When I turned fifteen, half-a-century ago TODAY🎈 — back in the era of Rock’n’Roll🎸 — this is how I thought I would look now! (Rock-Star saving the World with MUSIC🎶 … didn’t quite work out that way😉)
Here’s a new melody/rythmn I played spontaneously in morning meditation today (and some top music stars talking about thoughtless-awareness and the cool-breeze)
Georgio Pilla, Italian art critic ~Austrian artist Brigitte Saugstad~ (Venice, 16 January 2008)
“This artist, this charming signorina, is here to present her ceramic work. These pieces are art in its purest form. She takes nature and transforms it into art. That alone should give you an idea of her intellectual and comprehensive capacity. But she doesnʼt rest there. She also wants to give us the feeling of joy in form, and so these pieces were created, beautiful, sometimes white, sometimes colorful, a little darker a little lighter. And when she concentrates on her favorite sport, she gives us the ice princesses, where the body weight defies gravity. As you can see, the skaters are quite robust, but their whole being, the whole body, their physical form turns to poetry in her hands. They simply float in the air, there is no weight, only music and dance, only pleasure in contact with the frozen earth or lifting up and away from it. These ice dancers, when they are in the air, appear to be flying. It looks like there is no weight holding them down. She was able to feel this and express it in these wonderful works of art. Look at these figures that float towards the sky. It is truly an expression of joy, an expression of happiness, and much more.
Nature is expressed in these beautiful spheres, which are made up of nothing but little field flowers. Look at the wonderful forms that remind me of seashells and the waves, the song the ocean sings. We are looking at pure art; we are in the hands of an artist. Out of a handful of earth, out of a handful of clay, life is created, because these figures are alive. They live in her and, as they are here in front of us, they should also live in us now and in the future. We should feel the joy and the lightness of heart that she has given us today.”
Yesterday my wife and I felt a deep peace filling our nervous systems and I heard the same from friends in various parts of the world. There is definitely a general change of frequency taking place on Earth which is fine tuning, but also exposing embedded corruptions, individually and collectively. For over forty years I’ve been advising others to develop subtly by meditating (long before most doctors discovered its usefulness).
Please take a few minutes a day for this. The only way out of all this mess created by human beings is in-and-up. Otherwise the shaking and quaking is going to be experienced more and more intensely, and the roots of the chaos in us cannot be replaced by harmony.
I’ve enjoyed sixty-three Christmases with family and friends. Most of them were at home in the suburbs just south of Vancouver, and in the charming old heart of Vienna. A few were in rural India. One was in New Jersey, and one in North Carolina. Although all of these occasions bring back colourful memories of abundance and joy, one of the most memorable happened when I was, internally and externally, quite down and out — at the bottom of a long dive that was about to transform into a steady ascent that is still bringing me higher and higher today. Forty years ago, Christmas 1981 (before portable telephones, personal computers, The Internet, etc.) I was living in a ‘shack by the railroad track’, on the edge of a wealthy neighbourhood. At this time of my life I used to have my place open to parties with local peers on the weekends. On Monday I would cash-in all the beer bottles to buy a bit of food for the week. My fridge was always empty (except for all the alcohol from Friday to Sunday). On this occasion I came back to my humble home late Christmas evening and opened the fridge for some reason. I can’t describe to you my utter surprise when I FOUND IT PACKED FULL OF EVERY IMAGINABLE FOOD! Although I tried to find out who did it, none of my many smiling friends would admit to doing the deed. I still don’t know. When I moved back to Canada twenty years later, a mature married man who had traveled the world and enjoyed undreamed of wonderful experiences, it was about a year before I ran into one of the old crowd (back in the 1970s, a couple hundred teenagers, and then young adults, in North Delta). My heart sprang open and my chest was filled with gravity-defying mirth! Then that same day I ran into three more old buddies in various locations, between ten and thirty kilometers apart, something I consider nothing less than a miracle. (As a result I ended up organizing a reunion that brought about a hundred and fifty of us back together for a nostalgic gathering.)
One thing that life has taught me is that Friendship is the highest form of love (collective consciousness). Even in a family, if the members aren’t ‘friends’, there’s no real bond. May the whole world become a family of best friends.
An artist’s depiction of possibly the first historical mention (Bible) of the cool breeze https://wemeditate.com/subtle-system/kundalini (“Wind of the Holy Spirit”) and flowing waves of light (“Tongues of Flames”) above the heads of Self-realized human beings:
There are two main reasons for the present Chaos, in which all corruptions are being exposed:
For all good people to turn to their Spirit for ultimate fulfillment;
And for already balanced, sensitive and dynamic persons to develop their power of Witnessing. Simple. Keep your mind clear and your heart brimming with love.
