The curator of the Open Library is Nikolai Solodnikov. © Photo from the personal archive of Solodnikov

The Dialogues project (open discussions with famous Russians), which monthly gathered many Petersburgers in the Mayakovsky Library and was popular with the audience of Internet broadcasts,. The reason was the pressure of special services on the administration of the institution. City officials also seem to be interested in shutting down the project. What caused such an attitude and what will happen to the Dialogues, Rosbalt was told by the ideologist and founder of the project Nikolai Solodnikov.

— Now the plot of history is already well known. The FSB came to Mayakovsky's library with searches, you had to quit, "Dialogues" after a three-year history were left without a platform. Tell us how this initiative, which caused so much noise, even appeared?

- "Dialogues" was once just one of the formats of the Open Library project, but later it became the only one. Initially, in 2012, everything was conceived as a comprehensive, theoretical and, ideally, practical reorganization of the city library system. We held various festivals, collaborated with New Holland. They tried to force officials to look at how libraries should live in the city. But due to the immobility of the management system, including in the field of culture, no comprehensive reform has been achieved. It remains only to act on their own. And we began to make such an ideal television in the library, live broadcast, which we lost some time ago. This is how the Dialogues were born, within which it became possible to discuss a very wide range of issues - from sports to politics - with the participation of the best intellectuals of our country.

- The project attracted the attention of ill-wishers, including those from the special services, when in May 2015 you planned to invite the Ukrainian politician Mustafa Nayem to St. Petersburg. But a year before that, you said that the Dialogues had both economic and political problems. What did you mean then?

— Any movement from below always causes, let's say, an unhealthy reaction from certain city officials.

The project lived absolutely independently, independently. We did not have any curators either in the presidential administration or in Smolny. We have not agreed with anyone anywhere. Therefore, of course, some dissatisfaction of officials was initially. It was an endless amount of ordeals, some conversations, some requests to stop what we are doing. And just in May 2015, special services also got involved in this case.

- You have already said more than once that the Dialogues were held at your own expense, not a penny was allocated from the budget of St. Petersburg for them. But in one of your interviews there is such a phrase: “It is difficult to do something without financial and administrative support from the city government.”

— At that moment, I was talking about the entire Open Library project, about the conceptual reformation of the entire library system. Nothing can be done here without the participation of the city. And we did the "Dialogues" quite independently. Without a doubt, if the project continues, we plan to maintain financial independence.

- You also once said that the "Dialogues" for Mayakovsky's library is a matter of pride, and the administration of the institution does not want to abandon such a popular project ...

- I said this at a time when the library had not yet received requests for the seizure of documents, for the arrest of equipment by the FSB.

If you're ready for older women in library administration to be interrogated day in and day out, I'm not.

If in order to avoid this, it is necessary to quit and move the "Dialogues" to another place, then this must be done. But despite the fact that things have taken such a sharp turn, the project must continue in St. Petersburg. Without a doubt, now we will look for another site, primarily a state one.

- Can we say that at the "Dialogues" you were ready to discuss everything, regardless of the consequences? Or were there still taboo topics?

We are free people, like everyone who lives in Russia. No power can make a person unfree, freedom depends only on himself. Therefore, as soon as you yourself begin to set some boundaries inside, these are only your problems, and not the political power of the country. So we talked about everything. Otherwise, why do all this in principle?

- But still, you decided to concentrate on socio-political topics, and not to conduct "Dialogues" exclusively in an educational manner - about culture, art, history, and so on ...

“Because everyone is involved in politics in one way or another. Or politics touches him.

A person simply cannot live outside the political field. Any attempts to get out of it are connected exclusively with self-restraint.

