T h e  D a w n

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

Step One. The Tradition begins with the world outlook. And this world outlook is called the same way as called the first book that was published under my name, "Alone with the World" There is I - a single human being, a subject, and there is World in which I exist.

The first matter that comes from Tradition is the matter of Dialog. The dialog system as the principal way of interaction with the world, with reality. This is already ideology, this is Weltanschauung, this is the first step toward Tradition.

Certainly, there exists a moment, in this first step, that is not strictly rational or scientific. It is the moment of accepting the position where the reality is perceived not only as a speaking one, not as a dry text. And there the hazard zone for our consciousness begins, since the acceptance of reality as of a subject logically follows from the assertion of speaking reality. And God, Absolute, anything that could be talked with, immediately follows.

But does the position of Dialog requires to acknowledge the existence of of the subject in the Reality? No, the Tradition does not requires that. And therefore it makes another step.

Step Two. The second step is the three postulates, that in the Tradition are referred to as the Law.

The first postulate: "Each man is a conduit for an infinite ocean of knowledge and power that lies behind him." This wording belongs to Swami Vivekananda This postulate exists in many traditions, there is not anything specific in it for our Tradition. We simply used the wording that would express with precision, in Russian language, our world-view in this aspect.

The second postulate: Realize yourself as a part of the World and realize the World as a part of yourself. This is a peculiar wording, that exists only in some traditions. From this postulate two principal viewpoints follow. The first one is the position of Dialog with the world: world as part of me and I as part of world is derived. The second one is the position of the resonance between subjective and objective realities and the necessity of stable self-consciousness that unites these two wings unto a whole follows from the same postulate.

Without persistent work on stabilizing one's self-consciousness, on stable subjectiveness, this postulate leads to "magical-mystical" consequences. Because when the man looses his subjectiveness he may either dissolve in his own subjective reality, an then - visions, missions and similar nonsense, that is, taking the projections of one's own mind and psycho for a voice of reality. Or, dissolution in the objective reality and, as a result, complete loss of one's own subjectiveness. All what is left in this case is a controllable biological object. An object, controllable by purely random events that come from the outward. I stress it again, on this stage, the expert work on the development of one's subjectiveness is of paramount importance. This includes both the work on the stable self-consequences, and the work on the self-identity mechanisms, and the work with the Self-concept. This is the main guideline of work, but, sorry to say that, I have not heard of it, and have not seen it for a long-long time. And who is to blame? Laziness is to blame, your laziness, and your inability to realize the motives of your actions.

So, the first postulate is ethical. The famous position of our Tradition follows from it. This position is famous, because it is famous in many traditions that are friendly toward us, and also in many traditions that are not friendly toward us. "Knowledge exists only in a form of people" - this is the most principal position that follows from the first postulate. What does it mean? It means that our Tradition consciously refuse to look for knowledge in anthroposphere, in outer space, or in the teachers from Orion. It looks for and finds its knowledge from people, straight on the Life Bazaar. Therefore, our Tradition finds meaning in compulsory communication with people, whom you did not choose yourself.

It is not an easy point. A man strives to live surrounded by people of his own choice - family, friends, acquaintances, the ones that he have chosen, and the ones that he can actively command, that is, draw nearer, draw further apart, break the relations, make new relations. Subconsciously, the situation of compulsory communication is associated with lack of freedom. It is the situation of an army, of a prison, it is a situation of a boyscout camp, or any other type of camp, it is a situation of a work environment. Therefore, there always exists a locus of tension about this situation in our subconsciousness. And this locus is neutralized by groupage, which, in turn completely negates the realization of the first postulate in practical life.

Uneducated leaders create closed systems of communications with their followers, and, thanks God, if it is not sects. As a result, they violate the first postulate, and compel their followers to violate it, too. "These are my people. I will not let my people study with you. I will not send my people to Igor Nikolayevich, they are not ready."

The same desire underlies different forms - the automatic desire to be surrounded by people of one's own choice. And a leader has an advantage here. But this very factor, that has been developed during the past ten years, contributed to the rise of the crisis more than all other factors together. Because, all neglect, misinformation, false interpretations aside, the material that comes from Tradition is intended, in the first place for development of a subject in a human being.

The School and the Tradition assert: each man is unique, inherently unique, essentially unique. The development of one's subjectness takes place no matter what kind of obstacles, conscious or unconscious are placed on its way. But how this subjectness manifests itself, or what it degenerates to in the life? Individualism. And individualism cannot maintain the situation of communicating with people of someone's else choice. And so even those small groupings break. And all different kinds of invoices follow: who owes whom and how much - morally, money-wise, psychologically, spiritually. The crisis of faith, frustration with leaders take place, right down to a complete disenchantment with Tradition.

