EWS #60 Questions from viewers (11)
Dec 25, 2019
Topics:
Narad (0:01:01)
Namaste and welcome to our continuing series, Evenings with Sraddhalu. We were going to pick up from last time with a question that was asked about the concern of 7 billion people on this planet and could the planet sustain?
Sraddhalu (0:01:29):
Okay. Yes. Our current economy is so unbalanced that it seems as if we always have an insufficiency, financially, food-wise and all other resources. But if you go back to human beings living in reasonable comfort, let's say a hundred years ago, with what they had then, and the wealthy ones at that time, many of them were poorer than our poorer ones today. And yet they were considered wealthy, comfortable and happy. Today we have much more in terms of materials. Yet you are called poor and you are unhappy or uncomfortable. And so one has to question why that is. A lot of this goes back to the current framework of economy which is designed on an artificial insufficiency. You create an impression as if there is not enough and then you create a scramble where everybody tries to grab what is left and then you dole out in little bits at a high price and this is how you justify the high price. I give an example here with oil. If you go back to the 1970s, the oil prices shot up because you were told that oil was a limited commodity and that it was almost finishing. So it justified raising prices. And then every 10 years or so, you kept getting these statements that we're going to hit peak oil. And the date of peak oil was, let's say, 1990 initially. Then it became around 2000, then it was around 2010, at some point they said we've already crossed peak oil and each time it was used to justify raising prices, except that on the other side, conveniently, you discovered more oil, you discovered more wells, as if you didn't know they were there, and so you've never reached peak oil, you've never reached a point where you can say there is no oil. In fact, the US today is the world's largest oil exporter, when at one point it was Saudi Arabia which was the biggest exporter and the US actually is controlling prices where earlier Saudi Arabia was controlling. So if you look at all this, it might make you suspect, and I will tend you in that direction, that a lot of this lack and even the timing of peak oil has been artificially created to justify the raised prices. Equally on the other side they kept saying not enough food, not enough water and somehow even as the population is nearly doubled, we still end up with enough food and enough water except they are poisoned which is the bigger issue. So somewhere along the way we have to question whether the model being given to us of the economy and the viability of population is correct. In fact, if you apply the basic values and lifestyles of a hundred years ago, the earth is capable of sustaining even twice the population that we have today without destroying everything. And this is the interesting thing. Today with less population we are destroying much more simply out of ignorance, greed and lack of concern. If we can correct for that, if for every step we take, we are also giving back, so if we cut a tree, we plant a few more. If we extract oil, then we make sure that the plastics or the other products are reused or recycled. If we take out metals, again metals are reused or recycled, we can actually sustain double the population of today and comfortably and without people scrambling.
Narad (0:05:24):
How much has planned obsolescence affected the world?
Sraddhalu (0:05:27):
That's part of the problem. When your mobile phones are designed to fail as an electronic, piece of electronics that are designed to fail within five years, but that didn't keep the companies rich enough, so they make you obsolete by software. They keep upgrading software, and Apple had this game which has been going on now since the first Apple mobile, that every time they upgraded the operating system, they would insert a command that slowed down models and for 10 years they were openly and brazenly denying that they did that when people had the evidence and you had the biggest names of Apple supporters and reviewers standing for Apple as a company saying, ‘oh it's all your imagination, it's not true’, until recently. And this was barely last year that somebody did a test and demonstrated it on YouTube in a manner that nobody could doubt. And so they were forced to accept, yes, they've been doing it, but they did it for your own good to save your battery. So when you think about what's really happening behind the scenes, through the software they force you to make, they force the device to become obsolete and force you to upgrade, and just so that the money keeps rolling in, in the companies. If instead the development model was that you create a product that is guaranteed to last five years or ten years, and it's easily doable, and even make it viable to upgrade in software for the next five or ten years, and leave it to people to say, okay, I think I need something which is more efficient, the simplest mobile phone today is already good enough to do all the work that we are doing. You do not need those fancy models. So if you follow the model like that, you could easily reduce the unnecessary production to a tenth of what we are doing today, reduce proportionally the wastage. Old models can be re-recycled or reused with some change of certain elements, you replace the motherboard or screen. There are many ways to do that or you pass it on to others who cannot afford the more expensive versions. With that we would reduce production drastically. With that there will be a whole chain of mining being reduced, the poisons dumped into the soil and water from the mining and post processing of mining which should be reduced and all the rest. I once read, it was a description by somebody who claimed to have had a visit to another planet. But the way he described the lifestyle there, for me that was a reference for human beings, he said, in the production there, anything that was made, they would think in terms of the next 1000 years. Anything you make should last a 1000 years. Think about what that means, just as a value. Okay, you can't do 1000, let's do 100. And if you start thinking in those terms, how much of unnecessary waste takes place. I give an example just today because we had a tap which was being which is being repaired. So it's an old tap, old meaning 3, 4, 5 years and the plumber says, sorry you have to replace the tap. Why? Because the part which blocks the water is not smoothly blocking the water and the water leaks. Why would you do that? Why can't you replace that part? Why can't you make it such that you don't need to replace it? The entire tap with all the metal would be taken out and thrown in scrap. It's not going to be reused, the metal is not going to be remelted. If you look at the cost involved in producing that tap, actual cost, not what you pay, which is a subsidized cost. Actual cost of the labor of the number of people who dug out the soil to extract the iron and then melted, purified, processed, transported, all that cost. You wouldn't be able to afford the tap. It's all subsidized, that's the way the economy is warped. And the result is you have to have extremely poor people in Africa who do the mining and who are risking their lives every day so that you can afford to buy this tap. But if you brought in actual costs, paid them what you pay people in your country who work the same effort, and then the cost of metal goes up, raw material goes up, metal goes up, your tap will cost more and you design it to last a hundred years. That would be a reasonable economy.
Narad (0:10:07):
My father used to tell me incessantly that there were a hundred year tires that were made in his day.
Sraddhalu (0:10:15)
Exactly.
Narad (0:10:16)
Guaranteed to last a hundred years!
Sraddhalu (0:10:18):
You'll be surprised, there's a refrigerator in the ashram main building which was acquired, I believe, in the 1950s. It was a post-second world war or during second world war refrigerator. It still works. And think of what that means today, yes and so many other things. Even the fan in Sri Aurobindo's room goes back whatever 70 or 80 years, it's still working fine and it's possible to make them like that.
Narad (0:10:52):
So now since we're on this subject we have a question from our friend Juan, who is translating our series into Spanish. So he says that we are in a climate emergency. The environment is being devastated. On the other hand, I have a strong faith in Sri Aurobindo and Mother, who assured us that the Supramental change will succeed. But I feel so pessimistic when I look at what's happening. I guess I'm trying to find the correct yogic attitude towards this issue. How can I find it?
Sraddhalu (0:11:32):
So I would, climate emergency is the way it's being projected publicly, I would restate that as an environmental emergency.
Narad (0:11:42):
It used to be called global warming. Then they softened it to climate change.
Sraddhalu (0:11:48)
Right. Well, even because warming was not enabled as a statement. What was happening was places were becoming colder, places were becoming warmer, so climate change became a more generic description. But even that to me is not a big deal. I think we've mentioned it before in another discussion, but the bigger issue is the poisoning of the environment, destruction of life, and from the microbiome in the soil, water and air, all the way through all the levels of life forms that, and the cutting of the trees.
Narad (0:12:16):
Yes, if I can repeat that (from the question). ‘When I say the environmental emergency, I mean also the toxic chemicals in our food, the lack of water which in India even in Auroville is starting to be a problem, pollution and so on. That's what sometimes makes me sad or angry.’
Sraddhalu (0:12:36):
Yes and certainly it deserves the most extreme let's say concern. Sadness and anger would be a reaction but again to distinguish; the rise of carbon dioxide is not a problem, change of temperature is not a problem, because the earth as a whole is able to correct for these very easily. All the earth needs to do is explode one volcano and the dust that it will throw in the upper atmosphere is enough to block the sunlight and create what is called a nuclear winter. The earth would cool down, you will have frozen rivers and ice all over the place. And one volcano is enough to do that. So, earth can easily correct for the temperatures and she can do it other ways. The ocean itself is absorbing the carbon dioxide at a far more rapid pace than the models projected. The models were all defective. If you look at, and again this is shocking when you look at it this way. 1970 they declared that the earth was heading for a major global winter, 1970. 1980 they said we're heading for a climate crisis is going to be too hot. 1990 they said in 10 years life will not be tenable. 2000 if you remember who was the presidential candidate? Al Gore, yes. Review what he said in 1997 or 98 was it? He became famous, he won his Nobel Prize, he did a presentation on that, which said that in 10 years the temperatures will rise so high, the life will not be sustainable etc. Review that and we are 20 years down, nothing of the kind has happened. And again we are being told in 10 years everything will be destroyed. No, that's not true. Every time that it has not happened, they have re-tweaked their models and then say, okay, now we know why it didn't happen, but now it's going to happen. So nature has her own ways of correcting for these things. So carbon dioxide is not a problem, temperature is not a problem.
What is a problem is the destruction of life forms and the poisoning of the environment. [Narad] Especially the oceans.
