COME MEDITATE IN CONNECTICUT
The Way to Self-Realisation – the Knowledge of the Spirit
Words Of Wisdom
“A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.”
~Mahatma Gandhi
The Magnetism Within
Did you ever wonder how it is possible that the earth is moving through space with a speed of 66,660 miles per hour and a rotational speed on the outer axis of about 1000 miles/per hour and we are not thrown off? Now we know that there is this thing called gravity and we have all the formulas and descriptions at hand how it works. But we do not really know what it is. I mean – we do not have magnets in-built in our feet, do we?
Now, also here we cannot give the answer to what it is, but we can explore how gravity is working in us as well. In the same way as gravity is a quality of our Mother Earth, it is also a quality within us, reflected in our first energy center, the Mooladhara (or root). Gravity is the power in us that pulls us into the center of our own being, thus giving us the capacity to settle down within. It comes very natural to human beings, but it has to be maintained.
It can be looked at as standing in the center of a rotating wheel. Everyone outside the center will be thrown around, but the person in the center will not be affected by the movement, nor lose his balance. That is exactly how gravity acts. There might be any turmoil going on around us, but as long as we are standing in the center point – in our own position, in charge of ourselves – troubles have no effect on us. Specially in times of a crisis it can be quite helpful if we are capable to jump to the gravity point within. From there – pulled into our own inner balance – we can see everything clearly and thus we are much more capable to deal with the problem. If we were outside the center on the outer parts of the wheel, we would be tossed around and it would be hard to see anything.
Try to find out how many people you have met who were emitting these qualities of gravity. Such a person would be completely content, dignified, generally joyful and compassionate. You might realize that such people are like living magnets, their own gravity attracting everyone else towards them. People might not consciously know, why they are drawn to such a person, but it is part of the peace and content that such a person emits, and the own seeking for balance.
So how do we find this gravity within? Of course – you know the answer already – through meditation: 10 minutes in the morning, 10 minutes in the evening, that is all you need. The element of the first energy center is “earth”, so meditating on the first energy center and connecting with earth will help you to establish and maintain your own gravity.
A 10-Minutes-Meditation to strengthen the first energy-center, the Mooladhara
This meditation is an easy way to establish gravity within, and connect to your own innocence and wisdom
- Awaken your Inner Energy:
Here is a guided meditation (approx. 10 Min.) to awaken your Inner Energy by the founder of Sahaja Meditation, Shri Mataji. If you went through it already skip step 1). When your Inner Energy is activated it will stay so, there is no need to repeat the affirmations (although you can do so if you like).
- At the beginning and the end of each meditation we do what we call “raising the energy” and give ourselves “a shield of protection”.
Here is a nice animation how to do it: charlie.swf
You can also find a detailed description in our Meditation Tips on page 4 and 5: Meditation Tips - The following guided meditation is about 10 minutes long – please keep your eyes open (at least for the first time) as the instructions are in written form. The music, mantras and the image of the Uluru in Australia in this clip are all related to the Mooladhara and will help to activate the energy of this center.
I wish you a wonderful week, charming everyone with your inner magnetism!
Yours, Angi
Physician learned the benefits of relaxation
By Laurie Bailey /
Eighteen years ago, Anjana Vijayvargiya, a self-described driven physician, couldn’t control her own headaches or her neck, back and shoulder pain.
Then she listened to her mother.
“She suggested meditation, since medication wasn’t working,” Dr. Vijayvargiya said.
It helped, and she’s been devoted to meditation ever since. Dr. Vijayvargiya, a pathologist at UPMC St. Margaret, recently shared her expertise during a recent class at Oakmont Carnegie Library.
Practiced for thousands of years, meditation was once recognized as a means for understanding the spiritual and mystical sides of life. Today it’s frequently used to reduce stress and create a tranquil mind.
“I was a workaholic with a type A personality. I used to be quite arrogant,” she admitted about the time before she started meditating.
Living and working in India, she was skeptical at first. But once she finally tried it, she said she felt completely relaxed.
“When I finished, it felt as though I had slept, but I wasn’t sleeping. I was extremely peaceful — a peace like I’ve never felt before,” she said.
Now living in Indiana Township with her husband, Ajay Kumar, and their 16-year-old daughter, Amogha, she said her headaches are less frequent. And more noticeable to her family and associates, her attitude toward those around her has changed dramatically.
“I actually see the best in everyone. I appreciate almost everyone. Earlier, I used to demand respect out of fear. Now, I am respectful of others,” she said, adding that it took her about six years to notice the changes in her personality, but others noticed it long before.
