Bogota March 8th - We would like to share with you the experience we had last year in Colombia, a new way of trying to spread Self Realization.
We decided not to have a public program as we use to do every year because there were still many seekers from the previous year (about sixty after one year's programs) and we felt that if we didn't try to pay full attention to them and dedicate them time so that they grow deeper, they might be lost with all the newcomers and might disappear.
So a group of ladies, all over fifty years of age (which shows that in Sahaja Yoga the dynamism does not depend of the age), decided to contact various organizations - first of all, peace organizations - to propose to them that, if we want to have peace, we must first find it within ourselves.
The first result was that we were invited to participate in a peace congress. It was a serious project with different organizations - international human rights groups, the United Nations, various development projects of UN, as well as speeches from the future candidates for the Colombian presidency.
It was a new trial for us to prepare a stand for this event. We had never done it before. The space was given to us and the yoginis used their creativity to decorate it nicely. It was just in front of the United Nations stand. We invited the UN delegate to see what we had created and he told us, "Yes, we are doing the same work."
The whole day, the TV was on with Mother's introductory speech, The Vision and the exercise of Self Realization. We made very good contacts to visit people and many got their Self Realization.
The way we used to contact these organizations, schools and private enterprises was to first send them a fax telling them that we would like to give, in their enterprise, a conference with an experience at the end where everyone could feel their inner peace, learn how to balance themselves and experience the oneness with the whole. We expressed also that Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi is the founder of this new yoga. After that, usually the company phoned and talked with the yogi to fix an appointment to present the invitation in more details.
So a group of two or three people went to the appointment, presented more details, leaflets and fixed the date and time of the program. Usually it was another group of yogis who dealt with the actual event. This could be at lunch time or five o'clock or at any special time the enterprise selected.
When we give a program like this, it is very different from the classic public program because, in this last case, the seekers are coming to us attracted by Mother's picture. When we give programs to enterprises or schools, we go to them and we have no idea if we will meet with seekers or not. So the program has to be adapted to the place where we go. Usually we don't carry Mother's picture or flowers, light or incense. We took the book of the Meta Modern Era, where there is a beautiful picture of our Mother. We bring videos such as The Vision or From Page One / an introductory talk and the exercise of Self Realization. Depending on the place and the audience, we vary the presentation.
We noticed that the more difficult the audience looked - such as colleges of teen-agers - the shorter the introduction should be and, on these cases, we went almost directly to the exercise of Self Realization. We always do it with the video of Shri Mataji, so that the people relate their experience of Self Realization to Shri Mataji. It is amazing to see the change in the people after Realization. Their face changes, their attention improves, their interest is shown and they become so receptive.
The aim of this type of program is to give mass Realization. We don't expect people to come back. We tell them where we have our regular meetings, if they are interested in following them. In fact, few people stayed back.
The most amazing programs we had were one in the Palace of the President (imagine a program in the White House), one in the DAS (like the FBI), three programs for groups of policemen and, most recently, one for helicopter pilots, who are directly involved in the war against the guerrillas.
In total, last year about seventeen hundred people received their Self Realization in Colombia with these different programs. The experience has been of tremendous joy for the yogis who participated and one of the greatest joys one can feel is when other people get their Self Realization and become children of our Divine Mother.
We pray to Her to guide us always because we know and feel She is the only one who is doing everything. And it is a tremendous opportunity to work as Her instruments and to be able to give others all what we have received.
With all the love from the Colombian collective,
Jai Shri Mataji
Marie-Laure Cernay | 
