Talk in Marathi at a Sahaja Yoga seminar in Kalwa, Maharashtra (India). 19 January 1979. To come from London to Mumbai, it feels very good – because London is a very crowded and mechanical city. And people’s overall tendency out there has also become mechanical. So then, to come from Mumbai to Kalwa feels even better. Seeing the state of mind and faith of the people in cities, I feel like going to a place where there are a few people with true devotion. Our Sahaja Yoga is going to propagate through villages. It won’t happen through the cities. I have said it in the past and we experience it as well. Now that you are a little closer to Mumbai, you do have a little bit of the city air in you. But even then, people living in this pleasant natural environment, always feel the existence of God. Does God exist or not, what all we have been reading about it till date– is there any meaning in all that or are these just some texts that have been written down to keep people confused - This is the time to examine and experience it fully – Because we keep coming across a lot of spurious people in the name of God. If you go to the temple, you have to give money. If you give money, then you will get closer. If a rich person visits a temple, then first he is garlanded. The biggest garland of the deity is offered to him. As if God understands the importance of being rich. And if, on top of that, he comes in a big car then he is regarded even closer to God. But God is hungry for emotions. He doesn’t understand money and the worldly opulence. He understands the richness of faith. He yearns for faith and only faith can recognize Him. Now, faith does not mean blind faith. Say some person comes to you , some bogus guru approaches after rubbing dirt on his body and comes saying that he is a big guru – and this and that. Immediately people break their heads at his feet – like coconuts. The people of our country are devoted to God and innocent. But they should be innocent in religion (Dharma), just being innocent is not sufficient. Innocent in Dharma means that you should recognize the Dharma. First of all, you should recognize – to know, whom to bow down your head before, who is the real guru and who isn’t. Every person walking down the street cannot be a guru. Perhaps, he maybe someone of a lower category than us. A person, who lives off of someone else’s money, can never be a religious guru or related to Dharma. Even if you people might earn a little, you are standing on your own feet. You too have that feeling within yourselves – that you would not depend on anyone else. So when these fake people live off of your money in this way, you should realize that they are vagabonds and someone of a very low category. They take money from you and support themselves. To consider such people as your guru or if they tell you that - we are very accomplished guru and that we can do such and such great things - and if they try to cheat you then you should be able to recognize that this person can never be religious. The other thing is – it has been said about religious or sanyasi people (people who have renounced all worldly activities), that he should not be allowed to stay in the village. Only people leading a family life can stay in villages. Sita has said in Ramayana, that if any sanyasi comes to your door step, he should be asked to stay put, he should not be allowed to stay inside the village, he should stay outside the boundaries of the village and that too for a night only. If a person gets involved with a village then how can he call himself a sanyasi? This Sita had stipulated when Ravana had cheated her as a Sanyasi. That people who wear such saffron clothes and stand in front of you have actually come to rob you. Actually what is the need to wear such clothes? – He, who has renounced all worldly things, isn’t running after anything. He, who is a king with no wants – why would he wear such clothes to cheat you? But human beings have an inherent instinct that there exists higher power called God. Especially the people living in rural areas are so used to nature; they are daily connected with it. If it rains then farming is possible. If the crop yield is not good, if the land is not fertile then they take it as a sign that mother earth is offended with them. If there is a sudden fire somewhere, then they say the god of fire or some goddess has been offended. If the household is affected with epidemic, then they say that they are suffering due to wrath of God. In such situations, human beings start believing in nature. And that nature itself is God – with this belief he starts worshipping the divine. Even though awareness of God is a great thing still we cannot create God. God is as He is. If you say – we will create Him our way, He is like what we say – it is not like that. God is as He is. The only thing you can do is – if you meditate upon Him and invite Him Him, then the way He appears before you - you should be able to recognize Him. However this wisdom should come to you – and you should have the awareness to recognize Him. Not only this, you should be able to feel it. So what should we do about it? What needs to be done? If I need to see you, I need to open my eyes. Through these eyes I have to see who you are, where you come from. I need to ask you questions like where you live, which village you come from. How do I recognize you, through these eyes. If my eyes weren’t open in the first place, I wouldn’t have recognized you. To know God we have a different set of eyes within us – it is called the ‘Atma’. Until the eyes of this Atma don’t open, we cannot see God or recognize him. Until the Atma gets awakened within us, until its flame comes before us - till then there is something wrong with what we believe as God. It does not sound as truthful. Or it can be said