November/December  2003

When I first heard about Chalanda Sai Ma
from a long-time friend who had become her disciple. My friend spoke of "Ma," (meaning "mother") in loving and reverential tones. I saw changes in her that impressed me, the sort of changes that I knew could result from a healthy relationship with a good spiritual teacher. When my friend called me to see if I wanted to interview her teacher, I was intrigued.

      Here was a female "spiritual master" (according to her literature) with a substantial local following and numerous disciples around the world. Chalanda Sai Ma is also involved, I read, in numerous humanitarian efforts, including AIDS education in Uganda and the USA, distribution of food and clothing in Bosnia, and medical services and education in two Indian towns.

      She also keeps illustrious company, I read. She has, during two US tours to 12 cities, presented "collaborative services," as her literature calls them, with Dr. Deepak Chopra, Thich Nhat Hanh, Ram Das, and Marianne Williamson. Her Colorado visit included a presentation with Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi. I haven't seen many spiritual teachers who co-teach with leading representatives of differing traditions. Gurus (another word for "spiritual masters") from India tend to teach about truth from their own unique perspective, I have observed, and rarely mix it with other gurus' truths. I assume this is because many spiritual teachers, from India and elsewhere, speak as if they know THE truth, leaving scant room for someone else's version of it. I base this observation on my experiences interviewing such teachers, and my experiences studying with a few of them. Chalanda Sai Ma appeared to me, based on her literature, to be trying to bridge the gap between differing spiritual messages.

      I was interested in Chalanda Sai Ma for another reason. She is one of a growing number of female gurus in a male-dominated field. Our area has recently hosted Gangaji, Karunamayi, Anandi Ma, Sree Ma and Shaykha Farhia, and will soon receive visits from Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati and Khandro Rinpoche.

  

    "This, [having female gurus in the United States] is fairly new," says Laurie Patton, head of the religion department at Emory University in Atlanta, quoted in a Chicago Tribune article by H. Gregory Meyer on September 22, 2002. "Although traditional (women) teachers go back as early as the Rig Veda - they come in and out of view. This is a moment in history where they come into view, and it is now transitional. The Hindu Diaspora as well as New Age religious traditions have made that possible."

      Chalanda Sai Ma was born of Indian parents on the African island of Mauritius, and became a disciple of guru Sai Baba of Puttaparthi, India in her early teens (from whom she gets the "Sai" part of her name). Now 50, Chalanda Sai Ma, a citizen of France, has homes in Bordeaux, in a remote Indian Himalayan village, and in Puttaparthi, India (near Bangalore). Her website, ww.humanityinunity.org/ Chalandama/Home, describes Chalanda Sai Ma as, "A divine mother, spiritual teacher and humanitarian (who) uniquely understands the Western mind." It states, "Her teaching style is unconventional, refreshingly direct and powerfully transforming." About that teaching, the site says, "Sai Ma radiates the healing grace of Divine Love and, as a Divine Mother, answers our hearts' yearning to experience our own true nature."

      In my interview with Chalanda Sai Ma at the Renaissance Suites Hotel at Flatiron Crossing in Broomfield, Colorado, we discuss how religions are causing rifts between people and nations, the emptiness she observes among people in Western countries, her vision of America as the leader of a spiritual renaissance, her youth in Mauritius, and her spiritual awakening experience.

RD: You are speaking publicly tomorrow night with Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi. I imagine that you and he may address some of the conflicts and pain that surround Israel and Palestine.

CSM: I'm certain we will.

RD: Could you tell me a little bit about your perspective on what is happening in Israel?

CSM: This I will not do-give a perspective. What I can say is I realize more and more how religions are separating us. How the hate, the resentment, the anger, are causing rifts between people and nations. Normally, we would say that religion would be non-violent. I do not see that anymore.

RD: Do you see religion as violent, then?

CSM: Not as violent, but it's not being used for its intended purpose. It is time for us to understand there is only one truth-the absolute, the God. There is only one. And I am hoping to see different religions come together, in an interfaith program where people actually sit together and worship together. There is a church in Pondicherry, India, where we celebrate Christmas and we also celebrate Shivaratri, a Hindu holiday. I think this needs to happen more throughout the world.

