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A wise man from India said, “Just as a mother protects, raises, and pampers her only child, in the same way you should encourage and protect in yourself the most precious of your possessions, your ability to love others.”
When we love others, and when we are loved, we feel good. This demonstrates that our true goodness is revealed only in love.
If you understand that love is the most important thing in the world, then when you meet someone, you should care not about their usefulness to you but how you can help them. If you do this, you accomplish a lot more than when you think only of yourself.
Why do I believe in the law of love and follow it? What will come of it? I don’t know. But I do know that the more I follow the law, the better it is for me and others.
Leo Tolstoy, Wise Thoughts for Every Day
There was a study done in the 1960s which illustrates the nature of left-sided, right-sided and centred tendencies in children. The study, called “The Marshmallow Test”, was intended to shed light on the nature of emotional self-control. Initiated by the psychologist Walter Mischel, the study involved a number of four-year-old children.
Each child had a marshmallow put down in front of them. They were allowed to eat the marshmallow when the experimenter left the room, but if they waited until his return, they could have two marshmallows! The experimenter then left for up to twenty minutes. A number of the children were simply unable to hold out, and ate the single marshmallow. Others, however, were able to delay eating it, in favour of having the double treat upon the experimenter’s return.
What was remarkable, however, was that, twelve to fourteen years later, the children who were unable to hold out had developed many traits of the left side. They tended to shy away from social contacts, to be indecisive, to be easily upset by frustrations, to see themselves as unworthy, and to still be unable to put off self-gratification.
Of the children who resisted the temptation of the single marshmallow, we find two distinct groups: those whom we would call right-sided; and those who were more centered. Those of the right side, when tracked down in adolescence, were characterised by self-assertiveness; they embraced challenges, pursued goals, were quick to take the initiative and were often aggressive. Those who were of the centre, who were also able to withstand temptation in the Marshmallow Test, were characterised as self-reliant, confident, trustworthy and dependable.
Where the left-sided child is simply unable to resist, and the right-sided child has to exercise strong self-control, the centred child remains detached, distancing himself or herself for as long as is required, doing so with little effort. Such a child neither implodes nor explodes in the face of difficulty, but responds to it with an appropriate attitude that best serves themselves and those around them.
Brian Bell
So today we are talking about Christ. He is sitting in a position of Agnya Chakra, controlling pineal and pituitary. By that He controls our conditioning. If we follow Him then we cannot be conditioned by anything, because He talked of Spirit only.
– Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, Christmas 1995.
While Lord Jesus was actually born at the the time of Diwali (the Festival of Lights), the date on which we celebrate Christmas, December 25th, also has significance in relation to Christ. The early Roman Christians, perhaps not knowing the true date, decided to celebrate Christ’s birth at the time of the mid-winter solstice (shortest day in the Northern Hemisphere), the date on which the pre-Christian god of the Sun, Sol, had been invoked to lengthen the duration of daylight so that Spring could return. According to one scholar writing in the twelfth century:
It was a custom of the Pagans to celebrate on the same 25 December the birthday of the Sun, at which they kindled lights in token of festivity. In these solemnities and revelries the Christians also took part. Accordingly when the doctors of the Church perceived that the Christians had a leaning to this festival, they took counsel and resolved that the true Nativity should be solemnised on that day.
Several early Christian writers connected the rebirth of the sun to the birth of Jesus. Cyprian observed:
O, how wonderfully acted Providence that on that day on which that Sun was born … Christ should be born.
Shri Jesus is the Lord of the Agnya Chakra, which corresponds to the Sun. In Christian icons Christ is often depicted making a gesture of blessing identical to the Surya mudra (see illustration), a symbolic hand pose in which the ring finger is touched by the thumb. The significance of this is that the ring finger corresponds, in ancient traditions as well as in Sahaja Yoga, to the Sun and the Agnya Chakra. The early Christians seemed to want to make a connection between Jesus and the pre-existing mythological tradition of solar deities, who also had virgin births and were resurrected. Hence Sunday is the Christian holy day.
Sunlight is important for the Agyna Chakra, which governs the pineal gland in the centre of the brain. The pineal gland is much bigger in children: it shrinks at the time of puberty. It is controlled by the innocence of Christ. The pineal gland synthesizes and secretes the hormone melatonin, an important regulator of mood, that communicates information about environmental lighting to various parts of the body, and establishes bio-rhythms such as the conditioning of sleep and waking. The light-transducing ability of the pineal gland has led some to call the pineal the “third eye”.
Patients with seasonal affective disorder (SAD), a regular recurrence of depression during autumn and winter, caused by a drop in melatonin levels in the brain, often improve after basking under bright light, a technique known as phototherapy.
I am the Light of the World.
-Lord Jesus
Graham Brown
It is important for our spiritual growth to develop a balance between our left side of emotion and our right side of action. Often, if we’re dragged into the left side, or pulled into the right side, we lose touch with those around us. We become individualistic. Either we’re withdrawn and unwilling to communicate, or we’re too full of ourselves to care what others have to say. In both cases our connection with other people becomes undermined.
When in the centre, we automatically become collective. There is a desire to connect, to communicate. It is a joy to be in the company of others. All apprehension and suspicion vanish completely. All disregard and arrogance melt away.
The famous psychologist, Carl Jung, spoke at length about this. He called it Individuation. He said we have both a collective side and an individual side. The problem is that people identify with one or the other. If we become too individualistic, we neglect our social responsibilities; and if we are too socially oriented, we neglect our inner selves. Individuation is a sort of harmonising of these two sides. By working out who we in fact are, through a realisation of the self – self-realisation – our uniqueness unravels. We are then able to fit into the collective pattern in a more creative and natural way.
In order to attain this sense of the collective, however, we must become balanced. Our thinking function and our feeling function, need to be kept in their rightful places. Over-development of either function takes us away from the Self.
Our seeking, our search for some meaning in this world, is a very personal journey. We make discoveries and draw conclusions, not in a social setting, but within ourselves. If we are on the right path, then this journey is nothing short of profound. There are times when the world seems to stop at the moment of some significant realisation; a realisation that encourages us further along our path. God, or the All-pervading Power, seems to touch us on such occasions.
However, the nature of our spiritual development changes with time. At some point there is a subtle shift or transition from a very personal, individual journey, to one that has a collective dimension. It seems that the “seedling” not only has to learn to adjust to the earth, but also to exist amongst others of its own kind.
Brian Bell