Shri Virata Puja. Cabella (Italy), 5 September 1999. Tonight, we are going to worship Shri Krishna as Virata. First, it is important to understand the incarnation of Shri Krishna. The word ‘Krishna’ comes from the word ‘Krishi’ – ‘Krishi’ means ‘agriculture’. He sowed the seeds of spirituality. And for that, first of all He had to think: “Where are we, as far as spirituality is concerned? How is the land?” So, what had happened at the time of Shri Rama is that he had created lots of maryadas. And by these maryadas people started mentally thinking about it: “I am not supposed to do that, I am not supposed to do this” – it was just a mental binding; it was not spontaneous, it was not ‘sahaj’. As a result, people became extremely serious. They wouldn’t talk much, they wouldn’t laugh, and they wouldn’t enjoy anything. So, Shri Krishna decided that first of all he must remove them from this conditioning. And this conditioning had to be removed in such a manner that they enjoy themselves. Then he found out that there were three suggestions as far as achieving the goal was concerned. So, first one, as he says, is to become a Realised Soul – Stita Pragnya – to go beyond all temptations, to go beyond all ego, to go beyond all kinds of conditioning, and to become a Stita Pragnya. Stita Pragnya is where he doesn’t feel like ordinary people, attracted towards things, but he is absolutely detached. And this detached person doesn’t take to any grievances, jealousies, and all these things. That he told. But how to achieve it he never told. And the second thing he described it that you must work, you have to work. After all, you have got all the human tendencies that is (are) to work. But the fruit of the work you must leave at the Lotus Feet of God – or you can call it the Divine Power. This was another trick of his, because he realised how human beings were twisted and how they had an ego if you told them something, how they would misinterpret it. So, he took the other way round – tell them something absurd. Now whatever work you, do your ego is intact and with that ego you can never give it up at the Lotus Feet of the Divine – it was then impossible. So, he made an impossible situation that after some time people would realise that this cannot be done and they would give up this idea of leaving everything at the Lotus Feet of the Divine. This was the one that he prepared the land. Second thing is that ‘Pushpam falam toya’ ‘Flowers, fruit and water – whatever you offer me, I will take it’. But when you do that, when you do that you must have Ananya bhakti. Ananya means completely single-minded bhakti, when there is not ‘the other’. This is only possible after Realisation. Only after Realisation, you can put the fruits of your work at the Lotus Feet of the Divine, and only after Self-realisation you can have Ananya Bhakti, means the Devotion, which is singular. These absurd conditions he put for human beings, because they were so much complicated. So many people tell me, “Mother we are doing Ananya bhakti” “How?” “Because we are singing on the street, we are taking the name of God all the time, we are going to Pandaripur in rags and for one month we walk, singing, singing, singing”. These kind of absurd ideas about bhakti he never gave. But it is the way he wanted to neutralise the absurdities of human beings that they thought that this was the bhakti – which it is not. Ananya Bhakti is only possible when you are a Realised Soul, when you are connected with the Divine. When there is not the other. This is how he tried to make a three-way attack on human beings, on their stupidity. Because he thought if I tell them directly “Do like this, do like that,” then they will say “Of course we did it and still we never achieved it.” In India there is a big ‘cult’, we can call it; people who go to Pandhapur. For one month they walk, in rags, singing the songs, and on the way, they go on eating food at different places. According to them this is Ananya Bhakti. And they achieve nothing. They become very sick and very tired and have a very bad old age. But who can tell them? They are all lost in it. So, this is a way one could tackle human beings to show their stupidity. And so many people come and ask me, as I told you, that ‘How is it that we do so much bhakti of Shri Krishna and we have achieved nothing?’ So, he is the one who prepared the land for sowing. We can say he was the one who was like a very great agriculturist. So, his name was Krishi-Krisht. There are so many things I have told you about him, how his name came as Krishna, then how he was called as Radhawal, who was Radha, who was Krishna and all those things. But when he talked of these things, also he told that you should become Stita Pragnya. That is what they call Gyana Yoga. Gyana means knowledge. So, you should get absolute knowledge. That he didn’t say how. That you know what is absolute knowledge, which you can feel on your fingertips in Sahaja Yoga. Another thing is, his specialty was to create discretion in people. He thought by doing all these things in a stupid manner they might develop discretion to know that this is not the way you can achieve anything. You have to get your Self-realisation. Discretion was very important. At this juncture when we are