Sahaja Prose Writing

2007-02-08T08:56:00.000-05:00

Day in a Winter Paradise

Big Bend National Park in Southwest Texas, and its surrounding area is a geological wonderland. With limestone and shale strata about 500 million years old from when the entire region was under a deep ocean basin, mountains formed by 38-40 million year old volcanic activity, and constantly changing wind-sculpted sandstone cliffs - the vast variety of rock and mountain formations exposed from many prehistoric ages provides an endless scope for one’s curiosity. The weather in the region during winter is constantly changing and unpredictable, often providing rich contrasts between sky and earth. As clouds blow across the mountainous expanse, deep hues of blues, purples and lavender-grays play against the reds, pinks and golds of the rock formations and desert landscape. The landscape and weather combine to create ever-changing beauty and wonder that delight the eye and soul, while the quiet solitude of the place provides the perfect environment for meditation. This was our second trip to the area, and it yielded surprises both fascinating and blissful.

We spent five days exploring the region and the park and discovering areas where we felt enveloped by a deep stillness. The weather was in constant play as well, and nature gave us the gift of wondrous experiences, one of which is recounted here.

On the third day of our trip to Big Bend, we drove into the Chisos Mountains, which were formed by volcanic activity several million years ago. The range lay ahead of us amidst cloud coverage after heavy overnight rain. As we approached the park, we could see snow in the distance on the highest peak. The unusual promise of snow in the Texas desert beckoned us as we drove closer and climbed higher. We reached The Basin, an elevated valley in the central part of the Chisos Mountains, and parked our car.

We hiked a short distance up a trail which led up the gentle slopes beneath the white-dusted peak of Casa Grande, a little-known monument to the ages with igneous rock jutting upward from its center like a jagged chimney. We came across a clearing where snow lay atop the soft golden grasses that grew among the prickly-pear cactus, evergreens, and shiny boulders that decorated the mountainside. Thick white clouds covered the sky, but there was no precipitation. The only sound was the whirr of the wind gently swirling through the gaps between the mountains. A feeling of blissful peace came over us as we soaked in the hush of the wilderness. God’s energy was everywhere here, resonating in the rhythm of the wind and vibrating in the tremble of the tiniest leaf. We lingered for a while, playing in the snow before beginning our descent down the mountainside. As we ambled leisurely down the trail, the wind quieted and snow began to fall. The pungent fragrance of mountain juniper permeated the air and filled our noses as the cold soft flakes fell all around us.

Although it was December 29, we felt like it was Christmas in paradise, as if we were in some other world. We stopped several times on the trail to take in the sweetness of the scene, feeling snowflakes tickle our faces and the tops of our heads. We watched in wonder as clouds began to lift away from a rocky mountain peak to the west, revealing a deep azure sky above and around the peak. Surprisingly, as the clouds parted further and the sky brightened, snow began to fall above us in full force. The sun emerged, piercing the dark wall of clouds and spilling its rays on the ground. The sun’s light was everywhere now, yet the snow did not cease. Tiny crystalline flakes gleaming with brilliant white sunlight tumbled out of the sky, surrounding us in a shower of sparkle and light. No man-made creation could ever compare with the beauty of this snowstorm in the sunshine.
Enchanted, we stood still wanting to hold time in abeyance, but the sun-shower lasted only for a few hundred heartbeats and then was gone. We were silent for some time, holding on to the feeling of awe that this fleeting moment of unexpected splendor had evoked. We made our way slowly down the trail, and by the time we reached the base of the mountain, the sun was shining brilliantly and only a few stray white clouds remained in the deep blue sky above. The rest of the clouds had traveled far, sweeping rich colors across the horizon and over the desert landscape below.

Deep in wonder and fulfillment, we left the Chisos Basin and drove back down the winding road that afforded gorgeous views in all directions. We would have ended our day fully satisfied, yet the ornate desert colored in late afternoon light called to us to explore further. We traveled to the eastern part of the park to find out what awaited us there.

Scarcely two hours later, below the mountain range in another part of the park vastly different from where we had been, we walked down a path along sandstone cliffs, under arches of low trees and through a bamboo forest. The afternoon sun had made the air warm and temperate. We reached the trail’s end and soaked our feet in hot springs perfumed with ancient minerals, on the banks of the Rio Grande, under a rose-streaked twilight sky and with Mexico just a stone’s toss away. The lovely warm water carried away whatever trace of cold that remained in us. As we warmed our feet and savored our surroundings, we contemplated the amazing contrast between this place and the winter mountain scene we had experienced only hours before.

We left the park just before dark. As the last light in the sky faded and the stars began to appear, we realized that this was one of the most memorable days in nature we have ever had, tucked away in this remote corner, which is the hidden treasure of Texas known as The Big Bend. We were reminded of the splendor of God’s creation, and how God’s energy permeates every remote corner of it.

--Amy Ahluwalia

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

2006-11-20T11:09:00.000-05:00

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

2006-11-09T18:05:00.000-05:00

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

2006-11-05T07:09:00.000-05:00

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

2006-11-03T03:53:00.000-05:00

DEVI MAHATMYAM

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

To our Great Mother

A Sense of Humor

2006-11-01T07:51:00.000-05:00

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.

