Labour of Love

Sahaja Yoga had changed beyond recognition
Before we had the programmemes in October 1977, we had meetings in a Sahaja Yogi’s place on Sundays and sometimes in the middle of the week. Shri Mataji used to come, exceptionally, because She lived quite far away anyway.

What I remember is She had so much love that She worked on certain people who came to these meetings, even though they were not necessarily great seekers. They maybe had a marriage problem or because they had a specific problem, which was a personal problem. Mother never felt that these people were a burden on Her. She never showed it anyway. She always worked on them with so much love.

It was an intermediate period, during which many people came to Sahaja Yoga and left and Mother worked on them without ever putting any demands. She always let people choose what they wanted to do. She never forced on people that they should stay in Sahaja Yoga. She always showed a lot of concern for them, for their health, for their well-being. But it paid off. It paid off because, once we started the programmemes, then we had real seekers, a whole wave of real seekers coming into Sahaja Yoga. Sahaja Yoga had changed beyond recognition, after just a few months, even though until the end of 1977 and throughout 1978 we still had these smaller meetings, where the core of Sahaja Yogis used to come and Mother used to invite us in Her home.
Djamel M.

She started going into my subconscious
I first met Shri Mataji on the 26th July 1979. I don’t think I actually got my Realization then, as Shri Mataji said it took a couple of weeks. The first experience was Shri Mataji invited some of us to a flat in Ashley Gardens. I had all these voices going on in my head all the time and Shri Mataji kept on asking me what I had done. In the end, She got me to put my left hand under one of Her Feet and the right hand towards the candle flame and Shri Mataji started going into my subconscious, though I didn’t know it then. On the outside it looked as if She was dozing. Then all the voices stopped and a cool breeze just came blowing into my Agnya. It was a lot easier to be thoughtless after that.
John W.

You’ve got it. You’ve got it!
I came to Sahaja Yoga at the first meeting held at Caxton Hall. Shri Mataji was sitting on the stage with about half a dozen very sick looking people and an English man was standing and talking. I was in the audience and because the advertisement said, ‘Your divine birthright’ and ‘No money will be taken,’ which rang true for something spiritual. The Englishman’s talk became extremely boring and I thought, ‘I can’t sit here any longer and I am going to leave.’ I had sat near the door so I could make a quick exit. Just as this thought came to my mind and the energy flowed to my legs to stand up, Shri Mataji signalled to this man and asked him to stop talking. Then She got up and started talking. It was everything that I had expected, at least verbally.

When we were supposed to feel the vibrations, I didn’t feel anything at all.
‘All I am here for is to give you love.’ Shri Mataji said, and something happened in my heart. I felt this distinct churning in my chest. Shri Mataji came down and looked at all of us. She told one of the older yogis that was with Her that I had ‘got it’. I felt nothing. Shri Mataji came up to me, stood right in front of me and put Her hand over my head.
‘You’ve got it. You’ve got it!’ She said.
‘No, I don’t feel anything at all,’ I replied.
‘Oh wow, I feel it. I feel it!’ said a person sitting on my right.
‘You know, this is just auto-suggestion,’ I thought.
‘Oh, I feel the cool breeze,’ the person on my left started saying. Meanwhile, I felt absolutely no breeze at all. I was quite disappointed and, of course, Mother was insisting that I’d got it. I was a sceptical aerospace engineer, just out of college.
Bala K.

And then bang. It worked out. Everything had changed. Suddenly, Mother was down among the audience, working on everyone. The whole hall felt like one family. Then the whole thing changed. We had seventy people coming to the ashram, to see Mother for long weekends.
Patrick A.

Most of the seekers, virtually ninety per cent of the seekers who came in those days, were from other movements, false gurus of all kinds. In fact, we used to work almost exclusively on people who had been to other false gurus and some were on drugs as well. Shri Mataji used to work on them individually and She gave them so much love. She really worked very hard.
Djamel M.

