EWS #95 The First Business of a Sadhaka + Q&A on practices (36)
Dec 4, 2021
Topics:
Alina (0:00:00):
Good evening, everyone. Today we will continue as usual each Saturday, Evenings with Sraddhalu, our series number 95, part 95 already. And today we will continue on a theme named, the First business of the Sadhaka. We will also answer as usual some questions from our viewers. We will include questions on practices, as we explored last time the seven steps of the integral yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Today we will explore more deeply, the first of the six perfections. As you all know my name is Alina and together with Joel from Auroville, we will be hosting this evening. Namaste, Joel. Namaste, Alina.
Joel (0:00:59):
Namaste, Alina. Namaste, Sraddhalu.
Sraddhalu (0:01:00):
Namaste, happy to be here. Happy to be with all of you.
Alina (0:01:08):
Namaste. We can start first answering a question from Amicus: “Below is a question about the world-soul, and this is a bit of an introduction to give it a context. For me this is not an academic question, it is more about the experience of the levels of being. There is ultimate unity, but at times there seem to be gradations of identity from personal to planetary to cosmic. I'm interested to hear a discussion, from the perspective of the Integral Yoga, about the interface between the personal and the planetary, and perhaps how this fits into the cosmic. In many esoteric traditions, both ancient and modern, there is the concept of the world soul. One common idea is that our psychic being is something akin to a cell within the planetary psychic being. Put another way, while the soul of each person maintains its unique individuality, it is also a hologram of the soul of a larger, conscious planetary entity or deity, who is itself on an evolutionary journey. In the canto entitled ‘The World Soul’ in Book 2 of Savitri, Sri Aurobindo calls the silent soul of the world a being-lived, a presence and a power, a single person who was himself and all. What is the relationship between our psychic being and the psychic being of the planet? Is the collective awakening of humanity simultaneous with the world soul's own awakening and evolution?” These are the first two questions of Amicus and we will explore further another few questions after we give some answer to these ones. It's a long letter.
Sraddhalu (0:03:44):
Yes. The question itself opens a whole new dimension on a collective scale. The relationship of our individual psychic being with the planetary consciousness and from there the universe itself. In many of the new age literature, you will find this idea of each individual like a cell on the earth, for example, giving an analogy to a human body. The problem with that analogy is, as in the human body, each cell is bound to its limited role. If it changes too much, if it grows too much, well, it becomes cancerous and harms the body. So the nature of this image, this symbol or this relationship, which you will find very popularly among many new age groups, is in fact extremely harmful to an individual evolution. It even goes to a perversion which can be used to justify the enslavement of humanity by declaring that each one has his set fixed role in the machinery that is society and so you are bound like a slave to your little role and cannot outgrow it because then you will destabilize the collective good. And all of these ideas derive from this basic relationship of individual as a cell in the collective consciousness. The Spiritual view is different and I'm saying this generally, not just Sri Aurobindo. The Spiritual view is, and at least in the Indian tradition, is that each individual is one with the original Divine consciousness. Sri Aurobindo elaborates on this in a way that I have not seen in other Indian traditions, but it is not in conflict with other Indian traditions. It's just that Sri Aurobindo gives us a richer understanding. Not only is each individual one with the origin but the universe is one with the origin and so the universe and the individual are in a sense equally important, equally wholly an expression of the Divine, but with something special the individual can grow unendingly to a full realization of his divinity; the universe cannot of its own grow enough, it can only grow up to a certain point and the individual being in the universe makes possible in the universe the awakening of the full divinity.
