Summary: Teaches about the different ways in which the ego surfaces and the blinding, compulsive hold of rajasic ego manifested in anger, jealousy and such passions. Teaches that the seeker cannot go on as usual, acting under such compulsions. Cautions against casualness on the journey and emphasises the application of will, as well as the need for unwavering faith. Describes the various ways in which hostile forces inimical to progress in sadhana can disrupt the journey, and the rare blessing of the guidance of an awakened Master on the path. Emphasises humility, sincerity and acceptance of the guidance by the seeker.

There are various kinds of egos, some bearable and some unbearable, and besides egos can be funny – very, very funny – and source of much mirth. All have the ego whether good, bad, crude or ugly. I am sure you will not like to hear about it as it may have an echo in you, but I have to do this job, so it has to be done. At times one is not a very likable person as a teacher because one is critical about things in people that they require to work with and need to change, or things that they consider precious to them but that they require to leave or let go of for the sake of their progress. They consider them very precious, so they are very possessive, even obsessive of them, and when they are asked to let go to move forward in sadhana, they get upset and unhappy, cannot even think that life can be considered worthwhile without them. They are obvious obstacles, but not so obvious to them.

Ego is present and experienced at all levels of our embodied existence: the mental, the vital, the emotional, the physical and even under cover of the religious and the spiritual. ‘I am a great sadhak, I am a great soul, there is none equal to me! I am Bhagwan!’ This is vital ego, rajasic ego making a claim for spiritual greatness. Even to say the opposite, ‘I am a nobody’ can be egoistic, a subterfuge, albeit of the meek and humble kind when behind it there is a covert desire, desire for sympathy, desire for compliments and therefore for acknowledged ‘greatness’: ‘I am humble, see how good and nice I am’ with the eager and expectant hope of being acknowledged as such, and when not acknowledged one experiences hurt and disappointment – that surely is the ego. When acknowledged there is the puffed-up feeling and satisfaction – obviously that surely is the ego! All this you have to learn to see and dismiss. And one can never do any wrong, only the others do wrong: ‘I can never do any wrong, I am a saint’ – Christian-like temperament of being meek and humble, that is also ego. These, of course, are of the simple kind, there are many others of different kinds and differing hues, and they hide behind every cover, under every rock and behind every face.

So, the obstacles to overcome are: first, obviously… I wonder if you can guess! (Laughter) Okay, it is fun, let us make it a little playful… Please, can somebody offer some suggestion from their side? We will give everybody a turn. We are fair after all, nobody will feel left out; we will begin with C., since he is the first one here. Please! What do you think? Any suggestion from your side?

C.: Well, I do not know, I would say that passion and anger come in the way very easily. So, they do not allow one to be quiet. Passion, anger and assertiveness, they keep you down, they do not allow you to see clearly.

That is true. Well done. But passion, what do you mean by passion? You can have a passion for painting, you can have a passion for poetry, you can have a passion for cooking and eating or you can have a passion for each other. Even passion for God. Passions surely have a vast range! Anything in particular that you think can be a serious obstacle to sadhana?

F.: Desire?

Desire? So, we cannot desire pasta! That would be very difficult for Italians! So, desire – but of what kind? For some can be a serious obstacle. In a lighter vein, (joking about a disciple going on a holiday) obstacles to sadhana can also be riding a motorbike in Sicily with the girlfriend in tow and ending up injured having hit an ‘obstacle’ in the form of an open car door of a vehicle that suddenly and unexpectedly materialised out of nowhere in the way of your bike path, thanks to the owner of said vehicle taking that very moment to exercise his right of ownership of his car and the liberty to open the door mid-road, mid-traffic preventing you not only from sadhana but even your much ‘desired’ holiday, having injured yourself and ending up at the doctor’s. (Laughter)

F.: Holidays?

Holidays? Yes, going for sunbathing and catching a sunstroke instead, requiring emergency resuscitation and interrupting the practice of sadhana!

(Joking again) And also business, as D. would confirm with his dream start-up of a French bakery in Bangalore, spending all his time in establishing his business and postponing the practice of sadhana in the hope of first becoming financially secure once for all, and then finally getting cheated by a local collaborator and losing all his ‘hard-earned’ investment, not to mention all the much expected and imagined hot cakes and biscuits going up in smoke instead of in the oven and all that time lost for sadhana! (Laughter)

(Reading): ‘There are three very difficult obstacles that one has to overcome in the vital – sexual desire, wrath and rajasic ego.’¹

The vital can be full of unjustified and narrow-minded self-assertion and self-righteousness, ‘I am right and unquestionably so,’ while obstacles in the mental would be ideas which are fixations, notions, baseless imaginations and flights of fancy, prejudices and biases, and intellectual pride. So, at the level of the vital what needs to be overcome, mastered and to become free from is the hold of desire, wrath, arrogance, conceit and unjustified assertion. Asserting oneself, that is the rajasic ego, it is the vital nature – you assert yourself, you assert all the time, even when you are wrong you assert yourself, even when other parts of your being say it is not right you still go ahead with it, you still continue to assert, you still continue to argue and push your agenda, your view, your opinion, even though in the back of the mind, nay even in the front, you know you are wrong and you are getting carried away, but still you go on. That is the rajas in you, and the vital ego.

Anger too belongs to the rajasic, vital plane of consciousness as is mentioned in the Gîtâ:

Kâma esha krodha esha rajoguṇasamudbhavaḥ

Mahâúano mahâpâpmâ viddhyenamiha vairinam²

It is desire (craving), it is wrath, born of rajas, voracious

devourer, a great sinner, know this to be the enemy here.

When things do not go your way you get angry, when your desires are not fulfilled you get upset, unhappy and you get angry. These are compulsions, these are compulsions in and of your consciousness and you feel you cannot do without the fulfilment of your desires and be happy – that is how it seems, because you are not free of their compulsive hold. So you cannot be objective with them, you cannot see them for what they are: good or bad, and whether they have a place in your journey onward in your life of sadhana; you cannot see for they blind you because of their vital intensity, so these become obstacles on the way because of their blinding compulsiveness, narrow-mindedness and drive. Strong passions like lust, jealousy, hatred and anger are so compulsively compelling being extremely egoistically self-gratifying, and besides they are dissipations of energy. To overcome you have to go beyond, because anything that compels you, one way or the other, is a bondage and a slavery, and we seek freedom. Loss of energy is loss of life, and without conservation therefore that energy cannot be transmuted and become the will of God and life immortalised – you need to be free and master of it first for that to be. Sex movement with the adherent compelling pleasure is the will of life, a compulsion of life for procreation, perpetuation, propagation of species besides a potential for a lot of trouble as a consequence, in this endless cycle of birth and death, and is presently, predominantly animal in its nature. That movement is such, that pleasure so obsessive, so possessing that you feel somehow you cannot live without it, you cannot manage without it, and you do not ‘live’ without it. So compellingly enslaving, binding and animal, crude and even violent in its nature when unfree and untransformed, that it obscures the beauty of its movement and the secret power of rejuvenation and regeneration inherent in its vitality.

Now if the vital needs to be transformed, then the passions will have to be free in their passing and have no hold over you, for you have to become free of all compulsions. Desires with their compulsions of one kind or the other are not a mastery, they are a compulsion, a slavery, and especially the sexual desire. So you have to become free, only then can you start the journey of transformation of that energy; only then can that energy rise upward and meet the Divine, ûrdḥwaretas – otherwise it cannot, and you can continue for life after life, for light years recycling that energy in its dissipation outward, vîryapat, in loss of life ending in decay and death. Procreation, children, ‘my children’, when obsessed over and becoming possessions, are all extended reasons for increased bondage, but of life accepted. Sadhana is another matter altogether. So, these become obstacles when you need to submit all of the energy and life to the Divine, then you cannot be living it through compulsions and bondage: this is very logical. If you want to raise it to another level, if you want to transform it, if you want it transformed in the light of God, divinised, then you cannot carry on as usual under compulsion. And it also dissipates the energy, the energy that you require for the spiritual upliftment and transformation, besides preventing rejuvenation, regeneration and longevity of life in and of the physical. It is very compulsive, obviously – everybody has experienced that – it is the most obvious compulsive force in life that is why it ensures procreation, it ensures perpetuation; that is how it is in nature. Now it is another matter that through modern science and techniques you can have the pleasure and even enhanced pleasure, and not the trouble and complications of procreation and accidental baggage and its consequential responsibilities afterwards, even though unexpected accidents continue to happen! In fact it is better with the baggage for most, because then it will mature them about life, otherwise it is something that you can indulgently enjoy and waste away without the consequential responsibility. So modern science allows you the freedom to indulge in its pleasure but does not give the freedom from its compelling hold. But if you want to master that energy, and that is not easy, then you have to stand behind and beyond it, free, and rise above it for its transmutation and transformation.

Anger is another thing that compels you to react and a lot of times with unjustified reactions, even at times violent and harmful, not being able to see clearly. And so does the sexual energy: it does not allow you to see clearly because it overwhelms you. When you are feeling sex, then that is all you think about and in whichever direction it takes you that is all that occupies the mind until expressed and exhausted. A fit condition for a serious mishap. To be objective at that moment, stand behind it and allow that energy to move, without it overwhelming you and being sucked into it is surely a task, for giving in is the usual norm – if not indulged physically then mentally – because of the inherent intense hold of its pleasure even when perverse and twisted. So, for the sex movement, anger and other passions like jealousy, envy and hatred, if you want a mastery, a complete mastery, then you have to be able to stand back of them, recognizing them for what they are, letting go of them, allowing for their passage out as you watch without giving in and becoming them, exercising restraint: this is the practice. Only then is the journey one of complete transformation. The passions can start to get refined then, otherwise they remain gross and continue in their grossness and remain untransformed. Because of the sex movement’s distractive, troublesome, compulsive, binding nature and dissipation of energy if indulged, in the spiritual seeking it was completely denied, to be avoided and suppressed as in the life-denying monastic traditions of the past with no intention for transformation, rather even ended up to be not only considered an embarrassment but a sin, as also implied by the expressions ‘born of sin’ and ‘immaculate conception’. Like sin, sex may be a three-letter word but it is not sin, although many a sin and crime have been committed because of it and for it! Transformation was never sought, rather the objective was to suppress and rise above to transcendental escape, leaving it unintegrated in the transformative process. It has always been a big obstacle on the journey, not only the spiritual liberation of the transcendental kind, but even more so in the complete transformation process because on one side it is not easy to transform it and on the other it is not easy to do without it, the obsessive pleasurable hold of its movement being so strong. But if continued as usual you lose the energy for the spiritual rising and transformation: it then acts as a great barrier, an obstacle standing in your way. It is only the brave, vîrya, which has a dual conjunct meaning of brave and the seminal fluid, who can go across. That is why the task for a complete Divine transformation is difficult for everyone until this be done, and so it cannot be that people en masse will suddenly stand transformed and become divine out of magical thin air. It is not as easy as that – just to do few techniques of meditation and lo and behold you are enlightened and transformed as is the wont of today’s new-age seekers, because you will have to deal with these barriers that stand in your way. Either you continue as usual and remain its slave, or you decide on mastery and transformation, then you will have to deal with this movement and energy face to face, without giving in, and the will of the Divine and nothing else as your objective. In our sadhana the first step is of restraint and retention for conservation, and watchfulness, without giving in to the urge, to prevent dissipation, standing back to let it pass, making space from it within, pushing it away if need be while remaining centred within in the thought of God; so we do not repress it, but neither do we express it in the habitual way as is usually done. You have to become free from it for that movement to reach its culmination where that energy is transformed into the ultimate refinement and ‘bliss of the body’ through the Divine manifestation. It is then something else, it is the ultimate in beauty and, as I call it, the passions of beauty.

For the complete perfection the sexual movement and the vital cannot be left the way they are, untransformed and brute – they just cannot. For that it needs to stop its journey outward, otherwise it is a serious obstacle for transformation and rise. To indulge in it therefore, and not only at the physical level but even mentally, should not be done. So ultimately even in the mind you have to become free, then from the mind into the subconscious; even in the subconscious one has to gain mastery and become free because it comes up in dreams then and there is dissipation. You have to master your dreams too, the journey is very long. Like ‘instant enlightenment’ there is no instant solution to this but a committed will to go the whole course until it be done, unlike the new-age enlightenment tourists that wander here and there in their immaturity. On one hand they continue in their childish indulgence and on the other there is the mad pursuit of ‘energy’ and some notion of enlightenment, for theirs is not the seeking of complete transformation and perfection but rather, if at that, an annihilation in some nirvanic space. So, if you seriously want this complete Divine manifestation then these things have to be dealt with in the proper way – you cannot on one side create a Dr Jekyll and on the other a Mr Hyde.

That is why the Gîtâ says you cannot continue to deny physically while on the other hand you indulge and carry on mentally. That is false conduct, mithyâchâra, says the Gîtâ.

Karmendṛiyâṇi saṃyamya ya âste manasâ smaran

Indriyârthânvimûḍhâtmâ mithyâchâraḥ sa uchyate³

One who controls the organs of action but continues

to dwell upon the objects of senses in the mind,

is a deluded soul, his discipline is said to be false and vain.

So you have to work it out fully both at the physical and the mental level, and it becomes strong in the mind when not indulged physically. But you have to deal with it, and like J. Krishnamurti says, simply, “If you give in, there is dissipation of energy; if you kill it, you kill something most beautiful.” So if you indulge you dissipate and waste away, while the beauty and rejuvenation comes from conservation when the refinement through sadhana and transformation starts to happen. In the meanwhile there is much in there that is crude, distorted and even perverse, vikṛiti, not to mention violent. Through active sadhana and the working process of the force there is the continuous refinement of the seminal fluid, like the refined crystals of sugar as Sri Ramakrishna puts it, with the froth and scum skimmed off and discarded through a natural physical process of yoga, and the dross and gross taken away from body and consciousness. So, it has to be dealt with as a seeker and sadhak, for it is a barrier otherwise; it comes as a hurdle in the journey for a sadhak who seeks complete perfection, and will disrupt the journey if you indulge, because of loss of energy and interruption in its transformation. You can only reach up to a point in sadhana without its transformation, not much of a point even one would say, that has any great significance, for the journey would be far, far too incomplete in context of the journey of complete perfection and realisation for which its mastery and transformation is indispensable. Otherwise it remains in the crudity of the animal. Taking to meditation for a limited purpose of ‘feel-good’ while one carries on as usual in life is another thing – sadhana for complete perfection as one’s objective requires a different kind of commitment and life. Our relationships with all things and beings would require to change and stand altered, with the relationships built on their usual base of lower consciousness to go, because the consciousness has to change and be divinised. No more can it remain at the animal and even human level ultimately; if you want to reach to divinity in manifestation, then life and consciousness have to be raised to a deeper and higher level and lived from there.

So, giving unbridled expression and free range to desire and anger makes you become it; anything that you do, any activity that you take to, not just at the physical level but so too at the mental, becomes your personality, becomes your future behaviour pattern. It is karmic, and the consequences continue and may carry on for many lifetimes. As an example, even just the simple exercise of raising the hand! If I raise my hand identifying with it, it has left a mark in my consciousness, in the memory of my subconscious, in my unconscious. Somewhere in the future a thought will come to me to raise my hand. It has created an impression, everything creates an impression in you making for your personality and your tendencies – your pension and your tension! (Joking about a disciple worried about her pension). These too are your pensions, and just as you enjoy the pension after you have retired from your job-work in the world, so too the consequences and fruits of your actions are your pensions, all the activities that you have done and their consequences are your pension, karmic life pension – whether good or bad, you will have to enjoy the pension, some even for many lifetimes. Some pensions may be without tension and some with tension! Simply put, this is the science of karma.

Finally the seeker has to eliminate all those activities that are of no use, no value, a waste of time, hurdle and obstacle to his or her journey for the Divine manifestation. As one travels along the way, some things may be fine for a while, but ultimately the impeccability of purpose and perfection in and of action and expression is where one has to reach. So some people progress slowly and work it out gradually, some people bravely take to it immediately. Siddhartha shows great intensity of purpose, walks away and becomes the great Buddha. Sri Ramakrishna in a phenomenally short time of few years has God-realisation through all the known ways and paths! No dilly-dallying like how most people approach things in their lives, sometimes taking to this, sometimes taking to that, gossiping, meandering, sluggish, casual with much excuses and carping, and even justifying the lacklustre effort and behaviour: ‘I have done some work, now surely I deserve a break and some chocolate, forbidden fruit, a little bit anyway, even though it has bad consequences on my body and mind, and anyway nobody is watching!’ Chocolate here means many things and is symbolic. If somebody else also joins in partnership there is even more fun, and the support and chorus to each other is bolder and louder as if the company legitimises the behaviour, ‘Yeah, let’s have some. Oh, what is wrong, it is such fun!’ Because something is fun now it is justified as being right, and more so when there is a quorum and chorus. Especially when you do things behind the back it is more enjoyable, but then it all comes out, it all stands revealed, because the truth cannot stay hidden, the truth will reveal itself. It comes out, one way or the other – you can hide nothing, conceal nothing for it all gets exposed, at least to yourself and conscience! The seeker, the sadhak starts to realise this.

There are various compulsions, habitual movements, habitual compulsions, that have overwhelmed you for lifetimes, which you have yourself developed and are now your personality. Gluttoning on chocolates, sweets, etc., in the middle of the night causing disruption and a hangover in one’s health and mood the next morning and repeated compulsively again and again as a habit is an example though relatively less harmful than many of the things that may confront oneself on the journey. You can hear it in the privacy of the tents or rooms, the wrappers being unwrapped, and then next morning you see: ‘Oh, R. is not looking good again, she is once again in her mood. Better not to look at her this morning.’ Besides R. is also avoiding looking at anyone for the way she is feeling. Talking to her and even looking at her, as others have experienced many times in the past may produce unpleasant reactions because of her mood, because of the hangover after her indulgence in the night. And every time she decides this was the last time, but then ‘cometh the hour, indulgeth the man’, I mean woman here! So, the compulsiveness of things developed over time as personality takes strong hold of you, difficult to pry free from. It can be done, it should be done, even if not overnight, depending on how strong a will you exercise against the thing and how much of a person of faith you are, how committed to your sadhana and how intense your wanting the will of God to be done. Like Siddhartha, who became the great Buddha, you can will yourself the similar kind of intensity as when he says: “I am going to have enlightenment now even if in trying it be the end of my bodily life.” And similarly as Sri Ramakrishna says to the Divine Mother, “Give me the realisation now or I will take my life.” Of course that kind of intensity is something that needs development over long time, but you must decide and begin, otherwise there is always the usual lukewarm and casual attitude, and inconsistency in its development. One moment in your momentary jingoism you are ready for it and the next moment in your weakness you collapse and return to your usual behaviour pattern and personality. Everything is done on an impulse which does not last! For a moment you seem to be inspired out of a vital impulse, ‘Oh, I will do it!’ but after five minutes you change your mind, ‘I do not feel like it.’ So, what do you do? Do you give in to such inconsistent temperament or do you change yourself for your own good by sticking to your stance, so that you become strong even in those moments? This is sadhana: a making of a ‘new you’ through the application of your will.

That which you need to change you should change, that which you need to apply, add, you should apply and add. It requires dedication and commitment. It is definitely not screaming and shouting like banshees and being mindlessly ‘spontaneous’ and ‘expressive’ with anything and everything in one’s stupidity under the pretext and cover of modern psychology, and then justifying aggressively the unjustifiable, the indefensible, like it is done in some place. We can see where it has got them. Rather, it is about a strength that comes from your inner faith, faith in yourself, faith in life, faith and will in wanting to do the right thing, and love of God. That is why it is said that if you can have love of God that will sort everything out, for it gives you always the right direction.

Anyway, I can keep talking about it, but I am sure you are very knowledgeable people, for you have read many books and done so much therapy, satsang, meditated and listened to many discourses. Even so, I still have to do my job of teaching the dharma that has been given me! There are various kinds of desires. Some desires – now you can differentiate – are not necessarily harmful. Desires can be good, bad, harmless or harmful. For example, the desire to have pasta is harmless, surely! Let us have some pasta! I am sure, like me, even God likes pasta, especially spaghetti! Desire for pasta or other gourmet food is harmless if not unhealthy, and can even be good if healthy, while the desire to know God and live His will is the highest and best. Gîtâ says:

Dharmâvirûddho bhûteshu kâmosmi bharatarshabha⁴

That desire which is good, uplifting and exalting,

not in conflict with dharma and harmful to body and soul,

Oh best of the Bharatas, that I am.

