Entering a state of meditation is like being in a forest with a road running through it. You stand in the silence of the forest and absorb the grandeur around you. Then, a lone car drives along the road, is audible and visible for a few seconds, and then is gone again. In the stillness of Sahaja Meditation, that’s how a thought is: it comes, it’s briefly in our attention, and then it’s gone. We don’t fight it, we just watch it.
On Wednesday, February 23, 2011, my best friend passed away. Mrs. Nirmala Srivastava, the founder of Sahaja Meditation, and the founder of Sahaja Yoga, the universal spiritual path, passed away in Genoa, Italy. She was 87 years old.
I first met Mrs. Srivastava in Bombay in January 1982. I spent the next three months travelling with her to different parts of India, and I visited her at her residence in London.
I had the opportunity to see her and talk with her several times over the past 29 years. No matter what my emotional state, she was always glad to see me. She never asked me why I seemed to be learning how to meditate so slowly. Maybe she knew me better than I knew myself. The first time I met her, in 1982, she said to me, “Sometimes it takes a long time.”
Like many others around the world, I addressed her as “Shri Mataji” — Mother. She was always welcoming and gracious. She gave to me only pure love. She was like my Godmother. She saw only my potential, and never my shortcomings. She always encouraged me.
She taught me how to attain a state of sublime inner peace and calm. Meditating with her in India, I experienced for the first time what it meant to stop being separate from everyone else, and instead feel — and enjoy — another person without any distance between them and me.
She showed me that in a state of inner silence, in meditation, every human being shared the same awareness: that we are all connected, we are all part of one human family. It wasn’t a theory or concept. In deep meditation, I could simply feel another human being, and know everything about them.
As I learned to accept other people as they were, I gradually learned to accept myself. I discovered I could actually give compassion and love to others, and the gift of inner silence and peace. All this I received from Shri Mataji. This ability to give love to others is Shri Mataji’s greatest gift to me and to everyone who knew her and loved her. This is her legacy.
–Mark Taylor
Whenever someone annoys me, such as an aggressive SUV driver who cuts me off, I try to remember a story my meditation teacher told me. I don’t remember it exactly, but this is the gist of it.
There were some narrow steps going up the side of a mountain. They were so narrow that only one person could go up or down the steps at a time. A man who was a wise man was going up the steps. A man who was not a wise man was coming down the steps. The man who was not a wise man said, “I don’t move aside for fools.” The man who was a wise man replied, “I do,” and he stepped to one side.
When we are aware of our true selves, even in the face of adversity, or when we are challenged, we remain patient, calm and quiet.
As we continue to meditate, we develop detachment. We develop faith in ourselves.
As we develop an attitude of acceptance, we start noticing the glory of the creation in all its forms.
Take it as a mantra—“I enjoy whatever is there”—to slow down and start noticing what has been arranged for us, right now, in this moment, for us to enjoy. We start enjoying the moment we stop thinking and reacting.
People who meditate regularly using the Sahaja Yoga Meditation technique speak with eloquence. What they say is deep and powerful.
“Supposing you see a tree. It’s a tree. What are we going to think about it? And whatever we may think about it, it’s going to be a tree. To watch something without analysis, without thinking about it, is reality. If you can watch everything without reacting, you are in reality.”
–Mrs. Nirmala Srivastava (Shri Mataji), founder of Sahaja Yoga Meditation, India, December 12, 1993
A friend of mine told me what he has found, after practicing Sahaja Meditation for several years.
He said when we strive for perfection, we end up worrying about the results, instead of just doing it. Just do it.
We can generate a lot of internal worrying by setting very high standards for ourselves. We are putting trouble in ourselves. By trying too hard to be perfect, we get agitated, and then, after we have tried and not attained perfection, we can fall into guilt. “I didn’t get it right.”
He said that now, in a state of meditation, it’s possible to just do things, and not worry about will happen.