EWS #87 Questions from viewers (29) - on Spiritual Life - 9
Oct 09, 2021
Alina (0:00:00):
Namaste and good evening to all. I remember you all. My name is Alina and together with Joel from Auroville. Namaste Joel.
[Joel] Namaste Alina. We are hosting this evening with Sraddhalu.
[Alina] Welcome Sraddhalu.
[Sraddhalu] Namaste, thank you, happy to be here.
Happy to continue our sessions with questions received from our viewers. Last time we covered in details about past life experiences, about the psychic being, how it progresses from life to life, and how to link this awareness from our past lives to our current life and we received some good guidelines on practices. And in the following sessions, we will have special sessions about practices. And we invite you all to address questions at our email integralstudies.in[at]gmail.com. Today we will continue with another question received from Saroj: ‘The Divine Mother created this universe and life and matter, et cetera. Why is she not revealing herself like all forms and how beauty is revealed. Why do we have to reach to higher and deeper consciousness to find her? It should have been simple and straightforward.’
Sraddhalu (0:01:49):
Yes, it's a very interesting question and the way it has been articulated also. I am reminded of a question which was asked to the Mother, which was in the same direction, but perhaps more narrow. Somebody asked the Mother, why does the divine make it so difficult for us to realise him? The Mother's reply, which is somewhat abrupt in the wording, I am not quoting it, but it went something like this, she said, because everything is essentially the Divine, the question has no meaning. But implied is that if you begin to recognize, if you can see somehow that it is the Divine which is taking the form of everything, then well, you would experience the Divine directly, or you would experience and realise because you are already that. It's not that a difficulty has been created. It is rather in the way we are perceiving that is the limitation. So I'm going to take this idea and use it to deal with this question or enter into it in a little more detail. It's actually a very important question and we are going to approach it from two different views. One view which is the view of the more normal mind fixed in matter looking out looking up at the journey so it's a bottom-up view and the other is a top-down view where you will see something much more profound and perhaps liberating. So first taking the first position of world that we see, there are forms, everything is form. We don't see form of emotion or thought, but physically everything we see as form. If something does not have form, it almost does not exist. And we take the example of the air. Where is air? What form? I don't see. At least with water, you can have a glass of water and the water takes the form of the glass. But where is air? What is the form of air? It does not take the form of a container either. It's in the container, outside the container and outside us, it's just there everywhere. You don't know where it stops, you cannot see it, but you can feel it when it blows on your hand, you can blow and therefore by that contact, although not form, but contact of substance, force experienced, which is all you know of air, you know that it exists. But suppose now, suppose air became like a magnetic field. Or magnetic fields and electric fields which do not directly interact with us. You cannot blow, you cannot feel. You can take a magnet and bring it against your hand, you feel nothing. Is there such a thing as a magnetic field? Obviously not. Until you bring the magnet close to a metal piece and you feel the field. Pull, hit, separate the pressure, force and then you say ah, there is the field.
It's interesting when you experience your subtle physical body by bringing your hands together and you feel this pressure of contact at a distance. The first thought by association is like a magnetic field because it is elastic, it is bouncy, you do not see it at all and yet you can feel and you can feel it when it has a shape around the magnet. But if you made it even finer electric field you can't see or even finer radiation, radiation, nuclear radiation or any other radiation which is not in the range of visible light, it passes right through your body, there's nothing in your body that interacts with it except occasionally it knocks out, damages DNA or some cellular working, you get sick and you're told it was done by radiation but you have no other evidence for it. Then practically for you it does not exist, but at that point you have machines. Because that radiation acts on matter, you can register the effect on matter, convert that effect into electricity and use it to represent visually either a needle moving or a light glowing or an oscillating signal on the screen, whatever form, you are converting through electrical transmission to some form which is tangible to you, which is verifiable, repeatable, so you say, ah yes, the radiation exists. If it did not interact with matter, you would say it doesn't exist, which is generally what happens with life force. Life energy passes right through us, it even interacts with us, but in a way that is not affecting form directly. You suddenly feel more fresh, more energetic, and you think it's from inside you, when in fact it could have come from outside you. So as far as we are concerned, practically it appears life energy does not exist, so the world is matter only and all these force fields, yeah, that's science. But life energy is not science. Prana is not science. Or until somebody comes and with a direct life energy transmission affects a physical object either to heal an illness or to change a temperature or to move it or many of the so-called paranormal phenomena which are basically action of life force on matter by some means or other with variations then you say, ‘ah this is paranormal’, because not in the range of your physical normal world. But if after a while let's say from childhood you're taught to do paranormal things, it's not difficult at all. One can be taught to influence plant growth for example or even move physical objects nominally and there are ways to do it very simply. And if these were taught as they are taught, in fact in certain traditions or in certain cultures it's part of normal life, it's no more paranormal, it's just an exceptional capacity of the normal. So life energy is included.
