Unbearable pain

My own story is not untypical of the kind of thing that goes on in Sahaja Yoga:

* First Mataji married me to an Indian boy who was not quite right in the head. That lasted 6 weeks, and then she told me I'd better get a divorce.

* The second man she married me to turned out to be verbally, emotionally, and finally physically abusive. After about 3 years, Mataji said I'd better get a divorce.

* The she married me to G., but only if you promise not to have any children. I agreed.
G. had been previously married by Mataji. Shortly after the birth of their 3rd child, Mataji ordered him and his wife to divorce because his wife was possessed, mentally ill. G.'s wife was sent away and forbidden to have any contact with her children. The children were sent to the Rome school. They were approximately 1, 3, and 4 years of age. Meanwhile, G. lived in various ashrams, seeing them occasionally, usually at some international Sahaja Yoga function, where there were hundreds of other followers gathered to worship Mataji. When we were married, I hoped that we could have the children with us (they were now 2, 4, and 5) and give them a stable home with two parents. However, that was not to be.

They remained in the Rome school most of the year, while we lived in the United States.
Mataji stated, "the children have been spoiled by too much attention and are very difficult and can only be put right in Rome. They should be left there for at least 2 years. Let G. (the Leader in Rome, not my husband) discipline them and put them right."

Remember, these are toddlers?

"Don't worry or pay any attention to them," she said, "they are my children." Furthermore, Mataji accused G. of having too big an ego (a constant refrain, although he was absolutely shattered at the time), and constantly browbeat him for "putting too much attention" on his family, "on his mother and his sister, who are devilish." And I was instructed to only worry about spreading Sahaja Yoga in America, about carrying out the tasks of a "leader." We tried to obey, to surrender, to "leave it to Mother." But to no avail. After 3 1/2 years, Mataji ordered us to divorce. And ordered G. to remarry his first wife.

I thought I would die from the pain, just as his first wife must have felt when they were originally divorced. The children were sent back to Europe. Now the younger two are in a Sahaja Yoga school in India.

Why all this? The official explanation is that it's all for our "spiritual evolution," to "test our surrender to Mother," that it's "Mother's maya," that we "shouldn't think." But when you do think about it, and allow yourself to feel the pain of it (which you are taught to deny, repress, and rationalize in Sahaja Yoga), it merely appears as another method for Mataji to exert total control over your life.

This is what can happen in Sahaja Yoga.