[Sraddhalu] The oceans, the air, the water, the soil, the rivers, everything. And the dying of the rivers, the water table sinking. You see the trees depended on the ability to go down 6 feet to 10 feet to get water. And it was so for the last millions of years. Only in the last 50 years the water table in all cities has gone below whatever 100 feet, 150 feet and the trees cannot get water from below. So earlier during the extreme of summer, the trees could continue to get water from below, now they cannot and they start dying. So these are the more serious elements. In Pondicherry, the sea water is coming in because we have been pumping out ground water but not allowing the rains to seep in. So all of these really are the core of the real threat and certainly you have good reason to be afraid or to be angry but that's not going to help. What can we do about it? And it starts with us taking small steps. Up there at the top of the system, you do not have access. You cannot change things there. The methods being projected today where a young girl stands up in the UN and abuses the politicians. It's celebrated, but what does she know? What is she talking about? She's only repeating what her parents have told her. For students to not go to school and to go on a strike every Friday is ridiculous. It does not change, it makes a lot of noise, and if you see their messages, do something, and then the same politicians who are doing nothing so far will say, all right, we're going to do something and we will tax you another 10%. And you'll keep quiet because you asked them to do something. So it does not help to just make noise. We will have to be more strategic. And for that, we have to also understand why the system is not correcting for this. The economy is built on death and destruction. I'll state it in this way. Maybe we have discussed this before at some point, but in this context I will repeat. If you have trees on your property, on your balance books, they will appear as a liability, because you have to water them, you have to look after them, you have to trim them, they could catch fire, they could die, they could get pest, it's a liability.
Audience (0:17:10):
Fall on the house?
Sraddhalu (0:17:11):
Fall on somebody, you get insurance for that. But if you cut the trees and now it's dead wood, timber, it's called timber now, that's an asset on your balance sheet. So when an economic system and a system of measuring the economy values death more than life, considers life a liability, well you will end up pushing everything towards destruction and death. For this you have to go back a couple of steps and review the framework on which the economy is built. And the problem is we as consumers are bound in this warped system where we don't seem to have a choice. I would like to separate my batteries for example, which I know have dangerous chemicals. I don't want them to be thrown out. I want to separate them and have someone do something about it, but I don't have the means. If someone organises such a means, all they do is they collect the batteries and then what happens later? Do they actually do what they will promise? I don't know. They will sell it off, maybe they extract the metal and I know what they have done generally. They take out the metal sheet from the battery, which they will melt or reuse. The chemicals inside will just be thrown into the soil, in landfill and it will go into the water table.
Narad (0:18:29):
I have seen in America a very forward-looking gentleman who was manager of a series of supermarkets and he had bags for everything, compostable, recyclable, everything. It turns out that everything was thrown into the landfill!
Sraddhalu (0:18:51)
<laughs> You make all the changes you can in your life but what happens on the next step if it's not actually implemented but at the very least it's a good thing that you make those changes but it's not changing the system and the system needs a much more deep-rooted shift and it's not in your hands. That's the problem, that's why we are frustrated, that's why we are justified in being upset or angry or feeling helpless. Nevertheless, start reducing and start reusing. Just these two. Recycling doesn't work. I remember in the US, they had a waste bin. They just changed the label on it and called it, recycle bin. That's all. Everyone was very happy. Now we are recycling. Was it actually recycled? No, it was still going into the landfill. Reuse and reduce. These are things which are in your hands.
Narad (0:19:45):
There are some good things happening in Auroville with waste collection and they have zero tolerance and they are doing things where nothing goes into the landfill anymore. It's a good step forward.
Sraddhalu (0:19:55):
Yes, yes. And I think I mentioned a community in China that I recently came to know of, where they were able to reduce their waste on the village level to one-tenth. Where the trucks used to come every day to take out the waste, it's now coming once in ten days, and all the rest is compostable or reusable, etc. But we have to start here, but recognising that what is broken at the level of the system, which is multiple levels above you, is not in your hands and yet you have to keep putting pressure for that to change. But you can't just say do something and expect them to do what is right. And it will require a deeper thought and even a public discourse of what's the correction we have to make. And because everything is designed around short-term profit, you cannot tell people now to forego short term profit for long-term conservation. Because the system is designed to scramble and compete. So if one person starts doing that, he'll just be eliminated. You will need to have laws which will compel this long-term perspective, and laws which will give greater value to life than to death, and so on. It means changing the value system at the base of the whole economy.
[Narad] Are there any world leaders capable of this?
