While holidaying in Vietnam recently, I had the great honour and privilege of meeting with Sahaja yogis in Ho Chi Minh City and taking part in some of the Sahaja Yoga programs being conducted there.
Music of Joy concert, Ho Chi Minh City
I arrived in Ho Chi Minh City one week after the very successful tour by the Sahaja Yoga Music of Joy music group from Australia (Click here for a video clip of the Music of Joy). This visit was part of the Realise Asia Tour that was conducted throughout the Asian region, visiting Sri Lanka, Myanmar (Burma) and China, as well as Vietnam, in July 2010.
About 1000 people had registered beforehand for the Ho Chi Minh program, scheduled for 3 July. As the hall was not large enough to accommodate such a large number, a second concert was organised for the following day. Five hundred people attended the first concert, and a further two hundred came back the next day for the second concert.
A joyful experience for the audience
After Music of Joy performed, a Self-realisation session was provided. The joy on the faces of the people attending was wonderful to behold. This joy soon expressed itself in spontaneous dancing.
Since then, follow-up programs have been held for those wishing to find out more about Sahaja Yoga and its benefits, and learn how to meditate. It was one of these follow-up programs that I was privileged to attend.
The follow-up programs are held on Sunday mornings, as this is the most convenient time for people to attend. Vietnamese people work very hard, and most people work from Monday to Saturday. On the day I attended, there were actually two programs offered. In the group I joined, there were about sixty people who were attending Week 4 of an eighteen-week course on Sahaja Yoga, while in the second group there were about twenty people attending Week 2 of the course This group consisted of people who had received their Self-realisation at the Music of Joy concerts.
Ben Tanh Markets, Ho Chi Minh City
The session I attended was run by Katie from Malaysia, who spoke to the group in English. Her words were translated into Vietnamese by Tuyet and Giang. The subject for the day was Kundalini, the primordial energy within all of us, residing in the sacrum bone. Kundalini can be awakened by the presence of someone who already has his or her Kundalini awakened. If a person has the desire for it to happen, the Kundalini will awaken, rise through the spinal cord and come out of the top of the head, at the fontanelle bone area. When this happens, the person becomes connected with the All-pervading Power. This process is called Self-realisation.
Shri Mataji
After the session on Kundalini, which was preceded by a guided meditation, we watched a short video of a talk by Shri Mataji, the founder of Sahaja Yoga. After that, we had another beautiful, deep meditation. At the end, there were lots of questions from the participants, with people wanting to find out more about Kundalini, Self-realisation and Sahaja Yoga.
Ho Chi Minh City at night
It was a wonderful experience and a great honour for me to take part in this follow-up program. The Vietnamese are very sweet and loving people, and it was a great pleasure for me to share this experience with my Vietnamese brothers and sisters.
Opera House, Ho Chi Minh City
I was also fortunate enough to be in Ho Chi Minh City at the time of Guru Puja. Guru Puja is celebrated around the world, and is a time when we pay homage to our gurus. In Sahaja yoga, our Guru is Shri Mataji. Happily, through Sahaja Yoga we also attain the ability to become our own gurus. During the Puja, we watched a video talk by Shri Mataji where She discussed the qualities of a guru, how we can tell who is a real guru, and the qualities we need to develop within ourselves so that we can become our own gurus. These qualities include patience, wisdom and discretion.
Vietnam is a very beautiful country, and I really enjoyed my visit there. Ho Chi Minh City has many wonderful parks, gardens and street plantings, gracious old buildings, built by the French, and modern skyscrapers. It is a vibrant, beautiful city.
Vung Tau, Vietnam
I also visited Vung Tau, a lovely beachside resort city, about one and a half hours away from Ho Chi Minh City by fast, modern ferry. An International Food Festival, which attracted huge crowds, was held while I was there.
While I greatly enjoyed my visit to Vietnam and look forward to visiting again in the future, the high point of my trip was the opportunity to meet and spend time with the Vietnamese Sahaja yogis.
