Nirmala Srivastava (née Nirmala Salve, more widely known as Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi) is the founder of Sahaja Yoga, a new religious movement.[1] She has proclaimed that she is the complete[2] incarnation of the Adi Shakti, and is worshiped as such.[3].
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Nirmala Srivastava (Shri Mataji) was born on March 21, 1923 in Chindawara, India to Christian parents, Prasad and Cornelia Salve. She says that she is descended from the royal Shalivahana/Satavahana dynasty.[4] The Salve surname is one of a number included in the Satavahana Maratha clan. Her parents named her Nirmala, which means "immaculate."[5] She says that she was born self-realised.[4]
Nirmala Srivastava passed her childhood years in the family house in Nagpur.[6] In her youth she stayed in the ashram of Mahatma Gandhi.[5] Like her parents, she was involved in the Indian independence movement;[5] as a young woman she was a youth leader, and participated in the Quit India Movement.[7][8] She also studied at the Christian Medical College in Ludhiana and the Balakram Medical College in Lahore.[6]
Shortly before India achieved independence in 1947, Nirmala married Chandrika Prasad Srivastava.[7] They have two daughters, Kalpana Srivastava[9] and Sadhana Varma.[10] In 1961, Nirmala Srivastava launched the ‘Youth Society for Films’ to infuse national, social and moral values in young people. She was also a member of the Film Censor Board.[6]
Nirmala Srivastava is known to have been concerned with the damage being done to society by 'false Gurus' [11] and because of this visited a meditation camp in Nargol that was presided over by Rajneesh (later known as Osho). She "was shocked to see him loot people under the guise of spirituality" [12] and said that he was mesmerizing people.[13] The camp ran from the 2nd to the 5th May 1970, and Rajneesh led sessions in an early form of dynamic meditation, discoursed on Kundalini and other matters, and answered a question about 'Sahaja Yoga'.[14] Judith Coney writes that Nirmala Srivastava can be seen in a video of the camp.[15] Sudhir Kakar wrote that Nirmala Srivastava was "closely associated" with Rajneesh in her "apprenticeship years".[16] Nirmala Srivastava said that she had also visited Muktananda and that Rajneesh was 'very much after' her.[17] Interviewed in the movie "Nirmala Devi: Freedom and Liberation", Nirmala Srivastava said that these supposed spiritual people were greedy and promiscuous rather than spiritual and that this caused her to give up hopes and begin searching within herself.[18]
Nirmala Srivastava says that while in Nargol, on May 5, 1970, she witnessed the rising of the Primordial Kundalini. Later she described the experience as follows: "I saw my kundalini rising very fast like a telescope opening out and it was a beautiful color that you see when the iron is heated up, a red rose color, but extremely cooling and soothing."[19] She has stated that the potential for all humanity to gain spiritual self awareness was realized at this time, which she characterizes as a "historical process of en-masse self-realization and inner transformation". Soon after she founded Sahaja Yoga in Mumbai.
