You must pray to God and ask what you want. Ask for:
“Complete satisfaction in my heart, joy in my heart, bliss in my heart, so that the whole world becomes blissful.
“Give me love, love that I could … love the whole world and that the whole world becomes one in love.
“Give salvation to this … humanity , which is suffering.
“Take me to Your Feet.
“Cleanse me … with Thy love.”
Now see if there is God or not. You can feel it within yourself. He hears you. He understands you. He’s the glory of all the glory. He loves you. He protects you. He guides you. He created you to reveal His love, but accept it.
Any time any thought is coming, you pray and you will be moving in the waves of that ocean which is the unconcsious mind, which starts with thoughtless awareness.
If you cannot become thoughtless, you pray:
“Forgive me for what I have done and forgive those who have done harm to me.”
Shri Mataji, 1975
A beautiful daughter, beachside home, family and friends close by, a well-paid, part-time job within walking distance of home and a great social life that came with free babysitters – that was my life before I came to Sahaja Yoga. Compared with our previous home, a small cramped house in inner Sydney, I felt as though I was on a permanent holiday. However, I kept yearning for something else. I described it once as wanting to find my spirit’s home.
When I told a friend about this yearning she brought me the local paper to show me an advertisement about a Sahaja Yoga program, complete with Indian music, food and meditation. It was a four-week course at a library in a nearby suburb and it was free. It sounded great and I told my friend that I would go.
I was not a “new age” person and knew nothing about the Kundalini or self-realisation. I did, however, have dreams from time to time that were premonitions. These dreams always left me with a strong awareness of their message when I awoke.
I had a strict deadline at work and, as usual, was behind schedule. So, the day before the program I decided not to go. However, that night I had one of those dreams. I dreamed I was at the library walking around with a pile of books in my arms. I came to a doorway and looked in. There were two men standing in the room getting ready for the Sahaja Yoga program. I kept walking. When I passed the room a second time, the two men approached me and asked if I was going to the program. I said that I couldn’t because I was too busy. One of the men smiled at me and said, “What a shame! Because you think you are so busy, you will miss out, and this is just for you. It is what you are looking for.” When I awoke the next morning, I remembered the dream and knew that I had to go to the program.
As I got there, I was puffing away on the last of my daily packet of cigarettes.
When I walked in, I was dumbstruck. The room was exactly as it had appeared in my dream and, amazingly, two of the men present were the same ones who had approached me in my dream!
When the presenter was explaining the process of self-realisation, I found it very difficult to believe and decided to leave. However, as I was about to leave, a video began. It was Shri Mataji. I couldn’t take my eyes from Her, and Her opening words captured my attention. She asked us to keep an open mind like a scientist and to see for ourselves how it works. I decided to listen. Every word that Shri Mataji uttered, provided the missing pieces of the jigsaw that formed my life. I hung on Her every word.
Before I knew it, I was doing exactly as I was told to get my realization. When I held my palm over the top of my head, I felt the cool breeze that I had scoffed at in the beginning. It was there! I felt transformed, but I didn’t realise the magnitude of this transformation until later, when I realised I had forgotten to buy my essential packet of cigarettes.
I saw another friend on the way home who exclaimed, “Whatever you’ve had, I want a ton of it! Look at your eyes! You look amazing!”
Unused to such a greeting, I mumbled something about a wonderful meditation program and raced home to see for myself. When I looked in the mirror, I saw that I had a glow and my eyes were sparkling. My whole face looked softer. I had changed! My spirit had come home.
I continued to meditate and, before I knew it, nights on the town, alcohol and smoking were replaced with peace, joy and an amazing feeling of contentment. I am forever grateful to Shri Mataji for finding me.
LB
When you meditate, try not to … make some sort of a function out of it. No. Meditation is something silencing yourself, silencing your thoughts and the going to that deep ocean which is within you…
But supposing you don’t do that; if you don’t meditate, I can make out immediately those who are meditating and those who are not – it’s not difficult for me. Those who do not meditate are always hesitating; they are confused; they can’t understand.
And that’s why meditation is the most important thing in Sahaj Yoga. Just like a light burns, in the electricity flowing in it, you can say, or … because of the candles, in the same way meditation is a continuous availability of the Divine force.
Shri Mataji, 2002
Guru Nanaka was born into a Hindu family in 1439 in what is now Pakistan. Following a transformative realisation while bathing in the river Bein, He gave up his career as an accountant and began to travel throughout India teaching, composing hymns and establishing centres of worship known as dharamsalas.
He taught the absolute unity of God; everything is God, and everything is dependent on the will of God; therefore, spirit and matter are not ultimately antagonistic. Spirit is the only reality, and matter is a form of spirit.
“When I saw truly, I knew that all was primeval. Nanak, the subtle (Spirit) and the gross (material) are, in fact, identical,” Guru Nanak said. “That which is inside a person, the same is outside; nothing else exists; by Divine prompting look upon all existence as one and undifferentiated.”
It was a time in India’s history when Mughal domination had led to increasing tension between Hindu and Muslim. Seeing the divisiveness of human religions, He said: “There is no Hindu or Muslim, so whose path shall I follow? I shall follow the path of God.”
With a group of companions He visited Mecca and infuriated a local official who had discovered that the party were sleeping with their feet towards the Ka’ba, the holy shrine of Islam. As they were dragged away, the Ka’ba was miraculously seen to move also. Guru Nanak declared, “God does not live in one place. He lives everywhere.”
Guru Nanak taught that the way to connect with the Supreme is not through the mind or through rituals, but through direct personal experience. Therefore, He emphasised meditation on the Name and Presence of God.
“As fragrance abides in the flower, as reflection is within the mirror, so does your Lord abide within you. Why search for Him without?”
He also made it clear that realisation of Self/God is not possible without the compassionate agency of a true guru:
“The Guru is my ship to cross the world ocean. The Guru is my place of pilgrimage and sacred stream.”
“Let no man in the world live in delusion. Without a Guru none can cross over to the other shore.”
Before His death in 1539, Guru Nanaka chose one of his followers to take responsibility for establishing the principles He had taught. The principles were then passed down through a succession of gurus in the Sikh religion. Sikhism was not initially intended to be a separate religion from Hinduism or Islam but, due to a long period of persecution, it became increasingly distinct.
Graham Brown