EWS #133: On Power and Wealth -- III

October 15, 2022

Alina (0:00:30):
Namaste. I'm Alina and I'm very happy to host Evenings with Sraddhalu, streaming online directly.

Namaste Sraddhalu.

Sraddhalu (0:00:39):
Namaste. Happy to be with all of you.

Alina (0:00:45):

We are happy to continue today “On Power and Wealth”, Part III. We will cover some questions on the same spiritual power and wealth and we will continue this topic with more questions which we will take on strength and wealth and other powers.

As usual, during our conversation you may freely ask questions in our chat box also, you may send beforehand your questions at our email id integralstudies.in[at]gmail.com.

So we are looking forward for another wonderful session. Thank you.

Sraddhalu (0:01:30):
Thank you.

I will continue from where we left off. The last two sessions, we have been somewhat dwelling on the theme of the power aspect in particular, and you will recall the question largely began with a question from Maya about spiritual power and how it is possible to develop that, and then from there we broadened the overall theme to power in general and then the aspect of wealth also which is closely associated with this.

And the last time we also covered the question from SriValli about how we see wealth and also power concentrated in the hands often of people who are not very worthy of it, as it seems to us, because they don't seem to follow the requirement at least from a spiritual point of view of what it would be required to be able to wield the wealth, and as an associated idea the power aspect also we find often people who have a strong dominating vital overwhelm the voices of those who have greater refinement, sensitivity, insight and are perhaps more worthy even of that position of power.

So we'd covered this also to some extent, and one of the points made was about how the Asuric energies have largely taken possession and ownership of wealth and power, and this was because, well, it was abandoned by those who considered them as unspiritual.

And this is a very important point to keep in mind because it works on a very subtle level, behind the scenes, behind, in, within our thinking. In particular, there is always implied in these kinds of questions the idea that a morally fit person should have greater strength or wealth just because you are morally good. So moral goodness is never a reference in these matters.

You will see for example in the extreme form in which Mahatma Gandhi pushed this whole concept, he even tried to extol the virtues of poverty and weakness. It was again Tolstoyan Christian idea that he brought in where he said: that those who are the poorest, those who are the weakest, they are closer to God, they are superior in some way, they are more spiritual and so on.

And again the association that spirituality is or implies an abandonment of wealth or power.

And this, this works on subtle levels.

Implied even in the question that, I am so good, I am doing so much and yet this fellow dominating fellow and we often see in them a coarseness, a crudeness, even sometimes a Asuric nature and they overwhelm, dominate this superior, greater me or somebody else.

Mother makes this observation, and we read something from her last time, but she makes this general observation that in the higher worlds, especially as you go higher up, what you are within in consciousness is spontaneously revealed in, not only in the form but in the powers that you express.

So somebody who is internally aligned, organised, rich, complex, with capacities automatically wields greater influence and power in those worlds.

Just as a very superficial example, if you enter the mental worlds where literally substance is formed of your same grade of mind awareness, whatever you visualise, whatever you mentally conceive, automatically tends to shape the reality.

So if you are in a dream state and you become conscious that you are dreaming, what we call ‘lucid dream', you will find, not only you can do what you like, you can float and fly, but you can also shape circumstances, literally create a scene, and the scene shapes itself to match your mind and if you release the mental pressure the scene tends to fall back to some other common pattern that was there perhaps as a form of a collective mental formation and so on.

That's why Mother uses this word “formation”, your mind forms, and then the form stays, it has a reality of its own.

When your mind is richly developed, when your power of conception is rich and detailed, you can create complex, rich, beautiful scenes and imageries.

Or in the vital world, when your vitality is organised, disciplined, large, embracing, compelling, powerful, well, you can wield largely, shape things and express. And if your vital is beautiful and refined and cultured, even spiritual or psychic in its influences, the things you create with your vital power will be suffused with those vibrations, and all automatically spontaneously.

This is what we experience somewhat indirectly in the character and quality of our dreams which often tend to be reflections of our state.

So you go to sleep in a state of emotional turbulence, your dreams will be turbulent and disturbed and so on.

(0:07:26):

So in those worlds automatically your state reflects forms and shapes the reality or the power you have innately is expressed in the form. Even to the extent, she says, in the supramental world, the clothes, this is true even in the mental worlds, but already in the supramental world especially because all is expression of truth, the clothes you wear, the form you express, is a natural reflection or expression of your quality of consciousness and state of consciousness.

So the less evolved are seen more as children, the more evolved are seen as more in adult form.

When your powers of expression are less developed, you are almost naked like a newborn child. When your powers of expression are more skilled and developed, you have a clothing which is an expression of your skill. The more richly woven, blended, skilled, your inner capacities, the more richly expressive the clothing and so on.

So automatically there in those worlds the form reflects the inner truth.

The problem is only as you approach the physical world where form can be separate from the inner truth. Approaching the physical world the form tends to be rigid.

So even in those planes, you go in the vital or mental worlds, in the planes of mind which lean towards matter or planes of the vital which lean or turn towards matter, you have this tendency that the form becomes more rigid, therefore your consciousness is less expressive in that form but equally form can cover, hide, distort what is within.

Now you come fully into the physical world and now you see the problem. Your form is not necessarily a reflection of you. Equally form in your life is not a reflection of your state of consciousness. Or rather the reflection is there but concealed behind the appearances of the forms which can cover up or even distort. And therefore, in the physical world in particular, it is very easy for somebody with a large vital to seize on power or money, wealth, and wield it because it is bound in form.

The same person in the vital plane may have this dominant character still of the vital but if it there has not been that refinement there has not been that harmonisation you will find it very difficult to seize upon wealth or true power you'll be like a bull in a China shop breaking shaking but without being able to build anything of real value.

In a way this character is reflected in the physical world, such a person will dominate, crush and overwhelm but cannot really build something of value unless through that domination and pushing they get good people to do that part which they cannot do. And then you have the combination of both.

Okay, so this is the point you see in the physical world and it answers also, it elaborates on what we discussed last time about the use of wealth and power and why it can be in the hands of the sometimes even Asuric types or strong vitals. Especially the more Asuric natures can easily grab because they have a greater vital power. With a greater vital power the ability to seize, not facing opposition they have a free play.

Now let's take a person who comes into that space, who has a greater refined capable consciousness but equally strong and developed vital power, not necessarily more, but a refined consciousness, such a person will be able to overwhelm the other because of that other aspect of the more refined consciousness. But if the other side now now starts hitting back with sheer violence which often you see today in certain spaces, just coarse hard violence, this other side often being more refined, more sensitive may back off, may find it difficult to survive in that domain, but if they can hold their ground, they will always win.

So given equally developed vital energy capacity, the other aspect of refinement will be the asset.

(0:12:05):

But if this side has only the refinement and not the vitality, they will tend to be dislodged easily unless there is another partnership that comes, somebody comes who has the power, who acts as the protective shield in between.

Now I've seen this in businessmen. Some of them have obviously the necessary power but some don't. But they have people working with them who have that power and those people exercise for them the power. This superior, higher insight, or refinement, culture, idealism, act through the person with greater vitality to execute. If the other person is not a good ‘horse’, I'm using that word in the sense of the vital obedient, obedience, if he is not a good horse as an obedient vital, he can begin easily to manipulate.

