EWS #5: World Situation, battle between Light and Darkness

Jan 31, 2018

Topics:

Narad (00:00:49):

And welcome to our continuing series, Evenings with Sraddhalu. Today we begin the subject of - On the world situation. And imagine there's a lot to cover. So it may not be just one evening this East and West. East seems to be rising. West seems to be in some ways disjointed, falling. What is your overview?

Sraddhalu (00:01:40):

There seems to be all over the world in all of humanity, a great decline, a decline of values, a decline of morals, decline of ideals, deepening scepticism to things, spiritual even we would say a darkness and an exaggerated materialism, which is what you see growing over the last hundred years or so. And this is the broad trend in the mass. And at the same time, countering this trend, there are centres of light, aspiration, awakening, searching, seeking, which increasingly are coming together and becoming more aware, more active, where earlier they were separate points of light. They're coming together and forming units

Narad (00:02:47):

Collectively,

Sraddhalu (00:02:48):

Collectively. And that collective insistence is the force that can counter the darkening. Sri Aurobindo makes a reference to this present civilization as the most materialistic and exaggerated in its materialism as in the whole of history of humanity, and particularly after the Second World War. Mother refers to a kind of a deep cynicism which has come into the collective consciousness. It's against the backdrop of this kind of a double movement that one has to recognise all events as having both participating both in the overall decline as well as in this attempt to rise, but which are more small units rather than a general awakening. Mother spoke of the transition as involving a division in humanity, a split in humanity itself. Those who choose to participate consciously as breaking away from those who choose not to participate in the change of consciousness who would then be declining, not staying static. So it's a very interesting picture she gives. There is as if a surge rising up because nature wants, nature is aspiring for a breakthrough, Nature is making an effort. And it was somewhere in the late fifties, early sixties that Mother gave a series of messages indicating Nature's collaboration in the transformation. And that was a defining turn in evolution. So there is the surge upward in which Nature has chosen, Mother says, to mix everything, where earlier Nature created specialised centres of development. Now it's as if she brings everything together and suddenly there is a huge variation, a huge mixture of all the specialisations making for a cross-breeding, so to say, and a sudden mix of a huge diversity. Now all of this is part of a surge upward where Nature is trying to make a breakthrough. On the other hand, there is the lack of collaboration of humanity, which has been growing in its overall decline in humanity. And that is the resistance against which Nature's effort hits. The result of this resistance, of course, is great pain, great suffering, all of which was unavoidable. And you see this everywhere. It can take two directions. One is if the resistance continues, the pain and suffering eventually will just cause further breakdown. Or the same pain and suffering could provoke a deeper introspection, a deeper seeking which may lead to a sudden awakening and an acceleration that is not clear. Maybe both.

Narad (00:06:12):

Yeah, Mother speaks about it still being in the balance.

Sraddhalu (00:06:17):

Yes. The last few messages she gave from 1970 to 1973, all of them point to this. I think we have mentioned this in one of the earlier discussions when the first one was 'men, countries, continents, the choice is imperative truth or the abyss'. And it's not just a choice human beings make, it is also a choice of the collective, that is the countries. And then the third, which is the choice of the earth to the extent that it is entangled in the human consciousness, the processes of the earth, including what we see as tornadoes, earthquakes, and volcanic and other dislocations are being provoked by human means such as fracking or nuclear explosions, whether underground or above ground. They're destabilising earth's processes but also psychologically humanity's collaboration or not affects the continental movements even. So there's a profound sense in that whole message, not only at the level of people but even nature's processes. And it's not as if you have an in-between choice, it's either truth or the abyss and it's an extreme either way. And that's where you have the suggestion of the split already beginning, which she discussed in great detail in the mid sixties.

Then we have the other message that she gave where she said that 'I hope it'll not be through one of those dark nights of civilization'. And she said, 'if that can be avoided, it is worthwhile because it's not worth having to pass through it again'. Now when she's saying that, it's because she's seeing distinctly the possibility of such a passage. And at the same time she has this very disturbing statement when she says that 'I cannot guarantee that humanity will find this humanity worth saving'. And that's when she says the question is still in the balance. So she explains what she means by humanity is not the extinction of humanity but the civilization which is currently developed, is it worth saving?

Narad (00:08:38):

I recall that in book 11, Sri Aurobindo says it somewhat differently. He says, the higher man will lift up the masses and some will awake, which is undoubtedly true, but Mother also says the mass may not survive.

Sraddhalu (00:09:06):

So you will recall the passage where Sri Aurobindo writes in Savitri,

“When darkness deepens strangling the earth's breast

And man's corporeal mind is the only lamp,”

And at that point it's as if all the light is extinguished. This is the darkness of civilization, which is one of the things which we seem to be heading towards.

Narad (00:09:29):

And he tells us “As a thief's in the night shall be the covert tread”..

Sraddhalu (00:09:36):

And it was in that night when our means are not sufficient, that the Divine help sneaks in like a thief and works from within. So that whole description, you see, it's one of the possibilities which is in the balance still as if the night is growing everywhere, these small pockets gathering, strengthening will be the centres of light which will make the passage through the darkness in many places all over the world and come through. And as the passage of breakdown is complete, they'll as if rebuild the new form, the new civilization. Now this only is necessary if the resistance in humanity is so strong as to not awaken. At the moment, again, it's not clear whether that resistance will awaken or not. The conflict of forces is so great, it is so extreme. One of the signs you will see everywhere in the world, there's a split, a division in viewpoints and the split takes the form that people on both sides do not see eye to eye anymore. Each is convinced of its own rightness. Each thinks that the other is completely wrong and they're unable to see, unable to find a middle ground. And you see this politically everywhere in the world socially also similar trends developing.

Narad (00:11:07):

Can you give some examples?

Sraddhalu (00:11:09):

Well, recently if you've seen in the US elections the kind of polarisation that took place and each side is so convinced of its own rightness. And if you try to speak to one side of in what way the other is right also or is justified in their issues or in their opinions, they will not accept. And the split takes a form in the media for example, it has taken such perverse forms. There's so much attempt to even obfuscate,  create fake information of each side, each one against the other, fake news. But each one blames the other for fake news when in fact they're generating it themselves. It's a very strange thing. We've never seen such a sharp polarisation in the US, similar patterns you will see in Europe, similar patterns in India. To me these are just signs of the extreme nature of the struggle. And the interesting thing is if you actually go into the issues on both sides, they're all right. Both are right in their own particular issues. Both are wrong in certain other issues. And so one doesn't understand why they couldn't just come to an agreement, why there could not be a continuity. And it seems to me that this is part of the split that the Mother has referred to. In communities, similarly, nothing is left untouched, every community in the world down to families even suddenly something comes in an issue and then there is this sudden split taking place. So it's a precarious passage we are passing through right now. In fact, in certain ways, the last one year has seen only a heightening and intensification of the struggle. To me, that's a good sign. It means the light is moving as strongly as the dark and the hope for it to succeed, override the dark is equally strong. Naturally as a focal point, all conscious communities become as much a part of this struggle. Spaces such as the Ashram and Auroville and all the spiritual centres will all face pressures of various kinds where you cannot maintain the status quo. It's either you grow or you perish. Something like that.

Narad (00:13:48):

And what about North Korea, South Korea and this rapprochement in the Korea winter Olympics?

Sraddhalu (00:13:58):

It's interesting, the very crisis which on one side appears to threaten a nuclear war at the same time is causing a coming together on another level. So it's one of those paradoxical exaggerated extremes which are playing out. And that's when you know that fate could slip just a tiny tilt. It could slip one way or the other, and it's a tiny fraction, which will be the balancing, a shift in consciousness.

Narad (00:14:34):

Where do you see India and America and their possible collaboration?

Sraddhalu (00:14:42):

Mother had wanted that from the beginning and she saw in the partnership of India and the United States of America, the right combination necessary, which could have speeded up many positive developments. Unfortunately, it was around the time of the Vietnam war that the American leadership took a different direction and it seems to be that the darker interests were more entrenched. And so there has been a period, we may even say lost, 40 years perhaps, which have been lost. And the change has come only recently gradually in the last 10 years. And of this Mother made reference. Perhaps again, we have mentioned this before, but it's worth reminding ourselves of it. When the last India Pakistan war took place, 1971, mother had wanted the whole thing to be completed and the US had taken the side of Pakistan. So the whole problem was postponed. It was there in that context that Mother had said she had looked at the future and it would not be through war. And she said, the world situation will change and the United States will support India instead of Pakistan. And at that point Pakistan will begin to break up. So this we are seeing happening now for the first time in a very open and blatant way, the US has taken sides and that means a lot of things may open up now. It's fascinating to see without getting too much into the politics of it, the struggles taking place in the US and the struggle taking place in India and in what way they're complimentary to each other. And so this rapprochement and perhaps even a closer engagement can form a front that may assist in the awakening, overall awakening much more. In the absence of that governmental alignment, the work had shifted to a level which was non-governmental, on a personal level. And the invasion of yoga in the United States was the link, the bridge which prepared that link at an energetic and a personal level. But the alignments of the governments were critical if the gridlock in international politics was to be overcome. And so we are seeing the first signs that this might still happen.

Narad (00:17:26):

So we have Trump cutting off all military aid and economic aid to Pakistan.

Sraddhalu (00:17:41):

Yes. I'm a little wary of going too much into the politics of it because it might be too surprising or too overwhelming for people to recognise these aspects, but I'll wherever possible refer to things of the Mother's indication and to also give support to this. Mother speaks of how the Asura came to her and said that he would start a movement in China. And he said to her that he will start the movement in a revolution by working through or creating certain secret groups, secret societies. Now this Mother records in the Agenda, the reference to the secret societies. It's very interesting because we see over time, let's say over the last several hundred years in the West, many secret societies growing, but in the last hundred years they consolidated their power over the world and became a kind of a cabal, which was controlling international politics. Mother refers to the Asura of falsehood who calls himself the Lord of Nations. And it was really part of that movement, which was because he considers himself or wants to be the ruler of the destiny of nations. And it was under that influence that this cabal had worked. It worked behind the scenes to create a common interest of a darker kind to prevent human evolution, to keep humanity engaged in distracted, in meaningless battles and confusions to keep people poor and suppressed to prevent any forward movement. And so after the second World War, this group became so entrenched and so organised, they were behind what we call the Cold War. Now, in the face of it, it seemed as if the USSR and the USA, NATO, et cetera, were having this great battle and the whole world was held in a balance of danger of war.

In fact, behind the scenes they were working in cahoots with each other, certain groups, to maintain the state of war, to maintain the state of conflict and confusion so that they could benefit, they could entrench themselves and drive humanity into condition of enslavement. Now, a lot of this has been extensively documented and increasingly is coming out into the open. It is this group which has been behind even the play of politics in many countries, and it is behind the war in the Middle East and all the conflicts that you see in most places in the world, they want war. And so they ensured the funding wherever there was possibility of division, they ensured the funding of groups such as supporting Pakistan against India to keep India weak, to create a centre where a kind of a festering sickness grows, which can then be a breeding ground for terrorism, which can then be imported into the west to create more confusion and chaos and so on, intentionally to create confusion and chaos, intentionally to bring into food, poisons which would weaken humanity, intentionally to bring dangerous chemicals into vaccines, intentionally to bring a decline in education and values all over the world. And it's only when you recognise that there is an intention in the certain group to do that, that you can explain why such things have happened. Otherwise you cannot explain why such decline has taken place in just the educational content in the world. Everywhere. America is one of the most dramatic, if you consider the average education of a person 50 years ago and the average education today for the same age, you can see not only people are more oppressed in the educational space, it's as if the humanity and the creativity of people is suppressed and children are driven to suicide. In India, we have approximately three suicides per day by children and this peak during the exam period, but otherwise it's just happening. So on the one side, they're driven into this, and on the other side, the overall quality of education is declining. People are being made to become consumers, robots, subservient, rather than becoming leaders, creators and thinkers. And so there has been this intentional pressing oppression of humanity. Equally, there are groups within, which I've been struggling and pushing against this. That's where I'm speaking of the centres of light that they have come together, that they're able to speak of it more openly and work in a more openly organised way that this intentional cabal is getting more and more exposed. These are the signs that the light is slowly pushing back against the darkness and the hope that in the next few years the balance might tilt. And even suddenly, if that does happen, then we will have avoided that passage through the darkness of civilization.

Narad (00:23:13):

Without mentioning names. This Cabal is international?

Sraddhalu (00:23:19):

International, absolutely, across countries and they work to ensure that people who are not part of their interests are either removed before they become powerful or they are subverted with some, they will bring up some kind of a fake or constructed controversy around the person and have them removed from power or if they continue to persist, they're just eliminated as Kennedy was. Kennedy's elimination is part of that whole struggle of that battle of the cabal taking over and you'll see, the moment he was eliminated, those who replaced him were part of the cabal. They had everything lined up and the whole increase of war and all the plans were in place. It was just implemented within days.

Narad (00:24:14):

Has the cabal continued to increase in power or is it at a certain point now?

Sraddhalu (00:24:24):

It had increased in power. It had reached a point where it seemed to be they could never be defeated. In the last one year though, there has been this pushback. You'll see ISIS has suddenly dropped within the last one year. It's almost extinct, extinguished from its role. Where it was being funded by the cabal in the United States. Part of the CIA was funding it. That whole funding has been blocked off. The present government has openly spoken against those groups which have been doing this mischief and similarly in many places in the world, suddenly you find this drop in the funding, economically as well as the arms deployed to the terror groups and it's all in the last one year. That's the only hope we have. If not, things were really badly entrenched.

Narad (00:25:22):

You mean Syria and Lebanon?

Sraddhalu (00:25:23):

The same thing. The same thing. You see for the first time, stability increasing and the destabilising forces, remember they're being funded by somebody, they're being armed by somebody. The ISIS didn't appear out of the blue. Somebody had to fund them, organise them, arm them and keep the stream of funds going. And nobody asked that question, where does that come from? Because they're always funded by powers which have all the means and they're not answerable to the public. The media itself has been co-opted into this whole process that the facts are never placed in the front. You'll recall, Mother speaking of newspapers having mostly falsehood and this she has said in, what in the thirties, forties, it's much worse now, it's much worse. I had a brief exposure to the whole media in India. This is now going back a decade and at that time things were not so bad, but still I saw there with my own eyes, I had contact with the people who were inside the system. Almost every news that comes is paid or slanted because of interests. Now it's quite complex. We even knew of a particular television channel where the owners of the channel were part of a certain alignment with the party, and anybody who was employed by the TV channel would be told by the owners, you'll never make any negative statement of criticism against such and such parties. That was it. If they ever did, they were knocked out. They're thrown out instantly. That's the kind of blatant bias that these groups have organised even in the system of dissemination of information. One of the things which has tilted the balance interestingly is what we know as social media. It's not so much the internet itself, that was a liberating framework, but the framework has been made effective through social media where people are sending each other messages and that's going completely under the radar of the controlling interests and agencies. As a result, there has been so much exposure, people have become so much more conscious of things which earlier would be simply ignored or discarded. As a result of that, these interests in the cabal are even pushing Facebook and Google to start a kind of an internal censorship. Openly, blatantly. We have Angela Merkel as German premier / chancellor openly saying that we have to support some kind of, what's the word? They use censorship, censorship of ideas which are not convenient for us. When just going back 50 years, going back 20 years, the same people would've said that our ideal is complete free speech.

And I would rather die than prevent you from speaking, even if I don't agree with you. That's the kind of idealism which used to be there. Blatantly now, everybody is speaking of censorship and it's all happened in the last one year, and you have to ask yourself why because of the precisely the pushback that has taken place. This cabal is insecure, is afraid of being exposed, and so they attempt to censor. It's a very interesting passage and it's also what gives us hope. Interestingly,

Narad (00:29:10):

My friend Zacharia has written his first book, I believe It's Life Divine in Egyptian, what do you see in Egypt and the Middle East?

Sraddhalu (00:29:24):

I had occasion to visit Egypt and get a feel of things there. Of the, I was always trying to reach into the feel of the original culture and what survives of it and its relevance to the emerging circumstances. In the Middle East, I had limited exposure in Bahrain and Dubai, but then again, meeting people closely enough that I could get a feel of things. What is interesting is in the Middle East there is a much bigger censorship present for a long time already, so there has not been enough occasion for people to even freely access ideas which could help them to think differently. So in Bahrain, for example, we were part of a government programme where the government wanted to present itself as very open and multicultural and so on. So in fact, I was part of a delegation which they had accepted to have only to appear to be representing various traditions of the world, but we were all given a very secondary place.

So as it turned out, there was a lady who was to play a significant role in this delegation and so they couldn't accept a lady speaking to the religious heads, so they had to rearrange the programme and had her speak to women separately in a different hall. So of course we were being part of the group. We went there and then these young girls from the university, for the first time in their life, they had been exposed to people speaking of other traditions or coming from other traditions, and so suddenly it was an eye opening for them. They were so open in the heart and they were listening, they were eagerly absorbing, but they'd come with such biases because they'd been told in all those traditions, they're all crazy and so on. Okay, I had the chance then to interact with them and I said, I'm sure you've been told many strange things about Indian culture and Indian religious traditions, but let me tell you what I was taught from childhood.

And so I began to speak of how we believe there is One. So I had to put in a vocabulary which made sense to them. I said, there is one God and that one is not just far away. He's right here in our hearts in all things, immanent. And each one of us has a unique relationship with Him and each one of us has a unique way of discovering Him and therefore I said, our civilization has always embraced different approaches and so on. So it was basically just the three realisations of the Indian civilization, which Sri Aurobindo articulates, but stated in a vocabulary that fitted their training. And after that whole interaction, they were quite overwhelmed. They said, you people are just like us. We didn't know that you think just like us and this, a young girl, very overwhelmed. But it was interesting to see that if a space is given where they have a real interaction with real free ideas, with real people, not something which is imposed by the system, the university, the government, and the belief systems, then there is such a rapid opening to me this is the future. What is preventing it from happening is this hard rigid crust at the top.

Sraddhalu (00:33:00):

Now in Iran as an example, again, I've not been there. I had a possibility to go, so I had to go with my friends who ended up being there and I didn't go. As it turns out, young people, because of the media and because of particular social media, have access to different ideas. And as young people, they have the energy and the drive to bypass the system. So what happens is young people want to meet each other. They're not allowed to. The social norms are so strict, so they get into a taxi and take a ride from one place to another. They don't care where, and the taxi people know they just want to wander around the city and every time they come to a traffic light and they're to stop, they roll out the window, look into the next taxi and exchange phone numbers with whichever young people are there. And then they go home with all these numbers and then they start making calls and get into social media and exchange notes. And if they get interested in meeting them, then they set up a time, they go to their houses and meet and everything happens, which would happen in an open space of a college or university transparently happens here behind the scenes, bypassing the system in spite of the mullahs at the top. So you're seeing two realities, two worlds. There's this very hard rigid past preventing the future. And then there is this future here which is struggling to find itself, because of a lack of a healthy space. It may take some weird distortions, but it's struggling and this is the split that there's nothing in between. This is the split, which I was speaking of earlier. Egypt is very interesting in a different way. So this is generally the Middle East. You'll find this what I've described here to be common across, oh, here's another example. I won't say which country, it's because these are sensitive statements. It was of a person who is in the government in one of these Middle Eastern countries, and it so happens that the government and that group is Sunni.

So among the Muslims there are the Shias and Sunnis, Sunni are the majority, a billion people and Shias are Iran and others. They're the milder form, less extreme, but smaller in number, almost one third. And this was in a meeting in an international forum with somebody from the Sunni country, a very fine man, a thorough gentleman, extremely affectionate. I saw the interaction with his family and others, wonderful people. And then suddenly this thing popped up about something to do with Iran and all his hackles went up and said, oh, those people, those Shias, they're just 300 million. We are a billion. We can just finish them off like that. You saw the hatred, anger, it was not fear, it was this dominating hatred. But somewhere inside, I suppose it comes from a fear, but it's all part of this governmental structure of power systems in which the hatred has been built up. You drop out of that and the same person is this warm, wonderful, genuine family embracing people, affectionate and genuinely. And you're seeing again, these two realities. And a person is living in these two realities, but they don't join. There's a split. And so within the person you have this split in consciousness and everywhere in the Middle East it's like that. So the question again is will this top structure eventually suffocate what is below or will it gradually crack? And what is below emerge, breakout? And again, the hope we see, and it's all in the last one year in Saudi Arabia, which was the most extreme, in fact, strangely enough, the US had been sending troops all over the Middle East to so-called stop terrorism, while at the same time funding it.

It was a very strange thing when the heart of the terrorism and the extreme ideology was from Saudi Arabia, and that's when the Bush family had deep connections with the royal elite and the story. So you wondered, where is this going? And strangely, in the last one year, something has reversed in Saudi Arabia. There has been a transition from the present king to the new young prince. And in November, barely now three months ago, he arrested 300 royalties.They were all put in jail, house arrest and jailed. And it was for what? These were the people funding the extremist Islam. These were the people funding terrorism. And they were all put in jail and made to cut down, stop entirely or pay heavy fines for what they had done with the intention of ending it. And at the same time that this was being done, this is November, at the same time, within a month or two, they announced that women would be allowed to drive, women would be allowed to have sports in stadiums. And all these sudden reforms which were unimaginable just a few months before. And this is at the heart of the problem, if it can happen in Saudi Arabia, the rest of the Middle East will be forced to follow. And if the source of the funding for the extremism and terrorism is cut off, you will have a rapid change. Will this survive, will this breakthrough? That's to be seen. But it's happened and the process has begun. So this is as far as the Middle East is concerned,

Narad (00:39:04):

Are there possibilities amongst the Israelis and Palestinians?

Sraddhalu (00:39:09):

Inevitably, absolutely. If you look at the ground reality of Palestine and Israel, Israel is a nation, okay? A modern nation, which started what? Barely after the second World War.

