Identity
Feb 11th 2008TanahaIntroduction
A talk on identity given by Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, founder of Sahaja Yoga, in Sydney on the 22 February 1995.
Actually there’s such a big desire to have an identity, but the identity lies within yourself, not outside. For example, we can find clubs of any kind, cults of any kind. They wear funny dresses just to show that they have a special personality. The other day in Chicago it was very cold and I found a gentleman who came as one leader of one of the cults, was chanting, chanting, chanting like mad. I asked him, “Why are you wearing this dhoti in this cold? It is so very cold you are shivering.” He said that. “My guru has told me that I should wear a dhoti so I’ll get my Self-realization.” I said, “Really?” I said, “Eighty percent people in India wear dhotis or they must be already there. You may not get any room there.” Then second thing he told me - he had shaven his head and was having a, some pigtail behind - and he says that, I told him, “Why did you do this?” Quite a young man. He said, “My guru has told me that I have to shave my head and I have to have all these things. That’s how I’ll get my nirvana.” I said, “Really? So Kabira, a great poet, has written that by shaving if you can go to heaven what about the lamb which is shaved twice a year? That will be there earlier.”
So like this, you see, all kinds of stupid things have been told and people have been following it. I don’t know in the West specially, people are very vulnerable. I don’t know why. Not in India, you see. It’s difficult. The people are solidly grounded, I think, in their tradition. For example now, if they say skirt which is six inches is in fashion, everybody will start wearing six inches skirts. All the long skirts will vanish from the market and what you find, all of them wearing six inches skirts. But in India they brought some mini sari. They said, “Get lost. We don’t want all this nonsense here. It’s too much for us we are not…” So like this, you see, we take to these entrepreneurs and things. It’s sometimes so absurd I don’t know how people accept all this nonsense. But I feel that once they develop their own being and understand how great they are, then they will have a proper divine discretion to do things which are very constructive. Normally we take to destructive things but with this discretion we do constructive things, not for ourselves only but for the benevolence of our family, for the benevolence of our city and for the benevolence of the whole world. Continue Reading »
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Tags: collective consciousness, doubtless awarereness, identity, Sahaja Yoga, Self-realisation
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