Please enjoy the following extract from a talk by Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, founder of Sahaja Yoga, at a Public Program at the University of Sydney on the 4th March 1992:

“I bow to all the seekers of truth. At the very outset we have to know that truth is what it is. The absolute truth cannot be changed, cannot be conceptualized. Above all, unfortunately, at this human awareness we cannot feel it and we cannot understand it. Now, whatever I am going to tell you about yourself you have to take a scientific attitude and keep a open mind. If it is proved, then you have to accept as honest people because this is for your benevolence, your emancipation, for the emancipation of the whole world.

We have science, all faculties of sciences, but all these human endeavors have boomeranged on us in the way we have produced hydrogen bomb, oxygen bomb, atomic bomb on one side and on the other side a lot of artificial things which are dangerous for us. So where did we go wrong? Why should it happen to us – because the mental process is linear. It moves in one line and after some times it gives way and turns round. So, it has to be something beyond that mental process that should give us the wisdom and the balance, and that’s how we have today so many people who are seeking the truth honestly.

Of course, some are identified with some dogmas or something and want to carry on like that. That’s a different point. But there are some people who are intelligent enough to see that there is something wrong. We have to find out what’s wrong. And if you see all our problems, like ecological problem, political problems, economic problems, family problems and all types of problems which can be very secret also. Physical in the sense, sickness. Why these problems are there when human beings are at the epitome of evolution? Is it that our evolution is finished? Or still we have to go one step forward? If somehow we can transform human beings into higher state of spirit, as all scriptures have said. All the scriptures have said, “You have to be the Spirit.” Then maybe some solution could be found out, and it has worked out in many countries now that there is a power within you which passes through six centers and gives you what we call as Self-realization. Can’t hear me, can you? All of you can hear me? All right. Now the truth is that you are not this body, mind, your ego, your conditionings, intelligence, emotions, but you are the Spirit. That’s the truth and that’s what we are seeking, knowingly or unknowingly.

Another truth is that there is an all-pervading Power around us which does all the living work. I call it the all-pervading Power of God’s love. This living work is done. You see it every day. You see these beautiful flowers here, but we accept them, take it for granted. We never even think how these beautiful flowers are grown; how the trees are grown up to a certain height and no more; how they are kept in control completely. Look at our eye also. Look at our brain, which is such a great computer. The eye is such a great camera. We take it, everything, for granted. But is it that there is some power which is working it out our evolution from amoeba to this state? By law of chance you could not have achieved even a state of a reptile. So how is it in such a short time you have been able to achieve the state of human beings? If you start introspecting it then you will understand that something we have not yet known which we have to know. And that knowledge is possible because the whole ocean of knowledge is within yourself. Only thing, a very part of your brain is exposed which has no connection with your heart, and has no connection with your attention.

Now this is a mechanism within you which works out the last connection. Like this instrument is here. It’s all built in, but it has to be connected. Unless and until you are connected to the mains you have no meaning. Young people especially find it very difficult to find their identity; so, they stick on to this or to that, sometimes fundamentalist, sometimes to some sort of a group – something. But it is only because they want to belong to something. That’s human nature. But to belong to reality and to truth is the best way to be a universal personality because Spirit is the universal being within us.

Now Sahaja Yoga has been working in about sixty-two countries ─ I must say I am surprised at it ─ and there are fifty countries at least, or fifty one countries, who have lots of centers working it out. I was surprised at Russia. I never expected that they would be so sensitive to reality. Russians, whatever their governments were, whatever they did to them. One thing for definite, they are extremely sensitive to spirituality, extremely. Of course, I knew one thing. If you read Tolstoy or if you have read “Crime and Punishment” or any of these books written by the Russians you will find they are very introspective. Even the hero, if he falls in love with somebody, he introspects, “Why? Why am I doing this?” That quality of introspection is so great that even the scientists… Two hundred scientists were in the conference with me, and when I started talking about science they said, “Mother, no more science. We want to know about spirituality.”

HH Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

Please enjoy the following Sahaja Yoga talk by Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi about seeking your fulfillment.

“Those who go to gurus and say, “Mother, will you please give a job to my son,” then you don’t know what to say, you should say to such a person, “Now my child, you are not yet fit, you are not yet mature to come down yet.” Or if you go to someone to ask for, say, a diamond ring. Or anyone says that I give diamond ring in the name of God, and you are quite satisfied with such an answer, then you are no good as a seeker, no good. Useless for Sahaja Yoga specially. Or somebody who says, “I will cure you” and for curative you go to someone – alright, the person may cure you, but you are no good as a seeker. Why should God cure anyone who is not seeking God? I mean, why should I repair this instrument if it is not going to carry my voice? Or else some of you, if you go to a guru, and if he tells you a story like this, that you have to pay me some money for this, because if you don’t pay me money you cannot be involved into this kind of a thing, you better slap such a guru on his face and tell him that “What do you think of me?” It’s complete indignity to your seeking. He wants to involve you through taking money from you. Can’t you see that he is insulting you by saying that you are such a materialist, that when you give me money then only you will be attached to seeking of God? Just think of it. All such arguments people give you and if you accept them and if you follow such gurus you cannot mature for seeking.

As you have to be genuine, you have to be wise to understand that you are seeking your fulfillment. You are not seeking money and diamond rings and these tomfooleries that are going on and you are not there to witness them and these foolish magical tricks of people, but you are going to witness the magic of God. Then in the seeking also you must know that if God is the universal being, anybody who professes that we are the chosen ones and nobody else can be a chosen one or he was the only prophet and he was the only God and because you belong to some organization, it is nothing but absurd fanaticism and ugliness. Do not deceive yourself. Please try to understand: self-deception will never be forgiven by God. Amoeba, does he deceive himself if he sees the food there, does he? Or a lion or even a frog, it has such a little brain. It understand what it is seeking, Will he deceive himself? But human beings deceive themselves morning till evening. We have to seek God. We have to seek our fulfillment. We have to relate to that wholesomeness that is God, the primordial being. The whole of it, this is what we have to seek. You are created for that.

