2 Sept 2023
Alina (0:00:37):
Namaste, I'm Alina and I will be hosting Evenings with Sraddhalu. Namaste.
Sraddhalu (0:00:43):
Namaste. Happy to be with all of you.
Alina (0:00:47):
We are happy to continue this series and today we will take on a new topic and we will be taking some questions that we received on current affairs. As usual(ly) you may post your question during our conversation in the chat box or you may send your questions beforehand at our email id integralstudies.in at gmail dot com.
I will be reading the question that we received from Sumana: “I have some questions regarding the current world situation. After a small pause after 2020, it looks like the Asuric forces behind world powers are again gearing up for imposing another series of mandates, restrictions in the movements, etc. in the name of another virus, variant or climate change, etc.
Although I understand that the extreme circumstances in 2020 have awakened many people and many hidden things have become prominent, it still feels like this is a one-sided battle and the Asuric force is enormous compared to our power. When I see the huge damage it has caused to the humanity, especially to the children, it deeply pains my heart.
Apart from trying to raise our consciousness, trying to make others conscious, what else can we do to combat this huge power? What else can we do to prevent further damage? How is the divine power going to help us? Is there any guidance from Sri Aurobindo and the Mother which can relate to the present day situation.”
Sraddhalu (0:03:00):
Yes, it is obvious in the way Sumana has already said most people are more awake now than they were three years ago, and the circumstances seem to be heading again towards some kind of a build-up to lockdown or restriction of freedom and so on. The point though is this is not something new, it has been going on for a long time but there has been an acceleration and a hastening, an urgency for this kind of a suppression precisely because there is a general tendency of an awakening taking place generally in the masses. Before people wake up too much is when the other side needs to suppress and silence and prevent further awakening. And so, it is as if the battle between these two interests of the light and dark is heading to a more urgent outcome.
I want to step back first before entering into the discussion itself to remind you that we have actually touched upon this topic somewhere in the beginning of this series. It is in the title I think “The battle between light and dark". And then there is some discussion on the deep state and so on. Do view that because there are things covered there which we may not cover now even though there will be some overlap but the approach then and now will be a little different.
(0:04:51):
In this series I have tried as far as possible to stay on content which would have lasting value
That is 20 years down, maybe even a 100 years down , it should be useful, at least as useful as possible. And so in this discussion we will tend to focus much more on the situation today.
Nevertheless, my attempt will be to try to look at underlying principles and processes, so that even with a changed situation in future or even looking at past similar circumstances,
we can recognize that underlying pattern and the lessons that it can hold. This in fact is the approach Sri Aurobindo takes in his writings, even in his political analysis with a few exceptions of his earlier writings which were before he came to Pondicherry where he also goes into very specifics of the circumstances then but at the same time going to essential principles which today we can review and say, ‘Ah! yes, what he said then applies even now’, and then that would be worthwhile.
So Sumana's observation is that something is preparing for restrictions. We hear this all over. The restrictions themselves are being reactivated in some parts. But we have also to understand that the powers which want to suppress freedom know their own limitations. Even though they have an overwhelming control on the media, they cannot control the human mind beyond a degree. They can use the power of hypnosis through the media. They can use the power of fear. But there are certain things which they cannot do if people wake up.
And that's why the key will always be on people waking up, to be able to see through the game that is being played, but also growing in consciousness. If we don't grow in consciousness, but we wake up to the mischief being done and start opposing it, the very opposition you create can be used against you and the whole thing spun around. And we have seen this happen so many times already. Every time there is an organized effort to overthrow something wrong, some over excessive suppression of freedom or domination of some power by some power of humanity or free thought or knowledge, every time there has been an organized revolt, the revolt itself has been turned into the very thing which it was trying to overthrow. We see this even in the French revolution or in practically every revolution of the world.
Even when revolutions have been genuine, there are controlled revolutions, as you know, which are funded with an intention and so those are often more successful. But even in a genuine revolution which is not organized, eventually though, as it begins to organize itself, it becomes a replica of the thing it tried to overthrow. And hence the critical insight Sri Aurobindo offers is there has to be a change in consciousness in the people and if that is sufficiently large in numbers in the people, then we can avoid this kind of a relapse.
(0:08:22):
The Mother gave a series of messages, especially in the last few years, in which she covered this in many different ways. I'd like to read from some and then go into the nature of the processes itself that we are seeing happening in front of us.
So there is one message which she gave in 1964, to the first World Conference of the Sri Aurobindo Society, which I think had just been formed.
And the message goes like this:
“The future of the earth depends on a change of consciousness. The only hope for the future is in a change of man's consciousness and the change is bound to come. But it is left to men to decide if they will collaborate for this change or if it will have to be enforced upon them by the power of crashing circumstances.
So, wake up and collaborate.
Blessings”.
This is August 1964. So what she is saying is the change in consciousness is bound to come.The question of course from our viewpoint is sooner or later through less suffering or more suffering. But it is left to men to decide, this is where our free will, our participation, if they will collaborate for this change or if it will have to be enforced upon them by the power of crashing circumstances. And crashing circumstances are pretty much what we have been seeing in the last few decades. Things change to a point where if we do not adapt, if we do not grow, then we will be literally crushed by those changing circumstances. And that's when we begin to wake up and make an effort. And this is happening on even mundane levels.
I recall going back about 30 years in India, when there was this sudden economic shift that took place, in a large part by World Bank controlled policies that were imposed on the country, at a time when there was near financial collapse from sheer mismanagement and theft by the political powers. And then the World Bank steps in, very similar to what you see in Pakistan today, and they imposed a liberalization of various kinds which was designed to actually turn India into a complete slave nation to make the rupee collapse into a spiraling inflation and so on overnight I think, the rupee went from something like eight rupees to a dollar to something like forty rupees to a dollar overnight meaning overnight there were two steps one it jumped to twenty and then from twenty it went to 30 and then drifted rapidly to 40. Today it is something like 70. But it stabilized soon after for a good reason which was not intended, which was not planned by the World Bank.
