EWS #80 Questions from Viewers (23)  - on Spiritual Life - 3

Aug 21, 2021

Alina (0:00:01):

Namaste. Welcome to the continuing series, Evenings with Sraddhalu. My name is Alina Dinovich, together with Joel from Auroville. Namaste, Joel.

[Joel] Namaste, Alina.

We are hosting part 3 on spiritual life and growth of consciousness with Sraddhalu. Namaste Sraddhalu.

[Sraddhalu] Namaste.

Today we continue part 3 on the same topic - spiritual life and growth of consciousness, and we received some questions from our viewers. So in the first part we will answer some of our questions and after continue on the growth of spiritual, of the psychic being. I will start with the first question from Mira. My question is regarding the present condition in Afghanistan, withdrawal of USA forces followed by a takeover by Taliban. In the past, we learned in one of the interviews that there is a Spirit behind each nation with its unique essence or role in Earth's evolution? What does the present situation mean for the Spirit of Afghanistan? And in the bigger picture, what does it mean for Earth's evolution?

Sraddhalu  (0:02:19):
Yes, this is a very important question, very topical because things have just happened, the situation is hot, maybe a few months down things might have changed so much that this may seem like a very small beginning of more serious difficulties. But the context we are looking at is the spirit behind each nation and what place it has in the overall evolution. Unfortunately just like human beings, the nation soul or nation spirit also has its own difficulties in its evolution. Between nation spirits or the Manu of a culture there can be relationships, tensions, conflicts, friendships or even events which make for karmic entanglements. Afghanistan is a very interesting space because it has always been on the border of India's spiritual map, has always been involved somehow and influenced by events in India and going back with our existing knowledge of history all the way to the Mahabharata which is about 5100 BC that's the dating of, sorry, 3100 BC. That's about 5000 years ago that the Mahabharata took place and this is easily confirmed through astronomical records. We find that the princess of Gandhar which becomes Kandahar today, Gandhari is married to a king in India, well the to be emperor and her uncle comes with her and becomes the cause of a whole complex series of events which ends in the Mahabharata war. Gandhar and the kingdom of Gandhar have always had this very interesting relationship that the spiritual influence of India ended on the border, which is currently Pakistan is included in that space and so the influence was there and yet it remained on the edge outside. It was a space of very strong spiritual training, you all know of the Bamiyan Buddhists, the Bamiyan Buddhas which were gigantic Buddhist statues of several stories high and next to those statues were small caves, some natural, some carved by human beings, where monks used to live in ascetic life. The entire area was known for its earlier strong Hindu values and then Buddhist values and then with the Islamic invasions, all these were wiped out.

I want to explain these because you understand the complexities of the karmas. There's an entire region in the northern part of Afghanistan, which is known as the Hindu Kush Mountains. You know that when the Taliban first came into power and seized the entire space. One of the most important priorities for them was the destruction of the Buddhist symbols and the Bamiyan Buddha statues. They used military equipment to shoot at them, to break them down, celebrated the destruction of all symbols which they considered non-Islamic. And at that time nobody said anything. The global powers kept quiet because it served their economic interests but that became the beginning of what was the hardcore coarse Taliban rule. But you would be surprised to know that the entire range which is called the Hindu Kush mountains are still called Hindu Kush by them and you have to wonder why. If all symbols which they considered an Islamic were removed, why is an entire region of mountains called Hindu Kush? And you have to understand the meaning of that word Hindu Kush. Kush is massacre. So it was the space where in the first Islamic invasions there was such a massive killing of the Hindus. The descriptions are of rivers of blood and so on. That the place was thereafter named the place of the massacre of Hindus. So for the Taliban it's a matter of pride to call it Hindu Kush.

Sraddhalu (0:07:17):

Now all this I am explaining because these things leave massive karmic consequences, entanglements with those who were affected. The people living there today may not be directly participating in those events, but by not raising their voice, they come under the sway of the existing mentality but also the karmic compulsions of the collective. So we have to recognize that just as we have spoken of the mental influence in a community or in a space, there are also karmic influences and compulsions. By accepting to align with a certain power structure and we discussed this last time. We not only give that structure power, we make it stronger, but we also participate in its karmic compulsions. Now we used the discussion last time in the context of the authority of the spiritual presence or government or other power structures. When you align to a power structure, you are giving it power, but you are also entangling yourself with that structure and participating in its entanglements, including its karmic entanglements. It's possible to live in a space which is completely contrary to your values, with difficulty not participating in those values. Of Course you are in the difficulty because the energy of that space considers you as someone who is not absorbed into its control. It always feels you like a experiences like this, like a seed which is stuck in your throat. It's irritating. It's hurting and you either swallow it or you spit it out. And the energy which contains that space feels you like an irritating seed. Maybe you are too small so it can ignore it. But if you start making too much noise and questioning the authority structures then the energy gets, feels the irritation and either swallows you, crushes you, absorbs you, assimilates you and then you're part of it or expels you. One of these has to happen eventually.

So there's a complex dynamic in a space like this where there is a long history of strong karmic entanglements and sufferings caused and the people who live there are perhaps quite unaware, perhaps unconscious even of all this background or its influence on them and so their suffering seems to be very unusual. Why should they have to suffer a series of invasions or conflicts between tribal values and so on? Behind all this and an overarching spirit beyond these is the evolutionary spirit compelling change on earth. That is pressing against this structure which is pressing against other substructures and so you have a complex interplay vertically in hierarchy but also horizontally with other influences on the side. So you have China for example which sees Afghanistan as a space where all the high value minerals are available in the largest quantity, largest stores of lithium needed for batteries for the future are right there. They would like to come in and own it. The US came in with similar interests. Soon after invading Afghanistan, which had no obvious reason at that time, they announced that this place has 1 trillion dollars worth of natural resources and so on. Then there's the poppy cultivation, which has its own karmic consequences. The Taliban, supported by powerful countries, continues to sell poppy to the tune of 1 billion dollars worth every year. That's the official number at least. And the people who use the opium and then have psychological results, well there's a chain of karma coming from there also.