Certainly, no one would blame oneself. The Tradition is the one to be blamed. And it all happens because the people, who in all their sincerity, on sheer enthusiasm step under the Law - those people do not know the Law, they do not think about the Law. They do not attempt to realize the Law, and, as a rule, no one help them to do that. Even many leaders are not sure what the Law is in its practical, live aspect.

Of course, frustration is inevitable, simply unavoidable, because the man have been doing something for ten years, I just adore this "doing something" phrasing, but neither faith has come, nor conscious devotion has come, because he is doing this something, no one knows what. Well, he has mastered the self-regulation technique, but has not become any more independent, why? Because when he was mastering the technique, his brain was so much bombarded with everything else, that he completely forgot that he was simply mastering the self-regulation technique. His mastering of this technique does not place on him any obligations, well, unless he is going to teach this technique.

But if he is going to teach this technique, then social decency requires him to make a contact with the author, and find out where he can study not the technique itself, but now the methodology of teaching this technique. There is such a trade - "DFS instructor". But it is so difficult to figure out what actually most of DFS instructors do. Either they are Teachers, or they are annunciators of other traditions... I know several DFS instructors that together with DFS give some kind of package deal: Reiki, or holotropic breathing, or Grof's matrices, or rebirthing. And there is nothing wrong with any of it, but, please, do not call it our Tradition.

Do whatever you want to do, but step out of the Law, that is, if you have stepped into. Look, you have got yourselves into all kinds of troubles: illnesses, financial problems, family problems. And it all happens because you say that you do one thing, but really you do completely different things. All my conscious life I have been living in one Tradition, and it is quite sufficient for me. I do not have time for Reiki, rebirthing or holotropic breathing. And this is why I am healthy and merry. I am not disappointed with the Tradition, and I shall not be. What does it all mean? It means that they know damn nothing about Tradition. Know nothing about self-regulation, and therefore adds the "package", this and that, and some more, to create an appearance of being so knowledgeable. Here is a social analogy for you. You have taken a purpose loan. You were entrusted with money, because you said you are going to build a Temple. But instead of it, you have also built a snack-bar, a meat factory, a bakery, a little private bank. The issues of decency toward Tradition it is such an obscure matter nowadays... I have heard such stunning versions that do not even want to mention them.

For all my life, I am working on just one thing - I am trying to understand something about people. But these most powerful, limitless abilities of the defense mechanisms of our consciousness do not cease to surprise me, ever.

The third postulate of the Law reads: "From the world of effects to the world of causes". What does it mean? It means enormous amount of work with our instrumental consciousness. And for that, lots of material of pure rational type exist. This is not visions, not revelations, it is rational information from the areas of applied psychology and applied philosophy.

It includes QSM (Qualitative Structures Method), and aspects' square, and Kalinauskas' steering wheel, and analysis of values structure of personality - a large volume of specialized knowledge. I do not even mention specialized techniques that develop an ability of self-reflection. All this requires significant intellectual effort. For that, the texts have been written, for that I routinely tell the fables, ranging from strictly logical to picturesque-amusing ones, approach it from different sides, talking on the same subject thousands of times. So that a man of any initial level of knowledge could be able to digest the rational knowledge offered by Tradition, just for that.

And the man who does not do that is an ignoramus. And there is high probability of this man being caught by the same kind of ignoramuses, and they will do only what does not require any significant effort. "Get into ecstatic states", and if it does not happen, why not to smoke some weed, or something like it, if I do not get there without it? Visions, trips, experiences - that is the goal.

But what is the use of those visions, if you do not have a mechanism of adequate interpretation, if you do not have anything that can realize this vision, if you cannot manage even conventional information?! How you are going to manage those visions? With what? Oh and ah will not help there. And again, militant amateurishness cries loudly: down with rationalism, up with love! Poor, poor love! What kind of disgrace was not covered by it. Laziness, ignorance, unwillingness to do inner work. Love, again love. True, love must come ahead of knowledge, but behind love the knowledge must come, not fancy of knowledge. Ahead of what love must come?

The Tradition does everything so that knowledge was accessible not only in a popular science form. For any type of informational metabolism for any initial intellectual level.

NOTE: Informational metabolism is the term introduced by Antony Kempinski. The notion of informational metabolism is one of the cornerstones of socionics - the science of interpersonal relations pioneered by Lithuanian researcher Ausra Augustinavicute in the 1970s. Igor Kalinauskas was involved in the development of this science from its beginning.

The Swan, the Lobster and the Ling...

