EWS #92 On the Direct Method – Q&A (33) - on Spiritual Life - 13
Nov 13, 2021
Topics:
Alina (0:00:00):
Namaste and good evening, all. We welcome you to the continuing series, Evenings with Sraddhalu. My name is Alina and together with Joel from Auroville, we will be hosting this evening. Namaste, Joel.
[Joel] Namaste, Alina. Namaste Sraddhalu.
[Sraddhalu] Namaste. Happy to be here.
Alina (0:01:21):
Happy to be back and continue our series answering questions received from our viewers on the same topics of spiritual life, growth of consciousness, practices, experiences, levels of consciousness. Last time we discussed the limitation of imagination and related methods and practices. We then introduced the direct method of Sri Aurobindo's Integral Yoga, and today we are happy to continue and develop on this subject and how we can apply in our daily life. We invite Sraddhalu to continue on this topic of the direct method and we are very happy to hear and learn more and new things.
Sraddhalu (0:02:30):
Yes. You will see that over the last few sessions, we have also selected the questions in a way that they build on the topic. Some of the questions have been pending for more than a month, but the right time to insert them was now. So, we have used the questions also as a way of building a continuity of thematic content where we are moving progressively deeper into the practice of the Integral yoga as well as a deeper understanding of the framework itself. The practical aspect will always be for us first. Nevertheless, the full framework of the background of the yoga itself is essential and we will be moving in the next few sessions to the larger structure of the Integral yoga as well as with it taking up questions and practices relating to still higher ranges of consciousness. But at the moment the focus was the form in which we practice and we saw that techniques are not important and the underlying methods from which you have specialized techniques are also useful but if you look at the principle behind which makes these methods effective then we come to something which is even more essential around which we can our basic approach to all practices. And this we discussed as the direct method and Sri Aurobindo explains how this functions: That behind all forms of yogas, systems, you find something common. He gives you for example, the big picture of all the yogic systems. The Hatha Yoga takes the support of the physical body, the nervous system and the chakras as centers in the physical nervous system as an entry point for something of the subtle body and then opening to higher states of consciousness. Raja Yoga also focuses on the chakras but indirectly from the mental body, not from the physical body up.
There also you will find the processes involve much more psychological focus but they are physical results. Even as Hatha Yoga starts with physical processes but with psychological and spiritual results. And you must ask yourself how that is possible. He explains that even for example in the three Karma Yoga, Bhakti Yoga and Jnana Yoga which are primarily psychological methods, you can acquire the results of the Hatha Yoga. But he explains the reason being that common to all these is the state of intensification of energy for the purpose. So if you are in the practice of Hatha Yoga then you are intensifying all of your concentration and your focus of energies including life force and mind energy and the physical effort into a single purpose and that intensification is what allows for the breakthrough. And then he says something extraordinary after showing how it is the intensification of concentration and energy in all these different systems, he says something very interesting, he says, that all energy is one Divine energy in its source and that gives you the key. The key is that by intensifying the focus of your energies irrespective of which level, irrespective of which starting point, irrespective of a particular form by intensifying energy on all levels, in all parts you end up with the result and around this you can create an integration of an approach of practice which takes the best of all these systems while not being bound to their forms. So this becomes the key here. In the actual practice of the Integral yoga, the method is very simple. Put all your consciousness in relation to the divine. Very simple. As a formula, start with just this one idea.
Sraddhalu (0:06:52):
Whatever you are conscious of, all the parts of your being turn to the Divine. The rest is then the process. But if you think of this as the basic practice, then the work becomes much simpler. But still what makes the practice effective or how do you actually do this, how do you deepen and intensify, that is where we are now. For this purpose we saw that at the core of this whole focus intensification and turning of attention are two principles. Faith that is Shraddha in the true sense of the word and I'll elaborate on that and the second is will. We dwelt on this a little bit last time. It was more as an introduction but it was still very important. I won't repeat that and so for those of you who might not have heard it I would highly recommend for you to hear that either now or later and then return to this discussion. These two - faith and will, are our starting point to make effective any method or for that matter any technique. When you start making an effort for a specific outcome, somewhere already within you there is a knowledge of what it is you seek. If you didn't know what you're seeking you could not turn your attention to it. Even take a very mundane objective, I want to have increase in my sales in my business but you know what it's like to have an increase of sales? You've experienced it maybe briefly, but you know what it's like or you've seen it in other cases. Because you know what it's like, you can intend it. If you had never experienced something, how would you ever intend it, how would you ever turn your attention in a desire or an aspiration to it? For example, many people are searching and this is especially seen in young people. They're searching for something which is of a deeper satisfaction in life. They don't know where to look. So they keep trying everything that comes their way. Every newfangled fashionable activity which everyone says, ‘‘oh, this is so wonderful. This is so interesting’. Well, try it out. I'm looking for something and maybe I'll find it there. I'm not even conscious that I'm looking for something. I'm just dissatisfied with what I am and what I'm experiencing of life. But the fact that you sense a need for something else is itself your pointer to that something else. And so you keep trying. Now, this is not it or this is close enough but eventually I tire of it so somewhere inside you is a sense of what it is that you seek and if you could directly turn your attention to the quality of that consciousness that would be the direct way. But right now you have a sense of it and that's why you can keep looking, I would say this is not it. And so this is the essential faith of something which we are looking for.
In the Spiritual life, the essential faith emerges always from the psychic being. Because it is in the psychic being that we are one with the Divine and also we know the Divine and we know all the qualities which the Divine is manifesting through it because they are already held as essential qualities within the psychic being. The psychic being also has a sense of purpose of the life's journey and therefore it knows which direction to move or at the very least it knows when a direction is not right. So there is an automatic sense of not only discrimination but also direction. The more the psychic influence grows within us, the stronger is this quality of faith or Shraddha. Now I said I will elaborate on the name and I am using the Sanskrit term specially because the sense that we have of faith is a bit mixed, particularly in the English language. Faith, belief are often mixed. Faith is not a belief. Faith is a deep knowing and a deep conviction which can exist in spite of contrary belief. We have all been programmed, we have all been programmed without exception by our education to believe in certain things. For example, you believe that you will fall sick if you do certain things. You believe that you will age and you will die.
