EWS #71 Planes of Consciousness (8) - Questions
March 14, 2020
Topics:
Narad (0:00:00):
Namaste and welcome to our continuing series, Evenings with Sraddhalu. Today in our last session for some months, we invite questions from the audience on any topic at all, but especially perhaps on the topic that was just covered. And you may ask anything at all.
[Audience] Is it possible to relate this inclusion faculty with Tri Kaala Drishti? Another question, I may ask, scientists how presently generally they have intuitive capacity and without knowing at all how it is utilised.
Sraddhalu (0:01:46):
Okay, so maybe I'll take the second question first. About scientists using intuition. If we accept that intuition already exists as a level of consciousness, as a plane of consciousness in the universe and has some representation and some degree of organisation within us also in our higher parts, then obviously its influence will be there and it will leak through even when the mind is not conscious of it.
So it's as if you are in a very brightly lit area, so bright that you only see what is around you, but there are things behind the scenes which can pop up from behind the light and through their own suggestions So something like that happens your mind is so brightly conscious of itself and its own self-importance, but things do leak from above from behind from within. And so, when they pop up as the suggestion enters, the mind rises, catches the suggestion and gives to it a form that it wants. So let's say I have a strong preference for certain things or in my mind there is a bias towards optimistic views or pessimistic views. As the intuition pops in, it will be sucked into the bias and twisted to become more optimistic or more pessimistic or it will take the form which is my favourite and in the process often the content of it is lost but I use the force of the intuition to justify I am right, this is what should be done this is typically what happens. But as a scientist you are required to not try to prove you are right but try to find what is right in the knowledge. So there is a necessity for you to set aside your preferences and think more freely and that's where the intuition can more freely express itself and you're looking for a solution you're looking for an insight. Now not all scientists are doing this. We have this very pretty picture of what science represents and we have a picture given to us of every scientist staring through his microscope or telescope or thinking of theory to find the truth. No, that's not how it works. 99% of the scientists are in a career.
Sraddhalu (0:04:06):
They need to publish papers. They need to get accolades. And it's not enough that you publish papers. Your papers should be then referenced by others. So what do you do? You try to think up what kind of thing you can publish that others will reference more. So that you will get promoted more and get more famous or get more money or get whatever it is you are seeking. You are not looking for the truth. So bulk of it is just that. And then there are those who will then within it fit the demand of their need. I am so fascinated by this topic, I want to do something in this. But I can't do what I like because that's not going to be interesting, it might not get published, it might not get referenced.
So into this I add the twist of what will get published, spice it up a little bit with what is currently a hot topic, you know deep learning is a hot topic, so let's give it a twist into deep learning or black hole or dark matter, everybody is excited about it, give it that twist. You enter into speculative domains, you are not really interested about what is true. So yes, intuitions will kick in because you are trying to get at any result and you will always have little intuitions. But the breakthrough intuitions come when you are looking for the truth without a personal bias. And those are the spaces where the real breakthroughs of science take place, both in the theory as well as in the applied technology. So, yes, like in life, everywhere, intuition will pop in but the real insight and the full emergence of something new will come when you fulfil the criteria of intuition which is to not be fixed within your groove to allow its knowledge to fully reveal.
Narad (0:05:48):
The wonderful mathematician who was with us last week was speaking about when Ramanujan went to Hardy and showed him all his theories but couldn't prove them but knew they were right. It was beyond Hardy's understanding and Hardy was a great mathematician so I guess he didn't have that.