But there is a way. God has already placed that within yourself. For your growth he has placed within you, only He is testing your genuineness but if you are so obstinate as to stick on to some misidentified nonsensical things you cannot work it out. Be free from all these things, open out yourself. You all have to be aware of the whole. You all have to get Self-realization. Though by that, God will feel His fulfillment of His creation, no doubt, and He has to do it, He will do it, but He’ll have to work very hard. And still and still if you do not accept the truth, then the truth will be expressed, no doubt, but then, the untruth has to be destroyed. And at that time, those who are identified with untruth will be also destroyed. Before that, take heed to your wisdom and know what we have to seek? We have to seek our wholesomeness, which we have partially expressed in our political and economical and social clubs.

All this has to be integrated, all the great religions which have been propounded in the growth of human beings, which have substantially helped in the growth of human beings, which are the substratum of their living, has to be integrated in that habit. For example, I meet supposing a Hindu, then he says, “Mother, how do You talk of Christ? We don’t believe in Christ.” Now you are a very great person not to believe in Christ. Who are you not to believe in Christ? What do you think of yourself? What do you mean by saying that you don’t believe in Christ? Do you know it is blasphemous to say such horrible things about any great incarnation on this earth?” There are some who say, “We do not believe in Moses, or in Guru Nanaka or in Mohammed-Sahib.” Who are you? I don’t believe, I don’t believe. What is your belief? On what it is based? Why do you say such things? What do you know about them?

Did they ever say that, for example, when Christ came did He say that Moses was wrong, did He say so? When Nanaka came, did He say that Mohammed was wrong? Did anyone of these great saints say so? Then who are you to denounce them?”

HH Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

Please enjoy another extract from a talk by Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, founder of Sahaja Yoga, at a Public Program at Newcastle, near Sydney on the 28th February 1992.

“Sahaja means with you is born. This yoga means the union, the union with this all pervading power of God’s love. It exists or not, we have never bothered to find out. We see these beautiful flowers, very beautiful flowers and everything around. When I came from Sydney I saw the beauty, the nature had just spread for the pleasure of human beings. We never even think how it has happened, what has worked it out, all these living things. We don’t even think how this eye of ours is such a beautiful camera, how it has been made, how is it this brain, which is such a great computer, how is it made. Who has made it? They may say it is autonomous but who is this auto? We have never tried to find out. That there is this all pervading power of God’s love which has done all this living work, and now for us it is to feel that, that is the yoga, is the union with that Divine. It’s not physical, it’s not mental, but it is spiritual, where you start first time feeling this all pervading power. Then only you have to know how to use this power which flows through you. But it moves very slowly and people, you see this is not a plastic work that you can go on producing many and we don’t have any organization as such, we do not organize people and we do not take any money at all, you cannot. How much can you pay for this divine work? How much do we pay to Mother Earth for what she gives us all these beautiful flowers? She doesn’t understand money, so you cannot pay for it. But there are many, many organizations afloat, which are taking money, which are giving you mental heat and people run after them, they like to go on working out that yarn that they have spun for you.

One has to go beyond this mind to feel the spirituality. With this mind, that is human mind, you cannot understand it, you have to have divine mind. But once you get your realization your mind also gets enlightened, and when your mind is enlightened, you can perceive, penetrate into every situation in such a deeper manner and the way you can improve it. I can tell you a simple analogy to understand. Supposing you are standing in the sea and the sea is rough, you are afraid of the waves, very much afraid. But supposing somebody puts you on the boat, and then you can see those waves and enjoy them. But supposing you learn how to swim then you can jump in and save them. It is not any brainwashing or any sort of a bombardment of words, but it is something that happens to you. You become something, as you have become human beings, you become realized souls as a result of this last breakthrough of your evolution. This is happening everywhere no doubt and it’s working out very well in, I think they told me, 62 countries but at least I know of definitely of 52 countries where there we have got very strong centers where it is working out.

Now whatever we are telling you here you need not accept blindfolded. Blind faith is of no use. First of all you must experience. Just like a hypothesis I am putting this before you, but you should have an open mind of a scientist. Just open your mind and see for yourself it works. If it works then you have to accept. If you are honest you have to accept. If it works with many, why not try and work it out. Most of the people do get their realization. I have seen it.

It’s a wonderful thing that is happening that masses of people can get realization. Depends on also certain places like Russia I was amazed. Where they have not heard the name of God they have never heard the name of Christ. They were not allowed to read Bible or any book, they had no religion at all. They believed in no religion. Where thousands and thousands come to my program and they all get their realization. In a small place called Togliatti there are 22 thousand Sahaja Yogis practicing Sahaja Yoga. Can you imagine it? I was so amazed. Same about Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Poland. I was amazed how these people, Czechoslovakia, how they have taken to Sahaja Yoga so fast, just like fish to water, how they realized it, and nobody else, all these false people, could not go there, nothing could work out. Only thing that has really worked out there is something that is genuine. That is Sahaja Yoga.

One has to realize that as we are not in the absolute state, we have to reach to the absolute state. That desire should be there. If that desire is there it works out without any difficulty. It is your own power which manifests and gradually you can manifest them in such a way that you can do so many things like giving realization to others, curing others and also enjoying it, because when the attention is filled with the light of the Spirit, it fills you up with complete joy, and joy has not two sides like happiness and unhappiness. It’s singular, it’s absolute and you are then, they say they are swimming in the ocean of joy. So beautiful it is.”

HH Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

Please enjoy the following extract from a talk by Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, founder of Sahaja Yoga. This talk took place at Newcastle, near Sydney, Australia on the 28th February 1992.