Sraddhalu (0:11:44):
It's obvious, right? But is that true? Is it really the deeper truth of your being? Feel inside you and you feel yourself immortal. You behave as if you will always live forever. That is the innate faith which comes from the psychic being in its origin but reflects in the mind and the emotions and in your practical life in a way that somehow you never take into consideration this idea that oh I'm going to die one day, until of course it becomes imminent then of course it hits you. But still left to do yourself and especially at a younger age somehow that thought never crosses you or even if it crosses, ‘ah, it's not real’. What is real? I am, I will be forever. Of course it's not true in the physical form. You know it but the faith is different. So faith in the yogic sense of the word Shraddha, we go to the etymology of the word Shrad and Dha. Dha is of course the same root which comes for Dharma, the upholding containing supporting the basis which holds and Shrad represents the essential truth of things. So Shraddha is the holding, containing, clinging to the essential truth of things. That's the nature of the faith or shraddha of the psychic. It knows because it is. It's containing, there's no need even to make an effort to cling because it is already holding what it is. And all of our deeper faiths, all of our deeper higher aspirations, all of them find their origin essentially there. We may receive intimations from above, from other ranges of our own inner or higher parts but they are all already there and therefore something of our being recognizes this, ah this is important or catches it and says this is valuable I don't want to lose it, because it's already there in the psychic essence.
And this is the reason why Sri Aurobindo puts so much importance on the, at the very least, bringing forward of the psychic influence in our life. So it brings in the aspect of the faith. But also it brings in something else which is the intensity of the turn. And we use, the second word we used was will, but from the psychic what emerges is the essence of will which is what is felt normally in the mind. Aspiration. In the mind it takes the form of a personal will. I want, I make effort, I turn to, I reach out for. In the emotional energies it takes a different form. It is like an instinctive push to need, to want, to crave more is a character of a desire not so clear as in a mental will. In a mental will you can choose to change but in the emotional desire sense or impulse you can't change easily. It's there or it's not there. If it's there it has also an opposite of what I don't want, a repulsion. In the physical body also there is a reflection of this that we are not directly conscious of but which we can sometimes sense or we can see and it is an instinctive push in the body to want to heal itself to become always whole, to become complete, to become healthy, to become full. The moment there is a cut, the body senses this is not right and there is a will to rearrange, to heal, eventually to bring back to completeness, harmony. This also would weaken if there was not the strong influence of the deeper spiritual or psychic. It's one of the very interesting things we see in practical psychology. When there is a strong influence of the psychic or of the self from above, the whole personality tends to become more integrated. If that influence weakens, the personality tends to fall apart into pieces. The pieces have nothing linking them. They are no more cohesive. They tend to break down and there is a kind of a disorder. My mind is thinking different, life force are moving in different direction, body is different. Now imagine that same thing happening in the physical body in the biology itself, if the thing which holds together and coordinates and integrates the body is working, if that is not present or if it weakens, well the functionings of the body tend to disperse and fall apart as if and that's what we see at the time of ill health or even at the time of death.Then finally the whole subtle body including withdraws, there's nothing left to hold, the physical body just falls apart.
Sraddhalu (0:17:10):
But even in times of ill health it is something similar. When the inner consciousness pushes forward, infuses and brings together together, the body begins to recover quickly and heal itself. The only difference is in the mind such an influence would act immediately. In the biology, because it is the realm of form and a resistant form, well the process takes time. But even there if the pull is strong and intensified, the process can be enormously accelerated to the point in which it may happen within a few seconds. An entire healing, even of a cut, can take place in a few seconds and then you say it's a miracle. It's not a miracle, it's the same process which the body would have taken normally, accelerated enormously by what? The energy in the body intensified and directed, for that purpose to a level which is abnormally concentrated. And it may be your vital energy which produces the miracle or it may be a spiritual energy using the vitality or it may be a spiritual energy that actually replaces the vitality by its direct action. And there are of course different kinds of miracles in these different cases. All this is to say that the principle of the aspiration reflecting in different parts of your being is the prime driver which pushes forward the life journey but hidden secret behind our surface personality which we think is the main driver. Yes, to an extent this is true, we decide. For example, you can decide to pick up a glass of water and drink or not. You have that free choice. From the inner aspiration, it doesn't matter. It does not bother.
But when in your life you are about to take decisions which go contrary to the inner, if the inner consciousness is awake, if its influence is sufficiently present, it can override the outer. I've given examples in the past, but and we have all experienced in our life, sometimes turning events in life. We look back and I say, ‘I don't know why I did that’, and of course the whole direction of your life changed. I remember one of my friends, he was very committed to a particular direction in life and he wanted to join the ashram here. At some point he said to everybody, well I'm going to go and visit my parents one last time before I come back. And he went there, he met them, he declared that he was going to come back to Pondicherry to stay in the ashram. And then he came to the railway station to catch the next train back and something strange happened. At the railway station he fell asleep. He missed the train and then went right back home and did not come back for some years. Think about the logic behind it. If he had actually wanted to come back to Pondicherry, well, he would have caught the next train. No, but something of the inner being said, no, that's not what I want. It overrode the outer by forcing it into sleep at that moment and then was able to, by that impulse sufficiently change the thought pattern even to give it a different direction in his life, which was probably the right thing for his evolution and development.
And I'm giving this example to show you that when that inner influence acts, it moulds the outer in a way that the ‘you’ personality will convince itself that's what I wanted, and you don't even realise that it's a deeper influence that is choosing. All this of course is again to highlight the fact that the deeper aspiration is the prime driver of our overall journey. It does not bother you about details, but it keeps nudging you broadly in the direction of its purpose. So we have spoken of the faith and the will and the combination of these two. Before I elaborate with examples of the method itself, I want to dwell upon certain nuances around these two terms. The faith itself, although originating in the psychic, where you already know what you truly are and of course what your true potential is. From there the faith reflects in the mind, in the life energies, reflects in the body but at that point it competes with the existing faiths in these parts. For example, the body has its own innate faith, the mind has its own innate faith in the life force too and these are the things which drive their natural instinctive behaviours. These faiths can differ and they can conflict between each other. So for example when it comes to physical health, the physical body has a faith of what it can do and of its ability to heal itself. So it falls ill, it gets injured, well it does what it needs to do to bring itself back. The mind has a different faith which is part of our educational programming or the media programming. ‘If you do this, you will fall sick. If you don't do that, you cannot get cured,’ - this is a fixed idea we have and that influences the body and severely distorts the body's ability to heal itself because its faith is compromised by the mind's contrary faith. The technical term will be a shraddha or counter faith or opposite faith. The a meaning displaced or distorted.
