Y’dig?

Within the first five minutes of meditating with the students at West Side High, I felt relieved of all the pre-existing exhaustion within me. The environment where we were giving realization that morning was what most yogis would consider the least conducive for meditating – students were running and dancing around our stall and music was blasting in the surrounding areas. There would be the periodic random scream or popping balloon. But when I began to meditate with the students, I realized that we were all able to enter that state of silent meditation as easily as if we were at home before our altars. In fact, it even felt a little easier.

The hour or so that we spent meditating with the students at West Side High was so enjoyable. I loved observing and listening to the comments from each of the students, and seeing many of their faces relieved and satisfied after they got their realization. What amazed me was how sensitive many of the students already were to their own vibrations and how quite a few of them expressed a genuine interest in meditation, even though this event was a mandatory health program in their school. A few students were so moved by their experience that they said they would come to the weekly meditation meetings on 34^th street. One memorable student – a spirited young black man, who had a do-rag around his head and sagging pants – was so enthusiastic about his experience, that he immediately brought his friend to our stall. Another young woman who got her realization opened up her eyes and said “Wow. I needed this.” She mentioned how much emotional turmoil she faces in her life and how she will start meditating regularly to overcome that.

The method by which we gave realization to these students was even simpler than I expected it would be. All that we asked the students to do was to bring their attention to a few parts of their body, which were referred to by ‘normal’ terms – the center of your chest, the center of your forehead, etc. There was no waving of hands, no saying affirmations out loud, no confusing words. And no explanation needed to be given before we all meditated. Whenever I felt a catch in anyone, I would simply put my attention on their catch and silently say the respective mantra to remove it. (I found myself often saying the mantra for center heart.) Everything was so simple, yet effective. I was amazed at how strongly I could feel the students centers in my own Sahasrara and hands and how easily the kundalini in others would rise.

As I walked out of the high school, I already started assessing how I could change my approach to giving realization to people, especially at the weekly meetings that are held at my university during the school year. My experience at the HealthCorps event gave me faith in a fact that I often forget – realization can be given anywhere, to anyone, and in any situation. That too, in the most simplest of ways. All pre-existing ideas that I had about how to ‘effectively’ give realization, what meditative environment to create, and the types of people who will take more easily to meditation were dissolved after going to this Health Corps event.

Right after the Health Fair I had to go back to work for five hours. For the first time in weeks, I felt as if nothing in this draining city and in my workplace could bring me down. I was so energized by meditating with those students that during the course of the day, I felt my kundalini magnetically being drawn to my Sahasrara numerous times.

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“There are these peculiar faculties of the psyche that aren’t entirely confined to space and time; you can have dreams or visions of the future, you can see around corners and such things. Only ignorance denies these facts, you know; it’s quite evident that they do exist and have existed always. Now these facts show that the psyche, in part at least, is not dependent upon these confinements. And then what? When the psyche if not under that obligation to live in time and space alone, and obviously it doesn’t, then to that extent the psyche is not subjected to those laws, and that means a practical continuation of life, of a sort of psychical existence beyond time and space.” Carl Jung

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Today had a sweet sadness to it, Jenny Ninyo, HealthCorps coordinator organized a wonderful lunch for the teachers in the school where she’s worked for two years, bringing health, fitness, well-being and mental resilience programs to students and staff. The buffet lunch involved a plethora of healthy, beautifully prepared food, and one after another, the teachers came up to Jenny and said how much they’d miss her, for this is near the end of her two year stint as a HealthCorps coordinator. Jenny, as is the case with all HealthCorps coordinators is an extraordinary young woman of rich and varied talents – she is an expert at Hatha Yoga, a linguist, she teaches and tutors in Hebrew, she is a great cook and organizer, a great motivator and fun to be with. She’ll be much missed. The good news for us is that she’s staying in New York City.

As part of the lunch, an optional Sahaja Meditation program was available and about 24 teachers and 6 parents tried Sahaja Meditation. All of those I spoke to said this would be a very valuable practice, given what a stressful job teaching now is in Manhattan. Many said they’d love to attend the introductory evening to Sahaja Meditation to be held on July 8, 2010 at 7 pm at:

New York Society for Ethical Culture

2 West 64th Street at Central Park West New York, NY 10023.

And, as if by way of coincidence, who should walk in but Anna Mancini, who was teaching in this school as a substitute teacher. Anna kindly sat with Joan and I as we meditated with Jenny and a very nice math teacher, Laura.

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Dr Oz

Joan

Margarita

Rosie

We had a great time at the HealthCorps Highway to Health Festival, held in the grounds of the US Tennis Association in Flushing Meadows, New York. Probably 100 people including students, teachers and passersby experienced Self-realization through Sahaja Meditation.

