Meditate on Friendship Stories: Non-Veg & Brahmin with Slaps & Huggs, Sand & Music

Two Friends - Little Sahaja Yogis friends at Cabella Yoga Meditation retreat and seminar

TWO FRIENDS STORY – A SAHAJ GIFT

TWO FRIENDS WERE WALKING THROUGH THE DESERT.
DURING SOME POINT OF THE JOURNEY, THEY HAD AN ARGUMENT; AND ONE FRIEND SLAPPED THE OTHER ONE IN THE FACE.

THE ONE WHO GOT SLAPPED WAS HURT, BUT WITHOUT SAYING ANYTHING, WROTE IN THE SAND:

TODAY MY BEST FRIEND
SLAPPED ME IN THE FACE
.”

THEY KEPT ON WALKING, UNTIL THEY FOUND AN OASIS, WHERE THEY DECIDED TO TAKE A BATH. THE ONE WHO HAD BEEN SLAPPED GOT STUCK IN THE MIRE AND STARTED DROWNING, BUT THE FRIEND SAVED HIM.

AFTER HE RECOVERED FROM THE NEAR DROWNING, HE WROTE ON A STONE:

TODAY MY BEST FRIEND
SAVED MY LIFE
“.

THE FRIEND WHO HAD SLAPPED AND SAVED HIS BEST FRIEND ASKED HIM:

AFTER I HURT YOU, YOU WROTE IN THE SAND
AND NOW, YOU WRITE ON A STONE, WHY?”

THE FRIEND REPLIED:

WHEN SOMEONE HURTS US WE SHOULD WRITE IT DOWN IN SAND, WHERE WINDS OF FORGIVENESS CAN ERASE IT AWAY.
BUT, WHEN SOMEONE DOES SOMETHING GOOD FOR US, WE MUST ENGRAVE IT IN STONE WHERE NO WIND CAN EVER ERASE IT
.”

LEARN TO WRITE YOUR HURTS IN THE SAND AND TO CARVE YOUR BENEFITS IN STONE.

THEY SAY IT TAKES A MINUTE TO FIND A SPECIAL PERSON,
AN HOUR TO APPRECIATE THEM,
A DAY TO LOVE THEM, BUT THEN
AN ENTIRE LIFE TO FORGET THEM.

DO NOT VALUE THE THINGS YOU HAVE IN YOUR LIFE,
BUT VALUE WHO YOU HAVE IN YOUR LIFE!

(another very Sahaj anonymous story – don’t you think?!)

axinia-friendship

Personal reflection: with Sahaja Yoga Meditation we are all able to find the path in feeling that we have a potential Friend in any person that enters in our life … also we become detached .. so we are ready for both: being saved and/or being slapped … by the many friends that are around..

Plus, despite all this “friendship drama” we become able through the Sahaj Meditation to see and feel .. ultimately enjoy the beauty of this Divine Play..

The important thing is that each of us becomes the Best Friend of oneself, ready for “slapping” our own impurities as well ready to save ourselves from the traps of our mind & artificial projections and from the slavery of our conditioning.. thus, giving us a balanced freedom .. the one of the Spirit.. to enjoy.. and to expand..

Come by to one of our Free Classes because, there You’ve Got a Friend!! How come? Please, enjoy below few examples and explanations.

FINDING THE GREATEST FRIEND OF ALL FRIENDS – A SAHAJ PROMISE

“You are all friends to each other and The Greatest Friend you have is The Divine Power (Kundalini) which is looking after you and doing everything for you, if you have that kind of a relaxed beautiful alertness within you, you are going to enjoy life, you are going to enjoy Sahaja Yoga..” says Shri Mataji – the founder of this practise of meditation.

Enjoy the next video – a gift of beauty in Sand & Music that we’ve received from our friend Geri from Italy:

Further below Shri Mataji is talking so honestly about Friendship, how is expressed in real lives as well how it is actually triggered by the friendship between 2 chakras (energy centers): Heart and Vishuddhi.