Sraddhalu (0:08:25):
What about thought? You don't see thought. Thought doesn't affect directly. Does it exist? And so naturally the physical bottom-up view will reduce thought to product of brain waves. Which is not true. It obviously has an independent existence and action. And can affect matter through life force generally. Cannot directly touch matter. It moves life force and guides it to affect in a particular way. So you can intend with your will to move life energy and do something? Yes. So therefore, since I could tell that psychic to heat this or that and at will he could switch the effects, so mind exists as a director of life force. But tenuously, maybe, vaguely, distantly, Spiritual? No, it doesn't exist. Where is spirituality? Until you can actually invoke a Spiritual influence or action, but at that point it is indistinguishable from life force because you are acting on matter or a person. So in the laboratory they will do, this is being done in the Institute of Noetic Sciences by Dr. Dean Radin, who is pioneer in the world today for all these kinds of experimentation done in the most rigorous scientific repeatable and protocols, but all that he publishes is so amazing but not touched by the media at all. So in one of the public presentations he showed how Shaktipath or descent of energy to influence things, all this was documented in a way that is unquestionable and people ask, well why don't you publicise it? He says I do, I publish it. The media doesn't publicise or people don't show interest or other scientists don't show interest, so it cannot become mainstream. The point though I'm making, Shaktipat, we don't know whether it was life force or Spiritual energy because for the effect on matter it was almost indistinguishable. This is part of the problem which I realised also recently that people who have very strong practices of life energy and directing life energy often get so lost in the power of the life force, because this can do pretty much any effect on matter, which is the way you verify that it exists. Unless there is within you and subjectively a shift into a higher consciousness and a Spiritual consciousness or energy coming to make that lift, which is so distinct from the life energy action, you will not be able to distinguish between the two.
I am giving these examples to show you that as you go up successively the gradations of consciousness, the reference of matter as validation that it exists becomes less and less until with Spiritual energy or Spiritual consciousness directly, unless you have an experience which opens into that which can only be done in you subjectively, you cannot distinguish between it and any of the other intermediate energies or grades of consciousness. Because they could all produce, on matter, similar effects. Which is the reason why popularly in common thinking, a man who produces a miracle like materialisation or moving objects or healings is called Spiritual. No, it can be done purely by vital energy, needing nothing of the spiritual. All this is to prepare you to understand the question of why Divine Mother does not reveal Herself in form and beauty by first understanding our access to the world, to the universe is through matter as we are today. Life energy a little bit, mind perhaps less directly, spiritual no, because nothing in us has sufficiently developed the opening to directly experience things of the Spiritual ranges above mind even the way we access mental thought. So at least with thought we could do simple experiments like you transmit a thought and someone picks up the thought. It's not difficult again. Yes, you can then validate, yes there is such a thing as thought which stands independent, which can be transmitted, but Spiritual, it goes out. So this is to show you that current evolution has organised things up to level of mind. Matter which is most densely organised and inform life force which is less organised and in energy of action, force of action, mind which is somewhat organised in some people which is organising of thought, idea, knowledge, somewhat of consciousness, that's about it. So your evolution is like a mountain. Bottom is well-made, then gets less and less developed and above mind, especially above intellect, it's a blank.
Sraddhalu (0:13:36):
Again we're speaking of the general mass of humanity. In a few individuals, exceptionally, something is opened a little bit. If that opening is primarily based in the or from the thought consciousness, the person has access to intuitive glimpses, you call them a genius. Because now that higher influence guides the thought working and amplifies effectively the appearance of intelligence enormously. So if you understand this, you can actually develop your genius capability and by a series of very basic Spiritual practices, your IQ can jump straight away 20 points. This I can assure you, guarantee you even, 20 point increase in IQ without much difficulty, just by the descent of the higher light and force in the mind which opens, widens or brings a touch of intuition. Minimum 20 points jump and perhaps more if you work upon it a little to integrate. But all this is to say, our capacity to experience reality and the totality of reality is bound by this evolutionary development. Okay, so looking bottom up, you are unable to experience ranges above and therefore to be able to experience those ranges well you have to make an effort to heighten or open to higher or inward to deepen and open to from deeper or to deeper ranges which are currently not developed in evolution and only in those states you can have a glimpse of the true nature of the Divine Mother's consciousness. And by true nature I mean, I will use just a few words but there are many more, infinity. Her consciousness or the Divine Consciousness is infinite, not as a finite idea growing larger and larger as in the mind.
