A New Synthesis of Yoga as a necessity to overcome the impasse of modernity - Skype - Session 1 (15 August 2008)

This is according to me one of the best quotations in The Life Divine, as Sri Aurobindo has summarised the history of the world from the beginning to the present day, the briefest and the most precise summary of the human kind.

It is at this point that a very serious problem has arisen and this is the point which I want to mark particularly, having reached here, we have to ask ourselves: what next? It is true that we have not yet finished our journey in search of a perfected economic, utilitarian life and economy being perfected in a social society, even that aim has not yet been realised. And today the march of science is being utilised largely by humanity for this purpose. According to Sri Aurobindo and this is a very important reading, if mankind becomes engaged, engrossed exclusively on the perfection of economic life there is a big danger. Sri Aurobindo points out that perfection of economic life, certainly as an element of the total perfection of mankind is necessary but if that aim becomes all exclusive aim then it will be a kind of reversion to what Sri Aurobindo calls barbarism. We must remember that Sri Aurobindo has traced the history of mankind in another direction, in another context, particularly The Human Cycle, where Sri Aurobindo speaks of three stages of mankind — the infra-rational, the rational and the supra-rational, as he has pointed out that for a long time humanity developed from infra-rational into rational; and that rational age is now coming to a close. But exactly at this point where rational age is coming to a close and something higher should happen, the infra-rational is making its way upward on the surface and what dominates the present stage all life. This economic aim of life which has now become so dominant in mankind today is what Sri Aurobindo calls reversal to barbarism.

Now Sri Aurobindo points out that barbarism, if you want to define it properly is a state of existence in which a human being becomes attached to the physical life and utilises whatever higher developments man may have for the development of the physical life, economic life. This barbarism is a force of invasion. Now Sri Aurobindo also points out that in the history of mankind whenever there was a development at a higher level, it was sought to be arrested and attacked by some fresh invasion of barbarism that is why we see in the history of mankind various attacks come one after the other. Barbarism has always been a force of invasion coming from outside upon a civilised world.

Today the situation is somewhat different. Today civilised society is sufficiently widespread and in that vast expanse of civilisation, barbarism is rising within itself. It is no more invasion of barbarism from outside, it is as it were from the very bosom of civilisation, barbarism is rising. And if this barbaric invasion is not answered, is not arrested, not replied, not combated properly and rightly; a big danger can be expected. And this is the point which is creating what may be called an impasse. How to allow human society to rise upward and how to develop intellectuality, which has been developed very widely, particularly at present through the force of science and how to lead mankind to the next step beyond the rationalistic? That today there is a tremendous pressure to move forward beyond rationality can be seen in many ways. In due course of time we shall study this aspect also but the very fact that today Reason itself has come to some kind of a circular movement, implying no further possibility of movement is an indication that we have come to end of the curve of the age of Reason. It is a very vast subject but the fact is that there is on one hand a tremendous pressure for mankind to develop spiritual consciousness, and this pressure is thwarted by the barbarism which is rising. According to Sri Aurobindo Reason can play a very dominant and important role to help mankind to cross over this impasse? But Sri Aurobindo points out that Reason is not able to keep pace with the race which is going on and that is why there is a great possibility that Reason may not be able to play the right role it is supposed to play. According to Sri Aurobindo the role of Reason is that of intermediate role, a role with the physical, economic, vital life and the spiritual life. The intellect is an intermediate power and it can help the economic life, physical life, vital life of man and can open the doors and can aid mankind to enter into the spiritual age. The big question mark is whether Reason will be able to give this aid? And Sri Aurobindo points out that this aid is very difficult to come because the race is very rapid and reason is not able to run with that race. So let us say: this is the impasse. The pressure of the economic man compacting the upward movement of man towards spirituality, where his reason can help him and Reason is not able to help. On the contrary it can produce a kind of a big barrier. What will happen? Sri Aurobindo has envisaged a great possibility of what he terms the failure of the human race. The human race which was supposed to lead the whole evolutionary process towards the higher level of existence where the basic aim of human life can be fulfilled, namely perfection of the individual and perfection of the collective life and the two harmonised together that was envisaged and that human being envisages even today as the perfection of life. This aim may not be realised at all through the agency of human race and therefore one possibility that Sri Aurobindo envisaged was that human race failed and human species may be put aside as one species as a failed species and then evolutionary process may create another species for the development of the ideal condition of existence.

