Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi  

Pune, India
10 February 1984  

[Shri Mataji speaks in Marathi]

For your good luck, you should say let us say for your good luck, Soubhagya for your good luck. Is given to the ladies, always given to the ladies. Because in India the women are regarded as the Shakti and women who lead a married life and who have been mothers, who have been daughters and also wives and things like that are respected very much as only it is believed that only the respectable women when they exist in any country the Gods also reside there. If they are not respectable the Gods don’t reside there.

See the glamour is not very much respected in India. The glamorous nature is regarded as something like a sophisticated prostitution [not sure]. In India, glamour is a sign of a effect or a kind of inferiority complex in a women or maybe a cunning to be glamorous. See so its not very much respected in this country. If they find any women getting very glamorous then she’s little bit pulled down in the society and people try to pass remarks on her and make fun of her or sort of she’s brought down. [Its?] not regarded as a very great thing but a traditional… a women has to be traditionally dressed up. As a married women she has to wear a certain ornaments. She has to wear certain things as a married women. She has to wear certain dresses as a married woman and even if they become little bit deviated still a traditional women is respected.

So tradition is the thing that one should do and not the glamour because that’s so artificial and temporary and is very degrading for women according to their standards [you see?]. And I don’t know what are your standards are and that’s how say for example a prostitute cannot enter into any house and if [not sure] there is a glamorous women also people avoid, men avoid such women and such women are not allowed to enter any houses here you see. So the glamour has no value. So the attention is not so superficial but has to be deep. Of course now-a-days our modern girls are taking to little bit this glamorous styles [?] coming trickling down little bit but once they are married they also give up because not very much respected. There is no respect for women who are glamorous and run after glamour. Now thank god now in England also I have seen people are learning that also in other places people are trying to learn how to be simple and traditional… but they are some of them are getting untraditional, simple but untraditional. That’s not regarded as something good in a society of Sahaja I think. We should be traditionally dressed, properly dressed. Hair should be properly done. We should dress up in traditional way. I mean they would like to see you say in a Victorian gown or a say a Elizabethian [collars?] and things like that or something like that. That is what we are. I mean we wear dresses of the very ancient times we [live?] what we wear like the nath [– nose ring –ed] and all that is so ancient absolutely its antiquity. I don’t know since when we have been wearing nath in our lives and that tradition we observe even today all the time.

I mean whenever there is any function or anything we try to wear a very traditional dress, men and women all especially women always wear traditional dresses. Not regarded very good not to be traditional so one must make a difference between a traditional dress and an untraditional dress and also a glamorous dress. So the prostitutes [?] and their style is of course out of question. The way they dress up show off and all that is out of question. Second one the so called simple dress if it is untraditional also in Sahaja Yoga is not so much respected. Reason for that is that we have different powers within ourselves and in tradition through our unconscious we have discovered that these are the traditions, for example my mother never made me a hole in the nose but I get always pain in the nose [?]. Once a doctor also operated me for the [?] but I know this a very simple thing I have to do is to put a hole here and wear something. Once I start wearing it I know it’s all going to be alright. Most of your left Vishuddhis will be cured as soon as I make a hole I know that. So I have to make a hole there and it is so traditional in our country to have a hole in the nose but somehow my mother thought that she should not make a hole for me. She had a hole of her own. But she didn’t make a hole for me. So that was wrong I think, she should have I’ll have to do that at this age sometime to make a hole in my nose.

Its all comes out of a very deeper understanding through the unconscious that it will become traditional. Unconscious goes on giving information, people start using them then whatever is bad is discarded. Whatever is good is accepted and you start becoming traditionally understood. See like here men have become little untraditional, they’ll wear a kurta [– Indian collarless long shirt — ed] and a pant or something like that. But this you can see its most unsuitable for this country to wear a pant which is tight. Now people are wearing jeans can you imagine this heat to wear jeans. They are wearing jeans also stupid people as they are. See whatever country you live in you have traditions built in according to the need of the country and so traditionally whatever are your dresses you must wear. I like the bow tie and all that you wear is quite good. Nothing wrong in it. For a pooja if you wear that is all right.

So, one should differentiate. Now all these are traditions carried forward because people didn’t find anything wrong with them so these traditions have carried forward and forward and forward. And I think we are very traditional people. I think Indians are the most traditional and thanks to our women in India who have stood all the impacts of the western culture, western education and western hoarding[hodi?]. We have still kept up our sarees, we have kept up our styles, we have kept up our borders, we wear our sarees the same way. They are with of course it was little tilts away but mostly we are traditional people and we have kept it which is a very good thing. And I hope you people also try to be more traditional than to be pomptous or something flamboyant, very symbolic or a sometimes too fashionable or glamorous. You see the glamour is the biggest curse of the west. Half of the time is spent in glamourising themselves and men worried about their hair styles and women. And ultimately they end up with no hairstyle just [not sure] hair. So that also is not good because you’ll all get bald if you do not comb your hair properly and get bald very soon and then people will laugh and say how Sahaja Yogis are all bald. [Sounds like: There must a trick of the trade?] that every Saturday must put lot of oil in your hair nicely to it and always use some sort of conditioner you call it I don’t know, but [?] is quite good, I must give you the hint. And comb your hair in a way that is not untraditional. Untraditional hair are not good and untraditional hair are always attacked by bhoots. So its better to be properly combed hair and properly done hair and to be traditional and it is a tradition that a Goddess doesn’t tie her hair [She’s?] not supposed to tie her hair so I do not tie in your presence but as a wife I have to tie up so I tie up my hair. That is the tradition whatever is the tradition has to be done. So whatever is bad in the tradition will drop off very soon because there are many things which are bad but they should drop out. But we should not become anti-culture, anti-tradition that is wrong.

So today one of the traditions is this that all the ladies are given this thing to wish them good luck because according to Sahaja Yoga also luck comes from the wife. If the wife has problems the husband will always have problems. If she is not alright the Lakshmi will not arrive, if shes catching then the there will be problem, you will have accidents, you will have Lakshmi problems, you will have other problems headaches and this and that. So the wife has to be alright and she has to be careful about being traditional about being sensible, she has to be respectable also. She the responsibility is much more on her so to remind her of her responsibilities and her greatness, she is honored. This is what it is. I hope you have understood though it’s a very subtle matter. But I hope I have been able to explain to you. [Sahaja Yogi’s name?] you tell them in French a little bit.

You need not use this. It turns out to be useless or [its?] turns out to be against anti… anti-growth so it just drops off. Like I have seen in England there are certain traditions they are so sweet and good. Like if a lady is going up the… up the stairs, then she has to go first but if she’s coming down then the man has to walk first so that she should not topple. Its very simple you see there is not ladies first but ladies are first just because they are to be protected. But if you carry it too much that much somebody might say that the ladies first now it becomes fanaticism. Tradition is suitable according to the need of growth of human beings in good well being sense. And it has a style which… which is so nice and good to look at a style. But it’s not a stylishness. Its style means a… the way it is done is gracious is beautiful it’s not like a bull doing the job but it’s a lady doing the job. Like a bull does a job you see. Like a gentleness is always confused with sophistication. Sophistication is nonsense but gentleness is something inborn. So people who are very sophisticated can be extremely harsh people very harsh. They say things which should never be said. I mean now we can say French. French are people who are supposed to be sophisticated, they are very harsh people when they talk to each other they actually all the time hit at every person. But the gentleness is such that you do things in such a manner in whole movement of your being is in such a manner that you do not hurt anyone. But the sophistication is to impress others, you see artificial to impress some others and aggression its aggression. So the whole gentleness gets faden, camouflaged you see. Its hides all the harshness inside. While gentleness comes from your heart from your real heart.

So I would see that you people before you return back to your respective countries try to see the difference between the reality and artificiality. And how much time we waste in being artificial. There is no need in Sahaja Yoga to be artificial. There is no need to show off or some people even don’t talk and show off. There are ways and methods people have developed very sophisticated method in the West of impressing others with their idea of superiority. Frivolousness gives you an ego but the sophistication gives you such a solid ego that it’s impossible to do. No no…you see if there’s frivolousness it gives you ego but it if it is sophisticated behavior then it is such a solid ego its just like solid stone. Now as we have separated from ourselves, we should be able to see all these things. You are no more now French, English or Indians, you are all Yogis and you are in the realm of God’s domain. So we have to see what reality is and we have to accept one [ray?] accepting reality and the tradition that is [good?].

May God Bless you all.