Editor
It is important for our spiritual growth to develop a balance between our left side of emotion and our right side of action. Often, if we’re dragged into the left side, or pulled into the right side, we lose touch with those around us. We become individualistic. Either we’re withdrawn and unwilling to communicate, or we’re too full of ourselves to care what others have to say. In both cases our connection with other people becomes undermined.
When in the centre, we automatically become collective. There is a desire to connect, to communicate. It is a joy to be in the company of others. All apprehension and suspicion vanish completely. All disregard and arrogance melt away.
The famous psychologist, Carl Jung, spoke at length about this. He called it Individuation. He said we have both a collective side and an individual side. The problem is that people identify with one or the other. If we become too individualistic, we neglect our social responsibilities; and if we are too socially oriented, we neglect our inner selves. Individuation is a sort of harmonising of these two sides. By working out who we in fact are, through a realisation of the self – self-realisation – our uniqueness unravels. We are then able to fit into the collective pattern in a more creative and natural way.
In order to attain this sense of the collective, however, we must become balanced. Our thinking function and our feeling function, need to be kept in their rightful places. Over-development of either function takes us away from the Self.
Our seeking, our search for some meaning in this world, is a very personal journey. We make discoveries and draw conclusions, not in a social setting, but within ourselves. If we are on the right path, then this journey is nothing short of profound. There are times when the world seems to stop at the moment of some significant realisation; a realisation that encourages us further along our path. God, or the All-pervading Power, seems to touch us on such occasions.
However, the nature of our spiritual development changes with time. At some point there is a subtle shift or transition from a very personal, individual journey, to one that has a collective dimension. It seems that the “seedling” not only has to learn to adjust to the earth, but also to exist amongst others of its own kind.
Brian Bell
As part of the Realise Australia tour, Sahaja Yoga Meditation programs will be held in the following centres in North Queensland:
Ingham: 8 December 2006, 7.30 pm in the Community Room, Hinchinbrook Community Support Centre, 71 Townsville Rd, Ingham
Bowen: 9 December 2006, 2.00 pm at the Bowen Neighbourhood Centre, 20 William St, Bowen
Townsville: 10 December 2006, 11.00 am in the Meeting Room, Aitkenvale Library, Cnr Ross River Rd and Petunia St, Aitkenvale (Child Care side)
Experienced Sahaja Yoga practitioners will be present to provide an explanation of Sahaja Yoga Meditation. The program will include the opportunity to experience true meditation.
For further information, please phone Mark on 0414 763 403.
The most beautiful word on the lips of mankind is the word “Mother,” and the most beautiful call is the call of “My mother.” It is a word full of hope and love, a sweet and kind word coming from the depths of the heart. The mother is everything – she is our consolation in sorrow, our hope in misery, and our strength in weakness. She is the source of love, mercy, sympathy, and forgiveness….
Everything in nature bespeaks the mother. The sun is the mother of earth and gives it its nourishment of heart; it never leaves the universe at night until it has put the earth to sleep to the song of the sea and the hymn of birds and brooks. And this earth is the mother of trees and flowers. It produces them, nurses them, and weans them. The trees and flowers become kind mothers of their great fruits and seeds. And the mother, the prototype of all existence, is the eternal spirit, full of beauty and love.
Kahlil Gibran
“The concept of Sahaj is central and pivotal in Guru Nanak’s mystical thought. It relates to the highest spiritual state humanly attainable and has thus deepest connotations attached to it. The ordinary meaning of Sahaj [is] ‘just what it should be’ or ‘just normal’. In other words, a simple human proposition: that a man should become a man par excellence, a real man; no adhesions, no default, no accretions, no deviations.
But this paradoxical word Sahaj does not go with mere ‘saying’ or verbal expression. It is an actuality, a real human state, a tangible workable human achievement. Guru Nanak himself … experienced directly the blissful union with God and the concomitant divine manifestations attending such beatitude.
Sahaj is originally a Sanskrit word which means ‘having been born together’ and thus something inwardly perceived or intuited along with one’s birth as a human being – a sort of indwelling mystical principle of divine perception given to man as his birthright and therefore, a natural and effortless heritage of divinity ingrained in humanity.
Properly speaking, Sahaj is the very mysticality of religion. It is the acceptance of inwardness and intuitionism as the true basis of religion, to the negation of all ritualistic externalities. Sahaj in this meaning would be the mystical state of a man who has accepted the divine will. Sahaj, thus, is the highest spiritual state attainable in Sikhism. It is the highest bliss.
Sahaj connotes a natural slowness and steadiness required for perfect action. Sahaj is the opposite of inordinate haste. Sahaj is compactness and self-sufficiency, while haste is flippancy and inner weakness. Sahaj would mean equipoise, equanimity and equilibrium. It may be called ‘balanced perspicacity’ or sambuddhata, in the psychological sense. All true balance and true action (which may be called Sahaj-karam, as distinct from the self-willed action) engender aesthetic as well as spiritual pleasure, while spiritual fulfillment produces infinite bliss.”
From a book on Guru Nanak by Dewan Singh