When platforms do not allow themselves this or say that they are not interested in it, I assure you, this is most likely a matter of internal censorship of a particular organizer. Of course, there are specific events, such as cooking classes. Although their policy is also concerned, because import substitution in the food sector is more of a political issue than a culinary one. You need to perceive the world as a whole, you cannot separately consider each phenomenon that occurs around you. The world is very different, very complex, everything is mixed with each other - economics with politics, politics with medicine, medicine with sports, sports with art. Therefore, the topics discussed in the Open Library are also very different. If you look at the list of "Dialogues", of which there are already more than 100, then the selection there is extremely wide. Which, I repeat, corresponds to the diversity of public life within the country.

- Didn't you have a feeling that with the development of the project, representatives of the authorities began to come to you as speakers less often, because they were forbidden?

- No, there are not very many simply "speaking" officials who can speak to the public. Those who were ready always came. Mikhail Piotrovsky - an official? Of course, official. Or Alexei Kudrin. Although he is probably already a former official. But our task has always been the same, and we have never left it aside - to invite speakers of different political views. But the fact that the leadership did not advise some people to come to us - this also happened, of course.

- Don't you think that a dialogue between people with diametrically opposed points of view can lead not to the consolidation of society, but to the escalation of the conflict?

We never planned to quarrel people. Dialogues initially imply a conversation, but not a dispute, a quarrel, a dump, and so on. So, of course, we wanted to achieve consolidation in society with the help of the project.

- Viktor Shenderovich said that the closure of the "Dialogues" is natural. I quote: “Dialogue is not a genre of Putin's Russia. This is a monologue country. Russia continues to rapidly degrade”. Do you agree with this statement?

- No, I think that talking about the degradation of Russian society as a whole is completely wrong and wrong. The Dialogues were the proof that the country continues to live. Without the participation of society and such state institutions as the Mayakovsky Library, this project could not exist. The fact that it is closed today is the result of the degradation of individuals and individual institutions of power. But not power in general. Our right hand often does not know what the left is doing. Is Vladimir Putin interested in there being no "Dialogues" in Russia? Of course not. He is interested in the opposite.

The task of destroying the "Dialogues" at the very top is not worth it, I exclude this option. Another thing is that the mechanism of the structure of the Russian government is so complex and so contradictory, there are so many different centers of power that the most living phenomena are often killed in our country.

- But still, how did it happen that the project from an educational project in the eyes of the authorities became almost extremist?

I just answered this question. You now want to expose me as an oppositionist, but I am not an oppositionist. I am a person who taught for a long time, so my activities are exclusively related to enlightenment and education. To classify me as a member of any political camp is absolutely meaningless. I'm not ready to take only one side.

Interviewed by Sofia Mokhova

While the interview was being prepared, it became known that Nikolai Solodnikov, the leadership of the National Library of Russia, would provide a platform for the Dialogues.

If you are afraid of something
It means you are dependent on someone.
The sooner you get rid
from your addiction
the faster you will become bold.

Before answering the question why a person does not want to be free, let's first define the concept of freedom and the need for freedom for a person. Indeed, why, in fact, does a person need to be free?

In the absolute sense, freedom is the absence of dependence on anyone or anything. Therefore, when we talk about a person's unwillingness to be free, we are talking about a person's unwillingness to get rid of one or another of his addictions. Any addiction, be it addiction to alcohol or tobacco, and the like; or dependence on other people to whom one or another feelings are felt, for example, from children or parents, friends, and so on, any dependence makes a person not free.

But there is a lot of confusion and confusion in the minds of people, and this applies not only to the dependence of parents on children, but also to dependence on alcohol and cigarettes. Today there are people who sincerely believe that a cigarette, in certain cases, like alcohol, is necessary for a person. But there are those who are sure that there is a point in worrying about their children until their death, and these people call these experiences love.

As for misconceptions in love, this applies not only to parents, here for most people everything is so confusing that there is no way for them to unravel. When some people hear about dependence on other people for whom you have some kind of feeling, then, first of all, the word “love” comes to their mind. And they begin to interpret their particular experiences for someone (and experiences are always lack of freedom) with their own love. And these people begin to resent how, they say, it can be that love makes a person unfree.

