Shri Ganesha Puja. Canberra (Australia). 14 April 1991.

This will be the fifth puja in Australia, and I thought that this is the land of Ganesha, [so] we should have the Ganesha Puja. It is very important also, very helpful. We all should have Ganesha Puja, it’s very important. And so today there will be Shri Ganesha Puja. Have you got the hundred and eight names of Shri Ganesha?

So we have now requested John Fisher to be your leader in Canberra. And he has agreed.

I don’t know what more to tell you about Shri Ganesh, because really it is so important that we have to know the importance of Mooladhara Chakra. If you read the newspaper, just on the first page you find people going amok as far as their moral sense is concerned, absolutely. I mean, to us it is something so shocking, and perhaps I think people are possessed on their Mooladhara Chakra. The way they behave, one feels that there’s something gone wrong with them completely and they have no control over themselves; and just like mad people they are behaving. And all these problems that are coming, of these perversions, are due to this kind of a possession on the Mooladhara Chakra. One has to be very, very careful and respectful about it. I have already told so many things [about] how to keep it clean, how to respect it, and how to behave yourself.

As you know, Shri Ganesha was created at the gate of hell to protect us from falling into hell. But actually when we insult Him and we do not care for Him, He just sleeps off. When that happens, any kind of a possession can come and can really make people mad. When you come from India to these places, you are really surprised and shocked: What is wrong with these people, how can they be behaving in this manner? How can they go all out to ruin themselves like this? And how is it they do not understand the importance of morality when they are following Christ? 

The Christians, I think, are the worst as far as morality is concerned. They have no moral values left in them. It’s such a sad thing that the number of people killed by Christians is also the maximum. Sometimes I think these people who were killed everywhere might have possessed the Christians this way, that they are just going amok and behaving in this manner, destroying themselves.

Now the first quality of Shri Ganesha is that He gives us wisdom. And that wisdom gives us the sense [of] how to behave, gives us the balance, and gives us the sense [of] how to behave towards ourselves—how to preserve yourself, how to respect yourself. But if Ganesha is not at all there to watch you, it might be from hell some horrible hellish bhoots are coming out – or I don’t know, I cannot explain this kind of a thing. Now [it is] the other way round, I’ll tell you, in India, especially with women, they are extremely particular about their chastity, extremely particular.

Like we had a queen called Padmini, and she was a very beautiful woman. And one Muslim aggressor who became sultan heard about her beauty. So he wanted to see her. So she refused: “I don’t want to see him.” Even seeing a woman like that: those bad eyes, are bad – seeing a woman also – are bad.

So he said, “If you do not allow me to see her, I’ll invade your country.” So she agreed that, “All right, he can see me in a mirror, so at least his bad eyes don’t fall on me directly.” She agreed to that. And he saw her in a mirror, and he saw that it was even more beautiful than he had thought her to be. So now he wanted to have her. So physical, so superficial. And he said, “If you now do not come to me, I will again attack.”

So they made a plan: “Let us now decide whether we are going to surrender our queen or not.” So everybody said, “Nothing doing. We are not going to surrender.” Because the chastity of a woman is very important—and that of a queen. And a queen, who is representative of all the womanhood, should not be sacrificed like this. They could not bear the idea even.

So they said that, “All right, we’ll organize something and cheat these people.” So they sent a word, “All right, we are all coming and the queen is coming too.” And they sent a hundred palanquins—we use palanquins for ladies in India, covered—and inside every palanquin there was one warrior sitting with all the weapons. And there were four carrying the palanquin, and all these four were also warriors. So, thus, they have about five hundred warriors. It was a small kingdom. So when they went down, these people were very happy: “The queen is coming!” And they were all getting drunk and celebrating it: “The queen is coming. Queen is coming.” So they were half drunk also.

They had told these women that, “In case we win, then we [will light] a fire and you will know that we have won. But if you do not see anything like that, then be sure that we have lost the war.”

So the king sat in the front palanquin, and the rest of them, and they went and attacked them, in the sense that they first entered inside, and then instead of the queen the king came out, and they all fought those people. But they were only five hundred so they could not be saved, and these people had better weapons, so they were killed. They did not light the fire. 

Now the women knew that all of them will be coming. Now they were very rich sultans, very rich Muslims and things like that. But they thought that now their chastity is in danger. So there was a big platform and they made a big pyre on that. And they all entered into it and killed themselves, before they could enter and touch their body.

So for women, especially, it is very important to have a great sense of chastity. And if they do not have the great sense of chastity, then they develop all kinds of funny ideas, and mentally they become very imbalanced. And the children that they have also become very funny and you have all these problems of perverted relations, incest relations. Today I read a horrible story about a little girl who suffered with this incest relationship.

It’s hell that we have created. In hell, what else is going to be? Same thing. There’s no sanity about it, there’s no wisdom about it.

So we have to now understand how we have to build ourselves as Sahaja Yogis. Men and women, all of them, have to go hand in hand, because the first quality I told is wisdom, but the essence of Mooladhara is innocence. They are made of innocence. The power of Ganesha is innocence. And innocence comes when you do not destroy it. Actually a child is born innocent, but if the mother is like that, immediately the child takes over. And if the father is like that, the son takes over. But later on it has the effect, whether it’s mother or father. The whole society is decadent, is in decadence, is going down. You can see it so clearly.

Thanks to certain great saints in India, who made the culture of India—it has not come from any philosophers or any writers or intellectuals, but it has come to us from the saints who understood the value of chastity, and who understood the value of innocence. And they have built the whole thing in such a manner that these things never enter into our head. So we call them as susamskaras, means “good conditionings.” These good conditionings are surrounding us so much that this never enters into our head, all these kinds of things that people are doing here – are mad. When it doesn’t enter into your head, we can say that we just do not allow these possessions to come in. 

Because if you make preparation in a way for these possessions to come in, then the possessions will be there. Like the way people dress up nowadays, you see, they look like really witches or bhoots, absolutely. And such people will be definitely attacked, because the bhoots think that, “These are someone like us. Let’s go enter them.”

Also Agnya is not to be covered. I have told a hundred times, please don’t cover your Agnya. Please clear it down. Don’t cover your Agnya. If you cover your Agnya, then you cannot be protected. They enter into your Agnya and from Agnya they can go up to your Mooladhara. So you are living in an atmosphere which is very dangerous for saints to live. Actually that’s why they said the saints must go to Himalaya. If they could say that to Indians, I don’t know what should I say to people who live in such horrible circumstances, absolutely horrible. I mean, you think about it, how terrible it is, and how many problems it gives us; how many people are ruined, how many children are ruined, how we go amok.

So the first thing is that we should understand that Ganesha gives us maryadas, limits. It is innate within us. It’s not imposed on us, it is innate. A little girl if you see, she’s shy, she knows how to protect herself. Even the boys, they are shy and they try to protect themselves. But that innate innocence we try to flout, because ego is there: “What’s wrong?” You tell them anything: “What’s wrong?” And you do not know how devastating it is. 

In London I know of so many parents telling Me that their children are already squatting, they have already got children. At a very young age, about fifteen, sixteen, they have got children. And this is so widespread, and so shamelessly they discuss [it]. I mean, in the newspaper if you read, I mean you can’t imagine why to write all these things in such details in the newspaper. There’s no need to write each and every thing in the newspaper.

But basically, we are good people. God has created us [as] good human beings. We are beautiful people, but this ego and this kind of a stupid idea that, “What’s wrong?” in doing anything, coming from ego. People have gone amok, and when you go amok, you get caught up by these bhoots. And then once you are caught up by these bhoots, you start behaving in a manner that no one can explain. “Why do they behave like this?” I just don’t understand.

There was a boy who came with all his hair not properly done and looking funny and with all these jattas, as we call them. So I asked him, “Why do you dress up like this? You look like a primitive man.” He said, “I want to be primitive.” I said, “You cannot. Your brain is modern. By just making such hair, are you going to become primitive? You cannot become primitive.”

But just imagine, all these external things they do. For what? To have an identity. Now this idea of identity is also a sign that you do not have your maryadas. You can do anything. You can become a punk, and all kinds of things you do. I mean, there are no maryadas. And that means you are denying Ganesha completely. 

Ganesha has created those maryadas innately within us. Even a prostitute in India, if she has to take to that profession because she’s forced into it—maybe she’s been brought from somewhere or maybe that out of her big problems she might have been a prostitute—she will see that her child is saved. She knows that it’s wrong. But here it is so bad that we do not know also that it is wrong. Can you imagine, this is the limit of things: that you see yourself getting drowned in the water and you know that you are going to be killed, still you are enjoying, “Very nice, I am going to be killed.” This is the situation of the wisdom. This is really shocking.

So we have to now understand what our maryadas are, how we have to live within our maryadas, and I’m sure [this can be done] if you really work out your Shri Ganesha. For that, the best is to meditate. Put yourself on some nice turf, grass. Sit on that. Put your left hand with the light, and right hand on the Mother Earth, and say Atharva Sheersha. If you can remember it by heart, it’s a very good thing. Otherwise, you can keep the book and read it, or say Ganesha’s mantra to begin with. It’s going to help you very much. It’s going to help you, your eyes, it’s going to – your whole thing – is going to be very nice. 

And also with this kind of a mad Mooladhara, a woman can become extremely aggressive with her husband. I mean, she can be a very cruel woman, and that’s what is happening in America now. But I can’t understand how women could be that cruel. I mean, I never used to think women could be cruel, really. I mean they could be sly, they could be, sort of, doing some scandal-mongering or some sort of stupid things like that. But that a woman should be a cruel woman! When I first read the history of England, I was surprised that there were some queens who were very cruel, and also that there were seven queens who were killed. In India, if a king kills even one queen, he’ll be ousted completely from the whole country.

