Questions and Answers (Mother, September 20, 1979)
[Note: During the last 4 minutes of this talk there is persistent beeping that is the result of the reel-to-reel taping that Mother used during the latter 1970s by recording on two tape decks with a connection from the reel-to-reel unit to a cassette recorder by its connection to the reel-to-reel’s monitor output jack. It was common in that era to have a sensor within the reel-to-reel ( for detecting the end of the tape) to inject a continuous beeping noise out the monitor jack which was usually going to headphones that the person at the recorder wore and thus know that the tape was getting near its end and to know when to change tapes or stop the recording. Look or search below for the words “BEEPING STARTS HERE:” to find the text during the beeping if you don’t want to listen to the tape from that point on. ]
Transcript:
DATE: 19790920
TITLE: QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
*************************
Mother: Bless you, Fred.
Would you mind turning [inaudible.] please. Thank you.
I’d like to read to you from Anandamayi Ma’s works this evening, entitled, Matri Vani:
All this which is His creation is under His dispensation, in His Presence, and is He. In whatever state He keeps anyone at any time, it is all for the good, for verily everything is ordained by Him, is of Him.
Relative happiness, which is happiness depending on anything, must end in grief. It is man’s duty to meditate upon God who is Peace itself. Without having recourse to that which aids the remembrance of God, there can be no peace.
Have you not seen what life in this world is? The one to be loved is God. In Him is everything. Him, you must try to find. If anything is to be had, whatsoever in whatsoever way, it must be had of Him alone.
Man’s bounden duty as a human being is to seek refuge at His feet. Days glide on. Already you have let so many go by. Anchored in patience, endeavor to pass the few remaining. Every moment belongs to God. Endeavor to keep your mind dedicated to His feet.
God, the Ocean of mercy, who ever blesses the world, pours out His grace at all times. It is incumbent on man to consider everything that happens to be for the best, for the best denoting what is most helpful towards the realization of the Divine, the realization of the fullness of bliss.
Who are the truly wealthy? Those who are possessed of the Supreme treasure, they alone are really rich and live in abundance. Poor and destitute must be called the man in whose heart the remembrance of God abides not. To depend solely on Him is man’s one and only duty.
Someone asked on Sunday that we have a question-and-answer period this evening, so I wonder if anyone has a question. [pause] Isn’t that amazing? Yes?
Congregant: Well, I’m new here. I’ve got a lot of questions, because I’ve done a lot of…
Mother: I can imagine. [laughter]
Congregant: …various studies, which I won’t bore you with. My temptation is to ask you about certain spiritual leaders.
Mother: Well don’t.
Congregant: But I said that’s my temptation.
Mother [laughs]
Congregant: I don’t know where to begin. There’s a lot happening, obviously. You fascinated me with your talk two weeks ago, or a week ago Sunday, and I wished you would expound a little bit more, for my own edification, on what you were speaking about—quakes, earthquakes, and natural catastrophes.
Mother: This is a spiritual group.
Congregant: I don’t… Yeah.
Mother: And our one purpose here is to seek God. I mention these other things in the outer sense, perhaps to inspire you, to awaken you to the necessity for immediately going within yourself and finding your oneness with God. I am not interested in dwelling on those particular things of the outer. They are negative, in the first place, but sometimes it’s necessary to instill a little fear in order to get man stimulated sufficiently to start his progress toward God. I want the attention to be totally upon God, and we have a few techniques that we give for that purpose.
Insofar as the question that you were tempted to ask me, I will say this to you. There are many teachers in America today, some of them calling themselves “guru.” Now, a Guru is one who comes to take you out of the darkness into the light. Some are qualified to do that and some are not. But I will say this to you, that every single person in this whole wide world has God within him, and he operates on the level of God-consciousness where he is at this moment. And those who are able to receive at that same level of consciousness, whether it be the highest, the lowest or in between, are drawn to such a one. There are few indeed totally God-realized souls, those who have gone through all of the experiences, even the death state, and have returned to teach humanity the Truth which they have experienced.
If you will give up the intellectual questionings, which can never satisfy your desire to know, and go within yourself and fix your attention totally upon God, give yourself to Him in full surrender, love Him with all of your heart, your mind, your soul and your strength, then you will not have to ask these questions that the intellect is constantly wanting to know about, but you will learn the Truth, which is the only thing worth having. Okay? Yes?
Congregant: I heard it said that once one chooses a guru, and follows that guru, that they shouldn’t, they should stick with that one path, right? and they shouldn’t be going from guru to guru because that can detract from their spiritual progress. If one chooses a guru, what about going to hear other gurus just speak, or reading books by other gurus or things like that? Can that detract from your progress?
Mother: Alright. In the first place, one does not choose a Guru. The Guru chooses the disciple. That is a common fallacy in the western world, that the disciple goes around and tests the Guru, who has already gone through the fire of testing, has attained the realization of their oneness with God. And then if that one measures up according to the idea of the disciple, who hasn’t even hardly put his foot on the spiritual path, then that one will accept the Guru. It is quite different. It is up to the Guru to decide whether or not he wants to pack that disciple on his back.