How are you, my child
I went to a public programmeme in Brighton Pavilion in May 1982 and I was a bit sceptical to begin with, but as soon as Shri Mataji came into the room I felt a very powerful presence. It was a kind of recognition, and when She spoke it seemed that every point She made was hitting the nail on the head. I didn’t feel much when first given realization, but then some yogis came and worked on me and I felt a strong cool breeze, but I was sure they were blowing on my head and was still a bit sceptical. Meanwhile Shri Mataji was going round the hall, personally working on the new people.
‘Do you think She might come over here?’ I said to the yogis who were working on me, but they said probably not as I had already felt the cool breeze. So I sat and meditated, and then a little later Shri Mataji came and walked past me and just stroked my cheek.
‘How are you, my child?’ She said, as if She knew I really wanted Her to come to me, because the room was full of people. One other thing, which was amazing. I stayed right to the end and there was an older Arab man who was sitting there, and he couldn’t feel anything after everyone had worked on him. Shri Mataji came up and was standing in front of him so majestically. She seemed very big and tall, and he was on the chair with some yogis around him. She put Her finger on his Agnya and turned it. He still couldn’t feel it and She started stamping Her Foot on the floor. It felt like the whole place was vibrating and again She put Her finger on his Angya and turned it, and again She stamped Her Foot. She raised Her hand, and suddenly you could see his face, and yes! He could feel it.
‘Ha!’ She said as She raised Her hand up, ‘Now you feel it.’ It was amazing to see his recognition, and so powerful the way Shri Mataji was stamping on the floor. It was like a fight. To see that on somebody else helped me realise what was happening. Shri Mataji has mentioned that the bija mantra for the raising of the Kundalini is Ha! Which is why She said it and raised up Her hand up the kundalini when working on people.
Maggie K.

They never lasted
We had a couple come from the little fat boy, what was it called? Divine Light? They could see who Mother was, but they were so damaged, their Agnya was so damaged. Mother said it was short-circuiting completely. They were almost dazed, they never lasted and went off. Every now and again we would have the Great Hall in Caxton Hall, which really held a lot of people. About once a month we would do that, and we had a lot of people from the the Rajneesh people. They would all come wearing the orange gear, the necklaces, the picture.

‘Why are you coming here when you have got a guru?’ we would say. They didn’t know what to say, because they couldn’t understand, and they would then start to argue about Sahaja Yoga. They would come, and want their realisation, and then would argue when you would tell them, ‘You can’t wear this, and you can’t wear that’. Once I worked so hard on two of these people at one of those meetings, and I really thought I was doing the right thing. After this particular one Mother said to me ‘What on earth have you been doing?’ And I said ‘Oh just working on these people Mother’. ‘You don’t get involved in it!’ She said, and then She had to work on me, and it was a real lesson.
Maureen R.

Even when She was asleep She was working on us
I remember in the days of 1978, when Gregoire de Kalbermatten was around as well. He was writing a book on Sahaja Yoga called The Advent, which everybody knows and we used to be living in Finchley Road. Every morning, Shri Mataji used to phone around nine o’clock, just after Sir C.P. had gone to work and She used to say, ‘Okay, come over.’

We used to go to Her flat, Ashley Gardens, and spend the morning. Then we would leave at lunch time, when Sir C.P. was about to come. The least we could do was to try not to disturb Her married life and disturb Sir C.P., who had an important job as secretary-general of the IMO/UN, United Nations International Maritime Organization. Shri Mataji used to work on us and we used to do all kinds of things. She was working on Gregoire’s book. We used to go shopping with Her and in the afternoon we often sat down around Her and would have a nap, with our Sahasraras directed towards Her body. She used to work on us. Even when She was asleep, She was working on us.
Djamel M.


She worked on everyone
After meetings at Caxton Hall, Shri Mataji used to try and bring back as many Sahaja Yogis to Her flat as possible and bring back some of the other new seekers to work on them. She always had people in Her flat in those days, people that She worked on. She always showed Her concern and treated everyone equally, whether they were deep seekers or not. From the moment they came to Her, She felt like a duty to work on them. She would give them all the love, but She always, of course, favoured those who had a thought for the collective, for the whole.
Djamel M.

I know you
Shri Mataji worked on the twelve year old girl I’d brought with me to Ashley Gardens, who also had a left Heart catch, a very sweet, born-realized child, but painfully shy and as quiet as a mouse. Her Holiness worked on her. ‘I know you. Often when you’re alone you dance and sing,’ Shri Mataji said, then gave the child the gift of a wooden dancing doll, saying, ‘When you look at this doll and make it dance, you must remember to be happy and to dance and laugh.’ She told her to forgive society for what it had done to her. She was from a broken home.
Marylin L.

They realized that Sahaja Yoga was the thing
It was a two or three page article in Yoga Today. It had a picture of Shri Mataji and told all about Shri Mataji and about Sahaja Yoga. It said that if you put your hands towards this picture of Shri Mataji you could feel vibrations and you could sit and meditate. David Prole, one of the people who was quite high up in TM, had seen this and wanted information on it. He phoned Dollis Hill ashram because the number was in Yoga Today and he happened to get hold of me. He asked me what Sahaja Yoga was all about. I wasn’t a particularly eloquent sort of a speaker, but I tried to explain what it was all about. He wasn’t terribly impressed until I said, ‘Do you do meditation of any sort?’
He said, ‘Well, what’s it to do with you?’
‘Well, I think you do TM.’ I was met with this stunned silence.
He said, ‘How do you know?’
‘With Sahaja Yoga you feel vibrations from various chakras and if you do various things, chakras get altered or damaged, put out of alignment.’ I told him that when we feel a certain number of chakras altered, we know it has been caused by a certain thing. ‘I feel that you are surrounded by TM.’
Douglas F.

