EWS #29: On the recent visit to sacred places in India, the Jyotirlingams
Mar 23, 2019
Topics:
Narad (0:00:00):
Welcome to our continuing series, Evenings with Sraddhalu. And today we have a very special session for you on his travels to Varanasi and other sacred places. It must have been an extraordinary trip.
Sraddhalu (0:00:53):
It was, from a spiritual pilgrimage perspective. I went to three of the most holy spots or temples which are called Jyotirlinga which is literally pillar of fire and there are 12 such pillars of fire representing Shiva and of these I was within a week to three of these places and it just happened to have worked out like that. But there were many interesting observations I had I thought of sharing, since this is a more casual interaction we can actually touch upon many different themes, sub-themes within that. In the first place when I went to Varanasi where there was a conference, we had two conferences back to back and the first conference had to do on the theme of Sita and her role in the story of Rama and the Ramayana and we had experts from various academic perspectives but people who had read the original Ramayana and then came in with their observations, many of them being women who had gone deep into the study and gave that perspective. And the whole insight for me was that the image we have of Sita generally as it comes through popular lore and cinema is of a very passive woman who is always weeping because they have been driven out from their palace and then she is trapped soon after and the story is interesting only because of all the suffering she undergoes and we don't see any active role in her and even in the particular later variation where she is banished into the forest, it's always a tragedy. But what came through this interaction from these people was that that's not really how it is. That's the way people want to see it in a certain context in recent times. But if you read the original Ramayana, what you discover is she plays such an active role. It is she who chooses Rama, she recognizes him, she chooses him, but then at every step she challenges him to exceed himself. She leads him, she guides the narration of the story, she literally compels the circumstances to take the direction that they took. So even for example, in the larger part of the story that everyone is aware of, she has been captured by Ravana and taken to to Lanka and Hanuman goes there and he has the capacity to take her on his shoulders and bring her back. So here's a hostage, he is the commando that's gone in and freed the hostage and she says no, it is Rama's mission in life to kill Ravana, so I have to stay on here so that he can come and liberate me. So she is compelling that outcome which was planned. And when we see Sita as the conscious Shakti of Vishnu, who is incarnating as Rama, then we can see that there is a plan behind the scenes in which they are playing a dynamically and equal supportive role. But that aspect of the equality of their role is not so obvious in the popular narration. So this was a major insight that emerged from that interaction in the conference.
But also because it had the theme of the aspect of the Shakti, there were certain interesting oddities, which I thought were worth sharing. There was one person who happened to have been there and he is an activist for women's issues and gender issues and all that. So obviously he had to bring in his perspective. And in one of the discussions, he brought in his way of thinking. And I wanted to point this out as something insidious, which is becoming quite popular and politically correct, by stating that we have to recognize that the natural tendency of the masculine is to try to control his environment. First assumption. Second, he says when all the masculines are trying to control their environment then you have a situation which is set for some kind of collision and violence and so all of human problems of violence can be traced back to this impulse that was the logic of his flow and I could see how it serves very usefully his purpose, because he is running an NGO for women's issues but it is so dangerous if you think about it like this. Because a truth is taken, put out of place and then amplified in a perverted form, in a subtle way that you don't recognize what the game is and I realised he himself was very sincere, he had got this idea from whatever training he had received and he couldn't see that in fact the need to control the environment is a human need, it has nothing to do with gender. It is equally present both in men or women, in the masculine or feminine. Even if you take it as a psychological temperament it has nothing to do with masculine needing to control the environment. But if you take it that way, you put all the blame of violence on men. You see the danger of this subtle shift and distortion. The difference is, according to the power you have, your mechanism of control of your environment is different. So where the masculine had the power to control their environment by overt action, that was the means they used. Where they don't have the power for overt action, then it is by covert means. Where the woman does not have the power for overt action, she uses covert means. But everybody is trying to control their environment. So I saw this coming into that conference and I said, wow, this is a bit dangerous but so many people were just swept away by that kind of thinking but I think we had enough people to neutralise or correct for it. This is an interesting observation I saw, how it's spreading. It's insidious because it catches the idea and if you don't question it you get fooled. This was one. So this was his guiding principle for women's liberation. That's right. And driving and justifying the work that he was doing. And of course if you are earning money on the basis of that, then you have to find that problem everywhere. And he had now to find it within the Ramayana or within the context of the conference itself and things like that. So, but anyway this is an aside. So that was a very revealing experience and then we had a second conference. I don't know if anything particular comes to mind.
