Q&A, „Our Goal is to be the Spirit, nothing but the Spirit“. Delhi (India), 8 February 1983.

Speaker: We would like you to discuss is the difference in aims and aspirations between India and the developed countries, how they have progressed, the way history has taken them, and also what they have to offer each other.

Shri Mataji: Aims and objects?

Speaker: Yes, the aims, and objects – how they have taken their own courses.

Shri Mataji: Apparently, India has the same aim as you had before. They are actually trying to follow you, apparently. In our political systems we are trying all your methods. In our economic development, we are trying all the past that you have followed and faltered.

In our approach to education, we are trying to follow you. In our mental development we are trying to follow the west. Even the young people of this country are now trying to follow you, even copy you, in every way. So apparently this is the condition of this country. Whatever you did about, say, twenty years back, we are doing the same now and we are getting into a state where the decline might start very soon apparently, I’ve seen. But as far as Myself is concerned, it was the other way round. I could see the future of the disaster of industry and development a long time back, and also where all such people were blindly following the west we got into.

So My whole search personally was to go towards the roots, towards the spirit, towards the subtler side of life which we, in any case, sustain the human race. Now you will be amazed that you go to any Indian University, you’ll hardly find four or five people to listen to Me. Whatever you are doing there, like jazz, or say all these
discothèque business, hippism, everything is now followed in our cities. So we cannot say that India is very much towards the spirit. It’s the wrong idea.

All our leaders, all our bureaucrats, all of them still think that you are the happiest people living in the whole universe and they are blindly following your methods. They are going abroad to learn all your styles of disaster. And if I talk to them they think I am absolutely out-of-date person and they think I am just talking because I have no sense in My being. So apparently in this country today we are not thinking of saving the world, but following the world into the disaster into which it is made. We are joining hands.

All the countries which are not yet developed – you see, we have two categories, one are developed and one are not developed. These brands have come from the west, that we are not yet developed; so we must develop because if their tail is cut our tail also must be cut, and they are giving us money to cut our tail. So the development they are putting in by giving us money, sometimes humiliating us, and doing all kinds of things and trying to develop us. Of course, it is true that poverty anywhere is a threat to prosperity anywhere and that if you people are living well, or are having big [sounds like shame up] then it’s different, but overall picture of the west that I see is full of unhappiness, of darkness and hopeless conditions.

At least the developing countries have some hopes maybe of the disaster but they have some. So now for you people to understand that you are facing a big shock is sensible because you are advanced in that direction. Now in the west whatever you have done still because of ego orientation your leaders are not willing to accept that you are in a disastrous condition. Your political systems are not going to admit that you are no good, that you have harmed yourself. It is too much for them to admit that they have committed this mistake because they will not eat the crop. Under this circumstance who is going to convince the Indians that, „You better take to another course“? What has gone wrong with the west is that they have never worried about their spirit. They have all that is spirit, all that is subtler life, and have thought that it is better to master the bank, master all these things which they can master.

Yesterday as I told you in Hindi language that whatever you master is lower than you is not higher than you. So if you have to go further, you have to go a little higher. You have to fix an aim to go higher, and whatever you think, you can have or whatever things you can use for your purpose are lower than you. But if you want to be higher, then you have to be useful to that height. So you have to be humble and you have to accept that if we have to be higher, we should allow that higher thing to do thus, and surrender to that higher thing instead of dominating these lower things. Is better to submit yourself to something higher, because of ego this submission is an impossibility.

You cannot submit to the higher goal but the lower goal. Also, they have submitted because the matter is now sitting on their head. Now in India, since ages, it’s a traditional country. Since ages, we have been living a different life. When ancient times, you see, now even the climate is so good, that you can stay outside in a forest. You don’t need so many things in this country. So in the ancient times so many people whom we can call as seers and sage went into the forest to find out what is the basis of human beings, what is the meaning of human life, what is the ultimate goal of human beings. And they found out that it is the spirit, and they based all the Indian laws and Indian philosophies, music, art, dance, drama, every aspect of life, on the basis that we have to become the spirit.