The first reason for the tension between Tradition and life is that our guideline is buried in oblivion. The guideline states that the purpose of all knowledge, of all practices on the first, and, for some, the only stage, is the development of a man as a subject of activity. Of activity. But when a man, in majority of cases, not knowing what he does, tries to use this material, let us say, nobly, for group psychotherapy - it is an inadequate purpose. Psychotherapist is a trade, a profession that requires certain knowledge and professional skills.

And here we come close to the second reason of the terrible crisis of the socio-psychological world of our Tradition. This reason is the militant amateurishness, inherited since the times of Soviet Union. Its slogan reads: there are not irreplaceable people, thus there are not irreplaceable specialists, thus all professionals are nonsense.

Only once in my life I have heard of an amateur surgeon. But even he managed to find a position of head physician somewhere on Far East. And when the circumstances turned in such manner that he could not slip out of an upcoming operation, he confessed everything. That he had faked diploma, that everything he had was faked, even the tests results. He bought it all. But he could not dare to practice. He was only an administrator.

Reckless amateurishness, sometimes taking extremely insolent forms, that spread around our socio-psychological world, signals us that there are many people inside here, who want to use this situation, which was not created by them, for the purpose of their self-affirmation.

We know that a biological leader may talk nonsense. If he has an ignorant audience, he will necessarily find followers in there, because he is a biological leader. If he does it with confidence, if he refers to authorities, then everything is fine. He will find the followers without fail, because in order to learn properly, one must overcome one's laziness. The level of consumption significantly, I would say, in several orders of magnitude exceeds the level of comprehension of the information. The source of outrage and crisis that set in the socio-psychological world of Tradition is the militant amateurishness. It is false confidence of people that they can be professional psychologists, without any effort, or with minimal effort, just having memorized certain number of words. But all the frustration, neurosis, hysterics, it all follows from the above.

The next wave of sorrow, or, the third source of our problem was born out of oblivion. The third wave of sorrow is appallingly beautiful from aesthetic point of view. Those of us, who was raised during Soviet times remember this peculiar teaching of people versus person. On one hand, as we were taught, people are most important in the history, but a role of a single person in the history is quite small. On the other hand, we would routinely stumble across yet another monument. For example, Mayakovskii was, is, and will be the most Soviet poet of our epoch. But this Balmont is a vilest henchman of bourgeois poetry. Most, -est, everywhere. And, to top it all, the father of all people, the most, most general. We were taught so: whom to have as a life example, whom to have on top in bed. And because of the above reasons, in our socio-psychological world, would you believe it, was developed a cult of exotic positions.

Tell me, out of those so called people of the School, who does not want to be a Jester in the Universe?

NOTE: Jester in the Universe is the symbolic shield of the School, which has a second name, Order of Lord's Jesters.

The understanding, not only knowledge, but even recall of a knowledge that the choice of extreme position is not up to you - completely evaporated. An greater part of any whole is not on the frontier, not on the edge. And the interior of any tradition consists of soldiers, not of generals.

And what is this mass position in the Tradition. I have told it many times in different ways for the past thirty years, but now I will phrase it this way: "a strange man". What is strange about it? In the first place, he is strange, because, being guided by a very atypical world view and one's own image, he is very effective in action. This is what we talked about: a subject of activity. Not this poor lame duck under the name of "spiritual seeker" in the quotes.

And this "strange man" is effective due to his integrity, due to his knowledge and practical skills. This is why he is subject of activity. He has mastered excellent methods of analysis, synthesis, comprehension, reflection, and he trust his soul. The matter is, a normal man have his control center and his execution center, that is his legislature and his executive power all in the same place - in his common sense. A judicious man. And everything turns out fine and dandy - make decisions by myself, and execute them by myself. And if I fail to execute it, then I find a reason, again by myself, why it was impossible to execute it. It is convenient, economical, and everything is in a walking distance.

But a man of Tradition, and not only of our Tradition, has his legislature, the organ that makes choices, decisions, and assessments in his soul. No matter how you call it: the soul, the spiritual heart, or, simply the heart, the love, the emotional and sensual spheres. Matter is, it is the subject who makes the decisions by this organ. In our Tradition it is called "to live from impulse", "from want". And the executive organ can be anything - the cucumber, the common sense, or, possibly, the well developed and armed self-consciousness. And it is perfectly clear in such situation who is responsible for what.

If my execution organ cannot execute the orders of my soul, then, it is not up to the task, it needs to be tuned, developed, worked with. Because if I have faith as deliberate attitude toward Tradition, and this is my love, and the meaning of my existence, in this case my soul cannot be mistaken. The soul cannot make mistakes, it does not have anything that is capable of making a mistake, nor it has anything capable of not making a mistake. It feels. It resonates. There is either increase of energy or decrease of energy, and no other notions.