Secondly, what you say is true—when you have found the one true Guru, then you stay with that one for the rest of your lifetime, and sometimes many lifetimes. And the reason for that is this, that if you go from teacher to teacher, it does not mean to say that one teacher has the Truth more than another one, if they are truly God‑realized, because God is; it means that the way of going, the path, is different; the methods are different, the techniques are different. And it’s like you perhaps are in a chemistry laboratory and you put some ingredients together that you’re not just sure of how they’re going to come out and you have an explosion. So also, when you put some spiritual techniques into practice from one guru, or one spiritual teacher, and then start in with someone else, and use them at the same time, or keep going from one to the other, you could have an explosion inside of yourself. You get mixed up.
And my Guru many times used the example of people who are interested in food and diets, and so they go to one famous dietitian after another. They listen to the lectures and they put into practice for a few days or a few weeks, that which that one teaches. They get, throw out all the old food and they bring all the new food on and put it on shelves and into their mouths and their stomachs. But then pretty soon, they get bored with that because they have an old habit-pattern anyway. But still, they want to know more about what food they should eat to make their bodies well, so they go to still another dietitian. And that dietitian gives them a different course with a different set of rules and different foods, and they try that for a while. And so it goes, from one dietitian to another, until finally they feel qualified because they know everything that all of these dietitians have told, to get up and give a lecture themselves. And it isn’t so, because they have never really known anything about the science of food. Do you see? They haven’t stuck with anything long enough to know.
God‑realized souls are very few and far between in this world. It is said, some of the rest of you have heard of this, but I will tell you, that at all times there are but 12, only 12 real yogis in the world, those who have gone all the way, have died to the little self and have been resurrected, and have been “born again” into a new life, to use Christian terminology—only 12—and those 12 teachers keep the world in balance. That’s a very, very small number.
Now, you have many saints, many teachers, who are highly developed, highly illumined—great sages, great saints. And there is a difference between a saint and a universally-realized individual, because the saint sees definitely a demarcation between the path of good and the path of evil, and he chooses only the good. But the one who has found his oneness with God completely, absolutely, sees the whole world as God because where is He not? If He created everything and nothing was created except by Him, then there is no place where He is not. You see? And finally, that one sees that all the so-called “evil” in the world is not God punishing man but man punishing himself because he has failed to obey the laws of God.
Now with regard to your going to other places, it is better to stay with the one Guru. In my own case, I was with my Guru for 27 years before his passing. It never occurred to me to want to go to anyone else because he filled me so full with the Truth, with his great love for God, that I was just completely socked into him. I had no need to go to anyone else. Why should I go to a lake when I have the ocean before me?
As regards reading books written by other masters, yes, there are certain masters that I personally would recommend. One is my own Guru, Paramhansa Yogananda; Swami Ramdas, who helped me to attain my own God‑realization. His books can be obtained from Anandashram in India. And he is not to be confused with Ram Das who has been touring America. And Ramana Maharshi. Joel Goldsmith—many of his books, some of them are a little difficult for the beginning to understand, but not always. It depends. But he was truly a God-realized soul. And Ramakrishna, all of Ramakrishna’s books, for instance. There are many that I would recommend, but those are the chief ones that I would recommend. And if you read—Sri Aurobindo is another one. He was one of the greats. So if you want to read, there are many books written about these people and by these people that will keep you busy for a long time.
You read books, you read the scriptures in the beginning, to inspire yourself to seek God. You are looking for answers, but you are looking for them, even when you read a book, outside of yourself, you see. And God, it is said, is to be found only within. And that Truth is given in every great religion of the world, I don’t care which one it is. God is to be found within because He is the Life, He is the Power, He is the Beauty, He is the Peace, He is the everything that is the Real You, not the pseudo self who thinks of himself as separate, as God. That is the human ego, or the son of man. But it is the Real You, or God within you, that you are seeking. And until you forget everything else and go within the silent sanctuary of your own soul, and give yourself to Him completely, you will never know truly the answers to anything because you will have what somebody else tells you. You may believe what a true Guru tells you, but from an intellectual standpoint, no. And the mind is made so that it is constantly questioning, question after question after question. It always wants to be entertained, and it is never satisfied. Isn’t that true? It’s true.
And so, the thing is to cultivate the feeling of love in your heart—love for God, love for God in every single being whom you meet, in every atom of creation, every form that is here—because it is His life alone, His light, His intelligence, His power that permeates and keeps moving this whole universe. Does that answer your question?
Congregant: Ninety percent.
Mother: Alright, what’s the other ten?
Congregant: The other ten is well, for example Paramhansa Yogananda was Sri Yukteswar’s disciple.
Mother: That’s right.
Congregant: Yet he sought out the companionship and the company of other saints all the time.
Mother: That’s right.
Congregant: Now, that’s the sort of going to see other saints, to see other gurus, that I’m talking about.
Mother: I see.
Congregant: Is that good or bad, or can that detract from your own devotion to your own Guru?