that one cannot get complete knowledge about Him – one gets a little. Like, if someone is partly blind, he can still see a bit. So unless we open our eyes completely, until we get the eyes of our Atma, until those eyes open – we cannot recognize God. Once we keep the idol in the home temple we feel that this is our God..that it is sufficient to worship Him. But do we check on our behavior afterwards? Even if we kill or fight amongst ourselves or do something worse – we still believe that God is on our side because he is in our home temple. And if we again offer him something , that is enough. Then no one feels bad about the fact that “ I have lied, I have robbed, I have fought, I wished ill of others “ and “ I have done something wrong” this thought itself doesn’t even cross the mind – because we established a deity in our home temple. Once the ‘arti’ is performed, rest all is taken care of. The deity doesn’t retaliate and hit us. – So we like such a ‘convenient’ God. But this does not facilitate us, does not do ourselves any good. Does not help our religion. It barely helps us live in this world. But then, even that peril confronts us eventually. Human being remembers God especially when he falls sick. He doesn’t think of Him as much in the times of happiness. But in sickness he feels that he has done something wrong- “how did I get this disease, I must have done something to displease God”. If someone suffers from Psychological issues, heart problems then – you start thinking – “what happened Mataji, what did we do wrong, why did we get this disease?” Actually, you haven’t really committed the mistake knowingly. But blindness still persists. If your atma is not awakened you are still blind. What knowledge do you have about God or dharma? All that you know is half-baked. So, there needs to be a provision to help us visualize our atma. Who will make this arrangement? Can we do it? Have we created these eyes? Who has given them to us? Has God given them to us? This nose, this mouth, this body – all of it is provided by the Almighty. Have you achieved any of that? What have you done to become a human? You evolved into a humans from animals – how did that happen? What is it that you did to make that happen? So the eyes that are needed – to see the divine, to come to know the atma – those eyes will have to be provided by God only. What can we do about it? It is not going to happen by jumping up and down from morning till evening, neither are you going to achieve it by doing pujas or artis or by reciting the name of god a million times a day. First you need to know God only then His arati and pooja has some meaning. But if you just can’t see whether it is God or a stone or rock then how are you going to benefit from it. So to begin with, you should first recognize your atma. Without knowing your atma nothing is going to work, till you realize this, till such a thought gets established in your mind, you are not going to like what I am saying. So how do you open this atma? Many people have this question - “Mataji, how do we do it, ?” – I have already told you before that you cannot do anything about it. It is done by God, it is his gift. – He has given us this body, he is the one who is going to give us eyes. He is the one who will give us the vision of Atma. And he does give it. The time for it needs to come. If tomorrow, a flower starts worrying whether it is going to turn into a fruit – like “how will it happen, when will it happen” – what is the use of this? When the time comes, it will become a fruit automatically. Similarly you will have a proper vision of your atma when time comes. And it will happen for sure. Thousands have got their realization through Sahaj Yoga. They have had the vision of their atma – their atma started speaking through them. Without crossing the threshold or having vision of the Supreme, what we call as vision of the atma, “atma-sakshatkar” (self-realization)—until it happens, you won’t be able to even speak with Him. Morning till evening, we keep reciting the name of Lord Rama – but where is Rama? Does everyone have the right to take His name? Is each one of you entitled to call out the Supreme? Now if we say that we take our prime minister’s name – what is the use? Is he going to come running at your call? Is he your servant? – So, God is not your servant that you keep calling out his name. There needs to be some connection between Him and you first. You have to request his permission to make a connection. As you take permission before visiting the prime minister, likewise you need to take permission. Need to get connected with God. If you do not get connected with God and you do not get the permission and if you shout out His name at his doorstep, His guards will catch hold of you and ask you what right do you have to come here, why are you troubling Him. Hence first have the vision of your atma. Know your Atma. Then you will feel for yourselves the power of the divine starting to flow through your hands. Then you should ask that power – does god exist? You will be surprised when that power flows, and you ask such a big question, power assertively responds that yes. There will be strong vibrations in the hands. On being asked any such questions the power responds to you. Means you realize that this omnipresent power is present everywhere in the world and it is true when they say that not even a leaf moves without the will of God. Because it is only after the vision of your Atma, you get the vision of this power. And you recognize this power, you see it and when it starts flowing through your hands you can give it full momentum. When this power starts flowing through you, you will be surprised – your mental state and your physical state becomes perfectly alright. In Sahaj yoga very few people need to visit doctors after