EWS #171 Developing Emotional Intelligence – II + Q&A

26 August 2023

Alina (0:00:33):
Namaste, good evening everyone. Namaste.

Sraddhalu (0:00:38):

Namaste, Happy to be with all of you.

Alina (0:00:41):
Today we will continue the same theme as last time. Today, Part II on Developing Emotional Individuality. As usually you may send your questions during our conversation in the chat box directly on YouTube, or you may send beforehand your questions at our email ID: integrestudies.in[at]gmail.com. We will be taking some questions on the same theme, and I will start with Maya's question: “A very interesting topic on emotional individualisation and the psychic being.” Her comment, “I hope, we can talk more about national identity, especially in a globalised world where children grow up away from their ancestral home and move around a lot. There is often a lack of stability and grounding. Sometimes people who live in many different countries become good at becoming a chameleon and quickly adjust to the mood of a culture, country, but at the same time feel a sense of an imposter syndrome or confusion over national identity. Is the rise of the global citizen as positive as it is made out to be?”

It's a very great question. [laughing]

Sraddhalu (0:02:15):
Yes, and very important and very nuanced also, there are many aspects to the question that we need to touch upon. But I'm putting it in the context of this discussion that we began last time, where there was a particular emphasis in one of the early questions about the role of our sense of patriotism or national identity, and things like that. And I had pointed out that innately every child seeks something of that and even yearns for symbols, representations, sources of inspiration through which to find a sense of identity, individuality, and a belonging-to, so initially it's your family, but then something larger, it may pass through clan, tribe, etc., but presently the mood of Nature is to, or the mood of the Divine Will behind Nature is to use the base of the national identity.

This is of course spiritual essentially and layered to that something – civilisational, cultural, and so on. It is not merely a piece of land, it is not merely an aggregation of common interests, and for these we read Sri Aurobindo's description of what forms the nation identity some couple of months ago and a little bit last time about the “three steps” of God in this movement towards universality of which nationality is one of the steps. And so I am putting all this in context with what we have already discussed.

So, with that background, we look at this a little more deeply. So, Maya speaks of this “globalised world where children grow up away from ancestral home,  move around a lot”, lack stability and grounding, sometimes living in different countries because of job or because of family, or because of some opportunities, economic opportunities generally as it is, rarely it comes from culture, though that also happens. Somebody is drawn to a culture, drawn to a space for reasons they cannot fully fathom, and often it has to do with again soul values and soul identity, and they become very good, she says, like “a chameleon”, adjusting to the mood and culture, but also you feel somehow that's not quite you, you're putting up a surface, an appearance, and sometimes there's a confusion. As I know many people whose ancestors are from India but they were born in a different country, and then they struggle with what that identity represents, many of them will just say, ‘Oh, I am now of this nationality’, and that's it, and yet there's a very strong pull to the roots.

(0:05:13):

And all this comes in a context where increasingly we see this phrasing, even I will say, this idea of a global citizenship, and it has a very negative side as well as a positive side. The negative side is a kind of a complete uprooting. I remember, it is one of these very strong leftist activists in India, she was given a lot of prominence by the, well, left-controlled media, maybe two decades ago, there was a full headline, front face, front page of a national journal, where she comes out with this statement, “I am not an Indian, I am a global citizen”, etc., etc.

And it sounds dramatic. But is it true? What does it even mean to be a global citizen? What is your identity then? Is the globe the identity? And what does that mean? What is it in relation to? What are its boundaries, limits? What is in contrast to? We don't really have a clear answer.

So to me it seems more like words, not backed by real experience. But, in so–doing, there is an uprooting, a denial, a rejection, a cutting-off from the roots of something very valuable. So remember, our approach in these discussions is always from the spiritual point of view, from the soul's point of view, from an evolutionary spiritual point of view. So we have to understand what it means from a ‘soul’ perspective. Soul obviously is not bound to a nationality. It need not even be bound to a planet. But it's a fact that in the course of its evolution, it aligns, because that is its aspiration to certain characteristics, values, qualities, opportunities, tendencies, which often are rooted or more strong in some part of the world. As a result, you will find, a soul can be spoken of, at least the soul personality, the psychic personality, can be spoken of in terms of certain national characteristics.

And there's a very interesting observation the Mother makes, she says that although she's of French birth, she says, her soul is Indian. And it's an important thing to distinguish what that really means. I see for example in the United States, there are those who are let's say of European descent but they're born there so they're Americans and then there are those who are of the Native American lineage who consider themselves more American, more rooted, and so on, but when you actually meet them, you often find, they have swapped places. There is the Native American of that, let’s say, soul lineage was taken on a body which was of a European descent, and someone of a European, let’s say, lineage has taken the body of the other.

And this swapping is interesting, sometimes it could be karmic, sometimes it is the soul taking place, exchanging spaces with where it has been an aggressor, where it has been a victim, or in trying to build bridges, in trying to heal, or in trying to learn from both, the integration of what was a collision because they were so different, almost opposite. In the soul experience, it's ‘Wow, what is that thing? I never saw that, I really need to learn this’, and it pop, it goes to the other side, learns that, and then goes back and forth if needed if it wants to integrate, and in the process forms a bridge and a more, a more complete personality, and still its roots may be more distinctly in some quality, aspect, or even sometimes a time, it is of that period that it is distinctly, more uniquely rooted, and so on.

So, this is just to give a backdrop from the soul's point of view. But what does it mean? And is this an opportunity? Is it a positive or negative thing? If you look at the arc of evolution, we see very clearly in the transition through the subjective age the preparation for the spiritual age. In the spiritual age, necessarily our first identity, our first priority, is the soul, and its universality, its plasticity, opening to the infinite potential, and literally its ability to now experience all, in one whole continuum. Now not only is this true from an essential consciousness perspective but also in the personality in which it expresses itself, it wants to mature rapidly in a more complex and rich variety of experiences and capacities.

(0:10:01):

And then upon this we have to add the dimension that the Mother refers to in the 1960’s when Nature chose to collaborate, until then Mother was saying: I am in a hurry but Nature chooses to take her own time, she is not in a hurry, she says, ‘What's the hurry?’.  She is actually, this is a conversation she has had with what we may call ‘Mother Nature’. And Mother Nature says: “But why are you in a hurry, there's an infinite, eternity of time?” And from the Mother's point of view, it was: “No, there has to be an acceleration now.” And in the 1960’s, she suddenly announced that Nature has agreed to collaborate, and she gave a message there saying: There is no end to the wonders of this collaboration.

Many fascinating things have begun from that point on, including changes in Nature's processes, accelerations of certain changes, as well as certain losses. But as part of that, what the Mother said was where Nature earlier was building specialisations and then slowly blending them, Nature has decided to mix all these extremes of specialisation. And there will be a sudden surge of across cultures, across lineages, across hereditary, racial, and other types: blend, mixing, crossing of boundaries. And we see that. It's interesting. From around that period of the early 60’s that we see this in a dramatic way to a point where, even looking at a space like India which is as big as, it's an entire subcontinent, it's a continent in itself, your ancestry can be of a particular place, so you have strong cultural roots in those values, but you're born in a different place because your parents had to move for economic reasons, but for other reasons you have again shifted, you had an education in a different place with a different language altogether, and then you moved again for your higher education or for your job, and then you went abroad perhaps, and then you wanted to keep some link to your roots, so you create your own space of the Indian values.

So we have, I was in Greenville recently where they have created what they call the ‘Vedic Temple’. And it's a large umbrella-organisation in which every single, let's say, linguistic type, sub-racial types, because India is so rich and diverse, each state is like a country in itself, all these can come together under this umbrella. And it's fascinating to see that something that could not happen in India easily actually happens so easily there, and people want it because they don't want to lose their roots. So what you do see is an enormous opportunity for this flexibility, richness of diversity of experiences, but under an overarching spiritual umbrella of the culture, of the spiritual culture. If that is lost, then you have lost the point of this.

