Memories of our Divine Mother: 7. SEMINARS AND TOURS

The Paraclete Shri Mataji 1) Douglas Fry said:

Clear us out some more

In the earlier days we went away for a seminar in Weston-Super-Mare. We went to Shri Mataji's niece in Weston-Super-Mare and we spent a weekend at the seaside and the whole idea was to get us out of the London environment so that She could work on us and clear us out some more. When would that be? Weston-Super-Mare was in 1976.

Douglas Fry

2) Maureen Rosi said:

Filled to busting

We had a meeting in the lobby of our student hostel and Mother came and talked to this collection of students and then She came up to our one room student flat. And it was filled to busting with Sahaja Yogis. I mean, it was two rooms and a bathroom and a passage. And where all the Sahaja Yogis went, I don't know, because you had to give Mother enough room.

Maureen Rosi

3) Marilyn Leate said:

One grateful yogi holding Mother's hand

Sahaja Yoga seminars began, [one of] the first of which was in a place called East Hampstead Park near Wokingham [in 1978]. There we would all stay together for the weekend, from Friday evening, and various yogis organized workshops and showed slides. I seem to remember Shri Mataji arriving at lunchtime on Saturday.

Each of us had threaded a flower to make a greeting garland. One of the meditations which I remember us doing there, under Mother's instigation, was to form a chain, holding hands with one grateful yogi holding Mother's hand.

In those days, we were so few that we could each wash Shri Mother's Feet. We could meditate in a small room in front of Shri Mataji in person. We could massage Mother's Feet and we could go down to Her Feet.

Marilyn Leate

4) Malcolm Murdoch said:

Just fill the house

When we used to go on the tours around England with Mother, we usually used to just fill the house, you know, because Mother would sleep in the bed in one of the bedrooms and, you know, the women used to just fill the floor around the bed. And, of course, the men would fill any other available space up and down the stairs, the living rooms and all over the place.

Malcolm Murdoch

5) Kevin Anslow said:

Stonehenge

I do remember going on trips, going out with Shri Mataji to places. We went on this big long journey to the west country [of England] at one stage. I can't remember exactly when it was, but I think I was about eight or nine, so I was about a year or two into the scheme of things.

Kevin Anslow

6) Bala Kanayson said:

There were some Sahaja Yogis who had been to Stonehenge and who had felt a lot of wonderful vibrations coming from the large stones. And they had suggested that we could go there with Shri Mataji and see Stonehenge. So we went in several cars to Stonehenge.

Bala Kanayson

7) Kevin Anslow said:

I remember along the way that we stopped at a strawberry farm and Shri Mataji bought everybody strawberries. And I said that I didn't like strawberries, which I didn't at the time. My granny liked strawberries, but I didn't like them. And Shri Mataji heard about this and She said," You can't not like strawberries"or"it's not allowed"or"it's not right"or something" " I forget the exact words. And She just picked up a strawberry and popped it in my mouth and it tasted delicious and I have liked them ever since.

Kevin Anslow

8) Pat Anslow said:

We set off in a convoy to nowhere in particular and when we got to this roundabout, we went round and round and round. And at each roundabout people would shoot off, while Mother decided where to go. And we ended up with only a few cars and we lost nearly everybody. And I was one of them and we ended up at Stonehenge. In those days, you could still go right up to it and see it and we went up and spent some time there. And someone there claimed they could feel something strange happening.

Pat Anslow

9) Bala Kanayson said:

And when we got down there, Shri Mataji bought us all ice creams. And just like little kids, we were all running around our mum eating ice creams, walking around the stones. And eventually we stood close to Mother and were trying to feel the vibrations from the stones and oddly there were no vibrations coming from the stones. And some of the Sahaja Yogis who had been there before and had felt the vibrations asked Mother. They were really surprised and they said," Look, we used to feel vibrations here and we are not feeling any.”And Mother turned to us and said," That's because I am here.” She said," Out of respect for Me, the stones are not emitting any vibrations. They are waiting for My permission.”And then She basically said," All right. Now.”And the moment She said that, the vibrations just came in waves from the stones.

Bala Kanayson

10 Miodrag Radosavljevic said:

She said it is like the sunlight

There was a miracle, which I experienced when we had a seminar in the English countryside. It was a long time ago, 1979, and Shri Mataji came. It was a very dark day with no sun, heavy clouds. It was very, very dull and heavy. There was a lot of doubting in Sahaja Yoga at that time. And Shri Mataji was talking to us and said that She is Shri Krishna and Shri Jesus and Shri Mataji. She is all of them. She said it is like the sunlight. And at that moment the beam of sunlight came out of nowhere and shone on Her head and went away. And to prove it, She said for the beam of light come again on Her head. That happened two or three times. Out of nowhere the sun came. So this was the miracle I witnessed together with about fifty yogis, who where present at that time.

Miodrag Radosavljevic

11) Linda Williams said:

A drama of cosmic proportions

Mother decided to have a seminar at Crosscraig, the house where I was living [in Scotland]. The word"crosscraig"meant"place of the holy stone"And it was a Victorian hunting lodge. At that time it had the most dreadful vibrations imaginable because we had been involved with the TM and had even had courses on this brand of madness there. But it was as if Mother wanted to come right into the den of the enemy and clear it out for us and through us.