Narad (00:39:24):

In late forties, yes,

Sraddhalu (00:39:27):

They took a desert patch of land and made out of it one of the most thriving, creative, developed, modern civilizations. Where there was no water, they brought water, where nothing would grow, they found, created ways to grow. And today, if you want to grow vegetables in the desert in India, in the Rajasthan desert, they say, well, let's look at what Israel did. Why reinvent the wheel? Let's take the example from them. So here was a group that was so creative, developed all these possibilities in what was desert, where the Palestinians were there for a very long time, already had done nothing. The problem is the division between the two, ideally the Palestinians would've been included in that process. As it turned out, the people funding Palestine and its interests were not interested in development. They were only holding an ideological conflict with the Jewish people. And all the funding that went for their development was just turned into terrorism. And this is the problem. If you left it at the level of common man, you might have had a seamless transition and they would've been included in the whole process of development. But here came these interests of the cabals and others who want to provoke this division, conflict, et cetera. And to this day, all the funds being raised are funds which are being given for the development of Palestine. Where do they go? And if you trace the funds, they're going into making these underground tunnels to cut through to enter, to sabotage, to blow up. And for what? If you get to the question of why there is no good reason other than some hatred coming from sub religious belief of some past event or incident, which has no relevance at all, and it's just hatred, feeding, hatred, nothing else. On the other side, on the Israeli side, of course the reaction is equally harsh, which gives cause to this. And so it's a vicious cycle which can be broken if the funding is stopped. For Israel itself, there's no need to go out and bomb others. They're just happy to grow. They want to develop their civilization and culture. But as long as there are these attacks or threats of attacks, they have to do what is needed and the responses are needlessly harsh. But if the funding on the other side is cut off, which we see happening in the last one month, openly, the US has declared that they will cut off all funds and economic support to Palestine if they don't change their ways. So again, here we see a hope that perhaps now the source of the problem can be eliminated and the change brought about. So I see great hope in this shift of balance between the cabal and the interests of light. But only in the last one year. There's a shift for the first time. Otherwise things were just jammed for the last few decades, it was so bad. But Israel can be a focal point. Even an example for development in the Middle East. It's one of the most creative centres in the world today, even for software and for innovation. But again, even within the country, because of this influence of the cabal, there are those who want to maintain war as a way of ensuring their dominance or our control and economic interests, and that structure has to eventually break.

Narad (00:43:08):

There were two things that I wanted to share. One was, occurred around 1970, when a friend wrote to Mother and asked why this animosity, enmity over centuries and centuries. And Mother's reply was very simply, perhaps because they are brothers. The other one I wanted to mention is very interesting in that when Netanyahu met Modi, he presented him with this water purification from seawater 25,000 litres in a very short time. And now India has that technology. Yes. Okay, last question.

Sraddhalu (00:44:02):

You asked about Egypt, if you're interested, right? Yes.

Narad (00:44:05):

Yeah, more in Egypt. Wonderful. Yes.

Sraddhalu (00:44:08):

Egypt was very different from the Middle East. It's very different culturally. See there, it was a hub for civilizations meeting trade links passing through, and it's not by chance that the pyramids were built there. The location is the physical geological centre of the landmass of the earth. If you take the whole earth's landmass and laid out flat as on a map, draw the centre of gravity of all the landmass, you get to that region in the centre of Egypt where they have the pyramids. Very interesting. It is as if going back, and we have to recognise the pyramids are much older than what they claim it to be. Now going back at least 12,000 years, the same arrangement of the pyramids, you will find that the Earth's axis is tilted and the tilt itself rotates over about 24,800 years. So it's called the procession of the Equinox. Your point where the sun rises on the East, shifts like that according to the procession of the Equinox over 25,000 years. If you look at the pyramids and the layout, they match exactly the image of the Orion belt, three stars, three pyramids. The size of the pyramid is in proportion to the brightness of the stars.

The placement of the pyramid is geometrically exact representation of the stars. Now, the belt of the Orion is three stars, and then you have the two other stars which represent the shoulders. Two other stars of the skirt exactly in proportion around these, you have also temples of pyramids in Egypt. So it's like you could take the whole Orion constellation, map it down on the earth and exactly in the brightness of the stars are structures placed on those locations In Egypt, it's not by chance. And this is the graphical centre of gravity of the Earth's land mass. It's not the only such centre. There are similar patterns of the constellations represented with the earth all around like a belt forming around the earth. Very interesting. Now the interesting point is when, and the pyramid is aligned exactly East, West, North, South, except that it's aligned with the centre of the Earth's rotation. That kind of precision for such a giant structure is again, unimaginable except that the Orion as it rises on the East and the Orion as it is on the plateau in Egypt, is slightly off by a few degrees. And if you calculate backward with the procession of the Equinox, the point where they will align exactly, we come to date, which is something like 12,000 BC. Then it would be perfectly aligned. And so the suggestion is of course that the pyramids are much older and that evidence is very strong even in the rock erosion, et cetera.

So if you think of this as a hub, a centre for a civilization, at the same time as in India, there was the Vedic civilization. You can see interesting connections now, that they built this at a time when there was a efflorescence of spirituality in the world. In Egypt and in Atlantis it took a more occult form, in India, it was a more spiritual, less occult, but whatever, and they were connected. Now we see across going back 5,000 years to this day we have documentation of communications between Egypt and India. So there's a record of an Indian princess marrying one of the Egyptian kings, and the names are mentioned. In the Mahabharata, there's reference to the land of Egypt. It is called in Sanskrit Misra, Misra desa, desa is country, the country of Misra. And they describe the river Neela, Neela is blue, which becomes Nile in Egypt. And if you go to Egypt, they don't call themselves Egypt.

Sraddhalu (00:48:34):

The Bank of Egypt is called Misr Bank, the same word misra. Misra desa is continuing still as the original name of Egypt. So obviously such a space cannot be overwhelmed entirely. So being in Egypt, I was looking for the signs for the living continuity of that culture and tradition, and especially what role it has to play for the future. So what I discovered was first of all, the people are so similar culturally to what we find in India. In certain spaces, you could go there, you would think you were in the middle of up or one of these very dense pockets of traders, same pattern, the same behaviour, the same kind of communication, energetically very similar. That was one side. And then I was looking for the link with the old civilization because after the islamization of Egypt, they were taught to disconnect from the past. So it's difficult to find people who are willing to say, yes, we are descendants. But then we came across a group which was a mystic group, and they were of course following Islam, but with a mystic perspective. And it was amazing to see what they represented. And then I discovered it was not the only such group. There were many pockets like that in Egypt. And that gave me the hope that something is happening again behind the scenes at the grassroots level. And they call themselves, they are students or researchers of, wanting to learn the truth. So it's a very open and free space. A kind of elite in consciousness comes and meets their regular discussions, meetings, staying within the overall framework of what is required for Islam, but then exploring to go deeper into the spiritual values and its applications and what it means to be spiritual in life.

So that was a fascinating space. The other space, which was interesting, was what they call the Coptic Christians. And there again, before Islamization of Egypt, there was the Christianization of Egypt. So there, similarly, they tried to cut off the roots and disconnect from the pharaonic tradition, and they had the Coptic Christians, but meeting with them, they had all the trappings of the normal Christianity, but there's a difference. They have their own Pope. So they go back to a time when the Roman pope was not the only Pope, and they've continued to maintain that position. So I was again looking there for some deeper connection. I found in some of their practices, very similar practices to India where they would put a curtain before the deity and then it would be opened and certain practices like which you don't see in normal churches of the Roman church. And then speaking with them, I asked them, so I asked him first, why is this link broken? He said, no, it's not broken. I said, then who are the descendants? He said, we are the descendants. We are the descendants of the pharaohs. I said, but you don't know how to read your own language, hieroglyphic language. He said, that's not true. We can read. So for me, it was an astounding thing. I said, well, are there people who can just look at the pharaonic inscriptions and read the whole thing? Just like that you would read any other modern language? He said, yes. I said, how many are there? He said, among the aged ones, there are four people who can still do that. Among the younger ones, they have not bothered to learn. So we are at a very precarious point in that lineage with the full knowledge of how to read the hieroglyphs is still intact and it might be lost. But then I asked them, then, in that case, do you know the reason why the pyramids were built? Do you know what is behind, what is underground? All those things which you hear of, but which conventional archaeology in Egyptology does not want to speak of because it would change the whole meaning of history. We, for example, detected through satellite imagery, through ground penetrating radar, underground tunnels, linking the sphinxes with the pyramids, large chambers under the sphinx near to the pyramids, large chambers underground. And some of these have been partially excavated. Many of them have been covered up. There's even a hollow inside the sphinx with an opening at the top. And if you go back 50 or 80 years, you have photos of that. And after that, suddenly the whole thing has been covered up. So it's as if there are interests which don't want the real history of humanity to come forward. So I said, what about all this knowledge? He said, we still have it. They still have the documents with all the maps of those tunnels and the whole process of the initiation for which the temples, the pyramids were made. They were temples and so on. So it was, for me, quite astounding. Unfortunately, I could not follow up with him to get further data. It's one of the things I took his email and then I lost that link subsequently. But it shows that there is still the continuity of the pharaonic knowledge, and its meaning. There are still these spiritual centres within Egypt and quite different from the Middle East. There is a kind of very thriving mixed culture in which these things are not being suppressed, at least not openly, not yet.

Sraddhalu (00:54:28):

It was the same time when they had the first, what they call Arab Spring in Egypt. There was this whole gathering in the middle of the, which square? The Tahir square is it, in Egypt?. So all the young people had come for three days. They were doing open demonstrations, and that led to the government being changed and all that. So we came about two or three weeks just after that event. Now initially what had happened was all this awakening had taken place and then suddenly the government forces came and shot everybody and the whole thing was suppressed. And we came, two weeks after that, we went to that Tahir square. We met with the people. It was amazing. And these groups that we met, they said something magical happened. It was like a miracle. During those three days, it was as if a whole deeper spiritual unity had awakened. Everybody felt themselves, one family. They looked at the future and it was full of this beauty and hope and wonder and joy of great possibilities. And then suddenly it was closed. And with the government troops coming, blocking, killing, suppressing. And this reminded me of what Mother had spoken of in 1969 when the Superman consciousness came and all over the world among the youth, especially in the universities, there was this awakening, hope and flower, children, hippie movement, all those forms which it took, which had this glimpse of a future, which could be so beautiful, which is so close. And then it got covered up often by distortions, perversions, but also interests which came in. See, that whole spread of the drug culture was provoked by certain interests in the government, which wanted to sidetrack these movements. But these very young people then became the great creators for the new software and the new vision of technology in Silicon Valley and other spaces. So in a sense that glimpse, they had opened the way for something else later on when they came into position of influence and authority.

