Your beneficial genius will guide you through life in giant strides. Awaken it! (I)
By eminent yoga teacher Gregorian Bivolaru
The term “genius” comes from the Latin word genius, derived from gignere, which means to generate or produce. Great geniuses are always characterized by a beneficial, extraordinarily intense creative power, which manifests itself through a mysterious Godly inspiration, of which they benefit even when they are unaware of it. In reality, the state of genius is an enigmatic, ineffable participation in the perfect, absolute genius of God, which exists in eternity through the Godly Attribute of Godly Genius.
The creative power, sometimes extraordinarily intense, of a human being in whom the state of genius awakens manifests itself in close connection with their inner affinities in one or more fields, such as science, spirituality, philosophy, psychology, medicine, religion, alchemy, the arts, etc. This is why a technical use of the term “genius” emerges: artistic genius, military genius, maritime genius.
Every extraordinary genius is a sui generis mirror in which God’s perfect and extraordinary creativity is reflected. In this way, the nation in which a great genius was born then takes giant strides with his help. Geniuses of their time are capable of performing miracles in the fields in which they excel, and in their case, the normal rules almost never apply.
Kant defines genius as “an enigmatic, innate disposition of the spirit through which God mysteriously bestows either His inspiration or His rules upon art or higher knowledge, which becomes possible within the framework of nature.”
To a certain extent the opposite of the cognitive process, genius does not involve the application of rules, but their invention, the revelation of novel methods or certain mysterious laws of nature. Therefore, it can be said that genius is most often innate. At the same time, genius is original, unique, without a model in the world in which it expresses itself, as it is inspired by God. He is almost always exemplary and becomes a model worthy of emulation. Genius is, more often than not, mysterious. Even the clearest description and a rational explanation cannot allow us to fully grasp all that he accomplishes and reveals for all of humanity.
Skilled and curious, everything he does is perfect
The natural and obviously extraordinary abilities possessed by a genius can be characterized by the term “ingenuity,” which encompasses something of the term “genius.” Generally speaking, ingenuity defines the quality of being uniquely inventive, skilled, and as competent as possible. Human beings in whom the state of genius has awakened or is beginning to awaken are characterized by a constant and immense curiosity. They possess an innate taste for the exemplary realization of what defines their state of genius, and they do so in an original, unique way. Genius profoundly and definitively influences the unique and distinctive character of the human being in whom it awakens. Its extraordinary creative power manifests itself with astonishing ease in the specific domain of that genius.
Through his sometimes legendary exemplarity, the genius, together with the hero and the saint, has constituted one of the manifest incarnations of Godly grace through which the human being can draw ever closer to God. The genius can enter into communion with certain gods or goddesses, invisible beings who dwell in the world beyond, endowed with entirely extraordinary gifts, characterized by a penetrating, brilliant intelligence. Great spiritual geniuses make the experience of God’s transcendence possible for human beings who are prepared for it. Romanticism, in particular, developed a myth and even a cult around genius. In the Romantic conception, geniuses are human beings in whom extraordinary, Godly qualities awaken and are energized, who in privileged moments are in a secret state of spiritual communication and communion with superior, profoundly beneficial forces and energies from the Macrocosm. Geniuses also exhibit a certain degree of madness. A researcher of such personalities has stated: “There is no great genius without a tiny spark of madness.”
The genius of evil rules a small world
In certain situations, a penetrating and utterly extraordinary intelligence, predominantly oriented toward evil, is unanimously defined as the “genius of evil.” This refers to “The Evil One,” which is another name for the Devil, Satan. These beings are characterized by great cunning, and their predominant and evidently perverse orientation is channelled toward inflicting as much aberrant, unjustified, and gratuitous harm as possible. In general, such a genius of darkness is characterized by a clear absence of even the slightest Godly goodness. A genius of evil is always malevolent, and in his bizarre relationships with other people, he most often seeks to deceive them, even when he has no reason to do so, and to constantly inflict as much harm as possible upon them.
Within a fraternal spiritual group, a malevolent genius constantly seeks to sow division, suspicion, absurd rebellion, and grievances that are clearly without foundation, and discord, while also making relentless efforts to instil in the human beings who come into contact with him a lasting, tormenting, and foolish state of demonic doubt. These aim to lead the ones with weak consciousness, the naive, and the ignorant astray from the spiritual path, thereby laying the groundwork for a sect that separates itself from the spiritual group. The poisoned seeds sown by the evil genius begin to sprout in its poor victims, who are easily influenced by evil, and states of acute demonic doubt become terrible demonic certainties.
Philosophical genius is innate
From a philosophical perspective, the state of genius is characterized by talents that are entirely out of the ordinary, involving the awakening of the abilities to discover, reveal, invent, or create something entirely unique.