facing a sort of challenge of this new millennium – that the whole world is going to be destroyed and all those things that people are talking – it is really very important to know through discretion what is good and what is bad. One may talk of something as very good, something as very bad. But the Divine Discretion is very, very different. Very different, and which acts by itself. Once you are in the realm of Divine Discretion, you cannot commit mistakes. Even if you want to do it. I give you my example. We went to buy a house, and the fellow was like a beggar, he came and said “We have nothing, we have no food, they have taken away all our things, and we are just absolutely starving”. When he said that ‘we are starving, we have nothing’. So, I felt pity for him. So, I said, “Alright, increase the price”. First, we increased the price and still he was saying, “No, no, give us more”. Still we increased the price; I told my husband “You increase the price”. Though reluctantly, he increased the price. The third time again we increased the price, and then he said, “No, we’ll have something more than that, a little more”. Immediately this discretion worked and I said, “These are hypocrites”. I just left them and sat in the car. At the right moment. That was not such a good proposition or anything, but they could see that I am buying it out of my pity, of my compassion, but above the compassion was this discretion that said, “Nothing doing, you’d better get out of it!” So, this Divine Discretion is a very, very important thing, which we should see how it works and should be satisfied with that. Not to feel bad that you’ve missed a chance or anything, but you must feel very happy that this thing has happened and that your Divine Discretion has taken on. So, sometimes it appears that in that Divine Discretion you may do something wrong, or you have done something wrong. But if it is Divine, ultimately it will turn out to be very good. I will give you a very basic example, but that is also very true when you practice Sahaja Yoga: the discretion of Divine Discretion is extremely important to play a very great part in our lives, because this Divine Discretion gives us the real joy of our being, of our self, of Sahaja Yoga. So, the third point was for him to make people joyous and happy. But with all these maryadas of Shri Rama, he didn’t know how to do it. So, to give people joy he said “Alright, let us dance, let us sing, let us play Holi [Indian Festival of dance], all sorts of things” and with that he really originated many things that were really not serious, may look frivolous, but in that there was joy expressed. All that he did, to give them a full idea as for a Sahaja Yogi, or we can say for a Self-Realised soul, what would be the attitude towards everything. But it is not that you have to do it, but it just works out, it is like that. That in the state of Sahaj you enjoy everything. Enjoyment. And that is what his idea was, to create a sense of joy among people. Many people, there are lots of critics, have criticised this part of his life, according to them religion means you should become old just at the age of twenty years – you should become an old man of 80 years, something like that. Funny ideas of religious achievement. But he talked of joy, and he never talked of renunciation. He never talked that you give up your family, you give up your children, you give up everything – never, never. He said, “You must enjoy – enjoy with detachment”. But for people it is very difficult to understand how can it be that it is without detachment (attachment?): with attachment you can never enjoy. If you are attached to something, you cannot enjoy anything in a full way. Like supposing you are attached to your child. Very simple thing, you are attached to your child. If you are attached to your child then you will be bothered about things that should not be there, which will not give joy to the child either. You will not allow your child, say, to go out or to talk to people, whatever it is, all kinds of restrictions you are putting. But if you have really the Divine Discretion then you will know with whom he should talk, where he should go, what he should enjoy, and you will see that he enjoys that. Any attachment with anything doesn’t give you the full view of that person, or of that thing. If you are detached then you can see things from, let’s say, above, above the thing. If you are detached, you become thoughtlessly aware also. As I said now see the carpets are there, they are very, very beautiful carpets. Now if they are mine, I will be worried about them, I will be all the time worried because I am attached, that these carpets should not be spoiled, something may go wrong. But if I am not attached, I look at those carpets, and what do I see? The joy! The joy that was put in by the artist who made them. And that joy really tries to reflect in me also. That joy comes in me. So, to have an attachment to anything, there will be happiness but not joy. Because joy is single and happiness is double – happiness and unhappiness. So, even if I try to enjoy something I will think “Oh still there is this point [possible problem] is there”. But joy is all pervading. It has no boundaries, and you just get dissolved in the