Guru Puja: The State of Guru

 Guru Puja, Leysin (Switzerland), 14 July 1984.

I bow to all the Sahaja Yogis of the world. It is very heartening to see so many of you assembled here to do the Guru Puja. To worship your Guru in person regarded as the highest blessing. But in my case, it’s a very different combination that I am your Mother and your Guru.

So, you can understand how Shri Ganesha worshipped his Mother. You all are created in the same image of Shri Ganesha who worshipped his Mother and then He became the Adi Guru, the first Guru. He is the primordial essence of mastery.

Only the Mother can make the child a master. And the motherhood in any Guru – whether male or female – can only make the disciple a Guru. So, first, you have to become the prophets and develop that motherhood within yourself, then you can make others also prophets. 

Now, to become a Guru, what do we have to do after our Realisation? Guru word means gravity. Gravity means a person who is grave, who is deep, who is magnetic. Now as you have learnt in Sahaja Yoga that realisation takes place in complete effortlessness. So normally a Guru tries to make his disciples effortless, which is called as prayatna shaytilya – means ‘relax your efforts’. Without doing anything you got your prayatna shaytilya, otherwise Kundalini would not have risen.

Then the second stage is ‘vichara shaithilya’ – the thoughtless awareness. This also you got it without doing anything.

And the third is complete negation of thought, ‘abhava’, and the bliss of peace.

So, one has to understand that you have to pass then, through three stages. First, when you get your Realisation, all these things come spontaneously, for that moment. When you raise the Kundalini of others, these things happen to them spontaneously. You too have that power now to raise the Kundalini of people and to establish it in them. But we must understand why it has to be done that way, why we have to have ‘vichara shaithilya’ – [it is] because when you project any thought, it is artificial, it is not reality. Thought always stands between you and the reality. When you put in an effort, you stand against becoming.

For example, if I have to cure you, I just put my hand and finished – no effort, because I am that. You get your realisation because I am that. I don’t put in any effort, I don’t think about it, I am that. Just looking at someone, it can be done. Just putting attention to someone, it can be done. Just with a small desire, it can be done – because you are that. You can mould it the way you like. You can get an example from gold. Now gold is untarnishable. It does not have to think it is untarnishable, it does not have to put in an effort it is untarnishable – it is. So to be, to be, you don’t have to put in any effort. If you have to put in an effort, that means you are not yet that.

If you look at the sun – it shines. It doesn’t have to put in effort to shine – it shines. So to be that, if you have to put in an effort, that means you are not that, you are trying, you are artificial. The flowers are beautiful, so they don’t have to beautify themselves. And this is what one has to understand – that innately if you are that, if you have already become, then what is the need to put in any more effort? But when we say these things, you see, then people think you have to be lethargic, that you need not do anything, you become a Guru without doing anything. That’s why, at the very outset, I said it goes in stages.

So, the first stage is of Shri Ganesha – how He surrenders to the Shakti, to the Mother. That is the beginning. If one cannot surrender – that doesn’t mean you don’t do anything, but surrendering means the worship, the respect of the higher, the obedience to the higher. Not to argue it out, not to react, acceptance, absorption. Like a child absorbs the milk of the mother without questioning, without reasoning. That’s why Christ has said, “You have to become like children”. But if you are questioning, then you are no more a child.

So, first is the state, which you have to develop, is the child-like state. But child, which is a Realised child, which has to have a gravity. If you can develop childhood first, then everything takes proper course, because maturity cannot take place unless and until you start from the very beginning, and gravity means maturity not frivolousness.

So now the quality of Ganesha, as you know, is that He has ‘viveka’, means He has discretion. He ‘has’ means He is discretion. So, try to develop your discretion power so that Shri Ganesha gives you the wisdom: ‘subuddhi’, wisdom. And this is why you have to have a dependence on Shri Ganesha.

So at this point you have to make a negation of efforts. Like, whatever are efforts anti-Ganesha, or anti-innocence must be negated. So the negation of effort is to be achieved by negating whatever is the effort – means the effort of negation. So in the beginning you will not be effortless, you will have to put in effort for that. Like Christ has said, “Thou shalt not have adulterous eyes”.

