Talk to Sahaja Yogis, First Darshan, Englewood Ashram, NJ. 1985 – 06 – 01
Formal Talk: Role of Women, Shakti Power, Women in America

​First of all, Sahaja Yogis have no business to feel guilty, especially when you are on the land of Shri Krishna. That’s an anti-Krishna activity. When Krishna is not awakened, then it is alright. But if he is awaken within us, then it’s not alright at all. Both things are wrong, to be guilty as well as make others guilty, to be guilty and to be aggressive, both things are wrong.

For this, one must understand that all centers have got their own countries, and a country is called as “Desh” in Sanskrit language. And when it is enlightened, it is called as “Pradesh”. So if we have to make America a Pradesh, it’s not a very easy task. All kinds of anti-Krishna activities are done by people who live here. And so to make it a Pradesh, first we have to make it a Desh, and then we can make it a Pradesh.

As I say that Canada is the left side of the Vishuddhi and also left- or the right, we can say, because all the minerals, all the earthly qualities of Canada are exploited by America. So whatever is their own, is like taking out of your flesh and eating it up, and feeling full. All kinds of aggressive qualities of the right side are done. Now to bring them to proper level, nature itself acts, whenever they try these activities, nature acts against them. Politics acts against them. Economics acts against them. But they don’t realize that there is something basically wrong in what they are doing. We must go along our nature as we are. So we are the people of America who represent the quality of Vishuddhi chakra. Vi-shudda. Shudda is purity. Vi-shudda means “absolutely enlightened with purity”. So this makes you smile at the whole thing absolutely – vishudda. Vishudda means absolutely clear, enlightened by knowledge, absolutely clean. So now you will understand what I am saying that is all anti-God activities we are doing here.

And these things are taken over by the whole world, because it is Virat also. People try to accept what good or bad America is doing. When America was good, people like Abraham Lincoln were here. They accepted democracy, Virat; it’s a Virat, people of the people, the government of the people, by the people, for the people. It’s the idea of Virat which was accepted.

But anti-Virat activity is that we are very individualistic. So much so that every bathroom different, every car different, every door different, you don’t know how to handle things, very individualistic and very grossly individualistic now. So one has to understand that for Vishuddhi chakra there are sixteen petals: the eye, the nose, the tongue – which is very important – tongue is the most important thing- the ears, throat, all these are governed by Vishuddhi chakra. In every country, people do something wrong against the Vishuddhi chakra. But the maximum is in America and Canada. They are selling all the time, digging out from the Mother Earth to this America, accepting the aggression of America on them is wrong! And when America is doing to them is also wrong, both things are wrong.

So the responsibility of Sahaja Yogi in these two countries is the greatest of all. In other countries, it’s not so bad. I would say Indians are also quite individualistic in certain things, like food. Food is very important to them. Very particular on the taste of the food, Indians are. Very particular. I was telling just now that before coming for my work to America, I had to cook for my husband, 4:30 I got up, cooked everything, put everything in the freezer, came away, because taste is so important. He can’t get over it. He is a powerful man, he can’t get over his taste. Indians haven’t got power that much to overpower their taste. For taste, they’d go anywhere. But that’s only one problem. Also could be they tell lies very easily. That’s another problem of the tongue. So let’s say the tongue is quite a big problem for Indians.

But here, the eyes, the eyes are wobbling all the time. It’s very funny. You can’t see anyone with a steady eye. The whole face is going into a kind of a nervous twitching. Eyes are never steady, they’re just going round and round and round. I don’t know what they are looking at. And everything is done to see that your eyes are ruined.
Eyes are something to do with optic chiasma, which has something to do with your thinking. Because here the human beings are more mental being created like that, made like that. They don’t know how they are conditioned. They are mentally conditioned. Now they make images, they make an image of a person. For them, such and such person is the perfect epitome of something.
Like take a question of having skinny women. In India, it is difficult to marry a skinny woman. If there’s somebody as skinny woman, tell them: “Baba, God knows what disease she has, she must be hot tempered, she must be irritable by nature” [Shri Mataji speaks in Hindi]. There are so many words to describe, cabadi, this that. Just such a girl is not regarded as of marriageable temperament.
But here a skinny girl is regarded. So I asked: Why is a skinny girl, what is it such a fame? [unsure]” “She is feminine”. I said: “How? It’s the right sidedness. If somebody is right sided, he becomes skinny. How can it be?” So they said: “No, because she is attractive to men”. I mean, this is too much for a woman to think like that. I mean, what is the difference between a prostitute and a woman who wants to be attractive to all the men of the world? So horrible it is. To be in the desire of asking other men to be looking at you all the time is something I can’t understand! It’s a serious thing. When they told me this, I was shocked.

