6 March 1992, Radio Interview, Hong Kong, China
Interviewer: Shri Mataji, from the information I’ve read about You, You were born in India, a Christian. How was that?
Shri Mataji: I mean, I was just born a Christian, that’s all.
Interviewer: There couldn’t be very many Christian Indian families in that country.
Shri Mataji: No, there are lots of Christians. Apart from that, with purpose I was born a Christian.
Interviewer: Which part of India do you truly come from?
Shri Mataji: Just the centre of India. Absolutely the central point.
Interviewer: Is there anything specific, do You think, about this being the central point?
Shri Mataji: It is the central point because I have to be in the centre to do My job. And that’s why I was born in the centre of India.
Interviewer: When You were a child though, being born in the centre of India, did that mean anything to You, as a young girl, say?
Shri Mataji: I didn’t know that it was the centre or anything to be discussed about it, because I just knew what My mission was, what I was to do. I knew I would be born at the right point, where I had to be born. So I took all these things for granted because I knew this was to be so. I knew this very well.
Interviewer: How old were You when you realised that You had this mission?
Shri Mataji: All My life. You see, it’s just like as you realise you are a human being, in the same way I knew that I was to do all this. I knew I was different.
Interviewer: And did You start fulfilling this mission ever since You can remember?
Shri Mataji: Yes of course. I knew I had healing powers and I knew I had curing powers. I knew I could raise the Kundalini; all that I knew. But I wanted to do something by which I knew all the permutations and combinations of the problems of human beings. And that’s how I studied that and I wanted to find out a proper time when I could find out a method by which a mass happening could happen by which one could achieve it.
And on the 5th of May, I was sitting near the sea where I decided that it should happen, and it worked out that the last centre – as we call it, the last centre, where the limbic is placed – you see, above that resides the opening for the Divine, what we call in the Bible say, is the baptism. The baptism that we have is just a sort of a ritual, where it’s not the real baptism. The real baptism is that, when this residual force within us, called as Kundalini, when it rises and pierces this area, this fontanel bone area, which is a soft bone when you are a child, that time is the real baptism and this baptism was to be achieved.
But I wanted to make a way by which we could achieve a mass happening of this: en masse. Because, you see, if it happened to one person, say, Christ was a realised soul, a great – He was an incarnation, according to Me, He was the Son of God, no doubt, but nobody recognised Him. And when He tried to explain to them, they would not understand because He was at such a height that people could not understand what He was seeing, what He was talking about and ultimately, what a stupid thing it was to… Absolutely it was very wrong to crucify a man of that calibre, who was nothing but the incarnation.
Interviewer: Hmm. So it was on the 5th of May, of which particular year that you decided to…?
Shri Mataji: 1970.
Interviewer: Let’s go back to when You were a child. Was there anything special about the way You were brought up that might have led You…?
Shri Mataji: Very much. From My very childhood, I mean when I was to be conceived by My mother only, they told Me lots of things, what happened to My mother and she dreamt of some things.
But one of the main things, one of the remarkable ones which I remember now is this that, she wanted to go and see a tiger when she was eight months pregnant and My father said, ‘It’s funny that you want to go and see a tiger at this advanced stage of pregnancy.’ But she said, ‘No, I must go and see a tiger.’ And so My father was a big well-known hunter of Shikhari [hunting guide] in those days and one of the Rajas sent him a word saying that, ‘There’s man-eater perhaps in the forest and we would like you to come and help us.’ So he said, ‘See now I’ve got a message and now I have to go.’ And My mother said, ‘All right, if you have to go, I am coming with you.’ ‘How will you come at this stage?’ ‘No, I must come to see the tiger moving.’ Then he went there and she also. And they – we use a kind of platform on top, they build it up on top of a tree, which is called as machan. And these, all these villagers, you see, they drive the animal towards the hunter, and My father and mother always sitting on top of the machan. And suddenly My mother saw the big, huge tiger. My father said he had never seen such a big one before, and just coming in the moonlight and walking very stealthily in his own grace and dignity. And My mother was so enamoured, you see, that she just looked at it and she was so happy as if her child has seen. She felt very happy, she said.
Then My father wanted to kill the animal and she said, ‘No, if you kill the animal, I am going to jump out of this place. You are not going to kill the animal.’ And they said that the tiger disappeared, they don’t know where the tiger went. So My father knew that it would be some sort of a powerful personality that is going to be born. And My father, being a realised soul, also knew that I was something extraordinary.