See, in your mind you are asked to imagine infinity. You imagine the universe and you imagine the universe how? Visualising it as a boundary. It's huge and then it fades out. But there's a limit. Oh, but it has to be infinite. So again a little more and a little more and a little more. Or you open to something larger but there's a limit again from which you open and open. In your mind you can only hold the finite image at a time which then you have to keep growing to have an illusion of infinity stretching out. You have to keep stretching, it has to keep growing but always finite at any given point. In fact for scientists this is such a big problem because they want to reduce the whole world to their mind's capacity. They will say, ah, maybe the universe curves upon itself and if you go long enough in one direction, you will come back to the same place. So effectively you have created a finite bubble, but without a boundary. They will give the analogy of a surface of a balloon, let's say. The ant keeps going round and round, any direction it goes, it will come back to the same place, eventually. But no, that's not how it is because the moment you have created a balloon there's an inside balloon and outside balloon and there's an infinity. So you have to be told there is actually an infinity but your mind is going to limit it to a finite and so your universe is finite because we can't conceive of an infinity. That's really the argument. It's not satisfying. The truth is the universe is infinite, space is infinite, you can go on unendingly and there are things unendingly. The moment you hit that idea your mind falls back. Ah! where does it end? That's the question. Or if you're told time is unending, there's no beginning and end, and this is part of the problem of physical science. It had to invent a Big Bang, it has to start somewhere, before that there was no time. Excuse me, what does that mean? Before that, no time? The moment you say before, there is a time, right? It's ridiculous. The degree of self-deception in the very basis of physical science is so great. But if you bring it before a scientist, they will just turn away and say that's philosophy. No, it's a physical problem, you're saying there's a Big Bang where the universe began and with its space and time we created but there's no before, it's stupid, it's actually stupid, but it is science. So since the big scientists have said it you have to repeat that to pass your exam and get your certificate, but it's stupid.
Sraddhalu (0:18:20):
The reality is, there is no beginning and no end. So people will ask this question but it has to start somewhere, where does it begin? No, there is no beginning and your mind baulks and falls apart or numbs and fades out. You can't consciously think of, even visualise infinity or eternity. It's beyond the mind's capacity. And yet the creative power which is the Divine Mother's, which manifests the universe is infinite and eternal. In fact, it stands above infinity and eternity, which is again for the mind inconceivable. Or as an abstraction we say, yes there is an above, but what does it feel like? I don't know. When people enter into a certain state where as if time seems to stop or they lose sense of time, they say, ah we have reached that. No, that's very different. It's fundamentally different. And this again I discovered a lot of traditions confuse these states of time becoming, well, let's say, not so intense or blurring sufficiently or space blurring where the sense of boundaries or limits fade away. This can also happen for example in states of when you have taken certain plant substances or drugs, they say, ah yes, we have touched infinity or eternity or Spiritual states. No, that's not it. Those are fundamentally different as Spiritual states. But yes, this can give you an idea that your current limits are limits which are fake or artificial, that there's something more. To that extent they have served a purpose, but they have not given you the true character of the Spiritual eternity, infinity or transcendence of space and time. Now all this is to say that you cannot experience those things because of your current evolutionary limitation and so you have to pursue the evolution to enter those states either by an upward or an inward opening. Only then can you know the creative power of the Divine Mother as she knows Herself, in Her state of self-knowledge or power or capacity or being, right?
So why is she not revealing herself like all forms and beauty are revealed? Because she is fundamentally greater than all limitations of form in which we live. And so to reach that experience, you have to as if go into a different grade of consciousness which currently is not evolving in us. So that's a reasonable answer and it's one way of looking at this question. She can reveal herself in form, which is what happens in an incarnation. So it can take two forms. One is she takes birth by identifying with a physical body and a personality and you have in a human body an incarnation that you say so and so is an incarnation of the Divine. Partial, full, we don't care about that. For the moment that's not important. A Vibhuti, Avatar, we don't get into distinctions. There is an incarnation by an identification. What happens next? You fixate on the body. Draw me a picture of Rama or Sri Krishna as an avatar in human body. What will you do? You will draw a human body. What's next? You can replicate that body or that picture. So, children today will dress up as Krishna or Rama and according to the image at least told to you by some story, put a bluish colour on the skin and maybe if they have a sufficiently calm look on the face, you may say, oh that is a good representation. But if the person looks angry, confused, agitated, no that's not Rama, that's not Krishna. What distinguishes the imitation appearance from something which is closer? You feel a certain quality. It's the quality of consciousness through the form that you're looking at to say, ah yes, now this is closer. When the Ramayana series was first broadcast in India on television, as a full series, it was a very famous series in the late 1980s and the person who played the role of Rama, he held himself in a certain poise which to him was the Rama state throughout and people were moved by what they felt, so moved that they would go to the person in real life and fall at his feet or the lady who played the role of Sita. He himself says playing that role changed his life. After that he refused to take up any other role. And something inside him fundamentally changed in consciousness. So here is an interesting idea. In trying to identify with the state of Rama, he opened to something of Rama's consciousness, which then got so settled in him that he was a changed man. It was actually a Spiritual experience that came through his acting. There is a deep truth in that, that the true nature of drama is to manifest higher or other states of consciousness beyond your current capacity. But all this is to show that the distinguishing character of Rama was not the physical. Because the physical you can paint, you can create an image, what comes through is what you would call the true Rama, isn't it? So again, when you have an incarnation of the Divine in human form, it's not the form which is an incarnation, it's the thing that comes through which is beyond the form again. But the form gives you a chance to look through or touch that thing, if you are sensitive enough to that, if you are not, you only stick with the form, right?
