Meta Modern Era [Hardcover]

Her Holiness Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi Srivastava (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1997

The most difficult part is to convince a human being that in the entire creation [...] he is capable of becoming a glorious personality, a beautiful,peaceful angel." -- Meta Modern Era, Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi.

"Meta Modern Era" is a unique book about spirituality and the modern times written by H.H. Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, recognized worldwide as one of the greatest spiritual teachers of our times. Learn about Self Realization, which is now possible effortlessly and en-masse through Sahaja Yoga, in this unique book which sets the premises for the paradigm shift of the 21st century: a tangible breakthrough in human awareness.

The book contains the following chapters:

1. Modernism and Rationality

A profound perspective on the causes of the problems of modern times, predicted and described as the "dark age" (Kali Yuga). A vivid and critical look at our times where technological development lacking the knowledge of the roots of our Being has lead to a deep and desperate quest for the absolute truth in our hearts and minds. The limits of mere rationality can lead to disastrous conclusions and theories which are justified by the ego instead of being enlightened by the Spirit. Their effects can be seen in arts, social trends, and in all the manifestations of our society.

2. Choices

The root of consumerism can be found in the traps of choices and fashions set by entrepreneurs for the modern minds. This chapter exposes the subtle causes of materialism and its implications on family life, and how a realized soul (person who has achieved Self Realization) can go beyond them.

3. Democracy

Communism is dead. Nazism is no more. Why have the modern democracies become 'demonocracies'? Money orientation versus power orientation. Where can the question "what's wrong?" lead. Real freedom is not abandonment to one's habits and instincts, but the freedom to enjoy one's Spirit which becomes a reality after Self Realization.

4. Racialism

A fresh look at this widespread conditioning of our society, and how it can be replaced by a culture of true integration, coming from the heart, in the light of one's Spirit.

5. The Culture in the West

"Culture shows the social heights in serenity, wisdom and morality". Culture directs social trends. The culture of vulgarity justified by sheer rationality is contrasted with the subtle culture of innocence which expresses the beauty and purity of the Spirit.

6. Religions

All religions were started in a pure form by great prophets and incarnations, but due to the people "in charge", deviated over time from the absolute Truth into ritualism and fundamentalism. Their common essence and integration can be found - not mentally, but by experiencing the connection with one's Spirit (Self Realization) which is beyond the mind. "The prayer said without connection (Yoga) with God is like a telephone without connection".

The true religion is within. It can be awakened and manifested in our lives through the process of Self Realization. "With Sahaja Yoga, the innate universal religion of Divine Love is enlightened within and the seeker becomes spontaneously truly religious, righteous, moral, peaceful, compassionate and a powerful, enlightened personality."

7. Peace

A humorous look at human ego and its stunning manifestations in our modern times, and how on the subtle side it ends up destroying our peace within. Peace cannot be achieved through lectures or political changes, but has to be established in the individual, and Sahaja Yoga makes this possible through Kundalini awakening. "The human mind is always bombarded with thoughts. It builds the ego and reacts with it. [...] These thoughts come from the past or from the future, but reality is in the present where we achieve peace." Self Realization leads to collective consciousness which is not a concept, but a higher state of awareness in which one becomes part of the whole and acts spontaneously to help others.

8. World Peace

All wars have caused a reversal of our value system, which is reflected in our family life. "It is not an investment in armaments which will secure a truly peaceful future. It is the investment in our children which will yield invaluable dividends in the shape of a peaceful and moral society in the near future."

A sweet but profound look at raising our children in a loving, disciplined and spiritual way, developing all the beautiful qualities which are built-in within them. How to avoid their exposure to cultural agressions that play on their curiosity and attack their innocence. How to build a culture of universal spirituality for our children, preventing them from falling into the terrible problems caused by religious fundamentalism.

9. Evolution

A breathtaking view of the evolution of life that lead in an accelerated spiral to the human stage, paralelled by the evolution of awareness. Seeking the truth is part of this living process, and Self Realization is the next step in human evolution. The opening of the Sahasrara (seventh center) at the cosmic level in 1970 and the birth of Sahaja Yoga.

10. Message of Meta Science

Limits of science and the message of Sahaja Yoga which is the meta science of our modern times, bridging the gap between science and spirituality. A scientific exposition of the evolution of matter and awareness to the human level and beyond.

11. The Subtle System

A description of the three channels of energy and seven chakras and the role they play in our being and life, as well as the transformation that takes place through the awakening of the Kundalini.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Meta Modern Era -- The spiritual book of the 21st century. At a time when words like "postmodernism", "millennium" and "globalization" are indiscriminately peppered about to sell everything from wristwatches to television shows, when terms such as "paradigm shift", "new age" and "zeitgeist" are supplied wholesale as talking points in our journey into a unknown future, H.H. Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi writes as a breath of fresh air, blowing away cobwebs of conception about who we think we are.

