Committing to Spiritual Evolution

Pravrajika Vivekaprana, of Sri Sarada Math in India, gave this interview during a drive up the California coast with Joan Shack and Caroline Giorgi. Mataji was on an extended tour in the United States in the summer of 1996. facilitated by Sri Sarada Society. (The Ridgely estate, mentioned in the interview, would become Vivekananda, Retreat Ridgely).

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Sri Sarada Society (SSS): We are very happy to have you with us in America, Mataji. As you have been traveling to various places, do you have any impressions to share with us?

Pravrajika Vivekaprana (PV): There is a tremendous seeking, this I feel—seeking for solutions to various problems, social and spiritual. The distinction between social and spiritual is not always clear in people’s minds. The spiritual search emphasizes the cause of things within ourselves. Social concern means looking for causes outside. These are different levels of the same thing, but the clarity of “difference” between them must be there.

SSS: With the exception of the Native American tradition, there does not seem to be a natural sense of sacred place among us. Can you explain this as it is understood and experienced in India?

PV: The sense of the sacred is rooted in ancient India, handed down traditionally. How it began can’t be said. Today it is part of our heritage to think of places as sacred, such as the meeting of two rivers, a mountain top, a site linked with mythology in our thought, birth places of incarnations, and manifestations of divine power. These are spread all over India.

A sense of the sacred adds a dimension to our way of looking at physical space, taking one to a deeper level of understanding. On a pilgrimage, people relate to each other without knowing names and language. The destination itself binds people together at a new level. One feels free of rules and regulations which control ordinary society. A pilgrimage elevates one’s spirit out of the ordinary in ways that are mysterious.

SSS: Your first days in America were spent at Ridgely Manor. Is the Ridgely estate a place of pilgrimage?

PV: Yes, definitely. The pull of such places is tremendous. People will seek it out. One has to be aware of what is connected to make it sacred-the presence of a divinely aware person, which Swamiji was. The manifestation of spiritual power starts the process, and the number of people coming with that intent of mind adds to the sanctity of the place. A place becomes sanctified by the ordinary minds who raise their own consciousness, thus adding to the power of the place.

SSS: Do you see an advantage to the Ridgely estate being established as an ashram for spiritual learning and retreat in today’s world?

PV: It would help in breaking the tension under which people live in today’s society-help them relax and come in contact with their own deeper level. In a place of pilgrimage the main idea is to come in contact with the spiritual level. It comes by means of silence and group activity, based on spiritual sharing.

SSS: At a recent retreat in Hollywood, you stated that going deep into our own center requires time. Women must rise to the level of thinkers-sages and prophets. What is needed for this to happen?

PV: This endeavor is a personal struggle, a lifetime endeavor that can’t be taken up by fits and starts. Monastic life is the only way right now. This doesn’t mean living in monasteries. By monastic life, I mean that all one’s energy is given to finding the Truth.

Maybe, when society becomes more educated and offers help, when it values spiritual research, many more will have the courage to take up this kind of search. The West values scientific research. Many study science and out of the large number there arises one Einstein. Society must come to understand and value individual spiritual search so people can feel comfortable, accepted. This research is given prestige and respect in India, where millions practice and a few rise to the heights of a rishi.

What I feel right now is that people are seeking spiritual alternatives as reaction to suffering. In order to have sages, we need to search for Truth for its own sake.

SSS: Is there no hope then?

PV: Why? Society can change. There is a lot of pain, tension and frustration now which is not suitable for higher research. We have to get over feeling depressed, unhappy, in order to go in that direction. There is a tendency to live alone and try to better oneself. That is more or less a monastic tendency. Though it may come as a reaction to suffering, it is definitely there. It requires more courage and dedication to live alone. One generally wants support.

Women need to see women from a high level. It must be a struggle by hundreds and thousands so a few can rise to the level of a rishi. Women need to quide society. Therefore, they must get hold of the basic idea of renunciation. Society needs to give value to renunciation to produce women of that order. This happens in society through education of a special type of spiritual principles. What one can do, in this age, is to raise the general exposure to these ideas. Like spreading seeds in a desert, some may survive. So, places like Ridgely, if set up to give education, will increase the general level of understanding of these ideas. Let Ridgely support women who want to practice, who want to do personal research. In this sense it could be highly useful.

SSS: As you travel and speak across America, you point out that in society in general there is a loosening of the sense of traditional relationships. Can you explain this in more detail?

PV: At the social level, women relaling to women is very difficult. Women are biologically geared to give rise to the next generation. They are not programmed to relate to each other. A woman has a definite role as mother, whether she has biological children or not! Women tolerate women because they are support systems for their children. If you remove children from the picture, relating becomes more difficult. So we must go deeper and relate at a spiritual level. This is also the case with men.

The whole secret is to understand how the mind and body are programmed through subconscious drives, how to break out of this programming to rise above it, and finally to rise to the last level, which Vedanta calls Turiya. We have to break these bonds consciously. New relationships have to be created on a conscious level.

Sri Ramakrishna broke out of old molds in every way. He has given us a wonderful, beautiful way of relating to each other. Can you imagine a man who behaves like a mother and cries for his disciples to come to him; who is married and yet not married; who worships his wife; who is a sadhu and a householder: who is an Advaitist and Dualist?

Sri Ramakrishna came to show that those who come to him in the name of God are already related to each other and to him. They form a family. In every lecture, I talk to strangers, so I search for that level which Sri Ramakrishna wanted us to touch. This is the way to understand relationships. The drive for sex and possessions binds people subconsciously, but if these motives become nonfunctional, as they are today, it becomes a problem. You must go deeper and relate at a spiritual level, consciously.

Use Holy Mother as a model and build something around her in order to rise to a different level. Sri Sarada Math is experimenting with this now. There is a real desire to give, in every human being, but it is problematic. At the subconscious level we can’t let go and give without condition. Bonding must be at a conscious spiritual level as great daughters of the Holy Mother.

SSS: Thank you, Mataji. May we aspire to Holy Mother’s ideal.

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