Sraddhalu (0:24:29):
So we had people coming to see the Mother. I've actually seen one of these reports by somebody who met the Mother and came back and said, oh nice, nice sweet old lady. That's all, nothing. The others who met her and had this overwhelming experience in in which they don't even remember what she looked like but they touched her. Again, the form of the body is not important, the thing which transmitted through that's the Divine Mother, otherwise if you put on a dress as she put on like hers and walked as you see in certain video recordings of her would that be her? No, obviously not. It's not the form. So form at best gives you a focal point for your mind which cannot open directly there. But still your inner sensitivity should be able to recognize that thing which is behind her form. Otherwise you'll see nothing, you'll just see a form. During the lifetime of Sri Krishna, physical incarnation, not everyone recognized his Divinity. Some felt it and reacted by violent opposition, oh this is dangerous what's he doing, you can overwhelm me, I can't be myself in his presence and so there's a barrier you put to protect yourself. Others recognized it and opened to serve it. What made the difference? Your evolutionary maturity. So the key point of the question comes back to this: even if the Divine appeared before you or expressed in some way would you be able to recognize? If you are able to recognize through form and feel that then you can feel that without the form also and again that brings you back to the question of evolution. So I'm going to reverse this question in preparing for the second viewpoint of this answer. I'm going to reverse the question and ask, if she revealed herself before you, what would be the way that you will recognize her? I've given this example before, there was a movie in which God appears and I don't know if you can, Joel can recall the name of the movie, but God appears and he comes as a black American and he says I am God, you asked me, the hero of the movie says God you are not doing your job well, give me a chance I'll do it better. So God appears and says here, I'm going to give you the job. How are you God? How do I recognize that you're God? Prove it. Okay, there are other movies with similar variations with the idea. The guy says, okay, give me a cone of ice cream. This is actually in relation to the devil. So the devil says, okay, I'll prove to you. He goes to, takes him to a shop and orders an ice cream. It's given to the man and he says now, devil says, now pay for it, you ask for an ice cream I gave it to you. No, no, no, you're supposed to materialise it, you see this, the game is different. The game is to prove that you're actually capable of that, you're actually the divine has to be done by doing something which a human cannot do which would represent your power. Problem with that is as we have seen, you can do a lot of things which are, which can be expressed, powers which can be expressed even without Spiritual development. Here, Joel has given me the name, Bruce Almighty. Bruce Almighty is one of the movies taking this theme. But the point was, if God appeared before you in his actual way, as the Divine knows itself how would you experience it? See it came in human form the guy had a problem because he was white and this was black so my concept of God was my type right? Each one conceives of Divinity in their human racial or specific type. So that's already like for the public an opening, ah yes, God can take any form hmm but still a form that you can recognize and then he has to perform a miracle to prove that he is God, otherwise it would be anybody impersonating right? Often we hear these amazing stories that so and so great saint was without food and was struggling, was traveling didn't have a thing and then God came and made food and gave him. You've heard stories like that.
Sraddhalu (0:29:15):
How do we know it was God? Because the fellow vanished afterwards. That's when you knew it was God. Otherwise you would say, oh, it was a coincidence. Some nice man had pity. He came and gave food and went. Not God. Right? He had to produce an effect which was beyond human capacity to be proven that it is something beyond human. Or he appeared in dream to somebody and told him, go and feed my disciple who is there hungry. Okay, so it was still a dream, but you didn't see God right? It was just a voice or something that came. So the question is what is the form in which you would recognize? The moment you reduce it to form you cannot recognize, that's the point. Any form can be imitated, any voice can be imitated, any handwriting, anything which is reducible to form is imitable. So this was the reason why the Mother said very explicitly, she warned about it, she said there will be people or beings through channelling and automatic writing and other things who will imitate my handwriting, my voice, even appearance but it will not be me. The only way she said that she can communicate without somebody imitating is obviously beyond form, beyond handwriting, beyond voice. What would it be? Not belonging to the physical, not belonging to the vital which is also imitable, not belonging to the mental also which is also imitable or distortable, the psychic. So she said the only communication I will have will be through the psychic, where the psychic has a natural discrimination of that which is Divine and that which is mixed. And so a message received there, ah, I know this is true. There are people who play this game, they will open, Mother recommends this actually somewhere, you open a sacred book with an intention and you will find often the message that you need at that moment. Of course it depends on your intention and your concentration and the intensity of your need. So I know people who actually used to open Savitri, every time they have a question, they would take Savitri, open it, read the line that came before them and take it as a guidance from the Mother. Very dangerous because it can be not only imitated or interfered with. Look, if someone had to fool you, they would open a book, bend it sufficiently that naturally it will open on that line and give it to you and you open, it will hit that page very lightly. But you can see that something can interfere or more subtly they can interfere energetically to ensure you open at a certain point. It's not difficult. Or your strong intention of an answer that you want to hear will bias your perception. It's like drawing a pendulum. Finally it represents what is strongly in your subconscious as a call. So you can easily get a clouded response or whatever the line is, it does not tell you in the words you want to hear obviously, right? It's describing something else which your mind interprets. So your mind will distort the interpretation to suit what you want to believe. Not reliable. Okay, if she gives it as a guidance, you can use it for your Spiritual help occasionally, but it has to be done with sincerity, with a real deep need of a call and without your distortion, then only it is worthwhile.