[Sraddhalu] There are people who are capable of this, but currently though they are in a very large minority and they are themselves fighting the system and the pushback from the system. What is possible within our space is to live in smaller communities as in Auroville or or create local spaces where you disengage from that value system as far as possible. You can never do it completely. But within the portion that you have disengaged, you can reduce, reuse and not waste. And these are the steps forward. That's why you have to think about why Mother spoke of Auroville as a model township for the future. Because the model for the future humanity will be small communities. And Auroville itself as a community is quite big, is made up of smaller communities which are largely independent from the main community itself. So this is the model for the future. You will not have the kinds of cities where we have everything flattened out. Within the city itself, you will find local smaller community patches and things will be much more local. Your commuting will be from where you live to where you work will be in a small local space and not across the whole city.
[Narad] What about the galaxy design of orbit? I know that's a little dangerous to speak of, but does it work?
[Sraddhalu] I don't know enough about the shape of the galaxy. You know a lot of architects make designs looking at the product from above because it is drawn on a sheet of paper. But when you live in the city, you don't look at it from above, you look at it from inside and whether it's shaped galaxy or not you will not notice at all. It looks pretty on the map; it may or may not have value on the ground level. So maybe it has value, maybe not, maybe it has a nominal value. What is more important is at the ground level how places, workspaces and resources are related, so that they are practically accessible.
Narad (0:23:28):
I've got two more things that come to me. One is marine biologists and scientists are doing tremendous amount of work trying to reclaim the dead coral areas. But on the other hand we have an emphasis on coal-burning plants in the US.
Sraddhalu (0:23:50):
Yes. This is a more complex problem when, let's say about 10 years ago, a series of regulations were passed in the US to shut down the coal plants and there were environmental regulations, which basically not only shut the coal mining coal plants but also as a result the steel industry. The result was all this got outsourced to China, which had now to further mine and develop its own industries replacing the US industries. If you look at the overall earth, nothing changed. You still had the same coal mined in a different place, the same steel made in a different place, the same pollution elsewhere, but does it really make a difference? In fact, something did change, it became worse because China's coal had higher levels of sulphur and other toxins, whereas the US coal was cleaner. So if you look at the earth as a whole, it was better for the US to continue its coal plants and its steel manufacturing than to outsource to China. The result also was that China created steel which was of a lower grade, which was exported to the US, labelled as higher grade. But when it was put under stress, it broke down. So there were a few incidents where bridges made from Chinese steel actually just collapsed, a new bridge just collapsed and a lot of the steel which was used for aircraft and military equipment would break under pressure. And what happened in the last four years is under the new administration in the US, they revived the local coal plants and the local steel industry so many people made a big sound about it saying that you're bringing back pollution in the environment.
If you look at the earth as a whole again I say it has changed nothing. Perhaps it has even improved things but what it did for the US which is a more serious matter, it allowed the indigenous coal industry to supply the indigenous steel industry and you cannot make steel without coal. This is one of the things we have to recognize which makes for a higher standard of steel for their internal use which they were not getting from China. So here are issues which where environmental priorities collide with human, I will not use survival, but human civilizational priorities. You need steel. So much of our current infrastructure, bridges, planes, cars, all of these use steel. And even if today we say car is a luxury in some parts of the world, a scooter is not a luxury, that's still made from steel, a bicycle is not a luxury that is still made from steel. So you have to recognize the necessity for each country to have its own internal resources and even an independence of some of these resources. Now a small island country like Sri Lanka cannot produce steel. It has neither the coal nor the iron mines. But India can. And if India does, we have to minimise the pollution of environment, but we cannot kill the industry and outsource it to China and say now the earth is better off. No, it's not. So one has to look at some of these problems from a larger perspective and we are all doable that is we can reduce the wastage, we can reduce the poisoning and even eliminate it entirely.
Sraddhalu (0:27:23):
If you go back to India barely 500 years ago India was the world's largest exporter of steel. Going back 250 years ago, not even 500, Indian steel was prized all over the world. We had 10,000 steel making units distributed all over India and nobody complained about pollution then. There was no environmental degradation of any kind. Entire process was made in many decentralised local spaces which allowed them also to compete and develop specialisations and competence, but nothing was wasted, everything was reused in a manner that was healthy and sustainable. If you take that manner of making steel maybe today it might not be as efficient because in a big industry you can process a few tons at a time whereas in these decentralised steelmaking units it was a few kilos at a time. But still the same principle could be applied in the largest steel manufacturing plant. But this requires changes at the government level, that we should be able to say any industry should be such that its input and its output should be matched in such a way that there is no poison put out. EVery chemical that you have taken as an input should be processed in a way that it becomes biodegradable and not poisonous to life. There are ways to do it, but it should be part of the cost of the manufacture. And this can only be done by law. As long as the economy rewards you for dumping chemical waste in the ground water, it will continue to happen. You have to penalise that and you have to reward the processing of the chemical.
