EWS #126: Questions on Soul Relationships + General Q&A

August 27, 2022

Alina (0:00:40):

Namaste and good evening everyone. Welcome back to our continuing series, Evenings with Sraddhalu. Namaste Sraddhalu.

Sraddhalu (0:00:49):

Namaste and happy to be with all of you.

Alina (0:00:54):

We are happy to continue this series and today a very interesting subject and questions on soul relationships. We will take some questions that we receive from our viewers but we kindly invite you to address more questions related with our subject of today. I will start with [the] first question of Aditya: Do consider the topic of love and relationships, we would love to hear Sraddhalu speak about it.

Sraddhalu (0:01:30):

Yes. That was a very brief question. And in fact, in this series, Evenings with Sraddhalu, we have covered this topic in great detail in the episode numbers 17 to 27. I think, in all seven in the series, which eight, eight episodes in the series, which go in great detail on the question of human relationships, marriage, sex as related to the yoga and particularly in the context of the Integral Yoga. We have covered in depth issues of distinction between the ascetic paths and the affirmative path in relation, in the question of human relations, marriage and sex. We have also looked at the place of these in the yoga itself particularly in the context of the Integral Yoga. There is a lot of clarification made between. In the context of the letters of Sri Aurobindo, the bulk of these which insist on a very strict celibacy and one-pointed concentration, they were addressed in the 1930s to the sadhakas who had come to the Ashram already ready for a highly concentrated practice of the Integral Yoga. They did not apply to those who were living in the family life and outside the Ashram. Subsequently, let's say after 1945 or so, when large numbers of families came and settled in the Ashram and there was a larger, let's say, Ashram community, not all in a concentrated sadhana, then the context of those letters now has to be seen for those who are in that kind of an intense phase of sadhana and would not apply to everyone else. There we have to take the general approach of the Integral Yoga itself and then see the right place of human relationships, marriage, sex and other aspects in that stage of the Yoga and development. So I'm not going to take this up in detail now. The theme for today is very specific to soul relationships and while we will look at certain aspects which do overlap, but I would like today's discussion to be much more concentrated on this. But for all those of you who have not seen those episodes, I repeat, number 17 to number 24 of the evenings series please do look at them in detail for this and those have seen it also perhaps now when you review, you may see it, you may understand things differently also. So, I suppose that would be enough for Aditya's first question, and we'll go to his next.

Alina (0:4:18):

Aditya is asking, addressing second question: I would like to know your perspective on soulmates and meeting someone who changes who you are and ignites psychological, emotional and spiritual growth. What part does destiny or prarabdha play in it? For a long time I had an intuitive feeling that I will meet someone, what would be the best course of action?

Sraddhalu (0:04:47):
Unfortunately, sometimes the audio was broken when Alina was reading the question. So I'll re-read the parts of it where he says: I would like to know your perspective on soulmates and meeting someone who changes you, who you are and ignites psychologically, emotional and spiritual growth. What part does destiny or prarabdha play in it?

So, first, I will make the distinction between soul relationship, because you have used the word ‘soulmate’, as distinct from other relationships and including some element of overlap. In the question itself, the phrasing of ‘igniting psychological, emotional and spiritual growth’ seems to have this feel of a stronger vital attraction or enthusiasm or excitation or elevation, even a kind of a vital uplift would still be vital and need not be soul relation, could be if there is some overlap, so we have to be able to distinguish between these two things.

As it is from the way the question is worded, it seems to be much more the need for a companionship which gives you a lift energetically and brings an enthusiasm and joy into the life. That seems to be the broad direction. And yes, first we recognise that in the context of the yoga and particularly in the Integral Yoga, being alone is not necessary and is even in a certain way unhealthy, because one can easily get lost in one's own kinds of psychological creations, mental formations or stay in a very fragile stage of development in some part and not have other parts engaged with life and not being provoked even to be challenged so that you may be aware that those parts are not developed. So, it is necessarily a part of the Integral Yoga that we continue engagement with life in general to some limited degree, to some degree of modulation and control that we are not invaded. But engagement, interaction is kept. And you will see in the way Sri Aurobindo designed his Ashram, that interface does continue even today, although now whatever boundaries for protection where there have been dramatically damaged because of huge influx of tourists which come and spread in between the buildings of the Ashram and bring in a very clouded energy. Nevertheless, in the Ashram life, there is an interface still with the general life outside, but with a certain controlled focus. And we understand why. We don't want to be overwhelmed or dispersed. So this I would put as a first observation that yes, some interaction is necessary.

Sraddhalu (0:7:50):

Isolation would be, could be relevant at a certain stage in a certain phase of intense yoga but even then one would re-engage with life eventually to be able to bring that into the full expression in the transformation of life itself. And therefore, being alone, which is very highly valued in the ascetic paths, where the goals are to cut off connections, the goal is to cut off emotions and ties of emotions so that you may pull out and withdraw. That does not apply to the context of the Integral Yoga. And even the reverse is true. The reverse being that whatever you have in your deeper and higher experience of closeness with the Divine, the joy, the love, the closeness, the intimacy, all these should, I will use the word ‘blow out’, express through your emotions, through your thoughts, through your actions, in your relationships with all. This would be a general observation first.

But right now the questioner is concerned with a special kind of a relationship and we will have to look at that in greater detail. But again I'm going to keep this emphasis on the soul relation and the other things only to the extent they overlap. We have to be very careful about the mixture first. Sri Aurobindo warns about this in many of his letters that there's actually a letter where this phrase “twin soul” is used and he says in the letter itself that it looks like in your question that what you're looking for is more like a cover for perhaps a sexual interest or some other emotional interest which then you would, onto which you would put the cover of a soul relation. One has to be very careful, at least within ourselves, whatever we may do to deceive others, never deceive yourself, because it does not help. It only delays your progress. And never attempt to deceive the Divine, because you can't. You only end up deceiving yourself. So to yourself, you can be honest, ‘okay, this is what I'm doing, I'm using this as a cover’, face it. And then whatever you may do in your relations with people, put up a front, secondary, not important. If you can, not do that, that's good. But if you need to for societal purposes, maintain a certain appearance, it's not of importance now. Be clear within yourself where there's a mixture and typically when we feel a strong need or a pull or a yearning or a missing or a lacking, be sure there's a heavy mixture. Because all these characteristics of missing, lacking, yearning, struggling all relate to life-energies, emotions and the vital nature.

Now the word ‘vital’, and we have discussed this a little bit in the series which we referred to earlier. The word ‘vital’ is a lot misused or misunderstood in the context of the Integral Yoga because Sri Aurobindo in many letters uses that word to generally describe problems of sexual, emotional and conflicting jealousies, anger, tendencies, and so on. So vital has been associated with negative. No. Vital is life energy, generally speaking. It is meant to be purified and raised, enlarged, intensified as an enthusiastic servant in service to the Divine in the manifestation of life. Without the vital you will be ineffective, you will be a failure in any creation or manifestation. So vital is a good thing. Unregenerated, unrefined, coarse, restless, rebellious vital is a problem like an untamed wild horse. The same horse now tamed, refined, elevated, strengthened, enlarged, wide, vast, vital energy becomes an extraordinary instrument for the divine work. And Mother makes this comment in regard to certain people in the Ashram saying, I wish his frame was stronger, she could have done much more work through them. And so, vital is not a problem. it's the unpurified unregenerated, unorganised, and so on, vital which is a problem, and the same would apply for the mind.

Sraddhalu (0:12:21):

So, we recognise the importance of this vital and the enthusiasm it can bring into your life, and the energy it can bring in any activity. But when it is a restlessness, drive, lack, compulsion of the vital which comes in this way, be careful to distinguish from soul relation. Recognise, yes, you have a need for some kind of companionship, you feel lonely, you feel called for something or rather you want to be in a relationship. Fine. But soul would still be different. And so, we need to be very clear about this.

What does it mean and what will be the relationship between these two: I will come to shortly, but first one more clarification.

Because in this term ‘soulmate’, there are particularly today many confused ideas relating to this. There's a phrase called ‘twin flame’, ‘twin soul’, ‘complementary soul’, ‘soulmate’, etc., are very loosely used in new-age literature. Some of them drawing upon certain, I would use the word ‘primitive ideas or traditions’ but which are treated as wisdom traditions, they are not necessarily wisdom, they are just cultures and traditions of a certain type relevant to a certain period but may not represent a high spiritual truth where these ideas are presented. And one of the stories they will present is: well, human beings came as one soul and they were split into half and then they were made to chase each other and that's how they were kept apart and humanity was made to move. This idea that there is a kind of a half split and you are one half that needs to find the other half, Sri Aurobindo points to it in one of his letters and describes it as a dangerous idea. And I want to make the distinction between these distortions and what we will discuss as true soul relationships. So, if you look up, and I just looked at on the Internet ‘twin flame’, and the first thing which came which was promoted by Google and therefore would be generally representative, let's say, of a whole lot of thinking, is, describes it in thus:^[1] a twin flame is an intense soul connection with someone thought to be a person's other half, sometimes called a ‘mirror soul’. It's based on the idea that sometimes one soul gets split into two bodies.

