1989-06-15 CKLM Interview, Toronto

Interviewer Edita Frazer: First of all I’ll just talk to you about what it is I’m talking about on the show and then we can do the recording. It should be about 10 minutes.

Shri Mataji: All right.

Edita: And, um, on the show for the past year I’ve been doing it, I keep talking about all these world problems, you know.

Shri Mataji: Yeah.

Edita: Um, The environment.

Shri Mataji: Ah.

Edita: The, um, abuse of human life.

Shri Mataji: Yeah!

Edita: In terrible ways, like children being kidnapped and sold and their organs taken..

Shri Mataji: Abused…

Edita: and murdered. The destruction of forests, the ozone layer, the poisoning of our food with pesticides so that multinationals can have larger profits

Shri Mataji: Mmhm.

Edita: And uh, I’ve been trying to start looking at solutions because I realize I’m getting very blocked feeling from focusing on this negativity and there has to be a way out.

Shri Mataji: Yes. We can’t give this to our progeny (laughs)

Edita: No

Shri Mataji: We should try to solve it ourselves

Edita: Yes

Shri Mataji: And we can do it, it’s not difficult. Basically all these problems are created by human beings, not by –

Edita: Maybe I should just start recording this

Shri Mataji: All right. Basically all these problems referred to are created by human beings and not by the Divine. Every religion has one essence common, very much in common, which says that you must seek the eternal. And the transitory should be used in its own limitations. But somehow or other we have lost that essence, and we are just living with something that is dead. As a result of that we have not tried to seek the eternal. The eternal is the spirit within us. And the spirit is the one which gives us enlightenment when it comes in our attention, it gives us balance, and also it gives us wisdom. Without the guidance of Spirit we go into imbalances, we can go to extremes. Like once you started producing something transitory. It is transitory because built in within it is the power to destroy. So when you start putting all your attention into transitory things ultimately you have to go to the destruction. So what happens that supposing now you use science. Science was used for transitory things. As a result today’s science has gone up to a point where we have now big devils of atomic energy and atomic

Edita: Tell me about atomic energy – that’s one of my areas of

Shri Mataji: Laughs

Edita: Investigation

Shri Mataji: Ahh. Now this atomic energy, if a realized soul was to use it, he would use it in balance – in a sense that all these things are for us, we are not for them. Machinery is for us, we are not for machinery. So there should be a balance. It should be done up to a point. But if you go on using it, as if that’s the end of everything, then all these problems arise. So whatever one does, has lost the bedding as you can call it, and has gone absolutely into a frenzy, anything…for example, we think of nature, as you said, about the trees. When we start producing too many transitory things, say in poor countries we  have one blessing, that we don’t have too many things. We don’t use plastic, we can’t afford it, so we use brass. We have in a family about 6 plates of brass, which we use and we don’t need more. So we don’t have the dumping of plastics anywhere. Then we don’t use so much paper, because it’s better to clean everything yourself, with water, finished with it. But the amount of things now we ask for, the variety of things we have produced, there’s no need.

For example, first time when we came to London, for entertainment that time, my husband said, of course we don’t drink, both of us, but he said we have to offer drinks. You won’t believe we had to study a dictionary for it

Edita: (laughs)

Shri Mataji: (laughs) not only to buy the drinks but to buy the tumblers, and the different tumblers we want to have and different things, I mean one should be sufficient even for drinking. But the way we started making varieties and choices its just…essentially it’s the money orientation behind it, the entrepreneurs you see. They will create a fashion of it, and then tomorrow they have to run their machines. So they will create another fashion, then the third fashion, and every time the fashion world is going on people are slaves. Today if there is a fashion declared, say in Paris, everybody must follow otherwise you’re out of date, I mean people will laugh at you. There’s nothing like traditional dress kept anymore. What they have is today’s fashion then tomorrow’s fashion so piles of clothes produced. From where do they come? From nature.

Edita: And we keep seeing bi-products of toxins in the water, toxins in the food chain…

Shri Mataji: So you see we have lost the balance of understanding

Edita: How do we go towards balance?

Shri Mataji: All right, so that’s why I say you seek the eternal. And when you seek the eternal your spirit which is in your heart enlightens your attention, enlightens your intelligence and you become wise. And then you understand that you are a collective being, you are not alone. And you just can’t go on doing something arbitrarily without any consideration or relationship to others. And when such an attitude develops, automatically everything comes into balance. And that is how we have lost our moorings as I say.

Edita: In the west, quite a few people are beginning to understand this and they’re beginning to become much more humble in their expectations and their desires but the mass still want to accumulate more and more and more, they have to have their own individual cars and their luxury. How can they be moved?

Shri Mataji: You need good leaders. You see we had only one Abraham Lincoln to create democracy. You need powerful, honest, sincere, conscientious and righteous leaders who can just create an image and people follow that.

Edita: Our leaders right now seem to be very far from righteousness…

Shri Mataji: laughs

Edita: …in fact in the United States the finger keeps pointing over the Iran-Contra affair that the present president probably knew something about arms and drug trading to finance right wing organizations which are murdering people in South America and the rest of the world.

Shri Mataji: This happens because of money orientation. They are also blind about it. That money orientation will never bring benevolence to people. They are blind. But God willing, they will also have this light and they’ll also see that it’s important. Otherwise in the regime of any person, think of people who have ruled America or who are presidents, who stands out? If they have to have a name in the history, they have to think about it. If it can be realized and if they could become aware, what is going to be our image in the history. What’s history going to say about us? Things will change.

Edita: Right now there seems to be a desperate need in a lot of countries for revolution. The majority of people for instance while you’ll be going into South America living in fear and misery and the only solution they seem to have able to them right now is a bloody revolution and I, I think that a bloody revolution only results in more blood and more oppression. What kind of a (unclear) can we make? I know you worked with Mahatma Gandhi…

Shri Mataji: yeah

Edita: no doubt you have some good ideas from that.

Shri Mataji: You see, we also Indians fought, but with non-violence and got our independence. But still I must say that we have to get our spiritual awakening. Now the idea of democracy has crawled into the heads of many people.  But they don’t see the other side of democracy. They think if we become democratic, everything is over, at the most they might get the same situation as America has. But also the problems with it will go. So democracy without a balance has no meaning. I would say I am a great capitalist because if I have powers I am the greatest capitalist. But I’m the greatest communist also because I can’t help without sharing it with others. So is the first the awareness that we are part and parcel of the whole makes you sharing, and that we can handle our own powers makes you the capitalist. Because what are we sharing also with these stones and ashes and plastics? What is to be shared is the joy of personality, that is the thing one has to see and ask for. If these things happen the whole world will change, I’m sure. I think everybody is now seeing in the mirror and God willing things will work out.

Edita: I hope they do. I would like to ask you another question about the drug problem, which is quite a plague

Shri Mataji: Mm Hm…

Edita: in North and South America. South America is the producing countries and North America is the consuming countries and it’s leading to a lot of murder and destruction in all aspects of its trade its, uh, merchandising from production right through to consumption and the middle people who are making multi-billions every year in dollars. What can we do about that?

Shri Mataji: Again the same principle is that when you become money oriented, say first you think of in the history of the Spanish coming over, thank God they didn’t come to India, otherwise I would not have been here. They killed all the people and they destroyed everyone and they wanted to have their own kingdom and now there Americans there. Then they came – English came – and all of them, and if you, you’ll be surprised when I went to Argentina and I went to Chile I couldn’t find one person who was the Red Indian. They had to take me to the museum to see that, both the places. But in Colombia they disappeared into the heights. And there they discovered this, so sort of a, it’s a very subtle revenge, I feel, is going on, because when I went to America once and then to Colombia, the people in Colombia said that these people are buying from us wheat, at a very low price, even in Canada, they were buying all your ores and everything at a low price, making cars there,, selling them here very expensively, it’s all money orientation. As a result, now, they are not selling wheat, but they are selling cocaine. So it’s a vicious circle. It has started long time back, it’s going on and on and on. But to get rid of the drugs, the best way for Americans would be to take to Sahaja Yoga. We have had so many people coming from drugs, drug addicts, absolutely drug addicts, and alcoholics. Once they came to Sahaja Yoga they gave up.

How do you describe Sahaja Yoga?

Sahaja Yoga, Saha means with, Ja means born, born  with you is the right to be united to the divine power, which is the vital force. Which will completely change and transform the whole world.

Edita: The white light force? Did you say?

Shri Mataji: Vital

Edita: The..white light?

Yogi: Vital

Shri Mataji: (spelling it) V-I-T…vital force

Edita: Oh “vital”, of course

Shri Mataji: And which will transform the whole world, I said it vital because it gives life, it gives life to flowers, it give lives to all the trees, it give lives to everything.. And with that, then, the whole thing will work out on a divine level, and we’ll have beautiful times.

Edita: Thank you

Shri Mataji: God bless you

Edita:We’ve been getting reports of children who are being kidnapped and murdered for their organs. What do you know about this kind of practice? What should we do?

Shri Mataji: This is also again coming from going to the extremes of things that now they have become like devils, and they can’t stand innocence, they can’t bear innocence. If they see anybody innocent they want to attack. Because they think we have lost innocence so why should anyone have innocence And that’s why they do all these things, moreover they’re so frantic, so frustrated, they have no patience for children, you have to have patience for children. They have no love. Sometimes people ask me there is such a population problem in India I say the children don’t want to be born anywhere else (Shri Mataji laughs) because Indians love their children. Even if they’ll have 12 children they will love all of them and they’ll do anything for them. So when our attention is more on money, on our possessions then we think oh we have to share this with our children and then you feel frustrated. So it’s a attention of a person who has no attention on love, and love is a joy giving thing. So this has to change but how can you change it? You have to become the spirit. Because spirit is the source of joy. It is the source of divine love. Is the source of peace and bliss. Above all, when the spirit shines in your attention, it acts. If I pay attention to someone it acts, it helps that person. So the whole machine has gone out of tune, we have to just tune it, that’s all.

Edita: How can we get through to the people who are benefitting materially in this world? It’s very easy when you’re poor and humble to understand there are terrible problems that must be solved, but when you’re very rich from the results of your actions how can you be affected? How can we get through to them so that there doesn’t have to be bloodshed?