So you express a certain intention, the other person starts modifying slightly, makes the outcome slightly different to suit his temperament. You ask for corrections, he makes a half-hearted attempt or he rebels. This person now pushes back against you, uses your vulnerability to now surround you, dominate you, can even create around you a very beautiful golden cage where you think, ha you're in charge, but actually what's being done is completely different. So this can happen.

But if that person is genuinely loyal and genuinely doing their best, there is a partnership which makes effective what the first person, the leader, didn't have.

So Mother's observation that in any effective outcome for a project, there will be three people needed. Now she says three people but you can say, how each of these represent a certain aspect, and the three together make for the effectivity.

So,

one is somebody who has the vision;

second, somebody who has the wealth; and

third, somebody who executes.

Now in principle all three could become one person but the one person will have to switch between three modes, normally at least in our current human capacity: shift back to my visionary conception, then move to my fundraising or fund managing mode, then move to my executive mode. But you can't be really doing all three at the same time, because they're completely different operations within our consciousness. This would not be true of a person who has acquired already a great spiritual development and becomes now a smooth transparent instrument for the Shakti in which these three things could blend and simultaneously act. So, but we are speaking right now of a human working however intense or developed it might be.

So there are three distinct operations requiring three distinct skills and even if you have them it is practically more effective when you have three people who have those skills.

Now once you catch this idea, you realise, let's say somebody who has to execute is not fully competent, then there may be a few more people who fill-in the lack of competency or those areas.

If the person with the wealth can handle only certain aspects, somebody else joins in the wealth managing team who fills in the lack and so on.

So in any effective outcome for a project, eventually you will end up needing to cover all the different facets of the qualities, characteristics, requirements for that manifestation, for that realisation.

So, this is just to give you a background. At any point, your capacity could be seized upon, distorted and warped. And this is most easy in the material world where things are bound in form. Even in execution you have to operate through distinct forms which can be owned, seized.

Let's say, even you have this wonderful idea, and it is yours, you've executed it, you're just beginning to make a good profit or it's beginning to catch on depending on what your application was, somebody comes and says, hey, you have just transgressed on my intellectual copyright or intellectual property ownership, I filed a patent 10 years ago on this very idea. You say, no, but I thought it on my own, I never knew you had a patent. It doesn't matter. Because in the physical world, an idea has been tokenised and bound inside a form and the form can be owned, therefore the idea is owned.

In the domain of mind, ownership of an idea is so ridiculous, isn't it? Even if you have an idea, you will say, yes, but the idea was there in the universal mental, cosmic mind, isn't it? That's why I could catch it. It was not really my creation. Even when you create something which is original, you created to express an insight which was intuitive, which did not belong to you in a sense which was already there. But the moment you bring it into domain of form, you can catch, package an idea and bind it and own it. And someone out there may not know, you can't be going out into every possible, there are billions of patents across hundreds of countries, to go and search and check, is this idea being caught. Even if somebody had something similar, you might have a distinctly different framework for your idea. You may say, it is different. But you have to now articulate which part of your idea is shared and call it ‘prior art’, which part is distinctive to make your own patent and so on.

Strange.

(0:18:02):

For an effective patent if you narrow it too much then somebody else can make a modification on it and patent to superior form. If you widen it too much then it is too non-specific.

So you are actually playing in domain of mind, tokenising on a physical level and binding it.

Let's see if you can do that with power.

To some extent, you can.

So in power also, I have a key which has power to open a door, I can pass on the key to somebody, I can lend you the key, I can make a duplicate of the key and give you, the access to that door.

But when it comes to wielding power over people, to a degree we tokenise it by giving you a chair. You are now the chairman. So as chairman, a man who sits on the chair, you have the power. Isn't it?

So there's an appointment letter which is signed, there's a tokenisation of power. But when it comes to actually wielding it, what's your competence? You may be sitting on the chair in which the power is, well, handed to you. But when you start wielding, you might find yourself ineffective.

Or the same with the patent, you've tokenised it, now you own the patent, but when you try to actualise it you might find yourself not too capable. Interesting. At the end of the day however much you may tokenise and bind within the domain of form, the actual utilisation would still require a skill on your part.

You can also see how you can, so there are several things you could do because we are in the domain of form, so tokenising is one example that I gave.

You can also share, transfer, delegate. Some variations on these three.

So, especially with knowledge, you can share knowledge with a million people. You've not lost anything.

Interesting.

The analogy we give is of the flame. Candle flame and another candle which is not burning, the flame can light it, and now both candles will burn. Neither has lost. In fact, the two together are adding more light, more heat, than they would separately or one of them could.

So with knowledge at least the act of sharing actually increases consciousness, knowledge, but loses, losing nothing on your part.

You can't do that with power. The moment you share power, you have that much less.

Interesting.

What about wealth?

Something similar. When you begin to share it, it diminishes in your, let's say, quantum, at least to the extent you have quantified it. When you leave it at the level of capacity only, it's difficult to share. The other side may or may not be an effective vehicle. You may still transfer some limited power they may execute, they may or may not align.

But especially in the domain of power you'll find the act of sharing often ends up being an act of delegation. So you have the greater power, and you give a partial power to somebody who is competent only for that much, you delegate another power to somebody else who's competent only for that much, so inherently to power is a tendency to form a pyramid, a hierarchy of transfer or delegation of power, into which you can further tokenise to bind it into a domain of form.

With knowledge, you could of course create hierarchy but innately it is not hierarchical. When you share, if you can transfer all of it, you lose nothing, the other person has it, and you're on a peer level, equally. There's no hierarchy being built.

So we see something interesting here.

The innate functioning of knowledge, especially in its sharing, in its spreading, even if tokenised and bound within the physical world, innately it is non-hierarchical. Innately it can multiply unendingly without ever losing.

Power though tends towards hierarchy.

And equally when it comes to wealth something similar happens. You can transfer a part of the wealth, and to that extent you don't have it or maybe you have overarching control of the wealth, but still practically somebody else can now manage it, disperse it, destroy it, lose it, whatever.

(0:23:55):

But when you transfer in this way or you delegate in this way, you find there's a tendency for a kind of a hierarchy.

So what you find, because of this characteristic of power and wealth, innately, in the world as it is, power will tend to accumulate, and wealth will tend to accumulate among a few, because of this characteristic.

So, let's say you have power, you delegate etc. But the secondary powers would tend to align to a greater power because of this hierarchical character, innate character, to the power consciousness itself.

And the same with wealth. So innately when there is a greater wealth, and you delegate parts of it, other parts which even if you may not own will tend to align with what resonates to make themselves more complete or to resonate with similar qualities that tend to accumulate.

So wealthy people will tend to gather and then share resources.

Powerful people will tend to gather and then share influences and sometimes exchanging between them to make for greater benefits mutually.

A powerful person meeting somebody who does not have power will tend automatically to co-opt that person within his hierarchy of power control or find them not useful. Or if they find the person has one piece which they lack, they will tend to co-opt and own and want to complete their own unit of power, wealth etc.

So I'm pointing to this because it's a very important characteristic to understand the working of power as well as wealth, the tendency of accumulation.

And so wherever there is an individual who is able to wield sufficiently power if they do it effectively there will be tendency for more power to come their way.

Same with wealth. You may be given wealth or a capacity. If you wield effectively, then you'll find more coming your way. If you do not, it tends to fizzle out, spread out, disperse, dilute and go elsewhere where it is better utilised or better controlled or better managed.

