But is the devil so ominous? Is the essence of death so vicious? What would happen, if in the present state of primitive human mind, death just left? What would happen, if we became immortal? The truth is that this will be immortalizing and nightmarish deepening of man’s negligence and dullness. Let us just have a look around... Does mankind live in the pulsation of the Cosmos? Has it acquired the wisdom, which would have turned immortality into a natural state and benefit for our planet? Humanity lives now in its adolescence, at the stage of rude and wild egocentrism - at personal, interpersonal and social level. Humanity follows blindly its instincts, which are not specifically humane, its drives and the impulses of its old brain structures and uses the human functions of its neocortex not for development of its predestined grandeur, but to reinforce and incite its primary drives. Until people learn to sublimate and use the animal drives within themselves and harness them in the coach of their cosmic function, to transform passion into Love and hate into creativity, until they get in touch with the rhythm of the Oneness of Life - until then death is more than wanted healer of the mindless human animal. What might be more frightening than an eternal and endless madness? Imagine an immortal Hitler, a psychopath, a pedophile or narcissist and sadist. Imagine the representatives of the behind-the-scene-establishment, who rule economically our planet - imagine those living immortal lives... Since these people are far away from any concept of humanity, our small human home will very certainly turn into a cosmic tumor. If human mind had developed at a different level, death would not have place any more in man’s evolution. But now, it is an indispensable surgeon allowing for regeneration and purification of the global human organism.

Generally speaking, what is death, what is life, what is immortality? In recent years, within "scientific" circles, it rules the strictly limited understanding of human being as a biological mechanism. Nowadays it seems smart to talk about human cognitive processes with computer programming jargon. Man has been reduced to brain bio-processor within which mind is a by-product of the complex brain structures, digital processes, calculation biological chains and neuron micro-structures. In the infantile understanding of modern science all truly human structures and fields of action, all transpersonal actions and spheres of existence of holistic being are reduced blindly and narrow-mindedly to their purely biological correlates. The supreme mental and spiritual processes, which are actually the man himself, have been reduced to their sensor-motorial analogues, stages of development and functions. Such an approach is wonderful if it is a part of knowledge as a whole. But if intuition, love, wisdom, and will are counted in the by-products of the bio-chemical and chemical-and-electric processes of the physiological systems of the biological human organism, this would be simply diving into the bog of ignorance and declaring this ignorance as most supreme knowledge...The modern gene engineering achievements are impressive. Modern medicine can successfully cause certain states of emotions by stimulation of the limbic system and the hypothalamus. It can evoke visions by influencing the occipital cortical section, etc. Serotonin could be called the biological substrate of calmness of mind, oxytocin - the substance of love, dopamine and testosterone - mediator and hormone of passion and ambition, while adrenaline and cortisone - hormones of fear and stress... This is true. These studies are extremely exciting and significant. They will fortunately continue and enrich themselves. But, if the cognitive psychological and spiritual processes are being reduced to their biological equivalents, the true essence behind the concept of human being will be degraded. The mental and creative processes correlate with their biological analogues. They could be traced up to a certain point by the modern technical apparatus. The brain waves can be measured, the zones of brain activity can be observed by PET or FMRI - but these would be only correlates and not the very mental processes. But when the word goes for psychology of aging - such a reductionistic view is supported by only a few branches of modern psychology. Such branches are for example the psycho-dynamic approach of Freud and Neo-Freudism, behaviorism and cognitive psychology, the last two being nothing but shadows of neuro-physiology and neuro-psychology, some trends of humanitarianism, etc. Being small units from the great chain of the science of the mind, they are its important parts. But if separately understood they turn man into inferior copy of its more perfect and "smarter" silicon brother - the computer! I am joking to some extent, of course! Still the limited thinking in some branches of modern psychology is stunning! Transpersonal and Integral Psychology have a different approach to the essence of human mind. And, if transpersonal psychologists concentrate mainly upon the super-individual and super-conscious levels of development, the Integral psychologists embrace the whole rich scope of Homo sapiens - from the sensor-motor perceptions through the representative, specifically functional thinking and formal logical thinking up to the post-formal, archetypal and causal super-consciousness and the non-dual super-intelligence embracing the totality of life.

Within the context of integral psychology life and death are just different spheres of manifestation of mind. According to Transpersonal Psychology (TPP) and Integral Psychology (IP) mind is immortal. Death is nothing, but a transition to another stage of its manifestation. Hence, we are immortal. According to the empirical studies of multiple researchers in TPP and IP, since ancient times up to the present day, what we call death is only discontinuity of the thread of consciousness during the transition of man’s existence from one state of consciousness to another. This discontinuity, or the transition through Lethе, the river of forgetfulness, is a rule for the average contemporary man. But this discontinuity of consciousness has nothing to do with the concept of death imposed by contemporary linear science. This can be commented broadly and the arguments of TPP and IP and their leading figures are many: Carl Gustav Jung, Aurobindo Gosh, Stanislav Groff, Ken Wilber, Roberto Assagioli, Maslow, as well as the hundreds of ancient great psychologists who all agree when they claim that "There is no death. The potentials of manifestations of consciousness are unlimited and those that we know are only the primary and roughest stages of its development!"

