From a small, small seed a big tree grows. In Spring, there is blossom and in Summer, the flowers become fruit. Our own spiritual rebirth is as simple and natural a process. Within us all there is a seed, a residual knowledge of self called Kundalini.
When the breath of divine love gives life to this seed, we find ourselves reborn into the dimension of spirit,we discover the tree of life that exists within us, we feel the divine breath as an all-pervading vibration. Like flowers, we feel our own fragrance. We mature, like fruits, into wholeness.
We have evolved from our origins in primeval matter, to the stage where we can formulate complex theories on the nature of evolution and existence. But, beyond our analysis, do we realise that evolution is still a living process, quietly and continually working towards our eventual fulfillment? Or do we, in our arrogance,see ourselves now at the pinnacle of human development, with providence our hireling, and nothing better to become?
Journey implies arrival. If so, where are we today? Is this the new Jerusalem? How can it be? If it is God’s plan to establish his kingdom on this earth and in our hearts, then it looks as though we still have some way to go. We live in a world of suffering and confusion, slaves to matter and expedience, our moral sense shattered. For centuries, we have struggled for a solution through every external agency; enough to realise perhaps that the answer must lie within, with the transformation of the individual.
Many today are experiencing this transformation, evolving into the conscious awareness of spirit, seeing within themselves that vital spark which connects them to their absolute, watching the fear and confusion of the relative world fall away, like the old cocoon of the bright new butterfly.
In the past, there have been many great men and women who have tried to raise man’s consciousness to the level at which he might know himself, and men have used their teaching to engender faction and hypocrisy. The simplicity of the original tune was too simple for their ear to carry.
Today, another is spreading the universal message of divine love, integrating the music of past singers in a dynamic new harmony. Her audience has a more sympathetic ear. They participate as instruments in her song. Through the realisation that she manifests, they are experiencing knowledge of self for the first time, and they are seeing the self in others. Her Holiness Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi has opened the door to collective consciousness, the ultimate evolutionary jump, where man finds union with himself and with his source.
Yoga means union; union with something beyond ourselves, with something essentially divine. Sahaja means spontaneous, and it means ‘born with you’. So by Sahaja Yoga, we mean that the means to spontaneous union with the divine is born within us all. To achieve this union all we do is ask and let it happen. We cannot achieve it by any effort, it is spontaneous, it just happens. It is given as a gift.
Before realisation, Kundalini exists within us in the dormant state, coiled inside the triangular bone at the base of the spine, When awakened, it rises through the subtle channel in the spine, eventually piercing the fontanel bone (Bramharandhra) and passing through. Here at the topmost chakra, the sahasrara with the thousand lotus petals, is the point of yoga, where the individual consciousness is united to the all-pervading power of collective unconscious. At the same time Kundalini awakens the spirit which resides in the heart, where it beings to pulsate. Thought ceases as Kundalini passes through the agnya centre in the brain. The spirit, which is now alive within us, manifests itself as a flow of cool vibrations, moving across the hands and over the crown and temples like a cool breeze. We begin to feel different sensations in the fingers, as here the Kundalini signals to us the condition of the various centres (chakras) within. This state we call vibratory awareness, in which we actually feel the self, as it manifests itself, through the vibrations, to the central nervous system. Since the self, which is the spirit, the essence of our being, now enters our conscious awareness, this is also called self realisation. The whole process begins when H. H. Shri Mataji awakens the Kundalini. It rises automatically when touched by the vibrations that radiate from Her Being, and fills you with a sense of peace and bliss as it is guided upward under Her care and expertise. As she says so often with Her characteristic humour, ‘Kundalini is my job. If I know the job, why should you be upset ? You know other jobs, I know this one …’
H. H. Shri Mataji has been teaching Sahaja Yoga and sharing the experience of self-realisation since 1970. She was born on 21st March, 1923, in Chindawara, a small hill station near Nagpur in the heart of India. Today She is the wife of a U.N. diplomat with two daughters and four grandchildren. Although born into a Christian family, She has embraced the truth of all religions in Her universal teaching.
In spite of Her undoubted powers and profound depth of spiritual knowledge, H. H. Shri Mataji remains a person of extraordinary humility, a fount of wisdom and common-sense, and a constant source of laughter and delight. A personality with as many facets as a brilliant crystal, she is yet, at the core, one with the spirit of her teaching; the pure light of love that glows in the heart of that crystal.
On 5th May 1970, She witnessed the sahasrara chakra of the Virata open. The Virata is the Universal Being, God’s manifested aspect in whose image we are made. Each chakra’s opening in his spiritual instrument heralds a new stage in our evolution, as it creates the same potential in our own. The last chakra to open before this time was the agnya, which opened with Christ’s resurrection. With the opening of the sahasrara, H.H. Shri Mataji knew that it was time for man to rise into his destined station, into the glory of God’s kingdom.