EWS #27: On what is Yoga and what is not Yoga (3)
Mar 06, 2019
Topics:
Narad (0:00:00):
Welcome to our continuing series, Evenings with Sraddhalu. Today we thought we would open the session to questions from anyone. I have one. Sri Aurobindo tell us, pray to Mother, surrender to Mother, what if we pray to Sri Aurobindo? And then, what if we pray to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother?
Sraddhalu (0:01:00):
<laughs> In brief, it won't make any difference. It will be the same. It is one consciousness taking two positions as Sri Aurobindo explained. In nuances though, there can be a difference and so one has to understand this in a very limited way. So first recognizing there is no difference, that is the greater truth always. There is a nuanced difference in whether you pray or invoke the action, the direct action of the Shakti or whether you reach out to the presiding consciousness from where the Shakti originates. And it has not so much to do with the response that comes from them, it has to do more with your receptivity or your attunement to what you are calling or receiving. I will just give an example here which will elucidate the kind of difference that it can make. There used to be one Pandit Neelkant Shastri from Rameshwaram, who was a tantric and a very famous upasaka of the Divine Mother, practitioner of Sri Vidya, and for various reasons somehow he had come in touch with the Mother through Satprem and through others, and when he came to visit the Mother, she had given him a space to stay during his visit and also a space where he offered to help her with his knowledge of the ritual invocation. And so she said okay, and he did a certain puja invoking something for Mother's protection and she said it made a difference for her physical body. Not that she needed anything but on a physical level and action which had a physical access. But then afterwards she makes this observation that when I summon Durga, she appears alone. When he summoned her with his mechanism, his ritual process, she came with her army and she saw that as a distinction in the manner of the summoning. Now she could just as well have summoned with the army, if that was her call. But it's just in the act of the call, that was the first response. The difference of the mechanism, the mechanical machinery or technical call which would be the character of the Tantra, through ritual, through process was that it gave access through a means and the means defined the access in terms of the full impact of the presence with the army.
And so my point is, in the distinction you make, in your consciousness they represent two aspects of the Divine, and in the act of calling, in the act of entering in relation, if you are conscious of the aspect it represents, it is that aspect which is highlighted in the response, primarily because that's your access, that's your opening, that's your first relationship set. When you invoke the Mother, the difference is this, that by definition, even in your understanding, it is her energy which is in you and around you. It is her energy that is working in the universe. Her presence is right here, as intimate as the energy that is flowing through you. I will even take it a step further, if you are conscious of that, most people are not conscious, but one can train oneself to become conscious of that, that the working of the energy in your body, even as the prana energy of a relatively gross kind, is eventually a condensation of the working of the energy of the Divine Mother, in a less awakened state, more mechanical certainly, but still. The working of the intelligence within you also is the working of her intelligence, her knowledge, her power and so on and if you are conscious of that, then your relationship with the Mother is something extremely deep and intimate, and the call therefore for her intervention is felt immediately in intimacy, in closeness with the situation as necessary. If you were to enter in relation with Sri Aurobindo's presence or the aspect of the truth that he represents, the nature of the contact and the experience also might be to that extent biassed to represent that aspect of a presence, peaceful, static, holding, containing, supporting or even as a source of the action, because that's the relationship we have set. Now it could equally happen that for somebody Sri Aurobindo represents this and thats only because one has chosen that to be the relationship. But in the way they arranged the relationship with the sadhak, they chose this double aspect. He put the Mother in front as the conscious active power of his own consciousness and made her the link and the mediatrix and therefore the result of that invocation is a direct, immediate, much more intimate action of force felt in that way.
Narad (0:07:33):
Generally I call both of them, at the same time, almost always.
Sraddhalu (0:07:34):
yes, <laughs> and equally, one could set a relationship where each is in the other. As I invoke the Mother, it is Sri Aurobindo who is in her, when I relate to Sri Aurobindo it is the Divine Mother who is his power of action, so really the question is of how one puts the relationship.
[Narad] For me, it is the power of the name also. Because his name is the Mother's name. For me, it has the most power.