But then we went to the sacred part. Being in Varanasi, we went up the river in a boat as a whole group, all the participants and a few of us we went to the main temple. Now Varanasi is a very old city. It goes back many thousands of years, as a planned organised city. But also it's been destroyed at least three times in the last thousand years. Completely burnt down, razed by the Mughal invaders and rebuilt each time. So it's a city with extraordinary history. Every street corner and every little road, there are lots of zigzag roads and sides and serpentine routes, very narrow, barely one person can go through sometimes and then suddenly it pops into a house or a little temple with some history which goes back several hundred years. It's amazing as an experience. But also it is one of the most sacred spaces. The logic behind, at least externally, is that the Ganga which is coming down from the Himalayas, turns back northward and points to her source and then turns away again. So the part where she points to her source is the most sacred and it's fascinating to see beyond that there are no buildings, before that no buildings, just in that portion all the buildings are crowded on the banks of the Ganga. On the opposite side of the Ganga again nothing. So it's like there is this patch which is the most sacred and everybody's focused themselves there and one of the most significant temples which is one of the Jyotirlingas, the pillar of light of Shiva is located there and it's the Kashi Vishwanath temple. So I had a recollection of going there a few years ago and it was a very bad experience because of the way you were herded by the crowds and driven and so I was not looking forward to it at all. But this time when I went, we bypassed all that and I entered the space and it was an extraordinary experience which I wanted to share. Entering into, first you approach the temple itself, it's surrounded by buildings and all the buildings have encroached so much you can barely see the actual original temple. But entering it, there's everywhere there are hawkers, they are trying to attract your attention, to get you to give your money. You ignore all that. And we passed in front of the sanctum sanctorum. I looked inside briefly. There was the contact with the Shiva Linga in the centre. The priest was doing some puja. It was a time of a ceremony. In that brief contact of the look, it's like there was a shaft of light which just came inside and settled. And that's it and it was so intense so concrete so distinct in its form internally, I stood there and I avoided the crowd, I avoided the queue. I stood there for another minute or two but it made no difference, the thing which had to come had done its work and I could move on. It had already, there was nothing new further. And I realised the value when people are herded in front of a sacred space and it always for me was a bother that you know you get a glimpse and then you moved on, someone pushes you what is the value of that. And it struck me here that the Presence there has done its work and the rest doesn't matter. Even if it's a momentary touch but the nature of that contact was quite unusual. It was like a column of light internally, warm, pure, clear. It stayed for two or three days in its imprint. But that's it. It would not spread, it would not fill, it did not touch all the layers, it just held its place and that was all. Which is very different from the kind of Presence we have here, what we are used to in the Matrimandir or near the Samadhi, where it fills your whole being, touches all the layers of your being and it has a pervading influence in your whole consciousness. This had a very specific narrow object and it struck me that this is the benefit of the temple system where there is an occult ritual associated with the temple's purity and invocation of the presence of the deity. Because it's done by the occult means, it has a very focused and limited outcome but effective, extremely effective. Although everybody there was busy doing their own thing, hawking, shouting, talking, it didn't matter for the presence, it could do its work. And that was an amazing thing I thought.
Narad (0:12:41):
Did the others have that experience?
Sraddhalu (0:12:43):
Yes, there were several people with me. One of them incidentally was somebody from the Middle East. She has no experience of any of these traditions. She has grown up in a different culture, in a different religion and it was her first experience of something like this. And she stood there, she had exactly the same experience. It was amazing.
Narad (0:13:05):
Pardon me, but was the city clean?
Sraddhalu (0:13:07):
The city has become enormously cleaner. You could not see dirt anywhere. It was one portion only where we saw a pile of dirt. Everywhere else it was completely clean. The river cleaning has been, a little bit has been done but not enough. It's still not good enough for sure. That had a political story, why the city was not clean earlier. In part, it was because it was the Prime Minister's constituency, but the cleaning is in the hands of the local municipality and state government which was of a different party, so they would bring dirt from other places and load it in the city just to spoil his name and it's only when his own party took over in the state that they cleaned it out and it was fine. This is something to be glossed over if you have to face the reality of politics. So this is one experience but that's not all. I had been to another place, another Jyotirlinga a few years ago, which is in Ujjain and because I was part of a conference organised by the government, so they gave me a VIP tour and I had the convenience of standing before the sanctum sanctorum at a distance while the queue was moving in front. And it was a similar experience but the vibration was completely different. That looking in, one suddenly connected to a Presence which was timeless. And it was as if you felt it transcending beyond time and particularly that aspect of the timelessness and only later I realised that particular embodiment of the pillar of light is called Mahakaal, which is the great aspect of time of Shiva. And so these are such concrete objective experiences that one has to recognize the value of these spaces in spite of all the clutter and chaos in front.
Subsequently I went to two other places, two other Jyotirlingas which were on the coast of Gujarat. One is Somnath which is also a Jyotirlinga. It is in fact the first, the first place that Shiva manifested as a pillar of light. And so it is something extremely sacred and the second one is in Dwaraka. And so I want to share the two things here. So the story of the first Jyotirlinga is that while it being the most sacred because it is the first, it was also the one which was the most destroyed. So the early invasions into India would often focus upon it because it was one of the wealthiest and there are descriptions of how the entire temple was plated with gold and with gates of silver and lavish, and so the first invader who came in destroyed the temple razed it to the ground, took away all the jewels and gold and all that, they rebuilt the temple again, he came destroyed it, they rebuilt it, again he came and destroyed it, and remember all this is in the last 800 years.
[Narad] okay, three times?