And this is the distinction we have to make. If this, what is being called as a ‘globalisation’, is done under the overall perspective of a principle which unifies and therefore unites these extreme diversities of experience, types, cultures, then it is healthy. If that is lost, if you get uprooted from that in the process of playing with this range of experience, then it is unhealthy and a loss, and that's when you have also this what Maya describes as the “imposter syndrome”: you don't know your own roots, but you are not what you pretend to be. Bring back that deeper layer of the spiritual foundation, what your roots are in that spiritual foundation, we don't need to give it a name but you feel yourself rooted, and then you can switch across a variety of cultures in a single lifetime or across lifetimes. Doesn't matter. Interesting, isn't it?

In fact, from a soul point of view, if you can have multiple lifetimes in a single physical lifetime, that's even better, you can have a much more rich possibility. And interestingly, the modern circumstances have made this so possible and so easy in a large part because of the media initially through cinema, television, where you could actually meet each other's cultures through the medium if its content is healthy, and through the Internet, and now through easy travel. All this has made for a huge opportunity for a rapid efflorescence, richness of diversity, and so on, if we do not lose this spiritual rooting, and that's why the spiritual foundations of our education are so important.

She makes this comment: You “become good at becoming a chameleon and quickly” adjusting “to the mood of a culture” or “country”.  So that part is good, that like a chameleon you can shift your state, it represents a kind of flexibility, or you are developing a flexibility. Especially if, let's say, because of your work, you have to hop across several cultures, and each time you have to as if learn different values, align yourself like a chameleon to its colours, and the ability to shift rapidly, and adapt, and adjust. It's a skill. It's a plasticity in your nature which is being developed, it may not happen to many, you may just end up being in one very different culture, and so on.

(0:15:41):
Nevertheless, to be able to absorb something of that, its values, its richness, its traditions, the observation Sri Aurobindo makes is that every single culture or civilisation, and today in more specific terms, ‘nation’, has a distinctive aspect of the soul, of the Self, that it represents in its collective life, that it has perhaps built over centuries, millennia, refined certain characteristics and a certain potential in order to eventually gift it to the whole world, while at the same time learning from the specialisations of others. This being Nature's method, as I said earlier, she pushes to extremes of specialisation and then she mixes, and this she does with civilisations also. And so, to really appreciate how this works, uh, you have to really read Sri Aurobindo, there is no other who can describe with this kind of precision, depth, and sweep across time, across space, across cultures, to really appreciate and with the precision and nuance. So over time we have read many passages from him and you will appreciate what I am speaking.

So, finally I come to the last part of her question where she is speaking of “confusion over national identity”, and that's a different issue. It can happen for example, a person of Indian origin now in the United States, and you say, ‘I am an American’, I have met people like that. And sometimes you have to actually go behind a couple of layers to feel, ‘Ah, that's where his Indian quality comes’. Interesting, it's there, it's not gone. And yet there is something which he has got, sometimes it's clear, there is a paint, a coat of paint, which is thick, the person himself is not conscious of these deeper values, and yet there is a blending taking place in spite of his lack of awareness. In other cases, you can see a blending has taken place and now he is a distinctive American with a specific quality that is actually richly now contributing to the, what was then American melting pot.

Something similar happening in other cultures also, not always in a healthy way. Sometimes you have an invasion, so you have war refugees who come, there is no adaptation, there is no interest, sometimes there is a hostility to the country and to its cultures, and they form their own little pockets which are even violently against the national values. We saw that in France recently when the riots took place, and this is not healthy. This is actually an ego colliding with, well, another national ego or a refined culture, and a conflict of values. Sometimes you have a coarseness and barbarism hitting against culture, and that also is a problem. These are not healthy, these are not helpful, but having happened, we can make the most of it. In that, there is an effort now required on both sides to survive when there is the pain of the conflict, both sides make an adaptation, make an effort.

But it can only happen if both sides choose to do. If one side says, ‘No, I will not adapt’ or ‘I will adapt only superficially in order to eventually conquer the other’, then it's not going to work, and that is extremely unhealthy. Sri Aurobindo refers to this when the Islamic invasions took place in India, he says that India has a track record and a quality of assimilating whatever comes to it by any external invasion or participation of any kind. But he says, you cannot have harmony unless the other side also accepts this value of learning from the other in adaptation. And this is where it was a problem. Or we will find similar such conflicts between cultural and traditional values.

Eventually though, hopefully, if it does not consume itself, it will lead to some growth, but one can avoid the pain if there has been this sufficient preparation. And that's why the education, and especially the spiritual angle of education even in the content of, let's say, conventional education, is so important, because we go back to this underlying truth that: We are all one in spirit, equally aspects, powers, emanations of the Self, and it is only in the oneness of the Self that we rediscover our oneness in the Divine, on which this unity in extreme diversity is possible.

(1:20:37):

So I think, the emotional individualisation, etc., can be also seen in terms of this. Lack of “stability”, lack of “grounding”, etc., is used by Nature to force plasticity and adaptation. And it's fascinating to see how this works when you are unconscious. But if you are conscious, then you can actually do a couple of generations of work in this adaptation in a single lifetime. And so this is what I would suggest to all of you when you have these opportunities: If, even if it's to visit a different culture, a different country, or stay there for some longer time, make it a conscious part of your process to try to really feel what is in that, draw the best of it, read some of its literature, get to know some of its inspiring stories:

Why does a culture value a certain story? And sometimes the stories are tragic, sometimes they are painful, but what is it that it catches? And you draw something of great value. I think, that's as far as this question.

We can go to the next then.

Alina (0:21:49):
We have three questions we will answer, hopefully, from Raheel.

First one: “My sibling has undergone significant emotional distress from the ritualistic slaughter of animals during a certain religious festival, there is also the predicament associated with the consumption of animals in general and the impact it has on the human body. How can our spiritual community effectively respond when confronted with such distressing circumstances within our vicinity?…” I don’t know if I, have I been OFF for a few seconds?

Sraddhalu (0:22:35):

No, you were fine. You are fine.

Alina (0:22:36):

Okay. “…It distresses me greatly to witness the indiscriminate slaughter of not only young creatures but also bovine specimens, an experience that leaves a lasting impression even upon my adult sensibilities. Why am I so profoundly affected by these abhorrent incidents?”

Sraddhalu (0:23:03):
In a word, you are more “profoundly affected by these” incidents, because you are sensitive, because you are empathic, because there is a refinement in your consciousness. Someone who does not have these will not be affected or will even perversely enjoy the suffering of another. So it's not a crime, it's not a lack, it's not a weakness to be affected by these, to see another animal being tortured or killed is naturally a cause of distress for us because somewhere within, and I don't even mean spiritually, emotionally, in a lifeforce within us is a commonality we share with all living beings. And when one living being is in struggle and distress, it reflects in us because we are connected.

The physical bodies may be separate, but the underlying life-energy is not so rigidly bound to the outlines of the physical body, it extends much more in what we call the ‘aura’, the mental consciousness also extends much more and extends beyond even in the aura, and all these make us in a sense connected to the whole universe, there is a continuum of consciousness of which this individual is a focus, the physical body becoming the last, let's say, pin which binds it into narrowness and rigidity, but all those other layers are constantly in interchange of various kinds. We are not conscious on the surface, but on the inner layers we are in continuous interchange with anything that's happening around, sometimes with no physical superficial awareness of it, on a deeper level there is exchange, awareness, knowledge, energies received, put out, etc.

Now with all this obviously if somebody is suffering intensely, it reflects immediately in us. You will remember also the incident, the Mother narrates of one of her friends who took non-vegetarian food, although that was part of the culture, still because she was very sensitive, when one day she took, I think it was the chicken, that night in her dream, in the sleep-state, she experienced all the suffering of the chicken while it was being plucked, while it was being killed, and so on, and all that her body had received through the meat that she ate because it's there: the emotional trauma, the stress, the distress, the imprint of the emotions, it need not even, it does not always need a physical object, it can be in a space.

