Shri Ganesha Puja. Cabella Ligure (Italy), 7 September 1997.

Today we are going to worship Shri Ganesha.

It is said about Him that He is the first Deity that was created on this earth by Adi Shakti. As about His creation, you know the story. And also you know how an elephant’s head was attached to Him. Today, I am going to tell something more subtler about Him, Kundalini, and the Mother Earth. 

He was made out of the Mother Earth, with the vibrations of his Mother. Now, the significance of Mother Earth, we have never understood. Now look at the Mother Earth: She is the one who produces all kinds of beautiful flowers of different fragrance, of different nature, colour, heights. The trees are different. Trees, when they grow up, they grow in such a manner that every leaf, every leaf of that tree, gets the sun. Look at the collective sense which is given to us by this Mother Earth. 

We have never realized that this Mother Earth…is giving us everything that we want, and the sun helps the Mother Earth – cooperates, coordinates with Her. To go further with it, you have seen that picture where the Kundalini is coming out of the Mother Earth, and half of it is seen. So what does this Kundalini do for us? Or what does this Mother Earth do for us? 

The Kundalini leaves the Mother Earth as a reflection. And what does She do within us to build us up in which way? So it is the primordial power which is coming out of the Mother Earth. Mother Earth itself acts like a mother. She looks after you, She gives you whatever you want. And another miraculous thing is that the highest tree is a coconut tree and the coconut will never fall on any creature or any human being. That means it’s all-thinking—all understanding, all consciousness, all awareness is coming from the Mother Earth. But we never understand. As it is, we take it for granted.

Now what does She do for us, for us human beings? She’s the primordial power. What She does is to build in us a primordial, we can call, restrictions or primordial taboos or primordial dharmas. For example, you see the steel is here. It has its own dharma, it cannot behave like wood. Wood has its own dharma, it cannot behave like silver. They all have their dharma and they are bound in that dharma. Everything that is in the nature has its own dharma. If you see the tiger, if you see the lion, if you see a mongoose, or you see a snake, they all have their dharma, their style, their everything. It’s very surprising, how they are bound by it.

Once, in Prathisthan, I went from the other side to My bedroom, and I saw a very big snake came out of a hole. Of course I was quite away from it, but it felt My vibrations and started running away. It fell in the swimming pool and it wouldn’t come out. So somebody went down and killed it and brought his body up there. I was surprised: it was such a big one, about six feet, but it intertwined itself in a very beautiful pattern, surprisingly, when it was dead. All right. Then what they did, they said that, “Mother, if we leave it, it will fall in the water and again it will come to life, so what should we do?” I said, “Let it be then. What do you do?” They said, “We burn it.” So they burnt the snake. But the female of the snake came out after ten days. They said, “There must be a female,” and she was searching for him when suddenly somebody saw her. They killed her also. They killed her, and she also made the same kind of a pattern. I was amazed: a very beautiful pattern of the body going round, like this, like this, like this. Exactly the same, she also made.

So I was surprised: how is it that this lady knows how to copy her husband? She did it, and when we burnt her, she was finished of course, both of them were killed. But what I felt is that animals, creepers – those who creep permanently – other people also, every type of animal, the whole of biology I studied, I was amazed that every type of animal has the exact, the same sample of behaviour.

For example, you can put the dog in the water, he’ll swim, but the cat may not. See it’s a thing that is built in, the dharma, what I call the primordial taboos. We have, in the same way, primordial taboos built within us, which are dharma. A human being has to be like that. If he tries to be something else, something goes wrong with his life. It’s like, say, if you have a glass [and] you drop it on the ground, it will break. That is the dharma. In the same way, when human beings start deviating from the line of dharma, they get into trouble. But it is only human beings who can do that. They can only cross over these taboos, these primordial taboos, and can become horrible.

You see a person, sometimes I wonder what’s wrong with him. He has a nice home, very good wife, everything, then he has a keep [another woman]. What is the need? For a man, it is primordial that he should have only one wife, and [she,] one husband. It’s a taboo, as soon as you deviate from that, something goes wrong. Now who punishes, or who corrects, or who destroys is this primordial Power, which we call as Paramchaitanya.

If you can understand that it’s a structure. Say, this is the structure of this hangar. Now, you want to break it, you can break it because you are human beings, but it will be broken. As simple as that. We have to understand we are human beings and we cannot do things which go against our dharma. 

