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happypanda) wrote2021-12-12 04:48 pm
happypanda) wrote2021-12-12 04:48 pm
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Sri Rohit Arya on The money Power, Kubera and Sri Aurobindo - part 1
I will be making this into a series of posts because 1. it's long and 2. I have a lot of extra notes to provide to help in appreciation of the kind of information Sri Arya has shared freely.
The Money Power, Kubera and Sri Aurobindo
So today I would like to talk on quite an unusual aspect of power and shakti. Now most of us do not realize that power or shakti comes in multiple forms and the powers interact with each other and that is what keeps the universe going. You know?
So, intellect is a power. Knowledge is a power. Strength is a power. They're all shakti. Beauty is a shakti. Nobody needs to be told that. We can observe it every day.
[Sri Arya laughs]
And each one of these powers...or each one of these shaktis has a sort of guiding principle or manager or god or devata (JMG calls it Aeon - the eternal underlying, guiding principle made manifest). That's what we call it but it basically only means the consciousness that guides it. The consciousness that operates it.
So maybe I'll do a whole series of talks on the power, you know? A whole series of talks on the shaktis.
Today I'd like to start with the basic one.
Money. Yeah?
[Sri Arya laughs looking around at his audience]
That's what gets everybody excited and also because it is in many ways the most misunderstood power. It is the most misunderstood shakti. Now when we say shakti and when we say how the money functions or how it flows it's a sort of vibration of energy that enters you, resides within you and also goes away.
Now you cannot grab hold of a shakti and control it. Number one. You can make your system, your mind, your body, your emotions, your Qi, your brain...you can make it conducive to the shakti so that when it enters you you can utilize it maximum but you cannot grab hold of it and say...you know...insist.."no, now you stay permanently in me."
Yeah. Because it is not like that. And it is not that it comes only once. Shaktis ebb and flow. [makes motion with right hand like a tidal wave]
The powers, there are certain times when your intellect is at a peak. There are certain times when your strength is at a peak. There are certain times when your vocabulary, your speech is a shakti.
No. The shakti ebbs and flows. Now, ok for a guy like me Vak (ie Vox) is always easy. So the shakti is pretty strong.
[note: Sri Arya has clearly spent many prior lives as well as this one practicing his clear-speaking skills. Vak (sanskrit) is the power of speaking, with the implied subtext of speaking well enough the speaker successfully informs or persuades or I suppose, in some instances, threatens an audience. It's Latin cognate is Vox.]
It is pretty predominant but I also know there are days when it's much better and there are days when it's not so good. Like last week that talk was extraordinary except there's a computer (inaudible - apologies to the readers - he probably said something like 'glitch').
[Sri Arya laughs]
The shakti was very different that week. It was very palpably different. Very obviously different.
So the money shakti, if you become intense enough, if you become...progress enough in your yoga the money shakti has a golden hue. Golden color. When the vibration enters you...basically through your mooladhara and your swadhistana, your two lower chakras. Which is why if your two lower chakras are damaged you will very rarely get money.
But here is the extraordinary thing. If your heart chakra is closed or damaged or resistant or you suffered a lot of emotional trauma the money shakti is blocked from entering. So even though the shakti operates in the two lower chakras...the funny part is if your heart is not functioning, your heart chakra is not functioning, it's not vibrating correctly...either there is a lot of trauma or there is a lot of pain and suffering and things like that...(pauses)....
It's not necessary but very often abundance doesn't come for that one reason. Now money is not quite the same as abundance. Now we say Lakshmi is the goddess of wealth. Wrong. Wealth is an aspect of the abundance which she brings and that abundance, that overall bounty that comes to you is known in our culture as Sri [note: pronounced Shree]. When a person is operating at the peak of efficiency, effectiveness ...everything in life is going well...Lakshmi brings Sri.
[apologies Sri Arya starts speaking in what I think may be Hindi before finally switching back to english]
...So actually Sri Lakshmi.
Now Sri Lakshmi is not exactly the same as Vishnu Patni Lakshmi.
