C h a p t e r  IV.   G a m e s  w i t h  G r e a t  C o m m o n  S e n s e.

From Igor Kalinauskas book "Games of I"
Translation by I. Shpigelman and B. Macdonald, 2006

A Man and his boundaries

When we move from the Spirit, the light, toward the incarnation that we habitually call Man, we reach the boundaries. Individuality, Personality, and Essence - what we call the boundary, where the personal incarnation, that is connected to to what we habitually call self-consciousness, joins the universal incarnation that what we habitually call the World, or Nature. Because, properly speaking, the concepts of individuality, personality and essence do not belong to a unitary object.

- What is Essence?
- It is a complex of ideal relations.
- What is Personality?
- It is a complex of social relations.
- What is Individuality?
- It is a complex of natural relations.

The relations are always Something placed between the related. Therefore, the relations of Man and the World are neither the man nor the World - it is something in between them. Thus, it was said: "Learn yourself as part of the World, and learn the World as part of yourself."

In other words, learn your relations, and you will learn that you as such-ness, strictly speaking, cannot exist on such level of incarnation. That is, learning your individuality, personality and essence, you are learning the complex of your relations with the World, and the complex of the World's relations with you, and this is precisely what is found between your "I" and the World. The idea of such-ness, for example, I am such, such, and such - is a limitation, it sets an external boundary on the relations of your "I" and the World. Thus, such-ness limits both our realization of ourselves and of the World.

Thus, even to say "my Essenes" - is a semantical stretch, because "my essence" includes both my relations with the World, and World's relations with me. And only our habit of egocentrics allows us to say "my essence", or "my individuality", or "my personality".

And every time, thinking thusly, acting thusly, choosing thusly, making decisions thusly, feeling thusly, you only strengthen your such-ness, you strengthen the walls of the tin that separate you from the World, but also you sway your relations with the World toward some silly mystification. Because if I think, consciously or not, that there exist "my relations" with the World, but the World does not have relations with me - it is already silly mysticism. Such logic immediately leads us to the conclusion that a man is a special magical object of unknown content.

If a man cannot bear in his real existence the position of relations, then, indeed he tries to mount an impenetrable border. And then all his "spiritual drive" is directed into the "tin". His aspiration is locked inside the tin of such-ness, and, therefore all his "spirituality" turns into well-grounded egocentrics. And no more than that.

The world of relations is the living world, the unpredictable and spontaneous one. And precisely in this world our separateness of other people, of the Universe can be overcome. For this world weeps our Soul. Precisely there Love dwells.

Experiencing Personality

How one can experience, learn, see, hear, feel the essence, the personality and the individuality? Through dialog and resonance between so called subjective and objective realities plus a few rational starting points that are offered by our or your tradition.

For instance, when studying the personality as relations with socium and socium with it, I necessarily find out that there exists laws above the personality. Socium, micro-socium, macro-socium - it is not just a sum-total of people that compose it. It is not only people, but, mainly it is a certain structure of roles and positions. The personality is inserted into a larger or smaller volume of socium. The personality as a whole, under the name of structure of relations based on consciousness (including super conscious, subconscious, unconscious), has both personal and super-personal laws. And a man cannot tell much about his personality if he does not see it from both sides: from the side of his social ambitions, automatic reactions, connections and the like, and from the side of the socium, in its turn affecting this part of your incarnation.

In order to learn oneself on the level of personality, it is necessary not only to learn the particular qualities of one's own positions toward socium, but also the peculiarities of socium's positions toward me, to learn what is super-personal.

As soon as you begin thinking about it, and trying to understand it, you find out that, in the strict sense, there is no such notion as "my thoughts". There is not and there cannot be. Because the thoughts are derivative of personality, thus these are not mine, these are "our thoughts". There is no such notion as "my essence". The essence is some structure of relations of the whole with the whole. This there is only "our", that is, the World's and my essence. And, as a matter of fact, the limits of our oneness, of our unity with the World are established only by the absence, or by limiting of the resonance. There is no such notion as "my individuality" - there is "our individuality", mine and Nature's.

Perceiving one's incarnation as a complex of relations with the World is indeed the rational justification of transparency of any single-piece object in creation. Because if we look at any object from the position of incarnating Spirit, on the maximum capacity of its incarnation, this object fades into creation via relations. And we may say that, in practice, the spirituality level of this or another person, this or another tradition is described by its level of abandonment of such-ness, by the level of transition into accepting a man as complex of relations between "I" and the World. The World does not set limits on diversity. It dictates the rules of relations, yes, but so could you dictate rules. It does not seem possible to exhaust all the wealth of relations with the World, all the spectrum of it on any of the ways of incarnation.

