Editor
Musical therapist and teacher of Sahaja Yoga, Celeste Jones, is set to attend the 2008 World Youth Congress in Quebec, Canada. Kurrajong Heights’ Celeste Jones is one of a select group of youths meeting in Canada later this year, to search for ways to combat the many crises facing our modern world.
In August she will join 600 young leaders from throughout the globe, to participate in the fourth World Youth Congress, “ReGeneration 2008”, in Quebec.
The World Youth Congress is a project funded by Peace Child International, which aims to bring together young people from the age of 18 to 30 who have a passion for sustainable development.
A total of 15,000 youths applied to attend this year’s congress.
Delegates will join forces with young Canadians to undertake hands-on community action projects across Quebec.
They will help shape international policy by documenting and showing governments what young people are doing to achieve the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals, which include halving poverty, halting the spread of HIV/AIDS, promoting gender equality and reducing infant mortality.
Ms Jones, 25, will attend the congress along with a group of friends, as an advocate of Sahaja Yoga.
“A group of us applied as delegates so we put in our application as the Sahaja organisation,” she said.
The group travel internationally teaching Sahaja Yoga meditation techniques, which promotes attributes such as inner balance, peace and “self realisation”.
“It’s just a very simple meditation technique that takes a few minutes, and once you’ve learnt it you can teach anyone,” she said. “Whatever we do is always free — it’s just for other people’s benefit. We get a lot of joy out of it.”
As part of attending the World Youth Congress, Ms Jones and the Sahaja group were asked to submit a development project illustrating the ways her organisation is taking action.
They plan to spend time in Rome working with Gypsies, teaching Sahaja Yoga and musical therapy, and helping them re-establish their cultural roots by empowering the youth.
But the project is just one of many for Ms Jones and her friends, who have established meditation programs around the world.
“A lot of my other friends, they live in all different countries,” she said. “They organise various events and then we go and join them and do all sorts of things.”
The trip to Canada will be her second encounter with the World Youth Congress.
Ms Jones is a trained musician and musical therapist as well as an accomplished artist, and attended the last congress in Scotland three years ago as a cultural performer.
For the 2008 World Youth Congress Ms Jones has applied as a delegate, which will give her a greater role in the discussions and decisions made at the event.
For more information on the World Youth Congress, go to www.wyc2008.qc.ca
By Tegan Osborne, Hawkesbury Courier
The problem is this greed. It is some sort of a inner defect in a human being. He becomes greedy – greedy because he has deviated from dharma [right conduct]. He thinks he can get pleasure out of things. He cannot and goes on accumulating and buying….
Just think of it. What is all this for? What pleasure does it give us? I can understand if you want to give somebody a present or you want to give somebody some happiness, joy. You should do it, but just for yourself … how much can you digest it? You cannot.
Joy is much more in giving to others. It’s not a thing that gives you any understanding of the fundamentals. And the fundamentals are that you are dharma. Within you is that. That is your valency and this materialism is absolutely against it because it creates all kinds of people – mafia, the Swiss banks, cheats…. They have no spititual sense….
In the nature it’s so matching – nothing gross, nothing loud. It’s so beautiful. This is red, but it has green to match it. This Mother Earth knows everything. She does everything, but what do we do for the Mother Earth…?
Anything that you want to use also should have its maryadas [boundaries]. Don’t go beyond it. If you take to swimming, you’ll go on swimming until you get sick. If you are horse riding, you’ll go on horse riding until you fall down. You see, this is also a kind of a life which has no maryadas, like greed has no maryadas….
What is the solution to get rid of this greed? It is to try and give it to others and see the joy. Give something to others, share and see the joy you feel by giving something…. These small, small things can give you great joy in giving to other people, not yourself….
If you don’t have greed, you get what you want…. But if you have greed, then God makes you dance…. Whatever you want, you can get it, if you don’t have greed about it. That’s such an enslaving thing within us, that we have greed… If you don’t ask for anything, you don’t desire for anything, you get what you need. Whatever you need, you get. But if you go on desiring, then go mad after it. Go there, get this and get lost. And then the thing also gets lost. That’s why it is said better try to develop a detachment. It’s all right. If it is there, well and good. If it is not there, it doesn’t matter. Then you’ll be surprised. your attention will be so subtle….
So you should go in for solutions and not for problems. Greed is a problem. How to get rid of the greed is the point. And to get rid of the greed is that if I buy something … for whom should I buy…? If you train your mind on these lines – not for yourself, but for others – then you’ll be amazed. This greed will run away and you’ll have joy…. If giving is there, then this greed goes away and you get what you want. It’s a very simple mantra.
Shri Mataji, 1997
When the heart is purified with sincerity
Then even enemies become friends.
Tigers may come near but will never attack one.
Poison offered to such a one will turn into nectar,
Any harm directed towards him will result into good,
Harsh words will sound polite.
Any pain afflicted will become the source of happiness.
The flames of fire will turn cool.
For God All Merciful is pleased.
If one’s heart is full of compassion,
If one loves others more than oneself,
God will look upon such a one with an eye of mercy
And bless his heart with His presence.
Tukaram (1608-1660)
(Photograph: dabase.org)
Going to Chhindwara, little did I realise that the event coming up was quite cosmic in proportions – Good Friday, Persian New Year, Prophet Mohammed’s Birthday and, of course, Shri Mataji’s 85th birthday.
The celebration of Holi was expected on the day after Birthday Puja [celebration], so we dressed in our silks and other finest for the Puja, leaving “holi clothes” for the next day. Little did we realise that we were going to break into spontaneous Holi colour-smearing right after Puja.
Shri Mataji’s daughters, Sadhana Didi and Kalpana Didi, decided to play Holi with Shri Mataji right there after the birthday cake was cut. More Gulal (red powder for smearing on each other) was vibrated by Shri Mataji. The Indian yogis spared no time mixing the vibrated red powder with tons more, making packets and distributing it right away to a rapturous crowd of more than 20,000.
A new movie on Shri Mataji’s childhood was premiered just before the Puja. In February this year, Shri Mataji gave a 3-hour interview, reminiscing about her childhood and the house in Chhindwara where she was born. The house is a shrine restored without replacing most of its vibrated elements: the floor on which Mother took Her first steps, etc.
The house was a hospital for a long time. During this time, many years ago, Baba Mama [Shri Mataji’s youngest brother] took Sahaja Yogis to the building and asked them to check vibrations in various rooms to find the room where Shri Mataji was born. This Sahaja Yogi recollected that they passed many rooms before coming to a small, abandoned room which was quite cobwebbed. It gave vibrational evidence that Baba Mama confirmed as the birth place of Shri Mataji.
After the puja, Holi celebrations resumed with the folksy charm of Mukhiraam and Dr. Rajesh’s songs about Holi. It was quite a coincidence to celebrate Holi in the state of India where Holi is celebrated quite intensely: Madhya Pradesh.
The highlight of Birthday Puja was Shri Mataji’s power of transforming the remote puja site in Linga village near Chhindwara, into a hospitable place for thousands in a matter of weeks.
Ruthvick