C h a p t e r  II.   T r a v e l l e r s  a r e  n o t  N a t u r a l  B o r n

From the book "Transfiguration" by I. Kalinauskas, 2006
Translation by I. Shpigelman, 2006

Brakes for Personality

The weakening of social responsibility level in some people may happen in quite an exotic manner. They become interested in something weird, mystical, symbolic. These people are looking for ways to alleviate not the outer, but the inner tension, the inner discontent with life and with themselves. And so they begin to search for something that lies beyond the boundaries of mundane life. And it is not easy nowadays. The Socium have realized that exotics, mysticism is a commodity, that there is a demand for it, and that it should be marketed as any other commodity.

The Socium have created a market of exotic life: hippies, rockers, bikers, role games, knights, fantasy genre, occultism and other "spirituality". This market is remarkably well organized. Dissatisfied with common life people may easily go to this market of uncommon life, Since this market is sanctioned by the socium, they will not be subjected to heavy ostracism, maybe reproached, but only to increase the acuity of experience. On the other hand, an enormous institution of religious confessions also absorbs discontented people and leads them, discontented, into the bright future of life after death, or into new incarnations, or, places all the blame on "them", or, just asserts that "it must be so", because "papa God" said so. At that, when bitter things must be reminded, "papa God" is immediately remembered, but when sweet things are promised, "son God" is remembered. "God is love. We are all brothers and sisters. And so, let us make group sex!" The ones who participated say: "in an exalted state it feels really good". I have not participated myself, so I do not have any personal recollections, but a few people who have, shared with me their impressions. But they become tired. Of being exalted.

A man in his typical form is not suited for strong emotional strains. Even in the artistic world, an artist who is capable of sustaining strong emotional strains is always noted and counted, because it is a rare sight, indeed. Especially if he has not gone mad, or become an addict before the age of fifty. So that the heart would not break. So the tragic actors and actresses are virtually extinct nowadays. I already mentioned, how once I stroked down the professional athletes by offering them to do an emotional training with me. They yielded in less then fifteen minutes, and said that they prefer to lift weights - it was much easier. Therefore, despite the spiritual hunger, despite the Essence waiting for her time, the time may not come for everyone, but when it does come, really funny stories happen. And my favorite one is the story of the seminar given by Canadian Christian-millionaires.

We saw there an amazingly sincere and charming man. So wealthy! A chair of the leading industrialists committee. And a multi-millionaire, rolling in money. And so, this man, in a completely childish state, told us how God opened to him, and how he became a believer, and now he travels all around the world, and preach, of course, in a free from his work time.

It may happen that Personality has realized oneself, but Essence that now may also begin its realization, is at this time about five-six years old. Those missionaries reduced the Bible to the pocket book of eight pages in total, with the title on the first page, and printing house data on the last one. In place of the whole Old and New Testaments.

So what is the bottom line? The bottom line is that not everyone is so lucky. Most of the people experience these or other events in the course of their lives, and, in the course of those events the Essence can snatch some bits of nourishment. Either due to some aesthetic experiences, or mystical, or lyrical... But Personality, alas, did not succeed in realization of its program. Multi-millionaire? Millionaire? How about a spoke in a wheel for a life destination? The family values somehow have exhausted themselves. The children somehow have grown up, well, maybe a bit better children than the ones of the millionaire, the children who at least from time to time think of their parents. And it looks like everything is fine... But there is this something. Something else, which have some desires on its own.

And so this is the story. But this is the story of only unlucky ones, all the others live happily.

From frying pan into the fire

Let us start from the following place. Due to various reasons, a man escapes the spiritual flee-market and finds himself in a Tradition.

... Our lame duck becomes a spiritual seeker. As it now seems to him, this fact alone advances him from the middle of Philistine mob into the glorious army of "teachers of humanity".

Because of this fact alone his self-esteem jumps over the roof. He easily lets go of all rules and values of so despicable and hated socium. He is spiritual seeker! (Applause) And, when he hears the applause of his fellow sufferers - he is happy. Finally, he found his place in life, under the Sun and in the world all in the same time. He found it by flowing into this exotic Us.

And first thing that he finds out is that sexual freedom has arrived. This is first. And immediately he begins to realize this freedom. Because the more diversified are the means of need gratification, the more diverse the need itself becomes. This is the first thing that he founds out on his spiritual path. He thought... but, it turns out, he wants more, and more...

The second thing that he finds out is that our Us is the best Us. And slight noble-minded contempt now occupies his heart when he looks upon those poor creatures that do not see the light of spirituality. Leering at the leader, he is estimating how much time it will take to take the leader's place. Doing elaborate reconnaissance, learning the history of the leader's ascent, our spiritual seeker is jerkily looking for any ways to minimize the costs that are involved in achievement of this goal.

And when our seeker feels that he has built enough of his spiritual muscles, and yet, he is not able to replace the morally obsolete leader, he creates his own version of the teaching. And the cadaver has been fully satisfied. The spiritual path is finished. The four big red buttons are polished and shining, and he is surrounded by a large group of soul mates ready to pull any button at any moment. It is done! He is now guru (or muru).

