Solving the Existential Crisis of Humanity By Evolution of Consciousness

0:01 Welcome to the selfgrowth.com show. My name is David Ricklin and I'm the founder of selfgrowth.com. They will be discussing solving humanity's existential crisis through the evolutionary development of consciousness. I know that's a very challenging concept. We're going to delve in deep is a lot of problems going on in the world right now. To help us understand these topics, I'm excited to interview Santosh Krinsky. Make sure you have something to write with. We're going to be sharing a lot of information today. Before we get started, I want to take a couple of minutes and share some information on Santosh. Santosh Krinsky's been studying 3 Arabindos The Life Divine since 1971 and we'll be getting to some detail about who he is and and why he's important. He's lived in the USA, Europe and India and is Ben and remains active in the natural products industry. Since 1974.

0:55 He's the editor at Lotus Press, a publisher of books on spirituality and Wellness, with a special focus on Ayurveda, Reiki and herbalism and the writings of Sri Arbindo. He is himself the author of 13 books of readings focused on the works of Sri Arbindo, and he publishes a daily blog post as he expands his study. Santosh is president of a nonprofit institute for holistic education, which is dedicated to the work of integrating spirituality into daily life. He resides with his wife, Karuna. Hope I get the pronunciation right in Honolulu, HI. Santosh, welcome to today's show. Well, thank you. It's my pleasure to be here.

1:35 All right, very excited. A lot of deep topics I want to cover today and we're going to delve in deeply. But the first thing I want to start with, it's something I mentioned in terms of the our broad topic, what is this, the existential crisis of humanity today? So let's take a broad look. What is that? Well, essentially we're looking at a lot of changes that have taken place since the Industrial revolution to the point where we are experiencing massive species die off on the planet, climate change, the development of weapons that can totally annihilate humanity. But even more close to home, we have a very small percentage of people on the planet who live like the greatest kings or maharajas in history, while billions of people are barely able to survive.

2:40 We have a freshwater crisis that's been across the world. We have a food crisis. We have a lot of tensions because of these issues that's leading to mass migrations and warfare and a lot of Saber rattling going on around the world. Now, clearly humanity has dozens of ways to destroy ourselves and the planet right now that we didn't have two or 300 years ago. And people are anxious, fearful and confused about what to do about it because these are such massive problems of someone mentioned to me just this morning that even Warren Buffett with all his billions of dollars says that he cannot solve these type of problems. And it makes him confused, fearful and concerned. Thank you for mentioning that to me this morning. You're welcome.

3:48 I it's interesting. There's no, there's been no time in our history like this where we have, as you mentioned, just so many means of self destruction, self annihilation like never before. It's amazing that we put ourselves in a position. But with that, hopefully, and we'll be discussing today some things that we can do that individuals can do and we can do as a society and mankind to to offset some of these challenges that we deal with. So I want, I want to take a minute because I know one of the things you've done is you, you focused on studying 3 hour Bendos life and his worked. Why is he important? Why is he important in general? And how does some of his teachings apply in what we're going to be talking about today?

4:29 OK, well basically I should say I've studied a vast array of spiritual and religious teachings from around the world, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism along the way, so I'm not essentially limited there. What I found in the work of Sri Aurobindo was he integrated a lot of disparate facts that we do not normally understand the common thread, and showed that there is an evolution of consciousness that has been taking place on our planet since its inception as a a ball of fiery matter up to the point that human beings came forward.

5:23 And people have misunderstood the idea of evolution. They think it's some kind of situation where man descended from the apes or whatever. And whether or not that's physically true about the physical evolution. More importantly, he speaks about an evolution of consciousness, the consciousness in matter, then the consciousness in the vital force of plants and then animals, and eventually the development of the human being and the mental consciousness. And all of these things systematically came forward and developed the forms that were able to hold that level of consciousness.

6:13 And at this point, we find that the evolutionary crisis is that we are applying to problems we created with our mental consciousness to manage the material world and the vital world around us. But with the limitations of the mental consciousness, we've created a hole for ourselves that we've dug ourselves into. And Triora Bindo points out that the evolution of consciousness is not finished, and that it is at times when nature creates a crisis of existential proportions, that the next level of consciousness must appear and must begin to act upon the world or we wind up destroying ourselves. And so I think that's the important aspect that trioral Bindo focused on.

7:20 That really is something revolutionary Albert Einstein said. We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them. And that's why we're all confused and fearful nowadays, because we keep trying to apply mental ideas and solutions to that now are far beyond what any mental solution can provide. Which is why we have everyone shouting at each other and why we have gridlock in our society. Because we're all seeing 1 little piece of the puzzle and saying this is the solution.

