2005 September

Contents
The Greatest Mystery
Tsunami of America
Kundalini
Ajra Prana Kundalini Mudra Asana
Rose Quartz
Osho
Science of Mantra
Love and Meditation
Awakening the Buddha
The Meaning of Time
GitaScendence

Selected Articles

Tsunami of America
by Swami Shankarananda

In the February 2005 issue of Transcendence, my article entitled Tsunami clearly stated that, due to man’s current style of living, another tsunami would soon be prevalent. At the beginning of September, just a couple of weeks ago, a prominent local newspaper carried an article entitled Tsunami of USA. Beware of future changing weather patterns in the world. All this is due to man’s selfishness and greed.

When I think back to my youth, I cannot remember a fifteen year-old who had been involved in a theft, rape or murder. But today the news is full of such happenings. Prisons were ‘criminal houses’ and were set up in remote parts of the country, but today’s prisons are our very homes with their spiked security gates, electrical fencing and computerised alarm systems.

The Supreme Intelligence must be really angry with all of us for all our wrongdoings. As parents, we have failed to properly educate and maintain control of our children; as educators, we have failed miserably to lead. Parents and educators are no longer role-models to today’s youth. I see the River of Time rapidly swallowing your spiritual life and preparing you for your ultimate destruction. All of your good values have been reduced to absolutely nothing. Only your bad values seem sustainable in your present lives. All around you is the promotion of promiscuity, alcohol and drugs, all seeming to be a normal part of present culture. These things bring darkness into your life but yet you still continue to take part in their promotion. If no change is made, then distinction will be humanity’s only answer.


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I often reprimand devotees and shout at my students; They all ask how my teaching of Unconditional Universal Love can allow this. They say, “Guru, you have no pity!”. I say, “Yes, I have no pity, I am filled only with Divine boundless compassion”. I walk the path of spirituality. I was not handed a candle with a slight flicker. I was handed a splendid torch which I held right from the moment I had it. I keep it alight and burning as brightly as possible to hand it over to my successor.

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Kundalini
by Swami Shankarananda

Of mankind, I am the servant;
Of Kundalini, I am the awakened;
Of teachings, I am the regenerator;
Of Truth, I am the resurrector;
Of Self-realisation, I am the ultimate function
I am the simple servant of humankind.

Kundalini may rise in different ways from the initial departure. It may rise by its own natural development which may have been triggered unconsciously towards the awakening of a particular religion or philosophy, seldom by a slow illumination, and often by a sudden shock or a touch by a divine being. The awakening can also be pressurised by physical circumstances like birthing or by long reflection on a word or mantra which may break the seal of the mind, but every awakening is determined by one’s Divine Will.

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Osho
Osho, also known as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, was a fully enlightened master who lived during the twentieth century. He was also a man of extraordinary intelligence, erudition, charisma, and powers of communication. Some people thought of him as a guru of hedonism, an impressario of spiritual Mardi Gras. Tens of thousands of seekers jetted across oceans to his ashrams and communes to participate in giddy, high-energy experiments in living and consciousness.

Born in Kuchwada, Madhya Pradesh, India on December 11, 1931. Osho’s parents gave him the name Rajneesh Chandra Mohan and raised him as a Jain. When he was seven, his grandfather died with his head in Osho's lap while riding to the doctor in a bullock cart. Osho became enlightened at 21 and graduated at about the same time from the University of Saugar with first-class honors in philosophy. While a student, he won the All-India Debating Championship. He was a professor of philosophy at the University of Jabalpur for nine years. In 1966, he left his teaching post and established an ashram in Bombay. In 1974, he left Bombay and established an ashram in Poona. In the 1980s, he and his followers built a 65,000-acre city from scratch in the Oregon wilderness. Some people called it an experiment to provoke God, and others called it a fascist concentration camp. Osho developed new forms of active meditation. The best known is Dynamic Meditation which often starts with strenuous physical activity followed by silence and celebration. These were expected to lead the individual to overcome repression, lower personal inhibitions, develop a state of emptiness, and attain enlightenment. The person then would have "no past, no future, no attachment, no mind, no ego, no self." Prior to 1985, the disciples wore red robes, and a necklace of 108 beads which had an attached picture of Rajneesh. Osho assigned a new name to each of the disciples. Men were given the title Swami; women were called Ma. Although most members lived a frugal, simple lifestyle, Rajneesh himself lived in luxury.