FRANCE & THE IMPORTANCE OF FRIENDSHIP

‘I think that relationship of friendship is even higher than any other relationship that we could think of because there’s nothing to be gained out of a friendship, it never ceases and you just enjoy the friendship, that’s all. When you can pull each others leg sometimes, you could be joking with another person, making fun of another person, is alright, is friendship. But this is the purest form of understanding our relationships with each other and a friend is the one who is always, for no rhyme and reason concerned about his friend..

Friendship is such that you could share your secrets, you could share your problems, you do that with me and why not with each other – is a question of understanding that Sahaja Yogis are all friends to each other.

Before Sahaja Yoga you could have only one friend or at the most two, three meant a crowd! But in Sahaja Yoga, we are all friends, pure friendship, friendship of a very beautiful nature, that you enjoy the joy of another person, in vibrations you do, if you feel the vibrations of another Sahaja Yogi you really enjoy.

I have seen this kind of friendship when we were young because that time people were more open hearted..’

EXAMPLE OF REAL FRIENDSHIP: BETWEEN A BRAHMIN AND A CHRISTIAN (A VEGETARIAN AND A NON-VEGETARIAN)

‘My father had his friends..  (His friend) was a very orthodox Brahmin and he was the chairman of an organisation all over the country and..  So my father had to go for a case (Shri Mataji’s father was a renown lawyer who was born Christian and became a scholar in all religions) far away and he took all his family and he sent me to the hostel, he wrote to his friend that “I am going away and my daughter has .. her final exams but I am sorry I had to go, taking my family with me…”

So the friend wrote: “Alright doesn’t matter you can go away, I am going to look after your daughter”. He came down and stayed in the hostel, took a room in the hostel, we all were there.

He was a Brahmin, he would not touch an egg the Brahmin! But he knew that I eat eggs, I am a non veg, so .. summertime had started, but he would still put on his overcoat or a raincoat and walk out.. I don’t know from where he used to get the eggs in the morning.. bring to his room -because he was (from) a Brahmin school! – and secretly cook the eggs for me and then he would call me and give me the eggs to eat! I said I don’t need them, he said “No, no, no, you have to have, you know father has gone away, have to do that..”, so sweetly and he was the head of heads there, breaking his own rules and regulations for me and he was making non-veg food and then he would take all the shells of the eggs in a paper, put it in the pocket of the big overcoat, walk down and throw them somewhere, then he would come with me to leave me for my exams.

Evening again he was there, waiting for me! He was such a big man, such a great man, very much respected, I mean he was the head of the heads and every day, I was very much surprised at this friendship! And .. I didn’t see them (father & friend) talking about anything or they had nothing common as such, but just friendship; my father was a literary person as you know and this one was a social worker. I mean .. my father was busy with politics and (they were) such friends!

I have seen my father would go to jail (in the time of Gandhi’s movement for India’s liberation), so his friends would come and take us away to their houses and their wives would look after us, give us bath.. No difference, I never felt any difference.., moreover we felt that they were looking after us more than (after) their own children..  In friendship, one can really enjoy, it needs a very large heart to be a friend, very large…

This kind of a friendship we Sahaja Yogis should have, I mean with a friend you cannot be tense, cannot. That is first sign.. and with your friend sitting there you won’t doze off and you won’t sleep, but you will enjoy.’

EXAMPLE OF FRIENDSHIP: WITH HUGS, SHOUTS AND EVEN WITH SLAPS

‘Once I was travelling by train and we had, two compartments, in one compartment myself and one old lady were there. I mean I was older than her, but she thought she was older and she was trying to sleep and in the other compartment were two friends. They had met, so they were enjoying, he was hitting him, he was hitting him, he said “hey you” like that going on and this lady said “look that these people, they are not allowing us to sleep”, so (she) went and shouted at them, “will you stop this nonsense, what is going on?” (they answered) ” We have met after a long time you see, we are enjoying”. She said “this is not the way, why are you hitting each other if you are enjoying? and don’t talk loudly” she went on..