Sraddhalu (0:23:02):
So you will all have seen examples in cinema or television advertisements where a child plays in rain, comes back home and goes achoo, sneeze. And the mother has to wipe him dry, bring him in some warm space and then apply a balm or make him drink something or take some medicine and then the child is shown to be well. Think about how many times you have seen these images, perhaps you don't even remember it consciously but this pattern of thought itself, this idea, belief is so deep-rooted. Don't play in the rain, you will catch a cold. Even the word cold is tied with temperature and there are people who expose their body to extreme cold. In fact it reinvigorates them, it makes them immune to catching colds by the way. Where does this act? How does this act? There's an interesting example of a whole group of people in South America in the extreme south where it is mostly cold near the South Pole and extreme cold with snow. They used to live bare-bodied, completely naked. That was their lifestyle. And when the first European missionaries went there, they told them this is not healthy for you. You will catch pneumonia if you expose yourself to cold. And they taught them to put on clothes as a way of protecting their body to keep warm. And as it happened very quickly within a generation or so, all of them died of pneumonia. You can think of the implications. A counterfeit which is much more powerful can actually bring with it a vulnerability to infections which can even decimate an entire people. Think about how much programming is imposed in us with regard to good health or what is needed. For example, to get over, you have a fever, take these tablets to get over it. At some point the body accepts and that becomes the faith. Now all this is to explain the nuances and when it comes to the Integral yoga the implication is that eventually all all these levels must acquire a new, higher, deeper or even I would say truer faith. And that faith would have to do in relation to the Divine.
Sri Aurobindo speaks about this. That whole process may take time because layer by layer, a deeper and higher faith which knows the Divine presence and knows that its truth is to live by the Divine consciousness and its values, that faith has to be infused in the whole being. At the same time, in the whole being, there has to be this movement of the turning in aspiration to the Divine. So the will aspect and the faith aspect both have to be integrated into the whole being, turning to the Divine. Combine this with the other statement I made right at the beginning, the basic approach of the yoga, the basic practice is to turn the whole of you to the Divine and then practically it means in every part of your being the faith and the aspiration have to be turned to the Divine. And you see how important these terms or these ideas are as far as the practice is concerned.
Sraddhalu (0:26:50):
Now we come to the method itself which we discussed last time also that whenever you seek something to know, to experience, to realise, there's already within you this faith that knows the thing and then your attention turns in aspiration, in a will and in a concentration that grows increasingly more and more focused and we have discussed also the power of concentration before that it can know something or it can acquire a power or ultimately it can lead to an identity and we seek the identity through this combination of faith and will. In the Vedic tradition some of you would already remember that this is what is described as Agni. Agni is one of the greatest deities of the Vedic, well pantheon of the many deities which are described and Sri Aurobindo also in his commentary on the Veda begins with Agni. In his first chapter of the Life Divine, he begins with the human aspiration, Agni. Why? Because it is this which is Agni. Think of it in this way. Agni has two aspects, the knowledge and the will and the two combined as one. What I know, I become. Or in my knowledge is the will to fulfil. That's the nature of the true Divine aspiration within us which is Agni.
In the symbolism of the Puranic tradition, you see this double aspect of Agni split into two beings. So Shiva and Parvati as the Divine and his creative energy of manifestation. So the Divine consciousness is Shiva, Parvati as the creative energy which manifests his consciousness. Their children which is the focus, the combination of these two, the tapas of their concentration gives birth to their children which are Kartikeya and Ganesha. Kartikeya representing the will aspect, he is the warrior, the force who overcomes the demons, defeats the anti-divine forces and Ganesha who represents the aspect of knowledge. He also acts, he also has force but his will is reliant primarily on knowledge. So he rides the mouse and like the mouse can find his way around any difficulty and cut through with minimum invasive interference. Cut a small hole and get through like a mouse cutting his way through a mountain. Whereas Kartikeya battles head-on. So the will-knowledge aspect actually are split because increasingly in the human consciousness we experience these two as separate. But in the origin, in the creative tapas, the knowledge is the power to manifest, the will to manifest, the inevitably effective action of the Divine concentration. Reflecting in us also as these two powers, but in this psychic, the two are united as one aspiration which knows and fulfils or seeks what it knows. In our practical experience, they take on these two different aspects, which then we combine in the practice for the result in the direct method. So all this is to give a background of the deeper insights as well as the philosophical background we might say, but as you can see a very practical implication. So in the actual practice what do we do? I'll take several examples of what you, how you can apply this practice. I will take some examples from the spiritual but as well as other more mundane applications but you'll see it's the same principle. I started with the example earlier of wanting to increase my business sales. You know what it is to like to increase, isn't it? And what do you do then when you want to increase? Of course you put greater effort in your business. What effort do you put? The thing which feels for you the closest to that quality which represents the increase. Isn't it? So you may realise I need to push more. But depending on who it is and what level of responsibility you have in a complex business, you amplify your energy to that outcome. If you've directed your energy sufficiently, you begin to see results. The moment you have the result, it intensifies your faith. Ah yes, I can feel it happening. And the moment you feel it happening, you intensify not only your effort but the feeling that it's happening. Observe carefully what happens there. And to the extent that you are able to do that, actually it amplifies further the results. This is a very interesting yogic principle that's being applied without consciousness by people who are effective in the business and I've seen a lot of successful businessmen and I found they have this power. They sense something and they are able to put energy directly on that but also they change their methods but all the change in methods are focused on this particular outcome. The faith, the feel of the outcome needed and the willpower which is pushed to intensify it. The methods they use are almost secondary.
Sraddhalu (0:32:53):
So somebody says, well I will push with more advertising. Somebody else says, I will increase my engagement with my customers. Someone else says, I will improve the quality of my product or my service. But in all this you see what I do is intensifying the focus of your energy and concentration. Towards that which you sense is the outcome that you need, the faith that you have. So in a very mundane example, take this to a psychological level of a psychological interaction or an occult interaction. I gave the example last time of somebody who was doing his mantra to get a particular outcome. What are you doing again in the concentration of the mantra? You turn to that goal that you wish to have and then you're infusing energy, will into that consciousness, faith in which you already know. So the actual result is from there. In one of the comments from one of our viewers there was an observation, a good example, I think it was from Sujatha, she said, I am reminded of the story of sage Valmiki. And there is an interesting story around that. Valmiki was a decoy and well, he used to kill people. And then he was turned by a Rishi and who said, why are you doing this? Why don't you turn to something higher? He said, what can I do? This is all I know. And the Rishi tells him, well, repeat the name of Rama, it will purify you and liberate you and when Valmiki tries to speak he can't say Rama he says the name is too pure, I am unable to speak the name Rama. So the sage tells him well repeat the opposite instead of Rama you say MaRa, Mara means kill, death, that's what you've been doing all your life he says yes this I can do. So he keeps saying mara mara mara. Of course the story goes that mara mara, you end up with rama rama rama. Well there's a play on the the wording itself but it's not just that. It is the thought in his mind of who it is that he remembers or invokes. It's not the word you spoke. If you even mispronounce the word Rama, it doesn't matter. It's the thought where you put, which finally leads him to the realisation and the liberation in consciousness and so on. He becomes this great Rishi who eventually composes the Ramayana and records the whole of Rama's life. But this is to say the focus of your mind. Now it may be that you are in the middle of work, you don't think about it. But the intention behind, implied in the work that you do is still there and that's acting. It can work very subtly.
Even when a person delegates a work, in the act of delegating the work, there is an intention which presides over the delegation itself. I want to dwell a little bit about, on this. Maybe it's too nuanced but it is useful to understand how these things work. There are examples of tests done in laboratories for validating some of these things. For example, there's an experiment done of healing. A person performs a healing on plants, human beings, tissue samples, making it very objective on cells in a tissue in a petri dish. You register, you record the whole process. Later they play back the recording on a new sample of tissue and they find the same result. Now at the time of playing back a recording, there is no human being with a conscious intention sitting there, right? So the people are perplexed. How is the recording able to produce a healing? Who is putting the energy? The healer has gone away. He is busy doing other things. From where is this energy coming from? How does the healing work?
Sraddhalu (0:37:02):
And of course they go into all kinds of, because the framework of their knowledge is so basic and so crude and so proficient, that they go into all kinds of things about abstractions of knowledge, informational content, transmission of information. No, it has nothing to do with that. Throughout it was the healer's intention directing his life force for a particular outcome. Now you've removed the healer, you've put a recording, but what is the recording holding? The intention is registered, but you don't have a human being to hold the intention right? Yes there is. The person who played back the recording for the outcome is still there as an intention or as a carrier of an intention or is the link to the source of the intention, isn't it? And this is something which is very difficult for us to fully appreciate until we understand the underlying nature of reality. That is everything is an expression of a single one indivisible divine Brahman.
All forms, all objects, all experiences are one Brahman putting forward a special front. In that special front is the totality of the whole Brahman, which means it includes everything else. Once you start thinking or seeing from this perspective, this phenomenon seems so obvious,because behind any object is the totality of all else. Which of those aspects of all else will activate through this object depends on what is called out. Think about it. The person holding the recording can call out, draw out an aspect of that recording or even tune in to feel that aspect of that recording or use the recording as a vehicle to re-invoke that original quality of energy or that particular outcome, even without that person's energy here and now. So when you play the recording, the fact that you are playing it with an intention, oh let's see how it acts and implied is it should heal or not heal and you get that result. Now what is very important to understand here, if you did not believe it is possible, then and as a strong ashraddha, as a negative belief this cannot happen, this will not happen, it will actually break the link and it will not happen.
If instead you are open, yes perhaps it happens, then you are not interfering and the innate shraddha is carried through. Or if you believe strongly, I am sure this is going to happen, because I have seen it before, I have the conviction and now this result will be even more powerful perhaps. So when some of these healers work in laboratory conditions, their first criteria is we don't want people who are against it. You can be neutral, that's fine. You can be positive, that's fine. But if you are against or you have a negative belief, then we avoid those people coming into that space. Because it breaks the ambience of that space or the field or the faith of that space. Now again we are using terms which are fashionable because it sounds scientific. You say field of energy, field of faith like a magnetic field. So it sounds more scientific, but the idea is simply that space infused with a certain consciousness will influence or affect everything within it.
Sraddhalu (0:40:56):
Who creates that? You as a participant in that space will influence it. Or depending on the strength of that versus your faith, it may overwhelm your negative faith. So we come to a very important insight. Entering a hospital, you're submitting yourself to the faith influence of that space. Entering a forest, you're submitting yourself to the faith of that space. And if it is a forest full of life energy and healing energy, well, you heal much faster in the forest than in the hospital. Or in the hospital, your healing process falls into the rhythm set by the belief of those who rule energetically that space. So there's a practical transmission both of positive faith as well as negative faith. If in the Spiritual life you are able to create a collective field influence presence that supports the faith, things are easier. If you are full of doubt, questioning and even negative faith, well, those things create the reality or influence at least. In coming into a strong influence, well, you get carried away by that field, by that presence, by the faith of that space. Coming out of it you tend to lose or it tends to fade and that's why from a Spiritual point of view, the company you keep is extremely important. If it nourishes your faith, if it nourishes your aspiration, it's valuable. If it is neutral, it's okay, doesn't matter. But if it is negative, avoid. Avoid contact with spaces or individuals or activities where your central faith and aspiration are clouded or negated because well it's going to affect you. If one day or rather when one day your faith becomes strong enough that you can walk into that space and not be affected it will have the counter effect you will influence that space and turn its direction and this too will happen at some point, but right now be observant simply. And all this is to say that in certain spaces certain experiences open more easily other spaces not so easily because of the shift in the faith that you experience. So that's why it is useful to create a space in your own home which you keep for the Spiritual purpose, for your daily practice, in which you build the atmosphere, the field, the energy, the presence, in which the faith also is built up and the Divine presence invoked and intensified every day bit by bit.