Sraddhalu (0:11:33):

I have had occasion to meet people who live there. One of the persons I met was a lady who was working at the grassroots for education for women. Very courageous because she was living in fear of being killed by the Taliban any day. She ran schools in secret, moved around every day trying to avoid being in one place more than one night at a time. An amazing lady, amazing strength and guts and heroic truly, but it's not easy to survive. The entire space is under such a great oppression. So the role in Earth's evolution perhaps is secondary. The role in its own evolution now is the first problem in Afghanistan and until the people awaken sufficiently and begin to change the consciousness in which these karmas were created, they will tend to be subjugated to these tendencies again and again. So the lesson for us is this, and again looking at an individual first, whatever may be your past karmas, individual, collective, shared, in a family, in a nation, culture, subculture, whatever may be the past karmas, as long as you live in a consciousness that aligns to those karmas or which created those karmas, you automatically face the consequences. By shifting your state of consciousness, rising above, you become that seed which is difficult to swallow for the system but you become free of that influence to that extent and if enough people start making that effort then the entire power structure the dynamic of the group consciousness changes now to match the new level of consciousness such would be the demand from an evolutionary perspective on Afghanistan to change, to wake up, to move out of that tribal mentality, to move out of those very coarse values in which they would hate or destroy symbols of other cultures which even represent the glory of their nation and they're happy to destroy it. That represents a very narrow and coarse, even perverse mentality of a few though, but to dominate a collective that is helpless and the helpless collective aligns or accepts, maybe justifying in whatever way.

We saw a similar situation going back in the past. Mother refers to this in the context of Tibet, where a certain form of administration in the Tibetan Buddhism had reached a stage where Mother said they gave more value to those who have died than those who are living and that's when the evolutionary force used the Chinese invasion to break those structures allowing for something new to emerge and in scattering the whole spiritual energy which had been gathered it allowed the energy to renew itself in new forms. I had occasion to visit in the United States on the west coast somewhere in Northern California. A space which was set up by one of the early Tibetan masters who came all the way, he was one of the refugees from that invasion and he set up a space. It was not open to everybody. So we were in a retreat house overlooking across a valley to the other hill where his ashram or his monastery was there. Looking at it from far, it was literally like a magical landscape, you felt you were looking at a beautiful monastery in Tibet. The whole power, the vibration, the cultural values, the energy of Tibet, the spiritual energy of Tibetan Buddhism had been captured and physically grounded there with such incredible beauty and purity. It was like seeing a magical landscape. I don't know if I can pull out the photographs but the feeling was so special that could not have happened in Tibet where there was this encrustation of so many other values over time which were broken.

Sraddhalu (0:11:56):

So one can look at Afghanistan in the sense that whatever Spiritual potential or positive energy has been gathered there perhaps through these struggles, through these sufferings, forms which shackle it may be broken allowing those things to emerge but it would still need an effort of the people living there to make a change to get free from this. So from the perspective of earth's evolution I don't know how much we can say, but for certainly for Afghanistan it is a demand to grow and to change. There's a second aspect to it which I don't want to dwell too much but I want to indicate because it connects to our earlier discussions about the world state and the global interests. You see when a superpower and its military withdraws in a manner that is so foolish that you or I with common sense would say that's wrong, that doesn't make sense, then you have to ask - obviously there is a purpose behind they are not stupid. What they did was they first withdrew the military, leaving behind their citizens, leaving behind their bases, leaving behind their equipment. And the Taliban came and took over everything. It's the most irrational thing to do. The proper way, and this is part of military doctrine, it doesn't need us to tell them, it's part of common sense and military doctrine, that first you evacuate your citizens, then you take out your equipment, then you destroy the bases if you think they will be misused by those who will replace you and then you withdraw your troops. Right? It makes sense. That's the only way to do it. Interestingly, the same inverted pattern was followed when the US withdrew from Iraq. They had trained Iraqi soldiers, given them equipment, created bases and then they suddenly withdrew, leaving behind bases, equipment, trained soldiers who had been taken over by other interests and became what was later known as ISIS. The leaders of that group, which the US held in Guantanamo Bay prison, who had been released, took over and became the heads of ISIS. So it was as if they gave their equipment and training to create this terror state. Exactly the same pattern is happening in Afghanistan. The people, five people released from Guantanamo Bay have taken over the whole Taliban with the equipment and the training and the bases left behind conveniently.

And so you have to understand this is not by chance. They are not stupid. They have done it deliberately. Who is the they? We don't know. I would simply use the word the cabal, the deep state interests, which want to leave this space in chaos, which want to breed a force which they can continue to point to and say that's the threat which justifies our continuing existence or war and keep the war going unendingly. So there are complex interests behind the scenes, don't believe the media, use your common sense and then everything makes a lot of sense, you understand what's happening. You can see where it will go from here. Suddenly the US appears to be a superpower with no teeth, with utter incompetence. So other superpowers will step in and try to grab their interests. You will see things happening in South South China Sea, perhaps Taiwan, perhaps Crimea and other regions. But again you must understand if things happen it's because they've been allowed to happen. We're dealing with powers, extremely intelligent for their purpose, but sometimes under control of perverse interests of what is we have seen as the world state or the cabal interests. So keep that in mind and if you read between the lines, don't believe the journalists who give you these strange stories. You will understand what's actually happening. So this is just to give you the big picture from Earth's evolution. Well, it's like a cancer in terms of the energy structure and the perversion that's being created. It's like a cancer. It needs to be undone. It needs to be cleaned up. And as long as these things continue, entire humanity suffers.

I suppose that's enough to on this subject.

Alina (0:20:31):
Yeah, a very good perspective over Afghanistan's situation. We have a next question from nickname AuroDiver. Very good question: What will it take for humanity to make the radical change in consciousness? Only at the precipice? What and when will it be the precipice?

Sraddhalu (0:21:01):
Yes, so there is a, in the very question, the suggestion is that the change takes place when we are at the precipice. That is on the edge of destruction, on the edge of losing everything, people wake up and make an effort. There was a whole movie around this, I forget the name, I don't know if you would remember, Joël, about this extraterrestrial who comes to make friends with humanity and human beings don't want to change, so they start destroying. And he is asked, why are you destroying human beings? They said, no, we have come to save life on Earth by removing human beings.

Joel (0:21:36):
So, I think it's The day the earth stood still.