Mother: It will detract if you are not steadfast in your love and your devotion. I will tell you, as I have told many before, the story about the tulsi tree. It is said that that was Krishna’s favorite tree. And in the beginning when the tree is very young and small, it must have a fence built around it to keep the cattle from troding over it and killing it. But if it does have that protective fence, then it will grow to be a tall strong tree which will provide the shade for many. So in the beginning, until you are solidly entrenched upon the spiritual path, you must stay just with the one. And if you have the type of love and devotion for, not for the person but for God in the form of the Guru, then you will not find the need, the desire, to go anyplace else because that one will give you the fullness. And as I’ve said, there are only 12 in the world at any one time, so where are you to go to really get the Truth, you see?—all of it—except at the feet of a completely God-realized soul.
Now as far as Paramhansa Yogananda was concerned, what you say is true. In his Autobiography, he tells of going to many saints. I did also, but only after I got my realization. I went to Swami Ramdas after my own Guru had left the body. Now, I had already been through many, many spiritual experiences, and I went there for a tremendous experience which I couldn’t possibly have handled myself, or could anybody in this country have handled. So God, through His infinite mercy, took me there. But my Master himself pointed out time after time after time, in the lessons and in his talks, that it was an absolute necessity.
As I just told you the story about the ones going to the dietitian, this was his philosophy, that when you found the true Guru, then you stayed with that one for life, and it was not necessary to go to anyone else.
Now, after you have progressed on the path sufficiently so that no one and nothing can shake you in your foundations and take you away from the true Guru, then you can start going, as you are directed within. But in the beginning, it is much better that you do. But there’s one thing I will also tell you, that I never take anyone’s free will away from them. What they do is between God and themselves. But you asked me a question, and I tell you the Truth. Now, what you do about that is up to you. Okay? Alright. Anyone else? Yes.
Congregant: Well, I’m wondering if there’s only 12 God-realized people at one time…
Mother: This is totally God-realized.
Congregant: Totally.
Mother: That have gone through the state of death and have returned again. In other words, the twice born, as the Christian scriptures call it. Now, what is the question?
Congregant: Well, I was thinking, you know, there’s only [indecipherable] left, and what you…
Mother: There’s what?
Congregant: I thought you were always asking us to attain that total God‑realization.
Mother: That’s right. I am.
Congregant: But you’re not necessarily expecting. If there’s only 12 at one time… [laughter]
Mother: Yes. But I didn’t tell you that you couldn’t attain God‑realization. I’m talking about the “Supreme State,” where it says: unless ye be born again, ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. There are many who attain tremendous heights! They attain the realization of oneness with God, but yet, there is still the ego sense left there. These that I am speaking of are the very special ones, like Christ, like the Buddha, like Mohammad, like Zoroaster, those who have moved the world. These are the ones that I am speaking of. But you can attain God‑realization, the realization of your oneness with Him, and not everybody goes through that supreme state. And that is called Sahaja Samadhi. It is said there are very few on earth ever attain that. But that doesn’t mean you can’t attain your God‑realization, because you can.
And when I say to attain your God‑realization, I’m not speaking of someone out here, up in the heavens; I’m speaking of realizing that in fact you are God in human form, right where you are. You go to this teacher. You go to this place. You think, “If I go to the Himalayas, if I go to a cave, if I go and sit at the feet of this one and that one and the other one, I’m going to get my God‑realization.” Nobody can give you God‑realization. You must earn that for yourself because, as the Christ said, it is the pearl of great price.
The teacher comes to teach you the Truth, to inspire you and to teach you how to go within and seek God who is to be found only there. And when you do that, you will attain tremendous bliss, you will tap the Source of all knowledge, your whole life will change, never to be the same again. It has every advantage in the world. But the people that I’m speaking of, these 12, are the real world‑movers. But that doesn’t mean that other people can’t attain God‑realization, the realization of oneness. These are the special ones, and they’re called…
Congregant: I think “avatar.”
Mother: Avatars. Now, an avatar is one who can assemble the atoms of a body and appear on earth, and teach mankind. An avatarum is one who has the same capacity, the same stature in the Spirit, but who is born in the human sense to a human mother and father, and they have a special destiny to fulfill. And so they go through life like every other human being on the way up, going through whatever God demands of them in the way of experience, but they’re working out karma not for themselves but for those who come before them. You see the difference? You understand what I’m saying?
Congregant: I’m not sure I do.
Mother: What do you not—You’re not sure of what? I didn’t understand you. I’m sorry.
Congregant: I [indecipherable] I hear what you’re saying, and I’m just not quite sure I understand it.
Mother: Well, I don’t know how to tell you in any clearer language than that. It depends on what your spiritual background is, as to your ability to understand this at this moment, and if you cannot comprehend what I’m saying to you, then I would suggest that you start just where you are and take what you can get out of it, and gradually the consciousness will expand and open and you’ll be able to understand and receive more as you go along. Every one of us is like that. We can’t start in the kindergarten today and graduate from the university tomorrow. That’s an absolute fact. We must go through every grade, learn the lessons, take the tests and pass the examinations; then we’re promoted to the next grade. And you can’t possibly start teaching a child mathematics today and expect him to be able to take a test in calculus tomorrow.
Congregant: Okay.
Mother: That make sense?