That's about the time when a large number of multinationals came in and just bought out everything dirt cheap because now the purchasing power of the dollar was much greater and they borrowed the money. They didn't have the money. They just borrowed it from banks who didn't have the money either, they just wrote a number in the account and that was the money created. So, effectively everything in India was just sold dirt cheap to people who had nothing but could buy it because they could write a number on a paper in a bank account.
(0:11:53):
And this pattern you will see everywhere in the world. It's happening even now in the East European countries, it's happening in the South East Asian countries, it's happening immediately currently in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, etc. South America, you see a similar pattern. Policies which wreck an economy and then a stepping in, weakening of the currency and then a purchase, rapid purchase. Now this is a pattern which forces people at that point to either slide into poverty and literally die of starvation or go into civil war from starvation. You see that happening in places. Or push back and start rebuilding.
Now what happened was a certain stagnation and inertia existed, again because of Nehruvian policies in India which were socialist and communist in nature, where basically the government controlled everything. The government even decided how much you can manufacture and if you manufactured more you were punished. All this came with Nehru's socialism. The result was a complete stagnation in industry. In India, I'm sorry I will give more examples from India at the moment. East part of India, Bengal in particular, used to be for centuries a hub of industry and production.
On the other side on the West Coast, Bombay, Gujarat coast, hub of industry production and many other places. But what you saw in Bengal was under the communist rule the entire thing collapsed, industrialists left and what was left was stagnation, poverty, inertia by strict tight political control. So the good part when that shift took place with the World Bank policies was a liberalization. But had it not been the effort of the people, it would have led India into a debt trap. In fact, India was in a debt trap. It reversed only when there was a political change which intended to free India from the debt trap and they did it. Again when they lost, again the other side came which was controlled and they pushed back India into a debt trap and so on. So if not for the hard work of the people this would have been impossible. Fortunately India has a long track record of hard work, industry etc. and so there was the ability to return. But otherwise, it was crashing circumstances, economically and financially, in terms of food, water supply, resources, everything was collapsing, businesses were collapsing, people had to really work hard to rebuild.
This is one small example. You will have other kinds of crashing circumstances. Some of them are psychological and there is no way by which you could even anticipate the kind of psychological decline. For example, almost everywhere in the world today, you see increasing cases of depression. You see among the elites in society, tendencies for suicide, – the wealthiest, the most famous, the most intelligent. Recently, I saw a figure in a town called Kota, which is a hub for people who pass the most difficult examinations in the country for the IIT and JEE and 23 suicides in the last 8 months in this year alone. 23 suicides of the people who were on the cutting edge of being able to pass those exams. What is happening exactly? That people who have actually a potential for becoming elites in whatever field that they are going to touch are committing suicide when they can feel that so close. Or so many people in the fashion industry or cinema industry committing suicide. And this is a phenomenon across the world.
(0:15:54):
This is an example though, it's a measure, it's a barometer of society's general decline psychologically. There is the crashing circumstances that's coming from the poisoning of our air, water and soil and as a result the increasing diseases. People are getting sick, struggling to survive with an industry which wants you to be sick so that they can fleece you more and make you more dependent. And that's another kind of crashing circumstance. And then there are crashing circumstances of the fragmentation of society. Everything is breaking apart. The family unit is of course already shattered. But the individual itself is now struggling to hold any kind of semblance of a community. And all of these are signs of something seriously misaligned from what, from the underlying truth of your spiritual consciousness. The greater the gap between the surface personality and the soul's aspiration, the more there is this kind of a decline and breakdown, and a helplessness and a hopelessness and a meaninglessness, a drying out of life itself. And if at that point you keep chasing for more to satisfy externally, you just keep pushing yourself to frustration and you collapse by the effort that you're making to find meaning by chasing outward.
So at some point, if humanity sufficiently wakes up, it turns inwards and starts looking for the solution by an inner change. So, we collaborate for this change by consciously turning within and beginning that process or it is enforced upon you by the power of crashing circumstances. And so, in brief, she says, what do you do? So, wake up and collaborate, collaborate for this change of consciousness.
The first step, wake up to this reality of what's really happening. So in a large part, I've taken this topic of current affairs, we might cover it over two or three sessions, for this purpose, that we should know what is happening, wake up to the reality, not only externally in the circumstances of life, but how it reflects internally to what extent our internal conditions make for those external circumstances and in what way those circumstances then further influence our internal conditions. The second step from that to collaborate has been the theme generally and we will always come back to this repeatedly.
In another message, this is 1964, in another message of 1965, October 13th, The Mother writes, “Nothing but a radical change of consciousness can save humanity from the terrible plight into which it is plunged”.
Nothing new, maybe we have read this or in a sense it's the same thing being said in a different words but a radical change of consciousness its not a gradual partial improvement but a radical shift into something which is so different that it makes for, the word I am looking for is disruption, a disruptive change is the current vocabulary in technology. So just as technology can make a disruptive change and that's part of the crashing circumstances, we need equally disruptive change in terms of consciousness, radical, not small, step by step.
Quantum leap, big leap is required. Quantum meaning it jumps a gap, there's no continuity.
(0:19:52):
And the ‘terrible plight’, what is that terrible plight? Well, 1967 another message, “Men, countries, continents! The choice is imperative: Truth or the abyss”. And this is a New Year message for 1967 and somebody asks, don't know if it was Satprem, somebody asks about this New Year message you say that the choice is between truth or the abyss. The abyss seems to be gaping just in front yet there is a confidence that it will be removed from the way. Mother's comment: ”The confidence is quite legitimate. The message is only for those who are still asleep and quite satisfied with their sleep.”
