REVIEWING & RENEWING
OUR SATSANG COMPANIONSHIP
SOME NOTES AND REFLECTIONS FROM OUR RECENT MEETING
Seeking Together - Helping to Create
A Planetary Vision and a Universal Heart of Compassion
The International Satsang Association is currently re-forming under a new constitution which will be formally ratified and accepted at a Special Meeting to be held at Die Quelle ( The Sadhana Ashram) in late October.
The pictures below were taken at a recent gathering of Satsang Companions at the home of Peter and Angela. The Meeting was both a spiritual and social occasion. Before outlining some reflections on and from this meeting , a sample of pictures is shown below.
The ISA is a companionship between those who are open to the Truth in all traditions and who are seeking to know the Absolute, the Source of all Life. They also accept their need for guidance, challenge and support in the concrete living out of their ideals. Satsang Members commit themselves to :
1. a personal growth in spiritual awareness and practice
( this is the BEDROCK of our Spiritual Journey – only by being rooted can we live out the 2nd & 3rd Commitments )
2. helping remove the barriers of prejudice and ignorance which divide persons from each other.
3. building up relationships of compassion and appreciation across frontiers of race, ethnicity, culture, language, economic class and religion.
And in so doing each member plays her or his part in
‘Creating a Planetary Vision and a Universal Heart of Compassion’
This commitment is known as The Triple Commitment : ( a down loadable copy can be printed off by clicking) HERE
However, merely reading the Triple Commitment does not give the true flavour of its challenge or wisdom.
We live in a world that is increasingly becoming a Border less Planet. This brings both challenge and possibilities. To meet these challenges and to be open to these possibilities we need to be rooted and grounded.
We need to ensure that we can be present to ourselves before we can be truly present to others. This is a life-long process. But it is this commitment to personal Sadhana, to mindful and contemplative awareness that can prepare us to be open to the gift of universal compassion. We need to develop this 'inherent gift' of compassion if we are to resist our human tendency to forget our inter-connectedness. This tendency is one of the main contributing factors that feed our 'ignorance' and this in turn can lead to fear, anxiety and prejudice towards difference.
This is the reason that the 1st of the 3 commitments is the bedrock of the Triple Commitment and any serious attempt to live out the ideals and ethos of the Satsang.
These ideals and ethos can be accessed by visiting our website , where you will find much more detail. However, if you wish to remind yourself or see these please click HERE
Only when we are seriously committed to our personal Sadhana ( Spiritual Practice) and thus rooted in REALITY ; can we safely 'venture out' , engage with others and our environment , and play our part in breaking down the barriers of ignorance, prejudice and hostility that prevent us from realising our inter-connectedness and the importance of building up relationships of compassion.
With these reflections we opened our meeting with the following quotation from Sister Ishpriya on the important Sadhana of Mindfullness.
OUR DAILY GIFT TO SELF & OTHERS
We can only live this day with the choices of this day. And tomorrow we may face the consequences of today’s choices – or we may not – it may be quite different.
And so we can only live the next minute, the next hour, the next day as it is.
Being in a hurry and speed are not the same thing
The hurry comes from trying to live tomorrow today.
Report on Meeting & Decisions
First of all it was wonderful to welcome to the meeting; Shirley, Pam , Yasmin, Taj, Sally, Monica , Liz , Jenny and Carol as well as Patty B ( in Spirit). Thanks to Angela's hospitality, we had a wonderful buffet lunch and this gave us the opportunity to socialise, share something of our journey and relax before the informal meeting
We decided to continue to meet in Satsang and we discussed the Draft Programme. This can be accessed either via the WEBSITE ( click WEBSITE to re-direct you to it) or on another posting on this Blog.
Our next meeting would take place on Saturday 8th October - 1.30 - 4.30 at the Friends Meeting House, Wolverhampton
We then focused our attention on the importance of our three Days of Reflection. These provide an ideal opportunity to take 'time out' to reflect on significant themes and share in Satsang. They also were an opportunity to open our meetings to others. In fact ALL our meetings are OPEN but it was felt that the Days of Reflection could be a good starting point to widen participation.
Our next Day of Reflection is on Saturday 12th of November. The theme was extremely important and current :-
OUR HUNGER FOR PEACE
We then looked forward to our event in March 2012. This would be a 3-day Retreat/Seminar , hosted by the Satsang Association and led by Sister Ishpriya. It would take place at NODDFA Spirituality Centre ( Noddfa is Welsh for Haven or Refuge) in North Wales. A booking form has been circulated and as places are limited , anyone interested needs to book soon. If you are interested contact us via the contact page of our Website CONTACT US ( click this link)
Ishpriya
THE IMPORTANCE OF LIGHT
Light and darkness are extremely important in our human story. Our Cosmos emerged from an enormous outburst of Energy and Light ( the Big Bang) almost 14 Billion years ago !
Space is an enormous dark mass with tiny pockets of light, we call stars. Our planet is part of one Solar System , powered by our Sun.
Space is an enormous dark mass with tiny pockets of light, we call stars. Our planet is part of one Solar System , powered by our Sun.
Throughout the evolution of our Solar System, light and darkness played, and continue to play, a crucial part. As we evolved as a species ( over about 7 million years) and particularly in the latter part of our on-going evolution, light was and is both important and spiritually symbolic. We measure vast differences in light years. We speak of:
'Light at the end of the tunnel'
'The darkest hour is just before dawn'
'I have seen the light' ( when we have a helpful insight)
'In our darkest hour' ( when we are at our lowest point)
There are many, many more references to light and darkness in all cultures
Both Light and Dark form part of our Inherited Universal Spirituality. The Mystics of all Traditions have often used the symbols of light and dark to express deep mystical truths. St John of the Cross, a Medieval Christian Mystic , spoke of ' The Dark Night of the Soul' to reflect on those times when we are challenged at our deepest spiritual level.
So, Light is an extremely important and particular symbol. It has come to represent goodness and a sense and sign of Absolute Reality, the Mystery we often refer to as God
Each day at Die Quelle, as in many other Ashrams, Monasteries and communities throughout the world, the cycle of Light – Darkness and back to Light is acknowledged. At Die Quelle, we use the Aarti ( A Hindu Ceremony ) to mark the two twelve hour half-cycles of Light and Darkness – Dawn and Dusk. This helps to ground us in the on-going reality of our expanding and evolving Cosmos and particularly the natural rhythms of our Solar System and our Blue Planet.
To remind us of the importance of Light and of the natural rhythms of life, we ended our formal meeting with this poem by Ishpriya
Aarti
and darkness flies in terror.
O great and glorious Sun,
You who draw back the darkness,
the avidyaa of the world,
the avidyaa of the world,
respect my tiny flame.
The distance between your sun and my small lamp is beyond my power to imagine,
and yet they are both light.
O Lord,
teach me in my heart this great lesson:
that You are the Light of light
and that I too am born of light.
No comments:
Post a Comment