Congregant: [Inaudible]
Mother: So don’t worry about it. And the chief thing is not, again as I say, to worry about anything except keeping your mind on God. Let every thought, every word, every action that you perform, that comes through you, be for Him alone. But if you must think of yourself as the doer, then know that you get all of your power, all of your strength, all of your ideas, because there is but One Source in the world. We of ourselves are nothing. We are constantly being recharged.
The life energy is entering the body at the medulla back here. This is where the two‑edged sword enters the body, the positive and negative electrical currents which keep this body supplied with energy constantly. And sometimes when the body gets out of kilter in some ways, it becomes weak, it becomes diseased, from one thing or another. Sometimes it’s from wrong eating, sometimes it’s from wrong living, and many times from wrong thinking. It’s from over‑work, from over‑tension, maybe somebody else’s abuse. But remember this, that whatever, wherever we are at this moment, we have earned to be, through our own choice at some time or other. Whether we can recognize that fact or not, it is the Truth, because we are born with free will.
Also, we have been here through many, many incarnations as we have come out from God, or since we have come out from God, and so we have built up certain habit patterns, and we make certain choices in accordance with those patterns. And until they are worked out and until we learn our lessons, then we keep having the experiences necessary to teach us that there is only one place to go, and that is to God who is to be found only within ourselves.
You see, this is not a religion I am teaching you; it is a way of life. It is a science of being. It extends far beyond religion because God made man and man made religion. Every great religion in the world was started by an individual, but none of it has remained as it was originally given. I find that so even in my own Guru’s case, where his books were changed, his lessons were changed, the format of the way he wanted things conducted was changed, the names that he gave his disciples were changed. Even his own autobiography, which is an account of his own life, written by himself, was changed after his passing.
And so it has been with every great leader in the world. Somebody—somehow, the disciples always think they know better than the Guru. And how can that be when that one has attained the fullness of God and nothing but Truth comes from such a one? because there is nothing but God left in that form, except the small bit of the human which witnesses that which the Christ within does.
But don’t forget that God is both human and Divine. He’s not only Divine but He is also human, just like the Christ was born the son of man but he became the Son of God, the Christed One, after he got rid of the human ego, which is the ghost. He gave up the ghost of the Real Self, or God within him, or the human ego within him, I should say, and then he was filled with the power of the Holy Ghost, or the Divine Ego. That is Christhood. But you’re still living in a human body, you’re still using all of your five senses to live and move and work in this human world, and you’re as human as anyone else, except for one thing, and that is that you have realized God within yourself and you have become master of these senses and not the slaves, as you have been in the past. You see?
So it’s a state of gradual transition. It is not to be thought of as unattainable, but it is to be thought of in the sense that you take one step at a time and you relax, and you be yourself. You have the right to be you, the Real You. And what we teach you, this way of life, is to find out exactly who and what you are, the tremendous power, the tremendous capacity—the tremendous gifts that God has given you in this particular incarnation, that He wants you to make use of and not just fritter your time away, worshiping false idols of the senses, having your full attention engrossed in all of the things of the outer, when actually, the real purpose of your being here is to go within and find Him alone. And having found Him, then you see everything—inside, outside, up and down and in between—as God Himself living His life, because life is God and God is life, and there is none else, nothing else in this whole wide world but God. There couldn’t be; otherwise, what the scriptures tell us is not true. So either we believe them or we do not.
You cannot at one and the same time say that truly there are two forces, when God is Omnipresent. That means one power; if He is Omniscient, which means one wisdom, one intelligence; if He is—what’s the other one?
Congregant: Omnipotent?
Mother: Omnipotent. That’s the power one—one Power, one Presence, one Intelligence. It says these things. So you can’t speak out of both sides of your mouth.
And God is perfect. He does not punish us, but He has made perfect law. And He has made us in His image and His likeness, it says. And His image is in the form, and His likeness is in the Spirit. And like He Himself, if we’re made in His image and likeness, we have free will to do this or that, to obey His perfect law or to go against it. And in accordance with the free choice that we make, we either reward or punish ourselves. So man is the culprit when it comes to this idea of sin, of separation, of the satanic force. It is the human ego that fuels its separation from God; it is not God Himself.
I couldn’t worship a God who was evil. I wouldn’t have given myself to Him body, mind and soul, with everything I had, if I had believed I was giving myself to an evil God. Who would? Except perhaps the Satan-worshipers, who take delight in being different, of shocking the populace, and of getting themselves into trouble which will take them incarnations to get out of, if ever.
It is a time for waking up, of realizing the Truth. And the Truth is that we are God in human form. But we’re not going to find that out through reading books, although they will inspire us to go within and seek God. We are not going to get God‑realization by continuing to cater to the senses, by putting everything in the world, and our earthly pleasures first, but by focusing the full attention upon God, and no matter where you are, what you do, who you are with, of thinking of nothing but God alone, because who else are you with? What else is there that you’re doing?
Everything is of God, every single thing. You cannot escape from Him. And the reason He is Omniscient is, He is that Life, that Intelligence, that Power within you, and you cannot get away with one single thing. You may do things in secret, as it says in the Bible, but you might as well shout it from the housetops because God is in you. You take Him with you wherever you go, whatever you do, whoever you’re with. And He is there, and He knows! And the day of reckoning comes with every single person. And the more we keep going away from Him, the greater the price we’re going to have to pay.