Interviewer: What about when You were actually a child though? Did they treat You as something very special and teach You maybe some, even special things to help You fulfil this mission of Yours?
Shri Mataji: No, not like that. You see, it was a very free sort of an expression of a personality which people accepted, because I was extremely loving, compassionate, generous – I was a unique type of person as a child, so they knew,’She was different,’ that’s all. But only thing I would say that, My father understood Me much better because he was a realised soul. And when grew up he told Me that, ‘No use talking about it to anyone, because they will never understand. You must first of all find out a method by which you get an en masse realisation . That is Your work, as You know. And so, unless and until You find that, there’s no use talking about it, because You’ll create another Qaran or Bible, what’s the use? You must give them an experience otherwise they will never understand.’
Interviewer: Did You continue this idea of Yours of trying to get this masse experience going, through Your work with Mahatma Gandhi?
Shri Mataji: No, no, that time it was very different, it was an emergency. Of course, in a small way I contributed also, because he loved Me very much. He used to call Me Nepali, you see. Nepali is our face, you see; the Chinese face is a Nepali face, you see – because I have broad…this thing – and he always used to call Me Nepali. He loved Me very much. But he was a man born for an emergency and when our country was to be politically independent, and that was his thing.
But one thing I must say, though he was a political leader and a political leader need not worry about spirit and religion and all that, but he considered our country to be a land of Yoga, and he always based his theories and philosophies and also his activities on the fibre that was India. That the fibre is we are a very religious people and to understand what is religion is, and how to create an atmosphere of satisfaction in the people. So he had that within him, but he didn’t talk of realisation at that time and as I – I was just a little child of seven years, you see, so I used to play about with him and he was very fond of oranges, so I would make some orange juice for him and give him orange juice and this and that. And he used to discuss with Me sometimes small, small things. And I remember once I told him that, ‘Why do you make everyone get up so early? If you want to get up you can get up, but why do you make everyone get up early?’ He said, ‘But You get up very early.’ I said, ‘It’s all right for Me, but everybody cannot get up very early?’ He said, ‘No, they must be made to get up.’ I said, ‘But why should we make them do that?’ He said that, ‘You see just now, we are passing through crisis. We have to fight the British and we have to get our independence and if people are lethargic, then how are we going to do it? So we have to be disciplined, you see.’ So he said, ‘We must have discipline, otherwise and it won’t be all right.’ And then I told him that, ‘A day will come when we will have our inner discipline; that would be much better.’ So he knew I was a very wise person, and he used to love Me and also respect Me, but in a very, I should say in a very, very fatherly manner. And he would discuss things with Me which was… I would say he impressed Me by many things. One of them is his sense of integrity; sense of integrity within himself, you see. He was absolutely honest to himself. That’s something so great about him which I appreciated. He never cheated himself. This is the greatest thing about him. And in money matters, anything, he was so integrated that, whatever he said he did; he criticised himself, he looked at himself, he watched himself.
But for him, realisation was not the problem – that was not the problem at that time; the problem was different. But after independence, we should have taken to realisation; that was the main problem we had. But after realisation [perhaps Shri Mataji meant to say ‘independence’ here], we had problems of, say, partition and other things. And the diversion of the whole attention, the whole nation, you see, was on the wrong things. We had to solve this problem and solve that problem and nobody thought of realisation at that time. Normally, it should be so.
Interviewer: How much do You think Mahatma Gandhi influenced the way You developed Your Sahaja Yoga, Your way of thinking now, Your technique maybe?
Shri Mataji: You see, it was no question of influence because, you see this is another realm I am talking about. Sahaja Yoga takes you to another realm where these problems do not exist, you see. You work out with Divine Power, not with human powers, but you work out with Divine Power. And Divine power are tremendous and they work out everything in such a smooth manner that there was no need to use all these human powers, I think personally. But his main contribution, I think, was to establish balance in people. You see, balance in people was the thing that he brought in, and make them more Indian and to take out all the slavish mentalities that had trickled down into us, to make us feel our self-respect; all these things were there.