Dr. Mehmet Oz visited each stall in turn and spent a few minutes with us. Anil Bandari extended an invitation to Dr. Oz to attend our forthcoming public program on July 8th, and whilst he said his schedule is to be in North Carolina that day but that he will try to reschedule and attend the Sahaja Meditation event.

Earlier in the afternoon, Canan Arslan approached Dr. Oz and spoke to him in Turkish and they had a pleasant conversation for ten minutes or so. Dr. Oz said how much he liked Sahaja Meditation and how pleased he was at what we are achieving in high schools across the USA. Canan asked him if he might mention Sahaja Meditation in his forthcoming trip to Turkey where he a superstar and he had an aide take Canan’s phone number and he promised to help if he can.

Manning our stand that day, we had Turkish, Indian, Afro American, Irish, Russian, Hispanic, English and White Americans. A great time was had by all.

admin Awareness, Enjoyment, Knowledge, Meditation, Spirit, Truth, Understanding, human brain Dr Oz, Sahaja Meditation

As a HealthCorps Coordinator in a Bronx high school, I provide innovative health and wellness workshops for my students.  Our curriculum includes a fair amount of nutritional and fitness education but also touches upon mental resiliency topics.  And I truly believe, optimal health and wellness begins not with education but rather the openness of the heart and the mind.

For the past 7 weeks, Alan and sometimes Lioudmila Wherry have graciously practiced Sahaja meditation with my students and allowed them to discover its power. Without question, it’s been the highlight of working with my students within the classroom…the best part of the work day.  Every week, we position desks in a circle and read one passage pertaining to themes such as forgiveness, trust, being present, fear & love, and the true source of joy.  “Joy is not what happens to you; it is what comes through you when you are conscious of the blessing you are.”  Alan and myself share personal anecdotes and pose questions that allow the students to find their own individual answers.

In a neighborhood and school environment with constant noise, distractions, and one too many fights, I’ve been encouraged by the ability of the students to quiet their voices, minds, and focus on themselves.  To incorporate ”personal growth-work” into their traditional school work is important.  To scan a room and see 20 students in utter deep silence for 10-15 minutes is damn near breathtaking.

Leslie Dolland

something not quite right, but we know what it intended!

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The Sanskrit word Upanishad come from the verb sad, to sit, with upa, connected with the Latin s-ub, under; and ni, found in English be-neath and nether. The whole thing means a sitting, an instruction, the sitting at the feet of a master. When we read in the Gospels that Jesus “went up into the mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him” we can imagine them sitting at the feet of their Master and the whole Sermon on the Mount might be considered as an Upanishad.

from the introduction to the Penguin Classics edition of the Upanishads, translated by the great unsung, unrecognized genius, Juan Mascaro.

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I was a seeker for as long as I can remember. I had arrived at the logical conclusion that I needed a guru to find God, although I had read that some had attained their Self Realization without one. I had also made the conscious choice to find a wife to assist me in my search, again despite the fact that I had read that many had chosen the path of solitude and celibacy.

So it was that I found myself married and in India. Although my wife’s primary reason for traveling in India was not entirely spiritual, by the end of sixteen months there, including two extended treks in the Nepalese Himalayas, it was.

Ironically, despite visiting numerous famous and not so famous ashrams, gurus, fakirs, temples, shrines, pilgrimage points and retreats, much in the style of Paul Brunton when he wrote the book A Search in Secret India in the early 1930s, it was a book or books written by a Cambridge University Professor named Juan Mascaro that not only made the most sense to me, but also gave me such joy that I could not put them down.

They were The Dhammapada, The Bhagavad Gita and The Upanishads — translated by the man who was at that time the western world’s authority in Sanskrit and Pali. I include this background as it relates to what was later to happen.

In May of 1979, we arrived in England to stay with my wife’s parents for an extended time, before either returning immediately to India to continue the search for a guru, with increased determination, or to return to America to work, to make and save money, and then to return to India in search of a guru. For both of us by this time, there was nothing more important.

And so it was that I discovered a guru by means of a book I’d bought and read in India, but oddly, it was written by a man living in England. But the best and even more surprising thing was this, on October 28 of 1979 I would meet the Indian guru I’d sought in England, who would not only change my life forever, but would give me what I had been searching for all of my life.

About a year after getting Self Realization from Shri Mataji in Caxton Hall in London, we happened to be living in Cambridge and attended a lecture given by Juan Mascaro. As soon as he walked into the room and began reciting passages from the Gita and Upanishads in Sanskrit, the whole room lit up around him, a fact confirmed by my wife and other Sahaja Yogis who were also there.

Apart from Shri Mataji Herself and a couple of incidents on the tour in India — a visit to the samadhi site of Janeshwara, for example — I had never felt such strong vibrations and yet I was still not sure what I had experienced at that lecture.

