Theological school
All antiquity was not characterized by a strong consciousness of school, for the assimilation of this or that knowledge as quickly as possible. short term, possibly to a wider range of students. The principle of not only the intensity of thought and its depth, but also its extensiveness, widest prevalence and possible accessibility, even at the cost of its simplification and flatness - this is the principle of the new European culture, which has conquered our earthly “universe” with its universal accessibility. Having captured us a quarter of a millennium later than the Western peoples, this process of schooling all the ramifications of life could not help but run into the natural inertia of passive resistance. After the opening under Tsar Fedor of the highest school according to the plan - the “Academy” in the Zaikonospassky Monastery, systematic school reproduction and development did not begin immediately, despite even the close example of Kievan and southwestern Rus'. The most book-loving bishops and abbots of monasteries were jealous of the “veneration of books,” that is, the reproduction of copies of ancient books stored in the libraries of a monastery or bishop’s house. They were jealous of the creation of an apparatus of “discipline”. Church education stood for centuries at the level of teaching and random personal talents. From an excess of personal talents and from the instinct of writing, a certain increase in this “what” bookishness also happened by chance. But the thought of actively enlarging it, retelling it “in our own way,” and especially teaching this “retelling” did not arise. To teach and learn meant: - to be able to read and write and - that’s all. Hence the strangeness of the general impression of the Russian Middle Ages, which lasted from Tatar yoke, as if Russian monasticism and the bishops, enriching the believing people with literacy alone, were stingy, regretted spending material resources on schools and at the same time spent them on church construction, on decorating churches and on their rich noble life. Such an explanation of centuries-old Russian schoollessness would be a slander against the never-ending energy of monastic piety and zeal, not to mention the heroes of holiness and heroism. No, it’s just that the category of development of the mind, thought, science and human earthly culture in general was absent from the teachings of the Orthodox Church. Zeal for culture belonged to the cares of this world. This is a matter for kings and the state. The Church accepted this under its own control and under its own conditions. But she didn’t consider this to be her direct “business.” This is the “minimum” of enlightenment, thought and bookishness necessary for the cult, which she cherished and carried safely through all the centuries of devastation, military defeats and national disasters. On the foundation of education preserved by the church, peoples and states could easily build their general secular, utilitarian education. This was actually the case in the East and especially here in Rus'.
Byzantine Christian enlightenment, which was still blooming in its ancient roots, was extinguished by the power of Islam. Only the onset of Latinism, armed with a school, prompted the Eastern hierarchs to cry out for the creation of a school in Russia for the entire East. The Latin offensive in southwestern Rus' forced the latter, like it or not, to create church schools. And yet these demands of the time did not find a strong-willed response in Moscow - III Rome. It was precisely the detachment from the much-learned but heretical West that experimentally, visually justified the unspoken in words, but deep-seated conviction in the Russian Orthodox heart that culture is not at all necessary for the salvation of the soul, that it is a foreign matter for the church, even tolerable, but in every way. case seductive.
So, the theological school and new Orthodox literature throughout the East, but especially in Russia, were not considered an indisputable church value and were not part of the consciousness of the bishop's and monastic calling and duty, even in the sense of simple ambition and ostentatious merit in public opinion. The banner of the newborn Old Believers surrounded the general church schoollessness with an aura of some traditional virtue and did not make it easier for possible zealots of schoolliness to have the courage to go against this primordial feature of Russian piety. In a word, awakening the Russian hierarchy and Russian monasteries to the pathos of school activity was a difficult, even unnatural task. The call to science and school did not say anything to the mind or heart of the Russian monk and bishop. It was not materialism, not selfish hoarding and the selfishness of gluttony that made the Russian hierarchy deaf and unable to advance the cause of school theological education, but honest conservatism and the almost fanaticism of schoollessness. The last, typically traditional, schoolless and anti-school patriarch Adrian indifferently watched as the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy in Moscow was destroyed in every sense and came to naught before his eyes.
In order to create a theological school in such a hostile atmosphere to the point of mysticism, Peter’s “club” was inevitable. But the club is not a creative force. Once creative power was not in Moscow, it was necessary to take her on the side. This is where it was almost inevitable that the school Varangians, who in their own virtuous manner fulfilled their historical duty, were called from outside, from the Kiev region, to Great Russia.
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What else could Peter the Great have done to inculcate “enlightenment” in general, including specifically ecclesiastical and theological enlightenment, if not borrow it from outside? Fortunately, this borrowing came not from someone else’s, but from its own Russian source. Only by the play of historical accidents was it temporarily fenced off from the younger center, however, by the will of fate, now placed by the collector great empire. The source was the Kyiv school - a copy of the Latin-Polish model. Bookish people from the Kiev region and southern schools poured into the Muscovite movement in a significant wave after 1654. Peter V., after the death of Patriarch Adrian (1700), a typical Great Russian opponent of his Western reforms, had already decisively transferred the entire church matter and, in particular, the church- school supplies into the hands of Kiev residents. And he honored (1701) the Kyiv school with the name of the Academy in comparison with the faded Academy in Moscow. He entrusted the latter to the care of a newcomer from Kyiv simply for episcopal consecration to Stefan (Yavorsky). He exceptionally temporarily entrusted all church affairs and the decaying Academy in particular to Stefan. Stefan simply copied all the rules of Kyiv, invited Kyiv teachers, with Kyiv textbooks, dividing students into classes and with total teaching of everything in Latin.
Following this example and direct directives from Metropolitan. Stephen, his fellow countrymen - the southerners - were inspired to sincerely open schools in their dioceses, something that the Great Russians had not yet “swinged to” right away. Already in 1700, Archbishop John (Maksimovich, now canonized) opened a school in Chernigov. In Rostov Yaroslavl in 1702, bishop. Demetrius (Tuptalo, also canonized). In Tobolsk (1703) Metropolitan. Filofey (Leshchinsky, also a Little Russian). In Novgorod in 1706, Metropolitan. Job is a Great Russian. Job of Novgorod, like Afanasy Kholmogorsky, schoolless Great Russians themselves, belonged to that breed of people of great common sense who have overcome the narrow obscurantism of their environment. These people were a delight to the “enlightenment” Peter, and he distinguished and valued them.
There was still no voluntary desire to go to school. The stick of the law was needed. And so, in order to ensure an influx of students, a law is passed: children of the clergy will no longer be allowed to serve in church positions until they have completed a single level of a special theological school. And the civil government helped this “drive” into theological school by the fact that the law immediately declared that without certificates from theological school, priests would no longer be accepted into any “ranks.” civil service", except, of course, for the "soldier's rank", which was practically frightening, almost on a par with being registered as a serf.
But since regular theological seminaries were still slowly being created in different dioceses, the Petrine government, itself interested in accelerating the pace of public education, ordered, in parallel with special church seminaries, to open primary schools at bishops' houses and large monasteries. secondary schools, so-called "digital". Children of all classes were invited to these schools, and children of the clergy without exception, without fail. Whoever of the children of the clergy deviated was threatened with forced soldiery, and, if malicious, even enrolled in the capitation salary. It’s also good if it’s on state land, or even into landowner slavery. And those who have not even passed this “tsifiri” are prohibited from even being issued a marriage license. One can blame Peter the Great for the cruelty of his construction, school, and military enterprises. But you also need to understand it. Our historian Golubinsky, quoting the chronicler's testimony about the tears of the mothers of the advanced Russian classes, who cried for their children as if they were dead, when St. Vladimir mobilized them for aristocratic school preparation for higher state and church service, is sadly surprised at this spontaneous resistance to the light of science and then blames his people for their lack of taste for school throughout their subsequent history. It must be admitted that, despite all the extremes of Golubinsky’s conclusions, in this observation of his there is something precisely noticed in the character of the Russian people. It is not so easy to mechanically apply to such a people the methods of government that are suitable to many other peoples.
