SEMINAR DAY 1 MARCH 19, 1976, Cowasji Jehangir Hall, Mumbai, India

Sahaja Yogi: This is the recording of the advice given by Her Holiness Shri Mataji on the occasion of three days seminar held at Cowasji Jehangir Hall [Mumbai] from 19 to 21st March 1976. This is a recording of the first day that is of the 19th March 1976.

Shri Mataji: After a very long time, we are again assembled in this hall. When Sahaja Yoga was just in its infancy, we had arranged a program in this hall. Since then, by God’s grace, Sahaja Yoga has settled, in the minds of the Sahaja Yogis. As if the rain has been absorbed by the hungry Earth.

Sahaja Yoga is not meant for people who are superficial and are not seeking within themselves and with all the earnestness and the hankering of all seekers.

It is not meant for people who are seeking God in the books. Because God is not there.

It is also not meant for people who think they can achieve God. That they can by their efforts, by their extreme ‘hatha‘ as we call it, ‘obstinacy’, win the grace of God.

It is meant for those people who are, from the heart, all the time asking for Him. And looking for Him, for the genuine and for the reality.

‘Sahaja’ – I have told you many a time, ‘saha’ means ‘within’ and ‘ja’ means ‘born with you’. I have elaborately told you many a time what is ‘sahaja‘. It is a ‘spontaneous’ growth of your being into that infinite realm of God’s grace. We have to enter into the Kingdom of God. Not by words, not by deeds, but it has to be the actualisation of the experience.

If you are satisfied by the tomfoolery and the spiritual jugglery that is going on, it is better that you take to that course and be lost. But for Sahaja, you have to be an earnest and genuine seeker. Whatever mistakes you have committed in your search will be forgiven by God, because He knows that it was in ignorance that all these mistakes were committed.

We have here some Sahaja Yogis who know this. But when I see people, and I have experience of them, I am sometimes surprised the way they are contradictory to themselves. How they live with those contradictory ideas; it is something beyond the imagination of God Almighty also.

It has been since ages, one simple question, “How to reach the Infinite, through this finite mind, through this rationality which God has given us.” This is the eternal problem which has been there from the times of Socrates, Confucius, Kant, Hegel. All these great philosophers have been only asking this question in all their findings and searches, “How to reach the Infinite through this finite?”

As it is, the human being is made that way, that he has to worry for himself and also worry about God’s knowing. He is also worried about how God is going to give him this blessing.

Who has created you? Who has created this Universe? Who has created this beautiful heaven for you here?

But you are worried how He is going to give you that blessing by which you will know the heaven within yourself. You are worried how He is going to bestow upon you the bliss of self-knowledge. You need not worry. It is His job. But He has made you like this. He has made you this way, especially, with a purpose.

The articulation of your personality came into being. Just like any egg develops a shell around itself to grow, in the same way, you also develop a shell in which you have to develop your personality, your being in such a manner that ultimately you become the proper instrument to receive that knowledge that is God, that is Divine. And then to emit it to others. And to see it. To be aware of it. To be a Sakshi. To be a witness. Of that Divine flowing through you.

Of course, some of these philosophers never had any inkling of that Divine. Some of them did have; that is why there is such a disparity to what they say. But then have been really genuine people, most of them. And they have been honest about not finding it or finding it.

But today, it is the worst time of hypocrisy, known as Kali Yuga, in which every Dick, Tom, Harry has started claiming that he is the person who is going to introduce you to Him. And he has formed his own ideas and his own imagination to give you that, this is how you are going to receive Him, “I have got it, all right.”

There is one good thing about Kali Yuga I think – that all the ancient scriptures are for you written down a long time back. And you have to tally. If it is the Bible, it is there. If it is Koran, it is there. And if it is anyone of the Vedas, it is there.

But when you start your new scriptures and new ideologies and try to fit in everything according to that, when you try to mould God into your own sorts of weaknesses, then how can you be sahaj, spontaneous?

So, the problem today is Kali Yuga. Is much worse than it was ever before. Because apart from the original articulation we have had, we have many more articulations on us. The worst of all is the mental articulation, that we think by reading books, by talking about it, by giving lectures and receiving lectures, you are going to achieve it. You are sadly mistaken. This is the greatest maya or illusion, I think, of the present.

Other mayas can be conquered, but this is one of the most elusive temptations for the modern man, that he thinks by reading, by listening about God, he is going to achieve. It is spontaneous.

