I don't want you to get the impression that I think of myself as a spiritual teacher. Actually, my goal is to write a self-teacher so everyone can achieve enlightenment without any teacher, that is, repeat my experience. For me your enlightenment is your problem, and I can only help you by giving advice via the Internet. In addition, this training doesn't involve any sexual encounters between me and the followers, so I cannot be called a spiritual teacher by definition.

About Me II

About Me

My first word was 'papa' - 'dad' - my father read somewhere that if you whisper in the ear of a sleeping baby words, then in this way you can teach the child to speak. That's how he taught me my first word (although usually for the Russians it's 'mama'- 'mom'.) As it turned out later, that wasn't the end of his experimenting with whispering in my ears; and when I became a teenager and started to fight for my independence, he and my mother began to apply this method for my upbringing. Needless to say that what they whispered to me were only prohibitions (someday, maybe I'll tell you what exactly they whispered: I don't think this can already make me vulnerable.)

General Rules for Overcoming Mental Problems

See also
The Main Obstacle,
One Wonderful Technique,
The Hell Gate 

 and here

At the heart of all mental problems are always ties (attachments in traditional Buddhist terminology); they hinder the expression of your true self, which is a pure negation. By mistake you identify yourself with your attachments, ie, instead of identifying yourself with your potential, you identify with the past. Therefore, in the long term, it makes no sense to separate attachments into 'bad', which cause suffering, and 'good', which cause positive emotions: to get rid of the former, you should start with the later, and there are several general rules how to do this effectively.

The Trouble with Self-Compassion

To get rid of a neurosis, your ego should be changed entirely: you should not cherish it, but, calling things by their proper names, kill it. So there's no room for self compassion. Self compassion can reconcile you with your neurosis but won't solve the very problem (although if someone starts arguing that you should fit in some standards of behaviour, be 'normal' like everybody else, then it's appropriate to recall that you're a unique personality and have the right to your own imperfections.) Even after getting rid of the neurosis, you'll still have crises - and that's great! - and each time you'll face a choice: whether to reconcile yourself with your imperfections or to bring the crisis to the limit, which is a great skill, and get over yourself. This is difficult only with your first neurosis, but then you'll become like Phoenix.