But if we could only realize how great His love is for us and what we’re missing by not giving ourselves to Him completely, in absolute total surrender. If we could only realize what we’re missing, then we would throw away all of these playthings that we have and we would rush to Him and climb up on His lap, and put our arms around Him and say, “Father, here am I. Take me. Do with me as you will.” And then your whole world will open up into a thing of wonder, of beauty, of complete supply, of bliss, of happiness, of all of the wonderful and beautiful things of life.
You see, to get God‑realization is to die to the human sense. But it is not to die; it is really to find out, for the first time, what life is all about, because those who are still in ignorance and darkness and haven’t found God are really and truly the ones who are dead. They are in darkness. And Hades we always think of as being hell, but that is a place of the dead, of the ignorant. They are dead to the Spirit! They have not awakened yet. The graves have not opened and all of God’s good ones come forth. And you have all of that within yourself because you are a complete universe within yourself. You have everything in this small body that is in this outer universe—everything!
And as you go further into the study of metaphysics, into the study of who and what you are, you will find out that this is a tremendous Truth that I tell you, and you will be able to correlate what you have within yourself with all that goes on. And yet don’t forget that when you go to sleep at night, this world totally ceases to exist, and so do you; and yet, isn’t it amazing that you keep on breathing? Every part of your body continues to function? And then in the morning when you awaken, there is the world again. And we say we do things? No way. We keep ourselves going? Uh‑uh.
You have the most, before you, the most tremendous adventure that you can go on in the whole wide world. When you explore yourself, all that you have within yourself, and you come face-to-face with it, then you will truly know what it means to live and to breathe and to move and to have your being in God. And it’s beautiful. But don’t forget, don’t get discouraged. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither does man attain his God-realization overnight.
You see, I can’t even take the next step until I put one foot forward, and that’s what we do when we put our feet on the first ladder of God‑realization: we put that one foot forward and we start climbing. And if we will only listen to that still small voice inside of ourselves, which grows bigger and bigger as we listen to it, He will lead us, He will guide us, He will direct us every inch of the way. But if you get something in your solar plexus that says, “This doesn’t feel right. I’m frightened. I’m—Something is telling me something,” listen to it! Don’t do it! Or go ahead and do it, whichever the case might be, but follow God’s direction inside of you.
And you say, “Well, how do I know whether it’s the truth?”
It comes in a certain way, and you test it as you go along. If you have a hunch, for instance, that you’re going to see a friend that you haven’t seen in an awful long time, and you feel so sure of that, then realize how you feel at that moment. And if you see that friend, then that will be prophecy fulfilled, won’t it? You will know that when you felt that way, God was speaking to you. He was telling you the truth. So the next time He makes you feel this way, lean on it a little bit. But test each spirit as it comes because sometimes, in the sense of duality, it comes to test you, to tempt you. So say, “Lord, show me the way. Let me do only Thy will.” And you will find, as you work with it, that it will grow stronger and stronger and stronger.
And finally, when you have gone over the top, there is no two forces: “Shall I do this or that or the other thing?” It is God, in your form, that is doing every single thing. He is thinking, He is speaking, He is eating, He is seeing, He is hearing, He is tasting, He is smelling, He is—Everything is God, and you are but the witness of that which the Christ within you, that arisen Christ, is doing, and you have paid the price for it. And it’s beautiful.
I have lived many, many years and I have been through tremendous things, but I wouldn’t give up one minute of it. And if God were to ask me now to do it all over again, I would say, “Of course. Why have You given me so much and asked of me so little?” When I think of what I had, what I am now and the way that I lived my life, compared with the way I was before I went through these tremendous experiences, I wouldn’t trade with anybody on earth; and yet, I live a very busy life, a very difficult life. But I am always with Him. And whatever He wants, this is my wish also, my will, because I live only to do His will—nothing else—because I love Him with all of my heart, my mind, my soul and my strength. There is nothing He would ask of me that I would not do. It doesn’t matter what.
Okay. Any more questions? Yes?
Congregant: For those who have not met with you [indecipherable] can they still get their God‑realization in this lifetime?
Mother: It depends on their state of consciousness, their state of development, and how much effort they put into it. As I’ve told you before, never once in my life have I advertised, never once have I gone out for any single human being. Every one that is with me, in this group and all of the groups I have in various places, have, every single one has been brought by someone else. They go and they come. But the ones that truly belong here, stay. And some of them, after they’ve been a while, they go and then they come back. Others don’t. It depends on your particular state of development and what God’s will is. But I never interfere with that. It doesn’t matter to me about numbers. If only one comes, then I give that one everything I had because he’s a good one or he wouldn’t be here. I let God worry about that.