[Sraddhalu] If you think about it again, to push that to a step further, how do you name them? In which language? When you say the Mother, somebody in a different language might use a different wording.
[Narad] I do it in American English.
[Sraddhalu] <laughs> Not that it matters for her..
[Narad] Basu used to tell me, you can call her Mirra, you can call him whatever, you know.
[Sraddhalu] Exactly. So that's the point I'm getting to. The word for you is your entry point. And a different word for somebody else in their language would be their entry point to the same consciousness. So I'll share a few incidents of this Panditji was going to meet the Mother, as her secretary he had to go several times a day, and on one special occasion I think it was his birthday as he was concentrating on his contact with her, going up the stairs in full concentration, preparing himself. Spontaneously in his consciousness, the name of the Mother was repeating and because it was felt deep in his heart, it formulated itself in his native language, which is Konkani, and so from the heart the formulation was Awai, Awai, Awai, that meaning mother, mother, mother. So he reaches the Mother she blesses him and then she asks him with curiosity, she says what does Awai mean? So he had that while climbing the stairs in his consciousness, the contact was such that, well she felt him, not only she felt him intimately but also the word that was repeating in his heart or mind was also registered in her consciousness. And she asked this. I will give another example. Some of these might be repetitions from our earlier discussions, but it is fine. One of our friends from the US, whom Panditji knew, it was a lady whose father had passed away and they were Christians, her mother was Christian, so they were in the church, the coffin was there, the ceremony was on and this lady was concentrating, remembering the Mother, invoking her help for her father's smooth transition, at which point she spontaneously saw the Mother's form next to the coffin standing there giving her assurance that she had taken charge. At the same time her Mother standing next to her says, Oh look, oh look, there is Virgin Mary.
And so, the frame that one holds whether in wording or taking a step further in concept or idea is still your gateway and entry point to the same Divine presence, ultimately. The whole question is what are you relating to? And I will give one more example of this. This is somebody in Orissa who narrated this incident. He is a devotee with deep devotional contact with the Mother and part of a lineage which is connected with the Jagannath temple and some of the deeper tantric rituals involved with the deities within. And so because he was a little bit in that space, somebody who was in a lower grade of tantric practice invited him and he said he was invited and that fellow wanted to demonstrate his power and he said I am going to invoke Kali. So they were made to sit in a room and it was closed, completely dark and his friend began this ritual of invocation and the person who narrated this, he said after a few minutes he could feel the presence in the room and then suddenly there was a loud footfall, thump, like someone has leaped into the room and that he could feel somebody very powerful before him and the rapid breathing in very energetic form, panting, breathing, in the particular form of Kali which is known in those traditions, you know where she comes with her tongue hanging out and with the skulls around, like a garland around her of all the evil demons that she has destroyed. But it's an aspect of, it's not Mahakali, it's an aspect of the energy more on the vital plane. And so he had that in front of him, he could feel intensely the sound of her panting and the fear that shook, it overwhelmed him and then he said, well why should I be afraid? And he raised his hands in prayer, in obeisance and he invoked the Divine Mother and he said, you too are an emanation of the Divine Mother and I bow down to the Mother within you. He addressed that to that form of Kali and within seconds he said that whole form and its dramatic fear element just dissolved and the presence cleared and his friend who had done the invocation, he stopped his whole thing and looked at him in accusation, what did you just do? What was interesting for me in this narration was this principle that through any form of deity, high or low, sometimes even very low, if you place yourself in relation to the Divine Mother and her highest form, then that gateway opens up to your call as the Divine Mother fills and breaks the boundaries of the gateway. You see, through the little window I can look out, I will still see the same sky that you see through your window, but when I invoke the sky and the sky enters, the boundaries of the windows are dissolved and we meet the same sky. But our starting point may be a window, and the window in this case, a word or an idea or an image, these are three entry points with which we connect to something which is beyond our conception. In some sense, all three join, but people use differently, they use a picture, they visualise the Mother or Sri Aurobindo, or just the idea of the Supreme Divine Mother who presides over the universe. At that point you can't have a picture, because she is bigger than the universe. But still the mind may conceive of as if a giant form, you barely see only the eyelids or something of the face presiding over, but you don't have a body anymore because the body is beyond the universe. But even that is an entry point. And if all that resolves itself into a single word and the word is spoken with that feeling, it would have the same result.