It is very difficult for a person to understand how love can make a person unfree. It is really difficult to understand this, because in fact it cannot make a person not free. Yes, yes, do not be surprised, there is no contradiction in my words and loving someone does not mean making someone dependent on yourself or becoming dependent on yourself.

It is necessary that people finally realize that love cannot bring a person at least something bad. Do you understand? Moreover, love cannot make a person unfree.

Love brings a person only good and nothing but good. But, knowing this quality of love, one can easily find those places where it is not. For example, if people are dependent on each other and, as they themselves declare, that they cannot live without each other, know that there is no love between these people.

What is between them in this case? Yes, anything, but only. Pity, for example, or compassion, a habit, or something else that does not make a person stronger, but turns him into an invalid.

When you see a heartbroken widow or widower in front of you who, they say, are unable to cope with the loss of their love, know that they are lying. This is a lie and there was no love there. There was a very strong attachment to each other, but not love. There was dependence on each other, but not love. There was a habit for each other, but not love.

Love always makes a person bold. Do you know what a brave person is? A brave person is not one who is not afraid of rats or rabid dogs, or who boldly throws his fists at another person. All this is not courage, but recklessness and animal instincts and reflexes. A brave person is one who is not afraid to be free, because to be free is to be alone with life . Not alone in life! Do not drag loneliness here! Namely, the one who is not afraid to be alone with life. Who does not need guides, does not need companions and followers.

When people really love each other, they are not afraid of anything, including losing each other. Death does not frighten those who love each other, because they have risen in their understanding of the world above death.

Is it hard to understand? I am sure that few people will agree with this now. Most, for some reason, immediately begin to argue that if I'm not afraid of losing someone, then I want it. But does one follow from the other?

Why are parents afraid of losing their children? Yes, because they don't like them. And this is not a paradox, but the truth, which is based on parental instinct. There is nothing wrong with parents not loving their children. No person is so worried about another and does not depend on another, as parents depend on their children. But it cannot be otherwise, and it must be so. Only the point here is not love, but the instinct of continuation and preservation of the family, inherent in man by nature. A loving person will not be able to truly care for the one he loves, to care in the way that parents care. Why? Because love is not an instinct.

Humanity does not stand still in its development. But the development of man is not only technical progress, but also the spiritual transformation of man. To be a true creator, a person needs to be brave .

In love, a person gains additional strength for creativity, but love does not make a person absolutely free. Love makes him free in relation to those whom he loves and who loves him. But besides this person, there are other people: children, parents, friends, work colleagues, bosses, subordinates, etc.; and relations with these people can be far from free. (But it is also possible, it is possible to be free in relationships with other people, not to depend on their opinions, moods, situations, but this is possible only for those who already love and understand that there is love. We will talk about this another time) . Therefore, I once again focus my attention on the fact that love does not enslave a person, but it does not free him from the existing dependence, for example, on his children. And only absolute freedom allows a person to be absolutely fearless.

And now we come to the main thing, we come to why a person does not want to be free.

Strange as it may not sound now, but... a person does not want to be free for the reason that he does not have love, that he lives without love. And only the person who lives in love begins to think about freedom. A person who lives in love begins to look differently at his relationships with friends, with parents, with children and with other people. In love, a person most acutely feels his lack of freedom - the same lack of freedom that he simply did not notice until love came into his life.

A person does not want to be free, because he does not understand that there is a state higher than love, but until you learn to love, you will not rise higher. Love is limited by the happiness it gives a person. But the state is higher, which is higher than love, it is not limited by anything or anyone. This is - absolute freedom. That same absolute freedom, without which a person is not a person in the full sense. That same absolute freedom, when nothing and no one causes negative emotions in a person, including the lack of love.

Let's start with the postulate that the goal (and criterion for evaluating the activity) of all humanitarian disciplines is human morality, an attempt to know it and then an attempt to increase it in a person.

Unlike natural science and technical disciplines (where morality is not abolished, but simply put out of brackets), a humanitarian discipline that does not seek to acquire an ideal of morality is either nonsense or a crime.

