EWS #131: On Power & Wealth + QA – I

October 1, 2022

Alina (0:00:30):
Namaste. Today is 1st of October, and we are streaming online Evenings with Sraddhalu. Namaste.

Sraddhalu (0:00:39):

Namaste. Happy to be with all of you.

Alina (0:00:43):

Today we continue our series by answering some questions on the powers of strength and wealth and other powers. During our conversation you may freely ask questions in the chat box on YouTube or you can send your questions beforehand at our email address integralstudies.in[at]gmail.com.

We will start giving some answer to Maya's questions.

The first one: Such was the strength of Vashishta Ganapati Muni tapasya that Mother said, when he walked into her room, all the negative beings ran away. One feels that strength in Mother's command “for all harmful beings to quit this place and for all”. The ancient yogis were known for their strength and power. How can one invoke this tangible strength so that one can hold the divine force when it descends and so that one can push back against anti-evolutionary forces and actively be an instrument for their work and uphold strong values? Is strength the correct aspiration here and is it necessary condition to be useful instrument in addition to faith and surrender? If so, is it strength gained or given? Should one do mantras such as Maha Mrityunjaya, exercises like Sarvagasana? Or does Mother give the necessary strength to her children if they are open?

Sraddhalu (0:02:44):
The question of strength is extremely important because it is one of those things that was severely neglected during the ascetic phase of the world's spirituality. This needs to be recovered along with the power of wealth which also was given away to the anti-divine forces by a spirituality which saw it as a temptation.

It is a popular saying that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Similar ideas associated with wealth, money corrupts and so on.

There's a truth to it obviously. Sri Aurobindo observes, some of this is because these things have been held in the grip of the Asura for so long that there is that associated taint which comes with it by the very fact that you are handling power or wealth.

But much more it is because in the human evolutionary recent phase there has been such a neglect that the capacity to wield these correctly was as if lost.

It used to be in the past both for strength and wealth that they were very much a part of the spiritual journey especially in India where they were seen as aspects of the divine, powers of the divine, to be used for a divine life. We still find the remnant of that in the worship of Mahalakshmi as wealth or Mahakali as aspect of power, but it stops with worship. When it comes to the actual aspect of power or wealth, there is almost instantly either a sense of a guilt or a separation from the spiritual, at least in idea, in association. And once that is made, then it becomes also a separation in action.

So, this needs to be corrected.

And I think I have spoken about this before, saying that I do not find anywhere in the world any other spiritual tradition that looks upon wealth and strength in this sense surviving. Maybe they have been in the past, but I do not find them surviving except in Sri Aurobindo's teaching where these are brought back to their rightful place.

The sense of strength which Maya refers to in the example of Vasishtha Ganapati Muni is an incident that when he came to meet the Mother, you know he was the great sage who recognised Ramana Maharshi and named him as Ramana Maharshi. Before that he was just known as Swami or there were various terms used. He called him Maharshi and recognised in him the spiritual giant that he was. When he came to visit the Sri Aurobindo ashram, met with the Mother, I think it was in the 1930s. Kapali Sastriar, who was already, who had been his disciple earlier, was already settled in the Ashram. And when Ganapati Muni went to meet the Mother he described the experience while meditating with her where he said while earlier the force used to descend in a particular way from above now it was pouring into him from all directions and then he said I have the intuition that, pointing to the Mother he said, you are a Mother and I am your child, and Mother said, it is more than an intuition.

So among other things the Mother observed that when he came for the pranam in the Meditation Hall, which is of today's Meditation Hall, Mother would be sitting there people would come for pranam, when he came in, as he walked in, all the hostile forces ran away, meaning, they used to be present, you know, they can pretty much hang around anywhere if they want to. And especially they are also attracted to the light wherever there's a strong light.

But here was a man who had such a tremendous power that his very presence used to drive them away.

Why?

Why would they run away? What is it that they would fear if they could hang around even while Mother was there?

(0:07:33):

so the thing here is the particular aspect of his power which we may recognise as a spiritual power which has this one characteristic that anything which is contrary to it automatically gets as if dissolved, overcome.

We see this in another example where Pandit-ji's sister Mitra Akka, she used to have some inner opening and she would see these little Elve-like beings, some of them would be helpful to her, sometimes they would warn her that there was something with the cooking, the fire was still lit or it was overflowing, the water was overflowing or boiling, sometimes they would say, oh so-and-so is coming, and she would find that it was true, and this was of course referred to the Mother also. But she found that there's one particular being that was particularly attached to her and she used to call him Chottappa, meaning the little one. He would go with her as she went to meet the Mother; it would stop at the entrance of the Mother's room, and she would go in but it refused to go in. And when this was reported to the Mother, she said, naturally if they come inside, they'll be dissolved.

The intensity of the spiritual power was so great that anything which was a consciousness either insufficiently formed or too contrary to the spiritual consciousness would be overwhelmed by the intensity and dissolve because of the intensity because it was not formed enough or it was too contrary.

And so here we get a first clue: what was it that was Ganapati Muni's tremendous spiritual power; and it was this that things within that intensity would get dissolved, overwhelmed and so on.

So here is a specific character of that power of because of a certain intensity which comes from that intensified tapas.

Now you could ask: Why is it, it did not happen near the Mother?

Well, it did as we saw as regards her room at least with those beings.

But there was a big difference.

For the Mother when she came down for the pranam, she came with an intention to pour, to give. For which purpose she had to open and she had to also reduce to some extent the intensity to make it bearable to those who came.

Now, if you were near her at that point, you would find as a child approaches her suddenly the intensity would dim, her intensity in the consciousness, in her personality would soften and would playfully interact with the child at a level that he could bear and he could relate to.

At other times, somebody came in a formal government position who did not come for a spiritual reason, merely as a state-level guest, she would get up, shake hands with them, be formal, and in the appropriate social context.

On the other hand, when somebody came who was ready, who was open, there would be a sudden intensification around her, her presence, her personality, everything would take on this intensity and depending on the particular requirement it would be an aspect or other of the Divine Mother, the Shakti, and it would pour with intensity.

Now if the person needed a certain quality, that would come with an intensity.