[Sraddhalu] Not three times, four times, five times, okay let's skip to the end, 17 times and every time it was rebuilt. Now there's a story which is written in the form of a novel but the story goes like this. The king who was responsible for protecting the temple when they knew that the invaders were coming, the king joined the priests and sat for the prayers and they prayed to Shiva and said please help us to protect you, protect yourself and the invaders came killed everybody and took away the wealth and razed the temple. So the king gets back and he finds his queen packing her bags and leaving. So he says, why are you leaving? Because she says you didn't fulfil your duty as king. He said, no I fulfilled my duty, I led the prayers. And she said, no, I thought you were Shiva. Your role was to protect the temple, you were supposed to represent that aspect of Shiva for protection. The priest was supposed to look after that aspect. Now this story is extremely important. It indicates the mindset of that period. How could invaders come and destroy and have it rebuilt again and again and nobody stopped to fight and prevent the attack. It shows you that India had already reached that declining period which Sri Aurobindo refers to, which we have spoken of earlier in one of these discussions, where the ascetic withdrawal had become so strong that the vitality of the civilization had weakened and to become a monk, to become an ascetic was the ideal for all the strong people, for all the creative leaders in society. Sri Aurobindo points out that if not for the invasions, India would have become a nation of monks and this was the situation there. So that place is very significant. Finally I believe it was under Aurangzeb that the order was given because each time it was being rebuilt that was their way of pushing back rather than fighting with valor. Aurangzeb passed an order that anybody who goes to worship there will have their head chopped off. And that's how for the last 300 years about the temple remained razed. And when India became free, many of the political leaders considered it a symbol of the freedom to rebuild the temple. And at that point Gandhiji said that it should not be done with government funds. So they actually had to, it was a peculiar thing, they had to go and get private funds and rebuild the temple. So what you have today is the new temple (at Somnath), it is not the original Jyotirlinga which was broken and it was taken elsewhere, put under the steps of a mosque so that people would trample over it and all that is part of the initial stories. But you do not have the original Jyotirlinga and I did not have any significant experience. It had a sacred space but that was about it. But it was interesting, it's on the edge of the sea in the location of the original temple, it's on the edge of the sea surrounded on three sides by water. It's as if the sea is gradually invading and that whole area is part of a larger landmass that sank underwater.
And so we come to the third Jyotirlinga, which is in Dwaraka, and in the Mahabharata, that is 5000 years ago, we have the incident where, having completed his work, Sri Krishna is about to withdraw, and the scene is described where the entire island nation that he ruled over goes underwater overnight killing everybody. Now that incident of everything going underwater cannot be explained by today's geology nor for example the sinking of Atlantis, if you accept that Atlantis existed and that it went underwater as is the story. We do not have currently in our geological models any explanations of how landmass can suddenly sink down many dozens of metres in an overnight move or as in the case of Atlantis perhaps several kilometres in a single overnight collapse. So it just shows that our geological knowledge today is poor and one example of it is we still do not know how Earth has a magnetic field. If you ask a geologist how does the Earth have a magnetic field, oh there is some process taking place, molten iron is turning inside and somehow it creates a magnetic field. The somehow is totally unexplained and what is weird is the magnetic field is moving rapidly and again we mentioned this earlier, it's moving at an increasingly fast pace about 60 kilometres per year and it's accelerating towards Russia so the magnetic pole from the north side is moving, the magnetic pole on the south side is weakening and there is a patch near Africa where a new northern magnetic pole is emerging and none of this is explainable by current geological understanding of earth.
Narad (0:22:00):
But what is your understanding of it?
[Sraddhalu] Actually it goes back to what is magnetism. So if you look at current physics and you read your physics books they say your magnet is a series of small magnets which have been aligned inside The iron itself is made of the atoms or molecules which are themselves magnetic and you align all of them and they form a big magnet. But what is magnetism and why is that atom or molecule magnetic? There is no explanation. So current physics fails to explain something so basic and yet it's busy speculating about things you know which you have created as a superstructure. But to get back to your question, the magnetism as electric fields, as gravitational fields are all boiling down to a principle of functioning which involves what today's language in physics would be the term ether. An underlying substratum substance which is fluid which can move and which is the basis for most of these phenomena of forces and fields. But of this perhaps we can have a more detailed discussion later. What Einstein did was he removed the ether from physics.
Narad (0:23:28):
Yeah, I saw his (Sri Aurobindo) letter to Amal (Amal Kiran) in which he said he (Einstein) didn't believe in anything.
Sraddhalu (0:23:33):
Yes, but removing the Ether was the biggest mistake of physics, because it removed the unifying principle and subsequently for the last more than 100 years, physics is busy trying to find the unified field theory on the assumption that the unifying principle does not exist. So you cannot of course unify things. Sri Aurobindo wrote in 1905 where Einstein proposed that let's assume the ether doesn't exist. It's an assumption. It is not a proof. Sri Aurobindo writes in 1916 in the Life Divine, ether can and does exist even if to our present instruments it's not detectable. So that assertion is very clear and there are other writings of his where he points to the principle of the ether and its role in these processes. Anyways, coming back to geology, it was just a diversion to explain that we do not really understand what is happening inside the earth. Our current models are too superficial and this fact that land can suddenly sink in, is in fact one of the processes by which earth regenerates itself. So there are land masses which can suddenly rise up, land masses which can suddenly go down and the process internally is not fully understood. But one of the suggestions we have from certain studies is there are gigantic cave systems, massive, often several kilometres in size, at a deep, at a great depth inside the earth, which is the basis many of these movements. So there, off the coast of Dwarka, if you go about 10 km deeper into the water, there is an entire city still visible and deep sea diving archaeologists have gone in there, photographed them, brought out samples with clear walls, doors and structures whatever has survived in the ocean for 5000 years. So the Mahabharata itself dates to about 3100 BC and it's the end of the Mahabharata where you see this land sinking. And so here is a temple which is again on the edge of the sea, which is supposed to be the palace, the location of the original palace of Shri Krishna which was not on the island. So on the island is his home and then there is a palace and administrative centre which is not on the island. So supposedly it is on that location that his great-grandson built this temple. And it was quite an amazing thing to see. It is so beautiful. The temple is so beautiful and the stone used in it is so worn out. I have not seen a temple which has more worn out stone. That could be the stone is somewhat soft, but still, its so worn out that you realise it is so ancient. There have been archaeological diggings around it, which have dated it to at least 2000 years old but probably going back much more, if it is actually built by the great grandson then it goes back to 5000 years nearly. So that was an exceptional place and the Presence there was so extraordinary.
