BEING

Beliefs, Death and Faith

Beliefs

It is a deep-rooted human feature to take things for granted after only a short time. One behaves as if everything around was making sense and could not be doubted. One lives and dies, one is awake and sleeps, one experiences complex living processes and interrelations between the mind, the heart and the body. Still, everything seems perfectly normal.

While mankind’s evolution invites us to live according to new possibilities, our capacity of adaptation, mixed with our propensity to forget, makes it difficult to distinguish whether there is real improvement or just another round on the same spiral.

Inequalities increase as well, but this has always been the case. So why worrying? We easily forget what our previous environment or mindset was a few years back. We experience constant changes in our reality, but we behave as if everything was rational. Everything seems so normal that, the older we become, the more we become what we used to be. By being more uncaring, we finish our life as a caricature of ourselves.

However, during childhood, we have truly felt the presence of this divine spark in our heart. We have experienced the weirdness of being-alive, questioned the origin of thinking, feeling, being ‘in this body’ rather than being ‘this body’. We have known amazing mindsets and states of consciousness that have created indelible scars within us.

Pulled by a compelling divine call, we have investigated deeper. We have asked our elders on what life was about. What are these strange and unknown thoughts, sensations and feelings? What are these experiences that we felt we could never forget? Some wise mentors may have seriously encouraged us to keep on seeking. Others may have mocked us, like: “Please, stop thinking too much, and live!”, or “There is nothing to find, stop asking impossible questions!”, etc.

Today, years later, we pretend to be authentic spiritual seekers, but how true is our reality? How true is our path? Do we continue to take things for granted, or do we question our beliefs? Are we accustomed to such strange reality to be alive? Do we follow this divine spark that yearns since eons to reach back the Divine Source? Do we question everything or anything at all?

Is our spiritual path true or buried into more sophisticated beliefs?

Death

“People are so ignorant! They make such a fuss over death, as if it were the end, this word ‘death’ is so absurd! I see it as simply passing from one house into another or from one room to another; you take one simple step, you cross the threshold, and there you are on the other side and then you come back. So, it’s a continuous, uninterrupted movement, here and there, from one room to another, from one house to another, from one life to another.”¹

Death is both a fact and a belief. Death cannot be denied or questioned. However, its shape may appear as true or not, right or not, questionable or not, depending on our beliefs, our traditions, the importance of religion or science in our life, our spirituality, the faith in our Masters’ teachings. Depending on what is pleasant, comfortable and safe for us to valid, as well. This apprehension may evolve in time. We may think true today something that was totally inconceivable some years ago, and this may continue to be re-shaped again in the future.

Death may be the end of our life, the end of ourselves, the end of our sense of identity, the end of the ego, the end of everything or anything, depending on our belief-system. Death could also be the end of our world, our reality, without denying the possibility that something could continue to live after or differently.

The period of pandemic we are living in is perfectly matching death. Nothing will remain like it used to be, it is the end of a world. We are living a period of death, though still alive to experience it.

On the other hand, we can experiment that expecting or fearing death makes us more alive. The more we are thinking of death, the more we feel alive. This could seem paradoxical at first, but only apparently, for paying attention to something brings life to it. The topic is nourished by our thoughts and our feelings, our attention and our will. It evolves, it changes shape, it includes more thoughts, emotions and experiences. We project ourselves in a situation that did not happen yet. We do as if it was already happening, speculating on possible preparation, effects, consequences, etc.

One may would like to approach death with the will to be fully conscious, or by surprise in order not to be anxious, to be ready and well prepared, to be wealthy, to die suddenly or smoothly, isolated or accompanied, etc. Thus, death may shake or reinforce deeply our beliefs and fears, our concerns, our relationships, etc.

I reflect on the topic of death since long and I pretend to be ready to die at each moment. I constantly work on this readiness. That pushes me to try to be perfect at any moment, since I do not know when the time will come. I foster vigilance and full consciousness in any moment of my life. I pretend it is my spiritual path and, in a way, it brings back benefit. By being congruent, matching my aim and my practice, I experience more comfort, self-confidence and joy.

However, is this not a more sophisticated belief-system? Human, though on a higher level of the spiral.

Recently, in the middle of some unexpected situation, my system of beliefs on the topic of death collapsed. It hugely disappointed me and I had to reconsider the whole topic.

In order to be well-prepared to die at any moment, I organize my daily schedule accordingly. Recently I went to a pottery exhibition. At a stand, I helped someone to wrap an item that he just bought. Doing that, I put my keys on the counter, to get my hands free, and I forgot the keys. Reaching back the parking, I realized that my keys were missing, and I had to run back to the exhibition. Doing that, I realized that I was in a rush, and that it wouldn’t’ be fair for me to die at this instant, because it was not planned. I was not prepared, since I was doing something which was not initially planned.

Of course, I argued with myself. But, anyway and suddenly, all my so-called preparation about death revealed itself as it was: false beliefs.

