Spiritual Magazine | Wellness Magazine

August 2019, In the Field, VOLUME 4 / 02 Aug 2019
A Himalayan retreat
DEVI SEKAR, SHARON GRAFFAGNINO, MIKE McCLEARY and MARK DAUGHTRIDGE from North Carolina, USA, traveled to the Himalayas for a Family & Friends Retreat. Here they share their experience. For millennia the Himalayas have been the abode of saints, sages and spiritual seekers, a place where the high peaks and deep valleys are so conducive to the inner journey of the soul. Satkhol is situated near the foothills of the mountains, at an elevation of almost 6,000 feet. The Satkhol Retreat Center is a very special place in this holiest of environments. Its penetrating silence, charged vibrations, and deep peace all contribute to the inner journey, the inner yearning of the soul to reach its highest potential. Over the past 20 years more than 25,000 spiritual seekers have stayed here to deepen their practice in the lap of its profound silence. This beautiful ashram was established in the year 2000, the sole purpose being to provide a place for seekers to focus wholly on their spiritual path without the distractions of daily life. The Friends and Family Program is offered four to six times a year. Each session starts on a Wednesday and ends on a Sunday, lasting four days, with 50 to 60 participants selected for each session, which includes a mixture of experienced Heartfulness practitioners and newcomers. The four of us traveled from North Carolina to Satkhol in the month of April 2019 to join one of these programs, and for two of us it was the first time traveling to India. We would like to share our reflections on this wonderful retreat. Devi, a longtime Heartfulness practitioner It was a six-hour train ride from New Delhi and an hour-and-a-half car ride through scenic mountains to reach the Satkhol Retreat Center. Participants were arriving from as far as China,…

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August 2019, Taste of life, VOLUME 4 / 02 Aug 2019
Symbols of life
AN ART ESSAY JONAS JÖDICKE has been creating and imagining fantastic worlds ever since he can remember. What started as a hobby has now become his profession. Here he shares with us what art means to him, and offers a poem associated with each work of art. Art has always been a crucial part of who I am. It’s as though art chose me, not the other way round. Pablo Picasso once said, “Painting is stronger than me, it makes me do its bidding.” I can only attest to that. The urge to let my inner feelings and thoughts become reality has always been very strong, especially growing up in a creative family with six siblings, two of which are also full-time artists. When I turned 14, I stumbled upon a video on YouTube of someone painting on their PC. I was immediately hooked and asked my parents to gift me a graphic tablet and a student version of Adobe Photoshop for my birthday. Digital Art quickly became my favorite medium. After finishing high school I decided to go on a two-year missionary trip with my church, which was a crucial time of self-discovery and spiritual growth. I think the spiritual dimension I added to my fantasy art after that journey really struck a chord with many people, and within a year I was able to fully sustain myself as an artist. I choose animals as the subject of most of my pieces because, weird as it may sound, I feel it is easier for us to relate to the depiction of animals on an emotional level than it is to relate to the depiction of humans. Unconsciously we tend to judge people by their looks, skin color, proportions, gender, and so on, which can prevent us from focusing on…

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August 2019, Focus, VOLUME 4 / 01 Aug 2019
The minefield of prejudice
Is there a survival value to prejudice? ELIZABETH DENLEY explores how this destructive human behavior may have arisen, why it is so hard for us to let go of our prejudices, and what we can do to transcend them. Most of us don’t think of ourselves as prejudiced, yet collectively we have created a world of judgment, family and community conflicts, religious differences, war, hatred and a glaring lack of global harmony. It is a world where fear is palpable in the atmosphere in many places. Why and how does prejudice arise? According to yogic science, its roots are in the original samskara of fear that arose at the time of creation – fear of separation from the original state of oneness. As a result, we developed survival mechanisms to protect the individual “I”. We learnt to protect ourselves and shy away from threats, whether real or perceived. That is how the mammalian brain developed over millions of years. We learnt to exercise caution. We used the functions of the mind like intellect and thinking in order to make choices, based on the dualities of “right and wrong,” “good and bad,” “likes and dislikes,” “evolutionary and non-evolutionary,” “life and death.” Based on past experiences, we decided what was good and bad etc. Is there is a survival value to prejudice from an evolutionary perspective? After years of observing, both as a biologist and a yogic practitioner, I would say the answer is yes, but only because we are not able to use our inner faculties, the full inner potential of our subtle bodies. The more we can use their potential through meditative practices, the more prejudice can be transcended. Prejudice is pre-judgment. It is a deviation from a neutral response, where we pre-judge in a positive direction as partiality, or…