We all seem to be climbing a great mountain, some slower, some quicker. Up here near the summit we discover that we are free from the bindings of our egos, conditionings and physical bodies — that we exist permanently above and beyond these limitations. In Rhonda Byrne’s new book, The Greatest Secret, I was happy to hear that deep experiences I’ve been having for almost forty years, through the teachings of Shri Mataji and the practice of Sahaja Yoga meditation, are becoming mainstream. This isn’t because of mass media, but because human beings are asking the right questions and feeling reality within themselves. But I find that this new book, although it beautifully describes thoughtless-awareness and natural detachment from internal and external complications, is missing much of the detail that so many of us have experienced through daily, actual meditation. Among the most prominent phenomena is the amazing ‘cool breeze’ that flows in our central nervous systems when human beings attain joyful equilibrium. Also missing are the details of the workings of our subtle-systems of energy centers and channels, and the benevolent Kundalini energy in our spines.
Of course, the highest priority is the deep, silent meditation itself, a natural, essential state that should be achieved by all. But The Greatest Secret is only a glimpse through the window of enlightenment. Just sayin’. https://wemeditate.co
• Meditators showed around 7% more grey matter, the largest published difference between healthy groups.
• As grey matter decreases with age and with most mental illnesses, this difference throughout the brain is associated with a younger and healthier brain.
• The grey matter difference was more marked in areas related to the control of attention and emotions.
An investigation on the influence of mental silence in the human brain has just been published in the magazine Plos One. The article is entitled: “Larger whole brain grey matter associated with long-term Sahaja Yoga Meditation: a detailed area by area comparison”. The original text is available at the following link:https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0237552
It is said that, for more than forty thousand years, human beings have a language that allows us to communicate with precision, that language is reproduced within our brain as thoughts without interruption. When negative thoughts are repeated in vicious cycles, our mental health can be affected with issues such as stress, anxiety or depression.
Today there is plenty of scientific literature that shows that being with the attention in the present moment, in the here and now, is beneficial for our psyche and our general health. Unfortunately, thoughts take us out of the present moment and to stop the thoughts for a long time is not easy, especially when we are not doing tasks that demands much attention.
Yoga includes many different techniques, among which meditation (Dhayana in classical yoga) plays a leading role. The first yoga treatise, “The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali”, mentions that “yoga is the suppression of the modifications of the mind.” In ancient yoga a higher state of consciousness has been described, called “Nirvichara Samadhi”, which can be translated as “mental silence” or “thoughtless awareness”. In this state, the mind is calm, with a feeling of inner bliss, and with the attention focused on the present moment. Sahaja Yoga Meditation puts into practice the goals of classical Yoga to achieve the state of Nirvichara or mental silence.
Researchers led by Professor Sergio Elías Hernández from the University of La Laguna in Tenerife (ULL), in collaboration with scientists from King’s College London University, Jaume I University of Castellón and Sermas of Madrid, have been exploring for more than ten years the benefits of the state of mental silence on the human brain.
The study was carried out at the ULL MRI scanner, where the researchers recorded the brain anatomy of 23 meditator volunteers, experts in Sahaja Yoga meditation, and 23 non-meditating volunteers. Both groups were made up of healthy volunteers and both groups did not differ in age, educational level, ethnicity, proportion of men and women, etc.
To better understand this study, we must mention that the brain tissue is classified, according to its appearance, into three types: grey matter, made up of neuronal bodies and interconnections, (dark grey in resonance images); the white matter, formed by nerve fibers or long connections between distant areas, (light grey in the resonance images), and the cerebrospinal fluid or watery substance that fills the interior voids and serves as protection and transport of chemical substances.
The study of brain anatomy showed that meditators had, on average, 7% more grey matter in the whole brain. This type of comparison of the grey matter of the brain has been made in recent years among other groups in: athletes, musicians, taxi drivers, Buddhists, mindfulness meditators, etc. In these cases, the analyses showed that the group studied had local differences, greater grey matter, in brain areas associated with their specific practice, but the difference was never in the whole brain as it is the case with mental silence. The difference of 7% larger grey matter is especially significant if one takes into account that our brain loses between 0.15% and 0.3% of grey matter per year and small differences in grey matter can mark whether or not we keep intact our cognitive functions. It should be also noted that diseases, typical of the elderly, such as Alzheimer’s, senile dementia or Parkinson’s are also associated with loss of grey matter.
