- Has Yoga evolved over time?

- How does Yoga impact our collective life?

- How to practice Yoga in the busy daily life?

A talk by Dr Alok Pandey.

Follow-up question: Different units of collectivity and swadharma?

The question asked are: 1. Conscious will and dynamic action (beyond the three gunas). 2. How to understand leela of bhagwan?

A talk by Dr Alok Pandey

A NOTE: श्रीअरविन्दोपनिषद् śrīaravindopaniṣad is one of the Sanskrit writings of Sri Aurobindo which consists of only 27 lines. Its essence has been summed up as: Brahman is real, the Jagat is also real and the Jagat is fully pervaded by Brahman who is one without a second and the jiva himself is Brahman. The entire thought style and presentation is Upanishadic, arising from Sri Aurobindo’s own spiritual experiences. To read this Upanishad and listen to its rhythmic chanting visit: https://upanishads.org.in/upanishads/10
[both note above and the recitation are by Dr. Sampadananda Mishra]

The questions asked were:

– Is the unity in Akhand Bharat primarily cultural, spiritual, or political?

– Given today’s geopolitical conditions, what are the challenges and opportunities for fostering cooperation and unity among the nations of the subcontinent? How do geopolitical factors impact the concept of Akhand Bharat?

– How does the diverse demography of the region influence the idea of Akhand Bharat? Does the presence of different religious and ethnic groups pose challenges or opportunities for unity?

– How do changing mindsets among the younger generations impact how people perceive the concept of Akhand Bharat? What role does generational perspective play in this discussion?

– What is the relevance of cultural unity in power and geopolitics scenarios?

– Is Akhand Bharat possible only on historical and cultural backgrounds?

– Can we define or redefine the Akhand Bharat concept in the context of globalization?

– As Sri Aurobindo says, spiritual nationalism was essential during the national movement. Therefore, it was necessary to define Akand Bharat during those days, but today, how to situate the concept of Akand Bharat without a National Movement?

– Does the Akhand Bharat concept solve the problem in India, which has become a global problem like in Israel?

– How does the concept of Akhand Bharat accommodate Islamic countries, which are opposite to Indianness or Indian cultural heritage?

A question has been asked on the practice of offering.

– Sharing experiences
– Sankhya and multiple purushas
– Reading Sri Aurobindo
– Meaning of the term Psychic being
– More on the psychic being
– The Mother’s Yoga in the physical
– Ultimate Goal of the spiritual seeker
– Sadhana and sickness
– Making choices and the Divine Will
– Dealing with situations.
– Wars
– Getting rid of attachment.
– Story of Ghatotkach and Abhimanyu
– Soul’s true aspiration
– Reading Savitri without understanding.

The questions asked were:
1. Development of the parts of being.
2. How Soul grows through experiences.
3. Can one aspire for a certain kind of next life?

The questions asked:
– Discipline vs spiritual practices.

The questions asked were:
1. Shraddha rituals and it’s significance.
2. Evolution acceleration caused by Supermental manifestation.
3. Aspiration needed while departing from the body and preparation of next birth.

The questions asked were:
1. Subliminal and it’s discussion in written literature.
2. Lucid dreams and hallucinations.

The questions asked were:
1. Insincerity and its origin.
2. Difference between self, individual and being.

The questions asked were:
1. Reconciliation of opposites.
2. How to know ones swadharma?
3. Deriving energy from different source.
4. Divine life in a divine body.
5. Getting over craving for food.

The questions asked were:
1. Maya and Nature
2. Central being, Jivatman, Soul and Psychic being.
3. Formative power.

A talk by Dr Alok Pandey. 

Follow-up questions included:

1. The need for unlearning
2. Contagion of consciousness
3. Yoga and education

The questions asked were:
1. How does one know if one has a call or if it is deception of mind to escape?
2. On yoga
3. How to apply Savitri to mental illness?
4. What can I do every day to get closer to the psychic in me?

The questions were:

1. The Mother’s Yoga in modern life context.
2. Please explain: ‘Death is a process of life’.
3. Aspiration of the soul in mind and vital.
4. Advice to make the best of Spiritual retreat.

A follow-up question: Is Auroville a spiritual city or just an international township?

The questions were: 1. How attachments masquerade themselves. 2. How to deal with attachments which are becoming a weakness.

The questions asked were :
     – Learning from Nature;
     – Need of a framework;
     – The necessity of school.