But the realm at which I was, was very different from his. So the question of influence doesn’t come in. But, I would say that, certain things were influenced – I would say My choice of, say, different prayers. I told him according to the centres within us, and – I didn’t tell him, these are according, but I said, ‘You put this first and then this one, and this one, ’ and he said, ‘All right, it’s a good idea,’ and he changed the sequence, like that. But it was so smooth and so silently done that it was not made obvious to people that in any way we had any rapport on these things, nor did he ever ask Me about Spirit nor did he ever meditate. He did not meditate because he was not realised, he was not realised at that time. He was not a realised soul and his main attention was for this, and he will be born again and he will be realised, because he was a great soul, no doubt. He was very, very great. I mean, he was extremely great as a human being, but realisation is very different. It’s another realm into which human beings go, the awareness is different. And his meditation was just to ponder about things and to guide oneself and all that, but not the kind of a meditation I talk of, where we become thoughtlessly aware. It’s a different dimension in your awareness.
Interviewer: Is this then what Self-Realisation means, what You mean by a realised soul?
Shri Mataji: Yes, Self-Realisation means when the Self, which is talked about in all the scriptures and all that, starts emitting its manifestation in our conscious mind. Means that time, we become aware of it, to this extent that our central nervous system starts recording the power of our Spirit, of our Self, and we start feeling the breeze-like vibrations of the Spirit, which is called in the Bible as the cool breeze of the Holy Spirit.
Interviewer: You’re saying then that, when a person is realised, he feels some actual physical things?
Shri Mataji: Yes, the energy that’s flowing through him he can feel it. It’s flowing through his body. Not only that but he becomes. Again I say, he becomes – it’s not lecturing or any brainwashing. He actually becomes collectively conscious, means in his awareness he can start feeling another person’s centres and also his own centres and he can start correcting it.
Interviewer: Is it like finding what one can loosely describe, or what people have loosely described, as the soul inside one?
Shri Mataji: Yes, but they are quite confused people. They don’t know what is Soul, what is Spirit, that these are all precise things. Soul is the thing which is not only the Spirit but is the body, the personality, except for the element of earth in it. We are made of five elements, all right? Out of which, the element of earth drops out; then you become the Soul, because you cannot be seen, but you exist in another plane.
Interviewer: Was it before You decided to start Your, truly start Your mission, that You also took courses in medicine?
Shri Mataji: Yes, I did some medicine because I knew I had to talk to doctors and explain to them what is all this, because I knew what it is, but I didn’t know what they called it you see, because the names are given by human beings. So I had to study and I also studied one dictionary on psychology because I knew I had to talk to psychologists, and scientists and doctors, so I have to know about it: what they say, what they call it, you see.
Interviewer: And the theory by, say scientists, that man came from a little cell from heaven knows where, how did you feel about those, and relate to them?
Shri Mataji: It’s a fact, that’s a fact. He came from a cell, evolved through a cell. But how did he evolve, why did he evolve, what is the purpose of his life is not all answered by science. And what is the Power that makes you evolve? Also that is not answered. So in Sahaja Yoga, you know all that – with what Power you evolve. And with the same Power, not only you evolve up to this stage, but you go higher with that.
Interviewer: What is Your theory about that then? Why are we here, or, why have we been so long in the process?
Shri Mataji: You see, anything that you create, even human beings for example, you have created this beautiful lamp. Now why is it there? To give us the light, isn’t it, to give that power. So that’s how God has created us, to give His Power to us, so that we feel Him and know Him in our awareness. We understand Him and we emit His powers and enjoy it. To say in the words of Christ: ‘To enter into the Kingdom of God.’
Interviewer: Are You talking about the same God as every religion talks about?
Shri Mataji: Absolutely, there’s nothing else.
Interviewer: Is Sahaja Yoga then a sort of new religion?
Shri Mataji: No, it is the integration of all the religion, I should say. It’s the enlightenment that proves all the religions and all the incarnations and their integration.
Interviewer: How do You mean it proves it?
Shri Mataji: It’s the light, in the sense that, now see in this room there are many things. But when it’s dark, you see this thing as something different and there’s another thing as something different, and you say that, ‘This is mine, that’s it, this is mine, this is the truth,’ because you see that and another sees another thing. But when there is light, you see the whole thing belongs to the same. Sahaja Yoga just gives you that light of the Spirit by which you start seeing that it’s all just the same. For example, now, once you are connected to your Spirit, you start getting those cool vibrations in your hand. Now, you want to ask any question: ‘Is there God?’ you’ll immediately get a lot of vibrations coming to you. Whatever are Absolute questions are answered like this. You start feeling them, and every question, whenever you have a problem, you can ask and you can know because now you are connected to the Absolute.
