EWS #49: Narad’s early days in Auroville (4)
Oct 05, 2019
Topics:
Narad (0:00:00):
Namaste.
Sraddhalu (0:00:59):
The last three sessions we have been exploring Narad's early days in Auroville. And he has shared many interesting incidents of the challenges, the help, and in the last session it was about his experiences with flowers and I would like to ask him something which perhaps brings a more personal element, but which I think will be extremely helpful and educated for all of us, and that is the coming together of people from all parts of the world from different cultures, from different psychological orientations, different ways of thinking, I would say mind types. When all these different people come together as they are supposed to in Auroville, which is a miniature township for world unity, so the whole world has to be represented there, then the first thing that happens is the differences collide. And then, after the collision, there's an element of attempting to reconcile, to understand the other. And then there might be a discovery, oh, you can think like that, I never thought of it this way. And maybe there's an element of learning, as a result of that you now start broadening your own perspective. And so there's a whole complex churning that takes place in what I'll describe as a meeting of different cultures and human types. So this is the space I want to explore with you. If you could share with us some incidents either of what you saw happening or what you experienced yourself.
Narad (0:02:37):
Well I really should begin with the local people, the local Tamil people. I mean here was a group of Westerners, coming into their homeland for centuries, and imposing a new way of thinking, acting, being, and many of them didn't like it at all. But there were some. There was one man I remember very well. He said, “this is my son, Dhanasegaramurthi. He is yours. You can train him however you like. I give him to you because I believe in you”. This was one of the real steps forward between two different, very different cultures. I had maybe 15 boys and young men working at one time in the Matrimandir nursery. We shared so much. I couldn't eat the food that they prepared because it was so full of chilies and they didn't like that at times. If I would go into a house and they would want me to eat their food and I couldn't do it because my stomach just couldn't handle it. On the other hand, we shared with them everything we could share. For example, I had a music evening once a week, in which I would play the great classical works. Another time, young people who were guitarists would come and they would play classical guitar. And everyone was welcome to come. We had an American fellow who despised the Tamil people and yet he was a genius with orchids and the orchids are ‘Attachment to the Divine’. He could grow and flower all kinds of orchids. We had never seen anything like that in Auroville and today it's not like that also. Mother named a number of the orchids, but basically they're all Attachment to the Divine.
When we had different cultures coming, one of the strongest, I would say, was in the buses from France. And the French people were very very strong and united and there are often many, many clashes. The Dutch people were more calm, more mental I would say. The Germans and I had, I worked with a lot of Germans, strong minds, strong wills. And so we had this mixture of, of so many cultures. And I want to go back a little bit to when I was, my father joined the Russian Orthodox Church. I didn't want any part of it at all. I reacted very strongly, but I still had to be re-baptized. What turned me completely around was the music of the church, which is all a cappella, no instruments at all. And it was a music of such beauty, a beauty that was at times transcendent. It's still with me today. It has never left me. And I sometimes play it as an inspiring moment for the Om choir to be uplifted for the next session of the Oms. That, I think, more than anything, determined my work in the Om choirs.
Now, there is a fellow, Paolo Tomasi, an Italian, who Mother wanted to work with Roger, the architect of Auroville. Paolo was an easygoing fellow, not at all like many Italian people, who are very vital, but in a wonderful way. But Roger could not work with him. And at one point, I think it was Satprem, said, ‘they'll work together’. Mother said, ‘Oh, they'll work together?!’. But they never did. Paulo did a series of 12 designs for the gardens of the Matrimandir and they took me away. They were so inspired and he said to me, any changes you want to make, go right ahead. I don't hold any egotistical feeling about these. Purnaprem, Mother's granddaughter, took me to that exhibition at the Matrimandir and many many people were deeply moved. So yes, we had clashes but there were also moments when we would come together in new ways and one of those moments was when Panditji, or Aurobindo Basu, would speak to us about the yoga once a week on a Wednesday night in that little meditation room at the centre Mother called Peace. It brought so many of us together. Also, which I don't believe I mentioned before, Mother gave me the blessing to read Savitri once a week, which I did for 10 years in Auroville, once a week, sometimes at the centre, mostly at the centre and sometimes at the nursery. I believe the power of Savitri healed many surface problems. It just brought that mantric force into the collective consciousness.
