EWS #101 Our Spiritual Foundation + Q&A on Spiritual Life

Jan 15, 2022

Alina (0:00:35):
Namaste. Good evening everyone. Welcome to our continuing series, Evenings with Sraddhalu. Today, we will  go into depth, into the means of how to attain the perfection of the integral yoga. In our previous session we have explored the first of the six perfections and today we will be continuing on the same subject. I welcome and I greet Sraddhalu and  Joel from Auroville.

Sraddhalu (0:01:16):
Namaste. Happy to be with all of you

Alina (0:01:20):

Namaste, Joel. We will be hosting this evening. I don't know if Joel is here, but I'm greeting him, and we are happy to start our session for today.

Sraddhalu (0:01:39):
Yes. In the last few sessions we had been going in some depth in the exploration of the six perfections of the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo. There was, as you know, the seventh chatushtaya which we presented as a first preparation for the six perfections but in the sequence Sri Aurobindo himself puts it last, but declares it also the means by which the six are attained. And so I thought it necessary that we dwell on this seventh chatushtaya in which he elaborates the means by which the perfections are to be attained. And this chatushtaya is the chatushtaya of siddhi, the Chatushtaya of perfection. And it has also four key words - Shuddhi, Mukti, Siddhi, Bhukti. So first is the purification, which leads to liberation, which leads to the perfections - six perfections as we saw, and which then completes with the participation in the beatitude. Now if you look at the structure of the six perfections, you will recall the first four perfections are personal. The last two are of a scale which is universal and they represent a participation in the delight, in the work, in the action, in the immersion in the One. So the Siddhi and the Bhukti, that is the perfection and the participation are included in that. But the preparatory part now boils down to two key words, Shuddhi and Mukti. That is purification which leads to liberation, which then leads to all the rest of the perfection. And so, before we get into the nature of the purification itself, Sri Aurobindo prepares us to understand the rationale, the psychology itself of this whole process of perfection. that makes possible for us to become perfected in the divine image.

After all, there is nothing in us that we can find which is truly divine. In fact, everything seems to be the very opposite. You can define the divine in terms of what we are not. And whatever we are, we define in terms of not divine. And so, he takes up this whole question in some depth the reason I will dwell on this and I will not even enter the discussion on the purification today we will keep that for next time. The reason I will dwell on this in some depth is because the mindset behind the whole of the practice is being recast; it is being recast in a new psychology. Sri Aurobindo takes this as a critical question. He says that as long as we believe that we are a product of our body or that we are a product of matter and everything that our thoughts or consciousness represent is the result indirectly of matter. We cannot even get to the key to understand the problem or then to find the solution. So I'm going to read and I perhaps maybe I will read more than usual from the text because there are certain things where he helps us to change how we think of ourselves, of the universe, of the the nature of our life but also he's introducing to us a deeper, I will use the word, ‘spiritual foundation of who we truly are’ - this is in fact the phrase that he uses. But first he explains we are such a knot; we are a knot of largely what we call the ego sense which is a complex of our body, emotions, thoughts and perhaps somewhere sprinklings or little glimmers of something deeper or higher. He says, “How to disengage from this knot of thinking mortal matter the Immortal it contains”. See inside this knot of thinking mortal matter there is the Immortal somewhere hidden but we can't even find it much less be able to disengage or he says “from this mentalized vital animal man the happy fullness of his submerged hints of Godhead”. So to disengage that submerged Godhead from this animal man - this he says, “is the real problem of a human being and living”. And “Yoga”, he says, “is the unravelling of the knot of Life's difficulty”.

So that's really the process we're going to do. We take this knot that we are and slowly separate out the threads. Now unravelling a knot is unknotting, removing the threads. But there's another way of removing the knot or opening the knot is to cut. Cut the thread or cut the knot. And that's not our way. That would be the way of the ascetic where you cut the knot to get out. But here unravelling is the way of the Integral Yoga where all the fine threads which have become knotted up are separated out and then laid fine, neat, organised so that they may become streams for the flow of a higher and greater power to be able to live using them in the way intended in their evolution. So he says, “First of all we have to know the central secret of the psychological complexity which creates the problem and all its difficulties”. So we're going to go into a central secret and this whole discussion for me is extremely important because it touches upon so many aspects where we have to correct how we know ourselves and so that is the real purpose of this discussion but the central secret and it's going to be very precious as we go along. It just cannot be understood as long as you live by the ordinary psychology which looks at the superficial phenomena of the mind, even if you say, ‘yes, my psychology is now much more developed’, as there are today more transpersonal and other psychologies which claim that, ‘yes, we accept that there is a higher independent even mind or even that there's a higher spiritual consciousness’, and yet the whole approach of the psychology is so superficial that it falls short of being able to provide a solution. Sri Aurobindo will present to us a deeper psychology. On the other hand, that psychology goes so deep that to many people it may be, oh those are beautiful ideas, perhaps big words but doesn't make sense to me. So we are somewhere in between. Either we stay with a superficial psychology which cannot offer us any solution or we enter the full depth of the psychology and get a solution but we are going to have to deal with terms which may seem to be a little difficult. But not to worry because each of these terms, Sri Aurobindo dwells on in a way that he makes them vivid for us, he makes them real. And this is going to be part of the change that we will have to undergo as we study this.

Sraddhalu (0:10:04):
So he says, “In other words, we must arrive at and use a psycho-physical knowledge with a spiritual foundation”. And this is going to be, who are we truly? And I will read again from his words: “Man is in his real nature,-- however obscure now this truth may be to our present understanding…”, “...a spirit using the mind, life and body for an individual and the communal experience and self-manifestation in the universe”. So first key idea - we are a spirit using mind, life and body. And then he says, however obscure this truth is to us, - do you feel yourself spirit? No. Can you imagine yourself to be spirit? Yes, perhaps, but what does it mean really? And he says, for the purpose of Yoga, we must have faith in this and we will find our faith is justified through the series of steps and experiences that will inevitably follow. But we are a spirit using mind, life and body for an individual and communal experience and self-manifestation in the universe. These are three important ideas. Spirit is not limited in any way, utterly infinite. Can it experience limitation and therefore experience multiplicity and many individualised spirits interacting - so experience individuality but also experience community of individuals and the third possibility is to manifest spirit into universe to become a whole range of other experiences which are expressions of the spirit's possibilities. So, that's the reason why we have chosen to identify with mind, life and body for this purpose. But we are spirit. What does that mean? This spirit is an infinite existence limiting itself in apparent being for individual experience. We are infinite existence. We exist in totality as an infinite which is utterly aware and this awareness can represent itself in so many forms in so many ways it is also an infinite delight of being expanding and contracting itself and its powers and the delight as it pours out expanding and then contracting also plays with its own possibilities. Veiling, hiding, rediscovering and veiling in ways that it seems to be totally concealed so that the power of discovery is that much greater and the joy of discovery is that much greater. And even it can go to the extreme of pretending to be the very opposite of it, what it is not and the joy of that hiding. All of these are part of the play of spirit that we already are. In fact, that is what we are truly. All else is part of this play of what we are.