Linda Williams

12) Marilyn Leate said:

I can remember standing in Dollis Hill ashram whilst Shri Mataji selected people to go up to Crosscraig with Her. A group of us travelled north by mini-bus, whilst others journeyed in a train with Shri Mataji. We broke our journey at Birkenhead in Liverpool, where Shri Mataji held a program in the large apartment. During the train ride from London to Liverpool, Mother met and gave Realization to an American traveller. He came with us to the house in Birkenhead and then came on up to Crosscraig.

Marilyn Leate

13) Linda Williams said:

There were about twenty people at the seminar, maybe a few more. I remember Marilyn and Gregoire [de Kalbermatten] and Maureen [Rossi], Pat Anslow's sister, and Pat himself and Mother" " Mother in all Her glory. We had a havan and Mother kept us up all night, but it was July and the nights were only about two hours long. I remember we went outside as the sun rose, about three in the morning, in a golden line over the loch. She said the TM bhoots had come for us in the night and had had a nasty shock when they were met by the Adi Shakti Herself. I also remember that I had a sort of a little cottage attached to the main house and Mother came to my bedroom. She stamped Her Feet around the room and said that the bhoots had run away, but that they would return after She left.

Another thing about that seminar" " Mother had all the older Sahaja Yogis wash our feet in Her bath water. This was outside in the garden and we newer people sat in a row on the edge of the lawn with our feet down on the gravel area where one drove cars in.

In those days we did not realize the deep symbolism of everything that was going on.

Linda Williams

14) Marilyn Leate said:

We had beautiful weather, midnight sun. I can remember Shri Mataji talking in the garden. She was talking about herbs in the garden.

Marilyn Leate

15) Linda Williams said:

I also remember Mother sitting in the garden and I took Her a bunch of herbs. She said," One day I must tell you about all these.”And She took a foxglove" " foxgloves grow wild in Scotland" " and She said," This flower is sacred to Lord Shiva.”Of course, the foxglove contains digitalis, a substance used in heart surgery. She also said sage was very good.

Linda Williams

16) Marilyn Leate said:

She cooked for us, wearing Kathy's Snoopy apron which had"Come and get it!"printed on it. She cooked delicious spicy food, with plenty of chillies to clear the left side.

Marilyn Leate

17) Linda Williams said:

The strange thing about the cooking was this" " we had a big catering- style fridge and Mother made a chicken stew type dish which we didn't finish, so we put the leftovers in the fridge for another day. Then after Mother had left, about a week later, Pat Anslow, who stayed up after the seminar, and I made another chicken stew and also put it in the same fridge and forgot about it. About three weeks after this we suddenly remembered the two stews, but the strange thing was that our stew had gone completely rotten, whereas Mother's was as fresh as the day it had been made.

There is another photo of Mother taken at Rannoch where She is fishing for trout on the bank of the loch, which was at the end of the garden. Again, very symbolic, if one remembers Christ's," Come and I will make you fishers of men.”

Linda Williams

18) Kevin Anslow said:

I remember Mother sitting on a rock or a stone or something and both Her and CP had a fishing rod. And Mother was very amused by this activity. Now someone else caught a fish. Mother didn't catch a fish, but what did happen though, while all this was going on, was that about a hundred fish" " I can't remember exactly" " suddenly came to the surface, sort of bobbing up as if they wanted to be caught. Mother didn't catch any of them, but they just appeared out of nowhere. It reminds me of later in life when I read about these people who call dolphins. These fish just sort of started appearing spontaneously everywhere and when She left they all vanished again. It was one of the most salient examples of a kind of near miracle happening around Mother that I can remember.

Kevin Anslow

19) Gregoire de Kalbermatten said:

She was smiling and said," CP will not get any fish because I am protecting them.”It is really sweet.

Gregoire de Kalbermatten

20) Marilyn Leate said:

I think we stayed up at Crosscraig about a week. Each day, with Mother there, it got clearer and lighter even though more and more TM victims kept turning up. A whole family of brothers and sisters came over from Ireland. Shri Mataji worked relentlessly, with yogis, elements and persuasion, to get the individual TM mantras disclosed.

She just transformed the place, the vibrations, while She was there. I remember we had pujas, we had a havan, we did ajwan. There was one point where She lay on the ground and everybody just came and took vibrations from Her, although everyone who could had a hand on Her body and those who" " obviously, there were too many of us. The rest of us held hands with those who had their hands on Her body and She just gave vibrations that way, lying down on the ground or on the floor in the living room.

Marilyn Leate

21) Linda Williams said:

We had a megalith, a standing stone in the garden, which was why the place was called Crosscraig. There were quite a few standing stones in the Rannoch Valley, but this one was all alone, about a metre and a half high and near the edge of the loch. It had a sort of a cup mark in it near the top. We took Mother to see it, as it was only about fifty metres from the house, and She told us something very interesting. She said that the people who put up these stones knew that She was going to come there, but that also some very bad things were going to go on there beforehand, the TM nonsense. She asked us to feel the vibrations of the stone and it didn't seem to have any, either positive or negative. She said yes, that was right, that the stone had been put there to absorb some of the negative vibrations and so make Her work easier, but that it was as if full, so could not emit cool vibrations. It made me think, even then, that the whole of Mother's incarnation is a drama of cosmic proportions. Years later, Mother Herself said as much.

Linda Williams

22) Marilyn Leate said:

At night She would ask the people to go and we would direct vibrations while She slept and She would wake up and comment on something and then fall back to sleep again. She never stopped working on everybody. Just individually and collectively, She didn't stop. She was working on every newcomer that came. People were coming from Ireland as well as Scotland and England, ex-TMers who were coming to get cleared out.

