Interview, London, UK, 1989-12-06

Interviewer: So are you ready, just to… Shri Mataji you started Sahaja Yoga in India in 1970. Could you please tell us about those days?

Shri Mataji: First I thought that better start from one person. And I tried to give realisation to one lady.

Cameraman: I’m sorry.

Shri Mataji: At that time –

Interviewer: Okay, thank you. This is just a test.

Cameraman: I’m sorry Shri Mataji we just have to test the noise. So now we can go.

Shri Mataji: It’s all right, no no, then again I said…

Cameraman: Now we can go so.

Shri Mataji: All right.

Interviewer: Oh no, it’s come undone (background decoration). Is there more tape there? Where’s that tape?

Shri Mataji: Is Paul having some tape?

Interviewer: Where’s it gone?

Technician: Pause it, Nick. That paused.

Cameraman: Okay, time Her in. Ten seconds, Nick.

Interviewer: Ten seconds, okay.

Cameraman: Okay, go.

Interviewer: Shri Mataji you started Sahaja Yoga in India in 1970. Could you please tell us about those days?

Shri Mataji: First I had to discover it Myself, how I will be able to give amass realisation, that was one problem. But when I worked it out then I thought first let us try with one person and there was a very nice lady, very pure personality. I tried on her gradually by clearing every centre and she got it! Then I said it has clicked. Then I taught people who were coming…

Cameraman: I am sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Can we start…

Interviewer: Start again.

Technician: Something started ticking.

Cameraman: It’s this clock actually.

Interviewer: That picking up from your radio mic?

Technician: No, something started ticking, it wasn’t there before, it’s just started and now the phones gonna ring. Can we have, can we have the phone disconnected? Unplugged.

Cameraman: I’ve also got another problem. You’ve gotta have to come this side. Cause it’s lit from there, it’s just gotta more…

Shri Mataji: My throat is also not very good today.

Cameraman: Rolling, going in ten.

Interviewer: Mind your shadow Paul, on the edge there, okay.

Technician 2: Can you hear that Paul?

Cameraman: There’s a telephone going somewhere.

Technician 2: Can you hear that phone?

Cameraman: Okay stop.

Shri Mataji: Relax, relax. Calm.

Technician: Yeah can you [UNCLEAR]. Let’s wait and put it on pause.

Cameraman: We’re rolling, so in…

Shri Mataji: It’s in my throat, it won’t take long.

Cameraman: Rolling, Take four.

Interviewer: Ready to begin? We go.

Cameraman: Five seconds for you Nick.

Technician: Take five.

Interviewer: Okay. Shri Mataji you started Sahaja Yoga in India in 1970. Could you please tell us about those early days?

Shri Mataji: So the first problem was how to get people into the idea of Sahaja yog[a] to tell them about Kundalini and to find out a method by which you give them amass realisation. So I worked very hard for it and ultimately I found out the way how to do it! By knowing the permutations and combinations of the problems that human beings have. And then I started lecturing, they announced my lectures and many people came to my lectures. But I didn’t give them any realisation, I was just telling them that we have to seek the realisation and it’s possible in this lifetime and we can work it out.

Then out of them I sorted out a lady who was very pure person I think and I said let’s try on her. So treating her on every chakra with my attention, I raised her Kundalini and she got it. And she felt very happy and joyous and her eyes started shining and she said ‘What has happened to me?’. So then I told these people that those who would like to come for Self Realisation they have to go for a little away from Bombay [Mumbai].

So we took a trip to one small little place where it was all very quiet and the seashore was beautiful. There the people who wanted to have their Self Realisation were still arguing and discussing. And that day I felt that I should try on somebody else. And one gentleman on whom I tried was a wonderful [UNCLEAR Musrati] gentleman. He got his realisation so beautifully so they started saying ‘Oh God, we cannot get it because after all we are good for nothing’ and all that. So that the first time, I think in life I really got very angry and I showed my anger and I said that ‘If you go on feeling like that then it’s not going to worked out, have courage in you and it’s going to work out’. And you’ll be surprised that very same day when we had the session, twelve people got realisation, out of them. There was about twenty six people out of them; twelve got it and two had got it earlier. And one was so anxious to get it but wouldn’t feel anything and suddenly she told me later on that in the train she started feeling the cool breeze around her so that’s how we had fifteen people to begin with. But the twelve of them, really worked it out because even if you get realisation you have to settle with it and you have to get full understanding about. With these twelve people I started in India and then this twelve people were once compelled to give realisation to a very big group of people in Nashik because I was delayed, my car was broken on the way and they had to start the work and they did it! And they were surprised that they could give realisation to them, of course they used My photograph but they gave realisation to them. So they had confidence.

We had many such incidents where people were diffident about themselves that how can they get realisation, ‘It’s not possible” but when they saw others getting it they just developed that faith in themselves and those who developed that faith in themselves got it. Then I had huge big meetings in India, thousands came, of course that time so many didn’t get realisation, about ten to fifteen percent used to get realisation and then they used to drop off.

Also they discovered that by raising the Kundalini people get cured. So the first onslaught was that of the sick, too much it was. I cured many people in Bombay, many people in Bombay, people came from all over the world. I should say in the sense that those who had relations and things. But I found those people who were sick people got cured but they had no interest in Sahaja Yoga. They had no interest in the benevolence of others. They just came for their curing, that’s all. That’s how I felt that first thing is that I must look after people who can achieve this confidence in themselves and can achieve the state of doubtless awareness.