(0:25:34):

So in a space where people have suffered, you can walk-in a couple of centuries later and you'll still feel, ‘Oh, this was a place of great suffering’. I remember going to a church in, it was in Germany, my host took me to some village, and then just a small village, and then a church, just like that at random we were driving through, and it’s, was apparently a very famous church, entering it I felt first a heaviness, as we approached the altar it was getting worse and worse, it was dark, heavy, even, for me it was suffocating at a certain point. I couldn't make out why. And then as we came to the back of the altar, they pointed there and said, ‘See here, that's where the dungeons were, and the prisoners would be put there and tortured’. Now, obviously, you do not mix the vibrations of torture with a spiritual space, otherwise, you have this. And the imprint of that was still there, very strong. That's the interesting thing. And many such spaces exist all over the world.

It's equally possible for somebody to come with a very clear consciousness or by various means, sometimes ritual means, to dissolve such formations, bring back clarity, light and peace, free up any space, so it can be built, it can be dissolved, modified, and so on. But all this is to say that it is happening in any case all the time. When now you see it happening before you and you feel yourself helpless to protect, which is the instinct of your life-energy to save another life, then it is that much more painful.

So to come back to Raheel’s question, yes of course, your sibling is equally sensitive and the emotional distress is traumatic and then of course the fact of having to eat afterwards the same meat. I remember, it was in a Buddhist convention, because I, in certain countries, I think, in Thailand and others, the Buddhists are allowed to eat meat. Well, because that was the tradition, and so when Buddhism came, it kind of co-opted the existing tradition. So not all Buddhists are vegetarian in there, etc.

But still there is the general sense of non-violence implied and not to harm, cause harm to other living beings, and this lady narrated an incident where they had gone to a shop, to a hotel, roadside hotel, and they asked for food, and at some point a chicken came screaming running through the dining area and the cook chasing the chicken with a knife grabbed it in front of everyone and took it screaming back into the kitchen. Just that one incident was so traumatic for this lady and some of her friends that they stopped eating non-vegetarian food at that point. But this is just to say that if we don't face it, as long as it is done in a sanitised way, uh, completely cut-off, and you buy, well, a lump of meat packed in plastic with suitable colouring, you don't notice it, but the energetic content is there, but the trauma to you may not be so strong. But when you do see it, well, you have to face what happens.

So, how can the “spiritual community effectively respond”? Well, by making you aware of the consequences, implications, and then letting you make a choice. “indiscriminate slaughter” that you refer to- yes, certainly should be avoided, especially of the young and of the species which are more evolved, more conscious, certainly they suffer more because they are more individualised.

So from a spiritual point of view, we make a distinction between meat from a being which is sufficiently individualised and therefore suffers and the act of killing interferes with the normal evolution of the individuality, from other animals which are much less individualised, much more in a collective consciousness, of which then a few could be taken without seriously affecting the collective unit, which is often the case with many of the smaller fish. Not so with whales, not so with dolphins, but with many of the fish which act as a group, what they call a ‘school of fish’, where all the fish, maybe a thousand of them, may be swimming together, and all at the same time turn. It's fascinating to see those videos.

Or birds, when they fly, not all birds, less individualised ones, they fly in a gigantic flock of a thousand birds, and all of them turn at the same time. You can actually feel when they fly in this way, you can feel it's one individual moving around through so many bodies, and occasionally a few break away and then they get pulled back, because the collective is there.  So you could actually take a few from those fish without affecting that, and it might be acceptable from this point of view that you're not interfering evolutionarily.

(0:30:38):

On the other side, there is also the practical necessity for people who are used to eating meat where the biology is already adapted to it, you cannot just stop immediately, and so you have to look at the practical considerations. If you were living in Eskimo land, you don't have green uh, leaves or vegetables, the only thing you can eat are seals. And I had interaction with one of these shaman from the Eskimo community, let's say, and he said that what they used to do, or they do still, they go to the collective of the seals and make a request saying that ‘Our family needs food and we would like one of you’. And sometimes he says, one of the seals will actually come forward, and the others will move back. It's amazing.

And at first, of course, I know it's true, but still some part of you says, ‘wow, is that really so?’. And then he says, ‘I can call a seal’, and I said, “Please show us”. So he showed that. He was, we were on the beach, it was in the west coast of the US, and he played on his some kind of a instrument and made a call, he went on for about 10 or 15 minutes, and after a while, one seal popped up in the water and looked out, stared for a while. He expected it to come all the way to the shore, it did not. It went after a while. But still, there was a response. And so, yes, one can have such relationships also with animals. And in certain spaces it is unavoidable, other spaces where you can. Again looking at the body's need, and so on, one has to find the right balance, but the underlying spiritual perspective can help.

So the “experience that leaves a lasting impression” on the “adult sensibilities”: I would suggest, both for Raheel and for his sibling: as far as possible avoid being exposed to these things. I remember going to Kathmandu to one of their very famous temples, it's supposed to be a place of great power, and then we found there was a corner there where they sacrificed animals, and it had a very, very different strange energy. And obviously this is done because it accesses some of the lower deities, lower powers, vital beings, etc., which may often help for immediate benefits and powers for spaces, but it is not a spiritual space when it needs that kind of thing. But if you feel that, if you are conscious, avoid those spaces and avoid having to face that experience.

I think we can go to the next question.

Alina (0:33:26):

Raheel is addressing another question. Very interesting:

“Can I get a more descriptive answer about the increasing vulgarity, the normalisation of sexual scenes in cinema?

– Yes, I have referred to your early Evenings with Sraddhalu videos which deal with the same, but still, how can we divinise and deal with this primal instinct whenever we see and how to defeat or deal with such gross arousals?

– How to communicate this with kids on how to heal whenever they encounter the same?”

Sraddhalu (0:34:08):

So, much of this we have already touched in the past, but Raheel  is not satisfied. Specifically the aspect he is highlighting here is: “How can we divinise and deal with this primal instinct whenever we see and how to defeat or deal with such gross arousals?”

First recognise, gross crude arousals will touch you only if there is a gross crude part corresponding to it. So if you look for example at some of what could be called ‘crude, coarse cultural forms’, let's say, of certain communities or tribal types, etc., you can watch them as a novelty. For how long? For a few minutes. And then after a while you say, ‘Okay, I am bored, let's get to something more useful’. If you live at that same grade, you will say ‘Oh-yes, this is so good, I would like to have more of it’. If you have already passed through that grade and you have far more refined enjoyments, you will say, ‘Ha-yes, that is an interesting novelty, now what? I look for something more’.

In many cases, for such things, the initial novelty and the fact that it is a forbidden thing and therefore triggering curiosity is a starting point where you say, ‘Oh, what is this? How does it work?’. So you want to know more, but having known sufficiently, you say, ‘Oh, that's crude, that's coarse’, you want to move on. So the question really is: What is your current level of values? And we may say, ‘There are parts in us which are attracted to things because those parts are still crude’, but they are relatively smaller parts compared to the bulk of you. If that is the case, then it's not such a big deal.

The danger though is in the formative years of children that you expose them to crudeness and thereby prevent the refinement by pulling down the external tendencies, natures, habits, and binding them before they have a chance to evolve sufficiently to be free. That's where you have the biggest problem. And so it is extremely important, with children, to not expose to crude things, rather to help refine, and then to the extent that the crudeness already pops up in life, well, that's the nature of things today, make them recognise: this is coarse, this is crude and notice that there is something more refined, more joyous, more fulfilling, more beautiful, and so on. If this upward turn, the joy of growth, the joy of beauty, the joy of refinement, the joy of culturing, refining, has already been set, then when these things come up, at first there might be a kind of a superficial curiosity, and then you say, ‘Okay, been there, done that, now let me go on with something more worthwhile’.

What is interesting is: If you take even a space, let's say, much of this now today comes from Hollywood, if you go to the United States and go to a typical family and ask, ‘What would be more interesting for you? To watch some crude, coarse, “primal instinct” programmes or to watch something which is of a classical music, dance, etc.?’, I remember reading somewhere, way back some 30 years ago in a poll that they said, some 80% of people preferred the refinement. Why? Because, well, that's available, ‘Been there done that now, give me something more useful’. There's a part of humanity though which may degrade, which may get hooked because already the baser instincts are too strong, and the refinement and the impulse to refinement is not strong, and this is the reason why there will be a split, there will be a division in humanity itself, it's already started, we can see that. And it's what the Mother referred to in the 60’s. Although she referred to it much more from the spiritual point of view- those who choose to evolve, and those who reject or refuse to evolve, and the split formed from that. But it comes to this in external terms, in terms of values of civilisation, and not vulgarity, but refinement and beauty.

