Creation, Man and his fulfillment (Universe is a beautiful cosmos)

Lecture given at Gandhi Bhawan, Delhi University (India), on 1 February 1979.
In this lecture I should talk about the creation. I would switch on from the time, when we were just amoebae. Every scientist who is open minded can see for himself that this universe is a beautiful cosmos, is very well organized and has run very smoothly and can also deduce that the creation of this particular universe has led to the creation of this Mother Earth.
About five billion years back, this Mother Earth which was in gaseous form condensed & was cooled down. How was it cooled down to the extent it did ? Scientists accept this fact just as it is, they cannot find out because they have limitations. Why this thing happened ? How it was started ? It is easy to say there is no God but very difficult to explain many things without saying that there is God, e.g. the time that was taken for this universe to create a human being, is so very short, that nothing else can explain it.
If you use the law of chance, we can find out how many times the permutations and combinations have to work to create even a living cell. For example, in a test tube if you have 50 red pills & 50 white pills, all arranged in such a manner that all the red ones are at the bottom and that white ones are at the top, You have to go on shaking them, and the arrangement of the pills gets disorganized completely. Then to organize it back fully into the original arrangement, how many times one has to shake ? They have discovered a formula, that is -n raised to power something, something. According to
this formula, if human beings are created by chance, it seems an impossibility ; because the time that is taken so far is so short that only, at the most, may be, some living cell could have been created.
Why a complicated human being has been created and so beautifully it is organized within himself, that it is hard to believe that some juggler was not behind the show. There must have been some scientist who has achieved these results. It could have only been possible by some special hand to do these things; I mean if there was no organization, no thinking, no planning, no powerful personality, The Almighty behind it, it could not have been possible.
As science has its limitations, of course, we cannot find out how was it expedited, how it took place ? But we can see, that we have achieved something in the field of science, by one method, perhaps similar to one that was used to trigger our evolution so fast.
When I was a young student in school, at that time I could never have believed that we could ever react the moon; none could have believed. If anyone would have said that, the people would have laughed at such a conjecture. Even today if you tell my grandmother, she does not believe it. She thinks it is just a story you are telling. But we have reached the moon, no doubt.
In this system, we have used a very wonderful system of putting 5 capsules one to another & the first capsule, the lowest one explodes and triggers the movement of the rest of four eapsules. When the second one explodes, it gives an acceleration many more times than that with which it was already moving; the speed increases in such a tremendous way that suddenly we find that the acceleration is a very high multiple of the first one; then the third one when it explodes gives another push to the capsule. Next, the fourth one explodes; then the fifth one which contains the spacecraft. Through this kind of explosions from one to the other, through that built-in mechanism, we have been able to achieve a very high acceleration for the spacecraft.
In the same way our evolution has taken place. We got this idea without even knowing about our evolution from the UNCONSCIOUS. We have come to know how it has happened, but we cannot correlate both these together. So, in the same way a human being was created out of amoebae or amoebae was created out of all the elements. In the same manner we can say that we were made again of 5 capsules. The first one is the physical, our physical being. Inside the physical being was kept the emotional being. Inside the emotional being was kept the spiritual being & inside the spiritual being was kept the spirit or our attention.
We can say, KUNDALINI is the one that triggers, that is the one that explodes. So Kundalini force is in everything, but in the most affective, the best, the highest form, it is in human beings. It is this force which exists in everyone and evolves everything, say from carbon to the amoebae stage and from amoebae to animal stage & from animal to human stage. Even in elements it exists because the elements also evolve. We do not know how they evolve but it happens in Nature, that elements start changing their forms & mass and they become different elements; we have no idea of this because we have no way of measuring the quantity of this change that is taking place. Then the animals also change, from fishes, many become reptiles, out of reptiles many become mammals, from mammals, many become primates, monkeys and then human beings. All this happening takes place. How many are destroyed, how many remain, how many are transformed, nobody has kept any account of it.
Today, we talk of population problem, perhaps many animals have taken birth as humans. You can ,see the effect of that, the way people are behaving; you can be sure that many animals have taken human form and they have yet to go through lot of evolution & training as a human being to understand the value of human life. A human being starts evolving within himself.
Now we have been human beings, as they say, for 14,000 years and we have been growing inside through our freedom, Human beings are the only people who get freedom to evolve themselves to understand what is wrong & what is bad. This freedom is granted because without freedom you cannot go any further. For example, when you start studying in a school, you are told to learn tables 2 x 10-20; you learn by heart and do not question why it is so, but just go on and on. But when you reach a certain standard of education, say graduation or post graduation standard, then you are given freedom to write on this subject-why is it that when you multiply 2 by 10 it is 20 ? It is because you have reached a certain stage of development. At this stage you are given freedom to find out for yourself. That is how you are developed and then by this development only you can teach the other people who are coming up.This is the way the evolution has been.
So far you have not felt your evolution from amoebae to this stage. You do not know how you became a human being, you take it for granted. Even if you see your eyes, they are so complicated. It is such a complicated organ that if you start studying them you will be amazed how things are made. If you just prick a pin in my finger, immediately there is a reflex action. It is so nicely built, it is so nicely arranged; it is so quick, it is so efficient, that one is surprised and amazed at the wonders of this kind of organization, that is this human body. But you see what human beings are, they are inefficiency personified. I sent four telegrams to my daughter and today she says, she received one telegram after one month.