Narad (0:29:18):
So we still have the Ganges being polluted?
Sraddhalu (0:29:23):
Yes, we still have that, although reduced. It's interesting that in the last four years, so much money has been spent to make the Ganga less polluted or other rivers. And they will tell you, yes, there is a result. I'm sure there is some result, but it has not been brought to a point where it is completely free of the chemical poisons and of course other elements of waste. It has not been possible and for a reason which is difficult to understand, when you go at the ground level, everybody who has their local industries there including tanneries which were dumping all their waste in the gun. They're the worst. What do you do with them? Unless you provide for some way of processing that waste from the tannery, it's not going to happen. And the government can't be taking responsibility for that at every stage either. But somewhere you'll have to start with change of these. There was a World Bank report, 1997, I believe, where the head of the World Bank actually wrote, it was a memo, that the first world is sufficiently poisoned and now we need to transfer all these poison making industries to the third world. And they transferred the technology or the World Bank gave special loans to India to develop tanneries and leather products. That was one of their objectives. And so suddenly the poisoning which was happening in Europe shifted to India. But somewhere along the way we have to question whether a reasonable approach to economy and the government of India then the politicians are directly responsible. Can they be penalised for accepting a bribe that transferred poisonous industry to India. It is easier to bribe a politician to bypass systems, even to corrupt systems. But when we discover that someone was bribed for this purpose, can they be held accountable? At that point you're hitting the machinery of politics, which is just a group of people who are looking after each other, allowing each other, scratch each other's back to remain corrupt. And even if you have a small group as you find that happening in India and some other countries today, who are opposed to this and are trying to change, the pushback is so hard. That's the struggle we are going through all over the world. A few good people and this mass of corruption which are in conflict. But if this good can push back and survive, we can change all these laws. We can make everything sustainable. But then you have people pushing back. If people are told that all your products are going to become 50% more expensive, but they will last twice as long or 10 times as long, will you accept? And so it's one of those very difficult transitions in evolution where people want this feat of products to feel that they have an abundance, having passed through a period of struggle and insufficiency. But then after that you have to control the abundance and bring a balance where there is not excessive waste. Or the waste is now penalised. We are at that transition. Can we do it? But in the public discourse, the direction of discourse has not yet gone in this direction. It is still about nominal and superficial corrections and they are easily done for appearances sake, but they don't change things.
Narad (0:32:52):
And there's a lot of indoctrination towards using things you don't need. There is so much waste.
Sraddhalu (0:33:00):
Exactly. Yes. The system is designed to make you buy more.
Narad (0:33:03):
Exactly.
Sraddhalu (0:33:04):
If you remember when the 9-11 attacks took place, what was the first response of the US President Bush? He said, go shopping. It was necessary. It's seen as frivolous but it was a serious thing. Go shopping otherwise your economy is going to fall. And that means what? In the US, 99% of things purchased by an American are thrown within six months as waste. It's the highest and most wasteful society in the whole world. But he needed that to keep the current economy, fake, false economy going. And if you change that, there's going to be sudden collapse and nobody wants that sudden collapse. So you have to make a smooth transition and yet you have to start making it and if you don't make it, it's not going to happen.
In India, for example, certain very important steps were taken. Demonetization was a big step to remove corruption. A lot of people are upset and they are all the people who were corrupt, who are upset about it. But the system rewarded corruption earlier. After this, suddenly the corruption is no more rewarded, at least not so easily. It's still happening, but it's much more difficult. And there are other similar steps being taken. But you will have to pass through a passage which will involve a graded transition. In India, the income tax rate used to be 30% for companies, which has just recently brought down to 25. It looks like a big step. Compared to the colonial rule and the British where they had 90% taxation. So coming to 30% from that is a big step. It used to be 50% if you go back 20 years. So coming to 25% is a big step. But none of these are sustainable. It will have to go down to something like 2 or 3%. And it's doable today. And it's enough to keep the government going because that's what you need the taxation for. And it's doable. There is even another model which is to remove all taxes except transaction tax. Any transaction is taxed at 0.5 percent. The value is so small, nobody is going to bother about it. But you are taxing all transactions made everywhere. The result is you will actually earn more than what you are doing through income tax, where people are forced to try to hide or bury the actual inflow of funds because you don't want to give it up too easily in tax just to survive. There are many companies, many industries where 25% taxation is more than their profit margin. So they can't survive unless they do something on the side. And all this has to change. Exactly.
Narad (0:35:55):
25% is above most companies' profit. Well, we have a question before we get into another major section from a young lady who has...