What has happened in the long run, because of this tendency, wealth as well as power have been accumulated because held by the Asuric tendencies, individuals with those tendencies, characteristic of that is simply ego domination, for me, I don't care about others, so wherever that has happened, they ensure that that accumulation remains with them and it does not go elsewhere. Because that's how it can be done.

Knowledge you cannot. Knowledge you have to hide if you don't want others to get it.

This also happens. And this is unfortunately, maybe I'll digress a little bit to give some examples of this, you see, Nikola Tesla had developed certain technologies which were way ahead of his time. He defined, he created the whole of the electrical infrastructure of today, nearly 140 years ago, with the AC motor and the transmission lines. We're still using exactly the same thing, nothing has changed, but he had gone further on much more and developed so many other technologies, some of which were buried. When he died, there were 14 crates of his papers of which the US government went through each of them, all the documents, all the patents, two crates worth of papers were taken away, the rest sent off to Serbia. He was a US citizen. Why wouldn't the US government make a museum for him in the US? They sent it off to Serbia which was his place of birth where there is a museum and even not everything is available there. But the two crates which they considered the most important they took away, and no information about what is in them.

In, so this is 1943, I think he passed away. In the year 2004, somebody applied under Freedom of Information Act, now remember, this is 60 years later, after Nikola Tesla's death, there's an application for Freedom of Information Act to release documents that are under still classified, and the United States Air Force responds by saying, these documents must remain classified because of national security reasons.

Now think about what after 60 years has to remain security-classified for national security and Air Force. It's quite mind-boggling when you think of what it could be.

Just this statement reveals in what direction some of those technologies are, and of course to this day, another 20 years later you still don't have any sign of these being released.

I'm giving this as an example, because in the domain of knowledge to hide knowledge, you have to literally bury what has already been put out but prevent people from thinking in those directions. So the result was the US government had to deprecate the value and importance of Nikola Tesla by sending away the papers somewhere else, by treating him as a non-entity.

You will find in all the textbooks, in all the science books, everywhere, Tesla has been reduced and forgotten. And at best you have the Tesla coil as a high voltage device presented as a novelty, that's it. The real work is buried and prevented from being known to the people.

(0:28:56):

And so in order often with knowledge, to be able to control it, you have to create a fake, let's say, belief, push people to pursue that and then discredit the truth. There's a whole manipulation of information required to distract people.

And you see, although knowledge can be tokenised, although it can be articulated through books, etc., burying it is very difficult, hiding it is very difficult, controlling it is very difficult, other than deliberately filling out falsehood and overwhelming people with falsehood.

Now one of the great, those of you who have seen my discussions on physics which I had last year sometime which is also on the channel, you've seen that I've spoken there of the ether as the underlying substratum.

The extent to which this idea has to be buried is, in order to control the minds of humanity so that we don't even think in that direction, every publisher in the science field will refuse to publish a paper that uses the word ‘ether’.

Interesting.

Science has become, has, has the religious characteristics, anathema, things you cannot, you're not allowed even to think about as a control system. And imagine what kind of a control would be required to ensure every single publisher in the world refuses those papers.

Think about what kind of a control exists on the thinking process in the domain of science which is supposed to be completely open pursuit of knowledge.

If that be the case in the knowledge sector, imagine what was done in the field of power and wealth in terms of control where it is much more easy to control because of the hierarchical nature inherent to these two things.

And then you get some glimpse of what it means when Sri Aurobindo says that the Asura has taken these and what it means to win back.

To win back knowledge is relatively easier because, well, you can say what you want, and that's why the powers that be have also to suppress now free speech, which also Sri Aurobindo warned about.

But when it comes to power now, it is much more easy to control: simply you're prevented from having it.

The entire media system is one of the power control structures is co-opted to discredit anybody who tends to come into power who is idealistic or who has a higher value even if they are more competent to wield that power.

So in the process, and this is the only reason why you can understand, everywhere all over the world people who come to power generally on very popular waves tend to be so incompetent because the competent people were filtered out and only the incompetent or controllable are allowed to come up. And if you are controllable, you cannot be truly competent, because true competence means you will on certain grounds you will refuse to be controlled. And so the system of control will eject you from that.

Now, all this is to make you understand the, some of these characteristics of these, these domains.

Managing therefore both power and wealth demands something specific on your part. Mother made this observation, she said, give a man enough power and enough money, and you will see his true nature.

Interesting.

As long as you have a insufficiency of these two things, you live by whatever values you have. The moment you have plenty of wealth and plenty of power, the first thing that happens is you start doing whatever it is that comes in your consciousness as an impulse because you can, oh I feel like this, starts with little things, I feel like eating this, order it, order it, order it, okay, today I've ordered but, and now I don't feel like, set it aside, order something else.

You see, bit by bit you're sucked into a whimsical, fanciful mode, well, because you can afford it. And very quickly the desire-nature begins to come forward. It creeps out, takes over, eventually overwhelms and distorts.

(0:33:41):

Or the same thing with power. You help somebody initially with a lot of optimism and idealism, here I have so much power, here I am happy to help. Tomorrow the person turns against you and criticises you which inevitably happens, that's the nature of human psychology.

Sri Aurobindo's observation, you know, I think, he quotes Vidyasagar, I think, who says that why is that fellow speaking against me I never did him a good favour.

If you do a favour, somehow in the human consciousness there's a strong sense of resentment of feeling indebted to somebody, and after a while that resentment pops up in a strange way. And if you had not done the favour, there would not have been that resentment or that subsequent reaction.

So when that person to whom you have helped now takes on, expresses that resentment, which will happen inevitably, your reaction, oh this ungrateful people, person, never again. You cut them off or you have now a hurt, a wound, in your little personality, ego. Next time somebody comes with the same problem, you said, no, I'm not going to get into that, I've been burnt once. Not that, not that, not that. Bit by bit again you are being warped by the wounds that come from your exercise of power which make you then less and less open, less and less generous, more and more closed, more and more self-centred. Eventually again the ego-desire framework takes over, and you just do what you want, you've had enough of trying to help people, it doesn't work, people are ungrateful, I can't manage, whatever the reason.

So inevitably, of course this, assuming you started with this capacity of genuine goodwill, in practice though we start with very mixed capacities and our goodwill is also very mixed, so very quickly we tend to internally justify to ourselves all our distortions when you have lots of money and power and very quickly you've got into modes where you have created a whole belief system to justify, completely wrong behaviour.

Nowhere at this point did you stop and ask:

What would the Divine want?

What is the deepest truth of your being?

What is the highest purpose for which you can put this to use?

Even if you have that as an idea, when it comes to the execution, it warps, because it's not always obvious, isn't it?

So Mother's observation that if you give enough money and enough power the true-nature is revealed now makes you question:

Well, what is my true-nature?

Is that really true-nature?

Ask the question a second time.

What is my true true-nature?

Can it now come forward and replace my false true-nature?

And then as the true true-nature, the spiritual deeper truth, of your being, let's say, comes forward and begins to replace, then you will find, even though you may have tendencies to get mixed with lots of wealth and power, well, you'll be able to manage them. And that's fine. It's okay to be able to make mistakes and learn from them, but without losing your central reference. So then automatically you realise that you need to work on yourself. Otherwise the ego-desire creeps, eventually it covers you so subtly and skillfully that you do not realise you are a victim and you're overwhelmed and trapped.