Marilyn Leate

23) Linda Williams said:

We made garlands out of pink lupins for Mother for the puja. I remember during the aarti to Mother at the end, feeling the tremendous power, joy and majesty of the great Goddess in front of me. When we had sung the aarti and were bowing to Mother, She offered us a boon, but said we should ask in our hearts for something material. Although I was going through a bankruptcy case at that moment, I could not bring my self to ask for money, but had heard in London the week before that Mother wanted those of us who were married to have children. So I asked for a son who would grow up to fight the evil in the world. The following year my son Dattatreya was born.

After the puja Mother had us go into Her room and we massaged Her Feet and legs to take the vibrations which had been generated during the puja. Very often in those days the vibrations were not taken and Mother explained that they would go round the world and come back to Her and would then cause Her great pain if they were not absorbed.

Linda Williams

24) Marilyn Leate said:

Actually, people were really getting better. They were all improving as the week went on. People who had physical problems were just getting better, were feeling healthier, getting more energy and it was an interesting period.

Marilyn Leate

25) Linda Williams said:

It was a beautiful few days. Mother told me She would replace all the terrible memories of my misplaced seeking with beautiful memories and so it has indeed been. As She left to get in Her car, Mother gave me a big hug. It was wonderful.

Linda Williams

26) Ray Harris said:

Like a queen wherever She is

The biggest miracle for me was that my parents, who were very, very religious Jews and who I had fought against all my life, against this strict religious upbringing, in their own way recognized Shri Mataji themselves. It was the first weekend actually. The first weekend after I got Realization I went up to Sheffield and I was still working it out myself and saying to myself," What on Earth am I doing? I hope I'm not becoming a happy-clappy Christian"because the biggest horror for me was that. And then I thought," No, I know this is something deeper inside and I'm just going to hang onto it.”

So I gave my mother Realization that weekend and she got it. She went to the synagogue the first Saturday, as she did every week, and she sat in the synagogue and, when at a certain point during the service, they would take out the scrolls of the law, which are in a very beautifully decorated altar, which we call the ark, which was the replica of the place where the ten commandments, the tablets of stone, were kept after they were given by Moses on Mount Sinai and we keep it in the synagogue as a sort of replica" " and as soon as they opened this ark, my mother said she couldn't believe it. She felt the Cool Breeze pouring out of it, pouring out of the ark. All the rest of the people in the synagogue had no idea what was going on. And as soon as the Sabbath was finished and she was allowed to use the phone, she phoned me up and she said," Ray, the most amazing thing happened to me in the synagogue today. I went to the synagogue and when they opened the ark, I felt the same Cool Breeze that came from Shri Mataji and now I know that this is right.”

My parents lived in Sheffield and that is how Sahaja Yoga came to Sheffield initially. Because my parents and my sisters, Elana and Sharon [Vincent], both got Self Realization and also my very old friend John Glover also got it very quickly after I got it and also Paul Winter, in the same year, 1979.

And Shri Mataji visited Sheffield the next year, 1980. She came up and was absolutely charmed with the country around Sheffield. She always wanted to bring Sir CP up on a holiday, although I don't think they ever got time to.

That's right, it was the"She-field," the field of The Mother. Because we thought it was sheaves" " to do with wheat and corn, but no, it is much deeper.

Ray Harris

27) Pamela Bromley said:

Do you remember Mother in your front room, sitting in that red armchair with your father in that tiny little front room? And Mother was explaining how She first opened the Sahasrara. And how it was done telescopically and it was only after that that She spoke about it at pujas.

Pamela Bromley

28) Gail Pottinger said:

I got my Realization in Sheffield and I actually got it in Ray [Harris]'s house. [His sister] Elana gave me Realization in their front room. And I remember that after I married" " I think it was after I married" " Mother went to Sheffield to do a program and I remember going back up there to this program in Sheffield. Mother was staying in Ray's family's house" " his mum and dad's house, I remember, and we all stayed there with Mother overnight in Ray's house. And I remember people were sort of sleeping all along the landing outside Her door and everything.

And when I got up in the morning, I felt really awful. I remember that. And so did several other people. I remember Pamela as one. She was feeling really ill and when we came downstairs, Mother started to work on, I think it was on Pam. And She was saying," Oh, it's all left Nabhi. it's all left Nabhi.”And She was working and She looked at me and She said," Yes, you've got it too.”And She worked on us.

And She stayed in Ray's house" " Ray's parents' house" " which is quite interesting because it was a Jewish, very Jewish household" " extremely Jewish, actually. But Mother did stay there.

Gail Pottinger

29) John Glover said:

There is a wonderful photo of Mother with Ray Harris' family in the back garden of the house and it looks just like a family photo.

John Glover

30) Sharon Vincent said:

At that moment in time I wasn't living in [my family's] house, but when I visited the house Shri Mataji was already there and, instead of just having a small family of five people, the whole room was completely jam-packed with people. There were people everywhere and I remember there was a very beautiful atmosphere. Shri Mataji was sitting very comfortably like a queen in our living room, in a chair and there were a lot of people just sitting at Her Feet around Her and it was so informal. It was just like a little family. I noticed that it was quite incredible to see how She was the same in a small family house. We weren't extremely rich, but She was" " how do you say" " comfortable, relaxed, like a queen. And then, when you see Her years later, She is exactly the same in front of millions and millions of people. She is like a queen wherever She is, in fact.

