“The Culture of Universal Religion”. Bordi (India), 7 February 1985.

Today is the second day of our new journey into the battlefield. We have to win people with love, compassion, affection and dignity. When we say it’s a Vishwa Dharma, it’s a Universal Religion we belong to, first and foremost thing, the essence of that, is peace. The peace has to be within, to begin with. You have to be peaceful within yourself. If you are not peaceful, if you are playing tricks with your ego, if you are just satisfying yourself saying that you are peaceful, you are sadly mistaken. Peace is to be enjoyed within yourself. It is to be felt within yourself. So do not give wrong satisfactions to yourself, do not give false notions to yourself. Don’t cheat yourself.

Peace has to be felt within yourself, and if you are not feeling that, you shouldn’t come and ask me, “Mother, why I am not feeling it.” Because I am not going to tell you that something [is] wrong with you. You have to work it out that you should feel peaceful within yourself.It is not that if you have too much of silence outside, you feel peaceful. The peace has to be within yourself. You have it. Your Spirit is absolutely peaceful, 'avyagra', without restlessness. There is no restlessness in your Spirit, absolutely peaceful and steady.It is for you to feel it. It is not for anybody else to certify you. This is one thing. Secondly, when I am telling you something, you think I am not telling you. It doesn’t register in your brain. You think I am telling it to X, Y, Z but not to you. You are not in it. That’s another sign [that] there is no peace. Because there is no peace, there is no registration. Whatever goes into your head, that is going to work out.

But what I find [is] that people [who] have concave personalities, then they receive it. Those who have convex personalities, do not register anything . The registration is so poor that, whatever I say doesn’t have any effect on them. Otherwise, whatever I say is a mantra. It should have direct effect on you, and you should feel that effect, that penetration within you. But as if it is for somebody else, as if it is not for you. This shows there is no peace within you.

Only the peace within can register whatever is auspicious, whatever is nourishing for your growth. So try to make peace with yourself. Do not fight with yourself, “Why should I do it?”, “I am so bad!”, “I should not have done it!”. All these things, you should not do. Try not to fight with yourself, first of all.

Then you fight with me, “Why am I like this?" "Why should it be like this with me?" "Why is it I catch?" "Why?" How am I to answer such a question? It is very aggressive. I think it is very aggressive attitude of many Sahaja Yogis to come and ask me such a question, “Why?” Because I can’t tell you what is wrong with you, it is not in my culture. You should find yourself what is wrong with you . But it’s not “what’s wrong with you” is the problem. What is right with you is the attitude. Whatever is right with you, put your foot on that, establish yourself on that point. And then develop yourself higher.

Peace is the keynote, as I said, for universal growth of this Religion. It is disturbed by many things. Firstly, as I said, by yourself. You shouldn’t have funny ideas about yourself. People have very funny ideas. I see Sahaja Yogis, as soon as they get realisation, or something better happens to them, they start telling others how to do meditation, how to stand up, how to give bandhan, how to do this and that. It’s very very poor, is very low level.

Try to assimilate within yourself. First grow yourself That growth itself, will tell others how one should be. Your own character, your own temperament, your own nature, your own behaviour. All this will tell others that this is a great man and they will try to follow your example. Example is the best teaching. When the tree is small, even if it says “I am great,” nobody is going to sit under a dwarf tree. But when it is a big tree you can see the shade and everybody knows it’s a big tree and they can come and sit under that. You don’t have to tell. In the same way, when you grow, you don’t have to certify that “I am great”, it just works.Now the peace within expresses, first of all, [as] peace with others. That is the first sign of manifestation of peace. Such a person doesn’t use harsh words, doesn’t use cruel words. But he’s also not a person who is ineffective. He’s very effective, using very sweet and nice words. Maybe he begins by using harsh words, then he mellows down and comes down to a position where he is effective as well as he is very mild and sweet.