Sraddhalu (0:06:10):
Yes, so Ramanujan would write out equations. He would write them because he saw them. So you know when you say he saw them, people wonder what does that mean? Did he see an equation written in his mind, he copied it. No, that's not seeing. That's just transcribing a picture. Seeing what the equation means. Now I'll give you an analogy perhaps which would help you get to that. If you look at for example, okay you think of the earth as a sphere and we are told about gravity, everything is pulling. Let's assume that is true. So you're standing above the earth and you have the pull of all this mass below you. And of course, in practice, we picture it as the centre of the earth being the centre of the mass pulling you, right? So if you jump or you fall from, let's say, a kilometre above, well, you're falling towards that centre with whatever gravitational field is there. And you stop at the top because well there's a ground to stop you. Now let's say there's a hole there. So if you fell you could go all the way down to the centre of the earth. Just picture this. Now you fall you have reached the surface of the earth. You continue to fall inside. What happens next as you fall? As you fall the layer of what you expect will happen deep down at the centre will be huge weight, right? Huge pressure. That's how you imagine. But now, break out of your preconception of mind. As you go down, what's the material pulling you? Earth pulling you not in the centre but all around in the matter which is now above you. Let's say you've fallen into the earth one kilometre in, you have one kilometre of matter above all around which is pulling you upward and the rest of the matter pulling you downward and as you go closer and closer there's more and more matter above you and less and less below you. What happens to your weight? You actually become lighter. The pull on you is less and less and when you reach the centre of the earth you are pulled in all directions at the same time. You have no weight. Isn't that interesting? Very different from your earlier preconception.
Sraddhalu (0:08:32):
But now when I'm describing it to you, in your mind you are able to sense, feel in a kind of an intuitive way, you can feel what it is like. Okay, it's a kind of an intuitive faculty of very low order. Now let's see if we can reduce this to an equation. How much will the earth pull you? You go down 5 kilometres, 10 kilometres, 20 kilometres, 100 kilometres inside the earth, what's the weight you will have at that point? Now it can be shown by equation, it can be proved that the total weight of pull will be, if at that point you were to draw a sphere and that sphere pulled you, that's the weight you will have. The stuff above is as if cancelled out by the amount which is above and the amount which is below around it. Okay, very simple. As an understanding it's very simple. If you can feel intuitively that it's right, you got this, what it's like. That's what I'm trying to get you to. Recognize the truth of physics without needing to justify it by an equation. Of course it's slippery, you could make an error, but if you can feel what it's like, did you get the point now? As you go down into the earth, the actual weight of the pull is the mass which is below you as a sphere. All the mass which is above you, just above, is neutralised by its equivalent which is farther away all around. Okay? It's as if that doesn't exist anymore or its effect on you is perfectly neutralised, gone.
Sraddhalu (0:10:05):
And of course at the centre you have zero weight. Now this could be shown by a simple equation, wherever you are, the radius of the mass below is that's your sphere, that's the pull, that's the weight. Now you see it, once you see it, you write this out in an equation or in a sentence. If you don't see it, someone else comes and says, how can that be? Prove it to me. What do you do? Now there are ways to do it. One of the ways is to do by whole integral calculus. Sum up the pull of this plus this plus this plus this plus this plus this plus this. It's a whole integral calculus integration and you get this effectively zero. The other way to do is by geometry and it can be done in unusual ways. You can actually show many equations being matching by geometry. You can, there is a way to cut this out, slice it in a certain way and you will see the total weight will amount to zero or the total pull will amount to zero. There are two ways you could do it. But still, at that moment you stop, ah, I do not have the tools to express what I know. If you had the training of how to do an integral calculus or how to play with the geometry, maybe you would do it. Or you might spontaneously in the intuition see, ah look, this mass is exactly neutralised by that much. So, simple example I will give you. You draw a line, a cone, let's say two lines. Take a chunk of mass which is above you and on the other side the same line is going with a bigger mass but at a greater distance.
Sraddhalu (0:11:40):
Geometrically the pull of this and the pull of that is exactly same. Interesting. Can you see that? Here you have a proof, a visual proof or a geometric proof. Okay, I'm not going too much into it but if you've got this much you see how it's obvious. Ah, it's obvious. Can't you see it? No, I can't see. What do you do with that? You're blind. So Thomas Hardy was blind to that insight. This guy sees and so he asks, how do you write this equation? I can see it. That's how it is. And then he's asked, how do you see it? And he says, the goddess shows me. Now here is the true scientist. He recognizes that all knowledge is coming from that insight. And whatever you wish to know, she can show you and you can see.
