Sahaja Yoga
Musical therapist and teacher of Sahaja Yoga, Celeste Jones, is set to attend the 2008 World Youth Congress in Quebec, Canada. Kurrajong Heights’ Celeste Jones is one of a select group of youths meeting in Canada later this year, to search for ways to combat the many crises facing our modern world.
In August she will join 600 young leaders from throughout the globe, to participate in the fourth World Youth Congress, “ReGeneration 2008”, in Quebec.
The World Youth Congress is a project funded by Peace Child International, which aims to bring together young people from the age of 18 to 30 who have a passion for sustainable development.
A total of 15,000 youths applied to attend this year’s congress.
Delegates will join forces with young Canadians to undertake hands-on community action projects across Quebec.
They will help shape international policy by documenting and showing governments what young people are doing to achieve the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals, which include halving poverty, halting the spread of HIV/AIDS, promoting gender equality and reducing infant mortality.
Ms Jones, 25, will attend the congress along with a group of friends, as an advocate of Sahaja Yoga.
“A group of us applied as delegates so we put in our application as the Sahaja organisation,” she said.
The group travel internationally teaching Sahaja Yoga meditation techniques, which promotes attributes such as inner balance, peace and “self realisation”.
“It’s just a very simple meditation technique that takes a few minutes, and once you’ve learnt it you can teach anyone,” she said. “Whatever we do is always free — it’s just for other people’s benefit. We get a lot of joy out of it.”
As part of attending the World Youth Congress, Ms Jones and the Sahaja group were asked to submit a development project illustrating the ways her organisation is taking action.
They plan to spend time in Rome working with Gypsies, teaching Sahaja Yoga and musical therapy, and helping them re-establish their cultural roots by empowering the youth.
But the project is just one of many for Ms Jones and her friends, who have established meditation programs around the world.
“A lot of my other friends, they live in all different countries,” she said. “They organise various events and then we go and join them and do all sorts of things.”
The trip to Canada will be her second encounter with the World Youth Congress.
Ms Jones is a trained musician and musical therapist as well as an accomplished artist, and attended the last congress in Scotland three years ago as a cultural performer.
For the 2008 World Youth Congress Ms Jones has applied as a delegate, which will give her a greater role in the discussions and decisions made at the event.
For more information on the World Youth Congress, go to www.wyc2008.qc.ca
By Tegan Osborne, Hawkesbury Courier
We are aware that the Paramchaitanya [All-pervading Power] does everything. At least mentally we know that everything is worked out by the grace of the Paramchaitanya, which is the power of the Adi Shakti [Primordial Power]. But still, it is not so much in our heart, so much in our attention.
We can consider the Paramchaitanya lika an ocean, like an ocean which contains everything within itself … Everything is within its own limits, so it cannot be compared with a limit. You cannot compare it.
Now if you see the sun, then from the sun, the rays have to come out to work it. If you see somebody – say, a person who has an authority – he has to assert that power outside. So within himself, he doesn’t work it out.
For example, if there’s a seed and, inside the seed, only the tree grows and the fruits come out and then they are sold and people eat them and everything is inside that seed, then that is the Paramchaitanya.
So we are all enveloped in it … We are on the waves, so we see it as dislocated, separated – like we feel, “This is Germany” or “This is England” or “This is India”. These are just folds of the sari of Paramchaitanya, which look separated, but they are not separated. They are continuous. So the connection is absolutely complete. if I pull a thread from here, the thread will throughout be pulled.
In the same manner, this Paramchaitanya is working within itself and there is nothing without.
So when you are Sahaja Yogis, it pays special attention to you … It becomes absolutely one with you. Whatever you desire, whatever you want also will be coming from the same Paramchaitanya, if you are one with it.
Like in a turbulent ocean, some drops of water may fly into the air and start thinking, “We are above. We are away from the world, away from the ocean.” But again, they have to fall into the same.
So this formless energy has all the intelligence, all the coordination, all the organisations, all the computers, all the televisions, all that you can think of as communication and of governing, of administration. And, above all, it is the love. It is the love of God and love of your Mother. So to be one with this Paramchaitanya, you have to know that you have to become reality …
So all of you Sahaja Yogis have to know that, in reality, you do not do anything and everything is done by the Paramchaitanya. This is the difference between a non-Sahaja Yogi and a Sahaja Yogi. A non-Sahaja Yogi does not know. And even if he knows, this is not the truth in his heart. It’s not a part and parcel of his being. But a Sahaja Yogi knows that reality is the Paramchaitanya and it is reality that works out everything – and this reality is Divine Love.
Shri Mataji, 1989
The Ryde Harmony Day Festival will be held at Ryde in Sydney on Sunday 30 March from 11.30 am – 4.30pm.
Address: Ryde Park, Argyle Road, Ryde.
Sahaja Yoga will have a large tent at the festival. Among the attractions offered will be meditation sessions, face painting, colouring and Mendhi (Indian hand painting).
The Sahaja Yoga group, “Music of Joy” will present inspiring and dynamic world music between 3.00 and 3.30pm. There will also be a performance of Indian dancing by two talented young Sahaja yogis at 11.40 am.
You are invited to the Woolgoolga Curry Fest, to be held at Woolgoolga in northern New South Wales on Saturday 19 April 2008. As in previous years, there will be a Sahaja Yoga stall at the festival.
It is planned to present Sahaja Yoga music in two one-hour time slots. The music will include devotional music with an international flavour, traditional Qawwali music and drum music. There will also be Indian traditional dancing. There will be a meditation tent in which meditation sessions will be held for people who want the experience of thoughtless awareness and realisation.
The main music organiser was very impressed last year with the Sahaja yogis’ performances and gracious nature, and so is insisting that Sahaja Yoga play a big part in this year’s festival.
The Sahaja Yoga stall will be on the grass next to the beach. From here, the Fest will spread out along the road to the grassy area around the pool.