How to Speed up Spiritual Growth?

An Egyptian Family.

During the two weeks while we were in Saint Petersburg and Moscow we stayed at our friends’ places. Spiritual growth is known to go really quickly when you are living with other people. I do not mean living with your wife/husband and kids. I mean friends, acquaintances or even people you did not know before.

Sometimes it seems that such society really makes our already hard life harder. But if we look deeper, we will realize that when being put in the circumstances when you have to face each other several hours every day, “sharp corners” of the whole company are gradually getting round. And one day you notice that being in the collective really brings you joy.

The issue I am speaking about is topical for the West, I am sure not for the Eastern countries like India. I remember living in Bristol in a collective house/ashram for two weeks. We were five there: an English lady and an English man, a Hindu and we (two Russians). We had no problems living together as we are all Sahaja yogis and thus understand very clearly that the disadvantages we see in somebody else for sure exist in us as well (otherwise we would not notice them and react). This experience also gave us a chance to look at the conditionings of each other (I mean the conditionings we got due to the countries we live in) and, what is more important, discuss them. What means trouble for a Hindu (for example, a forced marriage) is never a trouble for a Russian. We also learnt that in India it is quite natural to have big families, I mean from grannies to grandchildren. In Russia it is considered a torture in most cases.

It was the case with us as well as we have been living with my father and grandfather for 3,5 years already.

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!”

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.

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 Wedding. Interesting Traditions

True marriages are said to be made in Heavens. But the earthly wedding plays an important role as well: it is a kind of acknowledgement of the new family from the part of society (which is a very important psychological moment for the newly married). And especially it is so nice when no rude traditions (like excessive drinking or fighting) spoil the wedding. One gets such a pleasant feeling when everything happing at the wedding is pure (by the way, in the West the white color of the bride’s dress is meant to highlight purity).

I have visited many weddings (as a guest and as a photographer) but only at the wedding of my friends last Friday I saw what I had never expected to see – an unknown to many wedding tradition.

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!

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?

To Meet God. For What?

 

An acquaintance of mine once asked me:

– What do you consider to be the meaning of life?

– Development, spiritual growth. The improvement of your qualities. While “erasing” your negative qualities you start hearing the voice of your own Spirit, a part of God within, more and more often. In such a way you become closer and closer to God.

– For what? Why cannot one enjoy what he already has?

What to Do to Be Happy?

 

Have you ever asked yourself what you are doing here, in life? I have.

You will easily understand the meaning of your life if you answer three questions. Please, be sincere.

1) What moment in life is the most important one?

2) What person is the dearest to you?

3) What is the greatest good on the Earth?

Answering the questions, folk wisdom says that: