2007/07
Sydney: A four-week course in Sahaja Yoga meditation will be held, free of charge, commencing on Wednesday 18 July 2007. It will be held on four Wednesdays, 18 July until 8 August, 7.30 pm – 8.45 pm. This course is a sequel to the highly successful meeting held at the Paddington Public School last Saturday evening. At this meeting, many people experienced for the first time the joy and peace of mind that comes from true meditation. You are welcome to join us.
The venue for this follow-up course will again be Hall Block C at the rear of the Paddington Public School, corner of Oxford and Elizabeth Streets, Paddington (Sydney, NSW). Parking is available via the Elizabeth Street entrance.
This four-week meditation course will provide information and simple, practical techniques for finding balance in life, meditating at home, keeping in balance and reducing stress. The course is suitable for beginners or experienced meditators, and you can join the course at any time. No postures or special clothing are required, and chairs are provided. The course is free of charge.
When I first experienced … this movie at the Gothenburg Film Festival 1994, I was truly amazed. Never before – or since – have I had such an over-all, explain-it-all feeling after a show. Ron Fricke has made a documentary about the World today for a day, starting at dawn with monkeys in hot springs in Japan, and the morning rituals of various religions. This is followed by the awakening of the human race, both in the big cities and in the country side. Brilliantly edited, the film follows every aspect of human daily life combined with the general changes of the planet itself and all the ecological systems upon it. The over-all glue of the story are the various religious rituals. The only time giver, except for the turning of the sun, are the praying times and times of worship … around the globe. The Gaia idea (that the Earth is a whole being, a unit, a living organism) is detectable in the film, both in the way all the different cultures shown are found to be very similar to one another, and in the way the speeded-up people at side walks and zebra crossings look very much like the stream of blood in the veins of an organism.
Source: jcnteach from Gothenburg, Sweden
(Photograph: bigfoto.com)
O Conch,
You form of perfection
Who could imitate you?
Only inside us
There is an echo
Of that spiral form
Sounding forth that OM,
Winding through our lives
In this unwitting world
Which has forgotten
That note of quietude
Or the power of your song
Born in the dawn of creation when
Lord Siva
Gently pushed His Shakti forth
And in Her whirling dance
The Innocence was formed
On your long winding note.
We now can hear again
That pure untempered sound.
And can imagine how
When Durga raised you to Her lips
And blew divine breath through you
What dismay you brought Her foes then
In that swelling roar of sound.
Having no hollow within themselves
They could not bear it.
And now we widen chambers in our hearts
In stillness to receive and send
Your golden caul of sound
Throughout the universe
At perfect pitch of praise.
LV
(Photograph: lucylearns.com)
We’ve all heard about the environmental disaster that is gripping the world and bringing it to its knees. But what about that other disaster that is taking place inside us in that mysterious, unquantifiable, inner environment – our spirit, our consciousness?
Because for every poisoned sea and ripped down forest around us in this world, there is a spiritual equivalent here within us, in this land of our imagination. Think about it – what happened to that innocent little creature you were when you were born, who seemed to know itself, that was happy in the moment? How has it changed? Haven’t our inner worlds transformed in parallel with the world around us? Who amongst us is still happy? Who amongst us even believes in the simple happiness of just being alive?
And what about these thoughts that choke up our inner skies as surely as any CO2-emitting chimney – that harangue us endlessly with guilt trips, anger, self-glory, alternating with self-loathing and a string of endless and insatiable desires? What about these lusts that break our societies and our families apart, and in the process our children’s hearts until, like us, they too are filled up with yet more pain and insecurity?
We can see the world around us as it suffers, we hear about the flora and fauna that are being destroyed in our wake and we are spurred on to try to curb our wanton consumption of life in the hope that the cycle can be reversed. But how can we hope to bring a balm of peace to this world when our hearts are swamped in toxins, our guts have been mined with unfillable pits of greed, our inner skies are choked by the smoking factories of our mind and our innocent desires are fanned into fierce fires that consume the brushwood of our morality?
Yes, let’s try to save the world! But as we do, let us remember what we are saving this world from. We are saving this world from ourselves, nothing more. We are saving the world from what we have become.
And if we really want to make a difference, then the struggle must be a twofold struggle – both an outer and an inner one. A simultaneous battle to save the animals of the Brazilian rainforests and also the bare-footed angels that live in our hearts. We’re fighting the Environmental disaster but we should not forget about the IN-vironmental disaster that is the root of all our present ills.
Jeremy Clancy
(Photograph: webshots)
Editor: Jeremy would like to start an email action group on this topic. If you would like to join the group, please write to me at [email protected], and I will send your message to Jeremy.