The year 1721 arrived. The patriarchate was abolished. A government body, the Holy Synod, was placed at the head of the management of church affairs. Its constitution - the Spiritual Regulations - now on behalf of the supreme authority prescribed: in each diocese to open a bishop's school "for the children of priests or others, in the hope of certain priesthood." And this is for a special allocation from the income of the bishop's house. Considering that considerable funds are needed, the regulations establish a new tax in kind for this purpose. This remedy is always heroic. But here the tax is indicated in a very high percentage: collect 30% bread from church lands and 20% from monastery and bishop lands.
It could have been said in advance that such a “heroic” tax would not be able to be implemented, and the programmatic height school disciplines will not be achieved soon, except for rare exceptions. And so it happened. This is what Theophan wrote in the Spiritual Regulations.
Feofanov's school, by today's standards, is a secondary school, and even by the Kyiv example, a high school. Elementary literacy is tacitly assumed to have already been achieved, whether in digital schools or anywhere else. Here is the content of the stages - years - classes in Feofan: year I - grammar, geography, history; II - arithmetic and geometry; III - logic and dialectics; IV - rhetoric and speech; V - physics and metaphysics; VI - politics. Metaphysics can be carried over into this class; VII - VIII grades are devoted to theology. Languages taught all the time: Church Slavonic, Latin, Greek and Hebrew. For educational purposes, a system of hostel life “in the style of a monastery” is being introduced, completely unknown to Moscow. The rector, prefect, guards and students live together. Students are separated from their free home environment whenever possible and rarely see their families. “From such upbringing and teaching one can truly hope for great benefit to the fatherland.”
According to the program of the Regulations, new schools began to open: two in St. Petersburg. Metropolitan Theodosius (Yanovsky) opened a seminary in the capital's Alexander Nevsky Monastery. Feofan Prokopovich, who was the Pskov Archbishop at that time, but was a Permanent Member of the Synod and, at the request of Peter, built himself a wooden house in St. Petersburg on the river. Karpovka, and built wooden buildings for the seminary there. These two capital seminaries, and they were also joined in Nizhny Novgorod, were the first to be opened under the Spirit program. Regulations. But they, like other bishops’ schools both before and after this year, were not yet complete. They grew as teachers and students were found. In 1722, theological schools were opened in Tver and Belgorod. In 1723 - in Kazan, Vyatka, Kholmogory, Kolomna. In 1724 in Ryazan, in Vologda. The Synod oversaw them through its Office of Schools and Printing Houses. From the moment of the opening of these seminaries, the clergy undertook to send their children to them instead of the previous obligation to enroll them in digital schools. And these latter, since they were maintained by bishops, were closed and merged with new theological schools. The universal “school duty” for children of the clergy was confirmed by a decree of the Synod (1723), with reference to the “will of the Sovereign”, that parents for evasion are deprived of their positions, and children are enrolled in a capitation salary.
Despite the formidable laws, the new spiritual school cause did not find sympathy among the clergy of Great Russia itself. It seemed like a “foreign” matter not only because it was handed over, as it were, to the Little Russians as a monopoly, but also because it was presented in the shell of the Latin heretical language. It was difficult for the Great Russian to overcome this instinctive repulsion from Latin, to which the Little Russians had long been accustomed. The children of the clergy were taken to the diocesan city for a school inspection, semi-examined, and sorted according to their abilities. But it was not possible to gather everyone. They were hidden by both relatives and strangers. Agents of the Monastic Order searched for the fugitives and brought them in as prisoners in shackles. Others pretended to be fools. Knowing this method of deception, once performed by David in order not to fall into the hands of the Philistines, the Spiritual Regulations prescribed that these deserters of science be subjected to a year-long test. The clergy and monasteries themselves sabotaged the grain collections allocated for the maintenance of theological schools. And the authorities that established the schools were powerless to supply them with a sufficient number of teachers. The Synod itself, feeling its powerlessness, allowed, in order not to fail the whole thing, to be content in the new theological schools with grammar, arithmetic and a short catechism. Not up to Latin, not up to Greek! With such almost spontaneous passive resistance, it is not surprising that after the death of Peter the Great, a number of these embryonic seminaries simply withered away and closed. Against the background of this instinctive everyday sabotage of the theological school by the Great Russian clergy, it is not surprising that in the post-Petrine era, only the Little Russian hierarchs were distinguished by special school-theological activism. Ep. Gabriel (Buzhinsky) restored the decaying seminary in Ryazan, bishop. Gideon (Vishnevsky) - in Smolensk. Irkutsk bishops Innokenty (Kulchitsky - canonized) and Innokenty (Nerunovich) opened schools in their distant Siberia. In Pskov in 1725 he opened a theological school of Bishop. Rafail (Zaborovsky). Bishop in Kharkov Epiphany Tikhorsky opened a collegium in 1726, which then developed brilliantly.
With the accession of Anna Ioannovna (1730), Feofan (Prokopovich) became the “dictator” of church affairs. He made special efforts to realize as much as possible his dreams of a theological school, which he outlined in Spirits. Regulations. Already in the manifesto on her accession, the new empress indicated that theological schools should be opened in all dioceses in accordance with the letter of the Spirits. Regulations. And since forced discoveries in all dioceses were limited to very elementary schools, a new personal decree of 1737 demanded that a course in secondary educational institutions in relation to the Spirit be introduced everywhere. Annual reports to the Synod were made according to the regulations. Bishop's schools were transformed into "Slavic-Latin seminaries." An example was the Kyiv Academy. And the established “Slavic-Russian” schools became lower preparatory schools for secondary schools, that is, for seminaries. This is how the prototype of the future “theological schools” of the 19th century was formed. By the end of Anna Ioanovna's reign (1740), there were already 17 seminaries such as secondary schools. However, this was only a “type” of secondary schools, but not the completeness of their subjects and levels. There were not enough teachers or material resources. Even Anna’s “cabinet” government, which took control of the entire economy of church lands, became convinced in practice that it was beyond the power of the bishops to develop a full program of theological schools, even just from the material side. In 1738, the question of government “staff” for seminaries was raised for the first time. But “temporarily and for now” only three “prominent” seminaries received various allocations: St. Petersburg Nevsky, Novgorod and Kazan. St. Annin’s cruel “analysis” reduced the number of candidates for seminaries, and this was matched by a shortage of teachers themselves. So in reality it turned out that students had to be recruited into schools by force and they were barely able to teach them grammar, not even getting to rhetoric, not to mention philosophy. It was only in the Kharkov Collegium that they rose to theology.
Under the pious Empress Elizabeth, staff benefits were retained only for two academies: Kyiv and Moscow. But the church authorities, which again received the old land farms under their control, received better opportunities to raise funds for the development of theological schools. And indeed, by the time of the reign Peter III and Catherine II, 8 more new seminaries were opened, and their total number grew to 26 with a total number of students of 6,000. But many of them had not yet reached the level of theological classes. The first place in terms of the number of students was still occupied by the academy in Kyiv. In the middle of the 18th century, there were 1,200 students there, while in Moscow there were at most 600 and some years only 200.