The belief-system, though invisible, prevents us to grow spiritually in the truth, as it recovers constantly our reality with wrong assumptions, more sophisticated as we follow our sadhana. This mechanism deserves to be understood, observed, di-entangled and replaced by and under a new pure and ‘non-ego-profit’ mechanism.

Faith

A spiritual seeker could joyfully take the opportunity to witness an old world dying while preparing a new ere to happen on Earth, similarly to an after-death. No more useless beliefs that mystified him for so long, leading to another cercle of the same spiral. During these special times, no need to be smarter, gentler or of any other human quality. Human remains human, as far as our behavior stays ego-related, and whatever the level of sophistication it reaches in one’s belief-system.

“You have certain ways of understanding, certain ways of reacting, certain ways of feeling, almost certain ways of progressing, and above all, a special way of looking at life and expecting from it certain things—well, it is this you must surrender.”²

All these ‘certain ways’ of behaving are the consequences of this belief-system that occurs from the connection between experience and speculations. This system is constantly re-shaping our reality according to its needs, regardless the relevance of the association between events and opinions. Then, it is our complete inner system of apprehension of the world that is obsolete and should be replaced.

A new behavior should match our faith in the Divine, in which aspiration, renunciation and self-surrender to the divine³, would be steadily supported by the prayer.

Then, when we start to reflect on the best way to pray, a lot of concerns could raise. Is the topic of my prayer meaningful? Should I remain focused for my prayer to be efficient? For how long should I pray? Etc. Most of these concerns have been already tackled in Q & A to Mother.

Why not start with a modest prayer, which would have not many consequences but the feedback to be undoubtful and beneficial, regardless a significant outcome? A ‘small’ topic which would be important for the candidate, a practical and concrete issue in one’s daily life, and which result would bring more confidence and pleasure for further prayer practice. This little step would bring the advantage to support one’s intimacy with Mother, by establishing a consistent relationship with Her.

Afterwards, besides the implementation of this heartfelt intimacy, which would nourish our faith in return, one could increase the importance of the topics of prayers, in order to reach, in a later stage, the complete surrender. The process would be like peeling an onion, with the goal to get rid of all the peelings and reach the core.

In the esoteric Christian Novel, Zanoni (Edward Bulwer Lytton, 1845), reaching the core is described as the encounter with the ‘Guardian of the Threshold’, the final battle, the ultimate difficulty. The root-belief to exist as an individual. The thought ‘I’.

Unless one understands that this core did never exist as such, that this root was also a belief, though the 1^st one, and dive into its complete surrender, its death. While continuing to live.

¹ Agenda, June 24, 1961

² The Mother, Questions and Answers, April 28, 1951

³ The Practice of the Integral Yoga, Jugal, Kishore Mukherjee

Conflict Anatomy

Today, we face an increasing amount of conflicts and a lower quality (if possible) of these conflicts that degenerate into verbal and physical violence amongst people who may have committed to a meaning-oriented life.

Meanwhile we discuss at length on how to solve a conflict, and we do find innovative tools to address conflicts and to restore the confidence and the friendship between people. Some things work and other do not work, leaving us frustrated and sometimes grumpy.

Now let us go back to the origin of a conflict. Do we really know what a conflict is and how it starts? Are there pre-conditions for a conflict to happen? Are there any other conditions in which a conflict would have a chance to happen?

If we could know a bit more about the process that is in motion for a conflict to raise, we would probably know better, not only how to address it, but also how to prevent it. We could change the pre-conditions or prevent them to happen. We could change the parameters that lead to blindly fight with one another, and definitively shift this vicious paradigm that endlessly makes conflicts happen and expand. We could redefine our living conditions, in order not to solve conflicts in a satisfactory and innovative manner, but for conflicts to have no more possibility to arise and to develop at all.

The conflict and the mind:

Our mind is constantly updating. In a total subjective, while unconscious, process, it re-shapes its reality by merging memories with new information occurring within and without, in order for its experiences to make sense and to match its beliefs. Hence, it is endlessly creating more sophisticated (though human) ways to relate to its inward and outward world. As the mind sophisticates itself more and more in each instant, by acquiring more knowledge and experience, everything tends naturally to increase. And so does the conflict and everything human unless one is really dedicated to his spiritual path.

The main feature of the mind, its ‘raison d’être’, is the ego, the sense of separation between ‘me’ and everything which is not ‘me’. Therefore, everything which is not ‘me’ nor ‘mine’, that occurs in my life, is spontaneously and unconsciously assessed and judged from this primal sense of ‘me’. No way to pretend that we are the one who does not assess nor judge, since it’s a subconscious pattern of the ego to self-explain and self-justify oneself according to one’s environment. The one who says she/he does not judge nor label the other, really does not know what happens within.

A conflict starts with a disagreement between two people or clusters. How is it possible? A disagreement rises when one party stands for an opinion which is in opposition to the opinion of the other party. Now, let us examine whether an opinion is valuable enough, regardless the topic, to generate a conflict between 2 parties. Let us examine what is an opinion, and in which context an opinion may be possibly taken as the truth.

How real is a conflict?