Referring to contemporary gerontology - what does modern science offer on the theme of aging and the processes connected with it, as well as about the seemingly, at present, inevitable death? It offers the feeling of doom. It imposes the idea that death is a complete annihilation. Since understanding of life and death, of the complete cartography of the microcosm and macrocosm, of the mind and its functions and of life in all of its multiple manifestations, of the eternal laws initiated within the structure of being - since understanding of all these have been reduced to their roughest effects and the relation to higher principles of life has been completely lost, what can the poor contemporary man do having adopted the madness of such a chthonic vision? If laws were determined only by the social institutions and the suspiciously humane humans who govern them, if essential concepts such as ethics, unity, love, compassion, kindness, harmony, wisdom, good-will are being reduced only to their rude perceptual, instinctive, hormonal, mediating and neuro-physiological correlates, thus rendering meaningless the very nature and purpose of man and his evolution is directed only to the horizontal plane; if the basic physical and psychological law of cause-and-effect is claimed not scientific - what can such a little man do being manipulated by such disastrous thinking? He has no choice but the boring and dull way of thinking that the monopoly of "science" prescribes. And the nature of this thinking is evident just as we turn and look around - lack of meaning, vagueness and mediocrity, the highest delight being brought about by the fully exhausted drives and the beastly attack in business activities, accumulation of winter savings in the bank accounts, calm gnawing the throats of whole nations and continents (Africa), i.e. their intended economic subordination and maintaining in situation of poverty and death...When we don’t stay in touch with our inherent high moral values, then the aim justifies the means. The means may be beastly, as we witness from the violence in the world. More than beastly, since human intelligence if serving the beast in man, turns out to be fatal. The aims are no different from the individualistic behaviors in any herd of animals, differing only in that they are manifested through the human cortex with its greater abilities. More females and power over the other males, strong muscles ready den to impress the mate, this is the same as drive to money and power or larger and more luxurious habitation (properties) always serve the libido impulses in man substantially in the same sphere as those in beasts. We cannot talk of aging and death without being concerned with their true cause - life! Life, conceived of, felt and experienced in a rather limited and distorted way.

It is possible that the future achievements of genetics and medicine combined with those of robotics to outsmart the process of aging and to extremely prolong and slow it down. This would be but outsmarting, falsity and lie. The process according to Transpersonal Psychology is being caused by loss of energy, by the gradual exhaustion of human energy. But this exhaustion is due to limitation the scope of mind. It is due to the lack of connection with the so called transpersonal levels of being and mentality which are the source of energy for this reality that we call life. Since those connections are distorted, man is born with limited store of energy, which he exhausts for very short time - within maximum a hundred rounds of our earthly home around the local sun... And gets to sleep, i.e. dies to charge again with energy... One might object that everything is a matter of genetic inheritance. Which is of course true, but the chromosome blueprints in our genes are nothing but programs set by the cognitive, effective and behavioral life of our ancestors. I leave the right to the genetic science to try and outsmart the natural processes. Being a psychologist, I am reflecting from the perspective of the mind science, I claim that the mind and the processes connected with it have decisive role in the process of aging, prolonging of life and improvement of health and general prosperity of man at intra-mental level, respectively in the sphere of intrapersonal relationships and social processes!

Talking in the light of Integral Psychology in the spirit of Ken Wilber, Carl Jung, Blavatsky, Any Bezant and Aurobindo Gosh, I can make the following parallel between the ancient religious and alchemical systems and the modern cognitive science and neurology. As we know, as a result of the research of the above mentioned (and they are only examples of the constellation of practitioners in the depths of Integral Psychology) great psychologists, the core of the esoteric (innate, essential) teachings around which all religious systems converge, is purely psychological. Practically all esoteric religious psychologies are concerned with the topic of old age, health of psyche and body, and prolonging youth and power. The symbolic concepts that form these trends of reflection are "immortality", "elixir of life", "the philosopher stone", "magic sticks and ring", "inner fire", "Fire and Water"(Yin/Yang), the kinetic spheres, energy channels and centers etc. Briefly speaking: in celibacy or sexual act, when completely aware of his own mental processes the practicing psychologist (studying the mind) harnesses the power of his libido, sublimates it to its finer equivalents, raises the duality libido-mortido, passion-aggression to refined Love and concentrated creativity. The energy of libido-mortido, eros-tanatos (Freud), which is basic dichotomy in every esoteric psychology is being raised to finer mental level and within this process the brain exposes additional zones of association and the process of functioning of the glands with intracellular signaling and the brain transmitters is being balanced and harmonized which leads to change at the chromosome level and suspension the process of aging. Here is the meaning of the terms which I mentioned:

• Immortality - actual physical one as well as creating a finer bearer of the mind of high order