And so, in itself, it is eternal Satchitananda. But this complexity, this knotting up and unravelling of the infinite in the finite is the aspect we see it assume in universal and individual nature. So Satchitananda experiences the knotting up and then this unravelling of the infinite in the finite. So when infinite consciousness, infinite delight, knots itself up into finite appearance and then unravels from it, that's the play for which we have taken on mind, life and body. And of course, therefore, we have to rediscover our true Satchitananda and make that the basis of the whole of our life. And that is how we will be able to act through these instruments with a truly liberated consciousness. But our instruments are not just mind, life and body. We have also a fourth instrument, which he says is Supermind, which is the active principle of spiritual perfection. These are the four instruments that the spirit uses to manifest in this play in this working of nature. What are these four? We have to understand from this deeper psychology now, from the fact that we are first spirit. When spirit knows itself, that knowing is Supermind. So, Supermind is spiritual consciousness acting in a self-luminous knowledge, will and sense, esthesis, energy, self-creating and unveiling power of its own delight and being. That is supermind. One of the characteristics of Supermind is that even if it wants to, it cannot be ignorant. It can conceal or limit itself, but it always knows what it has concealed and what it has limited. So, it cannot become ignorant. In contrast, mind is a derivative of Supermind, which is, as if although derived, the very opposite, because it is fundamentally ignorant and limiting. And it can struggle, it can even lose itself into complete unconsciousness or rise out into increasing consciousness, aiming at complete consciousness but never reach it. Whereas supermind is always complete, can never be ignorant. So they are as if seen to be complementary, but one derives from the other. So our mind, although unable to get to complete knowledge, still is a derivation of complete knowledge and can open to something and allow us to rise into the completeness, which is Supermind. And this is possible because it is derived, our mind is derived from Supermind. It is possible because we as spirit, remember we are first spirit, have chosen to incarnate in mind and therefore if we step back from this we will always recover our full knowledge and even develop the full possibility of the instrument on a Supramental level.

Sraddhalu (0:17:03):

So this is a very important idea that we have to deeply immerse ourselves in and we will look at how this is to be done also but first let's complete the idea. As this, he explores the four instruments - we have Supermind which is our primary instrument for true knowledge. The supermind works through life energies and through the physical body, allowing some diminution of its action to correspond to their actual levels of consciousness. So how does this work? In the mind you will find there is the... he goes the other way. First it starts with matter: “In matter it is an automatic action and effectuation of the hidden idea in things;”. Look at how physics works. We are taught about laws of physics. Automatically this has to happen. You take a crystalline solution, automatically it has to crystallise. Let a ball drop, automatically it has to fall. Why? Why can't it just stay where it is? Ah, but because there is gravity. So gravity pulls. But why does it follow always the way it pulls? That's how it is. No, that's not an explanation. That's a description. This automatism is in fact the working of the Supermind inside matter. And this working is so perfect that you can mathematically describe it and reduce it to what appeared to be universal what they call laws. In fact this word 'laws' comes from the old religious tradition in the West going back to the Abrahamic traditions where God's relationship with humanity is through laws. So he gives his 10 commandments and you have to obey those commandments otherwise you know what will happen you will get punished or something. This idea, this mentality of commands or laws imposed by God remained even when the European Enlightenment threw out religion but the mind had been so suffused with this idea of laws and mechanisms imposed that the physics rejecting religion and spirituality still built itself on laws. Newton as you know was a hardcore religionist; he was in fact, today he would be called a biblical extremist because he believed every word of the Bible to be an exact description of reality and God's commandment and using his intellect he wanted to calculate when the world will end because the Bible says is going to end or at least that's how he understands it. So he made a calculation with his best intelligence and predicted that in 200 years from his time the world would end. That's hardcore extremist evangelical Christianity and yet this man is presented today as one of the greatest physicists. Think about it. So you can understand how these religious ideas got deeply imprinted in the understanding of matter. And today we are all programmed from childhood to think like this. Physics explains. It explains nothing. It only describes. And what it describes is this automatism.

And I read again from Sri Aurobindo: “In matter it is an automatic action and effectuation of the hidden idea in things;”. That is behind everything there is a hidden idea which is the original creative idea which works itself out automatically and effectuates automatically. So in physics you say if you do this this this here is the outcome it is inevitable. Why? Oh those are laws. No they are not laws. They are the action of the supermind in matter automatically working out. Now pause on this idea. Look at the whole world in this way. Through these eyes all that matter is doing, all this automatism that you see in matter, so-called laws of physics which we do not understand, we only describe and the almost precise mathematical character of it. All this is Supermind hidden in matter in automatic action, automatic effectuation. Think about it. Look at the whole universe through these eyes and then from there perhaps you can build a few steps even into life and mind to the extent that we see them as processes of matter. Even in stone, in crystalline structure, when the crystal forms and is perfectly symmetrical, it's the Supermind working automatically, compelling matter, forcing matter to wake up and to grow and even eventually pushing life-form to emerge out of matter. So this is first correction. Second, in life, its most seizable form is instinct. An instinctive subconscious or partly subconscious knowledge and operation. So again you look at the seed, you see this force instinctively pushing out and what is amazing in the seed is that independent of what is around it, it could be soil, it could be foam soaked with nutrients, it could just be water or it could be in your kitchen a damp cloth into which you have put the seed. For the seed it does not matter whatever the environment, it leverages the environment and by an automatic instinct, it somehow rearranges that material and grows and forms the first offshoot of a sprout and then a plant and then leaves and eventually a full plant and flower. Where does it get the intelligence that irrespective of its external circumstances, it manages to turn them, use them for its outcome? Instinctive, subconscious or partly subconscious knowledge and this precise operation that is the Supermind working in life.