Sharon Vincent

31) John Glover said:

And I remember in the night when Shri Mataji had gone to bed, Ray and I went out in the country above Sheffield and we looked over Sheffield and it was a wonderful summer night and the place was full of vibrations, like heaven.

John Glover

32) Sharon Vincent said:

I wasn't so involved at that time, so it was just my impressions of when She was in our house. People were extremely open towards Her and it was so natural. At that time, at the beginning of Sahaja Yoga it was so natural, so family-like, like a big family. She was so close to you and everybody loved to be in Her company and She would just talk about any subject. My mother would come to Her showing Her paintings that we'd done. She was like a proud mother saying and Mother would say," Well, maybe it should be like this or like this," putting Her own little touches and being very sweet.

Sharon Vincent

33) Ray Harris said:

That was one of the most magical times of my life, undoubtedly, when Shri Mataji came and stayed at my parents' house. But that time in Sheffield was amazing because the Sahaja Yogis, as they were about half a dozen of them, came up from London. They came up on the train with Shri Mataji and it was a great honour for us.

Ray Harris

34) Sharon Vincent said:

It was a very, very special atmosphere that maybe we didn't realize at the time exactly the depth or how lucky we were.

Sharon Vincent

35) Felicity Payment said:

With you to help

I remember when we had the first puja in France. I remember travelling to catch the ferry to cross over the channel. For some reason I was travelling alone and when I got to the passport check, there was something wrong, but somehow they let me through anyway. And I remember feeling that I must be meant to go to this puja.

Felicity Payment

36) Malcolm Murdoch said:

After getting off the Calais ferry, we went into a French supermarket. And Mother then went around and bought cheese, you know, bought the cheese and all the things. And then we went out of the Calais supermarket and found a corner of a field and we laid out a cloth and Shri Mataji and others were making sandwiches" " in the corner of this field. And I always remember being slightly sort of" " I don't know, looking to see if people were" " you know, what people were thinking as they sort of passed on the way.

Malcolm Murdoch

37) Felicity Payment said:

We were staying in Marie [Rougier]'s tiny one bedroom flat. Shri Mataji had the bedroom and the rest of us were sleeping in the main living-cum-kitchen area. It was really small and there were about thirty of us. You could hardly move around and there was one bathroom for all of us. No one had any money to stay anywhere else and, besides, everyone wanted to be as close to Shri Mataji as possible.

Some of the ladies were in a queue for the bathroom when suddenly someone came out and said Shri Mataji needed to use the bathroom. So, of course, we all stood back and waited as discreetly as we could. After some time, She came out and said to us in the queue, very sweetly, in a loving manner," I've left the water in for you.”I didn't know what She meant. But we all went inside together, about four of us, and I saw the water still in the bath and sink. The vibrations in the room were very light, almost holy, as if there was actually a kind of heavenly light in the room. It is difficult to put into words. It was very comforting to be in there, as if you were in a warm embrace. And when I lifted the water from the sink onto my face, I suddenly felt lifted into a different state, transformed as if I had become an angel in heaven. I felt for a short instance pure and whole. It was completely unexpected, but this was the vibrational reality of Shri Mataji's physical body. It is so pure that even the water coming off it takes on Her purity and cleansing powers.

Felicity Payment

38) Pamela Bromley said:

In Paris, Mother was sitting in a room and the flowers had arrived and they were all dying a bit and we watched Mother bring them back to life. The flowers were actually trembling. One time She took the flowers and put hot water on them to bring them back to life and they were all absolutely fantastic.

Pamela Bromley

39) Guillemette Metouri said:

June 1981" " it was dark at night and the boat was sailing on the Channel Sea towards the French coast. We were eleven yogis from London travelling to France to attend the seminar the Parisians had organized. Shri Mataji would be there, too. I spent part of the night chatting with two or three yogis, while the rest of them kept silently together, not willing to open up. My attention went particularly to one of them, a young man, who kept permanently flat, oily hair on his skull. He would also apply a dot of red kumkum whenever there was a yogi gathering in London. As far as public programs were concerned, that tall serious man would have never dared given any sign of support or any explanations to the newcomers. He was as hermetically closed as an oyster. This is what my sharp eagle eye had always noticed about him.

"Those people are incredible," I thought.”I've been around for seven months now and I don't even know, for instance, how to balance my right and left channel of energy. These people don't speak. They stick together and don't know how to help others. Such stupid people, such stupid people," I was grumbling to myself.

The following morning, we reached the place of the seminar in a beautiful village out of Paris. About thirty people were there, amongst whom were French, Swiss and English. As for each meal, the tables in the dining room were shaped together as a"U"And Shri Mataji would take a place at the central table, according to the traditional rules of feasts. Everybody would then sit around Her and all around the tables and I could not stop myself from remembering, with emotion in my heart, Christ eating with His disciples. Yet, I was slightly annoyed by this retrospective, as it would send back to me the echo of boring catechism at school in my childhood, as well as the squeaky voice of nuns and the rustling of their long black and white lifeless dresses. But Shri Mataji was so majestic today and bringing such justice to Christ.

As usual, I was keeping away from Her. Her sweetness and Her force both combined, intimidated me and, above all, it was not easy to accept that somebody else on Earth might have known my hidden being much better than myself, as I was slowly discovering, She could do very well.

