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Satsang 1/1/11
New Year’s Satsang: ‘Walk through open doors. Don’t beat your head against closed doors.’
What better way to start the New Year than to come to Satsang. This year, Satsang happened to fall on the 1st of January and Swamiji Maharaj took the opportunity to give his New Years message.
Swamiji began by saying, “We’re a Shaivite path. We don’t retreat from society but we use spirituality to bring divinity into our everyday lives. What I’ve leant from many years of yoga is that the Self is always there. When we tune ourselves (to the upward shift) we are rewarded.”
He then said that the message for 2011 is “Walk through open doors. Don’t beat your head against closed doors.”
Swamiji went on to describe the three forces:
1st Force: Is when we want to do something. This is desire.
2nd Force: Occurs when desire is met by matter (the material world). This often results in a block as spirit and matter meet.
3rd Force: Is the way these two things are resolved.
Swamiji said, “In our daydreams we get everything we want instantly. Our essential nature is spirit living in the material world. Spirit wants, but matter is slow and unresponsive.” He continued, “Every time we have a desire, second force arises. A mature person accepts that second force always occurs in this world. Instead of having a knee jerk reaction we look for a skilled way to deal with this force.”
Swamiji then went on to describe how his message can be used in the different areas of life: Relationship, career, health and spirituality.
On desire Swamiji said, “Desire is a divine thing. It is creative force. The distinction between good and bad desire is that good desire can be achieved/ attained and is good for you.” Swamiji continued, “Not all open doors are good for you. Desire gets you in trouble when you want something you can’t have or when you don’t honor what you have.”
Swamiji said that when we walk through an open door it feels ‘easy and flowing’. When we’re walking through a closed door it is ‘dis-empowering and contracting.’
Swamiji encouraged us to observe our reactions to experiences. He said, “As we gain mastery over our reactions and the more conscious and skilled we become, the more we experience third force/ Shakti. The great Guru’s of our lineage give us good methods to find third force. G-Statements, meditation, self-inquiry and shaktipat awakening all get us in touch with the luminosity. At the core of the world is luminosity, a light. The Great Beings are trained to find that light by walking through open doors.”
We then had the opportunity to write down something we’d like to let go of and something we’d like to move toward. With our goals in mind, we did a Ganesh puja to bring blessings for the year ahead. We offered petals to Lord Ganesh, who is the great remover and creator of obstacles.
After the puja, we sat quietly and meditated for ten minutes.
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