EWS #24: Human relationships, marriage and sex (8)
Feb 16, 2019
Topics:
Narad (0:00:00):
Welcome to our continuing series, Evenings with Sraddhalu. We have been discussing in our last session three things - wealth, power and sex. And I believe we've covered a lot of it, but there is still a question from Anmol. Maybe you can begin with that.
Audience (0:01:12):
So there was a mention of the misuse of power, wealth and sex. So I wanted to confirm whether Sri Aurobindo, was referring to the misuse even of the sex energy and if there was a misuse, then what is the right way to use it?
Sraddhalu (0:01:31):
Yes. So if you see the text that we read from Sri Aurobindo, he is speaking of money, which is indeed “one of the three powers, power, wealth, sex, that have the strongest attraction for the human ego and the asura and are most generally misheld and misused by those who retain them”. And even he says, “the seekers or keepers of wealth are more often possessed rather than its possessors. And there is a certain distorting influence stamped on it, on wealth, by its long seizure and perversion by the Asura”. Now although his primary focus here is wealth and he has brought these three together, power, wealth and sex, we find the similar pattern with all three. You notice the nature of the sexual impulse, it seizes you, it compels you and if you were instinctive as an animal, then it would take you through certain natural grooves to procreate and then it's gone. But now with a mental mind, you have not followed those grooves, you have taken the impulse and redirected it. The human being is the only species which uses the sex impulse only for purpose of pleasure and not procreation or procreation becomes incidental in some sense and then once you take it into that track how far would you take the pleasure and if you see the forms of perversion of sex that gives you an idea of how the energy has seized you and made you a toy. If you look at what happens in a typical disco setting or where people go to nightclubs, which is more extreme I think, people may take drugs or they play to this music, the music is beating and their bodies are jumping to the beats, unconscious, mechanical, instinctive, they throw themselves into the sway of the instinct that seizes them, which instinct is it by the way? And it's not just coming from the music, it's a whole rush of energy is coming in, strong crude sexuality often associated with drugs, vital beings and forces entering that space now actually possessing people partially or fully and then they get into all kinds of frenzied activity, there is a blurring of their energy, their individuality etc, but they are allowing themselves to be seized by the energy. When they go away, the groove of that energy seizing them has set into them. Thereafter increasingly their life turns in the direction that that energy nudges them to. Now taking that as an extreme example, the same thing now you could take in a simpler context where people who have died, let's say, and Mother gives this example, when people die, the vital body is dissolved, but the strong knots of desire or impulse which are set in the body energy, because vital body is a fluid energy, it's not rigid like the physical. The strong knots of energetic tendencies, they tend to remain and often acquire vague forms of individuality floating around, little beings. And if there are strong sexual desires in the vital body, then they tend to hang around or attach themselves to others who have similar affinity or they are attracted to people having sex. So here's the interesting thing, when a couple is having sex of a crude kind, energetic, instinctive course, all these beings come to feed on the energy which is being spilt. But how do they feed? They are not just taking what you're spilling, they also influence you now, to give more. They seize you and to provoke you to have more and more of the same. And suddenly you realise, I don't know why suddenly I feel this strong urge coming out of nowhere and if you're careful you notice it didn't come from within you, it came from outside you and you have become more and more a toy or a victim to that energy. Exactly the same thing happens with money, when the money came into your hands you thought you are taking it but the energy attached to it entered you and began to seize you and warp you from within and the easiest thing it does is exaggerates your desire and then focuses on ego satisfaction, 'I am more important, I am more wealthy, I can influence more, I am giving to you' and so on all that stuff starts and as it seizes you it warps you and you don't realise that you are being warped. It has a character, a pleasurable character similar to sexual energy. When it enters you, it gives you a high momentarily, which makes you feel good and so you accept it. In the very act of acceptance, the groove is formed now, by which it can now seize you and grow in you. Exactly the same thing happens with power. You put a person in a position of power, now you are the head of such and such thing and the fellow sits on the chair and the power rush, the high which comes, it's heady.
