither wash him from his hands, nor drown out any aromas. According to this story, other ascetics of piety, who were shown hellish torments, also testify: without horror they could not remember their visions, and in unceasing tears of repentance and humility they sought to find joy - a notice of salvation. This is what happened to Hesychius of Khorivsky. During a serious illness, his soul left his body for an hour. Having come to his senses, he begged everyone who was with him to leave him, blocking the doors of the cell, he spent twelve years in a non-starting gate, not uttering a word to anyone, not eating anything but bread and water; in solitude he thoughtfully delved into what he had seen during his frenzy and incessantly shed quiet tears. When he was about to die, he said to the brethren who came to him, after many of their requests, only the following: “Forgive me! Whoever has acquired the remembrance of death cannot sin." Like the recluse of Horeb, the recluse of our native Kyiv caves, Athanasius, who led a holy, God-pleasing life, died and rose again. He died after a long illness. The brethren removed his body, according to monastic custom, but the deceased remained unburied for two days due to some obstacle he encountered. On the third night there was a divine appearance to the abbot, and he heard a voice: "The man of God, Athanasius, lies unburied for two days, and you do not care about him." Early in the morning, the hegumen and the brethren came to the deceased with the intention of committing his body to the earth, but they found him sitting and crying. They were horrified when they saw him revived; then they began to ask: how did he come to life? What did you see and hear while you were separated from the body? He answered all questions only with the word: "Save yourself!" When the brethren persistently begged to tell them something useful, he bequeathed to them obedience and unceasing repentance. Following this, Athanasius shut himself up in a cave, remained in it hopelessly for twelve years, spending day and night in incessant tears, every other day eating a little bread and water and not talking to anyone during all this time. When the hour of his death came, he repeated to the assembled brethren the instruction on obedience and repentance, and he died in peace in the Lord. “A certain expectation of judgment is terrible- says the holy apostle Paul, - and jealousy of fire, to explain the one who wants to resist. Who has rejected the law of Moses, dies without mercy with two or three witnesses. How many do you think the bitterness will be worthy of torment, even the Son of God right, and having thought the blood of the covenant filth, be sanctified by it, and reproach the Spirit of grace? Vemy bo rekshago: Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. And again: as the Lord judges his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” (Heb. 10 :27-31 ) .
The space between heaven and earth, the space by which the triumphant Church is separated from the militant Church, is usually called both in Holy Scripture, and in the writings of the Holy Fathers, and in common human language - air. Let us leave to the scientists of the earth a chemical study of this air, i.e., of the gases and other subtle substances surrounding the earth and extending from its surface into a space unknown to the scientists themselves: let us study what is essential and useful for our salvation.
What is this blue vault that we see above us and call the sky? Is this really the sky? Or is it just an immense depth of air, boundless, turning blue and covering the sky from us? The latter is more probable: it is natural for the air in a large space to take on a bluish color for our eyes and set off other objects located at a distance from us. Anyone can verify this with their own experience. One has only to stand at a considerable height on a clear sunny day and look into the distance: green groves, plowed fields, buildings - in a word, everything does not appear in its color, but with a bluish tint produced by the color of the air between our eyes and those objects on which we are watching. The farther away these objects are, the bluer they appear; finally, the general blue covers the most distant objects, and merges them into one blue stripe. A sadly true depiction of our limitations, produced, maintained in us by sin! But it is better to know it than in ignorance to deceive yourself with the false opinion of unlimited vision and knowledge.
