Heart-to-Heart connection between Teacher and student and the transmission of Divine Grace

 

IGOR: The whole point is the teacher becomes a conduit, a safe plug-in that doesn’t fry your network. It’s like this thing that plugs into the network, universal network of that force of Kali.  And the teacher is that conduit, precisely because the whole physiology and the whole biosystem of that teacher is aligned to do that. It’s like in the human body it becomes a conduit. And it’s no coincidence that someone to whom it is transmitted, from someone from whom it has been transmitted, both happen to be humans.

 

There is Shakti, a tremendous amount of Shakti in a tree. But one can go and hug trees for the rest of their life and never receive that Shakti force. One sequoia tree, one redwood, like in the redwood forest, how much Shakti there is to go into the heaven.  All these trees have tremendous Shakti. Is that Shakti being transmitted to us called “plant”? Part of its prana, yes, but not Shakti in the sense that it can transform us. Mountains, oceans have Shakti — everything — streams, waterfalls. We behold that Shakti and its beauty.  It is definitely, definitely, an enriching experience. But we have yet to meet someone who just walked on a mountain or climbed Everest, and came down transformed in terms of the consciousness of that being having been altered.

 

And it is this thing — students of whom we have spoken have that misunderstanding, that Shakti is just Shakti is just, “Jai Ma! Shakti is everywhere,” forgetting that it’s precisely that simple thing.  It happens to be a human affair. And it is in the human affair that Shakti really alters consciousness for another being. And that is what the role of a teacher is in terms of transmission of Consciousness – transmission of that force that can alter someone else’s consciousness.

 

Otherwise, Shakti is everywhere! It’s electromagnetism; it’s gravity; it’s stars; it’s stargazers. It’s everything! Of course, Shakti is everywhere. It cannot be held; it cannot be owned. But it’s just that simple thing. In the being in whom that process went firsthand, that being was altered and aligned in such a way that that magnanimity of that force can go from one person to another person in measured doses, so that all these bulbs don’t go, “Pop, pop, pop!”

 

A lot could be said about the Shakti not just being indifferent Shakti. And when we speak about different teachers — when we speak about different conduits, each conduit, depending on, first of all, the degree, level, and depth of realization of that being — will become that conduit. So in other words, one can be an amp that can transmit 300 volts and that is already quite apt.  Another one can transmit 500; another 1,000; another 5,000! This is in terms of the force itself.  The force which, as here, is measured in terms of numbers, in terms of its sheer power. But there is also a quality of that transmission — quality!  

 

Not every teacher — not every spiritual conduit transmits the flavor of a particular quality of Shakti, because some transmit knowledge and one becomes liberated by that knowledge. But there are rare teachers who transmit the actual feeling of love, the feeling of connectedness.  There are so many different degrees, the feeling of being essentially lit by the light of your own — and to say that every teacher has the same exact light frequency is also not correct, because that’s not our experience. There are profound teachers, profoundly realized beings who simply cannot do that!  It’s not given to them.  And they often, if they are sincere, if they are honest with themselves, they admit that — that they have that knowledge, but they cannot transmit that. They cannot. They can write an amazing book, they can deliver an amazing discourse, but they cannot give that experience through a mere fact of transmission, which has nothing to do with what words can say and so forth.  Because it all happens through the frequency of one’s being.  So this is something of course, which also needs to be understood. But what I said before, what I was drawing your attention to before, is to that bias, to that misunderstanding that if Shakti is everywhere if Shakti is omnipresent, uncontainable, it’s omnipotent, omniscient, how can that Shakti then be associated with so and so?

 

Obviously, that creates these questions, and many, many people in today’s modern spirituality, they very, very quickly adopt that perspective: “Why do I need a teacher? I get Shakti from everywhere — from the moon, from the stars, from the oceans.” And, yes, it is possible, but that would be an extremely rare being who can extract Shakti from the wind. There are siddhas, born siddhas, born exceptional beings who can extract Shakti from elements. It’s extraordinary! But how often do we meet these beings? How often are they among us? Just that. Just that simple, simple reminder, to understand this. But I like what you initiated, that it is precisely, also, that there is this…

 

Student: It does belong to a certain... whatever, the teacher even worships.
 

IGOR: Yes, of course, because then the teacher here is not just an individual. That’s the quality of this Shakti. It’s the quality of these primordial energies. The field of creative intelligence is enlivened in that teacher. Otherwise, everyone has that field, but it’s in dormancy, simply in dormancy. It’s like you have a cupboard full of seeds, different seeds, but does that mean that you have the crops of these seeds? No! They are lying there in dormancy in the bank; in the bank of these seeds, that’s what we are.

 

But in a being who went through this process firsthand, this all essentially blossomed in one’s being, and it is what particular qualities were perhaps given more emphasis, and flourished more. And that’s what gives flavor; that’s what gives that container unique flavor, unique resonance. And that’s why some teachers are liked more than others. That’s why some teachers... let me rephrase it:  that’s why we gravitate to some teachers more than to the others, because we recognize that which we are eager and long to enliven and experience in our own field.  Because that’s recognition — that act of recognition draws us to that field. And it’s extraordinary!  It’s like in the garden, the bee can fly through hundreds of different flowers, but then it will pollinate only two or three or four — or maybe one — because there is something that strikes that connection, that electromagnetic connection, that beautiful resonance, that vibrancy. And that happens through that recognition.

