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ARTArticleSave the Oceans to Save the Planet: Part 2 Developing SolutionsIn part 1 we provided an overview of the existential crisis facing the oceans, and by extension, the survival and the quality of life of humanity and other life on the planet due to the challenges to which the oceans are being subjected. That overview makes it clear that the oceans are integrated closely with events, not just in the oceans themselves, but on the land and in the air. Climate change, pollution,rARTArticleScience and OccultismScientists study the hidden, let’s admit, the occult powers of the material world and of our lives. While they clothe their study in words that imply a process that would distinguish what they do from the general term of ‘occultism’, if we reflect carefully we can see that science is essentially a subset or branch of the larger field of occultism that does not restrict itself solely to material energies or material laws of development, but which delves into the nature of existence and the operation of unseen forces across multiple aspects and planes of our existence.ARTArticleSeances, Automatic Writing and Attempting Contact With the DepartedThe vital nature gets excited by things that seem to be “occult” or that promise some kind of interaction with the “dearly departed” loved ones who have passed away. An entire industry has arisen to cater to people who are seeking solace, contact or information from the deceased. Some of this, as was shown by the debunking done by Harry Houdini in the 1920’s was purely fraud. Very little of this actually relates to real experiences between people living in this world and those in the “other side camp”.ARTArticleSeeking and Attaining Mastery Over the Touches of NatureSeekers throughout the ages have struggled with the issue of how to deal with the pressures and circumstances of the exte al world. They recognise the swing of emotions, feelings and thoughts that occur as they receive input from people and events. They recognise that sometimes this causes them to lose control and do things that are counter-productive, or which create enormous internal stresses and disturb the calm of the mind and emotions, the nervous and vital framework and even the operations of their physical bodies.ARTArticleSmall Vital Entities and Their Action in Human LifeThe Mother relates two stories here about interactions she personally had with some small entities. One group were of good will and acted to remind her of things when she was otherwise distracted. She was able to pay attention to their hint and ensure that all worked out properly. It takes a great deal of quietness of the mind and development of a sensitivity to the touches of these vital entities to be able to recognise the hints and make use of them.ARTArticleSolving the Existential Crisis of Our Lives Through the Evolution of Consciousness: My Personal Journey in the Adventure of ConsciousnessWe struggle with finding meaning in our lives. There is so much strife, so much confusion, so many issues that threaten our very existence as a species. We view enormous changes to the environment, the ever-dwindling supply of fresh water, the imminent collapse of the ocean fisheries, increasing pollution, the sixth planetary species die-off, the clear-cutting of forests and the inexorable warming of the planet, with all the follow on effects that these things have, including income inequality, unequal access to the world’s resources, and the consequence of war, famine, mass migration, etc.ARTArticleSources of the Higher Forms of ImaginationHow does imagination work? Why do some people seem to have a large amount of active imagination and others very little?ARTArticleSpiritual Experience Transcends the Mind’s UnderstandingThe mind cannot comprehend experiences with which it has no familiarity. Sri Aurobindo describes a spiritual status that is experiential in nature. When there is such an experience, the mind tries to describe or transcribe that experience into its normal process of linear thought expressed in words. Usually this transcription process falls far short and the mind is left with a confused and vague sense that there is something beyond its realm.ARTArticleSpiritual Growth and the Development and Use of New Powers of ConsciousnessSpiritual seekers harness the powers of body, vital being, emotions and mind in order to develop and eventually attain the goal of their seeking. The power of dedicated work, the power of the breath, the power of devotion, the power of concentration all have a part to play in the seeker’s journey toward spiritual fulfillment. This is considered to be acceptable.ARTArticleStages of the Non-Reactive State of BeingMost people do not reflect on the state of their inner being. They tend to live on the surface and respond or react to whatever happens to come their way. They become happy or unhappy based on how circumstances impact them. They are essentially under the control of exte al events or happenings and are blown about like leaves in the wind.ARTArticleStatic Power and Dynamic PowerThere are numerous types of power at work in the world and in us. Some of them can be viewed as ‘dynamic’ powers, powers with movement, action and outward facing application of force. Others can be viewed as ‘static’ powers, powers of holding, receiving and containing, powers of withstanding the actions of force. For the most part, we tend to notice and pay attention to the dynamic powers more than those that are static in nature. We tend to favor ‘offense’ rather than ‘defense’, so to speak.ARTArticleSubtle Energetic Interchange, Sexual Relations and the Inner ConsciousnessHuman interactions, human relationships have both a surface meaning and a subtle hidden energetic action. One of the most powerful vital energies in human life is sexual relations. By examining how this force operates, both overtly and on the occult levels, we can quickly see the mechanism that takes place with all vital forces at work in human affairs.ARTArticleSuggestions Coming from the Vital World Also Impact Our ResponsesThe vital worlds are generally unseen and unrecognised by us, as they do not take physical forms in the same way as our exte al world within which we live and act. This does not imply, however, that they do not have interaction with our world and the beings, including ourselves, that inhabit this physical world. Almost everyone has the experience of some event that occurs in a dream-state or in other circumstances where our mind and senses are shifted away from the focus and attention demanded by the outer world. The phenomenon of astral projection is one such circumstance.ARTArticleThe Action of Imagination in the Manifestation of Thought into Exte al CircumstancesThere are several points worth considering with respect to utilizing imagination and some of the unanticipated issues that are based primarily in the lag between formulation and accomplishment of the imagined form. Visualization and use of the imagination can act to turn a vague idea or sense into something that can realize itself in action. Every thought form moves out into the world and tries to effectuate itself. If it is weak and transient, the impact may be slight.ARTArticleThe Action of Spiritual Force Is Generally Conditioned by the Field Within Which It WorksWe tend to operate under the fallacy that any spiritual force that is operative will automatically, and completely, achieve its intended result without difficulty. We forget, thereby, the way forces actually work in the world. There are always starting points, conditions, limitations, and opposing forces, as well as the object upon which the force is working and its status, and the overall situation within which the operation is taking place.ARTArticleThe Action of the Higher Planes Is Needed to Bring Forth the Manifestation of Life, Mind and Spirit in the Material WorldMatter, prepared and encoded with the dataset required to bring forth Life, does not spontaneously, on its own express the life-form for which it is encoded. The seed, or the egg, remains potential, latent, until it is acted upon by a force exte al to it. In the case of the seed of a plant, the sun’s force combined with the action of moisture, leads to the sprouting of the seed. In the case of an animal’s egg, we find that a heat source is needed to warm the egg until it is ready to hatch.ARTArticleThe Action of the Superconscient in Our Exte al LivesJust as forces and vibrations act upon us that vibrate below our normal human level of perceptive range, and bring in much of the past, subconscient, dark and ignorant reactions that drive much of our human life, so also there are forces and vibrations that enter us from above our perceptible range, which have their source and origin in what we may call the ‘superconscient’ levels.ARTArticleThe Action of Vital Entities in Human Life for Their Own Sense of EnjoymentHuman beings love subjecting others to practical jokes. But very likely, we are not the only beings who suffer from this malady. Many people have had the experience related here by the Mother about searching for things, sometimes looking in the place where those things are, but not finding them. Then later, they suddenly become visible again.ARTArticleThe Attraction of the Spiritual Life to Beings of the Vital WorldBeings of the vital worlds in many cases interact with and act upon the material world in which we live and act as embodied beings. What is the attraction? Vital beings generally crave energy, excitement, novelty, the ‘food’ of their existence. If they are seeking to harvest such energy from human beings, they look for individuals who can provide them sustenance with less cost and risk, as do predatory species we see in the world.ARTArticleThe Awakening of the Yoga Force in the IndividualWhen we consider the ‘awakening of the Kundalini Shakti at the base of the spine, we frequently imagine some kind of dramatic experience, some palpable energy, some noticeable force operating and moving up through the experiential body. And in some cases, this actually does occur this way. For the most part, however, the awakening of the Yoga-Force is more subtle. As a chakra ‘opens’ it becomes receptive to energies that vibrate at the frequency that it is able to receive, similar to a radio receiver tuned to a specific channel.ARTArticleThe Awakening of the Yoga-Shakti