1983-08-24 Radio 74 Interview (Geneva) Part 1 and 2.
Lady interviewer: Could you join me now in a very cordial and very special welcome to Shri Mataji. A great welcome to You.
Shri Mataji: Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
Lady interviewer: In the.. in the country of India, I know that there is much talk of… the word ‘enlightenment’ is used in a way that perhaps we of this world don’t fully understand. Would that be a place to start, that You talk to us a little bit about enlightenment and then go into Your own message?
Shri Mataji: Yes. India has a special advantage over many other countries, as far as the nature is concerned, because the nature of our country is such that people don’t have to worry so much of combating the nature. It’s warm country, and it has… it’s a very fertile country and it doesn’t require too much for you to exist in that place. You can even exist under a tree. It’s a …you can lead a very, very simple life in India and you need not have all the [elaborations] we need here to fight the nature. As a result of that, many people who were quite satisfied with their mundane lives took to deeper seeking – thousands of years back – in that country, where they wanted to find out the secrets of life, and they wanted to know why we are on this earth and why we have to go on existing like that; is there any greater purpose of our being here? And such people have been able to discover something very great, and that’s what they call it as enlightenment that we have to have. But I would say, it’s not only that the Christians have talked about it only. Indians have talked, Christians have talked, and Islamic religion has talked. Of course, Moses has talked… everybody has talked about it: that you have to become the Spirit.
Lady interviewer: That you have to become…
Shri Mataji: The Spirit
Lady interviewer: The Spirit
Shri Mataji: You have to be born again, of the Spirit
Lady interviewer: Of the Spirit. And this is a common thread that…through all the religions…
Shri Mataji: But the difference between the Indian life and the Western life is basically one … and that is that we believe that all our efforts should be that – to be the Spirit in India, basically. And outside it is not so; that all of our efforts should be that is not so. Secondly, there’s one more point which is very, very subtle and if you understand with little tolerance it is … That in India, religion is not organised so that it is not brought to the artificial level. If you have to become the Spirit, then it has to be the living process: by the living force of evolution. So you cannot just ‘brand’ somebody. You cannot say that you are that. You see, this is the problem. While here, people can become Christians without getting the proper experience of being Christians. Or they can be Muslims without becoming really the Muslims. The really to become something is the happening within us, which comes through the evolutionary process of a living process of a living God which everybody has talked of … why people have organised religion here, this I cannot explain. Because they are organising everything in the West perhaps they are also it’s like organising God with it. But in India, they understand that you cannot organise it; it’s a happening that has to happen. And because thousands of years back, people have been looking into it so they know what to expect when you are enlightened. What happens to you; what happens to your consciousness. They know that your consciousness has to change, that you have to be at a higher consciousness and that is called as [Samadhi ?] – means Collective Consciousness.
Lady interviewer: And there can be a universal good collective consciousness and a universal…bad…
Shri Mataji: And that you become a part and parcel of that whole. You become, in the sense that you have the consciousness in your central nervous system; you can feel the other person. For example supposedly I can feel you, I can feel your centres, then you are not the other, you are me. Then there is no ‘other’. This is a happening which is a reality, which is not a supposition or a mental projection or an organisation.
Lady interviewer: Is this in any way the equivalent… like in Christian Science they speak of one mind in the universe?
Shri Mataji: Of course, the same, of course the same. In India, Christ is respected as Mahavishnu. It’s described thousands of years back: even before He came to this earth He’s described there. But you see, people never connected. In India, Christ [is?] Mahavishnu because the image we got of Christ was very foreign.
Lady interviewer: How was that?
Shri Mataji: First of all, the image we got that we can get converted. That is absurd [Sarah (interviewer’s name?)] because how can you get converted? You think by branding somebody, how can you become better?
Lady interviewer: How can you become better, You said?
