Welcome to the Ghana Self-realisation Tour Blog, which took place
16-31 October 2009, in
Ghana: The Land of the Ganas, and geographical centre of the world (5 degrees North, 0 degrees West).
The Self-realisation Tour followed the route shown in the map below:
Monday, November 30, 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
Monday, August 31, 2009
Interview with Shri Mataji in Vienna
Interview with Shri Mataji in Vienna
What Shri Mataji did and continues to do relentlessly and tirelessly is helping to bring about our own personal transformation and to raise our awareness to a higher level.
Interview with Shri Mataji in Vienna. July 9, 1986
Those of us who have not heard or read about Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi could be surprised that the personality of such a stature has not reached their awareness before… And rightfully so – the impact of her work and her contribution to the well-being of humanity as a whole is hard to estimate.
What Shri Mataji did and continues to do relentlessly and tirelessly is helping to bring about our own personal transformation and to raise our awareness to a higher level.
Her discovery of a simple technique to trigger the awakening of the primordial energy, often referred to as “Kundalini“, within each human being has already transformed millions around the world and many more are to come. This simple technique transcends the heights of scientific discoveries and artistic achievements. It transforms our societies on the fundamental level, brings us back to our roots so our future development can be balanced, empowering and harmonious among ourselves and towards nature. It is not a book or a lecture – it is a living process which is waiting to happen within each and every one of us.
Knowledgeable in science, art, politics, economics, sociology, medicine, Shri Mataji maintains that peace in our societies can only be brought about through discovering peace within ourselves. After thousands of lectures and programs, Shri Mataji is leaving us a treasure of knowledge so vast and profound that generations to come will draw wisdom and inspiration from her words. Like a magician with a gentle movement of her wand, she left us examples of what to aspire to. Yet, her ultimate magic, the awakening of our Kundalini energy, leaves us speechless about her greatest stature.
1. Can you speak about your whole life?
I’m a story teller (Shri Mataji laughs) It is something like an autobiography.
2. Can you describe the circumstances during your childhood?
I belong to a family of very enlightened people. My father was a linguist and he was master of fourteen languages. He knew about 26 languages and he translated even Koransharif into Hindi language. My mother was in those days, was a honors in mathematics. So both they were very well-educated and enlightened people.
At the time of my birth my mother dreamed something which she could not explain. But after that she had a great desire to go and see a tiger in the open field. My father was a great hunter, because tigers were a menace in the area where we were living. It was a hill-station called Chindwara. So there was a king who was very much interested in my father.
Somehow or another a letter came that there is a tiger, very big tiger and they are frightened of him that he might be a maneater. So my father took my mother and moved to that place. And they were sitting in what we call as a Machan. Where they built something for people to sit on top of a tree, from where they can shoot nicely. And then my mother tells me that a big huge tiger, of very big size, very beautifully appeared on the field and she felt tremendous love for the tiger.
It was a full moon day and she felt extremely compassionate towards the tiger and when my father raised his gun to shoot, she stopped and she wouldn’t allow him. The tiger went away and he never came to that forest again.
But that made my father think, because he himself is a realized soul. That must be somebody what we call a goddess Durga, who is fond of the tiger must be born to my mother, because the symptoms where rather funny that the lady should like to see a tiger. So he told my mother: “Now are you satisfied?” Because they were struggling with the gun. He said: “Is there of Durga sitting in your womb, that you are trying to protect a tiger?” She said: “Yes, yes stop it now, I won’t allow you!”.
Shri Mataji with her family
Like that there were many incidents in my life, because I am of a Christian family, Protestants and when I was born my mother didn’t feel any labour-pains or anything just I was born. She did not know how and I had no blood on my body, nothing. I was clean washed that is why they called me as Nirmala.
But my grandmother said that she should be called as Nishkalanka. That means the one which has no spots on her. But that is the name of a man. So they said alright we call her Nirmala meaning the same – Immaculate.
Now all these incidents. And then my father, being a realized soul, he felt tremendous vibrations from me and he felt that this life is great and that she will do something great in this life. I do not know why, but I don’t know if he dreamed or he understood it, but all the time if I remember when he talked to me, he used to say that: “You have to find out the way of giving “en mass” realisation all the time.
As I told you, he was a great scholar of so many things and a very wide read man, so he gave me a good education in religion, in different religions, and also a good education about human beings. What are their problems? Why did they act like this? Why don’t they take to God? Why are they hypocritical? All kind of things he talked to me.
He also knew about Kundalini. But not so much. Of course when I was born, I knew all about Kundalini myself. I knew all about it, from my very childhood. So I was a very aware person – extremely aware. I did not know how to talk to, because – you see – people did not have that awareness, you can’t talk to everyone like that.
So I was regarded as a very joyful person at the same time very serious also, very deep and then I started my studies as a child. I was not very much interested in the studies, though I used to do them very well. But I used to read lives of great men and things like that.
At a very young age I read Bernard Shaw. When people were reading their expectations I was reading Bernard Shaw. But as such I did not have any interest in particular, in reading some text books, because I thought they were childish and there was nothing to be read about it. Then I told my father that I have to do medicine. So he said: “Why?” I said: “Because I have to talk to doctors.” He said: “You have to talk to doctors?” “Yes!”, I said.
Shri Mataji lived in the ashram of Mahatma Gandhi when she was 7.
But it so happened in my childhood, when I was about 7 years of age. My father was a congressman, he had joined congress when I was 4 years of age. He used to live with a style very westernized – you see. He threw away everything and became a real Indian and started leading a life of a martial. Then he made us study our languages, Sanskrit he made us study in an Indian school not in a missionary school.
Because missionary is very, very unkind. They threw us out of the school, when my father was in the congress. They were against us completely. Then at the age of seven years, I happened to go with my father to Mahatma Gandhi. He was about 70 miles living with us. But the first time he took me down and Mahatma Gandhi, he liked me very much. He said: “Leave this child here!”
So I had not taken clothes or anything to stay there and my father sent to me everything. And he was very fond of me. But I was a little girl. But he understood that there was something about me. He consulted me on very serious problems sometimes, surprisingly. Like one day he wanted to make me a prayer-book alright, so he asked me: “How should I put these series and all that.” So I told him, how to put the series and he put the series in that way.
I used to go back for my school and again to go back to Gandhiji. Every year like that. And he called me Nepali. He gave me a name “Nepali”. Everybody used to call me Nepali that time. Then I grew up with him very intimately, he was a very, very kind person for children.
Otherwise an extremely strict man, with himself and with others, very strict. A big disciplined man. And he would make everybody get up at 4 o’clock, have your baths everything be ready for your morning prayers at 5 o’clock – you see – and he used to walk very fast. I also learned walking fast with him. In his company I had to walk fast.
And he had been extremely loving and a very nice person. And he would listen to me, because I was a child. Supposing I had forced him to eat more or something then he would have laughed and accepted. Very kind person.
But with others, he was very strict and I used to tell him that: “Why are you strict with them too much?” He said: “But you are a little girl, you got up in the morning, why can’t they get up?” I said: “I am little, that’s why I get up, they are big, so they can’t get up.” Like that you see a little child.
Then my father went to jail and my mother also went to jail five times. My father went to jail twice. Once for about two and a half years and he was the only supporting member of the family. By the way we came from a very old royal family, which is called as Shalivahanas. They have a calender also in India.
And then, when they took my father to jail we had to leave our house and we had to live in huts and had all kind of problems. But also me, they pestered a lot because I helped many people there. I joined effort to movement and in a very serious way I became the leader there. But we were young people.
I thought unless and until I take a very positive stand, it may not work out with them. It is not gracious to say how they tortured me. What they did to me. But they really tortured me. I was a young girl of nineteen years that time. It is over now, so it is finished. After that my father went to jail again and then when he came back, he got elected as the member of the central assembly, later on as the constructor of the assembly and then of the parliament.
My brother was also member of the parliament later on, now recently he was the minister in the cabinet. Another brother is a high-court judge in Bombay. They are all doing well despite the fact, that our parents neglected us in a way, because they gave their lives to the country, but that never deterred as from studies and we came up very well.
When I was in 1942 two movement my college justicabled me from the college and threw me out and I had to go to another college to study far away from my house. Then I studied for two years science. Then I did my medical. I didn’t do fully, because just after that the 1947 riots broke out. So college was closed and I did not want to know more, because what I wanted to know, I think to know about it. So I did not need, and I got married.
Sir C.P. Srivastava - Husband of Shri Mataji
You must have heard my husband work is now the secretary in general of the International Maritime Organization. He held very high positions. He was also secretary to Shastri who was our prime minister, who was another very great man. But he did not survive long. If he had survived things would have been different, I think, for our country, because he was a Gandhian, out and out Gandhian.
I mean he lived like an ideal Gandhian personality. So that’s how my life went on. But inner being was still seeking the way and methods of giving “en mass” realization.
My father said: “Before you do not develop this technique of giving “en mass” realization do not talk about religion. Let nobody know that you know anything about it, because they will crucify you or….” He was rather worried that people won’t understand, or you may write another Bible or Gita – no use.
First of all you must give them realization. If they get their realization then they will realize that there is something about it, about this human awareness. For example, he always used to give an analogy. Supposing we are born on the tenth storey and everybody is on the ground. You must at least make them climb two storeys so they know that there is something above. Otherwise no use talking about it.
And he said: “This is the mistake between the saints and the incarnations was, that they never realized that these people are still on the ground. They have to still enter into the medium. So that is what you have to be very careful that first of all you must give realization to them.”
So I was seeking the ways and methods, working it out inside myself through my own style of meditation in the sense that I would work out all the permutations and combinations and when I met one person then I would see what problems that person had, how you can overcome it, like that I would try to study that person internally.
And I went to many people to find out, but I found they were great hypocrites. I saw so many of these Gurus, most of them. When I saw them, I was surprised they were all hypocrites. Money making and also. I went to Rash Neesh also to see him and he said that I should come to his program. I did not know what sort of man, because he was talking about Gita and I thought he might be knowing something about it.
I went there but my husband said: “No, I won’t allow you to go to this program. So he arranged his own…….. There I could see all the things which were going on. And that is the day somehow or another I said: “I must open the last chakra!” So the last chakra was opened and I saw the Kundalini, which is the primordial force within us, which is the Holy Ghost within us, rising, like a telescope opening out. And then I saw the whole thing open and a big torrential rain of beams started flowing through my head all over.
I felt I am lost, I am no more, there it’s only the grace is there, that is there. I saw it completely happening to me. But I was amazed that when I went to Rash Neesh, because he forgot even to say good bye, because he never realized what had happened or anything, so I was surprised, I said: “This man doesn’t know anything about God!” and then I discovered that they are all hypocrites and they are telling lies.
So in 1970, 5th of May this happened and just after that we had a very big lecture in Carnagy Hall. This is a very big hall and thousands of people had come and I told them very frankly that these are all thugs and hypocrites, some of them are demonic, some are evil people. I told their names everything. I told them: “Do not go near them!” There were some foreigners also.
And there were so many others whom I told these things very clearly and they got frightened. They said: “You should not say like this. They will come and murder you.” But nobody did anything and nobody even went to the courts. And that’s how they try to bring bad name to me. They paid money to the newspapers to publish things against me, because I said: “You cannot pay money!” So they thought that I was trying to harm them by saying such a thing that you can’t take money in the name of God.
If it is a job you can do it, but Gods work is not a job. And the struggle started from the day I started giving realization. And I started with one lady who got realization first. Then we got about twelve people who got realization. In two years got only about 14 people realization. Then gradually when 14 people got realization then many others started getting realization.
Six of the first seven Western Sahaja Yogis
But I started also curing people, because that was helping a lot. Then my husband got elected to this post and we had to come to London.
So when I came to London we had one program. So the Indians abroad are not so much interested in God, they are more interested in money. So none of the Indians stayed there. They all run away and only the foreigners who were there, were about seven hippies and so I had to work on them – seven hippies – for four years I was working on them to give them the realization. They were difficult, their liver was bad, their head was off, terrible time. But in between I used to go to India.
And in India also the work was done. For three month always I have been in India. So we started working in the villages, specially surprisingly were my forefathers were ruling in that area. There we started moving in a very big way. And there then we started taking the people from India.
And some people came from Australia to India, like that and the work started moving in those directions. Gradually the work improved and people found that this is the way we can transform ourselves. Many people were taking drugs, or alcoholics or mad people all kinds of people. They felt better and they got cured. It was established that Sahaja Yoga is something very important.
Now, when I travel all over the world first my husband used to pay for everything, wherever I went he had to pay – any expenses he used to do for me. Gradually now this people pay for my travel, but otherwise they do not have to pay for anything else. That is how we started our work. There was lot of opposition and the media-people would never understand it. Because it was not such a sensation as you can say, nothing to people feel exited but in a way it is a very great thing, because this is the solution of the whole world, one should try to do it.
Then we had very great people who came to Sahaja Yoga, like we can say the main high court judge, who is now the president, who has given Nicaragua some judgment and many lawyers and even barrister. We have one barrister here from Algeria and doctors and then they took over and they started helping me out how to propagate Sahaja Yoga.
A public program in India
But it was a difficult task in the west. Of course in India it is spreading very fast in the villages, but the city people in India also the people are westernized and they will start analyzing. They don’t know much about our past, they don’t know anything about our heritage that we have our Kundalini.
But some people do know about Self-realization. But these Gurus could not stick on in India because nobody would accept them. So they all run away abroad. And that was something a blessing for me also, because I did not have to fight them there. And it started working out and then people found that it helps in every way and they found so many miracles about it and that’s how Sahaja Yoga was settled quite a lot.
But still I would say that we have not been to certain countries so far and in the west, I would say that so much work has to be done there, because as soon as you start any work in any place first of all they want me to cure people and to help them with cure. Now if I pay attention more to that then the main work is to create doctors out of everyone that is neglected then you become unpopular. They think: “Oh, she’s not sympathetic”, this and that.
But now as we have everybody can cure now everyone. I don’t cure anyone directly. But they don’t like it, they want I should be there and their ego to be pampered and all these things are there, it’s rather difficult. We are not running any lecture like we should please others, sort of things, not that, but whatever is reality. If a person has intelligence, pure intelligence, he can see that this is something very different.
And for that one has to understand that you cannot force on anyone that you get your realization in the same way you cannot force me that I give you realization, because if does not work, it does not work, it’s such a living force. And that upsets them very soon. I feel that the way this industrial revolution has come in the west. People have lost their knowings perhaps they are so confused with all these gurus coming down here confusing them and all kind of new things coming. They don’t know where to look.
Unless and until you get your evolution completed. Unless and until you reach that absolute state of understanding the chaos will remain.
So one has to try to get to that. But one must understand: You cannot pay for it. There is no effort. After getting realization they feel so satisfied, they forget about it. But after that you must know how to give it to others. As Christ has said: “The light which is enlightened you do not put it under the table!”
That’s how what happens that, though I give realization to some hundred people, only out of them five, six will come forward to help us out. But still I must say, a lot of work has been done. Especially Austria. I am very proud of Austria, and the way they have never given me any problem, never – very good people have come out of Austria. Very balanced, level headed people. Very level headed.
They are not extremists, they don’t go to extremes, so there is no fanaticism about them. They are sensible people. And something so lucky that Austria was found out. Because I never expected that in Austria there will be so many people. But somehow – like water finds it’s own level, Sahaja Yoga finds its own level. We just come down to Austria. We haven’t been to Norway, to Sweden, to Denmark, Finland. I visited those places, because of my husbands job but I have not …….
Now we have sixteen centers in Australia. And Australia is a very progressive Sahaja Yoga thing. We have got schools now there. They are running schools and the teachers are extremely well-behaved and visionaries and they look after the children very well. The government people sent somebody for observation and they have remarked that whatever they proclaim that’s what they manifest. And they have given good certificates to us.
But the greatest achievement on the outward life is this that Cambridge University has accepted Sahaja Yoga for research work with respect. By one doctor Lee who is doing the research about Sahaja Yoga in Cambridge University – he is already doctor. And there is another great thing has happened in Delhi University that the Delhi University has accepted that a person can do, only a doctor can do a P.H.D. of we can say a doctorat in Sahaja Yoga and he gets the highest degree, called the doctor of medicine. And perhaps after some time they will allow anyone to do that. This is about the medicine part of it.
Shri Mataji experimented with sunflowers in her farmhouse in Pune, in the late 1980’s, and produced tremendously big ones, more than 12 inches in diameter. They were very heavy and gave on the average 250 mm. of oil. This was reported in the newspaper. The photo shows Shri Mataji with the outsize sunflowers.
In agriculture we have done lots of research by say, we have somebody here, an expert of agriculture. He has also done a lot of research and he found out that with vibrations he started after realization. If you vibrate the water and if you water the plants with that then sometimes you might get even ten times more breed that’s what they did in India. In one of the agriculture universities. But here also they found out that there is tremendous difference between the growth of an ordinary plant.
Another thing that I found out in agriculture that if you give vibrations, then even an ordinary cow can give lot of milk. But if you have hybrid cows than you see it’s not good for the brain, because a person who takes hybrid milk also, gets hybrid. I mean his brain gets little wobbly. So better to have a pure milk from a cow which is not been put to this kind of an experimentation.
Moreover food also, if you eat hybrid food it’s not very good for us, for that spoils our nerves I think. But ordinary seeds you cannot use, because they have weakened and they cannot reproduce. So, when we vibrate them, they produce very well, just like – better than even sometimes hybrid things and the food tastes very well, and it doesn’t give those complications.
So this can help in agriculture in India and the government has allotied us a lot of land where we are going now to experiment and we are going to start experimentation there to show that how we can use this. But many farmers who are Sahaja Yogis have done a lot of job and they have discovered that even animals and this what you call farming, everything is helped very much by vibrations.
So it improves the lives of people. We have on the other side, social side, I can tell you that we have marriages, international marriages. We arrange international marriages between people, they have to know each other and they are together and first of all they are together for one and half month with us on the tour.
They can see each other and the marriages are fixed and we have seen that such marriages are extremely successful. 99 % marriages are successful. Once in a while maybe a mishap but mostly there are no divorces that take place. Once in a while, if it’s not successful we have no objections to divorce also.
But mostly they are successful and they get children who are very intelligent and who are themselves born-realized children mostly. So the problem is much less and the family life improves. The quality of life is 1000 times better. People are very joyous, happy, they do not complain and they enjoy life and they give to others. They share what joy they have.
3. What do you think are the important points in the education of children? What is important to be given to the children?
First if they get realization. If they are already born realized no problem, but if they have been given their realization then they will start to see things from a different level. They become the Spirit. So their self respect awakens. Such children behave in a very dignified manner. They talk in a very elderly manner. They see solutions of all kinds and they are tremendous beings. But we have to guide them properly by our own behaviour.
Shri Mataji with children
How we behave, the greatest thing is how we behave that’s how the children like. We put the children to some tests how they are. We find out if they have any physical problems, we cure them. If they have mental problems we cure them. If they have any other problems, social problems or anything, we try to help them out. So that basically if a human being is alright in childhood then fundamentals are alright for the child.
The foundation is laid down then to build a child up in a good quality is not difficult. So now we find like great artists are there. There are great musicians. At a very young age, they have started playing violin. I mean suddenly they have become dynamic also and very humble. They are very humble and self respected and very well behaved.
Surprising how the atmosphere is and how it works out. And the other day a lady asked me about the women then I told her that a woman’s power as a mother is very great. She felt hurt about it and I did not mean that you should be just a mother. She is a mother, means she is compassionate. She is kind. She is not aggressive like men. That is a very big quality that is a very big power in a woman, that’s what I was suggesting. That that is what we have to have. Is not to compete with men. This is Madness. To compete with men, and to go about like that.
So we have to understand that life has to be enjoyable. Life should be a blessing, not to be a misery. We create our own miseries by these false ideas by our own conflictions, we have in our mind mental projections we have in our mind or our own obstinacy, whatever it is. All these things can be cured if you take to Sahaja Yoga, because you become a balanced person, level headed, mild person and you become a witness. The whole thing becomes like a show, like a drama and you become fearless, you start seeing the whole thing like a drama. This is what a human being has to achieve.