Perfect Christians, having cleansed their senses, saw the sky as if, and saw in the sky and in the air that which we do not see with our plump eyes. So, suddenly, by the action of the Holy Spirit, the holy First Martyr Stephen saw the heaven opened, before his painful death, standing in a large assembly of Jews hostile to Christ and Christianity. Stephen, says the Holy Scripture, "He is full of the Spirit The Holy One, looking up to heaven, sees the glory of God and Jesus standing right hand God, and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man right hand worthy of God" (Acts. 7 :55, 56 ) . The heavenly holy disciples of Macarius the Great, of course, as well as Stephen, saw the sky and the entrance of their teacher through the gates of heaven through the Holy Spirit. The Monk Isidore of Skitsky, who was present at the death of the young ascetic Zechariah, saw the heavenly gates open for the dying, and exclaimed: “Rejoice, my son Zechariah: the heavenly gates have been opened for you!” As already mentioned above, the Monk John Kolov saw the radiant path from earth to heaven, along which the Angels lifted up the soul of the deceased Taisia. At the opening of her spiritual eyes, she saw the sky opened and a lightning-fast Angel descending from there, the mother of the elder Paisius of Nyametsky, inconsolably grieving over the departure of her son to monasticism. When feelings begin to act, no longer bound by the fall, their action becomes extraordinarily sophisticated, the very circle of action takes on vast dimensions - the space for them is reduced. The above-mentioned visions of the Saints are proof enough of this; but for greater clarity, we do not stop to present other spiritual experiences. Saint Anthony the Great, who lived in one of the deserts of Egypt, not far from the Red Sea, saw the soul of the Monk Ammon ascended to heaven by angels, who was ascetic at the other end of Egypt, in the Nitrian desert. The disciples of the Great One noticed the day and hour of the vision, then they learned from the brethren who had come from Nitria that the Monk Ammon died on the very day and hour in which his Saint Anthony the Great saw the ascension of his soul. The distance between the deserts required thirty days of travel for a walker. It is obvious that the sight of a Christian, renewed by the Holy Spirit and having reached a high degree of perfection, extends far beyond the sight of a man in his ordinary state; like renewed vision, renewed hearing also acts. It was not difficult for the spirit-bearing disciples of Macarius the Great to see the procession of his soul through the air and to hear the words uttered by it in the air and at the entrance to the gates of heaven. When a woman was brought to this great Macarius, whose appearance had changed at the bewitchment of an unclean spirit, and some of his disciples could not notice the actions of the devil, obvious to the Great One, he told them that the reason for their not seeing them was the carnal state of their feelings, incapable of seeing spirits and their actions. In this state we are, as in prison and chains.
But most people do not feel their captivity and their prison: they seem to them the most satisfying freedom. The knowledge and feeling of such a state of ours is a gift from God. The Holy Spirit revealed this state to the prophet David, and David uttered from all mankind and from each person a most touching prayer to God for deliverance from the state of distress. “Bring me out,” he prayerfully sings and cries out, “ out of prison my soul to confess to thy name" (Ps. 141 :8 ) . The Apostle Peter calls the carnal and spiritual state of people, even though they are pious, a dark place. A place can be not only material, but, in an abstract sense, both mental and moral, as Scripture says: “in the world” (of the heart) “His place” (God’s) ( Ps. 75 :3 ) . Those imprisoned in a dark place and desiring to be saved should be guided, as by a luminary, by sacred and holy Scripture, until the Holy Spirit descends on them and becomes for them a living book of divine teaching, always open and unceasing. “Imams are the most famous prophetic word, he is attentive, like a luminary shining in a dark place, do good, until the day will shine, and the morning star will shine in your hearts" (2 Pet. 1 :19 ) .
Prisoners in the dungeon of earthly wisdom! Let us hear those who have acquired spiritual freedom in the Lord and have been illumined by the Spiritual mind! Blindborn! Let us hear those who have received their sight from the touch of the finger of God on their eyes, who have seen the light of truth, who have seen and perceived, in the radiance of this light, invisible and unknown to the minds of the flesh and soul. The Word of God and the Spirit assisting the word reveal to us, through their chosen vessels, that the space between heaven and earth, the entire azure abyss that we see, the air under heaven, serves as a dwelling place for fallen angels cast down from heaven. "Be a scolding in heaven", - narrates the great spectator of mysteries, St. John the Theologian: “Michael and his angels made war with the serpent, and the serpent and his angels fought. And I couldn’t, and I couldn’t find a place for them in heaven.” (Rev. 12 :7, 8 ) . This overthrow of the devil and the spirits carried away by him from heaven, according to the explanation of St. Ezek. 28 :16 ) . In the book of Job, the fallen angel already appears as wandering in the immeasurable space of the heavenly; he wandered in it, quickly flew over it, tormented by insatiable malice towards the human race ( Job. 1 :7 ) . The Holy Apostle Paul calls the fallen angels spirits of wickedness in high places ( Eph. 6 :12 ) , and their head - the prince of the power of the air ( Eph. 2 :2 ) . Fallen angels are scattered in multitudes throughout the transparent abyss that we see above us. They do not cease to disturb all human societies and each individual separately; there is no atrocity, there is no crime in which they were not instigators and participants; they incline and teach man to sin by every possible means. "Your adversary is the devil"- says the holy apostle Peter, - “Like a roaring lion, he walks, looking for someone to devour” (1 Pet. 5 :8 ) and during our earthly life, and after the separation of the soul from the body. When the soul of a Christian, leaving his earthly temple, begins to strive through the air space to the heavenly homeland, the demons stop it, try to find in it an affinity with themselves, their sinfulness, their fall, and bring it down to hell, prepared for "the devil and his angel". This is how they act according to the right they have acquired.