Shri Mataji: Just if you brand somebody now you… supposing I say, ‘I’m the governor, maybe ‘governor’, do I become governor? You see, the becoming part is missing so we couldn’t understand what sort of a Christ this must be who has sent these people just to brand as something like Christian. Secondly, the another image we had of Christ was that He is the one who talks of the Spirit and nothing else. So the people who have to do the work of Christ have to give enlightenment; they are to be ‘enlightened’ people.
Lady interviewer: And this enlightenment is truly becoming one with the Holy Spirit…
Shri Mataji: With the whole. With the whole.
Lady interviewer: Now, does this have anything to do with what I understand as nirvana, or eventually rising so high in consciousness that you become a blend – like a drop of water would blend into the ocean?
Shri Mataji: Yes, yes, same thing. It’s the same thing.
Lady interviewer: So you eventually would lose your individuality…
Shri Mataji: No, you do not.
Lady interviewer: You do not?
Shri Mataji: You do not lose your individuality. But it is like, you see… like the trees if you see, every leaf is different.
Lady interviewer: Yes.
Shri Mataji: But it’s supplied by the same source. If the leaf becomes conscious of the source, it doesn’t leave its identity but it’s conscious of the source and is nourished by the source.
Lady interviewer: And in being conscious of the source and putting your own…
Shri Mataji: Is being enlightened.
Lady interviewer: Conscious of the source is being enlightened, ah yes. And…
Shri Mataji: On the central nervous system. Conscious doesn’t mean mental. On the central nervous system, you should feel the force flowing through your fingers.
Lady interviewer: That may be equivalent to something in Christianity where some days you say, ‘I feel today I’m enveloped in Grace. I feel…’
Shri Mataji: Why yes, but this is not today. Once you have it, you have it… all the time…
Lady interviewer: All the time?
Shri Mataji: Yes, so this is not today but in Christianity, what you say is true Christianity is nothing but enlightenment. True Christianity, I say this is true Christianity… This is true baptism that I’m talking about, where you actually see the rising of the force from the sacrum bone with your naked eye, which pulsates through, reaches your fontanel bone area on top of your head and gives you baptism, so that you can feel the cool breeze of the Holy Ghost coming out of your head. Actually you feel that.
Lady interviewer: And how do you feel that, how does this happen?
Shri Mataji: It happens spontaneously. It has to be a living process. How do living things happen? Supposing you ask Me a question, ‘How does a seed sprout?’ What will I say? You put it in the Mother Earth and it does. So, I’ll tell you the history about it, the consciousness if you follow it. But first of all, you see it was the masculine development of the consciousness, like going extraversion you can say, or going outward and the tree growing too much, sort of thing. And all these things have developed so much, have gone to an extent now that it has to stop. Now what is the second part of it… Now as you see in the world, there is feminine consciousness coming in today, in a wrong way maybe. Like a pendulum, it is a rebellion: they are going into a rebellion, which is nonsense, you see. And maybe that they are acting just like human… men and thinking that they are sort of achieving something great in consciousness is wrong. What you have to know the consciousness always moves spirally higher; wherever you become form one to another, you are born at a higher consciousness. So this is rebellion; I am talking of revolution that has to take place.
Now this revolution will only take place when this masculine development is achieved with nourishment from the feminine part – see, from the womb, from the Mother Earth. You see so far, we have been exploiting the Mother Earth you see, creating all kinds of problems – the men, I must say have done it. Now there is nourishment and this is the time that where the force which i am telling you which is called as Kundalini, is expressing the womb. It represents that feminine personality within us which rises, rises. It’s called as also as Kumbha which you call as Aquarius. It represents as Aquarius, which is why this is the Age of the Aquarius. Here this kundalini rises and She gives you the realisation. First, human beings have to be developed up to this stage as you are, and then this kundalini has to rise, so the time has come – the Blossom Time has come. All described, all described in the Bible also.
Lady interviewer: How? Where?
