You are all My sons, too, and made after Him, after the same pattern as I made Christ. I’m proud of you My children. Come up to it, and you have an example already created for you. Before you is Christ. See Him. What a support it was. I never had any complaints of any kind, no upset. He would never be upset, no ques-tion, He would never tell Me, “I’m upset,” never. This word doesn’t exist in the dictionary of wise. How can you be upset, when you are set once for all? This word must go from the dictionary of many Sahaj Yogis who use it, problems and upset. You solve the problem, give the solutions. No problems, only solutions.

That’s the way a son should be to a mother, that she can depend on him, absolutely, no problems there, nothing. I mean you have a son, one like Christ, what is there to worry about anything? Even the one word He said, “Behold the Mother.” It’s a mantra. Is the greatest mantra that I use. When your attention is here and there I just say that mantra to you, as a command it is. And so humble, so humble. Behold. Behold doesn’t mean look, no, it’s a very humble way of addressing. Behold. It’s something glorious, some-thing great, behold it, accept it, understand. It was such a mutual understanding of support and love that should exist between us. No secretiveness, no formali-ties, no exclusiveness. No exclusiveness, all enjoyments must be together. Now all your ideas of having sepa-rate enjoyments must be given up for a change.

H.H. Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi Christmas Puja, London 1981

FROM THE PRINTING PRESS

Here we are again, hello all. It has been a while. We hope the holidays are bringing our dear read-ers joy and light as we near the end of another year. For this issue, the central theme of Humility shines through adventures both abroad and at home as we share some stories of giving realisa-tion and continuing on in the work Our Mother set out for us. We hope you enjoy reading this edition and we wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We love you.

Jai Shri Mataji. The Editors

—

ASCENTby Niranjana Sattarshetty, Melbourne.

We began the walk. Ascended the hill Slowly. Saw the clouds Cast dancing Shadows on The hills, Slowly. Heard our steady Steps Crunch gravel Slowly. Bated breath And Around the corner A spectacular view Spreads out before Us And slowly I saw That silence again And waited For the Plunge.

—

Ethiopia Realisation Tour

Saturday 19th November

Today we all gathered. And by all I mean myself, a yogi from Germany, and a yogi currently living in

Ethiopia. The accommodation was very nice – like the ones we had in Amman and Cairo. It  had pleasant vibrations. From the balcony we had the view of the city centre,  Addis Ababa, the high altitude capital city surrounded by mountains. The street view was different, with a goat casually grazing away on the sidewalk, an elderly  lady walking by, holding a rooster by its feet (remind-ing me of my own granny). The streets are full of life –  street vendors selling all different goods, crowded minibuses and  rickshaws. I  could show you pictures but not the sound and smell – it is a mix of Middle East, North Africa and India, with frankincense filling the air.

Tonight we had lamb stew (we accidentally bought 2kg lamb – lamb for the rest of the tour –  that’s what happens when I use my body lan-guage for communication). We began the tour with a havan to Shri Ganesha. The vibrations were serene  and comforting. After the havan we went through  the workshop activities we would use in our programs;  it was rather difficult to demon-strate the “Walking Name Game” with only  3 people playing, but was enjoyable nonetheless.

Tomorrow we have 3 workshops, one in an HIV orphanage. Wake-up is at 6 am...

Sunday 20th November

This was our first day of programs and our first two programs were...rescheduled. It

took us exactly ten minutes to figure out alterna-tives, and it quickly became apparent we had do street realisation. 

The question was where? Within 24 hour of being in the city, we had to find a place with lots of peo-ple who were  open to meditation. After some phone calls, conversations, and Google, we were back on the road heading toward  the National Museum. Halfway through the city, we bumped into the end of  the Addis Ababa marathon and immediately parked by the clusters of runners and set up our roll-up.

Almost instantly people gathered in front of the roll-up asking what meditation is about and how they can be benefited. Inner peace, balance, better decision making, health, words bubbled out from my trained response, but this time hitting a dead end. The people couldn’t care less. I kept changing narratives until it slipped out that it is the connec-tion to God. Peoples’ faces lit up.

Oh my God, they only care about God. All of them. 