Human beings have been given freedom to understand, to develop their own efficiency, to receive the ultimate knowledge of the Creator of this creation and the powers of the Creator. That is why, the Kundalini is placed in the human beings alone though there is Kundalini force and there is Kundalini in another form in everything that exists. Only in the human beings, this force is kept in the triangular bone in dormant state, to trigger their last jump into the unknown. Now this Kundalini exists, this is there.
But to begin with, if I say before starting all this creation, who was created first, it is most interesting & may not be very congenial to the mind of a scientist. It is much beyond science I am talking now, that much before anything was created on this Earth.
Holiness was created, that we call the Pavitrata. Sri Ganesha is the deity of that Holiness, God has created this Holiness to protect this creation. This atmosphere of Holiness. He created to protect all the people and all the creativities which are there and which are being created by Him, otherwise nothing would work out, Just think if one of the Oceans was deeper even by 10 feet the balance of Earth would have toppled down ; just imagine what a speed this Mother Earth has, it revolves with such a tremendous speed goes round the Sun regularly in a proper way, not in a round way, but in a special style as you know. She creates day and night for you. Day to work and night to rest. How she herself has created this beautiful atmosphere for you and has maintained the balance and the temperature that was given to Her, is only done by the power of Holiness that was created first.
Now, man in his foolishness is challenging that Holiness. He thinks he can challenge God, that is the sign of his dwarfness. If he bad risen to that height where he could feel God pulsating in every thing he would never have done that. But before he could reach that state of perfection he has started talking about God. Who is going to challenge his authority of this stupid man, who does not want to achieve his perfection and wants to talk big.
All pervading power is of Holiness which corrects, which guides which co-ordinates, which loves and which organizes everything for you to get this awakening within you. So one must understand, how Kundalini awakening is the most important thing that has to happen. Kundalini awakening is the only way you are going to know your spirit. This is the most important happening in the history of creation.
It is like laying out the garden, then you plant the, trees, the trees have flowers and now the time has come, the fruits must appear. It is the most important thing and has to happen. Every individual who is seeking the TRUTH will know it.
The trouble with truth is, that you have to seek it with all humility in your own being. No body can hypnotize people for seeking truth, those who are hypnotized cannot understand. In all your awareness, in all your dignity you have to get the knowledge of truth.
But it is,., not just giving, you a lecture that you are going to understand. It is not brainwashing that has been done by all nonsensical people throughout. It is the happening, the actualization by which you reach that state of awareness ‘ by which you develop the dynamics of collective consciousness, by which you become collectively conscious, is an awareness which develops within you – is real actualization.
As you are a human being, you know that when this capsule of human being was triggered you got lots of things, e.g., your awareness is more than that of animals. ‘][he University itself, animals do not have any universities. Animals don’t understand gardens, they don’t understand dirt and filth, they don’t understand beauty. All this his come to you, deep within you manifested as soon as you become human beings.
So, as soon as you become super human being through Kundalini awakening you become aware of yourself within and you become aware of others within. This is the collective consciousness, this is what Sahaja Yoga is. Sahaja Yoga is the system of nature.
The way this creation took place is also Sahaja. ‘Sah’ means with, & ja means born, Sahaja means born with. Every thing is built in within you like in a seed.
If you see a seed it has a primule within it to sprout. Seed has the complete power of tile tree it is going to be. The whole thing is in the seed, in the same way in the human seed the whole picture of what he is going to be, is built in the whole mechanism, is placed within.
Now there are the undercurrents of your being, which I will be describing to you. What are the forces built up inside human beings ? Only thing I would like to say that you are like a computer, you are already made like a computer, only thing is that you have to be put to the mains. If you are put to the mains then the computer starts working by itself, but it is not the way you understand a machine, You are a human beings, you know what is love. To a scientist I cannot talk of love, I am talking of Divine Holiness, the love of God which has created you, which wants you to know Him. Through science you cannot do that. Every scientist must be loving somebody if not his children at least, his dog. He must be loving flowers, if not flowers he might be loving his horses, but he knows what is love. And if he can understand that spark of love, from where it has come, love that I am talking about is a synthesis of all these powers.
Science deals with only a very little portion, I will also tell you which part of this power deals with our physical being and out of which how much a scientist knows. You will be surprised that if knowledge is an Ocean, the scientist knows only a drop. And to know the Ocean, the drop is to be dissolved in the Ocean. But a drop cannot by its own effort, become the Ocean, the Ocean has to dissolve the drop. And that is what Ocean has to do, it flies creation has to have its fulfillment and His beautiful creation is manifested in the human being. The human being must find out his fulfillment. If he cannot find out his fulfillment, he cannot reach perfection in anyone of his endeavors. God, Himself will not rest till he does that. For, who would like to destroy one’s own creation. In thousands and thousand of years of time this has come to its fulfillment and if it is to be done by me, if I am the person who is supposed to trigger your Kundalini, why should you have any objection? Thank God, I was not a scientist, otherwise I would have finished my life making an atom bomb. Thank God, I am not a psychologist, otherwise I would have gone mad, listening to mad people. Thank God, I am not a politician, you know how they are.
Thank God, I am none of these, I am just your Mother, concerned, absolutely concerned, about your ultimate well beings and not about superficial things.
May God bless you all.
H.H. Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

