“Taking care of children”, India Tour, Ganapatipule (India), 27 December 1993.

Today I am feeling rather sad [that] had to say something, hard things yesterday and you know [a] mother is like that (Mother is referring to a lecture in Marathi the previous day). You have to correct your children, you have to tell them something, but you don’t like it and you have to really put up yourself to that point, that you can say something to your children. And the effect was good they said, but I didn’t want them to cry or weep. I want them to be corrected, to understand the responsibility that they have.

We have to understand that we have a responsibility towards Sahaja Yoga; and that is, if you understand the first responsibility, is that you have to be very good Sahaja Yogis to begin with; that’s the greatest.

I have seen some very little girls also are very show-offs: they’ll be the first to sit further, they’ll be attracting my attention, doing these things. So they have to be told to behave themselves. There are so many things like that which are to be told to your children also. Like today so many leaders came and they also told me what is happening in India now, specially in Maharashtra – but I think it is all over – that they are taking to Western life, sitting before the mirror, all the time dressing up, thinking about their beauty, this, that. I mean, it was never done before. And the mothers allow them to do because they don’t want to face them. And then they see bad pictures and bad films and things like that, and then they have a bad effect of these bad films and they try to follow: at the age of sixteen years they want to fall in love or something like that.

All this nonsense is coming, I know that this filmmaking is a very dangerous thing these days. They are making all kinds of films to show that a sixteen year old girl and an eighteen year old boy run away from the house because they are ‘in love’. And what do they understand of it? No maturity of any kind to have a good married life.

But for a born-realised children it is different. They are very different. Because I have seen the reaction of my own grandchildren, how they react. So, like one of them said to me, “Can you imagine grandma that in our gardens, one young man running, another young woman running after him, dancing in the garden and kissing. Is it possible? The stupid things they do in the films!” They make fun of all these things. The youngest one, he came once to Cabella and there was some film made, of one actress, ‘Mandakini’ or something. She’s a Muslim lady, but she calls herself ‘Mandakini’. “Never see her films!” he says, “very bad, very bad!” I said, “What happened?” “Do you know what she did? She went into the River Ganges with very thin clothes and she came out and she insulted all of us. We don’t see her film.” I said, “Really? But must be, I said, the director.” “Yes, that horrible Raj Kapoor, he’s the worst. Thank God he’s dead now.” Imagine!

Even when they were young their reactions were like this. Even I have seen my elder one. She was engaged. She was thinking she’ll select her own. She wanted to marry somebody and she only stuck onto one fellow to see him, but to the end she was saying, “I don’t want to get engaged till I see this man thoroughly. I have not seen him.” I mean she never gave in fully. So I was we are never bothered about it. Whenever they are they behave in such a manner. Like another one in Delhi I asked her, “Why do you wear these khadi clothes all the time? Can’t you wear something better? What will people think, that we don’t give you any money?” She said, “No, it’s better. Nobody looks at you. It’s a very good idea.”

So this is a sign of a really born-realised. I have studied all of them, my grandson and three children. There’s no question. They are so moral, so moral! And we never told them these things. We never told them that, “This is good,” or, “that good,” or, “you should not do this.” They, themselves [understand]. Then my sister’s grandson the other day we met, he’s only a five year old boy, born-realised. So in Sahaja Yoga we don’t eat paan, so my sister, another sister, he calls as all of us as ‘grandmas’, she ate the paan. He just started fighting, “Why do you eat paan? Dirty thing. Throw away! I will have nothing to do. I am kutti with you!” Means I am now finished with it. Five year old! He protested. And then he suddenly started crying. I said, “Why are you crying now?” “All of them are eating paan. They are all bad people. I don’t want to have them here!” I mean in the marriage, they were eating paan! So, he said he made everybody throw away their paan! So I told him, “There are people who don’t eat paan, don’t take cigarettes and don’t drink and they are with us. They are called Sahaja Yogis.” “I am a Sahaja Yogi!” he said. “I am a Sahaja Yogi! Well, why do you tolerate, grandma, all these people? Tell them off! They have no business to eat paan.” I was surprised [at] a five year old child. Maybe, you might say, it’s my relationship or my blood in them or whatever it is. They are really remarkably moral people, remarkably, for their age. Also they are moral not only for themselves, but also their friends and everyone, extremely moral.