Even this first, simple rationalization attempt shows that the transparency of the World, as its fundamental feature, is preserved even there, where it is routinely accepted to speak of dense incarnation, such as, for instance, our body. But even our body is transparent and pliant in much larger degree than any of us could imagine. We just do not possess any experience of learning this transparency and using it for transformations.

Yet, there is some data on such things as changing by will such characteristics of the body as biochemical metabolism, reaction rate, change of dominant parencephalon. There exist experimental data that all of the above is pliant and may be changed. Not to mention such things as consciousness and personality, it is indeed just some smoke, some cloud. Or the essence

Through the concept of "transparency of incarnation," infinity opens up, one can step outside of oneself - although it is also absurd, a linguistic absurd, because there is no need to step outside. The necessity to step outside is the result of such-ness aching of its separation from the World, of its closeness. This is why such-ness represents such a big problem. This is why when we take into consideration the comparative levels of inner and outer determination, we pay so much attention to this matter. Because outer determination, when dominating over inner, indeed creates this or that form, that is, this or that such-ness, since outer social pressure is aimed at creating a maximally predictable image of an active member of society. On the other hand, inner determination is indeed the might of a growing pure subject, that destroys such-ness from within, as a chick breaks its shell.

We spoke of a possibility to describe our boundaries from within (that is of domination of the inner determination). Yes, it is possible. But if we are consistent, we will finish such a description by stating that those boundaries do not exist, because the space of relations cannot be strictly broken apart. To what extent, to what point there are my relations with the World, and from what point do the World's relations with me start? Without this space you cannot truly see another man; you cannot truly see the situation, or socium, or anything else.

But if you are tied to the model that states that you are not a ray of Spirit's incarnation, but rather an object, a certain object in the world of objects, then this space of relations is left outside the walls of your such-ness. And then you may honestly believe in God, but, at the same time, honestly keep forgetting that no hair shall fall from your head without God's will.

Quality of man's existence in the World

The quality of man's existence in the World mainly depends on two factors: on the presence of stable self-consciousness - I am, and on the level of knowing, creativity, and on depth and foremost, courage in your relations with the World.

Everything is defined by relations. Therefore, the miracles happen, not poetically, but literally, only because of Love. Because in Love there is no such thing as fear. There is nothing to lose in Love, thus, there is no fear. Love in endlessly difficult, and, at the same time it is endlessly natural, if the World of relations is accessible for you.

Without Love all these complexes of relations that are given to a man, exist in his incarnation not as limitless possibilities, used not for comprehension of the grandeur of Man and World, but, rather as boundaries that separate a man from oneself, from other people, from the World, and it leads to scanty and formal relations. And the poorer are the creative relations of the Man and the World, the more this man is influenced by the power of super-personal laws of socium.

The door into the World

From the point of view of incarnating Spirit onto the fabric of existence, the incarnation itself is the Door into the World. It is the privilege of human incarnation. And a human may open this door literally, making practical contributions to the work of Spirit, not as an abstract desire, or some figure of speech, but as a way of his real Existence in the World.

In the realm of this view, we may realize that everything that we can tell about ourselves as of objects - are someone's else words. Everything that we say of the so called Myself - these are all someone else's words. Everything that we think of ourselves - someone else's thoughts. Everything that we see, when we look upon ourselves as objects - are someone else's views. Because there is no possibility to really see ourselves, and it is not needed, either. It is only possible to see oneself with the eyes of someone else. Though it is possible, under the influence of social conventions and routine ways of thinking to attach all these views to oneself, and feel certain that you see yourself in there, and by doing so, to place oneself into the tin of such-ness.

The Spirit does not look upon itself - the Spirit is incarnating. It looks only off itself. Figuratively speaking, the Spirit does not look anywhere, the Spirit beacons. Beacons only off itself, and never - upon itself. We perceive the Spirit only indirectly, by testimonies, and the incarnating World is such testimony to the Spirit. But by opening the Door into the World, we can perceive the Spirit directly.

