“When in darkness,” Dollis Hill Ashram, London, England. 20 June 1979.

…Then he starts treating people, then he passes negativity more. And it starts appearing to be something good, you see. Sometimes he also feels that he’s acquired more powers, because these spirits are very cunning and they establish that kind of an atmosphere. So one has to be careful. There’s a regular warfare going on. And that’s why we have to just keep our spirits all right. And cowardice has no place in this war.

The whole thing will work out very well if people are identified with the Truth. But Truth, as you know, is very difficult to be identified with; very difficult for human beings, absolutely next to impossible.

If you tell them to be idiots, they’ll accept you. If you tell them to be stupid, they’ll accept you. Any sort of a thing that makes them look absolutely donkeys, they will do it. If you tell them to be false, they will do it. If you create any atmosphere of falsehood, they’ll accept you. But the truth? Very difficult. Very difficult.

Even you will know there are some people that see my photograph and they get the cool breeze, but then when they see me fully, they cannot. Because when they see the photograph there’s a lot of darkness still in them. So they believe into me because of that part of that is darkness, because I’m just a photograph. But as soon as they see me they just don’t want to accept me.

We had a very nice place in Delhi: I asked Gregoire to go and speak to the girls of Delhi University. Him being a young white person and handsome and all that, they were all very much impressed. And with that thing, I mean, he was saying that there’s somebody like that. And they were feeling the vibrations all right. But when they came to me they never felt any vibrations. Just imagine! From Gregoire they were feeling, not from me! But then they recovered from it and now they are much better off. But this was the thing.

So, because of this, the people who represent darkness and falsehood are more successful. The spiritualists are much more successful than a saint.

Yogi: I never had to pay any money.

This can be also because they do not know; they are very intentioned, they think they have got powers. You are human. And by that they have a satisfaction to say that, “We are doing good to others.” But they do not know the know-how, you see. That is the point. Because here the people are not that cunning as we have in India. If they know that they are doing harm, they would not do it.

We have very cunning people in our country: even if they know they are doing harm, still they’ll do it if they can get some money out of you. So they haven’t got any conscience about it. So, here if the people see that they have done good to someone then they start doing it, thinking they have powers, this, that. Because sometimes also they get a vision, sometimes they get a feeling: all these things can be there due to these spirits coming in.

In India it is a very common experience of many people. They worship a deity all the time, and suddenly they find [that] the garland that they put into the neck of the deity gets up from there and comes into their own necks. Then they think, “Now God has accepted us as great saints!” Finished! This is their idea. Now it is nothing but some dissatisfied soul who puts it on them. And they start believing into it, that it is God who has done it. Then they will start a big place and will announce to everyone that, “I am a saint and this will happen and that will happen.” And people are also impressed with this kind of thing. And they would again ask for this thing to happen.

There are people who start getting this red kumkum from their hands flowing. So people believe into it. They think that, “Yes, must be something great, otherwise how can this red powder [be] flowing from their hands?” Or sometimes ashes start [flowing]. And we have got, say in Bombay we have a temple, we have a temple of Mahalakshmi, and they think that Mahalakshmi temple is the place where the Goddess resides. No doubt there is a very genuine temple, I would say. Not temple, but even the statue is absolutely genuine. But the people who are there are so funny that they get hold of some maid servants and then spirits comes into them. They start doing, “Hooo, huuu,” like that. This is called as dhagni tirani: means there’s a big pot you get for water. And in that water they go on saying, “Huuuun, huuuun,” inside the water, and they get those spirits into them. And then they go on, “Huuuun, huuuun,” like that. All the people go on like that, all these maid servants.

And then these people come and ask them questions, like, “What is the horse we are going to get?” “Where is my brother?” All this. And they answer, then they believe into it. So they get some money. But these women are horrible women in their own lives and they are always sick and they are very unhappy. But they believe into it. They believe into all these things and they do it. And while doing it, they don’t know that they are doing anything wrong. But they get sick and they are very, very unhappy, and ultimately they die a very bad death.

There was one like that in Poona, whom they called as Mamaji, means uncle. And he was a very, very famous man in Poona. Even the police used to use that man for doing this spirits’ job. But they knew that those were spirits and these are not Gods. Only these women, the way they do it, they think it is the Goddess that has come into them. Now Goddess should have some sense to come into these horrible women, isn’t it! But people don’t think about it; so they believe into it.