God, having created Adam and Eve, gave them dominion over the earth. He blessed them, says the Scripture, “Grow and multiply, and fill the earth, and rule over it, and subdue the fish of the sea, and the beasts and birds of the air, and all cattle, and all the earth, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth” (Gen. 1 :28 ) . Not only the land was entrusted to the first people, they were entrusted with paradise itself, which they were obliged to cultivate and protect ( Gen. 2 :15 ) . They had the one God over them. What did they do in paradise?... Alas! Unfortunate blindness! Alas! Blindness and madness incomprehensible! Heeding the insidious and murderous advice of the fallen angel, they cast off the good yoke of obedience to God and laid on themselves the iron yoke of obedience to the devil. Alas! Our forefathers transgressed the command of God and fulfilled the advice of their all-evil enemy, a dark spirit, a blasphemous, flattering and deceitful spirit. By this act, according to a very natural order, they broke their communion with God, and not only entered into communion with the devil, but also arbitrarily submitted themselves to him, and with them also that part of the creature that was created for them and over which God had provided them dominion. “The enemy who deceived Adam,” says Macarius the Great, “and thus delighted in dominion over him, deprived him of all power, and was declared the prince of this world. God first made man the prince of this age and the lord of all things visible. Our forefathers are cast out of paradise to earth, the earth is cursed for their sake, and Cherubim with a fiery, rotating weapon is appointed to guard the path of the tree of life ( Gen. 3 :24 ) . But another Cherubim also stood on the way of man to paradise, that Cherubim, who did not spare his wondrous greatness, the head and parent of evil and death, who fell into the abyss of death, dragged there many angels and the whole human race. This Cherubim, by the just allowance and distribution of God, with a host of fallen angels, the prince of the air, the prince of the world and this age, the prince and head of the angels and people who voluntarily submitted to him. became on the way from earth to paradise, and from that time until the saving suffering and life-giving death of Christ, he did not miss a single human soul that was separated from the body along the way. The gates of heaven are closed for men forever. Both the righteous and the sinners descended into hell.
Eternal gates and impassable paths were opened before our Lord Jesus Christ, who, having accepted free death, descended with His Most Holy Soul and Divinity not separated from it into hell, crushed his faiths and gates, freed his captives, then, resurrecting His Body, passed already with him the expanse of the heavenly realm, the sky, the heavens of the heavens, and entered the throne of the Deity. The dark authorities were horrified in their bitterness and blindness, seeing the procession of the God-man, destroying all their strength: in spiritual joy, with the greatest triumph, the officials of the holy angels opened the heavenly gates before him. Then the horror of the demons seized again when they saw the robber, for the confession of Christ ascending after Christ into paradise: then they were amazed to know the power of redemption. By the ignorant wisdom of God, after the redemption of the human race by our Lord Jesus Christ, people are given freedom in depicting life and death, in accepting the Redeemer and redemption, or in rejecting them. And many, unfortunately, very many, wished to remain in communion with Satan, in captivity and slavery to him, declared themselves openly enemies of the Savior and His Divine Teachings. Also, many, having entered themselves into His army and declaring themselves His servants, violate the vow of fidelity to Him, - by their actions, open and secret, enter into an alliance with the spirits of evil. All who openly rejected the Redeemer henceforth constitute the property of Satan: their souls, after being separated from their bodies, descend directly into hell. But even Christians who deviate to sin are unworthy of an immediate transmigration from earthly life to blessed eternity. Justice itself requires that these deviations towards sin, these betrayals of the Redeemer, be weighed and evaluated. Judgment and analysis are necessary in order to determine the degree of deviation to sin of the Christian soul, in order to determine what prevails in it - eternal life or eternal death. And the impartial Judgment of God awaits every Christian soul, after its departure from the body, as the holy Apostle Paul said: "lies a man alone to die, then the judgment" (Heb. 9 :27 ) .