So, it’s not a…very simple thing. It’s very serious. For Sahaja Yogis it’s very, very serious. They have to revive their innocence. They have to revive their maryadas. They have to delimit themselves. It’s very important. Otherwise, I would say that if you have some wheat spread out everywhere, how can you reach the heights? You have to put them into some bags, some maryadas. Only by maryadas you can rise. Of course the Kundalini will help. Of course Ganesha will help also. But we should also try to watch ourselves. There should be introspection: “Are we still in the same category?” 

I have told many people that it is better you walk with your eyes towards the grass, at only three feet, because at three feet you can only see children, flowers, and grounds. Not higher than that. Nothing very beautiful is beyond that, I think. Or raise [your eyes] much higher, so that you just see above the heads of people. Nothing in between. And our whole style, lifestyle is so funny; I just don’t know how to explain it, but it is accepted.

Yesterday there was an Indian and very seriously he came and told Me, “I have been committing one sin, so I must tell you.” I said, “What?” “In my family nobody takes beer, but I am taking beer sometimes.” After that I didn’t know where to look and what to say. Very seriously he said, “You are Mother, so I must confess to You, but now I will never touch beer.” Imagine. Very seriously he was talking. 

And another fellow came, who has told Me – I said, “Now you Indians don’t want to come to this thing. What is it, you are all making money?” He said, “We have made a lot of money here and we don’t want any money.” But I said, “Then why don’t you come? You should come and take your – to Sahaja Yoga. Why?”

He said, “You see, Mother, mostly the trouble is…” – with very great hesitation, he said that – “…you see, mostly it is not advertised in Indian papers, and we Indians think that we are rather of a different species, you see. How are we going to fit in with these people, because you see, their ideas are so different, ours are so different, and how are we going to fit in with them? It’s very difficult. But this time I saw some Indians also and some Indian musicians singing, so it seems that we can fit into them.”

“Yes,” I said, “They can fit in to you and you can fit in to them. It’s easy. They are your style only.” He said, “We were really enamoured how they were nice, you see, and they were…” Because they do not consider that these things are bad or anything. India is like that, you see. They think you are of a different bottle and they are of a different bottle. So you are like that and they are like that. They cannot be like you and you cannot be like them, so they think it is a different bottle you belong to, you see, a different category of people. But they don’t think that you are bad or good, they don’t pass judgment. 

But this is what it is, that we have to understand that we have gone too far with this madness, spoiling our Shri Ganesha.

Also Australians have to give a very big lead in Shri Ganesha’s area because you are sitting on the soil of Shri Ganesha. To all the Sahaja Yogis, you must show. But, as you know, we had horrible experiences so far, and how people have been dominating and doing all kinds of nonsensical things, money-wise and otherwise, also morality-wise. 

So it sometimes upsets the whole balance of Sahaja Yoga because it’s all depending on Shri Ganesha—that means depending on Australians. And Australians have all the possibility of reaching a great height in Ganesh Principle, because they have the Mother Earth here sitting down. What else do they want? You need not take to stupid American-style things. I mean, if you see their Hallowe’en, I tell you, you won’t eat your food for eight days. And if you go only to Rio, even [if] you do not visit their carnivals but even if you see the pictures, you won’t eat your food for one month, so horrible they are.

So are we going to follow them, or are we going to start our own Australian Shri Ganesha’s special people? Or, this I have to warn you—and people are all watching all over, all Sahaja Yogis are there; you know that all over the world we have Sahaja Yogis. They’re watching everyone, and you have to do your maximum to express your Ganesh Principle, which should be very easy for you. 

And as I have told you, that Australia was a part and parcel of India once upon a time. It has come down here. So, at least in your films and all that, you can say they’re dharmic. They are dharmic. They’re not so bad as the American films are. But still, this idea of copying the French or the Americans shows that we have lost our personality. But Shri Ganesha gives you a personality. He gives you your personality because He gives you maryadas. You see, by maryadas only, you get your personality. A person is known by his maryadas. And that’s what has to come within us, are our maryadas.

So today’s puja is about Shri Ganesha. As of course you know, He has got four petals, and you know what He is placed in and what He does and all that, and how He looks after the chastity of His Mother and all that. But the main thing is that, how we develop Shri Ganesha within us. How people see us as the incarnations of innocence on this Earth. 

I know it’s very difficult, but imagine Shri Ganesha sitting on the gate of hell, of excretion, because He’s just like a lotus, above everything else, and He makes everything fragrant.

In the same way, I expect all of you, the Sahaja Yogis of Australia, to have that beautiful personality of Shri Ganesha, and that you emit that fragrance of innocence among all the Sahaja Yogis, and then among all the world.

May God bless you.