An advance of this study was published in the same journal Plos One in 2016, but the available methodology did not allow a detailed study to be made to see how the grey matter differences were distributed in the different areas of the brain. Given the uniqueness of the group differences observed throughout the whole brain, the researchers had to develop a specific statistical method (ad- hoc) to be able to evaluate these differences, area by area. Of all the brain areas, the grey matter difference was significantly larger in meditators in the right temporal lobe, an area associated with emotions, and in both frontal lobes, areas associated with cognitive and emotional self-control functions.
Study authors: Sergio Elías Hernándeza*, Roberto Dortab, José Sueroc, Alfonso Barros-Loscertalesd, José Luis González-Morae, Katya Rubiaf
a: Departamento de Ingeniería Industrial, Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain.
b: Departamento de Matemáticas, Estadística e Investigación Operativa, Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain.
c: Centro de Salud Jazmín, Sermas, Madrid, Spain. d: Departamento de Psycología, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, Spain. e: Departamento de Fisiología, Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain f: Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College, Londres, UK.
*Author for more information: Email: sehdez@ull.edu.es
Two weeks before May 5, 1982, I learned how to meditate (really meditate, in thoughtless awareness, feeling the benevolent effects of my very own kundalini energy in me). Now Sahaja Yoga is celebrating 50 years of establishing global transformation, from a time when meditation was viewed as an esoteric hobby, to the present when it’s recommended worldwide by health experts for its universal balancing and integrative effects.
How time flies. Today it’s been half-a-century since that crucial sprouting that’s since risen into this majestic tree. Then, for me, it was still a 12-year-old sapling that has gradually lifted me into reality.
It’s so peaceful and fulfilling up here. Thank You, Shri Mataji, and everyone that has dedicated their lives to establishing this essential metamorphosis. 🦋🌳
We’re about to enter the decade that history books will remember as the one that ushered in the END OF KALI YUGA, the Age of Darkness.
As we find ourselves moving more and more beyond duality we will soon discover all the precious treasures in ourselves and others.
So, HO-HO-HO! HOLD on to your hat and enjoy the sleigh ride 🛷
HAPPY NEW AGE! 😁 (Optimism is contagious 😉)
Lots of love💗
Edward and Brigitte
🌈🌹
Year 2020 will be the last one of the age of materialism…
✨“The biggest and grandest alignment comes on December 21, 2020 when Jupiter joins Saturn in what’s referred to as the great conjunction. “✨
✨“These grand conjunctions come every 20 years, but this meeting has extra gravitas. It marks the end of a 200-year cycle of unions in earth signs that’s brought the age of materialism, banking, capitalism and corporations.”✨
✨“December 2020 kicks off a new 200-year cycle of unions in air signs. What that will bring isn’t entirely clear yet, but early indications are that thought, philosophy and truth will prevail. This is going to be a big shift.”✨
Unlike the highly acclaimed new Joker movie, The King’s Speech depicts the struggle from childhood trauma up into the noble realms of bravery, compassion and liberation. (With 12 Oscar nominations, it is among the most nominated films of all time.) Decadent Gotham City and megalomanic Nazi Germany rise up darkly as universal threats to the shattered child, as does the wanton destruction of our biosphere and essential moral integrity today. As a victim of deep childhood trauma that has taken decades for me to transcend, I find it tremendously compelling and inspiring. How many of us can indeed be born again like a phoenix from the ashes of our past?
Everything we’ve generally accepted about human beings is quickly changing. As soon as we discover that we are much larger and more precious than our familiar shells, all the Game rules change. Our limited perception is expanding out into beautiful reality. This is what it’s all been leading up to.
More about the mysterious, enlightening ‘cool breeze’ appearing in our modern culture, and forgiveness that enables ‘thoughtless awareness’:
Sarayu = Wind: The name is the feminine derivative of the Sanskrit root सर् sar “to flow”; as a masculine stem, saráyu- means “air, wind”, i.e. “that which is streaming”.
Long, long ago in Canada, when I, as a small child, was hiding in my bedroom listening to the drunken fights of my parents; or, at fifteen, hurrying terrified through a dark suburban neighbourhood seeking rescue as my first massive dose of LSD ripped through my brain; or, as a young adult, begging for coins on a city street or curled up on the concrete under newspapers, trying to catch glimpses of my unreachable dreams,
I could never have suspected that I would someday be enjoying a good book in the living room of my homestead on the other side of the world, loved and respected and at peace with my soul and the universe.
It all comes from within us, every bountiful drop of life manifesting.
Seek the silence of the present moment whence abundance springs.
Union is the key to the front door.
Life is a journey. Step out of the pain shadows into the comforting light And always carry your true home in that beautiful heart of yours.