In fact, She proved it once more the day after, on Sunday morning. We were all seated around Her in a small room and She was looking around, smiling to the group before starting to speak. Her black and vivid eyes were pouring a rain of life, a rain of love, a rain of well-being. Without doing anything, without saying anything, that invisible rain was already flooding our whole being, binding all of us with a sweet warmth and I would have been unable to say whether that warmth was coming out of our bodies or whether it was penetrating them. We remained a few minutes in that exquisite silence, then, contrary to Her habits" " She usually started speaking with general statements" " Shri Mataji asked a straightforward question.”Well," She said," let's start with practical things today. Suppose you want to balance your right and left channel, how will you do?”

In a fraction of a second, Her powerful dark and shining eyes embraced the whole group, looking for an answer, and suddenly stopped on me" " two huge penetrating eyes questioning me. She then lifted Her eyebrows and with a prompt movement of the head as quick as lightning, She asked me with a closed mouth," Mmh?”Once more, and as it often occurred, I was seated at the back of the room. My heart jumped into my breast and I blushed violently. She scrutinized me only for a few seconds, but what a shower on me! Then She looked away and I bet nobody had been aware of Her play, as everything had been shaken around me at such a speed. Then, when She gave the answer, which was less important to me now than the fact to realize She had heard the whole of my tergiversations a couple of nights before. I was stunned indeed, but, at the same time, I felt like a tiny worm. If She had caught my demand on the boat so well, that meant She had equally caught my accusations, of which I was not so proud now. Of course, She did not summon me directly" " She never does" " but the punishment dropped in no time.

My steps led me twice during the weekend towards the oily-haired young man. The first time, he smiled at me. And the second time, he talked to me.

To be able to satisfy and punish at the same time, to be able to punish without bringing out shame or humiliation in front of others" " that, I had never seen. I was full of admiration, facing such grace and subtlety.

Guillemette Metouri

40) Linda Williams said:

Something I recall in the puja we had in Marie Rougier's flat in Paris. I think it was Navaratri, as Mother had someone read the part in the Devi Mahatmyam where the deities all go to the Goddess to praise Her and She says," If ever you are in the most extreme and dire situation, think of Me and at that moment I will solve the problem and look after you"or something like that. When the lady who was reading got to that point, Mother said," Stop" " that is the boon for today. If ever you are in a dire situation, just think of Me and I will be there with you to help you.”

Linda Williams

41) Felicity Payments said:

Just like those wildflowers

It was in August 1981 and it started for me because I felt very much it was time to have another seminar. Every couple of month we seemed to have a seminar and it really helped bring everyone together and get the vibrations going. And I was looking around, you know, usually we'd try to find somewhere to rent in the countryside. And suddenly, my parents were going away for two weeks just after they completely finished renovations in this house in the country [in England]. And I knew ever since I got Realization I always felt this would be the perfect place to have a seminar, but, of course, they weren't into Sahaja Yoga at all. And I was really hesitant. How could I" " could I do this behind their backs, while they were away, you know, without them knowing?

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I meditated on it and eventually I felt it's okay, we'll just do it. And so we organized that we were going to have this seminar in Dorset [the very next] weekend.

And I went to give the invitation to Shri Mataji because it was protocol to go give Her an invitation and invite Her to come for the weekend and ask if we could have a puja. And it was a nice" " it's a nice little beginning to the story because it turned out that it" " inadvertently the only day I could go and give this was the day that Princess Diana was getting married in London and everybody was at home watching on the TV, you know, and, of course, I wanted to see too on the TV. It was a big thing. She was very much loved by everyone and it was a big thing. But I thought," No, I have to go. I'm working. This is the only day I can go, so" " so I got on the train. The streets were deserted and I went to Shri Mataji's apartment [at Ashley Gardens] and I was very nervous about, you know, giving this invitation and I met Alan, Alan Richards, in the lobby, which was perfect timing and I told him why I'd come and"You know, maybe you could give the invitation to Shri Mataji.”And he said," No, no, you must come with me.”

So we went up in the lift together and we knocked on the door and Shri Mataji opened the door, And She said," Come in, come in," you know. And so She invited us in. She said," We're just watching on the television here.”And She was sitting watching the wedding at the time because it was while she was going" " Princess Diana and Prince Charles were going through the streets. So we sat down and we watched this whole procession and ceremony with Shri Mataji on the TV. And it was very interesting to me to see how Shri Mataji's attention was always with the current affairs, what was going on at the time. She always knew. You know, She watched the TV. She read the newspapers. Her attention was on what was happening. And as we were watching the ceremony, Diana made a mistake and She said," Oh, look at him. Look at his ego coming out.”And She started working on him. She was like giving bandhans at the TV while he" " while they were standing at the" " doing the service. And then a few minutes later, he made a mistake and She said," There, that's better. His ego's come down.”You know, it was really something to see Her working, you know, like this. And so I gave Her the invitation and asked if She would come and so She said yes that She would be happy to come.

And so we started the weekend from the Friday night. People started coming on the Friday night and it must have been in the summer because we" " everybody camped, brought tents to camp in the backyard and a lot of people slept in this big empty mill room. And it felt really special because we were right in the heart of England. You know, we were in Dorset.

And there was a lot of heart. And I had felt when I had asked when I gave the invitation," Shri Mataji, could we call the seminar 'keeping your heart open'?”because I felt we would go to the meetings, we would see Shri Mataji and our hearts would open and then they would sort of close over again. And I felt myself," How to keep the heart open so that always the vibrations are flowing?”