If you thought you were judging what she gave by the look on her face, it would be a misreading.

So you have many letters galore to Sri Aurobindo, Mother was very stern with me today, she did not smile, Sri Aurobindo has to explain, it's not really a social interaction.

So the apparent sternness has no meaning.

The point was this, during this phase of a certain intensity, yes, but she would modulate it to the person who is just in front.

In the earlier phases of the Ashram life, the intensity as well as the expanse of the intensity would be much larger. In the later, diluted mix, when many other kinds of people came, she had to reduce that, reduce the intensity as well as reduce the expansion of it.

We still see this today, when for example large numbers of casual tourists go to the Ashram main building or visit the Samadhi, they come with a lot of clutter and there is often disturbance in the air and dimming, sometimes of the presence, a clouding at least on the more material level. They go away, and after a while you can feel the presence again bouncing back and rebuilding, again and again.

So this dynamic aspect is what I'm pointing to.

And as far as Ganapati Muni's poise was concerned from a more let's say ascetic basis of the training and the concentration, there was an intensity which was being built up which was his purpose in the tapas, but he held that, maintained that, as a result of course there would be issues if he began to interact with people, they might find him too intense or whatever form it would be.

I'm making this distinction just to show you: if Mother wanted, and as she did in the earlier phases, she could absolutely intensify to the same level, perhaps far greater, but it might not be manageable to those around.

So coming to Ganapati Muni then the hostile beings ran away because they could feel themselves, they would feel either a burning or a dissolving or a loss of separateness and so on, and they would immediately move off.

(0:13:51):

He was the only one, I think I've mentioned this before, to whom Mother said, she asked him to stay, actually both Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. They found in him an instrument which was capable of something, and Mother said to him that, we have been looking for somebody who could continue the work after us and we find in you that potential and we would like you to stay. Unfortunately he did not because he felt that unless India was free he was unable to give himself one-pointedly even to the spiritual cause and so on which was unfortunate. Had he chosen, had he accepted, then not only the vehicle was ready but also his lifespan extension, would have been extended appropriately as a result of the shift in the nature of the sadhana and the action of the Shakti.

So, this is just to give a background of the context of the example.

And yes, the yogis were known for their strength in the past and their power. Sri Aurobindo refers to that saying, in the past the yogis would be so powerful, they could literally swallow up an entire civilisation in or a whole domain of one of the astral worlds into their overwhelming tapas consciousness and so on.

But then Sri Aurobindo also tells us that, that which has to come now next will be far greater and the greatest intensities of the yogis of the past would pale in relation to what has to come next.

So in one of the messages he says, I think, it is in the aphorisms, “We do not belong to the past dawns, but to the noons of the future”.

Well, that future is still ahead of us, still waiting, but the noon will be far greater, and those were dawns, because humanity itself was not sufficiently ready.

So all this prepares us for this question of the strength.

How can one invoke this tangible strength so that one can hold the divine force when it descends and so that one can push back against anti-evolutionary forces and actively be an instrument for their work and uphold strong values?

There are several aspects to this.

First, how can one invoke?

As you would invoke anything else.

But invoking is not enough. Your capacity to contain has to grow. Because when you invoke it can come. Because it is conscious-force, well, it will modulate itself to your capacity as the Mother did when she met people physically. But it is the same thing here. On the other hand, it is possible to pull. And Sri Aurobindo warns against pulling where you infuse by a force more than your capacity which would tend to destabilise.

So the correct thing would be to open, to invoke, and of course as it flows you may receive and direct it but not to put your personal will over it.

But it's not enough to have the capacity to contain. You can receive a certain intensity and contain. You must have the capacity to contain widely so that what descends can also be wide descent. This angle, this aspect is extremely important.

So, first of all the capacity to contain and second the wideness, the capacity to contain widely, which means your consciousness has to also become wide. So, there are two things here. Your receptivity and the capacity to contain and then the widening of your own consciousness. Both have to be worked upon. You normally begin with what you can within your current capacity, building the intensity and then gradually opening, widening, deepening and so on. I'll come to that further, but this is just to give you a first picture of things.

Sraddhalu (0:18:06):
Next is this aspect of pushback against anti-evolutionary forces and actively be an instrument.

So your goal is not primarily to push back against the forces. That would be an incidental result. Your goal should be to primarily be able to be a transparent instrument and a container for the divine forces. So as a result, from there will be the exercise of the forces which may involve further complexities.

So you could have a lot of power but to be able to wield the power involves a skill that takes time to develop.

I give an example, an analogy of physical power or political power would be, would make it obvious. Let's say overnight you have been made CEO of a company or Prime Minister or President of the country. You start wielding your power and very quickly you realise that what you thought would be the consequence of an action is not quite it. There are all sorts of secondary reactions, consequences of consequences, ripple effects, reactions from people who push back, circumstances that push back and so on. And the whole thing is very complex because you are part of a system which also is holding power. Your power, although may have a dominant value, that also has a power by which it can push back.

So this also begins to happen. And then you realise after a while that the pushback of the power strings, they begin to hook into you, find your weaknesses and then begin to play you. Somebody on whom you're dependent now comes to you and says look you're dependent on me for this if you don't give me that I won't give you this. And very quickly you realise your position of power actually binds you and makes you a puppet of forces that precisely you are trying to control. Another words the king becomes a puppet of his royal entourage. Interesting.

But the same thing happens in any kind of exercise of power. That's when your skill of wielding the power begins to matter.

So, it's not enough that you receive, it's not enough that you receive and contain widely, deeply but now is the skill of exercising the power which also has to grow.

I'm putting these in sequence. In practice you would do all these simultaneously.

So wielding power cannot be developed unless you actually exercise it and experiment with it. It won't happen just like that because it's like a skill particularly in the body. While you may remember what it's like to do a cartwheel from a past life, when you actually begin to exercise that action in this new body, there's a bit of a disorientation because the body is new and the links from your mind consciousness to the biology are not yet fully developed and not yet fully organised and refined.

That's what a child is struggling with from the point he's incarnated, isn't it?

So there's a process of wielding and the capacity to wield.