Narad (0:15:50):
I always recall the line in Savitri, "a prayer upon his lips and the great name", this is when he is going down. Next question.
Audience (0:16:07):
I had a question. Maybe a little bit difficult to make it concise and short. So to come back on the previous meeting, the evening, where the topic was what is yoga and what is not yoga, and the importance of practicing the integral yoga, in my setting, which is Auroville. Something that I notice is that, I have the feeling that in Auroville, we would be happy to practice the integral yoga and to get the benefits from it. But that we do try, we go once in a while to Matrimandir, we read a little bit, we go to some classes. But either nothing perceptible happens in terms of change of consciousness, or if something happens, it's what I would call the purification process. And those effects are not always very pleasant. For example, for me, practicing the integral yoga has diminished my capacity of work, for example. I have less energy, less wish to work, I mean, up to a certain point. So I was wondering how can we bridge this aspiration of practising knowing this is what we should do. And at the same time, the obstacle or the lack of results or quick results would appear. And in the same line, one of the difficulties of Auroville today is not being able to implement the Divine will, which is to receive the necessary indication and intuition to build a city in a more efficient way and we are still very much in the mental. And it's been the same problem, is that I have the feeling we try to perceive it, but nothing really seems to percolate, or some hear a lot of things, but you really doubt from what source they're in it. And so again, I have a feeling that we give up and say, OK, just, it's not really working. So let's get to something more fulfilling and rewarding, which is to build a city and to go in groups. So how can we bridge the two? The importance of self-discipline seems to be not emphasised enough, I think, when we speak about integral yoga and the effort.
Sraddhalu (0:18:32):
Do you want to say something?
Narad (0:18:38):
Self-discipline is tapasya. And tapasya is absolutely necessary. How many are practising it is another question. In my experience, in those early days, Mother's Force was so powerful, that it carried us through anything and everything. It carried us through times when there was no electricity and 40 degrees, which is almost today. It carried us through lack of food and the insects, the goats, the snakes. Everything, there was a protection around everything. When I go there today, I find a very disparate group. A few very devoted souls and there was one man last week who came to me after the OM choir and he said, I come to Auroville every year for two things, the Matrimandir and the OM choir. But Savitri Bhavan has a power, a great power, and the halls and the walls are filled with that power, from all these years of chanting OM and for what Shraddhavan has put into it. She has done great work. I've heard from my daughter, Chali, that people who came in the early days and were happy with a Keeith hut and a small room, now they come and say what kind of beautiful accommodations I can have. So you can see there's a difference and I believe that it's this working of the Mother to bring all different kinds together, to bring about the harmony that's necessary.
Sraddhalu (0:20:49):
The one point which can be an indicator of the way forward is your observation about the Presence that you feel even in the bricks in the Savitri Bhavan, in that room, but generally in the whole space. And we can't say the same of all other buildings in Auroville and it was a bit of a surprise for me once when I went to one of the places where people have to go for work, formal work, entering it I didn't know what it was, but I found something odd. It felt like I was entering a government office and soon later, I realised what was I missing? I was missing the Presence. I could have been anywhere in any government office. People were doing their functions efficiently, the computers were there, people were polite, helpful, we were in a sequence, you sit until you are called, but that's all. And it took me a while to recognize that it was something missing which I noticed rather than... And then the question could be asked, why is it so? Maybe that's one place where a lot of people, a lot of traffic was taking place, but it need not be the case what could have a lot of traffic and still have a presence so it would have something to do more with the way the people in that space relate to the work itself that they do or relate to what role they play in Auroville or relate to the concept of Auroville itself. So it helps to begin with to have the concept of Auroville as a sacred space and not only a space where we will serve the Mother but a space where something is happening for the Divine action on the whole earth. First level, as a concept already that will begin to make a change for everything. The second thing would be, how you relate to the space of that work or your role of work that you are going to do and it could be simply, 'I am here because I have to push these papers, sign these forms and get those things going'. Or it could be that, 'I am doing something here in consecration to the Mother and the things I do are the means for that consecration'. And if several of us in that work space had that feeling, it would be enough to shift the atmosphere completely. And so you will see in Savitri Bhavan because you took that as an example not only in the hall where the Om choir is taking place but even in other rooms, the Presence is there because in most cases anybody working there, the sense of the sacred is imprinted in the very concept in the name Savitri Bhavan. It's not something else but also that more people there are conscious of this sense of purpose and as a collective therefore the imprint is easier to make. But it would mean that we begin, or rather we will have to reawaken what this is about, what Auroville really represents. And it can be done in a small way in the little spaces of the work that they do. One good way would be simply to start the day with a concentration, where everybody working in that section or that unit just sit together in concentration for three minutes before they begin work. That would be enough to begin to shift the vibration of that space.