Narad (00:06:53):
And we have the phrase 'lust for power'!
Sraddhalu (00:06:57):
And again it seizes you and without realising it, the fellow now starts doing exactly what his predecessor was doing which he was criticising when he was the victim of that power structure and he doesn't even realise it and to his own mind he may justify and say but that's the only way these people deserve it, blah blah. He has not recognized, he has even forgotten what it was like on the other end. Why, because his mind was not sufficiently developed to detach from this influence that sees the mind and emotions. If it was sufficiently developed and conscious it would say, 'hey what's this happening, why am I behaving like this? I never want to be like that. That's not me'. And so already to have developed that base of detachment or of inner sensitivity or some influence of the psychic or a higher consciousness against which now you can recognize this as not you. That must be there.
So let's now bring it into the context of a person who is practising some kind of sadhana, who has developed already within himself a degree of this awareness of mixtures of energies or thoughts, can recognize these thoughts are coming in or these impulses are coming in, they are not me or are they aligned to my psychic sensitivity and he is able to either reject them or minimise them. They keep popping up and he keeps struggling with them until he finds the key to manage it. And the key will be this, precisely what Sri Aurobindo speaks of here, that in order to be able to do this, complete self-control, detachment and renunciation of all bondage to wealth and all personal and egoistic desire for its possession. That's the basic framework required and then he puts it in a positive way. All wealth belongs to the Divine, regard wealth simply as a power to be won back for the Mother and placed at Her service and you have to be a trustee and so on. All depends on the way they discharge their trust while it is with them, in what spirit and what consciousness. So he gives you how to make this correction. But you must neither turn with an ascetic shrinking from the money power, the means it gives and the objects it brings, nor cherish a rajasic attachment to them or a spirit of enslaving self-indulgence in their gratification. If you look at this attitude or the shift in consciousness, broadly it applies to all three things, then you get your practical relationship, both with the sex energy, with power, force and the wealth force.
[Audience] What would be the right use of sex energy?
[Sraddhalu] The right use of sex energy will be procreation, very simply.
[Audience] Aspiration for bringing down higher souls or something?
Sraddhalu (00:09:56):
So for those who are living in a family life, where they are already in a framework where they are going to have children, they are married and that's part of the framework in which they live, there will be a legitimate utilisation of sex for enjoyment which we have discussed in the previous things, they are not obviously aiming for a spiritual liberation or prioritising of a transformation of consciousness, but even if they have a spiritual inclination and aspiration to accept that as a transitory passage until the whole priorities shift to something higher. The method which we have discussed before is to put greater emphasis on the love, on the caring, on building higher values of relationships and with that the choice when you choose to have children to consciously prepare the base in which a conscious soul can come and the base would be not only individually in your purification to receive but also in the environment where you can nurture a more conscious soul and then help to bring up the child with that kind of consciousness. But still a legitimate enjoyment as long as that is worthwhile for you as an enjoyment is acceptable. Someday you will outgrow it and you will find other higher grades of enjoyment where the sexual component will become irrelevant or nominally present only.
Narad (0:11:24):
I'd like you to talk a bit more about power, because it seems that power is at the top of many of these things. It's at the top of sex, it's at the top of wealth?