[Narad] If you can read Savitri, a couple of lines a day, don't try to understand it, just read it. And you will find that life will change for you, dramatically. Because you will realise after sometime, that you know these lines, that they've spoken to you in an inner way, not just iambic pentameter or uniqueness of phraseology. No, they carry a force, each line carry such a force in it of unification of the higher realms and the highest realms of the mind that eventually you will realise without having to think about them. I can quote you today hundreds and hundreds of lines that I live with every day.
"Even when we fail to look into our souls
Or lie embedded in earthly consciousness,
Still have we parts that grow towards the Light"
How significant is that?
"In moments when the inner lamps are lit
And the life’s cherished guests are left outside,
Our spirit sits alone and speaks to its gulfs.
A wider consciousness opens then its doors;"
Ah!
Please, I get started, I won't stop.
Sraddhalu (0:12:21):
Could you share with us some examples of your own experience where you found a disconnect because of cultural differences and then you learned as a result or just any unusual or experiences like that? There must have been many.
Narad (0:12:56):
There was a young man who worked with me and he was so loving. One of the hardest workers I've ever met. And he would tell me things, "I've ordered a chainsaw, it will come in a few weeks or a month", "I've ordered this, I've ordered that", and everything was a lie. And when it came crashing down on me, I spoke to my friend, Arabinda Basu, and he said it is better not to have an association with people like that who are a bit twisted. I listened to him but I never gave up on this fellow and I found that in the end when we met one day in Thailand he was a transformed being. We went to a place called Nong Nooch, which had this extraordinary botanical collection. And I went into our room one day, and there he was, prostrate before Mother and Sri Aurobindo. And we became so close again and a couple of years later he died on my birthday. These are experiences that never leave us.
[Sraddhalu] Did you ever figure out why he was saying things like that or did he ever change?
[Narad] No, but I know that he finally gave himself as much as he could to Sri Aurobindo and Mother. He went to a Vipassana meditation, I think I mentioned that last time, no? He went to a Vipassana meditation and there was a realised Japanese monk there. And the people were lining up, maybe 100, 200 people lined up. and he comes before this man and the man looks at him and he says, ‘ah, but you are from another nest, but welcome’. And he knew that he belonged to Sri Aurobindo and Mother. What an experience. I also met people in the Plumeria Society, as I mentioned already, a couple of them, who were truly open and loved this plant so much that they shared that love with me and it was transpersonal. I had interesting relationships with one fellow who built a place called Utility. And he was a dynamic warrior. I don't remember where he was from now. But he would work 12, 13 hours a day in that hot sun. And he would bring in new things like the orange papayas, red papayas, delicious things. He would grow them, share them with everyone. The thing that I think most interesting was when we began a kitchen in the nursery because we couldn't live on the rice, the little rice that we got at the centre. And Mother said, yes, you can do it. But she wanted us also to learn from that. And so we had two French guys, one of them still in Auroville, who would do the cooking for us and we would clean and we had a round table where we would all sit, old and young and children, and that was a coming together on another level because to break bread, the idea to break bread was such a sacred thing.
Sraddhalu (0:17:32):
You would have had situations of difference of work ethic.
Narad (0:17:39): Yes, we faced that many times. Many people didn't come to really work. They came to get out what they could from Auroville, and that was a difficult period, because I was, well, one fellow said, you would do the work of 12 people, how do you expect us to do that? And some of them just wanted to read, study, when it was a time for action and time for realisation of opening the earth of Auroville. That was what Mother wanted at that time. She said you have to work six hours a day. That was the minimum. I found that that was nothing.
