Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

Alibag, India
17 December 1989 

Welcome to you all. It has been little bit delayed but just now they have informed Me that the plane is delayed even much more so I thought it’s better to have the puja now. Though the English had told us that they would like to attend from the very beginning. They always get many more pujas, that may be the reason!

So now we have all arrived here and we are going to start this pilgrimage of travelling together. The journey is of a very subtle nature and, if you realize why we are here, we’ll understand that all this Creation is watching you all and it’s trying to help you that you should ascend and that you feel your depth and thus enjoy your Self.

The travel may not be very comfortable. The roads are so very filled with speed-breakers and all kinds of obstructions. It’s a journey like of our ascent I felt, that our speed has to be brought down. In the West we have become very speedy, no doubt, and to bring down this speed we have to use meditative process that we feel our peace within ourselves. Also the thoughts are bombarding our minds and we react very fast to others and to these thoughts.

So one has to be aware, one has to be knowing what is happening within yourself, that the thoughts are bombarding you, you are trying to ascend and you find it very difficult to get rid of the thoughts.The thought process can start by your conditioning or by your ego – only two problems! And you are the one who is under the challenge.

So you have got these simple people in the village who start watching everything but they do not react. If you do not react then your thoughts will give up. So the first thing should be to watch yourself that you are not reacting, but you are experiencing and enjoying the silence, the subtleties, the beauty, the glory of your being as well as whatever is around you. You don’t have to force yourself to break this habit, but just to be on the watchout. It’s not necessary to talk too much about it also, nor it is necessary to think about anything because supposing you see a tree – so it’s a tree only. What are we going to think about it? And whatever we are going to think about it, it is going to be the tree!

So there’s no harm in appearing little bit stupid – doesn’t matter. But this is the basic thing, is, that when we start analyzing, we are breaking our own nerves and poisoning our own mind and brain. So to watch something without analysis, without thinking about it, is reality.

If you can achieve that point where you watch everything without reacting you are in reality, and then only the penetration into the subtleties of your surroundings, of your relationships, your friendships – the whole universe – dawns upon you. That’s why I’ve said that in this pilgrimage the first thing we have to remember [is] that we have to be aware ourselves. But when you are only thinking about others, how others have to behave, ‛They should do like this“. That leave it to your leaders to break their heads, that’s not your job. It’s a headache for them I know, but they have to do it, it’s alright. But why do you want to break your heads for nothing at all?

So to judge others, to thinks of others, what they are doing, what’s wrong with them, about anything whatsoever you may think is wrong – is not going to be corrected. Like I know some people who are specially beaureucrats, they are travelling supposing, by the car. Then they will say ‛I think, you see, this road should have gone this way“ or ‛I think it would have been nice if this house was facing the other way“ – but it’s not, you see? It is not going to face [that way]. It is going to be the way it is so what is the use of wasting your brain, your mind, your thought, in suggesting something which doesn’t work out, and never going to work out either.

So when we start like, ‛I think these trees should have been a little taller“ – but they are not!

‛I think that the crows should stop their noise“ – they will not, so just accept it. Acceptance is the way we are going to enjoy. But acceptance doesn’t mean tolerance because tolerance means you have to work very hard to accept that the trees are of the same height – they can’t grow – it’s too much for you. When you say, ‛I have to tolerate it, you see, because my mind doesn’t accept.“

So acceptance, as it is, whatever you see, acceptance. And that is how people grow I have seen, those who start accepting. That’s the sign. That’s the sign of their strength and their depth. Like the propensity of this Mother Earth, She is what She is. And She bears whatever is there. If you put a heavy thing on Her She’ll put equal and opposite force and bear it. She doesn’t say, ‛I’m tolerating it, I am exerting any pressure“. But She’s just accepting. So the witnessing and awareness develops when we start just accepting things as they are. ‛I think“ doesn’t work out. ‛I think it would have been better like this“ doesn’t work out.

Then second problem is ‛I like“. Now, ‛I like to eat a cake“ but there is no cake, what to do? Now, whatever is there, enjoy it as a cake. But if you go on thinking like that – ‛I like, whatever is not here“ – you can never be happy, as simple as that. You have to say, ‛I like, whatever is there. I enjoy, whatever is there“, then that’s the reality. Whatever doesn’t exist, if you like it, so what can anybody do about it?