Audience (0:24:51):
But a lot has to do with what one carries within oneself. Is it there?
Sraddhalu (0:24:59):
Yes, but unfortunately that works both ways. If the environment has the supportive space, then what carries within oneself is easier to maintain. And if the environment is contrary, it is easy to lose what one carries. And quickly then the sense of the sacred or the sense that, oh this is something special we are doing, being conscious of the relationship, all that quickly fades out and I say wait where did it go? Which has happened both in Auroville and in the ashram. I remember one of the persons and now she is 93 years old. She came in as one of the early children in the ashram. She is in charge of allocation of work and I remember meeting her about 15, nearly 20 years ago. And she said to me, 'you know, I was just walking through such and such a department and suddenly I looked at the walls and I realised it's empty, I don't feel Mother's presence here anymore' and she said and the thought came to me 'is this how it will become for the whole ashram'? Now to me it is so valuable that she not only recognized it but that she was in a position of power and responsibility where she could have done something to reverse it, to undo this trend, this decline. I don't know if she has done, as far as I am aware nothing has happened, but that this can happen. It's not because Mother's presence is not there, it's not because she is not pouring, it's because the receptive base of people relating and being conscious of what she is giving which allows you to hold it, that is missing. So the difference though between when you started in Auroville first and now is you have a physical space of the Matrimandir and its environs, where that Presence has been fixed physically. And so, whether you are carrying it with you in your work or not, with no effort on your part, you can enter that space and feel something. And of course you can then carry it with you and invoke it in other spaces. And it's a huge help. What you had at the time, when you were a few people working hard in barren land and space was the direct connection that you had with her. Now you have in addition to that also the physical space where that consciousness is physically fixed. And so in fact it should be easier, if we can make that conscious effort to relate. But going back to the broader question, the sense of not feeling result and then losing hope or giving up, I've seen this quite a bit even here in the ashram. Although everybody says when we go near the Samadhi, when you are in the sacred space of the Matrimandir you feel something, but the question is should be something more, why don't we have it? I remember we had a conference, a meeting in Auroville, maybe now 20 years ago, where they had invited people all over from the ashram, and in Auroville and we were all asked to share some experience of what it means for us to put into practice the ideal. And there were several who were very frank they said, you know, initially I tried to try to live up to some ideal and I found it was difficult, then I tried to be always conscious of the Mother's presence and it didn't work and so finally I gave up and I said well, I'll just do my work as best as I can and then that was it. There were many who had that kind of response. To me it seems the limitation is when they have not made the effort to make the contact even if it is for 5 minutes.
Narad (0:29:03):
We also have to understand that many new people who are coming here have heard nothing of Sri Aurobindo Amma. You don't know anything at all.
