Latest / Sri Aurobindo Studies / Cultural Integration Fellowship Talk: Challenges We Face, Individually, Collectively and in the World at Large in Light of the Mother's Work

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Cultural Integration Fellowship Talk: Challenges We Face, Individually, Collectively and in the World at Large in Light of the Mother's Work · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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So the Cultural Integration Fellowship, which is sponsoring
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this program, was founded by Doctor Hari Das and Beena
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Chowdhury, And I have a personal relationship to that.
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When I came to the United States to take up this work actively in
0:28
the 1970s, there were a few centers around run by
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forerunners, you could say, who came here and presented the
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teachings of Shrioro Bindu and the mother and developed various
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things. There was the Sedona Center with
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AB Purani. There was Mata Giri with Eric
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and Sam, and Doctor Tieberg in Los Angeles and Hari Dawson,
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Vina Chaudhary in San Francisco. And what's interesting is that
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all of those forerunners had their own unique perspective on
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things and started various centers and programs and
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lectures, whatever. But Doctor Chaudhary had a
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larger vision. He didn't found a center, he
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started an institution. And that institution is vibrant,
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active and powerful in the world today through the California
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Institute as well as the Cultural Integration Fellowship,
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in bringing this new light into the world.
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In the 1970s, I was living in Southern California.
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I had a much closer relationship with the East West Center at
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that time. But whenever I came to San
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Francisco, I would meet with Doctor Chaudhary.
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I've stayed at the Fulton Street address at the Cultural
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Integration Fellowship when Pondici gave his talks there.
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I was present at that. And at various times I assisted
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Dr. Chowdhury to my great benefit in running his book
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table for him when he was giving lectures at various places.
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So the relationship was very close and very formative for me
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as a young person to come into the sphere of influence of such
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a a luminary. And so I am so grateful and so
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moved by the work that he has done and that Bina carried on
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that It's my pleasure to introduce our speaker today,
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which is Santosh Krinsky on the platform of the Cultural
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Integration Fellowship. I don't have any wise words or
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sayings or poems from Doctor Choudhury which our friend
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Kundan normally presents. So with that, I think we'll just
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get started. Oh together may He protect us,
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together may He possess us. Together may we make unto US
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strength and virility. May our study be full to us of
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light and power. May we never hate Ohm.
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Peace, peace, peace. So the topic today is we live in
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challenging times. What do we do about it?
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How do we face that? People think that there are so
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many dangers, so many risks, so many problems in the world that
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it's impossible for little people like us to do anything
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about it. And on the same token, we often
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feel victimized by those forces and we feel stress, we feel
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anxiety, we're worried. In many cases, those macro
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forces impact us in our daily lives, whether we want to
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recognize it or not. We think, well, I don't get
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involved in politics and I'm not involved in the whole economic
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thing and I can't solve war and peace, so I'll just go and do my
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little thing somewhere and try to pretend it doesn't exist and
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doesn't affect me, but it does. The pollution of our
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environment, the microplastics are entering everybody's body
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and changing the DNA of humanity.
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We may think that we're immune to that, but we're not.
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It's affecting us and the issues of war and peace, with the mass
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migrations, with the destruction that's taking place, the climate
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change, that some people simply say that if we ignore it, it
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will go away. But the effects are real.
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Several years ago we had a pandemic and the whole world
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basically went through a trauma and societies virtually shut
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down and every person on the planet was essentially affected
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by it. Some of these things happen
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because of changed disease vectors that occur because of
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climate change. Some of these things occur
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because of the chemicals that we're putting into our lives and
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into our world. Some of these things happen
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through pure greed and mismanagement of the vital
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nature of humanity. Where some people just feel like
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they have to take over and control everything and everyone
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else can just starve and suffer and die.
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So it affects the world, it also affects us.
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And we say, well, these are unique challenges, and in a
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certain way they are, but in a certain other way, they are part
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of the pressure of the birth of a new consciousness.
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If we look back when things are going easy, when everything's
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fine and, you know, we've got money and we've got our lives
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and our friends and our family and we feel good, we frequently
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forget sadhna. We frequently forget to focus on
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the spiritual efforts that we need to make.
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Life is too easy. We want to kick back and enjoy
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it, and that's OK. That's that's human nature.
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But it takes that pressure of circumstance to force us to do
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something different. In the darkest of times, we find
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that the greatest spiritual progress can take place.
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Just think about it. The Bhagwad Gita, one of the
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greatest texts on how to live human life and take up a
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spiritual standpoint in life, was presented on the battlefield
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of a great civil war where teachers and disciples were
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going to be killing each other, where elders and grandparents
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were going to be killing their grandchildren and vice versa.
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And yet this great spiritual text was brought forward at that
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time, coming a little closer to our age and time in the 19 teens
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we suffered through the war to end all wars, World War One.
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It was terrible. It was horrible.
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I don't remember it personally, but I've heard a council of it.
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And if we look and see, Shrioro Bindo was alive at that time and
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he didn't feel victimized. He didn't feel like there was
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nothing he could do. He was writing the Life Divine
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in the midst of that darkness. Think about that.