In the pyramid of the needs, the first few layers match the basic human needs whereas the top layer matches the spiritual needs. A conflict belongs necessarily to the bottom layers, which are basically human, because there is no possible disagreement at the highest layer of the pyramid, since the needs at this stratum are not any more human but spiritual. In other words, disagreements and conflicts only appear when the primal human needs are challenged.

On the other hand, Neuroscience reaches Sri Aurobindo and Mothers’ teachings, stating that everything is illusory and does not exist as such. Neuroscience teaches us that one only sees what he believes, and that one is constantly creating his reality, which matches perfectly what is expected and possible to happen.

For instance, since our brain is not multitasking, focusing on one point makes everything surrounding this point disappear. It is not an assumption but a fact! Focusing on a particular item shades the surroundings of the focus. What seems to be seen however is a complete illusion, because our brain is re-creating the surroundings of the point we are looking at. This phenomenon is happening intensely and rapidly in our reality because our sight is shifting from one point to another with an average of 3 times per second.

Furthermore, what is happening with the sight is also happening in the brain. Indeed, similarly, focusing on one aspect of a topic, for instance the conflict, makes everything surrounding this aspect vanishing as if it has never existed! My brain is constantly re-creating an apparent reality, based on memories and beliefs, a reality which exists only for me.

What we are fighting for during a conflict simply does not exist for good, as it is entirely constituted of memory and imagination.

Then, what is the point to fight with someone for something that does not exist, or exists only for a remarkable short time?

What an illusion but our life!

The ‘old-fashioned’ way to behave in a conflict

How to make one understand that conflict is an ‘old-fashioned’ way to behave? How make one understand how ridiculous she/he is to continue to fight and argue endlessly on a topic which has already passed for long? How to bring the evidence that forgiveness is a much more powerful tool than resentment? How to bring the scientific/spiritual, while common-sense proof that a “free-of-conflict relationships” is the best way to relate with one another, especially in a spiritual place?

Beforehand, to avoid redundancies, let us summarize some well-known facts, explained in previous articles:

• 2 adults are 50/50% responsible in the way their relationship evolves
• Reaction (rather than creation) is the easier and usual way to behave, as it comes spontaneously from the lower part of our brain, the reptilian, which is linked to safety
• Conflict always nurtures back conflict, whereas unexpected goodwill breaks the pattern of the conflict growth
• Buckminster Fuller, Albert Einstein and Ramana Maharshi, from a different angle, state that we cannot solve a problem on the same level on which it has been created
• The mind does not make any difference between past, present and future since the same neuronal connexions are activated. “We suffer more often in imagination than in reality” (Seneca)
• We are not multitasking
• On an average of 60 000 thoughts per day, 80% are identical to yesterday’s
• One only sees what she/he thinks
• One cannot force oneself not to think of something
• Thoughts, emotions and bodily sensations are entangled in a same process
• After 40, an individual is constituted of 90% automatic unconscious patterns
• Hebb’s rule states that 2 information (thought, sensorial, event, etc.) that happen simultaneously in our environment, link themselves for the unique reason of their synchronicity
• Neurogenesis (the constant production of new synapses and neurons) and neuro-plasticity (the constant possible re-wiring of new ways of information in our brain) allow us to constantly re-shape our mind
• A brain alone does not function properly, it needs another one to interact

Fraternal and free-of-conflict relationships should be our natural way to behave. However, as in all ‘powerful-spiritual’ places in the world, things are quite different on a day-to-day basis. Although we have more strength to achieve our goals, due to our Masters’ spiritual support, we encounter more important challenges, for the same reason. The more capable we are to handle issues, the more sophisticated and challenging the issues are. Especially in relationships. Sometimes, though, difficulties seem more salient, as they are acknowledged publicly, but spiritual progress continues anyway in a discreet manner.

The syllogism of a “free-of-conflict relationship”.

Ex. 1. Socrates is a man, 2. all men are mortal, 3. therefore Socrates is mortal.

The following syllogisms show the evidence and the good-sense of a free-of-conflict relationship. Furthermore, it also shows that it is truly easier to live without conflicts than with.

Major premises (1) as well as minor premises (2) of the syllogism are well-established facts, without any possible reservations. Like a game, a major added to a minor lead to an amazing conclusion (3), every time different, but constantly aiming for an irresistible understanding. The syllogism of a “free-of-conflict relationship” emerges so evidently, that we will surely question ourselves on how it is still possible that we continue to behave collectively from the same tamasic pattern of egoistic behavior.

Shifting of paradigm, from a traditional human relationship to a “free-of-conflict relationship”, only requires innovation, good sense, good will, and perseverance. And a certain part of sacrifice, as well. A few pioneers who are willing to sacrifice their individual egoistic comfort zone to reach a medium level towards a definitive fraternal relationship would be a valuable asset. Silently but firmly, from their profound inner commitment, they would become powerful enough to pull up the rest of the community. Who will join the team?

