Oleg Cherne

The Method

We can talk beautifully and at length about ancient traditions, great masters and cultural practices, however if we don’t understand the method of learning, our journey will lead us nowhere. Mastery is bound to be limited if it’s based only on the natural characteristics of the person (and not on development) or his quantitative efforts. Therefore the sooner we pay attention to the need of mastering the method, the clearer and more articulate our way shall be.

The method is precisely what should shape tradition, since it lies above knowledge. It teaches us how to develop and how to extract the good out of the whole information flow and to absorb it. The method teaches us to operate with the attained knowledge, and knowledge, in turn, stands above the development system representing a particular master.

The master or the teacher comes last in the chain of knowledge, not first. If masters come first, they inevitably limit knowledge primarily to themselves, becoming aesthetic models for learning and provoking reactions instead of helping learn the tradition.

The game of belts, ranks and symbols is also a method, but a user oriented method where the followers of a certain doctrine are often not even aware of the correspondence of this method with the very road the follow. But this is a purely social move and tradition here is just some screen playing the role of the agreement with the followers.

The task of the method is above all to open one’s mind, teach him how to use it and then to instill in it certain ideals and beliefs. Each person should convince himself that what he is doing is right and should know why. He should learn not to react but rather to evaluate his own actions.

This is why I declare that development is impossible without understanding the method; it is replaced by mere repeating or joining a certain emotional experience. This, however, is no solution to the problem of human development, it simply transforms the practitioners into associates in a certain process, and they become even more dependent on the space they are located in.

I invite you to ask questions on the topic of studying the method and building the algorithm of development. Let's try to sort out what is causing difficulty to so many people who have embarked on the path of development.