Such a personality has to be developed outside. So, peace with your friends, peace with Sahaja Yogis. If you cannot be peaceful with Sahaja Yogis then you are no good. Absolutely no good. When you meet another Sahaja Yogi you can’t bark like dogs at each other, can you? You leave three Sahaja Yogis together, you end up with a big barking system. They can’t manage within themselves. If there are hundred, then it’s alright. But you can’t leave three and four here and there.So, the peace should be with your brothers and sisters. They are all born out of My Sahasrara and nobody has the right to insult, to be sarcastic. Saying things which are harmful. That’s no friendship, that’s no friendship. It is a kind of a very subtle enmity that you are carrying on in your hearts. That cannot be forgiveness. If you say sarcastic things to others, you are not in the culture of Universal Religion. You should be respectful. The more respectable you are to each other, the better it would be.I don’t know how to tell you this. But say, there is a Sahaja Yogi, you shouldn’t call him like as you would call any Tom Dick and Harry. Like there’s someone going. “Eh Mr. X, come here!” Now people don’t even say Mister. Please try to use their surnames would be better. Mr. So, Mr. So Mr. So. .Would be better.Because this modern style of not using the surname has brought down the respect for each other. But I think, Sahaja Yogis should try a new method and suggest to Me even better methods, how to address each other, in such a way that you respect others. That respect will create that peace within each other. Suddenly you come out with remarks. Very nasty remarks they are. There’s no sense in it. That’s not our culture. We belong to Universal Religion, how can it be that culture?So, when you try to be peaceful with your brothers and sisters, try to be extremely respectful. When you write letters to each other, you say “My dear brother in Sahaja Yoga Such and Such.” I have seen all communists do that. Any body who belongs to any party does that. It’s a kind of a respect they have. You can’t talk like street people and ordinary people because you are really extraordinary, and all that is extraordinary has to be expressed through you.As I am talking to you of this new culture, let us understand how in many nations, people have adopted cultures and cultures. Japan, I know, has been affected, very much, by modernisation. But Zen taught them certain kind of culture in which, supposing, you see two Japanese have a car and they break each other’s car, then they don’t say anything. They come out of their car, one will bow to another, the another will bow to another, and get into the car and get out.Then if they have to claim something, they’ll go to the courts, but there they don’t fight, because what is the need? And I asked Japanese, “How do you manage it?” So they said, “But what is the need to fight there on the street? Because after all, if it is to be paid, it’s the insurance that is going to pay. If the car is broken, alright they are going to pay us. Why to shout at him?” It’s very sensible and practical, I think. Why to waste your breath for nothing at all? You are not going to get anything.But I have known people who drive, and they are abusing every person who comes across on their driving. I mean, really it’s curse of life, the way some people drive! And the same way they drive in their own lives. All the time cursing this, “That one is like this, this one is bad, that one is doing like that”. Even in Sahaja Yoga. They think they have a right to criticize each and every person except for themselves.So to keep this peace with others, be on an apologetic mood. “I hope I haven’t done this mistake.” “I hope I haven’t hurt you.” “I hope I haven’t put your things in a wrong way.” Like that. Be on an apologetic mood.You can find that among Indians. Indians have that kind of a problem, they are more on apologetic mood. Sometimes, it is impossible to convince them. I will give you an example. We went down to Sangli, and you were so full in the morning and the food was not ready. So they said that “We cannot have our food because it is late now and it will be later, so better we sleep off.” They felt very hurt, you know. They thought that it was their mistake. Now, it is registered that we haven’t given food to them, it is a horrid thing we have done. And then I had to convince them that they are no way hurt, they are happy that they are not eating, they have too much of food. “No, but still it will be registered in our name that we didn’t offer them food and they slept without any food.” It was impossible to convince them till the end, they were all the time feeling apologetic.You see in Indian culture, we have something very great, as Japanese, as I told you, that we are more on the apologetic style. Never on the aggressive. Never trying to find faults with others, but we find faults in what way we have failed, how we have failed. This is something to be learned from Indians, if they have retained their culture at all. It’s actually in their blood.So that is how, our culture is going to be such that we will express complete peace within ourselves. And you must know that you are in one body, active. You are active cells in one body. All the cells of the body are never active. But those who are active have to be at peace with each other, otherwise, what will happen to that poor body? So try to make peace.The second thing you can do to make peace is to talk less. Whenever there is a quarrel or anything, just keep quiet. You see, it will have