A few possible major premises of the syllogism about non-conflicts:

• A few individuals resolutely focused can change a larger group of people. Every one might remember this experiment in Washington DC, in July 1993, where a coherence group of 4,000 Transcendental Meditation members led to a decrease of 23.3% reversal in the predicted violent crime trend. This is not a scoop in any spiritual place, where numerous members are steadily focusing their attention and prayers towards a good development of the city. This is helpful for the implementation of a “free-of-conflict relationship” atmosphere.

• The Intuitive mind is not an assumption, but a fact. It is located slightly above our physical head. “It is then possible to adopt a different and a more direct method, not to refer all our thought and action to the Lord secret in the heart-lotus but to the veiled truth of the Divinity above the mind and to receive all by a sort of descent from above, a descent of which we become not only spiritually but physically conscious. The siddhi or full accomplishment of this movement can only come when we are able to lift the center of thought and conscious action above the physical brain and feel it going on in the subtle body. If we can feel ourselves thinking no longer with the brain but from above and outside the head in the subtle body, that is a sure physical sign of a release from the limitations of the physical, and though this will not be complete at once nor of itself bring the supramental action, for the subtle body is mental and not supramental, still it is a subtle and pure mentality and makes an easier communication with the supramental centers.” Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga II, The Intuitive Mind.
  
  

• Mirror neurons and Behavioral Synchrony are well-known facts, as well, in the field of Neuroscience. They explain that the brain of a human being, like all beings of a same species as fish or birds, has the natural and spontaneous capacity to match any other human being or group he/she may come across. Behaviors are contagious, either sane or insane. Unless one sharpens constantly his/her consciousness by focusing on the Divine, one may tend to follow the lower part of mankind by unconsciously listening to one’s basic propensities, or imitating his/her neighbor.

• To do as if, or how to change without moving a little finger, is a remarkable and powerful tool! The capacity that allowed us, when we were kids, to pretend we were a cow-boy, a doctor, a nurse or a pilot, is the same that leads us to a panic attack today. The mind does not make any difference whether the situation is real, whether it is a memory or a fantasy, as the same neuronal connexions are activated. Today, there are numerous people who come to see a psychologist or a healing practitioner in order to be relieved of troubles that, in fact, do not exist but in their thoughts. But the thing is that these thoughts became so real and concrete that they have created diseases or physical troubles. The capacity of the mind to make a thought real, for a higher purpose or for a lower one, is stupefying. This capacity is also the one which is used by sportsmen to overcome their current capacities and gain the tiny second that makes them a champion. Just by doing as if!

What about doing as if we abide already to the Divine part of the pyramid of needs?

In his letter of April 7, 1920 to his young brother Barin, Sri Aurobindo writes: “I do not want hundreds of thousands of disciples. It will be enough if I can get a hundred complete men, purified of petty egoism, who will be the instruments of God”

A few possible minor premises of the syllogism about non-conflicts:

• The sense of guilt to not have behaved correctly can lead one to endless and desperate suffering for something he/she has done or said, as nothing definitively disappears in one’s mind. Let us imagine a person of great consciousness, who has created an accident which has led in return to a definitive loss of another person. At first, we naturally start to blame the 1^st person and try to support the 2^nd. However, the question remains to know which person will suffer the most, and for a longer period of time? The one who had the definite loss or the one who caused the loss?
• The sense of guilt is really interesting for us, on the spiritual path, because it reflects a possible constant inner struggle between the Psychic Being and the Ego, in case of “inappropriate behaviour”. Whenever a certain level of spiritual growth has been reached, it becomes much more uncomfortable for one to continue to behave like before.
• The power of an insight is that it brings sudden knowledge, or sheds new light on something that was previously, and since long, understood from a different angle and/or wrong perspective. There is a before and after an insight, and one cannot pretend anymore not to know if one knows. One can eventually pretend that he/she does not know or is not aware of something, but it will create internal struggle because he/she will witness the contradiction within. In the case of a wrong behaviour or a lie, there is no way to insist at length in order to make one admit his misbehaviour, since he/she is already perfectly aware. Depending on the state of consciousness of the one who lies or misbehaves, this kind of behaviour can be very damageable for the Psychic Being and could lead to further disorders, be they mental, emotional or physical. NB: This premise is not in contradiction with (d)

• The power of the “adverse forces” on our spiritual path are equally powerful than our capacity to overcome them. Overwise, we would not even be aware of them. That also means that we should not pretend to be overwhelmed by the external circumstances, since we have created them, and we have the abilities to deal with them.

• The tiredness to be constantly angry and upset versus the joy to be alive. Carrying upset and anger requires a constant attention, whereas being spontaneously in the flow requires nothing but to breath and to remain in the joy to be alive. This is already well known to everyone.

• At some point, one could envision the “power of sacrifice”. Are we ready to behave consciously in a different manner? “You will need much endurance, much perseverance and courage and an untiring goodwill. Look and see if you are capable of having all this, and then start. But once you have started, it is finished, there is no going back anymore; you must go the very end.” (The Mother, Words of the Mother, vol 6, p 441). This last quote of Mother could be probably remind the one from Luc 6:29. “To him who strikes you on the cheek, offer also the other”. This extremely innovative way to relate to the other party in a conflict, invites us to behave not any longer from a Human perspective but from the Soul perspective. Whenever 2 parties are involved in a conflict, the one who withdraws first is actually the stronger one, regardless the ‘apparent’ consequences for his life, health, or belongings.