And then of course, the equation is only a shorthand notation for what you see. That's all it is. That's your physics formula. It's a way of writing in shorthand. But what you see is held in the experience and in the intuition is confirmed already. All of physics can be taught like this. All of mathematics can be taught like this. And it can be made in a way that not only the intellect develops but is also tuned with the intuitive insight. Unfortunately that's not how we do it but it can be done. There are increasingly efforts to bring this. I saw recently a very interesting website which is called, okay I forget the name now, but they've been advertising heavily, let me see if I can get the name of that. And so they were showing through geometric proofs complex equations proved through geometry and I said okay this is a good close in that direction but there are ways so when the intuition develops this is how we will increasingly see and know and one of the disadvantages of the intuition developing is I don't need to prove it in this long elaborate indirect way I don't really know what's the big deal right if I have to prove to that ape who does not see, sorry for that phrase, if I have to prove to the human who does not see, okay, you give in to that, but it's not necessary.
Sraddhalu (0:14:13):
Okay, I'm just trying to see if I can get you there. So this is what happened with a lot of our Rishis. Sri Aurobindo points out that they had knowledge, they had quite a bit of knowledge of the physical domain and what is currently obsession in physics. But what they saw also in the deeper knowledge, all of this could be changed. The so-called laws of physics were only special exaggerated extremes for a much larger, broader and freer working of energy. And since they were operating on that level, what's the point of focusing on this? What has happened today is because current science eliminated all that higher possibility and saw matter as the only reality, there is this exaggerated focus into matter which justifies this exploration which would not have happened otherwise. So in a way, this exaggerated material focus is allowing us to explore in matter secrets which earlier might not have been bothered with. But it's as if matter is yielding in from a supramental and evolutionary perspective. It's as if nature wants that matter should yield secrets which are so far untapped.
Narad (0:15:32):
And how does occult information fit in with this scientific.
Sraddhalu (0:15:39):
The occult knowledge will be of forces behind this appearance and ability to access those forces. For example, let's say you have plants which grow. As long as you look at the plant purely as a product of so many chemicals in the seed and the DNA structure guiding it, theoretically the plant will only grow to such and such a height, will only grow at such and such a pace because that's how the machinery of plant works. But the moment you recognize the machinery is only a means for the life force which is independent of the machinery, which can be amplified, which can even ride the machinery. It's like you have a bicycle and if you saw there's no rider and you saw only the bicycle. You say, oh this bicycle once started will go straight and bump into that rock. But you are not seeing the rider. The rider says, oh there is a rock and it goes around the rock. And you look at the bicycle going, the rider is not visible to you. You say, ah it's a magic, it's a miracle. There is some law behind it. Whenever there is a rock, the bicycle will go around. Law of physics, we say. That's how science is working. It's not recognizing that there is a life force which has its own objectives and can negotiate the rocks and go around it. So you put a seed upside down, it will still push a plant upwards. You put a rock as the plant rises it will go around the rock because it knows what it wants. It knows to grow. Now the occult dimension comes, when can we amplify the life force. Oh, you realise there is a link between moon cycle and life force in the soil. Great! When the moon is waxing, and particularly the last three days just before it hits full moon, is the maximum rising energy. Maybe it hits the maximum on full moon day, or the day before to full moon. We will plant at that time. Catch the full wave of that uprush of energy, and your seed will sprout better, more healthy, grow stronger, plant will grow larger etc. There you have occult knowledge brought in into what would otherwise appear to be only a biological process. Put a variation, the moon is still part of a rhythm of nature, what about us?