“I bow to all the seekers of truth. At the very outset you have to know that truth is what it is. We cannot change it. We cannot transform it and we cannot conceptualize it. Also unfortunately at this human awareness we cannot feel the truth, so something has to be done, something has to work out in our human awareness in the evolutionary process. We have become human beings from amoeba. How did we become? And if we are human beings have we reached the absolute state? We have not. If we had reached the absolute state then there would have been no problems because everybody would have seen the same thing, would have understood the same thing, and felt the same thing, but because we are living in a relative world we have all these problems. As it is, most of the problems are created by human beings. If you see ecological problems, if you see economic problems, political problems, physical problems, mental problems, family problems, all of them are related to human beings. So we have gone wrong somewhere, there’s something that’s a missing point which we have not realized.

The advancements we have made in our civilization, say in science, has reached such a stage that we had to create atom bomb, hydrogen bomb. So all these mental efforts we have put in also boomerang on us and create our destruction. In every way we get frustrated, and we start seeking – what’s the matter?

But now a new category of very honest people are there in this world who are seeking beyond. William Blake has called them “men of God”, those who will seek the truth and they will make other people also godly. That’s the time has come, this resurrection time has come we should say, or this is the Last Judgment. This Last Judgment is going to be done by this Kundalini, the power within you. This is your own power which has to be awakened and once it is awakened it passes through these centers as told to you and lets you know that these are your problems. These are the problems of your chakras. They may be physical, may be emotional, they may be, could be also spiritual, and once you know these problems and if you know how to solve these problems you can be a very normal, sensible, balanced personality. That’s not the only thing that happens when you get your Self-realization.

Firstly what happens to you is that when the Kundalini passes through your Agyna chakra then you become thoughtlessly aware. If you see all the sciences they have created about religion, talks and the whole thing, it’s just mental. It’s not inside, it’s not innate, built within. So one thought rises, another thought falls. Another thought rises and falls down, some come from the future, some come from the past, and we are jumping on the cusp of these thoughts. But if you say now, this is the present, stop your mind at the stop, the point which is the present, you can’t, you just can’t do it. Between these thoughts there is a gap. This gap is the present, but it’s so small, it’s so small that you cannot find it. But when the Kundalini passes through, then this center, then these two institutions as you see them, the conditioning and the ego are just sucked in. As a result you become thoughtlessly aware. Means there is no thought. But you are absolutely aware, very much more aware. For example if you look at this beautiful hall with the thoughtless awareness, then the whole picture becomes clear like a photo in your mind, whole thing is stored up into every detail so clearly because present is the truth, past is finished and future doesn’t exist.

So to come to the present you have to have this new awareness called as thoughtless awareness. But when she crosses over and pierces through your fontanel bone area which is the actualization of your baptism. Just people talk of baptism, “Come along I’ll baptize you.” It’s not possible that way. It’s just an artificial ritual. Try to understand, this is not going to render that actual happening within you which is going to make you grow spiritually. So the actualization of baptism takes place and you can feel also from your fontanel bone area a kind of a cool breeze of the Holy Ghost coming in. You feel extremely relaxed. Secondly that you jump into another higher awareness which we call, as collective consciousness. This means that not only that you can you feel your own centers on your fingertips, because these cool vibrations, you can call them, start flowing through your own hands, you can feel them. But also you get the information about others as well as about yourself on these fingertips. Automatically you become like a person who is a computer. It starts working in such a wonderful manner that you can find out about any disease, any trouble without going through all the diagnosis or anything, and if you know how to cure these troubles, physically, mentally, you can definitely cure yourself and also others if you have reached that state and have permanently achieved it. This is what has to happen to us. All of us have to achieve that state which is your right to achieve it.”

HH Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

A talk on identity given by Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, founder of Sahaja Yoga, in Sydney on the 22 February 1995.

“Actually there’s such a big desire to have an identity, but the identity lies within yourself, not outside. For example, we can find clubs of any kind, cults of any kind. They wear funny dresses just to show that they have a special personality. The other day in Chicago it was very cold and I found a gentleman who came as one leader of one of the cults, was chanting, chanting, chanting like mad. I asked him, “Why are you wearing this dhoti in this cold? It is so very cold you are shivering.” He said that. “My guru has told me that I should wear a dhoti so I’ll get my Self-realization.” I said, “Really?” I said, “Eighty percent people in India wear dhotis or they must be already there. You may not get any room there.” Then second thing he told me – he had shaven his head and was having a, some pigtail behind – and he says that, I told him, “Why did you do this?” Quite a young man. He said, “My guru has told me that I have to shave my head and I have to have all these things. That’s how I’ll get my nirvana.” I said, “Really? So Kabira, a great poet, has written that by shaving if you can go to heaven what about the lamb which is shaved twice a year? That will be there earlier.”

So like this, you see, all kinds of stupid things have been told and people have been following it. I don’t know in the West specially, people are very vulnerable. I don’t know why. Not in India, you see. It’s difficult. The people are solidly grounded, I think, in their tradition. For example now, if they say skirt which is six inches is in fashion, everybody will start wearing six inches skirts. All the long skirts will vanish from the market and what you find, all of them wearing six inches skirts. But in India they brought some mini sari. They said, “Get lost. We don’t want all this nonsense here. It’s too much for us we are not…” So like this, you see, we take to these entrepreneurs and things. It’s sometimes so absurd I don’t know how people accept all this nonsense. But I feel that once they develop their own being and understand how great they are, then they will have a proper divine discretion to do things which are very constructive. Normally we take to destructive things but with this discretion we do constructive things, not for ourselves only but for the benevolence of our family, for the benevolence of our city and for the benevolence of the whole world.

This is a special time, as I told you, very important when you should not miss it out. So in our awareness we have a new dimension which I call as collective consciousness, where you can feel others and you can feel yourself. You don’t have to judge a person by his dress, by his gait, by his talk but his divine vibrations. You will know that what sort of chakras he has, what sort of centers he has, and thus once you know what’s wrong with him you can – after certain development in you – you can cure yourself and can cure him.

So the second thing apart from the thoughtless awareness is that you become doubtlessly aware, doubtless. There’s no doubt. Once you have learnt it, once you are an expert, you have no doubts about it. You understand what you are, what you are capable of and what you can achieve. There are no doubts left. So the second stage – some people get both the stages together – I have seen there have been so many seekers that they just get to doubtless awareness. But doesn’t matter. It takes time for some people. Some people may not get realisation if they are, I would say, not well or maybe something, they have been to some wrong people. Also, maybe that they are doubting something, doubting themselves. So the first and foremost understanding should be that you are all capable of achieving this. You shouldn’t doubt yourself. You must really respect yourself because you are a human being at the epitome of evolution. You are the highest. We have nothing to learn from birds or from dogs but we have to know that we can ourselves become so sensitive that we’ll understand nature, we’ll understand animals, everything we start understanding.

The sign of a Sahaja Yogi, that he is absolutely honest, he is very kind, tender and compassionate. This is the minimum of minimum a Sahaja Yogi has to be. Of course, because a door is open sometimes some mad people also walk in, can’t help it, but most of the people who are taking to Sahaja Yoga – I was amazed – are so much changed. They have dropped all their bad habits. I never tell that. Supposing I say, “Don’t do this,” half of the people will walk off. Just I say, “Get the light of the Spirit within yourself.” Then you will become your own master. Then you will become your own guide and you understand what is right for you, what is good for you and what is to be done. There is no rule or regulation like “don’t” in Sahaja Yoga. But automatically you all accept it and do it together collectively also.

It is very remarkable that it has worked so well also in Australia. Australia is a special country. I call it a country of innocence. Uluru that you have is a symbol of that. Gradually in Sahaja Yoga you will learn about your country and you will respect it. As you learn about yourself you will also learn about this great country of Australia. I respect it very much and every year I try to come here. Many countries I can’t go every year but Australia I always try to come here every year. I hope you all will get your Self-Realisation tonight. Now, only request is that it will take hardly ten, fifteen minutes, but if you want to go you can go now and don’t disturb people when they are about to get their Self-Realisation. I will be thankful for that. Thank you very much.”

HH Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

Please enjoy the following extract of a Sahaja Yoga talk by Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi which took place on the 24th July 1979.

“Yesterday, I met a lady, and she told me that she was seeking God. I said, “What do you think of God, what are you seeking?” When we say we are seeking, do we know what are we supposed to seek, and do we understand how we are going to feel our seeking complete, that we have reached the destination? As last time, I told you that seeking has to be genuine, from a genuine heart, and that you cannot purchase, or you cannot put in effort about it. But today I would like to tell you what are we seeking.

Let us see how the seeking comes within us, from where? As shown here, there is a center called as Nabhi chakra, which is here in the center Nabhi chakra, which is placed in our spinal chord, and manifests the solar plexus which is placed mid-way under your navel. This is the center that creates the seeking within us. Seeking is only possible when something is living. For example, what is the seeking of this chair? It cannot think, it cannot move, you can put it here or you can put it on the street. You can smash it and throw it away, again use that wood for some other purpose or make a stool out of it. It has no seeking of any kind. Only when a thing becomes a living being like a amoeba you can take a uni-cellular egg. It starts manifesting seeking because it is supposed to seek. Not the dead. So those who say we are not seeking are as good as dead. Those who say we are seeking are living and also kicking.

The little bit if you understand that a desire is created within a little animal, called as amoeba, by giving him hunger. Just think of it. It has no brain. It has a just a small nucleus but it can feel it is hungry. It has to eat something to grow. It also knows it has to reproduce and then it starts seeking. It also knows how to take the food in, but it does not know how it digests. That part is not his job. Even for us just the same. So the seeking starts in a little amoeba and the whole evolution is based on that seeking, gradually improving and improving the ways and means of seeking, while the desire is that of food only, alone. There is also another desire or, you can say, an emotion, in the smallest of amoeba is a sense of preservation. It knows the dangers that can finish his existence. When this little amoeba becomes a human being, in thousands and thousands of years, then the seeking is changed. In the beginning it starts, of course the food seeking is still there, that’s the basis, you must have food to begin with. Of course the methods are improved, changed, evolved for the seeking of food, but there is also a great understanding of how to preserve yourself and your clan. The clubbing starts from a very early age, even ants understand that. So they understand that we all have to club together, unite together, integrate together, if we have to protect ourselves.

And this seeking of wholesomeness also develops gradually in the human beings and the expressions of that is, you can see, all our efforts to preserve ourselves and to be clubbed together. These efforts are expressed in our political and in our economic enterprises. Now in the human being a new seeking starts: is to have power over others. Animals do not seek power, they have. For example a tiger is much more powerful than, say, a poor rabbit. He is born like that. And a rabbit does not want to become a tiger. He does not try like every Dick, Tom and Harry would like to become a prime minister. But a rabbit would not try to be a tiger, he understands “I am a rabbit and I must develop my means of defenses and my means of offences by which I exist.” In the same way the tiger acts, he is aware of his powers and also he is aware of his limitations. And some of the animals also have a power of leadership in them. They become leaders. You must have seen some birds that they have a leader, one leader going and wherever that leader changes the direction, all of them change as if they are like the tail of that leader. In the same way, the same way that goes that bird goes, the leader goes all of them follow.

