“Destructive Power Of Shri Mahadeva,” Mahashivaratri Puja, Pune (India), 25 February 2001.

Today we are here to celebrate Mahashivaratri. It’s a very great privilege for all of us to understand about Shri Mahadeva.

Unless and until you have got your Self-realisation you cannot understand what is the great personality, the character and the powers of Shri Mahadeva.

It’s not easy to conceive – also to reach the depth – of His greatness unless and until we are humble. We have to be very humble to reach at the lotus feet of Shri Mahadeva. As you have seen that one has to cross even the Sahasrara to be at the lotus feet of this Great Personality. He is beyond, beyond our conception, but He resides in our hearts as the Spirit and is reflected very well when you get your Realisation.

But still one has to understand the powers of Shri Mahadeva; which is not very easy to describe about this great God in little words.

But the first power He Himself has [is] that He is a very forgiving God: He forgives; He forgives us so many of our sins, so many of our destructive activities, our horrible mind which tries to create problems for everyone, up to a point! But He has the greatest power to destroy. His destruction comes so suddenly because He rules all the elements. All the elements He rules: He rules the Mother Earth, and He rules all other elements. Through their causal, He rules. And He can destroy everything that He wants to if He finds there is [any] problem.

I have to tell you that earthquakes are managed by Him, not by me. I am not there for destruction. He’s the one who sees what’s happening on this earth, what’s happening to the human being.

I’ll give you an example of Gujarat: apart from anything, Gujarat people are very money-oriented; they are worried with the stock-exchange, this, that, all the time money, money, money, money, money. Even if they are abroad, they are extremely money-oriented. Sometimes I am surprised. It’s impossible to talk to them about Sahaj Yog. And they like artificial type of things like some gurus or somebody.

I don’t know from where did they get like this, [but] whatever it is, we have a state called Bhavnagar in Gujarat. Bhavnagar people came, they brought for me those silver slippers, padukas, to be vibrated; I was surprised, I was happy at least, that these people are thinking about it. So they did a puja, they did a havan in Bhavnagar and also in Baroda. These are the two places [which] were not touched even, touched even, by the bhukamp (भूकंप – earthquake), by the earthquake. Can you imagine! And Surat which is very much distant, was absolutely shattered. There are Sahaj Yogis, very few, all of them were saved, and their houses also did not move. This is between the protection of your Mother and the wrath of God Almighty. One has to understand this very well, that He has powers over all the elements.

I went to France, and there some people in France tried to trouble me. And all the media got after me. And on the television, everywhere, they were saying all kinds of things against me. I knew something would go wrong somewhere and suddenly from the sea a big – I don’t know what to call it – a big storm started, suddenly, no one knows why. And two ships were completely sunk, and those people who went to rescue them got cancer. Then it came: this storm started moving fast and all the churches lost their top, heads I should say. All the churches lost it. So many priests’ houses were ruined and it travelled and came up to the place where I had purchased a very big castle. It just stopped, and just stopped at the brink of it.

Now, it’s not my doing, I must tell you. But this is what He does. Though He’s very forgiving, He’s extremely kind, He’s blissful, but you should be aware of His powers.

All those powers are used to protect my work, I should say. It goes too far and it is to show to people that they shouldn’t obstruct the work of spirituality. It should be real spirituality. It should not be somebody like a false guru coming up and showing some magic, or talking something about some far-fetched things. But the real spirituality, if you have, the protection will be always there, and Shiva will be very blissful.

He’s extremely blissful. And what He has given you is even more beautiful than you could think of. He’s extremely forgiving. I should say He is the source of forgiveness.

If you have forgiveness in your heart, He resides in your heart. Otherwise, gradually, you start developing very difficult types of diseases.

Say If you are forgiving, your heart runs very fast. No one can touch your heart. You cannot get heart attacks. But if you are tolerating, suffering and taking many things as a power of your own, doing wrong things and forgetting about God, then you also start developing a very weak heart. So one side is that you develop a heart which is extremely aggressive, and can become like Hitler’s heart. Under any kind of pretensions if you start torturing someone your heart becomes solid and then you can get a tremendous massive heart-attack, and all the troubles from that. This is inevitable.

But supposing you are extremely tolerant and you tolerate all nonsense, you are very docile, you are a frightened person. If you are frightened, then because of fright you do that, you can develop another kind of a heart [which] we call as angina where the blood supply is less, and ultimately you develop a kind of a guilt and you lead a very mediocre life.