[Sraddhalu] Equally in the ashram and in Auroville. There was a person who came to join the ashram, because he saw an advertisement asking for workers in a particular department, I think it was in the dining room, and he applied for it, he was taken in, he was working, he was being paid initially, then they gave him housing and made him an ashramite. He had a house in Pondicherry but they just did it. Nobody bothered to check whether it was needed. So now he is working, it's his job and he has a second home, he rents out his own house, he makes money in the process. But he never came for the Mother, he never came for the ashram, there was no question of sadhana. Well, he will live his life as he wants. So for the ashram, this is serious. For Auroville though, the framework is much wider. It's not ashram. And so there it's possible for an artist or somebody with any special skill or just simply the dedication to serve a cause or the ideal that Auroville represents in whatever way to his mind, he can come into that space and commit himself to fulfilling that, growing in the process. And the requirement that the Mother gave was also equally broad, to be a willing servitor of the Divine, and you can relate to the Divine in whatever way. For me, Divine is the beauty and the joy of the art, or just that gives me the sense of the sacred, and that's my fulfilment in serving the Divine. That's okay, that's equally acceptable. But the framework being much broader, one is not required necessarily to know about Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, as long as one has that relationship.
Audience (0:31:02):
Mother did say it, but if they don't know about yoga, she was quite clear on that.
Sraddhalu (0:31:09):
Yes, so there has to be some practice. If the foundation of Auroville, remember, is a spiritual basis on which human unity can be realised, if it has to be a spiritual basis, then there has to be some attempt to become conscious of and deepen the relation with the spirit. Whether with Sri Aurobindo's and Mother's name and teaching formally known or not, that effort needs to be there. I am putting it on a very abstract level. And if that is there, the rest will happen. If that is not there then one is in trouble. It will take a lot more time and I think patience is so important in Auroville, to realise that this is a long long process and we have to be patient with ourselves and with others. Yes, I suppose. There is an angle though. It need not be so long. It should not have been so long. And I give an example of another spiritual, religious tradition which is reasonably well known and highly respected in India. They set up a community near Pune and they took Auroville as a model, to create a space where people could live in an ecologically sustainable community life, which would be based on their spiritual practices, teachings, their teacher and so on and to be able to house a thousand people. They did it. They made an artificial lake, they made their buildings, they have the equivalent of the Matrimandir, not as a sacred space but as a building, which is like the central building around which their life is organised. Housing a thousand people, it took them about eight years to complete the whole project, from land acquisition to completion. Today they house a thousand people. It doesn't take so long. It doesn't take so long, if you are organised, if you are working in collaboration. Now when mother had started Auroville, she had put somebody in charge as the administrator. It was Shyamsundar. The fact that you have an administrator who is working and directing, guiding, is a great help in resolving conflicts and decisions. If you look at what happened subsequently, there was an attempt to create what they call collective decision-making. This is extremely attractive as a concept, it's attractive like the ideal of communism, somehow all of us together, we will all be equally together in committing ourselves and somehow together we'll manage to come to a decision and it does not work. And that has been one of the biggest reasons for the delays in Auroville and yes of course your statements are valid, we need patience and all that but there is a point beyond which we could say the approach we make is broken, it doesn't work and let's now get rid of our patience and try to change our approach to fixing things. Otherwise the patience becomes an end in itself.
Narad (0:34:32): And I'm speaking of people who are already devoted to the Mother, not the general mass.
Sraddhalu (0:34:39):
But even for them, if we see that something is being attempted again and again and it's far less efficient than elsewhere, with a spiritual foundation, we should be more efficient than elsewhere, where the primary drives are desire, ego and some intellectual shared objective. So with a spiritual foundation or shared ideal, we should be able to get so much more done which is what happened in the early days of Auroville. What you did, you in plural, the group that was working there, you cannot do even today if you bring people and tell them we will pay you money, and you were given that task without being paid money okay, losing, giving up everything else, giving up all comforts. Let's all gather in a desert and start planting trees and building a township which we might not see in our lifetime and in spirit of conscious consecration and service to the Mother whom you will not meet, except twice a year or three times a year in a darshan when she stands at a distance and with whom you can have no direct communication or correspondence, except through one of the secretaries once in a while, you will not get people to commit to that. It's the spiritual power given and the spiritual commitment at the heart of each one of those early Aurovilians, which made possible what was done and the base was made at that time, upon which today's growth has taken place.
[Narad] I wrote to Mother when we were going to start the excavation of the Matrimandir and I said should it not be done with Aurobilians and Mother said it would be better if Aurobilians did it all instead of hired labour. We wen the other way but it was a huge work also and she understood that.