Yagnya

$${\displaystyle E=mc^{2}}$$

, wrote Einstein and ever since then, it's imprinted in popular imagination that energy occupies a prime position in the universe that we live in. But that's physics. In an extraordinary new book, The Vital Question , Nick Lane, researcher and lecturer in evolutionary biochemistry argues that, rather than information being the fundamental currency of transmission in biological processes, it's actually energy.

In a tour de force of creative visualisation, the author takes the reader by the hand into the inner workings of cellular energy exchange involving food, photon gradients and ATP.

The sense given by these descriptions is that: 'As above, so below' , an axiom of Fluddian hermetic alchemy and given a modern restatement by Neil Shubin as 'The Universe Within'. For all intents and purposes the biological cell is a mini- universe, where analogous energy processes to those going on in the macro universe, play out.

As science makes it's halting way along the path of discovery, checking and then rechecking her steps, she may arrive at the destination only to discover that it  is already occupied by others who came up by a different route. 'Not fair!' may be her objection, 'You're supposed to have your feet tied together like this as you walk; and certainly no wings allowed'.

There's an ancient hymn called the 'Purusha Sukta' from the Rig Veda, the world's first 'scientific treatise' in so far as it gives the detailed methods for reproducing an 'experiment', in which it is declared that the universe is created from 'yagnya'.

Briefly stated 'yagnya' means sacrifice, in which fire is the prime mover and is so important as to acquire the status of a god, named Agni in the rig veda ( the word 'ignite' likely a derivative of this).

Yagnya is the process of consumption where there is a consumer(representing fire) and something is consumed. When viewed like this it is easy to understand how this process may be all-pervasive; covering a day in the life of a star in inter-galactic space, to the ups and downs of the global economy, to how well you're digesting that bowl of pasta you had for lunch.

 

On the subject of lunch, it's for no small reason that in Ayurveda, traditional Indian medicine, the state of an individual's health and vitality is directly correlated with the strength of their 'digestive fire' ('fire in the belly').

 

In the final chapters of Nick Lane's book there's speculation about human ageing and the limits of longevity. Again, in Ayurveda, yagnya is the key*.

 

* see National Institute of Health - Concept of Ageing in Ayurveda) 

and Future of Ageing - letter to Atul Gwande et al    

Fire Worship down the Ages

Ever since early humans discovered that by rubbing two sticks together you could start a nice blaze which could be used to cook the sunday roast – the hind quarter of a woolly mammoth; not to mention, keeping your semi-detached cave warm on blustery winter nights , frightening off the odd sabre-tooth tiger and giving the kids some fun and laughter by making shadow animals on the cave walls; humans have developed a healthy respect for fire.

So much so that , when we first learnt to write grafitti, the first thing we wrote about was a hymn in praise of fire . This came to be called the Rik Veda and fire, now raised to the level of a god, was called ‘Agni’ . Notice how we’ve held on to this name down the millennia. The word ‘ignite’ still means to spark a fire.

The hymns in the Rik Veda included, amongst many verses in praise of the fire god Agni, this particular verse:

“Through Agni man obtaineth wealth, yea, plenty waxing day by day,

Most rich in heroes, glorious.”

This advice was taken seriously by many cultures of the ancient world , particularly the Greek , Persian and Indus valley civilizations who developed the injunction into a formalised ritual complete with a set of standard operating procedures.

As with all good things that spread far and wide , variations on a theme crept in and soon the praise of sacred fire included the concept of burnt offering and sacrifice .

Clearly there must have been something in it because it withstood the test of time and survives in India today . The practice is called variously , yagnya, homa , havan and has a place in Indian life, particularly during auspicious undertakings such as marriages, starting a business or seeking ongoing prosperity for a business or in family life.

When economists look into why the Indian economy is galloping along while many other world economies are not doing so well , they might , in secret curiosity, try correlating the prevalence of the practice of havans with GDP growth.

But isn’t this specifically a hindu religious practice?

Maybe, but not necessarily so; for two reasons.

Firstly, tracing the practice back through it’s antecedents, it has clearly been around longer than the set of practices recognised to be specifically hindu practices ,

Secondly, as any one will tell you who is still lucky enough to live in home that has a roaring open fire during winter months , there is a psychosomatic buzz to be had from these creature comfort far more basic to our human nature than religious affiliation. Abraham Maslow alluded to this with his pyramid of human needs.

Superhumans are really coming - unpacking 'Junk' DNA

 Superhumans are really coming. Remember where you read this first.

Like pieces of a jigsaw, advances in the understanding of the human genome, chronicled in two recent books: The Gene and Junk DNA are rapidly giving a clearer picture of how illness and aging can be tracked back to genetic malfunctioning.

This does tend to suggest that if the malfunctioning was not there, then illness and aging need not be the inevitable facts of life that we currently assume them to be.

Although, the likes of CRISPR gene-editing would suggest that it will be as a result of break-throughs in medical technologies that will move us along the path to an illness-free youthful old-age, what has been discounted is the evolutionary free-pass to such a state that Nature herself may be trying to hand out.

In his book, the Gene, Siddhartha Mukerjee, using his own family history as a framing device, traces the development of the science of genetics ; touching along the way , ideas about the perfectibility of human beings that surfaced in Eugenics, a field permanently tainted by it's many negative associations.

