In 1970, Shri Mataji founded Sahaja Yoga, a unique method for achieving inner peace, balance and personal growth,whose message and practice spread to over 100 countries. Hundreds of thousands have benefited from her insightful teachings and techniques, which emphasizes the integrated nature of all aspects of the human being, including the relationships between physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health, and creates collective consciousness like a drop that becomes the ocean. Shri Matajihas toured the world to share her discovery in a most compassionate way, never accepting payment of any kind. In the United States, thousands have come to her free lectures every year, while in countries like India and Russia, her programs which were held in huge stadiums or public parks drew crowds of up to 100,000 people.
Dr. Shri Nirmala Srivastava (21 March 1923 – 23 February 2011), also known as Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, is the founder of Sahaja Yoga, a meditation technique. She said "You cannot know the meaning of your life until you're connected to the power that created you".
Shri Mataji was born in Chindawara, Madhya Pradesh, India to a Hindu father and a Christian mother Prasad and Cornelia Salve. Her parents named her Nirmala, which means "immaculate".She said that she was born self-realised. Her father, a scholar of fourteen languages, translated the Koran into Marathi, and her mother was the first woman in India to receive an honours degree in mathematics. Shri Mataji descended from the royal Shalivahana/Satavahana dynasty. The former union minister N.K.P. Salve was her brother and the lawyer Harish Salve is her nephew.The Salve surname is one of a number included in the Satavahana Maratha clan.
Shri Mataji passed her childhood years in the family house in Nagpur.In her youth she stayed in the ashram of Mahatma Gandhi.Like her parents, she was involved with the struggle for Indian independence and, as a youth leader when a young woman, was jailed for participating in the Quit India Movement in 1942.Taking responsibility for her younger siblings and living a spartan lifestyle during this period infused the feeling of self-sacrifice for the wider good. She studied at the Christian Medical College in Ludhiana and the Balakram Medical College in Lahore.
Shortly before India achieved independence in 1947, Shri Mataji married Chandrika Prasad Srivastava, a high-ranking Indian civil servant who later served Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri as Joint Secretary, and was bestowed an honorary KCMG by Elizabeth II.They had two daughters, Kalpana Srivastava and Sadhana Varma. In 1961, Nirmala Srivastava launched the "Youth Society for Films" to infuse national, social and moral values in young people. She was also a member of the Central Board of Film Certification.
Shri Mataji established the International Sahaja Yoga Health and Research Centre in Mumbai in 1996. Its website says that practitioners from all over the world visit to use Sahaja Yoga methods to achieve better meditations; also that the technique is studied for its curing effects of various illnesses. In 2003 a charity house for the rehabilitation of destitute women was set up in Delhi (the Vishwa Nirmala Prem Ashram). The Shri P.K. Salve Kala Pratishthan in Nagpur was set up as an international music school in the same year by Nirmala, to promote classical music and fine art.
Until 2004, during her travels, Shri Mataji gave numerous public lectures, pujas, and interviews to newspapers, television and radio. In 2004 the official website of Sahaja Yoga announced that Shri Mataji had completed her work and Sahaja Yoga centers exist in almost every country of the world. She continued to give talks to her devotees and allowed them to offer her puja.
Honors and recognition
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Italy, 1986. Declared "Personality of the Year" by the Italian Government.
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New York, 1990-1994. Invited by the United Nations for four consecutive years to speak about the ways and means to achieve world peace.
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St. Peterburg, Russia, 1993. Appointed as Honorary Member of the Petrovskaya Academy of Art and Science.
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Romania, 1995. Awarded Honorary Doctorate in Cognitive Science by head of the Ecological University Bucharest.
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China, 1995. Official guest of the Chinese Government to speak at the United Nations International Women's Conference.
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Pune, India, 1996. On the occasion of the 700th Anniversary of Saint Gyaneshwara, Shri Mataji addressed the "World Philosophers Meet '96 - A Parliament of Science, Religion and Philosophy" at Maharashtra Institute of Technology.
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London, 1997. Mr. Claes Nobel, grandnephew of Alfred Nobel, chairman of United Earth, honored the life and work of Shri Mataji in a public speech at the Royal Albert Hall.
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A road in Navi Mumbai, near the Sahaja Yoga Health and Research Center, was named in honor of Shri Mataji.
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Cabella Ligure, Italy, 2006. Shri Mataji was awarded honorary Italian citizenship.
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Cabella Ligure, Italy, 2009. Bhajan Sopori and his son Abhay Sopori composed raag Nirmalkauns in honor of Shri Mataji.