Trebnik, following the tonsure into the small schema.
Rev. Abba Dorotheus teaching about the fear of future torment.
Letter 6 of the Holy Mountain. Similarly, in our time, a certain old woman in the Goritsky Maiden Monastery, near the city of Kirillov, Novgorod province, saw hellish torments in a dream, and, as evidence of the truth of the dream, the hellish stench remained in her sense of smell for seven whole days, preventing her during all this. time to eat some food. Saint Demetrius of Rostov counts the torments of hell in this way: “They will also endure the unquenchable fire; For Christ our Savior has said: "their fire will not go out" (Mk. 9 :44 ) . - There will be a fierce winter there, and from that studentness, not enduring, sins will gnash their teeth. About this river Christ our Savior: “there there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (OK. 13 :28 ) ... There will also be unceasing worms of languor, which will there unceasingly torment and eat sinful people. And they will never die, for it is said: "The worm won't die" (Mk. 9 :44 ) ... There will also be an unbearable stench from the angry fire: for it is written: "Fire and the bogeyman and the stormy spirit are part of their cup" (Ps. 10 :6 ) ... There will be a tamo and anguish of greatness, such is fierce, like more if it were possible to die, then in the sweetness of it (death) with diligence for the sake of being perceived, but they will never die. For it is written: “Men seek death, and find it not; and they desire to die, and death flees from them” (open 9 :6 ) ... Still there will be darkness and pitch darkness: for it is written: “having tied his hand and nose, set him up”(his) "into the outer darkness" (Matt. 22 :13 ) ; and in that darkness the cast down will sit forever, and will never see the face of God ... But there will be gladness there, for Christ himself rivers: “Woe to you, now you are satisfied, as if you were hungry” (OK. 6 :25 ) ... Still there will be a thirst for greatness, for Christ himself says: "as you crave". There will also be tightness of greatness, for hell will be full of sinful people, ovii above, ovii among him, and in the very day of Dekom. For as if someone pours a bag full of pennies, and ties it up, or whoever fills a vessel to the top with fish, and closes it: so is God, he will fill all hell full of sinful people, and will conclude it so that sinners do not come out of there.
Ladders degree 6.
I want, ladies "( OK. 4 :5, 6 ) .
Etc. Cassian believes that Satan before the fall belonged to the person of the Cherubim (Col. VII, cap. VIII). And other Holy Fathers agree that he is from among the highest angels.
“Death was horrified, seeing that a new Someone had descended into hell, unconstrained by the bonds there. Why, then, when you saw Him, were you afraid, the gatekeepers of hell ( Job. 38 :17 ) ? What extraordinary fear has taken possession of you? Death fled, and the flight betrayed fear. The holy Prophets flocked, and the lawgiver Moses, and Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and David, and Samuel, and Isaiah, and the Baptist John, who prophesies and testifies: "Are you coming, or other tea " (Matt. 11 :3 ) ? All the righteous are redeemed, whom death has swallowed up: because the preached King was to become the Redeemer of good preachers. And after this, each of these righteous said: “Where are you, death, sting? Where are you, hell, victory" (1 Cor. 15 :55 ) ? We have been redeemed by the Victorious." St. Cyril of Jerusalem 14 Catalogue, § 19, according to the translation of the Moscow Theological Academy.