But this man, this gentleman who was in Poona, because I was staying with the police commissioner there, the police commissioner called him and so he came and he told me, “Mother, I really wanted to meet You for one reason that I’m now fed up of these spirits that I have used, and if You could get rid of them I’ll be very happy, because now I’m being tortured by them. And I know what sort of a death I am going to have: they are going to eat my flesh one by one and I’m going to die much earlier, before my death, the way they will torture my life.” So all this, he was frightened about, because he had seen other also people who did this kind of work, tantrikas, suffering. So he was very much frightened. So I said, “All right, then you ask for the Parama,” means the highest. “You ask for that superior thing, superior most.” He said, “All right, I ask for it.” I said, “All right, say it thrice that you ask for it.” He said, “Yes, give me that, Mother. Give me that. Give me that.” I said, “All right, I’ll give you that.” And he got his realisation, to start with. He got the vibrations above all that. I said, “Now you have lost all these horrible bhoots and their powers and now you’ll have your own powers coming in and they will act. These, your own, powers will act which you can be able to manoeuvre and help others.” He could not believe in me. He thought that whatever he had for twenty-five years, how can he get rid of them just like this? So he went to the police commissioner and told him that, “Oh, Mataji is telling me like this. I don’t believe it. I can always call those spirits.” The police used to use him for detecting crimes and things. So he said, “All right, if you think so, why not call one of the spirits? Say your mantra.” He started saying mantras, nobody would come in. He tried for half an hour, nobody would come in. He said, “Do you mean to say I’ve lost all that?” I said, “Yes.” I said, “Now thank your stars you will have better death at least!” That’s how it works out.

But even in Sahaja Yoga you will be surprised, in the beginning of Sahaja Yoga, even in the beginning of Sahaja Yoga…

Shri Mataji: Regis, tell him how to sit with his left hand towards me and right hand outside: this gentleman. No, near the door. He’s a great believer in the Goddess. He’s a Devi bhakta.

…So, it so happened that I went to America. Before going to America I told this lady that, “You are all right but your guru has been doing all these tricks of spirits. So you will get those spirits into you, and it will try to entice you. Because they don’t want to give up their people. They have no freedom and once they try to get out, they just try to again entice you.” So she told me, “No, no. You just don’t worry about me Mother I’ll keep myself all right.” Then, you know, in her own house she started a centre. She put up my big photograph. And people who come to her and she started first giving them Sahaja Yoga and this and that. And then suddenly she started feeling something falling from her hands. And they were some rice, the rice which is being reddened by this kumkum: we call it as akshata. And she was so surprised at it, that it has started falling from her. And gradually everybody was surprised and they said lots of people started coming to her. Then they started asking her questions like, “Where is my brother?” “Where is my father?” “What is the horse?” this, that. And she started answering that, that, “You know, horse is going to win this race.” And they won that race. One fellow had put lot of money somewhere and he had forgotten about it, in a big house, so she told also, where is the money. And they were all very much impressed because they are very materialistic people. They are only interested in what money we are going to get, or what health problems they have. They are not interested in Self-realisation. Very, I should say, low-graded people they are. So they were just worried about this, not worried about Self-realisation. And all such people started coming to her who were not interested in Self-realisation but in all these things. And she became very popular; she became so popular that there were, sometimes used to be three thousand people ,and she had to take a hall and this and that.

And I came to know about it somehow within myself and I immediately sent a telegram to her saying that, “Please stop all that nonsense and please don’t do all this.” And she could not believe in this. Then when I went to India, about a month later, she had not yet stopped. And by that time what had happened, she said, “No, Mataji came to me and she told me that, carry on. I saw her standing before me, she said so,” and all that. In that short time that I was [not] there, I mean one month or so I was not there, she started using a big whips and a big stick to hit people, “To take out their devils,” she said. And she used to hit them very badly on their backs. And it was so horrible that some people broke their backs and all sorts of things happened. And she was using a stick, and sometimes a very flexible one, so that they would get marks on their body. By the time I reached she came to see me, and some of the Sahaja Yogis joined hands with her. It was so silly that I just could not understand how these people all joined hands with her. And then she came to me and she said, “I have started a very big organisation in Your name Mother. You must come. You must go there.” So I told the Sahaja yogis, “None of you need come. I will go myself.” So I went down. She came and she opened the door of my thing, she washed my feet and lots of water she brought and then she washed my feet with milk and all sorts of things. I was just feeling very embarrassed about the whole thing! I didn’t know what to do. I went up to the room and she made me sit down there and all these people were singing my praise, this, that. I was very embarrassed: everywhere I could see all these horrible, these spirits sitting down there and mocking at me. I said, “You are going to be eat a great lout.” And I didn’t know what to do and how to tell them about this. And then they started saying, “Hoooon! Hoooon!” I said, “I have had it now here!” I said, “All right, I am all right. I am going back.” She said, “We’ll do your puja.” I said, “No, no, you are not well. I’m going back home, you come and see me there.” She was very happy.