Now, having said all this, you will see in what I spoke, I primarily spoke of refinement and vulgarity, not about the sexual scenes. There are cinemas which also refine the sexual scenes, or there are those which do it in a crude way. That difference is important, and if it is done in an aesthetic or artistic way, it can have its own value. And to the extent that these things are coming through various cinema, it can be used by evolution to free humanity from what might otherwise remain always as the forbidden attraction. And the fact that young children often grow up seeing these things, as long as it's refined and aesthetic, the novelty of it, and the attraction of the forbidden fades very quickly. Again, keeping in mind the earlier discussion about refinement and coarseness, vulgarity: If it is done correctly, then you see that, you say, ‘Okay, so having been, seen enough of it, I would rather watch something more worthwhile’.

So a lot depends on how it is handled, how it is spread, and in what way you have prepared the younger people. I think largely this covers your question. There is one part where you say, ‘How to “deal with this primal instinct whenever we see and how to defeat or deal with such gross arousals”?’: It comes to this, you make a choice, you do not defeat, you do not fight by saying, ‘I want’ and ‘I don't want’, it does not work. It happens by shifting your grade: ‘this’, and ‘that’, let's say, they represent two different parts in you, you are in between, you can choose where ‘more of you’, and ‘less of you’ is there, and put ‘more of you’ in the part which you find worthwhile.

(0:40:24):

Sometimes, as it happens for almost every kind of experience in life, one often makes a dip to pass through something. I recall reading one of the couple of letters of Sri Aurobindo, I have forgotten now the name of some Gujarati gentleman and he shared with me the letters, there were several letters where he was speaking of certain passages, and he kept saying: “This you go through and quickly overpass, go through and quickly overpass”, so that experiences, as a child you will say, ‘Okay’. Even as you discover your own body's sensations, you say, ‘Okay. And then to what? What's the point?’, and you move, you keep moving, you keep refining and moving forward. And so there is inevitably a curiosity of some kind, and you look at it, and then say, ‘All right, it's not worth it’. After that, the curiosity being satisfied, there is nothing to it.

But if you have got hooked with the coarseness, that's when you have a problem. In such cases, there is a question of a will. Many of these tendencies could be addictive. In fact, partly one of the reasons for the vulgar projection in cinema is the normalisation of vulgarity and with it its addictive power. And so, you have to then make a choice. If something is addictive, and you know that it, you don't really value it, but you are bound now, you have to cut, make a clean cut, break, and free, initially by force of will, later once you are sufficiently free, it should not be a difficulty anymore. And we have discussed means of freeing from addiction. But I think this is reasonably complete for what you have asked.

We can go to the next question.

Alina (0:42:06):
“I want to know more about the existence of deities and the 24 interlocking spheres of existence. Is there any book, novel or any literature devoted to writings related to the same? I would also like to see your recommendations of books besides Sri Aurobindo. Thank you.”

Sraddhalu (0:42:31):

[laughing]

Okay. So this is not directly related to our theme, but since there were three questions from Raheel, I will put it all together. I looked on the Internet looking for this “24 interlocking spheres of existence”, I couldn't find anything. So I don't know really where you are getting this, vocabulary or this phrasing from, but I will take the question for it, what it represents.

You see Sri Aurobindo discusses in The Synthesis of Yoga, the nature of existence, the nature of reality, of course in The Life Divine also, but in The Synthesis of Yoga, he makes this very interesting observation, he says: When you try to map out all the gradations or levels of reality, there are many schemas you can create- the many ways of looking at it, because remember, what you are meeting is in fact the infinite with infinite potential. You cannot bind the Infinite with infinite potential into any system. Whatever system you create, there will be exceptions to it. So you will find across the world, across various esoteric traditions, classifications of so many levels of reality, so many worlds, so many spheres, powers, gods, deities, etc., all true from a certain viewpoint, and inevitably you can find situations or experiences where they are falsified sufficiently that you say, ‘Mhmm, maybe we should have organised in a different way’. Or, having grown into a system, your mind is so formed in the rigidity of that structure of the system that you cannot but reduce all your experience of reality to that framework, and then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, ‘Oh-yeah, that's how the universe is’. And even if you're shown something which is outside the domain of that system, the mind fits it into a: angle, point, level, layer, corner of the system.

And so you're prevented from experiencing reality in its continuum and its full freedom, and richness, and diversity, if you are too formed in the mental for a system. So I am, I am elaborating on what Sri Aurobindo says, but the point he makes after that, is, therefore for the purpose of the discussion in The Synthesis of Yoga, he chooses the schema of the Vedic  structure of the seven planes or seven principles on which the universe is formed primarily, he says, because it's the simpler one and secondarily because it is the most useful for the yogic purpose.

(0:45:25):

Now you could create a system where you have 12, where you have 5, where you have 13, any other combination. 9 is another system I've seen I think in, anyway there are many such systems now, 7 being what Sri Aurobindo refers to, I find it much more useful again from a Yoga point of view to refer to that. If you take a system let's say 24, or 9, or 12, or something, to what end? As far as I'm aware, the only such rich framework which is reasonably complete is the Kabbalah tradition which is largely the basis for most of the western occult traditions also, most of them tend to draw from that in some way or other, and very closely aligns with the Vedic but with much greater rigidity in the structure and detailing which is reduced almost to a mathematical character. That is also there in the Vedic but not reduced to it.

You see those mathematical symbols, relations, proportions, sounds with numbers, and psychological qualities, all those correspondences, fascinating, but it’s not reduced. Whereas in pretty much most of the books I have seen in the Kabbalah, there is a tendency to mentalise to a point where you have reduced it. At which point you can always ask: But why like this? Why not something in between? And of course it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, because ‘Well, these are the centres’. No, but there is a continuum across. And the moment you start shifting into the continuum, you will find you can take the Kabbalah structure and fold it, so to say, and make it 5 or enlarge it for certain specialisations, make it 12, 13, 24, maybe even more, maybe a 100, and so on.

The point I am getting to is: That is not so important. What is much more important is to be able to connect the inner ranges of your experience with the external objective experience of those equivalent planes of consciousness or grades, powers of consciousness, with the purpose of being able to then grow and develop and accelerate. If you keep this as your priority, the way these things are structured and even the forms of the deities are not so important. You will see Sri Aurobindo elaborates on the Vedic deities in a way that you can actually enter in relation with these cosmic powers, and he goes only to the most important, the most essential, from which the others are, so to say, as if derived.

And yet in his own Yoga, there is no such focus, they are implied, but you do not relate directly to the deities. What do you relate to? To the Mother of them all, the one Divine Mother, infinite, cosmic, who includes all her children and all the deities and cosmic powers, but in her, they are all harmonised. You approach the deities, and they are individual, and they can collide, and you have to struggle to unify and harmonise them, that's in fact part of the processes in the occult traditions: you access this deity, that deity, and then the other, and then now they are in conflict, so you have to find a means to harmonise them, and so on.

Too much [gesturing brain] work for you. Instead you go to the source of which these are specialised aspects,—the one in whom they are all unified anyway,—and that one deploys her powers, her help, her qualities of consciousness freely as a free infinite potential, and all the deities are implied, and there be interweavings, blendings, you do not even need a specific name of a deity, you do not even need to see them as distinct. The most pre-eminent of these you will also experience distinctly, such as Agni, and so on, but you do not need to even worry about it, because they are all aspects and powers of the one Divine Mother.

So this is a much more direct, much more useful approach to understanding reality but also applying that understanding for your accelerated spiritual growth. And if you don't do it for that, then any understanding of reality is pointless, you are just wasting your time in studying one system, and then another system, and such systems change nothing, because you can make an infinity of systems from an infinite potential.

