Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

 Delhi, India
21 March 1996 

Mind is a myth

Today, I’m going to talk about the mind. People don’t know what is this mind is. It is very easy to understand for Sahaja Yogis that we are the ones who react, react to everything that is outside. The reason is we have two horrible tendencies, one which is an ego, and another tendency is that we are being trained that way, or we can call it the superego or the conditionings.

So, both the things, our ego and conditionings, are all the time acting outside. This reaction, which is built-in within us, is just like bubbles in the ocean. And these bubbles keep us away from reality. These bubbles are of thoughts, and they just blast you all the time in your head, and you don’t know why they are coming.

When you depend on this artificial mind of yours then you have no discretion as to understand what is good and what is bad. This mind is the one where all kinds of evil things start, all kinds of quarrels, fights and – possessiveness, lastly the war also comes there.

It is in this mind only, which is nothing but a myth, all these concrete, destructive ideas, somehow or other come up, and then they start growing and growing. Then you find people whom you can impress also, put ideas into their heads – by reading, they learn, or by their lectures, or by mesmerism, whatever kinds of things they can do. They put your mind into such a frame that you accept these destructive ideas, for yourself individually, or maybe for the collective. So this mind is just a myth and we are working through this mind. We are all the time satisfying ourselves by saying, ‛Oh, that’s my mind, my mind wants it.“

You see, like one Indian Sahaja Yogi went to America, and he told Me that, ‛Americans are maneuverer.“ Maneuverer means they are mad after their mind. I said, ‛What do you mean?“ He said, ‛I gave money to my wife to buy one bush shirt for me. She went and bought some skirts. And she has many skirts, but she bought some skirts. So I asked her, ‘Why did you buy the skirts?’ (Shri Mataji laughing) So she said, ‘My mind said that, ‛you should buy the skirts“, so I bought skirts’.“

So, this is what it is, that the mind can take you to all kinds of wrong things because it has no connection with reality, firstly, and secondly it is a mythical thing, absolutely mythical.

You see, people think that whatever they have created, it is out of their mind. Is a wrong idea, absolutely wrong idea. All great scientists, say – Einstein has said that, ‛I was tired trying to find out the Theory of Relativity, very tired.“ He had some concept, like all scientists take up some sort of a concept, and they tried to build up their research on that, ‛And then I thought, it’s a wrong concept that I have taken up. Suddenly“, he said, ‛I went into the garden, I said let’s try and play with the soap bubbles.“ He was playing with the soap bubbles like a small child, ‛and suddenly, from somewhere unknown“, he says, the Theory of Relativity dawned upon him. Many scientists have said that – that they don’t know from where they get this idea. From where did they get it? It has a special – study now people are doing to find out how these scientists got these things.

And in a very Sahaj manner, even the way penicillin was discovered, or anything was discovered by these people, was not through the probing or manipulation of the mind, but through some unknown force it came into their mind, and that’s what they thought, that this was from their mind, some – some. But most of them realized, even Newton realized that, ‛It is coming from something, some source which I am not aware of.“

As Sahaja Yogis you know it is the Source of the Divine Power, which is all-pervading, the Paramchaitanya. You know, because you can feel it, you know it is there. But, even when you know, you must know you have to go beyond your mind into thoughtless awareness, minimum. Always I tell you, ‛Meditate, meditate“, because you should be in thoughtless awareness, where you do not react. So, what happens, you become a witness, you become the witness of the whole drama, of the whole scene, and you are absolutely at ease with yourself, no problem. And what you are doing that you become an instrument of this Paramachaitanya, of this all-pervading power. You are just watching, you are a witness, and as watching everything, you realize that whatever you watch cannot react on you. But you know what it is, and this is what is the state in which you understand the reality of the whole situation.

I’ve told you many a times that, if you are standing in the water you are afraid that the waves will – might kill you. But supposing you get into a boat, then you can watch those waves as something beautiful, maybe. If you learn how to swim, you can jump and bring back people who are getting drowned. This is exactly what happens when you are in that state that you can give Realizations to others. You can put them in connection with the Divine Power. But first of all you must know how to become thoughtlessly aware. Some people say, ‛Mother, for a second only we become, for two seconds we become“, because, you see, in our mind, even if you come to Sahaja Yog, you have so many conditionings to begin with.

