Tibetan Buddhism requires a person to die without fear, happy, in order to be reborn at a higher level. Dogs needed "just one more rebirth to become human". At an early age, Kalushev was strongly influenced by Castaneda and the magician Don Juan, who preached how children should be separated from their parents in order to learn to "stop" the world Your children must know the truth about transience, death and widespread madness, Lama Kalushev advised. What person, having decided to commit suicide, laughs like that. This is what some wrote on Facebook under the live broadcast of the press conference of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Prosecutor's Office on Facebook, when they showed a recording of the three, later found dead, saying goodbye with the words "It was an honor" and "We will see each other in a better place", writes "24 hours".
The answer is - the followers of Tibetan Buddhism.
According to him, it is very important when you die, not to be afraid, but to rejoice - this way you will help your rebirth into a higher being. Here is what the venerable Pende Hoter from the USA writes about dying in the Buddhist tradition: Since the way we live our lives and the state of our mind at the moment of death directly affect our future life, it is said that the goal or mark of the spiritual practitioner is not to feel fear or regret at the moment of death. People who do it the best will die, it is said, in a state of great bliss. The mediocre practitioner will die happily. Even the beginning practitioner will feel neither fear nor terror at the moment of death. So one should strive to achieve at least the smallest of these results. Just for reference, the venerable Pende Hoter has set up a center in the United States where he helps those who wish to meet death joyfully. And without fear. That is why journalists often interview him on all sorts of issues related to ethics, the need to write a will, etc.
The venerable Pende Hoter has set up a center in the United States where he helps people meet death without fear and die happily.
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, Tibetan Buddhists prepare for death through practices and beliefs aimed at facilitating the transition of consciousness. Death is not seen as a sudden end, but as a profound gradual transition (bardo) from one life to the next, emphasizing that mental preparation is the key to a favorable rebirth. The moment of death is the "door to liberation" if the individual can maintain awareness and has freed himself from any connection to the past life.
Material possessions cannot accompany the dying, making spiritual preparation the only valuable asset at the end. According to Tibetan tradition, the dead are given celestial burials: The physical body, now just an empty shell, is left in the open for the animals, reflecting a final act of generosity and detachment. (This explains why the dead bodies in front of the "Petrokhan" hut are left in the open after they have set fire to their earthly possessions and died joyfully.)
Buddhism generally rejects suicide. It prevents reincarnation into a higher being. Which means that in the cases of "Petrohan" and Okolchitsa, one most likely killed the other two and then committed suicide as a sign of supreme self-sacrifice in the name of the others. Is this possible? Yes, if they have reshaped peaceful Buddhism into another teaching that misinterprets its basic ideas. At the "Petrohan" hut, Decho Vassilev and Plamen Stattev were found with one gunshot to the temple each. Ivaylo Ivanov was shot twice in the head - one with a rifle under the chin, which broke his jaw and took away one cheek, but did not kill him. The second shot was with a gun to the temple.
In Okolchitsa, the picture is clearer. In the front seat of the camper was 22-year-old Nikolay Zlatkov. Behind him in the living area was Ivaylo Kalushev, with 15-year-old Alex. The child was crouched in a prayer pose when he was shot in the temple, and was found leaning against the wall with his legs folded and fingers intertwined. Nikolay Zlatkov turned back and was shot in the forehead - like Botev. The shots were from a "Colt 44" revolver, also known as a "Magnum". Then Ivaylo Kalushev shot himself with the same revolver in his mouth - his head was almost blown off. He had a "Glock" pistol stored on his waist, but it was not used.
The Way of the Bodhisattva ("The Way of the Bodhisattva") elevates self-sacrifice as the highest goal of human existence.
It preaches the renunciation of personal good for the sake of other beings. One of the famous passages reads: "Let my body become food, a bridge, a medicine...". A Bodhisattva (from Sanskrit: "being of enlightenment") is a person who has consciously generated bodhicitta (the aspiration for enlightenment) and has dedicated his life to achieving Buddhahood in order to help all sentient beings. This is a higher ideal, symbolizing unlimited compassion and wisdom.
On his Facebook profile, Ivaylo Kalushev often writes about enlightenment and radiance. Until 2-3 months ago, when despair began to seep into his posts. On January 1 of this year, he made the following wish: "May your confidence fail before your heart. May your beloved plans fail quickly enough so that you finally encounter reality, not the storyboard. May you feel in your bones that the calendar is a polite lie - midnight is just another breath, dying into the next. Bury last year's self and don't build a shrine to the corpse.