Sraddhalu (0:17:56):
We have energy we can call at will. So now I plant the seed and every day as I put water on it, I pour my life force with love, with affection. Or if I have the skill, I direct life energy just like that as you do with a healing process. And the seed grows twice as fast irrespective of the lunar cycle. That's an occult intervention. If you have still higher power of intervention, then you start talking to the seed. Not only life energy, but mind consciousness. You tell the seed, look as you grow, I want you to develop this, please do it for me. If you plead, not just with meaningless passion, but with genuine intention, then the seed often responds, or the life force in the plant growing responds and says, okay, if that's what you like, why not? If there's the bond of love, this is much more easy, but otherwise the plant may say yeah, but why should I do it for you? But if the love is there, the plant says yes, surely. So you have a communication and as the seed grows, you may ask specifics from it, that I want your flower to grow with a certain colour or with a certain richness or come up sooner. We've had occasions like this when it happens, we had a plant at home, exactly on a special day it gave its first flowers and it gave seven of them, just like that, boom. And it happened to be a very special day, it was Pandit-ji's birthday and all that. So it doesn't happen by chance. The plant being in that environment, is synchronised with the mood of the people living there, we are not conscious of it. But it senses that there's something happening and the flowers come on that day. And that's it. But you could do this consciously.
Sraddhalu (0:19:50):
I would like to ask everyone to be aware that next year, the service tree will be 90 years old. If we can all pray for it, pour our love onto it, that it may teach thousands more the message of service, it will live for many, many more years.
Sraddhalu (0:20:17):
It can live for several centuries. Yes. If we care for it.
[Audience] We are very grateful for this information.
Sraddhalu (0:20:30)
So what was your first question? I took the second one about the scientist.
[Audience] Trikal Drishti.
[Sraddhalu] Yes, yes. So the other question was about Trikal Drishti and how it connects to intuition. Trikal Drishti, I have to explain, Tri - three, Kala - time, Drishti - Vision. So the vision of 3 times, that is past, present, future. Now in the popular narration, you will find always some story that says such and such a yogi had Tri Kaala Drishti and so he could see the future and said such and such a thing. Now that's not quite Tri Kala Drishti, but that is only foresight of the future or sometimes a limited foresight of future. But that's how the word is used, meaning anybody who can see beyond the immediate moment as if seen to the future or past seems to have this ability. And so the power of Tri Kala Drishti, the true power of Tri Kala Drishti has been much diluted in the the popular understanding. There are even certain occult practices which could give a person the ability to glimpse either past or immediate future and I think we have had occasion to speak about it, when we were talking about astrology and mind reading and sometimes there are little beings who see the future or read the past from your mind and feed it back to you and that's not Tri Kala Drishti either, although often it passes under that title, under that label, because the common man looking at the phenomenon cannot distinguish. So Sri Aurobindo explains that the true Tri Kala Drishti is a Supramental vision, because it is only in that consciousness that the totality of the past, present and future in its totality is held in a single consciousness. Now why is this important? Let's say you have somehow, by whatever means, access to seeing the past or the present or the future, anywhere. Suppose, for argument's sake, you have an occult power. How do you see it? Your consciousness will turn back to see the past timeline, we'll turn forward to see the future timeline, but there are different directions. You cannot see past and future simultaneously. It's like you cannot see behind you and in front of you at the same time, right?
Sraddhalu (0:23:08)
Or you look at the past and you see a whole range of possibilities. Which one was the real one? Because they are all equivalent. And when you look at it that way, it's like looking at the future. Ten different outcomes possible. Which one will happen? Can't say. Because they are all equally likely to your vision. In the same way you look at the past, you see ten different things tried to happen. Which one actually happened? I can't say. I can't pick out. Because you are looking through the mind. And the mind can only see pieces at a time. So the true Tri Kala Drishti cannot be had in the mental consciousness which will only see pieces and erroneously or with a bias or with a cut-off or I see a little bit of the past and then a little bit of before but I don't understand how this led to that until I study all the events in between. It's like a normal mental thinking process. In the Supramental vision, you see the full past, present, future in one single experience of identity, in the infinite, with all the infinite variations and the full interlocked chain of cause, effect and freedom of play in a single experience.