So coming to books and novels, “literature devoted” to these things, I find very few which are, which have that purity, inevitably most have some blend of what will sell or some exaggerated perspective which narrows, reduces, and binds. I have been through a lot,  but very few that I have seen which had that, what I would call the “the light of truth” throughout, and so I find it difficult to recommend for this purpose.

(0:50:31):

Other things which I have come across, useful things, I have freely recommended as I go along, depending on the topic at hand. Among these, there is one which I would highly recommend, I have mentioned before, unfortunately it is not yet translated into English, but I have finally got the assurance from the author that it will be translated soon, and this is the book with the person with whom I had the interview that was webcast a couple of months ago, Mark Auburn, Frenchman, who has out-of-body experiences, and reading that book initially, it was something which was so pure, so clear, so true that I had said, “Okay, this I should not read online, I have to buy the book”. And reading the book it was such an amazing experience, and I said, “One day if, required, I will participate, and if I had the time, I said, I would translate the book and put it out and ask everyone I know who has a spiritual life to read it”, because of its not only deep quality but also its uh, inspirational content. You read that, and you are reminded as if, ‘Ha-yes, these are the worlds we have lived in, and these are things which we still have access to in our inner subliminal ranges’, but to be able to consciously participate in that is so much worth it, so very few such, and the maturity and depth and the evolution behind the articulation, all these are outstanding.

I have read a lot of other books by very famous out-of-body-experiences people, and sometimes they don't even know what they are talking about, they have an experience, they get totally lost, they make some mental construction, ‘Oh, this is this, this is that’ and speculative.

No, this man is rock-solid. And it comes from a very deep uh, maturity across many lives. It's only at two points in the book that I felt, “Huh, this is not correct”. Only two, and that's very rare. And one was where he says, he's criticising religions and he says, all these religions, they just go with some beliefs which are constructed, and he says, and each one claims that ‘This is it, it alone is right’. And he gives a list of them. And he comes to: and the Hindu tradition also says, ‘It alone is right’. I said, “Oh, that's not correct”. I said: “This is the only tradition which says that the truth is one, and it cannot be reduced to words, and every viewpoint, every approach is justified from its perspective, it's the only tradition which says that. So, there he was wrong. He did not know. Okay.

Interestingly, when I met him, and I said to him, “You know what, these are the two points where I had an issue”, and before I could complete what I was saying about the first point, he said, “Yes, I know, I was wrong about that”. And then he shared an experience he had, he had gone for some yoga class, and he had the experience literally of seeing in the Presence, the rishis, and received from them the whole teaching of what was the basis of the tradition, and so on.

The second point where I had this, “Oops, something is wrong here”, was way down in the book, as reading through, and he says, “So, I've come to this world and I'm fed up with it and once I finish my work I leave everything and go back”. I said, “Aahh, he has missed the point of coming here, that's not it”. I've not had a chance to discuss with him.

But you know, these are nuances which, you might say, are trivial. But to me, if a person does not have a clarity and a purity of the teaching, I don't recommend exposing yourself unless you have already sufficient discrimination that you can remove the things that are not right, especially in spiritual matters, because especially what you read in the early years goes very deep because you are drinking it with full trust, and it shapes you, it shapes you in a way that is very difficult to get free from. And if you have somehow by some mischance got exposed to some of the ascetic values and they have got rooted within you, it is so difficult to uproot them because they seem so right: the disdain for matter; the disdain for life; the rejection of the body; the sense of being trapped in reincarnation, of suffering, of being bound in karma; all of these to me are distortions.

Yes, they represent a truth, but presented in this way, they are perversions of the deep spiritual reality, truth of our being here, which you find only in its purity in the way Sri Aurobindo and the Mather articulate our purpose in life, and our incarnation here, and the whole purpose of our evolution. If the goal was to get out, why would you get-in in the first place? Even the greatest illusionist philosophies don't explain, how you came to be inside it. Some, by chance.  But ‘chance’ means, I don't know how. And that means there is something wrong and something limited in the understanding.

(0:55:36):

So I am highlighting this for a reason that when I recommend a book generally I would want it to be of a very high standard. Why? Because, well, I'm used to that standard, and nothing, nothing less is acceptable. I'm going to share here an experience which I have mentioned before. This was with a famous writer, Peter Kingsley. Some of you might know him. He's a writer from the Greek tradition, trying to draw out the deeper spiritual roots and founts of the Greek traditions. And a lot of what he writes also comes from kind of an inspiration from some of what he feels are the Greek deities. That being the case, I had occasion to meet with him in some conference, and when he heard that I was from the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, he said, “Oh Sri Aurobindo, that man he ruined it for me”. “Ha, what do you mean?”

So he explained that he studied also in, what is it, Cambridge, and there, because he wanted to be away from people, he wanted to study alone, he was looking for a place of isolation, he finds this little room up the stairs, a little corner, which is full of Sri Aurobindo's books. As it turns out, I think, Sri Aurobindo stayed there. So he goes to this room and does his reading except that it's filled with Sri Aurobindo's books, so he gets curious and starts reading Sri Aurobindo. And he gets so engrossed, he can't read anything else, and he goes on reading that, and that, and continues that, I don't know how many weeks or months. But then he said, Sri Aurobindo ruined it for him.

What was that? Because having read such high-condensed depth of content, afterwards to read any other author felt so fickle, shallow, and superficial that it was no more satisfying. He could not read any other book, he said, after that. [laughing]

And you can understand, that's one of the problems one has. And I mean here not just in terms of depth, I mean here in terms of quality of Truth. If there are mixtures, if there are values which are contrary to the deeper spiritual, affirmative, evolutionary sense, I don't feel comfortable with those books, at least recommending them, I can read them, get what I want, and filter out, but I would not recommend them to people if, in a general way, unless I know that they are able to filter out those things. So I am extremely careful about this also. But I have recommended books for not spiritual purposes but other things which are relevant for various themes as we have been discussing them. But I am still waiting, once Mark Auburn's book in English comes out, I will uh, speak of it here and also share some of the incidents from there which are worthy of elaboration, because he shares incidents which are valuable but then implied is so much behind which eh, it’s, it's worth sharing, and maybe it'll be a session in itself once the book comes out. So I think, this is as far as the books are concerned.

We can go to the next question.

Alina (0:58:46):
Narayan is writing: “My niece who was seven or eight at that time knew the Mother and Sri Aurobindo from the photograph, we also have the photograph of Ashram Samadhi, one day she asked me, ‘What is this photo about?’. I told, I told her, it was when the Mother and Sri Aurobindo died”,—in parentheses,—“(margaya).” Mmhm, “She was shocked”

Sraddhalu (0:59:13):

‘Margaya’, ‘margaya’, – means died. [laughing]

Alina (0:59:17):

Okay. “She was shocked and replied with shock: ‘The Mother and Sri Aurobindo died?’. It was a shock to her because we worshipped them by keeping their photographs. Then I diverted her question in another direction. What should be my approach at such times? How can we explain this? It was nearly four years ago.”

Sraddhalu (0:59:39):
Hmm, yes, it's a, especially in relation to the child's spontaneous opening of the heart. The word he used was ‘margaya’, in Hindi or various languages. The word if you decompose it, ‘mar’ is death, ‘gaya’ is gone, literally it is, ‘dead-gone’. So here’s somebody you are worshipping, ‘dead-gone’. Huun, it doesn't make sense. [laughing] Right? So actually the harshness of the word, and the implication of that, and the idea behind, was what created the conflict.

I remember when I would have been about five and a half years old that the Mother left her body, and my mother came home, she had just heard that, she comes home and tells us, “Now we have to go there, Mother has left her body”. So I said, [laughing] “What is this ‘left her body’?”. Because from the child’s consciousness: She is there She has left the body! But she is there! So, what is this thing about leaving body? And of course we went through that whole thing. The word ‘dead’ was not used. ‘Left body!’ But she is present. So: earlier she was tied to the body, now she has left the body, body is dropped off, she is still there, nothing has changed, practically.