But when we had the western influence and western education put onto us, everyone decided that give up what was traditional, what was old and take to this, and even if we really bothered at all about the ancient things in our country, it was more academic, so that you could write books, you could write something by which you can make some money giving some new ideas or giving some new samples so people might be attracted. There was not serious probing into the subject matter. It was just superficial way of dealing things and ultimately what was accepted in the west was tantrism. It’s the tantrism that really has impressed the western people. Nothing else that they could see something better, like you can say, that if you go to the sea, you find lots of mud coming up on the superficial level, and that’s what is being appreciated, not the depth of the sea where you find the pearls. So with that they are now thinking that, you see, Indians are the people who into this kind of a tantrism, that kind of a tantrism and anybody who doesn’t know tantrism is not sophisticated.

At the same time in your so-called development, you had such horrible people there like Freud and others that you lost all your traditions. Your ideas about spirit, whatever it was, came through Christianity or any other source. Even the Christianity itself ruined the whole chances of going near God. But on the whole, what has happened is that the whole attitude of the human beings in the west now seems to be a sex point. They just want to be a sex point. I mean, absurd. That’s what they are reduced to on one side. On other side is most surprising – is that with all affluence and everything, people are very stingy. They are extremely money-minded and very, very stingy and narrow-minded people. Despite, you have all the weapons with you, people are so frightened, they don’t even allow a little baby to enter their house. With the atom bomb at your disposal, they are so frightened of others. See in the immigration laws – more strict, in the western countries than in the eastern countries. Where the people are really having a problem, they have no problem of getting any number of people are coming. You see how many are there. On the road if you walk, so many you will meet, how many are settled down here, but this fear has come into the minds of the mighty nations.

They are disgracefully generous. If they are generous it is disgraceful or they are extremely money-minded, money-oriented. Nobody can believe it that how people are so much money-oriented in the west and Myself, you see, I was surprised that how could they be so much money-orientated while in the east, so far they are not. The advantage is, thank God, we are not developed, that we are not so money-orientated. Once we get money-oriented, you see, the people who have money in this country are just the same as you are.

But we used to look down upon that kind of a community, like Marwadies and all that, but I find in the west most of the people are just like Marwadies; their styles are like Marwadies. So instead of developing all the higher qualities which are within, you have just got everything outside; inside there is no development. It’s all outside development. So much load has been taken, so much has been put upon yourself, the norms you see, this kind of a glass is needed for wine, that kind of a glass for this kind of an alcohol, that kind of a thing. Only, you see, ultimately what is the goal? I just don’t understand! You see, you get lost. What is the goal of producing so many things?

I just get lost. I don’t find there is any goal. It is just a kind of a madness, a craziness to create more and more and more and like mad to run after from one want to another, to another want to another, and go one [on?] like that like mad.

That’s all it is. What is the goal of a madman? I’m amazed the way people are money-orientated. It’s most surprising and I asked somebody, I said, „Why do you need so much money? After all, you have so much money. Why are you so money-orientated?“ They said, „Our lives is such, our life style is such that you have to have that.“ „What is your life style?“ „We have to drink.“ „Must you drink? I mean, if you cannot afford why do you drink?“ So drinking is a thing, very sophisticated, not in India. In India, somebody finds somebody’s drinking, nobody will marry the daughter in their family. Of course, not these westernites. I’m not a westernite. Normally nobody will have a relationship with them. So the virtues and the righteousness of life, which is the basis of life, the goal of life, is itself is in question.