But out consciousness, this is a rational organ. The organ of execution. It is intended for calculating what needs to be done in order to fulfill the total "want", according to my comprehension, according to the Law, without stepping upon others, yet effectively and with good quality. And let me assure you, that with such disposition, amazing miracles of very real type happen in the very real social life.

Based on my own and other's experience, the process of mastering the initial bulk of knowledge and skills that comes from Tradition, requires up to twelve years of consistent effort of a student. And many people that are in a direct contact with me have finished the School. However, they do not want to leave the Tradition, another life awaits for them, but the learning never stops. I agree with the assertion of one of the Sufi traditions: a man was created so that he could learn, that is, develop and realize oneself.

But here rises the third wave of sorrow between life and Tradition. It consists in the following. People indiscriminately absorb all this remarkable, fascinating information. They practice, as we have found out, not only techniques of our Tradition, but also a bunch of other techniques, just in case. But, in their life, nothing happens, or, their life becomes worse than other's. The quality of life is steadily decreasing, instead of increasing.

What is the matter? The matter is that the knowledge received from the Tradition does not get realized.

Laughed when buying...

Then why does it not get realized?

The first reason. The things that must have been realized are well forgotten. What are this things? The guide line of evolution of the subjectness, the development of the subject of activity within oneself, the work with instrumental components of oneself, that is de-identification, work with instruments: consciousness, body, psycho-energy - under the framework of one Tradition, lest there should arise contradictions between the parts of the whole.

I want to draw your attention to this point: if the body is trained on, say, hatha-yoga of Buffalo, psycho-energy is developed on New Orlean's karate, and consciousness is educated on comics of "mystical" nature then you could see for yourself what degree of wholeness may be obtained here. None whatsoever. And it will not appear in the future, either. This is one of the reasons why the feeling of under-realization builds up.

The second reason is that in your craving of newer, more exotic and more tempting knowledge your are trying to absorb knowledge and skills that are not intended for this life at all. Let us say, you have mastered the state of merry madman. And so what? Where would you use it? Practically, where? Where is it required? Nowhere. With the life style of a modest intelligent citizen, this exotic practice is not needed anywhere. But practicing it just for the thrill of it is akin drug abuse, and may as well lead to deplorable consequences. Then, you should either change your life, which most of you cannot do even as an attempt, because you do not possess either sufficient motivation or a new social niche. Or, having been acquainted with such practices you should say to yourself: I do not need it yet. And concentrate your effort on what you really need.

Do not listen to or believe those who contend that only exotics pertains to extreme efforts. The biggest extra-effort is to live as an active person. But precisely that is so rarely done. If you want to be a professional worker of Tradition, please do, but remember that it does not have anything to do with the spiritual path. You simply have decided to learn a new profession. But if you have decided so, then you must learn it as a professional. Because DFS instructor is a profession, with all its professional problems, and with all the requirements that apply to a professional.

But if we are talking about the Path, the biggest extra-effort means to always try to move along the line of active subject - the subject of activity. It means to put one's signature: "I made it and I am proud of it", or: "I made it, I am ashamed of it", but in either case, "I made it". Then, maybe, the moments when you trust your soul the function of control and decision making will happen more and more often. And then such moments may slowly become your realization, your spiritual work. Your life and your activity will become a testimony to the possibility to live guided by one's soul, in our times, and in our world, and yet to be very efficient. Because you will possess a well-tuned execution mechanism armed with grade A tools.

I will give you a well known example. How a man, born in a low-income, low-status family could make his way up the social ladder, in any times? How could he break through? Only by one of the following three ways.

The first way - knowledge. As parents of my Jewish friends in my teenage time used to say: "You must become 'A+' student, because you are a Jew. 'A' will not be enough for you to get through." Knowledge could be used in two different ways: either you could become a top notch professional, and then socium would have to give back what you worth, regardless of your start position, or, you could become a top notch go-getter, so that you would be able to climb to the top of the social ladder over the heads of others.

The second way - talent. But talent is either a blessing or a curse. It depends. And you get drudgery with the talent, too. Because if our father is not a composer, you will not be one, either, if your father is not a painter, you get the worst track in this hit. The talent is all about work and work and work. And this is a real subject of activity. But when this subject is absent, then all what is left is complaints, complaints, complaints. I was born in a wrong place, in a wrong time, in a wrong country.

The third way - political career. Going higher and higher on the ladder of power. Guessing, and catching up with the guidelines of the ruling party.