Once I decided, once I felt confident that okay we're going to do this, you know, and I'll deal with whatever happens with my parents afterwards, then everything just sort of worked out. You know, it was very smooth. I gave the invitation. Jason [Copeland] said he would come and cook and everybody" " a lot of people" " everybody came. Everybody came from all over England. There was about seventy. It was very joyful. I remember, as everybody came, greeting everyone. It just felt very joyful.

Shri Mataji came on the train on Sunday morning. And I tell the story because it comes up in Her puja talk. She mentioned the fact that I went to greet Her. We went to greet Her at the train station and I was looking around in the garden for flowers to give. I suddenly realized that I hadn't got any flowers to greet Her with and it was Sunday. All the stores were closed in the countryside. So I tried to raid the flowerbeds and there was one rose and two other little flowers and there was nothing else. So I arrived at the station feeling very impoverished that I wanted something more to make this more of a bouquet. And growing alongside the station wall were some wildflowers, little yellow wildflowers, and I thought," Oh, this could be nice. I could pick these.”But being in England, you know, ever conditioned, I asked the stationmaster's wife," Is this all right, you know. Can I pick these flowers?”She said," Oh, yes. They're just weeds.”So I picked these flowers and made this bouquet. And Shri Mataji, as ever, always so knowing what's in your heart and what has lead up to this, when I gave the flowers to Her, She said," Oh, what beautiful flowers. And where did you get these ones from?”looking at the wildflowers," They are so fragrant.”And I mentioned," Oh, you know, I got them from here. The stationmaster said they're just weeds, you know.

Quote:
“You see today she brought some flowers. There were some supposed to be weeds according to her. She went to the station and there she was taking some flowers out and the stationmaster and his wife were very sweet. They said," Go ahead. They are only weeds. You can have them.” And they are so fragrant" " one of the most fragrant flowers I have ever seen. They are just weeds. They do not conform to any formal flowers or anything but just a few flowers attached to other flowers were most fragrant. Love gives all the sophistication and the fragrance and the breeding which is required. Not talking of love, but really loving is the way. it's most enjoyable.”

Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

And it was like She was breaking our conditionings that some flowers are not flowers, that we think," Oh, these are just weeds.”But they are wildflowers and they're still flowers. So and I gave Her the bunch and then She came. We took Her in the car to" " back to the house and so She arrived. Everybody was waiting for Her and stood to sing this beautiful song that Hester wrote as She came in and sat down. And She was sitting at the end of this big long room, if you can imagine, an old mill room in Her chair with all the yogis in front of Her. And we did this puja and I think always, you know, sometimes I feel sometimes we've had so many pujas with Shri Mataji that sometimes we take it for granted. But I remember always feeling in those days that it was very special and being very thankful to be at a puja there with Shri Mataji because you always felt so much better afterwards and She worked on all of us in such a deep way.

Felicity Payments

42) Ray Harris said:

She sat outside in the garden and had tea and we just all sat round, very informally and She'd just start talking to us and thinking of interesting subjects, often they were seeking subjects.

Ray Harris

43) Felicity Payment said:

And She sat and had tea with us in the garden" " The Mother drinking tea with Her children. It was very relaxed and it was" " She was so motherly. I mean, at times Mother would be really fierce, like when you've got naughty children or children who don't seem to understand what they're doing and you're trying to get them on the right path and explain things to them. But, at other times, it was so nice just to be able to sit with Her as She's drinking tea or talk about ordinary things.

Felicity Payment

44) Pamela Bromley said:

I can't remember Mother's exact words, but I remember She just looked at us and told us we looked very strained or very unusual or something. Remember that? All of us" " yes, all of us, as a group.

Pamela Bromley

45) Ray Harris said:

Well, we were. She was absolutely right.

Ray Harris

46) Felicity Payment said:

And so we had this beautiful puja and then we sang. We sang afterwards, we sang" " we may have sung before. I don't remember now. We sang"Jerusalem.” "And did those Feet in ancient times"And there we were amongst the green hills of England. And this was so many years ago, so there were seventy of us there. That's all the yogis there were in England. There might have been a few in Australia. There certainly were in India and a few scattered, but it was" " when you sing this song and She made us sing the song. She was the one that said," This is the song you should sing.”And we were singing about building the New Jerusalem"Amongst these dark satanic mills" which [William] Blake wrote about all those years ago. But it felt so" " you know, you felt so" " you felt like we were the beginning of something special, like you were building. We felt important, that it was important that you should be there, that you should be meditating and working it out.

Linda Williams brought a piece of green chiffon material, very see- through, you know, very fine. And she had had this idea that everybody would embroider little flowers on it, as if we would all be the flowers of England on the green hills of England and so everyone" " the brothers and sisters" " everybody embroidered something on this shawl. It was like a shawl. And then we offered this after the puja to Shri Mataji. She offered this as a gift, as a shawl. And so Shri Mataji put this on and She said it was like the green hills of England. And even" " there was even a green towel. Someone had provided a green towel. Mother's Feet were on the green towel and the vibrations from this" " the puja photo that Ray took from this puja, of Mother's Feet, was very strong, very beautiful" " beautiful vibrations.

After the seminar, after Shri Mataji left and went on to Bristol, I stayed behind to clean up. And during that day, while we were cleaning up" " and Rosie [Lyons] was helping, she was great" " I got this phone call from Linda Williams, who had been travelling with Shri Mataji. And She said," Shri Mataji says to tell you thank you. She says to tell Felicity thank you very much. 'Thank you again and again. Thank you, thank you, thank you.'"You know, and She was like very over-exuberant with all these thank-yous for this seminar. And I wondered why.