8:05 And in fact, all of them have limitations and weaknesses based on the limits of the mental consciousness. All right. Let me delve in a little deeper into a few things that you've said so far. So one of the challenges you mentioned in terms of trying to find a solution to this existential crisis is we really haven't evolved. Our level of consciousness hasn't evolved yet. Is that the main reason that past solutions, past things that we've tried have failed? Or are there other there are other aspects to it? Well, some of it is just we have used the mental power primarily to try to aggrandize ourselves materially and vitally.

8:53 We use it to fulfill our desires, fulfill our greed. We don't even apply the mental consciousness in a way that uplifts us. It basically we try to find ways to have more technology, have creation, have more enjoyment and how to game the system if you will, rather than understanding why it is we are alive and what it is we are meant to do with our lives on this planet. If we think that the entire purpose of the creation of the universe is to eat, drink and be merry, well, frankly, we probably have too limited a viewpoint about things.

9:43 All right, so in essence, it sounds like you're saying that this massive brain power and development we've really been focusing on, you know, almost the our pleasure. It's the kind of the the the physical pleasures in in most cases, instead of understanding and taking account the kind of the spiritual world and our conscious level of being that all this energy, but we have this brain power, but it's just using in one very specific focus and instead of using it broadly kind of fix things for for now in the future. Is that is that an accurate view? That's one side of the picture and it's it's a good start, but we're not limited to the brain power of the mental consciousness. The evolution continues and new manifestations of consciousness will evolve beyond the mental level. And so there's two aspects to it. One is we're not using our minds to their optimum potential. Secondly, we're not opening ourselves and becoming receptive to the pressure of the next level of consciousness that's trying to manifest in the world, and we are capable of achieving that level through our

11:15 development. Maybe we should go quickly into the evolution of consciousness for a moment, because without that we're sort of stuck. Here. OK, let's focus on that. OK, so if somebody were looking at the planet Earth billions of years ago, they would have seen a ball of matter, They would have not seen any forms of life whatsoever. You Fast forward several billion years and suddenly you see plant life evolving and coming forward out of matter. And if you keep fast forwarding, you see animal life coming and eventually you see human life coming. With each level you see a new power of consciousness for the material level, which is very much mechanical in nature. It's atoms and molecules and forces of gravity and electricity and that type of thing. At the plant an animal level, you begin to see a vital reactive force, a force that has attraction and repulsion and desires and various needs.

12:30 At the mental level, you begin to see thought developing and human beings begin to think about, well, why am I here? What is the universe about? How do things work? The reality is it's like a seed of a tree. If you see the seed of a tree, it's a material thing. Nobody knows that encoded inside that seed is a big tree. Plant it and give it the right conditions, the tree comes out of it. The world is pretty much the seed of development of the consciousness of the universe, you could say. And so we see first with the tree, some roots appear, a couple of leaves appear, and then you get, then you get branches and you get eventually the flowers and the fruits and the process of reproduction.

13:31 The same thing happens with the planet and that evolution of consciousness. So we've seen the vital level come out, we've seen the lower mental level come out, we've seen flashes of a higher level of mentality come out. And some people over time have had experiences, spiritual experiences, what they may call religious or vision quest experiences, that show them that there is another further reality beyond what we can do with mental conceptualization. And that is the first indication that another level of consciousness is out there waiting and striving to evolve and develop on the planet. And it is a level that totally transforms the way we experience, look at and respond to the issues of life. All right, that's interesting.

14:34 I'm just kind of thinking through the steps and where we are right now. So at this point, a smaller, much smaller percentage of the population and, and I would argue that probably only last few 1000 years of mankind have developed to this next level or are just beginning to develop this next level of, of consciousness. And from what you're saying is the expectations are that they'll be even more levels of consciousness that man will create and strive to. So we're, we're still at a point where perhaps we don't even know what our limits in terms of developing this consciousness are. Is that would that be an accurate view? Absolutely. That is, what we're seeing here is that even in humanity we have people who manifest some of the higher powers of the mind and we have some who don't, who are living more or less a purely vital life.

15:31 Right. Maybe for reasons of opportunity or educational background or the stresses of just trying to survive in a harsh world. Because we found that people all over the world, when given opportunities, have the capacity to develop their mental powers. So it's not a matter of one group or person is better than another, but a lot of it is where they are, what they have to deal with. And. How they're given evolutionary opportunities, but then we see at the same time, not just these levels within mentality, but we see some people following a spiritual path, following a deeper religious path as they are called to find out more, to understand why they're here, what their life is about, and how they can participate in that higher purpose. OK, So I get it.

