King Shivaji

H.H.Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi has made many references to Shivaji Maharaj. Here are a few extracts:

"A great soul who had such principles, and such beautifying life in his language, in his attitude and everything. With all that, he was a very brave person."
(Birthday Puja 2001)

"So, first of all we should know that Shivaji himself was a divine person in the sense that He had no defects in him. He was a detached personality. I do not want to tell you the whole history about him, but his character if you study you will be amazed how detached he was. He was not found of women. He never hankered after them and on the contrary respected women very much. ... He did not have weaknesses, he had no habits, extremely honest, Spartan in temperament, and absolute ideal king he was, an absolute ideal king. He talked to everyone on the same level, treated everybody with respect, never showed off that he was a king, but he kept his dignity all the time and when it was needed to be corrected with all courage he corrected people, he did not care for cheap popularity either. Such a man was a blessing to Maharashtra because he is such an ideal for us and for people to follow and his mother was a great lady who brought him out of the clutches of the Mughal people who tried to convert forcibly Hindus to Islam."
(Talk on Shivaji, 6/2/84)

1984-0206 Talk on Shivaji

"Shivaji was a great Atma Shakshatkari, a realized soul. For the future he’s given the message. He said, Svadharma zagewawa, means enlighten your dharma or Spirit. Svadharma, the Spirit has to be enlightened. Everybody has said that. I'm specially quoting him because he comes from Maharashtra; apart from that he was a political head. Although he was a political head, because he was a realized soul he said that your Spirit should be awakened. He didn't talk of all other nonsensical things. And he knew that unless and until the Spirit is awakened people will be doing all kinds of wrong things and that is why today we find all over the world the mess in which all political parties, all economic endeavours, all military endeavours have fallen into."
(Christmas Puja 1988)

"The guru of Shivaji was Ramadasa. They asked Ramadasa how much time it will take for the Kundalini to rise. So he said, Tat kshana, that moment. But the person who has to have it has to have that earnest desire and the one who has to do it has to have the authority.”
(Public program, New York, 16/10/93)

"This Mahakali power is expressed in Tuljapur as Bhavani, and Shivaji Maharaj used to come on a horse all the way for miles together, to get the darshan of this Bhavani at Tuljapur: he knew this; and he had a sword which was called as Bhavani talwar, and people said that the Goddess Herself has given this sword to him.
(Shri Mahalakshmi Puja, Kolapur, 21/12/90)

"He was once presented with a lady, was very beautiful. And people had plundered her things and all her ornaments, because she was a daughter of a Muslim courtesan, as you call the courtier. And they tried to plunder him and they brought this beautiful woman before Shivaji. So Shivaji looked at her and said, “Please remove your veil”, because Muslims have a veil. And when she removed her veil, he said that, “If my mother was as beautiful as you are, I would have been equally beautiful.” What a thing to say - what a poetic thing to say! That is that, “If you were my mother, I would have been as beautiful as you are”, means you are my sister. And then he got very angry with all these people and he asked them that, “You’d better take her away and never do such a thing to any woman.” And not only, but he gave lots of ornaments and lots of things to her to say that she’s a sister going to the husband with all respect and regard. And this gentleman, her husband, was a very deadly enemy of Shivaji. How he solved the problem with such purity and then this gentleman became sort of a milder person with this gesture of his."
(Shri Vishnumaya Puja, New York, August 1987)