You know, it’s His business, after all. It isn’t mine. He put me through what He did. I had no idea of any of these things that I went through because I’d been brought up a Roman Catholic, raised in the orthodox faith. No way did I know that the way of the cross and the Christ was what I went through. I had never heard about it, I had never read it. I had to be put through it, in order to know. And so I leave all things to Him because He knows who He wants here. He knows who He wants to take away. And those that I initiate, who have taken their vows before God, Christ and this line of Gurus, I expect them to keep them. And if they do not keep them, they are accountable to God. And I stress very strongly, if they are going to take the Kriya initiation, which is a tremendous initiation and is the “airplane route” to God—I know of no other organization that gives this in the way that my Guru taught it, and it’s really the airplane route. But one who takes that and then does not keep his vows, is accountable to God, and I wouldn’t like to be in his shoes. This is true.
You can’t go from Guru to Guru and take initiation with this one and that one, just to satisfy your desire for knowledge, to satisfy your desire to know what the other fellow does. That’s not the purpose for which you put your feet on the spiritual path. If you are what you should be in God, you put your feet on the spiritual path because you want to find out the Truth; you want to find out who and what you are and the reason for which you are here. Those are the only reasons that you should attempt to start the spiritual path, a spiritual road. Anything else is not important because you are merely satisfying your mind, your intellect, which can never be satisfied—never.
Okay? Anyone else?
Congregant: [inaudible] intellectual question.
Mother: Alright.
Congregant: Would you consider religious orthodoxy a hindrance or a necessity for spiritual development?
Mother: Well, as I said, God made man and man made religions, and I think I’ve, in a way, answered this question already because each one comes with a certain state of consciousness because we involve [sic] from lifetime to lifetime. We have only to look around us. You can go down to skid row and you can see people in one state of consciousness. Some of them may be, at one time, have been college graduates, but they’ve been reduced to this, you see, depending on their use or misuse of their own free will. You can look all around you. Everybody’s in a different state of consciousness and it’d be a very dull and boring world if we were all exactly the same. So each one comes in a certain grade of school, the school of life, and he chooses that which he is ready, his consciousness, is ready to receive at that moment. And he cannot possibly accept anything else.
This is why I do not believe in missionary work in the way that the orthodox Christians put it forth because they go in and they say, “I have the only truth. I have the only real religion. You must follow me.” And yet, look at Christianity itself, at all the numbers, the names of the various sects, all claiming to have the one truth of Christ. And yet, they fight among themselves. Each one has something different. Hm? So the truth is to be found within yourself. So you choose that which you’re ready to receive, and when you try to force your belief or your idea of truth on someone else, you do them a great disservice if they are not ready to receive that.
Help them where they are. Realize that if God is Omnipresent, He is right where they are, in whatever faith they have chosen, just the same as anybody else. Huh? God is equally present everywhere, so He is in every religion. He’s in every individual, whether they know it or not. That’s the way it is. So when I meet somebody from another religion, if they are attracted to what I tell them, if they want to come and follow me, this is great. I will help them to the best of my ability. But I don’t ever try to proselytize; in fact, not too long ago I suggested to somebody that they not make the effort they were making to take somebody from another church group and bring them to me, and they didn’t listen to me and they got into trouble. I don’t want that.
I want you to come only if you feel the direction of God within yourself to come, if you feel that God in this form can help you, that this is what you need, this is what you want. I don’t know how you can be any more fair than that, do you? Do you?
Congregant: No.
Mother: Okay. So, if God is Omnipresent, you see, He’s everyplace. But what we want to do now, what we are attempting to do in this group, is just like you have gone through all of the grades of school, you have gone through college, and most people who graduate from college then go out and they do some type of work for which they’ve equipped themselves, or maybe they haven’t, but anyway, they’re through with school. [laughter in the congregation.] And there are the few hardy souls who go out for the Master’s degrees, the Doctor’s degrees, and they get more than one. In other words, they are the pioneers. They want additional higher knowledge, you see, because they want to know the utmost that it is possible for them to know. You see? And so what we want to do is to go beyond all religion, to the Truth! The religion is merely the path which some people choose to go on, and that’s very necessary in the beginning.
As I say, it depends on your state of consciousness, where you come from. This is nothing against anybody, because the child that is starting in the kindergarten is of the age where he belongs in that kindergarten. And you don’t blame him because he isn’t in college. So he is just as great where he is as the person that’s higher up, but he hasn’t discovered all of his greatness yet, because it is not the individual whose great; it is God in the individual who is great. He is the only great One.
As the Christ said, I of myself am nothing. It is my Father who doeth the works. And even after you have attained the realization of your oneness with God and God uses this form which He created to perform miracles, it is not you who do this, not if you’re a real one; it is God in this form.
I of myself am truly nothing. It is my Father who heals. It is He who does this or that or the other thing. And the surrender is absolute and total, the faith is supreme, the acceptance is complete, because then you know you’re not grasping at straws. You’re not trying to find the answer from this one or that one or the other one, but you have finally realized that the only place you can find the Truth, regardless of if anybody can tell you the absolute Truth, you can only verify that Truth within yourself. Until you have done that, you have to accept it through faith. Do you not? Otherwise, you have no right to condemn it.
Okay? Who else?
Congregant: Can you be married and have other responsibilities and still, whatever the…?
Mother: Well, I was, and I did.
Congregant: Really?