It works out in so many ways, in so many facets in life, that advantage is taken by people because we become so vulnerable to our likes and dislikes that the entrepreneurs take over and they create likes and dislikes in our heads and put ideas every day. I have seen it now, how they do it, through television, through newspapers, through this, that. So then you say, ‛Now, I like this“, but from where this liking has come is the conditioning which is put into your head.So you are a slave of that conditioning. ‛I only like roses and I do not like any other flower“. Why? Why you don’t like any other flower? And for such things whatever we have we miss the joy.

So the second part should be that – enjoy everything. ‛Why am I here? It’s not a very comfortable place by any chance so why am I here?“ To enjoy each other. To enjoy your own being. The more divergence you have outside, appealling to your ego and conditioning, the more your mind is busy with that, then you cannot enjoy anything.

So come to the other conditioning which is very subtle that, ‛I am an Englishman“ or ‛I am an American“ or maybe even ‛I am from Derbyshire“ and then ‛I am from another shire“, and then better form a group – the grouping starts. In a subtle way it is a kind of an insecurity. So we start clubbing. Animals do that very often, they have to do it because their sense of insecurity is quite a lot. And then human beings also do it, but not the Saints, not the Angels. They don’t form [groups] because they have no nationality. Nationality is also a conditioning. They don’t belong to any one place, to any one country. So now those who have come by plane, had to come, because from every country there’s one plane by which they come, must know one thing – that now we have landed and we are all Sahaj Yogis here and forget your countries. Forget them and mix up with other people. Please do not form groups. There is no need at all to form groups. So I would request you that in the buses, because it starts from the airport, you start forming groups, and it continues till the end you go back. I think it would be a nice idea to break that and let people sit together of different countries and different nationalities and talk to each other try to know about each other and try to find out about each other. Not just what you know from the newspaper but the different problems of Sahaja Yoga – what are the problems of Sahaja Yoga in a particular country. What happens in a particular country.

The worst of all is the conditioning of reading also. Reading without light is useless, and some people still have a habit of remembering something they have read and a kind of a show-off as they say. Is better to listen to others. Let others talk. In Sahaja Yoga on what subject you’ll discuss? I don’t know how can you discuss on anything? Now you see this one as a green thing, now, what can you discuss on this? You will say, ‛Alright, is green, but…there is…“. Then another one says, ‛No, this is green, but…“. One may go on like that, madly.

There is no need to discuss in Sahaja Yoga. I just don’t know what are we going to discuss. You know everything, you know how kundalini rises, you know how chakras are cleared out, you know how you get realization. You all know who is, who catches what and you know that how it affects. Now, if that is the fact, if that is the truth, that is what it is, what are we going to discuss about it? Discussions are over now. You are gnostics, you are knowledgeable people. You have the knowledge, but the knowledge that you have is shared by every one of you. At the most, you can talk about your experiences, you can talk about your relationships, how you have enjoyed. But there is nothing to discuss in Sahaja Yoga.

I’ve heard about people who are discussing. I just don’t know how can there be a discussion about Sahaja Yoga. I would be very happy to know, if you can tell me, how we can discuss about Sahaja Yoga. So we have to remember that whatever we talk, we should talk about our experiences, about our enjoyments, our happiness, everything, and not to discuss it and analyze it because that would kill the joy completely. There’s no joy in it, discussion is just trying to show that you know better than the other, or you can give another opinion. In Sahaja Yoga there is no another opinion. If somebody has a nabhi, he has a nabhi, what another opinion can you have?

So then we finish with different kinds of arguments and discussions and things. Maybe somebody goes off the track, maybe, but you all know he is going off the track, so what’s the use of discussing it? You all know what he is talking is off the track so it’s alright. You come to the conclusion ‛Yah, we know, we know we know“. But to discuss it out there is no need. Once you know and it is in your awareness the Paramchaitanya will take care of it and you won’t have to bother at all how to correct, how to mend it, what to do – that’s not your work, you just leave it to Paramchaitanya and it will work out.

