EWS #79 Questions from Viewers (22)  - on Spiritual Life - 2

Aug 14, 2021

Alina (0:00:00):
Good evening. Welcome to the continuing series, Evenings with Sraddhalu. Namaste.

[Joel] Namaste.

[Sraddhalu] Namaste.

I'm Alina and together with Joel we will host this evening.

Alina (0:00:36):
And we will continue our session, answering questions to our viewers on the same topic of spiritual life and the growth of consciousness, practices, experiences, levels of consciousness. We will begin with a few general questions and then we will return to the theme of the psychic being, continuing from last time. So today will be a part two, continuing same topics. We received some questions from our viewers. First question from Pradeep. Entering into Matrimandir already had protocols of distance, cleanness, silence, protective sleeves, no coughing. Yet it is locked down for more than a year. What are we lacking to convince us that the Divine protocol and discipline is more effective than political or medical protocols? Similar questions on restrictions to visit the Samadhi or the lockdown of Sri Aurobindo's room. What is lacking?

Sraddhalu (0:02:39):
It's a provocative question, but an important one. And I want to deal with it more from the spiritual perspective than other aspects. First with a short correction that the Matrimandir itself only went into lockdown for a brief while in the initial phase of the lockdowns but then subsequently has been open for Aurovilians and newcomers. It has only been closed for visitors and again it went into lockdown and again came back into operation but limited to Aurovilians. Sri Aurobindo's room though has been closed ever since the lockdown. It's more than a year now, nearly a year and a half now. And the Samadhi was of course for three months at least it was not accessible. The entire Ashram main building had been closed. But subsequently we are allowed to walk at a certain distance, walk by, not allowed to sit. And more recently at a particular time in the early mornings some people have been allowed to sit at a distance. But all of this really is centering on the question of whether a spiritual space is immune to these kinds of concerns which come either from the medical side or the political or social aspects. And I want to explore this question in a little more detail. First of all, looking at it very practically, within your own home, let's say you have a large house with a large family and in a joint family you might have like three or four families within the same space, each with several members. During the time of lockdown, you did not create barriers within the family. Within a single household, we were all freely interacting. In principle, once you are isolated from the space which is outside, there is no need to have further isolation internally. You could extend this concept to a larger space. Let's say you have a vertical building, skyscraper kind, doesn't have to be very tall, but each flat is layered upon and the entire complex is sealed off from the rest of the world. In principle, the same thing should apply. You should be all free to mix among each other. The children from the different families on different floors could come down to the ground floor or the gym or whatever the space is that is shared and be free to play among themselves. After having crossed that initial 14-day or whatever isolation requirement to ensure that nobody is infected, in principle, it shouldn't matter, isn't it? And yet the human fear kicks in. What if somebody in the flat above or below gets infected? Although no one has stepped out of that complex, nobody has come in. And you maintain a reasonable isolation for materials that come through and so on. But the fear is that somehow the contact will spread things. And it's a fear. It's not logical. But the nature of the fear makes people shrink and block, close. This is in a normal human space.

Sraddhalu (0:06:12):

In a spiritual space then, the question comes. Which is going to be the dominant, I will use the word power structure, and I don't mean power purely in a superficial sense of authority but power as in the influence which dominates everything. And we have briefly touched upon this in some discussion perhaps two years ago but I will dwell on it a little more. When for example you are entering somebody’s house. Automatically in your mind, you have an idea, you are a guest. You become more aware of sensitivities of the people you are visiting. You are careful about where you place your slippers, how you interact. You may not for example behave in certain ways that you might at home. When you sit on a chair at home you might lean back and slouch if you wanted, but here you maintain a certain decorum and poise. Nobody tells you to do it. You do it on your own. Perhaps initially you were trained. Your parents tell you, we are visiting somebody, behave yourself. But after a point, it happens automatically. The nature of the change is even more complex when you enter specialised spaces. And this is an example which I think everybody could appreciate. If you enter a space that is chaotic, dirty, things not organised or arranged, not maintained, when you enter that space, you find yourself behaving in a certain way and to contrast it, I will take a space which is normally associated with high level corporate offices or the military. In both of these, you will find spaces maintained spick and span, people working, moving with a certain discipline of timing of focus and the moment you enter such a space you will find your state shifting, becoming more attentive, more rigid perhaps even in your posture and more careful about time. The influence of the environment acts to shape your behaviour, unknown to you. If you are conscious you will notice it has happened that you didn't make an effort to do it. The environment shifted your state and your behaviour. This is extremely important and this is what I mean by real power.

Real power is an influence that acts on you whether you are conscious or not and the relationship you set with it determines to what extent you receive that influence. Now, when people came into a space of spiritual power, something similar happened, happens. I'm using the past tense in the context of meeting Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. When people entered into the space that was held in their consciousness, physically, they came under that influence, automatically, whether they are aware of it or not. I remember long ago we were doing interviews with many sadhakas in the ashram and this was beginning in the 1989 or 90s and at that time we had heard many stories. I won't recall who had narrated what but one of the stories I had heard from one of the sadhakas was somebody had come to meet the Mother because they were under some kind of an occult attack and the whole body felt like burning, the skin was feeling as if sharp things penetrating and the person had tried all kinds of medical efforts, nothing had worked. He came to meet the Mother and what was narrated was, as he entered the ashram main building, entered the front door, just a step in, it was as if he had passed a barrier. Crossing through, the whole thing vanished. The problem vanished. That's the effect of spiritual power.

Sraddhalu (0:10:45):
There's a boundary, and the boundary may be intended or may be naturally associated with the physical space. It is flexible, it can extend beyond if so required because it is conscious energy. Spiritual energy is conscious energy. But generally it stays within the physical boundary because that's the value people give to the presence and the space. So when you enter a space you come under the influence of that power, the energy that belongs to that. Something similar happens again. I take a mundane example when two business persons meet. If they meet in the office of one of the persons the other person who is coming in is at a disadvantage because the entire space is suffused with the power of the interests of this individual or this company. And the person entering within that space finds themselves at a disadvantage in negotiation. They cannot assert themselves. They find their choices weakened, their freedom weakened. And vice versa, if the other person comes to this person's office, and that's the reason why in the most critical negotiations they will decide to meet in a neutral space and generally that will be in a hotel where you go and have lunch or dinner or meet in some other person's house and then come back into your own spaces and it's something sensed, it's something known automatically if one is even a little conscious. And if this is true of vital energies and vital power, it is much more true of Spiritual spaces.

