 Namaste. Welcome all and to our viewers through Auroville Radio. We all welcome you today, the day four and it's going to be Dr. Bailu Mehra's talk and Dr. Bailu Ji is an educator with many years of teaching and research experience in social sciences in India as well as in the US. She is the author of newly released book APCs of Indian National Education and regularly writes a blog inspired by her study of the works of Shri Arapindo. Also she writes regularly for several journals and magazines. Her academic background includes degrees in education and economics and she has extensive research and teaching experience at school and university level in India and US. Dr. Mehra presently works as senior academic mentor at Auro Bharati Shri Arapindo Society and editor of Renaissance. So we welcome Dr. Bailu Ji. Thanks for accepting and we are very happy to have you because in spite of so many commitments and she alone is preparing all the gatherings related to 150th year. So she has given time for us. Thanks for that. Thank you very much. Thank you and namaste to everyone present here. So well today is the day four of Integral Yoga week. We have been seeing how Shri Arapindo prepares us in traditional way as well as integral way of perceiving the knowledge of the secret entity in each of us and to be connected inwardly and also above us. And then what is the alchemy then and how to make use in the physical body very little. Our heart is the focus and thus evolve the soul and nature must do its work and action only with the guidance of inner divinity. The reign of the chariot must be given to the saarati the inner divinity. Thank you. Please enjoy the session. Namaste once again and thank you Umaji for this kind introduction. And I must thank Umaji and her whole team for inviting me to be part of this celebration this whole week of celebration of integral yoga as a way to kind of celebrate the 150th birthday anniversary of Shri Arapindo. And I've had the good fortune of listening to at least I could say one and a half talks about of the three talks that have happened so far. I was fortunate enough to listen to entire almost entire Malaji's talk and more than half of Alok Bhai's talk yesterday. Deshpandegis I have yet to listen. So and I've been kind of sensing this flow that has been emerging in these sessions. So I hope what I have to share today will also kind of add to that ongoing journey of going into this what is integral yoga or what is the larger work of Shri Arapindo in which these aspects of integral yoga that we are speaking of. Before I begin, let me also send warm greetings to everyone for this festival day today, Onam. And in fact, as I was coming this in the car, I thought that it's very interesting that this talk on appreciating Shri Arapindo's social philosophy is happening on this day. And I don't want to go into the story, the whole story behind this festival, but the incarnation of Vishnu, the avatar of Vishnu as Trivikrama is very interesting and fits in with this idea of why or what is the place of Shri Arapindo's social philosophy in his larger integral vision for the future of humanity. So I pulled out that one aphorism, one statement of Shri Arapindo, where he actually gives us an inner significance of the three strides of Vishnu, the three steps that Vishnu takes in that story as the in the Vaman incarnation. And so Shri Arapindo says, family, nationality, humanity are Vishnu's three strides from an isolated to a collective unity. The first has been fulfilled, which is the unity of family. We yet strive for the perfection of the second, that is the nationality. Towards the third humanity, we are reaching out our hands and the pioneer work is already attempted. So in so many ways, Auroville is also part of that pioneer work for that human unity. But there is another fourth stride of Vishnu, which is what Shri Arapindo speaks of, which is the super humanity, the new race, the, you know, the divinized humanity. This is very important to keep that at the back of our mind, that fourth stride, because what Shri Arapindo gives in his vision of or in his social philosophy or in his vision for future society is a spiritualized society. And so I thought I'll just kind of try to situate the whole of his social philosophy book. I mean, there are actually many, almost every work of Shri Arapindo, you'll find insights into his vision for the future society. But the main book, which is the ideal, the human cycle, I'll try to kind of situate that in the context of his larger work and bring out few insights from the book, which could be relevant. And then we'll see what comes up in, if there is any time for discussion. So just like these three strides of Vishnu, family, nationality, humanity, and then the fourth one, the Param Padam as Shri Arapindo speaks of in his, one of his Vedic writings, which is the superhumanity. I was also reminded, while I was thinking of this aphorism, the three adjectives or the three descriptors, Shri Arapindo's lawyer during the Alipur bomb trial had used to describe him, poet of patriotism, prophet of nationalism, and lover of humanity. And if you read some other writings of Nolini Dahi speaks that this description becomes complete if you add another fourth one, which is the bringer of a divine life. So he's the, again that fourth stride is made, kind of like, you know, it's become, it has been made more obvious for us to remember that. So nationality, family, nationality, humanity, prophet of nationalism, lover of humanity, and then going beyond humanity to a divinized humanity, where the life, the society will be divinized. So it's just very interesting this parallel. And the reason I also bring up this particular description given by C. R. Das during Alipur bomb trial is because if we look closely at Shri Arapindo's political work from 1901 or even from 1893 onwards, the day he landed, especially from 1905 to 1910, particularly again after being released from the prison, so 1909 to 1910, he was keenly aware of the nation-building work. For him, all political revolutionary work was important because it was necessary to build a future nation. So he was already thinking of the future. And at the same time, he was also keenly aware that this future India that has to be built is not only for sake of India alone, but for the future of humanity. So his vision for a future society began right from his understanding of why it was so important that India should become free. So from that moment onwards, that's why in a lot of his political speeches and a lot of his writings in Karm Yogan, you will find insights into his social vision. But as we know, kind of like, you know, more officially, he started penning down and putting down his, what you can call his metaphysical statements of his own spiritual experience and spiritual realizations in the journal called Arya from 1914 onwards, after he came to Pondicherry in 1910. And the specific chapters that became part of a series called Psychology of Human Development, which later on becomes the book, The Human Cycle, those were written from 1916 to 1918 around that phase. So more than a little one and a half years or so, actually almost two years. And in one of his essays later on Sri Aurobindo speaks of what those series of essays that he titled as Psychology of Human Development, what was his objective in writing that? And I thought I'll just share that one sentence from his. He said this at the start of the fourth year of Arya's publication. So that would be 1917, 1914, 15, 16, 17. So in that essay he writes very clearly, in the psychology of social development, sorry, I've been saying human development, but probably as I go along it will become clear why I have been thinking of human development because social development, human development, individual development, they are all kind of connected in his vision, very close identity of nature between the two. So in the psychology of social development, that series of essays, we have indicated how these truths, the truths, what are the truths that he's talking about? The truths of individual self-development, because that's what he refers to in the previous one, how these truths of individual self-development affect the evolution of human society. So while he is concerned about the evolution of human society or the future of human society, he's also making it very clear in 1917 in itself that whatever philosophy I have described in the essays that come under the life divine or the synthesis of yoga about individual self-development, the essential truths of that, the essential principles of individual self-development can be applied and are actually also the basis of a true development of the society. So this identity of nature between individual and