Sraddhalu (0:24:19):
So why did this lead to that? You see the full spectrum of influences and pulls and pushes. And that's why when Sri Aurobindo describes certain events in history and explains these are the forces or he looks at the future and says, okay this is a likely outcome, that is how it could be or this with this variation, because the full interdependence of forces including free will forces is seen in one continuous sweep. So this is not possible in the mental consciousness, it's only possible in the Supramental. And because the Supramental is one with all, that's when you have the full vision. Anything less would be a partial vision or a limited and would not be the true tri kaal drishti. So having accepted that only the Supramental vision is tri kala drishti, it can reflect or have its reduced versions at every level of consciousness down even to the mental and you could name them tri kala or they could imitate certain capacities of the tri kala vision but will not be it really. So where is the intuition in this? Well the intuition can be like a first opening to the full power of the tri kala drishti, that is in the intuition you can get glimpses of the past or glimpses of the future and know that it's likely but there is not a certainty. What is the certainty? Can't say. Or a series of intuitions might give you a picture of between these two or three and then what? You may feel in the intuition more likely this, but if there's a strong force that modifies something here it could turn to that and that's all you could say. Because in the intuition you're still operating with finiteness, but in the true Supramental you will feel the full experience of and say within all these options the thing certain is this within that there are these variations and these are the likely outcomes if we swing this way or these things happen that's the outcome. In spite of that, the certainty is this.
Narad (0:26:32):
When Mother, when we came before mother and she could see past, present and future because she had this. She also mentions that some people would come before would be blackness that she could not see through. How is that?
Sraddhalu (0:26:54):
Of course if she wanted to she could cut through that blackness, but the reason for the blackness would be either something within their consciousness which was like a wall not opening to her, or some current internal, let's say, conflict or some layer that did not wish to be exposed. I remember there was one example, one narrated to me, there was a priest in Pondicherry, in one of the churches here, and for some reason he was very drawn to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, and he had perhaps read, he was genuinely seeking, and so he had read certain things and he came to meet the Mother and he narrated to me the story. His name was MP John, very interesting man. And so he said I went to the Mother and I bowed before her and then she looked at me and then her eyes suddenly opened like that and it was as if she was looking deep into me. And then he says, ‘something inside me said, no but I don't want’, and immediately Mother stopped and withdrew, and then Mother gave instructions to one of the administrators of the ashram. She said, you give him whatever facility he wants, give him whatever access he needs. He would be treated like an ashramite, whenever he needs any requirement, any facility. And that was it so he would come and he would meet and he was very good friends with Panditji so that's how we met him.
0:28:28
And every now and then he would phone and have a long conversation. He said, you know, when I look at the future, I see like this or this is the trend that I see. And it would always be in the direction that Sri Aurobindo has described, but it would come from his own kind of introspection or seeing. What was clear was, it was as if something would have opened for him if he had allowed the Mother to enter in this way. But a choice was made somewhere inside, whether of the inner being or some more superficial part saying, no, I want my freedom to grow in my own way. And of course Mother allowed that and gave him the full space for that growth. A fascinating person. One wonders what would have happened if he had opened and given himself, perhaps how much more would be possible. But I suppose that's where the choice of the soul to go in its own way is also there.
Narad (0:29:26):
Do we have another question? Yes. Please.
Of late, like I am taking like Life Divine lines or Savitri lines. I can picture exactly for what the lines have been meant like, optical illusion paintings. If that comes from that or it's my own choice of…
Sraddhalu (0:29:52):
It doesn't matter. So images come often whenever we read and images are a way in which the mind can represent things, but there are all kinds of images. There are images which we create, there are images which form spontaneously, which we feel we have not created, they just came, and then there is a whole other class of images. When the image forms, it's as if the content of it is so otherworldly, that it doesn't even belong in the mind, those are glimpses of higher things, but that's rare.