When you comprehend, by rationalization, that everything that you possess within yourself as some self-knowledge, that is, how you look like, your temper, your abilities, all that is, in sober fact, someone else's stories of some kind of you, then it is not a hard task for you to separate your such-ness from your self-consciousness, to de-identify yourself from your farmstead. But, in reality, there is no de-identification. Why do I need to de-identify myself with Igor Nikolayevich if he does not exist at all? As Igor Nikolayevich is a mere set of descriptions, that has been accumulated since my pre-natal development, when my mother had been told how I would look, who I could become, what genes I would have, and so on. And this set of descriptions is indeed this "crust" that is baked by the outside, and that we call "such and such" person.

This crust is so thin that if you are honest, you will admit to yourself, that the fear of destroying this crust is much stronger in yourself than in the ones around you. Look deeper and you will see that the others do not care much about it - destroy your crust, and they would simply patch it somehow. Ah! We were mistaken, he is not such and such, but, rather, such and such! And this is all that would happen!

But your very own irrational fear of destroying your such-ness is simply a fear of "loosing oneself". You immediately land yourself in the endless World. And if you do not have spiritual perception of oneself as of the incarnated Spirit, how will you live, then? As this crust of such-ness no longer exists, as "I" cannot describe from within even the shape of your nose. But I must have a nose, I must have a particularly shaped nose, must I not?! I must have a particular temper, I must have specific thoughts, must, must, must - I am such! The scream of a man in a tin: "I am suh-uh-uh-uch!"

I am I and I am Such

Self-identity and such-ness are completely different things.

It is proven scientifically that our brain establishes our self-identity every millisecond. Then, why does the man bother? He already has a wonderful instrument - the brain, it does it - I am I, the brain checks it all the time.

But such-ness is a prohibitively complex description, created by a huge number of people, during the whole life of man, plus self-descriptions as well.

For instance, I know for sure that my left hand is not as handsome as my right hand. I used to know people that would suffer from the fact that the shape of their left hand is not as good as it should have been, but the shape of their right hand is good indeed. Humbug on these shapes of hands, shapes of bodies, eye-shapes, physiological metabolism, informational metabolism!

For a man, hammering a nail, there is no such thing as the inner design of the hammer. There is only the function - to hammer. It it is able to hammer - it is a hammer indeed, even if it is a cobblestone. If it is not able to hammer - it is not a hammer even if it fully corresponds to a conventional idea of a hammer's shape.

All that a man can say of himself is that I am something incarnating and that I possess instruments for this act.

There is another point explaining why it is so difficult to open this Door to the World. If there is no such-ness then one cannot judge anything, there is nothing to judge. Any judgmental word, said toward any man, is actually said toward my projection of this man, no more than that, thus, it turns to be lynch-law.

"Judge not, that ye be not judged" - because either condemnation or commendations related to my seeing the such-ness.

Choosing at will

Do you think that others see you objectively? And what is it, to see objectively? To take a photo? But then you must have known that on one photo you look one way, on another photo - another way, and on the third one - yet different way. So a man selects the photographer, the facial view, and so on, because he selects a specific such-ness via the photograph, or via video, the one where he likes his looks.

Do you think that everyone sees me with my legendary belly? May I assure you that not everyone and not always? Or, do you think that everyone sees you with a defect that you keep worrying about? Or, everyone sees you with the same temper that you know? The appearance of other people is as delusive as your own. Why, do you really see the same person every time in the same guise?

I will not even mention dreams where you can watch absolutely fantastic such-ness. Take the everyday life instead: I suddenly like this man today for some reason, strange, I have never liked him before, or, vice versa, I always liked him, but today there is something wrong. Maybe it's the eye-shape, that I have never noticed before? Really how is it that I have never noticed it before?

Very long ago, when I used to work with various science-like methods of accounting for extrasensory abilities, I found, by experiment, the following fact. It turned out that of all magical ritual methods, their effectiveness is defined very simply by the World view and view of oneself.

I think, this practice gave me the biggest result. I have confirmed for myself that a man realizes oneself through relations. That the whole World is perceived through relations. And the World of objects is only an illusion that is built by people to shield themselves from the endlessness of the reality, both inner and outer.

Degrees of freedom

There is a source of Light and there is that that it can shine upon. This source of light is what we call self-awareness, what we call I am.

If this personal light source shines upon the World, if the Doors are open, then everything is all right. But if somewhere the light is stopped by the walls of such-ness, then what can we possibly see? Then we are sitting in a tin, and see the inner wall of the very same tin, any further the Light cannot go. Or, we are sitting before the window and see some landscape behind the glass. Then it is a translucent tin, a better tin, a "spiritual" tin, do you understand?

