When you forgive a person, what do you do? You accept the situation, to begin with. And secondly, you forgive what you think has been done wrong to you. But because nothing wrong can be done to your spirit, you just forgive because you are the spirit. And when you forgive, you have found that your tension goes away.
So even to your thoughts … say, “All right, forgive this thought,” because thought is also not to be punished. Forgive this thought, forgive this thought. Forgive everything. Not forget – forgive. Because then you will even forget that you are the spirit.
“Forgive all the thoughts that are coming to me.” Just go on saying this. It is a mantra. What is a mantra? It is that power of the word that expresses the spirit.
So this is a very important thing Christ has given us – the weapon of forgiveness. Everybody has that weapon. Everyone can use that weapon. You don’t have to put in any effort for it. You don’t have to pay for it. It’s just you have to say, “I forgive.” You’ll be amazed. Your nerves will soothe down. This tension, this pressure of these modern things will be reduced if you just go on saying, “I forgive. I forgive them.” …
What happens when you forgive someone? That means you do not react. The power to react to somebody’s injuries, insults is finished. And when that power is finished, you become a powerful person because nobody can now overpower you, because nobody can kill you, nobody can hurt you, nobody can do anything to you.
Shri Mataji, 1984
Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809 – 1892), one of the greatest English poets, has written one of the clearest descriptions of the Self-realisation that results from the awakening of the kundalini. The passage is found in a very early poem of his called “Armageddon”, written when he was only fifteen years old. The passage starts with his encounter with a beautiful angel (seraph) who tells him that his senses are “clogg’d with dull mortality” and his “spirit [is] fetter’d with the bond of clay”. Following this, the seraph commands, “Open thine eyes and see!” and in that instant he achieves his Self-realisation. He could then feel the unimaginable glory that lies within all of us: “I felt my soul grow godlike”. As “each failing sense … grew thrillingly distinct and keen” the world around him was transformed into a thing of wonder and beauty. “All sense of Time and Being and Place [were] swallowed up and lost”. He had achieved yoga (union with God): “I was a part of the Unchangeable”.
Aaron Rosenthal
Here is this beautiful poem in full:
The rustling of white wings! The bright descent
Of a young seraph! and he stood beside me
In the wide foldings of his argent robes
There on the ridge, and look’d into my face
With his unutterable shining eyes,
So that with hasty motion I did veil
My vision with both hands, and saw before me
Such coloured spots as dance before the eyes
Of those that gaze upon the noonday sun.
“0 Son of Man, why stand you here alone
Upon the mountain, knowing not the things
Which will be, and the gathering of the nations
Unto the mighty battle of the Lord?
Thy sense is clogg’d with dull Mortality,
Thy spirit fetter’d with the bond of clay
Open thine eyes and see!”
I look’d, but not
Upon his face, for it was wonderful
With its exceeding brightness, and the light
Of the great Angel Mind that look’d from out
The starry glowing of his restless eyes.
I felt my soul grow godlike, and my spirit
With supernatural excitation bound
Within me, and my mental eye grew large
With such a vast circumference of thought,
That, in my vanity, I seem’d to stand
Upon the outward verge and bound alone
Of God’s omniscience. Each failing sense,
As with a momentary flash of light,
Grew thrillingly distinct and keen. I saw
The smallest grain that dappled the dark Earth,
The indistinctest atom in deep air,
The Moon’s white cities, and the opal width
Of her small, glowing lakes, her silver heights
Unvisited with dew of vagrant cloud,
And the unsounded, undescended depth
Of her black hollows. Nay the hum of men
Or other things talking in unknown tongues,
And notes of busy Life, in distant worlds,
Beat, like a far wave, on my anxious ear.
I wondered with deep wonder at myself:
My mind seem’d wing’d with knowledge and the strength
Of holy musings and immense Ideas,
Even to Infinitude. All sense of Time
And Being and Place was swallowed up and lost
Within a victory of boundless thought.
