Helping Our Planet Together with Kids

In Europe, it’s quite an ordinary things to use different garbage bins for different kinds of garbage. In Russia, such a thing was organized only in the cities where the WIFA World Cup was held and only for the period of the Championship.

Why cannot it be done everywhere on a permanent basis is still a mystery for me… The happier I was to learn about a social and ecological campaign “Kind Caps” held by the “Eco Truck” Company. The goal of the project is to involve children and adults in the joint solution of environmental and social tasks in order to show that each of us can take care of the other and help somebody without any special material means, and that the usual “trash” may a valuable and necessary resource. At this time, the money received from the collected caps will go to the aid of a little boy. Such a project exists in every Russian city.

Any of my walks about the city or in the woods brought back about 20 caps. Then how much plastic remains in nature given that bottles are not as easy to collect as the caps?! Maybe then it is better not to throw them? I understand that this problem is not so topical for Europe and the US but it is still topical in Russia.

With the active participation of the children, we have already collected quite many caps for the campaign. What I have noticed is that the children seeing me collecting the caps have started thinking over the whole issue on a deeper level: first of all, they have become more conscious of the idea of taking garbage to bins and not throwing it at any place one likes. And of course, it influenced them that there are kids like them who have severe problems with health and who really need help from other people.

Nature vs Humans

When in most parts of Russia it is still snowing (though it is already May 12) and the bloggers, one by one, are writing how tired they are from the 7-month winter, we are happy to enjoy flowers in the forest living in 900 km from the capital. Frankly, I have not expected there can be such a great variety of flowers in the forest just at the beginning of May!

 

Just My Bike and Me

There are periods in life when nothing goes as has been planned. Meetings cancel, results are not gained, replies are delayed… And at this time the bridge to frustration is quite short…

Today in the morning something in me did not want to give in and persistently continued looking for positive things in what life suggested. And I did what I had been longing for… Took my bike and went to the river… Wouldn’t be possible if not for the unexpected changes in my daily timetable.

The view is absolutely awesome. A deeply blue colour of the water has obviously soaked the indigo tinge of the sky. A loud intensity of the small curly waves of the Volga chains your attention. The sand is being combed by the piercing wind and it is really dazzling because of the too bright sun. And there is nobody. Not a soul… And you just sit down on the so-far-not-very-warm sand and feel completely peaceful – just yourself in the nature.

Beautiful World

On Saturday, we watched a movie “The Patriot” with Mel Gibson in the main part. Americans’ struggle for independence. Many families are ruined, houses are burnt. In the middle of the film, one of the characters asked what they were fighting for and another one answered that when they were free they would get an opportunity to build a new, beautiful, world.

This phrase just did not leave my mind… Americans got freedom. Two hundred years have passed since then. What is their world now? Loss of values, extreme consuming, money-thirstiness, spiritual coldness in families – what can be called beautiful there?

I do not say through hearsay. Having lived one year in the States (I met the millennium there), I also became infected with money making (though, on returning home, thank God, my zeal was cooled down).

Another example. India. The previous century. A struggle for freedom. India got physical independence by many victims. Not much time has passed since then (what are decades for history?) but what is happening in this country now where spirituality have been nurtured for centuries? Spiritual values are being exchanged for cheap aspects of western culture.

As being known everything that we create is the reflection of what we are inside. Only a pure (dharmic) person can create beauty around. As far as the beautiful world is concerned.

***

…Interviewer: The theory that scientists say that man came from a little cell from heaven know where; how did you feel about those?

Shri Mataji: It’s a fact, it’s a fact. He (man) came through a cell, evolved through a cell. How did he evolve? Why did he evolve? What is the purpose of his life? It is not all answered by science. What is the power that males you evolve? Also, that is not answered. So, in Sahaja Yoga you know all that. Not only you evolve but with the same power you go higher.

Interviewer: What is your theory about that then? Why are we here or, why are we so long in the process?

Shri Mataji: You see anything that you create, even human beings for example, you have created things. A beautiful lamp is to give us light, isn’t it, the power. So, that’s how God has created us, to give His power to us that we feel Him and know Him in our awareness and understand and we emit His powers and enjoy it; to say in the words of Christ ‘to enter into the kingdom of God’…

Interviewer: Is it what Self Realization means; that You mean as a Realized Soul?

Shri Mataji: Yes, Self Realization means when the Self, which is talked about in all the scriptures, starts emitting its manifestation in our conscious mind; means that time when we become aware of it. To this extent our central nervous system starts recording the power of our Spirit, of oneself and we start feeling the breeze-like vibrations of the Spirit which is called in the bible as the ‘Cool Breeze of the Holy Spirit’…

Interviewer: Two very interesting thoughts come to my head at this point. One, is it through being Realized that one gets to knowledge of what’s on the other side of death, as it were and two, whether one really through this Realization that one finds a little bit of God inside oneself?

A Sunday in May

Heat. Some neighbor has said that it is thirty degrees above zero. It seems Central Russia is the hottest area in Europe now. It is so bewitching to lie on the bedding made of mowed grey-haired dandelions and to look into the blue cloudless sky. High above there are swifts flying and seagulls soaring. What are seagulls doing in such heights? It seems they are just enjoying. Enjoying as they do not need to flap their wings but they can only float on the air streams. Verily, Richard Bach chose the right image for Jonathan seeking the truth.