A few possible conclusions of the syllogism of a non-conflict:

Now, let us play to create all the beautiful syllogisms we can imagine, which will enhance our capacities to relate to one another. Let us be confident: all the conclusions are natural and true since the premises are also true!

Reminder: Major Premise + Minor Premise = Irresistible conclusion

e + g = irresistibility of a free of conflict relationship

b + h = the power to neutralize the adverse forces

b + j = the power of the collective sacrifice to the World

etc.

Please, associate other major and minor premises, play and organize your own syllogisms on non-conflicts!

Possible features of a conflict (non-exhaustive):

Further aspects of the topic should be tackled from different angles. Let us look at some other elements which may be approached with regards to the development of a conflict.

• Needs for clarity on the topic at the origin of the disagreement: When a conflict starts, it generates in its development side-effects and consequences, not directly related to the topic itself, but that may possibly be harsher than the actual disagreement, making it difficult, at a later stage, to distinguish what the conflict clearly is.

• Timeline to address a disagreement: Due to the inner (illusory) reality of the actors involved in the disagreement, it is constantly changing depending on the circumstances, moods, inputs, etc. Then, the longer the conflict lasts the more unconnected assumptions may occur, leading to more difficulties in solving the initial disagreement.

• Self-nourishing power of a conflict: As a morbid effect (still to be understood), a conflict contains within itself the power to nourish itself endlessly, compelling the protagonists to forget its origin. A spontaneous insult, made by one, for no apparent reason but his bad mood, may harvest another insult in return, which will then lead again to another one, etc. The whole process will then justify itself whereas there was no reason in a first place for the initial rudeness to be pronounced. In this case a conflict rose from nothing!

• The drop which make the glass overflow: Frequently, the rise of a conflict between 2 parties, is only the tip of the iceberg, the trigger that makes the flow of concerns unbearable. Thus, it is the constant responsibility of the protagonists in a relationship to assess whether the climate in their relationship is good or bad. The drop is only the means to understand that the glass was already too full, for too long.

• The number of participants as well as the amount of information and aspects of a specific conflict, makes this conflict exceedingly difficult to address. Whereas a disagreement may happen concerning a tiny aspect, all the number of participants and/or information may lead the situation to an inextricable ending. The sophistication of the mind could be possibly another parameter to increase the difficulty to address a conflict, whenever this ‘smartness’ is at the service of the ego, rather than at the service of the higher part of the pyramid.

• The amplitude of the feelings and the long history between the 2 or more participants in conflict makes things difficult to address, since we may hate proportionally to the way we loved. Cases of conflicts within couples and/or families are the most complicated to untangle since there are so many expectations and disappointments among the members, who still in fact continue to love each other.

The technique of ‘zoom and counter zoom’: Possible double back and forth in the resolution of a conflict

• Come back to the origin of the very conflict and commit to forgive and apologize for whatever happened after the apparition of the very conflict (whatever it is, and the possible more painful aspects of what happened after) which was due to our basic’s human tendencies of reactivity (explain eventually …). If not possible, if some consequences of the ‘very’ conflict are more painful than the conflict itself, put them aside and commit to addressing them separately, having in mind that they (probably) would have not raised without the conflict. This technique could be presented as a spiritual one and would be presented as an invitation to bring consciousness to the topic. It and would require strong willingness to understand in a neutral way the process of development of any conflict, from its root to all the additional parameters and facts that happened afterwards and that have actually no necessary connexion to the conflict itself. In the end, if the proposal doesn‘t get the agreement of one or the 2 parties, it would become a silent assessment of the possible lack of goodwill of the parties to solve the issue, and may put one or the 2 parties in an awkward position, in which they would state their goodwill to solve the conflict by actually doing nothing to implement it concretely. This issue should be addressed separately

• Once the root-conflict has been identified, place it into a wider picture (like an un-zoom), which is the picture of the ‘kind’ of conflict, to which this particular conflict belongs. Then, try to solve the kind of conflict, or at least propose a solution to do so, in this wider picture. Doing that, we re-locate our conflict into a larger scale, a ‘kind’ of conflicts, which has an immediate consequence that we are not anymore identified to our particular one. Attempting to solve the ‘kind’ of conflicts in a larger picture will have as a natural consequence to make our personal conflict vanish into the larger scale. The second positive ‘side-effect’ of this technique is that we transform our particular conflict in a meaningful way to help the community, and we receive gratitude in return to be part of it

Other aspects to be eventually tackled in later stages:

• What about the detractors who will argue that this is impossible to achieve?
• How to implement future innovative behaviours while continuing with rules for addressing conflicts?
• In a relationship of 2 parties, should a possible conflict require both parties or can only 1 party be in conflict?

21-days to re-shape our mind, individually and collectively. Great! Let’s take this chance!