Shri Mataji: Of course, when He said, ‘The Comforter will come,’ Christ has talked of the future. He didn’t say that I have stopped everything now and The Comforter has to come, The Redeemer has to come and The Counsellor has to come. Then He has also talked… John has said that he has seen… visions and all those things are there. So now, what has The Comforter has to do? These are the… what are the qualities of a womb He’s a comforter, He’s a counsellor, He’s a redeemer.
Lady interviewer: And so, You feel that the opening of this consciousness is now coming at the end of the age of the Fish and going into the Age of Aquarius, that everything is changing.
Shri Mataji: Of course, that is what it is. And it has to change, because what happens when you become collectively conscious. I mean is the thing now you have become a human being, so now then you become a human being, your consciousness is different from that of an animal. For example, an animal, if you put him into a dirty lane, he can pass through it but a human being cannot because he has another consciousness. Now this consciousness is so much higher that you become collectively conscious, about which Jung has talked a lot what collective is. And this is what actually happens – it’s an actualisation that you should experience. And this is the difference between the Western organised religions and the Eastern unorganised; where the individual has to find something for the betterment of the whole.
Lady interviewer: The Indians do have – I’m not into India so please excuse or forgive my naive questions – but I understand that there are temples in India to various deities or different states of consciousness, if you will. And so how is that not organised?
Shri Mataji: You see, that is not organised. These are built by people around the…just the village people just organised one temple and have it there and they have their own things. It is not organised. You may not belong to any temple, you may not belong to any…
Lady interviewer: You don’t pay any dues?
Shri Mataji: No, nothing like that.
Lady interviewer: There are no [capital ?] committees?
Shri Mataji: No, nothing.
Lady interviewer: No ladies aid societies?
Shri Mataji: No, nothing like that.
Lady Interviewer: Nothing?
Shri Mataji: There’s nothing like that. But these people are also whomsoever are dealing with this temple business, are also [shallow?]. We would not call them as realised souls, though they are supposed to be Brahmins, meaning ‘the one who knows the Brahma’, the one who is a realised soul, the one who can feel the all pervading power of God’s Love which is of the Holy Ghost, Virgin Incarnate. That he should feel – he is the Brahma. He’s the one who is the Brahmana. But how many we have like that in India, I don’t think… I’ve not met any. They are all very shallow people, just cleaning and servicing the temple. But they are not taken as something great, authorities on religion. See, they are just doing cleaning of the temple and all that and maintenance of the temple. But there is no such organisation where they regularly collect your money and give you receipts and things like that – it doesn’t exist. [14:13]
Lady interviewer: We’re listening today to Shri Mataji, an Indian woman who has reached enlightenment and who is coming here in Geneva to speak to people in this area – when will that be? [Asking yogi for details of public programs] When is your… next week? 29th,30th and 31st. And She has come to freely speaking, where we always seek the freedom of expression of those people who are approaching, knowing the universal Holy Spirit in that way, and we thank You for coming here today. Now, in the religions of India – again I understand, as I have been told – that some people feel that there is something in those religions, whether they… where the different parts of them, whether they are organised or not, that may be keeping the people from each other in different states of consciousnesses or castes, or keeping them in a state of… of poverty which would be in contrast with some kind of a vigorous Christianity that… that once made people get out and dig and work. You’ve known both sides; could You speak to that difference?