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He was writing the Life Divine. In World War 2, another one of
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these major disasters, the Mother took up the challenge and
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started what eventually became the Mother School, the education
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facility that we see today in Pondicherry.
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As a result of taking in families, changing the entire
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nature of the ashram and expanding her work dramatically.
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We can say, well, OK, she responded.
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She didn't look like a victim there, she responded to it.
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I won't get into the action that Trioral Bindo was taking from
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his room. The focus he made on bringing
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down and focusing a greater light to confront that greatest
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darkness. But it was there he rose to that
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challenge, and he met that challenge with spiritual
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development and growth, not just for himself, but for humanity.
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During that time, Trioro Binda was writing Savitri, a legend
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and a symbol. What better answer to the Nazi
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Holocaust than to bring down the light that Savitri represents
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for all of humanity and its future?
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During the 1950s, we had the Cold War, we had nuclear bombs
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being tested. We had the Korean War, we had
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all kinds of cataclysms that were intensifying the pressure
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in our world, and during the 1950's the mother declared the
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descent of the Super mental consciousness into the material
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world. How do we understand these
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juxtapositions between great darkness and consciousness?
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During the 1960s, worldwide upheaval.
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Societies were thrown into chaos.
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There were riots, there were mass protests, there was the
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Vietnam War and its effects all over the world, and the mother
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founded Oroville. In each instance, people
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experienced tremendous pressure, and the response was to go
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deeper, to dig deeper, to focus more intensely on the birth of
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the new consciousness that needed to come about.
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You know, I'm reminded of Charles Dickens in his Tale of
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Two Cities. He wrote, it was the best of
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times, it was the worst of times.
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And that pretty much summarizes it for us.
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So we think that we're living in a time of great upheaval and
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disaster and difficulty and we don't know what's going to
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happen. That's true.
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We are. And that's our opportunity to
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step up to the birth of the new consciousness.
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The the challenges we face are unable to be solved by the
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physical consciousness, by the vital consciousness, or even by
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the mental consciousness. When we try to do that with the
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mental consciousness, we come up with gridlock.
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We come up with conflicting ideas that essentially stop each
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other from acting. And then the solution to that in
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many people's minds is let's have a dictator who can just
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tell us what to do and we'll all just follow along.
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That's not a solution. It doesn't solve humanity's
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problem. It's simply creates another
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mental opportunity for unintended consequences and
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failures. So at the same time, if we look
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around the world, we see particularly young people
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yearning for something new, something different, for a new
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consciousness, for a spiritual realization.
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They abandoned the traditional churches and they take up
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spiritual practices, whether it's yoga or Zen or the Chinese
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martial arts or whatever it might be, because they are
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seeking. They feel this urge to do
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something different, to grow in a different way.
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And this aspiration leads to what Trior Obindo called the
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adventure of consciousness. However people take it up and
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whatever method or practice or option they choose, they are
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exploring consciousness and they're doing it because they
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can't do otherwise. They feel that pressure.
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The Mother called for people of goodwill, whoever they are, not
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devotees of Srioro Bindu and the Mother necessarily, but people
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of goodwill. She said the world is preparing
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for a big change. Will you help?
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What is that change? Is it a new economic system?
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Is it a new political system? Is it a new way of creating
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technology that's going to magically solve our problems?
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No, it's none of those things. It's the birth of a new
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consciousness that is based in what Trioro Bindo called the
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Super mental. Essentially meaning it is the
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consciousness at the next stage above the mind.
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And this process is part of the evolution of nature.
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We see life evolving out of matter, we see mind evolving out
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of life, and we see the Super mental evolving out of mind.
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And this is the natural progression.
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The the issue, or the problem if you will, is that the pressures
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we're under are existential pressures.
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They're pressures that lead us into what we currently see as
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the 6th planetary die off. In.
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The world, it's an enormous, fast changing, powerful
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destructive force that can destroy humanity and we can't
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wait for the long March of evolution to accomplish this.
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Sri Aurobindo and the Mother recognize that, and they said
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that through conscious participation, through yoga,
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through the individual focus, we can speed up within ourselves
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the natural, slow evolutionary process.
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And therefore, to meet the challenge of the times, we are
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all called upon to help to practice the yoga, to integrate
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this spiritual principle so deeply embedded in our lives
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that it radiates out from us. We've all heard of the 100th
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monkey phenomenon, where a monkey was washing his fruit and
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another monkey took it up and another one in the same group,
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and then at a certain point enough monkeys were doing it in
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that group that the whole world's monkey started washing
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their fruit. Now whether this is factual or
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some kind of urban legend, it doesn't really matter because
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the principle is the same. We live in one unified sphere of
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consciousness, and the more people that take up this
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practice, the more people who actually try to live according
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to the force that is descending, a supra mental force, who try to
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understand the principles of harmony, the principles of
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collaboration, the principles of oneness, and who try to live
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according to that, the more chance we have of creating a
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shield for the world from these destructive forces.
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Each evolutionary stage involved tremendous cataclysmic changes,
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and some people say, well, what can we do to stop all these
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changes? Actually, some of these changes
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are part of the evolutionary process.