We may, or not, believe Maxwell Maltz’s experience* that affirms the power of a 21-day commitment to change a habit. In fact, this belief has influenced so many people around the world, and is part of so many current self-development practices, that today, it is no longer important to know whether Maltz’s statement is scientifically proven or not. To some extent, when millions of people believe something, it makes it powerful enough to become true, because our belief creates our experience, our reality.

So, how many days to change a habit? How many days to re-shape a mind?

What is a habit?

A habit is a propensity, easily and rapidly created, to repeat the same thought or behavior. As soon as one thinks, or does, the same thing 3 times or more in a row, one will think or do the same thing again, without necessarily being aware of the process.

Habits take their strength and their compelling power from 2 ways of the human being’s functioning, which unfolds simultaneously and unconsciously. The first is the natural way the Divine has planned mankind’s evolution. The brain consumes the larger part of energy of the
whole body-mind organism, despite of its weight, which is about 3% of the total body weight. Thus, in order for the brain to evolve sustainably will require the natural tendency to decrease the amount of energy it consumes at each instant. Practically, avoiding the consumption of too much energy, means for the brain to use the same neuronal connections that are already functioning. Therefore, thinking and doing things the same way, without considering other alternatives.

The mind is like a plow pulled by 2 cows. Once the farmer has put the plowshare at the beginning of the furrow, the plowshare will follow the its path. The deeper the furrow, the easier the plowshare is guided. At some point, the plowshare will guide the cows, by preventing them to change direction! The more a habit has been validated over long, with the tacit agreement of the thinker, the more the habit is deeply rooted in the system. Of course, here, we only consider the habits that have been created in the current life and we don’t take into consideration the generational and systemic patterns.

The subconscious ritualization of our life:

The second way of functioning, as a consequence of the first, is our unconscious inclination to ritualize our whole life in short sequences. This segmentation of our routine makes things easier to handle, and brings back an unconscious sense of comfort and safety that nourishes
our primal reptilian brain. We may observe ourselves and assess, from the time we are waking up until going back to sleep, to which extent our daily life is segmented by rituals that unfold one after the other, always in the same way. Let’s take a short glance at our breakfast time. How many amongst us wake up in the same manner, get out the bed in the same way, do things before breakfast, take always the same beverage, at the same place, at the same time, in the same cup, with the same clothes, with the same food, looking at the same items (be it the flowers or the computer), listening to the same radio-channel in the morning, etc?

From this assessment, it’s is obvious that 80% of our thoughts will be similar to the ones of yesterday. Breakfast may be the first of our rituals. If we don’t pay attention, the whole course of our day is ritualized in the same manner.

A few years back, there was an advertising on a French channel, about a kitchen brand. A man, during a match of football, was running from the living room to the kitchen in total darkness, moving easily from one drawer to another, from one cupboard to another, and in this total obscurity, finding easily everything he was looking for, without losing a single instant of the match which was playing on the living room’s TV. The advertising was supposed to show how the kitchen was smartly conceived and organized, when no more attention needs to be paid, nor light is necessary to find anything. In fact, the advertising showed us the perfect way in which the brain had previously registered all the details of the kitchen by repeating the same gestures, so that the man became capable to do it all in in the dark, while listening to a match of football and eating a snack, before getting back to the living room.

How changing of environment becomes a great chance for changing our patterns:

Habits and environment are deeply entangled. When habits are nourished for long, they becomes patterns. When we behave like our parents, who behaved like their own parents, patterns pass down through generations. Then, to justify our lack of courage to change, we argue that our patterns are written in our DNA. That is untrue, since we know nowadays that we can change our DNA by changing our subconscious mind.

A habit is linked to the environment because the environment (meaning all the detailed parameters and circumstances under which the habit has been created: space, time, sensorial information, etc.) is part of the process of its creation. Whenever the environment changes, the habit may persist or not, depending on how long it is in place with the person and depending on the willingness one wants to invest to change. The habit may persist for a while, as an autonomous force. However, something is missing in the natural unfolding of the habit, which is the missing of the circumstances in which the habit has been created and usually unfolds. The habit may pop up, but with a subtle sensation of something missing, which will occur simultaneously.

Therefore, when it appears difficult to change a habit, or to get rid of a pattern, let’s change our environment. It becomes easier for a smoker to stop smoking when he travels. During his journey, all his environment is new, nothing calls back the cigarette. He may be surprised how he might even forget that he used to smoke.

When our environment changes, individually and, moreover, collectively, let’s be full of gratitude for this blessing, as at that very instance a natural way to re-shape our mind and our attitude towards one another can manifest.

Today, with the confinement, in the world in general and in Auroville in particular, we are experiencing a profound change of environment, which may first lead to confusion and distress. Our habits are agitated, our patterns feel threatened. We may start to wonder about the common sense in which we behaved before this deep shift. Of course, we may continue to behave temporarily like before, but also, evidently, the possibility to behave differently raises, as a consequence of the lack of one essential parameter for a pattern to unfold smoothly: the environment.

