Radio interview, A question of Belief, L B C, London (England) July 30th, 1989
Interviewer: For many years now there’s been a growing interest in this country what are commonly known as the Eastern Mystical Religions and they aren’t very well understood, today in the studio with me is Her Holiness Shri Mataji: Nirmala Devi, now she is the leader of the Sahaja Yoga movement. Mataji, welcome to the studio, let’s take off by looking at the beliefs of the Sahaja Yoga movement.
Shri Mataji: Sahaja Yoga is a system by which you get spontaneously your Self-realisation, your self-knowledge by a happening that is within you. In a triangular bone called as sacrum, meaning “sacred”, lies a power which rises and pierces through your fontanel bone area which was a soft bone in your childhood. And then on your central nervous system, you can feel the Collective Consciousness. A new dimension is manifested.
Interviewer: So, this starts by happening at birth, which is when people have the soft head as it were.
Shri Mataji: No, it in a dormant state and like a seed as in dormant state, a tree, but when the seed is planted into the Mother Earth, spontaneously it sprouts because a living process and evolution is also a living process, so spontaneously it happens when it gets congenial atmosphere.
Interviewer: What then is the congenial atmosphere, when a person actually accepts the teachings?
Shri Mataji: They don’t have to accept anything blindfolded, because by blindfold you do not get it but you must have an open mind like a scientist has, that supposing a hypothesis is put before you, you should judge it yourself by your experience and then believe in it. So, there is no need to have any blind faith or any conception, because its a living process, so the congenial atmosphere is atmosphere where you sit down with a person who knows how to raise this power in you and if that person can raise that power then you yourself become entitled, you yourself are endowed with this power to do this to others.
Interviewer: What is this power, what is the nature of it?
Shri Mataji: This is a power of pure desire within us, now as you know in economics, you say, that in general desire is not satiable, in general, but this is a desire which we call as of pure desire and the pure desire within us, dormantly or maybe with awareness whatever it is exists of achieving Self-realisation, the connection with this divine is our pure desire, because after that you feel so satisfied you become such a witness, you become such a joyous person and then you want to give this power to everyone.
Interviewer: So basically, if the human being achieves this desire of all endowment, etc, etc, then they themselves are almost a pure person.
Shri Mataji: It purifies, this power rises and purifies and they become absolutely pure people as Christ has described absolutely, they become righteous, they become compassionate, they become very dynamic and also they become very forgiving.
Interviewer: I can understand wanting and probably needing that, (Very much) but it can only be the few sadly who actually do
achieve this.
Shri Mataji: The problem is those who have this background, like in India we have this background, because the knowledge in the west is the knowledge of the tree, but knowledge of east is the knowledge of the roots, so they have this background, so then I get about twelve thousand, fifteen thousand people in a meeting when I go to India, but when I come abroad I find the number is at least reduced ten times, or sometimes a hundred times, doesn’t matter because there’s no background, but the awareness is very strong, the desire is very strong, so those who come, all of them get it.
Interviewer: Have we complicated our lives with so many material goods, so many material things, the telephone the radio?
Shri Mataji: I mean these all things are meant for you, you are not meant for that, the essence of all the religions is one, that see the eternal and the transitory is to be treated in its own understanding and in its own limitations, but we go all out, there’s no limit to it, so they sit on our heads, all this machines are sitting on our heads now we can’t so without them, so there should be some balance, we have lost the balance.
Interviewer: When we talk about losing, it’s very difficult to regain isn’t it unless you have a major catastrophe and that surely is not part of the desire?
Shri Mataji: Actually it is very difficult even with catastrophe I think, people don’t understand, because somehow or other once they have gone onto one derailment they cannot come back, but it’s only the Kundalini awakening, is only this power when it awakens, automatically you get into balance, automatically, because supposing now there’s a snake somebodies holding on and there’s darkness. And I tell him, “Now there’s a snake in your hand” he’ll never drop it because he thinks it’s a rope. How to convince him? Till the snake bites him, he won’t drop it. So, you put on the light and he drops it automatically.
Interviewer: And then the snake doesn’t bite him?
Shri Mataji: And then snakes run away.
Interviewer: Yes, that klicks in my mind, ahem. Really moving on one step from there we are talking about a power, now again in the Western world we think of God as “The Power”. Is the power in the eastern mind a God or Gods or what?
Shri Mataji: Of course! This is the power of God Almighty, whom we call as Sadashiva, you call him by any name, Sadashiva means which cannot be changed, eternal, then his power is Adi Shakti, now here maybe little difference comes in, like you say Father, The God, Then Son The God. What about the Mother? Mother is missing. So, they call it Holy Ghost and if you ask anybody. Who is Holy Ghost? They say we are agnostic about it, so Holy Ghost is the Primordial Mother. She is the Shakti. She is the Mother and this is her Power which creates, while God Almighty is just the witness of the whole show.
Interviewer: I am interested that you pick up the point of the Mother and the role, I suppose it comes down to it of women in faith, ahem, and I have a slight suspicion, whom I have to talk to you about it, about all people as a religious leader as a woman religious leader, but within the western faiths there’s a thing which is very much against the leadership of women in faith and supposed to in government.
Shri Mataji: Is absolutely wrong, absolutely wrong, if you ask me that’s absolutely wrong, of course a man and a woman are like two wheels of a chariot, there has to distance between the two alright, but they two different, differently made, they are not similar but equal, wheels and without them things won’t work out, so those who believe in such a thing, I must say still have to evolve a little more, because. What was Christs’ Mother? She was the power behind him. It can be proved also in Sahaja Yoga, we can prove it, that she was the power behind Christ.
Interviewer: I suspect though that you are not particularly bothered about going into these what are rather petty points?
Shri Mataji: It’s not petty, it’s very important because this is how you have hurt so many people and kept many people away from reality, these are not petty points, very important, that’s how we have treated women in different way, now today they have become so difficult, you see women are equally the same as men are and it’s not petty, it’s very important because woman is one who makes the society.
Interviewer: Right, can we then come onto the point of in Sahaja Yoga obviously there are certain recommendations as the way you
should live.
Shri Mataji: There’s no recommendation at all but as I told you that as soon as you see the light, you throw the snake you see
automatically you become your own guide, you see, because you start feeling the cool breeze of The Holy Ghost, The Holy Ghost
is The Mother, you start feeling it and once you start doing anything wrong they just disappear, you become like a divine computer and the answering machine stops, so then you come back to normal, you don’t have to tell anybody, don’t do this, don’t
do that, they themselves stop it.
Interviewer: So, we are talking also about a real physical feeling?
Shri Mataji: Yes of course, you feel the cool breeze on your hands every fingertip, you can feel the different centres that are within you and if you know how to correct them you are alright, I mean we have definitely cured cancer, we have definitely cured epilepsy, we have definitely cured many, many diseases which has been long established by Delhi University and there are three doctors have got M.D. out of it.
Interviewer: But how do you do this then?
Shri Mataji: This is as simple as this that, you see when you go to extremes you go either to the left or to the right, if you go to the left you get emotional problems, you go to the right you get mental or physical problems, simple as that when this Kundalini rises, she pierces through all these centres enriches them, it’s a vital force, so enriches them and also put them together, so that all the time the energy is flowing to them because it is also connected to the mains.
Interviewer: But it also demands a faith and a belief doesn’t it?
Shri Mataji: No not at all, faith and belief is outside, is mental, it’s a mental projection, that has done much more harm than good.
Interviewer: But if somebody comes along and say’s I am ill and is desperate because they know that they are very mortally ill and says OK. Let’s try it, that doesn’t necessarily mean to say that they will actually get this feeling.
Shri Mataji: They have nothing to do about it, the person who is going to help them can only put the hand on their head or could be on their back and then cure them, it’s so simple because fundamentally we are very simple, if you know the fundamental points about ourselves that there are seven centres which are to be controlled, of course in the medical terminology you can say that there are plexuses, but they’re on the physical side, also on the mental side, also on the emotional side, these centres are, if you know how to correct the centres you are all right.
Interviewer: But back we come to this thing, how does a person get to the stage where they can give this sort of help to others?
Shri Mataji: That’s what I’m saying that once supposing I raise your Kundalini and you get Realised Soul you can do it, only to we have to know a little bit decoding that’s all.
Interviewer: But there must be a realisation within a person’s mind?
Shri Mataji: Not before, it’s after. Before is only mental or emotional. But how does this happen to a person? Because it is already built in, it is something like now you have this machinery if you put to the mains it works because it is built in.
Interviewer: Surely though there is a point where, a person realises that they have got a gift, or otherwise they just…
Shri Mataji: No, no.
Interviewer: Go on through life doing what they were doing.
Shri Mataji: See there is no question of anybody having any gift of anything, it is a question of you being a human being first of all second point is that having the desire to know the truth, that’s all.
Interviewer: I’m still I must say slightly confused as to the point I and many, many other people, a lot of our listeners will be want, going about their business in their homes on the streets and so on and what you told me is that within them they have the Kundalini, right?
Shri Mataji: Of course.
Interviewer: But of course, they are probably unaware of that.
Shri Mataji: They are unaware.
Interviewer: And they don’t know how to use it.
Shri Mataji: Of course.
Interviewer: So, what point and how do they actually come to use it?
Shri Mataji: It has to be awakened first of all, as I said it is to he connected to the mains, that say my job or could be the job, the job of John or somebody who has got Realisation and who knows about Kundalini, we call them Sahaja Yogis. Nowadays see I cannot travel all over the world, I do, but we are now working in thirty nations, so these people are doing it, they don’t take any money for it, there are. What can you charge?
Interviewer: What then is the mission, then?
Shri Mataji: Mission is to emancipate human beings to transform them, if you have to bring people to some sensible situation, we have to see that they receive to truth which is absolute, we live in a relative world, that’s why all these problems are there.
Interviewer: Don’t you find, Mataji, from time to time, that the problems of the world are so enormous, there’s a disaster here, a disaster there, few people fighting each other over there and killing each other, people taking hostages and so on, is there a point when you say, isn’t this is too much?
Shri Mataji: Too much I know but, you see, but because everybody has gone amuck, if you can just somehow or other get them to the absolute point and if they become the divine computer everything will fall in places, everything, we have done it. I mean you will be surprised now we have Jews, they worship Christ and they love Muslims, the other day we had one Iraqi and one Irani, hugging themselves, you see they observe, so wonderful to see these people, there’s no more these artificial boundaries, no hatred nothing.
Interviewer: But were talking at the moment of the exception rather that the rule.
Shri Mataji: Now? No, no, no, there are many, they are in thousands, they are in thousands, it’s not exceptional, they are not exceptional people, they are very ordinary, actually exceptional people are lost in their ego mostly, in their success, so they never come, they never come to Sahaja Yoga, they’ll go to false guru, whom they can purchase, they can give money, like, to me only those people who have real desire within themselves come, but somebody has a desire to earn money, or to have some sort of a power, I mean political maybe, they go to somebody like that, here it is the question of spiritual power.
Interviewer: In a way from what you’re saying, you have not set up a bureaucratic formalised faith?
Shri Mataji: Not at all, bureaucrats are the worst of all for this, because my husband is a bureaucrat, they are good for nothing! [Laughter].
Interviewer: Your husband is a bureaucrat?
Shri Mataji: They are very difficult people, they have to manage their seats you see, all the time and also the politicians have the same problem. And they are always very insecure about it, but as far as other people are concerned, who are neither here in the competition of power and in the competition of money, those such people are the ones who come to me first, they are the easiest to handle, but then we can also handle difficult people, it’s not so difficult now because we have done it, so now I find it’s not going to be that difficult.
Interviewer: You must get a lot of skeptics come along and say —-
Shri Mataji: Oh! Lots of people, there’s all kinds of things, doesn’t matter you see they are in ignorance. What to do? But our religion is to know yourself and enjoy, we call it the innate pure religion.
Interviewer: Is that a religion of me personally?
Shri Mataji: Of course, which you know, it’s not somebody has to tell you anything, you know everything yourself, within yourself and if you need any guidance, then I can give you or he can give you, but as you grow you yourself start experiencing it, you feel you are in the Kingdom of God, the way you are looked after.
Interviewer: On the other hand, does one slide away from the established path from time to time?
Shri Mataji: No the establishment is, you know how it is, so you become so dynamic, you become so dynamic that you stand out, we have people who have gone up so much in the field of art, in the field of music, in the field of education, after coming to Sahaja Yoga everybody, you’ll be amazed that in Sahaja Yoga when people come even in England, we have no one who is unemployed.
Interviewer: But talking a lot I would have thought equally about self-knowledge.
Shri Mataji: Yes. So you know the self-knowledge, because you know about your centres, you know where you lie with yourself, you face yourself, you know that you have this problem, physical, or this problem which is emotional, or this problem which is mental, last of all a spiritual problem also you may have, all these problems you can see yourself and then only you can correct it and you become so peaceful.
For example, now if you see in the normal state we think, all the time we are thinking, now supposing there’s a red light I see, I start thinking about it, something must come into my head about it, it would not be a silence there. With this happening [of Realisation] what happens, a thought rises and falls, another thought rises and falls and we are jumping on the cusps, in the future or in the past. When this happening takes place, what happens, that in between, there’s a little space that is the present, we just stop there, that’s the peace, we are so peaceful. Despite all this is happening around you, you are extremely peaceful, you witness everything and because you are out of the problem, you can see it clearly and you can solve it also. It’s like jumping out of the water in a boat and seeing it, but if you know how to swim you can save others also.
Interviewer: It all sounds so easy.
Shri Mataji: It is the easiest, has to be, all vital things are easy, supposing for our breathing if we had to go to library what would have happened? It is true, so vital for us. We are all in that power and that power has to see that whatever it has created has to come to the stage and the human beings are the epitome of that creation. We are at the epitome and we have to just jump a little, of say the little breakthrough and we are there. But one has to open the mind to see that there’s a chance.
Interviewer: Is there then, any hope that were going to get at some point to the perfect world?
Shri Mataji: I have all the hopes, all the hopes, when I visit other countries, I am amazed and now Russia had called us. What do you
say to that? Russian government.
Interviewer: There they would say and I don’t mean that as a cliche is the question and the hope. Her Holiness Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi and you can hear her on Monday the 31st. July and Tuesday 1st.
August and The Porchester Hall which is in Bayswater at 7.30 in the evening admission is totally free an I am sure you will find the evening really worthwhile.
H.H. Shri Mataji: Nirmala Devi