There are also situations, circumstances which might be for you a surprise, unexpected. You may also meet with somebody whose power is greater than yours and you'll have to find means to negotiate. You may also find situations which hook into a weak point in you and trip you and make you lose your balance and therefore spill your power or wrongly exercise it with all its consequences. All this is part of the complexity of learning to wield power.

So on this aspect you have to start by utilising, especially when it comes to exercising in circumstances.

We are here moving from the spiritual, I will use the word ‘static power’, to its dynamic aspect.

Now in the example of Ganapati Muni, where the hostiles ran away, there was an aspect of its exercise also in his circumstances, although for spiritual power only. But had he been put into a position where he had to deal with people of various kinds, there would still be an aspect of skill that he would need to build and work upon on that level. You could say, I'll stop with just that, not enough, because eventually you'll have to engage with the world, isn't it?

(0:23:00):

So to be actively an instrument for their work, well, the instrument itself has to be refined, developed and perfected. The moment you start exercising the power you will realise the lack of something else. Often you don't know what you should do, isn't it? You're ready to do, but what should I do? What is the right action required at this moment?

Let's say I knew what I had to do, now there is a ripple effect of consequences, there's a pushback and now I don't know how to respond to the pushback. Will I hit harder? Will I step back? Will I find a via media?

So you realise that power is ineffective unless it is backed by knowledge.

And that knowledge will not be merely a mental knowledge just as the power had to be amplified and intensified and widened and deepened to something higher, even a spiritual power, so too the knowledge will have to be made refined, skilled, wide, high, deep, a greater wisdom, intuition, which now has to fill. It will have to lead the power.

As you begin to exercise knowledge and power to whatever degree the blend for effectivity, very quickly you will realise there is a third component which is required, which is perhaps automatic if there has been a sufficient spiritual development. But still, we may find it lacking in its external expression and that aspect could be the sense of, I'm going to first describe and then give a word for it, the sense of an underlying oneness with the other upon whom you're exercising the knowledge and power in which you recognise the person's limitations, incapacities, mixed intentions, even oppositions and still are able to exercise the power in a way that does not evoke or provoke a reaction.

And this particular capacity to dissolve the resistance will come with another aspect now, which is, we will use the word ‘love’.

So knowledge, strength and love.

These are the three things which need to work together in order to be effective as an instrument even for a higher inspired action in material circumstances which may themselves be contrary, contradicting or even hostile to the values that you choose to bring it.

It would not be enough that you have the power to impose those values. You would also have to have the power to, I will use the word ‘seduce’, to compel the opposition to accept and say, okay, I accept. That compulsion, that would come with the aspect of love.

So you're going to need all three to be effective as an instrument.

So coming back to the question: Is strength the correct aspiration here or is it a necessary condition to be useful instrument in addition to faith and surrender?

So, we have seen, we need also knowledge and love. The three together make for, Sri Aurobindo says, the three legs on which Dharma stands, Dharma as the right action or the underlying truth which has to act spontaneously in the circumstances.

So yes, faith and surrender would be certainly underlying requirements for any such development to be effective or any such exercise of the divine will, but these three things in addition are required.

Is strength gained or given?

In a way, both. So as I said, you have to be practising the exercise of knowledge, power, love, so that the instruments through which you act, which are not yet sufficiently divinised, they learn to yield and act united with that deeper or higher source, which is flowing, inspiring.

If you do not have, for example, the right control over speech you may mean to say something with a very genuine intent but the wrong utilisation of words or wrong use of tone could distort the expression and provoke a counter reaction also, for example, or in your body, in your life energies there would be also reactions.

For example a very strong force pouring through would also tend to exaggerate your tendency for anger or agitation. This is a very common problem with people who have a strong vital.

(0:28:21):

I look at two people now. One person has a weak vital, another has a strong vital. And very often you see the person with a weak vital is quite calm, quite cool, relaxed, not very easily disturbed. Somebody with a strong vital tends to have strong passions, strong reactions, strong desires, strong angers perhaps or strong internal conflicts.

So weak vital has weak problems, strong vital has strong problems. As long as you are staying in the domain of problems, no particular advantage. The moment you move to action, weak vital can do very little, strong vital can do so much more, even if there is distortion, so much more can be got done or can be done directly.

Similarly, when faced with a certain intensity of pouring, the weak vital will be unable to contain, will start agitating, will get restless and its actions will get effectively distorted by the restlessness, inability to contain, excitation. The strong vital would be able to handle much more, much better without losing itself, but if it goes offtract, it would also be that much more intense in its errors. In both, you need to build a base of calm, stability, peace, whether weak or strong. Weak is certainly not a good instrument, we have to make it strong.

So let's now only speak of a strengthening of the vital, you have to make your vital energies, vitality, strong but also into it bring a calm peace and deepen and widen the peace. Into that therefore a great strength can pour and can act without destabilising the instrument. So in a sense, strength is to be gained and then you become competent to receive and then it is given. Both aspects are there.

I want to read from something that the Mother speaks of in this relation. So this is regarding Mother's observation when she says, be calm and there's some question about it. She says: quietude is a very positive state. “Quietude is a very positive state; there is a positive peace which is not the opposite of conflict—an active peace, contagious, powerful, which controls and calms, which puts everything in order, organises. It is of this I am speaking; when I tell someone, “Be calm”, I don’t mean to say “Go and sleep, be inert and passive, and don’t do anything”, far from it!... True quietude is a very great force, a very great strength. In fact one can say, looking at the problem from the other side, that all those who are really strong, powerful, are always very calm. It is only the weak who are agitated; as soon as one becomes truly strong, one is peaceful, calm, quiet, and one has the power of endurance to face the adverse waves which come rushing from outside in the hope of disturbing one.”-see you have to recognise, there will be those kinds of intrusions from outside-“The true quietude is always a sign of force. Calmness belongs to the strong.”

Then: “And this is true even in the physical field. I don’t know if you have observed animals like lions, tigers, elephants, but it is a fact that when they are not in action, they are always so perfectly still. A lion sitting and looking at you always seems to be telling you, “Oh, how fidgety you are!” It looks at you with such a peaceful air of wisdom! And all its power, energy, physical strength are there, gathered, collected, concentrated and—without a shadow of agitation—ready for action when the order is given.”

