Shri Mataji writes that “India is a very ancient country and it has been blessed by many seers and saints who wrote treatises about reality and guidelines on how to achieve it.” This is just such a book. This book is both an introduction to Sahaja Yoga, describing the nature of the subtle reality within each of us, and a step-by-step handbook on how to be a good Sahaja Yogi, the nature of Sahaj culture, how to be a leader and how to raise children. “The knowledge of Sahaja Yoga cannot be described in a few sentences or one small book, but one should understand that all this great work of creation and evolution is done by some great subtle organization, which is in the great divine form.”

The book Sahaja Yoga: Healing and Integration of Your Subtle Energy System, written by Saraswati Raman, describes at length the process of activating the dormant Kundalini energy lying within the sacrum bone in each one of us and raising it upward through the chakras along the spinal column through the Sushumna Nadi until it reaches the Sahasrar, or the fontanel bone area, where it unites with the cosmic energy. She speaks of the various healing benefits of Sahaja Yoga: stress management and its utility in attaining an emotional balance. The second part of the book deals with the use of sound, musical notes, and ragas in the activation and energizing of chakras. Music also has been widely used as therapy through its impact on the energy vortices and, thereby, its influence on the various glands and systems within the body. The third part speaks about incarnations and how the various Avataras incarnated to give an impetus to evolution on earth more particularly toward helping the momentum in the evolution of humanity. The work is the outcome of her own application of Sahaja Yoga and its impact in bringing about an all-around integration of the personality—physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual.

"Sahaja Yoga is not so simple as you think," Shri Mataji told us in 1998. "It is full of temptations." Over twelve pages, in a collection of short quotes, Shri Mataji clearly tells us what Sahaja Yoga is not. The magazine also includes several other articles created from her words. She speaks of collectivity, beauty, fear and incarnations. She speaks at a 1982 Shri Durga Puja, calling it "the Day of the Goddess" and she assures us that there is no problem because there is a special grace.

An introduction to Sahaja Yoga created from the words of Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi: this power knows who you are.

I have written this book for the benevolence of the people, with whatever English I can use, with whatever literature I can use, with whatever style I could adopt. Mataji Nirmala Devi

The European Federation of Centers of Research and Information on Sectarianism (FECRIS) unites 25 European organizations to fight against minorities of religion or beliefs that they label as sects. This book focuses on the FECRIS member associations in five European countries: France, the cradle of laicite; Austria and Germany, where public powers and dominant churches lead a common struggle against sects; and Serbia and Russia, two Orthodox countries in which FECRIS member associations include Orthodox missionary departments. Can their activities be reconciled with the public funding granted to FECRIS and its affiliates, as well as the international standards to guarantee freedom of religion and belief? This is the question addressed in this volume. (Series: Religion - State - Society / Religion - Staat - Gesellschaft. Journal for the Study of Beliefs and Worldviews)

Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights guarantees freedom of thought, conscience and religion. The protection it affords is of such significance that the judges of the European Court of Human Rights regard it as one of the cornerstones of d'mocratic society. The freedoms Article 9 guarantees have two essential aspects: internal, covering the freedom to hold convictions and beliefs, and external, covering the freedom to manifest one's convictions and beliefs. The first of these freedoms is absolute, the second relative, but in neither case can their importance be undervalued.