In India, not in the cities, I don’t know, if there that a particular part in the smaller cities, if any man looks at you, you will have to slap on the face. [Shri Mataji speaks in Hindi]
The whole thing is so mental and so stupid. So mental and so stupid, and I think, they have befooled the women here nicely. It’s very surprising, you see, that they want to make women into prostitutes, and women have accepted such situation to be attractive to every man. Why? What is there? It’s an illusion they have created, an illusion about women, that she should be attractive to all men, what do they do with attraction?

So such illusive ideas are created and mentally they have conditioned you into that illusions. So once you are in that illusion, you believe in it. But what is the state of a person who is at the Vishuddhi? He’s a sakshi, he’s the, he is the witness. He witnesses everything, unless and until he’s beyond these illusions, how will he witness?

All these conditionings, funny conditionings that have come onto the mind, have creeped the mind so much through media you can say, may be through writings. I don’t know how it has happened to sensible people like you. And then these ideas we have accepted, our images have become like that. And it is a very big problem, because these images do not tally with God’s images. And once you start accepting such horrible images at the perfect ones, then what happens to your society, that you become those images, which are artificial, which are anti-God. The woman has to be respectable, serene.
Long, long, long time back, it was written that: “Yatra naryastu pujyante” [Sanscrit]: “where the women are respectable and are respected, there the Gods remain”. So I think that is the beginning of the end.

And then you say anything, they say: “So what!”
I feel that in America, the women have to understand their role as good women, as moral women, that is very important. Because they are becoming like men now, they are no more women, they’re called feminine, I tell you, they have nothing of a woman in them.

And it is sometimes very sad the way the women start deciding for everything. In, on a television, if you see, the husband, wife, both are sitting: the wife talks and husband doesn’t talk. He sits like a small little doggie there. And the wife talks. Normally any Indian woman would hesitate to talk to another man.
I mean, she is the potential energy. She is the shakti. And man is the kinetic energy. When this kinetic energy is not given its own position, then it is all wrong. Because, say, there are two wheels on a chariot, one is meant for the left, another for the right. So they have their faces like this. Now you cannot put it like this. [No video to see]
The whole thing goes wrong. Nobody is higher, lower but they are not similar, they are two different things. Equal heights, equal weights, everything, but in attitudes and in facing, one is facing inward, another is facing outward you can say. So, right cannot go to the left, and left cannot go to the right. This is the beginning of the end, I tell you.

Once the role of shakti changes, then it is very difficult to manage. In no incarnation, a male has come without a female. Christ came, He had His Mother. When Shri Krishna came, He had to have Radha. When Rama came, Sita was there. When Nanaka came, there had to be Nanaki. When Janaka came, He had to have Janaki as His Daughter. When Mohammad Sahib came, He had to have His Daughter, Fatima. They could not do without the power because they are just the kinetic energy.

But when the Goddess came, she came alone. Because she has the power to contain within herself all the powers, but has to be the potential power. While, when we just start exchanging our roles, we create a very, very big problem.

It is not easy for a Western mind to see this. It might have happened because once upon a time, the men tried to rule the women too much, as a reaction to that, the women are behaving like this, quite possible. In the north of India we have this, we have had this problem. But the most surprising thing is that people asked me questions, in the interviews, that: “Do people believe you as a woman?” I said: “Why?” “Do they think you are equally reliable as a man?”
I mean, I am surprised [Shri Mataji is laughing] Here, the women are dominating. “Do they have the same respect for you, as they would have in a man?” Can you imagine? In India, just the other way around. They will always respect a woman. If woman says something, that’s believed. She’s regarded as much more wiser than her husband. The husband will always take a council from the wife. So all these questions really blasted me. And I didn’t know what to answer. I was really flabbergasted. [Shri Mataji is laughing] Because that culture in which I am brought up is very different from this culture where: “will they believe you if you are a woman?”
Say, if there’s a thief who comes in the house. If he sees the woman in India, he’ll go away. Or if there are people who come to, say, steal something, and the woman says: ‘Not the house”, they’ll believe her and go. They will always believe a woman in India than a man.

