Shri Mahakali Puja. St Denis, Paris (France), 11 July 1993.

Today we have decided to have the puja of the Devi. This time we are not talking about Adi Shakti, about Kundalini or about Saraswati, Mahalakshmi. We are talking about the Mahakali. That's the Goddess which is the first one, which comes first and establishes Shri Ganesha in the form of Gauri. She’s the complete form of Mahasaraswati and Mahalaxmi. Out of Her only these energies emit.

So She’s the one who is the power of desire of God. Within us also She creates desires. These desires within us start emitting outside and we develop a kind of a reaction to all our desires. The first and foremost desire, as you know very much, the most primitive, is to feed yourself. And this is given to us by the Goddess. She gives us the desire to feed ourselves. Now if we don't feed ourselves, then we cannot survive. We have to have food. It is very important that we should feed ourselves sufficiently enough to exist on this Earth. And also we have seen that when this kind of desire grows very much more than normal, then you become slaves of this desire and any amount of food cannot satisfy you. All the time you think of nothing else but food.

I have told you many a times that the French are very particular as to what they should eat. You see, they take at least forty-five minutes on a dinner table to decide what they will eat. Ultimately, it's just the same. I mean, I don't understand how can you need forty-five minutes to decide what you want to eat? But this desire starts acting through your ego. So it satisfies you. And also those people who are manufacturing food or who are supplying food in hotels and all that know how to satisfy your desires. So they bring it in a way, show it round and then place it before you, so that you approve of it and when you approve of it then they serve. They know how to befool you and you feel quite happy, „Oh, it’s very good.“ Even the wine is given for testing first of all and, whether you like it or not, you have to say it's very good and you better show that you like it.

So this desire gets completely controlled by your ego and when it becomes a kind of a collective desire and a collective ego expression, then we become like gluttons, you see. I would say sophisticated. They’re sophisticated, but we are gluttons. Now with that, other things also people want to have, like proper sort of a table lying and linen, this, that. Of course, if ego is not there, then people would like to see to please others by feeding them. This desire reacts. And then the new desire comes in through the blessings of the Mahakali that you like to see others eating the food. You enjoy when others eat the food cooked by you, served by you, given by you. Just want to watch. That gives you satisfaction. But food, to any extent you may go, you will never be satisfied. Today you will ask for this, tomorrow for that. This, that.

Now, in the Western life today, it has become very important to ask a child every day, „What will you have?“ In olden days the food was cooked for all the family. Everybody would eat the same food. But now you must ask the child, „What will you have?“ Then the child has to say, „I'll have this.“ Now, supposing you don't have that in your fridge, you are finished. Early in the morning there will be no shop open, nothing. How will you please that boy in his ego because he wants a particular thing? So gradually we build up even the ego of our children. We have to say, „This is cooked, this is nice and you eat this.“ Is the duty of parents not to allow children to grow their ego by what they want. You should know what they have to have. Then it starts growing and growing and growing till they become quite grown up, but very primitive.

So, actually, the blessing of the Devi on this point is that She gives you a desire that you should serve others. Also you then get concerned about people who are starving, want to find out why they are starving.

The another extreme of this could be that some people think we should not eat so much, a kind of a sacrificing nonsense. Whatever one has to eat, one should eat. Then they say, „Why should we eat so much, Mother. After all, there are people who are starving.“ By your eating less or more, you cannot save those who are starving, can you? So there’s no wisdom in this kind of austerity. And when the people enter into this kind of austerity, then they have sufferings and troubles and such people become extremely, I should say, ascetic and hot-tempered and you should never go near to a person who is of that kind without a. barge pole. God knows when he will jump on you. So a person who is hungry is as bad as a person who is overfed. I think hungry is worse.

Now if you look at yourself, the second desire that comes to you is that everyone should love you. This comes because that makes you good person. You know that everybody likes goodness. So people try to be good to others, nice to others, say a hundred times thank you, do all kinds of things to please others. By pleasing others, they think others will like us very much. But then it develops again out of bounds and then all the time you try to please others so that you become absolutely slavish. You become so artificial that people can make out that it’s nothing natural with this gentleman. He’s just trying to please us.

Now, with that, the pleasing behind is some sort of an advantage out of it. If you please another one with a detached mind, not expecting anything, that should be done for you or that could be achieved through that pleasing. It's very pure pleasing and it's very good. That makes you really righteous and good. But supposing you try to please others only just to take advantage of that person, then you develop hypocrisy - hypocrisy of the worst type. And you get lost. People mock at you, laugh at you. They’re never pleased. They know that you are a hypocrite and you’re doing it for some sort of an advantage or an exploitation. You are not doing it because you want to be good really, to be nice.

A person who is good, automatically pleases others. But he doesn’t try to please. He’s just - his nature is such, his temperament is such that he just pleases people. This, when taken over again by Mister Ego, then really you can't beat it. Then they become diplomats. You see, could be politicians, all these doomed classes they become and they cannot get out of it. They get so much used to it, that they cannot get out of it.

Now what does the Devi do? She brings the truth before them. She shows that what you have been doing for a particular exploitation doesn’t work out. After a point it does. She exposes them. The exposure starts and with that exposure, they’re surprised, „How am I exposed? How am I caught, how people know?“ This is the job of the power of Mahakali. She exposes all that is wrong, all that is falsehood, that is untruth, She exposes.

Then the third desire people have is to possess material things. From which materialism has come. But there’s no end to it. End can never come because they have no satisfaction in getting one thing. Supposing today I want to have this carpet. All right, I'll get this one. Then I want to have another one. Then I want to have another one. Then I want to have a car and then I want to have a helicopter, then an aeroplane. I don't know what I want to have then.

So it goes on and on and on and on until you reach a time where people start thinking, „What's the matter with him?“ And you cannot enjoy anything that you get. This is also a human failing and this human failing creates economics, you know that. Economics is created because wants, in general, are not satiable. They are not satiable. So what happens? We go on from jumping from one to another to another to another and another. So then you become slaves of entrepreneurs so much so, that you lose your individuality completely.

For example, an entrepreneur produces a funny kind of a dress, one year. So everybody wants to wear the same without thinking if it is necessary or not. Then he brings in another form. Next year everything is given up, buy the another one. Third year another one. So pile of all these clothes are there and nicely the manufacturer has become a great man of designs - his very good designs, how to befool human beings. He has become a rich man and you have become poor with all this kind of clothes which has no meaning for you anymore.

About the same thing, about everything, something is fashionable. That means you have no individuality. We talk of individuality, but we want to do things which everybody’s doing. I mean, you know that all kinds of absurd things people have done in the name of fashion and specially people who are traditionally bound, who have had no traditions like Americans, I would say. They go on changing after every six months. Every year you go, you find a new type of people there, new type of clothes. It's very surprising how they change so fast without even thinking whether this will suit me or not. Somebody says wear tight clothes, they’ll go with tight clothes. Then they develop varicose veins, so they wear with the holes. Then they develop some other problem, then they wear another kind. Nobody wants to think, „Why should I change my dress?“ Like, say, in India we wear saris, finished. Nothing there. No problem with the tailor, nothing doing. Whatever sari we like, we’ll buy. And a sari came called as mini sari in India, which was up to here maybe, I don't know, not six inches, but at least up to the knee. It came for about, I think, eight, seven days in Bombay and went back. People said, „Get lost. We don't want it.“

So this headache of all the time getting into a fashion like horse without any sense in the head has to be understood properly. Why people do it? Because they have no brains. They’re brainless people. They’re not intelligent to see that we are befooled every year. But, for Sahaja Yogis, the Mahakali power works and She teaches them that „All right, this dress suits you. Have this one.“ And it's the best for you. Once for all, your lifelong problem is solved. With this kind of blouse, I started wearing from the very beginning perhaps and I've been wearing it and now I find everybody wears the same style.

Why to waste your energy in changing every day this blouse starting from here to here, to here and going back again like this, you see. It's such a waste of energy, such a waste of cloth. And we make ourselves so cheap running with the race of reducing the sleeves, reducing this, reducing that - all increasing. Is all a desire to impress people that we are very up to date. Who wants to know? Who wants to find out that you are up to date or not? And we have no courage to keep to our own dress that we have purchased. Why to waste so much money? We don't even think. Go on changing, changing, changing for nothing at all. So this is desire is there to impress others with our outside things. So many thing like dress there are, which wee try to impress.

Now, hairstyle. I read an article. They said that these hairstyles are responsible for many divorces. I was wondering, „How can it be hairstyles responsible for divorces?“ Because they had made a survey. A man had liked a hairstyle of his fiancée and then she changed her hairstyle, so he divorced her. And the other way round. When it is so cheap way of disposing of such a deep relationship of husband and wife.

