They have asked me to talk about Indian culture today because Bombay is the place where Indian culture is disappearing, that's what they say. But I don't think so, because the roots are so deep that we cannot give up that culture so fast.
Now as it is for the people who are coming from other countries, they have to realize that this country had no religion as such, because there was not one book, they didn't follow one person, they didn't have any organizations as we have for other religions, we never had a higher priesthood or all those appointed people, it was all done very spontaneously. The whole thing worked out very spontaneously.
But behind all that was, as I told you before, the attitude of Indians or our style was, not to challenge or to question what these great saints have given us. Because we accepted their status as saints, as higher personalities in a way - in a sense they were higher than us. So we didn't want to challenge them, and whatever they said we accepted. As a result that became sort of, you can call it, a way of conduct or way of life.
But as a religion we had nothing, except that later on the caste system developed. Before that there was no caste system because non-Brahmins wrote about Shri Rama or wrote about Shri Krishna. It's very surprising how we accepted all that, never challenged whether it was written by a Brahmin or not.
'Brahmin' was that who knew about Brahma principle, the principle of all-pervading Divine Love. Everybody was not a Brahmin, but later on they made it like this, whosoever is born in a Brahmin family was a Brahmin, whosoever was born in another caste belonged to that. But because of the father's heritance, you can say inherited, they also had the profession that they were following. So according to the professions, the religions, or you can say the castes were established; no religion, but caste."
Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi
Now as it is for the people who are coming from other countries, they have to realize that this country had no religion as such, because there was not one book, they didn't follow one person, they didn't have any organizations as we have for other religions, we never had a higher priesthood or all those appointed people, it was all done very spontaneously. The whole thing worked out very spontaneously.
But behind all that was, as I told you before, the attitude of Indians or our style was, not to challenge or to question what these great saints have given us. Because we accepted their status as saints, as higher personalities in a way - in a sense they were higher than us. So we didn't want to challenge them, and whatever they said we accepted. As a result that became sort of, you can call it, a way of conduct or way of life.
But as a religion we had nothing, except that later on the caste system developed. Before that there was no caste system because non-Brahmins wrote about Shri Rama or wrote about Shri Krishna. It's very surprising how we accepted all that, never challenged whether it was written by a Brahmin or not.
'Brahmin' was that who knew about Brahma principle, the principle of all-pervading Divine Love. Everybody was not a Brahmin, but later on they made it like this, whosoever is born in a Brahmin family was a Brahmin, whosoever was born in another caste belonged to that. But because of the father's heritance, you can say inherited, they also had the profession that they were following. So according to the professions, the religions, or you can say the castes were established; no religion, but caste."
Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi
December 31, 1998
New Year Puja
India Tour
Kalve