[Audience] As I read I enter into the picture zone and there I see the images.
[Sraddhalu] So naturally as we read, images form and we flow with the images, generally it happens to some part of the mind and as long as it helps us to enter the experience, it's helpful.
[Audience] But it's not from intuition.
[Sraddhalu] Normally not. But it can be led by some intuitive part. You see what happens is in a normal thinking mind there's a lot of mixture of the mind process and intuition could be triggering things which you may not be aware. But in the intuitive part is where while reading something within you as if enters the experience of it. The distinction of intuition is that you are what you know. Mind sees or forms an image but is not what it sees. So remember the third type of image I spoke of where it's as if something totally different, where the substance itself is alive and rich and you feel as if you are one with it somehow. Those are perceptions from the higher realms. Those come very rarely. But there you will know because you will be one with what you see.
Narad (0:31:55): Continuing this intuition, are there people there in the world now who are working purely from the intuitive sense?
Sraddhalu (0:32:07):
So there are many people who have instinctively a certain turn of aspiration towards the intuition and who function or are led by some intuitive suggestions always. They know that they have access to something, they don't have words for it, but they are able to even call upon it on demand. The people in business who are like that, the artists who are like that, leaders also, as well as scientists, poets of course, much more than others, and one meets people like that sometimes. The thing though, in those who have this will tend to be in their field always ahead of the others because the intuition gives them an insight which is always more than what your logic could have thought out. So in whatever they do, they seem to be always on the cutting edge or they are the ones who break the boundaries in their field.
But do they develop it further? Depends. That's why what we discussed last time was the choice to develop. Otherwise it's there but it stays where it is.
Narad (0:33:29):
Any other questions? You had asked about the Om choir.
[Audience] I have three questions now. One about Om Choir and then the difference between vision and intuition. And I forgot the third. I remember, when the intuition comes, how does it feel like I have some idea or thought or
[Sraddhalu] how do you feel it when it has happened?
[Audience] I need to check.
[Sraddhalu] It can take many forms. You see, as we learn to stay in a quiet mind, you can feel it taking form as it enters the mind you can feel it acquiring a shape of thought or an image or a form of words. So you can feel it all the way from something which is barely felt beyond you, barely entering, to all the way to the point where it takes on the form of a thought. It will still be the force of the intuition so it can take many forms. It can come as an idea and you say, ah, it can come as an image or it can come as a flow of words. They're all variations of the form in which it represents itself because it has entered mind space. But in itself, it is as if the essence of these things. And then you just know with or without certain forms.
[Audience] Can that be called knowledge?
[Sraddhalu] That's the true knowledge, yes. But still not complete knowledge, but it's true knowledge. And that opens to complete knowledge, which is ultimately in the supramental. [Audience] Vijnanam?
[Sraddhalu] Vijnanam will be the Supramental. But intuition is jnanam? You know, we use the word jnanam in a very casual way, unfortunately, but vijnanam is for specifically from intuition to supramental, that whole range. True knowledge.
[Sraddhalu] But you spoke of Om choir and for those of you who are not familiar, Narad has initiated this new movement of the practice of Om as a group.
[Audience] It is a small thing. I don't know music. A few years ago I was regular to attend Om choir. At that time I knew, I knew which note, but I couldn't really reproduce it. I was very clear it is just the notes going to come, but I couldn't reproduce it. So this is also intuition?