and Its Unification With the Divine ConsciousnessSri Aurobindo describes the very traditional understanding of the awakening of the yogic force in the being and its ascent upwards from the Muladhara Chakra to the crown of the head where it meets the Divine Consciousness and thereby brings into the being the higher force to transform the life and the nature. He points out elsewhere that the Force can also enter from above and work its way downward, and that method may prove safer for the seeker.ARTArticleThe Best Way of Widening One’s ThoughtIf we observe carefully our interactions with others, we may note that when another person is describing or explaining something, our minds are eager to jump in, express a different point of view, or simply remain fixed in our own ideas and mindset; in other words, ‘hearing’ without ‘listening’. This standpoint keeps us locked into a very narrow view of existence, expressing the habitual stance of the mental consciousness which sees things in a ‘linear’ fashion generally.ARTArticleThe Body ConsciousnessWe tend to take for granted the innate consciousness and capacities of the body. Much of what takes place in the body is done by systems that are far more complex, and far more subtle, than anything the mind can actively control. In fact, we find that frequently, when the mind intervenes, or the vital nature imposes itself, we tend to upset the natural harmony, balance and operation of the body in its normal, healthy, energetic state.ARTArticleThe Characteristics and the Power of an Integral FaithWith our standpoint based in the mental consciousness we tend to believe that if we think something, it is ‘real’. This viewpoint fails to account for the different parts of the being, and their different modes of response. For example, we may hold a mental conception to not fear something, and yet, when confronted with it, despite the mind’s best efforts, we find our vital being reacting with fear and we feel palpitations or weakness in the body itself, symptoms of a visceral fear that we are experiencing despite the mind’s effort to overcome the fear.ARTArticleThe Collective Soul of Human Groupings and the Expression of Collective KarmaThe individual is not an island unto himself; he is part of a series of larger groupings, such as family, clubs, teams, tribes, school classes, corporate entities, community, states and nations, religion, etc. The collective energetic expression of each of these groupings develops a way of life for both the individual and the group.ARTArticleThe Concrete Reality of Spiritual Force and Its ActionThere is a clear divide between those who have actually experienced the action of spiritual or yoga-force, and those who have a mental conception of spirituality but have not had a strong experience thus far that makes the theory into something real and actual for them. Once the experience is there, it is impossible to deny its authenticity or power and it is no longer a subject of internal debate as to whether it is real.ARTArticleThe Conditions of an Effective FaithIn his book The Mother, Sri Aurobindo defines the conditions and qualities of faith needed to overcome all obstructions or disasters: “To walk through life armoured against all fear, peril and disaster, only two things are needed, two that go always together — the Grace of the Divine Mother and on your side an inner state made up of faith, sincerity and surrender. Let your faith be pure, candid and perfect.ARTArticleThe Creation of Karma — the Interaction of Forces and ConsequencesMany people consider the concept of ‘karma’ to be some form of moral retributive factor that brings back to an individual the ‘fruits’ of his actions. Thus, they believe, if a man does something considered wrong, dishonest, underhanded, the universal law of karma will eventually right the score. In the Christian religion this takes the form of belief that those who are oppressed and treated badly here on earth will eventually go to heaven and enjoy ete al life, while those who do the oppression will suffer endless torture in hell. We always look for some direct line of ’cause and effect’.ARTArticleThe Cycle of Development in Nature and the Focus of AttentionWe observe everywhere that Nature has a development cycle, with focus of attention on what needs to take place at each stage of that cycle, rather than simply jumping ahead to an 'end result' of the development. Thus, we see that plants undergo a stage of sprouting from seed, and the first focus is on putting out a root system and leaves, then stems and trunks, more leaves, and eventually they come to a stage of flowering and bearing of fruit, which then leads to a new seed generation and repeat of the cycle.ARTArticleThe Deeper Meaning of Will-PowerWe speak generally about exercising will-power, particularly when it relates to overcoming an impulsion or attempting to achieve some particular result. We may want to overcome an addiction, or follow a particular diet and we struggle to carry out our resolve. We make ‘new year’s resolutions’ to create a form of will for the upcoming year, to somehow improve ourselves in some way from our current status.

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