Your comments are welcome.

2006-10-31T06:45:00.000-05:00

Is anyone wondering how to comment on the posts? Some of my friends were. Just click on the comments word under each post..and write what you feel about the post..something to add..correct, maybe you like or dont like it...or maybe you've had a similar experience..
best part of blogging is that it is immediately interactive and on any article, it is just as interesting reading the comments as reading the article itself...

So..feel free to comment. It is a pleasure for the writer posting the article to have that connection with you.

Silence

2006-10-28T21:40:00.000-04:00

In silent moments
a presence sublime
fills the void
between my breaths
and a certain grace
the calyx of my self.
Let me be
an empty flute for Thy breath to pass through
the clay in the potter's hands to be moulded
the misty clouds that dissipate in the light of dawn
the tall grass that sways to the rhythm of the wind
the clear lake that reflects the mountains
the leaves that flow gracefully with the stream.

To be a yogi?

2006-10-12T12:08:00.000-04:00

There's no question that it's hard trying to be a yogi in the modern world. But to an extent that is true of any modern religious devotee. We are blessed and cursed to live at a time when religion is a forbidden topic, either through fear of ridicule or fear of offence. We are taught by our society to keep our personal views hidden, unless they are strictly conventional, libertarian or conservative societal norms. We can worship, but only on a Sunday (or Friday, or Saturday or...?) The rest of the time we are expected to be good citizens, on a sliding scale where good constantly shifts towards some indeterminate definition that our current civilisation accepts. No wonder it's hard trying to be spiritual!

The problem is compounded by the fact that, if you are brave or stupid enough to pin your flag of God to the mast in a non-orthodox manner, you risk being thrown into the pit of disdain along with all the other holistic, weirdo wackos and quickly dismissed and forgotten.

Sahaja Yogis learn this lesson early on, I think. From the moment we first mention it to our friends and family, often to face uncomprehending confusion, we learn what it is to be thought of as [insert your favourite label of derision here]. Of course it's all part of the test, but it's a tough place to be, misunderstood or worse. All the more so when we know inside that we're not extra-ordinary so much as super-ordinary. Not befuddled as much as just plain lucky.

So we struggle to balance our outward 'conventionality' with an inner turmoil. For let's not beat around the bush here, folks, trying to improve oneself through such a powerful spiritual practice as this one is kind of like sticking your head in a dishwasher on full cycle. Actually not just your head, your whole mishapen, lumpen, crinkly body. Twice.

We talk about our practice in simple terms, but in reality what we are trying to describe is beyond description. Not because we're extra-special, 'too high level for you' type people, but because there are no real definitive terms in which to discuss a real relationship with God. Hey, so everyone who has an ounce of devotion in them will claim some connection with the Almighty in one way or another - through prayer, introspection on mountaintops, through transcendant experience. But the uniqueness of the Sahaja Yogi, is that this conversation is both two way, and more importantly perhaps, accompanied by real physical interaction in the form of sensations on the subtle system and within the environment.

It is this latter part which perhaps can cause so many people to fall at the first hurdle of our particular yoga - how to explain to someone who is just starting out that the sensations they may feel are real? Or more crucially, that the sensations they are NOT feeling will be along soon, if they're patient and diligent? The problem is that once we cross this particular line, we begin to look suspiciously kooky. No matter how well mannered we appear on the outside, believing that we can 'chat' to the substance of the universe at will is just plain nuts. Isn't it?

And so, inevitably, we are labelled and dismissed by those for whom reality must be solid, visual and ever so rational. It's a shame, of course, but the greatest sadness is that we find it so difficult to explain the truth without digging ourselves even further into our pit of gooey looking kookidom. How can we explain that reality is nothing more than vibrations when we don't have a Doctorate in Quantum Physics? Or even a certificate in theology?

And so, as typical yogis we retreat to the cliches, we revert to the easy, simple answers; non-contentious, non-challenging. The platitudes, smiles, waves. The shake of the hand as we show you the door, knowing what you're walking away from is the most important thing that has ever crossed the threshold of your existence. We wave goodbye with a tiny tear of despair inside, trying desperately to wish it all better - wish you all better - so that you'll return with determination to join the party.

Yes it's hard being a yogi. But hey, it's the only game in town worth playing. That's the real fact of the matter.

Innocence - virtue or incumbrance?

2006-10-12T11:15:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite business contacts is John Simmons. I just took delivery of his book, Dark Angels - How Writing Releases Creativity at Work. John, as will be quickly seen from his writing, is an intelligent fellow, well read and articulate. From my experience of him over many years, he is a good and decent man at heart, and I would guess, a humanist. Here’s something from the beginning of Dark Angels:

“It’s a commonplace observation that descriptions of evil are most fascinating than descriptions of good. So, John Milton, writing Paradise Lost, makes a heroic figure of the fallen angel Satan even though the objective of his work was to demonstrate the power of God’s goodness. There is an aura about Milton’s Satan that none of the ‘good’ characters achieve. And part of Milton’s message, part of the attraction we feel as readers, is that Satan is an angel still: he has extraordinary powers of resourcefullness, invention and persuasion.