In her preface, Shri Mataji admits the difficulties of writing about the Western World. It is like an enormous tree, she says, which has grown with tremendous outward flourishes, but has no roots. The Western mind has been kept away from the truth by all our society's superficialities and distractions. Our rational intellects have not allowed us to grasp the simple and obvious.

The present era is a slippery time of shifting values. The sands in which we seek to establish a footing come and go - each fad, in its turn, scarring the human psyche. The balance that must be restored to our lives will not be established through the accumulation of money, but in the assumption of responsibility - the responsibility to set things right.

The model that Shri Mataji envisions is one of innate human culture, of one world with roots that reach deep into our collective, global past. And she offers a solution for attaining that stage, a transformation in human awareness which is now possible for every human being. "A person who can say with authority what is absolutely right or absolutely wrong has to be an enlightened person.... It is beyond the normal limitations of the human to say something about truth so emphatically. And if such a person not only announces but manifests that truth as reality and expresses it in his life and work, then one should after all pay serious attention to such a personality. Such a person is a saint, or a seer, a greatly evolved soul, whose unique individuality is free of all taints of egoism and conditionings. He is, we might say, meta-modern and does not care for the limitations of rational understanding, the norms imposed by the cult of money or the power orientations of fads and fashions in modern times".

Like the film of the same name, we are caught in modern times like Charlie Chaplin's tramp, repeatedly and mechanically tightening the widgets on the conveyor belt long after the machines have stopped running.

The meta modern man or woman does not do things out of dull habit. They do not serve the machines, the economy, the fad or fashions. "Through his lifetime he will not do anything that jars or that is considered sinful or anything that goes against human benevolence. Nor will he create destructive ideas in the minds of the people. On the contrary, whatever he does is constructive and compassionate and creates peace over his entire area of activity. Because it serves the interests of a fuller and more perfect life and promotes human ascent, his work is of an eternal and absolute nature".

Most writers who have authored books about the new millennium have a concern in the territory they have staked out. They are part of it, writing from within the animal they are trying to dissect.

Shri Mataji writes from beyond the limits of our culture. As an Indian, she knows the streams of Eastern culture, but as a Christian-born wife of a former United Nations diplomat and as a long time resident of Britain and Italy, she knows the foibles, the ambitions, the backwaters of our culture. As a woman of the spirit, she is beyond and above both worlds. And, as a mother, she cares deeply about what is happening to us. She does not only observe and criticize. She has compassion. And she has a solution.

She writes of the knowledge of a yet unawakened energy of extraordinary potential within each of us. She tells us in her book of the language of chakras and energies. She describes the power of pure knowledge called as "kundalini".

This may sound like an ancient and secret wisdom, but it is only secret because we have kept it away from ourselves. In our pursuit of the material and the mundane, we have been too busy to listen to our inner self, and so our roots have withered.

"Western civilisation is like a very big tree which has outgrown its own size. But one has to find the roots. If the roots are in India, or any other country, why do we not accept the knowledge of the roots. A tree cannot exist without roots and roots have no meaning unless they nourish the trees which are about to fall."

Meta Modern Era is a groundbreaking book not just to read - but most importantly to experience. And beyond that, it offers a tangible solution to our problems by opening our awareness to our yet unexplored inner potential.

From the Author

"Actually I did not want to write a book of this kind. I am a person who is in complete joy of Divinity. There is the all-pervading joy of Divine love and I wanted everyone to enjoy it. Specially in the West I have seen that there are many seekers of absolute Truth. There are many scientists who have written voluminous books about consciousness, about awareness. One can give a list of them. But all these books really weary you completely, because they do not emit any knowledge of the ultimate truth. I don't want to criticize them; after all whatever they are doing constitutes honest research. But why not also give a chance to this new discover which is being made? Why not humble down to see what is beyond this mind which gives you all this artificial intelligence?

It is extremely difficult for me to write about the problems of Western life. It is like an enormous tree which has grown outside. How to be pushed down now to the roots and made to grow inside. It is only by going deep inside that we can find out what the problems of Western civilization are which have kept a Western mind away from truth. [...]

The most difficult part is to convince a human being that in the entire creation, he is the most highly evolved being; that he is capable of becoming a glorious personality, a beautiful, peaceful angel. To tell him about the problems of modern times is not a very good way of convincing him about what human beings truly are. There has been so much demeaning of human being, so much of degradation in their value system that I thought that unless I go to the root of the problems, it won't be easy to explain why they have to break away from their present shackles in order to evolve and ascend. One has to speak frankly about what the problems are and what the real solutions are.