We talk of peace, we talk of no war, we talk of many things like this, atomic bomb, this and that. All that is not going to work out. Only what is going to work out is the transformation of human beings. If the human beings are transformed things will work out absolutely first class. Not only that, but that they will enjoy the bliss of life.
We are missing the point all together. This is a very important thing that human beings must say one thing: “What have you achieved out of all this?” Just for a minute to stop and think.
4. What are the causes of illness?
The physical, mental, emotional, all illnesses are caused by the imbalances that live within us. By our extreme behaviour. And supposing, say now cancer. Cancer is caused by the over activity of the sympathetic nervous system. Supposing a person is a very sad person, he cries and weeps and all the time feels guilty and thinks he is the worst person ever born. He has committed so many sins and all sorts of nonsense. Then he goes to the left side, according to us, and crosses over to the collective subconscious area and there, according to us, what they call as Protein 58 and Protein 52.
Doctors call it that way, but we call it as the dead souls. They exist there and they catch hold of you and they trigger the cancer. But supposing by any chance you can bring the attention fully away from that in the centre. You can get cured. So it is the centres within us which are subtle, which are basically seven centres. There are many others, but basically seven. If you can put them right you cannot have any sickness or illness of any kind.
5. Can you explain. You said, that your parents supported you very much in your learning and in your studies? Is it correct?
Yes, of course!
6. Is it normal that the parents support their child in a form like this?
In India all parents support their child.
7. And you can learn everything what you want to?
Yes, yes, I mean that is true. But the basic thing is: Parents are very benevolent to their children, very kind to their children. And to them the child’s education, the child’s upbringing and the child’s life is very important. That’s why we know they are so we depend on them, they look after us and they are very wise people. They sacrifice everything for us. So whatever they say, we think it’s nice and by doing this, we have not lost anything so far.
In India if you find Indian children, when they came abroad they always stop. They are very obedient children and they behave very well. We don’t have all this problem. Teenage-problem, homosexuality, we don’t know even these problems. Because we are so close with the parents all the time. They all the time watch us we don’t have drug problems. None of these – only in the cities little bit it happens and it disappears. Because parents are all the time with their children. They live together, the whole family lives together.
And not only with the parents, but all the relations and all the people in the village and in the city everyone knows each other. Such a joyful system we have, that we do not normally fall, sort of go to wrong ways and methods and we do not become obstinate also.
8. But you grew up in a Christian family! It’s not a normal situation that Indian people are Christian?
Yes, I know, I was born in a Christian family deliberately, because I personally think that protestants are the greatest fanatics. They are very sophisticated, their fanaticism is in their brain. Nobody can make them out that they have fanaticism, that they are very great fanatics, the greatest of all. But that times were very enlightened people they understood Christ very well.
They say, I told you about Paul when I was ….. First time I took the Bible in the hand and I asked my father: “Who is this Paul?” He said: “It’s an imprudor, forget it, don’t believe him at all.” So they understood all these things very well because my father was a realized soul like Khalil Gibran.
If you read Khalil Gibran he says the same thing about Paul, the same thing. So if you are an enlightened person you see the essence of everything. Whatever religion you are born, you don’t ignore any other religion, you try to learn about other religion and then you find the essence is the same in every religion.
What is there to fight? And that’s how you belong to no religion, you belong to every religion that’s what happens. But my parents were very enlightened people I must say, and I was very lucky to choose them as my parents.
9. You have been an enlightened child – is it correct?
Yes, I have been born as an enlightened child.
10. You don’t feel sometimes very lonesome, because all the others are different?
No, No. If you know how to share with others. Actually I was like a mother to them from my very childhood. When my father and mother went to jail, I was about 5 1/2 years of age. So I had all the duties of the house in my little frock and I used to get all the duties like the grandmother. I never felt lost. My life on the whole is very collective on temperament I am extremely collective. I can live anywhere, I can sleep anywhere and I can live in the jungles, I have no problems or that I am extremely collective.
I was expressing my temperament from very childhood. I was very friendly with all the people from that area where we were living and my mother was known as Nirmala’s mother. Father was known as Nirmala’s father. So they said: “We have lost our identity because of her.”
So I was a very friendly person. I never felt lonely and when I am with myself I am never lonely at all. I enjoy myself very much.
11. When you have been to that ashram with Gandhi. What were your impression, you remember about Gandhi?
Oh, Gandhiji was a tremendous man and I used to learn a lot from him. He was not at all hypocrite that’s one thing. And he was not like politicians who say something do something wrong. He was very outspoken and always he put himself on the testing point. And he used to confess if he made mistakes immediately. One very great incident I remember when I was a small child. They were having a meeting together and we girls were there sitting, only giving them water and things to all the people. People were there like Jawaherlal Nehru and Mollana Azad. All these people were sitting there. They were discussing something and then suddenly Mahatmaji Gandhiji said: “I was very late, we will have lunch here.” So they said: “Yes we will have lunch here.”
They had to go to the guest house which was far away. So Mahatmaji Gandhiji asked for “Baa”. She had gone out. So he got up, he had a key with him always of the store-room, he opened the store and he asked the people who were in charge of cooking to measure everything according to the people there are, properly everything. And then they measured it out everything was done.
Then he put the key back and then he went and sat there nicely. So these people said: “Bapu, we did not know you have to take so much troubles. You see to go all the way and looking for her. It didn’t take much time, about 15 minutes, but still. So he said: “What do you think?” This is the blood of my country, I cannot allow it to be wasted.
http://www.freemeditation.ca/news/2009/06/24/interview-with-shri-mataji-in-vienna/
What Shri Mataji did and continues to do relentlessly and tirelessly is helping to bring about our own personal transformation and to raise our awareness to a higher level.
Interview with Shri Mataji in Vienna. July 9, 1986
Those of us who have not heard or read about Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi could be surprised that the personality of such a stature has not reached their awareness before… And rightfully so – the impact of her work and her contribution to the well-being of humanity as a whole is hard to estimate.
What Shri Mataji did and continues to do relentlessly and tirelessly is helping to bring about our own personal transformation and to raise our awareness to a higher level.
Her discovery of a simple technique to trigger the awakening of the primordial energy, often referred to as “Kundalini“, within each human being has already transformed millions around the world and many more are to come. This simple technique transcends the heights of scientific discoveries and artistic achievements. It transforms our societies on the fundamental level, brings us back to our roots so our future development can be balanced, empowering and harmonious among ourselves and towards nature. It is not a book or a lecture – it is a living process which is waiting to happen within each and every one of us.
Knowledgeable in science, art, politics, economics, sociology, medicine, Shri Mataji maintains that peace in our societies can only be brought about through discovering peace within ourselves. After thousands of lectures and programs, Shri Mataji is leaving us a treasure of knowledge so vast and profound that generations to come will draw wisdom and inspiration from her words. Like a magician with a gentle movement of her wand, she left us examples of what to aspire to. Yet, her ultimate magic, the awakening of our Kundalini energy, leaves us speechless about her greatest stature.
1. Can you speak about your whole life?
I’m a story teller (Shri Mataji laughs) It is something like an autobiography.
2. Can you describe the circumstances during your childhood?
I belong to a family of very enlightened people. My father was a linguist and he was master of fourteen languages. He knew about 26 languages and he translated even Koransharif into Hindi language. My mother was in those days, was a honors in mathematics. So both they were very well-educated and enlightened people.
At the time of my birth my mother dreamed something which she could not explain. But after that she had a great desire to go and see a tiger in the open field. My father was a great hunter, because tigers were a menace in the area where we were living. It was a hill-station called Chindwara. So there was a king who was very much interested in my father.
Somehow or another a letter came that there is a tiger, very big tiger and they are frightened of him that he might be a maneater. So my father took my mother and moved to that place. And they were sitting in what we call as a Machan. Where they built something for people to sit on top of a tree, from where they can shoot nicely. And then my mother tells me that a big huge tiger, of very big size, very beautifully appeared on the field and she felt tremendous love for the tiger.
It was a full moon day and she felt extremely compassionate towards the tiger and when my father raised his gun to shoot, she stopped and she wouldn’t allow him. The tiger went away and he never came to that forest again.
But that made my father think, because he himself is a realized soul. That must be somebody what we call a goddess Durga, who is fond of the tiger must be born to my mother, because the symptoms where rather funny that the lady should like to see a tiger. So he told my mother: “Now are you satisfied?” Because they were struggling with the gun. He said: “Is there of Durga sitting in your womb, that you are trying to protect a tiger?” She said: “Yes, yes stop it now, I won’t allow you!”.
Shri Mataji with her family
Like that there were many incidents in my life, because I am of a Christian family, Protestants and when I was born my mother didn’t feel any labour-pains or anything just I was born. She did not know how and I had no blood on my body, nothing. I was clean washed that is why they called me as Nirmala.
But my grandmother said that she should be called as Nishkalanka. That means the one which has no spots on her. But that is the name of a man. So they said alright we call her Nirmala meaning the same – Immaculate.
Now all these incidents. And then my father, being a realized soul, he felt tremendous vibrations from me and he felt that this life is great and that she will do something great in this life. I do not know why, but I don’t know if he dreamed or he understood it, but all the time if I remember when he talked to me, he used to say that: “You have to find out the way of giving “en mass” realisation all the time.
As I told you, he was a great scholar of so many things and a very wide read man, so he gave me a good education in religion, in different religions, and also a good education about human beings. What are their problems? Why did they act like this? Why don’t they take to God? Why are they hypocritical? All kind of things he talked to me.
He also knew about Kundalini. But not so much. Of course when I was born, I knew all about Kundalini myself. I knew all about it, from my very childhood. So I was a very aware person – extremely aware. I did not know how to talk to, because – you see – people did not have that awareness, you can’t talk to everyone like that.
So I was regarded as a very joyful person at the same time very serious also, very deep and then I started my studies as a child. I was not very much interested in the studies, though I used to do them very well. But I used to read lives of great men and things like that.
At a very young age I read Bernard Shaw. When people were reading their expectations I was reading Bernard Shaw. But as such I did not have any interest in particular, in reading some text books, because I thought they were childish and there was nothing to be read about it. Then I told my father that I have to do medicine. So he said: “Why?” I said: “Because I have to talk to doctors.” He said: “You have to talk to doctors?” “Yes!”, I said.
Shri Mataji lived in the ashram of Mahatma Gandhi when she was 7.
But it so happened in my childhood, when I was about 7 years of age. My father was a congressman, he had joined congress when I was 4 years of age. He used to live with a style very westernized – you see. He threw away everything and became a real Indian and started leading a life of a martial. Then he made us study our languages, Sanskrit he made us study in an Indian school not in a missionary school.
Because missionary is very, very unkind. They threw us out of the school, when my father was in the congress. They were against us completely. Then at the age of seven years, I happened to go with my father to Mahatma Gandhi. He was about 70 miles living with us. But the first time he took me down and Mahatma Gandhi, he liked me very much. He said: “Leave this child here!”
So I had not taken clothes or anything to stay there and my father sent to me everything. And he was very fond of me. But I was a little girl. But he understood that there was something about me. He consulted me on very serious problems sometimes, surprisingly. Like one day he wanted to make me a prayer-book alright, so he asked me: “How should I put these series and all that.” So I told him, how to put the series and he put the series in that way.
I used to go back for my school and again to go back to Gandhiji. Every year like that. And he called me Nepali. He gave me a name “Nepali”. Everybody used to call me Nepali that time. Then I grew up with him very intimately, he was a very, very kind person for children.
Otherwise an extremely strict man, with himself and with others, very strict. A big disciplined man. And he would make everybody get up at 4 o’clock, have your baths everything be ready for your morning prayers at 5 o’clock – you see – and he used to walk very fast. I also learned walking fast with him. In his company I had to walk fast.
And he had been extremely loving and a very nice person. And he would listen to me, because I was a child. Supposing I had forced him to eat more or something then he would have laughed and accepted. Very kind person.
But with others, he was very strict and I used to tell him that: “Why are you strict with them too much?” He said: “But you are a little girl, you got up in the morning, why can’t they get up?” I said: “I am little, that’s why I get up, they are big, so they can’t get up.” Like that you see a little child.
Then my father went to jail and my mother also went to jail five times. My father went to jail twice. Once for about two and a half years and he was the only supporting member of the family. By the way we came from a very old royal family, which is called as Shalivahanas. They have a calender also in India.
And then, when they took my father to jail we had to leave our house and we had to live in huts and had all kind of problems. But also me, they pestered a lot because I helped many people there. I joined effort to movement and in a very serious way I became the leader there. But we were young people.
I thought unless and until I take a very positive stand, it may not work out with them. It is not gracious to say how they tortured me. What they did to me. But they really tortured me. I was a young girl of nineteen years that time. It is over now, so it is finished. After that my father went to jail again and then when he came back, he got elected as the member of the central assembly, later on as the constructor of the assembly and then of the parliament.
My brother was also member of the parliament later on, now recently he was the minister in the cabinet. Another brother is a high-court judge in Bombay. They are all doing well despite the fact, that our parents neglected us in a way, because they gave their lives to the country, but that never deterred as from studies and we came up very well.
When I was in 1942 two movement my college justicabled me from the college and threw me out and I had to go to another college to study far away from my house. Then I studied for two years science. Then I did my medical. I didn’t do fully, because just after that the 1947 riots broke out. So college was closed and I did not want to know more, because what I wanted to know, I think to know about it. So I did not need, and I got married.
Sir C.P. Srivastava - Husband of Shri Mataji
You must have heard my husband work is now the secretary in general of the International Maritime Organization. He held very high positions. He was also secretary to Shastri who was our prime minister, who was another very great man. But he did not survive long. If he had survived things would have been different, I think, for our country, because he was a Gandhian, out and out Gandhian.
I mean he lived like an ideal Gandhian personality. So that’s how my life went on. But inner being was still seeking the way and methods of giving “en mass” realization.
My father said: “Before you do not develop this technique of giving “en mass” realization do not talk about religion. Let nobody know that you know anything about it, because they will crucify you or….” He was rather worried that people won’t understand, or you may write another Bible or Gita – no use.
First of all you must give them realization. If they get their realization then they will realize that there is something about it, about this human awareness. For example, he always used to give an analogy. Supposing we are born on the tenth storey and everybody is on the ground. You must at least make them climb two storeys so they know that there is something above. Otherwise no use talking about it.
And he said: “This is the mistake between the saints and the incarnations was, that they never realized that these people are still on the ground. They have to still enter into the medium. So that is what you have to be very careful that first of all you must give realization to them.”
So I was seeking the ways and methods, working it out inside myself through my own style of meditation in the sense that I would work out all the permutations and combinations and when I met one person then I would see what problems that person had, how you can overcome it, like that I would try to study that person internally.
And I went to many people to find out, but I found they were great hypocrites. I saw so many of these Gurus, most of them. When I saw them, I was surprised they were all hypocrites. Money making and also. I went to Rash Neesh also to see him and he said that I should come to his program. I did not know what sort of man, because he was talking about Gita and I thought he might be knowing something about it.
I went there but my husband said: “No, I won’t allow you to go to this program. So he arranged his own…….. There I could see all the things which were going on. And that is the day somehow or another I said: “I must open the last chakra!” So the last chakra was opened and I saw the Kundalini, which is the primordial force within us, which is the Holy Ghost within us, rising, like a telescope opening out. And then I saw the whole thing open and a big torrential rain of beams started flowing through my head all over.
I felt I am lost, I am no more, there it’s only the grace is there, that is there. I saw it completely happening to me. But I was amazed that when I went to Rash Neesh, because he forgot even to say good bye, because he never realized what had happened or anything, so I was surprised, I said: “This man doesn’t know anything about God!” and then I discovered that they are all hypocrites and they are telling lies.
So in 1970, 5th of May this happened and just after that we had a very big lecture in Carnagy Hall. This is a very big hall and thousands of people had come and I told them very frankly that these are all thugs and hypocrites, some of them are demonic, some are evil people. I told their names everything. I told them: “Do not go near them!” There were some foreigners also.
And there were so many others whom I told these things very clearly and they got frightened. They said: “You should not say like this. They will come and murder you.” But nobody did anything and nobody even went to the courts. And that’s how they try to bring bad name to me. They paid money to the newspapers to publish things against me, because I said: “You cannot pay money!” So they thought that I was trying to harm them by saying such a thing that you can’t take money in the name of God.
If it is a job you can do it, but Gods work is not a job. And the struggle started from the day I started giving realization. And I started with one lady who got realization first. Then we got about twelve people who got realization. In two years got only about 14 people realization. Then gradually when 14 people got realization then many others started getting realization.
Six of the first seven Western Sahaja Yogis
But I started also curing people, because that was helping a lot. Then my husband got elected to this post and we had to come to London.
So when I came to London we had one program. So the Indians abroad are not so much interested in God, they are more interested in money. So none of the Indians stayed there. They all run away and only the foreigners who were there, were about seven hippies and so I had to work on them – seven hippies – for four years I was working on them to give them the realization. They were difficult, their liver was bad, their head was off, terrible time. But in between I used to go to India.
And in India also the work was done. For three month always I have been in India. So we started working in the villages, specially surprisingly were my forefathers were ruling in that area. There we started moving in a very big way. And there then we started taking the people from India.
And some people came from Australia to India, like that and the work started moving in those directions. Gradually the work improved and people found that this is the way we can transform ourselves. Many people were taking drugs, or alcoholics or mad people all kinds of people. They felt better and they got cured. It was established that Sahaja Yoga is something very important.
Now, when I travel all over the world first my husband used to pay for everything, wherever I went he had to pay – any expenses he used to do for me. Gradually now this people pay for my travel, but otherwise they do not have to pay for anything else. That is how we started our work. There was lot of opposition and the media-people would never understand it. Because it was not such a sensation as you can say, nothing to people feel exited but in a way it is a very great thing, because this is the solution of the whole world, one should try to do it.
Then we had very great people who came to Sahaja Yoga, like we can say the main high court judge, who is now the president, who has given Nicaragua some judgment and many lawyers and even barrister. We have one barrister here from Algeria and doctors and then they took over and they started helping me out how to propagate Sahaja Yoga.
A public program in India
But it was a difficult task in the west. Of course in India it is spreading very fast in the villages, but the city people in India also the people are westernized and they will start analyzing. They don’t know much about our past, they don’t know anything about our heritage that we have our Kundalini.
But some people do know about Self-realization. But these Gurus could not stick on in India because nobody would accept them. So they all run away abroad. And that was something a blessing for me also, because I did not have to fight them there. And it started working out and then people found that it helps in every way and they found so many miracles about it and that’s how Sahaja Yoga was settled quite a lot.
But still I would say that we have not been to certain countries so far and in the west, I would say that so much work has to be done there, because as soon as you start any work in any place first of all they want me to cure people and to help them with cure. Now if I pay attention more to that then the main work is to create doctors out of everyone that is neglected then you become unpopular. They think: “Oh, she’s not sympathetic”, this and that.
But now as we have everybody can cure now everyone. I don’t cure anyone directly. But they don’t like it, they want I should be there and their ego to be pampered and all these things are there, it’s rather difficult. We are not running any lecture like we should please others, sort of things, not that, but whatever is reality. If a person has intelligence, pure intelligence, he can see that this is something very different.
And for that one has to understand that you cannot force on anyone that you get your realization in the same way you cannot force me that I give you realization, because if does not work, it does not work, it’s such a living force. And that upsets them very soon. I feel that the way this industrial revolution has come in the west. People have lost their knowings perhaps they are so confused with all these gurus coming down here confusing them and all kind of new things coming. They don’t know where to look.
Unless and until you get your evolution completed. Unless and until you reach that absolute state of understanding the chaos will remain.
So one has to try to get to that. But one must understand: You cannot pay for it. There is no effort. After getting realization they feel so satisfied, they forget about it. But after that you must know how to give it to others. As Christ has said: “The light which is enlightened you do not put it under the table!”