So, how do you make your eyes innocent? In Sahaja Yoga, we have a method by which we try to distract our eyes from effort that makes it adulterous. Like, we try to put our attention, our eyes, on the Mother Earth, on the grass, on the trees. So the avoidance, the avoiding of the effort itself is effort. So those people who have come now, recently, have to understand also that they have to put in all kinds of efforts to stop the efforts.  For example, some people are used to very comfortable life, they may talk of all kinds of renunciation, [but] when it comes to comfort, they want to have comfort. Such people should try to get out of the habit of comfort: sleep on the ground, sleep on the Mother Earth. Some people have an attention which is all the time looking this side, that side – cannot see to one point – so fix your attention. So gradually, you will find, you’ll discipline yourself. So, the effort that you put in is very important in the beginning of Sahaja Yoga.

Another thing is very common, in the West, is the harsh tongue, the sarcasm, and hurting others – is a very subtle way of violence. Or if they are really blunt they can start with ego expressions also “I, I, I…” Such people should stop talking completely, make an effort to stop – just don’t talk. Now watch your mind – is it trying to talk something sarcastic, nonsensical? So, this watching also requires effort.

So, to sprout the seed is easy, but then one has to put in the effort to look after the little plant. And when it matures, then it’s on its own.  So the – first the effort should be made to protect yourself against the mind which you have built in, through your ego or superego, that goes into the wrong direction of effort.

But sometimes, be very careful, you have to be discreet. And the best way to be safe on discretion is to keep in the centre – never go to any extreme of anything. For example, some people are fond of music, say, so they’ll go on after the music part of it. Some people, say, are fond of poetry, then they’ll go after the poetry only. There is nothing wrong in those things, but whatever you achieve in all these things must be brought back to the collective and must be enjoyed by everyone, and you should also enjoy what others have found. For example, somebody is a very learned man and a dry person. So he has to make an effort to make himself sweet.

So, try to neutralise your extreme nature by coming in the centre, and the best way to say is, “I like everything. The way You keep me, I am happy in that state”. And to suggest yourself that, “I am the peace” – suggest, autosuggestion, “I am the satisfaction, I am the dignity”. Try to impose these artificialities upon yourself of these virtues and righteousness, and then ask yourself, “If I am dignified how can I do such a thing?” Ask yourself, you judge yourself with those. For example, somebody is a miserly person and he says, “Oh you must be generous”, then you call him a hypocrite. But supposing the miserly, you see, questions himself then he is not a hypocrite.

So when you put all these artificial, so-called, values upon yourself – sort of a goal – and then try to achieve that goal through your own effort, then you become that. So automatically you criticise yourself and you don’t criticise others and you know what’s wrong with you. Because, what’s the use of knowing what’s wrong with others? It is like England trying to improve the conditions in India, and India trying to improve the conditions in England.

But in this also human brain has an escape. When they want to criticise themselves, they find a pouch called the Left Vishuddhi and become settled there. The more cunning you are, the more clever you are, the worse is the Left Vishuddhi. Then you put everything there, settled down nicely to stagnate, to get all kinds of filth in it and to be settled with yourself nicely. It’s like any lousy housewife – she takes all the dirt of the house and all that and piles up into a room, locks it up, and thinks,  oh she has been very efficient. You have to face it and you have to correct it and see to it! And that’s how you become powerful. Because if your machinery is out of gear, what’s the use of improving somebody else’s machinery? And when your machinery is out of gear, you put it in a lock and key, and lock it up and say, “Now it’s all right”. Or you blame somebody because of this, because of that – something else other than you. Thank God to Sahaja Yoga today that you all have got Realisation, so I don’t have to do all that cleaning, you can do yourself.

So, in short, you become your own Guru to begin with. You try to tell yourself, separate yourself from yourself and say, “Hello Sir, how are you now, come along”. But in Sahaja Yoga, you see, people suddenly assume, you see, a big sort of a ego nonsense, and they think they are big gurus, you see, big, great people, avadhutas, you see, like that. And if you ask them, they say, “Mother, Mother I loved You very much”. So they think if they love Me, then it is my duty that I should really keep you clean. That’s not the attitude of a guru. What guru does, is to purify himself and others and give those flowers to the Deity. Till you all become gurus, I am your Guru, but once you become the guru then I become your Deity.

[The translator asks Mother to clarify] Till they are not yet gurus, I am their Guru. Till they reach that state. Once they become the guru, then I am their Deity.

Like all the Gurus, we can say Mohammad sahib – He talked of “Allah Hu Akbar.” He talked of the Holy Ghost, He talked of the resurrection, because He was a Guru. And whatever He had to say, He said it with full confidence pointing out towards the point where He looks, or where He gets His guidance from. Like Moses, like Christ also put His two fingers denoting His Father.

