CBC Radio Interview “The Planet” 1983-10-04
Current language: English, list all talks in: English
4 October 1983
Interview
Vancouver (Canada)
Talk Language: English | Transcript (English) - Reviewed
CBC Radio Interview “The Planet”
Presenter: [Missing part] come to Vancouver. But unlike some others this one is not after your money. As a matter of fact, She brands those gurus or teachers that are after your money as fakes. Shri Mataji Devi lives in London with Her husband, the United Nations diplomat. As a child in India She knew She was different, and Her character trait Mahatma Gandhi also recognized when he asked Her to stay and worked with him. In 1970 Shri Mataji began Her mission in bringing peace and enlightenment to the world’s people and She is here in Vancouver, this week.
You don’t take money or ask for it?
Shri Mataji: (Laughes) No, no. You can’t pay for it. It is God’s love. How can you pay? How much do you have to pay for it?
Presenter: How do you finance Your projects?
Shri Mataji: You see, I travel by Myself because My husband can afford it. And the people who have their own centers, they manage their own, because they live there. They pay for the rent and they manage their own. I don’t take any money from them at all for My own maintenance or anything. Sometimes they do pay Me for My travels. Sometimes. Not to Me but to the, I should say, to the travel agent.
Presenter: So they pay Your travelling expenses.
Shri Mataji: Sometimes. Very rarely.
Presenter: Gurus that do ask for money then, You say, are automatically fakes.
Shri Mataji: Of course. They are not gurus, you see. The, you cannot ask for money from your disciple for God’s work. This is God’s work and God gives you everything free, doesn’t He? You breathe freely, you see freely; all these capacities are given to you by God, absolutely free. The sun is free to you; the Mother Earth is free to you. How can you pay for it? It’s only human beings have created these economic wants and things like that.
Presenter: I called you a guru. I called you a teacher. What do You call yourself?
Shri Mataji: I’m a Mother, I should say. I’m a Mother like Mother Earth is. I’m here to nourish people, to soothe them, to give them what they have within themselves. I’m not a guru in the sense that I don’t have that strictness of a guru. I have tremendous patience and love for all those who are seekers.
Presenter: What do you have or who do you have to be, to be a seeker?
Shri Mataji: To be a seeker it’s a special category of people, who feel that they haven’t got the joy of life. They feel that whatever they have got is in duality, like happiness-unhappiness-sorrow, and they have to seek something higher in their awareness by which they will get joy in their life.
Presenter: But what You’ve just told me is a universal truth. It’s like saying, “Milk is good if you drink. Milk it is; it’s good for you.”
Shri Mataji: Yeah, of course, it is all universal. Yeah.
Presenter: We are all seekers.
Shri Mataji: Yes, of course, you are all seekers.
Presenter: We are all trying to find something.
Shri Mataji: Yes, that’s true. But some people try to first seek ? I mean, in this country people are much more aware ? but normally people try to seek in money, in possessions, in power, in politics. They think by doing that, they’ll find joy. But those people [who] have crossed all those things in their previous lives or maybe in this life, turn to something that is beyond all these. They realize that there is no joy in economic wants because economics itself says that wants in general are not satiable. So there’s some sort of a want within us which is genuine, which is pure, which is to be satisfied.
Presenter: Do You find a great deal of cynicism in, in people? You are here Shri Mataji laughes) talking to me today this afternoon, but here, in North America the, the person that’s getting a, a lot of, of news is, is a man named Bhagwan Rajneesh. Have You heard of him?
Shri Mataji: Ha. Very much. I know him well.
Presenter: He’s taken over a small Oregon town and makes some people, a lot of people very suspicious [in leering] of ....
Shri Mataji: Thank God, thank God for that they are suspicious, but it’s rather late now. It’s very sensible to be suspicious of such people, but I don’t know how they never were suspicious before. It’s very late.
Presenter: People seem to be searching. They are looking for answers and they are very quick to believe.
Shri Mataji: They are. That’s the trouble. They don’t use their brains. God has given you brains, you must understand. Also you must verify the people who go to them, what happens to them. They become recluses, they become mentally deranged, they get epilepsies, they get cancers, they get heart attacks. So many gurus die of massive heart attacks. You cannot die of massive heart attack if you are a person from God’s own blessing [is]. Very rare, very rarely you hear such a thing.
And the people who go to them do not want to see what their disciples have achieved, if they have achieved mastery over themselves, if they are transformed. Transformation is the whole motivating force in this. If you are not transformed you should not accept such a guru or anyone. That is something I should say what happens to your intelligence. How do you manage? These Indians won’t have them. So they are all here because Indians are, though not so intellectual, I think they are wiser people. They are more to the ground.
Presenter: Do Your followers, what do they do? Do they worship You or do they follow Your way of life?
Shri Mataji: No, they follow themselves because they awaken their own Kundalini, and they know how to guide it and how to use it, how to develop and how to grow into it, and when they become masters they can give it to others and there are many who are doing like that.
Presenter: I, I ask You that because in one of the press reports that I read about You it’s said that Your followers sit in front of a picture of You.
Shri Mataji: Yes, My picture has luckily got vibrations as I have got. It’s something a miracle, I should say. There are many pictures quite, quite fantastic for human, human understanding. Like there’s one picture you can see maybe here, in Vancouver we have got, in which there was light falling on Me, on My head. Seven times the light came on Me. But the people don’t see with naked eyes but the camera caught it. There were lights of different colors falling on Me in a village where there is no question of any chemic or anything.
Presenter: Why do You think that He has chosen You?
Shri Mataji: That better ask Him.
Presenter: You don’t know.
Shri Mataji: I know but I don’t want to say. You see, it is not better to say. It’s much better these days to be tactful, not to say about yourself, because Christ said what He was and He was crucified. I have to be tactful with people, you see. If I say anything they’ll just come on Me and just try to destroy unnecessarily. There are already people come and hit Me with Bible and things like that. Can you believe it? I am doing good to people and here they are.
Presenter: Who is, who is hitting You with Bibles?
Shri Mataji: Oh, all these people.
Presenter: Here, in Vancouver?
Shri Mataji: No, no, not here. Thank God, the people here are much more sensible. But in L.A. some people.
Presenter: In Los Angeles?
Shri Mataji: Mmmmm, they are paid for it, by some organizations who think now they are challenged because I say, “You cannot take money for God’s work.” That’s one of the greatest hit on their stomach, I think.
Presenter: It all comes down to faith, faith in You, faith in God...
Shri Mataji: No, no, no, no, no, not at all. There’s no...
Presenter: Faith in... Belief.
Shri Mataji: No, no, not at all.
Presenter: Some beliefs of some kind...
Shri Mataji: Those who are atheist also can get Realization. There is Spirit, it's within you, just like you have got your eyes set inside you. In the same way there is Spirit and there is the Kundalini. You don’t have to have any faith. There’s no need to have faith. Faith on the contrary can be very dangerous. If you have blind faith, you sometimes start thinking you are Christ. Faith can be very dangerous, and you have to have an open mind of a scientist.
Presenter: Thank You for talking with us.
Shri Mataji: Thank you.
Presenter: Thank You.
Shri Mataji Devi will be conducting a public meeting here in Vancouver at Center Robson Square Media Center. It happens tomorrow night, the 5th of October at seven o’clock, and if you’d like more information give this number a call: 9225430, 9225430.