[Sraddhalu] So coming to the question here, we need to review the reasons why those frustrations build up in the collective work. And there has to be some, let's say, open discussion about why it's not worked, what needs to be changed in the systems of decision making, in the governance structures. And I would want to say something more specific, but it would be specific to a particular situation. But the point is it needs to be reviewed rather than people getting frustrated and backing off and then saying well, it will happen when it happens. Generally what happens is the best people then back off, they are the ones who get most frustrated and the people who are least capable are the ones who then drag on because it doesn't matter really.
Audience (0:37:32):
That's exactly what happened with Chali, she said I'm ready to go back to America and Gerard who just passed away said this is when you have to stay, but she says that she's been at so many meetings where there are 50 or 100 different voices.
Sraddhalu (0:37:53):
It cannot do anything useful with that, that's the point. So let's recognize, let's talk plain, ok? And without naming names, without looking at a particular situation, but the general process. You bring together 50 people, who are going to decide some technical decision. Obviously out of those 50, 3 or 4 or 5 let's say, will be technically not only qualified, experienced but with the ability to now take the quick decisions and push things forward. The rest of the 45, there will be some who will recognize their technical competence and defer to it, maybe raise a few questions, learn in the process and then there are a few and the numbers are relatively small. If 5 are highly technically qualified, then 5 are highly incompetent, unqualified or simply self-obsessed and need to raise objections, need to raise some problem, need to create trouble, be the loud voice and generally the ones with the loudest voice are the ones who have the least understanding of things or have the maximum of a personal agenda of some kind and inadvertently or sometimes even consciously become vehicles or tools for forces that want to disrupt. If we can recognize this we should be able to set aside a few and say look your contributions are respected but at this point it's not helping so we should be able to say, let's now make for a smaller group. Again if the decision-making is to take place where there is an in-principle concept, do we go ahead? Yes, no. You can have 50 people, 100 people, even a thousand people. That's the whole concept of the Residence Assembly. When it comes to how we execute and the specifics, we have to narrow down to a few who are competent. They may not always have experience but they have the competence to understand and to be able to make constructive participation. If you are going to build the Matrimandir Gardens that you were involved with, you cannot allow the whole thing to be filled with fanciful mixtures which then enter in contradiction with each other and move to nothing. Which is one of the reasons why these got delayed for a long time. So we need to recognize that this is how human beings are and in any collective decision-making we should know what is the role of the whole group and where we have to then hand over responsibility to a smaller group which can keep you informed, which can be open to scrutiny, questioning etc. But they can't be held back because somebody has a doubt and will not allow it, one person will hold it back. So a change in the dynamics and the decision making will go a long way to remove this frustration that is needlessly building and speed up enormously the work to be done. This is one side of it. The other side is simply when you have a blockage like this, you will notice the cause of the blockage is somewhere in one or a few people a lack of goodwill, simple goodwill is all you need and if you allow those without that goodwill to hijack that's the reason for needless..., You do not even need a deeper spiritual base to come to a basic decision and to support each other. If all of us took the position that I'm going to do my best out of goodwill to assist everyone else, just that is enough to shift, break the blockage. If you had a deeper spiritual foundation the whole thing should move smoothly. So let me give an example of what spiritual teamwork would be like if we were all to some extent open to the spiritual presence, however little, and with the base of goodwill to each other, then it's as if the team working together for the same work, each one as they do their work, they will find themselves spontaneously synchronised with others. They need this, someone else needs that and things will sync, somehow fall into place A third person comes in, who offers exactly what is needed, problems are solved. That's the way spirit works and that's the way you have experienced things in those days isn't it? You want to share something of that, how it works?
Narad (0:42:35):
Well I think the first thing was that I was a bit of a task master and I insisted that everybody work a minimum 6 hours a day which Mother said was the absolute minimum. Most worked eight and ten, of their own, because they loved the work. And one would work on hibiscus, another would work on another plant. There was such a harmony there. And many people came through, and I wrote Mother a letter, and I said, would you give your blessing to all these new people who want to work in the nursery? And Mother wrote back, If people come in harmony and goodwill, there is no need for my blessings. They are already there.