So in a sense, the universe itself concentrates its efforts on the individual to assist this awakening. But if the individual did not grow, the universe would not grow beyond a point. And the point is of course what mechanical evolution can take it to. Beyond that, a conscious evolution would require the individual participation. So the individual now is no more a cell in the universe, or for that matter on planet Earth, but an equally independent being whose relationship with planet Earth or the universe is one of a free participant and even of a creator. Now to look at this specific question of the psychic being of the individual and the psychic being of the planet, what is the relationship? The term used for the planet we may use the psychic being because there is a psychic aspect, presence or soul to planet Earth, Mother Earth, we will say, even in her aspect of divinity, around which the physical globe of the Earth forms. We can even say that the physical globe could form because there was this divine presence around which it could coalesce. We can even say the full efflorescence of evolution on planet Earth is an expression of that divine presence. And yet, the nature of that evolution or the growth of that consciousness is limited within the type which is a planetary type. And that's why Sri Aurobindo uses this phrase, typal beings. Even the gods of the higher worlds are typal beings because they are fixed in the type of consciousness that they represent. They may grow within the type but it does not represent the evolutionary potential that exists in the individual human being and this distinction is very important. So to that extent we may even say Earth's evolution depends on the awakening of the individuals on earth or rather as we grow, planet Earth receives the benefit of that growth.
So to the specific question of the relationship of our psychic being with the psychic being of the planet, we will say there is an affinity naturally because something within us chooses this as our space of evolution and it is our evolution that makes possible the higher possibilities or awakening of the planetary consciousness. As human beings grow into mentality, for example, the planetary mental consciousness can begin to be expressed, can begin to be organized, can take on a distinctive form. As a result though, we tend to take rebirth generally within the same planetary space because of that affinity of the psychic being. If we were to go to a different planet, the feeling of that affinity would be very different and we may feel, oh this is a beautiful place but my home is there with Mother Earth. That feeling comes from the relationship of the psychic being with Mother Earth.
Sraddhalu (0:10:06):
The second part of this question is, is the collective awakening of the humanity simultaneous with the awakening of this? Well, she has used the word world-soul as awakening and in evolution. Well, I wouldn't say the planet Earth would be the world soul in this case. Planet Earth represents the planetary evolution. Collective awakening of humanity will assist or help the planetary consciousness awaken. But the world-soul now has to be seen differently and this we will take a few moments to clarify. The problem with the term world soul is that it could be understood in many ways and each tradition would give to it a different meaning. Just as an analogy, Sri Aurobindo uses the word Supermind to represent a state of consciousness which is above the intellect, above the human mind, which is at its essence a consciousness of oneness. There are others who have used the word Supermind to represent an exaggerated form of human intelligence as Nietzsche's Superman is just a stronger, more powerful, vital ego being. And so the meanings are completely different and even contradictory. Similarly, someone else in recent times has used the word Supermind to mean collective mind. So in his community, he wants to create a collective mind where everybody would be subsumed by this group mind and he calls that Supermind. So one has to be careful even if the phrase is used in different communities or traditions, they may mean completely different things. So the same with the world-soul. By world-soul, many people would have used it to mean something like a collective soul, Sri Aurobindo uses it differently and we fully understand this when we see the entire canto in Savitri which is titled, The World Soul, and what you will see there which is one of the most beautiful cantos because it dwells entirely in the immersion in the psychic world. So Ashwapati is drawn into this inward passage and the whole movement inward to the psychic presence is described but not only at an individual level, as he moves to that psychic space, Sri Aurobindo describes the nature of that consciousness and I am tempted to share a few lines from there. It would be worthwhile since we are speaking about it:
“...
The silent Soul of all the world was there:
A Being lived, a Presence and a Power,
A single Person who was himself and all
And cherished Nature’s sweet and dangerous throbs
Transfigured into beats divine and pure.
One who could love without return for love,
… and so it goes on…
<<Sraddhalu loses connectivity>>
Sraddhalu (0:13:47):
Can you hear me now?
[Alina] Yes, we just lost for two minutes.
[Sraddhalu I think I am having some problem with zoom which crashes repeatedly. I'm sorry for this. [Alina] We didn't hear the last verses.
Sraddhalu (0:14:21):
Yes….
“...
