Becoming the Ideals

Shri Mataji begins with a hard observation about the history of religions. Those who claim to follow a prophet often live against everything that prophet stood for. The reason is simple: human beings talk of ideals without being them.

"They all say that we have this ideal, that ideal, but they are not those ideals, they cannot live with those ideals."

An ideal that stays outside one's life does not stay neutral. It hardens into a banner to defend, and those who carry it become fanatics. The gap between what we proclaim and what we are is the root of the clashes between people.

The good news follows at once: "By Sahaja Yoga now you have the method, you have the possibility, that you can become the ideals."

The way has two movements. The first belongs to the mind: to understand clearly what the ideals are, what one has to become, how one should live and behave. The second belongs to meditation: to deepen one's meditative power, through surrendering, so that the ideals settle in the heart and become part and parcel of one's being, to the point that one cannot live without them.

"If you are gold, then gold is gold all the time. It is not gold sometimes, then sometimes iron and sometimes mud, it is gold all the time."

One with the principle

Christ is the perfect example: "For Christ He and His ideals were the same, there’s no difference between the two." He did not say one thing, do another and carry out a third.

Shri Mataji also names human beings who were not incarnations: Abraham Lincoln, who practised the freedom he spoke of and gave his life for it; Mahatma Gandhi; Shivaji Maharaj; the saints. "But once they knew this is the principle on which we have to live, they become one with the principles, they do not compromise."

And then: "If you become the ideals, the power of ideals itself will make you so dynamic that you don’t need to consult anybody, you become the ideal. They are like torches."

To become one's ideals, Shri Mataji proposes a relationship rather than a struggle. Within each of us live two figures.

"You become the mother, the Spirit is the mother, and you, whatever you are which has to grow, is the child. Mother is the ideal, she is the inspiration, she is the power, and the child is the recipient."

Tame, do not fight

Her advice is full of humour. Give the child a name, your old name, Mr. X or Mr. Y, and speak to it: will you behave yourself, get up in the morning, sit down for meditation? If the mother gives in to every excuse, the child takes over and the mother loses her powers. If the child sees that the mother has become strong, it accepts her. "So you have to – not fight yourself but to tame, and this is very easy." One even starts to enjoy it, and anger falls away.

Without guilt

None of this is meant to weigh on anyone: "Now when I tell you this, it is not necessary for you to feel guilty." What matters is the direction of one's gaze.

"Those who are standing even on a lower staircase, if they are looking upward they are all right, but those who are standing at a higher steps and looking downward, will go down. So look forward."

Shri Mataji draws on two great scenes of the Krishna tradition to show where this growth leads.

Yashoda and the child

Little Krishna is accused of eating mud. He denies it. His mother Yashoda insists that he open his mouth, and inside she sees the whole universe, the Vishwa Swarupa, and falls at his feet. "That is how you have to grow, into that Vishwa Swarupa, into that Collective Being, into that Virata."

Arjuna and the vision

Arjuna, Krishna's friend, had heard the whole of the Gita, yet felt that something was lacking: he had not become the ideal. He asked to see the great form. When Krishna showed him the Virata, the cosmic being, Arjuna cried: "Stop it, it’s too much for me."

The same should happen to the child within. It must grow until it becomes the Virata, the collective being, and we are amazed at ourselves.

"Just like Yeshoda falling at the feet of the little child, you have to fall at the feet of the child that is within you."

This is why, on this site, those who enter are asked which part of the Virata their country represents. Each of us is called to grow into that collective being.

A real mother never compromises with a child who wants to do harm. In the same way, one who has become the mother of himself nourishes himself and others, cares for them, and does not compromise with what is wrong.

When conflict arises in daily life, even with those closest to us, the answer is neither argument nor endless quarrelling. It is detachment from within, and silence.

"Complete silence, a silent protest, must be developed. But in that silence you should not be a cowardly person."

Many take their cowardice for a silent protest. The difference lies in power: "A person who is really powerful will not deter, will not be aggressive, but will not also take aggression."

This is why the instrument must first be put right. In meditation, one looks at one's chakras, faces what is weak, and strengthens it, until the whole is balanced, powerful, and not cowardly.

Anyone can call himself a yogi. There is no ceremony, no diploma of the twice-born. Shri Mataji laughs at those who are twice-born today, not tomorrow, and twice-born again the day after. The state of being one's ideals cannot be timed or declared. "It’s a very self-certifying state." One matures, and sees that maturity within.

So one must understand oneself, one's problems, why one behaves as one does, and treat oneself as a child: "When it is needed you have to rebuke yourself. When you have to glorify, you should glorify yourself."

Simple signs

She offers plain indicators that something still needs clearing: attention wandering here and there, falling asleep, thinking of other things, headaches, temper, irritation, anger without balance. "Judge yourself, clear out, you must clear out, that’s very important."

From the heart

Progress can be fast with meditation. Even mantras only work if they are not mechanical: "You should say it from your heart." "Siddha mantra is that, that you say that, it has an effect, it works."

"Nobody else’s going to certify you."

Shri Mataji tells her listeners that they know more than any saint ever knew. But knowledge that stays in the brain, used to impress others, does not even settle there. How could it reach the heart?

"Let your Spirit shine in such a way that people know this is a man who is completely integrated: the Spirit, the talk, the behavior, the life itself is completely integrated and this is what is Sahasrara."

Without this integration, she says, the Sahasrara has not truly been achieved. Everything else, an ashram, a project, an activity, comes second. What matters is the child that has to grow.

The thorn and the flower

A thorn pricks everyone who comes near; it cannot do otherwise. "But if you are a Sahaja Yogi you have to be a flower. And a strong flower and an eternal flower, that always grows, does not fade out." Such a flower falls neither into the trip of ego nor into the collapse of the superego.

She looks forward to a day when all can raise their heads with pride and glory, because "your ideals will shine like ornaments".

Purification, she says, works things out by itself, and from it respect is born: respect for oneself, and respect for one another. Not to speak harshly, not to trouble anyone, to do as much as possible for others.

"This has no brand of any culture, is the culture of God we are talking about, is the culture of His Kingdom."

A culture where one gives, enjoys giving, does for others, loves and cares for others, without any return. It is the same culture described in The Culture of the Spirit.

And it begins at home: "first and foremost respect yourself because you are a yogi." "You have to be a sweet, matured personality because you are a yogi."