Christ & Kundalini

Contrary to popular Christian dogma, Christ did teach about Karma, reincarnation, self-realisation and the Divine Feminine as Holy Ghost -- God the Mother. Christ's teachings are more Eastern than the Churches would have us believe or would like to admit.

The two centuries after Christ, saw the Christian Gnostic teachings of spiritual awareness disseminated alongside the blind faith doctrines of Paul's formulation. In the third Century, the Roman Church's council of Nicaea acted to stamp out the Gnostics and their anti-dogmatic approch to spirituality.

The Gnostic's were declared heretical, their texts destroyed and the Gnostics themselves persecuted into extinction. However, a small amount of Gnostic teachings survived, hidden in caves or in watered-down form in other "heretical" texts (broadly labelled as "Apocrypha").

The Christian Gnostics practiced a spirituality more similar to Eastern traditions than to the Western Christianity we know today. "Gnostic" is Greek for "knower" and it is "Gnosis" or "Knowledge" that they were seeking. Unlike the blind faith demanded by today's Churches, 'Gnosis' meant direct, mystical experience of the divine, which was to be found by individual spiritual evolution to Self-Realisation, and not within the confines of intellectual dogma. The experience of Gnosis was trans-rational and non-intellectual.

From the Nag Hammadi Library, the Book of Thomas, Christ tells us "For whoever does not know self, does not know anything, but whoever knows self, already has acquired knowledge about the depth of the universe". Compare this with a tract from the Upanishads, the Indian metaphysical treatise on Self Realisation: "It is not by argument that the self is known... Distinguish the self from the body and mind. The self, the atman, the highest refuge of all, pervades the Universe and dwells in the hearts of all. Those who are instructed in the self and who practice constant meditation attain that changeless and self effulgent atman ( spirit/ self). Do Thou Likewise, for bliss eternal lies before you..."

In another gnostic text, the Secret Gospel of Thomas, Christ promises us spiritual fulfilment "I shall give you what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, what no hand has touched and what has never arisen in the human mind." This description is not unlike the Upanishadic experience "the Self is devoid of birth and death, it neither grows old nor decays and the accidents of life do not affect it. The Self transcends space and time; what is great is not too great for it to comprehend and what is small is not too small to escape its attention. It is the Self of All".

Just as Christ warned us against sin and encourages moral perfection in the pursuit of spiritual fulfilment, so too do the Eastern texts "No intellectual acumen can help one realise it, it can be realised only by those who surrender to it and who make themselves worthy by grace, by desisting from all that is sinful, who engage in the practice of perfection by constant meditation"( Upanishads).

The most ancient Eastern spiritual texts, the Vedas,of India, tell us that the process of spiritual awakening by which one attains truth -awareness is called 'Self-Realisation'. The Self Realised person lives in direct experience of reality -- this is called "Jnana" ( a traditional sanskrit word meaning 'knowledge' or 'Gnosis'). Such a person is called a "Jnani" ('knower ' or 'gnostic' ) or "dwijaha" ('twice born'; first from a human mother to the earthly plane then secondly as a child of the Goddess, or Divine Mother, who gives the seeker their second, spiritual birth, Self Realisation, into the plane of mystic awareness- gnosis! ). The traditional Indian texts extol the 'Divine Mother' as the Cosmic Matriarch, bestower of the highest treasure of Self Realisation upon Her deserving children. Many Indian mystic traditions say this same goddess is represented within the human being as the divine feminine power called Kundalini.

What of Western tradition? In the Secret Book of John Christ explains that human redemption before the Heavenly Father occurs by the mediation of a Divine Feminine principle, which he calls the Earthly Mother. It is the Earthly Mother who removes the sins of the children that they can become worthy of their divine heritage; "when all sins and all uncleanesses are gone from your body, your blood shall become as pure as our Earthly Mother's blood and as pure as the river's foam sporting in the sunlight. And your breath shall become as pure as the breath of odorous flowers; your flesh as pure as the flesh of fresh fruits reddening upon the leaves of trees; the light of your eye as clear and bright as the brightness of the sun shining upon the blue sky. And now shall all the angels of the Earthly Mother serve you and your breath, your blood, your flesh shall be one with the breath, the blood and the flesh of the Earthly Mother, that your spirit also become one with the Spirit of your Heavenly Father. For truly no-one can reach the Heavenly Father unless through the Heavenly Mother. Even as the newborn babe cannot understand the teaching of his father until his mother has suckled him, bathed him, nursed him, put him to sleep and nurtured him". The Earthly Mother is a divine mediator through which the seekers, the Sons of Man, are raised to the Heavenly Father. Another part of the same text says "Honour your Earthly Mother and keep her laws that your days may be long on this earth and honour your Heavenly Father, that eternal life may be yours in the Heavens. For the Heavenly Father is a hundred times greater than all the fathers by seed and by blood, and greater is the Earthly Mother than all mothers by the body". The Holy Trinity, then is God the Father, God the Son (ie. Christ) and, it seems, God the Mother. The Divine Mother particularly is the means and power of spiritual evolution.