Victoria:
‘We were reminiscing about Cabella. Our daughter Joy said “For us children, Uncle Eddie was King” and “When I grow up I’m going to follow his tradition of making all the children happy.” Then she told us about the coins you used to bury in the sandpit and how they found enough to buy an ice cream, and other lovely stories and memories.’
I was born into the realm of the Wild West when Elvis was king, at the height of social freedoms which were slipping steadily down into the mists of abandon. Unlimited alcohol and tobacco consumption were a household norm for many families, with few or no suspicions about their ill effects — gross and subtle.
My first eight years took me along an often bumpy road, with the scary shadows of evermore chaos lurking just around the next bend. But there was also love. I grew up with some delightfully humorous and caring souls. My best memories still shine from those joyous occasions when we, once a year, exchanged presents, had fun together, and temporarily forgot all our fears and worries: Christmas Days!
Just before my eighth Christmas in 1965, my Dad returned home, sober, after a four year absence. From that time on, everything seemed to get more prosperous and abundant — including the number of siblings. Within another three years we would be eight brothers and sisters celebrating at home together!
I was then blessed to live through a period of wealth and wellbeing that most children in the world will never know. Looking back at my long climb as a human being, I recognize how very lucky I’ve been this time around.
May the liberating Innocence, that we call Luck, fill the hearts of good people, everywhere.
Wishing you and yours Love and Light at this special time,
your friend in this abundant moment, Ed
(We were, oldest to youngest: Dad, Mom, Darlene, Cheryl, Rick, Ed, Glenn, David, Allan and Don. Christmases were also celebrated at Nana and Grandpa’s place, Mom’s Finnish parents. Almost half-a-century later we would be three more, Tia, Karen and Cliff, senior siblings divided from us by Dad’s first divorce.)
Rick, Mom, Nana, Glenn, Eddie, Darlene and Cheryl, Grandpa and David
Rick, Cheryl, Eddie, Glenn, Darlene and David
Eddie’s haircut, May 1965 (a month before the end of grade one, and still half a year before that special Christmas that marked the end of Dad’s long drunken absence)
Glenn, David and Eddie
Darlene, Mom, Cheryl, Rick, Eddie, Glenn and David
David, Glenn and Eddie
Cheryl and Darlene, Glenn, Eddie, Rick and David
Darlene, Rick and Cheryl (the ‘Big Kids’) and Eddie, Glenn and David (the ‘Little Kids’)
Cheryl, Glenn and David
Darlene, Mom and Dad, Eddie, Nana, Rick, Cheryl, David and Glenn
Eddie, Rick, Darlene, Dad, Allan, Mom, Cheryl, Glenn and David
Eddie, Rick, Darlene, Dad, Allan, Mom, Cheryl, Glenn and David
Rick, Allan, Mom and Nana
Allan and Cheryl
Glenn, David and Eddie
Allan, Glenn, Eddie, Don and David
Darlene, Dad, Eddie, Don and Rick
Rick, Cheryl, Darlene and Eddie, Dad with David, Mom with Don, Allan and Glenn
I was born into the realm of the Wild West when Elvis was king, at the height of social freedoms which were slipping steadily down into the mists of abandon. Unlimited alcohol and tobacco consumption were a household norm for many families, with few or no suspicions about their ill effects — gross and subtle.
My first eight years took me along an often bumpy road, with the scary shadows of evermore chaos lurking just around the next bend. But there was also love. I grew up with some delightfully humorous and caring souls. My best memories still shine from those joyous occasions when we, once a year, exchanged presents, had fun together, and temporarily forgot all our fears and worries: Christmas Days!
Just before my eighth Christmas in 1965, my Dad returned home, sober, after a four year absence. From that time on, everything seemed to get more prosperous and abundant — including the number of siblings. Within another three years we would be eight brothers and sisters celebrating at home together!
I was then blessed to live through a period of wealth and wellbeing that most children in the world will never know. Looking back at my long climb as a human being, I recognize how very lucky I’ve been this time around.
May the liberating Innocence, that we call Luck, fill the hearts of good people, everywhere.
Wishing you and yours Love and Light at this special time,
your friend in this abundant moment, Ed
(We were, oldest to youngest: Dad, Mom, Darlene, Cheryl, Rick, Ed, Glenn, David, Allan and Don. Christmases were also celebrated at Nana and Grandpa’s place, Mom’s Finnish parents. Almost half-a-century later we would be three more, Tia, Karen and Cliff, senior siblings divided from us by Dad’s first divorce.)
