Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi  

Aurangabad, India
19 December 1987  

I’m sorry I was dealing with some newspaper people, journalists, and they came very late, whatever it is. I found them to be very sensible and very understanding.

All of us have come to Aurangabad, and it seems this place is full of vibrations. Maybe here Shalivahana has ruled in this area, but also there have been many saints who were born on this side of Maharashtra, and they perpetuated dharma. They always talked about self-realization. Dharma gives you the balance. It gives you the establishment into proper behavior, proper understanding, proper living, but it doesn’t give you the completion of your journey. It doesn’t give you the satisfaction of reaching the destination. And your personality is still incomplete. So, one has to have the experience of the spirit. As I was discussing with them today, I told them that those who do not have the experience of the spirit, are not only incomplete, but are limited people. So whatever they see, or whatever they know, or whatever they criticize, is limited. As in English we say that ‛hate the sin and not the sinner.“

Like many people who find something wrong with Christianity start blaming Christ. Christ did not create Christianity, first of all. He did not create Christianity. He did not create Christians. So, there is no relationship between the two. As you know, recently, they have found out the books written by Thomas, the disciple of Christ who was coming to India. On his way he went to Egypt, and there he wrote this treatise and had put them in a big earthen vessel, or perhaps it was a metallic thing, and it was discovered 42 years back. The people whom he considers to be authorized Christians, he calls them as ‛Gnostic“. ‛Gne“, ‛Gne“ in Sanskrit language means, ‛to know“. ‛Gne“ means ‛to know“. And he has written that to know, and to have the personal experience is the only way to follow Christ. Clearly. Not only that, it’s said that God Almighty who is so kind, why will he ask you to suffer? So it challenges all the Christian principles of suffering. In the same way, in all religions, people have diverted from the right path, and have come to the wrong path, and are indulging into self-created delusions, which has no relationship with reality, or with the incarnations, those who started the religion or who gave the ideas of the religion. I hope you don’t do that to Me, because you are Gnostic people. You are the ones who know, who have had self-realization. Without self-realization you cannot have a complete personality.

But as you see in Sahaja Yoga, you don’t have to go to Himalayas, to give up your families; you don’t have to be away from the society to get your realization. You get your realization in the circumstances where you are born. In the same society, in the same family life. But, you rise higher than them, and try to pull them out of the mire in which they are existing. This mire of ignorance has to be crossed, and some of you have to do it. And when you realize that, then you should know that you all have to be very strong people. You all have to be extremely strong. If you are not strong enough, how can you pull out the rest of them? People who are mediocre think that gradually they’ll be all right, and that they’ll come up. But I would suggest that you should make all-out effort to become strong Sahaja Yogis. To become strong Sahaja Yogis is not difficult. Because you have all the powers within yourselves. You have the Kundalini within yourselves. And you know the way, how to become a realized soul. The problems are of you being [DROPPED…del] dragged into your ego or into your conditioning. Only two problems, not more. Like somebody asked, ‛How many turns there are in London?“ Only two, left or right. So either you go to the left or to the right. All the permutations and combinations of this left and right starts working and then you get into trouble. And then you get into problems. But actually it is a very simple thing. To get out of your ego should be the simplest and that is where you try to understand yourself. You see yourself. How you are reacting. Where is your attention. What are you doing. What is your attitude towards Sahaja Yoga. So many people think that ‛this is my house, this is my family, this is my car, this my horse, this is my dog.“ I don’t know how far it goes – ‛my, my, my, my, my“. But nothing is yours. ‛Yesterday“ [COULD SRI MATAJI HAVE MEANT ‘Tomorrow’?], as Kabira has said it, that ‛some cheat“, that is the death, ‛will come and take away everything.“ That is not yours. Then, ‛my family“, then ‛my children“. All this is a nonsense, and so, when you start getting attached to this word ‛my“, there where you fail completely into your own understanding of your ego, you’re completely blinded by this ego. First of all you should say that ‛nothing is mine“. Kabira has said that when the goat is living she goes on saying ‛Mei, mei, mei“ [Not sure of Hindi spelling] means ‛I, I, I, I“. In Hindi language. Made a pun on the word ‛mei“. And when she dies, and her intestines are taken out, and are made into something that spins the cotton, they go on the street, these people, telling people that they are around, they go on playing on that string which is made from the intestines of these goats which says ‛Tuhi, tuhi, tuhi“[Not sure of Hindi spelling], meaning ‛You are, you are, you are“. So one need not be like a goat, that till you leave you go on saying ‛I, I, mei, mei, mei“. When you die then your intestines have to be taken out and put on that thing just to make the sound ‛Tuhi, tuhi, tuhi“. So this sound of ‛I, I, I“ is made only by egoistical human beings, but this ego is so much identified with you, that you think that ‛I am this ego, and ego is me.“ And in that ego you start doing all kinds of nonsensical things. This ego takes you nowhere, it takes you nowhere but into a complete mire of ignorance about yourself. Ultimately you become stupid, others can tell you that you are stupid, or you become idiotic, or you get a bad name, and everybody knows that you are doing all wrong things, but nobody dare tell you, because you are to be reached with a barge pole. Such a hot-tempered personality you become, nobody dare come to you and say that this is wrong, it should not be done, it’s stupid, idiotic, and you, yourself, in that idiocity [COULD SRI MATAJI HAVE MEANT idiocy] and stupidity think no end of yourself. This is the extreme of your ego. But it’s nice, we have people like Hitler to see. So if you put Hitler as the ideal egoist then you will not go on that road. It’s very slippery road, and maybe one day you’ll land up there.

The second side of ours, which looks very morbid and very mild, is the left side. The movement on the left side is the emotional side. You develop habits with the left side. Now, some people have very dangerous habits, some have simple habits. Like I have a bad habit, or a good habit, you may say, that I must put My right hand under My foot, because it’s all the time working, so I want to control it. So, I put it under My head like this, while sleeping and sometimes under My foot, just to make it little bit stop working, it works too hard. Just to give it rest. So under My pillow I put it and sleep. But I discovered once, I hurt myself, that I now cannot put it under My [SOUNDS LIKE HEAD]. I said, ‛It’s a very funny habit I have got.“ But it’s not such a dangerous one. It’s quite good. So I’m continuing with it. But I can get rid of it. It’s very simple. But when I get rid of it, I think the people become overactive so I put it again, under My pillow. So as Sahaja Yogis, all your habits should be under your control. Now the habits we have formed through drugs, from drinking, from anything, are very dangerous habits. Also, people have their attention being all the time around. All the time the attention here, there and there, attracting people, looking after them, not looking after yourself. This attention has to be brought under control. Is very important. That’s very simple, that whenever it happens, you just put down your eyes. Keep your eyes down. That’s one of the ways we allow our attention to fritter away, and also our growth becomes stunned [COULD SRI MATAJI HAVE MEANT stunted].

This is a very very dangerous thing which in the West specially we have developed. Here, also, people must read every shop’s name. Indians have a bad habit, because they just now started reading, so they want to read everything that they find, anything. So on the road if there is a road [COULD SRI MATAJI HAVE MEANT ‘row’] of shops, they read every name of every shop, turn round again and see if they have missed anything. It sounds stupid. But they all do it. And all the time they are doing it. So the attention, wherever it goes, has to be under our control. We have to keep it, all the time under our control.

As Namadeva has said very clearly, in Guru Grant Sahib has written, that when a little child is flying the kite, he’s talking to everyone, he’s playing in a way, but his attention is on the kite. And when a housewife is carrying her duties, putting her child on her waist and working, then she’s doing all kinds of work, but her attention is on the child. The ladies who are carrying three-four earthen pots on their heads, water filled up to the brim, are walking, talking to each other, having mirth and enjoyment, but the attention is on the earthen pot, on their heads. In the same way, whatever adventure you are into, whatever you are doing, your attention should be on your spirit. Then everything is under control, and you can never get enveloped into anything where attention should not be lost.

So, these two problems we have, and those problems even after realization people have it. So please try, when you are not meditating, to keep your attention on your spirit. Now, the person who is left-sided or right-sided, he has developed a mechanism within himself to justify himself. Through his intellect, or maybe if they are ladies they have water power, they’ll start crying. And you just don’t know what to say to them. If you tell them anything, first thing they’ll do is to cry, means sometimes I feel there are thousand arrows on My head when they start crying. It’s impossible to say anything to them. And if you talk to some men they’ll give so many explanations that you would feel like, just, going off to sleep. It’s so boring. Its easy to read some book like ‛War and Peace“ than to listen to the arguments of such people. But they don’t want to see that this is all ego, which is talking, [IT IS NOT…del], they are talking, it is not their spirit. And if the spirit has to evolve we have to be extremely witnessing, in a full way, very alert, extremely alert and witnessing ourselves, what are we doing. Then only we reach the completion of our realization. Unless and until you reach the completion of your realization, you can never be masters of your attention, and you can never be the enjoyer of your joy, and you can never know the truth fully. [TO inserted here] achieve this Sat-Chit-Ananda swarupa you have to be extremely careful about the instrument that God has given you, this body, mind and emotions. You have to keep them in check, because, wherever your habits are they can never be joy giving, it’s a joyless pursuit. And [WHERE YOUR…del] wherever your ego is, it’s a destructive effort. So what things are detrimental to your growth, apart from that, they are extremely dangerous thing for yogis. So, as you are, in whatever conditions you are, in whatever situations you are, whatever may be the surroundings, like a dirty mire full of creatures and filth, you can become like lotuses. When you become like lotuses all that is filth, all that is horrible, can become fragrant. And this is what we have to achieve. When people will see the lotuses they’ll come to you, not to see the worms and to see the filth, but to see the lotuses. So please, this time, correct yourself, you don’t need anybody to correct you, you just correct yourself, watch out for yourself, and see for yourself. If something doesn’t work out just give up. Don’t go to extremes for anything. Must learn to give up at a point and be happy about it. If you are contained within yourself, if your hand is attached to your body, then you reach up to a point and then leave it, but if it is not attached, if it is disintegrated then it goes all round and round and round and comes back without anything. That understanding has to be there in you people because you’re standing in the central path, and you’re attached to the central path, not only, but you are identified with it. So you cannot go too far to the left, cannot go too far to the right. If you do that you get lost. Then you are no more a Sahaja Yogi, and then no use having you here artificially or superficially because it will be hypocrisy. Whatever is needed to put you back into right frame you must accept. And whatever is needed to understand Sahaja Yoga you have to do. As I have said, please try to learn English language. I cannot learn fourteen languages. [NOT SURE if ‘It’s very difficult.’ Or ‘Very difficult.’] It’s surprising how I have learnt this English language also. So now to learn fourteen languages I’ve to take fourteen avataras again. I don’t ask you to learn Marathi. Because that’s the best language for Me to speak. But at least try to learn English. And then we can see if you can learn Marathi or Hindi.

[continues in Marathi…]