When the exceders came- of refugees- in India, I got some people to stay in My house. They were, one of them was a Muslim. And it’s so happened that the people who were fanatics who came down, they found out from someone, that there is a Muslim staying in the house. So I went forward. I said: “Can’t you see this thing [bindi]? Am I Muslim?”. They said: “No. Is there a Muslim staying with You?” I said: “No. You have to believe Me”. And they went away. But if my husband had said, they would never have believed Me.

And then the women here who are on even on a small position, this I discovered with a custom lady, she behaves in such a funny manner, the man does not! We got into the aero plane, and there was a lady standing. She- I said: “I would like to sit here and I would like take this bag with me because it’s a small bag”. We wanted to get out fast. “No, you can’t take it. You can’t sit here. You can’t do this”. She was saying. So then another fellow came, he said: “Listen to her. If she says so, if she wants to sit here, why not. There is a seat available, and if she wants to keep her luggage, it’s not big, why not? Why don’t you allow?”

Because they cannot contain. A woman can contain love, she can contain compassion, she can contain affection, she can contain all the forbearance, she can contain all the wisdom, but she cannot contain this kind of a power within herself. She becomes mad. So once you realize that we are not to change our roles in life – of course if you are working, all right work, but be a woman! And man has to be a man. Here, you find men are becoming cabbages or homosexual or something like that. Thanks to the American women. As Sahaja Yoginis, we have to understand there is no joy in this kind of nonsense. I mean, I would hate to be a man. It’s a headache. I tell you. Woman has to just please her husband, one boss, [?] poor man. But one must understand what you have got already as a woman. And then you play into their hands, you want to be attractive to all the men. What is this? Why? Why you want to play into their hands? It’s a complete slavery idea.

So all absurd ideas are more visible now and audible, about I think it has taken hardly twenty years to do that. So all that love, all that affection, all that compassion, all that peace, all that wisdom has vanished. Where are the women who are the torchbearer of that? Children are insecure. Husbands are insecure. As a result, wives are also insecure. And the kind of domination now in a very subtle way is on women which they don’t realize, that they have to play into the hands of men. Whatever men say, whatever they like, they have to dress up like that. Because then you are not attractive. It’s prostitution. Why should we try to please so many men? It’s slavery. Women, when they lose their sense of chastity, they became slaves. It’s a continuous slavery going on. Such a pressure on the minds of women. Instead of looking after their health, they are looking after something nonsensical is to please all the men. Why? For what?
You must see it in right perspective what I am saying. You are not independent, you are not free. 24:47
[Some kind of rap music is coming from outside]
Shri Mataji: What is this?
[Children are laughing]
Sahaja Yogi: American music?
Shri Mataji: This is American music? Comes out of where? I don’t know.
[Children are laughing]

And that has started this derailment. So this interviewer asked me: “What’s wrong with America?” I didn’t know where to put my finger. But I think this is the derailment. Women have lost their power. They are responsible for the society. They are responsible to keep the society intact.

There is a story written by Rabindranath Tagore, very interesting, about a writer. So he was telling his wife that I am writing a story where a man wants to elope with a girl. She said: “Really? That’s horrid”. He said: “Alright, if I had asked you to elope with me, what you would have done?” She said:”I would have called the police”.

You know, in India there were women who committed Jauhar. Do you know, have you heard about that? You don’t know what it is, I must tell you. It’s very interesting. It’s a story of a lady called Padmini, very beautiful woman. Of course she was beautiful because she was beautiful. Not to attract other men or women. She was just beautiful. That’s all. And one king who was an emperor, Muslim, they are also funny people, he heard about her beauty and he wanted to see her. She was very angry and everybody was angry that he said like this, that she was beautiful and all that. Indian women don’t like. If you really know an Indian woman, and if you tell her you look beautiful. If a woman says, it’s alright, but a man says, she won’t like it. Never says that in India to anyone. Otherwise, you are in for trouble.

[Shri Mataji speaks in Hindi] They are all understanding. [Shri Mataji laughs]

So this beautiful lady Padmini had such faith in herself. So she said: “Alright, if so, ask him to come and see me in the mirror”. So, they put her before the mirror, and he could see her reflection in the mirror. But he must be a modern man, emperor, he got excited with that. Instead of feeling the serenity of this lady and the soothing quality, he felt excited and now he decided that he will attack this country, unless and until they give him Padmini. It was too much for the men of that place to give their queen.