Nessa Carey, in her book, Junk DNA looks at the DNA that make up our genes. She shows that human biological complexity is not down to the superior number of genes that we have compared to lower animals, since we share roughly the same number of genes as them. But rather our difference rests on the much higher percentage of DNA in our genes  that apparently do no useful work, compared to the DNA which code for protein and are thus the building blocks of our bodies. The ratio is 98%: 2% . That 98% is what is to referred to as 'Junk' DNA.

Professor Carey then goes on to explain how this non-coding Junk DNA in fact has a regulatory function ; telomeres being one example. The function of telomeres has been implicated in cell senescence and therefore has a direct connection to the human aging process.

So from these two books we get the possibility of the perfectibility of human beings via the genes and that the place from which this is likely to come is the 'dark matter' of our genes, the junk DNA.

If Nature built us with a certain biological potential, visible within the genes, then, like the process of fetal development or the development of a rose bud into a rose , Nature must have a device in situ for realising that potential. No human  intervention required.

That in situ device, knowledge of which has been gained from the pursuit of a science of another sort, is called the kundalini.

The sanskrit meaning of kundalini is 'a coil' , which by association with 'snake' is suggestive of a potential energy that can convert into a kinetic force.

The kundalini is said to reside at the base of the spine in the sacrum* (latin for 'sacred') in three and a half coils - a detail carrying some mathematical significance.

When 'She' ('kundalini' is a feminine noun in sanskrit) is 'awakened', in a manner similar to the spontaneous germination of a seed, She travels up a central channel corresponding to the spinal column and 'pierces' the bone at the top of the skull, through the fontanelle* (latin for 'little fountain').
 
The feeling a lot of people immediately get when this happens is of a cool breeze (pnuema ) above the head - a kind of subtle 'baptism'.

That this process is linked to curing, health, wellness and rejuvenation is hinted at (or hidden in plain view) in the familiar symbol on the side of medical emergency vehicles or ambulances in some countries. That symbol is the Rod of Asclepius (Greek god of healing and medicine) showing a snake entwined on a rod:

Published medical research on Sahaja Yoga Meditation, which is based on kundalini awakening, shows it's positive effect on:

• Depression
• ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder)
• Drug addiction
• Epilepsy
• Asthma
• Menopause
• Anxiety

 And this could be just the beginning of the noticeable effects of  kundalini.
 
Here are two quotes from two separate texts in the yoga tradition that refer to the anti-aging and rejuvenating effect of kundalini . The first is about 400 years old and the second could be over a thousand years old.

"..fragrance in the Prana enters the central (Sushumna) nerve along with the Kundalini. Then the spiritual nectar situated at the crown of the head spills into the mouth of the Kundalini and then gets absorbed throughout the body including the ten Pranas. (6:246-248).

Body gets rejuvenated The skin which covers the lustre of this nectar and is brightened by it is shed and all the organs show their bright aura. (6:250, 252-253). Now even Death is afraid of it (the body) and the aging process gets reversed and the yogi gets back his bygone childhood and he looks like a boy."

- Gyaneshwar

* 106 * Sudha sarabhi varshini - She who makes nectar flow in all our nerves from sahasrara i.e. she who gives the very pleasant experience of the ultimate

* 745 * Jaradwanthara viprabha - She who is the suns rays that swallows the darkness of old age

- Shri Lalita Sahasranama

So since aging and illness are in the genes , the kundalini appears to be using the Junk DNA as her box of tricks to pull out hitherto unknown human potential and capability.

The following is an excerpt of the transcription of an audio recording from January 30th 1982, where the founder of sahaja yoga, Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi(1923 - 2011) was live translating a 2000 year old sanskrit text about the future of humanity. 


"...that will be the state of human beings. Their old age will disappear, their body will remain as it is and they will have a body which is divine. What a promise! So don’t worry too much about your bodily comforts. All right? Then maybe some of you, if you want, you can fly in the air also, with that, with that body. Also they can become subtle and can enter into the body(of others to cure them)"

It's time to unpack that Junk DNA.
*************************************

 In his wonderfully ambitious book, A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived, geneticist, Adam Rutherford, in dismissing a future possibility of human unaided flight, says:....click here to read 'I Believe I Can Fly'

   * See Gray's Anatomy





 

The 100-Year Life.

If the prospect of hang-gliding in your 60s, dating in your 70s or acing a term paper in your 80s, grabs you, then there's some solid academic backing for the idea in the form of a recent book, The 100-Year Life: Living and Working in an Age of Longevity, by Lynda Gratton (co-author: Andrew Scott), Professor of Management Practice at London Business School.

Citing evidence that we are not only living longer but also remaining in better health as we do so, Professor Gratton goes on to argue that as a result of this youthful old-age, we, as a society, need to rethink our 3-stage life playbook of  education-work-retirement.

That may be the difficult part. Life is so fast-paced and everything has become so short-termism that it's the rare individual who manages to live their life based on a 5-year plan, never mind a 10, 20 or 30-year one. We live as chance and opportunity dictate.

Inevitably, then the only real actionable ideas offered in this thesis is around the familiar subject of financial planning. Think Pensions. Mckinsey carry an interview with Professor Gratton about her book here.

Ultimately, perhaps, the books main success may be in lending legitimacy to two current fringe  debates(depending on where you stand).

The first is anti-aging and the possibility of real biological youthful old age, suggested by the work of people such as Aubrey de Grey, who is mentioned in the book. The second is the possibility of a peaceful and adaptive change to the social order. An example being the advocacy for a Universal Basic Income - not mentioned in the book (See the result of the  recent Swiss referendum on UBI - Wall Street Journal 05 June 2016).