That’s how what happens that, though I give realization to some hundred people, only out of them five, six will come forward to help us out. But still I must say, a lot of work has been done. Especially Austria. I am very proud of Austria, and the way they have never given me any problem, never – very good people have come out of Austria. Very balanced, level headed people. Very level headed.
They are not extremists, they don’t go to extremes, so there is no fanaticism about them. They are sensible people. And something so lucky that Austria was found out. Because I never expected that in Austria there will be so many people. But somehow – like water finds it’s own level, Sahaja Yoga finds its own level. We just come down to Austria. We haven’t been to Norway, to Sweden, to Denmark, Finland. I visited those places, because of my husbands job but I have not …….
Now we have sixteen centers in Australia. And Australia is a very progressive Sahaja Yoga thing. We have got schools now there. They are running schools and the teachers are extremely well-behaved and visionaries and they look after the children very well. The government people sent somebody for observation and they have remarked that whatever they proclaim that’s what they manifest. And they have given good certificates to us.
But the greatest achievement on the outward life is this that Cambridge University has accepted Sahaja Yoga for research work with respect. By one doctor Lee who is doing the research about Sahaja Yoga in Cambridge University – he is already doctor. And there is another great thing has happened in Delhi University that the Delhi University has accepted that a person can do, only a doctor can do a P.H.D. of we can say a doctorat in Sahaja Yoga and he gets the highest degree, called the doctor of medicine. And perhaps after some time they will allow anyone to do that. This is about the medicine part of it.
Shri Mataji experimented with sunflowers in her farmhouse in Pune, in the late 1980’s, and produced tremendously big ones, more than 12 inches in diameter. They were very heavy and gave on the average 250 mm. of oil. This was reported in the newspaper. The photo shows Shri Mataji with the outsize sunflowers.
In agriculture we have done lots of research by say, we have somebody here, an expert of agriculture. He has also done a lot of research and he found out that with vibrations he started after realization. If you vibrate the water and if you water the plants with that then sometimes you might get even ten times more breed that’s what they did in India. In one of the agriculture universities. But here also they found out that there is tremendous difference between the growth of an ordinary plant.
Another thing that I found out in agriculture that if you give vibrations, then even an ordinary cow can give lot of milk. But if you have hybrid cows than you see it’s not good for the brain, because a person who takes hybrid milk also, gets hybrid. I mean his brain gets little wobbly. So better to have a pure milk from a cow which is not been put to this kind of an experimentation.
Moreover food also, if you eat hybrid food it’s not very good for us, for that spoils our nerves I think. But ordinary seeds you cannot use, because they have weakened and they cannot reproduce. So, when we vibrate them, they produce very well, just like – better than even sometimes hybrid things and the food tastes very well, and it doesn’t give those complications.
So this can help in agriculture in India and the government has allotied us a lot of land where we are going now to experiment and we are going to start experimentation there to show that how we can use this. But many farmers who are Sahaja Yogis have done a lot of job and they have discovered that even animals and this what you call farming, everything is helped very much by vibrations.
So it improves the lives of people. We have on the other side, social side, I can tell you that we have marriages, international marriages. We arrange international marriages between people, they have to know each other and they are together and first of all they are together for one and half month with us on the tour.
They can see each other and the marriages are fixed and we have seen that such marriages are extremely successful. 99 % marriages are successful. Once in a while maybe a mishap but mostly there are no divorces that take place. Once in a while, if it’s not successful we have no objections to divorce also.
But mostly they are successful and they get children who are very intelligent and who are themselves born-realized children mostly. So the problem is much less and the family life improves. The quality of life is 1000 times better. People are very joyous, happy, they do not complain and they enjoy life and they give to others. They share what joy they have.
3. What do you think are the important points in the education of children? What is important to be given to the children?
First if they get realization. If they are already born realized no problem, but if they have been given their realization then they will start to see things from a different level. They become the Spirit. So their self respect awakens. Such children behave in a very dignified manner. They talk in a very elderly manner. They see solutions of all kinds and they are tremendous beings. But we have to guide them properly by our own behaviour.
Shri Mataji with children
How we behave, the greatest thing is how we behave that’s how the children like. We put the children to some tests how they are. We find out if they have any physical problems, we cure them. If they have mental problems we cure them. If they have any other problems, social problems or anything, we try to help them out. So that basically if a human being is alright in childhood then fundamentals are alright for the child.
The foundation is laid down then to build a child up in a good quality is not difficult. So now we find like great artists are there. There are great musicians. At a very young age, they have started playing violin. I mean suddenly they have become dynamic also and very humble. They are very humble and self respected and very well behaved.
Surprising how the atmosphere is and how it works out. And the other day a lady asked me about the women then I told her that a woman’s power as a mother is very great. She felt hurt about it and I did not mean that you should be just a mother. She is a mother, means she is compassionate. She is kind. She is not aggressive like men. That is a very big quality that is a very big power in a woman, that’s what I was suggesting. That that is what we have to have. Is not to compete with men. This is Madness. To compete with men, and to go about like that.
So we have to understand that life has to be enjoyable. Life should be a blessing, not to be a misery. We create our own miseries by these false ideas by our own conflictions, we have in our mind mental projections we have in our mind or our own obstinacy, whatever it is. All these things can be cured if you take to Sahaja Yoga, because you become a balanced person, level headed, mild person and you become a witness. The whole thing becomes like a show, like a drama and you become fearless, you start seeing the whole thing like a drama. This is what a human being has to achieve.
We talk of peace, we talk of no war, we talk of many things like this, atomic bomb, this and that. All that is not going to work out. Only what is going to work out is the transformation of human beings. If the human beings are transformed things will work out absolutely first class. Not only that, but that they will enjoy the bliss of life.
We are missing the point all together. This is a very important thing that human beings must say one thing: “What have you achieved out of all this?” Just for a minute to stop and think.
4. What are the causes of illness?
The physical, mental, emotional, all illnesses are caused by the imbalances that live within us. By our extreme behaviour. And supposing, say now cancer. Cancer is caused by the over activity of the sympathetic nervous system. Supposing a person is a very sad person, he cries and weeps and all the time feels guilty and thinks he is the worst person ever born. He has committed so many sins and all sorts of nonsense. Then he goes to the left side, according to us, and crosses over to the collective subconscious area and there, according to us, what they call as Protein 58 and Protein 52.
Doctors call it that way, but we call it as the dead souls. They exist there and they catch hold of you and they trigger the cancer. But supposing by any chance you can bring the attention fully away from that in the centre. You can get cured. So it is the centres within us which are subtle, which are basically seven centres. There are many others, but basically seven. If you can put them right you cannot have any sickness or illness of any kind.
5. Can you explain. You said, that your parents supported you very much in your learning and in your studies? Is it correct?
Yes, of course!
6. Is it normal that the parents support their child in a form like this?
In India all parents support their child.
7. And you can learn everything what you want to?
Yes, yes, I mean that is true. But the basic thing is: Parents are very benevolent to their children, very kind to their children. And to them the child’s education, the child’s upbringing and the child’s life is very important. That’s why we know they are so we depend on them, they look after us and they are very wise people. They sacrifice everything for us. So whatever they say, we think it’s nice and by doing this, we have not lost anything so far.
In India if you find Indian children, when they came abroad they always stop. They are very obedient children and they behave very well. We don’t have all this problem. Teenage-problem, homosexuality, we don’t know even these problems. Because we are so close with the parents all the time. They all the time watch us we don’t have drug problems. None of these – only in the cities little bit it happens and it disappears. Because parents are all the time with their children. They live together, the whole family lives together.
And not only with the parents, but all the relations and all the people in the village and in the city everyone knows each other. Such a joyful system we have, that we do not normally fall, sort of go to wrong ways and methods and we do not become obstinate also.
8. But you grew up in a Christian family! It’s not a normal situation that Indian people are Christian?
Yes, I know, I was born in a Christian family deliberately, because I personally think that protestants are the greatest fanatics. They are very sophisticated, their fanaticism is in their brain. Nobody can make them out that they have fanaticism, that they are very great fanatics, the greatest of all. But that times were very enlightened people they understood Christ very well.
They say, I told you about Paul when I was ….. First time I took the Bible in the hand and I asked my father: “Who is this Paul?” He said: “It’s an imprudor, forget it, don’t believe him at all.” So they understood all these things very well because my father was a realized soul like Khalil Gibran.
If you read Khalil Gibran he says the same thing about Paul, the same thing. So if you are an enlightened person you see the essence of everything. Whatever religion you are born, you don’t ignore any other religion, you try to learn about other religion and then you find the essence is the same in every religion.
What is there to fight? And that’s how you belong to no religion, you belong to every religion that’s what happens. But my parents were very enlightened people I must say, and I was very lucky to choose them as my parents.
9. You have been an enlightened child – is it correct?
Yes, I have been born as an enlightened child.
10. You don’t feel sometimes very lonesome, because all the others are different?
No, No. If you know how to share with others. Actually I was like a mother to them from my very childhood. When my father and mother went to jail, I was about 5 1/2 years of age. So I had all the duties of the house in my little frock and I used to get all the duties like the grandmother. I never felt lost. My life on the whole is very collective on temperament I am extremely collective. I can live anywhere, I can sleep anywhere and I can live in the jungles, I have no problems or that I am extremely collective.
I was expressing my temperament from very childhood. I was very friendly with all the people from that area where we were living and my mother was known as Nirmala’s mother. Father was known as Nirmala’s father. So they said: “We have lost our identity because of her.”
So I was a very friendly person. I never felt lonely and when I am with myself I am never lonely at all. I enjoy myself very much.
11. When you have been to that ashram with Gandhi. What were your impression, you remember about Gandhi?
Oh, Gandhiji was a tremendous man and I used to learn a lot from him. He was not at all hypocrite that’s one thing. And he was not like politicians who say something do something wrong. He was very outspoken and always he put himself on the testing point. And he used to confess if he made mistakes immediately. One very great incident I remember when I was a small child. They were having a meeting together and we girls were there sitting, only giving them water and things to all the people. People were there like Jawaherlal Nehru and Mollana Azad. All these people were sitting there. They were discussing something and then suddenly Mahatmaji Gandhiji said: “I was very late, we will have lunch here.” So they said: “Yes we will have lunch here.”
They had to go to the guest house which was far away. So Mahatmaji Gandhiji asked for “Baa”. She had gone out. So he got up, he had a key with him always of the store-room, he opened the store and he asked the people who were in charge of cooking to measure everything according to the people there are, properly everything. And then they measured it out everything was done.
Then he put the key back and then he went and sat there nicely. So these people said: “Bapu, we did not know you have to take so much troubles. You see to go all the way and looking for her. It didn’t take much time, about 15 minutes, but still. So he said: “What do you think?” This is the blood of my country, I cannot allow it to be wasted.
http://www.freemeditation.ca/news/2009/06/24/interview-with-shri-mataji-in-vienna/
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Two Wolves
Two Wolves
An old Cherokee Indian chief was teaching his grandson about life…
“A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.
“It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves.
“One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, self-doubt, and ego.
“The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.
“This same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather,
“Which wolf will win?”
The old chief replied,”The one you feed.”
and another version of the same story:
A young Cherokee Indian boy came to his grandfather angry at an injustice a friend had done to him.
His Grandfather said, “At times, I too have felt a great hate for those that have taken so much, with no sorrow for what they do. But hate wears you down, and does not hurt your enemy. It is like taking poison and wishing your enemy would die. I have struggled with these feelings many times. It is as if there are two wolves inside me. One is good and does no harm. He lives in harmony with all around him, and does not take offense when no offense was intended. He will only fight when it is right to do so, and in the right way. But the other wolf? He is full of anger. The littlest thing will put him into a fit of temper. He fights everyone, all the time, for no reason. He cannot think because his anger and hate are so great. It is helpless anger,for his anger will change nothing. Sometimes, it is hard to live with these two wolves inside me, for both of them try to dominate my spirit.”
The boy looked into his Grandfather’s eyes and asked, “Which one wins, Grandfather?”
The Grandfather smiled and quietly said, “The one I feed.”
Saturday, June 6, 2009
A musician is born
6.6.09
A musician is born
The noted bhajan singer Sanjay Talwar describes an early encounter with Shri Mataji:
My first musical encounter with the Adi Shakti happened in the car in which I drove Shri Mataji to the interior of Rajasthan. It was a cold December morning in 1986. Shri Mataji had woken up early at the residence of Mrs. Pardal, the Sahaja Yoga leader for Jaipur, and had sent word to me to get ready to drive Her through the heart of Rajasthan, as She had fixed appointments with various house owners to see their homes which had jharokas (artistically hand-crafted windows), that She wanted for making Her own home, Pratishthan in Pune.
I had woken up that morning with a severe stomach ache. I did not want to miss the golden opportunity of driving Shri Mataji and so I did not disclose my problem to anyone. We left early morning with my wife, Aradhana, Manish Singh and Mrs. Pardal sitting at the back, and Shri Mataji opting to sit in the front seat next to me. I had a small Fiat car with two bucket seats in the front. It was not just an ordinary journey, but really the journey of my life had just begun.
Remember, I had an upset stomach. As I started to drive, my stomach started rumbling and I was in pain. Shri Mataji immediately asked me to stop the car, although I wasn't complaining. She got out of the car and went across to a nearby medical shop and brought me some Ayurvadic tablets. She asked Manish to fetch me some buttermilk. As soon as I had it, I immediately felt better.
“Now,” She said, “it is a long journey ahead, so why not have a song from you?" That was the first time ever I got to sing in front of Shri Mataji. I asked Her, “Mother, what would you like me to sing?” She said, “Sing any song you like.” So I started singing Hamein Tum Se Pyaar Kitna. It was a romantic song from an Indian film.
She interrupted me briefly and told me to try changing the words a little so that it could be directed to the Devi. I could not fathom what She meant and I just stopped singing. She then gave me the words, which my wife started to jot down in the back seat. Thus started a journey where Shri Mataji continued to give the words and I continued to sing them. The meanings that came out were simply divine. She would stop in the middle and ask everyone in the car to check the vibrations. She then explained to me the meaning of the words.
I shook my head and said, “Yes, Mother, this sounds great. Can I do more such songs?” “Yes,” She said. “Now you carry on making the songs as we drive along and make sure that what you are creating is what the seekers will listen to and take their Self Realization.”
I was thrilled at the prospect – all this, while Mother kept Her hand on my Vishuddhi from the back, sometimes massaging my shoulders and at times running Her hand over my back Agnya. She would occasionally ask me, “How does it feel? Don't you feel your voice opening up?” “Yes, Mother!” I exclaimed. “I cannot believe this is my voice.”
Shri Mataji had worked on my Vishuddhi for hours as I drove. That day we travelled for twelve hours non-stop until we reached Makrana. Thus were born my very first Sahaj musical compositions.
My first musical encounter with the Adi Shakti happened in the car in which I drove Shri Mataji to the interior of Rajasthan. It was a cold December morning in 1986. Shri Mataji had woken up early at the residence of Mrs. Pardal, the Sahaja Yoga leader for Jaipur, and had sent word to me to get ready to drive Her through the heart of Rajasthan, as She had fixed appointments with various house owners to see their homes which had jharokas (artistically hand-crafted windows), that She wanted for making Her own home, Pratishthan in Pune.
I had woken up that morning with a severe stomach ache. I did not want to miss the golden opportunity of driving Shri Mataji and so I did not disclose my problem to anyone. We left early morning with my wife, Aradhana, Manish Singh and Mrs. Pardal sitting at the back, and Shri Mataji opting to sit in the front seat next to me. I had a small Fiat car with two bucket seats in the front. It was not just an ordinary journey, but really the journey of my life had just begun.
Remember, I had an upset stomach. As I started to drive, my stomach started rumbling and I was in pain. Shri Mataji immediately asked me to stop the car, although I wasn't complaining. She got out of the car and went across to a nearby medical shop and brought me some Ayurvadic tablets. She asked Manish to fetch me some buttermilk. As soon as I had it, I immediately felt better.
“Now,” She said, “it is a long journey ahead, so why not have a song from you?" That was the first time ever I got to sing in front of Shri Mataji. I asked Her, “Mother, what would you like me to sing?” She said, “Sing any song you like.” So I started singing Hamein Tum Se Pyaar Kitna. It was a romantic song from an Indian film.
She interrupted me briefly and told me to try changing the words a little so that it could be directed to the Devi. I could not fathom what She meant and I just stopped singing. She then gave me the words, which my wife started to jot down in the back seat. Thus started a journey where Shri Mataji continued to give the words and I continued to sing them. The meanings that came out were simply divine. She would stop in the middle and ask everyone in the car to check the vibrations. She then explained to me the meaning of the words.
I shook my head and said, “Yes, Mother, this sounds great. Can I do more such songs?” “Yes,” She said. “Now you carry on making the songs as we drive along and make sure that what you are creating is what the seekers will listen to and take their Self Realization.”
I was thrilled at the prospect – all this, while Mother kept Her hand on my Vishuddhi from the back, sometimes massaging my shoulders and at times running Her hand over my back Agnya. She would occasionally ask me, “How does it feel? Don't you feel your voice opening up?” “Yes, Mother!” I exclaimed. “I cannot believe this is my voice.”
Shri Mataji had worked on my Vishuddhi for hours as I drove. That day we travelled for twelve hours non-stop until we reached Makrana. Thus were born my very first Sahaj musical compositions.
With permission from SAHAJ A-Z
What is the meaning of Nirmala?
1. What is the meaning of Nirmala?
It is the Name of the Goddess which means without impurity. Shri Mataji gave a comprehensive explanation of Her name in a conference in Marathi translated into English: (This was then translated into French, and back again into English)
Nirmala integrates the three gunas. NI for the right channel, LA for the left
and MA for Sushumna.
"The first part, NIH means negation. It is the negation. It is the
negation of existence, which is illusion, maya (...) NIH shakti is the power of
Shri Brahmadeva, ie Shri Shakti Saraswati. NIH implies complete
detachment. You must become completely detached. "
"LA comes from Lalita which is a blessing and a weapon of the Goddess. When the Shakti
becomes Lalita, meaning active, then the vibration increase in Her, these
are the vibrations you feel in the palm of your hands (...). When the
power of love becomes active, it becomes LA Shakti. It is LA Shakti that does
all the work, it is thanks to Her that you have your Realisation. "
"Shakti is the power of love. It is activated by NIH Shakti which is the
power of action. "
"The syllable MA is between NIH and LA. MA is the syllable of Mahalakshmi which is the
power of the Dharma and the power of evolution. In MA Shakti, you must
understand, assimilate and this requires mastery.
For example, an artist conceives the idea of his creation with LA Shakti, he
constructed with NIH Shakti and then uses MA Shakti to bring it to his original idea while improving it. This improvement is evolution and this implies an effort.
The two powers (NIH and LA) only become active when you develop
by the power of evolution. You must fully understand and develop MA
Shakti. You must achieve a balance between the NIH and MA Shaktis."
"MA is the first syllable of Mataji, Mother. This has been made possible only through
MA Shakti within me. This would not have been possible with only the LA
Shakti and Shakti NIH. I have come with these three powers but it is MA Shakti
which is at the summit."
(Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi)
************
Friday, April 3, 2009
Sahaja Meditation Online
Online learning will take you on a journey in which you will learn the first steps towards the purest form of meditation, Sahaja Meditation. All knowledge and experience are introduced through videos and audio recordings. All the images, music and sounds of nature are so chosen to help guide you and to give you a feeling of peace.
This online course is an introduction to Sahaja Meditation and focuses on the awakening of the kundalini energy, achieving the state of mental silence, feeling the vibrations of your chakras and your inner being, and eventually learning how to meditate.
Make some time if you want to experiment at home. Because what you could find is something which can give your life a new dimension, a new meaning.
© Copyright Freemeditation.ca | Online Learning 2009 |
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Friday, March 27, 2009
Christ & Kundalini
Contrary to popular Christian dogma, Christ did teach about Karma, reincarnation, self-realisation and the Divine Feminine as Holy Ghost -- God the Mother. Christ's teachings are more Eastern than the Churches would have us believe or would like to admit.
