Three Hundred Devotions (Lynne Bryer, Cape Town, South Africa)

1. Great Mother, let me not forget where I may quench my thirst. May I not be the one who lies weeping on the desert sands, thinking the cool green oasis ahead is another mirage.

2. The time of awakening has arrived on this earth; a power is moving through the universe, and all are feeling restless and aware, by turns touched by joy and falling easily into despair. Awake, all children of the Mother! The hour has come when you may find the truth, inside yourself.

3. The kingdom every child leaves behind in being born, is a kingdom reached through our own selves, and the process of life is a slow unfolding of knowledge - only to learn how close the door stood all along. There is a shorter path, a gift of grace that all may receive who will.

4. Receive this gift, that you may say with us to the Mother: I have always known You, but I am glad that I have found You.

5. Undoubtedly the Holy Spirit is leading us, Who comforts and nurtures, Who was there at the creation of the world.

6. Brothers and sisters in the world, say with us: I am glad to be a child again.

7. What we have found is like coming home.

8. Now and then we still feel fear. Until we remember who is holding us in Her hands.

9. See our Mother's sweet rosy feet. With them She is kneading humanity into Spirit.

10. In our dreams She visits us and knows each one of us by name, by our light, by the spirit; She looks straight into our souls. O Mother, we are naked in your sight.

11. No one can say, I have not met Mother yet. It is not just that we have bowed before Her in so many lives, but that She has the power to walk into our dreams. And it is She whose hand is holding each of ours. Nevertheless, we are glad that we are living at a time when the Adi Shakti has incarnated, so that we shall set eyes on Her as surely as She has already seen each one of us, Her children. We shall all have the joy of kneeling at Her feet.

12. A rare and precious gift is when mortals recognize an incarnation of the Divine, and are allowed to worship on this earth and taste the bliss only angels knew before.


13. Our desire fills the chrysalis of the world with the nyriad colours of change. The stronger our desire, the swifter the transformation.

14. Mother Earth, protect Yourself against harm. Let the foam of the sea always be white and diamond bright, clean as the dawn of creation.

15. Remember the centuries of calm, the aeons when the birds flew, the beats hunted, the antelope grazed, and all the world was a garden, the wilderness the sole wonder of the world.

16. In the clear morning the sea birds fly unerringly, knowing their goal. So my heart flies to Thee, Mother of my soul.

17. Shri Mother, may our feet ever walk in Your paths, and Your feet ever dwell in our hearts.

18. We know nothing - and it is bliss to know nothing, to surrender to the joy and the certainty. If we surrender, we become one with the flow, channels for Your glory, witnesses who stand above worry and pain.

19. Mother, I am the empty cup into which You pour Your cool, clear love. You have shaped me and You have made me ready.

20. Before realisation, before I heard Your voice, You called me. Through many lives, through all my years, I searched for You. All that was good and beautiful was Your benison, Your bounty, in my life. (benison means blessing)

No Matter How Hard I Try

No matter how I try
I is not my
My is not I
So don't you dare cry
Just try

Jasmine Weiker
Fuquay Varina, NC

Find Freedom - a poem by Pavan Keetley, Australia

Find Freedom

Freedom seems a glittering prize
Somewhere far out beyond our eyes
Yet close your eyes within and see
Your Freedom’s there, completely free

True Freedom is an inside job
When there is nothing that can rob
You of the Joy each moment brings
As through your heart your Spirit sings

For Freedom is without that shell
That keeps you in a private hell
Of I and me, and mine and yours
Cut off from Source, from Freedom’s cause

True Freedom is beyond these notions
Beyond torment and emotions
Beyond your concepts and your mind
Yes Freedom's free, and Freedom’s kind

And Freedom has an open heart
She never worries, feels apart
Nor closes off that part in you
Which is Eternal, ever new

In Freedom you’re content to wait
Until that inner voice does state,
Discretion knows the way to go,
And those in Freedom always know

That Freedom has just pure desire
No calls for more, just take us higher
Let go, let Freedom, find Her ways
Let Freedom guide you through your days

Yet Freedom is much more than this
Beyond this world, a state of Bliss
I lift my eyes within to see
That God is looking back at me




Then Freedom is both free and pure
With no attachments to endure
Aversions don’t get in the way
And everything becomes Her Play

Yes Freedom is beyond a doubt,
That state within, that peace without
Without a worry in the World I see,
that God’s in all, and God’s in me

In Freedom then I’m free to live
To love and learn, to pray forgive
To laugh and joy and to delight
To sing and dance, become the Light

Yes Freedom is God realisation
One Self in all - true liberation
Yes Freedom burns Her Light in you
And only Freedom's ever true.

Find Freedom in the quiet hour
Be one with Her, with His great power
Then you’ll be nothing, you’ll be Free
To realise God ~ in Freedom Be.

Devi Mahatmyam - A new translation

DEVI MAHATMYAM

Translated from the original Sanskrit
by Sahaja Yoga Perth, Australia
2006

To our Great Mother

A Sense of Humor

A sense of humor

"O would some power the giftie gie us,
To see ourselves as others see us."

These lines come from a poem written, oddly enough, to a louse (flea). Robert Burns, the great Scottish poet, was standing in a church one Sunday morning and a haughty, proud young woman was standing in the row in front of him. He saw a flea crawl up the collar of her coat, something that would have been cause for shame in the society in which they lived, a sign of uncleanness. But the woman still stood there, unaware of how she appeared to others, hence the immortal lines.

Most people find it very difficult to see themselves with any clarity and they readily believe all sorts of things that do not stand up to objective scrutiny.

90% of all humor, is either laughing at the misfortune of others or laughing at oneself. Developing a sense of humor is a great asset, being able to laugh at oneself is helpful in seeing oneself with a objective view.

Check it out, when you lose your sense of humor, I am willing to bet that in that moment, you have lost all sense of proportion and objectivity.

"And wisdom is a butterfly, and not a gloomy bird of prey."
W.B. Yeats

Someone asked, how can I develop a sense of humor? I'd love to know their thoughts on the subject, but at his or her request, for they wrote anonymously, here are some thoughts.

People tend to lose their sense of humor when they are stressed, or when they take themselves or life too seriously. The old saying, "Laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone," is true.

Bill Shankly, the legendary manager of Liverpool Football Club, was once asked by a journalist if a forthcoming match was a matter of life and death. He said, "No, it's much more important than that." I once saw graffiti in a a depressing, poor part of Protestant Belfast. It said "No Pope Here". Someone had scrawled underneath, "Lucky old Pope."

But a sense of humor cannot be forced, otherwise to comes across as artificial, 'trying too hard'. It has to be felt from within. It can be macabre, black humor, or completely innocent - the latter being my favorite.

To develop a sense of humor, look around at what you yourself find funny, and try to see evidence of it in your everyday life. I have always found pomposity funny, and one sees it all too often in one's day to day life.

It is said that there are only two certainties in life, one, that you will die, and two, that you will pay taxes.

That being so, and given there is so much misery in the world, most of it created by human beings, why not look for the amusing in life, for it makes it bearable and uplifts others too when you share it.