Becoming the Joy

Please enjoy the following talk from a public program in Christchurch, New Zealand by the founder of Sahaja Yoga, Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi:

 

“I bow to all the seekers of truth.

At the very outset we have to know that truth is what it is. We cannot change it, we cannot transform it and we cannot know the absolute truth at this human awareness. So we have to become something subtler. As Christ has said you are to be born again. Doesn’t mean we can brand ourselves as born again but is a happening of becoming something else than what you are. And that something else is the Spirit. So whatever we are going to tell you today about this mechanism within you and the way you reveal the truth, you should not accept it with blind faith but as scientists keep your mind open. Take it as a hypothesis. If you think it is all right when you have experimented with it and you have experimented, and whatever I say comes true, then as honest people you have to accept it, because this is for your benevolence, for the benevolence of your country, and the whole universe at large.

It is to be understood that we are created as human beings from amoeba to this stage; it’s not the ultimate. If it was there would have been all these problems not created by us. Start from ecology, to political, to economic, to all these problems; are the creation of human beings. So we have missed some point somewhere: that’s what we have to find out, what is that we have to be.

If you look at the development of the civilization, of this modern civilization, you can easily find out that we have really outgrown ourselves without any sense of proportion and limitation. As a result even in science we have discovered horrible things like atom bomb, hydrogen bomb; all these horrible things which are just destructive. So somehow or other, whatever we try, whatever is the mental projection of human beings it boomerangs back. Whatever we go up to a point, comes back to you and is destructive. So what is the reason why we cannot reach that point where we are at the best and then stop there? This cannot be worked out because at a human level we always go to extremes. To understand yourself first of all you have to become the Spirit. We do not understand ourselves. We think we know ourselves; this is not true. Because we are made up of these seven centers which are subtle within you, and unless and until you know about these centers you cannot know yourself and you cannot know others as well.

Now then many people who are fed-up and are seekers. I mean this is a special category of people as William Blake has said that, there will be men of God who will become godly, and make others also godly. These are the seekers. Seekers which are trying to find out why, when we have done everything that is prescribed, we have acted according to what is written down, still why is it we haven’t got the satisfaction and the joy of life, which has been promised? There is nothing wrong with Bible; there is nothing wrong with Koran; nothing wrong with all these great books, no doubt. But why it is not going into our heart? It’s all mental….. You get lost in the net of words. But there is no experience of it, and that’s why whatever we may follow. We like to follow. Everything that is given to us: all right, follow this, follow that, follow that, follow that, and then what? Anybody who follows any religion, any religion whatsoever which are absolutely all right, can commit any mistake, so they don’t follow actually. That shows that it has not gone inside them. It’s not ingrained; it’s not innate with their being. So what is the reason why we cannot have it?

Those who were saints in any country; take it Lao Tse, you can take from Socrates onward this side Mohammed Sahib, Nanak Sahib; all of these people. You’ll be amazed to find that all these people behaved in such a manner that we cannot find faults with them. I mean if you want to find, you may with your ignorance. But the kind of life they led; how is it that they were like that? What was so great? It was the divinity which expressed. While we all have this divinity within ourselves, we have all these powers within ourselves, only thing, we have to use those powers, we have to manifest them and for that manifestation it is important that we have to become Self-realized in the sense that you have to get your second birth.

In Sanskrit language for a realized soul they use a word called vijaha, means twice born. And also for a bird, they call it the word vijaha meaning twice born; first is the egg and then it becomes a bird. So our freedom is also limited. We do not have full freedom because we lack in our confidence in our wisdom, because the wisdom has also not manifested and has not shown us how it asserts in the right way, so most of the time we are living in the relative world, not in the absolute world. What one has to understand that there is something missing and that missing point we have to find out.

Now let’s see what is the truth? The truth is, the first and foremost truth is, that there is an all-pervading power of God’s Love, which is called as Brahmachaitanya in Sanskrit, Ruh in Koran and in every, every scripture it is described. Now this all-pervading power resides, which does all the living work. We see beautiful flowers all over; I saw the beautiful trees you have in the Botanical Garden, you have such nice things there, we never even think how this miracle has taken place; how this Mother Earth has done this job. How she got this power to sprout a seed? We just accept it. We don’t think it’s a miracle, we just accept it and without thinking about it, it becomes just a part and parcel of our life. Look at your eyes. Your eyes are also absolutely a miracle; they are such a camera. Look at your brain; it’s such a computer, but we just accept it, accept our human life also just as if it’s nothing great. Even the miracle to become from amoeba to human beings by any law of chance you would not have become a human being. But we just accept it and we don’t want to think that there could be any power that could have achieved it. This is what one has to little bit project, and see for yourself that there must some power and if I say there is a power you have to feel it; we have to know it.

The second truth is that you are not this body, you are not this mind, you are not these conditionings, ego, and your emotions, no, you are the pure Spirit. This is the fact. That is the divinity within you. Unless and until you become that, no use reading books; by reading books you become fundamentalist. Absolutely fundamentalism has the basis in the books, because the book said so; so I say so. Everybody tries to read the books and just want to use it as a norm for oneself; is not true. Whatever is written in the book, whatever you have read in the book has not gone inside your heart and so there is a problem that today we are having the first problem not so much of political because thanks to Gorbachev who is another realized soul, that one problem is over; the second problem is of fundamentalism…..

And that is what one has to understand, that the religion is within us. It is like a valency. As carbon has four valencies, we have ten valencies, which are, we know as the Ten Commandments. Unless and until they are awakened within us, unless and until we become innately enlightened by them, we cannot, cannot behave in the manner that the scriptures wanted us to behave, but not only that but this. Religion that is within us when it is enlightened, you become absolutely aware of what the mistake people have been committing, what the mistake you have been committing, and that this God’s love how it works. Also you become a witness; witness of the whole play. When the Kundalini goes through this centre of Agnya, you just become a witness. You start seeing the whole thing as a drama.

If you are standing in the water and there are waves in the sea, they come up and go and you are frightened of getting drowned, but supposing you are in a boat then you enjoy the waves and supposing you know how to swim you can jump back and get so many people on the boat. This is what happens to you that when you get your realization you reach a state of Self-awareness meaning not selfishness but the awareness of these centers, awareness of your Self, and awareness of others also. You can feel the centers of others on your fingertips, so you become collectively conscious. Then who is the other? You can feel anyone on your centers so easily…..

The third thing that happens to you is very interesting that you, you become the joy. You become the source of joy. Joy is not happiness and unhappiness but joy is an absolute thing and you jump into the ocean of joy. And when you jump into the ocean of joy you just start enjoying everything and the state that you achieve is first is thoughtless awareness. You are aware but without any thoughts. The thoughts will not bombard you. If you want to think you can think but if you don’t want to think you can stop it. So the thoughtless awareness comes to you as a blessing first and then the second awareness is called as the doubtless awareness. This is all described in the Hatha Yoga that you get into Nirvichara Samadhi and then Nirvikalpa Samadhi.”

Talk by Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, founder of Sahaja Yoga, in Christchurch, New Zealand, 26 February 1992