[Sri Arya bursts out laughing]
People make that mistake also but that is a story for another time. So when you're in Chidambaram Temple they tell you that, "This is the form of the goddess Saraswati" (points one direction), "This is the form of the goddess Lakshmi" (points another direction), "This is the form of the goddess Kali." (points 3rd direction) They tell you that.
So that confusion of Vishnu Patni Lakshmi...the wife of Visnu is Lakshmi..is not necessarily so. Not necessarily so because, you know, whenever she takes Avatar (ie birth) she doesn't have a very good time of it. And she was born as Sita. Gets banished. Gets kidnapped. Can't be with her husband. Has to bring up the kids alone. And as (inaudible) she has slightly better time of it but you know her husband has 1607 other wives (bursts out laughing).
[note: he's saying these women from Hindu legends were women born with Sri but Sri in a much reduced state. So they had just enough Sri they were legendary upper-caste women but their sri was afflicted enough that part of their legends are of the troubles they went through. In astrological terms their "Aeon" was in detriment phase.]
***Sri Arya continues****
So...that's not exactly Sri and Sri is that quality of success. Sri is the shakti of success. When somebody is really in the Zone as they call it and you can see that they're radiating a certain thing. You know, that is when Sri is there. Which I've said this before but it's always worth repeating that is the reason why kings used to play dice. They used to gamble on Diwali [note: Diwali - the Festival of Lights during India's deep winter]. Because if the Sri is with them they will win. If they start losing it means that the Sri has decided to abandon them. So that is the reason why people gamble on Diwali. Just to check, 'is the Sri with me?'
So the Sri Lakshmi is of a particular kind of vibration. But it (inaudible)...helps with happiness, good inter-personal relationships, family relationships, children. All those things. Nice life, comfortable surroundings, all those things constitute 'shri'. Whatever you would think is a perfect life. Out of it of course - all these things - lot of this requires money which is why they keep showing her holding out the money. [laughs]
That is only a symbol that you can get all the good things out of life. But she is not the power behind money. Not really. She is the power behind abundance. She is the power behind the concept of Sri. This is a very (inaudible) concept. Maybe one day I will talk about Sri a lot. Today let's stick to money.
So the power behind money or the guardian of money or the Lord or Devata of money - ganesha as he's called - (inaudible) - is Kubera.
This is Kubera.
[Sri Arya holds a rather large-ish statue of Kubera he had sitting on a coffee table nearby].
I don't think people can see very well because of the light.
[he's right. It is hard to see the statue because the lighting for this video is subpar but it's easy enough to google images of Kubera.]
[holds up statue even higher]. This is Kubera. Now, normally Kubera is like a king. He's always presented as a king because he's rich. And he has very interesting (hard to hear word but from context it seems to be a sanskrit word for 'companion') because he has a mongoose as a vahana.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vahana]
You know? Now the reason why he has a mongoose as a vahana is because treasures were supposed to be guarded by snakes (ie..Nagas). And the mongoose is the only animal that (breaks off into laughter).. venture into the....(breaks off and grins)
[my note: here is a website with very clear images of both Kubera and Lakshmi. Kubera on the Left, Lakshmi on the right.
https://tinyurl.com/38cxj2sf ]
Sri Arya picks up again finally:
So that is one aspect and in this other hand he has an Ahna in his right hand.
If you look at the Ahna it has hundreds of seeds. And each one of them can grow into (another) one...so he gives you something that will keep multiplying.
****
[my note: Interesting. I also note this is essentially one of the most primal powers that that most-Faustian of European creations - the Transnational Corporation - globally craves - all keep trying to re-ignite it when the supporting factors that allowed this Aeon (that Kubera mastered) to grant this kind of jaw-dropping wealth-scaling are clearly waning worldwide.]
***Sri Arya continues***
So that is the reason in his right hand he holds that. It's very interesting. There's this magnificent Kubera statue in the giant caves at Elota.
[Apologies, I don't know how the name of these caves is spelled. This is just the phonetic pronunciation I heard Sri Arya use so I did my best. If anyone knows the actual caves being referenced please let me know so I can edit it correctly.]