Sraddhalu (0:11:38):
Yes. In fact, the money and power are more closely bound because if you have enough money you can easily get power or if you have power, you can easily make money. That's what you see in politics. People often enter politics, in India particularly, but now I find it's the same everywhere in the world, even in the US. They enter politics for the purpose of gaining power and then the person suddenly becomes a multi-millionaire within a few years and it's not coming from their salary obviously. The things are tied together, the wealth and power, but the power aspect is, we were discussing last time, it is heady. It suddenly seizes you and what happens is, it tends to make you want to dominate your circumstances. You are no more able to put up with opposition. Where earlier you had to suffer it. Okay this person doesn't agree with me. I have to put up and I nudge and at best there is some bickering behind the scenes but we are colleagues equally powerful. The moment this person now becomes powerful he begins to dominate and oppress. He has no time, no patience for listening to others and it takes a huge vitality even to be able to work with a large number of people, if you really want to care and listen to everybody. So very quickly you begin to either insulate yourself, just imposing the power or you engage if you have a greater vitality, you engage but to compel with power. So you enter the workspace, you compel people to follow you because of the charismatic power energy that you bring into the space and people carry, grow with you or as you will see certain businessmen, they insulate themselves at the top, they don't meet anybody and they have people through whom they execute their decisions, who themselves are only following orders and this chain of command all the way down. It's a strange thing because you realise, it was very recently I heard this from somebody, he says I was in this big company and what I had to do I had to ensure production through so many factories and if you don't drive people to make them do, perform, you get thrown out and the way he was describing it, it was such a terrorising environment. He lived in fear of being thrown out and he had to impose with fear, punishment or reward or combinations of these to make others do and the whole machinery, it was a big car company, the whole machinery was built on this exaggerated fear, reward, drive. Obviously the culture, the consciousness there is not conducive to any evolution. It is oppressive, it destroys people more than anything, but it shows profits. And this is the old model. I refer to it as the industrial model of management, which is not the consciousness based model of management.
In a consciousness model of management, you would look at each individual. What are their strengths? What are their weaknesses? You would assist each one to grow so that the business grows with them. Or if they are not suitable, they are not able to perform, it's because they are in the wrong spot. Shift them to where they are more appropriately placed and you will get better commitment and better performance from them because now they are fulfilling their svabhava and their svadharma. So the whole management approach would become very different. Such a power would be loving, first of all, not threatening, not imposing, not dominating. And it would not be about what I am or what I want to do, it would be about what is good for, whether the company or the nation or the community, whatever you're working for, a greater ideal. Sri Aurobindo explains this in his writings on Indian politics. He says the Indian model of governance of the king was very different from the European or the Middle Eastern model and the Indian model was replaced by the Middle Eastern model when the invasions came from Islam, Islamists, and later from the European invasions, which became the colonisation of India. And the Indian model itself has not completely gone, but it's largely receded to the spaces not touched by these two things. So what's the difference? In Europe or in the Middle East, the king owned everything. Not only owned the lands, he owned the people on the lands. So as slaves of the king, he could basically behead anybody on a whim or demand them to do anything, serve anything. And in order to manage such a large ownership, he then created royalty or a class of royalty or something in between which had something of his sense of ownership but not quite it. But still the idea was you own and others are just raw material, slaves. In the Indian context, the king's role was not owner, it was as protector of dharma. What is dharma? It is already a self-existent truth and the king's role was to ensure that this truth is undamaged and this truth is what governs and he is protecting the truth.
[Narad] And he was a servant of the people.
[Sraddhalu] Servant of the truth first and therefore of the people who were to be helped in the fulfilment of the truth. And where it was not obvious to him, what is the right thing to do, he would go to the wise man to ask what is the right thing to do. Now this model is the true leadership or the true sense of utilisation of power that we have to grow towards, in this case the Divine, what do you have to do, for whatever the context of that power structure is, to serve the Divine. And if it's a business, for the growth of the business in service to the Divine, now let's say you are manufacturing something, bricks, something very mundane and simple here, you are manufacturing bricks, for what? So that they may go and serve in improving the quality of life of people, give them greater security, comfort and so on. You are serving an evolutionary purpose, that should be your perspective. And in manufacturing these bricks of a good quality which will last long and serve the people, well these are the values, these are the standards in service to the Divine. I take something much radically different like information technology, you are developing software, it is the same idea. What is it being used for? So obviously if you are developing games which are going to be shoot-em-up games where people are not really growing in consciousness, then you would question whether that's what you should be doing and you would shift focus from those types of games to something which is more constructive, but assuming you take a constructive form, again you are serving the Divine purpose in evolution and my role then as the boss is the responsibility that is given to me at this level of operation to serve that truth, to make it more effective, thats all.