His collection of 27 Rolls Royces, given to him by his followers, was well known. Anti-cult groups claimed that he urged his disciples to sever their connection to their families of origin. It is true that he felt that the institution of the family was out of date and that it should be replaced with alternate forms of community and ways of caring for children. However, he actually encouraged individual disciples to make peace with their families. Many became disciples themselves, including Osho's own parents. Osho taught a form of Monism, that God was in everything and everyone. There is no division between God and not-God. People, even at their worse, are Divine. He recognized Jesus Christ as having attained enlightenment, and believed that he survived his crucifixion and moved to India where he died at the age of 112. Osho was noted for reading very offensive jokes; some were anti-Semitic; others were anti-Roman Catholicism; others insulted just about every ethnic and religious group in the world. He explained that the purpose of these jokes was to shock people and to encourage them to examine their identification with, and attachment to, their ethnic or religious beliefs. His contention was that national, religious, gender and racial divisions are destructive. Osho was surrounded by controversy. He was accused of crimes and eventually deported from the United States in 1986 States for violations of immigration law (to which he pleaded no contest) and returned to Poona. He died on January 19, 1990.He has left us a great legacy: his books are regarded by his devotees as the clearest maps of the roads to enlightenment that anybody drew during the twentieth century.

In the words of Osho
“I am not here to support you, I am here to dismantle your mind.”
“My effort is to bring man back to his natural self. I will be condemned, I will be criticized. Every religion, every tradition, every morality, every ethical code is going to condemn me. That does not surprise me! I expect it, because what I am saying and doing is changing the very course of human consciousness.”
“I am not interested in creating beliefs in you and I am not interested in giving you any kind of ideology. My whole effort here is - as it has always been of all the buddhas since the beginnings of time - to provoke truth in you. I know it is already there; it just needs a synchronicity. It just needs something to trigger the process of recognition in you."

Bibliography

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The Meaning of Time
by Suren Pillay

What is the purpose of life? So many have pondered on this question, but how many have seriously contemplated it. Indeed, life seems to be a mystery to most people, yet sages come to tell us of a different reality, one that challenges our deepest beliefs about what life represents and what it means to us. Ordinary man is of the belief that the longer his life is, the more successful is his life. Yet, the wisdom of the sages impart an undeniable truth. It matters not how long you exist, but how you exist. Quality is emphasised as opposed to quantity. That we are here for a short while cannot be denied, yet most of us are unable to come to grips with the fact that some day, planet Earth will no longer be our home.

For the vast majority of us, as children we are taught to ignore the subject of death as it is thought of to be inconsequential to our daily actions and effectiveness. Yet God is so merciful; he has given us so many books, saints and masters to demonstrate the unreality of life and the importance of death. I pay homage to my great guru preceptor who has shown me by His living example that life is truly what you make of it, and that to live life in the highest way is not reserved for monastics and renunciates, but for all humankind.

Was there ever a time when we did not exist? The answer is no, according to the ancient scriptures of our lands. We are existing eternally, yet experiencing a truth within a four-dimensional reality (time, space, matter and energy). In order to give meaning to our existence, time was born, allowing for events to unfold in a sequential manner. The apparent reality that events are happening to you on a sequential basis, is only valid in a relative sense. A more accurate observation is that you are happening as an event. If this universal truth is understood correctly, the keys to unlocking the deepest mysteries underlying creation are found. The universe is in itself an event, subject to the delusion of time. As miniature universes, human beings have the ability to express the highest divinity.

So, brothers and sisters, what is your choice? Do you choose to live in immortality, or do you choose to give in to the delusion? Do you choose to affirm the greatest idea of yourself and become what others can only imagine, or will you give in to the opinions and beliefs of others? The choice is always yours and God will always be asking, for He is the silent witness within, waiting for you to express and experience what you truly are! Every choice is an expression of consciousness and the ‘you’ that you’ve become so accustomed to is a constantly changing event. By our own willpower, faith and grace, may we affirm God’s grandest idea of Himself!