Then it took off, people immediately felt the cool breeze. One boy even felt un-easy because there was cool breeze all over him and he had never felt anything like this before. 

We stayed until the police came asking if we have permiss ion. They were friendly, but we decided to go. I sudden-

ly realised that our first program was street realisa-tion during a state of emergency. It ended up be-ing the one and only public program in the tour.

We went to see the 3.1 million year old lady Lucy in the museum and gave some more realisations – not me, but the other two yogis, were giving reali-sation left and right… on the bus, in the courtyard of an Orthodox Church, everyone who got in contact with them had realisation. It was certainly contagious. 

We abandoned  the taxis, and decided to  take  the crowded minibuses as the locals -  taxis charged 100 times higher than minibuses and the discrep-ancy made me feel uncomfortable, although we can afford it.

The day ended with a workshop for 25 orphan  youth in the SOS Children's Villages. They were giggling and joking during the medita-tion because they did not want to go deeper into their emotions; for some reason it was hurtful and they were avoiding. It worked out that we contin-ued to meditate on the left side during the work-shop; it  was a struggle bringing back their frit-tered attention, but  at the end, in the silence of the room, you knew something cleared out.

Dinner tonight was  the second chapter  of the lamb trilogy – Moroccan style. 

We ended the evening with a puja to Shri Adi Shakti. Wake up will be same as yesterday with another busy day ahead of us.

Monday, 21st of November

The second day was a day of understanding more about Ethiopia.

We began with a workshop for the “mothers” at the SOS Children's Villages. Each mother looks after about 10 orphans in SOS Addis and the village director asked us to pay special attention on them, thus we design two programs for them – realisation on Monday and foot-soak on Wednes-day.

We then moved onward to a meeting at UNICEF. As the regional director was visiting the country, the staff were busy but they still kept our meeting, partly because they were interested in meditation, and partly because of the hospitality of Ethiopi-ans. 

The UN compound is massive; the modern high-rise buildings are under strict security regulation, very different from rest of Addis Ababa. 

It was the meeting with them that made us aware for the first time of the strong orthodox condi-tioning of the society. In contrast to yesterday, any mentioning of God was highly suspicious. The meeting was mixed on both ends with everyone trying to measure each other up. Although two of the staff got their realisation, it was unsuccessful for creating an actual collaboration.

Immediately after the meeting with UNICEF, we had another meeting with and organisation called Care. From our first experience, we were very cautious about how we communicated, relating the meditation to common humanity and reassur-ing them that this is not religious – later on we realised that all of our collaborators required such reassurance. 

Faith in God is strong in Ethiopia, and so are the fixed ideas about God. We had to be very alert on how to find a way to communicate without chal-lenging the fixed ideas they had in mind. Thus, they can feel secure in getting their realisation in the first place.

The meeting with Care went well. We found out that as with the Save the Children staff in Jordan, the staff at Care is overworked (often working 10-14 hours per day) and dealing with burnout issues.

जय श्री माताजी

The AKASHWANI INTERNATIONAL SAHAJA YOGA & YUVA SHAKTI JOURNAL - EDITED IN LONDON

“Unless and until you are completely free you cannot act. This is the greatest blessing of Sahaja Yoga that your attention has become so free. It acts the way you wanted to act and it communicates. It communicates to you. The real com-munication starts.” — H.H. Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, 1988

The Editorial Committee is always more than happy to receive suggestions or contributions. Your opinions are most welcome and will be carefully considered.

You can write to us by post or by email at: editors.akashwani@icloud.com

Number 8 - December 2016 The Christmas Issue

Editorial Committee: 44 Chelsham Road, SW4 6NP London

Raffaello Sanzio, Sistine Madonna, 1512

They were looking for a way to sustain themselves in order to continue helping others. 

Afterwards we went back to SOS Children's Vil-lage for a children's workshop.

Today is the finale of the lamb trilogy – sautéed with salt and pepper. I wondered if I had done something wrong because it was very hard. Maybe it was goat. Wake up is at 7 am! Hooray!

Tuesday, 22nd November

While meditating on the Care workshop in the morning, it became clear that I hoped the medita-tion workshop could be deep, loving, and joyful. If they have profound experiences they may be en-couraged to meditate more.