Sraddhalu (0:18:42): So there was, when the Mother first was working with the ashramites, this was a point of collision all the time where the standard of beauty and perfection that Mother brought and the capacity even for people to recognize and appreciate that beauty and perfection were not matching and it took her a couple of decades to infuse that standard and value and people really grew rapidly. That's one of the kinds of collision you would have faced also? What it means to finish it or to keep it clean or arrange it?
Narad (0:19:20):
I think if I can say it in one word, beauty has been the guiding word of my entire life. Everything we touch should be infused with beauty. Mother has written so much on beauty and if you can read just what she has written on beauty, it will lift you into another area of spiritual experience, because she says beauty in art, beauty in speech, the beauty in the way we move. And the focus of the Matrimandir gardens nursery, in addition to growing the plants that would be used at the Matrimandir, was beauty. Everything had to be beautiful. And that was a challenge in those days, a great challenge, because there was not a lot that was beautiful in those days. The villages were terrible, they were poor and Keith roofs and mud huts.
[Sraddhalu] And you had to work with people who did not recognize what it meant to make things beautiful or to keep them clean. The standards were so different. How did you manage that?
[Narad] Well, you see, we were heavily criticised for growing plants that didn't have any economic value. They weren't vegetables. You couldn't eat them, why are you wasting money and time? But then they understood that their children were getting paid. And so that alleviated the situation a bit. But how to convey the spirit of beauty to others who have not felt it.
[Sraddhalu] Did you succeed?
[Narad] Partially, partially. The flowers themselves are so beautiful in themselves that that was the greatest help to inspire others towards beauty.
[Sraddhalu] And yet I've seen people take flowers and break off stems, stuff them in and here, a bouquet. But there was no connection, there was no appreciation for the form.
[Narad] And we focused on those things, we focused on how to live with flowers, how to grow with flowers, because we were growing also as we were growing the flowers. We were all evolving, in rather rapid ways at times under those difficult conditions. [Sraddhalu] What about punctuality? Punctuality, people coming at different standards of time.
[Narad] Yeah, I was very strict.
[Sraddhalu] And they adapted?
[Narad] They had to. They had to, yeah. They didn't like it at times, but they grew into it eventually. Even now, Ramanathan said the other night to a fellow who came a little late, 'Narad won't tell you this, but I will. You have to be here on time'. And it's good. My friends came 15 minutes early.
[Narad turns to audience present] So I appreciate that very much, that all of you have come on time. Thank you.
Sraddhalu (0:23:19):
One of the examples I had happened again very recently. I was in Europe and we were in a setting where somebody was serving food and they had put a little bit in my plate. They were about to put more and my hand went spontaneously in a gesture of 'no thanks' and immediately it stopped. And I said, oops, something went wrong. In India, I've been served once, they're about to serve a second time, I say, 'no thanks', and they complete the second serving. Okay, so because in India you assume that the other person is going to put an extra anyway and you say 'no thanks' a step in advance. But when I went to Europe and I said no thanks, it stopped right there. And it was one of those very little things which can lead to some discomfort or momentarily you stand back and say what just happened? But you must have experienced all kinds of such occasions where forms of cultural behaviour, communication would be different.
Narad (0:24:20):
But you know many artists came into Auroville in those days. And today there are tea ceremonies held in Auroville. And you know they are very special. And they have to be carried out in a certain way with the elegance and the refinement that the Japanese people have. I worked for many years with a Japanese boy, the only one who was there in Auroville at that time. His name is now Amrit. He took the name Amrit, but his name was Howard Iriyama, and he was one of the greatest helps to me of all, because there was that feeling of the appreciation of beauty, of doing things in the right way, not just rushing through to get something done. And he and Mary Helen and Alan in his way with the orchids, although he had problem with the boys. He was totally devoted to one thing, but he would do the work of the nursery also, if we needed watering. Everyone, whether they had a specific task or area of responsibility, for example, there was an American guy who did the hibiscus. And he loved them as I love, well, you ask what my favourite plant is, flower is, and I say, well, this is it today, tomorrow it may be another one and another one, because I love them all. There's no flower that I don't love. But yet, people took up specific areas. Mary Helen wanted to do the Japanese way, because Mother said the gardens would naturally be in the Japanese way. That refinement, and Mother has named the tree refinement of sensations, another tree refinement of habits, so many refinements. So we had people who concentrated in those areas. And even our oldest lady from Holland, Liska, who was the first one, I think, to pass away in Auroville, she was marvellous. Then friends would come, and this is something that I learned about the generosity of the Indian people. When they saw us doing a work that they perceived as true and valuable, they would donate just like that. And people today donate to our website just like that and it keeps us going with all the interviews we do. And I mean, we're uploading every day of the week, practically. And you've seen so many hundreds of them and still more to come. That openness of the heart was something that I respond to in the Indian psyche. Have you any questions? There must be many.
Audience (0:28:21):
How one can realise that the transformation is taking place in the right path with a human being? How can one realise that? How one can go like that?
Sraddhalu (0:28:32):
What do you mean by transformation?
[Audience] Progress.
Okay, that's different. Progress, then you feel if you are progressing. If you have changed, if you are not the same person.
Audience (0:28:52):
So change is a transformation?
Sraddhalu (0:28:54):
No, that's why I asked you what you mean by transformation.
Audience (0:28:57):
This is what I do not know.
Sraddhalu (0:28:59):
You know, the problem, the reason I am asking is because a lot of people use this word transformation, but what they mean by it is something totally different. I think your question is more along the lines of how do you know you are progressing in the right direction. That's about it.
Audience (0:29:12):
Inner transformation.
Sraddhalu (0:29:15):
What do you mean by transformation?
[Audience] More openness, more understanding.
Sraddhalu (0:29:17):
That you would feel. If you are more open, you would feel, isn't it? In your heart if you are more open, you are more receptive, you feel closeness to the Divine Presence. That you feel. You don't need an external reference for that. Isn't it.
Audience (0:29:26):
But how will I know that it's from the mental level or something like vital?
Sraddhalu (0:29:35):
What does it mean for you that it's mental level or something else? I'm asking you this question because unfortunately people catch these words and then they confuse themselves, oh this is mental, oh that is vital, what do you mean? Does it matter? Do you feel it? I feel it, that's good enough. Is it mental, vital? Why make these distinctions? They mean nothing, they are just ideas or catchwords that someone picks up. So this is the problem, unfortunately, when we read or when we hear people making comments like that. It's mental, so it's bad? No, it's good. Mind is good. It's vital, so it's bad? No, it's good. As long as you are growing in that, you are growing in your vital grade. But again, the difference, are you feeling the difference? If not, these are just words. Recently somebody said, you have a kind of a glossary. I said, okay, there is a glossary of Sri Aurobindo's terms, Sri Aurobindo uses, but he said, no, you have a map of all the different parts of the being. I said, why do you need that? Well, just to understand the big picture of all the different parts. I said, but for what? And if you start reading that, you just get so many different terms and you get all confused. This is mind, this is vital, but you are not relating it experientially and so it's not helping you to think like that, is it mental or is it something else? Very simply, do you feel closeness with the Divine Mother's presence? Yes. Has it increased, let's say, over the last one year? Yes. Great. Is it mental, is it vital, is it psychic? Doesn't matter. Whatever it is, is what it is. Isn't it? So the question even does not have much value unless you don't feel you are growing. Then the question comes, how do I know am I growing? That means you are not growing. But if you feel you have grown, and then you start asking is it mental, vital, it doesn't matter. I have grown, that's all that matters.
You see, generally we are such a complex mix of so many parts, that when there is growth, everything gets pulled along a little bit. So to try to separate it is not even possible and it does not help. The reason why this kind of vocabulary is developed is when Sri Aurobindo goes into certain details to make you conscious of the different kinds of influences which come in, how they work. And that's when he introduces these fine distinctions and he always defines the terms as he goes along. So in my suggestion for the person who asked this question I said don't bother looking at all those words of vocabulary they'll just confuse you because you know there's a physical mind, vital mind, what does it mean? Doesn't matter, forget it. But if while you're reading it, Sri Aurobindo uses these terms, he will define them clearly, there will be a context to it and you will not have these questions. But the terms were created only to make distinctions within the experience. They are not of immediate value when you are working in a general sense of awakening and growth. Isn't it? So I will come back to your question now. Do you want to restate the question? What is the question? Is it how do I know I am growing? or is it that am I going in the right direction or wrong direction? What is your question?