If you examine this possibility, Sri Aurobindo, you might say, has been able to accomplish a tremendous task. One can say that that impasse, that is to say as a result of which human race would have been regarded as a failure that possibility has been crossed over and that I consider to be the great accomplishment of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother through the synthesis of Yoga which the Mother has proposed to us. Before I go forward to read out to you the next passage from the same particular part of The Life Divine, this is the next passage where Sri Aurobindo summarises this great problem of the impasse.

Sri Aurobindo says:

For this ideal, this conscious stress on the material and economic life was in fact a civilised reversion to the first state of man, his early barbaric state and its preoccupation with life and matter, a spiritual retrogression with the resources of the mind of a developed humanity and a fully evolved Science at its disposal. As an element in the total complexity of human life this stress on a perfected economic and material existence has its place in the whole: as a sole or predominant stress it is for humanity itself, for the evolution itself full of danger. The first danger is a resurgence of the old vital and material primitive barbarian in a civilised form; the means Science has put at our disposal eliminates the peril of the subversion and destruction of an effete civilisation by stronger primitive peoples, but it is the resurgence of the barbarian in ourselves, in civilised man, that is the peril, and this we see all around us. For that is bound to come if there is no high and strenuous mental and moral ideal controlling and uplifting the vital and physical man in us and no spiritual ideal liberating him from himself into his inner being. Even if this relapse is escaped, there is another danger,—for a cessation of the evolutionary urge, a crystallisation into a stable comfortable mechanised social living without ideal or outlook is another possible outcome. Reason by itself cannot long maintain the race in its progress; it can do so only if it is a mediator between the life and body and something higher and greater within him; for it is the inner spiritual necessity, the push from what is there yet unrealised within him that maintains in him, once he has attained to mind, the evolutionary stress, the spiritual nisus. That renounced, he must either relapse and begin all over again or disappear like other forms of life before him as an evolutionary failure, through incapacity to maintain or to serve the evolutionary urge. At the best he will remain arrested in some kind of mediary typal perfection, like other animal kinds, while Nature pursues her way beyond him to a greater creation.

I think this is one of the best passages in The Life Divine, where Sri Aurobindo presents to us in graphic terms, vivid terms the great danger that mankind faces today. And I would like to add the following that although as I said Sri Aurobindo and the Mother by developing the Integral yoga, a new synthesis of yoga, they have crossed this barrier and mankind is now in a happy condition in a possibility of receiving the light under which it can hope to realise the collective perfection and the perfection of the individual, both harmonised together. Even then it cannot be said that we have achieved such a stage of development that the process will be very smooth and will be very safe; dangers, perils still exist.

In fact I would like to refer to an anecdote as you might be knowing the Dalai Lama paid a visit to the Mother, on the 18th of January 1973. I had the privilege of receiving the Dalai Lama at Madras airport to bring him to Pondicherry by car and I accompanied him when he met the Mother. So I was a eye-witness of the conversation that took place between the Mother and the Dalai Lama and he put several questions, including the question regarding Tibet because when Dalai Lama arrived in the presence of the Mother, the Mother welcomed him by saying: “Both Sri Aurobindo and the Mother want you to go back to Tibet with full power and authority” this is an tremendous statement and naturally there are for later for when I had been with Dalai Lama alone, he asked me to ask the Mother, whether and when Tibet will be free and he’ll be able to return to Tibet, and many other questions he had put and next time when I went to the Mother after two days, I had put those questions and Mother had answered those questions, this was in 1973, one of the peak periods of Mother’s development of the Integral Yoga and those who are interested in reading the questions that I had put to the Mother and the answer that Mother gave, they may refer to the 13th Volume of the Agenda and there, there is a dialogue, this is on page no. 352, volume no.13 of the Mother’s Agenda and I want to read out a few lines from this conversation because it concerns the exact question that I would like to dwell on. My question was concerning the Supramental manifestation.

As we all know the Mother declared on 29th of February 1956, the Supermind manifested on the earth and that is the Golden Day for all of us and by 1973 Supermind and its movement had reached a tremendous stage of peak development. And when we read the Mother’s Agenda thirteen volumes, we’ll find how the Supermind was acting on the earth. In fact Mother herself has given a subtitle to The Agenda and that is very, very important, Mother has called it ‘The Agenda of the Supramental Action on Earth’, she herself has given this title to The Agenda. So you might say that all the thirteen volumes of The Mother’s Agenda describe stages after stages of the development of the Supramental manifestation. And the day, on which I had this talk with the Mother, this was the 20th of January 1973 and I was so enthusiastic about the question that Dalai Lama had put to the Mother and particularly this question about the freedom of Tibet and Mother answered this question by saying the following:If the teaching of Sri Aurobindo can spread over the world and if there is a full manifestation of the Supramental then the Supramental will be the power of liberation of Tibet, then Mother added: it is bound to come, it will come but if it goes as it is going now, it will take hundreds of years but if the Supramental is manifested, it may come quick, which does not mean ten or twenty years that will be almost miraculous.

Now when Mother said this I spoke to the Mother and said but now the Supramental is working very powerfully, this question the Mother answered and I would like to emphasise this answer because it is extremely important for all of us to share this answer because that is where we are now. Mother said: it is, it is working, it will be manifested with enough power when the right people will have the authority, for the moment it seems that the opposition, the falsehood attacks with full power before dying, never, never have men lied as much as they are doing now. It seems the old habit comes spontaneously but it must be broken. We are at a very, what we could call an unpleasant moment of the history of the earth. It is interesting because the action is very powerful but I can’t call it pleasant. There Mother added one line, but I have told you that already, I wrote it. Now Mother was referred to a message that she had given me in the month of November of 1972 and let me read out that message which Mother had given, this was the message of November 26th 1972. This message is as follows: Before dying falsehood rises in full swing, still it will understand only the lesson of catastrophe, will it have to come before they open their eyes to the truth? I asked for an effort from all, so that it has not to be, it is only the truth that can save us, truth in words, truth in action, truth in will, truth in feelings. It is a choice between falsehood and truth or being destroyed.

So this was after the Supermind had descended and working powerfully and even at that stage this problem persisted. As Mother said, falsehood is rising in full swing and I do not see personally that that period has fully been conquered even till today. Although if you ask me personally I would say that the conquest is so great that balance is the other way round that is to say in favour of the truth against the falsehood. Although at that time falsehood was always triumphant and the truth was at the receiving end. So this is my personal view but I personally feel that even then the passage is difficult and we have to be very responsible at this stage and that is why I would like to explore this subject with all of you. But for the moment I will stop here and invite questions if any questions have risen in the mind of friends.

Debashish: I am thinking about the issue of the impasse, this impasse as you said which we are going through at present and a special kind of barbarism. The second quotation that you read from The Life Divine, it seemed to me that Sri Aurobindo is pointing to possibilities of barbarism, one which seems more like a hedonistic barbarism and the other more serious because he calls it a comfortable condition without any idealism where the aspiration disappears because man is happy with his material state, sort of like the ideal of the Russian socialism which in a different way is coming to us in our modern way. It seems as if there is a certain kind of satisfaction which life can give, we think that this can last as a condition in which humanity becomes satisfied and says a typal perfection or is it inevitable that the aspiration will force us out of it?

Prof. Kireet Joshi: I think I will repeat your question to some extent, please tell me if I have understood your question properly. Your question is that Sri Aurobindo refers to two alternative possibilities — one is reversal of mankind in which mankind would return to a comfortable hedonistic life?

Debashish: Yes.

Prof. Kireet Joshi: And if that happens, maybe that there is a sinking of mankind and a kind of failure of mankind on account of the reversal of mankind, that condition. The other possibility is that even if mankind does not sink, even if mankind is not destroyed as a race, another possibility would be to create a civilisation or a barbaric civilisation in which human beings would find a tolerable, comfortable, mechanically facilitated existence. Somewhere where people get clothing, shelter and basic necessities of life quite easily and in sufficient measure and therefore people would remain like animals doing their work as it were and watching the world engaged in cinema and drama and all kinds of pleasures of life and doing some work here, some work there and flying from one place to the other and spending time in which case it would be typal economic life established on the earth and I think this is your second hypothesis and I think that is your question, is it?

Debashish: Yes. I see that second hypothesis is something which is very close to realisation in a very large section of humanity today. It has given them a certain kind of satisfied life in which there is no aspiration, no idealism.

Prof. Kireet Joshi: What you are saying let me repeat also once again. You feel that the second possibility of arrival of a typal human life, economically satisfied and flourishing in comfort, without the urge, evolutionary urge to go beyond. You feel that we are almost nearing that kind of existence. Your question is whether I share that feeling? Is that so?

Debashish: Yes, Kireet Bhai.