Sraddhalu (0:19:15):
So, on a personal level it means I have to become less and less 'I' based, the ego sense has to begin to thin and the Mother explains this the peak of power is in the power which is absolute, which is the the Divine power of omnipotence which is supramental and a supramental power to be able to reach that requires you to be completely free of ego. But that already gives you the sense of direction. If you are to truly serve and be effective in action of power, you have to rise beyond ego and hold some ideal which you are fulfilling. And my perspective on this is, it is not difficult, it does not require you to do any special sadhana to come to an egoless or a thin ego state. Your activity itself is your reference. The workspace is your sadhana and increasingly you would be observing your own behaviour, your own decision-making and the beauty of business spaces is when you make a mistake, it hits you back very quickly. A mistake is very quickly exposed by the consequence it has. You know something is going wrong. Rather than saying they are not executing properly my decision, you need to review from scratch, did I even convey my decision the right way? Maybe my decision was right, but the way I conveyed it was not right. And so, anything going wrong, if it is within the ambit of your influence, you have to start by reassessing yourself and then review the decision, the manner in which you conveyed it, the manner in which you assisted people to fulfil it and so on and your role in terms of the responsibility of and in power. And so that becomes your Karma Yoga, the very base of the Karma Yoga is right there and with it the right utilisation of power. It would mean every day, consciously, at the beginning of the day, before you enter the exercise of power, to put yourself as far as possible in alignment either with the Divine Presence within or the ideal which you are consciously serving, both, or both, through the heart and through the mind both. In the activity frequently pause to review the relationship with these two at each step of decision-making and at the end of the day particular to review the whole day and then assess whether you were able to fit or how close you were or how far you drifted from that and then make the corrective steps. And it's not difficult. The process itself is well within reach of everybody.
Narad (0:22:34):
Philanthropy?
Sraddhalu (0:22:38):
You will share what you wanted to say about it or what you wanted to share.
Narad (0:23:01):
Well, in reading Sri Aurobindo, it seems that most philanthropy is for the ego's benefit and not to the receiver.
Sraddhalu (0:23:07):
Yes, and he even says altruism is one of the worst forms of ego.
Narad (0:23:11):
Yes.
Sraddhalu (0:23:12):
You seem to be doing good for others but all you're doing is buffing up your own sense of 'I am doing'. So in the Indian tradition we have this saying that the left hand must not know what the right hand gives, so when you give in that way that would be the true sense of the philanthropy. But when you have somebody on television projected as so and so is a famous philanthropist, then you know what they are doing is of a very different kind. But on the other hand, what also happens is, the instinct and I am not speaking now of a sadhak, but of a businessman, when you built an empire, in the building there is a great joy but after a point you cannot build more, so you have to extend the influence by giving back because you feel you have taken so much even created wealth but you are not directly relating to the enjoyment of people especially if the business was built on the older industrial model, where you have exploited people or compelled them in some way, you feel a sense of guilt, something missing, you have not seen people happy. So you start first by caring for your own sense of expanded 'I', my workers, children and I will provide for them free education. Maybe it begins with that but at the back of the mind is what you get back. I will get better loyalty from my workers. So there's always this give and take tendency which comes into it and the tendency of the instinct is to take more than you give. And so often what happens is you have a company which is building profit, now you want to save on taxes, so you transfer the money into a foundation which is going to gift to save taxes. That's all it starts with. And then they will make sure the way they give money goes back to support their own environment. Now this is very natural and I see nothing wrong with it, it's how things are. From a spiritual perspective though, what are you giving money for, with what attitude and where do you give it? If your starting point was that the money was never yours then there is no question of you giving, it's rather, okay, so here is a profit, and I accept saving taxes as an objective so I want to give it, where do you give it? it was never mine to give it in the first place, so how do you exercise the charity where it will help the growth of consciousness most? Now it may be that you give it back to your own workers, their children's education for example or their children's health care. But it will not be with that attitude of how much do I get back for what I give. It will be done because it is the right use of the money. And so it is not so much what you did but the way you related to it and the way you brought the right alignment of possibilities for maximum growth.