Audience (0:33:19):
So my question was like if the transformation is happening as you clarified it like..how do I know that okay, that's what like if it's like a thought or only a feeling or like maybe it's a mix of both or like or if person to person it's different?
Sraddhalu (0:33:44):
It depends what effort you are making in growth. Are you making any effort to grow?
Audience (0:33:49):
Yes.
Sraddhalu (0:33:51):
What kind of effort?
Audience (0:33:53):
Calling the Mother more often
Sraddhalu (0:33:55):
Ok, so very simply as a reference you are invoking the Mother's presence more often. Do you feel the contact with her presence? yes. Is the contact deepening? Yes. That's it. That's your reference of growth. So I started by asking you, what is the effort you are making? Because somebody else might make a different kind of effort. And his effort might be, I am trying to study and understand more deeply. Then his reference will be easy growing in that line of effort. Someone else may say, I am trying to consecrate the work which I do. Then his reference will be is there deepening of the consecration. In your case it was the contact of the heart's call and closeness felt with the Mother. That's your reference.
[Audience] It can change, right?
It can change, because the focus of your effort might change or there might be a different aspect which will now emerge which will take a greater priority for you. It can take so many different directions. And I will not use the word transformation for any of this. It's all growing in relation to your ideal or in relation to the presence of the Mother, of the Divine. Through whichever gateway is for you the natural opening, through the heart, through the mind, through your work. Typically these are the three broad gateways. Transformation is when you will find your awareness changing in quality in such a way that it, as if becomes of a different grade altogether. That is a later result of the opening. But the first movement is one of opening and deepening of the contact with the Divine. And the question, of course, how do you know? It's in the experience. You don't need an external objective verification for that.
Narad (0:35:51):
Sometimes you may meet people and there's a higher contact and you know it immediately. And that can help you in your growth. I'll give you an example. When my sister passed away, they held a requiem service in this Orthodox Church, and the priest who did the service was one of the finest yogis I've ever met. An Orthodox priest, he was a finest yogi. So these contacts will come when you sometimes least expect them. You know that.
Audience (0:36:34):
You know, I did not expect to come here today. It happened quite unexpectedly.
Sraddhalu (0:36:39):
[An inaudible question from audience] Actually what is happening is in the process of your opening to the Divine Mother's presence and influence and her love, your own consciousness begins to deepen much more, and whatever you grow in yourself, you begin to perceive in others now, much more deeply. When you grow in awareness of your deeper bhakti and faith, you will glimpse that in the people in whom that is there and suddenly you will recognize, oh the person has the same vibration, the same feel, and they become as if now your extended family. Somebody else who may go through a more knowledge aspect in the opening begins to perceive this sense of permanence, this sense of deep, complex play of the Divine wisdom through circumstances. And you begin to see that more and more in life, the way things happen and things fall into place. And he'll recognize that in somebody else, because in him that has deepened, you catch the resonance in someone else. So it's always like that, that our own deepening opens us to the deeper parts of others and we recognize similarities.
Audience (0:38:07):
I had a question from the previous session. So we spoke about the five aspects of the psychic perfection. Let's say courage, faith in the divine. What if, you know, we know that we don't have one aspect as much and you want to build that, maybe just say, I want to be more sincere. And how can I be more sincere? I mean, like if I know that I want to build muscles, I would have to go to the gym. If I have to pass an exam, I have to study, but if I want sincerity, then how can I?
Sraddhalu (0:38:42):
What do you mean by wanting sincerity?