There is no peace within modern human beings nor without. The poor and the rich alike are unhappy. Everywhere people are groping for solutions. At a limited mental level, the intellect can work out certain problems about things that we see around us in jeopardy. But while a few problems may be resolved in this way, others arise. The true solution lies not in the material circumstances outside human beings but inside the human beings themselves. True and lasting solution to correct ills can be found only by inner, collective transformation of human beings. This is not an impossibility. In fact it has already happened. There are so many thousands who have actually achieved this state. The reality of en-masse inner transformation of human beings by self-realization is the most revolutionary discovery of the present age. [...] This is not my job, this is not my work, but it is a spontaneous desire of the Divine that this should be brought in full light, so that human beings are raised to a higher state of consciousness by which they can realize what they are, so that they can appreciate and glorify themselves.

To me, most of the human beings are like the deities who are still in stone form and who can be transformed, with Kundalini awakening, into angels. I hope that with this book I will not hurt people. On the contrary, I hope to be able to get many more people in this great work of Sahaja Yoga, by which they can achieve the ultimate goal of their search. I have to use humor, because by nature I am very humorous and I see humor in every kind of incident, which people sometimes take very seriously.

It is too much for a Mother to talk about the ills of her children, but unless that is faced, I don't think the children can ever get their benevolence and reach the ultimate goal, which is their self-realization. So I would ask all of you not to get angry with me, but to understand that out of my tremendous compassion and love, I have written this book for the benevolence of the people, with whatever English I can use, with whatever literature I can use, with whatever style I could adopt."

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 211 pages
• Publisher: Vishwa Nirmala Dharma; Revised Third edition (July 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 8186650059
• ISBN-13: 978-8186650059
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 7.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (144 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,066,169 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 48 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Practicing what this book proposes deeply affected my life January 12, 2000

By A Customer

Reading this book was an eye-opener - I can definitely say it's one of the most remarkable books I've ever read. I had browsed a lot through philosophy, meditation, acupuncture, alternative this, alternative that, but they somehow always seemed to look only at a fraction of human life. Modern trends keep changing and are never conclusive. It was really refreshing to find Meta Modern Era, a profound look at our roots beyond this capricious modernism. Shri Mataji has a stunning ability to go to the core of every issue and reveal natural but powerful solutions which belong to the domain of eternal wisdom, unaffected by fads and fashions.

I have been practicing the method described in the book - self realization through Sahaja Yoga meditation - for quite a while now and I can see definite positive changes in my personality, health and balance. My overall understanding and perspective on life have become subtler.

This is a must-read book for all those who believe in the ideal of making the world a beautiful and harmonious place to live in. I think that if more people would experience what self realization is, Sahaja Yoga can prove to be a powerful vehicle towards attaining this lofty goal. Also, a lot of details on Sahaja Yoga can be found at sahajayoga.org.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars NOT For the Chicken hearted!!!! August 17, 2004

By AM(Not a Judge)

I read all the reviews available herein and consequently I read this book. Clearly, there seem to be 2 camps. One which absolutly hates the author, for what ever personal reasons(evident from the way they have written their reviews, which makes me wonder if they have really read the book, because their allegations are so personal in nature, and do not talk at all about the content of the book, which is what a review for a book is for I guess) and the other who loves this book, which is a good thing, because this shows that the democratic forces are at work, and ultimately the people's court will decide the verdict for this book.
For me, personally, this book is a great source which gives the details of the ills facing our western socities today.
We take pride in being called a "westerner", but do you and me have courage to face the truth of immorality, corruption and insanity hitting our society today? Here's our chance to look ourselves in the mirror and also look at the reflection we see in the rear view. I invite you to come, challenge your "western" ego for once and see how we can improve our socity and make this place better for our children. Let our children get what we did not from our older generation. Let us show them that the purpose of their life is not indulge in the 3W's (Wine, Women and Wealth), but to do something more productive.

35 of 39 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Enlightening insights and solutions for our modern times September 1, 1999

By A Customer

Meta Modern Era is a powerful yet sensitive book which takes a hard and uncompromising look at the relentless deterioration in the quality of modern society. Based on the author's acute observation of our current obsession with the pursuit of illusory goals, the book takes the reader on a journey exploring many of the motives and misconceptions which now inform our everyday lives.

The prose itself makes little or no concession to the modern fashion for stylised penmanship, instead concentrating on conveying the facts in as powerful a way as possible. This is not a book that makes easy bedtime reading. For those who persevere, however, it provides a fascinating insight into some of the most damaging aspects of our times, as well as offering some uniquely wise and spiritually enlightened solutions for the new millennium.

Highly recommended.