First of all, if you are born an Indian then you are identified with India. If you are born in England, you are identified with England. One thing I’ve noticed about Sahaja Yogis, once they get out of this nonsense of this mind, first thing they start criticizing the way they have been living in atmosphere, for example they’ll say, ‛Ah, this is Indian, now, this is what the Indians are.“ Then you’ll say, ‛This is“, if they are British, they’ll say, ‛These are the British, you see.“ They will be the best to criticize. Even others cannot criticize as they criticize, for example, Europeans will criticize Europeans, saying that, ‛Ah – Europeans, all right, I know Europeans very well“ – like that.

The mind itself, you see, starts seeing then, what you can say, that mind itself sees that it’s a myth. And then the cheating that takes place all the time, that the intelligence that cheats itself, stops. You start seeing the thing in a proper, full manner, because you don’t react. To react is a sign of a person who is very conditioned. You can be conditioned by many other things, like – you are born in a particular religion, now. As you know – what has religion to do nowadays with human beings? There’s no real religion anywhere – it has become like a money-orientation, or you can say, power orientation.

That’s why they are all fighting among themselves, and you know for definite that no religion is exclusive. But they fight. The reason is, the mind is conditioned that, ‘you must fight for your religion’.

Now, they have no religion within; there’s no religion that is working out in their lives. They might be the most corrupt, most immoral people, but they belong to a particular religion, like a club. And then they start, you see, identifying themselves as something, and they have a right to do these things, because they belong to a particular religion or to cult, and this and that.

Now, there are people who can really use this mind, though it is artificial. In modern times, we are using so many artificial things and this artificiality can creep into everything, like plastic. So, this mind can penetrate into anything and it penetrates into the minds of people. That’s how Hitler managed all the young people of Germany. All these people who have been able to destroy the reasoning which is logical, not through the mind. If it is through the mind it’s no logic. It is just a reasoning that we can see clearly stupidity.

Because this mind, which is just a bubble, as I told you, and is so limited, that it cannot comprehend the beauty, the glory, the expanse of reality. This mind is just a collection of all the garbage, we should say, which we have to, somehow or other, deny and tell ourselves that, ‛I have to go beyond my mind. So-called mind of mine has done no good for me. And this mind of mine, which has been all the time controlling me, is just like the watch we have made and it is controlling us, or like the computer that controls us.“

So we have to be careful that we are the ones who have created this mind, and this mind has no business to control us.

Many people try to control the mind. There’s a way of doing it that, ‛I’ll control my mind now.“ Now, try to understand, how will you control the mind? Only through mind. Either by ego or by your conditioning. You have no means of controlling your mind, because it is the mind which you have created, and that is just existing there, which you cannot control, though you might think, ‘I can control.’

You have to go beyond this mind. And to go beyond this mind the most helpful thing is Kundalini awakening. Because She passes through your limbic area, pierces through your – fontanel bone area and just takes you away, out into the realm of reality – and the Yoga takes place between your brain, I should say, your heart, with this All-pervading Power. She’s the one which connects, She’s the one who does it. Many people are doing Sahaja Yog, I know that, but it’s difficult for them, sometimes to get to meditation, to establish this thoughtless awareness, which is an extremely important state which you all should achieve.

So many Sahaja Yogis are there, and I’m happy to know that they are getting deeper and deeper, but as long as they are in the turmoil of their mind they cannot progress. Whatever is created out of their mind has no reality in it, is very limited, and is also, sometimes very repulsive, because with this mind people start thinking, ‛I am such and such“, you know.

Now you become, supposing, I don’t know what, position, but supposing you become – the Governor – then you think you can do what you like, because you have become the Governor. This mind doesn’t know that you have become the Governor, you are not the Governor. This governorship is ruling you, not that you are ruling the governorship. Once these ideas come into your head, you start behaving in a manner in which you should not behave.

