EWS #10: Spiritual traditions around the world

Nov 14, 2018

Topics:

Narad (00:00:42)

Welcome to our continuing series, Evenings with Sraddhalu. You have travelled so extensively around the world. Would you share some of your experiences with us?

Sraddhalu (00:01:01):

Sure, there are many, and

Narad (00:01:10):

Your last trip was about six countries, wasn't it?

Sraddhalu (00:01:13):

Yeah, it's five countries.

Narad (00:01:14):

Five countries.

Sraddhalu (00:01:17):

In fact, I was just going through a list of places I've been to, different countries and I counted up to 30 and I might have missed a few still, and it's all in the last 10 years. And I saw in it something that the Mother was intending. You know, in Sri Aurobindo's Human Cycle and Ideal of Human Unity, he describes the characteristics of different cultures and roles that different nations will play or play in the larger human evolution. And somewhere along the way, I realised that I was being given an exposure of all these different spaces. And of course my only interest is from their spiritual outlook and the uniqueness that they bring into the larger human evolution. And fortunately, because of the circumstances in which these travels have taken place, each time I was exposed to some of the, I will say spiritual elite of these different cultures or religions or traditions, which gave me an insight into the highest that can come from that space or sometimes the most ancient traditions which are coming through, trying to find their expression in present evolution.

Narad (00:02:47):

You once mentioned to me about an American Indian with whom you are close. Yes. Could you speak a little bit?

Sraddhalu (00:02:54):

Okay. Surely, this was through my travels in the United States of America. I met with many people from various traditions, but there was one unusual relationship that has grown and this is with a Native American leader. The first time that I met him, it was when I had a lecture in New York on Integral education and at the end of that session, this very large stocky built man walks up to me and there was a certain presence and he just said, have you ever been formally welcomed to this land? And I said, no. And then he made a formal welcome to Turtle Island, that's what they call the space, United States in their tradition. And he made a formal welcome. And I felt at that moment something like a click. It was as if the space, there was a relationship, the space had formally done something, which now made me belong to it, somehow. It was a very unusual experience. And then he went away. I didn't remember his name. And many years later I again met him. By then I had met him again and I didn't recognise and I knew him by name now. And then one day he said, were you the one who gave that lecture? And I said, were you the one who welcomed me? But since then, we've met many, many times.

His name is Tiokasin Ghosthorse. And he's an unusual man in many ways. He has even the, when he describes how his mother gave birth to him, she walked through the night 40 miles, something, across the hills to get to the hospital where alone, the Native Americans are allowed to give birth. They're not allowed by law to give birth in their own space. So she had to walk and there were no vehicles and he was eager to take birth and she kept saying, patience, my child, patience. So he says that was the first lesson he learnt from his mother. There are many interesting stories like that which he shares. One of the things which I found unique among all the religious traditions that I have met, encountered, and perhaps it's specific to him or people like him in his tradition, is that he does not think linearly like most, well European training of education. And his thinking is much closer to the intuitive mind, which is more characteristic also in India at least traditionally. Sri Aurobindo's comment to, in the 1940s to Nirod Baran, Purani and others who were there with him in the evening talks. And he makes a comment that the Indian mind is very different from the European mind. And then he tells all of them, you people are half European in your mind, and the Indian mind is something quite different. And that thing I have been working upon to try to develop and recognise more deeply and to see how one can help the modern humanity, but particularly also in India, how we can help people to recover that original form of mind, let's say. And I found in him that, which is very interesting. And because of that, he had great difficulty in interacting with people trained in the normal education. And very often he would say, I don't understand what they're saying, or they wouldn't understand what he was saying, but they got glimpses of it. And so initially we had a very deep rapport and I would help him to understand how people view it. And I found the language to bridge from his mind and the normal, let's say European mind or the American mind. And it made sense to him.