Then I went and said: “You (may) shout, I am here.. I will lock the door, this lady won’t come”. They were surprised, I said: “I am enjoying the way you are enjoying each other”, they said: “you don’t want to sleep?!”, I said: “I want to hear what you say to each other” and they were surprised how I was enjoying the way they were hitting each other and enjoying each other. So this is how I have to tell you that we have to be friends we have to share, enjoy sharing, there’s no seriousness about it, how can you be serious with your friend.. you just relaxed enjoying each others company, even if you have to argue, argue, doesn’t matter, even if you have a different view, it’s alright, but you should not try to impose yourself on your friend, nor your friend should try to impose, try to understand each other, that’s how we are going to learn such a lot, we have to learn such a lot from each other!

For example I learned so much from friends, you’ll be surprised, learnt a lot of things from French, the way they have their art, their ideas of art, their music, their culture, lots of things to be learnt.

So you have friends in India, you have friends everywhere, you have friends now in South America, everywhere you have friends, you just go and with my (sahaj) badge, finished, oh they’ll all jump on you, they’ll do anything for you 🙂 So this friendship, just think of it in this world, we have thousands and thousands of friends everywhere we go and this is what we have to know within ourselves: that we have to be ourselves very, very, friendly type, very friendly. There’s an openness between one friend and another friend. There’s no closeness. There’s no tension. There’s no formality and reliance so much so that you can talk to them about what you want, what is your need and what problems you have.

I hope you understand that Love means complete Freedom to yourself and to others, if you love someone then there is complete freedom and understanding, but this love has to be very, very pure, complete understanding, you have to feel that friendship and you will feel proud that you have so many friends and real friends, you have so many friends who are real friends, you will be so very, feeling a thing as if you are a great personality that you have so many friends in this world.

We are not alone, imagine before this what we had so many saints, so many great souls were born and they were treated like singular people and tortured, killed, poisoned. They were alone!

But you are not! You are all friends to each other and The Greatest Friend you have is the divine power which is looking after you and doing everything for you.

If you have that kind of a relaxed beautiful alertness within you, you are going to enjoy life, you are going to enjoy Sahaja Yoga..

So for today, in this country of France where we have got liberation, where we have fought for liberation let us take to Real Liberation and the real liberation of the soul of our Spirit, to enjoy, enjoy everything that is available with understanding.’

( the above and below are excerpts from the same lecture – The Importance of Friendship – Shri Mataji in France, 1989)

FRIENDSHIP EXPLAINED THROUGH CHAKRAS WORK

HEART CHAKRA OPENING THROUGH VISHUDDHI CHAKRA – COMBINATION EXPRESSED AS A BUBBLING OF JOY

‘With all this theme that I am talking about, about collectivity which is the blessing of Shri Krishna (power of Vishuddhi chakra placed at the level of our throat and who is responsible for creating collectivity and relations) and that, his essence was Madhouria, is The Sweetness (in Sanskrit) and Radha who was his energy was known for, Allahdhadayini, Allahdhadayini means The One who is Joy Giving, Allahd is even more than joy .. you see joy can be very general word but Allahd means Bubbling of Joy ..

When you see somebody, bubbling of joy that is her, Shri Radha’s power and she was the power of Shri Krishna.. So when you meet a friend how you feel like you just taking him to your heart, just embracing, (you) don’t know what to do with that and sometimes it’s so much that you feel like beating, beating yourself or beating the friend, that sort of a joy is Allahdhadayini, that is Radha. Like some people especially women when they are over joyous they start weeping and crying.. you see that’s Allahd.

So today.. the Power of Joy we have to worship today, the power of joy and this power of joy which is Allahdhadayini..
Now we are praying that our heart should open by Shiva (divine principle and power of our Heart Chakra that is nesting our Spirit) and once our heart is opened it would be expressed by the power of Shri Radha and Shri Krishna.

Recent example of Sahaja Yoga Friendship expressed through Heart & Vishuddhi Combination – help received from talented friends from Ontario coming for a community event hosted in Oakville by Halton Sahaja Yoga –

Enjoy the Dance of Salsa & Banghra with Sahaja Yogis from Ontario .. in Oakville downtown plaza.

Shri Mataji: ‘This is the combination today, let us have this way that is a combination of Heart opening through Vishuddhi we are expressing it.’

The Excerpts above were from “The Importance of Friendshp” – Shri Mataji, France, 1989.

This time I  have to ask you again, for help, in case you have ever surprised and captured in photos this type of extreme  joy and love in Friendship, with hugs, slaps, crying and weeping and ultimately Bubbling of Joy… :-)) .. then Please, send such photos over, so we can choose one more to ‘decorate’ this article with it.

This Post Has 25 Comments

  1. axinia

    What a grat post, very well composed!

    I always valued friendship as the highest form of a any relationship in life, and wanted to be a friend to everyone.
    And I am happy how it works for me: my sister, my parents, my husband, all my relatives and many people around – they are first of all my friends and then all these other “roles”…
    Letme quote my favourite Sufi saint here, his words are very much the same as of Shri Mataji:
    “Friendship is a word which we all use in our everyday language, and yet it could take one’s whole life only to realize its
    meaning. However learned a person may be, however pious, spiritual, or experienced, if he has not learned that nature and
    character of friendship he has not learned anything.
    In our pursuit of truth we want to learn a great many things: the nature of life, the secret of life, the character
    of life; and to understand the meaning of friendship seems so easy and simple that we never trouble to think about it, nor about
    the responsibility of being a friend.

    A person begins his spiritual accomplishment by learning how to be a friend.

    For one who is really treading the path of friendship need not go anywhere to
    learn morals. Friendship itself teaches him sincerity, gratitude, sympathy, tenderness, appreciation; all these things that we must
    learn in this world, friendship teaches us.

    And once a man begins to learn these things through friendship with one person, he
    will naturally show to others the same virtues which, he has acquired by going along this path. Just as someone who has
    learned how to sing beautifully will naturally sing every song that is given to him beautifully. The one who has cultivated his heart
    through friendship will naturally be inclined to be friends with others.

    The meaning of friendship is too sacred to realize. All other
    relationships and connections in this life are empty if friendship is not at the back of them to strengthen them. The relationship
    between mother and daughter, father and son, brother and sister, husband and wife, teacher and pupil, all these connections
    need a spirit behind them; and this spirit is the spirit of friendship. When a daughter says, ‘I am friends with my mother,’ there
    is something beautiful about it. It makes the connection between a mother and a daughter a different thing. It makes it living. In
    every relationship it is the same. When there is friendship to bind the relationship it makes it secure, it gives it life.”

    Hazrat Inayath Khan (1882-1927), a Sufi Saint

  2. armaity

    Thanks Ioana, for this wonderful blog on Friendship. As they say, you cannot choose your relatives, but you can choose your friends. My favourite quote on the subject which my “oldest” friend in school wrote in my autograph book is “A sapling of friendship tendered with love and care, can grow into a mighty tree weathering all storms.” Till today this friend occupies a special place in my heart, although we are miles and miles away !!
    In Sahaja, I have found so many friends, where age and other such factors have no place. Many I have never met in person, but they all have their special place in my heart !! I find that many of them are so young but it works to my advantage that their joie de vivre and fresh outlook rubs off on me and I feel so alive and happy, never for a moment feeling the difference.
    Three cheers for true friendship of the spirit !!
    Ioana, my dear sister, you definitely hold a very precious place in my heart !!!

  3. ashok kumar misra

    Ioana is my best friend till date ’cause she taught me about frendship thru’ this beautiful post composition….many thanks!

    true i enjoy chatting with my sahaja yogi friends worldwide…….

  4. Chandra Sekhar

    You are our such a friend. We enjoy your friendship so much.

    PS:
    BTW, now, can we beat you up like that good friend in the train, Uh? 🙂

  5. adrian

    I found three important thoughts regarding friendship… “not to impose on one another”… “complete freedom and understanding”… “and the realization that your greatest friend is the divine power within, looking after you”…

    For me… the key is to understand how these are manifest within me… and how they cultivate friendship from the inside out through throat and heart centeredness.

  6. geri

    We are so much blessed to have so many Friends – Sahaja brothers and sisters all over the world, not only best Friends but spiritual too.

    Thanks Ioana,
    To all my friends a big, big hug….

  7. K.Subbi Reddy, Hyd, A.P.

    It is excellent – no words but only vibrations

  8. Weemsleetle

    I like this website very much.

    This is really a great web.
    And it is not like other money orientated site, the content here is really valuable.

    I am definitely bookmarking it as well as sharin it with my friends.

    🙂

  9. paula erskine

    perfect. The posts are as profound as the articles!

  10. louise

    Lovely Posts! thank you friends.

  11. ann

    Friendships touch heart to heart and spread love out to everything. When you are blessed with friends your life is so full and joyful even in troubled moments just thinking of your friends brings a smile and sweet understanding that you are loved and dearly cared for. I like to offer a small poem I wrote on friendship:

    TWO

    We are two in all we do
    If it’s old or if it’s new
    Two hands, two hearts
    Sailing oh so high
    What a ride in fortitude

    Thank you dearest Ioana, for such a beautiful reminder of the gift of friendship

    Love Ann

  12. Clare

    When I met my Sahaja yogi friend in a puja after not seeing him for many years I was so over joyed. I shrieked with joy and hugged him again and again with tears running down my face. It had been so many years, and so much had happened since I had seen him. I never knew if we would see each other again.

    After the meeting he gave me some money to “help me” purely and spontenously, when I never asked for any, nor complained about money lacking: and if he hadn’t then I could have been stuck and unable to get home.

    Maybe he just felt and acted purely from friendship.
    Isn’t friendship joyful and unassuming!

  13. Lavanya

    Thank you Ioana for all the lovely and touching posts u send..felt so much joy reading the article..
    lots of love 🙂

  14. Debbie

    True friendship is one of the greatest gifts we can give to ourselves and others. True friends leave a lasting impression in our hearts. It is so amazingly Sahaj – last week Friday, my sister and I went to the puja store as I was looking for a gift for a very dear and special person in my life. I just wanted them to know how much they have influenced and changed my life and how appreciative I am to be blessed with their gift of friendship. I could not remember which Diety represented this but guess what, I ended up choosing Krishna and now I have my answer – it was the perfect choice and happened in such a Sahaj manner.

    Lots of love always.

  15. Malcolm

    Really nice. Very joyful!

  16. ashok misra

    well said iona,….enjoying friendship since i read the article last….sent many friendship card to sahaja yogis….it all truely expressed….its my experience too!

  17. Uday Murthy

    Wonderful… 🙂

  18. Sunaina

    Ioana. It so a beautiful friendship story. Lots to learn from it.

  19. Sahaj

    The diversities in my friends helps me understand the unity in various cultures that we come from. We may not be exactly the same but still there is unknown duality that keeps us bonded after all we are reflections of the same primordial soul.

  20. chandra

    Ioana,
    I posted this comment(question?)on Oct 5, 2009 but you never replied to my question.
    Hence posting it again here on My 21, 2017.

    “You are our such a friend. We enjoy your friendship so much.
    PS:
    BTW, now, can we beat you up like that good friend in the train, Uh? ?”

    1. Ioana

      Dear Chandra, if we were simply friends .. and if you felt like it .. strongly and spontaneously .. yes, of course .. but I feel quite motherly .. or more like a protective sister towards you .. so not sure if we are a good match to reproduce that UK episode 🙂 .. but I enjoy the story very very much .. 🙂 .. as well your humour .. All my love!

  21. Jolanta

    Beautiful story and article!

    I especially enjoyed watching the spontaneous Salsa dance.

    It would not be allowed during these “unprecedented (Covid 19) times”.

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