...Sri Arya continues...
Magnificent! Meaning larger than life size. About 7 foot tall (ie - 2.1336 m). Red color. Somebody went and chiseled off the Ahna from his hand.
[Sri Arya has a belly laugh about it.]
And that is the symbol of multiplication. Plus it's very healing.
[a disciple interjects in a language I don't recognize...possibly Hindi?]
Sri Arya replies:
It's given to people recovering from illness...(My note: maybe that person asked a question related to Kubera's other superpowers?)
Sri Arya replies again:
Plus it's very healing...
....It has all those multiple qualities...you know...yogic...ayurvedic qualities...quite other than...
But it is so funny to see that one in Elota...you know that...(mimics chiseling and laughs)...chiseled it off straight away.
[laughs again]
So because it was probably an energized murti and when the murti is energized the shakti in the Kubera murti does stay in the Ahnat.
(laughs)
Took it..somebody decided, "let me take it away!"
(laughs again)
[Note for context:
[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murti ]
****Back to Sri Arya***
Now he's also shown as - [holds up the statue] - his foot is on a shanka, on a conch shell. His foot is on a shanka. Now the reason why that is there that is why...(pauses)...you know the conch is a symbol for the respiration. It is a symbol of the trio of the prana.[Note: the trio in this case being Prana, Samana, Apana] He controls the breath perfectly which means he has self-control.
[my note: There is far more depth to this than Sri Arya is letting on. According to Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, Healthy samana - the prana vayu associated with the sun, willpower, digestive power, healing superpowers, etc - grants the power to follow the very breath itself through an entire cycle of breathing without even once having any intruding thoughts or distractions arising. This is what all these mindfulness meditation seminars of the breath are aiming for but it needs a very healthy body first and very healthy samana vayu to be able to truly notice the breath itself, not just noticing the sensations of breathing. What most people these days notice are the sensations of breathing, not the actual breath itself. The two are not the same. Sadhguru says the way societies are run these days is harsh on samana vayu. Most people in developed countries and "newly industrializing countries" have a samana vayu that's in detriment.
One who has that kind of control, like Kubera, will be able to properly follow the breath itself for the entire cycle and pinpoint what it is doing inside themselves exactly during the whole cycle. A healthy samana vayu is almost a prerequisite for this. The very quality of the air you breath out becomes greatly purified such that all life around you will become healthier and revitalized as well. (read Franklin Merrill-Wolf's account of how the air one breaths in and out noticeably changes in Experience and Philosophy [isbn: 0791419649].
****Sri Arya continues*****
Plus he has this little tummy. That is also, basically because we used to live in such harsh conditions that a person who could grow a big belly was really, really rich. (laugh)
So that sense...and he's also known as the dikpala.
[my note: There are four deities that are guardians over the cardinal directions. Indra to the east, Yama to the south, Varunya to the west and Kubera to the north.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardians_of_the_directions ]
****Sri Arya continues*****
Dikpala means guardian directions. Guardian protector. He is the pala of the dika. He is the dikpala of the north. He protects the area of the north. Which in India that is Kailasha, Himalayas' Shiva but he's also known as Isha Maitra, a 'Friend of Shiva'. He's quite funny because he's the richest man in the universe. And Shiva is pretty hell anyways - the way he wanders around there.
[Sri Arya laughs]
******The following is Sri Arya's exposition on some of story of the Ramayana and it's deep Tantric symbolism littered throughout the tale.
****Sri Arya continues*****
And again people do not know this but Lanka did not belong to Ravana. Lanka belonged (originally) to Kubera. He and Ravana have the same father. And his name is actually Vibhishana. Then the word Ravana became so completely unpopular that then his name became Kubera. Because they didn't want to be associated [ie. didn't want him to be associated in the public's mind with his demon half-brother]...you know there actually is...his original name is Vibhishan..
He's the elder brother of Rama. [According to Hindu legend Rama was an Avatar of Vishnu, the Sustainer].