Sraddhalu (0:23:34):

Think about it this way now. Look at all the plants, look at all the trees, look at all the flowers. The way they grow, the way they use their environment irrespective of what it is, the way they adapt to circumstances and the way in spite of whatever limitations the tree is able to produce its perfect beautiful flower and the perfection of the smell and perfume that comes from it. All this is the working of the Supermind in life force. Now look at the whole universe in this way. Everywhere that you see life, including in your body, it's the working of the Supermind inside life. But using the appearance of life, which is subconscious, semi-conscious knowledge. And then, another shift; “in mind, it reveals itself as intuition, a swift, direct and self-effective illumination of intelligence, will, sense and aesthesis”. So every time you have an idea, ah, I know. How did you come to the idea? It was the working of the supermind inside your mind. Every time you face a problem and you struggle to find a solution, that which leads you to the solution, which already knows, is Supermind. And when you found the solution, you recognize, ah yes, this is the solution or a solution because Supermind in you is what knew and that awakened in the surface mind gives the recognition you say, ah yes, this is the familiar sense ‘I know’. If not for the familiarity that Supermind brings secretly you would have a solution but I don't know if it will work. When you have the solution which is complete and you know it. You know it because of the resonance of what you already knew in Supermind now reflected in surface mind. So think about all of humanity's creations, however wonderful, however extraordinary or however distorted. Behind that is the working of the Supermind, inside mind pushing, guiding to give this self-effective illumination of intelligence and will and the rest. These Sri Aurobindo says are only irradiances, irradiations of the Supermind accommodating to inferior material. It is not Supermind in itself, in its freedom. If from your mind you were to suddenly be exposed to the Supermind, the transition would be as if - here you are in the middle of dusk, half evening, you can see dimly through the light in the forest and then suddenly you are thrown let's say instantly into the presence of a gigantic Sun blazing out enormous light and power overwhelming blinding even from the semi dim lit state suddenly thrown into that. That's the kind of a radical shift between our working of the mind even at its best and the supermind and the nature of its illumination. And so supermind in its own characteristic action, what is it? Supermind or Gnosis is the characteristic, illumined, significant action of spirit in its own native reality. That infinite existence which is infinite consciousness, which is bliss, the way it represents itself, the way it knows itself, the way it acts freely, that is Supermind.

Sraddhalu (0:27:21):
We are that also. And we have also a corresponding level of consciousness for this, of which we are currently not aware. So, this is our first shift in correction. We are Spirit using mind, life and body as instruments and with an instrument not yet developed, which is our Supramental instrument.

Recognize that this is not something far away. This is something intimately ours. If physics and materiality of physics and its working is really Supermind secretly working, our body which is based of physics, which is based on biology, life energy as well as psychology and mind energy, on all three in their mixture it is Supermind supporting behind secretly, in its dimmed in its limited action but still. So supermind is not far away. Think of it as something intimately present and close but fundamentally free, different from all our experience. But how are we then going to leverage? With this knot that we have, how are we going to leverage and awaken ourselves into Supermind? Now this is the next question in this deeper psychology that Sri Aurobindo is presenting. And here he gives us a first clue. He says, to understand these operations of how this works, we have to look at how Spirit works using two different poises, twin aspects of Soul and Nature, Purusha and Prakriti. And we have to treat them as two different, diverse powers, because that's the practical reality that we have to deal with. There are two poles of consciousness. So Nature is what we see around us, all this machinery, all this happening in the universe - that's Nature. In fact within us also our body is formed of Nature. We didn't form it, Nature is forming it, Nature is running it. Even if we did nothing, Nature would take care of it. It's all part of Nature. We, who are observing all this happening in us that is perhaps closer to Soul, Spirit, Purusha, not yet the true one, but still we'll discuss that shortly. Nature is the power of Spirit, working, developing, throwing out in will, impulsion, force, energy and fulfilling itself in enjoyment. So behind this whole play of Nature is also the divine delight, working. In its most external aspect you see this mechanical operation. In her higher aspect you see a conscious energy. But an energy which is flowing out and expressing as a will, as a working. But on the other side is this consciousness which is actually the will which is flowing out as energy. So Shakti, power of being of the spirit which operates, is the spirit's power of knowledge, power of will, power of process and action. But Spirit is the origin of this, willing and flowing out. “By this power the Spirit creates all things in itself, hides and discovers all itself in the form and behind the veil of its manifestation”. Now this is the power Spirit is using to conceal, to hide and to play out - both hiding and discovering. The power it uses is this Shakti which works out as Nature or the will in Nature working out. But the spirit is creating or using this flowing energy as the means. Now this is going to be a key to our understanding. So we'll dwell a little bit on the theory, don't worry, and we'll come back to the practical implication of this.

Sraddhalu (0:32:00):
So this consciousness, Purusha, the originating spirit, uses this power to veil itself or to discover itself. But the consciousness is able to use this power to take any position, whatever poise. It can conceive itself as, Oh, I want to experience what is it like to be tree and then use that power to create the tree experience and then embed itself into the tree experience.

This is going to be the key. When this Spirit chooses to experience itself in infinity, experience infinity but within finite appearances, then we have universe. So I'm going to read again. “It is eternal soul and spirit in its own power of self-existence superior to and governing its manifestations; it is universal soul and spirit developed in power of becoming of its existence, infinite in the finite; it is individual soul and spirit absorbed in development of some particular course of its becoming, in appearance mutably finite in the infinite.” So these are three poises of the Spirit. So when it supports everything, it is utterly free, originates everything and supports everything - that is one poise. But when it chooses to play out, experience infinity inside finite appearances - that's your universe. See in this universe you will not find true infinity anywhere and yet the universe is infinite; everything is finite and yet it's expressing infinity somehow - that's universe. And then the individual that is us has this special feature that it is finite in the infinite, mutably finite, changing finiteness in the infinity of the opportunities, in the infinity of circumstances, but it is actually individual soul and spirit absorbed in developing one particular line of experience, one particular line of possibilities in this universality. So the same originating Spirit takes the position of universe and then takes the position of individuals in the universe. We are one of those positions. But we are That, we are also universe. And this is one of the corrections we have to make. To recognize that whatever we may experience ourselves in terms of limitation, if we were to lean back and recover this original poise of Spirit that we are, we are equally supporting this individual as we equally support the whole universe. And there's no real difference.