Prof. Kireet Joshi: My answer is the following. I only like to share with you my own feeling that this possibility, I agree with you, is looming large. If for example there had to be a constant conflict between communism and capitalism which was very much on the top of the agenda of the world at one time, if that conflict had remained there was a tremendous impetus for the evolutionary urge to move forward but that that situation is no more there and there is a further development, some people now speak of super capitalism coming over the earth and spreading over the whole earth in which the conflict between communism and socialism on one side and capitalism on the other would not be there, so there is no impact and there is therefore no quarrel on that basis. It is a kind of a comfortable position for the capitalistic order of society in which something of socialism will be aspirated, namely the ideal that everyone should get basic necessities of life. I think we are arriving at a point where socialism loses its edge because capitalism is able to provide to a large or increasing number of people the basic necessities of life, even within the materialistic frame of society. And if this is multiplied let us say within twenty, thirty, forty years, there is this possibility and it might actually lead to the cessation of the evolutionary urge in mankind.

Fortunately, I think because Mother and Sri Aurobindo have raised already high and they have brought into the world new forces, I believe that it will no more be actualised. Although I would agree that we are almost arriving at that point but I think something new is going to happen and it is that which we have to consider also during the course of our journey, — what is that that will allow a new development which will not allow mankind to rest comfortably only in a typal existence of economic, social, comfortable. Would you like to say something on the subject?

Debashish: No. I completely agree with you, I was just listening so that answers your question, one thing I would like to say is that if that is the case the other kinds of conflicts that have also arisen, particularly those of a infra-rational kind with fundamentalism and terrorism and things of that nature, it is as if rationality is being retracted in its comfort zone by infra-rational forces at this point and there may not find the right kind of solutions but this is restricted to certain areas of the world but there are large areas where people are still comfortable in their certain zone of material sufficiency. But I hundred percent agree with you and look forward to what you said over time regarding to what Mother and Sri Aurobindo have brought. If anybody else would like to ask any questions at this point?

Question: Is there anything that we could do or as a physical action in all different countries, who ever or wherever to fight against this apparent comfort, and apparent immunity in comfort. This is the reason is starting from the mind is, it can play in either way, it is like Mother said that mind can prove anything, so I mean we can convince ourselves about anything and so find some kind of unity in this comfortable community, which is largely in the corporate world in the United States, for example. So, of course there are forces that are working because Mother and Sri Aurobindo have done their Yoga but as individuals what is the resource to contribute anything against this force?

Prof. Kireet Joshi: I like your question very much, I must say and although your question is in a sense limited which can be summarised by saying: what is it that we can do at this stage of development and this question triggers off a number of things that to one’s own mind. The most important thing to my mind is to develop in the world spiritual education. You know there is a line of thinking according to which we are called upon to do many things, not only one thing. So if I say we should concentrate on spiritual education, it may seem as if I am proposing only one thing to be done but if you examine this answer more properly, you’ll find that this answer spiritual education implies a number of things to be done; socially, politically, economically, culturally. And therefore for the time being, I would only say in a general formula, let us concentrate upon the task of spiritual education in the world. If you can succeed in doing it, we shall have crossed a number of problems and resolved them.

So in due course of time I would like to discuss with all of us this theme of spiritual education because the moment you speak of spiritual education implies a number of things to be done, socially, politically, economically, culturally and therefore for the time being I would only say in a general formula, let us concentrate upon the task of spiritual education in the world. If you can succeed in doing it, we shall have crossed a number of problems and resolved them. So in due course of time I would like to discuss with all of us this theme of spiritual education because the moment you speak of spiritual education a number of objections are bound to arise and to answer those questions, many questions concerning political life will have to be answered. Many questions of social life will have to be answered. So for the moment I leave it with you only one line — the one thing in which we can all participate in is the development of spiritual education.

Question: Is it possible for you to illustrate more to be specific about by an example?

Prof. Kireet Joshi: Let me say only one line — spiritual education implies the creation of learning society. I don’t know whether you are aware of or you must have read perhaps this great report of UNESCO of 1971. You know there are two great reports of UNESCO, one is the report which was given under the direction of Edgar Furore, under the title ‘Learning to Be’ and another was in 1995, which is entitled ‘Learning Treasure Within’, these are the two great reports of UNESCO. I like both of them but I like the first one better because it speaks of creating in the world ‘Learning Society’. To my mind that phrase “Learning Society’ summarises the problem of the world today. Learning society is one in which the centre of the society is the child. It is not only child-centred education, it is not child-centred class, it’s a child-centred society. If you want spiritual education to be realised, it is not enough merely to make the child the centre of a class, it is necessary to make the child centre of the whole society, that is to say the child should be sovereign of the society and that brings a complete shift from the present mode of social existence.