So till you become your own guru, you have to put in effort in the beginning. Then gradually you can achieve it effortlessly. Effortlessness is not to be certified, but you can verify it. A person who is discrete – in his presence others become discrete. A person who is honest – others in his presence become honest. It is said in Sanskrit language, ‘Yatha raja tatha praja’ – ‘As the king is that’s how the subjects are’.

When you are the guru, you are the example. You have to be the example. Now I have seen people who are gurus, who think, call themselves gurus, in different varieties and different types of life: like professors, teachers, you can call them, not spiritual gurus. They too, when they try to follow a mundane type of life – not of something exceptional – then their disciples lose faith in them. Even political leaders, when they…supposing a political leader is licentious, he has weaknesses, then the people who try to follow him have no respect. So they too have to have a personal character, a personal value system.

So what about the spiritual gurus then? They have to be excellent people. There should be no two types of life, one outside, one inside. When the outside and inside becomes one, then it is effortless and that is what one has to do – the inside and the outside, one has to work it out from inside. For that you cannot bring the outside inside, but inside has to go outside. So this is the beginning of antar yoga, the inner yoga.

At the second stage, you have to become thoughtless.

This is very important in the West because they live in thoughts – they do not have other problems of a gross nature. For example, they are brought up in such a way that they are frightened of law. They are brought up this way – they’ll keep all their carpets clean, everything clean, you see, very particular about keeping every place clean. All the gross things they keep clean, and then when they try to adjust themselves, they adjust within. Outwardly they are gentlemanly, but inside, in their thought, they are not clean. In their behaviour they are not clean, their eyes are not clean, it’s poison inside. And they like that poison to be taken out – sometimes it comes out as sarcasm, it comes out as their sinister acts of aggression on other countries. They may plan out the complete destruction of the world and they don’t think there’s anything wrong in it because it is ‘an ideology’ for which, is a thought they are fighting for. As long as there is an ideology, there’s a thought, there’s some sort of a sublime talk, then they can do what they like.

This filth is very sophisticated. Like the people who don’t take their baths can use some artificial things to get a fragrance. Inside has to be clean and that’s why first the efforts are to be made to have good thoughts. Watch your mind – how does it think about others? I would say, racialism is one of the diseases of the same thing. I have seen people who are very well placed, sophisticated, wear immaculate dresses: when it comes to a person from a developing country, or from say, another colour complexion, they come out with a remark, even if they are Sahaja Yogis I have seen they do it.  I am saying this for the Sahaja Yogis and not for others. That suddenly that dead stuff, which we call as dead, becomes alive. So the mind is dirty, full of lust, greed, and anger, jealousy – and that’s why we have to be very, very careful.

Those people who have become sophisticated their weaknesses have also become sophisticated, and that’s why jealousy is a common disease. Like the other day I asked someone, “Why the father is angry with the son, and with his own brother?” So the answer was, “Because the brother is looking after the son in London.” Normally any person should be thankful that: somebody is looking after my son in my absence. But the fellow is jealous because of possessiveness and the possessiveness comes out of insecurity, and insecurity comes within us because we make others insecured. There are many reasons for insecurity, but one of them is because we are ugly and we see that ugliness in others.

Now this inside filth has to be taken out with greater effort than the outside filth, and that inside filth you can watch and see within yourself. Some people try to dominate others, to tell them things – just for the bossiness of it. Now watch out – first of all, have you bossed yourself enough? Have you mastered yourself enough? Are you master of your own or you are still lacking in that? Those who have not mastered themselves want to have others, to master them. But the one who is the master of oneself, need not master anyone. He becomes the master. He doesn’t have to put in any effort, he masters. And there are so many tricks by which he can master, so many things by which he can correct. He may not say, he may not do anything, but just he manages. Everyone learns a lesson without his doing anything about it. But they know that somebody is a master of masters. Maybe, such a person will be very unassuming, simple, innocent looking, but that’s Mahamaya, that’s the illusion.

So, the person who is that power doesn’t want to show it outside, on the contrary, it shows in such a way that people know it. I mean, the way things happen in life, we start understanding that we don’t have to put up any show – someone knows everything. When we have someone like that, try to follow.

So, in the third stage the effort should be to follow your Guru who is a Sat Guru.

Now that one becomes the one who – a pattern, which you have to follow. But in this also Sahaja Yogis can be very superficial. One of the Sahaja Yogis used to wear a shawl in a particular way. So, I sent him some other Sahaja Yogis that he will try to help them, he can be their guru; they all started wearing shawls the same way! [Laughter]. It’s not outside; you have to follow the inside. So, when you become the guru, become the guru! You become! It’s such a short method, just to become.