Now, why the dharma? Dharma has to be there for our ascent. Now man, in his intelligence and his progressiveness, thinks that anything he does: “What’s wrong?” Especially in the West, this is very common. But I must say, for the aboriginal people, or people who are – I mean, I don’t know if I should call Indians aboriginal or not, but those people who were made aware of their primordial taboos somehow, as the animals know what is bad for them, that knowledge was there with aboriginals. 

Today we are here with Australians, and in Australia aboriginals are so many. I was surprised, most of their words were Sanskrit. So, might be they might have got it from India, or maybe they have gone there from India. So many words they have got which are Sanskrit. So I started thinking about them. Normally, aboriginals – say, in India we have aboriginals: Gond, Korku, Bhil [in Maharastra].

We had a lady who was a maid with us, Gaynabai was her name. She was an excellent cook, but she had her maryadas. All the time, like if my father came, she would immediately cover her head and go in the other room, to respect him. Nobody told her to do that. Their marriage system was also very surprisingly good, and their relationships with the children also were very good. 

Somehow or other, in my childhood I met many of them because I also had a habit of going to the jungles, where I used to meet them. And I was surprised, they would not drink—this I’m telling you was about sixty years back, maybe more—they would not drink. Very lajashi, means shame of everything. A matter of, sort of prestige, for them was important. They would never steal anything. And I was really very impressed, how these people were so dharmic, so good, and happy. They lived in huts, they didn’t mind, but they were very clean and neat people. It is now changed.

The same people are changed so much. I mean, they were like sacred people, I tell you. Holy people. They worship Mother, they worship Mother Earth, nothing else. And I asked this lady, “Why do you worship Mother Earth?” She said, “She gives us everything. She is a just Mother, we live in the jungles, She looks after us, and She is the most conscious person. She knows that we are there and that She has to look after us.” Even to take out some leaves from the trees, they used to think about it. 

But then the missionaries came. They converted them, they gave them skirts and blouses, and I don’t know what all they did. But Gaynabai did not take; she said, “What is this? Why should I wear a dress like this where the whole body is exposed? No I’ll wear a sari, I can never give it up. Why should I wear this kind of a useless dress?” But when they met with these so-called advanced people, so many of them started living like that. They said, “You have no freedom; you are just bound by something, by someone.” But actually, they were bound by the sacredness, by the divine understanding. And then they started changing. She was all right, her husband was all right, but her son started drinking. This is the beginning of the end. Then gambling, and all other sorts of things he started. Then her grandson started going to prostitutes. And the idea was only that we are free: “What’s wrong?”

Now these primordial taboos are in you, built in. They are there. These are existing maybe in a potential state—maybe you have curbed them down, maybe you have turned them out, but they are there. All the time they are there, and that’s what we say, that you are leaving the maryadas. Or else we say that you are insulting Shri Ganesh. So when Mother created this universe, the first Deity was Shri Ganesh. Auspiciousness was created. Now, we don’t understand what is auspiciousness. Auspiciousness is a complete understanding of primordial restrictions, and also of the protocol.

For example, in India we all used to do that – though I was in a Christian family – that before touching the Mother Earth, getting up from the bed, we used to say: “Oh Mother Earth, please forgive us because we are touching You with our feet.” So respect for the Mother Earth and for nature is built in within us, it’s part and parcel, we are part and parcel of this whole – we can call it a whole universe.

But when you get into this nonsensical idea of freedom, then you are leaving your Mother Earth. Your gravity itself reduces. This Mother Earth has to teach us. While we are plundering, now there’s everything ecology – ecology people are trying. Whatever is outside is also inside. If you want to exploit your Mother inside, or if you want to trouble your Mother inside, you can also trouble this Mother Earth like this.

Now what has replaced our understanding is very simple, is that we are paying more attention to money. If you can cut a tree, say, to get money, then it is hurting the Mother. But if you can cut the tree for beautifying Her, then She’s happy. Her discretion is so great. See the way she produces flowers, different, different types of flowers. In different countries, different types of flowers.

Like Me, I saw in my country that flowers are extremely fragrant, very fragrant, and She understands so much. Once I went to Australia and this flower you call hibiscus, it’s a red flower, it becomes pink and then red. Imagine: it becomes first pink and then gradually it becomes red. Even the sunflower goes on turning its face with the sun. Now how can you say there is no connection between a sunflower and the sun? Automatically it goes on changing.

