head and shoulders of Shri Mataji, smiling with red shawl

Guru Puja Speech 1991

Relationship with the Guru – Being your own Guru

“It is a common practice, specially in India, that you must worship your Guru. And the Guru has to be fully in control of his disciples. Guru principle is extremely strict and the strictness meant many people could not conform to the ideals of a disciple.

In those days the Guru had to be, absolutely, the authority and it was the Guru who would decide which disciples he’ll have and one had to go into great ‘tapasya’ – to great penances – to even become a disciple. And this hardship was the only way the Guru used to judge. Gurus would always live in jungles and they would select their disciples – very few, very, very few…”

“But Sahaja Yoga is a very different thing. I would say, just the opposite. First of all, your Guru is a Mother and – who suffers from Sandra Karuna. At the slightest things that happen to you, my eyes get filled with tears. So as a Mother, to be a Guru is a very difficult thing. At the same time, for you to achieve heights is also difficult because you get lost when I love you so much and in that love you forget, sometimes, that the progress in your being is very slow.

It is important that, in Sahaja Yoga, you have to be strict with yourself. That’s why I said that you have to be your own Guru. People do not understand what it means. You have to be your own Guru means you have to guide yourself. You have to treat yourself as your disciple and you have to trim yourself.

If you do not understand the responsibility as Sahaja Yogis, of working it out yourself everything, you cannot move very fast because it is a very different type of relationship between the Guru and the disciples…”

Self Knowledge

Then Shri Mataji spoke at length about the need to introspect and to understand our personal shortcomings. She explained a variety of unhelpful conditionings and psychological programmings which people have. She also referred to some of her own qualities:

“You have seen me, how I am. I can eat anything. I need not eat at all for days together. I can sleep anywhere. I may not sleep at all. I travel for miles together untiringly. I have this energy because I am a Guru of myself also.”

Love is the Fundamental for Progress

“Today, on Guru Puja, you are worshiping your Guru. At the same time, I bow to your Guru within yourself. Let your Guru come up and show itself. Specially the kind of a Guru you have – I am not strict with you. I am very gentle because, as I told you, fundamentally is a different thing is that it is not for an individual but it is for the collective. And if something has to spread collectively, then you have to understand that it has to be only love that is going to work it out.

There is no other way we can spread Sahaja Yoga because we cannot be like Hitler giving wrong ideas of hatred. Either it could be hatred or love. You teach people: ‘We hate this one’ – fundamentalism, this, that. You’ll get thousands ready to fight. You can elevate their baser self and say: ‘All right, come along, let us fight.’ Racialism, this, that. Anything, even nationalism...”

“And because of our collective work, we have to know that love is a source of energy that makes things grow, in a living manner. It is the energy, which is a living energy. Try to understand now. This is – people don’t understand – love doesn’t mean that you hug somebody or do something but living energy that understands…”

Shri Mataji explained in detail how knowledge of others and attitudes to them should be informed and balanced, non-reactive, unbiased and harmonious. This should make you a more magnetic and ameanable person and help with the achievement of collective goals.

Yoga of the Heart

“So today, you worship your Guru principle within yourself when you are worshiping me. I would not say that you should try to follow me, because I am hopeless in many things. Say, banking I don’t understand. Money I don’t understand. I mean there’s so many things I don’t know – really. I am hopeless. Law I don’t understand. I mean, you should not be like me – agreed. But, you should be able to say, as I say, that: “You see, I have these problems.”

But one thing for sure, you must have complete knowledge of Sahaja Yoga or desire to know everything about Sahaja Yoga. If that works out, then you will swim into this ocean of knowledge – like a jet. And whatever you want whatever you want to know, you will know. But there should be a desire to know. Never get satisfied that I know sufficiently enough about Sahaja Yoga – no, never. In all other things you can be satisfied. But only on one thing, that Sahaja Yoga, still, I have to know through my brains and my heart should have that knowledge. It should be in my heart, not only in my brain. I should know through my brain. It should be in my heart.

Like when you see a film, you see King Kong. Then you know its King Kong. All right this is a film, doesn’t matter. Normally, our knowledge is like that. But if you see Mr. King Kong standing here: ‘Oh my God! He’s already here.’ In the same way, when our knowledge is in the brain, it is just like a film, is away from – it’s not in our heart. But when it is heart, it acts, it works. It doesn’t work through brain – in the brain it just stays but in the heart it works. And in the heart resides the spirit. It’s very simple, that we are people who are more living with our brains, not with our heart. But know that we are in reality. You see, King Kong is standing before us. You are not seeing a film. It’s in reality. And in reality, the heart has to work, not the brain – because reality is only through the heart, not through the brain.

Once you understand this, then you’ll open your heart, enlarge it – ‘Now this is in my heart.’ So the whole thing will be so clear-cut in your head – you will know everything clearly: What is to be done, how to react, how to work it out. If you put all this knowledge of Sahaja Yoga into your heart – first of all you will have to enlarge your heart, otherwise you can’t put this ocean – and then you see: ‘This is Sahaj Yoga.’ To me everything seems to be Sahaj Yoga – buying this house, coming to this place – all this is Sahaj Yoga. I can see clearly. Anything that I see, I connect it to Sahaj Yoga. Immediately: ‘This is Sahaja Yoga.’ ‘Why this is so?’ ‘This is because of Sahaj Yoga.’ ‘This is Sahaj Yoga.’ So everywhere you start seeing Sahaja Yoga, when your heart knows what your brain knows. I have known people who know all the ‘mantras’ very well, everything very well and all that – but not in the heart. So put it in the heart. In Sahaja Yoga the Guru is not through his brain but through his heart.

May God bless you all."

[These extracts have been checked against a video recording of around one hour duration.They are almost verbatim but a few small adjustments were made, for sake of clarity. Viewing the original is recommended because you will understand more deeply, receive more vibrations and better appreciate Shri Mataji’s humour and complete mastery of the topics.]


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