According to the Mayo Clinic, there is an increasing amount of scientific research supporting the health benefits of meditation and that some researchers believe it’s too early yet to draw conclusions about the possible benefits of meditation.
Speaking from her own experience, Dr. Vijayvargiya has witnessed examples of improved health conditions when patients included meditation in their regimen of care, especially for those with high blood pressure and coronary artery disease. It can also ease the anxiety and other effects associated with chemotherapy, she added.
“Meditation can do wonders … but the person has to regularly meditate at least once every day for five to 10 minutes,” she said.
It can also help with drug, alcohol and tobacco addiction, she explained.
“A person becomes addicted for a variety of reasons. This meditation slowly (or swiftly) works on the root cause of the addiction and the meditators do not feel the urge to take the harmful substances. I do know people who gave up their addictions without going to rehab or counseling. They are sober for the past 20-35 years,” she said.
Although she said there are possibly hundreds of types of meditation, Dr. Vijayvargiya is a proponent of the Sahaja method of meditation. Sahaja means “born with you,” “simple,” and “spontaneous,” she said. The method was founded in 1970 by Indian spiritual leader Nirmala Devi.
“Meditation is a cleansing process, just like brushing our teeth and taking a shower. The latter two cleanse our physical body and the meditation cleanses our subtle system,” she said.
The subtle system is a network of energy centers within the body, she said.
Dr. Vijayvargiya said her teenage daughter now regularly meditates.
“She actually can see how much it is helping her. It makes it easier for her to handle a lot at once,” she said.
The doctor even taught a class in meditation at Fox Chapel Area High School and was amazed at how it helped even the more fidgety students relax.
“Even the students totally uninterested in the beginning of the lecture were convinced it worked,” she said.
She teaches regularly through Fox Chapel’s adult education program and at the Boyd Community Center in Fox Chapel.
The biggest challenge, she said, is that people are doubtful based on their own stigma about meditation from what they see on television.
But once they try it?
She said: “People love it, it’s really relaxing. They also realize they will calm their hearts and the chattering in their brain.”
Laurie Bailey, freelance writer: suburbanliving@post-gazette.com.
First Published 2012-04-12 08:59:36
Quote Of The Day
“Our greatest glory is not in never falling,
but in rising every time we fall.”
~ Confucius
Love Understands
“Love has its own qualities and one of the qualities is that love understands.
Its understanding is not in words, not in thought, but it understands within. It can feel within, which is very important.
This is the most important part one has to realise: that love, you can only feel it. You cannot talk about it. You cannot show about it. But it is within and you can feel it …”
~ Shri Mataji, Italy 2004
To Be Born Twice
This post about the meaning of Eastern in a Sahaja context was written by Ioana
Some Christians (the Orthodox for example) celebrate Easter this coming Sunday and in some of these Christian traditions the eggs are boiled and painted in a variety of colours and on Easter Sunday the meals start by knocking and breaking the coloured eggs and this custom is done with the loud announcement : “Jesus Christ is risen!”. There is almost like a “contest” of knocking eggs and who breaks the most eggs that belong to others is declared “the winner”. While exploring more on this theme: “Easter Eggs – Traditions and Symbolism” one can see that it’s always about life and death or while going even deeper in the pagan traditions the egg is associated with the spring fertility rituals. So let’s start sharing the Sahaja perspective on this interesting theme, by diving into the pure and sacred knowledge related to the Tree of Life that lies within us, where the chakras (the subtle energy centers) are the fruits that nurture our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual layers of our being.
Actually the 6th energy centre, Agnya chakra, known as The Third Eye, according to the Sahaja knowledge about the subtle system of energy channels and centers resonates to Jesus Christ and we all are familiar with his declaration: “I am the door to …“.
Imagine that this centre actually represents the small door towards the realm of Sahasrara (7th) Chakra – the lotus with 1000 petals, where the true yoga (union) takes place, where the microcosm and macrocosm become one and the seeker becomes whole, integrated, realized, awakened, balanced and by this, the seeker has indeed access to “the kingdom of God”.
Those that have a subtle connection with Jesus – so they are Christians inwardly, genuinely, within their subtle system by having Agnya chakra in a pure / open state – will allow to their own motherly Kundalini energy to complete its journey from the sacrum bone (underneath Mooladhara chakra) till the Fontanelle bone area (“fontanelle ” literally means “small fountain” in Italian – > transparent symbol for the fountain of rebirth or eternal youth filled with the water of life).