So in a sense the ability to wield properly the wealth and power requires a certain spiritual foundation. So we touched upon it last time and I will not overlap too much but certain things may, may be similar.

And then, assuming you're working on yourself, and then you're beginning to wield, if you have now also the necessary skill, competence and vitality, you will find yourself far more effective than the other in capacity, in ability to gather, but if it comes to a head-on collision where the other uses the most crude forms of power to overwhelm or to try to destroy you, you will still need great strength. There are very few politicians that you see in the world who came with a genuine higher intention and were able to hold their own, were most violently attacked by the media, wounded, brutally wounded sometimes, but if they had the capacity to stand firm, then they can still do good. Otherwise eventually either they cave in under media pressure or other forms of blackmail or they fade away, they fall apart because it’s a, it is a really tough space because the other side still controls largely the power and wealth.

(0:38:46):

As this balance tilts more and more and more people come into this higher value system, there is a mutual support, mutual strength which acts as a bulwark against the other, those guys may get desperate but eventually they are on the losing path. This tilt, this transition point is critical, and, I will say, in the first signs of this emergence of a few significant examples of people in the domain of power and wealth who represent a higher consciousness, we see a first beginning of this tilt, let's say. But all of us, each one of us to whatever limitation we have within our scope, within our space given to us, must participate in this consciously and that's how this change will happen.

I spoke last time briefly of the creation of cartels, cabals, interest groups. So this tendency for wealth and power to accumulate inevitably creates such interest groups.

We as a positive, even not necessarily spiritual, but few higher intended people with power and wealth, also have to form our own protective space in which the wealth and the power are held. ‘Container’ even we can say.

On the other side is a cartel, a cabal of common interests, which are intended to exploit others, the mass of humanity. They will ensure that they trade only with people who share their values. Sometimes these cartels are based on religion, sectarian values or common interests, whatever it is, it is their strength, in the long run it also becomes their weakness because internally they cannot attract the best of the talents or they have to corrupt the best of the talents which may or may not accept that.

On the other side, inherently we have an advantage. If you can build that capacity, you have to first protect it, because initially you will simply be overwhelmed from the other side. You have to protect it.

I take an example here, which is going to be somewhat unusual. In the domain of media exchange, of social media, you'll find all these big brands have come under control and ownership of very powerful negative interests. Say even things like Twitter as a medium is owned by people who ensure that free speech is suppressed, who attempt deliberately to tilt your beliefs and manipulate you for political and other means. And so many other groups or companies formed and all of them were either bought out or overwhelmed. One which is quite unusual is something called Gab, gab.com. It is run by Christian,  nationalist, is how he calls himself, and when he created this of course they came under huge assault, they found themselves cut off from all financial mechanisms, the banks would refuse to allow money to be transferred to them, all transferring agencies were blocked. They literally had to create their own payment facility. Very interesting. Having made their own payment facilities, they could now receive income, but they also made the payment facility available to all their members, to all participants, freely. Unlike the other payment facilities such as PayPal, for example, which announced that, just a week or two ago, that if you spread misinformation, they will deduct $2,500 from your account, and you have no opportunity to contest. It's their decision what is misinformation and what is not. Very dangerous. And the result was of course many people began to withdraw their monies and then they had to backtrack on that.

(0:43:25):

But this shows you the direction that Sri Aurobindo spoke of for controlling freedom of speech, for freedom of thought, to be suppressed, and all these entities are commonly shared in their value system to suppress freedom of speech and thought.

Gap is one of the few which has opposed that and built their own freedom of speech, space, but as a result, they had to build their entire payment system. Right now it is still largely US-based and they're expanding, they want to make it global, it will happen, it's inevitable.

But what you see, the same thing happening in international politics. Certain countries which were censored by other countries had to create their own independent means of financial transfers and transactions.

So what I'm pointing to is initially there's a battle. When you create your own space where there is a power and wealth used for a greater good, you'll find the other side initially will ridicule, then they will attack, and when you still survive, then they will go all out. At that point, you will need all this ecosystem of mutual support systems. And if that is strong enough, it will survive, and gradually more and more people will be able to come into it.

This is the stage at which we are now with a few such. I mentioned Gab as an example. There are a few more which need to come.

But what held, what is interesting is the man who founded Gab. It was his religious conviction, belief in God, that gave him the strength. And you can see from some of his posts: It tends to be a bit extreme in the formulations of his religious types and so it does put off. But one has to admire his genuineness: on his platform, his, he being Christian he also has satanic institutions that have come in using his platform, and he says, I have to stand for free speech and even though I detest what they are doing I cannot censor them, the moment you step into censorship of free speech, there's no limit, there's no boundary. The boundaries are all blurred. So he's able to stand by his principles, and for me that was admirable. And for that, I would stand by whatever he's doing, irrespective of whatever his exaggerated religious beliefs might be, he's standing true for an ideal irrespective. And because of that spiritual strength which comes from his religious commitment and a deeper true spirituality that he's able to build this.

I am giving this example in some detail to show you that when it comes to the crunch you will need this deeper strength and conviction if you're going to enter into this kind of a space. Of course as long as you're doing your own little work and managing your own little finances and power structures, no big deal, nobody bothers you. The moment you become threatening to the larger structure and their existence or their control, then all these things will happen, and it will happen inevitably if your goal is to, well, grow in whatever good you do.

For that though this inner foundation will be extremely important.

And so we come back to many elements which we have been discussing before of the spiritual principles needed and especially the spiritual development of the thinning of the ego and desire-nature and so on so that even though those things will be there, and they will always be there, you will know how to manage them, if you have worked on yourself in this way.

Then as you fulfil the requirements for the money power and utilisation of power, they will come to you, they will grow with you, and you will find you'll be able to build quite rapidly an ecosystem of shared values with those who share them. But again there'll be distortions because of people who don't have the same degree of readiness. But all these can be corrected if the centre is strong.

I give another example of how a shared ecosystem could be a strength, and I contrast this with the cartels and cabals which just hold their power within themselves.

If you look at the hotels in the United States, there's some amazing statistics such as something like this, I don't have the exact numbers, but broadly in this direction: 60% of all hotels in the US are run by Indians, 60% all those Indians come from the state of Gujarat, 60% of all those who come from the state of Gujarat in the hotel industry in the US are from one single village in Gujarat.

Amazing!

So, my 60% may be 70 or something but it's in that range.

And you have to ask yourself: How could this happen?

One single village, and people migrate, and they develop, and all in the hotel industry. Of course there are other industries also, but this is specific to the hotel industry.

(0:48:39):

And I had occasion to interact with some of them over time and found some very interesting insights there.

One of the things they said was, and of course most they are all Patels, so what they said was: anytime a Patel comes to us and says, I want to set up my own business please help me, we treat them as family, we give them the training, we give them the loans if necessary and help them set up their own business and start off.

Interesting.

So this is the strength of community. A community that says, oh, you're a member of my family, here, I'll help you. And then the rest is, of course, on your competence and your commitment, in your persistence, and capacity and so on. But giving the training.

I don't say, hey, are you going to eat into my business space? No, I don't want competition, I won't help anyone else.

It's not a narrow mentality. It's saying, let's have more, more hotels, let's all earn, let's all grow together.

