printer friendly

1996 – "Spiritual Image of Russia
in N. and H. Roerichs' Philosophic and Artistic Heritage" (October 9–11)

The Fifth International public and scientific conference was organized by the International Center of the Roerichs supported by the International League for Protection of Culture, the UN Information Center in Moscow, the UNESCO Moscow Bureau, the International Association of World Foundations, the Russian Cultural Foundation, the Russian Academy of Arts, the All-Russian Society for Protection of Monuments of History and Culture, the scientific and production company “Znaniye” (“Knowledge”).

More than 600 representatives from all regions of Russia, from CIS countries, Bulgaria, Germany, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the USA, Estonia, and other countries participated in the conference.

The report of the N. Roerich Museum Director, the ICR First Vice-President L. Shaposhnikova “New Planetary Thinking and Russia” made the conference focus.

Extracts from reports

L. Shaposhnikova
the N. Roerich Museum General Director,
the ICR First Vice-President, Academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences
(Moscow)

New Planetary Thinking and Russia

<...> In the history of mankind, at least in that history which is known to us, there are no periods when social and spiritual revolutions would coincide at their initial starting point. We see for the first time such coincidence phenomenon in Russia in the XX century. This circumstance determined many spiritual and social processes on its territory. <...> Having coincided in time and space, both the revolutions followed their ways as if opposing each other. And in this opposition, in which Spirit and matter, Light and darkness met, there was its historical logic, its cosmic essence. <…>

Everything that happens on the Earth is determined by the processes of Cosmic evolution, its laws and its peculiarities. The same, and not the “method of production” determines the earthly historical process, the energetic reason of which acts in an extremely complicated consonance of cosmic processes.

The Living Ethics determined the world significance of Russia in the XX century and comprehended, impartially and strictly, the diversity of its contradictory peculiarities.

However, it was in Russia that the new thinking represented by the evolutionary Teaching encountered most of the obstacles and difficulties. This is due, first of all, to the character of that social revolution which started in Russia in October 1917. <…>

If the spiritual revolution strived to change the internal structure of man, which is the basis for all, the social revolution set forth material goals – economic well-being of oppressed classes, property redistribution in their favor. Means of life which economy is was turned into the goal. At the background of the developing spiritual revolution with its new cosmic world perception and new mentality, Marxism as ideology of social revolution looked commonplace and prospectless.

Being determines mentality. The form and level of production relations development determine being – Marxists asserted. These schemes left space for neither Cosmos, nor diversity of its energies, nor worlds of different states of matter, and finally, there was no space where the spirit of man himself, one of the powerful forces of nature, would show itself and act. The social revolution thinkers stubbornly negated any affinity of the human society to that invisible but real essence surrounding the planet and connecting the life of man himself with the Infinity. <...>

The future of Russia, a country connecting the West and the East and, due to the formed historical conditions, possessing an enormous spiritual potential, which they attempt to destroy now, lies on the paths of spiritual revolution which was formed in its energetic space. Evolutionary trunk of violent interaction of spirit and matter, most acute struggle between the Light and darkness is now passing through it. Despite all efforts of this darkness, the attack of spirit against rigid matter and expansion of the field of spirit are under way. The road of Russia towards its temple, to the true New World in strictly scientific, evolutionary understanding of this word is lying not through tempting benefits, but along this trunk line. Our way is in ourselves and in this space. New thinking and evolution now demand from us a spurt spiritualizing the matter of our life and thus pushing the mankind forward. Russia can and must make this spurt. This is the essence of its evolutionary mission. <...>

V. Budanov
Candidate of Physics and Mathematics
(Moscow)

Agni Yoga and Synergetics

<...> Agni Yoga given to people through the Roerich family teaches worthy opposition to chaos and teaches the way of spiritual ascent. Such teachings in other forms came in other crisis epochs of mankind through founders of religions and philosophic and mystic schools. Speaking a synergetic language, our epoch is the epoch of bifurcations and dynamic chaos, when multiple choices are made from alternatives determining the fates of people and nations, the time of responses to challenges of history dividing the living by light and shade, the time of high space tensions, when the subtle world manifests itself most visually and tangibly.

Today is the time to gather stones, the time for synthesis of science, philosophy, and religion, and the archetype of integrity is also demanded in modern science by a new interdisciplinary trend – synergetics. This a science of self-organization, birth of the new in complicated systems of any nature, both material and ideal, informational. Literal translation from Greek of the word “synergy” is a joint act, a notion dating back to the spiritual practice of early Christianity as “co-willing with the God”. <...>

Today, the necessity to introduce moral, ethical, and even aesthetical categories to the sphere of science becomes obvious, these categories being so characteristic of ancient traditions of the West and the East in experience of unification of man with nature and cosmos. And humanitarians should adopt the habit of scientists not to reject, but to review the previously accumulated truths, to try to explain the laws of harmony in a language more universal than the language of subjectively emotional concerns. Thus, we are coming to the necessity to form, taking into account the modern science knowledge, an integral vision of the world which was characteristic of our ancestors. Synthesis of wisdom of ancient civilizations, of humanitarian and natural sciences – is the way to new understanding of nature, man, and society. In the latest decades, such synthesis has started spontaneously, due to the logic of development of science itself, integration of its disciplines, consideration of more and more complicated systems in physics, chemistry, biology, similar in terms of their behavior complexity to live organisms or their communities, which are also modeling, as it has turned out to be, social and psychological phenomena. Besides, now the fundamental impossibility to eliminate the role of man as the experiment observer and interpreter has been realized, that is only integral approach is of current interest: nature + man. This trend of science dealing with the complicated – synergetics – relying on modern mathematical methods and being going far generalization of Darwinism, can be in fact called evolutionary in a broad sense. <...>