Why did the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates attack his contemporary sophists in such a way? Because the sophists, being representatives of the humanities, nevertheless taught immorality. That is, they taught that anything can be proved and refuted - they say, this is a matter of technique and money of the payer. If the sophists were only artisans, Socrates would not have attacked them. The difference in estates does not allow you to challenge to a duel. But the sophists dared to stand on an equal footing with the philosophers - they also began to prove that "everything is relative" - ​​ontologically - "by the nature of things" ... This is a fashionable thought among philosophers - the childhood disease of postmodernism, which manifests itself in every era and in every century.

So, the goal of any humanitarian discipline is morality, its affirmation.

What is considered moral? What is the cornerstone of morality, checking for its presence or absence in your activities?

Over the centuries of long reflections and instant divine insights, collective discussions and solitary studies - all thinkers and practitioners more or less, in different ways, but came to a common opinion:

Morality is that which leads man to freedom;

Immoral - something that either ontologically denies the value of freedom or superficially - simply deprives you of it in one way or another, without lofty reasoning.

So, to the simple question "What is morality?" one can give a simple answer: "Morality is freedom." Or: “Morality is what liberates.”

Thus, freedom, which has become one of the classical categories of ethics (ethics is the doctrine of morality), can no longer be cursed by any fool, it has a mandate. But this is only on paper. In practice, we were born into this world to defend freedom, trampled upon by all and sundry every second. That's the "goal of the game" for you.

Science psychology and morality

With the science of psychology, everything is very complicated. As one very stupid but catchy song goes, psychology is a half-breed. Half horse, half gateway.

Being partly a humanitarian discipline, psychology is obliged to defend morality, that is, freedom.

But partly being a discipline and natural science - psychology can afford - to take the problem of morality out of the brackets.

This twofold situation has a very detrimental effect on the moral state of the psychologists themselves. Thus, the whole science of psychology has long become similar to a kind of Hogwarts, where under one roof, next to the brave and honest Gryffindors who defend Good, they quite legally exist and eat in the same dining room - cunning and vile Slytherins, all almost without exception boasting of friendship and service with Voldemort. How to be? Only a big war will stop this ambiguity. But Hogwarts will never be the same...

And now - to business. If the alignment of forces is clear, it's time to take you to the arsenal and show you the weapons with which you, the humanitarians, will fight.

We have already learned that "morality is that which makes a man free." What makes a person free? Or, let's ask the question in a different way:

What makes a person not free?
What does it look like, our "prison"?

For a very long time, the answer to this question was also found - by whole generations of thinkers who agree with each other.

I will not torment you for a long time, I will immediately reveal the secret (although there is no secret here).

Freedom always lies in "timelessness". Timelessness is freedom. Feeling out of time. The person who lives in timelessness is not bound by anything to “his own time” – he is free.

Time is our strong invisible prison. Time as such in general and Fractional Time - with all its variations.

Bondage age

You can be a slave of your particular age. This means that you are a slave of time. (You, a slave of time, immediately have “duties” to your age. Every day you hear: either “it’s too early for you”, then “it’s too late for you”, then “when are you, finally, all your friends have long ...").

Slavery "Generations"

You can be a slave to your "Generation". This also means that you are a slave of time. (You have responsibilities to your generation.)

Age Slavery

You can be a slave of your era. And this also means that you are a slave of time. (You have obligations to your era in which you happened to live. Even if the era is stupid, criminal or simply mediocre and they will laugh at it and despise it after some 50 years - having fallen into this era by the fact of being born in it, you you will be "obliged" to slavishly fulfill all her stupid instructions and pretend that you believe in all her most idiotic prejudices).

In slavery to fashion

You can be a slave to a school, a trend, a trend, a fashion, a trend, a fad. This, of course, also means that you are a slave of time - a slave of the Temporary ... (You have duties to fashion and often, having given everything to it, you die with it).