RD: Religions, as I understand them, seek to engender in people compassion, charity, respect and life-affirming values.

CSM: Yes, but do you see this happening?

RD: What is it in people, then, that prevents the life-affirming message from getting through?

CSM: Let's say I am from a Catholic church, and you tell me, "I am from the Hindu religion." I will feel my religion is better. I see this all the time, and it's just ego. There is a lack of humility in all of us, even when it comes to religion. More than 100 years ago Swami Vivekananda (the first Hindu teacher to come to America) said, "Humanity is like a wild flower moving towards perfection." We are all moving towards this perfection.

      I hope that sometime, someone speaks in the simplest way, the way Jesus said "Father," Adi Shankaracharya said "Brahma," Mohammed said "Allah." These teachers spoke different languages and they were in different corners of the planet, but they were all experiencing the same shakti, the same power, the same divinity. But because of our ignorance, we are still fighting with each other. We are not realizing that what Jesus called Father is the same as what Mohammed called Allah, that what Adi Shankaracharya called Brahma is the exact same divinity. We are not getting that.

RD: You travel a lot, and I'm wondering what you've heard about other nations' perspectives on America.

CSM: I hear people all the time saying they hate America. People will ask me, "Why are you going to America to lecture? Look what America is doing." I say, "It is not about America." We cannot say the people in America are like this just because we see the government making certain decisions.

RD: But it's like that in every country, isn't it? The people seem to be different from the government. Perhaps there are many people who are taking the Koran to heart and the Torah and the Bhagavad Gita, and then there are others who may claim to, but they aren't.

CSM: I think we do see this in all the countries of the world. Some people claim to be spiritual, or to follow the teachings of a certain religion, but their actions speak differently. I think it is time we put spirituality into practice. By that, I mean love thy neighbor. How many neighbors can't stand their neighbors, or members of their own families? That is what we need to change. Even in many marriages or relationships, two people are living in a house in an atmosphere of resentment, anger and violence. This is what we have to change.

      We have to strive for individual peace before we can realize peace on the planet. It is not a congress, it is not a convention on non-violence, that will save us. It is individual peace of mind. To achieve that peace, we need love and forgiveness. But how many are ready to forgive? Without forgiveness, we cannot love. There's a barrier. To truly love, it is necessary to drop the past and say, "I start over, right here and right now, being a new me." But most people are living a life of non-truth with themselves. All over the world, most people are not well.

RD: Don't you think all people are doing the best they can?

CSM: What is "the best they can?" So many people write to me and say, "I would like a partner, I would like a family." Is that what you call "the best they can?"

RD: Well, they have wants -

CSM: They have wants, exactly, and these wants have no end. They keep wanting something, and when they get it, they start wanting another thing. Most people live in this unsatisfied state, and it's not about truth. I see that all over, mostly in the Western world.

RD: Does that mean you see this dissatisfaction less in the East?

CSM: That's right. People have less desire for material things. They don't live in a constant state of desire. They're more accepting of their circumstances.

RD: To what do you attribute that?

CSM: There is an emptiness in the Western world. There is no depth, no roots, no history, especially in America. People are looking for something constantly, and they don't even know what they're looking for. So they say, "I want this cup," and when you give them the cup, they will desire the glass. The desire keeps on and they are never fed, and because of these wants and desires, they cannot even be present here, they cannot love. Of course, America is a new country. It has to build up. And this same country one day will be a chalice for the whole world-this I know.

RD: How do you see the United States being a chalice for the whole world

CSM: People will finally be so unsatisfied that they will have no other choice than turning to God, to truth. Everything will begin to fall apart. People will finally realize they are not happy. They'll say to themselves, "I thought I would be happy by getting married, but I am not. I thought I would be happy by getting a better job, a new car, more children, but I am not." And one day or another, they will realize they cannot keep missing life like this. Life is so full of juice. It is so sacred and so powerful. We cannot just keep missing it. Among all living creatures, for me the human form is the most fabulous. In this form, we can experience God fully, we have discernment, we have a huge capacity for harmony, love and peace.

RD: As distinct from animals, you mean?

CSM: Yes, or trees. In the human form, you can be sick and you can be healed. You can be depressed and you can be out of depression. It is all possible. This is the only plane where we can be depressed and instantly be in ecstasy. It is possible.

RD: How do you know that, say, lions or dolphins or eagles or trees don't experience that?

CSM: They do, but they have no discernment. A tree doesn't have discernment. A tree can get sick and have cancer and just die. A human will fight to live. There is a difference.

RD: But how do you know this?

CSM: It is a knowing inside of me-I just know it. The same way I've always known America will be like a huge golden chalice, dispensing flowing liquid light to many countries.

RD: And that would be accompanied by a spiritual awakening?

CSM: Naturally.

RD: Often in religion, people become attached to a particular view of what God is and what message God has conveyed. Then believers in that religion see people who have even a slightly different perspective as alien.

CSM: That is true. I can put a message out, you can interpret it, another being will interpret it differently, and there is nothing we can do about it. When people get attached to a certain view, it's difficult to change; it becomes a dogma. There is no openness anymore. What I see in that is fear. It seems to me that some religions want the whole world to be like them, to follow their practice.

RD: I was looking at a website that was warning against the terrible consequences of getting involved in certain New Age organizations. And at the bottom, I found that they were a Christian group that had an answer: everyone should believe in the literal truth of the Bible. To an untrained ear, that could sound similar to what you're saying about this awakening in America.

CSM: I don't see it like that at all. Nobody has to be Christian, nobody has to be Hindu, nobody has to be Muslim to be awakened. It is a matter of awareness. The moment we are aware, we are more open, the moment we are more open, we listen to what others have to say. Some people live in a violent energy, and they cannot open themselves to others. They live in a terrible fear, and that fear prevents them from opening themselves. There is only love or fear. There is nothing else than these two energies.

RD: The two emotions that are possible are love and fear, and everything else is a mixture of those?

CSM: Absolutely. Anger comes from fear, jealousy comes from fear, disharmony comes from fear. Peace comes from love. Harmony comes from love. There are only these two roots. We are contracting or we are expanding. There is nothing else-everything is in between or a mixture of these two.

RD: You said in the West you see an emptiness. What is it in the non-Western world that fills that emptiness?

CSM: Well, people have rituals in their lives. They pray, they meditate. It may not be any easier for them to forgive, but at least they try. They pray to God every day for five minutes. They go to temple with their attaché cases and their ties-even if it's for five minutes, they will go. Here, people don't have any kind of ritual. Most people don't go to church; they don't know what meditation is. People get up and go to work in a material world where there is no depth and they get attached to this material world, because they have nothing else.

RD: So in societies where people attend church or synagogue or mosque, they're less likely to become attached to material things?

CSM: Yes. It's not the main priority. In societies where there is that kind of ritual, people don't worship money, they don't worship business, they don't worship the material world. They worship God. In other countries, people love to get up and pray; they believe and they have faith that, if they pray in the morning to Allah, to God, their day will be better and their lives will be better.

      I think we need to help people move away from worshipping the material world and move toward finding divinity within. We need to teach people that divinity is about them, not about a statue somewhere. I think this will help, as will teaching people to forgive. Forgive others, forgive yourself. There is a great power when one gets to forgive and be healed. There is power to be more comfortable in life, to be free. What is humanity longing for? To be loved. When we are loved, we can love, and when we can love, we are free.

      The moment forgiveness happens, there is no guilt, there is no shame or discomfort. The moment there is a reconciliation with the self, one can live in freedom. It has nothing to do with others. If you do something to me and I cannot forgive you, I am living with that in my conscience. The moment I can say to you, "Please forgive me, I apologize," we move into a harmonious relationship. The struggle is over, I am free, you are free. Then the energy expands, the heart is more open.

RD: You grew up in Mauritius and your parents were Hindu?