better effect. If two persons are quarrelling, never try to solve it, but just keep quiet. Quiet is very important. More to be silent. But it should not be another extreme like English culture, that they just don’t talk, whatever it is. They don’t talk, but, they think too much. You must keep quiet with the feeling that ‘May God bless these people some sense.” It should not be ice frozen sea, but peace which is effective. Peace that is effective.So in this new culture, we have to be extremely peaceful people. And that peace should be expressed on your faces. People should understand that you are peaceful. That’s why I say, if you are neatly dressed, your hair are neatly put, people will feel alright. Otherwise if you reach some person with dishevelled hair, you know he gets disturbed as it is! “God knows what has happened? From which quarrel this man is coming? Somebody must have pulled his hair, or must have something gone wrong with him, that the way he is dishevelled.” So if you are neatly dressed, people are not put off so much, because they think that “No, no, this cannot be, because, you see, after all, he never had a quarrel. He’s just coming peacefully from his house.”In our culture, neatness in very important. Neatness of thought, neatness of mind, neatness of body, neatness of behaviour. How you do things neatly is very important in our culture. That’s very, very important! Which may look very funny to some people. Because, whether you hold the fork this way or that way makes no difference to Me. It doesn’t matter how you hold your fork or knife on a table. That’s not so important.But it’s definitely it’s important how you hold the Aarti, how you hold the Puja things, how you hold my photographs. How you hold the things that belong to other Sahaja Yogis, how you respect the things that are auspicious.So that is what one has to have within yourself. The neatness, of piousness, of auspiciousness, of holiness. That is to be done with very great care and understanding, and with that weight of auspiciousness you should walk. With that weight of auspiciousness. You are auspiciousness walking on this earth, yourself. You are peace on this earth. But the way peace is put into this vessel has to be clean, has to be neat and has to be placed in such a way that nothing spills out.So to have peace, the best way to put your mind right, is to think of good things. Think of the flowers, not of the thorns. What good things others have done to you. What good things there are. What are the beautiful moments you have had, and count your blessings. Count your blessings. Otherwise you cannot create peace.[Mother tells someone off in Marathi]You need not pay attention to everything like that. Keep your attention at peace. Keep the peace inside, with your attention inside. Actually, if you really allow all my words to go inside your brain, I’m sure I’ll achieve the results but with a convex mind, it’s very difficult. Just suck in!The another aspect of peace is never try to support anything that is boisterous or which is destructive. Anything that is destructive is never to be supported. But anybody who is being tortured or aggressed or dominated, is to be protected and supported. If you have the strength of peace, you can do it just by standing there. You don’t have to fight for your peace. But if it comes to that... A person like Hitler when he came, people had to fight for their peace.Now, the second part of our culture has to be Bliss. People should see bliss working in us. People should feel there is bliss. If a person is blissful, he looks blissful. He emits, bliss. He radiates it. He doesn’t look a miserable, unhappy creature, who is all the time grudging, grumbling or worried about little petty things here and there. And nobody has the right to disturb anybody’s bliss. [If] somebody is in a blissful state, try to copy that person and become that. But people get jealous of such people who are blissful and try to disturb! That’s why so many saints were tortured, because they were so blissful and happy people.We have to enjoy our bliss within, that is important. Perhaps you are not aware of the bliss that you have. Not at all aware. Never, never before there were so many people who got realisation. Never before, in the history, that Adi Shakti Herself came on this earth to solve your problems. Never before, that people of very ordinary effort, of very little seeking, of very little understanding have been given realisation like this. It’s like, sometimes, if you see, like a stone becoming a diamond suddenly. You can cut a diamond from a diamond.Such blissful state you are in. It’s tremendous bliss has come. It’s so effective. I myself don’t know when I see them. I’m really surprised how it is working.Bliss can only come through gratitude. Only through enlarging your heart with gratitude. Bliss is the reward of gratitude. The gratitude which is not just worldly or just spoken lip-service, but is from the heart, is from the heart, gratitude of the heart. And the blissful people are never jealous of others because what is greater than bliss? Bliss has so many dimensions that you go beyond the realm of cause and effects. All the angels, all the ganas are there to help you. You know that it works out. This way it works out, that.... But you take it for granted. You don’t have that effect of the bliss in you when you know this has happened, that, has happened. What a bliss!You cross your hearts when you feel blissful. Cross your hearts and feel that, just see. Feel the bliss like this – cross your hearts. Feel the