When Shri Mataji came to Cambridge some time later for a program, it was only natural that I would want Mr. Mascaro to meet Her and so I arranged a meeting that should occur the day after the program, at his house.

As it turned out, an interview had been arranged in the morning with a lady from a local BBC station and it went on much longer than we had anticipated and afterwards we got caught up in a traffic jam, all of which resulted in Shri Mataji desiring to have a nap before departing for Norwich, a city of some sixty miles northeast of Cambridge, where we had arranged another public program.

Shri Mataji seemed to sleep quite soundly and we knew that it was inauspicious to wake Her, but it was now getting late and obvious that we would not be able to visit Mr. Mascaro after all.

When She awoke, She said, “I slept so soundly, it must be quite late.”

I replied that yes it was and that we would not have time to go see Mr. Mascaro, to which She replied, “Better go and phone him.”

I could feel his sadness and disappointment on the phone, but we agreed to make it some other time. But when I reported back to Shri Mataji, She said “Well, you know, he is an older man, better phone him again and tell him I will come.”

By this time my emotions had gone through the entire spectrum and when I reported back to Mr. Mascaro, I couldn’t tell whose relief and joy was the greater — his or mine.

When we all arrived at his very humble thatched cottage in a small village about ten miles from Cambridge, he was standing in the doorway with a single beautiful white rose that he had picked from his garden and, to our amazement and delight, began to sing the ancient sloka that we all Sahaja Yogis were very familiar with because in those days we used to sing it to Mother following the aarti, Sabo Ku Dua, at pujas. Loosely translated it says, “You are my mother, You are my father, You are my brother, You are my friend. You are the beginning, You are the middle and You are beyond the end,” and ends with, “You are my guru, You are my God, You are my everything.”

There were no dry eyes that observed that scene, I can assure you. After presenting Shri Mataji with the rose, he invited Her, then us, inside and what was to follow was even more amazing.

As we four sat and watched Shri Mataji and Juan talk, we would occasionally hear a few words, but the words were the least important aspect of what was really taking place.

At this point, any hope of getting to Norwich anywhere near the scheduled meeting time was so far out of the question that at one point I almost thought about phoning the hall to tell the caretaker to put out a sign saying that the meeting was cancelled.

Meanwhile, the vibrations in the room were so strong that I envisioned the walls of the house collapsing from the power of it. Afterwards, we four all agreed it was like seeing the long lost son finally finding his mother. Of course, in reality it was — and no different that Mother had found all of us — and despite the fact that he was at least thirty years older than Shri Mataji.

I can’t recall to this day whether I had ever looked at the time after we left the house to go visit. I do know that I was resigned to the fact that we were going to be very, very late and that, one, that really didn’t matter anyway because we are beyond time — sounds nice, but we don’t often believe it; two, that if anyone did show up, they would have left hours ago; three, that I was going to have to give the introductory talk and that I was going to be very embarrassed and apologetic.

The drive to Norwich is very beautiful — no motorway — but very slow. Normally, it would take an hour and a half to two hours depending upon the traffic, as it is primarily a two lane road. I don’t know how long it took on this occasion either, with Hari Jairam driving Shri Mataji’s crème-coloured Mercedes and my wife and I in the back, but I do know two things — one, that the meeting was scheduled to begin at 7 pm and that, two, as I opened the door to let

Shri Mataji out at the front entrance to the hall, the clock on the church tower across the street began to chime seven times.

“How many times do I have to tell you people,” joked Shri Mataji, “we are not bound by time.”

In the car on the way to the meeting, Shri Mataji made this statement, “It’s very rare, you know, that a great scholar should also be a great realized soul.”

Jim Thomas

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Kurt Hahn High School, East Flatbush, Brooklyn

This morning about 24 students came, including a few dragooned up from the cafeteria by the Dean, Mr. Mendelson whose enthusiasm and love for the students is outstanding and inspirational. We began meditating at just after 8 am to allow the latercomers time to settle, and there were three new students today, including Angie, who’d just arrived in the USA from the Dominican Republic who barely speaks a word of English but who was welcomed by all and helped by three students who speak some Spanish.

We began by going around the circle and saying how long we’ve been practicing Sahaja Meditation, it varied from 20 years to 11 months, to 3 months, to a couple of weeks.  Joan Burress led the meditation and we meditated for about 10 minutes.

Afterwards, Mr Mendelson asked each of us how we felt. He said he had a million things on his mind right now, and after the meditation he felt completely focussed. People said things like relaxed, calm, focussed – and the three new people all experienced something calming and pleasant. Two people said it hadn’t worked for them.

Breakfast of oats, raisins, bananas, cinnamon and tea followed, provided as always by the inestimable Ms Fishstrom.

