What is a Sahaja Yogi, Morning of Seminar, Old Alresford (England), 17 May 1980.

We must know that Sahaja Yoga is a living process. It is the same type of a process by which a seed sprouts into a tree. It is a living process. So it is God’s job. I mean He has to do it. It is not your job. To sprout the seed is His job.

But the problem comes in because, at this stage where human being is the seed, he has freedom, they have freedom. With that freedom they can spoil His manifestation, His working.

So the first thing one has to remember that we must have wisdom about it. The first point of wisdom is that it is God Almighty who is going to do this job. We are not doing it. You cannot sprout the seed, then how can you sprout your seed also? And in that wisdom we must learn one thing and know, within ourselves, that you are part and parcel of the whole process. Though you have your own freedom, freedom also is a part and parcel of the same process. You are not separated from God. You do not have any separated entity. You are part and parcel of that whole process. Alright? So to think that you have to decide something about it is also wrong. You are in the same machinery, brought to this stage when you are given freedom for your further evolution.

So at this stage, when you have your freedom, you must know that freedom wants to be given to you to understand the value of freedom. And in that freedom, you must understand what is glorious for you. Once you understand that, then you tell yourself that, “Now, see: I have to become something more. That’s why God has done this, only thing I have to do is to completely coordinate, cooperate and surrender to His will, so that I become.” This is the first preparation we have to make. In that surrendering, you will do the greatest thing because by that you do not interfere with His work.

Unless and until you surrender you cannot have the wisdom. So first of all you understand this, through your little wisdom that you have, and then you’ll have the full wisdom. First of all, understand this with the little wisdom that you have, that, without surrendering you will be obstructing the ways of God. He knows what is good for you. He wants to give you the highest which you cannot achieve yourself. He’s going to give you the highest. If you want to achieve it, you cannot achieve it. It is His doing. It is His daan (दान), as you call it, His gift to you. In that case you must know that [the] best way to achieve it is to allow His working to work out.

Now when you think of surrendering, first of all the brain wave starts working. “What do I surrender?” You think by surrendering, say, your material wealth. That’s not what He wants. It’s all wealth He has given to you. What is He going to do [with that]? It’s [not] equal to even a dust particle of His feet. So that one is not going to help.

Sometimes you may feel that, “I should give my intelligence,” or that is what is asked. Nobody wants to have your idiots and stupid people! So you don’t give up your intelligence.

Then some people think that, “I give up my heart.” Some people say it. We don’t want heartless people either.

Then some people will say that, “Mother, we’ll give up our relationships with others.” That also is not needed. Because your heart should be there where it is and the light has to come in your heart.

What can you give your heart to whom? When the One who has given you the heart, what’s the use of giving Him back the heart? Isn’t it? The One who has given you intelligence, what’s the use of giving Him [it back]?

Something that you have achieved yourself has to be given. What have you achieved is your ego and your super-ego. What you have achieved is nothing but your ego. And this ego you have to give up, which is a difficult task.

Ego, if it comes out of money, material things, it is better you give up some material things, not to God but somebody else. It’s better. If the material things are creating that ego. If your intelligence is creating ego that you think you have a very high IQ, it’s better to bring it down a little. It is for you to judge. Watch yourself: what makes your ego bloated up?

If you could start looking at your ego you will be amazed that any useless thing can bloat it and can also deflate it. It can get hurt from nothing at all. It becomes so important.

Then the superego part of it also comes. That is what also you have to give up. And in superego you can have your conditionings due to your gurus and wrong types of doings and wrong types of conditionings [that] you have had from childhood. Like, for example, somebody is a Catholic: for him, Pope is everything. Or somebody is a Hindu: for him a particular temple is everything. All these are conditionings. Why they are conditionings [is] that, without finding out the truth about them, you have just accepted them as it is. This is the simple thing.

So if you can find out the truth about all these things, you will give it up. You may, may not. There are many people who know the truth, still they do not give up. You see, human beings are complicated stuff. Even if they know the truth they will not give up. But supposing you try to find the truth about all these things: then you may give, may not give.

But going back into the whole thing, to find out each and every thing, make a schedule of the whole thing that, ‘’Morning time I’ll find out about this, and evening time about this,” The whole [of] your life you will go on finding one by one, and ultimately you will find that you have gone now up to the grave. So that procedure also is not going to help you.