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When life evolved out of matter, various forms of matter were.
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Radically changed. They were no longer what they
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were when they started. When mind evolved out of life,
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life also changed and matter changed.
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And now we dig into the genetic code and we do all kinds of gene
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splicing and we design new things, we create new things, we
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create new forms of matter. Microsoft the other day came out
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and said they've developed a new form of, of matter other than
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the ones that we're used to. Someone else found out that
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light was now able to be observed in 37 dimensions, not
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just the three or four that we're recognizing.
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So mind changes life and matter, and we have to expect that the
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Super mind, the Super mental force will change mind, life and
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matter itself. How is it going to do that?
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What impact does it have? We saw in World War 2 that the
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cities of Germany were totally destroyed through day and night,
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carpet bombing, total destruction.
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And out of that total destruction arose a modern, new
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powerful society. That doesn't justify the
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suffering, but it points out that in some cases, in most
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cases, you have to remove obstacles that our habits, that
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our ways of doing things that our institutions have created
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that are no longer solutions to the problems we're facing.
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They say that humanity is always fighting the last war, not the
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next one, and it's the same way with the developments of
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societies and consciousness and our role in them.
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We're trained as young children and all through our lives to
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live a certain way based on the institutions and the forms that
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have accreted over time and become solidified.
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And yet these very forms, in many cases are are the obstacles
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to the next evolution. And so our challenge is, can we
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find ways to evolve without necessarily disrupting the whole
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world with suffering and change those institutions?
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Or are the cataclysmic type of changes we're seeing today the
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the way of the divine to clear the deck, so to speak, so that
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the new consciousness can manifest?
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Now there's probably some truth in both sides of that.
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So it's something for us to to reflect on.
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Not all destruction is bad if it is taking away things that are
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hindering the next step. It needs to be done now to to
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give sort of a gruesome example of in the 1700s in France they
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had a king and they had aristocrats who controlled
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everything and the people were starving.
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They were totally destitute. They had no political power,
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they had no economic power. And the aristocrats lived a life
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of ease and joy, with endless amounts of money they could
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spend on frivolous things. And eventually the people became
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so aggrieved with their own poverty and destitution and
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suffering that they undertook what we know of as the French
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Revolution. And they employed a destructive
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technique called Madame le Guillotine to ensure that those
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aristocrats could not retake and regain that power over them.
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Now, I'm not a revolutionary in the sense of lopping off
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people's heads, but I use that as an example of what happens to
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forward change in the world. Now we can see and we can we can
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even argue that the people who took over after the king and the
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aristocrats were gone had their own problems.
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In fact, they reproduced a lot of the abuses at their level
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that the former king and aristocrats had because they
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grew up in that system. They didn't evolve beyond the
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system. They simply replaced the rulers
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of the system. And so that was not a solution.
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We see today in the world retrogressive forces, forces
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that say we want to go back to the way it was 50 years ago or
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100 years ago. That was such a better time.
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Well, what they're really saying is that change has moved so
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quickly in our society that they cannot address it or adapt to
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it. They have a conservative
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mindset, habituated and acculturated in a particular way
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of seeing and doing things. And the fact that life in the
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1920s and life today are so different than people born in
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the 1920s who are still alive, find it virtually impossible to
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recognize the world and and deal with it.
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They feel lost. They feel like what is going on?
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Everything is moving so quickly. We've got rocket ships, we go to
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the moon. We've got atomic weapons and
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we've got threats. We've got genetic engineering.
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We've got pandemics. What what's going on here?
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We've got technology we can't understand.
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We've got AI that is able to, I'll think most of us.
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So of course, people who grew up in that cultural background, in
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that societal background, in that economic and political
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background find it impossible. It's like, well, back in those
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days we didn't have black people running things.
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We didn't have women out there making themselves known in the
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society. We didn't have all those things.
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These are just terrible things. These people think they're not
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terrible things. They're progress of humanity
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recognizing our inherent oneness and the oneness of our mental,
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vital and physical capabilities, regardless of the physical form
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that we happen to take. But that resistance creates a
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lot of problems. And the reason it creates
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problems is that essentially these are the people with the
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power. They've got the government in
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their hands, they make the laws, they enforce the laws, they've
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got policing power, they've got economic power.
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And those who have used that and developed and implemented these
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new technologies have tremendous powers of control over all of
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the workings of society. And so they think the solution
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to all this is to suppress all these progressive things that
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are going on and create a new aristocracy and a new
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dictatorship. And they think that by doing
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that, the world will be a better place, a better place 100 years
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ago. In today's world.
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It isn't going to happen. It's not the movement and trend
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of history. So the mother says the world is
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preparing for a big change. We recognize that.
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We see the change. We see the opposition to the
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change. And so the question then is what
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can we do? And the first thing is sincerity
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in the practice of the yoga within ourselves.
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And the second thing is radiating that into whatever
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spheres of society you're in. In a time of great darkness, we
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need to spread light. In a time of ignorance, we need
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to bring forth knowledge. In a time of ugliness, we need
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to manifest beauty. In a time of disharmony, we need
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to manifest harmony. In a time of hatred, we need to
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express love. If we do those things, we will
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have an impact. We think we're just small people
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and we're hidden away. Well, consciousness is
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universal, and the more powerfully we integrate these
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things into our awareness and consciousness, the more
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powerfully we act upon them. The more powerfully we stand up
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for these principles, the more impact it has.
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You may not see it with all the chest beating and trumpets
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blaring and drums drumming everywhere of the vital
31:31
consciousness trying to hold on and hang on in its last gasp of
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trying to manage the world. You may not see it, but it's
31:43
active nevertheless. That is why the mother could
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declare that the Super mental consciousness has manifested in
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matter and we see the changes over time, the evolutionary
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changes that are happening with revolutionary speed, the
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yearning of the young people for spiritual development, the
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growth of a movement around the world towards understanding and
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oneness and mutuality. Despite the control of oligarchs
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and Dragons who sit on huge piles of money and let everyone
32:28
else starve, we see this. We can't control them, but we
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can be true to what we see, what we understand, and what we know.
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The new consciousness is farther, seeing wider, harmonize
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conflicting ideas, and able to see a way forward that we cannot
32:55
see with our mental consciousness.
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It's able to resolve imbalances. And so if we align ourselves
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with that, if we begin to try to widen our perspective, become
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more inclusive, look at the habits that are ingrained within
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ourselves, that maybe just breathe these instant reactions.
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And as we look from within, we say, oh, maybe I can change that
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reaction within myself. And who knows?
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You or I or some other person we don't yet know becomes that
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100th monkey who flips the script unconsciousness on the
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planet. We see the catastrophic forces.
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I look at it as the birth pangs of the new consciousness.
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Any woman who has undergone birth of a child knows what I'm
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talking about. The birth pangs, I know it's
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sort of vicariously because I was there when my wife gave
34:13
birth to her two children and it was pretty intense.
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It was very intense. They say that the pain threshold
34:24
that women undergo in childbirth is greater than the pain
34:28
threshold or virtually any other pain that we undergo.
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And yet they they do this and bring forth new life and New
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Hope. Swami Vivekananda tells us be
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fearless. The mother asks us to
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collaborate in the changes, side with the future.
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If it seems impossible, if the existential threat seems bigger,
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it's because the opportunity is bigger.
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So what can we do? We need to not surrender to the
35:13
darkness. We need to not give up hope.
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And the Mother confronted the forces, and they brought light,
35:26
and they brought harmony. And they've told us the way
35:30
forward. The Mother set the stark truth
35:35
before us. We have an existential choice,
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she said. Truth or the abyss.
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And that's our challenge. So thank you.
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Let's open it up for discussion and questions.
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And I'm not really experienced with all these hand raisings and
36:12
callings on people. Let's just try it.
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Let's see what happens. Good morning.
36:24
Thank you so much for the overview.
36:32
Two things came up that I thought might be helpful for
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references for future thought and that is some of us are
36:44
familiar with the human cycle. And for me, I just say a lot of
36:54
what you have expressed the the dilemma of the everyday response
37:01
versus the opening to the descent, what I think Shrier
37:08
Bindo, first of all, many of us didn't know, we know the
37:12
spiritual side of Shrier Bindo, We know the poetic side.
37:16
We don't necessarily know his genius with understanding the
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movements of civilization, especially political.
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So for me, it just gives you that Longview so that you can
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see forces like you were saying when just in our time, but in a
37:39
longer period of forces coming together, what creates that
37:44
tipping point? So it it helped me, let's say
37:48
context, it really helped and and I'm just putting that out to
37:52
the group. And the last thing that you were
37:54
quoting a lot about from the Mother in her view of what's
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happening and, and how to prepare or how to do your
38:04
practice in the Mother's vision, there's actually a passage about
38:11
how to deal with catastrophe, which mirrors a lot of what
38:14
you've said today. That and, and she says she uses
38:20
it specifically and says Sri Rabindra did this during World
38:25
War 2. So what I'm trying to say is
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that you have brought through a context and a view that is
38:37
really practical and can really support not only our individual
38:47
practice, but our collective. And as someone who it is not
38:55
given to a calm temperament or is not given to being objective,
39:04
the practice of yoga makes life so much more doable.
39:12
And, you know, that's, that's very true, that the human cycle
39:15
is powerful in its understanding and widening of our view of the
39:22
movements of civilization. Actually, in tomorrow's blog
39:27
post, which I was writing this morning or or maybe this
39:31
morning's blog post, I sometimes lose track of time.
39:35
There's a passage from the mother in there and she's
39:40
talking about does the best always happen?
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OK, Is everything that happens for the best?
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And what she says is very interesting.
39:53
After the fact, what happened is what had to happen.
39:59
But at the time of the event, depending on your standpoint and
40:05
state of consciousness, you can impact that.
40:10
And in the blog post I pointed out that in quantum physics they
40:14
say that the observer changes the result and so.
40:22
If you look at yourself as a participant or observer and you
40:28
see that the event coming, you can change that.