So, let's look at the words she uses. “all its power, energy” and “physical strength are there, gathered, collected, concentrated and—without a shadow of agitation—ready for action when the order is given.”

“I have seen people, many people, who could not sit still for half an hour without fidgeting. They had to move a foot or a leg, or an arm or their head; they had to stir restlessly all the time, for they did not have the power or the strength to remain quiet.”

The “capacity to remain still when one wants to, to gather all one’s energies and spend them as one wishes, completely if one wants, or to apportion them as one wants in action, with a perfect calm even in action—that is always the sign of strength.”

(0:34:00):

So, the “capacity to remain still when one wants to”, you should be able to when you want.

“to gather all one’s energies”, “spend” as you wish, “completely” if you want or “apportion ... with a perfect calm even in action”.

So, these are the things you would work on to train yourself.

"… that is always the sign of strength. It may be a physical strength or a vital strength or a mental strength ...”

So again here you get a clue that you could build on all three levels these capacities.

So physically of course and that would, physical activities would be very useful for this. In the martial arts one of the very basic kinds of training they make you go through, and people see it only as a training and endurance and strength, but it's not that, you'll find people standing in a certain pose, arms extended in front, knees half bent and stay. So you're standing with your knees half bent, arms extended in front and you stay, and stay, and stay, and stay. After a point your arms tire, your legs tire, you continue to stay, and stay. After a point, they start shaking. You continue to stay. Eventually sometimes you just fall over. The body refuses and goes into a reaction. And they make you do this again, and again, and again.

After a point where you collapse in after 10 minutes, you collapse after 30 minutes now. What has changed? It's not just muscular endurance. You realise that the more fidgety, restless and particularly mind, the more disturbed you are, the more you're thinking, What time is it? How much more? How will I survive? How will I manage?, The more quickly you lose.

You realise by doing and this is the hard way, that when you become completely quiet in thought, in emotions, in energies and in body and completely inwardly relaxed, then you can hold the poise. And actually you begin to feel as if, oh I could go on forever. Interesting. And the actual training is this inner shift. Unfortunately the trainers themselves don't know what it is they're doing for. They have learned the hard way. They make their students go through it the hard way. But the deeper purpose and when the masters teach you this is what they teach you, stop moving your mind, stop agitating your mind. As a result, no more agitation in the life-energies, as a result your body itself now receives the calm.

But into this you could bring the spiritual dimension of a deep peace, infuse into the mind, infuse into the life-energies, into the body itself and hold. And the part where the body starts tiring or shaking, you notice, ha that's the part which is not aligned to the peace. And you train, and you train, by infusing the peace. Interesting.

So this is an example of a physical exercise. Of course there's a vital content and a mental content.

But you could similarly take up situations which are more demanding on your vitality, on your emotions or on your mind and utilise in such exercises but remember the goal of the exercise is not a blind endurance which leads you nowhere but using the occasion for refining, to catch the layers or the parts which lose the alignment and realigning them.

This is often what happens to many who stay for too long in ascetic isolation. Even if it is in some affirmative yoga, when you are in isolation for too long, your layers and finer parts are never tested. So it feels as if, oh I am suffused with peace. Fine, works fine. But it's when I'm stressed by circumstances that those parts now reveal to what a degree they have actually absorbed the peace. And you may find after a while, certain parts give in quickly. Those are the surface layers where the piece has not yet settled. It was infused but superficially. Now under stress it loses quickly. And bit by bit the breakdown goes outside-in and until it hits a point where now the piece is so strong it cannot go further. That boundary has to be pushed back. And in a sense unless you are in activity, in work, and even to some extent in collective interaction, in a community interaction, this does not take place or the testing of it does not take place.

And hence in the Ashram context where this sadhana was very intense in those days, everyone was involved in work although they were advised not to engage in personal interactions and yet the interaction for work was there which often became the testing edge for many things.

This changes when you have people who come with very different interests, then things become far more difficult in a way. On the other hand, you're being tested more intensely, so all depends on your attitude there.

(0:39:17)

So, “It may be physical strength or vital strength or mental strength. But if you are in the least agitated, you may be sure there is a weakness somewhere; and if your restlessness is integral, it is an integral weakness.”

“So, if I tell someone “Be calm”, I may be telling him all kinds of things, it depends upon each person. But obviously, most often it is, “Make your mind quiet, don’t be restless all the time in your head, don’t stir up lots of ideas, calm yourself.”

And she speaks of something very interesting, the people who have an experience of the divine, she describes several, and who cannot recognise what the experience is unless they can articulate and explain it to them themselves either in thought or in words. Because they live so much on the surface that they cannot register an experience in itself at its own level. So they need to translate it. I come out from this deep state of immersion. Wow! That was something. What was it? I think I felt a peace. I think I felt a calm. And there was some kind of light. I felt wide. Something. You have to reduce it to words and ideas. In the process, the experience is diminished. But in doing so, you're losing the power.

And this she gives as an example of this restlessness, which makes you lose power. So I'm going to read a little bit of this: “For most people an experience exists only when they can explain it to themselves. The experience in itself”-now she lists some-“contact with a certain force, a widening of consciousness, communion with an aspect of the Divine, no matter what experience, an opening of the being, the breaking down of an obstacle, crossing over a stage, opening new doors—all these experiences, if people cannot explain them to themselves in so many words and materialise them in precise thoughts, it is as though these did not exist! And it is just this need for expression, this need for translation, which causes the greater part of the experience to lose its power of action on the individual consciousness. How is it that you have a decisive, definitive experience, that, for instance, you have opened the door of your psychic being, you have been in communion with it, you know what this means, and then—it does not stay? It is because it did not have a sufficiently tangible power unless you can express it to yourself. The experience begins for you only when you are able to describe it. Well, when you are able to describe it, the greater part of its intensity and its capacity of action for the inner and outer transformation has already evaporated. There it may be said that expression, explanation, is always a coming down. The experience itself is on a much higher plane.”