Today in the economic life, we speak of the sovereignty of the consumer, not the child. The consumer is the sovereign and everything in the world is at the service of the consumer. Some other people speak today of the necessity of sustaining society by political organisation and a large number of people have come to realise that democratic form of government is perhaps the most suitable form of the government, if you want to meet the ends of liberty and so on. And therefore they speak of creating a society which is democratic. And if you ask the question, what is the sovereign in the democratic country? The answer is the sovereignty of the parliament. So if you want to sum up in a way the entire social and economic system of the modern world and even the future perspective if you look at the world, you might say you are going to increase more and more the sovereignty of the consumer and the sovereignty of the parliament. But if you want to give spiritual education then we have to establish in the world the sovereignty of the child. Now you can see with this one example which I am giving you, will show you the enormous implication of the sovereignty of the child and spiritual education for shifting the whole centre of social existence, political existence, economic existence. You think it is a good example?

Answer: Yes, very much, thank you. I think I was curious about is that you know sometimes it is said that you know the Divine has to see you; you cannot see the Divine before that. So since the spiritual education is based on experience, so are you hopeful that with the child coming into spiritual education, amongst the children will really make a big difference which is enough to fight with this huge capitalist world?

Prof. Kireet Joshi: It’s a very, very good question, your question is whether spiritual education will provide to the children sufficient power and capacity to fight against the present mode of life, economic, social, political life. My answer is that the very doing of spiritual education, the very process by which we shall be able to bring about the operation of spiritual education in the society will combat many, many problems, which are today beseeching mankind. So I believe that if you can see the implications of spiritual education and the process by which you can bring it about, I think at least for you and for me it’s a big task awaiting us and if we start doing it many tasks will unfold themselves.

Question: I’ll like to know how to contribute in that, my first feeling has always been that Mother said the best way to help others to grow into the sphere within. So I feel like just a direction I would like to go with also to pursue that goal through thinking courses in reading more of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. I don’t know how does that fit into your point of world view. I mean should I be doing more actively and pursuing aims or should I be more concentrating on growing within.

Prof. Kireet Joshi: Your question is a very, very interesting question. Your statement is that and this is in the context of what Mother has said, the best way of helping others is to make oneself more and more spiritual and therefore to go within and therefore to develop. And this is of course incontrovertible as far as I am concerned. And I fully agree with your statement, only question is when you begin to grow within — how do you go about it? You know there is a very interesting statement which the Mother has made. This is in connection with Auroville. She said the path of our work lies with the task of research and research in the new synthesis of yoga. In fact that is the main theme of all my journey today. So my answer will be that you are not contradictory. Going within and working on life, this is our method and many people may find it difficult but this is the method and we have to find the solution as to how to go within and yet to work through life. Of course, it doesn’t mean that there is no place in this Yoga for solitude, for periods of complete seclusion even but they are periods only. You can have an hour or two of seclusion, if you like or some people may not even need that, it all depends on each individual’s needs. There are moments when you need to occupy yourself twenty four hours out of twenty four hours of work or else sometimes Mother said: I never go into meditation at all. And this statement also is wonderful and yet it is to say that she is always in meditation, all work is being done through meditation. So to conclude I would simply say that your answer is — I truly appreciate it’s wonderful, what she has said is wonderful that you would like to work on yourself and to develop spiritually and I would only add that your task should not be related to activities and I would very much like that all of us whatever their occupation they may be engaged in, we should all undertake the task of spiritual education. We all are responsible in this world for the children of the world and each one has to participate in the task of spiritual education. Is it alright?

Questioner: Yes, thank you very much.

Debashish: I was wondering about that very interesting conversation that you had shared with us, which was about the Mother regarding the Supramental manifestation and the chat that the Dalai Lama’s visit to her. If I may recollect what you said that has to do with the very powerful action of the Supramental but it can effect itself more speedily if there are the right people in power. Would you like to comment on that?