It bore within itself a seed, a flame,
A seed from which the Eternal is new-born,
A flame that cancels death in mortal things.
All grew to all kindred and self and near;
The intimacy of God was everywhere,
No veil was felt,...”
And so this is the description of the psychic, not just the individual psychic, but the psychic world in which the individual psychic is experienced. And here,
“A formless spirit became the soul of form.”
And he is describing the psychic being. But in this world of the psychic being,
“All there was soul or made of sheer soul-stuff;”
Alina (0:16:00):
I am sorry, but I have the sensation that Sraddhaly is losing the connection. He will be back as soon as he reconnects. He will be back. I am sorry for the inconvenience.
Sraddhalu (0:16:25):
Can you hear me now?
[Alina] yes.
[Sraddhalu] So in this world, well there are beings, but the..
“...
Body was not there, for bodies were needed not,
The soul itself was its own deathless form
And met at once the touch of other souls
Close, blissful, concrete, wonderfully true.
…“
The realm of the psychic being is not an abstraction. It is concrete, blissful in contact, in intimacy, as deep as can be if you could imagine true intimacy. And the culmination of this portion is:
“For world and self were one reality.”
So it is in the psychic being that we experience the Self meeting the world as one continuum and therefore it is through the psychic that we aim to realize the Self. And here we get the clue of the true sense of the world-soul. The soul of the world, and this means here the entire cosmos, is the psychic world at the core of this cosmos. But the psychic world is not a plane in evolution, it is the backdrop that supports all the planes, where the self meets the world and the two are one. This is the world-soul, the soul of all creation in which our psychic lives, it belongs to this world. It is also the world where the formless meets form and takes on the sense of the essence of form as the individualized psychic being or many psychic beings entering them, the domain of form taking on material of the mind life and body, to create forms and so on and it is here Ashwapati turns to the consciousness which is this whole world. Or the... I'll read the lines:
“...
His soul passed on, a single conscious power,
Towards the end which ever begins again,
Approaching through a stillness dumb and calm
To the source of all things human and divine…”
He sees there the two in one but then he goes further to, he comes to the one:
“…
Behind them in a morning dusk One stood
Who brought them forth from the Unknowable.
…”
And this is the Divine Mother. So the relationship of the psychic world is almost as if the Divine Mother putting out or giving birth to her consciousness as the child soul, but for the cosmos. In this world are then the individualized psychic beings who enter the full play of the manifestation. So now we understand the world-soul in this sense. The soul of the entire cosmos, but it is also the domain of the human individual soul, which are of the same grade. So the questioner has got this connection, this insight, let's say, of the relationship of these two but we have to distinguish now the world soul from the other uses of that term which come from various groups, traditions or new age trends. So the collective awakening of humanity is not the same as the world-soul. The world-soul does not need an awakening, does not need an evolution in that sense, or rather its evolution is the evolution of the whole cosmos perhaps, but again it's difficult to use the word evolution there. Rather it is the world, the psychic world in which individual souls go to rest or which is their home from where they originate. It is the link point between the unchanging self and the world which is in constant change. So we have discussed the relationship between the psychic being of the individual and the psychic being of the planet. The collective awakening of humanity has no relation to the world-soul itself except the psychic being in us is belonging to that domain. I think we could go to the next question.
Alina (0:21:44):
So our the next question is, “Is the full descent of the Superamental the culmination of this process?”