So these hibiscus flowers are the flowers which we use to worship Shri Ganesh. And the program was to worship Shri Ganesh. On the way I saw so many trees of hibiscus, just flowering. I said, “At this time, so many flowers.” I said, “I think you better get these flowers for the puja.” I went, and when I arrived in the hall, all the Sahaja Yogis had got hibiscus on their own – I never talked to them; just on their own. They didn’t know that it is to be used for Shri Ganesh, but the Mother Earth Herself created at that time. This is the time of Shri Ganesha when you should get hibiscus. It’s very remarkable how the nature is so much within us and how this, whatever it is within us, guides outside and receives the blessings. We are not something separate. This Mother Earth is our home. We have a home in Her, and She has a home within ourselves.

I said today that for Shri Ganesha, He had a body of the clay, just ordinary clay. So you can imagine, you can really think of it, how this whole universe has created us. All of it is within us, and when we try to hurt something, then we are hurting ourselves. The intelligence of Mother Earth I have seen from My childhood. It’s such a beautiful thing to know the nature and the Mother Earth. That’s why all the saints, in India especially, used to go and live in the forest. Only in the forest you could see clearly how this primordial bondage was absolutely obeyed. Absolutely obeyed, naturally, by the nature.

For us it is difficult. We are rather “free” people. So simple things, simple things like, a woman should be always covered properly in her body. Because she respects her body, she respects her chastity. But if you tell this to somebody, they won’t listen. As you see the evergreens, they are always clad; no leaf falls off. I call them as the females. And the other trees, deciduous, they do lose their leaves, so I call them as men. Because they are men.

Here, it’s the other way round, I have seen. I used to go to any party, somehow or another they thought I was a very serene person. You meet somebody, immediately the man will button up himself and the women will open themselves. I said the whole brain from here has gone to this side and this one has gone to this side. It’s so stupid. But even Mrs. Thatcher has said that “it is our culture that women must expose their bodies.” For what? Are they prostitutes or what?

So this craze of exposure of the body has become so strong now that even in India, if not on the streets or in the household, but in the cinema films, you see women – really this never happens in India; what you see in the films, never happens. If they start wearing dresses like that, so many people will throw stones.

Then all other sorts of – I shouldn’t say clumsy, but very grotesque things happened. Like, I can’t understand man having relation with man, woman having relation with woman, and children, and this and that and that. We didn’t know these things in India, I didn’t know. Why? Why has it happened here? I don’t think fifty years back they used to do that, also in these countries. Why have we given up our sense of shame? And this kind of nonsense that has come into us—I think must be some bhoots in them or badhas in them or something horrible, but this is something absolutely unnatural. Absurd! Then a married man having eyes on unmarried women and unmarried men are having relations. All kinds of things people do. 

And you won’t believe, this doesn’t happen in India. Really, I tell you, these days it is now sort of spread out, but I would say in good families you don’t have it. Somebody told me there is AIDS in India. Yes, because they take bath in the river. If they stopped taking bath in the river, this will stop. I was a medical student, I have studied, and I came from a very open family, I never knew these things that men can do. It’s stupid. Even in the lunatic asylum in India we have never heard of such reports. This is absurd.

You see the children. The other day, Guido gave me a present of a girl who was feeling shy, little girl, you know, holding her frock like this and feeling shy. Shyness is the ornament of women. Children are all shy. I remember my granddaughter, she was once watching one magazine, she was very small, two years or so. So she saw one woman in a bikini or something, she was hitting her: “What are you doing?” She saw in the magazine. “What are you doing? My grandmother will come and give you two slaps. You shut up! Please wear your dresses.” They would not. Children don’t like; have you noticed it? Or I don’t know if they are advanced, but normally children don’t like shamelessness. But the shamelessness has gone to such an extent that to them, keeping nude is a very great advancement. This is nothing. 

Somebody told me that he wanted to save the aboriginals, but they were so much, so much impressed by the white skin that they accepted everything. But they were even having relations with their own sister, daughter, mother. Competition. These are the subjects; it’s rather heinous to talk about. And I can’t understand how can a human being go to that level. And at this time we have Sahaja Yoga, where you have become aware, aware of your natural taboos. It is there, because I told you potentially it is there. It is enlightened and suddenly you have accepted. I never expected so much, I tell you, but you have accepted it. And not only that, but you are enjoying it, you are practising it. 

You see the lives of all the great saints. You can’t have something like Diana – see, they are going to call her a saint. She had no maryadas. Oh I have sympathies with her because her husband tortured her or maybe something, but maryadas are very important. How can she be a saint? Now if you become just an ordinary human being who has his taboos, who understands, who is aware, then they will say, “Oh what a man he was.” I mean, that was. He was. He was born like that. So such a man is praised, in the West especially. Also the other way round is that now the majority is the law. If the majority is stupid, then all the stupidity is regarded as great. 

