Back in July 1985, I was not even a year old in Sahaj, and France was of organising the Guru Puja. A large venue had been found in the Paris area called Chamarande, with wonderful gardens and an 18th century castle, a beautiful place to welcome around four hundred yogis from every corner of the Sahaj world of that time.
The whole organisation was going quite well and on the Saturday morning I felt it would be a unique moment of collective spiritual happening, which it was, but not at all in the way I expected. In the afternoon an Indian Sahaja Yogi gave a lecture about devas and puranas and most of the collective was gathered in the hall. In the middle of this a Sahaja Yoga leader rushed into the hall.
‘What the hell are you doing here? Shri Mataji was at the airport and nobody was there to welcome Her! She is furious! How can such things happen?’ he shouted.
After a great deal of misunderstanding and leadership failure, nothing had been organised to bring the collective to the airport to welcome our Mother and when She arrived only two or three Sahaja Yogis were there in a car to take Her to the puja place. A huge mistake in the protocol of the Goddess and the guru: at first Shri Mataji said that the puja could not take place.
When She arrived She spent the whole evening and part of the night in Her room. She said the deities were very angry and were threatening. One yogini spent a long time massaging Mother’s Feet while the Adi Shakti was talking to them.
‘You have to forgive, you have to forgive!’ She said.
The atmosphere in the collective was that a complete disaster had occurred: some sat in meditation, some were crying, some were mourning or talking loudly in great tension and all of us were lost in despair.
Around 1.00 am a Sahaja Yogi announced that Shri Mataji had finally agreed to perform puja on the Sunday.
When Mother stepped onto the stage some hours later, She had a closed face and rejected the microphone that was put in front of Her, not wanting to talk. The puja started straight away and after the water was poured on Shri Mataji’s Feet, She addressed the Sahaja Yogis, asking only those who had wanted to go to the airport to come to the front,
‘I’m sorry I have to do that, I promised them,’ She said, referring to the deities.
What was happening shocked me deeply because I could see that Shri Mataji was suffering. She said She would never give France a Guru Puja again.
Kabir