Let us understand what is spontaneous. Spontaneous is a natural, living thing that happens to us. For example, if you see a seed – if you plant it, it spontaneously grows. Do you stand on your head in front of that seed? Or do you read books? Or does the seed have to read books of germination, to get germinated? Not that. Never! But it is only a human being who thinks foolishly, which an ordinary dog also does not do that.

You may say that; there are books which are Truth, there are books which are pouring reality. But have you got the measure to know which are the books which are pouring reality, and which are not?

There are gurus, who are of course prospering materially better because they tell you to take sanyasa, “You take sanyasa, you renounce and bring all the money to me”. And foolishly so many human beings are attached and attracted towards such people. Why? Because our articulation has given way to this darkness that we go to something false much faster than to reality.

We are shaken up within ourselves. We do not have the strength to hold onto the reality, to ask for the reality. They have to give us reality!

So, anybody who speaks, you see, in a bombastic manner, quotations over quotations, reading this, reading that, giving big lectures; people are very much fascinated.

They think by listening to lectures, you are going to have it.

Never, never.

It is going to happen to you. You have been to so many lectures before. You have listened to so many people. There have been many gurus – good and bad. Have you been able to make out who is a real guru and who is not? How will you know that this man is talking from the seventh heaven? It may be a rakshasa, talking to you. It may be a devil incarnated in these horrible days. He could be anything who is talking to you.

What makes you believe that some person who is behaving like a godman is a real godman or not? There is a way. And that is why, when is more necessary, the things happen by which you know.

You have to become something else to know what is wrong. You have to be reborn. You have to be baptized. You have to become a Brahmin. You have to become a Mussalman. You have to become a Christian. You are to be reborn. You are born with a body; you are born with a mind which is articulated.

You have to jump into that Infinite Love of God to know Who is emitting that Love.

And then the knowledge comes to you. Unless and until your eyes are opened, don’t believe into any personality because he knows how to impress you people, and even not Me, unless and until I give you everything, I give you that which you are seeking.

You must ask for the Reality. Ask for that from Me. I cannot give you anything else but that.

Unless and until you have had that experience, the actualisation of that, of the Sahaja Yoga by which you receive the blessings within yourselves and you feel it and it emits through your extremities. And you see that power flowing through you which is known as the Chaitanya Lahari [Waves of Bliss] which was very well described by Adi Shankaracharya, whom nobody reads these days.

They want to read somebody who talks of sex. The mind is so much attached to sex, that everything must come through sex; otherwise, nothing goes here. These people who try to impress you try to work on your weakness. But a Mother is not going to do that.

A Mother is going to give you the real that is there and is going to tell you that, “My child, this has been wrong and you have to get detached from that idea. And stand within yourselves.” Every one of them, those who have been great, has been saying, “Na yoga, na sankya” [neither yoga nor reasoning] – Shankaracharya’s.

But Hindus are the first who will go to yoga – to hatha yoga. When Shankaracharya never did anyone of these yoga’s. Yoga’s are meant for very, very few people. For very few people who live with a guru, in the jungles. You have to do six things simultaneously under the guidance of an evolved soul. But everybody is trying to do yoga because they want to slim down. God is not to be used for these frivolous things. All right, you do exercises. But this is not yoga.

Yoga means ‘union with God’. It is union with God. It is not union with the worldly things that you think so important.

Those who go to the extremes of things are also no good for Sahaja Yoga. Extreme takes you away from reality which was said by Gautama Buddha. He said, “Take to the middle path, keep to the middle path.” But His disciples have gone to the extreme path. Of foolishness. He said, “Do not worship any Gods or Goddesses at that time”, because He was in sahaja. So, His disciples started worshipping his tooth, nail, everything.

Of course, that too has a meaning. But not for people who are not realised. How can you make out that the hair of Mohammad Saheb is in that place in Kashmir or it is of some imposter? Have you got any method by which you can detect? I can say that it is the hair of Mohammad Saheb. I say that. But why should you accept me also?

With all your brains and intelligence, why should you accept anything which is not actually focused within your awareness? Which is not actually brought within your awareness.

There is a method. There is a way. There is an education. But it is a spontaneous one. It happens to you. You just become. This education comes to you in such a manner, in such a way, that even a child knows. It is a subjective knowledge that comes to you.

When you jump into that Divine Love through Sahaja Yoga, then you become one with the collective consciousness. It is not that I tell you that you are collectively conscious, but you become conscious.

For example, now, for Me, when I say that this sari has got a border, you will say, “Yes of course we know.”