They're just two different poises of the Spirit. In one, it is mutably finite appearance in infinity. In the other, it is infinity expressing in finite appearances. That's all, that's the only difference where it is still its own infinity playing with finiteness in different ways. And so there's actually an experience as we begin to come closer to our true sense of Spirit that we experience ourselves or in ourselves all individuals or we see them and know them as ourselves in various forms. But much more important, we experience the whole universe taking place within us, even as we are in everything in the whole universe. And it is not a difficult experience for the simple fact that that experience is supporting our individual experience just behind, not far away. In fact, you will recall a discussion we had a few weeks ago with regard to a question where someone is stimulated by the brain, someone is stimulated in the brain and a part of the brain is numbed and they have spontaneously an experience of this kind where suddenly they feel this universality. And that is to show you that all it needs is a little bit of brain dulling to have a glimpse of what that is, meaning it is so close, just behind, supporting. If it was not supporting, we wouldn't be what we are. And so again, this is a shift we have to bring in our thinking that is not far away. Our true poise of spirit is not far away and its experience is this. And familiarise ourselves to looking at things from this vision and this Spirit can be all these things at the same time. Not only it can be all these things, because it is forming all these using its own creative power that we call Nature or the Shakti through which it forms Nature. It has the freedom to support anything but also to withdraw support, to change, to modify, to play with anything. ”It is not irrevocably limited by any particular self-formulation in Time, but can break through and beyond it, break it up or develop it, select, reject, new-create, reveal out of itself a greater self-formulation” - This is the full power of Spirit, our full power truly.

Sraddhalu (0:37:43):
And now comes something extremely important. I'm going to read the full sentence and then we'll elaborate: “What it believes itself to be by the whole active will of its consciousness in its instruments, that it is or tends to become, yo yacchraddhaḥ sa eva saḥ: what it believes it can be and has full faith in becoming, that it changes to in nature, evolves or discovers.” So he quotes from the Bhagavad Gita - whatever is our true faith that we are or that we become. But he's giving you a very interesting insight here. Whatever we are today is actually the outcome of spirit choosing to be this when it turns its whole active will of consciousness in its instruments and these are the instruments - our mind, life body. In its instruments, Spirit says, ‘ah, this is what I want to be’, this is what is or tends to become. Equally, if it has full faith that I can become this, that it changes to in nature, evolves or discovers. So there are two poise, one is what you are and one is what you will become. Both of these are the result of the way the spirit takes itself in its faith with full active will of focus. In other words, what we are today is only because we chose to be this and enter this experience. With full concentration of its active will, I want to experience what it's like to be a mind limited in ignorance in a human body. And so, spirit identifies, shapes itself, fits into this mould with complete freedom. But once in the mould, it has accepted to be bound to the limits of the mould and so its complete freedom it has accepted to diminish the limit. Equally while we are human being, when spirit says with full faith in becoming, I can become fully awakened divine consciousness. When it turns towards that, then it changes to that in nature, evolves and discovers this. Very important point we have to recognize. And Sri Aurobindo tells you the importance of this in so many words. He says, “This power of the soul over its nature is of the utmost importance in the Yoga of self-perfection. If it did not exist, we could never get by conscious endeavour and aspiration out of the fixed groove of our present imperfect human being. Or if we had to grow to be perfected, we would have to wait for Nature” to do it.

But the means of getting out of this groove is conscious endeavour and aspiration. The two different forms of effort, remember. You will now recall what we discussed about the direct method. If you do not remember, please go back to some 10 sessions ago. We discussed the direct method. It's there in the title of the session. And the key to the direct method was faith and the tapas, concentrated will. By concentrated effort and aspiration we are able to move out of our fixed groove because of the power of the Shraddha, the consciousness turning its full active will to become whatever it chooses to be in utter freedom. This is our key and this is the power of soul over its nature without which the Yoga of self-perfection would not be possible. Think about it. This is extremely important. Whatever deep within you is the conviction that you are, that is what you become. But also whatever is your deepest conviction that you can grow to be that is what you begin to grow to be of course combined with your aspiration and effort. Your aspiration and effort has no value if it is not an expression of a deeper conviction, a deeper soul knowledge or faith. The two combined gives you the direct experience of the thing it is. How quickly? Well, that depends on the faith. If your faith is that I am already that, you become that immediately. This power of the soul over its nature is of the utmost importance in the Yoga of self-perfection. If it did not exist, we could never do this. The problem though is the soul as it has entered into the poise of mind has accepted already the complete subjection to Nature. And now we are already in a struggle of having accepted a limitation and then wanting to change it. So we do not have the full power of the spirit to back the choice we make. We have already accepted a limited power in a bound relationship and so it seems as if we are bound. Sri Aurobindo spends a little time, which I will only summarise here, to explain how this Spirit and Purusha can actually dwell on any level, any plane of consciousness by simply choosing to concentrate on dwelling on this. So he describes what it's like to dwell in the Sat, Chit and Ananda, to dwell in the Supermind and then to dwell in the mind also. When it chooses to do that and the life and the physical body, when it chooses to do that there it becomes limited. The difference is in the ranges above whatever it chooses to dwell on by its own power it experiences. But as we cross below the level of the Supermind there is a veil between the consciousness and the power of consciousness. There's a gap that forms and now when you choose to dwell on this in this it is not by your free power that you can change your circumstances because your consciousness is separated from the power of action of Nature. This is really where the problem starts. This is where we become bound in this, what he calls, lower hemisphere of being, which begins where a veil forms between soul and nature. So, between Spirit in Supermind and spirit in mind, life and body there's a separation now that's appearing and the veil has fallen. The moment the veil has come, the soul is subject to limitations of mind, life and body.

And I'll read the sentence: “The soul when it dwells in the principle of mind, not yet subject to but user of life and body, knows itself as a mental being working out its mental life and it can create and play freely. But when it gets separated by the veil, then it finds itself bound”. Here, how does this happen? And again, we'll read a few lines: “In proportion as it leans towards the side of knowledge, it is aware of itself more or less clearly as a soul of mind, a soul of life, a soul of body, viewing and acting in and acted upon by Nature”. So you lean towards the side of knowledge and here you are, oh yes, of course. “But where it leans towards the side of ignorance, it knows itself as an ego identified with the nature of mind and life and body. The creation of Nature”. Now here's the key. You can choose to lean. Lean towards knowledge and experience yourself, ah I am a free soul in mind as mind but can freely create in mind. You lean towards ignorance and you get bound in the knot of ego and you feel I am a product of body, life and mind. I am a product of nature. I don't exist without them. Lean back to knowledge and you say, I am a user, I am a player with mind, life and body. Lean back into ignorance, you find yourself more and more bound. This shift and the phrasing he uses is very important. It's a choice to lean. Now these two words ignorance and knowledge, Sri Aurobindo has elaborated elsewhere, you will see in his commentary on the Isha Upanishad and the Sanskrit terms behind are which are much more suggestive - vidya and avidya, knowledge of oneness and the other is knowledge of multiplicity. You lean in towards oneness, you recover your freedom. You lean towards multiplicity, you find yourself bound more and more in division and limitation. Why? Because you chose to concentrate on limitation.

Sraddhalu (0:47:25):

I'll give an example here. Watch a child playing a video game. And if you have played video games, then you look back at your own experience. If you have not, I would suggest it as an exercise. Take a video game which is very immersive, what they call role-playing games, where you become an individual in a storyline. As you play the game, you find yourself sucked into it. Or let me give another example and it will match this. You watch a movie. You're watching a movie online. You're sitting on your chair, your comfortable chair, you are in front of a cinema screen or television screen as the case may be, or your mobile phone, and you begin to watch a movie. You notice initially as the movie starts, you are still you, thinking about the movie you have selected. As the movie plays out, you identify more and more with the character in the movie until you forget who you are. You're immersed, identified with the character. And sometimes the characters switch. It's a story involving two or three different people. And you switch identities with this person, then that person, and then the other again, and back, and forth. And eventually, the two storylines begin to converge. And you find yourself converging in these two identities and playing with your own identifications. But at any point if the phone rings and the screen stops, the movie pauses, you snap out, ah so-and-so is calling me. The movie is set aside, you are not identified. Or in the middle of the movie, you find yourself uncomfortable, I don't like this, it's too scary, you lean out. Now that a scary part has passed, you lean back in identification. This movement of identifying and leaning back is your key. You can do that with life, you can do that with your personality, with your nature. You can say, I am so and so, I am sorry, I can't help it, this is my nature. Or you can lean back, ‘ah, what is this weird behaviour? why am I bound to this pattern of behaviour?’, and lean back towards your own freedom. The actual movement is as simple as this. Observe this, play with it, develop this as a skill and we will see shortly how important this becomes. But for now, we'll just dwell on this a little bit.

The problem here is because you can lean towards the side of ignorance and then identify with the ego sense, that side has its stickiness. He says, “But the native tendency of material being leads towards an absorption of the soul's energies in the act of formation and material movement and a consequent self-oblivion of the conscious being”. This is exactly what happened when we took birth. We leaned to identify with the physical body and with it came self-oblivion, self-forgetfulness of conscious being. And at that point our brain was not fully formed. So in the very act of full identification, we got so deeply entrenched in this self-forgetfulness that we forgot that we have forgotten. And as we wake up, as we grow, those memories start coming back - oh, but I should be able to do this, something is missing, I've forgotten something, there's something important that I can't find in my life. You've forgotten that you've forgotten, but you remember that something is forgotten now. What have you forgotten? I don't know, but I'm looking for something. That's the condition of the mass of humanity. But as a conscious being now, sufficiently conscious of what you have forgotten, maybe with glimpses of certain deeper and higher experiences, now at least you know what it is you've forgotten, you can choose to lean back into identification and limitation, or lean back in awareness of freedom. And so he says the Purusha actually takes its stance on all these planes. But there's something very important with the human being. In the human being there is the mix of all these possibilities. “Man, the microcosm, has all these planes in his own being, ranged from his subconscious to his super conscious existence”. The full spectrum exists within us. It's something we dwelt on yesterday, which is possible because of the physical body which binds in form. It can bind all the planes in a single form. And therefore you can have experiences of all these planes and all possibilities of all planes while being individualised in a single form. And so he says, “By a developing power of Yoga he can become aware of these concealed worlds hidden from his physical, materialised mind and senses which knows only the material world”. But we can develop, we can reawaken to the full spectrum and that's the process of the Yoga which gets us to that.

Sraddhalu (0:52:45):
But now the question is, having come to this point, you want to lean back more and more, you want to recover the full knowledge. How are you going to do that? And it's not going to happen by some miraculous arbitrary change. He says there's a law, there's a process. And the fact that we have accepted to be bound in the physical body, we have to go through the body's process including, and the life process and mind process and there's a rationale. But the goal of this process is increasingly to recover yourself as the true spirit as Purusha and your own nature as your power of expression, your power of formation and then you will look upon your mind, life and body and say, ‘ah, this is the means by which I freely express myself’. So here so far, he has given us a broad perspective of our spiritual foundation. We are spirit, we have used these instruments, identified with them and with their limitations, but we have the freedom to be able to disengage and change that relationship. But right now since we are identified, we have to go through the process that it involves. And so we come to the next stage of the practice.

We are first of all, primarily mental beings. And so we have to recognize how we are going to use the mind as our primary agent for this separation and changing the relationship to one of mastery. “In order to be possessor of his being with any complete reality of freedom and mastery, man must find out his highest self, the real man or highest Purusha in him which is free and master in its own inalienable power. He must cease to be the mental, vital, physical ego;” - The ego is not his real self but an instrumentation of nature. So Nature created, he says, the ego sense which is a focal point of not of mind life body, so that it can attract the soul to identify with this and enter and participate in the experience of the material universe. By this instrumentation he acts as if he were a separate existence in the material universe. So very useful as an experience. And nature has created a pattern, a bundle of powers and capacities of the ego-naught by which she induces the soul to consent to this action and accept these habitual limiting conditions. You see, she's actually... the suggestion is that Nature has created this very attractive experience in which you can say, ah yes, that's going to be very interesting to experience. Now think about what this means and I will go back to the example of the cinema or the video game that you play. I'd like to watch a movie. What's the mood I'm looking at? Today I'm in a romantic mood, so I will watch a romantic movie. Tomorrow I'm in an adventurous mood, so I will watch an adventurous movie. And now I just want to have a light-hearted fun, so I will watch a comedy. Depending on the mood that you are in, Nature has created encasements. Here you want comedy, here join me. Here you want some adventure, join me. And she has created these ego knots and I say, ‘ah yes, I want a life of adventure this time’ and you enter to identify. But to each she has given a particular pattern. Here is an adventure personality, here is a comedy personality, what would you take? Depending on your mood, you freely choose to accept, remember. This is an important point we will come back to.