A talk by Dr Alok Pandey at the Aha Kindergarten in Auroville.

“VICTORY TO THE MOTHER

India is free but she has not achieved unity, only a fissured and broken freedom…. But by whatever means, the division must and will go. [Sri Aurobindo]

O our Mother, Soul of India, guide us so that we may be always on the side of great ideals and show to men thy true visage, as a leader in the ways of the spirit and a friend and helper of all the peoples. [The Mother]

A new spirit of oneness will take hold of the human race. [Sri Aurobindo]”

The questions asked were:
1. Does surrender build a home for the Mother
2. The opening in Rigveda explained
3. Whom does Satyavan represent in Savitri.

1. Traumatic experiences such as sexual harassment how to reconcile with it? Given if we have to again encounter the person who did it on a regular basis?

2. At this juncture, when we are trying to enter the professional world, there’s constant unsettling within me with how to progress ahead. There are certain things that I might want to do, and certain others that I don’t want to do as much it comes with certain perks majorly financial- all this with expectations from the family and desire to be financially independent. How do I navigate?

3. How do we understand death? It is as much a part of our life as birth, however there a denial about it. Is it just the death of the body or is there any way to view is, to make life more meaningful not just see our existence by some mere chance

4. At times it so happens that there’s a thing I have been wanting to do. And when the moment comes, I am doing it but something would happen in the middle of it or when i am just about to complete it, that there would be urges in me which just don’t want to complete it. They will not let me do, I find myself torn apart. I want to do, and there’s a part in me which is not letting me. What is it? Why does this happens? What is the way out?

5. How to be with a child and how to be like a child. Keeping the inner wonder and curiosity alive.

6. As a generation now we are becoming aware more and more aware about our civilization, its culture and its spiritual roots. Also, understanding how we have been fed wrong information over the years in school. So why it’s that? Is it because of the evolution of consciousness or the political influence that is taking place?

7. When sharing our personal journey whether in spiritual or experiences in life how do we know its out of our ego that we are sharing or its an act of giving.

8. How do we develop ourselves to be able to help people in their pain and suffering? Especially in metal health.

9. Does modern clinical psychology give space for these extraordinary experiences?

10. Every time darkness in some form or the other comes up in life, sometimes in form of relationships, in form ambition, in tiny forms. How to be aware of it how to pull ourselves back. How to be in touch with the divine in the worst days

11. Strengthening the ego before transcending it (individuality).

A talk by Dr Alok Pandey for Sri Aurobindo Yoga Foundation of North America, New Jersey, USA.

THE MOTHER: Religion belongs to the higher mind of humanity. It is the effort of man’s higher mind to approach, as far as lies in its power, something beyond it, something to which humanity gives the name God or Spirit or Truth or Faith or Knowledge or the Infinite, some kind of Absolute, which the human mind cannot reach and yet tries to reach. Religion may be divine in its ultimate origin; in its actual nature it is not divine but human. In truth we should speak rather of religions than of religion; for the religions made by man are many. These different religions, even when they had not the same origin, have most of them been made in the same way. We know how the Christian religion came into existence. It was certainly not Jesus who made what is known as Christianity, but some learned and very clever men put their heads together and built it up into the thing we see. There was nothing divine in the way in which it was formed, and there is nothing divine either in the way in which it functions. And yet the excuse or occasion for the formation was undoubtedly some revelation from what one could call a Divine Being, a Being who came from elsewhere bringing down with him from a higher plane a certain Knowledge and Truth for the earth. He came and suffered for his Truth; but very few understood what he said, few cared to find and hold to the Truth for which he suffered. Buddha retired from the world, sat down in meditation and discovered a way out of earthly suffering and misery, out of all this illness and death and desire and sin and hunger. He saw a Truth which he endeavoured to express and communicate to the disciples and followers who gathered around him. But even before he was dead, his teaching had already begun to be twisted and distorted. It was only after his disappearance that Buddhism as a full-fledged religion reared its head founded upon what the Buddha is supposed to have said and on the supposed significance of these reported sayings. But soon too, because the disciples and the disciples’ disciples could not agree on what the Master had said or what he meant by his utterances, there grew up a host of sects and sub-sects in the body of the parent religion—a Southern Path, a Northern Path, a Far Eastern Path, each of them claiming to be the only, the original, the undefiled doctrine of the Buddha. The same fate overtook the teaching of the Christ; that too came to be made in the same way into a set and organised religion. It is often said that, if Jesus came back, he would not be able to recognise what he taught in the forms that have been imposed on it, and if Buddha were to come back and see what has been made of his teaching, he would immediately run back discouraged to Nirvana! All religions have each the same story to tell. The occasion for its birth is the coming of a great Teacher of the world. He comes and reveals and is the incarnation of a Divine Truth. But men seize upon it, trade upon it, make an almost political organisation out of it. The religion is equipped by them with a government and policy and laws, with its creeds and dogmas, its rules and regulations, its rites and ceremonies, all binding upon its adherents, all absolute and inviolable. Like the State, it too administers rewards to the loyal and assigns punishments for those that revolt or go astray, for the heretic and the renegade.

