EWS #98 The Power to Enjoy Life
+Q&A on Spiritual Life
Dec 25, 2021
Topics:
Alina (0:00:00):
Namaste and Merry Christmas everyone. We invite you on this special day which is celebrated all around the world to listen to our continuing series, Evenings with Sraddhalu. I would like to remind everyone, if you want to send questions, you can send them by using our email integralstudies.in[at]gmail.com and you can write beforehand your questions. We already explored in our previous sessions the first of the six perfections. Today we will continue on this theme and we welcome Sraddhalu to take the word. Namaste, Sraddhalu.
Sraddhalu (0:01:15):
Namaste. Happy to be with all of you.
Alina (0:01:18):
We are happy to be back and to continue our series. I'm greeting also, Joel from Auroville. Namaste, Joel.
[Joel] Namaste Alina. Namaste, Sraddhalu.
Sraddhalu (0:01:38):
And a very happy Christmas to all of you.
Alina (0:01:42):
Thank you.
Sraddhalu (0:01:45):
We have in the previous sessions been gradually building up into a detailed appreciation of the integral yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the perfections, which [are] the six perfections. Today we will be dwelling on the second of the six perfections. But before that I want to put this in context not only with the Christmas but also with the title that we have given for the session today which is, The Power to Enjoy Life. The Christmas which we are celebrating today is associated with the birth of Christ and seen as the beginning of a new dawn in the Christian tradition but in fact the Mother observes it goes back to a much earlier period. In India, it is celebrated as Uttarayana, the turning of the Sun towards the North. From an astronomical perspective, we here on earth, we observe the Sun going southward as the year ends and then during that period the nights become longer and the days become shorter and then from around this time 22nd December or so, there is the shifting back and once again the days start becoming longer and the nights become shorter. In physical terms, it is as if symbolically the daylight is pushing against the night and reasserting itself to regain its control of the day, of light, pushing back night and darkness. In actual fact, in the domain of the subtle worlds and particularly in the vital worlds where these currents are felt very distinctly, one experiences this as a shift in current. During the period when the nights are growing longer, the phases of darkness or the energies of clouding tend to increase. And from this day on, it's as if the light is pushing back and once again asserts its greatness. The fact of the turn is the beginning of a whole new shift that will keep growing. But that beginning is greatly valued in the occult traditions because of the impact it has in the vital and mental worlds and naturally through those on the physical world on human beings. So in the Mahabharata you will recall that Bhishma although he is so gravely injured that he will die, he has the power to restrain himself to prevent the leaving of the body; he waits for the Uttarayana and then that is considered the propitious time in which you can leave the body and make the transitions through the vital worlds in a phase when the light is stronger than the dark and so you can go right through them into the higher realms and such is the importance given to this transition.
The Mother brought back this idea that she named it the day of light and there's a prayer that she wrote in 1972. There were several Christmas prayers but this was one that she wrote and it will give us a sense of what this day can represent to us. She wrote this as a message, “Father Christmas, I evoke you today. Answer our call. Come bearing all your marvellous gifts. You are the great dispenser of worldly possessions. You are the untiring friend who hears every request and grants it generously. Give each one the material object he desires and as for me, give me enough, give me much so that I may give largely to all”. it captures the deeper sense and even its material sense for the occasion. In fact, in human life, this period, not just Christmas, but this period after the Uttarayana and now approaching New Year and another few weeks, is felt as celebratory. People gather in families, meet each other, exchange gifts and generally celebrate life. And so this is an ideal occasion to highlight this aspect of the power to enjoy life.
Sraddhalu (0:07:00):
In the ascetic traditions, Spirituality is considered as a withdrawal from life. Enjoyment of life is therefore a trap which will bind you further into desires, limitations, incapacities and prevent you from going away. But in the Integral yoga, since the goal is to realise divinity and to manifest in life, participation in life and a full participation in a divine potential is considered necessary, even essential. There is no sense of withdrawal. Nevertheless, one would still have the past association of Spirituality being serious, not really something where you can enjoy life. And so I want to read from a passage which directly relates to the second perfection which we will be elaborating upon today, where Sri Aurobindo speaks of the perfection of the instruments which includes the physical body, it includes the life energies, the prana, life force and particularly the part of the life energy that opens and supports the mind. He uses this phrase - psychic prana or pranic mind or desire soul. And then he says, “...this too calls for its own perfection. Here too, the first necessity is a fullness of the vital capacity in the mind, its power to do its full work, to take possession of all the impulsions and energies given to our inner psychic life for fulfilment in this existence, ”. Now there is no trait of anything negative in what he says; there is in fact full affirmation. And then he says, “ to hold them and to be a means for carrying them out with strength, freedom, perfection”. And all this is associated with this desire soul and the vital energy turned in the domain of the mind. But there are conditions. It should not be a dissipated chaotic working. It has to be calm, clear, free, full of gladness, clearness, not stormy, fitful or crude. No insistence on one thing against another, because then you can't truly enjoy.