I was a part of the Unchangeable,
A scintillation of Eternal Mind,
Remix’d and burning with its parent fire.
Yea! in that hour I could have fallen down
Before my own strong soul and worshipp’d it ….
Alfred Lord Tennyson (excerpt from “Armageddon”)
(Photograph: theatre.msu.edu)
The Sahasrara Chakra, or crown chakra, is situated at the fontanelle area at the top of the head. Fontanelle means fountain, and there are many references to the cool breezes that blow and the fountains that flow in the Kingdom of Heaven, above, in all major religious texts and mystical traditions.
As man is the epitome of evolution, so the epitome of man is the joyful integration at Sahasrara Chakra. Each day allow the attention to rise into Sahasrara and dissolve within the cool breeze of your Kundalini.
The Sahaja Yoga affirmations for the Sahasrara Chakra are: “Mother, by your grace I am protected from all the challenges to my ascent”; and “Mother, verily You are the Victory over all the challenges to my ascent.”
The Sahasrara is the uppermost point of the manifest Creation. It is a privileged place for us to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven within. Here in silent majesty is the subtle source point for the three great powers that create, sustain and resolve the creation in all its myriad forms. At this point we go beyond the relativity of temporal existence, beyond time and drama, spontaneously in the Flow of the Divine
vibrations. This is the point of Oneness, the realisation of Heaven on Earth, achieved by the Sahaja Yogi. Here the complete perfection of the human potential begins to flower. The awakened cool breeze of Kundalini begins to cleanse and nourish the whole subtle body and the Grace of God falls within.
In the Silence of Sahasrara the whole instrument is integrated. Each chakra has its place. Here the Kundalini opens the lotus petals of the Sahasrara and enlightenment or realisation takes place.
After realisation, you may feel a pulsation and a flow of cool vibrations. This is the baptism by which you know you are truly born again. Your new vibrational awareness signals that you have moved into the subtlest level of communication, in collective consciousness.
We become vessels for Divine power and our presence begins to awaken others. We learn to appreciate the real depth and beauty of people, of Nature and all things by their vibrations. We no longer judge by opinion but by vibrations. Just ask a question and a positive answer comes as a flow of cool vibrations. Just sit in meditation and ask the vibrations. It is conversation at its most sublime.
The presiding deity of Sahasrara, Sri Kalki, is still to come. With His eleven destroying powers (Ekadesha Rudra) He is the final, most awesome incarnation of the evolving principle of Shri Vishnu. Meanwhile, we have the presence of Shri Mataji to awaken the seekers of the world to their rightful inheritance and their
fully enlightened powers. Shri Mataji, as the source of this MahaYoga, has Her place, too, at the Sahasrara.
As Shri Mataji has said, “Without opening the Sahasrara, God itself was a myth, religion itself was a myth, all talk about divinity was a myth. People believed in it but it was just a belief. Now if the will of God is so important, it has to be proved. Now through Sahaja Yoga, after the breaking of the Sahasrara, you have now, for the first time, felt the will of God, which is such an important thing. Now the will of God you are feeling on your finger tips. After realisation, you have discovered the absolute science which is the will of God.”
Pavan Keatley
(Illustration: sahajayogaspirituality.com)
Sahaja Yoga, first of all, is for personal improvement, is for the inner improvement as far as the personal side is concerned. This means your intelligence must improve, your temperament must improve, your heart must clear out, your feelings must be all right, then your health should be all right, then your relationship with others should be all right, your ego should go away, your superego should go away. All these things are there. But this only helps a personality, just a personality that is very limited, that is yourself. But now, this personality can become an instrument, if you can develop that depth within yourself.
But normally what happens, people are very much still worried about themselves, about their wives, about their children, about their husbands or their household … we have to be those instruments … We have to develop that depth within us. That depth is possible and you can really cure many problems of your country if you could just meditate on them …
My working style is different because I have very sharp and effective instruments. Now for you also, it is important that you also develop those deeper feelings within you, deeper sense within you.
Shri Mataji, 1987