So this also is expressed in human being in a very big way that there are some born leaders who lead a group of people to some destination in which they fulfill the seeking of that group. Now the seeking of the groups could be money, mostly it is. Now money animals don’t understand, this is the creation of human beings only. So for them money becomes very important because it is their own creation. We had barter systems, but then we thought it is better to have some sort of a medium which will convert one good into another, so we start the money. So the focus of man’s attention from food goes to power and from power to money. Sometimes if somebody has lots of money, then he wants to have power. It’s but natural. There is nothing wrong in it, as such. Fundamentally, it is a thing which is natural for human beings to run after money and then run after power or vice versa.

But beyond that starts another seeking, is the seeking of knowing why are we here? What are we doing here? What is the purpose of our life? Why God has created us? To what purpose, to what end or it is just a joke going around? Are we just foolishly being born, getting married, having children and dying like amoeba? Or have we any other purpose? Many human beings do not go beyond money or health, they want good health. I mean animals don’t take any exercises as far as I know. But human beings can go to any extent to preserve their health, but for what? I mean, you may be a wrestler, for what? Just to fight each other? You might be the healthiest person living on this earth, but for what? You are just a waste. What is your use? You may be the wealthiest man going in the best cars and the whatever you may call it, all the so-called luxuries of life and material well-being, but for what? When such a question comes into our mind the new kind of seeking starts, which asks the question, why are you here? Are you here just to run in this rat race morning till evening, earning money and earning power and doing all useless activities, pleasing others to show off your money or to extract some money from others? Is that the aim of your life?

Now this is the beginning of the fourth enquiry, or the fourth dimension in your awareness. This enquiry is also the flowering of the same rudimentary thing called as hunger: hunger for spirituality, hunger for God, hunger for higher things of life. It starts within us, that I call is the genuine happening. In this seeking, we get confused, because by the time this seeking starts in you, you are already famished and finished. How? Because you are already conditioned by all kinds of nonsensical things going on. You may be calling yourself a British or a Indian or some sort of an Australian or I don’t know all sorts of things that people call themselves, but in the eyes of God, you are just a human being, You are, I mean you don’t have a tail to begin with, and you don’t have your head bent down like this you have your head upright. Whether you are in Africa or India, or in England or America, it’s just the same. As long as your head is up like that and you don’t have a tail (of course some people must be having, the way they behave), you are definitely a human being. And if a human being if he is evolved through various experiences of life and realizes that none of these experiences have really given him the fulfilment and the answer to his question “Why are we here?” then the turning point takes place in his life, and he becomes a seeker. Not before that.”

HH Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

Please enjoy the following talk from a public program in Christchurch, New Zealand by the founder of Sahaja Yoga, Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi:

“I bow to all the seekers of truth.

At the very outset we have to know that truth is what it is. We cannot change it, we cannot transform it and we cannot know the absolute truth at this human awareness. So we have to become something subtler. As Christ has said you are to be born again. Doesn’t mean we can brand ourselves as born again but is a happening of becoming something else than what you are. And that something else is the Spirit. So whatever we are going to tell you today about this mechanism within you and the way you reveal the truth, you should not accept it with blind faith but as scientists keep your mind open. Take it as a hypothesis. If you think it is all right when you have experimented with it and you have experimented, and whatever I say comes true, then as honest people you have to accept it, because this is for your benevolence, for the benevolence of your country, and the whole universe at large.

It is to be understood that we are created as human beings from amoeba to this stage; it’s not the ultimate. If it was there would have been all these problems not created by us. Start from ecology, to political, to economic, to all these problems; are the creation of human beings. So we have missed some point somewhere: that’s what we have to find out, what is that we have to be.

If you look at the development of the civilization, of this modern civilization, you can easily find out that we have really outgrown ourselves without any sense of proportion and limitation. As a result even in science we have discovered horrible things like atom bomb, hydrogen bomb; all these horrible things which are just destructive. So somehow or other, whatever we try, whatever is the mental projection of human beings it boomerangs back. Whatever we go up to a point, comes back to you and is destructive. So what is the reason why we cannot reach that point where we are at the best and then stop there? This cannot be worked out because at a human level we always go to extremes. To understand yourself first of all you have to become the Spirit. We do not understand ourselves. We think we know ourselves; this is not true. Because we are made up of these seven centers which are subtle within you, and unless and until you know about these centers you cannot know yourself and you cannot know others as well.

Those who were saints in any country; take it Lao Tse, you can take from Socrates onward this side Mohammed Sahib, Nanak Sahib; all of these people. You’ll be amazed to find that all these people behaved in such a manner that we cannot find faults with them. I mean if you want to find, you may with your ignorance. But the kind of life they led; how is it that they were like that? What was so great? It was the divinity which expressed. While we all have this divinity within ourselves, we have all these powers within ourselves, only thing, we have to use those powers, we have to manifest them and for that manifestation it is important that we have to become Self-realized in the sense that you have to get your second birth.

In Sanskrit language for a realized soul they use a word called vijaha, means twice born. And also for a bird, they call it the word vijaha meaning twice born; first is the egg and then it becomes a bird. So our freedom is also limited. We do not have full freedom because we lack in our confidence in our wisdom, because the wisdom has also not manifested and has not shown us how it asserts in the right way, so most of the time we are living in the relative world, not in the absolute world. What one has to understand that there is something missing and that missing point we have to find out.

Now let’s see what is the truth? The truth is, the first and foremost truth is, that there is an all-pervading power of God’s Love, which is called as Brahmachaitanya in Sanskrit, Ruh in Koran and in every, every scripture it is described. Now this all-pervading power resides, which does all the living work. We see beautiful flowers all over; I saw the beautiful trees you have in the Botanical Garden, you have such nice things there, we never even think how this miracle has taken place; how this Mother Earth has done this job. How she got this power to sprout a seed? We just accept it. We don’t think it’s a miracle, we just accept it and without thinking about it, it becomes just a part and parcel of our life. Look at your eyes. Your eyes are also absolutely a miracle; they are such a camera. Look at your brain; it’s such a computer, but we just accept it, accept our human life also just as if it’s nothing great. Even the miracle to become from amoeba to human beings by any law of chance you would not have become a human being. But we just accept it and we don’t want to think that there could be any power that could have achieved it. This is what one has to little bit project, and see for yourself that there must some power and if I say there is a power you have to feel it; we have to know it.