Otherwise you see, my point in all this is, the true response will come from the psychic alone which can discriminate and know but if you are conscious of the psychic guidance or influence or sensitivity, otherwise you can't receive that either. So now the question: how will the Divine Mother appear before you? You say please appear before me, show me, reveal me, show me, reveal yourself. Take the example of Arjuna. On the battlefield, Sri Krishna says here is my true form. What happens? What does he see? It's worth reading that text, but if you have to generalise and articulate in your own way, it was as if you are seeing the Divine in all aspects simultaneously. Everything from the god-like beings to the demonic beings are all his forms, isn't it? All energies, all qualities of consciousness, all powers, all extremes of, from the most intense to the most subtle, all simultaneously experienced in a consciousness which is also infinite and eternal. So if you really had the full hit and I don't think Arjuna got the full hit of it, because it was reduced to form, it still is described in terms of forms. If you had the full hit of it, you'd go unconscious because you'd be thrown into a consciousness which is beyond space and time and in each particle of space it is entirely and totally present. All these simultaneously. What happens to your mind when you hit an experience like that? Blank out, overwhelmed or you glimpse a tiny part of it. Even that is great as an experience, but it's still a fragment and you cannot reduce the Divine to just that experience, which is what happens in all the religions. A glimpse of the Divine in some aspect of his infinity or eternity or Love or Knowledge or Power or some special aspect, being so overwhelming that you say, ah, this is God and I found God and you stop. No, this is your first tip of an experience of something which is so complete that if you went towards that completeness, long before you reach the completeness, you would lose all perception because all your senses would be overwhelmed, all your consciousness would be numbed, blanked out, because it is beyond your capacity.
Sraddhalu (0:35:33):
Mother even gives this example. She says that if in your current consciousness you had a glimpse of the Supramental sun, you would see it as black. Because the nature of the Supramental consciousness being infinite and containing all things, is so numbing to a mind which knows only by pieces, by separation and comparison it will see it as only nothing, which is the nature of the Buddhist description and experience of the Absolute - emptiness. But they are careful to say it is not an emptiness which is a lack of everything, because that is also a limited form, isn't it? They are saying it is an emptiness which is beyond just emptiness. It is a fullness which is empty, which is beyond all description, and the nature of the emptiness is just transcendence of description and reducibility. The same concept Shankara describes as neti neti, not this, not this, not this. But you could equally turn it around and say, and this, and this, and this and all these are included in without the totality of all these together. It is not that but it doesn't stop with this totality either. I'm coming to this point in a very important way. It means you could see the Divine in a completely different way. You could see it as transcending everything beyond your capacity, unless you enter that consciousness in which the Divine knows itself, you will not know itself completely or you get a partial glimpse. Or you take the other path. All this truly is the expression of the Divine, is the form of body of the Divine Mother. It's very different. It's the complimenting side. This too, instead of Neti, not this, you say all this. But you don't stop with all this. So for example, you look upon the universe, beautiful, ocean, mountains, forests, cities, people, including the beautiful and the ugly, everything, stone, pebble, grain of sand, nuclear waste, everything is part of the body, physical body of the Divine Mother. Part of.
Because this physical body of which we see a tiny narrow band with our light range and our sound hearing which is also limited and you know about all that frequency range 20 Hertz to 20 kilohertz. Dogs can hear higher. Elephants communicate lower at 5 Hertz 10 Hertz, they can hear among themselves. So if we could hear all ranges of sounds to all frequencies into infinity of frequency, if we could see in all sight of all frequencies of all spectrum including X-rays and all the ranges below and beyond, if we could touch and feel all intensities of the physical world in the full expanse of infinity of universe, that would be a glimpse of the physical body only of the Divine Mother as it is at this moment. And you would have to experience that physical body, the whole universe in all these ranges of full spectrum across all the past and all the future because she is already in each of these at the same time. That would be just the physical body of the Divine Mother in the domain of forms, you see and still that is overwhelming and beyond your capacity. So what you can do as a first step is recognize, look at the whole of the world around you and say this too is a part of her physical body and cherish it as such. Or what we do normally, we take a certain aspect or a part, we say the whole of earth and we say Mother Earth is a special limited aspect of the Divine Mother. Or Mother India is a special emanation of the Divine Mother identified with this space, with this part, with the Spiritual consciousness and energy corresponding to this space and so on. Because even there one gets a little pushed to the limit of our capacity. But this would be, coming back to the big picture, this would be only the physical body of the Divine Mother. Then She has a vital body and all the vital worlds, including their infinities and their eternities and their forms and their infinite variations. For each grade there are infinities within each of those grades. Anything you can conceive of as a quality of consciousness or a kind of world that you could imagine, however fantastic, there is something equivalent of that in infinity and eternity in the vital world as one of the experiences. All these are Her vital body together and then an equivalent experience of Her mental body and beyond that further ranges.