So the question which was asked, I'm going to put it in the context of this. If you were to enter a space that is surcharged with a Spiritual force, automatically the power of that presence overrides all other considerations, to the extent that you accept. If you choose to refuse consciously or unconsciously, you can still unconsciously refuse out of fear for example, you enter the space with the fear that you are going to be infected by something or other or that you might be attacked by someone or other. You in a sense open yourself to that other influence that you fear and as if block out or at least limit the action of that power. If you enter with full trust with an open mind and heart and you're conscious of that power and the presence and you submit to it with full trust, its action in you, the Mother's force working in you can have a free play. Again there will be limitations because if it goes down to the level of the very material levels, you could still poke with a sharp knife and get a cut for example. But if the physical consciousness accepted that in action or that protection, either there would be an intervention to prevent the knife hitting or the knife hitting accidentally accidentally would still not cut, it would simply bounce and this comes in the domain of what would normally called miracles. But yes, it is a natural outcome of being in that space. Again as an aside it's not just true of a Spiritual space this is true equally of a vital energy of your own mind working on your own body. I was recently exposed to some literature about such experiments being done in the laboratory where a person was tested with sharp objects being cut, being pierced into his the tissue of his arm or the cheek and he would put himself in a certain state of concentration when it was pushed in. It would go right through the cheek and to the mouth and it's a nail, long nail, and it would be pulled out, no bleeding, and the healing would take place within two or three days. But in this experiment, as the nail had been placed in, there was no bleeding, as it was being pulled out, the doctor suddenly intervened, the experimenter, and asked this subject, what if there's bleeding? Is there going to be bleeding? Can you control the bleeding? Now the question broke the person's state of concentration, brought in doubt, doubt of the faith that he held in the body's consciousness. And at that moment as the nail came out, there was heavy bleeding. He was surprised. The experimenters were observing. And then this person realigned himself, brought back his concentration and said now the bleeding will stop and instantly the wound closed and the bleeding stopped. The doctor, the tester asked him again, can we repeat this experiment this time and do the whole thing without the bleeding? The person waited. There was a long pause and after the pause he said, yes we can repeat and then they did the whole thing again and this time there was no bleeding.

Afterwards the experimenters asked him, why did you have this long pause? And he explained that it's not I who decide whether this will work or whether they will be bleeding or not. I asked my body and it's the body who chooses. So he said, I had to ask the body whether it was willing to go through that experience again. And it took a while, after a while the body consented and then he said, yes, we can do it. So it's not he who is doing something magically. He is asking the body consciousness to collaborate in a certain effort. To the extent that the body consciousness consents, the effect is there. And the effect is the choice of the body consciousness, working on its own tissue, on its own cells. You as this thinking person are as if like the rider on the horse. You are not the horse. The horse can choose, but you are the rider who can ask the horse kindly, can you please, I would like this. But if you trust the body and the body trusts you and you have this relationship, then it's possible. If you say, okay I'm going to stick a needle now what will happen will they be bleeding, you're not even speaking to your body. Then the faith, the conviction of the bleeding and the body's normal habit or the body's revolt against your stupidity in pushing a needle in, that would cause all the bleeding necessary. But if you had the faith and the relationship, the body had its own free assertion of faith, yes one could have that miracle.

Sraddhalu (0:18:23):

Now the point is all this is to explain that it's not a miracle, it's a normal functioning of the body's consciousness and its freedom and the right relationship of us as mind with the body. And if this is true of something so simple as what we are today and all of us could do this, it's not difficult. You can be trained to do this. In fact, there are people who train it and you get the ability just like that. If this is true of all of us in our current mind-body relationship, it is even more true for all of us when we open to the action of a Spiritual power, presence, force. It can do far more. It can even neutralise the effect of an infection or an illness. Again, I take an example of an intervention. I suppose I don't need to give too many examples but simply pumping you with vital energy is enough to be able to heal or override an illness. But a spiritual force brought in, even more radically, magically can dramatically shift, eliminate an illness just like that. Perhaps I've shared this example. This is one of those what they call spontaneous remission cases of cancer. This lady who was fourth stage cancer metastasized, fully spread in the body, having a couple of days to live now. One night she goes to sleep. She has a near-death experience of being out of the body and enters that Spiritual domain and is told that it's not yet your time. She receives an influx of the Spiritual presence and force pouring into her. She wakes up from that experience with full memory of what happened and the next day after waking up she is tested. All cancer has vanished. Now this is possible. Not a single nodule of cancer remaining. It required a choice of the soul, of the body and of the spiritual consciousness. And the three have to be aligned. When aligned like this, the spiritual power can do this. And it's not a miracle it's a normal action of spiritual freedom of the spiritual force and power. It's free, the Self is free, the Mother's consciousness is free to act and can override or change anything.

So coming now back to this question of a sacred space where the spiritual force is strong enough this won't apply to all spaces you may call it a sacred space but they may not be a real spiritual power. It's not enough that you believe that there's something. I'm speaking of a real space where there is a power. And there are spaces which had a power where the power is weakened, which has faded. Many temples, you see, they use an occult mechanism for invoking the spiritual force and of different gradations of force also depending on the people involved in the invocation process and so on. And then if neglected, gradually the gathered power may weaken, fade out. Sometimes it can be replaced by even a negative energy and so on. Many things can happen. But I'm assuming we are speaking of a space where there's a real spiritual force. And in that case, entering the space with the right attitude well you will be free of all these problems, dangers, infections if you choose to submit to that greater freedom. The problem and I had taken this question partly last time, another time, the problem is in a public space you have all kinds of people coming in so if you're in the Samadhi and you have many people coming and making the contact, well, there are people coming with various kinds of relationships with the Presence and there may be a weakening perhaps or a dilution in some spaces and so on. I would not say that the protection would be as strong, but it's possible. In principle, if the power is strong enough, it can override even a person's doubt or questioning. But just remaining within the family, let's say of people who have a strong clear aspiration and faith one need not fear at all. Within the spiritual family at least of those who are here for that purpose there should be no problem and the spiritual power is strong enough to override.

Sraddhalu (0:23:18):

So the policy for example in the Matrimandir of allowing Aurovilians only, well it's a pity for those who are coming from elsewhere but yes that's completely fine. From a Spiritual point of view there's absolutely no danger. Protocols you may follow medical or not doesn't really matter. But in principle you could do something that you allow a time for a Aurovillians and you allow a time for others who come. Maybe you isolate from tourists who are passing through, but people who make an appointment even a day in advance because they know and have come before and are coming with a certain spiritual intent could be allowed and perhaps at a different time as was done even earlier. And there's no need to fear there because it's the family of people who share in the value of the spiritual space. There's no reason why we could not do that in the ashram also, even for visiting Sri Aurobindo's room or the Mother's room or at least walking through the meditation hall as is normally done on darshan days. There's no reason to deny the darshan itself as is being still done even now after more than a year, neither a medical reason nor a spiritual reason. And at least from a spiritual perspective, one could have easily done these things even within a limited framework. Medically again, there's no reason. If people are allowed to go to bars and restaurants and cinema halls today by government orders, so we are speaking now of a very political and medical protocol, why can't you go to the Samadhi or to Sri Aurobindo's room where at least you're not going to be touching anything, you'll simply be walking by. And it's an unfortunate fact and reflecting of the, let's say the decline in the community's values that it is still not being done. I'm not blaming the administration alone. I'm blaming the community because if the community valued it, they would assert themselves on the administration and ask for these spaces to be open, for these most valuable opportunities to be made available, as happened in Auroville. There were people who actually raised their voices and said look there's no reason to keep it closed. In the ashram, last year they had at the end of the annual school year a demonstration, a program, 20 students performing. It was video recorded and webcast. If you can have 20 people doing a performance, why can't you have 20 people doing the march past in the playground? Or with sufficient spacing you can have 100 people doing the march past. Is the march past important for you or was it simply a social exercise? If it was, you can permanently end it. It wouldn't matter. But if it had a spiritual value, then to not do it is a great loss.

Sraddhalu (0:26:16):

Let me share here what the Mother said about this and it was said by the mother to Poornaprema, her granddaughter. She said that she created the march past as an exercise or as an occult ritual to counter something which had been created during the Second World War where that whole force of military discipline and order and structure of the military commands and marching, the march past itself had been given an Asuric turn. Even now if you look at some of the videos of that period where the military taking a salute of various political heads with an asuric intent, you can feel that energy, a tremendous power, a raw hard power but with a perversion, with a perverse intent. And yet that power is a genuine, a real power and it needs to be reversed, undone. The perversion had to be reversed. And so the Mother created this march past as a structure in the playground. And for me, it's my observation and it's not something the Mother said. It's for me, very interesting to see that in the sports ground of the ashram, when people do the runs, they all go in the traditional Olympic standard anti-clockwise on the ground and yet for the march past you're going clockwise, both in the sports ground and the playground. And when I had made this comment some time long ago Pranab Da who had actually designed and organised the march past was asked by someone, did you do that intentionally? He said, no I just did it because it was a longer part of the walk. He gave some mental explanation for why he made it clockwise. But if you think about it, that explanation doesn't really hold. And Mother did this with a lot of people working with them. She would put a certain intention and a certain inspiration and allow them to work out the specifics. But the form itself of the march past and the salute is extremely significant. It's extremely important. The physical activities done in the playground are extremely important and there is no reason why we cannot do them today. If you can go to cinema halls and restaurants, you can surely do the physical exercises here and follow whatever protocols you want of social spacing or otherwise.

And I'm saying this because whatever the circumstances today, the deeper principle behind needs to be understood and I'm hoping this will be of value for future generations or for people in other spaces where they can perhaps assert their freedom or their higher values and do what is necessary to be done. As we do know in many of the centres related to the ashram, people have done their march past every time during the darshan because they valued it and they didn't care about or didn't fear these things. But it should be here in the ashram also. So this is a big picture of a broader discussion around that question. Yes, the Divine protocol and the Divine discipline is certainly more effective if we accept its authority or our relationship with Her, with It. If you were sick and you went to the Mother, you would be concerned of not transmitting your illness to her. But if you knew that the illness was not transmissible, you would want to go to her to be healed, isn't it? So, what would be your natural approach to go to the Samadhi? Would you go to be healed? In which case you should have no fear of illness, isn't it? If you reverse the values now, or rather reverse the false values, come back to the true values, you are going to a concentrated Spiritual presence in order to be healed, in order for it to act on you, to free you from your ignorance and limitations and weaknesses, isn't it? If you put back that relationship, then you are entering that space will be valuable for you and you will not be affected, you will be immune from all these infections and other stories.

Sraddhalu (0:30:50):

There is a very interesting aphorism of Sri Aurobindo and even a letter where he says people who, somebody asked him shouldn't you maintain this medical processes of disinfecting and all that and Sri Aurobindo says it doesn't work that way. There are people who stay very clean and yet they fall ill, they catch infections. There are people who are full of all kinds of things, don't maintain any cleanliness but they never fall ill. It has not to do with that and I come back to that example I gave earlier of the person who used to pass the nail through his body tissue or his cheeks. So when he was about to do this, the testers asked him, but don't you disinfect this? He said, yes, I disinfect it normally by running my feet over with my shoes on it! So he says, no, I don't disinfect. And the reason he said, when I ask the body and the body knows that it should not fall ill, you can stick that thing and the body will not catch an infection. Now here's the interesting thing which happened. So this person was demonstrating in various places with various doctors. On one such occasion he was in a hospital and as he was about to stick the nail into his cheeks or I think it was the arm at that point, one of the medical practitioners said, wait, wait, wait, this is not disinfected. I will disinfect. And he took it out from his hand, went and disinfected and brought it back. And then it was pierced into his arm. And two more nails were put, which had not been disinfected, by the way. Afterwards, the one which had been disinfected was the one where there was redness and there was a mild infection. The other two didn't have infection. Interesting! Interesting because it was that mental intention and formation which actually aided or caused even the infection. Whereas the other two which were put later by this person, bypassing those protocols, with the body consciousness aligned, there was no problem, no redness, no swelling.

