“For a person who is a yogi, the Whole World is his own Family.” Shri Mataji

The Olympics 2010 – specially the Opening Ceremony- was indeed such a reminder to everyone that we are all part and parcel of this Global Family. When the olympic teams from various countries were marching in the Vancouver arena, being introduced one by one, our hearts and attention were swiftly travelling as one Emotional Intelligence entity, from a specific country to another,  enjoying and remembering what makes it unique among its sisters. For a sahaja yogi, who is able to associate countries to chakras, the suite of recent Special Events celebrated in our country was no coincidence, but rather was perceived as another visible and public letter written by the Divine Hand. When the Olympics 2010, are to be opened in the same weekend holding 3 significant days: the Valentine’s Day, Shivaratri and the Family Day, and where?! In Canada – the country that is associated with Vishuddhi Chakra that is nourishing the qualities responsible for the collective, the communication and the relations that exist in one’s Life… then, there is one expression for this ‘coincidence’: “That’s so Cool .. and I mean: Sahaj!”

We learn and experience in sahaja yoga meditation that Love is born in the Heart Chakra but its purest, most unselfish form is when it’s expressed for a collective and the “know how” for this love we all learn in our famillies, in an intimate way. Our family is felt and carried within our subtle system of energy centers in our Left Nabhi chakra (energy centre). However at the level of Vishuddhi chakra we start realizing that we are part and parcel of a far wider collective structure – that we are part and parcel of a Collective Being and this one was generated out of the pure love coming from the Spirit that is reflected as an eternal flame in our Heart chakra.

Origin: http://beta.thehindu.com/sport/other-sports/article105896.ece

More snapshots that explain what family can represent at a subtler level – are presented below as a collection of simple quotes, with basic information on chakras, qualities and their interconnectivity, extracted from the lectures provided by Shri Mataji, the founder of Sahaja Yoga  Meditation

1991-11-12, India — About the Lakshmi Principle that resides in the Nabhi Chakra

So we have to go beyond and know that our family is different. The whole world is our family. So we have to move out, don’t get stagnated or entangled with a small circle of few people who are negative, but go beyond them because you’ve got the powers. You’ve got everything. You can easily cross over this barrier and see for yourself that you are feeling now, mentally, very happy, physically all right and spiritually you are there…
Now, once we take attention from the family, you’ll be surprised how this attention works across the family, across this small cubicle that we have built. And you’re surprised how it expands and how it gives you all the blessings and all the grace of Divine Love. You always start thinking about our relations, about how to be kind to them, how to be nice to them or all these things, all these behaviours of how to be nice to them, how to be good to them and all that can be extended so much, can expand so much..

2000-07-01- Talk on  the primordial power (Shri Adi Shakti in Sanskrit) and the Emotional Intelligence

Now the basis of Family is love and compassion. Those who do not have this cannot have good families. I’ve seen .. some people who are working for money, who are educated, sometimes look down upon people who are not so well off.. When money becomes important.. then the Lakshmi principle (presiding in the Nabhi chakra) is not respected. Very surprising. Money is the part which is the blessing of the Lakshmi, but the Gruha Lakshmi (governing the Left aspect of the 3rd chakra, Nabhi) is the one who is a householder, is not respected. And with this, I tell you, … very, very wrong things can happen. You can work, you can be educated, but you should be able to look after your family and look after their comfort and look after their unity. Instead of that, educated women, I call them manly women, educated women think that they are something higher, they are sadly mistaken. In no way, a man is higher than a woman.. The other day, one lady, she came in interview and asked me that: “How is it, in this world of men, you are so much respected?” . ”World of men?!” —I was really laughing. “You may think this is the world of men, I can’t understand. Can they exist without women?” .. But I’ve seen even some ladies, who think they are very capable, try to control everything and create problems. And mother’s job is not to control. Her job is to love, to give compassion and this is the quality of women is lost in these .. so-called advanced. It is a very dangerous thing. I personally think that, if such a thing happens, families will be destroyed. Nobody will have respect for the lady who looks after the family. And she is more than a prime minister, I would say, in a family and she has to be respected and to be understood. .. Basically, the families have to be good. This Collectivity must work first in the family..

Life becomes very odd, unbearable, horrible and even the family gets broken, if there is no emotional intelligence in the family… When you have the Truth with you, the light of the Truth, the source of the Truth, the strength of the Truth, you become Emotionally Intelligent. You understand that, if you really love something, then you have to undergo every kind of trouble. .. I know it’s too much to say, but I thought that.. I should say something about the family life. In our programs or wherever we are, we should remember this point, that: “Are we having that emotional intelligence?” All these people are devoid of that great quality of emotional intelligence. If your country is very progressive, I must say, you must progress in emotional intelligence.

1993-06-06 , Italy — Talk about the primordial power acting in the universe (in Sanskrit, Shri Adi Shakti)

And thus I thought the family life has to be first of all substantiated , it is very important. Because these days also, under the name of religion, they have started nunneries and than priests, and than sanyasis and all kinds of babas. They are so dry and they are so misleading to people, that people started taking to this kind of sanyasa, getting out of their houses, running away from their wives, their children. So the first point I realised, human beings cannot have love who haven’t known what is love. And this Love is more effective if it is Collective.

2000-29-10, Los Angeles, USA — Talk on Diwali Celebration (Global Family, Woman as Gruha Lakshmi and Goddess, The Real Bank Balance)

What happened to the family system? What has happened? Why the family got ruined? Because of the wrong ideas about Lakshmi principle...So what is the problem? That human beings don’t have enlightenment. And if they get money, and if they are hankering after things, they have to go to hell, no doubt about it – and do all kinds of things, which was ‘never’ done in the history of this world. I need not tell you all the absurd nonsensical things they do. Then started a negative force of drug, drinking and all kinds of things. I mean, such blindness, such stupidity, that you can’t understand. As if their brains were completely curtailed by the activity of moneymaking. I have seen people choosing their suits and clothes that, when they will die, what they are going to wear. It sounds funny. Even, their dog dies, they make such elaborate arrangements. They choose even their coffin, which one they would like to use for burial.. Gruha Lakshmi means the family. .. But the real bank balance of a Gruha Lakshmi is her family and her children. ..

Women don’t understand that their greatest capacity is to love. How is it that Lakshmi?! is a woman and all the Goddesses are women! And what is the quality of these Goddesses?! is to bestow blessings on people of their own nature, of their own qualities.. When you make a good family, then you create a beautiful, a very beautiful, universe around. And universes after universes like this can create a beautiful universe in the whole world. There is nothing to sacrifice, but to ‘enjoy’ everything. As I said, you enjoy your hospitality, you enjoy your generosity –which you do not feel is a misery or a trouble to you—but you just enjoy. At least I enjoy. If I can give something to someone, that’s the greatest blessing. So, to create a proper home for your children is a very great work today, and it has to be done. Again there selfishness comes. Human beings have so many, such hurdles in life, because, I don’t know why, .. they will only love their own children, they will only love their own husbands, or they will love only their own wives. This doesn’t create a good family. I am talking about the global family.

25-10-1998–Talk with the ocassion of a Sahaj Diwali Celebration (a Sahaj Collective/Family allows the Individual Personality to express its fragrance)

It’s very important that our Family is so big. We have a very large family, so many brothers and sisters and everybody, one better than the other. It is so remarkable that everybody has a different type of a perfume, I think, or a kind of a fragrance that shows an individual personality in them.

Wishing you and yours a Life made of Happy Sahaj Family Days!!