The two centuries after Christ, saw the Christian Gnostic teachings of spiritual awareness disseminated alongside the blind faith doctrines of Paul's formulation. In the third Century, the Roman Church's council of Nicaea acted to stamp out the Gnostics and their anti-dogmatic approch to spirituality.
The Gnostic's were declared heretical, their texts destroyed and the Gnostics themselves persecuted into extinction. However, a small amount of Gnostic teachings survived, hidden in caves or in watered-down form in other "heretical" texts (broadly labelled as "Apocrypha").
The Christian Gnostics practiced a spirituality more similar to Eastern traditions than to the Western Christianity we know today. "Gnostic" is Greek for "knower" and it is "Gnosis" or "Knowledge" that they were seeking. Unlike the blind faith demanded by today's Churches, 'Gnosis' meant direct, mystical experience of the divine, which was to be found by individual spiritual evolution to Self-Realisation, and not within the confines of intellectual dogma. The experience of Gnosis was trans-rational and non-intellectual.
From the Nag Hammadi Library, the Book of Thomas, Christ tells us "For whoever does not know self, does not know anything, but whoever knows self, already has acquired knowledge about the depth of the universe". Compare this with a tract from the Upanishads, the Indian metaphysical treatise on Self Realisation: "It is not by argument that the self is known... Distinguish the self from the body and mind. The self, the atman, the highest refuge of all, pervades the Universe and dwells in the hearts of all. Those who are instructed in the self and who practice constant meditation attain that changeless and self effulgent atman ( spirit/ self). Do Thou Likewise, for bliss eternal lies before you..."
In another gnostic text, the Secret Gospel of Thomas, Christ promises us spiritual fulfilment "I shall give you what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, what no hand has touched and what has never arisen in the human mind." This description is not unlike the Upanishadic experience "the Self is devoid of birth and death, it neither grows old nor decays and the accidents of life do not affect it. The Self transcends space and time; what is great is not too great for it to comprehend and what is small is not too small to escape its attention. It is the Self of All".
Just as Christ warned us against sin and encourages moral perfection in the pursuit of spiritual fulfilment, so too do the Eastern texts "No intellectual acumen can help one realise it, it can be realised only by those who surrender to it and who make themselves worthy by grace, by desisting from all that is sinful, who engage in the practice of perfection by constant meditation"( Upanishads).
The most ancient Eastern spiritual texts, the Vedas,of India, tell us that the process of spiritual awakening by which one attains truth -awareness is called 'Self-Realisation'. The Self Realised person lives in direct experience of reality -- this is called "Jnana" ( a traditional sanskrit word meaning 'knowledge' or 'Gnosis'). Such a person is called a "Jnani" ('knower ' or 'gnostic' ) or "dwijaha" ('twice born'; first from a human mother to the earthly plane then secondly as a child of the Goddess, or Divine Mother, who gives the seeker their second, spiritual birth, Self Realisation, into the plane of mystic awareness- gnosis! ). The traditional Indian texts extol the 'Divine Mother' as the Cosmic Matriarch, bestower of the highest treasure of Self Realisation upon Her deserving children. Many Indian mystic traditions say this same goddess is represented within the human being as the divine feminine power called Kundalini.
What of Western tradition? In the Secret Book of John Christ explains that human redemption before the Heavenly Father occurs by the mediation of a Divine Feminine principle, which he calls the Earthly Mother. It is the Earthly Mother who removes the sins of the children that they can become worthy of their divine heritage; "when all sins and all uncleanesses are gone from your body, your blood shall become as pure as our Earthly Mother's blood and as pure as the river's foam sporting in the sunlight. And your breath shall become as pure as the breath of odorous flowers; your flesh as pure as the flesh of fresh fruits reddening upon the leaves of trees; the light of your eye as clear and bright as the brightness of the sun shining upon the blue sky. And now shall all the angels of the Earthly Mother serve you and your breath, your blood, your flesh shall be one with the breath, the blood and the flesh of the Earthly Mother, that your spirit also become one with the Spirit of your Heavenly Father. For truly no-one can reach the Heavenly Father unless through the Heavenly Mother. Even as the newborn babe cannot understand the teaching of his father until his mother has suckled him, bathed him, nursed him, put him to sleep and nurtured him". The Earthly Mother is a divine mediator through which the seekers, the Sons of Man, are raised to the Heavenly Father. Another part of the same text says "Honour your Earthly Mother and keep her laws that your days may be long on this earth and honour your Heavenly Father, that eternal life may be yours in the Heavens. For the Heavenly Father is a hundred times greater than all the fathers by seed and by blood, and greater is the Earthly Mother than all mothers by the body". The Holy Trinity, then is God the Father, God the Son (ie. Christ) and, it seems, God the Mother. The Divine Mother particularly is the means and power of spiritual evolution.
The Secret Book of John relates Christ's description of the Divine Feminine as the power of God Almighty. "She is the first power. She preceded everything, and came forth from the Father's mind as forethought of all. Her light resembles the Father's light; as the perfect power She is the image of the perfect and invisible Virgin Spirit. She is the first power, the glory, Barbello, the perfect glory among the worlds, the emerging glory, She glorified and praised the Virgin Spirit for she had come forth through the Spirit. She is the first thought, image of the Spirit. She became the universal womb, for She precedes everything, the common parent, the first humanity, the Holy Spirit". The Holy Spirit is here described as the Divine Power of God Himself. This power is maternal in its character (universal womb, She, the common parent) and all powerful as the 'first emanation of God'. More so, She is pure (Virgin) and She glorifies purity. So ancient christian tradition seems to tell us that the holy spirit is actually the Divine Mother!
One cannot overlook the Eastern parallels. God Almighty in Indian mythology is represented as Sada-Shiva. His state is eternal perfection (Sat Chit Ananda). His power is the Adi Shakti (primordial power) who is His feminine counterpart or spouse. It is She who does all things. She created the universe and the gods who attend over it (for example, the triune Shiva, Brahma, Vishnu). The Adi Shakti is the Mother of all things. She gave birth to the universe and is the feminine power of every deity and celestial being (usually represented as their spouse). The Secret Book of John parallels this "She became the universal womb, for She precedes everything, the common parent, the first humanity, the Holy Spirit, the triple male (Shiva, Brahma, Vishnu?) the triple power (Parvati, Saraswati, Lakshmi, who are spouses of the triple males-or the triple Goddess of Western mythological tradition?)". Thus the Christian mystics understood that the Holy Spirit is the Divine Feminine, the Goddess, the Universal Mother herself. The Syriac Christians worshiped the Holy Ghost as the Great Mother. Phillip suggests that Mary Herself is the Holy Spirit (for who else but God the Mother can give birth to God the Son?). Other Apocryphal Scriptures describe Mary as the focus of Temple activities. Her early life was punctuated by auspicious portents all implying her own Divinity.
The two centuries after Christ, saw the Christian Gnostic teachings of spiritual awareness disseminated alongside the blind faith doctrines of Paul's formulation. In the third Century, the Roman Church's council of Nicaea acted to stamp out the Gnostics and their anti-dogmatic approch to spirituality.
The Gnostic's were declared heretical, their texts destroyed and the Gnostics themselves persecuted into extinction. However, a small amount of Gnostic teachings survived, hidden in caves or in watered-down form in other "heretical" texts (broadly labelled as "Apocrypha").
The Christian Gnostics practiced a spirituality more similar to Eastern traditions than to the Western Christianity we know today. "Gnostic" is Greek for "knower" and it is "Gnosis" or "Knowledge" that they were seeking. Unlike the blind faith demanded by today's Churches, 'Gnosis' meant direct, mystical experience of the divine, which was to be found by individual spiritual evolution to Self-Realisation, and not within the confines of intellectual dogma. The experience of Gnosis was trans-rational and non-intellectual.
From the Nag Hammadi Library, the Book of Thomas, Christ tells us "For whoever does not know self, does not know anything, but whoever knows self, already has acquired knowledge about the depth of the universe". Compare this with a tract from the Upanishads, the Indian metaphysical treatise on Self Realisation: "It is not by argument that the self is known... Distinguish the self from the body and mind. The self, the atman, the highest refuge of all, pervades the Universe and dwells in the hearts of all. Those who are instructed in the self and who practice constant meditation attain that changeless and self effulgent atman ( spirit/ self). Do Thou Likewise, for bliss eternal lies before you..."
In another gnostic text, the Secret Gospel of Thomas, Christ promises us spiritual fulfilment "I shall give you what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, what no hand has touched and what has never arisen in the human mind." This description is not unlike the Upanishadic experience "the Self is devoid of birth and death, it neither grows old nor decays and the accidents of life do not affect it. The Self transcends space and time; what is great is not too great for it to comprehend and what is small is not too small to escape its attention. It is the Self of All".
Just as Christ warned us against sin and encourages moral perfection in the pursuit of spiritual fulfilment, so too do the Eastern texts "No intellectual acumen can help one realise it, it can be realised only by those who surrender to it and who make themselves worthy by grace, by desisting from all that is sinful, who engage in the practice of perfection by constant meditation"( Upanishads).
The most ancient Eastern spiritual texts, the Vedas,of India, tell us that the process of spiritual awakening by which one attains truth -awareness is called 'Self-Realisation'. The Self Realised person lives in direct experience of reality -- this is called "Jnana" ( a traditional sanskrit word meaning 'knowledge' or 'Gnosis'). Such a person is called a "Jnani" ('knower ' or 'gnostic' ) or "dwijaha" ('twice born'; first from a human mother to the earthly plane then secondly as a child of the Goddess, or Divine Mother, who gives the seeker their second, spiritual birth, Self Realisation, into the plane of mystic awareness- gnosis! ). The traditional Indian texts extol the 'Divine Mother' as the Cosmic Matriarch, bestower of the highest treasure of Self Realisation upon Her deserving children. Many Indian mystic traditions say this same goddess is represented within the human being as the divine feminine power called Kundalini.
What of Western tradition? In the Secret Book of John Christ explains that human redemption before the Heavenly Father occurs by the mediation of a Divine Feminine principle, which he calls the Earthly Mother. It is the Earthly Mother who removes the sins of the children that they can become worthy of their divine heritage; "when all sins and all uncleanesses are gone from your body, your blood shall become as pure as our Earthly Mother's blood and as pure as the river's foam sporting in the sunlight. And your breath shall become as pure as the breath of odorous flowers; your flesh as pure as the flesh of fresh fruits reddening upon the leaves of trees; the light of your eye as clear and bright as the brightness of the sun shining upon the blue sky. And now shall all the angels of the Earthly Mother serve you and your breath, your blood, your flesh shall be one with the breath, the blood and the flesh of the Earthly Mother, that your spirit also become one with the Spirit of your Heavenly Father. For truly no-one can reach the Heavenly Father unless through the Heavenly Mother. Even as the newborn babe cannot understand the teaching of his father until his mother has suckled him, bathed him, nursed him, put him to sleep and nurtured him". The Earthly Mother is a divine mediator through which the seekers, the Sons of Man, are raised to the Heavenly Father. Another part of the same text says "Honour your Earthly Mother and keep her laws that your days may be long on this earth and honour your Heavenly Father, that eternal life may be yours in the Heavens. For the Heavenly Father is a hundred times greater than all the fathers by seed and by blood, and greater is the Earthly Mother than all mothers by the body". The Holy Trinity, then is God the Father, God the Son (ie. Christ) and, it seems, God the Mother. The Divine Mother particularly is the means and power of spiritual evolution.
The Secret Book of John relates Christ's description of the Divine Feminine as the power of God Almighty. "She is the first power. She preceded everything, and came forth from the Father's mind as forethought of all. Her light resembles the Father's light; as the perfect power She is the image of the perfect and invisible Virgin Spirit. She is the first power, the glory, Barbello, the perfect glory among the worlds, the emerging glory, She glorified and praised the Virgin Spirit for she had come forth through the Spirit. She is the first thought, image of the Spirit. She became the universal womb, for She precedes everything, the common parent, the first humanity, the Holy Spirit". The Holy Spirit is here described as the Divine Power of God Himself. This power is maternal in its character (universal womb, She, the common parent) and all powerful as the 'first emanation of God'. More so, She is pure (Virgin) and She glorifies purity. So ancient christian tradition seems to tell us that the holy spirit is actually the Divine Mother!
One cannot overlook the Eastern parallels. God Almighty in Indian mythology is represented as Sada-Shiva. His state is eternal perfection (Sat Chit Ananda). His power is the Adi Shakti (primordial power) who is His feminine counterpart or spouse. It is She who does all things. She created the universe and the gods who attend over it (for example, the triune Shiva, Brahma, Vishnu). The Adi Shakti is the Mother of all things. She gave birth to the universe and is the feminine power of every deity and celestial being (usually represented as their spouse). The Secret Book of John parallels this "She became the universal womb, for She precedes everything, the common parent, the first humanity, the Holy Spirit, the triple male (Shiva, Brahma, Vishnu?) the triple power (Parvati, Saraswati, Lakshmi, who are spouses of the triple males-or the triple Goddess of Western mythological tradition?)". Thus the Christian mystics understood that the Holy Spirit is the Divine Feminine, the Goddess, the Universal Mother herself. The Syriac Christians worshiped the Holy Ghost as the Great Mother. Phillip suggests that Mary Herself is the Holy Spirit (for who else but God the Mother can give birth to God the Son?). Other Apocryphal Scriptures describe Mary as the focus of Temple activities. Her early life was punctuated by auspicious portents all implying her own Divinity.
The Early Life of The Virgin Mary
The most comprehensive stories about the early childhood of Mary are attributed to the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of James. This has been documented by historians as being written prior to the year 200AD.
In a document called God the Father of Mercy there is an entire chapter devoted to Mary, the Holy Trinity’s Sign of Mercy. Mary is the object of God’s mercy. This document states:
“Mary becomes the prophet of God’s mercy, as well as it’s icon. She,more than anyone else knows the mystery of mercy that reaches its climax on Calvary. The Virgin who became the Mother of Jesus at Christmas, enabling God’s mercy to become incarnate.”
The qualities of mercy, compassion, comforting and counselling have long since been seen as feminine qualities, all of which Mary emanated. They are also the qualities of the future incarnation promised by Christ, “But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, shall teach you all things” (John 14:26) Could it be that he was telling then of the age of the Mother, when the feminine power of God would grace this earth.
Why then has the significance of the Virgin Mary been slowly eroded away by the church? If God Almighty deemed Her pure enough to bear his Son, then it could be suggested that She has a special place in the Holy Trinity. We talk much of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. We have this trinity in the birth of Christ – God the Father, Christ the Son and Mary the Mother. This begs the question: “Is the Holy Ghost a feminine power, a mothering power that came on this earth to bear the Son of God and teach mankind of the mercy and love of God?”.
According to tradition Mary has been called upon as the Mother of Mercy since the 3rd century.
Churches built in honour of the Virgin Mary have been well documented; for example the Emperor Justinian built a splendid church dedicated to Mary in the Temple area in Jerusalem. It was dedicated on November 21, 543AD but was destroyed by the Persians within a century. Mary was also held in the highest regard by early church Fathers praising her – “ She was planted in the House of God, nourished by the Holy Spirit and kept her body and soul spotless to receive God in her bosom. He Who is all-holy rests among the holy.”
In a document called God the Father of Mercy there is an entire chapter devoted to Mary, the Holy Trinity’s Sign of Mercy. Mary is the object of God’s mercy. This document states:
“Mary becomes the prophet of God’s mercy, as well as it’s icon. She,more than anyone else knows the mystery of mercy that reaches its climax on Calvary. The Virgin who became the Mother of Jesus at Christmas, enabling God’s mercy to become incarnate.”
The qualities of mercy, compassion, comforting and counselling have long since been seen as feminine qualities, all of which Mary emanated. They are also the qualities of the future incarnation promised by Christ, “But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, shall teach you all things” (John 14:26) Could it be that he was telling then of the age of the Mother, when the feminine power of God would grace this earth.
Why then has the significance of the Virgin Mary been slowly eroded away by the church? If God Almighty deemed Her pure enough to bear his Son, then it could be suggested that She has a special place in the Holy Trinity. We talk much of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. We have this trinity in the birth of Christ – God the Father, Christ the Son and Mary the Mother. This begs the question: “Is the Holy Ghost a feminine power, a mothering power that came on this earth to bear the Son of God and teach mankind of the mercy and love of God?”.
According to tradition Mary has been called upon as the Mother of Mercy since the 3rd century.
Churches built in honour of the Virgin Mary have been well documented; for example the Emperor Justinian built a splendid church dedicated to Mary in the Temple area in Jerusalem. It was dedicated on November 21, 543AD but was destroyed by the Persians within a century. Mary was also held in the highest regard by early church Fathers praising her – “ She was planted in the House of God, nourished by the Holy Spirit and kept her body and soul spotless to receive God in her bosom. He Who is all-holy rests among the holy.”
The Search for the Divine Mother
The Search for the Divine Mother
(Gwenaël Verez)
This book looks at our religion and spirituality from a historical viewpoint.
Many traditions attach great importance to the feminine dimension of the Divine. It is She who is said to give liberation, spiritual rebirth, that is to say Union with the Self. The most significant example is the knowledge of the Kundalini in India.
We may wonder why the Western religions have attributed an exclusively masculine, patriarchal character to the Divine. Several thousand years ago, was not the only form of Divinity, the object of veneration, feminine and maternal?
What is responsible for this neglect, this confiscation? Has the original message of these religions been distorted to the point that we are today unaware of the Mother-Goddess?
And could the Age of Aquarius, which is said to mark a change of consciousness on a spiritual level, perhaps be the moment where humanity is able to re-discover this awareness of the Universal Mother?
This book offers answers to these topical questions.
To collectively order the book, please contact the author at: gwendoris@aol.com
Sample chapter:
Introduction
The search for the Divine is an eternal quest. Man is constantly seeking. Today, perhaps more than ever before, millions search tirelessly in bookshops and libraries, and travel the pilgrim routes hoping to find the "Way".
This growth in the number of seekers of Truth coincides with a growing doubt about the fate of humankind.
At the dawn of the third millennium, this planet of ours is at its lowest ebb. Economies are in irreversible decline, leaving millions of people, both in the developed countries and in those described as "developing", without work or means of subsistence. The ecosystem is our kilter, with global warming and pollution increasing at an incredible rate. Most countries have reached a political stalemate. The ageing and corrupt democracies are no longer viewed as models, their citizens being no happier than people elsewhere. The use of illicit substances, anti-anxiety drugs, antidepressants and hypnotics bear witness to a deep and widespread distress in the "advanced" societies. The general disintegration of moral values is such that younger generations have little awareness of any such thing as morality. New diseases have appeared.
The West is mainly responsible for these evils, since it is the unbridled desires of the West that have led to the unrestrained plundering of the planet's resources, resulting in terrible imbalances. Materialism, and rationalism based entirely on money, have justified world-wide disasters of every ilk.
Throughout history there have been, of course, high points and low points. Civilizations have declined into decadence, others have risen. But today the situation has changed, for now problems are suffered on a planetary scale: cultures have become world-wide. The chances of escape are slender, for there is no strong international authority. Selfishness and pressure groups of every complexion prevent collective solutions to problems. No worthwhile ideology has emerged to transform society. Democracies are incapable of producing men with the moral status of a Lincoln, a Martin Luther King or a Gandhi, men who could become models. The ideological and social changes taking place whenever elected political parties replace one another compound difficulties rather than solve them.
We are caught up in a maelstrom of events, which is carrying us out of our depth.
But seekers of Truth see a different future. They mirror the heavenly light, which restores balance, and establishes, at last, a Golden Age. Would the Divine allow Creation to founder?
The only thing that matters is to change mankind, to bring about our inner transformation, so that we no longer fall back into our habitual failings. Everything suggests that we are on the threshold of a profound upheaval. The Age of Aquarius is at hand. It has been said that the 21st century will be spiritual or will not be, at all. It is obvious that only a spiritual power can bring about the transformation of those who seek progress.
