Shri Mataji
Shri Mataji, founder of Sahaja Yoga
I am with you. I am with you at every step, at every place.
You may go anywhere.
At every place I am with you, completely, in person, by mind and in every aspect.
Whenever you will remember Me, I will be by your side with all My powers.
It is My promise.
Shri Mataji
H.H. Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, founder of the worldwide meditation movement called Sahaja Yoga, passed away peacefully on 23rd February, 2011 in Genoa, Italy, aged 87.
Hers was a life unlike any other. Whether walking with kings or walking barefoot with Gandhi, it was a journey of extremes managed effortlessly, living as she did with grace, dignity and, always, loving guidance.
Shri Mataji’s was to be a truly remarkable path.
Born of a royal dynasty; she conferred as a child with Mahatma Gandhi, living for a time in his ashram; was a medical student and a freedom fighter; was an adored mother, grandmother, great grandmother and the wife of a distinguished diplomat who himself was decorated by the Kings and Presidents of innumerable countries and knighted by the Queen of England. But incredibly, after all this, with her family grown and settled, she then embarked on an even more extraordinary mission.
Shri Mataji was born to Christian parents in India. Spiritually enlightened, she knew from very early on that her unique spiritual gift must be made available to everyone. And so it was that in 1970 she founded Sahaja Yoga meditation, which she shared freely. Using simple techniques, she discovered a unique process of Self Realisation through which huge masses of people could easily achieve the peace of true meditation. She charged no money, and instead insisted this was a birthright which should be available to all who desired it, at no cost. She said
“There can be no peace in the world until there is peace within”.
Thus began the next outstanding stage of her life: for the next forty years, she continuously travelled Continue reading
Shri Mataji
You are the lovers of truth and you have been seeking in these modern times. It is a special category of human beings who are seeking, beyond materialism, beyond power, beyond emotional enterprises, because the times are such that we have reached the epitome of our evolution and the breakthrough has to be found. But the way we understand breakthrough in modern times is through our mental understanding because today the human beings are more mental. It analyses, reflects and tries to understand the truth. But we do not realise that mental projections are always linear. They move on one line up to a point and then they recoil back upon us, like science has evolved to create hydrogen bombs.
Everything ends up in self-destruction or in collective destruction. Even on political level when we talk of democracy we find it has become demonocracy and when we talk of communism it has become autocracy. So where did we go with all this? We have to reflect again to understand that there must have been some mistake.
The truth that is known through our reading or through our thinking is a partial truth, because partial truth is more dangerous than ignorance. Like you see a land and you think that is the road and when you walk on that little land, you fall into a big ditch. So this is when you see darkness, you don’t want to go there – that’s why say “ignorance is bliss”, in a way. So we can say all this knowledge which is extrovert knowledge through our mental understanding and emotional attachments has been the knowledge of the tree. And the tree has grown too big. It has grown so big that it has now to face the truth that it has lost its roots. If the tree becomes so big that the roots are not nourishing it – it has no knowledge of the roots ─ then the tree will be destroyed. That is the reason why people have turned round to seek what is the truth, the knowledge of the roots. The roots are our nerves. Whatever we know through our nervous system is the truth to us on a very gross level. If I know that this is cold then it is cold. And for everyone it will be cold unless and until he is mad.
Now the knowledge of the roots has to be such that you get new enrichment to the nerves. In your evolution also you must get your enrichment to your nervous system. Like human beings can understand the beauty. If you want to take an animal through a dirty lane it’s very easy, but to take a human being it’s very difficult.
But what is the difference then we have to see that we have developed a new awareness within us about filth and dirt … What did you gain out of it is the problem. If it is awareness you must exactly know what you are doing and what you’ve got. So the people who are of this special category whom I call as seekers, are the epitome of evolutionary process, are attacked, are absolutely under attack by other marketing people! Nowadays God is for sale and the more expensive it is, the better it sells. So in the modern times when a person has become mental, he wants everything new. It doesn’t want to concern itself with any tradition… doesn’t want to concern itself to any tradition nor does he want to know about anything that has happened before!
We must have discretion to know there is tradition and convention and when we find anything wrong in the tradition it has to be dropped – I agree there. Supposing you are climbing on a staircase and you are moving fast and suddenly you find that your progress is stopped, then you want to remove the hurdle. But if you jump down all the staircase, avoiding everything, saying tradition is all wrong, and think your progressing downward is a progress, then you are in for destruction.
So it has little to relate to our traditional ideas of truth also. We have to go to our scriptures which are maybe very ancient or may not be that ancient. And then we find it is everywhere described that you are to be born again. But today the life is so artificial that people certify themselves born again and walk about, “I am born again,” certifying! Like in lunatic asylum they certify that you are a real mad. In the same way there are organisations which certify that you are born again. But what has happened to you that you think you are born again? Supposing somebody gives you a piece of ordinary glass and say this is diamond. You go on proclaiming, “I have got the diamond.” Who is going to believe you? What is the value of that? That is what you have to evaluate when you find that this is the truth – that is the truth – evaluate.
Shri Mataji, Strasbourg, France, 9 October, 1985
Shri Mataji
This all-pervading power is the power of divine love. It thinks, it organises, it plans, it loves. It is the one which is the subtle of the ether, you can call it. It is the subtle of the matter. It is the subtle of your emotions. It is the subtle of your mental power. It is the subtle of your evolutionary power. But all integrated and coordinated in complete synchronisation. So efficient it is that you are amazed how it works.
Now you see these flowers, how beautiful they are. And they appear on the trees or on the shrubs where they are supposed to be… At the right time these flowers become the fruits. A mango tree will give you a mango; an apple tree gives you an apple. Who does this choice? Is this great power which is all-pervading.
But we have never felt its existence. We have taken it for granted that it exists and we don’t want to know about it. We don’t want to know why we have become human beings from amoeba. What is the purpose of this life? Why nature has taken so much trouble to make us human beings? There must be some purpose for it. We never think of the purpose and we lead a purposeless life. We are not here to just live like animals.
But we have to do something much more because why should we have this human body and this human awareness? This human awareness, when it reaches a state where it starts thinking why are we here, that time you become a seeker. But you have to know that you have to become the Spirit, which is a collective being within ourselves.
Shri Mataji, 11 June 1985, Founex, Switzerland