When you forgive a person, what do you do? You accept the situation, to begin with. And secondly, you forgive what you think has been done wrong to you. But because nothing wrong can be done to your spirit, you just forgive because you are the spirit. And when you forgive, you have found that your tension goes away.
So even to your thoughts … say, “All right, forgive this thought,” because thought is also not to be punished. Forgive this thought, forgive this thought. Forgive everything. Not forget – forgive. Because then you will even forget that you are the spirit.
“Forgive all the thoughts that are coming to me.” Just go on saying this. It is a mantra. What is a mantra? It is that power of the word that expresses the spirit.
So this is a very important thing Christ has given us – the weapon of forgiveness. Everybody has that weapon. Everyone can use that weapon. You don’t have to put in any effort for it. You don’t have to pay for it. It’s just you have to say, “I forgive.” You’ll be amazed. Your nerves will soothe down. This tension, this pressure of these modern things will be reduced if you just go on saying, “I forgive. I forgive them.” …
What happens when you forgive someone? That means you do not react. The power to react to somebody’s injuries, insults is finished. And when that power is finished, you become a powerful person because nobody can now overpower you, because nobody can kill you, nobody can hurt you, nobody can do anything to you.
Shri Mataji, 1984
The festival of Vasant Panchami is celebrated every year on the fifth day of the bright fortnight of the lunar month of Magha (January – February).
This “Panchami” is also known as Saraswati Day, because it is believed that on this day the Goddess was born. As Diwali is to Shri Lakshmi and Navaratri is to Shri Durga, Vasant Panchami is to Shri Saraswati, the Goddess of art, creativity, knowledge and learning. She represents the free flow of wisdom and consciousness. She is the Mother of the Vedas, and chants to Her often begin and end Vedic lessons.
Saraswati literally means “the flowing one”. In the Rigveda it is said She represents a river and the deity presiding over it. In later mythology, Shri Saraswati was identified with Vach or Speech. The “flowing one” in an allegorical sense may mean speech also – perfect speech which denotes intelligence.
On this Vasant Panchami day, Lord Brahma is said to have created His consort Goddess Saraswati, infused speech into Her and bestowed the Veena in Her hands. She was thus named as Veena Vandini (veena player) and Vani Dayyani (recipient of speech). As the spouse of Brahma and the Goddess of wisdom and eloquence, She is known by various names such as Veenapani (holding the veena), Sharada (giver of essence), Vagisvari (mistress of speech), Brahmi (wife of Brahma) and Mahavidya (knowledge supreme).
The colour yellow is given special importance on Vasant Panchami. On this day, Shri Saraswati is dressed in yellow garments and worshipped. Books, articles, instruments of music and arts are placed before Her. In the evening after the Puja is over, the idol is immersed in the sea with serenity.
In all educational institutions of music, arts and science in India, Saraswati Puja is observed with great reverence. Saraswati Puja is also performed during the Navaratri or Dusshera. In India, Hindus prefer to wear yellow clothes on this holy day. Sweets of yellowish hues are distributed among relatives and friends.
Children are taught their first words on this day, for it is considered an auspicious day to begin to learn how to read and write.
Vasant means “spring”, and Vasant Panchami heralds springtime in India, a time of renewal and creativity of life in nature.
(Photograph: freewebs.com)
Today is the day where we celebrate the change of the axis of the sun, and that he moves towards the Tropic of Cancer. Tropic of Cancer is the one which represents the motherhood, the motherhood of the earth. This Tropic of Cancer has passed through quite a big area of land, while the Tropic of Capricorn has not. And the area through which it has passed it has created different beautiful manifestation of the mother qualities on this earth. We celebrate this change because the sun has now moved into the new dimension, so that all over the world there will be the warmth of the sun.
Warmth of the sun represents the warmth of God’s love. This is the reason why we celebrate this festival by giving you some sort of a sweet made out of sesame seeds. Sesame seeds are given because they are also heat-giving, and now as we are coming from the cold we come to the hot season, in a way hotter season, so to prepare you with that warmth of the sun.