This spiritual power is not as it is generally imagined to be. It comes from no pope, no mullah, or rabbi, or Brahmin. For centuries such figures have failed to improve human nature. If this power does exist, it must be available to everyone equally. I t must be universal.
Spiritual traditions, particularly those of the East, seek to demonstrate that this spiritual power is motherly by nature, and that is exists as energy, present within each of us. In India it is known as the "Inner Goddess".
The word "Goddess" tends to take us back to the schoolroom, to evoke the ancient Graeco-Roman Goddesses: Venus, Minerva, Athena - those Divine figures who seem all too human. God is transcendent, the prophets tell us; He has no human form. And yet we are also told that God created man in His own image!
The manifold representations of the Virgin Mary in churches around the world reflect a longing for the eternal feminine. The Mother of Jesus, on whom the devotion of millions is focused, was never, of course, officially considered to be a Goddess. The canons of the faith are categorical about this. And yet, She ascended into heaven, like Her Son, who was Divine. Where then was the distinction between them? Especially since the praises addressed to Her were to the Queen of Salvation, Regina Salutis, She who sets us free.
This idea of redemption, of spiritual liberation, is shared with the most ancient traditions of the East. In India, it is She, the Goddess, who grants this liberation. The Guru, or spiritual master, is only the intermediary, the person who passes on this spiritual experience. In China, it is the Goddess of compassion, Kuan Yin, who grants salvation.
Why, then, have people in our part of the planet attributed exclusively patriarchal characteristics to the Divine for the past three thousand years? Ten thousand years ago the sole form of Divinity, the sole object of veneration, here as elsewhere, was feminine and maternal.
What has caused us to forget? Why was the original message of Christianity distorted, leaving us ignorant of the Divine Mother? Can we not detect in the Juadeo-Christian sacred texts - and in the countless works of art they inspire - the veiled and covert presence of the Universal Mother, hidden in symbols, but readily decoded? Did not the Gnostics and the early Christians, about whom so much has come to light through the recent discovery of the "apocryphal" texts, venerate the Goddess, and did they not also identify Her with an inner power able to grant liberation?
Those who seek the Truth are rediscovering this hidden reality. Through it the West is once more "returning" to the way of the Goddess and, through Her, gaining access to the wonders of the New Age. Could this age of ours, following the Age of the Father (Yahweh) and the Age of the Son (Christ), be the Age of the Mother?
Sahaja Yoga Radio
Copyright Sahaja Yoga
Saturday, February 21, 2009
SHRI MATAJI ON ‘MEDITATION’
Meditation is actually facing yourself & correcting yourself will full understanding as to what you are.
Meditation is a very general word. It is not a word that explains all the three steps one has to take for meditating. But in Sanskrit, they have very clearly said, how you have to move In your meditation.
First is called as ‘DHYANA’, and second is called as ‘DHARANA’ and third is called as ‘SAMADHI’.
Luckily Sahaja Yoga is such a thing that you get everything in a bundle. You avoided everything else. You got the Samadhi part. That’s the beauty of it.
The first part of meditation is ‘DHYANA’. First when you have seeking , you put your attention towards the object of your worship. This is called as ‘DHYANA’. And the ‘DHARANA’ is the one is which you put all your effort, concentrate, all your effort. But this is all drama for people who are not realised. For them, it is just a sort of an acting that they do. But for a realised soul it is a reality. So the first, the Dhyana you have to do. Some do it of form, another of the formless. But you are so fortunate that the formless has become a form for you. No problem, you don’t have to go from form to formless, from formless to form; its all there, in bundle. So you concentrate or think of some Deity, some point of Nirakar, for the formless, or of Nirakar itself. Its all a mental projection as long as you are not a realised soul.
But once you are realised, you have just to think of Dhyana, whom you are going to concentrate, or you can say Meditate on.
But once you start Meditating on a person your attention starts moving. That is also possible after realisation, though it is in a bundle; but some people have it part of it, like that.
So when you Meditate, still your attention can get disturbed every moment.
It can happen , depending on the intensity of your concentration. So there are some Sahaja Yogis I have seen, they are cooking and there’s another one is meditating. The meditating one will say: OH! I can smell it is burning”. So there is no Dharana. Dhyana is there, but not Dharana. The second part of it is very important, that you have to put your attention continously on to your deity.
Then you develop a State which is called as Dharana, in which your attention becomes one with the Deity. But when these mature, the third stage of Samadhi, comes in.
Now for some people who think that without realisation, they can reach Samadhi. I think, they are absolutely mistaken. But after realisation also, when the Dharana is established, have to get to the position where you become ‘Samadhi’ . Now, what is that State? When that state comes into your mind, then whatever you do, the Deity that you worship, you see that Deity in your work; whatever you see, you see the Deity giving you the show; you can put it like that.
Whatever you hear, you find the Deity telling you the truth, whatever you read, you find there what the Deity would tell you. So, in that state, whatever you do with your eyes, nose & all these organs, all that, becomes a kind of manifestation of the Deity whom you worship, automatically.
You don’t have to think now I must concentrate, alright, I will not have these thoughts , I have to now think about this. It becomes automatically there”
Meditation is a very general word. It is not a word that explains all the three steps one has to take for meditating. But in Sanskrit, they have very clearly said, how you have to move In your meditation.
First is called as ‘DHYANA’, and second is called as ‘DHARANA’ and third is called as ‘SAMADHI’.
Luckily Sahaja Yoga is such a thing that you get everything in a bundle. You avoided everything else. You got the Samadhi part. That’s the beauty of it.
The first part of meditation is ‘DHYANA’. First when you have seeking , you put your attention towards the object of your worship. This is called as ‘DHYANA’. And the ‘DHARANA’ is the one is which you put all your effort, concentrate, all your effort. But this is all drama for people who are not realised. For them, it is just a sort of an acting that they do. But for a realised soul it is a reality. So the first, the Dhyana you have to do. Some do it of form, another of the formless. But you are so fortunate that the formless has become a form for you. No problem, you don’t have to go from form to formless, from formless to form; its all there, in bundle. So you concentrate or think of some Deity, some point of Nirakar, for the formless, or of Nirakar itself. Its all a mental projection as long as you are not a realised soul.
But once you are realised, you have just to think of Dhyana, whom you are going to concentrate, or you can say Meditate on.
But once you start Meditating on a person your attention starts moving. That is also possible after realisation, though it is in a bundle; but some people have it part of it, like that.
So when you Meditate, still your attention can get disturbed every moment.
It can happen , depending on the intensity of your concentration. So there are some Sahaja Yogis I have seen, they are cooking and there’s another one is meditating. The meditating one will say: OH! I can smell it is burning”. So there is no Dharana. Dhyana is there, but not Dharana. The second part of it is very important, that you have to put your attention continously on to your deity.
Then you develop a State which is called as Dharana, in which your attention becomes one with the Deity. But when these mature, the third stage of Samadhi, comes in.
Now for some people who think that without realisation, they can reach Samadhi. I think, they are absolutely mistaken. But after realisation also, when the Dharana is established, have to get to the position where you become ‘Samadhi’ . Now, what is that State? When that state comes into your mind, then whatever you do, the Deity that you worship, you see that Deity in your work; whatever you see, you see the Deity giving you the show; you can put it like that.
Whatever you hear, you find the Deity telling you the truth, whatever you read, you find there what the Deity would tell you. So, in that state, whatever you do with your eyes, nose & all these organs, all that, becomes a kind of manifestation of the Deity whom you worship, automatically.
You don’t have to think now I must concentrate, alright, I will not have these thoughts , I have to now think about this. It becomes automatically there”
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
SAHAJA YOGA - AN INTRODUCTION
Personal views of a South Africa Yogi.
An Introduction
The reason for writing this article is to introduce the spiritual knowledge being taught through Sahaja Yoga to you, in a straight forward uncomplicated manner and to present these teachings as plainly as possible.
To start with you will find that Sahaja Yoga makes some rather surprising claims. We ask that you keep an open mind and suspend your judgement until you have finished reading what we have to say. Sahaja Yoga is able to explain everything from the purpose of our lives to the fossil record and the theory of evolution. The Divine was behind every development.
The starting point of our story is that there is a God, the nature of whom forms the major part of what this article is all about. Atheism is just not tenable. How could there not be a God, the uncaused cause of the universe? Ultimately atheism depends on statistics for credibility but the numbers are against the idea. A chance of 1 in infinity that the Big Bang and all that followed, happened by chance without the designing hand of the Divine? It is far more exciting to believe in God and try to work out how he reacts within the world rather than trying to defend atheism by attacking religious fundamentalism.
The person, born in 1923, who started Sahaja Yoga is Shri Mataji. She did this in1970. She is an an extremely high spiritual person who can be said to be a messenger from God, comparable in stature to Mohammed, Abraham and Moses. The ultimate test of this statement is the knowledge that She has brought with her. It is knowledge, which can easily be understood by the modern world but the the conditioning of people is a major problem to their acceptance of these teachings. People tend to stick to the teaching of the religion into which they were born. Shri Mataji says that what the major spiritual teachers of the past such as Jesus, Mohammed and Krishna taught, was all in accord with each other. Sahaja Yoga both confirms and adds new knowledge to their teachings. We have structured this article by touching on a number of subjects which are intended to sketch out the broader framework of the knowledge that Shri Mataji has imparted to us. We will not be dealing with the specifics of Sahaja Yoga in this article. These are taught in the newcomer classes held by the Yogis. They are always free of charge. The website at www.sahajayoga.org is also a source of information as well as country websites shown on this site.
Sahaja Yoga is a great new spiritual movement, which is purely meditative. It does not use the physical postures of Hatha Yoga.
The first question to be answered is who do Sahaja Yogi's worship? There has only, ever has, been one God. The yogis call Him Sadashiva and it is he that they worship. God however has many facets - just like a diamond - and the yogis worship these different facets or deities depending on the situation. Some of the different deities are the Adi Shakti, the female power of God; Jesus Christ and his mother Mary; Mohammed, Abraham, Moses, Krishna, Lao Szu and Confucious. The different situations referred to are the mantras or prayers offered to the different deities during daily meditation, during havans and during pujas. Shri Mataji says that the teachingsof all these great spiritual teachers was all in accord. Sahaja Yoga is the intergration of all these teachings. This is the reason why Sahaja Yoga can claim to be the universal pure religion, Vishwa Nirmala Dharma, which is the alternative name for Sahaja Yoga. It is because of this universal nature that everybody can easily start doing the Sahaja Yoga meditation.
How does God operate in the world? This of course is the great mystery, which has concerned the religions, philosophers, mystics and seekers of all kinds down through the ages. It is the fundamental question. The view presented by Sahaja Yoga is comforting and alarming; comforting because He is a God of Love, and alarming because He is also a God of destruction. The simple truth is that if you love and obey him and live a dharmic or righteous life, as laid out in all the great religious texts, you will reap all the benefits that His love can bring. Disobey Him and He will cause havoc in your life and ultimately destroy you if you don't come to your senses. You ignore God at your peril. Destruction comes in the form of disease or perhaps through nature as 'an act of God', Tsunamis, earthquakes and other things of this ilk. Do I/we hear any voices being raised in disagreement? Then consider this. God is omnipresent and all powerful. He knows when something is about to happen and could stop it if he wanted to. Consider the common-day scourge of HIV/ AIDS, for which, to date no cure has been found. Could this possibly be a consequence of the licentious lifestyle of so many of us? Sahaja Yoga believes that it is. This brings up the question of free will, what does it really mean? In terms of what we have said so far it means one thing and one thing only. Follow the rules of righteous living or suffer the consequences. Is this really free will? I don't think so. Whenever men neglect the authority of the Lord, nature and her laws are there to penalise them. (Srimad Bagavatam 1.1.1)
Sahaja Yoga having an eastern source confirms that there is reincarnation and that we are all subject to the law of karma. This used to mean that you could bank on a number of lives to workout your problems in your quest for perfection. The quest for perfection is the main purpose of your existence. It didn't matter too much if you died in unpleasant circumstances, due to bad karma, as you could always count on further lives coming up to improve your position. Shri Mataji says that you should not worry about what you were in previous lives. It is the present life which is important. Sahaja Yoga teaches that the more perfect you are or the greater degree of spiritual growth that you have achieved, the greater your chances of making it into heaven on the day of judgement. Judgement used to be thought of as coming sometime in the far distant future. Shri Mataji however teaches that we are living in the time of the revelations now, and that the judgement is already taking place. Time is now short. How short we do not know. This means that you had better consider doing something about trying to grow spiritually in your present life if you want to make it into the kingdom of heaven and not be lost forever. That's the bad news. Doesn't this sound delightfully biblical and old testament-like at that?
The good news however is that you can now get your self realisation simply by asking for it. 'There is still time brother'. I may be writing in a jocular vein but I can assure you that I am deadly serious.
Self realisation is the awakeningof the dormant kundalini energy within each one of us, which resides in the sacrum bone. All you have to do to get your self realisation is to ask for it. This is the consequence of Shri Mataji having taken birth on the earth. She has revealed the way for en-masse and spontaneous self-realisation to modern people. The Divine has now granted human beings the right to get their self realisation in this manner. Previously one had to go to the mountains or the forests and meditate for a lifetime, or perhaps two or three lifetimes, before getting it.
Getting self realisation means that you can achieve the state of yoga; that you can now be connected to the Divine through the collective unconscious, that Carl Jung wrote about. That is what yoga essentially means: being connected with the Divine. Previously you were not. Couple this with learning the simple Sahaja Yoga meditation which is getting into a state of thoughtless awareness, beyond your mind and ego and do this for five to ten minutes a twice a day and you can then expect to start accruing the benefits of the meditation, which are many. You will start to grow spiritually, which is the main purpose of the Sahaja Yoga and any mental or health problems will radically improve. Your state of welfare including your financial position and your relationships with other people will all improve. The power of your prayers will increase a thousand fold because you are now directly connected to the source of everything; to THE Source.
The implications of Sahaja Yoga for humanity are huge. We are all connected to one another through the collective unconcious and once large numbers of people have achieved their self realisation most of the problems in the world are going to disappear. There won't be anymore need for war and our planet will be able to once again establish equilibrium. Global warming will be a thing of the past. A long time ago the Chinese sage, Lao Tse, said: “There will always be the sound of war and thunder and death until man achieves God and enter into his tranquillity”.
The way for this state of affairs to be achieved is for large numbers of people to get their self realisatiion and to start practising Sahaja Yoga's thoughtless awareness meditation. Kundalini awakening, and the consequent awakening of the spirit, such that it starts informing your ego conciousness is how everything works. It is the next stage of the evolution of human beings.
Well, have you managed to stay with me so far? I did say in the beginning that you should keep an open mind and suspend your judgement. Shri Mataji does say that you should be skeptical about her teachings until you receive the proof. I can assure you that there is proof a-plenty and I hope that you will decide take your self realisation and embrace Sahaja Yoga.
Perhaps your starting point for further information on Sahaja Yoga is the internet where one can find information at www.sahajayoga.org - And to look for the answers in your heart.
Huntly Reid
February 2009
An Introduction
The reason for writing this article is to introduce the spiritual knowledge being taught through Sahaja Yoga to you, in a straight forward uncomplicated manner and to present these teachings as plainly as possible.
To start with you will find that Sahaja Yoga makes some rather surprising claims. We ask that you keep an open mind and suspend your judgement until you have finished reading what we have to say. Sahaja Yoga is able to explain everything from the purpose of our lives to the fossil record and the theory of evolution. The Divine was behind every development.
The starting point of our story is that there is a God, the nature of whom forms the major part of what this article is all about. Atheism is just not tenable. How could there not be a God, the uncaused cause of the universe? Ultimately atheism depends on statistics for credibility but the numbers are against the idea. A chance of 1 in infinity that the Big Bang and all that followed, happened by chance without the designing hand of the Divine? It is far more exciting to believe in God and try to work out how he reacts within the world rather than trying to defend atheism by attacking religious fundamentalism.
The person, born in 1923, who started Sahaja Yoga is Shri Mataji. She did this in1970. She is an an extremely high spiritual person who can be said to be a messenger from God, comparable in stature to Mohammed, Abraham and Moses. The ultimate test of this statement is the knowledge that She has brought with her. It is knowledge, which can easily be understood by the modern world but the the conditioning of people is a major problem to their acceptance of these teachings. People tend to stick to the teaching of the religion into which they were born. Shri Mataji says that what the major spiritual teachers of the past such as Jesus, Mohammed and Krishna taught, was all in accord with each other. Sahaja Yoga both confirms and adds new knowledge to their teachings. We have structured this article by touching on a number of subjects which are intended to sketch out the broader framework of the knowledge that Shri Mataji has imparted to us. We will not be dealing with the specifics of Sahaja Yoga in this article. These are taught in the newcomer classes held by the Yogis. They are always free of charge. The website at www.sahajayoga.org is also a source of information as well as country websites shown on this site.
Sahaja Yoga is a great new spiritual movement, which is purely meditative. It does not use the physical postures of Hatha Yoga.
The first question to be answered is who do Sahaja Yogi's worship? There has only, ever has, been one God. The yogis call Him Sadashiva and it is he that they worship. God however has many facets - just like a diamond - and the yogis worship these different facets or deities depending on the situation. Some of the different deities are the Adi Shakti, the female power of God; Jesus Christ and his mother Mary; Mohammed, Abraham, Moses, Krishna, Lao Szu and Confucious. The different situations referred to are the mantras or prayers offered to the different deities during daily meditation, during havans and during pujas. Shri Mataji says that the teachingsof all these great spiritual teachers was all in accord. Sahaja Yoga is the intergration of all these teachings. This is the reason why Sahaja Yoga can claim to be the universal pure religion, Vishwa Nirmala Dharma, which is the alternative name for Sahaja Yoga. It is because of this universal nature that everybody can easily start doing the Sahaja Yoga meditation.
How does God operate in the world? This of course is the great mystery, which has concerned the religions, philosophers, mystics and seekers of all kinds down through the ages. It is the fundamental question. The view presented by Sahaja Yoga is comforting and alarming; comforting because He is a God of Love, and alarming because He is also a God of destruction. The simple truth is that if you love and obey him and live a dharmic or righteous life, as laid out in all the great religious texts, you will reap all the benefits that His love can bring. Disobey Him and He will cause havoc in your life and ultimately destroy you if you don't come to your senses. You ignore God at your peril. Destruction comes in the form of disease or perhaps through nature as 'an act of God', Tsunamis, earthquakes and other things of this ilk. Do I/we hear any voices being raised in disagreement? Then consider this. God is omnipresent and all powerful. He knows when something is about to happen and could stop it if he wanted to. Consider the common-day scourge of HIV/ AIDS, for which, to date no cure has been found. Could this possibly be a consequence of the licentious lifestyle of so many of us? Sahaja Yoga believes that it is. This brings up the question of free will, what does it really mean? In terms of what we have said so far it means one thing and one thing only. Follow the rules of righteous living or suffer the consequences. Is this really free will? I don't think so. Whenever men neglect the authority of the Lord, nature and her laws are there to penalise them. (Srimad Bagavatam 1.1.1)
Sahaja Yoga having an eastern source confirms that there is reincarnation and that we are all subject to the law of karma. This used to mean that you could bank on a number of lives to workout your problems in your quest for perfection. The quest for perfection is the main purpose of your existence. It didn't matter too much if you died in unpleasant circumstances, due to bad karma, as you could always count on further lives coming up to improve your position. Shri Mataji says that you should not worry about what you were in previous lives. It is the present life which is important. Sahaja Yoga teaches that the more perfect you are or the greater degree of spiritual growth that you have achieved, the greater your chances of making it into heaven on the day of judgement. Judgement used to be thought of as coming sometime in the far distant future. Shri Mataji however teaches that we are living in the time of the revelations now, and that the judgement is already taking place. Time is now short. How short we do not know. This means that you had better consider doing something about trying to grow spiritually in your present life if you want to make it into the kingdom of heaven and not be lost forever. That's the bad news. Doesn't this sound delightfully biblical and old testament-like at that?