It was all the same, throughout the history, in any social structure. The lower your starting social position the more chances you have to take a proactive role in your own life. The higher your starting position - the less chances you have, because laziness is formed even in the childhood. You are there already, there is no need to achieve anything. This is why millionaires, and not only American ones, send their children to toil for money since the age of fourteen, so that they could learn.

There is no other way. Everything else is lies and self-delusion. And it is all the same in the spiritual world. And exceptions only confirm the rule. But we are not exceptions. It is quite clear. It became clear in no time.

Say nothing of the third postulate and its consequences. Our Tradition offers the life and work based on motivation of comprehension. as a final result, please note, as a final result of training, that is after nine to twelve years of study. From meaning to meaning in place of goal to goal. But it is the final result, the so called integral existence. But the final result cannot be achieved without the preceding purposeful existence. And, of course, if a man does not possess happiness, it means that he is not sincere in his relations with the Tradition.

Judge for yourself: if you love someone, or just have an affair with someone, it is an infinite source of positive emotions. But if there is no positive emotions, then overcoming all the struggle of realization is very difficult, indeed. Because the real difficulty is not in making the decision, or in target setting. The difficulty is in the realization, in the execution. While you are still learning, it may be extremely difficult.

Since the time I have met the Tradition, I always feel good. But I must tell you, when I look at myself thirty years ago, I seem to myself such a clumsy man. My soul have faith as it had then, it loves as it loved then. But my execution skills were improving all the time. I always make a conscious effort in that direction, because no matter how high is the bar, there is always an expectation of more. Now I can finish in three days for what I used to take several years, I mean, in the area of realization. This is precisely the way to become a professional.

When I see a man whose dream is to become effective for free... just meditate a bit and ready, what can I say? Meditate a little, and you will have a vision, well, maybe you will have a vision, a revelation, but so what? You still have to realize this vision. And realization requires certain skills. When you did not do anything but it happened, it is not a miracle. A miracle is when when you managed to do something that for you is statistically impossible. This is the miracle. Your personal miracle, that is.

... came home and crying

Life of Tradition is not a social act, it is a mystery. And this is why we do not have any hierarchy in our Tradition. It cannot exist there. On one hand, it is our peculiarity. On the other hand, and it is especially well seen by an external observer, this is a soft spot of our Tradition. This is where multitude of possibility for profanation arises. And sooner or later, the critical mass of this profanity, of amateurism should have brought us to the crisis, and it did. Yet, I do not see this situation as a dead end.

The original cause of the crisis lies in the deformation of fundamental principles of the Tradition, that is, distortion of the information. But it can be overcome. And what I do now is the action, that is intended to give a birth to a certain impulse, that will overcome this distortion. There are people in our socio-psychological world, who are capable of listening not only by ears. I foster hope that because of such people, the level of distortion will decrease. The new impulse will be born, the one that will allow our socio-psychological world to raise to a new orbit.

While it will not be of my immediate concern, I try to see and hear all that. I will do my best to participate in the process of forming of the opposite trend - the trend of conscious, professional work, and first of all, the trend of inner work, because without it the subject of activity cannot be born.

Everything was done to make the information accessible for everyone, so that none of spiritual Gruppenfuhrer could usurp this information and manipulate it. And we will continue working along this line, by all possible means. Information does not belong to anyone, but the Tradition.

The world of miracles

What is the world of miracles in relation to life, to a real life of real people? The world of miracles opens up and becomes accessible to a man very gradually. Extremely gradually. I must say that I began to more or less consciously interact with these non-traditional aspects of reality when I was around forty, that is, after eighteen years of study. And I cannot say that I am such an expert. I know a few people who can do it much better than me.

Rarely, very rarely the life that we live, even not to mention the life that lives us, requires assistance of forces from other aspects of reality. More often than not, the desire to master these aspects is propelled by the lack of self-esteem, that is, the self-esteem is nurtured by such exotic moments. But it is very rare business need, indeed.

For the first fifteen years of my study, I directly contacted the Tradition as many as four times. For more than thirty years in the Tradition, I consciously used my capabilities maybe twenty-thirty times in total, that is, once a year on average. I do not believe that siddhi, or direct contact with the Tradition (which, in my opinion, belong to the same class of events) are the manifestations of the world of miracles. Siddhi is instrumental capabilities of a boundary effect class. As my own experience shows, if you are in good relations with Tradition, if you advance, and study, and practice, and contemplate, and develop, the siddhi will come when they needed. And it is important not to get attached to it, because if you do, you are back to square one. Like in the case where life lives you instead of you living the life, the siddhi will use you, instead of you using the siddhi.