Uncategorized
On the occasion of the March 8 International Woman’s Day, 2007, Sahaja Yogis in France are organising a half-day of conferences and exhibitions in Paris to honour Shri Mataji, Her life and Her achievements as a “Feminine Vision for Humanity”.
Shri Mataji’s life, overflowing with compassion and Her immense message to humanity – that is Self-realisation – will be presented to the general public and French women’s associations.
Through this event, the French Sahaja Yogis wish to convey their love and gratitude to Shri Mataji for the gift of enlightenment.
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.
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
There is a very interesting phenomenon related to the notion of left-sidedness, right-sidedness and being in the centre. In many ways progress – natural growth – develops from left to right, and from right to centre. A new-born baby is a left-sided creature in that he or she is dependent for survival on others. Later, the young child is concerned entirely with himself or herself. There is no other viewpoint; everything is seen, needed, felt, explored, as an individual. Nothing else matters. Later again, the child starts to become conscious of other people’s needs, begins to see alternative points of view, starts making plans, starts moving into the right. Some adolescents don’t fully make this transition. They stay withdrawn, secretive, uncommunicative.
The same progress is typical of the seekers of truth. We tend to begin in the left, withdrawing from the rat-race to feel things through, longing for patterns, answers. Exploration, study and experiment will take us into the right. And, if we are lucky and make the right discoveries – such as, in our day and age, the grace of Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi – we arrive in the centre with the possibility of attaining Divine knowledge, perception and joy.
The painter, Picasso, is an interesting example. After his apprentice years spent copying great artists, he became famous for sad, left-sided, blue and rose paintings. Then he moved into the right, exploring cubism and collage and painting harshly-coloured abstracts, before settling, through an interest in neoclassicism, into a balance where he gained his self-realisation.
Brian Bell