Spirituality Studies 9-1 Spring 2023 93 Oleksandr Zubariev structured acts into a synthesis of a higher order and can be embraced with one monothetic glance as a constituted unity [3]. By identifying the main meaningful contexts of the interpretation of transpersonal experiences, we can say much more about the reasons for the popularity of Eastern spiritual practices in modern society. The concept of cultural form helps to define Eastern spiritual practices as a socio-cultural phenomenon. Iuliia Soroka (2010, 116) provides the following definition of the cultural form: “It is the culture of group life, a set of historically changing rules of perception, judgment, and behavior of a specific social community (social-ethnic, social-political, social-territorial, social-class, etc.). In the structure of the cultural form, the external (presentational) side (clothes, rituals) and the internal side or doctrinal core are distinguished. It is also characterized by a specific moral and emotional mood, everyday clothing codes and symbols, a linguistic concept (jargon), and a special set of ‘mise-en-scene’ that outlines the cultural context of group life. The basis of a cultural form in the process of its formation is the social interest of the community of its bearers (social group, stratum, etc.).” According to our understanding, Eastern spiritual practices are cultural forms that have explicit sources from another culture to a greater or lesser degree, i.e., connections (in the form of borrowings, imitation, etc.) with one or a few religious and philosophical systems of the East – Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism (in the terminology of Evgeny Torchinov, religions of pure experience) – which are significantly distanced from them (geographically, historically, and culturally) and widely spread in the West (Zubariev 2018, 125–126). As cultural forms, they are realized in the space of an individual. Therefore, this article aims to build ideal-typical models of meaningful contexts in which individuals who practice Eastern spiritual practices understand their transpersonal experiences. 3 Method and Methodology The tactic of sociological study implemented in this work is the life history. This qualitative sociological study involves obtaining as much information as possible about a person’s life path and their subjective perception of their own life, allowing us to explore world manifestations and, therefore, to get closer to understanding how the world is experienced by those who practice Eastern spiritual practices. The method used to gather sociological information is a narrative interview. It is believed that during an arbitrary story about one’s life or its separate aspect, a person reveals the world’s significance to them. The narrative acts as an objectification of this world in the text. In the narratology of the modern German researcher Fritz Schütze (1983, 283–293), this phenomenon is fixed in the principle of homology of life experience and narrative. Interview procedure. At the outset of the interview, the participant is informed about the interview’s purpose, including the principles of anonymity, the possibility of audio recording, and the limits of its further use. These details are dependent on the interviewee’s motivation, the interview’s duration, and its location. Following this, the interviewer presents the narrative impulse, which initiates the conversation. The narrative impulse is structured as follows: We are interested in the life stories of people who practice Eastern spiritual practices. Please share the story of your life, including how and why you came to practice Eastern spiritual practices and everything that happened subsequently. We suggest beginning from the point where this topic became relevant for you (e.g., during childhood) and continuing to the present time. You can talk about anything that seems important to you, as everything is of interest to us. Once the informant has completed their story, additional questions are asked. These are non-directive and are intended to clarify specific aspects of the story, as well as directive questions that seek to obtain specific factual information of interest to the research. These questions include a mandatory block and questions that arise from the informant’s story. Among the mandatory questions, we ask, Have you had any experiences with the transpersonal? If so, please tell us about them. In some cases, we conduct a follow-up interview to obtain additional clarification. Criteria for selecting interviewees. Concerning the selection criteria for our interviewees, there are several points to consider. Firstly, a crucial selection criterion for the interview was an individual’s experience in oriental meditation. We sought representatives of Eastern spiritual practices who had been actively practicing for at least two years at the time of the interview. Notably, the presence of transpersonal experience was not a determinant for selecting informants; we needed to gain prior knowledge of the informants’ transpersonal experiences. However, during the interviews, it became apparent that most of the informants had transpersonal experiences and could discuss them. Secondly, since we defined Eastern spiritual practices concerning their cultural connection to the religions of pure experience, it was important to have both those who practice Eastern spiritual practices rooted in Hinduism (such as the various types of yoga) and
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