40:32
And so the mother was more or less describing in human and
40:37
yoga terms the what we see the scientists describing in quantum
40:42
physics, and that is that you can change the event by your
40:47
state of consciousness. That's exactly what she says in
40:52
this writing at the end of the mother's vision on catastrophe.
40:57
One last thing, you may recall this more accurately, but I
41:02
think I recall that the mother said to Shri Rabindo was kind of
41:09
complaining why did it happen this way?
41:12
And Shri Rabindo said it was the best the grace could do in the
41:17
circumstances. Exactly.
41:20
It's it's really true. We're living in a world that is
41:25
very complex with forces working over millennia, and we can't
41:30
simply wave a magic wand over it and expect it all to transform
41:35
magically and instantly into a land of rainbows.
41:40
I mean, it just doesn't work like that.
41:42
And so you take incremental development.
41:46
You take sometimes unseen incremental development and
41:52
that's why they say you have to have the faith that what you're
41:57
doing is going to have that longer term benefit.
42:02
And that's why I always talk about what I call the 1%
42:06
solution. And that is, you make 1% change
42:10
today, and over 3 or 400 years, you've got a huge difference in
42:15
the slope of the change. So we're not expecting that
42:22
magically the greed and the bullying and the anger and all
42:29
those other things are magically going to go away and we're going
42:33
to have a world of total harmony.
42:35
We're expecting that over time, humanity will come to recognize
42:41
that that is not the way to live and coexist and thrive.
42:47
And they will make that change because you and I and so many
42:52
other people are expressing that.
42:56
And exactly. Thanks.
43:06
Thanks Santosh for for the whole framing.
43:11
I very much agree with all of your analysis or or
43:16
presentation. A couple of different things
43:19
came up. You know, one of them maybe
43:21
we'll we'll come to this if there's more time.
43:23
But I'd like to hear more from you later about what you said
43:27
about mind changing life and matter.
43:30
And I'll rephrase this in a, in a, in a way.
43:34
But before that, I just wondered, yeah, what Margaret
43:41
was just saying. I think part of part of this is
43:45
also the fact that what we call good or bad is, is, is not that
43:51
simple. You know, it's more like an
43:55
egoic framework, you know, that we use.
43:58
I, I remember Tibetan Buddhist story, I won't go into it, but
44:03
there's a whole series of events happen when one person tells the
44:08
other, Oh, it was so good that this happened.
44:10
And then, oh, it was so bad that it happened because as time
44:13
progresses, a new context develops and you look back at
44:17
what was good and what was bad, and you see it in terms of the
44:21
consequences. And you say, oh, by the way, it
44:23
wasn't that bad, You know, and a lot of us do this in our lives,
44:27
you know, we look at what we think were difficulties or
44:30
problems or turning points in our lives which were difficult.
44:33
But once we see the new consequences, we can say, oh,
44:36
after all, it wasn't that bad. So I think it's kind of hard to
44:40
for me to kind of make those judgments.
44:43
I sort of suspended as much as possible.
44:45
But one thing that I'm very convinced about for some reason,
44:50
and I want to hear from you on this, is that I, I want to hold
44:55
on to my own little version of truth consciousness as much as
44:58
possible. In looking at all these things,
45:02
I actually see very small people in these great figures in
45:07
politics and, you know, all the news and stuff like that.
45:10
I don't see great human beings. I see angry and unhappy people.
45:16
I, you know, they have the reins, they have the power, but
45:21
I feel no jealousy whatsoever for their condition and their
45:25
state of mind. You know, the only thing I'm
45:27
concerned about is the harm that they do to others, you know,
45:31
and, and, and so, so is there any use in, you know, by the
45:41
way, I should also add that I also see what's going on right
45:45
now as a new manifestation of the Prince of Falsehood.
45:50
I think I see every sign of that.
45:52
I won't go into that, but do you think there's any chance in our
45:57
little yoga to, to do some opposition to these forces by
46:02
sort of maybe holding on to truth consciousness to begin
46:05
with? Because much of the world is in
46:07
such delusion about what they're seeing.
46:10
That seems to me that holding up the truth, even in your own mind
46:14
is a great exercise. You know, 'cause we might, we
46:17
might wobble from that from time to time as well.
46:20
But any opposition actually from a yogic point of view, in our
46:25
small ways, do you, what do you see about that?
46:28
Do you recommend that? Well, I don't recommend anything
46:35
particular to anybody. What I recommend is you look in
46:39
your own heart and see what your moved and what's your mission
46:45
and what your focus is to do. And if you're called upon to do
46:50
that, I would wholeheartedly support that.
46:55
But not everybody can take up opposition.
46:59
Some people are not meant to be spiritual warriors in that
47:03
sense, and they will just get basically beaten down if they
47:13
take it up. Others have a stronger vital
47:18
capability of withstanding that, and they can take that up.
47:23
But if you're not prepared for it, don't go there.
47:27
Do something in a field where you are prepared.
47:30
If you're an artist, do art. If you're a musician, do music.
47:36
And if you're a spiritual warrior in the political and
47:40
economic world, well, so be it. You'll have our blessings and
47:44
support as much as we can give that.