So this second thing also is very visible among people who think they are very, very tolerant. I am saying that tolerance is alright because of Spirituality, but not because you are frightened, and you are afraid of something. If you are a Sahaj Yogi you have no business to be afraid of anything.

In India people are afraid of everything! If they can see a squirrel they will be frightened! If they see a lizard – finished! I mean they are afraid of anything and the ladies in India are so afraid of even cockroaches! This kind of temperament is absolutely stupid, because that makes you a kind of a person who is prone to angina. What is there to be afraid of? If you are a Sahaj Yogi and Sahaj Yogini, you are not to be afraid of anything. They are afraid of rats! All kinds of nonsense. And they boast of it, and they talk about it. Here the heart is becoming weaker and weaker and weaker.

Also, I must say, the Indian men are responsible for that. Because they treat their women as if they are appendages or some sort of a liability, I don’t know what they think to be. Their behaviour is so bad, unbelievable! Especially in North India, I have seen, women have no position. The woman is brought in the house, kept in the house, just like a maidservant. She has to cover her face all the time, she doesn’t have to go out anywhere without permission. It’s terrible! Some people say it is the Muslim influence or whatever it is; but when you believe in eternal life, in spiritual life, you should not be governed by any such nonsensical atrocities.

And that’s why I feel that you really need the emancipation of women in India. They are very good, they are very tolerant, they are very sweet, but they develop all the bad diseases, all the mental diseases, because they don’t know their own value, they don’t know their own self-respect. And on this I have already spoken at length [about] why should men behave like that. Because I think in our country, we have at least seventy percent [that] are women. And the seventy percent [of the] people’s energy is wasted in the North India. I don’t know what they think of themselves. And then they are punished. All such countries can never prosper, because women are the Lakshmis.

But they have to be Lakshmis also. They have to behave like Lakshmis. But some of them come up like this that you are shocked. How can they be women? They look like devils! So it’s such an imbalance in the society; which is punished, again, by Shri Mahadeva.

He’s very kind, and He looks after the people who are suffering. And He tries to punish people who make them suffer. It is His quality to help by destroying people who are aggressive. He doesn’t talk of Kundalini, He doesn’t talk of Self-realisation, He just punishes them nicely, in such a bad way that it’s shocking! And He relieves sometimes people like…I have seen many women who live like this, suffer so much: they die much earlier than their age.

All this one has to see in the right perspective. He’s there to protect, of course, but more to destroy. He protects all kinds of animals, all birds. All the nature He protects. He’s the one who brings all the joy, all the joy of spirituality. But if you try to become aggressive, then He is the one who will destroy. Sometimes He gives more long rope to hang, and so people think, “We are alright!” They satisfy themselves.

On the contrary, in the West I find the women are ruling the men more than the men [are ruling the women]. Very surprising. I don’t know how they have handled the situation, but they are ruling, all the time. And the men have to be under their thumb. I don’t know how they have managed it, but they do it! They are not humble. They don’t love, and they will go on divorcing their husbands all the time. They do not love! They don’t know what love is.

But also, I have seen that men don’t understand what love is in India. They don’t know how to love their wives, which is a life-partner. How to respect, they don’t understand. There, then comes a great wrath, and this wrath works in so many ways, in creating horrible diseases and in creating problems and problems for such men.

And the society also is responsible for doing all kinds of things against humble people. Both ways one has to understand that, if you are aggressive, you are under the third eye of Shri Mahadeva! In any way. If you are aggressive, say, with your servants; if you are aggressive with your subordinates; if you are aggressive with your children – there is this wrathful God watching you, and one can get under the spell of His destruction.

But He gives us the great heights of Himalaya. He makes human beings extremely beautiful, very noble. And He wants that people should love each other. There should be pure love among human beings.

And also He makes you very delicately behaving towards other people; very sweetly behaving towards others. If you don’t have that, then you are going in the wrong direction.

But His greatest thing is that He gives you the height and the depth. If you are worshipping Him, then you develop such heights that you see the whole world as a witness.