They don’t like people sitting before the mirror for hours together, never. They said, “They must be bhoots.” “We had a lady who was working in our house.” She said, “She doesn’t clean my bathroom, she’s just looking at the mirror and looking at herself!” I said, “Isn’t she frightened of herself?” All kinds of things!

They make such fun of all the films, such films you see. They have seen once there was one film which my daughters had seen five times, making fun of the whole thing. You know, they really make fun of all that. So once my husband had to see that film with other relations in Calcutta. He came back. He said, “Never see that film again! Never send those children to that film!” They had already seen it five times! But such a reaction, you know. They never take to modern ideas [like] answering back to parents and, “I’ll do what I like!” Why? Why don’t they do it? And to me they are absolutely subservient. If I am having the bath, they’ll put on the radio. If I come out, they are sitting there with a towel and powder for my feet. All the time they are worried about me, why? Not about their parents, so much as they are worried about me. This is because they are born realised and the children who are not, these are half-way children, they are like that: they get impressed by this Western thing and all that. So the parents should see and tell them, “What is this nonsense?”

So many things I can tell you about them. I have been studying them and I was worried that if these children were not born in my family, what would have happened to them? They don’t like to hear any funny songs – nothing. Once, early in the morning, my daughter was playing some ghazals. so she got up and came in the room. She said, “What’s this going on, early in the morning, crying, crying? What is this?” So I said, “This is ghazal.” “What a puzzle, early in the morning, to make everyone weep!” You see, these Lucknow people and all those are very ghazalias: only in the mind. They never love their wives, never do anything for them, but they are romantic type. And these girls know about it. “And we Lucknowas. We don’t want to marry these! They’re just romancing in their heads and they don’t love their wives and the wives also don’t love.”

So this is what it is. I mean, they are so mature. These two were studying in Patna and they had only one chappal (sandal) left with them, which was half broken. So I told, “All right, come along with me to Delhi. I’ll buy good chappals for you.” I took them there. They wouldn’t buy another one. “One chappal is only. One chappal and one chappal.” I said, “Why you have come all the way just to buy only one chappal?” “Yes, when this will break we will buy another one.” And the clothes? Nothing! I forced on them their clothes. They wouldn’t take it. They said, “No, no, no, no! There’s no need to spend. Why do you want to spend? Already we have got so much loan on our head, of our parents. And why do you want to spend more money?” Even grandson. He said, “My school is so bad! All the girls want to talk to me.” And now he’s head of the class, school also. They’re so wise, so sensible. And it’s an example, before you to see that your children don’t take to stupid things of so called romance and all that. They don’t believe in all that.

Today I have to tell you because I have got reports of some girls who have been misbehaving, sitting before the [mirror]. Why? Why so much? And I don’t know, I can’t face mirror for more than for two minutes at the most. Not because I think I have something wrong with me, but the vibrations start hitting me! I don’t know how I look or what. Why should you worry so much? We should be confident, have self-respect. All is accepted, dirty, filthy, from the West. And in Sanskrit, as you know I have told you, they were called as mlecchas. Mleccha: mala-iccha. They want all dirt and filth, that’s what. Iccha is the desire; and they take to it. Even in the Muslim culture that is there, that’s why in Lucknow and all that, I used to get suffocated the way people were romantic. No sense of proportion.

But, thank God now, Lucknow has changed so much. I am really amazed how these people just looking at women: every woman they must see, turn their head at every woman. I mean, their necks might break one day.

But in the West, I have seen, all women look at the men! First I didn’t understand what is going on. All the time like this, like this, like this. And then they end up in a lunatic asylum. What will happen otherwise also? We are Sahaja Yogis. We have our own traditions. We are people of very high families. Why should we take to these dirty things?