When the Lord Jesus Christ descended into hell, the princes of hell were afraid and cried out: “Lift up the gates of sorrow: the King of glory, the Christ, has ascended.” When the Lord crushed hell and, freeing the souls of the righteous from its captivity, ascended to heaven, the heavenly Powers, marveling at the new miracle, cried out: “take the gate.” Some of them cried out, "Who is the King of glory?" Others answered: “The Lord of hosts, ascending in the flesh, God the Word, sitting on the throne of glory, the Son of the Father, eternally existing with the Father, having descended to earth, took on humanity and raised it with Himself to heaven - the King of glory.” Interpretation borrowed from the Holy Fathers and placed according to the third kathisma in the Psalter of the edition of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra with interpretations on the breze.
hellish torment
Many of those people who have been in a state of clinical death saw a bright and gentle light and experienced incomparable bliss and peace. On the basis of these testimonies, many publications have appeared that state that paradise awaits after the death of a person. However, there are many testimonies of people who, during clinical death, found themselves in a world in which darkness, fire, horror, and despair reign.
With such a world, during a complex operation, when he was in a state of clinical death, the famous German artist Kurt Jurgans came into contact. “The ceiling of the operating room turned red hot, and a fiery rain erupted. I saw vile grimacing faces looking at me from everywhere. Undoubtedly, I was in hell itself, ”he wrote later.
So hell still exists. And this, according to religious dogmas, is a place where a person in torment and suffering must atone for his earthly sins.
Hell. Engraving by G. Doré
It is known that various peoples who have lived and are living on Earth have practically similar ideas about the value of human life, as well as about the existence after death.
And depending on how a person lived in the earthly world, either the bliss of heaven or the suffering of hell awaits him. Death itself is the transition of the soul either to bright, heavenly places, or to dark, hellish places.
But before being in this or that place of the posthumous world, the soul of a person must go through the court. And although it has its own characteristics in different religions, it nevertheless amazes with a significant similarity.
For example, in ancient Egypt, it was believed that the soul of the deceased is being judged in the so-called Hall of Truth, where the god of the dead and the guardian of mummies, Anubis, weighs on the scales all the deeds and deeds of the deceased during his earthly life. And depending on how many good and evil deeds a person committed, his soul received eternal bliss, or it was swallowed up by an evil monster. The ancient Greeks also believed that after the judgment, the soul either ends up in the Champs Elysees - part of the underworld where the souls of the blessed live, or in the terrible underground possessions of the god Hades. So what is hell?
Firstly, on this occasion, it should be said right away that practically all peoples present a picture of hell in almost the same way. For example, among the Hindus, these are gigantic flaming pits in which sinners are located. From their bodies with red-hot hooks, demons tear out pieces of meat, boil it in boiling resin, and then throw it on the sharp tops of trees.
In Chinese mythology, hell is called Diyu, which means "underground court." One of its most important elements is the "mirror of evil", in which sinners see a reflection of their earthly deeds.
But in the Old Testament, hell is a flaming abyss in which fiery rivers flow: in them the souls of sinners must be cleansed. The horror and despair that reign there, the human mind cannot even imagine.
For the Orthodox, hell is also a no less terrible place. “This is not a human world, this is an inhuman world, so any human attempts to reconstruct it will turn out to be extremely miserable,” says Deacon Andrei Kuraev, professor at the Moscow Theological Academy, about hell.
And here is the description of hell in the collection of poems and studies of the Russian Slavic philologist and folklorist P.A. Bessonov "Kaliki passable":
“And a place is prepared for sinners, and men there are wicked and diverse, and harlots will go into eternal fire, and thieves will go into great fear, and murderers will go into a heavy stench, and drunkards into hot tar, and it will be given to everyone according to his deeds.”
But, perhaps, the most difficult trials for unbelievers fall in hell, which is described by Catholics. Liars and evil-speakers are hanged there by their tongues, and women who have had an abortion breast-feed poisonous snakes that torment their bodies. Whores and adulterers are on fire day and night, and alcoholics are either dipped into the icy waters of an underground lake, or thrown into boiling tar.
The biblical description of hell echoes its depiction in art. It can be either burning sulfur lakes full of sinners, or a bottomless abyss in which an underground flame rages. In general, fire is the main and integral part of hell. For this reason, it is sometimes even called fiery hell.
Here, for example, is how the English poet John Milton described hell in the poem Paradise Lost in the 17th century: despondency and evil, and sadness, and pain.