47:47
Yeah, yeah. That's exactly my concern, you
47:49
know. But I'll, I'll wait for my
47:51
second question because I see Roger raising his hand.
47:54
I'll I'll come back if there's time.
47:57
OK, thank you. Hi, this is I really appreciate
48:05
it, this conversation and it's been up for me a lot.
48:09
You know, there's so much doom and gloom out there amongst
48:13
people I know, people I don't know out there in the Internet,
48:18
a lot of doom and gloom. People have very dreary
48:22
responses to all this. And I've been responding without
48:25
getting deeply philosophical. I mean, even the 12 step program
48:31
has bottoming out. You have to bottom out before
48:34
you can transform. Dark Night of the Soul.
48:40
You know, we, we, these concepts have been with us all along.
48:46
And sometimes it's just a, a slight change in perspective.
48:49
You know, we talked about those polarities before disharmony to
48:53
harmony and hate to love. And I was thinking how sometimes
49:00
the opposite of love is not hate, it's fear.
49:07
And there's, there's and sometimes just a little change
49:10
in perspective could have such a big impact.
49:14
I, I saw something on the Internet this morning.
49:18
There was a woman in pre World War 2 Germany and, and during
49:25
the war, I forget her name, she was an American that went to
49:29
Germany before things started to collapse to study some
49:35
discipline. I don't remember what it was.
49:37
And she stayed there as the whole thing was devolving.
49:42
And she created a little mini movement.
49:44
She brought together a very diverse group of people,
49:50
artists, politicians, writers, philosophers.
49:53
And they created a resistance movement.
49:55
They got a lot of Jewish people out of Germany.
49:58
And she had a a big little impact.
50:01
And eventually she was arrested and she was convicted and Hitler
50:07
overloaded the conviction and instead of sending her to
50:10
prison, she was executed. And I was thinking of people,
50:16
look at this story sometimes some people and, and it's oh,
50:20
how terrible. But I'm thinking what a
50:22
satisfying life she LED. I have, I have a, a feeling, my
50:27
projection is, is that she died with a certain sense of
50:32
satisfaction. And I and I see it as a positive
50:35
story and the kind of impact that her life and her activities
50:41
and other people kind of helping this movement along.
50:46
And so, yeah, I, I, I don't know, sometimes when I'm not
50:54
caught up in the doom and gloom is, is that my kind of Reichian
50:59
armor and my, my denial and my kind of male insensitivity or by
51:06
seeing things in a, in a deeper kind of appreciation.
51:09
And sometimes it's hard to tell, but I appreciate that, that this
51:14
conversation is something anybody can appreciate.
51:18
It, it, it, you bring in the, the deep philosophical context,
51:24
but most any bright person could, could be participating in
51:28
this conversation and get the message.
51:30
So I, I, I like the way you're able to kind of, you know,
51:35
balance those those elements very nicely.
51:39
Thank you. Well, thank you.
51:41
That was that was actually a very motivational story you
51:44
told. And I'm very much in favor of
51:50
people doing what they see they can do.
51:53
You know, I said somewhere recently there's some people who
51:58
are called to feed the hungry. Well, please do that.
52:02
There are others who are called to clean up the environment.
52:08
Some are called to fight against big oil.
52:10
Whatever it might be, if that's your mission, please carry it
52:16
out. Do it with goodwill.
52:18
Don't do it with falling into the energy that you're fighting.
52:25
Don't become that. Because if you become that, then
52:30
just like in the French Revolution, you're just trading
52:33
one set of oppression for another.
52:37
But actually do it without hatred.
52:41
As Sri Krishna told to Arjuna, your job is to kill all of these
52:46
relatives and respected elders and and teachers, etcetera.
52:54
But don't do it with hatred, do it with respect, goodwill and
52:59
love and understanding that your job is to help clear the field
53:06
of retrogressive forces and that he was the spiritual warrior of
53:12
his day and he carried that out. So not all of us are called to
53:18
be Arjuna, but we are called in whatever field we act upon to
53:24
bring that new vision, bring that new consciousness and
53:30
manifest it. Not just meditate and then turn
53:35
into something else when we go out of the meditation, but
53:38
actually begin to manifest it in every way we can, as much as we
53:44
can, given that we are human beings and we too are part of
53:48
that evolutionary change that's got to take place.
53:58
I see Ted has his hand up. I do, all right.
54:02
Do you hear me? Do you hear me?
54:03
OK. Oh, you're great.
54:06
OK this this laptop sometimes works.
54:10
If you lose the sound let me know.
54:11
I just reboot it and it'll work fine.
54:14
I really enjoyed this talk. You can't imagine how much I
54:18
enjoyed this talk. I miss hard as Chowdhury, I miss
54:22
the ashram, all the things that I used to experience,
54:26
particularly the wonderful Indian lunches after the
54:30
program. So what I'd like to do is just
54:36
the reason I, I enjoyed this so much as it's such a refreshing
54:40
view. You know, I'm running a homeless
54:45
shelter. So I'm in an environment that is
54:48
extremely challenging. And this is really a breath of
54:52
fresh air. I, I thank you so much.