So I would dare say that most of us at least who are part of this discussion, are half awake. When I look back at what I was, let's say, 20 years ago, I would say I was half asleep. Today I look at myself in relation, I say, now I'm half awake. But it's still a long way to go to a full awakening. But that's a good start, I think. At least you're not satisfied with the sleep, and you're looking for something more, and maybe you have a glimpse, Ah! yes, this is the direction in which to go.
So another question came up in May of 1967. “What is the meaning of abyss in your New Year's message? Or put another way, what should a sadhak fear?” This is a question placed to the Mother. What should you fear? Interesting question. Mother's reply is a bit longish, but it's important because we have to understand it in the current context also. “Right now there is a great tension. They have all taken positions as if to start war. It is the blind passion that men put into their international relations.”
You will see a similar trend today, and I pause the message, you see a similar trend today something happening in Ukraine, similar tension being built up around Taiwan, similar potential we will say, flashpoints all over the world, Pakistan going through its own implosion, some parts of the Middle East still in great tension in Africa, large parts still captured by warring interests. In Europe, Ukraine being one flashpoint, there are other flashpoints which are of a different kind, economic and which might lead to civil war. What you saw in France recently, with this conflagration of rioting, just like that overnight, on something which is so small in itself as to happen almost every few weeks and yet the response that you saw and the helplessness of the government and the police when there is a coordinated organized response. You see similar trends in certain parts of South America. In the United States as if a brink of civil war between subgroups. You saw this during the riots that took place about two or three years ago, where entire large parts of cities were walled off and police could not enter and they would burn everything which was happening in those spaces.
All of these simultaneously you see in patches around the world and you wonder: how did this happen? How did we go from where we were, let's say 30 years ago to this decline?
And ‘it is the blind passion that men put into their international relations’ and equally now in some other subgroups of relations, states or races or genders or whatever is the dividing line that you can invent. And then Mother continues, “At the base of all there is fear, general distrust, and what they believe to be their ‘interests’ (money, business) – a combination of these three things….”. I re-read: ‘fear, general distrust and ‘interests’ (money or business or whatever else) – a combination of these three things’. So it's useful to observe what's happening within you. Notice these three things within you in relation to your own environment or in relation to the national or international affairs. You can make that correction here. If you can start making that correction within you, you can actually influence circumstances. But observe these three. And then she continues: “When these three lowest passions of humanity are brought into play, that is what I call ‘the abyss’.“ Lowest passions of humanity- fear, general distrust and interests.
Look at where they come from. All three are pettily, narrowly your individual lower vital, belly, based in the belly. Fear you, it hits you in the belly, isn't it? It's the tiny narrow vital which is afraid of being overwhelmed by anything larger. General distrust is again a part of this. Something that's other than I, other than my family, my familiar, my race, my culture, my nation, my language, whatever, ‘other’ and the general distrust to anything which is other or different and then my petty interests I need this, I want this, I control this, my little territory.
(0:25:56):
These three are so common in every human being and if you find it in yourself, don't feel guilty. If you don't find it in yourself, be very surprised, because very likely you have missed some corner of yourself. Because you will always find it. However much you may be developed and grown in various ways, you will always find some corner where these tendencies tend to be still present. Observe and then start making the corrections. This is what we have to do if we want to contribute for the change. So this is what she calls ‘the abyss’. Truth or the abyss.
She continues, “When someone has decided to consecrate his life to the seeking for the Divine, if he is sincere, that is to say, if the resolution is sincere and carried out sincerely, there is absolutely nothing to fear, because all that happens or will happen to him will lead him by the shortest way to this realization.” So let's assume that we have all consecrated our lives with reasonable sincerity. Whatever happens and things may happen which are not always comfortable, which are not always planned, which are not always within our control, which are sometimes extremely distressing, but still you do not hold fear. Because you know that in spite of what may happen, you will be led to the realization by the shortest way possible, because of the active support of the divine Grace, because you have chosen to open to it with sincerity. That's the differentiating element.
So Mother continues, “That is the response of the Grace” -that you will be led by the shortest route, by the shortest way to the realization. “That is the response of the Grace. People believe that the Grace means making everything smooth for all your life. It is not true.
The Grace works for the realization of your aspiration and everything is arranged to gain the most prompt, the quickest realization – so there is nothing to fear.” – You see people go to temples, to sacred spaces, to religious heads or spiritual heads or yogis, whatever they, who they feel have some power beyond theirs to intervene. For what, make my life smoother, make things easier, grant me this wish, that comfort, that requirement and so on. Typically you go to an astrologer and he will get it right in the first go because it will always be either a financial problem, health problem or romantic problem. Typically these are the three things. If you think about it, why do you go to an astrologer or somebody. And generally what happens is once things come back to comfort you forget everything else, you are in your comfort until things go wrong and then, ‘ah yes, now I should go and do my pilgrimage or go to XY for one of these three resolutions’.
So the idea is that somehow the spiritual influence and the divine Grace will give you that comfort required and this comes from the, let's say semi-ascetic influence. Because in the ascetic path you stepped out of life to get something outside life. So what's left in life is only the satisfaction of life itself. When the two bridges, the spiritual and life bridge together once again and you have the affirmative life, then difficulties are an integral part of the path itself. Because every time that there is something to be overcome, there will be a bump which will be there. It will be a difficulty. But now you see it as an opportunity for growth because that's what you want. It's not, no more a problem. So for your consciousness, the way you perceive these difficulties will be completely different. Whereas for somebody else who is coming from a different approach will look at the same difficulty and say, I need spiritual help to free me from the difficulty whereas you’ll say, i need spiritual help for me to grow with the help of this challenge.
