“Now, John was deeply grieved because the master said, I go away, and where I go you cannot come.
He wept and said, Lord, I would go with you through every trial and to death. And Jesus said, And you shall follow me through trials and through death; but now you cannot go where I will go; but you shall come.
And Jesus spoke again unto the eleven and said, Grieve not because I go away, for it is best that I should go away. If I go not the Comforter will not come to you.
These things I speak while with you in the flesh, but when the Holy Breath shall come in power, lo, she will teach you more and more, and bring to your remembrance all the words that I have said to you.
There are a multitude of things yet to be said; things that this age cannot receive, because it cannot comprehend.
But, lo, I say, Before the great day of the Lord shall come, the Holy Breath will make all mysteries known.
The mysteries of the soul, of life, of death, of immortality; the oneness of a man with every other man and with his God.
Then will the world be led to truth, and man will be the truth.
When she has come, the Comforter, she will convince the world of sin, and of the truth of what I speak, and of the judgement of the just; and then the prince of carnal life will be cast out.
And when the Comforter shall come I need not intercede for you; for you will stand approved, and God will know you then as he knows me.
The hour has come when you will weep; the wicked will rejoice, because I go away; but I will come again, and all your sorrows shall be turned to joy;”
(Chapter 162)
By Levi H Dowling (1844-1911)
Amy was a year 7 student at a small country high school. I had taught her in year 4 and her mother baby-sat for me. One day as I arrived to collect my daughter from Amy’s mother’s place, Amy asked me a surprising question. She had an English assignment that required her to do an oral presentation on a religion. She asked if I would mind if she did hers on Sahaja Yoga, as she had learnt a little bit about it back in Year 4 when she asked me about Shri Mataji’s photograph on my desk at school. I agreed to her request on two conditions. The first was that she did not present it as a religion but as the truth of all the great religions, and the second was that she allowed me to read it before she presented it. She agreed to both these requests and I loaned her some books on Sahaja Yoga.
She gave me her work and I was impressed, but I was even more so when she said that she wished she had her self-realisation so that she could speak from experience. I told her that this was possible right then and there if her mother, Cheryl, allowed it. She did, and Amy and I moved into her room with a photograph of Shri Mataji and a candle. Amy got her realisation and strongly felt the cool breeze above the top of her head. We meditated together and the candle flame popped and grew in size as it cleared the negativity. Amy had kept her eyes open staring at Shri Mataji’s photograph through the flame. When we had finished meditating she asked my why the flame had behaved the way it did. I explained that we use the elements to clear our chakras, and that the flame was burning off negativity to clear the chakras.
As we went back into the living room, Amy asked another startling question.
“CanI give the class their realisation when I do my presentation?”
Naturally, I agreed. The next day, I brought a poster-sized photograph of Shri Mataji for Amy to use with her class.
When I arrived to collect my daughter on the day of the presentation, Cheryl suggested that I stay until Amy returned to see how it had all gone. Amy came home beaming and said that it was “amazing.” Everything had gone well. She was glad that I had explained the candle flame’s unusual behaviour as her English teacher had kept her eyes open during the realisation process to watch the class and had seen the candle flame grow and heard it pop. At the end of Amy’s presentation, she asked Amy why this had happened and Amy was able to give an explanation.
I could hardly believe what I was hearing, but more was to come. Amy told me that a girl who was always very nervous had to give her presentation after Amy. This girl had been dreading the presentation, but later told Amy how glad she was that Amy had gone first because getting her realisation had made her the calmest that she had ever felt in her life, and she stayed that way while she gave the presentation that she had dreaded!
At lunchtime people came to ask how Amy knew about Sahaja Yoga. She told them that Tanaya’s mother had taught her. Tanaya is my eldest daughter, who was also in year 7 at the same school. Other pupils came to ask for their realisation as word had spread as to how “cool” it was.
That night Tanaya told me that her friends had heard of Amy’s presentation and had been a little upset, saying, “You knew of this all along and you didn’t tell us about it!”
That weekend one of Tanaya’s friends came to visit and the two of them headed for the bedroom. This was nothing unusual but the silence that came from the room was; so, too, were the strong vibrations that I felt as I passed the door. I opened the door a little, being very careful not to disturb them. The most beautiful sight greeted my eyes. Tanaya and her friend were sitting in front of Shri Mataji’s photograph with a lit candle. Tanaya was giving her friend her self-realisation. This occurred a couple of more times with other friends over the following days. All of these young people have had that precious connection to the Divine established, and it will stay with them for life.
LB
Not Christian or Jew or Muslim,
not Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi or Zen.
Not any religion, or cultural system.
I am not from the East or the West,
nor out of the ocean or up
from the ground, not natural or ethereal,
not composed of elements at all.
I do not exist, am not an entity in this world
or the next,
did not descend from Adam and Eve
or any origin story.
My place is placeless, a trace of the traceless.
Neither body nor soul.
I belong to the beloved
have seen the two worlds as one
and that one call to and know,
First, last, outer, inner, only that
breath breathing human.
Jalaluddin Rumi
The poet, Gyaneshwara, wrote a series of poems in praise of the Divine. In his book, Gyaneshwari, the poet has given precise instructions for the awakening of the Kundalini and the achievement of Self-realisation.
In the Epilogue to the Gyanashwari, known as the Pasadyan, Gyaneshwara expresses a desire for mass realisation for the whole world. He predicts the arrival on Earth of people who will give their blessings to the whole world. These are his words:
May the wicked give up their wickedness
And develop a liking for good deeds.
May all beings feel friendly with one another.
May the darkness of evil vanish.
May the whole universe see the light, the sun of One Universal Religion.
May the desire of all human beings be fulfilled.
May the world be visited ceaselessly by the company of the faithful saints
Who would shower blessings on the earth.
Such men are the moving forests of Kalpaturu trees.
They are mines of wish-granting jewels.
They are vocal oceans of nectar.
They are moons without spots, suns without heat.
Let such saints be friends to all.
How similar are these wishes to those expressed by more recent writers, as in songs popular in the early 1970s. In his song, Don’t you feel a change a coming? Cat Stevens expressed it in this way in 1971:
Don’t you feel a day is coming, and it won’t be too soon
When the people of the world can all live in one room.
When we shake off the ancient, shake off the ancient chains of our tomb
We will all be born again of the eternal womb.
In the same year, John Lennon wrote the following lines in his famous song, Imagine:
Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger, a brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people sharing all the world…
You may say I’m a dreamer but I’m not the only one
I hope some day you’ll join us and the world will live as one.
It is not really a coincidence that Cat Stevens and John Lennon were writing songs like this at this time. It was in 1970 that Shri Mataji developed a unique method of giving en masse self-realisation. Sahaja Yoga, which was founded by Shri Mataji, provides the path to awakening the Kundalini, attaining Self-realisation and living in peace with people from all over the world.