The good news however is that you can now get your self realisation simply by asking for it. 'There is still time brother'. I may be writing in a jocular vein but I can assure you that I am deadly serious.
Self realisation is the awakeningof the dormant kundalini energy within each one of us, which resides in the sacrum bone. All you have to do to get your self realisation is to ask for it. This is the consequence of Shri Mataji having taken birth on the earth. She has revealed the way for en-masse and spontaneous self-realisation to modern people. The Divine has now granted human beings the right to get their self realisation in this manner. Previously one had to go to the mountains or the forests and meditate for a lifetime, or perhaps two or three lifetimes, before getting it.
Getting self realisation means that you can achieve the state of yoga; that you can now be connected to the Divine through the collective unconscious, that Carl Jung wrote about. That is what yoga essentially means: being connected with the Divine. Previously you were not. Couple this with learning the simple Sahaja Yoga meditation which is getting into a state of thoughtless awareness, beyond your mind and ego and do this for five to ten minutes a twice a day and you can then expect to start accruing the benefits of the meditation, which are many. You will start to grow spiritually, which is the main purpose of the Sahaja Yoga and any mental or health problems will radically improve. Your state of welfare including your financial position and your relationships with other people will all improve. The power of your prayers will increase a thousand fold because you are now directly connected to the source of everything; to THE Source.
The implications of Sahaja Yoga for humanity are huge. We are all connected to one another through the collective unconcious and once large numbers of people have achieved their self realisation most of the problems in the world are going to disappear. There won't be anymore need for war and our planet will be able to once again establish equilibrium. Global warming will be a thing of the past. A long time ago the Chinese sage, Lao Tse, said: “There will always be the sound of war and thunder and death until man achieves God and enter into his tranquillity”.
The way for this state of affairs to be achieved is for large numbers of people to get their self realisatiion and to start practising Sahaja Yoga's thoughtless awareness meditation. Kundalini awakening, and the consequent awakening of the spirit, such that it starts informing your ego conciousness is how everything works. It is the next stage of the evolution of human beings.
Well, have you managed to stay with me so far? I did say in the beginning that you should keep an open mind and suspend your judgement. Shri Mataji does say that you should be skeptical about her teachings until you receive the proof. I can assure you that there is proof a-plenty and I hope that you will decide take your self realisation and embrace Sahaja Yoga.
Perhaps your starting point for further information on Sahaja Yoga is the internet where one can find information at www.sahajayoga.org - And to look for the answers in your heart.
Huntly Reid
February 2009
Monday, February 9, 2009
Miracles in Soweto
Last night in Soweto it rained hard. It always does, or seems to, when we are about to meet for our weekly Beginners’ Programme, in Zola North, one of the poorest townships of Soweto. We meet on Tuesdays. Khayo (my wife) and I drove through the rain past Dobsonville and into Zola, on our way to Thathane Primary School, where the programmes are held. There were a number of new people last week, four ladies in all. We were thirteen on that day. One, in fact, had been there before - a few months back. But we hardly recognised her. She is a matric student in a nearby high school, but observing how she didn’t have problems with raising her Kundalini as new people tend to have that problem, we asked whether she had been here before. She then reminded us of her visit some months back. How happy we were. But the other three were indeed new people, and there was one whose shyness was quite remarkable. She was withdrawn until after the programme when a few songs were sung, spontaneously; and that seemed to do the trick, and she brightened up. She like the others told us their names when we all introduced each other. But I quickly forgot them. And we had not brought our register. We still have to get better organised with certain little things. But that was last week.
Then this week, driving through the rain, we were wondering how many would dare the elements. It’s not unusual that people don’t turn up when the weather is bad. And when my cellphone rang, just before we passed the Dobsonville Mall, I thought it would be someone saying - ‘Look Buti (elder brother) it’s raining, so maybe we should call it off’. It was Khantu, one of our most ardent Yoginis in Soweto. and she enquired how far we were? I told her we were just near the police station, and she said she only wanted to warn us that the key to the classroom was not there, as the child who normally collects it had not been to school that day. I thought, ‘That’s it. They are going to cancel’. But no, she said : ‘We will meet at Nonhlanhla’s’. I agreed.
Then this week, driving through the rain, we were wondering how many would dare the elements. It’s not unusual that people don’t turn up when the weather is bad. And when my cellphone rang, just before we passed the Dobsonville Mall, I thought it would be someone saying - ‘Look Buti (elder brother) it’s raining, so maybe we should call it off’. It was Khantu, one of our most ardent Yoginis in Soweto. and she enquired how far we were? I told her we were just near the police station, and she said she only wanted to warn us that the key to the classroom was not there, as the child who normally collects it had not been to school that day. I thought, ‘That’s it. They are going to cancel’. But no, she said : ‘We will meet at Nonhlanhla’s’. I agreed.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Mooladhara Chakra
The Mooladhara Chakra is placed at the very base of the spinal column. It has an important role as support for both the subtle body system and Kundalini, and so it is closely related to balance and stability. The Mooladhara Chakra is placed below the Mooladhara which houses the Kundalini. It is the foundation of the psyche, where it is grounded and supports the other centres. Any strong disturbance to its sensitivity throws the individual off-balance and causes mental disturbance.
The qualities of the Mooladhara Chakra are innocence and wisdom and eternal childhood. To awaken these you can use the affirmation, “Mother, please make me the innocence.”
The Mooladhara Chakra is the seat of our grounding force, our connection with Mother Earth. It is made of the Earth element and represents the beginning and primary principle of Life.
In the beginning, gross matter was created using the four-petalled Carbon atom as the first building block. Like Carbon this chakra has four petals, a stable configuration. The Earth is our vehicle for Life and is innocent in this role. She does not judge - matter simply is and supports. In the same way the innocence of a child simply is, without thinking, judgement or concern, and this quality is in concert with the innate pure wisdom of a child. Children often see and speak clearly. “From the mouth of babes”.
When this chakra is awakened its magnetic force starts working. A person whose Mooladhara Chakra is awakened has an inner sense of stability and direction. The qualities of this chakra are those of innocence, wisdom, purity and eternal childhood. These qualities are naturally inherent within each being, but we can through various practices damage this centre. This is the centre that governs the retention, elimination and sexual aspects of human beings.
An awakened and lively Mooladhara chakra brings forth spontaneous wisdom, innocence, dedication, purity and joy. Such a personality is auspicious, and contributes good fortune to his or her surroundings.
The presiding deity or personification of the Mooladhara chakra is Shri Ganesha, the child with the head of an elephant. He is innocent and helps us to remove obstacles in our way.
Clearing the chakras in the Subtle System is an important part of Sahaja Yoga. Sitting on Mother Earth is a very simple technique for clearing the Mooladhara Chakra. If you wish to find out more ways of clearing the chakras, you are very welcome to come to any of the Sahaja Yoga programs held throughout the world.
The qualities of the Mooladhara Chakra are innocence and wisdom and eternal childhood. To awaken these you can use the affirmation, “Mother, please make me the innocence.”
The Mooladhara Chakra is the seat of our grounding force, our connection with Mother Earth. It is made of the Earth element and represents the beginning and primary principle of Life.
In the beginning, gross matter was created using the four-petalled Carbon atom as the first building block. Like Carbon this chakra has four petals, a stable configuration. The Earth is our vehicle for Life and is innocent in this role. She does not judge - matter simply is and supports. In the same way the innocence of a child simply is, without thinking, judgement or concern, and this quality is in concert with the innate pure wisdom of a child. Children often see and speak clearly. “From the mouth of babes”.
When this chakra is awakened its magnetic force starts working. A person whose Mooladhara Chakra is awakened has an inner sense of stability and direction. The qualities of this chakra are those of innocence, wisdom, purity and eternal childhood. These qualities are naturally inherent within each being, but we can through various practices damage this centre. This is the centre that governs the retention, elimination and sexual aspects of human beings.
An awakened and lively Mooladhara chakra brings forth spontaneous wisdom, innocence, dedication, purity and joy. Such a personality is auspicious, and contributes good fortune to his or her surroundings.
The presiding deity or personification of the Mooladhara chakra is Shri Ganesha, the child with the head of an elephant. He is innocent and helps us to remove obstacles in our way.
Clearing the chakras in the Subtle System is an important part of Sahaja Yoga. Sitting on Mother Earth is a very simple technique for clearing the Mooladhara Chakra. If you wish to find out more ways of clearing the chakras, you are very welcome to come to any of the Sahaja Yoga programs held throughout the world.
Shri Mataji's advice on Effortless Meditation
"In the same way vibrations are coming, they are radiated. What you have to do is to expose yourself to it. The best way is not to put in any effort. Don't worry at what point you have a problem. Say, many people during meditation, I have seen, if they catch somewhere they go on looking after it. You just don't have to worry. You just let it go and it will work by itself. So you don't have to put in any effort.
This is what meditation is.
Meditation means exposing yourself to God's grace. Now the grace itself knows how to cure you. It knows how to mend you, how to settle down itself to your own being, how to keep your Spirit kindled. It knows everything. So you don't have to worry as to what you have to do or what name you have to take what mantra you have to do. In meditation you have to do absolutely effortless, expose yourself fully and you have to be absolutely thoughtless at that time.
Supposing, possibly, you might not be thoughtless. At that time you have to just watch your thoughts, but do not get involved into them. You will find gradually as the sun rises, darkness goes away and the sun's rays go into every part and makes the whole place enlightened. In the same way your being will be completely enlightened but if you put in an effort at that time or try to stop something within you or try to give it a bhandan it will not.
Effortlessness is the only way into meditation, but you should not be lethargic about it - should be alert and watch it. The other side could be that people just dose off. No, you have to be alert. If you dose off, nothing will work out. That's another side of it. If you are lazy about it, nothing will work out. You have to be alert and open, absolutely aware, completely effortless, absolutely effortless. If you are absolutely effortless, meditation will work the best.
Don't think about your problem at all, whatever chakras you have, anything, just expose yourself to the vibration. See when the sun shines all the nature exposes itself to the sun and receives the sun the sun's rays start acting. In the same way the all-pervading power starts working. You are not to manoeuvre it, you are not to do anything about it. Just be effortless, absolutely effortless. Do not take any names (mantras). Do not bother if your Agnya is catching, this is catching, that is catching. It is working out.
It will go on working as long as it can and it will do the miracle that it has to do. You don't have to worry about it. It knows its job. But when you put an effort you actually create a barrier for it. So no effort is needed, be absolutely effortless and say 'let it go, let it go' - that's all.
No mantras are to be chanted. In case you find it's impossible then you can take my name, but there is no need even. When you put your hands toward me that is the mantra, it is sufficient, this gesture itself is mantra. You see there is no need to say it more, but the thought in the mind the emotion, is what we spread our hands to that and it should work. When this emotion is absolutely complete, there is no need to say any mantra - you go beyond it. So one has to be absolutely effortless, absolutely effortless.
Meditation is for your own ascent, is for your own capital gains that you have to have. But once you got it, you also achieve your powers. Like if you become the governor, you get the powers of the governor. At this time you don't have to think about anybody else. You are not put your attention towards anybody else but just receive, just receive it. Do not think about any other problem, but that you have to be absolutely effortless. It would work the best on the people who are
just receiving it.
You have problems, that's why you are here, but you cannot solve them, they are to be solved by divine power. This must be understood fully, that we cannot solve our problems. So leave it in the hands of divine power and expose yourself effortlessly, absolutely effortlessly. "
Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi - London 1 Jan 1980
This is what meditation is.
Meditation means exposing yourself to God's grace. Now the grace itself knows how to cure you. It knows how to mend you, how to settle down itself to your own being, how to keep your Spirit kindled. It knows everything. So you don't have to worry as to what you have to do or what name you have to take what mantra you have to do. In meditation you have to do absolutely effortless, expose yourself fully and you have to be absolutely thoughtless at that time.
Supposing, possibly, you might not be thoughtless. At that time you have to just watch your thoughts, but do not get involved into them. You will find gradually as the sun rises, darkness goes away and the sun's rays go into every part and makes the whole place enlightened. In the same way your being will be completely enlightened but if you put in an effort at that time or try to stop something within you or try to give it a bhandan it will not.
Effortlessness is the only way into meditation, but you should not be lethargic about it - should be alert and watch it. The other side could be that people just dose off. No, you have to be alert. If you dose off, nothing will work out. That's another side of it. If you are lazy about it, nothing will work out. You have to be alert and open, absolutely aware, completely effortless, absolutely effortless. If you are absolutely effortless, meditation will work the best.
Don't think about your problem at all, whatever chakras you have, anything, just expose yourself to the vibration. See when the sun shines all the nature exposes itself to the sun and receives the sun the sun's rays start acting. In the same way the all-pervading power starts working. You are not to manoeuvre it, you are not to do anything about it. Just be effortless, absolutely effortless. Do not take any names (mantras). Do not bother if your Agnya is catching, this is catching, that is catching. It is working out.
It will go on working as long as it can and it will do the miracle that it has to do. You don't have to worry about it. It knows its job. But when you put an effort you actually create a barrier for it. So no effort is needed, be absolutely effortless and say 'let it go, let it go' - that's all.
No mantras are to be chanted. In case you find it's impossible then you can take my name, but there is no need even. When you put your hands toward me that is the mantra, it is sufficient, this gesture itself is mantra. You see there is no need to say it more, but the thought in the mind the emotion, is what we spread our hands to that and it should work. When this emotion is absolutely complete, there is no need to say any mantra - you go beyond it. So one has to be absolutely effortless, absolutely effortless.
Meditation is for your own ascent, is for your own capital gains that you have to have. But once you got it, you also achieve your powers. Like if you become the governor, you get the powers of the governor. At this time you don't have to think about anybody else. You are not put your attention towards anybody else but just receive, just receive it. Do not think about any other problem, but that you have to be absolutely effortless. It would work the best on the people who are
just receiving it.
You have problems, that's why you are here, but you cannot solve them, they are to be solved by divine power. This must be understood fully, that we cannot solve our problems. So leave it in the hands of divine power and expose yourself effortlessly, absolutely effortlessly. "
Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi - London 1 Jan 1980
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
THE HEALING OF LOVE
Faith healing, associated with mostly bizarre practices, has gained momentum together with all kind of alternative healing practices. As the aging population pushes greater numbers in the geriatric wards of hospitals, at a neck breaking cost for health insurances systems, therapeutic processes make the cover page of Times Magazine, including some hogwash on the science of meditation extolling the TM fraud, which demonstrates the Magazine?s incompetence in the subject. But faith is hard to get by and it works only when the deity, in whom we have faith, can hear our plea and has the power to heal. In short, not often.
Yet, a more health conscious public realize the huge shortcomings of allopathic and antibiotic saturated medicine. Homeopathy depends on sensitive diagnosis, not always available. So where do we turn for an affordable healing process? Could the answer be so simple that we miss it? Here is just a suggestion: love is the greatest healer that relieves us of the buds of sickness before they degenerate in pathology. Do we fully realize the healing impact of a loving presence next to us? This presence, in fact, is the deeper definition of what constitutes ?a home?. All of us who go out in the real world come back home at the end of our day with some bruises of a kind or another: job anxieties, money worries, stress and pressures of all kinds take a toll. But living in the simple and giving love of someone close to us dissolve much of the strain! It makes it look relatively unimportant because the love we receive recharge in a very subtle but real way the energy supply that we lose in our daily skirmishes with life. We feel comfortable again, we touch in a humble, silent but pervasive manner the real wellness of being alive, and yes, life is beautiful.
A loving presence? It can be a grand mother, a child, a husband or wife, a sister or brother, a friend. These are various shapes and forms of the vessels containing ?if all is well ? the magic potion. It needs not be only in a lover shape for, ultimately, love is not something we make: it is something that flows through us. A liquid well being, streams of mellow and golden caress, a soothing tingling in the chest, a bath of exquisite fulfilment. Love is all that and more, much more because it is an energy that flows into us from God. Every one who loves carries it. And if you love your dog, it understands this. But do we?
So love works also in a therapeutic sense. The hurdle here is that love cannot be faked. I mean, when love is faked, it is not love. We cannot ask a nurse to start loving a patient or a manager to love his employees because this would accelerate the recovery of the patient or make the staff member more productive. In the best of the case, the nurse or the CEO would understand the point but this is not enough. Love does not work this way. To love, we must feel love, we must have it inside, and to have inside us, we must get it from somewhere. In other words is our cup full to the brim with love, half full or half empty or does it only contain a few drops? This will make a difference when we pour our cup onto someone else. It makes a difference to the effectiveness of our love.
Now the question arises: how to love? From where to get love? Or, how to fill the cup? If we do not get any love for ourselves, it is hard to give back any. The Beatles sang:? I need somebody to love? but many would also sing in tune ?I need somebody to love me?. So, most of us are depending on our emotional environment to be capable to give love back to this environment.
And precisely here we can get badly hurt: divorced parents, teenagers broken hearts, dysfunctional couples are many instances that dry up in us the flow of this subtle energy of love.
Besides, it looks a bit like a vicious circle because quite generally and even without acute emotional crisis, love seems to fizzle out in environments that do not sustain it. Ask the nurse with her hypochondriac patients, the teachers with kids that have no respect for them or the civil servant with the dreadful boss. Ounce upon a time, they wanted perhaps to serve, to give something to society, which is a form of love, but they grew tired.
Is there then a way out of the vicious circle?
Yes there is. Beyond filling the cup because another vessel pours its liquid into it, there is a magic way to fill the cup from inside. And this is what the High Yoga of raising the kundalini within the spine achieves. For the kundalini is the dormant depository of residual divine love within our intimate spiritual body. A yogi, who has his kundalini awakened, can tap the source through meditation. The advantage is that then, the energy can flow even in a "love deficit" environment.
Yet, a more health conscious public realize the huge shortcomings of allopathic and antibiotic saturated medicine. Homeopathy depends on sensitive diagnosis, not always available. So where do we turn for an affordable healing process? Could the answer be so simple that we miss it? Here is just a suggestion: love is the greatest healer that relieves us of the buds of sickness before they degenerate in pathology. Do we fully realize the healing impact of a loving presence next to us? This presence, in fact, is the deeper definition of what constitutes ?a home?. All of us who go out in the real world come back home at the end of our day with some bruises of a kind or another: job anxieties, money worries, stress and pressures of all kinds take a toll. But living in the simple and giving love of someone close to us dissolve much of the strain! It makes it look relatively unimportant because the love we receive recharge in a very subtle but real way the energy supply that we lose in our daily skirmishes with life. We feel comfortable again, we touch in a humble, silent but pervasive manner the real wellness of being alive, and yes, life is beautiful.
A loving presence? It can be a grand mother, a child, a husband or wife, a sister or brother, a friend. These are various shapes and forms of the vessels containing ?if all is well ? the magic potion. It needs not be only in a lover shape for, ultimately, love is not something we make: it is something that flows through us. A liquid well being, streams of mellow and golden caress, a soothing tingling in the chest, a bath of exquisite fulfilment. Love is all that and more, much more because it is an energy that flows into us from God. Every one who loves carries it. And if you love your dog, it understands this. But do we?
So love works also in a therapeutic sense. The hurdle here is that love cannot be faked. I mean, when love is faked, it is not love. We cannot ask a nurse to start loving a patient or a manager to love his employees because this would accelerate the recovery of the patient or make the staff member more productive. In the best of the case, the nurse or the CEO would understand the point but this is not enough. Love does not work this way. To love, we must feel love, we must have it inside, and to have inside us, we must get it from somewhere. In other words is our cup full to the brim with love, half full or half empty or does it only contain a few drops? This will make a difference when we pour our cup onto someone else. It makes a difference to the effectiveness of our love.
Now the question arises: how to love? From where to get love? Or, how to fill the cup? If we do not get any love for ourselves, it is hard to give back any. The Beatles sang:? I need somebody to love? but many would also sing in tune ?I need somebody to love me?. So, most of us are depending on our emotional environment to be capable to give love back to this environment.