So now you're going to have another thing to work upon. When there is the descent of a power, let's say, or there is an infusion of a certain power from in a inner or higher range, the bridging from the level of the first direct experience to its full expression or even its containing on the surface and then its expression on the surface that should be made as smooth as possible as complete as possible without the need for this translating, reflecting, diluting process.

So you should be able to hold the experience in the grade, depth or height of power in which it was received, staying there allow the power to then flow through all these levels. And all this would happen relatively easily if you have already worked to establish the space of complete stillness or stability or peace. So this is a reading from the Mother's comment.

There is another which comes from Sri Aurobindo's writings, and this is the, in The Synthesis of Yoga where he is speaking of how the body can be prepared for receiving and higher control to be brought in order to amplify the powers of the instruments since that is our goal now.

(0:44:17):

So, the, describing “The second member of the Yoga of self-perfection”, which we have spoken about before, and the chapter is “The Power of the Instruments”, so he says: “The object of this cultivation is to make the nature a fit instrument for divine works”, and for which you need to amplify the power, the Shakti.

So, there is an aspect of the Shakti filling you, but then there is a preparatory aspect to it.

And “right shakti” is the first step, “the right condition of the powers of the intelligence, heart, vital mind and body”.

And he explains, there is a whole rationale which will skip, and then he comes to what do we do practically: “The first thing the will has to do with the body is to impose on it progressively a new habit of all its being, consciousness, force and outward and inward action.”

Wow.

All this has to be done for the body.

“a new habit of … its being”: What does that mean? The way the body feels to itself. Consider somebody let's say take an example of a patient who is unwell, I am weak I am unable, and of course if they have been programmed by the doctors beforehand, you know I have such and such a damage in my heart, there's a hole in my lungs, there is this in my kidney, there is that, I am diabetes, so I am weak, I am incapable, I am vulnerable, etc., etc.

You see the state of the body, being, the way it feels itself to be, its sense of its existence, of its underlying reality, who it is, that of the body, not of your mind and emotions, so, you have “to impose on it progressively a new habit of all its being”.

Next, all its “consciousness”. So the body's awareness is of a certain grade, of a certain dullness, of a certain blindness, I will use the word ‘inertia’, clouding. So when you come into the body, you feel immediately a sensation of narrowing, limiting. Even in your mind when you start daydreaming you can float and free and widely extend yourself. You come back into body, oh here and now earth’s limitation and you're shrunk into the size of your body consciousness and the dulling of the consciousness. This also has to be taught, a new habit.

Similarly, a new habit of all its “force”, the push, and “outward” action and “inward action”. The outward action of the body would be of course what it is doing in terms of its skills and expression but also the internal working of the biology itself in terms of its and then its consciousness in terms of relationships between the different organs and their functions. All this is included. Everything has “to impose on it progressively a new habit”.

For this, an intermediate step is, “It must be taught an entire passivity in the hands first of the higher instruments, but eventually in the hands of the spirit and its controlling and informing Shakti”.

So teach the body to become passive, entirely passive, first to your own “higher instruments”. Let's say in this case the higher parts of your mind or the higher layers of aspiration in your emotions and so on. To be passive to them means that when they act, it does not react. It allows, like a transparent instrument, it allows their action smoothly. Now one of the most effective means for this is to be in a state of complete stillness but under a stress of some kind, that is, when you do asanas. You stretch and hold. So the moment you go stretch and hold, after a while, as the modern mind is, it starts getting restless. What am I doing? Is there a bing on the mobile? Maybe there's a message for me. What about this? What about that? No, your mind becomes completely still, quiet with the body and your emotions and energies become completely still with the body and all these four align in stillness. And then if in that state they open to something deeper or higher, perfect. And that's the most easy, most direct, the best training, good for the body at the same time and at the same time it aligns, unifies your being and teaches the body to become still to the higher influence in different postures, in different circumstances. Let's say you're waiting at a bus stand. You're waiting before an interview meeting. You sit quietly. You can open your mobile, your mind can be restless. What's that fellow doing? Of course you can always use it in a positive way or you can use that time to still mind, still emotions, still energies, still the body. And sit in this calm stillness and then from there open to something deeper or higher. And it's fascinating. Once you've got a little bit of this it's such an enjoyable activity that you might want to do it more and more.

But in the process, in the body you're teaching to become receptive and open. So the key- phrase he uses, the body “must be taught an entire passivity in the hands first of the higher instruments”, and then “eventually in the hands of the spirit and its controlling and informing Shakti”.

Once you get this the mind then becomes a link, the heart becomes the link, for something still higher, deeper, and the whole thing can be done relatively easily.

Another substep, “It must be accustomed not to impose its own limits on the nobler members, but to shape its action and its response to their demands, to develop, one might say, a higher notation, a higher scale of responses.”

So normally the body says, ha I have been working now for three hours, there's not more I can do. Past habit. Instead the body should be taught, ha as long as required I can continue to work.

(0:51:24):

Now the problem is, today we have to always constrain this with certain situations of extreme health balance if you have an issue. Well it's still a body problem, but don't drive it too hard or too fast.

Yes, this must be done, even the body can be taught to overcome every limit irrespective of age. But with age the boundary and pace of change might be slower. So respect that even as you push the boundary softly gently and recognise what is habit and what is an actual physical limit.

When we are young, this boundary is not so clear and so you can really push the body to limits and see where, what is real and what is not. But it's limits, it has to let go to something higher.

And Sri Aurobindo uses this very suggestive line, “shape its action and its response to their demands, to develop, one might say, a higher notation, a higher scale of responses”.

It's as if you had a notation of music and your body is used to singing in this narrow band of one octave and a higher scale a higher octave now is being opened up and its boundaries pushed.

It's a very suggestive metaphor. Dwell on it and see what else it conveys to you and the metaphor will be complete in the next sentence where he says: “At present the notation of the body and the physical consciousness has a very large determining power on the music made by this human harp of God”.

“notation of the body”, the way you put the notes, “has a very large determining power on the music” of the “harp of God”.

So from above the music comes which is of five octaves, your body determines limits to one octave.