So I would request you to tell your children not to be impressed by this dirty, horrible culture that has evolved. It was not so bad in the West. I tell you, it was not. It is now ruined; the whole place They have no idea as to how filthy it has become.

If you are real Sahaja Yogis, you will be very quiet, unassuming, dignified, mature, as well as you will be very moral. You have to be very [moral]. And you should only like people who are moral. This is not to be taught, but to be shown to the children, how you yourself live. If the mother is all the time busy with her beauty and this and that, the child also takes it. All this filth and dirt should not settle down, at least in Sahaja Yoga.

This is what today I wanted to tell you: [about] these people, really I got worried. They have no sense of music. They don’t understand music. They have no sense of Sahaja Yoga, nothing. They are supposed to be your children! Tomorrow the same children will definitely cleanse the whole world, but what is your attention is? You are giving money to them to do what they like. You are not putting your any attention. Parents are there to correct their children. They have to. And if they argue, give them two tight slaps and they will be all right. In the West, also, the children are horrible, absolutely horrible children. They’ll go on asking you questions, “Why? Why?” Once I was travelling with a child like that and the mother said, “What to do with this child?” I said, “You ask him: ‘Yesterday what I answered, do you remember that? Tell me what I answered you!’ ” Since that day he stopped [asking] ‘why’.

Children shouldn’t talk so much. They have no understanding of anything, still little babies. How are they to talk, as if they are wisdom personified? This is all Western new method of educating their children. “Let them be what they want, they are free. So what?” With this method, no artist has been produced, no musician has been produced, no composer has been produced. The whole quality has gone down. First you need some discipline in life to become something.

But also it’s very money-oriented in the West, that if the boy has to clean the car, you pay him £2. No Sahaja Yogi should do that. He has to do that. He sits in the car, so why shouldn’t he clean it? He should feel, “This is my responsibility.” And a very big problem you will face if your children turn out to be such horrible ones. Of course, I am trying to make a school here for the Sahaj children, but the parents should not spoil them. Same with the western people. Now they have got their children, they are so attached to their children. They think it is their own property, they can do what they like with them. We made the school. We paid for the school. We collected everything, did all that. They are very nicely coming here to take away their children to their own countries. They cannot think even that they are Sahaja Yogis [and] they have to be in Ganapatipule [even] if you are not. They are not going to be like you that, for some time, take all advantage of Sahaja Yoga and then just become the same stupid fools.

So they decided to take away their children, this, that. I told Yogi, “Why are you sending the children [home]?” He said, “The parents are…” Who are the parents? Who are the parents?

So this idea should not be there. Children are to be involved in the main stream. They should be in the main stream. They should be here. Otherwise, we have nothing to do with you and your children. Get out! Now, I have to take a strong view of the whole thing. I find, specially in Australia, they are becoming extremely secluded people. Some of them are having, in the ashram, their own rooms, their own television, their own this thing, their own cooking. This own business has to go away. Throw away all such people from the ashrams. I am surprised at Australians! They got out of the jail and again want to go into the same jail.

Next time all the children have to come to Ganapatipule; next time, and nobody has to [say], “We have booked their seats. We have done that.” I told them, “Put them into trouble. Tell them we can’t send the children. Let them pay for that then they will understand.”

Now the last, and not the least, is the way still we are attached to money. Sahaja Yoga is free, agreed. Your Realisation is free. But this time, can you believe, [on] the sixteenth of November, I telephoned from Russia to find out how much money was collected and there was very little money there. And such a big programme, such a difficult programme and such an expensive programme we had done. At the right time they let me down! So I had to borrow money to have this programme. Can you believe it?

They don’t feel responsible that they’re troubling Mother like this! I was not sure how many are coming, how many are not coming. First they said only two hundred coming, then three hundred are coming, then I heard there were six hundred! Have you got a big bank account here that you can just do what you like?

So they are not responsible. Next time if you do not pay money till the end of October, you are out of the tour! Anywhere! I cannot go on borrowing money like this every time. And then I have to return that money to my husband. It’s a fact! Everybody knows. [In] money matters, also, we have not yet been able to be real Sahaja Yogis.