The question arises: would he have these powers, would he convey this attraction, without the opening up of his mind to other possibilities? Satan dared and failed, he had been ambitious for himself, seeing greater opportunities for personal achievement that those circumscribed for him by God. God condemns him for his overweening pride and ambition. But really, as a management consultant might suggest, was he just ‘thinking outside the box’?

Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy explores these issues too. There struggle there is between an exhausted ancient deity known as the Authority - represented by the repressive forces of the established Church - and the life-affirming, humanistic impulses of those in opposition. Again, the angels are divided and our sympathies are engaged by the flawed dark angels. The struggle is against the good angels of the Church that seeks to keep people in a state of ‘innocence’ deprived of ‘experience’. Innocence is a state that deprives us of the possibility of making a choice between good and evil, or actually between thinking and not thinking, between feeling and not feeling. Having the choice is what matters: without it we are creatures without a real moral dimension. We remain creatures without experience, without the ability to think, reason and create.

We live in a world where the dark angels have lived. Perhaps we have become like dark angels ourselves. As a result, we have the ability to express individual personalities. Dark angels are symbols of that ability; they are not symbols of evil. If we fail to respond to their challenge, we retreat into a life of meek, unquestioning acceptance of our innocence role. We follow the unwritten rules of the organisation’s custom and practice, and we leave our emotional engagement for other times and other places. We fall into the working life of accepting that we have a limited desire or ambition to influence things, to imagine other possibilities, to fulfill ourselves, to achieve intellectual goals.”

Amazing stuff. The writing admirably illustrates the problem we have in communicating our message to the non Sahaj world, for without the direct experience of the bliss of Self-Realization, how can such people see for themselves the utter confusion and conceit within this kind of reasoning?

John refutes the desirability of innocence, and clearly he has no sense of its true meaning nor of the extraordinary powers it confers on people who are innocent. He is however, right up to a point, for the Garden of Eden myth, is not a story of good and evil, with the serpent being the devil come to corrupt the innocence of Adam and Eve, but rather a story of the feminine aspect of the divine wanting human beings to have the freedom to choose between right and wrong, for only in that way would we be in the true likeness of God, and of the male aspect, the logos, chronos form, wanting them to remain in the animal state. Presumably, the desire of the Adi Shakti power was that given a choice, they would choose good. But innocence, as I understand it, has nothing to do with remaining blind to reality, in fact, only through being innocent can we see reality, without it, all is illusion. John is widely off the mark in thinking that thinking ‘outside the box’ would necessitate an exploration of evil. In point of fact, of course, at heart, he doesn’t believe that there is evil, or if he does, he doesn’t appear to regard it as something inferior to good. He doesn’t seem to understand the respective differences, for how could one agree with the description of the angels of the Church that seeks to keep people in a state of ‘innocence’ deprived of ‘experience’ as good? The sad fact is, that in the 20th century, ‘good’ has had a bad press. Let’s hope that things will change for the better in the century to come.

In such chaotic thinking, the negativity gets into the heart of things, and turns the knife. For it is through such confusion, that its seeds are insidiously sown. Philip Pullman, is a well-regarded writer by the literary establishment, who writes ostensibly for children. He is also very popular amongst adults too. However, in this writer's opinion, he is the Western equivalent of Salmaan Rushdie, whose novel, The Satanic Verses, uses the fact that the prophet Mohammed, who could not read or write, dictated the Koran to a scribe, who playfully at first, starts to change the words of Mohammed. Pullman’s views are by far the more dangerous, for the effect of his writing is to attack the innocence of young minds.

Are we, as Sahaja yogis, “creatures without experience, without the ability to think, reason and create“? Clearly we are not the former, indeed the plethora of our extraordinary experiences, if we can find a way of expressing them in a form that would communicate them to the rest of humankind, could play a role in creating the environment that would bring about the desire for human beings to be enlightened, thence transformed. We don’t think too much, at least not in the random uncontrolled fashion of most people, but maybe we have to be able to find a way to express ourselves effectively to the rest of humankind? Can we reason and create? It is to be hoped that in time, yogis will produce works of art that will trail-blaze the new Jerusalem that our children will undoubtedly see. I am reminded of a comment, by Grégoire de Kalbermatten, that we are the foundation of the building, and foundations are always a bit roughly finished and eventually buried under the ground. But what goes on top of the foundations, the finished and polished work, is what people will see - our children and grandchildren.

I hope that some of us will write and offer a description of the joys and power of innocence and of thoughtless awareness.

I don’t think that the way to answer the inadvertent silliness and nonsense within writing such as the above, is to deal with it line by line, but instead, as Grégoire has so valiantly attempted, with his novel The Legend of Dagad Trikon, and now recently, Linda Williams with the first volume in her Keys of Wisdom trilogy, we need now to ‘set out our stall’ in the mainstream of society and to publicly stand up for what we believe in, what we know as truth, through the grace of our Holy Mother, Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, the living God.

Jai Shri Mataji

Alan Wherry