Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

Nirmala Srivastava, known by the honorific title Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, was born on the 21st of March, 1923 in Chhindwara, India. Her Christian parents, Prasad and Cornelia Salve, chose the name Nirmala, which means immaculate. Her father, a lawyer and scholar fluent in 14 languages, translated the Qur'an into Hindi. Her mother was the first woman in India to receive an honors degree in mathematics. Her parents were actively involved in the struggle for Indian independence, and as a child Nirmala frequently stayed with Mahatma Gandhi in his ashram. As a young woman she, too, joined the struggle for independence and was jailed for her participation in the Quit India Movement in 1942. She studied medicine at the Christian Medical College in Ludhiana and the Balakram Medical College in Lahore. On the 5th of May, 1970 she began her spiritual life-work. At the age of 47 years, she found a way and developed a method of giving en masse self-realization. She desired to offer a genuine experience that people could use to transform and heal themselves, unlike many so-called gurus who took advantage of those seeking spiritual knowledge. She denounced such false gurus and throughout her life warned against fraudulent and abusive spiritual practices. The method of meditation through self-realization developed by Shri Mataji was called Sahaja Yoga. Shri Mataji toured throughout Europe, Australia, and North America continuously in the 1980s, teaching this method free of charge to all who were interested. The 1990s saw her travels spreading to South America, Africa, Eastern Europe, Asia and the Pacific region.