By God’s grace you are Realised-souls and you can find out in a second whether you are on the conditioning side or not. If your left is catching you are conditioned. If your right is catching you are on ego trip. Alright. So now you know very simple method is to know that, through vibrations, you can find out [if] Mr Ego is there or superego is there or you are wobbly.

This is the biggest thing we have got because this is my preparation.

My preparation is this, that, first give you Realisation. First give you Realisation. Once you are Realised then I won’t have to say much. If you are conditioned on the left side you will get pains, this, that. If you are conditioned [on] right-hand side you’ll have problems with health or something. So you will come to me and I will be able to tell you. This is my own preparation: is to make you alert and aware so that you have light to see things.

Now your preparation should be to use this awareness all the time. Further I will go to say that: to use this knowledge within you all the time. That people forget. So the first [thing] we must know is that this preparation has been done for us. We have got the vibrations. We have got the knowledge to verify and we must use this.

That you are in a new dimension is the first acceptance. If you have that acceptance within you then your judgement will be better. But this acceptance is missing. Now there is, in Sanskrit, a word, ‘abhyas’ , that every day doing the same thing in that manner you will remember that you are Realised and that your awareness is not that of the awareness of ordinary people.

So, first preparation is to prepare yourself, to tell yourself that you have this new awareness within you, is to make yourself known. You see, in the University when you graduate, there is a ceremony held for that. You have to go with a gown and they give you a proper roll and all that. Why is it necessary? Because you may forget you are a graduate. (laughter) Yes! And that’s exactly what happens to you, that you forget you are Realised-souls. I mean, we have had a ceremony in the sense that everything we have done to prove that you are Realised-souls. But this is what is missing from our people, that they cannot understand that they are Realised-souls, that they are people who are on a level that nobody [else] is.

You are twice-born people, who are very, very rare. Very rarely you will find people who are twice-born. I mean, I found nobody - can you imagine? – all my lifetime, except for my father and a few here and there. I mean they are not to be counted because my father I chose and that’s how.

So, first of all if you make yourself known to your own intelligence that, “I am a Realised-soul!” you’ll be seeing that your priorities will be changing very fast. Supposing somebody gives you a huge big property or a huge big wealth. Immediately you become conscious of it. You start walking like this. When you are a student you walk like this. Suddenly you get the degree and walk like this. (laughter) What about Realisation?

So happy to see you here, very happy. May God Bless.

What about your Realisation? You haven’t got your Realisation? Then what are you doing about it? This is the first preparation: is of identifying that you are a Realised-soul.

We have to talk in a different way - we are Realised-souls now. We are people of a different knowledge. We are people of a different awareness. As I told you. Now see this beautiful building: we all are enamoured by it and it looks very beautiful. It’s done so well, beautifully and is very important for human beings. Alright? But for the Divine even this green leaf is more important than the whole building put together and all such buildings put together. For the Divine. Because that leaf is living and a bird which is more aware than that leaf is, is much more important to the Divine. So you, the human beings who are now aware to this extent how much important you must be to Divine? How much God Himself must be interested in you? Just think of it! Once you recognise this point, then relatively you will also know that you are very important in God’s plan. Not world’s plan I am talking. (laughter) It is God’s plan. So all the forces of his blessings and all his loftiness, all of them are with to help you, to support you, to give you whatever you like. You are on the stage and they are looking after you. I mean, now you have entered on the stage.

But I find Sahaja Yogis, once they get Realisation, I don’t know what happens to them. If they give up their ego then they become like, absolutely, I don’t know what you call them...bananas? (laughter)

Each one of you is the special one created by God. Now you see for yourself, just think of yourself. I mean, you are the ones who know such a lot about life. Even if you get a little bit possessed, doesn’t matter. But you know that you are possessed. Now think of it.

This is the second preparation one has to have - is understanding that it is God Almighty Himself [who is] worried about you. He’s sent everybody to help you, “Go ahead!” So you don’t have to worry about your money, you don’t have to worry about all other things. The third thing comes automatically that you don’t have to worry about all these things at all. They’ll be looked after. You all have been looked after, you know that. Everyone has been helped. But if you know that He is Almighty and He’s compassion and that you have fallen into His grace - think of it! Establish yourself at that point. This is the preparation one has to have, that He is the one who has given all this.

