One Hundred and Eight Questions: Answers to Calm Our Deepest Concerns

By Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

At public programs, informal gatherings and media interviews, Shri Mataji often invited questions – from Sahaja Yogis, seekers, journalists. She satisfied our curiosity, our concerns. And calmed our confusions. Here are 108 of those questions, some naive, some misguided, but mostly insightful, rich and relevant. Each one is answered with love and patience. As one seeker prefaced his query, “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, but we are spiritual beings having a human experience.” Shri Mataji agreed. “You have just become loving angels,” she said.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jun 3, 2019
• ISBN: 9780359704873

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joy

Could you explain the difference between joy and happiness?

Oh, very simple, you know. Joy does not have a double thing like happiness and unhappiness. Joy is singular, absolute. It is absolute. It is thoughtless. It is fulfillment. Happiness is always shadowed by unhappiness. It is the double-coined stuff, double faces of a coin. Happiness will be followed by unhappiness, unhappiness by happiness. It is a relative terminology. But joy is absolute – absolute.

It is beyond thought. It is bliss.

It’s more like contentment?

Contentment can be relative still. But joy is all that in one. Joy is where you do not ask anything any more. You are just there. It just emits. You do not want anything. It just goes overflowing. It has nothing to do with your rationality, cannot be perceived through your rationality. It is beyond. You just feel it.

1980.05.26

QUESTION TWO

anger

When we get angry, is our anger just our tendency to react?

If you get angry within yourself and if you are sure that you are not doing anything wrong, for a Sahaja Yogi there is no need to say, outside you are angry. There is no need.

That anger itself is a power and you should do your bandhan and anything that you want to do, but you should not show that you are angry. You should be absolutely silent because you can be. You are in the axis. You are not on the periphery.

Actually, the anger is just to see your anger and use that anger for that purpose. And once you start doing that, that anger will itself work out. That anger will itself work out the person. And you will be amazed. But you must learn to see your anger that is working. All these things are important.

You have seen that sometimes only shouting at the bhoots, they go away and many mad people have been cured like that. But you do not do all that. That is for me. You must be always decent, with decorum and all that. But if the anger is because of your nature or a tendency or out of control, then it is a bad thing.

1982.08.06

QUESTION THREE

art

How is an artist, who is a Sahaja Yogi, by what means are they to create a piece of art?

The piece of art must emit vibrations.

If it does not emit, that means there is something wrong. Go for some higher subjects like Kundalini, like the expression of Kundalini. The colours of Kundalini intrude into another world. You have to move into that world.

You can see we have so many artists – for example, you can say Blake. And for a Sahaja Yogi, it should be a kind of a beautiful integration of the gross and the abstract or the realistic and abstract, you can say, and little bit of impressionism. That is how you should try to integrate all of them. They express one style. A Sahaja Yogi has his own style because he knows how to mix them, how to integrate. But certain colours like black should be avoided. But the pastel colours, if they are mixed with black, give a depth to the pastel colours.

1984.05.06

QUESTION FOUR

artist

Mother, perhaps You can see the beauty because You are the artist.

I am the artist and I am the art.

But what about you? Who are you?

You are the one who is created and you can create and you can become the artist. That is what I am saying, that you are not only the light, but the light that will give light to others. And also you will sustain that light, which you have given.

This is the difference now between you and other people, not that only you will be the artist, but you will enjoy the art of the artist. This is what you have got. You do not know. You are not aware of your powers. It is a dynamic thing which has happened to you, which you should take to. But our attention is on from where the dirt is coming, where the filth is coming, where the ugliness is there....

The same thing can look ugly to a person who is of that kind of an attitude who wants to see everything ugly.

Try your attitudes. Try to see good in others. Try to see. I am not saying for other people, but I am saying at least for Sahaja Yogis you can do it. Try to see good in them, what good they have done to Sahaja Yoga, what you owe to them, how to get along with them. Why not see the good in them? By giving them encouragement, by being good to them, you are helping Sahaja Yoga. But you want to help your ego because you are very wise.

So then only, by appreciating another person only, you have a better relationship.

This is a very simple fact.

1982.08.06

QUESTION FIVE

attention

Shri Mataji, could You say something about maintaining our attention so that it stays where it should?

The best way is to learn how to watch yourself.

Just now, sitting here, just put yourself into a position from where you watch yourself. Now what am I doing?

This is the abbhyas. This is the study. Apart from mantras, apart from anything, the abbhyas is the practice, the practice of becoming a witness. And the witness is the spirit state. There attention will not go. I mean you will see everything....

That is how the attention can be fixed very well if you practise abbhyas. Practise all the time to be the witness. Say you go out, you see something, you just try to see it, not to think about it. Be a witness of the whole thing. The joy will be complete and also you will become absolutely peaceful. Your attention will be completely enlightened. And then the inspiration you will get will be tremendous....

To me, it is just like a film in my mind. If I have seen this room, now I know what is in this design. Everything I know, how you are sitting, what pose you have taken, how you were, what it was. Everything is like a design. It comes to me just like a picture – absolutely not of this life, but of lives – because that is a recording system that records best.

1982.08.06

QUESTION SIX

attention

Shri Mataji, should we use any technique to train our attention?

Yes, there are many techniques, as you know, in Sahaja Yoga.

As Naam Deva has said, A boy is flying a kite in the sky and he is talking to everyone. He is listening to everyone. He is playing with his friends around, but his attention is on the kite.

Try to put your attention to your Spirit – simple. In everything, if you

Reviews for One Hundred and Eight Questions

[Jaideep Singh Chandela · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Treasure it for posterity. A complete granth. A must for seekers of divine knowledge.