The Culture
of the Spirit

Shri Mataji begins with an observation. So far, no religion has managed to combine religion and culture. Within a single tradition, cultures vary from one region to the next, absorbing whatever surrounds them, "and that's how people get lost". A universal dharma, the one that lives within us, needs a culture of its own.

So what is a culture? Her definition is plain: the common pattern of behaviour we are supposed to have with others.

Most cultures, she notes, drift into the artificial. Their gestures stop meaning anything. In English one says "sorry" on the phone when one simply has not heard, and "I'm afraid" when there is nothing to fear. Such habits are not spontaneous; they do not come from reality, and sometimes it is pointless to cling to them.

"When we talk of Sahaj Culture, it is the culture of the Spirit."

Because it springs from the Spirit, this culture does not change with place or time. It is universal, higher than any other culture, and it integrates the essence of all of them. It does not erase the cultures of the world; it gathers what is best in each.

The Spirit, she says, has two sides, like the moon: one we see, and one we do not.

This reverses the usual order. To learn English culture, you learn its "please" and "thank you". To know Sahaj culture, you have to know your Mother and know God Almighty. Imitating its outward forms without that inner relationship produces nothing: "artificial Sahaj culture is not all right."

Developed through meditation

This culture grows by facing oneself in meditation, and by asking honestly how one stands towards the Divine. Shri Mataji names the two ways the relationship goes wrong. On one side, taking liberties: pressing, demanding attention, taking everything for granted. On the other, complete indifference. Neither can be corrected by words; it is known through the heart.

Surrender without worry

The measure is not how much time one spends near the teacher, but how far one is surrendered. Surrender shows itself simply: one listens more than one talks, and one stops trying to organise what is already being organised. She recalls an evening in India when, exhausted after a long journey, she slept through the hour of a village reception. Her host would not wake her. By the time they arrived, the scorching sun had set, lights and fireworks had been prepared, people from distant villages had joined, and everyone was glad of the delay. "I knew, Mother, You were awake, and You were managing."

Her conclusion: our relationship with the Mother acts as our culture. It is, in her words, "the Mother's culture".

"Spirit is never upset, never excited, never hurries." All our agitation, the whole "go-go business", comes from living outside ourselves. One with the Spirit, we can say: all right, we have to go; we will get there; it does not matter.

She tells of a shopping errand in which the car went round and round for two hours, lost. Nobody was scolded. One of the passengers finally understood: perhaps they had to leave vibrations in all those places. They reached the shop at the right time, found everything, came back at the right time.

"Why are you saving time? For what are you saving time?"

Always in the present

Racing ahead into the future, we miss the present, and the present is the one thing the Spirit never misses. Once a time has been agreed, it is recorded; there is nothing more to worry about. Then, in this moment: what am I doing? Witness it, calmly. "Just now I'm in meditation." Every moment. And then, she says, things walk up to you: the right things in the right place, the right people at the right time.

This is not carelessness. Taking things for granted is not the Sahaj way either; one has to be alert, absolutely alert, and then one knows when it is time to go, what has to be done, and what is meant to be missed.

Satisfaction

She quotes a line of devotional poetry: "The way You keep me, the way I am, I will be happy." The ego plans: we must find daisies for the puja. No daisies; disappointment. Why? Whatever flowers come are beautiful. Whatever comes is what was wanted, and when something unexpected appears, it is worth asking why it has come.

For human beings, she observes with humour, being alert and calm at once seems impossible: when they are alert they are not calm, and when they are sad they think they are very calm. The Spirit holds both together, and a person living from it impresses others by that calm, relaxed attention.

One has to witness oneself all the time: not to condemn, but to witness, which means to be detached. Condemning oneself makes one miss every good point.

When a moment of height comes, catch hold of it and keep going; then wait for the next higher moment and hold on to that. "That's how you climb Himalayas." What makes us fall is the anxious thought, "it's all right now, but what will happen next?"

Having become the Spirit, one has no business degrading oneself or feeling unhappy. When a correction has been heard, the right response is not to brood but to act on it: to face oneself, see how far one has risen and how far there is to go, not how one might fall.

An inspired personality

A person rooted in this culture is not only spontaneous but inspired, a visionary whose words are new and nourishing. And such a person recognises the same quality in others. At a large international gathering, Shri Mataji tells, one speaker from a small country captured the whole hall within two minutes; and the only person who went up afterwards to congratulate him warmly was another realised soul. One realised soul understands another. This, she says, is Sahaj culture: recognising the dignity of a realised soul.

Why ask for anything more? The tradition speaks of three heights a seeker may reach: salokya, to see the Divine; samipya, to be close to it; sannidhya, to be together with it. Seekers once spent lifetimes for these. They have been given at one stroke, and that is precisely why they are taken for granted. What should answer them is shraddha, a faith she describes as "the ocean of joy" lying between the Mother and her children.

An open heart

For that, the heart must open. A Sahaja Yogi who is secretive, insular, jealous, or who separates himself from others, has missed the point. "Give away your things, doesn't matter! Matter has only one value, that it can communicate your Sahaj culture."

She shows what she means with small things. A lady once admired an emerald ring of hers, a family ring she could not give away. Later she came across another emerald, kept it, and gave it to her. "How thoughtful," the lady said. The art is to remember, and next time, even with a flower, to give.

