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.

Music and Painting Combined Together in Action

To read the article in Russian scroll…

Yesterday I conducted a work-shop “The Influence of Music and Painting on the Inner State and Personal Development” for adults and children in one of the music schools in our city. I told the parents about how music and painting are used in the modern world to relieve stress, what kind of music is considered healing, how one can use music and painting in daily life to relieve tension and bring our inner state into balance. The parents were also told about the influence of color on a person’s state, about how one can learn the real internal state by color and how one can be driven into a state of calmness or, on the contrary, dynamics through color.

The main part of the work-shop was devoted to

We are what we think

I’ve just happen to find a pic which I saved on my PC 5 years ago – a picture with the words: “Make your brain creative“.

But the same pic can be also commented on with the words: “We are what we think. We are all that appears in our thoughts. With our thoughtsw we create the world” (the words by Buddha which I also appeared to store in my comp several years ago).

 

On the Life-long Road

“Any person in our life appears just in time when we mostly need the lesson he/she is carrying”.

 

Garden of Flowers. Kabir

Garden of Flowers

Do not go into the garden of flowers

O friend, go not there.

 

In your body is the garden of flowers.

Take your seat on the thousand petals of lotus

and there gaze upon the infinite beauty.

 

There is a strange tree,

which stands without roots,

bears fruits without blossoming.

It has no branches and no leaves.

It is Lotus all over.

Two birds sing there:

One is the Guru and the other the disciple.

The disciple chooses the manifold fruits of life

and tastes them

And the Guru beholds him in joy.

Kabir

photo by the author of the blog

The Sweetest Memory of the Week

What is your sweetest impression of the previous week? This question is simple but I have come across the fact that many people do not remember what they did at the weekend or last week (including the most pleasant moments) – so busy they are. What’s the purpose of our living then if we even do not remember what we do going along life? The psychologist in one American college used to say: “Every evening try to remember ten nice things which have happened to you during the day”. And this recommendation really helped many students overcome stress and homesickness, helped them look at life in a positive way.

So, do you remember?.. Anyway, this is a rhetorical question. I will tell you about my memory of the last week – the situation which is still before my eyes.

Three weeks ago a 10-year old son of our friends was knocked down by a bus when he was running across the road together with some other boys. His head got such a strong blow that the boy lost his consciousness and was in coma for a week. During this week the doctors could not predict how the process would develop.

We sent e-mails to several Sahaja Yogis in different parts of the world asking them to keep their attention at the boy’s physical and spiritual health and make a bandhan for him to recover sooner. These people do not even know Andrei and his parents but they know that we all are a big family, all the people are one, and if someone is suffering all the rest should and are willing to help him. On Friday, we got several nice e-mails from some yogis which were full of love and vibrations. An extract from one of them: “My heart was filled as I made a bandhan for Andrei today. May the Divine Mother establish Her all bliss on him and Shri Ganesha and Shri Hanumana help the boy recover faster than we human can ever anticipate. May Her love and bliss fill the boy to get well soon…” The same Friday Andrei recovered from coma.

He did come to his senses exactly in 7 days after the accident had happened. I visited the boy and his mother in the hospital on the third day after Andrei had recovered consciousness. I brought fruits and some other tasty things. At one point when I was there Andrei asked for a peach and his father started cutting slices from the peach I had brought and gave them to his son. The boy ate two or three slices and said, “Tasty!” When the father gave him one more slice, Andrei asked, “Treat mum to it”. The boys’ mother took the piece. Then, when his father cut a fifth slice, the boy asked him,

True Love

 

photo by the author of the blog

Pure love, which enlightens us all, is the real quality of the Heart Chakra. In the unrealized state we rarely love for love’s sake. Because of our conditionings we confuse feelings of love with those of possession, sex and selfishness. Pure love is detached, it gives without interest. Like the tree which gives shade to one and all, it is without prejudice and motive. True love is the quality that emanates from the Spirit and not from the body or mind. When we talk of loving someone, we should understand the direction in which this love is flowing. Bodily attraction is physical. It can arise out of sex appeal or the conditioned response to a dream image of a prince charming or even from an artist’s or ad-man’s projection. There are even those who exercise seductive arts to ensnare a good “catch”.

We can see this in whose who indulge in excessively trendy fashions. These people are especially at risk in their relationships because they relate not as two Spirits, but as two fashionable physical forms. This kind of physical attraction is not true love because it comes from the mind, and mind does not love – it merely wants. When the want of the mind is attained, then the novelty wears off. For instance a child is excited and attached to a new toy, but after a few days as the novelty wears away, the excitement dies. The same occurs with relationships which are based simply on physical attraction. That which is illusory cannot love or be loved; it is a fancy of the eyes which Shakespeare aptly described:

The True Path

 

When we are following Our Path, the supreme power is supporting us. “It is called a Benevolent Beginning, – remembered he the words of the old man. – Beginners are lucky. As life wants the man to follow his Path” (“Alchemic” by Paulo Koello). Under the words “One’s Own Path” Koello, according to “Alchemic”, means “one’s own destination in life”.

Perhaps, I love life so much because everything I am doing is a pleasure for me. (Confucius: “Start doing what you like and you will have to work not a day in your life”). And if it so, does not it mean that the path which I am going along is true (for me)? (And, consequently, if there is no joy and content, then, obviously, the true destination is still lying somewhere waiting until it is found). As I see it now, the idea that life should be joy, that one should live but not merely exist settled in my mind already in my teen years. From there, photography, translation, painting, knitting, teaching, etc. have taken their roots… and it seems to be just the beginning :).

Koello continues saying that every person is constantly given signs showing him the true (for him) path (in the same way “luck” in one’s deeds also testifies to the right way), “You will find the way there following the sings which God marks everyone’s path with. You should only be able to read what is written for you”.