And so, in some of the programmes where we were together, I would also help to bridge that. So before getting him to speak, so in one of the sessions I was moderating the session, so I prepared the ground. I brought people to a certain understanding of what it means to be colonised, the process of colonisation and how the mind is warped in the process. And all the while he was just sitting there silent. And at some point when I felt it was ready, I said, okay, now you go ahead. And then he spoke unbroken for 20 minutes. And at the end they all burst into tears. But that's the kind of thing he could bring into his... But I found that we worked very well together because I could help bridge that gap. And over time, he's also developed a better understanding of the strange linear thinking that people have. One of the interesting things which he shares from his tradition, which is Lakota, is he says in their language, they don't have any nouns. They have only verbs. So chair is not an object, it is a verb, it's a movement of being. Chairing is the word it'll represent. This is stand, it's standing, wall is walling. So when you start thinking like that, you realise in fact that is a much more accurate description of reality. Everything is acting upon the space, everything is radiating, its influence, its action. And if the language is like this, your thought is formed by the language. You look at objects, you don't see them as static objects, you see them as active influences and everything is as if alive, playing its role influencing. And you can see how an entire culture is formed by the change in the language, or if somehow that language is replaced by English, how the whole culture will get warped to fit into a fake mould. And the thinking of the children will be warped similarly. And that's what we get a glimpse here of what Sri Aurobindo was speaking about. So there are very interesting experiences with him like this when he speaks and the kinds of stories he has to narrate. But we could go on, but maybe we'll see how if anything interests you.

Narad (00:09:46):

Well, in your travels, you mentioned firewalking.

Sraddhalu (00:09:49):

Yes. Okay.

Narad (00:09:50):

I know people will be interested in that.

Sraddhalu (00:09:52):

Okay. Yes. This was going back perhaps 15 years, 12 or 15 years ago, I was invited to Bangalore in what is now the SVYASA University. And they had a programme, discussion, some international conference on yoga. And in the evening they had kept some entertainment. And one of the entertainment forms was a demonstration of, we had discussions on parapsychology and things like that. And so we had a practical demonstration of parapsychological phenomena and they had brought traditional fire walkers, who do some chanting, they carry on their head an idol of the deity that they worship. So they did their chant, they moved around, walked, and there was a big fire pit which had been prepared hot with coal. They stirred the coal until it was glowing, intense. And then one by one with that heavy weight on their head, they walked across the coal and crossed over. And when the whole group had crossed over, we were there as an audience just standing next to them, surrounding them. Some of the young people began to walk. They ran, but not walk, but they ran. But still they went across. And I said, ah, this is interesting.

The thing with firewalking is this goes back to what Sri Aurobindo says about illness, the role of the faith, especially in the physical consciousness. So the fire walkers are convinced that they will not be burnt because of the religious or spiritual protection which they have invoked. Whereas people who are trained in firewalking without the religious component, they're told, don't worry. It is science and science is protecting you. And one of the explanations they give and have read this in books supported by scientists, they'll say, when your foot touches the hot coal, there's a thin layer of steam that is created from the moisture in your foot. Yes. And that creates an insulation. So your foot does not get burnt. If you think about it, it is so ridiculous. If this is true, you should be able to place your palm on it and the layer of steam will protect you and nothing will happen. Of course, it's not true. But when they teach it like this, the people who are following them build the conviction, they develop the faith. Science will protect. On this side is God will protect, on the other side, science will protect, but it's the faith finally. If you have it, you go through.

And these people, young people who are part of the audience, they were running across and having fun. And I said to myself, this is an opportunity I cannot miss. If I don't do this now, if I don't walk across, I'm going to regret it for the rest of my life and I know it won't come again. So with great courage, not real courage, but hesitation and effort, I pulled myself to the edge of the pit. I couldn't move. The body was paralysed because the heat from that was so intense, I was feeling it burning on my face. It was so intense and only where I had clothes, I couldn't feel the heat directly. But inside already, I was beginning to perspire just from the impact of the heat. And I knew all this. I knew that it all depends on the faith and the science is not correct. Okay. So I stood there and I couldn't move my body and the only way I could put myself in a condition was instinctively to pull all my attention here until I was no more conscious of my body. And then at some point something clicked and there was a conviction that it's possible and my body moved, I crossed over and I walked quite comfortably, no running. I came across on the other side and then the consciousness went, 'Okay, now where's the heat? Where's the burn? Where's the burn?', and trying to feel it on my foot. Of course there was no burn. But after a while I said, but there must be something, some sensation of heat. And then I found one spot at the base of my foot. Yes, there's a little bit of heat and then a little more and a little more. And after a while I had a bit of a red welt, which formed, but I realised later it was more from my need to find it that the thing itself came. Nobody else had it and..