This happened, you would be surprised in such a short time in India that in 1972 my husband got elected to this post in England. He was elected by one hundred and thirty four nations and our government insisted that we should come to London and we came to London, in the seventy three, in the seventy three in January we were here.

Interviewer: Could you please Shri Mataji describe your…

Cameraman: – Sorry Nick, can I just…

Interviewer: Yep.

Cameraman: Okay rolling again.

Technician: Take six.

Interviewer: Shri Mataji when you came to London, could you tell us your experiences? How you found things here?

Shri Mataji: Some organisation in India informed another organisation here that I’ve come to London and that they should arrange a program for Me here. And they approached Me and they arranged a program in London by advertising in their magazines or something like that and when I came here. I found most of the people who were here, were foreigners and not Indians, very surprising. And they were, I think six or seven of them got realisation so strongly that I was amazed that these people had no background, nothing.

Cameraman: Sorry, we got to stop there.

Interviewer: Yeah, are you on the wide shot?

Interviewer: People who are foreigners, not English?

Shri Mataji: – Yeah, yeah.

Interviewer: And some of them got realisation very quickly?

Shri Mataji: From the Organisation should I talk?

Interviewer: Yes and you were very surprised.

Shri Mataji: All right, should I say that some Indian organisation.

Interviewer: You said that, yes we already got that. We’ve done.

Shri Mataji: That’s done.

Interviewer: We’ve done that. Yes and we got to the way you said you found more foreigners at your meetings and some of them got realisation very quickly.

Shri Mataji: All right.

Interviewer: So we can go on from that.

Cameraman: Yeah we are ready to go.

Interviewer: This is the pick up, continue or whatever you call it.

Technician: Take seven.

Interviewer: When do we go?

Cameraman: Yeah and go.

Shri Mataji: Most of the people who were there were foreigners, very surprising. And about six or seven of them got realisation very strong, got a very strong feeling of realisation and elation and joy was writ[ten] large of their faces. I was amazed because these people had no background of realisation or anything and then to my amazement I found out that they were hippies, not all but most of them were hippies. So they told me that they could have this program of the petition in a place very close to a hippie village that they had formed.

Of course in the family, everybody was worried when am I going to the hippies and I went down and it’s surprising they had brought about thirty people there, all hippies. I felt they are seekers of truth that they are taking these drugs and things. And really just started [UNCLEAR] my eyes, I just couldn’t see them suffering so much. And some of them could see Me, they just saw, they said later on they was lights coming out of Me. And some of them were something like coma, they didn’t know their names, anythings in a horrid way. So of them, they again got about ten people who got realisation very well, surprising!

Next time I received a telephone call saying that they have given up drugs overnight and they want to see you. We were living in a house about twenty five miles away from London, I said ”Come along this Saturday”. So they came down, they stayed over. Beautiful people they were. So why do you make your hair like primitive people? Why do you want to live like primitive people? And they were wearing dirty clothes, smelling. I said ”Now, first of all, you go and all have baths”. So I gave the soap, everything. I wanted them to change. Then they came down and I was amazed that they were very, very beautiful people. Out of them about eight or nine properly settled down in Sahaja Yoga and that was the foundation. And I discovered that some of them were professors, they were PHD’s and this and that, very learned people. And the British whom I thought would be the most difficult people became so easily available for Sahaja Yoga. Not only that but they really felt duty bound to do something about it because they thought I could save of these people who are drug addicts. And the best part of it immediately they were scholars went to the universities and we got another scholar who rushed from America to see Me. And they studied everything about Kundalini, everything about what is Self Realisation is and they’re back next Saturday again. And it was so beautiful to see their anxiety, to help humanity, that’s how we started our work.

But the one we had with us who was a diplomat later on also went from various countries and then they got hold of they’re friends and things and that’s how this hippie movement which was spread in the whole of Europe gave us the connection. You see, like an ocean which look so dirty on top, the undercurrent went through and we got connection with every nation in Europe. And that’s how Sahaja Yoga started working out. But I went to France every year, four times and worked very hard and today I must say Europe has become a great Sahaja Yogi continent, we should say a, such a great leader in the West.

Interviewer: Thank you.

Interviewer: …It’s our achievement if we can do that.

Cameraman: Okay.

Shri Mataji: We can show a lot, you see…

Technician: Rolling.

Interviewer: Yes.

Shri Mataji: …Many people coming. We can show all that, you see.

Cameraman: Right, so Nick in five when you are ready.

Technician: Take eight.

Interviewer: Shri Mataji could you please explain what is this cool breeze people feel?

Shri Mataji: This cool breeze is the All-Pervading power of God’s love. It is described in all the scriptures. It is called as Ruh or it’s called as the cool breeze of the Holy Ghost in the Bible and also Shri Adi Shankaracharya described it as “Salilam, Salilam” means the cooling, cool and cool so that is what you feel. First time you feel the subtle All-Pervading power which does everything which organises everything, does all living work which thinks about all, it loves.

Interviewer: Right, thank you. So could you explain to us please about the Kundalini?

Shri Mataji: Kundalini is a power for our ascent, placed in the triangular bone which is called…

[End of recording]