Sraddhalu (0:36:22):
Yes, yes. I'll comment on that. So as you are gathered in a circle, in a collective, and then there is a spontaneous chant of Om with many notes. And so it's almost like a choir of each one following their own individual inspired flow of notes and yet the collective has a very complex movement of notes that flows to create this beautiful choir. What happens and if people are particularly tuned in at that point is as you described, it's as if the music begins to flow through you, you know what it has to be as a note and you rise to meet it, to express it in the beginning. Or sometimes, it comes in and your voice is unable to keep up with what it wants to express. Or sometimes if it can come all the way into the physical, your voice is lifted in a way that you could not have thought or planned. And it happens in a way that you didn't expect. And you are surprised, oh, that was interesting. But you discover also at that point, the line, the pattern that unfolded through you, now perfectly resonates with a few people next to you who followed a similar line at the same time. And then after a point it disconnects and resonates with another group next to you, who followed another line and joined you in this other movement. And then you recognize that this is a collective movement of collective intuition working individually in different threads, each one having the sense of flowing uniquely and yet in the collective there are harmonies which rise and fall and play in something so rich and complex you could not have thought it out, you could not have composed it or having written it out on paper you'd struggle to keep up with it. And each one is different each time you do it, it's different. So you have actually created a kind of a receiving vessel, a container in which the intuition can act in a collective vehicle.
The reason why it lends itself naturally to an intuitive expression is because you're totally free and at some point you let go and stop trying. There are of course people who are so fixed, they've come with a fixed idea and they're stuck in it, you can feel it, they don't quite, they are always slightly out of sync with the group. Or sometimes when Narad says, someone can say a line from Savitri, this man has already come with a line that he has decided, he is not catching what the mood of the moment or the intuition of the moment would want to express. It's a rigid mind, machine fixed rigidly. So it's obvious these people stand out. Whereas those who flow, you can feel that they flow. And what emerges seems to synchronise automatically with others.
Sraddhalu (0:39:26):
So there's an aspect here, of course, of a collective consciousness where you join your individual mind, heart joins in a collective vessel, but also at the same time the intuition comes and is held in a collective vessel. So it's quite a remarkable experience. And for those of you who are watching, if you have not had the experience, when you visit Pondicherry, do attend the Aum choirs. Narad has them twice a week.
[Audience] I knew exactly what pitch is going to take. But nothing happened.
[Sraddhalu] Yes.. Interesting. Sometimes you can sense in which direction the music will flow
[Audience] What pitch is this. Which direction the music will flow? What kind of pitches are going to take that much time?
Sraddhalu (0:40:14):
I remember once, this was when I was quite young, the music teacher Shobha Di was the head of our music section. She needed an organ, an electronic organ. This was in the mid-90s and because it was very expensive they had got a kit and then you had to assemble it, but then the person who was assisting her didn't know how to do so, he asked my help. We spent a couple of weeks teaching him to solder and we put it all together. At the end of that she wanted to do a performance of her organ playing and so they had set it up in the library. We did the testing and then there was still two hours to go. So I sat at the organ and I've never really played. I still don't have the training of the fingering. And I struck a key and then the next note suggested itself, so I struck that. And it was as if I'm hearing or sensing what the next is intended and I am translating with my mind, oh which would that be? So my mind is busy in translating and so I was playing and I played about 10 or 15 minutes. I thought it was pretty good, it was very nice music, because I was not composing. I know, I'm just kind of keeping up with the thing that came. And by the time I finished a couple of people had come in from outside and then the lady who was there, she said to me, that was, what did you play? That was the most beautiful piece of music I've ever heard. I said, okay, yes, of course, I enjoyed it also. And five years later, she meets me and she says, that one piece of music you played, that was the most beautiful. And I'm conscious that I don't even know what I played. I have no memory of it. I only remember struggling to transcribe as the suggestions came and you know, translating with the mind. Now imagine if the fingers had been trained and the mind could plug in it would have just flowed through. But there was this huge gap and it had to go through a transcribing process. But occasionally it just kicks in like that and that's about it.