He sees the whole world as a Sakshiswarupa (साक्षिस्वरूप) as a witness. And so He is the knowledge, He is the pure knowledge. You may get your Realisation, alright; you might feel the cool breeze in your hands, alright; but, do you have the knowledge? I have to tell you what finger means what, what hand means what; what is vibrations I have to tell. He’s that knowledge. He’s the pure knowledge, complete knowledge, of the highest level.

So He is the source of knowledge.

Those people who are not humble cannot get that knowledge. Those people who are arrogant and who do not handle others delicately, sweetly, beautifully, are not blessed by Him. They cannot achieve anything in life. What do we have to achieve? Not your position, not your wealth, not all these outward things. But you have to achieve a loving heart! A heart with which you can love.

If there is Shiva in your heart you will love everyone in a very beautiful manner. There won’t be any nonsensical ideas about love. Just pure love, pure love for all the people.

Is the blessing [of Shiva] then all your harshness goes away. For example if you have a little power, little power, so you start misusing it. Look at Shiva, He has so many powers! If He starts misusing [them] there won’t be even a blade of grass left on this earth: how much we are sinful, selfish, you know that. But still He gives you a chance. He says, “Let’s see, they might improve!”. And He’s extremely generous, extremely generous. He’s very forgiving and also extremely generous.

Now supposing there are people who are living in a desert and they are very good people, and they are suffering because they are living in a desert: He will create oases for them! He controls the Mother Earth. He can do everything to make them happy, if they are spiritual, if they worship Him.

But human beings are so stupid that they go on fighting, also, in the name of God. Like in the south we have two types of people: one who worships Shiva, another who worships Vishnu. Can you imagine! Vishnu used to worship Shiva! Nobody’s higher, nobody’s lower. It’s so important. Everything is so important. But they used to fight on this point that they are worshipping Shiva, or they are worshipping Vishnu, and nowhere near the reality they were. They didn’t know what was the reality, nothing! Just fighting, fighting, fighting!

In the name of God, those who fight, Shiva comes on them and His trident hits them.

You are not to fight in the name of God, but you have to love and understand. So this fighting in the name of God is a nonsense; not only that but is very, very dangerous. All such people who do that will be destroyed. It is self-destructive. Such people will be destroyed completely.

So, you should understand that, in the name of God you have to love. You have to understand. You need not tolerate nonsense, is different; but you have to love people, spread your love. Gradually this love can go all over the world, and then the vision of mine I can see working out.

But if there is fighting, there’s hatred, there’s all kinds of aggressiveness, these are all against Shiva, and such people will be destroyed. What will I do with them? What can I do if they are destroyed? If they are very money oriented, materialistic people, they are not loving then: they are loving only for money. All such people will be destroyed, no doubt. One should be not only humble, but should be extremely loving.

To get the blessings of Shiva you have to be extremely loving. Such people may not be very cunning, clever; may be very innocent; must be. Because when you love somebody, you want to help that person.

I have suffered myself, I have tried to help people and they have deceived me. So what? That’s their nature and they are destroyed. What can I do? I didn’t ask them that, “You deceive me,” but they deceived me, I don’t know why; and I have been very kind and nice, still they deceived me. So when the destruction follows, what can I do about it?

I don’t want anybody to be destroyed. I love this creation of mine and I don’t have any way of protecting them if they are destructive. Because there is another great power who can destroy them.

This is an absolutely, mine is a helpless condition sometimes I feel and I don’t know how to express. But one has to understand as Sahaj Yogis that with Shiva’s love and His blessings you can become extremely loving, extremely generous, very, very sweet; and innocent like children.

You have to be innocent. There’s no need to be very clever and cunning.

And you will be amazed how your innocence, innocence will be protected. And if you are innocent, you don’t have to worry: there’s a power, it’s the third eye of Shiva, which is looking after you. Wherever you are going, He is with you. That doesn’t mean that you become stupid. It doesn’t mean that you are not practical. All that is taken over, all the practical side, by the power of Shiva. His guidance, His love, His kindness, you can see at every, every step of life.

But first of all, watch your steps! Are you aggressive? Are you troublesome? Do you say harsh things to others? Or are you humble? Are you gentle? And if you are kind, He’s very much pleased with you.