I remember when I read “Alchemic” for the first time most part of it was an amazing discovery for me (though only some theory based on somebody else’s life and not mine). And today I can prove the author’s idea of the signs with the examples from my own life (I think because I have become more observant :)).

Some 5 years ago it was very difficult for me to make the choice – the choice of the future path in life (two opposite ways were lying in front of me). I really tried to prolong the situation watching how it was becoming worse. Once in the evening, when I was reading a book (“The Fifth Mountain”, again by Koello) and unexpectedly for myself read in one of its paragraphs of how important it was for the main character to make the choice and of how he finally made it, I found the solution to my problem. And now, after 5 years, I am so happy that I made that very choice.

This autumn, life again put me in front of the necessity to choose my way (one thing is to choose apples at the market and absolutely another one is to choose one’s path in life). I was offered interesting work (for 3-4 months) the interview for which I had passed at the beginning of 2006. The money offered was good but the work was some 1000 km away from the native city and, consequently, from my husband and all the other things I was busy with here. First, like 5 years before, I tried to solve the question logically having drawn a table with two columns: pros and cons.

Are religions flowers on the same tree?

 

As I can see my post on the Painting of Buddha caused many ideas, questions and arguments. And all I have read in the comments made me dwell on the idea of all the religions depicted as flowers on one tree.

First of all, no Great Master/Prophet/Teacher has ever created any religion. Religions were created by men. Some of these men even could not understand the ideas expressed by the Master and, therefore, were sure that other people would not understand Him either – in such a way new interpretations appeared. As Goldmare has mentioned in his comment, “It’s a terrible thing – I had a friend in one of my old schools who abandoned Christianity because she saw how all the denominations couldn’t agree”. Some other men, seeing that the teaching really influenced people, used it in their politics including some parts into it which were beneficial for them. For example, let’s take Christianity. Paul even was not Christ’s disciple. He has never heard the words uttered by Christ Himself. On the other hand, he was in touch with Romans ruling in the country at that time. The greatest part of the Bible is written by him… Mohammed never wrote Koran. After His death his nearest and dearest were killed by, so to speak, Mohammed’s followers…

Then how can we understand what is really true in the Scriptures and what is not? What we, ordinary people, should follow and what not? Already when I was a teenager I was sure that there should be some True Values /Dharma/ that men should follow and after I had got acquainted with different cultures and religions I came to the conclusion that these values are the ones which are the same in all the religions. That was one of my spiritual achievements.

After I had started practicing Sahaja Yoga, this idea developed into a new dimension. There were
Great Masters/Prophets on the Earth who came at different time to different places but each of them tried to teach people almost the same values: there should not be greediness, stealing, lying, adultery, etc. but there should be forgiveness, love, generosity, creativity, etc. Of course, each Master emphasized only some of the qualities but that is the whole idea! Christ appeared in Jerusalem at the time He was needed the most there as people had been losing morality. By the example of His all life He was teaching that one should have compassion and forgiveness. These were the qualities He came to work out on the Earth. Mohammed appeared on the Earth in 570 in Mekka. Can you remember, please, what was going in Arabia at that time? There were many tribes who were at war with each other often and who were worshipping different idols (though in the same place – Kaaba). Yes, there was some notion of Allah but He was considered to be abstract and transcendent. The Great Deed by Mohammed, first of all, was that He announced Allah the only All-mighty God. By the way, he respected the teachings of Christ and said that Koran was only for Arabians as those were they at that time who needed the rules given by Him. And there is nothing in the Teaching of Mohammed that contradicts the teaching of Christ if we look deeper. For example, Mohammed allowed Arabian men to take several wives. Nothing strange. Many men had been killed in battles and if Mohammed had not allowed polygamy (which is not allowed in Christianity), prostitution would have been prospering.

By the way, why should one limit the list of the Great Masters only by the ones mentioned above? Why not take into consideration the teachings of Raja Djanaka, Abraham, Moses, Zaratustra, Lao-Tzu, Confucius, Socrates, Guru Nanaka, Sai Baba from Shirdi. There were also Great Masters even before Christ: Buddha, Rama, Krishna, Mahavira.

In a word, there is one and the same Almighty God (though each of us can call and depict Him differently: the Creator, All-pervading Energy, Allah, Supreme Power, etc.) and He is the personification of all the virtues. For us, people, not to lose the path to these virtues, to spiritual growth, Prophets and Great Masters were sent to Earth for them to work out different aspects of one and the same God in people. Thus, Great Masters/Prophets are flowers on the Earth planted by God for people to teach from each of them. And as Axinia has mentioned, there is a part of God in each of us. Therefore, I see the aim of my life in the development of these virtues in myself for God to see His reflection in me. And the real meaning of the words “All the religions are flowers on the same tree” is the following: there is one tree, one God, and there are many interpretations of Him and ways to Him but the aim is the same and the path to it is also the same – spiritual growth. And all the religions are flowers as if we separate seeds from tares in each of the religion there really will appear a beautiful flower.

photo by the author

Buddha. What is Enlightenment?

 

This picture painted by the Mexican artist Octavio Ocampo is called “Buddha” but what is the symbolism behind the peaceful face? Isn’t it what is meant by the word “Enlightenment”? Look closer and you will see that the symbols of different religions are parts of one person. Isn’t it because all the religions are like flowers on the same tree and enlightenment means realization of the virtues which are the same in all the religions?

The chin of Buddha is made of his disciples bowing in namaskar. The lower lip is like the sahasrara chakra (1000-petal from Sanskrit). Ears are represented by Shri Ganesha and Shri Kalki. There is the tree of life constituting the forehead and the dove representing the Holy Spirit in the area of the fontanel bone. This is to name a few. May be you will also see something else.