Sraddhalu (0:21:41):
That's right, that's right. And so finally, the human beings are friendly with this EET, convince him that human beings change only when pushed to the edge. And then he says, oh, yeah, that makes sense. And he accepts to stop that whole process. It's worth seeing the movie because in many ways, it's suggestive of what's happening now. The questioner is saying is when will we reach that precipice? I would say we have already reached that precipice 50 years ago. You will recall the message that the Mother gave, I think it was in 1970 or 71. The choice is imperative, truth or the abyss. There's a context to this. You have to understand the Mother spoke of this in the 1960s in the Agenda, early 60s, where she said that humanity is already moving into this phase where the mass of humanity is splitting into two groups. One group which is choosing to rise and grow in its consciousness and another group which is choosing to lapse and sink in consciousness. And so there's a split taking place, it's not that the whole of humanity will rise together into a higher consciousness. There's a split with those who want to rise and those who don't want to or to choose to sink and then the gap grows. The problem is these two are not in separate spaces, they are right in the same space, interwoven. In the same town, you have people of both types mixed in. And perhaps in numbers, those who are rising are fewer than those who are sinking. So what you see is a clash, a collision of two opposite values taking place right here, right now, everywhere, in everyone's lives. You will recall also that prayer that the Mother gave, which she wanted all those who want to dedicate themselves to the new consciousness and the new world to repeat. In between something like this, make of us the hero warriors that we aspire to become. May we fight successfully the great battle of the future that is to be born against the past that seeks to endure. So the future is trying to take birth, the past is opposing and trying to endure and continue its old values and then she says, against the past that seeks to endure is the great battle so that the new things may manifest and we be ready to receive them. We are the hero warriors who aspire to participate in this great battle of the future against the past. And by dedicating ourselves to the new consciousness, you make possible the manifestation of the new gifts. So we are actually in that crisis now going back say mid 60s. Mother said it's already happening. We're in the midst of this change. She then refers to many of the prophecies including the biblical prophecies which look at the future and see some great dramatic change to come but because they see it symbolically at a distance in time and they cannot understand the nature of the change because it's seen by mental consciousness not above mind consciousness. So in symbols, they can only try to interpret the symbols. Fire and brimstone and revelation of God's might and all those things which are described in the biblical tradition looks like a great destruction. Yes, it's a destruction on a psychological level of values, systems, even civilizational values. Not of people, not of spaces, not of humanity, need not be at least. And the thing which is changing is the fire, the intensity of the push, the pressure of the evolutionary force. You see the Supramental light flooding into the world would be seen as a fiery intense light filling and overwhelming everything in a flood. So all these are images symbolically seen, they don't understand what it is. But Mother says at that point that has already happened. In the 60s she's saying it's already happened. And then she says it's funny that people are waiting for it to happen. They don't realise it's already happened.

Sraddhalu (0:26:14):
So to the questioner, when is the precipice, well we've already crossed the precipice. Having crossed the precipice, there is the part of humanity that begins to break down and fall into the precipice and then the part that chooses to make an effort and to rise and I would use the analogy of floating them, but we've already crossed that point and that's why Mother's message and three words are significant - men, countries, continents. So it's at an individual level, at a national level and then there is the ‘continents’ suggesting the physical space itself of the earth, where perhaps we will avoid significant destruction. We know in the past for example, Atlantis was one of those spaces where when the occult knowledge became more important than the Spiritual and took a perverse turn, an Asuric energy, the highly developed science and technology came into the hands of those perverse interests. They turned upon themselves and overnight the entire continent sank. At least that's what the esoteric history teaches us and there is good reason to believe that this is true. Such a destruction, hopefully, is not necessary. It would not serve nature's purpose. Because what is needed now is the best of the development of the past has to be gathered, so that it may be lifted up. And the things which don't participate, well they're allowed to fall back. But destruction, physically, is not necessary, and would perhaps harm even the evolutionary purpose. So, that's the third -continents. But maybe things will change. Earth changes have been foreseen. They might happen. Mother was asked about it because a lot of people had prophesied destruction of lands going underwater, new lands rising and things like that. And Mother said much of this has been mitigated by the arrival of the Supramental consciousness, because the Supramental is a power of harmony. It may take the same circumstances of colliding forces and put them into an alignment that leads to change without destruction as far as possible, minimising harm to the bare minimum. So what and when will be the precipice? We have already crossed the precipice. What about today? And that's where each one of us has to make the effort. Every day counts. Don't wait. Don't wait for a precipice to come because the longer you wait, the more things, the worse they get. If all of us, all of humanity, let's say, or even a majority of humanity, more than 50% of us decided that, no we will change things, that would be enough to make a radical shift overnight and perhaps we need these crashing circumstances. Mother spoke of this, this phrase she said in the again in 1971 or 72 just before she left her body, she said if humanity does not consent to change the change will be brought about by crashing circumstances. That's what we are seeing today everywhere. Will we wake up? That's our choice again.

Alina (0:29:44):
So I think that's a good topic to continue on this crushing circumstances. Yes, we continue with Narayan's question. I have mothers and Sri Aurobindo's symbol as tattoos on my arms. How can I invoke the presence into them?

Sraddhalu (0:30:06):
It's an interesting question. I've seen people put symbols of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo, sometimes even their images in the form of a tattoo. And well, I can share my personal opinion of tattoos. I don't think, I don't find them to be very aesthetic, even if the patterns are sometimes quite novel or even bordering on the beautiful. Somehow the body feels to me very sacred and to put something which is a permanent mark on it does not feel comfortable. That's a personal preference. I'm just sharing it for those who might feel that way and they may choose to follow that or not. But for those who felt the need to put a symbol, I would ask you what you intend to do with that. Is placing an image on your body something that will help you become more conscious of the Divine Presence? Will it help to deepen your relationship with the Mother or Sri Aurobindo? Are you putting the symbol merely with the idea that it will protect you? In which case you don't need to put it as a tattoo. You can wear it in an elegant form which is also seen visually or you can hide it inside. But be conscious of why you do. Don't do it simply because it's the in thing, it's fashionable and because you are injecting things in the body which stay with you for life. Once a tattoo is inserted with the inks come many materials including heavy metals and other things. They stay, you cannot take them out. So be conscious of that.

But then comes the second part of the question which is how to invoke the presence into the symbols. So again there I will ask you why would you want to invoke the presence in the symbol, what will that do? The presence held in the symbol would then radiate to act on you, right? Why do you invoke the presence in an object? Because from that object there will be a radiance of the presence which will impact you, isn't it? So your ultimate goal is to receive the presence in you, to feel its radiance in you, that it may change your consciousness. So why invoke the presence in an object and then receive by reflection when you can invoke it directly into you? Think about it. This way of thinking comes from the older religious framework which belongs to a phase of human development when the common man was not sufficiently developed to be able to enter in direct relation with the Divine and needed an intermediary symbolic form. So, for example, if I don't have the capacity to concentrate or I can hold my concentration for a few minutes only. And if you were to take a stone, an object, an image, does not matter what, which is infused with the power, with the presence, and so I can hold that and keep it in my hands and feel the presence and its effect uplifting me. That's worthwhile. But see, the goal is still to get the presence into you to change your consciousness. But because I am unable to concentrate, I use a vehicle that I can hold physically. So for a consciousness which is bound in the body, unable to consciously open in the heart or the mind, such an indirect method is extremely valuable. For a consciousness which is not interested in opening the heart and mind, just wants to receive the influence as a purifying influence which helps somehow, which protects, uplifts or protects from illness and gives me wealth and satisfies my immediate needs and desires. Even that's fine. So you go to the temple, you receive the blessing, you come home and live your normal life.