ocean of joy. That was what was Shri Krishna’s idea was, that to cut out these maryadas. Nowadays we see the maryadas of so many things are really useless.For example, you have discovered the maryadas of religion; see when they live in maryadas, then what happens they sort of coagulate, or they have all kinds of germination inside like the ponds, absolutely bound and it is not flowing like the river. So, like that you see it becomes a kind of a closed mind with these maryadas. And when you have these maryadas, you start thinking whether I should do it or not, whether I will enjoy it or not. But with these maryadas only you kill the joy. Now we have other maryadas, say as I told you about the religion. Many people who would love to come to Sahaja Yoga, but because they have maryadas of silly things of their religion, they cannot come. They think this is our religion. Why, they don’t understand. Falsehood becomes the maryadas and they don’t understand that what is the maryada is actually made by the religion also. You see now in Islam what is happening. It is with maryadas they want to have another country, this thing, that thing. In other Christian religion same thing happened. Also, in Hindu religion all these maryadas are really stagnating them completely and they are getting crushed into it. There is no discretion, because they have said it – they do it. They are so much blindfolded bout it that they cannot see what is right and what is wrong. But after Sahaja Yoga you can laugh at them and you can see them Then after we have social maryadas. Social maryadas are there, which are sometimes, when abandonment can become very horrid also. Like in the west now, the women think that the less dress they wear, the more beautiful they are. This is a new thing they have started. Now this is absurd, you should see the discretion behind it is very simple, that we have been animals and now we don’t want to have any clothes because we were animals. It is an animal heritage, which is why so many women do not want to wear full dresses. It is just animal behaviour. So, the maryada of good maryadas also – people can give up saying “We don’t want any maryadas, we are free, we can do whatever we like”. But in their freedom what do you achieve? Your animal instinct works in their freedom and you think you are a very free personality. Then we have maryadas of our country. God has not made different, different countries at all. Neither is it true that there are different countries, but variety is there. Variety of people, variety of places is there. These varieties must be accepted as something very artistic and one should not get ruined and confused with those ideas that we are Americans, we are Indians, we are this and we are that. You are not. Now you can know after Sahaja Yoga that you are all Sahaja Yogis, and you don’t belong to any country as such. The country may belong to you but you don’t belong to the country. I mean the work today is to understand that if you really want to care for all these countries and all that, then you must do some work, work of Sahaja Yoga, that people get rid of these silly ideas of fighting for territory, for this for that, all over the world it is going on. “We want this land. We want that land.” Land belongs to God, not to human beings, and what is the use of fighting for land, I don’t understand. But this confusion is there and illusion is there and people work out on this confusion and illusion to such an extent that they ruin their lives, the lives of their children, so many people are lost, so many people are in a lunatic asylum I should say, because they end up in some sort of a refugee camp. They are having a good house, nicely living there, and then you become a refugee. Why? Because they believe that they can have their own land, they can have their own place, and they should live there. This idea I think comes from some stupid leaders who want to have for themselves these lands. And that’s how people fight for land. There’s no need to fight for land, or fight for your country, or fight for this, or fight for that. But the situation is such that unless and until you fight you cannot get to the Truth. And that’s why, if you remember, that Shri Krishna told Arjuna that “You fight, you have to fight, that’s your work. You have to fight these people because they are the people who do not live with dharma. They are adharmees. So, you have to fight”. And that is how this fighting was so much justified because after fighting the war, they got back what they deserved. They were deceived and this is what Shri Krishna said, that you should not by any chance become a slave of these people, but you fight with them. So, fighting also is justified in the Divine Discretion. It is again the Divine Discretion, where you have to fight because you don’t want to be a slave. If you are a slave you are no good. So, for that you can fight. But when people start fighting for separation, for territory, it is not correct. On the contrary, one should never think of separating from the main lands. It creates lots of problems. But now we believe in the global religion, we believe in the global territory. We don’t have to ask for anything. Anywhere you go you are the citizen of that place. Anybody who wants