Sraddhalu (0:26:49):
So again we had the big drama, it was people throwing colours and very crowded and so we just sat there, I was with some people who were, we were all meditating, we sat in a corner. Now the thing I wanted to share here was this whole issue, why can't Indian temples be quiet? Why can't they be peaceful? Why is so much crowd pushing, pulling, shouting, screaming and it's something which triggered a thought process and I wanted to share what conclusions I came to. So it was earlier the same thing in Varanasi at the temple there. Somnath there were very few people so there was not much pulling and pushing but here again there was pushing and other places which also have been to. So there's one more which I will speak of which is the Jyotirling proper, where there was a man right in front of you where you are doing the darshan, there's a man standing there shouting at the top of his voice and with a stick banging on the metal barrier loudly, so much it hurts your ears and you're supposed to somehow cut through and connect. So I took it that the fact that so many people still go is because they feel something, they receive something. Obviously, otherwise you won't go in spite of all this noise. I had to make effort to concentrate and cut through all this and when you are able to do that, the contact is so distinct. And I was trying to see whether others are able to do that, some of them are just being herded around, they look like that and then they go, some of them come back, they hang around and then he beats the stick to push you away. Someone pulls out a mobile phone to take a picture and he shouts at the top of his voice because you are not supposed to take a photo etc. I did take a photo by the way <laughs>. But what if it was like when we go to the Matrimandir or we go to the Samadhi, complete stillness, silence and you stand there quietly, you have your darshan and go. And I thought about it and it struck me, maybe it is a recent phenomenon, maybe it was not so, but I would doubt that because we have so many ceremonies where there is loud banging of the drums and trumpets and things like that. So there is something associated which involves large rituals. Some of this you see in Tibetan traditions, which are very similar to the Indian traditions of a few hundred years ago, because they took many of those traditions from India. Very dramatic ceremonial dresses and sounds. And of course there are periods of silence, but they also have these loud sounds and ceremonies.
Sraddhalu (0:29:35):
Then my mind went back to an incident, which was maybe 15 years ago. I was in one of these little temporary temple arrangements made at the time of Durga Puja. So at the time of Durga Puja all over India, you have little idols, temples set up and there's a lot of sound around it and this was one of, maybe it was a small temple I don't remember. We went into a small temple. I was with some friends, it was so loud ,so noisy. The priest had been brought from Calcutta. So he was one of those who is in the traditional Bengali style celebration of Durga Puja and he had this big what do you call this symbols clashing together and he was dancing in a frenzy and he was like as if drunk, okay not physically drunk, but in some semi ecstatic state and dancing crazily, his legs and arms going saying clash, clash, clash and there was all the other music which was going on and at first I pressed my ears, it was too intense, I thought I will damage my hearing, this is weird, you know that kind of reaction and after a while something happened as I tuned into the space and I took off my fingers and there was a sudden click and I got into that experience where I had the experience of Durga in her delight as she swings not with two arms, but with multiple arms of her weapons killing the demons, phew phew, phew. It was a dance, literally a dance of joy as she triumphs in destroying evil and darkness, bringing back the light. And this whole delight of the dance which was going on was captured by this priest's movement and his sounds and the chaotic music and I could hear the clash of the sword as it struck the instruments of the demons and chopped their heads, it was literally entering that world and that consciousness. I realised that this is an aspect of spirituality which we miss completely in the silent contact. Now there is a great value to the silent contact, but I understood the value of this noisy, dramatic, even chaotic kind of contact, in that particular context at least, because it was the celebration of Durga destroying evil. And so I remembered that incident and then I tried to see what it means here. I came to these two conclusions. First that in this very noisy space or when they chant and they sing and they start clapping their hands which is very disturbing, which Mother never liked by the way. In many of the temples, it is something of the vital excitement that is coming forward, but it is the way by which the vital is entering in relation with the Presence, asking to be purified, to be changed. And it is through that, that somehow the inertia is being overcome.
Narad (0:32:53):
Is this similar to the dervishes?
Sraddhalu (0:32:55):
Not quite. The dervishes, they spin around, but they don't make so much noise. It's in silence. So I've seen the dervishes do it and there's, it's complete stillness. I don't know if they have a form where they do it with loud music. But it's not at all this.
Narad (0:33:13):
You didn't have a chance to talk with this man to see if he...
Sraddhalu (0:33:17):
The priest?
Narad (0:33:18):
Yeah.
Sraddhalu (0:33:19):
No, he was going on. I was told it would go on for hours. So they get into this state and... But I am not sure whether everybody is conscious of what is happening on that level. But certainly everybody is touched in some way that they go back and want to come again. And it is not just an idea, it's something which they feel. So here what I saw first is this, the vital which is being put, bared to the influence of the spiritual, in order to be purified, to be transformed, but also to be activated. And this is something which is essential in the recovery from the ascetic phase of Indian spirituality, where all that vitality had been shrunk and reduced to barrenness and which led to the civilizational collapse and so the regeneration of the vital is an important part of it.
[Narad] I did want to ask you about what happened to the Kshatriya class at that time.
