Shri Mahalakshmi Puja. Kolhapur (Maharashtra-India), Hindi Talk, 21 December 1990.

This way the three and a half shakthi (Kundalini) is residing in Maharashtra, and also the Shri Chakra is residing here.
All of you know that in the central path resides Mahalakshmi and also the Kundalini is awakened in the central path. For thousands of years in this Mahalakshmi temple it is recited (chanted) UDO UDO AMBE to awaken the Amba Kundalini and the kundalini shakthi in Mahalakshmi gets awakened. For this the Amba who resides in this Mahalakshmi temple arises.
Kolasur was killed here and that’s why the name Kolapur. There was a rakshasa named Kolasur and he was killed here and from the
name Kolasur it is named Kolapur.
Wherever you go to the temples where the prithvi tattwa (Mother Earth) has created the swayambhu statues, there, completely people started making money out of it, because of this there will be less of Chaitanya (vibrations).
Now you have come (sahajayogis) and it is possible again the Mahalakshmi (vibrations) get purified. Sushmna nadi is made in the way as the three nadis and behind there is a very subtle nadi and it is called Brahma nadi. The Kundalini gets first awakened in this nadi. From this subtle Brahma nadi it passes and awakens (opens) the Brahmarandra. By awakening the Brahmarandra the self realisation starts, so in this special way Kundalini’s central path is made.
Whatever is the obstacle (badhas) slowly, slowly the Kundalini awakening steadies itself through meditation. In Sahaja Yoga first we reach the peak (top) after we settle down. First we go to the top…

[After this one phrase, the words are not audible and Mother tells the Maharashtrians in marathi how everybody knows the speciality of this place and the temple. The speech in hindi and marathi concludes here.]

I welcome all of you from abroad, and this Kolhapur is regarded as one of the deities’ temple, which have three-and-a-half deities, or you can say three-and-a-half coils of the Kundalini, so it is said that, in this triangular bone of Maharashtra – because it is surrounded by, on all three sides by mountains, and the plateau is in the center so the all the three sides make a nice triangle – is the Kundalini of the whole universe, of the whole world, is expressed by Mother Earth in Maharashtra.
These are three-and-a-half energies, which are coiled together. The first one is of Mahakali. This Mahakali power is expressed in Tuljapur as Bhavani, and Shivaji Maharaj used to come on a horse all the way for miles together, to get the darshan of this Bhavani at Tuljapur: he knew this; and he had a sword which was called as Bhavani talwar, and people said that the Goddess Herself has given this sword to him.
Now the second one is Mahasaraswati, is at Mahurgadh. We always sing Mahurgadawari song, that is the one – is Mahasaraswati, which is also called as Renuka Devi, that’s the right-sided Mahasaraswati.
Then the third one is Mahalakshmi, that is at Kolhapur. Here a very bad demon called Kolasur was killed by the Mother, so this place is specially very holy for all of us; because you got your Realization as the Kundalini went through your Sushumna nadi, which is being nourished by Mahalakshmi principle.
So in the Temple they sit down – it’s a Mahalakshmi’s Temple, but they sing that: “Oh Ambe, please rise, please rise, please rise.” This comes with the full understanding of the Sushumna nadi, but ninety-nine-point-nine percent people don’t know, because all the knowledge about Shakti is being lost due to the different timings, and people never worried about it.
So, one has to realize that in Indian shastras, scriptures, Shakti is the most important thing. It is to be understood why.

Because, say now, if you have a light or if you have fire, what is the power of fire? The power of fire can be that it can give you light, it can burn away things, but supposing it does not have its power, then who’ll care for fire? Nothing. So anybody who hasn’t got the power of being the Spirit, it is useless.
So this power, this Shakti, has to be awakened within us, because we do not have the power of the Spirit. We have to have the power of the Spirit. That’s only possible if you get your Self Realization. That is the reason it is very important that we should pay attention to our power. Now this power is made as the power of a Mother. Mother is the most loving relationship, and through that relationship all the love is expressed.
That is why the Shakti is that of a Mother, and the affection, the love, the patience that Mother has for Her children, the Shakti too has the same powers, you see, and that is how this Shakti never can harm you.
Out of all these Shaktis, all these powers, highest of all is what we call as the Kundalini, because without Her you cannot get Realization. But also we can say, higher than that, or complementary to that, is Mahalakshmi power.
Without the Mahalakshmi you cannot rise. This is the ladder through which this power of Kundalini can rise. So both the powers are very important and very much related to each other. Mahalakshmi principle starts when we have finished with Lakshmi principle.
Like in the West, people are fed up with affluence, fed up with all the riches and all that, so they are thinking: “What have we achieved? We have gone into imbalances, so what should we do? We have to balance ourselves.” So how do we balance ourselves?
We have to have the knowledge of the Spirit. That is called as aadhyatma. You have to know what is the knowledge of the Spirit, and to know the knowledge of the Spirit Kundalini has to be awakened, and that you are to be connected to this all-pervading Power. Once that happens, you just become one with that energy and you get transformation within yourself, because there is light and in the light you can see all your problems, all your defects; and also if you know how to correct it, is the easiest thing to do is to get transformation in Sahaja Yoga.

All of you have been very much transformed, and now I find it difficult even to recognize you, because all your faces are changed, your attitudes are changed, you look so different, so beautiful.
Today it seems to be a special day for Me, here in Mahalakshmi Temple, that Mahalakshmi is being awakened, and I’m feeling really in that state of thoughtless awareness.
I don’t know how I’m talking; and I am merged just in the meditative mood, absolutely into meditative mood. Because when you are in the center you don’t think, you are in meditation. That is why Mahalakshmi is very important. So when you are fed up, you can feel there’s something missing, and then you take to Mahalakshmi principle.
But in India because of so many saints, we feel that we should short-circuit it.
First let us develop our own aadhyatma, let us develop our knowledge of atma and then take to science, so there is no more imbalance within us; because without the foundation of aadhyatma, knowledge of the Spirit, you take to any kind of progress, you can topple down.
That’s why all the Western entrepreneurs, enterprises and also projections of religion have gone to waste, because there has been no balance. It is important that we must have the balance within ourselves.
Now in India we have people who have this idea, at least that you have to rise higher than materialism and that you have to become one with the Virata, part and parcel of the whole. This they know, and that’s what, by knowing that, once they get to Sahaja Yoga, they grow very deeply; the depth, the depth they have achieved with this faith, that we have to be self-realized, and that we have to feel the all-pervading Power.
This conviction itself gives them the depth and so when they achieve Realization, they just go down very deep.
But most surprising, people who have never heard about Ganesha, who have never heard about Kolhapur, have never heard about Mahalakshmi are sometimes much, much better, much more deeper than the people who know all these things by heart.

So one can deduct that those who know outwardly, those who know through their books, or through some gurus who teach them something, are absolutely outside. They have nothing in them to tell us because they have had no experience of the Self, no experience of the Self. That’s only possible when your Kundalini rises and breaks your Brahmarandra. That is the time the first experience comes to you of this all-pervading Power.
So all those people who have been only just praying to Mahalakshmi, have been going to Her, doing a lot of penances, fasting, this, that, have no idea as to what Mahalakshmi wants, and they always complain to Me: “Mother, we have done this, we have done that.”
People are very religious. They are doing all kinds of ritualism, what we call as karmakanda, but with that you do not reach where you have to reach.
So one has to understand that whatever has been written and told about all these great things in India, people may know in words, but in experience they do not know.
So Sahaja Yoga is very important to give them this experience, so that they can really verify whatever is said in the science of spirituality about getting Realization, is absolutely true. Not only that but it’s very practical, and every person who gets Realization can understand it very well.
So we are here in a very holy place, full of unholy people. But still there are some very, very good people here also, and because of Mahalakshmi, they make very good ornaments because these ornaments are offered to the Goddess.
You can feel there a kind of a subdued feeling for God, feeling for spirituality, but they do not have the experience that you have got, so you are much higher than all of them.
And those who have the experience can feel more, once they go to the Temple, if you can go to the Temple to see the place also; but give yourself a big bandhan because I have seen it, next to the deity there are very funny people sitting. They’re doing all kinds of commercial activities. They are selling flowers, they are selling this, selling everything. So you have to be careful, with a bandhan you can go and see for yourself.