Narad (0:42:20):
Mother told us, have no preconceived idea as to what will come through. And that's how she played the organ also. Her fingers received the music and played it. Now I have a question for you. Most of Mother's music is in a minor key. And once in a while, that minor key will suddenly burst into a major key into a symphonic beauty. The minor key seems to be, as always seemed to me, to be from occult realms.
Sraddhalu (0:43:10):
It's as if slipping between the gaps into an inner mystical dimension. And when you listen to Mother's music, of course, in the beginning it's very difficult to understand. If you try to listen with your mind, you don't see any logic or pattern. It's not satisfying to the intellect. But if you are slightly interiorised, and to the soul's influence, it is the most deeply satisfying experience and it is only in that that you can appreciate. And that's why that's the best state in which to listen but also it's the best nourishment for the Psychic presence. Every time she touches the minor key, it as if to me the experiences of going deeper into some inner hidden domain. It's like slipping between gaps to that. And when it has a strong major key, it flows out to express, to manifest and to affirm what it has drawn from within. But that's the way we would describe the experience.
Narad (0:44:22):
At our recent retreat, every day you would play a different selection of Mother's music. Did you choose each one?
Sraddhalu (0:44:35):
Yes, in most cases I chose that.
[Narad] I knew it!
[Sraddhalu] So some of the pieces of music, Mother has named. And there is this one called, Marching in Search for the Soul. And another which is called Aspiration of the body for the Divine. Another which is called Perseus. Another which is called, Construction of the Future. Another which is called, Prayer. So very suggestive and when you listen to the music with the theme, you can feel what is happening there. And so of course in that situation I was choosing what I felt was helpful for that situation. Sometimes not, sometimes just what is intuitively felt is right, I don't even know what will come.
Audience (0:45:25): <inaudible>
Sraddhalu (0:45:29):
Yes, yes. So the special feature of listening to Mother's music, especially when you have just come out from a deep meditation, is to help fix that consciousness in your most physical base. Because the music as a vibration is a physical vibration, the sound is a physical vibration, and yet the content of the music and what flows in it is deeply psychic or opening to a deeper or spiritual dimension. And so it helps to fix and especially (in) the most material part of your consciousness. One can use it as an aid for going within or as an aid for fixing but there can also be misuse if you take this idea too mentally. So there's somebody who said oh this is useful and hence she has it playing in the school at all times.
I find that too much and it may even create a reaction in the students. But of course it is played at a very low level and you can barely hear it, but still it is not the best way. Because children are needed to function in their more superficial parts and they will feel a dissonance with the music at that time and they will learn to dislike it. It should be played at a time when it can be appreciated and then from there to fix it. So one has to use it judiciously.
Narad (0:47:03):
It's like savitri, you don't read ten cantos at once. <laughter>
Sraddhalu (0:47:12)
Or you don't read some of the most intense portions to a child who wants to understand and rationalise and then feels a dissonance there. You give him what he needs at that time. There was one Dr. Surya in the ashram. He was a psychiatrist of some repute and he used to speak a lot about the, the help of the Mother's music. So many of his students used to use it in this way and I remember there was a dentist Because Dr. Surya was staying in her house They would have music, Mother's music playing very low, very soft all the time during the dentist's operation. So you would go there, you would be waiting for your appointment and the music would be on and then you're sitting in the dentist's chair and she's drilling and there's Mother's music. I thought it interesting because it forced you to enter a kind of a deeper interiorized state. But that's because we came from that background from the ashram. But if there was a commercial client with no background of this, I don't know if it would have, I'm sure it would have helped on some level. But whether they would have understood, I don't know. But at least it put them in a state of calm, so perhaps it was useful there, but beyond that kind of exceptional case, I would say use it judiciously, but not overuse, which then becomes misuse.
Audience (0:48:44):
You have not spoken about the illumined mind so much?
[Sraddhalu] In the earlier sessions we spoke about higher mind and illumined mind before the intuition.
[Narad] Yes. Namaste. Thank you so much.
[Sraddhalu] Very well. Namaste. Thank you.