And then he comes to this passage which is what I want to read in detail, “And it must accept too whatever result of the impulse, whatever enjoyment more or less, full or nil, [whenever it has an impulse to act, well consequences, whatever enjoyment more or less, full or nil] is given to it by the Master of our being. At the same time, possession and enjoyment are its law, function, use, swadharma”. That is for this part of us, the life energies which are full of this enthusiasm of action, will, of dynamism, of doing, of experiencing, of mastering, of enjoying. This part is not meant to be suppressed, weakened or killed. It's law of function, it's actual use and therefore the truth of its being is possession and enjoyment. To possess all experiences and to enjoy all experiences. Then, I continue the text, “It is not intended to be a slain or mortified thing. Dull in its receptive power, dreary, suppressed, maimed, inert or null”. Now all these words are very significant. I will not dwell on them in detail. You can pause on each one of these and see what it means. And very likely you will find at least one of these things is a tendency within us or at least we associate with Spirituality and therefore we try to bring these tendencies in because somehow it would make us more Spiritual, less worldly or somehow less excitable or less desirous, in whatever way that distortion comes. You will also see that in almost all existing Spiritual traditions, these are highly valued and even encouraged. The methods used are intended to slay or mortify or dull the receptive power of this part of the vital or to suppress it, weaken it, make it inert and this is something which you will see not only in the literature but also in the examples that the literature is extolled. You will see in people who enter an ascetic life and it is inevitable for them. All of these are a distortion because you are going against the true function of that part in us if the goal is a divine manifestation and a divine participation.
So I continue the text. What should this part be like? “It must have a full power of possession,” - Whatever experiences come to you, you should be able to fully possess in this part; “a glad power of enjoyment,” - so when you enjoy the experience, you should have the power to enjoy it, and with gladness. Not I'm enjoying, but I'm feeling guilty. I'm not sure should I do, should I not do. These internal contradictions are well distortions or at best warnings that you're enjoying wrongly. But then it's not a complete enjoyment. So, “It must have a full power of possession, a glad power of enjoyment, an exultant power of pure and divine passion and rapture”. These too are part of our Spiritual perfection. So I continue, “The enjoyment it will have will be in the essence a spiritual bliss, but one which takes up into itself and transforms the mental, emotional, dynamic, vital and physical joy;” - this is the direction in which we have to train it; “it must have therefore an integral capacity for these things and must not by incapacity or fatigue or inability to bear great intensities, fail the spirit, mind, heart, will and body”. You see the biggest problem we have and we are not yet speaking of a Spiritual life, just in a normal life where we are driven by normal egocentric desire based values. As soon as we enter into some kind of an enjoyment, enjoyment of any kind of mental experiences, emotional, vital, physical, whatever form it may take in life we find our capacity is limited; I can only enjoy so much, beyond that I get overwhelmed. There's an incapacity or I get tired or I can't bear the intensity and the result is the enjoyment has to fail or get warped. There are many other reasons for warping but this is an incapacity and various aspects of incapacity and so Sri Aurobindo now summarises what is the perfection of the psychic prana - “Fullness, clear purity, gladness, equality, capacity for possession and enjoyment are the fourfold perfection of the psychic prana”.
Now I want to start with this, because I want to bring back the necessity and the capacity for enjoyment which is one of the key aspects of the perfection of our instruments. And this is all part of the second perfection of the Integral yoga. And I've started with this psychical prana because it is here that you see the enjoyment aspect most powerfully. All of us should be able to enjoy our lives fully but for a full enjoyment, for a true enjoyment, for a complete enjoyment, for an uncompromised, undistorted, clear, joyous enjoyment, there are certain conditions. And if you really want to enjoy your life, these conditions are necessary and they are all spiritual conditions. And the reason for this is the true enjoyment is a spiritual enjoyment. And a spiritual enjoyment is not an ascetic withdrawal. It will not be somebody with a calm, detached face, gives half a smile and looks down at your enjoyment and pooh-poohs your enthusiasm and says, ‘oh this poor child, the true spirituality is something beyond, you don't know the thing’ - it's not that; it is a full enthusiastic participation but from a poise of freedom, from the freedom not only in your own awareness but in a freedom to be able to exercise the enjoyment, to be able to take in the enjoyment without distortions or limitations. And for that, these are the conditions necessary. Not only in the vital parts, but equally in the physical, in the substance of the mind, and in the intelligence.
Sraddhalu (0:17:33):
And so now we come to the larger, let's say, perspective of the scope of this enjoyment. And before that, we will step back to view the four keywords associated with this perfection. So you will recall from our discussion the time before last when we spoke of the seven steps of the integral yoga and the six perfections. The description of it, Sri Aurobindo has written with Sanskrit keywords Sapta Chatushtaya, seven steps and in each one of them, there are four aspects of the perfection. And I think it's also symbolic. You know the four it's as if you can think of it as a column of seven steps and you have four sides to it. They are all equivalent in terms of importance but there is a natural progression of those four steps because one of them is more fundamental building towards the rest but they all go parallelly. And equally the seven steps also have a degree of parallelism but there is a natural sequence in which you have a base that allows something more perfect in the next. Keep that in mind and so we recall that the first step was a general preparatory purification of the mental vital and physical nature and a general practical freedom from the knots of our lower tendencies so that we can stand back on some more stable platform and freedom. The next step which is the first of the six perfections was the perfection of equality and we dwelt upon this in some detail the time before last and we saw the means by which one can begin to attain to this equality and to deepen it as well as the full scope of the equality and the various secondary methods associated with it.
But the next is raising all the active parts of our nature, of our consciousness, to their highest potential, to their highest working capacity and the full power of the energy of their working. Because you are meant to be a divine instrument. A divine instrument cannot be lame, cannot be defective, cannot be limited. And so everything that you're capable of must be taken up and fully amplified in scope. How do you do that? What are all the parts? What are all the degrees of the amplification, aspects of the fullness of pitch and power and capacity? Those, Sri Aurobindo maps out in great detail. Now how it, he describes it in a very summary form is that, in our outer instruments through which we act through which we engage with the world there are four parts. There is of course your physical body which is like the foundation on which everything else rests. You knock out the physical body your mind cannot tap into the physical world. It's stuck in a mental body. So the physical body is the foundation and therefore it's the first one that he deals with. Next is the life energy and its power of enjoyment which we briefly read from. The third is the chitta, the substance of your mind. The mind substance itself has to become plastic and clear so that it can receive an action from above that it is fully responsive to. And the fourth is the buddhi, the intelligence, the conscious will of intelligence which has its own perfection. For each of these four he describes four key words in Sanskrit which represent the fullness of their perfections.