Prof. Kireet Joshi: Well! It’s a very, very important question in fact. You know I personally feel that one of the consequences of the Supramental action, which I have myself experienced in my own personal life, is that at the right moment, the right people come to the right place of authority through the exercise of which the right things can be done as quickly as possible. And I think that’s a very important strategy of action. Supermind, according to me, is a power by which each person is placed in a position of highest effectivity because the present world is topsy-turvy. Those who ought to be in authority, they are in a very deplorable condition, nobody listens to them and those who are not worthy of the position of authority, they are occupying very high positions of authority. When the Supermind begins to manifest more and more this situation is bound to be reversed. And everyone who participates in this movement of Supramental manifestation will find gradually occupying a position where effectivity of his or her faculties becomes truly fruitful. Authority does not mean necessarily coming to some high position. I personally believe authority means you are able to authorise the right action, wherever you are according to your capacity, according to your function, according to whatever you want to do; at present it is being denied. In a certain sense you might say that if a very good teacher is taken up from his teachership and made a Prime Minister, where he cannot really function properly has also been taken away and this also is happening today. Those who should be very good teachers, they are holding very high positions in politics. I am reminded of Sri Aurobindo’s aphorism where he says: “For thee it is better to be a good shoemaker then to become an incompetent king.” Now that is a wonderful statement of Sri Aurobindo. And I think by authority I mean, at least I understand what Mother says, “Authority to be effective at the right place, at the right moment and occupy that position where you can exercise your faculties to the highest possible effectivity.” And I think this is what has to happen.

Question: How to identify spiritual education because in the past a lot of other forms like so many missionaries and others, in the name of spiritual education basically they do a lot more damage than anything else? How to identify correct spiritual education?

Prof. Kireet Joshi? I think your question is so important that I may not like to answer in one line but since our time now is very little, your question, how to identify spiritual education distinguished from the kind of education that missionaries have been giving in different parts of the world. As you know Mother has made a distinction between spiritual education and religion. And if you ask me what is the difference between what is very often called spiritual education but it is religion and how do you distinguish from what I call spiritual education? I will give only three examples.

You see, according to me spiritual education has three stages. The first is the study of concentration; this is something that Swami Vivekananda said while speaking of ‘Man making education’. And he said, if he knew in his early days the power of concentration he would have spent time in learning the art of science of concentration than in reading so many books because not many people realise that concentration is a method of gaining knowledge. That is to say, if you want to know and if you know how to concentrate, the very process of concentration itself can lead you to the knowledge that you are looking for. So I would say, spiritual education should basically be concentration upon learning the science of concentration. Secondly, it consists of something that Mother calls tapasya, there are different kinds of austerities — what Mother speaks of tapasya, tapasya of knowledge that is to say concentration which purifies the faculties of the mind, so that the mind becomes capable of arriving at knowledge. Secondly tapasya of love, as you know love at present is a very mixed affair and tapasya of love implies a great process of purification. The liberation of our entire realm of emotions from various kinds of desires, desire to possess, to oppress, to enjoy, momentary enjoyments and so on. The purification of emotions from all these impurities, so that love begins to shine and vibrate and it burn actually in our heart; this burning of heart, so that all impurities are burnt away and purity of love alone remains in our consciousness. Thirdly is the tapasya of will. At present our will is full of desires, petty desires, bigger desires, ambitions of various kinds. As Mother said: “Have no ambition but do what you are doing as quickly as possible and as perfectly as possible.” This is the tapasya of will. Tapasya of beauty, according to me, if one develops these four processes of tapasya; it’s a preliminary development of concentration. This is spiritual education, at least the foundations of spiritual education. And then comes a higher stage, it should not be given to everybody except when the individual makes a personal effort. This tapasya and concentration can be proposed to everybody but the next step of spiritual education is conditional, it cannot be given unless the individual says: ‘I have now decided to accept the full discipline of spiritual education.’ That is why when you have spoken of spiritual education in the world please limit only to the processes which I have spoken up till now. The next step can be given and must be given to those who have decided and that process is what I call the process of self-consecration. The first stage was self-concentration, now you come to the stage of self-consecration and self-consecration requires a tremendous sadhana,tremendous development of obedience but obedience of an illumined disciple of the truth. So first you should become a disciple of truth as you develop discipline which is illuminating. Secondly you must develop heroism, the kind of an obedience of a hero who fights against injustice and falsehood. This is the second aspect of self-consecration and third aspect of self-consecration is to become a faithful servant, one who does not know what is faithfulness cannot do self-consecration. These three qualities in this spirit, if they are developed then comes the final stage and that is self-transformation and that is of course psychic transformation, spiritual transformation, supramental transformation. This would be the whole program of spiritual education, very briefly. It has nothing to do with what the missionaries are doing reading this book or that book or scripture and all that sort of thing. This is a process in which you change the vey psychological fibre of the being. Thank you.

Debashish: Kireet Bhai that was so beautiful and profound and in fact it seems as if it almost like a seed summary of the new synthesis of Yoga that can break the impasse as you have brought out.