Some things are fine, they do not hinder you, they are no obstacle, but there are things that are going to create obstacles for you – you must learn to see that. For example, in the case of bodily dharma, if something is unhealthy you might as well decide not to eat it, for if you indulge in it you harm your body, become unwell and for a time are incapacitated, losing precious time for progress. This would be a sensible thing to do, but mostly people are not sensible. You indulge in it again and again, even when you feel unwell afterwards every time – then why indulge in it? It is perverse and a weakness to do so. At the time of indulgence you feel good for it fulfils the desire and releases for the moment the strong constricting hold it has over you. Relatively speaking, the quotient of difficulty and behaviour depends on the hold the particular desire has over you and you may become grumpy, depressed and even take to fight or flight when denied its fulfilment. I am giving relatively harmless examples, but there are things out there that are very harmful to your progress, so one must be forewarned. For if even such small relatively harmless indulgences are so difficult to overcome, then what will happen when you have to face and deal with ones that are really tough and seriously harmful to your soul and sadhana? As a child, if the parents refuse you chocolate for the good of your own health: ‘F., you should not eat chocolates since you break up in boils!’ You rebel in your childishness, ‘No, mama, I want to eat chocolates!’ And chocolates here are symbolic, indicative of many things that we encounter within ourselves as challenges to make the right choice, to do the right thing. Same thing, look in yourself: there is a mama in there, a papa in there, and then there is the stubborn little child with all her childishness too. In sadhana you discover and become aware of the dichotomies of the inside with the many conflicting and opposing suggestions muddied by the desire will. But there in you is a conscious being, a conscious seeker, an inner guide and conscience that should be able to decide what is right, where you should be wanting to go and what you should be wanting to do. In the meanwhile the awakened Guru in the ‘outside’ plays that part and must be accepted in all faith. In this way one journeys forward when one travels in faith, growing in strength, growing in understanding and growing in sadhana. So there are serious obstacles and not so serious obstacles that one will come face to face with, but after some time of advancement, you will see, even a little thing if you compromise with it, it touches you very deeply and that is good – you will see this happening in sadhana, for you become more awake to your soul and conscience. That means your sadhana has reached a much required and significant level. It will come! Something in you will feel very dissatisfied and disappointed with yourself if even a little thing, which may seem quite harmless otherwise, pricks you, pains you, while maybe some years back in your journey it felt like nothing. In fact, it might have even been a short term help, therapeutically speaking, because you could not manage or even progress otherwise in your climb upwards, or needed to have an experience, a little expression of a kind or indulge a little bit as a release for a while. But after you have reached a point in serious and sincere sadhana, the thing, even if minor, suddenly becomes unacceptable to you inside. You become so sensitive, as it were, to any failing, compromise or laxity, which means you are really now reaching to an intensity in your sadhana and that is a good sign, it is a good sign. It means your sadhana is now awake and you can act from its conscience. I mean, eating a few chocolates may not be a big deal, relatively speaking, I am just using them symbolically to somehow caution you from all the big challenging hurdles like desire, wrath and egoism that you will face.

In sadhana and its process it can get very intense. Things will come up and about, and if you are susceptible to compulsions and an unguided self-will you can easily get diverted, distracted and misled by wrong forces, influences and suggestions from within or without that are harmful to your sadhana and the manifestation that is to be, and even giving up of sadhana. There are beings and forces in creation that can create obstacles and disruptions in your way that will take advantage of your casualness, your weaknesses and the opening you give them thereby. They will use that to stop your journey, create distractions and diversions, and that is why it requires great integrity and the strong foundation of an impeccable sadhana. I have from the very beginning always said that you need a very strong foundation to build the sadhana for the complete perfection that we seek, it cannot work otherwise. You will face unnecessary trouble otherwise because there are forces in nature, there are beings in creation inimical and hostile to your progress who will conspire to disrupt, and all those who have done sadhana have had to face them. And they will not necessarily come as obvious recognizable enemies but even so in the shape of friends, they will come in the shape of relations, your closest of relations, most intimate of relations. They will employ every trick and treat! I want to caution you about it. That is why Sri Aurobindo and the Mother used to be very categorical in deciding what kind of relationships were okay and what were not. We allow greater freedom, but there is greater risk therefore, for we too seek the complete realisation and perfection as the object of our journey. Sadhana is an individual journey but that we take together with others, even though each one is individual and unique, and unique is their journey to the common goal. We are hoping for maturity, we are expecting greater maturity for your own sake therefore, otherwise your journey will not get anywhere, you will get diverted, you will end up elsewhere, in the wrong place, even in a very wrong one from where you were supposed to reach. It happened to great many sadhaks in the past who had advanced quite far, who started believing anything and everything about themselves and took to all sorts of imaginations and self-suggestions that started to come. Ravana is one extreme example. He was a great meditator, who after some attainment ended up suddenly claiming to be God and decided to do whatever he pleased in his egoism. He even turned against the real God, Lord Shiva, his Teacher and Guru, from whom he got the force, the energy, the sadhana. He had devotion for God but then he turned, wrongly claiming himself to be God in his ego because he had not cleansed himself of egoism. That is why it is said, many may be called to sadhana, but only some reach somewhere and even fewer all the way, while many get distracted and diverted, and even worse, have a great deluding fall and turn against the light. Lucifer, the fallen angel, is an obvious example. That is what fallen means. He was an angel, close to light, but he fell turning against the light. Now he is anti-divine, a Darth Vader of Star Wars, the Jedi who turns to the dark side.

So there is a Lucifer in us, there is a Ravana in us, there is a Darth Vader in us, ready to take over. You will be surprised how persistent they can be: they wait for any occasion, that is why you have to be utterly vigilant, extremely watchful, do much introspection, much careful observation and keep to the discipline of sadhana and the guidance. Dark forces, forces of falsehood, they will come about, they do come about – masters in lower nature, they do not like to lose their jurisdiction and hold over you. Even one like Jesus was not spared the visit with the temptation of egoism, but one of the rare few, he stands his ground dismissing firmly, strongly and categorically, “Stand behind me, Satan!”

It is so too in the outside world, especially in today’s times the world is ruled by these forces mostly, for the dark forces of lower nature are allowed, indulged and have free play – not the forces of the Divine. This is what you start to observe and see and that is why it requires great integrity, it requires great introspection and sincerity and that is why you require the true Guide, otherwise it is trouble. Otherwise out of one’s ego you can believe anything about yourself, you can become ‘swami sun, swami moon, swami rocket’; you can become Bhagwan, God, or ‘bugvan’, bug who is vain; Buddha, the enlightened one, or ‘budda’, old awaiting death! Yes, the much glorified free world, free to be whatever your ego wants to imagine itself to be. After all it is a free world! You can choose and do and be whatever you feel like in your fancy, nobody can stop you. But if you take to the journey these are the things that you have to watch out for, together with total acceptance to be guided; saving yourself much trouble from the shenanigans of the ego and its stupid imaginations, speculations, machinations and self-importance. That is why it requires a total committed sincerity, it requires the submission to the Divine and the Divine alone through a continuous guidance. Therefore the requirement for total sincerity and humility, therefore the requirement of the guidance and the Guide, however unfair it may seem, however the rebellious in you may oppose. Exactly!

That is why it is not an easy journey, the Guide and pathfinder knows that, because he has walked the journey himself, he knows, for he has dealt with nature, universal nature; that is why he knows. Even if He did not have some movements of nature in him, he sees, he knows through his attainment the workings of nature. He knows the things that are helpful and those that are obstacles. Sometimes He may allow something to someone for a while, just for help in one’s growth and then put a stop to it; then one must be able to accept that. Or, just because it is allowed to someone, the others should be allowed too, ‘Why are you not allowing me?’ This is utter stupidity; each one is working something out through their temperament and the Guide has to guide them through that. Something may be helpful to someone but not to another, nay, even harmful! Something may be helpful for a while but harmful long term! The Guide knows and works accordingly. The Guide works collectively but also individually, specifically. This should be understandable and acceptable to a sadhak. So, the kinds of misunderstandings that afflict the uninitiated do not exist then any more, should not exist: ‘We are all equal, so we must be allowed equal stupidity.’ That is how usually one thinks. For example, just because Pi.’s wife was allowed to be here, so we should allow M. also as a rule is stupidity, for various reasons that you in your tunnel vision cannot see. These are all stupidities and it was not even exactly like the way you understood because you were not privy to all the facts but still concluded instead of inquiring. This is the stupidity of the mind, that means you do not have trust in the Guide, you judge when you have no right to judge for you have not all the facts and haven’t put in the required effort to even find out, but took for granted things on the face of it and because of personal preference, for it had to do with your friend, so no objectivity, and yet you think you qualify to judge! This is how you people are in your everyday interactions and pass judgements, and you expect the Guide to take you and your judgements seriously! That means, you are superior to the Guide and that is what happens, that is why – faith. If you have faith in the Guide, then the Guide is right and that is definitely a required indispensable requisite for the journey. Of course, this goes so much against the modern way of thinking. For a sadhak when the Guide says, ‘I am right,’ you will have to accept that. How can it be otherwise? ‘Mamma mia! What arrogance!’, your ego may think, but that’s the way it is if you want to make your own travel and the success of our intended work easy, for you save yourself constant bickering and carping, anasûyave the Gîtâ says, much trouble and to and fro wasting of time and energy. Of course there is always room and place for inquiry and questioning, but with the right attitude.

Tadviddhi praṇipâtena paripraœnena sevayâ

Upadekshyanti te jñânaṃ jñâninastattvadarœinaḥ⁵

Know that by obeisance, by questioning and service,

the teachers of knowledge who have seen and know

the Truth of things shall impart to you that knowledge.

That is why on the journey you face many of these struggling moments and occasions, because you cannot see the finer nuances of things and underlying implications or future effects and consequences. You judge and interpret from your own limited understanding, short-sighted narrow vision and bias most times, and not realising that your understanding leave alone illuminated, far from it, is not even knowledgeable of facts about many things, especially the requirements, the subtleties and the pitfalls of the sadhana. And so because you desire some things or because it is dealing with your friend or someone you prefer, then that should be allowed, and this you do not see to be a bias. That is it, desire! And then strong desires, like sexual desire, that even more so conditions you in your bias. If you are attracted to someone very strongly, then everything about that person is justified to be supported, even unjustifiably so, not realising what is conditioning you in your lack of objectivity in seeking support for them. That is why in Aurobindo Ashram they would not allow personal relationships of the common, usual kind because they get in the way of your objectivity and right course of sadhana, whether they be parents and children or husbands and wives. They did not have to of course suffer the intricacies and the ignominies of boyfriend and girlfriend relationships as we in more modern times have to! They get in the way of your sadhana and to the environment of sadhana of the place, therefore to the individual and the collective journey. You inevitably and easily are prejudiced and biased because you do not have the right perception and objective understanding, so then if the Guru, the Teacher and the Guide allows you something, accept it with grace, if he denies you, accept that also with grace. This without any compromise is required of the seeker and sadhak, the student and the disciple, otherwise it is a constant, continuous struggle, allowing therefore an atmosphere, an environment in yourself, in your mind, for the wrong kind of forces to take over besides setting a bad precedence, example and environment for others on the journey. Initially it may not seem so much of a hassle, but as you go further on your journey you better watch out, if that work has not been done then it becomes a means for the wrong forces or hostile beings to take over and turn you against the right guidance. This is what happened to Ravana, a great devotee, advanced seeker and a learned pundit, and this is what happened to Lucifer, an angel, finally a fallen angel.

The journey gets more and more subtle as you travel, you have to understand. Initially when you are just beginning the journey, you may get away with things; it is like with everything, it seems comfortable, but as you travel further it gets tougher. It gets more subtle, so it gets tougher. I have always told you that from the very beginning, I have never hidden that fact, for I am not here to collect people for the sake of collecting people, because I know how difficult this is, very difficult. All those ‘gurus’ who like to collect people for the sake of collecting people and have masses of swooning followers, they are welcome to them, anybody who wants to join them is welcome. I know how stupid the whole notion and idea of comparison is, because this journey can get difficult and requires stoic commitment and the will and readiness to go the whole way, which not so many have. Of course, there is nothing else but this, but then it requires that kind of commitment and submission. In Christianity also, the submission and obedience are the first things you commit to when you take to the discipline. This is not some stupidity just for the sake of the Guide’s ego, but this is an indispensable requirement without which otherwise you will end up in trouble and will make it extremely difficult for yourself and others on the journey around you and finally give up. Of course, it is another matter that impeccability of faith may not come easily and immediately for one may be full of doubt, fear and distrust, more so as a consequence of the syndrome of circumstances, personality makeup and educational upbringing of modern times. Whatever the case may be, here anyway, you are always allowed a lot of room to inquire, debate and discuss and repeatedly made to understand things. It is not just blind faith that we seek, although in the beginning it may begin so and preferably so, but a faith that is flawless and if it can be embellished with understanding progressively, all the more so. But the thing is, a lot of times you do not want to understand because it is not convenient for you to understand, for you are conditioned by your own desires or your own beliefs, your own ideas and notions. That is why it is a journey where, as an ongoing process, at times it is one step forward and two steps back and only because of your lack of faith and understanding: this is how it goes, progressing gradually or rapidly again depending on you and your commitment. And that is why I say, it is a rare and wonderful thing, greatest blessing, when an awakened and knowledgeable Master, if you can find one, agrees to walk with you; it is a rare thing indeed. He will initiate you in the ways of sadhana and carry you through. The only thing would be, do not take it lightly, do not take it for granted, because it is a wonderful thing, the most wonderful thing, there is nothing more wonderful than this, but just do not take it for granted for your loss would be great indeed!

It is good in the absence of a true Guide therefore to read about these things from books on sadhana describing what genuine sadhaks have undergone, so you can understand, become more mature and knowledgeable about sadhana and the attitude required, and what are the things that you will have to face on the journey; not the kind of notions and ideas going around in today’s new-age places, where they speak of all kinds of wonderful experiences and of having a great time. They are really having no time at all, they do not know what sadhana is. You can at least prepare yourself mentally through your right readings therefore, until you can find someone qualified to lead you.

So things become strong as you are trying to become free of them; the sexual desire gets very strong, anger gets very strong, the ego also gets very strong ‘I am God, I am a great sadhak, I am this and I am that.’ The ego can become very strong because of an incorrect attitude and under-preparedness of self as per the guidance in receiving and absorbing the energy and force, and the process and workings of sadhana from and in the presence of the Master. That is why you have to be very watchful and maintain the correct attitude as the sadhana intensifies. If you keep to the right attitude and things, and as instructed, it will intensify your rightful journey; if you take to a wrong attitude and things it will intensify the wrong and lead you to a fall and wrong destiny; that is why you have to be very watchful and stick to the guidance and instructions.

So as Sri Aurobindo says, “Obviously, unless the object is nirvâṇa, the small ego has to be attended to – not indulged but transformed out of existence”; and he is not even talking about the ‘new-age nirvâṇa’ and enlightenment seekers and their not-so-small egos! Sexual desire, wrath and rajasic ego: rajasic ego is the supporting ground of the other two, the lust and the wrath, sexual desire and anger. To be objective with anything and everything without giving in, that is the requirement, but under compulsion if you are so obsessed and possessed by it, you say, ‘I want it and I cannot and do not want to do without it, and I am this or I am that,’ that is the rajasic ego. That becomes the supporting ground for the perpetuation of the wrong movements, but in sadhana you have to learn to see and face anything and everything without losing yourself, that you must learn and practice. Now in the meanwhile, in the early stages of sadhana, because it is still unmanageable, you may work progressively to go beyond it – that is another matter. But that also has to be seen, if and where, when and how, not from your own whims and fancies, that is why ultimately the Guide is the ultimate instructor. Otherwise, if you believe you are your own guide – and I have seen much of that, Masters in the past have seen much of that, and where it leads – there would be no progress. So, Aurobindo and the Mother were very strict, in contrast we are quite liberal, but being liberal does not mean that one has the licence to do whatever one pleases. You will only fool yourself and dig your own fallible hole; that is what will happen.

So, rajasic ego is a supporting ground of the other two. In Pune you see that, because the rajasic ego was encouraged out of proportion, in whatever one felt like doing. And so the justification, ‘This is how I feel and so I must indulge’, to watch and exhaust, ultimately for it to somehow drop off! The Acharya was trying to experiment with this level, with these things, and in his own way. It is very visible where it has got people to though, and without anything dropping off or getting exhausted, rather it has boomeranged and things have been blown out of proportion with distortion of one’s temperament. Even if the teacher can manage some things it does not mean that the followers, each and every one, can do so too. Anyway, how it was instructed, simply as a discourse, without close active supervision and guidance – it does not work. This is what happened: they increased the rajasic ego and its indulgences to supposedly exhaust whatever one was indulging and giving free expression to, as a cure for repression, at any given moment as it were; but instead it has now reached a proportion for many that not much can be done about it, for it has become a fixed temperament, behaviour pattern, personality and way of thinking.

(Reading): ‘The form of ego has to be dissolved, it has not to be replaced by a bigger ego or another kind of ego. Rather, it has to be replaced by the true being which feels itself, even though individual, yet one with all and one with the Divine.’

In his own way Sri Ramakrishna used to say much the same thing about the unripe ego being transformed into the ripe ego and becoming a mere form, like a burnt piece of rope which could on a blow disappear.

(Reading): ‘It has to be replaced by the true being which feels itself, even though individual, yet one with all and one with the Divine.’

Very important to understand this, do not mistake the ego for the true being. Ordinarily people do not know their true being, their way of living is just increasing of the ego. That is what the case is and so it goes. This is a very important feature one must understand and so we take each one’s individuality for what it is and work from there, while the Acharya’s ‘experiments’ mostly ended up making everybody in the same way, which has ruined people’s temperament and personality. That is why they all feel the same and they react and behave much the same way for much the same demon is in all of them. So as long as it is below the surface and unprovoked it is fine, but when it gets expressed on its own or seemingly provoked, you can see it come up excessively, disproportionately and viciously; and it does come up and has become an unrestrained abnormal monstrosity. It is very obvious the kind of transformation that has happened – through indulgence the problem of egoism and its distortion has only been increased. For some, there was no problem in their nature or not much that could not be easily handled and considered normal, to be easily dealt with, and even then the problem was created because they ended up in that environment on one pretext or the other and thought that was utopia. As it is the rajasic nature is difficult to transform, more so when it is driven to the abnormal and justified. But then the Divine transformation is not their objective, rather nirvâṇa of whatever kind in the name of enlightenment, and with the approach and temperament of the asura!

(Reading): ‘There is individuality in the psychic being, but not egoism. Egoism goes, when the individual unites himself with the Divine or is entirely surrendered to the Divine.’

The ego must submit itself to the Divine, it has to surrender, to commit itself to the Divine. The individuality of the ignorant ego has to be replaced by the true being. That is why sadhana is a silent and a profound process. It develops an inner strength and an inner faith; that is what is required. It is not a boastful showing-off glamourising business. That is utter nonsense. This is rajasic ego, this is obvious and clear. And there is another reason too, for they did not seek a transformation of nature, although transformation was spoken of but in a different context, which was to become meditators for nirvanic enlightenment. Rather they were transforming themselves into the asuric under the guise of ‘express and watch’, basically that is what was happening – and then enlightenment, meaning nirvâṇa, which then justified everything. It was not transforming of life and manifestation of the Divine that was the objective, because there is no room for the Divine there, even though godliness was spoken of; it was in fact demonical manifestation through increased egoism and unrestrained abnormal expression and then nirvâṇa. How that is going to happen with all the excesses is a big question mark!?

(Reading): ‘On the higher spiritual plains, there is no ego.’

That is true, because the oneness with the Divine is experienced. It is only at the lower levels where you experience yourself as a separate consciousness from the other in a very severe manner that the ego has its full play. In fact, in the brute it is very, very severe and strong, and that is why sometimes you see when people become brutish and you are trying to make the person understand, the person refuses to understand. They take a very aggressive, assertive stand. Even when you try to make sense to them they will not accept the obvious and the sensible, their minds have become so severely conditioned that they will continue to defend aggressively and even falsely the indefensible – that is the ‘brute’.

That brute can exist in all, now what do you do with that brute? The brute cannot coexist with the Divine, the brute has to be transformed, and not by indulgence, perpetuating and strengthening it as it was done under the guise of not being repressed. That is why Ramakrishna’s example of that ultimate culmination of his sadhana was seen in a vision where he saw this brute emerge from himself, from his being, this dark, red-eyed ugly brute, followed by a being of light who killed the brute with one strike of his trident. That was then the final ending of the brute. So Ramakrishna’s being is now completely one of light with no brute. Otherwise one can be both, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. You can have one moment of higher experience, next moment can be of the brute, you will get this until the complete transformation and perfection is reached in the light of the Divine from top down to the lowest levels of one’s being. In Pune it is very obvious this was so. You see this clearly because of the approach under the guise of ‘express and watch’ therapy, inspired by infantile and superficial ideas of modern psychology as an antidote to repression, and such a transformation was not sought, at least not simultaneously, if they even considered such a thing. At the most it was supposed to happen by itself, automatically, through their naive idea of instant enlightenment, and that is why the excuse and justification or explanation of errant behaviour or legitimacy of any and every behaviour that is given ‘Oh, he is a meditator,’ so supposedly one can do whatever one pleases, and one can be a demon, a brute, an idiot, and so on just because one is a meditator – that would be the justification!

That is not our objective; our objective is a complete perfection through divinisation in our entire being, top to bottom, right down to even the physical, to manifest the light and light alone even at the lower planes of our consciousness, even so in our actions and life, divine life; a living, walking, breathing individuality of godhead and godliness with all its height, vastness and depth, however long it may take, and difficult it may be, not the continued justified perpetuation of the brute to coexist side by side with some space or some experience, however great even though seemingly nirvanic. And the brute that wants this space or enlightenment for itself is the unregenerate rajasic ego, it wants it as its property rather than dissolution of itself in a complete self-offering unto the Divine for the complete transformation. Ravana is that, he is the brute ego, claiming ‘I am God’ without being of God consciousness. He wants the enlightenment, the boon, the power without surrendering the ego. The asura! Not offering himself to the will of the Divine for transformation rather seeking power and enlightenment for the perpetuation of his own egoistic self-will, pleasure, enjoyment and dominion. He is the brute, the asura!