Next day she came, she thought I was going to say, “Oh, bravo. You have done very well.” So when she came and sat next to me she said, “Now see, Mother, see how many powers You have given me. I am so powerful!” I said, “Really? I must say you have some powers isn’t it?” She said, “Yes.” I said, “All right, will you tell this gentleman about him?” So she started telling him that, “You were born in such a place and you have a house like this.” He said, “Not me. It’s not me. You are telling about somebody else.” Then there was a lady sitting there. She said, “You are a person who has got a clerk in your business who is like this, whose name is this.” She said, “I don’t have a business. I don’t have a clerk.” She looked at me. She said, “Mother, have you taken away all my powers?” I said, “If they were your powers I would have respected you and loved you. But these were somebody else’s powers. As soon as you have entered into my house they have left you completely. And now you go back you can get them back again unless and until you say that I want the eternal, the eternal, and eternal. And after this you have to be very, very particular and watch yourself, your attention, whether you are accepting these negativities or not.” She said, “Yes, I want the eternal, eternal and eternal.” And she was all right, and she went back home and she was all right for about fifteen days.

But you see, popularity of that kind is very difficult, to avoid the temptations. That’s why it is said, “Lead us not into temptation,” with that same thing, “but deliver us from evil,” for the same reason: because evil is standing in every corner you walk through. And she fell into this. And when she fell into this, she started another organisation of her own and she started this and that, and she was so frantic. Nowadays, for your information, she’s a very serious patient in a lunatic asylum.

So, human beings are like that: they take to such things. I mean, that time only about one hundred and fifty or two hundred people used to come and meet me, while she was getting three thousand.

People want darkness, they want falsehood, they want that somebody should hoodwink them. They want somebody should befool them. They want to live with the befooling. And those who know this and know how to handle it, they’ll just keep you on the run. They will keep you on the run all the time, that you’ll be befooled you from this place to that place, and that place to that place.

Now, there can be people who are extremely simple-hearted. But the simplicity goes to this limit that they cannot recognise the reality. You have to be in the centre otherwise you can become a simpleton. And that simpleton-ness can really be very killing. But if the person is say, very intelligent, he relies on his intelligence, then they will play on your intelligence. They will pump up your ego. They’ll do this and do that, and somehow or the other they will get you there, because they are extremely cunning people. They are the embodiment of cunningness. So you cannot outwit them because whatever intelligence you have is limited while they have such a lot of intelligence of such a crooked nature that you cannot go to their level. After all, you have your conscience with you. So they have no conscience and they play about so much that they really hoodwink you and you do not know about it.

And that’s how you will find that all the incarnations who came on this Earth were killed, crucified, poisoned, like Mohammed Sahib was poisoned; or harassed, or sent to forests like Rama; and Krishna: tortured by many rakshasas who went to kill him. All sorts of things. I mean, there is no incarnation who has not suffered. So that now people think that if you do not suffer you cannot go to God.

This is another madness people have, that you must suffer to go to God. So they are all carrying the cross. It was for Christ to carry the cross, not for you people. So there is no need for you to be that miserable and take the sufferings upon yourself. There’s no need at all to suffer. There is no need at all to unnecessarily torture your bodies, unnecessarily torture your being to such a limit that you are absolutely useless for the day when you are going to be crowned. Come here, come in! Let him have a chair…

So this is what I tell you: that falsehood is easily acceptable to people. People accept falsehood with such gusto and with such force and they do not even see what is happening, they just rush to it. Because we have lived with it.

First of all you have lived with matter. We are identified with it because we have lived with it, because we do not know what is the Truth. We have lived with untruth. We have lived with the dreams. We have not lived with the awakened state. We are not yet identified with that awakened state. That’s why you are awakened, then you go off to sleep. Again you are awakened, again you go off to sleep.