This special things are made out of the seed of sesame to represent the oncoming warmth, and the warmth of the sun. Though in India the heat is too much, still people are waiting for this time to come in and they celebrate it with such a warm heart. At this time it is said that they give you this sesame seed and the sugar to eat, but now you must speak in a sweet manner ….
Speaking in the sweet manner is very important. Some people think it is smart to speak in a rude manner, or is very intelligent to shout on people but no one likes this kind of a personality. You may be intelligent. You may be very sharp or smart. Maybe on a television people may like to see you, but not as companions, as friends. To speak in a very sweet manner is a sign of good breeding, good culture and fear of God. Those who fear God will never speak rudely to another person, because in another person also the same spirit is shining; and why should we be sharp or angry with another person who is created by God Almighty as we are created?
So this loving, beautiful co-relationship that we have with each other after Sahaj Yoga specially, let us express in talking to each other sweetly. There are so many ways by which we could be sweet. There are little, little things if you do, you can create lot of sweetness, but you need not a sharp tongue, but a sharp memory. I try these things many a times.
Shri Mataji, 1987
Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809 – 1892), one of the greatest English poets, has written one of the clearest descriptions of the Self-realisation that results from the awakening of the kundalini. The passage is found in a very early poem of his called “Armageddon”, written when he was only fifteen years old. The passage starts with his encounter with a beautiful angel (seraph) who tells him that his senses are “clogg’d with dull mortality” and his “spirit [is] fetter’d with the bond of clay”. Following this, the seraph commands, “Open thine eyes and see!” and in that instant he achieves his Self-realisation. He could then feel the unimaginable glory that lies within all of us: “I felt my soul grow godlike”. As “each failing sense … grew thrillingly distinct and keen” the world around him was transformed into a thing of wonder and beauty. “All sense of Time and Being and Place [were] swallowed up and lost”. He had achieved yoga (union with God): “I was a part of the Unchangeable”.
Aaron Rosenthal
Here is this beautiful poem in full:
The rustling of white wings! The bright descent
Of a young seraph! and he stood beside me
In the wide foldings of his argent robes
There on the ridge, and look’d into my face
With his unutterable shining eyes,
So that with hasty motion I did veil
My vision with both hands, and saw before me
Such coloured spots as dance before the eyes
Of those that gaze upon the noonday sun.
“0 Son of Man, why stand you here alone
Upon the mountain, knowing not the things
Which will be, and the gathering of the nations
Unto the mighty battle of the Lord?
Thy sense is clogg’d with dull Mortality,
Thy spirit fetter’d with the bond of clay
Open thine eyes and see!”
I look’d, but not
Upon his face, for it was wonderful
With its exceeding brightness, and the light
Of the great Angel Mind that look’d from out
The starry glowing of his restless eyes.
I felt my soul grow godlike, and my spirit
With supernatural excitation bound
Within me, and my mental eye grew large
With such a vast circumference of thought,
That, in my vanity, I seem’d to stand
Upon the outward verge and bound alone
Of God’s omniscience. Each failing sense,
As with a momentary flash of light,
Grew thrillingly distinct and keen. I saw
The smallest grain that dappled the dark Earth,
The indistinctest atom in deep air,
The Moon’s white cities, and the opal width
Of her small, glowing lakes, her silver heights
Unvisited with dew of vagrant cloud,
And the unsounded, undescended depth
Of her black hollows. Nay the hum of men
Or other things talking in unknown tongues,
And notes of busy Life, in distant worlds,
Beat, like a far wave, on my anxious ear.
I wondered with deep wonder at myself:
My mind seem’d wing’d with knowledge and the strength
Of holy musings and immense Ideas,
Even to Infinitude. All sense of Time
And Being and Place was swallowed up and lost
Within a victory of boundless thought.
I was a part of the Unchangeable,
A scintillation of Eternal Mind,
Remix’d and burning with its parent fire.
Yea! in that hour I could have fallen down
Before my own strong soul and worshipp’d it ….
Alfred Lord Tennyson (excerpt from “Armageddon”)
(Photograph: theatre.msu.edu)