When I say this as a general principle, if you can, some people have the luxury of an entire room, small or big doesn't matter, which they call their prayer room. If you don't have a room, keep a prayer chair where you sit and if you can't have that also keep a rug or simple piece of cloth or pillow that you associate for your purpose of concentration. You sit on that, do your concentration, fold it away, roll it up and put it away. Take it out again when you have to sit for concentration and you as if attach it to that space or that object and even if possible at that time. The result of course is that a certain charge is built up, physically held even supported by in the physical space and by an object in which now it becomes easier; you concentrate every day, same place, same time and the presence builds up until it comes to a point where it reminds you, you're working you're busy and suddenly something calls, you look at the watch, ah yes it's time for my concentration or you sit down, you're distracted, you're disturbed, you're agitated, you come and sit down in your place of concentration and the calm and peace settle because the presence is there, it acts on you even without your effort because it's the result of what over time also. So consider these things if possible, use this knowledge for this purpose.
Sraddhalu (0:45:53):
So now we come to the form of the practice again. You saw how even for the business you're using this. In an occult practice you're using this but in a Spiritual practice how would you do? Depending on which direction of experience or concentration. You will recall a few sessions ago in the evening series number 83, the whole first half was dedicated to a description of how to do the inward concentration, how to go within to enter in relation with the psychic presence and to deepen the relationship with the psychic presence. And I had said there that I will refer to it and not repeat those instructions in great detail. Review that if you like and now you observe the method itself is one of a combination of these two powers. You become very quiet first; as far as possible make your mind quiet, make your emotions quiet, make your body quiet, and then it's as if you turn to what you feel as your deepest - either as an awareness of something deep within you or with the idea of the psychic presence within or with the feeling of the devotion or love or gratitude that you feel for the Divine Mother, but if you do that then you're, it's at first felt more like an emotion and you turn to the source of that emotion or that sentiment and always there's a sense of a source deep within and you turn towards that and that's the Shraddha. You already know it, it's there and it does not matter whether through mind form or emotion form or devotion form you turn to that and then gather, gather all your attention, full focus only towards that and there comes a time when everything else fades away you have only one single pointed focus and you allow yourself to drift towards immersion and eventual identification; that's the basic process. The intention, the will is not a ‘I am trying hard, I am pushing’, it's a very relaxed letting go with the intention held as a quiet aspiration to know, to feel, to become one, to give yourself to be drawn in simply by the holding of the aspiration. The beauty of the direct method is that it does not rely on your strength primarily. In the very act of that turning in a one pointed aspiration and concentration to that which is the source, the goal of your concentration. A relationship is set where that influences you, that draws you, that fills you, that reveals itself. And this is all the more critical in a Spiritual practice where the things we seek are beyond our range of normal experience. All the purpose, the goals of the Spiritual effort are neither physical objects, nor vital energies, emotions, nor mental thoughts or ideas. They transcend mind, they transcend these three, even in the psychic. And so, that cannot be a product of your effort. You can only turn to it and that reveals itself. And the movement of that revealing itself is much more easy when you open yourself.
Again, we touched upon this last time, but the movement of opening and then of self-giving, self-surrender. So you hold awareness of that and then let yourself, give yourself, allow yourself to be drawn in deeper and deeper. And then time doesn't matter. How long it takes doesn't matter. You go as deep as you can, in as close an immersion in the presence as you can. Stay as long as you like and then gradually from there you once again turn your attention to your outward awareness to the extent possible holding that state of immersion and then allowing it to spread into the rest of you. Here is a direct process which does not involve any names, formations, visualisations, repetitions or exercises. It's directly consciousness entering in relation with consciousness and experiencing in degrees, doesn't matter. In the same process you could turn for example in concentration on the Self. I take an example here of the tradition associated with Sri Ramana Maharshi. As you know his whole theme of the life was living in the immersion in the Self. It was the aspect of static Self not the dynamic aspect of the Self. Nevertheless as a foundation that is the foundation on which the experience of the dynamic Self also can be held. But the distinction I will just briefly touch upon for those who may not be familiar, the Self as the one Divine consciousness can be experienced in two ways. One is in its transcendence of all things and forms and limitations and then we often tend to experience it as still, silent, unchanging but utterly free, even free of space and time. But there is equally the other aspect where all this is experienced as expression of Self, power of Self, form and even substance of Self in manifestation through various degrees of self modification, changing itself to appear in limitations.
Sraddhalu (0:52:13):
But everything that exists is the intense pouring out of the creative energy of the Self and that's the opposite side, complementary side and we will say the dynamic side of the Self or the Brahman in this case, the static Brahman and the dynamic Brahman. Both experiences are to be realised and eventually unified in a single experience which is the true transcendence. But this is just to explain this term which not necessarily all could be familiar with. In Ramana Maharshi's life it was the realisation of this static aspect of the Self and the living in it, under all circumstances - irrespective of what he may be doing, irrespective of what the provocation externally may be, he was always immersed in self in all activities. The method that he taught for his devotees, he said, ask yourself, who am I?, who am I? And so the Who am I, the method is called the Who am I method, the method of introspection.
Now there are people I have seen or I've heard who actually say things like, so I ask myself every day, “Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?” No, that doesn't help you because then you are stuck in a thought circle and words circle. The essence if you come to the direct method is the turning an awareness to the sense of I. No words, no forms, no visualisations. Feel the sense, I, am. However you feel it. Some immediately feel a sensation which is more in the emotional chest centre, others feel I as a more mental centre, doesn't matter where you start. Some may feel even the body, I, doesn't matter. Now being in that awareness of sense of I, you turn deeper to the sense of where does this come from, what is the source of it and the intuition there or the Shraddha, the faith is that there's something deeper of which this is an expression and so you turn and follow that feel of something deeper and deeper and deeper and so on and that's it, that's the method. By dwelling in it and dwelling on the sense of the source of it, you go deeper and deeper towards it and then depending on the particular form your starting point or you are even sometimes limited by the conception of what you have as the sense of the Self, you reach a certain experience. You may feel so complete in that experience that there's nothing more and that's it. Or you may realise in that experience and sometimes because you know or the deeper faith or there's more and I must persist and sometimes there are decisive stages, decisive experiences eventually even in an experience transcending space and time, and that's the way, that's the method of pursuit.