society is very significant in the social vision. So in the Indian cultural tradition we have two terms, vyashti and samashti for individual and collective. And it has been said that they are both the individual and the collectivity are two different manifestations of the same spirit, the same Brahman. And Sri Aurobindo describes that beautifully in a couple of very interesting passages in life divine and if I have time I'd like to read those passages, I'll pull those out. But just to kind of finish off round off this part of my presentation about the significance of his social philosophy. And then later on in the series of essays that became the book the ideal of human unity, which can be sort of understood as a compendium to the human cycle. When you go and buy today, complete works of Sri Aurobindo volume 25, three books come together in one binding, the human cycle, the ideal of human unity and war and self-determination. Both are, I mean all three are very interesting to read. But they also go in, especially human cycle and ideal of human unity. However, very specific focus also, ideal of human unity can be understood more as his philosophical statement of what will lead to the unity of humanity. So his vision for the united humanity and also a very deep inner look at the world history. What has been happening so far, the formation of nation, the formation of nation-state and what are the conditions that will lead to the human unity. So I don't think I'll touch that part today. But in one chapter that now comes under the collection of essays and ideal of human unity, Sri Aurobindo has a very, very telling paragraph, which actually can summarize what is the significance of Sri Aurobindo's social philosophy. So as I was kind of pulling out some things for the talk today, I thought why not share his words rather than putting my interpretation on that. And if you look at that complete works volume 25, this will be on page 279 and 280. So let me read that paragraph and I'll go a little slow so we can all appreciate the depth of his argument. Before I do that, also let me add one other thing as a prequel to that. You see, various spiritual seers and sages and especially in the Indian tradition, we've had a lot of people speaking of or giving their teachings of and expressing their spiritual realization in metaphysical statements. So we have commentaries of various gurus and acharyas on not only on the scriptures but, you know, their expression of their own spiritual realization. But most of these statements, if you will, have been focused on individual alone. How can individual evolve and experience, walk on a certain path of yoga or sadhana or self-development, inner self-development and come to that spiritual experience or that spiritual realization. Most of our traditional gurus and seers and sages have not been concerned about society. The goal has always been individual liberation or individual release from the whatever you want to call it, Mahumaya or from the world of bondage or, you know, from the earthly life. Sri Aurobindo comes and tells us that that is half the truth. The other half is that not only the individual's release is important but that is the starting point. And the individual who is liberated has to come back and work in the collective so that collective can gradually transform and a descent of that supernal light can happen so the earthly life can become life divine. So this is basically essentially his argument. So what is really interesting is that in Sri Aurobindo you don't find that what others had omitted, which is the focus on society, the focus on collective. And this paragraph actually, you know, gives a very interesting statement to that. He says, nothing is more obscure to humanity or less seized by its understanding, whether in the power that moves it or the sense of the aim towards which it moves than its own communal and collective life. So this is the part that is most obscure to humanity. What is my collective life and what is my place in this collective life? And then this is the interesting part. He says sociology does not help us for it only gives us the general story of the past and the external conditions under which communities have survived. So now his kind of, what I could call it as a spiritual critique of the various disciplines of academia begins. Sociology does not help us because it only looks at the general story of the past and external conditions. History teaches us nothing. I love that statement. History teaches us nothing. Why? It is a confused torrent of events and personalities or a kaleidoscope of changing institutions. I remember in my history class studying the whole list of Mughal emperors one by one and their date of birth and date of death and when did they become the Badshah and when they conquered this. Why? I don't even remember that chronology. What is the use of that? So history teaches us nothing. It's a confused torrent of events, personalities or a kaleidoscope of changing institutions. We do not seize the real sense of all this change and this continual streaming forward of human life in the channels of time. What we do seize are current or recurrent phenomena fissile generalizations, partial ideas. We talk of democracy, aristocracy and autocracy collectivism and individualism, imperialism and nationalism. All these were topics that I wrote essays on in my two years of economics in high school and then five years of economics in BA and MA. We talk of all these, the state, commune, capitalism and labor. We advance hasty generalizations and make absolute systems which are positively announced today only to be abandoned per force tomorrow. Democracy was good, democracy is no longer good. Capitalism was good, capitalism is no longer good. We espouse causes and ardent enthusiasm whose triumph turns to an early disillusionment and then forsake them for others. Perhaps for those that we have taken so much trouble to destroy. So at one time we swore by socialism but now socialism is a burden. So we try to destroy and then again we fall in love back again with that same ideal. For a whole century mankind thirsts and battles after liberty and earns it with a bitter expense of toil, tears and blood. The century that enjoys without having fought for it. Those who never fought for the ideal of liberty. They turn away from it as if it's a purile illusion and they are ready to renounce the depreciated gain as the price of some new good. And all this happens because our whole thought and action with regard to our collective life is shallow and empirical. This is an important word, empirical. We only look at, you know, we only use what social scientists call as the positivist empiricist method. What is happening on the surface? It does not seek for. It does not base itself on a firm, profound and complete knowledge. And then this is the last part very important. The moral is not the vanity of human life. Just because we don't understand it does not mean that human life individual as well as collective is vain and we shouldn't be concerned about it. The moral is not the vanity of human life of its orders and enthusiasm or of the ideals it pursues. They are all important. The ideal of democracy had its truth, has its truth. The ideal of socialism, the ideal of communism has its truth. But there is a need for the necessity is of a visor, larger, more patient search after its true aim, true law and aim. That is after the true law and the true aim of human life. So in this one paragraph he gives us what he has been writing about in his, when he is expounding on his social philosophy that what he gives us is not only while he is not saying that the outer phenomena is less important or is not worthy of our attention but what is really needed is to go beyond the phenomena or go beneath or deeper into the phenomenon to understand the essential law, the essential nature, the essential purpose or the essential goal towards which the human life is progressing both individually and collectively. And that is what I believe is the main reason why we should really spend time looking at Sri Aurobindo's social philosophy spending time reading. This was one of the second, I mean there were two books of Sri Aurobindo that I read back to back few times when I started my deep journey into works of Sri Aurobindo one was Volume 20 which is the Foundations of Indian Culture but retitled as the Renaissance in India and other essays on Indian culture and the other one was Human Cycle and I mean if you were to look at this book today you'll see notes in at least three, four different colors because every time I would use just a different color to remember and today I can't even make out my bad handwriting what those notes are all about but it's