In his famous work Critique of Judgment published in 1790, Kant stated: “The word ‘genius’ is derived from the term ‘genius,’ which refers to the unique spirit of a person endowed with great intelligence, a gift bestowed upon them from birth. This unique spirit inspires, protects, and guides him, and thanks to its inventive counsel, new and original creative ideas arise in the genius’s consciousness.” In this sense, the notion of genius refers to an older conception of a superior, inspiring entity, an intermediary being that bridges the Godly, enigmatic sphere and the human world. Such an entity bestows upon the gifted person the extraordinary power to rise from the sensible to the supersensible. A significant example is and remains for us the genius of Eros.
We also owe to Kant the attempt to define the concept of genius within the artistic realm and within the scope of aesthetic themes. In one of his works, Kant states: “Genius is that profoundly beneficial innate disposition that characterizes the soul of the human being. Genius is characterized by great ingenuity through which nature offers, in an enigmatic way, new and important rules to art. Genius highlights the exemplary faculty of conceiving and revealing various valuable and entirely new ideas, produced in a spontaneous, free, and creative manner through its founding imagination.”
Taken up and reworked by Romanticism, the Kantian conception then bore significant fruit through Schelling, who notes in his work The System of Transcendental Idealism, published in 1800: “Genius is to aesthetics what the self is to philosophy. That is, it is the supreme, the absolute real. It remains that which cannot become objective and yet constitutes the cause of everything that acquires objective significance.” In Schelling’s view, genius is “that which manifests art precisely as a sui generis reflection of the Absolute and, in this way, brings about a finite representation of the Infinite.”
In his famous work Aesthetics, Hegel defines genius as follows: “The general capacity to produce ever new and valuable works of art, accompanied by a mysterious energy necessary for their creation.” It is significant that the Romantic-aesthetic interpretation of the state of genius remained unmodified even into the 20th century.
He only imitates God
Beyond the concepts presented, the awakening of the state of genius within the human being is most often characterized by both the great sages and the initiates of the East as the triggering and ceaseless maintenance of a process of occult resonance with the subtle, sublime energy of Godly genius.
Regarding the state of genius, Kant also says: “Genius is always characterized by the originality of its founding imagination and not by imitation. When this aligns with existing concepts, we can say that we are dealing with a genius.” In another well-known work, Kant states: “Genius is the extraordinary talent to produce something new and valuable with great ease, while at the same time providing clear rules in that field. Genius is always characterized by the existence of certain aptitudes that could not have been learned or discovered by following some rule, and that is precisely why its basic characteristic is and remains originality.”
In The World as Will and Representation, Schopenhauer states: “It is only through pure, profound, and complete contemplation – which causes us to become absorbed in some object – that new and valuable ideas arise within us at a given moment. The essence of genius lies in the eminent ability to approach and deepen, with great perseverance, such a state of contemplation that reveals to us a multitude of creative ideas.”
Every genius is characterized by a truly extraordinary capacity for intelligence, intuition, and creativity. A genius’s ideas are creative and unique, and for this very reason, they are very important, as they play a wholly distinct role in the progress of humanity. Generally speaking, the awakening of the state of genius defines the ensemble of beneficial, utterly extraordinary, natural, and imminent dispositions that allow a human being to create and even manifest something new and unique.
In yoga, genius is attained
For thousands of years, great yogis have held that the state of genius is awakened and then gradually dynamized through progressive energising, followed by a process of increasingly clear, distinct awareness of the supramental sheath, vijnanamaya kosha. When an attentive, lucid, and persevering yoga practitioner reaches higher levels in the dynamization of the supramental sheath vijnanamaya kosha, they will simultaneously awaken the state of genius. This is extraordinary, because even today there remains the prejudice that a person is born a genius and cannot become one starting from the condition of an ordinary person.
Many famous yogic texts assert, however, that the gradual awakening and energization of the supramental sheath, the vijnanamaya kosha, subsequently activates higher intuition within the human being. Higher intuition awakens a preeminent, immediate mode of knowledge that directly perceives either a certain aspect of reality, or hidden truths about a human being, or a valuable idea, or a thought.
Thus arises a sui generis intelligent, Godly inspired vision and a distinctly superior, extraordinary mode of knowledge, through which the spirit not only touches but actually penetrates reality, without needing other intermediaries. Higher intuition allows us to know, through an ineffable identification, the being or object on which we focus. In general, it spontaneously triggers an intense state of sympathy, through which an ineffable coincidence with reality or with the being on which we persistently direct our attention occurs.
Many truths, one secret
A genius is always characterized by an utterly extraordinary originality of creative imagination. Every genius is endowed with certain specific talents or gifts that are clearly exceptional. He possesses astonishing creativity. His patience is legendary, his curiosity immense, and his power to act is most often enormous.
A genius is never characterized by triviality. He never imitates anyone, except God the Father, by whom he is constantly inspired – even when, for the time being, he is unaware of it – through the sublime, subtle energy of Godly genius. A genius is characterized by an obvious absence of conformism. As is well known, conformism represents a standardization of human beings, through the adoption only of values unanimously recognized, chosen according to certain so-called classical points of view.