[Sraddhalu] Her presence is there helping you. So you do not even need explicit separate blessings.
[Narad] Exactly, yes.
Audience (0:43:36):
I have two questions. So the first one is how can we feel which is the Divine will and follow that in our own life?
Audience (0:43:51):
And of course in terms of taking decisions as well and how we can grow that in our being to know that we are following the Divine's will and not our soul's desire and that's again connecting the question to what he had mentioned earlier about the Divine will serving the Divine will and knowing the Divine will.
Sraddhalu (0:44:13):
You know when you look at it on a very practical level, the question of knowing what the Divine will wants or chooses only comes up when you have to make a serious decision in life and especially when the decision is irreversible. So should I take this line of development or that line of development? For me both are interesting, there are benefits to each, limitations to each, which one should I take because once I start, I am stuck for two years, I will invest so much etc. That's when you start you ask okay, what is the Divine will, and yes this is very relevant but the real issue of relating to the Divine will is at each moment in your life when you are doing your normal routine that's when you cultivate the alignment to the Divine will. People make the mistake of waiting until they have a problem and then suddenly, how do I relate to the divine will? Where is the divine will? Where is the divine presence? What do I do? Okay let me meditate. I'm going to take two days, cut off, okay surely that helps. But it would have been much more easy, if from the beginning you had worked on that and knowing the Divine will or serving the Divine will or allowing the Divine will to work through us is not so much something that you do in decisions but a state of awareness of relating to the Divine presence and if you can cultivate that it can take a few forms to begin with. One form will be as a routine of practice that every time you have a pause in your work, you pause step back, feel, open, reconnect in your heart, in your mind through your senses, if that's the only way you can, look at the Mother's photograph, feel the love in your heart, in your mind bring back the purpose why you are here. And how many seconds would that take?, two or three seconds, that's the minimum. That's all you need, if you enjoy it, you can of course sit longer in that and then re-engage with your work in which you may forget all this, at least superficially but if you are doing this as a routine every time you have a pause or break then you will not forget something of that contact made stays as a backdrop and what you develop is a kind of an alignment to the Divine presence which then makes for the spontaneous attunement to the Divine will with no other special effort. The problem when we raise the question, how do I know the Divine will is, my mind has to know and the Divine will say, no you must become an engineer, no you must become a doctor. And when the Mother was asked, she said, you know it doesn't matter which one you will be, what matters is how you do it, in what state, in what alignment and attunement. And so the question of Divine will and serving the Divine will is much more of the attunement you have with the will than the specific do this or do that. It's rather in what state will you do this or in what state will you do that?
Narad (0:47:40):
I will quote a letter from the Mother because after meeting her I told her that she had turned my life upside down. What should I do? Should I continue my studies of voice or should I learn choiral conducting? Mother writes, “One or the other, because the most important thing is not so much what you choose, but the spirit in which you will do it. Keep living in you the spirit of consecration and all will be alright”.
Sraddhalu (0:48:24):
And as you do that therefore, the closeness of the influence of the Divine presence and with it the influence of the Divine will, it's already nudging you and you begin to feel it and you begin to feel it and then sometimes it is evidenced even in the forms and results, spontaneously something happens, click, click, things fall into place, gates open and it just happens and then you know somewhere inside, okay I am in sync and then once in a while you fall out of that sync and suddenly you find that every step something is blocked, something is not happening and then you know, okay I need to correct, retune myself and when you are able to retune, again things start happening. So the sense of serving the Divine will now is very different. It's not about obeying something separate from you who is now your taskmaster. You've just replaced your local boss with somebody who is now invisible which makes it harder to listen to his orders and which word did you use? I couldn't tell you. <laughs> It's rather something very intimately felt which is yourself. And it's as if your own deepest truth is naturally revealing itself and flowing into form. So if this is done as a normal cultivation during the normal days of your routine where no decisions are to be made really, then when it comes time to take a decision and the decision comes before you, pretty much it's obvious what you have to do or not to do. And very rarely you'll have a question and even then you will simply feel your way and you'll feel something more right, something else not so.