Everything you love will change, rot, or leave - including you. Don't let that fact crush you, but open you up. Stop transferring your life to the next achievement, the next partner, the next spiritual sticker. This moment is the ground you keep avoiding. It is already sacred, with or without your approval. The person you think you are is a rumor. Test it. Let confusion be your teacher, not your enemy. Suffer only from the pain that wakes you up; let go of the pain that simply keeps you busy. Trade opinions for experience. Trade control for attention. Love people as if they are no longer there - because they are not there - and behave accordingly: tenderness now, clarity now, no time to waste. Catch the mind that freezes "future" and smile - it never arrives. Only this blade in the moment keeps cutting.
Die before you die: let your story burn to ashes, while the harsh realization, reading these words, remains bright, vivid and ownerless. You will not be remembered for long. Okay. Okay. You are finally free to be honest. If you need a New Year's resolution, make this one: STOP PRETENDING YOU HAVE TIME". This is a Facebook translation, since the post is in English. For some time now, Ivo Kalushev's writings have been in this language. That is why in Bulgarian they sound with their English construction - like a text message to his mother. Another book from the hut is The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa - a story about Milarepa, who in his youth killed people, then repented and went through extreme asceticism (asceticism, renunciation of the body, mind and ego). The book views death as a transition, the body as a temporary phenomenon and rebirth as inevitable. The idea is that through enough suffering a person can be reborn into a better life.
Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism is also seen on the shelf. "Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism" is a series of lectures by Trungpa Rimpoche (a title of a Buddhist teacher, meaning precious jewel in Tibetan) and is a book that examines very common traps of self-deception in the search for spirituality, which the author presents as spiritual materialism. The main message is that life has no real value and should be "let go" or abandoned. The now-defunct website of Ivaylo Kalushev's own teaching, "Heavenly Dharma", states that he is a teacher in the Dzogchen lineage and comes from the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. Ivo's root teacher was the late His Holiness Kyabje Trulshik Rinpoche, the last head of the Nyingma lineage. According to the "Encyclopedia Britannica", Nyingma/Rnying-ma-pa (from Tibetan: "Old Order") is the second largest Buddhist sect in Tibet; it is stated there that it transmits the original teachings of the famous Indian teacher of Vajrayana (Tantric Buddhism) Padmasambhava, who visited Tibet in the 8th century and, together with Shantirakshita (another Indian teacher), founded the first monastery in the country in Samye around 775.
The sect emphasizes the mystical aspects of the Vajrayana tradition and makes extensive use of shamanic practices and deities borrowed from the local, pre-Buddhist religion of Bon. Monks are not usually required to observe celibacy (celibacy). In addition to the Supreme Dalai Lama, there are a huge number of divine beings (each with his own family, spouse and peaceful and terrifying aspects), who are considered symbolic representations of psychic life by the religiously sophisticated. The key attitudes towards death of the sect, according to "Britannica" are: Certainty of death, uncertainty of time.
Practitioners are encouraged to meditate on death to avoid wasting life, viewing each moment as precious.
"Know in your heart that the highest treasure is the ability to meditate. Remember the infinite benefits of meditation for yourself and others." This is one of the main precepts of Lama Ivo, who, according to the downed website of "Heavenly Dharma" further developed the "old order". And indeed - the residents of the "Petrokhan" hut meditated for a long time every day.
Here are more of Kamlushev's precepts to his students: "Your children must know the truth about transience, death and widespread madness. As long as you keep the connection with the supreme teacher in your heart, always be content in any situation. You don't need fears and hopes, you can get rid of them completely."