But something similar happened in Egypt and listening to them, you could feel the vibe of that whole. So it seems to me that something came, which was as if a spiritual gift which was given, which made a first awakening. And then of course, all the struggle happens, of darkness rushes, the battle of light and darkness and all the confusion that follows. And if it could happen there once, it can happen again and again, and it's a question of time before eventually that awakening will take place. So this was very distinct in Egypt. And one more point I wanted to make. There's clearly something waiting, waiting to emerge. So this was coming from the experience in the pyramids. I had occasion to visit the great pyramid of Gisa, which is one of those three large ones, and also to visit the valley of the kings where the actual mummies are buried. So entering the great pyramid of Gisa, I had read so much about it going back 30 years, all of the mystical, the mathematical, astronomical and all that crazy stuff. Entering it, of course it was just this pile of rock, but there was no feeling of anything spiritual. It's just the sheer size of it. Entering it, you had these touts who are preventing you from taking cameras unless you pay them money and all that stuff. You enter this smell of urine, not nice, nasty, everything is wrong. But the moment you cross a certain threshold, suddenly the vibe changes. There's something so pure, so beautiful and clean, almost spiritual. And then we go through that big hall, the long passage there, places you have to stay almost crouched as you go through. And then you come into this big hall, and clearly the whole thing has a deep symbolic meaning. It's not by chance. There was no reason to make all these complex structures, and each is done with such precision and intention. Then we got into what is called the king's chamber. We were not allowed to go into queen's chamber because of so-called repairs. But so we were in the king's chamber, and then the guide tells us, now this is the same guy who was saying, ‘you cannot do anything, you're not allowed to take photos’, says now, ‘nobody's here. You can do what you want. You can chant, you can sing, you take photos’. Then he made us stand, told people to stand in the centre of the room like this and then chant Om. It was so funny. Okay, so we all did that. I'm not sure if it was anything special, but one had the sense that there's something there, which is waiting. It's waiting. It's not overt, it's not revealed, but it's waiting. So many people coming there, the vibes are a bit mixed. Then coming down, there's one point where there's the passage going down to the base deep inside below the pyramid itself, and it's like a cutout passage in the rock, not at all smoothed. We stopped there on that edge, and I was there with three people, all of them sensitive people. We sat there for a while and I felt something unusual. So I went closer to that edge and the others confirmed. We felt a deep spiritual peace as a flowing out of that passage, and we just sat there and meditated. It was very interesting, totally unexpected. Okay, so we come out from the great pyramid. The rest is again, clutter of the noise. And then we are going to go to this valley of the kings. That's where the pharaohs are buried. Now, I've had exposure to mummies in some of the museums, both in Egypt as well as in Europe. Not nice, not nice vibes, weird, sometimes even dark. So I was not looking forward to this at all. And remember, this is the place where all the major burials are taking place. None of the pyramids, by the way, have any mummies. What you're told that the pyramids were made to bury mummies is all false. No inscriptions. No mummies. All mummies, all inscriptions are in this so-called Valley of the Kings, where into the mountain they've cut passages and deep inside they have these beautiful inscriptions all through, and then suddenly the chamber and then the sarcophagus and all that.

So we were indicated to pick only three out of a dozen or so, and we asked them, ‘you tell us which are the best?’ So they gave us three names. The first one that we entered, I was not happy about it, going into a dark space with mummies. I enter the space, I'm waiting to be hit by this darkness, nothing. So I say, what's this? Okay, I have to be a little careful, beautiful inscriptions, drawings. And I go in and it posture gets more and more beautiful, more and more clear. And as I enter in, it's so beautiful, so pure, a spiritual presence. It was so beautiful. And then I realised, oh my God, all these mummies, they were great spiritual beings. That's why they were placed here. That's why they made the Samadhi. That's what you called the sarcophagus. And in that particular one, they had a picture of two beings, Isis and Osiris in the wall. Isis is painted golden white, beautiful woman. Osiris is bluish. What do you want? Amazing, amazing. And it was so beautiful. I didn't want to come out.

And strangely enough, they had taken out the Sarcophagus. There was only the box, and that is taken to some museum and things like that. Then we went to two others. They were not as uplifting, but all of them had a purity and a spiritual atmosphere. So this was for me, a bit of a shock. Suddenly the sense of what it was, of the whole, the mummies and the value of the kings burial places was completely different from what I had expected. Then walking through that whole value of the kings, I was trying to feel the space, and I could feel there are many more waiting to be discovered. They've only found some by chance because they're looking for things. And then some were discovered by chance. There's still many more which are waiting to be discovered. So maybe it'll come out. And the last experience was in the museum in Egypt. So we were looking at certain things, okay, it was interesting. I was trying to field things, the vibe of that time. Then suddenly we came to one statue and there was a deep recognition and I didn't know what it was, and I was trying to feel. And then I looked at the name and it is the name that Mother has referred to as one of her incarnations. I forget now the name. Not that another one, queen, queen T - I think it was that. And I didn't have a camera, unfortunately, but I had the recognition. I knew that I knew her. And then when I looked at the name and I remembered that, then I could make out the form, had this resemblance even to the mother. At least the vibe was so strong. No, just a statue, a stone statue. That resemblance too, resemblance to the mother. But I don't know if it was a form resemblance or the vibe resemblance, but it could be a mix of the two. But it was quite amazing to feel that. Yes, I did take a picture. Is it? So we were not allowed to, so maybe we sneaked one. I dunno. That was quite amazing to see.

Narad (01:04:45):

Shall we stop here? Do we have any questions? If anyone has questions, we have the microphone now.

Sraddhalu (01:04:54):

So just to conclude and put in context, the whole Egypt story, there is something waiting there to come out, some knowledge, some even information of the past lines, of past civilizations which have been lost waiting to come out. And that will take place at some point when humanity is more receptive and the interests which want to block have been sufficiently weakened. So hopefully soon.

Audience (01:05:34):

It reminds me of some lines in this secret knowledge in Savitri. You remember where it says there's a hidden chamber closed and mute, and the text of the Vedic knowledge. Is there something like that? So is the government not looking for these chambers? They are looking?

Sraddhalu (01:06:01):

Unfortunately, and this is the sad part of the story, that both in Egypt as well as at other places in South America, wherever these symbols and creations of the old civilizations have been buried, covered up and have been rediscovered, the first interests which come are those which want to block their exposure to humanity because it'll destabilise the current constructed false history that we're being taught. The true history is that we have been through many cycles of great civilizations, and in fact, we have emerged, we are emerging from a great decline, and we have had far greater civilizations, even technologically. The true history is also that the earth has never been isolated. It has always in relation with beings from other planets as well as beings within the earth of higher levels, higher planes. And all of this is partly evidenced in much of the material that exists in these spaces. In certain cases, I'm referring now to Edgar Casey's readings, and he's one of the most reliable that we can turn to. He speaks of three places on earth where they held evidence of the past civilization to survive this passage of the Kali yuga. And the three places he refers to are in the Himalayas, in Egypt, and then in the Andes Mountains.