All this goes to show that, given a sufficient passage of time and accumulation of collective experience, even the most initially laughably farfetched ideas gain acceptance. This has been particularly noted in the realm of the advancement of scientific knowledge.

In an NIH published essay entitled: "Paths to acceptance. The advancement of scientific knowledge is an uphill struggle against 'accepted wisdom' " , author, Howard Wolinsky notes:

Unfortunately, scientists do not always follow a path of pure logic, as the German physicist Max Planck (1858–1947) once observed, “[a] new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”

That this holds true outside of science is shown by even the journey of the idea of UBI. In a recent FT article, Money for Nothing, the origin of the concept of a basic income is traced to 15th century Humanist Scholar , Thomas More. And the title of his book? Utopia: a word that has come to carry a ring of ridicule about it.

Thomas More could have just as well described his idea of a perfect social order using any of the dictionary synonyms for Utopia, such as 'Shangri-La' , 'Nirvana', 'Heaven on Earth'. But by the measure of his 7th century South Indian antecedent, Shri Kaka Bhujandar, who had ideas along similar lines, Thomas More's version would have been lacking in both conviction and visionary imagination. Why?

Whereas Thomas More confined his fantasy to a social, political and legal restructuring and couldn't have believed it would come true, Kaka Bhujandar makes the biological potential of human beings central to his projection into an ideal social structure (envision Aubrey de Grey championing UBI). And, as a practioner of a reputedly highly accurate form of ancient Indian astrology, believed it would come true.

Here's a translation, including some commentary (by Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi) of part of the writing of Kaka Bhujandar on an end to illness and old age and the coming about of  an ideal society:

"Then all your diseases will disappear so fast with this Yoga that you won’t need anything like a hospital. In the beginning, these great yogis, you people also, only by touching people, you can cure people. It’s a fact. Like the Ardhanari Nateshwara is the Shiva that will be the state of human beings. Their old age will disappear, their body will remain as it is and they will have a body which is divine. What a promise! So don’t worry too much about your bodily comforts. All right?"

“In the new Yoga system, when it will manifest in the different countries, in the new age, the administration will be governed by people who have their own powers of Yoga. Depending on how far you are in your Yoga, and their qualities as Yogis, that will be the determining fact. They will be able to create a society, which will completely fulfill their desires and their necessities and people won’t need to have money accumulated with them. The poverty and sickness will be completely finished and in their absence the country, the samada, the society will be healthy and restful and without any anger."

 (The extended 20 minute 1982 audio recording of this live translation is here )

Reasons for anchoring these predictions in the present times are based on a short extrapolation of current trends such as UBI, technological-enablement(Robotics & AI), anti-aging & longevity, meditation/mindfulness, sahaja yoga and China geo-politics. Yes, China. Apparently the bright sunshine of a happy human future may be temporarily obscured by China geo-politics and one can't help but cast the mind to present territorial disputes in The South China Sea which are simmering away in the background at the moment but could burst on to centre stage. Let's hope not.

A few explanations of terms may make the above excerpted passage clearer.

The term 'Yoga' does not refer to the physical exercises commonly associated with the word yoga. It refers to a changed state of human awareness ie an evolutionary refinement of CNS (human central nervous system).

The clue to this is to be found in the original source book of yoga, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, wherein, yoga is definitively described thus:

योग: चित्त-वृत्ति निरोध:
yogaś citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ

— Yoga Sutras 1.2

That is : ' The cessation of the flactuations of the mind generated by thinking activity is yoga'.

In Sahaja Yoga, this non-thinking awareness comes about by the spontaneous working of an innate but initially dormant energy of kundalini. This energy is understood to reside at the base of the human spine in the sacrum and emerges, on awakening, at the fontanelle at the crown of the head.

The reference to 'new Yoga system' indicates a prior version that perhaps may not have been fit for mass evolutionary purpose. And indeed in the secretive, historical practice of kundalini yoga it was just a few people who were able to achieve it's goal. Two notables were , Dnyeshwar , a Marathi mystic poet and  Baba Shri Chanda, the son of the founder of sikhism. ( See letter to Atul Gawande : The Future of Aging - prevention, reversal and palliative care).

Sahaja Yoga, on the other hand, could be an example of Nature doing a massive-scale parallel processing computing problem in evolutionary terms to scale-up a local solution (unique incidences of realisation of kundalini potential ) to global level ie en-masse kundalini awakening. (See: Cool Breeze above the head ).

"Ardhanari Nateshwara is the Shiva" refers to the iconic representation of the idealised individual having perfect balance and integration  of the gentle (feminine) and strong (male) characteristics also represented in the symbol of yin-yang.

"Then all your diseases will disappear so fast with this Yoga that you won’t need anything like a hospital" ( See Sahaja Yoga medical research: here )

Reclaim your attention and discover yourself.

Have you ever tried to view a full-body reflection of yourself in a shattered mirror? The answer is likely to be no for most people. However, we're all doing the equivalent of this daily with our attention. Perhaps, the most under-rated and frittered away of our mental assets.

Imagine your unsullied human attention as a clear and polished mirror. Then take a hammer to it and smash it. You then  have some semblance of  what has happened and continues to happen to the mass of human attention as we try to stay on top of an increasingly fast-paced and technology-driven daily existence.