Sraddhalu (0:34:29):

But when your goal is to directly experience and change your consciousness, directly experience the Divine and change your consciousness in the image of the Divine consciousness, then you don't go to the temple, you bring the temple to your home, and you don't keep the temple outside you in your room in a corner, but you make your body your temple, isn't it? The un-worshipped God within now becomes the icon, the idol, the presence that you turn to become conscious of. Your body is the vehicle, the pedestal of the temple. Your heart's love is the nourishment that you give to the Divine presence which then grows with your love and fills you with its nourishment of the Divine soma-delight and your mind is the priest who officiates that whole process and acts as the intermediary to receive the guidance and knowledge from the Divine presence of what you should do, how you should live your life. It forms in your thoughts, in your understanding and lifts the clarity of your intelligence to discriminate and know what is right from wrong. You are the temple. All external symbols and vehicles are a means to that end. Once you become clear about this, you reassess all the symbols that you rely upon. They are all useful, but as long as you rely on something outside you, you can lose it and therefore lose yourself in the process. The external symbol must be a means to as quickly as possible establish that presence within you and you become the symbol itself. Otherwise the external symbol is only a crutch temporarily used or even wrongly used to allow you to continue to be exactly what you are, not taking responsibility for the change.

So now coming back to the question about the symbols tattooed, yes, you can certainly invoke the presence in the tattoos, in the symbols, but again to what end? So that they may radiate and act on you, right? Why not invoke directly? Think about it. And I say this to the questioner, think about it. Don't focus too much on the symbol. Yes, you have them, you can certainly look at them, make them a reference point if I think it is on the arms, make them a reference point as a reminder, but for what? Let the presence may come into you. So let the symbols, view them as gateways or supports, crutches for a direct relationship to be built. So just having said all this, I'll still respond to the person's need if there is such a need after all this. That yes, what you can do is you feel the presence, you feel the space of the symbol, feel the Mother's presence, Sri Aurobindo's presence, or in remembrance of their name, form, your love for them, in whichever way, build that connection and feel that space where the symbol is, invoking them to settle with an intention. And that's it, that's your method of doing it. But then I would say don't stop with the symbol, now let it extend into the whole of your body. And then in your body, you may consider three centres representing the three major parts of your body: your mind, your heart and your physical consciousness. Naturally, the centre of the mind is in the head so you invoke their presence and their light in the head, invoke their presence and light in the heart centre, centre of chest, general region here. And for the body, you can feel the whole body perhaps. Or for some people if the centre of the body comes in the centre which is given so much importance for physical energy in the martial arts, the navel region as a physical centre for the body energy or simply the whole body which is much more complete than just the centre. Again the centres are not so important in the integral yoga because they are centres of an entire state of consciousness which is all over, you want to transform the whole state, not just open a centre. So invoke in the entire mental awareness which then will be not just head but all over the body, perhaps with the head feeling the centre glowing out into the entire aura, the same with the heart for your emotions and life energies and then for the body similarly. So that might be more complete if you still want to keep the symbol as a reference point, well start with it, but then move to this or if you move to this directly, what you receive within you will then blow out your symbols.

Alina (0:40:03):
Maybe we can move to a next question from Anshuman. How does one differentiate between good education and bad education? How does one know that one has progressed and grown spiritually?

Sraddhalu (0:40:21):
Yes, I think this question came when we were discussing issues of how education helps a child to grow in consciousness. Well, when you say good education and bad education, it all depends on what is your reference for the good and bad. So a parent who looks at the child's future in terms of getting a good job, I would ask the parent, what do you mean by a good job, and they will respond, a job that pays a lot of money. What if your child is unhappy in the job? There are some parents who will say, then it's a bad job. There are other parents who will say, it doesn't matter. I would rather my child has lots of money, even if he's unhappy there. But once he has the money, he'll be happy in some other way. Maybe. So the question really is what is your reference for the good and bad? Of course, since we are discussing it here, it is because our reference is the spiritual life. So what makes for a good education or a bad education from a spiritual evolutionary consciousness perspective? So we set aside those other values which have their own validity but are not important for us. Any education that helps you to grow in closeness with the Soul and its influence and its values, the psychic being, would be a good education. And even if the educational system has neglected the full training of your mind or your vital or your physical body, but has allowed and supported this nourishing influence, I would say it's a good education but incomplete. But if an education has helped you train your intelligence and your life energies and your body fully, but cut you off from that Influence that would be a bad education, straight away. Not incomplete, it would be a bad education.

So, priority is that connection, the values of that presence and everything else then made complete, made rich in the personality's development has value when connected to that. Again, I'll elaborate on what that means because if a person has a well-developed intelligence, well-formed vital energy, individualised, but has got cut off from that presence and its values. They will struggle for decades, for much of their life, to recover that influence. Especially when the ego sense cut off from the presence is strongly individualised, it struggles to open itself. If on the other hand in the formation of the strong individualised ego sense that influence was always present, you will have a well-developed individuality and then one day perhaps even spontaneously the inner presence will say I am here, give you a glimpse of it and the whole personality will say, ‘ah yes, this is what I'm seeking’ and the entire ego person can just open and give itself to serve the presence, its values. This is what often happens in the lives of individuals in whom that influence has been strong. So because much of the education is very superficial, the surface personality forms but because this influence was strong one day suddenly something flips and there is a breakthrough but because the passage was clear. There's equally a phase where you may need to cut off that connection especially if that connection is associated with a lot of clutter. So I would give the example of many young people today who grew up in traditionally religious families where spirituality is associated with the whole cluster of prayers, pujas, rituals, external forms and sometimes it's even confusing for me when they'll say, oh tomorrow is such and such a sacred day so we have to do such and such a puja, I need to gather such and such a leaf and wear such and such a dress and do this ritual, it is going to take me two hours. And I would ask, for what? And if they say, I feel good after doing it, I'll say, wow, go ahead, do it.