I will not go into each of them because it will needlessly get technical but I will simply highlight a few points for the body. For example, the strength to be able to hold however great a power that acts through it, the body should not break down. It is not a physical muscular strength but it is almost a strength of capacity that it should be able to contain the full flow of vital energy, the full light and intensity of a higher knowledge and even a Spiritual energy that fills, it should be able to hold and that becomes the key of its perfection although there are three other aspects. Similarly for the life energy, the capacity to enjoy which we have touched upon, there are other aspects which we in what we read - the gladness and the equality and the fullness of capacity and so on; but the full capacity, the strength, the power to be able to enjoy. In the substance of mind, the chitta, it is also a different capacity, which is the capacity to be brilliant but also to be a, the capacity to be able to identify to open to give itself in its receptivity. And in the buddhi, the strength to receive knowledge. But the other three aspects of the intelligence are also extremely important. The capacity to have a diverse knowledge, richly varied in scope, not stuck in narrowness, not stuck in tendencies, a kind of a clear illumination and purity in which the highest infinite knowledge can pour through without being bound, without being cut up, without being limited or distorted. Now this gives you a sense of the kind of perfection of instruments that Sri Aurobindo envisages for each one of us to develop as part of the integral yoga. You can see with this the capacity to enjoy life, the capacity to exercise your freedom and your power to act also are enormously amplified. In fact so amplified that when sufficiently developed you become like a powerful dynamo through which almost anything can be achieved. But all of these form only the first of the aspects of the perfection of our instruments. And to this he gives the name Shakti and it covers these four parts.
Sraddhalu (0:24:21):
There is an inner dimension though,which is the overall tilt character of your temperament of a deeper nature and he uses the word here, soul force, this flows from deeper than you; in fact, its origination is in the deepest soul and psychic being from where it goes through first reflection and limitation and from there it extends into these four instruments and acts through them giving them a distinctive character. And this is what the soul brings as part of its incarnation and its purpose in life and of this he uses the Sanskrit word virya and here too the soul's powers are fourfold. Interesting. The third step of this perfection is the aspect of divine nature. Daivi Prakriti. So if you have here a fourfold soul power and this power amplifies and makes perfect your outer instruments, these powers open out to a divine nature or a reflection of a divine nature or a four here fourfold because the divine nature above is also fourfold and there's a link formed and when this lower two parts are amplified to their maximum, you have an extraordinary human being capable of extraordinary achievement but not yet for its true divine potential and at that point it opens out and this fourfold divine nature fills and uses the form and perfection so far developed to further amplify and lift into divine capacity. So that becomes the third step.
And then the fourth step finally is the Shraddha, the faith. In the working of this divine capacity that you have a direct, deep knowledge, conviction, faith in the working of the divine energy and the will of the divine, not only as presiding over from above but in fact within you. And so we're going to touch upon all these four in some detail as we go along today to give a broad picture. And with this you can see what happens in practice. Not only you become an instrument for a divine working, not that you are divinely transformed, but a divine working of a human instrument. And the divine transformation comes in the next perfection, the third perfection of the integral yoga. But a human instrument for a divine working, and as a result you have the full potential in free action but also in full enjoyment. Now having said this as a framework, I will start at a very mundane level by asking, what is it would make for your life to be a true enjoyment and a full enjoyment? And at a very mundane level, let's not even consider what we have discussed. You will say when I can do whatever I want to do, I want I should be able to experience everything and many of us feel that that we want to do, we want to live life. And it's sad to see young people say because I want to enjoy my life, I will ignore Spirituality and when I am finished with my life then I'll turn to Spirituality. And then Mother said the ashram here is not a place for retirement. It's a place where you want to engage with life fully. And it was not just about work. The way this has often been misrepresented is to say, yeah, we need young workers. No, it's not that. It's because you want to engage with life and not say, now I'm tired, I'm retired, and so I will turn to Spirituality. That's not going to work. Well, even if you're retired today because of your age and because of your external functions, take this as an opportunity to start your real engagement with life. What form it will take depends on your current capacities or limitations but you have to increase the capacity and perhaps even grow beyond the limitations to whatever extent practical on the physical level, but on other levels potentially one could go very far. But I come back to the question how would you enjoy your life and the first thing people say is to be able to experience whatever I want. Okay, so you've gone around, you've experienced many things and then you come back and say, now I'm bored, I need something else. Did you really enjoy those things if you're so bored out of it? At best you enjoyed the novelty. You could not enjoy the experience itself. Because if you have a true enjoyment you should be able to take this, enjoy it and then take something else and enjoy it and if needed come back to this other thing, first thing and now enjoy it differently, perhaps and even more completely. If you cannot then your enjoyment is somehow fragmented or limited or dependent on novelty; iIt's not a real complete enjoyment, isn't it? Think about it.
Next comes the manner in which you enjoy. What kind of engagement gives you the deepest satisfaction, the most complete satisfaction and what determines that? You could read a book and you will enjoy it. But what kind of book would give you the greatest enjoyment and satisfaction? And that corresponds to something within you, deep in your temperament. And you can't say this book I enjoyed, therefore everyone else should be able to enjoy. Because each one seems to have a difference in temperament and therefore a different kind of inclination. And even a different manner of enjoying perhaps the same book. What determines these things? If you even become aware of these things then you will find the key to the most complete and most intense, rich possibilities of enjoyment of life. And so we look at this now.
Sraddhalu (0:30:44):
Sri Aurobindo explains this over several chapters. I will not even try to make a summary. I would recommend for you to read those chapters if you really want to go in depth. I'm going to just describe some of the key ideas which will allow us to fully appreciate this whole vision of the Integral yoga and turn that into the means on a practical level of how we can do this because the whole focus of our discussion here is on the practice. First he describes, he explains, how the divine consciousness in its utter freedom, in its creative poise is not bound to any limits; It is infinite potential, infinite qualities, infinite experiences and infinite delight and in each experience infinite delight and within each of the variations of the experience, infinite delight; Unendingly unfolding, unendingly flowing, never the same, never repeated. That is the origin, flowing out, filling the universe, becoming the universe. But also it is our origin. And therefore our true individuality is of that nature and therefore deep within us because we know that and secretly forgotten here but known deep inside, secretly we expect that kind of satisfaction of that creative enjoyment - infinitely diverse and rich and unendingly infinite. And that's the reason why we bore with certain forms of experience. You say, I have been there, done that, now I need something more, because it has to keep growing, it has to keep changing; but that the distortion there is that we are caught to the form. In fact the flower you have today is totally different from all the flowers you have seen in the past. It's a rose, yes, but rose is only a mental category. This rose never existed before. Can you enjoy it for what it represents at this moment? As if you're seeing a rose for the first time or you're seeing this for the first time as an aspect of the divine. We have lost that capacity in the outer parts and we will recover it.
But this is to just make you conscious that the nature there is the secret truth of our being. And that's why we seek true, complete power of enjoyment to its maximum. But now what happens? When that moves to enter into this play and act it out, something fascinating; The Self, the Divine consciousness with its infinite delight as it shifts into Nature, the nature has formed grooves and the grooves of nature are formed of three tendencies in the lower working of nature and these are the three gunas. A guna, you will recall, quality would be the closest English translation. The three gunas are the means by which nature creates forms and appearances in her lower working. What is above a free-flowing perfection of form because it's not a divided consciousness. Here in a fragmented and divided consciousness of lower nature, she finds, she looks at the possibility of a form and has to construct it where the soul directly becomes what it chooses to be without any division and fragmentation. Here nature has to form things by joining pieces, joining items, joining molecules and so on. So how does she do this construction process by using three tendencies or three qualities? These are the three gunas. I'll briefly give an example to make this clear. How do you know that there's a flower? Because light reflects from it. What's the contact point of light? Or let's take another example, you touch the flower. How do you know what it's like? Well, you have a sensation of contact. But if you observe what is happening actually is your finger is not touching. It's only an electric field of the atoms here which is in contact with electric fields of the atoms there. And a pressure transfer of electric fields creates sensations in the nerves which creates ripples in the brain which creates ripples in the mind which gives you a perception. So actually nothing has touched anything else. But in the contact, there are three tendencies which can happen. Either as you touch, there is resistance, dull inertia or there is a pushback, like a spring pushing back, an active quality or a quality of adaptation like when you push against this foam it first resists then it yields and then it builds up resistance until it finds a balance. So, dull resistance, active opposition or balance. These are the only three possible responses. There are no other. All other responses are combinations of these three. This is a brilliant insight, a profound insight. If you can really catch this, you will understand the underlying physics of the world and I hope someday we will have opportunity to discuss this from a physics point of view. But it clearly describes how Nature constructs the world using these three in combinations. There is no other and if an object offers you none of these three, it doesn't exist. Interesting.
Sraddhalu (0:36:31):
Existence, an object has materiality, substantiality only if it offers one of these three forms in the contact. And this is true not only in the physical plane, even in the vital plane, in the mental plane. Everywhere that there is a constructive process. So now when the soul with infinite qualities, Ananta Guna, descends to express and to manifest, these infinite qualities have to fit into the mould of this triple tendency of nature's formation. And so there's a fragmentation into three tendencies. Equally as it enters to manifest through the Soul, the Soul has this fourfold powers, fourfold aspects and it fits into the groove of the fourfold forms. So from deep within the soul, there is this fourfold glowing out of tendencies, of qualities, of consciousness into which infinite quality has to fit like a mould inside to fragment to become combinations of four. And in the physical form or in the subtle forms in nature, it has to take a combination of these three gunas, 4 x 3. You see, this actually goes to the very root of 12 zodiac signs and the basis of astrology and so on. You can literally reduce the play of the Soul with Nature into combination of three into four as broad categories. I won't go into this, but you get a sense of where this is heading. Then these triple tendencies have to act through the four parts of our being - physical body, vital energy, chitta, stuff of mind and the intelligence buddhi. The key then is amplifying these four, freeing them from the limitations that the guna brings into them. Second, in the deeper soul qualities, soul powers to allow the full radiation of the force for soul powers and so I will touch upon this now. What are the four tendencies of the soul influence? If you look at the overall character of a person, yes he has a trained intelligence, he has a clear reasonably clear consciousness, substance of consciousness, he has a reasonably developed vitality, his body is reasonably healthy. What's the tendency of his character? Where does his nature go? What does it try to do? What does it like to do? And this is where you find this distinction. One person says I really need to understand this problem. Another person says I don't care if I understand it, I'm going to plunge into it and deal with it.
I've sometimes given this as an example. How do you know which is your broad dominant temperament of these four? And you take a person in distress, let's say somebody has fallen into deep waters and is about to drown, struggling to survive and calling out for help. What's your first impulse? So the person of knowledge will look around what are the dangers, what are the means, what can be done to most effectively help and then act to whatever is the conclusion but first impulse is to think. The second type of nature who has a tendency to act with force, with bravery, heroic courage, will not look around and think, will jump into the water and try to help. The third type will look at the balance of benefit, cost-benefit analysis. Well, if all of us were to jump into the water to help, we might all drown. That's not going to work. Is it worth it to allow him? What's in it for me? What's in it for the larger good? He'll make an assessment of viability and benefits for the costs before acting. They may all act finally, but what's the first impulse? And the fourth, he'll say, this is beyond my capacity, somebody help, he is in danger. Natural tendency. Or you will want to help but may often find himself incapable because of the extreme condition. Will be there willing to help but not beyond the limit of his capacity.
Now these are four temperaments, you will see. At the root of it is a deep truth of the four soul qualities. In fact, the divine truth is not bound to four. The divine truth is infinite potential. But in the way it acts within the domain of form, it acquires these fourfold tendencies. In all of us, all four tendencies are there. All of them are dependent on each other. One of them is not complete without the other three. And yet one of them tends to dominate and the dominant side is what makes for your overall temperament. So if you think about it in this way, the machinery of your intelligence, mental awareness, life force and physical body, it's like a robot ready to enter. You are going to plug yourself into the robot and experience the world. The fourfold is what you bring into the machinery. The machinery has its own tendencies, its own limitations, that is independent. But what you bring into it as character and general turn of your temperament is then what distinguishes you from others, who may have a similar model of the robot formation of outer nature. But this inner fourfold character is extremely important because it is generally in a large part what the soul brings and represents either the soul's evolution or the soul's present focus for development in this life. It is across many lives that the soul chooses different combinations of these four aspects to develop, to perfect, to integrate or sometimes within a single life if you are already sufficiently plastic then you might go through various phases in which different aspects would be developed more or less or an integration made. But this is the way in which our deeper aspect of evolution takes place.
Sraddhalu (0:43:14):
Sri Aurobindo discusses this in great detail. For each of these four, he has four keywords representing their perfection and just as an example if you look at what he says for the aspect of knowledge, the strength of the knowledge, the firmness of the knowledge, the yearning for knowledge, the clarity of illumination in the knowledge and the turning to the fullness to contain completeness of knowledge. These are four sides. For the aspect of power, the Kshatriya tendency, the fearlessness, the active positive courage, the yearning for conquest to realise, to achieve, to overcome and master a situation and then the inner energy, inner strength by which these become possible. The third temperament type, the Vaishya is again having four which includes skill, generosity and the yearning to enjoy which is very specific to this type and then the Shudra, the love, the devotion, the compassion and the tendency to want to help others and the power of surrender. Very interesting. Now in each of these four there's an influence of the other three. If that influence is there it makes this fourth strong and more complete. If that influence is limited it damages even the capacity. So let's say the person who is temperamentally the Kshatriya, person of action, of leadership, of heroism, courage, adventure, leader of some kind. He sees a mountain and says I would like to climb it. Well, because it's there. But if he lacks the aspect of knowledge, he will tend to go with a bluster, make mistakes, fall, hurt himself. Or he will act out of some passion of heroic chivalry, but without the clarity of thought to understand in his chivalrous action he may end up creating more harm than good. Or if he likes if he lacks the Vaishya aspect, the generosity aspect, he will lose he will tend to become a tyrant. Or if he acts, lacks the Shudra aspect, the love affection and self-giving then again he will become a dominating person. Just as an example and you will see Sri Aurobindo deals with this in some detail. The idea is the other three aspects complement and make complete. Without that your dominant aspect is damaged, incomplete and even defective which distorts your primary tendency.
And so, to be able to fully express yourself and to be able to fully enjoy life experiences and master your circumstances you have to amplify all four of these aspects and integrate them. So in the first case you tend to amplify, you work on that by the increasing of these fourfold aspects by cultivating it. It's the easiest way. Observe, work on this, notice that you lack something and put energy, put attention and by observation of your awareness you will be able to make corrections and generally increase. Now that's the most obvious superficial way but there's a deeper way and that deeper way comes after the first step is made by opening inward to the source of these tendencies and these energies. And if you have made a basic, let's say receptive base, then from within the power begins to fill you. It's not so big as you may think, it's not so difficult as you may think. In fact, this is what happens to all of us in a time of challenge. Let's say, suddenly there's a crisis in your life. Suddenly from within you, equally in response to the sudden crisis is the sudden rush of a certain energy. It comes forward, acts, deals with the crisis and then lapses and you fall back exhausted and you look back and say I don't know somehow I was able to do it. If I had to go now, I wouldn't be able to do it. But the fact that this came forward as a surging energy, now has created a groove. And now you know, oh, maybe I can't do that, but something of this is there. And in smaller things, you will find something of that quality now begins to assert or is more freely working. You never called for that energy consciously. It came up because of a crisis which demanded and from within there was a push of the soul force. But if you were to consciously turn within to the source and invite that influence in a quiet aspiration, in a quiet seeking or a dwelling on the quality of what it feels like to amplify and draw it out and remember the direct method we have discussed this before by dwelling on it in concentration, feeling the quality, you can feel it to draw it out and amplify it until it begins to fill you.