There's the bond though of a familiarity because that becomes the basis for trusting someone. Because you know people with that background from that village, oh yeah, call up somebody there in the village: Do you know him? Oh yeah, he is that fellow's friend's nephew's son, something, okay, good, family, I can trust.

Of course if you find halfway through that they're not competent, you may drop them, that's a different matter. But starting point: there's a trust. And on the other side also they know, they're among some relative’s relative, so.

That community bonding allows very rapidly for the wealth to grow as well as the power to grow.

Unlike the cabal which the bond is built on control, domination, blackmail sometimes, and exploitation against others, this is a healthy community building that grows to share more with others. It's a very different model. The basis is completely different. But there is the common element of what appears like a cartelisation except it's not a cartel, it's a shared community of mutual support, so a lot of this will have to happen for the wealth and the power to really come into, to be won back from the Asuric.

And a lot as I have said has just started, but I'm explaining the, the mechanisms for this, and so this bond which I described as a family bond of the Patel's families at a deeper level represents or would be fulfilled by a deeper spiritual bond that you meet somebody and you have a resonance at the level of the ideals or values and say, ah, you're family, spiritual family, isn't it?

And there's a direct evidence, you don't have to even check with somebody else: Where is he from?

And of course, there will be a few distortions which may come up initially, and if they don't work out, well, you can choose to dissociate.

But, in the first step, it will be these shared values which will be the basis for such a framework.

Eventually this has to go up the corporate ladder also.

The contrary thing which is happening currently is, and I want to point this out because we have to contrast the differences, the contrary thing happening currently is: certain interest groups, and there's not just one but many, often religious, sometimes sectarian, have wormed their way up into positions where key-decisions are made, for example, the HR position, human resource position, where you employ people, or where they have control over the advertising or media, where the image is projected to masses.

And then what they do, they twist to bring in their sectarian interests. So they will hire people only of their religion or of their community or their sectarian, whatever value, in order to subvert the power system into their hands. And this is happening very quietly, very secretly, they're going into various systems and advertising industries and others. And the result is, very quickly there's a warping of values. And then you don't understand why an entire sector of industry is now misaligned with the national interest.

(0:53:31):

What do you do?

You have to win it back the slow way. Just as they won it slowly over a few generations sometimes, you have to win it back over a few generations. Otherwise, you have a split within the national interest, and within an industry, various forms it can take.

So, be very careful when you give power, when you hire somebody in those key-decision-making positions where they can influence the culture of an institution.

Be very careful that the culture is protected in the long run.

And all this we are talking in the domain of power and wealth in industry, but it is true equally in spiritual communities.

And we ourselves are a victim of this in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, in Auroville, in various centres connected with Sri Aurobindo.

I see this in various spiritual ashrams, communities across.

Very often after the passing of the founder, sometimes even during the time of the founder, because somebody is unable to manage, if the founder was unable to manage the power or wealth aspect, it's delegated to someone who starts this warping.

In the case of the Ashram, the Mother had deliberately distributed power across to a degree which, when I thought about it, it seemed so inefficient.

I give an example. In the Ashram theatre, in order to organise one drama, one programme, there had to be six people: one person was in charge of the space, another person was incharge of the stage and stage props, someone else was in charge for the makeup, and others, somebody else was in charge for the electricals and lighting, somebody else - I say six people, I don't remember now all of them. And I thought, why?

So on one level you could justify it and say well Mother wanted people to learn to collaborate on a deeper spiritual basis. But what I realised in the long run was, yes that could have been there also, but there was also something else, she ensured that things were not centralised in people who were not competent for that. So she did centralise where necessary and they were always very competent people, but when she did not find competent people, she made sure the power was distributed among several, so that it could not be seized.

What it took though was, it took two generations for some of these people to pass on and for the new dispensation of power structure now to begin to manipulate who is appointed and warp the power structure and the values.

To such a degree that even the spiritual values, where those people are in control, the spiritual values are ridiculed and discarded; where those people are in control, the spiritual values are ridiculed and discarded, suppressed.

And I shared this example, even my mother when during, just after the lockdown, and people were not allowed to touch the Samadhi, so my mother was passing by, she paused and she bowed in concentration, and someone, one of these power mongers, shouted at her: Hey what are you doing? Stop bowing before there. Do an inner pranam!

Hha, interesting.

And so you have these types that creep in.

And remember, the Ashram specially is a domain of a spiritual battleground where a greater truth is trying to manifest against which, and I quote Sri Aurobindo, against which enormous powers are organised and opposed, he said. And so obviously these ones will creep in if you did not do the necessary due diligence to protect and make the effort to protect.

And we did not.

Because to claim power or to seek power is egoistic, unspiritual and so on, so often the best people said: no, I'm not interested in power. So unless somebody gave it to them, which even if they gave, they might say: no, but I'm not interested, I don't want the hassles that come with the power. And the result is, it's transferred to somebody who does not have those values, and then quickly the distortion comes.

Remember behind this are forces, so it does not matter who is the individual. However good they may be to the extent that they are weak on the ego-desire knot eventually these forces will creep in and make one distortion, and then into the next a further distortion, and so on, eventually they have seized.

Look at any of the big religious institutions that go back many centuries and you'll find all these problems. The few who escape this is because they're highly ascetic and the central ascetic spiritual purpose is somehow held, so you do not have scope for much power and wealth. But the moment you have the power, wealth coming in, all these distortions come in, and rapidly. Depending on how strong the centre was, it happens very rapidly or gradually.

(0:58:42):

So I think this is a pretty detailed discussion on the power aspect and to some extent the wealth and the part which is common to both of these.

I wanted as far as possible to keep the discussion on the wealth for one independent session later.

So there's a question in the chat box from Anupam: What can you do when you are in a community where there is only animosity towards each other?

Are you speaking of a spiritual community? Then the answer would be different. If it's not a spiritual community, then the answer is different.

If it is a spiritual community, then you have to go back to the basics:

Why are we here?

What is it, the point of this community?

What are our shared values?

And where there is animosity, if we share those common values, we should be able to sit down, refer to those values, and then each one taking a step forward in those values, let's go off some part of the point of difference and meets again.

So, this was the strategy that the Mother advised. And of course, she was experimenting with this a lot over the years. And there was one place particularly in the place known as the Lake Estate. It's a property owned by the Ashram near the lake. And there, there were a lot of quarrels and a lot of conflicts. And Mother gave this as a guideline, she said:

You sit together, concentrate on what is common to all of you, what is the shared value for which you are all there for that project, for that meeting, for that intention, whatever it is, concentrate on that, try to find a resolution. If you can't, you take a break. You separate, concentrate on what it is. And each one should be willing to set aside one of their preferences, and then come back, and again try to find your common ground and point of reference. If necessary, do it a second time.

Generally even in the first time if you have made this effort of genuinely aligning to the common ideal, you will find that your and the other person's position which seem to be in conflict are actually complementary when aligned to this higher truth. This is the nature of reality that all is an expression of one truth indivisible. Therefore every fragment as we have fragmented it through the mind and then tokenisations in the physical, every fragment is only a fragment misaligned from the one. If it points to the One, then all these are complementary and together they form the totality of truth. But if instead of pointing to the one it is misaligned, the other one is misaligned, they collide. But the moment both turn to their alignment to the oneness, they are complementary and fill, they don't cross each other, they fill the gap, the thing which is missing, and make for a completeness.