Narad (0:26:30):
The problem of sweatshops in third world countries is huge, children are being misused. How does one begin to correct this?
Sraddhalu (0:26:52):
At the heart of it is the false poverty that is deliberately created by policies in order to have cheap workers. There is an intention at the top level of power structures to create poverty on one side so that you have cheap labour for another side which can live more wealthy and this is really the problem. The world has enough wealth for everybody to be comfortable, the world has enough food for everybody to not be hungry, the world has enough resources for everybody to have a good education, of the best kind. Why is everything lopsided? Because there is a deliberate interest to create this unbalanced economy or even power structure. You will see how it works in cities in India. Everywhere there is a city, wealthy people. Nearby there is an enclave of in Hindi they say Jhuggi Jhopdi, that is the hutments, people living in extreme poverty who will then be the maidservants or workers for the houses of the wealthy people. That can't be too far away because then they have to travel. So in the very design of the city they ensure these pockets are kept, except every now and then the politicians get greedy so we have seen this in Pondicherry this used to happen much more blatantly earlier, now it's more subtly done but the same idea. Suddenly the hutment catches fire overnight. Of course nobody dies because before it caught fire everybody was asked to step out and then the goons went and lit the fire, then the government stepped in, the same politician, they said, 'don't worry, we will now give you a good housing' and they are given concrete blocks nearby, multi-storied and this land is claimed now by the city under politician control for development and sold to a businessman, effectively owned by the politician now. But they still have to create these pockets of poverty so that the rich people can be served by poor people. The same thing now is done at the level of countries and the way it was done was by manipulating currencies of countries. By ensuring a currency suddenly has a much lower value. Now suddenly all those people become cheap workers. One US dollar becomes let's say a thousand whatever local currency. These people used to live for a hundred of their local currency. Now if instead of feeding each other, helping each other for their own growth, they sell the product now to the US dollar, they get 10 times more money, but not food. So you see what happened for example in Peru or in other parts of South America, where in the high altitudes, they had quinoa, which was high protein food, which was the staple food for people. Suddenly in the US, quinoa was promoted as a high quality protein food. Export started and the staple food was exported for earning twice as much, except once you have earned the money, what do you buy with it? There is no food. So then they started planting potatoes and junk foods. And the people shifted to living on junk foods which could be bought at a cheaper level, now in double the quantity for the money they got from exports and they began to have illnesses and all kinds of other problems. Who benefited? The US got high quality food for low cost and the poor people became poorer and weaker and more sick for the pharmaceutical industries to now feed them medicines. And the same we see in India and everywhere else. So there is a deliberate intention to create this unbalanced economy. And we have to face it, we have to recognize it, only then we can start correcting it.
And the correction will be for nations now to start putting their own people on priority first. Rather than feeding a fake global machinery, which benefits only the global rich you have to start building internal markets for what's good for your own people and build internal resilience and independence economically. Now small countries cannot do that easily, especially islands because they have limited lands, limited resources but a larger country, India, is as big as Europe. It's like taking all the countries of Europe, each of them becomes a state in India. Each of our chief ministers represents as much power as a President or Prime Minister of a European country. But of course they are not given the same position because of this mismatch of wealth. But if you just cut yourself off, assume the whole world vanished and there was only India. It is sufficiently complex and complete to become a self-sustaining closed economy by itself. Instead of being export driven, if the focus was building on local value, then we would have the necessary not only financial independence, but complete erasure of poverty and nobody need ever go hungry, because all the food that's being grown here which is exported is going to feed cattle in the US. You see, all the food, all the meat that is exported from India to the Middle East, for every kg of meat that you export, you're exporting what, 5000 litres of water, which went into making that meat. And so, the price for which you're selling 1 kg of meat is nowhere near the price of actual investment of water and destruction of the environment. All of these export-oriented policies have been extremely destructive, but internally we have still to make the correction that stop the loot, start caring for people. Sincerity, which Mother spoke of.
