Eve of Ganesha Puja talk. California, (San Diego), USA. 6 September 1986.

It is so very beautiful to be in such natural surroundings with you all. In the hubbub of the city, you don’t find this peace and is very good for all those who are seeking their ascent. You all asked me to come for this Ganesh Puja. I thought it was essential that Shri Ganesha should be established and I am so very happy that there are so many Americans now who are Sahaja Yogis. Of course, compared to the population of America they are very few and we have to have many more. But they have basic problems and one of them I think is of Shri Ganesh and that’s why it was necessary to have this Shri Ganesha’s Puja in Los Angeles or you may call whichever places this one is? San Diego or on this mountain which I hope so, will be able to establish that essence of innocence which is so much in the sleeping state.

Today I just wanted to tell you few things as to how we should deal with the people who come around. The idea that we should deal with the seekers who are coming to see us is that we should try to belittle apologetic and to tell them about all chakras, give them a feedback, as they call it on the mental level.

But I do not think that’s a very good style. You have to first give them the experience of realization and tell them that this is not any gurudom or any such false hocus pocus as they call it, nonsense here, but is the evolutionary process which is a natural progressive manifestation of the power within us and you have to tell about Me. We have tried not to talk about Me and we have tried to avoid the topic. Perhaps because you think that there have been gurus and this and that and the gurus have brought a bad name. It’s not so. Even now people are going to those gurus in very large number and they start claiming they are semi-gods, demi-gods or gods or whatever it is.

So this kind of apologetic attitude will not convince them. You have to give them experience and say that this is the one whose grace has worked on you. Psychologically you’ll be amazed it always works the other way round. Supposing tomorrow you arrange my program San Diego, we can easily get three hundred people. But when you want to have a follow-on, they don’t want to come. Or when you have workshop if I am there they are so many and then they are not interested in seeing Me. So the reason for such a behaviour is only one, that they don’t want to go through all that mental occupation and mental acrobats that you want to tell them. As they want to feel Me in a meeting, they want to feel Me through you people and I think you must change your tactics.

In a simple natural way you tell them that we were seekers, we went to many gurus, we never found it. We were cheated. Here is somebody who doesn’t take any money, doesn’t want anything, doesn’t make you abnormal, you lead a very normal life, and gives you all kinds of blessings, direct. If you don’t want to experience it, you need not.

You see, it is like a person who is not a realized soul. He says, “I must fight my ego,” but with what do you fight? It’s you own ego. So you add to your ego. In the same way, when you go on pampering these people you add to their ego and they become hard-boiled eggs actually, impossible to penetrate.

So your devotion, dedication to Me will prove the results, no way out. If you talk to them directly, they wouldn’t listen to you. That’s human nature. You can’t help it. How do you explain that when I come and give a lecture in any place, there are so many because they think I am authentic, I speak with authority not with aggressiveness but with conviction and with a character? That conviction has to be expressed. On the contrary, when you start telling them there is a chakra, this thing, that thing, it’s all right. We can read a book. Why do we need these headaches? So you should be people of conviction, not of falsehood but of reality.

I must say today because you are all here we have got some very good Sahaja Yogis from India for you. I don’t know how far you listen to them. Like we have got Mr Kharde. He is the man who started Sangam Neer and those who have been to Sangam Neer have seen that a complete big gymnasium, like a huge big football area, was covered by the people who came down in Sangam Neer. And he really established this Sangam Neer city into a beautiful center. But you have to listen to him; otherwise, they are useless. Secondly, Cheryl is a very good Sahaja Yogini. Apart from anything, she is very auspicious, knowledgeable.

Knowledge of Sahaja Yoga is not the way you understand. It’s not the knowledge of chakras. It’s the knowledge of attitudes. It’s not the knowledge of any system. We don’t want to have systems, because every system creates a bondage, a kind of a slavery. We have to develop attitudes within us which attitudes are tried and tested on experience. So it is not what you can talk elaborately about chakras and things is important, but it is what you express your personality in your attitude toward things.

All kinds of systems are built up and especially in the West is a common habit to form a system. Some sort of a norm is to be formed. For example, a system will be built up: we eat our food like this. All right, then everybody starts eating the same way. Or they built up a system long time back, say, have tailcoats for dinners. For dinner, you must change your dress. Morning another dress. Then people got fed up with it. They said, “This is no good.” So they started anti-culture. So the anti-culture started with that they started hippies. Now hippies also had their system. To be a hippie you had to wear a dress like that, you had to be dirty, you had to have hair like that, you had to move in a particular fashion. Again another system was built in. When they broke that system then another. Now a punk system has come. Now that punk business is you have to have a dress like this. You have to have a particular type of a hair dress for which you have to spend so much money; otherwise, you are not a punk. So when they try to break also any systems they fall into another system and go on following systems and systems from one dead to another dead.

But the attitude is the same. Attitude doesn’t change. I have seen the hippies when they became the anti-culture, they started behaving in such a funny manner that there was no change at all. They became very arrogant, without any self-respect. Then came these punks. They are just the same. So the change in your attitude is the main transformation that takes place. Your priorities change absolutely. So we should not form a system.