Sraddhalu (0:21:52):
So it is in the soul's evolution, the psychic being's evolution, as it develops the possibilities of the mind, life and body, makes them rise to their highest possibilities, as long as they are made of substance, which is divided, they can never reach their highest perfection. It is there that the Supramental consciousness, which is the origin, the oneness which becomes many, that taking up the substance and transforming them into its oneness, expressed now in these grades, makes perfect the evolution. So, the full descent of the Supramental will make perfect mind, life, body, make them perfect vehicles for the psychic beings' full expression. But it does not mean the evolution of the psychic being is completed. Even in a Supramental form and body, there is a continuing evolution of the powers that it can express, but now in a perfected instrument. But still the powers it can draw out and powers it can develop and manifest would continue to develop. So, Mother describes how even in the Supramental world, each one is as if in their form representative of their current grade of evolution. So we cannot say that the descent of the Supramental is a culmination. I would say rather it is the beginning of a new stage in evolution where no more we have to struggle with the material through which we express. That now is made capable of free expression of our divine potential. Now we work to develop the powers that we can express and even powers which are so far unmanifest. Not yet, they're waiting to manifest, which we could bring into creation as conscious participants to use a relatively modern phrase as co-creators in this divine manifestation.
Next question.
Alina (0:24:04):
I like how it sounds, being a co-creator. The third question of Amicus: “As contact develops, does our experience of our psychic being begin to interface with the global psychic being, so that at times the two become indistinguishable?”
<<Sraddhalu has lost connectivity again>>
Alina (0:24:31):
I think we might have lost connection again. Sraddhalu, can you hear me?
I think we have to be patient until he reconnects and we are sorry for today's problems of internet connection or some technical problems.
Joel (0:27:37):
Okay. I'm sorry, I think Shadaloo has lost his connection. He will try to reconnect as soon as he gets back. With this occasion, I can thank you all participants for making comments and addressing questions in the live chat box. We would kindly ask you to address questions by sending emails at our email integralstudies.in[at]gmail.com and we will be taking the questions in a following sequence according to our themes. And with this occasion, I'm reading the comments left in the chat box. If by any chance Shadaloo can reconnect, then we will continue our session next Saturday at the same time. We will wait another five minutes and see if Sraddhalu can reconnect.
Okay, here you are, you're back!
Sraddhalu (0:28:55):
I'm so sorry, I don't know. Zoom seems to be crashing repeatedly, and I hope it's still streaming.
Sraddhalu (0:29:01):
It is streaming live. So I don't know what to do about this but we'll just continue I suppose. So I think you have read out the question so I will just go ahead with it. Yes. The question is, does our experience of our psychic being interface with the global psychic being so that the two become indistinguishable? No, it will not be like that. Because that would mean losing our individuality to something which is like a collective beehive consciousness. And that's not the goal of this cosmos. The goal is for each individual to become a Divine center, entirely free to co-create, to manifest. And yet at the same time because resting in the common oneness of the Self in spontaneous awareness of all others and therefore able to be in full harmony with everybody and with everything while still being entirely free. So the analogy with the cells fails but also this idea of individual merging into a group consciousness also is an error. This is the reason why the experiment which I referred to earlier by one of these new age leaders who wants to create this group mind which he calls Supermind, it's bound to fail, because the individual instinct is to rediscover one's freedom and if you subsume it to a group consciousness like a hive mind, it will eventually revolt and break away. So, yes, this rather, no this will not happen that the individual merges in the collective consciousness, but rather in the oneness of the self we find our oneness with all and yet retain our freedom to act, entirely free, utterly free, not dependent on anything or anyone. You can go to the next question.
Alina (0:31:23):
Also would the world-soul be equivalent with Sri Aurobindo's interpretation of the Vedic god Agni. The immortal immortals, the ever youthful, the ancient of days, and the all pervading master of the people.