Only a short moment of history – the turn of the millennium is allotted to change the educational strategy, thank God the new holistic methodology of synergetics is already sufficiently developed. And the first steps have already been done: within the “Natural Science” discipline for humanitarians in all higher educational institutions of Russia, study of a large section of “Synergetics” is now obligatory. <...>

М. Tchiryatiev
the ICR Saint-Petersburg Department Chairman
(Saint-Petersburg)

The Roerichs’ Contribution into the World Outlook of Russian Cosmism

<...> At the beginning of the century, physics started getting interested in the unified field theory and started looking for generalization laws for substance and energy interrelation through relativity and quantum mechanics discovery. Vernadsky made the first grandiose attempt to introduce the notion of all-connecting energy into the macro world. For the whole biosphere is “covered with transformers” of live substance converting the energy of one type into another. How are they interrelated, what powers unify them? What is the essence of this grandiose symphony of life, what stimulus, magnet pushes the wave of multiple lives to new manifestations? And since life is a cosmic phenomenon, the source, motor, heart of the earthly life, the answers should be probably searched in cosmos – these questions disturbed the scientist. He turned with them to thinkers of the past, to the history of religion. <...>

Opening by N. Roerich of the Cosmos of Culture to the humanity and his practical cultural activities on a planetary scale should be considered as another considerable contribution of his into the world outlook of cosmism. Nobody before the Roerichs attached such a high meaning to the notion of Culture and did not speak for this sacred word destination with such persuasiveness and broadness. The Roerichs believed that Culture is the synthesis, heart, core of the spirit refined accumulations in which cognition of foundations of being and creation is laid, for Culture is reverence for creative fire which is life itself.

That is why so much evolutionary and cosmic significance was attached to assertion of Culture and the Banner of Peace. “The forthcoming epoch will raise the curtain above the Superterrestrial World. Many things will become obvious and accessible for earthly feelings. And this is what makes me happy. Borders between the spiritual and the material, between the earthly and the superterrestrial will be gradually erased, and people, still during their earthly life, will consciously prepare their continuation in the Superterrestrial World. And the earthly life itself will not be a senseless fragment, but will become conscious creation, fulfillment and continuation of the undertaken task in both the worlds. One can imagine how noble and fast the evolution will become! And for the moment, the mankind is busy with self-elimination! So, let us assert Culture and its Banner, the Banner of Peace. Culture is evolution in its basis; negating Culture, substituting technocracy for it, we reject evolution and violate the cosmic law”. <...>

Professor А. Akimov, Professor G. Shipov
International Institute of Theoretical and Applied Physics of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences
(Moscow)

Reflection of the Spiritual Mission of Russia in the Earthly Civilization Development

<...> The ending second millennium was a history of changes of paradigms in natural science, which every time radically changed our understanding of the surrounding us world organization. It is enough to remember Ptolemy, Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, and Einstein. Starting from Galileo, the contents foundation of paradigms was inevitably based on a choice of a corresponding relativity principle and corresponding geometry of space. The latter was fixed in Clifford – Einstein geometrization program. The third basic factor was postulating existence of a certain universal medium – carrier of interactions, like, for example, Newton’s ether, or a medium which does not only perform functions of a carrier of interactions, but is also the substance primary source, giving birth to elementary particles. It is physical vacuum in modern physics, shunyata or akasha in Vedic terminology, that makes such universal medium.

The developed in Russia in the latest thirty years ideas suggested formulating a physical paradigm on the basis of the physical vacuum theory. To do so, Einstein’s program of the unified field theory was consistently implemented, which in the long run resulted in equations of physical vacuum. <...>

It looks that the global goal, the mankind’s supertask is securing its evolutionary oriented development in harmony with the Earth natural environment, in harmony with the noosphere, in harmony with Cosmos.

Such an approach makes possible stable, and not just regulated development. And what seems just a mistake in translation acquires an almost mystical sense.

Evolutionary development is dominant not only for the mankind, but for the Universe as a whole. It is difficult to consider the Universe evolution without such a factor as the Universe consciousness, part of which the human mind makes. In the general context, it is extremely important that it has become possible to use for description of consciousness and for description of the Universe as a material object, a unified scientific paradigm – the theory of physical vacuum. When considering the nature of consciousness through specific manifestations of material objects’ torsion fields, it has become obvious that consciousness is a material object in itself. Matter won over matter, as M. Chiryatiev wittily reminded in his speech. Consciousness and matter at the level of torsion fields proved to be integral entities.

From these positions, it has become obvious that consciousness acts as an intermediary uniting, on the one hand, all fields (the whole purely material world), and on the other hand, all levels of the subtle world: soul, spirit, higher Hierarchs (including the Teachers), the Absolute (Cosmic Mind). <...>