Sraddhalu (0:45:02):

But can you simplify all the clutter? And get to the things which may lead you to that feel-good experience more directly, more quickly. I know of people who added on rituals one after another and I've seen many they would wake up early and do one hour of this prayer or puja and then one hour of that ritual another hour of meditation another hour of exercises, asanas and they would be exhausted because they had not slept enough. But not doing this, they would feel something missing. Simple solution is now, you don't need one hour to get to that experience. What is it you're seeking? Now cling to that and simplify. Simplify the forms. It's not that repeating a mantra 1000 times will give you the result on the 1000th count. There's a build-up taking place already, isn't it? Notice when the buildup happens more rapidly and it's not proportional to the count. In fact, initial phase there is a rapid buildup and then the count continues but there is no further improvement. If I have already reached 50% in the, let's say, 100 counts, 900 more are not going to take me to 10 times more. If at all they take me just 50% more. So notice that it's not the number. It's rather that initial state of concentration, self-giving, devotion, heart’s opening, mind’s opening. Observe what are the things which make for that contact and its influence. Amplify those. The forms can begin to fade. The numbers can be reduced and perhaps an exercise that is three hours long could be reduced. And I'm not saying this radically. It can be reduced to 15 or 20 minutes. In most experiences, you can reach to significant depth of experience within half an hour or even one hour if you feel the need to stay on in that state. But entering the state can be done far sooner, especially if there is a regular practice. If you have not done a practice, it may take time to build up.

So all this is to say that make conscious effort to build the connection, work on the development of the personality and its capacities, keeping a thread or the link of that connection and eventually you will find the two will merge and make for the most complete development. That would be a very good education. Even for those, so I was actually, I was giving this example of people who have very strong religious terms with religious background, so often they undergo a reaction. Having gone through this from childhood suddenly as the rational part kicks in the person starts thinking do I need to do all this and there's a rebellion or a rejection or an exploration - can I do it another way, is there a simpler way and I would respect that I would say yes, go ahead, explore this. I have given the background of what it is that makes it effective. If this you understand, then you can drop 99% of the ceremonial content, perhaps gradually, focusing on the experience alone until you can actually let go of all content of the ceremony. Simply turn to the Presence with an opening of the heart and the love and self-giving and the connection is made, the love fills, the joy fills, the presence peace light power fill your whole being and then you just allow it to grow as you open yourself in a complete container. What did you do externally, physically, symbolically? Nothing. All was done entirely internally. In the religious tradition, this is called the inner puja and it is considered far more powerful than the external puja. That's what the tradition tells you. So, if you're a traditionalist, well follow the tradition to its conclusion. But they say the inner puja, you see, is misunderstood. They think the entire ritual done outside has to be repeated inside. No, the external ritual is a symbol of what happens within you. The breaking of the coconut is the breaking of your ego. The offering of the flowers and the fruits and the words spoken to the deity is really an inward movement of a self-giving to the Divine presence. They represent parts of your consciousness. So the whole thing turned inward, you don't need to go step by step in a mechanical process. You can go in a single movement of self giving to the presence with love and it can be done. So the inner puja is not a replica of the outer turned inward because it's an inward movement. All the movements blend into a single psychological opening, self-giving and joy of immersion. And that's why it can be done just like that. And of course you can deepen to intensify. So I come back to the original question, good education, whatever may have been your past education, the fact that you are here, interested in these things, well the link is there. You value something which you do feel within you. Don't worry about what was given to you. Make your education good now. And if you can, to your children, to those around you, be a centre of radiance where they may be touched by what you carry. And perhaps they may just feel a touch of that light and begin to value that presence and open to it consciously eventually.

Sraddhalu (0:51:18):

So now comes the second part of the question, how does one know that one has progressed and grown spiritually? There are several references. One of them is simply observing what you are with what you were. Take a long enough duration, look back at what you were 10 years ago, 5 years ago, 2 years ago, you obviously see a big difference. There are two components of that difference. One is the external maturity which comes with life experience generally. You understand people better, you understand circumstances better. As a result, you understand yourself better. But it's more outside in. Second is the change within you in what you experience yourself to be. Where earlier my values and priorities were, well, the word you will find is superficial compared to what you are today. Now it's much more deep, much more real, much more lasting. And there may be a third component to it, which may be the integration of these two. Where earlier I felt two lives separate, now I feel them blending. And there's only one life, which I'm living more in to out. So these are three references you could look at. external change, change in who you are in terms of awareness and third, in the integration of the inner and outer parts. If you ever had a strong gap between them, that would be one way of assessing that you're growing spiritually.

Time and the sense of change over time. There's another reference which is very subjective. You look back and you say, Oh, did that happen a week back? It feels like a year ago. And that's often a sign of great progress. Because in consciousness terms, you have grown in the equivalent of one year during the passage of one week. And so you say, Oh, it's just a week back but it feels such a big difference. A variation to this, you can treat it as a third reference, is you find that time is moving very fast or it feels like, oh the whole day is finishing too quickly but I have so much more that I need to do and time is just flowing quickly. Compared to when time flows very slow and heavy. Oh, I'm waiting. Oh, one more hour to waste before so and so comes, before I go and do that interesting thing. What shall I do for one hour? It's a problem. And when time is weighing on you, moving slowly, it's because you're not changing. When you grow, because the change of consciousness is so rapid, you look back and oh, time has moved fast. That's the third reference, let's say. There's a fourth reference, which is also very subjective, even more subjective. You become very quiet and feel, just be. And in that state, you feel content. You feel things are as they should be. Or compared to, you feel something is not okay. Something is misaligned, something is wrong. I need to make a correction. See the difference between the two, you are stuck, you are not progressing in consciousness. You will feel this sense of discomfort. Something is not okay. Sometimes it will appear in dreams, where the misalignment of inner state with circumstances will may come in dream form, which often takes forms where you are about to take a train and you find you have not bought the ticket and the train is about to start. Things which are, there's an exam and you have not prepared. You just realised today's the exam and you're in the midst of a situation for which you're unprepared and you know there's a gap a misalignment, you're not keeping up with the pace of change of circumstances. So this fourth reference is just becoming quiet and something inside you, deep inside you, feels content, comfortable and knows that all is well and that's a sign that you are on the right track. When there's a misalignment you'll feel a discomfort and then you look for what's the correction required. So these are four very different perhaps kinds of reference but each will give you a sense of the growth. You may use different measures at different times.

Alina (0:56:38):
Shall we move to our next question?

Sraddhalu (0:56:40):

I think we should move to the psychic.

Alina (0:56:40):
Psychic questions? Mahesh is writing, how much influence does karma have in the experience the soul chooses to enter into after a rest between lives? The concept that the soul chooses the experience it wants to have seems hard to explain to others when you see some going through pain and suffering around you, while others have a life of abundance. I understand it from the standpoint that certain experiences are needed to awaken your inner self, to question the reason of our existence, thereby learning and growing. However there surely are consequences of past life actions which have to be faced, as in the concept of Sanchita karma and Prarabdha karma. As I understand from whatever bit I have read in Sri Aurobindo's teachings and heard in Sraddhalu's lectures on the same subject, the soul undergoes negative or positive experiences in the vital or mental domains to complete its circle of journey or going to rest and then descends for its next incarnation. Would it be nice if Sraddhalu can elaborate a bit on this concept?

