Birthday Puja. Calcutta (India), 21 March 1994.

Every year we have birthdays of various people, and every year we make a vow that, “This year I will not do this or I will not do that.” This is a very good way of seeing how far we have come in life. Many people who really have achieved a very great height in their spiritual life did not need a birthday. But every day they felt it’s a birthday to start, to go ahead, to understand, to learn. Every day is a New Year for them.     

In our own life we see that our surroundings change very slowly. Sometimes it is shocking; sometimes you are surprised how the surroundings are not changing. But, in a subtle way, there is a tremendous change that is happening within us and without. The whole atmosphere today is governed by human beings. I don’t know how far Paramchaitanya works it out, but it is for us to open ourselves to new dimensions in our lives.

For example, if we find we still have, through our introspection, we locate that we have these old, subtle, nonsensical things still hanging around us, we don’t have to vow for it. You have to just witness it, and the destructive path it is taking you to. Immediately you will give up. You don’t have to worry as to put a vow upon yourself, because now you are “samartha” [capable], meaning now you are absolutely empowered. Whatever you think is wrong, your attention itself on it will slowly, gradually remove the doubts about having those problems, those connections, conditions and ego that are lingering still. Definitely you will drop them. With your attention it will run away.

Then you will realise that every day your attention is getting purified, getting powerful, getting compassionate. Normally, whatever reaction you have in your attention just disappears, and you start witnessing the whole thing, and your power of attention, through that witnessing force, acts and it works. It works not only on you, but on everything that surrounds you.

Firstly, through your meditation, in that state of meditation, you expand within yourself. You stay in the present. The other day, somebody asked me, “Where was Your last birthday?” I just forgot where it was. Otherwise, my memory is very good, like an elephant. But this I forgot. Perhaps, every time, every day, you live in the present and you grow, so you forget when and where this growth has taken place.

My own growth has been like this that every time I go to a place, I find very nice new people coming in and some of the horrible ones from the old lot disappearing. It’s something like, when the tree grows, the leaves go on falling and new leaves start coming. But in Sahaja Yoga, it’s something different I find, that on the tree of Sahaja Yoga very few, very, very few leaves fall off, and you sometimes face a lush garden of beautiful people.

To me, it’s like a miraculous firework. It starts like a small line and then opens up into several beautiful patterns. It is impossible to envisage or to visualise what will happen to us, to Sahaja Yoga and to all of you.

I have never learned to imagine things, but the vision that you see is really remarkable, it’s very remarkable, that I see all Sahaja Yogis drenched in Divine Love and expressing themselves in a very beautiful and very deep manner. This, when comes in, that really makes your attention absolutely enwrapped in such Divine Bliss that you forget that moment.

One of those moments are when you celebrate my birthday. I even forget how many years I have lived on this Earth. Sometimes I say I am seventy-three, sometimes I say I am seventy – I just don’t know. Because, as I told you, it does not leave any mark of time, of date, of years, in that blissful state.

As if sometimes you can think that you went to see something very beautiful, like Taj Mahal, without knowing what it is, and suddenly you find such a beautiful building unexpectedly.

You just get blindfolded, as they say. In Hindi say “avakka” [speechless]. You don’t know how to express, you become speechless. And invariably you’ll find, that time you’ll forget the time. You will forget how you came there. All the story behind all that finishes off as soon as you see the reality of the vision.

This reality of the vision is something beyond even my thinking and imagination. I cannot, even now sometimes, believe that there are so many Sahaja Yogis who have got this subtle knowledge. I never knew that there are so many seekers, to begin with. I never knew that there are such subtle people on this Earth. All over the world, wherever I went, whether I went to Nepal or to Brazil, suddenly I find facing so many beautiful seekers.

If you ask me, “When did You go to Brazil?”, I won’t be able to tell you the dates. I have very bad memory for dates for the same reason, I think, because every time I see a vision. And the time also just stops for that moment. It doesn’t express itself, nothing is recorded, except for the experience.

And this experience is in an abstract form. You cannot describe it. It is beyond words and beyond any description. At that time you really become thoughtless, and that is the time we have to really enjoy.

The greatest curse of modern times is the watch, all the time that we keep. And all the time we are just seeing the time, what time it is now, and after two seconds again also you want to see what is the time. We have crossed the limits of time – “kalatit”. Try to understand why we have crossed, because time moves according to us. You can experience it.