really a book that one should approach it with sort of the same reverence that we have for his other works on yoga and sadhana which we know are important for our journey into our individual sadhana but you'll be surprised when you flip through the pages how many deep yogic insights you have in a book on so-called social philosophy the reason is because he is constantly giving us the picture of the essential truth of human collective life and we are all, I mean in fact right from the Vedic vision the collective life of human the collective aspect of human experience has been emphasized in the very vision of Purush Sukta itself so when you have the Brahman, the Kshatriya, the Vaishya, the Shudra these are the four soul forces or the four soul types the idea has always been that all these four together are part of that one Purushwa that one Brahman all these four soul forces that are then reflected in the four psychological temperaments that then go into what Malaji was talking about the Swabhava and the Swadharma and then they go into the Varanashrama system all that is part of the Vedic vision and then in the Veda we always also have the beautiful prayer in I think the last book of the Rig Veda of some Gachhadwam, some Vahadvam that together we may prosper together we may walk in harmony we may walk in unity so the collective side of human experience has always been emphasized in that sense but somehow in the more metaphysical intellectual expressions it had been ignored except from the Veda what we see so why is that social philosophy of or what I could call it as a spiritual social philosophy not given as much if I could use the word weightage or not read or appreciated as much that's why when Umaji asked me the title of this talk I said use the word appreciating because there's a need to appreciate the significance of this why it does not get as much appreciation as say the works that are more focused on individual sadhana or the individual yoga there again we don't have to look anywhere else Sri Aurobindo himself gives the answer so and that answer I will again it is coming from the same book the human cycle there's one paragraph which actually gives us why we don't remember to appreciate it's not that it's not important but we forget because we are focused on that individual liberation that individual release because in his own philosophy it's not that social perfection is not important he's concerned that's why he wrote all these essays deliberately wrote and he explicitly stated that and yet he also states this is why I think we all love reading Sri Aurobindo because there is always an and there is no this or that there is always an and so Sri Aurobindo also says that individual perfection if humanity is seeking perfect society the key lies in individual perfection which is why we keep coming back to unless an individual evolves society will not evolve so this is the paragraph from page and this is actually one of his last chapters in the human cycle conditions for coming of a spiritual age and there he writes the spirit in humanity discovers develops builds its formations first in the individual man so as I said a little while ago that you know right in Indian tradition itself we see that Vyashti and Samashti as two expressions or two manifestations of the same one spirit Sri Aurobindo also speaks of that in fact there is a long passage in Life Divine where he speaks of this how there is a truth or reality reality with the capital R not the you know phenomenal reality but the essential reality there is a truth or reality behind society behind the collective and there is the same truth behind the individual if I have time I'll read that paragraph also because there is this essential identity of nature between individual and society this is where the significance of individual perfection becomes important the spirit in humanity discovers develops builds its formations first in the individual man it is through the progressive and formative individual that it offers the discovery and the chance of a new self-creation to the mind of the race so individual is the key for the new creation to happen why individual is so significant for the communal mind holds things subconsciously at first so this is again another key insight that we must hold on to when appreciating Sri Aurobindo's social philosophy is what I think Malaji also referred to in her talk and I'm sure it came up in Deshpandiji's talk as well about the evolution and the involution so the communal mind holds the essential truth first in a very subconscious way if consciously then in a confused chaotic manner it is only through the individual mind that the mass can arrive at a clear knowledge and creation of the thing it held in its subconscious self so if we remember go back to the Vedic cosmological vision which I think you also referred to the involutionary process the spirit, the Brahman, the Purusha or what Sri Aurobindo says in his book the mother, the holocaust of the divine mother herself plunges herself into the inconscient if that's where, if that's the involutionary journey and the evolution is happening as a, you know, from sort of like from inconscient, some conscient to matter, life, mind from the mind becomes a collective, you know, society if this is the evolutionary journey then the society also evolves from the same subconscious to a more rational stage of society but it is slow, that evolution process is very, very slow it's a very confused chaotic manner it is only through the individual mind that the mass can arrive at a clear knowledge and then he says, thinkers, historians, sociologists who belittle the individual and would like to lose him in the mass or think of him chiefly as a cell or as an atom have got hold only of the obscured side of the truth of nature working in humanity very important that an individual is not just a cell or an atom to be lost in the collective why Sri Aurobindo, while giving his social philosophy giving so much significance to the individual he answers that also he says it is because man is not like other manifestations that nature has put forth not like any other material formations of nature matter or life or like the animal when the life came from matter to life the animal, the plant and then the animal came man is not like the animal either but because nature intends in him a more and more conscious evolution this is where the significance of the individual is so important because only man, the human individual is capable of a conscious evolution that is the nature's intention in the individual that is why the individuality is so much developed in him and so absolutely important and indispensable he could have just written so important but he adds the adjective absolutely important and indispensable very interesting choice of his this thing few years back I was invited at Pondicherry University to speak on the human cycle and the topic that the professor there came up with it was his understanding of Shri Aurobindo's social philosophy and he said that he had or some colleague of his they had done some small survey in Pondicherry and around area and they found that before these essays were written in psychology of social development there wasn't much academic writing coming from India that could be considered as a sociological writing so he said that in that way Pondicherry has the unique I haven't verified that research so I can't really absolutely say this with absolute certainty but he said that for him Shri Aurobindo is a pioneering social thinker so that's what he said I'll give the title to your talk Shri Aurobindo the pioneering social thinker so as I thought about what I'll share with the students and other faculty in his department I thought of that you know even Shri Aurobindo's writings on Indian culture or Indian society have great insights into the present state of society the past state of society particularly Indian society and the future where humanity or human society is evolving and what should be the role of India or Indian society, Indian collective in this forward march of humanity so when we read something like what I've just shared what I've just shared that individuality is so much developed in man and so absolutely and indispensable when we appreciate the significance that he gives to individual self-development and individual self-perfection in his social vision I'm also reminded of another wonderful passage it's a letter of Shri Aurobindo to one of his disciples where he spoke about that at a certain time in India the individual's freedom was always sacrificed at the altar of family community or clan that is also a truth that we cannot hide so when I went to talk at Pondicherry University I just like spoke maybe for half the time about