So here we have come because this country has been very much blessed by so many saints and yogis and you can see it in the people how they are, and that’s why, despite all poverty, despite all kinds of discomforts and despite the fact that they have not known any Western great things, they are not bothered.

I went to Russia, of course Russia was great and so many got realization. And I was really surprised how these people have come to Sahaja Yoga and accepted it, but one part was very funny, which was I would say, like the villagers of this country. Those who are still not so matured would not come to Sahaja Yoga as such but the difference of their character was really remarkable, because, you are going by taxi. So the taxi fellow says ‛Have you got a Marlboro cigarette with you?“. I said ‛What is that? I have never known of it“. ‛No if you have one then we’ll take you free or we’ll charge you very little“. But an Indian will never say such a thing, he doesn’t know all these things, he’s not bothered. But if an Indian taxi fellow is going he’ll say ‛Have you got a photograph of Mataji with you?“. That’s a big difference! (laughter)

In every aspect I have seen that there is another like there are villagers here, people who are not Sahaja Yogis, but they respect, they respect the saint. To them saint is more important than anything else. Nobody will ask you for anything – never! Even if you want to give them, they will not accept. They may cheat you some people who are selling things, but they will never ask from you that ‛You give me this you give me that“, that’s not done. So the, basically I think there is a difference which we should understand that – materialism works much faster in the West than in India – much faster. And one has to be careful on that point. I’m bringing you down to that point now, that, ‛Are we getting lost into materialism?“

Of course you know I am a great shopper. I have to go on shopping, shopping, shopping, and I shop for all of you and I have been shopping, no doubt. But the difference between My shopping and the shopping of so many is this – that if I’m shopping I am going there because I know I’ll get things much cheaper, much better. All the good things will be there available because I am there – I’m sure of that. And all the best qualities will be available very easily and that I will be able to get things for people because I’ll remember all of them for whom I have to buy. It always happens like that. When I go out for shopping, even if I have to face four hundred people, I get the things there alright. That’s why I have to go. Alright, if you have to go then you have to think ‛What we are going to buy?“. I have seen invariably Sahaja Yogis will buy things for Non-Sahaja Yogis, always, mostly. ‛I’m buying for my mother, my sister who is against Sahaja Yoga“.

Why should you buy for somebody who is against Sahaja Yoga? Even if they might be your nearest relations do you think they deserve it? So then we have to know that we are one body and as this hand must look after the other hand when we go out shopping or do anything we should always think what we are going to buy for other Sahaja Yogis. Of course, I have told you that, unless and until somebody’s your sister by rakhi or anything, you need not give presents. But women can buy for women, men can buy for men. Just understand one small thing – that the matter is for expression of our love, that’s all. It has no other meaning. I don’t find any meaning into it.

So instead of buying for… when people travel from here they go as traders, I’ve seen. Of course you come as traders also – but that’s something Dharmic. But when you go from here you go as traders, and for whom are you buying? Your relationships are no more with anybody else but Sahaja Yogis, and only Sahaja Yogis. Whether they are Indians, English, Chinese, Swiss, French, Spanish, Germans, anything. They may think to be – they are Sahaja Yogis and they are born in the land which we call as the Kingdom of God. So please be careful on this point.

Today being the first day I wanted to explain to you everything in such a manner that you remember that we are on a pilgrimage and all of us should be able to grow our awareness. If you cannot grow your awareness it is useless. Once you start thinking like that you’ll be surprised how much you will gain and how much you’ll achieve.

There are no do’s and don’ts in Sahaja Yoga, really, and I don’t think we have much disciplining either, of any kind. But it is Sahaja Yoga which somehow or other disciplines you – I don’t have to tell you anything. It’s like the fire, if you put your hand into the fire it will burn you, whether you like it or not. In the same way if you do anything asahaj you will have to pay for it.

So you know definitely that you don’t want to lose your vibrations, you don’t want to become unhappy. But this time with a very deeper understanding and reverence to your Self and to your ascent, you have to take a very joyful, serious attitude.

I’m sure this time you are all just going to just enjoy your Self.

May God bless you.