So the goals they have accepted are all anti-life, anti-God, anti-human beings here. Yet, thank God, we haven’t doubled up that pressure of the matter on our heads. So still inside we are larger. I mean, there’s a lot of room for us to grow inside. But the outside rules are so much and the forms and the whole sort of ideas, you see, which flows from the minds. Like the other day they said, „Nowadays, you see, more fashionable is to have this kind of a dress.“ I said, „Why? Then what will you do to the old ones?“ „We will throw them. This is the fashion.“ I said, „How did it come?“ They said, „There’s a fashion designer, somebody very well-known, in Paris, has brought in this fashion.“ But for what? I mean, there is no questioning. For what? Your dress was comfortable, good, nice. If it was all right, say five years back, why today suddenly this dress is going to be so much? You see to the point. The sun is rising the same way, the light is the same, the rain is the same. Now why your dress has to change every third month?

These are all the problems, because, once you give up looking at your atma, your brain starts working and the brain starts like a machine. It spins, goes on spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning ideas and these spinning goes round and round and you become nothing but like a spindle, completely covered with these strings. So you have nowhere to grow. You just don’t grow at all. Inside there is no growth; it is only outside. When people walk along, you find lots of plastic hanging around this side, lot of tins jingling that side, and lots of steel hanging that side. You are walking very proud but inside there’s not an elephant. There might be just an ant carrying all these! But thank God in this country we are not yet developed, but I can’t say that it will be like that, because we are very, feel inferior that we have not developed outside. The inside development, nobody thought of that when you try to develop outside. You must have inside development, to carry all this junk. Also, you need an elephant. Whether it is a junk or anything, you need an elephant. So the inside elephant, if you make it into an ant and carry all this junk, then that junk becomes more important than this little ant inside, isn’t it? And that is exactly what has happened in the west.

Now in India, so far, people still have some room to grow, because they haven’t yet developed so many nonsensical ideas. The first time we had people here from the west, and all the time what they were seeking was comfort, crawling into the corners of comfort. Anywhere they got comfort, they just crawled into it, you see, and nothing but comfort and nothing but comfort. So I thought another goal they have is comfort and the comfort is nothing but domination of this matter on you. You are not free birds. Your body always needs comfort. If you allow your body to lie down, in one pose all its life, it will be very happy. It will say, „All right, it will grow. I am eating my food. I am doing everything here. Only one bed is the house for me. I don’t go out. It is always attached, to it, very nice bird.“ But if that is the goal of human life then I think you can’t help.

So to get to comfort also is so much that they have lost the power to see that this so much comfort has made us slave and that we have no goal left; we have become like cabbages. Such lethargy! Nobody will believe that these are the same people who came in this country and fought us. Such lethargy and such heavy being we have become that unless and until somebody rouses them they cannot give up their comfort. To them comfort is the last end of happiness.

So first comes the sex point. Second is the comfort which is slavery. Now third comes the ego. Ego is the goal or expression of ego, is the goal of the west in every aspect. How smart they are, how they have be-fooled everyone, how they have been able to get rid of others, to out-wit others, to laugh at others, to make fun of them, make a joke out of everyone, and think that they are the wisest fools, is the goal of ego because you know ego makes you stupid. And so the goal of ego to make you stupid is so much that small, small things that the western people do, even to an ordinary villager in India would roar with laughter to hear. „Oh! Do they do like that?“ which the western people might think, „Oh! We are great.“

So this is the trouble is that when the stupid people start laughing at others, thinking, „Oh! These stupid people and useless people,“ then how to tell them? You cannot talk to them because they think they are the wisest ever known because they are the best ever known. You can’t tell them that this is stupid.

The wisdom lies in knowing your spirit, but yet it is hard to find yet an Indian. He may be the most westernised, a great miserly, useless fellow, or maybe a very narrow-minded westernised fellow in India. You were just like him, to begin with but then you ended up into something else and now Indians are becoming like you. So I cannot say westerners are just people who are to be sort of like a caste – no. It is we Indians can become like you, exactly like you, even worse than you, but still because, you see, we have our roots rather deep we cannot uproot ourselves to that extent.

So most of the Indians, even today, believe that a saint is definitely higher than they are and to become a saint is a great thing. The aspiration of an Indian is to become the spirit. Most of them think like that. But there are escapes of the mind that, „How can we become? We are householders, see. We can’t help it. How do we have to tell lies in this country? Otherwise we can’t exist. We have to do a lot of hanky panky. Otherwise you can’t exist.“ All these excuses they can give. „How to feed our children unless and until you are dishonest?“ So the other side of it is that the goal of Indians, now, apparently, again, is of course, I mean as far as the molarity [GW: morality?] is concerned, is all right, they want to look at another man’s wife, they will give their daughters an education of remaining a good wife, creating a good society, but as far as the other moral side is concerned, is keeping the honesty of money and all that, that they will not do!

So one side the people are miserly, because they think they are honest. You see, if they are honest, they are martyrs naturally, because they think if they have remained honest, they have done the greatest favour to God. So they are martyrs. So their money is very precious. Every pie they spend they must ask for. Indians believe in earning money some way or other and then spending it the way they like. So I do not know which goal is correct. They are lost on this side and you are lost on the other side. But still in India, because of traditional training, parents still holding fort, better society is here. You will hardly find an Indian who will believe in absurd thing, in absolutely obtuse, absurd, and also anti-God things that you believe into, that’s one. They have not reached that material development. I mean, it’s like, you see, your brain developing so much that it goes the other way round and you become just a person who sees everything in a different angle, which is just the opposite of that. So yet that much development has not come to us, you see, from concave to convex. You see, they have not developed.

So there is still some space with the Indians. But because you have seen the disaster you are facing, some of you, more thoughtful people who have not reached that height of idiocity, are very great seekers, ardently seeking, working it out. But Indians are not that much of seekers, I must say, because they still think that, „All right, we are to believe in the spirit. All right, good idea. We have to be the spirit.“ But partly the spirit and partly the other side of it, because they are better off than us. So still they want to go halfway this side and halfway that side. So Indians are not such good seekers. You are very good seekers but there is a convexity.

There is concavity but there is no seeking. Can you imagine my situation? Indians have no goal as far as spiritual life is concerned. Mostly, if they have it, it is so limited that it should help them in their family life, in their relationships with others, with their body, or with their jobs or with their marriages or little more, little more. That’s all. They are very gross. The goal is extremely gross, of Indians is, that they want to achieve a kind of an affluence that you have in their heart of hearts, you see, but they do not know the backs but they think we can keep the spirit as well as have the other side of it. You cannot. You cannot serve two masters. So now, what to do? They would prefer to choose this side; then to choose this play. So the goal of Indians today is somehow or the other to make money. If somebody knows that you know a certain minister, then, they will be after your life! Tell the minister like this, will you tell your brother like this, your father like this, everyone, all of them will be just coming out with. I mean it is a very common feature with Indians. It’s nothing. For them it’s an everyday affair. To them to tell somebody to get thither, it’s all gross. It’s all absolutely materialistic. But that is what their goal is, not the goal of the spirit.

To believe that God Almighty is the only one who is going to deliver the goods. He is the father, who is the most generous father you could think of and He looks after our material side so we don’t have to worry about it. It just happens that he looks after it, but they will come and complain, „My material side is just the same. I don’t know what to do. Mother, do something about it,“ and then I will never do. On the contrary, if they say, „My spiritual side is not all right,“ that’s a better idea. This is the difference between the goals, aims and objects.

As far as I’m concerned, I look at this side and that side, and I don’t know what to say, because all of you must have only one goal and that is to rise in spirit. Not related anyway, that they have to accumulate some wealth or they have to do some sort of a material progression and on your side that you have to do some material regression. Like, you people believe if you become hippies, you will go nearer to God. You will not because your brain is beyond hippism, beyond everything. So you cannot. Your brain is ultra-modern. How can you become hippie? You become primitive outside. So in your dresses and all that, even if you believe reduce this – all this hair style and all that – inside the brain is a modern brain, you must know – extra modern. So must understand that unless and until you bring the spirit into your brain, all these outside things are not important.