Sraddhalu (0:55:27):
The difficulty you may face is that you cannot hold attention long enough to stay in that immersion. And so there we can suggest certain things. So the problem of an inward turn is you have no physical references. Where do I put my sight, my hearing, my taste, touch, smell? Well, you don't have an object. But what you can do is feel that where you are, without using sight and that's why it's so important to let go of the physical senses. You feel that and there's a sense of identification in the quality felt in the consciousness, a kind of a deep calm, stillness, purity, a kind of a clarity which reflects or represent the sense of sight like an illumination of a presence, clearer, brighter, freer. You put attention on those qualities. And as you dwell on it, dwell on those qualities and again the intention here, the will, the faith - you know the source, is stronger, more clear, more deep, more still, more peaceful and so the sense of going deeper towards that, in that quality is what leads the rest of the journey and that's enough to hold attention. The method of entering the experience of the Self is as simple as this in the direct method. Indirectly, now you may use variations of this. You take a name, you take a form, you take an image but then you don't stop with the image. You have to go to the thing which the image represents, isn't it? So when you say I want to enter the sense of the Self, what is the way the Self represents to you most easily? And perhaps you have an image, you have perhaps an image of a vast ocean-like or a space which is blank and then you use the image as an entry point. I don't recommend this. I'm just showing you how it works in the forms in which people do some of these practices. I don't recommend this because then you get stuck with the image and inevitably the image distracts. Some of you for example would have surely used at some time of your life the image of the Mother or the deity which for you is the natural symbol of the Divine presence for an inward concentration or other concentrations. And if you have used that, yes it helps you to hold attention because of the visual content but your realisation is also limited to that visual form generally. And only occasionally and even I will use this word, that it is involuntarily, you have a glimpse of something greater.
See, you will often hear these stories, I have been doing this practice for so many years and nothing much was happening and then one day suddenly, unexpectedly I had this breakthrough but then I lost it. And if you go into the experience, ask what were you doing? Nothing particular that day, in fact I was quite bored, I was quite distracted, I was even tired, I thought I was sleepy and then I had the breakthrough. And it happened because precisely your mind was no more bound in the form. All these years you were focused on the form and therefore stopping with the form. And your mind became slightly sleepy, drowsy, you lost grip on the form and the will or the aspiration broke through to that which is beyond form. And having had that experience you again said, oh now I must try harder and you focus more on the form. No, it was precisely because you lost the focus on the form that you got the experience. Don't make that mistake. Instead, recall the experience itself. Now often if you have had an experience briefly at some time and then lost it, you say well I try harder. No, let go of what you were trying. Instead remember the experience and now use the direct method. Recall what that experience was like. Withdraw from everything else and gently turn more and more to feel, recall the sense of the experience. Now that's your faith, you already have an experience, hold that. And then the will here is the turning in aspiration to dwell in it more and more, as if drifting in it, merging in it. It doesn't matter if it takes time. You dwell on it and then it's as if the memory of it grows more vivid. The quality of the experience and its impact on you begins to grow more vivid and it's as if you slide, slide, slide, deep, deep, deep and then you merge and maybe you get one-tenth of it but you got it. And then the next day, a little more and a little more and then at some point you will find you have access to the experience, even if you take time to reach it, you have access at will. So you can reach a stage where I can close my eyes, maybe it takes me 5 or 10 minutes or more time is not important and I can enter the experience whenever I choose.
Sraddhalu (1:00:39):
And then you come out and of course you don't have it or you have only an effect or influence of it after you've come out and that's the second correction you have to make. From the experience, immersion, when you come out, you don't come out. You turn your attention to your surface ranges of awareness, consciousness, personality, experience, senses opening. As far as possible, holding the influence or state of that experience, you turn back and allow its influence to now fill and settle into you. This in the context of the integral yoga is extremely important. In the more ascetic traditions where the goal is to lose yourself in some transcendence to get out of this which anyway is believed to be unchangeable, doesn't matter. You come out, you go in, you come out, you go in, the gap grows, grows, grows until life is so frustrating you don't want to come back. Here the goal is different. You must manifest that, bring that here to change this.
And so you turn, infuse, infuse, let this spread. And so when you come out eventually, the vividness of the experience may dilute but is not lost. The link is not lost. Even it's as if some part of the experience over a few weeks stays with you and is not lost. And at that point you'll find it does not take you 10, 20 or 30 minutes to reach it. You only turn in, drift in and a large part of the experience is now available because the gap between the surface and the experience is narrowed. A bridge is formed, a link is created and now this influence continues to pour itself into your normal waking life. And your turning in is only to deepen and bring the link, make the link broader and more complete and allow its influence to come more and more into life. So Mother even puts it this way - the value of the meditation is not in what you do in the meditation but how it changes your life. Yes of course that is important, without that you could not change this but then it must, its value is measured in terms of how much it can change you. So this is again a very simple form in which a past experience, however distant it might be, can be recalled and is in fact given to you occasionally and surprisingly in order to help you by familiarity to recover it and now work to make it a permanent part of your consciousness.If it could come once, unasked or unexpectedly, well you are capable of receiving it. Now you need to work to make the bridge and to allow its influence to become more and more direct. Isn't it? It's a very simple logic. If you could have it once you can have it always. So let that be your faith. Even if I got it that day, however number of years ago does not matter, if I got it that day, today I should be able to get it even more easily because I have grown so much more and use this direct method now to form the bridge.
I will turn this now to one last form of practice. We could dwell on quite a few forms in which one could enter relations with the Divine, but I am keeping this for the last because this is perhaps the single most important form in which you can begin the practical daily form of practice of the integral yoga. Remember, briefly we had discussed one of the sessions, in the last few sessions, Sri Aurobindo explaining how there are two directions: the inward and upward. All experience, all experience of Spiritual experience comes from either deep within which is in the horizontal movement to the psychic or from above which is the vertical movement to the Self and the Divine presence in its fullness, cosmic freedom above. All experience comes from these two directions. Of course it can come indirectly in the sense that there is a descent of something that takes place unknown to you in your inner parts and from inside it reflects out. Yes that also happens but it's just you were not aware that it descended from above.
Why above? Because the part of us which opens to the higher grade of consciousness is this centre which is the Sahasrara which is most open to the higher ranges of consciousness. Just as your mental centre is here, in the centre of the forehead deeper inside and your emotional centre is here, so too your spiritual centre or the centre most open to the spiritual is at the top of the head. From here it opens to ranges above. At the moment the opening here is only very partial if at all and the little that is partial is not very sensitive, not very developed. The centre we can say is mostly closed. That's how it's described. You don't focus on opening it. None of that is done in the integral yoga. You don't work to open chakras. That's not our focus. We concentrate on opening a range of consciousness. The chakra is only a focal point for that range and it will happen of its own. Opening of the range of consciousness because we want to transform the whole range. Chakra opening is important for systems where the goal is an escape and you don't want to transform but here since the goal is to transform, you open the whole of your mind not just focusing on a chakra the whole mind opens. An important distinction of the Integral yoga is our starting point. Unlike Hatha yoga which starts with the body, the Integral yoga starts with the mind's awareness.