Gratitude for this 21-day confinement:

Today it is not that important, whether we are comfortable or not with this 21-day confinement. Whether this law of 21 days for changing a habit is true or not doesn’t make any difference.

Today, let’s behave innovatively! Let’s consider our habits and patterns, individually and collectively, and decide to change! Let’s welcome this little spark of difference and confusion that resonates in us and in our environment, at each second of these new circumstances! Let’s grasp it with gratitude. Let’s finally become compassionate with one another rather than narrowing ourselves down in our so well-known patterns that used to lead us to nothing but selfishness!

Let’s not allow our habits to overcome our new environment and become strong and powerful so that no new conditions will never have any chance to sweep them away.

https://jamesclear.com/new-habit

Facing mental challenges on the spiritual path: reaching equanimity

“Everything pushed to its extreme is transformed into its opposite,” says a Chinese proverb.

The teachings of Sri Aurobindo and Mother give us knowledge and tools to address mental challenges on the spiritual path in an innovative manner.

One of the important challenges on the spiritual path is the difficulty to assess our daily progress. We forget that the consciousness self-appropriates in real time all new information as if it had always been part of its system, and it is therefore sometimes difficult to distinguish what has just appeared from what has been acquired for a long time. Daily illuminations are expected, whereas progress is tenuous and fragile. On the other hand, our progress concerns first the psychic being, so that then changes in our personality may appear.

Another challenge is the persistence of old behaviours. Sometimes we feel like we are stagnating, especially when attitudes that we thought had disappeared since long, reappear. In fact, nothing totally disappears from our system. The uniqueness of our experience means that each of us keeps a conscious or unconscious memory of everything that has happened, of all that we have done and of all that we could have done. A cloud of information constantly surrounds us, like a tank of memories and possibilities.

These old behaviours also represent those antagonistic forces that battle in us, which share our energy and our subtle bodies, and which are perhaps more to be considered as autonomous electromagnetic forces, endowed with a certain power. These thought-forms that we have enlivened during all these years, or that come from older memories, hypnotize us in return. Whenever we fall into a bad habit, a pattern of our personality, we feed electromagnetic fluid, pure vital substance to these constructions that took shape little by little, and who are today real demons who threaten us at every moment.

If we stop feeding them, they will gradually break up, but without ever disappearing completely, as they are part of our system. They are a part of us. When a break of vigilance appears, a surprise, a painful event, a shocking experience, a great stress, our psychic armour may crack. A temporary weakness settles in, which will lead us to lower our defences, while the disappearance of the filters that usually kept away the triggers of our old ‘bad’ habits, will provoke the resurgence of old automatisms, perhaps forgotten, for us to react the exact same way as years back.

These two challenges, the difficult evaluation of our progress and the persistence of old automatisms, make logically appear a third one, the instability of our moods, the difficulty of installing a fair equanimity in our daily lives. This results in a considerable amplitude of the fluctuations of our mental, emotional or even physical states, making us pass from exaltation, from a feeling of total power and irresistibility, to an impression of stagnation, a disappointment, to ‘still and always react in the same way’. These amplitude differences for the mind are like sudden changes in temperature for the physical body. Changing several times a day from cool air conditioning to heat, puts our body through huge discomfort. We sometimes tell ourselves that it was better to stay in a certain state rather than being constantly shifted from one to the other. We also think that, maybe, our previous comfort, when we were still in ignorance and we had not yet started on this spiritual path, was much more comfortable.

Finding the balance We should understand how much suffering procures us the sensation of being alive, because it gives us an object with which to moan and to struggle against. On the other hand, equanimity can give us the feeling that nothing is happening, apparently since the profound changes interest the Psychic Being first. One of my former patients has succeeded, after many sessions, to come out of his depression. Later, he told me that he felt much better but that he was deeply bored.

When periods of lows last for long, the depression threatens to settle in. An innovative therapeutic behaviour would advise to to balance the mood swings, by lowering the peak of the mood rather than waiting to be at its worst. When one is at the lowest, in a depressive state, the neuronal connections are altered, it is difficultto align two constructive thoughts; one could even have difficulty speaking. Our behaviour becomes erratic. It is easier to intervene when we are at our best, but we do not think about it, our euphoria is such that we do not want it, we prefer that this state is prolonged endlessly.

The subconscious mind does not have the same behavioural charter as the conscious one, the reasoning part. In the subconscious mind, there is no distinction between the good and the bad, the true and the false, which are concepts proper to the conscious part. The subconscious mind of a human being is like a 6-year-old child, whose only goal is its safety, before its happiness. It can also be compared to a machine, saturated with programmes that have been implemented throughout our lives by event /emotion associations that continue to run until they have been deprogrammed.

If the subconscious mind does not distinguish between good and bad, according to our conscious human and societal norms, it will only consider the intensity or the amplitude of the emotions and not the history of the original behaviours. Thus, if we intervene on our behaviour when we are in a phase of exaltation, the information will be passed to the subconscious mind that the amplitude is too important. Further, it will have the natural tendency to level it out when the amplitude is identical at the lowest, during a phase of depression. So to say, to bring it back to a balanced level. In addition, the approach will be easier because the cognitive possibilities are intact, or even higher for the return to equanimity, while they are lessened in a phase of depression.

