Editor
Mankind, with all its creativity and discipline,
Cannot create a thing as beautiful as a flower.
How to fashion each perfect part?
The shape, the hue, the texture,
The symmetry, the angularity,
The flamboyance, the staid?
The abundance, the rarity,
The variety, the uniformity?
These are beyond the minds
And imaginations of humankind.
Our dabbled attempts at art
Are nothing compared with
The wondrous palette
Of a simple, domestic garden.
The creative genius of God
Is beyond our comprehension
And evades our clumsy attempts
At portraying the Divine Art.
Melody Anderson
If you are in a witness state, then what will happen? If you watch any such things that are happening, it will subside. If you are in a witness state … then no accident will take place in your sight. Even if there is an accident, then you can save the person, you can help the person very actively. That’s in a very small scale, but even in a very large scale, you can do it, something wonderful…
There is no fear at all once you learn how to have the state of witnessing. So you become fearless.
There is no fear at all once you learn how to have the state of witnessing because when you are not witnessing, you get disturbed, you get upset, you get excited. You may join also these wrong type of people.
But if you are in a state of witnessing, that itself is a power. And that witnessing state helps you to win over so many difficulties of other people…
This is the best way to bring non-violence. In violent places you go and stand steadily there, facing all the things that are happening and that witness state acts – acts and stops that kind of a violence that is going on.
But the witness state is not a mental state. It is a state of spiritual ascent where you become a witness. The best way to practise the witness state is not to criticise anyone – not to criticise.
Shri Mataji, 1998
Kundalini is “… a residual energy, means it has created the whole universe of human beings but it has not been yet manifested. That’s why it is called as a residual energy. This energy is within us.”
In this world of constant change, we are constantly seeking change; “… so why not we change our Complete being through Self-realisation?”
And finally, “There are so many things I’ve said. There are so many lectures which I would like you to hear … these are beautiful, precious lectures … So if you really are interested in yourself, interested in your ascent, interested in becoming one with the whole, to be in the Kingdom of God, then please take these tapes, listen to them, meditate on them. Meditation will become easier.”
The above quotes are from various lectures given by Shri Mataji, the founder of Sahaja Yoga, over these many years since the day She gave the first human being Kundalini awakening in 1971. That was the beginning of the journey for human beings – the journey that signalled the culmination of this long evolutionary process which started out at the stage of the amoeba.
Taking Self-realisation is the end of the journey as the human being. A new dimension is opened out in the human brain, a brain enlightened by the Spirit or Atma.
The first fundamental question we ask in the guided meditation that facilitates the awakening of Kundalini at all Sahaja Yoga public programs is, “Am I the Spirit?” It is this Spirit that all holy scriptures have alluded to and which all seekers of yoga have sought.
It is the human attention that has to become enlightened so that wherever this enlightened instrument falls, that becomes enlightened. The enlightened attention is a powerful tool. It is penetrating and purifying, and it is through the enlightened attention that we can know the Atma and become one with it. That is the aim of Yoga.
Meditation is a state of being where we are fully aware but there are no thoughts. It is also the state where we experience joy. To use a lake as an analogy, the lake’s surface is free of ripples; therefore, the reflections are perfect. Seeing all the details as they are, we know the truth. So, too, it is with everything in our lives. If we can see them with the same kind of clarity we will know their truth and thereby know, without doubt, what must be done.
Everything in the universe, from the largest to the smallest indivisible particle, is imbued with the Spirit. This is that which gives things life. It is only the ego and superego that developed in the human beings that distorts this knowing.
Sahaja Yoga is different from all other types of yoga and meditation practices offered. In this yoga we have to know experientially by doing. There is nothing to be learnt through the mental faculties. It is to be known through our nervous system, to be felt and sensed. We have to feel the cool breeze of the Kundalini. We have to feel our chakras and channels on our finger tips and, if we are sensitive enough, at their locations in the body or on various parts of the body where the nerves end. We have to feel the chakras and channels of others if we are to help them. And ultimately, we have to feel and be in the Joy which is the expression of the Atma. There is no guesswork. We are either Sahaja Yogis or we are not.
