How one gets trapped

The whole thing looks very subtle to the newcomer, as it did for me, but I was 21 and was not a reader of psychology books. I believe today that anyone with a minimum of critical sense would find-out in this apparently innocent meditation classes the beginning of a long manipulation process.

I followed Sahaja Yoga as it was supposed to be followed, I considered it as Shri Mataji's gift.. I was carried by the collective enthusiasm and was very sensitive to the Sahaja Yogis hearty support, not suspecting even once, that their apparent sincerity was in reality a well-trained, careful selection of words and attractive arguments.

This is all fine during the initial months of Sahaja Yoga practice, but one gets more involved when you logically recognise Shri Mataji as a divine incarnation: Her ever-present photograph is the unavoidable tool to persuade new-comers that the benefits and experience of meditation come from her and that her divine nature resides inside yourself in the form of the spiritual energy who is the source of your newly acquired wisdom. By claiming that ownership, she becomes your own inner personal guru. Thus the importance given to meditation in front of her picture. You just need to see the tense reactions of Sahaja Yogis when a new-comer mentions he prefers to meditate without it. The photograph is the initial drop of a slow but regular poisoning & intoxicating process, the solid milestone on which the sand castle of a Sahaja Yogi's beliefs are built.

Sahaja Yogis would even more warmly reassure you at this stage by insisting that "you are your own master", that you are the one who makes the choices. In reality you start very gradually to be controlled. What initially was a method to observe your personal inner functioning becomes a method of manipulation.

How does that happen? In your daily life, you start analysing your actions, thoughts and emotions thinking "is what I am doing, thinking, feeling Sahaj?" or "does what I'm doing, thinking, feeling please Shri Mataji?" The regular practice of that personal control becomes so automatic, that after few years you find yourself only doing things that please Shri Mataji. You are so adapted to her ideal behavioural pattern that you even enjoy it and become happy about it, which in reality makes things worse: Shri Mataji becomes the source of your happiness. Sahaja Yogis keep repeating "Jay Shri Mataji" or "Thanks to Shri Mataji".

Through your daily worship of Shri Mataji as God on earth, you are at the mercy of all her desires, preferences and increasingly fanatic ideas. There is nothing a Sahaja Yogi wouldn't do for her: People get married, divorce, send their kids away and gobble their sufferings (these are only petty human attachments) simply because she tells them to.

Of course they claim very seriously that they do these things from their own will. It's perfectly true: Shri Mataji's will IS their will. They are her instruments. (this is a SY quote, not mine). Shri Mataji can do anything, lie, rob, cheat. She doesn't even need to explain her behaviour, each Sahaja Yogi will individually do the job on her behalf. The supreme trick is that when they don't find any cosmic interpretation to her behaviour they will claim she is Maha Maya (i.e. the great illusion, who's actions cannot be understood by the human brain since the brain is her creation, this is a SY quote, not mine) and that she behaves in that way to test their devotion/belief in her. Succeeding such "tests" becomes a source of recognition and respect.