Sraddhalu (0:58:24):
It's a long question with many different components to it but maybe we can have a general summary of the idea. The questioner is primarily looking at this problem of why a soul would choose a difficult life? Why would it choose an experience where it has to suffer or go through pain or not have abundance and comfort and of course his problem is how do you explain that to people and of course you can say it's all the result of karma, which is a simple solution that you didn't have a choice you tried to have a comfortable life but your karma caught up with you and made you miserable or gave you difficulties. And so he has used two terms Sanchit Karma and Prarabdha Karma, so the idea is there's a mass of karma hanging on behind you which is pressing, of which a little bit is the current karma that is being used up. These are two different ideas of karma load. And so these are simple ways of explaining away. But they assume that the soul would not want to choose a life of difficulty or suffering. In fact, from the soul's point of view, it's very different. The values are fundamentally different from ours. I will take the analogy of playing a video game. Observe a child playing video games, games in plural, a variety of types. Observe yourself in the kinds of games that you played or observe the physical games you played. You played football or basketball or cricket. Think about what a struggle it is if you're playing football. You have to keep on kicking the ball, you hurt yourself in the process, isn't it? Sometimes you injure yourself, you're putting yourself in danger, you're colliding against others, you're falling, you might break a bone. And all to kick a ball into a little square somewhere on the other end and most of the time there'll be 10 people stopping you from doing it, why would you bother? Right? If you think in these terms, the whole point of the game is lost. But when you look at the joy you have in playing the game, what is it that gives you the joy? Precisely overcoming a challenge, navigating around obstacles and difficulties and achieving a certain goal, even if that goal has zero value in terms of comfort or money or fame, maybe you might get a little fame from having put the goal, but even if you missed the goal it gave you joy. And the skill and the delight of the skill and the success of achieving through, navigating through and reaching the goal is what gives you the joy. And even if nobody was there to praise you you would enjoy it, isn't it?

Now look at what you do with video games. If you play a video game that's very difficult, too much, you stop, you move to something easy, if it's too easy you say it's boring, you need a level of challenge commensurate to your current development. So you should be able to easily do certain things but struggle to reach a higher level of competence or skill or knowledge or strength or whatever the faculty that's being developed, coordination, observation etc. And when you're forced to develop a part of yourself, you struggle, you make an effort, you grow or you miss. And sometimes when you miss, in many of the video games, they say you die. You fell off the cliff instead of jumping correctly, you jumped too little, you fell and die. What do you do then? You go right back and restart the game, isn't it? So just to save you the trouble of restarting from zero, they give you what is called three lives. So you died, okay you're right back where you were last and you again make the same effort and again and this time you cross and you break through and you celebrate the success of the achievement of growth in your capacity which is what gives you the joy and that joy is incomparable.

Sraddhalu (1:02:53):

The Mother makes this observation: The joy of restraint and self mastery is greater than the joy of indulgence and losing oneself. Try it out, check it. It's a totally different quality of joy. And the joy that you gain from this is lasting. Because you have grown and overcome your circumstances in a way that is permanent. And the sense of mastery of the circumstances is the kingship of the soul. The psychic being coming into its own over the circumstances and saying, ah, now I'm beginning to rule this domain rather than being a subject. Because the sense of the rule is its truth as Self who is utterly free and creator of this universe, of this video game, of this simulation of the world. You can look at it this way. Recovering your poise as Lord and Master or approaching that recovery is what gives the joy because you come back to your own true self and its true capacity and its true freedom and all its powers of knowledge and strength and beauty and love and skill and everything else. So yes, from the psychic perspective, you would choose a life commensurate to your current development and demanding the growth that you so seek. Sri Aurobindo gives this analogy of a king who having lived a life of relatively great comfort of having needed nothing or wanting anything now says what's it like to not have anything and may choose to take birth in a family of great poverty so that he may start with having nothing and then build his empire from there. And the joy of having built everything from nothing is far greater than the joy of inherited and perhaps squandered. Interesting, because you grow. And so the experience of the soul, the values of the soul don't think too much or don't feel much for what we consider suffering or pain or discomfort.

The soul's suffering is of a different kind. It is the suffering from the loss of contact with the Divine presence, the loss of the nourishment that we spoke of last time, the Satyam, Shivam and the Sundaram which is nourishment for the soul's growth. That is its suffering, that is its pain and it can grow what Sri Aurobindo calls a psychic sadness from being denied this nourishment of the Divine. But struggling through difficulties and growing to realise these things or receive them or express them is the greater nourishment for the soul and it gives great joy. And you yourself can feel it or even see it in those people who go through that and overcome. If there is a misalignment between personality and the soul values then the personality can make a confusion out of it. I have suffered so much, life has been mean to me and so on. But if there was an alignment the person would say you know what I've had a really interesting life. I've experienced every possible thing that could go wrong and come through it and overcome. And you'd actually look back at that and say, oh even perhaps with some pride what an interesting life. But that's because the outer personality participates in the soul's values. The misalignment can make a person miserable and then you find this very peculiar thing. They are miserable on the surface but they're happy to be miserable talking about those things. It gives them some kind of a perverse joy, but that's a distortion.

Sraddhalu (1:07:00):

Now, coming to the question of the influence of karma in the choice, recognizing that essentially the soul is free, but the extent of its ability to exercise freedom depends on its evolution. And so we come back to that question last time which Meera had placed about the psychic being after leaving the body is it the same as the full realisation of the psychic that we seek, yes it is the psychic being but it is an undeveloped psychic being and the layers of its development of personality and its maturity is the whole point of this exercise of growing. So to the extent that that is not so clearly formed, the psychic being is vulnerable, is not master of its circumstances has not yet come into its kingdom, kinghood, if I may use the word. To that extent there is a compulsion of circumstances, it has not mastered its energies its powers. As it grows and is able to exercise its freedom, the compulsions of karmic and other influences are not binding. Or exercising the freedom of the Self, the same karmic compulsions, basically they are pulls and pushes of energy, can be turned to a positive outcome. You see this in a lot of the Indian stories. In the Mahabharata for example, you have complex threads interwoven of dependencies. So and so had committed a particular action in a previous life and now in this life that thing comes back in a new form and ends up with a totally different outcome. And all the threads of these entanglements come finally into the great war and are as if resolved through it. Sri Krishna when he decides to leave his body is sitting and then this hunter comes and shoots an arrow on his foot with a piece of metal which comes from a curse that the Rishi gave to somebody from his clan but the event itself goes back to another story where Sri Krishna is cursed by somebody that you will die in this particular way. And it's as if all those curses or energies, if you see them as energies, are made to act upon each other in a way that leads to a particular outcome. The freedom of the Self can take the full play of all these energies and swing them around to an outcome that it chooses. But the outcome it chooses is free. The energies are used for it or even without them it would choose that outcome. So from the soul's perspective as the maturity grows and the freedom of the Self begins to act, the psychic being is now evolved and can act through the material of the mind, vital and the physical upon its world. It comes into its kinghood, it wheels these karmic and other energies to an outcome which is independent of those energies. So at that point will you say karma acts. So from a certain point of view, karma doesn't matter at that point of freedom. From another point of view, yes karma was used but it was not needed. So does it matter? No.