Shri Mataji: You see, we have… we have no sort of a class consciousness as you have here really, to be very frank. A poor man is there – of course we accept that somebody’s poor, somebody’s rich – but like a class consciousness that you feel in the Western world, we don’t have. We are not conscious of our class. On the contrary, we regard it bad manners to talk about your wealth or to show off your wealth you see, something very traditionally. Supposing if you are a rich person, you have a huge palace as your house, and you have to invite someone to your house, you’ll never say that, ‘Come to my palace,’ but you’ll say, ‘Come to this poor man’s abode, a hut’. That’s the way we talk, you see. Also, it’s not regarded good manners to display your wealth and display everything, and according to the symbolic expression of our culture is that the Goddess of Wealth has to have four qualities and one of them is how much She gives in charity. One hand is for charity, one is for protection – how many people, how many students, how many needy people are given protection? Then there are two hands, they have got – She’s has four hands, sort of – two other hands have got lotuses in their hand, and pink lotus means warmth, love – how much loving the person is, how well mannered and cultured he is. And the another quality of the lotus is that it gives abode to a very thorny insect called as [dhrun?] in India – I have not seen that one here. It’s a very thorny black stuff. So it gives comfort and cosiness of that quality. So this is the sign of a rich man; the rich man means that. It doesn’t mean the kind of a rich… with that thing you see, the ego-orientated stuff; ego-orientated man is not rich, according to Indian understanding.
Lady interviewer: So, that the only riches are the Spirit.
Shri Mataji: I beg your pardon?
Lady interviewer: The only riches are of the Spirit.
Shri Mataji: Of course, and the man who is enriched by say, Spirit is even respected by the kings, even respected by everyone. Even our president of India stood up for Me when I went to see him and he would not sit down, and I said that, ‘Please make yourself… I mean, after all, I’m your citizen.’ He said, ‘No, before a saint, what am I?’
Lady interviewer: And yet You combine the qualities of spiritual enlightenment with the life of a woman You’re married, Your husband is a doctor, is that correct?
Shri Mataji: My…a doctor, no.
Lady interviewer: No?
Shri Mataji: He’s the Secretary General elected for one of the UN agencies of International Maritime Organisation in London.
Lady interviewer: And on behalf of many other ladies in the…in the audience, may I ask You, does Your career in Your… in Your religious activ… not religious, in Your enlightened activity interfere ever with…
Shri Mataji: No, not at all. On the contrary, it is dynamic. It is dynamic. I mean, all My husband’s friends are My greater friends. It’s dynamic because it is love: it’s pure love and it heals, cures, it gives security. It’s the greatest thing, I mean they love Me all of them, love Me so much.
Lady interviewer: Does healing come from within or from without?
Shri Mataji: Within, within. Only it [cures?] you see. You don’t do anything for healing. It just… it heals, that’s all. It emits from you, the energy is emitted and then you just get healed, you don’t have to do anything about it, just you get healed with it.
Lady interviewer: What makes a man sick?
Shri Mataji: The imbalances in life, the extremes that are troubling … Like for example, fanatics can get terrible diseases, like cancer also – they just close their minds to all that is the whole – can get into trouble, you see. So all these things can give you problems; insecurity in life. Then another thing I used to tell these people – they didn’t like me in England before when I told them that promiscuous life and all these diversions of life it’s very wrong, it will bring out a disease which you will not be able to combat, and they called Me Victorian at that time. See, English language has certain pranks; one of them was Victorian, it’s the most condemned one. And ultimately, now you see there are diseases called AIDS which are coming, and they have no cure for that. But if they become Sahaja Yogis, if they get their enlightenment, they can be cured.
Lady interviewer: Can You speak to us again of… I didn’t quite understand, the energy force that You said is at the base of the spine, how does this operate, how do You call it and You said it just came into being. But if you’re just walking around on the street one day, can you get that, or else do you have to be on the path or how does that happen?
Shri Mataji: You see, this force is alive, dormant in the triangular bone; we call it as Kundalini in Sanskrit language.
Lady interviewer: How do you say that word?
Shri Mataji: Kundalini, Kundalini. [Interviewer repeats] The ‘kundala’ means coiled, because it’s three and a half coils. There’s a symbol of the eternity, that’s why it is three and a half coils. It has also lots of meaning of three and a half which is a vast subject, but I’ll just say that it is three and a half coiled energy which is not yet awakened. Now this energy is the energy for our Pure Desire: all other desires are not pure except for one desire to be one with the Spirit. Now this Pure Desire is not yet manifested so it still…we call it sleeping. But when it manifests, you become the Spirit, because She passes through the subtle six centres that are within you and pierces through the fontanel bone area which is the ultimate centre, which is the seventh because the first one She doesn’t cross through. And that is the time where… because the seat of the Spirit on top of your head [He] resides in the heart. As soon as She crosses that limit, you start feeling the cool breeze in the hands flowing, like a very soothing force.