And so if we bring back that conviction and faith of our right relationship with the spiritual power for which we are here, and with the understanding that we have and which has been given to us and the assurance, we need fear nothing and we can get on with our life exactly as it should be, forgetting all concerns about the pandemic and now I'll come to what may sound a little radical but this is the reality from the Spiritual perspective. As I said within the building there was no need for isolation just as within the house among family members there's no need for isolation. Come to a Spiritual community now there is no need for isolation. If we held ourselves as a closed Spiritual community and closing ourselves from the pandemic and the rest of the concerns. We could have said here we are, we live by different values and standards and we will live by them and assert that freedom, continue to live our life. Nothing would have happened and if anybody gets an infection or a fever it would have come and gone as people normally get their annual flus and other problems without any serious side effects. And at the very least this should have been the values for the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and Auroville. And if we cannot do that then we need to review what we live by and what we live for and work to bring back these values. Simple question you can ask is what would the Mother have done? What did she do? And you have enough examples of that. So yes, it means we need to... The questioner asked what is lacking? Well, what is lacking is this - priority. What is your priority? What do you really want to live by? What is your relationship with the Divine presence and your faith? And if something is lacking, we should correct it.

Sraddhalu (0:35:16):

So on the eve of the Darshan Day, I want to actually take this question a step further. Because yes, we are not allowed to go to Sri Aurobindo's room. Perhaps you are allowed to walk by the Samadhi, but that's about it. And so, it's a pity, but I just, as an aside, there has been a general decline of values in the community. And one of the sad events which I have observed in the last few years is on the New Year's Day. You know, there is a card, a message card which is distributed on New Year's Day. The Mother gave great importance to the way she entered the New Year. She would herself play the organ music on the midnight of the New Year. We are all asleep today, but she would be awake and doing that and then there would be a message which should be given, which would be distributed, people would come to her to receive the message. So subsequently they had a different arrangement we would go to the what is the called the prosperity room and receive the message from there. Somewhere along some 10 or 15 years ago they stopped that and they would distribute the message differently. Now what you have is people stand at the ashram gate and there are two or three gates which are open for the New Year meditation at six o'clock, and as people are leaving they pass along these message cards like leaflets. It's trivialising of what was a very special blessing that was given by the Mother. You're trivialising it. Now it's just a published piece of paper like a pamphlet. Oh, what's the message? Oh yeah okay. The paper has no value. Whereas earlier the way we valued it, here is a message card charged with the Mother's consciousness that she gives to you. It carries that consciousness, it carries that force. That value has faded, now it's just become, oh yeah, what's the printed message? I'll look it up online. Okay, that's the message, interesting, not interesting. The transmission of power has been lost or forgotten. And again, I'm putting this on record because I hope in future, there will be those who will rebuild and bring back these values, at the very least in your own spaces, at the very least in your own home. Where you sit before the Mother, before their presence, invoke their presence, receive the message, doesn't have to be physical, it can even be spiritual, direct, without a physical object. But do this. If you cannot go to Sri Aurobindo's room, don't worry. You invoke Sri Aurobindo in your room. If you have a prayer space, invoke his presence there. Invoke the Mother, sit before them. If you do not see with physical eyes, close your physical eyes, see with your inner sight, see with your heart's eyes, feel them close to you. And when you open with the heart's call, they are manifest, they are with you. And receive, receive their blessing. And if physical circumstances are not optimal, it's an opportunity for us to disengage from physical limitations and learn to connect directly. It's for this purpose that I wanted to dwell on this question. And its superficial aspect is not important. It is the Spiritual content of this which we have to really absorb.

Alina (0:38:52):

Thank you for this perspective, a very correct perspective before the Darshan day. I will continue with another question from Sanjana. At times my mind puts pressure to find my purpose, to fulfil something outside. But can it be that a purpose can be grow from within before we have the capacity to fulfil something outside?

Sraddhalu (0:39:25):
This is a very important question which comes up in the life of every spiritual practitioner. Which one do I do first? Do I do the work externally which I want to do or do I first prepare myself to be competent to do that external work more effectively from a deeper or a greater consciousness or power or knowledge? And one finds oneself sometimes required to hold back an external action, waiting for the inner preparation. Sometimes life compels you to engage with the action and you don't have the preparation, you still do it. And later in life, when you've developed that inner capacity, you say, I wish now I could take up, I would have done it so differently. So in practice, of course, one does what is required when you have no choice. But in the way one should approach this, start preparing yourself for the external action by the inner work, but also start preparing externally for that action. What are the skills you need to make that work effective? What are the capacities you need to develop? Practice activities which approach that particular work or that kind of thing which you want to manifest or create or do, accomplish. So an external preparation has to parallel the inner preparation. Certainly when the inner consciousness has matured, is able to be more transparent to a more direct spiritual action, the work would be far greater. But on the other hand, left to yourself, you would never build the external equipment because of your nature, the limitations of your nature. So looking at examples in my own life, I've had perhaps the greatest learning externally in times of crisis when the inner was not sufficiently ready. But having gone through that external training and the strengthening that came with it, as the inner caught up, I say I wish now I had this too. It doesn't matter. It parallels and it will always move independent of the two and eventually a point will come where the two will begin to join. But at first we just do whatever we can. I will say simply as an answer to the question, don't wait. Don't wait for the inner growth. Start preparing externally, but don't hurry with the external action, prepare inward also. And at some point you'll find the right balance Alina, perhaps we can go to the other questions of the psychic being. We are approaching the time limit.

