Her Holiness Sri Mataji Nirmala Devi pioneered a new approach to spiritual enlightenment in 1970, and Her discoveries paved the way for what would soon become an international movement of en masse (collective) awakening called Sahaja Yoga. As we approach the 40th anniversary of the advent of Sahaja Yoga, it is a time to recognize what is available to Calgarians through Sahaja Yoga meditation, and why these benefits are essential for our collective well being.

Truth is what it is; we cannot change it, or mould it in our image to suit our own purposes. Truth continues to be truth whether we seek it, or understand it, or believe in it or not. Most important of all, truth cannot be understood at the ordinary human level of awareness. We need our “Yoga” or “union” with the all pervading divine energy to be able to experience truth. This experience of being in a state of harmony with truth or reality is called by many names: self-realization, moksha, final liberation, enlightenment, nirvana, and many others.

Most people recognize that the ultimate purpose of life is not success at work, recognition in the society, or even having happy and healthy children, but rather the fulfillment of some higher purpose of human evolution. During the struggle for independence in India, millions of Indians were proudly sacrificing careers, political positions, and even the safety and security of their own families in pursuit of a higher ideal of creating a freer world for future Indians. The reason why so many were willing to sacrifice individual comfort and safety for a collective purpose was the recognition that living for our selfish ends is ultimately a path of self destruction.

It is a universal maxim that in clinging to what we love we will lose it, and in giving away what we love we may keep it for eternity. For example, if we are attached to our children, and try to hold on to them and keep them with us instead of letting them discover the world and build a life of their own, we will smother their souls, create resentment in their hearts, and lose their love –the very thing we were trying to keep. If, on the other hand, we give our children freedom to become themselves, and trust that the examples and ethical principles we have handed down to them will serve them and protect them as well as liberate them, we will have their love forever, and they will have ours to hand on to their children and their children’s children down through eternity.

The practice of meditation and the pursuit of yoga are not meant for sacrificing our lives, and giving up our comforts. God created good food, friends and families, and the comforts of a happy home for us to enjoy. Union with God does not mean turning our backs on happiness and pleasure. For thousands of years ascetics and holy men shunned the householder’s comforts in pursuit of the absolute, but the culmination of Kali Yuga, this modern age of confusion, is also the time in which human beings reach the stage in collective evolution when they can receive enlightenment as a society, without shunning the collective.

The way Sri Mataji’s Sahaja Yoga has made this possible in not a singular achievement, rather it is the most recent stage on the path of yoga that all the prophets and divine incarnations have walked upon. By awakening the primordial energy of “kundalini”, the Sahaja yogi becomes free of his human awareness through the meditation state. Just as the parent who loves his child cannot really possess that child until, through love he lets that child live free, so we cannot fulfill our worldly ambitions until we allow ourselves to give up responsibility for our lives, and surrender all our goals in a state of silence. But the wisdom and peace that this kind of detachment can provide is not possible until we can work out the experience of meditation.

When we are silent within we are released from all the pressures of our worries, our desires, our emotional fears and losses. All of our unfulfilled hopes and dreams are fulfilled because the cup of our attention is made silent and empty. In that emptiness, all of our worldly cares and sufferings drain out, and slowly that empty cup is filled with the peace of God’s love that can only be experienced in silence. In this way, through meditation we can live in connection with the source of spiritual wisdom, while still living the normal life of a householder.

How is this possible? People have understood for thousands of years that the grace of a guru is required to achieve self-realization, and even then it is only through complete dedication and perseverance that the disciple has success. The new possibility of the present age is to become our own guru through the guidance of our own kundalini within us. The goal is not to forget the gurus of the past, but rather to awaken them within us through self-realization. The new yoga is a modern yoga for modern times. Sri Mataji found a way to trigger the awakening of the kundalini collectively for ordinary people like you and I, and just as one candle can light may other candles, the yogis who through Sri Mataji’s grace have experienced kundalini awakening can awaken the kundalini of others. This is what happens at the local Calgary Sahaja Yoga classes free of charge every week. When the energy uncoils from its abode in the sacrum bone at the base of the spine, it rises through the subtle energy centers or “chakras” placed along the center of the body. The topmost chakra at the fontanel bone at the top of the head is reached, and the kundalini passes through the top of the head to connect us with the all pervading energy. That energy grants us the meditation sate, and the enlightenment of our spirit. After that, daily meditation eventually makes the peace and detachment of the meditation state a permanent part of our character, and we become an instrument of this divine love, able to pass it on to others.

New participants are always welcome, not only here in Calgary, but at our free centers in over one hundred countries all around the world.

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