So you may begin imperfectly with your ego, but ultimately you have to submit yourself, surrender your ego to the Divine totally, and that point must progressively come and quicker the better, nay, preferably from the very outset! If the reason for seeking nirvâṇa or enlightenment is faddish and childish, since everybody else is going for it and it seems to be only fun and games, another feather in your ego cap, then you will not last long in real sadhana. When you start to experience the difficulties of sadhana, unless there is something deep in your soul that wants it, the ego with petty and naive objectives will not last. That is how it is. So in Pune they were to increase the ego as the vehicle to further their meditation, which is why it only turned the so-called meditators into brutes to whatever degree or to even more brutishness. And besides it even finally became a business; and the final upshot, for a certain amount of money you can be given enlightenment in a couple of weeks, that is what some follower adherents are claiming, and there are many fools who are attracted and go there believing such a thing. Pay more and you can even have it quicker and get a certificate too for your ‘troubles’. Even the Buddha, whom they objectified in spite of all his tranquillity and transcendence would be truly horrified as to what is happening in his name, and in no small measure!

If you understand this and take to the journey, you will be mature, but that does not mean you will not meet with difficulties, you will. Everybody has faced the difficulties of sadhana and that is a given, even so the Buddha in his long journey of seeking in his many lives. And Jesus the Christ, son of God had to face Lucifer’s shenanigans who tried to compromise him too, and also the ignominy, abandonment and deceit of the mob mentality of the masses and finally the painful and horrific persecution and torture of crucifixion. Then what about you who in your naivete are ever ready and eager to embrace whatever yours or someone else’s ego suggests and upholds, which both Buddha and Jesus did not suffer from but still had to face difficulties, and that too not of their own making?

What is the significance of the story of temptation: “Jump off this cliff and God your father will save you.” You see, there is the significance of what I am trying to say. These kinds of suggestions will come, Satan is not only outside, he is inside too; the brute is inside, that is the ego, the egoistic brute. It will say how good you are, ‘You have done so much, you are so great, you are having these experiences,’ which might actually be imaginations but your ego still believes. Like the enlightenment for a price and higher the price the quicker you have it, so throw yourself off the cliff, the cliff meaning discretion. Do whatever you please, ‘You are son of God, God your Father will save you,’ the devil is feeding your ego for you to do hara-kiri, suicide! That is the temptation that was given to Jesus. And you will be no exception albeit its form will be unique to you.

There are so many things that crop up in your mind – do you think they are you? They come from different planes of consciousness through prakṛiti, nature’s play of three guṇas – you do not understand much of that. Ordinarily people just take to whatever comes in the mind and consciousness as ‘This is me.’ But the seeker starts to understand and see this through his training and practice of sadhana. That is why everybody who has done sadhana knows this and how in the world most people, if not everyone, is easily influenced or open to the influence, if not possessed, by the hostiles, the demonic influences, because of their existence in the lower realm of consciousness that humans abide in. Human beings are all the time being or open to being influenced by the forces of lower nature even to the point of the horrific; therefore restraint, discipline, ethical behaviour evolved through the rules and laws of morality to prevent humanity to descend into the abyss of decadence and the demonical. Why else would they have come into being but to protect oneself and others from distortions and perversities of lower nature which very much exist? All sorts of things are there and if you do not watch it and indulge you would very quickly gravitate into falsehood, distortions, perversions and darkness. Why are all these rules and regulations made, to be self-imposed or imposed from the outside? Why does one impose on oneself restrain and discipline if not but for preventing from being led away by falsehood, distortions and the perverse, vikṛiti, as the Gîtâ says? All this has been the history of the evolutionary journey of humanity: individually and collectively as a whole, to whatever extent.

There are many occasions when things come up in the mind as suggestions and you say ‘No, I cannot give into this thought, I cannot give into this feeling, I cannot give into this activity for it is not right.’ Obvious! Here you are denying whatever may come up in your mind which implies: ‘That which is coming up in me is not me and I cannot give in to it.’ But when you become it, by giving in, you become that. And when you become that, it becomes you, your personality, for it to be repeated and perpetuated, and it can keep on going. Then justifications and defence follow, like Ravana did, and it can even get dangerous and perverse. Then you end up creating suffering for yourself and others; of course in your perversity you may start to enjoy that, you know there are some people who do so and you see that in the world and more so in these times – that is why you see so much perversity of falsehood, corruption, manipulation, deception, exploitation and destructiveness in the world today. There are people who enjoy the perversity and their consciousness has now completely become that, and they cannot see outside of that, move out of that for they cannot see what has happened to them, for they have become that completely. Criminals and crimes that are committed by people, do you think the Divine is not there hidden and concealed behind all that? It is there, inside, but it is lost to them in the way they are. Horrific crimes are committed, where is all this coming from? From the lower nature of course, having opened oneself to the demonical. They are also humans like others, the human is also somewhere there but lost now – leave alone the Divine – lost somewhere in the darkness of this consciousness. How much will it take for them to be transformed or to be able to now submit themselves to corrections even before taking to the Divine? Not easy! Although miracles can and have been known to happen due to special interventions.

Ravana is an example who agrees to the Divine intervention in the end, so now the transformation can begin; but Shishupala does not agree, even though the cousin of Krishna, he does not agree. He is a lost case and annihilated, of course. Jarasanda does not agree and so is lost too and finished, while Kamsa agrees and is blessed.

So, you are unique and universal all at once in your consciousness in truth, not as the fixed separative ego, but as true being, soul and Self; the individuality and universality with transcendence would be a perfect harmony of this symbiotic Truth, the realised and lived Truth of existence which earlier was an unknown secret to the ego-life, and that would be the beauty of life here. But barring your way to this realisation will be many forces and beings, firstly yourself! If you can overcome and master yourself then nobody else can bar you, because if the forces and beings inside and outside influence you and divert you, bar you, it is only because there is something in you that agrees with them, that allows them. And you feel justified in your childishness for pouting and rebelling, ‘Oh, I work so hard in the Ashram, I am doing so much, I took care of the labour and construction and I was not acknowledged, received no privileges of ego pampering.’ You feel very justified in reacting, even the girlfriend joins in, ‘It is not fair! Unlike others, you work so hard, and yet you receive no compliments.’ She starts to fill the ears of the ‘Romeo’ who plays the tragic hero, martyr and victim all in one and gets aggravated even more so and starts to turn hostile, opening himself to disruptive forces and beings even further, all for the sake of the hurt ego! Obviously the girlfriend will join in with the boyfriend, the boyfriend will join in with the girlfriend. This is how it is now in today’s times, the types of so-called seekers seeking for enlightenment in imitation of the Buddha! Isn’t this a joke, a farce! Would not the great Buddha be justified in being horrified by the quality of seekers today, what do you think? Why do you think therefore relationships such as these were relegated to the dustbin in the Aurobindo Ashram? And then ‘friends’, who are similarly suffering the pangs and syndrome of lack of compliments will join and form a group, a labour union of sorts and a chorus may grow with the demand for a pampered treatment or else reacting with a bad mood and behaviour is justified, even giving up of sadhana and leaving as the culmination of the tantrum. And such as these are seeking instant enlightenment today, obviously!

The community of seekers is different than the usual world community out there. It cannot be usual behaviour then for it becomes an obstacle and barrier. It may seem harmless in the usual existence but when you take to sadhana those very things can become hurdles, even harmful. That is why you cannot continue as usual because you are going to change your way of living now, obviously, for your objective and vision of life has changed. Of course each one has come with a baggage, some things in the baggage could be fine, but some things will not be fine, they have to go, be dropped or changed. Even the kind of relationships that you indulge in usually and casually, otherwise it is a perpetuation of ignorance, another perpetuation of the ego. You see the hurt ego, ‘Oh, poor me!’ And then in whose arms would you go to, obviously the woman’s! After all for the man the arms of a woman, the girlfriend, is there for that reason, you feel so good then, so comforted, she comforts you massaging your ego, she embraces you and confirms your justification. Finished! Then you will feel doubly more justified, because it feels good to be in the arms of the woman and vice versa for the woman. It conditions your thinking with loss of clarity to the point one loses objectivity so you do not know what is really good for you, leave alone turning to the sole dependence that the seeker should increasingly and always turn to – the Divine. The one you consider your enemy or justify yourself against, He is really your true saviour, your true friend, suhṛid, as the Gîtâ says, but you do not see it. You go by the pleasure you feel in somebody’s arms, so sweet, and that conditions you in your thinking, blindsiding you, and in her ignorance she too supports and justifies in your favour, pampering your ego and martyrdom, adding fuel to the fire and the combination is lethal! ‘Oh, I did so much work for the ashram building, now I do not even get a room of my own in it because it has been given to somebody else.’ Ask D., he was quite unhappy for the delay in getting a room, so then I played a game with him. I gave him the dice many times to throw a higher number for the room and each time he lost; he does not know what powers are in play.

We are all the time seeking rewards for ourselves whether deserving or undeserving but in sadhana we must be able to work without rewards of the egoistic kind and receive whatever we get in grace as grace. He and Kr. had both done a lot of sandpapering and felt they deserved the room as a payment! Me and P. are working all the time without any such reward, for example we still don’t have proper accommodation, and we are not complaining, while you people all have it, some even twice over because of the flood and yet you people are so egocentric. I am giving this living example to explain how we work here. I am all the time sounding your depths for your own progress but you still do not see it. But if you were to maintain the right attitude there would be no difficulty, the journey would be smooth and without mishaps. I give and set you living examples, so you can see.

They had done so much work in winter, sandpapering and then the house got ready and they had expectations. Expectations should not condition you from doing the right thing. They were fighting for the rooms, it seems justified, yes! It is there in the world: ‘If I work I should get paid for it.’ But then how about paying me, for all the work I do with and for you people, are you paying me? Just to bring a bottle of oil as D. does, you think that is a payment? You can never pay me for what I am doing, and I do not do it for any payment. If I did, my relationship with you would be different. I do it because I see myself in you, whether it is you or whoever it may be, otherwise you are total strangers, you are not my relatives, you are not my blood relatives. Are you my blood relatives? You are not even my countrymen or women, many of you! No, it is a different relationship. Do you think I do it because you bring me a bottle of oil or some pasta? I am just giving you an example, don’t take it personally. I am not asking you to be obligated to me, this relationship is not one of obligations, obligations are petty, they belong to the ordinary ignorant world. This relationship is to be founded on the Divine and on life lived as sadhana for the attainment of the Divine, and that is what we seek of this community amongst ourselves. It has got nothing to do with the usual life in the world. That is why I am saying, we are seeking another life altogether, a Divine life and a Divine relationship that goes beyond the bond of the flesh and its expectations. It goes with the bond of the spirit, the Divine and Divine alone, and through that should be our relations with all things and beings, and we are preparing and leading you to that. Then your relatings, life and actions will not be of the ignorant egocentric kind with petty expectations but one of light and liberation.

Anyway I have to make some fun, and at the same time use it as a lesson in sadhana for developing the right attitude with whatever work we do. Poor fellow, tried his level best but could not win! Gave him all the opportunities to win, more times than anyone else, kept telling him, “Ok, throw the dice,” cheering him on! F. was also there: the poor fellow lost every time he threw the dice; he tried them against everyone, now what to do? That is his kismet, it was not in his karma even though he thought so; so he worked for ‘free’ to be free! Oh! To be free!