And precisely here we can get badly hurt: divorced parents, teenagers broken hearts, dysfunctional couples are many instances that dry up in us the flow of this subtle energy of love.
Besides, it looks a bit like a vicious circle because quite generally and even without acute emotional crisis, love seems to fizzle out in environments that do not sustain it. Ask the nurse with her hypochondriac patients, the teachers with kids that have no respect for them or the civil servant with the dreadful boss. Ounce upon a time, they wanted perhaps to serve, to give something to society, which is a form of love, but they grew tired.
Is there then a way out of the vicious circle?
Yes there is. Beyond filling the cup because another vessel pours its liquid into it, there is a magic way to fill the cup from inside. And this is what the High Yoga of raising the kundalini within the spine achieves. For the kundalini is the dormant depository of residual divine love within our intimate spiritual body. A yogi, who has his kundalini awakened, can tap the source through meditation. The advantage is that then, the energy can flow even in a "love deficit" environment.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Children's Program in Myanmar
Children Program
Date : 12/01/2009
De : celiatanaka111@gmail.com
Dear beloved sisters,
Subject Children Program:
Greetings from the Golden land. Last month I mentioned a Wushu class which requested for Sahaj program for about 15 children of varying ages. The aim of the Wushu head is to make the children become better in Wushu though Yoga. Although he was the one who invited me to teach Sahaja Yoga through a Wushu athlete who attended PP of Nov 15, he only attended the first class and never again since.
The children Class is every Saturday about one hour and usually after their practice of the Wushu. It has been 4 meetings since we started. The children easily understand and programs are more on raisng Kundalini, bandan, balancing and giving or testing vibrations. Since most of the time electricity is cut in the afternoon, we seldom can play music or VCDs. Also translators are different everytime and sometimes even driver helps to translate.
When we introduced the bandan using the hands, where right hand circulating the left hand, most of them wrote the wish that their parents are happy and healthy.
Should you have more program materials for children, like songs and play please keep on sending to Sangha.
Thanks for your attention.
Love from Mandalay,
celia
Date : 12/01/2009
De : celiatanaka111@gmail.com
Dear beloved sisters,
Subject Children Program:
Greetings from the Golden land. Last month I mentioned a Wushu class which requested for Sahaj program for about 15 children of varying ages. The aim of the Wushu head is to make the children become better in Wushu though Yoga. Although he was the one who invited me to teach Sahaja Yoga through a Wushu athlete who attended PP of Nov 15, he only attended the first class and never again since.
The children Class is every Saturday about one hour and usually after their practice of the Wushu. It has been 4 meetings since we started. The children easily understand and programs are more on raisng Kundalini, bandan, balancing and giving or testing vibrations. Since most of the time electricity is cut in the afternoon, we seldom can play music or VCDs. Also translators are different everytime and sometimes even driver helps to translate.
When we introduced the bandan using the hands, where right hand circulating the left hand, most of them wrote the wish that their parents are happy and healthy.
Should you have more program materials for children, like songs and play please keep on sending to Sangha.
Thanks for your attention.
Love from Mandalay,
celia
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
NIRMAL VIDYA
10 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT SAHAJA YOGA
• Sahaja Yoga is a great new spiritual movement, which is growing rapidly throughout the world. Some would have it that Sahaja Yoga is actually a new religion. It was started by Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi in 1970.
• Shri Mataji was born in India during1923. She is a very high(ly) spiritual person who can be likened to a 'Messenger from God'.
• Sahaja Yoga is the fastest way to get your self realisation. Indeed you receive it on your first contact with Sahaja Yoga.
• In practical terms self realisation means the awakening of your kundalini, which is the sleeping dormant power within each one of us. The kundalini is located in the sacrum bone.
• Once you have learnt the very simple SahajaYoga meditation, which takes no more than 10 to 15 minutes twice a day, you will start growing spiritually. This is the prime purpose of Sahaja Yoga.
• Growing spiritually means that your ability forgive others and yourself, the control of your anger, your ability to love and show compassion, your creative ability, your ability to live in the present and other qualities will all improve.
• Your health can be expected to improve. Miracles cures are possible although this aspect of Sahaja Yoga depends on what you need rather than what you want. Sahaja Yoga helps to cure chemical addictions.
• Your life situation can be expected to improve in terms of your relationships with other people and also in terms of your financial position. Again this is in terms of what you need rather than what you want.
• Your power of prayer will greatly improve.
• Sahaja Yoga is a very practical and easily understood spiritual path. Shri Mataji has given hundreds of talks which, are all available on audio tapes, videos and CDs. These deal with how we are expected to behave and live our lives. The content of this knowledge is all free of charge.
Contribution by Huntly Reid from Cape Town.
Shri Mataji spoke about this knowledge and how to master it during a talk at Rahuri, in Maharashtra, on 31/12/80.
A full transcript can be found Nirmala Yoga no.1, pp20-21 but there is dearth of these old documents. So it helps to be able sometimes to have just a snippet from some of the treasures that Mother has left us. She was speaking on Nirmal Vidya, the Pure Knowledge of the Divine.
Here is Shri Mataji in her own words:
Nirmala Vidya
It is the special power by which we do all Divine work, even forgiving. When you say, "Mother forgive us", the technique by which I forgive you is Nirmala Vidya. The technique by which I love you is also Nirmala Vidya. The technique by which all the mantras are manifesting themselves and are effective is also Nirmala Vidya.
Nirmala means pure, Vidya means knowledge. Nirmala Vidya is purest knowledge or the knowledge of this technique. It creates loops, the energy creates loops and creates also different formations by which it acts and draws all that is unwanted, impure, and fills it up with its power. ...
How subtle it is. Only by saying Nirmala Vidya, you just invite that power, the whole thing, the whole technique to attend to you and it attends to you. You dont have to worry. ... That technique is called Nirmala Vidya. That technique once mastered, by surrendering into it, it completely obeys, absolutely.
H.H.Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, extract from Talk at Rahuri, Maharashtra, 31/12/80.
Full transcript in Nirmala Yoga no.1, pp20-21
• Sahaja Yoga is a great new spiritual movement, which is growing rapidly throughout the world. Some would have it that Sahaja Yoga is actually a new religion. It was started by Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi in 1970.
• Shri Mataji was born in India during1923. She is a very high(ly) spiritual person who can be likened to a 'Messenger from God'.
• Sahaja Yoga is the fastest way to get your self realisation. Indeed you receive it on your first contact with Sahaja Yoga.
• In practical terms self realisation means the awakening of your kundalini, which is the sleeping dormant power within each one of us. The kundalini is located in the sacrum bone.
• Once you have learnt the very simple SahajaYoga meditation, which takes no more than 10 to 15 minutes twice a day, you will start growing spiritually. This is the prime purpose of Sahaja Yoga.
• Growing spiritually means that your ability forgive others and yourself, the control of your anger, your ability to love and show compassion, your creative ability, your ability to live in the present and other qualities will all improve.
• Your health can be expected to improve. Miracles cures are possible although this aspect of Sahaja Yoga depends on what you need rather than what you want. Sahaja Yoga helps to cure chemical addictions.
• Your life situation can be expected to improve in terms of your relationships with other people and also in terms of your financial position. Again this is in terms of what you need rather than what you want.
• Your power of prayer will greatly improve.
• Sahaja Yoga is a very practical and easily understood spiritual path. Shri Mataji has given hundreds of talks which, are all available on audio tapes, videos and CDs. These deal with how we are expected to behave and live our lives. The content of this knowledge is all free of charge.
Contribution by Huntly Reid from Cape Town.
Shri Mataji spoke about this knowledge and how to master it during a talk at Rahuri, in Maharashtra, on 31/12/80.
A full transcript can be found Nirmala Yoga no.1, pp20-21 but there is dearth of these old documents. So it helps to be able sometimes to have just a snippet from some of the treasures that Mother has left us. She was speaking on Nirmal Vidya, the Pure Knowledge of the Divine.
Here is Shri Mataji in her own words:
Nirmala Vidya
It is the special power by which we do all Divine work, even forgiving. When you say, "Mother forgive us", the technique by which I forgive you is Nirmala Vidya. The technique by which I love you is also Nirmala Vidya. The technique by which all the mantras are manifesting themselves and are effective is also Nirmala Vidya.
Nirmala means pure, Vidya means knowledge. Nirmala Vidya is purest knowledge or the knowledge of this technique. It creates loops, the energy creates loops and creates also different formations by which it acts and draws all that is unwanted, impure, and fills it up with its power. ...
How subtle it is. Only by saying Nirmala Vidya, you just invite that power, the whole thing, the whole technique to attend to you and it attends to you. You dont have to worry. ... That technique is called Nirmala Vidya. That technique once mastered, by surrendering into it, it completely obeys, absolutely.
H.H.Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, extract from Talk at Rahuri, Maharashtra, 31/12/80.
Full transcript in Nirmala Yoga no.1, pp20-21
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Significance of Diwali Events
" There are five days they celebrate there... "
“……..as you know there are five days they celebrate there. The first day is the thirteenth day, where it is the gruhalaksmi’s day that is the day when the gruhalaksmi is worshipped. But a gruhalakshmi has to be worthy of the worship, and then some utensil is given, to the gruhalakshmi. Some sort of a utensil is to be given to the gruhalakshmi as a present. That is the day Lakshmi was born, Lakshmi, was born out of the Mother Earth, out of the, we should say Mother Earth, but She came out of the Sea, after the churning, so that is the birth of the Lakshmi. She’s the giver of wealth. Wealth which is material as well as spiritual. ...
So that’s the day of the gruhalakshmi when She’s born. She must have these qualities, if she’s a miserly, calculating type of a woman; she is not a woman at all to begin with. If she’s worried about her own clothes and her own comforts and her own things then she’s not a gruhalakshmi. She makes others work and sits down and all orders about, she’s not a gruhalakshmi at all. She has to work, for others, she has to do for others, she has to look after. That’s the thirteenth day.
Then the fourteenth day is the day when Narakasura was killed. You know Narakasura has taken his birth, and he’s to be killed, the Sahaja Yogis are going to kill him. You have to come up to a point and definitely he can be killed. When Kartikeya is awakened within you, he can be killed. But for that you have to be just like gold, untarnishable. You need strong people to do that. A sword that can kill him has to come out of your [metals or mettles]. Then Narakasura can be killed. He is one of the worst possible asuras. That is the fourteenth day. When he was killed, the gate of hell was opened and, all those where, his disciples or his followers or satanic people were put. That’s the only day you can sleep late, and a good news for you.
Then the fifteenth day, is the darkest night, which we had, darkest night. That is the night when you put the lights on, because it is the darkest night the negative forces can walk in. So the lights are put, because Lakshmi can come in. You’ll be surprised how Lakshmiji is, that if a bottle of wine enters from one end, She disappears from another. ... That’s the responsibility of women, to keep the Lakshmi intact. So that’s the Lakshmi Day when we say that Lakshmi Puja takes place because that is the day you invite the Lakshmi to come in, the Rajalakshmi, the Lakshmi by which you become the king of the family or the, royal, benevolence you can call it, the regal, feeling in the family, that is the day.
Then comes the day, next to that is the first, of the month in, that is the calendar, My forefathers, because you’re all My children you have to use the same calendar Shalivahanas calendar and that is the first day of the Shalivahanas calendar. And what do they do in the morning time, to celebrate it, they take one of these, jars, Aquarius, and put a shawl with it, and that is put as a flag, representing the Aquarius and the Shawl of the Mother. That’s why they are called as Shalivahana, the ones who carry the Shawls of the Mother. The Carriers of the Shawls of the Mother. That’s how they put it up. The shawl on top of it the Aquarius, this should be actually the flag of the Sahaja Yogis, that you make it the, Aquarius or we can say the, jar, what do you call that, pitcher, or not pitcher but this lota business what do you call that - there’s nothing used like that here. That one is to, kumbha we can call in kumbha, and the shawl is there, so they put it up that’s why they call it as Gudi Padwa means - first day of the moon is Padwa Gudi means this. So they put it up and that is how they say that today is the New Year day, for the Shalivahanas.
Shawl is the covering of your Mother, which gives it warmth and also, it covers her modesty. Shawl is a sign of regality and modesty and chastity. So you stand for that, of your Mother. You protect it, like Ganesha does. Only on one point He gets angry, if anybody says or does anything against the Mother, then He comes down. That’s why Christ has said: ‘Anything against Me I’ll tolerate, but anything against the Holy Ghost, will not be forgiven.’ That’s the Son, talking about the Mother, that’s what happens.
So today is, the second day. Second day is the Bij, is the, they call it the, Bhav-bij or Bhaubij is the day when the brother, and the sister, who are the seeds, of one tree, have that, pure exchange of affection. The sister does the aarti of the brother, gives him a tika and then brother gives her something as a token of his love, as a present.
... So this is the fifth day is Dwija. So from thirteenth, to the fifth day they celebrate Diwali. For us Diwali has a very great significance that is, from one light many lights are awakened and they are put in a line, so they are called as Diwali - means ‘the lights put in a line’. So when you hold My Hands together all of us, through that, the energy passes and the enlightened rasa is established, and the whole world has to become, that beautiful [rain or reign], of your Mother where, nothing but the bliss of your Father, and His enjoyment, when He sees, His Own Creation dancing, in that Ocean of Bliss. May God Bless you. (H.H.Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, Speech extract from Diwali Puja, Hampstead, London, 1983)
" Now, there are many things that have happened during these four days and that’s how it is celebrated with such a great enthusiasm "
“……..Here we are here, all of us, to celebrate a four-day festival called as Diwali. Diwali comes from the word dipali in Sanskrit, the word deepa means ‘the light’, and ali means the ‘line’, the ‘rows’. Now, there are many things that have happened during these four days and that’s how it is celebrated with such a great enthusiasm. The first thing is the day of the Lakshmi’s birth, that is the thirteenth day of the moon: teras they call it. Is the real day when Lakshmi was born out of the sea; that’s why She is called as Miriam or Mariam. Word ‘Mari’ or ‘Marie’ also comes from the word ‘sea’. So, She’s born out of the sea, is created out of the sea. And the wealth of the sea, so far, thank God, human beings have not yet exploited, but they may one day start doing that also. And a lot of wealth is still there, so when people start getting worried about exhausting the Mother Earth, we must know that sea is much more than the earth is. So nothing is exhausted, still there is such a lot reserve for you, and one should not worry as to the supply of wealth that can come from the sea.
Now, this Lakshmi is the goddess, who stands on the lotus. She represents all the well-being, the wealth, the glory of wealth, the decoration of wealth; whichever is auspicious. Whatever is not auspicious is not wealth. According to Sahaja yoga, or according to any scripture, it is not wealth at all. So She’s a lady who stands on a lotus, showing that a person, who has got wealth, has to be a person who does not assert his pressures on people, who doesn’t push people around, who doesn’t pressurize. And then, She’s a lady, She’s a mother. So wealth, is the first opening to our seeking. But when you start seeking the wealth, you realize that the superficial wealth that you are seeking is not sufficient, is not going to give you complete joy. So you start seeking the deeper wealth. As I said that: ‘On the Mother Earth you’ve exploited all that is possible.’ Still there, deep down in the sea, lot of wealth still.
So then the seeking moves toward the deeper seeking. So the same Lakshmi becomes Mahalakshmi. When you start expanding yourself to higher and deeper valuables then this Lakshmi doesn’t lure you much; She’s just there for your glory, but not for your satisfaction. The wealth is there for distribution. You enjoy the - there’s no word for daan, I think? Oh, ‘generosity’, but ‘generosity’ is different. But what I’m saying: ‘Generous fondness’; it’s a fondness, you see, that you should be generous. That is a very great happiness and joy that you feel. That is the greatest, when you are generous, when you give away. That’s a fondness, that’s a kind of a human expression of one’s own being, that you want to be generous. And this generosity only can come when Mahalakshmi principle is born in you.(H.H.Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, Speech extract from Diwali Puja, London, 1982)
" First of all you have to know there are four days that are celebrated in Diwali, but there is one more day added to it in Maharashtra. "
“………First of all you have to know there are four days that are celebrated in Diwali, but there is one more day added to it in Maharashtra. The first day of Diwali is called as Dhanatrayodashi, is the thirteenth day of the moon. Because that day is the first day when Lakshmi, the first… was born on the thirteenth day. That means She was born as a Gruha Lakshmi, as a housewife. Now there are eight Lakshmis. ... the first is the form of a Gruha Lakshmi. She is born as a Gruha Lakshmi to begin with. That means the awareness of human beings also, started really getting into evolutionary process when they started their family life. When they were vagabonds moving about, then the awareness was just like animals. Though they had become human beings, but they were like animals. Then when they established their families, then the Gruha Lakshmi started working and that's how the first advent of Gruha Lakshmi was felt. So She is the first Lakshmi who was born, and that's why on that thirteenth day is the day of the Gruha Lakshmi, of the housewife. And so one has to go in the market and buy some utensil or something that she uses for cooking in the house. In India on the thirteenth day everyone goes and buys a pot or say… we can say, what you call, a cooking utensil or something. Or they may buy a sari or something or gold or something for the Gruha Lakshmi. That is the day of the housewife. So, to reach the Lakshmi one has to understand that motherhood is very important.
The motherhood as a Gruha Lakshmi is important. And the second day is even more important, because Narakasura was killed. Horrible Narakasura as you know him. But actually that day many rakshasas are killed in many… That's the day fixed for killing rakshasas. And then they are put in the hell; on the fourteenth day they are put in the hell. So that’s called as Naraka Chaturdashi, that is the day when the hell is opened out. That day Sahaja Yogis are supposed to sleep in the night while everybody does all kinds of tantrikavidya and all that on the fourteenth.
Then the fifteenth is that darkest night, that’s the darkest night when there is no moon. Absolutely that's the day when they celebrate the Diwali. But symbolically in India also, Shri Rama returned to Dwari, to his place on that day and was crowned on that day. So the significance of Diwali is expressed in this manner, that this is the day when Narakasura, with all of them are killed, they have all gone to Narak, they have gone to the hell, and the people now are safe from them and they are celebrating the joy. And that is the time when Christ was born. That's why lights are lit just in the night, ‘cause He was born at twelve o'clock in the night.
So the next day to that is the day is celebrated in India only in Maharashtra. ... That's the first day of the moon. That is the forefather of your Mother, Shalivahana; they started a calendar, from that date. And so on the first, that means the first day of the moon, the New Year is celebrated. Now see symbolically if Christ is born and the New Year is celebrated, next day. As soon as He is born New Year starts. So next year it starts: the New Year. That is a New Year in many parts of our country where Shalivahana lived. The Shalivahan was my forefather, I should say they were My… they were just a dynasty. And this dynasty ruled in India since very long. Even in the old puranas it is written that they helped Krishna in their war. You know all the story about Shalivahana quite a lot. And so the New Year started. So for us, that is the New Year, for Sahaj Yogis that is the New Year, you have to accept it. And your Mother is of that dynasty. I mean no force on you, but if you like you can have it.
Then the second day is also very important. Is the second day is the moon, that is the moon came out of the sea. According to this mythology, the Lakshmi came out of the sea and with Her this moon came out, which was only a two-day-old moon, the new moon but a two-day-old moon, and this was regarded as the brother of Lakshmi, because they were born at the same time from the sea. So He is the brother of Lakshmi. It’s all symbolic; this is very, very symbolic. Now you see the left side is… left side you know is that of… belongs to Mahakali, and a brother had to be on this side, on the left side. But actually you'll be amazed that he is the brother of Lakshmi. He is not a brother of Mahakali. But because he’s the brother of Lakshmi, he is accepted as the brother of all the goddesses, one brother for all of them. So he is the only brother who is this moon, so he is your uncle, he is your maternal uncle. It's very interesting, because we have a special right on our maternal uncle, we can always ask for his help”. (H.H.Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, Speech extract from Mahalakshmi Puja, Hampstead, London, 9/11/1980)
" It’s the day of Mahalakshmi Puja night, not only of Lakshmi Puja; there’s a difference between the two. "
“……..It’s the day of Mahalakshmi Puja night, not only of Lakshmi Puja; there’s a difference between the two. Mahalakshmi is one of the main powers of Adi Shakti. As you know: Mahalakshmi, Mahasaraswati, Mahakali. Now these powers have powers at a material level also, at a subtler level also. So Mahalakshmi power is achieved after Lakshmi power, as you know. There are eight powers of Lakshmi.