So it’s a big confusion. That is, the modern times are the confusion that the western people are confused. They have seen the value of this material affluence. So they are trying to give up the material affluence style, that style. They are changing the alternate styles, but by changing the styles also, you don’t achieve much that’s another means of something else. While the Indians think that they are poor and God should help them to make them rich, that’s another alternative style. This is also outside. Or they have no children; then they’ll come, „Mother, I have no children.“ If they have too many children then they will have no job. You get them the job; then they’ll say, „Marry my elder daughter to someone.“ Then you do that; then they’ll say that, „Do this.“ But nobody says, „What about my spirit. What about my atma? Mother, what about it? What is happening to me? Where is it? Am I all right? Am I clearer?“

So, to say that Indians have the aims that are correct is wrong. Or to say that you people have correct aims is also wrong, because your aims may be that you want to become, meet God and you want to become the Spirit but it goes wrong because the methods you employ are all wrong. But as far as the value of spiritual life is concerned, I would give the western people more marks – those who are seekers. Forget all the dirty people. I’m not talking about the idiots, but I’m talking about the same people. The spiritual value is much higher while the dharmic value of the eastern people is much higher. So, it’s like somebody who has a lot of property and doesn’t want to gain and somebody who has no property and wants to gain.

So this is the situation today I find in the east and west. But basically from the ancient times in this country, people have been seeking; some of them not all, because seeking has always been done by one person or two persons or three persons.

The first fish must have come out, and then shores of fishes must have followed. So the goal of the fish was to come on the shore and many must have followed. So in this country, the search within, actually started a long, long time back. But in the west, it was never done that way. They had people like Christ who never needed any search, like Me. I don’t have to go searching, searching. He brought all the truths of life to you, but you made a complete mishap. Here also, we had great saints, and great incarnations, but the saints are the people who told that you must seek, you must seek – not that Christ didn’t say you do not seek. But nobody’s bothered on that point, whether you should seek or not, but in the east people know we have to seek. We have to get to God but to get to God for what? Just that we should be benefited in our material life. So this goal is of no use.

„Mother, you are very kind,“ some of them say. „Be kind to us.“ „Mother, be kind to us,“ for what? What kindness more do you want? I have given you the spirit, finished. Now what more kindness? „But that doesn’t mean you have give us our realisation, but now look after my bank balance.“ It’s a very poor show. It’s a very, very poor show, and that’s why I get disappointed when I come here. I find this kind of an aspect of Sahaja Yoga, I feel very disappointed. But I go to the west and very seriously, they have problems which I just don’t understand, because these are no problems because materially they are all right. So they have emotional problems, and absurd emotional problems they have, and these emotional problems, also, have no meaning at all. They have no basis at all. They just try to find out a way and method of not living together. Somehow, somehow, you see, their brain is so clever. First we were all right, but now suddenly we have become bhoots. How do you explain? We were doing well. Now fourteen people are married. I’m just worried about the western couples because the brain is still thinking, „Now what should we find to quarrel with the other party? What is the difference between the other party and myself? Now, how to ruin the image of each other? How to ruin the joy?“ Because if you cannot live together – two persons – how can all of you live together? Not only that you two human beings but you are saints. You are Sahaja Yogis and you have no tolerance from each other and you are just analysing each other when there is no fundamental problem. I can understand if somebody has a fundamental problem. Just with your brain if you start doing like that, then how can the whole world live together? Just think of it. Here the husband, wife will stick, no problem. They will live. Children will stick together, no problem on that point. But the problem that comes to me is collectivity, that I must solve now, not the problem of one person, but all of them. Even when they are sticking together they do not become a powerful unit. On the contrary, they become a powerful problem.

