How to get into meditation April 22, 2013

image by axinia

This is a wonderful advise on how to get easy into a meditation, after your Kundalini has been awakened.

“Meditation means exposing yourself to God’s grace. The grace itself knows how to cure you. It knows how to mend you, how to settle down itself into your own being, how to keep your spirit kindled. It knows everything, so you do not have to worry as to what you have to do or what name you have to take, what mantras you have to do. In meditation you have to be absolutely effortless, expose yourself fully and you have to be absolutely thoughtless at that time.

If you are not thoughtless, at that time you have to just watch your thoughts, but do not get involved into them. You will find gradually, as when the sun rises, darkness goes away and the sun’s rays go into every part and make the whole place enlightened. In the same way, your being will be completely enlightened. But if you put in an effort at that time or try to stop something within you, it will not happen. Effortlessness is the only way into meditation, but you should not be lethargic about it. You should be alert and watch it.

The other side could be that people just doze off. You have to be alert. If you doze off nothing will work out. That is another side of it. If you are lazy about it, nothing will work out. You have to be alert and open, absolutely aware, completely effortless, absolutely effortless. If you are absolutely effortless, meditation will work the best.

Do not think about your problems at all. Just expose yourself to the vibrations. When the sun shines, all of nature exposes itself to the sun and receives the blessings of the sun effortlessly. It does not put in any effort. It just receives the sun. The sun’s rays start acting. In the same way, the all-pervading power starts working.”  by Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

How to find out if your Kundalini rises April 3, 2013

The energy of  Kundalini  is quite present in the modern life, today more than ever before. The signs of a 3,5 coiled energy became a popular image in marketing, for it’s a beautiful design element and it echoes in our collective consciousness. Although it is being so widely used I doubt that people really know its meaning and power.

Wikipedia gives some information about Kundalini but most of it HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE SUBJECT. It looks like some people tried to awaken this sacred energy being not authorized for it, and they got very strange, if not terrifying results.  I am puzzled how practitioners of so-called Kundalini yoga describe the sensations they get calling it rising Kundalini this way:

(and belive me this is NOT what Kundalini feels like)

• Involuntary jerks, tremors, shaking, itching, tingling, and crawling sensations, especially in the arms and legs
• Energy rushes or feelings of electricity circulating the body
• Intense heat (sweating) or cold, especially as energy is experienced passing through the chakras
• Headache, migraine, or pressure inside the skull
• Increased blood pressure and irregular heartbeat
• Emotional numbness
• Antisocial tendencies
• Mood swings with periods of depression or mania
• Pains in different areas of the body, especially back and neck
• Sensitivity to light, sound, and touch
• Trance-like and altered states of consciousness
• Disrupted sleep pattern (periods of insomnia or oversleeping)
• Loss of appetite or overeating

I mean are they all masochist?!? Why practice something which gives you such horrid discomfort and suffering? I believe a truly spiritual practice must give one the enlightenment and bliss and not horror.

Luckily there have been wonderful saints and prophets all over the world, in different religions and spiritual practices who have given the exact description of Kundalini as of a cool breeze. Even some musicians and artists have referred to this cooling sensation.

Since my Kundalini was awakened 17 year back, and I have felt and have been “working” with this amazing energy for such a long time, I feel authorized enough to give a list of REAL KUNDALINI RISING sensations. This list can be confirmed by many millions of people who have experienced the same (unfortunately they are all too shy or to self-sufficient to post about it).

HOW DO YOU KNOW YOUR KUNDALINI IS RISING?

1. If you sit with the rounded back, slowly or suddenly your back will get straight, you may even not notice that. The upright position is possible even for people with spine cord problems when their Kundalini rises.
2. Your nose will breathe much “lighter”, even without any special exercises – this is the sign that Kundalini has passed the Hamsa chakra (between the eyebrows).
3. You may feel the cooling energy rising upwards your spinal cord, mostly on the back, although some people can feel it within, inside the body.
4. You will feel cool breeze in your hands, and interestingly – when the breeze gets stronger your hand will open up on their own.
5. After meditation with well risen Kundalini you may feel the need to “wash off” your face with your hands. You eyes will glow and your face will shine with peace and beauty!
6. Tickling and warm sensation in different parts of the body can be a sign of Kundalini rising and doing it’s clearing work. Ultimately and ideally this must end up in getting the cool breeze on top of head and in the hands
7. The cool breeze pouring down your head or even all over the body gives the feeling of the absolute bliss and dissolution, feels like Nirvana and cannot be mistaken for anything else! This is the ultimate goal of any yoga and it is the easiest to reach by the sahaja yoga practice.

Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, founder of Sahaja Yoga

LOVE, axinia

How to outsource your personal growth February 25, 2013

What a nonsense, you may say. How a personal growth can be outsourced? This is something highly personal which entirely depends on our own efforts and learning abilities. And yet I would claim it can be outsourced, let me tell you why and how.