Sraddhalu (0:36:05):
So just to summarize on this question, humanity in its current lifestyle, values and systems is unsustainable. If we can correct for these and rationalise them and it doesn't need any great spiritual change for that, just a rational change with our current intelligence and current capability, we can easily survive, we can easily be in abundance with no sense of lack for anybody in food and other basic requirements and in education and entertainment and everything else and even sustain a population which is double our current population without destroying the environment. All doable. But we have to start taking small steps in that direction.
Narad (0:36:50):
Thank you. So this is a brief question from a young person who wants to know, are cell phones dangerous to use at night because of radioactivity?
Sraddhalu (0:37:10):
Because of radiation, generally. So I think we discussed this a couple of days, a few sessions ago? Yes, we did. In detail. So we'll skip that.
Narad (0:37:19):
Okay. So, this is from a gentleman who has sent a lot of questions. First three questions are based on sleep. 1. How can sleep help us in our sadhana to progress or in our growth of consciousness? 2. Could you please tell us a routine practice to be done before going to sleep, which would help us? a. Increase the quality of sleep, b. improve our health. c. Give complete rest to all parts of the being, mental, vital and physical. 3. Also can we apply the same practice to our afternoon nap, to make the most from our afternoon rest from Sadhana's perspective.
Sraddhalu (0:38:07):
You'll find the mother has given some detailed guidance on how to go to sleep and the basic practice she recommends is to relax the whole body and make the whole body become as if a rag, like a cloth, go completely limp and the physical relaxation followed by a relaxation of your energies and the relaxation of your mind would be the best state through which to enter. After that, so far it would be just for good quality of sleep. If you want to bring into it an element of the sadhana, then as you slide into sleep, if you can centre yourself in your deepest or highest aspiration or in the sense of closeness or communion with the Divine presence in whatever way you find most easy and if you can hold that state and then slide into sleep then something of that closeness and communion continues through the night and you wake up continuing with it. The key to sleep being restful and rejuvenating is the state in which you enter sleep. That determines the quality of sleep. It also determines the state in which you emerge from sleep. If you go to sleep tired, you will wake up tired. If you go to sleep excited or agitated, you will wake up excited and agitated with the sleep itself being disturbed. So several things I would recommend. First look at the food you eat before you go to sleep. Keep at least two hours gap between this last dinner and your sleep. If you can, start dimming all the lights. Switch to yellow lights from the time the sun has set and then start winding down. Read something which centres you in your aspiration. Reading from Savitri is an excellent way, but things which don't leave you stimulated or agitated, certainly stop television at least an hour before sleeping if you can. And then from there you slide into, you slow down and then you go do your relaxation and slide into sleep with your aspiration.
If you wake up in the middle of the night, avoid exposure to light. Do not switch on the light because it immediately cuts off the production of the melatonin and serotonin signals which are rejuvenating for the cells. And if you can maintain this state as you wake up in the morning, you will wake up not only more fresh but also centred in your aspiration. The result will be the night will not be wasted and will not be sunk into a subconscious state but will become a part of your overall sadhana and be a sustaining influence for the spiritual closeness to the Divine. And all of these do not require any special effort but they do require persistence. Most people try once or twice and then they slip into their normal routine. Generally when you are sleepy or already tired and to make any effort to centre yourself is difficult. If that's the case, then centre yourself well before you get tired. And then from there you slide into your sleep.
Narad (0:41:29):
Could you say a little more about the yellow lights? Why yellow?
Sraddhalu (0:41:35):
Because white light, and especially the blue component of white light from tube lights or bulbs even LED bulbs, triggers the third eye, the pineal gland, to think that it's daytime and so it sends the hormonal signals to the body suitable for the daytime. When in fact the body is ready to sleep from its rhythm and habit and the white light is sending a wrong signal, if you shift to the yellow light, then the pineal gland recognizes that, okay, the sun has set and now this is an artificial light. Somehow the body seems to have adapted to the yellow colour light over the last thousands of years that we have had candles or other flames. So this makes a big difference. It's also been shown that if you expose the forehead, even the body's skin to light, then that triggers the daytime signal. So the pineal gland releases signals, first of all melatonin, which signals the body that it's time to sleep and then serotonin which triggers the cells to regenerate themselves. If it does not send those signals, then during the night the cellular regeneration does not take place. But these are tied to the light. So dimming light, not only yellow light, but dimming it substantially. What you have in most houses is too bright. Most houses do not have any kind of dimming facility. So at least in your bedroom, put a LED bulb which has a dimmer. Now you get a lot of these easily. You may not have a dimmer on your switch, but you can connect it to a mobile app and you can have one bulb which you can dim either on schedule or on command from your app. It's very convenient. If you can dim it with a rotating knob, that's fine also, but you have to consciously dim it. Or you have just one tiny light and a few bright lights. You switch off the bright lights, leave only the tiny dim light, but various ways to do that. The dimming is part of that signalling for the serotonin signals that we are preparing to sleep and regenerate.