Alina (0:42:13):
Okay, yes, we received a beautiful letter from Mira. She was writing, I understand that once a person dies, she sheds the mental, the vital, the physical parts of the being. So what journeys forward it is the soul. It is the same as the psychic being, she is questioning. In that case, during that period of rest or assimilation between births, if one experiences oneself as a pure psychic being, is that state similar to what we try to accomplish here on earth in terms of realising and keeping constant contact with the psychic being?

Sraddhalu (0:43:16):
It's a very important question because well the question to summarise is when we have left the body and we have left the physical vital and mental parts are we that psychic being which we are trying to realise now? If that is the case then all we need to do is shed the body and we'll be in it, right? So, as a quick answer, no, it's not the same thing. There is a difference and the difference itself is of two kinds. First, you never shed entirely all these layers. Of course, the physical body is what you shed most completely but even of that there is a fine grade of subtle physical substance, habits, skills which have been developed. And if they have been developed with sufficient alignment to the soul's values, something of that can remain. Similar thing from the vital body, all the bulk of it is shed. A very fine gradation of vital substance, consciousness, imprints of habits and tendencies and even skills if they are aligned to the soul would be absorbed and retained. And equally the same from the mental body but of which a much larger portion might be retained because the mind is naturally more plastic. The more rigid parts shedding, dropping away.  So what remains is the psychic being with layers. Very fine, very subtle, but layers which belong to the work accomplished within that personality for the psychic evolution. Now there may be lives and a lot of human beings live so mechanically, so superficially that very little would be consciously aligned to the psychic values and so very little would be acquired, but if you have consciously developed certain parts, certain forms even of skills, as for example a musician working through the hands, if you have brought into the hands something of the aspiration and the vibration which is for the psychic being, its nourishment, then something of that feel within the hands and the consciousness of the hands will actually be retained, to be brought forward in perhaps the immediate next life or in some other future life. And so, these things are gathered around, forming what Sri Aurobindo calls the psychic personality which is evolving.

There's something else. The psychic being itself may not be very mature. If it is insufficiently mature, it's kind of awareness or its distinctive form and ability to engage, to assert its individual need and freedom may be to that extent undeveloped, unformed. A more evolved and mature psychic being who has gone through many experiences and has assimilated more and more and individualised sufficiently would be much more capable, much more conscious and able to exercise a choice. So a less evolved psychic being, not able to exercise a choice would find itself drifting automatically into the grade of consciousness of its current evolution. A more evolved consciousness to a different grade perhaps. A conscious and individualised psychic being may choose which level of consciousness it stations itself as. Because that is its comfort but it's also its choice. So it may choose a certain level which is natural to its evolution but it may also choose to settle at some, during some period before taking birth to a closer grade, closer to the material in order to actively help and assist in the work. Otherwise, you are automatically drawn to a level which corresponds to your current evolution and then when it's time to manifest, to take birth again, there's a turning towards the physical and you're attracted to the grades of consciousness which correspond to your present evolution. And you're just pulled like a magnet. Not much choice. And then you find yourself born and you don't know quite where but it matches your current evolutionary status. There are beings of the psychic world who assist in this alignment to make sure that you get a space that is most helpful to you. But otherwise, there's almost like an automatic magnetic attraction. So the state you are in is not necessarily the state of the awakened and aspiring psychic being but it is a certain layered state in a less evolved psychic personality, not very conscious, although still pure, but not very individualised and organised. When you are more individualised and organised, yes certainly you have a greater experience of the psychic presence, yet what you experience, you as a person who has left may still be largely in the form of the mental being which has just left and shedding still denser layers but then remaining in a certain mental body form because we are first of all mental beings and that's the reason why it is in the mental body that we retain the bulk of our awareness even post departure from the physical domain, you are still not living in the psychic personality or the psychic being within. Although the awareness of fit or the influence of it will be that much more vivid still what you have achieved there or what you are experiencing there is not integrated with your vital and physical bodies.

Sraddhalu (0:49:42):
So from there when you take birth, take on vital substance, first take on mental substance, take on vital substance and then join with the physical body In the incarnated body state you can actually work now to bring the psychic influence into the vital and the physical. So far what was there is only in a very unformed, vague mental formation of individuality, personality, into that the psychic influence was there. But if you have a very organised, formed mind, it may still block the psychic influence. So there's work to be done for the mental body, much more on the vital and even more on the physical. And all of that work you cannot do while you're disembodied. So yes, you may have a closer influence of psychic in that disincarnated state, but not very useful because the moment you begin to re-enter incarnation, you lose it all and then you have to work to integrate. But if you have done that integration here, to that extent you retain that over there and then can re-engage with material - vital and physical, without losing that integration substantially. And this is what you see in what we would call conscious souls. Having incarnated, they may not have a physical memory and yet they have a very strong psychic influence, asserting and even shaping the personality as it goes and if they do not make the error of losing that link then it can lead them for the rest of their life through whatever difficulties they may go through. But it can also happen that sometimes they lose that link and we have discussed those cases before. It is not also the case that when you are out of the, having shed the physical body that you are with God. You know there's a lot of loose talk, people say oh now so-and-so has gone to God. They've gone to heaven. This comes from a lot of the populist religious ideas where this world and then heaven or hell and you switch into the heaven, now you're in heaven, that's it totally. It's not like that. There's so many gradations in which you go to rest. Even if you experience the heavens, they are heavens of the vital world and not really the spiritual domains for which your psychic being has not yet developed the capacity or familiarity. And that's why that vertical evolution is so important. You do not have, even in that disembodied state, you do not have access to the higher worlds unless you have worked to develop those grades of consciousness as material to clothe the psychic being. Thats when you have access to those worlds. Otherwise you may have a sensitivity to influences from those worlds as a as a receptive psychic being but that's about it. So for example as you are today when you enter in close immersion in the psychic presence from there it is possible to turn up and even glimpse the Satchitananda. It's a very interesting experience. You see it and of course when you see it because that's the nature of the psychic or the intuitive knowledge, you experience as if a contact with it. Its purity, its beauty, something touches you. It's nourishment of course for the psychic but yet it is there far away it is not lived in, for which you have to go through that evolutionary process. And something like that happens even in the disincarnated state i think that should be enough to cover the question

Alina (0:53:28):
Can we still take a question of Mahesh, yes or we move?

