Interview

Interviewer: Please, explain the difference between East and West, what can India bring to the west…?
Shri Mataji: In the West, the knowledge that they have, is the knowledge as they call it of the tree – outside. You see the leaves and you see the branches and you know all about it. But they don’t know about the roots, on which this tree is standing. That knowledge is in India. One must know the roots. Unless and until you know the roots, you cannot progress in a proper way, in a balanced way. In the nature if you see, every tree of a kind like a coconut tree has a particular height, it doesn’t cross over. Or you see any natural growth, on this earth has its own limitations. It is also the whole nature has a beautiful cycle. Like a tree, it goes up and the water from the leaves is evaporated by the sun, so the water rises up to the leaves again, then it forms a catalyst for the rain to come in and then it rains but during the wintertime there is no sunshine, so the leaves drop out; because of the shortage of water, so they drop out. Because they drop out there is no destruction as such but there is a reconstruction because the leaves which fall down give the nourishment of nitrogen to the roots you see,so there is a beautiful cycle which works spontaneously without any trouble. So in the nature everything is controlled, is controlled and is absolutely integrated. Also among animals – we call them ‘paschou’??? in indian language, meaning they are under the bondage of God. So a frog will behave like a frog, a lion will behave like a lion, or a tiger will be like a tiger. And everybody in the jungle knows it is a tiger. They respect the tiger. They understand he is good, nobody minds if he eats some animal – nobody minds it. It is such a beautiful understanding and sharing, and nature is always very clean, unless there enter human beings…..
It is a clean place. Now what happenswhen we human beings start projecting outside, we become extroverts, we start loosing our contact with the truth, with the roots and these roots, we must find them. The knowledge of these roots is in India. And so we can give that knowledge very easily to them, with all humility. And the West should not feel hurt, because they feel hurt, if we say this is the knowledge from the East. Because we have taken so much from you. We have taken your science, we have studied your economics, your politics – so many things. This is the outside-knowledge. But about the roots you have to be humble also, to know what is the knowledge of the roots.
Interviewer: Now there exists a certain image in the West that in India there are so many false gurus? How can we Western people know what is the truth?
Shri Mataji: Yes, it is a shameful thing for us also that we have so many false people who are going across. Because their main interest in you is money. It is like a market. And they feel that you people are seeking the truth. Naturally you are seeking your roots, so they are the ones
who can supply you all the knowledge, everything, they can do that for you. And that’s how they have reached the main interest is money, nothing else. So any guru who asks you for money – the divine knowledge cannot be given with money because doesn’t know money – anyone who asks you money for this knowledge, you must know that he is false. This is a very simple criteria which can be applied. They will all run away … Some have come out of jails, some of them have been ordinary clerks, working on a very low level, there have been people who have been criminals, all of them have now decided to go and cheat you and get money out of you. I am aware of it. But I told about them in the year 1971 very openly in a lecture – gave their names, everything and there are some who are devils who are reborn, and these devils are all Antichrist and they are trying to exploit your weaknesses, they want to tell you that the sex is important, some will tell you that the drugs are important, some will say that alcoholism is important, because what they are trying to do os to pamper your ego and support your weaknesses. So one has to be careful whether they are righteous or not. In their lifestyle are they righteous or are they telling something and doing something else. All this can be found out. You are all very intelligent people. But when it comes to gurus, I don’t know what happens to you, you just get numbed.
Interviewer: Now quite another question: the Indian music is very important on the way to spirituality, or to become deeper – could you explain…
Shri Mataji: You see we believe that the music itself has come from ‘omkara’ that means the sound of the vibrations, it has come from there. And that is has come from the saints and seers long time back. You see ours is very old, old country really you cannot fathom, say even historically, how old it was. People have tried to put Vedas in this here and there, but I do not agree. It is a very ancient country. And as the climate is so good you can stay outside all the time, all the year around, people don’t have to spend so much money to protect themselves from nature. Nature is so kind. So they just started thinking about the roots, about what is beyond this. After all it is not so important, you see they are being introverts because they didn’t have to fight it outside. So they became introverts. They started finding it out. So we had seers, saints, and we had incarnations and all of them have been talking about self-realization about self, about God, about so many things. So all this knowledge is there. And this knowledge is the one that one can just read it and give it to others and talk about it, and make money. And this is what it makes that they can be hypocrites because they know all these things and they want to communicate. But in music you cannot deceive. Music is something extremely honest. So you will find that Western people take to Indian music much faster when they are self-realized. And they will not take to teh wrong type of Indian music which is not good. So there is sort of a judgementpoint where you immediately know …. That these people can produce music who are Westeners who have never known Indian music who have not done any work or studied anything, who have not even read anything about, suddenly jump into the sea of this music because of self-realization, shows that there is some great connection between the Spirit and this music.