54:55
I just thought I'd like to go over quickly.
54:58
To me, the universe is working just fine.
55:02
You know, we're about four and a half billion years into it.
55:05
The universe is about 50 1/2 billion years old.
55:09
Everything that we look up and see probably is totally
55:12
different now. You know, it's taking a long
55:14
time for light to reach us. So whatever the universe is,
55:17
totally is, is obviously something quite different than
55:21
what we assume it is now. The planet Earth has experienced
55:26
3 total catastrophes where nearly nearly all life was
55:31
destroyed and in 15 to 16 billion years, 15 to 16 million
55:38
years, it came back even better. You know So what you're what
55:43
you've noticed is that in catastrophe at the the
55:48
catastrophe has some purpose because everything in the
55:51
universe is working as it should.
55:54
I, I really firmly believe that, you know, when we get up in the
55:58
morning every the, the, we are a visitor in a body that's working
56:03
as well as it was the day before.
56:05
And we, you know, if we went through deep sleep, then we wake
56:09
up, we're still what we were. We still have that experience of
56:13
being, which is the essence. So my take at the moment is that
56:20
I feel very privileged because I may witness in my lifetime
56:26
whether or not the human species is going to survive.
56:31
I'm not sure, you know, I don't, I'm not, There's nothing I can
56:37
bet on this one. But if the human species does
56:42
destroy its planet and itself, I'm very, very sure that in 15
56:47
to 16,000,000 years it'll be much better.
56:53
So that's what I tell my friends, Don't, don't despair.
56:56
You know, things look really bad right now, but in the big
56:59
picture it's really just fine. Well, that's a great perspective
57:04
and let me say I I thank you for your efforts of running a
57:09
homeless shelter. The issue of homelessness is a
57:13
serious one that affects everybody and it's a human
57:18
created issue. I, I, I can tell you the, the
57:23
fundamental cause of all the homeless people that I've
57:27
encountered. We, we shelter 20 and we have
57:30
over 90. You know that we service, we
57:33
have service from six days a week and we do free Sunday
57:37
dinners and a lot of things. We have showers and bathrooms
57:42
and laundry, you name it. But every single individual that
57:47
I have spent time with has what we call ACE, that's adverse
57:53
childhood experiences. They can be 4050, sixty years
57:58
old. You sit in a car with them for
58:00
45 minutes on the way to an appointment and the first thing
58:04
they will talk about is how horrible their childhood was.
58:11
Yes, these are human caused issues and it's good that people
58:16
are taking that seriously and working with those who have
58:22
these issues and who as a result experienced tremendous physical
58:29
and vital and mental suffering. So thank you somebody else,
58:39
Andy. Yeah, I wanted to first say
58:43
thank you, Santosh. It felt so good to be here, not
58:46
only the content of your talk, but the way you deliver such a
58:49
calming energy. Even though we're talking about
58:52
quite challenging topics and I do, I have a question.
58:56
It's a sincere question. It might be a bit complicated,
58:59
but going back to the beginning, like right in the beginning you
59:04
talked about all the forces and things going on in the world and
59:07
the way in which we can fall into victimhood and feeling
59:13
victimized by it. So I'm curious to dive into that
59:18
a little bit. And as some context, I recently
59:20
listened to a lecture by an R Bendonian who is Indian and has
59:26
lived in India their whole life. And he kind of made a point that
59:31
said, you know, Westerners often ask me a lot about self esteem
59:35
and how to build people's self esteem.
59:38
And he kind of broke with the entire paradigm and said kind of
59:42
cutting to the chase, like when you're rooted in your Sababa and
59:45
your Saba Dharma, like self esteem is not really even a
59:51
relevant concept because you're really in alignment with your
59:55
own soul and with the divine. And I think similarly, I'm sure
1:00:01
I've been doing the mother often are constantly offering us this
1:00:04
like much deeper and deeper and deeper and layered.
1:00:07
Nuanced view of the world. So my question around when do
1:00:15
you feel like a victim? I, I myself think about this a
1:00:18
lot. Like, how do I on one hand,
1:00:22
surrender to the mother and be in alignment with that, but also
1:00:25
how do I on the human level, step out of being a victim and
1:00:28
be more assertive? And the other piece I'd like to
1:00:34
say is like culturally, I feel particularly probably since the
1:00:37
60s, maybe it's a timeless thing, but because of social
1:00:41
justice issues like becoming more and more and more front and
1:00:44
Center for people. But like most social justice
1:00:47
issues in a way always involve a group or a person being
1:00:52
victimized. And so I think there's just from
1:00:57
from my perspective, that could be right or wrong or incomplete.
1:01:01
Like the sense of being a victim is more alive in culture for
1:01:05
both very valid and good reasons.
1:01:08
But also it can be like a really slippery like to identify as the
1:01:11
victim can be this profoundly slippery, disempowering place to
1:01:17
become identified with and fall into.
1:01:19
So thank you for hearing all of that.
1:01:22
Coming back to the question, like, you know, in light of
1:01:25
Shere I've been to and the mother in the same sense of
1:01:27
like, in the way in which self esteem is like valid on one
1:01:30
level. And on a deeper level.