In the wooden house it is not so hot but the warm air is already crawling here, too. Should I go to weed?.. The sun is burning my hands and warming up my head. “Warmth is great, it is pleasant for the body but still… can it be a bit cooler?”

As it is said, pure desire… (and, I suppose, not only mine). At about six in the evening wind arises. It is heard to bow the trees behind the window. “Something will happen!” When you go to have at look at the nature, you can see a rich dark-blue cloud rising from above the close horizon of the nearest village. The wind is bending birches so strongly that their leaves are turning inside out and because of it the chevelure of the birch-trees turn from light emerald into pale green. And around you there are great numbers of little dandelion parachutes whirling in circles.

The cloud has almost approached us. “Fine, I will not have to water the plants today!”

In five minutes the cloud was driven to the right. The wind calmed down. The sun begins to warm up the Earth and everything on it again. I am taking the watering-can (a small one and that is why I have to go to the beds many times) with a thought: “If one does not water radishes much, they will not become sweet”… I have finished – everything is watered!

And at that moment it starts lightening seriously and properly: a lightning on the right, a lightening on the left, two lightening in front. Wow! It was thundering for five minutes without a break. The clouds gathered from all the directions. Except for the wind and thunder, there are no sounds – the nature stands still. There is a clear feeling that something will happen now not only outside but inside as well.

The downpour looked like a wall. The wind brought coolness – the soul was rejoicing!

***

Though it rejoiced only until the water started pouring from behind the roof into the house. It was not in the main room, just in the backyard but from all the chinks unknown to us till this moment. The decision is taken immediately: we are staying in the village house for the night to patch the roof early in the morning.

It was the right decision… At five in the morning, when you are going with your feet bare along the glade towards the rising sun, the blades covered with dew are caressing your feet, like small brushes, so tenderly.

photos by the author

To Be Free – the way not to get tired

 

We were going from Saint Petersburg (Russia) to Moscow by train yesterday. It took us 7 hours and it was a surprise for me that I was absolutely fresh and full of energy when we finally arrived. The trick was that while in the train I was looking through the window and enjoying the fields with fresh green spring grass, fluffy clouds forming different figures, tall slender birches with small leaves and the sun shining so brightly into the window. I had a very strong feeling that my Spirit was absolutely free and at the same time it was a part of the loving and caring nature.

And I also remembered the words of my old uncle suddenly uttered by him one day before his death, “The Paradise is here, on the Earth!”

True Values. The Earth from the Space

When astronauts return from space, what they talk about isn’t the brute force of the rocket launch or the exhilaration of zero gravity. It’s the view. And it’s mankind’s rarest view of all, Earth from afar.

Only two dozen men – those who journeyed to the moon – have seen the full Earth view. Most space travellers, in low orbit, see only a piece of the planet – a lesser but still impressive glimpse. They have seen the curvature of Earth, its magnificent beauty, its fragility, and its lack of borders.

The first full view of Earth came from the moon-bound Apollo 8 during the waning days of a chaotic 1968. Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders put it in perspective in a documentary: “We came all this way to explore the moon, and the most important thing is that we discovered the Earth.”

For Earth Day this year – at a time when perhaps some perspective is needed – the Associated Press asked space travellers to recall what it’s like to see Earth from above:

The First Man in the Space. Part 2

Continuation. Please go here for the beginning

«Zarya» asked what I saw below. I said that our planet looks almost the same as when you see it from a jet flying high above the Earth. Mountain chains, big rivers, large woods, groups of islands, coastlines were distinctly seen. I
saw clouds and light shadows on the far dear Earth.

For a moment a son of a farmer awakened in me. The absolutely black sky looked like a fallow field being sown with seeds of stars…

I wanted to observe the Moon, to learn how it looked in the space. But, unfortunately, its crescent was out of my sight during the flight. “Anyway, – I thought, – I will see it during the next flight”.

The spaceship entered the side of our Planet which was not lit up by the Sun. Immediately it became absolutely dark…

At 9:51 the automatic system of orientation switched on. After the “Vostok” had left the shadow side, there appeared the rays of the Sun shining through the atmosphere of the Earth. The horizon became bright orange gradually turning into all the colors of the rainbow: light blue, dark blue, violet, black. Indescribable colour spectrum! Like in the paintings by Rerikh!

A New Life – Such Joy!

I cannot say I have a gift for gardening but when spring comes I buy two or three packages with seeds. May be it is the collective thinking that influences me so much, may be the colourful pics on the packages or may be I just want to try – if something will really come out of it.

I soak and then vibrate the seeds. Not for the sake of a large future harvest. Just to experience the joy from touching the ground and appearing of a new life. On the second day the seeds of radish germinate right in the plate.

While I am digging up the ground, I feel its warmth. Having planted the seeds I address the Earth with all my heart thanking it. And then, after the work done, I stand on it with my feet bare for a long time: the ground absorbs all the heaviness got during the process of physical work. O, Lord, thank You that You have created such a beautiful world from the man!