Shri Mataji
On the occasion of the March 8 International Woman’s Day, 2007, Sahaja Yogis in France are organising a half-day of conferences and exhibitions in Paris to honour Shri Mataji, Her life and Her achievements as a “Feminine Vision for Humanity”.
Shri Mataji’s life, overflowing with compassion and Her immense message to humanity – that is Self-realisation – will be presented to the general public and French women’s associations.
Through this event, the French Sahaja Yogis wish to convey their love and gratitude to Shri Mataji for the gift of enlightenment.
In some people, they have some more ego trips to be finished, so they come to Me. I find they are flying in the air like bubbles and, as if blown by the nourishing Mother, blown out like the bubbles on the surface of the sea.
And there are many who are suffering from superego. They get mixed up with the sand and become very heavy and all the time weeping and crying about personal things.
But once the thing clicks, they become one with the spirit of the ocean. Then they feel that deep, joyous force of the sea, which nourishes them, guides them and elevates them every moment …
Deep down in the sea they go and there they find the beautiful pearls of smiles, as laughter, as enjoyment. These are all within you. And they lie there away from your consciousness.
Shri Mataji 1983
There is a very interesting phenomenon related to the notion of left-sidedness, right-sidedness and being in the centre. In many ways progress – natural growth – develops from left to right, and from right to centre. A new-born baby is a left-sided creature in that he or she is dependent for survival on others. Later, the young child is concerned entirely with himself or herself. There is no other viewpoint; everything is seen, needed, felt, explored, as an individual. Nothing else matters. Later again, the child starts to become conscious of other people’s needs, begins to see alternative points of view, starts making plans, starts moving into the right. Some adolescents don’t fully make this transition. They stay withdrawn, secretive, uncommunicative.
The same progress is typical of the seekers of truth. We tend to begin in the left, withdrawing from the rat-race to feel things through, longing for patterns, answers. Exploration, study and experiment will take us into the right. And, if we are lucky and make the right discoveries – such as, in our day and age, the grace of Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi – we arrive in the centre with the possibility of attaining Divine knowledge, perception and joy.
The painter, Picasso, is an interesting example. After his apprentice years spent copying great artists, he became famous for sad, left-sided, blue and rose paintings. Then he moved into the right, exploring cubism and collage and painting harshly-coloured abstracts, before settling, through an interest in neoclassicism, into a balance where he gained his self-realisation.
Brian Bell
One night in the early eighties on the outskirts of the English city of Bedford, a young motorcyclist had a very nasty accident. The St John’s ambulance men arrived and took him to the hospital where the doctor who examined him was surprised to find that very little was wrong with him. While being examined the young man told the doctor that after the accident, while he was lying on the side of the road, a car pulled up and a lady with long black hair, wearing a long white gown, got out, walked to him and passed her hand along him, a few inches above his body. Then she smiled, returned to the car, and left.
The doctor said it was an interesting story and the young man should tell it to the journalist whom he’d noticed in the hospital foyer. Well, the young man did, but while he was telling the journalist about his experience he saw a poster on the hospital noticeboard. It was for a Sahaja Yoga Public Program, and on that poster was a picture of Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, the founder of Sahaja Yoga. Astonished, the young man identified this lady, Shri Mataji, as the person who had come to him after his accident. The journalist realised he had a good piece of news for his paper, especially as Shri Mataji, at the time of the accident, was, in fact, at the Bedford Town Hall talking to seekers. I know. I was there. Sitting in the gallery. Listening to Shri Mataji outlining the nature of the spirit and offering self-realisation.
Well, the story was published on the front page, with pictures. Letters to the editor followed, and a long article by a Sahaja Yogi attempted to explain how Shri Mataji could be addressing a crowded hall and attending to a young accident victim some miles away, at the same time.
A couple of months later Shri Mataji was in America. A Los Angeles radio interview had been arranged, and while She waited Shri Mataji talked to Tracey, an American Sahaja Yogi, and me about the Bedford Boy and his accident. At one point Tracey, with rather more nerve than I had, asked Shri Mataji if She was conscious of being in two places at once – at the program and with the young man.
Shri Mataji didn’t answer immediately, but when She did She said that Divinity was like radio, always transmitting, but whether the transmitted message was picked up or not, depended on the quality of the radio receiver.
“The Bedford Boy,” She said, “must be a good receiver.”
Brian Bell