So, “The Grace works for the realization of your aspiration and everything is arranged to gain the most prompt, the quickest realization – so there is nothing to fear” – and this we have to really deeply embed within ourselves there is nothing to fear. Whatever may happen, however bad circumstances may seem to be externally, you will be helped to get through the difficulty and come out stronger spiritually and in growth of consciousness. And if you can get to some extent to the deep conviction that comes from the soul's influence, that “you are immortal. You have always been, you will always be, you simply are eternal”. And something of that influence fills you more and more, the fear will go completely. You may still want to make the most of an occasion, of circumstances, of an opportunity of this life given to you, that's a different matter, but there will be no fear.
So Mother continues on this theme of fear, she says:
“Fear comes with insincerity. If you want a comfortable life, agreeable circumstances, etc., you are putting conditions and restrictions, and then you can fear.
But it has no business in the sadhana!”.
So what is this word insincerity? Insincerity means some part of you wants this, another part of you wants that and you choose to have both in conflict, in contradiction. Now none of us is entirely sincere in the sense that there are always parts within us which will want something or the other. The question is one of a central sincerity that you know these parts are there, they itch, they crawl, they pop up occasionally but centrally you are clear about your priorities and even if a little corner twitches here and there you say, ‘okay, okay, take it easy’, occasionally you indulge it, but you do not fundamentally consider this simultaneously with that, as a falsehood and a truth at the same time, that creates the split; that is putting conditions where you say, ‘I want this, but I ask for that’. That's where you create a split. You say, ‘Alright this is there. I don't know what to do about it’, but then you don't say, ‘I want this’. You say, ‘I wish it could be dissolved or I would be freed from it but this is what I want and I'm willing to do whatever is required without compromise’.
The moment you put a condition or a restriction, you say, ‘give me that but this also’, you are creating this split and you have something to fear to lose. When you do not have any restriction, condition, you say whatever you choose, there is nothing to lose and you can be completely free of the fear. But again, don't chastise yourself if you don't get this in the first go. Like I said, a central sincerity is what you have to work on first and then there will be these other parts and occasionally you will have to tame them without compromising this. So this was the message of May 1967.
Well, I am giving you a few more messages because they are each so worthwhile and insightful. The same 1967, February 19th, there was a conference which was by this group called New Age Association, started by one of the teachers, Kishore Gandhi. And he would pick up themes, sometimes write a list of options and give it to the Mother and she would select one or two of them. So for that particular year, because the Mother had said the choice is imperative, truth or the abyss, imperative means you cannot delay and you cannot avoid. It's there, you have to face it now.
(0:34:45):
So the question, “Why is the choice imperative?” and the Mother responds to that: “Because we are at one of the ‘hours of God’….” ‘hours of God’ in quotation, that's the phrase Sri Aurobindo used, “…Because we are at one of the ‘hours of God’ as Sri Aurobindo puts it and the transforming evolution of the world has taken a hastened and intensified movement.”
What is this “hour of God”? For those of you who have read it, you will recall Sri Aurobindo writing this. It's a longer piece, but just the initial part goes something like this: “There are moments when the Spirit moves among men and the breath of the Lord is abroad upon the waters of our being; there are others,…” other moments, “…when it retires and men are left to act in the strength or the weakness of their own egoism.” The first, when the breath is abroad, “The first are periods when even a little effort produces great results and changes destiny…” The second, – when it retires. “The second are spaces of time when much labor goes to the making of a little result.” You see this in the perspective of history. And we are at that period, an hour of God, where the whole pressure of evolution is there, even a little effort produces great results and changes destiny. It's one of the reasons why so many souls are crowding into this opportunity on earth. So the transforming evolution of the world has taken a hastened, an intensified movement.
The same year in April, there was one more of those seminars and the theme selected was, “What is the need of the hour?” And Mother herself replied to that, “Sincerity. Do not try to deceive the Divine”. Very interesting! If you just go deeper into this, the need of the hour is this sincerity. That means you look at everything as it is, within you, around you, everywhere. And no contradicting, no conflicting parts. So why is this necessary? Because the moment you create layers or covers, you are as if deceiving yourself, but mostly trying to deceive the Divine. Of course the Divine is not deceived, but do not try to deceive the Divine because in the process you create your own layers which block off.
This is one of the things which we have to understand. Each time you have to tell a lie, to be convincing in your lying, you have to believe the lie. Otherwise you can't convince others that you are saying the truth. And in believing your own lie, you are creating a layer within yourself that hides what you know from yourself, in the process covering your own inner presence, truth, and creating a veil between you and the Divine. So this attempt to deceive the Divine, deceiving yourself, the two are really two sides of the same movement. Do not try to deceive the Divine. And this is really a question of putting yourself in relation to the Divine, bared, utterly bared, nothing hidden, for which you must be able to bare yourself, in other words, know yourself for what you are and give yourself. Now the good, the bad, the ugly and everything else all together, whatever you are able to be conscious of, without getting into this trip, ‘oh I am so bad’, know that everybody is the same everybody has the same issues with variations on which seeds have sprouted, so to say, this sincerity. If for social reasons you need to hide from others, no problem, but between you and the Divine be utterly, entirely transparent. And then there can be a very rapid, direct intervention and change.
So I go to the next relevant message, again given for such a seminar, 1969. Two questions she picked from the selections given. First, “Why is our yoga an adventure?” Second, “The power of faith.” And these were of course themes for people to introspect and share, but she herself gave her own answers to each. For the first question, in what sense is our yoga an adventure? The Mother replies, “It can be called an adventure because it is the first time that a yoga aims at transformation and divinization of physical life instead of escape from it.” Looking back at the whole of history, yes there have been improvements of life by spiritual growth etc. But here is transformation and divinization of the physical life itself instead of an escape from the physical. It's an adventure.
(0:40:35):
Second question, “Why is faith so supremely important in yoga?”
The Mother's reply: “Because we are aiming at something quite new that has never been done before”. So the faith. If it had been done before, you can say, ‘Ah! yes, see there was a partial growth there so more should be possible’. It's never been done before, is it even possible? Sri Aurobindo makes this observation, there are even now yogis in the Himalayas, he says, who are observing this whole effort with an air of curiosity, will that work, is it even possible and that's it.