It worked out very well and the staff of Care really appreciated the program, many people came up to me after the program saying how much they en-joyed the meditation and the activities. Some staff volunteered to help with putting us in contact with field offices of Care and refugee work of Save the Children for our next visit. We had a lovely time with Care, and they kindly drove us to the next stop, the SOS Vocational Centre, which turned out to be an hour-long drive from the main city. 

We had two workshops for the staff and youth of the vocational centre. Although no one explained it to us, we discovered the phenomenon of “Ethiopian time” while waiting for the people to come after we arrived at the program.

Our last workshop of the day is evening one at the Fekat Circus. It is a circus group working with orphans and street children. They also have a cir-cus school. We unfortunately got lost in finding the address and arrived half an hour late. To our dismay most of the participants had left. However, for the few who stayed, we had a very serene med-itation together. I enjoyed today, the first and last workshops today were probably my favourite ones during the tour.  

Wednesday 23 of November

After morning meditation, we packed up the altar; it seemed to catch attention of the guesthouse. We set up the roll-up in our flat for today's first program – realisation during breakfast at the guesthouse for an Australian visitor.

Then we went to SOS Children's Villages for the follow-up program for the mothers. Professor Rao led a very nice footsoak and balancing session and we had an in-depth discussion with the mothers. Then we travelled to another SOS site to provide meditation to staff of the day-care Centre. After the two programs, we had two Ethiopian girls joining us for the rest of day. They were both new-ly graduated in public health studies, and work as volunteers for the SOS Children's Villages. 

We then moved to the next one – staff realisation program of Sele-Enat Mahiber, an adoption or-phanage. 

The vibrations were heavy on the centre heart, which was comparable to Zaatri refugee camp in Jordan. The staff at Sele-Enat Mahiber were eager to show us around to see all the children in the institute. It was a strange feeling to see the chil-dren when they were doing their routines. It felt like I was in a zoo and there was no privacy for the children. We excused ourselves from continu-ing the tour, and asked if we could walk toward the hall to prepare for the program.

The hall was next to a children's playground and there was an orphan girl on a swing. I waved my hand but she did not respond. That was an empty face. I had never seen such a face in any other children I had met so far in Addis Ababa. The only place I have seen such faces was in Zaatri with Syrian child refugees.

Then I realised that this is an adoption institute, which means they raise the children in order for them to be adopted. If they are not adopted, they stay until they are old enough to leave. How unloved and insecure the children who are left behind must feel?

The meditation program went well, and the vibra-tions were lighter after the program. After the program, we excused ourselves from the second tour of the institute and left on our way.

The two Ethiopian girls took us for a walk to find a place for a late lunch. We chatted for a long time, talking about how life was in our respective countries, and they helped us to understand more about Ethiopia. 

Our last program was back at the SOS's Chil-dren's Villages to do a meditation program for the children. It was a great relief to be back at the villages and see happy children. They are also or-phans, but the village raises and educates the chil-dren to their adulthood. These children do not need to be heart-broken for adoption. 

Since some of the children were rowdy in previous programs, the village director wondered if they were too young to appreciate meditation pro-grams. We ensured him that children were the ones who really felt the mediation, much better than most adults, as adults commonly get entan-gled in their thoughts and doubts. The program for children turned out to be very successful, and most children were happily describing how com-fortable they felt during meditation. Seeing this, the village director was convinced and apologised to us for his doubts earlier. 

Returning to the guesthouse, the day was not yet finished. The lady at the front desk asked us to talk about our religion. We realised that the owner and staff of the guesthouse saw the altar when they were cleaning the room, and were concerned if this was a cult. We invited the lady to come up to the flat, and explained everything to her (lucki-ly we packed up the altar in the morning). She gradually calmed down and was willing to try the meditation. After realisation and meditation she left in joy. Thus ended the eventful day, to be con-tinued tomorrow.  

Thursday 24th of November

For our last day in Addis Ababa, we had only a rough idea about how the day might unfold. We arrived at the British International School at 8:30 am, as the school had been rather vague about the programs over Skype conversations.

Everyone was already busy at the school, the acad-emic director welcomed us, and within ten min-utes  we were doing our first program with the staff of the school. The program went well and the staff enjoyed the meditation. We returned to the office of the academic director, he seemed to al-ready hear the positive feedback from the staff. 

“Ok, let's do this…”  in five minutes, he fixed the programs for all students in the campus and we set up four back-to-back one hour programs for students in classes 6, 7, 8 and 9. It was wonderful to work with these bright students. They were just like students in British schools, but I would say they were better behaved. We led them through meditation after a brief introduction, and then played team-building games with them. All of us had an enjoyable time together – lovely to see the giggling and shiny faces of the students after the program. Giving realisation is the most satisfying teaching, with the minimum amount of talking. 

After the whole day program at school, we headed to the last workshop of the tour – meditation for children with HIV. We felt a little uneasy and were disinfecting our hands in the taxi to reduce the chances of bringing bacteria or viruses in to the children. Our taxi driver had to ring the or-ganisation to find the place. We stopped in front of a house surrounded with tall walls. There was no sign, and from its outlook I couldn't distin-guish it as a charity. Then I somewhat realised why I couldn't find their address online, even after extensive search.

There were about 18 children of different ages in the room. The older ones seemed more thoughtful than the younger ones. It felt a little left-sided, but it quickly cleared out along with our uneasiness, once the program started. The lady in charge of the organisation helped to translate, and the chil-dren all felt the vibrations, cool on the right and warm on the left. Very sweetly, few older children asked us how they could repeat the exercise and meditate in their everyday life. We left them with hand-outs, DVDs of meditation videos, and CDs of meditation music. Hopefully these can help them to continue meditating.     

Then we had the children use play-dough to shape an animal that they like and share with us the

reason they chose the animal. We got many snakes, because “it is easy to make” and children provide honest answers. I’m sure if they were to make their favourite food out of play-dough, there would probably be many noodles. The woman in charge made a turtle explaining that, “it can carry a lot of weight, and is resilient to much pressure, while at hard times it can put its limbs inside the shell and endure.”

This was the last program we had in the tour. We said our goodbyes quickly after the program as we had two hours to check out and reach the airport, cutting through rush hour traffic. On the way to the airport, for the first time, other than the mo-ments of meditation during the tour, I felt com-pletely relaxed, a deep contentment and gratitude had arisen within me towards God.

Epilogue

This was the tour: 6 days from the 19th to the 24th of November, three of us hosted 19 medita-tion programs in Addis Ababa; slightly more than 400 people had their self-realisation. It was a small and low-key tour compared to the usual Meditate to Regenerate projects, and it would not have been successful without your attention and support.  

Our gratitude extends also to VND in the US and LET in the UK, who generously supported the tour financially. 

Thank you to our collaborating organisations: SOS Children’s Villages, Care, the Fekat Circus, Project Abroad, Sele-Enat Mahiber, Artists for Charity, and the British International School, who kindly support the programs and extend their helping hands to look after naïve foreigners. 

Gratitude to the land, country and people in Ethiopia, who were remarkably honest, hospitable, respectful, and tolerant. 

Most of all, we give our gratitude to Shri Mataji, who is the only Doer and Enjoyer. We humbly hope that this tour may be pleasing to Her.

SCC, London  —

SEEKING BRIGHTON

Christmas is a time of humility, a time of cleans-ing the ego. In this article I would like to share my experience taking part in the Brighton Sahaj meetings, through which I’ve gone on a big learn-ing process of just letting Mother do the work.

I have to begin with Uncle Max, at Flood Street. We spoke briefly and through his direct manner he told me to just play Shri Mataji’s talks and nothing else. At the time I immediately reacted, “I can do so much more than that” I thought, “I have a whole lifetime of experience I could share, the ability to convince, the ability to encourage, the ability to love”. I remember many sleepless nights that came after, while beginning to put into place the foundations of a Sahaj environment at my university.