And so this formulation is much better to understand. So if you had to explain the Samadhi, you would say: ‘When the Mother and Sri Aurobindo left their body, then that was placed there”,—because why again that is very important,—“because it continued to hold the spiritual power which they had held in the body.” So as an analogy, you take the mobile phone of somebody, take it in your hand, you can feel their energy, you can feel their vibe. Those who are very sensitive, you can take any object used by a person and begin to describe the person. Give it to a dog, the dog can smell and find that person wherever they are today, right now.

Isn't that amazing? You cannot explain this purely in physical terms or even through a sense of smell. You’ll see the dog is sniffing very close to the ground and chasing a line, but the person has not gone on that line, but he'll move around until he catches the scent, and then follow the scent, and interestingly the scent stays even if there is a wind. So, what is this thing that they are really tracing, if you ask yourself?

So it comes to this recognition that imbued into any physical object is the vibration of the person who uses it, and especially if there's a strong relation to that object, there's a stronger infusion of that vibration, something you have loved, something you have cherished, something you have used with skill, with consciousness, with attention, with intention, well, obviously, they hold more.

Now what's the one thing we all use in our life the most? Well, our own body, [laughing] that's the instrument. Isn't it? I remember when my teacher, M.P. Pandit, when he was about to leave his body, he left in March, and about October is when we have the ‘Navaratris’, the nine days, the nine nights, the sacred nights, and completing in the 10th, which is the victory, it's a ceremonial 10 nights, uh, 10 days. And among them, I think, the 9th is the one where, because of certain historical associations, you worship all the instruments, and so, it was traditional, he would do it in his own way, he would do a prayer, and then he would take some flowers from a plant and then just put it on certain objects, you know the refrigerator, at that time there was the radio, and any machine instrument, sometimes the pen, so he just did that, and then having done everything, he said, “What else?”, and then he took the last flower and put it on his head and said, “Thank you to this instrument”, his own body.

And I think, it was five months later, six months later that he left his body, but already in his consciousness the stance had been taken, he had begun to withdraw, that this [gesturing material body] was the instrument. So I am saying this to show that the body itself is our most cherished, the most identified, the most infused instrument, and especially for a spiritual person,—not for all spiritual beings,—but a spiritual person who has worked to manifest the spiritual consciousness, the body can continue to hold it. Of course, he can choose to withdraw.

In many of the ascetic traditions, they give great importance to the fact that there is nothing left in the body when they withdraw, or even the body is dissolved, and so on. But this is different. Here the goal was to, the body itself was taken to a degree of divinisation, that it contains that consciousness, and the work done. And the Mother even observed in certain parts of her body where the cells had already attained to that consciousness that they would be immortal, effectively. Such being the case, then the, naturally that body is held fixed into matter, in earth generally, so that, that consciousness and the spiritual benefit of that is infused into all humanity.

This is the basis of the concept of ‘Samadhi’. In the spiritual traditions in India, this is the word, other places may not have, they may have different words, which then is imitated by others who may have no spiritual content at all, and you can see that in what are called ‘Samadhis’ or ‘burial places’ for people of certain religious lineages, it's empty, and sometimes there's even something quite dark, it's nothing to do with it, no value.

(1:05:40)

But for those who had that, and I've shared my experience in Egypt, when, I think, it was the Tomb of Thutmose, Thutmose II, or one of these, when we were going into that, initially I was very hesitant,—‘Tomb of’,—you know, you have all those associations, and entering it was such a clear, pure, bright, refined, spiritual presence. It was amazing. It was a shock, but it was amazing, it was beautiful. And it was the point that in the early years in Egypt, they made these, so to say, tombs, in the Valley of the Kings, the burial grounds, only for those who were of a very high spiritual attainment. It was not done for everybody.

And of course, the pyramids had nothing to do with that. So, I put all this in context, and you can explain this to the child that: ‘The body itself is special, and that is, it holds a force, and it is to that consciousness, that presence, that force, that we relate because of its physical density. And the Mother and Sri Aurobindo are always present.’ And you can use this vocabulary, say it like this. The phrase ‘mar–gaya’, dead-gone, technically is wrong, and it, that is what created the shock that it is actually wrong. They are neither dead nor gone.

But this principle you can apply also when explaining when your own relatives known to the children pass on, you can say ‘The person has left the body’. Technically though one would say ‘Someone has left the body’ when they have done it consciously, but from the soul's point of view, since that is the nature of the transition, we can always use that phrase: ‘Nobody dies, we never die, nobody dies, we transition between levels, take on new bodies, shift to other levels, take on new bodies, and that's all there is to it.’ This should be said very clearly to the children, so there is no confusion and no misunderstanding of what this transition represents.

We can go to Revati's question, next. [To Alina] Uh, you are..

Alina (1:07:44):
“I have often observed that within myself there is this voice that often makes nasty suggestions and ugly remarks about people's circumstances. I certainly don't think, it is part of me. All the same I'm not able to eliminate it. I read the Mother's observations in a book by Huta where she says: ‘ “There are so many beings, and in each being there are so many other beings also. They come up at every moment and take so many different forms and harass the true being. The devil always spreads his influence in human lives.”’^[1]

Could you kindly shed some light on the same and guide us as how to, how we can overcome such challenges? Presently, I just neglect those suggestions as if I never heard them. Also, Sir! Does the devil too has his origin in the Divine? How did he ended up being one day a devil?”

Sraddhalu (1:08:56):

[laughing] Yes. How did the devil end up becoming a devil? But first look at this, what is described here as “voice that … makes nasty suggestions” or “ugly remarks” about people or “circumstances”, and the fact that she chooses to ignore them and obviously neglect the suggestions: Where does it come from? What does it represent? So the quotation from, Mother's observations to Huta, uh, where she says that “There are many beings” within us, and “They come up” at each moment “and take … different forms and harass the true being”, is, can be a good starting point to discuss this.

It does not mean that we are possessed by so many entities, it just means that we are made up of so many different tendencies, sometimes these tendencies have a certain formation, very distinct, almost as if they are independent beings. And so, if you look at an individual, a person, what you recognise is there are so many different aspects to the person, first. Let's say, somebody is a parent, somebody also is a child to their parent, also has a business role, or work role, as a job, teacher, or as a friend you meet the person, it's a completely different person, and so on. There are literally different aspects.

Sometimes they switch between, and you cannot recognise one person from the other: this person in his office space is like this, and as a friend he can be so different.

(1:10:32):

So there are different aspects. Within those aspects, there are many levels. So the person in power of thought, in emotional content, or in the physical skills, can be totally different. We see people with very strong vital, very dominant, in their workspace they can be heads of large institutions, but physically totally inept, or intellectually quite deficient, or intellectually very powerful and brilliant, emotionally immature, undeveloped, utterly undeveloped, and then physically could be clumsy or skilful in some narrow part or not.

We take an example even of a very famous name such as Einstein. As a mathematician, he was brilliant, as a physicist, not very good, he tended to reduce all physics to mathematics, abstracting them from their physical reality and thereby created a lot of confusion, as a musician, he was good, ‘amateur’ you may say, he could play the violin, he enjoyed playing it, it was good enough, as a husband, he was terrible, he used to beat his wife, abuse his wife, emotionally quite coarse and crude. These are aspects which are not publicly shared and we don't need to look at. I'm just sharing this to show you, just because you have this or that does not mean everything else has to be of the same grade, they're different parts, and each part can be totally different. And within those parts, you have different sub-components, sub-parts, tendencies, impulses, each pushing to fulfill its own habitual nature, tendency, impulse.

Some of these are formed by repeated habit, some of these rise as a tendency of a nature inherited or otherwise acquired which have become now reasonably permanent, or having come up, they have formed a new habit, the part itself is no more relevant but the habit remains. As a child, as children, we have all developed certain kinds of habits, some good, some not so good, as you have matured, that grade of consciousness perhaps has changed a lot, but the habit may still stay: I can't fall asleep unless I have first splashed water on my face, or whatever it is, the thing you have used to.

Now all this is to show that we are actually a crowd of people, tendencies, impulses, formed, that's why the word used is ‘formation’: form which becomes a self-sustaining, independent almost, tendency. And this is what she is referring to when she said “There are … many beings, … in each being” and “there are so many other beings” from the “true” you. Where is the true you? Totally lost in this.

Ideally that would be all the way within in the psychic or in the part in you where the psychic presence is most strongly, let’s say, is suffused, that would be the closest to your true centre, but this is very often covered by this noise, very often misled or its suggestions, its promptings are misdirected, diverted, lost, confused, etc. So that's why she says, these “many different forms … harass the true being”. The psychic being is initially quite incapable of overcoming this clutter and noise. And then this term she has, I, I'm assuming this is an exact quotation: “The devil always spreads his influence in” our “lives.” ^[2] is a further element that within all this chaos, there are from outside suggestions and promptings, which nudge.

Now, ask yourself: Why would somebody or something want to prompt you and push a suggestion? From the higher ranges of consciousness, you look at the mess of human consciousness and say, ‘Oh, I don't want to have much to do with it’. But when you are close enough to a lower grade, close to the material, ‘Hey, that's interesting, let me see if I can exercise my influence on this’. So mostly what you have is lower grade,—lower vital,—beings which come of a level almost of, of a material density who look at human affairs and say ‘Hey, let's have some fun’, and naturally because that's their grade of consciousness, they're are having, fooling around basically, ‘mischievous’. And you'll see, this is the form it takes in children when they get impulsive in their mischief.

So you're sitting, you have nothing to do, you're idle, you would need some excitement, you're bored, okay, pull somebody's hair, poke somebody, throw a stone, and have a laugh. When you think about what it is, it's no different from a very crude lower vital nature: Having fun at the expense of others, by disturbing others; someone is concentrated, you take great delight in breaking their concentration. Why? ‘Well, it was fun for me.’

Sraddhalu (1:15:39):
What would be the deeper or higher poise, then you say: ‘Wow, that person is concentrated.’ ‘Wow, what a beautiful state of concentration!’ And then, ‘I also would like to be so deeply concentrated with that kind of..’: that would be the normal movement, of the psychic being. It is these parts, these layers, which say, ‘Uha, let me break it, I don't like it, I don't want it, because I can't have it’, or, ‘something in me rebels’. All this is typical of that lower grade. So where did it come, in you? From there, precisely.

It could be two ways: actively a being nudges you and pushes you; or, the grade corresponding to that within you which is now open, the impulses of the universal flow, pop ‘in’ and ‘out’. I think, I just saw briefly a pause in the video. Was it clear? Was there a break?

Okay, I hope it was fine. So, [to Alina] ‘Yes, okay’.

So things from the universe which are just passing through, you are the open public space through which it passes, those impulses catch tendencies within you, and that's it. So this is what she is generally describing, explaining to Huta, and so: Do not first of all get into that trip of blaming yourself. Yes, you are responsible, having done it, having been used by some uh, impulse, you are responsible for the consequences because you accepted to participate in the impulse. But if you say, ‘I am bad’, no. There are parts within me which are open to these suggestions.’ Then you take a stance which is separate from those parts. And then now you can choose: to integrate those parts, refine them, free them, or whatever, integrate them around the centre which is more truly you so that your parts act as you wish to, not in separate conflicting tendencies.

So organising all these layers, parts, tendencies within you and integrating around some kind of cohesive centre,—even if it's a mental centre, of a mental will,—is an absolute necessity to be able to do anything useful in life. The more well-integrated, the more effective in your action, because now all these distinctive parts are fully coordinated. So when you engage with something, it's like a thousand parts of you simultaneously aligned as a single whole, you have no more the sense of different parts, no more pull in different directions, it's one single whole but with a thousand facets, of powers, of action directed, and then you are more effective.

So: I recognise this principle, act upon it to integrate around whatever deepest, highest, truest centre that you feel within you, and whenever these tendencies, these suggestions, pop-up, refuse to recognise them as yours. I think, Revati has quite, quite distinctly said that, I think, this vocabulary which is a little blurred, she says, “this voice … often makes nasty suggestions”, so is it an external or is it an internal? But at least she recognises, ‘It's a voice, it's not me’. There are people who make the mistake of identifying with it, and they will say: ‘I feel like doing this’, ‘I get this suggestion’, ‘I get this impulse’. No, don't make that mistake. There is an impulse that comes of this type. There is a suggestion of that type’. ‘Not me!’ Okay? Then you can recognise, it comes from outside, or it uses some part of you that is not sufficiently integrated.

Now, another problem with this vocabulary of ‘voice’: Do you actually hear it as a speech?

Or, is it a thought-form that comes to which you call ‘voice’? And this is a problem of the new-age vocabulary because they will say ‘Follow the inner voice’. No, you don't hear a voice inside you talking, though that may happen, but that's not how it happens normally. And if any voice comes, I would say, first be very wary, because it's only the lower beings generally who will use voices, the inner will come by direct contact of suggestion and not voices.

But do you mean ‘voice’ in a representative, symbolic way or do you actually hear sounds? If you hear sounds and a voice-speech quality, then you have to be wary, you have to refuse that and completely ‘block’ ‘it’ ‘out’ until it goes away completely. If it's only eh, an idea-form, thought-form, or a suggestion and tendency that you call ‘voice’, then better avoid such vocabulary because it can be confusing and it gives to it a greater prominence and independence than it actually has.

(1:20:26):

So if you find these suggestions of thoughts coming in, recognise, they are not you, very likely they are poking from outside you and catching a part which corresponds to that. To the extent possible, if you feel for example, the nasty suggestion is something sarcastic, is negative, it's critical, you look in yourself for the thing which would be more truly you. Now, it's one thing to fight a negative: you can keep pushing it out, it will tend to come back because there's an empty hollow there.

A much better approach is: fill it with what is you, and then the negative has no place. So, each time the suggestion comes, ‘Oh, so and so is..’, you look into yourself and say: ‘What would be the truth of my consciousness, of my true being?’ ‘What is it that I would want to express?’ Feel that. And bring it forward. And then express it. It doesn't mean, you have to say it in speech, but in thought, in feeling, in form, ‘Oh-yes’. And fill this space with your positive tendency. When you have this, it pushes out that negative, or the negative feels so petty and coarse against this much more beautiful part that is you,—or more truly you at least,—but very quickly it replaces those, you're not leaving behind a hollow by throwing out, pushing.

You know you can fight unendingly to push out the negative suggestions and they will keep coming, because it’s, you're opening to the universe in the vital, mental, all these layers, the universe is full of them, you are so small. Instead you fill yourself with the positive or things which are more truly you, there is no place for them, even if the suggestion comes, it feels so superficial, so crude, so unlike you, it doesn't stick, it falls away. And then if there are beings which are pushing the suggestions, they find it boring, ‘Oh, this person is not very useful, let's go to someone else’. That's it. It ends there.

So the correct way will be to build the positive, fill yourself with the positive or more true response that is yours. It does not mean that you have to pretend. So let's say, something came out and says, ‘Oh, that person is so pretentious, self-opinionated’. Okay, maybe there's a truth to it. But that was a nasty way of looking at it, making you somehow more superior. Or, you look within and you say: ‘Ah-yes, yeah, the person has that tendency, but is that the best that I know of the person? No, I, I appreciate this aspect of that person. And maybe there is a point to their sense of superiority, they do have this particular quality which is exceptional. And if they exaggerate the sense of superiority, that's their problem, but it's justified at least in this respect.’ You're conscious of that, and you can appreciate that. You can still say: ‘Oh-yes, the person is opinionated, but I do recognise that the basis for that opinionated tendency is something valid, and I value that’. That would be more true, as a perspective. And so you bring that forward, acknowledge it in mind, emotions, actions, response.

