Radio Inteview, Hong Kong 1992
Radio Interview (excerpt). Hong Kong, 1992.
Interviewer: What about when You were actually a child? Did they treat you as something special and teach You some special things to help on this mission of Yours?
Shri Mataji: No it was not like that. You see it was a very free sort of an expression of a personality. People accepted. I was very loving, compassionate and generous. I was a unique person to have as a child, but it was different; but only thing I would say that My father understood Me much better because he was a Realized Soul. When I grew up he told Me, no use talking about it to anyone. First of all find a method by which people get en masse Realization, that is Your work. As you know, unless and until you find that, there’s no use talking about it. They’ll create another Koran or Bible, what’s the use. You must give them an experience or they will never understand.
Interviewer: Did You continue this idea of Yours of trying to get this message going through Your work with Mahatma Gandhi?
Shri Mataji: No, that time it was very different. It was an emergency.
In a small way I contributed. He loved Me very much. He used to call Me Nepali. It is our face you see, because I have a broad face. He always used to call Me Nepali. But he was a man born for an emergency and when India wanted to be politically independent. But there was this thing.
And a political leader need not worry about Spirit and Religion, but he considered our country to be a land of Yoga. He always based his theories and philosophies and activities on the fibre of the people. We are a very religious people and how to create an atmosphere of satisfaction in the people. He had that within him. But he didn’t talk of Realization and when I was a little child of seven years I used to play about with him and (he) was very fond of Me so I would make some orange juice for him and he would discuss with Me small things and remember once I told him, why do you make everyone get up so early? If you want to get up you can, but why do you make everyone get up so early? It’s all right for Me, but why do you have to make everyone? (He said) everyone should be made to get up. We are passing through a crisis. We have to fight the British and get our independence and if people are lethargic how are we going to do it. So we have to be disciplined and we must have discipline and it will be all right. And then I told him we need to have inner discipline and so he knew that I was a wise person. And he used to love Me and respect Me in a very fatherly manner. He would discuss things with Me. He impressed Me by many things. He had a sense of integrity within himself. He was absolutely honest to himself. That was something I appreciated. He never cheated himself. This is the greatest thing about him. In money matters, anything, he was so integrated. What he said he did, he criticized himself. But for him Realization was not the problem at that time. But after independence we should have taken to Realization. That was the main problem. But after independence we had problems of, say, partition and the diversion of the whole attention was on the wrong things. We had to solve this problem and nobody thought of Realization at that time. It should be so.
Interviewer: How much do You think Mahatma Gandhi influenced the way Your Sahaja Yoga developed, Your way of thinking now, Your technique maybe?
Shri Mataji: You see it was no question of influence because you see this is another realm I am talking aboutSahaja Yoga takes you to another realm where these problems do not exist. These problems work out with Divine power, not with human powers. And Divine power is there and they work it out eventually in such a smooth manner that there is no need to use these human powers. But his main contribution, I think, was to establish balance in people. Balance in people was the main thing. And make them more Indian and to take out all the slavish mentality that had trickled down into us, make us feel our own self-neglect all these things were there. But the realm in which I was different from his. So the question of influence doesn’t come in. But, I would say that, certain things influenced by My choice, say, of different prayers. I told him according to the different centres within us. I said you do this one, then this one, and he said alright, it’s a good idea, and he changed. It was so smooth and silently done that it was not made obvious to anyone that we had any rapport on these things nor did he ever ask me about Spirit nor did he ever meditate. He did not meditate because he was not Realized. At that time he was not a Realized Soul. His main attention was for this and he will be born again and he will be Realized, He will be born Realized because he was very, very great. He was a Great Soul, no doubt. He was extremely great as a human being. But Realization is very different. It’s another realm into which human beings go. His meditation was to ponder about things and to guide oneself, but not kind of meditation where we become thoughtlessly aware. It’s a different dimension in your awareness.