The second truth is that you are not this body, you are not this mind, you are not these conditionings, ego, and your emotions, no, you are the pure Spirit. This is the fact. That is the divinity within you. Unless and until you become that, no use reading books; by reading books you become fundamentalist. Absolutely fundamentalism has the basis in the books, because the book said so; so I say so. Everybody tries to read the books and just want to use it as a norm for oneself; is not true. Whatever is written in the book, whatever you have read in the book has not gone inside your heart and so there is a problem that today we are having the first problem not so much of political because thanks to Gorbachev who is another realized soul, that one problem is over; the second problem is of fundamentalism…..

And that is what one has to understand, that the religion is within us. It is like a valency. As carbon has four valencies, we have ten valencies, which are, we know as the Ten Commandments. Unless and until they are awakened within us, unless and until we become innately enlightened by them, we cannot, cannot behave in the manner that the scriptures wanted us to behave, but not only that but this. Religion that is within us when it is enlightened, you become absolutely aware of what the mistake people have been committing, what the mistake you have been committing, and that this God’s love how it works. Also you become a witness; witness of the whole play. When the Kundalini goes through this centre of Agnya, you just become a witness. You start seeing the whole thing as a drama.

If you are standing in the water and there are waves in the sea, they come up and go and you are frightened of getting drowned, but supposing you are in a boat then you enjoy the waves and supposing you know how to swim you can jump back and get so many people on the boat. This is what happens to you that when you get your realization you reach a state of Self-awareness meaning not selfishness but the awareness of these centers, awareness of your Self, and awareness of others also. You can feel the centers of others on your fingertips, so you become collectively conscious. Then who is the other? You can feel anyone on your centers so easily…..

The third thing that happens to you is very interesting that you, you become the joy. You become the source of joy. Joy is not happiness and unhappiness but joy is an absolute thing and you jump into the ocean of joy. And when you jump into the ocean of joy you just start enjoying everything and the state that you achieve is first is thoughtless awareness. You are aware but without any thoughts. The thoughts will not bombard you. If you want to think you can think but if you don’t want to think you can stop it. So the thoughtless awareness comes to you as a blessing first and then the second awareness is called as the doubtless awareness. This is all described in the Hatha Yoga that you get into Nirvichara Samadhi and then Nirvikalpa Samadhi.”

Talk by Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, founder of Sahaja Yoga, in Christchurch, New Zealand, 26 February 1992

Please enjoy the following talk by the founder of Sahaja Yoga, Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi:

“I bow to all the seekers of truth. At the very outset we have to know what is the truth. There are so many seekers of truth in these modern times which has been predicted that there will be many people who will be seeking the truth now as ordinary householders. Their life will be completely transformed in these modern times. They call it in the Koran as Kiama. In the Bible it’s called as the Last Judgment.

Every religion has talked about these modern times as something very fantastic that our lives will be transformed. So what is the truth we are seeking? We should know what is the truth we are seeking. Firstly, we are seeking peace within ourselves. Secondly, we are seeking something we do not know, and that something is the Spirit within ourselves. Many scriptures have described that you have to seek your Spirit and many are preaching about it. But it seems they are not very Spirit-oriented. They are more money-oriented or power-oriented, and that is why the whole attention of a seeker is diverted and deviated into something which is not really divine. So what we are seeking is the Spirit within us which is the source of absolute truth, absolute joy and absolute self-knowledge.

You have already heard about these different centers that are within us which are being built during our evolution as human beings. We have reached up to a point where still we have to have the last breakthrough in our awareness; otherwise, we cannot know the truth. At this human awareness it is impossible to know the absolute truth. If we had known the absolute truth there would have been no problem. Everybody would have seen the same thing. But there are so many ideologies. As you know, there are so many religions, so many types of preachings and also lots of false people. So, if you know the absolute truth then there cannot be another truth with it; it’s singular. For example, I am sitting before you. You know I am sitting before you, all of you. There’s no argument on that point…

We have to have now the last breakthrough of our evolution. Once it happens you will be amazed that we’ll know the absolute truth. There cannot be any argument about it. And also these centers that you know here are a mystery to you, but you start feeling them on your fingertips. That is Self-knowledge. These centers are responsible for your physical, mental, emotional, also spiritual being within yourself. So all your personality, the totality of it, expressed through these centers. These are subtle centers within us, and these subtle centers are sometimes exhausted because of our extreme nature. So this power which we call as kundalini – kundala means coils, which is in three and a half coils within us in the sacrum bone. That means the Greeks knew that it was a sacred bone; they call it sacrum. This power is actually your individual mother and she knows everything about you. She knows about your past and she knows about your aspirations. It’s like a tape recording, I should say, of ages within you in this coiled power. It is like a primule of a seed. When you put the seed in the Mother Earth then it sprouts by itself, spontaneously. That is what is Sahaja. Is all built in within you and you have every right to achieve this state of selfhood, which is in the fourth dimension of your awareness, which we in Sanskrit call as turiya, is the fourth dimension. All this is within you. All this power is within you. You are built in that way.

We have to understand that our Creator is the greatest organiser. See now, we have one channel here for people to come in. This is the channel which we have very nicely built up within ourselves, which in our evolutionary process has enlightened all these centers up to a point. Now this kundalini, this power, has to rise. I have read some books, some German books and things, where it describes that this kundalini awakening is extremely dangerous and it kills people, is fatal. Nothing of the kind. I have been doing this for the last twenty-five years. I never saw anybody getting sick even, but on the contrary, this awakening is so beneficial, so benevolent that when this power passes through all these six centers and pierces through this last center out of the fontanel bone area, which we can call the actualisation of baptism, actualisation, then all these centers get enlightened, enriched and this nourishment solves your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual problems.