Interviewer: On the first day of the tour I have been in front of the house of an Indian family and there was a cow lying in front of the house like in Europe there would lie a dog. And I asked the little boy of the family who was maybe 6-8 years old to draw the cow. He did something astonishing which we maybe even with twenty years could do – I mean it is really perfectly done. Do you think that Indians are especially gifted and able to do handicrafts, arts?
Shri Mataji: No, you see for the cow, the thing is, the motherhood is very powerful in India – and next to the mother is the cow because she gives milk. And you first have seen Indian cows are very mild looking. They are very much loved and looked after. So for the cow they all have great love and affection and everybody can draw a cow because everyday we see a cow. But as far as the handicrafts are concerned Indians are very deft. For ages we have been using our hands. And thanks to the poverty or whatever it is, we don’t have so many machineries, so still people are doing wonderful things with their hands. And that’s why we are … Our antiques, we don’t understand why people have antiques – when we can reproduce the same thing equally well. Now our system is taking to machinery but they must keep a balance because we do not have a labour problem, we have too much labour in this country and if you bring a machine this labour will be out of jobs and we will have problems. So let there be some countries which produce handmade things, like I would say China and India. Let them be. But in the competition you see if you can evaluate handicrafts equally the same as anything done by the machines then it can work out.
Interviewer: You spoke in Ganapatipule that you would like to establish a sort of a school for handicrafts?
Shri Mataji: Yes, I thought that many people have suggested that they would like to learn how to weave, how to carve, and how to do many things that are done in India so easily. I said now after self-realization it is very easy. I was thinking of starting a school of 21 crafts of India to teach the foreigners how to do it. So that this spreads, people will also have handmade things with them. That I am going to start, I have already bought a land and we have to start building now and preparing a proper brochure.
See the weaving – just see the sari. This one has only cost you about sixty rupees, it is worth, imagine. It is handmade – 100 % – with the loom, they have a handloom …. every sari has a different design, it is a secret – especially in Benares, we don’t know how they make it … but as now we are getting into the Western style of dress and Western style of life what is happening is that people are going to taylors now, if they go to the taylors people won’t wear saris. The taylors will provide all the cloth, and they will not use handmade things. So I think this trend is not good to take to Western style of life. Because by that we will be really harmful to our farmers who can only work for about seven, eight months. The rest of the time they spend making saris and other hand-made things. So Indians must take to ethnic style of life. And also Western people should see the good of ethnic style. Because I am sure they must be fed up with machine-things.
Interviewer: How can art and handicrafts, in the way you imagine it, influence the new age…?
Shri Mataji: I have a vision of this new age. In this new age as I told you the whole thing will be just like a natural balance – as in nature. We have to have a balance of machines and human beings. Machines are for us, we are not for machines. They should not rule us, because of these machines only you have got now problems of environment, of food and toxic symptoms and people are becoming very weak. So we must have the balance between the machines and hand-made. If you have hand-made things you may pay a little more – doesn’t matter – but it lasts and lasts and lasts. But if you take something in plastic it doesn’t last. It is such a temporary thing. And all these artificial things also create problems for us. So in the new age, once you take to hand-made things, it has more vibrations, … Then you understand the value of hand-made things and by that you understand the value of human beings. And when you understand the value of human beings you start feeling the communication. But for example what I see in the Western world you have offices, where there are computers. Everyone has got an own earphone and their own computer – no communication, nothing,…
Such a factory or whatever it is doesn’t have any communication with each other. There is no human communication. And without the human communication how can there come the golden age I am talking about? for that you see – also now supposing that somebody comes from the West, they don’t bring for me as a present something made by machine… They bring something that is hand-made because you don’t feel any value of the machine-thing. You want to give something hand-made… To communicate your love. – especially if it is done by your own hand you will say that this I have made for you and it is very precious for me, because, you put your attention, you put your love into it. We communicate better with the hand-made thing. But you see the attention on the hand-made things is found only if people are a little more evolved, but say if people are just ordinary level they will just say oh it is nice I use plastic – finished it…
People who are seeking truth have to understand that one hand-made is better than ten machine-made things. And people who are realized, they understand it. But now we have gone so far away from this that you cannot produce it. Like in Austria I went and I asked is it brass and they said,’No, this is not real brass this is painted brass.’ But in India you can get brass everywhere. But Indians think that you are very rich and that we should follow you, making plastics.