Lady interviewer: And does this… is this force a healing force for [cut in audio]
[Soundcloud tracks for 1984-0824 Radio74 Interview-2 start from here]
Shri Mataji: … Exhaustion causes the diseases [Nirmala Vidya -1983-0824 Interview Geneva HD track starts from here] and sicknesses, even mental sicknesses at different levels. Now this exhaustion takes place because we go to extremes, you see. The extreme use of things, that’s why it gets exhausted. And these exhaustions are fulfilled or nourished or, we can say vitalized by these, so the person feels all right. It’s very simple.
Lady interviewer: So the… what Western medicine or what medicine in general calls organic disease is nothing more than an imbalance of the forces of love and the Spirit.
Shri Mataji: Of course, of course, no doubt. But I would put it like this, that modern medical sciences as they are, they talk of the autonomous nervous system. Autonomous…
Lady interviewer: Autonomous nervous system.
Shri Mataji: In that, we have got the left side autonomous nervous system and right side autonomous nervous system as sympathetic nervous system. And in the centre, we have got parasympathetic nervous system. Now, the sympathetic nervous system acts for all our emergencies, for all our extreme behaviour. And these two form the centre, and in the centre lies the parasympathetic nervous system. Now the parasympathetic nervous system has got limited energy which it supplies to the sympathetic to keep a balance. But if you go beyond limits, then you exhaust it completely then parasympathetic also fails and there is no balance brought in.
Now if you ask any doctor and if he is honest, he will tell you that they don’t know anything about parasympathetic nervous system. Now, who is this ‘auto’ we should find out. This ‘auto’ is the Spirit. And when this Kundalini rises, She enlightens and nourishes this parasympathetic nervous system which again, by itself balances.
I don’t have to tell you that you don’t drink, you don’t do…: I never say that. You yourself will not do it because the religion gets enlightened within you, the living religion and you just don’t do it. I mean, you just don’t do it because your attention is not there anymore, finished.
Lady interviewer: I’ve heard it said that, never try and give up a bad habit but if you think first on the Lord, think first on God, then those things give you up – they go away.
Shri Mataji: They do. They run away, they run away. You see, there was a gentleman, a doctor. He came to Sahaja Yoga and he lost all his habits. He became master of his own. But once he went to Germany, after two months, and he said, “Let me try” the wine he likes. “So, let me try some wine, what does it matter?” And when he drank, he felt just horrible; he got all the smell of the molasses in it. He threw it away and vomited. He said, “What is this nonsense I have been drinking?”
Like that, it happens to you. I mean we have had alcoholics, people who have been taking drugs for years! People came in coma to Me, you wouldn’t believe. They all have given up. I never tell them. I am a mother, I’m not here to dominate or to curb your personality. I’m here to nourish you, to make you grow into your own being, to be your own master, to be your own guru.
Lady interviewer: Then suppose that somebody listening says, “My greatest desire – my greatest lack rather – is companionship. I’m living in this town, I’m alone, I’m…I don’t have any friends, I go to the office every day and I just come home at night to a lonely place. What can I do to find companionship and love?”
Shri Mataji: You’ll get companions and companions and you’ll have no time for feeling alone. That’s one thing definitely promised in Sahaja Yoga. Because what happens, you become collectively conscious. And once you become collectively conscious, there are so many who become collectively conscious with you because it’s a masse thing that is happening today. It used to be individual before now it’s masse, that’s what I have done. That’s My… I should say, if you say it’s My discovery, how to do the masse evolution.
Lady interviewer: How to do the mass?
