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,

Children’s Land – a new webblog

June 1 is the World Children’s Day. And it has so coincided that I have started one more blog called “Children’s Land” (http://littleganeshas.wordpress.com) on children’s upbringing.

Why has such an idea occurred? First, during this year much useful info on this subject came to my e-mail box. Second, in the modern world when the borders between good and evil are being erased (not without the participation of the Mass Media) it is very important to introduce and teach true values to children. And the created blog is like a database where there is already one third of the materials which I have at the present time. And gradually, more posts will appear there. These are the materials on how to teach children kindness, true beauty, collectivity, creativity, etc.

Right now the structure of the “Children’s Land” is the following:

Children’s wisdom and innocence

Images to colour

Motherhood

Photos (kids)

Programs for kids

Shri Mataji on upbringing

Stories for children

Teaching ideas

Each section contains some specific information. For example, in the category “Stories for kids” you will find some wise stories which you can tell your children to nurture their best qualities and positive outlook.

My vision for this blog is that it could be not just a personal blog but a collective resource where we could put and find information on children’s upbringing and teaching.

photo by the author

How to make the desire come true?

 

Polina

Why is it so that when we really want something it never comes? But it does come when we have reconciled ourselves to its never coming true. Why? It has happened to me so many times already. I really wanted something for years and when I thought that “OK, it’s not for me then”, my desire became reality at the most unexpected moment. And it was such joy (especially because it was a surprise).

This weekend we could see the trick of the whole thing very clearly. Our friends, two adults and two children, came to our village house on a visit. The kids’ desires fulfilled one after another. According to their father, in the morning, when they were going to our village by bus, the children expressed the desire to have the first spring swim in some river or pond. The father assured them that there would be no place to bathe. The kids expressed their desire and then forgot about it.

And when in the middle of the day we all came to the river (without any idea that there could be a chance to bathe there), they were allowed to swim and they took it as something self-evident. But then they wanted a fire (they even collected some small sticks). Andrew wanted to make a fire so much but he was given neither matches nor a lighter. Soon he forgot about it. And the fire started by itself in some time (it turned out that some wood lying on the place of the former fire gave its heat to the sticks). In such a way all their desires came true during the whole day.

And the trick was that they just wished something from their heart not thinking about the result and the benefits they could get. And what is more important – they did not carry their wishes in their own mind. And as soon as one “lets the wish go”, the Divine/the Supreme Power/God gets an opportunity to work with that desire and to arrange circumstances for its fulfillment. And when the children’s desires were fulfilled, they did not get attached to the thing they had got. When I brought ice-cream to everyone (from a shop) which the children, as well as the others, had wanted very much, I was surprised at the easiness Polina put that ice-cream on the beach and went swimming and Andrew gave his portion to his father quite coolly, at his own free will.

Thought for the day: There may be three reasons for our desires not to come true: 1) our desire is not pure (i.e. it does not lead to our development or/and happiness, from God’s point of view); 2) we are so attached to the desire that we are even afraid to “let it go” thinking that only we are the ones who can make it true (forgetting that we are only the instruments of the Creator) and unless it leaves our mind no Supreme power can take care of it; 3) and sometimes it also happens that we desire what we are not prepared for so far and if we got it, we wouldn’t be able to feel its real value (just patience!).

photoby the author

Through Art to Purity and Love

If the desire to create goes from your heart and not just mind, the process of creating may purify you and reveal all the best in you. Especially when you are working with natural materials. I am sure you have noticed that hand-made things have something about them because of which it is so pleasant to take them in hands, to have them at home. And it is not only a piece of soul and love of the person who has created them but also the love of the All-pervading power, the vibrations of Paramchaitanya. As when our heart is open, we allow the Creator to use us as his “paintbrush”. It is He who is the real Creator working through us.

And we really felt what I have just described when we crossed the threshold of an ordinary (from outside) building of Saint-Petersburg Children’s Art House. As soon as we had entered it we found ourselves in a real Palace. There was such love and joy, purity and beauty around! It is a world of morality and history, a place to rest from the daily routine of the working days in a big modern city.

Kids are taught so many things here (for free!): making laces, weaving, embroidery, making things of birchen bark, painting, history of the city, ceramics, origami, making soft toys, painting on wood, video shooting, karate and other sports, design, singing, dancing, etc…

And the motto of the Children’s Art House says: If there is no Sun in the sky, find it within yourself!

In fact, we came to the studio of ceramics where our friend, Sasha, teaches.