The basic driving force in the human evolution has always been learning from experiences. Either exploring environment or building up their living comforts, people has been learning by doing. Some experiences became a success, but many more have been mistakes. Especially as far as psychological issues are concerned, talking of experiences people mostly mean pain.

I guess each of us can confess that learning from a painful lesson is a long-term thing, often it takes  not one or two, but many similar cases in order to realize the mistake and change the behavior. Learning from pain is painful and this is the way we have been learning since ages.

Is there any other chance to grow? Can this long, boring and painful way be outsourced? Can we develop ourselves through any outside help and – this would be the best – effortlessly?

YES, WE CAN!

The cool thing is that each and everyone of us has “something” inside our being which is not our being itself,  but a kind of an external part which is ready and happy to take over and do the personal/spiritual growth job for free! This part is tremendously powerful and intelligent, and it knows exactly how to help us out, even in our daily matters.

The sages and enlightened seekers of the past all knew about it and described their experience with this power in various cultures and religions, all in the same way. In the Indian tradition in Sanskrit language it is called KUNDALINI (here you can find an excellent description of this fantastic power).

Now how does it work?

1.You get your Kundalini awakened (here – how exactly, easy and fast)

2.You let her (this is a female energy) do the job: rising upwards your spinal chord Kundalini clears out your energy centers/chakras and removes your problems. The best thing is you can almost always precept it physically!

So basically you sit down in a nice meditation for some 10-15 min mornings and evenings and while this your Kundalini works. The perfect outsource, isn’t it? You do nothing, she does it all. You get up fully refreshed, happy, fully of energy and bliss! And by practicing this for some time you will find out that not only your old problems vanish, but an actual personal growth takes place – slowly but steadily. Even within a year or two a person can change dramatically to the best! And that -again – without any painful experiences.

This is my observation done for over 17 years since my Kundalini has been awakened. Within this time I had a couple of painful experiences but as far as I can judge, I did not learn that much out of them. I learned much more from Kundalini itself – the power which she carries is truth, auspiciousness, holiness, chastity, self-respect, detachment, oneness, enlightened attention, compassion, pure love and joy. This is all what I was lucky not only to experience through the Kundalini work but gradually to imbibe and manifest in my personal growth. This would not be possible for me by a mere human “learning by doing”, at least not in one life time.

LOVE
axinia

The aim of Spirituality is Pleasure October 19, 2012

image by axinia

Even though Spirituality has become a trend and many householders (normal citizens, not ascetics) are seeking and finding their spiritual practices the understanding of it remains  a bit perverse: the mainstream and often the seekers themselves perceive Spirituality as the opposite to the pleasures of life. What a wrong idea indeed!

Now I would like to make a few statements that some people may find shocking. But let’s face it, this is what it is!

1. Any longing for self-development and evolution – which sooner or later anyways leads to a spiritual practice is the most egotistical acting because it means the INDULGENCE in the SELF. Seeking the Spirit and finding it is in fact the most powerful longing of a soul and is the driving force behind all uplifting actions.

2. Being a spiritual person means having a lot of FUN! In the light of the Spirit one sees many things differently, for instance angry or idiotic people just make one laugh. One starts not only seeing fun in many situations, but also enjoying situations which for a non-spiritual person may be unbearable.

If you want positive changes in your life – do not start changing yourself or your life, just meditate! April 14, 2012

Since many years I run a sahaja meditaiton class for Russian speaking people in Vienna, Austria. Based on that experience I have made an interesting observation which many other teaches like me confirm: when people start practicing meditation their life improves on every level  – physical, emotional,  job-or familywise and of course, on the spiritual.

I have no data on another spiritual practices but this is certainly the case with sahaja meditation. The explanation may be the following: the inner energy Kundalini gets awakened and it starts “working for you”, arranging not only for your physical well-being but also fantastically transforming your surroundings, arranging for great opportunities and pleasant people around. This looks like a magic but it is not!

And the best part of it is that literary you do not need to do anything yourself but meditate!

I mean you do not need to “work hard on yourself”, control your behaviour, try to become a better person, take certain steps. Sahaja yoga-  a yoga for lazy people I found out. 🙂

But one thing I have to mention: very often as soon as their life improves people give up this meditation practice(because when everything ges so fine one is even lazy to meditate)… and after some time come back again saying “oh, well, everything is gone, I was again beaten up by life”.That is how I know that this is not a mere coincidence but proved by hundreds of people whom I personally know: Immediately after they start meditating their life improves. And in the same manner it gets worse when they stop practicing.

Is compassion stronger than intellect? March 14, 2012

I have always been a person of intellect, the one whose reason comes before emotions. Before starting with my spiritual practice I had a pretty neutral attitude towards human beings — I never hated anyone but at the same time I was never getting too emotionally involved with people. I used to belive in Good in people and that was good enough for me.

Later when I took to sahaja yoga and learned about the power of compassion I started wondering what it is. I learned from my Guru, Shri Mataji, that compassion is nothing but love in action, it is the manifestation of unconditional love. This sounded beautiful but not clear enough, for as usual I needed my personal experiences on top of a great theory.