Sraddhalu (1:10:29):
The greater truth is the freedom of the Self. The lesser truth is of influences, karmic or otherwise. Even when you are not sufficiently mature, remember, you are not just you. You are the tail end of the Self, of the Divine. You are the child of the Divine Mother. And to the extent that you open to Her support, protection, inspiration, and nourishment, She acts much more than you could in your capacity. So although you may not yet have the freedom to act to change the karmic circumstances or other circumstances, you have the freedom to invoke her help. You have the freedom to place yourself entirely in her hands or at least partially. And to the extent partially that you are able to place yourself in her hands, she acts to change those circumstances or utilise those karmic energies to an outcome that she chooses freely for you or which aligns with your soul's aspiration and call, which is your freedom, which is her freedom. So even though you may not have matured sufficiently spiritually to exercise your full freedom, you can still invoke the Divine Mother's help and the Divine Grace to exercise her freedom for you. Why wouldn't you do this? You wouldn't do this because you didn't know it's possible, because you were told that everything is a machinery and you have no choice and you have to suffer through and that's the error of so many of the traditions. They ignore the reality of the Divine freedom, of the Self, of the Divine Shakti, of the soul's aspiration to call, and the help which is constant here because the divine is not out there somewhere.

When you bring back this correct perspective, you should be exercising that freedom every moment. Except, your freedom should not be to say Divine Mother give me this outcome because that's a wrong choice coming from your wrong understanding. It's not your psychic choice, it's not coming from an insight of what is best for you. What you can say is Divine Mother protect me, help me to grow in the way that you choose as best for my growth. Can you trust? Can you trust that She will choose what is best? Or do you say yes please choose what you think best but I want that outcome? Generally that's the form it takes initially. Initially. But at least make that step. Start with that, you know, I have this particular preference, I think this would be really nice if you can give me but I ask for your help to show me what is best for me and help me realise that. And you know what is beautiful about the relationship is you can even say seeing that this is better for you, you have an attraction for a certain experience and you say, Mother give me this and she's a mother, she says, ‘yes my child, I know it's not good for you but okay, have just enough of it that you understand its value and then move on’. And she gives you that experience also because it's the relationship of love, it's not a compulsion it's not a machinery it's not a blind machine of karma, the greater play is a play of freedom and of delight. And for the psychic, the delight of the growth is the greatest truth. And for the Divine, the manifestation of its delight in the world is the greatest truth. Suffering, pain are temporary means or appearances for the growth of the consciousness, so that it may be able to have greater capacity for delight. So the pain is really forcing me to learn something which otherwise I would not have learnt, compels me to change in a certain way, to widen, to become more free, so that I may be capable of greater delight later. So the pain is not needed. It is always a symptom of a change being compelled upon you which you couldn't have done on your own.

Sraddhalu (1:15:23):

So yes, understand the working of karma but don't give it too much importance because when you give it importance, it binds on you also more strongly. Give greater importance to the freedom of the Self, the soul's choice and aspiration and the freedom of action of the Divine Mother. And I am going to highlight this a little more. I have spoken of it perhaps in the context of astrology in one of the earlier discussions. If you fixate on the idea that this is my karma, something in your consciousness accepts this, gives it the right to exist in your  life and bother you because you accepted it as yours and necessary for you. And it may be a very subconscious acceptance but it's an acceptance. If everything within you rejects, this has no place in my life. The only thing that has place is what the Divine Mother chooses for me. And you make this as complete as possible. If that karma is not needed, it will be removed by her force, by her protection or she will turn it to an outcome that is positive for you to accelerate your growth even. Because because that's the nature of the freedom of the Self, isn't it?

So in the questioners thinking I want to make this shift in the priority yes understand all those things exist and to just answer complete the question how much influence the karma of the does karma have in the experience of the soul how much it chooses, yes the soul can choose to release certain karmic forces from the stock of karma what is called Sanchit Karma, something is selected for this life because it is useful to assist an outcome or a kind of life experience. Yes, the soul can choose but still implied in this model or this way of thinking is that there is a stock to be exhausted and until you exhaust it you're not free or meanwhile you've created more which keeps being added that's not the best way to look at it. Rather look at karma as a pattern of energies put out which can be freely utilised by the freedom of Self for its growth. It does not always have to be negative even if the originating consciousness created a negative energy, the negative can be turned into a positive by the freedom of the Self. So I would say forget about the stock of karma, the Sanchit Karma. Forget about Prarabdha Karma as compelled on you right now. Yes, these things exist, but do not give them importance. Do not put attention there. Put your entire attention on the freedom of the Divine Mother at the very least and to the extent that you align with her, you share in that freedom. In this way, you allow her to act in you freely. By accepting karmas, by binding yourself to some fixed ideas, you are interfering in her free action in you. You are putting walls for the free flow of her force. So those who grew up without any such concepts of karma, who just say, oh I'm here, help me mother, often have it far easier because they don't have these fixed ideas, compared to someone who is a great scholar of karma and textbooks who will say yes but I have to go through this, I have to go through that, I cannot reach that goal unless I go through these five or six steps. No, you don't have to. You can be lifted and transported there. That's the freedom of the Self. So let go of these preconceptions.

