A Pivotal Moment
An Eternal Moment of Pure Transformation
On the 5th of May, 1970, in the seaside town of Nargol on the West coast of India near Mumbai, a singularly important event took place the opening of the Sahasrara, the energy centre of the limbic area.
The significance of this occurrence cannot be over-stated. Everything that followed in Shri Mataji’s spiritual legacy stemmed from that event. Like an important scientific discovery, or a beautiful work of art, this unprecedented breakthrough has reverberated through the years, affecting all who come into contact with her work and vision.
Shri Mataji’s discovery was and is unique. The opening of the Sahasrara is a moment of pure transformation, and it provides a method for human beings to reach beyond their limitations and to connect with something greater. The event and the awareness it provided was what she had been waiting for.
“I was seeking the ways and methods,” she explained, “working it out inside myself through my own style of meditation in the sense that I would work out all the permutations and combinations. When I met one person, I would see what problems that person had and how they could overcome them. I would try to study that person internally.”
Shri Mataji knew that the key to understanding the human dilemma lay in the ancient knowledge of the subtle body. This body beyond the physical is real, composed of channels, energy centres and a primal energy source known as Kundalini. The functions and structure mirror the physical system known to science, but on a subtler level.
“I could see all the things that were going on,” she remembered. “That was the day, somehow or other, I said I must open the last chakra.”
This chakra or energy centre is known in Sanskrit as Sahasrara, with its seat in the limbic area of the brain. The opening of this energy centre was the trigger that would set everything in motion, a gateway to truth.
“I was all alone and I felt very good. There was no one around to say a word. And then, in meditation, I felt that the time had arrived when the Sahasrara must be opened. At the moment I desired for the opening of the Sahasrara, what I noticed was that the Kundalini rose like a telescope within me, opening one after the other, traveling upwards. It was like the colour of molten, red-hot iron.
“Then I saw the external structure of the Kundalini that kept rising up, creating sounds at each chakra. The Kundalini rose up to pierce the Brahmarandra.”
The Brahmarandra is the fontanel bone area at the top of the head. The experience Shri Mataji described was that of self-realization, the blossoming of knowledge and awareness that so many desire. She was talking about a destiny that so many seek, the prize usually associated with years of dedication and labour.
“I felt at that moment whatever energy was there above suddenly entered within me like a cool breeze from every direction. I saw the whole thing open and a big torrential rain of breeze started flowing through my head all over. I felt I was lost now, I was no more. It is only the grace that was there. I saw it completely happening to me.”
Shri Mataji knew that this experience of self-realization, this higher knowledge, had to be shared with the world.
“It was then I realized that there was no harm in starting the work. The confusion was over. At last the time had come. There was nothing to fear. This ultimately had to be done. I had come to this world for this purpose only, to awaken the collective consciousness in human beings. I thought, until people receive their self-realization or understand their own Self, this task will be impossible. Whatever else one would have tried to do in this world would be of no use at all.
Shri Mataji described how her spiritual work began. “I worked it out on an old lady who knew me well. When she received her realization I was then satisfied. I felt many others could also get their realization. It was easy to give realization to one person. It was very easy to make one person aware, but to work it out on a collective level on the masses, some more work was needed.
Everyone had to receive the benefit with a single realization, but it is true these types of workings had never been done before on a collective level. I had achieved all this through meditation.”
Her work continued quietly for many years at a grassroots level. “No one ever knew about the powers that I had within. No one knew me nor had any idea about me.” Nor were most people prepared for what she was saying. Her message, both revolutionary and daring, was also a fundamental challenge to most humans’ understanding of themselves.
“But when the Kundalini was awakened in that lady,” Shri Mataji recalled, “I felt that some kind of a subtle power had entered into her. Then twelve more got their realization. They were astonished as their eyes started shining. They started realizing and seeing everything clearly by the power of a unique sensitivity that entered into them, by which they could feel everything.”
Through self-realization, people became their true Self. They realized what they had not known before. They began to see themselves in each other. And with that, true integration began.
“I realized one thing for certain, that these twelve people had twelve different natures and somehow by sitting with them, they should be told how the power of light that the spirit possesses should be integrated,” she said. “It is like when we thread flowers into a single garland with the help of a needle… When they received their realization, then I noticed that within them, within everyone, it was getting integrated into a single string one after the other.