Q: Dear Igor, lately I have been struggling with the relation between my spiritual journey and the rest of the world. As I progress further inwards, immersing my consciousness in longer uninterrupted periods of silence, I find myself with an increasing aversion to alcohol, processed foods, meat, on an individual level, and to the way the society is structured, on the macro level. While I can manage my own nutritional pattern, I find it truly difficult to live in a world, where Consciousness seems to have taken a back seat to what some traditions call the egoic mind…

 

I sincerely hope you can shed some light on this, how to live in the world in light of the growing aversion to the way society is structured, the worldly behavior of my friends, and the repulsion felt when working in a job which serves this outdated system etc. Many thanks.

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If we are to embrace and accept the world as it is prematurely, in its state, there is a danger, and a very, very real danger, of bypassing that very necessary what I call “beating” — like literally beating cream into butter — the separation. We do need to go through that process, where we literally face the agonizing dichotomy of how the world presents itself; presents to us in all its imperfections, in all its conflicting tendencies. The obviousness is just too apparent even to begin with, the education system, the medical system, the governing systems, the military ambitions of this country or that country, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes — yes. 

 

And yet, something is going on, yet you are placed here — you and I are placed here; you and I are witnessing this. What is the purpose of us witnessing and realizing this imperfection?  What is the purpose? This is where I would like to directly respond to this question; this is where I would like to inspire you. It is essentially a prerequisite to be dissatisfied with this world, a leitmotif of every scripture. I don’t know one scripture that does not speak of an advanced soul who is deeply dissatisfied with the world and its affairs. Whether this is Rama in his youth in the Ramayana, in the unfoldment of the Ramayana, whether this is the greatest Advaitic scripture — the Yoga Vasistha — which is essentially the dialogue of Rama and his family guru Vasistha, where Rama presents all his dissatisfaction with everything. And he's a prince; a prince who is about to become an heir, to inherit the kingdom. And yet, there is this utter dissatisfaction. Whether the leitmotif is the life of Buddha, the leitmotif is of another scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, with the dissatisfaction of Arjuna in the battle field. 

 

So this aspect of dissatisfaction is a prerequisite — and a very important one. It's the beating; it's the separating — beating the cream into butter — separating and clarifying it further. It's separating that which we consider of value, and that which is transitory. And not even that — not even that — we consider the whole world is transitory. Every form and phenomenon is transitory. It's here, and yet it's gone already. We understand that to be utterly perplexing.  Indeed the dharma — the dharma, the field of action, that's what dharma is. Dharma can be interpreted or translated as religion, the code of conduct, but it also could also be translated as the field of action; dharma — the field of action. The field of action we are born in, into, at this phase — an evolutionary progression of Consciousness on this planet…

 

There are those who are not satisfied. So I want you to stand and spring your shoulders, open up your chest, and for a moment to realize that it is very important that those of us who are not satisfied with the way things are will push this Consciousness, and reassure that Consciousness will not accept this; this that otherwise is simply a deep inertia, a tamasic state of affairs, a tama guna raging over — it's literally tama guna.  It is that inertia — inertia — it doesn't matter how glittery, how glossy it presents itself. 

 

So yes, I'm here to validate your rebel spirit, I'm here to validate and even prop it up. Be a rebel — be a rebel with the cause. I'm one — I am not here to accept it all — I wouldn't do this work otherwise. This is what we are here for, uniting our forces, so that we can create an alternative structure, an alternative culture — literally, as the crumbling of this world of outlived, outlived values, this paradigm that has outlived itself, and no longer brings any vitality into the world…

So I don’t want you to be discouraged. I want you to nurture this – literally nurture this sense of discontentment, so that it can become a driving force. Out of that discontentment, new patterns will be born. Out of that discontentment, you can enter into the greater realms of your own Self. Out of that discontentment, you can literally penetrate the opaque spheres, opaque areas, and opaque layers of your own psyche. Nothing else has greater power than the discontent with the world we live in — nothing else. Because up until we have contended with where we are, what we are, how we are, who we are, very little can change. It is alchemy; there has to be some kind of bubbling going on, there has to be the force of tejas —tejas, the subtle essence of fire. And the tejas is born out of tapas — tapas, that heat — the internal heat. So don’t lose that heat — don’t lose that heat — don’t cool it off.

 

                                                                                                              ~ Igor Kufayev, Online Darshan transcribed Q&A Mallorca, June 6, 2015

 

 

Rama is the famous seventh incarnation of Lord Vishnu.  He was the hero of the epic Hindu poem, Ramayana, which explores human values and the concept of dharma through the story of Rama, whose beloved wife Sita is abducted by the demon King of Lanka, Ravana.

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Ramayanais is a Hindu epic poem attributed to the great Indian sage Valmiki, consisting of 24,000 verses.  It explores human values and the concept of dharma through the story of Rama, an incarnation of Lord Vishnu, whose wife Sita is abducted by the demon king of Lanka, Ravana.  It portrays the duties of relationships, depicting idyllic characters such as the ideal father, ideal servant, ideal brother, ideal wife, and the ideal king.

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Advaitic pertains to Advaita Vedanta, one of the six orthodox schools of Indian philosophy, and the first school of Vedanta philosophy.  It adopts a position of absolute nonduality, and its central teaching is the oneness of the jiva, the individual soul with the Absolute — Brahman. Advaita Vedanta has no individual founder, as its roots are in the Vedas; however, the great sage Adi Shankara was responsible for consolidating these teachings around the 8th century CE. The primary texts of Advaita Vedanta are the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Brahma sutra.

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Yoga Vasistha is an important Indian scripture of the discourse imparted to Lord Rama, an incarnation of Lord Vishnu, by his Guru, Sage Vasistha. It consists of the answers given by Sage Vasistha to Lord Rama’s questions, to pave his way to enlightenment; it ultimately explains the creation of the world, and that everything is Consciousness.

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Vasisthawas was one of the most famous Vedic seers, one of the seven great rishis who dedicated his entire life to the welfare of the world. He was the seer of many of the hymns of the seventh book of the Rig Veda.  His discourse to Lord Rama, an incarnation of Lord Vishnu, is expounded in the Yoga Vashistha, an important Indian scripture explaining the creation of the world, and that everything is Consciousness.

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Bhagavad Gita literally means “the song of God,” and it is one of the essential Hindu scriptures ascribed to the Sage Veda Vyasa, and is part of the epic, the Mahabharata.  It is that portion which takes place on the battlefield — the ethical and moral struggles of the human life — where Lord Krishna instructs the warrior, Arjuna on the science of Self-realization, and the process by which a human being can attain God.

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Arjuna is the third of the five Pandava brothers in the epic Hindu poem, Ramayana.  It was to Arjuna, a magnificent warrior and hero, that Lord Krishna imparted the knowledge and teachings of the Bhagavad Gita.

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Tamasic is of the nature of tama guna, one of the three gunas.  It is inertia, dullness, slowness, and it is associated with darkness and delusion.  The other two gunas are sattva (i.e., balance, order, purity) and rajas (i.e., movement, dynamism, restlessness).

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Tama guna is one of the three gunas, and is inertia, dullness, slowness, and it is associated with darkness and delusion.  The other two gunas are sattva (i.e., balance, order, purity) and rajas (i.e., movement, dynamism, restlessness).

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Tejas  is the subtle essence of fire, the inner radiance of vitality which transforms food into nutrients and digests our thoughts and impressions into experiences.

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Tapas means “heat,” or “ardor,” and is a spiritual practice or austerity voluntarily performed to develop and discipline the body, mind and character for purposes of spiritual purification and ultimately to attain Self-realization.