Early Childhood and Family
Sahaja Yoga was founded by H. H. Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, a renowned spiritual guru born on March 21, 1923 at exactly twelve o’clock on the day of the spring equinox in a town in Chindwara the geographical center of India. Her parents Shri P. K. Salve and Smt. Cornelia Salve were direct descendants of the royal Shalivahana dynasty and played a key role in India’s Independence movement. Her father, a close associate of Mahatma Gandhi, was the member of the Constituent Assembly of India and helped write Independent India’s first constitution. He was a renowned scholar, master of 14 languages, and translated the Quran in Marathi. Her mother was the first woman in India to receive an Honors Degree in Mathematics.
The fields of your villages will sing of your glory, and the cities will echo its melody.
— Victory to you, Mother India. Yours be the victory!
At the age of only eight years, when Her parents were jailed for participating in the freedom struggle of India, she took up the responsibility of caring for her younger siblings. “The feeling that whatever our parents are doing is for our country’s freedom was so elevating… that we never even thought of little comforts that children ask for,” Shri Mataji recalled. At the age of seven, Shri Mataji spent some time with Mahatma Gandhi at his ashram. “He was a tremendous hard task master, but an extremely loving and compassionate person,” said Shri Mataji. “He always used to talk to me in a way as if I was a grandmother and he used to discuss things with me, most surprising to all others, in a way, (as if) I was wiser to everyone. Shri Mataji’s childhood was dedicated to freedom struggle and to Her study of Medicine at the Christian Medical College in Ludhiana and at the Balakram Medical College in Lahore (Pre Independence India). In 1947, India finally became a free nation. It had been many years since Shri Mataji’s childhood discussions with Mahatma Gandhi, but not long before his last days, he asked to see Her. “I met him… immediately he recognized,” Shri Mataji recalled. “He said, ‘Meet me after prayer.’ When I met him, he said, ‘Now take to constructive work. Take to constructive work…”
“I saw the Union Jack coming down, and I saw the Tricolour going up. That was the moment – it’s beyond me,” recalled Shri Mataji. “I cannot tell you what was the feeling at that moment—such a feeling that the truth has somehow or other overcome the untruth. The justice has been shown over the injustice.” In 1948 Sir C. P. Srivastava, was selected for the Indian Foreign Service and Indian Administration Service (I.A.S). Following Shri Mataji’s counsel, Sir C.P. decided to remain in the I.A.S. to serve his country from within its borders. Shri Mataji was a very silent social worker. She collected money for a sanatorium near Chandrapur in Maharashtra. She became president of a society called ‘Friends of the Blind. In Meerut, She started a refugee home, a home for invalids, and assisted with a large leper home. Shri Mataji launched the ‘Youth Society for Films’ to encourage national, social and moral values in young people. She was also a member of the Film Censor Board in Mumbai. During her talk, Shri Mataji spoke of truth and the need to actualize the collective doctrine of the United Nations. She spoke of the Kundalini’s role in bringing about that actualization. “We talk of ecological problems,” She said, “this problem, that problem, but we don’t think how we can get out of it. If the United Nations is to express itself in reality, then I would say that the people of the United Nations must get their self-realisation first and then they can understand what they are….There are so many ways and so many powers they have, which they can use. And this is the power of love.”