Even among Sahaja Yogis there are leaders. Leaders also start sometimes thinking, ‘Ah, I’m a leader’. It’s a myth – absolute myth – leadership in Sahaja Yoga is an absolute myth, which you should know. But once they know they are leaders, see, they become, sort of – absolutely mindful and full of thoughts. Thoughts how to dominate, how to control.

When they start controlling others, then you must know that it is the mind which is telling them to control. Why to control anyone? If you are a real Sahaja Yogi, there is no need to control. There is no need to manoeuvre, to manipulate.

Now, once your attention goes beyond the mind – only the Sahaj Yogis will understand this point very clearly – when this mind goes beyond the thoughts then the manipulation of the attention is very important. Then whatever you manipulate, means you take this attention to this or to that or to that, you’ll be surprised how dynamic you become, how effective you become, and how knowledgeable you become.

Because, once you can take this attention to anything you want, immediately there is light on that issue, on that person, on that problem, and you see how it works out, how it helps. In Sahaja Yoga you have said, ‛Mother, there have been lots of miracles with Your Attention“, or something like that. I agree, but your attention also is quite capable of doing things which normal people can’t do, because now your attention is purified, firstly, and secondly it is manipulated with the Divine Power, and is manifesting its powers.

But, before that I have seen people who come to Sahaja Yog, they send me letters of crying, ‘Mother, this is happening, that is happening, my father is sick and my leg is paining, my hands are paining’, all kinds of things, not only at the physical level, but also on mental level, and all sorts of things, they go on. They sometimes write to Me such long letters, I don’t know how to read them. There’s nothing to write so much. But they do, because at that stage they are still reacting, and they don’t know what to do. They go to such a limit, that they think that Sahaja Yoga is like a contract. ‘Now I’ve come to Sahaja Yog, I must get this. This must happen. Only they come to Sahaja Yog, then they think it’s a contract, and they must get this, and they must get that help.

All this kind of behavior is not that of a Sahaja Yogi. Sahaj Yogi, in Sanskrit, is a very good word ‛Taṭastha“ (तटस्थ). Is a very good word, which I’ll try to explain, but cannot be really translated. ‛Taṭastha“ (तटस्थ) means the one who is standing on the shore, on the shore and watching. That is the state in which you have to be. But, as a result, you do not become a person who is not effective. You become extremely effective. If such people are there, you won’t believe so many things can happen. Wars can stop, peace can spread, people who are evil will be exposed.

Now, because it’s such an en-masse working out of Sahaja Yog, Sahaja Yogis should not, in any way, find themselves in conflict with each other. Still, I find sometimes. And I’m amazed, how people criticize other Sahaja Yogis, or other leaders, while they themselves have problems.

The reason is that once you start going beyond the mind, you automatically become introspective, and you start seeing, ‘What’s wrong with me, this mind of mine, now?’ So, better stand before the mirror, or can even close your eyes and say, ‛Now, Mr. Mind, what are you doing? What are you up to?“ You face yourself, you stand out from yourself, and see for yourself and ask the mind, ‛What are you up to?“ That’s the way, once you are out of it you can control it.

I’m happy you are celebrating My Birthday. Now I’m supposed to be quite old, though I don’t think like that, because I don’t think. One has to be beyond, beyond the mind. To think about yourself all the time or to think about things which do not concern you sometimes, you know. And just try to put your mind into a turmoil, which is very dangerous these days. To stop your thought, first of all, I think in Sahaja Yoga you should stop reading anything. Because if you start reading, then what happens again, you start collecting thoughts from that book. I’ve seen many people whose mind is nothing but the books from others, or the words of others, or quotation of others. They are nowhere. You cannot find them. They are all lost people, ‛He says so and that one says so.“

When I was writing this book, which you know that I have written down, they were saying, ‛Mother, but Plato said like this, and Rousseau said like that.“ I said, ‛Let them say whatever they wanted to, I’ll say what I know. Why should I refer to them. I don’t have to go to the libraries and read what Rousseau said, what Plato said, what – nothing.“ What I know, whatever I have witnessed in My life, I should write it. Clearly, without thinking about what others have to say, what others have described.

And also another, this mind has another big, big problem, that whatever is written down in black and white becomes Bible. Then, whatever is done before is something great. Like, now there is no Christ, there is no Mohammed Sahib, and there is no Abraham. There’s no Krishna, there’s no Ram today. But they will think of what Rama said, what Krishna said, then in Gita, this He said, in Gita He has not said a word about Kundalini, so why Mother is talking about Kundalini?

He might have said – can’t say – who wrote Gita? Never Shri Krishna. Christ never wrote Bible. Koran was not written by Mohammed Sahib. So, what they have said – why should you worry about that?

Instead of that, you take the experience that everybody has said. That, ‛You are to be born again“, everybody has said. That, ‛You have to go beyond the mind“, also everyone has said. Why not do that and then see for yourself? But people like, and they’re identified. Now, if they are Christians, who are coming to Sahaja Yoga, still they are happy if it is Christ, very identified, if they are Hindus should be Krishna, or Rama maybe. If they are Muslims, it should be Mohammed Sahib, Fatima or someone. Otherwise, they can’t get out of it, this is very difficult. Their mind is such that is so much made from childhood you are told, ‛You are a Muslim, you are a Muslim, you are a Christian, you are a Christian“, so they believe it.

Supposing you are born in some other religion then what would have happened? You would have believed something different, but this mind has been injected with the ideas which has gone into your head and that’s how you are so much without any freedom. You are tied down with these conditionings. And that’s what I find among Sahaja Yogis also – a very big conditioning that such and such thing is – good or bad – they decide. You see for yourself.

For example, if I talk on Guru Nanak, then the Sikhs will be very happy, but I talk on Christ, they won’t be happy. I talked on Christ in Poona, so they said, ‛She’s trying to convert everybody to Christianity“, and when I was talking about Shri Krishna in London they said, ‛She’s making everybody a Hindu.“ (Shri Mataji laughing)

So this identification that we have is coming to us when so intensely, from, we should say, it’s like from the birth. All these ideas still are there and we are not free. That doesn’t mean that you should not have faith in all of these people. They were all great, we have great respect for them and understanding. But first you be free, you be free – to know them. Your mind should be free. It should not be the injections that are put into your heads, that you cannot see the point. That’s why they don’t enjoy also, I’ve seen, partly they enjoy, partly they don’t. So, to become a free person, because Sahaj Yoga is to give you complete freedom, and also complete sense of freedom, so you respect the freedom of others, on the whole you understand what freedom is. If that doesn’t work out, then I would say that Sahaja Yoga is of no use, because it should work out in such a manner that you should get rid of all these conditionings you have had.

Now, take the second enemy of ours – is Mr. Ego, which is another headache, and which works very fast in many countries where already ego has been bloated. See these balloons. If they were bloated, all right, it’s very easy to again make them big, but if they were never done that, then it’s difficult – you have to pull it out, you have to put it to the pumps, otherwise it won’t be bloated.

Now, this ego comes to us from different, different angles, and it (Shri Mataji laughing) – actually, you’ll be surprised – from the deformity of our chakras.

For some people, money is very important. We must get money, somehow or other. If I don’t get money, what’s the use of being in Sahaja Yoga? Money is very important. We are living in a money-oriented world, no doubt. But I have told you that what’s the use of having money that makes you a fool, which takes you – now, see the countries which are very much money- oriented, who are supposed to be very rich, all the Scandinavian countries and Switzerland, whatever may they have, they might have done to get that money, doesn’t matter, but they are people with money. People are committing suicide, young people are committing suicide, there’s a competition going on, they’re very unhappy. Why? That means money cannot bring happiness. Money, money, money, money – if that goes into your head also, then you cannot be a Sahaja Yogi. But the money is there just for you to use it to express your love. Now, you go to the shop. Then you see something, ‛Aaaah! This is very nice to be given to such and such person.“ You think like that. It’s a very sweet feeling you get there. Ah – you can give this to this one, eh? He needs it very much.

When your mind becomes the other way round, I mean, when it is thoughtlessly aware, then you will buy something that is joy giving, something artistic, something beautiful, something useful to that person. It will be a kind of a mind that will be extremely full of generosity, enjoying its generosity. And all the time it will guide you to the projection of your attention to things by which you can give happiness to others. Small, small things – not necessarily expensive things. If you have money better spend money in buying things that you can give to others, that you can – express your love, your gratitude, your Shraddha.

It is very remarkable how people give money to these sadhus and babas in thousands and thousands and crores of it. Because, I think in them it has come that to satisfy their Shraddha they must give it, and so they give. And they have amassed and amassed so much money, they have no sense of it. They don’t understand the value of that. To them it is nothing but money.

So, in the modern times I think the worst thing of ego is money. I have seen people who are very rich, supposed to be great business ‛wallahs“ and something like that, they must meet Me separately, ‛We must come, Mother, and see You.“ But they’re useless people, absolutely useless. So they’ll come and tell Me, ‛You know, I’m having a loss in this, I’m having a loss in that, can you help us in this way or that way?“ I just don’t say anything to them, but they have said, ‛Mother we have recovered because of Your blessings.“ Maybe. But it’s stupid. Like Lao-Tse described that you are going through the Yangtze river, it’s beautiful. On the sides you see beautiful scenes, but you better be on the boat and reach the ocean. In the same way, supposing we have to catch a plane, and we see something very nice on the road and get down there, how can we catch the plane?

So these side-effects of this mind are these, that we divert our attention to wrong things and waste our energy into it. Ultimately we are not happy, as you know that the – in general – wants are not satiable. It’s the love that you give and the love that you receive, which is not a love which is entangled into anything with any purpose, with any idea, but just to feel that love, pure love within yourself and within others. Is the greatest gift of the Divine.

All other things are useless, you’ll find it. You find it every day. Today you want to have a car, all right, have it. Then you want to have a house, have it, but you are not bothered about the car now you want to have a house. Now you get the house, then you are not satisfied. Then you want to have something else and something else. So then, which is that ‘want’ which is satisfying? It’s this pure love, genuine love that you feel for the others, and others feel for you.

We have others, lots of conditionings of ego. In our country specially, this Indian country, India – so-called. You see, to dominate the wife is one of the greatest ego. I have seen people, how they tortured women, their wives and the children of others, just because they think, ‛I am a man.“

What do you get? You don’t get any joy, you can never be joyous. If you try to dominate another person you can never be joyous. Never be joyous. It’s only through loving and affection and care that you can feel the joy, because joy has these symptoms, joy is not domination, or demanding, or asking. These are not the signs of a person who is joyous. The joyous person is that who just enjoys the caring, the loving, the gentle relationship. And this is another point where I’ve seen Indian men specially, especially in the North, because of, they say Muslim influence, whatever it is, in the North the men are extremely dominating to their wives. And they insult the wife also very much.

So now the women here have become extremely dominating also, naturally action has a reaction. This reaction itself is a wrong idea, and this reaction should be just dissolved into the feeling of pure love, the Ocean of Compassion. For example, I see on the streets of Delhi, so many people begging, small children are there, and all that. And now the feeling that I get is not of scolding them or getting angry with them. Maybe they are cheating, maybe anything they’re after. Everybody’s cheating you, and those who have lots of money are cheating you, so what is there if these poor people are cheating, doesn’t matter.

But the compassion is built-in within Me like this that, ‛Let Me somehow get a plot of land somewhere, let Me organize some sort of a place where all these people who are orphans can be put there, and given all (applause) all the help. And maybe from this pond of misery and poverty you might get lots of lotuses coming out. But the feeling has to be collective. I feel that way, that we’ll solve the problem of Delhi, but that doesn’t mean that, like other social workers, like I have been connected with some social workers and I was amazed that it was nothing but a ego-pampering business. It has nothing to do with social workers. Haphazard and nothing deep in their attention to look after these people.

So with the great feeling of love and compassion we can do it, we all can do it, and can work it out. One of My desires is this. If it is a desire of you all, it will work out. It’s very important that they are also human beings and we have to look after them. But for that, one should not think that, ‛I will be the treasurer, I’ll be the president, and I’ll be this.“ All this clergy-ship should go away – from the mind itself, otherwise you are not free. You are not free, you know, like there’s a nice joke about it, that – one – somebody went to see the minister and the private secretary was there, attending to the people. And he was getting very angry with them and all that, so some villagers said to him, ‛Who are you?“ He said, ‛Don’t you know, I’m P.A.?“ ‛Ah, PA. ho?!“ That means you are drunk, all right, we have nothing to say.

So, a person with ego behaves like a person who has ego, is a person like a – you can say, a drunkard, or sometimes like a lunatic also, really like a lunatic. Sometimes you have to meet them with a bargepole, I told you. Some of these people who have got awards for peace, we have to talk to them with a bargepole, because they might just jump on you, just like a cat, or could be like a leopard, you don’t know how they are built up. I don’t know how they got these awards for peace, but they have.

So, the peace is within ourselves and this peace has to be retained and introspected and seen. Are we peaceful or we are reacting? If we are reacting, then we are not peaceful. But people will say, ‘Yes, yes, I am very peaceful, but I have to react’. Then you are not peaceful. Just face yourself, straightforward and see for yourself that if you are peaceful then this peace will spread all over, it will help others. It give them physical, mental, emotional and spiritual peace.

So, you people have a great responsibility of coming to Sahaja Yoga. It is not just a certificate, or My badge, that you are a Sahaja Yogi. I would like also women to see to this point, because what I have seen about women is that they are mostly worried about their children, about their husbands, jobs and things like that. But they are not worried about others, about people who are around them, so they have to also take to Sahaja style of life, in which they expand their love, expand their attention to other people, and see how they can please others. This situation is – used to be non-existent in the western countries. I think they never knew that you should please somebody for no reward, or for no purpose. If you give any present to somebody, they’ll say, ‘Oh. What do you want?’. ‘Do you want coffee, or’, immediately. To them they cannot understand that somebody wants to express one’s love, no, they can’t. So, this – now mind has changed, because Sahaja Yogis are there and they are different people, but what I have seen before was so remarkable, that they thought it was a weakness that they are giving those presents because they feel they’re weak.

All these ideas have changing in the West, and also we should not adopt their stupid ideas that we can control people by giving them things or by – giving them some sort of promises.

We have, actually, to control ourselves and that control can come if you do not allow your mind to control you. That control is a complete freedom. For example now, take an aeroplane which is perfectly built, which is absolutely all right. Then only it can fly. In the same way, if you are a perfect Sahaja Yogi then you will have no problems in dealing with any problem, with any circumstances, with any person whatsoever.

There are many Sahaja Yogis in the West I’ve seen, they’ve said, ‛Mother, we don’t want to take any active work because we’ll develop our ego.“ They think their balloon is already bloated out and if they do some work their ego will go up, so they say, ‛We don’t want to do.“ It’s not so. It’s the Love. You’re working for Love. Such an Ocean of Love is within you. How can you do without that? And this has to work out at every level, whether it is your family, whether it is your city, whether it is your country or the whole world. This is the new generation we have to create of people who believe in Love which is Truth. Which is Truth. Without Love you cannot have Truth, because when you love somebody you know everything about that person. In the same way when you love your country you know everything about that country. But first you must love.

Why people are now having problems because they don’t love their country. If you love your country you will know what is the essence of your country, what is the problems of your country, what it is going through. And that intense feeling of oneness itself will work out, because after all you are connected to the Divine. But with intensity you should feel for all these things that are really so destructive and troublesome in these modern times.

I again want to thank you for celebrating this birthday and for all the sweetness you have showered upon Me. You are just like these beautiful flowers for Me, which are anxious all the time to make you happy, to please you. Just like that I find you before Me, beautiful flowers, fragrant with divinity. I hope you all will understand your own value and work it out.

May God bless you!