Freedom and Maturity

How can we not be in slavery to Time? Very simple! Need to become Mature Man. This is what freedom is.

I will give an example from ordinary, “school” developmental psychology, because even the most inhumane and indifferent psychologists, nevertheless, know very well how we can become happy.

In developmental psychology there is a doctrine of "age stages", "age characteristics" and "age crises".

Age stages (more or less equally) are listed by all scientists as follows:

from 0 to a year,

from one to three years

<...>puberty<...>

and so on, up to the approach to one "fatal" line. If, BEFORE this trait, a certain age immediately promised a list of certain mandatory: requirements, crises and problems - which are mandatory like chickenpox - then after this fatal trait, age psychology says something like this:

“And then the age of Maturity comes (if a person really gets into it!) And there are no longer any mandatory prescriptions, and it can last as long as this age, until natural death, and here we can’t say anything - because here the person has already managed build himself and continue to build, and he is absolutely free and falls out of our supervision.

If at the age of 3 a person has a leading need - a game, and at 13 - socialization among peers, and there is nothing you can do about it, then by the magical age of maturity, attention:

"Man creates his own needs." This is what freedom is.

I did not come up with this, this is the formulation of indifferent psychologists who write indifferent textbooks. But they understand (and always say further) that the "age of maturity" is what few achieve.

Therefore, the last "slave" age is introduced, the last age crisis - old age. Another “age prison” with all the predictable problems, a “prison” that includes those who literally failed to jump out into Maturity, as the Buddha managed to jump out (and show the way) – into Liberation-nirvana.

How to learn to live in timelessness?

First, let me remind you of the theses.

Time is a prison.

A person who “looks at time” is not free, he is a slave of time and its segments.

Only the person who aspires and achieves - living in timelessness is free.

This aspiration is true, valuable, right, morally - morally.

It is immoral to deny the value and correctness of these aspirations, this vector, to hinder a person who has embarked on such a path.

The goal of all humanitarian movements is to promote the liberation of man: that is, to point out to man what is temporal here and what is timeless and to promote the prosperity and growth of all that is timeless.

What about temporary? God bless him. It will soon crumble on its own, made somehow, it is also temporary, do not turn your forces on it! Yes, a new noisy temporary one will immediately come in its place and ... also for “five minutes”.

So how do you get into the timeless?

or

"You are out of date!"

Do you know that A. S. Pushkin, then, his contemporaries accused him of being “outdated”? ..

This one sentence alone can be "thought of" like a Zen koan. I suggest you do so. And then Enlightenment will overtake you and you will understand once and for all - where to look for the "timeless", where to look for your freedom and what is moral.

For a hint, I’ll let you know that the great Russian poet Benediktov was considered “modern” at that time.

Benediktov was read and adored, while Pushkin was arrogantly taught: "You are out of date."

Time is ambivalent. It puts everything in its place. It serves as a jailer only for those who themselves wanted to be in prison all their lives, maybe for fun, only from time to time - changing cells. Some call it tourism. Some are hell from which one must awaken into true being.

***
So, timelessness, freedom, morality and the humanities.

I will give you one last clue where to look for it - timelessness.

The humanities have a saying: “There is only Art. Everything else is literature.

Here are the pretentious "declarations" of the crazy grandfather - Fritz Perls - this is Art. It's not easy to read, but enjoyable. And from some point on, it's easy.

But the eighth monograph of your head of the department, which has over 600 publications in domestic and foreign scientific journals, is "literature", and bad.

Pushkin is art.

Benediktov is "literature".

That, for the interest in which you are being persecuted somehow strangely, amicably and at the same time - this is “That”.

What the rest of the world lives by, always managing to pass all the test papers on time, is a horse in a coat.

Choose who you are with. I advise you to prefer - morality. After all, even the authors of textbooks do not deny that this is good ...

– Freedom is one of the cult values ​​of modern society. At the same time, everyone understands freedom differently - what is freedom and how to achieve it. For example, many believe that money gives freedom, others believe that the poor have more freedom, others believe that religion reduces the degree of freedom. What, in fact, is freedom, what makes a person free?