Sraddhalu (0:40:42):
But how does She know herself? It is only when you get to that highest consciousness in which infinity and eternity are held and known in their triple status which I described earlier, which is the Supramental, the way She knows Herself, then you meet Her in Her totality. Of course at that point you can say, you know what that's too much, I'm not even interested in going to that, Mother just appear before me, be Divine Mother and just caress my head and tell me, ‘my child, I'm with you’, I'll be happy with that. But at that point your physical mother comes and says, ‘my child, I'm here with you’. What do you say? No no, you are not the Mother. Why? Isn't she also a part of the Divine Mother and cannot the Divine Mother act through her to give you the caress and affection? When the dog comes and licks your face, you can say, well, it's an aspect of the Divine Mother giving me the caress. Isn’t it? Through a limited form also, you can begin to look at everything as gateways or openings or windows to a point of contact with Her, a perception of Her, however limited, within the domain of form. And this brings us closer to the true truth of the universe and our experience of it. That everything is intended to manifest an aspect, a power, I would say a colour or vibration of the Divine Mother's delight, ananda, and her consciousness and her power. Think about this.
Every experience, every object can exist because it is supported by Her consciousness behind with a very particular unique vibration of Her Sat, Chit, Ananda. It exists, the Sat, therefore this object is possible to exist. It is utterly conscious, therefore a part of that consciousness supporting this object, or the whole of it supporting this aspect of it. And it is full of delight in itself, knowledge. It knows itself as this point, as this object, as this form, and the delight of that is what sustains it. The flower therefore is sustained by the Sat, existence, the Chit, the consciousness flowering, and the Ananda, the delight which through the flower is perceived by you as beauty. And this awakens in you the delight, or a glimpse of the delight, a first touch. However limited, however distorted, however reflected, it's still a first touch. Delight awakens delight. Problem here is your mind can distort or limit. That flower, I don't like it because it associates with XYZ. Now in Europe for example certain flowers are associated only for death, used only for death, others only for weddings, others only for… and if you are coming from India, you say this is a beautiful flower, I want to gift it. The other person says, what are you doing? Are you gifting me death? You may not know the association that the person had. You may see the flower just for its beauty, isn't it? So remove the distortions created by your prior conditioning and limitation of your perception and you will begin to see each flower as a glow, reflected, diluted, limited of the delight of Satchitananda, of the Divine Mother, creating and expressing through this. And if you can thus decondition or unlimit yourself sufficiently, and it's not difficult in the mind, it's not difficult, you can look upon the whole world and see it as beautiful. When the psychic influence becomes strong, this is the trend of our perception. We see the whole world, what a beautiful, amazing, wonderful. And one can begin to perceive that wonder in everything. You see, children have that spontaneously. A child walking on the road stops at a little crack of cement on the footpath and sees ants walking out and it's a fascinating experience and you can be lost in it for minutes, hours. What is this wonder? It is the perception of that. We lost it when the mind formed sufficiently, that's - ah those are ants. Then that's your interpretation of the experience, which is, is vibrations of Satchitananda playing in vibrations of Satchitananda though I don't, at least in mind you understand, which gives to me a perception which is, ah interesting, that's all. Yet the problem is this - I want to experience more and more of this. If I am getting a first glimpse which is limited, distorted, reflected, I want to have more. That's your drive of life. Every time you want to know more, every time you want to feel more, you want to experience more, you want to grow more, what are you actually doing? You're increasing the quantum of your participation in the Satchitananda's manifestation. Your perception of it or your expression of it, but overall your participation in it.
Sraddhalu (0:46:30):
So now comes the second view in its greater completeness. I'll describe it like this. Evolution started with all things becoming involved, lost in matter, lost in limitation and self-loss of consciousness. I don't even know I'm conscious. And then from there bit by bit, there's the memory that there's something possible, there's something that might become more aware and then from subconscious to semi-conscious to conscious you see the levels. With each level it's as if your perception and participation in the form and manifestation of Satchitananda is greater and greater. The worm wanders around feeling only hot and cold, smell, taste, touch, that's it. Light indirectly, sound indirectly. Even what it senses is only very limited, warm or cold, that's it. And from the worm as it grows, evolves, there's perception of organised organs for sight and then you can see. The worm cannot see at a distance of several kilometres. You can see at a distance of several kilometres. Your sight is still formed of three cones of light, red green blue. So your range of richness of colour experience is limited. I'm going to briefly diverge to the science aspect, just to show you how ridiculous our science still is. I'm sorry I'm in the mood for ridiculing science after our discussion on the Ether and it's worth it if you have not seen it, please do look at it. But you see, we are taught there's a spectrum of colours from the VIBGYOR, violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, red that's the spectrum. Red being the lowest vibration, violet being the highest and this infrared ultraviolet, it's a spectrum as a continuum. And then you are told that if you take red and green and you mix it, you will get I think it is yellow. You take two frequencies mix them and you will get a third frequency? No, that does not work. But your sight you shine red light, green light and you'll get yellow light. How does that work? No explanation by science.
Think about it. In all of us we have exactly the same experience of the yellow. So it's not just a particular arrangement of your brain or interpretation of your brain. It's actually something which is a reality of perception. But you are asked to believe that the colour is only two different frequencies and their mixing creates the effect of a third frequency which is not there and you're seeing it, but you're not seeing the red and green anymore. Those two have vanished and a third appears in place. It's a complete disconnect from experience to science and yet science claims to have explained it. Think about it. So the experience of perception in arts for example is because of three particular sensitivities of red, green, blue which gives a certain sense. There is a particular animal in the sea which has 16 kinds of cones and its experience therefore is of a at least an order or multiple orders higher in the richness of colour that anything more than we could imagine. And it's the cuttlefish, I think it's the cuttlefish. Its perception of colours is so much richer as to be unimaginable to the best of our imaginations. Why did the Divine give that creature that capacity? Well perhaps, perhaps you know there is the need to experience from every viewpoint all possibilities and the human focused on a particular line of evolution, in which a compromise was made for developing other things. But eventually as we awaken to our true senses, because finally the seer of sight is not physical sight which only converts light to electrical signals which go to the brain, which only processes signals. Where is the seeing taking place? It is in the mind which perceives. That's why all of us see consistently the same red because it's part of the universal mind's perception of the red. And our mind is a small island in the universal mind participating in its view of the red through us. That's the reality. And so our minds, the actual sight is taking place not in the physical body but in the subtler body. It's a very important idea.
Sraddhalu (0:51:18):
And the evolution of the subtle body and its perception and its true sight will actually amplify our physical sight or use physical sight as a support to see more directly. And then perhaps with the subtle sight awakening, we will look at the same world and the same scene seen and see more than the cuttlefish, the full range of colours as exists in the subtle sight, in the subtle world, which is the reality of the physical world also. Think about it. Then you will be participating much more in the perception of the Satchitananda's delight in its play of colours. So our evolution, whatever the physical development has been through the senses and so on, having pushed the maximum that the physical could go, is continuing in the higher gradations of consciousness to perceive Satchitananda through the domain of first emotions and then thoughts and then beyond thoughts, where we can have experiences or glimpses of the infinite. And that's when we are preparing for the true direct perception. And when we enter the full, and I am skipping stages now, when we enter the full experience in the Supramental full consciousness, you will look at the same physical world and experience it as the tangible body of Satchitananda. You will touch an object and you will experience delight, infinite delight of the whole Satchitananda as concentrated in that object, touching infinite delight of the Satchitananda as experienced through your individuality. Infinite delight meeting, infinite delight in a unique experience in space, time and form. That would be the true participation in the true sense of the Divine leela, the Divine play of unfoldment of delight. That's the direction in which your evolution is taking you.
Not only in perception but in action. When you express something, today what do you do? You express thoughts, you express emotions or you make actions. All of which are fragments, reflected, diluted, distorted of force of Satchitananda, consciousness of Satchitananda. And increasingly as you begin to feel and act from that consciousness which participates, it will be a direct expression of the delight of Satchitananda. Notice what happens, why do you enjoy to listen to a story? It awakens to you a new experience and the delight of the experience. Why do you enjoy growth of knowledge? Each time you learn something new, you say, wow, the awakening of the delight in the consciousness, awakened, growing. Or the reverse, in the expression, you have a wonderful idea and you want to express it. You know this is a beautiful idea and as you articulate, as you express, you're creating a form that represents, that transmits and awakens that experience in others. And the words are the carriers and the transmission of the thought experience is the greater force. To experience a delight, to translate it into form as painting, as music, as dance, as speech, as poetry, as prose writing, conveying glimpses of Satchitananda, that's what it does. And the more true, the more lasting, the more worthwhile, when what it expresses is more complete as aspect of Satchitananda. You see a painting has a value, oh this stimulated me, it attracted me, it interested me. I've seen it, now it's over, give me something new. But there are other paintings, you look at it and wow, that's something. Ten days later I look again, oh that is still amazing. Each time I look at it, there's something amazing. After a year I come back, wow I've seen it many times before but each time I meet - these are the masterpieces. They have captured an aspect of Ananda in its aspect of eternity and therefore it lasts across time. One of the great masterpieces as such is the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci. There are others such also. And I remember when I first saw it, I went there, I was with a friend and there were all these tourists taking photos, getting photographed with it, pointing they are not enjoying the painting, they are just recording that they were there for a famous painting. So we stopped and then we concentrated and I said to my friend, look, observe carefully, pay attention until everything else fades away and you meet her. You stay like that and after a while suddenly you realise, my God, she's alive, she's conscious and she's smiling at you and there's something she expresses as if she's transmitting a secret that she knows or a message that she's conveying because she's in it, she is it. Oh! And that's when in that moment you forget everything else and you can go back again and again and have the same experience. These are what make them masterpieces. Or poetry when you read it. It awakens in you an experience, opens you to that glimpse of the Satchitananda, however reflected, limited, diluted, no problem, but it's a glimpse that opens you and thus you grow in nourishment, in your growth, in consciousness, closer to Satchitananda.
Sraddhalu (0:57:13):
Now all this I have gone in depth, in detail to bring this idea which is at the essence of it all. This world is the body of the Divine Mother with whatever limitation as we have discussed. She is revealing herself in form as well as all levels, in beauty through these forms and even in what appears to physical, human, mental sight something ugly, you perceive her playing in a limited appearance, but still behind you sense the beauty of the play. You don't need to go to deeper and higher consciousness to find Her, but you need to awaken to something deeper and higher to be able to recognize that this is Her. Otherwise reduced to your superficial mind you say, ah world, not interesting, mountain duh, what's special. You awaken to something and not much, it doesn't take much, it's there almost in every human being. Now you say wow, what a gigantic mountain. Something special is felt. That much already exists in our human evolution, that's why the Spiritual possibility exists I don't know if animals have it but the fact that we have it, it's our first entry but those who are more developed they will look at the mountain and say that mountain, it's as if it recognized me and I recognize it and there's some communication, we feel close, we feel personally intimate, there's a message, there's something felt, I feel a help even and so on. So yes, your current awareness allows you to perceive Her in this way but of course in limited aspects and glimpses of Her but as you then deepen and widen and heighten your consciousness you begin to see Her more and more and you experience Her embrace around you, the embrace of Her infinity, the touch of the infinity which we spoke of in the previous discussion, which is shaping us in our journey of life across lives. Isn't it? Think about this and perhaps spend a little time concentrating on the world, gazing upon the world, contemplating, meditating, whatever form it takes. Go to the ocean if you're on the seashore. Sit alone, get away from the crowds for a while and just contemplate the waves and think of the ocean as Her presence, Her ananda, as form of body of water, representing her infinity in finite appearances, representing Her force through the waves and the play, representing the whole universe even symbolically in the waves that play. And each play, each burst of bubble of form of the surf as it bursts, you can think of it as laughter, delight, play, or just bubbles bursting of delight, each bubble being a form, tiny portion of delight, bursting, reforming, bursting, reforming, never the same. Dwell on this and you will begin to glimpse the Divine Mother here on earth in and through these forms. And then you will realise, yes, even you are meant to be as her child, participating in her play of delight increasingly. First remember in perception and second in manifestation and the growth to the completeness of this participation is the yoga, is our evolution, isn't it?
So to the answer of why She is not revealing herself, She is and we are able to glimpse it if we take the trouble to step back from our preconceptions and allow a deeper perception or sense or sensitivity to act. But then we want to make it more complete and there again the development of the inner and higher becomes necessary. So the question remember, was why the Divine Mother created this universe? Why is She not revealing Herself? Why do we have to reach deeper or higher states? It should be simple and straightforward. Yes it is. Start with what is simple and straightforward and then deepen, widen, heighten for the full experience of this which is so simple and straightforward. So I come back to the example I gave of the question asked to the Mother. Why does the Divine make make it difficult to realise him? No, He doesn't. He is there. Everything is present. And the awakening to that is as simple as this awakening. But, because we are currently limited in our evolutionary capacity, our first glimpse is limited, our first participation is limited and even distorted and we can consciously increase our participation and fulfil our birth on earth. We are, remember, children of immortality and therefore it is our birthright to participate in the play of the Ananda, of the Satchitananda, of the immortality. And you remember the line from Savitri, where Sri Aurobindo puts it in these terms that even as he put on our nature, we have to put on his nature and that's the relationship the Divine manifesting in limitation and us awakening from limitation to complete freedom. and that will complete the play between the two poles, Spirit and matter, fully participating in the full manifestation of the Divine Ananda.
Alina (1:03:26):
It was a very beautiful and complex elaboration on how to develop our relationship with the Divine Mother. Thank you very much. We will continue with another question from Rajarshi.
Sraddhalu (1:03:45):
Maybe we will keep that for next time. This is a good theme to end on. It was a single question we took today but it's a good theme to end on because to change our view of the world is extremely necessary for an affirmative integral yoga. It is the ascetic yogas, the ascetic spirituality which turned away from the world in disgust or looking at it as a domain of suffering or ignorance or tucha, that is the waste material that is thrown out by creation as inferior and even perverse. It's a complete falsehood. The affirmative integral yoga of Sri Aurobindo recognizes the world also as form of Satchitananda but still its form in unfoldment. The Satchitananda is not fully revealed and we are here as participants. In us the full revelation is beginning to take place which then turns upon the world and assists the world's full revelation also. Think of our sadhana in this way, think of the world in this way, change your relationship with the world and with life. Bring back the truth of the Divine manifestation and the affirmative Spiritual life will then become for you a joyous way, the Sunlit path, not a path of suffering. Yes ignorance exists, yes suffering exists, they are superficial appearances through which the ananda is struggling to emerge. Focus on that which is emerging, not the distorted forms which are its first appearances. So we can meditate on this theme to complete this session. And in the subsequent sessions we have questions already ready which go deeper into the practices for the deepening and heightening of consciousness and we will be taking those up in greater detail. So now let's meditate on the Divine Mother in the world as world.
Sraddhalu (1:05:53):
Thank you.
[Alina] Namaste.
[Sraddhalu] Namaste.
[Joel] Thank you.