This Lakshmi was born or came out of the sea, the great sea, which was churned thousands and thousands of years back. And She came out of the sea because She is the daughter of the sea. That's why She's called as Neeraja. Neera means 'water' and ja means 'born out of.' This has happened thousands and thousand years back that She was born. So what is that? What is this Lakshmi? See symbolically, what is it expressing? It is expressing the awareness. Lakshmi expresses awareness, and She came out of the sea, you know that; the awareness first started growing in the sea.
The life started existing in the sea, to begin with, and then it grew out. Without the life there is no awareness. First the life, because everything is jarda, everything is dead, and when it becomes life it means it has awareness. So the awareness started growing in the sea. This is the symbolic expression. In the gross level you can understand this way. But actually the subtle level, it is the other way round. But because we see things from the gross level, we say that "that is symbolic,” but actually from the other side if you say, “this is symbolic.” Do you understand this point? So for Me it is symbolic to see how the life came into being in the sea and that it became aware. For Me it is symbolic and for you it is symbolic the other way round. I mean if I see something from this side, I see this way and while you see from that side you see this way. Do you understand this? If you want to paint something on a glass, how do you paint it on the glass? Have you any idea? You start painting first the outermost things that you have to paint. For example if you are painting the Goddess, first you will paint Her ornaments, then Her sari, then Her body. Like that it will be moving deeper from this side, if you are painting it on the glass, because you have to see it from the other side. But supposing you have to paint it on a canvas, you’ll paint it the other way round. You first paint the body, then the sari and then the ornaments. So to one thing it is symbolic because they think this goes from their angle, to the other person who is from the other angle this is absolutely symbolic. And surprising that everything is so symbolic and so much just the same, that whatever you may say, the subtle remains subtle and the gross remains gross. The one who is at the subtle level sees the gross as a symbolic expression of his subtle attention.
Now She was born in the sea. She was called as Neeraja. Or Neera that means “water.” My name is – one of them is Nira as you know; out of Nirmala one name is Nira, Neema and Neela, like that I've got three names, four names I should say the big one is Nirmala. So this Nira part means what, that She was born in the sea, that… the name of Mary is also the same. Miriam or Mary, I don't know how you say in English, but Maria comes from Marie, the word Mari. Mari itself comes from the word Meri. So this Mahalakshmi, Mary is named, and She is, because She was born in the sea and that's how Her name was Mary. Mariana they call Her, some people call Her Mariana, sometime call Her Miriam. All these words are indicating that She was born in the sea. So She is Mahalakshmi. Now Mary is Mahalakshmi and Ganesha is the child. Now see how symbolically it works, that only in Diwali the Lakshmi and the Ganesha are worshipped, only these two personalities. Can you understand that?
The symbol of Mahalakshmi for Me is Mary, for you it is Mahalakshmi is the symbol. And the symbol of Ganesha outside is Christ. He is symbolizing Ganesha. So, both of them are worshipped only on Diwali. Actually this is the Christmas. This is the real Christmas that was before also, and this was the time baby Christ was born, not the 25th of December. Though it's a misunderstanding, doesn't matter, keep it up. Doesn't matter, whenever He’s born, because there used to be a very big festival, and after the festival He was born, called as Valaanan. I don’t know what you call in modern times, that time it was called like that. And then this child was born and that was the time Christmas was celebrated. It was just tallying with that, but somehow it shifted, I don't know how, how it shifted. And there might be somewhere you'll find out that real Christmas was shifted.
... Now the awareness that was seeking up to Lakshmi, means you achieve money, achieve position for achieving Grace, once you have achieved the Grace of this, you want to achieve God. And this new awakening within you that you have to achieve God now, is the power of Mahalakshmi. By the power of Mahalakshmi only, you achieve your saintliness, your Realization. That's why She came on this earth as the Mother of Jesus Christ. That was Mahalakshmi, not Lakshmi but Mahalakshmi.
May God bless you. (H.H.Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, extract from Shri Mahalakshmi Puja, Hampstead, London, 9/11/80)
http://sahajayoga.org.in/nirmalnagari/calender_significance.htm
“……..as you know there are five days they celebrate there. The first day is the thirteenth day, where it is the gruhalaksmi’s day that is the day when the gruhalaksmi is worshipped. But a gruhalakshmi has to be worthy of the worship, and then some utensil is given, to the gruhalakshmi. Some sort of a utensil is to be given to the gruhalakshmi as a present. That is the day Lakshmi was born, Lakshmi, was born out of the Mother Earth, out of the, we should say Mother Earth, but She came out of the Sea, after the churning, so that is the birth of the Lakshmi. She’s the giver of wealth. Wealth which is material as well as spiritual. ...
So that’s the day of the gruhalakshmi when She’s born. She must have these qualities, if she’s a miserly, calculating type of a woman; she is not a woman at all to begin with. If she’s worried about her own clothes and her own comforts and her own things then she’s not a gruhalakshmi. She makes others work and sits down and all orders about, she’s not a gruhalakshmi at all. She has to work, for others, she has to do for others, she has to look after. That’s the thirteenth day.
Then the fourteenth day is the day when Narakasura was killed. You know Narakasura has taken his birth, and he’s to be killed, the Sahaja Yogis are going to kill him. You have to come up to a point and definitely he can be killed. When Kartikeya is awakened within you, he can be killed. But for that you have to be just like gold, untarnishable. You need strong people to do that. A sword that can kill him has to come out of your [metals or mettles]. Then Narakasura can be killed. He is one of the worst possible asuras. That is the fourteenth day. When he was killed, the gate of hell was opened and, all those where, his disciples or his followers or satanic people were put. That’s the only day you can sleep late, and a good news for you.
Then the fifteenth day, is the darkest night, which we had, darkest night. That is the night when you put the lights on, because it is the darkest night the negative forces can walk in. So the lights are put, because Lakshmi can come in. You’ll be surprised how Lakshmiji is, that if a bottle of wine enters from one end, She disappears from another. ... That’s the responsibility of women, to keep the Lakshmi intact. So that’s the Lakshmi Day when we say that Lakshmi Puja takes place because that is the day you invite the Lakshmi to come in, the Rajalakshmi, the Lakshmi by which you become the king of the family or the, royal, benevolence you can call it, the regal, feeling in the family, that is the day.
Then comes the day, next to that is the first, of the month in, that is the calendar, My forefathers, because you’re all My children you have to use the same calendar Shalivahanas calendar and that is the first day of the Shalivahanas calendar. And what do they do in the morning time, to celebrate it, they take one of these, jars, Aquarius, and put a shawl with it, and that is put as a flag, representing the Aquarius and the Shawl of the Mother. That’s why they are called as Shalivahana, the ones who carry the Shawls of the Mother. The Carriers of the Shawls of the Mother. That’s how they put it up. The shawl on top of it the Aquarius, this should be actually the flag of the Sahaja Yogis, that you make it the, Aquarius or we can say the, jar, what do you call that, pitcher, or not pitcher but this lota business what do you call that - there’s nothing used like that here. That one is to, kumbha we can call in kumbha, and the shawl is there, so they put it up that’s why they call it as Gudi Padwa means - first day of the moon is Padwa Gudi means this. So they put it up and that is how they say that today is the New Year day, for the Shalivahanas.
Shawl is the covering of your Mother, which gives it warmth and also, it covers her modesty. Shawl is a sign of regality and modesty and chastity. So you stand for that, of your Mother. You protect it, like Ganesha does. Only on one point He gets angry, if anybody says or does anything against the Mother, then He comes down. That’s why Christ has said: ‘Anything against Me I’ll tolerate, but anything against the Holy Ghost, will not be forgiven.’ That’s the Son, talking about the Mother, that’s what happens.
So today is, the second day. Second day is the Bij, is the, they call it the, Bhav-bij or Bhaubij is the day when the brother, and the sister, who are the seeds, of one tree, have that, pure exchange of affection. The sister does the aarti of the brother, gives him a tika and then brother gives her something as a token of his love, as a present.
... So this is the fifth day is Dwija. So from thirteenth, to the fifth day they celebrate Diwali. For us Diwali has a very great significance that is, from one light many lights are awakened and they are put in a line, so they are called as Diwali - means ‘the lights put in a line’. So when you hold My Hands together all of us, through that, the energy passes and the enlightened rasa is established, and the whole world has to become, that beautiful [rain or reign], of your Mother where, nothing but the bliss of your Father, and His enjoyment, when He sees, His Own Creation dancing, in that Ocean of Bliss. May God Bless you. (H.H.Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, Speech extract from Diwali Puja, Hampstead, London, 1983)
" Now, there are many things that have happened during these four days and that’s how it is celebrated with such a great enthusiasm "
“……..Here we are here, all of us, to celebrate a four-day festival called as Diwali. Diwali comes from the word dipali in Sanskrit, the word deepa means ‘the light’, and ali means the ‘line’, the ‘rows’. Now, there are many things that have happened during these four days and that’s how it is celebrated with such a great enthusiasm. The first thing is the day of the Lakshmi’s birth, that is the thirteenth day of the moon: teras they call it. Is the real day when Lakshmi was born out of the sea; that’s why She is called as Miriam or Mariam. Word ‘Mari’ or ‘Marie’ also comes from the word ‘sea’. So, She’s born out of the sea, is created out of the sea. And the wealth of the sea, so far, thank God, human beings have not yet exploited, but they may one day start doing that also. And a lot of wealth is still there, so when people start getting worried about exhausting the Mother Earth, we must know that sea is much more than the earth is. So nothing is exhausted, still there is such a lot reserve for you, and one should not worry as to the supply of wealth that can come from the sea.
Now, this Lakshmi is the goddess, who stands on the lotus. She represents all the well-being, the wealth, the glory of wealth, the decoration of wealth; whichever is auspicious. Whatever is not auspicious is not wealth. According to Sahaja yoga, or according to any scripture, it is not wealth at all. So She’s a lady who stands on a lotus, showing that a person, who has got wealth, has to be a person who does not assert his pressures on people, who doesn’t push people around, who doesn’t pressurize. And then, She’s a lady, She’s a mother. So wealth, is the first opening to our seeking. But when you start seeking the wealth, you realize that the superficial wealth that you are seeking is not sufficient, is not going to give you complete joy. So you start seeking the deeper wealth. As I said that: ‘On the Mother Earth you’ve exploited all that is possible.’ Still there, deep down in the sea, lot of wealth still.
So then the seeking moves toward the deeper seeking. So the same Lakshmi becomes Mahalakshmi. When you start expanding yourself to higher and deeper valuables then this Lakshmi doesn’t lure you much; She’s just there for your glory, but not for your satisfaction. The wealth is there for distribution. You enjoy the - there’s no word for daan, I think? Oh, ‘generosity’, but ‘generosity’ is different. But what I’m saying: ‘Generous fondness’; it’s a fondness, you see, that you should be generous. That is a very great happiness and joy that you feel. That is the greatest, when you are generous, when you give away. That’s a fondness, that’s a kind of a human expression of one’s own being, that you want to be generous. And this generosity only can come when Mahalakshmi principle is born in you.(H.H.Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, Speech extract from Diwali Puja, London, 1982)
" First of all you have to know there are four days that are celebrated in Diwali, but there is one more day added to it in Maharashtra. "
“………First of all you have to know there are four days that are celebrated in Diwali, but there is one more day added to it in Maharashtra. The first day of Diwali is called as Dhanatrayodashi, is the thirteenth day of the moon. Because that day is the first day when Lakshmi, the first… was born on the thirteenth day. That means She was born as a Gruha Lakshmi, as a housewife. Now there are eight Lakshmis. ... the first is the form of a Gruha Lakshmi. She is born as a Gruha Lakshmi to begin with. That means the awareness of human beings also, started really getting into evolutionary process when they started their family life. When they were vagabonds moving about, then the awareness was just like animals. Though they had become human beings, but they were like animals. Then when they established their families, then the Gruha Lakshmi started working and that's how the first advent of Gruha Lakshmi was felt. So She is the first Lakshmi who was born, and that's why on that thirteenth day is the day of the Gruha Lakshmi, of the housewife. And so one has to go in the market and buy some utensil or something that she uses for cooking in the house. In India on the thirteenth day everyone goes and buys a pot or say… we can say, what you call, a cooking utensil or something. Or they may buy a sari or something or gold or something for the Gruha Lakshmi. That is the day of the housewife. So, to reach the Lakshmi one has to understand that motherhood is very important.
The motherhood as a Gruha Lakshmi is important. And the second day is even more important, because Narakasura was killed. Horrible Narakasura as you know him. But actually that day many rakshasas are killed in many… That's the day fixed for killing rakshasas. And then they are put in the hell; on the fourteenth day they are put in the hell. So that’s called as Naraka Chaturdashi, that is the day when the hell is opened out. That day Sahaja Yogis are supposed to sleep in the night while everybody does all kinds of tantrikavidya and all that on the fourteenth.
Then the fifteenth is that darkest night, that’s the darkest night when there is no moon. Absolutely that's the day when they celebrate the Diwali. But symbolically in India also, Shri Rama returned to Dwari, to his place on that day and was crowned on that day. So the significance of Diwali is expressed in this manner, that this is the day when Narakasura, with all of them are killed, they have all gone to Narak, they have gone to the hell, and the people now are safe from them and they are celebrating the joy. And that is the time when Christ was born. That's why lights are lit just in the night, ‘cause He was born at twelve o'clock in the night.
So the next day to that is the day is celebrated in India only in Maharashtra. ... That's the first day of the moon. That is the forefather of your Mother, Shalivahana; they started a calendar, from that date. And so on the first, that means the first day of the moon, the New Year is celebrated. Now see symbolically if Christ is born and the New Year is celebrated, next day. As soon as He is born New Year starts. So next year it starts: the New Year. That is a New Year in many parts of our country where Shalivahana lived. The Shalivahan was my forefather, I should say they were My… they were just a dynasty. And this dynasty ruled in India since very long. Even in the old puranas it is written that they helped Krishna in their war. You know all the story about Shalivahana quite a lot. And so the New Year started. So for us, that is the New Year, for Sahaj Yogis that is the New Year, you have to accept it. And your Mother is of that dynasty. I mean no force on you, but if you like you can have it.
Then the second day is also very important. Is the second day is the moon, that is the moon came out of the sea. According to this mythology, the Lakshmi came out of the sea and with Her this moon came out, which was only a two-day-old moon, the new moon but a two-day-old moon, and this was regarded as the brother of Lakshmi, because they were born at the same time from the sea. So He is the brother of Lakshmi. It’s all symbolic; this is very, very symbolic. Now you see the left side is… left side you know is that of… belongs to Mahakali, and a brother had to be on this side, on the left side. But actually you'll be amazed that he is the brother of Lakshmi. He is not a brother of Mahakali. But because he’s the brother of Lakshmi, he is accepted as the brother of all the goddesses, one brother for all of them. So he is the only brother who is this moon, so he is your uncle, he is your maternal uncle. It's very interesting, because we have a special right on our maternal uncle, we can always ask for his help”. (H.H.Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, Speech extract from Mahalakshmi Puja, Hampstead, London, 9/11/1980)
" It’s the day of Mahalakshmi Puja night, not only of Lakshmi Puja; there’s a difference between the two. "
“……..It’s the day of Mahalakshmi Puja night, not only of Lakshmi Puja; there’s a difference between the two. Mahalakshmi is one of the main powers of Adi Shakti. As you know: Mahalakshmi, Mahasaraswati, Mahakali. Now these powers have powers at a material level also, at a subtler level also. So Mahalakshmi power is achieved after Lakshmi power, as you know. There are eight powers of Lakshmi.
This Lakshmi was born or came out of the sea, the great sea, which was churned thousands and thousands of years back. And She came out of the sea because She is the daughter of the sea. That's why She's called as Neeraja. Neera means 'water' and ja means 'born out of.' This has happened thousands and thousand years back that She was born. So what is that? What is this Lakshmi? See symbolically, what is it expressing? It is expressing the awareness. Lakshmi expresses awareness, and She came out of the sea, you know that; the awareness first started growing in the sea.
The life started existing in the sea, to begin with, and then it grew out. Without the life there is no awareness. First the life, because everything is jarda, everything is dead, and when it becomes life it means it has awareness. So the awareness started growing in the sea. This is the symbolic expression. In the gross level you can understand this way. But actually the subtle level, it is the other way round. But because we see things from the gross level, we say that "that is symbolic,” but actually from the other side if you say, “this is symbolic.” Do you understand this point? So for Me it is symbolic to see how the life came into being in the sea and that it became aware. For Me it is symbolic and for you it is symbolic the other way round. I mean if I see something from this side, I see this way and while you see from that side you see this way. Do you understand this? If you want to paint something on a glass, how do you paint it on the glass? Have you any idea? You start painting first the outermost things that you have to paint. For example if you are painting the Goddess, first you will paint Her ornaments, then Her sari, then Her body. Like that it will be moving deeper from this side, if you are painting it on the glass, because you have to see it from the other side. But supposing you have to paint it on a canvas, you’ll paint it the other way round. You first paint the body, then the sari and then the ornaments. So to one thing it is symbolic because they think this goes from their angle, to the other person who is from the other angle this is absolutely symbolic. And surprising that everything is so symbolic and so much just the same, that whatever you may say, the subtle remains subtle and the gross remains gross. The one who is at the subtle level sees the gross as a symbolic expression of his subtle attention.
Now She was born in the sea. She was called as Neeraja. Or Neera that means “water.” My name is – one of them is Nira as you know; out of Nirmala one name is Nira, Neema and Neela, like that I've got three names, four names I should say the big one is Nirmala. So this Nira part means what, that She was born in the sea, that… the name of Mary is also the same. Miriam or Mary, I don't know how you say in English, but Maria comes from Marie, the word Mari. Mari itself comes from the word Meri. So this Mahalakshmi, Mary is named, and She is, because She was born in the sea and that's how Her name was Mary. Mariana they call Her, some people call Her Mariana, sometime call Her Miriam. All these words are indicating that She was born in the sea. So She is Mahalakshmi. Now Mary is Mahalakshmi and Ganesha is the child. Now see how symbolically it works, that only in Diwali the Lakshmi and the Ganesha are worshipped, only these two personalities. Can you understand that?
The symbol of Mahalakshmi for Me is Mary, for you it is Mahalakshmi is the symbol. And the symbol of Ganesha outside is Christ. He is symbolizing Ganesha. So, both of them are worshipped only on Diwali. Actually this is the Christmas. This is the real Christmas that was before also, and this was the time baby Christ was born, not the 25th of December. Though it's a misunderstanding, doesn't matter, keep it up. Doesn't matter, whenever He’s born, because there used to be a very big festival, and after the festival He was born, called as Valaanan. I don’t know what you call in modern times, that time it was called like that. And then this child was born and that was the time Christmas was celebrated. It was just tallying with that, but somehow it shifted, I don't know how, how it shifted. And there might be somewhere you'll find out that real Christmas was shifted.
... Now the awareness that was seeking up to Lakshmi, means you achieve money, achieve position for achieving Grace, once you have achieved the Grace of this, you want to achieve God. And this new awakening within you that you have to achieve God now, is the power of Mahalakshmi. By the power of Mahalakshmi only, you achieve your saintliness, your Realization. That's why She came on this earth as the Mother of Jesus Christ. That was Mahalakshmi, not Lakshmi but Mahalakshmi.
May God bless you. (H.H.Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, extract from Shri Mahalakshmi Puja, Hampstead, London, 9/11/80)
http://sahajayoga.org.in/nirmalnagari/calender_significance.htm
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