At the same time, with this growth of theological schools, a spontaneous change occurred in the essence of school theology itself. In addition to Moscow’s borrowing from Kyiv of the Latin-Roman interpretation of dogma and morality that was dominant there both in form and in essence, already under Peter the Great the school struggle that flared up there between the dominant Roman Catholic and Protestant trends was transferred to us from the same Kiev source. A bright representative The last minority movement appeared in Great Russia, Feofan Prokopovich. If he had not been a “charmer” for Peter V. in matters of ecclesiastical practicality, the Latin-Roman direction of all school theology could have prevailed for a long time. Moreover, to the schoolless Moscow zealots of all ranks, the pathos of the Latinizing Kyivans seemed dearer, more Orthodox than Peter’s heretical nonsense, which wafted from Feofan, Peter’s friend, and St. Petersburg’s Germans.
But the victory of the talented Theophan and his Protestant trend was won by him on Kyiv soil, for there he found both his sympathetic response and his school continuation. The fight was moved in flagrante to Moscow. And here, in the younger generation of theologians, with a spontaneous instinct, they decided to prefer the Feofanovsky concept, despite its obvious “excesses” towards Protestantism for the students themselves.
The old Kyiv professors, Theophylact (Lopatinsky), Joasaph (Krokovsky) followed Aristotle in philosophy, and Thomas Aquinas in theology. The new ones chose Baumeister and a new philosophy: Descartes, Leibniz, Wolf. Following the example of Theophanes, professors Sylvester (Kulyabko) and George (Konissky) read theology under the anti-Latin leadership of Protestants, but all in the same pan-European Latin language. The Orthodox confession of faith of Peter (Mogila) was studied according to its Latin text. And only in 1759, at the direction of the Kyiv Metropolitan Arseny (Mogilyansky), they began to cram its text in a Russified Church Slavonic arrangement. From Kyiv, this new trend of Latinizing and Russifying theological science was even more readily accepted at the Moscow “Academy” by its teachers, who came from the same Kiev region. The turn away from the Roman Catholic monopoly in the school took place irrevocably, but it was slow until the new local theologians, the Great Russians, grew up and became stronger.
With the accession of Catherine II to the throne, the Great Russian hierarchs, ready to accept the secularization of immovable church property, rightly expected to receive serious compensation for their readiness for this reform from the state budget for the reconstruction, in particular, of theological schools. By the hand of secular secularizers, in the instructions of the Commission on Church Estates of 1762, on behalf of Catherine II, a merciless characterization of the then state of theological schools was written: “40 years have passed since their appearance, but to this day the bishop’s seminaries consist of a very small number of worthy and reliable students, in a poor institution for science and in poor content, today's seminarians are usually taught Latin and in some places. Greek languages from unskilled teachers, do not know other teachings than the very first and school foundations Latin language: they do not study philosophical and moral sciences, they do not know church or civil history, the position of the earthly circle and the places on which they live in the opinion of other peoples are lower. They are recruited into the seminary from their fathers and mothers, mostly against their will, and are kept indiscriminately.”
This gloomy description served as a preface to the subsequent commission of a special commission under St. The Synod should draw up a plan for the transformation of theological schools. The commission was made up of people of the new hierarchical shift, from the Great Russians: Bishop Gabriel of Tver (Petrov), Bishop of Pskov Innokenty (Nechaev) and Hieromonk Platon (Levshin). The commission, apparently, was in a “great power” mood. It is proposed to free the Moscow Academy from secondary school classes, reduce it only to the highest course of theological disciplines, and call it the Theological University. Kievskaya should be left as is. And secondary schools-seminaries are divided into two categories, into senior seminaries - in St. Petersburg, Novgorod, Yaroslavl and Kazan, and into junior seminaries in all other dioceses. The latter were thought of as ordinary schools for the preparation of an ordinary parish priest. But just as junior seminaries were devoted to church disciplines and general education at the secondary school level, then for the completion of primary literacy, in this case, not only children of the clergy, but also all others, it is assumed in each diocese, with 3-4 monasteries, establish lower and primary schools with the pretentious name of “gymnasiums”. These junior schools were no longer thought to be closed to class, but open to everyone and serving the national tasks of public education in general. This idea of serving the education of the people is generally carried out in the project and even deeper, to the end. For the sake of the systematic and all-encompassing, educational influence of the church on the people's soul, this project includes the idea that late XIX and the beginning of the 20th century. gave the basis for the political struggle against parochial schools and for the monopoly of zemstvo schools. Here our Great Russian hierarchs of Catherine showed sensitivity and perspicacity, fearing the unfavorable consequences for the Christianization of the people's soul and the banner of Peter and Catherine of "enlightenment." They realized that the lower public school should not completely fall into secular hands. That's why our Great Russian hierarchs designed - to bring it closer primary school to the rural lower classes of the people, but the material costs for this, in addition to the labor of teaching, should be covered entirely by church funds. It was proposed that these public schools should be established in deaneries under the close supervision of the dean. And the highest supervision of all school affairs should be entrusted to one of the members of the Synod. In the project outlined, Catherine’s government (as opposed to the new era Alexandra III and Nicholas II) did not see anything hostile to itself, it was even delighted at this zeal of the clergy - to sacrificially contribute to public education and instructed to re-revise this project specifically for lower parochial schools.
But, like many of Catherine II’s broadcast plans, the entire project described was not accepted by the government for implementation. However, his “charge” was not in vain. The Muscovite hierarchs, now deprived of landownership, the more diligently sought regular salaries for theological schools and their increases as they grew internally and multiplied quantitatively. The first funds for schools from the treasury of 1763 after the confiscation of church estates were reduced to 40,000 rubles. per year. In 1784 they were raised to 77,500 rubles. The seminary cost 2,000 rubles per year. Teachers received 150 rubles. per year. There were few devotees of such a teacher's salary. And the established miserable teaching system did not give these workers the opportunity to strengthen their specialization in the sciences. One teacher, or at most two or three, led their class through all levels of the school. Moving to the upper class, they undertook to teach new disciplines in this class, etc. Schools below seminaries, called “district” schools under Catherine II, were not at all provided by the treasury. The bishops and clergy still managed to support them with their own household resources. There could not be one program level of teaching. There were neither the same funds nor the same required teaching staff. In some seminaries school course was performed at 8 years old, in others at 13 (!). Be that as it may, theology was now taught everywhere. And here is another result of new pedagogical trends, Great Russian “modernism”: breaking away from Latin in philosophy and theology, teaching them in their own Russian language. The theology course of Plato (Levshin), written in Russian, became a theology textbook. The discipline and punishment system are modernized based on the "noble ambition" of the students.
The Moscow Academy and Trinity Seminary, through the efforts of Plato (Levshin), teacher, prefect, rector and high leader, were raised above the level of the conservative-provincial Kyiv Academy. In 1788, St. Petersburg Seminary according to the plan of Metropolitan. Gabriel (Petrova) was also increased in the completeness of the disciplines taught in parallel to the newly opened Teachers' Seminary. The goal of the St. Petersburg Main Seminary was the systematic training of teachers for ordinary seminaries. And therefore Met. Gabriel asked the Synod for the right for his seminary to annually call one or two capable students from all provincial seminaries. It was in the order of this call from the Vladimir-Suzdal Seminary, by virtue of this establishment of the Alexander Nevsky Main Seminary in St. Petersburg, that he appeared as capable student, a brilliant teacher, and then Secretary of State and Count the famous M. M. Speransky.
The page was generated in 0.08 seconds! created a school of Absolute knowledge for people.
Contact Mastery Class
with a degree in “Contactor, Lead, Analyst all rolled into one.”
Training is conducted by the Higher Powers from the Great Commonwealth and from the Coalition Council of Peacemakers, Co-creators and Creators.
Since the training takes place in the form of channelings, in the future this training will be conducted by the students themselves, as contactees with the Higher Powers.
Class of Spiritual Development and Personal Improvement
Opened in October 2013. Training is carried out by the Teacher System. Training in this class gives people the opportunity to improve themselves to reach a level of development that allows a person to live in harmony and a state of sphericity and subsequently pass on this experience to other people.
Spherical Formation Class
Spherical Business Class
Spherical Healing Class
On October 14, 2017, the Institute of New Sciences was opened, where new specialties are being taught, research and scientific developments, joint projects are being carried out with the Higher Powers in accordance with the New Earth Development Program.
Explanation from the Peacemakers and the Great Commonwealth (click to show/hide)
School structure.
Who are your Teachers? What school structure is there in the Teacher System of the Theological School of the Absolute.
The school was created on the initiative. On the initiative of the Great Commonwealth, which - we, the Great Commonwealth, needs people. Human guides, human contactees are high-level professionals with whom you can interact in the manifestation of the New Program on Earth, so that people living on Earth can express themselves in this Program more intensively, actively, qualitatively and intelligently, more intelligently.
This initiative was sent to the Coalition Council for consideration by the Absolute. The Absolute was reviewed and given to the Coalition Council, so to speak, let it be in your language of understanding - an order that you can create such a form of education that you yourself think - “What form of education will be acceptable on Earth?”
We, together with the Coalition Council, have determined that a school will be created on the basis of the FED - the Spiritual School of the Absolute, where training will begin and take place in the Russian language of instruction for those wishing to obtain such a profession, and who wish to interact with the Higher Hierarchy of Light to manifest themselves for the benefit of Earth and Earthlings.
It was determined that, together with the Great Commonwealth, they would teach Peacemakers at the school. It was supposed to make a recruitment and maintain this recruitment for three years, and from it get professionals.
But as it showed - the first intake, which was 44 people and who began training, that the people were very superficial, the people were random.
And after all the vicissitudes that occurred with the non-acceptance of the Higher Powers on the FED platform by people, they left and began to develop independently, but without relating themselves to the Higher Hierarchy of Light, but only with the Teacher’s System and Extraterrestrial Civilizations. Their decision was approved - let them leave, but they left ugly, they left scandalously.
And all this made us think - “What is important for people?” How they want to show themselves in their profession.
And we determined that people do not know how to simply live. They do not know how to live in the Light. They are more accustomed to living in a state of duality, a state of a pendulum, a state of antagonism, and so on. Having gone through the path of antagonism, they seem to unite in the Light, and again enter into antagonism - so on ad infinitum.
We made the second set - and the Teachers of Co-creation went there, and it was already determined in advance that there would be a third set, and they would take Creators for training. In order to secure the school, so that there were still professionals and these professionals were real and not imaginary, a structure appeared: the Great Commonwealth, the Coalition Council - one might say in full force, since Peacemakers, Co-creators and Creators - all are manifested as Teachers in Theological school of the Absolute. The Teacher system of the Earth is also involved, meaning Shambhala of the Earth, the Teachers of the Noosphere, who are also manifested in the school, but manifested as observers, as third-party observers who watch the process and, if necessary, make regulation. Regulation among people and regulation of the relationship between people and us.
Student. Student of the Theological School of the Absolute. What is it?
This is a sublimely manifested person. In the sublimity of all your states. All your states of the subtle world. All your states of the Soul. Your state of the Mind, manifestation in the Mind. This is the basis for a student of the Theological School of the Absolute and this is the basis for the profession.
Interaction. Interaction with the Higher Hierarchy of Light at all levels of manifestation of the Higher Hierarchy of Light for the Earth. Interaction at the level of Light with your students, fellow students of all three streams.
Professional. A professional is a generous soul. An open-hearted person. He goes to people in open expression of himself.
The goals of the Spiritual School of the Absolute are to prepare professionals in the “Contact Mastery” class.
The goals of the Theological School of the Absolute are to create an institute. Institute New Science and training of specialists in the fields of this New Science.
The objectives of the Spiritual School of the Absolute are to enable people of any level of manifestation in their development to take part in this action. In the creation, organization and training in such an institute.
The “Contact Mastery” class at the Theological School of the Absolute prepares specialists for teaching at this institute, for creating teaching staff and scientific staff.
Professionals who train in the Contacting Skills class will be prepared by professionals in all areas.
When the contactee-leader can contact any... any level of the Higher Hierarchy of Light on any issue, receive a reliable answer, convey a reliable answer for implementation in accordance with the New Program for the Development of the Earth and the spherical form of development.
This is not a trained specialist with a narrow focus. This is a multi-faceted specialist.
3. Theological school of the Syrian East
1) Syrian Christian education
Let's now move on to next topic- to consider the foundations of theological education in the Syrian East. Despite the difference in cultural soil and historical conditions, the spiritual schools of the Syrian East developed according to a pattern similar to that in which Christian schools developed educational institutions Hellenistic world. However, in the Syrian East we can discover a slightly different intuition, a different concept of spiritual education, which is not without its originality and depth.
The largest centers of Syrian Christian education - the famous academies of Edessa and Nisibin - arose, like Hellenistic schools, on the basis of small catechetical schools at Christian churches. According to Syrian sources, these parochial schools educated only boys. The training began with mastering the basics of literacy in the Psalter and memorizing psalms; Thus, the founder of the Nisibian Academy, Mar Narsay, entered school in the city of Ain Dulba at the age of seven; Thanks to his extraordinary abilities, after nine months he “answered all of David,” that is, he learned the entire Psalter by heart. Further primary education included the study of the Old and New Testaments, as well as the biblical interpretations of Theodore of Mopsuestia. Into the system of this primary education In addition, it included memorizing the most important liturgical chants and some experience in homiletics.
ABOUT early years We have only fragmentary information about the existence of the Edessa Academy. It is known that after Nisibinus was captured by the Persians in 363, many Christians fled from there to Edessa. Among them was Mar Aprem, better known to us under the name of St. Ephraim the Syrian. He founded the famous “school of Persians” (that is, refugees from Persia) in Edessa. “The teaching there can be judged from the biblical commentaries of Rev. Ephraim... It was a Semitic type school, like Jewish schools - a dormitory school, a kind of fraternity. The main subject of teaching subsequently remained the Holy Scripture. It was necessary to learn to read and explain the Bible. The students wrote down and memorized the teacher’s explanations.”
During the life of St. Ephraim and for several decades after his death, the School of Edessa used his interpretations of Scripture as exegetical models. However, in 420, Mar Kiora, one of the successors of the Monk Ephraim as rector of the school, decided to translate the biblical commentaries of Theodore of Mopsuestia into Syriac, which, unlike Ephraim’s commentaries, covered almost all the books of the Bible. After the translation was completed, the interpretations of Theodore of Mopsuestia were superseded into curriculum all other interpretations, and Theodore himself became the main authority in the field of theology and exegesis in the entire East Syrian tradition: he was called nothing less than “Blessed” or “Ecumenical Interpreter”.
As is known, Theodore of Mopsuestia was a representative of the extreme Dyophysite trend in Christology, later identified with Nestorianism. After the condemnation of Nestorius at the Council of Ephesus in 433, suspicion of heresy fell on the entire East Syrian tradition. Disputes between Monophysites and Dyophysites also overwhelmed the Edessa school. In 489, the school was declared a hotbed of Nestorianism and was closed by order of Emperor Zeno. A few years earlier, its leader, Mar Narsai, and his students moved to Nisibin. By the end of the 5th century, the Nisibian school became one of the main spiritual and theological centers of the Syrian Church.
Mar Narsai was an outstanding personality. He lived a long life, which began in the 4th century and ended in the 6th century (399–501). His popularity in Nisibin was very great. He was famous both as an ascetic and as an outstanding interpreter. According to the chronicler, six qualities most of all attracted people to him: the novelty of his thoughts, the ability to behave with dignity, his attractive appearance, responsiveness, kindness and eloquence (the beauty of his teachings). The name of Narsai is associated with the appearance of an interesting document - the “Rules of the Nisibian School”, which we will consider below.
Another famous rector of the Nisibian school was Enana of Adiabene, who headed the school in 572. Under him, an attempt was made to abandon the biblical commentaries of Theodore of Mopsuestia, which Enana wanted to replace with the comments of John Chrysostom and his own. Enana was a bright personality and an outstanding theologian, but the authority of the “Ecumenical Interpreter” remained unshakable, and not only numerous theologians and monks, but also the leadership of the Syrian Church rebelled against Enana. The Local Council of this Church, convened in 585, confirmed the unshakable authority of Theodore, forbidding anyone “to openly or covertly censure this Teacher of the Church or reject his holy books.” Subsequently, two Councils, in 596 and 605, condemned the interpretations of Enana and repeated anathemas against “those who reject the commentaries, interpretations and teachings of the faithful teacher, the blessed Theodore the Interpreter, and try to introduce new and strange interpretations, full of madness and blasphemy.”
Enana belonged to that movement in the Syrian Church that sympathized with the Council of Chalcedon: it was with this that Enana’s desire to free himself from the legacy of the “father of Nestorianism,” Theodore of Mopsuestia, was connected. For quite some time, the struggle between Enana's supporters and his opponents continued in the Nisibian school. Despite the conciliar reprimands of the late 6th century, Enana continued to enjoy authority at the turn of the 6th and 7th centuries, when additional rules of the Nisibian school were promulgated (we will also consider them below): there Enana is called “skilled in knowledge and glorious in humility.”
Let me now say a few words about educational process, curriculum and structure of the Edessa and Nisibian schools. Teaching lasted three years and was divided into two academic semesters - summer and winter. After the propaedeutic course, students began systematic study Holy Scripture, as well as philological, historical and theological disciplines. In addition, Greek philosophy and literature, secular history, geography and rhetoric were studied. The teacher of rhetoric had the title of "mehajnana". Philosophy was studied from primary sources: they read, in particular, the works of Aristotle, Porphyry, as well as Syrian authors. Philosophical disciplines were taught by “baduka”; Among philosophical disciplines, logic occupied one of the first places. Writing and calligraphy classes were taught by a “safra” - a scribe. “McCrayana” taught the rules of reading.
The key figure in the school was the “mepashkana” - the interpreter. His duties included teaching biblical exegesis. Mepashkana used not only the “normative” interpretations of Theodore of Mopsuestia; he could also turn to the interpretations of other Greek and Syrian authors. In addition, there was an oral tradition of interpretation that passed from generation to generation. Mepashkana was usually also the rector, that is, he exercised general spiritual leadership of the school.
Mepashkana-rector was not an administrator: economic and administrative issues were dealt with by “rabbaita” - an economist. He was entrusted with all the property of the school, he was responsible for finances, monitored discipline and was responsible for the maintenance of the library. The position of economist was elective. The assistant steward was a xenodarch, who was responsible, in particular, for the care of the school hospital.
Despite the fact that the rector and the housekeeper enjoyed unconditional authority, the highest authority in the school was not them, but the community meeting, in which both teachers and students always took part (the latter, by virtue of their numerical advantage had the casting vote). At this meeting, all the most important issues related to the activities of the school were discussed. It was there that the economist was elected. It was there that the decision was made to expel one or another offending student from school. All members of the community were accountable to the assembly, including the rector and the economist, who could not make responsible decisions without the consent of other community members.
This structure of the school ensured a high level of mutual trust between, on the one hand, the “professor-teaching corporation”, and on the other, the students. It was unthinkable that a student would be expelled from school by a “secret” verdict of several members of the school administration. Naturally, the attitude towards the economist (who combined in one person the modern positions of inspector, assistant rector for administrative affairs and head of the library) was respectful, since he was not appointed by higher authorities, but was elected by the community itself.
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Here you need to know a lot, be able to, and think a lot. To deserve happiness, the Soul must work, first of all, and then the hands. It doesn't come by itself. It is like gold, it is mined bit by bit through hard work. Only the dirt sticks on its own and spoils not only the suit, but also the condition, mood of the person, his destiny.
The ultimate goal of many spiritual teachings is for a person to become happy, so that every minute of his life brings joy. Happiness is all the components of life; it is when there is a lot of joy and no suffering. You need to learn to make the right choice. If it’s a job, it should be something you love so that it inspires you. You need to find it, and for this you need to understand yourself. The people with whom you communicate, in order to be the ones who love you, do not put anything in your back, do not slander you. To do this, you yourself need to be worthy of true friendship, to be free from many negative qualities. Rest, with great pleasure, so that the soul sings, this is also serious. People spend 40% of their free time in front of the TV, but this is not your happiness - other people’s lives flash there. Happiness is the main or one of the main prizes that a person can receive in his life. To learn to be happy, a person must choose his own Path. High school or the university doesn’t teach this, there are theological schools for this. Basically, a person learns from his parents, then the street and his surroundings. But it is not right to be treated by a sick doctor. You need to be treated by someone who has healed himself. The same goes for happiness. To find happiness, you need to find those techniques and spiritual schools that can teach happiness.
There are three main directions or systems of knowledge that help a person - religion, science and esotericism. In a good version, they are not opposed to each other, each is in its place. Religion provides the foundations of spiritual knowledge and, for most people, it is vital. By scientific research, people who believe in God suffer less than those who do not believe in anything. They don't have internal basis for joy. Religion is the basis of spirituality, esotericism is graduate School in spiritual terms.
Science considers material and social issues - how the physical world works, what can be verified with instruments. If the soul cannot be weighed, photographed, or disassembled into parts using instruments, then this means that this is not yet available to science. Science is necessary in order to understand the laws of the material world, the laws of society, social laws. In order to realize oneself in society, you need to be a specialist in some field.
Religion and esotericism are aimed at different people. Religion is based on Faith (there is God, Angels). As a rule, for a person with a higher education, just Faith is not enough. Esotericism is based on the fact that you are a Human, you have an immortal Soul, God loves you, and you can become happy. Faith is also present, it must be there in order to somehow move forward. But basically, the path of esotericism is different - to reveal abilities so that you can check for yourself whether there is a Subtle World, creatures of this world, how to learn to see them, hear them, communicate with them, how to influence ongoing events through the Subtle World.
The main fundamental differences between esotericism are working with energy and working with Spiritual Laws. Energy development - energy, how to learn to gain it so that you can reveal your abilities. So that I could not just turn to the Angels in prayer, but could communicate directly and ask whether I deserved such a reward or not. I don’t deserve it - what do I need to do for this? A person does not want to repent, which means he will suffer. Working with energy in all its manifestations is necessary to reveal abilities and manage oneself. Managing yourself is about invoking the sensations, strength, and confidence you need (there are no barriers that you cannot overcome). A weak person – fear has arisen and it pushes the person somewhere. A strong person is calm, relaxed, and eliminates all problems in one way or another. He has power over himself and is able to control energy.
Working with Spiritual Laws. In religion, many provisions are absolutely correct: do not kill, do not steal, do not covet, etc. In esotericism, work with spiritual laws is qualitatively more high level. A person studies social laws and sometimes manages to circumvent them. It is impossible to circumvent spiritual laws. And a person learns to work with it. You can find out why failures occur in your personal life, what laws are broken, what you need to repent of in order to receive a prize. There are many things that healers do that a highly developed person must learn to do. If he is wrong, he receives an impact, you can learn to feel and see it. If a person has found the right decision on how to behave correctly, how to act in a given situation, then this influence goes away and another source of happiness is born in the Soul of a person. Work with spiritual laws occurs in the inner world. Transformations are being made, the influence of the subtle world is being monitored. If you’re wrong, it’s a problem; if you’re right, joy is born in your heart. What healers, sorcerers, and fortune tellers do is one of the manifestations of their influence on fate. It is possible to turn to the forces of the Subtle World and, under certain conditions, order what you want to receive. But, of course, a person must deserve it.
The study of spiritual laws gives an understanding of the rules of the game - what needs to be done in this world in order to receive certain prizes. One person learned to make money - he will be rich, but this does not mean that he will have reliable and devoted friends. Another person has learned to value friends, but if he has the wrong attitude towards material resources, he will have friends and very pleasant soulful evenings, but he will be poor. Each law operates in its own area. And in order to get what you want, you need to understand how to act in this area. This is one of the tasks of esotericism.
The next question is how esoteric directions differ from each other, what paths of development there are and how to choose your Path. There are a lot of schools, directions, religions, sects. But none of the religions, none of the directions is the most perfect at the moment, has a dominant influence, or the possibility of achieving the maximum practical result. Everywhere has its pros and cons.
There are several dozen esoteric schools in the city. How can they be classified? Each school differs in what goals it sets for itself, what it wants to give to people: in completeness, in level (to what heights it can raise), in positivity (i.e. towards God or his opposite).
By completeness. The simplest schools are courses that cover only one or several small issues (only the third eye, only health, or something else). They are short in duration - several classes or several months. This is where the development ends and you need to look for the next courses. The path you choose depends on what you want. If you are interested in one specific question, say, learning to read your hand, then you need courses. More complex are incomplete systems that consider a wide range of issues relating to the Fate and development of man. The last stage is teaching: all questions of the inner world of a person and his Destiny (a person lives, comes into contact with something, communicates, works, sleeps, eats). Everything that influences his condition and Destiny: will he be successful in his work, will he make a career, will people respect him, will he find feelings or will he be lonely and unhappy. Ideally, the teaching addresses all issues.
The level of the school determines to what heights a particular school can raise a person. Of course, a lot depends on the efforts of the person himself. Take the sports section: one person tried it and quit - there were no results, but another became an Olympic champion. Each used the opportunities provided differently. We offer approximately the second higher education in terms of the volume of information, in terms of human changes, even much more. The first stage of training is 4 steps.
In terms of positivity, there are light schools (ideals of the Creator - love, goodness, justice), dark (ideals of evil - violence, fear, dependence - methods of pressure; a person gains strength by learning to manipulate people) and gray (a little from there, a little from here). In Kharkov there are approximately equal numbers of some, others and others. Our school is one of the positive, bright schools. This does not mean that we do not have problems, but the basic principles and rules that are introduced at the Center are aimed at ensuring that a person follows the Path of Light.
Choosing a development path is one of the most important decisions a person makes in his life. In most cases, how is a person formed? Dad and mom are happy with the guests, and he begins to enjoy the people. He sees that they are unhappy (they came to eat) and he develops such and such an attitude towards people. Basically, it is not what is said to him that leaves an imprint, but how people behave. This is why many monks say, give us a child for a couple of years, and then do with him what you want, he will already be the kind of person he was originally designed to be (what he believes in, how he reacts to this world). This is an initial program that will simply develop further. What he does not believe in will be rejected as non-existent. He will develop what he believes in, what is interesting to him. For most people, their parents laid out the program, and they went through life.
Choosing a development path is a person’s conscious decision - what he wants to believe and what he wants to be. You know very well what it is at the moment. This is the degree of your happiness, the degree of suffering. What kind of person does he want to be, what does he want from his destiny, how is he going to build his destiny? How does a person want to spend the time that remains on Earth - worthy or unworthy, what does he want to achieve? What to believe, who to be and how to live in general. In fact, choosing a development path is one of the most important decisions in life. It depends on what you want: try esotericism a little and that’s enough for you for now, or you want to choose the path seriously and for a long time. Do you want to achieve practical results and do you need abilities, power over fate, over your inner world? Or do you want to have a pleasant conversation about what is interesting in this world and the other world? The choice depends on what a person wants to receive.
Three blocks of questions. The first is Good and Evil, the second is types of schools, types of systems, what they are, the rest is practical implementation.
The first key question for a person who chooses his Path is the question of Good and Evil. And you need to answer it for yourself. By and large, the distinction between good and evil is what is good and what is bad? Is the person doing the right thing in this situation or the wrong thing? Subsequently, he will repent and suffer, he will have some pain, or he will be happy and proud of what he did. The questions of Good and Evil are determined by what is right and what is wrong in this life. Distinguishing between Good and Evil is the ability to see what God wants. If he saw you, would he be happy or smile with regret? And what his opposite wants. How to evaluate people's actions, how to predict what consequences await them.
Spiritual systems differ in goals, methods, ideas, on the basis of what knowledge and beliefs such and such goals can be set. You come to a theological school. What does it offer people that they need to believe in? If we take the key attitudes, basic concepts, the light schools say that God loves Man, that Man is an immortal Soul, that every person, if he wants, can achieve happiness.
Light schools say that a person’s task is to understand what God has put into him. Understand what God wants to see from a person. The task of bright spiritual schools is for a person to realize his potential. So that he becomes strong, free, worthy, happy, and so that he does something good for this world, for God. So that he lives not only for himself. And when a person does something for this world, for people, he has the opportunity to receive respect and sincere feelings from other people, they take care of him, and he himself loves them. The bright schools say - Man can. To do this, he must want and, of course, try. The goal is to become worthy of your Creator in all manifestations.
The task of dark schools is exactly the opposite. They believe and invite people to believe that God is not fair. The evidence is obvious: such and such a person has a dacha on the Black Sea, but you don’t - it’s unfair. Someone is making money, and you are so honest, good, but poor. Dark schools say that the world is not fair, God is not fair and man is nothing good. That people are divided into two categories - sheep and wolves, and some live at the expense of others (one is the hunter, the other is the prey). You are asked to make a choice - to become a hunter or a wolf. And then you can use various dark methods, practice black magic. If a person is nothing valuable, you can do one, two, three things to him (deceive, kill, sacrifice). These are basic ideas and further, to what goals all this leads. This is a fight with God different options, bringing chaos (blowing everything up, pressing the nuclear button) and no matter what happens. Man himself strives for death (Taliban, for example, martyrs). Building a dark world can be a highly effective system - once you lie or make a mistake, you die. Therefore, everything works clearly - the person is responsible for every word. But it is built on violence, on blood, and there cannot be deep feelings there. These are wolf laws. A weak, stupid person cannot survive in dark schools. Neither happiness nor joy can be earned from violence.