And then there is a third question that Mother adds to which she puts an answer. “What is its determining power due to?” Why is the faith so determining? What is the source of its power? Mother's reply: “Your faith puts you under the protection of the Supreme who is all-powerful.” When you have this faith, there’s the direct action of the Supreme, it’s protection is all-powerful. You see why I selected these two questions. In the context of present circumstances, in the context of the crisis, in the context of this adventure of a yoga that aims to transform life, the faith that you have, puts you under the protection of the Supreme who is all-powerful.
And then 1970, one more message, “The world is preparing for a big change, will you help?”. That was the message on the new year and somebody asked the Mother, “how should we help the big change in the world”, about which your new year message speaks. The Mother's reply: “The best way of helping is to let the consciousness that has come down upon earth work in you for transformation”. A couple of more quotations because they continue, they build on this line of practice, I will say. Someone asked, “What is it to work for the future?” The Mother's reply, “to begin with not to stick to the old habits, individual and national”. That's it. She doesn't give a second step or a third step. To begin with, just take this one step.
To work for the future means to begin with not to stick to the old habits, individual and national. Now here is something so profound. All of us who want to participate in this new consciousness,in the new evolution, in the transformation, divinization of life. To begin with, not to stick to old habits, individual and the national. Now each of these you should really dwell upon, really deeply introspect, meditate on these themes. Individual habits, what are they like? Of course your body has lots of habits, your emotions has lots of habits, thinking has habits and then you have general habit patterns, your nature you say, your character and so on, everything is included.
But start with the habits which are the most limiting or start with the ones which are the easiest to change, doesn't matter which. But start, get rid of the old habits, break free, start something new, build flexibility, so that you can be “more flexible to the touch of the infinite”, as Sri Aurobindo has used that phrase. But not only at an individual level, at a collective level. So she uses the word national because that's the context in which we are looking at, but equally it would apply to all collectivities, including in the family, including in the community, in the ashram, in your larger joint family, in your town, culture, etc. whatever it is, subgroups but national. What are national habits? Think about that and what does it mean to break them, change them, to outgrow them.
(0:45:11):
I remember, it came up recently in one of the things which were shared in the Indian Parliament, the party which had been in power for so many decades and which had completely stopped all progress, coming up very strongly against any attempt to digitize the country's processes because it meant basically transparency and great freedom in certain ways. Otherwise it can be restrictive if wrongly used. But the digitizing effectively meant that you could not have the low-level corruption anymore. And so they were resisting very hard. And there is this whole dramatic presentation they made where they said, how do you even imagine that a coconut seller on the road will make a digital payment and will have a mobile phone to an account to take money, receive money, exchange money or make payments. It's impossible, they said. You cannot. And somebody else said you cannot make in India, you have to depend on others to make and for you to import. And these were national leaders who had been in control for decades.
And the joke is that, it's sad but it's also funny at the same time, within a few short years we saw all over India every coconut seller has this little card with QR code and people make payments for tiny amounts. You buy a coconut for 40 rupees, 50 cents from the US dollar compared. And with your mobile phone you aim at that up, there's a payment made, transferred into a bank account. That's it. They all have bank accounts. How long did it take to make the transition? To have everyone having bank accounts, it took less than a year. To have this digital QR code, it took about two years from the point it was started. But really the lockdown forced it. The COVID lockdowns actually assisted in rapidly digitizing the nation.
Because at that point, crashing circumstances forced it. But what happened in the process was a sudden loss of old habits. Today no one will go back, even if you give them the freedom to go back, they will not go back because the ease and convenience and a new way of interacting has become so natural, so free. And this was possible because there was a certain degree of let's say youthfulness in the civilization still and it could make this shift rapidly and this is one of the characteristics Sri Aurobindo points to again I'll have to quote from memory approximately, where he says that “In the West generally we see this pattern that whenever there are great revolutions you see an enormous change externally but internally nothing changes.” But then he says, “In the East whenever there are revolutions, externally you don't see too much change but internally you see a massive shift.”
“And therefore,” I am paraphrasing the whole thing, and therefore he says, this therefore is interesting from here to the next, and therefore “when once again India becomes the theatre of the world's major events, it will be the sign of the beginning of a new spiritual age. You see that happening today”. Fascinating again.
The Ukraine war is going on in the eastern part of Europe, let's say in the heart of Europe. Both sides are petitioning India to take sides. Today the UK is blaming India, criticizing India for not providing food for the rest of the world. Interesting! The United States ties up with India to create the Quad military alliance because it's a critical partnership without which they would not be able to do what it is that's required. What did India do to deserve all this?
Pretty much nothing other than the potential that it holds. And then of course there are other aspects which are to do with the geopolitics, the location and so on. But internally, there is a huge shift. A huge shift is in the waking up of people who are beginning now to once again think and assert the thought power, to innovate and exercise the freedom of thinking.
This was the key that Sri Aurobindo was trying to trigger going back a hundred years. He said in the nation which worshipped power, he says there is only the common man who is happy to be passive and the loss of thought power. You see this happening and the shift taking place on a massive scale but externally not much, except a few signs like this, the QR code everywhere. That's it. And then the poorest person has a QR code, has a bank account and is happy to have the money transferred because they know they can spend it without going through complexities. Now I'm giving this as an example of how a rapid shift could take place, but it was a shift in consciousness, externally it reflected in circumstances.
(0:50:30):
So, not to stick to old habits, individual and national and that's how you can start working for the future. One more message. This was the message issued to the Sri Aurobindo society and sent to the embassies of many nations. And this is 1972, a year before the Mother leaves her body:
“A new world based on truth and refusing the old slavery to falsehood wants to take birth.