In this way, Kundalini will spontaneously ‘break free’ through the top of the head (egg?! see the image above) and while in meditation one will enjoy that beautiful feeling of bliss and connection as a liberation from stress, anxiety and mundane worries. One indeed may experience the reality of the sahaja knowledge described below in simple words … understanding as well the symbolism of the Easter Egg.
“I wonder how many Christians know the significance of an egg. Now egg signifies a stage where you are, before Realization. When you are in your egg-shell that you are Mr X, you are Mrs Y. But, when you mature fully inside, the bird is ready and that is the time you are hatched. This is the time you get twice-born. So, the Resurrection of Christ signifies that, and that’s why we give that egg to people, saying ‘you are that’.. an egg, a reminder of that. And this egg can become a Spirit. “ said Shri Mataji , Eastern 1982, London
Quote Of The Day
“Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.”
~ Carl Gustav Jung
Words Of Wisdom
“Be Content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.”
Lao Tse
How To Become A Real Yogi (Including a 10-Minutes-Meditation)
Nowadays we have come to associate yoga with images of knotted limbs and uncomfortable positions with the aim to make our body fit and healthy. But do these practices really achieve yoga? Where are all these stretches and exercises supposed to lead? What does “yoga” really mean? Can we really achieve “yoga”? Can we become a true “yogi”?
The word ‘yoga’ comes from Sanskrit and means ‘union’. It is similar to the word ‘religion’ in its Latin root (religio) which means ‘re-connection’. In all countries and cultures there was this mystic knowledge about a power beyond our comprehension, an acting power, the power of creation. And although our individual spiritual journeys start out in different places – we all have different life experiences and have grown up in different traditions – we essentially move towards the same place and the same condition: to re-connect with this One Power.
But that was never an easy task to achieve, especially for a normal social person because 1) only the awakening of the Inner Energy could make this connection possible and 2) to allow this energy to rise first the inner subtle system had to be cleared. So this state could be achieved only by a few who ventured to the Himalayas, or to a monastery leading a very austere and strict life and clearing themselves relentlessly. One way was the yoga exercises to try to open up the energy centers. Rumi described the purification process poetically:
“Purify your eyes, and see the pure world.
Your life will fill with radiant forms.”
Only when all the energy centers of the subtle body were completely purified would the Inner Energy rise from the Sacrum Bone along the spine and pierce the top of the head to unite the person with the All-Pervading Power. In this union a person would receive the full enlightenment.
We all know the story of Buddha, and we might have read the words of Jesus who said that we have to be born twice, once in the flesh and then in the
spirit.
It was the big vision of Shri Mataji, the founder of Sahaja Meditation, to find a way to awaken this Inner Energy in the ‘normal human being’ because she thought that if this inner light could be given to each person then they themselves would see their own problems and would be able to solve them, without depending on others. Thus they would become their own masters, or their own guru, knowing for themselves about their own qualities and strengths and also what they need and where to improve. She knew if that could be done and many people could receive this Inner Awakening the world could be transformed into a beautiful place where social behavior would be based on benevolence and compassion rather than greed and aggressiveness, and life could be enjoyed to the fullest.
On the fifth of May in 1970 she found a way, at last, of turning the enlightenment process around. This process now allows the Inner Energy to be awakened as we are, before there has been any work of purification. Thus, only a few strands of this energy are able to rise through our mostly blocked energy centers. But even these few strands are already capable of connecting us with the All-Pervading Power and we start feeling a new awareness that expresses itself in a cool breeze in our hands and over the head. Then these energy strands go back into our subtle body and start purifying our energy centers. So what before could only be achieved through a tremendous effort of asceticism and austerity has now become effortless – as this energy would do all this work for us – we only need to let it happen. The more we meditate, the more strands of this energy can rise and we increasingly start feeling its pleasant and soothing effect on our energy centers. With time we will feel lighter and lighter, and we will realize that even deep-seated problems just dissolve and disappear.
Meditation means nothing else than allowing this Inner Energy to work in us and letting the All-pervading Power provide us with everything that we need. Focusing on the top of the head (where our connection is happening) we become thoughtless, supporting our Inner Energy with our inner silence. In this state we are truly in yoga. That is when we can call ourselves as being ‘a yogi’.
A 10-Minutes-Meditation for Balancing the Left and Right Channel
This meditation is an easy way to help balancing our emotional, mental and physical state
- Awaken your Inner Energy:
Here is a guided meditation (approx. 10 Min.) to awaken your Inner Energy by the founder of Sahaja Meditation, Shri Mataji. If you went through it already skip step 1). When your Inner Energy is activated it will stay so, there is no need to repeat the affirmations (although you can do so if you like).