Narad (0:33:10):
I'm doing a series now on India in our questions and answers series in which Mother was asked so many different questions about the situation in India and she was very negative in those days although she says it has a spiritual background, a spiritual heritage, it's in the ignorance right now.
Sraddhalu (0:33:34):
It's really bad because the whole model of development has been a replica of Europe and the same destruction that has taken place in Europe is being replicated here much faster because of the accelerated technologies. So I remember when I went to South Korea, big buildings, very high standard of living, very wealthy people, and what was the value system? It was a buddhist country, it had been completely wiped out, the buddhist values were kept in the mountains and little monasteries and for the common man it was this technology driven, computer driven, computer games driven values which come with cinema and hollywood and that was it. You could walk through the streets, you did not feel the spirituality of Korea. You had it still when you went into the mountains and all that, but in the streets it was completely lost. And people were hollow. So the most bright and creative minds, but turned now to replicating vital objectives, vital consciousness rather than their own innate idealism and spirituality, which is also there but not in the primary space of the creative drive of the people. And especially because I see the creativity, I said, my God, this is what India could become, is becoming, if you don't intervene soon enough. What is possible and which is what we are hoping for is the spirit within India will wake up and say no and make the correction. The signs of that are very clear and they are there in the younger people. I go to many conferences of various kinds and it's always obvious, let's say in a group of just as a proportion, 50 people who are largely moulded in the European model, you will have five that will stand out for being fundamentally different. They are struggling to maintain their different values but they are there and they are strong. And you can see that this number is gradually increasing. But it is still 10%. But it is growing.
In 1992, 93 about, in the Pondicherry University, I was invited for some conference and we had big names, some of the most famous journalists of the time were present and I was the only odd man out and it was a discussion about India's future. Everybody was totally negative, saying nothing, India is going to be just another sinkhole, it is going to collapse, we have nothing at all. And I was the only one who spoke of all the good things which are on the way. What we see is soon after within five years, you had this huge burst of the economy booming because the government removed the shackles which had been imposed on India by the socialist communist model of Nehru. They removed it under World Bank pressure unfortunately. So it was a different model but still removing it allowed things to grow. That was the big thing. And within ten years the whole situation reversed so much. These people who were speaking negatively are now irrelevant. They are nowhere in the space. What you see is among the younger people this confidence which is growing and especially those who have gone out of India and made a big name for themselves in spaces that are currently economic leaders. In the US, not only in the business spaces, information technology spaces, even in the media spaces, having proved themselves among the elite, they come back to India and then they start trying to bring those values here. So there is a mixture happening. What they bring from there is the training of high standards of performance, but in a framework which is still mixed, not adapted to India. Out of those numbers that come back, those who cannot adapt to the Indian context don't stay long and then they go back. But their heart is still still here and they are still trying and there are a few who are able to see that yes those values and those standards need to come here but in a framework which is different and they are able to make that shift and they are the ones who are triggering off this awakening in India.
Sri Aurobindo makes a comment about this, he says that the age of individualism and reason which had a kickstart in Europe because India was under colonisation. Unfortunately in India, it was kickstarted by the colonised influence and so did not, has not discovered its innate character of individuality and reason. So this is the struggle ongoing right now but from then let's say 1992 to now, a little over 25 years, what is very clear is the numbers now who are able to bring the Indic values into the space are enormously larger, enormously larger. You will see it in, for example, in various kinds of industries. There used to be a time when a hotel was considered cutting edge because it was a replica of a European hotel. Today you go to hotels which are themed on spirituality and they've actually brought Indic values but with the same standard of cleanliness and efficiency which was set in Europe but the theme itself and the atmosphere is even spiritual and that's surprising to see. But this is the way this transition is taking place, it's happening for sure. The question is which is faster, the declining influence or the ascending influence and well that's part of the game. So in conclusion on this theme that we took up on power, wealth and sex and their interdependence, the Mother's observation is this, that unless you are able to overcome all three, you will not have overcome any one of them. In other words, the framework that Sri Aurobindo sets for wealth, the detachment and the base of being not owner or possessor, as that grows, that develops, you actually acquire this poise in which none of these things are owned by you and they are all taken up to be put at the service of the Divine and this as I said is very practical. Mother gives an example when she was entering the domain of wealth, in the vital world because that's the base in which the vital energy is the form in which the wealth is able to most directly materialise on earth, she was entering the domain and there was a huge power which represents in the vital world in the form of snake, gigantic snake and the power is there to prevent you from entering its domain, unless you fulfil the conditions.