this book and then I also wanted to bring other examples to show why Shri Aurobindo is can be considered as one of the if not one of the at least as per this professor the pioneering Indian sociological thinker and I understood that word pioneering in the sense that his explanation of sociology is also in the light of Indian cultural tradition the Indian spiritual truths that is what makes us I mean I could write sociology totally from a Marxist perspective that is not going to help that is not going to be the indigenous or the Indian vision of understanding of human collective life so I took certain examples like that as to what Shri Aurobindo had to say about Chaturvarna, its corruption its degradation so again when we say one appreciating social philosophy of Shri Aurobindo yes even though today I might be focusing more on the human cycle but there are so many insights scattered everywhere including Savitri you know like the whole description of the inadequacy of reason that you find in Savitri in kingdoms of in the book too Ashwapati's yoga the kingdom of little life or something like that you know the inadequacy of life the inadequacy of mind you'll find so many descriptions of how reason fails to bring us together to a collective a beautiful perfect collective life so anyway where was I the individual individuality being so important and then he says no doubt what comes out in the individual and afterwards moves the mass must have been there already in the universal mind this is again where I think I'll refer back to Malaji's description of evolution and evolution you know whatever is coming out in the individual mind any new idea it must have been there in the universal mind because the truth has already been submerged through the process of evolution already and now everything is coming out as a manifestation as an expression of that and the individual is only an instrument for its manifestation discovery development but he is an indispensable instrument and an instrument not merely of sub-conscient nature not merely of an instinctive urge that moves the mass but more directly of the spirit of whom that nature is itself the instrument and matrix of creation so all great changes therefore find their first clear and effective power and their direct shaping force in the mind and spirit of an individual or a limited number of individuals I'll come to this point just in a minute an individual or a limited number of individuals because this is what he also speaks of as conditions for the future of society I'll just come to that the mass follows but unfortunately in a very imperfect and confused fashion which often or even usually ends in the failure or distortion of the thing created so this is the significance to your window places on individual evolutionary march on individual self-development on individuals own progress in our progress and this is also an interesting it could be an interesting diversion into something very important that you find in human cycle I'm sure some many of you here probably have already read through the chapters so there are different stages that Shravindo speaks of in a social evolution and he gives us kind of like two ways to understand that evolutionary march in the first half of the book in the first six seven eight chapters he speaks of five stages through which a society evolves and the names he took from a German writer at the time Karl Lempret but in the second half of the book he switches and he uses a three term classification of the three stages so the first five stages are symbolic type of conventional individualistic or the age of reason he uses both terms and from individualistic subjective and then spiritual so we have symbolic type of conventional individualistic individualistic leading to subjective and then subjective these are the five stages and subjective will eventually lead to the spiritual the future society a spiritualized society in the later half of the book or probably from the I would say the two thirds of the book onwards he switches terms and he calls uses three terms infrarational rational and suprarational so infrarational would be the that stage of society or that stage of individual development when we are moved primarily by our instincts impulses our customary responses to desires necessities whatever comes up whatever moves in us rational would be the stage when the human reason has been developed to that extent when reason can be the arbiter whether this is to be done whether this is not to be done this is where I think we talk yesterday on from the part that I heard his focus on the intelligent will the yoga of the intelligent will the yoga of the Buddha yoga from Bhagavad Gita the discernment the Vivek Shakti all that development has to be part of this development of this reason the age of reason the age of rationality and then comes a point where reason itself will tell you the discernment itself mind has evolved to that point where it will tell you that if you want to move further mind cannot be the instrument you have to look for other faculties other instruments so that's where the supra-rational begins which in his first classification would be from the change over from individualism to subjectivism there are several other topics Sri Aurobindo speaks of the difference between aesthetic culture and ethical culture which is again a delightful delightful chapter to read and those of you who are interested in arts should definitely spend time on that again you will see the difference between Sri Aurobindo integrates the best of the east and best of the west and you read through that chapter the whole history of sort of like you know western history of how the diversion happened between seeking of beauty, search for beauty the aesthetic search for beauty and the search for the good which is the ethical search how a conflict happened between the two which was not there in the Indian tradition but Sri Aurobindo speaks about that as well this book so this little book is like a gem for you know bringing many many many things so because we don't have the time to go into all these four or five stages but we should appreciate this fact that this part about individualism is very significant when he's describing these five stages which is that every society has to go through a what he also calls it as an age of revolt the questioning all this is part of the individualistic stage because before individualism is a conventional stage of society where all the truths all the great truths that had been there have lost their hold have lost their power lost their force and only the shell remains Sri Aurobindo uses a beautiful description that this becomes more important than the person so we are only you know like yeah yeah this is how my family used to do this is how my ancestors used to do so I have to continue following that tradition but then a new person comes in the family a child grows up child becomes teenager a child becomes rebellion you know a rebel and that's where the questioning starts just because my mom says so no that's the age of revolt which brings in the age of individualism it's all coming from mind mind mind and mind is gradually being developed age of reason perfectly everything is going on but then comes a point where again Sri Aurobindo describes if this age of individualism if this age of reason the rational age is allowed to continue its journey without any thing else coming in the picture it will come into that same cycle that I just read about it will either come up with a system called democracy socialism autocracy oh autocracy is bad let's go back to democracy democracy is bad let's go back to capitalism either this cycle will continue or people will start what we are seeing in the world today occupy this occupy that question this institution question that institution everything is up and some kind of an anarchy will take over in Sri Aurobindo's social philosophy I should also add anarchy is not a bad word but he adds another adjective to it he says the future might have that spiritual anarchy it's the spiritual anarchy that we may be seeking not a rational individualistic materialistic anarchy which says my way or no other way which is very disturbing because the truth of the collective then gets disturbed if the collective is also just as much Brahman as the individual is an individual cannot walk out of the collective and destroy the collective the society the nation has no right to destroy the freedom of the individual and Sri Aurobindo speaks about that as well that whatever allows individual to flower to blossom to develop in his or her own freedom is right for him or her but then he always also adds this thing what is that but that individual has to also find out what is this