Sraddhalu (0:31:44):
There is a connection but it is not equivalent and this is interesting because the questioner has sensed to this link. Agni in fact is related to the psychic being and we can put it this way - the psychic flame is Agni. That is the flaming aspiration of the psychic being is Agni. Agni is the divine will. The divine will that works as the psychic principle in the entire cosmos, embedded in the deepest of matter in the inconscience. He is described as hooded in the darkness, darkness wrapped within darkness, and within that he works hooded to build forms. So it is the divine will pushing from the depth of inconscience which creates forms and the first appearance of stable forms we call atoms and the whole physical world emerges out of that inconscience like foam rising out of an inconscient ocean and it is Agni at the core of that as the psychic principle, the divine will pushing, driving and building. In us, that divine will has individualized sufficiently as the psychic being that it can take on an independent line of development. So, there is the Agni in its operation in a collective, universal consciousness and then it is the same divine will now individualized in us, which is Agni-Nan, pushing forward the individual evolution. So yes, there is a connection. The world-soul is to that extent the domain of the psychic being and so there's the link with Agni, but this is not the same thing as the world-soul. So there's some connection as you've seen the questionnaire has perceived, but we need to make this distinction and I think much of the confusion came from the New Age ideas which are associated with the term world-soul. Having said this, I want to take this discussion a step further and link it to Vaibhav's question from last time, where we spoke of the what is the psychic being and the relationship with our surface personality and I thought in retrospect that we missed an important aspect of the answer which is the subjective experience.
I am not the psychic being and yet I find or feel or receive an influence of something within me that is the psychic being. What is this relationship? And I will address question from Amycus with Vaibhav’s for this last part of the discussion. Subjectively, when we first enter in relation with the psychic presence within us, we feel it as ourselves, but more truly, more deeply, more real somehow. When it is not felt, we feel ourselves as empty, hollow, meaningless, purposeless, or sense of direction. Yes, I can push with my desire to find a direction and purpose in life, but when the desire tires, I find everything is pointless and hollow. There's no real lasting meaning to it. When the psychic being returns as an influence, I find, oh, everything is now meaningful. So I realize the sense of meaningfulness comes from that deeper presence, which somehow gives me the sense of purpose - this I, which is the only thing I know. So the sense of purpose comes in the first contact with the psychic being, but also with it, suddenly, I'm not happy with this. What do I aspire for? And the ideals begin to become real. They call me. So you may, as an artist, seek an ideal of perfect beauty, perfect expression of art, some perfection in form. Or in your emotions you may conceive of a perfect and true love that can perhaps exist. And I know it can exist because I feel it as the very nature of the psychic influence that touches the emotions. Or it conceives of perfect knowledge or flawless knowledge, error-free and all that is possible again because the psychic knows that it awakens in the mind the seeking for this. But then it doesn't end there. At some point when that presence comes forward in a vast influence or a strong influence, I suddenly feel, oh this is truly me, I am truly myself and if it opens to an inner dimension more completely, I meet this vast presence as if the self, my inner being in some way or reflected in the inner being. It is a larger me and yet not me. Larger me and I am more that than this and yet I am both initially. Later one begins to lean back into the true wider self and then from there one feels the surface self like a little child playing in a playground or in a sandpit and kind of lost, half asleep ,half awake and from this wider consciousness one has great patience and compassion.
<Sraddhalu has lost connectivity again>
Alina (0:37:13):
Okay, you're back.
Sraddhalu (0:37:40):
Yes. Again, Zoom has crashed. I think what we will do is for today we will complete with this question and keep the main theme, the first business of the Sadhaka for the next Saturday because it will not be very helpful to have frequent breaks. So I'll just take a, complete this part where I was describing this awakening to the inner presence and the psychic presence. There is an experience where one begins to feel the psychic influence strongly and the inner being that is felt as a wide, vast personality. And Sri Aurobindo uses this phrase, I think it is in Savitri, where he says, we know it ourselves and yet not ourselves. Something like that he says. I don't get the exact line, but the sense is, that is me, this is me, but that is a greater me. At some point though, we begin to live more and more in this wider consciousness. From there, we feel this surface personality as a little child playing in the playground and there's a great sense of freedom here and you see this little thing, okay, you are very compassionate, very patient, he's going to wake up, he's still bound with his little interests and the senses of the surface personality being as if half asleep and here in the wider consciousness we are more awake. So the awakening to the psychic being is felt like an awakening from a drowse, from a sleep, from a somnambulism. So it is yet me and yet this is greater than me, but this is truly me.
