Work Your Powers - Photography

Yesterday, while collectively listening to the 1982 Vienna address in September on the occasion of the 9-Nights festival, before the talk begins, Shri Mataji was browsing pictures taken by Sahaja Yogis in and around Europe. She then quietly but surely remarked something to the effect that photography has now become one of the powers of Sahaja practitioners. almost 3 decades down, photography has become accessible through digital camera and online sharing mechanisms. This must be taken up by realized souls and enlightened yogis to observe, report and transform their societies. There are a few remarkable blogs already displaying high quality photo blogging efforts (1000 petals). I would like to see some more.

Karaoke and Meditation: Unusual Partners in World Peace

CC licensed image by flickr user fensterbme

Listening to a podcast about technology today, the topic of ethnographic studies came up and the interviewee mentioned how the study of Karaoke had revealed much about the differences of cultures in the east and west. And then it struck me. My use of Karaoke to break ice with acquaintences, was not a random co-incidence. (See Book referred to at the bottom of the post).


Karaoke is such a powerful activity when done collectively, and fails miserably when done alone (I mean REALLY alone, not recording for later distribution as many websites let you.) Over the summer we had Karaoke sessions almost once every month.

Past summer, during a long weekend, we hosted 3 families and a hoard of local friends which had more cultural diversity than one can imagine. Meditation is the activity that has traditionally brought us all together for weekend seminars. However, there were a few accompanying spouses who were not us much into meditation or were just getting their feet wet.

Like other weekends spent together, it seemed like another one where the non-meditating & newly meditating spouses would possibly feel alienated or just bored. Thankfully someone had the idea to jump start karaoke sessions and the ice was broken, melted and crushed into a smoothie. All of us, ALL - pre-teens, children, an Italian, an Irish American, a Indo-Pakistani-American, Russian, Finnish, Bulgarian, Indian and Brazilian were joined in ecstatic enjoyment of each other's company like never seen before. Participative music is the next best thing to integrate us, period.

World cultures, generations and other identities will merge by burning the candle both ways. The integration inside-out comes through meditation and outside-to-in comes through participative music.

What song would you like to sing along?

7 things you should know about meditation

Scenario

1. What is it?

2. Who’s doing it?

3. How does it work?

4. Why is it significant?

5. What are the downsides?

6. Where is it going?

7. What are the implications for you?

11 ways to reduce stress without spending a dime: http://is.gd/4pFkb

If the past and the future do not exist, why do people worry about them?

Question from Y! Answers: Past is gone, future is not here yet; if it ever gets here, yet many people's lives are controlled by these two nonexistent forces...

My Answer:

Humans have 3 main energy channels: left (past), central (present) and future (right). The stresses of mundane life accumulate as blockages or disturbances in these subtle energy flows.

Thoughts in the brain come from the left (past) and right (future) constantly. There is almost no way to stop them, as they are innate part of human existence. Spiritual masters who know meditation are able to soothe their left and right channels and stay on the central channel, which results in these thoughts from past/future subsiding.

Eventually the person is able to experience freedom from these annoyances. Check out the references below for more info. Or try a simple meditation exercise here: Meditation Basic Excercise

Source(s):

ResearchingMeditation.org
Left & Right Channels

Is hate a form of love?

Question on Y! Answers:
Do you ever love to hate? can hate ever be an expression of love?

My Answer:
Hate and Love effect our body in different ways. Hate creates blocks in our energy system, eventually "chocking" good energy. The satisfaction from hating is self-destructive and temporary. True love dissolves blockages and makes one feel genuinely good.

Love > Hate

Reference: http://www.azsahajayoga.org/meditation.html

Feeling the Cool Breeze: Experience of People of Different Faiths

[Compiled by Oleg Florow on the now defunct Geocities web]

[Oleg:]If one looks at the religions of the world, they fall into two main categories. The first group believe that to worship, or pay respects to any holy image is wrong, while the second use images in their doctrine. Perhaps at the end of the day there is no conflict. If the image is created by, or is a true likeness of, someone who has strong vibrations, then to put oneself in a situation where one absorbs those healing vibrations can only be for the good. But if someone bows down before an image which is made by someone who themselves emitted heat (problems) then no wonder Moses spoke so strongly against 'graven images'! But the solution is to be able to have a heightened awareness so as to be able to distinguish between what is 'holy' and what is not. Once a person has settled into Sahaja Yoga they can generally do this.

'Shri Mataji arranged a weekend at her house at Hurst Green, Sussex, England in 1976. In her house there was a big drawing room downstairs with beautiful Indian rugs. There were large statues of Indian deities, and one of them was a beautiful wooden Shri Ganesha.

One of the Sahaja Yogis who had been there before took me upstairs and showed it to me.
"This statue has such cool vibrations," he said.
"Hang on," I replied. Being from a Muslim background, I thought, 'What is he talking about?'

Although I had received my realization, and could feel the cool vibrations, because of my Islamic conditioning I was a bit sceptical that this statue would emit them. So I tried feeling the vibrations, while stepping back, and it did have vibrations, in that there was a cool breeze coming from it.
One of the things that struck me also in the house of Shri Mataji, was that it felt as if every statue in the house was vibrating with power. Everywhere you went, you felt a kind of silent, peaceful, but extremely powerful environment, which is very difficult to describe, except to say that you knew something very powerful was working very deep inside you and working it out. You were in the middle of this and you felt you were in a different universe altogether. (D.M.)

This story shows that the experience of the cool breeze of the Spirit goes far beyond our cultural conditioning. The writer is from a Moslem background, a citizen of the European Community, a successful banker in early middle age and married with children.



My parents were very, very religious Jews. The first weekend after I got my realization, I went up to see them at our home in a town in the Midlands of England. I was still working the whole thing out myself, but I gave my mother realization and she felt the vibrations as a cool breeze.

She went to the synagogue the next Saturday, as she always did. At a certain point in the service the scrolls of the law would be taken out. They are kept in a beautifully decorated altar, which we call the Ark, and this is a replica of the place where the ten commandments were kept after they were given by Moses on Mount Sinai. The scrolls are all parchment and beautifully written and decorated, by hand. In Judaism we have traditions which are in many ways parallel to those of Hinduism.

As soon as they opened the Ark, my mother said she couldn't believe it. She felt a cool breeze pouring out of the Ark. The rest of the people in the synagogue had no idea of this. As soon as the Sabbath was finished and she could use the phone, she phoned me and said:
"The most extraordinary thing happened to me today. I went to the synagogue, and when they opened the Ark, I felt the same cool breeze pouring out of it as I felt when you gave me realization. Now I know that this is right."

Sadly she died in 1987. Before that, although she was always a firm follower of Judaism, she came to accept Christ and understood about Shri Mataji and the great gift she has brought to the world. Shri Mataji came to stay in our house and my father, a deeply learned and religious Jew, also had profound respect for and understanding of Shri Mataji. (R.H.)

[Ed: Oleg] Here we see how all the problems between the religions could be resolved if their followers could understand them as being different flowers of the same tree of universal wisdom. What is vital is that we can all evolve to gain our Self Realization, so we can actually experience the truths which the great personalities of the past have come on earth to reveal to us The writer, like his family, is learned in the Torah and Caballah, and sees Sahaja Yoga as a fulfillment of this wisdom.