As I told you last night, you should not say that eight hours meditation, nothing of the kind. Eight minutes are sufficient. It’s the attitude that is going to help your growth, not you are sitting for eight hours on one leg or something like that. There are some sadhus who just stand up and put one leg like this and they say, “We are sitting on one leg”. That’s not going to help. It’s a living process, and a living process has to be worked out in a living way. Allow it to work out. Allow it to grow. So the whole attitude should be changed. And when you start finding your attitudes towards life is changing then you must realize that you have become a Yogi. [Interruption]

So the attitude of a seeker is to be seen. If there is a seeker who is very arrogant and he is taking too much time, better not worry about him. But if there’s an attitude of a seeker who wants to get his Realization, you’d better do it. I think we have not yet touched those shores where there are real seekers existing. That’s why we are getting very, very few people.

Like when the fishermen are taking their trawlers on these waves of the seas, they know where there are shoals of fishes and they direct their trawlers to those places and catch fishes. In the same way, we must also, first of all, find out where are those seekers where we can direct our attention and our efforts. Like in [interruption] I would suggest that you must develop a positive attitude towards attending to those seekers -very positive in the sense that they are coming to ask you for something, you are not going to them. You should not show that you have in need of something, it is they who are in need of something. Because human beings are like that, sometimes they are like donkeys. If somebody is ahead of them, they’ll put their head to that person and allow their ears to be pulled out. If somebody is behind them, they start kicking that person. And I think in the whole of our attitude, in the West, we have been failing on this point. We have no need, if they want to come, let them come. If they want mental peace, they should come to us. “We don’t want mental peace”. All right, we have got compassion for them. We have love for them, but if they don’t want it, Christ has said, “Don’t throw your pearls”. And then once you start behaving in that way, you will see you will get the right type of people.

In Calcutta, when I went there, there is one Mr Jalan was a very wise businessman. He came to Sahaja Yoga. He sent letters to all the eminent people whom he thought would be seeking and he said he would like to go and meet them or they can come and see him. Out of all these letters, there were few people, of course, who answered and wanted to meet him. That’s how he met some very important people. Then he told them what is Sahaja Yoga, talked to them. And when I went there, he made Me meet them. One of them was an editor of a big newspaper who came to see Me and he saw Me, how I was treating people and how I was looking after them, and he wrote a beautiful article and he said, “Mother, tomorrow I will come to the program.” He came, he gave a very beautiful introduction and the whole thing started on a different line.

I can tell you about Italy. There’s one lady called Alganesh. She went and saw somebody whom she thought was a seeker and he is a Director in the Broadcasting in Italy, the Government Broadcasting. And he is a television man. She told him that you can get your realization. When I went and saw him, he said, “First you give me my realization. Then I’ll take your interview.” I said, “He is the man”, and I paid all my attention to him. I gave him realization. Also he had some experiences and then he just wholeheartedly came out as a big Sahaja Yogi and now in Italy, Sahaja Yoga is spreading very fast.

So you should not go about picking up some beggars on the street. “Please come to Sahaja Yoga. Please come to Sahaja Yoga”. What are they going to do? They are just liabilities. What are they going to help us? I am not saying that we should go after rich people or people who are of eminence but people who are already recognized by public as something sensible, wise, whom you think have good vibrations and are capable of doing something in Sahaja Yoga. I think you should approach boldly and tell that that you have found out this and this. If you approach ten people you will find that at least three people will be happy to do something. That’s a much better way of doing things than to catch hold of a one person here and a one person there and a one person there. They’ll come to you. I was surprised when they told me that there were lots of people who came; one by one all disappeared. One fellow was taught the complete Kundalini yoga for eight months and he also disappeared. He never had the experience. Once you establish them up to a point where they start feeling the vibrations and feeling the joy, they’ll never give up Sahaja Yoga. But you must also weigh a person, how deep he is. So the whole attitude towards spreading Sahaja Yoga should be that it is not a thing that is to be thrown away before people who do not understand.

I know you feel very much for the Americans. I, too, feel the same way and we wish we had more and more American people coming to Sahaja Yoga. No doubt. But it is only in our hand to work hard. We can’t say what we’ll achieve. We must also understand what are the problems of the American people, what sort of things that are obstructing them from coming to Sahaja Yoga. So perhaps maybe tomorrow I’ll be able to tell you what I have understood about them. Then you keep that in your mind. With that, if you approach with a proper attitude of self-confidence then I am sure you can do very well. But there should be self-confidence in you. That doesn’t mean that you should aggress but there should be a self-confidence. If you have to do something right, you have to be yourself, fully confident of it. Otherwise, nobody is going to believe you.

We want to get some more Sahaja Yogis from India to help you out. But first of all those who are here, I think you must try to listen to them. Instead of that I am she told me that you teach them. I am not saying that Indians are all very good, that they are very capable. One thing is that they have been with Me for days together. Apart from that, all Indians are not good than all the Americans but some of them are very good. And those who are very good must be respected, and try to understand the attitude of such people, what they have to tell.

The way you understand life is not correct. If it was correct, there would have been a different America. Lots of mistakes have been made. And to get to new life and to new styles, a new understanding of the new age, we have to understand that it is a new knowledge for us and we have to learn it and understand it.

So far we have had no knowledge about living processes. Whatever knowledge we have had is of dead, like you can make a house out of a dead tree, from dead to the dead. But living processes you have never understood. So the whole working of saintliness is nothing but your attitude towards the knowledge, how the living process of our evolution works out, and complete confidence in your knowledge. I am sure you’ll pay full attention to what I have said. Also, tomorrow you can ask Me questions about it. In this short time I cannot tell you everything elaborately. But I hope you understand that a new type of attitude is to be taken if you have to achieve that vision.

May God bless you.