The lights of your heart together make a greater light for the world to move in a proper direction. It’s a day of great joy, and those who join in this, are spreading also great joy.
But the problems are there, as they say, but for us there is no problem because there is no darkness. We don’t see any darkness anywhere; we see lights, and lights, and lights.
Then what is the thing missing? Missing is our sincerity. We have to be very sincere with ourselves, because it is not just a borrowed love or borrowed joy, but it is from within the source; it’s flowing and flowing and flowing.
So that is to be awakened, and that love should flow, and our small petty things like jealousies and competitions and all those things which spoil us, must be washed away. And it can be washed if your heart is full of love. Today is a day of spreading that light of love, so that everybody feels enlightened and happy and forgets these petty problems…
You are already blessed people; there is no doubt about it. And we should not worry about small things and small matters. It will all work out very well, you will see, if you just leave it to your destiny, which is very high, very great – in this your own destiny you will go very far.
This is the Promise of Diwali to you all, that you will reach the highest and the noblest way of life.
Every word I say will be there to prove what I say is there. Whatever petty problems you have, they’ll all be washed off. All these are the messages from the Divine. You don’t have to worry about petty things, about money, about jobs. That’s not your job. Your destiny will work it out. You have a promise that you’ll be looked after. I hope you believe in that promise and are joyous in the highest way. I bless you all from my heart, all of you, for a very happy and prosperous Diwali. Thank you very much.
Shri Mataji, Diwali 2003
We have to understand that life has to be enjoyable. Life should be a blessing. It’s not to be a misery. We create our own miseries by these false ideas, by our own conflictions we have in our mind, mental projections we have in our mind or our own obstinacy, whatever it is.
All these things can be cured if you take to Sahaja Yoga because you become a balanced person, level-headed, wise person and you become a witness. The whole thing becomes like a show, like a drama and you become fearless. You start seeing the whole thing like a drama. And this is what a human being has to achieve.
Shri Mataji, 1986
“…very small and humble, and yet encompassing the world with divinity, was the quiet figure of the great mother.” (p. 91)
“…the hall was suddenly abolished, its walls rendered invisible, and the new space was radiant with the appearance of a summoned being, the tender presence of the great mother, protectress of the island and its secret ways. The swirling energies of this being were everywhere, making the spaces alive with something akin to the electrification of the spirit, and a mighty collective hum of praise now seemed to have lifted off into the air, and the city seemed in flight. Such a splendid weightlessness pervaded everything, and all those in the great hall seemed to be afloat on a silver cloud, spiralling into the sublimity of the great mother. It wasn’t long before he felt that something about him had changed forever in that celestial mood.” (p. 142)
Ben Okri, Astonishing the Gods
Ben Okri won the Booker prize for The Famished Road. Astonishing the Gods is a fable exploring deep metaphysical ideas.
These are the futile moments
Where the peace that You have granted
Flies away into temptations;
In unwisdom it gets planted.
For such fickle things as these
I tear myself from You.
With burnt-out histories and crazy ideas,
You disappear from view.
You graced me with the right
To choose what is wrong,
But now I see the light
And I know where I belong.
It seems a gentle balance
That a Yogi has to find,
To keep You always close at heart,
In thought and word and mind.
I look to Your eternal eyes,
Am faced with my mistakes.
To clear the aching false desires,
The ego here must break.
I wish today to turn back time,
And choose a wiser path,
To catch myself the instant that
My blindness turned to wrath.
I wish that I could see myself
When I’m thinking as a fool,
Pull myself back into line,
To Your auspicious rule.
I now must take tapasya
To strengthen what is weak,
To find instead the innocence
And purity that I seek.
Forgive me, Mother, for the times today
I forgot to see what’s true,
For ignorance in thoughts and words
I wish I could undo.
I’m tired of having days like this;
Please give me pure desire,
To stop my mind from wandering
and indulging in the Maya.
Melissa Richard
(Photograph: National Parks and Wildlife, Australia)