The Secret Book of John relates Christ's description of the Divine Feminine as the power of God Almighty. "She is the first power. She preceded everything, and came forth from the Father's mind as forethought of all. Her light resembles the Father's light; as the perfect power She is the image of the perfect and invisible Virgin Spirit. She is the first power, the glory, Barbello, the perfect glory among the worlds, the emerging glory, She glorified and praised the Virgin Spirit for she had come forth through the Spirit. She is the first thought, image of the Spirit. She became the universal womb, for She precedes everything, the common parent, the first humanity, the Holy Spirit". The Holy Spirit is here described as the Divine Power of God Himself. This power is maternal in its character (universal womb, She, the common parent) and all powerful as the 'first emanation of God'. More so, She is pure (Virgin) and She glorifies purity. So ancient christian tradition seems to tell us that the holy spirit is actually the Divine Mother!

One cannot overlook the Eastern parallels. God Almighty in Indian mythology is represented as Sada-Shiva. His state is eternal perfection (Sat Chit Ananda). His power is the Adi Shakti (primordial power) who is His feminine counterpart or spouse. It is She who does all things. She created the universe and the gods who attend over it (for example, the triune Shiva, Brahma, Vishnu). The Adi Shakti is the Mother of all things. She gave birth to the universe and is the feminine power of every deity and celestial being (usually represented as their spouse). The Secret Book of John parallels this "She became the universal womb, for She precedes everything, the common parent, the first humanity, the Holy Spirit, the triple male (Shiva, Brahma, Vishnu?) the triple power (Parvati, Saraswati, Lakshmi, who are spouses of the triple males-or the triple Goddess of Western mythological tradition?)". Thus the Christian mystics understood that the Holy Spirit is the Divine Feminine, the Goddess, the Universal Mother herself. The Syriac Christians worshiped the Holy Ghost as the Great Mother. Phillip suggests that Mary Herself is the Holy Spirit (for who else but God the Mother can give birth to God the Son?). Other Apocryphal Scriptures describe Mary as the focus of Temple activities. Her early life was punctuated by auspicious portents all implying her own Divinity.

The Joy of Christmas

It is for us to remember that Christ was born on this Earth as a human being. He came on this Earth, and the task that was before Him was to enlighten human awareness with the sense of understanding. We can say it is actualisation within the awareness of human being, that they are not this body but they are the spirit. The message of Christ is His resurrection. That is, you are your spirit, not your body; and He showed by His resurrection how He ascended into the realm of spirit which he was, because He was Pranava, He was Brahma, He was Mahavishnu.

As I have told you about His birth. And when He came on this Earth in a body like a human being He wanted to show another thing, that spirit has nothing to do with money, has nothing to do with power. It is all-powerful, all-pervading, but it is born in a stable, not in a palace or to a king. But He was born to a very ordinary person, a carpenter…. It means simply that nothing is higher than you; neither anything can decorate you because whatever you are, you are at the highest. All the worldly things, so-called, are just like dry grass … so He was kept in dry grass .…

He was happiness, He was joy. To make you all happy, to give you the light of happiness by enlightening your source of joy that is your spirit in your heart, that He came on this Earth. Not only to save you, first to give you happiness, to give you joy, because human beings in their ignorance and in this tomfoolery are unnecessarily beating themselves and destroying themselves…. He comes there like a morning flower to make you happy; first to make you happy, to give you joy ….

You see a child anywhere, any child, such a joy-giving thing it is, and this is the child of the Divine that comes on this Earth as a child, is the most joy-giving thing. And that’s why Christmas for all of us, for the whole universe should be a festival of great joy, for He brought light for us by which you could see that there is someone called as God, there is someone who is going to remove this ignorance; this was the first beginning.

So for us it is necessary to be first joyous and be happy and relaxed, and not to take anything that seriously as we take, because divine life doesn’t make you serious because it’s all a play; it’s a maya. I have seen in all the rituals that people follow, in all the so-called religious people, they are too serious to be religious. A religious person will be bubbling with laughter. He doesn’t know how to hide his joy. And he doesn’t know how to control his laughter when he sees people who are unnecessarily serious ….