self that he or she is trying to develop it cannot be only the ego self because one thing that reason has given us and he describes this beautifully in his he had like three four chapters dedicated to the whole curve of the age of reason what he describes that two things that reason a high reason higher reason has given us is that an individual is not complete by himself he has he is or she is part of a collective and also this self is not the ego self alone there is something beyond behind this ego self which is where individualistic search for perfection happiness liberation reason we are all here in a way if we really were to be very honest with ourselves we are seeking that individual perfection the reason we are here if this is true then from individualism the movement is naturally going towards subjectivism the deeper truth subjective age is the precondition for any spiritual any possibility of a generalized society so what I see on the surface is not complete not the full truth there is a deeper truth so that's an inward turn which Alokji was emphasizing yesterday also that from the outward and downward the gaze has to be turned inward and upward that is the beginning of from individual to subjective which is which will eventually lead us to the spiritual or the supra-rational this is the journey Sri Aurobindo describes so evolution you know the great revolutionary from his political days to the great evolutionary he's completed that whole journey from you know Bande Mataram or before that even from Hindu Prakash to his you know ideal of human unity and human cycle and I I'm not even counting all the you know life divine synthesis of yoga there so this is I don't know how much time I have should I oh okay okay I don't know is everybody feeling okay should be should I continue or okay so let's see so I think I've covered many things that I thought I will these are just some notes from here and there that I gathered and some quotes yeah let's so one other thing that I think I probably mentioned just in passing earlier which we could probably spend a little time to go a little deeper is to the similarities and differences between his explanation of individual and society so as he says in his life divine also actually let me read that part which will then you know go a little deeper into so this essential reality that sure been those social yes he's a pioneering sociological thinker but he's not a sociological thinker like your standard sociological thinkers looking only at the outer phenomena he's always concerned about the essential truth the essential reality and in his life divine actually the chapter that is titled the divine life there is a very telling paragraph which is another beautiful description of his future Malaji was concerned about future psychology here we are concerned about the future society the future of sociology even as a discipline I think we can get insights from here onto what should be the future of this academic discipline of sociology he says so there is a reality a truth of all existence which is greater and more abiding than all its formations and manifestation to find that truth and reality and to live in it achieve the perfect the most perfect manifestation and formation possible of it must be the secret of perfection whether of the individual or communal being so let me take a pause here and speak about this communal being thing which is another very important aspect that I forgot to mention earlier in you know going over the contents of human cycle so there is a truth of the individual there is a truth of the community or the collective but this truth which says is the soul the group soul of the community is not some kind of like an you know amorphous just loosely thing you know here and there some abstract idea Shravanthu says it is a conscious being and yet it is hidden in the collective it has to be discovered and we are sitting here in Auroville where mother was very clear on saying that each collective that comes up each nation group that is represented here has to work to find its nation soul that is why we have the pavilions right the international in the international zone the Bharat Nivas, Tibbat Nivas this Nivas that Tibbat house sorry that each collective that is represented here in Auroville has to find its own soul which indicates that because there is a group soul or a nation soul this idea he develops further in ideal of human unity is also unique to that collective if you go back to what I started with the three strides of Vishnu family nationality humanity just because we are moving towards humanity does not mean that we will no longer require nationality or no longer require the diversities within humanity this is another very important aspect of Shorbindo social vision that because reality is one does not mean it is one monotonous you know color less thing there are various shades various diversities within and each diversity is the truth of each diversity is in the group soul of that collective and India Shorbindo as one place says is the mother Shakti the Bhavani Bharti he called her Bhavani Bharti he called her Bharat Shakti he gave these two names to the truth of the India India's nation soul and each nation has to find its own soul so this idea that just because we are moving toward the human unity we do not need nation in fact Shorbindo also says this in human cycle when he describes what I was just referring to earlier individualism and subjectivism when nations or societies go from individualistic to a subjective age to a more subjective search that is the same search as nation trying to find its soul so in maybe what we are seeing today see the thing about understanding social philosophies that you have to see whether it helps us understand what is happening in the society and in the country today or in the world today not only in India but in many parts of the world if you look around and if you look a little beneath the phenomena there is a seeking for the truth of that nationality that is happening there is what we or what CNN would ordinarily or BBC would ordinarily speak of as you know a new nationalism that has been taking over the world beneath the outer phenomenon might be a seeking of the subjective truth of that collective because we have just now seen the mass moves in chaotic confused fashion so it looks a little chaotic it looks like you know they are reverting back to the so called mythic golden age or the golden past which never existed this and that the movement is towards the future yes the movement is towards the future but it is the past that has brought us to this point and this present is going to shape the future so the essential truth of the past cannot be ignored either so this continuity is also important in the evolutionary you know the spiral that evolution there is an upward march but there is also a cyclical path that is happening together so this these are other things that Sherwin does speaks of in fact in his chapter on subjectivism he speaks of true and false subjectivism and those of you who already read the human cycle remember he was writing this in 1916 to 1918 and the example that he gives of false subjectivism sometimes the search for finding what is the true Indian soul it can lead you in wrong directions and he gives the example India was still a colony at the time of the British Empire but the example that he gives is very telling he gives the example of German seeking for its own group self which led to a disaster what we know as Nazism that is a very lower vital ego given subjectivism so he cautions against that as well so an inward search can lead us into dangerous directions which is why if you remember what Alokji said inward and upward the spirit becomes so important the higher force towards which all this inner seeking has to be offered so this is not a search of the mind alone mind can be an aid off and on that discernment can be you know as I think I heard this part of Alokji's talk the study of scriptures can be helpful but it can only lead us to a certain point then the search has to go within so all this is very much you know part of his larger social vision as well so anyway I hope that makes sense that diversion a little bit so coming back to this reality behind every human and everything so the reality he says is there within each thing and gives to each of its formations its power of being and the value of being the universe is a manifestation of reality now here is the hierarchy that he's talking about so the universe the reality let's call it Brahman spirit whatever the universe is a manifestation of the reality and there is a truth of the universal existence a power of cosmic being that Purusha the Purusha from which the Rig Vedic Purusha Sukta comes