[Sraddhalu]  no we'll do that.

[Alina] So we still have some time. Okay, good. So Mahesh is writing: My question is with regards to the closing part of last week's talk, where Sraddhalu explained how the Mother highlighted that the harmonisation of the being around the Divine Center can only be done in a human body on Mother Earth. Even in his talks on the synthesis of yoga in the past, this point has been highlighted that taking birth in a human body is the only way for a possible evolution in consciousness, as all the levels of existence are integrated in the human body. As they say, even for the gods to evolve from their typical planes, they have to take human birth. Can we assume when it is said human birth, it is also possible that there are other planetary systems in this vast universe where humans live a terrestrial existence and not only on Earth. It seems very unlikely that humans exist only on Earth. I am just trying to get a perspective on an afterlife where the soul may not come back to Earth and choose maybe another incarnation in a different planetary system for its progress. It is a topic that has always intrigued me and would be nice to have Sraddhalu’s perspective.

Sraddhalu (0:55:18):
Yes, of course. When we speak of Earth, we mean generally any planet where you could have an incarnation and when we speak of human evolution, we mean generally all human-like on any planet. Because the larger part of humanity does not even consider life on other planets, our vocabulary has mostly been reduced to something which is very earth-centric. And when Sri Aurobindo uses the word Earth, capital E, it is often to mean the physical domain, not just physical planet earth. When it is planet earth, he is very specific about it also. There's a comment he made, I could not find it unfortunately recently, but I'd seen it some 20 or more years ago. There's a comment he made in response to a letter where he says, in this incarnation both Mother and I are too concerned with this physical earth to worry about other planets. Something to that effect, I am paraphrasing. That is to say their primary work in this incarnation was for this planet, for humanity on this planet. But it is a fact, every planet as we have seen has life, not always evolved to the mental state, but if you consider the number of planets just on in our galaxy. You would have at least a few billion planets in which life has evolved to the human level at least and then consider the many more galaxies. Not always with a formed individualised psychic being, sometimes with a collective consciousness, a group consciousness and from what the Mother says, our earth is special for this special focus of individualised psychic being which almost every human being has as an individualised psychic being which is not the case always among all the other extraterrestrial human-like species. Some do, some don't. And in the universe in the full variety of possibilities everything you could conceive of potentially is already manifest physically and if not yet physically then at least astrally in the subtle worlds.

So when we speak of gods having to take birth on earth, yes in the physical plane but if they want to especially develop this experience of individualised psychic being with other individualised psychic beings then our earth is particularly interesting for this experiment, for this line of development, which you might not get to the same extent in other, in many of the other planets. I cannot generalise but in many of the other planets. It's also a fact, which is one of the doubts the questioner places, it's also a fact that we can choose to incarnate in other star systems, in other human-like forms, commensurate to our current evolutionary status, which does happen. Equally, beings who belong in their evolution to other planets or other species of human-like beings may choose to take birth on this planet earth, sometimes for that special experience of that individualised psychic being working with other individualised types. Sometimes as links to help create a link to a species even. You see they recognize their kind if they're sufficiently evolved just as you would recognize your kind if you were spiritually evolved.

It's a very interesting experience and I want to maybe I'll digress a little bit and share this. I came across an extraordinary book which is unfortunately only in French. It's not been translated yet into English and it's something so interesting that I was tempted even to offer to translate. Not that I have the time but I thought it important enough because this is a Frenchman who had from his childhood experiences of going out of the body, the subtle bodies, but unusually developed in his maturity. I've read many accounts from people who have out-of-body experiences but the level of spiritual evolution that this man has is quite amazing and the intuitive awakening is also amazing that he was able to recognise correctly many things which confuse others and some of the descriptions are fascinating. So as a result of the opening of the subliminal in his consciousness, he also had past life recall of certain lives. So one of the lives he had as a recollection was of having been in the Yucatan Peninsula, Central America. And so in this life he was interested to go there. He visits that space and like a tourist, he is a Frenchman dressed in tourist clothes. He goes to a tourist show in the evening where the native people of that space are going to put up a show of some of their cultural practices or traditions. They're going to play a certain game and do a certain performance. And so he's sitting there, he's come a little early, he's sitting there while the benches are filling up with the rest of the other tourists and there is one, I don't know which country it was, but one of the native persons of that tradition which he had memory of preparing his material, suddenly that man turns and and look straight at this Frenchman, Marc Auburn, his name. Looks at him as if recognizing him, walks up to him and extend his hands in greeting of their traditional style. And this Frenchman, from the memory of his life in that culture, responds with the same greeting of his hand extension, greeting exactly the same way, reliving his life of that period. And for a moment, you have the culture spanning lives meeting between these two people. What an amazing, what a beautiful experience. That native person was sufficiently evolved to recognize the being of his own culture and community, now incarnated in a foreign body, and could go and greet him, recognize that he was awake and this man recognized the link.

Sraddhalu (1:02:10):
If this is possible among human beings for sufficiently evolved it is equally possible among interspecies, intergalactic cultures, communities and so the reason I went into this in some detail is because it does happen occasionally that beings from other planetary cultures choose to take birth on earth for a specific experience but often maintaining a link with their kind and the experience they have acquired here is as if assimilated in their whole community. Because if they belong to a group culture then that is of value to the entire group. So our Earth is very interesting from many points of view, for many cultures and civilizations of various kinds of development. And these kinds of things also do happen. The universe is far more rich if only we could, we had eyes to see more deeply. And equally it happens that Earth beings who are primarily of Earth evolution and so normally would not switch to other planets, choose perhaps to take birth in another space for a particular experience or to become as if ambassadors linking. Just as on Earth here across cultures we sometimes have people taking birth crossing over to the other side. This we saw in a lot of early European settlers in the American space. There was a clash of cultures, there was a lot of destruction, a lot of mindless killing of a very unfortunate kind, a lot of karmic entanglements, the result of which was those who had come in the European bodies had to take birth on the other side and equally those who were naturally in the evolutionary line of the Native American cultures took birth in European bodies and as an effort to make a bridge.