Now they say that this Temple is made because it’s a swayambhu – it’s the one that has come out of Mother Earth – you can see yourself if there are vibrations and moreover, you must know that this puja of these deities are done by people who are not at all in any way religious, but are just commercial people.
Commercialism can never give you any satisfaction, can never give you at all any satisfaction. Apart from that it can take you to something unknown, of dangerous shores. But if your faith is pure, without any greed, without any demands, then you develop your depth within yourself; which is very helpful after Sahaja Yoga.
It’s a remarkable thing how Shri Chakra is here and how they have made the complete calculation of Shri Chakra. I met a scientist in Russia, in Moscow, who has done a research, very much big research on this Shri Chakra. Now, so we have Shri Chakra on the right side, on the left-hand side we have Lalita Chakra, so all the things that we do with hands after Realization are worked through, on the right-hand side Shri Chakra, on the left-hand side Lalita Chakra.
Now how it works is a very complicated thing, but we don’t have to worry about that.
As soon as you put your hand on somebody, the chakra knows how to work it out. It works by itself, as if it is a built-in mechanism within us, which knows what sort of vibrations to be given to a particular person for a particular cause, or a particular purpose.
If that person has certain defects also, these chakras know what is to be emitted, how to work it out. So it is not that we have the Kundalini awakening only, these chakras are awakened, we also have these two chakras awakened within us because of Kundalini.
But if you have Vishuddhi problem, then you can find that your hands are stiff and you cannot feel guidance, or we can say, the Divine intentions of Realization; because when you start using your hands you don’t feel any vibrations, so how will you know what’s happening?
It’s a very complicated thing, and for that complicated thing these instruments are made already, are prepared already; they are quite equipped with all the knowledge that is necessary, like a feedback as you call it, or we can call it a complete programming is there. So as soon as you put your hand on a person, the programming starts working it out. Because it is programming is done by God Almighty, it can never be wrong. It cannot be two different things, as far as Sahaja Yoga is concerned.

I have been thinking about writing about all these big, big peethas that are in India, so it will be helpful to you as well as to others in India. But here the atmosphere is so bad, as if to think of God, to talk of God is absolutely wrong, you cannot say. The people are in illusion, and they think that all these talks has brought us nothing.
To them it is the progress of the West is more effective, more apparent, that they can see how you have progressed in materialism, and they can’t understand how we could progress with aadhyatma very much in the area of physical development or mental development.
So now we come to a point where we realize that it is very important for all the Western people to have the foundation of aadhyatma.
For that it is important to give up some of your conditionings, because this knowledge is coming definitely from India.
I mean the Indians had all the knowledge of your medical science, this science, that science, that science. But God’s science is in India, and for that, what are you going to do?
When the question of God’s science is concerned, what are you going to do about it? How are you going to work it out, that this is the science of God, and the God’s science has to be understood with full dedication and devotion?
Because of the conditioning of the Western influence, the Western progress, sometimes we just do not know how to grasp this knowledge within ourselves; very difficult. But if you can understand that, as for science we had to accept it fully from the West, you have to accept the knowledge of your Spirit from the East, East has the knowledge of the Spirit: for that you have to be ready to receive it. But if you are still in your arrogance, if you are still in your own conditionings, then you cannot do it.

Like a boy who comes from a village, who has never known about science, and you suddenly put him in a science college, he’ll say: “What is this nonsense, what’s all this all? I have never known these things. Why should I use a test tube, why should I go in the laboratory?”
All kinds of things he can start saying, and this conditioning is there. Then he’ll run away from school within one year or two year, maybe earlier, and that is what I find is their conditioning, which turns away many people from Sahaja Yoga after some time.
So we must watch our conditionings, what sort of conditionings we have; while the Indians have conditionings of so-called religious beliefs and this ritualism, this, that, they are very much conditioned also.
But is easy to overcome that when you realize that whatever your worship: for example, in India everybody has a kuladevata, means the family’s goddess, everybody has; they must worship that goddess, particular goddess, everybody has.
So they have to, if they just ask: “Mother, are You that Goddess?” the vibrations start flowing. So the conditioning gets very easily eradicated, but the mental acceptance of something is very difficult to go.
And I’ve seen also when they get married or marriage is arranged, they go mental. They go mental. If you go mental, then you cannot understand many things. But if you are spiritual, then you can understand.
For example, we see Mother Earth giving us these flowers and all that, how can we go mental about it? It’s a living process. For any living process we cannot get mental.
So now you will say: “All right, this is because of seed has got this, and the seed is planted”; but how, why? That you can’t answer, can never answer. Then you’ll keep quiet.

But say if there’s a sage, he’ll say: “All right, this is Mother Earth, She wants to give to Her children, these flowers, fruits, these trees, so She’s working it out.” So one has to jump from one conditioning of materialism.
Now you should see in matter, energy never moves. Energy is stationary, it never moves. And also energies which are moving, so-called, like electricity, this, that, are absolutely blind. Supposing there is electricity here flowing, all right, well and good, but supposing somebody stops it, it will stop. It has no mind, it is a mindless thing.
So in materialism you become mindless. You start seeing also that within yourself, that you have become mindless; and becoming absolutely, absolutely, I should say, like robots sometimes, which is mindless, which is fixed, fixed quantity. And I see very much clearly, in the West I’ve seen, that people have very fixed ideas. It’s difficult for them to get out of it because they don’t have that movement towards the spiritual subtlety, where one can use the mind to do something.
We would say that Mother Earth has got the mind. Now that nobody can believe in the West, except for Sahaja Yogis. That the Mother Earth produces these vigrahas, She produces these deities, nobody will believe.
How can you believe such a thing, that this Mother Earth thinks, that this Mother Earth produces these things? But logically you can see, logically. Logically.
Say a tree has a certain height, the fruits have a certain shape, certain colors, flowers same: who changes all the seasons, specially in India is very clear-cut six seasons?
It’s called as Ritambhara PrAgnya in the Hatha Yoga. Now that is the One which is a Lady, which thinks. She has a mind of Her own, She decides and She works out everything.
This concept was doubly denied in the West, is first is that they cannot accept a Goddess. Woman has no part.
Right from Socrates onward, nobody has talked much about a Woman, except of course there is Athena and all that, but it’s very minor roles they have.

Greeks had goddesses who were just like human beings, so that also gets ruled out, and very little was accepted; and when Christianity came, somehow or other Christians saw to it that there should be no mention of the Mother in any way.
But despite that, people worshipped the Mother. They worshipped the Mother of Christ as, some like a Goddess; though in the Bible She’s talked as a “woman”, in a very derogatory style She’s addressed.
So the conditioning of people is about the power of God who hangs somewhere in the air, that He’s there and that He gives us everything; but what is the communication? What is the justification or what is the logical thing, how to explain? So you have to say: “It is a mystery. God is a mystery. He hangs somewhere in the air. He does everything.”
And how can people believe in it? So the Christian conditioning has been even worse than, I think, Jew conditioning because they just took it out, Christ’s Mother, away; though the painters, artists wouldn’t do that, they wouldn’t accept: they had the Mother there.
But despite all that, the Motherhood has not been respected that should have been, in the Bible, which is a very wrong thing, while Mahalakshmi Herself incarnated as Mother Mary Herself. And to say about Mahalakshmi as “a woman”, I think is a great insult.
And where women are insulted like this, where the Goddesses are insulted, we cannot expect any spiritual growth unless and until you accept that it’s the Shakti, is the Mother who, who is the only thing that’s the communication between us and the Divinity.
So this conditioning, Christian conditioning has to go out, as far as the Motherhood is concerned. It’s very surprising sometimes when I see how these people have tried to bring down the level of a Goddess to just a woman.
So this is a very big blessing in India, that they respect Mother as the Shakti, and that the whole thing is done by the movement of the Shakti, by the thinking of the Shakti, by the coordination and the understanding and the planning of the Shakti only. It’s not done by God Almighty,