The first and principal article of these established and formal religions runs always, “Mine is the supreme, the only truth, all others are in falsehood or inferior.” For without this fundamental dogma, established credal religions could not have existed. If you do not believe and proclaim that you alone possess the one or the highest truth, you will not be able to impress people and make them flock to you.

This attitude is natural to the religious mind; but it is just that which makes religion stand in the way of the spiritual life. The articles and dogmas of a religion are mind-made things and, if you cling to them and shut yourself up in a code of life made out for you, you do not know and cannot know the truth of the Spirit that lies beyond all codes and dogmas, wide and large and free. When you stop at a religious creed and tie yourself in it, taking it for the only truth in the world, you stop the advance and widening of your inner soul. But if you look at religion from another angle, it need not always be an obstacle to all men. If you regard it as one of the higher activities of humanity and if you can see in it the aspirations of man without ignoring the imperfection of all man-made things, it may well be a kind of help for you to approach the spiritual life. [CWM 03: 76-78]

Follow-up questions were:
1. The problem of reconciliation in man.
2. Yoga in the animal world through survival instinct.

A follow-up question from the audience was: Divine Mother and Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga. 

A talk by Dr Alok Pandey at Sri Aurobindo Yoga Foundation of North America, New Jersey, USA.

The follow-up questions were:
1. Being a good friend.
2. Connecting to people while conversing.
3. Control of speech and beautiful speech.
4. Love Krishna and become like him.

1. Narcissistic personality disorder in light of Indian psychology (Story of Narcissus and the story of Indra and Virochan is told).

2. It is said: You are where you are meant to be. How true is this? (We hear about: conscious choices, will and attitude, and the choice of Savitri)

3. The explanation of biological changes in Psychological disorders in light of Spirituality.

4. Understanding the works of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother to learn Indian psychology.

5. Promises and goals for self that are not given effort.

6. Lack of zest in daily life.

7. Future of old institutions like Marriage etc. that brings suffering at times.

8. Rituals and strict methods are not needed in spirituality, but for someone who is not ready would it not be hard go forward without these rules.

9. To know different things and do different things but still not able to choose one.

A talk by Dr Alok Pandey at the Sri Aurobindo Integral Yoga Retreat, Greenville, USA.

Dr Alok Pandey and Narad at the 2022 Sri Aurobindo Integral Yoga Retreat, Greenville, South Carolina.

The follow-up questions were:
1. Conflicts in the world currently.
2. Do countries that came up due to political reasons and similar, do they too have nation Soul?
3. Role of America.
4. Comments on Canada and multicultural immigration.
5. Can there be one world government? Can it be positive or dark?
6. Can there be a tipping point?

The follow-up questions were:

• Is pain inherent in evolution or does it come due to our resistance?
• Following societal law cushions life while becoming an individual changes that, how to balance this.
• Seeing Spirituality as an escape.
• Through Love and compassion taking on the burden of others.
• Difference between pain and Suffering.

Closing with a 10 minute-long Q&A session covering the following questions:

1. How to know if the Soul has entered the body.
2. Voices heard in Schizophrenia;
3. Autism;
4. Soul and Psychic being.

A talk by Dr Alok Pandey at Sri Aurobindo Ashram (Van Niwas), Nainital.

The topics include:
– Dharma
– Story of Satyakam Jabali (as a child)
– Story of Shakuntala
– Story of stone throwing at Sri Aurobindo’s dwelling in Pondicherry
– Story of Achilles
– Shiva ji and Afzal Khan
– The truth of yagna

A talk by Dr Alok Pandey at Sri Aurobindo Ashram (Van Niwas), Nainital.