If our sense of self ( full-body reflection) is intimately bound up with our attention, then there could be a population-wide epidemic of sub-clinical identity crises, as we increasingly find that the  freedom of directing our attention is usurped by the artificial exigencies of keeping up with all that's happening around us.  

This is the theme of the book by Matthew Crawford, a research fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia, The World Beyond Your Head.

However, while Matthew Crawford focuses on the problem as a socio-cultural one and therefore likely intractable; except at perhaps the level of the individual; from the point of  view of sahaja yoga the shattered attention is an evolutionary epiphenomenon and has a mass solution.

The solution is this.

The shattered attention is epiphenomenol because it is secondary effect of a deeper malaise. A malaise that has increased the incidence of stress as a medical condition and all the health implications of that . The evolutionary imperative is 'adapt or succumb'. People are adapting by taking up meditation in increasingly larger numbers.

Meditation serves as attention- training. Meditation helps, but unless a spark is added to the process the full potential of a reconstituted attention is not realised. That spark is 'kundalini awakening'.

The result is an 'enlightened attention' (see: Superhuman Awareness), which has the capacity of action in it.

To take the first steps to self-discovery do this : Achieving a lot with a very little.

A new kind of corporate exec is coming to an office near you and why you'll want to go work with them.

In a 2014 article by Rob Asghar in the Leadership section of Forbes Magazine, entitled: "What Millennials Want In The Workplace (And Why You Should Start Giving It To Them), the  demand list produced, shows that amongst other things, 64% of  your new or prospective hire won't be as motivated by the starting salary as they will by what your company is doing to make the world a better place and the part they'll play in that.

Many organisations may feel they are addressing this aspiration in their millennials by pointing at various corporate social responsibility projects they are engaged in.

However, while corporate social responsibility may have been a hot-button issue in the boardroom some years ago, the mention of it may be slightly muted now. The reason for that is that corporate social responsibility, on the whole, has failed according to former CEO of BP, John Brown, in his new book, "Connect: How companies succeed by engaging radically with society".

The solution, according to John Brown, backed by his co-author Robin Nuttall, a Mckinsey principal, is what they call : IEE - Integrated External Engagement.


All sounds fine and dandy. But the devil is in the execution. How does a steer given to an organisation with regard it's relationship with external (and for that matter, internal) stakeholders percolate down to the level of an individual exec.

If IEE is not to be merely a CSR 2.0 and fail for the same reason that CSR failed then the focus needs to turn to the individual exec.

Which is precisely what an innovative study on CSR carried out at INSEAD did. The study was called the Response project, led by INSEAD Academic Director , Professor Maurizio Zollo(profile shown below) and the goal of the project was "understanding and responding to societal demands on corporate responsibility".

In one of the key findings, the following is reported:

"5. Part 2 of this report focuses on one important way to bridge the gap between managers’ and
stakeholders’ understanding and behaviour: training/coaching programs. The results of the
first field experiments on CSR training effectiveness ever attempted, reported in Ch. 9, show
that:

The standard executive education approach based on engaged discussions and case
analyses fails to facilitate managers to shift towards higher probabilities to make
socially responsible decisions.

On the other hand, coaching programs based on introspection and meditation
techniques, without any discussion about CSR topics, exhibit a significant impact on
both the probability to act in a socially responsible way and on the factors that
influence the probability to behave that way."

In other words, executive training/coaching  programs may hugely benefit an organisation by including meditation. In this way, it could make much more effective CSR/IEE, thus realising a win-win for the organisation and stakeholders.

If a millennial was looking for a boss they could run with then this may be such boss: tuned-in leadership that has genuine engagement with and understanding of the needs of both external and internal stakeholders and can engineer that towards all-round organisational excellence.

In the 'War for Talent', it's those forward thinking organisations that are able to attract these socially-conscious millennials that may be able to replicate the success of the Facebooks and the Googles.


The form of meditation used in the corporate training for the study was based on 'Sahaja Yoga' which entails awakening of 'kundalini energy'. It's interesting to note that in a recently published scientific paper sahaja yoga meditation is shown to keep the brain young and enhance cognitive ability:



​"Maurizio Zollo is the Dean's Professor in Strategic Management of the Sustainable Enterprise, in the Strategy Institute, at Bocconi University in Milan, Italy, and the director of the Center for Research in Organization and Management (CROMA). Zollo holds PhD and MSc degrees in managerial science and applied economics from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and the Laurea degree in economics from Bocconi. Zollo previously had appointments in strategic management at INSEAD, Fountainbleau, France, the Wharton School, and the Advanced Institute of Management in the United Kingdom, and was visiting professor/scholar at MIT for the 2012-14 academic years. Best known for work in the field of strategic management on mergers and acquisitions, dynamic capabilities, and organizational learning, Zollo has in more recent years turned his attention to how organizations learn to change in a responsible way. He headed up a European-Union-funded project called RESPONSE, and currently directs an innovative global research initiative called GOLDEN, the Global Organizational Learning and Development Network for Sustainability, which brings together people from around the world to study how companies make the transition to sustainability successfully. Editor of the European Management Review, and former president of the European Academy of Management, Zollo has published nearly thirty articles in prestigious academic journals, ten managerial publications, and two books, as an academic, and previously was a management consultant at McKinsey & Co., a major consulting firm, an associate for Kidder Peabody Italia, and a financial analyst for Merrill Lynch Capital Markets."  -from the book Intellectual Shamans by Sandra Waddock

The Creation

 On a warm February evening in a small hall in Delhi, India , a fifty-four year old Indian lady stands up in front of an eager and attentive audience and clears her throat. Among the many pairs of eyes riveted to the figure at the front of the hall, are those of some local journalists. For the next two hours, the speaker delivers an extraordinary, matter-of-fact lecture on the creation of the universe, couched in the language of ancient Indian vedic philosophy, that touches on cosmic inflation theory, multiverses, string theory and ToE, probability and evolutionary biology.