He’s just a spectator. She does everything.
Once that concept can fit into your heads properly, then you will see so many conditionings will drop out; because religion was organized, and in an organized religion you can put whatever you like, the way you want to put it, and it was such a big mistake.
By that people developed a lot of ego, lot of things against women, and also the first sin they call the “original sin” and all that is because of a woman, they really ill-treated women and they have no respect for them.
So the women have changed their role, and instead of becoming mothers and goddesses, they have tried to become something like actresses. But you can understand that without the power there is no sense in anything, and this is the power of Love and this is the power of Truth. And once you get that power we should humble down, and know that this power is within us, which has given us all this knowledge, which has given us all this ability to raise the Kundalini. All this is because of energy within us, the Shakti within us. Without that we are nothing. And that too is the Mother who has done it.
I do not know how much to press this point, but it’s important; because I find, specially in England some newspaper people came: “How do you feel as a guru, as a woman?” I mean, it’s a kind of a thing, “a woman”, as if I am sort of a, that movement where women are starting a fight with the men, sort of a thing, and now: “This is another guru who is a woman, so She should be supported,” or some sort of a nonsense like that. It’s the only the Mother who does this job, so there’s no question of asking such a question.
But that’s what it is, that we should first know that it’s the feminine quality of a woman as a mother, is very powerful. But we should encourage it and try to develop it, so that spiritually you can communicate, spiritually you can imbibe these qualities for your own children.
The mothers who do not have aadhyatma can never develop good children with proper emotions, with proper value system of morality.

So it is very important for every mother to be very proud that they are mothers, and for girls who are going to be mothers to be very proud that they are going to be mothers, and that they represent the Shakti. So now then, what is the part of the men is to take full advantage of that power, by understanding it, by complementing, by looking after that power. I’m not talking only about your wives. I’m talking about your sisters, your daughters, your mothers, and the whole society, where women are to be respected, and they have to be respectable.

And women should try to be respectable, to try to know that they are the powers and they are the ones who will be used by this Divine power as channels, more than men.
But if they are useless, then of course they wouldn’t bother about them, they would like to bother then about men, much more than what you are. So it is important to understand what is your role in Sahaja Yoga. This is your role in Sahaja Yoga. And I am sure you can work it out. You can manage this part. You can equip yourself for this role, which is so beautiful and so good.
So much can be said about Mahalakshmi, and there’s no end to it, but I think later on we should keep this program on every year, and you all should come to Mahalakshmi Temple here, to the, I mean the Kolhapur, and then I’ll again tell you all about the Mother’s qualities, what She is as Mahalakshmi.
And today we’ll have the… Shri Sukta. Shri Sukta is about Mahalakshmi’s qualities. I think we’ll have Ganesha Stuthi and then we’ll have this. So seriously you must understand what is it.
I’m just in meditative mood today, I don’t know what I’m talking; because this Mahalakshmi is a thing that goes, finishes everything else. Left, right is finished now, you are just in Mahalakshmi state: what to do?
“Mahalakshmi state” means nirvichar, nirvikalp, beyond that, I don’t know what stages it is.
It comes down a little bit, then again it goes back to the same.