Yeah so when he took over Lanka then Shiva told him, "You come and stay with me. Come stay at my place." Then they built for him what is called Alakapuri - The Secret City of Wealth.
******To Be Continued*********
The Money Power, Kubera and Sri Aurobindo
So today I would like to talk on quite an unusual aspect of power and shakti. Now most of us do not realize that power or shakti comes in multiple forms and the powers interact with each other and that is what keeps the universe going. You know?
So, intellect is a power. Knowledge is a power. Strength is a power. They're all shakti. Beauty is a shakti. Nobody needs to be told that. We can observe it every day.
[Sri Arya laughs]
And each one of these powers...or each one of these shaktis has a sort of guiding principle or manager or god or devata (JMG calls it Aeon - the eternal underlying, guiding principle made manifest). That's what we call it but it basically only means the consciousness that guides it. The consciousness that operates it.
So maybe I'll do a whole series of talks on the power, you know? A whole series of talks on the shaktis.
Today I'd like to start with the basic one.
Money. Yeah?
[Sri Arya laughs looking around at his audience]
That's what gets everybody excited and also because it is in many ways the most misunderstood power. It is the most misunderstood shakti. Now when we say shakti and when we say how the money functions or how it flows it's a sort of vibration of energy that enters you, resides within you and also goes away.
Now you cannot grab hold of a shakti and control it. Number one. You can make your system, your mind, your body, your emotions, your Qi, your brain...you can make it conducive to the shakti so that when it enters you you can utilize it maximum but you cannot grab hold of it and say...you know...insist.."no, now you stay permanently in me."
Yeah. Because it is not like that. And it is not that it comes only once. Shaktis ebb and flow. [makes motion with right hand like a tidal wave]
The powers, there are certain times when your intellect is at a peak. There are certain times when your strength is at a peak. There are certain times when your vocabulary, your speech is a shakti.
No. The shakti ebbs and flows. Now, ok for a guy like me Vak (ie Vox) is always easy. So the shakti is pretty strong.
[note: Sri Arya has clearly spent many prior lives as well as this one practicing his clear-speaking skills. Vak (sanskrit) is the power of speaking, with the implied subtext of speaking well enough the speaker successfully informs or persuades or I suppose, in some instances, threatens an audience. It's Latin cognate is Vox.]
It is pretty predominant but I also know there are days when it's much better and there are days when it's not so good. Like last week that talk was extraordinary except there's a computer (inaudible - apologies to the readers - he probably said something like 'glitch').
[Sri Arya laughs]
The shakti was very different that week. It was very palpably different. Very obviously different.
So the money shakti, if you become intense enough, if you become...progress enough in your yoga the money shakti has a golden hue. Golden color. When the vibration enters you...basically through your mooladhara and your swadhistana, your two lower chakras. Which is why if your two lower chakras are damaged you will very rarely get money.
But here is the extraordinary thing. If your heart chakra is closed or damaged or resistant or you suffered a lot of emotional trauma the money shakti is blocked from entering. So even though the shakti operates in the two lower chakras...the funny part is if your heart is not functioning, your heart chakra is not functioning, it's not vibrating correctly...either there is a lot of trauma or there is a lot of pain and suffering and things like that...(pauses)....
It's not necessary but very often abundance doesn't come for that one reason. Now money is not quite the same as abundance. Now we say Lakshmi is the goddess of wealth. Wrong. Wealth is an aspect of the abundance which she brings and that abundance, that overall bounty that comes to you is known in our culture as Sri [note: pronounced Shree]. When a person is operating at the peak of efficiency, effectiveness ...everything in life is going well...Lakshmi brings Sri.
[apologies Sri Arya starts speaking in what I think may be Hindi before finally switching back to english]
...So actually Sri Lakshmi.
Now Sri Lakshmi is not exactly the same as Vishnu Patni Lakshmi.
[Sri Arya bursts out laughing]
People make that mistake also but that is a story for another time. So when you're in Chidambaram Temple they tell you that, "This is the form of the goddess Saraswati" (points one direction), "This is the form of the goddess Lakshmi" (points another direction), "This is the form of the goddess Kali." (points 3rd direction) They tell you that.