Then, the modern Sahaja Yogis are specially blessed because they have a ‘walkie-talkie’ with them. Any problem that they have are handled in form, in person! There was never such a blessing before. But ego is the point. To begin with it is ego. You have seen it. If you have ego you will not accept you are a Realised-soul. Imagine, how silly it is! If you have a superego also you will not recognise it. You will go back to the same position as you were. You will never accept that you are a Realised-soul if you have a superego. You’ll never accept, “Oh, how can it be, Mother? After all I am an ordinary human being.” You’ll go on like that, “How can I cure others? How can I give Realisation? It is not possible.” You see this kind of a humility, nonsensical. I mean, it’s alright, I mean it’s like a ?? saying, "Oh, how can I cure you?” It’s like that. It’s like no meaning. This kind of a humility has no meaning for you. “How can I do it, Mother? What can I do? Oh, I am no good. I’m of no use.” This language must be given up.

When it is ego then it is even worse. You can harm yourself and you can harm Sahaja Yoga, at the extreme point. Egoistical people are extremely difficult, they are such a drag, because they try to do everything through their intelligence and understanding and this and that, and such a rambling goes on and on and on, and you try to pull them back again and they go back. It’s so boring, you know. Very boring. Because you know, I see the stuff, supposing, I know this is it (a cup of tea) and I want you to have it. And between taking this cup to the lip, [if] every time you are pulling it out, every time you are pulling it out, then how am I to take it to your lip? It’s very boring!

And this egoistical temperament is very prevalent in the West, surprisingly. And I just don’t understand. They can take to all kinds of filth, all kinds of perversions without arguing about it! Just take to it! Any kind of perversion - “What’s wrong?” But it is for them the most wrong thing is to be accepting the fact that you are a Realised-soul through Sahaja Yoga. They’ll take anything else but not the truth.

This ego is like a horse sitting on your head. You have to sit on the horse, and the horse is sitting on your head. You are carrying the load of the horse - imagine! what is the sense in such a thing?

If you start analysing yourself, again you will go into another trip. You have been such ‘trippers’ like [a] Jack in the box, you see. Because you have been taking trips after trips, there’s a sort of a spring. You try to see your ego, you go on a trip of superego. You try to see your superego and you go on a trip of [ego]. I mean, a person who has been bouncing all the time to this trip or that trip or that trip or that trip is just like a person travelling all the time, doesn’t know whether he has to get down or has to go further. It’s like that! The habit of the mind is so egoistical that you just take the ride on the thing. But the thing is [that] it is not that you take the ride, but the ego takes you on a ride. And whenever there is any such a thing coming up, it grabs you. And the progress is extremely slow.

Now the trouble with the Divine is that it has its own protocol and if the King has to come to your house, you have to go and invite the King. The King doesn’t write to you that, “Please invite me to your house,” does he? That’s why he’s King, after all! And he doesn’t implore people that, “Please invite me.”

This Mr. Ego expects that you should be invited by the Divine. That the Divine must go out of the way to fetch you out. Ego, in simple words, is nothing but absolutely wrong ideas about one’s own value: by which you think that, “I am everything.” What are you? Now don’t go on a superego trip. What are we? Nothing! We cannot even sprout the seed.

Every day-to-day life you can see this clearly: how ego jumps up. Supposing somebody says that, “British have these qualities,” one feels very happy. “Oh, what a praise it is! What a praise for British! Oh, we are British!” immediately. Somebody says that, “British lack these qualities,” finished! You are absolutely...then that person is the worst person in the whole world. First of all, you must know that neither you are British, nor Indian nor anything. You are just human beings.

Ignorance is responsible for this ego. It is complete ignorance about yourself gives you this ego. So once we are going towards light we must know what are our hurdles. [This] is the preparation. Is the ignorance that we have about ourselves that’s why we are going to see ourselves. And because of the ignorance, ego and super-go both have come onto us, so at least we’ll have nothing to do with them.  Supposing you have to go on the Himalayas where you are going for an expedition. You are supposed to carry the lightest things that you have. You don’t carry three luggage of tiffin carriers, four luggage of this, and five things of that, to have a nice little bed there and sleep over. All that you leave here. In the same way when you are going on the expedition of knowing yourself, all that is loading up yourself must be put down.