NOTE: There is a bit rude, yet very vivid image: any inner work only starts from the point where the four big red buttons no longer can be pressed without the consent of their owner. These four big red buttons that are used by the Great Average to control us are well known. It is power in its two forms - the desire to rule and the desire to obey, it is money as a source of potential power, either for acquisition or for philanthropy, an ability to take, but also to give, then it is kaif, in a general way, not only drug-induced, that is an ability to experience stimulation of pleasure centers, preferably without any obstacles. And, finally it is sex, a game between genders. (I. N. Kalinauskas "Igri v kotorie igraet Ya", St-Petersburg, 2003)

And nothing to be done anymore. Tired of the sun of himself, of the knowledge of himself, he is now disillusioned, and becomes a secret agent of social service, that is either a vendor on a spiritual flee-market, or a supplier, or an educator for the potential clients. And, for that, socium immediately grants him a place in its directory of exotic people and lives. This is the story of the beginning.

But some people, having passed through the purgatory of socio-psychological world of Tradition, suddenly become interested in a possibility of a fundamentally different life. And it happens despite the warnings of their colleges that sexual drive will diminish, he teeth will fall out, and organs will decompose. The material well-being will be gone forever, even in a form of a small salary. They are compelled to acknowledge to ourselves that they are crazy, maybe only a bit, that they are driven no one knows where, and no one knows why, but they are driven, very strongly.

A madman must be merry

It is their new need - to live a sensible life. To live in such a way, so that they would have something else, besides their social career and sexual pleasures. Because these are the two items to which the life is habitually reduced: social career and sexual pleasures. The former as work and the latter as recreation, or, sometimes, they even change places, for some people. But our spiritual seekers either had enough of it, or as a result of their psycho-emotional training, their sexual desires desisted. Somehow, they do not fall for these candies anymore. They want something else. Bold and ungainly circles of spiritual seekers are replenished with the new members. Such events are rare, luckily for the socium, but they still happen.

And when it happens, the man steps on the path, the path of Tradition. He stops all intellectual worries about the correctness of his choice. What if this tradition is not the most traditional? He no longer runs from one tradition to another and collects everything, just in case.

I want to share with you my thoughts on the subject "Tradition and life". It seems to be of pressing interest today, because, for the past ten years so many things have happened, so many interpretations movements appeared within Tradition, that sometimes I am surprised to hear what the initial ideas have been turned into.

And it is quite a natural process. We do not have rigid structure and we do not have have rigid control over the information. However, we can see now the main problem. This main problem lies in that people, as it is accustomed to say, study, and study, and study, a year passes by, than another year, and one more, and then, on the fourth year, a disturbing thought appears: why nothing happens with me, why there is not any significant achievements. And then some get tempted, and start looking for something more effective, under the common name of "siddhi".

They start looking for "siddhi", they experiment in this area, and, as a result, some of them loose their psychological stability. Others do not even look for "siddhi" but gradually come to the state that may be called a "crisis of faith", and frustration comes. All that - natural automatic mechanisms of human psychological defense, and they get engaged when our seekers do not attempt to present to themselves the acquired knowledge as a whole. I will try to do that today.

On the ways of DFS. Introduction to psychic energy

Let us start from the beginning. And, in the beginning we have the Differentiated Functional States technique (DFS). Also known as "Fire Flower".

What is DFS? It is a self-regulation technique. It is not an ideology, it is not the Weltanschauung, it is not a way of life, it is self-regulation technique. It includes an activating exercise called "Fire flower", in its canonic form, it includes the relaxation exercise called "The flight of the white bird", it includes the exercise called "Contemplation" for development of distributed concentration state. And it includes the skill of self-recollection, self-awareness in place of self-control, and we call this exercise "Movie".

As any other self-regulation technique, DFS is limited by the training period. Ninety full lessons are enough for learning this technique. Ninety lessons and you are free. It is tested by many years of experience and practical work. There is not any relations with Tradition at this place yet.

Therefore, everything begins with the commonplace situation that is intended for those who want to learn how to better deal with themselves. Therefore it is called "self-regulation". In this phase there is not any ideology, and must not be. But many, who starts working as instructors of this technique, quickly begin to use this situation as a pretext for being a guru. And gradually the people that study the technique forget what exactly they study.

There is a part of DFS that is called language of states. When learning this language, the notions of levels and rhythms are introduced. On this stage, the technique offers to learn sixteen states that are intended for development of emotional and sensual spheres, and for nothing else. This part is intended for people who have problems with differential perception of their own, first of all, their own emotional and sensual spheres, so that they could develop this differential perception.

DFS practice often provokes development of artistic qualities and their realization. It is quite natural, because artistic realizations heavily rely upon emotional and sensual spheres, upon the strength of their development, and upon differentiated and acute emotional and sensual perception of surrounding us reality. But all this is also simply self-regulation technique. There is nothing mystical, spiritual, or magical there. And if anyone attempts to assign those qualities to DFS, it is the matter of his own conscience.

There are not too many or too few of self-regulation techniques, but they do exist. And all of them are intended to be consistently and independently used by those who have studied them. If a man does not want to use it, it is his own business. Bought a fridge, put it into a wall-closet, let it stay there, but it exists. Last couple of years I am encountering such variations on this technique that even I cannot recognize the initial product, because it is used for anything except for what it was intended to.

Up to this point there is no mention of Tradition at all. DFS does not have anything to do with Tradition, at least directly. I realize that it is a big news for many. Nevertheless, it is so. DFS is an officially registered, patented, scientifically proven self-regulation technique. Period.

But as any other self-regulation technique it is intended for the development of the Subject. For comprehension of the art of self-regulation, for creation of the Subject, thus, replacing self-control with self-awareness.