In addition, there are gray areas, they try to be the most cunning. A stupid option is when people really don’t understand, don’t distinguish between what is Good and what is Evil, they don’t understand who is worth being friends with, because a person will not betray who he is not with. But if this is an esoteric school, then they understand that there is Good and there is Evil. IN Subtle world this is obvious - some are shining, others are dark. Being the most cunning means it's profitable, that's what I'll do at the moment. It is advantageous to lie - a person will lie, it is advantageous to appear honest, decent, radiate goodwill - he will be one. Gray schools are based on calculation and what is right is what is beneficial to a person at the moment. Such schools also exist. Their motto: There is no Good and Evil, we are the smartest, we are friends with both. On the one hand, this is true, but on the other, they are beaten by both. Moving along the gray path, a person is simply unable to receive deep feelings (respect, devotion, love), there is no reason for this.
The first is Good and Evil. It is advisable to understand where your heart is calling, do you want God to love you or that he punish you, and the dark forces help you. The first is to make a moral choice for yourself about what values you want to embody in this life. The ideals of Good are Love, Justice, Non-violence, Creation, Harmony... Evil is what is based on fear, violence, addiction, hatred and the like.
Rules are methods of how to best achieve certain goals. In their pure form, dark and light forces have super-value. Light - serving God (doing something for God, being worthy of him, becoming a perfect person with a clear conscience). The dark ones are serving Evil and fighting God (the more crimes a person commits, the bolder, more cunning, more resourceful he is in life, the more points he gains in the dark coordinate system). In one case, a person can find Faith, real feelings, in another, he can receive power and material values, but according to wolf laws.
If you have decided to follow the Path of Light, then further, how all light schools differ from each other. Although these types of systems will be valid for both dark and gray schools. The first fundamental difference between all systems is professional or amateur organizations.
Amateur schools do not aim to achieve the final result; there are no rules of the game, no requirements. They can consider a variety of issues, and one of the main types is clubs. They unite enough strong people, but their goal is not spiritual development, A pleasant communication on a topic of interest (about magic, love, who has what kind of eyes and a charming smile). A club exists based on a theme. The main goal is not concrete result, but communication, a pleasant pastime, cultural events. There is no serious work on your inner world, there are interesting events.
Another option is shelter, when a person tries to literally escape from life. Life shows that the World is not fair, not perfect, it is not capable of doing one, two, three (the boss scolds, the wife makes moral suggestions every day), and there is nowhere for the poor to go. People come to shelter schools and tell them how good they are. Partly, a person needs to believe in it. But in this way, balm flows onto the Soul, pride develops, problems calm down, and a person begins to believe that he is good, and the World is not fair. He leaves this world, he has no goals to change his life and himself. An oasis is created where people compliment each other, drink tea together, but do not change. They calm their own self-esteem.
Professional systems are focused on achieving results (discovering abilities, forming feelings, gaining power over oneself). There is a goal, it is declared. And there are rules of the game - training (what needs to be done to get such and such a result). Any professional school is focused on obtaining the final result. If a person wants to get something, he must work. It's not always pleasant to consider your problems. It's like appendicitis - you don't have to cut it out, but if you don't cut it out in time, you can die. It's not always easy to talk about your shortcomings. But spiritual development presupposes that one must get rid of all shortcomings, and a person tries to cultivate all the virtues in himself. Vocational schools are engaged practical work. Professionalism means that there is a focus on the final result.
There are three large categories: teaching, incomplete systems and courses. The fundamental difference is the completeness of knowledge and goals. Completeness of knowledge, what questions? this school answers. Ideally, the Teaching gives answers to all questions: God, the Soul, the purpose of man, how all this works, what laws it is subject to. In terms of goals, a complete system of goals - how a person can realize himself in this life (find his place, work); how to behave in a team, how to find and not lose friends; how to have a good time; how to arrange your home so that it pleases the eye and does not spoil your condition; how to learn to hear and feel God, what to do to feel his love for yourself and kindle a fire in your heart. All questions that concern life. If this is a doctrine, then it becomes a subject of study, as inner world interacts with others. And a person learns to bring all this to perfection. Development is by and large limitless, endless. Teaching is a complete system of knowledge, a complete system of values. Teaching is forward and for a long time, and a person who has chosen the Path for life can be happy. He doesn’t need to constantly look for or change something, he tries to build relationships, he creates the world around him. The more you invest in people, the closer they become to you. The formation of a Spiritual Brotherhood, when reliable and devoted friends are ready to come to your aid, is one of the tasks of a theological school.
The second type is not complete systems. If the teaching is the whole, everything that a person must know for strength, happiness, perfection, then an incomplete system provides part of this. Although, it covers a fairly wide range of issues: relationships with people, self-realization, arrangement of your home.
The courses provide answers to specific questions. In three weeks, open your third eye (or at least try), or just the ethics of relationships, or something else. A small range of questions. Based on what you want, you make a choice. The main advantage of the courses is that they are fast (three days, two weeks). Accordingly, what you can transfer in three weeks is what you receive. If you just want to feel what it is, without going deeply into these issues, then the courses are just good option– we tried a little and until next time.
In addition, schools are divided by level. This may be a complete system of goals, but for a simple person and a highly organized person, completely different answers are needed. One needs to work with his hands, the other needs to be able to speak. These are different spheres of activity, different laws of the material world or complex matter. The first and second levels are those systems that are not esoteric; their main interests are the laws of the material world (cutting and sewing courses, etc.) and social (psychology, business).
Esotericism begins from the third level of development. What comes first is: how to learn to manage energy, acquire energy strength, learn to gain energy and reveal abilities. When a person sets such goals for himself, he takes a step forward. These are third level aspirations.
People are distributed according to levels like a pyramid. There are always a few at the top, and a lot of people at the bottom. Basically, after all, the aspirations of the people of our society are mundane - survival. For a weak person, life is survival - the less you know, the less you can do, the more you suffer. For the strong, the flight of the Soul is necessary. To be happy, you need to be strong.
The first is energetic power, the second is spiritual purity. When a person reaches the third level in the spiritual plane, he gains the ability to build himself. He studies issues of influencing others, develops the qualities of a leader, a person who is able to lead, who is listened to with respect, and who is approached with questions.
A person of the third level is a Warrior (Kshatriya in India). He can remain calm in extreme situations, control himself when everyone is in a panic. He is calm, relaxed, he thinks with his head, makes the right decisions. Most people are emotional. And it is not the heart, not the mind that leads them through life, but desires, emotions, fears and other nonsense.
The next fourth level (in Hinduism, Brahma) is the man of Knowledge. A person who is able to train others, form a leader, a Warrior, lead him to perfection step by step. It's a very difficult job. This is the first step for Spiritual Teacher. A person who is able to work with information, understand the difference between good and evil, where the lies are, where the truth is. He is able to create, discover something that was not known before. This is the first step of teachers and scientists. Most people are not capable of creating anything new; they believe in their habits. The higher the level, the greater capabilities a person has.