In 1972 Nirmala Srivastava sailed to the U.S. and warned against false gurus.[6] In 1974 Chandrika Prasad Srivastava was elected to serve as the Secretary-General of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), a United Nations agency based in London, serving a record 4 successive 4-year terms as Secretary-General from 1974 to 1989. After moving to London with her husband, Nirmala Srivastava worked on seven London hippies who became the first Western Sahaja Yogis.[6] In 1979 Nirmala Srivastava declared herself to be the complete incarnation of the Adi (Primordial) Shakti or Holy Spirit to her devotees.[20] She has also claimed to be Maitreya and the Mahdi.[21] Nirmala Srivastava has been described as "a simple Indian housewife... with a motherly and compassionate personality".[22]
In 1980 Nirmala Srivastava first toured Europe spreading Sahaja Yoga and in 1981 she toured Malaysia, Australia and North America – many other countries were to follow.[6] In 1989, after the lifting of the Iron Curtain, Nirmala Srivastava began visiting Eastern Europe where Sahaja Yoga spread quickly.[6] In 1995, Nirmala Srivastava was awarded an honorary doctorate in Cognitive and Parapsychological Sciences by the Ecological University of Bucharest, Romania.[23] Also in 1995, Nirmala Srivastava gave a speech at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing.[24][25]
Until 2004, during her travels, Nirmala Srivastava gave numerous public lectures, pujas, and interviews to newspapers, television and radio. In 2004 the official website of Sahaja Yoga announced that Nirmala Srivastava had completed her work.[26] She continues to give talks to her devotees[27] and allows them to offer her puja.[28]
Nirmala Srivastava has spoken on a number of occasions recently about the evils of alcohol.[29] In Australia in October 2007 she spoke at length about the problems associated with alcohol, both in relation to society, its effects upon people and the dangers it poses to the family.[30] In March 2008, the newly elected Australian government announced a national strategy to address the epidemic of alcohol abuse among young Australians.[31]
On 17 August 2005 the official Sahaja Yoga website reported that, on the eve on India's independence day, "an Indian flag was offered to Her and a prayer was recited for the divine blessings and protection of India." [32] In 2007, two images showing the Indian national flag at the feet of Niramala Srivastava (with her husband seated beside) were circulated by youngsters[33] on the social network Orkut, provoking "outrage" and "anger" according to one source.[34]
According to India's 1971 Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, it is an offence to show disrespect to the national flag or let it touch the ground. Rajendra Kumar, a trustee of Sahaja Yoga Trust issued an apology on behalf of Nirmala Devi. He said it is inconceivable that any member of Shri Mataji's family would tolerate even the slightest disrespect to our National Flag. Her husband, Indian Civil Servant C.P.Srivastava, was bestowed an honorary knighthood by the Queen of England and served the former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri as his Principal Secretary. Nirmala Devi was jailed for participating in the Mahatma Gandhi-led Quit India Movement in 1942.[35]
Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi (born March 21, 1923) is the founder of Sahaja Yoga.
Quotes from Meta Modern Era: p. 145 top "Even small children [in the West] want to read pornographic magazines because they want to have knowledge of the great science of sex. This is the result of curiosity created by schools giving sex education openly."
p. 148 middle "If sex education is given openly it becomes a subject which children discuss and want to know from each other. They have no other topic but sex. Their innocences [sic] is lost completely."
p.p. 164-165 "Some frightened French Sahaja Yogis wanted to save their children from the immoral society of France and they send very few to our school of Sahaja Yoga, where children from all over the world come. But the Catholic Church had a blind folded [sic] organisation [sic] called ADFi [sic] who gave two [sic] much trouble for one boy that the school has no French children. They were afraid these children might become moral and maybe absolutely misfit in the Catholic traditions."
p. 202 bottom "Sex education in an open class room [sic] has the effect of exciting the children and inducing them to experiment with sex at a very early age. ... the children lose their sense of shame about sex which is an exceedingly private matter."
p. 205 bottom "I have found out that one of the causes of psychosomatic diseases like cancer, is the built-in fear children imbibe in their childhood."
p. 207 bottom "Children should be encouraged to read good books written by great and noble men of the whole world, not only of their own country. They should develop a great liking for books which are biographies and autobiographies, rather than science-fiction which is imaginary or some sort of a warmonger's life story."
Quotes from Puja speeches: On Shri Mataji's 60th birthday she offered humanity the following: "Bhoots can sometimes only go away with slapping. I have seen especially with children it happens. Two slaps on the face and they're all right. [Bhoots refers to evil spirits. The the bad behaviour of children in Sahaja Yoga is often attributed to possession by evil spirits.]
Quotes from Puja speeches:
Hamsa Puja, New York, 28.4.91: "The woman has to be a Gruha Lakshmi and husband has not to be a Romeo, but a husband. He has to see how his wife behaves, correct her, that is his job, his duty."
"To test you she may marry you to funny people also. This testing has to be done. That's the job of a Mahamaya. She has to test you. Gold has to be tested. The diamond has to be tested. All that is valuable has to be tested. Without that how can you certify. It's not like going to the church. Somebody puts the water on your head, all right, now you are baptised, finished, now you are chosen."