The comfort of the Spirit

We chase comforts and have lost the only one that matters: the comfort of the Spirit. And that comfort comes in giving. If I have borrowed money from you, I am not at ease until I have paid it back. In the same way, she cannot rest until a child of hers in difficulty has been helped, even if she has to take the trouble on herself.

Compassion, not sympathy

Here she draws a fine line. Compassion works only from the strength of the Spirit; without it, it becomes sympathy, and sympathy contaminates. She tells the story of a lady who bought a rolling-pin machine to slim down, and found that the rolling pin grew fat instead. So it goes when those who should help another end up taking on their troubles. The answer is neither to shun people nor to run away, but to grow strong: to clear the difficulty within oneself, as the Mother does, and to be adventurous about it.

When it comes to relating to others, Sahaja Yogis come first. Yet she has often seen the reverse: people more congenial with outsiders than with their own brothers and sisters, quick to criticise them. When she tests a group by voicing a doubt about someone, what pleases her is the one who answers with compassion: "No, Mother, I think it will work out."

We must cherish each other's company. To meet a Sahaja Yogi somewhere, to hear one on the phone, should be a joy. If we cannot feel that joy, something has gone numb: it is as if one finger could no longer feel the other, like a disease in which the nerve endings have died.

What blocks it is personal interest: using the collective for one's own purposes, seeking the best room, the best place, doing less than others rather than more. The remedy is generosity, and "generosity should start from your own Sahaja Yogi brothers and sisters."

"It's such a great thing to have somebody who understands you, your Spirit, and they have the Spirit."

A serious, glum face is not a sign of depth. She herself, she laughs, cannot stay serious for more than five seconds; even when she is angry, her eyes give her away with a twinkle.

The opposite error is frivolity: doing anything at all to amuse or to be popular. Gloom and frivolity are equally empty. What she asks for is to be natural, and what is natural is always bubbling with joy, and always carries a message, the way the flowers before her carried the message of her coming.

And if something she has said has hurt, forget it; if you cannot forget it, you have not listened. But forgetting does not mean failing to act on it.

Because the Spirit is the dignity, the majesty, the glory of God, the question to ask oneself is: did I say something that does not respect my Spirit? Did I do something that is not glorious?

Inner beauty first

This culture is not concerned with superficial things such as colour, origin or appearance; it cares about inner cleanliness and inner beauty. Yet where there is inner beauty, outer beauty follows: a Sahaja Yogi is neat and clean, not to lecture others, but simply in himself or herself.

No needless choices

She laughs at groups that take forty-five minutes to order in a restaurant, or at the questions she is asked about whether a towel should be white or green. "We live with whatever we get, and there is dignity in that." The only real choice is made on the level of vibrations. Brand names, likewise, confer nothing: paying more only proves that one has paid more.

Self-respect

Money-orientation, power-orientation and romantic display all rob a person of dignity. Self-respect is the respect of the Spirit, the true Self. It goes with pure relationships and clean eyes, and with a bearing that is neither proud nor servile, but held "in the centre, in a very dignified manner." Tenderness between husband and wife belongs to privacy, not to public show.

"We cannot be slavish, and we cannot enslave anyone." Not to despise anyone, not to laugh at anyone: human beings are to be cherished, because they are us.

Kings and queens, not slaves

Eight years earlier, in a public talk in London in 1977, Shri Mataji had already rejected the image of the devotee as a servant, austere, tense and joyless. Those who are connected to the Divine "are kings and queens and they do not bother about the smaller things of life. They're dynamic, full of power and energy," because theirs is "the greatest energy that is of Love," beyond all the powers of hatred and destruction.

She was saddened by the way Christ is so often portrayed, as a miserable and broken figure. He was dynamic, beautiful and healthy; "he was moving like a flower all the time, fragrant all over. Like a king He ruled, and with love." Who would wish to follow a model made detestable? Dignity, in this culture, is not severity: it is the radiance of a power that knows it is love.

The power that has been given is not a licence to be abrupt or arrogant. Telling a newcomer bluntly what is wrong with them only sends them away. What helps is a gentle, kindly, firm attitude.

"Only after Sahaja Yoga you can combine all these qualities." And with them comes a new attention: to witness others, and to notice the reaction one produces in them.

Every mood has its place

When someone is being helped for the first time, a giggle in the room can make that person self-conscious and close the door. It is a very important moment of that person's life. "Every quality and mood has its own place, like nose is at its own place, eyes at its own place." This sense of the right mood in the right place is, she says, what modern society has lost.

Concern that does not ask

Concern shows itself in little things. If she is thirsty, you will feel thirsty, and simply bring the water without asking. It is by doing this, quietly, that one begins to understand what one is doing to others.

Speaking with a point

Even speech belongs to this culture. Shri Mataji says she has spoken "not in a very analytical way, but in a very synthetic manner." One, two, three, finished: that is not how a Sahaja Yogi should speak. Give people an idea of where you are leading them, so their attention is not frittered away; bring them towards a point they will wait for; and always know what the point is.

Living with a point

The same holds for life. What do we want from marriage? A family, a house: "even a donkey has that." The point is something else: a family unit in which realised souls can be born and cared for, sent out into the world "like a sparkling diamond set in the beautiful setting of a family, giving light to the whole world."

No one gives a certificate for this expertise except one's own Spirit, never the ego. Every moment can be filled with the slow, steady achievement of one's visions and dreams, which, she says, "is not at all difficult."

"If you can get rid of ego and superego, finished, that's all, simple as that."