Here’s what one of the students said during breakfast.

http://is.gd/9KYz8

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“Still Bill,” a Bill Withers documentary: newyorker.com.

admin Awareness, Enjoyment, Knowledge, Meditation, Spirit, Truth, Understanding Bill Withers

In the late 1980′s, I was living in London, stressed, depressed and in need of a break. I had always wanted to visit Iona, the island off the coast of Scotland where Irish Christian monks lived in the 6^th Century, notably St. Columbus, one of those who first brought Christianity to Britain.

When I arrived at Heathrow airport, on a whim, instead of taking the shuttle to Glasgow, and on from there to Iona, without any solid reason for doing so, I decided to fly to Belfast instead and to make my way up the Antrim Coast and to take a boat over to Rathlin Island. Rathlin is where Robert the Bruce allegedly hid after his army was defeated by the English and a story is told of how he took refuge in a cave and watched a spider try many times build a web. It kept failing but in the end it was successful. Inspired by this, he again raised an army and this time was victorious over the English. The story apparently has no foundation in truth but that of course takes nothing from its power.

Back then, because of the Troubles, there was a security zone around Belfast airport and I had to take a taxi from the airport to near the town of Larne and from there I hitchhiked and walked my way up the beautiful Antrim Coast road. Msy is a special time of year and new life, vitality and resurgence were in the air. One night I stopped at the town of Cushendun and checked into the local Youth Hostel. The place was empty apart from an Englishman and his wife who ran the place, and a lone German postman who was cycling up the coast. That night, in a pub in the town, a chance conversation with a local man resulted in him telling me that there was ‘a holy mountain’ nearby. He explained that it was holy in pre-Christian Ireland and went on to say that it was called Tievebulliagh. On it there was a ‘Neolithic axe factory’, an outcrop of blue granite and if one looked in the scree, (the countless small stones that littered the mountain face), one can find broken shards of axeheads discarded back in the Stone Age

He told me too that there was a grave nearby that of Oisin, a 6^th Century warrior/poet/king who famously, by the way the Christians subsequently told it, refused before St. Patrick, to convert to Christianity, because he said he had been to the land of Tir na Nog, the land of the ever young. The land of the ever young is the present, the here and now, and only already evolved souls can be there for long. Hence Christianity would have had little appeal or attraction for him.

I found the grave the next morning, some way out of the town and in farmland, and there was a heavy sea mist, with visibility down to about 40 meters. However, beside the grave was a plaque that said that whereas local legend said it was the grave of Oisin, carbon dating proved that the grave was  some 4500 years old so whoever was buried there was definitely not him.

I walked past the grave through heavy mire and mud and began my ascent of the mountain. The atmosphere was eerie with the watery mist hanging suspended in the air. I passed cattle on the lower slopes and as I commenced the climb, it was relatively easy going but I wasn’t very fit and was soon out of breath. I found the scree and much as I searched, I picked up no stone that looked like it had been fashioned by human hand.

At this point the going became difficult for as I climbed up the scree, I would slide back to almost where I’d started from. This problem was solved by walking up at an angle, criss-crossing my way up in the manner I’d seen skiers move up a slope.

As I reached the summit, something strange and wonderful happened. I was quite out of breath, bent double with the effort and as I lifted my head, in that instant, the mist evaporated (which I’d read that sea mists do). The fact that I knew it could and did happen did nothing to take away the magic of what ensued. Suddenly the sky was clear, cloudless and filled with sunshine. Looking across the sea I could see the low gray hills of south-west Scotland in the far distance and up the coast, headlands receding, one after another, progressively turning from purple to gray.

I was immediately transported to the present and was in a state of pure bliss where I was totally at one with all around, earth, sea and sky. I’d read of this state, but never before remotely experienced it and here it was, joyful and uplifting, life changing even. A big black bird kept swooping in low over my head which I thought meant that most likely it had a nest with some young nearby and it was trying to scare me off.

I had no sense of time and had no desire to leave the mountaintop.

Eventually, as I started my descent, I came down another way following a small stream passing trees bursting in newly emerging leaves, and hedgerows full of wild flowers of great profusion and vigor. It occurred to me that since those Neolithic times, not too many humans had gone where I had, maybe a few thousand at most. This was never a populated area and even for those who were here, unless they knew of the special nature of Tievebulliagh there was no great reason for climbing it. That night I wrote an account of what had happened to me on my return to the Youth Hostel.

It had been a truly remarkable experience, a connection beyond my wildest dreams and the first time I had ever experienced anything that could be even vaguely regarded as spiritual.

Some eight years later, I took my new wife and son to the place. To my astonishment, what I had written down that very same day and experienced could not possibly have happened as I described it. In the pleasant spring sunshine, there was no mountain remotely near the grave and a map hastily consulted, revealed that Tievebulliagh was some 8 kms away, a distance I certainly never walked.

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