Mother: Mm‑hmm. I was married. I had three children. I worked for 35 years straight in a business office, or a few of them, and still I attained my God‑realization. And the reason I did that was because my love for God in my Guru was so tremendous. He opened up such a new world to me, one that I never even dreamed of, one that was so beautiful, so fulfilling. He didn’t put God outside. He didn’t constantly stuff hellfire and damnation down my throat, but he taught me that the Christ was to be found within myself. And this Master, who came from India, taught me more about the Christ in one evening than I had learned in all of the years that I went to the orthodox church. And it was the Truth. It was for real! He made me know, as the Christ said, that I was the temple of God, that if I sought first the kingdom of God, God and His kingdom—and they are to be found within, as heaven is—then all of the rest would be added unto me.
But he made me know this! These weren’t words that were read out of the Bible and then you’re told exactly the opposite, that the Christ is coming out here, when it says in the Bible that the kingdom of heaven is within. And if Christ is coming a second time out of the kingdom of heaven, which he said was within, then where in the world is he going to come except within the heaven of your own being, when you have sufficiently purified yourself to change yourself and be ready for it? And He will come.
And when you go through this tremendous experience, you see your own savior crucified on your own cross, which is your own body, because every man the world over is made in the form of a cross. And it speaks of the death of the cross and the blood of the cross—if you don’t believe me, look up in the Bible—and a wooden cross doesn’t bleed and neither does it die. This is the cross that it speaks of, right here.
Yes? Did somebody have their hand up? Yes?
Congregant: Well, in this nature, I mean, it makes me want to ask, “Where do you fit in the hierarchy?”
Mother: [Mother and the congregation laugh.] Well, I only know what I have been told, you see, and I leave that all in God’s hands.
Congregant: I’d like to think you’re one of the 12.
Mother: Would you, really? Well, I would too. [laughter]
Mother: I tell you, if I am, why don’t you come up and join me and then we’ll both laugh together? [laughter]
Congregant: Gladly.
Mother: Alright. Well, you know what it takes. It takes a total submergence of your mind, what you call your self today, to be willing to let go of all of that, give it all to God—when you come to the point where you have found, through everything you have read, through everything you have heard, through everything that has been said and done, and you have done, the point where you know that you know nothing, and you’ve done everything you know how to do to get your God‑realization and you say, “Well, Father, [I’ve] done everything I know, but it hasn’t happened yet. I guess I’ll have to leave it up to You.” And at that very moment of total surrender on your part, when you know that you know nothing and can do nothing, then He comes in and does the work for you.
Congregant: Will I have to verify that experience?
Mother: Well, of course you do.
Congregant: I do really have to.
Mother: Of course, you do. Everybody does. There is no exception. That is true. But you see what I mean. The mind constantly wants to be entertained. It wants to be satisfied. It wants to be given information. But all the information I give you in this world about Truth is not going to give you your God‑realization. I can teach you the techniques by which you can go inside and find Him for yourself, but you can’t just take a couple of swipes at it, like the fellow who was going to all the dieticians, and say, “Well, what you say isn’t true.” You’ve got to hang in there until you prove it. And it takes a lot of hanging in.
Congregant: But isn’t there a paradox [indecipherable] because I feel like the fella that’s been to all the dieticians.
Mother: Ya? Well? Are you an expert on food?
Congregant: No. [laughter]
Mother: Well, that’s your answer then, isn’t it?
Congregant: Yes.
Mother: Okay. Yes?
Congregant: Okay, to find God we have to go within,
Mother: Right.
Congregant: and this is the path. But… Well, I mean…
Mother: There are many paths,
Congregant: Okay.
Mother: but there’s only one path, conversely, and that is the spine, the path of the spine and the brain. You see. That is the path by which every man—You are—this path is to be found within yourself. Hm? Your seven spinal centers are the seven churches that are spoken of in the Christian scriptures, again in allegory, don’t you see?
Remember that Jesus told his disciples, To you it is given to know the mysteries, or the Truth, but to others in parables, lest they get something that they have not yet earned and they wouldn’t know what to do with it. You see? Everything that is in that scripture is contained in here.
Congregant: Okay. Well, my question is again about the Guru‑disciple relationship.
Mother: Mmhm.
Congregant: It’s said that you find the Guru within yourself also, right?
Mother: That’s right.
Congregant: The Guru will be there with you. [?] So, it isn’t necessarily so important that you actually be in the Guru’s physical presence at all times.
Mother: Ohh, it is much better that you be, and every great saint in the world will tell you, that the more you can be in the presence of your Guru, the more you are going to advance, and the Guru is God within you. But don’t forget that you, as a human being—it is said that man is God playing the fool, because everything is God. But God takes on the form of a man, and until he realizes who and what he is inside of himself—The Hindus call this His lila, or His “play,” His play. And so until you make the effort to know yourself, you must stay with the one. And obedience is necessary, absolute obedience.
Now, that’s very difficult for westerners to do because they don’t like to follow the laws. And this is particularly true of the west today. It’s rampant all over the world, but it’s particularly true in the west today; and yet, these laws were made by God and they have to be followed, because you can change the laws of man but you cannot change the laws of God; and therefore, you are not excused when you choose to do otherwise.