So the first truth about yourself is that, you are not this body, this mind, these emotions, this intellect, this ego, these conditionings, but you are the pure Spirit. Now we see all these beautiful flowers around us and we take them for granted. It’s a miracle that these different flowers have bloomed out of a seed in their own different identity. Who has done this work? Who changes the seasons? Or if you ask a doctor, “Who runs your heart?” He’ll say, “It is autonomous nervous system.” But who is this “auto?” These questions and many others cannot be answered. So there is an all-pervading power of divine love which is doing all these miraculous things.

Now you need not take for granted whatever I am telling you. We have had lots of problems with blind faith. But whatever I am saying, if it is proved, then as honest people you must accept. Not only accept but grow in your new awareness. Of course, you must understand you can’t pay for it. How much did we pay to become human beings, and how much are we going to pay for becoming something higher? Once you realise that, that you can’t pay for it, then you will drop out most of the false gurus and the false institutions who charge you for anything like that.

Now this happening is very simple, spontaneous, works out. As I said, it’s like a primule of a seed, this kundalini. When you put the seed in the Mother Earth it sprouts by itself. In the same way, it works. You can’t explain. Can you explain how a seed sprouts? In the same way your primule, which is this kundalini, uncoils itself and passes through these centers and gives you your Self-realization. In Sanskrit is called as atmashaksatkara. For you it is absolutely granted. You don’t have to go to Himalayas. You don’t have to stand on your heads. You don’t have to starve yourself. Don’t have to pay for it. It is all there which is your own power. Only when it happens you realise your identity, you realise how great you are, you realise how the Divine is within you and which is expressing itself.”

Talk on Sahaja Yoga by Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, Sydney, Australia, 22 February 1995

Please enjoy the following extract from a talk by Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, founder of Sahaja Yoga, in which Shri Mataji discusses the effect of ego on the Kundalini.

“You don’t have to judge others, just see yourself, because it is for your own good. If somebody is egoistical makes no difference to you. Or non-egoistical makes no difference; only thing is you should really see for yourself what is good and what is bad. That’s how it works out. Otherwise, I as always say that when I give a lecture immediately we start thinking about somebody whom we think to be egoistical. Actually I’m saying to each one of you to see it, would be a better idea.

Now this ego when it covers your entire head, the complete Sahasrara which is shown there – the white area gets covered; your Brahmarandra, the portion from where the kundalini has to pierce also gets covered. It’s very difficult the whole thing is covered, and this is small here, the gap is here, now, you cannot open the gap here, you have to open the gap here. So this has to go back like that, and this has to come up in the center like that. Then only kundalini can come up. So what happens at such stage, you will find such people have a left hand very weak and right hand throbbing. So you raise their left, put to the right; again raise their left put to the right, again raise their left put to the right, so you bring down the ego like this. And once the ego comes down then this comes up and the gap comes in between and then you raise the kundalini in the center, kundalini will come out and then you tie it up.

This is Shri Vidya, this is the knowledge of Shri, of the Holy Spirit. All other knowledge of where you have to sit in protocol, what you are, is all avidya and nonsense. Reading ‘Who’s who’ – I don’t know what you will become, monsters or maybe… some sort of a Frankenstein style personality. This is the Vidya, Shri Vidya, is the secret Vidya, of the Holy Ghost by which you balance your ego with super-ego, your desire and action should be equal, and then raise the kundalini, put it up and tie it up.

All these days, people who been realized souls, great people, have tried to point out the problems of ego, have talked to you, they said “You shouldn’t have ego. Ego is the worst thing; one should not be identified with ego,” and all that. And as soon as they have said it people have started just finding out how to do it, and in doing so they have become ‘great gurus,’ themselves egoistical. The fact is, you do not do anything. This is not ego but is a mirage of ego that you have got. You really do not do anything, everything is done by God, He is the doer, He has the great ego. Your ego is just, a copy… made artificially. Like He creates the flowers and you make plastic flowers and say “Oh, we have created flowers.”

He does everything. It is He who expresses His ego, while you feel you have done something. It happens to you when you get realization, when your kundalini pierces the Brahmarandra, then you find the power flowing through you, and when you put your hands at somebody you find the kundalini rising there. And then you find that you can feel the centers of that person and catching of his centers and you’re amazed, you said “Mother how is it? Just now I was nothing, suddenly what has happened to me?” Because your ego has subsided and has become one with that of God; and you are giving vent to that power of God. You are playing the role of an instrument, of a hollow personality, and through you is passing the power of God which is doing the real work, while you are thinking “I’m doing it” without getting realization. But after realization you just feel “Oh, it’s flowing through me, I can see it flowing, I can see it working. It is…” You start talking in third person, you don’t say “I”. You just say “It’s going, it’s coming, it’s not there, this is catching, that is catching.” It is in the third person you talk. You do not say “I am catching”. You do not say also, that “I have raised the kundalini”, you say that “The kundalini has risen”. Who has risen it? You never say that you have raised the kundalini, you just say “The kundalini has risen, it is not coming up, it’s just going there,” as if you have become an instrument of some power which is flowing through you. And this is how… we become one with that, and all our karmas dissolve into akarma. Karmas are only the effect of our false idea of our ego – when there is no ego where are the karmas going to be? If there is no-one who is doing, the doer is lost, then who’s going to do the karmas and who’s going to take the load of the karmas upon themselves? Like when there is an organization, then it says “I have got assets and I have got these debts and these are the things”, you see, but the association or that organization disappears, then who has the debts? In the same way, you as ego disappear, and there is no effect of your karmas – all finished, all that was when one Mr. Ego was there. When Mr. Ego has gone all liabilities have gone with him.