Rick, Mom, Nana, Glenn, Eddie, Darlene and Cheryl, Grandpa and David
Rick, Cheryl, Eddie, Glenn, Darlene and David
Eddie’s haircut, May 1965 (a month before the end of grade one, and still half a year before that special Christmas that marked the end of Dad’s long drunken absence)
Glenn, David and Eddie
Darlene, Mom, Cheryl, Rick, Eddie, Glenn and David
David, Glenn and Eddie
Cheryl and Darlene, Glenn, Eddie, Rick and David
Darlene, Rick and Cheryl (the ‘Big Kids’) and Eddie, Glenn and David (the ‘Little Kids’)
Cheryl, Glenn and David
Darlene, Mom and Dad, Eddie, Nana, Rick, Cheryl, David and Glenn
Eddie, Rick, Darlene, Dad, Allan, Mom, Cheryl, Glenn and David
Eddie, Rick, Darlene, Dad, Allan, Mom, Cheryl, Glenn and David
Rick, Allan, Mom and Nana
Allan and Cheryl
Glenn, David and Eddie
Allan, Glenn, Eddie, Don and David
Darlene, Dad, Eddie, Don and Rick
Rick, Cheryl, Darlene and Eddie, Dad with David, Mom with Don, Allan and Glenn
… In Sahaja meditation, there is no deliberate effort to “concentrate,” and certainly, you do not need to focus your attention on a specific object. In fact, the goal is to avoid concentration or mental activity altogether. There’s no need to be mindful of or engage with your thoughts and feelings while meditating.
In fact, you won’t want to. Engaging your mind in such mental noise will only drag your attention back down to the first floor — that mental plane — rather than remaining in the state of thoughtless awareness. Thoughtless awareness is not simply a thought vacuum or state of thoughtless emptiness on the mental plane. It is a whole new dimension of awareness, higher awareness that is difficult to describe to someone who has not yet experienced it. We cannot fully conceive of its depth or describe it with language we’re accustomed to using on the ordinary mental plane.
A few years ago a friend of ours was among the runners-up for a prestigious international short films award. After the viewing ceremony, a celebrity in the audience (Natalie Portman) sent Silvina a note telling that she had never felt such a deep experience from a spiritual film before.
For the period of about a year-and-a-half after I finally found out how to actually meditate in April 1982 (having put in much effort already for eight years, without benefit) and I moved away from the party neighbourhood of my youth, there seem to be no photos of my amazing progress. Now, by chance, I saw THAT Ed, exactly thirty-four birthdays ago, strolling along with a wedding procession in the heart of New Delhi!
I had arrived alone at 2:00 a.m. in humid Bombay two weeks before, after an exhausting series of flights, with an overweight suitcase and a phone number. It was the first international journey in my quarter century of life on Earth. (Little did I guess then that I would return to India more than twenty times!) Someone back home in Vancouver had just bought my ’65 Chevy panel van, enabling me to join my new yogi friends on the India tour. A kindly airport police officer helped me reach the others, already a huge, international group of pilgrims, and that very evening I met Shri Mataji, the founder and teacher of Sahaja Yoga meditation, on the first of many joyful occasions over the coming days, years and decades, in various countries.
Among the many memorable events in Delhi was our viewing of the new Gandhi movie in the cinema that it had world premiered in just nine weeks before. (As a girl, Shri Mataji had spent time with Gandhi at his ashram, where he would sometimes implement Her advice on spiritual issues.) I remember walking out of that air-conditioned building and looking up at the hot, wide blue sky, realizing that those historic happenings had taken place not long ago under this very canopy.
I was lucky to be among those few of us from Canada (at that time there were only a handful of people practicing Sahaja Yoga in North America) that were invited to stay for a few days with Shri Mataji in Her daughter’s house. Several massive public programs were held throughout the city, and I attended my first puja, which celebrated Shivaratri at that time. At the compound where we all met each day, someone organized a cake and candles 🎂, and some new friends sang Happy Birthday to me that third day of February … so long ago, now! I drank lots of yummy chai there, discovering too late that the caffein was brutal on my sensitive liver. We also travelled up to the Himalayan foothills, where I saw some Indian girls enjoy snow for the first time. I spent that wonderful month in India without getting sick, a bit of a miracle (although as soon as I got back to the West I cleared out quite thoroughly!)
I still feel all that as a solid building block in my evolution, and this unexpected window view now brings a fresh breeze to grownup Ed.💨
(And, adding an interesting twist to the perspective: I happen to be turning 59 now, the same age Shri Mataji was when we first met back then!)
Shri Mataji gave each of us a present that afternoon (6 Feb 1983)
They were original Indian artworks. Somehow I managed to hold on to mine (the only thing I have left from my early twenties). It now hangs in my little art-studio in our homestead in the Vienna Woods:
(from us and our new ‘Family’!)
Self-Help 