Narad (00:14:32):

In the very early days of Auroville, I was invited to a fire walking ceremony and it was maybe twice the length of this room and the colds were glowing. The young man who worked me as my Maestry (Tamil construction foreman), walked across and they told me that for one month they had to go undergo purification. No ill will towards anyone, no sex, nothing like that. And then they had to prepare themselves within and they would even hold a child on their shoulders and walk across the coals with the young child. From 25 feet away, I was pouring sweat. It was that hot. And so I wondered about this, and then I read Lyle Watson, the biologist, who did it, and he said that scientifically he knew that if he could take enough water and the body would be filled, and he walked right across, never got a burn. But it's fascinating.

Sraddhalu (00:16:00):

So did you do it?

Narad (00:16:02):

No, I didn't do it.

Sraddhalu (00:16:05):

Okay, interesting.

Narad (00:16:07):

But it's the same thing with these hooks that the men put in their backs and they pull a chariot (kavadi in Tamil) and there's no wound.

Sraddhalu (00:16:20):

There are many phenomena like this. They support their entire body weight by a hook which is in the tissue or they pierce. It's a little gory, but the principle behind is the same, that somewhere in the body, if that conviction is established, the body can do extraordinary things. In fact, it goes now into a whole domain which one can explore perhaps, under hypnosis, so much is possible. And one example, which is often, which is the most dramatic, if any one of us is asked to lie down with the head on one chair or stool and feet on another stool with nothing in between, none of us would be able to do it. And yet each one of us under hypnosis can be told, now your body's rigid, and then this rigid body is placed one foot, the feet here, the head here and the hypnotist sits on your stomach and your body's rigid enough to take the full support. Your muscles actually have been made so strong that you can do it, under hypnosis. But out of hypnosis, your muscles are suddenly so weak and it shows that the body in itself is capable of doing things which the mind inhabiting the body makes not possible, because for the mind, it's convinced it's not possible.

Narad (00:17:43):

There's of course the example of the woman who lifts a 2000 pound car to free a child underneath the wheels and she lifts it just like that...

Sraddhalu (00:17:55):

In the moment of distress, yes. And later when she's asked to do it again, she cannot.

Narad (00:18:00):

Can't do it. Yeah. So tell us about some of the countries that you visited...

Sraddhalu (00:18:07):

Okay, just another example which might be interesting. Under hypnosis you can be told that this finger is burning incense. And when you touch, the person will say, ouch. He will feel the burn, and in a few seconds the full burn mark will form and the body will go through the repair process, the scald and all that for several weeks. And this tells you something. If you're convinced that you've been burnt in the body tissue, the whole process of the burn and the healing will trigger off. Equally, if you're convinced in the body tissue that you're immune, then you can be touched by an actual burning thing and you would have nothing. In the old days, in many cultures, they had this principle very well organised in the culture itself. In the Middle East, for example, one of the forms in which they checked a person for whether they were lying or they were speaking the truth, in the culture, they went to a pot where they had molten metal and they would lift it out with a spoon and you had to lick it. And if your tongue was not burnt, then you were speaking the truth. If you're speaking a lie, your tongue would burn. I can imagine if the entire culture believes this, the entire space is shot through with this conviction of faith, you grow up in it, your body knows it. If you're a liar, at that point, you will not accept to go through the test and rather than get burned, you would confess. Or if you are desperate enough and you actually go through it, you will get burnt because that's the deep belief that is so rooted there and vice versa, the one who's speaking the truth is not burnt. The many interesting examples like that which show how far the body is actually capable of. There's another incident which comes from a little book about zen, ‘The Zen Master Who Was a Master Swordsman’[1] in Japan. And the author describes how the master took his sword, which was so sharp, he took a piece of wood and simply cut through it like butter. Then he concentrated, exposed his arm, and after a brief concentration he said, now you can strike here. And the sword was hit with full force and it did not cut the arm. There was only a mild red welt of the impact itself. And that shows you the body actually can be immune even to something sharp, cutting through from burning and so many other things which it can put up with.

Narad (00:21:01):

So when Mother speaks about having the faith that can cure anything, is it the body's faith? Is it the mind's faith?

Sraddhalu (00:21:12):

Because we are a complex, we need the faith in all three, and it must be aligned, but that would make your whole being immune. But at the very least, if the faith is in one part, it can influence the others to whatever degree. In this case, what we are seeing is examples of faith in the body. And this incident for me was personally a very vivid experience of how the body would not move until it had acquired the faith to be able to do it. Then it moved and it was fine and the mind had to be pushed out because the mind was a doubting one. I knew it is not possible. I knew these were all, so the mind had to be pushed out before it could move. Fascinating experience.

Narad (00:22:02):

Have you visited some islands where there were shamans and

Sraddhalu (00:22:08):

I have met...I think the groups which I interacted did not get too much into that kind of space. But in the meetings we had, we met people who came from some of those traditions. In Africa in particular, I've met two people who were chiefs in the African tradition,

Narad (00:22:35):

One that we met when...

Sraddhalu (00:22:36):

You met. That's right, that's right. This was one of them. Did you meet both? There were two perhaps. Yes, there were two at that time. Yes. This was in Kenya. And subsequently I had some interactions with them and there was one more person who we had not met, who is African-American living in the United States, educated in the normal Western way who is looking to reconnect to his roots. And so he went to Africa into some extreme corners which nobody knows about and tried to get into some of those experiences. So I have stories from these. So let's, starting with this man's story. He said he was taken into a cave where they went through a certain ritual and a preparation often involving similar things like what you described earlier, purification of a many days. And then in the cave, he said, at some point in their process, beings came through the walls or they don't know exactly from where being came who were short like children and gave to them some things and then they went away. And he said it was a very physical experience that he had. And he came out from that retreat, you may say, having been very impressed by what he had experienced. But listening to the experience, the sense I had was it was more an occult experience. It didn't have any spiritual value. It was in access to some of the lower vital worlds or even the subtle physical through which these beings came. And so I felt inclined to say something to him, and I said to him, 'you know there are many levels at which you can access', because they use the word spiritual for everything. There is no discrimination. I said, 'there are many levels at which you can access experiences like this, but normally, by the word spiritual, we mean only the consciousness, which knows the oneness of things, which is not working in the divided.

And you must be careful not to focus too much on these intermediate levels and aim for that'. And he said to me something like, 'Yes, that's what I want'. But he didn't, he had not thought about that idea. But there were interesting experiences like this that he was narrating. The other person whom we have met, he had interesting stories. He's a medicine man and he heals people. That's part of his work. So he has people coming, a long queue of people waiting every day for all kinds of medicine. And he's still in training to learn of all the traditional medicines. But he said, often in his dreams, his grandfather will come, tell him a formula and show him the face of the patient for whom this formula is required. So he wakes up, he prepares his medicine, and he has kept the pouch ready, and as the normal cue comes, he gives people whatever they need, and then this face appears and he remembers from the dream.

And before the person can say what his problem is, he pulls out his pouch and says, this is for you. The fellow says, oh, you've not heard my problem. He says, no, I know already what it is, here you go ahead. Of course, they come back with miraculous cures. But I found it interesting that that kind of access to knowledge could be recovered easily. Now, whether it is his grandfather proper or whether it is a being presiding over his lineage or associated with that space or the village, the specific of that source of knowledge is not obvious, because it could appear in the form of his grandfather just so that he recognises his ancestors. But the fact that that kind of access to knowledge is still possible and even common in those places, that was interesting.

Narad (00:26:47):

My experience in Africa was with that Japanese man, was incredible.

Sraddhalu (00:26:55):

Can you share that?

Narad (00:26:56):

He went down a row of people and he told each one what they needed to do and what would become if they did it. I mean, it was incredible. First he had an assistant go and speak, and then he came. And what he said to me, I won't repeat, but it was incredible. It's so beautiful.

Sraddhalu (00:27:21):

Would you like to share that?

Narad (00:27:29):

Very simply, he said, you have no idea what you still have to give to the world. And he said it was such love just flowing over you.

Sraddhalu (00:27:51):

He's coming from the tradition, a Japanese tradition called Shinnyo-en, and they train some of their preachers in this art. They go through a process of putting themselves in a certain state of alignment with prayer, and then they move from person to person, as you saw, they sit before you and they enter as if a state of internal stillness in which they reflect what's within you, but it takes a form of some deep insight, which was not perhaps obvious to you. So you had that experience, and I had similar experience with him, three times so far. And each time I found what he was able to give it was perfectly accurate, but it was an insight which I could not have accessed on my own. And in a certain case, it was something which was a warning for me, which made me conscious of something which was happening that I couldn't have reached on my own. It was amazing. And so I think third or fourth time, I met him, and because I had found his guidance so useful, I went up to him. He had not done anything. He had not done his prayer or anything. I went to him and I said, last time he had said this and it was very useful and so on. Is there something you want to tell me now? And he looked at me and he had not done his prayers. He just looked at me and he sensed and spoke, and it was again, spot on.

So what I realised is the way they are trained to enter that certain state, he particularly was sufficiently developed to have access to that even without going through the formal ritual of the prayer. And it seems some kind of a power that is associated with the initiation in the lineage itself. And this is something which not many are aware, that there are certain things which come with an initiation, which one has to be very careful of from a spiritual perspective. So for example, there's a tribe in Iraq and they have the power that they can pierce their skin or tissue with knives and feel no pain and no bleeding. You stick the knife through, you pull it out, and there's no bleeding. And what they say, is they can train you. They put you through an initiation, and after that you can replicate it. You don't know how it works. It just works. What is not recognised is that there is behind that power, a certain being who gives you that and the initiation puts you under his influence.

Now, if that was your business, it's fine, but if you are a person seeking a spiritual ideal, then this could be extremely dangerous. And I want to summarise from Sri Aurobindo's letter to somebody who asks him very casually, 'You know I have come to you, but my family follows such and such family guru'. Now in India we have all kinds of - village guru, family guru, individual guru, many, many gurus. 'So my family has so and so as this guru traditionally, and they're insisting that I should be initiated by that guru. Do I have your permission?' He asked Sri Aurobindo and Sri Aurobindo explains to him that this initiation is not a casual business. And he explains that when you have come to us, we have taken upon ourself, the entire burden of your karma. And if you were to go back and take initiation from that man, the entire burden of karma would return to you. I'm paraphrasing, but this is a letter of Sri Aurobindo, and it is astounding for what it implies. You realise initiation is not a joke. It has serious occult and spiritual ramifications that to which you open yourself, its level, its development has a massive influence on your whole being. It can even prevent you, block you, bind you within its limits if it so chooses, if that's what you've opened yourself to, or it can lead you to a complete liberation if that is what you've opened yourself to.

And subsequently, I was very concerned when people in the Ashram had got into this pranic healing and Reiki, it was a fad for a while about 20 years ago, and they would get initiated into pranic healing and Reiki, not realising what they were opening themselves to. And I asked somebody, what is your experience after the initiation? They said, 'you know, after the initiation, the power is much stronger when I'm healing'. And I said, okay, now you realise what you're plugged into. But the question is when you plugged yourself into that source of power, what happened to your commitment to the spiritual or in this case, to your relationship with Sri Aurobindo and the Mother? And it's not a question of belief, it's a question of the energetic connection. Have you lost that in plugging into a different one? Because not only that you could lose it, but that one now having control in you can pull you away in a way that unintentionally also you might lose the link, because it now can influence you or mess around within you.

Narad (00:33:39):

It's a powerful experience!