“Freedom is the ability to do what pleases us, what we like. However, many people perceive freedom as an opportunity to satisfy any of their passions, whims, weaknesses. They try to impose this on us: “since I am free, then I can do whatever I want.” But in fact, this is what completely enslaves us - our passions and our not always good desires.

Money by itself does not give freedom. It all depends on the person's relationship with money. If money and wealth are an end in themselves, then in the end a person becomes their slave, and such a person cannot be called free. Because all his actions are motivated by the accumulation and then retention of this wealth and the resulting fear of losing it.

One aspect of freedom, in the understanding of many young people, is "free love", that is, a relationship without obligations. This is simply an irresponsible satisfaction of some kind of carnal needs and passions. And if you look at the essence, of course, this cannot be called freedom, because such people are completely subject to their lust, that is, we become just slaves here. Moreover, the more we satisfy some kind of passion - any, be it money, carnal pleasures, fame, the more we become its slave. And if you don’t look at the essence, then the “freedom” of satisfying passions that are constantly growing in their painful intensity can be perceived as real freedom. But this is a hoax.

Not without reason, satisfying any passion, we are often tormented by remorse, we do not feel satisfaction. Real freedom comes when we are freed from these passions.

This is an entirely spiritual matter - freedom from slavery to passions. And to say that religion reduces human freedom is, of course, the greatest delusion. But, again, depending on what religion, because there are sects. But we can say with confidence about Orthodoxy - it makes a person truly free. It gives a person the opportunity to see his passions and resist them. In the fight against passions, the Church has such remedies as the sacraments of confession and communion. Preparing for confession, we begin to delve into ourselves, to find out what motivates our actions. Why did I act negatively, what contributed to this? We are starting to see the roots. And here, as in the treatment of bodily diseases, it is very important to establish a diagnosis. The very awareness of the disease prompts us to fight it.

- There was such an idea that passions lead to negative consequences. Indeed, this imaginary freedom turns into unfreedom. Let's say a girl follows her passions, calling it "free love", and then is faced with a very limited choice: give birth to a child and raise him without a father, or kill the child. The same is true for the man who participates in this, when the child appears in the womb, he is faced with a choice: marry him to the unloved or leave his child or kill him. They have much less freedom in this situation than if they did not satisfy their passions. And so on for almost everyone.

– Of course, passions deceive us. In all passions, if you look deeper, lies deceit. And many people understand this when, in the pursuit of satisfying their passions, they face inevitable problems. But often people do not understand, or only guess why this is happening to them. Or they don't want to make an effort because they don't have enough freedom to start fighting their passions. After all, dreaming that you are free and actually being free are completely different things.

For example, a person who has given himself over to a strong addiction to drugs may consider himself absolutely free. But in fact, his life choice is limited only to taking a drug at one “point” or another - he has no more freedom. This is an example of a person's extreme surrender to passions, everyone else sees it, but they do not try to transfer this example to their own lives and draw analogies.

- In striving for freedom, is it necessary to fight for your freedom with other people?

– Depending on what kind of freedom. The struggle for the freedom of the country, the Great Patriotic War is also a struggle for freedom.

If we talk about the freedom of the individual, then let me remind you of the following phrase: our freedom ends where the lack of freedom for another person begins. By the satisfaction of our passions, we proclaim our own freedom, which sometimes contradicts the freedom of other people. Because all negative actions in relation to other people are just motivated by the satisfaction of our passions, be it resentment, envy, anger, anger. A dispassionate person will in no way infringe on the rights of another.

- In the family, the situation is that you need to take out a bucket of garbage. And if one person says that "I want to be free from this," then it turns out that the other person will have to take out this bucket of garbage. And his freedom will be limited. And if he makes a free decision to take out this bucket of garbage, then that person will also be free.

– What an interesting example. And you can say in another way: freedom from debt is not freedom. If we live in a family, in a society, we have certain responsibilities.