So that confusion of Vishnu Patni Lakshmi...the wife of Visnu is Lakshmi..is not necessarily so. Not necessarily so because, you know, whenever she takes Avatar (ie birth) she doesn't have a very good time of it. And she was born as Sita. Gets banished. Gets kidnapped. Can't be with her husband. Has to bring up the kids alone. And as (inaudible) she has slightly better time of it but you know her husband has 1607 other wives (bursts out laughing).
[note: he's saying these women from Hindu legends were women born with Sri but Sri in a much reduced state. So they had just enough Sri they were legendary upper-caste women but their sri was afflicted enough that part of their legends are of the troubles they went through. In astrological terms their "Aeon" was in detriment phase.]
***Sri Arya continues****
So...that's not exactly Sri and Sri is that quality of success. Sri is the shakti of success. When somebody is really in the Zone as they call it and you can see that they're radiating a certain thing. You know, that is when Sri is there. Which I've said this before but it's always worth repeating that is the reason why kings used to play dice. They used to gamble on Diwali [note: Diwali - the Festival of Lights during India's deep winter]. Because if the Sri is with them they will win. If they start losing it means that the Sri has decided to abandon them. So that is the reason why people gamble on Diwali. Just to check, 'is the Sri with me?'
So the Sri Lakshmi is of a particular kind of vibration. But it (inaudible)...helps with happiness, good inter-personal relationships, family relationships, children. All those things. Nice life, comfortable surroundings, all those things constitute 'shri'. Whatever you would think is a perfect life. Out of it of course - all these things - lot of this requires money which is why they keep showing her holding out the money. [laughs]
That is only a symbol that you can get all the good things out of life. But she is not the power behind money. Not really. She is the power behind abundance. She is the power behind the concept of Sri. This is a very (inaudible) concept. Maybe one day I will talk about Sri a lot. Today let's stick to money.
So the power behind money or the guardian of money or the Lord or Devata of money - ganesha as he's called - (inaudible) - is Kubera.
This is Kubera.
[Sri Arya holds a rather large-ish statue of Kubera he had sitting on a coffee table nearby].
I don't think people can see very well because of the light.
[he's right. It is hard to see the statue because the lighting for this video is subpar but it's easy enough to google images of Kubera.]
[holds up statue even higher]. This is Kubera. Now, normally Kubera is like a king. He's always presented as a king because he's rich. And he has very interesting (hard to hear word but from context it seems to be a sanskrit word for 'companion') because he has a mongoose as a vahana.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vahana]
You know? Now the reason why he has a mongoose as a vahana is because treasures were supposed to be guarded by snakes (ie..Nagas). And the mongoose is the only animal that (breaks off into laughter).. venture into the....(breaks off and grins)
[my note: here is a website with very clear images of both Kubera and Lakshmi. Kubera on the Left, Lakshmi on the right.
https://tinyurl.com/38cxj2sf ]
Sri Arya picks up again finally:
So that is one aspect and in this other hand he has an Ahna in his right hand.
If you look at the Ahna it has hundreds of seeds. And each one of them can grow into (another) one...so he gives you something that will keep multiplying.
****
[my note: Interesting. I also note this is essentially one of the most primal powers that that most-Faustian of European creations - the Transnational Corporation - globally craves - all keep trying to re-ignite it when the supporting factors that allowed this Aeon (that Kubera mastered) to grant this kind of jaw-dropping wealth-scaling are clearly waning worldwide.]
***Sri Arya continues***
So that is the reason in his right hand he holds that. It's very interesting. There's this magnificent Kubera statue in the giant caves at Elota.
[Apologies, I don't know how the name of these caves is spelled. This is just the phonetic pronunciation I heard Sri Arya use so I did my best. If anyone knows the actual caves being referenced please let me know so I can edit it correctly.]
...Sri Arya continues...