So, even when the next accommodation is ready we will give him the dice again, you will see he will lose again; I will use whatever ‘power’ I have to make sure he loses for throwing a tantrum! But anyway I am not involved in his losing his passport. He loses that anyway on his own and it has been quite a few times, and besides I am sure, many other things. In fact I keep finding his passport every time for which he has still to thank me, which otherwise would have been so much trouble for him. Losing in dice is good for you, but definitely not losing yourself which you would if left to yourself, for he even lost himself once when he dived into the Ganga head first, hit his head on a rock, spaced out, and for a while forgot who and where he was. There is a learning here for one to develop the right attitude and being free of expectations, but losing your passport is surely a headache, for you and us also, because of all the official paperwork that would follow.

We seek a greater relationship than is usually ordinarily lived, nay the greatest, through the Divine. It is not to be an egoistic relationship or a utilitarian one, it is a relationship of and through divinity, wherein we are one, oneness of that Reality and in sync with the uniqueness of our ‘free’ individuality, and therefore the interaction, the play; the beautiful play like Krishna, the Yogeœwara, had with others, ennobled by the Divine, free of and free even in expectations. In the higher planes of consciousness forgiveness becomes natural, even of your ardent enemy, because of the oneness, and so one sees oneself in the enemy too. In the oneness of being Sri Rama sees himself in Ravana as I keep explaining, but at the same time it does not mean he does not deal with him for what he has done, he does! He does battle with him when he does not relent and undo the wrong he has done. He tries to make sense to him, tries to make him understand, but Ravana refuses to relent, so Rama gives him the treatment, but he has no ill-will. Ultimately Ravana accepts Him as the Divine, as his Guide, and now the transformation can begin.

So we must not mistake the ego with our true being, the truth of your existence is what you must seek through your meditations, through whatever you do, through whatever your actions, through being here, through your life out there. Your sadhana should not be restricted to being here, you go outside the gate and you people return to your usual habitual self and behaviour, how can that be? Again you will be Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. You cannot live a dichotomy, you cannot live a schizophrenia, otherwise what is the use and where is the progress? It cannot be. That is why I say there are tourists and there are seekers. Initially you may begin as a tourist but ultimately you have to complete yourself, become a serious seeker, finally a fully committed sadhak; it cannot be otherwise, it has no justification. Your thinking when you go out is: ‘Wow, now I can do whatever I please!’ But for me here is no dichotomy, no schizophrenia. I am what I am completely, here or anywhere else. So you are a seeker here and you will be a seeker out also, outside the gate; how can you not be? It is not going to work otherwise. Do you understand? You are a seeker here but then outside you do business with your seeking. How can that be?

So what car have you got now? Do you have a Porsche, a Ferrari or Lamborghini, which one now?

D.: A cycle.

Only a cycle? You have a cycle? That is all? You got reduced to a cycle, a bicycle or a tricycle?

D.: A bicycle.

So thank God, for at least that’s something, otherwise imagine you going around France, la Paris on a tricycle – that would be something! Everyone would be laughing and so too God! Ha! Ha! Ha!

(Reading): ‘On the higher spiritual planes there is no ego, because the oneness of the Divine is felt but there may be the sense of one’s true person or individuality – not ego, but a portion of the Divine.’

At the higher spiritual planes, you experience this. The higher spiritual is not the problem, the problem lies below at the lower planes of existence.

(Reading): ‘Although there is no ego in the spiritual plane, yet by the spiritual experience the ego on the lower planes may get aggrandized through the pride and the wrong reception of the experience.’

‘I am God, Bhagwan!’ To Ravana it happened; to many throughout history this has happened, and to the Acharya so too it happened. He became Bhagwan from Acharya, and which ‘cap’ he then discarded only to take on another to something else after, which proves the point. He had his enlightenment and the ego came up as an immediate response. Later he even talked about ‘beyond enlightenment’, obviously his ‘first’ enlightenment did not suffice, while for the great Buddha it was different, there was nothing left to discover beyond his enlightenment. Yes, you can be a god, but not from the self-deluding ego as there is a whole process of transformation involved until it settles in the entire being and consciousness. You have some experience, some realisation, and some enlightenment, and you immediately start to make claims, ‘I am great, I am the Messiah, I am God’; that is not going to make you one even if you shout from rooftops!

So it is good to read Aurobindo but then you may not understand the context or place it in the correct perspective. You will read through and you will not understand what He is saying and that is what I am doing, putting it in the correct perspective and in the right context to our sadhana for you, that is why you need the Guru. He will point these things out to you and explain the fault lines you have to watch for to prevent a fall. This has happened to many. They have some spiritual experience, they have some space, or not even that but for their fecund imagination, then they start to broadcast to the world making claim to their greater than all greatness, as if they are the messiah – one who was to come. Like in Judaism, with their false prophets and their false prophecies. And like the Taiwanese or Korean some years back with a large following of supposed scientists and other educated people, who in America broadcasted to the world that he was in contact with God and that he would be speaking to Him on the radio at a particular time and date, an invitation which needless to say was not taken up by God, I am sure to the disappointment of his faithfuls and mirth of the rest. On the other side of course, because of their own deceit, the hypocritical, connivers of faith, and colluding, ignorant, dumb humanity persecuted and crucified one who was truly Divine, holding His claim of being truly That as blasphemy. That was a great tragedy indeed for all of humanity.

This is what happens: ‘By the spiritual experience the ego on the lower planes may get aggrandized through the pride and wrong reception of the experience.’ That is why you have to be objective, and selflessly so; even with great spaces you may experience do not get carried away, ‘Now I am enlightened, I have even become greater than the Guru.’ It is what happened to this fellow called B.F.J. Do you remember him, this American who received whatever he got as grace from his Guru M., and claimed that he was superior to him, but finally ended up in the hospital with panic attacks? Exactly. Another example, A.C., who was criticizing his Guru, from whom he received whatever he received and claimed to be superior to Anandamoyi Ma even though having no clue to the profundity of what she was. He now seems to have gone AWOL, where at one time he used to be in-your-face in a self-promoting mode worldwide! All these types of characters suffer from the same ailment of aggrandized ego through pride and wrong reception. This is what happens.

To Ravana also the same thing happened; he received grace from Shiva and then turned against Shiva, ‘I am greater, I am superior’; his ego rose, got bloated and he tried to shake Kailasha to topple his Guru and Master, Lord Shiva. Of course he ended up with gob on his face of his own making, and was humbled. These stories in the Purâṇas and epics like Râmâyaṇa and Mahâbhârata have been written down not as a mere story to entertain; they contain truths, they were written by enlightened Ṛishis in compiled story form, that is the genius and the brilliance of those Seer-Ṛishis, but you need somebody with the ‘eye’ to decode and point out their inner meanings and relevance to you. If one is not watchful, and has not prepared the right foundation and attitude of sadhana, one’s ego may wrongly interpret, twist and distort the experience and energy that one receives as grace. That is why the requirement for humility, objectivity and continual surrendering of the ego to the guidance. Sadhana is not over by just one experience or one space, however large or vast it may seem – or even many – which may give you the impression that you have suddenly become very great. Truly nothing could be further from the truth. That is the first big danger one may face and that is why in sadhana it is better that you lay the foundation of the right attitude in the beginning itself, before you get all these ‘great’ experiences and spaces, besides being able to distinguish the real thing from the shenanigans of a fertile imagination. And that is why, in Pune, the danger of such a thing is ever present, nay they are already in that grip, and maybe in a worse condition now than when they began. Theirs is an asuric approach and the making of the asura to attain enlightenment somehow or at least make a claim for it. They will never reach the Divine unless they submit their egos, which is going to be very difficult for them now, but then that is not their objective, for God is the opposite of d-o-g dog to them! It will get in the way every time and they will claim all sorts of things for themselves, which is what is happening, for example, many believed of being enlightened when the Acharya put out a list of supposedly enlightened ones in the ashram, probably as a joke, showcasing the fallibility of the disciples by exposing them in this manner as a mirror to themselves, the self-deluding nature of their believing minds.

It is a very fine line you have to walk in sadhana. That is why in the Upanishads it is said you have to walk the sharp edge of the sword. This way you will fall, that way you will fall, and if you are not careful, the sword could cut you up.

(Reading): ‘Also one may by entering into the larger mental and vital planes aggrandize the ego. These things are always possible so long as the higher consciousness and the lower are not harmonised in the being and the lower transformed into the nature of the higher.’

That is what I also keep saying, until the lower is not submitted and transformed in the light of God this danger will continue to exist. The lower should be in step with and led by the higher. That is why it requires so much cleansing of our self in sadhana. You have to keep actively watching, watching and watching, standing back, letting go of all that may surface and more, pleasant or unpleasant, attractive or repulsive, good or bad, beautiful or ugly, offering yourself again and again to God. I used to watch twenty-four hours my inner workings and uprisings as I committed myself to non-stop sadhana with the remembrance of God as my witness, judge and conscience. I lived like that for six years in great intensity, and even though you can say I was born with an awakened and a living sadhana and everything came ‘easily’ and naturally to me, even then there was no let-up to my sadhana. So you should imagine how much more would be your requirement of dedication and true commitment to guidance and sadhana. I watched my sleep, I watched my anger, I watched my charities, if one were to call it that, although they were not: they were my freedoms. I watched my emotions, I watched my passions, I watched every thought and desire. I watched every sensation in the body and I used to therefore spend my time by the Ganga after bathing in it, even in midwinter, and let my body dry in the chilling wind with no sun, so I could watch and my watching would be so sharp and true, while my body shook and trembled! I went hungry for days in my many sojourns in the deep forest with no one around except for birds and wild animals, a chance encounter with bear and leopard, intent only on my meditation, centred in inner poise so that I could watch my hunger, to intensify my watchfulness and increase my field of freedom. I asked for nothing from anyone even if cold or hungry. If something came I accepted, if nothing came I accepted.