Well, we are always sitting somewhere and inside some thing. But if we adopt the position: I exist in the World, then there is nothing that can be said about "I". Then "I" is a contiguous process of incarnation. And so, from this side and from that side, from the side of so called subjective reality and from the side of so called objective reality, we are found in the same place, in the key place for the actual Existence - in the place of relations with the incarnating World.

The things that I discuss in my books, they are the keys, the keys to the Door into the great World. Will you be able to use these keys or not - it is your private and personal matter.

Attempts to find out something about oneself, about one's future, about one's horoscope, about various things that other people think of one's appearance - this never ending hunger for information about oneself show that there is no objective grounds for seeing oneself. Such-ness is so artificial that it requires non-stop effort, non-stop energy expenditure, for keeping and navigating itself.

Self-identity

And self-identity is a completely different matter, altogether. It does not require any effort spent on recognizing oneself through others. No matter how much a man "learns oneself," no matter how long he looks upon his photographs, no matter how many opinions of oneself he has collected - he is still not sure.

The most assured in their such-ness people are the ones who concentrate upon a small circle of people, whose opinion they value, and do not believe anyone else's opinions, because there are less contradictions in such a way. But these are precisely the people who suffer catastrophes when a view of a person to whom they have gotten accustomed to, whom they have considered their only mirror, suddenly changes.

It is possible to see the Light that comes from another person, although, it is quite difficult. But then, if you have seen such Light, you have a real chance to come into resonance with this person.

Another example. You all know, or heard of though-forms, thought-images, power of thought. Why thought? The more I am open, the larger is the volume of my relations with the World, the bigger power of my incarnation, the better chance I have to produce, together with the World, something that did not exist before.

The level of materialization of what we used to call "my wishes", "my thoughts", "my desires", depends on the energy of personal incarnation, and the quality of this energy is defined by the level of resonance between objective and subjective realities.

To go with your Light

The difference between man and other living creatures is that man possess self-consciousness. He is capable of self-reflecting on the process of Existence, and having done that, he is capable of getting rid of such-ness and becoming transparent for the Light. And then there will be no Darkness.

Darkness is that, what is either not lit upon, or shielded from light. Darkness is the shadow that falls upon the World from such-ness, when such-ness deprives you of transparency. There is no other reason. Realize this, and you will be able, without any irony, to heed the words of Rajnish: "To go with one Light", or to heed much older words "Do not make yourself an Idol", or, "If you meet Buddha - kill him".

If you met with such-ness - kill it, for it stands in the way of Buddha's Light.

The meaning of existence of such-ness

As long as there are thoughts of oneself man will depend on other's opinions, because his thoughts of himself really are other's thoughts of himself. But we said: "it make sense to think of others". To think how well you see them, of relations. And if you, thinking of others, will analyze the accumulated material filed under name "I am such" you will see that you know our old friends so well, as if they have confessed to you, each of them in full privacy of confession.

There is no necessity to renounce the habitual use of words, but, rather, memory and attention is needed, so that we do not forget what is said and thought. Therefore, when I say "I am such", I have to remind myself, with the help of my consciousness, that I am talking of certain such-ness that is created by certain people.

Then, what is the meaning of the existence of such-ness? This meaning may be found if we recall the history of formation of human self-consciousness. Indeed, for self-consciousness to appear, it was necessary first to segregate from nature, from the World, sort of cut the umbilical cord that linked the first man to the nature. Awe of separateness, the first realization of abandonment in the endlessness of the World necessitated the creation of facilities that would help against insanity. The such-ness, the fixed, constant, limited image of oneself, was such a facility, and the first personal line of defense.

And for the modern man, such-ness is, first of all, a way to establish one's own uniqueness in the world of people, yet, not crossing the borders set by socium. The specifics of human life from the point of view of incarnation is that I am I, the man, is made out of people and lives among people. Even if physically man is alone, he is still among people, because all the fabric of his human nature is people.

But socium is not made only of people (although for us, visually and imaginatively, it is perceived as people), but it is also a system, a structure of conventions (rules, norms, and laws), all this huge human-making factory thing. And this is precisely what we call the bazaar of life.

From the ambition to live on the bazaar, to exist in the forms of very social life, starts the game, where the man is either a player, or that which is being played. This game concerns all of the content of man's existence among people. A man that has hidden himself in such-ness is that, what is being played; a man as an active subject - the one who plays.

That, what we call socium is not Grand Folly at all, but rather Grand Common Sense. And Grand Common Sense realizes that it is not possible to control personality in the full sense of this word, because personality is the complex of relations.