Sraddhalu (00:33:41):

Very, very. This is something which perhaps we have to be careful about speaking in public. But since the Mother's statement is in public already, it's worth mentioning. She speaks of the effect of the formal ritual of baptism in Catholic Christianity. And she speaks of how the power of the church then gets a grip on the baby's mind when you put the child through that formal ritual of baptism. And she said, it is such a powerful grip, it stays with you for life and it does not let your mind free. And she said it's an occult formation which sticks to you. And she was very concerned about people coming under that kind of influence. People may say, oh, it's just a ritual. What's the problem? No, the ritual itself has a tremendous occult energy behind it, and once you expose yourself to it, it can do things to you which you may never be able to get free from.

Narad (00:34:46):

So if one is devoutly Christian, let us say, or Jewish, and one adheres to all of that, that force also locks them in. Yes. Yeah.

Sraddhalu (00:35:04):

Yes. That's the problem with belonging to traditions which have a strong formation. I had this experience with one of the religions, which I will not name because my experience is critical of it, of the energy behind. I was reading an article in the newspaper about a woman who had just converted to that tradition and she was saying how, she was a white woman, and this was not a non-white tradition. She was saying how once she had converted to it, she suddenly felt this great sense of protection and security, which came with the conversion. And reading it casually, my mind said, oh, what is this experience like, what is she experiencing? And something in my consciousness began to lean into that experience. And then suddenly I touched the energy of that tradition and it was like a dark cloud, which sensed my contact and then wanted to grip the mind. It just pounced on me literally. And I had to pull myself out and break that connection. It was so intense. And then I realised what it was. The power of that tradition to which she had converted, had seized her mind and given her mind this very nice protective shell, which made her feel protected in a little box where the mind and emotions are now wrapped up, mummified, so to say, in the rigid fixity in which there was that sense of security and perhaps it was relevant for her. She needed that as a space.

We had a very interesting conversation in Auroville where we had people from many traditions called to for, youth group leaders, and each tradition, each religion spoke about what they were doing. And afterwards I had to speak about the spirituality and Sri Aurobindo's teaching. And so we had a discussion around that later on. It was very interesting to see. Christianity, they said, we believe in ta ta ta ta. Islam, we believe ta ta ta ta. Somebody else... And then the Hindu fellow came, 'you know, Hindu is a way of life'. And he was waffling around. Nothing clear, nothing fixed. First of all, it was a bad presentation of the Hindu tradition. But in any case, somewhere along the way in the discussion, the point came up and someone said, religion is extremely important because a chicken needs the protection of the egg. And that was a justification for having a religion. And I couldn't resist myself. And I said, yes, certainly it can help as long as the chicken needs the protection, but eventually the chicken has to break out of the egg so that it can find its fulfilment and that is spirituality. But this experience was very suggestive of the character of many of these lineages. And sometimes they're not obviously religions, but they involve an initiation process. For example, in the Freemason tradition or in the Rosicrucian tradition, there are many in Europe and in America, there are many fraternities in colleges and universities. But to be a part of it, you have to go through an initiation ritual and people look at it casually, not recognising that sometimes behind it there can be a power which then seizes you.

Just as an example, most people do not know that at least the last 50 or 60 years, all of the US presidents, with the exception of the current one (Trump), all of them have been members of the Skull and Bones Society, which is one of such fraternities. They call themselves Skull and Bones. And they have all been part of that. And it makes you wonder what power behind can ensure that someone cannot become President unless they have been part of this control system. These are not trivial things. Mother makes this reference to the Asura, I believe it is the Asura of Death, who said that he would create a great revolution in China. And he said to her very specifically, he said, 'I will initiate the revolution through the secret societies'. And you can get a hint here that many of these secret societies are directly under influences of these Asuric beings.

Narad (00:39:54):

The early American leaders, President and all were Freemason, and they were not allowed to join the Catholic church because they wouldn't give up the secret.

Sraddhalu (00:40:09):

Yes, of course, within the Freemasons themselves, there are splits repeatedly through history, and there are those who are consciously aligned to a positive evolutionary turn and those who are consciously aligned to a negative. And most of the early founding fathers of the United States were Freemasons of the positive side, and they had spiritual dimension to their, and that's what makes the United States Constitution such an important document. It is not the case with all constitutions. This one very clearly has a deeper inspiration and even a spiritual foundation.

Narad (00:40:52):

Well, we haven't touched on any of the countries you've visited.

Sraddhalu (00:40:55):

Yes,

Narad (00:40:58):

But I think we have used up our time.

Sraddhalu (00:41:00):

Really! Okay, so well then, maybe one more incident I want to narrate because this is from another person who is a Native American leader. I met him in another of these meetings and I liked what he had, but what I found in the meeting was when he would do his invocation, he would call the spirits. And you could feel in the whole hall something filling up. But it was not a single presence. It was a multiple presence. And I felt innately uncomfortable about it. So then I went up to him and I asked him, do you have a conception of a oneness in which all these unite? And he said, yes. I think he used the phrase Great Spirit, but maybe I don't remember correctly. He said, he has that also as an idea. But I said, don't you invoke that? And somehow he seemed surprised at the question. So it was clear that although the concept existed, the axis was more to the lower divided forms of help. And in conversing with him, I asked him what he had learned, and he shared something interesting. He said one of the things he can do that standing in an open space, he can call the butterflies, and after a while the butterflies will come and fly around him and he can call for light rain. So even if the sky is clear, he could stand there and do an invocation and there would be a light drizzle. So I asked him, how do you do it? What do you do inside? And he explained like this. He said, you become like this, meaning you align yourself. And that was the gesture he made, and I caught what he was showing. It was interesting. So we met many people like that, you used the word shaman, but people who had access to nature, spirits and powers.

One more, which was from the Eskimo tradition. And he had a drum which he had brought, and we were on the west coast in California, and he was explaining how they would summon the seals, because they have no other food except the seal meat. They would summon the seals, and what would happen is there would be a large group of seals. They would make a call. Sometimes they would come, if there was nobody, they would call them from the waters. And then they would tell them, we need food, and we would like one of you to offer yourself. And inevitably, one of the seals would actually come up and give itself up to be eaten. And one seal would nourish the whole family for going for one week. And of course, they wasted nothing. So we asked him to show us how he summons the seals, and this was on the west coast of California looking out to the Atlantic. And he played his drum and did his call. And after a while in the water, we found a seal popping up its head and looking around, I suppose there were not too many to be able to come, but whoever was there did pop up and look, he didn't come up to the shore though.

Narad (00:44:29):

Just one experience of mine. When I was very young and my mother was dying, doctors had given up on her. And my uncle said, ‘well, we heard there's a healer, a holy man, who lived on Mount Athos, and he's now in the monastery in Pennsylvania. Let's bring him here’. And I remember seeing that man, tall, dignified, and he had a glass with holy water, and he walked into the bedroom and three times he just flicked it at my mother. And she got up and she said, ‘oh, you are all here. I have to make dinner for you’. And she went into the kitchen and made dinner. And she was dying, how is that?

Sraddhalu (00:45:24):

That is clearly a spiritual action. And it was a man of a spiritual depth and power. Sri Aurobindo narrates, this is very relevant for us as disciples of Sri Aurobindo. He narrates how his entry into spirituality began. He saw, I think one of his family members[2] was sick in bed, and there was a mendicant who came to the door asking for arms. And when he heard that there was someone sick, he asked for a glass of water and he did an invocation and with a knife, he made a cut on the water across, and then he gave the water and said, give it to the patient. And after it was given, the patient recovered fully. And Sri Aurobindo said to himself, 'Ah yes, if this kind of power is possible through spiritual practice, then I must get this power to be able to free India'. And that's how he began his journey. He started pranayama practice and various other things to gain the power to free India. And of course, it took him in a very different direction, to free humanity from ignorance and into a new consciousness. Thank you.

Narad (00:46:50):

Thank you so much.

[1] The Unfettered Mind: Writings from a Zen Master to a Master Swordsman by Takun Soho.

[2] Sri Aurobindo’s brother Barindra Kumar Ghose