 “the notes we get from the spirit, from the psychic soul, from the greater life behind our physical life cannot come in freely, cannot develop their high, powerful and proper strains”, so not only the high meaning, the range here, but also the intensity of the power, the body diminishes greatly, and the proper strain in the blend of the notes and the way they flow from one another.

“This condition must be reversed; the body and the physical consciousness must develop the habit of admitting and shaping themselves to these higher strains and not they, but the nobler parts of the nature must determine the music of our life and being.” Not the body determining, but the nobler part determining.

A complete reversal means the body actually becomes a plastic instrument, it says, whatever you choose.

And all this becomes the first step; those were substeps.

“The control of the body and life by the mind and its thought and will is the first step towards this change. All Yoga implies the carrying of that control to a very high pitch. And afterwards the mind must itself give place to the spirit, to the spiritual force, the supermind and the supramental force. And finally the body must develop a perfect power to hold whatever force is brought into it by the spirit and to contain its action without spilling and wasting it or itself getting cracked.”

So these are the three problems of the body's capacity that it spills. It can't get it literally you feel burst or the energy is just thrown out. It can take place in various forms on a subtle level, on a physical level, in speech, in action, somehow you throw it away.

I've seen this very often when people go into some kind of a period of concentration or intense practice or meditation. Once they build to a certain intensity, typically I find more than two days most people cannot manage, the system starts getting restless and they want to talk and spill and throw it away.

So, the first problem is that it tends to spill or waste it in activity which just disperses by various means. It can also be done in other way, I have nothing to do now but I will do something just because I have too much energy and I need to shed it but I'll do work but that's a waste, or itself getting cracked, there is a breakdown even it can fall ill sometimes if that is too much if it is too weak and has not been plastified enough.

(0:56:41):

“It must be capable of being filled and powerfully used by whatever intensity of spiritual or higher mind or life force without any part of the mechanical instrument being agitated, upset, broken or damaged by the inrush or pressure,—as the brain, vital health or moral nature are often injured in those who unwisely attempt Yogic practice without preparation or by undue means or rashly invite a power they are intellectually, vitally, morally unfit to bear,—and, thus filled, it must have the capacity to work normally, automatically, rightly according to the will of that spiritual or other now unusual agent without distorting, diminishing or mistranslating its intention and stress.”

You see, all the distortions which may come when there is too much intensity.

“This faculty of holding, dhāraṇa-śakti, in the physical consciousness, energy and machinery is the most important siddhi or perfection of the yoga.”

Now all this, I will pause here, I won't go further, you can read the whole chapter, but all this is to give you a sense of what it would mean to do the tapasya of the power aspect.

Of course, with it we would work on the knowledge and the love and everything else, but this would be a broad sense of what one would need to do.

If you start young, you have a huge advantage because, as I said, your body is more supple, can be shaped more rapidly, more easily with less resistance.

But in principle you can do this at whatever age, finding whatever pace is required.

But there was a warning there, if you unduly attempt to bring greater power into the mind, vital, physical, without being first purified, let's say, it can create all these imbalances.

And the purification, I would not go into detail, simply say, this base of complete stillness, where it lives by a higher value and not by contrary or lesser values.

So I think this would give a pretty complete sense of the nature of the work to be done.

There is one more passage which I was tempted to share. It is in relation to a certain aphorism of Sri Aurobindo that the Mother comments. I'll read the part of the aphorism 141:

“If thou canst not be the slave of all mankind, thou art not fit to be its master and if thou canst not make thy nature as Vasishtha’s cow of plenty with all mankind to draw its wish from her udders, what avails thy leonine supermanhood?”

Another words, if you want to be truly a representative of the power aspect of the superman consciousness, then its ability to serve with love and to give in plenty to all humanity  would be an essential component without which it could not be truly a greater power that is worthy of ruling, of leading mankind.

So ruling is not domination to crush, ruling is to lead it to something greater. That's the true sense of ruling.

So Mother's commentary on this is:

“To be the slave of all mankind means to be ready to serve mankind; and to make oneself as the cow of plenty means to be able to pour forth abundantly all the force, the light, the power that mankind needs in order to emerge from its ignorance and incapacity; for if this were not so, a superhuman being would be a burden rather than a help to earth.”

Interesting.

So this is something quite deep. There are many more implications which we can, I would leave it to you to introspect and explore.

But this is also to put in context the deeper truth behind this aspiration for being effective in power.

(1:01:37):

So we have used certain words almost in equivalence: strength, power, endurance, force. Pretty much we have used them in a kind of loose way.

If you come to the specific sense in the English language and always the English language starts with the physical aspect of the meaning from which it builds the psychological.

Sanskrit goes the other way. It starts with the psychological aspect and then builds the physical.

It's interesting.

Someday we'll have a discussion about this, the Sanskrit language itself.

But for now, with the English language, the sense of these words needs to be understood.

So ‘strength’ is what the question was about and the ability to, it would be described as the ability to overcome limitations or oppositions or resistances. So if you have strength, you can overcome. Which in the example of Ganapati Muni walking in, the ‘strength’ is the word you have used, so the strength was overcoming the contrary forces automatically and he was carrying that intensity with him.

‘Power’ is the capacity of the strength to rapidly overcome. So you can have a certain strength but its application in low power would mean you push gently gradually over time. Its same strength applied in high power would be rapidly overcoming. Ok? And you can see how spiritually you could translate this into spiritual terms.

And then there is the ‘endurance’ which means you're able to apply but you don't exhaust yourself. You can apply and apply and apply and for a long time even with high power if needed or multiple times if needed without feeling the exhaustion of the strength.

‘Force’ could be described as the pressure which is exercised against a resistance, so that would be the character of the force aspect.

I think, this gives you a sense of, the scope of the question.

And, okay, it's not still not complete, we have another part of the question: Should one do mantras such as Mahamrityunjaya mantra, exercises like Sarvangasana or does the Mother give the necessary strength to her children if they are open?