So if people are sincere, if they are genuine in their intent, and they make this effort to reconnect with the origin and from there review their position, sometimes if needed you set aside some particular particularity of your preference, you will find very quickly there is this alignment that is found. If it is not found, generally it is because there is some insincerity.

So that's why I said in the spiritual context it would be different.

If there is a non-spiritual context where there may or may not be sincerity for this purpose at least, still you will have a common purpose. You want your company's profits to grow, somebody else says, yes but not at the cost of long-term survival. So you have common interests, both want eventually long-term survival, both want profit, but you have a difference of prioritisation. What can you find now is common ground and then find a way in which both of these can be harmonised.

So you have to go behind the specifics of an external form, go to the essential root principle behind the issue and try to find the common purpose for which you are together. And if there is none, then obviously the whole institution is on the brink of breakdown anyway, it is not an institution. If it is an institution, there's always a common purpose and towards which you can align these pieces.

(1:03:34):

So Nitin asks: Looking at your astrology chart are there significant conjunctions in the chart which would signify if a person will hold a place of power and wealth?

Yes, there are indications like that, and they often represent temperamental character of the vital nature.

Remember, astrology does not go beyond the basic vital mental characteristics. It does not have anything deeper or higher. But at that level, which is the formative influence of the astrological influences, tendencies are the vital etc or patterns of behaviour within those knots, formations, can be seen, but remember they represent tendencies.

And then especially in the chart because the representation is symbolic, there's a huge factor of interpretation. So even if you see a tendency, the precise interpretation of it is very complex because there are typically almost a dozen different influences operating at the same time, and to find the balance of these, and then the timing of these because they are often part of a certain rhythm of unfoldment.

You see in the chart, ho this particular characteristic is weak for the first 20 years after that it begins to grow stronger. That's all you can say. But what does it mean? And what is the characteristic in the interpretation?

We had a few discussions earlier on astrology, so I won't go into that, but one example I had shared then was the chart showing lots of money flowing through the person's hands and the fellow becomes a bank teller, bank cashier. So he's sitting in the office and money is passing through his hands, but he owns nothing. Interesting.

Equally I've seen a chart for example where the person has lots of wealth and you can see various forms of the wealth indicated but he owns nothing but that's because of the spiritual tilt in the chart with which he deals with the wealth as if he doesn't own it and that's also seen in the chart as a ‘owns nothing’ but has wealth. Interesting.

So all these interpretations are very nuanced and finally it is either the intuition of the astrologer or a spiritual opening within which will give you the precise thing, otherwise these things don't have too much value.

So Anupam has a clarification on this question, he says: I am in such community where people are absolutely sure that whatever comes into power or so, they will not do anything good for people when your neighbour is doing good instead of feeling good.

Not too sure I've understood what you have said.

But I am not too sure if I have understood the question.

But from what I understand that you're saying where in a community where there is strong jealousy or people come to power with not a good intention or not a good purpose, I would say, what allowed them to come to power?

If there are good people in the community, they did not step forward and take the power, then you gave the power to the other. What efforts did you make or did others make to come to power?

I will say, I am myself negligent on this. If I am in a community where there is a power struggle, to the extent possible I would try to stay out of it, I will suggest: leave me alone, let me do my thing. Unless their power interests now began to collide, at which point I would have to, by force, engage myself with that whole issue. But my temperament is one of avoidance of power.

So I will say, that's very common in many communities today, isn't it? But if you find that there is a hijack of the community and especially where that hijack makes a difference and affects everybody, you have to organise, you have to come together to push back, retake the power and put it to good use or create some mechanism by which the persons who are hijacking or misusing can be removed and so on.

And this is where your need to exercise power will come.

In such cases, and we have touched upon this earlier, you can ask for, call for the higher power. If you have worked upon yourself, and now we come back to our overall theme, if there has not been a sufficient spiritual basis, then even when you attempt those things, your results will be mixed. But if the spiritual base has been reasonably developed and it does not need much, then you can call for the help, ask for the help and try to follow as best as you can in the effort to set right the wrong and even if not immediately, eventually, well, things will get realigned.

(1:08:46):

But in a space where there is a large community, the numbers will matter there. If enough people stood up, you can easily set things right. But where not enough people stand and only a few, then you will suffer, you may even in the short term lose the attempt to set right things. But you still have to make the attempt, knowing that it might fail. Because in so doing, you set in process a certain movement of energies, either eventually others will follow or those energies will fructify in time because they also act on various occult levels, and eventually the thing will be set right.

But if you did nothing in inertia, then you were part of the problem because you withdrew and gave space, gave the power or wealth to the Asura, isn't it?

Okay, so now he's speaking of, Anupam has clarified once more, within a community of a common linguistic type.

When you speak of a community like this where there are certain kinds of patterns, often these could be associated with the culture of values shared in the community or specific to that subculture within the community, and then the whole question really is: Do you make an effort to culture yourself, change that culture?

And it has to be made as an effort.

In India, the condition is not always very clear. There's a passage I will read from Sri Aurobindo. I had actually kept this for another question which will perhaps come later, where he speaks of the fallen condition in India. Although this is really a description 100 years ago, I think it is 1908 perhaps that he wrote this. It's a letter he wrote to, no, it was later, it was much later. So, let me just read from this.

So he's describing of the, he's describing the condition of India at that time when it was under colonial rule, and he was part of that whole movement to, of revolutionary movement to free India, set forward the ideal of complete freedom which of course took 50 years to fructify, but still if he had not done that, it would not have happened. So, we have to recognise the importance of that effort, even though apparently during his participation, it did not come to fruition.

So, then he says: let me tell you, he is writing to his brother, “Let me tell you”-he is writing to his brother-“Let me tell you in brief one or two things about what I have long seen. My idea is that the chief cause of the weakness of India is not subjection nor poverty, nor the lack of spirituality or dharma”.

So, neither wealth, nor weakness is really the problem, he says. Nor spirituality, or, lack of them. “...but the decline of thought-power, the growth of ignorance in the motherland of Knowledge. Everywhere I see inability or unwillingness to think - thought-incapacity or thought-phobia. Whatever may have been in the middle ages, this state of things is now the sign of a terrible degeneration. The middle age was the night, the time of the victory of ignorance. The modern world is the age of the victory of Knowledge. Whoever thinks most, seeks most, labours most, can fathom and learn the truth of the world, and gets so much more Shakti.”

This also answers much of our discussion.

“If you look at Europe, you will see two things: a vast sea of thought and the play of a huge and fast-moving and yet disciplined force.”

Now this is, remember, a 120 years ago. I want  to say, a 100 years ago.

(1:13:26):

What you see today is the thought-power has declined in Europe greatly, the disciplined work force is still there but now with the huge mix of various kinds of immigrations which were not really regulated, and you have some of that also which is becoming mixed.

“The whole Shakti of Europe is in that. And in the strength of that Shakti it has been swallowing up the world, like the tapaswins [ascetics] of our ancient times, by whose power even the gods of the world were terrified, held in suspense and subjection. People say Europe is running into the jaws of destruction. I do not think so. All these revolutions and upsettings are the preconditions of a new creation.”

“Then look at India.”-now Sri Aurobindo’s contrasts-“Except for some solitary giants, everywhere there is your "simple man,"-in quotations-“that is, the average man who does not want to think and cannot think, who has not the least Shakti but only a temporary excitement. In India, you want the simple thought, the easy "word."-quotes-“In Europe they want the deep thought, the deep "word"; there even an ordinary labourer or artisan thinks, wants to know, is not satisfied with surface things but wants to go behind. But there is still this difference: there is a fatal limitation in the strength and thought of Europe. When it comes into the spiritual field, its thought-power can no longer move ahead. There Europe sees everything as riddle - nebulous metaphysics, yogic hallucination. They rub their eyes as in smoke and can see nothing clear. Still, some effort is being made in Europe to surmount even this limitation. We already have the spiritual sense - we owe it to our forefathers –“-very clear, we have done nothing, it’s all inherited from the civilisational values-“and whoever has that sense has at his disposal such Knowledge and Shakti as with one breath might blow away all the huge power of Europe like a blade of grass. But to get that Shakti one must be a worshipper of Shakti. We are not worshipers of Shakti. We are worshipers of the easy way. But Shakti is not to be had by the easy way. Our forefathers dived into a sea of vast thought and gained a vast Knowledge and established a mighty civilization. As they went on in their way, fatigue and weariness came upon them. The force of thought diminished and with it also the strong current of Shakti. Our civilization has become an achalayatana”-kind of a prison-“our religion”-well, actually “achalayatana” would be a vehicle which is non-moving but it’s blocked, imprisoned-“our religion a bigotry of externals, our spirituality a faint glimmer of light or a momentary wave of religious intoxication. And so long as this sort of thing continues, any permanent resurgence of India is improbable.”

Very strong words.

And, I would say, still applicable to a very large part of India.

If you look at the religious temperament in India, a large part of it is this momentary waves of religious intoxication and bigotry of externals in the religion and so on. Through time, some of this is being crushed but not yet replaced by something deeper. We do see that. We see that happening in small pockets. Individuals within a large family, sometimes I see in a family of let's say 20 people in a spread out family, there will be two or three people who are looking for this deeper thing. But that started. And we see this much more widespread, but numbers are still small. So I would say in a very rough estimate, 10% of in a large family but that's, that's large already perhaps 10%. But increasingly it's happening. And as that happens the situation will reverse but for now what he has described a hundred years ago is pretty valid, the difference would be numbers only a little more.

(1:18:21):

And then he says, since again this would in a way reply to the question that Anupam has raised specific to Bengal. So Sri Aurobindo's description goes:

“In Bengal this weakness has gone to the extreme. The Bengali has a quick intelligence, emotional capacity and intuition. He is foremost in India in all these qualities. All of them are necessary but they do not suffice. If to these there were added depth of thought, calm strength, heroic courage and a capacity for and pleasure in prolonged labour, the Bengali might be a leader not only of India, but of mankind. But he does not want that, he wants to get things done easily, to get knowledge without thinking, the fruits without labour, siddhi by an easy sadhana [discipline]. His stock is the excitement of the emotional mind. But excess of emotion, empty of knowledge, is the very symptom of the malady. In the end it brings about fatigue and inertia. The country has been constantly and gradually going down. The life-power has ebbed away. What has the Bengali come to in his own country? He cannot get enough food to eat or clothes to wear,”-I skip a few lines, and then he says-“We have abandoned the sadhana of Shakti and Shakti has abandoned us.”

Those who have difficulty with the Sanskrit terms: Shakti of course is the power and particularly the spiritual power; sadhana is the disciplined pursuit.

So, “We have abandoned” the disciplined pursuit of the power, of the divine power, “and Shakti has abandoned us. We do the sadhana of Love, but where Knowledge and Shakti are not, there Love does not remain, there narrowness and littleness come, and in a little and narrow mind there is no place for Love. Where is Love in Bengal? There is more quarrelling, jealousy, mutual dislike, misunderstanding and faction there than anywhere else even in India which is so much afflicted by division.”

There is more he says, but I think, I will pause with this.

In a single go, we have also answered Anupam's question, which was specifically to the Bengali community and this conflict internally. But we have also the solution: bringing back that wideness; bringing back that depth.

And so much of this, so much of this relates to what can be done through education, and that's why we will be taking up education later on as a general theme which may be spread out over several weeks.

If from childhood these corrective elements which Sri Aurobindo points to had been brought in, for example, just in Bengal very specific things, but in other states, in every country, because every state in India is like a country in Europe, enormously distinct in language, culture, dress code, values and so on. And in numbers often a state in India is more than a whole country in Europe. So the chief minister in India should have the same respect and authority as a president or prime minister of a European country, sometimes, just by numbers if you see.

So I'm putting this in context so that you understand the complexity of India.

If in the educational and through the educational system we had brought in these corrective measures, so much in a hundred years would have changed. And that's why Sri Aurobindo first stepped into the education to prepare for the rebuilding of a new India.

And so we'll have occasion to discuss some of this perhaps after a few weeks.

But for now just to set this in context, we start that education with ourselves.

I'm going to put it in a strange way, but I think it will make sense for us here, especially in view of all that we have discussed so far.

Each one of us represents a special type and a special problem. To the extent that as we turn to the spiritual life we open to a greater possibility, the characteristics of our human nature which plug into the mass of humanity are put under stress, of change, of transformation, and so from the mass of the collective consciousness the resistance also creeps into us.

Very important point.

You may not have started with that intention but the fact that you are now facing a higher possibility and a greater power which is beginning to work upon you to change your nature, that tendency in your nature which is shared with the mass of humanity experiences a pushback in which the pressure from humanity now as if joins-in in the pushback. Automatically you have become a representative of a particular type of problem in humanity. Whether you chose or not doesn't matter. As a result also if, as a result of your effort and the action of the Shakti, the change does take place in you, it has a ripple effect on the mass of humanity.

(1:24:13):

So I'll turn this question around to Anupam and say:

If you can work on this, consciously, in yourself, and then to the extent possible, influence those around you with the active living force of your own values and realisation, and even to some extent actively invoking it into your space. And then to the extent that you are in charge of a space let's say you are the boss of an office or you are responsible for two people in your office hierarchy, at least with those people who are immediately with you, transmit these new values, these corrective tendencies, speak to them of it if necessary or show them by example how it can be done and nurture and nourish them to the extent possible. If possible, find people who are aligned and form your own little group of shared values in which you begin to live these. And with these broadly three different approaches, bring about a change in your life.

And this would apply to all of us, wherever we are, in whatever space we are at.

And in this way, bring about this shift. And things will change. And we are participating not just for our growth but impacting the growth in humanity in a significant way without ever knowing it on a personal level.

Sometimes when you have an intuition, you will feel, you will feel that, ha this pressure is not just mine, it is part of something larger.

And as you awaken, as you grow, you will find in that group that is, of which you are representative those changes are rapidly happening and sometimes quite suddenly and you will say, ah yes okay of course it had to be, because this barrier was broken for the collective, isn't it?

In another question comes from Nitin about supramental:

How does the supramental choose people to work in places of power and wealth as part of some destiny? If one is chosen, can one come to know of it?

See, in the supramental creation, that is where that principle dominates, automatically things fall into place. That's not yet here. We are still largely in a mental-vital construction which dominates human life and collective life particularly.

