Sahaja Yoga
When you first attend a Sahaja Yoga public program, you receive your Self-realisation. After this you will be able to meditate immediately. Before you leave the program, you will be shown how to meditate at home each day. Also, you will receive a diagram of the Subtle Body, showing the seven energy centres or chakras, the central channel which goes up the spine, the left and right channels and the places on your hands where the chakras are connected to the nerve endings in your hands.
Self-realisation is the term we give to the initial complete rising of the Kundalini within a person’s spine and out of the top of the head. The Kundalini (a Sanskrit word meaning coils) is the creative power, or energy, which has created this world and everything in it. It is the female energy of the Divine, God, Brahma, Jahweh, or whatever name is used in the great religions to denote the highest spiritual Power.
When a baby is in the womb, it is the Kundalini that creates it. Babies stop growing about two weeks before they are due to be born, and that is when the Kundalini coils up in the sacrum bone at the base of the spine.
So, everyone has his or her own Kundalini coiled up in the sacrum bone. When the time comes in your personal evolution to grow from being a limited human being operating from the level of the brain, to an unlimited spiritual being operating from the level of your own Spirit (the reflection of the Divine), the force that created you, your Kundalini, makes that growth happen. It is your own desire that causes this. Your personal desire to have something more than you have now – some sort of inner peace – will cause your Kundalini to rise up the central channel, inside your spine.
This happens at the Sahaja Yoga program because the person conducting the program is guiding you at this stage. As you are desiring it to happen, your Kundalini will rise through your chakras and out of the top of your head, connecting you to the Collective Unconscious, gently and sweetly. At this point you may feel a cool breeze coming out of the top of your head. This cool breeze is referred to in the scriptures of the world’s major religions, as being the sign of the “twice-born”, i.e. people whose Kundalinis have risen. The cool breeze you can feel is your Kundalini. Thousands of people are now at the stage of their personal evolution where this happens. The founder of Sahaja Yoga, Shri Mataji, calls this mass level of evolution “the blossom time”.
The Collective Unconscious was so named by the psychologist, Dr Carl Jung, because it is the area from which we receive all the wisdom of the Divine. Some of the dreams we receive come from the Collective Unconscious; some do not. The wisdom received by the great souls who wrote the scriptures came to them from the Collective Unconscious when they were in meditation.
When your Kundalini comes up it connects you to the Collective Unconscious. When you learn, at Sahaja Yoga programs, how to keep your Kundalini up all the time, you will receive wisdom from your meditation, which will improve your daily life.
The most important time of your life now is when you receive your Self-realisation. You have it because you deserve it. It is wonderfully exciting to have one’s Self-realisation and be continually growing spiritually.
I decided to try Sahaja Yoga meditation due to health reasons. I suffered from severe migraines, and I was sick of taking a range of strong medication to relieve them, and “losing” days due to the medication’s side-effects of nausea and grogginess. I found a local Sahaja Yoga class and started attending once a week. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but as I had tried other meditations I felt quite comfortable turning up.
The people who ran the classes were very nice, and I felt at home immediately. There were a handful of other attendees in the local community hall, and so we began. The subtle system was explained to us, and also a little on the various chakras or energy centres. I found it all very interesting, and was keen to continue.
We were guided through a short meditation. Afterwards, we were asked if we felt anything – perhaps a cool (or warm) breeze on our palms or the tops of our heads. All the people in the room put up their hands to acknowledge that they had felt something. Heads nodded, and there were smiles all around. But I felt nothing. I put my hand up, however, to acknowledge that I had felt something because I didn’t want to look stupid! All these other sensible, normal people could feel it. So I didn’t want to be the only one who missed out. I simply went along for the ride, agreeing with most things, but also enjoying the stillness of the meditation, and the information that came with our “experience”.
When I left the class I felt very relaxed. I’d had no amazing feelings; no out-of-body experience; simply a quietness and calmness. I tried to meditate at home during the week by following the brochure I had been given. Again, I couldn’t feel anything, but the ten minutes that I spent meditating became my quiet time. “Mum time”, my kids called it. It became my ten minutes of sanity and battery re-charging.
The following week I went along once more to classes, and the rest is history, as they say! I’ve been meditating now for six years. Whilst it took a very long time for me to feel the cool breeze on either my hands or my head, what I did feel was something inside. I simply felt better, and all aspects of my life seemed to improve because of this.
Looking back after six years, I can tell you what has happened to me. My migraines have almost completely gone, my health is good, and I can now “feel” when I have a chakra that needs attention. Consequently, now I can pay attention to my body’s needs, before a problem may arise.
A girlfriend once asked my 16-year old son, “What is this meditation business your Mum is doing all about? Is it any use?” His answer was, “She doesn’t yell at us anymore.” You could have knocked me over with a feather. I didn’t think I yelled at my kids! OK, a little bit maybe, but I had no idea I was having such a negative impact on my children. Now with the meditation I handle situations (both difficult and everyday ones) more easily and quickly. My response to my children, and other people I come in contact with each day, is positive and easy. Everybody’s happier!
There is so much more to Sahaja Yoga meditation than I have covered here, but I just wanted to let people know that it doesn’t matter what you may “feel” when you begin meditating, or even what you may think or understand about it. Just relax and sit in meditation, and it all seems to work out. You don’t even have to “do” the meditation. It is the easiest way to become centred; even my 6-year old can do it. And some days when I find I can’t meditate properly, because my brain won’t be still, or because I’m busy, I still gain serenity from sitting down for my ten minutes of peace. Now I’m pleased to say I often sit for longer than ten minutes to meditate, but the amount of time is not important – it’s the process of going within that gives me peace and serenity.
Good luck, have fun and enjoy the results!
Anna Penton
The Swadisthan chakra is placed at the level of the hip and is suspended like a satellite on a cord from the Nabhi chakra (located in the area of the navel). It moves around the Void (located in the abdominal area) , giving sustenance to any weak areas.
The quality of Swadhistan on the right side is creativity, i.e. truly inspired thoughts, ideas and actions. The quality of Swadhistan on the left side is pure knowledge, i.e. the truly discerning and discriminating power to see the innate nature of things at a new stage in our awareness called vibrational awareness.
Sahaja Yoga affirmations to open and clear the Swadisthan chakra include, “Mother, please give me the true knowledge,” “Mother, please make me the creative knowledge,” and “Mother, verily You are the doer and enjoyer.”
At the Swadisthan chakra the energy and purity of our creativity are generated. On the right side it manifests as intellect; on the left side as imagination. These aspects integrate in the central channel creating our aesthetic sense.
The development of aesthetics was the third step in human evolution when humanity transcended the audiovisual senses. For the first time humanity entered the abstract; we could imagine, forecast and conceive of images or ideas beyond the senses. Moreover, this asthetic sense can discern true beauty, and so the Swadhistan is capable of authoring truth concepts and ideas that are auspicious, i.e. pleasing to the Divine.
To create, one first has to be a visionary. One has to have the capacity to project something beyond the three dimensions. Animals don’t have this capacity; it is a special gift to humans. The one who has true genius becomes a creative force, an avant-garde, the forerunner of society. Scientists like Einstein, artists like Monet, composers like Mozart, writers like Shakespeare are capable of inspired works. Often they proclaim their minds were vacant at the time of their in-spirit-ation, and so the meditative state is best for achieving the best inspirational ideas and activities. This is consistent with being in the “zone” of high level achievement in many endeavours including reflecting on or thinking about things.
Unfortunately, human beings have a tendency to pursue everything to extremes. The Swadisthan centre is also responsible for breaking down fat particles in the abdomen to replace the grey and white cells of the brain, thus regenerating the capacity for thinking. Non-stop thinking exhausts the right Sun/Pingala channel and swells the ego. This pushes the superego down and thus severs the connection with the central channel which is nurtured by the All-pervading Spirit, the real reservoir of creativity. Instead of a sponge, the brain becomes like a rock, losing its capacity for absorption.
The Swadisthan chakra also looks after the liver, pancreas, spleen and parts of the reproductive system. If this centre is overworked by the thinking process, the other organs it has to look after are neglected and the whole attention can really suffer.
This centre on the right is particularly important in that it is the seat of our attention. Therefore, if it is not balanced we find it hard to relax and to be in the meditation state. The quality of the left side of this chakra is true knowledge. This is a pure knowledge that is beyond the ego. When our knowledge is pure we reflect the inner beauty that is like a still and silent lake. We can locate this inner pool of truth and beauty and become the reflective channel for it.
(Photograph courtesy of pdphoto.org)
On a foggy Fourth of July morning, 2007, the San Diego Sahaja Yogis set up a booth at the Standley Park Fair in Clairemont. We finished setting up by 8:30 am and were all set to spread the message of Sahaja Yoga to the crowds that were starting to trickle in. There were only a couple of us, as it was still early in the morning.
At about 9 am, a little girl in a brown dress and a bright, neon-yellow windbreaker walked up to our booth. She couldn’t have been more than eight or nine years old. We observed for a minute or so as she read the poster set up in front of the booth. Then Keona asked her if she would like to try meditating. The little girl said she was open to it. We went through the experience of Self-realisation with her, and she seemed to enjoy it immensely. We asked her what her name was and she said it was Emily.
Emily left the Sahaja Yoga booth, but twenty minutes later she was back. She just stood by our booth, smiled at us and waved as we were giving Realisation to other seekers. She did this about four or five times during the day. Since this was a Fourth of July fair, there were lots of other attractions for the children – face-painting, drawing contests, a balloon parade and many other events. Emily would go away from our booth, but kept returning as if the tremendous vibrations kept pulling her back.
About two hours later, she came back, this time with her mother. And then she came back with two friends, and soon a small crowd started forming in front of our booth. At one point, our entire booth was filled! We had about six children and seven mothers and other ladies crowded into our little tent, and the more the people saw this, the more they were interested in what was going on. We had to borrow extra chairs from our tent neighbours and the organisers, and people were spilling out of our allotted space to get their Realisation.
Everyone got their Realisation, and we had a long list of names of people interested in starting a new Sahaja Yoga meeting in that area. The vibrations were tremendous because the children all had their Kundalinis up in no time! And little Emily joined them a second time to sit down and meditate with us. It was the sweetest experience to see this little Angel with light in her eyes and a big smile on her face enthusiastically telling everyone about the Sahaja Yoga booth. She kept pointing people to our booth even when she was in line for the rock-climbing wall or the face-painting booth.
Towards the end of the day, she came back to the booth, hugged Keona tightly and just smiled. She said she would love to come back to meditate some more. We told her mother that she was a very special child, a Realised soul who recognised the significance of the work we were doing. We asked her mother to please bring her to every meeting once we started.
We haven’t stopped talking about our little Angel whose innocence did Shri Mataji’s great work for us that day like a little Shri Ganesha, Shri Hanumana and all the Shakti powers rolled into one!
Viraj and Keona Talpade
San Diego, USA