[Sraddhalu] So they were still there and if you look at the history of India at the time where the Kshatriyas had organised themselves once again. And remember Shri Aurobindo's comment that if not for the invasions, the invasions became the point of shock which woke up the Kshatriya vitality. And the Marathas on one side and the Rajputs on the other side together had joined and they had pushed back the Mughal invaders to a point where most most of India had become free of that influence that's the time when the British came in and that started a whole different turn in the history. But if the British had not come in then, India would have been freed from the Mughal invaders and an internal rule would have been established, one cannot say how, what direction it would have taken. But so if you see the role of the British, it was used for a purpose, but Mother's observation that they overstayed and because of that there was this enormous inertia that has come into India. It was literally beaten down too much. Sri Aurobindo makes an observation that for the last 300 years about, he says there has been an enormous focus on developing the sattvic quality in India. So that eventually when the rajas is again awakened it will not overwhelm the sattva. The sattvic has been exaggerated in its development so that the rajas will always remain subservient to it. So there's something of this which I felt in the whole temple experience with all the noise and chaos unjustified for sure and yet the need for people to have this kind of a singing, dancing type engagement is coming from the need of the vital and the need for the rajas to be reawakened. So this is an observation that I made in that whole story.
There are two things. One is the need for this awakening. The other is the attempt to bridge life with spirit. And this is something very special to India. The moment you go in, in silence, innately one tends to withdraw from life. When you participate in activity, and the activity can be in a state of receptivity, in a conscious awareness, but it is still active, then one can... the spirituality is woven into the life and there is something of that which is very specific to India. Although we had the ascetic phase, it never really took hold fully. There was always the immanence of the spiritual ideal in the life and the structures and forms of life itself. And so there is something of that, the attempt to weave spirit into life. We see this also in the first attempt to reawaken the rajasic element in India which was in the Sikhism, where you will see even the symbol of the Sikhs is spirituality and strength combining the sword and then another symbol which represents the spirit. So this was some observations. So subsequently I went to the, after the main temple of Shri Krishna, which is very beautiful and the Presence inside is so pure, in spite of all this whatever disturbance outside. I went to the next Jyotirlinga which is also in Dwarka and that is Nageshwara and he is the lord of the serpents and there it was a huge statue of Shiva. It's like a five or six-story building height and just next to the temple and the temple itself seems to be at least now what survives as a more modern construction. The inside, maybe it's still the original. And going in, that's when this banging was going on, the fellow was shouting and as we passed in front, I stood there and I did not get the same impact of the light. I felt only a Presence. That was it. And then having crossed it, I came back to a slightly higher point where we could stand and focus. And then something extraordinary happened. Over the span of about one minute, the same kind of light, it penetrated inside, went in and formed a similar image internally. So I learnt to value the Jyotirlinga space in a very special way. And while this banging was going on, shouting, but it took time for the light to enter. Unlike in Varanasi where it just went puff and that was it, it was done.
Narad (0:39:07):
And it didn't spread also?
Sraddhalu (0:39:09):
No, it didn't spread also. It took a very clear distinct form. It was exactly similar in vibration but that was it. It is said that Varanasi is one of the spots where you can feel the presence of the spirit most easily. So I asked several people for whom it was their first visit to Varanasi. While we were on the boat, I asked them, what do you feel? I have heard now from so many people independently, in their first visit, they said, yes, being here somehow one can feel the presence and one connects to the sense of the spiritual more easily than elsewhere. And one of them particularly shared this incident. As he was going up the boat, at one point he suddenly felt this intense presence and that is the ghat which is called Manikarnika ghat. And later he came to know that Adi Shankaracharya who had gone there, he declared that that was one of the most powerful spots spiritually. And that experience people have even today and in a very objective way. So coming out from this temple of Sri Krishna, we went to the temple dedicated to his wife, where she was said to have stayed for a few years when she was separated from him because of a curse. And the story goes that Durvasa Rishi was one of those who is very, he is the only Rishi who has a great temper. And he was invited by Krishna and Rukmini for their wedding. Krishna has just taken Rukmani and they were about to be married and Durvasa said, 'all right I will come and there are the horses which are taking him on a chariot and he says I am feeling pity for these horses, they are suffering so much. Please release them and both of you take the chariot and pull it'. So this is a famous story of Krishna and Rukmini are pulling the chariot and he is sitting there. And after a while, Rukmini has never struggled so much, so she says, I am thirsty, I need water. And Krishna hits the ground with his toe and out shoots a jet of Ganga water and she drinks from that. And Durvasa says, how dare you drink without giving me? You invited me as a guest and you drank before giving it to me. So he curses them that this whole place will remain always, you will never get fresh water or food growing here. It will always remain barren and having only salt water. And that curse is narrated to this day, they say that entire region is salty, anywhere you dig you get only salt water and nothing grows, no food grows, they have to bring everything from outside. So that's the curse. So we go to Rukmini's temple. Again it was a nice sweet presence but I cannot say anything more than that. But coming out from there, we were sitting and meditating just connecting to the space and the presence. And then somebody came, something like a mendicant monk. He came and said, can I take a picture with you? So I said, okay, we took a picture and then he introduced himself. He said, I am an Aghori. Now Aghori is a particular lineage of Tantrics who follow the left hand path and they live on the cremation ground and do all kinds of weird things and in the movies that is how they project Tantrics generally although that is not what Tantra is, we have discussed before. But Aghoris are that extreme type. But he was looking nice, a sweet fellow, a young man. He said, ‘I am an aghori, I’m coming from Ujjain’.
Narad (0:42:54):
You had told me something of this man previously?
