Illustration by David Jesus Vignolli

Some Sahaja Yogis asked me to expand on a few things Shri Mataji told me about Russia.

Starting from the beginning: one day after arriving at Mother's house, Mother told me I had just been selected to go to Russia. That felt like a shock to me because it is very far away and very cold in Winter and I come from a hot country. I had already heard on the grapevine that a few Sahaja Yogis had volunteered to go to Russia and had been rejected on the grounds of not being compatible with the situation and yet they were excellent Sahaja Yogis, thus I was even more puzzled. I asked Shri Mataji, why me? Shri Mataji gave me an astonishing reply. There was a Sahaja Leader in the room with Her and Shri Mataji had been considering who to send to Russia from England and had gone through a list of possible people but that method was not working out and Shri Mataji said it was a bit of a headache to use that method, so She said to the leader, let us use a different method. The first person who knocks at the door will be sent to Russia. No sooner did Mother say those words I knocked at the door, and that is how I was selected.

The next day I asked Mother to tell me a bit about Russia and to tell me what I should do and not do. Shri Mataji explained to me that She was tired of people reporting to Her what was wrong with leaders and that they go on reporting after everybody had already reported and that even after leaders have been replaced they still go on reporting long letters about that leader and what is wrong with that country and the mistakes of that leader in the past. Shri Mataji was not sending me to Russia in order for me to report about the mistakes of the leader and in fact the leader in question was already considering resigning because he felt nobody was supporting him and the collective were criticising him and no doubt he had made some mistakes, but he had asked for help, that's the point. Mother already knew the leader was in trouble, it had already been reported to Her too many times. Another thing people had reported to Mother too many times was that in the Russian collective there were some beautiful ladies who were not yet Sahaja Yoginis because they had not yet been taught anything about Sahaja Yoga and yet they were a bit pushy. The complaint was that maybe they wanted to get married to foreign Sahaja Yogis in order to immigrate. But Mother warned me not to react against that type of situation and report or criticise.

As for my compatibility with the situation, the Russian leader at that time was a linguist who spoke fluent English, Spanish and Portuguese, and since I'm from Lisbon, Portugal this was the compatibility part. The Russian leader had spent four years living in Portugal off a Military Russian Ship during the Portuguese communist revolution. At that time I was also living in Lisbon, Portugal. Every night he would come out of the ship and spend time in Lisbon. It was easy for me to communicate with this Russian leader because he enjoyed speaking in Portuguese, and we always spoke in Portuguese whenever we met. He trusted me immediately whereas he had grown a bit suspicious of foreign Sahaja Yogis as he knew they had reported him to Shri Mataji and he knew they had also reported about the situation of the Russian collective. The Russian leader also felt I understood some aspects about Russia because Portugal had gone through a Communist revolution.

At the time, in Russia, very few Russian Sahaja yogis could speak English apart from the leader who was a linguist. It was easier to find a person who could speak a bit of German or French than English. The policy during the Communist era was not to let students study English because that's the language of the United States who were the greatest enemy of Russia during the days of the cold war. Nowadays Russians understand English very well, but in those days they didn't so it was impossible to give them Mother's lectures for them to learn about Sahaja Yoga. Mother's lectures had not yet been translated into Russian and that's something that took a lot of time as the resources were not available. New Sahaja Yogis and Yoginis had not been taught the basics yet, Sahaja Yoga was still very recent in Russia.

The way people had been brought up in Russia in those days did not include what we might call a religious education and thus the style of behaviour in Russia was different from the West. Nowadays they have access to religion but at the time in Russia, religion had been suppressed. Shri Mataji explained that the style of behaviour of Portuguese ladies brought up under a Catholic regime was very different from the ladies who were brought up under communism who were more confident and outgoing. In essence Shri Mataji explained to me that the Russian ladies were very beautiful although very different from the Portuguese ladies whom Shri Mataji also liked very much, thus no point in me reacting to any situation by being judgmental and reporting problems to Mother about Russian Sahaja Yoginis or Russian leaders. That was the warning Mother gave me before sending me to Russia. She also warned me not to talk about God since at that point it was still illegal to do so in Russia, thus Sahaja Yoga had to be conveyed in a different style, which in fact made it difficult to just use translations of Mother's talks.

One thing to remember in general is that Shri Mataji sees good points in everybody. Mother liked Portuguese Sahaja Yoginis just as much as she liked Russian Sahaja Yoginis although the style can look different. Mother was encouraging me to develop that attitude of seeing good points in everybody rather than being judgmental.

As for political leaders, Shri Mataji was also very generous. For instance at one time Shri Mataji said that She hoped that Margaret Thatcher would get self realisation, although later on Margaret Thatcher made lots of serious mistakes which Shri Mataji criticised strongly. Another example is Lady Diana Spencer whom Shri Mataji praised very much from the very beginning as well as at the end, and yet there were times Shri Mataji said that after the divorce of Lady Diana, that she had fallen into bad company and got bad advice and that she was not her usual self and had fallen from her usual state.

Political leaders got praise from Shri Mataji and Mother saw their good points, but at times Shri Mataji criticised them strongly if they were going wrong, which happened to a lot of politicians.

When I was living in Wales Shri Mataji told me that if ever I needed some advice or help to go and meet the ex-prime minister of the UK, James Callaghan who hailed from Wales. Shri Mataji told me he was a good person who would surely help.

Once we were watching Television at Shri Mataji's home and the Secretary of State, Geoffrey Howe appeared on the screen. Shri Mataji said that's a beautiful person who has given so much service to the country, and added, "I wish we had more people like him in this country". Shortly afterwards Geoffrey Howe surprised everybody by resigning in 1990, and during his resignation speech he exposed serious problems within government and that led to the resignation of Margaret Thatcher which was very overdue as she was unable at that time to give direction to the country.

When Bill Clinton, the USA president got elected, Shri Mataji said that one very good point about Clinton is that he likes the poor and the black people very much. But later when Clinton started making mistakes Shri Mataji said that now he is behaving like a demon.

As far as Putin is concerned even if it were true that Shri Mataji once said positive things about Putin, and nobody is certain that Mother spoke about him, there are people who think Mother was talking about a different Russian politician, but even assuming Mother once praised him, the moment he starts going off track Shri Mataji would probably point out that he is doing wrong. This was a common theme, Mother saw good points in politicians but also criticised them strongly whenever they deviated from Dharma.