What is noteworthy is that the speaker is a simple housewife, Mrs Nirmala Srivastava, not a quantum physicist and the year is 1977 - some of the ideas in her lecture won't be in the domain of scientific debate for at least another thirty years.

The lecture is more than a 'revelation' about the nature of the universe. By placing biological evolution in humans at the centre of the drama of the coming into being of the universe, it is both a practical guide and a warning of where, as a species, we're headed next.

How could Mrs Srivastava know so much, and in detail, on this subject, when a lot of what is said could not have been  found in any known published book of that time or since?

Among her followers she is called 'Shri Mataji' ('Mother') . This is both a term of reverence and of recognition. A recognition implicit in several other of her names : 'Adi Shakti'/ 'Adi Ma' (primordial mother) /'Ma-Adi' / 'Ma-treya' (mother in 3 forms: 'mahalakshmi', 'mahakali', 'mahasaraswati').

Her life's work has been the ushering in of a spontaneous, en-masse kundalini awakening, an inner dormant spiritual energy residing in every individual in the sacrum at base of the spine, which is the trigger for the next evolutionary leap in human beings.

It has been predicted that in Human Beings 2.0 sickness and aging will disappear and everyone will have a new sixth sense of 'vibrational awareness', an ability of tapping into the truth-essence of everything. We'll all, it seems, be hardwired into the Unified Field of String Theory giving us 'collective consciousness'.

Along with every evolutionary leap however, as illustrated in Neil Shubin's 'A Universe Within' , there is catastrophic extinction. And scientist say we are in the midst of one now, which is referred to as the 'sixth mass extinction'.

If the 'cradle of humanity' lies in the great rift valley of Africa, how ironic that some of the signs of it's demise are becoming evident there. Here is part an account of a visit to the Turkana basin in Kenya with  Dr. Louise Leakey, daughter of the great paleontologist, Richard Leakey, and a paleontologist in her own right (The article appears in the FT newspaper November 20 , 2015).

"We reach the Turkwel field acutely aware of the enormous technological advances our own branch of mankind has made in the past half-century, but Leakey warns against the arrogance of modern man. She reminds us that we have existed a mere 200,000 years, and that all the half-dozen other species of the genus Homo have gone extinct. Since her grandparents first started searching for man's origins 80 years ago the global population has soared from two to seven billion. She says man is rapidly destroying the environment and other species in what she calls the 'sixth Mass Extinction'. She believes Homo sapiens will itself disappear "possibly within hundreds, not thousands, of years ", adding: "The planet would be a better place without us". Even in the Turkana basin the warning signs are apparent. The wildlife has mostly been killed. Overgrazing has turned the land to desert. Overfishing has depleted the lake. Ethiopia has built a huge new dam on the Omo river which threatens to turn sublime lake Turkana into a toxic, dried-up dust bowl. "Here in the so-called 'Birthplace of Humanity'", says Leakey, "you can already see how humanity is destroying itself."

In the gloom of an uncertain future for mankind, there is a beacon of light representing survival and renewal. The key to it is the legacy of the teachings of Shri Mataji.

 

Here is a part transcript of her lecture:

  

Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi (1923 - 2011)

    Delhi, India
20 February 1977

"Tonight we have decided to talk about Creation but our management has not been able to provide me with a chalk and with a blackboard. I don’t know, I’ll try to explain it without drawing. It’s a very difficult subject. And I’ll try to make it intelligent for you, but I would request you to pay full attention for such a difficult subject like Creation. One thing is a blessing today that…. (Hindi aside)
The greatest blessing today is that many of you can feel the vibrations. And not only that but you also know and realize that they can think and they can love — it’s a very big blessing. Of course, some of you haven’t got it, but those who have got it know that these vibrations organize, because they raise the Kundalini, they go to the place where it is needed, out of compassion, to that portion where there is deficiency. They understand, they organize their universal nature and they love. They answer to your questions, when you ask them some questions — you receive answer from them. They are living vibrations. These vibrations are from the Divine. This Divine is called as Brahma — Brahma-tattwa, Principle of Divine.
We can say that the process of Creation is an eternal process. Means the seed becomes a tree and the tree becomes a seed, and the seed becomes a tree. It goes on and on — it’s eternal. So, it cannot have a starting point and it cannot have an ending point. It goes on and on and on. That’s why it can have different states of existence, you can say, state of being.
So, the first, just the being, is Brahma, where nothing exists. We say ‘nothing’. When we say nothing, it is a relative word: because we do not exist, so we say ‘nothing exists’ — it’s a relative word. When we are not existing, for us everything is ‘not’. There is something, but that is not ourselves. And that’s why, relatively, we say ‘it is nothing’. It’s only the word Brahma, you can say, you can think of an energy, if you want to, an energy-form that exists.
But the energy accumulates at a point and forms a nucleus. The energy that thinks, energy that is distributed, accumulates at a point — concentrates on a point, you can say.
And this point is the point we call as Sadashiva. This happens because that energy desires, thinks, organizes, loves. When it wants to create, when the desire is felt in that energy to create — at that time a nucleus is created. This nucleus we call as Sadashiva. This nucleus does not disappear. You can think of a nebula. I mean, it is something which is all relative you can think, you cannot think something in absolute form. So, with thinking you cannot conceptualize the whole thing. But if you can think of a state, where it’s just an energy and no creation.
But not the energy of electricity, magnetism, — all this. It’s the combination, the synthesis of all the things which goes into Laya which becomes that, is all synthesized. It coagulates on a point, [unclear] coagulates at a point which we can call as a nucleus. This point we call as Sadashiva. This Sadashiva is the Ishwara, is the God Almighty."

