As we noted earlier14, by carrying out the spiritual work described here and further, a person creates the following: as he learns about himself, he outgrows the boundaries of the ego – connects his deep essence with something greater than himself, "with the superhuman beginnings of his nature, changes the scale of self-perception and forms a new attitude to his deeds, choices and life in general. Every grain of self-knowledge gained is experienced by him as a step in the direction of personal growth, congruence of the Self and the world. Such self–identification and the discovery of the value of the Self, the need for oneself in being – a significant condition of human existence – is one of the foundations of experiencing inner well-being."15 As M.M. Bakhtin wrote, "to be aware of oneself actively means to illuminate oneself with the upcoming meaning,"16 which can be found beyond the visible limits of death (the cessation of the functioning of the physical body).
I.S. Pryazhnikov refers to the personal neoplasms of the elderly as a change of value orientations with access to existential questions, the search for meaning in a new life activity, summing up (revealing the meanings) of a life lived. With retirement, a person can come to a special happiness, for some people, it may consist in "the desire to calmly comprehend the whole life lived" (in this case, self-determination will be retrospective, awareness of the meaning of the life lived). The personal neoplasm in this case will be a sense of integrity and harmony, or, if the meanings are not found, a sense of inharmonicity, incompleteness.
During the period of old age itself, one of the leading activities of I.S. Pryazhnikov is the preparation for death, which can be expressed in the preparation of a will, introduction to religious or esoteric knowledge. Personal neoplasm has a dual character: "either it is a strengthening sense of self-worth when an old person finds an important meaning of his life for himself in spite of all circumstances, or it is a feeling of despair when such a meaning is not found and an old person wastes his strength in small things, literally "fading before his eyes"."17
All the moments of awareness of the unattainability of the fullness of self-incarnation that are becoming more frequent during late adulthood and old age are closely related to thoughts about death (the inevitable existential reality of existence). When a person constructively overcomes the "crisis of aging", then with a retrospective immersion in the past, he experiences the "fulfillment" of the meanings of life, finding in it moments of happiness, self-actualization, moments of self-embodiment and fullness of being. If the fear of death overwhelms the personality, then the appeal to the past occurs rather forcibly, in order to find excuses for not embodying meanings, there is a projection of self-condemnation on others, on inherited circumstances and leads to negative experiences, a sense of subjective distress.