Now certain facts start. I also saw one documentary about a lady who’d said that it was in one of the advertisements, something, sort of a thing appeared that your legs should be of this shape and what you should do. So poor thing spent so much time, energy, ran up and down to make the legs. I mean what is the importance of these legs, except for walking? So she went to make the shape like that. She used to measure it - would be always something missing here and there. Then many people joined. They had a class for it. And a group joined to make legs like that. And, ultimately, they found out that that leg was made out of wood. And they spent so much money, so much energy to make legs like that. For what? What is the purpose? If anybody says, „You run like this,“ they start running. They say, „Jump like this,“ they start jumping. But why? Have we gone all nuts in our heads that we should accept whatever one said, we should do that. What is the purpose?

So this kind of stupidity comes in our heads when we start using our ego. With the ego a person becomes absolutely stupid. Because he’ll say, „What's wrong? What's wrong if I have just a little hair here? What's wrong? If I just try to wear a very short dress here, what's wrong?“ The wrong is why are you wearing? Why don't you ask a question? Why are you wearing? If you ask a question to yourself, „Why do I have this kind of hairstyle?“ „Why do I do like this?“ It is really difficult to tell people to do right things, but wrong things people take to like that. For example, I told everyone that you put oil, if not every day, just before bath, a lot of oil in your hair and wash. Now I find many people getting bald. But they didn't put the oil. What can I do about it? But such a simple thing they won't have. Such a simple thing they would not believe, that you need something for your nourishment. But they will do something which is absurd, nonsensical without even thinking, „What is going to harm us.“

Here the Mahakali, what does She do? She punishes you. Your body is punished. If you wear very tight clothes, you develop problems of your legs. If you wear holey pants, then you get cramps. Anything you do abnormal, you have to pay for it. First you have to pay for doing it and then you have to pay for it physically. So many things can be avoided if we just had a simple life, decide once for all that „I will have this kind of dress for this lifetime, finished.“ Every day to change, itself, is a headache. But that satisfied the ego, not your Self.

So the Mahalaxmi Principle in us raises higher and higher. Despite that, we are pulled down. Then this Mahakali, She comes forward and shows what wrong we have done, how we have gone wrong, how we have missed the point. Instead of thinking what is wrong, She teaches you, „It is wrong.“

Then another thing She does, which is a very beautiful thing She does, I think sometimes, that She creates an illusion to test your intelligence, to test your sensibility. She creates an illusion. Branti rupena samstita. She makes a branti in your head. Illusion. So you become illusive or others become illusive or a situation becomes illusive. And you are lost in it. Then you really understand that it's wrong thing I have done.

It's a very nice story about Narada. Narada was under an impression about himself and ultimately he became ego-oriented and he started saying, „Oh, look at me. I am never enticed by any woman. Even Shiva was enticed by Cupid. I am never enticed. I am the highest, of highest, Brahmachari.“ So Vishnu sent two gandharvas to entice him. So they met him in a forest and told him, „Oh, Narada, you are such a handsome man, such a beautiful man and all your beauty’s wasted. You must test your beauty. You must see how beautiful you are. You’re so handsome.“ He said, „Really.“ „Yes.“ he said. „There’s a very simple way of testing you.“ „It’s how?“ He said, „There’s a wedding coming up of a very beautiful woman. She is the princess of the beauty city, is called [???] and you should go there and see how she will appreciate you. So he, in his ego, became so stupid that he went there. And he was sitting and lots of people were coming, big big maharajas, rajas, all of them were witting and he was thinking, „Oh, I’m the best among all of them. Who are these? The princess will just garland me, no doubt about it.“ And these two were putting that illusion in his head, branti. With the Agnya, you get branti. This princess came round. She looked at him and she laughed aloud. She couldn't control herself and she moved on giggling. He couldn't understand why she laughed at him. She didn’t garland him or nothing but she just laughed. So he couldn’t understand, „I’m such a handsome man,“ this thing. So these two gandharvas told him, „Oh, it doesn’t matter. You see, she doesn’t understand. She'll come back,“ this, that. Then they went out and near a lake and he sat down to wash his face and looked at in the water his reflection. He looked looked like a monkey. He looked at these two and he cursed them. He said, „I look like a monkey.“ Said, „To us, you look like very handsome.“ „But I really look like a monkey.“

So this branti, this illusion was created in his mind by his ego. But this power, itself, Mahakali’s power, She puts this ego right by creating illusion, branti. And this is responsible for many illusions we run after. It’s a mirage, running after it, running after it. Once we are satisfied within ourselves, then we don't run after mirages. This illusion, if it would not be created, people would be so egoistical that whole world will be finished.

So this is the great work of Mahakali Power within us, that She creates illusions. Many people talk of maya. „This is Mother, maya. This is maya. That is maya.“ Is the work of Mahakali. She wants to test you. She wants to test you. But in Sahaja Yoga it's not such a strong one.