Audience (0:38:44):
You have to be more sincere. So let's just say, that is very, I mean, you would catch on this one, but let's say courage. You want to be fearless. Now how do you be more fearless? How do you have more courage?
[Sraddhalu] Do you feel that you lack it?
[Audience] Yes.
[Sraddhalu] In what way?
[Audience] That would be an experience. I think it is very difficult to put into words. But it would be an experience. Yes. You know because we have fear in many things.
Sraddhalu (0:39:08):
So in what way does it bother you?
[Audience] Well, it's just that if you are fearless, life would be different, it would be more confident.
[Sraddhalu] So what you have is an idea of what it would be like to be fearless, and now you are trying to put yourself into that position.
[Audience] If I just want to rephrase it, I have the experience of this fear or lack of courage, and I want to eliminate that. I don't think the idea is more on the exemption side.
[Sraddhalu] So in which space, in which activity of life do you find that appearing?
Audience (0:39:45):
In life on average? If you want an example..
Sraddhalu (0:39:47):
No, example, you give your experience because we have to take a real case. There's no point talking about someone else's experience.
Audience (0:39:54):
Even sincerity etc. You want to be, you've taken up a task to listen to each other every day in the morning. And it's just 10 minutes in the morning. But that also if you can't do for a month, then somewhere you lack sincerity.
Sraddhalu (0:40:08):
I don't think so. I think you lack persistence. Is that the word? Endurance, perseverance?
[Audience] Whatever you want to say, obviously I give up.
[Sraddhalu] But it's not lack of sincerity. The very fact that you are saying that I feel bad that I can't do it, that's a form of your sincerity, you are recognizing something. Insincerity will be when you say, oh, no, I'm doing it, or I don't need to do it, or you're deceiving yourself. That's a different story. So you don't lack sincerity at all. The reason I'm counter-questioning you, rather than answering you, your question, is because what I recognize is this is a kind of a false approach to trying to fix something based on an idea of what it should be, rather than flowing with what you have and growing organically the way a plant or a flower would bloom. So you need a word, ah sincerity. I don't have sincerity. How do I grow? But you have not recognized that the very question is coming from a voice of sincerity. And that's when I asked you specifics, it went to not a problem of sincerity but of persistence. And that's a human problem. Everybody has the inertia that gets you to flag after a while, after having made effort enthusiastically for a few days, you begin to kind of get lazy and then it becomes harder to make the effort. That's normal to all of us. And what you need is not lack of sincerity, correction of sincerity, but being able to push to do a little more or find ways to strengthen the willpower maybe.
Audience (0:41:40):
Okay, then I'll go back to the previous example. Let's take courage. Let's go to, say, fear. Now fear is something you experience. It's like maybe it's something which is inherent. Sometimes you get afraid of a situation. You're certainly afraid when there's a flight. You know, there's turbulent weather. And it's not like I don't have faith in the Mother. I do. You know, you close your eyes to that narrative, it's really turbulent. Is that lack of courage or can you build something out? You know, can you say that I want to feel the element of fear in me, if it says, if one decides to count up to 100, can I bring it down?
Sraddhalu (0:42:15):
So, let's take the example you have said of feeling fear when there is turbulence in a flight. Yeah. Okay, the plane is shaking, you feel fear. Yeah. Show me one person in the whole plane who doesn't experience fear. Yeah. Okay. It's a very human response. Then what do you do with it? That's your choice. So, even there, if you fly every day and you experience that turbulence every day, after a while you finally notice it, you go back to sleep. You wake up, oh, it's bumping, you go back to sleep. Have you become fearless? Have you grown in courage? No. You just got adapted. You habituated to something which was too new in the beginning. So even here, I don't see a problem of courage.
Audience (0:43:02):
Is that lack of course in defining the question?