It is not child’s play, at every step you can be tripped. It is like walking a sword’s edge, but today people are going about it as if it is some kind of ready to order Chinese noodles or pizza. You go to a restaurant and order and also spend time in gossip as you wait to be ‘served’. Besides, the complete transformation and the complete perfection that we seek is a difficult process and requires total sincerity and a Himalayan commitment, no pun intended being situated in the Himalayas – just coincidence, and this is what we are talking about, and so do Sri Aurobindo and the great Master Sri Ramakrishna, besides others from time immemorial. Of course if people are seeking maggi noodles and domino’s pizza, or whatever their pleasure of taste then that is their business. We are concerned with only those who are here with us and are serious in their intent to go the whole way, no less – an eternal pledge, and for this it is indispensable that the lower must be transmuted, transformed in the light of God, not in some egoistic notion of enlightenment. So the lower has to submit itself to the higher, not the higher submit to the lower. In the Sufi tradition this is explained symbolically; they talk about the ‘heart’, chaitya purusha in the Upanishads, the psychic being as Sri Aurobindo calls it, kingdom of God as Jesus calls it – higher nature as the lamb and the vitals which is lower nature as the lion. What does the lion do to the lamb? Everyone knows. Into ‘lamb-chops’ if you do not watch it… The lion has to submit to the lamb, not the other way, otherwise the lion will eat it up, it is a carnivore; the vital is a voracious carnivore if unchecked. They give symbolism in this way for understanding, it is all coming from real life experience in sadhana. So if a teacher tries to experiment then he has to know the consequences of such an experiment, otherwise not only is it the unnecessary creating of new misery and uncharted trouble for oneself and others, but there is the danger of disaster.

(Reading): ‘So even if there is no consciousness of ego in the higher parts where oneness of all things has been realised, it does not follow that in the lower parts ego has been abolished.’

Exactly, that is why you can be schizophrenic, and many have been, even those who have had some experience and realisation; you will see them behaving in contradiction to that position when they descend to the lower realms so to speak, therefore considered to be a fall conventionally. That is why realising the Divine and that realm in totality, at all levels of our being, and transformation is a very long process; therefore this business of instant enlightenment is just that, a gimmick, and anyway after years of supposed meditation people are still awaiting that ‘instant’. And even if one attains to some space and that too because of someone’s or the Guru’s grace, one believes anything and everything about oneself in one’s childishness and claims to high heaven about one’s greatness. Because of low culture and no proper sadhana and guidance or poor groundwork in sadhana, the ego can instead, on the contrary become very strong, especially if you have some preconceived notion and idea of yourself – which most people have – and have an immature and poor upbringing about spiritual matters without much knowledge of it. This is what happened and this is what happens to people like A.C.,
B.F.J. and people from Pune. They say they are meditators for long and yet they can hardly meditate on their own, but yet have big egos. You cannot tell them anything for they know everything and all they want is to take of your energy, which should be provided to them all the time otherwise they get restless, bored and even upset at you, like the asura, having no understanding of the due process. This is how it is.

C.: I do not have the experience, but you can feel it. When you go down actually the ego becomes very strong and all these things. So what is the matter, is it because you do not manage to observe yourself so well?

Yes, that too and also because it requires a whole process for the progressive transformation of the entire being to be completed and you have to do your sadhana in all its completeness in gratitude and humility. Therefore you cannot say you are done and finished because you have managed some ‘space’. No way! In the meanwhile you need to learn to see this, be watchful of it and not get carried away in your ego drive. Development of right attitude and proper restraint to not allow oneself to be led away by egoistic self-will and being open to the guidance and directions of the Guru is indispensable.

C.: Can you feel that you have become God if you have all these experiences?

You can, for the ego in most people gets bloated; you get these experiences and that is what happens, in the vital it gets translated in this way, I have given you enough examples of it. You have to be very watchful because you have a strong vital and it can blindside you and even turn you hostile.

C.: It can happen in the beginning, but then you realise…

Realise you must, but it needs to be maintained all the time until the transformation and harmonisation of the entire being is complete with the deeper and higher ruling and transforming the lower. Maintaining the realisation requires a lot of hard work with oneself before it is fully done. That is why you have to do work with the whole of your being, especially with the lower levels as you go along in your lifelong sadhana. It is therefore imperative that before you have some space and get carried away, you have done enough ground work with yourself at the lower levels. Otherwise, this constant impatient demand and complaint, ‘Give me some experience, give me enlightenment, give me energy,’ without being ready and prepared for it is detrimental to the right transformation and manifestation.

Without doing any preparation one is inviting the demonical. People do not understand its implications in their impetuous and childish demands and claims – not that people ordinarily are not influenced and some even possessed by the demonical in their daily lives without realising it, even more so in today’s world. There are living examples of this in the new-age seeking of enlightenment. In their haste and hurry of egoistic seeking they seek for something that they are not yet ready for, nor even wanting to prepare for, besides even making and staking claims of attainment in their over-fertile imagination. So they do not give value to the work and preparation that is required for such an immense venture, they just want it without doing anything for it, or very little. It is just another desire, another commodity to have at the soonest, even instant, like instant coffee, ‘I want it so I can be great’ and so they just hang around in places with ‘enlightenment and energy’ to get some space, some energy, and of course enlightenment thrown in for good measure.

We continue to insist of course on sadhana, but in some place if somebody has found something people start to accumulate there to get some ‘space’ and energy as a quick fix, the usual approach to anything and everything in these times. Then they start to believe anything and everything about themselves. They have not done enough work at the lower region to be able to see the importance of an inner change. Why do you think the emphasis and insistence on humility and obedience in the history of spiritual seeking in all traditions? Humility was one of the first requirements – humility and obedience. Why was this emphasised so much? In fact in the Christian tradition they overdid it to such an extent, probably due to institutional ego, that even genuine experiences – as in the case of Saint Teresa who in all her humility was made to doubt her own experiences – were considered to be the work of the devil by the clergy. They went to the other extreme in Her persecution, making a vice of a virtue. Now we don’t know whether it was a deliberate twist employed because of envy, or gender bias inspired by their own inner devil, for the ways of the devil harboured in the lower levels of the consciousness of egoism can be just as inscrutable to the ignorant as the ways of the Divine. When She was having levitation and other experiences, they were not only dismissive but condemning, alleging, ‘This is the work of the devil.’ The reason is this, that at the lower level you can believe and claim for anything and everything, and on the other hand the ego can even take advantage of humility for its own sake and the devil can claim it, that is why you need the true Guide and pathfinder who will see through it and correct you every time you depart from the straight and true.

She was in the right so she ultimately wins, but she had to suffer a lot for that… persecution. Even Jesus when he says, “I am He” is persecuted and finally crucified, albeit through a fraud. Why? For the alleged reason that He is a false prophet like the many false prophets that had plagued the Jewish community and tried to mislead in the past, which they used in their favour, as a cover for their malafide intention in his persecution. Of course today there is no such fear of persecution and so they can claim for anything, enlightenment included, and even give certificates of enlightenment to others for a payment – the more the money the quicker the certification! And these people were supposedly called the Acharya’s signatures to go forth into the world – ‘Go forth and multiply!’ Nobody is going to stop you, but you create a mess in the world and distrust, and sabotage the level and integrity of intent for the future. Then if there is somewhere somebody genuine, even they are seen in the same way. You set a very bad precedence, example and trend, you create adharma, but in your egoism you feel no responsibility and that is why it is called kaliyuga today, where the asuric ego rules the roost! So the personal responsibility to others and the world does not end with your own selfish enlightenment and illumination, nay in fact it should increase. What do you do with it? It is also a responsibility, you cannot allow the lower to hijack it, turn it egoistic, claim for all sorts of things and make experiments that can damage and affect the society and the world in an adverse manner. That is why a lot of work has to be done with oneself and it is better that you labour and work first, before the experiences and the spaces start coming. Then you will know what they are and what to do with them, and they will not get misinterpreted, distorted and twisted. That is why you have to keep watching, examining and questioning everything. Even if you get great spaces, watch, observe, you are a witness, do not become egoistic believing that you have suddenly become the greatest gift to humankind. The ego will increase, it has happened to more advanced people than you, so one has to be watchful and wary and follow the guidance. Sri Aurobindo therefore confirms, ‘It can on the contrary become very strong and the action can be very egoistic, even while the mind is thinking, I have no ego.’

That is why living in a community, working, it gets balanced and corrected with the Guide and pathfinder, the Master and Guru. He guides, if you are stepping out of line he will correct it. That is why I place myself so much around you people, it is not just sitting on some stage and giving discourses, filling up books and people claiming ‘Oh wow, he is the greatest’ just because there are large numbers of jumping, screaming so-called disciples. No, sadhana is never done like that; it is only so in this yuga because the majority are looking for show, entertainment and sensationalism and have no clue about the gravity of what they seek and the commitment required. Sadhana is a very down to earth and realistic action to lay a very firm and sure foundation – at least if the sadhana has to get anywhere then this is required. Yes, any show is allowed in today’s world, in fact without a show nothing has any value! You can have a show all you like, it’s a free world after all, but to claim that to be sadhana and think you have what is to be attained is being naive and foolish. You can fool the people because most people in the world can be foolish and stupid, but a real sadhak, a real one who has done sadhana will not be fooled. But then they are always very few, they will always be few, because the stamina and commitment that is required for this is phenomenal. Of course it can be easy, relatively speaking, and without getting misled, if you have the right attitude; then truly blessed will be your life and so the world. That is the way to do it.

(Reads): ‘Even if there is no consciousness of ego in the higher parts where oneness of all things has been realised it does not follow that in the lower parts ego has been abolished. It can on the contrary become very strong and the action can be very egoistic even when the mind is thinking, I have no ego.’

This is how it is, you have to be very watchful and careful, and if initially it gets very strong, as you travel further, the ego gets more and more subtle too. There is no end to this journey of increasing manifestation and illumination, infinite it is, but there is an end to ignorance and the unripe ego. The more subtle barriers you cross, the greater will be your illumination. Otherwise, people who are still walking on this side of the river for lifetimes, without the required sadhana, making claims of enlightenment, is utter stupidity! Do you want to be the Buddha? Then you have to do that kind of work with yourself, that kind of sadhana. You can claim for anything, you can desire anything, nobody stops you, but it does not mean that you will have it just by that!

So if you want to be serious sadhaks you need to recognise the shenanigans of your ego. It comes in various shapes, types, forms and sizes. To whatever extent you are able to do this that much further you will reach in your sadhana. For us time is not the issue if you really sincerely want it; and there is nothing equal to this, nothing equal to what the sadhana will provide you, lead you to. There is nothing equal, in fact this is the ultimate journey that all will need to take, some life or the other for life’s fulfilment. After all it is all about you, it is all about what you are in truth, in reality, and in every way.

(Reads): ‘Even if there is no consciousness of ego in the higher parts where oneness of all things has been realised it does not follow that in the lower parts ego has been abolished.’