Buddha’s Spiritual Seeking

 Buddha Jayanti (also known as Buddha Purnima because it is celebrated on the full moon) is the most sacred festival to Buddhists, marking Lord Buddha’s birthday, enlightenment and entrance into Nirvana. It is also known as Vesak (derived from the Sanskrit name for the month in which it falls – Vaisakha) in Sri Lanka and other Buddhist countries.

This year Buddha’s birthday is celebrated on May 2.

Till the time I read “Siddhartha” by Hermann Hesse I had known nothing about Buddha except for his name, nationality and the fact that his spiritual seeking had led him to the Truth and that is why there are lots of Buddhists nowadays who are seeking the same but, because of some reason, do not find it.

And the fact that Buddha has found the Truth inspired my respect to him.

I remember that when in the university we discussed the Buddha’s teaching. But from that seminar I grasped, frankly speaking, nothing except for the impression that nobody, including the teacher herself, completely understood what exactly Buddha had realized when he got the enlightenment.

We have recently watched the film “Little Buddha” with Keanu Reeves playing Buddha. In general, the film is quite dull but the scene of the Spirit’s fight with everything alien and the further enlightenment is very beautiful and attractive. There are three main ideas in the film:

Pure Desire. Know Thyself

 

In general, most of our human desires are not true as they cannot be satisfied. As soon as we get what we, as we have thought, want, we immediately want something else. The joy from reaching the aim lasts for a very short time. We are constantly discontented (on the one hand, it motivates us to seek but shouldn’t we find what are looking for at last?!)

To know Thyself, to know your own Spirit – it is such a beautiful experience! It is what the pure desire is. To know thyself and, due to it or because of it, refuse from all the doubts, fears and conditionings… Instead of it, many of us are sinking in the quagmire of this world.

To know thyself, to know the Spirit. But how?

What Do We Learn from Children?

 

Many of us were saved by life when we were kids. Life saved us even from such situations which, at first sight, seemed hopeless.

When I was about five, my mother, going to leave on business, took me to her sister for a night. I was put to bed in the living room. But I became frightened of something at night and asked to take me to my aunt’s room. And in the morning my aunt found out that

Nature and Fashion

During the last two months, until the previous weekend, the ground was covered with snow. And each day it was so beautiful and so different.

Only one week has passed. The snow has melted away. But the ground is already in some other attire – small colorful flowers make the insects and… people, who are able to notice the beauty of the surrounding world, happy.

Unintentionally one draws a parallel: if those are the “attires” (white, or green, or yellow and red) of the Earth that gladden the eye, if one feels cheerless and uncomfortable seeing bare trees and fields, why then people strive for the opposite in the modern vogue, not adorning the body but showing it off?

If you are a woman, you can learn how one can create her own image following the traditions of decorating the body here.

And here are the flowers – decoration of the Earth which appeared already in a week after the snow had melted:

Thought for the day: “The human body wants good only for himself and people give way to this deception. And as soon as the man lives only for his body and not for the soul, he diverges with people and God and do not get the good which he is seeking” (Leo Tolstoy, Russian writer).

Photo by the Author (April 3, 2007)

Perceive God with Inner Joy

There once lived a great (as he was considered by his contemporaries) philosopher, Bertand Russel by name. He thought the idea of becoming one with the ocean (i.e. a person’s spirit becoming one with God/Brahman) “conventional stuff and unmitigated rubbish”. He wrote about R. Tagore’s lectures: “I regret I can not agree with Tagore. His talk about the infinite is vague nonsense”.

What would you tell Bertand? Would you agree or disagree? In case of the latter, what explanation would you use to contradict him?..

Ok, no more questions… only the last one: are you interested in what Tagore (1861-1941) answered him?

TAGORE’S LETTER TO BERTRAND RUSSELL
37 Alfred Place W, South Kensington, London, 13 October 1912

Dear Mr. Russell,

…I read your article on the Essence of Religion in the last issue of the Hibbert Journal with very great interest. It reminded me of a verse in the Upanishad which runs thus:

Yato veiche nivartante aprapya manasa saha Anandam Brahmano Vidvan na vibheti Kutushchama.

“From him words, as well as mind, come back baffled. Yet he who knows the joy of Brahman (the Infinite) is free from all fear”.

Through knowledge you cannot apprehend him; yet when you live the life of the Infinite and are not bound within the limits of the finite self you realize that great joy which is above all the pleasures and pains of our selfish life and so you are free from all fear. This joy itself is the positive perception of Brahman. It is not a greed which authority imposes on us but an absolute realization of the Infinite which we can only attain by breaking through the bonds of the narrow self and setting our will and love free.

Yours sincerely,
Rabindranath Tagore

Thought for the day: “Why are you wasting so much time with trivial and unimportant nonsensical things? What is your destiny?” (Shri Mataji)