The day will come when human beings will be understanding the beauty of love. Then from the heavens there will be flowers falling on us. It will be such a tremendous day …
It is My vision. It’s the future for you, to see how peacefully you can talk to people, how sweetly you can love others, how much you can give to others …
We are different. We are the jewels of humanity and we have to be like that – shining, cutting out all the wrong things within us as a diamond is cut to look like something very, very great.
My only – if I have any – desire is that try to follow the qualities of Shri Mahadeva [God] – how great He is, how detached He is …
We should be detached like that. At the same time, we should be very loving like Him, extremely loving – how His heart is full of love for others, how He looks after others. I am warning you, because I know you all love Me very much, but you should also love each other, should have a loving heart and have satisfaction in loving others. If you could develop that, your height will grow, your depth in Sahaja Yoga will grow … just deep into that love, drenched into that love, enjoying that love.
Shri Mataji, 2001
The Shawshank Redemption, released in 1994, was written and directed by Frank Darabont. The film stars Tim Robbins as Andy Dufresne and Morgan Freeman as Ellis “Red” Redding. It has been widely recognised as one of the most beloved, inspirational, and popular movies ever made. Here are two reviews of the film.
“Why do I want to write the 234th comment on The Shawshank Redemption? I am not sure – almost everything that could be possibly said about it has been said. But like so many other people who wrote comments, I was and am profoundly moved by this simple and eloquent depiction of hope and friendship and redemption.
The only other movie I have ever seen that affects me as strongly is To Kill a Mockingbird. Both movies leave me feeling cleaner for having watched them.
No action, no special effects – just men in prison uniforms talking to each other.
I do not judge it by its technical merits – I don’t really care about that. I have read that Citizen Kane or The Godfather or this or that movie is the best movie ever made. They may have the best technique or be the most influential motion pictures ever made, but not the best. The best movies are ones that touch the soul. It takes a movie like The Shawshank Redemption to touch the soul.”
Author: carflo from San Antonio, Tx (imdb.com)
“I believe that this film is the best story ever told on film, and I’m about to tell you why.
Tim Robbins plays Andy Dufresne, a city banker, wrongfully convicted of murdering his wife and her lover. He is sent to Shawshank Prison in 1947 and receives a double life sentence for the crime. Andy forms an unlikely friendship with “Red” (Morgan Freeman), the man who knows how to get things. Andy faces many trials in prison, but forms an alliance with the wardens because he is able to use his banking experience to help the corrupt officials amass personal fortunes. The story unfolds….
I was so impressed with how every single subplot was given a great deal of respect and attention from the director. The acting was world-class… The twists were unexpected, and although this film had a familiar feel, it wasn’t even slightly pretentious or cliched; it was original. The cinematography was grand and expressive. It gave a real impression of the sheer magnitude of this daunting prison.
But the one thing which makes The Shawshank Redemption stand above all other films, is the attention given to the story. The film depends on the story and the way in which it unravels. It’s a powerful, poignant, thought-provoking, challenging film like no other.
Thoroughly recommended.”
Author: Si Cole from Oxford, England (imdb.com)
The following is a beautiful talk by Baba Mama, Shri Mataji’s beloved brother who brought the creative arts, especially music, to the forefront in Sahaja Yoga. He encouraged and inspired Sahaja Yogis to greater and greater creative heights.
You believe that God is omnipresent, omnipotent and all-pervading. In fact, you believe that He is in every atom. As natural corollary of this belief, you must also know that God knows what you want or what your need is. If the first proposition is true, then second proposition has to be true. It would follow, therefore, that those who know that God is omnipotent and all-pervading are bound to accept that God is all-knowledgeable and therefore is aware of all your problems.
In spite of this fact, we always go to God with certain expectations. Expectations can be of various types, but are basically self-centred or are pertaining to people or relations you are attached to, and then you pray to God that He should grant you a particular relief, or a job promotion, or some benefit to you or your near ones, etc. When you go with this frame of mind, then most of the time you are disappointed. Hypothetically speaking, if your expectations are symbolised in A and what you get is, let us say, B; then A minus B is your disappointment. And then you have to attribute this disappointment to someone. The pessimists will attribute it to their bad luck and will always curse themselves for not being worthy of God’s favour.
The optimists will straight away blame God Himself, and they say that this God is not good and that we should shift to some other God. In this way you keep on shifting from God to God, but disappointment is always there. This may even make you anti-God and an atheist, ultimately. Now take a case where you do not go to God with any expectations. Therefore, the expectations are zero, and let us say that you get B as the reward. Therefore, B minus zero is B which is always surplus.
You should also distinguish between your expectations and desires, and pure desires. Pure desire is always for the benefit of the other, and therefore you are entitled to carry pure desires to the Divinity. I once remember, I was travelling with Shri Mataji from Sydney to Canberra, and it was very hot and the air-conditioning of the car was thoroughly inadequate. Shri Mataji was sweating and I was fanning Her with a newspaper, but I somehow felt that the heat was oppressive and that the weather should give some respite to Her. Reading my mind, She asked me a question as to what I was thinking, to which I told Her frankly that I was unable to see Her suffer because of heat. So She told me that I should make a pure desire and the weather would change. So I closed my eyes and made a pure desire that the weather should change.
Within five minutes, dark clouds gathered from nowhere and it started raining, and the intensity of heat was thus reduced and Shri Mataji said, “See, if you make a pure desire then it will always be fulfilled.”
Coming back to expectations, I may mention here that once you are connected to your Divinity through your Self Realisation, you should feel assured that you have been admitted into the Kingdom of God, that you are His subject and therefore He is duty-bound to look after you, irrespective of what you expect of Him. So please do not expect… Only pray to Shri Mataji that She should make you what She wants you to be.
Baba Mama, 1999
Through simple questions
and affirmations,
Shri Mataji, by Her grace,
traces the history of mankind,
offering us a way to face
ourselves, to seek and find
the wisdom, joy and peace
of unceasing
self realisation.
Somewhere – in the Garden of Eden
perhaps – the Power of God
granted us a great gift,
rifting us from the rest of Creation.
She, the Prime Power,
gifted to us our
imagination,
our perception, a new voice,
our free will, choice.
While the rest of Creation still
obeyed, without question, God’s will,
mankind took its destiny, and
the consequences, into its own hands.
The first desire, in those early days,
was matter –
food, shelter, weapons of security,
the surety of survival
against all rivals.
Even in these latter
days money, things
and what things bring,
are still the way of life
for most, causing envy, greed
the need for more, for new, for speed,
increasing our current
international strife,
and individual discontent.
The next desire? A towering
need for power,
for praise, obedience.
We domineer,
experience
the other’s fear.
But as we drive
through on-going lives
we tend to find
that things and status bind
and blind us, while stuff
and power are not enough.
There must be something more,
we say, a simple core
to our existence!
So we search the distance
between our world and peace of mind
to find,
to sleuth-out
truth.
So we seek outside
ourselves, in humility or pride,
through religions and prisms
of –osophies and –isms,
special visions, special places,
so-called wise, attractive faces,
sects and drugs and cults.
The result?
We find among all the congestion,
those key questions
concerning truth, which guide
us inside,
and we find that the wealth
of answers lies in the Spirit, the Self.
Brian Bell
(Photograph by Vishnu Bonneau)