CSM: Yes, but I went to all the Muslim celebrations, the black-African and Catholic celebrations. And because I grew up like this, there is no difference between religions for me. Most of the people on Mauritius were immigrants or descended from immigrants, so they created communities together. There would be families with three or four different religions living together in the same courtyard. In Mauritius, we had our own dance and our own language. Everybody spoke Creole, our own native language, and we danced on the beach together. It is a small, peaceful island and even now, everybody is loving and gentle.

RD: When did you have your most significant awakening, and what led up to it?

CSM: Pain and suffering lead up to it. When I was about 12 or 13 years old, I saw things that I could not understand: some people were rich and some were poor, some people had small huts, some people had big, beautiful houses. I could not understand this. And I was never comfortable on this planet until I was about 14 years old. There was something in me that was pulling me somewhere else, and it was very painful. I even wanted to kill myself.

RD: You must have worried your parents.

CSM: I did. Teachers at school complained that I didn't play with other children, that I didn't have friends. I was always thinking about something else and I was affected by all the pain and injustice in the world. That started to lead me to my spiritual path.

RD: It sounds like Mauritius was more harmonious than most places. So what happened when you went abroad and saw how the rest of the world lived?

CSM: It was like a knife piercing me. When I traveled in Europe and saw the beggars, the handicapped people, when I saw how someone would fall in the street and no one would stop to help, it was very painful. I could not understand it. You are not going to print all this-it's useless.

RD: Why is it useless? It's what people will see if they travel.

CSM: Everybody is traveling, so everybody sees. What I think is important is talking about how we can uplift the consciousness of mankind, how we can be better human beings.

RD: Well, you said suffering was what preceded your awakening. The spirit seeks release from suffering, and in your case, you resolved whatever was in the way. How did that happen?

CSM: Well, I think it is also what I've done in other incarnations. I had a memory that was saying, "This is now, but there is a better way inside of you." I heard it through my feelings, and I trusted that; and I had my total faith in God. I developed that faith at a very young age. When I was 4 or 5, I could see beings of light that, in your culture, you would probably call angels. That's why I didn't have friends-these beings were my friends. They never get old, they were never sick, they were always beautiful. They became my friends for many years; I still work with all the ascended masters, all the angels and archangels. And those are beings that I trust fully, more than any human being.

RD: At what age did you realize the sort of thing that you have been describing to me now about love and so on?

CSM: Much later, when I was around 22 or 23. When I first arrived in Europe, I cried for months, because it was the first time I had left my mother, father and sisters. One day, I sobbed so hard that it lead me to another state where I saw something grander, something greater and deeper. My relationship with God became stronger then. I've always lived in a world in me that is beyond space and time, always. And it was difficult to live in this "normal" world because I always feel contracted. Even now, my best friends, what I call my "gang," are the ascended masters.

RD: Who are the ascended masters?

CSM: In India, we call them the siddhas, those whose bodies have transmuted to light-all the matter has become light and they are light beings, but they were human before. Jesus, for example, is an ascended master.

RD: So some quality of Jesus is still present?

CSM: Yes, and it is present everywhere. Saint Germain, Serapis Bey, Kuthumi, El Morya, all these beings were physical beings once. Then their matter moved to such a perfection that it turned into light again, because matter is light in density. Their matter has become light again and dissolved and become a flame.

RD: Did you encounter these ascended masters by yourself, or did you learn of them through a teaching and then encounter them? I myself have read of ascended masters only in certain teachings.

CSM: No, I only had one teacher, Satya Sai Baba. Verbally, he doesn't speak of this. When I am in meditation and he walks by I ask questions of him, and we work like this.

      I will ask some presence that I sense, "What is your name?" And they tell me. And sometimes I don't know who they are, but I know I love them and they love me.

RD: Do you think that people in America who are likely to experience a spiritual awakening would encounter these ascended masters?

CSM: Yes, definitely yes. The ascended masters are choosing to work with human consciousness more. Just by saying, "ascended masters," I can tell you they come in the room-it's instantaneous. They need humans as vehicles for the work. Because of the free will of human consciousness, they cannot do anything by themselves-they need physical form to do the work.

RD: Earlier, we were talking about emptiness in the West. What do you think it will take to create the grand sort of change that you are envisioning for the United States, for example?

CSM: Put the word "awareness" out there as much as possible. For example, on television programs, have someone say, "Wait a minute, are you aware?" Create groups to foster spirituality and awareness, and to remind people that they have a choice: they can choose to be unhappy or happy right now. You have the choice to live in anger or not live in anger right now. Bring this awareness to people. I think it would be wonderful to organize concerts where everyone sings in different languages and everybody dances together, because music is a language which will speak to all of us, no matter what religion we are.

      I'm looking for an idea that will bring people together no matter who they are and what they do-just like football. Have you noticed that, when people watch football games, no matter what religion they are, they're all sitting there together? They forget who they are-they're just focused on the game. I am looking for a way to get people to be together and focus like that on something that brings them to their heart-music, for example, like a free concert, with bands from different countries. With the technology we have now, there must be a way to reach people. Look at how many kids watch television. Let's reach them through that. Let's find a way to say, "Be aware. Feel more."

RD: You mean, be less in the thoughts.

CSM: Less in the mind, not less in the thoughts, because thought can be valuable. Less in the impure mind, because mind can have all sorts of stuff in it. And music makes people forget that. Sometimes in my group we chant from all kinds of religions. People bring CDs to me from different traditions, different gurus, and we chant them together. It doesn't bother me-all real gurus are the same light.       

      Music can be transformative. If you come to a concert with anger, once you start listening to the music, the anger leaves and there is more freedom in you. You may find yourself being in your heart and living in the present moment. I want to create a concert that can make that happen, with musicians from Syria, from Israel, from Egypt. It would be a month-long festival with a whole potpourri of different musicians, bringing different cultures together-people from Louisiana with people from Israel, for example, could learn about each other. We could create new communities, where we would really look at each other and say, "You have so much potential; let's create together." That doesn't mean we would always get along, but at least we could learn to speak about out differences without anger and resentment. We cannot continue to be the way we are. There is a perfection in us that we must tap into, a consciousness of beauty, abundance, purity and harmony.

RD: You alluded earlier to a vision you have for the United States that was very optimistic. Do you feel that way about the world in general?

CSM: The moment the United States is peaceful, the whole world is peaceful. I'm convinced of this. The moment the United States government stops manipulating other countries, the whole world will change. For example, what the United States has been doing with Iraq is a manipulation. We didn't have to have a war there. It's a manipulation for the oil, for business-it's a manipulation all about money. This has to stop. Once, in a conference, I said, "USA for me means Oultimate self awareness'." I know that it will come true one day. Maybe I won't be on this planet anymore, but it will come true. USA is in the word "Jerusalem," so there is a connection.

RD: What is the connection?

CSM: There will be a bridge. This is a holy land. My father once said, "All great yogis will leave India one day to go to America." This land must become a spiritual land.

RD: Do you think your father's prophecy is coming true?

CSM: I think so, but it may take a while. Many beautiful masters in India won't leave India-it is hard to live in America. People are constantly judging everyone and everything. They judge their parents, their brothers and sisters, their wives and husbands, their children and best friends. Even if they don't say it, they think it. So we must continue to move toward unity, toward this perfection. Those who are aware must work hand in hand, heart in heart, and together stop creating separation.

      I have been the first one to say that. I have also started working with other teachers, but it is not a great success. It is not easy.

      But I am telling you, there is a grand divine plan and it's in our hands. We hold our own destiny. And not only must we live harmoniously with other people, we must learn to live harmoniously with the earth. We must start respecting mother earth more. We must honor her and serve her. Our lives come from her-if we keep destroying her, where and how will we live? And environmental awareness is starting to happen. Fifty years ago, nobody talked about protecting the earth. But look at this country now-in Boulder, I don't think anyone even smokes in the street now?

RD: People do smoke in the streets. Not in the buildings.

CSM: Most airports in America, no one smokes. Go to Europe, go to Israel, go to Egypt, go to India, everybody's smoking everywhere. So there is an awareness coming from this country, and other countries will begin to see the benefit. It may not come from government, but it will come from the citizens. That's my hope and joy. I am confident it will change.