Editor
Tags:
Guru Puja,
kundalini,
Meditation,
Music of Joy,
realisation,
Realise Asia Tour,
Sahaja Yoga,
Vietnam
August 19th, 2010
Butterfly
Many years ago I was given the lovely job of listing the gifts that were given at the pujas, so I used to sit on the stage listing the gifts and then I used to supervise them being packed up. On one occasion a large number of gifts had been offered, including some very small ones.
“Where is that little butterfly that the boy gave Me?” Shri Mataji asked me in the evening. Luckily I could find it, and it had been made by a small boy.
“These things are the most important, because they come from the heart,” She said to me.
Danielle Lee
From: Eternally Inspiring Recollections of Our Holy Mother. Pune, India: Nirmal Transformations.
Tags:
gift,
heart,
Shri Mataji
April 8th, 2009
I was looking for a way to manage stress (emotional, mental or physical) and this led me to Sahaja Yoga meditation which provided an easy technique that could be practised whenever I liked. “Simple” and “effortless” are the two qualities that make this a unique method of achieving mental stillness, or a state of thoughtless awareness, or silence, or peace – basically, the state of meditation.
Like me, there are people in over ninety countries enjoying the benefits of Sahaja Yoga meditation today. And here is an opportunity (which is always free of charge) suitable for people of all ages and backgrounds to do the same. People who have jobs, families, day-to-day activities to deal with, people like me who have practised this meditation for several years, run these classes voluntarily to help the community.
The principles and basics will be explained. So there is no need to worry if you are new to meditation. The programs run for about an hour and the starting time is 7:30pm every Wednesday. People are free to join at any time. Please feel free to attend any of the classes, and we would love to hear how your experience was.
Time: Wednesdays, 7:30 pm
Venue: Lidcombe Community Centre, 3 Bridge St (underneath Lidcombe library), Lidcombe, NSW
For further details: Phone 0425 261 119 or 0403 754 773
Nitin Gupta
Tags:
Lidcombe,
Meditation,
Sahaja Yoga,
thoughtless awareness
February 13th, 2009
I was gardening, or should I say weeding. As I did so I asked that Shri Ganesha would cleanse my chakras and take away all the obstacles to the success of the Sahaja Yoga programs in Newcastle, Australia, as well as to my own ascent.
Financial concerns popped up for a moment, as my mind went to the cost of new photos, CDs, DVDs and hire of a hall, as it was about the same time as the new Sahaja Yoga programs were beginning in Newcastle. I knew my car needed new brake pads, and so my busy mind attempted to tell me I needed at least $1000 to register the car. I stopped my thoughts and told myself that I have all the faith in Shri Mataji and if my faith was complete, then I shouldn’t need to replace anything. The pads should fix themselves. Why not? If Shri Mataji says so, then it is possible. The thoughts drifted away and I went back to weeding.
The reason I knew I had to replace the brake pads is that I had been told last year at vehicle registration time that the brakes had only just passed the test. An NRMA safety check had also told me that I needed new rear brake pads.
On the morning that the film about Shri Mataji was to be shown in Charlestown, a suburb of Newcastle, I took my car to Goodyear Tyres to get the brake pads fixed. I was told the job would take two hours. So I came armed with my laptop, and started to do some work sitting in the sun. About twenty minutes after they had taken my car for repair, I was stunned to see it was back in the car park already.
I walked back inside and the receptionist told me that she would be with me in a minute. I was a little confused. I hadn’t wanted to hang around there for two hours but I did want the work done. I was then told by the owner that my brakes were fine and didn’t need anything done to them. She had even had two more mechanics check them and they all agreed that there was no problem with the brakes.
My face lit up with a ridiculous grin as I said, “Never mind that they are OK when they shouldn’t be. You are honest enough to tell me!”
The message is simple: JUST HAVE FAITH! Forget what our logic and reasoning say and have faith that things will work out. Please believe in Shri Mataji and that we truly do operate in a Divine world.
Lisa
Tags:
faith,
Sahaja Yoga,
Shi Mataji
November 7th, 2008