Now, this Shyamji, has bought these saris on a little concession and he thought that he will sell those and whatever concession he gets it, he will give to Sahaja Yoga. He’s a very honest man. But because some saris were a little less in price they were not [sold by] Sahaj Yogis, nothing, and they were artificial saris, people went and bought saris from him. And none of them bought saris from Shyamji. They are very vain type. Whatever is the little profit that he will have, he gives it to me. We have so much extra expenses. You have no idea!

Same about presents. The money, you people, you gave me about the presents, also, is so delayed. Just now we have taken thirty-five thousand pounds, extra, for the musicians, which is not yet paid back. Here are [the] people, you can ask them, they are dealing in the bank. I have paid for this Chindwada house, four lakhs of rupees already, not a single pie (1/192 rupee) has been given so far, paid for. We have to do so many things. But so many Sahaja Yogis there are. I tell them all, “Don’t give me any presents. I don’t want any presents from you.” But you must pay for all these expenses which are incurred. Today is the first day I am talking about it, because this time you really put me out completely. Absolutely, I was. I didn’t know what will I do. I never borrow money. Partly I got from Italy and partly I borrowed: Partly, quite a lot.

After all, everything needs money, you must understand. So, you see, next time if you do all these things I’ll cancel the tours. Please, by the end of October, remember all your money should be there. It’s not proper to say all these things to you, I know, but you should also know what trouble I am going through. For doing what? For your Realisation, for your tours, for your everything. I don’t need Sahaja Yoga do I?

Also, the last thing is this, as I have said, money is needed just now, but maybe, might be, something might [be] worked out when you won’t need so much money; may. It will only work out if you people are sincere.

So many things are to be done here, also. Of course, I have given a lot of money here. In these four years, I have been able to save a lot of money, I must say; compared to previous years when you people were managing the money. Since then I have saved. Because money doesn’t have legs to walk out! If you don’t spend, it is there!

“My children, my wife, my house, my everything.” What about “my Sahaj Yoga”?

It’s your  responsibility now: you need it, your family needs it, your country needs it. Everybody needs it. So it is your responsibility. Please understand that you have got Sahaja Yoga because you are special people. But the speciality is that you are responsible for the whole world. Spreading Sahaja Yoga is all right, but to be responsible.

On the whole, of course, it has been really a very good working out, I agree, but still these are things that are missing which must be somehow or other corrected: by the leaders, by the world leaders, and coordinated. It should be done.

After all, you know my age now. You don’t want to trouble me. This is the only kindness I need: not to go on postponing things, not to go on being irresponsible, that’s all! I have been telling you for the last fifteen years [that] I don’t want any presents! For presents, for saris, everybody’s anxious. Now this time every country wanted to give me [a] sari. Just imagine! I don’t need that. I don’t know what I will do with it. But full attention to yourself and to the collective work and to the global work. If I stop this work, it’s very easy, but you don’t want that.

Even few are coming, whatever it is. Definitely you tell me [that] so many are coming – finished! It’s hardly two, three years more, at the most it will continue. It cannot go on forever. We’ll have to think of something else.

And my own style is that, whatever you give for my pujas, I keep it for Sahaja Yoga only: for the buying of silver, this, that. So much of silver I have given, so much gold that is here is my own. Everything, most of the ornaments are my own. Now what else I should do? Not that I want anything from you, but you should be responsible and understand. All of you should, please. If you can really think that this is so important.

Twelve disciples of Christ worked out Christianity – only twelve. And they were fishermen: how they did it!

All right, so everybody is telling me that, “Mother you must talk to them and tell them about it.” So I have told you. I have done my job. Now it is for you to think what is good and what should be done.

Sahaja Yoga is your own: is for your children, is for your family, is for the country, not only [that, but] for the whole world, where you live. You are such a great people who are realised-souls. Where are the realised-souls here?

So have self-esteem, then you will feel responsible, you know, “I am responsible.”

Thank you very much.

May God bless you.