You are more identified with sleep than with awakened state: that’s why it happens all the time. Sometimes people say, “Mother, Sahaja Yoga also, when we get realisation again we go down.” But what can we do? You see, it’s not the responsibility of Sahaja Yoga that it should just shoot you off to that place. It is also your responsibility in a way, that if you have had problems within you and there are pouches and ditches where you are physically hurt, mentally hurt, everybody hurt. So then what happens? That power which has really touched on top, goes back and tries to establish it. It happens like that, so [there’s] nothing to feel bad: it will again come up. It has to make your instrument all right, because your instrument has gone into horrible things. Especially very funny habits one develops by these horrible devils coming into you.

Even a person, if he drinks too much, then know that he’s possessed. If a person he talks very much, or he jabbers, or he’s harsh, then know that he’s possessed. All the time if he has a habit to snap at someone, shout at someone, or strict at someone then know that he is a possessed man. Or if he has a habit to be quiet unnecessarily, he tries to be quiet all the time, then know that he’s possessed.

Any extreme behaviour is only caused by spirits. Actually what happens [is] that, when we go to the extremes, our human awareness cannot bear it. Then what happens [is] that we just ask for help from outside. And there are many busybodies around: they just enter into you and start munching. There is no need to strain your being so much and go to extremes. You have to be just in the centre.

Actually, this country or any of the Western countries, I thought, would have been very good for you because you are saints and that you would have lived with a very temperate life. There was not such problems as we had in India, or in any other developing countries. I thought you will be much better off here, but, on the contrary, what I find: the material life that provided everything for you, made a slave out of you. You even have habits of matter!

Now when you have habits of matters, there are some other habits can be put into you. And the habits that are put into you by these…

Shri Mataji: Just keep your hands like this.

Yogi: He’s very badly damaged.

Shri Mataji: Very bad? All right, you put your left hand. You can stand or put your left hand inside ??.  He’s from the same course as you have been (TM) and he has been jumping all the time, poor thing. You can go there, in the door where Hesta is. And he has really hurt himself. All of them are hurt in their bones, all of them.

Any man who has no sense left of the dharma, or of his balances is a man who is possessed. Anyone who is doing a crime which he does not understand is also possessed. Or a human being, say a man having a relation with a man, is a possessed condition. If a woman has relations with a woman, it is a possessed condition. It is not a condition of a normal person. And human beings have to be normal human beings. If a woman, if she doesn’t care for her chastity and she leads a fast life that means she’s possessed. If she goes about with many men that means she’s possessed. If the men do that they are also possessed. They cannot be normal people who do all this.

You see, whatever are the sustenance of human beings are also the powers of human beings. Like that, we can see the people who are in the centre, the people who are sustained, they do not have all these temptations. I mean, they just don’t like it. They are just normal people. And that is what one loses gradually by doing extremes. And you don’t even realise. The whole society could be like that: possessed, with ideas. You can see what foolish things we are doing in this country. I know in India they do all sorts of nonsensical things: like telling lies, and cheating people, fraud and all that is very common in India.

But here the other things are there. Like the way we are wasting our energy in nonsensical things about sex and about flirting and all this nonsense. Flirting is nothing but a virus infection of sex. Your eyes are caught up. Really, it is the infection of the eyes, and it comes into the eye, you see. Then you start looking here and there. You don’t know what you are looking. Flirting, if you ask them, they have no joy in it. They just see around. They see one place to another, one woman to another. Then the woman catches it, the woman gets it. You are just looking like this. You don’t know why. It’s a such a waste of energy.

Actually, I didn’t know what was flirting. But once, when I went to America, in seventy-three, a young boy came to me and he said, “Mother, why do I look at all these women? I waste such a lot of energy. Why can’t I keep straight? What is the need to look at them?” They do not know anything to it: any woman passing. Then the woman also would dress up in such a way that she would attract somebody else. So that this is also another kind of fraternity working. And the whole game starts. We find even in places like people are above sixty years, they do the same nonsense. It’s something surprising that even they are not mature, because if you get this poison into you then you do not mature. It’s like any fruit which is infected cannot mature. It’s an infection and when it comes into you, you do not mature. That’s why you find even eighty-year-old people behaving just like silly young twenty-five year olds. That sort of people you find, so commonly here, where you go. You feel so ashamed and embarrassed. And a eighty-year-old woman starts telling you about her love affairs and you just don’t know where to look! And it’s very common. They boast of it and they talk like that. Their talking is so funny that you can’t imagine. It’s most embarrassing the way they talk about things and the way they live.