Narad (0:50:20):
One time when I was involved with the handmade paper and nothing was going right, they would send, the first shipment of 500 sheets were not properly packed and the seawater ruined them all. The second, after I apologised to these people, and we had a chance of a multi-million dollar business for the ashram. Multi-million dollar business, because Whatman papers had just gone out of business because of labor prices increasing. There was only one small Italian firm making watercolour papers. So I apologised and they sent the next ream and it was filled with black spots, each white paper. And so I was sort of dismissed. Then I meet a man in Long Island who shows me his handmade paper and it's the most beautiful I've ever seen. He said, if you pay my passage to and from the ashram, I will teach them. I cannot say that I really sensed anything untoward when I wrote to Mother. And she wrote back, I have the card yet, “This is all a dream in the air and cannot be realised”. What a lesson that was. Because I felt that there was a possibility but the important thing was to refer to her. And that's what I did. And I wrote to her and she wrote. And we can do that now, every moment, every day.
Audience (0:52:08):
What would be the role of creating an individuality in the sense that you're not overwhelmed by whatever is happening outside you. I always feel myself overwhelmed when I'm in different spaces, like
Audience (0:52:21):
even in an airport, you can feel the rush, or you feel the attacks, or some kind of manipulation. You suddenly want to buy this or that. Or if you're in a mall center then you are completely overwhelmed by different forces acting from outside, so and related to these, live inwardly would protect you from these external forces or attacks?
Sraddhalu (0:52:57):
No, not necessarily. So the question is ofcourse living within would protect you from these influences? Not necessarily. As a first step, what it will do in fact is to make you more conscious of all these influences. And as a result, you may even feel yourself more sensitive. So this goes back to Joel's earlier question about being in the practice of the yoga even because the first thing that happens is increased sensitivity. You might find yourself capable of doing less even at first but then once that base of sensitivity is clear, you will find you can increase the energy, you can increase the power of action and so on and all the rest can follow, but as a first step there will be an increased sensitivity always always. The practical form of it may be that you may feel more under assault because now you can feel so much more that enters, where earlier it was always happening but you were unconscious, you were numb, you were insensitive, you were dull, you were stone like, so its okay, you can get a thousand blows, it feels nothing, but now!
Audience (0:54:22):
But what would protect you? The ignorance would protect you before getting to have this sensitivity?
Sraddhalu (0:54:31):
Well it didn't protect you. When you were ignorant, it didn't protect you. You were just a puppet in the hands of all these influences, under the illusion that you are making a free choice. You feel an impulse to buy, not knowing you were programmed by the music and the lights and the thought formations which got into you and the desire pull which teased you. And I made a free decision and now suddenly you realise, I'm getting all these pulls and pushes making me do things but the moment you're conscious, that gives you the power now to accept or refuse. So it's your first step to becoming free, to become conscious. The first step is always more awkward because you feel overwhelmed. So many thoughts, I didn't know so many thoughts in my head and rather than saying because I'm trying to meditate I have 100 thoughts more, you say I have become conscious of what was happening and then you can start disengaging yourself. So again depending on the path you choose, you may choose to stand back and not interfere the thing that is happening or as you find yourself more able to be free in a poise of observation, you can intervene to prevent certain things. So start at first by developing the poise where the part of you which is standing back is not affected by these pulls and pushes. They operate in your emotions, in your thoughts, in your actions but you can stand back from all those things simply aware that it's happening. Once that is stable enough, occasionally it will lean and say, ah no, no, enough of that, enough of this, this I prefer and it will start tilting, making preference and bit by bit a kind of an influence will spread into your being which will develop the immunity and when that spreads into the rest of you, the whole of you, there will come a point where you will be able to walk into almost any space and although aware of the influences trying to influence you, aware even of some things which manage to pass through you, you or the large part of you would remain immune and therefore unaffected and free to make, exercise your your own choice, but you have to go through these steps before exercise your your own choice.
Narad (0:56:49):
Thank you. Namaste.