So yes, there is a supramental influence. The influence will nudge, will push. But as yet the influence is not overt, it is covert. So it will act from behind the scenes by giving an intuitive nudge and push. If you have a strong aspiration, it will fill and support your aspiration and amplify the positive and warn and suggest or protect through the nudges inside out to shift things, tiny-tiny shifts all over the world, and that's how it's working currently.

To the extent that you are conscious and open yourself it finds a receptive vehicle, its influence will grow, but I will still avoid using the word ‘supramental’ as a direct action because we have not yet the capacity to receive its direct influence, rather indirectly through several two or three degrees of dilution or limitation or reflection that I will say generally the divine grace, the divine consciousness, the divine energy, Shakti, will work through you.

To the extent that you follow this guideline of Sri Aurobindo and begin once again to consciously worship Shakti and make yourself a vehicle for the Shakti, you will find very rapidly you are lifted and assisted, and a work is done through you whether with or without your conscious intention.

So it's not that you're chosen, it's rather if you're available, then the action is there.

Think of it this way: the pressure for the change is everywhere equally. Where the vehicles are found, the pressure quickly focuses and intensifies there to push, to nudge.

So the question really is of your availability. If you are available, you will be immediately assisted and taken up. It's not that you are picked and then made to be available. It does not go that way. In a sense, your soul may choose that you want to be available and so you build towards it. And that is of course true for all of us to some degree at least.

I spoke so far, I have to bring now to conclusion for today's discussion.

We spoke about certain common features of power and wealth, and I spoke of tokenisation and what happens in delegation. These are some insights to help us. I'll specifically focus more on wealth the next time. But I would suggest for all of you to look at these two talks which I have already put on the channel Integral Studies:

One which is called “Money Power, How it Works and Why it Does Not”. Take a look at that, it's a talk given some 20 years ago now. It's very accessible and does not have a very high spiritual, let's say, reference but very accessible and very interesting and very practically oriented.

There's another one which I gave last year sometime which is called “Understanding the True Nature of Power”, and you'll find that also useful from the power perspective a little bit.

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So with that background then next time I will speak on the wealth aspect a little bit and with a different dimension and perhaps a deeper angle than what was covered in that earlier talk. And with that, perhaps hopefully we will close this topic next time.

But before going to that and before closing for today, I want to complete this discussion.

I spoke of how wealth and power can be shared, transferred, delegated and tokenised, particularly in the physical world you can reduce it to tokens.

Equally, in a sense, the spiritual power of the wealth or power or even a spiritual help of other kinds can be, because it's the physical world, bound in a physical packet. So this was the basis on which the Mother gave flowers to people. She found if she gave the blessing directly, let's say she placed the hand or even transmitted it at a distance, the receptivity was not so great because well you went away and then you fell back into your normal routine consciousness. You didn't even make effort to receive and hold. And so it's as if you're given some highly volatile liquid, let's say, and it's put into you and you don't contain it, you don't close the cap and just evaporates. Poof! Gone. You're back to your normal.

Mother said they would come to her, to her room, she would infuse something and by the time they went down the steps, they were already back to their normal state, having lost everything.

So she found that a better way was sometimes, not always, that she gave a flower into which she infused the spiritual consciousness, which the person kept in their room in a vase. And so this continued to radiate and kept a kind of a link to sustain that infusion. And she found more than any other thing, flowers to be most receptive because they are literally representing the psychic consciousness in the domain of form in nature. So she found them very helpful and especially the psychological, spiritual characteristics and names of the flowers to amplify those qualities. So somebody needs discipline, she would take the flower which is called discipline, infuse the energy needed to transmit that capacity and give it to the person with concentration.

And if you were receptive and you held the flower, you received it, of course you received it within you, but even if you couldn't contain within you the flower held in your hand, you went to your room, it stayed there, it continued to act as a radiator.

Sometimes she noted also, mostly we saw when we came with the flower from the Mother, it stayed for days fresh, even flowers which die within a day. But some people, they would hold the flower, within an hour it would fade out. And she said that was always a sign of inability to contain.

So that being the case, I come now to tokenisation.

So flower was the token through which something was transmitted. At some point when it had to be sent by post, this was changed and instead petals of the flowers were dried, put in paper packets into which you would infuse the force and then it was sent by post. So these became known as ‘blessing packets’.

So it still continues as a tradition. These things are prepared, they are kept in the Mother's room and then given to those who ask for them, so the tokenisation here of the spiritual power through a vehicle. But remember it's only a vehicle. It is not itself the power. To the extent you keep it, and hold it, you revere, or give it the due respect, it can continue to radiate based on your receptivity. Very often, she said, after a year, it loses the force, and it can be, well, put away and then there is this question of how you discard.

But I found in my experience and once in a while you come across this: a blessing packet which was given by the Mother, you touch it, if it has not been handled by too many people in between, you touch it, and you can feel the force.

Very interesting.

But if it has been handled by people and their vibes have come into it, it’s difficult to feel that, and then, you don’t find, you have of course a certain value for it, but you don't feel the same force.

But, again, interesting, what you could do is keep that packet, not have these mixtures coming in, and every day invoke, invoke the force, and after a while you'll find it begins to glow again, and it becomes a vehicle, a tokenised external reference.

But which is the token finally?

The ultimate token is ourselves, our body. If you can contain within you in some way, that is of course the best.

But I want to put, take this a step further. There were some people in the Ashram who had to act in dealing with money. There were some businessmen who came to the Mother who had some difficulties with finances. And to these people, she took a coin, infused into it something of the wealth consciousness and gave them to keep. With instructions, it should be just kept with them. And that became like an attractor for the wealth.

Interesting.

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And it helped for those, all those who I know, if they were given this, it made a difference surely. But they were already receptive vehicles. So, this was like a tokenised form to be able to transmit a kind of help. But this is to say that in principle, this can be done even now by you directly to receive from her an external tokenisation or an internal tokenisation, which should be even more valuable.

So more of this the next time where we will focus on the wealth aspect much more than the power aspect.

This time we dwelt on certain common features as well as broad picture involving all these.

So Nithin has asked: What is the name for the video on power?

It is called “Understanding the True Nature of Power”. It was a talk which I gave jointly with the La Grace Center in the US. And it’s, I think, it has been uploaded on Integral Studies also. So, do take a look at these two for next time. It will provide a good useful backdrop for something that we will go for deeper still.

And so, we will close with this point summarising all these things:

Finally, inevitably, you are compelled to come back to your own growth and development and evolution. Even if it is to wield power and wealth, you have to equip yourself. From the point of view of the Divine consciousness, the fact that you even aspire for is a great starting point. There are not too many people who aspire for a higher use for these things. And you will get the help, immediately, just the fact that you are aligned. And the more you are aligned, the more the help is effective within you. And if this is your aspiration, for sure, you are helped. Be true to the help, though. Do not betray the power that is supporting you. And then, equip yourself, build your capacities, amplify your skills, etc. Go through the actual process, some of which we have discussed in those two talks, which I would like you to look at. And then we will go deeper into what more you could do next time.

All of us together, therefore, as a collective vehicle, are a receptive base for this: once again taking back the power and wealth which were given away to the anti-divine forces and to take it back, to bring it once again into the domain of the evolutionary purpose for the well-being of human evolution. This should be our goal as a collective in aspiration.

And we can hold this aspiration together for a few moments in concentration.

Namaste.