they get their realization. Everyone gets good health. If mental issues exist, they too go away. Not only that, but the overall condition of the household also becomes better. Everything has to get better from every angle. Now say, if I have to visit Mr. Patil’s house tomorrow – he will clean everything up and decorate the house for my welcome. It is like that. If god decides to reside in you – your body, your mind, your intellect needs to be cleansed. Once these get cleansed God can enter. And this is the reason why the illnesses of so many people have got cured. We have cured many difficult diseases, and we continue to do it. But it is not that we cure only diseases. If you get your realization, if the light of atma spreads through you, then automatically whatever darkness exists, may be physical, mental or religious – any kind of darkness – it has to go away. It does go away automatically. You will ask – how? Now once this light has been switched on – where did the darkness go? The same thing happens to you too, and that is why one gets uplifted from all sides in Sahaj Yoga. Not only that but he becomes eligible to enter the realm of collective consciousness – The word is difficult but is quite straightforward. There exists a power which is flowing through all of us; it exists within each of us. The moment you understand this power, - all of you are one (together) – this starts from within. Means through your hands, you come to know the state of this person, what problem he has. Similarly, you know what problems you have. Due to introspection, you will have a self vision by yourself. These things happen but you don’t need lot of intelligence, don’t need money don’t need any special brain. You are human beings. Not animals that’s enough. On the contrary people who are extremely intelligent, who have lot of wealth, they don’t experience this. So, it happens to people in the middle class and who have average intelligence. Now, it also won’t happen to people who are extremely poor, who don’t even have sufficient food to eat – because day and night they are worried. They will steal from here and there – I don’t have food to eat today, now what? That’s OK. because their condition is such. But once the middle class people get their realizations, the whole society progresses and everyone benefits from it. Because Laxmi (the goddess of wealth) also bestows her blessings on this. Now everyone is worried that – “Mataji How will our lot improve? How will our financial state get better or how will our other questions get solved? What will happen to all these things? How should we find answers to all these questions?” So what I mean is that – there is a center for Sahaja Yoga in your locality. Wherever there is a Sahaj Yoga center, there resides God. If you come to the center, your problems will be solved. Not by sitting at home. There are a lot of Sahaj yogis who think that – now we have got our realization so all our questions should get resolved by sitting at home itself. The clinic to get answers to your questions is the center. If you come to this clinic every day, every week whenever there is a program and if you ask your questions, all questions and problems will get effortlessly solved, once you have the vision of your atma. I will give you an example of this. Very simple example. You will be surprised, but it happens many times. And there are countless such examples like this, there are infinite examples like this – You cannot imagine if it is only research or just a guesswork or that it happened by co incidence . We were in London; there was this Muslim boy from Algeria. He came and told me “Mataji, for the last six months I am trying here but I am not getting scholarship and now I have run out of time and would have to go back to Algeria.” He had got his realization. “When are you leaving?” I asked. He said “I am leaving on Thursday.” So I asked him “Why don’t you leave on Tuesday? Instead of Thursday, you leave on Tuesday.” He said “Ok, if you insist, I will leave on Tuesday.” On Monday he went to his college. The list for students receiving scholarship was put up – His was the first name as the recipient . So, this is one example. Likewise there are many such examples. If you ask your fellow yogis in Mumbai, each one will enumerate examples with copious accounts. I told you this as an example. There are many such questions that get solved easily, very effortlessly. But to get them solved you need to visit the center. It is true that wherever people get together to worship, God will be present there. If you say – “No, Mataji you need to come to my home. Whatever is there at my home....” – which is ‘your’ home? While in collectivity, if you think only about yourself then, God will never come. Because you are in the collective consciousness. Wherever people come together and remember Him, God is present there. He is not just for you alone. People even come and order me- “Mother I ‘have’ to get a job, my child ‘should’ complete his education”. Then, “my daughter ‘should’ get married”. Then, “my house ‘should’ get constructed”. This ‘should’ happen, that ‘should’ happen. I ask, “Why?” “Because I purposely came to see you.” As if, this is a God’s shop where you come and ask for different things for specific payment against each of them. We ask as if we are buying something from a shop. You shouldn’t ask this way. Instead, you should say – Whatever belongs to me is in front of you. You only see! It is only You that we desire. Once we get you, we don’t want anything. Once you say this, all the questions get solved. These questions pose no challenge to God. Nothing is difficult for Him. He just needs to twirl his little finger (pinkie) and the work is done. Till date people used to think that God does everything, this and that.. A lot of people told me