Sraddhalu (0:42:58):
Only when we met.
Narad (0:42:59):
Did you do someplace else also?
Sraddhalu (0:43:01):
No. No. No, I just mentioned it briefly when we met two days ago. So then he introduces himself and then shows his picture. Now this is the portfolio. This is the part which is fascinating. He has a portfolio of his photographs with all the big names. So he has even got a photo with the Prime Minister and then some other big politicians. He shows it to me. What is he trying to do there? He is trying to impress upon me his importance. Okay, I said great. And then he says look at my beard. And then he shows his hand is clear, and then he wipes his beard and he materialises a Rudraksha. This is the seed which is the favourite of Shiva. And he gives it to me. So it's supposed to impress me. So I said, oh, yeah, thank you that's all. He said, money, please commit to giving money. And he said, you know, we give a lot of food for free. So please commit to paying for a box of ghee. So I said, okay, but I am not carrying any money. Thank you, wonderful work. I said bye. But he was sweet, I liked the guy. He was kind of cute. He was desperate to try to impress. So he left. And then afterwards I see him get into a very fancy car. And inside the car there is another guy. This fellow sits in front and the fellow behind is bigger, bulkier. And it looks like his boss, his guru or head of his community. And then they come out and wave to me calling me. So I went okay, I said okay let me see what's this about. And so the fellow at the back doesn't get out of the car, he rolls down the window and the same drama starts. He pulls out his portfolio, shows me photographs with XYZ politicians, famous people and then he said, look at my beard and then he swiped and produced a flower, which he gives to me. And then he saw that I was not impressed, so he again swiped and pulled out another Rudraksha, gave that and then he still couldn't get the response that he wanted. So now he says, okay watch carefully and he shows his beard and then he squeezes his beard and lots of water gushes out. So he materialised water. At which point he grabs my hand and says, okay now repeat after me. He wouldn't let go. So I said okay this is going to be a tough one. So as long as it was a prayer, I repeated a few words and then he said, now promise that you will and I said, hang on, I need to know what I'm going to promise. I'm not going to promise just anything. So he says, okay you see the same story, you know we distribute food so you must promise to pay for a box of ghee so at that point I got the idea he wanted money, so I said hang on I pulled out whatever was in my pocket I gave it to him. 'Get me another note', he says, he won't let go of my hand. I emptied my whole pocket and showed I had nothing left. So finally he let go and that was the end of that. But I thought it interesting to share because of all the people who visited the temple, they lashed on to me. So possibly they thought that I was better dressed, so perhaps more wealthy, they could get more money and I don't know what the interest was but and the whole exercise of materialisation, it was so pitiful. The guy was so desperate to try to impress all to get money so when I shared the story with my mother she said that why did you give the money. I said I felt pity for him, imagine how much time he spent to gain these powers and to what end, to impress people to get money. I am sure they could have found other ways. So the guy introducing himself after showing his portfolio, he said, 'you know I am an aghori' and looks at me like that and I was supposed to be scared and I wasn't. Then he says, 'I live in the cremation ground', so I said ah okay, interesting. Then he says, 'I eat the flesh of dead people', and he said it in such a cute way I laughed. That was a joke. But I thought it an interesting occasion to share what happens when they do these materializations. You know, mostly the mechanism used is not even in their control. What they have done is entered into a pact with a being from the lower vital world and the being does the materialisation. The pact has actually no control over what comes or depending on the nature of the relationship they can do nothing, except feed the being what it wants and the being does for them what it chooses. Who has the control, think about it. You give up your life's control in the hands of a being, in order to be able to demonstrate a power which is never yours, but to fulfil that capacity to demonstrate, you have to submit to the being's demands which can be anything. And so depending on how desperate you are to gain that power, you are giving away your freedom and even your spiritual potential in something which is a complete sidetrack. So on other occasions I have met people who have done similar materializations and in each of these cases what I have seen is when holding the object whatever he materialised it was clear it was not a materialised object, it was teleported. So the mechanism they use is the actual object was already stored somewhere, either in his bag or somewhere in the room, depending on where the person is and the being is dematerializing from there, bringing it into the hand at the point of giving and that's all that happens. So the object is not a materialised object.
Narad (0:48:55):
You didn't touch it.
Sraddhalu (0:48:56):
Who?
Narad (0:48:57):
Did you touch it?
Sraddhalu (0:48:58):
Yeah, yeah, he gave it to me.
[Narad] He gave it to you?
[Sraddhalu] Yeah, yeah, I brought it with me here. So I placed it before the Mother and I said whatever it is. But I didn't think it worth bringing here because in itself it's just, you know, you've teleported an object, you can buy it in a shop and bring it. It's no different from that. Vibrationally it had nothing. But there are actual materializations where an object is formed in a subtle grade of matter and then densified until it becomes gross physical. And an actual materialisation when you hold in the hand you can feel the difference because it has no past, it has no legacy. And so you can feel it as literally virgin material. But Mother's observation is that such things do not last. A true materialised object, because it does not belong to this domain, eventually lapses back to the grade from which it came. So a materialisation which is permanent, Mother says has not been done so far, a true materialisation. So what these guys are doing, they take the object, it’s dematerialized from where it was stored, teleported and rematerialized here. So it's not an actual materialised object, it's just the same object which has been brought and it has a past history. You can feel that when you hold that it's not, it is part of some normal thing you would buy from the shop. And that was the experience I had in whatever he brought. So I wanted to share this insight. People get impressed with these terms and with these demonstrations but once you understand the rationale behind it, you have pity for the man, because now he has literally put his, enslaved himself to a being of a very low grade and what does a lower vital being want. It certainly does not want your spiritual progress. It does not want to help you to grow in any way. It wants to control you, to do what it wants to do in the world and often mischievous things.