Each school leads to its own. Where there is no energy development and no desire for spiritual purity, there is no third level. These are questions below those considered by the esoteric schools. Perfect knowledge, formation of feelings - questions of the fourth level. How to influence people, how to change them, starting with yourself - the third level. There is no need to try to change, you need to understand what they want, what they are afraid of, where they are irritated and learn to communicate without stepping on pain points, offering something that a person cannot refuse (he needs it, he wants it so much). First you need to learn to communicate with people, understanding what they want, under what conditions they will feel good and what they will do with great pleasure. The next question is how you can change people, lead them to more high goal. Realization depends on which direction a person will go: towards God (happiness, strength, perfection) or vice versa (strength and power, but suffering and all other troubles). First, this is the Path of Light or the dark path. By goals - what a person wants to learn. He wants to learn something specific or wants to become a master in life, to do with pleasure everything he spends time on.
Practical implementation - what and how a person can learn, what chance does he have to achieve the goals declared by the school and how to determine this. Any scientific system, dissertation, whatever, where there is work with a decent amount of information, goes through several stages of its development. And the closer it is to its logical conclusion, the more impact it can give to a person.
The first stage is the accumulation of information - individual answers to individual questions. There are many directions that stop exactly at this. There is no algorithm for what needs to be done to achieve certain results, there are no requirements, no rules and no results. There is no whole here, no criteria for how to go towards perfection, what needs to be done. How do you determine spiritually whether you are going up or going down? If a person performs self-hypnosis and meditation, but has abandoned work and family, do you think he is improving spiritually or degenerating? Of course, there is no talk of perfection here. A person needs knowledge and meditation in order to become stronger and learn to solve the questions that life poses. If, thanks to development, a person finds his soul mate, his career goes up - he is on the right path. If he started doing something, but his career fell apart, people fled, and he went on a drinking binge - it’s worth thinking about.
The next stage is systematization of the acquired knowledge. There is a classification, steps appear, what a person must do to overcome certain obstacles in order to become stronger in life. Great opportunities open up before him, he feels more, understands more. There is no program yet, but there is an understanding of what logical stages a person must go through in order to reach his cherished goal. At least there is an understanding of the whole, how the individual elements are connected to each other and what the path is.
The last stage is the creation of a unified program. For the Theological School this is the Teaching. There are steps, methods and techniques on how to go through these steps step by step, so that after many years a person can get what he came to study for. To get the best possible result, the system must be logically complete. It must have a full-fledged program with clear rules and assessment criteria. The further the system is from its logical conclusion, the less likely it is to achieve anything practical. Today we read one interesting thing, tomorrow we read something else, the day after tomorrow we read something else, but it doesn’t lead anywhere. Where there is no program, sequence, plan, algorithm leading to the formation of certain skills and abilities, to the accumulation of results obtained, there cannot be development. If there are no clear criteria for assessment and understanding of how a person, starting from the level on which he is now, can rise to the very top, there can be no talk of full development.
In relation to the rules, the systems are also different. The more clearly the system is organized, the more pleasant it is to use. But not every person wants to do something, obey the rules. By and large, rules are what determine how you get to your goal. There can be no achievement of any results if there are no rules. There are several options here.
Option one – there are no rules at all: all people are happy, there is freedom, but there are no results. If a person does not obey the rules, does not have training, then he will never achieve his goal. Achieving a goal means acquiring certain skills. The rules determine how best to do this.
Second option: there are a lot of rules, they are tough, many people are not happy, they get offended, leave, say bad words, but those who endured get what they wanted. In this case there will be no inspiration. The ideal option is when there are a minimum of rules, only the necessary ones, everything else is possibilities. Use it if you want, if you don’t want it, then you don’t need it yet.
And the last indicator of the effectiveness of any system is whether the words of a particular theological school differ from their deeds. Look at the practical result, at the people who study there, what they received, what state they live in, talk to these people. There is only one thing here, this indicator works if the system exists long enough. If it has reached its logical conclusion, then you can evaluate how well it works. If the system is just beginning to be built, like the first in the world spacecraft, it is still unclear whether he will fly or not. If it is new and at the formative stage, you need to look at whether it is worth it or not, because the fruits will appear only in a few years. The spiritual system is built over decades, centuries. Depending on what kind of system it is and what it wants to give to people. But in any case, if a system lives for a long time, the main indicator is what it gave to people. There are thousands, hundreds of thousands of theological schools and directions, but only a few always remain at the top.
There is a lot of talk about the reform of theological schools. It is clear and undeniable for everyone that the church authorities intend to carry out reform in a strictly ecclesiastical direction. And before our eyes, an amazing metamorphosis took place, although not uncommon in recent years. The most ardent “progressives” suddenly declared themselves resolute supporters of stagnation. Either the old theological school seemed worthless, then suddenly it became good, so nothing better can be done than to leave it as it is now. It would seem that how could one not want the strengthening of churchliness in church school! Not so! The least heard speeches are in defense of churchliness. We finally agreed, it seems, to the point of complete absurdity. The church authorities, you see, have little understanding of what true churchliness consists of, and therefore it is good that the draft statutes of the average spiritual goes to school for consideration by legislative institutions. There they understand true churchliness better and care more about the interests of the Church than the church authorities and, in general, the outstanding hierarchs of the Church who drew up the new charter of the theological school. Therefore, they are waiting with hidden impatience that the synodal bill in the Duma will fail and the reform will be developed in a different direction. And this is how people who call themselves church people reason; they even publish their reasoning in “church books!” magazines (see "Church Bulletin", 1911. No. 38. Especially stlb. 1185).
Such speeches simply emanate horror. It is in our “spiritual” seminaries that there is no need to strengthen churchliness! I recently received a letter from a teacher of homiletics and liturgics at one of the seminaries, and it hurt me when I saw what we have under the guise of a “theological seminary.” Here is the letter:
“My affairs are not going well. It is difficult to teach theological subjects in a seminary, especially ones like mine. Teaching preaching to people dressed in blue trousers with stripes is, to say the least, a strange thing. It just seems ridiculous to send them to the pulpit to deliver a lesson to the Orthodox people! Sometimes it gets very difficult. You feel that everything is wrong, that no one has any interest in the future service of the Church. It turns out to be some kind of game of hide and seek. The consciousness of this falls heavily on the soul, and you just want to run away somewhere where this deception does not exist. How do they serve us? For all my coolness, I’m completely turned over. Sometimes I just want to just run to the altar and shout: “Father rector (archpriest. - V.T.)! Why are you standing here and not paying any attention to these outrages?” They read - they don’t hear anything, it’s just random. They sing ugly. There is no charter. How can we teach them the rules in this state of affairs? I say one thing, but in church it’s completely different - go ahead! What regulations are there! Nobody pays attention to this. Inspector (secular, of course. – V.T.) all he thinks about is how quickly the service will end, and is dissatisfied if someone reads separately. I thought about taking on this matter myself, but I don’t have the courage. This means antagonizing the rector, the inspector and the entire bursa. The latter is already beginning to be dissatisfied with my direction. The only hope for reform..."
This is not written by some church fanatic; the author is not planning to become a monk; at the academy he was not averse to being liberal in church matters and judged the theological school in the same way as various “church” publicists judge now. Isn’t it clear how great the lie of modern “theological” seminaries is if such bitter cries are heard from someone from whom you least expect them! It's time, it's high time for the Russian Orthodox Church to establish real theological schools that would serve only her, who now so needs ministers and protectors! Theological school must be a church school!