We can become experts, become very slick at applying the various cleansing and clearing techniques and sometimes even get lost in them, thinking that is what Sahaja Yoga is. It helps in mastering the instrument but that is only so that the Kundalini can flow properly, allowing the Atma to shine. If we are sincere about our ascent, about becoming one with the Spirit, we will surrender to our Self-realisation and to Kundalini. She is our mother who has been with us all through our evolutionary process and She knows how to lead us to our destination.
As Shri Mataji has advised, please listen to Her lectures. This entire Yoga system is based on Her teachings. She has made all that was once secret and hard to understand, knowable and doable. You can do this by attending a Sahaja Yoga public program on a weekly basis and with your own enlightened discretion applying what you hear. Each week you will learn a little bit more and you will be that much more closer to your goal of becoming a Yogi, Sahaja style.
Greta
The Agnya Chakra, sometimes called the Third Eye, is situated at the centre of the brain. This is the level of the mind. Our mind has two lobes: the ego, which gives us our sense of separateness; and our superego, which has our conditionings and memory. The goal in Sahaja Yoga is to bring the light of the Spirit to the brain and so achieve enlightenment, Self-realisation. The Sahaja Yoga affirmations for the Agnya Chakra are, “I forgive everyone, including myself,” “Mother, by your grace I am forgiven,” “Mother, please make me a forgiving person,” and “Mother, verily You are the forgiveness.”
When the Kundalini passes through this chakra, the thought waves elongate so that the space between the thoughts grows longer. The present moment begins to fill the attention and we enter the state of meditation in thoughtless awareness. Then we can see without colouring or projecting – simply, innocently, like a child.
Jesus Christ, the personification or Deity of the Agnya Chakra is said to have explained, “Unless you be as little children, you cannot enter into the Kingdom of God.” This entry point is “the narrow gate” between the ego (ahankara) and superego (manas). This is the “now” point that remains clear and unpressured, beyond the mind’s remembrances of the past, and beyond the ego’s mental projections about the future.
The mind, like the body, gives us fairly convincing ideas of our existence. However, with an enlightened mind we find, as Shri Mataji has said, that we are not the body, the mind, ego and conditionings, but we are the Spirit. This was the essential revelation of Jesus Christ who fully manifested the Divine qualities of the Agnya Chakra – compassion and forgiveness. His testimony, of undoubted Oneness with His Father, is the Nirvikalpa experience of the Yogi, who has been cleansed and prepared by the Divine Mother, Kundalini. His assertion, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Light,” is the ultimate expression of this enlightened Agnya.
It is through deep meditation, forgiveness and humility that the process of crossing the Agnya Chakra is worked out. The left and right channels cross just below the Agnya. If either of these channels is overly active they create a burden and an imbalance in the subtle body that pressures and closes the narrow gate and has us again feeling alone and unconnected. The right channel is easily inflated with the idea, “I do.” Too much thinking, planning, projecting, over-activity, anger, competitiveness or superiority will cause blockage and also deplete the left side of the essential ability to feel and love. Becoming too “right-sided” means we can enter the hot realm of the supra-conscious, the realm of the future. The left channel can catch if we are overly emotional, too expressive, feeling victimised, wishing harm to ourselves, becoming immersed in the past, and too involved in unhealthy habits, subconscious images or dead ideas. This is the realm where everything from the past is placed, including dead spirits and the Collective Sub-conscious.
A central idea in spiritual evolution is the idea of being “born again”. This is not a process of self- or group-certification. It is the process of Self-realisation in which we break through, surrender the lesser senses of ego and conditioning, and become resurrected, identified with the eternal awareness, the Spirit. Here we go beyond the mind and often humorously witness the play of the ego and conditionings as they battle to have their way. We are still in the world, yet in a detached, joy-filled and loving way. We easily forgive, for not to forgive causes problems. We know and enjoy our own Spirit, the same Spirit in all, and witness the play of the Creation. We are humble before the ultimate majesty of the Creator and also spontaneously experience true love and compassion for the human condition.
Pavan Keatley
(Photograph: orthodox.cn)