In all these spaces, people have discovered things when, for example, the Europeans came to South America, they found evidence including bones and bodies, mummified bodies of giants, and a giant means people who were 12 to 15 feet tall. Some of them were even bigger. And these are all documented by the Christian priests in letters, which they have sent back to the Vatican, which are published letters by the way. And one of these priests says how he was taken to these places where they had these large mammies. And in one case, the giant was so big, his entire sword, which would be about this size, went completely into the eyeball of the giant and the bones. And then he describes how they burned it all up. All this evidence was burnt up. And you wonder why, and all this is happening for the last 500 years. It's not something new. Every place where they found underground passages of tunnels going deep into the earth, sometimes for hundreds of miles...Some of them going so deep and entering large caves with symbols, carving statues, even gold, all of these centres, which were holy spaces, the church took over, broke the original temple and built their own church. It's as if they took over the controlling point from which access to these spaces and their knowledge was held in their grip. So there's a sustained pattern going back several hundred years to try to suppress through history, to take control of these artefacts and either squirrel them away or when they find things they want to reverse engineer the technology for their own benefit, but not expose it to humanity. So this has been happening in Egypt also. Now we know of people who were part of that, exploratory teams, who have subsequently spoken up of what they saw, what they did. And similarly, it's still happening even now in South America. Recently they discovered mummies of two different kinds. One is a human sized mummy with three fingers and three toes completely intact. Several of them, including I think one which is pregnant, was pregnant. All of them have been X-rayed, tested, carbondated, all the works to show it's genuine.

Sraddhalu (01:10:01):

They're not human, unless you call it a different human species. They're extra terrestrial origin, some other species, definitely non-human species and their mummies have been found. And immediately there was a rush from the governments to go and block off further access to these spaces where these were discovered. And another one, which is recently exposed, which is called the Attakama Humanoid, because it was found in that desert, which has also been x-rayed and analysed even genetically. It's about this size and adult, completely adult mummified form. And they have apparently discovered a second one. But the first one has been completely exposed in analysis to the public. But again, the rest of it is suppressed by the government. So yes, there is a lot of exploration happening, which is kept out. I'll give another example. This is when we went to, in the Andes, at the top there is this whole structure at the top of a mountain and nobody knows they took stones to that height and arranged it. It is very famous. I forget the name now. Macho pichu, Macho pichu, Yes. So at Macho Pichu, what the guides told us was at certain places they found buried mammies, which were taken away by the Smithsonian Institute, except that it was sent by a ship. And on the other side they said, we never received it, meaning it was squirrelled away. The carbon dating, of course, didn't fit their timeline of history, and so they squirrelled away. Similarly in the USA, many of these mounds which were preserved by the Native Americans, they had giants often double or triple of our size, which were sacred, redhead, and some very unusual types. Many of these mounds were unearthed by the Smithsonian Museum and the evidence taken away and suppressed. So if you go back a hundred years, your newspaper articles with photographs of these giant skeletons, bones, mummies, and then after that silence, the whole thing is suppressed. And today they just deny that it was ever there. But the newspaper articles are still there with those photos. So there is clear evidence across the world of many prior cultures, civilizations, humanoid variations, including stories of course, like what you have in the Jewish tradition of the giant. What is the name?

Audience (01:12:41):

Goliath?

Sraddhalu (01:12:42):

Goliath, Goliath and so on. Or stories in the biblical tradition, of giant humans in the Indian tradition equally, all of those are now suddenly turned into myths, and the physical evidence of their existence is squirrelled away, suppressed or destroyed. And you have to ask yourself why? What are they hiding? If this becomes public knowledge, what will it mean for humanity? Suddenly the whole sense of history, the whole purpose of life would take a different turn, and they don't want that awakening. See, the possibilities of human evolution would suddenly open up, yes, so much is possible because it has been done before, and this is what we should focus on. That focus, they do not want. They want to keep you struggling to survive in petty quarrels and petty distractions of greed and desire and ego-driven interests; hypnotise you into becoming pure consumers for industries that they control and keep you asleep, not awake.

Audience (01:13:49):

May I want to say something else about the Israel-Palestine situation. I understand that Trump and Modi both are in favour or at least have spoken in favour of a two-state solution. So what I was thinking was when I heard that a British man who lives in Israel had visited Auroville, and Larry told me that in the Satang group at the Savitri Bhavan, he used the expression, Israel-Palestine, to refer to the place. And I thought that was really interesting. So I both want to know what you think of the idea of, if you could see an alternative to a two-state solution or what do you think of that? And also if you think it would be possible to introduce the idea, the Auroville idea, that nothing belongs to anybody in particular. If they would both renounce the position of the place, then maybe they could just get along since they are brothers, as Narad pointed out. Thank you.

Sraddhalu (01:14:59):

When you look at the future possibilities, the specifics and details are irrelevant. What matters is how people come together to find a kind of an alignment of interests that they can be together without needing to be in conflict. The overall problem is one of balance of diversity with unity, and Sri Aurobindo has dealt with it in great detail. What will eventually happen everywhere is a federal framework of some kind, which allows for local, regional needs to be expressed as even as the regional needs align themselves into a larger collective shared value and framework. So the details don't matter. What is necessary is an internal change in which people begin to look at the other from a different perspective of consciousness. And then the external means to organise that will be found. And they're not in themselves so important, but it'll happen. It's a question of time.

Audience (01:15:59):

So in other words, they can't really talk until the terrorism is stopped. They have to have stopped the Hezbollah.

Sraddhalu (01:16:04):

Maybe both things happen at the same time.

Audience (01:16:08):

Cutting the funding.

Sraddhalu (01:16:08):

Yes. Thank you.