The seminar had definitely had a deep impact on people. I had never heard Shri Mataji say thank you like this before and, of course, it was very nice. But Shri Mataji didn't need to say thank you and I wondered why She had.

Then a few days later my parents returned and heard from the neighbours that we had had"A bit of a do"While they were away. I got a very ominous phone call, a summons to meet with them. We had tried to clean the place spotlessly and replace any broken or damaged items, but they had made me a list of everything. I was still very afraid of them in those days. Then I realized what the thank-yous were all about. Shri Mataji knew that this dressing down was going to happen to me. By thanking me, Shri Mataji gave me the courage and support to face them. I wasn't afraid this time because She had sent word I had done the right thing.

So I went not knowing what would happen, but confident it would work out. Of course, it all just worked out beautifully. When you work for Shri Mataji with a sincere, pure heart, you are always taken care of. They had gone away and said," Ah, I really felt relaxed, you know, everything. I feel different, you know.”And some people said," I never had a chance to talk to the brothers and sisters, the yogis properly.”

And so, on a vibrational level, really something opened and worked out, you know, for us in England. People went away and said," Ah, I really felt relaxed here in the countryside. I feel different.”And some said," I'd never had a chance to talk to the brothers and sisters, with the yogis before properly.”They all felt closer together.

Shri Mataji had shown us each other as She saw us, not the outside weedy appearance, but the beautiful flower that always lies within. She was always trying to make us see that we were truly beautiful.

Felicity Payment

47) Linda Williams said:

No crazy people

We went to stay with Chris and Ruth Greaves that weekend and Mother did a public program in Bristol. That, in itself, was unusual because originally Shri Mataji was to come the previous weekend. A lot of posters had been put up and even some advertising had been done on the local radio. Then Mother had to cancel, but the Bristol people went on with the program all the same. Quite a few people came and got their Realization, but a lot of them were a bit crazy or very critical and so on. The next week Shri Mataji was able to come and, although hardly any publicity had been done compared to the first program, far more people came and no crazy people. It was as if they had all come and then gone away again the first week.

Linda Williams

48) Ray Harris said:

How many humans could be that selfless?

We went in [Pamela Bromley's] rickety car with one screw holding it all together, barely" " and a big bandhan. Summer 1981 and we went on a tour of Reading, Bristol, Exeter and the West Country and I remember Shri Mataji had a puja, with just about a dozen of us in a little hall in Exeter. What happened was that some of the yogis had come from London. They had this huge great wedge of vedic puja hymns that these Indians had sent over, with big stains of kumkum on the one and ghee on the other, and we really thought this was the best, this stuff. We got it all out, ready to start chanting. They started doing this puja. You know, they say these prayers, extracts from the Vedas and Shri Mataji said," What are you doing?”These are the vedic prayers sent over by the Indian Sahaj Yogis specially for us in England and Shri Mataji says," You don't need all that stuff. Just all you need to do is wash My Feet, sing My aarti, finished.”

Ray Harris

49) Derek Ferguson said:

Then we went straight to the TV studios for a half hour chat show program on TV South East and we went back to the ashram and watched it live with Mother talking on air. Not many people have seen the video. There were Shri Mataji and the interviewer sitting around the table and the talk was so deep that he couldn't even understand. He was like stunned, the interviewer. And Mother went on a complete subject. It was like a puja talk and the person was blasted by this. This was in Exeter.

Derek Ferguson

50) Linda Williams said:

Mother went in Her car down to Plymouth, or maybe Truro, to do a radio program. Only one person phoned up from the program, but he later got his Realization and became a very good Sahaja Yogi. It was as if Mother, in Her love and boundless energy and compassion, had gone all the way there for just the one person. Then She came back and did a public program in Exeter. It had been a long day for Mother and, after that, we all still had the drive back to Bristol, to the Greaves' flat, where we were spending the night. Mother took Ruth Greaves and some of the Sahaja Yogis and Chris Greaves came with me in my car. We set off ahead of Mother's car and assumed we would get to Bristol before, some time before Her. We were going along the motorway in the pitch dark and were just passing a service place, when there was a dreadful noise from under the car and we ground to a halt. We managed to park the car on the side of the road and walked back to the service station.

Luckily, I was a member of the AA [automobile association] at the time, so we phoned them up and asked them to come and take us back to Bristol. We then went into the cafeteria and ordered some coffee and refreshments and sat down to wait. It was a long wait because, unfortunately, it was a busy night for the AA, so we sat there for maybe a couple of hours before the breakdown truck arrived. Just when the truck was arriving, Chris put his hand in his pocket and discovered to his horror that he had the only key to the flat, which meant Mother could not get into the house even when She did arrive back in Bristol. We didn't even want to think about how awful this was, especially when Mother was so tired after such a long day. Anyway, we piled into the truck, car on the back, and set off back to Bristol. We finally arrived back just before dawn.

Mother had waited in the car outside the flat for us to return for a long time and then had finally gone to the student flat of some young Sahaja Yogis for what was left of the night.

When we saw Mother the next morning, we just did not know how to apologize, but, instead of being cross, Mother smiled sweetly and told us that it was necessary for Her to have spent some hours outside Chris and Ruth's flat in the dark of the night. The flat was in a former rectory and was surrounded by a fairly large piece of grass with a children's playground in it. Ruth was in the early stages of pregnancy with her first child. Mother explained that the playground and garden were actually an old churchyard and that there were a lot of dead lost souls hanging around there. She said She wanted to clear them out before Ruth's baby, who would be a beautiful born-realized soul, would come into the world because it would not be good for the baby to have those dead spirits hanging around where they lived.

So Mother had inconvenienced Herself to such an enormous extent, after such an incredibly long day, to do yet another kind and loving act for a baby who was yet to come. How many humans could be that selfless?

Linda Williams

51) Ray Harris said:

I remember just how awesome I felt

It was in that puja in Cowley Manor [in July 1982]. That's the time where She said," I reveal Myself with all My powers.”It was that time, wasn't it? It was surprising because She had obviously made that weekend to really reveal something about Herself, which was"I've come to tell you who I really am, I am the Adi Shakti.”I can't remember the words exactly. I remember just how awesome I felt" " my God, you know. The fact is we, the Sahaj Yogis, had forgotten all the puja things. On the Sunday morning we had the puja. There was no proper silver there. There was just one or two flowers. No one had concerned themselves with preparations. There was no amrit. There was" " we didn't know any names. We couldn't sing aarti, anything. We just barely could. We didn't know aartis or anything.

What happened was that the people had forgotten the puja stuff, the plates and silverware, and we had to make do with very, very elementary things. And yet She was telling us She was Adi Shakti, who had come for all Her children with all Her powers this time to give you ordinary people this state. She tried to bring us up instead of coming down to our level.

Ray Harris

Quote:
“Today I am going to say something, this I should have said much earlier. As today I told you, that it is necessary that you have to recognize Me.” I am what I am, I have been that, I'll be that. I'm not going to grow any more, or less. This is an eternal personality. It is now for you to get out of me whatever is possible.” The greatest possession you have is your Mother.”

Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

52) Linda Williams said:

Cowley Manor is in Gloucestershire [England], above Cheltenham, in the Cotswold Hills. The source of the Thames is just there, the Seven Springs. Apparently, the Seven Springs are the Kundalini of England. Most of London's tap water comes out of the Thames, so it is all vibrated water, being as Mother put Her Feet in it at the source.

Linda Williams

53) Pat Anslow said:

On the day after the puja, there were just a few of us still there and She took us up to the Seven Springs above Cheltenham. And She said there are three and a half billion deities in the universe and this is how big the universe is. I don't remember what order She did it in. And She took Her shoes off and She went down to where there is some water on the stones there. It was very nice then. It isn't so nice now. And She put Her Feet in it and said," The Thames is the Kundalini of England" " tamasa," which, of course, is the left side. And London is the city of the moon" " Luna. And She said," Now, this will clear England out.”And the Thames has been very vibrated. It was a very polluted river then, but since then it had cleared out. But there have been lots of efforts to clean up the Thames since then, to put fish back in it and so on. I don't think anyone took any pictures of it then. It was a very wonderful moment, with Her Feet actually on the stones. Shri Mataji was always dropping these amazingly deep comments. If you didn't keep your attention, you missed it.

Pat Anslow

54) Linda Williams said:

Vibrated for always

We all went down to Exeter where we had a beautiful puja. I remember Pat and Grezyna [Anslow] being very involved because Pat had worked very hard and given up many weekends to going to Exeter on the bus from London to get the centre going. At that time Ian and Tara Bascombe, who were then young students, were there. They were the people who made up the beautiful song"Aum Bhuh Bhuva Swaha Mahaganapati Devo Namah.”

Mother, a few days prior to the puja, asked us to bring water from the different rivers of England for Her to vibrate at the puja. I went to the Seven Springs [the source of the Thames] near to where I was living and took some water from there. I had not been there when Mother had put Her Feet in the water [at the Cowley Manor seminar]. When I got to the puja and gave Mother the water, She said," But this is already vibrated," sort of telling me that the water is vibrated for always not just then.

Linda Williams

55) Ray Harris said:

A big phase change

That period before 1983 when Shri Mataji was travelling round Europe, I used to work on the rigs" " the oil platforms" " and thought I was a great traveller, going to the Middle East and back every month, and Shri Mataji suggested I should accompany Her to some places in Europe because I had some free time. After being with Shri Mataji for a few days" " and I was in my twenties and Shri Mataji in Her sixties, fifties or sixties" " I was exhausted. She was fresh, up every night until three o'clock in the morning, working on new people, seeing people. At five or six o'clock She was up again, had Her breakfast and we were all bleary-eyed.

We were talking about phase changes in Sahaja Yoga. I felt there was a phase change in 1983. We went to Paris in 1980 for the first European programs, but it was in 1983 that a lot of things changed. Before 1983 Shri Mataji used to tour around the UK and didn't go very many other places. In '80 we had some very nice trips to Europe. Then in '83 it all seemed to change. Europe started to come. A lot of people started to come. Shri Mataji looked very serious, didn't She, at the Guru Puja in 1983 at Nightingale Lane [in London]. Do you remember that one in the garden? She really meant to be serious. She meant to be and at the end She started to laugh again. She said," Oh, I cannot keep serious for long. I am The Mother. I cannot be angry like the guru.”

And after that, there was a big phase change. We used to have huge pujas in Europe. We went to a chateau" " what was it called?” " in 1984, in Normandy. And we actually had a puja in a church" " in the church chapel.

Ray Harris

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