Sraddhalu (1:06:54):
It is through the mind that we set our relationship with the divine Shakti who works in us. We invoke her through the mind’s and the mind here includes the heart's devotion because it is part of the mental awareness, not the life energy in its instinctive mode but the part of life energy which is part of the mind. So the call, the opening, the self-surrender is done with the mind's awareness including the heart's opening and it is through the mind that the basic approach begins because this is the part also most clear, most and therefore most easy to open and receive the more direct action of the divine Shakti, which then through the mind can pour into us and work on our vital and physical and so on. So the first practice which we had spoken in session number 83 was the inward movement. Complementing it and perhaps more easy for most of us is this upward movement which then I will dwell on.
Now, we start with this recognition that here this centre, from here we can feel most easily the things which are above. So the moment you concentrate here and then turn your attention, you become aware of the presence. It's as easy as that. The presence is always there. If you are here lost in your surface activity you are not aware of it or unless it suddenly comes down with a certain force you say ah I felt a piece I don't know where it came or I felt it descending but I don't know why it came. But now we will open ourselves to it consciously so what you do is you become aware of your basic aspiration let's say as deep as you feel it this whole sense that I am here to put my relation to put myself in relation with the divine presence and here to realise the Divine and to transform the whole of this human life into a Divine life. The sense of that, not these words or thoughts needed, but the sense of that, that I am here for this, that's your aspiration and then you turn in aspiration concentrating on the centre. If it helps you, at first you can briefly touch the part in the centre of the head where normally you feel this very sensitive spot and when you touch it you'll feel it's here, it's not here, it's not here. If you tap all around you'll find there's a point where you feel it most sensitive. That's where in a baby there's a hole which closes by the way as you come into adulthood. If you like, briefly touch this. So you have a sense of a sensation. That's it. You don't need to touch again. It's only a way to hold attention. But most people don't need to. You can just put your attention there. That's good enough.
But the goal is not to put an attention on the skin sensation. It's to open to what is above. So you place your attention there. And as far as possible, gather all your attention at that point. And when you are fully centred, you gently turn upward, just becoming aware of the sense of what is above. If you like, you hold the idea - above is the Divine presence, the presence of the Self, the silence of the Self, the peace of the Self, and just turn with your awareness like this, and stay aware of the presence and the peace which is above, as long as you like, enjoy it and immerse yourself in it. And as you notice, as you become aware, you will find the presence becoming more dense, more vivid, more intense. Doesn't matter if you don't feel it as a dense, you feel it as something vast, you feel it as an expanse, you feel it as a power or simply something which you cannot describe, doesn't matter in what way you feel it, just stay in relation with it. At first you do this for a few days, either spontaneously in the very first session it can happen or maybe in a few days it may happen spontaneously or you may do it consciously. You'll find yourself either feeling this presence pressing down and then you let it, let it come down and settle part by part, descending.
Sraddhalu (1:11:24):
Or you can intend it, as you stay concentrated, you invoke, invoke it as if inviting, as if opening yourself, “come down, fill me”, and you let it and you follow with your attention, as it comes part by part all down. Sri Aurobindo explains that it must come down into your whole being all the way down to the feet, fill you completely. One of the natural results of this movement of descent is your whole consciousness here becomes more aware, more intense, even more refined, more subtle. You begin to feel your subtle body more easily and sometimes you feel it as a layer around and it is the work of that Presence settling which awakens everything. A second movement is also possible which may happen spontaneously and depending on your temperament or the day you sit, you may find yourself after a point in concentration as if you are being pulled up. As you remain immersed in the presence and the peace, you find yourself pulled up into the peace, into the presence, into its wideness and you remain.
If that happens spontaneously, enjoy that or that may be followed by this other movement of descent. After a while when you say, ‘okay now I would like to come out of it’, there may be a movement of coming down and with that coming down may be a sense of a descent of the peace or the presence, and you allow it fully to fill you before you open your eyes. And again as we discussed before, you don't snap out, you stay in the experience and let your eyes open, so that the experience can settle fully and then extend it into your life. This movement of the upward opening is the second most important in sequence, but in practice you will find it the single most important. Because the upward movement liberates your consciousness; You will experience in this higher rising sense a great freedom, freedom from the mind, freedom from all the other parts and with it the opening to higher ranges of consciousness will gradually begin.
Don't be in a hurry for it, allow things to form. Simply enjoy the sense of the wideness, the vastness, the freedom of consciousness. But the second movement of descent is extremely important because the descending movement will transform your nature. Eventually it will be this descending movement of the force and the peace from above, of the Divine Mother, filling you which will be doing the yoga in you more and more and the form in which the yoga will grow and we'll discuss this later as we come to the different limbs of the yoga, that her energy and her peace filling you, entering you will soak in and work inside the substance of your mind to plastify it, to widen it, to make it full of light and similarly in the vital and the physical to transform. So both movements are complementary, both are essential, whichever happens more naturally first is fine, it work on the other equally. At first these experiences feel a little blurry because they are not taking place in a domain of form, they are in a sense of pure state of awareness, consciousness. And often they open the mind to something which is above the normal range of your mind.
So it feels a little vague and blurry. But if you notice the special quality of peace or presence or freedom or wideness, well you catch that, cling to that. And it's such a deep joy, such a deep nourishment, it can even feel addictive almost, but in a good way. And the movement of the descent is so vivid and so intense and it will grow every time because a little bit descending initially makes you more conscious, more receptive, more aware. Next time you feel more clearly, more densely, more vividly, more intensely until very quickly that which descends is more vivid and more real than even your physical body. And at that point there's a kind of a reversal of the basis of your consciousness. First you feel I am a physical body in which something is happening, later you will feel I am this subtle body in which I have a physical body and it happens quite naturally. But of course knowing this you can assist the process to happen sooner.
Sraddhalu (1:16:20):
So I'll read from Sri Aurobindo and he gives you the key to the experience itself. He writes: “A disclosure from within or a descent from above are the two sovereign ways of the yoga siddhi. [Siddhi is the realisation]. An effort of the external surface, mind or emotions, a tapasya of some kind may seem to build up some of these things but the results are usually uncertain and fragmentary compared to the result of the two radical ways”. So this comes back to what we have been discussing the last few times. You can make a lot of effort through this kind of intensified, dramatised tapasya, mind effort, vital effort but the results are fragmentary compared to these two radical ways. And what are the two radical ways? The thing descending from above or the disclosure from within of the thing which you are seeking coming into you rather than you seeking to claim it. You open to allow it to fill you and the result is much more effective so that is why, I continue the sentence, “and that is why in this yoga we insist always on an opening, an opening inwards of the inner mind vital physical to the inmost part of us the psychic and an opening as indispensable for the fruits of the sadhana”.
You want a result which is lasting, you want a result which is complete, which is stable, which is more than your capacity is capable of, well this is the deepest presence of the psychic within you. So initially the inward opening may give you whatever you feel, allow the influence to fill, work on this, work equally on this upward opening which will allow something to fill from above and the two will become increasingly complementary. The psychic presence filling you gives you a receptive base for the action of the force from above. The opening above and the descent will purify you and make you capable of receiving the psychic influence more completely. And they become complementary.
But the key words in both is opening. Instead of going out and seize, going out and acquire, achieve, master, compel, which is all with the force of your mind vital physical effort, you can never get to something which is beyond mind. Instead you bring stillness, quietness and open and in the movement of self-giving you receive that which is greater than you, which is even beyond your imagination you hold and then it works to change you. So this is the broad framework of how we will put into practice the direct method and you can see here no words are needed, no forms are needed, nothing that you can count even the time you hold is not important, even the sense of time will change when you are in deep concentration, but you do need to develop your power of concentration which again by the way will develop almost automatically as you put your attention and you remain immersed enjoying the experience. So in fact this is a very easy method and extremely, I will use the word dramatic or radical in the results that it gives in the outcome that it offers. There are people who have spent years trying to quiet their mind or to silence their mind with personal effort and activity and will of the mind with very limited result and easily lost. Instead, the same concentration in the head, if you have concentrated here, you turn up from here and then open to that which is above mind. Feel the peace which is above and invoke the peace to settle. And when you feel, as you feel the peace settling immediately your mind becomes quiet and stays quiet without effort. This is the amazing part. When you feel the descent of the peace without your personal effort, your mind is spontaneously silent. And then you use that occasion to habituate your mind to be able to stay quiet and silent. And so you're surprised that within a day you can achieve what normally takes people a year or more to realise and that too fitfully and unstably.
Sraddhalu (1:21:44):
This is the special, well, effectivity of the direct method and the Integral yoga. I am tempted to read one last portion from Sri Aurobindo's writing. Let me see if I can find it. Yes, it is here. So he says, here the goal of this method is of course to give you the maximum maximum result for the minimum effort. So he says, he explains here, “In fact, however, the Divine strength often unobserved and behind the veil substitutes itself for our weakness and supports us through all our failings in faith, courage and patience and therefore, he says, this path is at once the most difficult imaginable because the goal is transformation and yet in comparison with the magnitude of its effort and object the most easy and sure of all”. This was one passage and there was another passage which perhaps find again next time, where he says that the whole nature of this effort in the form of the practice is precisely to have the maximum result for the smallest effort in the shortest time, because well for a goal which is so comprehensive you cannot afford to spend many lives, you want to do as much as you can in a very short time. But you can also see after this discussion at least that the direct method is in fact far more direct, far more effective and far more permanent in its results than the indirect processes and methods which are in fact mostly superfluous and even a distraction if you think about it in this way, where you are too busy in the effort itself than in the goal, whereas here your whole focus is on the goal right from the beginning and you are deepening at each step towards it. As a result, the whole nature of the sadhana now acquires a new form, which Sri Aurobindo describes as the Sunlit Path. And that will be the theme for us the next time and we will also discuss the structure of the yoga itself, the goals and the framework in which the practice is placed and yet much of that, much of those goals and much of that framework will be attained to and realised by this basic practice which will be the inward opening and the upward opening, this double practice.
So practically I would suggest for you to spend a little time if possible every day. Find a time when you are fresh enough, not too distracted, without something urgent to come to immediately after. Sit comfortably, become conscious of your deeper aspiration. The fact that it is the Divine Shakti working in you which has awakened you even to this and it is She who will lead you to the fullness of the realisation. Turn in for a moment in communion with the presence within of the Divine Mother's presence or the presence of the Divine as the psychic being within you and then turn up. Concentrate at this point above the head, centre yourself there and from there turning up open to the presence. If you find it difficult to hold attention, start with inside the head but then turn up to that which is above head. And then stay immersed in communion with the vast peace, which is felt like an ocean of peace. And after a while invoke, allow it to settle, to fill you. If it happens spontaneously, rise into it and then follow with the movement of the descent. Hold what is received, you will feel it filling you like a container and then let that be carried through into the rest of the day. It's a very simple practice, does not matter how long it takes. As an aid to this concentration, as an aid to holding your attention when you practise this, you may take the help of a guided process which I had done in one of the programs which we had in the United States couple of years ago and we will put this up online on the channel in the next few days and if you like you can use that as a support because it helps you to hold attention when somebody is there to remind you not do this, hold this and I think it will be helpful for many of you to use.
But that will come in a few days. It will be called, I think we will give it a name, the word meditation in it, meditation for descent of peace or something like that and see how that works for you. I think this will be a broad enough discussion on the topic of the direct method and then we will move on next time to the framework of the yoga practice itself
Alina (1:27:20):
Thank you very much. It was a very broad presentation on the direct method and We are happy to receive all these practices and guidelines to implement in our daily practices. Thank you very much and we are looking forward to continue and elaborate on this subject, also on the widening of the being and widening the consciousness. Thank you very much.
Sraddhalu (1:27:55):
We can close with a short concentration, on the concentration above the head if you like or simply feel the presence within you in gratitude to the Divine Mother who works in us to awaken even our aspiration. Thank you. Namaste.
Alina (1:29:04):
Namaste.
[Joel] Thank you.