So again we come to ego and superego. Actually, these two are terrible elephants which must be kept down on the ground. So we make our own study. These preparations are needed because we have already gone on this side too much or that side too much. So the preparation is to bring you down, “Come along here. Now you stand in the centre!” or we bring you down here and stand in the centre. The preparation is nothing but is just to bring you down here, that’s all.

So with ego we move on and see what the ego has subtler and subtler and subtler forms. Even in superego you have subtler and subtler and subtler forms. To understand ego you must see what do you plan about your life? It’s very easy. What are your plans about future life? To understand your superego you must know what affects you very much, what makes you very unhappy. Or you can say, what makes you more happy and what makes you more unhappy. Both things, happiness and unhappiness, are the shadows of these two trees. One is ego, another is superego. Just watch yourself. What makes you very happy? Good clothes? Good living? Or when your name appears in “Who’s who?” (book) or all such nonsensical things which make you laugh, you see! All that. You just see that. What makes you unhappy? When [there is] some sort of a heartbreak and this and that. All this kind of a nonsense.

Both things are not yourself. They are just outside. So what is inside, if you have to find out, first the outside must be taken away. If you have to taste the fruit you take out the outside, you peel it out. In the same way, this must be peeled out.

Now this you should see within yourself and without also. You can see it very clearly without. It’s very easy. How you deal with others is the point - what is your relationship with others. It is easier to know this outside than inside, perhaps. When you talk to others, what is the impact they have from you? Are you appreciated by others or not? Among Sahaja Yogis. Do you respect another Sahaja Yogi as a Sahaja Yogi or not? Do you expect that whatever stage you are, the other Sahaja Yogi will also come up and he must be given the due respect?

Also you must see that when any Sahaja Yogi, who has achieved something or who is at a better level, tries to pull you up - [do] you like it or resist it or get upset about it? If somebody tells you, “This should be done, that should be done,” do you take it as if he has abused you? If he is telling you about Sahaja Yoga you should be thankful in all normal way. I feel thankful to you if you tell me something that concerns Sahaja Yoga. Anything! Even if you tell me, “Mother this may not be alright if You say. You see, the human beings are like this,” I accept it and I do it according to your wishes.

Or do you like it or not? This is how you will judge your ego. This is only your Mr. Ego. Actually, it is better to have another person to fight your ego and yourself; both put together.

If somebody tells you that, “This should be done,” “Oh, I see, I have been doing that. Yes, alright. You come and help me. You pull me out. Work it out. Try and help me. I am horrible!” That’s the way, if you do it, [that] you can get over this ego. But the other person should say, “You are very nice. Alright, do what you please,” and then you feel happy. This person is not so alright and you are also not so alright. Because you have to pull out people. For example, if you understand that you are in a crisis, you are in an emergency, people are getting drowned and some people are trying to pull them out, they themselves are halfway down, halfway up, they are trying to pull you out, at that time if they say, “Hold my hand now!” If you feel upset about it then you are not wise.

Now in Sahaja Yoga there is no leader as such. I mean, nobody is appointed as leader. Anybody tries to do that, he goes down. But there is an innate leadership within, and such a person is extremely humble and congenial and appealing and commanding too, has to be commanding. And one should not feel bad at that time, because if he says, “Go and steal something,” or “You go and join some- one of these nonsensical things”, then of course he is wrong! But if he is saying that, “In Sahaja Yoga you have to come up!” Even dominatingly (sic) if he says, I mean, it’s a very good thing, I would say.

Supposing somebody is in your neighbourhood who is always criticising. In a way it’s a blessing because [if] there’s somebody who is criticising us he’s trying to perfect us. I mean, we should take it. Not to feel bad about it.

Supposing somebody is saying something about you, if it is not true, then what is there to feel bad? If he is telling lies about you, there is nothing to be frightened about. If he is telling the truth, then you have to be thankful. Though sometimes the truth could be very unpalatable, could be very, very bad. But it is a good thing. There is a saying in Marathi, “Keep the house of the person who is a backbiter, the one who backbites. Keep the house of such a man who is your backbiter next to you. Next door.” That you know your defects, you see, you correct yourself. Is the wise attitude. Because you cannot correct yourself, so have a mirror by which you correct yourself.

