The culture of the Spirit is timeless

"Today I was thinking of talking, telling you about the Sahaja Culture...

So the culture is the pattern of behavior we have with others. Is a common pattern of behavior we are supposed to have with others...
So the culture of the Spirit doesn't change. It's universal, and is higher than any other culture. Apart from that it integrates all the essences of all the cultures...

So for a person who is imbibed with the culture of spirit, the Sahaj culture, impresses others by his calmness and relaxed attitude. Relaxation never means lethargy, by any chance. It doesn't mean lethargy. Lethargy is against relaxation. A person who is relaxed cannot become lethargic. "Relaxed" means a person who's alert and calm. These two things for human beings is an impossibility, because if they are alert, if they are alert then they're not calm. If they're unhappy, sad, then they think they are very, very calm. So this is one of the things one has to remember, that you have to witness yourself all the time. Not to condemn yourself, but witness.

Now I said the word "witness" means "detached". Now what happens with this, when you start condemning yourself, you miss every good point. For example, you have some experience of a sudden height being achieved. All right? At that point you should catch hold of it, hold on to it, keep doing, but don't forget that you may go back, no. And then wait for another higher moment to come, hold on to it. That's how you climb Himalayas. But not that, "Oh Ma. Now it's all right, but what will happen next?" Then you are gone down, because you have to face yourself in the way, knowing what are your powers. You are a spirit now, you are no more an ordinary human being, so you have no business to condemn yourself, or to degrade yourself, or in any way to feel unhappy. No way. Past is past. What happened a moment before is finished. "Now I am going to rise. Now I am going to rise."

So a person who has a Sahaja culture is not only spontaneous, but is inspired, is an inspired personality. A person who is of that kind, an inspired visionary, then other people get impressed by such a person that, "See, there's a man who's inspired, who talks in an inspired way, in a way that is something very different from others." Something new he says, new that is nourishing. "

Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi    October 6, 1985    "Sahaj Culture"    New Jersey Ashram, USA

What Diwali Means

Now you have to enlighten many lights. We call it "Deepawali". Diwali is Deepawali, means "the rows of lights". And by celebrating this Diwali with so many of you, I'm sure we'll have such a torch of light which will go round the whole world. Just remember you are not a small drop, now you have become the ocean and you have to spread. Now you are sitting on your thrones, and assume your powers. You have all the powers within you, you have to just manifest it. You have to just feel yourself, understand yourself, what is your responsibility. You've been asking for light, now you've got the light. You have become the light, now give light to others...

Now the celebration of Diwali should be that we carry the light all over the world and enlighten people, as many as we can. None of our private things, none of our own problems are important. So that is what it is, that we have to realize that we have got a certain position which no one has in this world. So once you understand, your own esteem goes up and you see for yourself what you have to do.

Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi
October 25, 1992  
Diwali Puja  
Timisoara, Romania

Does Sahaja Yoga really give people what they are seeking?

A Q-n-A with Shri Mataji

Interviewer: The founder of Sahaja Yoga is Mataji Nirmala Devi, wife of the distinguished United Nations diplomat based in London. And last week I talked to Her at Her home for Radio Falmer.

Q: Mataji, what is Sahaja Yoga. Could You describe it?

Shri Mataji: The "sahaj", the meaning of the word "sahaja" is, "saha" means "with", "ja" means "born". It is born with you, "sahaja", means it is spontaneous. It is a living process. As whatever is born with us is also very easy. In the same way, it also means it's easy, it's simple, spontaneous. For example the breathing mechanism within us is born with us. So it is spontaneous. We don't have to read books about it or put any effort. In the same way it's effortless. You cannot do it through your metal projection. And "yoga" means the union with the Divine. And union with the Divine is to be understood through the technique of yoga. So it also means "technique". It means the union and then the technique of the laws of the Divine.

Q: Would it be possible, Mataji, to describe Sahaja Yoga or yoga generally as related to man's evolution?

Shri Mataji: This is the only way now human beings can evolve into their higher realm of collective consciousness or what you call Self-Realization where they become the self, the spirit. It is said in all the scriptures that you are a spirit but you have to be born again. So there is something that is lacking in this human life, in this human awareness. And this human awareness has to be enlightened by the light of the spirit. But how to do it? We think that by reading, by talking about it, by thinking about it, or by crying for God, or worshipping God we can get it. It's wrong. It's a living process. Just like a seed sprouting. Just like a primule coming out of the seed in a living way. In the same way there is a Kundalini within us, a power, a residual power which is actually our primal desire, the power of primal desire which manifests this happening. She's sleeping there till somebody who is the authority or has a capacity to awaken it. Like the Mother Earth has got the capacity to awaken the primule in a seed. Nobody can do it. Even if you try to read the whole of Bible, the whole of Koran before a seed, it will not sprout.

Q: Might I finally ask You, Mataji… Many people are seeking happiness in many different ways in the world. Is it true that, well, would You say that Sahaja Yoga really satisfies all these different sorts of seeking by different people? Does it really give people what they are seeking?

Shri Mataji: You see, under illusion man thinks that. Sometimes he thinks that he wants money, sometimes he think he wants power, sometimes he thinks he wants emotional help and all that. But actually that is what human beings think that "Perhaps this will give us happiness, that will give us happiness". But you know the economical laws are such that wants in general cannot give you happiness or satisfaction. It's written. They are not satiable. It's accepted by economics. So these things that we think of do not give us real joy. Happiness is a thing that is perishable. Unhappiness follows happiness, again happiness comes, unhappiness comes. So a man is dwindling between these two stages of so-called mythical enjoyment or a mythical unhappiness.
But there is something like absolute joy and that emits through your spirit. But if you do not go for your primal desire, the only desire for which you are made, to be one with the Divine, all other things cannot give you the joy. Because that's the primal in you existing and if you do not pay heed to that, you cannot be happy.

Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi   October 25, 1982   Radio Falmer Interview   University of Sussex    Falmer, U.K.