Something similar you find also with India when the European colonisers came. There were many who came who were actually Indian in soul type, let's say, who had taken birth in those bodies to acquire specific characteristics of those cultures and now to be able to bridge. One of these I would share as an example. You probably know of a very great rishi of modern times, Ganapati Muni. He is the person who recognized Ramana Maharshi and named him Ramana Maharshi, who also came to the ashram and he was the only person that we know of to whom the Mother and Sri Aurobindo actually asked him to join the ashram and Mother said it was because they were looking for somebody who would continue the work after them and they found that possibility in him. For various reasons he could not unfortunately, but that showed the extent of his development and the Mother said when he would walk to the meditation hall all the hostile forces would run away. Such was the tapas and power, spiritual power that he carried. He had extraordinary experiences with the Mother, recognizing her, seeing her as his mother and so on. So, I am giving this background just for those who may not know. So one day in his meditation he sees a Rishi, an Indian Rishi in Indian form coming to him and saying that I have shed my body and he couldn't recognize who it was and next day he saw in the newspapers I think it was Colonel Olcott of the Theosophical Society who had passed away and he recognized the same vibration. So I'm giving this as an example of how extraordinary beings from various cultural lines of development also take turns to go to the other side and make bridges. For the rest of us who are not so special or exceptional, well we kind of hop around across many cultures drawing material from the learning that each of these has to offer to build a more integrated line of development but there are those who have actually worked on specific lines for many lives and they are of course the ones who change history through their lives. So I think that's a broad enough coverage of this topic.

Alina (1:07:03):
So we will move with a closing question from Narayan. What sadhana should one do to find the psychic being and to live in it? It's a beautiful question to end our session.

Sraddhalu (1:07:10):
Yes and this is question we had briefly prepared for last time along with two other questions all around the psychic being. And I had first of all highlighted the importance of this. Why it is necessary to find the psychic being, to enter in relation with it, to deepen that relation, to lose ourselves into it, rather the psychic being fills what is now the ego centre of our individuality and takes over the real living, the real person begins to live through this personality. Such would be the trajectory of this development. I had also suggested two exercises last time, suggesting for one to be done in the morning before you start your day, where you centre yourself, just to quickly summarise, to become very very still and very quiet, centre yourself in your aspiration or in the part where you feel your love for the Mother and then from there to turn to the day and then to the day and if possible during the day to recall or reconnect with that inspiration and the second exercise suggested for the end of the day was to review the whole day in a very detached way - what are the moments where you are more awake, more conscious of your higher sense of purpose or of the presence or something that relates to the deeper reality and then also make an offering of the whole day and go to sleep with that aspiration and if you have done this exercise you can see how immediately, immediately your relationship with things begins to change. As the idea of or the influence of the psychic presence comes into your mind, comes into your awareness, certain things become more interesting, something becomes less important. Maybe they're interesting but not so important. Other things grow in importance.

I've given this other example perhaps recently. What would happen to you? What would be the choice that you would make if you knew that you had just a month to live? What would you do with every day that's given to you? What would be important for you at that point? Think about it. If you like, write down what would you really like to do for the next 30 days, if that's all that was left for this physical life. And if you've written down a few things, pick the easiest of them all and give it five minutes for the next 30 days. It's not much to ask five minutes, isn't it? But at least ask yourself what would be important enough for you. I don't remember if I've mentioned this here so I'm just going to repeat it anyway. It's the example of this lady in Auroville called Bhavana. She was diagnosed with cancer, she was given three months to live, and she actually passed away within three months. And so when she had come and met me once, and she said that I just realised all my life, I did everything else except what my psychic being needed. And now I'm just giving her what she needs. Just giving her the nourishment. And it took various forms. She shared some of the things she was doing. For example, she spent a lot of time listening to the Mother's music as nourishment for her psychic presence, for the psychic, for the soul within. Think about what you would want. And then I will generalise the whole point of this. What is for you the most deeply nourishing experience in the world? What activity would you do in which you would feel that nourishment most concretely? Or most completely? Think about it and then start doing that for five minutes. If possible, every day. If not possible, every day. Well, some of you, I know you have very, very demanding lives in your work space. Well, at least on weekends and then not five minutes. Then you spend half an hour or an hour at least because you do have the weekends or make time. But start nourishing your soul.

Sraddhalu (1:12:32):
What is nourishment for the soul? And there are three words which come in the Indian tradition that Sri Aurobindo highlights, which are the soul's nourishment. Satyam, the truth, Shivam, the sacred and Sundaram, the beautiful. That which is true, that which is sacred or brings sacredness or closeness of the sacred presence of the Divine and that which is beautiful not only in form but in content, in consciousness, in spirit, in idea, in feeling. These are the closest in the material domain to that which is the Satchitananda. And that is its nourishment. And it is at a very essential level, at a very... I won't use the word abstract because it's not an abstraction, it is an essential description of what is soul's nourishment which can come in many forms. So, these three things you may seek in what comes to you or you may also seek in what goes from you. What you express must be true, as deeply true to you as it can be. It don't need to be word, it can be action, it can be just the way you are as the presence that you are. Or you approach that which radiates what feels true to you and you receive nourishment from that. Can be presence of a person, of a space, of a book, of reading, of listening, of viewing, doesn't matter what. This is true. It feels true and it's nourishing.