bliss! Tremendous bliss is within us. How much it has happened to us that God has been so kind. Will you please put your hands across those who are sitting down there, please! The other lady also. Where is she looking? You are sitting on a chair, must you look at every person who is coming? There is no need!. Feel it! May God bless you.So this bliss when you find everywhere, in a little thing also you find there is bliss. Zen taught that to people. They saw bliss in seeing only a moss, a little bit of moss, and you see the moss and you say, “0 God, what a beautiful piece it is! ” God has created little moss, and that moss has all that little little tentacles, and that bliss. But those who are vain people can never feel bliss. Vanity kills bliss. Ego kills bliss.Once Shivaji was building a huge fort. And, there it so happened that he got into ego. He felt, “See because of this work, so many people are employed.” [Then] his Guru Ramdasa appeared on the scene. He himself is the controller of ego, because he was the incarnation of Hanumana. So he came and he said “Alright, I want you to do one thing for me”. He said, “Yes Sir, what do you want me to do?” He said, “You break this boulder that is lying here, such a big boulder, bit by bit.” So it started breaking when people hit it. And inside came a little stone which he took up just like a coconut in his hand and he broke [it]. And there was water and there was a frog inside. And he realised, Shivaji, that, “if God has created this frog, He’s also given him water. Who am I to have this ego?”So the bliss came into him, that God has provided me with everything. It’s just a red-carpet treatment for me. What have I done? Nothing. It is so beautiful!How many have got this bliss? Have sympathy for them. Have compassion for them, those who do not have.But bliss comes to you through your confidence, If you have no confidence in yourself, bliss cannot be. And the worst thing against confidence is – “Then what should I do? Then how can I get it? Then why not I have?” – is the worst. You fighting yourself all the time!You are that, sitting on that, and still if you are saying, “Why shouldn’t have it,” so what to answer? I mean you just want to ask because you have to ask? It’s there. Why are you asking? Just feel it!If that works out, that you feel where you are sitting, then you’ll be surprised that you are at peace with yourself, and there is bliss.Last of all, in this culture, you Have to behave like people who have authority. You have the authority of your Spirit. You are authorised. You have the Spirit. Those who are in authority never try to show off. Because they are in authority, what is there to show off? Only mad people show off, you see.If somebody puts a label on the head “I am Inspector General of Police”, people will say that – take him to lunatic asylum. In the same way, some people say, “I am Sahaja Yogi. What do you say? I can do what I like!” Then where should we put him? Your authority is your Self, your own being. People should see in you what you are. You don’t have to carry labels with you that, “I am Sahaja Yogi such and such!” – X Y Z number. criminal No. 5, criminal No. 10! You are authorised. Authority shows on your face. But now you are actualised on the authority.You see, all the authorities are artificial. For example, somebody today is Prime Minister, may become a beggar on the street. Could be. In democracy everything is possible. Same in any authoritarian governments. So today, you might be something at the height, you might just go down. But a Sahaja Yogi will remain a Sahaja Yogi. You are authorised and actualised. Means whatever is your authority is part and parcel of your being, you are that. Like you are a human being, you are a human being. Now you can’t grow tails even if you want.So now you are authorised, actualised, completely moulded Sahaja Yogis. Like the sandalwood – sandalwood is not to be told by taking a vow “oh, it is sandalwood”. It is sandalwood because every part of it (microphone stops working for some time, Mother makes some jokes about Indian electricity problems)...has the fragrance of sandalwood. Every part of you, every bit of you must have the fragrance of Sahaja Yoga. So you are not only actualised, you are perfected. You are perfected.So you must have the dignity of that authority in you. And dignity is very humble dignity. Dignity is never arrogant. The sign of dignity is humility. I told you a story about a person who had gone out and he went and asked a blind man, a saint, if he had seen anybody going this way. So the saint said “Yes, you are the king, I know Sir. Your servant was here first, and then your Minister came, and now you have come.” He was amazed, because he was blind. How could a blind person see these things? He said, “I could make out from the humility.”When your servant came, he said, “Eh you blind man! Have you seen somebody going this way?” When your minister came he said, “Have you seen someone going this way?” But when you came, you said “Sir, I am sorry to ask you such a question, but did you hear somebody was passing this way?”This is what it is. Humility is the sign. How you talk to others, immediately people will know that you have the authority from God. See the humbleness of Divine. How it is trying to please you, and amuse you, and make you happy, in the nature, also in the lectures! (referring to the way the microphone stopped working). Alright?So now we’ll have our Puja. I hope You have understood the Culture of your Universal Religion. Please try to adopt it.May God Bless you.