So, first of all, this does not happen. Ok? This is new-age confusion. When it describes, watch carefully, watch the wording: intense soul connection with someone thought to be someone's other half. Ok? Now watch the vocabulary of the person explaining this. And I don't know who the writer is. But I think, it's a she. She says, one of the main characteristics of twin flame relationship that it will be both challenging and healing because there's a mirror nature, it will bring out your deepest insecurities. And then she lists 11 signs. I will just read fragments from that:^[2] When you met, there was instant recognition. It's like coming home, you feel familiar, there's an intense bond. Notice the characteristics here: Recognition, attraction, longing, intense. These are four words used. All these belong to a vital characteristic. They are not of soul characteristic. Second, you are very similar. You have common values, past experiences, interests, lot of coincidences of similar experience. Again they all describe external characteristics of your nature, not soul. Third, you complement each other. And you will find ying-yang, vice-versa, complementing, because you are flame mirrors and your relationship highlights your shadows, etc. Again all these describe external characteristics of your nature not true soul. Ok? Fourth, your insecurities and doubts are amplified, so your deepest insecurities get exaggerated when you are with your twin. Again all these insecurities relate to very crude vital external formations. They are not the soul. Soul does not have insecurity. They feel magnetic. Number five, they feel magnetic. Again the attraction and magnetism is always of a vital character. Anytime you experience a strong magnetic pull, push, etc., it is a description of the vital energies, attraction, repulsion, not of the soul which is not felt as magnetic. Number six, the relationship is tumultuous. You're confronted with yourself, incredibly challenging, it's facilitating major growth for you, you're confronting yourself. Again this collision is not soul characteristics. Tumultuous is typical of vital relationships where there's a strong attraction in one part but dissimilarity in other parts. So you're bound together and the other parts collide and clash and so Sri Aurobindo describes this as two egos tied on a leash. You see if you put two egos tied with string in between and kept them together, you can imagine, well they're bound together by the attraction, but then they keep colliding. This is how he describes it in Savitri.

Sraddhalu (0:18:00):

By the way, there's actually a very interesting example of a couple that tied themselves by a rope. I don't know how many, 6 feet or 12 feet it was, and they challenged themselves to last one year. They were married, they were happily in love. At the end of one year, they were severely, violently divorced. They were so fed up with each other. But that's generally what happens. Ok. Number 7: relationship is very intense. And they describe this as: you are connected at a soul level, you feel things deeper together which makes for more intensity and passion. Again, it's all description of vital. And the other characteristics, you keep coming back together. Back together, because you can't escape. And then he says: your connection feels divine. And by divine they mean: it feels like you've been brought together by a higher power, there's a strong bond and maybe karmic relationships. Not soul again. You have the number 10: you have an almost psychic connection. So there's a kind of a sensing each other's emotions and thoughts, telepathic I would say. It's not psychic in the true sense of the word that Sri Aurobindo uses the word, but that's a vocabulary difference. And then they push you to do better. Again, and the description is expansive relationship can be vital. The push is again a description of the vital.

Now all of this is just to show you that there's a lot of literature out there which promote this kind of idea that you are, you have another half and that you have to be chasing that other half. And I want to particularly separate from this distortion. No, there is no such half.

A soul is complete in itself. To the extent it is not complete, it is only because it is separate or feels itself not close enough to the fullness of its divine origin and the growth to its completion by the closeness of that contact is its evolution really. So still it is always all possibility, ananta guna, all quality, held in potential and working to unfold itself like a flower unfolding petals. And so, there is never in the soul any sense of a lack or a need for someone else or something else to complete it. These experiences do not belong to the soul consciousness, they belong only in the vital, mental or other superficial parts of our ego nature.

So this distinction having been made, I will then now proceed to the proper discussion on the, for the theme itself, for which first we will make a distinction of the word 'soul’. In the way as we saw in the article, the word 'soul' is used. It's very superficial, it's vital, emotional, mishmash of various parts of our nature. Sri Aurobindo uses a vocabulary which is very precise because as soon as you get into deeper experiences you need words to distinguish. He speaks of three souls. There is the outer desire soul, which is what you say ‘I’-’am’. I am conscious, I am happy, I am unhappy, and most of the text what we read about twin flames relates to this part. It's the ego centre, and Sri Aurobindo calls it desire soul.

Soul in English language would be simply any focal point of identity. So here it is a ‘desire’ focal point, and you will see this very interestingly in the way you introduce yourself or the way you introduce another person. Let's say, I ask you to introduce yourself to somebody or introduce your friend to someone, you will say, so and so, you start with a name, is named so and so, likes this, likes that, does not like this, does not like that, does this, does that, does not do this, does not do that. You will see the description of yourself. And try it out as an experiment. How would you introduce yourself? A description will be largely a cluster of likes and dislikes, desires and repulsions. We define ourselves by this sense of what we like or don't like. Isn’t it? And that's why Sri Aurobindo refers to this as the desire soul, because it knows itself only in terms of its desires. The deeper part of you which we don't normally live in but we are aware of and occasionally turn to is this part where you turn and say, I wish people could truly understand me. In other words, what people see of me is not me, somewhere within me is this part where only my best friend of so many years can understand. Notice that part. Now try to describe this truly-you part and you'll notice there in describing you will say things like, I am very creative, loving, caring person, I like everyone to be happy, I like things to be beautiful, I am sensitive, etc., and all of us you will find in that part we will only use positive words. There you will never have a negative description interestingly. But then you will notice because I am sensitive, because I am loving, I get upset when things do not go the way they should. And here comes the separation between these two layers. This core that I feel myself which is all positivity only is contrasted by my reactive surface nature which is precisely because I am sensitive, the reactions are stronger. I get angry when things are not beautifully arranged. I get hurt when somebody misunderstands or criticises because I am sensitive, and so I react. So this surface part we distinguish from our deeper part, and in that surface part is also the desire soul largely, and this deeper part we rarely live in or we don't go deep enough even into that. We have a superficial part of a sensitive emotional centre which is all we consider to be ourselves, but actually you could go still deeper. The moment you find some negativity there, just go deeper. You will come to a point where there is no negative at all and you can actually say, deep inside I am always content, I am never unhappy. Even when I get swayed here, there's this deep part where I'm content. This Sri Aurobindo refers to as the inner soul. It is still you have in your personality, but it's a reflection of the true soul. It's not yet the true soul. But this is as far as we are able to go in our deepest normal introspections in normal life. If now you go still deeper, and deeper, and deeper, and deeper, there's a pretty deep passage where eventually there comes a point where you actually are not aware of things outside anymore, where your sense of even time becomes very different and your sense of form fades away and there's a point where you actually touch something which is so essential as to be free of form and it is in that essentiality of yourself that you experience yourself as eternal, as immortal. But also in an utter stillness is a sacred presence and that would be your true soul, your psychic being. So Sri Aurobindo uses this phrase true soul as distinct from the false desire soul and the inner soul but this true soul is also he uses the word “psychic being” to distinguish from everything else. In this part, you do not experience any kind of fear or all the other dramatic elements. The characteristic of this is an utter purity and stillness. It is literally a part of the divine consciousness. Itself is substantially divine. It is substance of divinity, and therefore nothing which is undivine or contrary to the divine can be felt or experienced there. Rather its presence automatically purifies, elevates, brings light into whatever it touches, whatever it is able to fill because of its divine character. Whatever it touches, it turns to in remembrance of the divine spontaneously, effortlessly because it is radiating that all the time. This would be the true soul and you can now recognise that relationships from this poise would necessarily be very different because here there is no lack, there is no need, there is no compulsion, there is no excitation, there's no disturbance, there's no reaction. It knows itself utterly secure because [of a] part of the divine and immortal. There's nothing can that can affect it. You could destroy the whole personality, the body. Okay, I will take another birth. And when it turns to the world, its basic relationship is its closeness and intimacy with the Divine. It sees the whole world as a playground of the Divine, self-discovery and creative discovery, creation, manifestation, delight of the play. And therefore, its relationships also with other things and people would be from that characteristic. Its relationship with other souls therefore also would be based on that.

Sraddhalu (0:28:23):

Now the moment we have come to this kind of a very different quality of being, of consciousness, and there is no sense of urgency of time other than as a reflection of a superficiality on a superficial level because well there is a work to be done but there is a sense of eternity which is never lost. So you meet somebody, and if it is actually a soul connection, you would recognise, ah-yes, interesting, we have met before. But there would be no compulsion of any kind, there would not be that kind of a excitation of a magnetic attraction. There would be a recognition and a joy of recognition. As you have a joy of recognition when you meet a long-lost friend, of childhood friend, oh-wow wonderful, but there is no compulsion at that point. This is very important to distinguish. There is no agitation of any kind. There may even be a recognition that, ah-yes this is somebody that I have known before and we have worked together. Even to that extent it could come, but then after that there is no compulsion that this should happen here again. You're not here to repeat what happened in the past relationships. So from the soul's point of view, the social, emotional, superficial, personality relationships were, so to say, roles that we played.

And I will give an analogy here. If you are part of the theatre cast and we have played a role where I was, we'll take real life situations, I was the parent and you were the child. In that play, now we do a new play. Does it matter what we played last time? And rather we would look for a different kind of relationship even now, isn't it? So this time I'm going to be the thief and you will be the police that's going to chase me. Perhaps, we'll enjoy a different kind of relationship of excitement of discovery from a soul's point of view. But this is to say that there is no compulsion of past human kind of relationships which needs to repeat.

So there's a question in the chat box from Nabanita: Do we or can we meet the same souls as parents or spouse or children or siblings in our next birth? Perhaps you can, but you don't need to. From the soul's point of view, it actually would not matter. From the soul's point of view, even if you could recognise, the other may not recognize, isn't it?

So I'm just going to step back from this before we go further. To be able to recognise another soul as soul or past relation of soul, you must have something within you of the strong soul influence. In the absence of that what would be your basis for even saying that ha-yes, there is a soul connection. If we use the very loose vocabulary of soul as we read in that article, then you will see any kind of affinity or closeness of emotions or of temperament or nature which is what these are, you feel, oh I feel like I have known you all my life. And it can come just from a superficial affinity of nature. So when you go to a club which has similar interests as you, whatever your artistic, technical, scientific or other hobbies might be, you go to a club and you meet people of exactly the same thing, you have this excitement of yes, oh I feel like I have come home. That's all it is. It need not have any soul component. It may also happen that there is a soul component mixed in with this, and you wouldn't be able to distinguish unless you have already had some influence of the soul's aspiration of the psychic closeness to the divine infusing into you from that deeper source. If that has been strong in you and has been already guiding your life in a way, then you may recognise certain vibrations of that grade but still you have to be clear that you're distinguishing that grade from the other things or the reactions in your emotions when you feel that something of that grade and your emotions say, oh-wow. That's a different thing. Do not mix the two. From the soul's point of view it can be, ah-yes I've been waiting for this. Perhaps. Need not be. Or, you recall, I had spoken of this person Tapasviji Maharaj, the book of this man who lived for 185 years, in two or three sessions ago. In his own incarnation, his Mother had passed on. At some point in his life, he meets a woman who he recognises as his Mother. And interestingly, as it turns out in the life, she is now a child. She does not have a conscious recognition of him, but circumstances work themselves out in a way that she brings some food for him every now and then while he is in that village and then he moves on and that's it. He could recognise, but she could not. But, and yet, there was some deeper thing and circumstances arranged themselves that there was this brief momentary contact and then you move on. Had she been more awake, perhaps there would have been a recognition and perhaps saying, “oh this person, I think, I need to know more, I need to learn from him”, if there was a spiritual aspiration. If there was not, it would just be, oh-yes it was such a wonderful person, I still remember. For the rest of her life she will say, I remember once I met that man and somehow I've never forgotten him. That's it. Nothing more. Because the whole personality is in a very different direction. Had she had a strong spiritual turn, she might have just said, oh-yes I feel in you somebody that I feel can teach me a lot. But that's about it.

Sraddhalu (0:34:48):

I am pointing this out to show you that the social values and relationships mean nothing from the soul's point of view. There is a very popular book called Many Lives and Many Masters. I have not really read that in the whole, but in the pages that I flipped through, there were series of, under hypnotic regression, many kinds of relationships going back, many-many-many-many lives, repeatedly coming in various ways between these two. It is possible, but it is extremely rare that two souls would continue to come again and again. Very very rare. And if it, if it did happen, there would be a strong sense of a spiritual purpose for which they would need to meet. It would not be casual, oh-yes, we were husband and wife, now next life you are brother-sister, next life you're someone else. It doesn't just continue meaninglessly like this unless there was a specific sense of a purpose in a spiritual quest, which also would not be binding because the soul is infinite quality in eternity of time. And so there will be periods of close contact, perhaps for some reason, and then when that is over, it may go on and then meet again briefly, momentarily and move on.

What matters, and we must be very careful about this, what matters is the relationships we choose to build today. What we had in past does not matter. What matters is today.

There were so many in the Ashram that Mother recognised as having been part of her team, some of them intensely close. There was even a child that she recognised as being her son in an Egyptian incarnation and he was a king and looking at him she said there was something so extraordinary about him, it was as if a part of Sri Aurobindo's consciousness had entered as an emanation. That's it. The child left, never came back. End of story practically.

Unless there is a recognition on the other side and a spiritual purpose, any form of artificial repetition for the soul would be a binding and a limitation. And that's why the soul has consciously removed the memory of past lives so that it can be free in new forging, new relationships and experiences.

So we have to be very careful from the soul's point of view. There will never be this kind of a compulsion. There may be recognitions, and of course one can never say, it will not be like that. Of course, it can be that sometimes a soul may recognise for a work.

Ramakrishna Paramahansa when he first saw Swami Vivekananda, he exclaimed, “ah you have come at last, I've been waiting for you”. And Swami Vivekananda, at that time his name was Narendra, he says, I don't know what you're talking about. He goes away. He is a disbeliever. He goes away. And then he is called back somehow, he is compelled, something compels him to come back to this man. He comes, he listens and he feels overwhelmed with something and then he turns away and he starts questioning, is it true? He asks Ramakrishna, is it true what you say about Kali. He says, yes, go ahead, you go and speak to Kali in the temple and ask her what you want. He goes, he has a darshan, he comes back and he says, did you ask him? No, I forgot. When I looked at her, I forgot. You know, so he is provoking, cutting through as if the surface layers of personality to help him to awaken to his spiritual purpose. You see how much work was required there, even though there was one-sided soul recognition. Of course, on the inner level, Narendra, Swami Vivekananda's soul also recognised, that's why he could, he was compelled to come back again and again, but the surface personalities were different. And if it was not for a spiritual mission, then he might not have taken the trouble even to cut through that surface and bring him forward.

There were people in the Ashram. There was one lady who was, when she came to the Mother, Mother said to her first, oh you have come back so soon. And then after a few weeks, a few months, I think, she called that lady and gave her a painting of a French lady, and Mother said, she used to be her friend in the past incarnation, she had died during childbirth, and now her soul had come to meet her again. Mother recognised her, gave her the painting which Mother had made of her in that incarnation. That was Maggie Leachy.

But was there the same level of awakening of recognition? Well, from the soul perhaps, but not in the personality. No memory in the personality. And if Mother had not said it, she would not have known.

And so, these are already exceptional cases, because the Mother was, so to say, drawing these souls back for the purpose of the work.

But among us, for example, who are drawn to this path, this Yoga, there may be affinities: we have met before, we have worked together before, we meet, but relationships can be completely different because personalities are different. We have evolved also in our journey, and every time it's a new experience.

So all this is to say, while there may be past connections, it's better not to focus on that. Rather see what is the nature of the purpose this time and to what extent as all of us, as a spiritual family of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, we can nourish each other, help each other, and that's all that will matter from the soul's point of view. Everything else may be interesting for the surface personality, may be useful, helpful. Yes sure. But from the soul's point of view that's all that will matter.

So recognising the true nature of the true soul, the nature of soul relationships, we understand better.

Sraddhalu (0:40:50):

And into this is a further complexity.

Mother speaks of sometimes groups of souls that incarnate. And she said that, I think, it was in the year 1967 that a special group of souls had come for her work.

Now in, because I was born in that year, in my journey through the school years, I used to have this experience once in a while, every now and then, ‘oh this is somebody I have known before’, just like that. I would note, I would say, okay, so what? And in time over the years, I have seen how these things actually work. It does not mean anything on a superficial level. Sometimes those people have, as they've been turned to their Mother momentarily and then kind of wandered off and kept a half-open relation and that's about it. Others have had a vivid sense of purpose but then knots in the surface personality have created complexities that create other kinds of trouble and confusion and perhaps there is not the sense of purpose of the spiritual quest which might have been, let's say, in a previous incarnation when they had direct contact with the Mother physically. It means nothing in practice unless one chooses to turn to a higher soul value and even then socially and otherwise it may or may not have any value.

So this is just to give you a sense of the complexity that there can be a group incarnation that certain souls say: here, this is an opportune moment, let's go for this work. When they do meet in life, they will find certain affinities, certain alignments in their work although they may be completely different in work spaces, of completely different interests, but there will be this one common aspect of the affinity for that higher ideal.

Something like that happened when there was the struggle for India's independence. Large numbers of inspired, let's say, beings came for that purpose and concentrated for that common purpose, they worked in their own spaces but with this alignment. So things like that can happen also, there can be groups of souls, they could be in different parts of the world, they may never meet in their lifetime but still they might be aligned in the common sense of purpose. If they do meet, they may say, ‘oh-yes, that's interesting, there's a very interesting affinity’, and move on and never meet again. So, from the soul's point of view, it would not matter much. Ok?

So, by giving these examples, I'm also hopefully freeing you from that sense that when you meet someone, it will ignite you psychologically, emotionally or in your spiritual growth. In the soul relationship, no. That element won't be there in that way at least. At best there will be a recognition, oh yeah, we are supposed to work together. But all the rest of those things, igniting may happen in the surface personality parts but not in the soul. But that could happen without the soul affinity also.

If I had to give an example of how the soul relationship would be, I am going to draw an analogy only, and remember it's only an analogy. Let's say, you're fed up with your family, friends circle, you've been with them so long, now you want to go for a holiday. What do you look for when you have a holiday? You want to go to a space where you don't know anybody and nobody knows you. And there you hope to discover maybe new friends, new experiences, new kinds of learning and growth, which is completely different from what you have now. Isn't it?

So a soul can choose that.

For a lifetime it may say, I want this very different life experience, and enters something totally different. And in that, even if there is a familiar face that comes up, you've gone on a holiday to this place where nobody knows you, and suddenly you discover somebody that you had met 20 years ago or who used to be a friend 20 years ago and say, what are you doing here? Oh, I've also come for the holiday. Wow, let's have a good time together. We meet for a few days. We go. Let's keep in touch. That's it. No more contact. That can happen in your life also. That the soul has chosen a particular direction and suddenly there is a surprise of discovering a familiar face and you say, ha, that's interesting. But unless there is a particular alignment for the purpose of the work and that's all it might be. Even if there is alignment for the work, you may still separate and continue independently your common work at the soul level. Does not matter.

Sraddhalu (0:45:44):

So the kinds of variations that happen in the experience, the only thread from the soul's point of view will be the continuity of the aspiration for the divine. And if that was there, if that was shared, or if that was what brought you in certain circumstances, those lives would be of value to the extent that part grew. Otherwise, we actually have entire lives where we have gone on a holiday, we have actually forgotten our spiritual evolution, been lost in some other kind of an experience and then said, okay, now I am done with that, I need to refocus. And again, a series of lives of refocusing or a series of life of wandering, of loss, of forgetfulness, or just playing out with new possibilities. From the soul's point of view, you have eternity before you. But then this time happens, let's say the last two or three hundred years, there's a build-up taking place and the soul senses, wow, there's a huge evolutionary tidal wave that's building up. I need to ride this one. I need to make the most of this opportunity. So we have been through, I will say for the last two or three thousand years, through various kinds of sometimes wandering experiences, sometimes very focused experiences and then now we say, hey there is a big thing coming up, let's build up for this. And suddenly all these souls who were now on their holidays realign and come into a special focused purpose. And that's what you're seeing now. Numbers are not important. The deeper spiritual sense of purpose is all that matters.

I would like to suggest as an example of a good book in which you get the sense of the soul's journey and perspective across lives, there's actually one book that I would highly recommend. It is by Dina Meriam which is called My Journey Through Time and you will find it available on Amazon both in India and in the US. It's been also translated into Hindi. You might find that also on somewhere online. When she was at the age of about, I think 18 or so, she began to have flashbacks of her immediate past life. At first she thought that she was going crazy, but then subsequently she actually went to that place. They were in Russia, so she went to those places. She recognised certain streets, but could not find the houses that she had, some things she did find. And so she at least understood that she was not going crazy, but bit by bit other memories began to come. When I first met her, in some of the first few occasions, she narrated to me these incidents and these memories. And the characteristic of that was so distinct. In the memory itself, you had the feel of the psychic memory. And the Mother explains that the soul does not retain details of lives It only retains the essence which is its nourishment and that has always to do with the things which fed its spiritual aspiration and spiritual growth. All other things social and otherwise incidental or only relevant to the extent they aligned to the spiritual growth. So let's say you could be a wonderful musician in a certain life, all of it would be shed with the personality unless through that music and in that music there was the spiritual turn of aspiration. And to the extent that the music nourished it or was made a vehicle for it, either to seek the divine or to manifest the divine, to that extent and that part of that musical training would remain in the soul's personality and the soul builds its personality by such accumulated capacities and skills of consciousness, not necessarily fingers. Although elements of that, if they were also turned to the divine, might come in. And to the extent they have come in in the next life, you might find, oh I have a natural skill for that musical instrument or that kind of music I feel somehow hauntingly familiar. It's as if I know it. And yet in this personality there might be little interest other than that part-time hobby. The whole focus might be completely different because the soul has chosen a personality or a purpose of a different kind of development. So parents often make the mistake of saying, oh you are, you have a prodigy, you are a prodigy, you have a skill for music, now you must spend your whole life doing that. No, the soul perhaps chose a different line. And you need to recognise what it has truly chosen and not force the child, even if you tried you couldn't, eventually the soul will force the change. But this is to say that yes one could one will carry certain elements of the memory but only limited to that part where the aspiration awoke. Mother even gives this example sometimes it is for a few days when the soul came in front for a particularly challenging situation and that's all that remained in the memory of that entire life. Interesting isn't it? See, imagine how much time we would have wasted if we had not brought that consciously into the life journey. And so when Dina was narrating some of these incidents I recognised all these patterns so distinctly and there was one life she said the only thing she remembered of that life and it was somewhere in England she said there was a hermit who was in a hut and she would go and bring food to him every day and that was it. That's the only thing remembered from that life and the feel, the vibe, of that whole consecrated life in service to the divine that every day you went and gave that food and it was service to the divine, that's it. that's all from that entire life, no name, no face, no other details, nothing else mattered she had children, perhaps she had this, she had that, struggles, relationships, problems, nothing from the soul's point of view. And other lives where there were some some pretty vivid elements and especially some of the more recent ones. But what is interesting is when she began to write of these experiences as she was writing them for her book, it was as if she tuned in into that time and period and as if leaning into the memory of the cosmic Akashic records, details of the images began to come. Now those parts were not so much the soul memories but rather the soul's ability to access a time and recall details, but which are not carried here. And so the book itself is a fascinating narrative with those kinds of details. But what you see in the book is complex weavings of interconnections, appearing and disappearing. For example, there's some person who used to be her husband in a particular life, and then in this life he comes briefly. They meet briefly for a particular project for a few days or weeks, then he goes and that's it, never again. And yet one life you would have dedicated an entire life to be together, working together and so on. But from the soul's point of view, unless there was a spiritual component to it and even if there was that, what is its relevance today, that's all that would matter for its spiritual evolution. And so you get a hint of this and it's quite fascinating how the soul personality is formed and this is the part for us more important. Through all these it's as if the essence is absorbed from these experiences and a soul personality is formed which is then infused into the next life and infused into the next, and infused into the next. And so it is this which is truly you and your true personality and not the surface nature. And those would be the deepest aspirations and drives and tendencies of your spiritual personality, we will say, the soul personality, which then infuse into the surface nature and personalities and tendencies and give to it its higher and deeper turn and make for the truth of your life's journey in this incarnation. And so in that book what is interesting is because of this pretty much continuity of recall across many lives with very few gaps and these influences coming and sometimes forming the personality and even influencing the nature of the work today you see the threads, you see those connections. That's why I value this book so much because you get really a sense of the complexity of how the soul journeys in the weavings of these interconnections and brief contacts and sometimes parallel work and drifting apart and so on. I would highly recommend this for those of you who would really want to have a deeper sense of this, but it's also a wonderful book as a narrative sometimes very deeply moving, it brings you to, moves you so deeply and very inspiring.

Sraddhalu (0:54:56):

So all this is to give you a deeper sense of soul relationships and how they work out and I come back now to Aditya's question: What part does destiny or prarabdha play in it? Now prarabdha is a term used to describe, Sanskrit word it is, ‘pra’-’arabdha', that which is begun before. So typically used to describe karmic consequences or tendencies or trends of work initiated in the past which have a force of continuity. And destiny is a more abstract thing. Somehow it's destined, somehow it's decided by who, by what, we don't quite know. Maybe your soul, self, God, something. But it's just there, it has to happen so it will happen. And the prarabdha is more things begun by you. But the idea is, are there some compulsions of these kinds that would bring you in touch with other souls? So now I'm going to drop the term soulmate. That's very specific and still that happens. It is very-very-very rare. It still happens though. When there is a very specific work required for which the souls have chosen to work together for that purpose, that could be called a soulmate, where you are intended to meet because you have chosen to work together for that purpose. And it won't be a business deal, it will not be a project of some social kind, it will have to be of a spiritual character of the work. So you could say, in that sense, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother were, well, destined to meet, but those as I said are very rare.

So what part does destiny-prarabdha play? Little. Yes, there are karmic compulsions sometimes which bring us together and sometimes certain karmic trends are as if worked out or modified, and if they do, again they are not really soul compulsions. They are rather karmic compulsions, isn't it? So a soul's choice would be very different from a karmic compulsion. And karmic compulsions can be both negative and positive, but when they do come up, you do have a sense that, okay, there's something here, but the moment that is finished, the whole thing just dissolves. But more importantly, and this goes back to a discussion we have had in one of the very early sessions of the evening series, karma is not mathematical, it is not a compulsion. To a great extent it can be neutralised, overcome, modified, dissolved by the soul's action. Remember karma as a machinery, karma as a mathematical measure of sums of forces and quantities exist only in Buddhism and Jainism, where soul, God etc have been removed and with it the freedom of the soul or the Self and the divine have vanished and so you have as if a mathematical machinery left because everything else does not have freedom, isn't it? All freedom comes from the souls or the spiritual consciousness which is the only thing which is totally free and in its unfolding through rhythms and especially rhythms which get more concretised and materialised there is the compulsion, almost a mechanism. To that extent we see so-called karmic tendencies but they are always in the lower ranges, they always act on superficial levels. Souls are rarely bound by karma. To the extent that a person may commit a great harm or treachery, yes there may be a certain component of karma on the soul's level. But the bulk of the machinery of karma is not at the level of the soul, it is on the, well, machinery level, whereas soul is freedom.

So I would say to the extent the word destiny might still come in to the extent that destiny is the free choice of the soul, of the Self, yes, that might come into the play, but karmic compulsions rarely or even if they do, they are momentary and limited to that particular exhaustion of a certain tendency and they can easily be overridden by conscious raising of consciousness and application of a positive energy to the same circumstance. You are not compelled from a soul's point of view. But yes, destiny, if a soul chooses ‘this is what I want to do’ and works towards it and maybe if there's a collective choice of two or more, like we said, a group of souls also working, we come for this work, we work in different parts of the world, sometimes we meet, sometimes we don't. But we are working for the same thing. To that extent, yes, there may be an element of destiny, which is nothing but the free choice of the soul, finally.

So now I come to the last part of his question, where he says, For a long time I have had an intuitive feeling that I will meet someone. Possible. I don't know the specifics. You will meet not just someone, you may meet many people. But you mean by someone, someone special with whom you will have a deep affinity and closeness, yes, it's possible. Whether it is soul or not, cannot say. It could be. It might not be. If there is a soul affinity, it need not be that you will have emotional or vital affinities and you may still be at a level of soul friendship with being completely different on other social levels or there may be other elements of vital entanglements or not, it's entirely open. So the question ends with what would be the best course of action? To that part I'm going to answer a little later because we will link it with another larger discussion from another questioner that will come a little later. So I'm going to hold this part of the question. We can go to the next.

Alina (1:00:56):
John is asking, can we create contracts with other psychic beings that are very brief in nature like a teacher-student relationship or a co-worker that complete a project together or brief encounter with someone that you keep in contact with very seldomly but when you do it is a meaningful conversation? Do you [think] our roles change from closer connections in some lifetimes and more distant relationship or more brief in others?

Sraddhalu (1:01:31):

So in a broad sense, yes anything is possible because the soul is free. But the term ‘contract’ would perhaps not be appropriate. ‘Choices’, ‘arrangements’, yes. But again from a soul's point of view, the specifics of the human part of the relationship is not important. Teacher-student relationship, if it had a spiritual character, yes. Where there is somebody, as all of us have had a relationship with the Mother and Sri Aurobindo in some form, some aspect, with some of their emanations perhaps, yes, there, there would be a teacher-student relationship perhaps, but among us, maybe, maybe not, it depends. But it would still be not contractual. The nature of the soul is not a, is a spontaneity of consciousness. You see the, because soul is essentially divine, it is truth consciousness, it is truth substance and therefore what is true is what it is. It doesn't have to do, it doesn't have to think, it doesn't have to contractualise. It is and that's it. And so in relation to two souls, they are, and there's a spontaneity of a certain alignment, it happens. And perhaps when it's over, it moves on. But there's a spontaneity of it, there is no kind of a forethought of a fixed form. That spontaneity reflects in the emotions, in the vital nature, in the mind. To the extent it reflects in the mind, it may awaken in mind certain forms and tendencies, habitual, social, conventions, etc., into which you may slip in a certain part of the pattern of the relationship.

So I'm witness to this very interesting thing from Dina's story. She had in this lifetime a very unusual interest in crystals. Very unusual. And it's not like she's healing, it's not like she's interested in them for any purpose. She just finds them somehow attractive. She has crystals all over her house. No reason. And then one day, we were travelling together for something. We went to a particular spiritual community and the head of that community had passed on and I saw this happen. She was shown the photograph of that person and immediately she went into trance just like that. And it was a while before she could come out. Afterwards they were joking, every time we show her his picture she goes into trance. And I saw that happen again a second time, third time. But what happened with that was she had the recall that she was with him in some incarnation in the past where he was teaching her how to look inside the crystals and recognise the light in the crystals and he was there as a teacher for some time and then one day he said now I have to go and then he just went and never came back and for the rest of her life she was waiting and nothing happened, he never came back. That was it. That's all that was the recall from that life. But this interest in the crystals came from that and somehow it remained in her personality because it had a spiritual turn. Otherwise it was not relevant. And looking at this picture, it drew back that memory and she was just pulled into that experience of that. I saw that happen a couple of times. It was quite amusing. But I give this as an example to show that in this life-meeting, not him but his photograph, it still brought momentarily that relationship because he was a teacher at some point. In her spiritual journey, he supported her in certain way. It brought it momentarily and that was it. She had no other compulsion or allegiance. She already had found her guru and so on. So this is an example of how things could come up. Yes, in this way you could be working together but it would not be a project necessarily of a physical kind. From a soul's perspective it would not be limited to such things. Yes, you might work together in a physical project. We are constructing something, starting a company together but that would be incidental, to the soul relationship which might have a very different sense of purpose there. And yes of course you can have brief encounters, long encounters, all of this I think bulk of John's question would have been answered in our previous discussion so we can go to the next one which will be the closing question for today.

Alina (1:06:22):
Maya is writing, in a previous video you mentioned that the opportunity of this lifetime is so great in regards to human evolution that we should prioritise our spiritual development over material or other worldly matters. If one is young and spiritually inclined, should they stay unattached and be inwardly focused on sadhana or are relationships and family life encouraged in the yoga of Mother and Sri Aurobindo in the light of the future evolution of man and participating fully in life? From what I have read, I have possibly understood that Mother and Sri Aurobindo said that marriage is largely a hindrance on the spiritual path unless one finds one's true Shakti or someone who can speed up their spiritual progress which can be difficult to find. I would like to hear your thoughts on this topic.

And it’s a very good closing question.

Sraddhalu (1:07:27):
Yes, it's a very important question because in a sense what Maya is asking would apply to all of us in our spiritual journey. At some point everybody feels the need for some companionship, some relationship and sometimes different kinds of relationships not necessarily romantic or family ties but other kinds of relationships also for different kinds of work or interests but we need as if to interact with others.

So, I will take this up in some detail but we will also look at some of the comments and questions which are in the chat box. I will try to weave those into this, this part of the discussion. So first of all recognise when she is asking, one is young and spiritually inclined. And there is a very specific issue there. You see, when you are young, your full maturing has not yet completely happened. There is a biological maturing, there is an emotional maturing, there is a mental maturing, there is a maturing of the integration of your whole personality. And in a sense, the full maturing, Mother observes, takes place pretty much over the first 60 years of your life. And she says, only when you are 80 that you really know how to live that's generally when you're not able to because the body is not able to keep up and that's why we'll have to find a way to extend our lifespan, but that we touched upon another time.

So, the point is this, that maturing phase will not happen unless you go through certain experiences, isn't it? And so you have a problem. If you go through those experiences, they consume your time and energy and sometimes they involve commitments that you can be locked into. You have a child and you have a commitment of 20 years at least, minimum, isn't it? Would that contradict with the spiritual life? Can it be made a part of the spiritual life? Can all these different needs, especially as you're growing in your youth and going through certain stages of development, sometimes necessary stages of development, can all these be woven into your spiritual life?

My answer is going to be on two levels. First, for the literature you will find of Sri Aurobindo's and the Mother's letters in the 1930s particularly, 1920s, 30s and up to the 40s at least with some of the sadhaks, those letters are extremely demanding in the sense that there is no compromise to be made. Because they have already been through that phase of initial maturing that they are ready for a fully committed focus. Ok? So once you have reached that point of full commitment and focus, then no compromise. But until you have reached that point and there is this whole journey of maturing and finding yourself, integrating yourself, you have a central aspiration which is not going to go away and you are fortunate if you have that. If you don't have that, you are still struggling to build this central pillar of your aspiration which will not be changed in spite of what happens to you. You are still building that. Once you have built that, you have that, you still have parts which are not integrated but you don't lose your central aspiration. You go through a phase of integrating them through for which you might have to go through a series of different kinds of experiences. Once there is sufficient integration that your deepest call, your deepest aspiration says, now I can't afford any more compromise. You know it. It's easy to make that turn. It's easy to enter a phase where you can say no more compromise and you may still have you know at best partial distractions of a compromises but not serious. Not serious intrusions or conflicts. But until that point you may have to go through many different kinds of experiences isn't it? And especially depending on your nature. Now some types of nature need a very rich exposure. Some types can do with less. Some types are more extrovert, some types are more introvert. And all of these will be further moderated by the maturity of the soul's evolution within you. So in some cases the soul's maturity is strong enough that come what may in the external conflicts and contradictions, it is able to override eventually and bring you back and not let you go astray for too long. In some cases the soul maturity is not strong enough, it is the mind's call to a spiritual turn and then you will find the mind gets distracted and pulled and then you come back and you force yourself by a kind of a will, which is good, which is useful, helpful, but you may go through variations, ups and downs. Now all this is to show you that you cannot apply a general rule. There are many possibilities and many needs. Having said that, now we come to certain general broad descriptions, which I hope will be helpful to everybody as a reference point. And then you have to particularise it to your need and to your stage of development and readiness.

Sraddhalu (1:12:51):

So first of all, in the Integral Yoga, there is no distinction between the spiritual life and other worldly matters. I am quoting from the note, there is no “other worldly matters”. All is to be taken into the spiritual journey, reference. The moment you start doing that, automatically certain things will fall away or become less important. To the extent you have not done that you'll find yourself pulled and pushed between different parts and there will be struggles. You'll find yourself compelled in a certain way or almost in an addictive way with certain parts while the other parts say no-no-no but I don't want to do that and but I can't help doing it and then after that I go through a kind of a guilt saying, oh, why did I waste so much time? And it's a lack of integration of the things there. But what you do is, instead of getting into a guilt trip, you just treat it as a part of your nature. And you work on integrating it. And what does it mean integrating? It does not mean denying yourself that. So, there's a more deep discussion about this in what I have described earlier in the series between 17 and 24. But for now I will just touch upon this idea. But do look at those especially in relation to marriage and sexual relationships. But here I'm taking it on a more general level. Let's say you have a strong craving or a small strong need for a certain part of your nature. You say yes, through this how can I turn it to my and align it to my higher aspiration? Through this how can I put in relation to the divine? This is what you would do. You do not deny, you do not oppose and except you deny and oppose distortions. That's a different story. So anger is a distortion of a reaction or a part of you. Those you of course you refuse but you have an interest in a certain form of art, in a certain kind of creative activity, in a certain type of experience. You enjoy it greatly. Let's say you enjoy very fine foods. You enjoy making the food, you enjoy serving the food. Well, make it in consecration to the Divine. And let the refinement of that experience be the joy that you share and offer to the Divine. When you give the food to others, when you eat it yourself, let that enjoyment be also raised and shared with the divine. And in this way there is a turn of that enjoyment and that activity and an alignment to your spiritual aspiration. So the goal is to bring everything in your life in alignment to this and make it a part of your spiritual development. And this is possible because it is an integral yoga and not possible in an ascetic yoga or an ascetic spirituality where you are required to cut off things which would attach you.

So I am again looking at this in the question. Should one stay unattached and inwardly focused on sadhana? Or, our relationships and family encouraged in the Yoga? So, implied is this sense that unattached and inwardly focussed, meaning detached from outer life would be a requirement. So the principle yes but not in the form. So this is where the confusion comes with the ascetic paths. Do look at the discussion we had in one of the earlier episodes on the affirmative, the sunlit path and the distinction between ascetic and the affirmative paths. That will be important to be a more detailed discussion.

But here we just summarise the idea that detachment, meaning you are not bound to something, would be good. But if you try to practise non-attachment, the first thing you will do is to create indifference, and all you will do is close or numb your emotions and feelings and that's not helpful at all for this purpose of this Yoga. You want to refine your feelings and emotions and raise them also. You don't want to numb them and dull them. You want the enthusiasm of your life-energies to grow but in refinement and in plenitude and completeness, not in suppression and dulling and weakening. So many people, because of this conflict they have with their vital energy and enthusiasm and their idea of an ascetic spirituality, they end up holding back the reins of their horses, suppressing their vital energies and impulses. Instead of training and building them, they suppress them and then they end up with a kind of an emptiness or a depression, which they think is a step in the spiritual. No, not for the Integral Yoga. For the Integral Yoga you want to refine and raise everything to its divine potential. The vital is meant to be an instrument for the action of the divine power and energy and force to create, to manifest. So yes, as I said on the principle of detachment, yes, but not in the form of a numbing or an ascetic withdrawal or separation or a cutting off. I have actually met somebody who had this problem and it took me a while to figure out what the problem was. He would be so indifferent and sometimes rude and harsh with his family members including his child. And then one day I said, but why? And then he said, because one day when I die, I don't want them to suffer. I said, that means you will make them suffer the whole life by denying your affection so that when you die they will not suffer? I don't know if he got the point but you see how, how it gets perverted. On his part he was afraid of being entangled, on his part he was afraid of being attached by expressing love and affection. I said no you have to do that, you have to open your heart and these are the people most close to you who most love you to whom you should be able to pour your affections. And he still had a struggle because of the strong ascetic imprint in his nature. So I am giving this as an example of how a truth in principle gets distorted when it is wrongly applied, and especially in the context of the Integral Yoga. So I would say rather than trying to be detached, the better way is, which is the foundation in the Integral Yoga, is equality. That means with all the responsibilities you have, with all the existing relationships that you have, you develop within you a deep wide equality. Meaning in that deeper layer, in a deeper wider part, you are not disturbed by what happens. You are still fully engaged but inwardly unmoved, unaffected, undisturbed while still interacting with the same affection, love and initially perhaps you have other reactions which come with that affection, attachment and struggle and conflict and anger and upset etc. But inwardly you build that poise of detachment Ah! I have got angry again. You are aware of it. You don't give in and then you can reign in bit by bit, modify. So there are many approaches one could take to dealing with that, but build this space of a deeper equality. And this can be done in the part in you that is most naturally close to and open to the Divine Presence, the Divine Mother. So spend some time every day in immersion in that communion with the Divine. And then from that poise you turn to life, hold that, let this be the base now. Everything you do, eventually you will refer to this. Not now, not immediately, but eventually. So now as you enter into your activities, momentarily you have that influence, but after an hour or two you are kind of lost in your work and each time you have a break you step back, recover, remember that, recover the immersion to whatever extent and again re-engage and by doing this repeatedly the influence of this deeper poise begins to fill. A kind of a deep calm, quiet, joy begins to fill in that part and eventually it will automatically percolate into the rest of you. So we don't go into detail on that part, but that would be a better starting point, equality rather than being unattached. And inwardly focused, yes, perhaps, but not outwardly negligent. So yes, there may be phases where you make an exclusive inward focus for a few hours, for a few days, perhaps, and occasionally you may choose for a few weeks. But then what you receive, what you build in that inward poise, you now have to turn to and engage with the world. It must express, it must change your thoughts, feelings, actions, emotions, relationships. Everything should now be an expression of that deeper, higher, more refined consciousness that is now more truly you. So in that sense there is no withdrawal from the world. There is a detachment which is a consequence of the equality but there is no loss of closeness or intimacy or personal quality in the relationships that you may have.

Sraddhalu (1:22:21):

Now comes the question of relationships and family life. Again by relationships generally that would mean relationships of generally most people would refer to it as sexual relationships and then with it family life or it could be other forms of relationships, my social life, my siblings, my friends and my other interests, or responsibilities I have which come with my job, or my position in society etc. All those could come in the relationships also. And then family life, which is a very specific form where there's a huge responsibility, especially when you have children. If you don't have children, family life would be another aspect of those more general relationships. But when you have children, you have a huge responsibility because they are dependent on you totally, at least until they grow old enough. So as far as all other relationships are concerned, to the extent that you are able to bring those interests and the content of that relationship in alignment with your aspiration, fine. When you do that, what will happen is certain relationships will just feel pointless, meaningless and they will fade out. Other relationships will now deepen and become more valuable. So let's say you are a musician, you go with your musical instruments to perform etc., and that's your career perhaps, just taking an example. All those musicians, maybe they are in it as a career, they are friends, colleagues more or less. But among them there might be some for whom there is a deeper spiritual aspiration. The music is for them a consecrate, an experience of consecration, those would be your closer friends. You may or may not talk much but there would be a deeper soul affinity we will say, because of the shared aspiration. Or in this music which you may consider only to be your job and not a deeper inclination, but your deeper inclination may be of a different kind, you will make the effort now to bring that deeper aspiration into the music at least before you start your practice, before you start your performance as a team. You're a part of an orchestra let's say before you start you will concentrate, invoke and make an effort in the music play itself to align that and make it a means for you to bring a higher, deeper presence into that activity. So the idea is you bring this, all activities into the ambit of your aspiration, infuse the turn of the aspiration into everything. What does not last will fall away, other things will grow but you will not disengage from the relationships. Family life though, as I said, has a greater responsibility. So I start with an example my teacher MP Pandit as Mother's secretary used to take people's questions to her and there was one person who had asked can I get married and Panditji was sure that when he went to Mother, Mother would say no because of what he knew of that person and Mother's response surprised him. He used to say, Mother always surprised them. She said simply, it depends. So as an explanation what do you mean? She said it depends if through the marriage in the marriage itself there is this affinity of a deeper aspiration, it's fine. If that contradicts the deeper aspiration, then no.

So the answer is very general now. Whether you choose to get married or not, it depends. Whether it aligns with the aspiration, is the friendship, the companionship, the marriage, the experience of the children and raising the children aligned with your aspiration, then there is no problem at all. In the marriage itself and in the relationships that are built, it would become a part of your spiritual journey. It would of course assume that the partner would be equally aligned. If it is not so, which also happens, you may still be able to live that life with that alignment in spite of it. But there will be disturbances, there may be conflicts and differences of various kinds, which also could be made a means to the extent required, to the extent possible. But in raising the children also one could do it that way and this was the general guideline that the Mother actually gave to some of the families who settled here. She said to the parents, they are not your children, they are my children and you will look after them as if they are my children and not yours and that was the sadhana but as a responsibility for them and she did that with many. And so yes that could be made a part of your sadhana also. If possible then even in the act of conceiving the child through the period of pregnancy, you would keep this alignment that you would invoke in prayer to the Divine Mother that there may be a conscious soul, a soul who has an affinity to your spiritual aspiration, who would come to you. And through the pregnancy, holding that poise of aspiration to infuse, because what you experience, what you hold in your consciousness has a huge psychological content of substance that is infused into the child and forms the nature of the child. And if such is your intention, a soul that shares that value and that aspiration would come to you because the more mature souls are looking for centres of light where they can take birth and be nourished and not have to struggle through a period of clouding and then struggling to awaken. So yes that also could become a part of your spiritual journey. And then when you take it this way, then the raising the children is equally for you, although a struggle, because at some point the children challenge you. They force you to look at yourself bare. They don't have any pretence. They imitate what you say. They imitate your behaviour and you're forced to correct yourself. All that can be made a part of your spiritual journey as much as a development of your nature and your capacities, isn't it? It would be a huge investment in terms of time, but if made in this way, it can be as a powerful support in your spiritual journey.

Sraddhalu (1:28:57):

I share one example. This was a lady called Swarnadi and she shared this experience with me personally. She was one of the very few that the Mother chose as a personal attendant. These people that Mother chose, they were all exceptional beings. And this, I've narrated her stories before, so I won't narrate the other parts of the stories. But she narrates how at that time she was in Bengal. Sri Aurobindo was her guru, but only by letter, she had never met him. Every time the letter came, she felt also with it the force. And she describes how at one time she had her child, she had just given birth, the child was in the crib, and then they tie a rope to the crib and she sits and she pulls the rope to keep it swinging gently and as she's swinging the crib she goes into meditation remembering Sri Aurobindo and she had certain experiences of the kundalini and the centres of the chakras opening and she saw in herself all these chakras and the nadis. She had no idea what it was. She writes her letter to Sri Aurobindo what is this and then he sends another letter explaining what it is. Here she is swinging her baby and she has this deep experience. I'm just giving this as an example that there's nothing in life that needs to be a contradiction to your spiritual journey if you can weave it into your aspiration. But if your temperament is different, where it says, no, for me, at least for this incarnation, that is not something I want to commit to. I would rather conserve my time and energies for a more concentrated purpose. That would be a choice you make. My point is, in principle, there is no contradiction with family life if it is done in this way. Ideally, then your partner would be somebody who would share in that aspiration to whatever degree and it does not have to be exactly as yours. Even if there's a general alignment that is good enough.

I'll touch upon a few examples of what can happen and especially this is going to the question also which Aditya had about what would be the best course of action because the feeling that you will meet someone. What happens often in such cases is, when you meet someone, you are both at a certain stage in your journey let's say where you have an affinity of alignment but after that you don't know how fast they grew or you grew right? So after you've come together you discover your pace of growth is very different and one person continues to grow faster than the other and eventually there will be a gap. Now if you expected that they would keep up or both of you would move at the same pace and there would be no friction, it's not going to happen. There will be differences and if that was the basis of your expectation, it's going to break. So pace of growth could be different, stage of growth could be different. So you meet someone at a different stage of growth but the pace of growth might be different they could outrun you in a certain way to say. So these are two different variables you cannot anticipate. And third variable which is the single most important because these two you can't, you can't predict, someone has a slow pace of growth and then suddenly shoots rapidly. What is important is the third component which is direction of growth. If you share broadly the same direction of growth, pace and stage of growth don't matter, you will be nourishing, helping each other. So as far as I can see, this would be the single most important criteria and then if you have similar pace of growth or at similar stage of growth, even if you're in different stages you're helping each other because you know what happens. When you're in a stage of growth, one is more advanced in one aspect. In another aspect of your growth, the other is more advanced and you are less advanced or less experienced. You can be mutually helping. Differences of stage of growth can even be a mutual nourishment. Difference of pace of growth also can be mutual nourishment, if direction of growth was common. But if direction was different, so you may briefly meet and then you crossover and you go in completely different directions.

Sraddhalu (1:33:18):

I actually know of a case, you see names are not important, this was somebody with a very deep spiritual potential, very deep spiritual aspiration who became a teacher in his own right for a certain group etc. very popular with his style and so on. Young man, he was coming from an ascetic tradition, therefore was celibate. Eventually he met somebody who he felt were really aligned with him and it was a literally heavenly kind of romance and a wedding which had all the appearances of a spiritual alignment. Three years down they separated because she had a very different idea of spirituality and it went into ayahuasca and drugs whereas he had a very different approach which was much more puritan in its spiritual purpose without these diversions. It just split. That's it. They are still good, very good friends but the directions were wrong. Although they met at a certain time where there was commonality of let's say stage of growth or interests of growth or some other affinities. That's not the point. So this is the one thing I would highlight as more important is direction of growth.

And we have spoken about the focus of energy is again to the extent that if one is more extrovert, the other is more introvert, there may be differences but again if you make it a means for support and nourishment, you can learn a lot from each other and complete each other in a certain way. So if there's a central alignment, differences become complementary. If there is a central misalignment, then similarities would not last or would not be enough to keep you together.

Now we come back to the question that “Would family life be encouraged”? Well it's your choice. It's not necessary nor is it necessary to avoid it. It's a question of your temperament, your need, and your overall sense of direction and purpose in your spiritual journey. It need not contradict and it can be made a part equally, as well as you could choose a life instead of a more concentrated type where you would not get into family or having children but just have companionship to grow in some way. It really does not matter as far as the spiritual growth is concerned.

So the comment that from what she has read, she says, I possibly understood that marriage is largely a hindrance on the spiritual path. Only if it was not already aligned to your spiritual aspiration. Now what happens, and this is something which I don't have an answer to, but I will place the problem before you, which I see very often. The more refined and conscious you are, the more difficult it is to find somebody else who is equally refined and conscious. So I see this a lot in the, let’s say, spiritual spaces that there are people who have such a great refinement and aspiration, but they don't find partners who would have the same or would be in the same path. I don't have a simple answer to that. All I can say is, at least for those who wish to enter a life of marriage, look in the right spaces, don't look in the wrong space. If you are in England, where part of lifestyle, for children by the way, sadly, is going to the pub to have a good time. After college you go to a pub to meet with friends. You're unlikely to meet the right type of people who would align with you. Perhaps if you go to a yoga studio where there are people doing yogasanas or where there's at least some appearance of a spiritual turn, maybe you might meet the right kinds. I don't know. But this is a problem I don't have a simple answer to. I just place it as an observation and maybe as a suggestion.

Sraddhalu (1:37:16):

I am just going to quickly go through the questions in the chat box. Chiara's question about, is more an observation about falling in love in these days where there is no compulsion, no attachment, no loss of self. Yes, the falling in love generally as it happens among the young today, the first time it happens is much more of a vital attraction or affinity where you feel this kind of lift or a high, it rarely lasts, because you are often very immature at that stage and as you grow, within a few years you have outgrown that and so there may be a second kind of falling in love on the more mature, more deep level with a better affinity on other layers of your nature. That is often more lasting. As I saw the statistics in the United States, every second marriage ends in divorce. And this used to be 20 years ago. Now, it’s, all of them end in divorce. But the second marriage is more stable, third marriage is most stable, because by then you've matured enough and the basis of affinity and alignments are also completely different. You're also more integrated as a person. So what I would suggest for young people, I don't know what is Maya's age now but I'm making a general observation which will be useful for all. As a young person if you find yourself falling in love, don't rush into the decision that this is it. Wait, learn from the experience, grow from the experience, keep the companionship to the extent that it's nurturing and nourishing and aligned to your spiritual aspiration, but wait before you enter into a commitment that would be binding. And if both are sufficiently aligned and mature, you could wait easily, even as you have your relationship but you don't bind yourself into some form that would compel you. And even as you grow into later ages, be conscious, first of all, of affinities of attraction on the surface. But what does your deeper intuition reveal to you? Now what will often happen and especially for more mature people, you may go through a strong period of an attraction and relationship but somewhere deep inside you also know it may not last and this was the point I made about pace of growth, stage of growth. There are even experiences where somebody in a certain stage of, in a spiritual life, momentarily has a dip and somebody else momentarily is rising with an aspiration you meet, there’s an affinity and alignment but after a while this one rises back and this one drops back and there's a parting. So just because you have a strong affinity right now does not mean it's going to last for too long. Be conscious of it, trust the deeper guidance. Go into a poise of deep stillness, silence, as deep as you can into the soul's influence and try to feel from there, is this something where you should enter into a long-term commitment or not. And as I said you could still be very good friends, mutually nurturing and assisting but be careful of where you bind yourself in a long term commitment, especially when you choose to have a family and children. There sometimes things don't always work out. So this is just to give a broad picture. As I said I cannot go too specific because each case is different.

Now Michael asks, do souls travel together like a herd? No. That's not the case at all. Occasionally there might be alignments of souls. So look at it this way, if you had to visualise the divine consciousness as the Sun. Ok? There are rays from the Sun. Each ray is uniquely distinct. You see, they may emerge from a centre very close together but as they spread out you can see they are almost parallel but different. No two rays ever repeat. Each one of our souls is unique and yet certain sides of the Sun, let's say this aspect of the Sun, these rays would have an affinity, that aspect, those rays would have affinity, another aspect, other rays would have an affinity among themselves. So to that extent you can have affinities of types of souls. For example, there are souls which have a natural affinity towards knowledge, other souls which have natural affinity to aspects of power, other souls which have natural affinities to aspects of beauty in the journey across lives. You see. So to that extent, yes, there may be certain elements of shared values, but, no, they don't travel as a herd. Each is distinct, each is unique, each is entirely free. But as I said if there are alignments of this kind of affinities occasionally they may cluster together. If in the history of humanity now there's going to be a special manifestation of beauty, then all these souls who have been working on that line of working rush together, and you have this efflorescence, bursting of beauty. You see during the Renaissance period in Europe, Italy which is such a small country compared to India, it's like a tiny state of, and you can literally travel by train from one end to the other in a few hours. In such a small space, a tinier portion somewhere in the centre of Italy, you have suddenly several masters of art, music, sculpture bursting out together at the same time. It's surprising. And as a culture, already a certain support was built up into which these souls found the best circumstance and they clustered around one little patch in the middle, in the centre of Italy. Fascinating.

Sraddhalu (1:43:09):

So there you see these patterns of souls coming together for a common purpose but they may not meet or if they meet they are so different in their interest. I am an artist, you are a musician, we have very little in common. But at the soul level the affinity and the sense of purpose to assist in that awakening that the Renaissance represented. Yes, that could happen.

Chiara's question, are past lives real in terms of a sequence of soul incarnations or is it simultaneous expression of the self across space and time? It's a good question. Answer is complex. When you raise yourself above space-time, all possibilities of all outcomes are simultaneously held in potential. Once you pour yourself into space-time, there is an unfoldment of those possibilities, a sequencing. In the subtle worlds, there may be worlds where many things could happen parallelly. But in the physical world, because this is a world of form and objectivised form, you do not have parallelism, you have sequential development. And yet there could be parallels of a certain kind, that for example, as you work, as your soul works to manifest a certain possibility, again I take the example of art, you have worked into manifest a certain aspect of art, painting or music, souls and their impressions of work done in the past, their influences could as if align, attracted by the work you do and join to share in you. So there is actually a more complex thing, soul journey is not like single threads. There are affinities on other levels of certain qualities of consciousness and growth of consciousness. Which could happen, there's a disincarnate soul, not yet taken birth, and a part of its consciousness may lean to as if support your working or draw nourishment from your working because of affinity of similar vibes of consciousness. At soul level it is affinities of consciousness, remember. And so in a sense that soul grows as you grow. And then later it incarnates, you may momentarily meet and you will say, ah this one is familiar. But because of something which happened on those levels. So there are complexities of this kind also that do take place.

There is something even more interesting which could happen and this is something difficult to understand. Like I said there's an aspect of the self you see which turns with each soul but certain affinities. So certain lines which work here might at the same time be working on a different plane or a different world and there would be resonances across them. So I will put it this way to give a more explicit form. A manifestation or a certain alignment of the Lakshmi principle in one would resonate with the Lakshmi principle in another and when you meet you would have a strong sense of familiarity or similarity of sense of identity even at the soul level momentarily felt and surface personality may or may not register by reflection and then you may part. You will rarely be together for too long because well the lines are different and yet there's that affinity of the original quality of consciousness and especially something more happens for when you work for a very high purpose, there is a different kind of Vibhuti that is some higher consciousness I took the example of Lakshmi or some other aspect of Shiva, Vishnu or other deities and aspects for which you don't have names. They may align and as if a part of them leans to assist you to manifest something of that capacity, of that aspect. Momentarily it lifts you, momentarily it fills you and lifts, manifests, incarnates, aligns with you, works with you and so shares with you and you share with them. They grow in their human part, you grow in the part that opens to their divinity and there's a kind of a mutuality. And there are certain such alignments and aspects which may repeat multiple times because it aligns with the soul's broad line of development, line of manifestation. And so others who have that similar affinity would meet you or may feel a strong resonance. It can even happen, you will have this feeling, as I am doing this work and this, I can feel there is somebody else incarnated in the world who has a similar work that's happening. I don't know them by name or place. If I have the deeper opening in the subliminal, I can even say, oh that person must be probably in somewhere in that area. Broad description. You may or may not meet. If you do meet, you'll say, ha yes, I recognise, this is that one. That's it. So there are such interesting other affinities which are not really the souls but because of the alignment of the soul with those higher aspects. So maybe that gives a better appreciation to secure Chiara’s question.

Sraddhalu (1:48:19):

Well, there is a stage in life where there is a sudden awakening. The soul says, being there, done that, now no more time to waste. And it gives a strong push. And suddenly things will just fall apart and new things will form. And you may go through a similar change. There is the example of the founder of the ISKCON movement, their founder was Prabhupada, he was known as Prabhupada. He was in a family life doing his work, job and then one day it's as if either an incarnation, a Vibhuti, well, fills him or the soul says okay now I've done this I have to get on with my real work, it pushes forward hard and then he steps out and just builds this extraordinary movement. What a tremendous power to manifest, to bring people together, to carry them with him, to form these huge amount of vitality and energy which is not humanly possible. So either you say the soul brought something deeper built up or aligned to some such special influx and you have a sudden change. This also can happen and so suddenly everything you've done suddenly pales but you have to not focus on that, focus on what it is that is being built up. Concentrate on that and allow it to grow and if you feel it is coming from deeper within, from above, wait, stay in silence, be receptive and allow the new rhythms of life to rebuild and there are phases of such change and I'm responding to Chiara's question of the sense of phase of change of phase of life.

Shashwat is asking, is he had an experience of meeting a friend many times in dreams and then he saw a child being born, was it a psychic being awakening in some way? Generally this symbolism in dreamstate of seeing a baby, a child is representing the psychic being. That's what the Mother spoke of. And yes, it could be that it represents a new birth within you. Some influence of the psychic that comes forward, fills your personality and as if a new part, a new layer is being born within you. Your life is undergoing a new birth, a new step, a new awakening. And yes, these things can be symbolised in dream.

I think that would cover broadly all the questions which were there also.

Coming back now to this family life or not. Mother left us one special gift, so I'm going to close with this.

Mother left us with one very special gift. In the Ashram you have read some of the letters it was intended for a concentrated focus of the sadhana which is not possible for everybody or which will come at some stage in our life when we are fully aligned and we feel that now this is going to be our exclusive focus. In practice though it became a mix which is also well one of the things. But it's not enough because in the Ashram as you can see it is in the middle of the town, there is a mix and the invasion is so strong it's very difficult to have now a really strong community of a spiritual life. And so for that she created and she left us the gift which started at the age of 90, she founded Auroville. Auroville as a model township, meaning eventually all over the world, many such spiritual little communities have to form. It's not the hippie commune, be very careful about that, though some people want it to be that. It's not a hippie commune. It's a spiritual community, a spiritual township, where people with a central spiritual aspiration can come in and build their lives around their spiritual aspiration which would include building businesses, creativity of arts of various kinds, discoveries of sciences, researches, medicine and everything, including building a new education, new family, incarnating, manifesting the higher possibilities of the new consciousness that is seeking to create new forms on earth. And so she left us with this gift of Auroville and I'm going to put this out to all of you, especially for those who are young and spiritually inclined. Do consider this as one of the spaces perhaps that you might choose to grow in or settle in eventually or in your own space you will create your own little miniature Auroville which may take the practical form of a little centre where you gather people with similar aspirations or similar practices with shared values and creating a local community of sorts. It may be a virtual form not like Auroville which is in a physical space, but you meet at a centre with shared values and discuss or support each other or you create a similar spiritual community in a smaller scale perhaps. Or eventually that you think of settling in Auroville which is intended to grow to a township of 50,000 but even if we say 20,000 in the next 20 years, we are hardly 3,000 right now. So there's a place for a lot of people with a spiritual aspiration to come together and participate in a collective spiritual life also of some kind. But a life which is a township at the same time with all possibilities of all kinds of human experiences all present together but turned to a higher spiritual aspiration. So it's an extraordinary gift that the Mother gave us. Imagine creating an entire new township of a kind that has never been made before and beginning at the age of 90. Isn't it? But that was the Mother's extraordinary power and she has literally, she even used the phrase “the cradle of the Superman” for Auroville. So there's a lot of potential, a lot of possibilities wherever you are in the world and also with these special spaces which have been created. Everywhere you are the Divine Mother is with you always within you in the deepest intimacy of your psychic being, above you as presiding over your fate and your destiny helping you to fulfil, and around you as a protection to the extent that you are open, a protection is effective at every moment. Be conscious of this relationship in these three aspects, deepen it, let it grow, let it permeate until you are breathing it at all times, even unconsciously. And to that extent, you will find yourself helped, led at each moment. And if you have a particular need or an aspiration for some kind of a partnership, friendship, relationship, ask her help and say, help me, help me find the right person, bring the right person into my life or the right people into my life. But trust that you will be carried to the extent that you are able to open and allow yourself to be carried. We are in a global network I will say, a global Auroville. The Auroville here is a physical centre but we are globally in a consciousness that is across the world aligned to the new dawn, the new world that is manifesting and each one of us is a centre of light across the earth. Whether we meet physically or not, we are linked in this shared consciousness of alignment with the Divine Mother, isn't it? And so when we do meet, we will feel a recognition, ah yes, we are also linked to the same source, to the same new consciousness, working to manifest the same thing in different ways, in different forms. And so there is an affinity whether we meet or not and right now online we are aligned in this way, we can hold that as our aspiration that around the world wherever we are let us become centres of light for the new consciousness that is being manifested that a new world that is beginning to take birth that in us and through us it may reveal itself more and more that we may be aligned to the divine will and allow her to work to shape us and act through us to shape the world.

We can concentrate on this aspiration together.

Namaste to all of the Divine Mother's spiritual family.

Alina (1:58:06):

Namaste. Thank you very much.