- At the beginning and the end of each meditation we do what we call “raising the energy” and give ourselves “a shield of protection”.
Here is a nice animation how to do it: charlie.swf
You can also find a detailed description in our Meditation Tips on page 4 and 5: Meditation Tips - The following guided meditation is about 10 minutes long, at the end the music goes on for about 3 more minutes if you like to meditate longer
I wish you a wonderful week, enjoying your own Inner Energy!
Yours, Angi
The Art of Not Getting Angry
Who was not once in a while in a situation where anger was rising up inside, and we had to keep on smiling, teeth-grinding? Maybe with a boss who threw back files (which cost a lot of over time for weeks) remarking he needs something different, and needs it ASAP. One option would be to throw the job (and the files as well) , into the next trash-bin, or to hit the next innocent substitute (i.e. a wall) or simply to gulp down any angry feelings and get a stomach ache. No matter what course of action we take, the end result is the same – we are the ones who are up-set and angry whereas the other one might feel very comfortable and happy.
So what to do? Ok, ok, I know, I am repeating myself, but really, it helps: meditate! 10 minutes in the morning, 10 minutes in the evening and you might become a real anger manager! To understand how it works let’s go deeper into the mysteries of the second energy center, the Svadisthan which is actually a very important energy center for us modern, planning and thinking people. If this center is in balance, anger will not visit us.
The Svadisthan
– center of pure knowledge, creativity, pure attention and intellectual perception
In our subtle body we use this center to be creative, to think and to plan. On the physical side, situated in the abdomen (the aortic plexus), this center provides certain organs with energy such as the liver, kidneys, uterus, spleen and pancreas.
The most important physical function of this center is that it breaks down fat particles in the abdomen to replace the grey and white cells in the brain, and so generates the energy which fuels our thinking. Excessive thinking and planning overworks this process, exhausts this center and creates heat. This heat shoots up along the right side into the left temple and into the ego, causing it to inflate into a balloon that blocks the central channel. The entire system is thrown off balance.
A tingling on the right thumb, or a sensation of warmth or heaviness indicates that this energy center is overworked with too much thinking and planning, producing excessive heat, thus creating stress feelings that might easily erupt in an angry outburst. So when our boss is asking us to work overtime, or work extra hard to finish something, we are very likely putting extra strain on this center. When this center is under strain, eruptions of anger can result!
How to keep cool
Regular Sahaja Meditation helps a lot to balance this center and keep inner peace, no matter the outside circumstances. Your boss might be yelling, but it won’t affect you!
In addition to the meditation you can cool down this center by putting an ice-pack on the right side of your abdomen.
We also recommend to do a foot-soak every day, best in the evening before you go to sleep as described in the Meditation Tips on page 6 (that you can combine with your 10-minutes-evening meditation).
And here it is – our special 10-minutes meditation to keeping calm in every situation
(sit wherever you like, the most important thing is to feel comfortable)
- Awaken your Inner Energy:
Here is a guided meditation (approx. 10 Min.) to awaken your Inner Energy by the founder of Sahaja Meditation, Shri Mataji. If you went through it already skip step 1). When your Inner Energy is activated it will stay so, there is no need to repeat the affirmations (although you can do so if you like).
. - At the beginning and the end of each meditation we do what we call “raising the energy” and give ourselves “a shield of protection”.
Here is a nice animation how to do it: charlie.swf
You can also find a detailed description in our Meditation Tips on page 4 and 5: Meditation Tips - Put your right hand on your head for some seconds, put the hand down again but keep focused on top of your head where your hand was.
- Balancing your Right Side (to allow the heat to escape):
With your right hand open in your lap, bend your left arm upward, with your left palm facing the back. You can ask your Inner Energy:
“Please remove all imbalances and heat of my right side”
Sit like that for several minutes and allow your Inner Energy to clear your right side 
Then put your left hand on the right side of your abdomen, the right hand on the lap, palm upwards. That will help particularly to cool down the center. Meditate like that for several minutes.
- After the 10 minutes hold your hand over your head and see if you feel vibrations coming out – it might feel like a cool breeze, sometimes also like a warm breeze, like a tingling, or simply “somehow different”.
- End the meditation again with ”raising the energy” and giving yourself ”a bhandan” (shield of protection).
If you meditate like this for some time you will find that you can keep a cool head in most situations, and react in a balanced way which at the end is beneficiary for everyone, most of all for yourself. You might even find yourself smiling with amusement where others might explode – it really happens!
I wish you a wonderful calm and anger free week!
Yours, Angi
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COME MEDITATE IN CONNECTICUT 