Practically everyone had arrived by the Friday evening for the Guru Puja weekend, 16th July 1987, and the main item on everyone’s agenda was preparing the house of Shudy Camps for Shri Mataji’s arrival, and preparing the stage for puja. During the week there were at least fifty people working on the house, and this swelled to 700 by Friday, and work continued right until the last minute. At the same time, a number of large marquees were being erected in the garden. The men slept in one and the ladies and babies in another. The stage was beautifully decorated, overhung by a cloth in white and green colours as backdrop, with a gold-embossed disk at the centre. The backdrop was a splendid painting of the parting of the waters in the Red Sea.
On Saturday the main concern was the preparation of the house. People had been working night and day for several days previously, and it seemed as though the work would never end. Marble arrived from Italy for the main staircase on Thursday evening, and had been set by the time Shri Mataji arrived. As the sun was setting on Saturday evening, all the Sahaja Yogis made their way to the front of the house to await the arrival of our Divine Mother. We could still see the people working away inside the house to make the final preparations and arrange Shri Mataji’s bedroom. A group of younger Sahaja Yogis made their way to the end of the driveway to lead Her car to the front door by dancing in procession, as in India. The rest of us waited, some holding flags of the countries represented.
Suddenly the setting sun broke out from behind a bank of cloud to cast a brilliant ruddy light on the façade of the house, and Shri Mataji was there. After leaving Her car and waving to the assembled Sahaja Yogis, She went into the house and made Her way upstairs to Her bedroom, where we could see the workers doing namaste to Her. Then Shri Mataji came to the window, and for a long, silent minute or two stood there, Her hands joined in namaste, Her head bowed, and Her eyes closed, towards us. Then She opened Her eyes, leaned on the windowsill, and slowly looked at all of us, smiling, Her glance moving throughout the assembly. It was a wonderful moment. Later She commented on the pink colour of the sky at that moment, saying that it was Shri Mahalakshmi’s colour; Shri Mahalakshmi was showing Her contentment. We all moved to the back of the house, where after a few minutes Shri Mataji appeared again.
‘Now your love has taken form,’ I heard Her say.
The next day, Sunday, was puja day. During the puja Shri Mataji talked about the older forms of yoga, in which either one renounced all things to go and sit at the feet of the guru, or one lived a normal life at the end of which one renounced one’s property – Sankhya Yoga. During the puja itself, Shri Mataji was presented with a trident and a wooden shepherd’s crook. At the end of the puja the vibrations were very strong, and Shri Mataji told us as She was leaving that we should all remain sitting there in meditation to absorb the vibrations.
Phil Ward