All such – now whatever questions you are asking, say you are a realised soul, you can get the answers on the hands and you can know that whether this is true or not. Whether Christ was – now they say He was the Son of God. People can challenge, I can understand that because they were not realised souls, and that’s why they couldn’t understand that time. But now when you’re realised, you just ask: ‘Was He the Son of God?’ and you’ll see that the vibrations will start flowing. You will know who was really a real saint or a prophet, or who was a fake one. Everything you can find out through these vibrations, because a rapport is established; now you are connected. Like this [speaker] is connected to the mains. Unless and until this speaker is connected to the mains it is useless. You are to be connected to the mains. Unless and until this instrument, that is created from amoeba stage to this stage, is connected to the mains, you are not going to know yourself. You are not going to know your meaning, neither you are going to function for which you are created.
Interviewer: Surely it’s a matter of what stage in your development you are, that you can even start to question about these things.
Shri Mataji: No, not necessarily, because the time has come. There’s no need to have a question. But the time has come; it’s everywhere. I find it in different styles, for example affluent countries have problems; they have their own problems they are facing. They are so speedy, they have problems. Cancer is one of the [unclear] which is, only can be cured after Self-Realisation , otherwise you cannot cure cancer. So many things are there. I mean on, say, developing countries have their own problems and then they start thinking: ‘Now, what about us? How are we to…?’ For example like India, we have problems and people get so confused. They don’t know how to solve the problems. They try to solve one problem, they jump into another… So they start thinking about it, ‘Now what is it, what’s going wrong?’ Because you do not have the light. You are walking in the darkness and you are bumping at each other for nothing at all.
Interviewer: Will people be able to handle this Self-Realisation, do You think?
Shri Mataji: Yes, by all means. You see once you are Self-Realised you have to, a little bit, establish yourself that’s true. You take about, at the most, one month or two months. Once you are established, you become so powerful and so wise that the vibrations tell you and you just don’t do wrong things. If you start doing it you don’t like it because you start getting pain in the fingers, something happens to you, you don’t like it; you enjoy this, because it’s so blissful.
Interviewer: Don’t You think that perhaps it might go the same way, say, for instance, if we talk about Christ teaching His love ideal, and how we should love everybody, that some people just didn’t accept that.
Shri Mataji: It doesn’t matter, but that may not be possible now because those who will not accept will have problems. They’ll have problems; they will have to accept it otherwise they’ll have problems. Gradually they will all, perhaps accept it. This is because this is the solution to all of the problems; because you have problems you have to accept, otherwise human beings are not easy thing to accept anything. Christ, you see, at that time, didn’t come for Self-Realisation. He just came to prove that there is spiritual Power, which cannot be killed. Resurrection is His message. My message is not resurrection or anything. Mine if your resurrection. The resurrection of the whole human race, you see; their evolution is My message. This is My job.
Interviewer: How are You going to convince hard-boiled cynics that this is the right way to go about things?
Shri Mataji: You see, this nature will work it out in so many ways. These cynics are there. They are cynics because of certain reasons. They would not be so, because they are conditioned, very much conditioned. You can find out because they must be having problems with that, mental problems, also problems in the family – cynics will have always problems in the family, and some sort of a thing will be there. And I mean, I do not say that, always they have problems; there are some people who say that those who are unhappy can only come to… Not necessarily, because there’s a category of seekers. There is a category of people who are seekers. First I have to worry about them, those who are really seekers – it’s a category. And that’s why they are very unhappy because they are a different category. They cannot be satisfied with anything. They’ll try everything, you see, they’ll try to get some money, they’ll try to get some power. They’ll try this, that. But they’ll not be happy, because they are a different category, so they’ll seek again God. When they’ll seek God also, they’ll go to wrong people and spend money here, and do this and do that – everything they’ll try, and then they’ll find out. Still they haven’t found out what they were finding, so they’ll come to Sahaja Yoga. So first, My attention is on the seekers themselves; it’s a category which is, as I told you, I mean these people know that William Blake* has written about them, this is the… He calls them, ‘Men of God, and these men of God,’ he says, ‘will become prophets.’ And these prophets have a special power by which they will be giving realisations to others and making them into prophets.