But I continue with the text. “While the identification lasts”, you say I'm now going to play this role, I'm going to watch this movie. “While the identification lasts, there is a self-imprisonment in the habitual round and narrow action. And until it is transcended, there can be no free use by the soul of its individual living, much less real self-exceeding”. So you're watching the movie, you're identified with this adventurous character, maybe it's a James Bond 007 adventure and you say, oh, what a great thrill, what a great fun to kick the bad guys. And as long as you're identified in that, you are just that. You are not this free person who can stand back and create your own movie or close the movie and live a very different real multidimensional life. Isn't it? You have chosen to be self-imprisoned, freely. “For this reason, an essential movement of the Yoga is to draw back from the outward ego sense by which we are identified with the action of mind, life and body”, and when you draw back what happens - “and live inwardly in the soul”. “The liberation from an externalised ego sense is the first step towards the soul's freedom and mastery”. Now the very next paragraph says, “When we thus draw back into the soul, we find ourselves to be not mind but a mental being…”. He just told you, you have to draw back from ego sense. And then says, oh, when you do that, then you will have this experience.

So somewhere in between you stop and say, hey, wait, how do I draw back from this ego sense? He just told you. He just told you that this action of leaning in and leaning out is your key. Remember the direct method, the power of your consciousness to identify and to be whatever you choose to be. I want to be James Bond 007 in this movie. Well, I start the movie, I have chose to be identified and I have imprisoned myself. And I say now I need to be real-life James Bond. I want to have my own adventure, not the adventure bound which is being given to me. I lean out of the movie. I say, ah, I've been watching a movie. What do I want to do? Maybe I took inspiration from that movie. Let me now go and climb a mountain. That's the movement. That movement within us is actually as simple. What are you? I am this mind, life, body, habit, please don't question me; I can't change my ways. I am this person, self-imprisoned. I step back, observe. Oh, why am I thinking like this? Why am I behaving like this? Why did I get upset so easily? And the very fact that you did this stepping back, you have already disengaged. How much? Well, a little bit at least. More, can you do? Yes, observe. Can you disengage more? Yes, observe. Do as much as you can to separate yourself from everything that's happening with which you were identified. From this whole life, this personality, this whole bundle of habit patterns and likes and dislikes, step back fully and observe yourself as you would a third person. Wow, this is a very interesting fellow. I don't like some of these tendencies, but I like some of those. Those are very interesting. That's why I chose to get into this personality. Observe this.

Sraddhalu (1:00:36):
So, an essential movement of the Yoga is to draw back from the outward ego sense by which we are identified with the action of mind, life and body and live inwardly in the soul. So we turn back, what do I truly want? Okay, you have not yet reached your deepest soul, but some deeper sense of awareness of an ideal or a sense of I, which says, I want to be free. I want to be able to reshape my life the way I truly want and not be bound to compulsions of my limits or of Nature's limits. “When we thus draw back into the soul we find ourselves to be not the mind, but a mental being who stands behind the action of the embodied mind, not a mental and vital personality, – Personality is a composition of Nature, – but a mental Person”. So difference between person and personality: Personality is what Nature has formed in you which says I can only do this much, I cannot do that much, I like this, I don't like that; Person is the one who says, I am the one who will override all these likes and dislikes. I will freely choose and develop the capacities that I want to develop, nothing can stop me; Whatever Nature has given me is at best a starting point. It does not limit me or bind me in any way. I will be the creator of my own capacities, my own personality, my own destiny. You can take that poise of reasonably freed mental consciousness. Doesn't take much. All of us are capable of this with a little bit of effort. Will it last? To be seen. But if you don't make the effort you'll never get there. But when you make this effort to step back, you review your life and say, well what do I really want to do, what do I want to develop, how do I want to grow and you start taking steps; we are taking a poise in the mind at that point. We are not living in the vital, we are not living in the physical identification, but in an identification in the mental consciousness. And to that extent, we are still mental beings. But we feel so different from the vital and physical body that already there is a great freedom.

With a little more difficulty, we can even try to separate from the mind's tendencies and for this now he comes to three things. I'm going to read again. “But the sense of difference from mind is more difficult and less firmly distinct”. How do I differentiate from my own mind sense? Is it even possible? “But still it is there. It is characterised by any or all of three intuitions in which this mental Purusha lives and becomes by them aware of his own greater existence”. Now he will give you the method. As a mental being who's observing and says, I'm thinking or I have the power to change my thoughts, you are actually in some part of your mind free of the mind itself. It is there when he says it - the freedom is there, the part of mind separating. And it knows itself by three intuitions. Now this is going to be extremely important. So dwell on each of these three and I'm going to suggest these as a practice for you. You may find occasions in life where you have nothing particular to do, you're in a pensive mood and you can simply drift into one of these intuitions. Dwell on the first initially. From the first, the second will open more easily. From the second, the third will open more easily. But there are three intuitions by which automatically you will have this leaning back experience to free from the mind itself and open to something still deeper, which will bring you closer to the true soul.

But for now, we are mental beings with these three intuitions. Let's explore each. “First, he has the intuition of himself as someone observing the action of the mind”. You notice when there are things happening in your mind, you lean back. I am observing. “It is something which is going on in him and yet before him as an object of his regarding knowledge”. So the action of the mind is going on in me and yet it is in front of me. So I am as if behind and yet it's in me and yet it's in front of me. Hold this poise. As someone observing the action of the mind, just be aware that you are observing the action of the mind. You don't have to make a very great effort. You know, a lot of people say, become witness, try to observe your own thoughts, and then you keep falling back. That's the hard way. Remember, in the direct method, that's not how you're going to do it. Just simply notice that a part of you is aware that it's observing already. Become aware of that part. And just lean back more and more into it. No struggle needed. You see, the method of struggle is, okay, force yourself to stand back from your thoughts and observe. Now I'm tired, I slip back into my thinking. Again, force yourself. I get tired. That's the hard way. Instead, become aware there's a part in you that's already standing back. Simply turn attention to that part. Be more conscious of that part. And then as if lean back into it. And you find almost effortlessly, you lean back to a poise in which, ah, there is mind, thoughts happening, but I am not these. And just stay there. Interesting, but you're still in a mental quality of consciousness. “This self-awareness is the intuitive sense of the witness Purusha, sākṣī”. It's not yet the witness Purusha but it is the intuition of the witness Purusha and that's your link point.

Sraddhalu (1:07:20):

“Witness Purusha is a pure consciousness who watches Nature and sees it as an action reflected upon the consciousness and enlightened by that consciousness, but in itself other than it”. So you feel things are happening like a cinema reflecting in you. You're watching a movie, now you're immersed in this movie where you've called yourself by this name and identified with this personality but it's the movie light reflecting on you. But you are aware simply.