Narad (0:50:54):
Well I am going out on a limb, but what about Sai Baba who could materialise ashes endlessly or an egg. And that was material form.
Sraddhalu (0:51:06):
Yes. And they were also teleported. And his justification for doing that was to bring faith in people that there was something exceptional there. But the mechanism used was still the teleportation and what is interesting though is not just what was happening around him, it was also happening in people's houses. So they would take the ash from him, they would put it against his photo and the next morning they would find a pile of ash had fallen from there. So the presiding deity which was doing this materialisation also extended its reach to people's houses wherever there was that connection energetically. So one has to be careful about what one is exposing oneself to.
Narad (0:52:00):
You said presiding deity.
Sraddhalu (0:52:02):
Yes, the being which is behind the materialisation. Now it can be of many gradations and depending on the level at which they are, is the intention of what they do in the world. In the case of Sai Baba, the being was benevolent. He used the money to build hospitals and facilities for people, educational institutions and things like that, but the same power could be as in the case of these two Aghoris that I met, something so petty and pointless I thought, that one has pity on them. So the stones which were thrown in the guest house which is documented by the Mother and Sri Aurobindo, it's not clear what they were like. Mother describes them as having a little bit of moss around them. So and the beings who threw the stones told her, she asked them what can you do? They said we can only throw stones. They were not capable of anything else. And that's typical of the lower vital realm where they're very narrow limited functions. And many of these are associated with nature operations. So for example to maintain the balance and harmony within a garden, you want to assist some plants to grow, you materialise a few stones or teleport a few stones to create an environment supportive of that plant and that's the job of these beings, bring water, bring stones, bring some minerals, help. It's literally what a human being would have done if he was gardening except it's happening in open, wild nature and so you need conscious beings who ensure that the balance is maintained.
Narad (0:53:38):
And their difference from fairies?
Sraddhalu (0:53:40):
Fairies are at least what people understand by fairies is of a slightly higher grade. They also work but they work with flowers much more than with stones. So slightly higher grade of vibration but still in the lower vital domain.
Narad (0:53:53):
These beings, Mother asked to bring roses and they said no.
Sraddhalu (0:53:57):
Yes, so Mother asked them to bring flowers and they said we can't do that.
Audience (0:54:00):
But did those stones last?
Sraddhalu (0:54:01):
So, it's not recorded, but I would assume that they lasted. Because initially when they came, they would as if come with great force and fall. So, I would assume that they had been teleported from somewhere. But they were not pure materializations. But teleported? Yeah. The pure materialisation requires a lot of effort. And even for those beings, it's too much trouble. Teleporting is much cheaper energetically and in terms of capacity so even for a human being when you train for occult powers, the teleporting power is much easier than the materialisation power. So there was another incident which I wanted to share. This was somebody in Delhi. I will end this part with it, who was supposed to be some kind of a prophet like person, you go to him, pay him money and he tells you your future. Okay, how do you know your future is correct? Well, the evidence is because he first tells you your past. Okay, so you just go to him, he looks at you and he starts narrating your life story and a friend of mine who had been there, he was so impressed. He said I sat before the guy and he told me everything with 100% accuracy. And so I explained to my friend how he does it and I said it's no big deal, but my friend was very insistent, he said, 'no, I want you to come, I want to see what happens when he meets you'. So we went there and I went there, the fellow had very low vibes first, that was my first impression, very poor, dull crude vibes and you put your hundred rupees and then he started like the machine, he started repeating and every single statement he made of my life was false, every single statement and my friend was stunned, because he said I got hundred percent. How is it at least you would have hit something 50-60% and he couldn't explain. There were weird things like, 'at the age of 18 you applied to join the army and you could not get the entrance', I had nothing of that kind, I was here in the ashram anyway. So it was so far out that it didn't fit. So then I explained to him that what happens in such cases, the man has nothing, he has no power. He has entered into a pact with one of these very low beings and the name, the term used traditionally is Karna Pishachini. Karna is ear, Pishachini is demoness. The demoness who whispers in your ears. So you know, depending on, in the Western tradition, you will have gnomes or elves as equivalent. So they sit in your ear, as if attached to your ear. Because they are on the lower vital plane they can see into your mind, so they see what is in your surface thoughts but also they can see into your subconscious which you are not aware of. So they read what's there and feed you back that information. The guy who has this Karnapishachini attached, is only repeating what is whispered to him. So he has no way of knowing what he is saying is right or wrong. So imagine the poor fellow. He is just a piece of machine, a transcriber. The Karnapisachini can say anything and the fellow keeps talking, not knowing whether it's true. What value does it have and the price you pay for that attachment, the pact you have to make is something so nasty, so crude that you lose your way.
[Narad] How is it that he couldn't get anything from you? Did you block it?
[Sraddhalu] He couldn't get anything because.. I did not consciously block it, I just invoked Mother's presence. Which was also what I did with these Aghoris. And so it was funny but he didn't impress me. And of course Mother's presence has that effect naturally.