Yes, very true, because each level has its own world as if disjointed until fully integrated and harmonised through the complete opening within, above and at all levels. That is why I say, you must learn to watch and observe and recognise the different parts, different moods, states and levels you pass through at different times. How you think at a particular time and how it varies and how you contradict yourself at different times in the same situation. This is the way to do it, then you will see yourself and understand how at times you oppose, without realising, the very thing you had at one time affirmed and confirmed because of the change in your state. To step back within and observe all this and correlate the different moments and states is the beginning to comprehend and integrate the whole of your being increasingly, from the highest to the lowest, inner to the outer, as one progresses in sadhana and meditation, opening within to become whole. Some time you say one thing, another time you say the opposite without realising it. Then somebody remembers and reminds you: ‘Hey, but you said the opposite a while ago!’ And it is not necessarily because you have suddenly come to some greater understanding that you have changed your view; rather it could be because of a different state. You get attracted to a woman, then you say all sorts of nice things to her, you bring flowers, you court her, you want to take her to a restaurant and you say, ‘I cannot live without you, you are the most beautiful person I have met.’ That is your infatuation and at that time it feels so true. But when the state changes it doesn’t feel so anymore, you wonder what happened to all those earlier feelings. You do not know where they have disappeared, but you never think about it. You say this is also fine and then when it shifts to someone else, that also is fine. So it is all about what you feel and what state you are in. The seeker sees, steps back from all his thoughts and feelings, does not lose himself to them so that he can objectify whatever he feels and sees the delusional nature of these states and feelings for being fickle and changeable. Yet how on the occasion one really feels and believes it is true in absolute terms. It is not that you are being untruthful, you really feel and believe, but you are not analysing where that feeling comes from and what is behind it and why the change happens. You never reason why this is so, and how when the state changes completely, you do not feel the same anymore.

It is only a feeling, and a lot of times it is only because of the sexual feeling, sexual attraction; the moment you have exhausted yourself that feeling is gone. Why do you think fights happen afterwards? One week you cannot live without each other, you get married and the romance goes on, but then the romance does not last for you get used to each other, then quarrels start as you get to know each other more and more. You stop believing in each other gradually where at one time there was so much romance! ‘I believed you so much, you were so different before, you would bring me flowers every day. What happened to all that?’ Now reality is striking you, and then you have to force yourself to bring flowers because otherwise, you know, there is no peace in the house. She wants laced curtains, you do not like them but you have not only to put up with them but also to put them up, but then you yourself started the whole courtship, saying that you would do anything and everything for her but now you do not ‘feel’ like it. You would rather watch football! So she is not wrong, you are not wrong: it is the situation. The situation has changed but you are held accountable by the other and then you try to explain, ‘I felt it, really felt it then, it was all true but now I do not feel it.’ Then she will say, ‘You are selfish and inconsistent, you have gotten bored of me and so you have changed.’ The inconsistencies of changing states!

And life goes on and moves on too, through a labyrinth of many bends and twists, ups and downs, and this one example belongs to one plane alone, for besides there is so much more to your existence, which is another thing altogether. This is life ordinarily, but if you want to live life extraordinarily then you would have to reach into deeper and higher realms and therefore come forth from there in your interaction and in your interrelations. I am giving this particular type of example of the many mundane examples that exist in life because people are so occupied with this one subject that it takes up so much of their time even to the point of affliction, which can even make sadhaks give up sadhana in their misplaced sense of priorities. I am being objective here, I am saying this is how life is, and its consequences later are there for all to see – but see they don’t! I know it is not so simple and easy to see through the situation beforehand in the deluge of feelings and attractions but if one did one would save oneself and the other a lot of trouble. That was the initial infatuation which can get delusional, because you believed you could live happily ever after having found your ‘soulmate’. ‘I cannot live without you’ you hear it on the phone ad nauseam at the beginning of the romance, I am sure, probably the most oft spoken line on the mobile in these times, and the mobile companies are raking in the money making fat profits at the expense of many a Romeo and Juliet because of the hours spent on their phones, and all because everybody has found a ‘soulmate’. And you can’t wait to tell your best friend about this wonderful person you have met. You keep gushing, even claiming that he is ‘spiritual’, the word flung around so commonly, the final and ultimate certification! Wait for the reality to strike! ‘Oh, it is so wonderful what has happened, let’s meet,’ she continues to tell her friend. So they meet in the local hangout and the wonderful news is passed on, tossed about again and again with much cheer, pride and gusto. The friend is envious and says, ‘Oh, you are so lucky, I too wish I could meet someone like that.’ The two friends are so involved in the news that the proud girl fails to notice the spiritual subject of their conversation on the corner table, a little ways away, talking to another girl, deeply involved holding her hands twiddling thumbs and fingers, and talking sweet nothings to her. When she, in a moment of catching her breath midway, all of a sudden catches sight of her spiritual wonder with another girl behaving in much the same way as he had done with her, she can’t believe it and goes into a state of shock! He was so nice to her, now he is so nice to someone else and doesn’t even notice her, and her delusional made-up tinsel world comes crashing down!

So life carries on, and you learn a little, and a little more each time, ever so slowly most times; this is how you learn in life and in the world every time reality strikes, although there are many who learn nothing, and so it happens, experience making you grow wiser. In your youthfulness, in your immaturity, you get carried away. The fellow too is victim of his compulsive behaviour, he cannot help it, blinded as he is by his impulses and neither can you help yourself in your childish infatuation. And life carries on with moments of pleasure, happiness, and moments of unhappiness; that is how reality teaches, life teaches, but it is such a painstakingly slow process. And the shoe can be on the other foot too. A boy spends much money on courting a girl, his dream-girl, hanging around outside her house waiting for her with flowers, taking her to expensive restaurants, that too maybe after having borrowed money, boasting to his friends much to their envy but then it is short-lived, for after a week he sees her with someone else. All the effort, expense and emotional investment comes crashing down on him, poor fellow, and he ends up in a state of shock with pockets empty, and probably in debt, sitting at home! The friends are sympathetic but they can do nothing. Only time will heal. That is why God laughs at these moments, this is his entertainment! So, if and when you learn to laugh at yourself that will be the best. The seeker when he sees this out in the world, he sees himself!

(A disciple laughs)

Do not laugh at that fellow, you are the same. That is why the seeker feels oneness, that is why we are all one, low or high, but the seeker learns to see and does not end up getting caught in these delusions. He becomes in fact humble, for he grows in understanding and love, he becomes bigger, he becomes real. Then your life is so much more, it is not delusional, it is not illusionary. And that is what happened to Siddhartha – Gautama. He left home in search of Truth because he saw through the unreal and transient vagaries of life, he thought and felt there must be more to life than its impermanent self-delusional nature. Krishna says the same thing to Arjuna in the Gîtâ, albeit the end being different to that envisioned by the Buddha: ‘This is the deluding nature of life in the world which ends in death again and again every lifetime. Do you want to continue like this for lifetime after lifetime, helplessly in the cycle of birth ending in death, ignorant of the true nature of who and what you are? Seek illumination and the immortality of the soul that you may live an illuminated and liberated life, jîvanmukta, in and from the fullness of Yoga,’ giving His own example, madbhâvamâgatâḥ, rather than the delusional egoistic life lived by the masses.

So, it is easy if you do not get carried away with the ego. Be simple and take things in your stride as you traverse this journey of all journeys, the great journey of self-discovery. That is why Sri Ramakrishna used to love people who were guileless and childlike. Jesus said the same thing, “It is only when you have become like children, that you shall enter the kingdom of God”; not with big egos, because you start believing all kinds of delusional things about yourself, and that becomes a barrier. Ravana, after receiving grace from his Master Lord Shiva started believing he was invincible because of the energy and power he felt. It was delusional distortion; people tried to tell him about it, even his own brother for his own good, but he refused to accept, in fact he beat them up for denying his authority and being critical of his actions. It is the rajasic vital ego and that is very visible, but there is worse, for example the ego of having ‘no ego’! ‘I have no ego, I am ever so meek and humble’ which is a mask hiding the truth behind and that person will try to be painstakingly nice, charitable, meek and humble on the face of it to prove his point which can be very conspiratorial therefore, and cunning, until he slips or trips, revealing the ugliness within. With Ravana his ego is very visible; he is in your face with his asuric ego and has no mask except when he takes on the garb and masquerades as a mendicant sadhu to abduct Sita. And then there are those who say, ‘How can you say that of me, I am such a nice person?’ That’s the self-deluding ego without any doubt. Everybody has an ego, which needs illumination and transformation. As Sri Ramakrishna says in his own way, “From the unripe ego it has to become the ripe ego.” Sri Aurobindo speaks of the true being. But arriving there can take a long time, if not lifetimes of working with yourself and doing sadhana, dependent on your commitment and sincerity.

C.: You were asking last time, where is D.?

Yes, because we want the work of sandpapering to be done! He has come just in time in fact, the carpenters left and they have left their tools behind, which must be put to use! So, since today is Sunday and he has just arrived, we can allow him a day’s holiday and also as he has brought this bottle of olive oil as a bribe for me, I have to be soft initially! I allow him a day’s holiday, but tomorrow what does he expect? For one bottle of oil, more than one day of holiday is not possible. So from tomorrow it is twelve hours work, twelve hour shifts, with only one meal provided, which he pays for of course, and without any expectation of getting any personal accommodation afterwards and anyway who knows whether the rooms will be ready in this lifetime, so why have expectations? The clever ones have managed anyway in the other house, they are the clever ones who are very good in taking care of themselves! That is why do not be too charitable, do not try to be too much of a seeker and a yogi, try to be a little clever also as the neo-sanyasis (referring to a term used by followers of a certain ashram for themselves), at least you will manage a room like them, otherwise you will remain perpetually in the tent!

C.: It is very glamorous to see the ego behind…

Glamorous? The ego or the seeing of it? That is an unusual way of putting it! The Acharya was trying that, he was encouraging people to increase their ego, in a way glamourising it so that they would be able to see it for what it was and drop it, but instead what happened was, they continued, even justifying it. The idea was that you see it and it will drop, but nothing of that kind happened for it is not that simple. It is not so simple obviously to drop the ego, this way of working with it is too simplistic. So instead of reaching to the conclusion that was intended, it only created a self-justifying, more aggressive ego. He was trying to correct the moralistic ego: ‘I am nice, I am good, I am humble’ by replacing it with its opposite, which only created a monstrosity. Besides, what it has also done in some is to make both exist. I have seen both exist in people at the same time, so in this simplistic manner it cannot be transformed but only complicates and makes it worse.

C.: Unless one is very sincere.

Obviously, sincerity is required to want to see and do the right thing, but if you are not sincere even if you see it you do not want to do anything about it, the ego blindsides you to your own defects, and worse, justifies and covers up. You convince yourself and even try to convince the other that you are not being egoistic even though it is very obvious. So these kinds of experiments may seem theoretically appealing, even glamorous, but practically and realistically, it is obviously not so soluble and solvable, because sadhana is not so simple, specially having aggravated it even more, to a point of monstrosity, without taking responsibility for one’s expression and actions. So I say, first you create a problem and then you try to find a solution – this is how this experiment has been. In fact what this has done is, where there was not much of a problem, the problem was increased, and where there was no problem it was created because the same medicine was given to everybody through discourses given en masse and people misunderstood en masse, in their own way! You cannot give the same treatment to all. That is why the need to deal individually also and guide accordingly. You cannot just give discourses from a stage and expect that each and every one will get according to what their requirement is, it was never the case neither was it ever thought to be. Everything got homogenised, therefore everybody from there has the same vital egoistic turn of temperament, which is very obvious.

Rishikesh

23 Oct 2011