So the aim as it should be, whether east or west, should be to be what you are made for. You are made a human being to be the spirit. So the aim should be that you should be the spirit. You have to think through the spirit. You have to understand through the spirit. You have to be satisfied through the spirit. You have to be certified through the spirit and not through your brains. For both of you people, the aim should be the spirit. This I’m talking of the new race that are going to come. So the western problems are that they do not recognise spirit, and the eastern problem is when they recognise the spirit, but are materialistic, and the western people do not recognise the spirit but are materialistic. So they are keeping a balance on that.

Now, what I have to say is this. This matter is produced for your joy and happiness, but even the essence of the matter you are not enjoying because you are not the spirit. Even the essence of the matter, you are not enjoying. So what you have to do is to become the essence yourself and enjoy at least the essence of matter. The essence of matter is not comfort by any chance, is not, is not possession that it gives you, or the surrender it gives you, neither the ego that you receive by having a big car and this and that, but the essence of matter is the joy one receives when you part with it. If you don’t have anything with you, you see, if I don’t have any money, then I don’t know what the joy of parting with it is, giving it to someone. But supposing I have the money, then only I’ll enjoy. So you must have money. That’s the only reason why you must have money, so that you can give it to others. Actually, this is the essence of it.

That way Indians are carrying on more of the essence part. The first part of gaining money is wrong. But giving money is all right. They enjoy giving. You see, somebody goes to their house. They would love to give them tea, coffee, serve food. All that, they like. Anywhere you go to their house they will not on that, they would like to give. But how did they get their money, you don’t ask. That’s a different point, but when it comes to giving [unclear] so they know the essence part, I should say, that giving is the way. While in the west, the more important thing is that how you get your money, you see. Otherwise, you are middle class, or this and that. How you get money, you see, that part of thing is there, but you get to it, through that kind of an idea. Then you just stick onto it. It doesn’t pass your hands.

You are literally frightened to part with it. So you miss the point. That’s why the Indians look so generous, so happy, that they are keeping to the essence of the matter. Sharing, they love to share, and that is what is keeping them so happy and joyous, despite their poverty, despite their frugal life and this is what I just don’t understand and that once you don’t have you want to give and when you have it, you don’t want to give it.

Human beings go on changing their goals, depends on what level you are. If you are a poor man, you want to become rich. If you are a rich man, you want to become poor, but poor in the sense, poor inside, not outside. Now, actually the goal of every human being is to become the spirit, nothing but the spirit. That is the goal of every human being, and if you don’t become the spirit then whatever you are doing is against your goal. Once you become the spirit, no more this human being, but the spirit, then the whole thing changes in a different way. You act in a different way, you use your telecommunication, you use your television, you use your things in a different way, at a different level, at the unconscious level.

So you have to reach to that unconscious level, where everything is available, everything. That’s how these miracles take place. Like, the other day, you see, we wanted to buy some saris, and I just stopped and said, „Here.“ Now we got the saris for one-tenth of the price, we should say, or one-eighth of the price of the whole of the saris that you get in the market. So? So when the spirit guides you, you get everything. There is affluence, and you are generous because so much of affluence in the real sense – flowing.

What I can only tell you is what goals you should have, and the goal as I told you is to be the spirit. That’s what is your goal. To Me, east, west, north, south, doesn’t count. I don’t know the directions. I only feel that if every human being in this world decides that he has to be the spirit, and spirit alone, all other problems will be solved, because he lives with the absolute, not with the relative. He doesn’t compare. He’s in absolute state. He doesn’t compare. There’s not relativity. The relativity creates a problem. Like developed, underdeveloped, all these are relative terms, isn’t it? But if you are the absolute then there is no relativity, there’s no problem, and you become the goal itself and this is the message of your Mother. I have to give you the message; I have to give you the right thing. It is not that the western people have less quality, or the eastern people have less intelligence, it’s only that, they have no idea as to have only.

H.H. Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

This transcript is incomplete – see ‚Nirmala Yoga‘ no.29 for the full text.