In all countries there are people who know it, at least feel it. To them we call:
‘ “Will you collaborate?”. ’ ”
She puts this in quotations, “Will you collaborate? ”So in all countries there are people who feel it or know it that there is a new world based on truth which wants to take birth refusing the old slavery to falsehood. To them we call, will you collaborate? And in the original French manuscript, the Mother actually signed La Mere, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry and this was sent to the embassies of many nations. It's interesting! Not that it had any effect externally, probably many of those embassies would have put it in some bin eventually, but it is the force which was put out and the connection it created and the chain of events that it would have eventually led to. That's important.
I come to one more, one last quotation, which is 1945. I kept it for the last because it is the most telling and the most perhaps revealing for the seriousness of the transition. 1945, 30th August, the Mother writes, “I do not see that the supramental will act in the way you expect from It. Its action will be to effectuate the Divine's Will upon earth whatever that may be. On men, Its action will be to turn their will consciously or unconsciously on their part towards the way in which the Divine's Will wants them to go”. And then she writes, “But I cannot promise you that the Divine’s will is to preserve the present human civilization.”
Interesting! The civilization and the civilizational values obviously. But how the supramental acts to fulfill the Divine's Will- in people, its action will be to turn their will consciously or unconsciously on their part towards the way in which the Divine's Will wants them to go. So most people it will be unconscious, with some people it will be conscious and we can hope to be a part of the more conscious part. But I cannot promise you that the Divine's will is to preserve the present human civilization.
And then Mother made a private comment it seems later that she said, when will it be decided? She says the fate is still hanging. She said in 1967 it would happen, the decision would be made. Interesting! And in 1967 Satprem asks Mother, “Is it decided?” And Mother laughs and does not reply. And then he challenges her and says you are not going to reply. She says no. Interesting! But very shortly after, barely a few days later, somebody writes to Sri Aurobindo about this and his response. There were many questions that the person asked, some of it around this message. “All that is however another matter than the question about the present human civilization.” This is Sri Aurobindo's reply. “It is not this which has to be saved, it is the world that has to be saved and that will surely be done. Though it may not be so easily or so soon as some wish or imagine or in the way that they imagine. The present civilization must surely change but whether by a destruction or a new construction on the basis of a greater truth is the issue. The Mother has left the question hanging and I can only do the same.”
Then he adds a humorous line, he says, “After all, the wise man, unless he is a prophet or the director of the Madras Astrological Bureau must often be content to take the Asquithian position. Neither optimism nor pessimism is the truth. These are only modes of the mind or moods of the temperament. Let us see them without either excessive optimism or excessive pessimism.” He puts in quotes, “Wait and see”.
(0:55:53):
Obviously, they must have seen trends, possibilities, opportunities, but things still hang because people decide based on their participation, collaboration or opposition. Inevitably it will happen but how much time in what way etc that is to be seen. So what we have seen since then, there have been crashing circumstances in every way possible, on every front. But through it in the parts of humanity which have been able to make a change by the compulsion of circumstances, you see a potential, a hope, but still a lot of avoidable and needless suffering.
In the parts of humanity which have not been able to change, you see the complete collapse, complete breakdown, societal, civilizational, economic, moral values, everything. One of the things which is happening for example, and I am again taking an example which is more visible in the global media, in the United States now you go to many of the big cities, you will find people hunched up in a state of stupor on the roads because of certain drugs they're taking. And these drugs are so horrible, fentanyl is one of them, they're so horrible that they lead eventually to the breakdown of the body tissue and the nervous system breaks down completely. Once you're addicted it's almost certainly an end. People are dying every day in the hundreds, not a squeak on the national media.
The drug heist which the government has been able to seize and remember that is a tiny percent of the quantity coming in. The drug heist is enough to kill everybody in the United States in just one heist and you have I don't know how many hundreds in a year and that's a tiny drop of the quantity that's going in. Who is it going to? Remember, it's all consumed, otherwise new would not come in. It's all consumed. What is the scale on which this consumption is taking place? Who is it actually going to? And it's starting from teenagers in schools all the way through. And what is interesting is, there are those who say no and break away, sometimes they pass through and then break away rapidly or hopefully they never touch it and then there are those who get caught and struggle and struggle and go back and forth, oscillating, struggling to get free, eventually literally die out or sometimes survive and then with damaged bodies.
I am giving this as an example of an extreme kind where you can say if you saw just this you would have only pessimism for the future. But you see the other side of people breaking away, you have optimism. And if this is the case with the United States, consider what must be happening in other countries which have much weaker or more corrupt controls for the drugs that come in consider countries where you have the free flow of many of these things. You get an idea here of how serious the human condition presently is and how terrible it is and we have read the Mother's message referring to that in so many words.
So all of this is to give a perspective of the reality underlying and the trends as well as the hope that we have if we look at the deeper spiritual perspective. With this background, I want to now take up certain other more specific issues over the next few sessions. And in preparation for that, I want to show a particular underlying phenomenon that inevitably takes place everywhere in humanity, which makes for this current extreme crisis and the fact that there is this jam, this inability to break free rapidly, smoothly into the new consciousness. What is it that is holding back? What is it formed of? It's human made, but it's not merely habits, it's organized. And what is the nature of that organization? How does it come to be and in what way one can break from it is what I want to focus upon much more.
So coming back first to Sumana's question: “Apart from trying to raise our consciousness”, this is what we have discussed, “trying to make others conscious”, yes, some of it will be what we discuss next. “What else can we do to combat?”, we have spoken of this change of consciousness first. And we looked at all the things that the Mother spoke of, particularly those three things which represent the abyss and what we need to do and then the guidelines for being completely sincere, do not try to deceive the divine and then change from past habits. All of these are very basic starting points but extremely powerful in their result.
I am going to just look at the chat box quickly.
(1:01:19):
So, WeTruth is asking: “Are the less populated countries in an advantage when it comes to becoming more aware and participate in this change?”