Interviewer: Are You saying then that William Blake* was a realised soul?
Shri Mataji: Oh, of course, very much.
Interviewer: How can one be a realised soul when You’re here now?
Shri Mataji [laughing]: You see, there were many realised souls before also, and it’s the Power, is all-pervading, is eternal, is always existing. All of these great saints, like we can say that, John the Baptist was a realised soul, and the same way, William Blake* – Shakespeare was a great realised soul. He was really tremendous, the way he tried to show the futility of life. He definitely was a realised soul. And this you will know by feeling the vibrations of these people, whether they were realised or not. You can feel their vibrations that, they were realised souls. And these realised souls were something – we can say thousands of years back, we had realised souls. There were one or two – like on a tree, you see, there are only one or two flowers to begin with, then gradually the blossom times comes in and then there are many flowers and there are many fruits, for growth.
Interviewer: What does it take to be a realised soul? Is it a mature person, or is it somebody who appreciates mankind for what it is?
Shri Mataji: No, it’s not a mental status that’s important. It is the desire within you, the pure desire to be one with God, to be one with beyond. This pure desire; it may exist, also the desire that… You see, it’s not everything. It’s a drama, you see, you get fed up and you get bored. You say, ‘Yes all right,’ I mean, you try everything, but you say, ‘No, no, but I’m not happy about it.’ You see, it’s the pure desire, to be one with your Spirit. That’s the quality, that you need not be educated, that you might be just a street urchin. You could be living in a village somewhere in a little remote place still, the pure desire may be in you, completely existing, and that works it out. But you are not aware of the pure desire, but that works it out. Because you do not feel happy with other things you know, you just feel frustrated. And whatever you try, so what? Bu it’s an economic science that, you see, in particular, you may satisfy a want but in general they are not satiable. So even the matter teaches you.
Interviewer: Two very interesting thoughts come to my head at this particular point. One, is it through being realised that one gets a little knowledge of what’s on the other side of death, as it were. And two, whether one really – through this realisation – finds a little bit of God inside oneself.
Shri Mataji: That’s the point. Second point is correct, that you find God within yourself, and then your priorities change about your knowing about things. You don’t want to know what is beyond life because you come in the present. You are not worried about the past or the future. But of course, that also you’ll know, because gradually when your vision improves, you start seeing what happens after death, because you see the patients coming to you and you start seeing they are possessed, and their spirits and this and that, and they are possessed by the spirits. And then you talk and find out such a lot about them, what all that is. So that also comes to you as an experimentation with your truth that you have found out.
But the main thing that happens to you is that you start feeling that universality within you, you just start feeling in the sense that, it becomes a part and parcel of your awareness. Just a part and parcel of your awareness. As, as a human being, you have a special awareness say, for flowers, you have awareness for cleanliness, but animals don’t have. In the same way, you go to a point where you just become aware of that, that you start feeling them around. You start feeling even what is right and wrong. For example, if I tell people, ‘This is sin,’ then they will do it a hundred times, all right? But if I give them realisation, they will not just do it, because they know it is because they start seeing it. Like, in the night you see, I am sleeping in this room and there is a snake up here and somebody said, ‘There’s a snake,’ and so I‘ll say, ’No, I can’t see, it’s not there. I can’t see it.’ But if you put on the light, I’ll just know it’s a snake and I will run away from it.
Interviewer: How does one know what’s right and what’s wrong though?
Shri Mataji: You see, because you have not found the Absolute that’s why there’s a problem. But if you have found the Absolute, you’ll just know it. Because it is not knowledge by your rationality, but in your being. You just feel it on your fingers. You just know it is there, you just know what it is, happening to another person. You start feeling it. Just start feeling, ‘This is not good.’ You go to any house, you know there’s something wrong in this house, you don’t feel all right and there’s some centres catching on your fingers: you feel them. You ask the person and you find out, ‘Yes, there was something wrong.’
Interviewer: You’re talking about feeling things now through the fingers, a part of the body. How did you come about this particular idea that, it’s through the fingers that one has such knowledge of oneself?