This is important. Yes, with mantras you could gain a certain strength. You could even gain a certain power, which is often the case with those who follow the system of mantras. They are Siddhas or practitioners of mantra sadhana. So they will repeat certain mantras, by repetition intensify the power of the mantra, accumulate the power, intensify, concentrate the power and then they are carrying it within themselves like a charge of compressed air or explosive powder and then in life wherever they exercise themselves, not always consciously using that power, wherever they exercise themselves somehow there is a greater force and things get done with greater rapidity, effectivity and so on.

As they have gathered something because they have gathered it in a finite way, it can also exhaust itself in finite action. So the person loses his temper, the Rishi explodes in anger as used to be the case in the stories we are told of Durvasa, as he explodes in anger and curses that compressed energy that was there, phooph, is thrown out, lost; and he comes back and says, oh all the work I have done is lost now I need to rebuild my intensity.

I have had occasion to actually see this happen and I mean to experience this happen, in certain kinds of gathered energy, one can actually feel it being lost even as you speak. And it doesn't have to be with anger. Sometimes even speaking of especially the powers relating to mantras.

I think I've shared here an experience I had because of the fact of having chanted with my teacher many times, certain things, perhaps other things also. There was a certain power which I could feel in the speech. And for a long time I had avoided technical lying. So technically I would never tell a lie. If I had to avoid a difficult situation, I would find a way to use words which were always true but might deceive somebody and get around that problem.

So at some point in my life I faced certain situations where I could not do that. Some people asked certain questions in a very direct way and I found, I had no way and I chose to lie. I could have, in retrospect I could have said, well I prefer not to discuss that with you. It would have been other ways to avoid, but it didn't strike me, then and I chose to lie. And I could feel a diminution of the speech power. It was very interesting.

It's difficult to describe what it's like. If I had to use words, I will say when there was speech, there was a certain intensity which you could feel in the speech as if when said with firmness, it put forth an energy that would make it happen. However strong, that's not the point. But you could feel the energy that would make it happen. After that, it was as if I had lost something, oh I don't have, I'm using the same words but I can't put the same energy or this energy is not there. I have to force myself to put it. It was not happening automatically and that is that kind of gathered tapas concentrated energy which can be lost in this way and there are other ways in which it can be lost also.

So this was the characteristic of many of the kinds of practice which had to do with mantra sadhana.

(1:08:07):

So, those who use this, and you have referred to Mahamrityunjaya mantra, for those who do not know, the term in Sanskrit can be a little difficult for those who are not familiar with the language, ‘Maha’ is great, ‘Mrityu’ is death, ‘Jaya’ is victory. So the great mantra victorious over death or mantra of victory over death. That's how we could translate. This is a well-known mantra in India. It is extremely powerful. There's potency to it. When you give this mantra to a child for example or the Gayathri mantra even or Sri Aurobindo's Gayathri, it can be given to a child with this particular idea that: this will actually protect you from all danger, in any situation, if you find yourself in life helpless or under assault or in danger of any kind, repeat this mantra and immediately you will be protected if nothing else, like a shield will form. This is often told to children in India, at least those who follow some kind of transmission of the tradition. The result for a child is extremely important, because often as children we feel our helplessness or vulnerability. And sometimes as children you go in a dark place and you're afraid, what if maybe you have ideas, I don't know, ghosts or you're sensitive to presences, you feel something sometimes not so comfortable. What do you do? You could sing which is what I see some children they talk or sing as a way of turning their mind off but if you have knowledge of this kind you can repeat the mantra and literally create the shield or at least your conviction or your faith helps to create that shield invokes the higher power. You feel the difference.

Now this is a well-known mantra so I don't need to go further into this.

Yes it would have a certain effect.

You could also and there are people who do that take up other mantras for specific kinds of powers or influences and so on. The problem with such approaches, now I come to the context of the Integral Yoga, the problem is that it is still finite energy gathered in little bits and pieces over a long period of time accumulated which you cannot use very freely and it is a miserly energy. It is actually a tiny-tiny-tiny amount compared to the infinity that's waiting to pour down into you.

So yes certainly this is useful but if you are a practitioner of the Integral Yoga or seek to practise the Integral Yoga, tap into the higher source which would build far more rapidly a far greater intensity and against which this kind of practice pales in comparison literally.

So I have, for example I think of a friend who is in business who used to do this as a mantra and one of the questions I asked him is have you met people who have, and he felt the power, I said do you feel, have you met people with greater power? He said, yes, I met people who I felt they had so much power they could just knock out my power in one go like this. I said, what do you do in that case? Or worse still, what if the mantra had been lost? So many great mantras have been lost in time, you would never have the capacity to build up this power and this shield and protection or this influence.

So much better way would be that let's say, you have an experience of the presence of the power of the shield, whatever with mantra, without, with direct experience, whatever it is, you have an experience. Recognise that, go back deeper-deeper-deeper into as if the deeper ranges or layers of what that experience represents, leaning back so to say all the way into the self of which this is an aspect. And concentrating in this way you reach a certain depth of intensity, density, presence, wideness which is so much greater as to feel almost as if it opens out into infinity in wideness, in density, in intensity, all infinity of which this is like the tail end or the tip, tail end of the dog, or tip of the iceberg, whatever but in relation to infinity it's nothing.

So whatever experience you have, and for purpose of experience, you may have anything, from there deepen to go back as if leaning as if recognising all that everything is an aspect of self, immerse into that and then from there as you return let its imprint, let its impression, let its influence, now fill you inside-out, up-to-down, in whichever parts of your being are most receptive, hold, and from there, those parts which are still like finite cups, open out to that infinity, and then still further down into more superficial and lower parts which may be more narrow as cups, hold, open to that, and so on, all the way to most material body and you will feel in your body itself that density infusing. Although it's not yet fully settled, it's not yet stabilised, it's just superficially reflecting or filling, but still hold that, and open.

(1:13:52):

And this as an exercise would be the single most powerful and a rapid way to build this aspect of, I will say, first deep peace and to that deep power, presence of self.

At some point I'm going to drop the word power because power is so naturally implied you almost don't have to worry about it. It is unshakable. In the peace itself is the power, and in that is also the knowledge. In that, if so you turn, you could ignore that aspect completely, is also the love, the underlying sense of oneness in which you can look at everybody and feel that natural affinity of compassion and closeness and intimacy of some deeper layer of the soul, of the self. And you look at the whole world, and it is suffused with the presence of the self and the love of the self and the knowledge and awareness and the power and presence and the peace. And so not only within you but within all the universe you feel the continuum of this peace, presence, power, knowledge, love.