The new difficulties encountered on the spiritual path are always the sign of abilities to solve them, otherwise they would not occur. Ask an eight-year-old child to solve a second-degree mathematic equation; he will not even understand that there is a problem, because he has never come across this matter. Ask the same question to a sixteen-year-old, he will understand the problem because he has already encountered and studied it in school.

In fact, the greater the difficulty the more obvious is the progress on the path, because the difficulty is always accompanied by the ability to overcome it. Alternatively it may prompt the memory that the difficulty has already been solved. We are sometimes almost on a hill, whose shape ahead prevents us from seeing the landscape behind. As soon as we reach the summit, a new hill might present itself. This means that we have already reached the top of the first to be able to see the next one.

In a battle between enemy armies, or a conflict between inner forces, strategists will always try to destabilise the one who represents the greatest danger, while they will ignore the one who is harmless. Being confronted with a mental magnetic storm always testifies our ability to overcome it. To be confronted with these great electromagnetic turbulences, which are these inner demons, attests of our capacity to overcome them.

Otherwise it gives us the opportunity to turn them into friends, which will ultimately lead to the same result: Love and Compassion, to oneself this time, are the only truly effective weapons.

Spirituality and mental topics

An Amerindian tradition reports that shamans, during initiation rituals, offered to the novices substances that propelled them into spiritual worlds, journeys they undertook accompanied, with well-prepared protocols. During these trips, they experienced inner states of consciousness that radically changed their perception of the world and themselves. When the novices returned, the shamans invited them to find these spiritual and inner worlds, only helped by their intention and their personal work.

At the end of these initiations, supporting the student was always required, because if the access to the invisible worlds may be linked to gain new knowledge and possibly new powers, it may also provoke the raising of unexpected threats. The traditional esoteric teachings, illustrated by the new techniques of medical imagery, teach us that the use of drugs, techniques or prayers create possible access to these parallel and / or inner worlds. However, they also increase the porosity of some subtle bodies,
through which adverse forces may interfere and possibly disturb the subject and influence his behavior.

Therefore, on the spiritual path, one may experience concomitantly new sensations and insights, while being exposed to new dangers.

Since ever, but especially today, when Earth’s vibratory frequencies are becoming thinner, individuals and groups are experimenting such new states of consciousness. These experiences may be the peak of a true and authentic inner quest, but they may also arise unexpectedly, caused by substances or practices, or by any situation from which may result a sudden change in existential connection that is reasonable and well-known: fear, confusion, mourning, burn-out, accident, etc.

An intense spiritual experience, even a brief one, places the individual in areas of consciousness that completely transcends his ordinary reality, and can have unexpected consequences on his behavior, his personal development or his social situation. Cases are regularly reported of people who had an experience of spiritual awakening that they could not manage themselves or with a psychological support, and who become totally disoriented and fragile.

In the absence of adequate outside help, these people may face their family or friends, who will refer them to the traditional family doctor who, due to lack of knowledge in the matter and facing a person temporarily disconnected from the conventional social reality with the symptoms of a mental disorder, would act accordingly, so to say at the best by medication, at the worst by hospitalization.

In fact, the line between the spiritual path and the mental disorder can be volatile, especially in our traditional occidental societies, where the standard is required and any deviation from the norm is a potential threat. Many people today can find themselves in asylums, due to their inability to communicate a transcendent inner state, and due to the inability for allopathic medicine to explain and manage suchspiritual breakthroughs.

In the light of the teaching of Sri Aurobindo, and more specifically of the Mother who detailed many similar experiences in “the Agendas”, certain behavioral disorders and/ or “so-called” mental pathologies could today be tackled under the spiritual angle and a new existential understanding, possibly accompanied by new behavioral and / or therapeutic tools.

Like a computer that constantly downloads new updates, human consciousness appropriates in real time any new information it receives, from inside as from outside, as if it had always been part of its system. However, on the spiritual path, any new breakthrough, understanding or insight may be accompanied by new dangers. Some adverse forces involved, which may facilitate access to the inner worlds, may cover
the subject, making him taking insights for the goal, proposing to the personality to use them for egocentric purposes.

Nevertheless, the acknowledgement of these phenomena may bring us new tools to avoid or neutralize the threats. Here again, necessary help is required, in a reassuring and disinterested presence, supported by love and compassion, that are capable to disactivate any attempt to interfere with antagonistic forces.

The spiritual path is becoming more and more demanding for isolated individuals as for the community. It requires a more sustained focus and a commitment towards the unique goal. In Auroville, as in all places of high spiritual energy in the world, we are confronted with such situations, where individuals experience modified states of consciousness, with consequences for themselves and the community. We constantly try to address these consequences collectively, from a practical point of view, by imagining new kind of organizations that are responsible, and from a spiritual point of view, by innovative behavior of help and support.

The basis of this innovative behavior is always love and compassion, which are the only effective tools to neutralize adverse forces.