“To mental Purusha Nature is only an action, a complex action of discriminating and combining of thought, of will, of sense, of emotion, of temperament and character, of ego feeling which works upon a foundation of vital impulse, needs and cravings in the conditions imposed by the physical body. But it is not limited by them, since it can not only give them new direction… but it is able to act in thought and imagination”. I am skipping a few lines. But you see, it sees all this, you see all this, yes of course there's this creature but I have the freedom to act to change. This is the first intuition; work on this first. And as you can see, it's not difficult. It may need some practice to hold, to make more constant, to make more complete. But play with it frequently if you like several times in the day. If you're going to work, you're on your bicycle, your scooter or some vehicle, in a bus, you have time, you're looking around, take that poise. Observe yourself, observe all others, observe all nature, observe all universe and dwell in this. So this is the first intuition.

Next, the second: “But also there is an intuition in the mental Purusha of something larger and greater than this present action in which he lives, a range of experience of which it is only a frontal scheme or a narrow superficial selection”. So it's as if you have now become conscious there's a wider awareness of which this was the front, superficial front. That wider awareness is also a larger scheme. This was just the screen of the frontal part. So it's as if in your awareness you become conscious behind you, larger, leaning back into something still vaster. And you lean back and open to this. The sense of it may be vague. Remember it's an intuition. It's a vague sense. Ah yes, there is this greater thing. You can't define it. You can't place your hand on it. You cannot limit. You cannot grip it and say now I'm in it. It's as if you're opening to it and you stay like that because you're opening to a deeper and higher part of you. But it's already there as an intuition, as a capacity, as a link. Stay in this. And you notice this is a frontal scheme, this personality. Just to give an analogy, you've entered a store where you can buy or rent any movie or any video game. Hundreds of them, thousands of them. Which one will you choose? And those of us who watch online today, you can choose any movie. Literally thousands of movies available. You can search them by name, by topic, or just accept the suggestion which your movie provider gives to you. They will say, specially selected for you. And you're supposed to watch it, because they selected it for you. That's Nature playing the game. I created the most interesting movie for you, especially. Except if you stand back in the bigger picture, right now there are perhaps a million people who have been told exactly the same story, specially selected for you. They are all watching exactly the same movie, identified with the same character that you are now choosing to identify with. And then you realise, oh what a big trick has been played on me. I am not this. I am free of these. I can even choose to not watch a movie if I want or create my own movie. This opens you to a larger awareness of which this is superficial front. A whole reality is waiting.

“By this intuition he stands upon the threshold of a subliminal self with a more extended possibility than this superficial mentality opens to his self-knowledge”. What can I learn from movies? Very limited range of experience. What can I learn from actually climbing a mountain and going and exploring the forest or diving into the ocean or living my life? Wow, so much more. Cinema is just a superficial, two-dimensional, reduced experience. And it's something like that. My frontal personality is a tiny bit of all this subliminal self with more extended possibility and if you have habituated yourself a little bit to this intuition, the third intuition comes now, which you can have directly also but it's more complete when you go through the second. “A last and greatest intuition is an inner awareness of something which he more essentially is, something as high above mind as mind is above the physical life and body. This inner awareness is his intuition of his supramental and spiritual being”. You know you are not all this. You know you are something far more I don't know what that is because I can't experience it directly but I know there's far more, there's a whole universe, greater than the universe, something transcending anything I can conceive of as universe or space and time, and you sense it and you lean back resting on it. In the direct method this is all you need to do. But in the direct method, the experience can be intensified using the two means shraddha - faith and tapas, concentrated energy focus. So, if you take the first intuition with the faith and the concentrated energy, you stand back, disengage from all this. I am not all these. I am free to change all these. These are my instruments for growth, for learning, for awakening, even for enjoying. But I will choose … not to be subject to compulsions of nature and limitations. Second intuition, something deeper, wider, behind of which this is a front. And this subliminal, if you feel it, you open to it, and then the intensification of the tapas, you lean back as if with a light pressure, as if to want to open out, to deepen it, to expand and break out into it, hold that poise. And you'll find it's not difficult to hold it, you can be walking with eyes open while holding this poise and everything around you is as if opening out to some deeper perception of reality in the subliminal. Your own mind awareness opens out to the subliminal mind and something more and from this, the third greatest intuition something which he more essentially is, as high above mind as mind is above physical life and body. And you'll feel it, there's something far beyond, I have no way to describe but I know it is there, and I concentrate on it and open myself to it or gently push as if the boundary is opening to it. Start with the first, develop the second intuition and then deepen into the third. Over a few weeks, over a few months, over a few years, doesn't matter. But a little time every day.

Sraddhalu (1:15:49):
Now comes the problem, if you want to call it that. “The mental Purusha can at any time involve himself again in the superficial action from which he has drawn back, live for a while entirely identified with the mechanism of mind, life and body and absorbedly repeat its recurrent normal action. But once that separative movement has been made and lived in for some time, he can never be to himself quite what he was before”.  This is the key. Live in this for some time, after that you'll never be able to go back to what was before. Yes, you will still identify, you will still re-engage, but you will never be the same. You will never be so hypnotised. “The involution in the outer action becomes now only a recurrent self-oblivion from which there is a tendency in him to draw back again to himself and to pure self-experience”.

Do this again and again. It's one of the things you find little children get immersed in cinema or in video games. What happens to you as an adult? It's… far more interesting things to do in life. Yes, once in a while you enjoy immersing yourself in some character, learning, experiencing something else, but then you want to get back to your life because that is now accessible to you. It's more vivid, more real, more complete. There are other options once you disengage. You can also tend to withdraw, disengage completely and that would be the more ascetic release, but you could equally choose to use that poise by which to transform these instruments, to make them more complete, more perfect. So if our aim is to be not only free by self-detachment from nature, but perfected in mastery, then we have to regard our mental, vital, physical action of nature, find out the knots of its bondage, the losing points of liberation, discover the keys of imperfection and lay our finger on the key of perfection. That's the description of the work ahead. The problem though initially, the moment you step back and a little bit, you realise, you observe nature. Nature is this automatic machinery. Even your thoughts are an automatism, you realise. Your whole personality is moving automatically. You're observing this. Oh, now I know I'm going to get angry or it is going to get angry. Oh, now I know this fellow is going to react this way. Can I change it? Of course you can. And the moment you choose to, you can nudge, change a little bit.

You realise there's a determinism of nature habits, but you realise you have also freedom, but then you begin to struggle. You try to assert the freedom, Nature tries to bind you in her machine. When you realise when you are in identification with your mind, you have the illusion of freedom which is a reflection of that freedom. You think you're free, you're not. When you step back, you have a greater freedom, a truer freedom, but you still have grooves, nature binds you, sucks you, pulls you, somehow traps you into some mechanical patterns. So it's very interesting. Sri Aurobindo uses this very suggestive phrase, you can even stop your mind if you choose to, just simply by choosing to not engage. So you have to give sanction to engage to become identified, but beyond a point Nature does not allow you to get free either. So I'm going to read from this part: ”Yet the free will seems to be imperfect, almost illusory, since the actual will itself is a machinery of Nature, each separate willing determined by a stream of past action…”.. But he says, “What he contributed all the while was a consent behind, a sanction to what Nature was doing. He does not seem to be able to rule her entirely, but only choose between certain well-defined possibilities”. So you go to watch a movie, you look at the list, there are only four movies. So you have the illusion of choice of maybe 10 items or 40 items but finally it's an illusion of choice. You cannot say something completely different and the restaurant will give you what it wants. It doesn't work like that. So you cannot radically alter Nature and yet cannot freely affect the will within her present movement. And then he says, “There is a duality of dependence”. This is the fascinating idea - “her dependence on his consent”, that is Nature needs you to consent to participate to be able to trap you in that game, “and his dependence on her law and way and limits of action”. To exercise my freedom I have to operate within the limits that nature provides. Then he says “determination denied by a sense of free will”. So you are accepting but within you there's a sense of free will which is no but I cannot accept limitation and then “free will nullified by the actuality of natural determination”. So four steps. Nature needs you to consent. When you consent, Nature gives you a limited possibilities of freedom. But your free will does not accept limited possibilities. But your assertion of free will is neutralised by Nature saying this is all you can do, the actuality of determination. He is sure that she is his power, but yet he seems to be subject to her, but not absolute Lord.

Sraddhalu (1:22:34):
So the question is now, how can we get to become absolute Lord? Remember, mind is already a limiting function, where Nature is separated from soul. So you cannot have true Lordship. Where do you get true Lordship? You go one step higher into Supermind consciousness where the veil is not there and there you can freely will  into action whatever you choose not bound by Nature. You can still play with Nature but freely participating and freely modifying whenever you choose. So in order to enter into identity with a higher consciousness or with the Spirit where you have this freedom, well you have to rise in consciousness. Problem though is if you enter into this higher Supramental consciousness now, I concentrate and I merge myself into it, my ability to act has been shut down. I went into some kind of deep meditation. I come out, now I'm still in mind. How do you act by being immersed in spirit and yet be engaged with nature? The only way you can do it is where there is power of spirit to act with Nature and that is in Supermind. So you have to as if shift your grade or poise of consciousness into supermind, there you can live in freedom of spirit and engaged with Nature. This is the way ahead.

To find the way of rising to this greater poise and be self ruler, Swarat, is a condition of his perfection. So how do we ascend? How do we rise? And the problem of course is that there is a habitual ignorance and the means of rising is going to be to disentangle the habitual ignorance which prevents you, so to say, from becoming free to what you already are. And this is going to be now the next part of our discussion. What is this knot which binds us? What is this complex web of different interacting parts, energies, tendencies, grades of substance and consciousness, a complex nexus of mental, vital and physical being. The law of this nexus has been created for a definite and limited end and we have bounded it. The mental ego in a limiting body. So how are we going to disentangle this now? In order that our own consciousness can become sufficiently free that it can freely rise and take a higher station which is increasingly supramental where freedom of spirit can engage with Nature as its free power of action. So we are here. He says, there are two or three primary knots of the bondage - ego is the principal knot from which the others derive and these bonds must be got rid of by purification and the result of purification will be that it brings about liberation and liberation will bring about the perfection. So this is how the sequence that we are going to concentrate on should be: Shuddhi - purification, which will lead to mukti - liberation, which will then lead to the six perfections which we have already discussed.

Sraddhalu (1:26:05):

How this is to be done will be the theme for us next time. What is the nature of this purification and the conflict which binds us and why our witness poise of the mind is inadequate and what we can do from there and the exact process by which we can eventually recover our poise in the Satchitananda and live as conscious spirit in a conscious participation freely in this manifestation. That's going to be the next part of the scheme, which of course we have discussed some of this in the six perfections, so we won't really repeat that. But the intermediate transition between this, how we attain to this purification and liberation will be the theme in the next, probably we'll cover it over two sessions. Let me review now the shifts we have to make in correction.

First we are spirit and the nature of that spirit is Satchitananda. Mind, life and body are like a reduced reflection of Satchitananda with very limited divided workings in which your true consciousness is veiled behind by the working of Nature. Nature is separate from soul and so there is no true freedom. Supermind is still there acting now from behind the veil in these limitations. We have the capacity to be able to step back using the three intuitions. Work on these three intuitions, dwell on them, practice being in them. Practice living from at least the first more and more, which will open you to the second and then the third possibility. But generally as we are today, the first and the second are well within our reach without too much effort. The third is there as an intuition but you can't do too much about it. Yeah, it's there. But if you would dwelt on the first, the second is possible. It becomes like an experience of pushing, to widening, in a deeper subliminal mental awareness and as that happens the opening to the third intuition can be actually actively pushed in a kind of an ascent of consciousness. But start with the first which is the easiest and well within your reach to practise every day. And then remember the principle behind of the direct method, the Shraddha, the innate knowing and the concentration of Tapas, of effort, supported by the active help of the Divine Shakti, who is the originator of both of these within you, both the faith as well as the concentrated energy are Her working in you. So turning to Her, remembering Her in this concentration, in this effort, or opening to Her through this concentration and through this effort and allowing Her energy to fill you and sustain your effort and carry you into the fullness of the experience - this would be our immediate practice. I think here we have summarised the whole psychology of self-perfection and more deeply perceived our spiritual foundation which is always there, we have only to lean back more and more to it. I think we can take a few moments to hold this in our concentration and in a conscious aspiration, with an intention to put into practice every day, even if for a few minutes.

Sraddhalu (1:29:56):
Namaste and thank you.

[Alina] Thank you.

[Joel] Thank you.