January 29, 2025
A lot happens at Greenfield Retreat Center. With the sacred silence often rent by the excitement and noise of ongoing chapel construction, it would be easy to overlook the many forms of service that lie at the heart of this sacred place.
In coming weeks, whenever construction slows due to weather, we’ll focus attention on some of the many other service projects and activities underway here. It’s a long list. Here’s one project that belongs near the top of that list: rose petals for devotees around the world.
Petals for Home Kriya Ceremony
If you’ve had the blessing of receiving SRF’s new Kriya Yoga Lessons, you’ve likely held in your hands a small plastic envelope containing a card and dried rose petals—special petals that were blessed and made sacred in Master’s shrine at Mother Center. (The use and import of the petals are explained in the accompanying Lesson.)
From Mother Center in Los Angeles, these dried petals are sent out to devotees in multiple countries throughout the world. Long before the rose petals make it to Mother Center, however, they’ve made a significant stopover at Greenfield.
The Greenfield Connection
At Greenfield, a team of local women devotees has the sacred privilege of carrying out the multi-step process that prepares the petals. Under monastic supervision, members of the team purchase red roses, press and dry the petals, and insert them by hand into small plastic envelopes. This meticulous process requires concentration and mindful, focused attention—kind of like meditation.
This past year the Greenfield Petal Seva team has sent literally thousands of petal packets to Mother Center to be blessed and forwarded to brand new kriyabans and also to long-time kriyabans who request the new Kriya Lessons. So far the team has prepared packets in English, Italian, and Portuguese, with Spanish language packets soon to come. (Packets for devotees in India and surrounding countries are prepared in India.)
What with the current explosive growth of Self-Realization Fellowship, and with the new Lessons being translated into many new languages, the Petal Seva team looks forward to working together, with love and harmony, at this sweet, humble task on into the future.