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August 2019, Be inspired, VOLUME 4 / 31 Jul 2019
Yogic psychology
In this series of articles, DAAJI explains the fundamental principles of yogic psychology, with its foundation in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. He explains Patanjali’s descriptions of the human mind and the various mental imbalances, and furthermore gives us solutions to regain mental well-being through yogic practices. In this article he continues to explore the vikshepas, the obstacles to mental well-being that arise because of the accumulation of samskaras in our system. These 9 vikshepas describe so many of the maladies of modern humanity. Here Daaji focuses on samsaya, pramada and alasya. PART 8 – VIKSHEPAS: SAMSAYA, PRAMADA AND ALASYA VIKSHEPAS So far, we have seen how complexities and impurities accumulate in the field of consciousness and contribute to mental imbalance. As these layers accumulate, and we move progressively towards a state of entropy, it leads to all sorts of ailments. Yoga calls these ailments or obstacles the vikshepas. Patanjali described 9 of them in his Yoga Sutras a few thousand years ago, and in today’s world we can add a couple more to the list. In this article we will focus on three of them: samsaya, pramada and alasya. When consciousness is attuned to the soul, all the entanglements, sufferings and afflictions gradually fade away. This inner attunement happens in Heartfulness when we meditate on the source of light in the heart, and when we connect with the divinity within. Without that inner connection and stability, we are like leaves tossing about in the wind, and the afflictions that are there in our system become more complex. Eventually they manifest as the vikshepas, the obstacles to further progress. Patanjali described these obstacles as follows: 1.30: Vyadhi styana samsaya pramada-alasya-avirati bhrantidarsana-alabdha-bhumikatva- anavasthitatvani citta-vikshepah te antarayah Vyadhi – Disease Styana – Languor, mental dullness, apathy Samsaya – Dilemma, indecision Pramada – Carelessness, haste,…

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August 2019, It changes everything, VOLUME 4 / 31 Jul 2019
Meaning and the sacred
LLEWELLYN VAUGHAN-LEE & HILARY HART celebrate the sacredness and beauty of all life, challenging us to reconnect with that source of meaning and appreciation. You’ve traveled up ten thousand steps in search of the Dharma. So many long days in the archives, copying, copying. The gravity of the Tang and the profundity of the Sung make heavy baggage. Here! I’ve picked you a bunch of wildflowers. Their meaning is the same but they’re much easier to carry. —Hsu Yun (Empty Cloud) Waking early, hearing an owl call from the trees, I feel part of something stretching out all around me, a deep vein of life’s meaning running through all that exists. How could I live without this heartbeat, this feeling of connection? Life speaks to me in so many ways: from a simple human exchange at the post office counter or at the bakery – a smile, a hello – to the evening clouds forming and reforming, pink against the setting sun. This is real meaning woven into my days – life’s story telling itself anew every day. It is the sacred alive in every moment. We are surrounded by the sacred; it is in the core of our being and in the Earth’s. It is the essential nature of everything that is. The “sacred” is not something primarily religious, or even spiritual. It is not a quality we need to learn or to develop. It belongs to the primary nature of all that is. When our ancestors knew that everything they could see was sacred, this was not something taught but instinctively known. It was as natural as sunlight, as necessary as breathing, a fundamental recognition of the wonder, beauty, and divine nature of the world. From this sense of the sacred real meaning is born, the meaning that makes…

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THIS MONTH'S ISSUE

It changes everything

The steady work of evolution

in August 2019, It changes everything, VOLUME 4

ROSALIND PEARMAIN has been a Heartfulness practitioner for over 40 years. Here she shares some tips from her own experience that can help deepen meditation and take us further on...

Something sacred, something free

Thought in action

Patience: the spiritual path to personal growth

in August 2019, Thought in action, VOLUME 4

MICHAEL LEWIN explores the expression of patience in Nature, and how easy it is to learn lessons from the natural world around us. Nikos Kazantzakis, the author of Zorba the...

Antidotes to prejudice

in August 2019, Focus, VOLUME 4

How does prejudice arise? How to live a life so that prejudice does not arise? Here DAAJI explores these questions and offers some practical antidotes to prejudice. In 2003 my...

In this series of articles, DAAJI explains the fundamental principles of yogic psychology, with its foundation in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. He explains Patanjali’s descriptions of the human mind and the...

Yogic psychology

The field of consciousness

Taste of Life

Interview

Insight of the heart – part 1

in August 2019, Interview, VOLUME 4

SAKI SANTORELLI is interviewed by AMIR IMANI as part of a webinar series about mindfulness, love, compassion and the way of the heart. Q: Today we are very delighted to...