One of the forms in which people do this is by observing somebody else. A child observes parents or some and in that observation they absorb. They see the person acting with great force and they admire. Oh, I would like to become like that also to be able to be heroic, strong in a difficult situation and something in my consciousness reaches out, feels what it's like and as a result absorbs. By a kind of a reflection and an identification and reflection, I begin to feel it. Or you are in the ambience of that person long enough and somehow there's a transmission and it evokes in you by contagion the tendency forms a new groove and you begin to find oh I also am capable of this. Generally we draw from outside by support but still what we are doing is forming groove or a receptive base in which what was natural natural to us comes forward and begins to fill that groove. But you could do that by conscious becoming aware of these things and so the key words Sri Aurobindo uses and the words are not important the elaboration is more useful. As you read those descriptions of Sri Aurobindo, look into yourself and say is this in me, where is this in me. And recognizing these four tendencies is not difficult. In fact they are there all the time, it's just that we don't distinguish them. Every time you pause to say I want to know more about this, that's your Brahmana aspect filling in. Every time you see something wrong and something you says no I cannot allow this to happen, I need to help, I need to do something that's your Kshatriya energy coming forward, however weak or limited but it's there. Or every time you look at a situation and say, how can I skillfully draw from it some good, bring about arrangement or exchange, give and take so that everybody benefits and there is a mutuality of sharing - that's your Vaishya tendency that comes forward. Even simply going to objects scattered in a space, objects which are scattered, you arrange them to bring about order, that's an aspect of this power of the soul. And the fourth is the aspect that wants to help, wants to do good, wants to share, wants to be of service, wants to give itself to a cause. And this Sri Aurobindo points out at its highest is in fact the foundation for much of the sadhana. The whole movement of self-giving to the Divine is really this fourth aspect within you and unless you are able to become a servant to the Divine or giving yourself in service in self-surrender you cannot achieve anything great because the Divine energy cannot work in you directly.
Sraddhalu (0:52:06):
So all four tendencies, when you read the text of Sri Aurobindo, he shows you how all four are amplified by their turning to a higher truth and higher form of their expression. All four diminish, weaken and fragment by turning to a lesser limited form of their truth. And so there are two methods, the whole turning of your consciousness in the love and self-giving, in the joy to organise and bring mutuality and plenty, in the heroic, courage, adventurous leadership aspect, in the urge to know, master knowledge, to receive and share - all four grow by an external effort and by an opening inward to the source of this energy which flows out, glows out from the soul. And this inward movement of course requires you to have already worked upon an inward turn. If this is already a part of your Spiritual practice, this becomes very easy. But now notice, with these two, training of your outer four instruments, the awakening of the four soul powers, a lot can happen. There's a huge amplification of your human capacity. But still who is the person expressing, deciding, enjoying? I and my ‘I’ awareness is still somewhat limited, it's still a very bound to habit, to incapacity, to tendencies which are programmed, my ego sense. And though I can do a lot and you see great people doing things and sometimes greater than they intend to do, they can be extremely selfish and yet what comes through them is great because of the soul power that acts. You want to turn this to some higher potential which is not just your limitation. Because to that extent your capacity to enjoy as well as your capacity to create are limited by your own sense of I. And the source of the inspiration is limited, bound. And at that point if you open out, and this becomes the third step, to the four aspects of the divine energy and invoke them to act through you, draw an inspiration, put yourself as an instrument in service to the Divine energy, to the Divine Shakti, to the Divine Mother, invoke her to fill you and work through you, invoke her to lift your capacities and put them to a higher use.
Simply this intention and this opening allows something higher to stream through because the fourfold soul powers are in fact reflections of these four aspects of the Divine Mother. Maheshwari the aspect of vast Knowledge, Mahakali the aspect of Force and Power, Mahalakshmi the aspect of Plenitude and Beauty and Order, Mahasaraswati Perfection in detail and the Service. These begin to fill the natural flow of these fourfold aspects and raise them to their divine potential. Raise your four instruments to their higher divine potential. And remember what was earlier natural there which was one divine consciousness in infinite qualities, Ananta Guna, now begins to act more freely through your soul force as well as in your nature. As if raising them beyond the limitations of the three Gunas and the fourfold aspects into something which is a free play of infinite variations. When this happens but it's not yet perfect. It will only be perfect in the next the third perfection when the Supramental action takes place, but at this point it raises it to a divine power, a divine capacity still working through the human instrument. Now the divine instrumentation comes, the divine energy fills. It still has to act through your intelligence. It may even open out your intelligence to a higher capacity, but the substance of your intelligence is still fragmenting, breaking, thinking, working, operating through process. Whereas the divine knowledge is not process bound; it is all that it knows infinitely. From there to the human mind in which it has to translate into process is a loss and the same for your vitality the same for your consciousness for your physical body and so on. There's a limitation in the very nature of the instrument even though the source is Divine and that will be fulfilled, corrected by the next perfection which will lift everything to Supramental action. So we won't be looking at that now but just to understand where this goes.
But the completion of this perfection of your instruments is the last step which is the faith, the shraddha, where as you open to that diviner action working through you, you have also the deeper faith and the deeper faith is a knowing of the soul that knows itself, knows the inevitability of the divine action. Why is this necessary? Because while the divine energy works through you, let's take the example of the body, the body knows that if I go out and expose myself to a chill, I'm going to catch a cold and get a fever. It knows it. That's its real faith. But what's the freedom of the Divine consciousness? Complete immunity to illness. So when the divine energy acts, it meets a resistant faith or a contrary faith, not its truth and therefore there has to be a cultivation of each of these four parts turning to the source and say, what you know, what you are, is a greater truth than what I know here and the giving of its faith or opening to higher faith and the body says it's a habit it's not me that is what is more true and it transfers its faith, its conviction to that and so on through all the powers. So there is a faith in the instruments which have to open to the free action of the divine working. There is also faith of I. If I say I am not capable, this is not possible, who could have ever done something like that, cannot be done then I am needlessly putting a roadblock to the free action of the divine consciousness whereas when I transfer that to the divine source and say for you everything is possible there are no limitations and whatever happens to me, even if my intelligence or my past experience says something is impossible, you have the freedom of infinite potential, infinite capacity, you will make possible whatever you choose. That conviction of your consciousness and that conviction in all the parts of your nature, that's what makes complete and at that point you have miracles.