to go to Russia ever, the whole of the Russians will be with you; you go to America, they will be with you. That’s how, because all these are ideas of human beings, and if the human beings get transformed, there will be no problem of any war, or of any territory to be achieved. This was the Divine Discretion of Shri Krishna, which is instilled within us, as you know that this is a part and parcel of the Vishuddhi Chakra, where Shri Krishna resides. But when he rises to your Sahasrara, when he rises to that level, then he becomes Virata. So Virata’s chakra is placed in the head here above the Agnya. And this Virata is the form of Shri Krishna who has risen above the Agnya. When you are risen above the Agnya, you become a part and parcel of Virata’s land, we can say. Because unless and until you are above your ego, you are still involved with yourself, and with wrong ideas of maryadas. But when you rise above that and you become the Virata, the Great, then you are in the land of Virata, and Virata’s powers are tremendous. As has been seen by Arjuna, the form of Virata. The power of Virata becomes so tremendous that it acts globally. It acts in such a manner that you sit here – and anywhere it can act. I have seen that now. Many a times people say, “Mother, it’s a miracle. My mother was sick and she was not here and I just prayed and she got alright.” This is all the power of Virata. The power of Virata is that it can penetrate into the subtle side of human beings in such a manner that we are connected with everything, we are not separate, and every drop is connected with the ocean. We are connected with the whole universe. And when you become citizens, I should say, of Virata, then all the things with which you are connected also get your vibrations, your ideas, your ambitions – everything passes through that. And it works, it works. You have seen how many miracles have taken place in your lives. It is the Virata Shakti that works. Now for that we have to know how to worship Virata. First of all, you have to rise above your ego. Very important. Otherwise how can you worship? There is your ego standing in-between, and how can you rise up to the point of Virata? You have to pass through that. Once you are above your ego, you enter into the Kingdom of Virata. There the king is the Virata and you are the subjects who are looked after completely by Virata Shakti, by the power of Virata. But at that stage you become really a universal personality, in a way. Because whatever are the problems universally, now not necessarily that they should be attached to you or connected to you. Supposing a person is of that level. Now there may be a war in some other country, it can stop. Somebody who is feeling oppressed can win over. Anywhere your compassion moves, it works out. Wherever your attention will go, it will work out. And sometimes you are surprised as to “How it works, Mother, how these things work out, how these coincidences have taken place?” Only thing is, you have crossed that state of your ego and have gone into the state of Virata. Which is a very important thing to do, is to enter into the area of Virata. Then you don’t think this is your country, this belongs to you, that belongs to you – this belonging business finishes off. Then you belong to Virata. And he uses you for his own purpose in the sense that when your whole thinking is different, becomes global thinking, then he acts. And then his powers are manifold. And Krishna’s power is that he uses a conch to call people. I have given conches to all the leaders, so we have to now announce and call people. But at the level of Virata, you don’t have to do all that. At the level of Virata people just see, they will know. Just they will watch you and they will know. Just they will think you are human beings, and you are so sweet, so good, just like gems shining all the time, so they will be impressed. This comes through the Virata’s blessings. When you become that, then you forget about other things like you have big positions or anything, or you come from a very rich family and all that. All these nonsensical things which are actually not true. And all these things on which you want to exist, are no more. People like to show off their wealth, some people like to be very sort of demonstrative of what they think they are. But in the case of a person who rises above his ego and is a part and parcel of that Virata Shakti, enters into the kingdom of Virata, he knows he is very small. He is very small compared to that, and he just dissolves into that Shakti. And this should happen to us, that we should humble down, we should humble down and know that our powers, whatever we have, if they give us ego, we should get rid of it. We should not have that ego. We should get rid of it and we should actually achieve that state where you can be called as citizens of the Virata’s Power. May God bless you all Now, when you are entering into the kingdom of Virata, you have to be like children. You are children there. As children you enter. As Christ has said: "When you enter into the Kingdom of God, you have to be like children." And that is what you have to be today, all of you, to be innocent like children. You have to be innocent like children. H.H. Shri Matji Nirmala Devi