However, it is believed that the most vivid description of hell at the beginning of the 14th century was given by the great Italian Dante Alighieri in his Divine Comedy. Contemporaries considered this work a revelation from above.
Hell, in Dante's view, is a giant funnel going to the center of the Earth, which is divided into nine circles, also gradually narrowing downwards. And since Dante's Hell is a place where world evil is concentrated, eternal darkness and cold reign there.
“From there came a heavy stench, fragments of all dialects, a great murmur. Words in which pain and anger and fear, clapping of hands and complaints and cries merged into a rumble without time for centuries.
Dante gave the first circle of Hell to people who in earthly life did neither good nor evil, that is, they were neither with the devil nor with God. “Through the darkness, not a cry could be heard, but only a sigh flew up from all sides.”
In the second circle, vile voluptuaries suffered. This sinful people "fled naked, bitten by horseflies, wasps that swarm here."
In the third circle were gluttons, in the fourth - misers and spenders, in the fifth - evil and treacherous. “They beat each other with their hands and heads and chests and legs, pulling out pieces of meat with their teeth.” In the sixth circle, heretics were subjected to hellish torments. In the seventh - murderers, rapists and sodomites. In the eighth languished those who responded to good with evil, who betrayed trust, as well as thieves and hypocrites. At the very bottom of the hellish abyss is the lair of Lucifer - an icy lake in which those who have committed the most terrible sins in their earthly life suffer. “Blood flowed in streams between the tears from their faces, and a vile crowd of worms swallowed it right under their feet.”
Many, of course, will consider that Dante's poem is nothing more than fiction. But one should not rush to such categorical conclusions.
And above all, because in recent decades, scientists have been trying to understand the structure of the universe, which lies outside the physical world known to us.
In particular, studies in quantum physics, elementary particle physics and astrophysics prove that apart from our world there is another reality, much more perfect than the one we know. This is the world of subtle energies.
Therefore, the assumption sounds quite scientific that our physical reality and what exists outside of it are not two separate worlds, but a single reality that penetrates one into the other.
In connection with this version, we must constantly come into contact with the so-called other world, although we do not see it. And we do not see it because the level of vibrations of the particles that make up the other world exceeds that of the elements of the earthly world. Therefore, other worlds remain beyond our vision, like the spokes of a spinning wheel.
More recently, astrophysicists have discovered invisible dark matter that is present in every galaxy. 95% of this matter is made up of particles unknown to science, which are also in our Universe, the remaining 5% are protons, electrons and neutrons known to us. And this ratio just corresponds to the ideas of the ancient scientists, who declared that our material world is only a small part of the region of the universe invisible to us.
Moreover, scientists have suggested that dark matter, in turn, consists of two forms: cold and hot. The particles that make up cold matter are heavy and slow, while the particles of hot matter are fast and light.
Who knows, maybe this is the hot and cold hell that all the holy books write about.
In this context, the words of Academician Natalya Bekhtereva, who said that "science has entered the phase when it confirms, directly or indirectly, a number of provisions of religion," will be very appropriate.
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Hellish torments and their eternity is the most popular topic in any theological Orthodox forum. Every month, with enviable regularity, a new forum member will appear, who from scratch will create a new topic "is it really eternal torment in hell"? Yes, hellish torment is the very thought that shocks the layman at the first contact with it. The word "flour" is also clear to us from earthly life. But add infinity to the pain, and our mind is lost in the avalanche of semantic nightmare that has fallen upon us. And the mind is desperately trying to conquer the words "eternal" and "infinite". Because hope is more precious than air.
Oddly enough, conscientious people, people who seek God, are afraid of hellish torments. The one who ridicules everything spiritual and does not believe in the existence of life after death is not afraid. Such a person is struck by the irony of the situation - "people themselves invent future torments, and they themselves are frightened of their fantasies."
And therefore the first question is - do hellish torments exist?
Yes. Because everyone can see them now. These pains are many-sided. The waiting room of hell can be visited today (although God forbid). Hell can be seen in the eyes of a drug addict, hell freezes with cold horror in the eyes of a person preparing for suicide. The dim reflection of hell is visible in the drunkard, in the fighter, in the degraded man without principles. To be in company with those is to pass by the opened hellish gates. The soul is sensitive and, in the presence of such people, shrinks from fear, since the door between our world and the underworld is thin among fallen people. Look into the cold-empty eyes of the killer and you will be covered with it - a hellish emptiness. So indifferently and unblinkingly the spider looks at its prey. Come into the apartment of a drunkard, inhale the sour smell of vomit with alcohol and look at the shabby walls. Decay, decay, emptiness - all this is about hell.
If we are honest, if we are consistent, we will notice one important feature. In all the terrible pictures I have drawn of human fall, there is no fault of God. God really wants the drunkard not to drink, and the drug addict not to inject, the fighter not to fight, and the killer not to kill.
Every time hell comes when a person does something contrary to common sense and is engaged in harming himself.
Stop, stop - many will say.
Well, how were you born into drug addicts, or do you not have a job, or do you just live in difficult conditions? I think many will agree that in difficult unbearable conditions you somehow involuntarily harden your heart. So it turns out that sometimes our problem in our relationship with God is that he does not give "the proper conditions for salvation"? Okay, then let's calculate the period of existence of this planet when the conditions were ideal. Maybe they were perfect at the time of the birth of Christ himself? After all, the apostles, one might say, were lucky?
Yes and no. The apostles did not have smartphones. The apostles did not have the Internet. They lived by fishing and primitive craft. This is a very "unromantic" time. When the price of a mistake is life. As a fisherman, you are not a romantic. And life has already understood. And then someone comes up to you and calls for him. And they, "leaving their nets, followed him." How realistic is this? This is a feat of naive faith. When the heart is so sensitive that it recognized in the man Jesus - God and Christ the Savior. This is, strictly speaking, difficult. We know the names of the winners. But the Gospel also mentions the losers. Departed from Jesus after some of His sermons. It is difficult to follow a stranger into the unknown "far", because you can find out that it is "beautiful" only after death.
And the time of the martyrs? Here you are, father. You have children. And you love them dearly. And you know - without you they're over. They will die of hunger. And you are seized on a denunciation as a Christian and forced to sacrifice to idols. In general, you are not stupid and understand - they will kill you. What will happen to the children? With your wife? Okay - you yourself, but the children!?
You yourself did not see Jesus personally, you did not read a bunch of books on theology. I heard about Jesus from a preacher. My heart skipped a beat, caught fire, was baptized, became a Christian. But now it's time to test your faith. Don't renounce. Killed. They buried it in a common grave, so that the church did not even recognize your name. And you were.
Many have given up. And the tongue does not turn to blame them. Life is a gift, it is a value. And some kind of just fiery holy love for Christ is needed to prove faithfulness to death. That is why the church honors the martyrs so much. As betrayal is the lowest crime, so martyrdom is the highest feat of fidelity. But there were forsaken. And there weren't just one or two. To be a believer and renounce is the gravest sin. Is it possible to say that the martyrs were "lucky" and the renunciates were not?
And the times of heresies? They are enough now. Just count how many people were born in another faith, another denomination, how many people live in outright heresy. Let them live in a good house in Oklahoma, but at the same time they go to a church that is very far from the traditions of Christianity.
The idea is clear. Salvation has never been easy. There are always fewer winners. There were single saints chosen by God. But to be based on units against millions of "ordinary" destinies is wrong. Salvation has always been difficult. And that is why the question of the eternity of hell becomes so important.
I have developed my own attitude towards this issue. I decided for myself that the words of the Gospel (the direct words of Christ) are true. Hell is truly eternal. But - with a number of important clarifying thoughts.
Who deserves hell?
This is one of the most important questions. I found the answer for myself - "the one who never showed mercy." In other words, not able to love. A callous person who lives only for himself. Well, the one who destroyed himself with terrible vices like drunkenness.Of course, I have to substantiate my position. Indeed, in Orthodoxy there is an opinion about ordeals, in which ALL the sins of a person are tested (after all, I am focusing on the inability to love). Why do I place such emphasis on mercy and the absence or presence of kindness?
