Buddha and Desire

Today, we have assembled here to do puja to Buddha. As you know Buddha was a son of a king. And one day he was shocked to see a very poor man, thin man, walking on the street, very unhappy person, and he felt very sad about it. Then he saw one person who was very sick and about to die; then he saw a man who was dead and people were carrying him to the cremation ground. This all upset him very much and he started thinking about it and seeking - what is the reason for all these happenings in human beings. Firstly, why do they become so miserable or sick? Or, why do they die so miserably? The reason he found out in his search. He went around the whole world, I should say, in the sense: he read Upanishadas, he read… went to many gurus, went to many places of spiritual education, Banares, everywhere he went. And ultimately, He was sitting under a banyan tree when suddenly his Kundalini was awakened, by Adi Shakti, and he got his realization; Then he realized that the reason for all this is the desire.

In Sahaja Yoga, we have now understood that all other desires are not pure desires. Firstly, whatever desires are fulfilled, we are not satisfied by it, first thing. And secondly, all these desires have a repercussion. So what is the pure desire? That, you all know, is the Kundalini. Kundalini is the power of pure desire, which fulfils your pure desire to be the Spirit, to be Buddha, to be enlightened. Buddha means a person who is enlightened. So Gautama become… became Buddha, as you people now have become Sahaja Yogis. But because he went through all these various penances, whatever he learned became part and parcel of him - but in Sahaja Yoga it is all sahaj. So we always conclude everything that, "This is, after all, sahaj." And when we try to work out anything, we always say, "Oh, it will work out spontaneously. It's alright, Mother will do for us and everything." This is a common failing in Sahaja Yoga.

So whether to put you all through that long process or to give you realization was a question before me. Because, in these days of confusion there cannot be much time to put you through all which Buddha had gone, and He was one individual, I had to put all of you. That would have been very difficult. I don't know how many would have sustained it. Most of them would have dropped out half way, or maybe quarter of the way. So it was done in a sahaj manner - you did not have to sit in a banyan tree - ultimately you got your realization. Your Kundalini was awakened and you got your enlightenment. But that enlightenment, which settled in Buddha, is not settled in us because our chakras were not cleansed as he had cleansed his chakras. We had the same body, the same mind and the same attitude when we got realization. As we were looking at the house of God, still we are looking at the house of God, but you have entered inside the house and you have to look out from the windows, this you forget. And though we are sitting now on a hilltop out of all the congestion and all the traffic, still you see a car, you get frightened. You don't know you are sitting on top of a hill where your Mother has put you nicely, and that is how you try to behave. ...

Buddha, as you know, is working on our right side, on our Agnya. Is very surprising, the deity like him, to work on the right side. First he said, for the right side, you should be detached, desireless. I mean, nobody would work if they have no desire and if they have no way of earning something out of it, I mean, in the normal sense. But desirelessly you have to work. Then only right side can be conquered - Very symbolic. Normally the right-sided people are extremely thin, but Buddha is very fat. Normally the right-sided people are extremely serious, very serious, even if you tickle them they won't laugh. But Buddha is laughing all the time with both his hands like this, enjoying himself. See the contrast. So when you are working without any desire, only then, this state can be achieved that you'll be all the time laughing ...(but) as you become subtler, the desires start becoming subtler and subtler and subtler. And if you are not careful, it just comes up. ...

When you're desireless you are happy because you are never disappointed, you are never nervous. So to be desireless doesn't mean that you become something absurd or ascetic or anything like that, but not to expect something.

H.H. Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, extract from Shri Buddha Puja, Belgium, 1991

(1991-0804)