Sraddhalu (1:19:00):

Mother preferred us to be children in her presence. What's the characteristic of a child versus an adult? The adult is full of these formations. The child comes blank slate. No fixed formations. We build them as we grow older. Dismantle them as far as possible. Understand all these things exist. But understand the greater truth of the freedom. And as far as possible, dissolve the fixity of these ideas or these compulsions in your mind. And I'm repeating this perhaps too long because it is so important. Your entire spiritual journey can be a journey of joy and of a smooth growth. If you can become a child, fresh, new, everyday, without preconceptions, opening yourself entirely or whatever entire is possible now, to her,  exclusively to her and to nothing else. Karma is not her. So you refuse all these ideas. Exclusive focus of self-giving to the Mother's force, her light, her freedom, her will for what's best for you. And you have the right to say, yes, I know I like this, I prefer this, but I'll accept what you give me. Then only what happens to you will be what she chooses. People come up with this very wrong context, wrong understanding of that phrase that it is Mother's will. So somebody makes a mistake, he neglects, he makes wrong choices, outcomes don't go conveniently and they'll say, ah well, it is Mother's will, so what can I do? No, that's wrong. It is your stupidity, it is your mistake, it is your incompetence. It's not Mother's will. You can say it is Mother's will when you have entirely opened yourself to her with no personal preference and allowed her free action in your life. Then that outcome, maybe it's compelled, maybe you have limitations that she is unable to move out around right now but still what comes through will be her will as the smoothest shortest way for you to overcome those limitations and grow. And then you accept that as yes steps to your awakening and freedom but still calling on her at every point. So this, I'm sorry for the emphasis on this because I do not want any idea of karma of any kind to be a binding on you because it will only hold you back from the true nature of the sadhana.

And I will complete this discussion with one incident. Perhaps I have mentioned it before but here it bears repeating. This was a person in the ashram whose family was part of a traditional lineage and they had what they call family guru doesn't mean much spiritually often, it is just somebody some lineage some temple that they consider guru and it as is the habit in many families at a certain age you have the family guru who gives you a guru mantra, initiates you, they call it diksha. It's just done as a ritual. It has perhaps not much of spiritual value. So this person having lived in the ashram, having been accepted by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother as his guru, now informs Sri Aurobindo, he says that my family is asking me to take diksha, initiation from our family guru. Do I have your permission to do it? It's just a social ritual. Sri Aurobindo says, when you came here, we, that is the Mother and Sri Aurobindo, have taken upon ourselves the entire burden of your karma. If you were to go back and take initiation from that person, that entire burden of karma would come back upon you. You see how serious this is? From a Spiritual point of view, when the Divine takes the burden of your karma and then exercises the Divine freedom, for you to pull back and align to a lesser power for whatever convention or other reasons is a serious error that can set back your Spiritual progress severely.

Sraddhalu (1:24:12):

It's a different matter if you say, oh yes I'm an admirer of Sri Aurobindo. There are people who say that, some pretty unusual people. I'm an admirer of Sri Aurobindo, I appreciate his yoga and I'm following my own whatever something and my own guru. Fine, doesn't matter for them. But if you have recognized in them your masters, your teachers. See it's not the same thing if you say, ah, yes my family guru I have recognized God in him. That's a mental conception, it's not the heart's, soul's recognition. Mental conceptions are as useful or meaningless as any mental formation. When the soul recognizes the Divine presence in the Guru, after that to turn away from that is a serious mistake, a treachery to the soul's aspiration and you see the entire burden of karma comes back upon you all of which had been lifted taken away from you. So I've had people sometimes it hurts me to even think of that, people who have lived in the ashram who have been here with the Mother and then they said oh we have gone and taken initiation for Reiki, pranic healing or XYZ, newfangled occult traditions. Though initiation is not something you play with. Initiation aligns you, puts you under influence of the power presence behind that system. Go back to last time's discussion about alignment to power structures. When you had opened yourself to the spiritual presence and the freedom of the Divine presence, you abandon that to go to an inferior, vital energy structure, being, system. It's a huge loss and you may, you will find while your vital power for that whatever it is you got may grow, you lost this and subsequently you might find yourself split, a part of you pulled here, a part of you pulled there with a lot of other complications. Be very careful about these things, they are not just social rituals, they are profound occult implications So, I think that's a broad enough discussion on the theme of karma.

Alina (1:26:47):
Maybe we can have a closing question from Minal. He is asking kindly, how to meditate from the heart as the centre? And maybe it's a nice place to end.

Sraddhalu (1:27:06):
So in conclusion for the discussion about the presence within us. So the question is about meditation from the heart as the centre. Naturally, in the integral yoga, there are two focal points. One is the presence within, centre of the chest, which turns to the Divine presence within or the psychic being. The other is in the head or above the head, which opens to the presence of the Divine above in its full freedom and the higher states of consciousness. Ideally, one should practise both. But you begin with that which is easiest for you. For some of us, the centre in the heart is easier. For others, in the head or above the head is easier. You start with that which is easier, but then eventually include the other. So if you begin with the concentration in the heart, having completed that concentration from there you gently open upwards to become conscious of the presence which is above the head and from the immersion within to be aware of the Divine presiding above is relatively easy. Similarly if your initial concentration was above the head, opening to the presence or rising into it or feeling its descent into you, eventually as the descent settles in the heart region, you turn inward to become conscious of the presence within and remain in communion with that Divine presence who is seated within you in the most intimate, in the most personal and in the closest way possible.

And so the experience within is of an individualised, deep, intimate, personal relationship with the Divine Mother, with the Supreme Lord, whatever form it takes or simply indescribable presence, whereas the opening above is an awareness of the presence as it presides over the universe or eventually even as it fills the whole universe and then within you as it fills you individually. So you can see how the things combine eventually, the two merge. Of these two, the safer is to have some relationship here at least, even if it's not your first centre of concentration, but some relationship of the heart's opening to the Divine Mother, which allows the psychic experience, the psychic influence to fill you. So how to meditate here [points to the heart] and here [points to the head]will be perhaps our discussions in the next few weeks. And we'll also dwell upon, there are a series of questions about practices to be done, we will take those up also. I suppose the pattern we can follow for the next few weeks is we will take up some of the more generic questions first and then move to the practice related questions.

So for today, simply this idea that there are these two centres and what I would suggest for the heart concentration is simply become aware of your love for the Mother, feel your love for her, immerse yourself in the love and feel her in your love. And you will feel her right there deep within you, in the source of the love itself, or filling you in the love. That would be the easiest starting point for the concentration in the heart centre. From there, eventually open to become conscious that she is not only within you, she is everywhere around you and she is above you and above the whole universe and presiding over the whole universe. And from there she flows down and embraces you from all directions and then comes to meet you most closely and intimately, deep within. Three aspects to your relationship with her, starting with that which is the easiest, but open to all three eventually, as a simple practice.

We can stay in this for a few moments before we close the session. Okay. Thank you. Namaste.

Alina (1:31:24):
Namaste. Thank you very much. I would like to remind our viewers, if you want to send your questions beforehand, you can use our email address integralstudies.in[at]gmail.com. So you can send your question beforehand on this topic of spiritual growth. Thank you.