This all took place last year and I would like to think that I have learned a lot about giving reali-sation, but the truth is you are never really learn-ing because the only way to learn is to just go thoughtless and completely surrender everything at Mother’s Feet, who is the only Doer. This is easily said, and I am by no means a great example, I only have a strong passion to spread Mother’s love. Going thoughtless and detaching is an everyday struggle that I face in all my meditations.

That being said, I have been getting more and more involved in the Brighton meetings. This part begins during a rainy, dark evening, cycling home from university. I was nearly home and I must have had the meetings in my thought—mainly how I could improve them—and I was suddenly swept along by a feeling of complete joy as if Mother had suddenly leapt into my heart and I had visions of new people bowing to Her in sin-cerity and the joy sprouting from their hearts with songs of Her. That night I messaged the Brighton Sahaj yogis (it’s quite laughable really), and ex-plained that the meetings don’t work with the current model of splitting the seekers up; separat-ing the new and old. My belief was that whatever we had to share should be heard and experienced by everyone, and I went on to decide that I would take charge of the next meeting. That night I

couldn’t sleep a wink and only after laughing it off did I finally manage to rest my eyes.

As the meetings have progressed I have managed to take part in some way with every meeting since, which has felt like an age but it hasn’t been more than a month. Each experience is new and I usu-ally leave feeling as if this one was better than the last. We’ve progressed to saying mantras with the new people and I’ve slowly become more like-minded to Uncle Max, where by saying less you just let Mother do Her work, and also save your-self sleep! My vision is for the meetings to progress to a stage where no words are said, there is only awe and complete humility in front of Mother’s Divine Presence through which the meeting becomes an opportunity and space for people to experience Sahaj on a very deep level and if they are there to stay, then so be it.

Prasad Beaven, London

L I G H T F R O M T H E F A R E A S T

道經八 [馬王堆帛書] 

上善如水。水善利萬物而有靜，居眾人之所惡，故幾於道矣。居善地，心善潚，予善天，言善信，正善治，事善能， 善時。夫唯不爭，故無尤。 

 Chapter eight of Tao

The highest virtue is as water. Water benefits all crea-tures while remains tranquil. It resides in where every-one despises, thus resembles the Tao. Like the water, the highest virtue dwells upon the ground low, has a heart of profundity, surrounds all as the sky, utters the trustwor-thy, rules with righteousness, acts with surrendering, manoeuvres with spontaneity. For  it does not contend, there is no reproach. 

P I C T U R E R E V I E W S

Rogue One (U.S.A., 2016)

A highly anticipated film for any Star Wars fans, Rogue One tells the story for a band of misfits thrown together to save the galaxy and rid it from the formidable empire. It's a story that bridges the gap seamlessly into A New Hope. 

As a Star Wars fan, the enjoyment of the little details they drop along the way gives you wonder-ful sense of nostalgia and overall is quite emotion-ally engaging. The underlaying philosophy of the whole saga, has a real sense of oneness with being part and parcel of the whole. I would highly rec-ommend this for fans and even if not. 

"The force is with me, I am one with the force" - Chirrut Imwe

Anthony McHugh, London

T H E P R O P H E T I C S I G H T

Something we found relevant, timely, godly and beautiful: from the masters, for your enjoyment.

from

THE IMITATION OF CHRIST

Thomas à Kempis (1898-1963)

A prayer that the will of God may be fulfilled.

O most merciful Jesus, grant to me Thy Grace, That it may be with me, and labour with me, and persevere with me even to the end.

Grant me always to desire and to will that which is to Thee most acceptable and most dear.

Let Thy will be mine, and let my will ever follow Thine, and agree perfectly with it.

Let my will and nill be all one with Thine, and let me not be able to will or not to will anything else, but what Thou willest or willest not.

Grant that I may die to all things that are in the world, and for Thy sake love to be contemned, and not known in this generation.

Grant to me above all things that can be desired, to rest in Thee, and in Thee to have my heart at peace. Thou art the true peace of the heart, Thou its only rest; out of Thee all things are hard and restless. In this peace, in this self-same thing, that is, in Thee, the Chiefest Eternal Good, I will sleep and rest. Amen.

जय श्री माताजीWhen Jesus therefore saw His Mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his Mother, Woman, behold Thy son! Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy Mother! and from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home. KJV, John 19:26-27