Shri Mataji: I know all these things beforehand. What to say now? [laughing] It is too, too audacious to say, but it’s true, I know that. You see, I knew this. It’s… that’s My knowledge, I should say, as I know all this.
Interviewer: You feel then that You are sent here by God or, say, as the next prophet in line?
Shri Mataji: I don’t want to say all that, you see because I don’t want to get crucified for nothing at all. No, I am quite wise. But there is something special, no doubt. Yes, there is something very great, I must say, but according to human beings. But for Me, it’s nothing great. It’s just the same. I mean, say as the sun gives you light. So what is so great about it? It has got the light, so it gives light. Supposing, if I have this Power, I can do it. For example, if I have to do radio work, I cannot do. I cannot even play My own radio, I am so hopelessly bad. But I know Kundalini. I know how to do this work, you see, so there’s nothing to feel that I am higher, lower or anything. This is My job. I know the… I am here for that job, finished, that’s all.
Interviewer: A lot of people, in the last few years particularly, have come up with ideas that have been, you know, along Your lines. A lot of yogas, a lot of yogis. You know, people have got this misconception about yoga.
Shri Mataji: You see, very much this thing is so. You see yoga means, in simple words, means union with God, with Spirit. All other things is nonsense. All other things are nonsense, you see: you stand on your head or you do this thing. It’s a spontaneous process. It’s a living process of the living God. It has to happen within you, just like a sprouting of the seed. Now, for sprouting a seed, if you stand on your head, can you sprout the seed? Can you transform a flower into a fruit; can you? By standing on the head or doing some sort of an exercise? You see, this Hatha Yoga also was practised in India, about thousands of years back, when we had another system of life, where students were sent to the guru, to the teacher and the students lived with the teacher in a forest, where some students were selected and they were given this self-knowledge. But the first thing in the real Patanjali Yoga is this, that you must have Ishwar Pranidhan – means, you must establish your God. If you have not established your God – Ishwar Pranidhan – then all these exercise is nothing but people becoming actors and actresses, that’s all. It is never so important. You see, all these – also exercises – are just like different corrections of your different centres – for corrections, physical corrections – and they are to be used at a particular time, at a particular trouble. You see, if you have a certain troubles here of the neck, what’s the use of doing the exercise of your stomach? But the way people do these days this Hatha Yoga is, as if like taking the whole medicine box at the same time, you see. And by that, they thin down. And the thinning down they think is very healthy is not correct, because this kind of thinning down actually comes because they become dry people. You see, they get… all right, because you are paying attention to your health. But health is not everything. Such people become very dry, they become very fidgety, they become very nervy. And also they can be very hot-tempered or they can be [unclear/terrific.] So you see – very big bores also. They could divorce their wives and beat their children and all sorts of things they can do. We had such yogis in our India in ancient times. Also they used to just curse people to die, you see. Is this the way to achieve yoga?
Interviewer: So this misconception of yoga, or malpractice maybe even, of yoga…?
Shri Mataji: No, this is, I would not say malpractice because I am a Mother, I won’t say that. I must give them benefit of the doubt. They didn’t have the complete knowledge so they went on one side, you see, doing one thing, then another went on the other side. Like, you see, devotion – some people you know are dancing and singing in the name of God. Now, I mean, going mad with it. I have seen people really getting mad with it. Just, that’s another extreme. One extreme is this side, is to become a sort of a fanatic and what you call, an ascetic sort of a thing, and then other extremes start. But God is in between. He’s not in extremes.
Interviewer: People, being what they are, they tend to be distrustful and some people might say, ‘Well how are we to know She that She’s not going to rip us off or lead us down another blind path?’
Shri Mataji: Very true. I should, I would be very happy if they do not trust people. But they do; if they are mesmerised, they are. Very much there… moreover, if somebody asks for money, then they are much more for there – there’s a competition, you see. A competition is set in. Recently we had somebody in India who has made twenty-one crores of Rupees out of such people, you see. And that’s why I said it’s not that they do not trust, but they are stupid. They have always, always doubted the people who have been real and always have trusted the people who are unreal. They have been stupid about it.
There are certain things by which we can judge a person if he’s true or not. First and foremost thing is, you cannot sell God. You cannot make money out of God. No, you cannot. You cannot sell your vibrations. You cannot sell these things. This is very precious. You cannot value it. It is invaluable. It is God’s love. So you cannot have a regular organisation by which you sell it in the market. It’s so shameful and so insulting to God. You just do it because you love them. They are part and parcel of your being. That’s why you just cure them, because they are part and parcel. You don’t say that, if I cure this hand with this hand, or give a little relief, do I pay that hand? Or do I feel any obligation, or anything? Nothing. You just do it because they are part and parcel of your being, so it has to be compassion, and it cannot be money and all these nonsensical things that are going around. People are more enamoured by these things, you see.
And all the circuses people will have, and the hypocrisies you see, if they dress up, a kind of dress and move about – people are very much impressed by that. You see, people care more for superficial things. If you go in a sort of square and sit down with one loincloth, and you see the snow is falling, ‘Oh, such a great saint has come,’ you see, so everybody’s running to that. What do we have to do with the ascetics when we are living in a household. We have nothing to do with them. If they are ascetics, we should have nothing to do with ascetics, because we are householders, and householders are the best people suited for Sahaja Yoga. And those who have run away from their lives, let them go to Himalayas and station themselves. They have no reason to come here and live like parasites on our earnings. They are parasites of the worst type. You see, dealing in opium, [unclear/means] other people’s money. That’s what they are. And they have no self-respect, they are without any self-respect. And some of them are so cruel. They have made people so poor and they have taken away all the money. Not only that – I don’t mind, even let there be smugglers, this that, doesn’t matter. But they have put such spirits into people that, they are falling with epilepsy, they are having heart troubles, they’re having kidney trouble. They are having all kinds of troubles. These horrible people, they are Satanic.
Interviewer: You are devoting Yourself completely then to Your mission – heart, soul, mind, body and finances?
Shri Mataji: You see, I would say that I’m only one person. I’m not heart, soul and all that, so whatever I do, I do with whole thing. I’m not separated. There’s no question. As far as finances are concerned, I don’t need much finances. And My travelling and all that, mostly My husband pays for Me. Or sometimes, even those people who have called Me pay for it, because I think My husband should not pay for their salvation. It’s a bit too much, you see. That, also they will become also parasitic. [laughs] Even that is to be paid. It’s all right, I mean if they pay Me for My travelling at the most, and My needs are very little and by God’s grace, you see, in this lifetime I am not a carpenter’s wife. But I am a wife of quite a well-to-do gentleman, so it’s all right.
Interviewer: You are now then, on Your mission to try to inform more of the world about Sahaja Yoga. How many followers do You have presently?
Shri Mataji: I have no record. I have no record. I mean I really can’t say. If you ask Me – like for example, this gentleman [points to a Sahaja Yogi], you met him here. I would never say that, I would never remember that he’s one of them or something, because I don’t keep any record. You see, it’s My love. You don’t count every leaf you give light. You just don’t do it. You just like to give it, that’s all. You don’t count; for what? For what are you going to count? You see, you don’t want to take anything, you want to just give, so why count? If you want to just give, now you take a person who just wants to give. Now they don’t count. Now see these flowers are giving fragrance. Do they count how many people have taken fragrance? Anybody who has been here will come and will take fragrance from them. Their job is to give fragrance so they are giving fragrance. It’s very simple.
Interviewer: Won’t You destroy some of that giving factor if you put Yourself on a pedestal, which is probably what You might be doing if You start to approach a wider audience, a larger group of people?
Shri Mataji: I never think of these things. It always works out in such a way that I have managed so far, in the amount of people. Now the other day, in a village, we had six thousand people and they all got realisation. Just like lightening, they all got. All of them. They all got realisation, all of them. Can you believe it? So that’s not the thing, it’s not… You see, think of this Divine Power that converts flowers into fruits. Now the flower of a mango will become a mango. How these things are worked out? Into what details, how delicately? And how every character is preserved? If I’m talking of that power, why should I worry?
Interviewer: This Divine Power, this God, why did He put us here?
Shri Mataji: Oh, He loved you so much, that’s why He’s put you here. And just in a little transition, you had to learn what is good and what is bad. That’s all, just to make you grow a little, that’s all. In this little thing, you all got so frightened. There’s nothing to be frightened, after all, He has given us such a nice thing: we don’t want to see. We don’t want to see anything, you see, that’s the trouble.
Interviewer: But why even put us in such a situation? Why not just create us like Himself, or Herself?
Shri Mataji: Or whatever it is. You see, the thing is you have to grow, isn’t it? Now, it would be like a little bird is born to the mother bird. Now the mother bird has to teach the little bird to fly, isn’t it? Now she makes the bird fly by calling the little bird. And the bird says, ‘Why not make me like that, as you are?’ Then how will you learn? You have to master it. How will you do it? Unless and until you learn yourself. I mean, one can cook for you, all right, put it in your mouth, but you have to eat and taste it. It is for you to taste. If you do not have any taste buds, how will you enjoy? Just to develop your taste buds that He has to make you… You have to grow, that growth is necessary.
Interviewer: What are we growing towards?
Shri Mataji: You are going to be the lights of God; the beacons of light of God’s love that is going to flow in this world.
Interviewer: Are we eventually supposed to grow to be just like Him?
Shri Mataji: Yes, very much. He’s made you in His image, of course, in His Collectivity and all that. The drop has to become the ocean by just becoming the ocean: falling into it.
Interviewer: How do we seem to grow, or do we really grow? I mean, after all these years for instance, we haven’t learned very much about war.
Shri Mataji: War. Gradually, you see, whatever you say about war, and we haven’t learned – that’s a very good situation man has reached, that he hasn’t learned much, because if God had told you before that you haven’t learned anything, you would not have believed it because you have freedom to decide. Now, in that freedom, you have learned that, ‘No, we haven’t learned much,’ so now you settle down. You see, that’s one of the styles of God, to make human beings learn, otherwise they would not. If you had not created an atom bomb, you would never have learned what nonsense we have done by all our experimentation with science. Now, because atom bomb is there, it is sitting like a Satan on your head, so now you know what you have done to yourself, so you come back. All these shocks are important, otherwise you may never go to God, never think of it, because this freedom gives you ego and people become so ego-oriented that – there are many people who just don’t believe in God. They think it’s trash.
Interviewer: Are we going to have so much freedom that eventually we’ll destroy ourselves?
Shri Mataji: No, you can never destroy. It’s God’s creation. He has created you and He’s not the one who is going to destroy His own creation. You don’t do anything whatsoever. You just don’t do anything. You see, this is the wrong impression human beings have got, that they do. What they do is a dead work. Something is dead, now see, the flowers are dead so you have arranged them. The tree is dead so you have made the furniture; that is all. Dead to the dead. Any living work can you do? Any living work? Nothing. Only after realisation you can do it, by awakening the Kundalini. Then you can do it. Then you are entitled to become the master.
Interviewer: Then we can create things?
Shri Mataji: Yes of course. You start creating. You start creating a new awareness in a personality by raising the Kundalini.
Interviewer: What is achieved once this awakening happens? I mean, why are we better for it?
Shri Mataji: You see like, as I told you, that you are like a light which is not enlightened. Now when you are enlightened what happens to you, you see the light; in the light you see yourself. All confusion is finished. You know the Truth, and you feel so blissful and happy because you know everything. There is no chaos, nothing. You are so relaxed and the power starts flowing through you all the time. It is never lost and you see in that light whatever is good and whatever is bad. And you understand everything so well. And when you become the light, what do you do? Is to give light to others so that they should be enlightened also. But this dead light cannot give light to others in such a way that, that can give light to others. But you can; once you are realised, you can make others enlightened and they can make others enlightened. The whole confusion, the problem of disintegration, the problem of all these quarrels and these political problems and these economic problems and religion – everything will subside. Absolutely, when you are enlightened. Human beings have to be enlightened because they are in darkness. That’s why all these problems are there.
Interviewer: The heaven that is so talked about in religious books.
Shri Mataji: Yes, that’s it. That is promised is to be now brought in and apart from that, everything they have said is to be proved. All that is the job Sahaja Yoga has to do. And that’s why it’s a Maha Yoga. Is the great Yoga.
Interviewer: How long is it going to take us to get us there?
Shri Mataji: You see, it depends on human beings, how they work it out. That’s all. It’s for them to decide now. You see, they have to take a decision. That’s the only problem where God cannot cross over. He has given you freedom and He’s not going to take away your freedom. Now let’s see, I’m sure human beings are going to work out faster. They’re going to be much wiser.
Interviewer: Especially if you’re in a dead end, right? [Shri Mataji laughs]
[recording fades out]