Narad (0:41:10):
Yes, I remember reading this.
Sraddhalu (0:41:12):
And the Mother said, 'what are the conditions that I have to fulfil' and the serpent says you have to conquer the sex instinct in humanity, if you can control that then I am obliged to let you go, let you enter. Very interesting! Now ok, for Mother it was because she was seeking the wealth for humanity. She was working constantly to release wealth. Even here, it's a digression, we'll come back to this point. In the playground, this is one of the interesting incidents, she would be walking from east to west, sometimes in a state of concentration, and on the east wall she would pause sometimes and look up, as if looking into the distance, and then again concentrate and move back and forth. And so one of her attendants asked her, "why is it you're stopping there? What are you looking at?" And she said, every time I look towards the sea, I see a huge wealth hidden there waiting to be released. And I'm trying to release it. I don't know what that is, whether it is oil or some other treasure, but there's something in the sea here. But she saw it, and she sensed it. And how does one sense it? It's another example she gives there. Suppose a miser has died and his vital desire was attached to a wealth which he has buried. So the subtle body, the vital body dissolves, but the part which was tightly knotted, it hangs around as a formation and it goes exactly where the wealth is to which it is attached. Now if you enter that space, you sense this entity or there is some power there and so you know the wealth is right there. You see it gives away its own location. Of course if you try to now take the wealth depending on the formation it might attack you, it might even cause physical harm and so on. That's a different story. But it gives it away. The very fact that there is a power protecting the wealth to prevent its access to humanity gives away the location or the means. And so in this case because it was for humanity, the condition was you have to conquer that impulse in humanity. And she said she had not yet been able to do that, but if you look at the principle behind to the extent that within you, you have built up enough detachment that you do not allow an external and vital energy to seize you but you are able to handle whatever energy comes to you and direct it as appropriate with an equality. To that extent now you have the right to wield the power of wealth.
And if you again go back to the earlier discussion of the example we took, I think it was in the previous discussion, I have met with people, businessmen who are very successful, one of them as an example is a stock broker, one of the biggest today, and entering his office, you could see what was happening. It was cluttered, uncouth, disorganised. The most plush expensive things but physically badly organised. It is typically wealthy in India. They pay for the most expensive things but the energy is still not organised. That's one of the problems of India. It was clear everybody else was just a minion to this man. He held the reins of wealth. He had big stickers on the wall saying 'if you cannot dedicate yourself 24 hours to the stock market do not enter it'. Meaning he lived, breathed, thought, slept, stock market. That was his thing ,but huge vitality and of course with the exaggerated ego. So I was with somebody for a particular purpose, I could see he looked at the thing, it was obvious he could not get energy wealth pull, he was not interested. Had he sensed that here was an opportunity in which he could draw energy of wealth he would have said okay. So anyway that was an example of how they sense, so what was obvious is he had this, he was wielding the energy and he was enjoying it. But at the same time because his vitality was so large there was a backdrop of detachment where he could play, lose, give, throw, take and enjoy it without being particularly attached to it. This is an interesting thing. So I said the most successful businessmen often are the ones who although they wield largely the vital energy do not have a personal attachment. They may seem to indulge in the trappings which come with it, but on a very superficial level. And they are able to take the greatest risk as a result of that. And I'm reminded of one example of a businessman who was in Calcutta and when it came under communist rule, a lot of businessmen left from Calcutta. It used to be the hub of trade at one point and of business. He left, he lost everything, he had to build from zero. He moved to another city and built from scratch, everything was built up from scratch. Now here you see a true sense of a businessman. They say as a joke, if you take a Patel, you know the Patels own most of the hotels in the US. If you take a Patel and put him in the middle of a desert, he'll find a way to sell sand and make a profit. But there's a truth to it and it's not about scheming, it's not about, it's about how you find opportunity, work hard to build on the opportunity and make a success out of it. So here's an example of a businessman and the true sense of it. Whatever he had inherited and built, he lost entirely, he went with zero and rebuilt everything and built his own empire all over again. But such a man actually does not fear now losing anything, because he knows even if he loses everything he can rebuild. But the same equality one can build from a yogic approach.