1:01:32
We can, we can dispense with it from your from your view and
1:01:36
life experience of intrical yoga.
1:01:41
Other than like, I think we all align on like faith and the
1:01:44
mother. There's something deeper going
1:01:46
on here. Like, is there anything else you
1:01:48
might draw on in your own life to, you know, if you identify
1:01:52
feeling like a victim in a yogic way, how you step out of that?
1:01:57
Well, let's let's try. I appreciate your question.
1:02:02
And my view is that if you're in a space where you can identify
1:02:10
with your deeper Dharmic mission and not the ego personality,
1:02:18
then you don't have that issue. But not all of us are there or
1:02:22
there all the time. And so we still have to struggle
1:02:26
with and deal with the day-to-day stuff and it's
1:02:31
sometimes very oppressive. And to deal with that, part of
1:02:37
it is seeing if you can just shift your standpoint enough to
1:02:43
recognize that that is the ego and the external nature and sort
1:02:49
of play with it rather than feel like you're controlled by it.
1:02:55
That may help sort of the separation of the witness
1:02:58
consciousness from the active nature.
1:03:02
And the other thing is that if you're called upon to address
1:03:06
this, I, I look at social justice issues not as being more
1:03:12
prevalent now, but if you look at the history of humanity,
1:03:18
there's always been all kinds of oppression in most societies.
1:03:24
And the fact that it was accepted and normal to have
1:03:31
slaves to treat women as commodities.
1:03:35
I mean, you can go back into some of the scriptures of some
1:03:39
of the religions and it's it's like these are just normal
1:03:42
things. And over time, as we grow in
1:03:47
awareness and grow in consciousness, it's no longer
1:03:50
normal. And that's where you become
1:03:54
awake to the feeling of victimhood because you say,
1:03:58
well, OK, I'm being oppressed. That's great.
1:04:02
That's the first step of awareness to say that this isn't
1:04:08
the way it needs to be, This isn't the oneness and the
1:04:12
harmony that we're working towards.
1:04:15
And therefore it motivates you to action, to be what you want
1:04:22
to see in the world, to step away from your victimhood.
1:04:27
Take that as a challenge and work to create a place where
1:04:35
nobody needs to feel like a victim.
1:04:38
And that's going to take possibly more than your lifetime
1:04:42
or my lifetime. But you can see it changing
1:04:46
radically in front of us. And you can see the reaction to
1:04:49
that in today's society around the world, where people who are
1:04:55
used to the old ways of looking at things, the patriarchic and
1:04:59
the controlling ways of looking at things are gassed.
1:05:04
And they want to do everything they can to beat this down, but
1:05:09
they can't succeed at it. Because once people wake up and
1:05:14
realize that the system, the habits of society, the habits of
1:05:20
humanity are based on a wrong premise, you can't put that
1:05:27
toothpaste back into the tube. Thank you.
1:05:38
It seems to me that hi everybody and I'm sorry for making making
1:05:44
lunch noises at the beginning. If you heard that I didn't, I
1:05:49
wasn't muted. Seems to me, you know, given
1:05:55
know thyself that, you know, as Roger mentioned, powerlessness
1:06:03
and helplessness, which are, you know, part of the victimhood
1:06:09
experience. And we're all, I don't know, I'm
1:06:12
speak for myself, feeling victimized by the current regime
1:06:17
that's coming in like a blitzkrieg.
1:06:23
But there you have a feeling that isn't readily delighted in,
1:06:27
let's put it that way, in our culture.
1:06:30
And yet here it is. You know, it's like when it
1:06:33
shows up, especially at a time of introspection, a time of
1:06:40
quiet, when you can really explore it or let it speak, you
1:06:45
know, in its language and prioritize the feel of it rather
1:06:51
than the message. You know that gets merged with
1:06:55
it from the mental, You know, I, I.
1:07:01
Don't know of any other way and. Yes, in the 12 steps, you know,
1:07:05
admitted we were powerless and that our lives had become
1:07:09
unmanageable as we try to flee that feeling or fight it and
1:07:16
then, you know, moving on, made a decision to turn our lives
1:07:21
over to a larger context. So it's that it's the.
1:07:31
Same work I. Think yeah.
1:07:35
I mean. Awareness and and fineness.
1:07:39
Allowing permission. It's hard work, but it's good
1:07:42
work well. Thank you.
1:07:46
I think that's a good response to Andy's question as well.
1:07:59
Well, I see we're getting close to time here.
1:08:02
If there any other people who want to chime in here, please do
1:08:08
so. And then if not then we can wrap
1:08:12
it up for today. And ahead of that, I want to
1:08:16
thank everybody for your efforts and your the shining light that
1:08:22
you bring here into our collective gathering, our
1:08:26
Satsang together. And I very much appreciate that.
1:08:32
Thank you so much. Thank you, Santosh.
1:08:35
Thanks everyone. Great to see everyone and feel.
1:08:40
The force working within us. Bye.
1:08:45
Wellman OK, bye bye bye. Bye everybody.
1:08:51
You try to find my way.