that they went as “Varkarees” (Devotees of Lord Vitthala) there and beseeched Vitthala to do this and that. Nothing happened; God did not fulfill their wishes. But that is not the case now. You hadn’t got your realization before. So you didn’t have the license to go there, to ask anything from Him. Now that you have the vision of atma, see for yourself what powers you have. First see who you are, and after that you will be surprised – whatever you say will happen. As now you are governed by the angels, Deities like Ganesha, Hanuman and Bhairava are standing behind you. And they are all fully competent to get your work done. But you need to experience this. It is not like some guru giving you a sermon and you believe him. I am not giving you a sermon but trying to get you a firsthand experience of what is true. The people in villages are simple and straightforward. And they don’t even have much money. Maybe that is the reason they understand God better. They can recognize him as well. A villager can easily make out who is a genuine person. A city dweller cannot fathom it yet. Most of the gangsters, very famous and very dirty gurus; they all reside in the cities. They have neither reason nor the desire to come to villages. Because one cannot make money out here. They don’t want any love. They want money. If at all a few of them are not able to get anything in the city, then they wander back to the villages. So there are lots of expectations from you all. The almighty has brought you all to place full of natural beauty - There has to be a reason for that. And the main reason is that if you realize who God is then you will be able to imbibe it within yourself very well. The city dweller won’t be able achieve this. Not as much as you could. Because you haven’t learned the notorious behavior like the city people have. All that dirt still hasn’t entered into you. Extremely filthy things are going on in the cities and the people out there have taken to them. The state of their minds is such that – if I try to sow any seed in them, it is very painful. To tell you, if someone asks me to work out Sahaj Yoga in London I feel very bored. And I feel very tired. To look at, the people out there are all well-dressed, fair and good looking. But inside there is so much dirt in them, that I don’t feel like exerting. Instead if someone asks me to come to Kalwa and work, I am absolutely ready. – if you make me a small hut over here, I’m am ready to come here and stay. I’ll enjoy it. But it is not so in London, because the people out there are very dirty. And their state is so dirty that you can’t even have them standing at your doorstep. But what to do – one has to face whatever is in your fate. My husband got posted out there and I had to go along. And when it was time to uplift people out there, I am doing that as well, and many English people have got their realization. But none of them are even remotely compareable to you. (the dust of your feet). They have faith but they lack the innocence you have. So there is nothing to learn from them. You might think that as they have a couple of clothes more or have cars so they are living in luxury and comfort, but it is not so. They are actually a very sad lot. One out of every ten commits suicide. And out of ten, seven have broken marriages. Such is the situation out there. So, in such a country, to imagine that any religion could exist seems impossible. Every week, two kids are aborted by their parents in that country. Good children. Life is snuffed out of them. The mother kills them, herself, by strangling them. Every week. Have you heard of anything like this? Every week. A mother, from here, would love her child so dearly. And you have such barbaric people out there – absolutely barbaric. Totally mechanical. They have no emotions. So you should never try to become like them. The country’s ancient wealth is that of love, we need to preserve this importance of love – our rich heritage. Because, the power of the almighty is that of love. He is hungry for love – so you should have love on your mind, you should always stay in love. And you should only enjoy love. Over here, Mr. Patil has started this beautiful thing (Sahaja center at Kalwa) and slowly the vibrations have improved out here. I felt that today and I felt very happy about it. To be honest ,at the doorstep itself, I went into a trance . And in that trance I felt that this place would someday become a fertile holy land. And would become a significant place. Not only this but would become a pilgrim spot. Such are the vibrations that I have felt here. I have been here several times before but this time I felt tremendous joy – and all my blessings are on this Kalwa and on all of you. By the grace of god, one day, this place is going to become very renowned and you all and your children will be blessed with their well-being in a religious sense. I hope it happens in my presence in my lifetime. I will be very happy then. My blessings to you all. If you have question, do ask....... That, you need to see within yourself. Close your eyes and feel. If your eyelids are fluttering while your eyes are closed then you have to open your eyes. But if they don’t, then close your eyes. And you will be surprised – if you see within yourself, no thought comes to you. You feel completely peaceful inside. Close your eyes and see if you are getting any thoughts. All of you close your eyes and see if you are getting any thoughts. Because when the energy awakens and goes towards the agnya chakra, then one does not get any thoughts. You get into thoughtless awareness. Some people might be feeling something cool coming out of their hands, like a cool breeze. As if an air conditioner is put on. Those who are experiencing this cool feeling in their hands they have got their realization.