And to directly control the essence that no one has even thought of, because only recently there emerged a certain set of notions and conventions that could describe in somewhat rational terms such thing as relations of the whole with the whole, of total with total. That is, only recently it became possible to describe in rational terms how an essence converses with another Essenes.

In sacral texts there are some cues, but we perceive these cues only because we can rationalize them in our modern language. But people that passed this knowledge through imagery, did not rationalize them as we do.

For them, knowledge existed only in the form of imagery, and did not require any other form. Therefore, for instance, the Tarot Arcana are Tarot Arcana, they are as they are, but everything that we add to them is only our rationalization. We simply cannot directly perceive the knowledge in such form as Tarot.

And therefore, the Great Average, the Great Common sense begot the Great Idea - indirect control. Very effective, indeed. This idea consists of control over what we call the instruments.

In such a manner, such-ness emerged: no such-ness - no social man. Who is going to enter the social relations? Spirit? Incarnation? Therefore, such-ness was required not only for segregating man from nature. It is just the object, that socium calls man.

The idea of the Great Average

If we look with the eyes of Great Average upon this gadget called "man", it will be always "such man". There cannot be just man, but there is only "such man" and also "ideal man".

The "such man" will either come closer to an ideal, or will be deserted by others. This is indeed the main social method. And how is it achieved? By directly influencing the instruments. And through them, influencing the relations. And how does one influence the instruments, for example, the individuality? It is socially accepted nourishment, regulated nourishment, stimulation and punishment by nourishment, quality and quantity of nourishment, literally and figuratively speaking. It is directly impacting the body. It is fashion, it is the ideal of beauty - body must be such and such, such body is good, such body is bad, such body is beautiful, such body is not.

Influencing the personality, it is first of all, affecting the consciousness - one must think such, such and such, thinking this way is wrong, but that way is right, this way you are smart, but this way you are stupid. Add to it regulated behavior - good conduct, bad conduct.

Influencing the psycho-energetics - to laugh loudly in public is bad, to cry is also bad, or, is good, and so on. To show emotions is good, to show emotions is bad.

Socium cannot directly manipulate the relations, it manipulates via the instrumentality.

When you no longer perceive yourself as such-ness, but only as an incarnated Spirit, you will have a chance for a bona fide game with socium. On one side of the table - the Socium, uncanny and wise Common Sense, all important people, power, government, reference group, mother, father, and on the other side - your "I". And your instruments - on the table. And should you not keep even a single piece of your such-ness, just in case, you are destined to win. For this Great Average, this Great Common Sense has no ability to control the Spirit, and never has. They do not have even an ability to directly control your personality, but only through your instruments, and through behavior control.

And so, I am betting all of my consciousness, with all its content, and my psycho, or my Soul, whatever suits you better, and all my body - all goes into a single bet! Let us play! Socium pushes my button, but I do not react. Socium says: you must have a liver problem under such conditions, but I have no pain, at all. Socium says: you cannot understand this, but I do understand. It says: you cannot abandon this, but I can, and I do. And so on, toward the checkmate, in each specific situation.

This is exactly what I call to de-identify oneself with the instruments. Because in the situation of, say, a hermit, there is not much of a necessity for de-identification. A hermit's instruments belong to nature, anyway. Am I my instruments' keeper? Here, Mother Nature, take it, you have created it, you may take it into possession. And I will keep on the pure Spirit. There are variations, yes, but all the variations are only intermediate.

We, as a product of the socium, can only play against one partner - again, the socium. It has begot us, and now, either it will have won, or we shall.

The great leaders, the ones that were able to influence the general line of human development, or, speaking more precisely, the self-consciousness of humanity, self-reflection of humanity, have played their game in a very technically sound manner. We may even analyze their games - how Jesus Christ played his game, how Buddha played his.

The history of socium is not the history of human Spirit, nor is the history of human Spirit the history of socium. They are fundamentally separated. But they do come in touch at such points as Jesus Christ, Buddha, Mohammad, and others like them.

This game is, in reality the true self-dependence, without a trace of self-assertiveness, without any negative terms, without any terms that are considered negative. Self-dependence is just I, myself. Here I stand - myself, and here you stand - socium, World, other man. I myself and you yourself. No other dependencies.

And the choice is three-fold: either game, or fight, or love, no others. Another question is which restrictions, that is, which rules of engagement to accept, by whom, and why. And this is indeed a different question altogether, the question of mission, the question of why I am here, in each specific incarnation.