1. Is each soul unique?
2. Soul and Psychic.
3. Moksha.
4. Growth of psychic.
5. Glimpses of soul and identification.

The follow-up questions were:
1. At what different level is the evolution going on?
2. Mental settlement in life and going beyond it.
3. Do we need God’s Grace for liberation?

The following questions were asked: 1. Impact of psychic being on sleep and sex. 2. How to make body the instrument of the divine?

Some questions asked were: 1. Vedas and Vedanta. 2. Karma Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and Swami Vivekananda.

1. I experienced Mother’s grace early on, have been hardworking and I believe in sincerity and truth. Often I am able to forgive people who are dishonest/lack sincerity, I am nice and encouraging to them since I believe they deserve a chance. However, I get do get angry and hold back that anger, though I never express it on them and this leads to a lot of pains and aches. Am I not forgiving them or am I being too harsh on myself? I don’t know what’s happening.

2. I witness difficulty in maintaining moderation in eating. It’s either total abstinence or overindulgence. Some ways, I can sustain moderation and make it part of my daily life?

3. My Ques is related to one of your talks that we heard on Sound health where you suggested to be in a perfect state of consciousness you must Master yourself that nothing affects you at all ..no desire, thoughts, feelings, vibrations, food etc.

4. How does one get to that state practically and sustain that in our day to day life of our mental, emotional, social, and physical demands?

5. How do we work on making our consciousness clear and clean on a regular basis to uplift ourselves to the higher ranges which we May experience for a fraction or a little longer at times, but to make it a conscious practice and how do we know or identify that we are rising and that what we experience is truly a higher range of consciousness and not just our imagination?

6. Can you please provide one powerful intervention to apply for anger management?

7. In one of your talks you shared a healing process of a finger by Dr Hedge, supported by magnetic fields and micro currencies. Which role will this kind of healing play in the future?

8. There are some healing devices using magnetic fields, micro currencies and quantum sensors developed in Russia, US and Germany and maybe other places too. Which role does India play in bringing forth this kind of new knowledge and technology?

9. In Germany Nicola Tesla is widely known. Someone spoke about him being a Vibhuti of Sri Aurobindo. Could you please tell us something about this? Could it be that secular people could find it easier to accept knowledge from a Vibhuti than from the Divine?

10. Could you please explain the role of our receptivity on behalf of the Siddhi Day? How can we increase our receptivity to the Divine?

11. It is said that our gut is our second brain and there’s a very direct relationship between our gut health and our psychological states. Often I witness that whenever I experience gustatory issues, I am very disoriented, confused and irritated. Are there ways to try and come back to balanced psychological states at such times? And if yes, would it also improve my gut health?

12. There is a prayer for the Mother By Dada which you shared in the talks …please can you share it again and also where can we find it?

13. Where can we find the Poem on Divine Maths for children? The world is 0, God is 1…

14. The dream that you had shared about the story of the snake and the couple ..how was it associated with your healing of your illness of piles? Sorry, I didn’t understand, just need clarity.

15. How do we recognise ‘Divine Work’? How can we become exact instruments of Divine Work.

16. How does one use one’s will while being surrended?

Follow-up Q&A include:
1. If someone doesn’t want to take responsibility, can his nature change?
2. Why people who are closest to us hurt us most?
3. Psychic education is easier with smaller children rather than older.
4. How to involve the parents in a child’s Psychic education.
5. Does a soul choose its environment?

Questions & Answers include:

1. How to constantly act out our goal when we are surrounded and bombarded by lots of forces.
2. Divine as the Beloved, what is this relation with Divine.
3. Disinterested work, what does the Mother mean by it.
4. Conflicts in work.
5. Beauty you are my way to Divine.
6. How to know when children have a true calling.

A talk by Dr Alok Pandey with Web International Democratic Education Conference IDEC 2020.

Following the talk, the following questions from the audience were answered:

Q1. What was the third kind of suffering… can you clarify again?
Q2. Can share the aspect of “attachment” in suffering?
Q3. You talked about habitual conditions of the cells, is menstruation a habit in the body? And all the pain it causes to the body and then to other parts of the being… can there be an end to this?
Q4. How to deal with physical suffering? How does one detach from physical pain? And other genetic physical and psychological suffering one inherits which feels like a hard rock to overcome?
Q5. Is seeking yourself selfish when on the other side we can help others..like a jain muni, is he selfish to renunciate everything to find himself?
Q6. So, to procreate is the natures will and not divine will?
Q7. What is a new creation? In what all forms in matter it will manifest or has it already started manifesting?
Q8. How to deal with past memories that come to surface and cause pain?
Q9. Please shed some light on process of matter being divinized?

The focus is on how to deal with the growing fanaticism and evil in the world. Questions on the psychic being and it’s growth.

The third Dr M. V. Nadkarni Memorial Lecture given by Dr Alok Pandey at Savitri Bhavan on August 23 2012

A talk by Dr Alok Pandey at SACAR, Pondicherry

The tenth dialogue on Savitri with Narad in a new format – following Savitri’s themes and perspectives rather than doing line-by-line reading and summary.

The ninth dialogue on Savitri with Narad in a new format – following Savitri’s themes and perspectives rather than doing line-by-line reading and summary.

The eighth dialogue on Savitri with Narad in a new format – following Savitri’s themes and perspectives rather than doing line-by-line reading and summary.

The seventh dialogue on Savitri with Narad in a new format – following Savitri’s themes and perspectives rather than doing line-by-line reading and summary.

The sixth dialogue on Savitri with Narad in a new format – following Savitri’s themes and perspectives rather than doing line-by-line reading and summary.

The fifth dialogue on Savitri with Narad in a new format – following Savitri’s themes and perspectives rather than doing line-by-line reading and summary.

The fourth dialogue on Savitri with Narad in a new format – following Savitri’s themes and perspectives rather than doing line-by-line reading and summary.

The third dialogue on Savitri with Narad in a new format – following Savitri’s themes and perspectives rather than doing line-by-line reading and summary.

The second dialogue on Savitri with Narad in a new format – following Savitri’s themes and perspectives rather than doing line-by-line reading and summary.

The first dialogue on Savitri with Narad in a new format – following Savitri’s themes and perspectives rather than doing line-by-line reading and summary.

The talk and a brief interaction are centered around yogic insights into our body, everyday life and how we can live better and healthier.

Yoga is a concentrated evolution; it is a means of bringing out the highest and deepest possibilities latent in man. Right now our life is hampered and limited in many ways. The human mind and senses as they are presently organized are fundamentally incapable of overcoming these limitations. Yet there is, in man, a quest sublime, to exceed and transcend himself, at arrive at some perfection of his individual and collective existence, to discover his own ultimate Origin which is one with the Source of creation itself. This talk centers around these preliminary considerations and a basic understanding of the fundamental principles of Yoga.

This talk is based on the boons granted to Savitri, especially the Supramental Creation and the coming of a New Race upon earth as envisaged in the passages on pp. 704–710 (B11).

This talk is based on a passage from Savitri pp. 295 – 296 (B2C14), when Aswapati is face to face with the World-Mother and his gesture of complete surrender to Her. It is She who then opens the doors to the Greater Knowledge for him.

This talk is based on the passage in Savitri pp. 345–346 (B3C4), describing Aswapati’s final invocation and the Divine Mother’s sanction of the boon of Her coming.

This talk is based on understanding the symbol behind the characters in Savitri as revealed in the Author’s note, the symbol of Death that surrounds earthly life and its eventual annihilation. The talk also touches upon Tantra. The passages taken up here are from Savitri pp. 480 – 483 and 664 – 667.

This talk is based on pp. 685 – 689 of Savitri. It starts with a question from one of the participants about the problem of action. After initial discussion the conversation turns towards Savitri.

This talk is based on a passage from Savitri pp. 323 – 325, where Aswapati is shown the secret plans of the Supreme that the Divine Mother has hidden in Her heart.

This talk is based on passages from Savitri pp. 312 – 316 where the Seer-Yogi Aswapati stands face to face with the Divine Mother, seeking the fulfillment of his tapasya which is essentially the redemption of all mankind.

This talk is based on a passage from Savitri pp. 69 – 73 (B1C4), where Sri Aurobindo describes the soul as a sailor voyaging through Time towards Eternity. The steps and stages of the journey are beautifully marked through significant images and the eventual goal of the soul’s tremendous adventure.

This talk is about the various aims of human life through which the soul moves along its evolutionary journey. This aim is not so much of a mental choice as of a growing unfolding of the Divine Script in man.