Again depending on how the relationship with that person is and the nature of that negative thing, you may actively speak it, ‘You know what, I appreciate this so much in you’. It doesn't mean, you have to appreciate everything, but this, in this part you have a lot to learn from them. Hold that before you. And so in putting out a positive energy, you are also pushing out automatically those tendencies which no more have a hook in you, because you're full of the positivity. And even in criticising someone, as I said, there can be a positive approach to criticising. So yes: First step: it's good to neglect these suggestions, ignore them entirely. But the second step: actively fill yourself with the positive until these things no more have a place and actively integrate these tendencies and parts in you. That would be the better thing.

The last part of the question is: Does the devil too have its origin in the divine? How did he end up as one, as a devil? –So here, Mother has used the “devil” in a very general way, as a, not one thing which is everywhere. As in the Christian tradition, at least the way we are taught today, the devil is made as if the antipode of God equally powerful or even more powerful, more influential than God, God is helpless against all these mischievous aspects of the devil, God depends on us to fight the devil for him. It gets pretty messy. It's not like that.

(1:25:06):

There are tendencies in the universe which are, let's say, opposing the Divine Will, and they too serve the Divine because there is nothing other than the Divine. The Mother narrates this in a symbolic story, she says, when the Divine put out initially the four powers, the powers became,—because they were cosmic, they were free, they were entirely free to do as they wanted,—they became so proud of themselves of their independence that in so emphasising their independence, they cut off from their oneness with the Divine and became therefore the very opposite. So, and she says, don't take the story too seriously, it's not in the form but in the spirit that you have to recognise.

So, it's as if in the intention, the powers put out are intended to have their free play, and in the act of choosing to be free, there is the aspect that chooses to be free from its source itself and thereby turns against. But it's a part. The other parts of the Divine Consciousness which are fully aligned, and therefore there is a second manifestation that the Mother speaks of: The angelic manifestation, which are put out but not allowed their full freedom, and so they are always linked to the Divine Will and always begin to be expressions of the Divine. We as human beings have as if the play of both: There is a part in us that has the freedom, including the freedom to oppose the Divine Will. But we are also the soul, first and foremost, and therefore we are never cut off from the Divine, and the soul's freedom is a true freedom, it's not a puppet marionette.

So in the process of entering as a free individual in manifestation, we are as if able to share the two extremes of this experience in the full freedom, and therefore, in a sense, these two extremes of influences try to seize upon us and make us theirs. That's the truth behind this whole sense of the positive and negative forces playing on us. But if you look at it from the evolutionary perspective, each of these serves a purpose. The Divine influences nourish you to grow in your evolution.

But because any growth you have has not reached the highest, the other side comes to break what you have done to force you to rebuild on a higher level and grow more. So any growth which has become stunted, limited, or stagnated, the force comes to break to remind you that there is an infinity waiting for you: continue or fall back. So each serves a purpose. So in the Vedic vision, we are taught, or we are told that we are, the soul is suckled by two Mothers, the bright Mother and the dark Mother, and that's the duality of experiences in life which helps us grow, and so on.

So this is a better way of looking at things. What you call ‘devil’ or ‘devilish’, etc., represent only an aspect of the divine freedom, that has the freedom to oppose the Divine Will, but in so doing it still serves a purpose in the evolutionary growth. So there is no such thing as devil, finally. Although practically you may say ‘Yes, there are such things’, not one, but many different forces, powers, energies, consciousness, and they are intelligent, they are individualised, and often some of them may have cosmic aspects also. But at the end of the day, there is nothing other than the Divine, so all ends up serving the Divine.

If we keep this as our primary vision, then everything out there is there to help you, even that which seeks to oppose is there to help you finally. This is the true way from the supramental consciousness which is the truth-consciousness, everything is an aspect of itself, and therefore even when the anti-Divine forces come to attack, its action: it recognises in them the truth that they hide and so amplifies or acts upon that truth and uses their action to further hasten its own development. Interesting, isn't it? This is the principle which is used in certain martial arts, particularly in Judo, where they say, ‘You use the opponent's energy, you use the opponent's force against you to aid you in fulfilling your objective’. It's something like that. Except here it's much more essential: you catch everything as an underlying principle of truth behind, catch that, amplify that, and even what seems to oppose is used to accelerate the growth.

Such is the nature of the truth-consciousness, the supramental consciousness, which is not yet fully awakened in us, and yet underlying behind the scenes it is the only reality, there is no other, and therefore, even though we may make mistakes and struggle and suffer, it uses those mistakes, including our mistakes, our lapses, as a means to further hasten. As long as that consciousness was not an active consciousness in evolution,—that it was there as an underlying principle, but not directly active,—in the long run this was the truth: that eventually everything is used.

(1:30:31):

As of 1956, when the Mother and Sri Aurobindo brought down the supramental consciousness on earth, in the universe, as an active force in evolution, this working, this aspect of its working, has been enormously amplified and accelerated. We still do not have the direct action of the supramental consciousness in our circumstances because it is a consciousness of infinity, and a vehicle that is finite cannot contain infinity, it would shatter. So it has to act through a self-reduction of, to finitise itself and limit itself in order to be able to be effective.

But still, the fact that it is now an active force in evolution and the current evolution, so to say, is directly supported by a supramental working, the result is: Everything, even the most negative, the most contrary, is used to further hasten the inevitable spiritual, supramental manifestation.  So when the Mother was asked, ‘What is the supramental force doing?’, she said, at every moment the supramental force is active to hasten the inevitable supramental world, supramental evolution, in the most rapid way without damaging what is currently present.

Now this is very important to understand. If it pushes too hard, the current vessels or the consciousness which is too close, too limited, too inflexible, could crack, break, and be lost. So it pushes, it can push much more, but it knows because it is truth-consciousness, it knows exactly how much to push without breaking, and so it stays on that edge, but keeps the pressure, not on one point, in every possible point from every possible direction, because it's a consciousness of infinity. Every force, including that which is against the Divine, is also, so to say, pushed to utilise its value for acceleration of evolution in hastening the supramental world, the supramental consciousness.

This is the reason why we see this increasing pressure and compulsion for change, for growth, for, and the sense of crisis, and the increasing sense of crisis, and yet in spite of the increasing sense of crisis, it's not collapsed still. If you go back, those of us who have been here long enough, you can see literally over the last 10 or 20 years, each time things feel like they are getting worse, you would say, ‘If it continues like that, in another year or two it will be finished, we wouldn't survive, the world won't survive, things will collapse, systems will collapse’.

And yet nothing collapses. Isn't that interesting? Even..And things are breaking down, but they are almost immediately being replaced or changed, or something is happening which is building at the same time as it is breaking, but even as the crisis becomes worse, and worse, and worse, something is happening that is growing-growing-growing. It's fascinating to watch this. And this is very characteristic of the supramental consciousness, working indirectly. When it works directly, when it finds an opportunity, when there is a receptive centre, focal point, and it acts directly, you have this sudden shift which is miraculous on a large scale, and yet having happened miraculously, it seems like the most natural thing, ‘Oh, it was inevitable, it couldn’t have been otherwise’—and that is it’s more direct working.

So this is where we are now. And this would be an important point for us to pause upon. We will take up a couple more questions perhaps next time, if there is, or we will change the topic next time, but this would be a good, theme to pause upon: Becoming conscious that behind all this apparent chaos, increasing tension, pressure, conflict, crisis, is the supramental consciousness which is holding it, carrying it, carefully, with the skill and perfection which only it is capable of: That even in the most extreme challenges, in the most fragile circumstances, it maintains, it knows how to maintain the balance and harmony and inevitably lead all to the spiritual fulfilment and the supramental manifestation upon earth, in life, in matter.

(1:35:15):

If we are conscious and participate consciously, this will be much more rapid and without the pain and struggle. If we are unconscious, it will still be inevitable, but through this pressure, which means for us, translates as practically as pain and struggle, and this is where we can make the choice: We align ourselves more and more consciously to this. Let ourselves be open, conscious, receiving instruments, as pure as possible, as clear as possible,—no compromise, no mixture,—and then it can work more and more directly in you, and through you, and make this shift. That is our most important work, isn't it?

We can concentrate on this theme all together in a conscious, collective, aspiration.

Namaste.

Alina (1:36:35):

Namaste.

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