For example, you know Abraham had a son. One son he had after a long time. And God asked him that he should sacrifice his son. His wife said also was feeling terrible that he has to sacrifice his son. So he went down to the place where the child was to be sacrificed. He made a fire, everything and was about to put the child on that pyre of fire when the voice came. This is Mahakali, that you don’t have to sacrifice your child.

We have many such stories in Indian mythology also where they were tested. So to test Sahaja Yogis also, this Mahakali helps you. There was a gentleman who was very egoistical, so I told him to come to Delhi because I didn’t know how to do it here. he came to Delhi and he told everybody, „See, Mother told me to come here just to cure Her.“ I said, „All right.“ He came. I said, „What’s wrong with Me?“ He said, „Mother, Your Nabhi is very bad.“ I said, „Really? Acha, you put a bandhan to yourself and now see for yourself.“ „Oh my God, you see, what’s happening to me here?“ I said, „That’s My Nabhi.“

So this is how the illusion corrects you. If there is no illusion, you would not ever be corrected directly. Supposing I say, „Don't do this.“ You may not like. Of yourse, mostly you like, but sometimes you don't. And then the illusion works and then you realize, „Where was I and where am I now? I should not have done this. How is it I have landed into this problem? What has made me so stupid?“ So this is something which She does.

Another is She's the one who relaxes you completely. When you are tired and fed up, when you don't know what to do, then She makes you sleep. She’s the one who gives you sleep. All day's work you do, ultimately the Mahakali power acts on you as sleep. She makes you sleep, sleep like a child. You know, at that time, all that wrong we have done to ourselves and to others are forgiven. In Her lap we sleep nicely, quietly and all our problems are solved. In those dreams, when you are, She brings forth solutions to you. I know so many people told Me, „Mother, you came in my dream and told me that this is the medicine you should take. You came in my dream and You told me that this particular type of life will suit you.“ They see Me clearly coming, but there it is not whole of Me, but I think the Mahakali Power acts. Into very deep sleep you are, it is called, at the Sushupti. There She appears. One lady came to me and she said, „Mother, You came in the dream and you said that I’m here in Bombay. Nobody told me.“

So so many things happen like this. In the dream She guides you and tells you. Now what happens sometimes, people tell Me that I had such and such dream, which is all falsehood, I know. They never dreamt like that. They never saw like this. But, just to impress Me, they tell Me that, „Oh, I had a dream,“ this, that. I just show complete ignorance. I ask, „Must be?“ Then they are put into again branti, means illusion. Gradually, they realize that it was wrong to tell lies to Mother. So the correction part takes place, but the greatest thing that She does is to give you the sense of chastity and security. When the children are born, they have sense of chastity, shame, decency, decorous behaviour. But gradually, when they start others misbehaving, they start misbehaving. To them, decency becomes a bondage. But, naturally, She's there to tell you that „This is indecent. You shouldn't do it. This is wrong. This is not the proper thing to do."But gradually, you grow up and mature, then you go, „What’s wrong?“ You start disrespecting your chastity and you start becoming like immature, stupid people.

All this, if is understood through meditation, the Mahakali helps you a lot. In meditation, She helps you a lot. because She's the one who creates the proper passage for Kundalini to rise. Mahakali is the same as the Kundalini because She is the residual energy of Mahakali Power, full of it there. But the function is different. The function of Mahakali is to protect you, is to guide you, to give you wisdom. And the function of the Kundalini is to cleanse you, to clear it out, not to play about with you, to forgive you and help you to grow properly.

Now in your life, as Sahaja Yogis, you will see how Mahakali helps you in every way. It is so interesting to watch Her work, how She brings forth all kinds of satisfactions to you. The greed goes away. The temptations go away. The temper goes away. All these things disappear. The most helpful thing She does, that you get rid of your bad habits. Absolutely. Automatically, in the light of Mahakali's power, you just do not want anything destructive to be practised. If you have been practising anything destructive, you try to get rid of it. Just you stop it. „I don’t want to have it.“ I never tell you, „Don’t do this. Don’t do that.“ It's the Mahakali power within you which is awakened, does all these things. And She has made you so beautiful, so angelic. She has, by Her corrections and by Her illusions, She has made you like this. So you don't get so much attached to money, to greed, to lust, all these things which are responsible for putting you down. Also possessiveness for children, possessiveness for husband, possessiveness of matter. You just start understanding that the joy is in sharing. You want to share everything with others and that sharing starts when these Mahakali Powers start giving you blessings of joy, of sharing, of being collective, of being pure. These blessings come to you from the Mahakali Power.

So today we are going to worship that Mahakali power.

May God bless you.