Now when a situation comes externally to provoke, to counter, to attack because everything is held in this, you experience that also held in that peace, and therefore automatically, effortlessly is a great equality or if there is a disturbance it is extremely superficial inside you are unaffected, and then the clarity of your thought, clarity of the origination of your action etc. and even the form of the action can be so much more clear, effective, powerful and so on.

If you felt only the peace in yourself, something from outside could rattle and disturb. But when this peace becomes wide, infinite even, but well even wide enough to fill all around you. Automatically you do not, not only find yourself not disturbed but you feel the peace in the other person and as if your awareness of it amplifies it in them. And so the people who come into your ambience or influence would naturally feel themselves also similarly in affinity with the peace and that would be the true exercise of the spiritual power that it helps change your circumstances to lift them and align them to something deeper and truer, not an exercise of your personal will on another's freedom. It's a very different experience and still it's the exercise of power and then the right action can take place in relation between the two of you or in those circumstances. Naturally, isn't it? Effortlessly. Think about it.

When the peace is thus exercised, the circumstances also are very different in their response and their reaction.

The ambit of this influence would naturally grow and deepen in time, but to begin with, work on yourself. Let it slowly spread and infuse in your circumstances to the extent that there is a responsibility that you have towards something, let that aspiration and that experience suffuse into it. But even with what I have described, there may be situations where an active opposition will come. You would not be affected and perhaps according to the depth or the height of the power involved, it may even use that opposition in the long run for a more comprehensive outcome. If by then you have opened to the supramental action, that would be one of the natural consequences effortlessly.

(1:18:13):
So yes, the Mother does give the necessary strength, but in this movement of opening, it is to that strength that you open by building yourself and making yourself a competent instrument.

So there is an aspect of your personal turning in action, in immersion, and then there is the aspect of her pouring into you, filling into you the power and the force. Both work together.

Vasishta Ganapati Muni in his tapasya particularly highlighted this aspect of the building of the intensity of the tapas. It was in reference to this aspect of the tapas and the building of tapas that my teacher M.P. Pandit made a comment with some sadness. This was practically a month before he left his body, and he raised this question, he said that: Why is it that in an ashram of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, such extraordinary giants, we do not see too many exceptional giants?

Well the fact is we did see. There were many. But most of them were somewhat silent and they belonged primarily to the first early grade of the sadhaks, very few later on. But still they were all exceptional people even if they were not giants. But his question, the question put to him was: Why do we not see more of these giants?

And his comment was that there has been a [surfeit], a lack, of tapas. Sometimes things are given too easily, and one does not feel the necessity to make that effort. The necessary effort made, yes, she could fill that much more, infinitely more, but that effort would still be required on our part. And that would be the nature of the tapas that we have to work upon.

I think this would be a good point to pause on.

We had certain other related questions which we could take up next time, and we can build on this as a basis.

But the aspect of power and especially in the spiritual context, and through the spiritual power, the recovery of power in life, in action, in realisation, in achieving external change and transformation both of circumstances as well as of consciousness is absolutely essential. The Superman, the supramental being would be nothing without the capacity to or the power to change circumstances. Isn’t it?

But we will come back to the three things: wisdom, knowledge, the power which has to follow the knowledge, and the love which has to be infused in both.

Without love, even with right wisdom and power, it could be felt as tyrannical or imposition or too impersonal.

Without power, the knowledge and the love would be weak and ineffective.

Without knowledge, the power, even with love, would be haphazard and would result in often contradictory, delayed or avoidable oppositions.

So the three have to blend in a sense. In a supramental consciousness, it's a single action, you do not distinguish the three. But from our experience, the knowledge has to proceed, followed by the power and infused with the love in the power itself.

So we can hold this as a broad reference.

In your own life, and now I don't take the larger question of building that kind of power, in our own life where we have to exercise our choice, our will, our limited power and circumstances, family, friends, workspace, life situations, wherever possible, take a moment to step back, stand in your highest, deepest poise of understanding, what is the right thing to do. Sometimes you may see even doing the right thing it's not going to do any, it won't have the necessary result and yet you have to do the right thing. Well okay, from the knowledge then you exercise but with base of peace impersonally without being disturbed with equality without being agitated. If you find yourself agitated, pause, do not act, make yourself very quiet and still. Only when you have reached stillness, that you act. If during the action again there is agitation, pause or slow down the action. Match it to what you are currently capable of. Slow down. Exercise, play, learn, develop the skill of exercising power without losing the balance or without agitation. And infuse into the power this compassionate aspect, an underlying mutuality, or love is still too big a word, but recognise you could have been on the other side, how would you want it done to you, and do what you can to soften, bring mutuality of some kind etc.

So I'm bringing it to a very narrow mundane kind of level.

But as a starting point this would be the way you would immediately apply within your current capacity in your circumstances as you work upon the deeper and higher aspects.

And then of course, the Mother helps. Because she is the power, she is the knowledge, she is the love within you, isn't it?

So as you align yourself to these three things, remind yourself that these are not yours. Don't say, my love is so great. No, it's not your love. It is her love within you that resonates with the love within the other person or with the presence within the other. It is her knowledge or light within you that reveals the intelligence within you and in the same way it is her power within you that you are exercising and wielding. It is not yours. And therefore with this awareness you are able to deal with it with responsibility and as in the right attitude of an instrument, as a trustee of the power, and this principle would apply equally to wealth, which I had wanted to discuss, perhaps another time, but the same attitude of trustee, not yours. And then the possibilities of distortion, of claim of the ego, are minimised.

So it's something we could all try to work upon in the coming few days while it is fresh as an intention as an aspiration and learn as we go along.

we can take a moment to hold this in aspiration.

I have not yet looked at the chat box, but we'll take a look at it later and incorporate questions or comments in the next one if there are any.

Namaste.

Alina (1:26:13):

Namaste.