Shri Mataji: Masse, en masse, this happens en masse.
Lady interviewer: En masse?
Shri Mataji: En masse.
Lady interviewer: A collective?
Shri Mataji: Collectively. So, thousands of them can get Realisation at the same time. You’ll be amazed, I even brought one gentleman from India who has come. He has given Realisation to ten thousand people himself in India.
Lady interviewer: How do you give Realisation?
Shri Mataji: I mean there are no words to say, you manifest I mean to say. There is no giving as such.
Lady interviewer: So, you open yourself to the being which then radiates?
Shri Mataji: No, you see, it is simple, as I would say an analogy, like a lamp is ready, say, a candle is ready. Now another candle which is enlightened can enlighten another candle, isn’t it? What do you do? Nothing.
Lady interviewer: So, you just…you just are.
Shri Mataji: Manifest, yes, you are. And you become that.
Lady interviewer: And…
Shri Mataji: Then you become the same: you can give it to others.
Lady interviewer: So, you are recognised, each person that is ready for that enlightenment recognises their…
Shri Mataji: I don’t rationalize.
Lady interviewer: You don’t rationalize…
Shri Mataji: I don’t judge anyone. I just stand there and people put their hands toward Me and they get it. Some people are declared to be the worst sinners, this, that, they got it. I don’t know how people judge others; you see? It’s better to leave it to God to judge; I don’t judge anyone. And it works out. Thousands can get it so what is there to judge? There’s no time for judging anymore left now. Those who want should have it.
Lady interviewer: What about somebody that listens and says, “But I’ve lived three quarters of my life and I realise now that I’ve done the wrong thing and I took the wrong path and nothing is working out right. And I look back at my life and I see a series of crashing failures and broken relationships and all those things. How can…?”
Shri Mataji: You see, for such people, I would say that they must think of the present, not of the past or of the future. Because past doesn’t exist, it’s finished. And the future also doesn’t exist. Think of the present. Now, I am before you: you want to have your Realisation, so have it. Why to think of the past? Forget it, it’s not important. And the more you’ll think of these things you will develop a guilt which will give Me trouble because I’ll have to clear out one side of your centre, you see? So, not to feel guilty. Whatever has happened, has happened. Everything is forgiven, forget it! You’d better forgive yourself.
Lady interviewer: So, forgiveness is very much a part of the…
Shri Mataji: Of course, that is the greatest weapon we have. That’s one of the mantras we have to use that you forgive yourself and you forgive others.
Lady interviewer: Then, basically, the enlightenment runs through all the thought systems as You said in the beginning of our conversation. That much of what You say is Christian in the getting rid of the guilt and in the forgiveness and… it runs through other religions as well.
Shri Mataji: Everywhere, it’s just the same, you see, you have to just see how they are related to each other. Christ Himself has said that, “Those who are not against Me are with Me”. Who are those? Nobody has tried to find out. It is said that, “I’ll appear before you like tongues of flames”. What is that? These are the centres. It’s clearly said. Even Muhammad Sahib has said that you have a power in your bone, triangular bone called as Assas. Even the Greeks believed in it. Not only that but Muhammad Sahib has gone to this extent to say that, “When the Resurrection time will come, your hands will speak”. But no one wants to talk of Resurrection, everybody wants to talk of the Doomsday. Nobody wants to talk of the Comforter, they want to talk about the white horse. But when the white horse will come, no argument, no explanation, no interviews: that will be the last sorting out. So, please, this is a very important time. Everyone must know that we haven’t achieved anything so far, whatever we have been doing. So, give us a chance. We have to be fair to ourselves and to our Creator. Because He has taken so much care to make you a human being. He has put in all His efforts. He’s anxious that you enter into His kingdom. You must give Him a chance and don’t stick onto things, don’t get misidentified. What have you got, just measure that. Now what you have to get is so simple.
[Cut in the audio]
Lady interviewer: Now?