This relationship we have to understand. It's not that you're seeking someone else or something else. It is as if you are seeking your own awakened true eternal, divine essence, the one who took birth, which is you, but you forgot and a screen was placed and now you're this little superficial toy like surface consciousness like a mechanical program, from which you awaken, ‘oh, yes this is why I took birth ,this is what I am, I am immortal, I am eternal’, and this is the kind of the senses of one of awakening into something which is essentially a divine consciousness, more true, more lasting. From there the sense of opening to the Self is then a liberation into the, there are degrees within that, eventually into something which is even outside space and time and from there it's as if one has entered space and time and then one has entered individuality in this lifetime. And so it is still degrees of awakening to your true sense of I against which or relative to which this individual is a half-asleep being. So the relationship with the world when we enter the, not the psychic being, but the Self behind, of which the psychic is a special projection, is to experience the whole world as ourselves. And everything in the world is then within me or we feel as if I am everything essentially the sense of me is in everything and I don't feel it as other. A feeling you can use as an analogy when you touch your own hand, you know, you're holding yourself, isn't it? And when we begin to live in the self, you touch an object. I'm holding myself, a part of me. I look at another human being and I say, oh that's me, but in that body, with that form, with that particular personality and everything that the person is or lives through, you feel in essence as was always yourself or is a part of you or is within you, variations are simultaneously felt and it is in this step that one may still unite with the divine or cosmic consciousness.
So the sense of awakening through the psychic is to experience this continuum with the world. If you went through the mind, for example, instead of the psychic and broke away from this personality and entered the sense of the Self, it could be a static aspect of the Self against which the world seems so distant, so unreal, so illusory, so fake and in that case the right thing seems to be simply to withdraw or ignore because it doesn't matter. But this would be half a truth, because you have only taken one aspect of the self that turns to manifest, to flow, to become, to enter this adventure and to participate in it fully.
Alina (0:42:56):
Apparently there is another disconnection from Sraddhalu's connection. Okay, I think Sraddhalu you're back? Yes. We couldn't hear the last one minute.
Sraddhalu (0:43:16):
Yes. Okay, do you know from where it cut off?
[Alina] Just like one minute before.
Sraddhalu (0:43:32):
Okay. So I was describing how that experience where you are in the self and the world appears illusory is only half a truth because you've got one side of the Self which is static, free of everything, but not the aspect of the self that chooses to flow, to manifest, to become the universe because it is you as a Self in a sense that chose to manifest to enter them.
Alina (0:44:09):
Okay. So, I'm going to go ahead and close this out. We hope Sraddhalu will reconnect and give the final answer. Maybe we should just continue the theme of the business of the Sadhaka next week. We will wait and see if Sraddhalu reconnects.
Alina (0:45:50):
Okay, so we are back, but we lost the track of the last question.
Sraddhalu (0:48:54):
Yes, I'm sorry. So the last thing really was about this joy of the participation that comes from the soul as a participant and a co-creator and awakening to the psychic being is really awakening to the sense of ourselves. I would have liked to share another incident, an example, but not sure if we can maintain continuity. So my apologies to everybody for this technical problem. It's very unusual but we will try to fix it and we'll keep the main theme for next Saturday which is the theme of what Sri Aurobindo has used this phrase as ‘the first business of a sadhaka’, it's a very provocative term used. I had originally planned to use a different title but I decided it was worth it to provoke us to look at this whole point as our first priority in the sadhana. We will take this up next time. I think for today just this question and the theme of the psychic could be good enough for us to close and perhaps we can meditate on this for a few minutes on the sense of the Divine presence in us which gives all.
….<pause>
We can take a moment to meditate on the theme of the psychic presence, the Divine presence within us, which gives all meaning to life and which gives us or awakens in us the true sense of our immortality and our purpose in the world. And just close with this concentration together.
Namaste. Until next week.