Sraddhalu (0:43:09):
<laughter>
The reason why I'm kind of deconstructing the example is in fact a lot of people come up with this kind of self-criticism. They see all kinds of lacks in themselves and this is a very human thing and it's very prevalent today because somehow today's lifestyle and today's education and the media is putting before us certain false ideals and unrealistic expectations. And we all find ourselves inadequate in front of those. But if you begin to truly introspect and look at what it is that's happening, you'll find you don't have any big problem. You have a very sincere openness and sense of direction and purpose and priority in your life. And you have been persisting in what you have been doing. You have a great sense of persistence. The work you have taken up, the kind of challenges you have taken up in your work, in your business, involved courageous steps, isn't it? You took a leap, which involved a leap of faith. Faith in yourself, maybe, in life, in the Divine, whatever form it took, you took it courageously to start something which you have no surety if it will succeed or fail. So all those elements are there already within you. What do you lack? In the sense that every one of us can grow in all these directions, yes, we all can grow. But do you have any major lack really? No. All you need to do is let it grow, the way a plant grows. And in all these things which you have, which you do, bring in the sense of closeness or deepening of the closeness with the Divine. You already have the sense of the Divine, or the connection with the Divine, except we pay attention to it only at a special duration, evening, morning, we sit for prayer, we feel something or not. Sometimes we feel more, sometimes less. It doesn't matter. So as a simple thing, practice. On a very practical level, deepen that contact once in the morning, once in the evening. Set your own time, put it in your own routine. Fix these two. Anchor the point of contact. And even if it's for a short time, five minutes, you don't have time, one minute. If you don't have even one minute, do it for 15 seconds with full concentration, but with full attention. Let nothing else exist except that concentration. How you do it? If it helps you to speak the name, speak the name. If it helps you to repeat a mantra, do that. If you'd rather listen in silence and feel in silence, do that. For some, the feeling through the heart's love for the Divine is the gateway. Or for some, it is the feel of the love of the Divine Mother for you. That's the link point. For some, it will be the mind's perception that everywhere here is filled with the Divine Presence. And you picture that, you visualise that, and through the picturing, you begin to feel it. Or you think of it that all the energy which forms all the atoms, which form the whole universe is nothing but the Divine Mother's energy. And it's inside your body, inside your atoms, inside your cells, inside your brain, and inside your chest. And through that idea of it, you begin to feel the immanence of the Divine Presence and the love, or in some it will be, I offer this flower, and I offer myself as I offer this flower. It will be a gesture or an action in which you make that contact.
Whatever way in which you are able to do it, for five seconds, ten seconds, if it extends, you feel so good being immersed in it, it will extend for a few minutes. Someone may take formally an exercise of closing eyes and concentrating to deepen that, whatever form works for you, give it its full, with even a short concentration, once in the beginning, once at the end. And then, something will happen automatically. And when it starts happening automatically, you can encourage it. That during the day, there will be moments when you will feel, when you will remember. And if you begin to enjoy that, then you begin to encourage it a little more. And one simple exercise you can do with the telephone is you set the timer to beep once every hour. And every time that it beeps, you briefly remember, reconnect, and if at that moment you can open yourself and offer consciously, in the manner that is for you the most natural. Well, that's your gateway. That's your point of brief contact. Again, it may be two seconds. I am in the middle of a conversation and the thing beeps, momentarily I feel the presence, I remember, connect. And I may not break the concentration at all. Or if I have the luxury, I may pause it, close my eyes, concentrate, or if I need an external contact, an image or form of the Mother or I may bye-pass all forms and again feel the immanence of the presence which is formless, infinite and eternal, whatever the form again, make that brief contact. And gradually those frequent points of contact will begin to suffuse your life like a perfume. You will feel the presence like a perfume filling everything. That's the way most naturally everything that you are will begin to grow in closeness and communion with the Divine. As a result, automatically you will find the sense of trust that you are helped, that you are protected, you are carried, that will grow. The sense of courage, because now you find you don't have much to fear when the Divine is everywhere and the Divine is so close to you. You do what you have to do without worrying, without fear. The sense of fear will begin to fade of its own, etc. So what I would suggest is you take a more broad approach in which you cease to criticise yourself, rather concentrate on your strengths and let them grow. And as they grow, they will fill whatever gaps of weakness are there. I don't think many of us can say that we have a serious lacunae anywhere in our personality and whatever is there is majorly complemented by strength. So start by expanding the part of strength which then fills the gaps of the weaknesses without focusing on them too much.
