2019 Rakshabandhan Celebrations on India Independence Day

"Rakhi is Protecting Power. Its bond is very strong and extremely tender because it symbolizes the noble love of sister. Customarily, tying a Rakhi to someone is establishing a place of Pure Protection. However, man’s ability to understand love has become so feeble that tying of Rakhi has become merely a mechanical process. All beautiful human traditions become lifeless and dry formalities if there is no warmth of faith in them.
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Rakhi Pūrnimā is a day of great significance. On that day you should ask for perfection, make big decisions and keep attention on high ideals. Sahaja Yogis should not destroy their attention on trifle issues. Lot of work has yet to be done."
1978-0817 Letter (Marathi) on Rakshābandhan and Pūrnimā Day (0818), London, UK

You are my brothers and sisters
Because you are human,
And we all are sons and daughters
Of one Holy Spirit;
We are equal and made of the same Earth.
(`My Brethren' by Kahlil Gibran)

"Today in India, we celebrate a special festival. It is called as Rakshābandhan. 'Raksha' means protection and ‘bandhan’ means the bondage – the bondage of protection. It’s a very nice, good, social custom to have this beautiful festival today. Today is the full moon day and this day what we do is to tie a band of threads around the person whom you want to protect. It is done between brothers and sisters.
The sisters tie this bondage to the wrist of the brothers, and when we do that, they’re putting all their love around the wrist, that it is the day for giving all their love, everything to their brother, as a protection, as a symbol of their protection through that thread. It’s a very, very simple thread they use. And this is has to be tied on the left hand side. But people tie it on the right hand side, which is a mistake, but it has to be tied on the left hand side."
1980-0826 Rakshābandhan, Caxton Hall, Westminster, London, UK

Baba Mama, (March 1990): This is what the brother has written for the sister:
"O Nirmala, my sister, how much should I praise You? Because You have given the human being the experience of God."
Nirmalaa, Kiti Varnaavi Tujhiga Stuti

"So today is the day of a very big relationship between brother and sister where a sister never feels guilty and brother never feels guilty. Sisters and brothers should never feel guilty about themselves and they should always openly tell whatever they think wrong or whatever they think is right. There is no harm, a sister can always go and correct the brother, and a brother can always come and correct the sister. This is the relationship in which nobody should feel hurt and bad, because this is the purest relationship that you could think of. As mother, if she tells something, the difference of age is so much that you may not understand. Maybe if the father says something the children may not understand, the difference of age is too much and also the norms that we have created of saying that there’s a generation gap and all this nonsense that is also in the head. But supposing a brother and sister, if they, between themselves, understand Sahaja Yoga, they have every right to say whatever is wrong between them and work it out – not to put it as a guilt.
But now with Rakhi sister is even better. Now with Rakhi sister we have established a beautiful atmosphere that somebody who is a brother, you cannot have any funny relationships with that person. It kills all your flirtations, all your funny, funny relationships that one develops, all kinds of marriage breaking problems, and people going astray, once you have understood the principle that we have to first settle ourselves on very holy relationship with each other.
This is the way, in Sahaja Yoga, we establish that holy relationship. And moreover, one has to see that this holy relationship gives you joy, happiness, and pleasure. It is not just a holy relationship of some force or some sort of a thing. Even if you cannot give anything to your sister, or the brother cannot do anything for the sister, doesn’t matter. The relationship is in the heart, and is felt very much and when you feel it, that relationship, that sweetness of purity, of holiness, flows. I know of some people who have sacrificed such a lot for the brothers and so much for the sisters. So one has to understand this relationship is to be kept very clean, beautiful, and absolutely open – there should be no formality in it. That a brother should go and say, “I’m sorry,” and the sister should go and say, “I’m sorry.” You have to be open and tell – you should never feel bad about your brother or sister."
1988-0820 Shri Vishnumaya Puja, Cure that Left Vishuddhi, Shudy Camps, UK

"If you call somebody a sister, then not only that you do for her the way you would do for your sister, but in all your relationships, in all your festivals, in all the weddings in the family, she is treated like a sister."
1984-0811 Rakshabandhan and Havan, Maryadas, Hounslow, London, UK

"Is so important, that on this day if this is tied on your wrist, then you become brothers and sisters. Now, in Sahaja Yoga brotherhood is the most important. That is the friendliness among ourselves. When you are very good brothers and sisters, first of all, your left Vishuddhi improves.
This left Vishuddhi. You get this left Vishuddhi, because we don’t have proper brother and sister relationship.
Is not that we should have our own sister, but any woman who is a Sahaja Yogini is your sister. Except for your own wife. And this is the feeling. Unless and until we develop that pure feeling within ourselves, we cannot work out Sahaja Yoga. Sahaja Yoga cannot be worked out. I know it’s rather difficult to digest, but is a fact. You have to feel clean and pure within your heart."
1986-0818 Rakshābandhan, Room, Ashram, Hampstead, London, UK

Sapta koti kantha kalakala ninaada karaale
nisapta koti bhujaidhruta kharakarvaale
sapta koti kantha kalakala ninaada karaale
nisapta koti bhujaidhruta kharakarvaale
ka bola ka noma eith bole
bahubal dhaariniin namaami taariniim
ripudalavaariniin maataram
vande maataram ......
Who hath said thou art weak in thy lands
When the swords flash out in seventy million hands
And seventy million voices roar
Thy dreadful name from shore to shore?
With many strengths who art mighty and stored,
To thee I call Mother and Lord!
Thou who savest, arise and save!
To her I cry who ever her foeman drove
Back from plain and Sea
And shook herself free
Mother, to thee I praise thee.
1999-0220 Public Program, Mumbai

"For example today I saw the flag -- Independence -- when we got it we made this flag. I’d seen this flag put up when the other flag was brought down [in India in August 1947]. I cannot tell you what was the feeling that governed. Such a feeling that the truth has, somehow or other, overcome the untruth. That justice has been shown over the injustice. That feeling is still so much – I can’t even see the flag. If I see it, I remember the whole history, the whole thing: how many people sacrificed, how many martyrs there were, how much people have fought for it – that flag stands for that. And you stand for all that. You stand for all those ideals. You stand for all those sacrifices, and you stand for all that is to be achieved for bettering human beings. You have to achieve a great deal for others. You have to work within yourself what you can do for others, what you can achieve for others, what is the best way to imbibe those qualities within you that you become an absolutely unique personality."
2001-0321 Birthday Puja, New Delhi, India

Ma Teri Jay Ho Tera Hi Vijay Ho,
Victory be to You, O Mother India
Tere Geet Se Aaj Jag Ye Jivit Ho,
Let this world get alive today with Your song!
Ma Teri Jay Ho.
Victory be to You, O Mother India!
Ma Teri Jay Ho sung by Shri Mataji

"We got our independence and graciously English left us, that was something really great of them, in those days to do it. But that independence was just a political independence, political freedom but today you have the ultimate, ultimate freedom. You got the freedom of your spirit which is not attached to anything, which is not anything but the spirit, which is absolute, which is neither English nor Indian nor Australian, which is not this house, which is not anything but the spirit itself, the complete freedom you’ve got. In that freedom you have to rise."
1986-0802 Talk to Sahaja Yogis, Arrival for Ashram Inauguration, Shudy Camps, UK