Now if you face yourself, you’ll know that there are still some steps you have to cross to become. Even now when I am lecturing to you, you are thinking of others, “Oh, Mother is talking about him”, not about yourself. That is how one has to take it inside, the absorption, from your Guru that you have to see yourself! Now, that is very important if we have to become the prophets who will make others prophets.

Now, the higher stage is that your Guru becomes a Deity. When you say, “Guru Brahma, Guru Vishnu, Guru Devo Maheshwara”. They go up to that point but nobody says, “Guru is Devi”. You can have a higher stage, than Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesha. Because the Guru state is where you have the innocence of all these: Brahma and Mahesha and Vishnu, their power of innocence. But then ultimately they say, “Guru Sakshat Parabrahma”. And Parabrahma is the power of the Mother that is flowing through you. So, you become the instrument of that Parabrahma. But how? Not only by becoming. But now, becoming the reflector of your Deity, to develop yourself into the reflector from guru to that state. At that state, you start controlling all the elements. That’s why all these incarnations of Adi Guru had control over elements.

Brahmadeva is absolutely manifested through them. So, out of Ganesha, which is the Adi Guru, He is born, or He is manifested through these three: Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesha.

And then He comes out as Brahmadeva with four heads: three of Brahma, Vishnu,

Mahesha, and the fourth of Shri Ganesha. So, Brahmadeva becomes the symbol of Guru. And as you know Ganesha is ‘chatvari’, is four, all the time, He becomes these four in expression, in manifestation. And as you become Brahmadeva, at that stage, you control all the elements.

So, today, I have tried to explain to you the different stages of gurupada: the state of guru. And one should understand [that] whatever we are today, we are extremely blessed and fortunate people that, in this short time, you started from a scratch in the mud and you have become the lotuses. The lotus will invite many insects and will convert them into lotuses.

Grégoire: Insects ?

Shri Mataji: Madhukar. They call it, madhukar, the ones who are selecting the ‘madhu’, the nectar, the – what you call the honey. When they get the nectar, they become themselves the lotuses.

The whole dirty, filthy pond is covered with those lotus flowers. And one lotus, who is the Guru, grows higher, and then is given to the Goddess on which She resides. She resides in the heart on the platform, beautiful platform that this lotus has created. But to bear Her on your heart, you have to have a heart. There are so many qualities of a Guru, which I have told you. All the best qualities, the twelve qualities of all the sides should be completely manifested in a Guru, and the owner of those qualities is Shiva. So that is how the essence of Shiva, out of Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesha, the Mahesha’s qualities, should shine through you.

The Vishnu’s qualities of dharma: first you have to make an effort to be dharmic, to be balanced. Then you ascend. Then you become one with the Virata and then you can give dharma to others. So one has to know that stage-by-stage, it happens to you. And you do not become a hypocrite but you become real. And the reality is shown by its own being.

That is how you become.

So, understand the reality within yourself, face it, solve it. But mostly, I have seen, when I tell anybody, “No, Mother I am not like that”. “No Mother, I didn’t say like that”. “That is not true”. Some such people would like to sit in front or sort of, try to show off or anything, but that is not important! What is important is how much you know your Self: it is Selfrealisation. Once you develop that, then you know the others in the real way and not artificially, and then the enjoyment is complete. Like a bee will never go to an artificial flower. But human beings have to become the bee. The Guru does not need to say that he’s the Guru.

Today, I bless you. I have completed the twelve years of Guru’s and you should really assume the Shiva’s powers within yourself. I, that is My body, My mind, My heart, everything, has spared no efforts to completely indulge into this cleansing, into this making, into this becoming of you people. I request you now that, please do not waste My efforts. Look at yourself, help yourself and try to rise higher and higher to become your Self. When you become your Self, then you become the Guru. And once you become the Guru, you become Brahmadeva, Mahesha and Vishnu.

So first, you are made in the pattern of Ganesha, then Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesha. But very much depends on your readiness to do it and, most of all, your honesty and sincerity. I hope Shri Ganesha will give you the wisdom to understand. The Shakti will give you shakti to work hard. And Shiva will give you joy – Sadashiva will give you the joy so that you proceed in your establishment.

May God bless you.

(All those who are going to worship Me can come here and sit down. In the manner we have today described, we’ll have three pujas. One Shri Ganesha’s then Guru Puja and thirdly that of Devi. I think all the two leaders which you have selected from every place can come here would be better.)