and all self or world spirit after universe he says humanity is a formation or manifestation of the reality in the universe and there is a truth and self that is the conscious being of humanity a human spirit with its own destiny of human life then the gradation comes down a little bit the community is a formation of the reality see he's here writing this in life divine and the chapter is titled the divine life and he's giving us this beautiful description of how everything is manifestation of that same reality so from universe to humanity to community the community is a formation of a reality a manifestation of the spirit in man and there is a truth a self a power of the collective being very applicable to especially to a place like Auroville then from the community he comes down the individual is a formation of the reality and there is a truth of the individual an individual self soul or spirit that expresses itself through the individual mind, life and body and can express itself too in something that goes beyond life, mind and body this is where the difference begins to come through so everything is similar so far but the individual has something more and that again he explains in life divine as I said his social philosophy is not exclusive to this one book what is different and this brings us back to the point with which we started why individual is so significant what is different about individual is the individual however is not confined within the community although his mind and life are in a way part of the communal mind and life but there is something in him that can go beyond them I was reading one of Shirabhindo's essays on education two days back for some other project that I am working on and there he speaks of that some seeds need you know the kind of soil, the kind of environment seeds need to sprout and some seeds some individuals need soil, a ground an environment that is different from the one in which they were born and I thought ok this is such a perfect way to explain why people move away from their hometowns because something in them for their own development takes us beyond beyond their own limited family, their own limited surroundings so this is again because there is that essential truth of the individual there is something in the individual that can go beyond them the community exists by the individual that is for sure for its mind, life and body are constituted by the mind, life and body of its composing individuals if that were abolished or desegrated its own existence would be abolished the community would be abolished if the mind, life and body of individuals are if the individuals are abolished individual is not a mere cell of the collective existence he would not cease to exist if separated or expelled from the collective mass ok so I lived for many years in the west and one question that is often asked of the NRIs is why especially you know in the US why are Indians able to flourish so well in countries like the US or things like that and there are many many sociological outer phenomena reasons that can be given in fact my whole PhD research was on the Indian immigrant experience but all that was the outer sociology, you see I had to come to Sri Aurobindo to understand the deeper inner meaning behind that but that time I had not studied him this closely but so the point is that an individual can continue to flourish even when expelled or out of personal choice removed, has removed himself and planted himself into another environment because it's that individual's path of self-development that is taking beyond that he would not cease to exist if separated or expelled from the collective mass or the collectivity the community is not even the whole of humanity and it is not the world the individual can exist and find himself elsewhere in humanity or by himself in the world so a community is not the whole world if a community if an individual removes himself from one community he or she can flourish in another community why because that community there is a larger humanity so he can continue to flourish by even in other communities or even by himself in the world if the community has a life dominating that of the individuals still it will not constitute the individual's whole life an individual is not tied to I'm just kind of paraphrasing it a little bit because it goes a little longer the individual is not tied to the communities tying off the life of the individuals individual can affirm himself in another communal life or if he is strong enough in a nomad existence not binding himself to any community or in an Aramite solitude where if he cannot pursue or achieve a complete material living he can spiritually exist and find his own reality an indwelling self or being this is his explanation of the ancient Indian Varanashrama system in which the Arashrama of Sannyas was there what is the individual doing here he's finding his or her complete satisfaction in a nomadic existence the Sannyas Arashrama where he's not even pursuing the material goals related to material living but goals related to a spiritual living and in that letter that I refer to of Sri Aurobindo where he said that traditionally Indian communal life has always been binding on individuals freedom he said the only escape door was when the individual wanted to become a Sannyasi or a Vaishnava the nomadic existence Vaishnava saint or a Sadhu wander around and there also he adds another important dimension he said but for this also was limited primarily to men not to women except after the advent of Buddha monastries came forward or the Vaishnava Bhakti religion when the women saints started coming but they were also if we know if we appreciate Sri Aurobindo's entire integral vision they were also escaping in some way they were only seeking their own individual liberation right so Sri Aurobindo says that yes that is the truth but that is only half the truth they were not necessarily coming back and working toward collective transformation which is part of the integral yoga so his vision is collective not just individual transformation individual liberation is the starting point leading to the individual transformation but his vision also includes our concern with collective transformation and yet at the same time he helps us appreciate why these from ancient times these systems existed because otherwise you know the still very much in those customary conventional type of ages especially as Indians we can appreciate a lot of this you know families telling don't do this there is this what I understand as sort of like a corruption or a degradation of the sense of dharma the patni dharma the matridharma this dharma sometimes they can also become prisons or women so Sri Aurobindo was very very aware sitting in his room in the ashram he was and that letter is like late 1930s or 40s the one that I'm speaking of I might have a copy of that letter here so he was very aware of these things so this is another thing that I wanted to emphasize that yes there is a difference there is a similarity or not just a similarity but an essential entity between individual and society that both have their essential truths both are evolving both have this one goal of transformation that is the goal behind the existence the progressive unfolding of the divine's truth in the creation that is the basis of Sri Aurobindo's philosophy right that there is no it's not just a random Maya kind of thing that we are seeing or you know part of there is a progressively gradual unfolding of the truth behind all the chaos behind all the confusions same is true with society and yet there is this difference that an individual is still capable of existing outside of the collective so the freedom that is so important for an individual self development Sri Aurobindo says in one of his last chapters in human cycle the two things that are essential for the coming of future spiritual society is freedom and harmony and the two things some individuals a group of individuals who are open to bringing of the new supernal truth and some readiness in the communal mind for these truths so in some ways what I am we are all a part of today what we are all doing today by studying the works of Sri Aurobindo by you know in Indian tradition we have an emphasis on Shravana listening to the words of the sages and spiritual masters we are preparing the communal mind to receive the truths and so that the individuals whom Sri Aurobindo says are the pioneers of bringing that future spiritual age that those who are leading the march when they share with us we are ready so if Sri Aurobindo and the mother have been pioneers and the harbingers of this new age the new creation from 1956 since the descent of supramental consciousness by studying their works by dedicating our lives to study of their works by making their truths part of our living truths you know not just studying them intellectually but by walking the path to whatever extent possible you know one drop of practice mother says is more important than the ocean of teachings and you know the code that we have in ashram dining room we are preparing the communal body the communal mind so that the future spiritual age can come forth so I think that with that I will close like I said I could go on and on but let me take a pause here and see if there are any questions or discussions and there is one little thing that I would just add I think Umaji mentioned about the book Indian national education actually I have a much more recent book which is not on education though the new book also has an essay that was my most recent book is an attempt of mine to apply Shri Aurobindo's social philosophy see I have been trained in economics and education so my first approach to Shri Aurobindo's work was through my own academic training as in social sciences and applied social sciences like education so his social thought his educational thought and his cultural writings were my first way to come in and then I realized that of course I can't understand all this without appreciating or spending time with life divine or synthesis or Savitri everything is like part of that one you know all knowledge is one the integral the completeness of the knowledge only comes forth but anyway in my writings primarily I feel more at home when I am writing on these areas that I have been trained in also you know that's problem of the mind right unless it goes so the book was called understanding contemporary India in the light of Shri Aurobindo and there were most of the essays were inspired by my own readings of human cycle and his educational thought but you know if there are any questions about understanding contemporary Indian society it's like huge topic so I only picked out few like gender equality or education or the commercial nature or the you know interreligious harmony and things like that so I picked out 3-4 topics and that's what this is about so if there are any questions about the contemporary topics also since as you said it is really an applied way to you know that would be the best way to understand his social vision so I'll be happy to address that as well okay thank you for your patient listening some appreciation comment how the individuals which are now more rational in their ways growing towards the spirituality because now it has become quite a bit of materialistic so how this can come back to the spirituality how do you see okay yeah hello how are you Devin do you have a question okay I see so yes there is a I think in one of his writings in either in Karm Yogan or in another essay we are sure in the rights that God always keeps for himself a chosen country in which all the higher knowledge stays hidden and then he adds in this Chatur Yuga at least this is amazing the choice the words that he uses in this Chatur Yuga at least he is not saying that this is all the time is just this there were other Chatur Yugas also Chatur Yugas before the cycles in this Chatur Yuga at least that country is India so and then if you read this further he says that these higher truths God hides them these higher truths go behind the screen as if behind the curtain when a wave of materialism takes over only to be revealed when it's sort of like you know in Hindi we say atti ho jaati hai when things become so extreme you know so that knowledge gets hidden so that it won't be destroyed it won't be corrupted which is one way to also understand why in the Vedic age which Sri Aurobindo speaks of as the Vedic age in human cycle the study of Shastras the study of Vedas was limited to a very very few classes of people who were considered inwardly evolved enough inwardly mature enough to understand the deeper mysteries of the knowledge and the majority of people who were still at the infrarational physical vital stage of development were given the outer Karmakaan the outer practice which then evolved or degraded into typal and conventional so the higher knowledge goes behind the veil, behind the curtain only to be revealed when the spirit is ready to kind of manifest that new wave so what you are describing is probably what is happening now you know I'm not on twitter I spend a little bit of time on Facebook and Instagram but of course my just I say this is by part of my sociological research you know to understand what is going on in the communal mind if you will and I observe but of course my observations are also limited to the people that I interact with so it's a very biased data not a random sample as such but I see a lot of young people seeking beyond what the material trappings have given them so far the popularity of what we understand as the new age spirituality the popularity of the you know various gurus who are sometimes being even critiqued as you know they have become very commercial this that is all part of the outer phenomenon the underlying reality is that seeking right so I don't think we are going in that bad direction but like I said you know as not I said like Shorbindo explains these are all confused chaotic movements on the surface it's the underneath reality that we have to catch hold of that's the seeking and I think not just individually but even collectively institutions are changing their own ways of looking at things even corporate institutions they have spirituality in management is a huge field of study right so the seven habits of effective people started probably that revolution but so many things you know Zen one of my friends wrote a book at least eight ten years back lessons from Ramayana Ramas Rama as an avatar as a leader there is one very good Hindi novel that I read inspired by Valmiki's Ramayana and that came out at least I think 25 years ago where Rama as a leader you can get great insights his depiction of Rama this writer is no longer living but the way he described Rama was as a leader and you could actually take lessons from there and apply it in any corporate setting so that seeking has been going on but to what extent it expresses on the surface we'll have to wait and watch and see so yeah that's Abhudeh Narendra Kohli's Abhudeh it's a two volume Ramayana yeah it's in Hindi I think it's been translated into English as well but thank you thank you Bheelu for sharing sure when those words and your reflections on them my question since you also written a book on education and you worked also a lot in that area so for the children and teenagers and youth who are you know studying now and you know you mentioned social media the influence that they get through that so in your reflections what do you think needs to change on ground at the education level on how we kind of you know impart education in context to this new evolving social thought yeah very good question in fact I'll bring it back to human cycle itself and if I can find that passage I may just read his words also and that is where he when he describes the movement from individualism to the subjective age coming of this subjective age education is something he speaks of very specifically let me just see if I can find that quickly any yes so when the societies evolve from a more individualistic see here we should also under like keep in our back of our mind when he's talking of the age of individualism he's talking of that material rationalistic individualism because there can be from an Indian cultural perspective a more you know spiritual understanding of individualism that you know yes an individual is not just the ego individual is that Atman the true self or in mother's integral yoga terms the psychic and the integral education is based on this very idea that it's that true self the psychic that has to blossom that has to be come in the full so this way of looking at education is probably we can say that it is based on that essential spiritual view of individualism not the rationalistic individualism so but when the societies collectives move from materialistic rationalistic individualism to the age of subjectivism and the reason I brought this example is also because in ancient India we had this very important strong awareness in our system of education which valued the truth of the individual psychic that is why you know the Swabhava Swadharma all these tools were there to understand gurus you know what Shravindo describes in his writings on education in ancient times in India we were not teaching by snippets we taught a little bit of opalaya 50 minutes this period 50 minutes that period one subject was taken and go on in depth so this awareness was very much there even though it was not probably