So when this emperor attacked, he came near the fort, and he sent word that if you do not send Padmini to me, I will attack you in the fort. They decided they cannot do that. So Padmini said alright, she was also intelligent, she told her husband that you send a word that we are sending the queen, and you have hundred palanquins ready, and let four persons carry the palanquin. Inside all the weapons, and let every palanquin have another soldier inside. So, they are like that there are five soldiers. So five hundred soldiers. And the king sat in the first palanquin himself.
So the palanquins entered inside the caravan where these people were all settled down. The emperor, the whole thing was settled down, into big caravans all over. And they put down the palanquins. So they were all drunk, thinking that now so many ladies are coming, and we will have a nice time. When they opened the palanquins, the soldiers came out and killed one by one. They fought and fought but could not do any better, because they were only five hundred people. They had told these ladies that: “In case we get lost, you will know because there won’t be any fire. So till four o clock you should wait to see some fire. And if we win, we will lit up a fire for you”. So they waited till four o clock, there was no fire. So they made a pyre, a huge pyre, and three thousand women burned themselves alive, before any man could touch them, inclusive of Padmini. It’s not very old, hardly this must have happened about four hundred years back.
So now you will realize what women are losing, and how men have, in a very subtle way, dominated them. You just don’t care for all these things. Men cannot produce children, can they? They can’t exist without women. But you don’t play into their hands like this.

“Men will not”, they say, “respect a woman who is serene.” It’s not a fact. They only respect a serene woman, and not a cheap woman, at all. I have seen in all my life like that. So it’s the responsibility of the women, as I told you last time, and again, I repeat it, the more I come to America, the more I feel this is the problem. It’s the mother who teaches the children how to behave. It’s the mother who gives compassion and security to children. It’s the mother who gives stability to the husband. It’s the mother who caters to everything that is the social life. And what’s wrong with America is nothing that our social life is zero. You are getting destroyed, completely destroyed.

So as a mother only, you can control the whole world. You see, you ‘re- I am a mother and I am a woman, I don’t dominate people, do I?
I can work out without domination because people do not care for domination, what they care for is love. They hanker after love.

These are all temporary phases, will disappear, but it will leave a very, very bad mark on the history of human beings of America. Maybe if people do not take to Sahaj style of life, maybe you will find the whole of this country will be completely finished in no time. It’s a very serious danger. All kinds of funny diseases are coming. We’ll not be destroyed by Russians, no. No atom bomb going to destroy us. We are going to destroy ourselves because our powers have become cheap. They have lost their faith in themselves. So it is for men also to realize to respect their women. Not for something very, very cheap and frivolous, but for something that they are, the shaktis. Unless and until the men understand this simple thing, you cannot save your society.

​Sahaja Yogi’s alright. But for Sahaja Yogis, it is very important that they must develop the proper balance of family life, proper balance, it’s very important. That is the real wise thing we can do to save ourselves, and by our example we can save others.

I am happy now you have some Indians with you. I hope they are not westernized. [Shri Mataji laughs] And they are keeping to certain good things. There is nothing to learn as far as economics and politics is concerned in India, they don’t know that, but definitely the society, the social side is very important and if there is no society, there cannot be a nation. There will be anarchy.

Thus, the accent in a Sahaj life should be a balanced, proper, married life. Concentrated, deep married life is very important. And then you will be surprised that you will enjoy so many things because all wasteful things are gone and finished. Like a lady who was coming to Sahaja Yoga, suddenly she started buying very good tapes, and very good tape recorder, this that. And I said: “How did you manage?” She said: “Mother, now I don’t do anything, even one of these things. I don’t need any makeups, this that. I don’t waste my time in diets nonsense, but I use it now for good purpose”. And such people can never have money problem, because it’s Lakshmi Tattwa. Of course women should not dress up like beggars, of course not. They should not. They should be like Lakshmis. They should not be behaved like beggars at all. They should not be parasites. They should be dignified mothers. And a motherhood is the epitome of the growth of a woman. And not her bridal dress, permanent bridal dress. It’s not even a bride, it’s something dirty, filthy. So that’s what Sahaja Yoga is, and we should cater for our motherhoods. We have to even mother our husbands. That has to be done.
Thus, we will revive the social values in America. And even if there are hundred people as you are, if you have done it, we will do it for the rest of them, it can be channelized. But you must understand that what I am saying is a serious matter. And you don’t know what a disease it is, that you have to work out. It is a disease. You make your men weak with that, you, yourselves, you are weak, make your children weak and God knows what makes you think that domination in the gross way is of any help.