16:35 Would you, would you say that people that are striving for those types of things have a better understanding of why we're here of a, a kind of a bigger world view are geared more towards or moving more towards manifesting these higher levels of consciousness? Well, to some degree I I would say that all of us who try to live a spiritual or religious life or for higher things have different levels of where we are in that realization. And some have more understanding, some have less. Some, like me, have to spend 40 years studying one book to try and figure out what my book is about. You know, it's really, it's really something that is never ending.

17:29 We have stages of our growth and development. And I can say that I feel like I've learned a lot in 40 years to the point where I can say that I really don't know very much. So there's a lot more to go. Yeah, there's. An old saying that the more you know, the more you know that you don't know. Well, I would agree with that. The more you're more learning about the stuff you don't know. So one of the things we want to focus on today was this concept is an existential crisis. What can we do about it? You know, we haven't had the tools and haven't haven't been able to kind of fix things.

18:09 The problems are still there and they're worsening. Can be argued that they're worsening. What can humanity what, what can humanity do to seek a solution for the kind of this this crisis of survival almost. And so 22 broad questions. What can humanity do? And then what could we or should we as individuals be doing? And it and we'll start with that. Let's start with that, OK? Well, first, I was always impressed by a particular statement of Shriora Bindos, which I'll share with you, and that is to hope for a true change of human life without a change of human nature is an irrational and unspiritual proposition.

18:54 And if we think about that for a moment, OK, we want to put a Band-Aid over all these problems we have. We have plastic in the ocean. The solution as well? Let's just clean up the plastic, or maybe stop using straws or something that isn't solving the essential problem. We're still seeing the world as individual fragments interacting with and fighting over the resources and the opportunities of the planet, and we see ourselves as individual separate actors on a stage in a hostile world.

19:37 Basically, that viewpoint is essentially A vital and mental viewpoint. A change of consciousness leads to a change of human nature, and the essential change of consciousness can be illustrated by back a few thousand years ago, virtually all of humanity said that the sun revolves around the Earth. The Earth was the center of the universe. And. Everything was there for the Earth's benefit, and then along came certain individuals in science and they studied it and they said, well, actually the Earth revolves around the sun and it turns, and that's what creates the phenomenon that we see differently. So if we apply that same logic to how we live in the world and the consciousness we use, we say that the individual human being, you and I, are not the center of the universe. It's all not here just for our vital and physical satisfaction. So when we see the image from the space station of planet Earth, and we see that it's one unified whole and not a bunch of different countries fighting

21:13 with each other over resources, we begin to see the shift in consciousness that is both coming and necessary for us to change the way we relate to the problems we're facing. We begin to see that we are part of a unity that has a larger purpose in the universe. Our Earth is part of a solar system. The solar system is part of the Milky Way Galaxy. The Galaxy is one of many galaxies, and these many galaxies are part of the universe. And some scientists nowadays will tell you there are multiple universes. Is that all there so that we can enjoy our pina coladas on the beach in the evening? I don't think so.

22:01 You see what I mean? Yes. So the essential change of consciousness is to shift from an understanding of fragmentation and division to a vision and an actual experience of unity of all humanity and all the beings on the planet. You know, we could not survive without the trees on this planet, even though we're cutting them down and burning as fast as we can because we are symbiotic to them. Think about that for a moment. We don't think about that. We think of trees as a resource to be used, to be cut down, to be utilized, destroyed to make room for something else. But they create the oxygen that we need by breathing in the carbon dioxide that we excrete.

23:00 So we and the trees are one symbiotic being, you could say. And trees means all the plant life, basically. Essentially, we can't live without them. They can't live without us. So why don't we recognize that? Why can't we live in that understanding of unity when that starts to happen? Because I'm now going to answer your question. When that starts to happen, both on the global level and on the individual level, it changes our entire relationship to each other and to the way we look upon the planet. And suddenly we realized that the other people on the planet are not our enemies.

23:53 The planet is there to be shared among all the people and all the beings and animals that are on the planet, and to be honored and nourished and nurtured as our home, as part of our being from which we come. And at that point, we're not fighting over how I can grab more, but we're understanding how we can better apply the resources and not be wasteful and not be harmful planet to other people. And our whole vision of how to create international relations, how to deal with our world, how to apply science and technology, all of that changes. So then we come to the question.

24:43 The second part of your question was, well, what can I do as an individual? And there are several things. These type of changes of awareness don't happen overnight, generally or magically. You know. Back in the 60s people thought they could take a pill and achieve cosmic consciousness. Well, OK, they got an experience of something that said they were not stole, fragmented individuals, but eventually they come down and they have to now deal with the fact that they still have to relate to their lives.