Ivaylo Kalushev with children in Tibet
However, the analysis of all this requires the answer to one last question: Why are dogs killed? According to "Britannica", the attitude of Tibetan Buddhism towards them is a mixture of deep compassion, karmic beliefs and practical use. In Tibet, dogs are seen as intelligent beings whose lives are closely connected to those of humans, as they have the potential for spiritual development. It is believed that dogs, especially those living around monasteries, are often reincarnated monks or human beings who made mistakes in a previous life, who are now redeeming their karma. For this reason, they are treated with care and respect, as this is the last step before their rebirth as a human. Dogs are not just animals, but beings with whom we are karmically connected, so it is important to treat them with mercy (bodhichitta) and compassion. Perhaps they go to death with people in order to pass with them to the next rebirth.... In addition to Buddhism, Ivo Kalushev was also strongly influenced by Carlos Castaneda. His classmates say that while they were having fun, he would sit alone in a corner and read Castaneda. The author is a sociologist and anthropologist from California by profession and writes a series of books with the main character Don Juan - an Indian shaman from Sonora, Mexico. The Sonora Desert is very far from the Yucatan Peninsula, where Ivo lives and dives into caves, but he embodies Don Juan's ideas there. Carlos Castaneda is an orphan, raised in institutions in the USA and Latin America. He is fixated on the upbringing of children and how they can turn from unfortunates, beaten by parents and mentors, into happy people. Here is what Castaneda writes about the teachings of the shaman don Juan for children: "Everyone who comes into contact with a child becomes a teacher and continuously describes the world to him until the moment comes when the child begins to perceive the world as it has been described to him. According to don Juan, we do not remember this fateful moment simply because none of us could have any point of comparison. From that moment on, however, the child becomes a member of a collective. He knows the description of the world; his membership in the collective is fully realized when he is already capable of interpreting it sensibly, conforming to this description and thus confirming it. That is why, for don Juan, the reality of our daily life consists of an endless stream of sensory interpretations that we, the individuals participating in this specific collective, have learned to make in the same way."
Carlos Castaneda
And again: "I once told him about a friend of mine and his problems with his ten-year-old son. The boy, who had been living with his mother for the past four years, had moved to live with my friend, and suddenly the problem arose: how should he behave with him? According to my friend, the child was not doing well in school: he lacked concentration and was not interested in anything. He had a habit of skipping classes, misbehaving, and not coming home." Here is what don Juan replied: "If I were your friend, I would first ask someone to spank the little boy. I would try to find the scariest-looking person. - To scare the boy? - Not just to scare him, you fool. This little boy must be stopped, and beating him by his father won't do any good. If one tries to stop one's own kind, one must always be outside the environment that oppresses them. In this way, one can influence the pressure of the environment. "Don Juan claimed that in order to begin to "see", one must first "stop the world". "Stopping the world" was indeed suitable for leading to certain states of consciousness in which everyday reality changes, because the flow of perceptions, which usually flows without interruption, has been stopped by a complex of circumstances foreign to this flow," Castaneda also writes in "Journey to Ixtlan". In the preface to this book, he explains: "In my two previous books: "The Teachings of don Juan" and "A Separate Reality", I have already described this period of learning. My main claim in both books is that the key points in the study of sorcery are actually the states of extraordinary reality induced by the ingestion of psychotropic plants. Don Juan was an expert in the use of three of them: Datura inoxia, popularly known as jimson weed; Lophophora Williamsii, known as peyote; the hallucinogenic mushroom of the genus Psylocibe. Under the influence of these psychotropic plants, my perception of the world turned out to be so strange and impressive that I was forced to recognize these states as the only way to perceive and learn what don Juan was trying to instill in me. Interestingly, according to data from the Mexican authorities, there were suspicions that psychotropic substances were used in Ivo Kalushev's camp in the country.
Ivaylo Kalushev in the nature of Mexico.
But that's not all. "Tales of Power" is Castaneda's most poetic and mystical book. In it, he reaches the edge of the abyss between life and death. Don Juan disappears and he is left alone. Here is the end: "Don Juan and don Genaro stepped back and it was as if darkness had swallowed them. Pablito grabbed me by the elbow and we said goodbye. Then some strange impulse, some force made me run with him to the northern edge of the plateau. As we jumped, I felt him holding my hand. Then I was alone". "In "Tales of Power" Castaneda reaches the edge of the abyss - a journey into the unknowable, which is the death of his personified biographical self," writes Psychology Today magazine. It is from here that Kalushev's path to sectarian Buddhism in Tibet and Mexico begins. The underwater caves he explored there were sacred to the Mayans - cenotes were considered portals to the underworld - underwater burials were performed in them, sacrifices were made by being immersed in them... Carlos Castaneda died of liver cancer. He was cremated and his ashes were scattered somewhere in Mexico. But legend has it that he melted into the distance like the sorcerer Don Juan. That's what the writer wanted. Or did Kalushev also decide to melt into the distance because he simply failed to overcome his ego, as both Castaneda and Buddhism teach - in fact, in this peace-loving religion, the main goal is to defeat your ego for the sake of others... And not to sacrifice them to your own ego. Which apparently happened in the "Petrohan" hut and under Okolchitsa.