The Divine Mother Her Holiness Shri Mataji Nirmalal Devi Whatsoever is contained in this book, O Devi, comes From You. What is there to dedicate to You? Preface I started writing this text in Kathmandu, shortly after my first encounter of a different kind with HH Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi. I was quite young and nothing qualified me as one of the messengers of The Advent. However, the intensity and depth of the blissful illumination of Samadhi, bestowed effortlessly by this One Mother and Master, in Hurst Green, Surrey, by a sunny day of August 1975, left me stunned and amazed! I became instantly convinced of the historical dimension of Shri Mataji’s powerful message of love, hope and spiritual transformation. I was eager to communicate the news of the manifestation of an exceptional spiritual Avatar. I did so with a sort of youthful enthusiasm. I was perhaps naive in my assumption that such deep reality can be communicated by limited words. My attempt might have lacked in writing skills but it was sincere. The book was later rewritten for a broader, non initiated public, and translated in various languages. But this original version in English, reprinted without any modifications, captures the mood of discovery, as I crossed for the first time the gate to God’s glorious Reality. I had ventured in the transformed consciousness landscape that Sahaja Yoga opens for us and wanted to report about my exciting journey. Shri Mataji Herself reviewed the manuscript in London a little later. It is clear that the knowledge is Hers and the mistakes are mine. Almost thirty years later, Sahaja Yoga has spread its wings. Yoginis and Yogis in over hundred countries practice sahaja meditation, enlightened introspection and active compassion. They have benefitted in all aspects of their lives, materially, emotionally, spiritually. A few people who could not adhere to the high ethical standards of the Sahaj culture dropped in and dropped out. But the grassroots movement of Sahaja Yoga kept growing under the boon giving glance of its gracious founder. None of us, who have followed the teachings of Shri Mataji to the best of our abilities, can adequately express our gratitude for all the precious gifts we have received. Life has become our guru. We can decipher it. We enjoy it. We have become our own masters. Shri Mataji invites all the genuine seekers of truth to explore the deepest beauty of their own Being and She gives. She is so generous, She gives without counting. She gives the key and the access code to the Self. May these lines, imperfect as they may be, invite more readers to experience the gift of the Divine Mother. “Sat Chit Ananda Rupa, Shivo Ham Shivo Ham.” G DE KALBERMATTEN, 21st October 2001 Introduction It really came as a great surprise to find myself writing this book. Like everybody else, in my adolescence, I had played with the idea of writing something one day: a novel, some poems...but not the Advent! I should confess that I felt and still feel awkward to write about the coming and message of HH Mataji Nirmala Devi. The reasons for this are few. My poor command over English language and style, the vastness of the subject, its complexity, but clearly, the greatest drawback is my own inadequacy to be a worthy messenger for such a news. Without any false humility, I have to plainly state that there are many people who have progressed much further than myself into the new state of consciousness that this book is meant to introduce. They are more evolved, mature and are far better models of what this book is all about; they are my teachers in many different ways. I would like to express here both my thankfulness for their guidance and deep reverence for what they stand for. Each of them are living flames that truly enlighten. Words and thoughts arranged in chapters cannot have this pretension. Yet, despite my shortcomings in the spiritual life, I feel I should introduce HH Mataji’s revolutionary yoga to a larger public. My chief concern in this attempt is to pass on invaluable information to all those, in the West, East, North and South who are seeking the meaning of their life. All those who cannot any more be tamed by artificiality and organized lies, all those who cannot be lured by phony satisfactions, all those who, in a word, seek the Truth are brothers and sisters in a great quest which began thousands of years ago. They are those who deserve to know what is now really going on: the triggering of the culminating step in the human evolution. I have exposed this tremendous development to the minds of Western intellectuals. Yet I believe that Easterners can find the reading profitable. Indeed developing countries are, to a large extent, following the pattern of the “advanced” Western industrial countries without always realising the seriousness of the present crisis in the overdeveloped Western culture. G DE KALBERMATTEN Contents Preface Introduction 1 Part One—Days Gone By 9 2 Part Two—The Unique Discovery of Sahaja Yoga 26 1. Between you and me 26 2. Encounter with Sahaja Yoga 35 3 Part Three—Revelation 62 3. The revelation of the cosmic within the human microcosm 66 4. The Instrument of Awareness 78 4 Part Four—Elucidations 116 5. The virtue of Dharma 116 6. Religion and Religions 157 7. Evolution in Consciousness 181 8. After Self-realization 210 9. Tantrism as an expression of evil 236 10. Collective salvation before the coming of the Rider 277 5 Part Five—The Divine Mother 293 6 Part Six—The Oldest Quest 356 11. The philosophical roots of the ideology of development 357 12. The Great Dilemma 392 7 Part Seven—Assumption To Challenge 413 13. Assumption Number One - Past Mythologies and 413 Religions are nothing but superstitions 14. Assumption Number Two - The Devil does not exist 428 15. Assumption Number Three - We have made the World 453 a better place to live in Appendix 485 Glossary 487 Abbreviations 491 PART ONE DAYS GONE BY When I enter into the oldest image of my memory I see a little boy in a red overcoat sitting in the snow. Everything is white around me. Thick snow flakes fall gently in the silence. Actually I do not pay too much attention to them because I am very busy eating snow. I have woollen gloves. I find the taste of snow through the taste of the wool extremely interesting and I am at royal peace with the whole world. A couple of days later, something shocking happens. It is the second image. There is snow in the second image also, but the snow is heaped into hard icy balls and these balls are thrown at me. Can you believe it? I find the experience most distressful. I must tell you the story. It was a sunny and merry carnival day. My elder sister had a little fox mask and I had a huge, superb elephant mask. We wanted to join the children of the village to play with them. But when we arrived on the village’s central place they begin bombarding us with these stupid snow balls. We run away, somewhere, to hide and cry. My elephant mask was torn apart. I do not understand anything about this world but I do not like it. Thank God I have a sweet and lovely Mummy. I can go back to our chalet where she is waiting for me (that is what I assume anyway) and I shall have kisses and dry clothes and hot chocolate. So, in life there were icy snowballs and hot chocolates. I tried to avoid the first and seek the latter but with the passing of years, this delicate maneuvre became increasingly difficult. While growing up, I found out that the adults expected me to become reasonable. Now, I don’t know whether you know, but ‘adult’ and ‘reasonable’ are two strange notions. 9 Adults and those beings that you always see from below. They have long legs and talk loud all the time. ‘Reasonable’ means that you have to become as incomprehensible as they are. To be sure adults are helpful: they open the door, they push the lift button, they keep big dogs away. They also have lovely cars. But they do not make any sense at all. If you are wise you can get a relief from adults. Christmas day, for instance, you can take all the presents they give you under the living room sofa where they cannot see you and there you can quietly open the packages. But these situations are rare. Ultimately, you can only deal with adults by letting them believe that you have become reasonable. To this effect don’t look like you’re having too much fun: adults have no fun. They are serious. They are important. You will further learn about important things in school. School is important. In school you discover other children. Some of them are pretty nice, some of them are already adults, and some of them throw stones instead of snowballs. It does not matter that much, because I can come back home for lunch. Also I am quite lucky because I have two adorable grandmothers. My grand maman de Sion (this is my home town in Switzerland) lives in a high ceilinged wooden room. There I climb into her bed and we talk for a long time together. She is not like the other adults, she understands: at Easter time she comes with us into the garden and looks for the eggs in the nests.