Editor
On Friday 9 and Saturday 10 March 2007, Sahaja Yoga will be involved in the Willoughby Council’s “Charity Days” events in Chatswood Mall, Victoria Avenue, Chatswood in Sydney. The Chatswood Mall is just down from Chatswood Station.
Practising Sahaja Yogis will be on hand to talk with people about Sahaja Yoga and to give realisation to anyone who wants it. Stalls will be staffed from 9.00 am to 4.00 pm.
As part of the “Charity Days” events, the popular and dynamic Sahaja Yoga music group, “Music of Joy,” will be performing at the Chatswood Mall at 12.00 noon on Saturday 10 March 2007. During the day there will be an interview about Sahaja Yoga for the local FM radio station, 99.3 FM.
In some people, they have some more ego trips to be finished, so they come to Me. I find they are flying in the air like bubbles and, as if blown by the nourishing Mother, blown out like the bubbles on the surface of the sea.
And there are many who are suffering from superego. They get mixed up with the sand and become very heavy and all the time weeping and crying about personal things.
But once the thing clicks, they become one with the spirit of the ocean. Then they feel that deep, joyous force of the sea, which nourishes them, guides them and elevates them every moment …
Deep down in the sea they go and there they find the beautiful pearls of smiles, as laughter, as enjoyment. These are all within you. And they lie there away from your consciousness.
Shri Mataji 1983
Jalal al-Din Rumi (also known as Mawlana Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi) was a poet of the mystical strain of Islam known as Sufism. His spiritual sayings are becoming ever more and more known and loved in the West, particularly in the US, because they transcend cultural and religious divisions.
Rumi was born in 1207 in what is now Afghanistan but was then part of Persia. He was forced to flee his homeland with his father, Baha’Walad, during a Mongol invasion in 1219. During his travels he is said to have met the Sufi poet, Attar ,who made a great impression on the boy. Attar immediately recognized Rumi’s spiritual depth. Seeing the father walking ahead of the son, he said, “Here comes a sea followed by an ocean.” He gave the boy a book about the entanglement of the soul in the material world.
The family settled in Rum (now Turkey) from which the saint derives his name. Baha’Walad took up an important position as a religious teacher, and his son succeeded him in that role. Rumi married and had a son, who later wrote Rumi’s biography.
Rumi studied the Sufi way from his father’s friend, Burhan al-Din, and probably met the great Islamic philosopher, ibn al-Arabi at Damascus, but his greatest influence was the dervish, Shams al-Din of Tabriz, to whom he became a devoted friend.
After the death of the dervish, Rumi started the mystical practice of the sema, an act of worship that takes the form of an ecstatic, whirling dance accompanied by music. The sema is performed to this day in Konya, Turkey, by the Mevlevi order created by Rumi’s disciples.
Encouraged by Husam, one of his disciples, Rumi dictated mystical poetry and tales, and many of his utterances were recorded and collected in what is known as the Discourses. The major work is the Masnavi (Spiritual Couplets), a six-volume poem regarded by many Sufis as second in importance only to the Koran. Rumi fell ill and died in 1273 after predicting his own death.
In common with other Sufi masters, the essence of Rumi’s teaching is the primacy of Divine Love and the idea of Tawheed (unity). Rumi believed that all religions are basically one. The seeker longs to be reunited with the Beloved (the primal root) from which he has been cut off. The Sufi concept of spontaneous union with God is similar to the yoga tradition of India, and Christian mysticism.
Here is a taste of some Rumi’s sayings:
“The Eternal looked upon me for a moment with His eye of power, and annihilated me in His being, and became manifest to me in His essence. I saw I existed through Him. ”
“You are the deep innerness of all things, the last word that can be spoken. To each of us you reveal yourselves differently: to the ship as coastline, to the shore as ship.”
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
Graham Brown
Goddess of Peace, Goddess of Forgiveness, Goddess of Unconditional Love, Kwan Yin is a bodhisattva of compassion, refusing to enter Nirvana until all sentient beings reach enlightenment.
Her name means “She Who Hears the Cries of the World,” and she is depicted in over a hundred poses. Sometimes she is shown pouring a vase of healing love upon the earth, or bestowing the Pearl of Wisdom. Other times, she carries a book, the Lotus Sutra, or displays a hundred helping arms.
Known variously as Kuan Yin, Quan Yin, Kwan Yin, Kwonnen, Guanyin and other variations, She is worshipped in China, Tibet and other Buddhist countries. She has been worshipped and beloved by more devotees than any other goddess in history.