They have no brains, they have no intelligence to understand how can these things help. Alcohol, for example. I mean, alcohol, it has done no good to anyone. But alcohol, without alcohol you are no good. They won’t talk to you. They say that unless you have alcohol, you cannot talk. And it is so rampant, it is so much in the society that all the parties I attended, except for me and my husband, everybody was drinking, and drinking much more than normal because it was free.

They are all poisons. These are all poisons spoiling us completely, from one to another. This one is a taboo now, for cigarettes. Imagine. Why to smoke? I don’t understand, like a chimney people are smoking. But they have no courage to give it up now. Everywhere: no smoke, no smoke, no smoke. When will they start no alcohol? Everybody sees that it’s so dangerous. It is against human awareness. Everybody sees it. You see people falling down, you see people cursing each other, fighting. I tell you, if you stop this alcoholism, all this shamelessness will go away. Because when you take alcohol, your awareness is abated. One alcoholic told me, “When I take alcohol, I don’t see my sister as my sister, but see her as my beloved.” Well, “How do you do that?” “Yes.” But for all social status and all that you must drink.

Now, we don’t even understand how our primordial taboos are completely battered by the society we have. The simple thing is that to understand your own self, better sometimes see the stupid people. You’ll be amazed what sort of things they are doing. Because I have seen, I used to be very amazed, what are they? And then to cover it up, to cover it up, they have etiquettes, you know, very elite. They talk in a very special manner, move themselves in a very – I should say, like a trained personality. And anybody who doesn’t do that is out of their sight. They think that he lacks elite-ness. So another idea is that we have to be elite.

Ganesha is made how? Let’s see that. Look at Him: He’s by no means elite. He eats like a glutton and He looks at you as if He’s going to hit you with his mace. For Ganesha, there is no forgiveness. When he became Christ, there He developed. I don’t know how it worked out, but as Ganesha, there is not at all forgiveness. Don’t try to ask forgiveness from Shri Ganesha. He’ll never forgive. Even if his mother says, “Now you’d better forgive,” “No, that I’ll not do.” 

He never forgives. Then only it comes to the point that the Mother has to say, “I forgive you,” then He can do, because one thing about Him is, He’s extremely obedient to his Mother. Absolutely. So if the Mother has forgiven, finished. But otherwise, he will never, never forgive. And that’s why all kinds of these horrible diseases are seen. Thousands of them. Also, if you don’ respect Him, then impotency can come, or AIDS, and all these secret diseases that people have. I had a very bad time with people who suffered from these secret diseases, because Shri Ganesha accepts My forgiveness, but whenever He has a chance, again He comes back. Now see, they are deities with their own dharma. They too have their own dharma.

He gives you a lot of things. He gives you mainly wisdom, discretion, understanding, but if you don’t obey Him, His qualities, then He’s a very difficult man. So to tell somebody “don’t do it” is very difficult, but the nature takes respite. If you want to become a patient it’s not difficult, but to get you cured on the Mooladhara is very, very difficult. You do get cured, no doubt, ultimately, but the most difficult disease is from Mooladhara. 

He is a child, all right. He’s an eternal child. He’s innocence. Despite all that, He cannot forgive you if you disturb your innocence. Mother is just the opposite: She wants to save at any cost, She wants to save people. But not Ganesha. Ganesha says: “All right, you better go to hell.” And hell is in our own lives here, you see, those people who are drinking, smoking, prostitution all this – this is all hell. What else is hell? And He will never save you from hell.

Only in your aarti, in Marathi aarti of Shri Ganesha, they say that at the time when I am getting my realization, You must save me. That’s the only thing they ask: at the time of my resurrection, You must save me. It does not say that at the time of my resurrection, You protect me. No. You save me. Because He’s the one who is sitting on every chakra like a vice-chancellor of the university. Even if you have Vishnu on your side, Mahadeva on your side, but if Shri Ganesha is there sitting and He says, “No, not his ascent,” it doesn’t work out. It’s very difficult.

So now I am telling you this, that your children are here. In these modern times, horrible things are happening to children. I mean, I think the whole of this negativity is against the innocence. Wherever they get the children, they misuse them, they teach them bad things. Even the schools, everything is so horrid. So then, we have to be careful. We have to be very, very careful about our children. We have to guide them properly, look after them, and let their primordial taboos should be that that restriction, that taboo, that is to be preserved. 

