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The Cult Dossier · No. 114 · Eastern-Derived
Sahaja Yoga
Vishwa Nirmala Dharma
1970 – present · India; worldwide
XII. THE WIDER FIELD — CONCISE ENTRIES
Fully religious
Who led it
NIRMALA SRIVASTAVA (21 MARCH 1923 – 23 FEBRUARY 2011), called SHRI MATAJI NIRMALA DEVI, who declared herself the ADI SHAKTI — the primordial goddess incarnate — and the Holy Ghost. NO SUCCESSOR GURU WAS NAMED; after her death the movement recast its expectation as a continuing inner revolution carried by realised practitioners, and authority passed to a nine-member CENTRAL COMMITTEE serving four-year terms, which she had asked elders to form in 2008, alongside trusts she set up from 1987.
What it worshipped and taught
Self-realisation through kundalini awakening, given free at mass programmes. Doctrine identifies Mataji as the incarnation of the Great Mother. Practices include arranged mass marriages and, in the residential ashrams, the sending of children to the movement's boarding school in India, whose former pupils describe a regimented and isolated regime.
Who was in it
Nirmala Srivastava; her husband C. P. Srivastava, Secretary-General of the International Maritime Organization from 1974 to 1989; the former pupils of the Dharamsala school.
How it ended, or where it stands
ACTIVE WORLDWIDE. The movement's own foundation claims centres in more than 140 countries, a figure nobody independent has checked. Since 2011 it has been run by a rotating Central Committee and national trusts rather than a successor guru.
Of note
Included principally for the second-generation boarding-school pattern, which recurs across 3HO (091), Sahaja Yoga and the Children of God (051). THE INTERNATIONAL SAHAJA PUBLIC SCHOOL AT DHARAMSALA, FOUNDED 1990, is the specific institution. Former pupils describe a highly regimented regime organised around spiritual ‘cleansing’, in which children were pressed to purge Western habits and cultural influence — AND SOME WERE SENT BACK TO THEIR PARENTS FOR HAVING ‘BAD VIBRATIONS’. A school that returns children as spiritually defective is doing something other than education.
Its timeline
- 1970 Founded after a claimed realisation on a beach in Nargol.
- 1980s–90s Global expansion; free public programmes.
- 1990 onward The INTERNATIONAL SAHAJA PUBLIC SCHOOL opens at Dharamsala. A 1995 Austrian Ministry of Justice report notes European pupils looking pale; in 2000 the Indian Express reports an aura of secrecy around it, with entry strictly forbidden.
- 23 FEBRUARY 2011 Mataji dies in Genoa, aged 87. The first Central Committee is selected that year.
Its people
Nirmala Srivastava
Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi
Founder, Sahaja Yoga · 21 March 1923 – 23 February 2011 · active 1970–2011
Declared herself the Adi Shakti, the primordial goddess incarnate, and the Holy Ghost. She offered self-realisation free at mass public programmes, which distinguished her from the fee-charging teachers of the period, and built a global network. She arranged mass marriages between members. In the residential ashrams, children were sent to boarding schools in India from which former pupils have reported severe physical abuse and prolonged separation from parents — the same second-generation pattern seen at 3HO and the Children of God.
Before the law. Never charged.
Where things stand. Deceased 2011. The movement continues worldwide.
- 1970 Founds Sahaja Yoga after a claimed realisation at Nargol.
- 1980s–90s Global expansion through free public programmes.
- 1990s–2000s Allegations from second-generation members about the Indian boarding schools.
- 23 February 2011 Dies; leadership passes to a collective.
Checked
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