What is Friends of the Harmony Centres?
Friends of the Harmony Centres is an initiative designed to enable the work of Shakti Durga and Shanti Mission Harmony Centres in the world. It entails the regular giving of financial support, not for attendance at seminars or satsangs but as a selfless act of generosity and to support the growth of others. It is open to anyone who appreciates the value that the training programs, seminars, meditations, IYS therapy and Shanti Mission brings to individual lives and the flow on effects to family and community. People who come through these programs become empowered in their lives and are igniting their spirits. Many people who have not had the opportunity to benefit from a loving multi-faith spiritual community before can do so because of the loyalty and generosity of our Friends.
Friends Membership is a Precondition to Higher Learning
All spiritual tuition beyond the Path of Ease and grace, all advanced workshops including the Higher Guidance series, teacher and therapist training offered at Shanti MissionHarmony Centres are ONLY OPEN to Friends of the Harmony Centre. This is because what is taught is very powerful and it is optimal to have people of generous disposition given tools to access a great deal of spiritual power. If generosity is missing from the heart of the spiritual aspirant, too much knowledge can be dangerous.
The cost of all of our seminars including therapist and teacher training is left to the individual to assess, given the benefit they received and their financial capacity to contribute. What is fair is felt in the heart of the individual and we are grateful for all that we receive. Being a friend of the Harmony Centre is in addition to the ‘by donation’ tuition fees for seminars and meditations. It is about providing so that others may have the experience of learning.
How to become a Friend of the Harmony Centre member?
Friends donate through periodic transfer which they establish and control, either weekly, fortnightly or monthly depending upon what is most convenient. A gift account has been established to receive these donations and the account details are:
Shanti Mission Harmony Centres Limited
BSB: 062 832
Account number: 1013 8000
When setting up a bank transfer please ensure you put your name followed by FOTHC so that we can identify your donation. (eg SmithFOTHC)
You can also set up your membership through PayPal below by selecting the monthly amount you would like to contribute and click Subscribe.
Service
We are deeply grateful to all who come and help in the office, in the kitchen, and in the garden as well as those who come and volunteer at our seminars.
Regular weekly service at a Harmony Centre entitles one to be a Friend of the Harmony Centre during the period of service. You need to be registered and participating as a regular volunteer to be included in our friends scheme in lieu of financial donation. This enables those who lack any financial means to gain access to the tremendous spiritual opportunities which membership entails. Contact our volunteer coordinator Chad Humphreys at Cooranbong Harmony Centre to see how you can get involved and have some fun as well.
How are funds used?
According to the constitution of Shanti Mission Harmony Centres , all funds must be spent on charitable work and its administration. Shanti Mission Harmony Centres is a tax exempt charity which is audited every year and a report submitted to the Australian Taxation Office in respect of our activities, income and expenditure. Our accounts are open for inspection. Should any Friends seek further information please contact the manager at Cooranbong Harmony Centre .
Friends Of the Harmony Centre contributions covers the following classes of expenditure:
- Funding research for example the depression study completed in 2008
- Further planned studies to come including a blood pressure treatment clinic
- Further planned research into the effect of IYS therapy on alleviation of depression
- To allow planning for future research into IYS therapy and its efficacy in treating a wide range of illnesses
- Designing and implementation of Wellness programs based upon the Path of Ease and Grace and IYS therapy
- Funding start up of Harmony Centres in other areas for example Gunnedah and Canyonleigh Harmony Centre
- Paying teachers
- Healing clinic – providing free healings to the public
- Shanti Mission projects that are proposed eg: to fund a teacher to teach IYS for Kids in primary schools, funding healings in hospitals, funding aboriginal wellness programs, pain clinics, blood pressure studies, asthma support groups establishment of a cardiac wellness clinic, fertility clinic, allergy clinic, cancer support group, diabetes care, carer’s support groups all of which are planned for the coming months/years
- Project support for the recognition of IYS therapy as a bona fide complementary therapy respected and accepted by the mainstream medical profession
- Creating teaching resources for Path of Ease and Grace as well as for the higher initiate programs
- Administration costs
- Rent, phone (Huge) electricity, photocopier, rates, water, coffee, stationery,
- Garden maintenance (excluding the recent car park construction at Cooranbong)
- Web site construction and management
Walking our Talk
Becoming enlightened is not something that can be done by sprinters. Sprinters can go really fast for a short period of time, say 6 months or a year, but then they are exhausted and they stop altogether. The people that make the best progress are stayers. They have done the seminars, maybe several times. They come to satsang or other events or they volunteer and through doing so they continue their evolution. Sai Baba and many other spiritual teachers talk about the value to the spiritual aspirant of strong spiritual community; we learn much more in community and through relationship than we can as solitary practitioners. It is not until we bring the Divine energy into our lives and live it in relationships, that we can see how much we can contain the Limitless Light within our being and use it peacefully, effectively and lovingly. Any spiritual wellness community is a place where you can feel safe to practise your new skills on people who understand that we are all doing our best, all growing and learning, and that spiritual development involves time, process and mistakes!
Signs of Advancement
When assessing people for levels of spiritual development, one of the main tests is that the focus has moved from the resurrection of the self and is now focused on making things better for others. The heart rules instead of the solar plexus. The solar plexus wants to receive and be given to. It wants you to focus on me. The heart is focused on giving, and knows that others need help. Through compassion (not rescuing) appropriate help is given. Secondly, advanced spiritual aspirants tithe. Tithing is the giving of money in support of your spiritual community and teachers. This does not include giving to other assorted charities, that is done as an addition to tithing through the generosity of heart of the aspirant. The primary tithe is to your ‘spiritual parents’.
Spiritual Law of Tithing
Tithing is a spiritual law designed to promote great abundance amongst committed spiritual aspirants. It involves the concept of donating 10% of ones income to ones spiritual tradition.
Tithing got a bad name in the past when Catholics in the Middle Ages demanded tithes with force from a poverty stricken peasantry. As we know, anything that is done by force is done at a very low vibration, driven by fear not love. The rationale was that the peasants souls would be better off by tithing so let’s force them to do it, and if their bodies suffer that is irrelevant because the flesh is evil. Such distorted, antiquated views have no place in an ashram of love and are not part of the universal law of tithing.
Despite the abuses of the law of tithing in the past, it is a valid spiritual law. It is also a very high teaching. In the Bahai faith, tithing is not even allowed to be spoken about until the spiritual leaders decide that the community is mature enough to be capable of following the teaching. It is not meant to be a burden. It is meant to open the door to limitless abundance. Some communities beg the international governing body to allow them to practice tithing, but until they are ready, permission is not given.
Balance
Because some people go crazy giving more than they ought, thus not observing balance, a limit was placed upon the giving. Unless there is an exceptional circumstance, the normal rule is that we only give 10% of our net income, after deduction of household expenses. This means that we are tithing. Tithing is an advanced spiritual practice and reaps rich rewards.
Like devotion, tithing works to the extent that you do it. Just say that after payment of tax and rent and groceries you are left with $100 per week. The tithe would be $10 per week. If you give $1 then you are only giving 10% of the tithe. Thus you will probably only receive a 5% benefit because while you are giving, (which is good) you are not really tithing. If you give 20% you might receive a 10% benefit. If you give 50% of the tithe or $5 per week you could expect to get back 60% benefit. If you tithe over 80% ie $8 or more the benefit becomes exponential. The full tithe, $10 will bring you amazing opportunity, luck, and fortune in this and other lifetimes. Let us consider what $10 is worth in our society. It is one packet of cigarettes per week. It is less than one can purchase a bottle of wine. It is a bunch of flowers, or three cappucinos. We are not talking a great deal of money for a great investment in the self.
If after paying tax and household expenses you are left with $1000 per week then your tithe is $100 per week. No matter what our income might be, the aware and committed spiritual aspirant can afford to tithe.
Friends of the Harmony Centre
We do not expect full tithing in order to be Friends. We do however feel a spiritual obligation to inform you properly of this law, and give you the option of working your life around, following principles of moderation and balance, so that you can get the full benefit of tithing.
It takes spiritual muscle to do this. The solar plexus chakra has a consciousness that wants to get money not give it. However, the viewpoint of the solar plexus is always very short term. The heart chakra takes a longer standpoint, which is why the virtue of tenacity is associated with the heart chakra. The heart chakra likes to give as it understands spiritual law and knows that this is the only way to receive what is needed even in really difficult and challenging times.
As though to confirm this teaching, just after realizing it was time to focus upon this as a community, a friend told me this story.
A soul was up in heaven being tutored by its Guides and Guru prior to taking its next incarnation. It was keen to become enlightened and have a nice life as well. The Guides said that is easy, all you have to do when you get down to Earth is give 10% of what you earn to God. The soul looked at the guide in amazement and said ‘are you sure I don’t have to give everything to God to get enlightened?
“No” said the guide, “just 10%”.
“Wow, last incarnation I paid my agent more than that, this sounds so easy what is the catch?”
The guide looked at the soul and said,
“When you get to Earth, you won’t want to do it”.
As we open to more love and to the full joy of Divine awareness, let us not forget the grounding ‘put your money where your mouth is’ teaching of tithing. It will open many doors for all of us.
Get listed as a friend
Our preference is that Friends donations are made by regular periodic payment at no more than monthly intervals. It is easy to see who is a Friend of the Harmony Centre from looking at our bank records, which tell us who deposited funds.
Some of our Friends understand the karmic value of anonymous donation and so they just put money into the account without indicating who it is from, or straight into the donation box at the Harmony Centre unlabeled. That is great, but unless we know who it is from, we cannot list you as a Friend of the Harmony Centre. If donating by periodic payment, please include your name or the name of the person on behalf of whom you wish to tithe. If placing it in a donation box, please put it in an envelope marked Friends donation with your name on it, or we will not know that you are a contributing Friend. By all means continue to make other donations anonymously, if you wish.
It is not a question of how much one contributes that makes one a Friend, it is the motivation and regularity that makes one a Friend.
Testimonial
Dear Kim,
I am just letting you know how I have totally transformed my life from living in limiting beliefs and thoughts of lack, to a constant continual flow of abundance (thanks to the Harmony Centre). I have been a friend of the Harmony Centre since the friends program started, always donating $20.00 every week and continuing to follow the Dimensions of Wealth principles and studying every abundance program available. Each and every prosperity plan states the importance of giving till it hurts and tithing. So four weeks ago I decided to give 10% of my income to the Harmony Centre, and it did hurt as I had several bills that I could have paid with that money. But I gave it with faith and love in my heart because I see the lives of so many people transform before my eyes each and every day. So in return my income has doubled and now I have more free time to spend at the Harmony Centre in service. So it’s a Win Win Win situation! Many many BLESSNGS on you, Kim, and your Beloved partner Hugh, for having a dream and following it and giving me and thousands of other people a safe place to heal, love and grow. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! Namaste.
Karen 37 - Fennell Bay NSW
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