You write your own destiny upon your own forehead with your own hand, in accordance with your own choice. So if you choose to go with God and keep your body-temple pure inwardly, outwardly—your thoughts, your words, your actions—and dedicate your whole life to Him, this doesn’t mean that you are a renunciate, from the standpoint that you’ve got to escape from the world in that sense. No way! It is he who stands right in the midst of the world, girded around by all of the battles, that is the real hero when he rises above all of it because, you see, you can’t run away from yourself.
Wherever you go, you take yourself within you, and that’s where the battle is fought. That is where the battle of Armageddon is fought, or the battle of the Kurukshetra, as the Hindus call it, and it is fought at the heart center, which is the dividing center between the three lower ones and the three upper ones. And when the consciousness is ready to receive God, when your whole being is dedicated to Him, then He lifts you up, He puts you through the experiences. And you need have no fear because He is with you and He will take you through it.
And don’t forget you’re but paying the price for that which you have earned to pay. And also, you are getting the reward because karma, as the Hindus call it, isn’t just a one-way street. There are some organizations that hold karma over the heads of the disciples like a Sword of Damocles, as though it was all bad, and “Watch out! You can’t do this because your head’s gonna get chopped off.” There is good karma. There are rewards for the soul that is totally dedicated to God. And it isn’t a giving up of life, but it is the fullness of life, of finding out what life is all about for the first time, because the rest of the time, before you have found that, you do nothing but wonder; you do nothing but get yourself into one thing after another and carry a great big stack of troubles, of burdens on your shoulder.
And the Christ said, Come to me, all of ye who are burdened and—what is it?
Congregant: Heavy laden.
Mother: And heavy laden, and I shall give you rest. And that is the Truth.
I live more fully today, since I have been through these experiences many, many years ago, than I have seen anybody live. Every moment of my life is filled with God. Every moment of it is interesting. I’ve never graduated from a school in my life, and yet I have traveled around the world three times. I’ve met the greats of all nations. I have some saints as my disciples. I have met the lowliest, and some of these are the greatest. I have had a tremendous life, because I am one with all of life, and it is not an escape from life but a realization and a living of the fullness of life, in the right way, so that the burden is lifted off of your shoulders and placed where it belongs, because God is the Sole Doer in the universe. You aren’t. He’s just using this form, and your form, and every other form, to do His will.
But you see, before we realize that it is God doing all things, “I did this. I thought this. I got this. I, I, I” This little I is so big, and of itself it doesn’t really exist. That’s the amazing thing.
[BEEPING STARTS HERE:]
It’s only the I AM THAT I AM, the Real Self, the God within you, that is the True Liver in this temple, the One who lives and breathes and has His being. That’s true of me; it’s true of every single one who walks the earth.
We don’t have a name. We don’t have an organization. We don’t charge anything. Anything that is given, is given from the heart, through the people who feel that they get help. No pressure is put to bear, to stay or to go or to anything else. I just have but one desire, and that is to teach you the Truth about yourself, to help you to attain the state which I now enjoy, if you want it. But I will never force it upon you, ever. But if you decide to come, then you abide by the rules. See? But the choice is yours. You can go if you don’t want to do that. But if you decide to stay, then the rules are there and they must be kept; otherwise, who is punished? Not me. It’s you. So you keep yourself from getting the highest of that which you could attain, of being That.
You see, the disciple—you made the statement about “you choose the Guru,” and many disciples come that way. But they don’t realize that when the Guru takes on a new disciple, they take on a new burden on their back. Now, there are many Gurus that charge for what they do. I don’t. So everyone I take on as a disciple, I take as a burden on my back. And I have to pay a certain price—it is spiritual law—for each one I decide to take, and yet, not I but God within this form. And I leave it all to Him.
So, people don’t need to think in the ego sense that when they agree to honor me by accepting me as their Guru, that they’re doing me a service. They’re doing God and themselves a service. And I say that out of no ego-sense whatsoever—none—because I only want what God wants me to have. And what He doesn’t want me to have, I don’t want. And that’s the Truth, because I’m totally free, you see. That’s a wonderful thing to be—totally free, just to be myself, to “roll with it,” as we say; to live life in all of its fullness and beauty and glory.
But you’ve got to learn about yourself. There’s so much psychological difficulty in the world today. The world is full of it. Every day something comes before my attention. And many people come to me who are mentally and emotionally disturbed, and until that part of it is taken care of, they can’t hope to even begin to put their feet on the spiritual path. You can help them where they are, but your field is the spiritual. But there’s more and more and more of it, because of over- usage of drugs, of over-indulgence in sex, of alcoholism, of disobeying all of the laws of nature and of God. And they’ve brought themselves to this point and they don’t realize it. They’re always ready to blame somebody else. But they came with free will, free choice. And in accordance with that choice, then they bring either their reward or their punishment, it doesn’t make any difference what.
Okay? This is great. We’re getting a lot of questions tonight. [laughs]
Yes?
Congregant: One more. I don’t want to repeat a question, but [indecipherable] the same question I asked before. A Guru, or when a Guru initiates a disciple upon the path, or any path of spiritual development [This talk ends abruptly here.]