" She has created many universes. It is not one universe She has created. She has created universes after universes and I will show you how She has created so many universes. And some of them are still lingering on, some of them are destroyed. But today before us: this universe, this earth, on this earth  India and in India Delhi, you are sitting attending this place. It’s like that. So, at this moment, whatever is the thing, is not the past is not the future, but I’m telling you about the present moment we are here."

As I told you it’s a very, very difficult subject and I’ve tried to handle it in English, it’s even worse. So, I’ve tried my level best to do it, but still if you have any questions, anything, you can ask me, some time, you can write to me, we can find it out.
Tomorrow… Now, this is the only thing is, — I wanted to tell you about this, — that now you have got thoughtless awareness, no doubt. Most of you have got thoughtless awareness, you have got vibrations, but you have to jump into Nirvikalpa. Nirvikalpa. And that you have to jump through deep meditation and through deep exposure. Otherwise, you see, it is no use only having this little state of Nirvichara, you have to jump into Nirvikalpa. That is a stage, little, as I’ve told you here, a little ahead of this reflector, you have moved.
But still you are going up and down, so many of you. This is a state known as Satori in the Zen system of religion, they call it as Satori — where, if a person is going up and down, is catching, doing this, that. This stage has to be overcome. Then you go to the Nirvikalpa state. At the end of the Nirvikalpa state you just don’t catch much. You are not bothered. So far, I haven’t met any human being like that. You see, I have seen very great saints and realized people and I can say that they are definitely self-realized, they are even controlling nature, some of them do, but still they catch on their chakras, it’s something surprising.
But human beings are like that, they go on catching and again, perhaps, they jump into the third state of Self-Realization completely, but they are again in a Satori state and they come back and go back like that, maybe. But I have seen that, so far, I have not met one human being whom I will say he is fully self-realized, who doesn’t catch.
Except for me, I find, everybody is catching. It’s most surprising. But when you don’t catch — what happens, when you don’t catch? Actually, this is a state rather difficult to achieve.

So, gradually you rise, because you are just now newly born children, you have still to grow, you have to grow more. You might be learning, you might be knowing a lot, that doesn’t mean, as far as your spirituality is concerned, you have just have come out of your Satori state, some of you, and some of you are still in the Satori state. So, be careful about it. I would like to meet you again, perhaps, after two years, I don’t know when.
Tomorrow we are having a meditation here and there I won’t speak much. Tomorrow we have a meditation. We have a meditation centre here, where you should go and meet, when you meet in a group then it is a samuhi… [unclear??], is a group activity, I will be there. You’ll be surprised that my vibrations cannot be felt anywhere so much as they can be felt in a group, about which I know that such and such group is working here.
So, we have already three groups which are working in Delhi. And they are made quite closer to the places. After all, we must know that we don’t have to go to Himalayas, as people went out, we don’t have to do all these things. Only thing we have to go is to a place which is very much closer to us, it has been brought to our doors. The whole thing has been brought to your doors: the knowledge, the vibrations, the realization and everything is made so easy. It’s made easy…. But it should not mean that we should take it for granted. It has been made easy through a very, very great tapasya on my part, I should say.
In many ages I’ve been living now for thousands of years and I’ve been working it out on so many human beings and so many things and, at long last, I’ve been able to find out most of the permutations and combinations of most of the human beings and that’s how it has been worked out in such a large mass-scale. It would not have been possible if I had not worked it out in that way.


It’s already very late for all of you and every… such a difficult subject to be brought to you in such a short time, it’s very difficult. But if…I will be, I hope to write some book on Sahaja Yoga. I hope, I am saying, because, so far, I’ve never written any book. Trying to write some book but before that some other people are writing. I hope, I may be able to write something. In any case, you try to… not to bother too much about this thing. This is not so important as your own realization and your own ascent. The whole knowledge will be dawned upon you. You don’t have to bother — every word now you read, you will have a meaning about it and you will understand.
The first thing is that you must get your realization, second thing is you must ascend. You must ascend much more and give more time to this. Do not take it for granted. It is a very important thing which you should do. After all there are other things, they are important. But this is the most important thing which has to be done. By God’s grace, if it works out I’ll be very happy. As it is, I’m extremely happy because in none of my lives I’ve been able to give realizations to so many people.
So as it is, I am over-satisfied with myself. But as far as you are concerned, you should not be satisfied, you should ask for more and more and more and it will be granted, because you are the people who are on the stage. You are created for this purpose. One has to do it. God has to do it. If He does not do it — He cannot fulfil His own desires. And His Creation, He is not going to destroy.
May God bless you!


Listen to Full Archived Audio Recording from 1977 Here.