25:24 So part of it is to undertake the mental and vital development that we said was not fully developed earlier so that we become more understanding and appreciative. We begin to look for the unity and consciously relate to that unity wherever we can. Start to look at our opinions, look at our desires, look at our needs, and try to make some adjustments to that while recognizing that that is not enough. It is eventually necessary for us to allow the next level of consciousness through intuition or through whatever spiritual practices 1 undertakes to begin to manifest within us, and that is a long lifetime process.

26:24 The the Sages, the Rishi's, the spiritual and religious leaders have all said that know thyself, be true to thyself, understand the oneness of humanity. Those are words until we begin to actually practice them and you start where you are. You know, they say that one little ripple can change the universe. The butterfly effect. Well, what if 1000 people start trying to see the world from this different viewpoint, become receptive to it, undertake their own spiritual practices and, and let me say this, it has nothing to do with a specific religion, specific philosophy or a specific practice. Whatever people are doing to evolve and develop themselves is a positive pursuit and they should follow it and carry it out.

27:27 We're not in opposition with each other as to whether we are believers in Buddha or Christ or Muhammad or Krishna or whomever, or philosophers such as Plato or Descartes. It doesn't matter. What matters is that we actually try to live that and be receptive to new thoughts, new feelings and new inspirations as they come and what we see when that happens. The spiritual experiences described by the leaders of the world over centuries who have had these experiences, they tell you you begin to experience a force within you descending from above your mind into your body and changing the way you react to things.

28:28 Because it's not that we separate fragmented individuals have to do this. We that's still the old mental viewpoint. We need to allow the evolution that manifested matter, life and mind to manifest the next level within the framework of who we are as human beings. And so we have to become receptive and we have to begin to trust the inspiration that comes from that perception of unity. So let me just mention a few things that I'm hearing and I just want to kind of reaffirm.

29:13 So it seems to me that in order to take on some of these bigger existential challenges that we're talking about, that not only does humanity as a whole need to develop this kind of a, the next level of consciousness, but all individuals should focus in their own way, in their kind of their own, their own world and developing themselves spiritually and to work in developing their, their own personal level of consciousness or, or greater level of consciousness independently of where they are now. So whatever, whatever level we're on now, people should look to kind of expand their awareness. And by expanding their awareness, it, it sounds like a big part of this is understanding kind of the unity of the whole world of how everything fits together. And I, I think you're, you're right. And one of the things that you said is we, we tend to think in our own little space and our, you know, we're doing our own little piece and we can just get our piece of the world and let's take what we can.

30:13 But based on the interactions you're you're talking about, there's just too many factors at play and we're all working together. It's kind of an interlocked system. So whether you might think that you're sitting there in an isolated position and you're just doing your own piece of the world, but in essence, we're all locked together. Is that is that an accurate assessment of of some of your views? To a great degree, I would only say that I don't expect that every individual on the planet will get to the same place at the same time. That's not that's not a necessary factor. You know, there's a concept in logging called the key log. When they're cutting down trees and come into a river to move them somewhere, they get blocked. And an expert in logging can go and find the one log that, when it's moved, allows the entire flow to take place. And so we have a key log that we need to understand in our lives that will allow this new consciousness to pour forth. And so most of that is related to simply our preconceived habits and notions about what

31:44 our life is that we've been indoctrinated to believe that we get bombarded with every day in the media. And it's really hard for any individual to get bombarded with that and still keep some sense of a larger purpose. So, you know, people like, for instance, His Holiness the Dalai Lama will say whatever the teachings are, my teaching is love and compassion. And others will say, well, it's having gratitude. These are emotions and feelings that open the being and make us more human, give us more relationship to one another, more understanding, more appreciation. And really, at this stage, that's the key log we need to move people away from material gratification as their purpose to appreciating the wonder, the beauty and the harmony of the world through compassion, love, gratitude, and reaching out to others and building bridges rather than setting up walls and putting us behind the walls with a weaponry to fight off everybody else.

33:19 What you just said, it was very powerful in that for me, it summed up a lot of what you're saying and a lot of what we need to do as a people. Where you started out by saying we need to move away from this occupation with materialism and consumerism and we need to make AI guess a conscious effort to moving away from that. And that's it. That's a big change 'cause I I think of how the world runs and it's driven and part of the challenge you're talking about commercials and advertising and the messages we're getting. It's driven by this materialism consumerism. So it's, it's almost looking at it and saying, all right, we got to stop, at least for us as individuals and we need to open ourselves up to these, these other ways of thinking.