I mean, you should thank such a man that he is criticising you. By pampering you if he is going to completely destroy you, what’s the use? This is what the gurus are doing. They are all pampering you and destroying you and ultimately you find out that you have been befooled.

So if you accept the situation in which you say, “Alright, if this is what is going to be the truth, it’s very much better for my ego and if it is not the truth then what is so important?”

This attitude helps in Sahaja Yoga very much, a very wise attitude towards oneself is. And you will be surprised as you’ll grow with this attitude, you won’t be easily hurt by what people say to you. You won’t bother. You know how much people criticise me and say all kinds of things, argue with me, and I’m not bothered because I know they are foolish. What is there? They are stupid people. What is there? Even if they praise me, what is it? After all, whatever they praise me is my nature, nothing so great. See, it makes no difference. I am just watching my chakras working. I am not bothered. In the same way, it will happen to you and you will not be bothered. But this will help your unloading. This will help your unloading.

And, the unhappy part of it: in that we should prepare ourselves in a way that , “Nothing can make me unhappy. What can make me unhappy if I am a Realised-soul?” Supposing you want to marry someone - take a concrete thing - and you find the person has sort of misbehaved or you cannot marry. So what? “I am there. My value is myself I know.” So your value, your self-esteem should be such that nothing should make you unhappy. It’s all a drama going on. It’s all a drama. But these things must be accepted by your great intelligence because what I find here is the difficulty with the Western mind is this that - it has too much of IQ, too much over-developed. So it is such a polished surface that nothing stays there, everything.

The first simple thing is that you are a Realised-soul itself should settled down there somehow, and to your intelligence that you are a Realised-soul now. All of you believe in the heart, not in the brain. That you are a Realised-soul, is first thing you must tell your intelligence. And then you must tell your intelligence also that, “Nothing can make me unhappy and nothing can befool me.”

If these three points settle down on your intelligence I will see the rest of it. You just fix these three points on your intelligence then you will be amazed [that] you will become a very loving person, extremely considerate of others. It will all work out automatically. Because when your intelligence is like that nothing goes in. You are all the time worried about others. Either you are afraid of others or you are aggressive on others. You cannot go straight forward. This is what happens. If you could understand these three points clearly.

(laughing).

Yogini: Nobody does that.

Shri Mataji: She says that “Nobody does that. That’s the problem.” Absolutely. She’s so practical. (laughing). She is so practical, you see. Just now in the car she said, “Everybody does something other [than they should]. They do not do what is the first to be done.” Like she said, “They’ll marry, you have to marry and enjoy your wife and your husband and your children. They’ll do everything else but that.”

(laughing) It is that. You see, nobody does that. It’s so practical if you do it. Listening to Mataji is not the thing I want you to do, but doing of it is. Sit down and tell your intelligence, your IQ, that, “Mr IQ, now please listen. This is what has happened to me, and this is what I am. I am a Realised-soul and nothing should pamper me and nothing should make me unhappy.” That’s all. “Nobody can hurt me.” Otherwise you are, “Aaahahhahaa, aahhaahah,” like that, it goes in two ways. Never in a straight way. Where you are just compassion and you are love. Absolutely relying upon yourself, absolutely. And then you have me with you. And you think of those sages who had nobody to guide, nobody to tell, nobody to talk to. All your granthis and all that, I am breaking. You don’t have to do anything. But only thing you don’t create your own granthis, your own knots. If you do not create, things will work out.

This is a very simple preparation. So I don’t have to tell you, “Love your brothers and sisters,” and this and that. That’s going the other way around. But you just tell your intelligence. This is enlightenment of the intelligence. If that intelligence comes into you then it is wisdom. “That anybody is laughing at me or everybody’s making fun of me or anybody is trying to dominate me,” all these fears or all these aggressiveness, all this will disappear just like that.

That now you are a flower and you are fragrant and the fragrance is blowing, and many bees are going to come to you, that’s what you are! This is the beginning.

Go on telling yourself like that. If you could do that, if you can bring your intelligence to this level, not too high, not too low, but in the centre, everything can be solved in no time. When I am now living with you people, going through your Kundalinis, all that, I have found out at this point only: that you just don’t tell your intelligence this.