Magnificent! Meaning larger than life size. About 7 foot tall (ie - 2.1336 m). Red color. Somebody went and chiseled off the Ahna from his hand.
[Sri Arya has a belly laugh about it.]
And that is the symbol of multiplication. Plus it's very healing.
[a disciple interjects in a language I don't recognize...possibly Hindi?]
Sri Arya replies:
It's given to people recovering from illness...(My note: maybe that person asked a question related to Kubera's other superpowers?)
Sri Arya replies again:
Plus it's very healing...
....It has all those multiple qualities...you know...yogic...ayurvedic qualities...quite other than...
But it is so funny to see that one in Elota...you know that...(mimics chiseling and laughs)...chiseled it off straight away.
[laughs again]
So because it was probably an energized murti and when the murti is energized the shakti in the Kubera murti does stay in the Ahnat.
(laughs)
Took it..somebody decided, "let me take it away!"
(laughs again)
[Note for context:
[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murti ]
****Back to Sri Arya***
Now he's also shown as - [holds up the statue] - his foot is on a shanka, on a conch shell. His foot is on a shanka. Now the reason why that is there that is why...(pauses)...you know the conch is a symbol for the respiration. It is a symbol of the trio of the prana.[Note: the trio in this case being Prana, Samana, Apana] He controls the breath perfectly which means he has self-control.
[my note: There is far more depth to this than Sri Arya is letting on. According to Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, Healthy samana - the prana vayu associated with the sun, willpower, digestive power, healing superpowers, etc - grants the power to follow the very breath itself through an entire cycle of breathing without even once having any intruding thoughts or distractions arising. This is what all these mindfulness meditation seminars of the breath are aiming for but it needs a very healthy body first and very healthy samana vayu to be able to truly notice the breath itself, not just noticing the sensations of breathing. What most people these days notice are the sensations of breathing, not the actual breath itself. The two are not the same. Sadhguru says the way societies are run these days is harsh on samana vayu. Most people in developed countries and "newly industrializing countries" have a samana vayu that's in detriment.
One who has that kind of control, like Kubera, will be able to properly follow the breath itself for the entire cycle and pinpoint what it is doing inside themselves exactly during the whole cycle. A healthy samana vayu is almost a prerequisite for this. The very quality of the air you breath out becomes greatly purified such that all life around you will become healthier and revitalized as well. (read Franklin Merrill-Wolf's account of how the air one breaths in and out noticeably changes in Experience and Philosophy [isbn: 0791419649].
****Sri Arya continues*****
Plus he has this little tummy. That is also, basically because we used to live in such harsh conditions that a person who could grow a big belly was really, really rich. (laugh)
So that sense...and he's also known as the dikpala.
[my note: There are four deities that are guardians over the cardinal directions. Indra to the east, Yama to the south, Varunya to the west and Kubera to the north.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardians_of_the_directions ]
****Sri Arya continues*****
Dikpala means guardian directions. Guardian protector. He is the pala of the dika. He is the dikpala of the north. He protects the area of the north. Which in India that is Kailasha, Himalayas' Shiva but he's also known as Isha Maitra, a 'Friend of Shiva'. He's quite funny because he's the richest man in the universe. And Shiva is pretty hell anyways - the way he wanders around there.
[Sri Arya laughs]
******The following is Sri Arya's exposition on some of story of the Ramayana and it's deep Tantric symbolism littered throughout the tale.
****Sri Arya continues*****
And again people do not know this but Lanka did not belong to Ravana. Lanka belonged (originally) to Kubera. He and Ravana have the same father. And his name is actually Vibhishana. Then the word Ravana became so completely unpopular that then his name became Kubera. Because they didn't want to be associated [ie. didn't want him to be associated in the public's mind with his demon half-brother]...you know there actually is...his original name is Vibhishan..
He's the elder brother of Rama. [According to Hindu legend Rama was an Avatar of Vishnu, the Sustainer].
Yeah so when he took over Lanka then Shiva told him, "You come and stay with me. Come stay at my place." Then they built for him what is called Alakapuri - The Secret City of Wealth.
******To Be Continued*********