Navaratri 3: Shraddha + Bhakti= Protection

Shraddha, faith.

Unless and until you develop that bhakti and shraddha within you, you cannot rise. You cannot rise above your problems, you cannot rise about your personality; because bhakti is something you cannot impose on anyone, you cannot force on anybody. 
Ah, you can make somebody mad and say that he can do bhakti - he cannot. You have to have all your qualities absolutely intact. You should be intelligent, you should be understanding, everything should be there.

Shri Ganesha worshipping ShivaLingam

But at that time this, the joy of bhakti is within you. And this joy of bhakti when it starts flowing, Goddess Herself enters into your being,
I should say, I have seen people, bhaktas, many great saints in India who achieved a lot of heights. They have gone too far into it, and if you read about them and if you understand them you are amazed how without any help, without any guidance, how could they go that deep and worship Devi?
Worshipping is not just out of sheer reading or some sort of a chanting or anything, but it's the deep attention of your heart, I think it's Spirit.
If the Spirit is awakened within you, you develop the bhakti and drop out all nonsensical ideas, all different things that have crawled into your head, but you just develop the bhakti.
.../...
Now we have through Kundalini awakening reached a very great height, I must say, of understanding of bhakti, the power of bhakti.
The greatest power of bhakti is that it protects you. It protects you. Those people who are suffering from any kind of trouble, any kind of problems, just get out of it because this bhakti of yours gives you the right type of understanding, the understanding of yourself. Also the understanding of surroundings, understanding of the whole universe, I should say.
Why people behave like this, why they are like this: all this can be solved through your bhakti. It should not be blind; it should not be blind but it should be wise bhakti, wise, with wisdom. Only possible through Sahaja Yoga, I think...
.../... But you are very few who have understood what is bhakti and what is shraddha.

In Ghent, Belgium.

So I would say the Goddess gives you bhakti and shraddha - by what? She gives you through your meditation, that you see so many miracles happening in your life and you are amazed how this has happened: "We never expected this to happen. How it has happened? How it has worked out?"

South Italy: Madonna with a stick !

Also She corrects you. 
All the time you, if you are aware, She corrects you and tells you:
"Don't go this way. You are going on the ego side", or She'll tell you, "You are going on the left side." She is the One who corrects throughout.
We get into diseases and all kinds of, we are trapped into all kinds of things; it is because, because we don't have bhakti.
In the bhakti you have to depend on the wisdom of the Mother, wisdom of the Shakti, that She looks after you, She finds you out the way, and She will help you. 
If you start becoming on your own and thinking that "I am all right, I can do this, I can do that," you'll find inevitably that you are wrong, that you had a very wrong idea about yourself and about the Divine.

Bogota, 1994

So, 
what is the most important point, is surrendering. 
The word "Islam" means surrender, but Mohammed Sahib has described what you should have before surrender, is your Realization.
But you have seen even after Realization people take time to settle down. 
But once you are settled down you understand that you are under a protection of the Goddess, that you see every day how it works and how it helps you. Many people who are in Sahaja Yoga, so-called, have great respect for Me but are not fully there. Then they suffer and they have problems, and then they ask Me, "Mother, how is it I have got this problem?" 

 I don't tell them, because you can't tell anything to human beings, you see, they're very aggressive.
But the fact is because, because you are not one with the Divine. And with the Divine if you are one, you'll have nothing but compassion and love, nothing else, and everything you will do so smoothly, so nicely.

Ganesha and ShivaLingam

People may not understand, like they crucified Christ, they did all kinds of things, agreed! but now you should ask for the protection of the Goddess, because that is the greatest quality of the Goddess, that She protects you from all problems, from all troubles, from all kinds of nonsensical, I should say, things that can happen to you. And there's so many things that happen.
I'll tell you, I was told that one of the leaders, a Sahaja Yogi, was killed. I said, "Not possible!" And the fellow was in Rome; he was not killed. So it's not possible that a young man should be killed like that. Of course if somebody is old you have to die; but that he was killed was not a right thing.

So it is the protection, not only physical, mental, emotional, but spiritual protection comes to you; spiritual protection, in that what you do is that you don't do wrong things, you don't kill anybody, you don't torture anybody, you are not rude to anybody. That is the situation into which you all can enter, because you are Sahaja Yogis. You can achieve it, you have a power to do it, because you have so much shraddha and so much understanding that you have reached a certain state of protection, of growth, of wisdom.

Now first test your wisdom, you must test your wisdom:
"If I am doing this, is this wise? Is it good?
Why I'm doing it?"
First test your wisdom. Then you'll find out that many things you do which are wrong, which should not have been done. But first your wisdom must develop, and you must see that your wisdom works and helps you.
.../.... But if you have the wisdom, then you will immediately know that this is wrong. Apart from that you will be saved from all kinds of problems. It's a fact, I have seen with so many people like that who have been saved, not only from death, but from all kinds of catastrophes, all kinds; and I was amazed how these Sahaja Yogis are helped by the Divine.

 The Bird of Athena can see  through the Night

Divine is a power, everywhere it exists, 
but it will only help the people who are Sahaja Yogis, who are divine,
not the people who are not; it will never help them. 
On the contrary it might punish in a way that is never expected.

Introspect!

So one has to be careful to test oneself, what I call introspection.
Have you been wise in dealing with certain problems?
What has been your style? Is it money-oriented, or it is domination-oriented?
What sort of a power it was that you were working under?
You have to introspect to find out. And you'll be amazed, very much amazed that even in the name of God you can do wrong things.

 .../... First, overpower yourself!
You have to know yourself first of all. What's the use of overpowering others? Those who do not know how to overpower themselves are always miserable, always in trouble, because it reacts. 
If you try to overpower others, it reacts.
For that you have to be absolutely introspecting, again and again I have been saying this,
that:  introspect!

(2002-Oct-27: Navaratri Puja, Lake Piru, CA, USA)