In the Nature it is His rule that works. And they are so systematic, they live with understanding of each other. For example, if you go in the jungle and it is absolutely quiet, you don’t even hear the birds twittering, then you should know there is a tiger sitting somewhere, because he is the king. They know they have to obey, and when the king is there, his protocol is there. They know automatically what is the protocol of the king. Nobody would be even moving if he is there. He sits in his majesty. Then in one week, or maybe fifteen days he’ll kill one animal. He has to eat [so] he kills one animal, then he and his family, they eat first. He waits for some time, of course, for the blood to ooze out, then the whole family comes and eats. Then he leaves the body there. Then by gradation, one by one, all kinds of animals come and eat it as a prasad. And lastly are the crows who come and eat that animal. Such discipline, such understanding of the protocol; I’m amazed how animals are managed by Shiva.

We never hear that animals are having a strike, or animals are having a big underworld [of] animals! You don’t hear that these animals are stealing things! I mean, just imagine: we are coming from that animal life, but we are worse than them! How are we going to rise if we have all such funny ideas of behaving in such a manner of fighting. On any small little excuse they’ll fight, they start fighting.

Animals also fight a little bit among themselves, but not in a collective way. They don’t do it in a collective way as we do it here and we do not. It’s really at a slightest provocation we get into groups and start fighting. They get into groups but they don’t fight.

What is the thing among them? Everything is so much, so much understood by animals, why not for us also to understand the law of nature?

It is Mahadeva who manages that all the nature’s laws are to be obeyed. Even the Mother Earth, the sky, everything, is looked after by Him. He does nice, nice, beautiful things for us. With the changing of the seasons. He creates these beautiful flowers; He creates all that is soothing and joy-giving and beautiful, He looks after. He gives us to see what nature has given us, and tries to please us, keep us happy, entertain, like an innocent child. But while we, in our arrogance, we have our reactions to everything! You see a carpet and you will say “I don’t like it!” Especially in the West, it is a common thing to say, “I don’t like it”.

Who are you not to like something, or to dislike something? What do you think of yourself? It’s very common, and shamelessly they will say, “I don’t like it! “I like it.” It’s impossible! Such human beings, I don’t know where they will go, what will happen to them. Instead of appreciating, instead of enjoying everything, why to start criticising and reacting?

Reaction is much more in the West, I must say, not so much in India. But there are certain cultural differences, I think, that’s why people say like that. Here if somebody says like that, people will think that person is mad or something wrong with Him, the way he talks.

So it’s important how you express your love, how you talk about your love. Start it with your wife, to begin with, and then you can move towards your children and other people. And we are so stupid sometimes, that we love the whole world but we can’t love our wives; is a speciality. In India that’s very true. But also in the west I have seen people love their wives because of fear: fear of divorce maybe, I don’t know what. Love should have no fear. It should have just free love. Without any fear, without any aggression, enjoy that pure love. And that is what is missing in the human beings today as it is.

When the day will come when human beings will be understanding the beauty of love, then from the heavens there will be flowers pouring on us. It would be such a tremendous day when Mahadeva will be able to close His third eye and would be peaceful in His heart. It’s my vision. It’s the future for you, to see how peacefully you can talk to people, how sweetly you can love others, how much you can give to others.

For example, [if] they have to give something, they’ll go in the market and buy the cheapest, the rottenest thing, for giving. That’s not the way. You must buy small or big, whatever it is, out of love, that should talk about your love, tell about your love, and not about your money, what you have spent.

It’s very common nowadays, even in India, that people try to show how much they are worth, what they wear, how they dress up – for what? For what? I have known such people, very many, and when they die there are not even four people available to carry their dead body. When they live they think no end of themselves. That time, you should see how many people there are to love that person, to care for that person. Maybe it is his upbringing, maybe, that he had never known love – anything you may blame – but for a Sahaj Yogi it is important to learn that love is your life, love is spirituality; and love – without expectations – to do something.

Some people are, I know, very good at helping poor people, this, that. But behind that is the power that they do. They think “Oh, we are great, we are doing this work, that work!” Just to satisfy their power, not their love.

So when you are working, you have to know that it’s just to satisfy your Spirit, just to satisfy your love that you are doing it, not for any name or for any kind of a position. If you have that kind of a detached love, virakta (विरक्त – detached) as they call it, then nobody has to certify you. You have it and you are enjoying it.

It is unfortunate I have to speak in English language, and maybe there are some who do not understand English, but nowadays English has become dominating, what to do?  You have to suppose before anything English language! I can’t use any other language. But one has to speak the language of love.

You see animals, if you have a horse or if you have a dog, all these animals, they understand your love. How they stick to you, how they express their love. They are very sweet. And this we have to learn from them now, I think.

Otherwise I don’t know how to make them understand the value of love. It is not that, the way people are criticising, that we are not practical, that we have not achieved much money or power or something. That’s not important, because there are many like that selling in the market. But we are different. We are the jewels of humanity, and we have to be like that – shiny. Cutting out all the wrong things within us as a diamond is cut to look something very, very great.

My only, if I have any desire, is that [you should] try to follow the qualities of Shri Mahadeva: How great He is, how detached He is, detached, absolutely detached! He lives with bones and things like that. He is not bothered about where He lives, what He lives with, what He has, nothing! He’s so detached, and we should be detached like that. At the same time, we should be very loving like Him, extremely loving, how His heart is full of love for us, how He looks after us.

I am warning you, because I know you all love me very much, but you should also love each other. You should have a loving heart, and have satisfaction in loving others. If you could develop that, your height will grow, your depth in Sahaj Yoga will grow.

It’s alright, the Goddess gives you the shraddha, alright, but the depth in shraddha, in Sanskrit or in Hindi and Marathi I don’t know what you call, but in Marathi they call it dhyas – just deep into that love, drenched into that love, enjoying that love. Then you don’t want anything: what do you want? You’ve got everything. So what do you want now? Just like the greatness of Shri Mahadeva.

He’s so great that He’s detached. What does He want? I mean nothing is greater than Him, nothing is more important than Him. Then what does He want? He doesn’t want anything. That’s why he’s detached. This detachment you have to develop.

But at the same time He is the Lord of all the arts, of the music, of the rhythm.

The other day you saw these boys were playing the rhythm. The whole rhythm of everything He gives. The rhythmic life that we have, we are not yet aware of it. You see a child is born after, exactly after, nine months and so-many days: who keeps this rhythm? Then we get, say, certain flowers at such-and-such time. Then we get in the nature all kinds of these seasons.

Who keeps the rhythm? He is the one who is nothing but rhythm. And that rhythm is kept up. In the nature, in everything there’s a rhythm. And a rhythmic person is the one who has a very large heart. He’s like an ocean.

You get just that rhythm disturbed immediately if you find somebody is being very cruel, very bad and all that.

But in a smooth, beautiful, peaceful lake, there is no ripple at all, it’s just love. And then, at that time, if the rhythm, the silent rhythm of that heart is broken, then Shiva takes charge.

So one has to have a complete sense of the rhythm of time, rhythm of nature, rhythm of everything.  People don’t know even the names of the flowers. They don’t know what these flowers are, what time they come up. They have no idea what is the rhythm of their living. Nobody’s bothered.

All over, if you see, there are seasons and things. It’s all the rhythm, like He is playing a big tabla or pakhawaj on which He plays all the beautiful tunes of all the seasons. And that’s how the nature flourishes and comes up and then subsides. We do not see that point. We are just bothered about ourselves.

Like we’ll ask, “How are you?” “Mother, I have got a headache, I’ve got a stomach trouble, I have another trouble” … or everything is there. But another one would say, “Ah, I’m alright!” “So, what’s the matter?” “Put the world right Mother. Mother, why don’t you put the world right?” He’s worried about others, not about himself, and in that understanding of what one should do to make this world happy, beautiful.

For that one has to really work hard, so called, and in that working one thinks, “Isn’t it our duty to make this world beautiful? Isn’t it our job to make this world rhythmic; rhyming with the Spirit?” It’s our duty. We have to do it! Not only taking Sahaj Yoga for yourself, but for others. It’s not [that] you are all the time worried about yourself, but you are worried about others: what’s happening in the world. That is love! That love is spontaneous, and when it works, it works wonders.

So this is a beautiful evening where we are worshipping such a great source of our ascent. And I hope you people will understand how far are you with that force, how much are you drenched in that force, in that rhythm of Shiva; who, in His rhythmic way, gives you vibrations.

Vibrations flow in a wavy way, and that wave should engulf you completely. And it should be asked [that], in that your ‘I-ness’ should be dissolved in that.

This is [what] I bless you. Thank you.

Today we’ll have a Ganesha puja, a small Ganesh puja, then Shiva puja and then the Devi puja.

May God bless you!