Sahaja Yoga Meditation in the USA

“Are Your Friends Making You Fat?” is an article in the September 10, 2009 New York Times Magazine by Clive Thompson.

The article says that there is some research that indicates that how we behave, how we live, influences not only the people who directly know us, but people who may only indirectly be connected to us — “friends of friends.” It’s possible that each person can have an effect on 1,000 other people. If this is true, this means that if, through Sahaja Yoga Meditation, we become calm, if we start to express our inner wisdom and generosity, we can affect hundreds of other people in a positive way.

Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, the founder of Sahaja Yoga Meditation, talked in India many years ago (December 12, 1993) about the state of meditation. She said:

“The first thing should be to watch yourself, that you are not reacting, but you are experiencing and enjoying the silence, the subtleties, the beauty, the glory of your being, as well as whatever is around you.”

The true potential of this great land is its power to influence, in a positive way, other peoples and other cultures. The day that America fulfills its promise, with a balance of opportunity, liberty, fairness and compassion, is the day the whole world will be inspired to eradicate intolerance, injustice and misery.

As the U.S. grew in population and wealth, the inspiring American cultural quality was inclusiveness. The idea of “family” included the community. If misfortune befell a neighbor, it was inconceivable not to help that neighbor. The ideal American traits of friendliness and generosity were exemplified in a barn-raising. Barn-raising wasn’t something that one family alone completed, with the neighbors standing around watching; the whole community took part, helped, and celebrated.

Celebrating the 4th of July is a time to consider the promise of a young country that decided to invent itself as a place with the maximum potential for good. Dynamism, optimism, opportunity, and freedom of ideas are distinctly American qualities that have made American brands and American styles the standard for the world. Those brands and styles represent a country and a culture where anything is possible through hard work and persistence.

Instead of a large landowner dominating many poor families, there was a chance in the stunningly fertile and beautiful land of America for a combination of self-sufficiency and truly moral collectivity: Helping your neighbor out of generosity and not out of obligation. With less control imposed by government, it meant Americans had the chance to enjoy more freedom and had to accept more responsibility for the state of their society.

In 1776 thirteen British colonies in the New World decided to no longer take orders from a distant King. The traditional, hierarchical system of society no longer held any attraction to the new American culture that had emerged, likely influenced by what the European settlers saw in the Native American cultures they encountered.

The “knowing without thinking” state seems to be the subject of new research, where people respond to reality before they are conscious of any thoughts about it. In Sahaja Yoga Meditation, that state of “knowing without thinking” becomes conscious.

My mind wants to fight with everything. My mind is in a constant battle with reality. My mind is never satisfied with the way things are. But in a state of Sahaja Meditation, my mind takes a break. It gets out of the way. Then, into my awareness floods glorious reality — intense, unfiltered, wondrous.

In meditation, I enjoy what is happening right now. I actually appreciate what is going on, instead of wrestling with the reality of what is happening right now.