Laboratory of Development
Laboratory of Development is a project based on the experience I’ve been gathering for 35 years studying the knowledge systems, practices and doctrines of the basic ethnic groups all over the world. The practice base thus developed is in fact a method for human improvement and development.
The basic doctrine featured in this project is the Taoist since it provides the world with the most clear and verified paths to studying the human nature. The learning method developed helps study in depth not only the Taoist but also any other world tradition.
All knowledge and practices in the Laboratory of Development are divided into five trends according to their task: filling, structuring, building of symmetry, developing rhythm and concentration.
People may consider development only this, which develops their human qualities. What regulates these human qualities are the experiences that correspond to Man. They are determined by certain energy indicators that correspond to human nature. Any other indicators are related to either the nature of lower vibration conditions or the one of higher conditions.
Experiences that correspond to Man
- sensuous
- temporary
- spatial
- transformational experiences
- experiences of creation
Whatever we say about development, it will always involve an internal dependence of the experiences – initially on the human experiences, and then on a higher level – on the superhuman experiences, i.e. the experiences that have a nature higher than the human, yet Man is still capable of percieving and experiencing them.
Superhuman experiences
- experiencing pulsation
- experiencing perfection
- experiencing superconscious efforts
- experiencin g rebirth
In order to understand the nature of experiences we must first know the nature of the effort. This will help us not only to grasp the experience but - what’s more important - to nurture it. In the spaces where human will can operate there are 13 such experiences.
Thus, development is about improving one’s personal qualities and this is determined in relation to each particular individual: is he capable or incapable of improving his natural characteristics.
However this is where we encounter one of the biggest challenges: how do we start, how do we determine what it is that man needs? How do we develop the primary need – the need to develop ourselves? In other words, willingly or unwillingly, until Man understands development itself, he will always be faced with a dilemma that will consistently remain unresolved. Thus to one unknown we’ll be adding another.
It turns out that Man must develop himself in order to free himself from the dilemma, in other words to learn to apply his self to his own actions. However since the very notion of the essence of development is missing, Man must first start by learning how to study.
Here we are faced with a number of conditions that determine not only Man’s studying process but also his behaviour. Until Man understnads that development is an art, he will simply find external applied meanings for it, which will reduce development to a set of professionally studied activites. And this will, sooner or later, limit Man or else he will start feeling satsified with this only.
In fact, development is necessary for self-identification and for the identification of the tasks we are working on. Age is also very important here. In any case it is crucial that we understand what is it that we are developing and what kind of knowledge this is. And most importantly, we must understand our attitude toward this knowledge.
Naturally all this is very hard to handle in case we do not understand in which direction we are supposed to be moving forward. However the direction is not enough, we also need a primary effort. We must necessarily follow the verbal development so as no to go astray into unknown and uncontrollable actions.
Development must always be combined with an understanding or else we will not comprehend the art of studying which must be based on the method. Without the method, which should determine basically everything that we do, nothing will work out, so here we should not hide behind the tradition, which is somehow supposed to solve everything for us. The true tradition is where the method is. Simply earlier when people lived with better developed sensitive characteristics, the non-verbal was clear for them, however today it is considered esoteric, i.e. something unknown.
Verbal development is what has a clear and definite concept. Non-verbal development is a set of indicators that Man must nurture; however at this point he’s still unable to determine them. Interestingly enough, if we start to understand verbal development, then we’ll realize that it is more verbal than the nonverbal in relation to the verbal.
Let’s imagine for example that one man starts to study math. At first glance everything seems normal: there are laws, there are rules, exercises. However he can only remember the provided material, and even if he starts to confidently operate with it, he will not be able to develop through this.
Why? Because he lacks concentration, he lacks the effort that will grow along with his progress in studying this subject. What’s more his very idea of concentration has been changed, which often leads to a dead-lock where he becomes unable to form a proper effort in his brain. What happens to him then? The volume of his left hemisphere gradually increases and roughly speaking the frequency of his left hemisphere changes. Thus he starts to enhance the distortion within his head, which is in fact a process of desynchronization.
In such a state Man can follow the instructions but cannot understand his own condition, nor what he’s doing and why. And if he keeps improving in math, i.e. if he keeps distorting the effort in his brain, sooner or later an irreparable shift will occur that will lead to a certain degree of madness.
Thus even the most exact of all sciences math sooner or later turns man into an esoteric, unless of course he is by nature endowed with a steady mind (as an exception). So instead of using math for the structuring of the brain, we are in fact using it to create a distortion in it by following the path of verbal knowledge in the direction of the nonverbal.
In this way by studying an exact science we get a non-exact brain. The conclusion is clear: if the studying of exact sciences is not prepared properly, then sooner or later we become esotericists.
Let’s take a different example: a man who has started practicing yoga or Taiji quan. What does he face first of all? A passionary who serves rather as a group leader, and not so much as someone who teaches something.
And if we ask such a man what yoga is to him, he will say a load of thing he himself doesn’t understand. For to call something by its name does not necessarily mean that you understand it. This is the gravest problem of modern times: we call things by names that we do not in fact understand. As a result we get involved in a number of things we do not really understand, things that we call yoga or something else.
Man simply chooses a certain cloak in the form of a beautiful or unusual name and – completely unwittingly – hides himself behind it. Naturally sooner or later while hidden behind this cloak he will turn into an esoteric (quite sooner than by studying math, in fact).
This is why in our case we have to start with fragments, where this fragmentariness should be based on the tasks we are working on. What we should understand here necessarily is that they should be linked together by the method.
The human mind – while being not yet in the control of its owner – will always find for him (the owner) an explanation and a hint for some already developed dependence on an uncontrolled effort. The mind will say: ‘I want to do esotericism, I want to sing, dance, draw, in a nutshell, I want to look for inspiration!’ so the person goes looking for the Muse, and meanwhile he either sings or waits for the Muse to come.
Ask the artist: ‘How do you draw?’. And he will reply: ‘I draw when I feel inspired!’. This is an even dumber mode of existence. Man undergoes certain experiences however he cannot develop them or be in them. He can merely use them and depend on them. This is a person who is by nature endowed with an effort of a higher level that allows him to have experiences, however he chooses from the very beginning to be dependent on these efforts instead of developing them. In other words he sets up a certain game along the lines ‘I say something, I do something’, confusing practice for theory and theory for practice.
Thus a person who was born to develop does not have the opportunity to really develop because he lacks the necessary external and internal conditions. Therefore even in the directions that we can correlate to development Man is blocked by either his own personal factor or by the factor of the person who teaches him and as a result he cannot understand what he should in fact study.
The following question arises: what should we do? First of all we should not think that there must necessarily be a teacher and that there is in fact a teacher who can teach us. It might well be true that we cannot still build ourselves a house, and there’s no one who can build us a hose, however this does not mean that we should not start preparing the materials we’ll need for it. We have to collect a constructor, i.e. a set of materials that we can later understand how to put together or perhaps someone can show us how to put together, however we need to have them prepared beforehand! Just imagine how many people just sit and wait … Imagine that a teacher appears and they have not prepared any materials! The teacher will tell them: ‘In order to develop you need this, this, this and this…’. And they’ll reply ‘But we want a house built!’. And he will reply: ‘A house! But you have no wood nor bricks!’
Most frequently in this case people do not start collecting the necessary instruments and materials but they say: ‘This is a bad teacher! We’ll wait for someone who will come to us with his own materials!’ And in fact it sometimes so happens that someone appears with a dump truck. And he’s heralded with joy: ‘Here’s a true teacher! Build me a house!’ And the teacher actually builds it. However it so turns out that the man – even if he’s been capable of something – while waiting for this teacher has forgotten how to live, how to prepare himself, he’s forgotten how to enjoy things. So he says: ‘But where’s my development? I have a house yet I’m unhappy?’
So often we wait for help and we expect the effort to come from outside instead of accepting a certain development concept, for example that of becoming a Perfect Man or changing our geometry. For this would require a certain self-preparation!
Teaching is about providing a measurement, however measurement appears where there’s continuity. If the process is discontinuous then it consists of discrete forms that must necessarily be put together, which again requires that we understand continuity or else the measurement of experience will change over into a form.
This, of course, is not a bad thing in case measurement shapes a form that contains an effort, i.e. a form with a correct geometry. This is where the nature of true development lies, since the effort is what can elucidate for man the difference between: filling, proportion, the axis, concentration and rhythm.
Moreover the effort can be developed even with the help of rotten boards. However, it is one thing when we start without even thinking about why we need to study (and generally what principles does the one who teaches us follow, and does this studying disturb us or does it help us), and another – when we believe that we are studying something.
Let’s imagine we are following a certain teacher. Sometimes many years pass and it turns out that we do not have the tools to reach better results. Then we haven’t even understood what model of studying we’ve been going through! We’ve in fact been doing everything in good faith and we’ve been waiting for nonverbal results, but we haven’t really participated in the building process. This may go on for the first three years but from that point on we must have the necessary materials.
If you have not learned to be a carpenter, a bricklayer, a house painter, you can not build a house. You will not have a house but some pieces of a house. What’s more you should also be able to put the roof on top! And if in 10 years you do not understand what development is, if you don’t understand that you need to put together and not simply learn the theory, the form, or the exercise, then you have not yet begun!
An additional challenge lies also in the fact that you can eventually build a high wall, which however will not make up a house. Perhaps it can sometimes provide you shade from the sun, yet this is the maximum it can do. If you haven’t understood the concept of proportions or the axis, then where can you form the effort?