My personal view on this is that it has nothing to do with the population of numbers. It has to do with the background of education and some of it goes back to civilizational values. So there are countries which are less populated. I will point to a few islands which are well known as luxury resorts. What's the culture in those countries? Nothing of knowledge. Most of them. They are luxury resorts for a good reason. It has nothing to do with knowledge. And there the culture is to live in the moment and the comfort of the moment and relax in the luxury that the resort provides. Or the luxury that now you slave to provide to others who are coming to your resort so that you make money to make ends meet and survive. But still that's the culture.
So it's not so much about population density or numbers. It's about the culture which values knowledge, growth, awakening, flexibility and adaptation, hard work, industry with flexibility. These are the things which would make for the difference. And the key element of course will be an underlying sense of the spiritual. If that is missing,you can be very hard working, very effective, very plastic, but eventually you will hit the same boundaries which I spoke of earlier. Depression because you have no sense of purpose and a loss of interest in life. It's the spiritual content which will be the key differentiator. But that alone is not enough, then it falls into a crude coarse religion if there is not this active movement to learn, to grow, to change. And so a little bit of both is required to make this difference. I am speaking at a collective level. At an individual level there are always such everywhere. But will it form a large collective shift? That depends on this collective value system.
Menal is asking, “Is artificial intelligence having an overwhelming effect on the mental level of human beings? How to protect ourselves spiritually?”
Yes, certainly artificial intelligence now, especially what has just happened in the last one year, what we call generalized artificial intelligence, will make, and it's still going to have an impact, disruptive impact over the next two years. At least they say 30% of the jobs will become irrelevant, redundant. Can that 30% of humanity shift rapidly enough and adapt? Or will it go through other forms of crisis and so on. But more importantly in the long run what does it mean when all the children today have access to the artificial intelligence what happens to education and if you make education as it is currently only the paper required to get a job then the bulk of education will become unnecessary because your AI can already provide what you would provide in your job, isn't it?
Think about it. Why would you study? So the goal of education itself has to shift to something beyond just getting a job. Either that happens or education as we know it today will rapidly decline in its importance, in its value in society and so on. And it will lead to even a stunting of the intellect. So unless we wake up to the reality that we need to grow in quality of thought and consciousness and develop the powers and faculties of our mind and vital and physical and that becomes now the focus of education. Unless we make this shift, the education itself will decline rapidly as is already happening in so many parts of the world.
Revati asks, “Why does the Divine Mother call India her soul? India seems to be headed in the right direction since the past decade. What would be our role as her children in securing her future?”
Somebody asked a question to the Mother about the soul of India and she said the one thing you can do is to become conscious of your own soul and turn in aspiration to this soul of India. First you be conscious of your own soul and then your soul aligns to this. Why so much importance to the Mother India? Because Mother India is a conscious being, a spiritual being. As is the case with many of the nation souls, not all of them are equally evolved or developed, but where they are developed, people feel the living presence of that thing which they feel as their nation, space, culture and presence. And in such a case, an alignment to that soul would be of great help and from your soul to turn to that in aspiration would be also nourishing and assisting that soul to grow and emerge.
So I am generalizing the question to all nations. But in this particular case, the soul of India has a special place because it is also the focal point for the spiritual awakening of humanity. And it is for this reason that India has been protected for so long across the centuries to hold this knowledge of the spiritual spiritualizing of life itself. Which then she has herself to awaken to but the knowledge is held and then that has to be the basis for its dispersal to all humanity.
(1:07:18):
Okay, so how do you resist? Blue Lotus is asking “How do you stand against injecting toxins in kids from a young age and making them sick for life?”
It's difficult unless you organize yourself as a group. It's difficult because of the government pressure and we'll come to this shortly. But what you can do is to organize as a group, bring forward specific knowledge, draw upon the research done, put it out there and use that as your means to defend, where you cannot minimize the exposure as far as possible. And then there are ways people use sometimes even to bypass the whole system.
RPX is asking “how will reform come in Islam, Christianity and Communism?”
Yes, Communism, yes. And there is no sadhana of Divine Mother in these philosophies. So, it's not about a system, because systems inherently tend to live for themselves. It's about people changing inside the system. This is already happening because in all these systems, if the human soul pushes forward hard enough, people wake up and say there's something wrong. Then do they have the capacity to break free from the mind grip, the box that these systems create to bind them. That depends on the people. But what we do see at least because of the internet, there is a lot more free thinking, free exchange and therefore people are waking up.
I don't know what it is with numbers, it is difficult to assess because there is a lot of confusion in the public space but we do see this happening and people speaking openly and sometimes one person's voice who speaks openly with clarity can impact the whole world because in principle through the internet, it is available to everyone if they bother to look at it. So yes, there is a rapidity of change taking place and so a huge journey within these systems. So I am not so much concerned about whether the system will change, sometimes they just become obsolete or a reform emerges and so on. As you see with Christianity it went through certain phases of reform at least to intellectualize and rationalize but still holds back to certain key elements which prevent further growth and eventually they become irrelevant if they don't change.
So Revathi is asking about economies which are full of debt as in the US etc. We will come to that perhaps in the next part of our discussion.
Anupam is asking, “Your views on declining economic condition of the middle class and encouraging private school organizations by the government, especially in Bengal.”
For me the critical element will not be which of the systems because any system that you push forward can be corrupted. If everybody says private schools are the way, well the influences will come and corrupt it. You say public schools are the way, the influences will come and corrupt it. It's not about which system, it's about whether the system encourages freedom of thought and allows rapid free evolution, even encourages if possible. And that's what we would have to focus upon.
Anupam's again question, “Why is it happening in Bengal that the government has given the power and authority to indirectly encourage employees to take bribes?”