Sraddhalu (0:59:51):
You see, as long as you know something cannot be done, you know it here<points to the head>, even when the divine Grace acts to do it, you are preventing it. It's like the doctor who says this fever, it will take four days, cannot get free sooner. It's like a curse when he says that. He puts a force of will. If you did not have that, if you did not know that the fever has to take you four days to pass, you say, oh Mother help me, I have a fever, please free me. Because you know she can do it. You open yourself and there's a downpour of Her energy, washes out the fever and you're clear and you go out and play. You see a child does that. Children have a fever or sick, they come and hug the mum, mum holds, transmits her vitality, child transfer his tiredness or energy, receives fresh vitality, now I'm feeling good, I'm fine, goes and runs again. The doctor is not there to say, wait, wait, you've just recovered from a fever, you must rest for three more days. The child runs, because he knows, I'm free to do what I want. Once the programming happens, then of course they lose it. So the Shraddha is what completes. And now it's not that you have to wait for the Shraddha, you can start with the Shraddha now. In your very first steps of developing your outer four instruments of the fourfold soul powers and of the opening to the action of the Divine energies within you.
Sri Aurobindo describes this whole process of opening to the Divine energy through various stages showing how even physical energy is only a limited expression of Divine energy. Our vital energy which we can open to and even draw infinitely in vital energy, capable of almost miraculous physical results, is still an inferior grade. There's a high power of mental energy and with that you can achieve great things. But all of these are limited by the very grade of energy. And from there you open to the source of energy. So there's a detailed discussion about this which I'm not going into but to show you that in fact the Divine energy descending is not an abstraction. As it descends, it fills your mental awareness with a mentalized Divine energy and a vitalized vital energy fills your vital being and a physically densified energy of a Spiritual source fills your physical being and they work by their laws of freedom not by our laws of limitation. And that's where the faith is essential to allow for their free action. So I think this is a broad summary to explain the nature of this second perfection of the integral yoga which is the Shakti Chatushtaya, the perfection of Shakti, energy, divine creative energy and it is therefore that I limit to a limited aspect of it, I have described this session as the ‘Power to Enjoy’. Because in the perfection of the Shakti working in us is not only the power to manifest freely but the power to participate freely and enjoy fully.
I think this broadly covers our understanding of it. Then comes the question of the practice. In what we have discussed, we have already touched upon elements of the practice. First part is simply becoming conscious, ‘oh this is what it is’, of the forceful powers as they act within your personality; Observe what is the dominant one in you, what are the limitations of the existing ones. If you read carefully what Sri Aurobindo describes of these powers each time, pause and internalise how much of this functions in me and you'll realise, yes there is something of it. Now as an example, all of us have this aspect of generosity. I want to give, I want to share. What happens when I begin to give or share something says yes but I can't lose more, I can't give too much, is this the right thing? Observe and then see what is the true nature of the soul sharing and it's not a blind giving away of everything. It's not as is shown in the ascetic values; it is combined with knowledge, it's combined with right action in the right balance of give and take - sometimes you give more sometimes you take more but the generosity is a poise of consciousness that feels, ‘yes of course, all that I have is meant to be shared’, but in its right way with the right understanding in the right circumstance in the right degree and form. But you observe the tendency in you and simply becoming conscious you can open out and begin to amplify its working and you may take a part by part or you may take up if you can feel directly the overall quality of that whole tendency of the soul power. Feel that and then if you can open out to that source aspect of the Divine Mother; if it is in knowledge, you open out to this aspect of vast embracing knowledge, which is all knowledge and omniscience of the Divine Mother and as if opening and say, ‘here, fill me, mould me in your shape’, and that would begin already the third process to whatever degree. Simply the act of opening and aspiration allows already an influence to fill. Now as we have discussed last time also, if you had to do this purely with your mental capacity, it can be done, a lot can be done but it would take a very long time and it would not reach this level of perfection and certainly not in one life time. But when you open out to that higher action, a far greater capacity is filling you and doing in you what you still need to do but not relying on your strength. Turn your attention to these things, work upon them, become conscious, consciously amplify where you feel there's a limitation, but with this opening in consciousness to the divine Shakti, the divine source, the Divine Mother. And one of the easiest ways in which you can do this is to feel yourself a child of the Divine Mother, deepen that personal relationship with her, not merely as an idea, not merely as a devotionalism, but in an opening of your awareness.
Sraddhalu (1:06:58):
As a practice, you may do this. Simply sit quietly. How do you know the Divine Mother? Where do you know her? And there are three ways in which you can know her. Of course, she is deep within you and you can open inward towards her, feel her, invite her to fill her love in you by turning to her with your love. Or you may feel she's all around you in all things. And you may open to her love, not to people, not to things, not to energies, to her love with your love. Or you may feel her above you. This is the centre most effective to open to her transcendent and free action. So you centre yourself at the top of the head or if you are in the head, you open to the presence above. If you like you conceive of it. If there's an image that comes, let it come, don't worry. But conceive of the vast presence above. If you have already used the recording which was uploaded earlier on the descent of peace, you have an easy practice to centre above the head to open and know the presence above as the Divine Mother's presence, Her peace, Her Shakti, Her energy and open to Her and invoke Her descent. And just as you feel the peace descending, you feel Her presence and if you can open open with love, then you are most open and most receptive naturally. This is one of the most powerful means. It is the truth of the way of bhakti. Not by devotionalism, not by singing bhajans, not by dancing, but by opening in love and a love in the heart and a love in the mind. And if you feel even your whole body in a quiet self-giving, the action of her descending force is direct and rapid and then you will find what would have taken you 10 years to accomplish gets done in a very short time, in weeks perhaps or days sometimes and certain obstinate tendencies are not simply by becoming conscious, you still have to do your part to become conscious and open to her but just the fact that you become conscious and open to her, her influence dissolves, in a go sometimes. And this is your single most powerful means. It does not prevent you or give you the permission to not make effort. You still make your personal effort but you don't rely on your effort. You rely on Her consciousness working through your effort. It's as if your mind turning in attention to something to amplify it or to modify it, is the link through which her energy flows through your consciousness to do the actual thing, which you hold in an intention to do.
So increasingly you will find in the method of the yoga itsel is this opening to her free action. And I'm going to read from a part of what Sri Aurobindo writes here where he describes this movement: “To reach this perfection, we have to become aware of the divine Shakti; draw her to us and call her in to fill the whole system and take up the charge of all our activities”. See, the key here is first becoming aware of the divine Shakti. It's not like, unfortunately, many people do, they'll sit down and get into a talking relationship. Please come, please fill me, fill me, but where is my mind? It’s here wandering. Or worse. Yes, perhaps eventually something will happen at a time when your words are repeating, your mind gets distracted or simply turns to an actual concentration on her presence and then something happens. But it was not the words which did it, it was the awareness. So the first step is we have to become aware of the divine Shakti and this is again not difficult; you're aware of your awareness, you're aware of your love for her, you're aware of your energy, each of these is a starting point. Your energy, you become aware of a source from which it flows in you. You're aware of your awareness and your awareness turns up to the source which fills or from which your awareness settles. You are aware of the love within you for the Divine Mother. You need not be very emotional or devotional. Simply this gratitude and opening, in trust and this goes straight to feel her presence, the more you dwell on her presence the more vivid it becomes until at some point all you do is invoke her, no words needed, you feel her, invoke her and you feel her settling as you felt the peace descending, you feel her settling as peace, as awareness, as intensity of energy, force just filling you and you open yourself and say here. Call her in to fill the whole system and take up the charge of all our activities. Then, “There will then be no separate personal will or individual energy trying to conduct our actions, no sense of a little personal self as the doer, nor will it be the lower energy of the three gunas, the mental, vital and physical nature. The divine Shakti will fill us and preside over and take up all our inner activities, our outer life, our Yoga”.
Sraddhalu (1:13:03):
Now, of course, this will not happen in a day. Every day it will be a little more and a little more and a gradual thinning of your sense of ‘I am doing’ and you will realise there is so little that you are doing except placing your attention and invoking and allowing it to work. But over time, over a few days, weeks, months, a few years if needed, but this will deepen and continue. And because it's a step of joy to greater joy; we don't worry how long it takes. That we experience it and that it grows is what matters and then what does she do further? She will take up the mental energy, her own lower formation. The mental energy is her energy in a lower formation. “She will take up the mental energy, her own lower formation, and raise it to its highest, purest, and fullest powers of intelligence and will and psychic action. She will change the mechanical energies of the mind, life, and body, which now govern us into delight-filled manifestations of her own living and conscious power and presence. She will manifest in us and relate to each other all the various spiritual experiences of which the mind is capable. And as the crown of this process she will bring down the supramental light into the mental levels, change the stuff of mind into the stuff of supermind, transform all the lower energies into energies of her supramental nature. And raise us into our being of gnosis”. And with that of course we have the full experience of her as the divine Shakti.
But don't worry if all of this feels too far away. Focus on the first two steps which is becoming aware of the divine Shakti and draw her to us and call her in to fill the whole system and this will be your single most rapid method by which this work will be done, assisted by your further by your first stages which we discussed already of becoming conscious of these things, that's why we had this discussion, and then making small corrections, small efforts, into which her Shakti, her energy begins to fill, to act, to make the big result. And so this is in sum our discussion to understand the nature of this second perfection of the integral yoga, which is the perfection of all our instruments which will allow a real divine expression and a divine enjoyment and participation in all of life. Recall the capacity to enjoy has to grow but it must become as complete as this, not just in the vital part but in all the parts. This universe was created for the purpose of the delight. Enjoyment is too small a word, of course enjoyment of the delight, but as a association of the word enjoyment is too small; It is a joyous participation in the infinite blissful play of new creation, new interaction and new experiences. Such is the purpose for which the universe was created and the purpose for which you took birth to participate in. And so all the little enjoyments of your days, of the little food you eat and the little experiences you have are all tiny preparatory steps which would open you for this full enjoyment of the same experiences.
So, not deny enjoyment. Raise enjoyment and lift it to its higher potential as you lift all the instruments of your nature and your parts of your consciousness. Such would be the completion of the theme which we have set for today. I think it will be a good point to pause. We are approaching the end of the year. The next session we have will be on New Year's Day also. So perhaps we'll continue a theme which will be also inspiring and focus on the work and the possibility of a new beginning that we can make in our own lives and in our spiritual journey. Subsequently, we will take up questions which have been pending. Take a moment to concentrate on all that we have dwelt upon and to bring from deep within us a quiet, firm faith, conviction and resolution to redirect our efforts towards this refinement, purification and amplification of our capacities with the help of the Divine Mother.
Sraddhalu (1:19:12):
Thank you. Namaste
Alina (1:19:15):
Thank you. Namaste.