And if people know from the very beginning that they need to put together something, that they should have a constructor, and this constructor should contain? Generally, no matter what you do, you should remember that you may well be building only a wall. This is why we need to know what the constructor should contain, and only after this we may require from someone the scheme for how to build.
All of these actions reveal also the nature of the natural efforts that are formed in the body by the space we live in.
The five natural efforts
- the gathering effort
- the tension effort
- the pressure effort
- the filling effort
- the effort of content
These very efforts determine development in the beginning. The first thing that’s in our constructor is filling. How can we develop ourselves if this is not ‘cool’? Ask any man if he wants everything to be always good, and if he wants to be the best? After all, the most interesting thing is to have more than the next man. But if your cart is smaller than that of the next man, how can you have more? Of course, you can endlessly pour gasoline into the tank, but this will not increase the tank itself.
So, if we want to fill ourselves (and this is exactly what we want to do), then we need to have a good tank. You’ll say: "I want the biggest tank!". No problem, make it very-very big! Then you’ll ask: "How?". Well, everything is in the constructor: you have to create the most substantial cube. But in order to make it the most substantial, you need to maximize its balance, you need have a reference point. Again, everything is in the constructor! We must build the form so that it can grow, i.e. from the bottom up.
You start building, and you build and build, however it turns out that this is not enough, so you want to have the largest form. Then it’s not just about the balance, you need to also have a certain tension in the process, i.e. you need additional effort. Because, as it turns out, the house needs to have strength or else it will collapse! So you say: ‘ What I need is not the largest but the strongest one!’
And then you have to understand the process of structuring: how can you strengthen your form. Essentially, here we must pull ourselves to the next level of knowledge – the knowledge of the effort, which will free us from the dependence on the previous force, and will manage to elevate us.
To this end we move on to the next phase of forming the effort that will free us from the dependence on the space we live in. Here we must already understand the difference between the first and the second step, for this is when we’ll know if we’ve already started doing something.
At a certain stage we must be able to control several things simultaneously, therefore the degree to which you’ve developed your concentration will determine whether you can continue with your attempts to correct things. And all this is in the constructor!
If you don’t have concentration, if you don’t understand what concentration is, you’ll never be able to maintain 3-4 things at the same time. When he lacks concentration man surely misses certain things, he simply does not take them into account.
Let’s presume for example that as a result of hard work we have understood the form, synchronization, and how to maintain them all, and we can fill ourselves. So then here we get to the greatest thing of all: we are moving away from the thought ‘I need a lot’ and we come to the conclusion ‘I need something that has strength’. It turns out that this ‘a lot’ has no power, it only destroys. It turns out that having a lot of high quality power is in fact the very idea of development! So where is this ‘a lot of high-quality’? And where is this power? It turns out that only the power can determine how much you can maintain, so it all comes down to the art of nurturing the power (if we would like a lot, anyway).
But in order to have a great power, we must strengthen the power of our work with force. And here, in order to strengthen the force by force, we are confronted with the fact that ‘a lot’ does not work - it is a matter of the naturally developed efforts within us! And again we must turn to the constructor. Where is that pulse, that respiration, which allows us to build this power? It turns out that we can strengthen ourselves only by following a specific rhythm, and not by following the principle of desire.
As a result, we arrive at the most important issue: the law of power is the law of crystallization, and nature demonstrates this in the most convincing manner. What is the strongest crystal? Diamond. Why are people so eager to get diamonds? Because they are thus implicitly seeking development.
It turns out that the Man - who has lost his true vision, his real sensuous perception of the space in which he lives (along with a change in the density of our space) - must learn to use the new features of his consciousness and build himself. It is important not to get involved in any process here, but to be able to put one and one together in this process. How? We must be aware
- how we understand the rhythm,
- how we are focused,
- if our form is ready,
- how much does our nature or synchronization allow us to do all this,
- how capable are we to fill ourselves through what we do.
And we must consider all these five conditions simultaneously. If we do not use even only one of them (e.g., discipline), we break the rhythm of the building process! You can not build one part of the house, then go for a walk, and then go back and proceed, for it may have meanwhile fallen down or rotted. Today, when we talk about development, we need to understand where we can find this development laboratory, which can help us to preserve this development.
The eight accumulated efforts that free us from space:
- the effort of naturalness
- the effort prenatal geometry
- the effort of proportionality
- the effort of synchronization
- the effort of concentration
- the spatial effort
- the effort of rhythm
- the effort of transformation.
And, of course, you must understand that only the properly developed mind can handle all these efforts.
Questions and Answers
‘Using Math for the structuring of the brain’ - does this refer to developing analysis, organizing and linking information, and to extending our knowledge and skills so as to fill ourselves through all this?
Yes! Only it’s not so much about mathematics but rather about the ability to learn.
19 may 2012
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