So be joyous that here at the Agnya Chakra again Christ is born within you, and He is there, and you know how you can ask for His help, always.

Shri Mataji, Christmas Party Talk, 1983

On greed and Dharma

I am not sure to what extent people all over the world were shocked, surprised, or even scandalised by the recent revelations that one person was accused of defrauding several investors of an estimated $50 billion US in December 2008.

The FBI was told the man confessed that his investment-advisory business was a "giant Ponzi scheme" and that investor losses exceeded at least about $50 billion, according to a criminal complaint filed by federal prosecutors in Manhattan. That figure represents the collective amount that investors believed they had invested with the firm -- not the amount they initially invested, known as principal, according to people familiar with the investigation. This was just one of the symptons of a sick world economy, and the financial crisis which is the result. Greed and corruption in government and business, as well as in society is the rrot cause of the present world economic malaise, which is threateneing to close down companies and render millions of workers jobless. That is the situation in the United States where the election of Baraq Obama may herald welcome changes.

Meanwhile across the oceans, in South Africa, where a lot of hope was generated fourteen years ago with the accession to the presidency by Nelson Mandela in 1994, things are not looking so bright either. In an attempt to clean the country of massive corrution and fraud in public and private sectors, the former president Thabo Mbeki created an anti-corruption squad known as the Scorpions. However, their success in bringing to book even big names in the ruling party and elsewhere, may have led to their own demise. Last year at the ANC's conference in Polokwane the party resolved that the Scorpions must go. Now legislation has been passed to give effect to the resolution.

At the same meeting, at Polokwane, the ANC elected Jacob Zuma, whom the Scorpions had investigated for years and accused of corruption and fraud, as its new party president in place of the country's former State President, Thabo Mbeki. Zuma had been fired by Mbeki in 2005 for alleged corruption from the post of Deputy President in the government. This was followed, after the Polokwane conference, by the party firing Mbeki from the post of President of the country. An interim President, Kgalema Motlhantle, has been chosen by the part while waiting for the outcome of next year's election in March or April, when it is almost certain Jacob Zuma will become the country's President.

The unexpected result of all this has resulted in a breakaway part being created in December, called the Congress of the People, which has seen a sizable number of ANC leaders and members abandoning their party for this new one, and which promises clean government based on morals. The new part has gathered a huge following in a matter of weeks mainly from the middle classes of all races and age groups. Time will tell which way the wind will blow.

Why is the world gripped so much by greed? Is there a way out?

Wherever greed grows in people its twin is right there: the quest for power. And lust.

What can we learn from the Teachings of Shri Mataji on greed, to take but one problem?

Talking at the Shri Ganesha Puja in September 1997, Shri Mataji reminds us of how the Kundalini in us acts builds "primordial taboos" within us which if not followed or respected "something goes wrong"in our lives.

"The Kundalini leaves the Mother Earth as a reflection, and what does she do within us to build us up, in which way? So it is the primordial Power which is coming out of the Mother Earth. Mother Earth itself acts like a Mother. She looks after you, she gives you whatever you want; and another miracle thing is that the highest tree is a coconut tree, and a coconut will never fall on any creature or any human being. That means it’s all thinking, all understanding, all consciousness, all awareness is coming from the Mother Earth. But we never understand it. As it is we take for granted.
Now what does she do for us, for us human beings? She’s the primordial Power. What she does is to build in us a primordial – we can call “restrictions” or “primordial taboos” or “primordial dharmas.” For example, you see the steel is here. It has its own dharma, it cannot behave like wood. Wood has its own dharma, it cannot behave like silver. They all have their dharma and they are bound in that dharma. Everything that is in the nature has its own dharma. ...
We have in the same way primordial taboos built within us which are dharma. A human being has to be like that. If he tries to be something else, something goes wrong with his life. It’s like say if you have a glass, you drop it on the ground, it will break – that is the dharma. In the same way when human beings start deviating from the line of dharma, they get into trouble."

(Shri Ganesha Puja, September 1997)

And in another lecture She touches on the freedom from greed, lust and all the other "nonsense" that comes with Sahaj Dharma:

"This is to be understood very clearly that the Sahaja Dharma is that you are just free - complete freedom from lust, greed and all nonsense. You are above it. You are above - this Sahaj Dharma is above the Dharma established by Shri Krishna or by Shri Rama. Because you have reached that state. It’s in complete freedom you have to be dharmic. Whatever is not good for you, you should not do. I don’t have to tell you that, “You don’t do this or you don’t do that.” Whatever I say may not be acceptable but immediately your vibrations will tell you.
This is Sahaj Dharma. In the Sahaj Dharma, you get rid of all kinds of, as they say: kaama, krodha, mada, matsa, lobha, moha. Means - lust, anger, attractions, then [hindi words] – greed, greed; that’s very important, greed – greed. And attractions."

In his stunning book, "The Confessions of An Economic Hitman" on how the US corporate world colludes with the US government for the control of the resources and the leaders of Third World countries, John Perkins says some interesting and shocking things.
He says that we know in many countries economic growth benefits only a small portion and may in fact result in increasingly desperate circumstances for the majority.
"This effect is reinforced by the corrolary belied that the captains of industry who drive this system should enjoy a special status, a belief that is the root of many of our current problems, and is also the reason why conspiracy theories abound" he points out.
"When men and women are rewarded for greed, greed becomes a corrupting motivator" observes Perkins. He adds that when we equate the gluttonous consumption of the earth's resurceswith a status appproaching sainthood, when we teach our children to emulate people who lived unbalanced lives, and when we ddefine huge sections of the population as subservient to an elite minority, 'we ask for trouble' . And we get it, he observes.
But listen to the Sufi poet from 14th century Turkey, whom Shri Mataji describes as talking like Sahaja Yogis:

"I tie up greed, and release generosity.
I shackle anger, and liberate meekness.
I bind consumerism, and unbind piety.
I tie up ignorance, and unfetter respect for the Absolute.
I restrain passion, and release the love of the Absolute.
I tie up desire, and free fulfilment.
I bind commodification, and liberate awareness".
(Haji Bektash Veli, 1248-1337)

And how does Shri Mataji view the Buddha in relation to Dharma, the antidote to greed?
She says:
"Buddha had dharma. His body was clean, His mind the attention, did not find any joy in the worldly greed or desire. His cup was ready and it emptied when he was tired and surrendered and that was the moment: like torrential rain, the “Shakti” filled His cup and made Him the “Shakta”, the Enlightened One. So, when you are talking of virtue, you are warning them to keep the cup intact and clean".
Is the world ready to listen? Can we move back from the brink of self-destruction? Shri Mataji points us towarss Dharma and its essence:

"This is how I describe Dharma in short. Dharma is the sustenance of all things that are born or created. It is super nature that gives valences to atoms in an element. It is Dharma that is expressed as the quality of these elements. For instance, gold has a quality that it is untarnishable. The human beings are like perfected instruments, like computers. Of course, if their Dharma is in balance, they are the best receptors. You can understand that the divine awareness is like the main electrical current which starts the computer (Self-realization). If the Dharma in the instrument is lacking, self-realization does not give full results. It becomes like a second hand car. Dharma is the fulcrum and the one who is in Dharma never gets into imbalance. So the attention has to be on “ Dharma”, the point where the gravity of sin does not act.

"The information of Dharma comes from the Unconscious but the movement from the fulcrum can take the human attention so much in one dimension or so much like a sea saw that ultimately the beam of life tilts towards one side, either towards hell or towards destruction. Because, if the extreme movements are like a sea saw, the delicate flower of human awareness becomes confused and people suffer from all kind of diseases".

But She does not leave us empty without reference about what we can do here and now. And that is the practice of Sahaja Yoga. She says:

"Sahaja yoga is the proof of all the scriptures that are challenged. But I had to come to explain, to give realization and to tell you the “know how”.

H.H.Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, extract from a Letter to a follower, London, 1976

Perhaps as we move into a New Year with the world hesitating how to celebrate the birth of Jesus the Christ, it is appropriate to pause and consider how His whole life was to the epitome of compassion, generosity and concern about the well-being of others and for the plight of the poor. Qualities that should be the driving force for the creation of a new society in the world of today. Sahaja Yoga offers the way towards realising this potential for us to become the change we seek to see around us, as Ghandi once exhorted those who call for change.
When you think of the amount of money involved in fraudulent schemes and deals all over the world and the amount of children dying from hunger, preventable diseases, HIV-Aids, the lack of clean water and health facilities, of medicines, education and the ravages of war, producing millons of orphans and neglect, it sets one thinking. Yet there is a solution; and it is not greed for money and power. It is loving each other, as we love ourselves as Christ teaches; and Shri Mataji reinforces and makes possible through Self-Realisation and the pracice of Sahaja Yoga which restores human beings to their original state of sanctity through the healing Power of the Holy Spirit.

Wishing all people of the world a Blissful Christmas in 2008.