Because, in my opinion, the word "judgment" - a little does not accurately convey the meaning. It seems to me that behind the coffin there is not so much a "trial" as a "test" of a person who came from the quarantine zone. Imagine how a patient is brought from a plagued planet and doctors in the isolation room do blood tests to determine if the arrival is sick?
What is the difference here, you ask? The difference is that the court punishes crimes. In a sense, this option is better for us. If we do not realize ourselves committing a crime, we can be calm. We are not obliged to love the judge, and in general - the court can be deceived.
Test - the concept is more rigid. At the same time leaving God in the position of infinitely loving and merciful. Simply put, the concept of "test" combines the eternity of hell with the mercy of God. Because the test reveals whether we are suitable for life in the kingdom of heaven?
OK then. And how to understand it?
Let's imagine that we are sending a child to a music school. First, listening. What will educators expect? That the child will have a sense of rhythm (he must repeat a simple rhythm after the teacher), that the child has a hearing (the child will have to repeat the note after the teacher, sing it). Can a child be called a musician? No. But he has potential. He can be trained. He has what is called a talent.
Here earthly life is "listening" before life after death. In conditions "close to combat", we show how we can do something important for the sky. And what is the main thing for the sky? What characterizes Ray? What skill, if you like, is the main thing in Paradise? Eureka. The ability to love. Holy love unites those who live in Paradise. And therefore, let a person fall, but if he crawls and crawls FOR THE SAKE OF LOVE (to God and people) - he has a "heavenly ear", "you can work with him."
And if in a lifetime a person has not even shown a craving and desire to love? He left his wife or husband at the first difficulties, he forgot about his elderly father and mother. If he does not love his relatives, how can you expect to love someone else? What will such a person hear in a private trial? "Guilty"? More like "He's not ready". By the way, this phrase is often heard by people in a state of clinical death. For Paradise, you can be "not ready." This is the formula of condemnation. Endured by an infinitely loving God.
Probably, here you can start up and say "well, what if a person is simply forgiven and accepted into the holy community"? I guess, just guess, that the soul is not a computer program that I took and rewrote. The soul has a certain, if you like, structure. As the pianist's fingers become long and graceful, as the muscles of an athlete become strong, the soul also develops certain "feeling" parts. And if a person did not love during his lifetime, and did not love precisely with a holy, heavenly love, he will be born into eternity (he will die in body, but be born in spirit) with a tiny, shrunken heart. He simply will not be able to withstand Paradise.
And who then in all this universal scheme is God? Christians call God the "good shepherd" - the shepherd. But we have a beautiful, modern, appropriate word - "tutor". Ahead is a cosmic exam, where the ability to love is tested.
And today God says "I will teach you to love, just listen to my word and follow my commandments ... they are all about love. I myself will take the exam and I know in advance what questions I ask. And I tell you today - love God and your neighbor as yourself, and you will live forever." Love contains everything. He who loves and is full of this feeling will not "sanctify his hand with a blow" on other people's faces, will not slander, gossip, rejoice in someone else's misfortune and someone else's unbelief, will not look like an embittered wolf cub.
“Go away, I don’t know you,” the Lord will say to many. We may find ourselves in this woeful crowd. It seems that they put crosses on themselves, and reposted quotes from saints, and liked smart spiritual thoughts. But the holy truth is that agreeing with a thought does not make our heart bigger. Consent and like under the picture with an athlete will not grow my muscles! The heart must yearn for love, train. And any life and any wallet is submissive to this. You don't have to be rich or poor, sick or healthy. You can love in any state and in any social position. God will not ask us the impossible.
How to train? Yes, simple. I saw an idea with which I do not agree - keep silent. They insulted you - shut up. I saw a friend of a friend - please with a compliment, a pleasant word. I saw a beggar - give me a penny. There are dead relatives in the family - go to the temple, order a magpie for the repose, show love for the deceased (and prove it, donate time and a ruble). Do not load and do not torment anyone with your problems, but be ready to listen to your brother, wipe other people's tears. It didn’t work out - he broke loose, was rude, said too much - repent, apologize, make your own heart cry, imagine someone else’s pain and sympathize with her.
And then eternal hell will not be about us...
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