So if a child does something nice, appreciate it. I’m not worried about a child being little bit, what you can call, a little bit mischievous. Here, they have to be. It’s all right. But if he takes to anything that is anti-Ganesha, be careful. All kinds of diseases can develop, and if they are destroyed in childhood – these taboos – then they are very difficult to revive.

Still I have always said that innocence is never lost. Only, there are some clouds which try to cover innocence, and we become rather ignorant about it, that we have done anything wrong. That is your duty. Your society is horrible. Next generation I don’t know where it is going to end up. When I think about it, I really get a fright. 

The solution is that you have to be careful about your children and their thinking and their attitude towards Shri Ganesha. They are special lovable things for Shri Ganesha.

You can’t imagine how He loves the children. And He’s always there to protect the children. If He protects anything, it is the children He protects. And if you people really understand what I am saying now, because if you have to cross this margin of human life and spiritual life, first thing is your Shri Ganesh. When Kundalini rises, Shri Ganesh is quiet. He just supports the Kundalini to rise. He’s the one who also suggests to you that it’s the wrong way you are doing things. He looks after you, but He’ll not forgive you.

It is not so difficult. The way people talk about their physical needs and all this nonsense, even the animals don’t talk like that. Try to enjoy things which will give you real enjoyment. For example, flowers, nature, garden. Instead of destroying this nature, try to build it up, try to see how you can make it a beautiful garden or a beautiful place. Every time I am here, I am thinking: what should I do with this land here, which is very barren? How can I change it? All the time there is thought about how to make it beautiful. And in that, if there is innocence, no greed, there is no competition, there is no attachment, but just to enjoy the beauty of your own creation, to see how things are. 

Out of proportion people have gone, out of understanding. For example, here or anywhere in Europe, you are not supposed to grow anymore fruits. Why? Because the price must be kept low. If you have so many fruits, why don’t you send it to places where they don’t have fruits? They will destroy it, finish it, but they will not do that. So the love and feeling for others is not there, and they destroy if something is overproduced by the Mother Earth just to keep the prices high. Very cruel! They are very cruel still. Only thinking about money, money, money, money.

All this happens. So it’s still happening, and I’m sure one day will come when it will all stop. The pubs are the best buildings in the village. Then the way they glorify drinking is the best part of it. It’s all done. You see it. Now, the only thing, I would like you to have a desire, that: let drinking be finished, like smoking. If you think like that, that might solve a little bit. I personally think it is with drinking only [that] you develop all these perverted attitudes. Otherwise if it’s a normal man with a normal brain, why should he do such things? Fighting, quarrelling, killing, violence: It’s impossible to understand how can a normal person do such a thing.

Shri Ganesha gives you balance. He keeps you on the proper track. But if you don’t want to listen to Him, you are thrown away. I hope you understand our relationship with nature, with Shri Ganesha, and with our Kundalini is absolutely identified with each other. Absolutely. If you start loving the nature, all these ideas of spoiling your innocence will be finished. 

I used to write poetry, I’m very fond of nature, but then I told Myself: You have to do work for Sahaja Yoga. If You take to poetry, they’ll all call You a poetess. And I don’t want to have any such position to be a poetess and all that, so I gave it up. And I was a very good sportswoman. I used to play things, I used to be first in every sort of game, and I had championship, this and that. I gave it up. Whatever I did, I used to get into it. I studied medicine, I stood in the first at the whole university. I gave it up. Why? Because I am the Primordial Mother, and I have to do the job of awakening the primordial nature, the dharma within human beings, and that’s what I have to do and nothing else. But for that, I don’t do anything. I am Nishkriya – I don’t do anything. Really, I don’t do. It is done by the nature. Done by Shri Ganesha. Vishnu, Mahesha, everybody. They are doing it.

But, then what is the relationship? The relationship is, they are all in My body and they are all bound by their own dharma. And they act. This is the relationship: spontaneous, automatic, like a built-in relationship. For example, the fan is built in, so as soon as you push the button it starts moving. It’s like that. All of them are related to Me, and they have a tremendous protocol, tremendous respect, that if I say anything, they will not finish it. 

See, this thing is, that very, very deep thing that I am telling you: that you are a human being, that is, there is built in within you are your dharmas, and if you go against your dharma, then you’ll be finished. They’re all built in within you. They are all there, potentially. I hope you’ll understand how important it is to be aware of your restrictions within yourself. So thank you very much, all of you.

May God bless you.