realisation
February 12 is Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. Shri Mataji recognised Abraham Lincoln as one of those special people who were born-realised souls and who have contributed so much for the good of humankind. Here is a collection of comments that Shri Mataji has made about Abraham Lincoln over the years. They help us to understand the significance of the contribution he has made, and how much it has affected our lives and the societies in which we live.
We have had so many great people who were born-realised before. Also Abraham Lincoln was a born-realised fellow. We had people everywhere in the world. Like I would say that Michelangelo was a realised soul, Mozart was a realised soul. I mean … so many people were realised souls, but nobody knew about them.
They were effective because they were above all that, and they created these tremendous things because they were one with the Divine Power that is creative, that is not only creative — it is protective. It is the one that thinks, that understands, co-ordinates, co-operates and works out.
Shri Mataji, 1985
And you have Abraham Lincoln. What a man! I think his blessings should work out one day in this country [United States of America]. What a saint. What a personality. And that’s what you had, people, great people in this country, and that greatness, that vision is lost now. Have confidence in yourself.
Shri Mataji, 1984
I was a child, very small. When I was in school I used to go to the library and read about the lives of great men who have created some great things for us. So many of them. And I was so impressed how some of them were so simple, so child-like. For example, Abraham Lincoln for whom I have tremendous, tremendous respect was a man tortured by his wife also. She said, “You don’t know. You are very clumsy. You don’t know how to dress up. You don’t know how to behave”. And she actually was very harsh on him, all the time torturing him. Ultimately he was also killed. So one can say, “You see, what’s the use of being Abraham Lincoln? Because he was killed, he was not successful.”
Until today, all over the world, people know who was Abraham Lincoln. They don’t know his wife… But they knew who was Abraham Lincoln, everybody. Clumsy man, according to her, and all sorts of degradation for him. But nobody respects her, nobody thinks anything about her. Who is respected today, is Abraham Lincoln. Why? Actually, he was murdered. He was killed. That shows that he had no strength to survive, but he survived through ages. So many years have passed; still he’s surviving.
Take the case of all the great people who have been innocent; and that’s why they had ideals. To them their ideals were more important than anything else, even their lives.
Shri Mataji, 2001
(Photograph: lincoln.thefreelibrary.com)
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)
The Sahasrara Chakra, or crown chakra, is situated at the fontanelle area at the top of the head. Fontanelle means fountain, and there are many references to the cool breezes that blow and the fountains that flow in the Kingdom of Heaven, above, in all major religious texts and mystical traditions.
As man is the epitome of evolution, so the epitome of man is the joyful integration at Sahasrara Chakra. Each day allow the attention to rise into Sahasrara and dissolve within the cool breeze of your Kundalini.
The Sahaja Yoga affirmations for the Sahasrara Chakra are: “Mother, by your grace I am protected from all the challenges to my ascent”; and “Mother, verily You are the Victory over all the challenges to my ascent.”
The Sahasrara is the uppermost point of the manifest Creation. It is a privileged place for us to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven within. Here in silent majesty is the subtle source point for the three great powers that create, sustain and resolve the creation in all its myriad forms. At this point we go beyond the relativity of temporal existence, beyond time and drama, spontaneously in the Flow of the Divine
vibrations. This is the point of Oneness, the realisation of Heaven on Earth, achieved by the Sahaja Yogi. Here the complete perfection of the human potential begins to flower. The awakened cool breeze of Kundalini begins to cleanse and nourish the whole subtle body and the Grace of God falls within.
In the Silence of Sahasrara the whole instrument is integrated. Each chakra has its place. Here the Kundalini opens the lotus petals of the Sahasrara and enlightenment or realisation takes place.
After realisation, you may feel a pulsation and a flow of cool vibrations. This is the baptism by which you know you are truly born again. Your new vibrational awareness signals that you have moved into the subtlest level of communication, in collective consciousness.
We become vessels for Divine power and our presence begins to awaken others. We learn to appreciate the real depth and beauty of people, of Nature and all things by their vibrations. We no longer judge by opinion but by vibrations. Just ask a question and a positive answer comes as a flow of cool vibrations. Just sit in meditation and ask the vibrations. It is conversation at its most sublime.
The presiding deity of Sahasrara, Sri Kalki, is still to come. With His eleven destroying powers (Ekadesha Rudra) He is the final, most awesome incarnation of the evolving principle of Shri Vishnu. Meanwhile, we have the presence of Shri Mataji to awaken the seekers of the world to their rightful inheritance and their
fully enlightened powers. Shri Mataji, as the source of this MahaYoga, has Her place, too, at the Sahasrara.
As Shri Mataji has said, “Without opening the Sahasrara, God itself was a myth, religion itself was a myth, all talk about divinity was a myth. People believed in it but it was just a belief. Now if the will of God is so important, it has to be proved. Now through Sahaja Yoga, after the breaking of the Sahasrara, you have now, for the first time, felt the will of God, which is such an important thing. Now the will of God you are feeling on your finger tips. After realisation, you have discovered the absolute science which is the will of God.”
Pavan Keatley
(Illustration: sahajayogaspirituality.com)
There is joy before Realisation and after Realisation, but before Realisation there is no capacity to enjoy. That capacity to enjoy comes to you after Realisation and the main thing that happens to you is the discretion. Then, like the swan, you just take the milk of eveything. Your attitude towards everything becomes very different. You start seeing things from a different angle.
Once we had to go to a very ancient temple to see some art. I, My son-in-law and My daughter were walking about. We had to walk for miles up the hill and then, when we were very tired, we went into a temple and just lay down. They were so tired.
At that time I said, “See these elephants here, how beautiful they are. Every one has a different type of a tail and a different type of a trunk. All the poses are different. So many of them are like that.”
My son-in-law said, “We are so tired. How can we look at these things?”
Because My attention didn’t go to My tiredness, but to these beautiful things, same thing – you start sucking in the milk. There is joy, but you cannot feel the joy because the power – that subtle power of divine discretion – is not there. Once that comes in, you start enjoying everything.
Things are just the same. Life is just the same. Nothing has changed. Same house, same family, same city, same environment, but you start enjoying because the sensitivity of your Hamsa chakra is now only for divine discretion and you immediately know and then you don’t want to do anything with the thorns. You only want to gather flowers and you know how to gather flowers and you are in joy.
Shri Mataji, 1992