So that you start giving up all kinds of fanaticism, all fears and this, and superstitions and all nonsense. Because nothing can harm you. No stars can harm you, not your science can harm you, what time you were born. Nothing can harm you now! You are beyond it.

So astrology is finished. Horoscopes are finished. All other...what other things you had like this?

Sahaja Yogi: Karma.

Shri Mataji: Karmas are finished.

Sahaja Yogini: Palmistry

Shri Mataji: Palmistry is finished.

Sahaja Yogi: Biorhythm. (Big laughter]

Shri Mataji: Biorhythm’s finished! Biorhythm’s finished! All that. I mean, you are beyond that. Now all these things, all such things.

Then the other side of it. All love affairs finished. All fear of love affairs finished. Everything finished, nonsense. It’s only love. Now whosoever you will get, you will love that person, that person will love you. If he doesn’t care or loves you, it doesn’t matter. As long as you love, finished!

All expectations finished, all expectations finished. All expectations for happiness. Joy is single and absolute. When you are in joy you are at a state when there is no movement. You are just there.

So get rid of this both feelings of, “I am very happy now!”

“I am now in joy. I am established in joy and that’s what I have to grow within me not that my old stuffs. That’s dead, finished.” When the trees drop out their leaves, people don’t expect them to again rise and get attached to the trees? (Laughter). In the same way whatever is gone and finished is finished now.

Now let us grow what is new coming in us, and this is to be nurtured now - is the joy, is that dignified majestic, that beauty within ourselves. Then you don’t get upset. Not bothered what others have to say about you. It will happen. It will happen if you put it down on your intelligence. And people will see that in you because you don’t do anything funny, you don’t do anything wrong. People like you. Even those who are not Realised will see that dignity in you, that you are so dignified because you have your own understanding of yourself. It’s a very simple thing, but as she has said it, nobody does it. Tell your intelligence.

Even now I find that some people do have that joy within them trickling in. But you have to prosper into that. You have to come into that. Dropping out all that is nonsensical. Otherwise you will go off like that.

And it takes hardly any time or hardly anything. Whatever is done wrong, is done wrong, finished! Just to be finished off because it’s dead now, so why bother about it? Just to finish off. Because if I tell you something with a harsh tone it will not stick on there. If I do it delicately also it will not work out, because, what I told you, there’s a polish. Take out the polish, and what is the polish? The polish is the all understanding of norms, the all understanding of norms of life. Because you thought [that] if you were in this condition you would be happy, that’s why you are doing it. Because you thought, if you do like this, there is a fear this, the left-side problem. But if this all understanding of the mind, if you clear it out with your light, with your own wisdom, then you’ll be amazed [that] this thing will stick into you, completely. This wisdom will stick into you.

Forget that old nonsense. So many things you have already sorted out yourself, you know, so many things which were nonsensical before. But the identification of all these ideas should be achieved, should be achieved, is the point. You know that this is all nonsensical. But is to be achieved. That’s the preparation. You have the light, you have the movement now. you are moving into it, but the light is not here. [It] dangles, sometimes falls like this, falls like that. If you can fix your light properly, just by this understanding that whatever were the norms before were due to ignorance and we have to have our norms of our own now [regarding] what is a Sahaja Yogi.

And these norms, I am going to tell you how these norms are going to come to you like faith, like entire dependence on spirituality, entire dependence on your vibrations. All these norms of the new life, we have to accept. But to be achieved, I mean to say to be achieved, you see. Not just to be understood in a lecture. So I’ll tell you about that in the evening, and tomorrow I will tell you [about] the real becoming, alright? Thank you.

May God bless you.

Shri Mataji: Just go on saying, now are you opening?

Sahaja Yogi: (inaudible]

Shri Mataji: You do not want to assume your position, that’s the problem. Better?

This is what I am saying, you see. It’s moving out. Just say that, “Nothing can happen. No bhoot can catch me. I can catch the bhoots.” That’s the truth.

Douglas Fry: Lunch is served.

Shri Mataji: Hah?

Sahaja Yogini: Do you want to take your lunch in here?

Shri Mataji: Or else?

Sahaja Yogini: In the dining room. It’s very nice..

Shri Mataji: Nice or not, I will have it with you people.