Shri Mataji: Now, you can get it now. This is the time.
Lady interviewer: Today we are very privileged to have as our guest Shri Mataji who is going to be available for you if you would like to hear Her speak in greater depth on the 29th, 30th & 31st of August at 7.30 (p.m.) in the communal “Salle Communale” at Chêne-Bougeries [Geneva] which is on the “rue du Vallon” at the end of the Twelve tram line. I’m just looking at our time here because I would like to take you…where did I put my little thing? Here it is. You know we’ve only got twelve minutes left. I don’t want… I would like for You to say what You want to say, but I would very much… I am quite interested in the idea of reincarnation that I believe….did it not start and is it not of the Indian religions, and what You believe and think about that?
Shri Mataji: Reincarnations of human beings has to be there, we can understand it, that if you are born say today as a Jew, or you are born as a Christian, or you are born as a Muslim, you adhere to one aspect of life, but you have not seen the other aspects. I’ve seen now people, while they are coming to Me….I went to a Muslim country – Iran -now it’s all finished but at that time… And I was amazed that I saw these Muslims and they looked like staunch Brahmins of last life, you see. Once they went like a pendulum, they have moved from one extreme to another extreme and that extreme to this extreme. To correct yourself, God Almighty who is compassion and love has to give you a choice. And that’s how He gives. Now if you ask for something too much, you get it. And you learn a lesson that, “Oh, that was no good. I should not have asked for it”.
Lady interviewer: In the reincarnation idea, I once had an idea that…to take just an obvious example in my own experience in the south, that if a white man hung a black man and they had a race war, that the white man would come back one day as a black man who was hung. And if the black man were nice, he would come back as something else nicer. Now is that cra[zy]… in other words, that people…if you really hate and you really try and harm, that you would come back in another life as the object of the thing that you hated? Do You think that could be possible?
Shri Mataji: Do you know, it is the other way round. What happens, now say as the white man has aggressed a black man, as you said it, he has hanged him, then he will become a spirit, (the black man) and when the white man will take his birth, he will haunt him, he’ll possess him. He’ll get all kinds of diseases, even he can get cancer from that because all these maladies and all these diseases come from this kind of a thing which is a collective subconscious, the entry from the collective subconscious. So, this is what is the result. Today when people tell Me that their fake gurus from India who are possessing here and who are taking out their money and all that, I said, “It’s just they are now a subtle attack”, you see?
Lady interviewer: You take no money, do You?
Shri Mataji: Never. Why should I? How can you pay for My love?
[Cut in the audio]
Lady interviewer: …And yet You live and You exist.
Shri Mataji: Of course, because, after all, you see, you do something to exist always, don’t you? I have a husband who is quite well off so I have no problem. But otherwise, also, Christ was a carpenter. He didn’t take any money from anyone. Only for bad things people take money, I think. When they mesmerise others or do something just to be parasites. These are all parasitic people.
Lady interviewer: Then how does one recognize a fake prophet or a fake person who is leading to the consciousness of Spirit and God from one who is not?
Shri Mataji: We have to understand it in a little subtler way that, you see, a person who just comes for money and asks for your money, interested in you as a woman or as a man, or as a rich man or a highly placed man, cannot be a real man. That’s one thing. Because there is no interest in these phenomena, I don’t know whose position is what; I just don’t know what somebody is. And secondly is you must see how pure that person is: whatever he says in his private life, does he do it? Has he any credibility about it?
Thirdly, the best way to judge it: what happens to his disciples? Have they got something better than we have? Are they behaving in a better way than we are? Are they more righteous, more moral, more active, more dynamic? We should find out what sort of life they are living. If they just become cabbages, or if they become absolutely recluses, if they become… if they start suffering from all kinds of twitches and things and if they become nervous people, if they get epilepsy and all that, then such a man is a devil. We should come to the right conclusion.
Lady interviewer: So that,” By their fruits, ye shall know them”.