• Elixir of life (Amrita, Ambrosia) - the male semen and the hormonal and mediator balance with both genders being perfectly harmonized, the secret of the epiphysis which is being emitted during deep contemplation

• Philosophical Stone - the male testicles/female ovaries, the endocrine system

• Magical sticks and ring - the male sexual organ and the spinal cord/the female sexual organ

• Inner fire - mental energies

• Kinetic spheres - level of inner functioning connected with the mental-physiological functions of organs or systems

• Fire and water - mental energy and mind

• Energy channels and centers - the spinal cord, the spinal and brain nerves, sympathetic and para-sympathetic system, glands and splits, brain structures

It is amazing to draw parallel between the contemporary anatomy and physiology and the esoteric psychology. Contemporary medicine is of course much more detailed but in my opinion we have something to learn from the ancient approaches, too, as far as we actualize them and involve them in the system of integral knowledge!

Not deeply analyzing the essence of science and the scientific approach, I would observe that the personal empiric experience is the foundation of knowledge with the researchers in Transpersonal and Integral Psychology (TPP and IP). This empiric experience is essentially different, which can hardly find "scientific" prove, at least not according to the pseudo-understanding of contemporary limited in its own chains science. But how light can be proved in the language of the blind one? He would experience light only by its indirect effect, through heat, since he lacks the instruments, the devices, the senses for direct perception. Similar is the situation of the contemporary scientific empiric psychology and the empiricism of Transpersonal and Integral Psychology. The researches of the different fields of mind possess inner devices which are much more trustworthy and natural than are the mechanical toys of modern two-dimensional "empiric" psychology. Two-dimensional, since it functions in the sphere of limited consciousness. How can the contemporary technical devices prove the empiric experience of a Transpersonal Researcher of mind? The change of brain waves or the synchronization of the brain hemispheres, the localization of brain activity in a definite zone could be due equally to the highest Samadhi or a deep sleep and even to a couple of glasses of alcohol stimulator. How can you explain to a little frog, never having left its little bog (the sphere of consciousness) that there is an ocean. She will definitely deny it. Such is the reaction of nowadays infantile science. Its illusion-based self-esteem denies everything that is unbeneficial for its ignorant and narcissistic ego.

At the present level of development of the human psyche, the old age and death are inevitable programming. As we have seen, it could be changed by certain sublimation of consciousness and harnessing the mental energy. This is difficult to achieve because of the condensed cognitive and affective layers deposits set in humanity by multiple generations before and manifesting as genome blueprint.

How then can we improve the process of aging turning it from a nightmarish agony into a natural transition? My answer is: by knowledge! By throwing light on the processes, by knowledge about the multilevel nature of human mentality, the multilevel nature of the Cosmos, getting to know the primary laws of life engraved within its vibration. Modern science is gradually developing. I compared it a couple of time to a teenager. It is really so, and its reactions are parallel to those of an adult: restless self-esteem, with a great deal of dashing one’s head against the wall of personal mistakes and rediscovery of the evident by individual suffering. Holistic science is patient with this scientific teenager, knowing that soon he will become an adult and will acquire a more wholesome knowledge of himself - hopefully.

Why should we be horrified by death if it is not much different from a longer sleep, followed by awakening for a new day, new experience... The fact that people lack this objective knowledge prevents them from adopting it as personal understanding. While during the Middle Ages the people thinking in a different way from the generally accepted have been put to fire, now they are just declared unscientific in their concepts... Still there is some progress...

The main method of staying healthy within the horizontal perspective, this is releasing the stress. And stress could be digested in the mental stomach only if there is strong and mastered libido energy available and skills to manage the different mental components. As for mastering the libido energy, I have not met a more working method than the Tantra method of sexual sublimation. I am using the term Tantra conditionally, meaning not a differentiated system but a complex approach to harnessing the mental energy. Without harnessing and harmonizing this power even the simplest stress disturbs the hormonal balance and respectively the quality of physiological processes. When the energy-and-mental misbalance becomes chronic, the result is only aging and death. On the issue of developing the personal mentality directly effecting the mental and somatic health and well-being, I have not met a better theoretical frame than the one of Carl Gustav Jung. It being an Integral psychology, The Analytical Psychology covers both the debris of "IT", the Shadow and the transpersonal levels of the mind. When one observes his own mental reactions, he just cannot but wonder at the genius of psychologists like Freud, Jung, Aurobindo, Michael Ivanov, Stanislav Groff, Ken Wilber, as well as all the great adherents of the esoteric schools around the world. When an individual is strong enough to master his own mental processes, stress can be only a stimulus strengthening his psyche!

This topic could be written about quite a lot, but the practical conclusion is clear. The process of withering with age is a matter of ignorance! The ignorance of our ancestors (the genome in us) as well as our own ignorance! The separation from the wholeness of life and not understanding the reality of life and of our own mind which resulted in our receiving limited energy at our birth, which has been gradually exhausted to the last drop - followed by death.

The message of this article in brief is "Sapere Aude" - Dare to be Wise!