Narad (0:44:00): In terms of wattage, what do we, because I haven't seen many strong watt yellow bulbs.
Sraddhalu (0:44:8):
Yes, yes. So a 1 watt LED bulb is already quite bright and even that if you can dim further, it's good. Otherwise you can even cover them, put a cloth or something to reduce the brightness. Night lamps are not a help at all. Night light and often they have a white light which is extremely harmful. Like I said, light touching the forehead is enough to trigger your pineal gland and if it's white light in the middle of the night it's not going to work at all. For many people there are lights from the streets which come in which are also harmful. So if you cannot avoid that, put a piece of cloth over the eyes and the forehead and you could do the same for the afternoon nap if you want to have the best sleep in the afternoon you actually cover with a cloth. You'll find it's amazingly effective.
Narad (0:44:55):
The same person goes on. ‘At one of the previous sessions with you, you talked about the case that even if some soul came here for the mother's work, then due to the current educational system, the person can be quite damaged, and there is needed some process of undoing this damage. So the question is what practical advices can you give to such persons to undo this damage?’.
Sraddhalu (0:45:25):
It's a very general question because a lot depends on the kind of damage also which has been done. Some kinds of damage will require a more serious intervention. If people have been abused physically which leaves scars in the personality that needs to be dealt with differently. But I will deal here with only the general damage which the education has done and the social values have done and its primary character is to exteriorize your awareness and cut off the inner contact. So first the exteriorization is exaggerated, you are given the illusion or the indoctrination that all solutions are out there and all problems are also out there. When in fact all solutions are within you and the root of all problems are also within you, which you never bothered to look in. So you keep running after things outside you to fix, to chase after something which might be good which fails and solutions and problems which you try to correct without correcting the root within you and that's generally the first big difficulty or the damage done. The second character of the damage done is to suppress or harm the sensitivities which are innate to a person and some of it leads to also loss of self-confidence, loss of reliance on your own internal equipment. So many people who are quite capable are given the impression as if they are not capable enough or they are not good enough etc. So those things need a deeper introspection to correct, to recognize that you have within you, something of worth.
So the first correction I would say, start becoming conscious of what is happening within you. As long as you are under this false illusion that things are all outside you, nothing really changes. Start becoming conscious. It means some time of introspection, deep thinking, observation, self-observation. Read things which will assist you in that, because when you start just out of the blue, you really don't have references and certainly Freudian psychology is not going to help. It will only add to more confusion. So I would suggest to read from some of Mother's writings. There is a very important series of classes that the Mother took with the young students which are in a volume called Commentaries on the Dhammapada, where the Mother took texts from the Buddhist Dhammapada, verses from that, and then commented on it. And her goal in doing this was to help children become conscious of their thoughts, their emotions, learn now to observe and then to control and then eventually master both. Read through that, put into practice, not just reading, but put into practice. But reading will give you a deeper understanding of the yogic perspective of the psychology and the inner processes of thoughts and emotions and from where the self-control can begin. And then you start practising.
She has given certain exercises which you can do also, one of them being to, at the end of the day, to review all that happened during the day in terms of circumstances outside you and then your own reactions, your thoughts, your emotions and your reactions and then recognize where you want to change. You got upset, you got jealous, well what was the point behind it why did I get upset, why did I get jealous, what do I want to do instead and you put an intention to change and put a will and in completing the whole observation of the day, you offer it and then go to sleep. It becomes like a deep suggestion that works in the subconscious and from inside changes your personality. So many such exercises exist. You will find in the Mother's writings. But the first step is to start this deeper introspection. The introspection should not become a brooding. A brooding will be more harmful because in a brooding people are busy thinking I'm not so good - when will I get better, what can I do, I'm so bad, nobody is nice to me, I'm alone and you only exaggerate problems. This is not brooding, it is introspection to recognize where things are and what is this deeper cause of the impulses and what is happening within you. But this is not enough. This is only the first level of becoming conscious of your thoughts and feelings.