There was a lady who told me: she is a lady of a good family and an ambassador’s wife, and she told me there’s a very great writer here, she was about eighty years of age and she writes lots of books on philosophy and things. So she invited this lady, the ambassador’s wife, for a lunch party. And she said, “Why lunch? I could come for dinner with my husband.” She said, “No, no, no. I want you for lunch and give you a nice time. I’ll get you a boyfriend.” She said, “Are you joking?” She said, “No, I have one, my own: about twenty-four years. And what years’ age do you want?” She was shocked. She said, “What? I don’t want all that.” She said, “You must know. You see, you women are no good. Eastern women are no good. You must learn how to enjoy life!” She said, “I am sorry. I am not to learn that!” And she just put down the phone.

Now this lady is writing books on philosophy! See the stupidity to which people are taking. And she is one of the most successful writers in England. I don’t know her name. She didn’t tell me the name. But this is what it is. She’s successful because she is spreading darkness. Because people want to live with whatever they were. They were in darkness, they were just matter: this dead matter is just darkness. It has no awareness in it. Then the animals have a little bit of awareness. And they come to a point when they are human beings. They have passed through millions of years with that ignorance and that darkness and they more adhere to it than to something that is beyond.

They only evolve because God’s grace is there, otherwise they would never have evolved. Because God has put some sort of a seeking in their stomach that for food, for other things, they start evolving. And when they start evolving they reach a stage of human consciousness. Now at human consciousness if I have to say that you have to face the reality, why should you? You think that, “If I have to face reality then I have to work for it.” Because that is another thing you have done so far. You think that you have done something all the time to achieve something [and that] if you have to achieve something then you must put in effort.

Then you do not want to take that path when you were dark. We have done nothing to become a human being, and that, if we have to go further we are not to do anything about it. On the contrary you start running fast, very fast, and if you know the phrase that, “You take two running jumps and go to hell”. It’s like that, for example.

And you speed up so much on that, that then you land into difficulty. That’s why it is necessary to understand that you are human beings and at this time you have [been] given freedom, absolute freedom. Because you have to see your own evolution.

Because you are free you can see it. If you were part and parcel of God and if He had done for you, then you would not have seen it, like animals have not seen it. But this you have to see and you have to be aware of it. That’s why you have been given freedom. If you are not away from me how will you see me? And this is the reason you were separated from The Whole, so that you can see that you become The Whole.

While the animals do not see it because they are dark. They are part of The Whole, they are looked after, they live like that, they don’t get ego, they don’t get superego, they do not speed up suddenly, they do not do all these things, as you do. They do not have insurances! They are sensible, we think. So we go down to them and want to learn something from them. And what do we learn from them? Their sex behaviour! Imagine. This is human brain, specially made: real clowns!

The way we look at things I don’t know how: whatever is to be done we just do in the other way round style. Like, what you have to learn from animals [is] that they are one with The Whole, the trees are one with The Whole. When there is spring the trees will bring out yellow flowers, when there is the summer they’ll bring out the red flowers, and that’s how they express the colours. While they are looked after: whether they are here or anywhere, they are looked after. The nature looks after them. There is a circle between them. If the trees have the leaves they emit carbon dioxide. Then that has to have a circle again. So the leaves have to fall down into the ground because the nature must take nitrogen from them, and must replace it back to them, to nourish them again, so they can go into that cycle of movement. And from how it moves from one end to another. How carbon dioxide goes into the air and how it is again reconverted back and how the whole thing is worked out in a cycle is done.

But they do not know all about it. They do it blindly. Absolutely blindly they are doing it, because they are blind; because they don’t need to know. Like the small little babies and puppies of the dog, if you see, they are blind; they don’t know how to go about. They just feel their mother and just go and start sucking the breast and take [milk], feeding. You have seen them, very sweet ones! They can’t see anything. They just smell something, they go down there and do it. So the mother looks after them at that time, and she does everything that is needed even when they are blind.

When you are also little children, when this is not covered up, closed, your mother looks after you, your father will look after you. They treat you just like a part of them all the time. All the time they are worried about you. Not in modern times, of course. Modern times are one of the most convoluted ones. But they used to do that way. But [when] you are grown-up then they give you freedom to know that you are grown-up.

And that is how God wants you to know that you have evolved, you have received your Realisation. That you have become what you had to become. Because you have to now really re-manifest God’s powers.

This is the thing we have to understand. And then we should know what is our role in life, and what are we doing, where are we, how are we placed, what is our position.

This should give you the complete energy to get to your Self, and work it out.

May God bless you all.

Rustom what was the matter? Why didn’t you come?

Rustom: I have just come Mother.

Shri Mataji: Oh, I see.

(end of recording)