We are something different now, now we have become the Self, the Atma and when we have become the Atma, then, we are one with that Universal Being, and He is making us do everything. Like my fingers don’t have ego that “I’m doing something and I’m touching the thumb”, because it is a part of this body. Our nose does not have an ego, that, it is something special which is breathing. We say “I breath”, we don’t say “This nose breathes”, neither the nose would say “this mouth…” with which we eat food, it never says that “I eat, because of my mouth”. When you become one with that whole then you just feel that the whole is working and we as part, are working with it, and all the responsibilities are finished.”

HH Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

Please enjoy the following talk by Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, founder of Sahaja Yoga. This talk took place on the 22nd October 1979 in London.

“And this ego business is so much prevalent in our society now, with all due apologies I am talking about the Western society, when it comes to India I talk to them, but now I’m talking to you, and think that I am also a Western person, so I can say certain things as a Western personality, and don’t feel bad about it. For in the so-called, certain traditions that we have, today only I was discussing you see; like on the table we have to sit for dinner, alright? Simple thing it is, to sit on the table for dinner, now dinner is there because God has been gracious to us; for our well-being, for our friendship, we are all going to sit down. But go to any formal dinner, or you arrange a formal dinner, people would sit down ten times discussing “where is the seat of ‘X’ and the seat of ‘Y’, and the seat of ‘Z’.” But if there is a slightest mistake, in placing the people according to their date of birth, their face color, their head color, their height, their noses, their length, their upper lips, any difference is there found in the “Who’s who” book, you see, that somebody was placed little higher in M.A.D. degree, then you’ve had it. All the good wishes of entertaining people, of doing, some good friendship of having, creating something very, very great, is all lost. All the effort is lost and you are left wondering, “Now what have I done? I did consult all the dictionaries and the ‘Who’s who’, I mean this ‘Who’s who’ is another ego pampering you know. But despite that there was a mistake somehow and the person has taken a very big objection that Mr. X who is one day junior to him has been made to sit ahead of him, is the greatest calamity to his ego. The poor chairs do not know what happens for their different shapes, you see. How much we fight over all such things, pampering our ego.

When this happens, when this happens in the worst possible way, you know, in today’s paper I was reading about this ripper [Yorkshire ripper]. Now the conclusion is reached that he’s not a psychopath… but he is on a ego trip. He’s doing all this for his ego satisfaction, because he telephones to the police, he sends a, what you call… a tape to the police, that he should be caught. He tells them “you’ll meet me here”, and still they cannot catch him so he thinks oh he’s such a great person, that nobody can catch him. The greatest thief ever born who could not be caught. So that is… what you call, is not a psychopath, but I don’t know what name will you give to such a man? I mean to an egoist like this, the one who lives by ego tries to satisfy his ego, and if his ego is not satisfied by something he doesn’t feel satisfied, I don’t know what should you call him?

Now how to overcome this ego, because people start seeing, gradually this, it happens. They start seeing Mr. Ego, “oh very great, you see it’s coming up, giving me ideas, alright”. You feel sometimes very depressed with the idea that this is Mr. Ego I was identified with. Alright? You see your ego. Then when you see your ego, then what do you do with it? Or if somebody says “Better watch your ego” then what happens? You start fighting it. You say “No… I will not say anything, I will just keep quiet! Let them say anything whatever they like”. Then you become another type. You become a person who is suffering from super-ego. So you are left with desires but do not act, and you’d say that “let others aggress me, I’m not going to aggress anyone, I’ll be very careful about not-aggression.” But by this kind of a thing, what happens that when you raise the left side, I mean left side which goes up on the right hand side – super-ego, it presses the ego down but again is bounced back and there’s a kind of a bouncing going on. By this behavior when you fight your ego the ego sits on your head much more. The more you try to fight ego it sits on your head. You are not to fight it. Supposing you take a balloon and start hitting it, it will hit you back further. Go on hitting it, it will go on hitting. Now which is the way to deflate this ego? How do we deflate a balloon? In the same manner, take a pin and give it a prick. You just look at yourself, say “Alright Mr. ‘So and So’, now, how do you do?” and you laugh at yourself, you say “Oh you were very unhappy you see when you saw that you were not placed very much, alright, now have a pin from me!” And that’s how you deflate it, by seeing it by all the time making fun of it, yourself, and piercing a pin into it. Not by deflating, in the way people say that you deflate the whole thing by pushing it down, or by killing it, but actually just, making a hole in it, in the same way if you start looking at yourself… and make fun.

Human beings only know very well how to make fun of themselves, no animals know that. If you learn how to make fun of yourself your ego will go down, otherwise this ego will suggest “Whatever you are doing is the best, this has to be done, that has to be done, I am the best, I am doing everything good”, and you might be torturing someone, aggressing someone, you might be just playing into the hands of ego like a madcap, and you might be a real madcap but you don’t know that you are. Because with ego a person becomes successful so-called, he becomes very brilliant, shines out, in competition he comes up, and nobody dare say a word to him otherwise he’ll have punch on the nose, you see. So also he becomes very mighty and powerful, and everybody hankers after such a behavior and such a thing. But, a time comes when he realizes that “I was hanging in the air. I forgot my basis, and now I have to come down”, like Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall and they had a great fall. Such a beautiful ryhme this thing is, written long time back. And all the Kings horses and all the men, could not put Humpty Dumpty back again, into it’s own shape you see? So don’t be Humpty Dumpties, and don’t live with that idea of being a Humpty Dumpty, is a simple thing to fight your ego and that happens very often in Sahaja Yoga, is a very common happening in Sahaja Yoga, where your Kundalini itself, you see, creates such situations, that you are flabbergasted at your ego.”

HH Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi