Guru Purnima ~ Moon Rays of Grace

Guru Purnima ~ Moon Rays of Grace

Tribute to our beloved Teacher Igor Vamadeva

The supreme state of being established in one’s own real nature, which is so difficult to attain through other means, is easily attained by the Grace of a Siddha.

— Yogashikā Upanishad

At some point in our lives, we may encounter this nagging feeling that there is something more to being in this body than we can currently imagine. This insight is often accompanied by an intuitive sense that even if we achieve all the conventional goals we have set our minds on, this will still leave us feeling unfulfilled.

What is it then that we truly yearn for? The yearning at the heart of our existence is the longing to be happy for no reason, rooted in inner freedom no matter what life throws at us. This calling from within is sometimes just a subtle pull on the strings of the heart, but it is significant. Becoming aware of this inner longing initiates a turning point in our life. It stirs an unknown urgency in us and ignites a spark that surprises us in its brightness. Enlightened tantric Masters — also known as Siddhas, perfected Beings — who expound on the sublime philosophy of Kashmir Shaivism tell us that this longing to be free is inherent in Consciousness itself. They teach that as soon as absolute, eternal Consciousness decides to create, it sacrifices its freedom out of its own will in order to enact the drama of this whole creation. In this way, Consciousness assumes the role of the individual soul and hides the secret of its blissful nature deep within the cavern of the heart. When the soul has matured enough and when the memory of our own boundless nature dawns, we set the sails to regain the freedom and bliss that underlie this reality. It is then a wondrous act of divine intervention when we are blessed enough to encounter a Siddha Master who is able to guide us to the blossoming of the human potential — the recognition of the Self.  

It is the power of the direct transmission of spiritual energy that distinguishes the spiritual teacher, who offers knowledge, from a Master who has attained complete mastery of the Self over the self and serves as a conduit for awakening others. On the tantric path, the grace and protection of the Guru are indispensable for the transformation of human consciousness. Anyone who has understood what this transformation is truly about, anyone who has experienced this transformation firsthand, will spend the rest of their lives paying homage to their spiritual Guide.

On this sacred night of Guru Purnima, we celebrate the fullest full moon of the year and bow in reverence to our beloved Teacher Igor Vamadeva Kufayev. Every year this moon comes around to remind us of the greatness of the Guru and of the Fullness of Life. This Fullness of Life is evident tonight everywhere we are. We dedicate and offer up the Fullness of our awareness that we are living, the Fullness of the Heart that we are experiencing, to the one who assumed the role of the spiritual Master for us. With all our hearts, we give thanks to dear Mother Inna for birthing Vamadeva, for raising him with her love and for guiding Him to his own Master, Maharishi. On this special day, we honor and pay respect to the lineage of enlightened Siddhas, and to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and Guru Dev. 

It is through the radiant light of our Teacher’s presence, his liberating knowledge and his infinite compassion that the veils of ignorance and delusion are pierced. In this process of discovering our own freedom, something extraordinary happens — the power of devotion is awakened and a fountain of love springs forth. It is this love that streams as a silent melody between the Teacher and the student, in the timeless realm of the heart. It is this love that finds its expression in the wish to serve and offer ourselves back to this existence. May this silent song of joy and love in our hearts reach our beloved Teacher Vamadev today from all corners of this world. May infinite blessings be showered upon him, his family and his sacred work and service to humanity.

Vamadevāya gurave
śiṣya-saṃsāra-hārine
Bhakta-kāryaika-dehāya
namaste chit-sat-ātmane

Salutations to Vamadeva, the Guru, who rescues his disciples from the cycle of birth and death, who has assumed a body to meet the needs of his devotees, and whose nature is consciousness and being.

<click on the arrow on the image to see the entire slideshow>

In the throbbing Silence of Being we are all connected as One. It is the Guru who brings us to this blissful ocean of Silence and opens us to the Wonder of this life as the reflection of our own beloved Self. For this, we say over and over, 

Jai Guru Dev!

In service, and with deepest Love and Pranams,

Your dedicated Students & Team Flowing Wakefulness

*

Only Love can Transform us

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

by Igor Kufayev

IGOR: The whole point is that 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 — look how much Shakti there is to grow to the heavens! 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 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 there is this thing — students whom we have spoken to have that misunderstanding that Shakti is just Shakti. That it’s 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 the consciousness for another being. And that is what the role of a teacher is in terms of the transmission of Consciousness — the 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 the 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 an 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 is 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 and honest with themselves, admit that — that they have that knowledge but cannot transmit it. They cannot. They can write an amazing book, they can deliver an amazing discourse, but they cannot give that experience through the 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 which also needs to be understood. But 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, omnipotent, omniscient — how can that Shakti then be associated with so-and-so?

Obviously, that creates these questions, and many people in today’s modern spirituality 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 it would take an extremely rare being who can extract Shakti from the wind. There are siddhas, born siddhas — born exceptional beings — who can extract Shakti from the elements. It’s extraordinary! But how often do we meet these beings? How often are they among us? Just that. Just that simple reminder to understand this. But I like what you initiated, that there is precisely also this…

Student: … That it does belong to a certain… whatever the teacher even worships.

IGOR: Yes, of course, because 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 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 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 those 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. Let me rephrase that: that’s why we gravitate to some teachers more than others because we recognize that which we are eager to and long to enliven and experience in our own field. 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, three or four — or maybe just one — because there is something that strikes that connection, that electromagnetic connection, that beautiful resonance, that vibrancy. And it 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 researching a lot of teachers and found Igor — and every time he spoke, something already was being planted in me. I kept having these experiences of recognition, being pulled, drawn, with such intensity, I knew that 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 — burning. That’s my own personal experience of that.

IGOR: What happens is that when that connection ensues, when that connection takes place, 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! It’s literally that marvel of recognition. Because it’s only from the standpoint or view of what we call the “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, literally, due to the fine-tuning which unleashes, we can say, these hidden pathways — this very intricate, complex network of these pathways — that extremely subtle force, extremely subtle form of energy — perhaps the subtlest form of energy — begins to exchange. And that’s what the 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 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 is there. Just like the 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 if there is not enough understanding on the part of the student of the nature of that relationship, which is not uncommon. Even if that understanding is not necessarily backed up by scriptural or academic understanding, this understanding is more like an 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, [even if] some form of energy would still be released, still be exchanged. But very often we see in today’s [spiritual seekers] — and I’m sure it happened throughout all times in history — when in that mutual, embalming relationship, if the tendency enters somehow that, “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. If I am born into that and the teacher speaks about it all the time, then why to have this in a relationship? What for? It outlived itself!” We hear that being spoken “out there.”

But it’s not for the sake of even that relationship. What we have spoken of earlier is 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 has been always known 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, like 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 the teacher and disciple, teacher and student, enlivens these dormant areas in our heart. It embalms it. It makes it rich, makes it juicy. It oils it.

But again, when we speak of this, it would also be valid to know — and it could be said — 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 someone. 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 a direct, firsthand experience. It cannot be taught. It can only be invoked.

So I guess here we come to that 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 from the archives, Mallorca, September 29, 2016.

*

IMAGES:

1) Full moon image, source unknown. 

2) Portrait of Igor Vamadeva, Morocco, January 2016.

3) Gallery of Igor Vamadeva as Quote Cards, images from years 2012-2021

4) Igor Vamadeva’s hand with grains, Mallorca, 2021

5) Igor & Student during the 3-day Immersion in Little Venice, London, England, 2019

6) Student in spontaneous mudra during meditation session at immersion, Summer, 2019

7) Puja to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Mexico, March, 2019

All images courtesy of Flowing Wakefulness.