Sraddhalu (0:50:06):
Behind that is the deeper psychic centre, which is the source of your higher ideals, your deeper aspirations. It is also the source from where there is a reflection in your emotions of what is called conscience, as well as the seeking within your thoughts for what is true and beautiful and to become conscious that there is such a core of aspiration that there is something which we may call a Divine presence within us and even if you feel it only in terms of its reflections or its influences, become conscious of it and to spend time dwelling on that presence is then the second important requirement. It can be done at the time when you are reading something from the Mother, it can be done after that when you feel closeness to the Divine Mother. See the reference for the psychic being is easily had if you think of what in you, loves the Divine or the Divine Mother and maybe it has an emotional component but where is the origin of that love? Because your emotions want many things, the same emotions desire things also. So if you go deeper to the deeper emotions and then the source from within which makes the emotions turn in love, in joy, in self-giving to the divine, or makes your mind seek the good, the true, the beautiful, that is what you turn towards and stay in that awareness or in the kind of a quiet communion or concentration feeling its influence. That's your second training.
Then comes the third training. Having done these two the third becomes possible every time you have to take a decision in your life, you pause, step back from your immediate impulse of desire, greed, habit, whatever patterns, step back, disengage from it and then refer to that deeper guidance or whatever you have of that field. What does it say? What does it feel? And sometimes it's neutral. It doesn't matter what you do. What matters is that you refer to it. So what matters is that the attitude with which you do, not what you do. Whether you eat a Cassata ice cream or chocolate ice cream makes no difference to the Divine consciousness but how you eat it makes a big difference. So the fact that you refer first and then with that reference you eat and enjoy, sharing that joy in relation to that reference with the Divine Mother, with the Divine presence that makes it worthwhile. But in decisions where you may have a critical element, both involve compromise, but both would lead in a very different direction in life, that reference might give you a slight gentle nudge or slant. This feels more comfortable or that feels uncomfortable. That's all you have. And the psychic suggestion, intimation or guidance never asserts itself. It's a very gentle feel and to feel it you have to become very quiet and gentle, like It. Then only you feel. But emotions will tend to pull and push and insist. So sometimes though emotions can also be gentle and soft and then people misread it for the psychic guidance. And so there's a simple test once you've got the feel, you feel the guidance is like this, you consider what would happen if I don't follow the guidance and if you feel a tug, if you feel a nag, if you feel some pain, something missing, then you know it was the emotion masquerading and you become quiet, remove that and go deeper.
Sraddhalu (0:54:03):
So the third practice will be to consciously refer to that centre for which, you must be conscious of its influence, for which you must have begun a deeper introspection. That's why first step, second step prepares you for the third step and then the result of the third step will be increasingly this centre will become your reference point for everything in life and increasingly its influence and therefore it as the true centre will come forward and fill your life and your personality and this will correct for any other damage or distortion which may have been brought upon you including psychological problems. The best way of healing even psychological damage is not by fixing things from outside, but by fixing it from inside. You can go through psychiatric counselling etc., which is helpful certainly, but it doesn't really fix it. It may help to rearrange or accommodate or manage. The fixing, the true fixing is when it is healed and even the wound and the memory of the wound fades out. And this cannot happen just from outside. It can happen from inside though, when the psychic influence fills your emotions, fills your mind from inside it is the vibration of purity and harmony and a melting love that melts the substance of your emotions. It harmonises the disharmonies, it purifies all the distortions and what happens as a result is things are so beautifully healed, it's as if you're a newborn with none of the distortions which life may have brought upon you. But this healing can only take place inside out and not outside in.
But the outside in may be a first phase, a first base upon which you may follow the practice of step one, step two, step three which will lead eventually to this inward healing. And we must recognize in relation to the question again to summarise, nothing can happen to you from outside which cannot be corrected from within by the Divine influence. No damage, no danger, no threat exists which is stronger than the inner Divine presence The Divine presence within you is the same power that has created the universe. All problems in the universe are to it, trivialities. What for you is a big problem is superficial and trivial to that consciousness And if you can consciously align yourself to that presence, invoke, call for the Mother's help, invoke her presence, ask her help to fill you, and from inside out, deal with the problem. She can do, she can solve, dissolve, or change even a negative into a positive. And there is nothing in your life which cannot be changed, transformed, or overcome by Her action. And this we have to remind ourselves every day. If you feel inadequate, if you feel insufficient, if you feel weak, if you feel not strong enough, not intelligent enough, not capable enough, does not matter. She is capable. The Divine presence within you is capable. So you rely on that. Now don't rely on your own strength. Ask for the knowledge, ask for the capacity, ask for the strength, ask for the love, ask for the peace, ask for the capacity of skill even. And from inside out you will find it will fill you and overcome everything including physical limitations, physical disabilities and even the most dangerous storm outside you. You will find you can go through unscathed and nothing will touch you. This is the conviction we have to consciously establish within us. Rationally it makes sense, but we must deepen this until it becomes for us a living truth. And it is from there that we have to live life.
Narad (0:58:26):
Thank you. Namaste.
[Sraddhalu] Namaste.