Narad (0:50:01):
And I feel that when one does this concentration on a regular basis, Sri Aurobindo humorously says if you can do it in the morning and then in the evening and maybe sometimes in the afternoon, it begins to repeat itself and you begin to hear yourself saying these prayers or calling the Mother. I see a lot of people saying, 'yes. It's true'. It's very true that you started with the system, this hour, this moment, this moment, and then suddenly the system is gone and something in you, let's call it the soul or the automatically calling and sometimes you even wonder, oh, it's calling again.
Audience (0:50:55):
Sri Aurobindo gave that simple form of aspiration, rejection, surrender. So if he was fighting to aspire for courage, he can reject the fear and then he can just surrender, which is what he was describing as communion. I have this specific question, you (Narad) said that Mother wanted the gardens to be done in a Japanese way. So I wanted to ask, what is your understanding of what she meant, and what do you think about what has been done in relation to that? Do you think it's being done that way?
Narad (0:51:22):
Okay, that's a very loaded question. I'll answer it as clearly as I can. Having been to Japan at different times and have met the gardeners and horticulturists and have seen their gardens, I now have a very clear feeling of what is to be. It is not there yet in any way at all. What Mother said to me, and I've quoted that before, and I'll quote it again for everyone here, "it must be a thing of great beauty, of such a beauty that when men enter they will say, 'ah, this is it'. And they will experience physically and concretely the significance of each garden. In the garden of youth, they will know youth. In the garden of bliss, they will know bliss". And then Mother raised her hand in a spiral and she said, "one must know how to move from consciousness to consciousness". And in answer to Mary Helen's question, Mother said, "Naturally, it would be in the Japanese way". And interestingly, the Japanese way is not too many flowers. In fact, Mother writes to Huta and says to Huta, I have seen the garden and there are beautiful trees and many types of palms and some flowers but not too many.
For example, there's a wonderful story of the Japanese master gardener who has an apprentice for 40 years and never lets the apprentice take care of the garden. And one day he falls ill and he says to the apprentice, today you can do the garden. And the apprentice does it, and it's absolutely perfect. It could not be more perfect. Everything is in its place that should be. And the master gets out of office, cot, and looks in the garden and smiles. And he goes over to a maple tree, and he shakes it and leaves all the coloured leaves fall on the ground. There is such a lesson in that. Such a lesson. And the sense the Japanese have of eternity and the garden expressing that eternity in stone, in gravel, in sand, in wood, and then in bursts of colour at certain moments. For example, there is the wisteria, which is a strong creeper that can only be grown on a trellis or a strong overhead platform. Mother named it Poet's Ecstasy. It may bloom only for two weeks, and then it's gone for the rest of the year. And then an azalea comes into bloom, bursts of bloom like that, or a maple at the end of the season when the weather becomes cool, and you have that. So it is not always a constant sequence of colour and change of colour, although that too is possible. Because in the gardens of the future, when we can enter and we can know what bliss truly is, how would we want to leave that garden? How would we want to leave the garden of love, of felicity, of perfection? And Mother named all of these gardens in such a way that we begin with Sat-Chit-Ananda, existence, consciousness, bliss, and we end with perfection. And then we go again to sat-chit-ananda. It will never end. The evolution will continue on, except that there will be more and more beauty, more and more love, more and more joy. And we all have that to look forward to. And it doesn't matter how many lives we have to live. Why else are we all here!
Sraddhalu (0:57:06):
We will end with that. Thank you, Narad.
Narad (0:57:08):
Thank you. It is always for me such a great honour to be with Sraddhalu. He has the Divine knowledge flowing through him. He does not have to prepare any talks. It comes directly. And for me, that's one of the greatest blessings.
Sraddhalu (0:57:36):
Thank you.
Namaste.
Narad (0:57:40):
Namaste to you all.