And the same with the sacred. What in you is most sacred, let it express itself. And perhaps you can't do it in a public space. You need a certain privacy, intimacy, where that which is most sacred to you is allowed to flow out. But you have to make time for it. What form it will be? It may just be sitting, feeling, glowing, the presence. It may take the form of a certain speech, an invocation, a prayer, a reading, a writing, a painting, a gesture, but glow it or be in the sacred's presence which is then your nourishment. What would that be? There are many many possibilities. If nothing else, listening, reading from sacred inspiring text or literature, watching a video, a movie sometimes even may touch something which is more beautiful, more true. But give it time. If possible, tilt towards it more and more in all your activities. But even if you go and mix with friends and chat, in that interaction lean towards things which are more nourishing. Of course, it depends on the friend circle. But if these are truly your friends, then there is a deeper affinity. If they're not truly your friends, you'll find somebody with whom there is a deeper affinity that you can spend time with a deeper, in a deeper communion and it's what we call satsanga, literally translated as truth company but sacred shared space is how I would translate generally, and then the beautiful.

How often and in what way can you express the beautiful in your life? For some it may take the form in physical expression in the body, the way you dress, the way you arrange yourself, make up, whatever form it may be. But with that intention to the Divine. You're going to meet the Mother. What would you do? How would you dress? I'm guilty of not living up to that most of the time. But when I do have to go to meet her, yes, I would I do take the trouble. And of course, I have the example of my teacher Sri M P Pandit, and he used to go to the Mother and you know they would, he and others who were similarly going. They would put a perfume they would put a flower the rose which she gave they would put in their pocket or on the shirt and I have memory of that vibration and that glow and that is for me the link. The form is not important, that vibration where you prepare yourself to radiate beauty as an offering to the Divine. And of course, it's there in the world to be shared, but for you it becomes sacred when you turn it to the Divine. Or you create something beautiful as a work of art, painting, sculpture, music, poetry, arranging the room, arranging your table, arranging an object just to make it beautiful, clean and beautiful. Arranging a few flowers in a vase may take five minutes but just that as an exercise to manifest beauty or surround yourself and nourish yourself from beauty from other sources. Again it can be beauty of form, beauty of feeling, beauty of thought, beauty of presence and a spiritual presence also, that is beautiful. You see there is a spiritual presence that is bare and austere. It does not manifest beauty. It manifests its austerity or its freedom or its transcendence of form. Then there's equally a spiritual presence which pours into form and expresses as beauty. Both have their value. Both in a way nourish the psychic being also. But the richness of the beauty manifesting is far more solid in content and the other is more a liberating influence, but still.

Sraddhalu (1:19:33):

Observe, maybe each of these you'll find something, some activity, some point of contact where you can get differently each of these kinds of beauty experiences or within yourself spend time in the week perhaps in different activities to touch or express beauty in each of these levels. Can you explore, experiment? These are things you have never tried, at least bulk of us have never tried, or if you have tried, we have tried on one point but not on all these. So here is a whole domain of exploration possible for the psychic nourishment both in receiving as well as in expressing. Explore this, work on it and this will be a kind of a basic sadhana to create a climate that is nourishing for the psychic evolution and which would then allow you to become more sensitised and more conscious to its influence. So the sadhana to find the psychic being and to live in it begins by cultivating, culturing, refining all the parts of your being, your whole life eventually even with small steps to allow for the psychic influences to express or to receive influences that nourish the psychic and which then allow it to come forward of course you can take a whole very detailed program, even in thought you should not speak a lie. That's too much. That's perhaps too much to start with. But start with just this nourishment. And this would allow the joy of the presence to flow out, to glow out and for you to acclimatise and feel and grow familiar with things which are aligned to it and eventually to its influence.

This cultivating is extremely important because in this yoga we want the entire being to be transformed and for that the entire being to be psychicised. So it's not enough that in the mind or the emotions you create a very concentrated link but then the rest of you does not participate or even it opposes because now it is scared of this link changing it. So an unbalanced opening can often create a strong reaction and even a violent opposition. So the gradual cultivation is extremely important. So I am giving this as a first exercise for culturing and perhaps I can suggest this as an exercise for the rest of the week. The scope is very large. Look at all three kinds of nourishment. The truth, the sacred, the beautiful. Consider their possibilities on each of these levels. Consider the expression of it as well as the absorption of it. So it's a very complex, large range of possibilities. Pick one or two or three which are for you the most practical, the most easy or the most joyful and satisfying. Start with that. And for some of you it may be as simple as reading one of Sri Aurobindo's poems or reading a few lines from Savitri or listening to the Mother's music or just sitting gazing out at a beautiful scene in nature, but pick a few if possible tapping each of these levels of your thought, of your emotions and the physical action or contact. And spend some time in each of these, if possible every day, if it's five minutes, you can do it every day. That would be the exercise for the week.

Work to create a climate of familiarity and nourishment for the psychic presence and the vibrations that are nourishing to it. And immerse in it for whatever duration. There will be a further exercise which perhaps next time we will take up, which will be a more concentrated exercise to enter in relation with the psychic. But if you have worked on these first, that will become much more easy. Tomorrow is Sri Aurobindo's birthday. It is a Darshan day. Recall what we started with. Invocation of the Presence and the darshan. And it doesn't matter if you do not see, not just with physical eyes, even with the subtle eyes. What matters is that you feel and that they see you. You see, you go for darshan of the Divine but whether you see or not what is important is the Divine sees you and pours Himself, Herself, Itself into you, isn't it? That's what you go for, that's the true purpose of the darshan. And the one who is most directly receiving of that action, that blessing, that influence is the true you at the centre, the psychic being who took birth for this, to experience the Divine in the world, to manifest the Divine in the world. And so you can do both actions, centering yourself, becoming very very quiet and this is extremely important to come in alignment with the psychic. Even your emotions should become as still as possible. Only the pure sense of the Divine presence or love for the Divine or a pure aspiration held, centering yourself in it, invoking the Divine presence before you or within you and then remaining in alignment, in contemplation, in meditation, in concentration whatever form it takes and that's the darshan and you have the privilege of sitting as long as you like in the darshan. There's nobody telling you move, move, there are more people waiting. There's no queue pushing you. So that will be our special exercise for tomorrow or perhaps even tonight if you like. Okay.

<Concentrates on the inner darshan>

Thank you.

Alina (1:26:33):
Thank you very much. Namaste.