It turned out that David was involved with TM and that was what I felt. By good fortune, what I said attracted him. Mother must have been in there doing a bit of driving from the background. It made them realize that I knew what I was talking about and Sahaja Yoga was obviously what they had been looking for. They knew that TM wasn’t right, but they didn’t know what to put in its place and obviously, from what I said on the phone, they realized that Sahaja Yoga was the thing that they had to do.
Douglas F.


Those vibrations will go and work on others
Once Rustum B. had introduced a gentleman who was a German member of the London Jung Society to Shri Mataji. His name was Dr. Adler. We were in Shri Mataji’s flat, during the morning on the day She was going to meet these people. She worked on a painting all morning. She took this Indian painting and She changed it. She was showing us what She was doing and how She was changing the colour and the shapes and She was repainting it all. It was some kind of watercolour. You know how these Indian paintings come on this cloth and you can then again put your own colours on top, if you want? She was doing that and modifying the colours and modifying the shapes and so on. She was putting so many vibrations into this painting. We didn’t know why, but we were there witnessing that.

Then, in the afternoon, these people came to Mother’s flat. Gregoire was there and Dr. Adler. Mother was, of course, very happy to meet them because they were following Jung, who was a realized soul and who did so much work, which is really Sahaja work. Mother is very generous, of course. If anybody said they liked something, She would just give it.
‘Do you like this painting?’ She said, about the painting She had been working on. I think they said yes and She gave it to them. Gregoire was shocked.

‘Mother, you have been working on it all morning,’ he said.
‘It is not for Me. It’s got vibrations. Those vibrations will go and work on others. You have to show your generosity,’ She said.
Djamel M.

Help for delivery
When we were expecting our second child, there was a seminar at the source of the River Thames at Cowley Manor in 1982. Because I was very, very pregnant — it was July or August and the child was due in September — they put me in the next room to Shri Mataji and there was also someone else. Rosie Lyons was very pregnant as well and she was in the next room.

The next morning I was hovering about and Shri Mataji was there and there was a Sahaja Yogini looking after Mother and I was hovering about in the hall. I was hovering around first thing in the morning. It was quite early. In fact, I was still in my nightclothes with a dressing gown. Mother asked who was out in the passage.
‘A pregnant Sahaja Yogini,’ someone said.
‘I wasn’t sure if it was you or Rosie,’ Shri Mataji said and called me in. She started working on my Left Swadisthan and Left Visshuddhi. She worked on it for forty minutes and said that it would help my delivery. Innocent was born on the 16th September and the birth took forty minutes from start to finish.
Maureen R.

Shri Mataji’s attention was always with the current affairs
It was August 1981, and I felt very much it was time to have another seminar. I wanted to give the invitation to Shri Mataji because it was protocol to give Her an invitation and invite Her to come for the weekend. The only day I could go and give this was the day that Princess Diana was getting married and everybody was at home watching it on the TV and I also wanted to watch it. It was a big thing. She was very much loved by everyone, but I thought, ‘No, I have to go to Shri Mataji. I’m working so this is the only day I can go.’ The streets were deserted and I went to Shri Mataji’s apartment at Ashley Gardens. I was very nervous about giving this invitation and I met Alan Richards in the lobby, which was perfect timing and I told him why I’d come.

‘Maybe you could give the invitation to Shri Mataji,’ I said.
‘No, you must come with me,’ he replied. So we went up in the lift together and we knocked on the door and Shri Mataji opened the door. ‘Come in, come in,’ She said and invited us in. ‘We’re just watching the television.’

She was sitting watching the wedding and Princess Diana and Prince Charles were going through the streets. So we sat down and watched the whole procession and ceremony with Shri Mataji and it was very interesting to see how Shri Mataji’s attention was always with the current affairs, what was going on at the time. She always knew. She watched the TV and She read the newspapers.

As we were watching the ceremony, Diana made a mistake. ‘Oh, look at him. Look at his ego coming out,’ Shri Mataji said, and She started working on Charles. She was giving bandhans at the TV while they were standing at the altar and then a few minutes later he made a mistake and She said, ‘there, that’s better. His ego’s come down.’ It was really something to see Her working like this.
I gave Her the invitation and She said that She would be happy to come.
Felicity P.