Spiritual and moral qualities

Dear reader, in front of you there is a Flower of spiritual and moral qualities, which every man has to strive for. These qualities and the inner work on self-improvement is the core that unites people of different religions, nationalities, cultures and social positions.

The Russian on-line version of “The encyclopedia of spiritual and moral qualities” is being worked out by a group of Roerich-followers. It is based on spiritual heritage of the Roerich family – Helena Roerich (1879–1955), an outstanding philosopher and a great spiritual worker; Nicolas Roerich (1874–1947), a great artist, world pubic figure, traveler; Yuri Roerich (1902–1960), an eminent orientalist and linguist; Svetoslav Roerich (1904–1993), a famous artist and public figure.

The spiritual and philosophical heritage of the Roerich family includes first of all 15 books of The Teaching of Living Ethics or Agni Yoga (1920s–1930s), the works and letters of H. Roerich, literary-and-journalistic and artistic works of N. Roerich.

The ideas of The Living Ethics is closely connected with philosophical heritage of Helena Blavatsky (1831–1891), the founder of the theosophical movement in America, Europe and India, and “The Teaching of the Temple” compiled by Francia La Due (1849–1922), the founder of spiritual community The Temple of the People (1898) in Halcyon, California (USA).

At the beginning of the XX century the ideas of The Living Ethics (Agni Yoga) got their further development and explanation in the philosophical writings by Boris Abramov (1897–1972), the Helena and Nicolas Roerich spiritual disciple. These writings had been created since the 40s of the XX century, but they were first published in Russian only in 1993 under the title “Facets of Agni Yoga”. Natalia Spirina (1911–2003), the disciple of Boris Abramov, carried out a variety of public work in Russia, in Novosibirsk. And her refined poetry reflects the philosophical ideas of the Living Ethics.

These are the direct spiritual sources of the Flower of spiritual and moral qualities represented on this site.

In Russian version every petal of the Flower of spiritual and moral qualities is planned as a “living” one. The click on the petal-quality opens the page devoted to the particular quality. The page contains a dictionary entry characterizing this quality and quotations from The Living Ethics, the Roerichs’ works and from other books. Arranged according to the thematic headings the quotations help to single out the key features of the quality. Corresponding N. Roerich and S. Roerich pictures and a piece of music accompany every text.

The main aim of this work is to research the essence, distinctive features and characteristics of the development of spiritual and moral qualities of a man, to distinguish these qualities from looking similar manifestations of the lower senses and qualities. This research extends our knowledge on moral qualities, self-improvement mechanism and helps to understand better complex mental-and-psychic processes in our consciousness.

For more information about life and works of the Roerich family you can visit the cite of Nicolas Roerich Museum in New York http://www.roerich.org/

The complete texts of the Living Ethics books in English, German, Icelandic, Italian, Spanish and French you can find on the cite of the Agni Yoga Society (New York) http://www.agniyoga.org/index.html