Oleg Verbilo

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Your feedback

Many people say that they want to be free, but at the same time, when you tell them that they are already free, and only their mind, only a multitude of images in the mind, prevents them from feeling and realizing this freedom, these people seem to not understand and do not hear you.

And I understand that they do not need freedom at all. They need their life to be the way they want, i.e. corresponding to some of the images embedded in them. They do not want to get rid of these images at all, on the contrary! They really want to be drawn into some huge and strong images, so that being in them, feel and feel all the strength and desire invested in these images. It seems to them that then their life will be filled with meaning, and will not be empty and useless. They want to be needed by someone. But this means they want to be constantly in slavery! And words about freedom are just empty talk.

Vladimir Vysotsky has very good words on this topic: “Today they gave me freedom, but I don’t know what to do with it tomorrow.”

Freedom is such a thing that it is not clear how and for what it can be used. And can it be used at all?

Such questions arise because people are accustomed to using everything for something. The human mind is designed to keep the body alive. And he does it just fine. He uses everything that he meets on his way to solve the problem assigned to him.

But how can one use what is the absence of anything? And here, accustomed to measuring everything in terms of use, the mind refuses this incomprehensible phenomenon called FREEDOM. Renouncing freedom, he again drives a person to where, according to his concepts, something useful can be found.

It is the emptiness and lack of desire that scares many people. Their freedom, which they constantly talk about, is not freedom at all. It is the desire not to suffer, and to live "well". Good means having this, this, and that. But this is not freedom in its true meaning. And complete dependence on desires and images built on the basis of these desires. And the more these people want, the more they will be unfree, and the more they will be involved in these images. And with each achievement of some great goal, they will feel emptiness in themselves from time to time, and time after time they will again run away from this emptiness.

But why does this emptiness scare people so much? Why, having achieved some of their big goals, are they afraid of the emptiness that has arisen as a result of this? And why are enlightened or liberated people not afraid of this emptiness, and even vice versa, are they constantly in it? What's the matter here? Maybe there is some difference between these voids?

The difference between the emptiness of an ordinary person and a free person at the same time is and is not. By and large, there is no difference in the emptiness itself. The void is the void. Void means the absence of something. The difference here is not in the emptiness itself, but in the perception of it.

An ordinary person perceives inner emptiness as something bad, negative. He thinks it shouldn't be. He is so accustomed to the fact that something is constantly happening inside him: the flow of some thoughts, desires, images, singing some songs, discussing some cases, reinterpreting old conversations, etc., etc. . that the inner emptiness, and the silence that arose along with it, seem to him not a normal phenomenon. And he tries in every possible way to escape and hide from this emptiness.

Very often people are afraid of feeling inner silence and emptiness because it reminds them of death. And indeed it is. But what about death? At the moment of achieving some goal or desire, the desire or goal itself dies. In their place, emptiness and silence are formed. But it's natural! Why be afraid of this! The whole world is constantly dying and constantly being born. We can say that he dies in order to be born again. That's how life works. Everything in the world is changing. But at the same time, something remains unchanged. What exactly?

Emptiness! The only constant in the world is emptiness. This emptiness pervades absolutely everything. This emptiness is the basis of everything. Everything is born from it and everything goes into it. It is both Mother and Father at the same time. This is the beginning and the end of everything. It is the omnipresence and at the same time the absence of everything. It is eternity and infinity. This is both God and Consciousness and I, which is a single whole. So why should you be afraid of this?

On the contrary, it is necessary to strive for this in every possible way! Only with the onset of this absolute peace and quiet comes a feeling of infinite happiness and bliss.

But, nevertheless, many people are afraid of this emptiness. And they are afraid of it because of the fear of death present in them. They perceive themselves as a body. They think that at the moment of the death of the body, they, like it, will cease to exist. But it's not. This is a great delusion. They both existed and will continue to exist. The body is just a tool through which consciousness embodies the mega-images created by itself. One of these mega-images is the universal life.