There’s nothing to compete with them. They are different and we are different. So what is there to compete? Once we accept our situation, as women and as men, we become beautiful part and parcels of the whole. That is this Virat. That’s what one has to. Radha herself was “Ra-dha”. “Ra” is the energy “dha” is the one who sustains the energy. Without Her, He could not kill the Kansa. Do you know that? He had to ask Her: “Now, enter into My Being. Otherwise, I cannot kill him”.

If He could exist without Her powers, He would not had Her there. Not only that, afterwards, He had to get His sixteen thousand powers as wives and all the five elements, their powers as His queens. Though Shri Krishna is a great incarnation, no doubt, but without Shakti, He could not do anything. One must understand the value of this work of Shri Krishna that comes from the Shakti. And even, when we have to call His name, we do not say Krishna Radha. We say Radha Krishna, Sita Rama. Their names are taken first. Because without Them, They don’t exist. But that is “adhyarutha”[unsure]. That is in the underground, Sanskrit word is “adhyarutha”. It is a beautiful word, you see, but now in English, I don’t know what you’d say. Underground. Is there a better word for that, something poetic?
Sahaja Yogi: Undercurrent.
Shri Mataji: Undercurrent, that is the undercurrent. They are the undercurrent and very powerful. And this is what is simple to understand if you really want to save this country.
And for children, I feel they should get all the security from the mother, not the spoiling, but the security, the correction. My mother used to say that mother is the enemy of the child because she is the one who corrects the children. Because father corrects, then the children, sort of, do not like the father. But if mother corrects, it’s alright. Even you have seen, Shri Krishna was corrected by his mother.

I had this beautiful story about how she corrected Him. You have heard about it, that once He ate some butter with other boys. She came to Him and she said: “What do you mean by eating this butter?” He said: “I never ate anything.” “So, then how do I found all this here?” He said: “These boys have put it on me. I never ate anything”.
She said: “Alright, open your mouth”. When He opened the mouth, she saw the whole universe within Him. And she took Him to his heart. Even Shri Krishna had to do that.

So that motherhood has to come within us and that is how Sahaja Yoga, which has come to you through your Mother, will be respected. You must respect women as mothers, and mothers must respect them as mothers. Even a little child in India is called a mother if it’s a girl. They will call them by the name mother. So this feeling of motherhood is only possible when we expose our motherliness, and that men expect that motherliness in women. So today Shri Krishna’s land needs a mother.
May God bless you.

H.H. Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

​
SECOND TRACK
2:30

Shri Mataji: Now I was thinking that all the people should be introduces to me. Dany said he will do that. Introduce, means I’ve already know all of them, most of them, but it should be real introduced. [Inaudible]
Sahaja Yogi: Me also. [Laughter]
Shri Mataji: Because the Mother, she wants to know her chidren again and again. That’s just Mother’s one concern, nothing else.

Shri Mataji: It is quite cold here I was telling you to take the sweater.
Sahaja Yogini: She brought.
Shri Mataji: You brought it?
Sahaja Yogini: Yes we have.
Shri Mataji: Good.
New York is so warm, we are all perspiring there.
Sahaja Yogini: Would you like it?
Shri Mataji: No just now, but later one may be. I think you keep it handy.

Sahaja Yogi: Shri Mataji I’d like to introduce boys from Dayton, Ohio, and their leader is Johan.
Shri Mataji: Ah.
Sahaja Yogi: Johan, can you introduce each boy.
Shri Mataji: Can you get the presents I have for them.
Sahaja Yogini: Yes Mother.
Shri Mataji: Let us get the presents first Johan, alright? All of them, now. You see, I’m sorry, I could not get for all of you. But I just thought of the leaders in different places, for working it out for some people who are specially helping here, in New York. Moereover, I was very sleepy today. I couldn’t go for shopping anymore.
Put all these dates before going so whatever is available you should excuse Me. Can you bring all that?
For the children I brought some sweets.
Have you got them or finished?
Children: Yes.
Shri Mataji: Hum?
Children: Yes.
Shri Mataji: You have to give to other children but I’ll get get some more tomorrow if possible.
You have got some, have you? Finished? [Shri Mataji laughs. Children laugh too]