as widespread as it was as it should have been but for that collective has to be ready also but now when these societies are evolving from individualism to subjective he says the few areas where you will see the beginning of the stage includes psychology education arts ethics these fields so he says the first tendency an increasing psychological vitalism this is not the paragraph that I was looking for okay the characteristic note of these tendencies which is the subjective tendencies that comes first in how the psychic dealing of man with his own being his fellow mean and with the ordering of his individual and social life so these tendencies the characteristic note of these tendencies may be seen in the new ideas about the education and upbringing of that child that became strongly current in the pre war area so pre war era so that means he is writing in 1916 so pre first world war even before the first world war these ideas had started taking hold of some of the small sections some small sections in the humanity that and then Shorvindo describes that earlier child used to be considered as the property of the father or wife used to be considered as property of the husband all these ideas have been thrown into dustbin right each child has to be allowed that freedom to evolve and to come to his or her truth of the being so the fact that these ideas are taking hold of the humanity even in the pre war era this is also the time where some of these so called reform movements were going on in India as well under the influence of the western knowledge starting from Ram Mohan Roy or Ishvarchan Vidyasagar or many other in women's education girls education we may criticize them today that they were not necessarily true to the children you know this or that but they served their own purpose they had their own merit and we have to accept that so the discovery that education must be a bringing out of the child's own intellectual and moral capacities to their highest possible value and must be based on the psychology of the child nature was a step forward toward a more healthy because a more subjective system so a more subjective system of education will naturally be a more healthy system of education which again has to bring in the element of individual freedom individual blossoming understanding the nature of the child facilitating the child to understand his or her own nature but this is where subjective still felt short should have been though will not let us go that easy but it still felt short because it still regarded him as an object to be handled and molded by the teacher to be educated that is not correct but at least there was a glimmering glimmering of the realization that each human being is a self developing soul and that the business of both parent and teacher is to enable and to help the child to educate himself to develop his own intellectual moral aesthetic and practical capacities and to grow freely as an organic being not to be meaded and pressured into form like an inert plastic material you saw the movie three idiots when this character of Madhavan comes when he is born that scene I cannot forget there are very weird things in the movie but that scene remains he is born in the cradle and the father he is going to be an engineer you know just out of the labour room and he is going to become an engineer so from that to understand allowing this there is still a great improvement and yet that is not complete because then sure Bindu continues it is not yet realized this is the future he gives it is not yet realized so yes that it is realized that you know a child is a self growing soul but it is not yet realized what this soul is or that the true secret whether with child or man is to help him to find his deeper self the real psychic entity within but if we ever give it a chance to come forward if the psychic is given a chance to come forward and still more if we call it into the foreground as the leader of the march set out in front what the Upanishads say as the mind as the leader in front you know Manap Rani Sharif Neta if the psychic is given the chance to become the leader in the front it will itself take up most of the business of education in our hands and develop the capacity of the psychological being towards the realization of the potentialities of which our present mechanical view of life and man and external routine methods of dealing with them prevent us so if the psychic is given a chance to be the leader we won't even need schools you know that is why Ivan which is de-schooling the society so the movements that we see today homeschooling, de-schooling, unschooling whatever we want to call it there are groups of people doing all these it's the movement in the right direction small, chaotic, confused but it has started with the individual one mother pulling out a child from a school and today we have the Swar Shikshan whole organization like that so this is the future so there is that anarchic element that is part of this process so we can, I mean this is what I think really sure in the social philosophy why it is so important that it helps us get this understanding to look beneath the outer phenomena and to look at, but for that we need to have an understanding first of what is the truth of which society is an expression so we cannot get rid of the secret knowledge or the psychological understanding of the being or the discerning intellect and all the other lessons from the Gita without that we cannot walk this path so I don't know how deliberate it was but the sequence is really flowing very nicely so, thank you so I hope you all had very nice interesting topic of course I enjoyed a lot she cared of many things what was pondering in my mind so far so let me start like as she said she was in the West for quite some time not for many years I think so we can see how we can come to that in a very simple way I correlate with a simple way there used to be a transplanting the house in USA you must have seen that once like they used to take their house and they go to the next place mobile homes mobile homes and even the static once they remove it so easily they remove it and they put it in another place so she says we move from place to place for evolve it's an opportunity given for us when we move we grow it is seen in the life of how we was travelling from a small boy he was here and thrown out to England to pursue because he is the future avatar he has to show to the world how we can correlate combine together East and West together we have to grow together that is the idea that he took and mother took birth in France and he took the education in England so this combination it is already they showed in their life and ma'am beautifully said how the family nation, humanity the fourth straight super humanity of course super humanity is the aim and ideal of integral yoga and I want to put a little bit significance over that the super humanity race once said in it she has shared her experience in agenda as we all know all the recordings are there in agenda her personal experiences with people and ashram sadaks and mother Shri Aurobindo whenever Shri Aurobindo speaks the world hits the floor and those words will get supramentalized such a powerful person our master so this the fourth straight super humanity he already achieved and he already lived in that and he has shown the way for us it's not so tough and easy so ma'am beautifully explained that these four family, nation, humanity we are living it's not something alien to us already we are living in that group, individual, collective and everything is going with the society and also we are developing on our own so we are towards that super humanity level already so happy that you all here we are part of super humanity and thank you ma'am beautiful, beautiful very happy in spite of your timing and your commitment you are here with us it's my pleasure it's really a blessing to be able to share whatever little we have we can give a give applause to her once again very much we wanted we want of course everybody but divine Shakti is very divine feminine is very important for Shri Aurobindo so we want her ma'am and everybody all please, please join so very happy to have Mala ji and Bailu ji taking integral yoga, Tevasmita ji please you are the future come on please, please please welcome yes, yes Bailu ji yeah we have movies it's about Shri Aurobindo it's transformation of Shri Aurobindo yeah it's about the one year in which during which time he was in the jail, Alipur jail so the movie is called I mean it's a documentary called the transformation so please do come and our Auroville radio live streaming is going on thanks for the viewers and please join if you are in Auroville and thank you so much okay, thank you