By creating these gigantic images, and then embodying them, rebuilding and dissolving, the consciousness thus plays and enjoys. It's just having fun. It is exactly the same as the creation of a dream. When the human body sleeps, the consciousness at that time, freed from the bodily shackles, also rests. It creates its own game, and at the same time plays it. A person during sleep experiences events seen in a dream as well as in reality. And this is absolutely no different from the experiences of his ordinary life during wakefulness.

When a person wakes up, his consciousness is again identified with the body and he continues to feel himself in the form of a body. But what a person perceives as wakefulness, for the rest of consciousness is just a continuation of a big dream. And this is no different from the dream that "his" consciousness created when the body was asleep.

Consciousness is one, it is not divided into "mine" and "not mine". It is only the mind, which is the property of this body, that divides consciousness into "mine" and "not mine", into "I" and "not me". But in reality, there is no “I” or “not-I”. I am one. What a person usually perceives under his "I" is only a part of a single consciousness surrounded by images of the mind. And that is exactly what he perceives as himself. He thinks that's exactly what he is.

When he sleeps, "his" consciousness creates a dream in which he himself is either a direct participant or a witness to some action. The same thing happens when he is awake. Consciousness also creates a dream, in which this person himself is the same acting character of the dream, as well as during his "own" dream. And there, and there, a dream. And there, and there, this dream creates consciousness. And there, and there, consciousness is both the acting character of this dream, and the observer of this dream, and experiencing this dream.

What we see around us and perceive as life is just a dream created by a single divine consciousness. At the moment of liberation of a person from the images of the mind, there is an awakening from sleep - life, in which the consciousness of a person has been for so long.

It really feels like death. This is death, but only the death of the individual. Personality is nothing more than a set of mind images united by knowledge about oneself. For the consciousness that was in the captivity of this personality, liberation comes. It is this fear, the fear of the dying of the individual, that a person experiences during the onset of freedom. This person begins to fear that she will die. She anticipates this and begins to resist it in every possible way. It forces a person to do anything, just to take him away from thoughts of liberation.

But liberation comes only from the individual. There is simply nothing else to get rid of! Consciousness, which is the true Self, is initially free! That part of the consciousness, which turned out to be captivated by the images of the mind, is constantly striving to restore its natural original freedom. It is this striving for finding one's natural freedom that many seekers call self-knowledge. But liberation and self-knowledge are not the same thing.

Summing up all of the above and returning to the question of what is the difference between the emptiness of an enlightened and unenlightened person, we get the following.

The difference is not in the emptiness itself, but in the perception of this emptiness. An ordinary person perceives inner emptiness with fear. This fear, which is derived from the fear of death, arises in a person due to a misunderstanding of his true nature. This fear just prevents him from truly entering this emptiness, which is freedom.

An enlightened person perceives inner emptiness with joy and reverence. This is what he has been striving for for so long. He has no fear of this emptiness, for he knows his true nature. This emptiness is precisely its true nature. He is not afraid of death, he knows that death does not exist. Death for him is just a liberation from the body, the same as the liberation from old worn out clothes. The death of the individual gives him freedom and peace, peace of mind.

For him, the silence that has come as a result of calming the mind causes endless joy, in which he constantly wants to stay. This silence and bliss that fills the great void is his natural nature, his true Self.

In an ordinary person, the silence resulting from the absence of desires causes restlessness of the mind. He perceives this silence as approaching death or something unusual. Therefore, he tries in every possible way to escape from her and fill her with anything, so long as she does not remind him of the fear of death and does not create anxiety.

But in the end, an enlightened person acquires everything one can dream of, and truly turns out to be happy. For an ordinary person, as a result of his flight from freedom, his whole life passes in pursuit of an illusory happiness, which he never finds. And most importantly, that he will never be able to find, since his happiness is just a certain image in the mind, or in other words, a haze.

So think about who needs freedom and who doesn't. And also, think about who and what of you need for complete happiness.