The other day I was coming from Delhi, and in my household everybody seems to be very particular about time. So they were after my life, “Come along, come along. Getting late, getting late. Now, you just can’t get into the plane,” this, that. All right. And when I reached there, they said that, “The plane is still waiting. It’s not…  it’s not necessary for you to hurry up. It will take at least fifteen, twenty minutes for you to go.”

So, also this name of ‘airport’ makes people really jumpy, I should say. They have to go to the aeroplane means as if some war is there or I don’t know what it is. So far, luckily, I have never missed a plane, never missed a train in my lifetime. Though I travel, I think, quite a lot. I have every time found, invariably, that the plane itself is waiting for me, it won’t leave.

Like, I’ll give you a very interesting example today, if you are relaxed. We were in Prague, and we were supposed to go to Poland via…  again same thing happens to me with experience I had… via Vienna. And we had a very great Sahaja Yogi with us who told me that the plane will be leaving at eleven o’clock. And from the airport he rings me up, “No, the plane is leaving at 9:30.”

If I want, I can be ready in five minutes or I can take two hours, depends on. So I was ready, I just jumped into the car. We reached the airport, but we were late by fifteen minutes, and the ground lady started shouting at me at the top of her voice, “You people, you are VIPs, you are this, you are that.” All kinds of things she said to me. And this Sahaja Yogi could not bear it and he felt that it was his mistake (that) he told me a wrong time, “That’s why this lady is shouting at my Mother.” He couldn’t bear it. He was very unhappy.

[Aside to somebody: “You can turn it round. Turn it.”]

So, we went into the aeroplane with this lady shouting behind, and we saw that the pilot and engineers, they were busy with some correction of the machinery. They said, “It is little bit out of order, it will be ready.” So we sat down. Now this Sahaja Yogi could not bear it, and his tears started rolling down his eyes. Then another Sahaja Yogini, she said, “Brother, it’s all right. Don’t cry.” They were sitting behind me, I just turned round. I said, “It’s all right. Don’t worry.” He said, “No Mother, because of me she could say all these things, you know, I can’t bear it.” And he couldn’t stop crying. Within one minute, the sky, which was absolutely open, was covered with big clouds like huge, big elephants walking into the whole area – very big. All the Sahaja Yogis who were standing also on the other side, on top of the airport, saw it happening. The whole thing became absolutely jet-black. “Oh, my God,” I said, “see, the tears of this gentleman has such powers.” And then the airport people told us that this plane is out of order, so we have to get down. So, we got down, we came back.

Then he went to this ground hostess and told her, “Now, whom should we shout at? Now the plane is not going, should we shout at you? How dare you shout at my Mother and all those things?” But all the people there at the airport, who were still in… under the same regime style, got such a fright.

The manager himself walked to me. He said, “For your plane there’s still five hours and if you want out we can give you permission, all of you can go out.” And he took me by a special way. I couldn’t understand this reaction though. So I went out and we did some shopping or something, and when we came back, we were surprised. All the airport was rather stunned by us. And when I walked, that was the only plane that was leaving.

All the traffic had stopped except for this plane. And when we walked down to board the plane, the gentleman who was there said, “Mother, can you help me?” I said, “How?” “I have got a terrible back pain.” I said, “How can I do it?” Then one lady walked in to say, “Mother, please, I have pain in my shoulder. Can you put Your hand on that?” I just put my hand on her shoulder and she said, “I am feeling all right.” She started lifting her arm. Then I went. I thought I’d better now take to the aeroplane.

When I was walking, the same gentleman came to me, he said, “Why not put hand on my back?” I said, “I have to board the plane.” He said, “I’ll walk with You. You just put Your hand on my back. I’m sure I’ll be all right.” And we walked together about two minutes or so, he said, “I’m all right.”

The whole atmosphere changed. It was such a tremendous effect on these people who have been under a regime and have been really military-like, and the whole treatment was so funny. The whole thing changed in such a short time, and I was amazed how the tears of this Sahaja Yogi has worked this wonder.

Now, imagine a moment when tears started rolling his eyes, that moment just manifested a big drama. And, ultimately, what you find is that the people at the airport became extremely humble and respectful.

So, when we start thinking of time and time and time, we have to understand that time is our slave; we are not slaves of the time. There are thousand and one stories I can tell you how, by delaying in a place, by getting late in a place, by not caring for the time, I have seen such beautiful manifestations, such beautiful dramas – the art of the Divine Power – that I was amazed how people worry so much about the time. If time is really necessary, if we are all watching our time every year, as our birthday, and if you think that time is very important, it is in a way. In these modern times, we really need the time for meditation, for collective meetings and for Sahaja Yoga.

I know when there was the war of independence in this country, where my parents fought with all their ‘tana’ [body], ‘mana’ [mind], ‘dhana’ [wealth]. That time I remember how they never cared for anything. They went all out, because it was very important to get this country freed from the clutches of the Empire. And this was so important. They had to meet somebody at such a point. That man, supposing, is escaping from the jail, or there’s some sort of a thing on, they could not afford to miss the time. They could not afford to just neglect that important time, important meeting, important discussion, because everything had become an emergency. For them, nobody told them, nobody gave them lectures, but for them, from inside. They were all legendary people, I should say, the way they fought for their freedom.

This is, today, the same situation. It is an emergency, a very subtle emergency that nothing is more important than spreading Sahaja Yoga. If some people will miss it, will not know about it, we will be responsible for that. At the time of Christ, Buddha, Mahavira or anyone of them, there were no aeroplanes to travel. There were not these loudspeakers, also other communications and televisions and all those things. All these things have come now. That has been manifested now. It is the work of Paramachaitanya.

Through scientists, through other knowledge, all this manifestation has taken place. Also, these people didn’t have to face people, so many, nor did they… were supposed to give realisation to people in such a big number.  So, all these inventions, all that you see today as modern ventures which we have got, they are all for Sahaja Yoga. Without Sahaja Yoga, you cannot imagine what would happen to this world.

The first and foremost thing is we have no peace within our hearts. We talk of peace. I know of people who have got awards in peace, have no peace within their heart, no peace at all. Unless and until we human beings have peace, there cannot be peace in the whole world. It is we who create wars. It is we who do all kinds of violence. It is we, we ruin the possibility of people getting into the Kingdom of God. So, peace can be only achieved by establishing peace in the hearts of the people.

And that is only possible, that you achieve the state of thoughtless awareness. You remain in the present. And there, where you’ll be amazed, you will be standing like a rock, because you will have reality in your hand. You can work out the way you like. Actually, I don’t work out anything whatsoever, really. You may say, “You do this and You do that,” I don’t. It’s the Paramachaitanya, which works it.

In the same way, it will work for you also. But you must have faith in yourself and absolute faith in Sahaja Yoga. Absolute. That’s the only way we can achieve this, that many, many, many people, most of the people of the world – I wouldn’t say all of them, rather difficult to say that but may be possible – should enter into the Kingdom of God with us. That’s the most important thing, more than all these worldly things, and more than all these nonsensical things. So the attention should be how many people we are going to bring to Sahaja Yoga, how many we are going to save, what are we going to do about it. When you have to think about it every morning, how can you remember the time and date?

When you are in emergency now, and you know that this emergency has to be fulfilled, then how can you just pay attention to all worldly things, all worldly achievements? That will take its own course. You don’t have to worry. That works out automatically. Only thing where you really need your own diversion, or your own focusing, is Sahaja Yoga, in and out.

If we really want peace on this Earth, if we want really progress for ourselves, if we want all kinds of physical, mental and emotional problems being solved, all for our good, why not we come to Sahaj Yoga, where we don’t have to do anything except for raising our Kundalini, except for meditating for it for very little time and to achieve that state of joy?

Today my feelings are really full of joy, full of joy, because now I can see how things are happening, how one person can produce thousands and thousands of Sahaja Yogis.

I saw one miracle, I told once that one seed has all the thousand trees it is going to produce and when I saw a new technique of tissue culture, I was amazed that on one little seed there were so many little, little primules who had come out.

In the same way, you are all capable, and you all can do it, but what is needed is faith in yourself and also complete sincerity about Sahaja Yoga. If that happens today, you have really celebrated my birthday. If you think that my birthday is important, that for me very important is that everybody gets their spiritual birthday.

May God bless you.

[Applause]