Being quite happy with my personal growth and spiritual achievements, some years back I started wondering what about this compassion, whether I have it or not. I thought I did not. Because I used to be rather strict to people, very demanding  – because the same strict and demanding I was to myself. I felt this cannot be near to compassion. Because first, it is unconditional. And my condition to people was that I would only help if they want to grow. I did not want to waste my energy, time and attention for those who are not interested in self-development.

Interesting enough, my personal evolution was taking place even without my effort (this is what I love so much about Sahaja meditation practice! – the growth happens spontaneously, only because Kundalini works during the meditation). It has been for 16 years since I started with this practice and so far many wonderful qualities opened up in me, even such which I did not expect I could develop.

The birthday of an angel: a fascinating life story! November 18, 2010

In this life I am extremely lucky with my close relatives and friends – they all are amazingly beautiful human beings and at some point I can’t keep myself from paying them my tribute (see my earlier posts on my mother, father, husband, best friend).

Today is my beloved sister’s birthday and I would love to use this opportunity to tell you the story of her life.

You may ask me what is so remarkable in the life of a young woman? Has she suffered a lot, got into “stories”, changes 10 husbands, got from poor to rich and then back like in a bad novel? No, no. From the narrative point of view – nothing, there are stories of people who are much more captivating than any novel. It’s not the case here. The fascination of Tatiana’s story for me is in its evidence for a living transformation which is possible through the light of the Spirit.

As a child Tatiana was a rather mediocre girl with no special talents and qualities, sometimes greedy, sometimes even mean. In this photo of her as a child you can see that she was not that open and even somehow mistrustful…Really not an angel.

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Being an ordinary girl, she was not interested in anything special, and not at all in spirituality.

However having a seeker like me in the family, it was  probably logcal for her to get attracted to spiritual seeking and when one day I came and told her: “Tanya, I think I HAVE FOUND IT!” she immediately wanted to join me. That’s the way we came to the fascinating Sahaja Yoga practice 15 years back. We were young and had lots of fun about doing meditation and discovering new opportunities, new sensations, new awareness and gradually the new life dimension.

 By this time she went for musical studies and had rather a boring voice and no evidence for it improvement. All of a sudden Tatiana’s voice opened up and she started singing like never before!After several months of Sahaja mediation practise her voice has dramatically improved. Even her teachers were wondering what happened… And that was just a beginning!

The higher magic October 24, 2010

One of the best quotes on Kundalini-awakening:

There is a higher magic vested in all of us that none can control but everyone can use.

(Gregoire de Klabermatten)

Kundalini is described within Eastern religious, or spiritual, tradition as an indwelling Divine feminine energy that can be awakened in order to purify the subtle system and ultimately to bestow the state of Yoga, or Divine Union (e.g. see Jnaneshwari Ch. VI).

This movement of Kundalini is felt by the presence of a cool or, in the case of imbalance, a warm breeze across the palms of the hands or the soles of the feet. Such a phenomenon can be seen to be described in a diverse array of scripture (see Aquarian Gospel of Christ, ch. 44, v19, ch. 161, v35, ch. 162, v4; Jnaneshwari, ch.6; Ezekiel, ch. 37, vs. 5-6: Old Testament; John, ch. 14 vs. 15- 17 & 25: New Testament; Koran, sura 24, vs. 24;

The ultimate happening May 8, 2010

It is interesting to note that each religion gives a different name to this event. The Koran calls it Resurrection and the reward takes the form of “gardens watered by running streams“. The goal of Hinduism is “self-realisation” and that of Buddhism “nirvana”, where the being feels a rain of bliss upon him. Christians call it “baptism” or “entry into the kingdom of God”. There too, the symbolic gesture of John the Baptist uses the element of water on Christ’s fontanel. In the same way the Pentecostal wind which descended upon the heads of the disciples marked their entry into a new dimension, the enlightenment of their awareness through the perception of vibrations, an experience which is in every way similar to the awakening of the Kundalini today.

Are not streams, rain and wind the metaphors used by the different traditions to refer to the event of self-realization? Hindus, Jews, Christians and Muslims experience their union in the light of the same source, that of Allah.

The Hindu has no choice but to acknowledge the cool showers of bliss descending on his brain devoid of thoughts, drenched in the absolute silence of the Eternal. The Jew enjoyed the same well-being  and feels the burning bush which was revealed to Moses vibrating within him:

The Legend of the Jewel October 7, 2008

 

 image by axinia

Once upon a time in a long forgotten land people lived happily and in complete harmony with nature. They owned a divine jewel which connected them with their inner light: The Water of Life!

Centuries full of peace passed but eventually people started to forget about the jewel and soon after they turned to greed and lazyness.

The Gods watched this with anger because they once offered this jewel to mankind and so, they decided to take the jewel away from man and to hide it in safe place. (But where? )The deepest ocean, the highest mountain and even the moon did not seem save enough to get the jewel out of reach from the greed of man.  

Then the Gods agreed to put it in the one place where the curious humans would hardly ever look for it: