The Destructive Power of Mahadeva

Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

Pune, India
25 February 2001 

Today we are here to celebrate Mahashivaratri.  It’s a very great privilege for all of us to understand about Shri Mahadeva.  Unless and until you have got your Self Realisation you cannot understand what is the great personality, the character and the powers of Shri Mahadeva.  It is not easy to conceive — also to reach the depths — of his greatness, unless and until we are humble.  We have to be very humble to reach (arrive) at the Lotus Feet of Shri Mahadeva.  As you have seen, one has to cross even the Sahasrara to be at the Lotus Feet of this great personality.  He is beyond — beyond all our conceptions.  But he resides in our hearts as the Spirit, and is reflected very well when you get your Realisation.

But still, one has to understand the powers of Shri Mahadeva.  It is not very easy to describe about this great God in a few words.  But the first power he himself has, is that he is a very forgiving God.  He forgives!  He forgives us so many of our sins, so many of our destructive activities, our horrible minds that try to create problems for everyone — up to a point!  But he has the greatest power to destroy.  His destruction comes so suddenly because he rules all the elements.  All the elements he rules — he rules the Mother Earth, and he rules all other elements.  Through their causal he rules, and he can destroy everything that he wants to if he finds there is a problem.

I have to tell you that earthquakes are managed by him, not by me.  I am not there for destruction.  He is the one who sees what’s happening on this earth, what’s happening to the human beings.  I’ll give you an example of Gujurat:  apart from anything, Gujurat people are very money-oriented;  they are worried with the stock-exchange, this, that, all the time money, money, money, money, money.  Even if they are abroad, they are extremely money-oriented.  Sometimes I am surprised, it is impossible to talk to them about Sahaja Yoga, and they like artificial type of things like some gurus or somebody.

I don’t know from where they get like this.  But whatever it is, you have a state called Bhavnagar in Gujurat.  Bhavnagar people came, they brought for me those silver slippers, padukas, to be vibrated; I was surprised, happy at least, that these people are thinking about it.  So they did a Puja, they did a Havan in Bhavnagar and also in Baroda.  These are the two places that were not touched even by bookambh (earthquake), touched even, by the earthquake.  Can you imagine.  And Surat which is very distant, was absolutely shattered.  There are Sahaja Yogis, very few, all of them were saved, and their houses also did not move.  This is between the protection of your Mother and the wrath of God Almighty.

One has to understand this very well, that he has powers over all the elements.  I went to France, and there some people in France tried to trouble Me.  And all the media got after Me.  And on the television, everywhere, they were saying all kinds of things against me.  I knew something would go somewhere and suddenly from the sea a big — I don’t know what to call it — a big storm started, suddenly, no-one knows why.  And two ships were completely sunk, and those people who went to rescue them got cancer.  Then it came, this storm started moving fast and all the churches lost their top — heads I should say.  All the churches lost, so many priests’ houses were ruined and it travelled and came up to the place where I had purchased a very big castle.  It just stopped — and just stopped at the brink of it.  Now, it is not my doing, I must tell you.  But this is what he does — though he is very forgiving, he is extremely kind, he’s peaceful, but you should be aware of his powers.

All those powers are used to protect my work, I should say.  It goes too far and it is to show to people that they shouldn’t obstruct the work of spirituality.  It should be real spirituality.  It should not be somebody like a false guru coming up and saying some magic, or talking something about some far-fetched thing.  But if you have the real spirituality, the protection will be always there, and Shiva will be very blissful.  It’s extremely blissful.  And what he has given you is even more beautiful than you could think of.  He is extremely forgiving; I should say he is the source of such forgiveness.  If you have forgiveness in your heart, he resides in your heart.

Otherwise, gradually, you start developing very difficult types of diseases.  Say, if you are forgiving, your heart runs very fast.  No-one can touch your heart.  You cannot get heart-attacks.  But if you are tolerating, suffering and taking many things as a power of your own, doing wrong things and forgetting about God, then you also start developing a very weak heart.  So one side is that you develop a heart which is extremely aggressive, and can become like Hitler’s heart.  Under any kind of pretensions, if you start torturing someone, your heart becomes solid and then you can get a tremendous massive heart-attack, and all the troubles from that.  This is inevitable.  But supposing you are extremely tolerant and you tolerate all nonsense, you are very docile, you are a frightened person.  If you are frightened, then because of fright you do that, then you can develop another kind of a heart we call as angina.  The blood supply is there, and ultimately you develop a kind of guilt and you lead a very mediocre life.

So this subtle thing also is very visible among people who think they are very, very tolerant.  I am saying that tolerance is alright, because of Spirituality — but not because you are frightened, and you are afraid of something.  If you are a Sahaja Yogi you have no business to be afraid of anything.  In India people are afraid of everything!  They can see a squirrel and they will be frightened (she laughs). If they see a lizard — finished!  I mean they are afraid of anything, and the ladies in India are so afraid of even cockroaches!  This kind of temperament is absolutely stupid!  Because that makes you a kind of a person who is prone to angina.  What is there to be afraid of?  If you are a Sahaja Yogi and Sahaja Yogini, you are not to be afraid of anything.  They are afraid of rats, all kinds of nonsense and they boast of it, and they talk about it — here the heart is becoming weaker and weaker and weaker.

Also, I must say, the Indian men are responsible for that.  Because they keep their women as if they are appendages or some sort of a liability, I don’t know what they think they are.  Their behaviour is so bad, unbelievable!  Especially in north India, I have seen, women have no position. The woman is brought in the house, kept in the house, just like a maidservant, she has to cover he face all the time, she doesn’t have to go out anywhere without permission, it’s terrible!  Some people say it is a Muslim influence or whatever it is.  But when you believe in eternal life, in spiritual life, you should not be governed by any such nonsensical atrocities.

And that’s why I feel that you really need the emancipation of women in India.  They are very good, they are very tolerant, they are very sweet, but they develop all the bad diseases, all the mental diseases, because they don’t know their own value, they don’t know their own self-respect.  And on this I have already spoken at length.  Whey should men behave like that?  I think in our country, we have at least seventy percent are women; and seventy percent of people’s energy is wasted in the north India.  I don’t know what they think of themselves.  And then they are punished.  All such countries can never prosper, because women are the Laxmis.  But they have to be Laxmis also, they have to behave like Laxmis.  But some of them come up like this that you are shocked.  How can they be women, they look like devils?  So such an imbalance in the society which is punished, again, by Shri Mahadeva.

He is very kind, and he looks after the people who have to suffer it.  And he tries to punish people who make suffer.   It is his quality to help by destroying people who are aggressive.  He doesn’t talk of any Kundalini, he doesn’t talk of Self Realisation, he just punishes them, nicely!  In such a bad way that it’s shocking!  And he relieves sometimes people like — I have seen many women who live like this suffer so much.  They die much earlier than their ages.  All this one has to see in the right perspective.  He’s there to protect, of course, but more to destroy.  He protects all kinds of animals, all birds, all the nature, he protects.  He is the one who brings all the joy, all the joy of spirituality.  But if you try to become aggressive, then he is the one who will destroy.  Sometimes he gives more long rope to hang, and so people think they are alright, to satisfy them.

On the contrary, in the west I find the women are ruling the men more than the men (are ruling the women).  Very surprising.  I don’t know how they have handled the situation, but they are ruling, all the time, and the men have to be under their thumb — I don’t know how they have managed it — but they do it!  They are not humble.  They don’t love, and they go on divorcing their husbands all the time.  They do not love!  They don’t know what love is.  But also, I have seen that men don’t understand what love is in India.  They don’t know how to love their wives, which is a life-partner.  How to respect, they don’t understand.  There, there comes a great wrath, and this wrath works in so many ways, in creating horrible diseases and in creating problems and problems for such men.

And the society also is responsible for doing all kinds of things against humble people.  Both ways, one has to understand, that if you are aggressive, you are under the Third Eye of Shri Mahadeva.  In any way if you are aggressive, say with your servants; if you are aggressive with your subordinates; if you are aggressive with your children — there is this wrathful God watching, and one can get under the spell of his destruction.

But he gives us the great heights of Himalaya.  He makes human beings extremely beautiful, very noble, and he wants that people should love each other.  There should be pure love among human beings.  And also he makes you … very delicately, behaving towards other people; very sweetly behaving towards others.  If you don’t have that, then you are going in the wrong direction.  But his greatest privilege, that he gives you the height and the depth.  If you are worshipping him, then you develop such heights that you see the whole world as a witness.

He sees the whole world as a sakshi-swarupa. And so he is the knowledge, he is the pure knowledge.  You may get your Realisation, alright; you might feel the cool breeze in your hands, alright; but do you have the knowledge?  I have to tell you what freedom means, what hand means what, what is vibrations, I have to tell you.  He is that knowledge, is the pure knowledge, complete knowledge, of the highest level.

So he is the source of knowledge.  Those people who are not humble cannot get that knowledge.  Those people who are arrogant and who do not handle others delicately, sweetly, beautifully, are not blessed by him.  They cannot achieve anything in life.  What do we have to achieve?  Not your position, not your wealth, not all these outward things — but you have to achieve a loving heart!  Heart with which you can love.

If there is Shiva in your heart, you will love everyone in a very beautiful manner.  There won’t be any nonsensical ideas about love.  Just pure love, pure love for all the people.  With the blessing, then all your harshness goes away.  For example if you have a little power, little power — so you start to misuse it.  Look at Shiva, he has so many powers; if he starts misusing it, there won’t be even a blade of grass left on this earth.  How much you are sinful, selfish, you know that.  But still he gives you a chance ‘So let’s see, they might improve’.  And he is extremely generous, extremely generous, he is very forgiving and also extremely generous.

Now supposing there are people who are living in the desert and they are very good people, and they are suffering because they are living in a desert — he will create oasis’s for them, he controls the Mother Earth.  He can do everything to make them happy, if they are spiritual, if they worship.  But human beings are so stupid that they go on fighting also in the name of God.  Like in the south we have two types of people, one who worships Shiva and another who worships Vishnu.  Can you imagine!  Vishnu used to worship Shiva!  Nobody’s higher, nobody’s lower.  It’s so important, everything is so important.  But they used to fight on this point, if they are worshipping Shiva, or they are worshipping Vishnu, and nowhere near the realities;  they didn’t know what was the reality, nothing, just fighting, fighting, fighting.

In the name of God, those who fight, Shiva comes on them and with his trident hits them.  You are not to fight in the name of God, but you have to love and understand.  So this fighting in the name of God is a nonsense.  Not only that but it’s very, very dangerous.  All such people who do that will be destroyed.  It is self-destruction.  Such people will be destroyed completely.

So, you should understand that in the name of God you have to love.  You have to understand.  You need not tolerate nonsenses, it’s different; but you have to love people, spread you love.  Gradually this love can go all over the world, and then the vision of mine I can see working out.  But if there is fighting, there’s hatred, there’s all kinds of aggressiveness, these are all against Shiva, and such people will be destroyed — what will I do with them?  What can I do if they are destroyed?  If they are very money oriented, materialistic people, they are not loving them, they are loving only for money — all such people will be destroyed, no doubt.

One should be not only humble, but should be extremely loving.  To get the blessings of Shiva you have to be extremely loving.  Such people may not be very cunning or clever, they may be very innocent — they must be.  Because when you love somebody, you want to help that person.  I have suffered myself, I have tried to help people and they have deceived me.  So what?  That’s their nature, and they are destroyed, what can I do?  I didn’t ask them to deceive me, but they deceived me — I don’t know why.  And I have been very kind and nice, and still they deceived me.  So when the destruction follows, what can I do about it?

I don’t want anybody to be destroyed, I love this creation of mine, and I don’t have any way of protecting them if they are destructive.  Because there is another great power who can destroy them.  See then, I am absolutely in a helpless condition, sometimes I feel and I don’t know how to express, but one has to understand as Sahaja Yogis that with Shiva’s love and his blessings you can become extremely loving, extremely generous, very, very sweet and innocent like children.

You have to be innocent.  There is no need to be very clever and cunning and you will be amazed how your innocence will be protected.  If you are innocent, you don’t have to worry — there’s a power, the Third Eye of Shiva, which is looking after you.  Wherever you are going, he is with you.  That doesn’t mean that you become stupid.  It doesn’t mean that you are not practical.  All that is taken over, all the practical side, by the power of Shiva.  His guidance, his love, his kindness, you can see at every, every step of life.

But first of all, watch your steps!  Are you aggressive?  Are you troublesome?  Do you say harsh things to others?  Or are you humble?  Are you gentle?  And if you are kind, he is very much pleased.

In the nature, it is his rule that works.  And they are so systematic, they live with understanding of each other.  For example, if you go in the jungle and it is absolutely quiet, and you don’t even hear the birds twittering:  then you should know there is a tiger sitting down.  Because he is the king.  They know they have to obey, and when the king is there it is protocol.  They know automatically what is the protocol of the king.  Nobody would be even moving if he is there.  He sits in his majesty.  Then in one week, or maybe fifteen days he will kill one animal.  He has to eat.  He kills one animal then he and his family, they eat first.  He waits for some time, of course, for the blood to ooze out, then the whole family comes and eats.  Then he leaves the body there.  Then by gradation, one by one, all kinds of animals come and eat it as a prasad.  And the last thing are the crows who come and eat that animal.  Such discipline, such understanding of the protocol; I am amazed how animals are managed by Shiva.

You never hear that animals are having a ‘strike’, or animals are having a big ‘underworld’ of animals!  You don’t hear that these animals are stealing things.  And just imagine that we are coming from that animal life, but we are worse than them.  How are we going to rise if we have all such funny ideas of behaving in such a manner of fighting.  On any small little excuse they will fight, they will start fighting.  Animals also fight a little bit among themselves, but not in a collective way.  They don’t do it in a collective way as we do here; it’s really at the slightest provocation we get into groups and start fighting.  They get into groups but they don’t fight.  What is the thing among them?  Everything is so much, so much understood by animals, why not for us also to understand the law of nature?

It is Mahadeva who manages that all the nature’s law are to be obeyed.  Even the Mother Earth, the sky, everything, is looked after by him.  He does nice, nice, beautiful things for us.  With the changes of the seasons, he creates these beautiful flowers; he creates all that is soothing and joy-giving and beautiful, he looks after.  He gives us to see what nature has given us, and tries to please us, keep us happy, entertain, like an innocent child.  But while we are, in our arrogance, we have our reactions — to everything!  You see a carpet, you will say ‛I don’t like it!“  Especially in the west, it is a common thing to say ‛I don’t like it“.  Who are you not to like something, or to dislike something?  What do you think of yourself?  It’s very common, and shamelessly they will say ‛I don’t like this, I like this …“  It’s impossible!  Such human beings, I don’t know where they will go, what will happen to them.  Instead of appreciating, instead of enjoying everything, why to start criticising and reacting.

Reaction is much more in the west, I must say, not so much in India.  But there are certain cultural differences, I think, that’s why people say like that.  Here if somebody says like that, people will think that person is mad or that something is wrong with him, the way he talks.

It is important how you express your love, how you talk about your love.  Start it with your wife, to begin with, and then you can move towards your children and other people.  And we are so stupid sometimes, that we love the whole world but we can’t love our wives!  It’s a speciality!  In India that’s very true, but also in the west I have seen people love their wives because of fear — fear of divorce maybe, I don’t know — love should have no fear.  It should be just ‘free’ love.  Without any fear, without any aggression; enjoy that pure love.  And that is what is missing in the human beings today as it is.

When the day will come when human beings will be understanding the beauty of love, then from the heavens there will be flowers falling on us, it will be such a tremendous day when Mahadeva will be able to close his Third Eye and will be peaceful in his heart.  It is my vision.  It’s the future for you; to see how peacefully you can talk to people, how sweetly you can love others, how much you can give to others.

For example, they have to give something, they’ll go in the market and buy the cheapest, the rottenest thing for giving.  That’s not the way.  You must buy small or big, whatever it is, out of love!  That (thing) should talk about your love, tell about your love, and not about your money and what you have spent.  It’s very common nowadays, even in India, that people try to show how much they are worth, what they wear, how they dress up — for what?  For what?  I’ve known such people, very many, and when they die there are not even four people available to carry their dead bodies!  When they lived they think no end of themselves. That time, you should see how many people there are to love that person, to care for that person.  Maybe it is the upbringing, maybe, that he had never known love.  Anything you may blame.

But for a Sahaja Yogi it is important to learn that love is your ‘life’, love is spirituality, and love — without expectations — to do something.  Some people are, I know, very good at helping poor people, this, that.  But behind that is the power that … They think ‛Oh, we are great, we are doing this work, that work“ just to satisfy their power, not their love.  So when you are working, you have to know that it’s just to satisfy your Spirit, just to satisfy your love that you are doing it, not for any gain or for any kind of a position.  If you have that kind of a detached love, virakta as they call it, then nobody has to certify you.  You have it  -and you are enjoying it!

It is unfortunate I have to speak in English language, and maybe there are some who do not  understand English, but nowadays English has become dominating, what to do?  You have to force people in the English language.  I can’t speak in any other language.  But one has to speak the language of love.  You see animals, you see if you have a horse and if you have a dog, all these animals, they understand your love; how they stick to you, how they express their love, they are very sweet.  And this we learn from them now, I think.  Otherwise I don’t know how to make them understand the value of love.  It is not that the way people are criticising that we are not practical, that we have not achieved much money or power or something like that, that’s not important, because there are many like that selling in the market.

But we are different.  We are the jewels of humanity, and we have to be like that, shining; cutting out all the wrong things within us as a diamond is cut to look something very, very great.

My only desire, if I have any desire, is that ‘Try to follow the qualities of Shri Mahadeva’.  How great he is, how detached he is, absolutely detached.  He lives with bones and things like that.  He is not bothered about where he is, what he lives with, what he has, nothing.  So detached, and we should be detached like that.

At the same time, we should be very loving like him, extremely loving.  How his heart is full of love for others, how he looks after others.  I am warning you, because I know you all love me very much, but you should also love each other, you should have a loving heart, and have satisfaction in loving others.  If you could develop that, your height will grow, your depth in Sahaja Yoga will grow.  It’s alright, the Goddess gives you the shraddha, alright, but the depth of shraddha, in Sanskrit, or in Hindi and Marathi I don’t know, but in Marathi they call it dyas (shraddha). Just deep in to that love, drenched in to that love, enjoying that love — then you don’t want anything.  What do you want?  You’ve got everything.  So what do you want now?  Just like the greatness of Shri Mahadeva.  He’s so great that he’s detached.  What does he want?  I mean nothing is greater than him, nothing is more important than him.  Then what does he want?  He doesn’t want anything.  That’s why he’s detached.  This detachment you have to develop.

But at the same time he is the Lord of all the arts, of the music, of the rhythm.  The other day you saw these boys were playing the rhythm.  The whole rhythm of everything he gives; the rhythm of life that we have, we are not aware of it.  See a child is born exactly after nine months and so-many days — who keeps this rhythm?  Then we get, say, certain flowers at such-and-such time, then we get in the nature all kinds of seasons.  Who keeps the rhythm?  He is the one who is nothing but rhythm!  And that rhythm is kept up, in the nature, in everything there is a rhythm.  And a rhythmic person is the one who has a very large heart!  It’s like an ocean.

You get just that rhythm disturbed immediately if you find somebody who is being very cruel, very paranoid.  But in a smooth, beautiful, peaceful lake, there is no ripple at all, it is just love.  And then at that time, if the rhythm, the silent rhythm of that heart is broken, then Shiva takes charge.  So one has to have a complete sense of the rhythm of time, rhythm of nature, rhythm of everything.   People don’t know even the names of the flowers.  They don’t know what these flowers are, what time (of year) they come up; they have no idea what is the rhythm of their ‘living’ — nobody’s bothered.

All over, if you see, there is seasons and things.  So all the rhythm, like his play, with tabla or pakwaj (percussion instruments) on which he played all the beautiful tunes of all the seasons.  And that’s how the nature flourishes and comes up and then subsides.

We do not see that point.  We are just bothered about ourselves.  Like I’ll ask ‛How are you?“  ‛Mother, I’ve got a headache, I’ve got a stomach trouble, I have another trouble“ … or everything is there.  But another one would say ‛Ah, I’m alright!“  ‛So, what’s the matter?“  ‛Put the world right Mamma!  Mother, why don’t you put the world right?“  He’s worried about others, not about himself.  And in that understanding of what one should do to make this world happy, beautiful — for that one has to really work hard, so called, and in that working one thinks, ‛Isn’t it our duty to make this world beautiful?  Isn’t it our job to make this world rhythmic, rhyming with the Spirit?“  It’s our duty.  We have to do it!  Not only taking Sahaja Yoga for yourself, but for others.  It’s not that you are all the time worried about yourself, but you are worried about others, what’s happening in the world — that is love!  That love is spontaneous, and when it works, it works wonders.

So this is a beautiful evening, where we are worshipping such a great source of our ascent.  And I hope you people will understand how far you are with that force, how much are you drenched in that force, in that rhythm of Shiva, who, in his rhythmic way, gives you vibrations.  Vibrations flow in the way we live, and that way should engulf you completely; and you should be asked in that your ‘I-ness’ should be dissolved in that which is I bless you. (… and you should ask that your ‘I-ness be dissolved in that way — and I bless you in this).  Thank you.

Today we have a Ganesha Puja, a small Ganesha Puja, then Shiva Puja and then the Devi’s Puja.

May God Bless You.