So if you go back to something we discussed last time, the attitude that nothing that you have is yours, everything belongs to the Mother, your bank account, the money that comes into it or that goes out of it, the objects which you have, which you cherish, which you have inherited even, which you are attached to because it's my great-grandmother's heirloom, all these things are not yours but belong to the Mother. The clothes you wear belong to the Mother. Now take it to its completion. The body you have belongs to the Mother. The strength in you, the energy you have belongs to her. The intelligence which you're so proud of, I can do this, belongs to the Mother. And And when you take this to completion, what is left that is yours? Nothing at all except your consciousness, your aspiration and your love for the Mother and the self-giving. And that too you realise is possible because she gives it to you. You are a part of her and your love for her is her love within you that awakes to rejoin to its source. And if you can hold this as your poise of reference, consciously cultivate it in your life in the details, the non-possession and all belonging to her, and then work to serve her in everything you do, including the food you eat for your body's nourishment, including the profit you make in your business or in the success you have in whatever field of activity you are in, it's all hers and given to her because it already belongs to her. You can very quickly build the necessary attitude that allows you to wield whatever comes your way and become more and more a transparent instrument for her action. And in this process, you will find you grow, your skill grows, your consciousness grows, your love grows, your knowledge grows, your intelligence, strength and everything grows to be able to serve her more and more completely. There is no you except the part that simply is.
Narad (0:49:35):
I would like to close with an experience with Nolini. It was on my birthday in 1979. We wanted to see him. We brought a huge bamboo tray filled with 100 different flowers of psychological perfection and presented it to him. He was very insistent that Anima give us the tray back. So she had to take the flowers. And then we sat down and he said I have read your letter, and it was a two-page single spaced type written letter about the difficulties in Auroville. He appreciated it very much. And then he said something so poignant. He said, you see, she is trying a thousand different ways. Then he became very quiet. He pointed to Mary Helen, and he said, your body, then he pointed to me and he said, and your body, then he pointed to himself and he said, and my body. We think they are different bodies. They are not. They are all her body. She has put a part of herself into each of us truly. I carry that with me always. And we are her body.
Sraddhalu (0:51:32):
If every organ of the body lived for itself, we could never be healthy and the same happens as a collective. If each of these bodies lives for itself, the collective can never serve as a vehicle, as a container for the Mother's force and action. And so there has to be the collective life that requires for each one of us to recognize that we are all together as her children, as her family, as her physical body and to work together with that attitude. The result will be the formation of the vessel in which she can manifest the collective life or the Divine life in the collectivity. What we have so far in the ashram and in Auroville is much more the individual realisation or manifestation to whatever degree. In the collective spaces there are little pockets, but it has not yet formed the vessel for the whole community, neither in the ashram nor in Auroville. But pockets have formed and that itself shows you it's possible and those pockets now could grow or embrace larger more diverse groupings in a similar aspiration.
Narad (0:53:02):
In the early 1970s your teacher Panditji wrote to me and he said in answer to my question, it is time now for the collective work. The individuality can come later, but he said it must be the collective work now, early 70s.
Narad (0:53:29):
Thank you. Namaste.