Sraddhalu (0:58:02):
There was another example of a person in Orissa who had metal plates, where it's called Achyutananda Malika, supposedly made by Achyutananda, one of the very great Tantrics a few hundred years ago and he left it as a gift. The man had a fascinating story. So maybe we will end with this part. So he was a priest. I interviewed him. The day I went, I had gone with a friend and the day I went, he said it's a Wednesday and that's the day of holiday for Achyutananda, so I don't do a reading but I can show you the stuff. So I said great, I'll do an interview with you. I asked him how did you get it. His story was amazing. He said that 'he was a priest, and like all priests, I didn't believe in God'. <laughs> And then one day doing the rituals, the thought came to him, what if it's true? So, I said okay let me find out. So he started his practice. I asked him what did he do? He said some meditation, pranayama, concentration and then he had the darshan of Devi, of the Goddess, which was the deity that he was as priest to. And he said She just came and then in the dream when she came, she revealed herself, she gave him instructions to go to a particular place and get a bundle of leaves. So it repeated until he said, okay we have to do that. So he went to that particular place there is a location, where there is a well, traditional well which is dug surrounded with stones and it is next to an ashram which is called Kalki ashram. So when they are looking for it, the head of the ashram came to him and said, 'oh yeah, I have been waiting for you. I am supposed to take you into the water'. So the head of the ashram holds him by the hand. He puts him first, he went through a ritual of many days of fast to purify himself and he said he was extremely weak from the fasting. That's when the head of the ashram took him into the water. And they stood in the water and the head pushed him into the water. Now I met people who were actually in that place who saw it happen and they confirmed that he was pushed into the water and then they didn't see him anymore. And this guy says when he was pushed into the water, he found himself passing through the wall, into a tunnel. I said, how did you get into the tunnel? He said, I don't know, I just found myself there. And he walked a long time, he said it was dark and there were tree roots poking and then he came to a room which was full of palm leaf bundles and in the dream he had been shown a particular one so he took that and he said I picked it up and then I found myself thrown out of the water. I said, 'how did you get back? You walked a long way how did you get back'? He said, 'I don't know I just picked it up and I found myself thrown out of the water'. So this also I confirmed going to that ashram, people who were there. The original guy who had pushed him in had died, but there were others who said, yes we saw it happen. So they saw him being pushed into water and after a long time he bounces out with this bundle. And then his story continues, he says, 'I left it in the temple, I didn't know what is this crazy stuff, I opened it, it had some weird writing, I put it away'. And then after some months, he said a sadhu came from Kanpur and told him you have a bundle in your temple, I will show you how to use it. So I said how did the sadhu know? He said I don't know, he just came and he taught me and he went away. So he showed him how to use the bundle and since then he is doing this ritual. So what does he do? You go to him and you ask or you go with three questions in your mind and you just sit there, you don't do anything particular he will show you that there are metal leaves, some in silver colour, some in golden colour. He will show you they are blank, he closes them and then he does a ritual and then he opens the leaves and there is a writing which has materialised on it, etched in the metal, okay, it's quite amazing. So I had gone, while I was driving with my friend and of the three questions I had in mind, one of the questions I had thought was, when will India and Pakistan reunite? Okay. So I thought, you know, important for me but it was a question. And so when he is showing this thing to me, he explains all this, he says, you know, today is Wednesday so I will not give you any proper reading but I can show you how it works. So he does the thing, he shows me his blank, closes it and then he snaps it open and at that point I can see India and Pakistan written on the, etched in the metal. It's amazing. So his first two questions I don't think he got or it was very vague the way he read it out but he did not give an answer. So but there was, here was a miracle that etched inside metal, it's as if someone has with great force cut into it and in human handwriting, it's not like print, India and Pakistan and some other words which we couldn't make out.
[Audience] What was the year?
Sraddhalu (01:03:03):
There's no answer. But even the question was not fully formulated, it was just a few words. I have taken photos of it, I still have the photo of that portion. But then he takes his lens and starts reading from it. In the etching there were three lines only. He is reading an entire paragraph. So I asked him what are you reading? He said, no I read what is shown to me, not what is etched. So finally it comes back to that thing. The being associated with that picks up the thing from your mind, feeds it back and generally the answers would also come fed back to you. Now here's the interesting part, subsequently I did not go, but my friend from Delhi who was chasing after these things he went to meet that guy and I said, 'okay, on my behalf also ask him a question, see if it works or ask your own question'. So when that fellow went for the reading that man who does this Achyutananda Malika, he remembered me and he said, oh yeah that fellow, whenever he comes, it does not work. So I don't know what it was, but I suppose that the Mother's protection when it's active would prevent the low-level beings from being able to see through. And so one last incident briefly to share and this is again from a person who now lives in the ashram. Their family used to live in Karnataka and the father had passed away and the Mother with the children came to the ashram to stay here and the Mother accepted them, they joined the ashram. Subsequently their uncles didn't know where they were because it was in the 60s, there was no easy communication and so they went to one of these magicians, I'll use the word magician and asked him what is their fate, where are they and how is their condition. So the guy does his reading and he says I can't quite tell you precisely because I see them as if surrounded by a bubble of white light which is protecting them, but they are safe and secure and they are very happy in some heavenly region. But he said I could not penetrate the bubble because it was surrounded by this white light of protection. So this is what Mother has not only created for us in the sacred space that she has formed in her ashram. But also around each one of us there is her active protection. And if we remain true to her, that protection is active even without our conscious call and when we call consciously then it becomes of course, that much more effective. So these were interesting incidents I thought worth sharing and the lesson which it brings to us too.
Namaste!