 

Student: And then what happens between the student and the teacher? What happens next, once there’s been that recognition?
 

Student: I can answer that.  May I?
 

IGOR: Sure, give it a go!

 

Student: For me, during the year and a half of finding Igor, I was watching his videos, especially when I knew that I was being taught and I was researching a lot of teachers and I found Igor; and every time you spoke, something already was being planted in me. I kept having these experiences of recognition, recognition, pulled, drawn, with such intensity, I knew this was my teacher. It wasn’t full yet in my heart until Arizona, but I one hundred percent knew it in my being. But I was scared to trust it because it seemed like, “Oh, my God!” And so, from that moment forward, from seeing the videos and then being in Igor’s presence and having my first big experience in Arizona, everything for me got enlivened, for where I was at that moment. So every time I’m with Igor, new things open, new cells are full of light and vibrating and it’s like I’m getting electrified — all these different things, and burning and — that’s my own personal experience of that.

 

IGOR: What happens is that when that connection ensues, when that connection takes place, then the field is amplified. And I want to emphasize: the field is amplified in both — in the neurophysiology of the one who is the student and in the neurophysiology of the teacher! And because there is... it’s literally that marvel of recognition. Because it’s only from the standpoint or view of what we call “physical universe” that these two are different; it happens in the same field. And that act of recognition brings the enlivening of that which was lying in dormancy in the student.  

 

And that mutual resonance creates even more energy. It creates a release of energy, and that’s what in itself creates the possibility for transmission of force, really. Without the resonance, one way or the other, the transmission of spiritual force would not be complete. It will not happen to the degree or to the fullness of which we speak here, because it’s like literally, due to that fine-tuning which unleashes these hidden pathways, we can say — this very, very intricate, complex network of these pathways, and that extremely subtle force, it’s an extremely subtle form of energy — perhaps the subtlest form of energy begins to exchange. And that’s what transmission of spiritual force is.

 

And the structure of the one who is temporarily in the guise of the student begins to be enlivened. And that’s what we call “awakening” and so forth. That’s what we call it under various names. So from there, it goes from strength to subtlety and it’s a very, very big theme in its own right.

 

Student: And so what about when the student is almost not willing to fully see what the teacher is as a conduit, does that make it harder for that flow to happen?

 

IGOR: Well, of course, because it’s like some interference there, just like interference of waves in the transmission of radio waves or any other waves. The subtlest forms of energy also follow this. So there is this interference, and there could be interference for many different reasons. For example, it’s not uncommon when — if there is not enough understanding on the part of the student of the nature of that relationship — even if that understanding is not necessarily backed up by scriptural or academic understanding, this understanding is more like understanding on the heart level. It’s not so much understanding how it works. It’s understanding that it does work. It’s something which is more intuitive. It belongs to the field of intuitive understanding.  

 

If that understanding is somehow impeded, if that understanding somehow is weak due to the fact that the student may feel that this is just a transaction — something is given and something is taken — then that of course, would diminish the subtlety of that process. Some form of energy would still be released; there will still be an exchange. But very often we see in today’s — and not just in today’s — I’m sure it happened throughout all the times in history when, in that mutual embalming relationship, if the tendency enters that somehow, “I have it all; I know it all,” that in itself weakens the opening of the extra dimension within the level of the heart. It weakens and undermines the very subtle fabric which belongs to what is known in spirituality as the devotional side. Because there cannot be devotion if someone logically just thinks that, “Oh, I am already that. This all belongs to me. This world is just a world of Shakti, the world of power itself; I am born into that and the teacher speaks about it all the time, then why to have this in relationship? What for? It outlived itself!”

 

We hear that being spoken, “out there.” But it’s not for the sake of even that relationship, but what we have spoken of earlier, it’s that that relationship, in itself, is the subtle connection that enlivens what otherwise is still dormant. Devotion itself is known to be the most powerful energy-producing quality that really transforms us. It’s been always known, in every culture, in every culture, whether this is the teaching of Jesus Christ or the teaching of Lao Tzu. Devotion is that which you cannot get out of a book. We cannot get that from understanding, that four plus four is eight. Devotion has nothing to do with what our mind can grasp. It belongs to another realm, another domain. And that connection between teacher and disciple, teacher and student, enlivens these dormant areas in our heart. It embalms it. It makes it rich; it makes it juicy. It oils it.

 

But again, when we speak about that, it also would be valid to know that — or something could be said about that — the quality of devotion is unfathomable. You cannot ask someone to be devoted. It can be cultivated, of course, but it cannot be forced upon one. One can teach someone the ethics of interactions, the ethics of behavior, and one can be proficient in that, but one cannot tell someone how to love. It’s direct, firsthand experience. It cannot be taught. It can only be invoked.

 

So I guess here we come to that very, very eternal, ancient principle or paradigm that the soul needs to live. The soul has to be old enough to recognize it, to know that. Then it will discover it within its own heart.

 

                                  ~ Igor Kufayev, from “Let the Soul Discover It in the Heart”, a transcribed morning darshan, September 29, 2016, Mallorca