Visit of Kamlesh D. Patel to France, part I
December 2015, France
Kamlesh bhai arrived in France on the 28th of December in Nice. On arrival he spoke about the upcoming Lyon Seminar and enquired about the organisation of the same. Heartfulness is all about being open and allowing people to discover things at their own pace. He inspired the local team to go ahead with all that had been planned, having faith that all would work out for the best.
Guilt
Touching on the aspect of guilt, he said that earlier he had explained about point D and how the impressions of ‘guilt’ settle there. Guilt is practically impossible to clean, yet he had found that there is only one way to clean it. This was something that he had not revealed earlier. He said that the only remedy is to wash away the guilt with tears of regret from a pure heart. When we beseech the Lord for forgiveness and cry sacred tears from a sincere heart, then there is a possibility that the guilt will be washed away.
The next day, early before the winter sunrise he left by car for Montpellier, where he surprised the few abhyasis who were in the ashram. The next morning after satsangh, he addressed the abhyasis who were gathered and stoked their enthusiasm for the upcoming Lyon seminar. He said that this event would be an historic moment for the Mission in Europe.
Being volunteers
He suggested that as abhyasis who are already practising Sahaj Marg, we need to learn to welcome new seekers with an open heart. We ought to be more concerned during such Heartfulness gatherings for those who may need our help to experience this wonderful system. We could help by enabling people to relax, meditate and learn more about Sahaj Marg. It is vital that instead of focusing on our own self we look to the needs of others and make sure we fulfil those needs. This will enable the Sahaj Marg Movement to reach all those who can benefit from it.
New permissions for preceptors and abhyasis
Speaking about the new permissions given to preceptors to work remotely and giving sittings to groups, Kamlesh bhai said that it is a unique opportunity given to us to reach out to a growing number of hearts seeking this Divine experience. It is by the Divine Grace that such an opportunity to serve has been bestowed on us and we ought to receive it with a renewed sense of responsibility. Imagine how we would cater to so many if we had to give sittings one at a time. In many places we have entire colleges, schools and enterprises coming to us for meditation.
In the face of such extensive work, it is not only preceptors who can conduct Heartfulness sessions. If an abhyasi wants to introduce some interested new seekers to meditation, they can conduct the session themselves with the aid of a preceptor who gives the sitting at distance or by using the Sahaj Connect application for the sitting. Making the prior arrangement with the preceptor is preferable, as while the Sahaj Connect app is great, what if there are no signals!
The preceptor starts the sitting remotely and the abhyasi meditates with the new seekers. The abhyasi simply has to tell the new seekers when to start and end the sitting. Then feedback from the seekers can be shared. In this way, preceptors and abhyasis both can work as a team.
The next day, after some rest in the afternoon, Kamlesh bhai left for Calet near Lyon. Arriving before dinner, he immediately conducted satsangh. He was glad to see a group of young people seated in the front for their first sitting. He was very happy to meet them and said that so far in France he had not seen so many youths gathered in one place. He told them that he would himself teach them how to relax others the next day.
Transfer of knowledge through the generations
In a talk after the satsangh he mentioned some interesting things, excerpts of which are given here:
The future of our societies depends on the youth.
We observe that unnecessary trends are easily transferred to the next generation by the current one, whereas the essential and spiritual traditions are difficult to transfer. This is because experiences had in meditation or as a result of a spiritual lifestyle are difficult to pass on to the next generation.
Our forefathers may transmit knowledge to us, but they are unable to transmit the inner meditative states even though they may want to. Yet there is a way to transfer this and that is by building a lifestyle that corresponds to the inner beauty that we experience in meditation. This kind of lifestyle can be contagious and can be picked up by the youth.
Close our eyes
When we add spirituality to our lives, we add meaning to life. We start experiencing bliss in meditation and then life becomes more and more worth living. Whatever our profession or place in life – student, parent, teacher or employee – the one thing that we can all share is spirituality. All that is required is to close our eyes. How difficult is it just to close our eyes? And in this practice of Sahaj Marg we are not even required to do anything. Someone else works on us. I just have to allow God to work on my heart. My heart is the laboratory .
Prayer
In our Sahaj Marg prayer, we don’t ask anything from God. We need to first establish a friendship with God. When we don’t know anything about God we can say, “Dear God, I am told that you are the ultimate goal of human life, and that I am that which is stopping me from reaching my goal due to my desires. They are distractions that are between me and my goal. I need your help, you are the only God and Power who can help me to experience your presence.”
The hidden potential of consciousness
In our daily state of activity, we use less than 10% of our consciousness. It is said that even those brilliant minds like Einstein only use such a very little portion of their mental capacity.
Imagine a 2 mm layer of water that is a metaphor for our awareness. Now imagine this thin layer sandwiched between two oceans, like the Pacific and Atlantic. The two oceans can be compared one to the superconscious mind and the other to the subconscious mind.
Our thin layer of consciousness can also be compared to being between the sky and the earth. When we soar high in meditation it is like expanding our consciousness into superconscious states as vast as the sky, and when we sleep after saying our prayer we go deep into the vastness of the depths of the oceans, which can be compared to the subconscious.
This expansion is like a game, and consciousness is to a spiritual person as a toy is to a child. We have to learn eventually to go beyond it in spirituality, and realise the base that supports our consciousness.