Shri Mataji: Money is also a curing thing. Those who have money are the most disturbed people. I get so many of them who come for peace, they can’t sleep in the night, they have problems with their children, uh, they’re always afraid that they’ll be killed, they are not in peace they are not enjoying themselves, just their ego tells them we are all money, but they are frightened people. So money also depends on them, it’s not that money gives them real, sort of authority or a real feeling of ruling the whole world. It does not. On the contrary they are the most frightened people.

18:43 Edita: Unfortunately in their fear they keep producing the products which keep polluting the world. And they still don’t seem to see what’s happening, and it’s the poor who suffer, internationally, in North America the native populations are really suffering as a result of the uranium trade, for instance, they mine uranium for nuclear power and it creates a toxic product which remains for over 50 000 years and it remains very poisonous for the entire area for that length of time, all the food, all the plants..

But it reacts. I’ll tell you how, I’ll give you an example. Switzerland is the country, you see. Switzerland is very money oriented as you know by hook or crook they must have money. And they started to produce chemicals, because you see they’re such a small country, they cannot produce anything else.  So they started producing chemicals. When they started producing chemicals this acid rain spread over, and all their trees starting dying out. When the trees started dying out, the ice melted. And the ice which melted down came to the rivers and the rivers were flooded, and all the waste also went to other countries and now they have filed suits against them. How it reacts, it’s very wonderful to see. It reacts. They all know! They all know. And money is such a shaky thing, today they have money, tomorrow they won’t have money. So there’s a lot of things happening. Many people are getting exposed. This is the era of great exposure also, and I’m sure very soon people are going to realize. But just sharing money with anybody is not the solution. Because with whom to share? But how that you produce money? Just to do something for the benevolence of the people. It’s not that you become ascetics, that’s not necessary, it’s not necessary that you give up art and artists, no, 21:14 but what is necessary is to understand that we are part and parcel of the whole and we do not possess anything. We don’t possess anything. The whole material products, all of them, are for giving to others, that’s all. They are not for possession;  you cannot possess it. Today I possess something, I’ll have to give it to my children, or I’ll have to give it to you; but the best thing is that you use it for giving love. So one should not stop any activity, but there should be a balance. And not to go into any activity to the extreme, so it should be mobile. Then one understands how far to go, how far not to go. Say shipping industry; people are booming, they had such profits once upon a time, they were shipping magnets, this that, then it went down, down, down, down, absolutely, to the bottom. All industries are like that. So they repel. So nowadays it’s going to be even worse, so they have to be careful.

Edita: Do you foresee a planetary healing coming up soon?

Shri Mataji: Of course, I do see that! (Shri Mataji laughs) It’s going to come from all sides, for everyone of us, for every one of us. Ah, like the bloodshed you said that they’ll have lots of these bloody wars and all that, they will realize that’s not going to help them, and for the rich they will realize that it’s not going to help them, to be just rich and exploit the poor. That will, it will definitely come around, because you see the empires are falling down.  

Edita: Even the grandchildren of the rich are threatened right now.

Shri Mataji: They themselves are refusing you see, they are themselves are awakening.

Edita: I hope that’s true…Shri Mataji: that thing is going to work.

Edita:…that’s an optimistic thought.

Shri Mataji: I’m sure it’s going to work out. It’s going to work out. We’ve reached now a time where everyone’s aware. Some people say it out, some people don’t say it, but everyone is aware. Because I have two lives, as you know, my husband is something else, and I am something else, so in that life I see all those people.

Edita: Yes I guess you would be travelling in very high circles

Shri Mataji: Very! (Shri Mataji laughs) so called (laughing) I don’t know…but I find that most of them are psychological cases. And they don’t know what to do. They’re mad, I see, all the time, topics change, this, that, they’re talking, they’re mad people. Most of them are crazy, as so many poor are crazy, they are crazy, equally the same, not much of a difference.

Edita: They’re craziness unfortunately has power to make other people suffer

Shri Mataji: Up to a point. Up to a point. Up to a point. I think they suffer more, much more. And it will happen one day, you’ll see that they’ll come round. They have to. They can’t help it. Do you know in American elite society what they talk about?

Edita: No

Shri Mataji: Cocaine

Edita: What? Cocaine?  That’s it?

Shri Mataji: Cocaine.

It’s even taken over them

Very much! Very much by them. Who else? Poor can’t afford it.

Edita: Oh but the poor can, they using it in the form of crack, and they’re selling their bodies…

Shri Mataji: That’s different, that’s alright, that’s alright. But these people whom you are mentioning are busy the same way, because they have much more money, they’ll go down much more than the poor.

Edita: Mm hm.

Shri Mataji: The power that they have is also self-destructive. Money is a very destructive thing.

Edita: There’s more freedom in poverty?

Shri Mataji: I feel now after seeing India I think there is some blessing hidden in poverty also.

Edita: Someone told me a Tibetan lama who was here, he lives in India, that north america is so materially rich but we’re so impoverished spiritually.

Shri Mataji: That is very true.