It's not just in Bengal, it's been happening pretty much all over the place in the world, except it has been done quietly or overtly. In places where the controlling system is strong enough that they can get away with open corruption, the corruption becomes open. Where it is not able to get away with openly, the corruption becomes closed. That's the only difference. But it's happening everywhere. The scope of it, the scale of it is far bigger. For example, in the United States, where literally, you see a president going in at four million dollars net worth comes out four years later at something like a hundred million dollars net worth and that's not coming from the salary. What did they do? And all this is public documentation and nobody asks the question and nobody will investigate. Interesting. And this is blatant open corruption at the highest levels. And you are given the impression that these countries are not corrupt. No, they are just as corrupt. It's just well organized and the corruption is covered up with certain appearances. And here what you see is blatant crude coarse corruption.
(1:12:29):
Indic Bull is asking, “Recent coup in the Sahel region of Africa, is it the work of bad vital forces? Will we see fulfillment of the third vision of George Washington?”
We have discussed that many right at the beginning of this series. So it is very difficult to say whether a coup is work of vital forces or bad or good vital forces or any forces from the appearance alone, for simple reason that the media is lying to you. The media is controlled by interests which want to misinform you to serve their objectives and especially when it comes to a coup, the things are never very simple. So almost in every case, whether this side wins or that side wins, both are equally corrupt. The difference you have to look at is what do they stand for in terms of the freedom and growth and evolution of the people.
Eventually nobody in Africa or elsewhere can do a military coup without arms which they cannot do without backing of large finances and the illegal arms industry. And the illegal arms industry is entirely under control of the intelligence agencies of some of the global powers. They know each person who's dealing with the arms, they cannot sell large arms unless there is an okay from the high-level intelligence agencies. So you must understand the appearance given to you that these are illegal trades is only a superficial appearance. Underlying is an open support or covert support and then you must understand when covert support is given because it serves those countries interests. So always behind any such military coup are countries which are playing.
What you see are the puppets and you see them playing a game of puppet. You do not see the hands which control the strings. That comes through after sometimes a few years down. What will be interesting to see is when the entire media turns against somebody, then you can be sure that the person might be, just might be doing some good. If the entire media is backing somebody, then you can be sure that the person definitely is a controlled puppet. So, that is a simple criteria to apply and you can play with such. It would need a deeper insight, but we will come to that. We will understand why this has happened and how this works in a deeper discussion, which I think I will keep for next time, because it will require a little more time.
Suffice it to say for now that the game that we are seeing and the outcome which it might lead to is not something which is new, it is a game that goes back many hundreds even thousands of years. The forms in which the players appear may change, the agency used by these players may change but the processes underlying the struggles and the mechanism of these struggles is essentially common. The point at which the crisis comes when these games reach their limit, their culmination is what we are seeing today. But to fully appreciate this, we will have to go back to how the game is played. And then we can understand why we see what we see today. and this whole control system which is almost like a global underlying control system, and how humanity has built as if a wall that blocks evolution, that blocks the light from coming in, and that festers intentionally a kind of a gloom or twilight or even darkness in large parts of humanity.
(1:16:28):
Once you understand the rationale and the processes for this, you will find within yourself at least as an individual you can easily break free. And then you will also understand why it is so difficult to make those changes and how when certain trends of change happen you will be able to recognize likelihoods and tendencies. So, it will be an interesting study. Some of it will overlap what we have touched before, but we will go into it in much greater detail and look at some of the situations. So far, I have not bothered to comment upon because they are just too controversial and our focus was different, including the Ukraine war and such things. We will look at it from this angle: What are the interests, what are the compulsions at the level of principles and see what it points to.
I think that's about as far as I want to take it today.
Review the messages we read from the Mother and the importance. The three words she uses: men, countries, continents. The choice is imperative, truth or the abyss. It's interesting to understand these three also:
At an individual level, it's the choice we make.
At a national level, the countries.
And the third is fascinating, what does it mean at the level of continents?
Because it seems as if in the way the military and political economic blocks are organizing today, they form continental blocks with the natural boundaries of oceans or mountains. So what you see in China for example is one almost like a continental block. What used to be the USSR was a continental block which is now somewhat fragmented. NATO and Western Europe is forming a continental block, the United States joining forming a northern American continental block, a tendency in Africa to try to form a continental block. Each time they've tried to do it and almost succeeded, the external powers have come in and assassinated the leaders of those blocks to prevent such a thing forming. But you see the tendency, the effort for it to form and it's interesting to watch this.
So in these three words the Mother uses, you see a certain pattern of the geopolitical play, but the choice is to be made on all three levels. Of course, the key is your individual. When you make the choices, then it reflects in the national choice and so on. So keep this in mind, whatever happens, “When”, I quote from the Mother, ”When someone has decided to consecrate his life to the seeking for the Divine, if he is sincere, that is to say, if the resolution is sincere and carried out sincerely, there is absolutely nothing to fear, because all that happens or will happen to him will lead him by the shortest way to this realization, the seeking for the divine. That is the response of the Grace. People believe that the Grace means making everything smooth for all your life. It is not true. The Grace works for the realization of your aspiration and everything is arranged to gain the most prompt, the quickest realization. So there is nothing to fear”.
Now we looked at this at the level of an individual equally it is equally true at the level of the nations and the continents that the Grace works for the realization of the aspiration of the people now at a collective level and everything is arranged to gain the most prompt the quickest realization for the collective aspiration of the people.
And so as we are right now online, and for those who watch later, a collectivity with a spiritual shared aspiration across nations, across national and international boundaries. And there is a part of humanity that is conscious of the underlying truth of the spiritual unity of humanity. For us, to hold this aspiration equally will help in drawing the response of the Grace for this realization of human unity in the most prompt and the quickest way. And so we can take a moment to concentrate on this aspiration together.
Wherever we are, whatever space on earth we represent at this moment, and sometimes the blend of several spaces or cultures, we can aspire for, invoke the Divine Grace to act, to hasten the integration and awakening of the underlying oneness, the spiritual unity of humanity.
Namaste.