"England when we went first we were shocked ! They had no shame about this, they said, I'm already divorced thrice and this is the fourth woman I'm living with. So shocking for us. Oh God ! To us a divorce means worse than leprosis ! Why are you divorced ? What's the problem ? How can you be divorced ? Such an auspicious thing is the marriage ! How can you do it, is such a big fall ! And that's how it works out."
Quotes from Meta Modern Era: p. 61 para. 2 "The original idea of homosexuality might have by some coincidence, where some man must have been misidentified for a woman by another man, as in the comedy Charlie's Aunt."
Quotes from Puja speeches: Ekadesha Rudra Puja 17th September 1983, New York City "...Now how can destructive powers be used for transformation ? First of all, when people know that there are destructive powers manifesting, they start fearing. They get afraid. That we'll be destroyed, so we must take to God. That's one of the ways. Secondly, if a person comes to know about any destructive disease like cancer, he wants to find out a method. And there is no method available on a human level. So then he thinks of God and wants to come nearer to God. The fear brings him closer to God. He depends on God more than on his rationality, than on his ego, or superego. And he wants to depend on God's powers to cure him or to save him from this destruction...
...So today we are going to pray that this force has to transform America through its capacity to frighten people so that they come to Sahaja Yoga. Because when things have reached this stage of ego, then when people say What's wrong? Like in England when I started talking first, they said this is Victorian woman, out of date, absolutely useless. I said alright, I don't say anything. But you'll have such diseases that you'll have to come back. That was the time they pass the law that homosexuality should be allowed, permissiveness should be allowed, and all these things should be allowed. And now you have AIDS. You have AIDS now here already operating. Now the AIDS has given the fear of the Ekadasha. Now have it ! What's wrong ! What about that ? So this awe and this fear is very important. Is an extremely important thing that you must have the awe and the fear that God is Almighty, and we are nothing before him..."
Quotes from Meta Modern Era: Shri Mataji's proposal for a new world order, p. 228-230 "Americans are not the right people to dominate the world, because they are very immature and very sex-oriented. We have to have another higher house for the U.N." "... If persons of high eminence, integrity, wisdom, character and intellect are elected to the proposed new high body to direct and guide the entire United Nations system, the people of the world may have a new chance of seeing the world governed by righteousness and dharma and not by narrow selfishness, greed and immorality. ... Such a high body which we may call the Supreme Council, will not be dominated by any one country, not even by America. ...what one sees in America now is that people need to become mature, and this maturity will only come if they take to Sahaja Yoga and not to some sort of evangelists or false gurus." "We cannot say with certainty that this Supreme Council which will be created to control the U.N. will be absolutely perfect. First of all, they will not be paid very highly, but an honorarium would be given and they may try to do something which is not honest if they are by any chance, money-oriented.
So the only conclusion one can reach is that this Supreme Council should be constituted by the election only of excellent Sahaja Yogis. They have all the requisite qualities in abundance - they are selfless, they are compassionate, they are devoted to public interest without the slightest bias on grounds of race, religion or nationality. They will thus always make sound and proper decisions. Most importantly, the Supreme Court [Council?] consisting of Sahaja Yogis, will spread the message of Sahaja Yoga throughout the world not merely by words but by deeds which will inspire all the people and thus ensure a new peaceful and just world order.
Sahaja Yoga is thus the only solution to world problems because it will ensure the transformation of all human beings and thus create a new highly evolved human race."
Quotes from Puja speeches: "Your newspapers are also really very heavy and very little news. But I've been watching it, I've been reading about it, trying to understand the politics and this and that, because I think it's quite complicated. In India they have already started one Sahaja Yoga political party. But it's not Sahaja Yoga. I told them not to take Sahaja Yoga's name. But Sahaja Yogis. They call it Satya Marga, meaning the path of truth, and two Sahaja Yogis are contesting elections. Only they are Sahaja Yogis, but I said don't take My name or take the name of Sahaja Yoga. We have to be careful about the name of Sahaja Yoga. Very important
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