34:05 Yes, you know, Sri Aravinda at one point said that we are satiated but not satisfied with the material benefits that we in the world. People are not happy. They are alienated, cynical, frustrated and angry at the same time. They've got all these material things and all these recreations and all these enticements and excitements. The reality is we feel less our humanity and our common humanity and less goodwill the more we isolate ourselves into this satiation.

34:53 Yes. So we really need to understand that our fulfillment and benefiting the world through a more human response to it go together. All right. On a practical level, and you've covered some of these, but maybe you can reinforce them, what can we do to kind of participate in this change? So on a on a practical level, so you mentioned learning and following a spiritual path, whether it be teachings of Dalai Lama or you mentioned different religious teaching or spiritual teaching. What else can we do to kind of participate as individuals and bring about this change both in ourselves and in humanity? Well, I think that just by starting the thought process and then trying to implement it in daily life, people will begin to notice a lot of different things of I'll give you an example. There are many people who are deathly afraid of bees, OK? And they see a bee and the first thing they want to do is kill it.

36:04 And they're not thinking about the fact that bees are essential to providing the food that they eat. And they don't need to be fearful of bees. They need to understand the role the bees play. Take that very simple example and say you have a fearful individual and that individual begins to reflect upon the oneness of everything and says, well, OK, I'm I just had a fearful reaction to a bee. Why am I reacting that way? And, you know, how can I deal with that in a different way?

36:46 Begin to reflect on all the positive things the bees do. And then they begin to observe them and see that they're really interested in the flowers. They're not interested in coming out and attacking people. And. Over time, that fear reaction begins to subside and they've created a new relationship to another being on the planet. Well, multiply that by every interaction we have, you see massive amounts of opportunity for change. That's why Sri Aurobindo calls what we're talking about here the adventure of consciousness. We've explored outer space, we've explored under the sea, we've explored the tops and mountains. And Sri Aurobindo says it's time to explore inner space and have the adventure of consciousness.

37:39 And it is an adventure because you have to face up to every issue. Someone cuts you off on the road and you're angry with them. You're not understanding. They're trying to get a sick person to the hospital and they're doing what they need to do and you're expressing anger. Well examine that and find out why is it I'm reacting and how can I look at it differently. But I can have compassion towards that being and not let them live rent free in my head. As someone has said, yes. Heard that before. Exactly. I like. This concept, the adventure of consciousness.

38:22 So there's a couple things you said. I like that a lot. I also like the fact that we're kind of fighting to be satiated, but most people aren't satisfied. That's an. Interesting. It's an interesting concept and one of the things I hear a lot about especially in the business world, but it's all over that people are are not engaged, they're kind of disengaged in their world and we need to reengage and these are some of the ways is talking about to kind of reengage yourself. So I want to take a minute over here. Obviously, you talked a lot about Sarah Benda. Can you just share website? What's the best way to find resources, more learning or more tools with where do people go? Sure.

39:08 Well, we have a a page called orobindo.net on the net and that landing page will give some introductions. We'll introduce people to some of the books that he's written or some of the introductions about Triorrobindo and his work. I think that's a pretty good place to start. I should mention Shrioro Bindo was not interested in starting a new cult, religion, following, or anything else. His stated purpose was to support the evolution of consciousness on the planet, and each individual needs to find their way through there. His writings are meant to assist you in whatever your path is. He's not looking for someone flying the Orobindo flag and going to war with somebody else.

40:05 On the contrary, you know, if you're a Christian or a Buddhist or a Hindu or a Jain or an atheist, whatever, you can participate in this evolution of consciousness. And his insights may be useful to that process. All right, and I'm going to. Spell that out for folks who didn't aren't looking at a link. It's arrobindo.net. It's a UROBINDO arrobindo.net. All right, I just want to take a couple of minutes right now to give you a chance to kind of sum up any final message for our listeners today. Things you haven't covered or any final message what what people should do at this point Well.

40:50 I'll I'll give you another citation from Sri Aurobindo here that I think is salient. The most vital issue of the age is whether the future progress of humanity is to be governed by the modern economic and materialistic mind of the West, or by a nobler pragmatism guided, uplifted and enlightened by spiritual culture and knowledge. And I think that sums it up all right. Thank you very much for joining us today. I appreciate you shared a lot of wisdoms, your own wisdom and wisdom from Sri Arbundi. I really thank you for joining us. And I want to thank everybody for listening today. And I want to implore folks live a great, successful life. Thanks for being part of selfgrowth.com. Thanks for being part and joining us today. We'll talk to everybody soon.

41:48 Thanks, Steven. You're welcome.