Latest / Sri Aurobindo Studies / My Personal Journey in the Adventure of Consciousness

Transcript

My Personal Journey in the Adventure of Consciousness · Sri Aurobindo Studies

• 0:01
  Namaste. We struggle with finding
• 0:08
  meaning in our lives. There is so much strife, so much
• 0:14
  confusion, so many issues that threaten our very
• 0:19
  existence as a species. We view enormous changes to
• 0:25
  the environment, the ever dwindling supply of fresh
• 0:29
  water, the imminent collapse of the ocean fisheries,
• 0:34
  increasing pollution, the sixth planetary species die
• 0:39
  off, the clear cutting of forests and the inexorable
• 0:42
  warming of the planet with all the follow -on effects
• 0:47
  that these things have, including income inequality,
• 0:50
  and the inequality, unequal access to the world's
• 0:53
  resources, and the consequence of war, famine,
• 0:59
  mass migration, etc. Many believe we have entered the
• 1:05
  end times as a result. It is easy to simply despair
• 1:11
  and give up, to immerse ourselves in entertainment,
• 1:16
  physical enjoyment, and superficial relationships,
• 1:20
  but in the end, deep within ourselves, we know
• 1:26
  that this cannot be all that life is about. We
• 1:32
  come then to what the great sage Shri Aurobindo
• 1:35
  suggested, which is to turn our attention to the core
• 1:38
  problem of our existence and undertake what he
• 1:41
  called the adventure of consciousness. We
• 1:45
  have tried to find the answers of life everywhere,
• 1:48
  but within ourselves, within our consciousness. While
• 1:54
  we searched the world for answers, Shri Aurobindo
• 1:58
  proposed that these answers lie within. Back
• 2:04
  in 1971, I had a personal epiphany, a dramatic change
• 2:10
  in my life that led me to search for meaning and
• 2:12
  begin to explore new directions that I had never
• 2:16
  considered. In fact, I had a near -death
• 2:20
  experience that led me to challenge all the
• 2:23
  assumptions of education, career, and family life
• 2:27
  that I had previously held. I
• 2:31
  wound up abandoning all those ideas and plans, and
• 2:34
  after dropping out of college, I went to Europe
• 2:38
  and took up the study and practice of yoga. It
• 2:42
  was there that I was introduced to Shri
• 2:45
  Aurobindo's The Life Divine, and it immediately resonated
• 2:50
  with me as providing some light in what had been for
• 2:54
  me a dark tunnel that apparently had no way out.
• 2:59
  There was a war raging in
• 3:01
  Vietnam. The country was torn apart.
• 3:04
  People were beginning to raise
• 3:07
  serious concern about the impact we as a species
• 3:11
  were having on the environment, the pollution,
• 3:14
  the climate change, and all the other effects. People
• 3:19
  were adamantly opposed to one another with no one
• 3:23
  taking a solution that would solve the problems
• 3:26
  that humanity had created for itself as possible.
• 3:33
  Anger, hatred, invective were the
• 3:38
  order of the day in our societal life. The
• 3:42
  threat of nuclear disaster hung over everything else
• 3:46
  as a doomsday that awaited us, if we failed, to work
• 3:51
  out some form of positive resolution. The
• 3:57
  key to Shri Aurobindo's guidance was that these
• 4:00
  problems arise because we are evolutionary beings, and
• 4:04
  our development is not yet completed. Out
• 4:08
  of matter, life evolved. Out
• 4:11
  of life and matter, mind evolved. We
• 4:16
  are in the midst of a transition as further forces
• 4:20
  of consciousness evolve with new powers of understanding,
• 4:25
  action, and harmony that can help us navigate the
• 4:29
  many issues that cannot be solved with our present
• 4:32
  limitations. Some 50 or more years have gone
• 4:37
  by since that fateful decision to take my life
• 4:40
  in an entirely new direction. In
• 4:43
  the interim, I have lived an isolated life for part
• 4:46
  of the time, have traveled to many parts of the
• 4:49
  world, have examined many spiritual, philosophical, and
• 4:54
  scientific paths, and undertaken the commitment to
• 4:59
  turn my own life into that adventure of consciousness
• 5:03
  that Shri Aurobindo described. I
• 5:07
  have taken up business, publishing, got married, and
• 5:13
  raised children. I have spent some years
• 5:16
  reflecting on all the various aspects of human
• 5:20
  development and come to conclude that if we are to
• 5:25
  survive as a species, this existential crisis, humanity
• 5:31
  must move beyond the limitations of the body,
• 5:35
  life, and mind that lead us to our own self
• 5:38
  -destructive actions through our egoistic attachment to
• 5:43
  satisfying our desires, even at the expense of the
• 5:48
  greater whole of which we are a part. The
• 5:53
  evolution of consciousness continues, and we have the
• 5:58
  opportunity to support this process consciously and
• 6:02
  thereby speed up the development of the new
• 6:05
  powers of unity, oneness, harmony, love, and mutual
• 6:11
  respect that are so much needed in today's world.
• 6:16
  Namaste.