Conformism embraces conventional modes of achievement. For example, a young person receives a so-called good education, seeks to find a suitable job, then earnestly desires to build a career, and most often conforms to unanimously accepted social goals aimed at success and prestige, using legitimate means to achieve these ends. On the other hand, when nonconformity is pursued relentlessly merely for the sake of nonconformity, a bizarre state of “conformity within nonconformity” paradoxically emerges.
The awakening of genius within the human being gives rise to and sustains a wholly unique originality, which will bring forth unique, singular aspects of personality. The brilliant Latin poet Martial states: “To be truly successful, a newly written book needs to possess genius, which will be abundantly infused by the author’s strong and highly original personality.” In this sense, Martial speaks of a veritable “genius of language.” Another author states: “When a writer who is just starting out tackles a genre for which he is not particularly gifted with a special talent, especially when he is actually very gifted for a different genre or a different style than the one he uses, he proves that he does not know his own genius.”
The unknown does not frighten him; rather, it is his friend
Every genius possesses an astonishing capacity for invention, with creative abilities manifested at a superior level. That is why the great geniuses have been regarded as Godly inspired beings, said to be endowed with a “Godly madness.” This idea is evoked by Plato himself. Dubos, in turn, states: “Genius is the extraordinary ability that a human being has received from nature at birth, to do well and with great ease aspects that other people could do only with great clumsiness, for they would require a considerable effort.” In most cases, the actions of great geniuses are and remain almost inexplicable.
For Batteux, a genius is not characterized solely by the faculty of invention. In his view, genius is also endowed with an astonishing ability to perceive new aspects in the surrounding reality and in nature. A genius is capable of discovering secret connections and ineffable affinities. He is able to see aspects, beings, or reality from an unusual perspective that had not been perceived before by other human beings. A genius acts and manifests himself as if, to him, the universe were gigantic, unique, and limitless.
In his work On the Spirit, Helvétius states: “Genius is that utterly astonishing faculty of finding and revealing the unknown.” Often, genius is capable of inventing the unknown, but a true genius is one who intuits at the right moment, and then perceives and manifests in a wholly unique way the new ideas that are then “floating in the air.” Helvétius also says: “A mysterious necessity manifests itself fully at the right moment in the being of the genius and acts in a creative way, just like the wind that absorbs the scent of flowers and then scatters it to the four corners of the earth. Then a new, extraordinary vision is spread everywhere and carried impetuously to the masses of people, whom it impresses in a pleasant way and influences. The exceptional ideas of genius create a new and entirely unique light, and the horizon of reality is revealed to us in an astonishing, unprecedented perspective that had previously remained undisclosed.”
In this way, geniuses emerge and manifest themselves not only in music, literature, and spirituality, but also in the other fundamental domains of human knowledge. Every epoch-making genius brings to life a complex vision in which the immense subtle energy of creative imagination, the renewed vivacity of sensations, and the fact that certain aspects contribute, in his case, to the effervescence and expansion of his creativity are all amalgamated.
Genius creates its own laws
The great yogi Swami Shivananda said: “A yogi in whom the state of genius is increasingly awakening can, above all, become aware of his supramental sheath, the vijnanamaya kosha. Such a yogi, filled with euphoria, reaps the sweet and delightful fruits of his utterly extraordinary inner transformation. His soul often expands into boundlessness when he spontaneously immerses himself in overwhelming states of Godly ecstasy, samadhi. Thanks to the immense beneficial energies always at his disposal within his now gigantic aura, such a yogi easily encompasses within his colossal sphere of power those beings who are ready to feel even a fraction of his beneficial energies.
His presence, highly energizing and profoundly beneficial, generates almost effortlessly deep and overwhelming sensations in those already capable of sensing his astonishing inner transformation. Such a yogi, in whom the state of genius has begun to awaken, is spontaneously and constantly interested in all that is good, pure, beautiful, harmonious, and Godly in all of nature.
He does not merely receive a completely new idea within his being, for such a unique, Godly idea also awakens in him a paradisiacal, powerful, and overwhelming feeling. Godly revelations inspire such a yogi day by day; they accumulate and are preserved forever within his being. This occurs due to the pure and immense energies he ceaselessly absorbs. In his case, these Godly revelations, along with the brilliant ideas that arise within him, are preserved and remain unaltered. That is precisely why he can invoke them every time with astonishing ease.”
Every genius possesses an enthusiasm of extraordinary power, thanks to which he is able to easily synthesize everything that stems not only from his observations and profound knowledge, but also from his creative imagination. German Pre-Romanticism discovered and emphasized the idea of innovative originality present in the artistic creation of the genius. All of this leads to a break with the rules and rigors of Classicism.
A genius is an extraordinary human being who, due to his evident greatness, tends to create his own laws. A genius trusts above all in his superior intuition and relies on exemplary common sense. He creates with great ease, coupled with boldness, works that are clearly innovative. A classic example of this kind is the incomparable Shakespeare.
(to be continued)
yogaesoteric
June 4, 2026