Shri Mataji: I beg your pardon.
Lady interviewer: “By their fruits, ye shall know them”.
Shri Mataji: Yes, you should. Everything is said in the Bible, very clearly, if you know how to read, that’s all. You see, “By their fruits, you shall know them”, what is the fruit is. Then, some people claim, somebody said, “He is a Christ”. I said, “All right, let him walk on the water”, that’s all, very simple. Somebody says, “You can fly”. All right, let him put on this Tower of Pisa, you see, which is made for such people, and let us see if they fly! You see, why pay money (to) them before seeing if they are flying or not? This is what it is, it is all the work on your ego, you see. They pamper your ego by saying that you can pay for them, you think you can buy – especially Americans. I must say Americans have this speciality, they think they can buy everything, they can buy London Bridge, they can buy everything… They cannot buy their Spirit. That’s one thing one must know, we cannot buy God, we cannot organise God, we have to be!
This is one point. Secondly is that about a true person, it is so that he looks after you. He cares for you. He loves you. The true person loves you. There’s a forgiveness, a kindness. It cannot be a person sitting on the seventh floor and talking big, you see. But people are so much enamoured by artificial things that I don’t know how to convince them that they must know what is the real and what is not the real.
Lady interviewer: How would You speak to people who feel that they are bound by poverty? There are people in wealthy countries whose poverty line incomes would seem like enormous riches to people in other countries, how do You speak to people who feel they are bound by poverty?
Shri Mataji: Those who are very poor are just the same as very rich. You see, the very poor have the same problems that the very rich have, you see. As the rich have lost all their virtues – very rich – the poor have also lost all of their virtues. The thing is one is on an ego trip, and the other is on a superego trip.
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The central path has to be taken; the central people first get their Realisation, those who are not very rich and those who are not very poor. Those who are very successful are very ego-oriented, those who are very highly placed also are very ego-oriented. Those who are very poor are superego, I mean, they think, “We are so miserable, we are no good, nothing”.
So, the people who have to work this evolution now in a masse scale are the people who are in the centre, neither very rich nor very poor. But then, once these people get to it, then the poverty can be cured very easily. Mostly the people like in India, you would say that people are poor – of course, in a way sometimes, poverty is a blessing, I would say that. You see, there is love for children, there is love for family, there is togetherness. But too much poverty comes to a country when it is more under the influence of the dead spirits, like in India. We have now Bengal for example. Bengal is a place where they have used a lot of these dead powers and these witchcrafts and this and that. And that’s why the poverty is there.
So, if you have used these witchcrafts and all these things, like Bihar is another place, U.P…. where there’s lots of these Tantrikas, and these horrible witchcraft people which have brought in this superego style. It comes from the collective subconscious. And the people who are collectively supraconscious, the worst of that was Hitler. Hitler was…
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Lady interviewer: …in line with the Christian teaching of “Think ye first on Me, on the Spirit and all other things shall be added unto you,” then?
Shri Mataji: Hundred per cent. You get even your material benefit. All the Sahaja Yogis who have come to Sahaja Yoga have been materially benefited. One and all; it’s hard to find a Sahaja Yogi who is not materially benefitted. Family-wise, mentally, emotionally, financially, in every way, everybody has been benefitted. And if you see them in a group, you’ll be amazed the kind of a glow they have on their faces. All their problems solved as far as the skin is concerned, the health is concerned, all problems solved!
Lady interviewer: By opening to the Spirit.
Shri Mataji: Yes, because the blessings of the God – we call it as Ritambhara Pragnya- is the quality of God by which the Mother Earth creates the seasons. The seasons start expressing themselves in your life. You get so fulfilled.
Lady interviewer: Why do you feel that there is such a cynicism rampant about any forms of religion or talk of states of consciousness unless it comes from feminism, or raising the states of consciousness; there, that’s all right. But if you talk about this in religion, it sets up an enormous cry of alarm. Why do you feel that is?
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